I am bound to face the truth with love to talk just words. Good morning. Can you hear me? Good. Does that work? More or less? A few more words. A few more words. How's that? That's better. Yeah, good. Okay. Good morning. My name's Peter Overton, and I have practiced here for a number of years, and I actually began practice here in 19... not here, but at the Berkley Zen Center when it was on Dwight Way in 1969 or 70. Anyway, I won't go on. I wanted to start off saying that...

[01:02]

It struck me how I usually, when I prepare to say something in a talk here, it usually starts off with some interest of mine in some particular aspect of our daily life and practice here, something that we may take for granted, maybe it's worth looking at a little more closely. And then I I think about that for a while and I may have some insight. I may remember a teaching someone gave me years ago that I more or less thoroughly misunderstood and I think, oh, yeah, that makes some kind of sense now. And then after developing that for a while, I might think of a phrase in a Zen story and I think, oh yeah, that's what that meant.

[02:05]

And then I go look up the story and read that and that often becomes a, you know, what I recognize as the theme of what I really want to talk about. And in the process, I often come up, towards the end, I find something that, a story or teaching that I thought was particularly interesting, but not centrally relevant. And so now I'm going to speak about what I developed, but it's all going to be backwards. And I don't usually include the interesting but irrelevant part, but I'm going to start with that today. In the Blue Cliff Record, case number seven, I'm just going to read what's called the introduction, or the pointer, and the case, which is quite short.

[03:07]

This is called Huizhao Asks About Buddha. And the pointer says, the introduction says, the 10,000 sages have not transmitted the single word before sound. If you have never seen it personally, it's as if it were worlds away. Even if you discern it before sound and cut off all the tongues of everyone in the world, you are still not a sharp fellow. Therefore it is said, the sky can't cover it, the earth can't support it, empty space can't contain it, sun and moon can't illuminate. Where there is no Buddha and you are alone, and you alone are called the Honored One, for the first time you've amounted to something. Otherwise, if you are not yet this way, penetrate through the tip of a hair and release the great shining illumination. Then in all directions you will be independent and free in the midst of phenomena. Whatever you pick up, there is nothing that is not it. But tell me, what is attained that is so extraordinary?

[04:14]

Does everyone understand? No one knows about the sweating horses of the past. They only want to emphasize the achievement that crowns the age. And this is the best part. Leaving this matter aside for the moment, what about Sui Du's public case? Look into what's written below. And the case is a monk named Hui Jiao asks Fa Ying, Huizhou asked the teacher, what is Buddha? Feiyan said, you are Huizhou. Anyway, I think I'll be looking into this for some time. What I wanted to start off with was another story about these two in which Huizhou is on pilgrimage and traveling around and he comes to where Feiyan is. And Fayan says, where are you going?

[05:19]

And Huijiao says, I don't know. And Fayan says, not knowing is most intimate. What's interesting about this to me is that Most of the time, when we think about something or are presented with something, some teaching, we have an experience, our response is almost always inside the box, so to speak, inside our own frame of reference, whether that be an understanding of the way the world works, an understanding of what Buddhism or practice is, our own particular momentary obsession with our desires or hatreds, whatever that is, whatever is present as our frame of reference is the way we filter and experience what goes on in front of us and within us.

[06:32]

So usually, we try to cope with this. The usual way we think about trying to cope with these circumstances is the metaphor is think outside the box. Consider something that you haven't considered before. And often, if you're engaged in a field of study or trying to learn something new, You have to think outside the box. Learning is about expanding that frame of reference of letting go, which really, you're letting go of your fixation on how you see things for a moment in order to gain some other piece, to acquire something, to learn something more. But at the same, the valuable piece of that experience is that just pulling up the edge a little bit and letting something else in.

[07:41]

What we sometimes refer to that experience as beginner's mind. But this morning I'd like to talk a little bit about thinking inside the box. When I first came to Zen Center and went over on Dwight Way, I was already interested in practicing Zazen and I came and started sitting and of course part of The practice here, which is something I hadn't experienced, was what we call service, where we recite the sutras and do prostrations. This aspect of the formal practice I found rather quaint and puzzling. And I had a little bit of trouble with it, and I don't remember whether I asked Mel about this, but I certainly listened carefully when other people asked him about it.

[08:46]

And his advice was more or less, well, don't worry about it, just do it. And this worked fine. This was okay with me. I then, through just accepting this and not trying to think too much about it, I was able to have an experience of what it meant to me outside of other preconceptions. And this worked OK for some time. And then I, of course, like many of us, became involved in trying to do things well, you know, hit the bells well and chant properly. And I thought perhaps that was sort of my avenue for trying to approach practice for a long time. When I was at...

[09:52]

Probably, when I was practicing at San Francisco Zen Center with Baker Roshi, I was ordained in 1978. And I hadn't really thought that much. I hadn't really spent a lot of time really thinking seriously about what the meaning of our service was. Although I appreciated it, I found it It was an important part of practice. When I became ordained and then began, at certain occasions, to officiate at service the way the priests do here, I decided that maybe I should understand what this was about. Nobody really explained anything about it, and it wasn't that much of a mystery what goes on. It wasn't hard to figure out how to do it. But what was it about? I thought maybe I should understand this if I was going to be, you know, officiating in service.

[10:57]

My initial experience was, well, you know, at the time I was working at the bakery and we would come home, we'd get up, we'd go to work at 4 a.m. and then we'd come back to San Francisco Zen Center and then we'd have our own little period of Zazen and then there would be a noon service with about three of us. But in any case, I thought, well, at least the meaning of this to me should include the fact that we're all here in the room together. and that I should be mindful of that. And then I thought, well, really maybe what I should be mindful of is everybody, you know, people in faraway places who are having a hard time and people in Washington, D.C. who I might not like so much, but everybody should be present for this event. Everybody is present for this, and maybe this is the meaning of this. Sometime later, as I say, Baker Oshing never really talked about this, that I remember, but I remember him sometime later in a meeting, and I think we were at Tassajara, he was talking about what it was important for priests to know, or something like, it was a topic like that.

[12:22]

And he was talking about how it was important to know the ceremonies, you know, the ordination, and then the weddings, and the funeral, and so on and so forth. And he said something that struck me. I don't know what he said. The feeling was that in performing ceremonies there was this real enactment and communication of the essence of Buddhism in this setting. And this is something that priests should... This is what you do. This is what's happening there. And it struck me, and I thought, that's interesting, but a little bit odd. What's so important about that? Yes, that's fine. You know, it's a special kind of theater or something, you know. And I didn't really get it. But I kind of sort of had a sense of what he was talking about, because it's sort of the way he treated

[13:25]

the events, the formal practice events that he was involved in, that I saw him in and participated with him in. It all used to drive me a little bit crazy, actually. I mean, even down to... Because, you know, lots of stuff, these things would go on, but nothing ever happened on time. It was, it happened when it happened. Even, you know, during Sashin at Tassajara, the bell would ring and you'd go into, they'd beat the drum and you'd go sit down and, you know, half an hour, 40 minutes later, the teacher would arrive to give the lecture. A rather long lecture. And he was criticized for that, but, you know, in fact, I think there was something else going on there. For instance, He didn't want people to, he didn't want, lectures were always recorded the way we do here, but he didn't want people to listen to the recording afterwards, you know, like if they missed the lecture or wanted to hear it again or something like that.

[14:35]

It was, what was going on in the lecture, That was the teaching. If you were there, what was being offered was there at that time, whatever time it was. And it wasn't sort of replicable. It couldn't be repeated. There wasn't a substitute for it. It might be that, yes, you could edit talks and you could produce some other kind of thing that was teaching, but that particular teaching event happened. I'm kind of pointing to the fact that here, this, what we have here now, is not going to be repeated. Every time you sit down on your cushion, it's not going to be repeated. And I've been thinking about this a little bit more lately.

[15:41]

For some reason, I don't know exactly why, in the last few months, this question about what is, you know, what's going on? What is the meaning of this thing we're doing together? It's service, bowing, offering incense, chanting together. I want to read something here that Suzuki appears in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. There's a section on bowing, which Suzuki Roshi usually has the last word on this, so I will. He says, After zazen, we bow to the floor nine times. By bowing, we are giving up ourselves. To give up ourselves means give up our dualistic ideas. So there is no difference between Zazen practice and bowing. Usually, to bow means to pay our respects to something which is more worthy of respect than ourselves.

[16:48]

But when you bow to Buddha, you should have no idea of Buddha. You should just become one with Buddha. You are already Buddha himself or herself. When you become one with Buddha, one with everything that exists, you find the true meaning of being. When you forget all your dualistic ideas, everything becomes your teacher, and everything can become the object of worship. So I've been thinking about this again, this question of bowing, and I hadn't really gone back and read this until just a couple of days ago. But it occurred to me that maybe the key to this thing was really not knowing at all what it means. And remembering that, remembering that I don't really know at all, I can't know what it means.

[17:53]

And to enter into service, our daily service, or sitting down to zazen, remembering that, And what's interesting about that is that when you don't know what it means, then something opens. There's a space for everybody to come in. That you are actually doing this with everybody. You're not just in your own little box doing what you think you're doing. If you can remember that you don't know, that not knowing is most intimate. than other possibilities, then I can stand in front of the altar and feel, oh, whatever this is, I don't know what it is, but it holds everything, it holds all the possibilities.

[18:55]

I don't know what possibilities will become manifest, but it holds all of them. So this is now how I understand what I think Bek Hiroshi was trying to point to. in his remarks on the importance of ceremonies, is this sense that the whole world is present as an event when you open up to not knowing, when you enter the room not knowing what it means, what will happen, just allowing possibility to be there. And in that way, Doing service really is indistinguishable from zazen. We kind of have the sense that, you know, we talk a lot about zazen and how this approach is clearly applicable. But it's also clearly applicable to the rest of our lives.

[19:59]

As I said, you know, the problem for me when I walk into the Zendo is, well, you know, this problem of what am I doing, you know, what is this meaning, these robes and all this stuff, bowing to Buddha. But, you know, in your daily life, do you know what makes you happy? Do you know what is satisfying? In some ways, we can't know any of those things, yet we think we know. We think we know what we want, but we actually don't know. And it's possible to leave open that possibility, that we don't know what will make us happy, what will satisfy us. There's some real freedom there. There's a phrase in the, hope I've got the right text, Song of the Jumeirah Awareness that we chant.

[21:14]

When inverted thinking stops, the affirming mind naturally accords. So I guess I'd like to invite everybody to... Well, maybe I won't say it. The thousand sages have not transmitted the single word before sound. Even if you have never seen it personally, it's as if it were worlds away.

[22:20]

Even if you discern it before sound and cut off all the tongues of everyone in the world, you're still not a sharp fellow. Therefore it is said, the sky can't cover it, the earth can't support it, empty space can't contain it, sun and moon can't illuminate it. Where there is no Buddha and you alone are called the World Honored One, for the first time you've amounted to something. Otherwise, if you are not yet this way, penetrate through the tip of a hair and release the great shining illumination, then in all directions you will be independent and free in the midst of phenomenon. Whatever you pick up, there is nothing that is not it. But tell me, what is attained that is so extraordinary? Does everyone understand? No one knows about the sweating horses of the past. They only want to emphasize the achievement that crowns the age.

[23:23]

Leaving this matter aside for the moment, what about Sway Du's public case? Look into what's written below. What do you like? The sweating horses. Yes. But the end of the first paragraph. after the admonitions to attain something. But tell me, what is attained that is so extraordinary? Is this... Maybe it's not so extraordinary. Yes? Hi. Thanks for your talk. Do you think a box without a lid is still a box? As long as you're there and not looking up, it is. But sometimes a box is useful.

[24:30]

We have our own Buddhist box, you know. Sometimes we talk about practices, putting a snake inside bamboo. But can the snake get out of the bamboo once, after it calms down? Yes. Thank you very much for your talk. I don't exactly have a question so much as just points of resonating with what you said. And this is also kind of my goodbye to the sangha because I'm moving away. And it's funny that you would bring up all the things that you brought up because they've whole world of boxes, my impetus to finally decide to move away from here, which I've wanted to do almost since I got here, because I don't want to live in a city, actually came from meeting with Mel, and having dokasan, and he said to me, have you ever seen a tapestry in New York, and it's a tapestry of a unicorn inside a fence?

[25:42]

Well, you're like that. Your practice is very young, and when your practice is young, it needs a container. But that part, I was like, why does a unicorn need a fence? I don't want a fence. I don't want a box. I don't want to have a container. And I've been kind of butting heads against that one since that was said to me. And trying to understand what that means for myself. Because at the time, I kind of... I also appreciate what you said about trying to do things well. And I thought at the time that that meant I should be here more or I should be more diligent or forceful or disciplined or contained and have more of a container in that way.

[26:57]

And what I sort of seem to be coming to realize is that for where I am in my life right now, You can't hear me? I wish you'd told me that earlier. But so, I don't know, so thinking about the container and what a container means to people at different times in their lives, I guess, is what is resonating with me. And the other thing I wanted to bring up as a point of resonating was the whole idea of not knowing where you were going. and needing to not know. I've been living here trying to make myself do things I don't really want to do. And another thing Mel said to me that day, he asked me about my life, and I talk about the work I do, and said, you know, and it's amazing, and it's really stressful, and I don't want to be so stressed anymore, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

[28:01]

And he said, well, what do you want to do? And I just cried. And that was when I decided to move, because that's what I really want to do. And so now everyone asks me, well, what are you going to do? You know, I said, well, no. I don't know. Okay. I don't know. I don't have a conclusion really, but it's been a really inspiring thing to think about how not knowing can be its own container. Thank you. Can you repeat the part about the unicorn? We didn't hear that. Yeah. Mel said to me that there's a tapestry in New York of a unicorn inside a fence. And he said, you're like that. Your practice is young. And when your practice is young, it needs a container. Well, this is reminding me of what interested me about the idea of talking about this from, as I said, from inside the box. Because we do practice, start practice inside a box, but then

[29:06]

thinking outside the box. Sometimes we think we can step outside the box and think outside the box. But in order to do that, we actually are still in the box. So it's almost as though we have to kind of burst the box to think outside the box and then maybe reform it or something is necessary. Metaphors are flying everywhere here, so let's be careful. I said, metaphors are flying left and right, so let's be careful. How are we doing on time, Marie? Oh my goodness. Yes? Well, well... No, no, you have several probably.

[30:13]

Yeah. Yes, there are, there are. It's very complicated. But what I meant when I first brought it up was our, is our, at any particular time, each one of us generally has a kind of frame of reference for how we're, that allows us to, or I wouldn't say determines, but what we use in order to respond to what comes up for us. And that might be a psychological set, or it might be physical circumstances, or it might be ideas we have about who people are, and so on and so forth. But for each person, each self, that's kind of a constantly shifting thing, depending on where you are.

[31:14]

You might not put on the same hat when you come here as when you go to work. You might have some other ways of thinking about where you are and who you are. But in any case, there's something usually that we are constantly referring to to keep us oriented in the way we think we ought to be. That's what I meant. Yes, Roz? I'm sorry? Well, by... in and out of the box with ease? Well, no, what I think I meant is that if you can see that, if you can refrain from referencing, you know, or trying to understand something according to your frame of reference, if you can refrain from doing that, a little light will come in.

[32:32]

Ross. Thank you, Peter. It appears as if you have retained some feeling from decades ago, teaching observations from your ordination teacher. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about paying attention to the details, the words, the forms, and all of the box. The usefulness of our formal practice is that we kind of know what the box is. Sort of. I mean, to some extent. And we can be aware of that as we participate here. But what you need to know about is what the box is, wherever you happen to be.

[33:43]

And so we get some experience with seeing how we create a frame of reference in this practice. As you know, we try to refrain from... obsessing about it and fixating on ideas and responses to people here. And in that process, we learn something about ourselves. But those same opportunities exist everywhere. It's just that it's a little more subtle. You know, you've worked in one place for a long time, so you kind of know all the games that go on. and how you participate in them and other people participate in them. So that's the kind of situation where you can kind of let go a little bit. Sometimes when you're in a new situation, you're so on guard and trying to figure out how to get through it that it's difficult to really see beyond the end of your nose.

[34:57]

It sounds like you're saying that at the beginning we're so focused in on the forms or getting it right, so to speak, that we kind of miss the opportunity for the feeling. And then as we continue to practice, the feeling has been there all the time. We just kind of recognize, oh, that's maybe what the teacher was trying to say. Yeah, I think that happens. There's someone else back there I didn't... Yes? You sort of gave me a Somewhat, by listening, the answers come around. But I was thinking before of Immanuel Kant's idea that analytic synthetic thought, in other words, you can't possibly even sense anything unless we interpret it. That's from his point of view. The very fact that you cut a cookie cutter through this It happens like that.

[36:09]

Well, that's, yeah, that's consistent with the Buddhist psychological view that, you know, several processes happen like that. and that, you know, your sense organ and whatever you're seeing and your mind, you know, occur together. One more. One more. Yes? I think, I just turned 50, like, two weeks ago, and I think this is kind of, what you're saying is kind of can be framed with age too, like in your 20s you behave a certain way because you think that's how 20 year olds behave.

[37:16]

Or you're kind of involved in this kind of 20 year old thing, and then when you turn, you know, as you go through your life, changing your age, or you know, I think it's kind of a frame that you fall into, too. Like, you think, well, I'm fit enough to behave this way. I think that works with what you're saying. Do you think? Yeah, I think you should go out dancing and do something really silly. Just try it for one night. You'll learn something. Maybe you can't keep it up, though. I don't know. I think that's all. Thank you.

[38:09]

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