Good morning. We opened the second part of the Green Gulch practice period, winter practice period. The first part was in December, November and December. And this practice period is January 10th to February 26th. We end with a seven-day session. practice period, if you don't know, is a way for us to concentrate our practice by sitting zazen regularly and concentrating on our work practice and our interactive practice. What I mean by interactive practice is interacting with each other

[01:01]

There are many aspects to how we practice. One is sitting cross-legged, which is the center of our practice. And from sitting cross-legged, we extend our zazen attitude and understanding to all the aspects of our daily life. which is work, social interaction, working with each other, and studying, and concentrating our mind so that we don't lose our way. Mindfulness practice is not a special kind of practice, but the essence of mindfulness practice is to be careful not to lose our way.

[02:10]

So when we do zazen, it's pretty hard to lose our way because you're sitting down, you don't move around. But when we get up from zazen and extend our practice into the world, into daily activity, it's pretty easy to get lost, to get distracted, to end up not realizing what we're doing, or to live our life in a superficial way. So that reminds me that I was reading a story to my six-year-old son the other night in one of Aesop's fables, probably the most famous of Aesop's fables, which is the story of the race between the hare and the turtle.

[03:20]

I'm sure we all know that story. But Reading it really brought it to my attention. The turtle and the hare meet on the road and somehow they challenge each other to a race and to see who can get to the city gate first. And the hare says to the turtle, I don't see how you can possibly think about challenging me to a race. You're so slow and clumsy, and I'm so fast and have so much ability. But the turtle says, let's have a race, and I think I'll win. So the turtle and the hare start off.

[04:25]

And the hare just bounds off down the road. And pretty soon he's out of sight. And the turtle, just step by step, slowly walks down the path. And the hare gets so far ahead that he says, I don't know. I'm just going to sit down and take a nap and enjoy myself, relax. So he finds himself a nice little place under a tree and lays down, goes to sleep. And meanwhile, the turtle is plodding along and he doesn't look to the right. He doesn't look to the left. He doesn't eat. He doesn't take a rest. He's just really intent on what he's doing. slowly and surely. And then he passes up the hare, but he doesn't stop to say hello or wake him up.

[05:29]

He just keeps on going. And finally, he gets to the city gate around sunset. And just about that time, the hare wakes up, and he realizes it's just about sunset, and he jumps up. and runs to the city gate just in time to see the turtle cross over. And the moral of the story is slow and steady wins the race. It's really a good example of our Zen practice. There is no race. There's no real race, but sometimes we feel that there's a race. Sometimes we feel that we really want to get somewhere.

[06:32]

Talented people, people with a lot of ability, may not do so well at Zen practice. But people that have a lot of difficulty because they have to do something. In order to do something, they have to really be concentrated, like a turtle. The turtle doesn't have so much ability, but in order to do something, in order to make it, he has to put all of his energy, all of his effort, into what he's doing. So we're more like turtles than like hares. The hare represents a kind of superficial, easy-going way of life. Each one of us has a different way of life.

[07:42]

For some of us, it's very easy. And for most of us, pretty difficult. But what looks easy may not be so easy. And what looks difficult may not be so difficult. If we don't have so many problems, maybe we're like a rabbit, just kind of on the surface of life, ignoring something deep and basic. This morning, when we opened the practice period after Zazen, after morning Zazen, we went to each one of the altars around Green Gulch and offered incense. And when we went to the shop, I was really struck by this Buddha in the shop on the altar because normally a Buddha is an ideal kind of figure, represents a figure of someone sitting in nirvana with a kind of half smile, serenely

[09:11]

postured. But when we went into the shop, the Buddha on the altar looked like an old mechanic. I don't know if it was on purpose or not, but he had the face of someone who had been through all the difficulties of life. His shoulder An arm had been broken off and glued back on. And his head had been broken off and glued back on. And when it was put back on, it wasn't put on so thoughtfully. So he had kind of a wide nose. And part of his head up here was just completely missing. And he had dirt in the wrinkles of his face, kind of like an old mechanic who can never get all the grease off from under his fingernails.

[10:19]

And to me, that Buddha represented a true living Buddha. The Buddha in reality. stuck in the corner of Green Gulch where almost no one sees it. The hidden Buddha. Where on the altar we have a wonderful, majestic Buddha. But here was this old mechanic, old automobile mechanic, who had never seen the light of day out of the shop, and whose life had been one problem after another. And he wasn't even sitting up quite straight, he was kind of leaning over. And to me, he represented all of us.

[11:29]

And I was really pleased to offer incense to this Buddha. And to me also, he was like the turtle, one step after another, just enough. You know, his whole life was just trying to make one step after another. And in that effort, he was sitting Zazen, just like we are, and there was a certain serenity in his sitting. which came through all of that difficulty that had shaped him. A certain wonderful kind of serenity of practice that came through in his face, in his attitude.

[12:40]

Sometimes in Zen practice we tend to idealize and we tend to pay attention to people who have a lot of ability. We see someone who does things well and we say, oh, that's really a good Zen student. And then there are a lot of people we have trouble with And you say, I wish they'd get out of my way. I wish I didn't have to bother with this. And then we tend to fall into paying a lot of attention to the good ones, so-called seemingly good ones, to the rabbits, and tend to avert the turtles.

[13:49]

But Zen practice in Japan sometimes they think of it as self-power, a practice of self-power. And they equate it with two sides of self-power and other power. Self-power is the ability to make yourself into a Buddha or to transform yourself into Buddha. And other power is that there's nothing you can do to make yourself into Buddha. human being doesn't really have the ability anymore to do that. So they pray to Amida Buddha for help.

[15:00]

And so that's the other power outside of yourself. But actually there's no inside or outside self or other. Within this, we tend to think of ourself as when we say, who am I? Who is myself? As whatever is inside of this skin border. The limits of myself, we think of as everything that's inside of my skin. But, and then we think of everything that's outside of my skin as something else out there. So this, this is inside and that's outside of myself. But we rather, instead of thinking that way, we feel that this, everything within is inside myself.

[16:08]

This is one side of myself. but what's on the other side of the skin is the other side of myself. So they're not inside myself and out there, but these are two sides of myself. So that myself includes whatever I eat, whatever I breathe, the sky and the sun and the moon, the water, where maybe 95% water. So in reality, we can say there's no inside or outside, no self power or other power. Everything helps us and everything is ourself. So we draw on ourself. And we're sustained by ourself.

[17:17]

And we commune with ourself. And all these others are ourself. So there's really nothing outside of ourself. So when we're taking care of people, when we appreciate everyone with all their difficulties and wonderful characteristics, we're really appreciating ourselves and taking care of ourselves. Whatever we meet, actually, is ourself. So when we reject or when we pick and choose, we're actually rejecting ourself, picking and choosing ourself.

[18:26]

So this turtle practice, turtle practice is not to really be anxious about getting someplace, but just to go slowly and steadily, being present in every step. When we have this practice period, it's not to accomplish some goal, or if it is to accomplish a goal, The goal is to be just present in every step, to realize ourself in each step of our life, in each breath of our life. So we have this concentrated practice so that we don't forget that. It's not to make ourselves into some ideal kind of person.

[19:55]

It's not to change ourself into somebody else. But actually, just to be who we are completely. To realize what our accomplishments are, and to realize what our shortcomings are, and to accept both equally. just to accept everything the way it is, and to be real and alive moment by moment. This is a goal of our practice. Some people call it one name or another, I don't have a name for it. It's just trying, putting yourself in each moment with awareness and effort, and not judging or making distinctions between when things go well and when things go badly.

[21:20]

This is called not being caught by desire. Although we have desire, desire motivates us all the time. But when we want things to go a certain way too much, we get caught by our desire and become very frustrated. Because no matter how much we want things to go a certain way, they don't go that way. They go that way to a certain extent, but everything is changing. I remember the other day, I was trying to fly a little airplane, a little rubber band wind-up, and I was trying to find the way the wind was blowing, and so I would go like this to see which way the wind was blowing.

[22:34]

Then I'd fly the airplane into the wind, but the wind changed, you know, and it started coming from the other direction. So I just had to do the best I could. Finally, I went to the school ground to fly it, and the first time I let it go, it flew out of sight. The way I feel about this practice period is that it's not something exclusive for a small handful of students. Although there is a small handful of students who are very concentrated on this practice period, I wish that for all of us to participate as much as we can

[23:43]

the fact that this core of people is doing this practice, period, is a kind of inspiration and help for all of us to practice. And the more we can participate with them, the more it encourages us to practice, and the more it encourages them to practice. So, And during this six weeks, I encourage us all to participate as much as we can, sitting zazen and doing whatever we can. You're quite welcome to join us. It's a kind of rare opportunity that people have to spend their time this way.

[24:49]

Our lives get to be very busy. And in our busyness of our life, we seldom have time to find the stillness within our activity. Practice is not so much stopping all of our activity in order to find the stillness. That's one way. In zazen, we stop our activity in order to experience the real deep stillness of life. But to find that stillness within our activity, that's the other side. And this is most important. We don't have to always stop in order to experience that stillness in life. But it's pretty hard to experience it unless we do stop.

[26:03]

So this is why zazen is so important. This is why sitting is so important, to be able to experience that stillness and then to extend it into our activity, so that on each moment, instead of just being oriented toward a goal, we can experience the fullness of our life within our activity. We don't get ahead of ourself. we can slow down without slowing down. What I mean by slowing down without slowing down is to be within the movement of our life and not just rushing through it. So when we have work practice or daily life practice within our practice period,

[27:11]

within our movement, within our work, to be present on each moment's activity. Not to slow down or to do slow work, not to be ponderous, but within normal activity, to experience each moment fully. So there are two things, two sides going on at once. One side is that you want to get something done. And the other side is that while we're doing something, our life is completely still. Usually we experience the first and rarely the second. because our life becomes so oriented toward getting something done, accomplishment.

[28:14]

And the more complex our life becomes, it's just as much as we can do to get through our life to get through a day. Our life is becoming so complicated that It's just as much as we can do to get through a day and get all the things done that we promised ourselves that we're going to do. And so how can you have time to just be within that? So the quality of just being is something that we're really losing. And then when we look back at our life, it's just a series of accomplishments, but there's no quality of being. The quality of being is not so present.

[29:19]

The quality of pure existence is not easily present, unless we become really conscious. moving within life in that conscious way. So what we try to accomplish in our practice is to bring each moment to life in its pure way, in its pure essence, within the activity is complete calmness and stillness within each moment's activity. Not to slow down or do something special, but just to have that awareness.

[30:23]

So you're not behind things, you're not behind yourself, and you're not ahead of yourself. but just totally present in each moment's activity. Then it's not so much, I am doing something, but something is getting done. And there's a difference between I am doing something and something is getting done. Or I am seeing something and something is being seen. When we take the self-centeredness out of our vision or out of our life, then we can move calmly and easily because we're balanced. We feel that we're moving with things rather than pushing things or being pushed by things. We very much are... It's very easy to feel that we're being controlled

[31:36]

or victimized or pushed around by life. You know, so much of our life, if we think about it, we say, I have to da da da. I have to this and that. I have to go here. I have to do this. And so our life is moved by all these have-tos. And it's very easy for us to feel pushed around by have-to, I have to, I must. And who is it that's being pushed around? Who is it that has to? It's our feeling of ourself.

[32:43]

Myself has to. But when we see or feel or respond to life as ourself completely, then there's no special self that's pushed around. There's just interaction with ourself. Our self interacts with our self in calmness and stillness and dynamic activity. I hate to say go with the flow. but maybe flow with the go. But it's like the mechanic sitting over there

[34:03]

in the shop, good things and bad things can influence his life. But in the midst of the good things and the bad things that influence his life, he's able to sit in wonderful quiet and serenity. I really admire him. Beat up as he is. I really admire him. He doesn't take all of it too seriously. There's a little detachment there. a little bit of freedom from good and bad.

[35:12]

Anyway, I hope that we can all experience it. And I invite you all to participate with us. Thank you.

[35:40]

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