In reading Zen texts, I have run into the term teaching shops. Teaching shops. And I always liked that expression. Teaching shop means, you know, like the assembly of some of the teachers, like some of the great Zen masters. Sometimes they called their group a teaching shop. I like that kind of the feeling of you go there and it's kind of like going to a car repair place or a maintenance shop or a body shop. Or it could be like a shopping mall. But the idea anyway that it's kind of like... Not exactly like a school, but more like a shop.

[01:01]

Very practical setup for, you know, body-mind maintenance consultation. Yesterday, the morning event that started around 10 went to about 12 or so. According to the deluded point of view, someone might think that there was a self in control of the length of that event. there was a self-conscious subject who determined that it was, that it went till twelve or so. And I don't avoid that perspective, you know, it's like, no, no, no, no. Don't try to pin the length of that event on somebody.

[02:19]

But, actually, I do try to avoid that point of view. And I would invite you to avoid it, too. And so, I just want you to know that if, like right about now, you would like, you know, you'd like to see the schedule move on to Kinhin, or something else, this is a teaching shop. My feeling is, anyway, it's a teaching shop, and you can, you know, you can say, you know, I got some problem with my carburetor, or my heart isn't pumping properly. Could you come over and have a look at it? Or could we now go back and have some quiet sitting? Anytime you want, you can request the termination of this so-called Dharma Talk event.

[03:25]

Anytime you can do that. Now, I know that might not be easy, because you might think, well, if I do that, maybe people will think I'm rude or disrespectful, or maybe somebody wants a Dharma talk this morning, and they'll say, oh, you said that, and we didn't have a Dharma talk, and it's your fault. Maybe they'll think that, and then maybe they'll try to say something to your body, and maybe they will... be thinking that they're saying that to you to get you under control or something. Maybe that's what they're thinking. Maybe they do, I don't know. Maybe they're deluded in that way. But maybe they're just expressing themselves. But you're welcome to tell me now to stop. And any time, during any talk I'm giving, you can just raise your hand and say, would you please stop now? Or if you don't want to say that, which is somewhat safer, you can just raise your hand and do this. Any time. And I will probably stop if you do that.

[04:31]

Do you know what this means, Barbara? Huh? Barbara, do you know? Christina, do you know what this means? Do I have your name wrong, Barbara? No, not you, Chris. Your name's Chris. What's your name? I thought your name was Barbara Christina. What's your name? It'd be right there. You. Oh, do you know what this means, Barbara Christina? What does it mean? Do you know what it means? It means, yeah, it means tea. It's a tea. It means time out. Time out. Dario, did you know it meant time out? Well, I suggest you don't use this for toilet.

[05:43]

For toilet you can just stand up and go to wherever you like, some convenient location. That's what toilet in Japanese, the word for toilet in Japanese is convenient location. Benjo means convenient spot. So just go to the toilet. But this is a big one. This will stop me. This is like pulling the chain on the train. If you want, actually, but if you want the thing to stop while you're at the toilet, you can do that and go... This is a teaching shop, you know. It's not just, you know, some limited idea of what teaching is. Pardon? Well, then when somebody says this and then you say, I want it to go long, you can say that. And we can work it out. My experience is, if I come to the talk and I have almost nothing to say, I think, Jesus, I already said it all, and there's really nothing more to say about this topic, it's so simple.

[07:04]

Those are the talks that often go very long, because that prompts something to come forth and fill the simplicity with complexity. And if I think I have a lot to say, I usually come and I don't have much to say because it just seems too much. So today is one of those days I have almost nothing to say. But the little bit I have to say is so central and so deep and so mysterious that there's no way to stop talking about it. And there's no way to talk about it. So here goes. I already said that to set up a self, to posit a self, to put a self up there is delusion. I say that. To me it seems like a delusion.

[08:07]

It's not that there isn't a self, or that there is a self. Something like a self does appear and disappear in this world. I sense it. I have a feeling for it. I have an experience of it. Myself. But that myself that has an experience of it, I just set up. setting something up and positing something different and then just something happens. You don't posit rain, usually, unless you're a weatherman. You don't posit, you know, usually a lot of things that happen in your life, you don't posit. But we posit the self. We set it up and propose it. And then we think it dominates the situation. And then we feel like, well, this self that I posited is responsible for a two-hour and 15-minute Dharma talk. that was in control of the body and the mouth, and 70 people.

[09:14]

This is the way we come to think. Whereas actually, the body was in charge of the mouth and the mind, and the body took over. So it's the body's fault for such a long event. But it wasn't this body over here. It was the entire body of the group that made this thing happen. You know, when water runs down a hill, like if it rains, you know, and the water falls on the hillside, sometimes the rain sinks into the ground. And sometimes it saturates the ground, and then it runs over the top of the ground. Or sometimes the ground's so dry, it doesn't saturate, it just runs over the top. And where it runs is not random. At least I haven't seen any random water running on the hills around here. It runs according to the shape of the land and gravity and wind and the cycle of the moon.

[10:19]

Various circumstances influence what happens to the water once it falls and hits the earth. And sometimes various running waters run together and form little streams. And the streams run down the hill. And the water stays together in a little group called a stream. And sometimes the water splashes off over the edge of the stream. But basically, there is this phenomenon called water running down the hill in a stream or a river. But the stream doesn't control itself. It doesn't have this idea. Well, let's stay together here, you guys. And let's keep on this track here. The stream doesn't have a self that controls the flow of the stream. Many factors make this non-random lovely thing happen.

[11:22]

And if some of those factors are changed, the stream isn't the same stream and will go someplace else. Or will stop if you put a dam in front of it and make a lake or a pond. There is some way it goes, and it's kind of like you can see some kind of control of the water. The water is kind of under control in a sense. It flows in a certain way. But the control is not from outside or inside. And our activity is like that too. We are sometimes a murmuring stream. Sometimes we're a raging river. And in this raging river, the funny thing is, the wonderful thing actually is, in this raging river, a self can be born. But the self is born of the river. The self doesn't make the river go the certain way, and doesn't make the river in the first place, and doesn't continue to control the river.

[12:36]

It is born of the river, of the flow of the body and the mind. Does that make sense? That's kind of the same kind of a process. I remember something I said before. It's the beginning of a lovely book. And I got this book because I was watching TV in England one time, and I think what I saw was a program giving the Booker Award. There's a literary award in England called the Booker Award, and they give it to writers. I saw this Nigerian man receiving the Booker Award.

[13:38]

And his name was Ben Okri. I think that's his name. And he read one of his poems after he got the award. It was so beautiful, that poem he read. So I wanted to get his book. And the poem's not in the book. And the name of the book is The Famished Road. Dario, do you know what famished means? I got you on that one. Barbara Christina, do you know what famished means? Yeah. It means hungry. Very hungry. Like... So it's about a very hungry road. In the beginning of the book, it says... This is not exactly what it says. But it says something like, in the beginning... There was the unborn.

[14:42]

And it was a river. But then the river turned into a road, and the road covered everything. But because the road was originally a river, It was always hungry. It's like we're originally a river. We're not just water flying randomly in all directions. Somehow, water flying randomly sometimes comes together and forms a river. a lawful event that flows.

[15:43]

But then this flowing gets covered over by a road. A self is imposed on it. And because we're originally a river, we're hungry to get back to that river, which flows very nicely and very lawfully, but nobody is in control of it. And right in the middle of that river, a self is born. Every moment this wonderful self is born. I get to be there in the river and so do you. And we have all these selves actually in the same river splashing around together but each self can make itself into a road and overlay the river and then it can be hungry. But it can't satisfy its thirst because unless it gives up the road this imposition, trying to control this flowing body which gives birth to a self.

[16:49]

Yesterday I talked about, you know, like the little baby in the womb, you know, being made a life that's growing and changing and growing toes and fingernails and toenails and hair and thumbs and sex organs and things like that. And it's not doing that, but various conditions are coming together and shaping this little river of life into a more and more mature being. this life is passively accepting its own development. And someday it will have a self, if it lives long enough. It will have a sense of self and other, and so on. But now it's just maturing and living very nicely without that problem.

[18:02]

Now imagine, if you gave a baby a self early, like in the womb, and then the baby was in there just trying to decide, you know, what was going to happen next. It would really be, you know, kind of a mess in there. You know, oh no, I got new age parents, they're playing me Bach. Bach. And they're putting nice warm lights over above me. Oh, no. So, I think you understand, probably, that if something very complicated is happening with your body, like if you're flying through the air off the top of a diving board and doing a triple flip, you know that if you put a self in there to try to decide how to do that, you know that that you won't be able to do the triple fifth very well. You know that when you're playing a very complicated and challenging piece of music with your hands on a piano, and your hands are interacting with those keys, you know if any kind of idea of a self came in there, the music would break down.

[19:22]

You know that when you're writing poetry, if a self arises in the midst of that process of production of poetry, you know the self will break down the process. Don't you know that? You don't know that? You know that when you're dancing, if your self-consciousness comes in there and tries to decide how the dance would go, especially if you're dancing with somebody else, that that presence, that self-conscious presence, that self that's posited, interferes with the dance. You know that, don't you, from experience? Do you know that? You can kind of dance while holding a self, but it's not much fun, especially for your partner. Unless your partner is doing the same and they don't even notice the trouble you're making. Because you've got two self-conscious people. Self-conscious people can't really dance. I mean, they sort of can.

[20:25]

It's called beginners dance. But they're not having much fun yet because they still have two selves there trying to decide what to do. When the selves drop away, then the dance can happen. Right? Now, you have to practice for a while before the self can drop away because, first of all, the self says, well, what will happen if I'm not here? Who knows what my body will do? But if you practice and practice and practice, finally the self can drop away and the bodies can dance. So I've told this story before about how I was in this, what do you call it, a theater sports class. We had this thing called, we still do, we have this thing called theater sports where you make theatrical production into a sporting event and do various exercises. And a lot of these exercises is to help let the positing of the self drop away.

[21:25]

Let the posited self drop away and interact theatrically, without carrying a self. Let the body and mind flow freely like a river. Gravity, your body, the other body, the people watching, it's all there. What's going to happen? There's instructions. What's going to happen? How many people heard this story before? Tell me when you started. You have. Did you hear it in England? Did you hear it in England? Okay, so the instruction was two people get up and write a poem together or speak a poem together. You heard it before? So I say a word and she says a word. Then I say a word and she says a word. Some of you may have done this before. And so I think, I don't know what happened exactly, but we stood up there and I said a word and she said a word and then I said a word and she said a word and it was kind of like

[22:28]

That was pretty good, the poem that happened that way. It was fairly good. It was one of the best poems that I was ever involved in happening. I wasn't entirely in control, but a lot of the poems that I've been in control of have not worked out very well. Some of them have been sort of all right, but I'm not too good at getting out of the way of what is written by a pen in my hand, so I'm not a very good writer. Because I'm too much... I get involved. I try to control what comes out. So anyway, because I was doing it with her, and I kind of let go of that somewhat, and it was kind of... this poem was coming. And I think then the instructor said, start moving together. Start dancing together. So then we started to dance. And then what came was even more unexpected, because part of my controlling was disengaged from the speech.

[23:35]

And then I don't know what happened, but then I picked her up off the ground and held her above my head and turned with her in the air. So she was up in the air there talking, and I was down below holding her and turning her. And the words kept coming out, but there was no control or choice of the words by a conscious self. If there was a conscious self, it was mostly into trying to control that body up in the air or being held up in the air and trying to, I don't know what, trust. We didn't care so much about the words of the poem anymore. I couldn't believe what was said, and I don't know what was said, but it was very beautiful. It was like Ben Okri's poem. It was so beautiful. And I don't know who wrote it or where it came from, but Nobody was deciding those words. No conscious self was saying, oh, this would be a good next one. This wouldn't be stupid. Don't say that. So they just came. And I don't know what they were, but I heard them.

[24:40]

And it was awfully good, whatever it was. But it took a lot to get the selves out of the way. That's the way art is. I think really it's when we drop that positing of self and let the body and mind flow according to gravity, weather conditions, who's around, whether we have a headache or not, whatever. So how are you going to realize this situation? Well, we realize it through sitting meditation, through meditating and putting the body into a form.

[25:41]

And what is that form? That form itself is, we call that the body and the mind drop off. And so, we call that, I call that, you know, the ancestors called that. And then Dogen's teacher, Ru Jing, said, you know, seated meditation is the mode in which we can reverse, you know, this tendency of imposing the self on what's happening and just let what's happening happen and let the self be born in what's happening. Rather than positing the self and then going at what's happening. Sit in meditation and realize that what's happening is first and then there's a self that's born. It's not that there's no self, it's just you don't have to put it out there all the time.

[26:49]

you can just see what it is. See what self you get at this moment. Which one is coming to you? Check it out. What is it? Don't have the assumption of what it is and drag it into every room, every conversation, every action. Just sit the body upright. Watch what's happening and see if you get a self out of the deal. You might not. Who knows? It won't necessarily be delivered every moment with ten fingers and ten toes. Who knows what it will be? Nobody knows what it will be. But it's not like it won't be there. It's just that it arrives fresh and new each moment if you're there to watch. And it's not in control, and yet the whole situation is nicely controlled by the whole situation.

[27:54]

So that's the sitting, and that is the body and mind are freed, are dropped off. And then Ru Jing says, this is not like, and he names a lot of Buddhist practices, like incense offering, bowing, chanting, making offerings, you name it. It's not any of those practices. But what that means is it's not any of those practices that you do. This practice of seated meditation, which is body and mind dropping off, it's not any of the practices, including seated meditation, that you do. What is it? It is just sitting. It is sitting that is just sitting. That's what it is. Nobody can do sitting that is just sitting. That's just the practice. And what is this seated meditation? What is this dropping off that happens?

[29:00]

It is seated meditation. What is seated meditation? It's dropping off. What is dropping off? It's seated meditation. That's it. You can't get at that. I can't get at that. Buddha can't get at that. But we are born there every moment. We are born there every minute. So, the practice, when there is dropping off body and mind, when there is dropping off body and mind, when body and mind drops off, It's also, I think, helpful to remember that at that moment there is also the dropped-off body and mind. When body and mind are dropping off, there's also the dropped-off body and mind. It's not nothing.

[30:02]

there is this deep penetrating insight of body and mind dropping off, and there's also this great compassion of the dropped off body and mind, which supports and sustains the one who is dropping off. It's possible to feel compassion and have the body and mind holding on to the body and mind, the self holding the body and mind, the self holding the body and mind, trying to be compassionate. This is okay, but it's unreliable. Because depending on how you're holding the body and mind, you might be too busy to be compassionate. But the Buddhas have realized the dropped-off body and mind. They have the dropped off body and mind, and they are always the dropped off body and mind surrounding and supporting us.

[31:09]

The dropped off body and mind is always there, so we can allow the dropping off of body and mind, and we will be supported by the dropped off body and mind. We get a dropped off body and mind when we drop off body and mind. You don't wind up with nothing. You don't wind up with something. You wind up with truth, which is the dropped-off body and mind, which is the body and mind, which is the river. It's not random. It has its own laws. It contains us all day long. And if we don't trust that, we won't dare let the dropping off happen. So I guess you have to trust that the Buddhas, the dropped off ones, are all surrounding you and supporting you so you can let the process happen.

[32:12]

You can be a great artwork. Yes? Now comes the dangerous time. Yes? Can I say something? She said, you're a new person at this. And she said, not you. She meant... Somebody's a new person at this, but I'm not. Reb's not, right? That's what you meant, right? I'm old at this, right? Now, I have to be new at this, too. Otherwise, I'm a stale, stinky priest. So I have to be new at this, too. So we are new at this. So you feel like a Martian?

[33:21]

Oh, so your drop-off body in mind is a Martian body. You feel like a Martian because these other people have... And you're a neophyte, you feel like... You're a new Martian, a newly initiated Martian. Yeah, you just have no form. You know, you do have a form, you have a Martian form, you just said it. You're new... You're new, and you're raw, and you're Martian in the sense that you're different from the people around you. You always were, but now maybe you have a more vivid feeling of how different you are. Yes? And you don't feel strong at all. And maybe you don't feel strong, yeah. And you feel that very strongly. And you feel their expectations. Yes, you're surrounded by expectors.

[34:29]

Yes, uh-huh. And they say, uh. But they said that before you had dropped off body and mind, too, by the way. When you weren't a Martian, they went, uh. And now you're a Martian, you go, uh. That's what happens when body-mind drops off in, like, a social event. You know, like, at a cocktail party, right? People go, but they were doing that before it dropped off, too. It's just that now you're, like, not defended against it. And now you're born of the the is part of what, you know, that's it's not like you and the anymore. It's like, right in the middle of this flowing there's suddenly you. Pardon?

[35:31]

Yeah, maybe they're right, but it's not so much right anyway, but basically they're just going, you know, and they're expecting things of you. Yeah. That's right. It's when you're sitting in a zendo with other people who are being quiet about... They're not saying it out loud. So you dare to let body-mind drop. And after it drops, you dare to continue to sit there in this dropped-off body and mind. You dare to let it sit there. For a while. That's why we have this place. So you can drop out of your mind without feeling tremendous expectation to be a certain way after it drops. You're safe here. So it's very difficult to extend it into daily life where people have expectations.

[36:35]

The body, you have a body, it vibrates with those expectations. So it's hard for you to like... It's hard to feel that. You don't feel safe. Yeah, like that, exactly. Like I also told the story about, you know, I did this animal releasing ceremony in, I participated in an animal releasing ceremony in Japan, you know. They brought these crates full of chickens and we did the ceremony. We opened the chicken crates and the chickens flew out, set them free, you know. And then afterwards, the chickens got back into the cages. They flew around, you know, and pluck, pluck, pluck for a while. But eventually they got back in the cages, you know. It was too much for them to be out there with all those expectations of each other. People say, well, now that you're free, what are you going to do? Are you going to go to Florida or stay here in Japan in this intensely social environment with all the expectations of chickens?

[37:39]

Usually people expect you guys to be in cages. Don't you feel uncomfortable with just walking down the streets, people speaking Japanese to you? So they got back in the cage. It is hard. So that's why people get back in the cage after they've released. It's too much, it's too much, I can't get it. That's why you have to realize you're supported. You must feel supported by the dropped-off body and mind. All the Buddhas, this is what they're aching for you to realize, the dropped-off body and mind. You need to feel that. If you don't feel it, you're just going to crawl back into, not safety, but comfort. You know, the road, the imposition of self on you, back into hunger and destitution. I can't stand to be a newly born child on the road. So, be a big grown-up mama, you know, get back in control.

[38:41]

I don't care what your expectations are. the body, feeling the expectations, just sitting, that body just sitting. And when you were walking around at the cocktail party, the reason why there was just sitting there, that's how the body-mind dropped off, is there was just sitting with what it felt like to be, you know, this stiff, rigid, protected, controlling person. You just felt that and all the pain of that. And you didn't fight it anymore. And dropping off happened. There was realization of dropping off. So you just keep doing the practice of just the body being the body and the mind being the mind.

[39:45]

And this practice is dropping off body and mind. And when body and mind drops off and you feel this exposure to the golden wind of all beings, you continue the practice. And you don't get strong. You don't get weak. You just get to be the self that's born in the arrival of all things. The self that's born in the arrival of everybody's expectations. And their expectations are changing all the time. So the self that arrives is changing all the time. The self that arises is born of the present interaction. You get used to this raw, fresh, new self. And then you lose that one and get another one. The river gets used to practicing just sitting.

[40:57]

And then the river gets used to continually dropping and therefore continually being a river and not reverting to the road. But now it's possible that you let the road be the road. And when the road is allowed to just be the road, the road drops and becomes a river. And when the river is allowed to be a river, then the river continues to flow. And if the river continues to flow and continues to allow it to be the flowing body of the river, then we have sustained continuity in the practice of body and mind dropping off, just sitting. Just sitting, body and mind dropped off. There can be reversion back to the road, though, Because there's a powerful habit waiting to pave over this flowing, living creature. It can snap back.

[42:00]

Even though there's a real realization, it can be not stable and not continuous. So people can go back and forth for years this way. And so we have to accept that too. And we need the form of the sitting meditation, like during sesshin, to usually initiate this process of dropping away. Most people need a form, because without the form, you can continue very unhappily, very powerfully and unhappily, continue with the idea of the self the road in control of the river. But when you put the body in a form, you gradually see that the river is not in control of the self, that the road is not in control of the self, that the self is making this road-like life, this hardness.

[43:08]

But it's not in control, it just a heavy coating over everything. It's not controlling, it's just deadening. It's just part of the pain. And really the life is actually bubbling up, trying to break through. And you see that there's not really control. And then you're seeing the truth. the ancient past eons living in the mountains and forests. Living alone means also leaving alone, letting yourself be who you are in the mountains and the forests.

[44:18]

Living alone means just sitting. The ancients passed eons just sitting in the mountains and the forest. Dropping off body and mind. Body and mind dropping off. Just sitting. Only then did they unite with the way. and use mountains and rivers for words and wind and rain for tongue to expound the great emptiness. To create great art. How does the dropped off body and mind create great art? not by its own power. It uses the mountains and the rivers for its words.

[45:30]

It uses the wind and the rain for its tongue. And the wind and the rain and the mountains and the rivers use us for its music and for its poetry. We are the artwork of the water, and the earth, and the fire, and the wind. It's creating wonderful little bodies and minds all over the place, every moment. Do you receive the body that's being made by this planet, by this solar system, by this galaxy? Do you receive it? Is it being received? Is it being witnessed? Do you see the body being made moment by moment? Like last night I said to my wife, you know, I said I was talking about our little grandson, how he's being made.

[46:38]

how his little toes and fingers are being made. How he's being made to be very active. They say he's very active. But he's not sitting there saying, I'm going to be active yet. He is being made into a very active little living creature. And she says, I don't know who's making him, but I'm for it. We don't make ourselves. We don't make what's happening. But something's making it happening. And it's very big. And it's very flexible. And it's not attached. And it will support us no matter what. How about getting with the program by just sitting and letting drop-off body and mind be the state of affairs? And then if it happens and people continue to go, uh, when they see you, like they always did, but now you're sensitive to it because it gives you life.

[47:55]

It makes your toenails grow. See if you can continue to practice in the world where you feel even more how much you're connected to and resonating with all these other living beings. How do we trust the river? How do we trust the river? Is this trusting the river? Is this trusting the river? I don't know. Is this how? Could be. Your question could be trusting the river.

[48:57]

To be asking how to trust the river is remembering the river. Don't forget the river. How can you control yourself into remembering the river? You can't. When you ask how to trust the river, you're trusting the river at that moment. When you forget the river and say, hey, I had enough river, I'm going to be back bringing the road equipment. Forget about the river. Then you forgot the river. Then you don't trust the river. But if you remember the river, if you love the river, if you watch the river, that's enough trust. If you get into the river, that's enough trust. That's all the river wants, is you to return to it. And asking, where is it? How can I trust it? That's kind of like being in it. Kind of. Where do I put my toes in the river? Where is the river? It's in my heart.

[50:04]

It's in my toes. It's in my brain. It's in my fingertips. Splashing, splashing. It's in my eyes. It's in my tears. It's in my salivary activity. and my eyes, my tears, and my saliva are in it. So, Miriam raised her hand, but we could, you know, somebody could do the tea now before we get into this. I see three teas. Is that the triple treasure? Thank you.

[51:03]

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