I am the taste, the truth, the light, the darkness. the other day we were having, the practice leaders were having a discussion and the subject was, what exactly is the Berkeley Zendo?

[01:10]

What is the purpose and meaning of the Berkeley Zendo? And it's a good question, you know, it's good to bring this up once in a while to And one thing that I have always maintained was that Berkeley Zen Center is like a one-room schoolhouse. You have the first grade, second grade, third grade, twelfth grade, and so forth, except that we don't have grades. but we have, everyone has their own practice. We all share the same practice, but everyone has their own practice which comes from each person's intention. So we address and take care of each person's practice according to their intention and their sincerity and their desire to practice.

[02:19]

So in some sense, we can't compare one person's practice to another. But we have the full range of practices. If you practice in a monastery, say if you go to Tassajara, everyone practices the same practice. It's 14 miles to the nearest civilization. And you don't have the opportunity to do anything else but just turn the wheel of practice within the schedule. But in this kind of practice, where people live at home, mostly, and go to work, have a family, go to school, take care of whatever it is that we take care of. That kind of practice is not available to us. So we have to... There are advantages and disadvantages to both styles of practice.

[03:33]

In a monastic practice, the practice is limited to people to whom that kind of practice is available. The advantage of this practice is that anyone can walk in and begin to practice. And it's up to you how you do that. So this is the practice that has a wide field And yet, the discipline is available to anyone, and all you have to do is take it up. So, we have a beginner's practice, we have a lay practice, We have priest's practice, and we have disciples' practice, and all of those practices interplay and interact with each other in a harmonious way, which is quite unique and wonderful.

[04:55]

Mostly we have lay practice. Mostly we have lay practice, but we also have priest's practice. And when I first when I ordained someone for the first time as a priest, it caused a big stir, because I was the only priest for 20 years or so. And then we ordained someone, and because everyone else was a layperson, people wondered, well, do I have to be ordained too, or can I be, or why are we doing this? And it caused a big problem, but people got used to it. Mainly, one of the main reasons why it worked was because I said priests are the servants of the Sangha. They shouldn't be put up on a pedestal and worshipped. Often, you know, like in Theravada practice, the monks sit up on a high seat and the lay people sit on a low seat and the lay people serve the monks.

[06:12]

but that's because the monks are helpless. Truly, they are, because they're not allowed to help themselves to food. They starve to death if you didn't feed them. So, it's a different kind of relationship. But in our practice, as it has been introduced to us, lay people and priests practice together, same practice. And throughout the history of Buddhism, people who are ordained have been kind of favored in some way, taken care of and favored in some way. But in this practice where we all practice the same practice, laypeople and priests, my understanding or my way of thinking about it is that we don't exalt anybody.

[07:19]

Priests have a priest track, laypeople have a lay track, and they come together but there are also some difference. So, um, the priests take care of the practice for everybody. And, you know, priests, although there are many dedicated lay practitioners whose dedication is as strong as priests' dedication, priest dedication, when I ordain somebody, for the most part, not always, but mostly, it's because that person has left behind all other ambitions, and this is their only purpose in life, their main purpose in life, is the practice.

[08:33]

And all other considerations are secondary. So that puts the person into the priest's track. And so we all appreciate that. And if a priest is appreciated, it's because of their practice and their ability to give. and to support the practice and to teach and so forth. So that has to be earned and it comes about naturally. So this brings up two points that I want to talk about. The first one is that this afternoon at five o'clock, we are going to have a priest ordination. for Linda Galian. As most of you have been here for any length of time, remember Linda as being a resident.

[09:39]

She left two years ago to go to Tassajara. And she has, is a psychologist and has been practicing for some years. and decided that she really wanted to be ordained as a priest as her main practice in this life. And that became clear to me after she went to Tassajara two years ago. Her practice as priest clicked into place. So I agreed to ordain her. And so that's going to happen this afternoon at five o'clock, and all of the members are invited.

[10:42]

When we have an ordination, ordination is a major part of our practice, either lay ordination or priest ordination. And it's very wonderful when we come and support that event. So the second thing I want to talk about is the upcoming practice period. Every year we have a six-week practice period. And this practice period starts on May 8th with a one-day sitting to open the practice period. And every year, when we have practice period, we have shuso, or the head seat, or the first seat in the zendo, the person who is like the head monk for the practice period, one who sets an example and takes a lot of heat.

[11:49]

And this year it's going to be baika, I don't know if Bhaika's here or not. Oh yeah, he's way in the back. Good for you. Bhaika's going to be the head priest, the head monk for the practice period. And I'm looking forward to that. I think we're all looking forward to that. So I want to talk a little bit about practice period. Each one of us, because of the nature of our wide field of practice, has to decide what the nature of our participation is. Since we can't all practice equally in the same way, we have to make some judgment about how we participate. You know, often people say, well, I'm sitting as much Zazen as I can.

[12:57]

If that's your, if you're sitting as much Zazen as you can and you can't add to that, then your intention can be to simply hold fast to that. But then we have other events. they're out of their class, and the sashins, and so forth. So you have to design a schedule that conforms or balances with all the other activities of your life. And then it's important to bring the practice into your life. A practice period is kind of like spring cleaning, in one sense. It's like, cleaning up your life so that you can renew your practice. And in another sense, it's like rejuvenating your practice, remembering what practice is about.

[14:04]

Because during the year, you know, we tend to get pulled around by things. and sometimes our resolve flags. It's very difficult to maintain a continuous practice throughout a year. Not easy to do that, even though we may have resolve. There's so many things, you know, that start, that pull us around. And then we realized, gee, you know, I haven't been sitting zazen for the past month, you know, without realizing that that's so. So practice period helps us to get together our practice again and rejuvenate. our intentions and remind us and renew, you know. So spring is a good time to have practice period because it's a time of renewal. And I just want to go through a few points that I thought of.

[15:09]

One is when we, you know, There's so many things that we become interested in, and practice resolve requires a certain kind of limitation. We cannot do everything. There's so many things that we want to do, but we can't do everything. So in order to practice, we have to have some limitation on our life. So sometimes I say, if we want the most precious thing, we have to pay something for it, right? If you wanna do something thoroughly, you have to pay for it by putting in the effort to do it thoroughly. So, But it's very tricky because you can't just let go of all the things in your life and sit Zazen.

[16:18]

You have to take into consideration all of the other activities. So balancing all the activities of your life with Zazen is how you design your practice. But Zazen is not just one of the other things in your life. When we practice zazen and take it seriously, zazen is that which is the inner core of everything that you do. It's like the flame that, or the light that you carry around that's always there in all of your activity. It's not just another thing, another activity that you add on to your other activities. Even though there's Zazen of sitting, there's also the Zazen of walking, and the Zazen of eating, and the Zazen of working, the Zazen of relating. So limiting our activities so that we can actually do something well and thoroughly for a short period of time is important.

[17:32]

So practice period, six weeks. What can I do in six weeks that intensifies my practice? Also, all of us practicing together in that way supports the practice of each one of us. So another aspect is not to think of yourself as being in competition with other people. So Jack can sit every day, all the periods and do everything, and Mary can only sit two or three times a week. But Mary should not compare herself to Jack, because Jack's practice is Jack's practice. Mary's practice is Mary's practice. And one supports the other, but they don't compete with each other. So John sits in a full lotus, and Mary sits in a chair.

[18:35]

You can't compare those two. Mary's practice is Mary's practice, and John's practice is John's practice. We may encourage each other, but we don't compare our practice one to the other. So creating a reasonable schedule is most important. And when we can create a reasonable schedule in our life to encompass all of these activities, including zazen, then we learn how to do that and we learn how, because our life changes, we learn how to go along with the changes and review our practice continuously so that we don't get caught thinking we can do something and we don't do it and then we get disappointed. So then there's home practice and work practice and Zazen practice.

[19:37]

So, and it's called going back and forth. Suzuki Roshi called it going back and forth. You go to the zendo and you let go of everything. Then you go home and you take up everything. You go to work, you take up everything. Then you come back to the zendo and you let go of everything. So, The Zazen, the going back and forth, back and forth, continuously creates a harmonious way of life. Then there's the aspect of helping others. We think of our practice sometimes as my practice, then there's the Zendo, and then all those other people. And so they come to Zazen, and I do Zazen.

[20:42]

But actually, I do Zazen not just for myself. When I do Zazen, I do it for the sake of the practice, which helps, and encourages everyone else and also encourages myself. So when we have the attitude of practice for the sake of practice, we naturally are helping others. So during practice period, as well as during any other time, of course, we have the opportunity to pay attention to various things that come up, like paying attention to how greed, ill will, and delusion arise, as well as how loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity arise.

[22:03]

to always be aware of these aspects. And then we hopefully take the time to study. We do have a class, and sometimes people don't have the time to study, but if you do, that gives you an opportunity to fulfill that side of the practice. You know, only to practice and never to study is too lopsided. The thing about study is that it helps us to focus our mind on practice. You know, we say that practice is living by vow rather than just being pulled around by karma. So in our life, we get pulled around by karma quite a bit. And if you think about what's the difference between ordinary life and practice, practice is the practice of living by intention.

[23:09]

Vow is a little strong. Intention is a good enough word. Intentional living. Following the precepts. Following the letting go of greed, ill will, and delusion. paying attention to that, that's living by intention or vow, rather than simply living by being pulled around by our desires, which is called karma. So we always have this kind of ambivalence or tension in our life, the tension in our life, you know, the Buddha within us wants to practice by intention or vow. And the ordinary person within us wants to be pulled around by karma or desire. So we have this tension always. But it's not, we have to handle this very carefully.

[24:12]

Because otherwise, you know, we can get into a fundamentalist kind of attitude. that we're bad and that we should punish ourselves and so forth because of this human element. But we have to realize that we're half good and half bad, and that's the way life is. And we're always making this effort to practice out of intention. So we don't do a lot of criticism But mostly we help each other and support each other, realizing that it's not that you're bad, it's that we're all bad. And being bad is okay. Being bad is not so bad. So many of the conflagrations of the world are based on good and bad.

[25:22]

right and wrong. People are getting very uptight. So, we make an effort to go in this direction of practicing with intention. And so, every once in a while, we make this big effort called practice period make it work, but we know that this tension is always there. And it's there because it's supposed to be there. If it wasn't supposed to be there, it wouldn't be there. If we weren't supposed to be bad, we wouldn't be bad. If we weren't supposed to die, we wouldn't die. Anyway, so practice period brings out mindfulness.

[26:35]

Helps us to be mindful and mindful of being aware of self-centeredness and ego when it comes up. So, You know, finding a rhythm for practice is the only way we can really sustain a practice. You know, in our life, we have various rhythms, and the rhythms are what keep our life sustained. So in the monastic practice, the whole thing is based on a certain set rhythm, and you just join that rhythm, and you turn that wheel. In lay practice, we have to design our rhythm, but we have to establish the rhythm, and the rhythm helps us to do whatever it is we have to do and keeps things moving well and easily.

[27:38]

During practice period, I always, we always like to take on some personal practice. I don't like to call it secret, but, you know, it's something that you do that you don't necessarily discuss, you know, like, oh, I'm doing this, you know. It's something that you kind of keep to yourself and see if you can do it. So one, there's a list of things. One is opinionatedness. you know, when you find opinionatedness coming up, I don't know if that's the right, that's a legitimate word, but you notice that, you say, uh-oh, this is just, here I am expressing my opinion again, which is just my opinion, without realizing it's just my opinion. Suzuki Roshi used to talk about opinions, say, my teacher used to say, This is my opinion, but he would express his opinion, but he would say, this is just my opinion.

[28:56]

He didn't say, this is the truth. He would simply say, this is just simply my opinion. So you have to know the difference between the truth and your opinion. And then there's watching yourself that sometimes aggressive people tend to take over. So you should watch yourself to see if, am I taking over? Am I taking over a conversation? Am I taking over someone else's territory? If you have that tendency, you should notice when that comes up. And then there's the person who's always retreating, never taking on things. And so if that's your propensity, am I retreating again? Maybe I should come forth a little bit. And then there's a critical mind. Someone's always criticizing, always finding fault somewhere.

[30:01]

So if that's your thing, you can take that on as a practice to see, well, when critical mind comes up, you notice that. And then there's the mind of value judgments, making value judgments all the time. This is good, that's bad. I like this, I don't like that, blah, blah, blah. And then there's the gossip. Oh, did you hear this, did you hear that? And then there's the person with the inability to say yes, can never consent to anything. And then there's a person who can never say no to anything. And then there's awareness of habitual problematic behavior. You know, I'm always doing this, I'm always doing that. So you take these things on. Take one thing, maybe.

[31:04]

Or maybe you have these all. The thing about, you know, there are 48 meditation practices in Buddhism. And when you read them, you think, oh, God, I have to do all these meditation practices. But that's not it. You take one of the meditation practices, and you take that on. And then you take another one later. You know, so you're really, one practice includes all the practices, actually. You know, if you study a precept, one precept includes all the other precepts. We say there are 10 prohibitory precepts, but there's 10 times 10. So, one practice includes all practices. So, And so then there's the practice of forgiveness. You can take up the practice of forgiveness.

[32:07]

When some, you know, for a person who is always being criticized or feels that people are down on them or something like that, whenever you feel something like that from someone, you always say thank you instead of getting angry. It's a practice of gratitude because when something comes your way that you don't like, it could be good medicine because good medicine tastes terrible. Nowadays it doesn't, but. When I was a kid, it was milk and magnesia. It was like, oh, or cod liver oil, you know. But there's the old saying that good medicine tastes lousy.

[33:12]

So when we hear stuff from people over and over again, we know there's some reason for it, you know? So if you say thank you, you open yourself up, you include the other person, and you let go of your anger. You substitute your gratitude for anger. You turn anger into gratitude. That's not easy, but it's possible. That's really good practice. And then there's the practice of repentance, which means that you're, letting go, actually, of hanging on to stuff that's eating away at you. We allow stuff to eat away at us, and then we find, eventually, a big hole that got eaten away, and we die.

[34:16]

the more we can let go of stuff that's eating at us, the healthier we are, both physically and mentally, emotionally. And the practice actually is constantly letting go. So to acknowledge our shortcomings and our faults and our karma and so forth, continuously, and When we do that, we can let go of things and feel renewed all the time. So continuous practice is the practice of continuously letting go and continuously being renewed. It's really the purpose of practice. That's called emptiness. Continually emptying out and being renewed. So there's nothing to hang on to, nothing that's holding you back, nothing that's eating at you and so forth. Not easy, but that's living by intention.

[35:27]

Living by karma is hang on to anger, hang on to ill will, hang on to greed, hang on to delusions. So constantly emptying out. When you see someone who is a mature person, that person seems light and buoyant. So there's also the practice of doing one thing at a time. We never do one thing at a time, because whatever we do is a combination of acts. But there's one focus, and all of the small acts go into doing that one focus.

[36:34]

So when we open the door, there are a lot of small acts involved in opening the door. Your whole body is involved in opening the door. But often we're opening the door and out the door and closing it behind us and not paying any attention because we're focused on moving. But at the same time that we're moving, we're also right here, right where we are. And we lose the sense of being right where we are by letting the movement to go forward take over. So doing one thing at a time means to be in the place where you are with what you're doing. And that's the essence of practice. And then there's the practice of patience, which is simply to be exactly where you are.

[37:40]

not anticipating the next thing, but when the next thing, when the next moment arrives, to be there totally and completely. And which is being, also called being centered and engaging thoroughly and wholeheartedly with this activity on this moment. And that's setting an example for practice. You don't have to teach anything. If you do those things, that's body-mind teaching, which is unintentional. And it influences everyone else and stabilizes the situation. That's called maintaining practice for yourself and others. And it's called shikantaza.

[38:49]

So practice period is like a tune-up. You drive in your body, auto body and mind and tune it up, you know, over this six week period. And there's an old saying from the Hokyo Zamai, work secretly like a fool or an idiot. To do this continuously is called the host within the host, or mature practice. The host within the host. We say host and guest. Host is like big mind or Buddha nature, and guest is like you. So when there's this practice done in this way, host and guest are not different.

[40:00]

There's no gap between host and guest. Do you have any question? Ross? and yet they both support each other. I could imagine how Mary would feel supported having that constant presence of Jack sitting there. That's because Jack, although Jack is encouraged by Mary, Jack is not dependent on Mary.

[41:09]

So when Mary shows up, Jack feels encouraged, but he's not dependent on Mary. Then he's lost his practice. Wait a minute. No. He can think, where is Mary? Out of concern for Mary. That's good. But if he thinks, how come Mary isn't here? Then that's just being self-centered. When I started to do this practice here, I said, I'm just going to sit. And if somebody comes, that's fine. If nobody comes, that's OK, too. So that's the attitude we have to have. It's great to have a lot of people. Sometimes in the afternoon, I think, gee, how come there aren't so many people?

[42:13]

But that's just my comparative mind. Next day, there's a lot of people. But, you know, that's just my... I also have comparative mind as well as uncomparative mind. But I don't get turned around by it. I'll post it. It's not so long. Opinionatedness, taking over, retreating, critical mind, value judgments, gossip, inability to say yes, inability to say no, awareness of habitual problematic behaviors, forgiveness and repentance.

[43:24]

Did I hear you say we're supposed to be bad? Yeah. It's something you've never understood. I don't think I'm supposed to be bad. What is that? Are you bad? What is that? Are you bad? What? Is that contained in your statement, that I'm bad? You're supposed to be bad. You know, if you take everything literally, you will never understand Zen. That's very true. You have to read, you know, I say between the lines. Suzuki Roshi used to say, you have to read the other side of the page. Well, that's a good point.

[44:46]

You're not trying to gain anything, you're simply trying to resume your original mind. It's not gaining something, it's simply letting go of hindrances, because all of these problematic things are hindrances to clarity. There's nothing you can gain. As a matter of fact, it's letting go. Yeah. from some defilement. That's a kind of sophisticated... Well, it's a mistake of attitude.

[45:50]

Yeah, it's a mistake of attitude. That's right. It's a mistake of attitude. It's like thinking that losing is gaining. Yeah, you start to think that losing is gaining. Yeah, but that's okay. You can think of losing as gaining. It's okay. But you're only gaining yourself. You're not adding something onto yourself, that's gaining. Adding something on, you can't add something on, you stick something onto yourself, good, you know, it falls off. Yeah, Nancy. I've always thought of emptiness, I've had problems with that word, I try to be positive about it and think of it as a great, comfortable, cushy place. The way you described it is very helpful.

[46:52]

Emptiness is a verb, in a way. Not a thing. It's not a thing. I was with that for a while, and I began to lose my thread on it. And then I was thinking, It's all a verb. Everything is a verb. Everything is a verb. Life is a verb. Thank you. There are 20 or 21 definitions of emptiness in Buddhism, which I'll talk about sometime. I can't remember them all, you know, I have to get the list. There's a list. Can I ask another one? Yeah. Can you shed light on why we are afraid to be just right where we are?

[47:57]

Well, because it's a good question. Why can't we just be where we are? Because we're always thinking about the next thing. And so what is it that thinks about the next thing? What is it that motivates us to think about the next thing instead of just being where we are? Often I'm not thinking even about the next thing. I may be thinking about something in the past or I may just be having a completely... Well, that's the next thing. The next thing is shutting down. Yeah. What did you say again? About... You said, who is thinking about the next thing? You know, this is the thing about Zazen, is we can, we have the opportunity to just be here, to just be present.

[48:59]

And yet we're still thinking about the next thing, you know. But every once in a while we come to just being here. And then we feel, you know, pretty good. when it's just this. But, you know, life is a verb. It keeps moving even though we're sitting still. So, sitting still within movement and moving within stillness, you know, both things are always present. it just keeps filling your mind, and I think we have to simplify our lives, you know. It's just, it's very difficult. I mean, people are filling their minds more, and the whole thing in life is to empty your mind.

[50:01]

So how do you deal with that? I mean, is it important to use the internet? Is it important to use the internet? Just don't be caught by anything. Just don't be caught by anything. When you said that about people being half bad and half good, it flashed me back 20 years ago to when my son told me that. He said, I think God is half bad and half good. And all of a sudden, was back here thinking about something else, and I just went into a whole fantasy. And meanwhile, you're talking, it's going on, and I'm missing what you're saying. And I'm thinking, oh, let's go back to what he's saying, because I'm missing it, and I'm realizing speech is like that. It just keeps going on, and you really have to keep staying with it. You have to keep staying with it, yeah.

[51:03]

And it's so easy, because everything that happens relates to something that already happened or you're thinking might happen. Right, so you have to keep continuously coming back. That's what we do in Zazen. Continuously, you know, drifting off, coming back, pulling back. That's what Zazen is. And that's the same thing, it extends to our daily life. So Zazen is the great teacher. Pat? What's that again? A value to the practice of fantasy itself. Yeah, the practice of fantasy itself. If you know, this is fantasy. Yeah, get creative with it. Yeah. But we don't have to work at fantasy. Yes. I'm a recent union steward at work, and that's a hard thing to be when you're trying to practice Buddhism.

[52:21]

To do what at work? Union steward. A steward? Yes, because although there is a bodhisattva element to trying to help the group of workers you're trying to help, there's such inherent conflict. Well, where do conflicts come from and how do you defuse them? That's a great practice. And knowing when to come forward and when to step back, knowing when to receive and when to give, and allowing you know, a situation to become harmonious. How do you allow a situation that has a lot of tensions and so forth to become harmonious? That's, you know, practice. I think you have to look at each situation on its own merits, but if you think about, you know, what is my place in this?

[53:24]

Where do I take my place and where does everybody else take their place in this situation? And who's being dominant and who's being retreated? And all those characteristics that I mentioned are there, right? And how do you get everybody to find their place in the circle, so to speak, without dominating and seeing everybody else's point of view? So those are some of the things that you have to work with and not get upset. Not allow yourself to get upset. And this is one of the most difficult things. You know, you get anxious and things are not going the way you want them to and so you start getting angry and upset. But to remain calm and keep letting go of that so that you're the one stable element in this rocking boat Thank you.

[54:27]

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