Good morning. It feels like fall has arrived. There's a crispness in the air, which is really nice. And I gather there's going to be some rain this week. Is that what people have heard? Maybe it would be good. I'm also noticing, this is a digression before I even started, that my thighs really hurt. I'm sure this is of great interest to you. But it just goes to show I wasn't doing enough bowing in India. Just the bowing in the last couple of days, I go, it's really use it or lose it. So I have to do a lot of bowing. So today, after this, we'll have a ceremony that opens Aspects of Practice, which is our 16th Aspects of Practice, which is quite amazing. The years really go by.

[01:00]

And we'll have a ceremony with the senior students who are teaching, opening that. And for these four weeks, we're going to be delving into Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Each class and each talk, people will take up a particular chapter or chapters. And so I'd just like to invite you, feel free to bring your book. with you so that you can be actually looking at the text. This is not the way you're supposed to do it in Zen. You're supposed to just listen and just do one thing. But you can follow the text. So I think that it'll help it come more alive for you. So please feel free to do that. The chapter that I'm going to talk about today is a chapter called Study Yourself.

[02:03]

And I thought I would just give a little background first. And you may have found this in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, in the introductory materials, or you may know this. But just to acknowledge that the origin of this book were recordings that were made in Los Altos at the Zen group in Los Altos that Suzuki visited weekly for a number of years. And originally, There was no thought of recording, either by students or by Suzuki Roshi, of recording his talks. But Marion Derby, who was one of the students in Los Altos, realized that these are really good beginner's talks, really good talks drawing new people into the practice. And so with his permission, she began to tape in 1965

[03:08]

And a little later Zen Center began to tape his talks as well. So we have this great, very wide archive of his original expression. So she gathered these tapes into a manuscript and gave it to Richard Baker. And Richard Baker invited Trudy Dixon, who had been a student of Suzuki Roshi since 1962. And she She really formed it into a manuscript. She took these transcriptions and she edited them into chapters and structured the book in the way that we have it and added the epigraphs at the beginning of each section. She added, on page 69, she added a drawing of a fly by her husband, Mike Dixon.

[04:24]

Peter, did you know him? Do you know Mike? Yeah. Mike Dixon is also, he's the painter who painted that portrait of Suzuki Roshi's that we have in the community room. And she completed the manuscript, and then she died of cancer. And she had been dying while she was assembling this. And she was a young woman. She was 30 when she passed away with children. And Richard Baker took the manuscript to Japan, and he found an excellent publisher, Weatherhill. And the book came out in 1970. So my question in approaching this chapter and approaching the book is, how do we approach it? And I think that perhaps the response is implicit in that question.

[05:35]

How do we read this book? How do we understand it? How? is an essential Zen question. It's something that Sojin has emphasized over and over again for years. How? Not why, but how? And how do we read this book? I think David Chadwick in Crooked Cucumber, the biography of Suzuki Roshi, says, I think even Suzuki Roshi had some challenge or difficulty in reading this book. He would read the book and he would say, did I say that? And we've had already several discussions, several just informal discussions that have come up with senior students in the last few days about their chapters.

[06:44]

And I have the same questions. It's like, the tone of the book is so inviting and so open. then you get on these sentences of these statements that Suzuki Roshi says, and it's like, what did he say? What does this mean? And it really, if you are desirous of having some fixed doctrine of getting the word, you're in trouble. you know, talking with Jake and Sojan and I were talking about a question that Jake had the other day, and Sojan was not going to give the answer. You know, it gets thrown back on you, which is one of the wonderful qualities of this book. It's not that one should take it as the gospel, but to let it work on oneself.

[07:51]

And I think that that's implicit in in the epigraph, the famous epigraph to right at the beginning of the book, where he says, as we all know, in the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, in the experts, there are few. So in the beginner's mind, there are many questions. I don't know. I don't really understand what he meant here. How do I understand this? How do I encompass this with my mind and with my practice? So this not knowing is really a central aspect of our practice. So I want to encourage you as we go through this practice period, to question yourselves about all that you read and all that you hear, what you read in the book, what you hear from the senior students.

[09:01]

Question it. Does it work? Do you understand? Does this lead you towards a kind of freedom. And I'd also like to invite you to feel free and respectfully, I hope, to question your teachers if something that I say or they say is not clear. So this is also, this is studying ourselves. So one side of our practice is continuous inquiry and another side, the other side or another side of our practice is settling completely into the moment. settling into your body and mind in such a way that questions just fall away.

[10:17]

And this is the other side of the statement that Suzuki Roshi makes and that Dogen makes. To study the self, study the Buddha's way, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. And to study the self is to forget the self. And so to settle completely in that moment is the aspect of forgetting yourself. And when you forget yourself, then that's in line with what I was talking about yesterday. That's in line with accepting yourself and standing on your two feet. So forgetting yourself and questioning. We have to include both of these as aspects of our practice.

[11:27]

We have to include both sides, in fact, all sides, and not fall into one-sidedness. Yes? I don't like that term, forget yourself. I think it's not accurate, I think it's misleading. I don't think literally it means to like forget Paul Ridgway. Because who? What? You know, it means you study yourself and you see through your ideas about yourself. And then you kind of don't take it seriously anymore. You set it aside. It's more like setting delusive. He's not forgetting. Yeah, basically, I agree. And I think that we're going to explore this as we go into the chapter. But I think that's a prime example of that question.

[12:33]

Like, what did he say? You know, because when we take things literally, when we take the English words translated from the Japanese words and so on, there are questions that should arise. So I think that's a question that should arise. But anyway, just to say we have to include all these sides rather than fall into a one-sidedness. The ones who say, forget yourself, that's really what we should be doing. To fall into that one-sidedness, of course, carries the shadow of the other. And then we're in the realm of dualistic thinking, dualistic action. Tim, I may have made a mistake here by my invitation. Go ahead. Is he saying drop the self or drop the story?

[13:36]

Yeah, and let's go on. You could also be saying, one could also postulate that the self drops the self, that the story drops away. But let's explore what Suzuki Roshi says. So there are several sections to this chapter, which is, it's about study yourself, but actually at the heart of this is also a very a kind of exposition of what the relationship is between student, oneself, and teacher. And he uses this chapter to explore that. So the epigraph is, to have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point.

[14:42]

We just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism. So it's interesting. The second word of this chapter gives me a problem. He says the purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves. I'm not sure about that word purpose. It's more to me like the way we study, the way we practice, rather than something necessarily purposeful. But anyway, that's my feeling. Then he says, it's impossible to study ourselves without some teaching. If you want to know what water is, you need science, and the scientist needs a laboratory, and so on and so forth. He says, but it's impossible to know what water is itself, to know water in itself.

[15:48]

And I think that one of the things I find is reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, is that there is always a subtext of Dogen. You know, like an underground stream that's running through the book. Dogen talks a lot about water. So in the Genjokon, you know, he talks about when you sail in a boat, out in a boat in the middle of an ocean where no land's in sight, the ocean looks circular and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round or square. Its features are infinite in variety. It's like a palace. It's like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. In the Mountains and Waters Sutra, it gets even more graphic. So this sentence, but it's impossible to know water in itself.

[16:54]

because our view of water is conditioned by the actual reality or the conditions of this world that we live in. So, in Mountains and Waters, he says, all beings do not see mountains and waters in the same way. Some see water as a jeweled ornament. Some beings see water as wondrous blossoms. Hungry ghosts see water as raging fire or pus and blood, yuck. Dragons see water as a palace or a pavilion. Some beings see water as a forest or a wall. Some see it as the dharma nature of pure liberation, the true human body, or it's a form of the body, an essence of mind. Human beings see water as water. Water is seen as dead or alive depending on causes and conditions.

[18:01]

So this is quite apart from the kind of elemental analysis that, say, a scientist would do. So he says it's the same with us. We need some teaching. In other words, we need science, we need the various very critical investigative tools for looking at ourselves, but just by studying the teaching alone, it's impossible to know what I in myself am. Through the teaching, we may understand our human nature, but the teaching is not we ourselves. It's an explanation of ourselves. So if you've tapped, so let me stop there. So I think this is, what we see when we read the sutras or when we read Dogon. Every teaching that we come across, first of all, it's been offered within a particular set of circumstances.

[19:15]

If you read the Pali suttas, almost every one is the Buddha's response to a question. And that question is the question of the person who brings it. And the reason that we have these teachings is because there was a general applicability, but there was also something very specific. And because it was specific, sometimes the sutras seemed to contradict each other. And it's also true that the teachings, I've been thinking, we talked about this in the class we had on the hindrances and the factors of enlightenment. The various dharmic systems that we have, the Eightfold Path, the Paramitas, the factors of enlightenment, and the

[20:18]

foundations of mindfulness and so forth, they comprise the teachings and they are really conserved as lenses through which we look at ourselves. But they're not ourself. They're just ways, they're just tools by which we can see ourselves. And this whole book is just a multifaceted lens through which we can see ourselves. If we read the book and really study it, we keep seeing ourselves from different angles, which is how we study ourselves. Just as when we sit in Zazen, every breath, every thought, is different and it allows us to see the workings of our mind and to see our conditions and to glimpse the unconditioned, which is really being able to accept our conditioning without getting stuck on it.

[21:37]

So perhaps that's closer to what it means to, I think that's in line with what Paul was saying, to see it and see through it and let it go rather than to forget it. And when we forget something like, you know, yesterday I forgot my zhagu upstairs. It's like that zhagu wasn't gone. It was, you know, when I got here I remembered it was up there. But that's not somehow forgetting the self, I think. Yeah? encounter you or his post.

[22:42]

Yes, it's not getting stuck on that idea of self and recognizing that the self is relational, that it's in relation to all those who surround us, all the causes and conditions, and that there's a, you know, because they talk about big self, which is bigger than this being in this envelope of skin in this frame of bone. So he turns then, he says, through the teaching we may understand our human nature, but the teaching is not we ourselves. It's some explanation of ourselves. So if you're attached to the teaching or to the teacher, that's a big mistake. He says, the moment you meet a teacher, you should leave the teacher and you should be independent. You need a teacher so that you can become independent.

[23:43]

If you are not attached to him or her, the teacher will show you the way to yourself. You have a teacher for yourself and not for the teacher. I think that last point is something that he wanted to emphasize because he probably you know, experience from his students, you know, a great amount of projection, and everybody wanted to serve him, and everybody wanted to help him, but that was not his point. You know, his point was to help them. Of course, this is a natural, this is a natural dynamic. I was in a conversation with a teacher in India who was pointing out a sutra, a Pali sutra, where the Buddha, just after his enlightenment, what he says in effect is, oh, I have no one to revere anymore.

[24:54]

I've got nobody to look up to. That's painful. Really interesting points, pointing to our human proclivity to want to revere or look up to somebody. And he said, well, no, I'm done. I've got nobody who's gone as far as I have, and this is it. So what do I do now? Because he was alluding to perhaps there was a little point of pain there. I can find you the citation. It's really interesting. He says, oh, what I can revere is the Dharma. And by that he did not mean the dharma of meeting his teachings. He was talking about his insight into the nature of reality as dharma. And that the workings of the universe, of its impermanence, of its constant arising and falling away, is what he can revere.

[26:05]

So if we revere that, then we let that help us. Now I was talking about the Buddha. Now I'm going back to Suzuki Roshi. There was a sutra from the Buddha on his enlightenment. Yes. It's a two way street. But. You know, as he says, the next section he goes on to talk about how a teacher teaches, and he talks from Rinzai, he said he had four ways.

[27:26]

Sometimes Rinzai, sometimes a teacher talks about, talked about the disciple, him or herself. In other words, said, here's what I see. Sometimes the teacher talks about the teaching itself. Here's the Dharma as presented by those who have come before us. Sometimes he gave an interpretation of the disciple or the teaching. In other words, coming from his own view from his groundedness and intuition and understanding in himself. And the fourth way is finally, he did not give any instruction to his disciples. This is when the teacher just sits there and lets you work with whatever you have to work with. In the next paragraph, he says that when you do not hear anything from the teacher, but just sit, this is called teaching without teaching.

[28:35]

He said, but sometimes this is not sufficient. So we listen to lectures and have discussions. There are three traditional aspects of Zen teaching. First is just zazen itself. The second is meeting with a teacher in dokusan or sansen. And the third is listening to the teachings, listening to lectures, or listening to an exposition of the text. You'll see this in many of the old teachers. Then Suzuki Roshi says, but we should remember that the purpose of practice in a particular place is to study ourselves. We need a teacher because it is impossible to study ourselves by ourselves. But you should not make a mistake.

[29:38]

You should not take what you have learned with a teacher for you yourself. I think what he means there is that what you hear from your teacher you have to digest in this work of studying yourself. But I think what I got from this, we need a teacher because it's impossible to study ourself by ourselves. I come back to this kind of process that I've evolved with Laurie. And somebody was asking me a similar question in discussion a few days ago, kind of, what do you do, basically, what do you do when an afflictive emotion arises? So you're studying yourself, you're seeing this has arisen, this is very hurtful. I'm hurting, not this is hurtful, I'm hurting.

[30:41]

So what I find, and I don't really understand this mechanism, but I think it's also kind of at the core of, in certain ways, at the core of a psychotherapeutic methodology, is if something is troubling me, I have to say it. And I don't know why that works. But if I don't say it, it sinks its hooks into me and really holds on tight. If I do say it, say to Lori, who's often the unfortunate victim of these perceptions, but what we worked out is I'm not saying this because I want you to do something. I'm not saying this even because I want feedback.

[31:42]

If you have feedback, fine. If there's something helpful, I want to hear that. But I just need to hear myself say this so I can just clear it out. Sometimes you can write it, and sometimes maybe you don't need to say it. Sometimes maybe it works for you to think it and recognize that you can see through it. But this is what a teacher does as well, I think. We need a teacher because it's impossible to study ourselves by ourselves. Yeah? How do you determine who or what is a teacher? Ultimately, everyone is our teacher. I think we look around. We observe people. We meet with them, we talk with them, and in time, not by virtue of position, in time, by discovery, you see, is there a relationship there?

[32:51]

Is there the potentiality for a relationship that we can grow into? And you also have to see, do I trust this person? You know, do I have a sense that this person, that they want something from me? This is one of the things when somebody asked Sojin a number of years ago, what's the most important thing for a teacher? And he said, never to want anything from your student. And I think that that was very resonant for me. It's not always easy, but not want something from your student, not want something for yourself. So you have to discern on the basis of building relationship, is that person trustworthy? The same as any other relationship. And also, do I have a sense that this person

[34:01]

has some understanding that I might like to have a glimpse of. Not so I get their understanding, but that they've been to places in themselves that I might like to go. I feel like, you know, ever since I came here in the early 80s, Aside from Sojin, who's my primary teacher, I have learned from so many people who've practiced here. And they were people that I felt they're, if you will, ahead of me in some area. And yet, they're just human. They have their shortcomings and their strengths. So all of them I see as my teachers. And you choose which is a deepening relationship.

[35:05]

So he talks about, I want to just be aware of the time, and I probably won't get through all of this, but yes? You read something that didn't make much sense to me. You didn't explain it. I'm wondering if you could explain it. What was it? If you are attached to the teacher or the teaching, that's a big mistake. And even more confusing is the moment you meet a teacher, you should leave the teacher, and you should become independent, and you need a teacher so that you can become independent. And if you are not attached to him, the teacher will show you the way to yourself. All of that doesn't make sense to me. I'm sorry. Yes, I can try. I mean, I think he's suggesting don't merge with your teacher and don't also object, don't put your teacher on a pedestal.

[36:19]

It's your life that you need to be independent. So he also said when you are you, Zen is Zen. Not when you are male, Zen is Zen, because that's not going to happen. No, but what people do is there's a hazard of giving up yourself, of thinking, This person is wise and I give up my autonomy because he knows better or she knows better. I think this is what Suzuki Roshi is warning us against. And then he's saying, but teacher, if he's a teacher, actually can be helpful to you. He can be helpful by pointing you back at yourself. Okay? Yeah, and that could be good though.

[37:25]

Yeah, not just like you. Right, but there's a distinction to be made, at least in my mind. It's like there are people that I've seen in my life, there are people I've seen in this room who I aspire to be more like them. They have qualities that I want to cultivate in myself. And in that sense, they are my teachers. But I don't want to be them. It's like, how do I? And this is just the way I learned to play music. I play traditional music, so there's a form. There's a lot of form. And I listened to everything, and I played with the older musicians. And after a while, you realize you have to make it your own. for it to be authentic. Otherwise, it's just an imitation. I don't see why. The moment you meet a teacher, you should leave the teacher.

[38:28]

So this is obviously sort of metaphorical. Yeah. I mean, it's Suzuki Roshi language. It's great language. It's really provocative. And why do you need a teacher to become independent? I don't see why. Let's say you're studying mathematics and you learn that six I don't know if that analogy helps people or not.

[39:32]

It helps me. Yeah. When you learn something, you make it your own. Somebody else has also made it. It's been somebody else's. It's something that applies more generally. But once you learn it, you can't forget it. And you don't have to keep going back to your teacher. Right. Excuse me. It's six times four. being told 6 times 4 is 24, or 8 times 8 is 64. Yeah, but part of that's true. It works with math. And I'm not so sure how well it works with Zen, because it's hard for us to really, it's hard sometimes to embody teachings when something else is so deeply patterned in us.

[40:38]

And so we do end up going back to the teacher asking him or her the same thing over and over again until someday something goes poof and we get it and we're free. But that's another dimension. Judy. Well, I have to add that when I was a freshman, I took a class on Introduction to Mathematical Analysis. We spent the entire semester to derive something like, if you're always one, it's not always one. And then I learned about all these different bases, base two, base three. And so sometimes it doesn't add up, even though you can. And so, I mean, and that's just, you know, never mind cosmology. But I was wondering, I mean, it's not in this section, or I don't even know, I can't represent the book, independency, but I guess I was wondering in your words, this word independence and also that we're relational, how would you define independence?

[42:06]

I think the point that he's making here is in line with what I was talking about yesterday. It's one side. One side is you have to stand on your two feet. The other side, perhaps, is we're all in it together. So don't fall down on one side. Don't get caught by one side, as the truth. Because he says independent here, that's what he's saying here, in that moment. And someplace else in his book, he's going to say something very different. But it doesn't contradict. I think this is the great thing about Zen, really great thing about Zen, which is quite different than early Buddhism, is it's non-dualistic. It admits to a world, a reality that has many possibilities rather than just a binary one.

[43:12]

Yes, no. Nobody ever wins an argument with the Buddha. He's very kind, he's very respectful, and if you read the suttas, he always wins. You know, and you could say, what? Well, you know, a bunch of guys, you know. Anyway, you have to allow for this all-sidedness. So here he's making the point about he wants us to be independent. I think that he's giving this because he's in the position of being a teacher. He respects himself in that position. He wants you to understand that he's available for you, but he wants you to be you. So getting towards the end here, let me just read a little more.

[44:17]

I'm running over. I'm sorry. There's a lot here. It's a beautiful section about practicing at AHE, but I'm not going to go into it. Towards the end, he said, Dogen said to study Buddhism is to study ourself. To study ourself is to forget ourselves. Let me read you the whole passage from Dogen because it doesn't stop there. And it's important. Where it goes is to study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace of realization remains. And this no trace continues endlessly. So there's a lot there. But Suzuki Roshi, in his book,

[45:22]

In the end, what he says is, the purpose of studying Buddhism is to study ourselves and forget ourselves. When we forget ourselves, and this is the same as this, we are actualized when we forget things, he says, when we forget ourselves, we are actually the true activity of big existence or reality itself. I think that's a wonderful way of saying it. It's like when we set aside ourselves, when we enter an activity completely, we're part of everything. We're not always there. This is the problem that we have. When we hear that, we think, that's the way I should live. Nobody lives like that. But all of us have moments like that. We all have moments of freedom. We all have moments, even when you drove here, you were in a big moment of that because it's like, in order to drive, you have to be aware of the entire universe around you.

[46:32]

It's amazing we don't just completely smash into each other every second. That's big mind functioning. And yet it's also purposeful and directive. So when we forget ourselves, we actually are the true activity of big existence or reality itself. When we realize this fact, there is no problem whatsoever in this world. And we can enjoy our life without feeling any difficulties. The purpose of our practice is to be aware of this fact. So this is tough for me. When we realize this fact, there is no problem whatsoever in the world, and we can enjoy our life without feeling any difficulties. It's just one of those places where you have this kind of statement, description of reality by Suzuki Roshi that

[47:33]

you know, I at least stop and say, is that true? But there are moments I do see from reading him, from seeing our teachers, from looking at myself, there are moments when it's like that, even when there are moments of difficulty. So a couple more questions and then we have to end. John. Right it sets you up but again this is him presenting he's presenting an aspect of existence that in our busyness we can lose track of it's an important it's really important to recognize this this unconditioned reality that is part, it's always there.

[48:37]

And that it's something that we can connect with and be at ease with, just as I was hearing somebody talk about someone dying the other day. They were just, oh, I know what it was. It was actually reading David Chadwick talking about Trudy Dixon's dying, of her being just really at ease with her dying, even though the loss must have been at 30 years old with kids, just unimaginable, and yet, she was able to be at ease with it and set other people at ease. So, yeah, I would say that's an aspiration. It's something that I feel. And in moments, in difficult moments, I can feel this way.

[49:41]

I mean, even sitting in an awkward place, just saying, okay, here I am, I better just sit here. And I was sitting on a stage for three hours in India. And there were several thousands of people in the audience. And it's like, I had to go to the bathroom. I wanted to get out of there. And I just felt, I really felt like I wanted to check my phone. Anything to get away. And I just said, I'm here, just sit. Just be in the situation and just do zazen. And it was fine. So anyway, study yourself. That's what we're doing for the rest of the day and that's what we're doing for the rest of our lives.

[50:44]

So thank you very much.

[50:46]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ