Tonight I wanted to, like to start my lecture with a poem that Dogen quotes in the, in the, in his instructions for the head cook. Uh, there are various, uh, translations of it, so I, I may be mixing up one or two different translations. But anyway. Uh, the poem starts out about language and words and goes on from there. It says, with one word or seven words or three times five words, even if you investigate myriad forms, nothing in the universe can be fully grasped. The night advances, the full moon glows and falls into the ocean.

[01:10]

The black dragon jewel that you've been searching for is everywhere. You know, I've never looked up what the black dragon jewel is. It just sounds like it must be what you've always wanted and let's just call it the black dragon jewel tonight. Each of us is a dragon, each of us is a jewel, there's something often hidden, but what is it you really want? The black dragon jewel you've been searching for is everywhere.

[02:16]

Isn't that, it's a very sweet poem. When I say the poem, I kind of get tingly. It's so easy to forget that what we want is right here. Because we, you know, think, you know, the basic, Buddhism says, you know, our suffering is that we try to control our experience, the outcome of all of our experiences in order to control our state of mind and have happiness. And we think that if we're better able to control our mind, our body, other people, phenomena, we would be happier. You know, if we could produce the desired outcome, if we could get rid of our cancer,

[03:21]

have a good meal, a beautiful, wonderful companion. Sometime in the future, you know, when we get rid of all the things that should be gotten rid of and attain all the things we should attain, sometime in the future we will have this happiness. This is called suffering because, as you can see, it's never going to happen. And we've all tried very hard at this, and it hasn't worked yet. Some of us have tried 10 years, 20 years, 50 or 60 years, it hasn't worked yet. And you know, we're not just run-of-the-mill, kind of ignorant, insincere people. We've worked hard at this. So this is, Buddhism says, causes suffering because it's not happening, it's not going

[04:32]

to work. And, you know, the Black Dragon Jewel, then, we could also say is the present moment because here we are postponing our life to some future when it's going to come true, once it turns out the way it should. So we project, you know, a mind, a model of the outcome we want, the way it should be, what we'd like it to turn out, we project that into the future, and then we work to try to have that happen the way our model is set up, and then we can succeed or fail. And even our success turns out like, oh, God, we didn't get the happiness. It's not necessarily what we wanted after all. We got it to come out just like it should. And other times when it doesn't come out like it should or we wanted, we're very happy.

[05:36]

So the present, the Black Dragon Jewel of the present is always, you know, we never arrive because of this projecting into the future. When I get enlightened, when I'm able to sit still, when I can do those yoga poses, everything will be so much better. Maybe so. So we also have, of course, the idea that practice or our life could be right now. The Black Dragon Jewel you've been searching for is everywhere, everywhere and right now. The present of our life is here, where we can feel our being, sense ourself, see and

[06:57]

hear and smell and taste, and be awake, and not know, you know, how it will come out. Not know the end of the story. So we often have the idea, you know, suggest or encourage yourself not to know, to cultivate the preference for not knowing, the willingness to not know what the outcome will be, what the result will be, rather than always creating a mind model, a mental model of the result that would be preferable and striving to get that. And here in the present we could actually enjoy our life or, you know, sport. A while back I mentioned that Rumi's poem,

[08:01]

Don't go where you think you want to go, following, you know, your mental model. Don't go where you think you want to go, ask the way to the spring, where it's refreshing and cool. And in Zen we like to say, you know, since we're already there, why not sport about? Where did you think that spring was? Because if you set it up as some place to get to, you'll be in the same trap. How do I, what do I do in order to get to the spring? What do I do now in the present in order to arrive at the present sometime in the future? So why not, you know, have our life today, now? What is it you've wanted? I've wanted to feel at home in the world.

[09:05]

I've wanted to be able to breathe, you know, easily. To not have my breath caught. I've wanted to feel at home, to feel settled here in this life. I've wanted to be grateful for my life. I've wanted to feel, you know, compassion for myself, for others. I've wanted to feel forgiveness, you know, for the people who may have harmed me or that I may have thought harmed me or hurt me intentionally or unintentionally. I've wanted to, you know, be able to love and be loved.

[10:28]

It's not so complicated, what it is we really want. And it's easy, though, to postpone that, you know, it will arrive at some time in the future when we get it right. When we've gotten rid of our ignorance and attained our enlightenment and we've wised up and we're no longer useful folly. Whatever it is, you know, that we find wrong with ourselves. But anyway, you can have, of course, your own language, your own words for what it is. The Black Dragon Jewel we've searched for is everywhere. Before Dogen tells his poem in the instructions for the cook, you know, he talks about the importance of the position of the head cook.

[11:54]

Many of you have heard the stories about the head cook. They're mushroom stories. In one, Dogen is at a monastery and he looks out into the courtyard in the midday sun. There's an old monk there with long, apparently white eyebrows. The sweat is pouring off of his face and he's putting mushrooms out to dry. And Dogen asks him, how long have you been a monk? And he says, 68 years. And Dogen says, why don't you have, it's really hot, you know, right now, why don't you have an assistant do this for you? And he says, they're not me. And Dogen says, isn't there another kind of time of day you could be doing this? And he says, it's not now.

[12:58]

And Dogen says, he learned a new respect for the job of Tenzo. Listen to this. I thought of it recently when I was talking with Wendy Johnson, who I think is finishing her book about gardening. And I've heard rumors that it's quite good. Whenever I read Wendy's writing in the Tricycle magazine, it seems quite good to me. But I told her, I guess it's the difference between being a cook and a gardener, because a cook, you just make three meals a day. And, you know, whether it's ready or not, it's ready, you make it. But in the garden, you can like, this year, next year, pruning, watering, weeding, changing, cultivating. You know, when is your garden ready to serve? So I have the same way about writing. I figure, I'm going to get it done. I'm going to serve it. It's ready.

[14:08]

Ready or not, it's ready. But Wendy likes to keep pruning and trimming and watering and weeding and planting and cultivating. And seasons go by and years. It's never finished. How could you finish? Anyway, then there's another wonderful story about another Tenzo. That Dogen, when he set on his ship, he hadn't left the ship he arrived on from Japan. And he went to China. And one day he met a Tenzo, a cook monk, who had come down to the town there to buy mushrooms. And Dogen met him and they got to visiting and they were having such a good time. And Dogen said, why don't you stay for dinner? This is such an auspicious occasion that I've met you and appreciate your company so much.

[15:10]

And he said, well, you know, I've come, it's about 12 miles apparently. And I didn't tell anybody, you know, I didn't ask for permission to stay out. I need to get back. So I'm sorry I can't stay. He had walked all that way to buy mushrooms for a special ceremony the next day. And he said, if I don't get back, it won't be good. Again, Dogen says, why don't, you know, one person, cook monk missing, you know, it's going to make a difference. And he said, yeah, it's my, it's my job. And Dogen says, why don't you concentrate on meditation and studying the words of the ancient masters rather than taking on a job like being the head cook and working all the time. Is there any benefit to that at all?

[16:11]

And the cook monk said, apparently laughed a lot. Dogen says, the cook monk laughed a lot. And finally said, a good man from a foreign country. You don't understand anything about meditation or the words of the ancients, do you? And Dogen said, well, tell me what is practice? What are the words of the ancient masters? Explain it to me. And the cook monk said, if you keep that question in your heart, surely you will become a man of understanding. Personally understand. I think Dogen was a little disappointed with his answer. But he said, you know, keep the question in your heart. It's hard to know, you know, is that something different than the black dragon jewel?

[17:29]

The words of the ancients? Practicing meditation? Spending your time working? Is one a better place to discover the black dragon jewel? Is one a better place to meet that? Is one a better place to be present? Okay. There's no way to control things.

[19:09]

And, you know, one of the things that happens as we get older and we keep trying to control things, our bodies get more and more constricted. More and more limited, you know, because in our capacity to move. And, you know, our appetites or what we eat gets narrower and narrower. Pretty soon, in effect, you know, oftentimes as people age, they have less and less capacity to meet life. Because life has been, we've narrowed down to meeting just the things that we can handle. So maybe it's useful to practice meditation. If you sit still and don't talk, you have much less capacity to control your experience. And if you're able to walk around and talk and walk away or tell someone to shut up.

[20:14]

It's hard to do that when you're sitting, you know, and some voice in your head says, So what's wrong with you anyway? You can't sit still now, can you? And then how do you control that? Shut up. Then there's just another voice that's saying, Shut up. Don't talk to me like that. What do you mean, don't talk to me like that? And it just goes on and on. So it's hard to control things when you sit. So it seems rather nice thing to do. Kind of cultivate greater capacity to be with the wider range of experience in one's life. I don't know, I like it. It's a way for me to sort of sport about in the spring. And yoga, you know, we get to stretch. Work, we get to work, you know, we get to meet things that we wouldn't meet otherwise. We get to learn how to find out what to do with something that we don't know.

[21:20]

And then there's some result we never expected. So each thing we do, there's some possibility of the black dragon tool. Our own presence. Our love, our compassion. Our, you know, happiness. Our being here. Now. Having our lives. Breathing. And everything hasn't yet worked out the way we thought it ought to. Not yet anyway. Well, I brought along a little thing to read you tonight. Let me shut my thoughts. Instead of out of my sleeve, you know, out of my heart.

[22:27]

This is from one of Suzuki Rishi's lectures. It's called Sitting Like a Frog. Recently on a calendar, it says, I saw one of Sengai's drawings of a frog. You've seen Sengai's work? You know, little simple line ink drawing. And then there's a caption by it that says, If we can become a Buddha by the practice of sitting. It doesn't say anything more. But we can imagine the frog thinking, If people can become a Buddha by the practice of sitting, Then I too can be a Buddha. For those of us who have some understanding of practice, When we see someone sitting to attain enlightenment, We may say, they're sitting like a frog.

[23:32]

Actually, a frog's way of sitting may be much better than ours. I always admired, I've always admired their practice. They never get sleepy. Their beautiful blue eyes are always open, And they do things intuitively in an appropriate way. If something to eat comes by, they go, They never miss anything. But they're always calm and still. I always wish I could be a frog. If you understand what Sengai is saying, With his picture of a frog, you've already understood what Zen is. There's a lot of humor in his picture and good understanding of our practice. Even though our practice is not any better than a frog's,

[24:36]

We will continue to sit. We can accept a frog as a good example of our practice. When you have been practicing for a pretty long time, You will laugh, partly, at someone who's involved in the wrong idea of practice, I'm going to become a Buddha. And partly, at yourself who's always sitting, Without doing anything, without making much progress. And when you can laugh at yourself, You will laugh at yourself. And when you can laugh at yourself, there is enlightenment. We're pretty funny, don't you think? Well, thank you for being here.

[25:40]

And sweet dreams, so to speak. I hope you rest well and wake up refreshed.

[25:51]

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