The thing he said was that Buddhism came to each new country so far before it came to America and it added to the world. In India it was very simple, just five. And then in China there was more and in Japan there was more and he said now in America people begin to share. But he didn't say when. He didn't exactly say share one by one but perhaps he would make that choice. Yes, yes. That's more accurate. Yes, I think that's so. Q. Do you think you let go of things by standing back from them or throwing yourself in them totally? A. I think the best thing to do is both at the same time.

[01:16]

This is a kind of a secret of practice to really be fully involved, totally throw yourself into something, into life, but have the mind that is always standing back. So I think we're doing both. This is what our practice is. Not one way and not the other, but come together. Q. I used to work for a high-tech company as an engineer and the very first job I had was this very interesting project and it was going along very well for a couple of years and very, very successful. It looked like we were poised for tremendous success and everybody was really pleased and one day a decision comes down, you know, kill it. I was devastated.

[02:19]

How could they do this? Aren't they stupid? It took me a long time to get over that. But little by little you learn that even though you may be working on something that seems totally wonderful, somebody might say there's a change going on somewhere. Somebody, somehow, something's changing. And what we're doing at this moment, even though it's totally wonderful, and we have to say, okay, I can let go of this wonderful thing. Many of you may have had the same kind of experiences, you know, doing something really crazy that really grabbed you, you know. You're really looking for the big payoff and then all of a sudden, stop. You have to stop. And let go and then do the next thing.

[03:21]

Okay, thank you. You have to let it go. Yes, thank you. They are intentioned equally. To see us do, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening. Good evening. It is a great privilege for me to be here tonight. It's a great honor, actually, to be here in the Zen Center of San Francisco.

[04:37]

Like Blanche said, I started practice with Suzuki Roshi and the others that joined him almost, for me, almost 30 years now. I'm very fortunate to be in a tradition of such a person as Suzuki Roshi. And even though my own practice is located, centered some 30 miles from here, as years go by, I discover how increasingly grateful I am for this place.

[05:40]

I don't come here very often, once in a while. But more and more I feel gratitude for this place, San Francisco Zen Center, for all of you, for continuing this way, this spiritual practice brought to us by Suzuki Roshi. In a very quiet way, a practice that is centered here and that is emanating into the world is having a subtle, profound effect. Nobody can measure it yet, but it's taking place little by little. And I myself feel very fortunate to be able to kind of refresh myself, be refreshed of Suzuki Roshi's practice by returning here,

[06:46]

to the central place that he founded here at Tassajara, to resume or remind myself what it was he was doing for us. So thank you for inviting me to be here tonight and to share a few minutes with you. At dinner I was asked, what will you speak about tonight? I said I didn't know, but of course I know. And it's always the same. It's always the same. It can't be any different for me. It's always the person I'm talking to. It's the practice, Suzuki Roshi's practice, and how it expresses itself in our daily life. That's all I can talk about. I don't know if there is anything else to talk about.

[07:48]

I've never discovered anything else. So that's what it's going to be. Just another slant on that. How does the spiritual practice manifest itself in our lives, in our daily life? So that's what I'll talk about. Perhaps the major emphasis, major point that Suzuki Roshi tried to have us understand is that our practice, Zen practice is nothing but how we express our true nature, our fundamental self. You know, who we really are.

[08:49]

His practice is nothing but expressing who you are. That sounds good, you know. And then he didn't give any instructions other than that, the practice to express who you are. I think that for those of us who want to practice, for those of us who at the beginning point when we felt some pull or some desire or we wanted to do Zen practice, we really felt we wanted to do Zen practice, what we were feeling was our desire to understand. We wanted to understand something. We wanted to understand the meaning of our life. Something uncertain, you know, we're a little bit confused. And we wanted to practice so we can understand the meaning of our life's activity as well as how to take care of our life, how to take care of our life's activity.

[09:55]

I think for people who continue practice, this is the fundamental point. As you know, many people start practice and then after a while they give up, they choose not to practice anymore. And I think it's because this was not their fundamental question in the beginning. What is the meaning of my life? What is the meaning of my life's activity? When that is our basic question, then practice continues. I've discovered in my own looking at this question that the activity of practice is based on quiet. Activity of practice is based on quiet.

[10:57]

That is to say, Buddha's activity is based on quiet. The quiet that exists in the midst of noisy daily life. Inherent quiet that exists behind the noisiness and the busyness of daily life. When we can base our daily activity, the activity of our life, on that quiet, then we are always aware, always very mindful of our activity, very focused and not distracted. When we base our activity on that quiet that exists before noisiness comes up. Always aware of what we're doing and always aware of each particular activity

[12:03]

and we pay very particular attention to each activity without distraction. So to express ourself, to express our true nature, we have to allow our mind to be quiet. We have to let our mind be quiet, which means not let the mind be reaching out for something or grasping something. The mind that is always reaching or grasping, holding on, you know, attached, sticky. This mind is not quiet. This kind of mind cannot appreciate the fundamental quiet that exists before the noisiness begins. So when we let our mind be quiet in that way, then we are allowing everything to be quiet.

[13:08]

We allow everything to express itself. Then we resume, we can resume our natural position in the world, our natural place. When we let the mind be quiet in that way, even in the midst of activity, let our mind be quiet in that way, we can feel a texture, kind of texture of our true nature and our true activity. You can't, you know, describe it in words, but you feel its texture. If you pick up a piece of silk or maybe a piece of cotton or a piece of velvet, it's pretty hard to describe completely what it feels like, the texture, you know. If somebody says, well, what does that feel like? All you can do is say, well, here, you feel it. It's like that. Feel the texture of our true nature.

[14:12]

Impossible to describe, but you have some feeling for it. Almost tactile. When we feel the texture of our true activity and our true self, then it means we can let things emerge on their own. We are not attached to them in any way, we don't try to control them in any way, we don't try to use them for ourself in any way, we simply let them emerge on their own. And that is how we let people emerge, without interfering or without disturbing them. Let the mind resume original quiet, non-grasping mind, mind that doesn't stick to anything. Suzuki Roshi, when he was asked what's the purpose of zazen,

[15:20]

he said, mind, to have a mind that doesn't stick to anything, stickiness. So this quiet that I'm trying to talk about, this kind of quiet doesn't have to do just with the ear, not that kind of quiet, not just the ear quiet. This quiet exists also, not only does it exist in the ear, but it also exists in the eye, in the nose, body, mind, mouth. So our practice actually is not to disturb this quiet with the activity of our daily life, not to disturb this fundamental quiet, not to disturb it with the activity of our eye, and the activity of our mind, or body, or tongue, mouth.

[16:22]

It's not just a loud noise that disturbs quiet, I'm not talking about that kind of quiet, it's not just some kind of loud noise that disturbs quiet. A wrong word, a wrong sound, a wrong action also disturbs quiet. But this wrong, I say wrong, but this is not wrong in a judgmental sense, like certain activity is always wrong, not that kind of wrong. The wrong in this case means something that does not fit the situation. Sometimes we say something and it's okay, and other times we might say the same thing and it's not so good. So, not fitting the situation is when a word or a thought or an activity is wrong, when it disturbs quiet.

[17:26]

So we have to know the situation, we have to know if what we want to say or what we want to do, what action we want to take, what sound we want to make, we have to know if it will fit the situation. If it doesn't fit the situation, then it will disturb quiet. So we need to know the situation, see it with a very big mind, have a big picture of things, see the situation with a very big mind, in other words, we need to feel the texture of a situation, all at once. Step into a room and you know immediately, you can't say this. Earlier you could have said this, but now you can't say this or do this. Know immediately by knowing the entire situation, big picture. So this means having a big mind. So if we are to avoid disturbing this inherent quiet,

[18:34]

we need to have awareness, so that our mind can be very big and see everything all at once. Then we know what the situation is and whether what we plan to say or do will fit the situation. So, we can say that our practice is not to disturb Buddha's activity with a noisy mind. We do not disturb Buddha's activity with a noisy mind. And this is why we practice, so that we can continue Buddha's activity, so that we can learn how to set aside noisy mind and continue Buddha's activity. It's why we practice and why our entire life is practice. We can't understand this point logically, we can only understand this point.

[19:41]

It's a kind of feeling we get when we resume our inherent quiet. Then we can appreciate what this means. Why our entire life is practice. Why our entire life is not to disturb, not to interrupt the Buddha's activity with a noisy mind. We have to return to inherent quiet mind to understand this point. And so we practice. Then the meaning of our life's activity starts to become clear. So, as we know, our practice is not simply a series of our own personal activities. Activities that we feel are strictly personal.

[20:48]

It's very easy for us to think, well, this is what I'm going to do, this activity is practice. I do this activity and it's practice, and it's always practice. But if the activity doesn't fit with a certain situation, we cannot say this is a right activity, even though we might say that's a practice activity. Sometimes a so-called practice activity can disturb quiet. Our own quiet and the quiet of others. So sometimes even a so-called practice activity disturbs Buddha's activity. We can only express our true self. The only way to express our true nature is through what we have.

[21:52]

Intellect, body, mind. Only through our human faculties can we express who we really are. But we need to use these faculties appropriately. This is the only way to express our true nature. So it means we need to know each situation. We need to know each situation. We have to be fully involved, fully engaged in our daily life, in each situation, know it completely, if we are to express our true nature. So in other words, having a good idea is not enough. By itself it's not enough. Working hard by itself is not enough. It's a virtuous thing to work hard, but by itself it's not enough.

[22:56]

Having sympathetic feelings for someone or something is not enough. Or expressing enthusiasm is not enough. These things may be good to do, but alone not enough. They have to fit in the context of the total situation. So it's easy to practice when it's convenient for us. Easy to practice when it's convenient. And it's easy to be aware of what we're doing when we are excited, you know, or even threatened. Somebody a few weeks ago gave an example. Somebody who is pretty new to practice and his wife is not practicing. He said, my wife became an instant Zen person the other day.

[24:00]

An instant, complete Zen person the other day. He says, we went shopping with our little daughter in the department store and the daughter was lost. All of a sudden she was lost. He says, at that moment my wife became an instant Zen student. All of her faculties were on that one point, find that little girl and she engaged everybody in the store in this activity. With her enthusiasm and her energy and her determination she got everybody involved in looking for her daughter. Focused. Easy to be aware when we feel excited or threatened. She didn't just say, oh, to the security guard, would you look for my daughter while I go to the lingerie department? So this fellow said, this is the way we should practice. As if we had lost our little girl in the department store and we're looking for her fully engaged.

[25:02]

So it's easy to practice when that kind of thing happens. Easy to be very focused and fully aware when we feel threatened or excited. And it's easy to be kind when something touches us emotionally. And it's easy to be quiet when quiet suits us. But our practice is to continue our awareness and our kindness and our quiet mind in every moment. Not just when convenient or when it suits us or when we feel threatened or something like that. Our practice is to continue those elements of practice. Awareness, kindness, quiet. Continue them all the time. Whether convenient or not. Or it suits us or not. Just we continue. When our practice is that way, then we really are practicing with everyone.

[26:08]

Without exception. With everyone. People we like, people we don't like. We practice with everyone. When our activities are not simply personal activities, but we continue our awareness and our kindness and our quiet continually in every situation. We are always, in the midst of a busy life that everybody has these days, we never leave, we've never left the mystic world. We're always in the mystic world. A world that we don't, that part of the universe that we don't live in. That part of reality and that part of our life that we can't reach or touch with the rational mind. Call it mystic or something like that.

[27:10]

We're always in this world, the mystic world. Life itself, you know, is mystical. I think only a small portion of our life can we touch with a thinking mind. Only a small percentage of reality can we touch with a rational mind. Mostly we live in the mystic world. That's beyond the rational. But even though we live, always live in the mystic world, at the same time we are, we are full of activity and we are logical and we are emotional. We are creative. We live in the everyday world. Our mystic nature is expressed in our daily activities. This is the fundamental teaching of our practice.

[28:12]

Our true mystic nature can only be expressed in our daily activities. So, our formal practice, our Zazen practice is to resume or return to or express our mystic self, the universal self. We call it universal self or absolute, however we want to say it. This mystic self, this universal self, is a very fundamental primitive thing. It exists before we act, before we think, before we feel. Very fundamental and primitive. But these days, these days meaning for several centuries now, we human beings have forgotten our mystic self. Or we deny it.

[29:13]

We deny our mystic self. This has been going on for a long time. And when we forget or deny our mystic self, we become, we feel, we feel separated. We feel separated from each other and separated from the world around us. Because we don't appreciate our mystic self. And when that happens, our activities of our daily life have no meaning. They lose their meaning and we're actually confused by what we're doing. Always looking, we always search for the meaning of our daily activity, but if we deny our mystic self, we can never find that meaning. It's just some activity. We don't know if it's appropriate or not appropriate, fit in the situation or not. It's just simply acting, speaking, feeling.

[30:19]

Not fitting in necessarily with the situation. I have to return to an inherent mystic self. So what we're doing, when we understand this point, when we understand this is what we're doing with our practice, then we can learn simply to walk on this earth without abusing our gifts. To walk on the earth without abusing our gifts. Our practice, in other words, our practice is not to misuse the gifts of our human nature, not to misuse the gifts of our humanity, such as the intellect of our mind, which is a great gift. Our practice is to walk on the earth without abusing this and many other gifts.

[31:23]

And this not abusing is the same thing as use appropriately. So even though we may have great intellect, if we don't use it appropriately, or we use it inappropriately, we actually are abusing it. So when we don't practice, we may miss this point entirely and cause great suffering, and continue to suffer ourself. So we learn to set aside our ego when necessary. Sometimes we need to use our ego in certain activities of daily life. We must use personality, our ego, and do things in a certain way,

[32:27]

but we set aside our ego and what we feel we want when necessary, so that we don't abuse the gifts of our humanity. And so we learn to let go of pride and of greed and fear, because we don't want to abuse the gifts of our life. When we see our practice in this way, when we see our practice as understanding how to walk this earth

[33:28]

without abusing the gifts that we have, then we touch the mystic world. We can feel that we touch the mystic world and we can have true relationships with people and with things of this world. True relationships. Not everyday relationships that are polite, cordial, not relationships that are simply helpful. In other words, not relationships that are limited to the nirmanakaya Buddha, the Buddha who comes in human form. True relationships. To have true relationships with things and people means to have bodhisattva eyes, bodhisattva eyes, to see things in a very large way, to not miss anything, to see things with an inherent quiet.

[34:32]

This is to see with bodhisattva eyes. To see things that way, to see the entire situation, means we never have any danger of abusing the gifts of our humanity. We never have any problem. So, to touch the mystic world means we treat our human qualities with reverence. Because we see that our human qualities are nothing but the reflection of the mystic world. When we feel the texture of this point, then there is no way we can abuse these gifts of our humanity. So, it is important for us to understand our mystic self. Important not to deny our mystic self.

[35:33]

Many people feel very uncomfortable when you say you are mystical. No, I'm just rational. Many people these days are uncomfortable with the idea that they are more than what they can see or feel or smell or touch. It's hard for people to accept that they are more than what their rational mind can get around. More than that. Who you really are includes what you can't see or hear. People don't want to know about that. It's very discomforting. So, when that happens, we deny our mystic self. And it's important that we do not. If we don't deny our mystic self, then we can resume our quiet, true nature. In Zazen, we find increased confidence

[36:39]

in our mystic self. We learn to trust it more and more. Learn to accept it more and more. And have faith in it. In Zazen, we have trust in our inherent, enlightened nature, our mystic self. So, Zazen is the best way to express our true self. In our Zazen, there is no attachment, no desire, no goal, nothing personal, no concern for achieving anything. Now, in recent days, in recent months, I continually find myself coming back to that very first story about how Zen Center started.

[37:43]

I always come back to it. Such a simple story. You've all heard it, I'm sure. You've read about it and heard about it. When Suzuki Roshi first came to San Francisco, he was with Sokoji, the Japanese-American congregation in the Zen mission. That congregation didn't sit Zazen. But Suzuki Roshi came to this country and he sat by himself every morning. In the night, he just went and sat. That's all. And one day, a Caucasian found him. I guess somebody had heard about Zen and looked up the Zen mission. And he found Suzuki Roshi. Oh, I'm interested in Zen. Can you teach me? Suzuki Roshi said, I sit every morning. You can join me. And he joined him, and little by little others joined the sitting.

[38:45]

And from out of that fundamental beginning, we have this. And we have Tassahara, and the Green Gulch, and many different affiliated centers now. I want to learn about Zen. Please sit with me. Suzuki Roshi said, Zazen, just sit. I don't have to explain anything to you. Just sit. He was saying, without being explicit, Zazen is the best way to express yourself. Zazen is the best way to understand your true nature. So sit without attachment or desire or any goal. Just sit with your unselfish effort. Zazen is how we trust our mystic self. And we cannot touch it with our thinking mind.

[39:45]

Do we have time for a question? How do we... Does anybody have... Please let me know when the time is... Does anybody have a question? Yes. Would you say, might you say, that the texture of the mind can evolve in our allowing it to decline? Yes. Yes. Yes. We can feel the texture of our entire life if we just... Yes. Thank you, Hal. Thank you, Hal. So the mystic state that you talk about,

[41:07]

when we enter into the mortal world of form, we have some engagement. Is that a mystic state? Is it overshadowed? No. It always exists. Mystic world. Not exactly state. Rhetoric is important. Mystic... Our mystic nature never diminishes. Never... Never goes away. If we get too personally involved in the everyday world, we forget. We lose touch with our mystic... the so-called mystic side of ourself. But it doesn't go away. We cloud it. We cloud it. We could say that, maybe. So in our practice, we're studying shin-shin-bing in our groups. Oh. What about aspirations? You know, good aspirations too. Sometimes we seem to cloud things too if we hang on to them.

[42:08]

So you've got a powerful aspiration in practice. Does that cause you problems too at times? Not if we're ready to let go. If a situation calls for us to let go, then we should be ready to let go. If... But if we're very stubborn about something, then we... mind gets cloudy. So even though we have the most precious thing in the world, if we're ready to let go, then we always know who we are. So it's this readiness to... let it go. That's the... point of our practice. So we can have... You know, it's okay to have aspirations and ambitions and all these things. They're not inherently wrong. Not inherently wrong. But if we too... too grasping, then they cause a problem. And so we practice,

[43:09]

appreciate our mystic self and go out in the world with aspiration. But always we come back. Yes? I was a little confused about... when you were saying that... if you... don't blend in harmoniously in a situation, you're disturbing the quiet. I guess... I don't know... who's quiet. I guess I have some... feeling that there's a fundamental quiet that is never disturbed. Maybe... that... you might get confused into thinking that it's not quiet or you might confuse other people into believing it's no longer quiet.

[44:11]

Do you think there's a fundamental quiet that's never disturbed? Yes. Yes. Yes. But it's... if we disturb someone else's practice it is... it's as if we are abusing a fundamental quiet. You know the... tenth... precept... tenth precept is don't abuse the three treasures. Don't abuse the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

[45:14]

We can't... we can't stain Buddha. We can't... destroy Buddha. But we abuse Buddha if we don't take care of things. We abuse the Dharma if we... are... indifferent. So in the same way inherent quiet is never... disturbed but we abuse it if we... disturb somebody else's quiet. Everyone is... trying to return to this quiet and if we disturb somebody else's returning to quiet we... abuse the quiet. So we treat the fundamental inherent quiet with great reverence through daily activities. Not...

[46:20]

not easy to talk about this kind of thing. Thank you. Yes, excuse me. Well, I think at some point you emphasized always being ready to let go and... I don't understand how you sort of fit that or reconcile that when it seems like so many activities in life require or require or seem to require not letting go. In other words, like I don't know if some strange example comes to mind but there's Tommy Mass that you're sitting on here but I have a feeling one of Suzuki Roshi's close disciples said, for instance, it's ridiculous to have Tommy Mass or it's expensive or, you know, it's reform or, you know. It was saying in Suzuki Roshi that, you know,

[47:21]

this was just not letting go. This was insisting on Japanese forms or something. Obviously, you know, who am I after Tommy Mass today? So was Suzuki Roshi being stubborn? He wasn't ready to let go? And anyway, the whole texture of Zen Sensei required many decisions other than that. Yes. Very difficult and so on. So, anyway, when I hear this letting go it's like, well, Suzuki Roshi was a perfect master of something but he said, OK, that's not important. Now, go ahead. He didn't do that. Well, I don't know what that situation was at that time. Who knows? Maybe he felt that the person who was speaking to him wasn't letting go of their idea. It's hard to say exactly. Another example

[48:22]

strikes me similar to what you said. Somebody said to Suzuki Roshi a long time ago when the practice was first starting here, said, why do we do three bows? He said, Suzuki Roshi said, from now on we do nine bows because he wanted that person to let go of their idea of whatever idea they had about bows. So instead of saying, oh, didn't argue with him, he said, oh, from now on we'll do nine bows. So today the tradition here is nine bows and I heard that's how it started because he was telling someone, let go, let go. Just bow. Just let go. Just bow. Maybe he did the same thing with this. He said, you like plywood? Let go of plywood. Use this. But on the other hand, maybe Suzuki Roshi was stubborn about these. I don't know. At some point

[49:23]

we will have to let go of these because we can't get them anymore. At our place in Mountain View we use plywood. We don't have these. I don't know. We have to know the situation is what it means. Not being there at the time this decision was made, I don't know what to say.

[49:49]

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