I've been wondering what to talk about with you today. All week we've been in Sashi, in the city, and we've been having an interesting time talking about buffaloes. You can't hear? Okay. It's all right, I haven't said anything yet. Anyway, we've been talking about buffaloes and consciousness and the vow. And I don't like to say the same things again, but at the same time, those of you at Green Gulch here, I want to include in what

[01:29]

happens at Tassajara in San Francisco and of course what happens at Green Gulch because we're in three places. We're developing over some years now some way to talk about Buddhism in the West and some way to understand our own, as I've been saying, mental or cultural or psychological agreements with our culture or society and with ourself. I guess what I've been stressing is for you to recognize a consciousness or your state of mind as a possession. that you possess a state of mind. I think first we don't see our state of mind so much as we see our topics. And as you know, it's pretty hard for you to

[02:58]

blame your topics on your rancid state of mind. Your state of mind may be pretty bad, according to circumstances or times of the month, but it takes you quite a while before you recognize, oh, it's my state of mind that's the problem, not the topics. But identifying with the topics of your consciousness, you think things are not working out so well or such and such is not so good. And you don't take, are unable to take responsibility for your state of mind. I would say the single most important thing for you to learn is how not to sacrifice your state of mind, how to be sensitive to the quality or nature of your state of mind.

[04:34]

We don't take it upon us enough as a craft. Our karma and our state of mind, if you're practicing Buddha, your karma and your state of mind is the material of your craft. And in the Orient, The attitude toward craft is quite different than here. I don't know to what extent, by being influenced by Buddhism, but here we emphasize a talent or skill, some innate ability to be a painter or writer or some craftsman carpenter. But in the Orient, they emphasize your state of mind. And a great deal of the art escapes our art historians' categories because the artist goes through quite a thing to prepare his state or her state of mind before working.

[06:15]

And what they produce is to meet your state of mind. And so it may be quite unskillful, quite clumsy, and yet very powerful. So, for example, in calligraphy, which is fundamental to the Oriental arts in China and Japan, what counts is not how skillful you are with a brush, but how concentrated you can be without any distraction coming between you and the brush. So it means Being a great calligrapher is accessible to anybody whose state of mind is pure or concentrated. You don't have to have some innate talent, you know. In fact, it may interfere, because if you're talented, your brush may run ahead of your state of mind, ahead of your concentration.

[07:40]

Tsukuroshi said that painting was, someone asked him, what is painting? He said, an accumulation of sincere drops. I don't know if we've defined painting in that way in the West. And it means, too, there's some trust in this state of mind. And this is what I was talking about yesterday, you know. If you try to, you know, you should be aware of in practicing Buddhism, that almost everything will at least be its opposite. So if you take the label alone into your singular meditation, you may find that which you identify as alone is exactly how we are united.

[09:31]

you may find, you know, recognizing your state of mind outside the boundaries of topic, of some topic, you know. If we define our consciousness by topic, you are leapfrogging, always. Your consciousness is as minute and penetrating as your, as I said, as your biology. The example I gave, there's 60,000 miles of blood vessels in you, which would go around the world twice, but your consciousness is, you know, covers all the surfaces of those blood vessels and everything But we have no access to this powerful consciousness if you are confused by topic. If you define consciousness by topic and you define your activity by choice or the realm of choosing. This idea of invisible

[11:06]

work is so important and particularly difficult nowadays because with telephones and automobiles we can impinge upon each other so tremendously that we have no way to cope with the... Just here at Green Gulch, which is supposed to be a secluded monastery, we cannot cope with the simple flood of stuff, you know. I mean the number of topics is crowded, too crowded for us to cope with. And we can't do simple things that need to be taken care of. Our friendships, our state of mind. somehow we have to solve this problem. And the first step is to recognize your state of mind which is not confined by what you identify with. As you meditate you find out this is

[12:43]

this topic which keeps coming up, I think is me, this one over here I don't like, it's not me. So first you have to recognize whatever comes up, whatever exists is you. That's pretty obvious but difficult to do. But your activity will be much more subtle if you do so. And then, you know, in the end you can't identify even topic or who's in charge or what this consciousness is. It's not in the end you'll find your possession. Who possesses it? What are its boundaries?

[13:46]

So you have to begin to trust your consciousness, trust your state of mind. And so some creativity is there which is not... which comes from the concentration, not from talent or skill. Very interesting how as I pointed out, how concentration on one thing is the very way we open up to many things. You can begin to experiment with your state of mind in simple ways. When do you stop something? If you're at a party and you think, when shall I leave? When does that mean? Does that mean you should leave just that moment? Or should you figure it out from that time?

[15:40]

Do we believe the topic or do we trust our consciousness in some more subtle way? If you're eating cookies, do you wait till it tastes bad before you stop? Or can you stop with the cookie that still tastes good? This is a very simple problem for people, that they can't stop while things are still good. They have to push it till it's bad, and then they wonder, why is my life so bad all the time? This is being more sensitive to your state of mind. In very simple, practical things, how you do something. I told, I've been telling the story, you know, of the buffalo.

[16:41]

which Goso told. Head goes through the window, horns go through the window, and four legs go through the window, but the tiny tail does not go through the window. Why is that? This kind of story, this story, If you pursue this story, try to understand this story, you will find out the boundaries of your consciousness and the lack of boundaries of your consciousness. It's very contradictory for us to think of consciousness which is beyond being conscious of it in the usual sense. We give up the observer, so what... Can consciousness... Is it a light bulb? Is it something we visually... Where... What are the boundaries of consciousness? If you confine consciousness to a topic or control, it's very narrow.

[18:11]

So next step is to turn your activity over to consciousness. Your state of mind in your activity, of which you're not conscious, but it's consciousness actually. So our practice comes from someone who wants... I don't know, you know. It's on the one hand somebody who wonders why so many gaps and at the same time from someone who can tolerate the gaps. But you come to the point where you say, where you see clearly enough there's no choice but to

[19:19]

wed your state of mind with your activity, to wed your intent with your state of mind, and to trust your state of mind to produce art or your life. So the vow, as I said, becomes extremely important. The ability to vow to be one with the make-do world. The ability to decide, this is the life I'm leading and vow to lead it. To find out what one wants to do and say, okay, this is what I'll do. So there's a Zen phrase, you know,

[20:25]

to find our way through the dusty world we must know the main road. That's what I'm talking about. And to be able to give medicine to people you must know the root of sickness or suffering. to trust your consciousness, to trust your situation. Unfortunately there's a price tag, which is you have to be willing completely to be what you are, which means you have to be willing to be what any person has been and can be. which means you have to be willing to suffer as anyone has suffered. I suppose you can have the luxury of a little hesitation about whether you want to have cancer or not or want to die by the guillotine or some such possibility.

[21:55]

But in the end, you have to find out that compassion means to suffer with, not just, you know, be sympathetic with, but be willing to be it yourself, which will be the lot of many of you. So we don't divide ourself out and say, geez, I hope it befalls some other statistic, some other newspaper story, some other person. So the price of trusting your state of mind is to stop being defensive and protective of your particular idea of how you should live.

[23:03]

For most people, to say individual means they want to prove they can do it themselves, or they want to establish in some abstract realm, some museum or something, that they are taking care of themselves or they have accomplished such-and-such. Anyway, when you examine the word individual and what bolsters it, you find that it's very concerned with that definition being received from others. Seeing that, we reverse that and find out how

[24:33]

dependency and independency, how much strength it takes to be dependent and yet not be caught, to be yielding and not be caught. And your consciousness needs this kind of space. And it will become more and more minute and detailed, completely engrossing. You have to be careful. Then it touches everything. and you find your state of mind is not inside you, that the word subject and object have almost no meaning, that the realm of our pure activity means you trust your consciousness or trust your state of mind.

[26:04]

And you have found out how to take care of your state of mind. And we do it by the vow. Not by zazen. Zazen is just some helpful settling process. Like taking some liquid and putting it aside and letting the sediment come out. But if you shake the liquid, the sediment is all stirred up again. The only thing which allows a composure, allows emptiness to be in everything you do, is when it doesn't make any difference whether the sediment is stirred or not stirred. Zazen is just a technique to give us some sense of that. but your vow has cut through. And our consciousness, as I said, you know, vow is not something unfamiliar to us. As you know, if you look at your own consciousness, you have made vows over and over again. Your life is a tangled mess of vows. As I said yesterday,

[27:36]

Someone told you you were a big eater, so you still think you're a big eater, even though you have to make an effort to do it. Or someone said such and such to you, or you decided such and such, and these many ideas will come up, and we feel quite naked if we get rid of them. Any idea you have, your most fond, belief that you're sure is right in the world, political belief, natural, some idea of natural, some belief in what's right and wrong or intrinsic to human life. If you can locate such a thing in yourself, if you're practicing Zen, you should be able to abandon it. It's very difficult to do. Particularly, why? This very thing brought me to zazen. It's what started me practicing. I cannot get rid of it. Or a human, I could not live if I thought such and such. So our vow is not unfamiliar to us. Not some religious Buddhist trip we're putting on you. It's actually the nature of how your mind works.

[29:04]

Your consciousness on any particular moment has no definition. It's the repetition. Sometimes I think... I know that... Suzuki Roshi used to say things to me, or I would read some sutra, and I would fall asleep on some particular phrase. And I would just think I was tired, but I would wake up and start the page over again, I'd get to that phrase and... And I could not cope with what the sutra was telling me. I fell asleep. So when someone falls asleep in lecture, I like to think I said something. But if it starts before I talk... Anyway, as I said again, looking even at the etymology of the word mind in English,

[30:34]

It means that repetitive thing, memory, the accumulation of karma, the accumulation of perceptual modes. These are agreements or vows we've made, an averaging of our senses. That we begin to believe. So practice means you are going to examine all those vows that you've already made about life or agreements you've made with your society. And to be enlightened within your own agreements is not so difficult, but to be enlightened outside of human society is pretty difficult. But it means you have to be clear of all those agreements But you can't start with abstraction. You can't kill yourself. So you have to start with the intent you have which is most inclusive. And you can't say, I want to have this perfect one. You have to take what comes up. But if, with your state of mind, you wed yourself to this intent, which is fundamental to you,

[31:59]

it will become more and more wide. If it's not the right one, if it's only something you've made up or half true, if you wed your concentration to it, it will become more and more complete. So the vow means you break this, that you recognize the nature of your, the weaving of your, the fabric of your mind is a tangle of vows or agreements that you've made and are no longer, you know, they're outdated. They come back but they don't apply to you anymore. And you make that vow with yourself. And as you understand consciousness, you make that vow with others. And it can't be just with others, it has to be for others. Unfortunately, it's so. It means there's no escape for you. So as I said, the vow to save all beings means

[33:50]

also, that we need the permission of everyone and we need to give permission to everyone. What does this mean? But we are talking now about some experimental state of mind. Since you've found out now that you can't confine your state of mind by topic, it doesn't have any boundaries, you know, that you can identify with, that you can experiment with identifications outside or inside. So memory, so mind free of memory, pure on this moment, has no self, no identity, no stages of practice. And yet the next moment will not come up empty. So it comes up with your intent, it comes up with your trust.

[35:21]

with your intimate ability to try the ultimate trust, which is to trust someone else with your state of mind, which is what's happening anyway. So next, because of the repetitive nature, first you need the conviction or ability, as I said, to make a vow, to see, okay, this is it, this is the way it is, What am I waiting around for? Next year or someone to help me or Zazen to make me stronger? Zazen is not what you depend on. Buddhist practice, the patriarchal way of Zen, is you make a choice. Even a make-do choice, you make a choice. So you say, what am I waiting? I know what to do. You know, if you look, you say, I know what to do. But you don't do it. So first is the conviction to say, okay, I will stop compromising, stop sacrificing my state of mind, which has no boundaries. And second, you have the strength or will from your zazen practice to come back to this. And it takes

[36:54]

millions of coming back to it, literally millions of coming back to it, to begin to sway the weight of the billions and billions of moments that you have had these vows already. You're twenty years old, you're thirty or forty years old, you have an infinite number of moments of having vowed already. So the secret of practice is repetition. There's no such thing as zazen, that's a topic. There's only trying to do zazen. So you have this will. And at the same time you have doubt. Alone, together, individual, possession, no possession. You have this doubt which brings you back to zero all the time. These three elements are necessary for Zen practice.

[38:00]

conviction which is based on trust, no alternative but trust or faith even. Will or the recognition of the repetitive nature of our life, that it's not happening to us, we each moment create it. And so if there's no alternative, bewed your intent to each moment. And third, great doubt. Only by the power of these three things can your history of compromise and greed, hate and delusion and vows be overturned. To actually make a vow completely is satori, experience.

[39:17]

when there's no minute area where you're still reserving something. I will gain a lot by making this. So everything in this practice of taking responsibility for our state of mind, which we are, it means you are careful with everything, how you go to bed, how you speak, what you say to people, because you don't figure out what is the cost to me of saying this because so-and-so will be angry,

[40:58]

or they won't be angry or they won't notice. The cost is in your state of mind. And in your state of mind you can't get away with anything. So when you touch something realize you're touching your state of mind. And you should not have more possession or have more things to do then you can treat as your state of mind. I don't care what is so about what society needs or anything. This kind of limitation is necessary. It means we have to let some things go. or you have to decide what part of things can you do. And your effort is always one thing at a time and making space for everything. And you do each thing completely without comparing, this one is less important

[42:36]

I'll have to rush through these three to get to that one. When you do that, that's what I mean by sacrificing your state of mind. The next thing, your state of mind in the fourth thing, follows directly from each of those things. And it's your state of mind which you offer to people. And it's your state of mind which allows things to bloom. and your state of mind and composure is based on the conviction and depth of your vow. If your vow is not complete or you don't have the courage to make it, there is no real composure. It's very practical and pretty obvious, but very difficult to do.

[43:44]

because it means you have to confront all of your previous agreements or vows about what life is. So I think you must understand, have understood how vow is one with our breathing, is another name actually for our mind, wedded to our consciousness, and is the only way we can make this marriage,

[45:00]

The vow is the only safe thing to identify with. As long as you have to identify with something, give something priority, the vow is the only safe thing to do it with. And in Zen and in Buddhism, you should not be thinking about helping others or doing anything except taking care of your state of mind. And until your state of mind is stable, you shouldn't be trying to actively help people. And if your state of mind is stable, you don't have to try to actively help people. People will be there all the time. And we just live together.

[46:13]

And by this practice you will find out how the whole world or politics or society or civilization is nothing but this fluid, completely responsive state of mind. And if one person in a society can clearly cut through the agreements and by their activity makes clear that you don't have to live by the agreements that everyone else thinks are so, it changes the whole society, because it just never occurred to the society that this other agreement was possible. But these agreements are not expressed intellectually, they are expressed by the minuteness of your activity. And that's what's happening with Buddhism in this country.

[47:49]

and many of these new ways of thinking, they all are participating in the same occasion, that they are making clear that there are other agreements. So people are completely responding to this, many, many, many people. And as you begin to practice in this way, you find out how minute, you know, as I said yesterday and during Sashim, the minuteness of our biology does not end with the surface of our skin. The incredible minuteness continues, is our consciousness, is our society.

[49:06]

And the more you find you are doing close to your deep intent, the more you'll find what look like incredible coincidences happening. Many, many reaffirmations that are sociologically impossible or statistically impossible. But there are many kinds of blood vessels or consciousness pathways. I don't know, I don't want to get too mystical. But it's clear, we don't have to define it by topic. We don't have to call this consciousness some topic. The fact is that these agreements

[50:09]

that we make as children and as we make through our practice, are one with everybody else's agreements, very closely parted. And the more you can turn yourself over to this consciousness beyond topic and activity beyond the realm of choice, you find out this is the actual way our activity, mental and physical activity, exists and penetrates with everyone. The most effective way for us to exist. Breaking down these definitions You don't have any idea anymore of success or failure or accomplishment or self or etc. But the problem remains, what do you trust? Who takes care of you then? You have no choice once you've seen this question but to trust your state of mind and your vow.

[51:36]

and stop making sacrifices of your state of mind and your vow. This is the nature of human life. I think every religion has found this out As I said a couple of weeks ago, when we find out that in the realm of topics you can up the ante and stop society, a garbage collector or a person with a gun, you

[52:50]

see the value of these fundamental human needs, which we have ignored by making our consciousness and culture so superficial. Yeah.

[53:31]

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