This, this very mind, this very mind, heart of hearts, is Buddha. The most spiritual being in the whole universe. This very mind, heart of hearts, is Buddha. The most spiritual being in the whole universe. This mind, this body, this moment, this time, this place, this is Buddha. The most spiritual being in the universe. This is the heart of Buddhism.

[01:06]

Some people call this the pointing out instruction. This very mind is you yourself, your being, before you decide who you are, what your story is, or we could say the person, you know, the being that tells the story. I'm a man, I'm a woman, I'm hot, I'm cold, I'm smart, I'm stupid, I'm awake, I'm tired. Who says all that? Mind, mind itself, this very mind, this very being, you yourself, are Buddha. The most spiritual being in the whole universe, the entire universe.

[02:10]

This is, you know, rather awesome. I came across a line from, in a poem by Antonio Machado today, he said, what have you done with the garden that you were entrusted with? What have you done with the garden you were entrusted with? This is the pointing out instruction, you know, we often forget this. We don't realize what an amazing thing it is to be alive. But what an amazing person we are. And we go around, you know, often pretending, most of the time pretending to be someone

[03:17]

other than Buddha. And we think it's more fun that way. After all, being Buddha, you know, you might think you had to be good all the time. It wouldn't be good to have another piece of cake. Spiritual beings aren't allowed. You might think you shouldn't have feelings. Buddhas don't feel sad. And something's wrong with me if I feel sad. Buddhas probably don't get disappointed or have their feelings hurt. So on one hand, we pretend not to be Buddha. On the other hand, we think it would be a good idea if we could realize we were Buddha.

[04:25]

Buddha is like, in our tradition, you know, ultimate spiritual being. This is, by the way, you know, this quote I started with is from an 11th century Zen teacher named Su Hsien. So the quote goes on, "...wondrous function, free in all ways, is quite charming, may be charming. Wondrous function, free in all ways, may be charming, but the whole lot of it's not as good as authentic truth of mind." You know, that truth of mind thing is really, you know, wouldn't it be better to be clever and skilled and like professional and talented and beautiful and rich?

[05:34]

You might have all sorts of wondrous function and it might be quite charming, but that truth of mind thing, whoa, what's going on? Now, there are different ways to understand this truth of mind, you know. On one hand, we could understand truth of mind as, well, let's not be involved in pretense. You know, let's not hide who we are and what's going on. And let's embody who we are and where we're at. You know, in the old days at Zen Center, I chuckle because, you know, this may or may not be happening today, but, you know, just for the sake of talk in the old days, when

[06:39]

we practiced Zen, you know, we practiced practicing Zen. We practiced what a friend of mine called, looking good, looking Zen. And we were waiting for somebody to congratulate us, my, do you look Zen these days? You're getting it, finally. You've got the posture, the clothing, your gaze is in the right direction. Part of this looking good is also, you know, the Japanese idea of buoyant, energetic, gung ho. And where are the feelings? You wouldn't want to reveal them.

[07:40]

Stoic. Somebody last summer, I talked, one of my talks about afflictive emotions, and she came up to me after the talk, and she said, oh, at last, Ed, somebody at Zen Center is talking about afflictive emotions. I said, oh, really, huh? And well, why wouldn't you? And she said, well, not many people do. And I said, well, maybe it works for the Japanese, you know, that they can practice not feeling, and that they somehow, it works for them, you know, or not revealing their feelings, that this works for them. But I said, Americans, as soon as you tell them, you know, let's practice Zen, and then they, right away, they start not having the feelings. Because we're going to empty our minds. We're going to be calm. We're going to be buoyant, energetic. There's no mention of have some feelings while you're at it, because that wouldn't necessarily be so buoyant, energetic, awake, enlightened, spiritual, the way that we would want to look

[08:54]

if we were going to be Buddha, right? So I said, maybe it works for the Japanese, and she said to me, Ed, it doesn't. And she said, just a month or two before, she'd been at a huge conference in Japan of, you know, people from all over the world, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, people involved in therapy. All the top names in Japan were at this conference, and they asked at some point during this conference which went on for several days, they said to the leading therapists in Japan, so what are you doing about child abuse in Japan? And they said, oh, we don't have any child abuse in Japan. And there was a woman there from UCLA who'd done her doctorate on child abuse in Japan. Hundreds of pages. But we don't have any. So on one hand, you know, we could understand truth of mind, authentic truth of mind, that

[10:05]

all the capacities we could have and the skills and the talents are not as good as authentic truth of mind. So on one hand, that's this kind of truth of mind, perhaps. Or you know, anyway, let me go on and then come back to that. Or you could understand it, you know, truth of mind, true mind, this very mind, heart of hearts, is Buddha, has no, you know, characteristic that it would identify it, right? So your body, is that the true mind? No. Your feelings, is that your true mind? No. Your thoughts, is that your true mind? No. Deep samadhi, deep tranquility, you know, oneness, is that true mind? No. True mind is not indicated by signs or conditions or circumstances which arise and disappear. How could that be true mind? True mind, so as the saying goes, this quote, true mind is before the arising of signs, there's

[11:15]

fundamentally no change. So the Zen teacher says, you know, ultimately what is your true mind? Ultimately what is your true mind? And just study that, whatever you're doing, wherever you go, what is your true mind? And all these things arise and arise and disappear and arise and disappear and you think, oh gosh, how awful, how painful. It's not your true mind anyway. It's not something you need to worry about one way or another in terms of like, that's me, that's not true mind. Isn't it nice if I stop talking?

[12:50]

You might have a better chance to notice or realize, appreciate your true mind if I'm not talking. It's pretty nice, huh? So this particular quote I'm going through tonight, wondrous function, free in all ways may be charming, but the whole lot of it is not as good as authentic truth of mind. Authentic truth of mind then has something to do with, you know, not posturing. We do a lot of posturing and it's not hiding.

[13:58]

It's funny how, you know, it's such a shame that you can't hide without everybody seeing it. You know, you can walk around trying to be small and disappear and everybody sees like, huh, they're small and disappearing, huh? And what you were trying to do was hide. It's just not fair. You know, people catch you at it then. They can see it. They can see that you're hiding. It's not very skillful on your part. So all you hid, you didn't get to hide that you were hiding. You just hid the stuff that you were hiding. Anyway, so truth of mind, you know, is it possible that you could appear in the world without pretense, without hiding, you know, that you could show up and that you would be willing to be you? Not some, you know, idea of what a good person is or a good Zen student is or what I think

[15:06]

mom and dad wanted me to be or, you know, or maybe your spouse. I think I've spent a good number of years, you know, I've tried to be who I thought Patricia wanted me to be. I can tell you that one is painful. And it's not just painful for me. You know, it's painful for Patricia. What's his problem? Am I that scary? Oh no, I was just worried about getting abandoned. You know that one. Abandoned and betrayed. And I was just thought if I, you know, was who you wanted me to be, you wouldn't do any of that stuff to me. Oh well. So what about authentic? You know, could you be authentic?

[16:07]

So to be authentic is, you know, it takes what is called otherwise courage. That you show up and that you appear. You, yourself, heart of hearts, Buddha appears in the world. In the old Zen, Flesh, Zen, Bones book, you know, this is presented as a saying of Vassa's mind itself is Buddha. And the little commentary says whoever understands this saying must be wearing Buddha's clothes, must be eating Buddha's food, must be living in Buddha's house. This must be Buddha. But what about authentically appearing? It doesn't mean, you know, you shouldn't sit in meditation.

[17:11]

It just means when you sit in meditation, can you appear? You're not trying to, you're not just trying to look a certain way or to have a certain mind that you thought was the mind that you were told to have. You know, that you thought, oh, I need to be spiritual now. What does this mean? It means calm, tranquil, deep, penetrating. It means not thinking. It means completely still. And then you can tell yourself this whole list and then pretty soon you're like a rock. Anyway, I've done all these things. I know how to do them. And I did it so well, you know, that I couldn't sit still for years because I was concentrated

[18:16]

on being the most spiritual being ever. And I had very specific ideas about what that was. And when I tried to do that, I started trying to get out. Something in me wanted out. It's just called, you know, the straight jacket. One of the advice people, somebody gave me one time was, so when you walk around Tassajara, you're not shaking and quivering and wanting to get out? What happens when you get to the Zen Do? Why don't you check it out? So I started noticing as I walked to the Zen Do, the Han is going, oh, I'm about to do spiritual practice. This is serious. I better get serious. I better get myself into that spiritual frame of mind. I better, and I started telling myself all the things I needed to do

[19:20]

while I was in meditation in this spiritual place. And so I started noticing how as I got towards the Zen Do, you know, I was putting on the chains, the locks. This is what we do to ourselves. And at some point, you know, I decided, like, well, maybe smiling could be a spiritual practice too. I mean, after all of that, you know. And I thought, this smiling is serious business. I better practice this and study it. I need out of this spiritual business, this spiritual stranglehold I had myself in. And somebody else said to me, well, why when you are in the meditation hall, isn't it like being at the beach, walking down the beach? Where did you think you were?

[20:22]

Where do you think you are? And when you think that where you are is a spiritual sanctuary, what do you do to yourself? Why aren't you as free as walking down the beach? Why isn't your mind free and easy walking? And even though you're walking in a certain posture, isn't it possible to take that posture with some ease and joy and enjoy walking down the beach of the Zen Do? And how much fun you could have. But no, this is spiritual now, isn't it? Would a Buddha do that? Would I be a Buddha if I did that? Or when Buddhas are in Zen Do's, is it just a Zen Do?

[21:28]

And you know, who finally are you? Coming back to my quote, the Zen teacher goes on and says, Do not have the arrogance to say you are seeking for enlightenment. Enlightenment cannot be seen. Do not have the arrogance to say you are putting an end to afflictions. Afflictions have no front or back. We get so busy with all of these things, you know. What do you think you need to do in order to get enlightenment? There's two questions here actually, you know. One is, what do you think you need to do? How do you think if you're going for enlightenment with this arrogance that the Zen teacher says that you must have if you're seeking it, if you're going to do that, how do you think you need to behave in order to get it?

[22:38]

Like what would you need to do to be worthy of having it, right? What would you need to do so that it would come to you? How would you need to perform? How would you need to pretend? How would you need to shape yourself and perfect yourself and improve yourself? What would you need to do to yourself so that enlightenment finally would, Oh, here, you deserve it. And of course the other question, you know, is, setting aside whether you have it or don't, what would you do if you did? And for the most part, of course, you could just go right ahead. But maybe you thought, Well, I really can't say, you know, enlightenment might give you a certain permission, you know. I think in the old days we thought, I mean, I thought certainly if I'm enlightened then I get to tell you something

[23:43]

and you don't get to tell me. You know, if I have a conflict, and people who do meditation tend to be conflict-averse, so after you've been practicing for a while, if you have a conflict with somebody, well, it's okay. Look, I'm enlightened, you're not, so, I mean, doesn't that settle it? But you could also, like, learn some communication skills or something more prosaic, you know. But what did you think you needed to do, you see? What was it going to do for you anyway to be enlightened? One of the big things is, well, if I was a truly spiritual being and truly enlightened, I could love a person like that, I could like somebody like that. But me, I couldn't go on, I couldn't just like some imperfect, kind of creepy person like me. Well, get a clue, you know, what enlightened people do

[24:45]

is just go ahead and like those people who are less than perfect creepy people with all of their problems. You know, and you just go ahead and start practicing. Somebody today reminded me of the saying by, it was Yaku-san, Yaku-san again. And he said, awkward in a hundred ways, clumsy in a thousand, still, I go on. That's somebody who's, you know, enlightened. He doesn't have to be perfect. And then he can actually talk and say things because he's not worried about not, you know, like, if you're worried about being an enlightened person and whether you really are enlightened, you'd have to be careful what you say because otherwise you might embarrass yourself and you might reveal by opening your mouth and saying something

[25:46]

that you're not enlightened. I mean, Suzuki Roshi said that in his little book, you know, To Shine One Corner. One of the stories in there, somebody says, what do you think about all these hippies who are sitting zazen with you? And he says, I think they're all enlightened. I think you're all enlightened until you open your mouth. So you see what a challenge it is, like, to go ahead and just walk and to actually open your mouth and say something and then to, like, you might not, you know, you might not say the right thing. You might not say something that's, you might say something that's not deep enough and profound and enlightened enough and then everybody would know. So it might be better to just be silent. I tried that for a lot of years and people just thought I was intense and scary and they thought, what is he hiding? It must be really intense and awful

[26:48]

if he's got to go around that intense and silent. You know, whatever it is that he's holding back and hiding, it must be pretty bad. We better get out of his way. You know? So what I was communicating to people wasn't how enlightened it was, it was like how scary I was and how withdrawn and hidden and intense I was. Oh, well. Oh, well. So, before the appearance of a sign, there's fundamentally no change. Any sign, you know, like I'm getting somewhere, I haven't gotten anywhere, oh, this is an indication that I'm getting worse, I'm getting better, you know, I'm more awake, I'm less awake, I'm more enlightened, I'm less enlightened, I'm less mindful, more mindful. Those are all signs. Before any sign, there's fundamentally no change. And then he says, if you talk about understanding or not understanding,

[27:50]

this is all three necks and two heads. Why bother? And then he says, now, if you're still asking, huh? This very mind, Buddha, huh? How do you do that? How? Huh? What? He says, what a pain, this Buddha. Huh? This is like, oh gosh, you know, I haven't even gotten to what I wanted to talk about tonight. This was all going to just be the introduction. Now I'm about out of time. But I'll tell you a short story, you know, Michael Ventura, who I enjoy his writing a lot, you know, he met Carlos Castaneda a couple of times,

[28:52]

and one time was a luncheon with about six people. Carlos Castaneda was trying to remember something. If you read the books, you know how weird that can get. And he thought maybe getting together with a group of people, you know, it would come to him. Something would, you know. So there were all these stories and, you know, various things, and Michael Ventura said, well, it's really up to him to share them. I'm not going to tell you those stories. But one thing did happen at lunch. A woman said to him, you know, I have a wonderful life, a great husband. I love my kids. I've got a great job. But, you know, I don't feel like I have a spiritual life. What shall I do? What can I do? And he said, every day when you get home, sit down in a chair, have a seat, and just think for a minute or two how you and everyone you know in your life will die in no particular order.

[29:53]

Before you know it, you'll have a spiritual life. And Michael Ventura said, he thought that was really skillful, you know. He didn't say, read my books, or practice zazen, or recite the Three Refuges, or here's how you would do it. Just, you know, sit down and remind yourself we're all going to die. You'll have a spiritual life. And then the woman says, how do I do that? So now you can direct this in various ways, but finally, you know, you can't tell somebody how. But he did. He went ahead and did it anyway. And he said, you give yourself a command. Now you could just say, in zazen we would say,

[30:58]

recognize, acknowledge your real wish, your inmost request. What is your inmost request? Or what is your true heart's desire? What is your vow? You know, we understand things sometimes in terms of vow. This is my vow. And it's before I even think, you know, it's just something that's there that I, you know, for me to acknowledge. It's not something I'm making up, you know, that would show that I'm spiritual, but this is what I want. And you can, or you could ask your inner body or your inner being, help me, look for this, get it. I don't know what to do, you know. So, but some part of you does. Mind itself is Buddha. This mind is Buddha. Then the woman says, how do I do that?

[32:02]

And Michael Vincero said his words, you know, just cut through everything. But he just said the same thing again. Give yourself a command. Only when he said at that time, you know, it was like metal cutting through whatever is in your way. Okay. So before I stop, I do want to talk about, this has gotten tangled up and now it won't sit down here because it's, I guess I've been sitting here playing with this. I don't know, it's all tangled up. All right, I'm going to leave it knotted and then I can put this down because I want to talk to you for a few minutes. So before I get to that, I do want to, as you usually know, I'd like to thank

[33:08]

those of you who are here at Tassajara working this summer, making the guest season happen because I feel when I come, tremendous gratitude. I spent seven summers here working on guest seasons. As a student, I spent a good deal of two summers here working as a resident Tanto. So I would like to express my gratitude and my appreciation. It's quite amazing, you know, when a group of people and even just one person, when we do something with love. And this isn't just, you know, of course, students here at Tassajara. Many of us in our life are doing things with love, however awkward or clumsy it appears to ourselves or others. And you know, you can't pay someone to work with love. You can't say,

[34:08]

I will give you an extra $10 an hour if you do it with love. Without the love, it's less. You don't pay people to do that. You know, we do this out of our hearts and people, so I feel that when I come to Tassajara, I feel, you know, this heart. The good heartedness of the people here. And I understand, you know, from my point of view and related to my talk tonight, I'm not a fan of, you know, all those things where they say, and when you cook, you must be a truly spiritual person because your anger or frustration is going to go into the food and affect everybody. And so only the most senior and advanced practitioners are allowed to cook because they're the ones who have purified their minds and hearts and beings. And they will not be tainting the food

[35:09]

with anything that might cross your lips. And so we can count on them in the monastic setting to be these pure enlightened people who are only offering pure enlightened food and no trace of resentment or anger or hostility or frustration or sadness or harm or hurt or anything like that is going to be in this food. I mean, give it a rest. You know, my school of Zen is the school of, if you can turn all that stuff into something delicious and edible, why, thank you. I mean, I think that's transformation. You know, you transform all of these awesomely painful feelings into clean cabins and, you know, delicious food and, you know, beautiful table settings and, you know, all of this thing, you know, and gardens and baths and it's really quite marvelous from, you know, somebody on the receiving end. It's awesome.

[36:10]

So I want to thank you and that's where I come to the final part of my talk which is this gesture. Kassho, we call it. And I want to say a few words about this gesture because it's easy to do this gesture less than fully, like about here. In yoga, we do a gesture called Namaste You actually put your hands together and then right at your heart. So your thumbs are at the heart chakra and then you lift your chest to your hands and your hands press into your heart. That's Namaste. Now this is to touch your own heart. It's very inward.

[37:12]

Your hands are right at your heart and your chest is lifting to your heart, you know, to your hands. Your chest lifts and the energy of your heart and your hands is connected. This gesture is your hands are one hand width from your nose and then the tips of your fingers are at the tip at your nose and everything meets. So you don't have the palm of your hands apart and the, you know, you don't have your fingers separated, you don't have your thumbs out. To do this gesture, it takes tremendous focus and you have to show up to do it. You can't do this gesture like, if you do it casually, your hands are here. You know, like, I'm going to do that without actually doing it because who cares? It's just a gesture anyway. It's an empty form.

[38:13]

Or, you know, who you are or who you've been, what your habit body is, is somewhere around here. This is your habit body. Your habit energy body. I'm sorry, you know, I'm sorry, I don't know how long I'm supposed to talk. I'm probably way over time already, but, you know, I can't tell you, you know, I mean, I can tell you something about habit energy bodies, you know. I've said to people various times during my life, these hands don't seem like my hands. And a couple years ago, finally, somebody said to me, well, whose are they? I mean, I told therapists this and various people and like, they don't get it, you know. What do you mean those hands aren't your hands? Well, they're not my hands. Well, whose are they? Some big persons. Well, you know you're kind of small when your hands

[39:16]

are some big persons. You know, you are a small being. You, the way that you've constructed yourself and the way that you happen to be showing up right now and appearing in the world right now, you're a little person when these big hands are some big persons. So then this person said to me, well, Ed, where are your hands? Oh, what a fabulous question, you know. Man, some people, like, they get it, you know, right away. They get it. So I felt around and said, well, they're in the elbows. These little hands, they come down about this far, you know. The little hands, they're in there. So if you try to do this with your little hands, I mean, this is about as far as you get. If you're going to get your big hands, the big hands that are kind of somehow related to the little hands but we're not quite sure,

[40:16]

being this little person, you know, you've got to, as she said to me, finally, would you do me a favor, Ed, and either, like, stretch out your little hands into the big ones or shrink the big ones down into the little ones and see if you can get them in the same place at the same time doing the same thing. This is Zen. Well, she didn't tell me it was Zen. I'm telling you it's Zen. So, if you reach out the little hands and get them into the big hands, then, you know, you can get the hands to come up here. It's right here and you're, you show up, you're present and then you bow and your life changes. You've actually manifested yourself in the here and now, today, in this place. You've taken the consciousness which is

[41:18]

stuck in wherever, the back of your neck, right below the occiput. That's a good place. Do any of you get any tightness there? Good place for consciousness to hang out. It's kind of like the control center and if you hang out there enough, you think you can control everything in that place. Tell it all what to do and how to behave. Judge it. So, it's good if you can, you know, to release that a little bit but setting that aside for now, this is another way. You know, your hands come to here and you bow. A couple more things just briefly about this but when you do this, this is also a gesture, you know, like the elbows protect your flanks. When you do this, you keep your elbows by the side and then you don't expose anything here. You don't expose your side. So, that feels safe. It feels safe

[42:19]

not to expose yourself. When you do this, now your elbows, you bring your hands up to here, your elbows have moved away from your side and now you're exposing your sides. That's your flanks. That's where the enemy can come. Or, is it the enemy? So you could also understand the sides as where you connect with other people. Now, is connection then, is connection a threat or is it a support? This is a fascinating question, right? To be connected and to be connected is, that's to be connected with you yourself, with you, with your feelings, with your thoughts, with your sensations, to be connected internally with what's going on to connect and then that's also something to do with connecting with others and is to connect, is it a threat? Because, if you're connected,

[43:19]

you get attacked or is it a support? Because, if you're connected, you feel the support of that connection. So, this is one way to study it and to see if there's some way to have the support, have the connection through the sides be a support rather than the connection through the sides must be a threat and I better protect. And you're manifesting it. We're manifesting what we believe. So when you do this, in effect, in order to do this posture, you have to let go of your belief that connection is a threat. If you're going to believe connection is a threat, then you keep your hands here and you have your hands here and your elbows here and I'm going to bow and I'm going to be a little careful here about this connection business. You might even look up

[44:20]

a little bit rather than, you know, this way and you bow and you don't have to keep looking at that person. Right? If I turn my look away, what are they going to do? You could actually just bow. So along with everything else tonight, you know, this is Buddha, this mind itself, this very mind, your very mind is Buddha. Heart of hearts is Buddha. So then, this is to show up and to greet Buddha and it doesn't mean you can't smile because Buddhas

[45:22]

don't do that. It doesn't mean you can't be sad or unhappy or distressed or upset or disappointed and you can still come into the present. Your consciousness is in the present. Your consciousness is in this body in the present, in this present time, in this present place. Oh, that's a whole other story but I'm not going there. I really am going to stop now. Some of you, though, heard it this morning at the meditation instruction so you know the one. THC. Remember? They found out that I'll just tell you briefly. They found out there's actually naturally occurring analog in the human body for THC, the active ingredient of marijuana and it's produced when you practice being present. So when you sit here

[46:23]

showing up and being present you're getting stoned and you start to forget and you don't have pain and you're happy. All right. Thank you.

[46:39]

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