I'm about to taste the truth of the Tartar Tussle. I'd like to take the opportunity to apologize for missing my wake-up duties this morning and any inconvenience that may have been caused by my oversleeping.

[01:12]

I was told that my practice had become very deep and that the clappers were almost imperceptible. The Samadhi is running very full here during our Sashin. And while I would like to lay claim and possess that part of that Samadhi, it was just oversleeping. But everyone seemed to have arrived here on time. And here we are, right in the middle of Sashin. I'm going to talk a little more about what I've been talking about the previous two lectures during this practice period, which is Everywhere I Go I Meet Myself, which is part of an Enlightenment poem that our ancestor Tung Shan composed shortly after he

[02:35]

attained an awakening after he left his teacher. Dunchan was studying for a long time with his teacher and he left and He wasn't completely awake, but he left as the tradition was back then and continued practicing. And when he was crossing a stream, he saw his reflection. And he woke up and saw in that reflection that the whole universe was himself. When I spoke before, I talked about the tone and feeling of practice, and how as we settle down, we start seeing more and more of these nuances that are in our life, and that we tend not to see them as ourselves, but we see them separate from ourselves.

[04:06]

Sojourn Roshi last night spoke about non-objectivity from the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Ancestor, and I just wanted to read the one paragraph again to reacquaint ourselves with that, and I'll talk about how that ties into this enlightenment gatha. It has been the tradition of our school to take idealistness as our object, non-objectivity as our basis, and non-attachment as our fundamental principle. Idealistness means not to be carried away by any particular idea in the exercise of the mental faculty. Non-objectivity means not to be absorbed by objects when in contact with objects. Non-attachment is the characteristic of our essence of mind. So right in the center of those three points, idealistness,

[05:29]

non-objectivity and non-attachment is non-objectivity. When we're sitting Sashin, our life is pared down to just the essentials. And in being taken care of by just having the essentials taken care of, we have the opportunity to let go of all the extraneous stuff which fills up our life. I never quite knew why I did Sashins other than I felt some kind of responsibility to do them. I'm slowly coming around a bend or turn in my life and practice where I feel that sitting is coming home.

[06:53]

and responding to a request deep down inside, which is difficult to articulate, but it feels right. Our Sashin is like a laboratory, and there's a intimacy that grows with our sitting practice. It takes a lot of work to make our sitting practice so simple. There are a lot of people here that are contributing great efforts to make our life very simple. We get a little taste of it during a 40 minute period of zazen during the week and more when we sit Saturday schedule, more when we sit one day. And now

[07:58]

for five days, we are getting worn down more and more. And in my getting worn down, what I'm starting to see is myself and the myriad facets that compose Roth. Well, how can that be? Sojourn was talking about having a cool head. We don't objectify. And without objectifying, there's nobody home. There is no body home. So who is this nobody sitting on the cushion?

[09:01]

We each have that question, who is that nobody? So we also talked about thieves and the five thieves. The five thieves are the skandhas and the skandhas are how we take in the world. Where we don't objectify and we have pure experience in this life. We have enlightenment. And we have a little glimpse of the interrelatedness of all beings. We have the interrelatedness of you and me, the cup of tea, the food, the paintbrush. And shortly thereafter, we have the objective world. which isn't separate from what we just experienced but the thieves have taken away our pure experience.

[10:11]

In preparing for this talk I started feeling like I was a thief because the atmosphere as a she is so quiet and intimate and no doubt each one of us is having tastes of pure experience but all this talk is Not it. Maybe that's my punishment for oversleeping this morning. No, it's not a punishment. So without a cool mind, we have anxiety. We had a very good discussion yesterday about anxiety and fear and how that keeps us separate from what our experience is. Can I see myself when I have anxiety?

[11:17]

Do I see myself in everything I do when I have anxiety? there is fear. And going back to what I mentioned a few moments ago, the inner request to wake up, to see this life and appreciate all that this life has to offer, propels me to work on lessening the fear and anxiety which arise from time to time. So, when Sojin first gave me this koan to work on, I was caught by Dongshan's reflection and that I'd have to see things as mirrors and reflections, like literally a mirror.

[12:55]

And then he said, What do you see when you see a tree trunk? Well, I was still caught and I still get caught. The other day I was at work and I was running around. It was my last day before coming to Sashim. And I wanted to take care of a few things before my shift started. I wasn't very composed. In typical fashion, I like getting things done and everything nice and neat and orderly before starting my day. So I was running around and I had to take care of purchasing a teapot, which Sojin, kindly enough, referred to anonymously.

[13:58]

But it was me. So by running around fairly uncomposed, I put my leg up on the ledge and pushed up to get this teapot. I just saw this teapot and I wanted to get it and I had a timeframe to work on. It was just this pain in my leg. And I hadn't had that much excruciating pain in a long time. It may have lasted about two seconds. I don't know. But I wasn't not composed anymore. I was enlightened, and I didn't like the enlightenment.

[15:07]

There was my knee, which I didn't think about, and there was me, and there was this teapot, and then there was just pain. There was seeing myself in that pain. or more aptly, feeling myself, feeling the pain, and the expression, compassion, the expression of that pain. I didn't scream that loud at work, but inside my head it was just as loud. So I got off the shelf, holding the teapot very carefully not to break it. And I hobbled back to the break room and with myself for my uncomposed, inappropriate behavior, sashim coming up, I had

[16:20]

given a great thank you to my niece at the beginning of practice period for holding up and they've been very nice to me and very kind to me and I wasn't taking care of them and there I was. So when I was objectifying and having things as separate I was very very uncomposed And fortunately I had a little experience of waking up and having to take care of things in each and every moment. At breakfast this morning,

[17:23]

I was eating this wonderful meal, and there was an announcement that there will be limited seconds on the second bowl. And I just continued eating. And I was looking down at my Buddha bowl, and I was eating, I'm not quite sure what that cereal was, it was very tasty, but whatever it was. I was eating it and all of a sudden I realized that this bowl is me. And I started thinking of describing it that the bowl was like my palm and I was eating out of my hand. And I just continued eating and then I put the bowl down and went to the next bowl and on and on and on. But there was a feeling that there wasn't this bowl here anymore.

[18:30]

It was just... And we all have these experiences. And it's... The Sashin atmosphere is designed for us to wake up. I don't think they had Sashins in Tung-Shan's time. But we all get worn down in our own way, in our own time. And when we get worn down enough and the layers are peeled away, we see differently. As Sojan says, seeing seeds. I used to go to dinner with Andrea, my now ex-wife, at a favorite restaurant over the five or six years or so that we were together.

[19:37]

There was a lot of anticipation when we'd go to this restaurant to eat. We knew each other very well and there was a certain composure at the table. There was lots of activity around this very busy restaurant. We would sit there and we would usually order the same food because we're both vegetarian and the restaurant's not vegetarian. There was a certain predictability about it. And there was also an intimacy around the table and what we ate. And we talked a little bit. So we talk a lot, but there's always an awareness of the taste of the food. Well, I went to this restaurant with a new friend and I wasn't so composed. There was the atmosphere, the restaurant, the same food was being ordered again.

[20:43]

And I had some anxiety. I was going, you know, the whole bit, right? And I would have a little glimpse, a little... Right, the food. And gone. And I had a very wonderful time at dinner. overall. But I felt disappointed that I didn't taste the food the way I wanted to taste the food. There is so much going on in our life that we have to limit what we can do. We have to prioritize and we have to accept that we can't do everything. So having some glimmers of life of non-objectivity is enough to carry on practice.

[22:15]

And it's also an admonition or reminder to carry on when I don't have those feelings, when I feel separate. When I tasted this cereal and I was enjoying my Buddha bowl and that whole feeling, I thought of my first teacher in New York's description of the one body or the essence or the Buddha nature and all that.

[23:59]

And he used to talk about it being like two hands. and that when one hand is cut, the other hand doesn't think about it, it just goes over to protect it or take care of it and all that. And the feeling in Sashin is like that. There's not a whole lot of talking, there's just very intimate moving and caring for this temple and Narazazen. And with that caring, Quite naturally, we pick things up with two hands. We're careful about how we get up on a ladder. We wash our bowls mindfully. And we make an effort to use kind speech and minimal speech when we do have to talk.

[25:00]

because we're getting cooler. And after sashaying, we'll get warmer. But we've had a taste of coolness, and I hope that we all can keep a cool head and warm feet as we continue practicing together. I don't have my watch today. It's a quarter of eleven. Thank you. That's all I have to present. Are there any questions? Yes, Lisa. I wasn't particularly doing a job concentrating on my breath, and I don't know what to do with this.

[26:24]

I don't know if this is okay. It was really nice and I really appreciated it, but I didn't know if I should be concentrating more on my breath. Well, we should always be concentrating more on our breath and our posture. That's what our teacher advises us. For me, Zen practice is giving me the opportunity and allowing me to experience life more fully. And I've had happy thoughts during Zazen. And I enjoy them. And some of them I've forgotten about. They're memories from a long time ago. things are okay. And when I have finished indulging myself with these happy thoughts, I remember what my practice is and what I should be doing with the time set aside for zazen, and I go back to breathing.

[27:38]

So it's okay to have happy thoughts. Don't worry, they'll stop. It's the same for sad and horrible thoughts too, you know, trying not to push those away. I think a lot of people stop practice because these thoughts come up which have been repressed for a long time and the reminders are not so pleasant. And it's a real opportunity to turn up the juice a little bit and to carry on. So enjoy your happy thoughts. Yes? How was it to yield? Just now?

[28:42]

It was a very nice feeling. I think I wanted to do that a couple days ago at work. And I could look at that and say I've wanted to do that for a long time without lots of things. The first Sashina I ever did, the person leading it gave a talk and he did this scream and he was talking about non-duality. I'm positive that for one moment in that zendo there was just one thing going on in everybody's consciousness.

[29:56]

So I have to admit something. I had planned that scream here because I wanted all of us to have one moment of that pure experience. And at the same time, the scream felt very sincere. And my knee feels better. Some time ago there was talk about a teacher saying that life is just one continuous mistake or Zen practice is just one continuous mistake and that we can never get it right.

[31:56]

And as what Lisa brought up about having these happy thoughts and if that was okay, I'm, for me, I'm not so hard on myself when I drop the ball because my practice has been like Karen's, holding on and trying to get everything just right and doing the right thing and doing all the forms right and all that. And a couple years ago, I realized that I can't keep it all together. there's an infinite amount of time to practice. And when I feel sloppy or I've been lazy, I feel that I've been wasting time. I'll be 40 at the end of this year, which is relatively young for some of you, and relatively old for some others.

[33:04]

When I started practice, I was about 27 or so, and I thought, gosh, I have all this time, I'm really going to go deep, enlighten, and do all this stuff. Well, here I am, 40, not so deep, not so enlightened, and getting older. We had a well-being service for Catherine Caldwell, who's turning 80. 90, I'm sorry. And I was thinking... She comes into my store where I work on occasion. And... I'm thinking, I feel how precious this life is, and I don't know when I'm gonna die. And I want to be as compassionate as I can.

[34:13]

I want to be as awake as I can. And I don't feel so good when I'm not. When I heard the door open this morning to my apartment, And Artenzo was going by to pick up the food. I look at the clock and it says five o'clock. I said, what? And I hustled and I came up here and thinking the window would be empty. Of course, everyone's sitting here waiting for me. I felt bad. I felt disappointed that I let myself down. sat every period of zazen for practice period because I said I was going to do that for my commitment and I was wake up every day and I was watering the plants up with the barrier and all this stuff and here I was at the end of practice period and I didn't wake up, I felt bad. Well there's no time to feel bad because I'd feel even worse if I didn't get here. So I got my act together and as Sojin said last night, let the past

[35:19]

go away, or be gone, or whatever the wording was. When I started the practice period, I didn't have a koan yet, so I was thinking, what could the theme be of practice period? So I was talking to Soch and I said, one thing that seems to come up is I have a certain standard that I want to keep for myself and I try to impart that to other people and sometimes I'm not so good at it. I get judgmental and all. So we talked about that and my practice has been and will continue to be upright with myself and compassionate to other people. Maintaining a standard that I feel works for me and being kind to others. And the great joy in that and seeing the interrelatedness of all beings is the reverse.

[36:27]

Everyone's upright practice and their compassion to me, letting me be late for Zazen. So it's a two-way street. And It's taken me about 12 years, exactly 12 years. I started sitting February of 87, 84, to realize that the street doesn't go two ways, it goes in 10 directions, right? And it goes everywhere. But initially it's just me, [...] me. Settle down, get cool, be cool. Cool. And then, If we can take joy in this life, receive joy in this life, that's a very long-winded answer Well put, thank you.

[37:44]

If y'all just no talking during the machine, that's killing me. Yes, Peter. Which restaurant? Venezia. Can't go wrong with Italian food. And I found myself saying to him, would you have said that if she was a boy?

[39:00]

And he looked at me very surprised and said, yes. And I realized that there's something about how I relate to my own pain. I don't scream, literally and symbolically. I mean, on the other hand, sometimes I can do that, and it both releases the pain. Somehow in the acknowledgement and the compassion for the pain, there's a way that it releases it. And it's just my personal experience that often I hold on. I mean, like right now, I have a migraine that I can't get rid of. And I feel like it's like something I didn't acknowledge something.

[40:02]

So that was instructive. Do you see a pattern of when you allow yourself to experience or express those sort of feelings? Well, I think it's something I'm not real aware of. I mean, sometimes I even say to Will, you know, you need to scream or, you know, make a noise, and that helps. So it's like I'm aware of that, but I, but then... Well, I don't know what that is. I think it's just something new that I'm looking at. Yeah, for me it's just being worn down and not being able to hold on to anymore. And as long as I've had a reserve to hold on, I'm fairly non-communicative.

[41:07]

So sitting helps, and sashins help a lot. And there's a great support here to allow a lot of screams. either verbal or otherwise, to come forth. Well, we have both aspects, the feminine and the masculine. And as I have sat over the years, I've seen both sides a lot more.

[42:13]

I didn't see it so much before. I suppose it's about time. Thank you all very much and have a good rest of the session.

[42:33]

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