Morning. Morning. Thank you, Larry. I thought that was enough. Well, good morning everyone, and especially to people who are here for the first time. When I think about when I first came to practice, I had no idea what I was getting involved in.

[01:03]

And so I just wanted to meditate. And as Laurie said, if you stick around long enough, you wind up doing a lot of different things and learning a lot about yourself and other people. This world that we live in is called the Saha world. And the Saha world is a Buddha's world. It's a world of endurance and the world of suffering. And I want to dedicate the talk today to my friend Lou back in New York, whose intention is to make this Saha world a haha world. So happy April Fools to everyone. And you too, Lou. A little louder?

[02:03]

Okay. Yeah, it's on. I like to hang out in cafes, and so in working on my notes for the talk today, I was at a cafe in San Francisco, and from time to time I would look up for my notes and look around and listen in on conversations. Some of the funniest things are said by other people, just listen in. So, the theme of suffering in the Saha world, there was a group of people talking and one of them said, I got to go to Home Depot and get a toilet seat with wires, which has electricity, because it's so cold up in my place in Tahoe. And it was told in a sort of matter-of-fact tone and someone wanting some comfort in their second or third or fourth home that they have up in Tahoe.

[03:09]

But it just struck me as no matter how comfortable we get and no matter how much we have, we always want a little bit more. Today, I would like to talk about the very first precept in our practice, We typically think of that first precept as not killing or do not kill or do not take life. And that's the first of the 10 grave or preparatory precepts. But the first precept that we actually practice is from the pure precept triad, which is ceasing from evil. The second and third of that triad are do all that is good. And in the Mahayana tradition, save all beings. the original formation of these precepts in the old school of Theravada practice was cease from evil, do all good and purify the mind.

[04:11]

So the practice was focused more on purification practices and a self-focus, self-awareness practice. And while that's an important thing to do, and that's what we do in our practice, we have to get off the cushion. We have to do something. We have to say something. And in doing so, we encounter the many beings, whether they're animate or inanimate. So the Mahayana tradition spun that last precept into saving the many beings. So what in fact is ceasing from evil? Well, one way to look at that is doing things that are good. Everything has an opposite. Another way of looking at it is evil as things that are morally wrong.

[05:14]

I don't want to do that. Things that are reprehensible. We can look at the 10 grave precepts, and if we follow them as best we can, then we're ceasing from evil, we're ceasing from breaking these precepts. Generally speaking, in Buddhism, if we're ceasing from evil, what are we doing? What in fact is evil? Well, the bottom line in evil is suffering. And what is suffering is when we separate ourselves from people and things. It goes against the teaching of that we're all interrelated. So if we make the effort to stay connected to people and things, we in fact are ceasing from evil. If you think about it like in a car, in a manual stick shift, that if you pop it in neutral, you're not going anywhere, but the motor is still running.

[06:27]

And then you either go into forward or you go into reverse. And these are directions that we make a conscious decision to do, or we're conditioned to go one way or another. But we always have to return to neutral before going into the next, next gear, so to speak. and we're constantly breaking the precepts. So how can we practice when we're constantly breaking the precepts? How can we be good Zen students or good Buddhists, so-called good Buddhists? Well, fundamentally, if we can find the ground, establish a ground of neutrality, that neutral gear, then we are ceasing from evil. Technically speaking, the only place that we do not create karma is when we're sitting zazen, in the purest sense of the word.

[07:36]

But when we get off the cushion, we start creating karma. We start thinking, we start creating karma. However, if we continue to come back to practice, and establish that ground of neutrality, then my experience has been, and I think yours has been too, that in the next moment we come from a more wholesome place. And it's not necessarily wholesome in the sense of, oh goody, this is good, I'm feeling wholesome. But it's more wholesome like this Enso or circle here, which is a circle of inclusion, including everything. So even though we sit zazen, we sit with all of our karma, all of the things that have come to influence us into who we are, all the confluences of streams coming together and flowing in this river called Ross, or called Agnes, or called Tamar.

[08:43]

And then when we go out, this stream starts breaking up. And we start seeing all the little permutations of that stream. There's a famous story of Suzuki Roshi being at Yosemite and watching the waterfall and seeing all the droplets of water that compose the one waterfall sort of splitting up and anthropomorphizing them as thinking they're separate from the one body of water. And we continue to do that. I continue to do that. And it doesn't matter whether we go into the realm of self-loathing or self-aggrandizement. Either of those extremes, we're still separating ourselves from who we are and who we are with other people and other things. A while ago I spoke about the Five Ranks, which is a teaching tool that Dozan Ryokai created back in the 9th century in China.

[10:22]

Basically, he talks about when we come to practice, we have a lot of stuff. We have a lot of so-called evil, a lot of karma that we may or may not be aware of that we're working on. And then we get a glimpse of enlightenment. We get a glimpse of waking up and seeing that there's actually something beyond this evil stuff that we call Ross and the conditioning that's called Ross. And then we focus really intently on getting rid of all that, well, one, cultivating more of that good Ross, that sort of enlightenment stuff, and minimizing getting rid of the so-called bad Ross and all the karma that's caused me suffering for my 50 years now. Then there's a place right in the middle of the five ranks, the third rank, which is, I think, if one were to choose, I would choose that to be one of my favorite places to be.

[11:25]

It's not the so-called ultimate or not even penultimate since there's two more to go, so to speak, in this non-stage practice. But in the third rank, the way it's depicted is there's a circle of light, and there's a spot of dark in the middle. And the dark is the so-called taints of our being, and the circle of light is the enlightenment of our being. And what we get to do is, and be, is sit there and feel, see, and experience this little bit of delusion, this little bit of taint or karma that is keeping us from fully actualizing ourselves. So we sit with this mudra, this round thumb tip slightly touching, and we're holding this taint, so to speak, right here in our breathing center, our ahara. So as we sit zazen, they're back upright, we maintain the forms of our practice, and with as much compassion for ourselves and other beings as we can, we hold all that.

[12:36]

and as we continue to practice the configurations of this light and dark imagery shifts and we actually see our being as nothing other than this so-called evil and nothing other than this so-called good and we just are practicing and we're just being because we can't get rid of our conditioning we can only be awake to that and I think everybody here knows that I had a fantasy, though, when I started to practice that I could get rid of all that. But I don't have that fantasy anymore. I realized that I am who I am. But there's a different way that I practice now with my taints and hindrances. You may wonder. Well, if we acknowledge all of our sides completely, then we're accountable to all of those sides.

[13:53]

If we hide some of our sides, which we tend to do, I tend to do, then we can come forward in a way which is not really completely revealing. And some other people may pick up on that. Animals surely pick up on that. They're notorious for picking up. When people are kind of holding back, they're scared. So if we really take this practice on, we become incredibly accountable. Now, there's nobody keeping a score sheet and checking to see if people are catching on with the various taints that are being revealed. But you know yourself whether you're being honest. And you can feel that. A while ago, I greeted someone.

[15:21]

I said, hello, how are you doing? And they laughed and they said, I'm fine. I'm always fine. You always ask me that question. And even if I'm not fine, I'm fine. I said, okay. And that was an honest expression from that person. But the way it felt to me was, I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to engage you. I don't want to meet with you. Why are you asking me how I'm doing? And that hurt. I didn't lose any sleep over it, but it hurt. I work retail, and one of the parts of my job is greeting people. In fact, it's a formal thing in our little handbook about greeting people.

[16:24]

So I say, you know, hello, how are you doing, and what would you like, and that sort of thing. And sometimes I'm surprised they actually ask me how I'm doing. But before I can say how I'm doing, they're already giving me their order for whatever it is that they want. But in a lower tone that's not trying to confront them, I tell them how I'm doing. And then they realize that they're accountable when they ask a question, that they might, in fact, get a response. But, you know, in our society, people, hey, how are you doing? It doesn't really have the meaning as it once did, I think. So part of my practice is really having meaning in my words and saying what's on my mind and listening as best I can when someone has something to say to me. So yesterday, a customer said, hey, how you doing?

[17:37]

And I did my thing as they were like speaking over me about their latte or whatever that they wanted. And then they realized what was going on, that they were actually kind of talking over me. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. But in the context of preparing for my talk today, I was thinking about Well, where is this neutrality? How can I establish a ground of neutrality and really meet people and be open to whatever they have to say or do or feel, express, what have you? And what can I do to help another person do that also? Because while this practice is for ourself, it's for other people. It really is for other people. Because if we see that and we experience it as for other people, we receive the benefits from that.

[18:42]

And they receive the benefits from our efforts. I started this talk by talking about evil and the source of evil is separation. When you say, hello, how are you doing? And you really connect with people, you get out of self-centeredness. You get out of from this selfishness and you connect with others. And as you're talking with people, you get to experience where they're coming from. And if there, in fact, is a fairly equal dialogue between two people, or if the person is just going on and on about themselves, or if you're going on and on about yourself, we're in forward or reverse or just grinding the gears not knowing where in the hell we are. So while fundamentally everything is okay as it is and I'm fine even if I'm not fine, in any given moment we might not be so okay and in any given moment we might be really great.

[19:56]

And I, for one, am encouraged for myself and for other people to kind of hear about that and sharing that. And I don't travel so much, but I have a desire to travel to other places. And I was thinking about different, I don't speak any other languages really, but I do know how to say hello in a few languages. And I was thinking, well, how, how did I learn that? You know, people say, Hey, Well, that's kind of interesting. I do have a little repertoire of languages that I could, and actually I could travel very far just knowing those few words.

[21:02]

And those words are connecting words. They're words to connect with other people and other beings. And even if one doesn't know how to say, hello, how are you doing, or in a language of a people that you're visiting, there's a way in which we can comport our bodies and minds to actually hold that connection and really be with them. And that is so far away from evil. It's a really sweet spot to be. So we have this horizontal and vertical. We have the horizontal of sitting the legs out and establishing a ground of sameness. And then we get off the cushion and we establish a ground of verticalness and a world of differentiation. But in any given moment within this vertical upright being that we have, we also have a horizontal to stay grounded at and to establish this

[22:13]

place of neutrality. So even within difficulty and so-called evil, we can actually taste the ground of so-called good and non-differentiation. And it's actually in our bodies. this Buddha body that we carry around, or that carries us around. My friend Lou is looking at the world of emotion and examining it very closely and seeing where emotion arises in the body and the constrictors that form and the easefulness that forms as a result of what is arising in his world.

[23:18]

And I've been thinking myself about my world of emotion and emotionality. And when I get into an argument with someone or difference of opinion, however you want to say it, and where it registers in my body, and sometimes it feels like a visceral thing, just kind of an ache and an aversion. And sometimes it feels like a heady thing of kind of a way of trying to spar with someone and trying to get the upper hand, so to speak. that I am in And some of my, there are a few experiences I'm thinking of now, some that are very positive, so-called positive and very affirming and encouraging, and some that were really not so much, that were actually very confrontational and very hard and challenging.

[24:38]

But in both cases, there was a registering in my body of stillness and calmness. And in both cases, it felt very affirming to actually have sat enough presumably sad enough to have some framework and some foundation to deal with these challenges that were coming my way or these affirmations that were coming my way. And in both cases, it didn't really matter what the result was of the interaction that I had with these people or things. But it was just, it was a place of stillness. And we all have that.

[25:41]

And we all get a taste of that. And sometimes we have the opportunity to share that with others. Either formally, like in a venue like this, But you can feel it when you're around people. A connection and a harmony between people. One of my co-workers was going through a very difficult time. Typically between customers, we would share a little bit, but not very much.

[26:46]

It was kind of truncated because customers always come first, right? To me, it felt like she was in a really bad way. So I said, well, if you'd like to talk about this issue outside of work, I'd be happy to chat with you about it. So she said, yeah, that would be good. So we arranged to meet, and we hung out for a couple hours. And she told me what was going on with her. And I did the best I could to try not to fix anything. And just to hear her story and her suffering, which was pretty bad in the realm of things, small potatoes, but for her, it was really pretty bad. And she didn't really know what to do. She was, she was being tortured up here, you know, in her mind, she was being tortured. So I affirmed her feelings.

[27:49]

And I said, it's not just about you. It's about you and this person that you're having this difficulty with. And when it's been going good with this person, it's you and this person. And when it's been going bad with this person, it's you and this person. But she was feeling very alienated, very separate and taking on an inordinate amount of, um, So after we ended our meeting, she smiled and hugged me and said, thank you very much for helping me find my mind or to get my mind back. And I smiled and said, you're welcome. And I immediately, I didn't say this to her, she's not a practitioner, but there's a famous story in our lineage where Bodhidharma was approached by his student who said, you know, my mind is not at ease.

[29:04]

I'm having, you know, evil thoughts and feeling uncomfortable and things are just really off and please, please help me. And the student's name is Daiso Eka. So Bodhidharma says, Eka, bring me forth your mind and I will calm it. So Eka ponders the question and tries to find his mind and he says, Bodhidharma, I cannot find my mind. And Bodhidharma says, there, your mind has been calmed. So to come full circle, it's all mind. It's all mind, and it's all mind.

[30:09]

That's all I have to say for the formal part of today's talk. I was asked to give a plug for Sasheen, which is happening next week. And I want to be honest with you. I'm not a big Sasheen person. I'm not a good salesman. I don't work on commission. But I do have to say, that when I came to practice, I enjoyed sitting zazen, but what really sold me on practice was that first sashin I did back in February of 84. I think for all of us, when we start practicing, we have this thing called zen or meditation that we do, and it makes us feel good. It might make us not feel so good or we might stop for a while. There's all sorts of reasons why we come to practice, but it's held out as a little thing that we have as part of us, as part of me.

[31:36]

And we come to Zazen on a given morning or afternoon. We do retreats once in a while. We do all sorts of things in our life. But one thing I have to say about doing Sashin is that it's no longer a thing when you're doing a Sashin. And this is coming from someone who's not a... I'm not trying to sell you on Sashins now. But what does happen is that It's not just when you want to go at 540 on an afternoon or a morning and sit for 40 minutes and smell the incense and do some bows and hear this Japanese chanting and see your friends. You get to sit. You get to eat. You get to rest. You get to hear a talk. You get to work. You get to walk around.

[32:42]

You get to sit somewhere. You get to think about all sorts of things. You get to think about nothing at all. And what happens is that in the context of Sashin, the atmosphere of Sashin, you're doing Zazen throughout it. And it becomes a peace. It becomes your whole life. From when you wake up to when you retire in the evening. So we have a way of eating called orioke where the bowls are all set up in a nice prescribed manner that's very Japanese. And we eat quietly and mindfully. And without a doubt, the food is fantastic. It's what sold me on sitting. It really did. And the food is very simple, but there's a quality in the room and there's a quality in which the cook prepares the food and it's presented and you're eating that certainly equals anything that anybody's ever eaten at any fancy restaurant in San Francisco or anywhere else in the world, in my not so humble opinion.

[33:56]

Because what happened to me was I had never really seen food in front of me in such a beautiful way before. And then picking it up and eating it without the distractions of all the things that we have typically when we eat a meal. This is really eating. There's a term in our practice called Shikantaza, which literally means just sitting. And the sitting part is obvious, but the shikkan is not so obvious because we're always doing something else other than sitting or eating or walking. But to really be just eating, just talking, just loving, it's the best. There's limited seating for the sashimi. So some of you may want to practice bodhisattva practice and let others sit and take the few seats that we have here and not sit this machine.

[35:06]

But there'll be others and they might forego their seat and give you a seat next time. So think about it. There's a sign up on the bulletin board and We have a wonderful day today, and I hope that it continues for the not-so-distant future for all of us. And even if the stormy clouds configure again, that we remember that what's coming down from the sky is just water. And they were like 90-some percent water, and it's really nothing to fret about too much. There'll be an announcement after John and I leave about a new format of having a discussion here in the Zendo on what I said and maybe some other things that came up.

[36:07]

But for now, we have a few minutes if some people have some questions or comments they'd like to share. Malcolm? For me, it feels like the opposite of losing something.

[37:28]

If we think we've lost something and then we find it, our mind is at ease. If we think we have something and we realize we don't have it, our mind can be at ease. But there's this clinging, as you said, to a self, and that's the hardest thing to give up. In both cases, there's an illusoriness to having something or not having something, and then when we realize what it is, there's a liberation. Does that speak to it? Thank you all very much.

[38:33]

Beings are numberless.

[38:40]

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