I remember the two questions I asked at the first Mondo question and answer ceremonies with Suzuki Roshi at Tassajara, during the first practice period at Tassajara. And the first one I asked was something like, in Buddhism we always talk about accepting things just as they are is okay.

[01:05]

For example, there's the famous poem about how the shadow of the bamboo doesn't disturb the dust on the stairs. or the poem, Sitting Quietly, Doing Nothing. Spring comes, grass grows by itself. But I said, I think sometimes accepting everything is not to help others. Maybe this attitude, I said, helps us and helps, you know, me or you, and helps those people we practice with. I don't know if it helps others who don't practice. Maybe we have to go beyond accepting everything I say. Maybe we have to disturb the dust on the stairs. Anyway, that was always, for many years, a very big problem for me.

[02:28]

how this problem of accepting everything, how to help others. And the other question I asked, I said, for the big mind the bridge flows. As everything has such independence How do we find our own responsibility? Tsukiroshi said, right under your own feet. I want to say something about how Lew Welch presented to himself the same kind of question.

[03:46]

Many of you must know who Lew Welch was. The other day in the Sierra we had a ridgepole raising ceremony for the temple Shoboan, which is going up there. And afterwards, Philip Whelan proposed a toast to Lu, who was going to build a house there too, and left a note saying that he was going to kill himself, and left from there with his revolver or rifle. I've been told both. No one has seen him since. But when I first came to California, I knew about one person out here.

[04:48]

His name was Don Allen. And Don suggested we go to the beach maybe the first, the second weekend I was in California. And we went with Lou Welch, who had a car. So, Lou Welch drove Don and myself to the beach. And we came to Muir Beach, so that's the first place I saw the Pacific Ocean. And we walked up to the headlands up here, you could see San Francisco. And Lew had written a poem called Wobbly Rock, which he sat on the rock up here. And we talked a little about Zen. I'd only read about Zen and I didn't know anything about the practice side of Buddhism at all. And actually my introduction to it was there because Lew

[05:52]

was talking about marrying those two rocks out on the beach, one's out in the water, or both are sort of out in the water, one close to the beach, my father. He said he always wanted to marry them in Japanese style, which is to tie two ropes. So, you know, I have some weakness for asking questions, so I said, Do you have to do it by throwing the rock or throwing the rope, or can you swim with the rope over, you know? He said, if I had my spade here, my stick, I'd beat you. Oh, I thought that was really interesting that someone could say that to me. I liked that very much. So I wondered what this Zen stuff was all about, if it included not just Daisetsuzuki talking about enlightenment, but also this stick which I could get hit with.

[07:02]

introduced me to Zen practice and to Muir Beach and this valley and the headlands. 1960, I guess, or 61. Anyway, he's written this poem. I'd like to read part of it to you. The interconnections here, I always notice interconnections, and I shouldn't point all of them out, I will only point some of them out, but Don Allen, who edited this book, was the person who went to the beach with us, and Don Allen was also the editor of this book. He was one of the first six trustees who founded Zen Center, and he also, this press, Four Seasons Press,

[08:28]

was started by Don and myself and Gary mostly Don and myself and then later Gary Snyder and other people and he now calls these larger books Gray Fox Press and that's named for we walked across Golden Gate Bridge one day and we found a gray fox at the end of the bridge so he named this Gray Fox Press And all these associations are completely un... I don't know why they all happen. And, of course, later to perhaps be his neighbor is completely unexpected at that time. And this poem is written for Charles Olson, who also is maybe, we could say, part of our lineage. Charles Olson and, as I said to somebody yesterday, Alfred North Whitehead and Ezra Pound and various people actually have done a great deal of work which has made this particular way of practicing Buddhism at this time in America possible.

[09:53]

Charles Olson in fact wrote me a letter a few years ago saying that we had Tassajara Zen Center had inherited what Black Mountain College in North Carolina was trying to do and solve their main problem. And someone else told me yesterday that they thought Zen Center had inherited what Chapel Hill, the Theosophical Society's place, was trying to do. Of course, many places inherit what Chapel Hill or Black Mountain College is trying to do. Anyway, we also inherit it. Anyway, this poem is called Invention Against Invention, and I'll only read certain parts because it's quite long. How can we dismiss the needs of others, having invented them? They are internal to me if I recognize them.

[10:56]

To become enamored of our powers is to lose them at once. They grow whether I look at them or not. They grow whether I look at them or not. Market Street. A city crowd at noon on a weekday, weather sunny, light breeze blowing skirts nicely. Though hungry, I decide to walk thirty blocks home. I decide to let it all come in. I decide to let it all come in, the shapes. Dear, if ever found in these numbers, excuse me for adding things but I think unless you read it a couple times you can't quite follow it, he means as numbers like the people on the street at Market Street. Dear, if ever found in these numbers, could never and remain dear, assume this range of shape or gesture. Every gate Every shoulder set, invented.

[12:01]

Their very shapes invented. Selection long gone, depending now on hairdo, money, address. Then he has some other vision. Intruding vision, large doe in Idaho, canyon, leaping from underbrush. Her twin fawns bounding before her, shape and stride beyond invention. Then his girlfriend at that time was Lenore Kandel who wrote Love Odes and some other books and he saw Lenore on one of those cable cars that are wheels promoting something or they'd hired her to do something because at that time she was a dancer and he saw her so he jumped on the cable car. So I jump onto the cable car truck considering it safer and talked to Lenore in din of ra-ta-ta, ta-ta-ra-ra, tummy-tummy-ta.

[13:04]

At this point, I found myself beginning to sob. I ought to know better than to let it all in. And when the truck at two miles per hour turned, I spun off it like off the whirly disc in the funhouse, out, trying not to weep, trying not to show them, out onto the quiet part of Macalester Street where nothing happens. trying to get my wits and nerves back into shape again, a shape, a shape, any kind of shape beyond invention, any kind of shape beyond invention. And there, far back in a steep doorway, in the empty sunlit street, I saw a figure, thirty-four year old, my age, negro, vigorous male body, strong, He was sitting tight, hiding in that tiny doorway. At his feet was a shoeshine box, his hand tense over his eyes, hiding.

[14:09]

He was crying. He was crying. He was crying. I have come to that place in my life where I cannot stand this sort of thing anymore. I see no reason to. I shall never take another poet walk where you let it all come in. on Market Street or any similar street in any city. I have seen it. I can do nothing about it. It, though internal to me since I recognize it, requires no act. To live, I remove myself from it, although it goes on whether I look at it or not. I seek a better shape, a shape determined by things beyond invention. As a few days after the events recounted, I made a wish over 34 candles on the cake of my birth, but silently so as not to disturb the merriment, the love being shown me by my friends. I, Leo, oak leaf on my back, striving to uninvent myself, wish tonight on my 34 candles for a world where never through man's invention can a man be made to cry like that.

[15:19]

From gardens below invention, from groves I cannot wish away, I blow these candles out. I think we all want some kind of shape beyond invention.

[16:32]

Maybe there's invention and form and emptiness and form and invention and emptiness. And when you see that, as Louis tried to and couldn't stand seeing it, the more you see it, you have to come to some terms with it, and the more you get free of your own problems, the more you see the inventions, you know, of others. The echo, Suzuki Roshi used to say, everything is the echo of our own mind and activity.

[17:37]

How to see through that echo or that invention so that you can, so others can see through the invention, their own invention. He also said something interesting. The riddle of hands. In every culture, in every place and time, there's always been a religion. And in every one of these religions there has always been the gesture of hands clasped together as Christians do to pray in order to signify something important. Why is this? There's only one right answer to this riddle. I don't know about that. Then he says he has a commentary by the red monk down here. Then he has the riddle of bowing.

[18:41]

In every culture, in every place and time, There has always been a religion, and in every one of these religions there has always been the gesture of bowing so fully that the forehead strikes the ground. Why is this?" Commentary by the Red Monk. Sooner or later the gesture is necessary no matter which way you go. Suzuki, Roshi bows with so much confidence we all feel bold. Over here he says, about the riddle of hands, he says, the gesture has but one source. Who would think to pick his nose or cross his eyes at such a moment? So I suppose that for us Zazen is a way to find what's uninvented, maybe putting our hands together is.

[19:56]

How to purify ourselves of our inventions. You can't help anyone, you know, until you help yourself. And yet you can't help yourself until you take on the burden of helping everyone. There's no way out of it, you know, except that. And if you see some way to help someone, help yourself in that way. And if you want to help someone, help them the way you help yourself. Again, as I've been talking, the first booming is the stage of joy, but it's the stage of joy because it's the stage following the true realization of the thought of enlightenment, the desire to achieve Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings.

[21:11]

And it's taking on the responsibility, this responsibility, that allows you to feel joy. Until you take that responsibility on, There is no real joy possible. I think, actually, for most of us, we need some sense of connection with others or community in order to begin to be able to pierce through the inventions

[22:18]

So the second bhumi is also that in which you find spiritual friends. So the task, you know, when you see it clearly, all of Buddhism, to help all of Buddhism is to help others or to help to practice Buddhism fully. To help in the size of the problem you know requires some big effort. that big effort at the biggest size, you know, we call Buddhism.

[23:28]

You can't be comfortable, really comfortable, till you take on that responsibility, unfortunately. You can find, you can get yourself into some groove, but that's just what it is. And we can't sacrifice interior victories or success, or exterior victories or success. You have to have some harmony. If you have only some interior solution which excludes others, you will become disoriented. And if you have only exterior success, you'll despair. how to have some interior resolution that allows you to work and live and practice with others means you have to pierce all of our inventions and echoes

[24:42]

There's no shortcut. We say form is form, you know, to just be with others as they are. If they're suffering, we suffer. We should suffer with everyone. You shouldn't be free from suffering. I'm in the realm of emptiness, you're in the realm of form. Come on over. That kind of attitude. won't help. Emptiness is for some big encouragement for a person when they're ready, when they know what a silent lecture is, when they know examined fully their big question.

[25:58]

When they hear the answer every moment, then they are ready for some big encouragement. But mostly we just practice with others just as they are. If we just try to sweep the stairs, our mind is always concerned with the dust on the stairs, you won't see how the bamboo also helps. It doesn't mean that you should just never sweep the stairs. Sometimes the dust is okay, just leave the dust. Or sweeping it is okay. But zazen means to understand what the bamboo is doing.

[27:00]

Mountain, you know, is mountain and river is river. Mountain, we say, if you practice Zazen, you feel the whole world is practicing Zazen. Mountain is practicing Zazen, river is practicing Zazen. But the mountain isn't practicing for the river and the river for the mountain. Each is independent. And your foot isn't practicing for your shoulder. If every part of you practices independently like that, you'll know your own mountains and rivers. So we practice Sazen to understand what the bamboo is doing or to be able to accept what the bamboo is doing. Maybe bamboo, without a bamboo you can't have a broom and without bamboo you can't have idea of cleaning the steps.

[28:10]

But before it brooms, we should know ourselves. At that level, you can help people, but it doesn't mean to do something special. If your soup is not so good, you don't massage the cabbage, or take the carrot out and plant it over again. You add something, an onion. So Buddhism is like adding an onion to the stew. You can't help maybe that person in the doorway directly. You can go over and ask him to have supper with you, I suppose, or something. But be careful, you'll have a very large community very quickly if you do that. You have to take care of everyone and find some supper for many people. Where to draw the line? So real helping isn't in the realm of dualism, you know.

[29:32]

So you can't tell how you're helping. You can't say, I'm helping, I'll do it this way. And the person being helped, you or whoever, doesn't know he's being helped. Because that kind of dualistic help is sweeping the stairs. But the bamboo, which quite independently just flows, is helping everyone. The deer, you know, jumping out of the brush is helping everyone, and you doing zazen are helping everyone, though you don't know it, actually you are. And your doing zazen shouldn't be in the realm even of four you or four others, as the bamboo doesn't have any realm of four me or four others. Anyway, you need some big effort that cuts through invention.

[30:45]

to help others and there's no choice I think. It's not a matter should I help others or should I not help others. Actually we have no choice about it. So how to find that activity which assures the welfare of all beings? And this idea isn't confined by today or tomorrow. That question, the resolution of that question should be what you do in your life. If you can resolve that question, you can resolve everything in your life.

[31:57]

And for a person who's own knots are untied, other knots miraculously become untied. Between our mind, the activities of our mind, to know how to participate without effort with the bamboo, That way people feel help coming from all sides, not just from your intention, but from everywhere. Because you activate it, your practice actually activates it. we say to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

[33:15]

Maybe a better translation would be to be one with Buddha, one with Dharma, one with Sangha. Making the uninvented available, expressing our gratitude for Buddha and our teachers and this practice, which is one of the great ways, great expressions of how to help others. Do you have some questions?

[34:38]

That's okay, isn't it? But what is the source of the echo? It's possible, there have been a number of reports of people seeing him, but everyone who knows him well is almost sure they're mistaken. I hope so, no?

[36:26]

I wonder if you really understand how unavoidable this question is. Oh, it's pretty. That's what I mean. Yes. You have no choice, I'm afraid, and if you can't answer this question in some way, you die.

[38:02]

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