I brought a story to read to you. This isn't part of my talk, but just to kind of get you ready for my talk. It's turned up in the paper. It says, Arthur Miller, a former president of the international writers group, PEN, presiding over a PEN conference, recalls presiding over a PEN conference in Bled, a resort town in Slovenia in the 60s. Miller's reminiscence was reprinted in the latest issue of New Republic, and was prepared for a PEN-sponsored evening for Sarajevo in New York a few weeks ago. I knew, of course, writes the playwright, that Slovenians, Bosnians, Serbs, Croatians, Montenegrins and other nationalities made up the Yugoslav delegation. But, to me, they all looked alike, and they all conversed in a mutually understood language. One night, Miller and four Yugoslav delegates went out on the town.

[01:03]

They found themselves at a nightclub, where an unsmiling woman in drab clothing began doing a strip-tease. I don't know what got into me, writes Miller, but I asked a fatal question. Can you tell from looking at her what nationality she is? The Serbian said, she's Croatian. The Croatian said she was maybe Russian or Slovenian. The Slovenian said she was probably Montenegrin. The Montenegrin's reply was a derisive, Ha! When the routine was over, Miller asked the stripper where she was from. With a waning, polite smile, she replied, Dusseldorf. None of the writers allowed himself to laugh, although I thought one or two blushed. Isn't it a strange business being alive?

[02:08]

I thought meditation might help. I thought if I followed all the rules very carefully, you know, I would get somewhere. Isn't that the way things are supposed to work? You do what you're told, and everything will be okay. Or you'll get approved, or something like that. If you do enough of the right things, then eventually your teachers say, good boy. Well done, you did what I told you. And that didn't work out very well. So I tried that for a while, you know. I said I would talk about meditation and creativity tonight. I think of myself as being moderately creative. You know, not very creative, but slightly creative. And I've done a lot of meditation over the years. And of course, when you start out meditating, whatever group you're with, they say, our way is the way you do it.

[03:16]

And then later on I found out, gee, other people did meditation too, and I tried out their meditation. You know, the Zen school likes to think that it's the way. All the schools say, like, you get further faster with our school. Do what we tell you. And the Zen school has a really good promotional technique. They say, we've got enlightenment, the other schools don't have it. If you want it, you've got to get it from us. That sort of thing. Anyway, I thought the topic, meditation and creativity, would cover a wide enough range so I could talk about anything. And I would just be kind of being creative and demonstrating it rather than talking about it. But I decided to actually kind of stick to the subject a little, you know, somewhat. And one of the first things that occurs to me about meditation and creativity is that what creativity is, is that you stop following the rules. And to be creative, you have to not follow the rules.

[04:21]

And you have to not do what you're told to do. In Zen they tell you, sit up straight. And then they carry around a stick, so if you're not, you know, you might hit you. We don't do that anymore, you know, that's the old school. It wasn't very, you know, American enough. So they tell you what to do. But it's never quite clear what, you know, whether you're really doing it or not. But you keep trying to do what you've been told is the thing you're supposed to be doing when you're meditating. That's what I tried to do, right? And then it takes a while to figure out that something else might happen. And that actually the other things that happen are really important. So as a friend of mine reminded me recently, he said, remember a distraction is only a distraction if you pay attention to it. This is good. And it becomes important to start paying attention to distractions at some point instead of trying to get rid of them.

[05:23]

I found, and I was the kind of person, like, I tried to do it so perfectly right that if you try to do it really perfectly right, you get really kind of stiff. I happen to have a nice stiff personality, so I can try to do things perfectly right. And it's kind of, and you get kind of idealistic that way. You know, that's the way I was. So you try very idealistically to do it perfectly. Because then you'll have gotten somewhere and you'll get approved. And people will like you. Because you're certified now as being okay. You've got the Buddhist stamp of approval. Good guy. Nice person. If you're really lucky, you get the enlightenment stamp of approval, you know. And then you say, oh, excuse me, but do you have a problem with me? Well, listen, I'm enlightened, you're not. So let me explain where it's at. And a lot of people in America got this kind of enlightenment, you know. Do you know that kind of enlightenment?

[06:32]

Where they can tell you and you can't tell them. That's the way it works. It's very convenient if you're a teacher. And you want to have nine wives. Then if you have a problem with that, you have to work on it. I'm only doing this because I'm enlightened. And I want you to get enlightened too. And you have to work through your problems. So I'm giving you these problems for your own enlightenment. So if you get that, if you get that kind of stamp of approval, then you're really somewhere. Anyway, there are these various kinds of things you can get by following along with this deal. I tried, so I tried it. But anyway, after a few years, I couldn't sit still. It was so important to sit still, and then I couldn't do it. So I guess that was being creative, huh? But I didn't know it at the time. But I'd sit there and I'd go like this. Have you seen people doing that? And people wanted me to stop. And nobody in my school understood anything like this.

[07:37]

There's other schools, like they say, oh, that's a good sign. So I thought I was supposed to be sitting still. So I kept trying to sit still. And my body kept wanting to do things. And I didn't want to let it because that wasn't what you were supposed to do. So there are these rules, right? Follow the rules. And if you follow the rules carefully enough, supposedly you get immunity. This is like growing up. You get your parents' approval. And if you get into meditation school and you do what you're told, then you're supposed to get somewhere in the school in advance. But it turns out at some point you have to start breaking the rules, whether it's like I do or just on your own. You decide at some point. So one of the things I decided one day, for instance, I decided one day to see what happened if I stopped stopping the movements. And just to see what kind of movement it would be if I wasn't trying to stop it. Because when I tried to sit still,

[08:37]

and then sometimes my head would move and then I'd stop my head and then my body would move. And when I stopped my body, you know, something else would move. So I couldn't grab it at enough places to stop it. And so one day I thought, well, let's just see what happens. And so then I started doing these big, like... And, you know, and then after a while my teacher Suzuki actually came over to me and he said, Do Kinhin. Kinhin is our walking meditation, you know? And I said, no. He said, what? Because I thought if it's Zazen, you sit Zazen, you don't get up and walk. And here's my teacher telling me to break the rules. I wasn't ready for that, you know. But he said, again, do Kinhin. So I got up and I walked. There was about five minutes left in the period. And then at the end of the period I sat down and then later on I went to talk to him and I said...

[09:40]

I told him what I was doing, that I was actually sitting there and seeing what would happen if I just allowed the movement. And he said, oh, that's good. I'm glad you told me. And then, you know, there were periods of times where I would be trying to sit and then my elbows would get stuck to my sides. That's not the way you're supposed to sit. And bend over like this. And I couldn't... I couldn't do anything, you know. And then it would be time to eat. And I'd have to do this, you know, we have these little balls with these claws and I'd do a little thing like this and I'd have to pick up the balls and I'd have to do this. And I couldn't get my elbows away from my sides for a couple of days. That's very embarrassing because you're not following the rules, you know. You're not doing what you're supposed to do. And after a couple of days my arms let go finally. Anyway, I'm going to jump ahead here, you know.

[10:44]

Later on I was doing a meditation that Thich Nhat Hanh taught us He said, as you inhale, let your chest fill with compassion. As you exhale, pour it over your head. Very simple, huh? And then the compassion goes down in your head and then every place it comes to it starts to relax and soften and get warm. And it slowly comes down your body with each exhalation it goes down a little further and a little further. And pretty soon it's very sweet. So I really got into it. And then I got worried because it wasn't Zen. And nobody in Zen had ever told me to do that. So I went to ask a well-known Zen teacher what about this. I went to talk to Kadagiru and I told him what I was doing and I said, what do you think? And he said, you know, for 20 years I tried to do the Dzazen of Dogen Zenji before I realized there was no such thing. You know, so anyway

[11:50]

in short, meditation is actually all about creativity and about being creative and about finding out what's actually going on in your being, in your mind, in your awareness how things actually work which is not something that and it's not about just following the rules so that you become a good rule follower. And you don't get certified as it were and you don't really learn something by following the rules. You don't become an approvable person. And because if you do follow the rules at some point you realize you get betrayed and somebody says well actually you still don't have it. And you find out that wasn't what was going to get you any place. It's interesting you can buy into whole programs, you know, people do it. You know, whether it's Jim Jones or whatever, you know. You buy into a program and a cult

[12:51]

and a thing and you try to do it just right and then still, you know, you don't it's not like somebody authorizes you then. Anyway, one way or another, you know, another American Zen teacher said he was practicing for seven or eight years and he was doing everything he was supposed to be doing, got to be a leader, got to be a teacher, was assisting his teacher and then after seven or eight years of practicing he said he got sort of unconsciously kind of got involved in an affair. He was married, got involved in an affair with a woman who was married. Everybody was mad at him after a while, angry with him. And it occurred to him that he had been doing, you know, like Mu and he had been doing all these koans and he had been passing all of them and then everybody's mad at him. The program didn't work.

[13:53]

He followed, he did everything he was supposed to, now everybody's mad at him. And so he said, one day it occurred to him, why don't I pay attention to what's actually going on in my life instead of doing the required routine. Anyway, you know, we're all just making up our lives and yet we think that there's some way that I could make up my life where it would all turn out okay. If I do it somehow the right way, it would be okay. And that other stuff won't happen to me, I'll be immune, you know, because I'm living a Buddhist life now. I thought this for, you know, 25 years or so. I still think it sometimes. Until, you know, the next thing happens, you know, and I think, but I'm a spiritual person, this shouldn't be happening to me. Like the time I was driving through Idaho

[14:54]

and I was actually going to be someplace on time and the next thing I knew, I was going on a river rafting trip with my daughter who was about 12 then and she had on some yellow shorts and I was driving and she was sitting there and she was eating an ice cream cone and it dripped down on her yellow shorts and she was kind of upset because it was chocolate ice cream. And so she wasn't watching the road and I kind of wasn't watching the road and she said, what do I do? And I said, we have some mineral water and you can clean it, you know. And then the next thing I know, it was a beautiful day in this blue sky and then I smashed into this rock, blew out the front tire. I was really mad because, you know, that's not supposed to happen to spiritual people. And a blown tire isn't that big a deal, but I figure, like, it shouldn't happen to me. I don't know if you ever think that way, but there is this tendency to do what you should and then it will be okay. And that's not what I think meditation is about and certainly not what creativity is about.

[15:55]

And this came up for us when we did the Green's Cookbook because our cookbook said cook the onions until they're translucent. This book was better edited than any of my books. The other day I was at Shambhala and I was telling my publishers and I was telling them the Tassar Bread Book initially came out in 1970 and it said things like, put bread on board and knead with hands. And that's being creative, you know, to leave out the articles and the pronouns. But a lot of creativity is like that, like, you don't know that that was being creative. Like, I broke the rules, I didn't know I was breaking the rules. You know, that was just the way we talked to Suzuki Roshi. It's a kind of pidgin English you use with Japanese Zen teachers, you know, or a Japanese person. Put bread on board and knead with hands. And the whole book was written like that. And then in 1985 nobody said a thing to me about that for 15 years and then they said, Shambhala asked me would I revise the book.

[17:02]

I opened it up and there's no articles or pronouns. And I was terribly embarrassed because I hadn't realized I was doing that. I put them all back in, you know, so I could follow the rules. And now people say, oh, well we thought that was just like your special language, you know, it was so direct and to the point. So maybe part of the power of the original book was, you know, like leaving out the articles and prepositions and the pronouns. But it was just an accident. And when we did the Green's Cookbook, we edited, you know, for days and weeks. And Debra edited my recipes and I edited Debra's recipes. And then we spent a month with a copy editor in Berkeley and then we sent it to Ben and we thought, no problem with this book. And I came back and they used all these press-applied labels that were sticking out the side, I think they were pink. And then each one is on a certain page and it's at the level of the page where the problem is. And it says, cook onions until they're translucent. And it says how, on the little pink paper, it says how long? And it's like, excuse me lady,

[18:08]

but are you going to look at the onions while you cook or your watch? But a lot of people, when they follow recipes, they want to do, you know, follow the rules so they can get it right or the way it should be. As if there was such a thing any more than there's such a thing as Dogon Zazen. You know, the meditation of the ancients. Buddha's, Shakyamuni Buddha's meditation, you too could do it. A friend of mine recently, a very old dear friend of mine, you know, in our tradition you become a, traditionally someone can become a priest then you have a ceremony where what's called Shuso or head student for a training period, a two or three month training period where you're sort of like an assistant teacher. And now we do it so you don't have to be a priest but senior lay people in the community also can be head student. So a woman I've known since about 1970 was recently the head student. And she's a very unusual,

[19:09]

remarkable person because she she came, she's one of those people who came to Zen Center and like there was a session starting the next day, seven day meditation. And in those days you could sort of get through and actually do something like that. Now we say you should do like three one day sittings before you do this week one. But somehow she got in and they did meditation at night and her legs started killing her after a while. And she got through the night and she thought well it would be better in the morning and it wasn't. And then the second period it was even worse. And then they got to go and do some bowing and chanting and she was really excited and then she had seen on the schedule that next on the schedule was breakfast and she thought great we'll have some breakfast. And then everybody went back to the meditation hall and sat back down again and she realized that breakfast was going to be in the meditation hall and not at some tables and chairs. And after breakfast she said to her boyfriend who she's now married to, I think I've had enough. And he said why don't we stay a little while longer.

[20:10]

And somewhere around the third day she was sitting and she thought does anything hurt? Well it's not that bad. Any problem? Oh I guess not. And she realized like things were all right. And then she became a session junkie and did as many of them as she could and she'd stay up late at night sitting. And she got rheumatoid arthritis and has now two artificial hips. But because of all of her sickness she started working with a person in San Francisco called Mayor Schneider who does particular kinds of massage and kind of visualizations in various ways. So she's become very good at working with people in pain. People in chronic pain. People in severe pain. She knows something about it first hand. So all that stuff you know like pain and stuff it's not stuff to get rid of. If you learn how to work with it then you know and you learn how to work with the pains

[21:12]

and the difficulties and the distractions you know creatively because you make up something. You find out how to do it. Something occurs to you to do and the books don't tell you and the teachers don't really tell you. You have to find out for yourself. And so she did that. And now she helps a lot of people. And one of her teachings is you should to try making here's a rule for you. Make a commitment to enjoyment. So she you know explains if you're committed to enjoyment first then you don't eat too much or eat the wrong things because you're committed to enjoying things. So you stop eating when it's not enjoyable. But you have to be paying attention in order to notice when it's not enjoyable anymore and you have to be able to notice that. This is interesting isn't it? To me it's interesting. Anyway she had her ceremony recently so I asked her, what's it like to be perfectly enlightened? Which is the kind of question in Zen

[22:14]

it's kind of saying you know I'm assuming like you're perfectly enlightened right? That's what we do in our tradition of Zen. Everybody's perfectly enlightened. Didn't you know? And what makes you think you're not? And how could you tell whether you were or not? Oh you still have problems? And you couldn't be perfectly enlightened and have problems? Oh that's interesting. Is that what you think? And so it actually, it turns out you know that even perfectly enlightened people still can have problems. This is the way it is in our school. And so everybody gets to be perfectly enlightened and have problems. So you can say what you want about you know when somebody asks you what's it like to be perfectly enlightened then you can either answer the question or the other answer in Zen tradition is, I don't know. So she said, I don't know. And then she said I tried for a moment and then you know if somebody says I don't know then you get to ask them then you can always say like, well why not?

[23:15]

Or you know come on you can do better than that or something sort of push them a little bit. But then she caught me because she said you know for a moment there I tried to channel Bodhidharma but nothing happened. Bodhidharma you know is this great ancestor in Zen. So that sort of kept me from sort of saying like why was that? But then later on in the ceremony you get a chance to congratulate the person so I got to congratulate her and I said you know I wouldn't worry about channeling Bodhidharma because I really like Darlene. And I think Darlene is perfectly good enough. And actually part of the charm of Darlene is that she tries to channel Bodhidharma now and again. Anyway I'm going to talk a little bit about cooking which is another area that I've been involved in. If you understand something about being creative

[24:19]

in meditation you have to. There's no alternative for it. And even if you don't want to you'll have to. And you'll have to because you won't be able to follow the rules anymore after a while at some point. You can't do it right. You can't do it the way you've been told to do it. So you'll have to be creative. It will force you to. Those distractions will make you pay attention to them until they're no longer distractions. And they become your life's work. I started cooking and when I started cooking the point was to really impress and astound people. I mean why do anything right? So I thought the thing to do is impress and astound people. And I was pretty good at it. And this is a particular kind of creativity and it's a particularly Western kind of creativity I think. And it's based on the fact that you have

[25:21]

a strong part of yourself that says to the other part of yourself you're worthless. You're worse than worthless. You're not even worthless yet. If you've got a little improvement you might be able to be called worthless. Do you know anybody like that? And so there's some part that's saying that and then so the other part of you says I'll show you. I'm going to prove how good I am and so I'm going to really astound and impress people with my cooking. So there. And so then you can but then of course the problem is that you're only as good as your last meal. And then some of them aren't so impressive and astounding as the others. So your self-esteem is only as good as your last meal and it's going up and down. And then even when you succeed you have to worry about what you're going to do for your next meal. So your success is very short and then the other voice takes over and says you're really worthless you know. It wasn't that good. What have you done for me lately?

[26:22]

So then you have to try even harder to impress and astound. And this is a kind of mode. Morris Berman in a book called Coming to Our Senses he says this is western tradition. So he takes like Van Gogh and he says you know whatever it is in the last two or three months of his life you know he did 60 paintings or something astounding. And were any of them good enough? Was anything good enough? No. He had to do another one and another one and another one and keep trying to do outdo it and make it more incredible and more astounding. And so he went into a kind of ecstatic trance. But it's all to come over it's all to you know in a kind of reaction to this extreme kind of hatred. You're no good. And in the end no matter how good a painter you are you know this other one wins. He killed himself.

[27:27]

Because the person who has to change is the person who is making the rules. And the person making the rules says according to you know I set the standards and that painting still isn't good enough. And then you know as your paintings get better the standards go up. And just so the same with your meals you know as you get to be a better cook now the standards go up so even though you're a much better cook than you were a year ago you're still not good enough. So they have a saying in Chinese even the Chinese have a saying before the food comes tell the cook it has to be better tomorrow. Otherwise he'll think you know he's somebody. So they understood that sort of principle. Now I I started thinking about this at one point it was partly because at Tushar I was the cook at Tushar this was in the late 60s and the kitchen crew said well we don't want to work with you anymore you don't treat us very well. And one of them said well you treat us just the way you do the bread

[28:30]

and then she said well actually you treat the bread pretty well. But you treat us just the way like we're another utensil so you're not letting us decide things you sort of treat us as though we have no sense of taste. So we have to do everything your way. But it was important to me that the food come out a certain way so it can be properly impressive and astounding right? So how could I let them do that? You know they might not do it as good as me. So when that happened I had to sort of think this through again and so I thought about it and you can see how this is endless. You can never do it well enough. The standards keep going up. And even if you do do it well enough why would that make a difference? Well then other people might like me if they like my cooking. And if other people like me maybe I could like myself. Maybe that would be okay. And then I noticed

[29:32]

I didn't like myself and could I just like myself or did I have to do something to prove that I was likable. And then if you have to do something to prove that you're likable is anything going to be enough proof? How much proof does it take that you're fundamentally basically likable? So I realized my real work was not to impress and astound people with my cooking but to start liking myself. And how the food came out wasn't going to matter so much. So this is a little different kind of work. A little different kind of effort. But it brings up then a kind of principle of art in a way. In Morris Berman's book he finally in talking about Van Gogh he says he was at a Van Gogh exhibit

[30:33]

I think it was in Washington D.C. and he finally got tired of it because one of the things about Van Gogh's work is it really comes out at you. And there's a tremendous amount of energy there. So after a while it's like I've had enough, thank you. Where is the stillness and the quiet? Because it's a kind of assault. You know when some part of you is pushed down enough. Some part of someone is suppressed enough, pushed down enough and this part is coming up and say, look, pay attention to me. Look at this. Isn't it dynamic? Isn't it stunning? And it's kind of assaulting you actually. And it says, you're not paying attention to me. You can't pay attention to anything. You don't notice who I really am and now you're going to have to deal with it in your face. That's the way it works, right? That's the dynamic. So after a while it was like he felt I need some quiet and it happened when he walked out of the Van Gogh there were some Chinese landscape paintings

[31:34]

and he said it was such a relief. They're sort of quiet and then they allow you to look at them. They don't sort of like say demand your attention. Look at me. Deal with me. Okay? They just wait for you to come to them. So then he quoted a Chinese landscape painter who said the uses of cleverness are exhausted in a few instances. Apparent simplicity or plainness has boundless characteristics. And that's what happened to my cooking. It got a lot plainer because it wasn't anymore about astounding people and impressing people and convincing people that I was a good cook. That I was likable and trying to convince myself that I was likable. That I could be loved. And what good is that anyway? If somebody likes your cooking

[32:36]

they don't really care about you, do they? They just want you to keep cooking all that good stuff for them. ... But in a way, you know, then if you're being creative part of the shift, then, is to start listening to things and acknowledging things instead of telling things how they need to get better or the way they should be or the way your body should be or the way your mind should be or what kind of feelings you should have and which ones you shouldn't have. And you stop trying to tell your own body, your own mind, your own being what it's supposed to be like if it could just get itself together and be a good Buddhist now. Would you?

[33:36]

And stop having that anger stuff and that depression stuff and that gloominess and that sorrow and grief. I don't want it, thank you. And you start actually listening to it. This is what in cooking is working with your ingredients. ... You know, and you stop trying to make carrots taste astounding by putting in, like, anise seed and raisins and cinnamon and who knows? Let's have some oregano. I don't know. We'll just put in more because more will make it better. One of my favorite examples of that is when you go to restaurants and a piece of lettuce isn't good enough, obviously, right? So let's put in a little red cabbage and a few little strips of carrots and maybe some green peppers and let's have some cucumbers and some sprouts and let's just pile it all up there on the plate because none of these things are good enough by themselves so let's give it at least the illusion of being something. A whole pile of a whole bunch of different things.

[34:38]

Wow! Isn't that bountiful? Doesn't it really look like something now? And nobody's intelligence has worked at it. Like, what actually goes with what? Nobody's paid any attention to whether the carrot tastes better if it's cooked a little bit or if it's raw. No, it's simpler just to have everything in that salad raw, by golly. So let's just make it all raw because that's less time. Okay? So this isn't about creativity. This is just like, let's give the impression of it being something that it isn't. You know, let's put more into it just to give it some illusion of being something. And the more the cook develops as a cook then you take the carrot and you want to know what does a carrot taste like and what does it taste like after it's cooked, after it's sautéed and after it's boiled or after it's steamed and if it's sautéed for one minute or two minutes. You know, how does it taste as it cooks? Which taste do you like? And so you're starting to like actually take the ingredient and see what you can do with it and then the more that a cook has some confidence

[35:39]

in oneself as a cook then you can do something much simpler. And because a carrot can just be a carrot. And it's pretty interesting and then it doesn't come up, but it's the same thing, it doesn't come up and astound people and say, deal with me and how about this and aren't I good? It just sits there on the plate and then you have to give it some attention as the eater. And then usually you say, oh this isn't very interesting. Oh gosh, it's just carrots. And then we're doing the same thing then as a person eating, you know, like I'm sorry, but you're not good enough. So there. So eating and cooking and it's the same as the meditating actually allowing to hear something, to receive something, to know something for what it is. And that something might actually be likable as it is and not need any improvement. Aha. And a friend of mine

[36:42]

recently was out in California, Susan Postal. She teaches Zen in Rai. I may go there later this week. Probably not now, I don't know. But anyway, she's lately been telling people that Zen is not about self-improvement. But people have a hard time hearing that because aren't I supposed to get better? No, you're just supposed to like yourself more without having to get better. This is a big challenge, isn't it? Could you? And could you just sort of listen to yourself and honor yourself and respect yourself and your sensations and your feelings and your thoughts and could you actually tolerate them? Be a little patient with them? I know they're sort of stupid sometimes and but that's our creativity. That's where it is. It's all these things that are coming up. And

[37:44]

writers, of course, have the same sort of problem because one of the first things you have to do as a writer is to turn off the sensor. Because if you go to write something and then the sensor says I'm sorry, that's not good enough, pretty soon the page is blank because nothing is ever good enough. And before you can even get it on the paper if you have a really active sensor. Most of us have pretty much world-class sensors. So right away this voice says, not good enough, sorry, you better not write anything because it's not going to be good enough. And you can't say that, that's too trite. And I've already heard that before, that's not interesting enough. And the point is to get rid of the sensor forever. A lot of us at times try to get rid of the sensor like from now on, let's get rid of it. Bye now. And you know when you try to do that the sensor is really going to try to do its best to stay around because it knows, it thinks you're really trying to get rid of it and it's right.

[38:45]

So then it tries all the harder to stick around. So you might have to sort of work out as a writer, sometimes writers have various techniques but one of them is you work out a deal. I'll see you in about an hour, okay? Or maybe 15 minutes, 20 minutes. That's one of Natalie Goldberg's practices, timed writing. So you don't try to get rid of the sensor forever but just for the next 20 minutes. And that's the way meditation ought to be. Drop the sensor for 20, 30 minutes, an hour, see what happens. See what comes up. And then the sensor can come back and look at your writing and you can sort of talk it over. But you have to and then because some of the stuff that we write

[39:47]

ends up being sort of, you know, as a writer or somebody creative or you're letting this stuff come up you're going to have these whole periods where really the stuff that comes up is not that interesting or something you want to share with somebody else, especially. But you have to allow it to come up to notice that it's not something you want to share with somebody else. And if you always kept it down because you're not going to share it with anybody else then, you know, nothing can come up because you're keeping that stuff down. Okay? You understand the principle? So you have to let all this junk come up and kind of, you know, part of the practice of meditation and creativity is to kind of sort through all that stuff that comes up. And what do you actually, you know, pass on to people? So part of that process is asking the sensor to leave you alone for a while. The person doing the judging. And getting the person who's been,

[40:47]

who's always saying, no, you're not good enough to actually start paying attention to who you are and tasting each thing. Knowing, you know, what it is to be angry and sad and to think and feel. And knowing, you know, what things taste like. Knowing your ingredients. Working with your ingredients. Most of us, you know, it's like trying to follow the rules. Most of us are trying to produce a life that is an acceptable life. It's a life, you know, it's like trying to create a dish and you know what it's supposed to taste like. And then you try to make it taste that way. Or you create a meal in your mind and then you go out and try to find the ingredients. Oh God, they're out of cilantro, bread and chocolate. Now what do I do? Actually, that's in California. You guys have bread and circus or circus and something or other. You know, oh my God, I can't get the right ingredients. Now what do I do? My cooking was helped a lot by being at Tassajara, which was two hours from the grocery store.

[41:49]

So we didn't worry about it much. We had to do something. So in a way, the quality, the way I relate meditation and creativity is the shifting of actually being able to listen, to taste, to know things, to receive things. And then the art is also something, the things that come out of that in your life, they may not look very dramatic. You know, they don't look like Van Gogh. And people actually, it's apparent plainness. In the end, it becomes, you know, our life becomes apparent, you know, like this apparent plainness. Most of our lives are not that interesting. And even the lives that are interesting,

[42:53]

you know, for the people living them, probably aren't that interesting. You know, we look at other people and we say, that's an interesting life. People look at my life and they say that. And to me, it's sort of like, it's just my life. Not very interesting to me. Anyway, so instead of trying to follow the rules and making a life that looks the way it's supposed to look and feels the way it's supposed to feel, and now you're a normal human being, and couldn't I be just a human being? You know, you're who you are. And so in Zen we have this saying, when you become you, Zen is Zen. Do you understand the difference? Instead of like, you're trying to become Zen, be the perfect Zen student, this is people, we all did this at Zen Center, we put on the Zen mask. We didn't smile in Thich Nhat Hanh,

[43:55]

we'd come to Green Gulch and they'd say, when you practice meditation, you should smile. That's the vocal I like. How can you say that? We're the Zen school, you know. It's like Vietnamese Zen, we didn't realize that, Jeff, that was just Japanese Zen, were you? And then after a while, you know, one day we were doing walking meditation and he said, you people are too serious. If you're not smiling, you're wasting your time. This is very hard for a Zen student. One of my friends said he went to a Thich Nhat Hanh retreat and then that was just all the more reason to dislike himself because he couldn't smile very well. You know, it's not really,

[44:56]

in order not to smile, you think, gee, I can't smile at somebody who can't smile. That's not something I can smile at because I'm supposed to be smiling now. But the point of practicing smiling is if you can't smile, well, can't you smile at somebody who can't smile? Wouldn't that be all right? I know it's sort of breaking the rules, like usually if somebody's smiling, not smiling, you go like, oh, well, excuse me, I better get out of here. And you don't want it to be too big a smile. Gee, are you unhappy today? You'd want it to be just maybe a little smile. So Thich Nhat Hanh teaches like, well, a quarter smile, an eighth of a smile, that's okay. But you see, most of us are holding out our smile for something that's really going to be worth it.

[45:58]

Really something to smile about. And you know the story, the Buddha held up a flower and Mahakasyapa smiled. And then people say, well, what did he understand? Then the Buddha, in the Zen tradition, then the Buddha said, I have the eye of the true Dharma. And now I say, Mahakasyapa has it, I'm giving it to him. So it seems to help as far as this business of being creative and not necessarily following the rules and your life not coming out the way it's supposed to come out. You know, it's nice when somebody gives you permission to do that. After all those people who have said to you, do what I tell you, and then you saying to yourself, and then to your body, do what I tell you, and your mind, do what I tell you. Because I know better than you do the way it's supposed to be. You know,

[47:05]

last summer, Suzuki Roshi's son came to Tassajara. And Suzuki Roshi's son has taken over his temple in Japan, and his temple in Japan happens to have 16 sub-temples. So the abbots of the 16 sub-temples all came to Tassajara with Suzuki Roshi's son. We had all these Japanese people at Tassajara with their shaved heads, kind of what they call in some of the Zen texts, no better than a beast, those people who don't keep their heads shaved. Oh well. Oh well. So his son came, and so they were practicing. It turned out we didn't have enough seats in for them in the meditation hall because nobody would sit next to him because that's what you do, because he's so high. And even though most of the abbots are all older than him, his is the head temple, so we have to respect him, so we're not going to sit next to him in the meditation hall, so we had to give them another seat. And then in the dining room,

[48:07]

they didn't have enough seats because nobody would sit next to him at the dining room table because that's how you respect him. Must get sort of lonely, huh? So I was thinking about this, because we always sat next to Suzuki Roshi and we sat next to him at the table and then one day a student said to him, Why haven't you enlightened me yet? And he said, I'm making my best effort. But most of us, you know, we say, so a lot of us, we have the same question, you know, we'd say the same thing to our body, our mind, our thoughts, our feelings, our sensations. Can't you be any better than that? Couldn't you be a little more enlightening? Couldn't you be a little more interesting? I don't like that kind of stuff you're giving me right now.

[49:08]

Can't you, like, get it into a nicer shape, make it more pleasant and beautiful? What's wrong with you anyway? And that's the way to say, you know, here's somebody talking to Suzuki Roshi the way they talk to their own body and mind. And he said, I'm making my best effort. So I want to suggest this for you, you know, as a possible practice. When you find yourself, you know, demanding more of your being, couldn't you be a little more creative? Couldn't you be more enlightened? Couldn't you be more understanding? Couldn't you be less angry? Would you stop the grief? And your body and your mind and your feelings and everything can say to you, I'm making my best effort. Sorry if, you know, you don't find it good enough. I'm making my best effort. And that's what things are doing. And mostly we aren't, you know, we don't tend to honor that and understand how all the time our life, you know,

[50:10]

creativity is happening in our life. We're not listening. So we have to listen to all the voices and then find out how to use them and these are our ingredients that we can cook with and use in our life. And it may not be, you know, the life you ordered. Joseph Goldstein, you know, said that when I went to the three-month course at Piri. We're coming into the last ten days, you know, and then they say, this is dessert, folks. A lot of people just go to ten-day retreats now to get ready for this ten-day retreat which is the last, this is the last ten days of our three months. So now you've had two and a half months of meditation to get ready for these ten days. So this is like dessert. So then I saw him after about five days into that and I said, Joseph, this is not dessert. It's just right, isn't it? That's what I've been telling you. And he said, well, it may not be the dessert you ordered.

[51:11]

... I guess I'm going to stop talking but I'd like to just sit for a minute or so, quietly, okay? And we can all do a little listening now and I can join you in listening. ... And not just talking. ... ... Maybe you'll join me in a little Zen, this is a Zen chant, okay? It's a very simple chant. So there's not much to teach you. The chant is the syllable HO. Okay? But it's one continuous sound, so when you run out of breath you just inhale and starting again. And you can,

[52:27]

if you want, put a lot of energy into it so that your whole body and mind, as it were, is making the sound HO and then you let the sound, you know, as you hear the sound you allow the sound, your body and mind to make the sound, you know, because you're hearing the sound as well as making the sound. ... Do you understand? Anyway, we'll try it, okay? So we just chant HO and after a couple of minutes or so I'll hit the bell. When you hear the bell then you can continue the breath you're on, so the sound, the big sound will die out gradually as each of us runs out of breath. Okay? Ready? I'll hit the bell to start. ... Two, all right. HO ... [...]

[53:28]

... ... Thank you.

[55:26]

It kind of warms you up, huh? Yeah. Some of you wanted 10 or 15 minutes, or less or more. But anyway, I don't want to keep any of you if, you know, you have places to go or things to do or you're tired of being here, whatever. I don't mind. How do you cook radish? Oh, I don't cook radishes. Or the way I cook them is to eat them raw, usually. Your stomach cooks them. Yeah, right. The mouth. What is it that you're wearing in front of your clothes? Oh, this. This is, we do these, this is in our school a traditional Buddhist robe.

[56:47]

It's the emblematic of the larger robe that monks and nuns or practitioners wear over one shoulder. The Indian robe, which is, and traditionally it's made from, you know, the oldest tradition, they received donated fabric or old fabric. So they got like scraps and then dyed them all the same color and then sewed them together. So it's pieced together piece by piece. And nowadays we take a big new piece of cloth, cut it into pieces and then sew them together. So there's a traditional scheme for the design. But it's a kind of interesting practice because it's sort of like sewing your life together, to sew cloth together. And it's because it takes, as you know if you've tried sewing, it takes a certain kind of patience, does it not? And you have to kind of stay with yourself. And unfortunately also, or fortunately, you get to notice who you are.

[57:52]

Like recently I started on a new robe and the first day it was so blissful and quiet and delightful to sew and stitch. And each stitch you say, homage to the Buddha. Homage to Buddha. And how nice this is to be sewing things together. And the next day the cloth wouldn't line up and I couldn't even start sewing because, you know, I kept trying to pin it together and the cloth kept going at funny angles. And pretty soon, you know, I was so mad and I threw the thing down. So much for this homage to Buddha stuff. But then over time eventually you end up with this thing, you know. All that gets sewed into it. And then these have the backside when you make it originally is blank. And then we do these for lay initiation. And so then when you have, we have a ceremony.

[58:54]

And in the ceremony you take the, like you have the five precepts. We take the five precepts or sometimes, now we usually take the ten, our ten, which is the same as your, the first five is the same. And then we take refuge in the three treasures and then you receive a Buddhist name. So then usually your name gets written. Your teacher writes your name on the back. So my name is Longevity Mountain Peaceful Sea. And not in Japanese, it's Jusan Kaine. And then it has my teacher's name, Suzuki Roshi's name. It has the date, which was September the 11th, 1971. And then it has a little verse here, which is the verse, in this case it's the verse we use for chanting. Before you wear this, you chant a little verse. Now we open Buddha's robe, a field far beyond form and emptiness. I vow to wear the Tathagata's teaching and save all sentient beings.

[59:58]

That's the way we do it in English, but we usually also do it in Japanese. And so nowadays most of the teachers, well some of the teachers write still in Japanese, but they usually write it also in English then, what your Buddhist name is. And then sometimes they draw a little picture or something else. So then usually we just wear this in the dharma hall, or once in a while in other circumstances, but largely we wear it when we're doing things together. This one is sort of worn out and it's missing a lot of stitches. And then, you know, I went back and re-sewed the whole middle part, but then this takes a lot of work to sew around the edges, so I just left that. So you can look at somebody's raksu and see something about the kind of person they are. He can be careful if he wants to and competent,

[61:01]

but then he kind of lets a lot of things slide and doesn't really take care of everything and all the details. Yeah, you can look at anything like that. But anyway, it's kind of nice. It gives us something to do. Sew some cloth together and have a Buddhist name. And my teacher Suzuki Roshi said, and you see it's come true, because he said, you will be like a mountain surrounded by a sea of peaceful people. So here it is, tonight. How did he know that? And you even have this seat here so I can be even a little more like a mountain, see, because it's a little higher up. Something else?

[62:03]

Anything of interest? Well, you've really blown my mind, and I've watched my mind go like this, like trying to find something to grasp onto. But I'm laughing because just the whole thing about art, I just got asked to speak as a panel person, as an artist, is something, and I find it really amusing, what that role is, to sit there and talk to a bunch of people who all, you know, aren't exactly, have their own paths, and just that you, that's supposed to be tomorrow, and I'm incredibly nervous about it, because I think it's funny to be deemed in some way. So I guess I ask with that awareness of how silly that is, you just play the game. Well, I've come up with my own idiosyncratic way of giving a talk,

[63:08]

you probably noticed. And every so often there's part of me that says, you really need to start giving talks that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And you might even tell people what you're going to talk about, and then talk about it, and then tell them what you told them. And you see, the part of me that is, so to speak, not doing what it's told, it doesn't like that. And the part of me that gives talks, normally I'm not so outgoing, but since you all come here and you all sit down and you agree to be quiet while I do the talk, then I feel a certain kind of freedom. To say whatever, and that you're not going to interrupt me. Not so much. And so then I kind of go on with what's interesting to me. And this is a basic kind of, you know, some speakers or writers do this. I was at the Zen Center in Long Island a year ago, Peter Matheson's group,

[64:10]

and you know, Peter Matheson has been a very prolific writer, and he at one point asked me if I'd give a talk, and I said, what should I talk about? And he said, something that interests you. And if it interests you, probably it will interest other people. So that's true up to a point. You know, sometimes what interests somebody is kind of a little bit too obscure or too personal. But I try to talk about things in a way which... It goes back to when I was a student and I wished people had said certain things to me, and they never seemed to say those things, or they seemed to be talking about a Buddhism that was separate from any person. Rather than, you know... And sometimes they would try to talk about the Buddhism that is you and me, and there's no Buddhism outside of you. There's no Buddhism separate from a person. Buddhism is not like... You could learn it like you could learn a subject in college where there's a body of knowledge and you take it in and you can digest it and then write it back on tests and stuff.

[65:13]

When you study Buddhism, you change. And the study of Buddhism is the study of you, and Dogen says that. So when I do talks, I try to talk from a particular place in me, which is a place that... And because I had a lot of talks where people didn't seem to be talking from that place. And it's a place that I know when people talk from that place and are coming from that place, and then I appreciate that. So I've been to those sort of things. You know, panel sort of things. And I try to talk that way, same way, and those things. It's a little interesting sometimes because I was at one, for instance, about cooking. And I was talking about creativity and actually paying attention to things and sort of like respecting the ingredients and then working with the ingredients to figure out what to do and letting the ingredients inspire you. And then the next person said,

[66:16]

we don't let our chefs ever do that. This is like a big chain. You know, this is like a big corporation. They do what we tell them to. And to me, that's not what's interesting about cooking or about art or anything, you know. So I encourage you to let go of your censor and see what comes out of your mouth. I think they chose me for just that reason. Oh, really? All right. It's just the mind that says, you know. It's funny. Yes? I have a comment. I always have a problem deciding whether to follow the rules or whether to let go of the rules. For example, meditation, but any area.

[67:17]

Between figuring out the difference between self-indulgence and belief or loving myself. And I think when I say what I think of as the rules or try to live up to them, I think there's this idea that at least I'll be failing in the correct arena. Yeah, right. But I'll be in the right territory. Then you can say, if you fail then, you can say, but I followed the rules. I did what you told me to. And then otherwise you have to take responsibility. Sorry, I fucked up. That was me who fucked up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So then you have to take... It's very frightening. Yeah, it is frightening. You have to take responsibility then. And it's easier not to. I had this wonderful conversation with Kadagiri Roshi kind of around this subject. Because I said to him, I had been living down at Tassajara and I had a girlfriend in San Francisco.

[68:21]

And Tassajara in the summertime, there's a lot of beautiful women there and it's hot. And a lot of the times they're wearing not very much clothing. And sometimes they're not even wearing any. Because there's times when there's mixed bathing down at the baths. So this is very interesting for, you know, a young man. Which I was at the time. Anyway, so I went to discuss this with Kadagiri Roshi who was up in San Francisco. And I said, you know, you often say to us, practice as the ancient practiced. Did they have a lot of women in bikinis in the monasteries back in China? He said, no, they didn't. So I said, well, if I can't practice as the ancients practiced, then, you know, how can I do that? If you, if I want, you know, you'd say practice as the, and he said, if you can't practice as the ancients practiced, then at least you should keep their practice in mind. So I still didn't know, like, what do I do? How can I follow the rules here? You know, do the right thing.

[69:23]

And so I said, well, actually, you know, I have a girlfriend here in San Francisco. Oh, he said, oh, in that case, well, you're just being greedy then. I said, what do you mean just being greedy? You know, it doesn't feel like greed to me. It just feels, you know, like pretty sincere, kind of sincere, kind of, you know, like desire. But it doesn't feel like greed. He said, no, it's just being greedy. I said, well, you know, in Buddhism, it's taught that every moment is a moment for the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara enters the truth. Every moment is a moment you can enter the truth. And he said, if that's the case, you better get in there right away. He was saying, you know, I wasn't in the truth. So he said, you know, if this is a moment to enter it, you better get in there. And I said, but, you know,

[70:29]

isn't any moment a moment of enlightenment? How can you say it's just greed? Isn't greed also enlightenment? You know, one student said, how do we get rid of passion? And Joshu said, why should we get rid of it? Why did you think that? You know, why would you get rid of it? Why would you want to? Who gets these ideas? So I was saying this to him, and kind of curious, he finally says to me, you know, look, you can just do whatever you want. I just hope you'll take responsibility for it. And that's exactly right, what you're saying. It's hard, you know, to actually take responsibility and stuff can happen and stuff can go wrong and people can get mad at you and you can really mess up. And it's more, it is more scary than just following the rules and failing within the defined arena of at least I followed the rules and I did what I was supposed to do or what looks like what I was supposed to do. So that's exactly,

[71:33]

so there's a certain courage in that sense, in living your life and coming into yourself and owning your own body and mind, owning your own experience, being who you are and living from that place and making your mistakes and owning them and going on from there. And I have, you know, as hard a time as anybody, so I mean, I understand about that being difficult. I can't decide whether to go to New York tomorrow or Friday, for goodness sakes. I mean, it's no earth-shaking sort of thing and either thing is going to be okay and who cares, right? I can't decide. And nobody will tell me what to do. Go to New York tomorrow. And so God spoke unto Moses in the wilderness. Thank you.

[72:35]

Okay, thanks. Take care of yourselves. Bye-bye.

[72:49]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ