Model, in the Blue Cliff Records, model subject number 16 is about a monk who asks, anyway the translation is sort of mixed up, but anyway it's about a monk who says, I'm inside a shell and won't you tap on the outside to let me out. And this is the usual understanding of our practice is that we expect somebody, a teacher or someone to tap on the outside and break the shell for us. Actually all of us are in numerous shells of our own making and only you can tap from the inside, you know, or maybe you have to tap from the outside

[01:13]

yourself. How do you do that? But what we can do together is we can find out together what our shells are and that's the purpose of our practice and our relationships in the community and of Doksan. And in Doksan we can begin to work at the point at which you can identify your shell. When you know what kind of shell you're in then we can start to work. So how to get to that point, to find out what your space is, what kind of

[02:23]

space you're in. We are all in some kind of shell, a shell of the idea we haven't achieved enlightenment or something like that. Actually there's some limitation in our activity and it's very difficult to see. So if Buddhism, you know, the first truth is that there's suffering, which you can also say that everything changes. So there's suffering because everything changes and there's suffering because of the limitations, of not knowing what our limitations are. So we want to practice to

[03:28]

find out what room we're in, what kind of shell we're in, what kind of darkness we're in. And maybe the older you get the harder it is because your body, after every year that passes, your body gets more set in certain ways and your ideas get set and you get take for granted a certain kind of space that you live in as if no other space existed. And it takes some kind of fervor, actually, some kind of burning feeling to get to the edge of the shell, you know. And most of us are too idealistic and Sukhirishi always said that, you know. And I find out more

[04:40]

and more how true that is for all of us. I knew how true it was for me and other people, you know. And we have a lot of anger because the world isn't the way we want it to be. And that anger in itself isn't wrong but it's meaningless when you express that anger in irrelevant ways. I mean, you get angry about all kinds of things which have nothing to do with the actual reason you're angry. So maybe we can never get rid of that anger that we have because the world isn't the way we want it to be. But if so, that anger should be some kind of fire, some kind

[05:43]

of, you know, stoked fire which is some source of energy for us, some source of work for us rather than just getting angry about this or that or that person or this officer or, you know, etc. So maybe two things which sustain our practice are this kind of anger which isn't repressed or suppressed but is realized in its true form. You see that the anger you have for

[06:49]

this thing or that thing isn't what you're really angry about. When you know what you're really angry about, that anger can be very close to our basic life energy or force. But that in itself would make you a terribly solemn person, you know. And the other thing that sustains our practice is some kind of arising joyousness of our self-nature. And if we're always humorless and glum and serious, we don't have a situation in which we can practice. So we have the capacity to feel joy and that can be opened up so we feel it all the time. I can't

[07:57]

exactly explain why when the world is in such a miserable shape you can feel some deep satisfaction, you know, all the time. Some kind of like an artesian well of some joy which just keeps coming up of its own without any relation to circumstances. Anyway, we should use what we actually have, you know. And we should find it on every occasion, in every situation. And if we only find it in good times or bad times or something like that, you don't ever really know what your nature is. So Suzuki Roshi used to say,

[09:09]

if I say you're good, that is not so good actually, because it's good in comparison to something. Maybe good in relation to someone else or good in relation to what you used to be, but it's some relative thing. He said, if I don't say anything, then that's best. If your hand doesn't hurt, you don't know your hand is there really, your stomach doesn't hurt until it hurts you. So if no one can say, ah, he's good or he's bad, that's much healthier, much better than just notice, ah, he's good or he's bad. But most of us go around wanting to be noticed as good or lots of us go around wanting to be noticed as bad. We spend a great deal of time trying to get people to say we're bad or we say we're bad first before they can.

[10:11]

There has been quite a lot of activity in the last few weeks in Zen Center and it always disturbs people. And I don't think actually you're so disturbed but a little bit, you know, some of you. You know, we went up to look at this island which we may accept if it's if it's useful to people to accept it. I'm not sure whether it's really so useful but it's quite an interesting island. I don't know if you know where Vancouver Island is,

[11:36]

which is quite a big island, about 250 miles long. And where the island touches the coast of, or nearly touches the coast of Canada at the northern part, there are a number of fjords or inlets that run way back up into the continent. And this island is at the mouth of one of them. And the most spectacular thing about the place is this ominous sameness of great gray powerful weather that's there. There's a big mountain right at the island, sort of here, and there's this big inlet and then there's a great big mountain that sticks up like that which is a they call bear tooth because it looks like a tooth, you know. And around this mountain there's a constant swirl of snow and at that point they have 200 inches of precipitation a year. But on the island only five or six miles or something

[12:47]

south of the entrance to that inlet, the inlet has cliffs, sheer cliffs, 9,000 feet high. And it's staggering, you know. And these huge forests which just go, all been logged and built into Levittowns in America or something, or maybe sutras, I don't know what, paper. Anyway, on the island itself, which is only a few miles south of that inlet, there's only 70 to 90 inches of rain, quite different from 200. It's still very wet, there's moss on everything, every stone has moss all over it. And it's a good part of the year, it's pretty gray and

[13:49]

dark. Anyway, it's very beautiful. But actually we have more opportunity to practice here in an isolated way than we do there. Here, this community and building and situation we have protects us and gives us some space to practice. Up there, it was interesting to go so far, you get all the way up there and of course everybody up there is anxious all the time about what's going on out there which may affect them up there. And they're there reading the Tassajara bread book. And they're also very idealistic. They went up there partly to get away from hassles, right? So they themselves don't want to own the island. But somehow they don't

[14:53]

want to take that responsibility of owning the island. So in a sense, you know, if they're going to do it in a lawless way with no legal contract, then they have trouble with raiders, other tribes in a sense from other islands, who come in and take off the lumber. I mean, if you don't own the island, you have no protection. So people can come in and just cut all the trees down. Or it can be sold to developers who will turn it into a yacht club. And they've been through this several times and they have been told they'd have to leave within a few months, etc. They spend a good part of their time worrying. But they want the island to exist, you know, like it was on Mars or something. And there was no government and no people and no other people who might want to use the island. So if they take the responsibility of owning it, they have to find the money to pay for it, which

[15:58]

is, it's available at a price of about a tenth of its actual value. But that whole problem of how to take care of it, you know, and protect it from those people who might want to use it some other way, they don't want to take the responsibility for that. But they're angry and upset all the time because they can't just have the island. But there's lots of people around there who feel they should just have the island. They don't want to dig the clams and oysters particularly, which are walking on the beach there, you feel like the walrus and the carpenter because it's just oysters everywhere, you know. But the local fishermen come in and say, well, we want you to dig these clams. And they say, we don't want to dig the clams. And they say,

[17:00]

well, fine, we'll send in professionals and we'll dig them. And they'll just come in and take everything out. So they have no way of protecting the island unless they take responsibility for it. So anyway, so I suppose we're in a way offering them some kind of protection if we accept it, but I don't know what will happen. What I'm talking about is partly is that I feel Zen Center has found its basic form now. I think we may do other things, but they will be separate from Zen Center. We may help people get started doing things, but to do that requires some sense of how you survive. So Zen Center has to have

[18:01]

lawyers and contracts and all kinds of stuff to protect us from being taken over. Quite a lot of problems with insurance and other things that we could just be wiped out. But anyway, I think most of that's over, but I think it's important for you to appreciate the form of Zen Center, its outer form which tries to exist with an interface with this society. If we're going to function in the society in some creative way and helpful way, we have to ensure our existence in some way. So as you know now, we have, I think most of you know, we have purchased a farm. Most of you know that? We signed the papers the other day, and so I can tell you actually what

[19:05]

farm it is now. Before we signed the papers, they didn't want us to tell you. Anyway, most of you I think know, but it's the farm ranch known as the Green Gulch Ranch on the way to Muir Beach. As you go up over the mountain, there's one road which goes to the right and goes over the mountain and then down to Stinson Beach, and the left going straight goes down to the coast and then up along the coast to Stinson. Well, at the point at which you first see the ocean as you go, if you pass that intersection on Highway 1, you first see the ocean as a kind of gully or valley that opens up and opens up all the way down to the ocean and to Muir Beach, and the highway goes down on the right of it. As you go down the highway, the ranch is on the left.

[20:07]

We'll have some kind of partial occupancy within a week or two probably, and full occupancy sometime like a month and a half to three months from now, and we'll try to, first thing we'll try to do is to get a Zen Doan kitchen established there, and then with a Zen Doan kitchen, we can start trying to farm it in some way. So, what we're doing here is, with Tassajara and this building and the work company and the farm, we're trying to give a base to the community. I think, as I said to quite a few of you,

[21:12]

we have two primary obligations, I think. One is to continue the community that exists here, and the other is to continue the practice, to find how the practice can exist in this country. And I think the work company and the things that will come out of that and will be associated with it, and the farm, give the community a chance to have activity that will allow it to continue. Then, within that, with a community going on, we can then, within that, work on the practice and continue our practice. It's necessary for us to find some way, for a large number of us, to stay together for a long period of time,

[22:17]

or at least a few of us to stay together for a long period of time, because it's only in this way that we'll find out what our shells are. So, it takes quite a long time of some kind of desperation and boredom and irritation and not knowing what's happening, and sadness, to find out what kind of eggshell we're in. So, when I was talking, I had this image of Zen Center becoming a big basket of eggs. You'll find there's several dozen eggs all sitting together, you know.

[23:26]

Right now, most of us don't, we're not in the form of eggs yet even, you know. But slowly we will, and then the more of you that find yourself inside and outside of the shells simultaneously, the more there'll be some real sense of practice here. It'll help everybody if the more of you who can peck at your, knock your shells from the outside. So,

[24:45]

I suppose the real experience of practice, when you really feel most on, is when you know what kind of shell you're in and you finally feel like you know what kind of shell you're in and are trying to get out, or what kind of darkness you're in. So, that's the, actually, that's the satisfaction of the community and teacher and student, that kind of situation, because then the space we share is, the space is, when you're in that kind of space, the space isn't your own, you share it with everybody. In Buddhism there's some secret about space which you can't tell, I mean there's no way

[25:46]

to tell what the secret is, but some kind of mystery about it. I know, I used to try to express, when I first began to feel a different sense of space, I tried to express it to my friend, Trudy Dixon, and I talked about it being like,

[26:52]

being underwater, or in an aquarium, and you're in an aquarium and you see the fish swim along, and as it swims past some seaweed, you know, or something, the seaweed bends and there's some relationship between fish and seaweed and the various things in the aquarium, you know, or underwater. So I used to call it the underwater feeling. I don't know if that means anything to you, but we begin to, one of the first things you notice is you begin to feel space as a continuum in which you are not separated from anything, that there isn't this inside space and that outside space or this, you know, I can't explain. Anyway, many of the koans are actually about

[28:04]

Buddha's space, how to come to live in Buddha's space, how to not be in the shell or outside the shell, how to have complete freedom and complete restriction at the same time, and you have to know most of us, I think, want to be free, but our freedom is some idea of freedom, you know. So the first thing to do is to find out what your actual limitations are, what your actual situation is, and not see subject or object, to be it, or it's easy to talk about form and emptiness, etc.,

[29:18]

you know, but to actually be it, you know, is pretty difficult. So to accept, you know, what on the surface look like bleak kind of limitations of this one body and this one space and this one time and this one situation with no, nothing glamorous or nothing added or no, nothing special, to really accept that is the first step toward knowing what we mean by freedom, because actually our idea of freedom is one of the main things that restricts us.

[30:24]

So we just sit following our breath, you know, and for a long time it just seems we're counting our breath, but actually when you have this feeling of freedom, your breath is whole world systems. In Buddhism, when we talk about the cosmic space or many, many, this is some special idea of space that's an experience of Buddhism. So So first we have to accept our space and our space together, the more we can work together,

[32:05]

allowing and opening up to the space that's here without so much criticism and idealism about what we should be and Zen Center should be and the world should be. And that joy, that self, joyous self-nature you'll find is what we actually share. So, we have a tendency to look for support outside ourselves, outside the

[33:13]

eggshell, you know, and to satisfy this tendency for support we say, take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And, when we say that, you know, it means exactly that, that you don't take refuge in anything else, you know, you don't take refuge in numerology or astrology or the future or ideas of enlightenment. You take refuge only in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and when you find yourself taking

[34:16]

refuge in something else, you know, you cut that off. I talked during the last session about the vow, and an important part of our vow is to only take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, not in a career, of course if you have a job or whatever, you know, you don't take refuge in even your children or your wife or husband. And, if you feel that way, eventually your children and wife and husband are Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. There's no place to take refuge, and there's no place to have, you know, private feelings

[35:36]

or feelings that can be hurt or not hurt, anything. Whatever you are, you should be willing to share with other people and have other people know about you. If other people know you, you should feel some satisfaction, instead of saying, oh, they know that about me. If they know you're dumb, you know, that should be, you should feel some relief, ah, at last, they know I'm dumb. I don't have to try to hide it anymore. I don't think we should go around confessing, you know, hey, come over here, I want to tell

[36:38]

you how dumb I am. Usually when we do that, that's not what we're doing. But our activity is a kind of confession. And whatever we do is, tells people what we are, and the kind of vow we have, bodhisattva vow and vow to take refuge only in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, leaves us free from protecting ourself, wanting to be this or that, or not wanting people to know this, or wanting to people have a good opinion or bad opinion of us. We don't need any of that, you know. And even if people think you're dumb and you have some suspicion that you're not, you know,

[37:45]

if they think you're dumb, that's interesting to know. So you know you're, one of the, what we mean by stream-enterer, being on the way, means the experience, one of the ways which we experience it is, everything that happens is a relief. Whatever happens, we're relieved that it happened. Whatever happens seems like an opportunity, and whatever happens seems like just what should have happened. Some of us translate that immediately into, because this happened, that happened, and the stars were there, and etc., or because I did that, this person is negatively affected and that person is positively affected, or my destiny has worked out.

[38:48]

That's kind of, from Buddha's point of view, a kind of neurotic way of looking at it. We don't look at it like that, just, we don't try to work out a system that explains why many times in our life, in each moment, there are many coincidences which seem to confirm what we're doing. We met this person, how could we possibly meet this person? There must be some magic involved because this person was right here when we needed it, or I needed such and such and I opened the book and the book said, do this, you know? We don't interpret that in some systematic way. We only look at it as an indication that we are finally on our path, because when you're on your path, your life begins to fall into place in some very complete way. So, when something terrible happens, we feel relieved, actually.

[40:00]

The feeling is, you know, I can't explain exactly, but I think you know what I mean. Does anyone have any questions? Yeah? Question being asked.

[41:07]

I think when you're practicing an art form and you're not trying to express yourself, you know, but you're trying to express them, or all of us or something, then maybe you're taking refuge in the sangha. Well, a lot of us are practicing some kind of art form, and the painting or writing or something, and generally the advice in Buddhism is to stop whatever your activity is when you start practicing Buddhism, to stop being an artist or stop writing until it comes back spontaneously, or you just start to find yourself doing it again. If you just do it, it's fine, but there's one of the most persistent ways in which our

[42:10]

ego continues itself is the desire to express yourself, sort of, for all ages or permanently some way, you know, and this is hard to give up because the quality of the time you spend in an art form is very satisfying, you know, it's satisfying the way zazen is satisfying. So many of us need that without even the product, the poem or the painting, we need that kind of time, you know. So we're very attached to the experience, the satisfactions we've had writing or painting and continue trying to express what we think our nature is or something.

[43:11]

Usually this hinders our zazen or Buddhist practice. So usually the advice is to cut off your relationships with trying to express yourself, to cut off your relationships with old friends even, and with famous people, not to do zazen facing beautiful scenery or the ocean, etc., to cut all those things off. Because we don't want to take satisfaction in what's outside the egg, we want to just take satisfaction in what arises from within us. So, for quite a long time, if you have a habit of looking outside yourself always for satisfactions, it's very hard to cut those off.

[44:12]

And then you wait around for something to happen and some other satisfaction and you look for the same kinds of satisfactions and the same kinds aren't there. So you go through a kind of doldrums. But then this is where the vow comes in again, because the vow allows you to continue, whether your life is totally miserable for its entire length, you still, you decide, whatever it is I'll continue it. With that kind of feeling, some new life is born, some new way of living is born out of

[45:05]

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