Every session when I start doksan, there's always one of the first things people say, I wish you'd talk about suffering. I say, why would you want me to talk about suffering? And I know I have some kind of reluctance to talk about suffering, but gets kind of, you know, makes me suffer. Gets kind of gloomy. It's kind of a gloomy topic. And it's hard to talk, it's easy to acknowledge it. It's hard to talk about it as practice. And I'll probably, by the way, start doksans tomorrow. We don't have the doksan dharma hall little dharma hall built yet, which I want to build out here.

[01:04]

But we have, somebody gave us the bell. The person who gave us the interior, the zendo, actually gave us the bell. And so we have the bell, but not the building. But, you know, we can build the building around the bell. It's a good start. But Lenny, who built the ceiling and the tansu cupboards and the tan has started the building. He'll go as far as the money available will let him go. But eventually we'll probably be able to finish it. There'll be a room for seminars and for doksan and some chance for us to meet together in various ways. Someone coming in? They came and left? Okay.

[02:08]

Now there's a poem of Rilke's that I've always liked. Sorry, I don't know it in German, I barely know it in English. But anyway, it's called, one of his more famous little poems, called The End of Autumn. And I think it goes something like, I have seen for some time how everything changes. Sounds like a Buddhist. I have seen for some time how everything changes. Something rises, arises, acts and kills and causes grief. Something arises, acts and kills and causes grief. Then he goes on to say something like, from one time to the next, this path has been long. Now the Eightfold Path starts with

[03:25]

suffering, and it should be called probably, best translated, not just a, should be true sufferings. And Thich Nhat Hanh's recent mindfulness bell talks about suffering, the first noble path as being ill-being. and that we can't run away from ill-being. Without seeing into ill-being, there's no path. And he says we need to touch it and make peace with it. Certainly the Eightfold Path doesn't begin with true sufferings because we're supposed to get past that as quick as possible to the good things. And I know in my own case, in my own practice, although there was intention and various kinds of experiences that helped me practice, still it was the necessity of facing

[04:53]

I don't know, what should I say? The entanglements, the suffering, the confusion in my own life. And then in my sister, who never recovered from her sufferings. But I, you know, in my twenties, if I look back on it now, the late teens and early twenties, I mean, I did things, but I was pretty nearly dysfunctional. in the sense that I... just things weren't clear for me and I saw too much pain and felt too much. So I liked Sashin. I think I told you I happened on Sashin by chance, my first Sashin. I saw that somebody I knew had signed up for this thing called a Sashin He was a poet, and I knew him, and so I thought, if he can do it, I can do it, but it turned out to be a different person.

[06:00]

And so I got myself into this thing, which I couldn't believe I'd gotten myself into. I said, what the hell am I doing? This is inhuman. I had no idea. No one said what a sashin was. It just was a... I went, and I sat down, and it never ended. I mean, I actually had no idea what it was. I just went and sat down and I couldn't believe it. But I found that the suffering that came up through Satchin, which, you know, just arose, as you know, brought a lot of other stuff, carried a lot of other stuff with it. And I saw that I couldn't run away from it. And somehow the mixture allowed me to sit in the midst of it.

[07:04]

And I found that if I could meet and find the path of cessation within the suffering that came up from Sashin, it also taught me the paths of cessation in my own personal sufferings, confusions, and so forth. Now the kind of interesting, this is a little aside really, in India, I mean, the idea of the Buddha It's quite complicated, actually, the idea of Buddha. I mean, for us, the altar represents the truth. It represents our... I mean, I think the Zenda would feel bare if it didn't have an altar in it. And although I think for us it's a little confusing what the Buddha is and what the altar is and what our chanting... We need, I think, in a meditation hall like this, to have some...

[08:19]

representation of realization of the truth in a deep sense, present before us. And in a form we can engage ourselves. And then we talk to this consecrated truth through the service and bowing and so forth. Now, there was no images of Buddha, as most of you probably know, until the Greek influence in India. And it was just originally the footsteps, the outline of footsteps, meaning somebody, some really great guy had been here. named the Buddha, but all he left was his footprints except that like this flower we don't see, we can feel the footsteps.

[09:27]

The other thing was the idea of relics or stupas. Stupas were reliquaries and some piece of the Buddha ashes, molecules, molecule or something, was spread all over India and spread to be in the stupas. But also what they put in the stupas, which was extremely common from 600 to 1200 in Buddhist India, where they put something which said... Dharma's arise of something like, the Dharma's, afflicted Dharma's suffering arises from a cause. The Tathagata has taught us that it arises from a cause and that there is a cessation.

[10:36]

And thus, this true freedom has been announced. With some kind of, had no particularly literary merit, it was just a statement like that. And literally tens of thousands of them were made into seals and stamped into clay balls. And then the clay balls were put in the stupas. A kind of talisman. And talisman means something that you consecrate an idea and bring it full circle. It's the roots of the word. And although we don't use such a clay ball, I mean, I can understand it because one of the most important things about this is to recognize the four-fold truth of the

[11:44]

of the Buddhist teaching, sufferings, cause, cessations and the path. And just the recognition of this and the thought of enlightenment, it's also taught that you make a talisman of this thought, that suffering is a cause that can be seen into, that there's a cessation, and a path and this is not and recognizing this you want to share this with others. This thought itself is considered to be the first and fundamental ingredient in realizing freedom, just to know it's possible. So this little seal, the Tathagata said that there was a cause and cessations, etc., was spread throughout India. People carried it and put it in stupas and so forth.

[12:47]

So I think in our practice first we have to really be clear that our sufferings have a cause and knowing that it's possible to free ourselves from entanglements and being contaminated by, embroiled in, you know, suffering. Now, it means as a practice that when you feel something, and as Roka says, something rises, acts, kills, and causes grief. I mean, there's so many things. I think if, I mean, I think for most of us, there's a pretty uncomfortable feeling in Sashin because...

[13:52]

The discomfort in just sitting there and being able to avoid sitting there. We do face many things we wish we could undo or things we don't feel good about at all or things that make us feel very uncomfortable. A practice is to really look at those things and stay with this feeling of ill-being. And then to notice how they arise and what state of mind. So you don't try to get rid of them, but rather you really stay with them and notice what kind of mind nourishes them. what state of mind supports them. And notice how they're more present or less present.

[14:56]

Now we can live on various levels or realms, and one realm is, you know, this, as I said, this just now is enough. In the realm of just now is enough, we, I think, feel quite free from suffering. So this, when you can begin to see the transition from and experience this difference between a mind of just now is enough, of acceptance or connectedness or various things, that's the third, that's seeing into both causes and the cessations. or practicing with seeing how a thought arises or an emotion arises, you begin to actually be able to not only touch your ill being, but you can begin to see a complexity in it, how it arises, how it is also in itself empty, it has no permanent nature, it changes.

[16:09]

And yet that emptiness doesn't help you much. But you can begin to see the possibility of being free of these things. Now, one sense of this was particularly developed in Chinese Buddhism and in the Lotus Sutra was, the way it was taught in China, was, you know, this word li, which is related to ki. But in Buddhism it means something like, well, as I said yesterday, a kind of energy or presence, but also a kind of connectedness. It's a feeling where you feel embraced or penetrated or connected.

[17:14]

And it's connected with a non-graspable feeling and is... Many of you know the basic constituent of all mental and emotional perceptions or events is that there is a substrata of non-graspable feeling. And in the five skandhas, it's form, feelings, perceptions. And that, basically, that second skanda is, in a fundamental sense, non-graspable feeling. It's not an emotion. Emotion is more a perception. So again, for you practicing, you need to come to a subtlety of consciousness which allows feeling to be present and not grasp it, or allows non-graspable feeling to be present.

[18:21]

Then again, as I say, you know, there's a feeling in this room right now that you can't grasp. And if you try to say what it is, you can't name it. And yet there's a feeling in this room that's not the same as outside and not the same as ten minutes ago. And it's... It's not graspable and yet it's the most palpable fact of this room right now. It connects all of us and it's the basis on which everything comes up. Now it was thought in Chinese Buddhism that this non-graspable feeling was something that was both very particular and covered everything. And that you could experience it, but you couldn't grasp it.

[19:26]

And so the practice and the teaching of relating to suffering in this sense was to first of all come to, to really get to know this feeling of connectedness, this valence, this I don't know. A principle of connectedness, energy of connectedness, a feeling of connectedness with yourself. And it's often you can identify it as being a kind of feeling of brightness in you or clarity. And when you're feeling somewhat like you're getting a cold or you're a little moody or something, you move, see if you can move into this feeling of brightness and actually it's a kind of healing force. Or you feel when you look at things, you just see them and they have bright edges and everything is very precise.

[20:39]

That feeling when you can come to it and nourish it is this sense of li, or connectedness. And you can feel it with another person. Now the practice of dealing with your suffering was to weave this feeling in with your suffering. So when you see something or you feel something, You, whatever your mood is, you sense the non-graspable substrata of that mood and then you connect it with a kind of brightness. And it's said the Bodhisattva exhausts suffering. I think the Bodhisattva himself probably gets pretty exhausted trying to exhaust suffering. But you keep meeting suffering and as a practice seeing the non-graspable state of consciousness from which it arises, which also is where our sense of I floats.

[21:50]

And I think you'll find that almost always when you look at your suffering, which is bigger than self, it's not just self-suffering, when you look at how you suffer or how you feel miserable, contaminated or, you know, dark. You can feel also that it arises from some deeper non-graspable stream of consciousness, more subtle consciousness. But that subtle consciousness is also its release, its freedom. It's its source and its freedom. It's its source if you're only in its effects. And if you see it as the cause, as you begin to see how it causes your states of mind, it also becomes the opening to the cessations.

[22:55]

So this is how in Chinese Buddhism and related to the Lotus Sutra, this Four Noble Truths were practiced. That's a very dynamic kind of chemical kind of concept. And I guarantee you, I assure you, it's very important and helpful to see if you can come to this feeling that's present all the time, always changing, and yet is not graspable, and yet you don't interfere with it. And within that, some brightness and clarity can be generated. Now it's also understood as part of this practice that the exhaustion of suffering, the seeing into the causes and cessations,

[24:05]

is to embrace or acknowledge this same non-graspable feeling or li with others. It's a kind of, I use the word bathing sometimes, it's a kind of bathing process. In each situation you bathe yourself and with each person you meet you bathe yourself. Now You can see it sometimes in the light in a person's eye, or maybe a tiny dance in their body, an almost invisible movement that you can feel. But as part of this practice, you recognize it, but you don't acknowledge it, and you don't speak about it. So you don't change levels. You don't turn it into something you say, oh, it was very nice to see that light in your eyes. That, you know, all the energy is diminished at that point.

[25:11]

It's not something you grasp or acknowledge. You can recognize it, but you recognize it at the level at which it occurs. You recognize it in your body, in your own eyes, and so forth. And this process of recognizing connectedness at a non-graspable level is also considered how we see into the cessations and freedom from suffering. It doesn't mean you don't still have emotions or misgivings or sufferings. It's just it doesn't, there's a clarity to it and an immediacy to it and it doesn't entangle you and drag you, drag your state of mind. So this is a kind of the chemistry or dynamic of practicing with suffering that's a tradition within Buddhism.

[26:28]

But it means you have to become somewhat adept at recognizing the subtle substrata of consciousness within yourself. and not needing to turn that into, I feel that, or I noticed that, or to try to give it reality or grasp it by acknowledging it with someone else. Its existence is acknowledgement enough. So there's no effort to grasp or acknowledge, just to recognize and be in the midst of. Now, you have other ways of being and other states of mind, of course, but this is the kind of basic or home base realm of being.

[27:38]

And it's partly also in beginning to experience yourself, is one of the gates to it, is beginning to experience yourself, I don't know how to say, separately, in separate parts. I don't know what to, again, that's a little clumsy. But generally we try to create a unified picture of ourself. And we try to view ourselves from our mind, which generally means you're viewing yourself almost immediately, because it's so contagious, viewing yourself from outside and then from how others see you. So I say often, when you do zazen, you let your stomach do zazen, you let your lungs do zazen, you let your legs do zazen. You let the different parts of you each do their own meditation. Some parts are having more trouble than others. So you let your stomach just... You know, your stomach may be feeling a little bad, but your lungs feel okay.

[28:57]

You know, it's like that. And sometimes if your lungs feel okay, it can make your stomach feel better. But in this way, our stomachs start talking to other stomachs. Our lungs start talking to other lungs. And we start talking, there's a kind of conversation that's beginning to be allowed within your own body. And mostly, we take care of ourselves very well if we give ourselves freedom. Give all our parts freedom. So this kind of attitude or view is one way to practice and to allow a kind of settling and clarity and own organizing process to occur in you that you mostly take care of yourself.

[30:15]

You don't even say me anymore. The sense of me appears if you need it, but mostly it's stomach, legs, breathing, blue sky. It's a lot of elements that you don't try to put into a whole or don't try to give meaning to or don't try to grasp. They're there to be brought together, but mostly you don't have to. Each thing takes care of itself. As I said last night, we are also above looking down into the trees and into the reflected light of the zendo. is no age. Things have no age. There's no comparison like that.

[31:19]

We just bow to each other. Too often if you stand at my door while the meal service are going by, Both Randy and I feel like those, they don't have them much anymore, those birds in the grocery, in the drugstores you used to have, which dipped in the water and then they come back up and dip in. It's rather nice though, but I always, I'm sorry to make you bow so often. But this sense of just bowing to each person, just bowing to everything you see, even if you don't physically bow. And as you become more subtle in your practice, entering into an actual feeling of connectedness of brightness or clarity.

[32:30]

There's no words for it actually. Anyway, this is the medicine to allows us to look at our own entanglements and sufferings and ill-being and to see their causes and their cessation and to begin to really see how the path works, how the path of Buddhism works. And it all starts from facing the ill-being that arises and that Sashin is so good at making us notice. May our intention equally penetrate every being and place.

[33:40]

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