Good morning. Good morning. Wow. I already feel happy being here with you. I feel like such an honor to be in this room with all of you. Venerable people. And it's a little, you know, awesome. What would I have to say to all of you venerable people? Suzuki Roshi said that if I tell you something, you know, something to do in practice, you might actually think that's right. And then you would try to do it.

[01:01]

And you would stick to it because you thought that's right. And you'd stick to the teaching that I gave you. And that's not so good. So then what is one to say? I better tell you some things that, you know, you won't believe. And then, you know, I better contradict myself and various things so that you won't stick to whatever I say. I was doing a theater improvisation class a year or so back. And after one of my little improvisations, which was just movement, the teacher said, that was nice. And then would you like some feedback?

[02:03]

And I said, sure. She said, it seemed like everything you did had some meaning. Did you want to limit yourself just to doing things that have meaning? I, that never occurred to me, you know. But once you mentioned it, it was obvious, you know, how are you going to enjoy yourself or be playful or discover things or, you know, have some real joy in your life if you limit yourself to just doing things that are meaningful. I thought it would be good to do things that are meaningful. And you know, the thing about doing things that are meaningful, eventually you might be able to, you know, get,

[03:08]

you would, if you do enough meaningful things, you know, you could gain approval. And maybe if you did, you know, if you got enough approval, you could actually have some love. Do you think so? So this is what I want to talk about today. I'm referring to it as the difference between love and approval. You know, love in its largest sense is not something that, you know, it's freely given. You know, freely given, freely received. So this is a funny thing about love. You can't do anything to earn it. You know, if you earn it, you've gotten approval. But, you know, so we have a confusion

[04:12]

from pretty early in our life. You know, well, since I can't do anything to get love, why don't I go for the approval, which I could do something about? I could try to behave in the right way and be good, and I would get approval. And then we settle for that rather than love. I'm using love, you know, in a sense, kind of like what in Buddhism we call mindfulness. Mindfulness is to be aware without judging, good, bad, right, wrong. This is love, which is to be present with, you know, one's heart, not thinking good or bad, right or wrong. So I think, you know, this is similar to,

[05:20]

in some ways, for instance, you know, when people have cancer, sometimes people who have cancer will try, we want to do something. So we will try treatments that have, you know, a 20% success rate, just so we can be doing something. It's better to do something than to do nothing. And doctors would rather do a treatment that has a low success rate rather than nothing. We're not very good at just being with. We feel like we should, you know, keep doing. And, but anyway, you know, when we're in that situation, we make our choice what to do or not. I guess before I go further with this,

[06:25]

I want to, you know, relate it to Buddhism. I'm not careful. I'll just spin out my whole talk without any reference to Buddhism, you know, and tell you various stories and things. But I want to put it in a little bit of a Zen Buddhist context using Dogen's, you know, recommendation of zazen for everyone, you know, meditation. The Fukan Zazengi, most of you know it, probably. He says to, he suggests to stop chasing after words and pursuing speech or phrases, you know, which would be the answer. If you just, you know, the reason why things aren't coming out, you just haven't had the right directions. Do you think so? Anyway, he says, stop chasing after the words and take a backward step and turn the light inward.

[07:27]

Take a backward step, turn the light inward. Your original, your body and mind of itself will drop away and your original face will appear. If you want to attain just this, then practice just this immediately. And then he says, you know, set aside, let go of conscious endeavor and analytic introspection. Stop assessing good and bad, stop judging right and wrong. So the reason, you know, why would we do any of that?

[08:33]

You know, it has to do, I would say today, you know, with approval. If you did what was right, you could get approval. If you avoided what was wrong, you could get approval. And then is it what you really wanted? This is my question for you to look at. What are you aiming for in your life? In Buddhism, you know, the idea of suffering is that we're going about things in a confused way. So we're not clear about our aim or our intention. And if you confuse approval with love, you know, you will have this kind of endless problem. The love that you so much want will never be there because you'll never earn enough approval that you would allow it. There's no evidence that you could produce and no right enough behavior that you could have. And sometimes, you know,

[09:39]

this is extremely discouraging for us. And so, Dogen's advice is, you know, let go of the struggle. Many years ago at Tassajara, when I was, you know, in the 60s, when I was cooking, I worked very hard. I worked so hard that finally, you know, I was in bed for three days, had a chance to go to the bathroom, had a chance to think about things. Why was I working so hard that I basically knocked myself out? Well, I wanted the food to be good. You know, if you're looking for approval, you're only as good as your last meal. And your approval, of course, will go up and down and up and down.

[10:39]

Your ratings. And then people actually say to you, oh, I don't see how you'll ever be able to surpass this. So that's scary, you know? So I thought, well, you know, who cares if the food is good? And I thought, well, then people would like me. Do you think so? You know, I don't think that people have much concern about me one way or another in that case. They just like good food. They'd like the food to continue. And you know, actually people who perform really well are some of the loneliest people in the world. If your performance, the better your performance is,

[11:41]

the less people actually meet you. They come and tell you, what a wonderful performance. Thank you for your performance. And you know, then as a performer, you feel very lonely, you know, and you can get, of course, quite desperate for a relationship. So I thought, well, that can't be. But anyway, why would I want people to like me and approve of me anyway? Well, then I might be able to like and approve of myself. If enough other people did it, then maybe it would convince me that I was likable. So, you know, I'm suggesting today that you will never get enough evidence

[12:43]

of other people's approval. You'll never be able to succeed at liking yourself by getting others to approve. You know, at some point you'll just, I mean, you know the scam. You know you're doing this for others and then you resent them for making you do all these things for them in order to get their approval and they're withholding their approval. They're holding out on you and you have to perform for them in order to win their approval. And how much are you gonna be able to like yourself for, you know, abandoning yourself to that scheme? Boy. And then I, but anyway, it was at that point that I thought, I guess I don't like myself very well, do I? Now, what's the basis for that?

[13:52]

When did we, you know, when did we decide that was the appropriate view? You know, what kind of person are you? Dogen says, when you stop chasing afterwards and pursuing speech, you take a backward step and turn the light inward. Your body mind of itself will drop away. Your original face will appear. You know, this, for my language today, this is to shift, you know, out of approval into the realm of love. You know, this is to drop the mind to let go of assessing and judging, evaluating good enough, not good enough.

[14:58]

And be willing, you know, to be with the experience of the present moment. Just to be with it, you know, to be in the midst. And partly, you know, then this has to do with, there's a kind of letting go of control, right? Because in order to get it right, in order to get approval, you have to produce the result that you think is the correct one to produce. So you have to know the way things are going to turn out ahead of time. You have to have a mind, a model in your mind of how it's going to turn out, how it better turn out for you to get approval. And this is control. So you're going to have to control the result of each moment, the result of each of your efforts. You'll have to know in advance and see if you can make that result happen. How relaxing could that be? That is a huge amount of stress.

[16:05]

You know, is it going to come out the way it should so that you get the approval that you want and deserve so that you would have some love so that you could love yourself? Love. Has it worked yet? So, you know, love or compassion. You know, compassion would be that you, you know, unceasingly have a choice, have choice in your life. You don't have to, and that you don't have to know how things will turn out ahead of time. You don't have to make sure that it's the way it should be or the right way to be, or that you're good. You don't have to, you wouldn't have to make sure of that. And then wouldn't that be a relief, you know, to let go of that whole struggle and just be in the midst of your life, a human being?

[17:11]

So we could also say that then that compassion would be, you know, not knowing, not knowing being present and not knowing what the result is or how things will turn out. And then right away, of course, we want to know how would I do that? What would be the right way to do that? What would be a good way to do that? So that I could get it right. Now you already will slip back into approval, good, bad, right, wrong, control, performance. So the aim of, you know, practice is to shift into compassion, not knowing, having choice, feeling your way along, leaving some room to discover what's going on.

[18:20]

How do things happen? Having the possibility of having joy and vigor, interest, curiosity is to not know what will happen, to not be overly concerned about what would happen. And so to speak, we say, you know, make your best effort. Suzuki Roshi, you know, said, someone asked him at Tassajara, why haven't you enlightened me yet? Withholding approval, are you? What is it you find wrong with me anyway? Or, you know, aren't you good enough? And he said, I'm making my best effort. He said it, you know, sincerely enough

[19:23]

that we all believed him. And you know, the way he saw everyone was, everyone is making their best effort. Even people who do, you know, terrible, terrible things, they're confused, it's their best effort. They may be confused about love and approval, about support and control. You know, when a baby is little, you have to hold the baby's head up, you support the baby's head. After a while, if you, when the neck is strong enough and you keep supporting the head, it's control. So when is it support and when is it control? It's not always so clear. And we get confused even about love and violence. For some people, you know, violence is love. There's no such thing as love without violence. That's a confusion. In Crooked Cucumber, David Chadwick tells a story

[20:28]

about, you know, how he used to, that he, well, you know, I was the cook, David was the head of the dining room, and we were very short staff most of the time. I was quite introverted and sort of did my job, and David would just talk to everybody. And he'd go around in the afternoon and be down at the baths or someplace or out and about at Tassajara, and he'd start talking to guests, and then he'd say, well, you know, I need to go set up the dining room. Why don't you come with me? We can go on talking. So he'd kind of recruit a crew every afternoon to help set up the dining room. And then, you know, and then periodically, he'd be sitting down with those people and drinking wine with them, and then, you know, having dessert with them. And then later he'd go back to their cabins and go on drinking, you know, bourbon or scotch or something. And then he'd miss evening meditation, and then he'd sleep in the next morning, and then he wouldn't be at meditation. He wouldn't be at service.

[21:29]

He'd miss breakfast. But then he said he could make it to the meeting after breakfast in Suzuki Rishi's cabin, you know, for the officers of the monastery. And he was the head of the dining room, so he'd show up. And this one morning he showed up, he had a fairly good hangover and probably, as he said, still had alcohol in his breath. And, you know, the tea is very polite, and we offer incense and bow, and then there's tea is served, and we're all sitting in silence. And finally, after the tea's around, you know, we bow, and then you pick up your tea very carefully and take a sip. And then you let Suzuki Rishi talk first. And after he's finished talking about whatever he wants to say for the day, about what's happening or somebody's coming to visit or whatever, then there's a chance for people to ask something. So as soon as one of the other officers had a chance, he said, Suzuki Rishi, what do we do about somebody

[22:32]

who always is breaking the rules? How do we get these people to behave? And Suzuki Rishi, David said, said, hmm. It was his way of, you know, allowing a little time to think, perhaps. And then he said, everybody is making their best effort. This practice is not so easy. And the officer said, but flagrantly breaking the rules, flagrantly. And Suzuki said, well, it's better that we see it than that he hides it from us. But he's breaking the rules.

[23:37]

Yes, shouldn't he follow the rules? And Suzuki said, well, sometimes somebody can be breaking the rules, but follow the rules in spirit. So then the person said, well, wouldn't it be best to like follow the rules and the spirit of the rules? And Suzuki said, yes, that would be best. This is very interesting. You know, he refused to get drawn into approval. It's hard to know what to do. There's one other line and from the Fukan Zazenki,

[24:57]

I want to mention to you, Togan says, you know, the understanding that the beginning of the Fukan Zazenki, this recommendation of Zazen for everyone, at the beginning, he says, the great way circulates freely. Why would, you know, practice or enlightenment be necessary? How could it depend on practice or enlightenment? It's just like saying love, you know, love circulates freely. How could it depend on your performance? How could it depend on your approval rating? And he says, you know, the mirror, which is the analogy for mind,

[25:58]

the mirror is already completely free of dust. Why would you think it needs cleaning? What efforts would you think are necessary to clean your mind? And, you know, later he says, but, you know, however, if you're still wandering about in your head, you may miss the vital path of letting your body leap. If you're still wandering about in your head, this is chasing after words, instructions, directions, the way to get it right, how to be good. If you're still wandering about in your head,

[27:02]

you may miss the vital path of letting your body leap, letting your body leap. You know, this is our life. Our real life has this kind of potential. So it's a kind of liberation, you know, from your approval performance, giving yourself a much greater permission to find your way, to not know what you're doing and letting your body leap, find a way, find a step to take. Your body knows before your head, you know, in a way that's different from the head, trying to get it right, trying to make a model ahead of time of the way it should be, the way it's going to turn out, the way it ought to happen, you know, to be good, to be right, to get approval, to perform well. Could we just settle into, you know, our body, let it leap?

[28:04]

Yeah. So this is, again, also similar to, you know, Suzuki Roshi's understanding of precepts. He said, if you try to observe the precepts, you'll be breaking them. You know, if you try to get it just right. And the positive way of the precepts, he says, is to express your true nature, or we could say, you know, your true heart. Can you trust your own heart? Or, you know, do you have to tell it what's right and wrong, what's good and bad? Or does your heart already know?

[29:05]

Recently, I came across a Zen story, a conversation between Huang Bo and Bai Zhang, and Huang Bo said to his teacher, what is, you know, how do we express the teaching to pass it on to others? His teacher, Bai Zhang, sat there in silence. And Huang Bo said, well, if so, what will people in the future receive? And Bai Zhang said, I thought you were a true person. I hope that whatever I say about a true person won't, you know, won't limit your own finding out what a true person is.

[30:43]

But, you know, I'm thinking of it today as, you know, I thought, I thought you weren't wandering around in your head anymore. I thought you would be letting your body leap. I thought you weren't still trying to get it right. I thought you were letting your body and mind of itself drop away. I thought you hadn't, we weren't still pursuing words and speech. I thought you were living in love. I thought you weren't, you were no longer coercing yourself

[31:56]

into performing well and, you know, having the right answer. I thought you would just express yourself. Anyway, you know, this kind of direction for us in our life is quite revolutionary, so to speak. You know, it's against the current. We live in a, you know, probably all cultures to some extent are like this, but our culture especially is a dominating culture. The way to dominate others is to judge them and to judge them less than you, to disapprove of others, to get them to work hard to earn your approval. And we do this to ourselves, too.

[33:00]

Ah, so it is sweet to have a place to sit and let go of conscious endeavor, analytic introspection, chasing after words, pursuing after speech, enjoying your breath, your body sensations, the light, the sounds. You know, letting yourself be one with things, not judging, not finding fault, not assessing blame. To let things touch you and be touched, and to touch and be touched, to respond and be with, to not have to fix everything so that it's acceptable. Love actually has, you know, or mindfulness has a tremendous power, you know. Once we're with things without judging, how relaxing, you know.

[34:15]

I use the example of the breath. You know, if you're always deciding, if you want your breath, if you have a model of how your breath should be, long, deep, calm, how does your breath feel when you tell it, too short? Not deep enough, too shallow. You need to be longer, you need to be deeper. What's wrong with you, anyway? Get it right. How relaxing could that be for your breath? Basically, as soon as you judge your breath, it will stop. Who said that? And when your awareness will just go with your breath, however it is, your breath, like, oh, thank God, I'm not being judged anymore. You know? And then your, it's, you know, your body,

[35:18]

your being can relax when you're not judging. Your body-mind will drop away. You're just a true person. Before I finish, I do, you know, would like to say just briefly that obviously, you know, you may have some good effects from meditation or from whatever, and, you know, but letting go of the, you know, the perfection of wisdom is to not to course in all the results. You know, trying to have this result, not that one.

[36:19]

Again, how relaxed could you be if, you know, I need to get that one. I better get away from that one. I'll go here, I won't go there. And then if you're always busy like that, making sure, how much can you be at your ease? You can't. You can't be at your ease. Can't have true ease, true calmness. It doesn't mean that, you know, we don't actually have improvement or difference or change in our life. It's just that we're not, you know, aiming just for that. We're letting go of that so that actually our life can unfold in a larger way. Anyway, a poem that came to me, again, from Dogen. It's in his instructions to the cook, he quotes. And so I'd like to more or less close the talk with that. He says, with one word, three words, five or seven,

[37:25]

nothing in the universe can be grasped. You know, you yourself can't be grasped by words. Each of us finally is beyond words, beyond judgment, beyond approval, disapproval. With one word, five words, three or seven, nothing in the universe can be grasped. Night advances, the full moon falls and sinks into the ocean. The black dragon jewel that you've been searching for is everywhere. What we've been searching for is right here.

[38:34]

You know, love, compassion, self-acceptance, choice, not knowing. Love, compassion, self-acceptance, choice, not knowing. Just to, for a moment, you might check, you know,

[39:37]

on your heart. See if there's any way you can move your awareness. You know, maybe your awareness is already exactly, can be exactly with your heart, with the structure of your heart. But if there's any way you can let your awareness settle even more exactly into your heart, just for a moment before we stop. Thank you.

[40:43]

Thank you.

[40:46]

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