I can talk with you because I feel we are part of each other. Although I'm still in Sashim, second or third or fourth or fifth day or so, I talk about something with some development.

[01:06]

that I begin to feel interferes with you. Interferes with you maybe because you'll agree with me, or interferes with you because you'll agree too easily. And as you know, I always have this problem, because I don't want to be separate from you, and I also think each of you is okay, I always say it.

[02:25]

Okay, just as you are. So, I guess I mean if I explain something too much, It's a very slippery idea, I don't know quite how to explain what I mean. If I explain something too much, I rob you of the chance to discover it for yourself. But again, here we're involved in some of you discovering something you don't know.

[03:29]

Anyway, you know I don't like the role of being the teacher. I don't like sitting here and you're sitting there too much. But I do feel the Zen Centre is pretty helpful to people. And so I want to do what I can to continue, help Zen Center continue. I don't have any problem with that. And you may find you like staff meetings at Zen Center better than office meetings in some company. Or you may find you like working within Zen Centre, because it frees you of employer-employee relationships. That may be okay, but it's not reasonable to stay in Zen Centre. Still, the centre of our practice, and it must be reasonable here,

[05:30]

is the realization of concentration and the pattern that connects. I think that's the best phrase I can use, the pattern that connects. So what we're talking about, we're talking about the structure of ego. And I've been using, you know, to give you some diversion, earth, water, now today it should be fire, to give you some diversion, but also because, you know, this is a way to notice Because there's nothing static, there's only movement. So to try to create something static, you create something cancerous. And ego is a kind of cancer. Ego is a frame or a closed system.

[07:01]

The worst example of it we've had recently is, again, Jim Jones. I don't actually want to talk about him anymore, and you probably don't want me to, partly because it's so awful and makes us feel lousy, but also because he deserves a decent burial. We shouldn't gloat over him, you know. We are not like that, or I am, or you are not like that. And I don't want to give the feeling of explaining But I do see ego as a cancer. In mild forms it's not so bad. We all have mild cases of this ego cancer. A closed system which has to make everything in its own frame. It's like a fire, it consumes everything.

[08:35]

John Ashford again says something like, this painful freshness of everything just being itself. Something like that. He says, this painful freshness of everything just being itself. He also says, all things see mention of themselves. All things seem mentioned of themselves, and the names which stem from them branch out to other reference. All things seem mentioned of themselves, and the names which stem from them branch out to other reference. That's pretty good. ego, identity. This painful freshness of each thing being itself, that's not a closed system. When each thing is itself, it's not a closed system. It's letting

[10:10]

It's the generosity of the first paramita. You give everything itself. When you do zazen, you let your arm do zazen, you let your breath do zazen. When you're doing whatever you're doing, you let your hand do it. If you're doing zazen, please let your body do it. Let your body do it. When counting your breaths. If Marilyn This morning, I had a baby. And Gary had brought the baby up the stairs to the zendo to put it up, try it out on the cushion. As he went up the stairs, he would say, one. And then when she had twins, he would carry the second baby up the stairs to the zendo, two.

[11:13]

But he wouldn't be too involved in – now, he'd make two, oh my god – he wouldn't be too involved in one, two. Mainly he'd be hugging the baby. One. One. We should count our breaths in this way, too. This is also the pattern that connects. Because the pattern connects, you can just be there. But if the pattern separates, you can't say to yourself, there's no place to go and nothing to do. You always want to bring everything into your pattern or find what's outside your pattern. When you can just count your One, by hugging a baby. Two, let your breath count, so you get rid of conceptual thinking. Jiaozhou, Joshua was asked by a monk, does a baby

[12:45]

have the sixth consciousness. Sixth consciousness is conceptual thinking. Does a baby have conceptual thinking? And Joshi says, throw a ball in the stream, let it go. Baby's sixth consciousness is undeveloped, doesn't have developed conceptual consciousness yet, we think. So it lets go easily, lets everything go, it surrenders very easily, it's very generous. This is also a realm of no meaning that Lumia didn't get, didn't understand, really. That's anyway how we use that story. Pass me the meditation. Although you hit me,

[13:47]

There is no meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West, but this no-meaning, activity of no-meaning, we may say structure of ego is change. But this abstraction is real, useful subject of the lectures I've been giving, but for you in your life it's the detailed structure of each moment. And your practice is to open your structure out, open your pattern out. And it flip-flops. And there are dangers. Eye for an eye. Eye for an eye is exchange. Since that's cancer's idea. It's, again, the subject of some distaste of... Supposedly, it's implied, at least no one knows, that Jones liked to do, as a boy, services for animals, very kind to the animals.

[15:12]

gathered children around a mouse that he buried at a service. But later, the neighbors suspected he was killing the animals and then doing the service. Now, whether it's true or not, it's typical of the psychology of the person I saw when I met him. a closed system where you have to... a box where there's a sea level, which you have to make an exchange. You are always involved in compensation. To experiment with that life and death, he offers the experiment with big power, you know, of life and death. Very dangerous to do so. But other people have done it. It doesn't mean Sometimes it's horrible, as Leopold would know. I think it was those two people. Or, not so bad, when Proust, supposedly Proust, had a rat brought to him on a silver tray. He stabbed to death with a hat. Most of us don't like that idea, but you eat a hamburger.

[16:40]

On a gargantuan scale, we can eat hamburgers. So many animals being killed. But to see it for yourself, we find it's dangerous. Let society do it in an organized way. But to see it for yourself, for Kruse to see it for himself, it's dangerous to experiment on that. Actually, it's dangerous to experiment. Most people don't have a personality structure which can handle it. And the priest was very involved in the pattern that connects what is ego, what is real. The movie Barry Lyndon comes to mind, because I saw Kubrick experimenting with the landscape as real, or enduring, and the people as some unreal thing. Like in 2001, the computer was real.

[18:03]

We had those silly people who portrayed calling mother, Hallmark card, sort of mother saying, I'm up here in space, mother. And the computer was more real and they had a big battle with the computer. What is real? What endures? What is material? What happens when the patterns merge and burn up? turn inside out, long hauls of consciousness turning inside and outside, the infolding and outfolding of our consciousness. We may see it in our meditation. An eye for an eye or a compensatory or exchange of a cancered ego, it's that kind of eye for an eye. It's very different from the effort of an orioke meal, for instance, where the structure of that event that we do, eating with the orioke, has in it that it's an open-ended pattern or a pattern that connects. So we take some food and put it on our setsu and share it.

[19:26]

And we take the water and drink half of some, and give away half, and then drink half of some. And then we touch, not enough to just pour the water in and drink some of it, but we touch the bowl itself to the side of the pail. There's no paranoia, no contamination, no closed system. The system is always reaching out. And it footfalls. It's so similar. So, human beings... I think human beings are only saved because of suffering. Without suffering we couldn't survive, I don't think. You may see the four holy truths as first there's suffering, and so it's terrible, so the next three steps are how to get out of it. But first, we are very grateful there is suffering. And because of suffering, we can be awakened. And how to be awakened through suffering is next three steps. So it's the ability to care for others, the ability to feel others' suffering.

[20:56]

and your own suffering, that gives us some entrance, some freedom, some escape from the tendency of a system to become closed. A pattern to separate instead of connect, it's so easy, same pattern, you can separate or connect. This famous poem about the universe burning up starts out with this kind of precision. It says, when fish swim, the water gets muddy. When birds fly, feathers fall through the air. There's this pattern that connects. Fish swim, water gets muddy. When birds fly, feathers fall through the air.

[22:05]

to be able to distinguish black from white, initiate from outside, and so forth. It gives very specific... It's like a mirror, a bright mirror on a stand or a shiny pearl in your hand, reflects everything that comes to it, a native is reflected as a native. A foreigner is reflected as a foreigner. Let me give you this case. It's the same as all things are mentioned of themselves, and the names which stem from them branch out to other references. or this painful freshness of each thing as itself. So, the case goes, a monk asks,

[23:29]

At the end of the Kalpa, at the end of the eon, when the great universal fire consumes everything, will it be destroyed? Sometimes I think we worry about those kinds of things. We hear, the universe is going to burn up, the earth will crash into the sun, so many million years from now, we'll break out into a sweat. All the art will burn up. But fire is running out. So he asks, what about the fire at the end? It's interesting that without science you have that kind of sense that at the end of some period the universe will burn up. Will it be destroyed? Das Ries says, it will be destroyed.

[24:50]

And the monk says, everything will go along with it? And Dasri says, everything. Dasri was an interesting Zen master. He studied with Tozan and Issan. He was very good. He was with Issan for a long time, Kueishan. Good Zen master, I think, and typical of the kind of teaching of Suzuki. Anyway, he said, after he'd been there for some time, supposedly he was the fire tender, Anyway, one of the posts in the monastery, he said to him, you've been here for several years, you've never asked me a question. You don't seem to know how to ask me a question. You haven't found out how to ask me a question. Just to let me know where you're at, to show me where you're at.

[26:24]

What kind of question should I ask? It could be a kind of smart-aleck reply, or insensitive reply, or very ingenuous, innocent, or rather, innocent reply. In this case, quite innocent. What kind of question would you… should I ask? He said, �Well, maybe you could start out with, �What is Buddha?'� Ghasui quickly took his hand and put it over his son�s mouth. He said, later you will not even find anyone to sweep the ground. Later you will not even find anyone to sweep the ground. Anyway, he was with him maybe 20 years, a long time.

[28:00]

And finally he went off – I don't remember exactly – but he went to a mountain, some place to live. And he didn't come off the mountain for ten years and he lived in the hollow, supposedly, of a large tree. You know, that's not... you don't see that as some big effort of hermitage and struggle. He knew a pattern that connects. so he could just be there. There was no place to go and nothing to do. It's no different from sitting sashimi, to just be here. And the first couple of days you're settling, and then usually on

[29:11]

Third or fourth day, you'll find, begin to poke into big abscesses of anger, irritation, and humiliation, and stuff like that. Hair begins to reek. So any arrangement will do. So if somebody says, if you understand it in this way, if someone says, why did your patriarch come from the West? You might answer, an oak tree in the garden, the oak tree in the garden. Because if we don't have the… everything has to fit into it, you see, it's just an arrangement. So if the pattern connects, any arrangement will do. So you don't have to make your answer conform to patriot coming from the West. Patriot coming from the West is one arrangement, oak tree in the garden is another arrangement.

[30:33]

In essence, there is no meaning of patriot coming from the West. It's an activity of no meaning. And you may have felt the excitement of that. Sometime maybe you are walking along or in some unusual circumstance driving or in an airplane or listening, and something will happen. You can't explain some light or some... And your mind will try to... What could it be? But if you can just... The excitement of not knowing what it is, is quite real, isn't it? But if you can let yourself not make that next step to try to figure out what it is, to put it into some arrangement you have already. You, that's the first step, a step toward the activity of no meaning. This ecstasy is the pleasure or joy of the pattern that connects.

[31:59]

You may get it by winning a race or something like that. But the winning isn't necessary. You feel yourself connected by running. And sports forces us into it. And so, I think you'll enjoy reading Mike Murphy's new book about the psychic side of sports. But sports forces you into it, and people find out the power of unaware activity by the concentration forced on you by sitting, by running or sports or something. But in our practice, you know, it's such experience, very direct, unaware experience. It's real, but you don't have the forcing of some athletic event on you, or some driving a race car, or danger, or mountain climbing.

[33:47]

And people do a lot of time to get that edge. It's much harder to get that edge in the midst of your life, just sitting, through your personality and the structure of your personality and concentration. But this is our practice and it slips by most of us. I would say there's a kind of density or intensity to the structure of our personality. Maybe I wouldn't say this for today, but there's three stages or categories. First is that stage which

[34:50]

There is social... you share it socially. For example, you... and it's much easier, it's much less dense when you share it socially. It's not that social pressure makes you do it, it's that because you share it, it's also social pressure, but more it's that sharing it makes it less dense, so easier to do something about it. Today I could go on for another hour or two, but I won't. I'm just barely getting started. It's like, you know, if you went around wearing a mask all the time, People really had a real need to wear a mask. People would get you to take it off. You'd take it off. But you might go around with a big beard, or hair covering your face from all directions, and you can sort of get away with that. It's exactly the same thing. Not all beards are, but some beards are.

[36:20]

So most of us shape up in those realms of ego, which we share. But in the second area, the private realms, which we don't share, it is very, very difficult to do anything about it. Because not only is it private, it's often reinforced. Ray Charles Somebody I saw on television, somebody asked him, you were once hooked on heroin. He said, but you're not anymore. Rachel said, no, I'm not. And so on and so forth. And he said, it was difficult, but cigarettes are much worse, much worse addiction, cigarettes. commentator asked him why. He said, because everyone keeps offering you a cigarette. Heroin is hard to get. Have a smoke! So this area of privacy is also involved with a kind of acceptability which allows you to hide it. It's not as extreme as

[37:51]

killing an animal and doing a ceremony for it. It's the same kind of psychology work and the same danger of practice, in that you use practice to hide and continue the most pernicious parts of your ego. And this kind of habit is so... You know, we may know about it, we may know my beard is high, but you won't do... you won't cut it off. Or you may know that you eat with your mouth open. I'm thinking of someone. Who's not here. But I'm quite sure, I've worked with several people who eat with their mouths open. I can show you their gums and tongues. I'm not a peeping mom. But it's very difficult, even though they know they make an effort, but the person I'm thinking of, that is still doing it.

[39:18]

Or you eat so many cookies you go and vomit. Not uncommon. I won't say who. Very hard to stop. Or you take life out on someone, or you let someone take life out on you. Or just smoking, so you may know if you think smoking is bad, at least. You may think it's bad, but you can't stop it. If you think it's okay, that's different. If you think it's bad, it's still very difficult to stop.

[40:25]

I don't mean by... I'm emphasizing somebody like Da Suisse, sitting in the tree, living in the mountain and not coming down for ten years. or yesterday's thing. I don't want Zen practice to be fancy or Zen students to be fancy and get involved in Zen with some identity. I want Zen to... rather to escape you. But I don't mean by that that you shouldn't write poetry or work for... somebody or accomplish something or do something, we may have a very deep feeling to do that, and that deep feeling is quite similar and just as adhesive as wanting cookies, smoking, any belief system, or looking.

[42:08]

a closed system that you're looking for the world to justify. If I say that, you may think, oh, he means there's only one way out, to shave your head and become ordained and so forth. I don't mean that at all. There are so many things to do in this world. But I'm talking about the difference between this pattern that connects and the pattern that separates. And strangely, it's the opposite. It's the thing in itself. So if you are already, William, shaving your head, cutting off attachments,

[43:10]

Then it's the thing in itself, and you then have the pattern that connects. Not some cancers, hopefully not some cancers, including everything. Everything has to be transformed into your symbol system, into your terms. Things that are in different terms threaten you. You can't be generous. You can't let each thing be of its own. Even in your zazen, you can't let your greed breathe, your body does that, your mind decides, and just let it go, like throwing a ball on the street. What did he mean when he said, it is destroyed? It is also destroyed. He means the same thing as the story. Officer Liu, quoting Seng Jiao, Heaven and Earth are of the same root. Myriad things in our eye are of the same body. Namsah. Namsah. People these days, pointing to a flower in the garden, people these days see this flower as in a dream.

[44:39]

Now don't freeze over your experience. Don't say, I have satori. Don't rest on your cushion with the confidence that you know what practice is. Everything is destroyed, turned inside out. There's two kinds of fire, one turns inside in, one turns inside out. Third level, third word, the first is Next is the private self, third is, I don't know what word to use, cosmic self. This is what Tozan means, I go on alone, I am not he, he is me. It means self, instead of the direction of your activity, instead of going from

[46:07]

social self to private self. It goes from cosmic self to private, social. So it feels like everything is doing itself. There's a kind of surge of energy, ecstasy, joy, confidence in what you do. Not the confidence of security, but of accuracy, of present. Anyway, this is what this practice is about. But zazen alone won't do it. Going over koans, turning questions, mantras won't do it. Surrendering, turning the pattern of your ego out

[47:12]

Seeing the activity of the pattern that separates, what will do it is your intention and real willingness to see it all destroyed. Just throw it on the stream or in the conflagration at the end of the eon. to actually be able to give away, get rid of your cherished privacies. If you don't have that willingness, there's no point to practice. It will help your But the point is limited, I should say, there's no point. The point is limited to straightening out your social self. That's nice, it makes it nice for the rest of us, but it's not really, you're only taking a taste of the medicine.

[48:36]

And it's a little bit contradictory. Concentration and letting the flashing out, trying to figure out what it is. Sometimes it'll happen when you're not concentrating. I can remember in school, Sometimes the teacher would ask me a question. I was always spooling them out, you know, not paying attention. And if I truly wasn't paying attention, I almost always ... they would say, they would say, you know, Mr. Mechlin. I was in tune with them. Well, what about such and such? If I was paying no attention, I would just say something and it would always be right.

[50:32]

I got good grades when I did that. But I didn't know what I was doing. If I tried, I didn't do so well. But when you're completely unaware, there's some power. It means pattern that connects, even a pattern that separates us is... I mean, a pattern that separates us, we don't do, and a pattern that connects even is gone. And we may have that for a minute sometimes, a second. So this unaware, you're making effort by concentrating and trying, but while you're doing zazen, sometimes it's when You're sort of thinking of something else, but suddenly concentration has settled in on you. That you can't do it conceptually, that you can't count your breaths conceptually, you can just hug your baby.

[51:47]

So it's this realm of unaware is effort, is intention, but it's also like fooling around, not paying attention to, when paying attention is involved in some closed system. So it's a kind of opposite, a kind of play and effort. So our practice is a kind of playing and a kind of effort. So when I ask you a question, what is the sound, atsa, you're not answering with the first thing that comes to mind. Subject meets subject. So, I'm telling you this only because concentration, real concentration,

[53:35]

unawareness or forgetfulness or lack of effort at the same time as it's effort. And you can't just make an effort and you can't just play. In this case, it's sincerity and also not caring that it is destroyed. So while we're sitting here, this incentive should disappear. Even this handout should disappear. Don't care about anything. No place to go, nothing to do. Don't try too hard to concentrate on your breath, but don't do anything else,

[55:06]

Let your hand and body, let something you can't identify do it.

[55:25]

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