I love to taste the truth of God's eternal words. Good morning. Well, today we have an alternate schedule because we have Workday. In our practice period, we've scheduled this Workday But work at a Zen practice place is not a special thing. But because our lives, because of our lives, the way our lives are arranged, where most of us work all day, mostly we don't think

[01:09]

about working when we come to Zazen, when we come to the Zendo. Zendo seems like a place where we sit quietly and maybe listen to a talk. But since we do so much work in our daily lives, the idea of coming to Zendo and working sometimes seems extravagant. So we don't really have a lot of work here. But in a Zen monastery, although there is a lot of Zazen, mostly there's a lot of work, but that's the monk's work. Just like when you sit Zazen in the morning and you go out to work, it's not different than the monk's work, except that there are different kinds of work

[02:11]

We have, you know, in the morning, for those of you that come in the afternoon for Zazen, the morning people, after Zazen, do Soji, which is sweeping the grounds, after Zazen, for 10 minutes. That's why the place always looks nice when you come in in the afternoon. And then on Saturday, we have Samu, which is after breakfast, a small group of people clean the zendo and take care of the grounds and tidy everything up and do whatever work is necessary. But then there's fushin zamu. Zamu is working around the temple.

[03:21]

Fushin zamu is communal work, an extended period of communal work, which is work practice, which is the other side of zazen. Zazen is sitting practice. Fushin Samu is working practice. It's the same thing, but two different aspects. In India, the monks, a long time ago, the monks were not allowed to work. They were not allowed to carry any money. And digging in the ground was forbidden, raising crops was forbidden. They had to beg for their meals. And they couldn't even cook their own meals.

[04:23]

So if people didn't contribute to them, they would starve to death. And so the practice is very one-sided. And that kind of practice still exists to this day. When Buddhism moved into China and this practice was still in the first 400 years or 500 years of Buddhism in China, the monks still practiced that way to a large extent. But they had servants. They hired servants to make their food and they would drink tea eight or ten times a day and study. And then when Zen became dominant in China, well, I go back a little bit.

[05:34]

When Buddhism came into China, the Chinese people are working people and a family oriented people. And their young men were going to these monasteries and not contributing to the harvests, not contributing to creating families. and they were begging for their food, which was against all of the Chinese way of thinking. So little by little, the Chinese monks developed a practice of working in the fields and taking care of themselves more rather than

[06:39]

being dependent on begging and so forth. And then when the Zen practice became more dominant in China, the Zen monks got rid of all of the dependency practices and started depending on their own labor for supporting themselves and taking care of their temples. Work practice became a part of Buddhist practice in China, which was quite different than in India. And there's the famous story of Pai Chong in the Tang Dynasty, who said, a day of no work is a day of no eating. And he kind of codified the rules for Zen monks.

[07:47]

And when he was about 90, he was still working out in the hot sun with the monks. And one day, one of the monks hid his tools because he thought, if this guy keeps doing this, he's going to drop dead. So Pai Chang went to look for his tools and they weren't there. So he just sat down and, or he went to work, but he didn't eat that day. So they gave him back his tools. But that's a very famous story and characterizes the attitude of Zen practice. When I went to Japan last year, I went to Ryotaku-ji. which is a very famous temple. I had a friend who was practicing there. Hakuin's, Zen Master Hakuin's temple in Mishima.

[08:53]

And when I got there, everybody was sweeping. And so I just took up a broom and started sweeping and we swept the grounds all day. And the practice there is to just sweep the grounds all day, every day. They sit satsang, and then all day, they sweep the ground every day. They have these beautiful hillsides, and they sweep the hillsides, and they sweep under all the bushes and all the trees, and nobody says anything all day long. So this is a kind of work samadhi, a very simple practice. You don't have to think very much. And it is a very flowing kind of practice. It goes with zazen and with their koan practice.

[09:58]

And it's just simple movement. You can concentrate on your body. on the movement of your body, you can concentrate it on the breath, how you breathe with your activity. This is a very important aspect of practice, is breathing and movement. When he sits us in, we pay attention to the breath, inhaling and exhaling. And when we move in our activity, we shouldn't lose that feeling or that concentration. But because we're thinking so much, we forget about it. But when you have very simple practice, simple kind of work practice, you can pay attention to how you breathe with the activity.

[11:06]

And when you pay attention to how you breathe with the activity, it's not so different as sitting zazen. It's a working zazen, moving zazen, and moving samadhi. So this kind of activity of simple work with concentrated purpose together with the rest of the members creates a very strong atmosphere that helps you in mindful practice. And it also takes care of In our practice place, there are no subsidies.

[12:11]

If we don't take care of the practice place, it won't get taken care of. We take care of our house, our home. We take care of the people around us. But it's also necessary for us to take care of our practice place. Because if we don't, No one will. The one thing that I've always felt good about about this particular place is that it's kind of grassroots. It grew up out of our own desire to practice and we have built this place by ourselves and created the practice through the cooperation of all the members, and it's sustained by the cooperation of all the members. And that's the only thing that sustains it.

[13:15]

So as long as we have a good feeling for practice, the place will be maintained and sustained. When that's gone, then if that's not there, the practice place won't be there. It's really quite simple. So there are two aspects. One is to take care of the place for ourselves and for each other and for the sake of the place and the practice. And the other is how we actually practice for our own development by doing that. There are famous stories associated with work practice. In Buddhist time, there was a monk who just could not remember anything.

[14:23]

No matter how hard he tried to study, it just went in and went out. So he didn't know what to do with himself. So he asked Buddha, what should I do? And Buddha said, well, here's a broom. Go sweep the grounds. So this guy was very sincere. And so he just took the broom and started sweeping the grounds. And day after day, he just swept the grounds all day long. And his mind became so very concentrated on this single activity that one day he just broke through the mind cover and became an arhat, as they say, through this very simple single-minded practice. Zen, actually, has this kind of attitude of single-minded practice.

[15:41]

like a single-minded concentrated practice on one thing. And we usually associate it with zazen, to just sit and not move. It's like putting a magnifying glass in front of us to not just magnify what is in front of us, but to narrow the scope in such a way that it's like when you have a magnifying glass in the sun and hold it in the right way, you can have a very strong beam which will burn a piece of paper. In this way, burn up our ancient twisted karma. So working and zazen go hand in hand.

[16:54]

There are four or five aspects of practice which are very important and should all be present in our practice. One is zazen. Another is listening to Teisho or lecture. Third is having an interview with a teacher called Dokusan. And fourth is work practice. But all of these aspects of practice should be present. Some people just like to listen to lecture. That's enough. But there's something missing if one is only listening.

[17:55]

Lecture should help someone encourage someone to practice. The reason that I give a talk mostly is to encourage someone to practice, to preach dharma and encourage those people who are already practicing and encourage someone who is not practicing to practice because hearing dharma is still outside the door. One must step in through the door. Then preaching makes sense. Some people just like to sit zazen, but they don't like to work, or to hear dharma, or to visit the teacher. Some people just like to visit the teacher.

[19:03]

But they don't hear the Dharma or they don't sit zazen or work. Some people just like to work. So we choose the part that we like and we kind of stick to that. We're very choosy. If you're in a monastery, you can't be choosy. You just have to do everything. But here, you know, everybody lives at home and we come voluntarily to practice. So it's very hard to demand anything of people. At least for me, I don't really demand so much, but I suggest. This is what our practice is. If you really want to benefit from practice, then you should take advantage of these four aspects or five aspects of practice in order to have a well-rounded way of practicing.

[20:15]

So sometimes people say, well, you don't tell us enough. If I had known that you wanted me to do this, and I think that they're probably right. But I understand how busy people are. So I leave it up to you to decide how you will practice. And whatever you decide to do, I encourage you to do. But each one is in a different place. And if I said, you must do these things, there will only be about four or five people here. So I give you a lot of leeway and I have a lot of patience. And little by little, we learn how to practice together.

[21:22]

There's another famous story about Kyogen. Master Kyogen, who was a disciple of Issan. And he was a very good disciple, actually. He was a very well-learned monk. And he was always asking Issan, you know, coming to Issan, his teacher, and presenting his understanding. And Issan would never completely accept his understanding. I've been doing this for 25 years with Isan and he just will not accept my understanding. I must be a failure. After all this time, I'm still a failure. So he left Isan and he left the monastery and he said, I'm just going to go find some place to spend the rest of my days.

[22:29]

So he went to a kind of monument to some old ancient teacher. And I can't remember who it was, but he decided he would just sweep around the monument and that would be what he would do for the rest of his life. It was a kind of failure. And so while he was sweeping, he'd sweep every day. One day, a stone hit a piece of bamboo And his mind opened up. This is a very famous story. A stone hitting a piece of bamboo. So this is an example of a monk attaining enlightenment while working, while sweeping, while forgetting, letting go of everything. Letting go of all his learning, letting go of all of his ambition, letting go of everything that he thought he was.

[23:35]

This is, of course, what prepared his mind. Because he let go of everything, he was prepared, but he didn't know this. When we can truly let go of everything and simply do something, we're actually in the midst of practice. So, a lot of people don't like work practice. But actually, it's just as important as Zazen. And you rarely hear about people being enlightened during Zazen. But you do hear about them being enlightened during work. So... You're not supposed to talk during Zazen. Well, you're not supposed to talk during work. So this is one thing that makes the work a little bit different, is that you have this great temptation to speak, and you don't.

[24:44]

You know, when we're working, working and talking is wonderful, you know, it's like, kind of nice feeling, camaraderie, right? But, the minimum of talk, you know, so that It's like work without leaking. And you've built up a certain kind of intensity and focus. And working with people, focusing on the work, and not getting distracted with your own thoughts or with something that you want to discuss and so forth. So, it's a kind of discipline. So you're all welcome to stay after this lecture.

[26:41]

We have soup and probably salad. And cornbread. And cornbread. and Fushin Samu for dessert. So if you're interested, you're welcome to stay and experience this thing. Do you have any questions? Yes? Could you say something about work out in the world as opposed to this push and some move? How are they the same? How are they different? What can you carry over? Yeah. I think that what you can carry over is your attitude

[27:50]

Work attitude is what's important. You can't tell people around you what to do when you're out in the world working. But if you have an attitude of work practice, wherever you are, people will respect you and will be moved by your practice. You may think, well, I'm out there practicing work practice, but no one else is. They don't know anything about this. But if you have this attitude, people will work with you because they'll be influenced by your attitude. And you can create that kind of attitude in your workplace. So, you know, We say, well, how do I bring my practice into my daily life?

[28:56]

Well, you do it through your attitude toward whatever you're doing. Concentration. Ease of working. It's like working with the breath and working in a way that's not tense and not too slow. and not too fast, with a certain kind of rhythm that moves with things. You pick up on the rhythm around you, and you work influenced by that rhythm around you, and you also influence what's going on around you through your own rhythm. So there is an interactive quality through the work that keeps everything moving in a contained way.

[29:59]

But it's not spoken, it's felt. And it definitely is there. So, create a harmonious way of doing things wherever you are. That's how you take your practice into the world. Somebody else? Yes? What about right livelihood? In what way? How does it relate to what you've been saying? Well, right livelihood originally was for monks, you know. One of the Eightfold Paths for monks. And it meant you should only earn your livelihood through your virtue. Through your virtue, you're supported. So the monks begging for them, that was right livelihood.

[31:07]

Because people would put stuff in their bowl if they felt that their virtue and practice deserved it. As we say in the meal sutra. I hope my virtue and practice deserves this meal, because that's what you pay for. That's your payment for the meal. And that actually is what the basis of Right Livelihood is. If I am sincere in what I'm doing, I'll be supported. But another aspect is you should avoid selling intoxicants, munitions, or harmful things, and orient your work toward beneficial Could you say something about what you do when you lose it?

[32:24]

Because it sounds so wonderful, but my experience in my practice life is that I'm going along and just when I think I'm doing the best, I really get kind of inflated and arrogant, and then I really lose it. And then I have to go back, and it's really painful going back and having to face how much arrogance is involved in my sense of how to recognize when those qualities are there. And that you actually make the effort to do something about it. That's perfect practice. Not something you have to worry about. You're welcome. I've actually done this lecture before.

[33:25]

I don't know if this is a... maybe this is a question. But what gets very hard for me is sometimes there's a goal and sometimes it has to get done. And there's a right, there seems to be a right way and a wrong way. Yeah, that's a good point. There are two aspects of work. One is that there's something to do and you want to get it done, right? That's usual. The other aspect is that you are doing something with your life.

[34:27]

You're living your life moment by moment. And this is the practice aspect of work, is that you're putting your life energy into doing something. And the doing something brings you to life. So you are creating something through your work. even if it's sweeping. And the sweeping is creating you. So it's a mutual creative activity. And if we get lost just in the goal of getting something done, then we lose the aspect of moment by moment bringing our life to life. So If you work too slowly and too carefully, you lose the essence of getting something done.

[35:30]

And if you work just to get something done, you lose the essence of practice. So, to get something done and to do it as practice, to put those two together is practice. So that You know, there's the old saying, it's not what you do, but how you do it. But I would rather say it's what you do and how you do it. Both are necessary. You know, you can just work very slowly, paying attention to what you're doing, but forgetting about, you know, it's five o'clock already and you haven't done anything. Or you can work real fast and get everything done, but there's no satisfaction in it.

[36:37]

There's no connection. You haven't, you know, fully engaged. Yeah. Well, breath is always present. And when we pay attention to how we move with the breath, then we're connected, vitally connected, with what we're doing. And that helps us to find our pace. And it helps us in the way we move. to move, you know, from our center, always moving from our center with whatever kind of work we're doing, and to pay attention to that. Because the breath is also down here. So the center and the breath are in the same place.

[37:40]

And so we're always centered in our movement, in our activity. That's the vital thing, to always be centered in our activity. Not get top-heavy or bottom-heavy, but always be centered in our activity. Then, what we're doing turns out to be to have that quality. We do quality activity and we always know where we are. And then we develop samadhi power. I've had trouble with work practice here in Tassajara and the city center sometimes because she mentioned there being a right way and a wrong way to do things.

[38:49]

And sometimes I get irritated because I think that the way it's supposed to be done is a better way. And then I think, well, that's just my ego talking and I should just do whatever I'm told to do, however I'm told to do it. But part of me is saying, wait, there's a better way of doing this, there's a more efficient way or a pleasanter way, and so there's this struggle of feeling kind of rebellious sometimes, like, why do I have to do it this way? This is a dumb way to do it. But that's what I thought. But I thought maybe there was another alternative.

[39:50]

There's always another alternative. You know, when you are in your deathbed, I wonder if there's another alternative. So, it's good to just let go, you know, because everybody has a different idea of how things should be done. And sometimes it's good, you know, well, just do it your way. But, when we do something together, we just submit to the way it's done. And then, when you are in a position, if you can just submit to the way things are done, then after a while, someone will say, how would you like to do it?

[40:52]

In other words, when you can follow, then you can lead. But if you only want to lead, no one will follow you. So, as an old saying, you can't be a good leader until you know how to be a follower. And the fastest way to rise up as a leader is to know how to follow. That's very true. And it's always the case. I know people in various places who have been practicing for years and years, 20 and 30 years, who say, I've been practicing for 20 and 30 years and nobody lets me be a leader.

[42:00]

It's because they never learned how to follow. to that. Sometimes we do have better ideas. But even if we have a better idea, just to do it, and then maybe suggest a better idea, you can do that. What about doing it this way? And sometimes someone will say yes, and sometimes they'll say no. But just being able to go along with things, even if it's not such a good idea, pretty I'm fabulous.

[43:17]

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