I had a strong cup of coffee this morning, so my mind is chugging along, so I might say something I've already had about 4,000 thoughts and most of which I can't remember. They were all good. But this is the last day of Sashin, and so there are a lot of loose ends and things that in themselves are good subjects for talk, and maybe I can include most of them.

[01:10]

But the main subject here is a koan from Dogen's Ehe Shingi. I started out by talking about one of these stories from the Ehe Shingi of the officers of the monastery and how or express their understanding through their work. But before I present this koan, I'm going to present an introduction. Mostly, when I give a talk, I don't usually think much about it beforehand. I mean, I do, to a certain extent.

[02:21]

I get some good idea that I want to talk about, but I don't so much develop it. And then at the last minute, or the last hour before I give the talk, I know I have to come up with the right thing. And so it puts me under this intense pressure. And when I'm put under this intense pressure, then I have to do this. So I come up with something. And that's kind of my mode. And so I trust that. I've done it so often I can trust that I will come up, that my intuition will bring forth what I have to deal with. So I trust my intuition. I'm not, you know, very smart, so over my life I've learned to trust my intuition more than my brain.

[03:27]

And so that's kind of put me where I am. I'll give you an example. When I was in Japan one time, my friend Shunko was at Ryutaku-ji. Ryutaku-ji is a Rinzai temple where Hakuin was and And so I went to visit my friend Shinko on the train, took the train, and we spent all day sweeping, which is what they do there. And then I was ready to come home, back to Rinzowin. So I took the taxi, it's a couple of miles from the train station, I took the taxi, to the train station and it was at dusk, just almost dark.

[04:31]

And so when I got to the train station, I took out my wallet to pay the driver. And my attention was on paying the driver and I put my wallet on my lap. And after I paid him, I got up and walked out of the cab and I realized at that moment that I hadn't put my wallet back in my pocket. And here I was, you know, in this unfamiliar town in Japan, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 3,000 miles away from home or more. without my wallet. No money, no ID, nothing. And I had to find my wallet. So, here was a train station with 50 or so taxicabs, all painted white, all exactly the same kind of taxicab, and all with drivers who looked like farmers dressed up in suits, driving taxicabs.

[05:42]

Which one of these was my driver? and the cabs are all circling around and going out. It's like this maze of taxis all looking exactly the same, same color, same driver. I mean, what did he look like? kind of old, kind of dark, but they all look that way. So I said, I have to find my wallet, I have to find this taxi, and there's no way that I could figure it out. There was a place in the middle of the driveway where taxi cabs were parked, sometimes after they let somebody off. So I said, well, I'm going to go over there.

[06:44]

And I went over there and I looked at these, and I saw this one, and I said, maybe that's it. Maybe that's the guy. So I started talking to him, and he didn't understand me, of course. Then somebody else, another taxi driver, kind of saw what I was doing and he said, but what's the problem? And he didn't know enough English to say that. And I said something about my wallet and maybe it's in this car, you know. So he opened the back seat and there it was, on the floor. But, you know, I had to do this. I had to find this, and that was all that was in my mind. that there was no alternative to not finding it. So this is kind of my modus of operandi, is depending on my intuition to bumble my way through life. So what does this have to do with Zen practice?

[08:02]

I'll read you this koan. This koan, nobody has been able to translate this satisfactorily until now. I translated it with Kaas and Shohaku Okamura translated it with Dan Layton, but neither one of us felt that we translated it satisfactorily, because if you translate it somewhat literally it really doesn't make any sense. but it's a wonderful koan, it's a great koan, and you sense that it's a great koan even though the translation, it doesn't make sense. So I knew that I had to give this talk

[09:16]

And I really wanted to present this koan, but I didn't know how to do it, because the translations don't make sense. So under this pressure of having to do this, of course I could have talked about something else, but I said, I don't want to talk about something else, I have to figure this out. So under the pressure of having to figure it out, I figured it out, and I'll give you my presentation. This is an example of someone who was advanced in a way, who was serving as Ino, or the director of the Zendo, like Paul. Great Master Baozi of Huayan Monastery in Jingzhou, whose initiatory name was Ziyu Jing, was an heir of Dongshan. He was once in Lapu and became the Ino. He called the assembly together for Samu, or work, by hitting the Han with a mallet.

[10:24]

He said, you people on the right side, please take care of the firewood. And you people on the left side can plow the field. Then the Shuso, the head monk, said, what about the holy monk? holy monk is Manjushri. In the monastery, of course there are many buildings in Japanese monastery or Chinese monastery, this took place in China, there are many buildings and each building has a function and in the Buddha Hall Shakyamuni is on the altar enshrined. In the Zendo, Manjushri is the holy monk of the Zendo. So in China and Japan, in the Zendo, Manjushri is the main figure on the altar and he's called the holy monk.

[11:30]

Sometimes it's Avalokiteshvara And he's called the Holy Monk. So the shusa said, but what about the Holy Monk, meaning Manjushri who's enshrined on the altar, this little joke. And Baozhi replied, his place is in the middle of the hall. How could he choose to work only one side? So I think that's a good translation. If you depend on the literal translation, you know, often terms, words and phrases are used in old Chinese that in translation don't mean anything. They only mean something to the people who use those terms at the time they use So whenever I translate with Kaad, which I've been doing for years and years, the enjoyable part of doing that is trying to get to the meaning of what Dogen is saying, rather than just depending on the words.

[12:54]

And I depend on my intuition to do that, largely, through my intuition of Suzuki Roshi's understanding of Dogen, which he was talking to us about all the time. So it's kind of wonderful because my connection with Suzuki Roshi and with cause and with Dogen and with all the other ancestors and all the people that have worked on this so much allows a kind of freedom to get to the bottom of what Dogen is really talking about and how he expresses himself and how he would sometimes it's good just to leave the literal translation and give you the problem of figuring out what he meant.

[13:59]

But I like this, his place is in the middle of the hall, he's sitting in the middle, he doesn't belong to one side or the other, so how can he choose which side How do you do that? How do you know what your place is? If you choose one thing, you leave out something else, right? Every time we make a choice, we let go of something else. This is the hard part of making choices. And it's the hard part of putting things together. How to How do we fit the two sides of ourselves together? So who is Manjushri? Manjushri is the Bodhisattva of wisdom. Well, what is wisdom? Wisdom is the wisdom of non-duality.

[15:03]

Manjushri is the Bodhisattva of non-duality, the wisdom of non-duality. That's why he sits in the middle of the hall. He doesn't lean to one side, he doesn't lean to the other side. So how is he going to choose between one side or the other? How is he going to choose between firewood and plowing the field? If he plows the field, he ignores the If he takes up the firewood, he ignores the plowing the field. Each one of us is Buddha and sentient being at the same time. We have these two sides. If we act like an ordinary sentient being, are we violating Buddha? And if we act like Buddha, are we ignoring our sentient being?

[16:11]

Are we ignoring our ordinary life of desires and passions and stupidity? Which we love so dearly and hang on to so securely. So this is a good koan, wonderful koan. How does Manjushri choose? And how does Manjushri reconcile the two sides of Buddha and sentient being? How do we include everything within ourself? This is Zazen. In Zazen, we sit up straight without leaning to one side, without leaning to the other side, without leaning forward, without leaning backward.

[17:16]

This is Manjushri. Although Manjushri is enshrined on the altar in the Zendo, Manjushri is sitting here in your seat. The Manjushri on the altar in the Zindo is simply an example for the monks, a mirror for the monks of who they are. This is you sitting up there on the altar. Or when you're sitting here, this is the altar and you're sitting on it. You are Manjushri. How do you act like Manjushri? How do you become yourself? So we say, Zazen is just to become yourself, just to be yourself. Zen practice is just to be yourself. The problem with that is, what is yourself?

[18:17]

That's the big problem. But don't ask. There's no end to finding out who yourself is. Dogen says, to study the Buddha Dharma is to study the self. To study the self is to drop it, forget it, and to be enlightened by the 10,000 things, which is what your self is. When you drop the self, you realize the 10,000 things are your self. Suzuki Roshi used to say, I have so many students, you know, and it's very difficult to take care of them one by one. My students feel neglected because I can't take care of them all one by one, but when I'm taking care of one person, I'm taking care of everyone.

[19:21]

And you should understand that when I'm taking care of one person, I'm taking care of everyone. So how does that work? It means that the student has to be responsible for themselves. Students always have to be responsible for themselves and for their own practice. And because the students are all connected, when one the teacher is taking care of one student, all the students benefit, even though we don't see that directly necessarily. Only when we can let go of our So this is what Suzuki Roshi was doing when he was taking care of one person.

[20:40]

You have to observe and realize how wonderful it is for him to be taking care of one person and realize that by taking care of that one person he's taking care of me and that I am included in what he's doing. This is Manjushri's compassionate wisdom. Each one of us is Manjushri. That's our practice. We're also Avalokiteśvara. expressing our compassion. We're also Samantabhadra expressing our shining practice. So these three bodhisattvas are our nature.

[21:46]

Sometimes Avalokiteśvara is, I mean In Japan, they didn't always know, Japanese don't have lions in Japan. So the Manjushri looks kind of like a dog, I mean the lion looks a little bit like a dog. Combination between a lion and a dog. But it's quite cute. And of course the Chinese had lion dogs too. But it's like, you know, he's riding this fierce animal which is his sentient being nature and his sentient being nature is supporting him and he's riding quite easily.

[22:57]

There he is, he's sitting on there very comfortably, his legs are down and the lion is a little bit fierce, but he trusts his nature, he trusts his human nature which is supporting his buddha nature even though the buddha nature is actually supporting the human nature, it works both ways, but it's a between his Manjushri nature, Buddha nature, and his human nature, which are actually two aspects of the same thing.

[24:02]

Samantabhadra rides an elephant, and the elephant is like the symbol of Buddhism. the elephant one foot down and then put the other foot down and walks very like you walk in a zendo. The way I would like you to walk in a zendo is like an elephant. When you come in and out of the zendo during zazen, I want you to walk like an elephant. one foot down, then the other foot down. What we do is we think, I have to get to my seat before anybody sees me. And then the whole zendo is, God, what's going on here? You should walk through the zendo as if you're passing through clouds in the sky.

[25:06]

very smoothly and quietly so that you don't disturb the atmosphere. And you may feel, gosh, you know, I'm going so slowly. That makes me very self-conscious. That's okay. Be self-conscious. You should be self-conscious. but not self-conscious to the point of rushing to your seat so you won't be seen. Self-conscious in this sense means that you're conscious that everyone in this room is yourself, is an aspect of yourself. So you're taking care of everybody in this room in the way you walk. So everything you do is taking care of everyone in this space.

[26:22]

Actually, this is our awareness. I'm not just here by myself doing my own practice. Sometimes people see Sashin or Zazen as they're doing this and I get to come and do it too. but there's no them there. Them is me. As soon as I enter into this activity, I am the whole activity. I'm linking myself with this one body activity, and so I become the whole body. This is the same as Suzuki Roshi taking care of one student and the whole body is involved, taking care of the whole body. So that makes us be very aware and careful.

[27:27]

It's compassionate practice. So it's the same as in the world. There are so many different parts of this world and how do we bring all these parts together and reconcile them within ourself? How do we This is the question, how do we create a peaceful world or a harmonious world? We can only do that by harmonizing all those parts within ourselves.

[28:41]

In whatever we worry about harmonizing the world, but what about harmonizing your little space? How do you harmonize with the things that you don't like, the things that make you uncomfortable, or the things that criticize you, or the things that you would rather not deal with? So just to light up one corner of the world is doing a lot. So in Zazen, we start with just our seat. How do you harmonize yourself with your seat?

[29:49]

That's pretty hard. We can do it for a little while, but then at some point we say, uh-oh, this hurts. Uh-oh. So this is the nitty gritty. The only way you can do it is to let go. the hardest thing to do. We keep talking about what is the goal of zazen. There's no goal, there's no blah blah blah, but there is a goal. But I'm not going to tell you what it is. It's whatever it is at the moment. Sometimes it's just to get through this period of zazen. You know, a lot of people have been having a lot of pain in this sashim, more than usual.

[31:08]

One reason is because when it's hot, it's harder to sit. So, you know, your legs get more tacky and so forth. And then, you know, the heat in your back and stuff like that. And then your mind starts creating a lot of stuff. But I just wanted to say something about how to accept the difficulty. How to actually make the difficulty your companion because difficulty is an intrusion. That's why we call it difficulty because it intrudes. It intrudes on our peace of mind or our comfort. So, as long as we think of our pain or our discomfort as an intrusion, we will suffer.

[32:29]

So that's the whole thing. As long as we think that something is intruding on us, we'll suffer. So how do we not feel intruded on? We have to open the door and say, well, please come in. Whether I like you or not is not the point. It has nothing to do with whether I like you or not. If I don't like you, that's more suffering. If I like you, that also leads to suffering. So, come in and please be seated, that's all. Whoever you are, whatever you are.

[33:37]

Just, okay, you wanna be here? Okay. So, when you sit down, usually when we sit down, there may be a little discomfort, but it's okay. But little by little, your legs begin to hurt, not everybody, but for most people. So when you sit down, to be aware of the feeling you have in your legs, and just let that be. And then for the next moment, you just be aware of the feeling you have and let it be. And you just open to whatever that feeling is. And every moment, you open to whatever that feeling is, moment by moment. This is called concentration. This is what you think about in zazen when you're thinking about something else.

[34:42]

but it will make you think about it if you ignore it. You'll say, I can't think about anything else but this, my pain. You have to be assertive in the sense of before it intrudes, you let it in. Because if you don't let it in, it will knock on the door hard and then it'll break down the door and then it'll overwhelm you. So before it overwhelms you, let it in. And if you let it in little by little, it will fill your house but it won't hurt you. And then it's just what it is, and then you can sustain it.

[35:49]

So letting it in means to relax, relax your legs. Our reaction to intrusion is to put up a barrier, but you have to go the opposite way and let down the barrier. Whether I like you or not, please come in. because there you are anyway. Then this is called riding the waves. The other is called drowning. So you have to be a good surfer. Zazen is being a good surfer. And surfers enjoy surfing. This is how you enjoy Zazen.

[36:53]

Because you know it's not conquering me. I am not being conquered by this. And then you have your freedom. And then in your daily life, you apply this principle. And you have your freedom. This is called practicing in our daily life. The fundamental of practicing in our daily life is the same as the fundamental of practicing zazen. So this is called compassion. Avalokiteshvara's practice of compassion. You don't hate the pain. You don't dislike the pain. It's just a feeling. when you get down to it, like and dislike are simply preference.

[37:59]

I mean, you know, we like things, we don't like things, we choose all the time, but when you get into this situation, the laws of conditionality are very severe. and they don't change because we like something or another. When we resist, we have suffering. That's the law. That's the Dharma. When the mind expands, to include everything, we have salvation, which means that we lose our self, we let go of self, and the whole universe becomes our self.

[39:10]

Not that we don't have some suffering, we do. You can't get around it. you realize how we cause our own suffering, how much of our own suffering we cause, and there's a way to deal with it so that we live our life in a more fundamental way. So in the life of the monastery, which is wherever you are, monastery isn't just some small place. Sometimes it's a small place. Sometimes it's a big place. But the world is our monastery, not confined to some small place.

[40:18]

The world is our monastery. That's the place where our practice is. and we practice with all kinds of conditions. So if we know how to practice, when we take our practice out into the world, or when we just be in the world, realizing that the world is our monastery, the Dharma extends into the world. So the Zen Do is wherever you are, if you really know how to practice. And in the Zen Do here, we have all these forms, and then through the forms you can recognize, oh, this is Zen practice.

[41:22]

because we create this atmosphere of stepping into Zen practice. But when you leave and go out into the world, there's no sign. The atmosphere is totally different. So what you have to do is create practice from the raw material that you find in your life. That's the other side. When one side of the moon is revealed the other side is dark, although the moon is one round whole thing, but you can only see one side of the other. So when you're in the Zen Do, the rest of the world is dark, not revealed, and the whole practice is like this. And when you're in the world the zendo is on the dark side and it's only the activities in the world that are revealed and you have to create your

[42:37]

in all those situations. How do I practice in this situation? Or how do I practice now? What is my practice crossing the street? Or dealing with a grocery man? Or with your frustration that you can't change the world. But you can change the world. So, everything starts from here. We always have to keep going back to here. Coming back to here and going out from here. you

[44:14]

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