December 3rd, 1972. Baker Roshi, Tassakawa. I'd like to talk a little more about what I was talking about yesterday. It's a little different than usually during Sashin, for me anyway, to talk about this Usually, everyone's having such a difficult time. We talk about how your legs are hurting and etc. But you all seem to be doing so well. There isn't much to say, you know. Isn't it an illusion you're all doing? But maybe the Sashin's pace is too Nicely worked out, I don't know. I kind of wish I had the bell here, could ring it. I was surprised to find out the other day that

[01:32]

Some of you didn't know the stories about when Suzuki Roshi rang the bell himself. Because I've told the story so often. I thought you all knew, but of course I've been in the city more often than here in the last year. But he used to, before Katagiri Roshi came and began running the schedule, which when he did it, I don't know what happened. We ended up having half hour periods all the time. at least for a couple of years. But it was very regular. But when Suzuki Roshi did it, we never knew what would happen. And I swear, you know, I swear he actually forgot. But he seemed to always forget on the third day, you know, in the afternoon at the hardest time. But I still think he actually forgot. He didn't sort of think, now I'm going to make it hard on him. He just did what he felt like, which... And... What made it excruciating is his room was in that little Kafkaesque tower, you know? Over the... Over the... Zendo. In fact, he had a little balcony to look down at us all. And...

[03:02]

so we could hear him up there and we could hear him going up the stairs and the bell would be supposed to ring and he would be out of the room we could hear moving around his office or going upstairs or downstairs and sometimes it was only 10 or 15 minutes or 35 or 40 minutes or an hour longer from the period you're supposed to be. And in those days, none of us could sit very well, you know. In fact, when... I can't remember his name. Anyway, he's the friend of... Paul Disco, who led Paul Disco to come to Zen Center. He's now one of the heads of the Carpenters Communist Party or something in Berkeley, or something like that. Anyway, he's the kind of Ivanhoe-ish fellow. And he walked to Moscow one day. There was a peace march, you know, a protest, something or other. And he walked from San Francisco to Moscow.

[04:35]

And they swam ashore in Belgium twice, and it was all in the newspapers. France wouldn't let them land, so they tried to make a night landing into Belgium. They got caught twice and sent back. Finally, they got into Europe, and then they went. And he met this very pretty girl named Oh, Barton Stones, his name. And Marty Stones, his wife. He met her. She was a professor's daughter in Iowa or something, you know. And they came marching to the town, and her house happened to be on the western end of town, and she saw them. So went out and started marching with them on the eastern end of town. Continued. and Barton and Marty got married in Germany. Anyway, we knew he was a sort of Zen student. But none of us had met him. We all followed it in the newspapers, Bob Barton. We were also following the adventures of several people in Japan who were Suzuki Roshi's first attempts at sending somebody to Japan.

[06:02]

which wasn't working out as well as going to Moscow. So then the newspapers said that he was back in town. And about two days later, I was doing Zazen in Grand Peche, you know where Grand Peche is, vaguely. He was sitting over there. And suddenly this handsome blond man sat down. He sat unmoving for a full 40 minutes. Which to us was amazing. We'd been sitting only... And here you start sitting pretty well after only a short time. In those days it took maybe two years to get into half lotus or full lotus. Everybody wiggled all the time. And he sat unmoving the whole period. Afterwards Graham and I met in the hall and we said, must be Barton Stone. And it was, but he doesn't practice that anymore. But he sent Paul to this. Anyway, so in those days, 10 minutes was a pretty long time to sit extra.

[07:32]

One hour was unbelievable. And he would come in, you know, and he'd come across the room and pick up the schedule, which was always on onion paper, which was in a crackle. You could hear him reading it. He said, this place is right behind me. And he'd put it down, and we knew it must be here. Half an hour over, something. He'd read it as if everything was all right, and he'd trot back out. And you could just feel the steam rising in the room. All of us looked like Bodhi Dharma, you know, with our eyes. And then we'd hear him go upstairs for a while, come back downstairs and come in and read the schedule and go back up. It's just crazy. One time he kept us two and a half hours and When he finally rang the bell, he came out and looked at the schedule. The whole sender just started laughing. The only time I've ever seen Graham Petchey move was during that two and a half hours. After about two hours and ten minutes, he leaned forward like this and came back.

[09:01]

But that was the first time I didn't move at all. So up to then, I always moved all the time. Anyway, at the same time, Suzuki Yoshi was talking about what I was talking about yesterday and try to talk about a little today. And I wrote it all down, what he said. I didn't have the... I didn't have the sensation of not understanding, but I also didn't have the sensation of understanding. And when I look back now on what he said, I didn't have any idea what he was talking about, all in all. But I was able to practice it.

[10:27]

I mean, somehow it held together enough for me that it kept me from doing, though I couldn't do or be what he said, it kept me from doing other things. You know what I mean? So somehow I settled onto that as a possibility, though I only settled onto the surface of it. So he'd talk about waiting and patience. And I thought that he meant patience, just to have some patience, to sit with some patience. But waiting is a fundamental, maybe a fundamental attitude

[11:30]

I can't say toward reality, that is reality. We have to get over the idea that waiting is waiting for something, or anger is something that should come to an end. Of course, when you're angry you know it'll come to an end, but to have the various feelings you have as something to be gotten out of or gotten over isn't right thinking. just you know when you're like when you're completely impressed with something you have no word to say just impressed with it that that's right thinking and when he said that I did I know I understand what the words are but how that what that means beyond just when you're impressed with something I didn't know you know in the

[12:37]

Again, once in the city, we were talking about waiting, because all the buses go by outside the building. Sort of like everybody outside the building is waiting for a bus, and we were inside, waiting. No bus was going to come. But some people, I said, seemed to think there was a great big, new, new bus called the Big E, which was going to come in and load up everybody and go off to Enlightenment Land. through the Zen bell, the clang, clang, clang. But we're not waiting for anything. Waiting itself. Maybe if you could have the attitude of waiting, then samsara is nirvana. I mean, try looking at something, a stone or a stream or something. Not with the idea that, well, you're looking at it and isn't it nice? but as if you were waiting for it, as if you were waiting for the stone. This is what Engo, in his introductory words yesterday, meant by free voice. You know, Dogen says,

[14:05]

to practice and confirm all things by conveying oneself to them is illusion. But for all things to advance and confirm the self is enlightened. Do you understand? Oh, okay. I can even do it once. Anyway, that's waiting. To practice and confirm all things. by conveying the self to them is illusion. But for all things to advance and confirm the self is enlightenment. So Suzuki Roshi, you know the Blue Cliff Records translation we have,

[15:35]

The translation is almost completely wrong. And Luke Gershwin annotated it all over the place. And he crossed out one of the lines. He said, the free voice reaches to the smallest things. And if we want to know the smallest things, To know our own karma, we have to be willing to wait. And your zazen practice, the sashi, is a kind of waiting. Each period, no idea of Jesus is only, or every day is Sunday, and there's so many more days. That's not waiting. Waiting for the end. Just you're here, and there's this period. You're going to be alive anyway, whether you're sitting here or outside. So today, you're alive here, more or less alive. Less might be better than more. And you have some attitude of waiting without expectation.

[17:01]

It's a way to give space in our life. Whatever comes, then all. Now, Indiana Buddhism says, get rid of anger and lust, greed, et cetera. But Mahayana Buddhism, anger and lust, greed, et cetera, are our teachers. But it means there should be the space of waiting around them. We should see things from various viewpoints, not just be caught by one viewpoint. But Sleeper, she illustrated that by saying, When I come into a lecture, I may be afraid of you, or I may be this, named many different things, it might be, to show the various viewpoints he has when he comes in just to give a lecture.

[18:28]

As long as you exist just in the world of being, then anger and death and desire, et cetera, push you around. You're a victim of our life. But when you know the world of non-being and being, then everything is just as it is. The smallest things are clear. Because you don't have some viewpoint which obscures it. Sometimes we have a ceremony here for Dogen, in which we offer vegetarian food to him. Does he come to eat the food?

[20:25]

Now, this is a famous dialogue, actually, between Tozan, the founder of the Soto school, and Nansen. Nansen said to his people he was talking to, tomorrow we will offer vegetarian food for Baso Masu. Will he come? Tozan had come to visit for a stay at that monastery. I don't know how long he was there, one month or one week or what. He said, He will wait for a companion. That's a very interesting answer. Do you understand? I mean,

[22:01]

He was saying, Namsan was saying, is there a student here who can hear what I'm saying, who can hear even what Matsubasa was teaching? Matsubasa, by the way, was Yoshi's favorite Namsan. Tozan said, in effect, a teacher can't teach until there's someone there to hear it. So he will wait for a companion. Companion is someone who travels with you, knows how we use things together. So there's some kind of, maybe I, this isn't right, but maybe I can give you some hint. There's some kind of secret language or hearing that goes on between teacher and disciple. Like almost between lovers, you have, there's some, they don't say anything, but there's some way they do things which they know, they communicate to each other.

[23:39]

But for the teacher and disciple, it's always just this way. There's no looting to come. Loot. Anyway, when he said he will wait for a companion, then Johnson said, Now, here is somebody worthy to study Buddhism. Togzak Rinpoche, oh, venerable sir, don't describe me so worthless. You're just polite, but also you can't thank me. To be a companion, you know, a partner, I shouldn't be noticed.

[24:55]

Just as much as shouldn't be noticed in the group. I didn't say that. So we are suggesting that we wait for nothing. There's another famous dialogue about this.

[26:02]

And Choson went to visit Isan. Isan is another founder of one of the main schools in Japan. And again, it's all about the same time. Ogyan lived in 1298. Ogyan is said to date from 1885 to 1958. There's only way around it. 10th of the 9th century, beginning of the 10th century. This pattern, we're doing it, came together. Proposal, 15th century. Some other guy, I can't remember his name, In the famous dialogue in which so-and-so talks about inanimate objects responding to dharma, Dosan said, I don't understand the meaning of this. Would you explain it to me? He said, please repeat the dialogue.

[27:37]

It goes on in the dialogue. It goes something like this. The disciple says, how can we hear the inanimate objects found in the dharma? And the teacher says, you cannot hear it But do not hinder what hears it. And before I talked about existing in some way where you don't interfere with things, anyway, he said, you cannot hear it. But do not hinder what hears it. No, we're weak. And so the disciple said, do you hear? She said, I do not. But how do you know what you're talking about? And he said, hear.

[29:07]

If I heard it, I couldn't be sure. Because that's what fully participates in this work. And then God said, I expound the dharma, but it be not Satan. And so I have to do that. So I hope to present these in such a way What happens to living beings after they emerge? They are no longer living beings.

[30:25]

Well, what's the secret? Who says all this about mechanical objects? It's not the experiment. I'm just trying to catch it. Well, of course, we found out an important secret. We don't know what we're talking about. We don't know the outcome of some sessions. We take them. Some sessions don't exist. We don't know the secret. But you talk with me. You don't have to look at me. You sit with me. In that event, I'll speak to you. There it is. So yes, we have stories about poaching and kitchening. And we enjoy worrying about it. We talk about kitchening and kitchening. A long-lived river of poverty.

[32:11]

That's all. Great man. Love. Fish are young. Now stretch beyond the dragging case. They are... very fragile. Precipitate by hand.

[33:21]

You're open. Lift it. [...] Lift It's so difficult. You have to be a dragon, you know. You can't be a dragon king. You have to be a dragon king. It's true, it's true, Charles. It's fine. That's what it is. You have to be a dragon king. No, no longer. You have to be a dragon king. You're it. You have to be a dragon king.

[34:22]

out. I have something to teach you about history. For the students here, it's so rare.

[35:59]

You understand? That's so sad. If you go to anybody else's house, that's against the start of it. That's what you go up to.

[37:16]

I'm going to play it to you, so you can grasp and understand what it means to be human. It's very simple. It's important. It's very simple. It's not that hard. [...] It's Correct. Just like that? It's very important.

[41:50]

out.

[42:27]

@Transcribed_v004L
@Text_v005
@Score_11.36