Yes. What? I don't know. I don't know. I am... I did for, you know, many years that I have the record. For a few years. Since I started practicing Zen, it took me 31 years until I had Dharma transmission, so I had the record. But I think recently some people have had Dharma transmission who waited more than 31 years, so... So I am no longer the record holder in that regard. You know, some people it's only like 8 or 10 years or 16 years or something.

[01:02]

So... Yeah, for Dharma transmission, you know, to be recognized as a Zen teacher, you got to look like you are doing Zen or something. But Dharma transmission isn't what it used to be, you know. So... It used to be, it used to be that when you had Dharma transmission, you were an authentically, you know, enlightened, certified, you know, Zen master of the Dharma. And now it just means you can go ahead and teach Zen. You know, you are recognized as... I don't know what it means anymore, but... Oh, what? And... Yeah. Yeah, PhD. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Okay. But at one point after Suzuki Roshi died, Mrs. Suzuki came to me and said,

[02:09]

would I like to go to Japan and have Dharma transmission with Hoitsu? You know, with Suzuki Roshi's son. And... I thought about it for a moment and said, no, I don't think so. And I thought, I didn't realize at the time that, you know, I'd be delaying my Dharma transmission for 15 or 18 years. You know. I didn't realize that it was going to be as problematic as it turned out to be. So in that sense, yes, I postponed it. But after that, I didn't postpone it. It just wasn't going to happen. It just didn't. You have to find somebody to give it to you. Can you be brave? Yeah. But people do ask me from time to time. They say, well, I want to be a Zen priest. Can you make me a Zen priest? And then I say, well, but you don't practice Zen.

[03:11]

And they say, but I'm like a Zen priest, you know. And what I do is as enlightened as what the Zen people do. And, you know, I'm working with the homeless and, you know, on and on about this stuff. And I say, well, thank you, that's wonderful. But, you know, it's not like you're practicing Zen. I'm sorry. I think if I'm going to make you a Zen priest, you ought to have something to do with Zen. And if I'm going to make you a Zen priest, maybe you could have been practicing with me. You know, if I'm going to be the one, you know. And we ought to have a little bit of a relationship and so forth, you know. But it is interesting. I mean, people have come to me over the years and they say, will you be my teacher? And I say, sure. And then that's the last I see of them. About every other time, you know. So now if somebody says, would you be my teacher? I say, what do you have in mind?

[04:11]

Maybe you could try doing some events with me or some things for a while first and we could sort of see if we get to know each other and we're going to do something together and then we can figure it out. But not just, you know. This is like an arranged marriage, but then they never come after that. So, I don't know, maybe it's helping them. You know, the people asked if I could be their teacher and I said, sure. And then I don't see them. There's about a half dozen people now, you know. Maybe they have my picture up on their wall, too. Thank you, teacher, for the blessings in my life and the pain, which are the blessings. Did you hear that?

[05:16]

He's asking about my practice in the last year, how it's changed, or if it has. Excuse me, I'm laughing because some people have told me that in my talks they've said, you're too personal. So, isn't that kind of personal? You're too personal. And then other people say, we like it that you're as personal as you are. And then some people say, you're too personal, you shouldn't be talking about those things. Because you should just be talking about the Dharma. And not about your kind of random... I don't know what to say.

[06:26]

I think that in some ways I learned a few things in the first few years of Zen practice and I've continued to practice those things. But it looks differently. It looks different outwardly from time to time. You know, Suzuki Roshi said, Zen is to feel your way along in the dark. And we had a whole session where we talked about that. And that's been very important to me. And that means you don't know where you're going or what you're going to do. And I find that, I largely find that a big burden. I think it would be easier to have a life where I knew what I was doing. And where I was going. I just went to a memorial event last night for a painter who I knew somewhat, Gordon Onslaught Ford. And he's been painting,

[07:31]

he spent more than 60 years painting. And he used to just paint every day. He'd walk in the woods, he'd live up in Inverness, and I'd rent a little cabin on his property. Or what was his property? He had 100 acres or so to the Nature Conservancy. And he painted for 60 years. And when the Second World War broke out, he had moved to Paris to learn to be a painter. And he joined up with the Surrealists. He met Andre Breton and Picasso, all these people. When the war broke out, he was in southern France, and then he went to Paris, and then he got back to England where he was from. And then he was invited to the United States and spent six months or a year in New York doing lectures. And then he fell in love, and he and his wife, during the Second World War, moved to Mexico where he could just paint.

[08:31]

And he sent a letter to Andre Breton saying the Surrealists had been interested in politics as well as art. He wrote a letter to Breton and he said, I'm too busy painting to have anything to do with politics. And so he just spent the Second World War in Mexico painting. And then he moved to Sausalito, and then he moved to Inverness. And when he filled up one studio with his paintings, he built another studio. He filled up about four studios, finally, with paintings. He was very fussy about selling paintings. Not just anybody was going to buy or have one of his paintings. Not just any gallery was going to. But in 1972, he had a huge retrospective at the Oakland Museum. In 1972, that's another 30 years of painting now.

[09:34]

Since then. But that's what he did. He painted. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm afraid I'm still in the dark as far as that goes. I really liked yoga for many years. When I first started yoga about... When was that? I started yoga about 1980. There was a few people at the Zen Center doing yoga. I started doing yoga and I just felt so good. I didn't realize exactly how stiff I was. Still, I started doing yoga. But now in retrospect, I was...

[10:36]

In some ways, I'm limber. But in a lot of ways, I'm quite stiff. But it's just like what they say about yoga. I felt like my body... Instead of living in this little huddle down by the swamp, I was living in this palatial, airy place all the time. After I did yoga, it was like living in this whole new space, place. It was astounding. Then after, I don't know how many years, but at some point I started doing yoga and I just started crying and sobbing. Because actually, I think it works. These things work. Meditation, yoga, you could actually get in touch with your feelings. You start stretching and pretty soon you're stretching the places that... You were trying to hold those. Couldn't you just keep those shut and then open up and have a nice life and keep everything else in the closet?

[11:36]

I mean, let's get real. Let's not be real about this. Or in meditation, you start to breathe. Pretty soon you're breathing into the places where you weren't ever going to breathe again. You weren't ever going to touch that stuff. You were going to keep that. We make vows as kids. I'd rather die than be this angry ever again. I'm never going to be disappointed. I can't stand this feeling. I'm just not going to have it. And we figure out some way to not have feelings that are painful, as far as I can tell. And then meditation and yoga, you start feeling things that you weren't going to. And yoga was just too intense for me. I would go to my two-year-old, three-year-old trauma stuff and it was just traumatizing, day after day. So I decided not to be traumatized day after day.

[12:39]

Mea culpa. And I'm sort of at a loss now because for a while I thought it was a good idea to feel your feelings. But somehow it's... It seems to require something more than just feeling your feelings, as far as how you feel. I mean, it seems like... In other words, it's like the difference between... It's like we're talking about today, mindfulness. To have some actual presence with the feelings is different than getting lost in the feelings. So you can have mindfulness in the feelings, but one thing, if you just get lost in the feelings, you're not healing. If you can absorb the feelings with mindfulness,

[13:42]

then there's some chance of letting go of the feelings. Am I making sense? Does that make sense? And I'm still kind of trying to... I'm kind of looking for good circumstances to do that. I tried. I've been doing years of meditation yoga. So now I decided... So then I discovered Qigong and I... So for the last couple of years I've been doing... I've studied just a little bit with a few people, so... I'm doing now three different schools of Qigong. Each one is the best. You know, every school of Qigong is the best, so... I have three different versions of the best. So it's very energizing and I'm not so... It's interesting because energetically, it's much more movement energetically

[14:46]

and much less stiffness energetically. Yoga is... Yoga wasn't energetically releasing energy. It was more the physical tightness. But energetically I do the Qigong and then I feel energized and fluid and, you know, alive. And so I feel healthy and good. Well, it's not like it's spacious. It's more like it's fluidity. Yoga is like space. No. Well, except that painful stuff doesn't go away. But no, it doesn't elicit it directly. Yeah. But we'll just... When it comes, we'll just... We'll see what happens. Yes. Yeah.

[15:53]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think of that and... Because, you know, the interviews with sports people, they don't usually ask them those kind of questions. So it'd be interesting to know. But that also has something to do with the concentration. And if your concentration is too narrow, it tends to be brittle. And a wider kind of concentration tends to be more flexible and fluid and include things. And so it's like how tightly wound or how focused is focused. And that seems to be... You can be overly focused or not enough focused or... So that's also concentration as well. It's just mindfulness. And I know some baseball players say that they concentrate just on the ball. And I read an interview with Reggie Jackson one time and he said, I concentrate on everything. You know, the stadium, the clouds, the sun.

[17:04]

And so he ended up being really good in October. End of the year. So... Anyway, so people definitely have different styles and that's part of what we're studying is how to be present and how to be responsive to things and to respond to things in their life. And... Over the last year or several years, I've gotten way too focused narrowly on things. But... And I'm kind of becoming more writhing. And the problem with being more writhing is I'm not doing anything. But I figure like, well, I can afford it for a while. Well... Yes. Yeah, I just...

[18:11]

I happened on Zen Center for various reasons. My brother was there, was the main reason. My brother who later became an Episcopal priest and now is a Catholic. And one of his sons is trying to become a Catholic priest and they don't want him. And it's hard to tell why the Catholic Church doesn't want a sincere young man to be a priest. He's been through all the deals and... It's the bishop here in Sacramento. And they keep postponing his ordination and... It's sort of like, I thought they wanted priests. But there's, you know, so who knows what that's about. Anyway, my brother was at Zen Center and that's how I found out about Zen Center. And I ended up staying. I think if circumstances had been different, you know, I wouldn't have. I stayed originally because Suzuki Rishi was there. And I felt very connected to him. No, it's something that grew.

[19:14]

He was an unusual person. He didn't get caught. Most people get caught. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long time. [...] And the people in the room... It was all the chi in the room, too. See, you picked up on everybody else's energy.

[20:21]

Yes. All the people in the room, maybe the people in the room, the people in the room, our program, I have a program, it's being used. Oh yes, uh-huh. And I'm talking to my friend, and I'm talking to my friend, which means my people, they have ideas. The incorporation of a normal practice of the practice of Chikungudae and the practice of Chikungudae is much harder than the practice of Chikungudae and the practice of Chikungudae. Because if you do it tomorrow... Oh well, tomorrow, tomorrow we were thinking of having, you know, depending on if you were having our, depending on whether or not if we have our mindfulness touch class in the morning at nine, we could have our Chikungudae at 8.30. And you wouldn't have to stay for the mindfulness touch, but you could, we're thinking anyway of having Chikungudae at 8.30 at Susan's house before whatever else is next. In the morning.

[21:23]

Yeah, 8.30. Uh-oh. The 7 o'clock in the evening. Oh yeah, we could do something tomorrow night. Oh yeah, we'll do something. We'll do something this afternoon too. But it's going to be different than this morning. We're not going to just do that same old thing we did this morning. My thing is, if you do it at SBMG, maybe your people will feel like... Oh, I'm getting confused. Of course, SBMG, I was thinking of B, B... Mindfulness? MBSR, MBSR. I got confused. I'm sorry. MBSR and SBMG. Oh, okay. Okay. Alright. Okay. Alright. Yes. Okay, in the back? Yes. Oh.

[22:24]

What do we want to know about Kutum? What do we do? Huh. Yeah. Okay. Well, for me, cooking is... You know, I started cooking about the same time I started Zen practice. So, for me, they're very much, very similar. Lately, I've been thinking about cooking with my group. I have two small sitting groups in my house. So, we're talking about the Genjo Koan. It's one of the writings by Dogen, Dogen Zenji. And in that he says, to carry yourself forward, to think, to carry yourself forward

[23:28]

and to enlighten things, is delusion. That you carry yourself forward and enlighten things, is delusion. That things come forward and enlighten themselves, is enlightenment. So, for me, cooking is like that. That you would cook and figure out what to do and come up with this stuff. To me, that's delusion. And then, that the ingredients come forth and put themselves together in your presence. That's enlightenment. So, it's kind of fun that way. And that way, things are pretty interesting and engaging and you don't have to do much. And then everybody says, thank you very much. And I'm like, well, they did a nice job of it, didn't they? All those ingredients.

[24:28]

I don't know if I'm making any sense. The usual, usually we, the way we live our life, and it's the same with meditation, you know, when you come to meditation, most people come to meditation have a kind of a mental image or concept of the kind of mind that I ought to create for myself in meditation. And that's what meditation is, is producing a particular kind of mind that I think is the mind of meditation. And the one that I ought to have. So, why don't I make that one and see if I can make it moment after moment according to my picture, you know, my concept. And then, of course, it doesn't work and then you get very frustrated. Meditation is so difficult. What's difficult is you can't, you can't make life be like your picture, like your image, like your concept. And, there's actually no particular mind that you're, that we're trying to produce

[25:32]

or, and no particular mind we're trying to stop in meditation. And, so this is pretty challenging for us, but cooking is another area where we think we need to have a plan, an idea, know what we're doing. And, you know, some plans are useful in there, but it's really easier to plan things if you, rather than just dreaming up something and then trying to find the ingredients, you can actually see what ingredients you have and dream up what to do with them. So, to me, that's much more important or useful as a practice to, to look at the ingredients, examine the ingredients, and be open to the ingredients and then the ingredients start to put themselves together and the same can be true in your meditation. That you're examining the ingredients that are present and studying how to, not so much how to put them together, but if you acknowledge the ingredients,

[26:32]

they start putting themselves together. And, and then, you know, and then they, and then there, and there's a kind of conviviality to that. It's as though, you know, the, the things are talking to each other. You know, the potatoes and the onions and the, or the radicchio and the, you know, and they, oh, haven't seen you for a while and what's news and how are you and we should get together more often and, um, so it's a very friendly and then the same as in your meditation, you know, like this, I read you these things, you know, don't be so sour about your sourness and hold your meanness close to your heart, you know, and then, and then because you, because you take in the ingredients that way, then stuff starts to come together differently for you. But it's not that you've figured it out. It's not that you've figured that out. The things themselves are, um, kind of figured that out

[27:33]

in some way. I mean, and then we can say, oh, I did that, but actually, you know, uh, creativity is not anybody's, you know, it's the muses or it's something that comes through us. Um, and, uh, but also cooking, cooking is the kind of thing that, like a lot of things, it's practice, and again, in meditation it could be like this too, but there's a kind of practice and study. How does, how do you turn something from a chore into a craft? Or into a way? Or into your life? You know, how do you make things that are unaroused as a chore or a drudgery? How do you make them vivid and around and creative and interesting and engaging for you? How do you do it? Um, because there's just not very, there's not that many things where you're going to naturally

[28:33]

take to something. Um, and like my friend Gordon who painted for 60 years, and, Brian, would you paint? And then he has all these people doing everything else in his life. He just painted. And then he has somebody cooking for him and somebody doing the phone calls and somebody doing the business and he has all these people doing stuff on him and then breakfast, um, would take care of the watering, you know, and the water and the plumbing and the electricity and the building and, you know, chainsaw the trees, but Gordon didn't do any of those things. Brian just painted. So most of us we don't get a life like that where we can do the one thing that engages us. So we're studying how to do things in a way that is engaging and, and, and moves us and touches us and, and, you know, how do you do that?

[29:35]

So, the typical idea in Zen, they say things like, you know, throw yourself into it or immerse yourself in the activity and so, cooking is the kind of thing like that and meditation is like that. There's a craft or a practice to immersing yourself in a way that it's engaging for you in your life. Just a moment, there was a question with the camera. Okay, so, [...]

[30:35]

several things, one is to, to be present in the moment is, One of the things I'm emphasizing, or attempting to emphasize today, is that to be present is much bigger and vaster than our usual idea of being present. Our usual idea of being present is, I will just, and it's like related to this question of focus, or concentration, or mindfulness, like how narrow do I make that presence? Because there's also a sense in which being present is, there's a beehive in my heart and golden bees are making right comments, sweet honey, there's a spring breaking out inside me, that's present, that's this moment. So, when we get too narrow, it's, we miss the spring, it's breaking out in our heart because we're so narrowly focused on thinking that I'm inhaling, I'm exhaling, I'm inhaling, so we get very busy with some conceptual parameter of what the present is.

[32:00]

So, that also would mean that being present includes some degree of a kind of reflection. Reflection isn't absent in the present moment, but it's a quality of mindfulness actually, the kind of, what they call usually remembrance, remembering, which then, which also then, mindfulness also for instance is, assesses whether something is truly to your advantage or not to your advantage. That's actually an aspect of mindfulness. So, that's a kind of reflection, if your mindfulness is assessing whether something is actually beneficial or conducive to your happiness, or not conducive to your happiness, conducive to your unhappiness. So, already that's rather included. And then I think, aside from that, there's also the sense that something that I find

[33:05]

useful is to sort of understand the context for any particular teaching. And, you know, the context for being present has something to do with the fact that we're in the past and the future, and that we're making plans, and we're living for the plans, or we're back in the past and sort of stuck there and resenting things, or upset about things, and we can't change it. So, the present is where there's a lot of possibilities. But that doesn't say exactly, our life, the way our consciousness works is so subtle, finally. So, that means that, you know, at some point then you want to take, you may need a somewhat different teaching. You know, like the one teaching, like, okay, we're present now, I'm so present I'm never

[34:09]

doing reflecting. Okay, well, maybe you need, so then you may need to switch to a different teaching. So, the teaching is just for particular illnesses. It's not just across the board, all the time, no matter what. Apply this teaching. Okay, so that means, you know, at some point you may need the teaching that the Buddha said, you know, your life is like the strings on a lute. So, you want to have a good, you don't want it too tight or too loose, you want it in tune. So, you want a good balance between action and reflection. You want a good balance between speaking and listening. So, balance these things out. So, anyway, if you're noticing that you're not reflecting enough, but people can get too reflective, too. Yeah, but now you're selecting the path. So, you know, we're studying enough over time that, you know, the teaching kind of,

[35:19]

you're implicitly, you know, either accurately or inaccurately, but kind of, you're shifting, the teaching is shifting for you as it's applicable or you understand enough about yourself and the kind of ways that you get lost or go off into dead ends or, you know, that you can bring yourself back because you know all your habits. So, then you find different things at different times are more important for you to empathize. So, you're, this is, you know, in short, we called that last book, Not Always So. So, you don't stick to some teaching like, I need to be present. It's not always so, you don't always stick to that. And then, especially to your idea, what that kind of being present would be. There may be other things that you need to emphasize from time to time. You know, an example of that is, I was talking to Suzuki Rishi one time and he said,

[36:24]

I was saying something about, I forget, not having any particular direction in my life. He said, if you don't have something to aim for and, you know, to work towards, your life is going backwards downhill. And I said, no, but aren't we just being present? It's not always so. You know, because we also need to have some, you know, a kind of vision or aim or dream or intention that's kind of, in some sense, that's part of the present moment is that we project forward. So, is that getting lost in the projecting forward or is that being, or is that the present moment and that we need to have some sort of sense of going forward, moving into the future. Because otherwise we're kind of dead. We're kind of dead in a kind of present that doesn't include this moving into the future.

[37:28]

Why would we want that kind of being present? So these things are, you know, it's not so simple to know what is, what this is to be present in the here and now. And so, no, he said, you need to, you need some, but then if you're going forward and it's too particular, that you're aiming for. You know, like, well, any number of things, but especially Marshall Rosenberg, of course, in Nonviolent Communication emphasizes, yes, you can have a need to be loved, but then that's different than you say to somebody, I need you to love me. That's not quite right. I need love. I'm wondering if you would be willing to go for a walk with me. That's different than, I need you to love me. So you don't, so projecting into the future and, you know, or having a need like that is, I need love, fine,

[38:37]

but it doesn't mean that this, this very specific and what that would look like, it may take on a number of appearances and things. And why not be open to that rather than sort of limiting that anything, anything but that one person doing that one thing is a failure or, you know, a waste or something. I need to have just this one thing that I've got in my heart or mind or something fixated on, and then we get into trouble when we do that. So we're sorting all this out in meditation, you know, there's a lot to sort out. It's the piles and piles of, you know, sorting the barley from the corn from the rye and the, it's your aunt mind that arises in meditation. Am I making any sense? I feel like sort of like I'm, I'm not, I'm not saying anything that you can stick to.

[39:40]

I feel like I ought to be saying something that you can stick to. And say, yes, I got it now, he said to, good. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, well, this is, that our usual good, bad, right and wrong is based on ego. And this assessment is based on the Buddha Dharma. You know, what's truly to your benefit or not. Anyway, theoretically, when you're doing that assessment with mindfulness,

[40:41]

you do it more accurately than your usual good, bad, right and wrong, which is a smaller view that's coming out of your lifelong habit of greed, hate and delusion. And, you know, greed, hate, delusion, confusion. And, and how we've come up with our current way of going about things. So the mindfulness is considered to be when you're doing that assessment, what's to your advantage, what's not to your advantage when you're doing it. And so in a certain sense, you know, you're also stepping back. So then you can say, gee, my usual way of good, bad, right and wrong is not to my advantage. I get so stuck in that. And then I get so disappointed and so upset and so resentful and angry when things don't come out the way I want them to. So I can see how being attached to that isn't really to my advantage. So it's a kind of a, mindfulness is, is a kind of little step back

[41:43]

from our usual getting involved in good, bad, right and wrong. And more and more, so to speak, in theory at least, you see, over time, mindfulness is more and more accompanied by wisdom, which is clear, which is a kind of clear seeing, as opposed to being accompanied by, simply by cetana, which is, which is will, sometimes translated as will or thought, or that factor of mind which puts things, mind together a certain way. So in other words, with accurate mindfulness associated with wisdom, that's different than wishful thinking. Laughter. This is all theoretically, you know. We're not sure anybody's actually done any of this. Laughter. No, it looks like some people have done this. Laughter. Yes.

[42:43]

Yes. But then at some point you go to the chiropractor, right? Laughter. Laughter. Well, this is again, you know, sorting things out. And tentatively speaking, we do a practice where, you know, so-called, so to speak, tentatively speaking, we're going to sit here and see what happens, and we're not going to just move, and we're not going to just talk, and we're not going to do, respond out of our usual habit, mind, body, so that we can watch as things come up,

[43:55]

that we're, we, we, we start to move, and we notice there's an intention or wish to move, we notice there's an intention or wish to speak, and we're sort of noticing things before acting, rather than just going into the acting without noticing what went into that. So again, meditation is a kind of study of going back and sort of understanding or observing how we put reality together and how we come to act on things. And so, in theory at least, again, you know, we're coming to better decisions of how to act, or more effective or useful decisions for us on how to act, which are actually useful, and we let go of the not-useful ones because we notice how not-useful they are. And, so that's one level of things.

[44:55]

That, for instance, is, you know, I was sitting one day and my knees were hurting, so I thought, you know, if you're going to hurt me like that, I'll hurt you. I probably told this story when I pushed on my knee. So, like, see, I can hurt you too. And then my knee goes unhurt and I said, you know, I told you if you hurt me, I'm going to hurt you. So I push on it. Well, after about the third time, you know, my knee is still hurting and it hasn't gotten the message. I thought, this is crazy. How badly do I need to hurt myself in order to get myself to stop hurting me? So we give up certain kinds of behaviors because we notice how unworkable they are. And there are certain behaviors that are just off the chart. They're just like, they're not going to, they don't have a chance. But then you've really given it up. I mean, then you have some clarity about it.

[45:59]

So usually we have to do a lot of ineffective things to get to something that's effective. So this is one side of things. Then the other is that, you know, again, this is a study of as things come up to do, you know, how do we engage with those things? Do we jump on them with some attachment? Yes, I'm going to do this no matter what. Or are we suspicious of them? What's a good approach here, you know, as things occur, as they come up? Do I be suspicious of it? So we all have our tendencies. Some of us, things come along, we go, yeah, of course, I could do that. And then pretty soon we go like, wait a minute, I need to have some boundaries. Because part of what we're saying yes to all the time is the requests that other people make. Oh sure, I'd be happy to. I'd love to help you with that. And then so like, why are you all just assuming

[47:01]

that I'm just going to do stuff for you? What do you think I am? So then we can go into, then usually we don't want to just say it out loud, so we go into our passive aggression, you know, whatever. But what is it, as things come up to do, how are we going to be with those things? Or do we just say, something comes up and we say, no, I'm not going to do that. No, I'm going to just stay with my practice. You see, so again, there's no attitude of mind that's the attitude, the one attitude to have, except to say that, well, be open. And study things, and be with things in such a way that you're harmonizing your body, mind, intention, and this is the basic challenge of any kind of living organism. No, there's no guarantee that you're doing the right thing, but this is, it could be so-called the wrong thing. We don't know. There's no way to know.

[48:01]

And so at some point though, we're shifting from what's coming more from my heart rather than how to make my life look the way it's supposed to. You know, so at some point we're deciding like, you know what, because I can't just make things turn out the way I want, why don't I just practice being kind? This way. Which is different than if I only could make my mind this way and that way and I'll do this practice and then pretty soon we're just so stuck up in the rules about practice or how to be a certain way and we forget about being kind. We're busy being concentrated or mindful or something or other. So we're studying how to be with impulses and things as they arise, you know, comes of that. Is this something I'm going to do or not do? And at some point, you know, we're saying about

[49:07]

to be in the present moment is not just to like, you hear things, but that's also to be with intentions and, you know, things that are arising. And whether or not we do those things or not. Bakerish used to have the expression, you know, to watch for the intention that has some muscle. Something like that. Well, you know, the intentions, you know, there's a lot of intentions or desires or things that pop up that you could do. You want one that's got some muscle to it and that's, you know, from the depth of your life and not just any old kind of one to, you know, get involved with. But all, again, these things have to do with our own tendency because people, we all have various tendencies. So we're also learning our own tendency. Some people are very suspicious, you know,

[50:07]

and then some people are acting out all kinds of stuff and then other people are questioning all kinds of stuff and these are, you know, stuff is coming up for all of us and then to do in our life. And then which ones are we, what are we going to do? And it's not, it's not very simple or obvious and then how would you be, you know, a painter like Gordon on the floor or how would you be a photographer? You know, something, something came up and, you know, we say, who do we marry? And then, so we go ahead and at some point we go ahead and, yeah, maybe it doesn't work out but we were moved. So again, we're studying that and we, you know, it's going to be, it's going to work sometimes and not work other times and, but there's something in there about knowing one's own tendency finally. Oh gosh, I tend to be kind of suspicious

[51:07]

of these kind of things but, you know, actually it seems pretty good. Why don't I go ahead here or, you know, or, or I tend to always do this. I get into this all the time. No, thank you. So it's just, you know, the, another way of thinking about this is that as a newer student, as a newer student usually of meditation you have some basic principles. You know, be present, be with your breath, see if you can find your posture, your heart over your hips, your head over your heart, you know, and things in a kind of alignment and attunement. And then the more you practice the more it's like you try this, you try that, try these different things and you're kind of, and you're kind of seeing like well what finally works for you. Because you have a kind of, you have that kind of possibility to kind of find your way finally. As opposed to there's some way that you need to do something if you could just

[52:08]

make yourself follow these rules. You know, something will happen. I don't think so. Am I making any sense again? I don't know. Anyway. Yes? When your practice is going directly to where you know. Uh-huh. How do you know your practice is going towards the way? Yeah. I used to think you could know that. But no, it turns out Dogen and other people, Dogen in the Guidelines for Studying the Way he says, if you're going to study Buddhism the first thing is to trust in Buddhism.

[53:09]

And to trust in Buddhism is to believe that your life is already the way. You just believe it. There's not some other way other than your life that you could make, that you could get your life. But you think, we all think like, oh gosh, but you know, I'm so sad today or you know, this has been so confusing and that person is so angry at me and this is not working out and you know, my job is crummy and, and uh, you know, and we go on like this, oh, there must be some other way. There must be a better way. Well, yes, but at the same time that's the way. The way is to have those kind of problems. Because those are the ones you have. So that must be the way. You just believe this is the way. And so you're... No, I know. I know that's what people do to me too and think about, it's nothing for you. For me? And you're, but you're,

[54:10]

you've had Dharma transmission. You know, I was in Cleveland last October, you know, doing a cooking class and I said, before the class I said, you know, I'm kind of anxious about this class and you know, I, I, you know, other people have been shopping for me, I'm not familiar with the ingredients, I'm not used to being in this kitchen and this one woman, she says to me, yeah, but you've been practicing Zen for over 30 years. Why are you anxious? You know, like, what's wrong with you? Well, you know, yeah, what's wrong with that Zen stuff? So that was, you know, I have, so I'm probably never going to see this person again, you know, I don't know, but this is so different than you see the, so here's the other way that you can do that, okay? I was down at Tassajara several years ago doing my Zen and cooking class and I said to the group at the beginning of the class, I'm really kind of anxious, you know, I've had to move from one cabin to another and the movement is, the move has been delayed

[55:10]

from yesterday afternoon to yesterday evening to this morning to later this morning to this afternoon. My stuff is all out in carts in the middle of the road with white sheets over it. I don't know where my notes are or anything. This is really stressful for me. I'm sorry if I'm not, you know, as together as I might be for this workshop. And this woman sitting to my right, she says, are you anxious? Me too! And she takes my arm here and she grabs it and she pulls it to her chest and her heart is going thump [...] and I go like, oh my God, you are anxious, aren't you? So we've been friends to this day. It's been about six years and she's coming to visit me next week, you know, or in about ten days, you know, the 24th she's coming to visit me. So, and bless her heart, you know, and, but so those are your friends, you see. Your friends are the ones who say, oh, that's not, oh, so you're anxious? Oh, so you're upset? Oh,

[56:11]

okay. Yeah, and, and, so then you have a friend. Then if you have somebody who's like, oh, that's not very thin, um, then you need to somehow be friends with that. No, it's not, is it? I told her the story about, um, my friend, um, who's since deceased, Maureen Stewart, who was a Zen teacher in Cambridge. She had studied with, uh, Soen Roshi and Edo Roshi and various people. And, uh, after about 25 or 30 years, Maureen divorced her husband and he was very upset with her. He was a professor at Smith who was an art teacher and he used to have affairs with his students all the time. And she would say to him, you know, I, I don't really like this. And so finally she said,

[57:11]

I'm getting a divorce. And he said, Maureen, you're a Zen teacher. You should have more compassion. And she said to her husband, it's because I'm a Zen teacher, I know what I feel. Which is, I don't like this. I don't I'm unhappy about it. You know. And I resent it. And whatever, you know. And she said, but this is like what you're asking about. You see, it's because I'm a Zen person, I know what, what goes on for me. I know what my feelings are. I know what my thoughts are. I know what my intention is. I know my intention is, you know, towards, um, you know, freedom, enlightenment, kindness, compassion. I know that's my direction. And it would be an idiot compassion for me to just say whatever you're going to do is fine with me. I'm sure you're working things out for yourself. You know. Et cetera. So, um, these things,

[58:12]

you know, cut both ways. You know, we're, and then, this is the, you know, we're studying, you know, the sword that gives life and takes life. It's not, it's not, it's not simple. But, so, your life is the path. And then you say, how do I, and then, you know, what comes from your heart when you wonder, so as far as my life, this is, this is my life. My, Mary Oliver says, your one wild and precious life, what will you do with your one wild and precious life, this beautiful summer day? Here in the spring. Yes? You, did you have a question? No. Okay. Yeah. I understand that you can't, you can't count on anything to help you. you just have to put a piece of paper in your mouth. What about me? You mean,

[59:12]

I, are you talking about me? You're still going to have a complex life. I know, I've been trying for years and it's still complex. I've been telling people, they say, how are you? And I say, I'm still me. As complex and intense and passionate and crazy as ever. I'm sorry, but I'm still me after all these years of practice. I'm even more me than ever. No, so what, who are you talking about? Okay, so you think, you think that you might always have a complex life? That's not true. That's not true. Some people don't have complex lives. Some of us are just, you know, a different make of people. Yeah, okay. Still, you can be as focused on it as you can be on it. Suspending certain kinds of yoga practices to form us together. Yes, right. For morality. Yeah. That wasn't an easy decision for me because I live with a yoga teacher

[60:13]

and we do workshops together sometimes. So this is a very, this is, you know, a difficult decision to come to. But, so, please go on. Well, the question is, if you can't be focused on faith and practice, then what is a good way to help someone who's in need of help? Yeah. I've found, you know, I've found a lot of things useful and important for me in that area. How to be, you know, to be with intense feelings. And I think practice has helped me immensely with that. But at the same time, I would say, I wouldn't want to say to anybody, please limit yourself just to practice as, you know, practicing meditation or yoga or, you know, as, please limit yourself to that because that's the best

[61:14]

or the only way. So, certainly, you know, the basic concept is that when you practice meditation over time, you do become more stable. Your mind and body becomes more stable. Doing yoga, you become more stable. You become more flexible. Now, the other side of that is that the more stable you become, the more, the more the, so to speak, you know, this is sort of simplifying it, but the more stable you become, the more that the things that could disturb you are going to be there. Because, basically, what you're, what you're, and, you know, some people say, this is like, and then once you, once you get through the things in your life that disturb you, then there's a whole world out there. But, you know, there are disturbing

[62:14]

and distressing things that you could, you know, finally let in and respond to. But the more stable you become, the more possibility there is of being disturbed. And mostly, at least at the beginning of practice, our tendency is to think that stability means having better defenses against the things that might disturb you. So that they just don't get to you. So people say, for instance, what do I do about anger? How do I handle anger so I'm not disturbed by it, so it doesn't get to me? And, you know, at some point you realize in order to know what to do with anger, you're going to have to be willing to have it in your life and experience it. And basically, you know, you're studying how to become friends with it. How to be friends with something that's extremely difficult, almost impossible to be friends with. Because it's finally what we're doing is not strengthening our defenses against what disturbs us,

[63:15]

but finally just, you know, like the Buddha said, and you know, all the arrows and everything comes towards them and then they drop, they turn to flowers and drop to the ground. And we're going to sit here and have everything come and not have a bunch of walls, you know, which is our body armoring and our posturing and our stance and our... You know, all the things that we do in an attempt to control, you know, others' behavior in the world, you know, and could we just show up here and have things come? And that's finally what we're going to be doing. So we're not going to just strengthen our defenses and so what we have is the stability, we're developing the stability to just be present with things. And practice does help us do that and then there are other things that certainly help too. So I don't think practice is the end of it. Are you raising your hand? Are you going to suggest

[64:16]

that it's about time we go on to the next activity? You were going to ask a question too? Did I... Was that all right what I said or... Yeah. So I kind of encourage people to, you know, see what... But also, you know, one of the things about that to me is extremely important and that is that at some point there's a real power to your decision or what in Zen is called your way-seeking mind, to arousing your way-seeking mind. And that's where you say, finally, I will get to the bottom of this. I am going to figure out how to do this. I am determined, you know. Nothing is going to stop me. I will do this. And that is a little different than saying, if I practice, practice will take care of this for me. Actually, you know, there's a tremendous power

[65:16]

to those kind of decisions in our life. So, you know, sometime in the last three or four years in my relationship with my partner Patricia, it became clear to me that Patricia was not going to solve my problems. She wasn't going to help. She wasn't to help. And, you know, and then so something shifted and I thought, I am going to have to do this. See, so there's a power to that whether you're, whether you look to your partner, you look to practice or you're, you know, you're looking somewhere, we're looking, you know, the classic Zen thing is we look outside ourselves for the answer rather than, I am going to figure this out. I will settle this. And at some point, you know, we've tried enough of this, you know, this teaching and that teaching and, you know, meditation was going to help us and this was going to help us and that, you know, and it's just like, I'm going to do this. And there's a power to that.

[66:17]

It's unmistakable. So it's not quite the same as, you know, practice does that. But on the other hand, you know, by practicing, we get, you know, we come to those decisions. We're a little more likely to come to a decision like that because we're practicing. Maybe. But, you know, various people at various points in their lives come to those kind of decisions so it's not necessarily dependent on practice. I just was visiting with a woman in the last couple of weeks and, you know, I had no idea this, you know, but it turned out that she left her husband for a while at one point and, you know, the police came because the lawyer that she had wasn't going to go there because he had four loaded guns in the house. And at some point, you know, it's like, it's like, what's going to help, you know? So you're like, I'm going to do something here. I'm getting out of here.

[67:19]

And then her husband's begging for her to come back and, you know, she says, I'm not coming back unless you go into an anger management program. And then I want to say that it's working before. But there's a certain sort of, you know, so he came to something in his life where, you know, it's like, okay, all right, all right, I'm going to do this. And at some point, you know, and it starts out for something like that, I'll do this because, you know, she wants me to and I can get her back. But at some point, it's like, you know, this isn't bad. I like this. I'm going to study this. I'm, you know, and so we take to something and something, you know, becomes useful for us because, by golly, this is great. I love it, you know, and I'm going to, you know, I like this. And so we're drawn and then, you know, something settles into place and clicks in and we're more, and we become determined

[68:21]

or focused or, you know, we have a little different aim, you know, something to go forward with. The fact that September 11, 2001, New York City and Washington, D.C., New York City, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere disturbed me a whole lot more than March 11, 2001, New York City. And that really bothered me because it seemed to be But what you said a few minutes ago,

[69:23]

what struck me was that, well, and I make all sorts of judgments about government practice, about their own, but what you said a few minutes ago about listening was that, in fact, it may simply be that I'm not allowed to have a problem. I've only got a few minutes to go to my appointment. Perhaps I should just charge my education. So, I'm just wondering. I think that that's interesting, what you're saying. And, you know, the view in Buddhism, and certainly in Zen anyway, is that, you know,

[70:25]

every moment has the one flavor of reality. And that, in other words, in a certain sense, that suffering doesn't come, doesn't come, doesn't go. Joy doesn't come, doesn't go. And there are just things that happen sometimes that remind us more deeply of that kind of truth. And other things happen and they don't quite remind us in the same way. But pain and pleasure is always here. And, again, it's pretty usual for us to orient to not acknowledge what's painful.

[71:33]

But that's the, you know, the first noble truth. All right. You've kept me busy talking here for quite a while. And I wasn't going to go on this long, but let's get up and do another different qigong routine so we can wake up and energize ourselves a bit to head into the afternoon and the rest of the afternoon. Well, that's just rumi's teaching, you know.

[72:44]

That's not dogon or buddhism or anything. Okay. From cane breeds sugar, from a worm's cocoon, silk. Be patient if you can, and from sour grapes will come something sweet. Longing is the core of mystery. Longing itself brings the cure. The only rule is suffer the pain. Your desire must be disciplined and what you want to happen in time, sacrificed. I thought this afternoon

[73:48]

I'd talk a little bit about some passages from the Genjo Koan, Dogon's chapter. Someone here has translated Genjo Koan actualizing the fundamental point. More generally speaking, Genjo Koan is an expression for this moment. This moment is Genjo Koan. This moment is, you know, has a certain reality that we can see and hear and smell and taste and touch and it has the reality of our thoughts and feelings and it also has a reality to it that we can't put our finger on. And that a reality,

[74:55]

in other words, that's mysterious, subtle, ungraspable. But you knew that, right? What I thought I would talk about first of all is the passage when you get in a boat and row out until no land is in sight and you look around, the ocean looks circular and it doesn't look any other way. But the ocean isn't just circular or square, you see only as far as your eye of practice can see. And in addition to apparent circularity or angularity, remind yourself that the ocean has infinite characteristics and boundless virtue.

[75:56]

This is true not only around you, but in you yourself. It's in here someplace. Oh. Yes. There are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet or in a drop of water. So this is a, you know,

[77:01]

a different expression of mindfulness than what we're kind of used to. Because we used to, we generally think of mindfulness as to be mindful of something rather specific, or mindful that it's hot, that it's cold. And, you know, if we're fairly concentrated and focused, we're not judging hot or cold to be good or bad, right or wrong. We're not judging our concentration or lack of concentration to be good or bad, right or wrong. But we're mostly focusing when we're practicing mindfulness on there's a particular quality that we can observe and we understand that being mindful is to be aware of these particular qualities that are appearing at any particular moment. And here, Dogen is suggesting that

[78:01]

in addition to apparent circularity or angularity, every moment has infinite characteristics and boundless virtue, which you just don't happen to see at that time. You know, people talk about this sort of thing in a lot of different ways. Dogen uses a fairly poetic way here of talking. This is also, of course, for instance, to say that although things appear to be a certain way, everything is also empty of being fixed in that way or empty of having inherent self or fixed nature. So in addition to the way that you are finding yourself

[79:02]

in a particular moment, you're also someone who is unlimited or boundless or not stained by that particular characteristic that's appearing right now. So we also say, for instance, mind itself cannot be stained. Or Dogen, in another place, says that realization, what it is like is to be unstained. And of course, if you think about it all, you know that we know that we're, each of us, unstained. Our mind is not stained by anything. We sometimes think and worry that our mind is stained by something, but it's not actually the case. Simply speaking, you know, if you look one way,

[80:06]

you see one thing, and then that doesn't stay on your mind. You look the other way, and you're not still seeing that. You're seeing something else now. And when you hear a sound, it appears and disappears. Feelings arise and pass away. Thoughts appear and disappear. Although you might think, I'm shy, or I'm angry, or I'm really confused, being the nature of our mind, finally, when we think about it in this way carefully, it doesn't have any particular quality that stains it or mars it. So here, Dogen talks about that as being that in addition to appearance, there's infinite characteristics that are just not appearing at this time,

[81:07]

that you're not seeing right now. There's infinite characteristics inside us and outside of us, infinite characteristics to the world. And he also suggests there's, so to speak, in that the fact or nature of infinite characteristics boundless virtue. Or you know, anyway, you know, something, just so to speak, there's a kind of preciousness or blessedness to reality or to mind itself. This kind of preciousness or blessedness is not about the fact that there's a certain kind of appearance. You know, this kind of blessedness or preciousness to our life or our mind itself or our being itself is not something that comes with the appearance.

[82:09]

Do you understand? You know, like, oh, how colorful, how sunny it is today. That's precious. And then when it's cold, you say, well, it's not precious after all. So this preciousness is not dependent on characteristics. Infinite, in addition to apparent, you know, sunshine or cold, cloudiness, in addition to apparent circularity or angularity, there are infinite characteristics. Whole worlds are there. Whether we are aware of or see or acknowledge that whole worlds, other worlds are there, there's more to reality than we're acknowledging at any particular time. So this is a somewhat different sense of being in the present moment or acknowledging the present moment than just noting, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching,

[83:13]

or thinking, judging, planning, remembering, or noticing, acknowledging feelings or pleasant, unpleasant, grasping, averting, confusion, delusion. But in addition to the appearance of things, there's already infinite qualities. So sometimes, you know, people talk about this in terms of space, that there's a kind of... you could have or allow for there to be a kind of space around things, or that things, the appearance of things is happening in vast space, like clouds passing. This is a different, you know, again, a kind of poetic picture,

[84:14]

that the appearance of things is like clouds passing in vast space, so the vastness of space in that kind of picture or image is the same as this, in addition to the appearance of things, whole worlds are there. So, this is a kind of reminder not to be, you know, too caught up in the kind of control of what it is that's appearing, or the kind of fixing things, oh, I'm upset, I need to calm down, or you're angry, you need to calm down, or the way we do with ourselves, our own experience, and the way we do with others, wanting them to behave differently than they're behaving, or wanting ourselves, wondering, like we were joking earlier,

[85:16]

well, that's not very Zen, is it? So, you know, how do you fix the appearance that is arising so that the appearance would be more Zen? Zen is already here. Zen is not coming or going, and there's not something that, I mean, on one hand we can say something is more Zen than something else, and on the other hand, each moment must be Zen. So that, for instance, you know, Suzuki Roshi, Suzuki Roshi's expression was, when you are you, Zen is Zen. Do you understand? He didn't say, when you can do your life in a really Zen fashion, you'll be doing it in a really Zen fashion, then won't that be great, and congratulations? So when you are you, it includes something very specific, you know. It includes a particular moment that's appearing in a particular way,

[86:21]

and maybe, you know, I may be someone who seems to have taken to cooking and various things in my life, and you will have taken to some things in your life, and you will have certain tendencies, but in addition to whatever has been your calling or your tendency, then beyond that, or in addition to that, or there's also that underneath that, or, you know, there's vast space, or whole worlds, or a nature, a fundamental nature that's untainted or unstained. It's very, you know, tempting for any of us to think, you know, I'm shy, or I'm fragile, I'm vulnerable, I'm overwhelmed.

[87:22]

And to, at various times, you know, it's one of our issues to have the kind of fear that, you know, there's a kind of defect to me. So this is a kind of reminder, you know, not to get involved, you know, and fussing or stewing about, you know, some supposed defect. It means that on a number of occasions, you notice something. And just because you notice something on other occasions, a number of occasions, doesn't make it that way. That's just the way it appeared at those times. That's the way you appeared at those times, and the name that you put on it, the apparent circularity or angularity. So we're both cautioned, you know, not to get involved in control

[88:25]

and manipulation of characteristics and phenomena, but also then not to get involved with focusing on defects or appearances as being indicative of our true nature. And all of this, again, is implicit in mindfulness and being present in a moment. To be present, then, to be mindful, is not just to be mindful of seeing, but that in addition to seeing, all worlds are there. There are infinite characteristics. Things will look different in the light of day, in the dark of night. Feelings will arise dependent on conditions. Thoughts appear given conditions.

[89:27]

And you're aware of one thing rather than another thing. So this is also, again, to say that each of us is, you know, empty of self or characteristics. This is, again, basic Buddhist understanding. If you think about it, you know, or look at things carefully, you find that, you know, we can never get, have a grasp of what is, you know, substantially as existing. If you, when you look at a bell, you know, we say, this is the bell. What is this? This, it's the bell. Really? All we've had indicated is that it's solid, it's round, it's bowl-shaped.

[90:37]

But what is it? Well, it has all those characteristics. It's what it is. It has characteristics. So we assume that there must be an it that is doing those characteristics. But nobody's ever found it. The it that's doing those characteristics, all we've ever found is the characteristics. Of course, when, you know, Western philosophers came up with this, you know, whoever it was, Berkeley or somebody said, well, kick it and see if your toe doesn't hurt. But anyway, it's not possible to, you know, find it. We can, if you, if I hit it, you know, it will ring. Oh, it rings? Oh, is that what's ringing? It's ringing? Where is ringing? So, we say in addition to all these characteristics, this is infinite.

[91:41]

Everything is infinite, or vast space, or boundless virtue. Whole worlds are here. And if you hit it with something else, you know, it sounds, it sounds different. Oh, it sounds different. Is that a different thing than the first thing? Or it can sound, the same thing sounds differently at different times? Or is that a different it? The bell, in other words, is also like the river that you can't step into twice. Right? Everything is like the river you can't step into twice. It's not the same thing anymore. It only appeared a certain way at a certain time. So the nature of things is not only the appearance, but that there's an infinite characteristic, or preciousness, or virtue.

[92:46]

And so the blessedness of our life, or the preciousness of our life is not in our capacity to manifest certain appearances and not others. We're manifesting certain appearances or aiming to do that because we have intention, and we have a wish, you know, we have a heart. And apparently, I heard something recently that the heart has about 5000 times the electromagnetic energy of the brain that's in the head. This is a very powerful organ, in other words, you know, the heart. And of course, Western culture has gotten head-centered, head-oriented, control-oriented, power-over-oriented. Western culture, with its capacity to manipulate things, you know, it's been able to overwhelm cultures all over the world.

[93:53]

That we're often, you know, more, way more heart-centered. So there's a powerful kind of magic or medicine to Western culture in terms of technology. But as we know, those of us who have come to and are interested in meditation, there's a certain lack of heart to that. So we're, in practicing meditation, you know, we're searching for heart. Which is also then to see or acknowledge what is, you know, these whole worlds are there, infinite characteristics, that I am not just the way I appear to be. You are not just the way you appear to be. Nothing is just the way it appears to be. This also means then, of course, you know, you can't have, you know, you may not then treat prisoners as though,

[95:00]

those prisoners, you treat them, you treat them like animals, because they are animals. Really, and then we treat animals like they are worse than animals, because they're worse than animals, and so forth, you know. Why do we do that? Why wouldn't we treat prisoners as though they were people, or they're blessed or precious, and animals that way, and ourselves that way? And don't we have any heart, you know, as a culture or as a people? Because we don't understand this, we get stuck on particular characteristics. Oh, this person committed a crime. So we need to treat this whole person as, you know, in a terrible way, we need to keep repeating the crime on them. We need to commit crimes because they committed crimes. Someone said, pick your enemy carefully, because you're going to become like him or her.

[96:08]

But if you, if your enemy is also someone, you know, who's not just an enemy, but has infinite characteristics and boundless virtue, your enemy is someone that you aim to bring that out of or connect with the boundless virtue, the infinite characteristics, rather than treat them completely as though they're just the way they're appearing to be. And again, this is the same with each of us in our practice. How do we treat ourselves? Are we going to be sour about our sourness, mean about our meanness, angry with our anger, or do we, can we in some way acknowledge there's something more than that here? I'm also a sincere person. I've tried very hard in my life.

[97:20]

Yes, I've gotten confused at times. I've been distracted or captivated by things. I've been caught in trying to attain things and destroy things, the appearances. So, I made this kind of mistake. I was deluded in this kind of way to be caught up in appearances and not recognizing the virtue or, you know, realization, enlightenment, emptiness, vast spaceness of myself and others in my life. So, I thought I needed to, you know, control others, control myself, have power over others, power over myself. And this has been, you know, the myth of our culture, the myth that's been powering our culture now for centuries. But you can see that even in Dogen's time, this is there, it just wasn't as, it hadn't taken over the world at that time.

[98:31]

But this tendency has been here throughout history, that we focus on things in a picky kind of way and we forget just the preciousness of our life or the sacred nature of things. And we attack ourself or others when the appearance isn't to our liking. So, Suzuki Roshi said Western culture is, you know, you want to control things and if you can't control things to your satisfaction, well then destroy them. He also joked with us at Zen Center, you know, back in the 60s, oh, you've given up the material culture, congratulations, yes, you're not so captivated by money and prestige and status, are you?

[99:36]

But you still want to improve, don't you? It's rather materialistic, wouldn't you say? So this is an interesting point, you know, because actually we will improve when we're not so attached to improving. You know, whatever strategy you have, if you overuse it, it will actually undermine exactly the thing you were trying to use the strategy for. You want to improve, so then you're very critical of things that don't indicate improvement. And you spend so much time being critical of the things that don't indicate improvement that you're so critical all the time. And what kind of improvement was that, to be so hypercritical? And so actually to improve you need to be less critical of the things that need improvement at some point, you know. You can't be that critical of things.

[100:39]

And you honor the boundlessness of things, the integrity, the sincerity of things, the big space, the possibility of change and all the possible things that could happen. And at some point you can grow. You grow not because you're hypercritical of the problems, but because you take the problems into your heart. You hold the meanness close to your chest. So again, this is Dogen's way of saying what we talked about when I read you the poem this morning from Antonio Machado. And Antonio Machado says, as I was sleeping last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt marvelous error.

[101:41]

So he calls this marvelous error that you can see something other than the appearance of things. I was such an idiot yesterday. Look what I said, look what I did. And now he's dreaming, there's a spring breaking out in my heart. How could that be, you see? So this is where we get stuck so often in the appearance of things. I was such an idiot, I can't forgive myself. I never should have spoken back to the teacher like that and tried to correct her. I'm so embarrassed now. And so forth. But there's a spring breaking out in my heart. This is the same kind of teaching. And I said, along which aqueduct or water are you coming to me, water of a new life that I have never known? Do you understand how fresh that is? It's not about the characteristic of things.

[102:46]

It's not about I said the wrong thing, I was such an idiot, I'm so disappointed, I'm so embarrassed, I'm so humiliated. They were such idiots, I resent what they were asking me to do and go on and on. All the time implicitly this is to say there's a spring breaking out. And from your usual viewpoint and focus on the way things are and what we can get into with being mindful. At times we forget and we're not allowing for the water to come. The water that we haven't yet tasted. We're not acknowledging the beehive in our heart. And this is all just to say metaphor. These are all metaphors, these are pictures. So if any of them, you know, any one of these images may not be especially useful for you.

[103:51]

You know, some of us will say, a beehive in my heart? Are you kidding? I hate bees. And so forth, bees scare me, I wouldn't want a beehive in my heart. Okay. You know, that's cool. So Dugan, it's just very simple, you know, it's not about a spring breaking out or a fiery sun. It's just, in addition to the apparent circularity, angularity, whole worlds are there, infinite characteristics. That you just don't happen to see right now. Infinite characteristics. So you're just a little easier with the appearances. You're not so worried about, it's, oh no, it's this again. Oh, gosh, why can't it be that? And you're just like, relax. Do you understand? You could just not, you could be not quite so proud of any appearances. And you could not be quite so worried about or concerned, am I a good person, am I a bad person, am I a sin person?

[105:00]

Am I not a sin person, is my practice good, is my practice bad? How would you know? Except by making some kind of measure based on the appearances. Which then would be missing the point. Well, we just have a few minutes left. I'd like to, I suggest we just sort of stand up and stretch and then we'll sit down, you know, for about ten minutes. Thank you very much, blessings. Thank you for being here today.

[105:43]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ