In Sashin, in Sashin we do just one thing. We should try to do just one thing, just sit, just the Sashin. And at the same time many things come up by doing just one thing. So I would like to talk about just one thing and many things. I think when we practice tzazen, especially when we practice tzachin, it makes us reconsider everything, why we are doing it,

[01:02]

why we're sitting, what is this thing, what is Zen Center, what is society? I think this kind of question comes up, causing us to look at things in a fundamental or basic way. It seems we human beings need this kind of fallow time and space. Without it we don't function so well. Even if being at Tassajara and practicing Zen is just a chore for two or three years for you, it will still be, aside perhaps from your birth and upbringing, the most fundamental experience in your life.

[02:22]

Even if it's a chore, people will recognize you years from now by the way you walk. That you spent some years in some fallow kind of space. Nagasaki Sensei talked the last time about Pure Land Buddhism, and it seemed it got a little confused. And he felt he didn't express himself clearly. So we talked a while, and I said I would speak again about what he was talking about.

[03:48]

And it pertains to our practice. Instead of practicing or living by belief, living by doubt or practice as we do in Zen. Maybe Pure Land Buddhism is more universal religion, and Zen is maybe more essential religion. And as a universal religion, it's maybe more complicated. Maybe Zen is simpler. Anyway,

[05:00]

Some scholars say that Pure Land Buddhism is not Buddhism at all, but a religion of the same kind as Mohammedanism and Christianity and Judaism. And for many people, including many Jodo Shu priests, That is so, I think. And Nagasaki Sensei said, if you see Jodo Shu as static, a static idea of God, rather than, he said, dynamic, it's the same, exactly the same as Christianity. This is actually some slightly unrealistic criticism of Christianity, I think, because Christianity is not so static. But to discuss Pure Land from the point of view of Zen... Pure Land, if we translate it to our way of speaking, Pure Land means nirvana,

[06:30]

or enlightenment. And the Amida, let's say Pure Land means nirvana, okay? And Amida, as Shakyamuni means for us, means enlightenment. For Pure Land Buddhists, Amida means enlightenment. And the promise from Amida amitābha, from the promise is the same as we're already enlightened. We say, you are already enlightened. This is rather like a stone, you know, which has been sheared along one side by chance, or one side exposes its crystalline structure. and it's very shiny and reflects everything, and you can see its structure very clearly. But other side is, other sides may be quite rough, just a funny lump of earth.

[07:48]

Enlightenment, if I used stone as an example, would mean your shiny, crystalline nature is visible. For the stone, it doesn't make any difference. It's a lumpy, ordinary-looking size. If you cut it another way, you see its crystalline, shiny, reflecting surface. If the stone or you don't know you're already enlightened, then that's your first job. Second job may be manifesting this for others, but first job is recognizing it yourself. So the question is, in religion, is whether you recognize it by belief or by wisdom, by belief or by doubt and practice. It's some great truth that you can be saved by belief just as easily, or maybe more easily, as by practice.

[09:23]

So Amida Buddha's promise that you will reach the Pure Land if you just chant, just say Amida Buddha's name, is to say the same as you're already enlightened. And to say just an instant of chanting, just one wholehearted saying, sometimes they say you don't even have to say it wholeheartedly, just as a chore is okay. you are one with Amida Buddha. And Zen says the same thing. If you sit, zazen, just for one instant, for one instant you are a Buddha. So it's exactly the same. So mantra for Pure Land Buddhism is practiced, is zazen. It's maybe harder practice but easier as belief. So Pure Land Buddhism emphasizes for some people practice and for other people belief. And this is another complicated question.

[11:03]

Is it condescending to tell somebody, oh, just do zazen, that's all. Just chant Amida Buddha's name and you will be enlightened. You will reach the pure land. You don't have to practice. Just believe. Maybe if there isn't some competition for a person's belief, it's okay. So from our practice, do we tell someone, this is the way, or do we withhold something, you know? So they have to find out for themselves. Suzuki Roshi withheld things from me. I withhold things from you. Not as well as Suzuki Rinpoche. He wouldn't... He really made his students find out for themselves. Some explanation or suggestion is already wrong.

[12:34]

So is it condescending to withhold something from people, or condescending to offer some explanation that simplifies things? Do you offer people tranquilizer, or when they're dying, methadone, or LSD? When someone's suffering, do you say, oh, you should learn by the suffering, or do you relieve the suffering? Just believe in Amida Buddha. No, you have to find out by your suffering. Don't believe in anything. This is a very difficult question.

[13:49]

someone is suffering so much, they say, I'll just do anything to relieve my suffering. I don't care. Much of Pure Land Buddhism has shifted entirely toward belief and very few people refurbish or renew the practice by the belief by practice. Anyway, luckily, there are various schools of Buddhism.

[15:04]

So Buddhism can reach all kinds of people. In Zen, the feeling is more that finding out by yourself. You have the conviction, a conviction which is deeper than, firmer than belief and from which you can teach. from which you can demonstrate the Dharma by your wisdom. And as you know, we are not so strong. Anxiety seems to be the tolerance point or boiling point or cheering point, fault line in society and individuals. My experience with the Cushland Park thing was not that

[16:34]

people were dishonest, but that people were anxious. And actually, they become dishonest or deceive themselves or overlook things from anxiety, not being able to cope with difficulty or facing things. and how many people I see don't know how to die, can't even write a will or figure out what to do about their relationships and possessions. But if I asked each of you to write a will in the next week or two, I bet ninety percent of you couldn't do it. You'd put it off or something

[17:37]

It's rather scary to sit down. Well, after I'm gone, please, you get rather nervous and superstitious. You think, if I write this down, it may increase the likelihood that I'm ready. Maybe if I can write it, it means I'm ready to die, or I'm likely to die. So you stave it off, or put it off, or something. How much more so when you're sick or quite ill or old? You put it off even more so, even though it's common knowledge. It's in the Reader's Digest, Harper's, Saturday Evening Post, How to Die. There are many articles by psychologists and mystics about preparing yourself to die and by lawyers and economists. how to prepare your will, and yet most people don't do it very well. Even with many years of Buddhist experience, they don't do it very well. The job of society, I guess I would say, the main job of society is anxiety.

[19:07]

to make individuals strong enough to sustain anxiety and to reduce the situations which cause anxiety. Our society is doing neither. I mean, the most important two tools you can learn by this practice is how to cope with difficulty, with indifference. Favorable and unfavorable circumstances you find some level of indifference to.

[20:10]

the pain and suffering and restlessness and boredom of sasheen, you find some way to cope with it. The most important tools you can learn, I think, without them you can't see things. You will overlook difficulty. You will overlook suffering. you will not only deceive others but you will deceive yourself. Most of, many of our problems, social problems can be attributed to what people have to overlook what they can't bear to see, to know about. So you're involved in a great experiment to find out what you can bear and to find out what your own

[21:41]

Buddha nature, crystalline structure, realization is. And what society is too, for that's the meaning of sangha. Sangha is, you know, some attempt, we might say, of optimum community. There are many things we know about community and society.

[22:47]

some things which people are recently discussing, you know, I think, which make us look again at the sangha, I think we're going to find in the next few years a complete realignment of what liberal and conservative and welfare and capitalist and competition cooperative, what these things mean. We're going to find people who combine things which used to look like opposites in politics or social attitudes. Anxiety, you know, seems to increase with density. Not with crowding, but with density of population. And with loss of community. Honesty is

[24:36]

function of community. Honesty isn't just some abstract moral value, it's a function of community. And villagers, you know, small people from small towns tend to be less anxious and more honest, supposedly. I think so, and it seems to be that much observation corroborates this. and families tend to disappear after about four generations in urban areas all over the world, but last much longer in the countryside. European families always liked to live in the countryside until political centralization and transportation, etc., made it possible to, or they were commanded to in the early days, to live in central areas.

[25:51]

And strength, you know, individual strength, it looks like it's a function of family and several generations of family. Now, I mention these things only in passing, actually, because I think in Sashin we start thinking about such things. Why? What did my family do? Why am I living here in the West Coast or not in San Francisco? What kind of job should I have? What should I do from here? Sangha is an attempt to answer these questions. to supply some continuity. Sangha is one of the three treasures equal to Buddha and dharma. Sangha isn't just some medium, media for enlightenment, means of realization.

[27:29]

Just so someone asks the question, why is or did the Buddha form the sangha in his lifetime? Who created the sangha? This is some misunderstanding of sangha, this kind of question. Sangha is one of the three treasures. Just as you might say your molecules in a particular combination produce you, you in a particular combination produce sangha. And as the whole, we might say, the sum of all your molecules

[28:37]

in the particular combination of you is not an expected sum of its parts, or we might say is greater than its parts. Sangha is greater than its parts. Do you understand what I mean? The sum of us, the sum of a community in which there's honesty and communication and tolerance of anxiety? Is some unit different from just the sum of a number of people? What is that point? How many people? How few people? With such a lapse, lack of this tradition now, we unavoidably are asking ourselves, finding out by our practice,

[29:40]

What fills this gap? I told you the story about Lee Po Doshin, you know, practice good and avoid evil. Even a child knows that. And Doshin says even a man of 80 knows that. Can't do it. Or we've all heard from childhood, honesty is the best policy. But we can't do it. We've all heard, we'll hear throughout our lifetime, even in magazines, how to die. But we can't do it.

[30:55]

So practice, Buddhist practice, is for someone who decides to do it. Decides to find out how to be honest. And you will find out that if you're honest, it's something aggressive. for people, so you need some skillful, tolerant way. So the first step in practice is setting forth the mind, setting forth your decision to do it. These simple things we all know but which are so difficult to do, you set yourself to do it. And setting forth the mind means zazen. The setting forth is your body.

[32:29]

So, the first thing I'm emphasizing in this session is setting forth your mind... setting forth your mind and body as one. Finding out, in the face of anxiety and restlessness, confusion, pain, how to just sit. Not just some thinking, but setting forth the mind means body and mind one. Able to just do one thing for the next seven days. Coming to some agreement with yourself to just sit. By this you will get some participation in or control of your time and space. We find it okay that we can raise one finger or take it away, but if we talk about controlling our mind or body or time and space, we feel

[34:09]

something coercive, but to control your mind and body or participate in your time and space is no different from raising your finger. no different from sitting still for seven days. But you know it's rather difficult. Xu Yun, famous Zen master, was practicing with, I think, practicing with other monks, and at tea, someone poured hot tea all over his hand, and he dropped his cup

[36:09]

and he wrote a poem about it, or it caused him some deep experience. Cup falls from my hand. The sound clearly heard. Space shatters, space shatters. The mad mind comes to a stop. I've often used a cup as an example

[37:12]

of the difference between a space or body culture and a time or mind culture. As a simple example, you know, a time, mind culture identify as objects, and a cup breaking is a kind of loss. But in a body or space culture, which is more of what the Orient is, and American Indians, and Australian Aborigines, and Eskimos, it's just an opportunity for activity. A cup is something which someone made, or someone sweeps up when it's broken, or someone you drink out of. So when it breaks, it's a natural part of the activity. Now it's some opportunity to be swept up and someone else to make one. Feeling is very much like that, so their values are described differently. Their value would be whether you clean it up or not, not whether it's broken.

[38:28]

So shun, shuyun, takes it one more step. Space shatters. The mad mind comes to a stop. This asks you, what is time and space? What is the mad mind? What is this activity, time and space, which always produces information? How can space shatter? If you can find out how to sit like you can raise one finger, we will find out how space can shatter. how to be strong enough and tolerant enough for this practice.

[40:24]

I want you to understand this through and through, how you are one of the three treasures for yourself and for everyone. What?

[42:17]

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