Well, I just got back from Richmond, and so that was the first time that I'd gone to the Richmond Sangha, and it was very nice to be there, and getting to know those people a little more intimately than I have in the past. So I very much appreciated going there and giving a talk. Well, so Saturday I talked about here, about Hongjue's practice instructions, and then on Sunday I talked about what I would call the bodhisattva's response to present-day world situation. And tonight I thought that I would talk about or ask what you're interested in talking about or interested in having me talk about.

[01:16]

But I also wanted to talk about a little bit about the bells, but how we sound the bells. So could you bring me the bells? So when we talk about the use of the bells, we usually say, when I hit the bell, or when you hit the bell.

[02:27]

But actually, we should never hit the bell. Bells should never be hit. It's better to think about, how do we sound the bells? Each one of these bells has a voice. How do we find the voice of the bell? How do we bring out the quality of the bell? If we hit the bell, we're not taking into consideration the relationship between ourselves and the beater and the bell. Sometimes we think that we sound the bell in order to delineate the various things that we do.

[03:29]

Zazen starts, so we hit the bell. It ends, so we hit the bell, and so forth. But that's only the secondary purpose. The primary purpose is to inspire our practice. When we sound the bell and bring out the quality and the voice of the bell, The bell is an instrument that expresses our buddha nature. So I always encourage people to think about the relationship between this beater, as we call it, and this bronze bell. So how do we create a relationship?

[04:30]

What is this bell meant to do? So if I approach the bell without trying to hit it, How do I bring out a sound? If I hold this thing and grasp it with my hand, that's called damping. But if I simply let the weight of the beater fall on the bell, That's the voice of the bell coming out. It's not the most resonant bell I've ever heard.

[05:37]

Would it be possible for you to move that big bell over to the side so I can see it? It's not the most resonant bell I've ever heard. But it's nice. It's a nice bell. It actually has a voice. You know? So what sort of angle should I use? And where on the beater should it fall? If it falls on the top of the beater, it has a deeper tone. And it falls at the bottom of the beater. This thing tends to move.

[06:40]

So I listen for the resonance so that The sound is not a cry for help. You know, people used to beat the mokugyo at Zen centers. And Tsuguro, she'd say, if you keep doing that, the poor thing will be liable to have a heart attack. The mokugyo, oh yeah, keep it going, mokugyo. Mokugyo. And also, Did you hear that? That's a nice hollow sound. You can do it with your fingernail. It's very solid and very heavy.

[07:56]

And this poor little thing is kind of small, you know. I don't think it's a good match. But still, like the weight, you have to weigh the weight of this with the density of this. You have to go like this. It doesn't like being beaten. You like this relationship, you know? It feels nice. And since it's a small room, heavy beater, nice hollow sound. That's all you need. This mokugyo sound is like a heartbeat. It should feel like a heartbeat. When we're chanting, it should be felt and heard, but not overheard.

[09:04]

Or not drowning out or competing with the voice. But you feel it underneath, kind of like a bass. And let it bounce. The trick is loosen it. Just like in Zazen. The trick of Zazen is to stay as loose and flexible as possible when you're sitting Zazen. And the same thing with this. And the same thing with this. No clutching. It's like a pin going through between your thumb and finger. And you just let the weight of the beater ring the bell, sound the bell, ring the bell.

[10:09]

And with this one, same thing. You can do it from the inside. You just loose. That's a nice sound. There's a variety of sounds that you can produce. So a good bell, a high quality bell, is not cast.

[11:15]

The old-fashioned way is to have a flat piece of bronze and then they pound it. That's what all those little pounding marks are. They pound it with a hammer and at the same time push up on the sides until it forms itself. It's really quite a process. So, I'd just like to suggest working with it that way, with the bells and the booyah, to bring out the qualities of the bell as the primary thing that we're doing with it. And secondarily, keep time. Do you have any questions?

[12:20]

Can you please do a kachi? Can you please do a kachi? Yeah, usually we do it too loud. So when you do the clippers... Ricky? Um... We say, it's not like this.

[13:26]

It's kind of a dead stop. Not a line sound, actually. And then we say, during the meal chant, homage to the Dharmakaya Varochana Buddha, homage to the Sambhogakaya Lochana Buddha, homage to the Nirmanakaya Shakyamuni Buddha. And we end, we do the clap at the very end of ah, rather than homage to the Dharmakaya Varachana Buddha. And then there's a big pause, and so the rhythm gets lost. So in order to keep the rhythm, it's homage to the Dharmakaya Varachana Buddha, and you end it at the very end. And then you're ready for the next one. And then it just rolls on in rhythm. Do you have any other questions?

[14:37]

When I was taught to sound the bells, I was taught to hold the beater here and then have the white part like on top, so it would be like this rather than like that, and like to hold it loosely to switch it sort of... Like this way. Yeah. If I'm up high, it's really good. Um, but, uh, um, doesn't matter. But, um, a bell, like, if you do it from the outside, it's good to have the beater parallel with the bell, rather than at an angle.

[15:45]

You don't have to hit it. All you have to do it, it's this far from the bell. You know, almost nothing. Almost nothing. So I can't compare it with anything. How little you need to do to get the biggest sound. How, you know, the conservation of energy. So, you're kind of making love to the bell, is what you're doing. I like the sound, you know. Find all the sounds that you can, when you practice, find all the sounds that you can bring forth out of the bell.

[16:58]

And there are a lot of good ones, and there are a lot of different ones. Stop. Yes. Stop, you just go. So you use two hands. Well, the hand dampens it, see? When you touch, it dampens it. That's why you don't want to clutch the meter, because that dampens the sound. So you're working against yourself when you do that. Looseness is the key. Actually, it's the key to everything. So when you're doing this, this is a vital part of practice. It's not just ringing bells. The whole practice is right here in how you do this. There's an old story Suzuki Yoshi told about this abbot.

[18:08]

I can't remember. I'm trying to remember his name. Morita Zenji. Morita Zenji was a, when he was a boy, his mother died. And his father was very poor and wasn't able to take care of him. So he took him to the monastery to live with the monks. And when he took him to the monastery, he said, When novices enter the monastery, they are supposed to learn how to ring the bell, the big Densho bell. So, Morita's end, when he was a boy, he entered the monastery, and they taught him to ring the bell, and one day the abbot

[19:19]

was having tea with the director. And he heard the bell. He said, who's ringing that bell? And the director said, I don't know. So he went out, and it was Morita. And he said, I want you to bring that person in to see me. So he brought Morita. And there's a boy and he said to him, what were you thinking about when you were ringing the bell? And he said, well, my father told me that when you ring the bell, every time you ring the bell, you produce a Buddha. So he just kept that in mind in his training. So every time you ring the bell, you should think about producing a Buddha.

[20:26]

Every time. For every ring. Do you have any other questions? on the small bell? Well, small bell. You don't get much. You don't need anything special. You don't have to hit it. Whatever sound you want. Sometimes you may want... but that's a little too hard. It's like, the sound you want comes from here. You know, it's in your hand, but it comes, this is the source of ringing the bell or doing the Mikugyo.

[21:32]

So if you keep your attention here, then this extends to there. So you always want to keep your mind here. So, I'm interested in what kind of questions, you know, what you're thinking about and what you might want to discuss, might want me to discuss. Can you say something more about lightness, what you mean by lightness?

[22:34]

Yeah, flexibility. If we look at our posture in Zazen, You know, we have, I don't know how many independent parts of the body, 300 and some, you know, there's a number, but I can't remember what it is. But each part is independent. Like, you know, this, there are three joints in the finger, and each one of them is independent. And then there is the hand and the wrist. the elbow, the shoulder, and so forth. And everything is held together with tendons. All parts are held together with tendons. And so it's not like it's one piece. It is one piece, but it's many pieces in one piece. It's just like one in many.

[23:34]

So the way we hold our body in Zazen is to allow each piece of our body to be independent. Pay attention to the independent quality of each part of our body. So when we hold our mudra, we just allow all those joints in our fingers to relax with each other. And then the thumbs form come together and the tops of the thumbs facing each other. But there's tension, but there's no tenseness. Tenseness is extra tension. Tenseness is what's not necessary. So to just simply hold lightly and flexibly. And then your back, the vertebrae are lined up on top of each other.

[24:39]

Moving forward, you can lean backward, you can lean this way, you can lean that way. And your elbows are a little bit out, you know. I remember Kadagiri used to say, like holding an egg underneath your armpit, you know, if you go like this, it'll... So, but it's not tense. Tension is what holds things together, but very lightly. So if somebody comes up and pushes your elbow, just the elbow moves, just the arm moves. But if you're tense and someone pushes your elbow, the whole body goes over, like a statue. So we say sit like a rock, but it doesn't mean like a statue. Don't sit like a statue. A statue is one solid piece.

[25:43]

But in Zazen, all the parts of our body are independent and practicing in an independent way, all together. So what is it that unifies them? Well, what unifies them is the posture of Zazen, which is directed by our intention. So what is our intention? Our intention is to sit up straight without anything to worry about. No concerns. We say in Zazen, leave all your concerns behind. You know, when you come to Sishin, you should tie up all of your affairs. Make sure that you don't have nagging things. I mean, that's ideal. Ideal. And you just leave, you know, and you enter the realm of Adam.

[26:53]

This is called going up the mountain. And it's actually leaving behind the world in a sense that you're leaving behind society and entering into the unconditioned realm. Unconditioned means not to be influenced by conditions. Not to be influenced by things that are good, or things that are bad, or things that are right, or things that are wrong, or things that you like, or things that you don't like. And so unconditioned means non-dual. Of course, that word gets bandied around a lot. And you resume your innocence. You resume your true nature. In other words, you're not conditioned.

[28:00]

You leave behind all your conditioning. And just allow yourself to renew your existence. That's what Zazen is. You're just renewing your existence. And so you're totally empty of conditioning. I mean, ideally. So there doesn't need to be anything to be tense. There's nothing to be tense about. And so this is total trust. You're open to anything from the outside. But there's nothing to fear and there's nothing to want. And so there's nothing to be tense about. But we get tense when we have discomfort.

[29:02]

Something gets uncomfortable. But when Zazen becomes uncomfortable, then we start to get tense. And then the breathing comes up, and the shoulders start to rise. And the mudras, the thumbs start to press together. You know all about that, right? But in order to sit, you have to just open yourself. Because our tendency, when we feel intrusion, painfulness is intrusion, is to resist. So the only way we can resist is to tense up, which doesn't help at all.

[30:13]

We hang on to, so we hang on to ourself. We hang on to our body, but it doesn't help. So we have to go against that tendency and just open up instead of close down. You just go the opposite way. And instead of causing that, we open up to it. And when we open up and just accept it, if we do that correctly, then there's no opposite. And when there's no opposite, there's no problem. The problem comes up when there's an opposite. An opposite is, I don't like this. Opposite means opposing. So if we oppose, we have a problem. So we have to let go of opposition and just allow.

[31:20]

And the more we do that, the more expansive we get, and the more we can relax in the sense of letting go. And then we don't get tensed up and the parts of our body remain independent. I mean, I often go around and correct people's posture and I cannot be lean. People are like that post sometimes. I mean, that post is stronger than that post when you try to And that's like, so there's this kind of, you know, I'm going up. That doesn't help. It doesn't help at all. It just makes it worse, so. But we all have to come to this on our own. You know, we can talk about it, but if we keep sitting, then, of course, we come to realize that it doesn't help to do that.

[32:32]

So to stay loose is the fundamental thing. And when we stay loose, we don't get sick so well, so easily. A lot of the problems that come with age are delayed. And our disposition remains calm and easy because we don't feel tense. So it helps our disposition. Looseness allows things to harmonize.

[33:36]

It doesn't set up oppositions. It's peaceful. It allows for freedom. What is freedom? Freedom is flexibility. So it's non-binding, we're not binding ourselves. And you find that most of our problems come from our binding ourselves. So, that's kind of my answer. Could you speak about loosening your mind? Loosening your mind? Well, the same flexibility that you were talking about in the body... It's the tension between, I guess, trying to be okay with where you are, and that trying is that kind of tenseness.

[34:44]

How is letting go not... How do you let go not in a tense way? If you can do this with your body, It's because your mind is loose. The problems we have with our body are associated with the mind, with our attitude. So the same attitude that works for keeping our body flexible also keeps our mind flexible. Same thing. When the mind is flexible, the body can be flexible. And it works the other way. When the body is flexible, it influences the mind. So we say Zazen is a practice of the body influencing the mind. It works both ways. There's this phrase, are you a monk of body or a monk of mind? It's a kind of koan.

[35:46]

But when our When we focus on the body in that way, it also influences the mind. So it's circular in both ways. And this is how we practice in our daily life. You say, well, how do you bring practice into your daily life? Well, basically, that way, to stay flexible, when you find yourself getting tense, to think, to, you know, hmm, and then, oh yeah, I'm tense here, I'm tense there, or my breath is up here, and then do a little zazen moment. And let everything come down to normal. and then proceed.

[36:51]

You know, Thich Nhat Hanh has this mindfulness bell. You know, so no matter how much, how wound up we get in a situation, ding, the bell goes off. And then, then you start again. Ding, then start again. So somehow we have this It's good to have some mindfulness reminder to check on our disposition and our attitude. Attitude is so important. I think attitude is, you know, When I go back to California, we're going to give a class at Zen Center on how we practice in the various positions.

[38:02]

How does the director practice? How does the cook practice? How does the general labor practice? But the main thrust of that is going to be attitude. What is our attitude toward what we're doing? Because through our attitude, everything flows out of that. If we have a belligerent attitude, then, you know, we can't work with people. They don't want to work with us. If we have a possessive attitude, it upsets people, and so forth. So, if we have an attitude of kindness, an attitude of generosity, an attitude of willingness to work with others, and so forth, then we create a Buddha field.

[39:13]

And so, it's all connected. Attitude is really so fundamental to everything. You had talked about the unconditioned, and from what I understand you to have said, it's like maybe another way to put it would be Unconditioned means to not be swayed, or like, let's see, Katagiri Roshi, I think, uses the word stability. Stability, yeah. Could, let's see, could you talk more about, like, what is meant by unconditioned? Well, yeah, there are two things. Unconditioned is our fundamental nature. before anything influences us.

[40:21]

But the other side is we're all conditioned. Our responses are all conditioned due to our attitudes and upbringings. So to let go of our conditioning. In other words, we can't completely let go of our conditioning all the time. But to be free of our habitual way of approaching things. You know, we may have a habitual way of approaching things that's pretty good. But even that, to let go of, so that we're open to the present moment. Conditioning is like, well, it's assuming something.

[41:34]

So to have an unassuming attitude, You know, we say, not knowing is the highest. And sometimes we say, in Soto Zen, we have to be a little bit stupid. That doesn't really mean stupid. It just means to not have an attitude which is full of assumptions. If you have assumptions, then you're blocking reality. So, to be able to just have an open mind, completely open, without assumptions, and see everything as new, as it is, actually, to see everything as, to see as rigorous, to see things as it is.

[42:36]

That's the main thing, because in Zazen, or in Zazen, attitude to be able to see things like a mirror. You know, this is to return to our mirror mind, which reflects reality as it is, without assumptions, without opinions, and without knowing anything. Because all of those opinions, assumptions, and knowing distort are the accuracy of our perceptions. And we distort, our mind distorts our perceptions in order to give us an advantage. So, in that sense, you don't have an advantage. We're always vying for an advantage in some way, you know, for something.

[43:40]

We return to our nature before it becomes corrupted. I don't mean corrupted in a bad way, like corruption, but corrupted meaning stained, unstained nature. And that's just openness. But we have built up defenses. in our life. And, you know, we all defend ourselves against life around us. And with good cause, you know. As we, when we're born, you know, we're just open. And then as we grow up, we learn defenses. And we learn how to separate ourselves. And then we learn how to defend ourselves. And then we create a view of the world which is conditioned by those defenses and so forth.

[44:58]

And then we have trouble. So ideally, Zazen gives us the opportunity to return to our nature free of conditioning. So we have this wonderful moment. And then when we get up from zazen, we actually have the opportunity to continue that way. But given that we have so many obligations, we quickly return to our old habits. This is why Dogen says, the best way is to be a monk, where you just give up everything, period. And you don't have to return to anything. But laypeople can also practice. But ideally that would be true. But we can't do that. So we have to be able to find how to practice, how to let go, how to always keep that looseness and that unassuming attitude within

[46:15]

attachments we have in our life. Faith in Zen practice? Yeah. What type? Faith is a very important aspect. Faith is enlightenment. You know, faith has various aspects. We say faith is confidence. It's an attribute of faith. And so sometimes we use the term confidence. But faith is, to have faith in our basic nature, and faith in practice, and faith in the Dharma. But that faith has to be verified. But even so, When we enter practice, that's an element of faith as well, even though we're not necessarily convinced, or it's all new.

[47:29]

So that's faith. But faith is there all the time, when and whatever we do. When we drive down the street, driving on the freeway, right? And you have faith in the fact that everyone else is doing what you're doing. They're all going, when you're going in this direction, everybody else is going in that direction. People in this attitude are going in that direction, you know, and you have faith that when you make a left-hand turn, the people are going to stop and so on. So, that's faith, you know, and we have faith in society working in a certain way, and that, you know, if we do certain things in a certain way, we have faith that it will work, and then there are things which shake our faith. But faith in... so we're always working on... we always have faith in whatever we're doing.

[48:35]

And sometimes people lose faith in life itself, because nothing ever works out. They mistrust life itself. So, if we have a basic faith in life itself, even though, you know, things may not work out here, but they'll work out there, you know, and we still have a basic faith. Sometimes people don't have a basic faith in life and they commit suicide. So, faith in the Dharma means that we see that this is a path that opens. That's the most open path. The endless path. We have faith in our job, and faith in our automobiles, and faith in

[49:41]

the movies or whatever. But there are a lot of dead ends to faith because those kinds of ordinary faiths don't necessarily fulfill us. So we want to have faith in something that is fulfilling. And when we practice at some point, we don't say that you should have faith, you know, blind faith, but you should test practice out. And then when you have confidence, then the faith is there, right? But it's necessary to have that faith, otherwise it's hard to continue practice. But in the end, faith is blind. Because blind in the sense that it's beyond what we can see. We know that the direction And the path is far, you know, more than we can ever see, but we know that it's the right direction.

[50:50]

We have faith in the fact that it's the right direction, even though we don't know exactly where, on the twists and turns. But it's definitely called blind. Blind meaning it really sees. But, you know, we also say sometimes, like in certain schools of Zen, it's necessary to have a great doubt. So doubt is important, can be important. There are faith types and doubt types. And doubt types tend to be people who have a really hard time. They really need to have their faith proven.

[51:59]

So they come to these big crisis points, and then they have a big breakthrough, and then they have faith. It's like Renzai style more. They drive you, you know, work on this koan and have this breakthrough, whereas faith types just don't have, they don't have doubt. They may not be mature, but they don't have doubt. Like Rinzai is a kind of doubt type, Hakuin is a kind of doubt type, whereas Suzuki Roshi and Dogen are like faith types. you know, although Dogye did have a doubt, you know, he said, you know, since everyone has Buddha nature, why do we need to practice? And then his doubt was, he had this breakthrough with his doubt, you know, but still he is a faith type.

[53:05]

So, there are these two types. I've always been a faith type myself. I just always felt that even though I didn't know what my path was, and I was looking for it, and I had a lot of problems and so forth, I always had faith, a kind of intrinsic faith in my path. Some people just have lots of doubt. Koan practice is good for doubt types. Soto Zen is good for faith types. But not necessarily. To what extent, this goes along with with the notion of faith, I suppose, but to what extent would you say that there is a belief system in Buddhism?

[54:20]

I know that Stephen Batchelor wrote a book called Buddhism Without Beliefs, and Christianity, especially traditional, basic, orthodox Christianity, is a belief system. How would you characterize that sort of Zen? Buddhism is not a belief system. Zen is not a belief system. From the start, Buddha said, it doesn't matter what I say, even if I say it, you have to find it for yourself. Each person has to find their own salvation. Which doesn't mean that you can't be influenced or can't be directed and so forth. We should be. That's why we have teachers, we have examples, the philosophy and all that.

[55:25]

But we have to find our faith through our own practice. So it's not a belief system. I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, we have to believe in nothing, which is the total faith. Believing in nothing is absolute total faith. So it's not like you believe in something, or faith in something. It's just that faith is just faith, you know. So what you're saying is that faith doesn't rely on a belief system.

[56:30]

It's your being. It's your whole being. Not some thing. It's maybe your attitude. It determines your attitude. It's like no matter what happens, that's what should happen. Like, I shouldn't die, you know. Well, I should die. Is that bad? No. Can't be bad. Is it good? No. It's just the way it is. But, you know, you can say, you can look at it and say, well, that's bad because I'd rather live. Or you can say, well, it's good because that's the next step, and the next step is inevitable. Or you can just say, well, it's just the next step, period.

[57:32]

I don't know whether it's good or bad, right or wrong. you know, okay. It's got to be okay. Whether it's good or bad, right or wrong, it's got to be okay. So, and it's like not knowing what's next. You can think about what you think is next. And we have all kinds of stories, you know, that comfort us. And that's good. That's okay. It's good to have those stories. because it gives people, you know, some confidence, even if it's in a fairy tale. But just to be able to say, well, it's okay, you know, that's just fundamental faith. It's okay because, I mean, it's logical and obvious, and everything does it. I asked Hoitsu, the last time I saw him,

[58:36]

I said, look, in the Soto Zen, a lot of people are dying now, you know, that we know. But it's hard to find something in Soto Zen that applies to how you take care of people that are dying. I said, what do you do? Do you know about anything like that? I said, what are you doing? He said, oh, I just hold their hand. Just hold their hand. And I said, well, what do you tell them? I tell them, you're dying and everything's dying with you. The whole world is dying with you, right along with you. No problem. Everything is going the same way you're going. And everything in your world is going with you. So, just go with the way things go. There's nothing you're leaving behind. My understanding is that even in religions that have a belief system, like Christianity, my original concept of faith really came from that.

[59:55]

It was that there's a difference between belief and faith. With faith being something that takes, in Christianity, a future heavenly reality and brings it present here. Parallel or is that completely different than Zen? Well, we create heaven and hell here. Then it goes down. But it's always the ocean, so the wave never gets lost. The wave is always here. You know, everything is, well... So I really get excited about things, you know. If we have some conceit, you know, have some feeling for how things arise, how we arise, and how we change and transform and so forth, and everything is changing and transforming together, then we stay loose, you know, and we can do that.

[61:48]

If we resist too much, then we suffer. That's the origin of suffering. And you find it in Zazen. Zazen is like the microcosm of the world. Everything happens in Zazen. And it happens outside of Zazen, in ordinary life. And it teaches us how to avoid suffering, how to avoid the conditions that create suffering, like hanging on, clutching, grasping, dualistic thinking, attachment, and to stay flexible and move easily with changes. And to expand, to include things, everything, eases our suffering.

[62:59]

And we just easily get caught. So, you know, how do we... Right now, so much anger arises, you know, when we see what's happening in the world. So, that does come up. But just like in Zazen, you know, it comes up, and then we let it be there, and then we let go of it. And it comes up again, and we let it be there, and we let go of it. The fact that we can let go of it, means that we have some flexibility. Because otherwise, we hang on to it, and then it turns us. And it doesn't do anybody any good, when it's just turning us. As Master Joshu said to the monk, you are turned by the 24 hours, whereas I turn the 24 hours. Your attachment to things turns you all day long, whereas when I meet circumstances, I turn them.

[64:17]

caught by them, even though anger comes up, all those things come up, but there's a way of not ignoring and not attaching. So it must be time. Where is everything?

[64:48]

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