Good morning.

The other evening I was talking about a Zen monk is called unsui. An unsui means literally clouds and water. Clouds and water symbolize the life of a Zen monk. What it means is how our nature finds freedom in form. How our nature or spirit...how the form of our nature remains free; lives life in a very mature way. We don't separate spirit from form, actually. We don't say there's form and there's spirit, or that there's nature and form. It's all one. But sometimes we, in order to make some illustration, we talk about one thing and the other. How to live our life in freedom is the point. 

Clouds and water symbolize this kind of freedom in our life. Water has no form of its own, but takes on the shape of whatever it comes into contact with. The nature of water is like that. When you throw water on the ground it just dries up, spreads out. So it needs some container. Some form for its shape. If we fill a glass of water we say, "Oh there's a glass of water." But the water actually has no form. 

Water, in order to be contained, in order to have some so-called existence, needs to flow to its lowest level. It seeks the lowest level so to speak. And finds its form where there is no place else to go. And on its way it takes temporary shapes, tentative shapes. We say, "Oh there's a lake." And then we say, "Oh there's a stream. Here's a reservoir. There's a bathtub full of water; a glass of water." Many, many shapes. Infinite shapes. 

Water actually has no shape of its own, and clouds are somewhat the same. They look like something, but when you look away and then look back the shape of the cloud has changed. It's wonderful. I love to watch clouds in the fall and winter. Lots of clouds around here. Sometimes big cumulus clouds. They look like castles, or cities, or mountains. And as we look at them, little by little, and change into something else. And clouds are also water. Clouds let their water out, and water comes back and forms more clouds.

Clouds and water, you can see, is a wonderful kind of illustration of our life in freedom - as freedom to take various forms and shapes. Our life actually is very formal, and the problem we have in our life is how to find freedom in this formality. Not to get rid of formality, but how to be free in formality. The whole nature of our practice is based on a kind of formality, or attention to form. 

The problem that we have in our life, our life as practice, is not so much how do we practice in a formal situation. But how does our life con-form...how does our practice con-form to life, to take on the form of everyday activity as reality and as practice?

If we enter into everyday life with some fixed idea about what our practice is - what I am as a Zen student or something - our life will take on a very rigid attitude. The problem we always have, how do we practice zazen in everyday life, within the forms of everyday life? We say, when we come to the zendo, this is the form of practice. It's easy to get into the form. It's like water going into the bathtub or into the swimming pool. I think it was Nyogen Senzaki who said, "Nowadays we practice around the swimming pool [laughs], but in the old days the whole world was the realm of practice."

How do we, in the wide world, take on form? And find our freedom within that form? And give others freedom as well? Why we practice around the swimming pool is to find out how to do that. There's really no difference between our swimming pool practice - when we sit zazen [laughs] it is like a swimming pool and we sit around the edge and there's a space in the middle. Of course we don't have much space now. There's really no difference, there should be no difference between this form and some other form that we take as we move in the stream of life. How to have a flexible mind? A soft flexible mind and a soft flexible body that moves with things. And con-forms to things, takes on the form and shape of our environment. Without getting lost, confused, bogged down. 

Water itself is, we can say it has a certain kind of purity. But as it goes through various courses, all kinds of things enter into it - what we call impurities. All kinds of impurities enter into the water. But as the water goes back into the ground it filters out all the impurities and comes out again as just pure water, and enters into the lake, and you can see all the way to the bottom. 

When we sit zazen we can see all the way down to the bottom. We should be able to see all the way down to the bottom. This form of sitting is to enable us to do that. So this formal practice is a kind of purification. We let the mind settle. We let the so-called impurities settle and just a pure, clear, still mind will reveal.

Like water we keep flowing, and we flow out into daily life and so called impurities start filling our vessels. But without really reject impure life - impure life and pure life is all the same, even though there is impurity in the water, the water itself is stainless. No problem. So in the midst of activity, to realize that our mind is really stainless. Water is still water. Without worrying about purity or impurity, good or bad. 

If we experience our pure mind - pure clean mind - and continue to sit over and over again without trying to look for purity. Looking for purity is not such a good attitude. As we keep seeking purity it keeps alluding us. We say that the purity is obscured by the impure elements. When the impure elements are lifted or filtered out then our pure mind is just there. Always is there. There is no time when it is not there. No matter how thick the impurity is. Pure mind is still always there. But in order to see it, we clear some of that away and then we see some [unclear word] of purity and clear water appears. 

We can say that the clear water is like absolute mind, the absolute. The impurity of life: our activity, our worldly activity. But both are inseparable. One is not really separated from the other. The pure activity of our life takes many, many shapes and many forms in this world of activity. And this world of activity is actually our pure mind.

The ability to keep moving, or not cling to some special form or shape is freedom. Even though we take many shapes, everything is constantly changing and our life stream is taking many forms and shapes. Without clinging to any particular form or any particular shape is how our stream remains clean. We watch a stream in the mountains because it doesn't get hung up in some place; it stays very fresh and clean. 

When we have this attitude of not clinging to things, letting our life move as it needs to move, we maintain some clarity and some freedom. The biggest hindrance, of course, is our desire to build some form, some ideal form. For a Zen monk to have no attachment to anything, to have no special form of anything, to have no desire for anything for your self, leaves you free to take on any situation and to help people in any way that's necessary. To not have any special career is also the career of a bum [laughs]. So a monk and a bum kind of have this thing in common, [laughs] but there is a difference [laughs]. The difference is the monk is dedicated to helping everyone by having no particular desire for himself. He turns his attention to being a support of everyone and maintaining freedom and helping others to find their own freedom. 

Actually a bum can become a bodhisattva by just turning around. When I was first starting to study Zen, a lot of the people that were attracted to Zen - this was in the early Sixties - people who were on drugs and who had given up any kind of career or any kind of desire to do anything in society. They were kind of like bums. When they came into contact with practice it just turned them around and they became bodhisattvas. Because it gave their lives some reality and some purpose. 

One of the problems that we have is how to have also a career. How to have some activity that we do in this world and still have that freedom. A bodhisattva always has the freedom to not have to do anything, but chooses to enter into the world like everyone and take on some career or some burden actually. That's actually bodhisattva spirit, is to become involved in worldly activity. Even though that person has complete freedom.

The problem of our practice is how to turn to the world and maintain freedom; maintain a flowing freedom, and help others to maintain freedom. And never to really escape from that. When we sit zazen this flowing stream takes on this form of cross legged sitting. How we maintain our freedom, in this most formal of forms. How to keep this water calm, and clear, and free.

Probably the most necessary quality is patience, great patience. Patience to see the minute changes and to conform to the minute changes. If we have some fixed idea of what we are doing we can't see things as they really are. We can't really focus on how minute changes are always taking place. We can't conform to what is actually happening. If we can conform to what is actually happening, moment after moment, we have very little difficulty. But because we have some idea of how things are we feel trapped. 

To become one with the form, just to become completely one with the form, is how we maintain our freedom. When we try to escape or when we lose patience, then we fall into confusion and we fall into suffering.

As we practice over and over again, we absorb practice through our pores. How we learn is through our pores. We can learn a little bit by someone talking like this, but how we actually learn is by practicing over and over until it comes through our pores. Completely absorbed. 

Looks like zazen - cross legged sitting - is a fixed kind of form, but there's infinite space in it, completely limitless space. When we can find our freedom in this still, pure form then when we move to some other shape, some other form, we can also find our freedom within that form. One activity after the next, constantly moving and changing shape, and finding vital freedom. This is how our practice moves from zazen into ordinary daily activity. This is also called genjokoan - this is the koan of daily life, which arises moment by moment. Koan arises moment by moment as we constantly change shape and change form. There is no formal or informal. Formal or informal is just like talking about one, two, or three o'clock. Just something that we impose on the situation. 

When you can feel comfortable in this formal situation, you can feel comfortable in another kind of formal situation which we call informal. But we need to flow into the form each time. Eventually - actually always, water takes many courses. But water is just water. All water belongs to water, to just water. When we can flow like this we recognize our self in everyone. All the streams, water looks over and recognizes itself in the other streams, even though each stream is independent. This is the universal aspect of our nature. We don't have to contend with other streams. 

Anyway, I've done all the talking [laughs]. Would you like to say something? Getting late. Do you have a question?

Student: Sometimes I [unclear words] find it hard to see the difference between to conform [unclear words] and because when we are in the world of activity, we are within a world of social forms that appear to be as given as natural forms, but are actually the product of human activity.

Sojun: Well, we have some path that we go on. Even though we have some path that we go, that path is not isolated. Leads to other paths and so forth, and is conditioned by various other forces in the world. So we have to choose some way for this stream to go. Even though we pick out some smooth path for the stream to go - we say, "Well, maybe it should go this way and then over there." - but when we get up here, there are always other streams and paths that have been deforming our way and then "Aw nuts, there they are ruining my path. [laughs] Can't get through."

In order to continue we have to deal with all those other paths, all those deformities, unexpected pitfalls. In order to survive and continue we don't lose sight of our way, we don't lose sight of the way our path should go. But things come up and we have to deal with them. And sometimes we have to deal with things we don't want to deal with. Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do. And even though we have ten precepts - say don't do this and don't do that - sometimes we come across a situation where we have to do something that is against the precepts in order for it to be right. [unclear words] So not even clinging to precepts. Precepts are a kind of guideline; they say, well don't kill, steal, dah, dah, dah. Sometimes we have to do something that's not in conformity with them, and that's correct rather than to stick to some rule. But because we have precepts we have some guideline for our life. That's important to know, what precepts are. To know where we are going and some goal. 

If you think that there should be no nukes then that's part of your path and you should include that in your path. But some people say, "Well, you know, does that mean I have to be pacifistic or something?" What I am presenting is a negative side. There is negative and positive. Negative side is that you flow and conform with things. Positive side is that you create, also, a way. So it doesn't mean to just be passive.

There is passive and active, two perfect balance. What we do we should do completely. I am presenting it kind of one side, but when we decide something, we should do something. Whatever we do we should do completely and wholeheartedly. Its like when we sit zazen, in order to sit, you have to have some passive quality, you have to conform to the posture and so forth. But at the same time you create the posture. All of your energy, your whole heart, meaning body-mind, heart is completely concentrated in this one act. Nothing left out. The whole universe is participating in zazen with you. 

To keep our attention always ready without some preconceived idea of things. When you need to do something, you know what to do. Just do something. Always being ready for something - that kind of attitude. To be ready and willing to take on what comes next. This kind of practice really shows us our own resistance and ego. Our ego comes up constantly. This is the koan - is our ego. Dealing with your ego moment after moment, its resistance and our own laziness. And our own unwillingness to participate in life. 

OK. Thank you.