This morning, I'm going to, my talk is going to be about our basic practice, which most of you are very familiar with, but it's important to always keep reminding us of what our practice is. Because we give so many talks during the year, We will always want something a little fresh, you know, a little different. And then when I do give a talk about something that's very basic, some of them will say, I never heard that before. How come we never talk about da-da-da, and we talk about it all the time? So, I want to talk about stuff that we talk about all the time, so that nobody will be able to say, how come we never talk about that?

[01:01]

subject that comes up often in that vein is, how come we never talk about love? So what people think about, that's a great question, you know, but I'm not gonna talk about that today. Everyone has a different idea of what that means. Everyone has a different idea about that, and mostly it's on a low level. Love, you know, has many different levels. And when people say, how come we never talk about love? He's usually talking about it on a lower level, about relationships and things like that. That's a low level, actually. Kind of a middle level. Anyway, I said I wasn't going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about You're a bull. You're a bull.

[02:18]

This is case number seven from the Mu'man Khan, Mu'man's collection of koans. And it's about Joshu and a monk. A monk came to Master Zhou Xiu, Zhao Zhou, who was very famous, probably the most famous teacher in the Tang Dynasty. We can't say who it was, but he was very up there. So he said this to Zhou Xiu, I have just entered this monastery. Joshua's monastery. Please teach me. That's a great question. It's a very formal way of speaking. We don't usually speak that formally, but in other countries, people are very formal with teachers. I remember I had a student when I was at Zen Center from Iran, and he said,

[03:29]

If you're in Iran, if you see your teacher eating in a restaurant, you go over and pay his bill. Anyway, I'm not saying, well actually, that does happen to me a lot. And so the monk said, I have just entered this monastery, please teach me. And Joshu says, he's looking at him and he says, have you eaten your rice porridge? And the monk says, yes, I have. And Joshu says, then you had better go wash your bowl. said Joshu. With this, the monk gained insight. Possibly. So, there are two ways that we can look at this encounter.

[04:39]

One, the commentators usually speculate on who this monk was. Was he enlightened? Was he a brand new monk? If he was kind of novice, then he's entering the monastery and he's asking in all sincerity, what should I do, teacher? And the teacher said, well, did you eat? Have you had your breakfast? And the monk said, yes. And he said, well, go wash your bowl. But actually, when we eat in the zendo, we wash our bowl right there. Anyway, that's just, so go wash your bowl. So that's, you know, normal activity. But the other side is, this is a monk who has been around

[05:44]

and comes to Joshua's place for the first time, assuming that he has some sense of realization. So then when he asks the question, please instruct me, Joshua says, have you had your meal? And this is a leading question. Have you had, did you eat, what did you eat? has nothing to do with porridge. I mean, the porridge is a realization. Have you had your porridge? Where are you in this? And the monk says, oh yes, I have eaten my porridge, which kind of means I have swallowed a bit of enlightenment. And Joshu says, well then go wash your bowl. So this is a great, very good koan because it's like your bowl, in the Zen Do, every Saturday morning we have a formal breakfast.

[07:09]

In the formal breakfast, we lay out our bowls, as you all know, of course, we have our bowls, and we eat, and our bowls are empty. And then the servers come around and fill our bowls, and then we eat. And then they come around with water, hot water, and we wash our bowls, and everything is neatly done. We open the bowls, the food is put in the bowls, we eat the food, we wash the bowls, we tie up the bowls, and that's it. Nobody washes our bowls for us. So it's all one piece. And how do we live our life all in one piece in this way? Moment by moment, our bowl

[08:13]

is filling up. And moment by moment, how do we clean our bowl so that there's no residue or nothing left over or nothing, no garbage? You know, we carry a lot of garbage around in our bowl. We say the eating bowl, the first, there are three bowls. First bowl, second bowl, third bowl. It's like the three bears. The first bowl is called, is the big bowl. It's called Buddha's head. That's what it's called. The meal board here is called Buddha's tongue. So that's why we don't sit on or step on the meal board, because we don't want to step on Buddha's tongue. So the first bowl is Buddha's head, which corresponds to our own mind, our own consciousness, in a sense.

[09:16]

Our practice, actually, is to keep our bowl clean all the time. We use it. It fills up with something. We take in information. We think various thoughts. We have various feelings. We have greedy feelings. angry feelings, thoughts, feelings and thoughts, and delusional feelings and thoughts. And if they keep piling up, which they do, because we're persons of habit, and our habit energy keeps creating the karma that keeps filling up our bowl, and it gets so full that nothing real can come through. So, our practice is to keep cleaning our bowl, moment to moment, actually.

[10:25]

This morning, we had a, what's, repentance ceremony, called ryaku fusatsu. Ryaku fusatsu means abbreviated repentance ceremony, basically. We don't repent of individual things. It's just that our whole life is one piece of repentance for our whole life of delusion. We don't repent our delusion. You can't do that. Delusion is something we can't help. We can't help it. It's just there. But we can avoid it. So, in this repentance ceremony, so-called, all greed, hate, and ill will, we acknowledge that this fills our mind, or our bowl, so that we can't experience directly

[11:37]

Our experience is always tainted by the garbage in our mind. It really smells. Garbage is okay, you know, if it becomes compost. And I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, as you know, the garbage in our mind, when we repent, the garbage in our mind becomes compost and actually helps our growth. because compost is, garbage is just energy. And when it's exchanging energy, when the pieces are exchanging energy, that energy creates strong odors. We don't like garbage, that's why we don't like garbage. It's interesting, you know, I was thinking this morning that dogs, female dogs, when they have puppies, in the first week or two, first couple of weeks before puppies start eating, they just get the milk from the mother.

[12:52]

And then the mother licks their behind and eats the poop. But it's just a circle, because actually the mother is eating her own milk that has gone through the system of the puppy, but comes out pure, unlike ours, which is mixed. It's not pure. Pure means unmixed. Impure means mixed, in Buddhism, basically. So when we talk about purity, we're talking about that which is unmixed, empty of contamination, and mixed carries the connotation of contamination. People are still trying to figure out, believe it or not, if mother's milk is good for babies. Can you imagine that?

[13:55]

Anyway, so in this repentance ceremony, we acknowledge our greed, hate, and delusion from beginningless time. And then we renew our intentions to practice. And then we honor the beings of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of our own mind. Vairocana Buddha, Dharmakaya Buddha, Sambhogakaya, Lojana Buddha, Nirmanakaya, Shakyamuni Buddha. These are the three Buddhas of our own mind. These Buddhas and Bodhisattvas take on a kind of celestial characteristic, but in Zen, they're very real.

[15:09]

These are not just ideas. You are Varocana Buddha. You are Lokchana Buddha. You are Shakyamuni Buddha. Varocana is the Buddha of radiant light, which animates all things and is the source. So, when we open our mind, we allow that radiant light to come forth because it's our true nature. Dharmakaya is our true nature, has no special shape or form. That's why when the circle is empty, when the bowl is empty, it allows that radiance to come through. I think about how we meet each other.

[16:17]

When the teacher gives dokasan, this teacher gives dokasan, which means your interview with the student, I have nothing in my mind at all. I don't think about the student, oh, oh, here comes so-and-so. I do think about that a little bit. Here comes so-and-so. But I let go of any idea about that person at all. If I have any idea about that person, then I cannot really meet that person. If I have any idea about you, I can't meet you. I can meet you in a certain way, but I can't meet you completely. And you can't meet me completely if we have anything in our mind about each other. So when I meet you, I have to wash my bowl. You have to wash your bowl. And then we meet. then light meets light.

[17:22]

It's called enlightened activity. So, most important aspect of practice is to let go of conditioned understanding. We're conditioned by our ideas and feelings and thoughts and illusions and delusions about who we are and who you are. Even though in this world we act out in certain ways that we think we understand. That's why the world is out of balance. Because we don't meet each other in emptiness. we meet each other in preconditioned delusion.

[18:27]

But it's the way of the world. You can't, I'm sorry, but how do we purify the world, basically? We have to purify our own mind. There is the three pure precepts. There are two kinds of pure precepts, but one is avoid evil, do what is good, and purify your own mind. So how do we purify our own mind? Purity, you know, we have to be careful about that word because we can get caught by it. We contrast purity with impurity, but actually we have to find the purity within the impurity.

[19:44]

Water is pure. but water becomes contaminated by conditioning. But water's always pure, even though it's conditioned. Water itself is always pure, even though it's conditioned. our mind is always pure, even though it's clogged up with garbage. And water can go through a purification strainer, and all the impurities come out, and water's still pure. So the water itself is always pure, even though it's poison. are poisoned. Our nature is always pure, so we have to be careful what is pure and what is impure.

[20:53]

Purity, as we say, is only found within the impure. Our Buddha nature is only found within our activity. But this is hard, very hard to understand. It's easy to understand, but it's hard to do. It's really hard to keep our mind pure, which means free of imperfections, free of hindrances. I think it's important to make an effort to understand what is the most important thing.

[22:41]

I remember during a shosan ceremony, a monk asked Suzuki Roshi, what is the most important thing? And Suzuki Roshi said, just keep asking yourself that question all the time. What is the most important thing? Well, what is the most important thing? We have to ask ourselves that question. And when we come up against some impediment, something that's difficult for us, we have to ask that question. What is the most important thing? That's a great koan. You can shorten it to, what is the most important? And then you can shorten it to, what is the thing?

[23:45]

And then you can shorten it to, what is? And then you can shorten it to, what? What is good? What is really good? What really is? What is reality here? The most important thing, I would say, is to keep our mind free, to continually free our mind. That's called purifying our mind, to keep our mind free from greed, ill will, and delusion. So for me, greed comes up all the time, and ill will comes up all the time, and delusion comes up all the time. I know that, but not everybody knows that, because it comes up in all of us all the time.

[24:51]

But what do we do about it? That's called practice. Practice is what do we do when greed comes up, when ill will comes up, when delusion comes up? Oh, here's greed again. Oh, here's delusion again. Here's ill will. How do we bring the world into balance? That's probably the most important thing. We complain about the world totally out of balance. The weather is shifting so that all the rain's on one side and all the sun's on the other. Everybody's getting flooded out in one part of the world and they're burning up in the other part of the world. That's out of balance. all the money's going to the 1% and all the rest are going downhill, that's way out of balance.

[25:57]

How do you fix, I don't know if you can fix it, but how do you deal with it? How do you deal with it with yourself? Because it only, if you can't deal with yourself, how can you deal with the whole world? The most important thing is how do we practice? And to keep practicing, it's so easy to think, well, there's so many wonderful things to do in this world, you know, there are. And we keep inventing more and more of them, and we keep being seduced by them. And then we say, well, we just go off and forget about our real practice. So easy to forget about our real practice, which is, What is the world? What do we mean by the world? And how can we, how can I do something about the world? So, our practice to purify our mind and not forget about it.

[27:11]

And every day we do that. That's why we sit zazen every day. If you only sit zazen once in a while, it's good. But it's not as good as sitting zazen every day. You start from zero. When we sit zazen, we start from zero. And we have to limit our activity. You can't do it unless you limit your activity. It has to be a really important thing in your life. So what's the most important thing in our life? That's really a good question. Our hobbies. Eating, drinking, smoking, going to the movies, those are all wonderful things. Some of them aren't, but. We just get hooked on stuff. But the most important thing is, how do we save the world?

[28:17]

How do you save? It starts here. That's why when we sit Zazen, we start from zero, and then we have the opportunity to start new. Zero is a circle, right? And a bowl is a circle. In Zen practice, understanding, we're always dealing with circles. Everything is circular. The Enso is the Buddhist, the Zen circle, which illustrates the whole thing. The form is only understood, the emptiness is only understood through the form. So you take a little, an enormous amount of emptiness and create a small form. And within that form, the whole thing is there.

[29:19]

That's why we have something called formal practice. Because formal practice gives form to emptiness. It's so strong that it needs a strong form to contain it. This emptiness is so powerful that it needs a strong form to contain it. When you're sitting Zazen, the whole unit, all of the pressure of the whole universe is bearing down on your body. How do you equalize the pressures so that you can be comfortable? All this pressure. As soon as you say, oh, my legs hurt, and then you buy into it, the pressure just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. Ah, I gotta do this. That's because you give in to letting the universe annoy you.

[30:24]

So when you let go of, when you wash your bowl, meaning let go of everything, then you can expand, fill the universe. And this is called happiness. Comfortable, Dogen says, Zazen is the comfortable way. You say, no, it's not. It's not the comfortable way. I'm gonna quit. Why did I do this thing? It's just nothing but pain. So you have to learn how to let go, of course. Otherwise, you can't do it. That's the great teaching. That's why Zazen is our teacher. The teacher is just pointing to Zazen. That's the teacher. You just have to find out for yourself and let the teacher teach you. You realize you can't go this way resisting.

[31:31]

That doesn't work. So what does work? Well, the only thing that works is to let go. That's the hardest thing. So attachment to whatever is what creates our suffering. Attachment is suffering. So keep your bowl clean all the time. We have to let go, not just sometimes, or not when we have a ceremony. We have to let go moment by moment. That's called practice, living your life one moment at a time, free from attachments. We live our life one moment at a time. But we think in terms of movement,

[32:32]

Of course, movement is there, but it's moving from one moment to the next. So if you have an enlightening experience, that's really good. But if you don't let go of it, that's really bad. because we can get caught by delusion and we can get caught by enlightenment. That's why we don't talk about enlightenment so much. Try to get enlightened, try to, no. Enlightenment is our ordinary mind. And when we keep looking for something special, we run past it. You mean this is it? I give up. So what's next, what's next, you know?

[33:36]

What is the next exciting thing? Well, the next exciting thing is washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, having a cup of tea. So someone said, We use soap to get us clean, but then we have to wash off the soap. If we don't wash off the soap, then it sticks to our body. The soap is thinking that we attach to our understanding. We need our understanding in order to Help us.

[34:37]

But once we have the understanding, we have to leave it behind. We have to wash it off and not cling to it or not cling to any experience we've had. When people come and talk about, well, I had this experience and it's great. That's terrific. And then they're waiting for the answer. Like, well, was that good? Yeah, that was good, but yes. So, what's next? If you advertise yourself, that's sticking to, that's called the stink of Zen. trying to become famous or well-known. We say that pride, people are always talking about pride, you know, we should have pride, this pride and that pride, but actually pride leads to a fall.

[35:50]

I always cringe when I hear that word. Don't use that word, use some other term. But pride is ego, basically. And a lot of you will not like that, me saying that. not good. There has to be another term that's less egotistical. So Mumon's comment on this case, when he opens his mouth, Joshu shows his gallbladder. He displays his heart and liver. I wonder if this monk really did hear the truth. I hope he did not mistake a bell for a jar. I mean a jar for a bell, a bell for a jar. In other words, did he get it right?

[36:58]

Did he understand what Joshu was really talking about? Do we understand what Joshu is really talking about? And then Mumon's verse, he says, endeavoring to interpret clearly, you retard your attainment. In other words, trying to understand too much intellectually, you stop up your mind. You know, I have a calligraphy by one of the former abbots of Ahege, and it says, the pure, cool breeze flows through the empty hall. Isn't that wonderful? The pure, cool breeze flows through the empty hall.

[37:59]

Don't you know that flame is fire? Your rice has been long cooked. Don't you know that flame is fire means Fire is like your true nature, and flame is its function. So whatever you do, whatever are washing the dishes is an act of the whole universe participating in your activity. If we understand that Whatever you do, the smallest activity, the most seemingly insignificant activity includes the whole universe.

[39:06]

The universe is behind, not behind, but it's an act of the whole universe participating. You can't do anything independently. You know, we do things, everything independently, but actually, you can't do anything independently because the whole universe is involved. That's why whatever we do affects everything else. That's why if we act egotistically, we unbalance the world. We contribute to unbalancing the world. So what is the most important thing to do? If we realize that everything we do has an effect on the world, not just on myself individually, because I don't exist individually even though I do exist individually.

[40:13]

My true nature is connected to everything else. Just how do we wash our bowl? How do we allow the cool breeze to flow through the empty hall? Because when we let go, we know what to do. Instead of worrying so much about what to do, when we free ourself, we know what to do because the universe is there to help us. It can crush us or help us. So what's our choice? Are we gonna contribute to being crushed? Crushing the world, or can we free the world? Just think of everybody in the world said Zazen for 45 minutes all at once.

[41:15]

Actually, everything is doing Zazen. Anyway, but if, The universe itself is setting signs, but all its constituents are not. Anyway, so this is my, you know, wandering state of mind. I'm always, you know, just starting from where I'm thinking, so I know we don't have time, but we have time for one question, if you have one. Yeah? You read that flame is fire, but there's a second part of that passage. I'm wondering if you could explain that. Oh, oh, the rice is cooked. Yeah, but you know, I think this refers to the sixth ancestor. Hui Nung is a part of a story. He ends up in the kitchen at the fifth ancestor's

[42:25]

I don't want to go through the whole story, but he ends up there pounding rice. And of course, he has this relationship with the fifth ancestor, but none of the other monks know about it. And so, in the middle of the night, the fifth ancestor comes to see him and he says, asks him a question, is the rice cooked? Which means, you know, you can figure that out. Is the rice cooked? And then the huineng knocks three times, meaning, yes, I'm ready, means I'm ready.

[43:31]

And then they go off together in a boat across the stream, and the fifth patriarch gives the dharma transmission to the sixth patriarch, and so forth. So that's a famous phrase, is the rice cooked? means, are you ready? So, is the rice cooked?

[43:56]

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