When you walk in the window, I talked about this yesterday. When we walked in the zendo, instead of walking on our heels like we usually walk, when you walk down the street, you walk with your heels first. But in the zendo, whether we're serving food or doing kin-hin or just coming into the zendo, we put the weight on the front part of our foot first.

[01:08]

Not like tip-tilling, but You're pushing your foot. You're pushing the fall of your foot or the weight of your body on the front part of your foot so that you're very aware of your foot touching the floor and the weight of your body on the foot. Usually, when we walk down the street, we're thinking about something else. We're watching where we're going, at least watching where we're going. But usually we're watching where we're going. If we don't have to watch, then if we kind of know the street pretty well, then we don't really even watch where we're going.

[02:16]

We just kind of walk and then continue our thought. So our body becomes a vehicle for our thought. And it's walking down the street carrying these thoughts with it from block to block. And so our feet just kind of go, which is okay, you know. But when we walk in zindo, the walking itself is the important thing. The walking itself has the emphasis. And we've tried to be very careful about our step. And we know this is a step. This is a step. This is a step.

[03:18]

Sometimes in the afternoon zazen, people come late. And we don't ask them to stay outside in the gaitan, which is the outside zendo. And we say, well, please come in because we'd like to have everybody sitting together. And sometimes people come in late and they feel, I'm late. So I should get into the Zendo as fast as possible because I'm late. So they come in to the Zendo in the same way they're walking in the street. And everybody's, you know, It's like walking into Zendo with your arms at your sides. When you come into Zendo, everybody knows about coming into Zendo, puts their hands in shashu.

[04:25]

And it's really strange to see somebody coming into Zendo with their hands at their sides. You say, no, no, that's not it. You have to put your hands in shashu. And we get very upset when we see somebody walking down the window with their hands at their side. And it's something about it. We say, don't listen to your hands at your sides. You have to be doing something with your hands. Your hands have a function. your hands are in a meditative attitude. So, also, your feet should be in a meditative attitude. You put your hands in a meditative attitude, and when you come in, then your feet are also in a meditative attitude.

[05:30]

One foot after the other, on the balls of the feet, front part of your foot, cushioning. the fall of your foot, cushioning the weight of your body. Be very careful. If you come in late during the afternoon's oven, you should open the door and close it quietly. And then walk gently on the front part of your foot so that you don't make any sound at all. And then you can kind of take a seat. And you're in rapport with the room. You're in rapport with the zinda. That same kind of rapport, that same kind of entering into, should carry over into the rest of our life.

[06:34]

knowing how to enter into the situation that you're in so that you're in rapport with it and in harmony with things and in harmony with the universe. The teaching, you know, our teaching is very kind of subtle, but it's It has to do with the most common aspects of our life.

[07:40]

Sometimes we talk about great concepts in Buddhism, but our teaching is always based on the most common acts of our life. When you have an encounter with a teacher, if you don't understand what's happening from the smallest encounters, then it's, as they say, the arrow has flown past Korea. Such a, when the monk misses the point, he says, the arrow flew past Korea. So encounter with a teacher is like whatever goes on between you and a teacher can be teaching in the most mundane situation.

[09:01]

in the most ordinary, everyday situation. That's where actually teaching takes place. And we have to be able to recognize what that is. And what the teacher is always demonstrating or teaching is how to... the oneness of duality. how to recognize the oneness of our dualistic activity. So if we don't pick up on the subtle points of our teaching, then we really miss it, and we're just thrown back into ordinary activity.

[10:05]

Ordinary activity is the way. Very famous understanding of Zen. Ordinary activity, everyday mind is the way. Ordinary activity and everyday mind is the way. But what does that really mean? You know, there's a famous koan, bute, bute, the one finger zen. Every time somebody asked bute a question, he raised, he went like this. This is the simplest action you can possibly do to demonstrate something, is to raise your finger like that. But what is that? What does raising your finger mean? If you understand what raising this finger means, then you don't have any problem.

[11:21]

Usually we're involved in our own kind of self-centered activity. And the purpose of practice, when we enter into practice, in order to have an easy time, we have to give up our self-centered way of thinking. And we have to put ourself under some restraint. And we have to harmonize with the Sangha. So that's why we put so much emphasis on Sangha. on doing things together.

[12:49]

When we do things together, practice together, you know, we all put ourselves in this pot together. And when we put ourselves in the pot, then in order to harmonize in the pot, in the frying pan, if you want. We have to find out what our place is in that realm. And in order to find our place in that realm, we have to give up our self-centered way of thinking and our self-centered way of acting. So in every situation that you have with the teacher, the teacher is always pointing out to you what you're doing.

[14:00]

The teacher doesn't teach you. What you find out, what you learn in Zen is strictly your own. But the teacher is always pointing out to you something. And what the teacher is always pointing out is usually your own self-centered way of thinking and acting. And if you don't pick up on it, or if you refuse to see it, or if you pick up on it and see it and don't respond, then you have a very difficult time over and over and over. Sometimes you have a difficult time with the teacher, and sometimes you just have a difficult time, you know, with whatever you encounter, because whatever you encounter is the teacher.

[15:10]

So we say everything is the teacher. every day, day by day, is the teacher. But specifically a teacher's function is to point this out, to point out when our ego is dominating the situation. Because If this isn't so, then we can just go on and on forever without ever knowing what we're doing. So... The best way to...

[16:18]

practice in the situation, this kind of situation, is to find out what the rules are and go by the rules. And when you have an encounter or when something is pointed out, to really pay attention to that and to deal with that. If you just let it go by, you know, then it comes up again in some other form, some other way. Our ginjo koan is right there in those situations. We're always dealing with our koan, no matter what we're doing.

[17:27]

But our koan manifests itself in every situation. Our self-centered attitude meets the absolute. That's where our koan takes place. That's where the drama of our koan takes place. Our self-centered attitude meets the absolute. And it meets on every situation, at every moment. And teacher represents, is like the referee, something like that.

[18:32]

Sometimes, I don't want to say too much. So our practice is how to get rid of our self-centered way of thinking, acting, and attitude, and understand what our place in the universe is. You know, we were talking about free will, if we have a day. Free will, what we think of as free will is the ability to do whatever we want.

[19:44]

And if, from our perception, we feel that the world around us is this great object and we're the center of the universe and we're free to do whatever we want in this world which is an object. We miss the connection. We miss the fact that... We miss the connection between the world, the universe, and ourself. And so we feel that free will means my self-centered desire to do what I want. That's what we think of as free wills.

[20:51]

But in Buddhism what we think of as free will is a little bit different. Since in Buddhism we feel that we are the universe and the universe is How should I say it? It's me. I'm not it, but it's me. This is what, you know, Tozon's famous statement when he saw himself reflected in the stream. He said, this is, it's me. I'm not it. It is me. When we have a realization of what we are, what we really are, that this person belongs to the universe, or we say universe as a way of talking about the ineffable.

[22:09]

This person belongs to the universe. We want to feel, well, I belong to myself. independent. I belong to myself. I have free will. I can do anything I want. But that's the kind of illusion that we have because we can walk. Trees have to stay where they are and live their life out rooted in the earth. They can't move around. So it's easier for them to know their place. But human beings, you know, don't so well know their place because they can move around. And that's not a disadvantage, but it's a disadvantage in understanding. So it's a whole other factor to deal with in understanding ourselves.

[23:16]

So when we practice Buddhism, we should come to the understanding that our action, our activity, is not just our activity, but the activity of the universe. I don't belong to myself. I belong to the universe. So when we say, I, I am sitting zazen, like we said yesterday, I am not sitting zazen. Just painful legs are sitting zazen on a cushion. A mudra is sitting zazen. The universe is sitting zazen on a black cushion and expressing itself through this form.

[24:29]

So when we have this kind of understanding, the universe is expressing itself through this form. We get a little better picture of how we should act, how we should behave, and our ego becomes less and less, and our ability to harmonize becomes greater and greater. And because we know who we are, we have more desire to conform to the universe's way of expression. Ute's finger, you know, we can say this is Ute's finger when he lifts it up.

[25:52]

But where is the beginning and end of this finger? You say, well, this is the top. And this finger is independent. We call it a finger. This is a finger. It's independent, not much around it. But when we come down here, we see that this finger is connected to this hand. And in order for this finger to be independent, all these other fingers have to bow down, take their place someplace else in order to reveal the finger. Here we don't say one finger. We say, oh, that's a hand. But when we take these fingers away, oh, there's a finger. So the hand makes the finger.

[26:58]

Even though the finger is standing out there by itself, the hand makes the finger. Gute's disciple came up and he said he got his finger chopped off. When his finger was chopped off, pretty hard to identify what it was. Only when it's... Here, is it really a finger? Only when it's attached to the hand is it really a finger. Then, you know, it's attached to the arm, which is... attached to the body, which is attached to the cushion, which is attached to the ,, which is attached to the wall, which is attached to the Earth, which is out in space. So everything comes up with Lute's finger, little finger, this little 3 and 1 half inches of flesh and bones.

[28:04]

But it's depends on everything, interdependent with everything for its existence. And when it goes like this, it doesn't look like much is happening, but something on the other side of the world is affected. So if we understand this, then what we do is not just for our own individual self. Whatever we do affects everybody else.

[29:06]

One of the most important things if you study in a monastery is the fact that whatever you do, you have a limited framework and a certain number of people who are all practicing together. And you don't get much coming and going. And so you're here in a box, and whatever you do in that box affects everybody else in the box. The smallest thing, and everybody knows everybody else, and everybody knows what everybody else is doing or thinking. Pretty soon, you know, there's no place to hide in that situation. If you're hiding, you can hide, but everybody knows you're hiding. So-and-so is hiding.

[30:07]

So within that confine, you can only do so much, and then you have to harmonize with everybody. You have to find your place in each situation. So your situation is constantly changing, and all the factors, all the people, all the activities are constantly changing. But wherever you find yourself, you have to know kind of what's happening all around you so that you can find yourself in that situation. And the same thing goes for a wider situation. When you have that kind of training, then when you get yourself into a wider situation, you have less ego and you can harmonize with a bigger situation. So as we step out into the world and continue our zazen in the world, we can harmonize with any situation that we should be able to harmonize.

[31:32]

That's our practice, is to make that effort to harmonize with whatever situation presents itself. And that's our koan. is coming up in every moment's situation. And it's our ego meets the absolute. Or we're constantly meeting ourself. So how do we meet ourself? Whatever we meet is ourself. That's what Tozon says in his poem. Everywhere I go, I meet myself. If you always have this in mind,

[32:45]

then you can feel that you're practicing, no matter where you are. But it helps a lot, you know, we practice together this way. Usually, you know, when we do something, When we build something or when we go about our everyday life, we're trying to accomplish something, trying to accomplish a means to an end. We do something and then we expect to have an accomplishment after the fact. But in our practice, sometimes what's most important is not accomplishing the material aspect of what we did, but accomplishing the spiritual aspect.

[34:04]

We don't like dividing to spiritual and material, but the training or the learning aspect, which is for us, more important than accomplishing something. So sometimes, you know, if we're building something or trying to get something done, the teacher will maybe frustrate you by not allowing you to finish. Do you know the famous story of Milarepa and his teacher, where his teacher asked him to go and build a stone tower? And so he went and he...Milarepa went and he hauled all these big stones to this

[35:09]

I think it was the top of a mountain. Maybe that was for exaggeration. But anyway, he hauled all these stones to this place that was very difficult. It took him a long, long time. And he built this stone tower. And just as he got almost finished, the teacher said, no, you have to take it all down and start all over again. So he built the stone tower again. And we got almost finished. She said, no, sorry, you have to take it all down again. So we took it down again. And then she said, well, now build another one, please, and do it right this time. So we built the stone tower again. He said, no, take it down. He kept doing this until the little Rachel finally caught on to what was the most important thing. accomplishing some materialistic thing is good.

[36:21]

But more important is your understanding. And through our work, we can gain understanding. I say gain understanding. We should have understanding before we work so that our work has that understanding to make our effort joyful When our work has no self-centeredness in it, then our work becomes very joyful because it's taking place in the realm of samadhi.

[37:42]

means no selfishness, no self-centeredness. When there's no self-centeredness, then there's samadhi. A samadhi is our natural state of mind, natural odor of mind, we say in the milk chant. The natural odor of mind is our natural mind without self-centeredness. And samadhi, that's what we call samadhi. When we sit tazen, the natural order of mind, without self-centeredness, just is there. We all live in samadhi. Samadhi is a word for that. So what we want to accomplish is our natural order of mind, our samadhi mind, no self-centeredness.

[38:52]

So if we pay very careful attention to practice, how we practice, and when something is pointed out to us, we should pay attention. That helps us. If you have resistance, that's our self-centered mind coming up. You can recognize it. So, you know, when we can just go along easily with things, our practice becomes quite joyful. And practice is set up, you know, to let our joyful mind arise.

[40:10]

Sometimes we call it ji-ju-yu samadhi. self-joyous samadhi. We just live in our innocent night. So practice is set up in order to allow that to happen. And if we just follow the practice, that's why, you know, in this practice If you practice in a monastery, not so much right here because we all have our individual lives, but in a monastic situation, just following the schedule is the practice. is letting go of your self-centered desire and just following the schedule.

[41:15]

And it's very difficult to do if you don't just give yourself over. But if you do give yourself over, life Your light can, you can illuminate your mind. Your mind will be illuminated. And you can do that here. Just by doing what you have to do. That's why we always put so much emphasis on just do what you have to do. When the alarm goes off in the morning, just get up. then one thing after the other, just do what has to be done. That's kind of following the schedule, following the order of events as they need to be taken care of with a completely subjective mind.

[42:33]

By subjective, I mean You don't see the world as an object outside of yourself. Just are one with activity. Just are one with what we're doing. No separation. As soon as we start to hesitate or when our self-centered mind comes up, then we start to separate ourself from, and we objectify, we separate ourself from ourself. from our bigger self, and we start to objectify. And then we start getting into trouble, because everything becomes a hurdle for us, a stumbling block. So we need to focus in this way on our practice.

[44:34]

We need to understand this and make that effort of focus. And to remember that we're not just isolated in this world. You know, we like to make our own judgments and assessments and show that we know something. And we like to show that we can do something.

[45:36]

And this is the Wild West, you know. But the Wild West is becoming one of the most populated places. And as the world gets smaller and smaller, we have to be more and more careful how we we become more conscious of how we interact with people and things. Japan is a small island, and people learned long ago how to interact with each other in a confined space. And England is a small island. Those two have something in common. You have to learn how to interact with each other in a confined space. That's why those countries are so sophisticated. And people are very sensitive how they do things.

[46:40]

They have lots of layers of manners how you do things so that you don't encroach, and how you are respectful to others and to the things around you. But here in the Wild West, you know, it's my country, and I can do anything I want. But it's not anymore, you know. The whole world is getting smaller and smaller. and everybody's rubbing elbows and we have to become more sophisticated and know how to do things with less and less and in a more confined space. Maybe we shouldn't have any more children. It's getting smaller and then more people.

[47:44]

So we have to... And, you know, it's all us. It's not me and the world's getting bigger or more people. It's I'm getting... I'm growing into more people. And I have to learn how to get along with myself. So the tsamzin is how we get along with ourself. How to get along with yourself. And that extends. Yourself extends everywhere. Okay, it's almost time to take lunch.

[48:43]

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