2009.08.12-serial.00235

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Dogen's Genjo Koan; dealing with delusion, enlightenment and suffering; mastery is not getting rid of negative emotions and thoughts; story of Montana smoke-jumper.

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Move on to or come back to chocolate. So this is page 24
We're going to start here at the beginning
As all things and we'll just do the first page here ready
As all things are Buddha Dharma there is delusion and realization
Practice birth and death and there are Buddhas and sentient beings
As the myriad things are without an abiding self. There is no delusion. No realization
No Buddha no sentient being and no birth and death
The Buddha way is basically leaving clear of the many of the one
Thus there are birth and death delusion in realization sentient beings and Buddhas
Yet in attachment blossoms fall and in aversion weeds spread
To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion
The myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening
Those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas
Those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings
Those who continue realizing beyond realization in the delusion throughout delusion
When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas
However, they are actualized Buddhas who go on actualizing Buddhas
When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body and mind you grasp things directly
Unlike things and their reflection in the mirror and unlike the mirror
Reflection in the water when one side is illuminated. The other side is dark
Study the Buddha way is to study the self to study the self is to forget the self
To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things
When actualized by myriad things your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away
No trace of realization remains and this no trace continues endlessly
When you first seek Dharma, you are imagine you are far away from its environs
But Dharma is already correctly transmitted. You are immediately your original self
Boat and watch the shore you might assume that the shore is moving
When you rise closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves
Similarly if you examine myriad things with the confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent
But when you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self
So we're stopping there
Okay
So again, good afternoon and welcome
Chocolates coming around apparently anybody would like some
That's the very end of the ganja coin, excuse me
The master the nature of wind is permanent and there's no place it does not reach
Why then are you fanning yourself?
This is like the nature of chocolate is permanent and there is no place. It does not reach then
Now, why are you eating it?
and then he says
Although you understand the nature of the wind is permanent. You do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere
what is the meaning of its reaching everywhere and then he puts the chocolate in his mouth and
Is
There anywhere the chocolate hasn't reached the chocolate it reaches everywhere
Okay
All right, so last
seems like weeks ago, doesn't it we had a class and
We talked about the first part of the ganja koan and I was introducing you to my translation of ganja koan
Which cause translates as actualizing the fundamental point and I've simplified the translation and called it getting real
And in reality as all things are Buddha Dharma
There's delusion and realization practice birth and death and there's the Buddhist and sentient beings
So this is like when you really see how things are
It's not like you can get to some place
You know
like some people have the notion of the
easy chair of enlightenment or you break through into some marvelous free beautiful space and you never have to go back to all that
Painful stuff ever again
So that's not real. That's not real
That's a fantasy oh
Man
What is the Buddhist way
Well
Yeah
Well, there's delusion and enlightenment so there's there's suffering and there's an end to suffering so in reality there's suffering and there's an end to
suffering
Yeah
There's suffering and there's an end to suffering
there's the cause of suffering and there's the way to end suffering, but
You know often, you know the good, you know
the way to understand that is not when you end stuff, you know, the way you end suffering is the eightfold path in that case and
That's you know the practice of a lifetime
So that also means that each moment that you're practicing is the practice of a lifetime
Suffering also suffering is there but you're practicing with it in such a way that it's not suffering
But you know impermanence doesn't go anyplace
You know suffering doesn't go anyplace
there's always
uncertainty to our lives and
Things are changing and we don't know what's going to happen next and one could become anxious or
Stressed and then and then what and then what did what does one do?
So each moment, you know
It's we can understand that the four noble truths are implicit in any one moment or we can understand that you know
like cause for instance in
enlightenment unfolds
And this is again classic Soto Zen
We don't practice in order to get enlightenment and Suzuki Roshi said this also because you're enlightened you practice
You have some understanding that brings you to practice and
that practice is an expression of your enlightenment and then but we sit there and go oh
How do I get the enlightenment?
but then you're not in recognizing the enlightenment you have except when you practice there are times when you forget yourself and
Things come forward which is what we're talking about today. Things come forward and realize themselves and you're you know, and and
then it's as though you've ended suffering and
Other moments you're not that's not that's so it's like it can be seen as a circle or it can be seen as simultaneous
But it's not like ending suffering once and for all that's finished. Thank God
Yeah
Well, it depends on you know your
It depends on you know on how we use language or understand language
Okay
Because you know
There's in you know for whether you're Buddha or not. There's still
Heat and cold and there's still various feelings
You know and for instance in the Buddha's lifetime
at one point he stopped, you know the neighboring country from invading his country sat under a tree and the invading army came and
and he sat there and they he talked with the
invading Emperor King and they went away and
later they came back and invaded his country and they dug a huge pit and
Had you know hundreds of people in the pit and had elephants stomp them and then buried them and
I would guess that the Buddha felt something about that
You know that he didn't just go like oh, I'm in bliss, you know
Geez, you know some people I know, you know perished hundreds of them in a huge pit
This is something that happened in his lifetime
So on one hand you can say so, you know, so there's a suffering or a painful thing that's happening
So I don't think we can say and then we can also say
You know in some way the Buddha practiced with that
so that he wasn't afflicted by that and then sometimes you say when he practiced with that so that he wasn't
Unduly afflicted by it or you know, and then it's like
But you know, we're all people whether we're Buddha or not
And there's painful difficult things that happened in all of our lives
another example of this is
The Tibetan teacher Marpa
Whose whatever it was eight-year-old son or daughter died and he was in
incredible grief and
His students said to him
But teacher isn't everything impermanent and
All things are bound to come to isn't this all just an illusion?
and he said yes, and this is the most painful illusion anyone can have and I'm grieving and
Then it's not and then is it a suffering to grieve
So some people understand it's a suffering to grieve and then then if you're a Buddha or if you're Marpa
Suffering is not a grief
It's not suffering I mean the grief is not suffering it's you're grieving and you don't go like what's wrong with me
I'm grieving damn. This is such an this is an illusion. I shouldn't be suffering. I shouldn't be grieving
You know, you have the grief and and you're not upset about having grief
So this is this is the end of suffering is not to be upset about having grief
It's not that you don't have grief. So now if you call the grief suffering
You know if you're if you suffer with the grief that's different
So that you can put an end to the suffering with grief and and have your grief
so then other people will look at you with your grief and you can look at your own grief and then and
Tentatively speaking you can call that suffering or somebody may call that suffering
But you you are and in a certain sense, you know, you are in all of that
Suzuki or she talked about somebody who a Zen teacher was dying and I think him or cut a gear where she did
And he said I don't want to die and then if you know you say oh
They see a Zen teacher. I mean, shouldn't you just be?
Equanimity about life and death and be completely willing to die. What's wrong with him? Does he enlightened or not?
You know as he as he accomplished his eightfold way as he put it completely an end to all of this
You know, there's we're human beings and so
there's that's a human reaction and
So on one hand you have I don't want to die. And on the other hand you accept
The feeling I don't want to die. You don't fight it
when you come to
So another way of Nirvana talking about Nirvana or the end of suffering is
You are able to be exactly with that
You're not fighting against it and when you come to rest with things as they are
Here's death. Here's your your friends and family and relatives being stomped by elephants
When you come to rest with it and you have exactly that experience and you're not fighting it. You're not you're not grasping it
You're not pushing it away. You know, you're not doing the and you just have it and you let it and
It's flowing with its flows through you
And it arises and disappears
and suffering
In technical in a technical sense is you struggle with it?
You're you I don't I don't like this. I don't want this. How do I get rid of it? I want this other thing
I don't want this. I want to just be completely free and easy and nothing ever happens to me
So, you know, this is you know important to try to get at so that your question is really important
And I don't know if I've helped you with my long-winded response or not, but there you have it
Yes
Yeah, but what is can be very painful yeah
And for a certain from a certain point of view you can understand it as delusion
You know and but you're not you come to rest with it. You're not you're not, you know, you're not fighting with what is
Yeah
Yeah, yeah
You could also do like what did I stub my toe what's wrong with me? I'm such an idiot
And why is the world like this? And so then you can add a bunch of stuff on to that
Yes, but it's still your foot still hurts
And you breathe with hurt and so you and so you're ending the the sort of extra suffering
But it's not that things aren't painful
No, I don't know exactly which Dogen is, you know calling delusion and realization, but he gives us a little bit clue down here
realization is to be
aware of delusion
Aware of and delusion is to not be clear about what realization is
So one of our common
You know understandings is we commonly think I will I?
Want to improve I want to practice. I am serious about this. I want to you know put an end to suffering I want to
You
Know practice the Buddha way. I want to be a good Buddhist
I want to succeed at what I understand the Buddha did and and then you know, how do you?
measure
Whether you're accomplishing this
You look at phenomena
and
If the phenomena if and then at some point you see the phenomena are still just as painful as they always were
Oh gosh, I guess I haven't done this
But we so when is it are we going to ever change the phenomenal world?
You know the fact that our bodies feel heat and cold and
Pain when we stab our toes and we get hungry and you know, we have desires we have emotions
Are we ever going to change that?
Not exactly, but it depends on the kind of Buddhist you are some
Buddhists have more the idea. Yes, you can
in certain things
But the Zen tradition is more
things appear and disappear and
and you can and you and
There's no you you're but you can you can be with this partly because you're not keeping track of yourself
here he says
You know you forget yourself and enough all things
Come forward and realize themselves
so things and whether those things are suffering or pain or heat or cold they realize themselves and
Then you might even be upset about the heat and at some point you go like, you know what I can't do it
I'm not going to be able to do anything about this heat. Why don't I accept it? And
So we're all the time moving through
the arising of
phenomena and our kind of resistance to it our acceptance of it our practicing with it and
And we don't miss us and we're not necessarily suffering
But on the but so it partly depends on your languaging. But again
I'm offering you that
Tentatively speaking the main delusion is thinking that things actually exist that you actually exist things actually exist
and that
You know, I I
Which doesn't exist don't like heat
And but but that was just there was a there was actually a moment of you know irritation
So, why don't you just say irritated irritation because when you say I don't like heat I am irritated by the heat
You can't find the I
You can't you know the heat the I the irritation are all
One of phenomena
Phenomenal and you can't separate them. You can't distinguish the I from the irritation from the heat. They're all together
You can't and you can't you can't get them separate. None of those things exist separately
and
Yet so then we say this is about me
And that and then the and then because we tended to the improvisation they have language
That makes it sound like these things are all really existing. Then we start to get the idea. I could do something about this
Good luck
But you know when consciousness is working, I mean, it's like Suzuki or she said when you can't feel pain anymore
You are about to die
So when you can actually have pain it means you're alive you're healthy your body and mind are working they're functioning the way they should
And we're we're studying how to work with all you know
The Zen approach is more like how do I work with all of this?
how do I how do I allow things to inform me and
You know, I could so I can work with them the trees
Suffering
Absolutely no provisionally
You
Know partly this is a matter of absolute and provisional and part of what's interesting here in the Genjo Koan is that
Dogen likes to start with his top-of-the-line absolute statement or most absolute or closest to absolute
So in this case as when when or as at a moment of when all things are seen as Buddha Dharma
There is delusion and realization practice birth and death and there are buddhas and sentient beings and
that and
Then and then he says and that includes the fact that there's no such thing
Ultimately absolutely speaking though those they are only provisional these only exist provisionally
And
So even though these these things only exist provisionally there they are
Even though it's an illusion that
You know, it's there's pain and grief with the death of a loved one
People's you know, then that doesn't mean that it's not, you know provisionally it's provisionally it's real and
So one of the mistakes that people make about practice and it's not just practice but it's throughout the culture it's it's denial
You know and most of us throughout our lives
When your pet dies mom and dad say get over it. We'll get you another dog
don't cry and
When things happen people tell us get don't cry
you know and you know one time somebody wrote to dear Abby and
It was a mom mother of a little girl who you know had been abducted and murdered or something, you know
Something just really horrific and she wrote in to Abby and said here are all the things that people are telling me and I'd like
To just tell them where to go
Your daughter's in a better place, you know
Yes, but she's not here
and
It's a tremendous intense grief to me
God must have had plans for here. I don't care
So people come up with all these reasons why you are wrong to feel what you're feeling
Because they want to avoid that pain
And you know people all the time tell me have told me over the years
Well, you know, you wouldn't have to feel that way if you didn't feel that way
Get over it and you know stop that and and then people say calm down, you know
relax
Grow up get over it get move past it
And once in a while somebody says gee you're really upset aren't you?
one of my
You know examples I use about and this is sort of a roundabout, you know with your question, but it's what your question is brought up
You know, I was doing a class here
Mike one of my cooking events and I say to the class the beginning of the class
We're sitting around in a circle and everybody's beginning of class is extremely anxious
So is that my being anxious or is it everybody's anxiety that I'm just feeling because I'm in the room
It's not really very clear
and
I was saying, you know, I'm kind of anxious about the start of the class here
I was staying in one cabin
It was the Abbott's cabin and they told me yesterday I had to move and then they came and told me I didn't have to
move and then they came and told me I did have to move and then they came and told me I should move tomorrow and
Then they came and told me you should move later tomorrow and then they came and told me get out of here
We have some carts and put your stuff out on those carts. We're going to put some sheets on top of it
And
So worse and so, you know the the concept of not having any suffering is oh
You're just you're just fine with everything that happens
You know, you don't feel anything so not to feel anything you see to me that's not real
Whether you're a Buddha or you know, you're not a Buddha or you're a Buddha or you're ascension being
it's not real and
Suzuki Roshi said
You know, you are a Buddha and you are ascension being how can you be a Buddha and ascension being this is also again part
Of you know what you're bringing up the Buddha put an end to suffering and he was probably still ascension being
But anyway, I
Was sitting here and I said, I'm kind of I'm really anxious and I've had to move my things are in cards
I don't have my notes with me
and
So, well, you know, let's see how it goes and the woman sitting next to me
She grabbed my hand and my wrist and before I knew what it was happening
My hand was between her breasts. I
Thought
What is my hand doing between this woman's breasts
And
She said oh she was saying while she was grabbing my hand and pulling up to her breasts. She was saying
Oh, are you anxious? I'm anxious, too
And about that time I noticed like my her her heart was just going thump thump thump thump thump thump thump
I said my god, you are anxious. Aren't you your heart is just thumping away and
Then she said yeah, and I'll bet everybody in the room is anxious, too. And then everybody relaxed
We acknowledge that this is happening and there's nothing wrong with it. We're not some kind of defective
You know creature because we feel anxious but you can't have the idea that well the Buddha what's never anxious
and
Then anxious is it anxious or is you know?
And then you can also understand that the anxious, you know anxious and excitement are so close
Is it anxious or is it excited? I'm really excited to be here
And that's only a little shift in your consciousness. So which is it?
And
Then you know, I have a lot of energy that's coming up to do this class and I hope it works for you
And I was in another situation. I say I'm kind of anxious at the start of the class
You know, they I thought we could have a you know, I was told it was Cleveland
You know
I was told we'd have some fresh tomatoes and I was
Planning to make a fresh tomato salad and the tomatoes that are here are rather solid in their orange. They're not actually red
So I'm not sure about what we're gonna do and this woman says Ed, but you've been practicing Buddhism for more than 30 years
What do you have to be nervous about? How come you're still nervous?
Well, I guess I'm a lousy student, you know a Buddhism, you know, why don't you?
See about becoming, you know less than real and what you can do about like, oh, I never get anxious. I never get nervous
You know, I just everything changes and it you know what I you know
Plan on isn't gonna happen and I don't know what to do
And you know, I just oh I never get stressed at all about any of that
but you know, I want to do a class for people and
and actually to me, I think it's real if I'm real and
People say to me gosh, it's such a relief that you're real. I
Thought I had to be somebody else and that I couldn't be real
So I've learned how to be real, you know, and maybe there's things I don't understand, you know
Maybe I'm not Buddha. Maybe I don't understand about the Four Noble Truths
maybe you can go and practice and and and
Have the realization that the Buddha had and you put an end to suffering and in ways that I had no idea about you know
Fine, I'm I'm sharing my interest my understanding and my understanding of Dogen and you know
I haven't been practicing, you know as I have but I'm not saying that that's the only way to do it
I'm you know, and you may
and and
You need to have your your questions in your way-seeking mind, you know to go ahead and study
So what's changed for me is that I much more accept the fact of and then I use it as a teaching
You know when you're cooking
There are times when you don't know what to do and you can get kind of anxious now
let's think about what we're going to do here and
Let's just stop here and when you do get anxious like this, it's a good thing to just stop and then reassess and
So forth and so I start to use it as and I'm getting anxious now and I don't know what's going on. Let's stop
You know you you want to stop and have a checklist. This is happening with this dish. This is happening with this
What's going on with each dish? What's still to be done? Do we need to change our plan?
Do we need to adjust given the time we have should we leave out a dish? We add another one?
and
Then so it becomes teaching like this is the life we live in
There's no way to just and it's so unreal if you watch a cooking show on television
Nobody does any work
Nothing ever goes wrong
If you were masterful and good at this like I am and like I'm showing you you would have no problems
It's just look at this wonderful dish. No problem
It's so easy you just and the stuff is already cut up for you
And you know it comes out of the oven all baked and look I put it in the oven now comes out here
We don't have to and you don't have to work it's also easy and like isn't that brilliant isn't that great no problem
It's that's not real
Yes
Yeah, what about brilliant that was that she could make mistakes on live television
She
Dropped a suckling pig on the floor is the classic one and she said oh, that's okay. No one's looking you can just pick it up
Millions of people are
I
Have a friend who met Julia Child and he was the
Irving was inspired by coming to a cooking class of mine
and he decided to go to the New England Culinary Institute and
After whatever it was nine months or a year or something you then you go out on a six-month externship
They get you a job someplace. So he was cooking. He became the lunch cook at eating. Well magazine
Which is in south of Burlington, Vermont
Across the
Across the whatever Lake Champlain or what it is from Essex is a ferry from near Eden
Well that goes across to Essex, but anyway Irving was and then so then Irving just said well, this is a nice job
I'm just gonna stay here
So he was the lunch cook at eating well magazine and then he became the
President he set up his own chapter the Vermont chapter of the American Institute of Food and Wine
which had been started by Julia Child and Dick Graff and Robert Mondavi and whoever and
Then he so he set up the chapter of it and then he was the head of it
So then he
Context you a child says well, we have a chapter of the Americans to food. Why would you come and visit us?
So
One day she came and she was there she was at eating well magazine and she's looking at the man
She's and she says urban these these people don't actually eat like this. Do they this is just to do a magazine, right?
This isn't what they want to eat. Is it?
And everyone says no, it's not what they want to eat
They want pizza and hamburgers and you know, they don't want to eat the stuff that's in their magazine
So
It's like and
The whole you know as far as that goes the whole food thing is so screwy now
I mean, it's just it's unbelievable and I just read for instance this year finally a book
Which is just an amazing book that if you read it, I mean it
It's called the great cholesterol con it's by a
Scotch-scot British doctor named Malcolm Kendrick and he explains how the whole business of fat causes
Cholesterol cholesterol causes heart heart disease is a myth. It's a hoax
Statin drugs Lipitor and all the other statin drugs are only the pharmaceutical industries largest selling most
profitable drug in the history of
pharmaceuticals
So they have a tremendous tremendous stake in getting you to believe that
cholesterol causes heart attacks and you need to take some Lipitor and
Doctors have been telling me for years take some Lipitor and I've said excuse me
I am NOT intending to damage my liver in order to save my heart
And
There are all kinds of side effects to Lipitor and statin drugs
And you know he points out like no matter how many
Paradoxes there are to this theory that cholesterol causes heart attacks. It doesn't matter how many times you say?
Well, there's the French the French have one of the highest cholesterol highest saturated fat highest cholesterol in Europe and one of the lowest heart
Attack rates, but that doesn't change the fact that cholesterol causes heart attacks
Yeah, they drink a lot of wine with that so we all should be drinking more
and
Then but then he has for instance Indian immigrants immigrants from India to the west and they don't smoke don't drink
vegetarian one of the lowest
You know levels of
cholesterol and one of and among the absolute highest rates of heart attacks of any
Population group and why and so you know finally you get around to you know what causes heart attacks stress
It's very stressful to be living in a different culture and trying to figure out how to support yourself
And you know where you're going to live where you're going to work. How you're going to do this. That is very stressful
And I have at least two friends now. You know I a friend of mine
Judith Keenan told me about it. She's it's you know it's a mutual friend of ours, and it was right in the middle of Laura Burgess's
lay entrustment ceremony at Green Gulch
We had an intermission and Judith said to me
Did you hear about our friend and it turns out 70 years old and he tried to stab himself to death?
He cut his and then I went to see him after you know at some point after that
He had he cut he went to the Rose Garden in Berkeley in front of the little gardener shed there
And he cut his left wrist. He cut his right wrist. He tried stabbing himself. He cut himself in seven places and
The gardener happened to come to work. You know 7 30 in the morning a couple minutes after and called the ambulance and he was
Saved and I went to see him the next day. I woke up, and I got oh my god
He's been depressed now for 10 years. I'll bet he started taking statin drugs at the age of 60
Sure enough I called up his wife. When did when did he start taking statin drugs?
And he's never been like that. He's a very positive person
Anyway
But that's a whole different thing, but there's all kinds of things that you can buy into
This is all you know getting away from Dogen, but sorry
Is it
Is it not causing suffering to try to
You know work against you know this stuff like
Like social justice is it causing suffering or not causing suffering
If you're doing work like stopping those companies, you know yeah
Stopping suffering well, this is
One of the things that Dogen is pointing out here is you know these things are always you know there's always like
Different ways to look and there's all these these different things are going on and whatever you do
You know you can't finally even if you successfully change something like that you can't exactly say I did that
You know we don't actually know it's like as I was saying before you know we think like I will practice Buddhism
I will do good, and then and then you're gonna stop at some point say
Have I have I been able to do this am I getting anywhere have I have I been doing good?
Have I not and then it's always going to be about the same
and
You can't say
You know none of us can say what I?
Which doesn't exist did and what I?
accomplished or didn't accomplish
It's all just it's all a fiction, and then we make up different versions of this fiction, and then we
Settle down we know what classic they would but it's but you know the perfection of wisdom is you know that we make up a
Story, and then we settle down we make up a story
And then we settle down in the story
And we forget that we just made it up and settle down in it and start to believe. It's true
And then why don't we make up another story well because the one we made up is true. It's real
So we so you you can you can do what you want because you're moved to do what you you know you choose to do
and then and then there's
People are still going to go on suffering you're going to go on suffering you'll have some you'll have
happen joys and sorrows and you know
Pain and pleasure and you know the you know life and birth and death
Delusion and so so you
It's like Dogen says now in the tenso kyokan. He says
So rather than trying to figure out like you know that sort of thing just make a sincere wholehearted effort
He doesn't say
You know accomplish or you know
Just make a sincere whole you know don't you don't you're not you're not going to be able to please everybody you won't make everybody
happy
You
Won't you know completely put an end to suffering
People will have various experiences, and you can't control the experiences. They're going to have
Offer you know make a sincere offering of of your life energy in the way you find to do that
and
If you if you start getting involved with you know I should be doing this because of what a really good person would be doing
Is this and you know I mean back when I was a student here there was and you know there's all these various things
I mean we know the world is coming to an end and what have you but in those days
It was like there was an article in Ramparts magazine or something. You know the oceans are will be dead in 15 years
well
It they might be close
but it's been about whatever 40 years and
So I thought well any right thinking you know
You know saying you know good person would be out saving the oceans
But you know I'm choosing to be here at Tassajara
So we we have different
you know gifts and different energies, and you know some of us are moved to do something like that and
To undertake whatever you know it is I happen to have my
So I just understand like and then Dogen says this you know your effort is
one person's effort is
you know identical with you know and
Practicing with all the buddhists and bodhisattvas and all the buddhists and bodhisattvas are practicing with you in your one little moment in your one
little dewdrop
In your one drop of water on the grass
And in what seems to you to be a small life, you know everything must be there
the buddhas and bodhisattvas must be there enlightenment and delusion is there and
and
You're living in the midst of not it not being able to
Exactly say which is which what's what and?
And still we we make our good-hearted effort, and you know
someplace
Some of us were coming in the other day. I mean
You know the ACLU
You give money to them, and then they just spend it all and sending you solicitations every other week sometimes three or four a week
So pretty soon you don't want to give them money because it just seems like they're using your money to cut down trees
You know so it's it's hard to know like are we doing any good are we not doing good
And yes some of these things you know, but you know we're all sort of like
Crazy
Cholesterol
Yeah
Yeah
It's not there's a system in place, but that's the way things are
But there's no system that somebody established or is doing even though it can seem that way
You know half the advertisements on television are telling you what to buy and the other half is telling you how to get over what you
bought
Buy these buy this pizza get this anti-acid
And
Then and then it's but it's not like somebody set that up
It's that you know people are responding to what's going on and it ends up looking like you know
If somebody had a mind to that would be pretty ingenious
All right, I want to come back a little bit to the ginger corn here excuse me
To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion that myriad things come forth and experience themselves as awakening
Those who have great realization of delusion are buddhas those who are greatly deluded about realization or sentient beings
So again, you know I'd like to just mention that you know one or two examples here I I've
You know for many years
studied very carefully
My breath and meditation some of you you know are studying this
And
You know is there an eye that is breathing?
Now I
Will follow my breath
But so and then I'm going to experience my breath being long and short and I'm going to find it this and that
And is there an eye that continues throughout of this and
And again as we were talking the other day if
You have an eye can it change or is it not changing and if it changes, how can it still be you?
How can something that is not you still be you?
Because you changed
So what would make it still you so this is a kind of loose
Dogen talks about down this in terms of firewood and ash
So
You can have this kind of idea about I will study my breath
I will see how this works and and then implicit in that we actually start to have you know like I
Will make it a certain way. I'm going forward. I'm going to have a calm breath and we start to like
Regulate our breath and sometimes it's so imperceptible
and
And then he says that married things come forth and experience themselves
Is there some way to really not be doing anything and letting your breath?
letting inhale arise and
Be just as long or deep as it seems to be
Expressing itself and can you and and then?
And
it
the breath comes
to some inhalation, and then there's an there seems to be a pause in the sensations and
And almost imperceptibly, you know and probably the exact moment imperceptibly
The breath is exhaling
and
It's somebody doing this
The more that somebody does this the more it's delusion the more somebody
Allows things to come forward then we call that awakening
and
This is also called you know practice is enlightenment enlightenment is practice
The realization to realize things is we're practicing to realize
We're not we don't need to effort. We don't need to make the breath happen. We don't need to make anything happen
We can we're allowing
And when the breath comes to the end of the exhalation
Suzuki Roshi says you can disappear into complete calmness and into stillness
Completely letting go this often can be a pause
And
You're not sure that there's going to be an inhalation
If you're thinking for a moment and then
There's an inhalation
And he as well other people said when you and again, you know, we use language variously
But when you take care of the exhalation
Then the inhalation takes care of itself
But
That you know, and then if you and we say we have the term follow your breath
But actually so what's intended by follow the breath
Because you can't have the breath go and then your awareness kind of tag along after it
So
The the
So somehow the awareness is going to be as much as possible exactly with the sensations of breathing and
you have to forget yourself and
Just you forget yourself you're exactly with the sensation of breathing and
Then it's only when you
Let go of something that you realize I was actually holding my breath in some way
Or you can or you can because you're of your conception and because you're going forward and you
think you have a body and then
You can have your back straight and you can have the breath just in the front of your body
Because
You believe that you have a body and that you are you've had the instruction to have your back straight
So the breath is just in the front, but why wouldn't your back be breathing?
So what do you perceive?
If you're carrying yourself forward
You perceive you have a limited perception and a limited way of experiencing things. Why wouldn't you experience your back?
Body breathing, why wouldn't you experience your pelvis breathing? Why wouldn't your legs be breathing everything your whole body can be breathing?
But our
Conceptual constructs get in the way and we limit our experience
and
also implicit in this and what
You know Dogen and Buddhism
You know if you people over and over again think emptiness
Means you get rid of
Your thinking you get rid of Dogen says your past thoughts are not a help
for realization
This doesn't mean your paths thoughts
Were were wrong and a word delusion and you needed to get rid of them past thoughts were in themselves realization
But because you were looking somewhere else
For something else you thought and you said past thoughts can't be realization this thinking can't be realization
But realization is big to experience something as you know so closely
Without you know being separate and there being an eye
So
The emptiness is implicit and reality is implicit in any moment
This is also in whether it's in Genjo Koen or Fukan Suzuki, I forget
Oh on this on the next page on 26 Dogen says here is the place
Here the way unfolds
The boundary of realization is not distinct
Realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of the Buddha Dharma
Mastery here is you know again a tentative translation
Because you could also just say with the practice of Buddha Dharma do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and
Is grasped by your consciousness?
In the I guess what I was thinking of is the
Oh
Up in the previous paragraph when you find your place where you are practice occurs
Actualizing the fundamental point when you find your place where you are
Practice occurs
You're getting real. Where are you?
You're not trying to get someplace else that doesn't have these problems
You're right with your experience
Sometimes that's what you're right with practice when you find your way at this moment practice occurs actualizing the fundamental point the place the way
Is neither large nor small neither yours nor others it has not carried over from the past and is not merely arising now
Accordingly in the practice enlightenment of Buddha way meeting with the Buddha Dharma
One thing
Meaning one thing one moment is mastering it doing one practice is practicing completely
And everything is you know in in this capacity we have to experience very deeply
And we find
You know pain
When you experience it closely you can't you know you have to experience it from a distance to call it pain
Otherwise at some point it's sensation
And it gives us information and we do something about it
Psychically as well. It's just sensation if you're a great psychic
What do you identify as great psychic pain if you're really right with it
Well my suggestion with that is breathe it into your heart, and that's the way to be right with it
because as long as you're at a
little little distance from it and
and
Then then you have great psychic pain when you agree, I will breathe this into my heart
Then something you know pretty dramatic can shift and you're right with it
And that right with it is what you know where we started that you know coming to rest with something
Is
You know like breathing it into your heart. That's one possibility
How to be exactly with it? Okay? It's 430 so if some of you need to
return to your activities, please and
I'm sure there's more chocolate, and you know a few of you might want to stay in
We'll continue for a little bit here
Thank you all for coming
Oh
Marta brought that yes
Yeah
You stop and
And you stop struggling
with your struggling and then like let's
Let's look at this sometimes you need help with that
Excuse me
I
Well as you know we we have a sequence of
You know there's five hindrances
desired or greed hate or anger and then sloth and torpor excitement worry and doubt and
Each of those has a metaphor in water
you know that desire is like there's bright colors swirling in the water, and then the
Anger is like it's a roiling and bubbling and then the sloth and torpor is it's all scuzzy and mossy and
The greed and excitement is like it's I mean the excitement and worry
Is like it's Ripley or something and then the doubt is like it's all muddy
and so how are you gonna get clear water and
Our tendency is I will clear the water by you know having a new hindrance
So
If you have desire well, let's get some anger and get rid of that
And if you have some anger then you can you know get depressed you know huh
Well, I'm trying to you know that
Anyway
So
You know that you can go from I don't know what to do, and I'm sad about this to
Feeling anger layering on top of that because of helplessness
The start of it see it's some sadness about being helpless, but then something else comes to it
If you're following your breath and meditation
Or you're endeavoring to follow your breath, and then you aren't
So that's a kind of your you have to understand that I'm getting distracted
One possibility at that point would be to say what is wrong with you
I told you to follow your breath now come back to your breath
So you have a kind of anger and then at some point you said this is this is
What's the use? What's the use no matter what I do it doesn't work so you can go you know
into doubt or sloth and torpor and you know
So but so the point in the point of you know one of the points of practice here
Is that well as soon as you notice this just stop?
You know and be where you are
The place the way you know when you find your way at this moment find your way at this moment
come back to finding your way at this moment rather than all the reactions to how you lost your way and
Then your reactions to your reactions
This is this so we're gonna stop as soon as we can and like okay. I lost my way
It's sort of like saying well just come back to your breath. You know start again at one. We used to count you know so
Doesn't matter how many times you lose your way start again
Anyway
I
Wanted to I was going to talk a little bit about the
You know one of the most famous
I mean, this is a very famous passage here to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion
that myriad things come forth and experience themselves as awakening and
One of the point you know that I I'm emphasizing these days is the more you give out directives
Do this don't do that move here go there sit like this
No, don't sit like that the more you give yourself directives the less you will be sensing and experiencing. What's actually going on
So this carrying yourself forward kind of goes along with giving out
Directives to yourself and others you need to this you should that
and
And when you go to sit dozen I've been trying to explain to people for years now when you sit down
Take a few moments to find your hips and then use your intelligence instead of just telling them sit up straight. Oh
Okay
That you could actually use your intelligence to find your hips and that means
Studying where your hips are
Forward to back and
Then side to side and you're using your intelligence instead of telling your hips where they
need to be and what they should be doing you could use your intelligence to actually find them and
Use your intelligence to help them find their ease and their stability
Rather than you tell them you see the the
Typical kind of so-called hierarchical or what some people call
Authoritarian mentality is I will tell you what to do, and I don't appreciate any feedback. Thank you and
We we start to we start out Buddhism with this kind of mentality. I
Will find out how to practice so I'm gonna sit and I don't want and I'm gonna park my body here
And I don't want to hear from you because I'm meditating
And
We have these kind of ideas and after a while, sir
maybe I could like actually feel start to feel and like what's happening and I could allow for how does I
Could use I could be using
intelligence to like study and
Then as you study this pretty soon you actually find you help your hips
Find their stability and where they're balanced they're stable and the more stable there are the more ease you have and
Then as you have ease and your hips are stable then naturally the energy
grows tall inside
This is all about you know sensing and using your intelligence to sense what's happening as opposed to giving out directives
This is a bit of an analogous to this
Carrying yourself forward
with your various directives and
Sensing what's happening and studying
Bringing some intelligence a kind of awakeness to what's going on
And then when your hips have something to say, you know you say oh
Are you too far forward? Are you too far back?
How where where would you be more comfortable here and you say this with you to your legs and you study this?
Rather than just what is wrong with you and just god you're hurting again Jesus wimp
There's that too, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah
a
Surfer becomes very sensitive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
Yeah
Moment by moment responsive, you know, yeah, very sweet. Yeah dancers
And
And that's what we love about sports sports too we see people forgetting themselves and manifesting in various ways
And
You know Michael Murphy, I think was Michael Murphy, you know the founder of Esalen
He was he's very interested in sports, you know
and at one point he
Got to spend a good deal of time with the 49ers and
He would tell they would tell him stories that they hadn't they would not tell anybody else because he just sounds too cuckoo
But you know in the midst of football games
Sometimes they would know
like whether it was Joe Montana or whoever it was they'd say
Well, I just threw the ball. I knew that it was the right place to throw it. I couldn't see the receiver
I just knew he was going to be there and it and you know, and they were they're doing things
That are like out of the body and you know, all kinds of extraordinary things
and
And so we we actually can see that the same way we do. It's like a surfer. It's pretty extraordinary
And we're not always able to do that though
sometimes we struggle and we see something and we go ahead and do it anyway, and it's intercepted and
we make bad decisions and then you know, okay, you made a bad decision and
Then some people are willing to go. Well, I I'm just going to do the best I can you know, and and
And then you can try to compensate for having made a bad decision by being hesitant to do something
And one of my friends used to say
You know, I said to him my wrists are very stiff. What do you suppose that's about?
And he said why don't you study a little bit and let me know and so I sat down I was meditating the next day
I couldn't feel my hands the sensation just came down to here
And so I told this person, you know
You know when I meditate it's like I don't even have hands and he said you old souls are all alike
And
It's you know, cuz you know, this is like
You know, California New Age voodoo, you know
Whatever stuff but anyway, you old souls are all alike. I said, what's that?
He said well, you know old souls. They've made already all these mistakes in other lifetimes
You've made all these mistakes, you know, you've done so many terrible things in this lifetime
You're not going to make those mistakes again, so just to be on the safe side don't have hands
So one of the mistakes that old souls make or people who meditate make is
In order not to make mistakes the mistake you make is to not make any mistakes
To not do anything
To not do anything because you might make a mistake
Yeah, it's a kind of passivity. Yeah, so that's one of the
One of the challenges or things to observe at some point
can I just go ahead and do something and it maybe it's a mistake, but I will go ahead and
Say what I want to say and I will go ahead and do what I you know
And maybe somebody will just you know will call me on it
Maybe they won't but I'm not going to just kind of try not to be seen and not to be heard and you know
Because it might be a mistake and I will keep to myself and I you know
So spiritual people have at times anyway that kind of issue
All right, so I want to go on here the
because this other paragraph is
again
You know probably in some sense the best known paragraph in all of Dogen to study the Buddha way is to study the self
To study the self is to forget the self to forget the self is to be actualized or realized by myriad things
When actualized by myriad things your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away
No trace of realization remains and this no trace continues endlessly
And again, you know
We're going to be doing you know
We're going to be doing each of these things we're not going to just all the time be be actualized by myriad things and
You know because it's just not the way our life works, you know
One of the things I've been very interested in this year is you know insight or intuition and
Actually, it was about a year ago. There was a fascinating article in the New Yorker magazine about insight and
And it mentioned this smokejumper in Montana
50 years ago now and he went in with a crew of 13 or 15 men and
They were across the canyon from the fire
They started going down
the direction of the wind changed and the fire was coming at them 300 yards a minute or something or 300 yards a second or
it was coming at them very fast and he told his crew to run and they they started trying to run up the hill and
There's apparently to this day
you know graves and crosses and stones or whatever and he in the midst of running had this
brainstorm or insight or flash and
knew something
And he got out his lighter and he hit the he lit the ground ahead of him up the hill
Fire started burning up the hill he went into the burned area
Got is a cloth wet it from his canteen got down as low as he could on the ground
And held the cloth over his face and the fire went over him because he was in a burned area
And he saved his life
The burned area
See he well he had in a sense. He was forward burn, but yeah, but he had he had burned the hillside
He was trying to go the fire was coming from behind him up the hillside
so he's going very fast up the hillside and he stopped and lit and
He'd never heard of this
it wasn't something never been taught and
Somehow it flashed. This is what to do and as soon as it flashed. He knew this is what to do
and
And then he went ahead and did it so we don't every moment have flashes, but sometimes when we're you know focused
You know and anyway there are times when things occur to us, and he knew when that occurred. This is it
This is right. I and he knew
And he did it and he acted on what he knew
and
You know so sometimes we have a realization or insight or intuition, and then there's also how do I act on that?
No, it's not it's yeah
It's a
No, no knowledge is what you have in this and what they've now
Decided you know saying from what science so to speak is knowledge is what's on the left side of your consciousness your left brain and
then from your left brain you try to figure out what to do and deduce what to do and figure it out and and
Then when your left brain, and this is you know sort of classics in do when your left brain
No longer can figure it out
And they actually have found that you then it also helps to relax
Interestingly enough
So you don't necessarily have the insight while you're sitting you know it can be while you're walking or while you're taking a bath and
Some people say maybe you need to take more baths
you know but you can only take so many baths or you have a nap and
You when and often insights come when you get a little bit relaxed or you're talking with a friend and
That's when something can flash when the you you're very focused and you have a problem or an issue
You're very focused. You can't figure it out
It's in the back of your head you're and at some point you relax
And then something flashes and the flash apparently starts in the frontal lobe, and then it just goes all through your right brain
You know instantaneously, and and you know something or so to speak know something or you you hear something and you
Something occurs to you
And Malcolm Gladwell writes about that among others yeah in blink he writes about that and
So anyway, it's it's all pretty fascinating. I love the part about how
You know it helps to relax, and it even said that the
Richard Feynman who was a noble noble physicist and figured out the cause of the
some shuttle thing disaster
There were the o-rings something or other and but anyway
They say that he used to relax by going to topless bars
And
Then if he had any insights of relaxing at the topless bar he'd write it on the cocktail napkins
and he'd drink seven up and
Kind of space out and see if something occurred to him
So this is
But so I thought I could say just a little bit about this to study the Buddha way is to study the self
first of all you know Dogen in
Gaku, Dojo Jinsu, which is guidelines for studying the way says
the first thing if you're going to study Buddhism is to trust in Buddhism and
He says to trust in Buddhism is to believe that your life is inherently within the way that you
Your life has always been in within the way
Which means that all the problems and the wrong thinking and the confusions and the upside-down and mistakes are all part of the path
And he says you know you should know this and trust this and believe this that you know you've never not been on the path
And
Then you can actually practice. You know being with all of this
And
And that's another way of the way. He says to study yourself and Suzuki Rishi
I remember him talking about this because
you know and that
People think you know Buddhism is something that exists outside of
you and
That if you could study Buddhism enough you would get to know Buddhism, and that would have a good effect on you
But actually Buddhism is a way to study you
Buddhism is a way to study
How you perceive things how you react to what you perceive what you feel what you think you know?
How how your life happens? How do you?
How do things work?
And it's not as though there's some Buddhism that you know and Suzuki Rishi at one point says you know this is not something
You're going to be able to just keep in the refrigerator and go and open the door and use it when you need it
Your life your life. There's there's not actually Buddhism apart from people's lives
And this is one of the big emphasis in
You know Soto Zen Richard Baker. You know bakerish used to say this too. There's no Buddhism
apart from you or me
you know there's just the Buddhism that each of us understands and practices and
You know Suzuki Rishi was saying that and then he would say you know you think I am the teacher and that you are the
Student I have things to tell you that you don't know that is wrong
That is wrong thinking that is a mistake
This is something you know that each of us is finding out for ourself knowing for ourself and
the way Dogen says this is
To study Buddha the Buddha way is to study the self
and
Suzuki Rishi at one point was giving a number of lectures about this and so I asked him and I said
Suzuki Rishi, you know I don't feel like
I'm I don't understand this you know I don't see where practicing Buddhism is studying myself, and he said just keep practicing
Because he also said you know if Buddhism if being here at Tassajara and practicing is not
Your if you're not learning about yourself go and do something where you can learn about yourself
But mostly you know of course we learn a lot about ourselves
You know we find out how we get tired and how we you know get angry and how we you know various things
We learn all kinds of stuff in the context of practice, and we somehow
Experience all of that more closely and carefully than when we're just out in our daily lives
No, we experience. Oh. Oh, you know what I'm just I have a lot of thinking going on
And of course we have the understanding that you've always had all that thinking going on
And it's just now that you're sitting you realize it
So we study ourselves. We're finding out who I am and again. This is like I was mentioning the other day
The Tibetan teachers you say you know you Americans want to get some place. Why don't you start where you are?
And then you'll have some better idea about you know the next step to take you know where you are
You can go in some direction or have some
sense
And again to study the self is to forget the self
So we may find out a number of things and we may believe these things we may believe I'm shy
We may believe I don't have any I don't have any I don't have any capacity for
speaking to the public you know I don't and
you know just speaking up or to expressing myself in meetings or
We can believe various things about ourselves and at some point we forget ourselves and go ahead
and
do things and
we forget that whatever it is we've found out we go ahead and and
see what's going on and we we sit and we breathe and we
we cook and we clean and we walk and bathe and
And and then we remember
What's happening with me? How am I doing?
there's certainly times when we forget ourselves and
You know and
Life is unfolding and when that when we've forgotten ourself and life is unfolding then all this we're getting all this information and again
It's more like sensing or receiving experience rather than giving out the directives about how it's going to be if I was in charge
and
No feedback, please
Ava were you
Yeah