Today seems to be a nice, warm, rainy day. Stay inside. I'm always surprised that we can renew ourselves to sit sashins. Some of you have sat quite a few. and yet each one of you seems to be sitting, I don't know, I don't like to say well or something. But even if you have

[01:04]

sat in this session pretty well, we've accomplished nothing. Maybe there's some feeling that comes out of a session or some small change in our practice that's good. useful. But the sasheen, to be renewed for the sasheen has no value, unless you can be renewed for everything, all the time. Now, the purpose of a sasheen, maybe, is to give you some experience of your, what we call, maybe, monkey mind.

[02:18]

You should actually know what your mind is. Maybe quit pretending it's ever going to be any different. And you should know what Buddha's mind is. And you can't practice a sesshi and say, well, I made some progress now, you know, and next sesshi I'll make some progress, and next period of zazen I'll make some progress. That's okay, you know, it can keep you going. But at some point you have to actually recognize what the nature of your mind is, and make some plan or decision or vow about what to do about it. The sixth day of the Seshin is almost over.

[03:37]

Seshin sort of goes like this, you know. It gets to about the sixth day and goes like that. Your mind is… our minds are… even if Buddha's last words are, you know, don't be idle, or something to that effect, it means your mind is always wanting to be idle. So you have to find some way to practice with your nature. You have to have the ability to make sure, you know, this is what my life situation is.

[05:01]

And when you really make that kind of, have that kind of recognition, then it's possible to do something about it. But just to be present, you know, takes an enormous amount of energy. I mean, we just go away from it all the time. We're always looking for some kind of easy chair. So maybe at first it's Just to resist that tendency takes an enormous amount of energy. Eventually, when you finally can stay present, you find out your energy is the energy of everything.

[06:08]

And there's no effort anymore. At least it's not the same. You share your energy with everything. There's no falling away from it. But still, if you think some experience like that is, after that things are easy, that's another form of idleness. The easy chair of enlightenment. Which lots of you have in your head. Over the hill there. It's nice. And it's not. You've gone hiking and you get to the next hill There's a next hill, and a next hill, and there's never any place. We have to keep traveling, you know, it's the nature of our life, like the nature of the stream is to keep running. And the nature of your life is to find some way to not get caught in the easy chair of idleness.

[07:11]

To go back to Hogan, the founder of the Hogen School. Another story about him, there was a monk living in his temple named Gensa, and Gensa had been there about three years and had never come to Hogen and presented any kind of verse, you know, or statement about his understanding. Some of you, by the way, give me verses now and then, and they're usually wonderful. I like them very much. Anyway, Gensa never did anything like that. So one day Hogen said to him,

[08:20]

Have you never come to me and presented your understanding of Zen? Maybe so we can share some experience directly that way. And Gensa said, well, I don't have to ask any question because when I stayed at Seppo's temple, I was enlightened by Seppo. And so Hogen said, what chance, what chance occurred that allowed this to happen? And Gensa said, well, I asked Seppo, what is the nature of the student's mind that tries to study Buddhism? What's the nature of a disciple's mind that tries to study Buddhism?

[09:27]

And Seppo said, a man born in the, it is exactly the same as a man born in the year of fire seeks fire. So Hogan said, ah, that's a very good statement. But maybe you didn't understand it so well." So Gensa got quite angry and he decided to leave the temple. So he packed, you know, and started out. And then he began to think about it and he said, well, you know, Hogen's quite a famous Zen master and he seems to be pretty good. Maybe I should give him one more chance." So he went back to the temple and he said to Hogen, what is the nature of a disciple's mind which tries to study Buddhism?

[10:48]

And Hogen said, It is exactly the same as a man who seeks, born in the year of the fire, seeks for fire. Of course, he answered the same. And that's the end of every Zen story. Anyway, from then on, Gensa didn't have, didn't, it didn't make any difference, you know. Gensa didn't have to ask his teacher or ask Hogen any questions. But he always had communication with Hogen, you know, even if he didn't ask. and with everyone else.

[11:53]

So from one side, you know, you can say Gensa had some... Well, first of all, you know, the fire which seeks for fire is Chinese astrology. It's the year of the fire and a man born in the year of the fire. But from one side you can say Gensa, because he had some idea of being enlightened, he looked different from the other people living at the monastery. So the idea of being enlightened was wrong. But that's true, of course. Yesterday we

[13:20]

Other times we've talked about emotions, how to work with our emotions. It's pretty difficult practice, you know, and requires some maturity. And we have to work with our emotions, of course, but to actually you know, Gensa's kind of thing. I am what I am. The particular thing I am, you know, a man born in the year of fire seeks fire. The particular thing I am is Buddha. So we can have this kind of practice and Whatever we are, we try to use it. Skillful means how to use things. How to make use of everything that happens, each moment.

[14:29]

Knowing this moment is eternal life. So we can try to work with our emotions in this way, but as I say, it requires some stability, ability to stay with something, and some maturity, and some sense of what each individual is, what each individual person is, and some sense of what society is. Otherwise, you get caught. And I think most of you are not so old, and you haven't had so much experience. It may be better for you to just do zazen.

[15:33]

And just doing zazen is what Suzuki Roshi emphasized more and more each year. Because after you've done zazen quite a long time, you can work with your problems in a much more clear way than if you try to work directly with your emotions. Both are possible, but one is somewhat easier. So we sit in a sashin to get some idea of calmness. you know, so that we can see our activity. For example, if you, you know, always have a headache, you can't tell when a headache arises. So you can't see what it is to not have a headache or how a headache comes about.

[16:40]

But if you know what it is not to have a headache, And if you're alert enough, at the very instant a headache begins, you can notice, ah, now a headache is beginning. And you can usually, if you know that, you don't have headaches usually anymore. Because you can see, oh, that happened. And you can feel the little thing go and the little tension start. And you can stop. The same with pains in your shoulder or anywhere, you know. You can see. Likewise, you can see a cold start, you know, two or three days before a cold comes. It doesn't mean you'll always be free of colds, you know, but you can work with what happens. It's quite different than just having a cold. So if you do zazen long enough, you can begin to see very clearly that little guy, what he does.

[18:00]

But until that point, when you have hundreds of little guys, big guys, all running around, it's very difficult to sort them out. And the process of trying to sort them out is, I think, possible, but pretty difficult. So anyway, one practice is to work. Whatever we have, we find out what it is by doing it, by living it out. Again, this is most possible after you've had some experience of your mind, you know, as the Sixth Patriarch, you know, that, when he said to the Fifth Patriarch, when he was just, first met the Fifth Patriarch, my mind is a field of blessedness, and wisdom spontaneously arises from it.

[19:13]

If you have this kind of experience, then you can ask, what to do? As the Sixth Patriarch said, what should I do? And the Fifth Patriarch said, go chop wood. So at this point, you can begin to work with your emotions. You can go out and live in any way you want. But usually, you find that actually living that way, it's harder to help people than if you return to the monastery. So there's two ways. One is if after you've had that kind of turnaround, You can then keep yourself from any entanglements. You can take Buddha's field. This robe, you know, represents Buddha's field. And even in Japan they say it's rice paddies, which is why it's in those shapes. But anyway, it represents Buddha's field.

[20:19]

So you can put Buddha's field around you, you know. the Sixth Patriarch said, my mind is a field of blessedness. And you can be a good example for people who are trying to get out of entanglements. So to have both experiences, sometimes there's a period of a few years in which you live, maybe as a steel worker or carpenter or whatever, before you're asked to be head of a temple or something. Because we have plenty of experience right from center to center, not like that, you don't have to go very far, more entangling experience. So Gensa, anyway, had this kind of idea.

[21:28]

A man born in the year of the fire seeks fire. But Hogen, you know, background, was the Avantamsaka Sutra, or the Huayen kind of philosophy. And they have three pairs of not opposites, sort of opposites. There are various ways in which they try to find antidotes or how to counteract our tendency toward idleness and restlessness. There's the ten mysteries in this. a whole bunch of things, you know. And one of them, which Suzuki Roshi talked about a lot, was these three pairs of opposites.

[22:36]

And one is wholeness and particularity, the individual existence and one big whole existence. And another is one and many, the individual and diversity, one and many and one and wholeness. And the third is integration and disintegration. So when Gensa said, a man born in the year of fire seeks fire, he was caught by oneness and diversity. So Hogan's answer points out oneness and wholeness by repeating the same thing, oneness and similarity.

[23:53]

And if you... So the purpose of this kind of thing, you know, we're always saying one and yet two, is that always your mind has this tendency to seek idleness or to be restless. And until it's natural for you, you have to bring up If you are caught by one, you remind yourself of two. If you're caught by two, you remind yourself of one. If you're caught by the idea that one represents all, everything, one is the microcosm of the macrocosm or something, then you have to remind yourself that one is diversity and that Everything is in the process of integration and disintegration. Because our mind tends to oversimplify things, we have to counteract it by reminding ourselves of this kind of many obscene things from various viewpoints.

[25:26]

It's like when we bow. When you bow to Buddha, your bow should be absolute. Just you and Buddha, or you and your teacher. Sukhi Roshi had many disciples, but each relationship with each disciple was absolute. One teacher and one disciple, that's all. But still, when we bow, we bow with everyone, too, and to everyone. And when you bow to this Buddha, maybe for 2,000 years, many, many people have been bowing to this Buddha, and you're bowing with all of them. So you have one, it's absolute, just you and Buddha bowing.

[26:58]

You can't even ask yourself, is Buddha bowing? Or when we bow to somebody, sometimes we have the idea, I'm bowing, is he going to bow? And what kind of bow? That's not our bow. That kind of bowing causes trouble for people. If he's not going to bow, I'm not going to bow. The bow is in your own space, to everything, not to somebody. So we don't, when we bow to Buddha, we don't, aren't concerned with whether Buddha's bowing to us or something. Like talking about being a mother yesterday.

[28:02]

A mother, maybe a child, doesn't even have any idea of mother because all it knows, it doesn't have any other mothers to compare it to. Just this thing, it's there. And the mother, you know, by being the big it in the baby's life, gets pretty snowed by that. She thinks baby is one with me. But if you only have that idea, then baby should open its mouth and you should see the whole world. Because baby is much more than just one with you. It's going to live in a world pretty quickly that you don't have any part of. So you will misunderstand your child if you only think of it as you know, one. But it's still one. So we have one and two. And always we have this kind of… You have to be able to have this kind of experience, you know, remind yourself of this kind of experience, freely, without being stuck to one viewpoint or another viewpoint, and with the energy to stay present

[29:20]

Um, any questions? Yeah? Could you speak something about idleness in your sleep? Idleness in your sleep? Yes. What do you mean? Um, it's just very hard for me to, um... Now, another way to say it is the idea Yeah, and sometimes when you get into the zendo, in a sashin, you want to stay here forever. I don't know about you, but some people do. Both are a form of idleness. And getting up in the morning is pretty... As long as one state of being clings to you, you know, and sleep is one of the most pleasant of all, it really clings, you know.

[31:40]

The Sandman, you know, business is a very good image actually, because if you wake up and you feel like they've dumped a bunch of sand on you, you don't really want to get out of it. But when you can be more... I said to someone yesterday, you know, about we make a schedule, you know, so you're sleepy. We expect you to be sleepy. Because working with Sleepiness, you know, is essential in this practice. I remember Suzuki Roshi gave a lecture once and he said, probably after all is talked about, you know, sleepiness is the big devil in Buddhism. Sleepiness which, you know, catches you. So you, but when you get so that you're pretty conscious while you're asleep, and that the processes which are going on while you're asleep, that you're attached to, don't stop when you're awake, then it's not very difficult to get up.

[33:15]

There's some flow right through sleep and wake, waking, It's not being asleep, it's being unconscious. But how to break through that kind of unconscious sleep barrier takes a little time, takes some experience sitting. You want to say something else? I have a lot of lecture notes from Suzuki Roshi's lectures.

[34:33]

And I also have many tapes. And there's no question about it. The lecture notes are far better than the tapes. It's interesting. You know, I can listen to Roshi's tapes and I get caught, you know. Oh, it's nice to hear his voice, and he talks, and you hear it, you know? You hear it like you were there for the first time again, or something. Anyway. And the reality of his, it's just a voice, the reality of his presence is gone. But when I read my lecture notes, it's very interesting. I know exactly what he was doing, what he looked like, what the feelings were, and what my experience of what he was saying was.

[35:38]

Even, what made me think of this is tape recorder and you, is even I come to lectures and I, they go on and it gets really fantastic when I'm writing down. My handwriting, one word, it goes so fast. One word goes across the whole page. And I don't think anyone could read it but me. And suddenly it stops. And it says, a little later in a clearer hand, became too sleepy and couldn't hold a pen. But even when that happens, which if I had a tape I could hear the rest, you know, I actually know more from that falling asleep than I know if I could hear it with tape. I used to be well known at Zen Center because I slept through every lecture and took notes simultaneously.

[36:46]

I don't know how I did it. But I would read and rock and And everybody dropped it by then. And Roshi would always have me read Blue Clip Records. I don't know, I really don't know what I was doing. I worked a lot. I worked at the university about 60 hours a week. And I came to Zen Center every hour it was open, practically, too. And I was pretty tired all the time. But he always had me read from the book. So I'd be sort of trying to take notes and walking, you know, and he would just hand me the, he would reach out and just put the book out with no warning, you know. And I don't know, I just would go, uh, Hogan said I got no. I don't know, everybody would And then I'd finish reading what he wanted and I'd give him time to write.

[37:55]

Partly I was tired and partly I was just stoned by what Suzuki Oshii was saying. So when I really would completely be unable to write it was usually because he'd given me a great big soft tranquilizer fist of some kind. and it would hit me with a bop because I, what he was saying, you know, would so penetrate that I couldn't, you know, my conscious mind wouldn't function anymore, I'd just go sort of, go sort of blotto. So when I come to those portions, you know, in the notes, I could, oh wow, I can see exactly what happened to me, you know. Anyway, the only way to practice with something like that is when it's time to get up without thinking.

[39:08]

Yeah. Why do you ask? So you're asking, how do you work with dreams? That's supposedly an auspicious sign. Supposedly an auspicious sign of dark dreamings and lectures. Well, I think to have, in a Sashin, it's quite common to have completely... You know, don't... By the way, many of you have various kinds of experiences in Sashins which you've never had before and they scare you.

[40:25]

Mostly, don't worry about it. It's interesting to have some experience you've never had before. And get familiar with having experiences you've never had before. Because it's going to happen all the time, maybe. So if you hold back or are afraid of it, it's true, you might be going crazy. That's true. But it's probably not true. And even if you're going crazy, it's pretty good to know that territory too. If you are going crazy and you're scared of it, it's worse. So if you can move completely freely in the realms of craziness, you can help crazy people a lot. So take some courage, but just And if it's too much, put it aside a little bit.

[41:31]

Mostly just accept it as you, beyond your usual definition of you. And if you sleep very well and just completely unconsciously, that's better than ordinary disturbed sleep. The question of dreams and sleeping is a I think it's better left to dogsan. If I talk about it too much, then you expect such and such. But generally, with some pattern of disturbed sleep and disturbed dreams, and then good sleep, and then a kind of clear sleep in which your dreams, you can you can enter into your dreams. And your dreams are realer and have more power than your actual life even.

[42:37]

And you can work with your dreams. And sometimes your Buddhist experience is in your dreams. And then there's a stage in which there are no dreams. And there's various ways in which your practice moment after moment is a dream. We say everything's a dream and we don't just mean ephemeral. We mean that actually that ability of you to dream dreams everything. Am I getting too complicated? Something like that. So I don't think you have to, the best thing is not to try some psychological interpretation, Jungian or Freudian or something like that.

[43:39]

But just watch and stay with the process. Now I'm dreaming and maybe next year I won't be dreaming or whatever. And if your dreams make some impact on you, that's okay. But usually, nearly all the time, this is what's going on. I'm waiting for the time.

[44:43]

And when I'm waiting for the time, I can do something. But in my dreams, you know, I'm free when I want to be. And usually, I'm not. And then you come to catch me at the end. And I don't want to be like that. And it's like, sometimes after a session, response to the attack since it started. Okay.

[45:58]

He says, um, that he's more caught by dreams than by everyday experiences, because, you know, waking experiences, because he can do something about his waking experiences and can't do anything when he gets caught by dreams, more or less, that's what you said, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, he's either caught by them or not caught by them, but when he's caught by them, he can't have the feeling of doing something about them. And second is, the end of the sasheen is marked by some definite feeling of the end of the sasheen, which is usually true. at least in the first years of doing sasheens, yeah. In the dream.

[46:59]

Some dream marks the end. Well, it shows that... Well, that's natural enough, you know, it's the same you. that goes to the sasheen, I think the best thing is to give up the idea of wanting to do something about your dreams, or the end of sasheen, or anything. Yeah? I wish right here we were saying something about one of the things we do in Sashim is, at least we have Sashim, is to see the world in a different light.

[48:10]

And finally, I want to say that it's worth it. I don't really have to repeat what she said, because she said what I said at the beginning of the lecture. But... So I'll just say again, in another way, the same kind of thing, is you can practice Buddhism.

[49:16]

or your life, whatever, as long as you have the feeling that there's some other life than the one you actually have, or that you're going to have out there, some reality, you're saving up for reality. And actually, most of us have that kind of idea. And you can't, you don't have any life, actually, when you have that feeling. At some point you have to say, you know, this is what my life is, this is what my mind is like, and I want to do something about it. But the doing something about it is not so simple as something to do, because it also means to not do anything about it. But what you can do is make some kind of... The vow in this case represents giving up the idea that there's some other reality.

[50:29]

If you can really give up the idea that there's some other reality than this, then you can sit in this reality, in this situation, with some willingness to see what it is. Until then, you can't see anything around you. So then what can you do? If you see the nature of monkey mind, then you can find some antidote for it. And you can make a vow to apply the antidote forever. That's all. Yeah. And we were all standing on the side of the room. And we were sitting on the side of the room. And we were all standing on the side of the room.

[51:30]

And we were sitting on the side of the room. [...] And we And one person said, I can't, there was a scene of us. Somebody said, um, I forgot my watch. They left the restroom. Like we were all waiting. Oh, I forgot my watch. And someone said, oh wait, can you brush my hair? Anyway, everybody should talk like that. And we got out of the bathroom and I saw myself on top of the bed. At first I would think it was something I didn't see, but that's... The body is supposed to be in motion, but it's not moving.

[52:46]

So you stay in your chamber. You don't worry about the body. You stay there. Anyway, that connects us with another thing. You know, ostriches actually seem to have a two-dimensional view of the world. You know, we have a three-dimensional, they seem to have a two, and it's possible maybe to have a four, six, or eight, or ten. But anyway, They have a two-dimensional, so they seem to actually think they're hiding when their head's under the ground. They hide that way. They put their head under the sand, and they think no one can see them. But you're smart enough to lean over the bus and look down into the window, you know?

[53:50]

I'm always struck by the, since your knees hurt from Zazen and some Zen people practice Mu, you know, Muni, the Muni bus line. Excuse me, but anyway, that's how my mind works. Anyway, tomorrow we have Shosan ceremony. And maybe Chino Sensei was right because I called him up and I asked him, what's the purpose of Shosan ceremony, historic.

[54:56]

He said, it's to enjoy yourself. Tomorrow morning? Shosan literally means public interview. It's a kind of mondo or public doksan or something. And I've only seen Suzuki Roshi do them. I've never seen the other teachers we've had do them. But you actually don't, in my experience of the ones I've seen Suzuki Roshi do, you don't need much suggestion about what kind of questions to ask. Because whatever suggestions are made, you still ask the same questions. It's okay. Generally there's some theme chosen.

[56:00]

But I think we have a theme that's been occurring already in this session. And it means to present your understanding of dharma or your situation. So I don't know how it works exactly, but I'll sit somewhere here, and one at a time, whoever wants to, you know, you don't have to ask. Whoever wants to can come, ask a question, or make a statement, and I'll try to make some response. And anyway, it'll be tomorrow morning. You can ask me anything you want. It's all right.

[57:03]

I have no idea about what I'll say, how to answer you, but we'll try tomorrow to have some question and answer between us. Excuse me, we're always talking the same way.

[57:47]

@Transcribed_v004
@Text_v005
@Score_58.14