But the purpose of mind in Buddhism is the same purpose as your eyes or ears, is to bring us information, and we are warned by Buddhism that the way the information is brought to us by our eyes and ears is very deceptive. But we make the fundamental confusion that we think what we see is reality, and we think what we hear is reality, but more important, we think what we think is reality. We don't just use it as a sense. You're more cautious about your eyes and ears. You hear that, you don't know quite what it is, but it doesn't stop there, you think about it. So your eyes, what information your eyes and ears touch bring you, is further processed.

[01:03]

If it wasn't processed, then you can trust your eyes and ears, actually, but we further process it. But because of the way we work, if we stop the process, and because we don't further process the thinking perception, we take that as reality. So you get an ego and a correctability. You can substitute, actually, ego for priorities. We do have certain priorities. Some people worry about, if I had no ego, what if somebody pushes me around, you know?

[02:17]

Steps on my blue suede shoes. But there's other ways, you know, you can also deal with that in terms of priorities. And your highest priority should be your state of mind. We're always sacrificing our state of mind for some extra pastry, or some argument with someone, you want to just discuss it a little bit further, you can tell your state of mind is disintegrating, but you want to continue, you know? You have no sense of priorities, you know?

[03:19]

So if you have a sense of priorities, you don't need ego in the usual sense, because you'll take care of yourself without having to have that defensive kind of ego. So our mind brings us information, but the processing is done at a deeper level. And so we don't get fooled by the information as our mind presents it, thinking that's reality, you know? And that's what we have to take care of. Anyway, that's the Buddhist way of looking at it. So there's a big distinction between, as you know, by using the word awareness, between

[04:27]

awareness and thinking. Awareness, you're ready, you're aware, but not thinking exactly. Awareness. If you think about awareness for a while, you'll see that awareness implies some different kind of mind. And awareness is the entrance to a big mind. So, if you want to think, what I'm trying to get at is how we use our mind. And one way, as I've said, is you can bring your thinking back to what you're doing. You can also bring your thinking to the point where you can ask yourself questions.

[05:30]

And this is something that I hope you all learn how to do, which is, say you notice you have some tension. You wake up in the morning and you're gritting your teeth. You don't know why you woke up in the morning with your jaw clamped together, right? You can't figure it out. But you can guess there's some tension, right? So we can't figure it out by usual processes, because the only sign we have is the tip of the iceberg, you know, these ground together teeth. So during the day, being conscious, you can relax your mouth and you won't grit your teeth, but next morning, if they're stuck together again, you can wonder again. So you can ask yourself a question.

[06:34]

You know, you have some...if you don't have...if you realize that the processing is done further, that the processing isn't done in that conscious thinking arena, you know, it takes this kind of confidence to do it. If you don't have this confidence, you can't do it because you want to think it out. And more, if you have...know what the mind is we're speaking about when we...what we imply when we use the word awareness, you can ask that mind a question. What is all this tension about? You can use English, even. It's better not to use English, maybe, but you can use English. It works. The big mind understands English. So you can say, what is all this tension? What is all this tension? But the big mind isn't sitting around waiting to listen to the question. You have to keep asking it, knocking at its door, over and over again. It's sort of like baddha sattva or vairagyana is, deep in meditation and unwilling to be

[07:39]

disturbed. So you have to keep saying, hey, what is all this tension? What is all this tension? What is all this tension? And if you bug it enough with repetition, oh, all right. You're irritated about so-and-so who stepped down here anyway. The answer will appear, actually. There you'll find you have some conflict in you about something. So that's one way we use our mind. As a processor, as a shovel, as a carrier of information. All these ways are important in Buddhism. So, when we work on a koan or a Zen story or our life in a fundamental sense, we work

[08:41]

on it this way, beyond thinking, and we say don't think about it, don't figure it out, but you can do certain parts of it with preparation, through thinking. So the more background you can know about a story like this, the better. As you can, you know the Sixth Patriarch knew the Diamond Sutra, and the Diamond Sutra implies the Heart Sutra, because he heard, at least you know, that he heard, he was enlightened by hearing the Diamond Sutra recited. So, anyway, but you also know certainly whoever wrote the stories knew a heck of a lot about the Heart Sutra and Diamond Sutra. So the five skandhas and what that implies, that the vision of ourselves is there. So that's much you know. You also know he's talking to two anonymous monks.

[09:45]

So first let's deal with the story as an episode, a discussion, a conversation between two anonymous monks and the Sixth Patriarch. Let me say again that this kind of thinking, I think, re-emphasizes I'm going on lots of sidetracks. It's all right. We, because I think we have various conceptions, you know, that interfere with our ability

[10:49]

to do things. One is we think that thinking and smartness are related, and they really aren't. Like we think that beauty and an artist are connected, you know. And when you go to Japan, you can see that Japan is extraordinarily beautiful, you know, the way, not only the land, but the way they, the way everything is. And when you're there, what strikes you is that 99% of it is care, not somebody's decision. Well, this will be beautiful there. But just taking care of things. Doing things in order to take care of them. As, you know, the beauty of this stick is probably just the care that is taken in sampling.

[12:01]

Charles Wilson says in, let me say first, you know, we have this whole trip of IQ tests and all that stuff that you've all been subjected to. And it really is just a way of measuring how quickly you can be ordinary. I mean, really, that's what it is. It's based on average ability to do things, and how well you do the average. And Charles Wilson says about Harvard, that he, Kuhn, the president of Harvard, destroyed Harvard by inviting all man's finest. Do you understand? I'm being too complicated. But that, you see, Harvard is a pretty good college.

[13:21]

And it got caught by wanting to be the college which had the smartest people in it. And it sort of denied its origins of being a New England college for people who had enough leisure to go there, for one reason or another. And it produced good people. When you only take people who supposedly are talented, you undercut something fundamental that everyone has. So when you actually look not at the people who are successful in school, but the people who are successful at life, whoever they are, whether you're talking about areas which are supposedly particularly the realm of intelligence, like inventions, like Chester Carlson, or land.

[14:30]

I told you a story about land. Or Buckminster Fuller. They have an enormous care and ability to work over and over and over again. As Uma Madhura, she says in his lectures in that same book, The Secrets of the Lotus, said it. He took much, much more time than any other monk at his monastery, he implies, to solve, to work through the koans, because he says he wasn't so clever. So he had to expend an enormous amount of energy at each one. But it's that energy which counts.

[15:30]

So what I'm saying is, you can have confidence in it, but zen doesn't require, even though it looks kind of complicated sometimes when we talk about koans, you know, some high IQ or intelligence. It requires enormous care and willingness and persistence and ability to bring your feelings and thinking together in one activity. I'm making my point. Well, I haven't even started. I have to run a little bit more. So to work on a story like this, you present it to yourself in various ways,

[16:39]

over and over and over again. Letting your life come into it, and letting the story into your life. Bringing your own situations. Somehow, if you keep at it pretty soon, just what you're doing will appear in terms of the flag and the wind. Then you can begin to see its usefulness. I feel that as a problem, like as I said the other day, you do your zazen and you come to a problem and you get to the edge of it and then you put it on a plate and say, this is a problem, without going into it. So if you treat a koan that way, as something that's, oh lord, there's a problem in this, it has no life, and it has no meaning. If you do this, if you ask yourself questions in this way,

[17:47]

why am I feeling tension, or whatever it is, what is my practice, what question can I have, what's the fundamental question for me in buddhism? Some question will arise if you ask yourself that enough. Where is my practice lacking? Where is my practice lacking? Is my practice lacking? Anything can happen. You don't know what will happen, what will arise. The more you do that, you learn how to do that, and this process goes much more quickly. So, first of all, you have to be able to also, but generally we do, when we think about things, all of us, partly because we're lazy, and partly because we don't have a trained way of thinking. Again, our school system emphasizes brilliance or something,

[18:51]

and not training. And it's training that counts. By training I mean, just as we train, doing the birds, taking care of each bird. When you read a poem, you have to look at every aspect. We have the same care, you don't overlook. So that's just the introduction, and you skip that. Okay, that's important. Master, overhearing the discussion, and his ordination. So, we can know from that, that the story as it's first told is rather simple, because it's told for these two anonymous monks, and he's a layman, and he's not particularly interested in being discovered as the Sixth Patriarch,

[19:51]

so he just says some casual remark, it's your mind that's moving. A kind of deceptively simple statement. Then we know, he went in to see the Dharma Master, and he gave a more detailed explanation, because the Dharma Master said, you are an ordinary person, and he arose and bowed to him, and said, explain what you mean. So he explained. Also we know that the story has lasted for nearly 1300 years, and that it looks like kind of a silly story. Stories that last 1300 years are usually not silly. So you know for some reason it's lasted for 1300 years. So let's just take it very simply.

[21:04]

First, these two guys are talking, and they're talking about the flag and the wind, and the flag and the wind, and the flag and the wind. Without even going through any process, you can ask, why bother to talk about the flag and the wind? Why bother to talk about the flag and the wind? Why bother to talk about the flag and the wind? So the Sixth Patriarch says, don't bother to talk about the flag and the wind, talk about your mind. It's the mind that's moving. And that's very true, and that's what I meant yesterday when I talked about Doksana. When you present yourself in Doksana, when you present yourself to yourself, or when you think about anything, you don't think about the object of mind, flag or wind,

[22:04]

you think about the mind itself out of which flag and wind arise. Do you understand what I mean? So in Buddhism we're always talking about the big mind. We also know, you know, this is not a scientific discussion, so we're not concerned about actually the flag as a cloth object. We're talking about, it's a spiritual discussion, and a spiritual discussion at the base, one of the things that Buddhism feels is that you can't talk about reality just objectively, at base reality is spiritual. And all Zen stories are about you. So, first off we know,

[23:09]

I mean, I think the most important thing I want to convey today is that we don't talk about the objects of mind, we talk about mind itself. So, at the beginning again, at the sashina I asked you, notice how the objects of your mind are produced by your breathing, or your activity, and how they are influenced by. Further, we have to give the monks some credit, you know, they're not drunken sailors looking at a flag, says, is that the flag moving? I don't know. I mean, the monks, we have to give them,

[24:14]

they may be anonymous, they're not as smart as the Dharma Masters, but at least they're not drunken sailors. Because it is rather silly to say, is it the flag moving? We know it's the wind moving the flag, the flag isn't, the terror isn't wagging the dog, the flag isn't waving the wind. So it's sort of pointless to say, is the flag moving or the wind moving? Unless they're talking about something else. The fact that it doesn't make sense at that level, unless they're drunken sailors, means that the monks are talking about something else. So that allows you to bring the question to another level. What else could they be talking about? Where they can be talking about, does one thing affect another? Or which came first, the chicken or the egg?

[25:15]

Does one thing, does rubbing the tile produce a jewel? Does your practicing enlightenment change society? Or is it your situation, the wind, which changes you? And then it's also useful to know something about the six patriarchs on a teaching, and he says, as I said yesterday, all the ten thousand things are produced by one mind.

[26:17]

So that means, he's saying, the flag is mind, wind is mind. Dogen says, everything you see is mind. We don't just need some theory, like the tree that falls down in the forest, no one hears. What do we mean by big mind, then? The whole thing raises the question, what is big mind? And is the flag, does the flag have any, in a world of a non-repeatable universe, the flag waving, coming, flashing,

[27:24]

does it have any existence? Aside from your giving it existence, flag is flag, wind is wind. So that base is moving everything. Anyway, this, that much you can, by thinking thoroughly about it, present to yourself. If you're willing to spend the time, I think some of you, occasionally, I give you, some of you, some stir, you know, to work on. And in the best sense you do, you work on it. One year later, it's still coming up, consciously and unconsciously, in your conversation, or in dogsong. But many people, when I do this, find they don't have time to think about it the next few weeks.

[28:27]

Other things are more important. Or it's too much trouble. You don't see the point of it. Anyway, first you can present this much to yourself about it, and then you just have to bring it into your consciousness. Flag and wind and two monks and the Dharma Master and the Sixth Patriarch, and what the heck are they doing? Why bother with all this? So until everything you say is flag and wind, you can't begin to enter into how this story can break through our concepts, in which we think one thing affects another, in which we think, you know,

[29:28]

Zen exists as something isolated, isolated practice of ourselves. Zen is a, you know, social institution and a cultural, that's right, a modifier, fact, as well as your individual practice. And you have to, you know, Zen isn't something created for your convenience, and it isn't just what you want it to be. Its power is that it exists at one with and interdependent with society. Over the door of most monasteries in Japan and China, it says something like, everything we do is with other people.

[30:31]

Just, it doesn't mean in the monastery only. It means in the cave or wherever you are, actually everything you do is with other people. Everything we do must be with other people. But that's the fact of our existence, like, the fact of an animal or this tree, the tree is completely independent. Its own health and strength, or its trunk and leaves, but it's also a Tassajara tree. So we can't separate out. One thing from another. I think I've said enough about this story.

[31:53]

Because I hope what I mean by how we think about such a story or about our practice, is I made myself clear. Maybe. Yeah. We're told, when you... Yes, yes, yes. I find that if I'm to listen to what you are saying, at the same time you're trying to take the trouble to say, now we're going to do an introduction, trying to look at different aspects of what everybody is saying, that doesn't tie up with my understanding of what it is to listen. Similarly... One thing at a time. Can I go on? No. I want to. No. That's why we're listening.

[33:02]

I've no idea why. I'm sitting here, and I have difficulty giving priority to my state of mind paying some attention to some other kind of body consciousness. And yet, listening to what you're saying is difficult. Yeah, I know. That's because you're easily distracted. But we're all easily distracted. I think that sometimes we want to figure out what is he saying. But you'll notice, of course, as you've said, as soon as you think that, you only half hear the next sentence.

[34:11]

Well, it's better just to be there directly without thinking about it, and if you don't remember it, it's all right. If you have confidence in that level of absorption or perception or intelligence, which isn't our thinking mind, you don't need to put it together with your thinking mind. Then it goes in you, and it's all right. Whether you know half an hour later if someone says, what did he say, and you don't have a single idea, maybe that's good. Maybe you can do that, you know. It's all right if you sleep in the lectures, I don't mind. The Sixth Patriarch also talks about two practices. He doesn't just... Our way is to realize this mind, this big mind.

[35:16]

And the Sixth Patriarch tries to give us some... Since I'm talking quite long, if you want to change your position, please, it's OK, sit comfortably. He gave us two practices, too, which is, one is the samadhi of oneness, the other is the samadhi of form. And what he means by that is samadhi of form is to abide in the world of perceptions, of form, without thinking about it. Without being caught by any form. And samadhi of oneness means always to have pure, direct, undiscriminating mind. When you have that, you can concentrate on what I'm saying, or on your zazen.

[36:19]

And everything is just a part of that. Yeah. Entry, you know, being caught by the form. Different from what I just said about the samadhi of one form? When you put yourself in a situation, what, where is the mind? You're in a situation. You're caught immediately if you stray from the samadhi of one form. Yeah. And after I do something like that for a while,

[37:33]

I find that I can't remember what I'm supposed to do next. Like if I'm walking, I don't think about walking the next day. If I have to do something, well, I'm here. I can't remember what I'm supposed to do when I get there. It's like surfing. I can't remember that I'm supposed to surf when I get to the end of the world. And I get very confused. That doesn't sound like practicing for other people to me. Well, I don't think practicing for other people is a thing. Well, I'm not so sure. Why we create this safe place of tassawa is so we can be adult together. So we can give up, you know? That kind of usual behavior which you might get hit by a car in the city. So you can wonder, I often, I'm doing service and suddenly I don't know where I am or what I'm supposed to do next.

[38:39]

Anything. I have to quick look around and say, oh, it must be. But... That has something to do with your ability to... know what you're doing by your deeper than thinking consciousness. And that comes about, believe it or not. And here's the catch. What occurred there? That comes about. The most effective way is to learn to follow the rules of monastery absolutely. So we set up a situation where you can learn to just follow the rules without your ego. To get rid of your small self.

[39:43]

You know, a lot of rules which interfere with the way you want to live make your small self a lot smaller. Very visible. It doesn't want, this is ridiculous to do this or something. But it's pretty impossible to do that if you don't... If you're in a non-Buddhist monastery situation because you're afraid that you're going to contribute to the real effort or to some destructive thing, you know? You can't, you want to be concerned with the goals of the situation. But here we have not much point for being here or existing, so... The rules are rather harmless to give up to. You know, it's not like giving up to the rules of a fascist government or something like that. It's just giving up to the rules of a fascist monastery.

[40:44]

Some of you think that, I don't know. But anyway, even so, it's quite harmless. So you just do it, right? And just do it. And eventually your small self, if you're persistent, gives up, you know? It sort of goes into the bleachers and waits until you return to the city. It doesn't give up, you know? But it waits. But what's supposed to be going on during this time is you're learning to pick up clues about what to do. In other words, if you get out of that complex mode into a more subtle mode, your situation constantly clues you. But we normally, because we think about things and we're proceeding from our ego and our desires, our small self,

[41:50]

we don't notice the actual clues. So when you notice the actual clues, you know that the flag is mine. So to follow the clues, part of studying a story like this is to follow the clues. Not like a private detective, you know what I mean? But to, as we say, to hold up one corner and know three. I don't know if this point is, if you see the relationship between giving up to just following the rules of a harmless situation, you know, like this. Until you just do things without thinking about them. Well, let me give you a, let me give you an example.

[42:52]

Rather amusing example. Suzuki Roshi, yesterday I listened to one of Suzuki Roshi's tapes. I have these various tapes of Suzuki Roshi, lectures he gave while I was in Japan. And when I have some time, I put it on. Often I do other things, but I, Suzuki Roshi's talking away in my ear. Yesterday he cracked me up. He was talking about the fact that you have, you have to develop habits of just doing things without thinking. If you're going to be able to operate in that realm without thinking. Depending on, if you always depend, if you carry a notepad around with you, for instance, all the time, you'll never learn how to recall things without the notepad. Well, here's an example of dialing a phone.

[43:57]

The only way to actually learn how to do something is to really put yourself out in the wind. So, you think you recall a number, right? But you don't, aren't quite sure, but it happens to be a $15 long distance call. You just pick up the phone and you start dialing. Sorry, wrong number. If you do that, that can't be right. Taking a chance on your mind, producing the right number, it will begin to produce after a while. It may cost you a little money at first, but it's worth it. That's just a kind of silly example, but... If you're going to give up thinking and operate out of some deeper way, you've got to be willing to get to the end of the aisle, sometimes, and not know who you're supposed to serve next or where you're supposed to turn. But you should be able to instantly get the clues from the situation. Now, the story I was going to tell is that Zucker, as she was saying this,

[45:04]

very important is when the bell rings in the morning, just get up. Immediately get up. Don't wait around one minute thinking, two minutes. Just get up. He says he has this habit. This lecture was at a time when they just put tatamis in his old cabin, and he had three whole tatamis, and he's been living in America all these years, and without tatamis, he had three tatamis, he said. He felt wonderful, so spacious, three big tatamis, that he slept right across all three of them like a giant. Not just sleeping in one tatami, he used all three. And then someone told him that he wasn't supposed to sleep that way, because you have to have your head to the north and feet to the south. That's what some Buddhist texts say, but Zucker, she never pays any mind to that kind of thing. But someone told him, and insisted he should change, so he changed. And he slept on one tatami, head to the north, feet to the south,

[46:08]

the bell rang, bang, he jumped up and aborted his lamp and ran. He usually got up and went straight for it, but he closed the restroom door. The bell rang, he got up and he just knocked his lamp over and hit the wall. So, in the beginning of the lecture, he was him. You have to develop habits of just doing things automatically, without thinking. If you're going to learn to have this deeper way of operating, he said, it doesn't mean you should bump into walls, etc. And it didn't make any sense why he said that. And at the end of the lecture, he told this story. When the bell rang, he jumped up and went straight to the restroom and ran to the wall. So, you have to take, Zucker, she did it, and he had to take that chance.

[47:09]

Normally, such habits help us. Q. How about flying in the wind and igniting fires? A. Oh, that's tough. Q. You can't think about those things, you know, thinking in the way we usually think. You can gather some information about them, right? And you can just repeat the story yourself. Heck, that's two months talking about it. Why would we bother talking about the flying in the wind? Q. In a way, then, when I'm doing something like that, I get really tired of thinking. Or when I'm doing alchemy, I get really tired of it. A part of a koan work, you know, is since our mind continues in sort of rough spurts of energy,

[48:24]

and you can't control it, give it something to do, like a koan or a mantra, and learn to develop continuous energy, and your ability to bring your attention and awareness back to it, and [...] back to it. I took one phrase once and decided I would not stop saying this phrase until I could hold it continuously 24 hours. What does that mean, holding it continuously? I took a vow like that. And it took me about 16 months. For the first month or so, I was pretty good. I, of course, didn't do it by sleeping in the first month or two, etc. And then it would go away for two or three months at a time.

[49:29]

In the middle of that, and I'd pause, and I'd start it. And then it would go away, and then it would come back, and go away, and come back. I'd completely forget about it. Then I found it was going, and then I realized one day that actually I was doing it all the time. I was able to hold it present in my consciousness all the time, continuously.

[49:54]

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