I often wonder what I have to talk about to so many people. What we talk about, you know, is quite intimate and a little bit abstruse, actually. So I don't see why so many of you actually are interested. Anyway, today I want to talk about or ask you, you can't ask this question, but anyway, the question I'm putting is, what is the Absolute? Or how do we face the Absolute? And at Tassajara, when I was just there yesterday,

[01:06]

there was a rattlesnake that appeared down in Grasshopper Flats or on the path actually up to the cemetery where Suzuki Roshi's ashes will be. And there was quite a discussion about whether they should go and catch it and who would go. They seemed to think the mildest person at Dasahara was the one who might be the most skillful at catching it. And they made some kind of wooden box with slats. I don't know what exactly they intended, but several people thought that I should go down and look at it.

[02:10]

Finally, after several hours of preparation, three or four people went down, and as they got there, coming up the path, the snake took one look and went off into the bushes. I guess it was quite big, you know, not that big around or something. Anyway, I don't know how big exactly, but they thought it was one of the biggest they'd ever seen. That reminded me of, in the Blue Cliff Records, there's a story about probably a similar incident happened at Seppo's temple, and when a snake was there, and he used it as the basis of a story, or later, compilers anyway, made it into a story for us to use. Seppo lived about Actually, he was born almost exactly 1,250 years ago this year. It's wonderful the way Zen has preserved in our tradition from so long ago that actually you can feel the personalities of these people. They're not just like historical.

[03:35]

of notations. Anyway, Seppo is famous for, or is famous as an example for Zen students of very difficult practice. And he was partly a disciple of Tozan Ryokai, the To of Soto. the Chinese founder of Soto sect, and I guess he joined Tozan something like nine different times, and I don't know whether he left of his own will, but at least once Tozan threw him out. He finally was a disciple of Toku-san, but there was a died 908, I think. It was a time in China when there was a lot of persecution, so not only did he have the usual difficulties of practice, and he had quite a bit of difficulty of the usual kind, but also, you then had to go underground

[05:02]

Conceptual is often known for his mountain called Elephant Bone Mountain or sometimes Milk Mountain, Snow Mountain. I think it's called South Mountain too. Anyway, many names for his mountain, but it must have been white, I guess. There's a story which impressed me very much when Suzuki Roshi told it a lot of years ago. And right after he told the story, I promptly fell asleep, which is in the lecture, so I don't know what the rest of the lecture was. I fell asleep because the story made such an impression on me, and I've always remembered it very clearly. It doesn't sound like much of a story, but anyway, I remember it very clearly. Falling asleep is interesting in this story, actually.

[06:19]

But I wanted to concentrate, I think, on the story without any more, I didn't want any more distraction, I didn't want any more about the story just that I had was enough. But this story about Seppo is he was traveling with a friend named Ganto, who later was killed in the persecutions of the time. They were camping sort of in a pass at the foot of a large mountain and there was quite a lot of snow, the mountain was covered with snow. And Ganto, who was always very happy, fell asleep immediately. couldn't fall asleep and was rather uneasy, sat up doing sasan, you know, by the fire. Pretty soon Ganto woke up and said to him, what are you doing awake? Why don't you go to sleep? And Seppo said, I mean, yeah, Seppo said, my mind is not as clear as yours and I can't

[07:44]

find my way through practice or something. Setpo said then, when I was with Tozan Ryokai, I was working in the kitchen and he came and said, do you separate the sand from the rice or the rice from the sand? And I Anyway, Seppo couldn't answer, so he turned over the rice. And Tozan said, get out of here, go practice somewhere else. So he went to Tokusan, and Tokusan slapped him with a stick, you know, across the face, I guess. And at that point he was enlightened. But his friend Ganto didn't accept

[08:49]

those two experiences. Anyway, the sand and rice story makes me think of a story about Ed Brown. One day I was in front of Sokoji and I came by and there was a kind of crash and there was Ed Brown with beans. He'd spilled the beans. all over the sidewalk. And I watched him picking it all up. And I said, you're going to save them now? They were on the street in the gutter. And he said, oh yes, very Zen, you know, save them. So he was saving them. In those days, too, I tried things like that. And my wife used to get angry at me because I'd bring home vegetables from the farmer's market that had been run over by a truck. Just expect her to clean them. But Suzuki Roshi had supposedly, his father used to have him go out and collect vegetables from the stream which the farmers had thrown away, so I felt I should. Anyway, Ed was picking up all the beans, and I don't know whether I said anything, but I strongly implied, I hope you get the stones out of the beans.

[10:16]

And about two weeks later I was at Tassajara eating, you know. So I took out this quite a large stone, not a little stone, but quite a large stone. I put it in my sleeve and I continued eating. And I thought about it and decided I wouldn't say anything, because maybe I was the only person who found a stone. If no one else found a stone, I wouldn't say anything, because Ed had removed every stone but the one I got. So, Suki Roshi left the Zen Do, and I left the Zen Do, and the students left the Zen Do. The first person I thought I would see if I could find out about it is Suzuki Roshi, and I left with him and ended up in his cabin, so I was talking with him. And I said, well, was there anything unusual about the meal today, or how did you enjoy the meal? It was fine, he said. I said, how were the beans? Oh, very good.

[11:38]

So he was doing the same thing I was doing, you see. He was thinking, if no one else has noticed, I won't say anything. And I was thinking, if no one else has noticed, I won't say anything. So I couldn't tell exactly. He said, oh, the beans were fine today. So I, without saying anything, I reached in my sleeve took out the stone, you know, and I didn't say, look at this stone, I just was sort of holding it, you know, innocently. And he looked at me and he went like that, and I looked over and on his bureau there were three stones. Anyway, back 1,200 years, 50 years ago. So, Ganto didn't accept the two experiences of seppu, and he said, there should be nothing in your mind, you depend too much on

[13:08]

some experience, something from Tosan Ryokai or from Toksan. And I guess at that time Seppo was more relieved, you know, of the burden he was carrying. But how we can actually have nothing in our mind is, you know, impossible. As the commentary in this story says, in this jungle or cliff there are no handholds. There's no way to get a grip or any kind of mental idea about what we mean by, I don't

[14:09]

or what Ganto means when he says there should be nothing in your mind, you shouldn't want to have anything in your mind, then it will come out. It should come out of your own, it should be produced by itself from your own mind and body. So we have to, there's no way, you can't strive for it or look at it as some experience. You can only practice and there's no way to express even though maybe your practice will be seen in how you walk or your eyes or something like that. There's many ways to respond, which are maybe a little clever but very accurate, but still, I don't know if they help. One person says, what is the first principle? And the teacher says, if I tell you, it will be the second.

[15:47]

Or you can say, what is Buddha? I can say, if I tell you, it won't be Buddha. So if there's no way to tell you, no way even to express, how do we express ourselves? How is practice no longer practice but just an expression of our true nature? So anyway, this story concerns Seppo and his assembly and three famous disciples of Seppo. The most famous probably is Ungmun, and he's sort of the hero of this story. And the other two are Cho Khe,

[16:58]

Aryo and Gensha, not Ganto, but Gensha. And all three of these men became famous Zen masters. So this conversation you can look at, you can say, oh, this one is better than that one, but actually these three men were fantastic Zen masters. Chökyi is famous for studying with Seppo. And Seppo, I guess he came when he was fairly young. And after he'd been there a while, probably a couple of years or more,

[18:04]

Seppo said to him something like, you don't have to come for doksan or sanzen three or four times a day anymore. I'm going to treat you like you were a dead horse that must be brought to life. He said, go sit like a charred stump without moving at all. And if you're good, in ten years you'll know something. And if you're better than that, five years. And if you're very fast, three years. So he sat that way for two and a half years.

[19:06]

and he suddenly had this enormous desire to sleep and so he fell asleep in the meditation room, completely I guess laid out, you know, and woke up in the middle of the night and went to the entrance and rolled up the bamboo blind. And when he rolled up the bamboo blind, the moonlight came in. And then all his doubts went away. As he said in a poem, I saw the ice in the fire. So he went to tell Seppo,

[20:09]

And he went to Seppo's room and Seppo was asleep. So he leaned on the pillar, the column there, waiting for Seppo to awaken. And then suddenly he just started to laugh. And Seppo woke up and came out. What are you bothering me for in the middle of the night? So he gave some verse. Seppo said something like, I've had 1700 disciples come to this temple and finally I have half a saint or half a holy man. Anyway, these are some of the people in this story. So, Anyway, Cepo said, there's a snake in this south mountain, in this elephant bone mountain. Who can face it? In other words, he said, who can face the Absolute? Who can face your own death?

[21:45]

or death, or whatever for you is absolute. Maybe not being able to write a poem or having a funny nose. We're always running away from what we think we should do, which we can't, so we escape in some way. And the more you get into it, the more mixed up you find, you know, you start out with ideas the world should be such and such a way, you know. And then you find yourself full of violence. In a demonstration in San Francisco recently about the war,

[22:49]

in the midst of the police beating the heads of the demonstrators and as roughly as possible feeling up the girls for weapons, I guess quite roughly, a horse suddenly keeled over and died, one of the policeman's horses. And everyone immediately ran up and began petting the horse, the policeman and the demonstrators, and everyone was able to express their feeling for the horse, you know. But then the horse was dead so they went back to beating each other, you know. We have this ridiculous song that's on the radio now called The Candyman. and the Candyman makes the world sweet and he eats it up, I guess, like Uncle Sam. How America can sing songs like the Candyman while we're bombing in this war is just, I don't know, it's just incredible. But when you look into yourself you find how can you do violence to yourself? How can you smash your own body?

[24:22]

or think about smashing someone else's body. How do we face some absolute desire we have to do something horrible? And often in our practice if you escape from one horrible thing which is pushing you around, then you will think up some more horrible thing to push yourself around with. The thing which will hurt you most you'll drive yourself with. Anyway, how do we face the Absolute? So that's what Seppo was asking.

[25:29]

And so Cho Khe, who I just told you the story about, who sat like a withered stump for two and a half years, charred stump, he said, in this assembly there are many monks who tremble. at facing themselves and the Absolute. So I guess the way I imagine what was happening was Seppo is talking and Chökyi and Uman and Gensha are like leaders of the assembly or head monks, and they're treated with, in the story they're referred to as, in the translation, as your reverence, et cetera. So they're like teachers themselves with seppu. So after Choke said, there are many people trembling here at the idea of facing the absolute,

[26:55]

some monks would have made some indication to. Gensha, who said, well, let Choke, the dragon, go face the snake. As for me, I'm not disposed to do it. I'm not, I have no inclination to go face the snake. What did he mean, I have no inclination to go face the snake? So a monk said, why don't you have, why don't you have an inclination to go face the snake? And he said, why use even the South Mountain? Why use even Tassajara? Why use even this mountain to face the Absolute?

[27:57]

And then Ungmon startled everyone because he stuck his stick out like that and threw it down in front of Seppo like it was a snake. Anyway, that's the story. The commentary says something like, also written only shortly after this time, a long time ago, says something like, the universe is, there is no outside to the universe. There's no boundary, there's no way you can get outside the universe, even, there's no way you can say it's small or big. and the negative or positive ways of teaching, this is not a Buddha, this is not a Buddha, or this is Buddha, this is Buddha, you know, are in us. We have to scrape even these scars away from us, ourselves. So, Gensha said, why use even the White Mountain or South Mountain, why use even the universe to express

[29:33]

If we are really interested in practicing Zen, it takes the place of everything else for at least a while. Because there are no handholds on the sides of South Mountain, You can only practice until you can live without thinking. Some people at Tathagatagarbha say, well I'm here for a while to see what happens.

[31:43]

they're not practicing Buddhism at all when they have that reservation. They're back on the reservation somewhere. Or they say, I'm going to stay here because I decided to come here, so I'll go through with all this because I decided. As long as they have some idea of I decided they're not practicing Buddhism. But it seems crazy or impossible to live without some framework like I decided or I'm going to stick it out or while I'm here I'll try this," you know. How can we live without that kind of idea? And if we don't have that kind of idea, how can we trust Zen Center or the world or anybody, you know, to take care of us? We can't just like

[33:08]

fall away, but we can fall away. How can we go on if we really know how fragile our life is each moment, how fragile this actual object we live with is. We want to have some kind of idea about

[34:16]

our destiny brings us to this point, to such and such. But if you have some idea of your karma which brought you here or past lives or something like that, that's not depending on your practice. We're all equal. We just practice together. So what Buddhism tries to do to help you is to create a situation like Tassajara, for which we're going to have a party today, actually, since we now have completed the purchase of Tassajara. But long before we completed the purchase, Tassajara has helped many people.

[35:30]

And we create a kind of life which you do by habit. You learn it the way maybe Ali Akbar Khan learns to play his instrument. His hand looks like just any other hand, but actually it's got an enormous amount in it that's not in my hand. And we should have Buddhist life in us in that way. so that at some point at Tassajara, say, you can't, it's much, much, much more difficult to do it living in the city. So we have a place where you go for several months or one or two years where finally that life is in you the way that instrument is in Ali Akbar Khan's hand and you can actually begin to have the experience of not having anything in your mind, then maybe something will come out.

[36:50]

Thank you. I appreciate being able to talk to you very much.

[37:30]

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