A question that frequently comes up or sometimes comes up with us is, what is the meaning of my life? What is this life about? And we can look at it and look at our activity look at our accomplishments and look at our careers, our families, our interests, and so forth, and we can say, well, we add it all up and say, well, this is what it means but often there's something missing.

[01:02]

Even though we can add up all the collection of things, does it really add up to a meaning? Maybe yes and maybe no. But when we think about it, value, we tend to think of this side of our life which is the side of comparative value. I'm successful because I'm a banker and not a thief or not a homeless wonder or, you know, we compare our success or we often tend to put value on our success in comparison to something else.

[02:22]

This side of our life is the life that seems most prominent. And it's our life in relation to everything else. Or our life in relation to others. The life of comparison. And we put value on things, one thing as being worth more than another, compared to something else. And then we set our values according to this kind of denominator. But our life has two sides. One is the life of goals, which is the life formed by pressure from our fellow beings in our environment.

[03:53]

And we all feel this pressure to accomplish something, and so we set goals in the materialistic world, and that becomes our life, and we set value on that life according to whether or not we can accomplish our goals. But on the other side, is the side in which each moment's activity stands alone and has its own intrinsic value. Each thing has its own dharma position.

[05:01]

Each thing is a dharma, in a sense. Every being and every action. And each action and each being resides in its own dharma position, which doesn't interfere with any other thing's dharma position. And although everything is related, interrelated, has its absolute quality, which is not determined by its relation to other things. And this absolute quality is what we call buddha nature. Although buddha nature also is the nature of the relative quality of things.

[06:13]

Everything we say, everything is buddha nature. nature is what things are. But within each moment's comparative existence is complete, absolute stillness, where The Dharma position of each thing is absolute and eternal. Eternal in the sense of it doesn't change. Everything changes. This is the law of the universe. Everything changes.

[07:19]

But within this everything changes, everything is completely still. So, in order to come back to our true self, it's necessary to abide in this and find our true nature in this absolute moment. This is why we said Zazen. This is why Sawaki Roshi says, Zazen is good for nothing. It's outside of the realm of comparative relationships.

[08:33]

It has no value in the realm of comparison. It's the other side of our life, the side which We know is there, but sometimes we don't believe it, and sometimes we don't think we should believe it, because it's not in the realm of trade. trade is very important.

[09:46]

And for everyone it's important, but there's some things which cannot be, something which cannot be traded. Something which cannot be transferred. And each one of us has this thing, which is not a thing. It's just your value has no price. Your true value has no price and no trading value. Without it, you are nothing.

[10:49]

Or maybe without it, you are something, which is too bad. So both sides are necessary for our life. If we abandon the life of comparison, or the viewpoint of comparison, then we get stuck in a kind of eternalistic view.

[11:54]

absolute quality of each moment. We get stuck. how to express the absolute quality of life in our everyday comparative life and how to express true, unselfish comparative life as absolute being. almost all the koans are about.

[13:13]

So, we get very caught up in our goal-oriented lives. We have to have goals in order to know how to move in this life. But what happens, we tend to get lost in our goals. And the goal, because we become so engrossed in reaching goals, that we forget about the other side of our life, the absolute side of life, in which each moment is very alive and precious for its own sake. And each one of us is valuable for our own sake, not just for what we can produce or what we can accomplish.

[14:33]

It's important to accomplish something. But what? We all want the feeling of fulfillment. in our busy daily activity, what our practice is, is to find this stillness, or this absolute value of each thing, on each moment.

[15:57]

People say, when I leave the Zen Dojo, my mind becomes very chaotic again. When I come to the Zen Dojo, everything becomes very still, nice and quiet. But when I go out into the world, I forget what I'm doing. So practice, real practice, takes place here and in the world. world is to be able to, within our busy goal-oriented activity, to be able to appreciate each thing that happens for its own sake, whether it's something for us or against us, something good, something bad.

[17:05]

Without clinging to judgments about right or wrong or good or bad, to just be able to appreciate what comes up on each moment as an expression of life itself. Pretty difficult. because we put ourselves in the center of value judgments about life. And we need to have value judgments about life. But although we need to have value judgments about life at the same time, we should be careful not to be caught by those judgments.

[18:12]

Otherwise, we lose the absolute value, the absolute truth of each moment. It's not so easy. This is why when we come back to Zazen, pain in your legs, you can accept everything whether you like it or not. In Zazen, you can accept everything whether you like it or not. And the absolute value of each moment's activity becomes appreciated. Whether you appreciate it or not, you appreciate it.

[19:15]

It's true. You may kick and scream, inside during sashimi, but at the end, you feel pretty good, even though you ache. And then you do it again. You say, oh, that last period, this is so bad. I'll never do this again. How did I ever get into this? Then you stand up and you do kin-hen. Can you have no attachment to the comparative world so that on each moment you can let go and enter into life, the beginning's mind?

[20:21]

This is how we practice. So that no matter what's going on in the relative side of our life, the absolute unhindered moment, how to just be one with our activity, just to engage wholeheartedly, fully, in whatever we're doing. It doesn't matter whether we like it or not, it's just, this is what is happening right now.

[21:35]

This is our life, right now. More important than whether I like it or not, We talked about hindrances in Buddhism. Sensuality is a hindrance. Anger is a hindrance. Laziness or sloth and torpor are a hindrance. Agitation and worry are a hindrance. hindrance. These are called the five hindrances.

[22:40]

Why are they hindrances? Because they all promote a comparative one-sided understanding called ego. Comparative one-sided understanding And it's the view that comes from self-centeredness. And self-centeredness arises through comparative evaluation. So this is the first day of our six-week practice period, and during this practice period, what I would like us to concentrate on as practice is

[24:01]

put ourselves into each moment of our life beyond comparative value. To be able to just allow ourselves to appreciate whatever is happening in our life, aside from whether or not we like it, or don't like it, or it feels good, or it doesn't feel good. or it's going our way or it's not going our way. And to think about, that's the positive side, and the negative side, to think about these five hindrances, because they're with us all the time.

[25:29]

And the first hindrance is sensuality. It's usually associated with a sexual desire, because Focus on sensuality as sexual desire, but sensuality means that which comes through hearing, touching, through smelling. that our thinking mind is a sense, considered a sense. So it means, basically, grasping in the world through sense desire, being caught by the things of the world through sense desire.

[26:44]

And sexuality is one of them. Avarice is another. category. So our addictions are a hindrance and addictions are basically bound up with sensuality of one kind or another. So we should look at our addictions and be aware of our addictions and be aware of them as hindrances. One of the main reasons why we become addicted to something is in order to suppress our real nature. In order to suppress our innocent nature.

[27:53]

Kids don't need it. because they appreciate their true nature. But when we get older, we tend to want to suppress, even though we think that it's liberating. We get very mixed up. We think that doing something which is liberating, which is So we get very much caught up that way. And then we have to unwind it, undo it, which is very hard. So in our practice, we're always in the process of undoing the knots. Untying the knots that we've tied in order to cut off the well spring true nature.

[28:59]

And anger is another one. Anger is a wonderful way of tying a big knot around our basic innocence. And sloth and torpor are a way of finding the lowest place as the false security. Real security is to find the lowest place. Water is very secure and it will be around for a long time because it knows how to find the lowest place to be. Water always seeks the level. But swath and torpor is a kind of false leveling. It says, well, I'm secure here, so no need to go out.

[30:04]

No need to express. As long as I can lay in bed, I'm secure. And worry and agitation are the opposite. These are two pairs of opposites. Worry and flurry is like no place to rest. It's just the opposite of sloth and torpor. There's no place that I can sit, no place that I can settle. And so always going around in circles and always needing material in order to keep going. There is a kind of worried, flurried one. who needs more and more material in order to keep from settling down. Do you know that one? Needs to keep always more input, more input, more input, because if you settle down, then you have to meet yourself.

[31:13]

So that's another way of constriction. And skeptical doubt is the inability to have faith. And actually is a kind of source of the other four. Inability to have faith means that, so what, you know? And then, because we don't have true faith in our nature, We try all these other, try all these things which, or take on all these things which are substitutes. Doubt is fine. We need to have doubt because doubt is the balance for faith.

[32:21]

It's very important. to the side where faith doesn't have a foothold. It's kind of an extreme position and keeps us outside. So sometimes the biggest skeptics are people who actually want to believe something. and actually some people who are the most skeptical and atheistic maybe. But anyway, these five hindrances, we should look at in ourselves to see where we're stopping ourselves, where we're not allowing ourselves to actually have some freedom, true freedom.

[34:05]

Sometimes, you know, when you're it looks like that. But it's always possible. And sometimes, you know, it's not always possible to get rid of our hindrances. That's not necessarily the point. What's important is to know where we are. have. If we look at our hindrances and say, well, I should get rid of all those hindrances, you just have a bigger problem.

[35:08]

You can't suddenly get rid of all of our hindrances. So what's important is to know what this is. Zazen, each person's Zazen is incomparable. In other words, you cannot compare it to someone else's. And you cannot even compare it to itself. And when we look at our life, we may want it to be perfect in some idealistic way, but our life will never be perfect in some idealistic way. We will always have some big problem and some big hindrance, or more than one.

[36:13]

Matter of fact, all those hindrances are hindrances But even though we live in this realm of judgment and comparison and value, at the same time, each moment of our life is beyond this value, this comparative value. And when we can accept ourself in that way, then we can accept each other. in that way. Shakyamuni Buddha, when he was enlightened, said, Oh, now I see everyone's enlightened.

[37:23]

Because I'm enlightened, everyone's enlightened. Anyway, I'm not expecting us all to be good little Zen students. What's important is to be aware and to see things as they really are and not to be caught just by this comparative side of life. And to realize that within this muck, our real life is right there. So without waiting for ourselves to improve, just to make some effort to let go and appreciate life as it is without comparing it to whether you like it or not.

[39:19]

because our true life is beyond our likes and dislikes. So as I say, during this practice period, what I would like us to concentrate on is how we can appreciate each moment of life and let the absolute side of life and constantly keep returning to our fundamental nature.

[40:47]

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