Sudden enlightenment means, if you don't need practice or preparation, means direct pointing at your essence of mind and to practice in that way, not emphasizing the ten bumis or various four or eight jhanas, just direct pointing at your mind, your essence of mind on everything. So this sasheen we've been talking about, noticing your mind in relationship to your breathing.

[01:12]

Or through the story, when wisdom does not reach it, what should we do? And the story about the flag and the wind. You know the famous end of the Genjo Koan, in which Dogen repeats the story of a teacher and disciple's discussion about a fan, where the teacher, remember we talked about that fan, the teacher fanning himself, and the disciple says, since the nature of wind is permanent

[02:28]

and reaches everywhere, why do you fan yourself, since the nature of wind is permanent and reaches everywhere? And the teacher said, you understand the meaning that the nature of wind is permanent, but you do not understand its meaning, that it reaches everywhere. Can you teach me? And he just continues fanning. And then Dogen ends the Genjo Koan by saying, the wind of Buddhism ripens the Sanskrit. So it's something to the gold of the earth, and ripens the cheese of the long river. I love that, ripen the cheese of the long river.

[03:33]

I don't know, I actually, I can't remember what that alludes to. It alludes to some poem, I can't remember, but it's also saying about the yellow river. You know the yellow river in China, which is always muddy, that's called the yellow river. They say something, sometimes people practice like they're waiting for the yellow river to get clear. So I know it's ripening the cheese of the yellow river. It actually means what I mean, but I don't know if that's what Dogen meant. I don't know. Maybe it's pretty hard to realize our essence of mind.

[05:27]

It's quite close, it's always with us. But it's pretty hard still. You all know the story, I've told you I think several times, about Suzuki Roshi, an old time student at Zen, he was at the lecture. And Suzuki Roshi had never met him before, but just noticed him. And after the lecture, Suzuki Roshi called him. Do you remember that story? I told it to you, I'll tell you again. Suzuki Roshi called him, and he had never met him before, he couldn't understand why he was calling him. He called him into this little alcove at the side of the auditorium. He stepped in, and Suzuki Roshi walked right up to him and went right to his forehead, like that, three times. And the man was quite startled, Suzuki Roshi just turned and walked right out.

[06:30]

And he wondered about that for six or so years. What did he mean? So he came to visit. And he practiced for many years, and came to visit Suzuki Roshi before he died, about one month before he died. And he told me before he went in, I must ask him what he meant. Maybe this is my last chance to ask him what he meant. And he went in and came out, and he was all beaming. And he came out and said, oh, I had a wonderful visit with him, he's just so clear and wonderful. And I said, did he answer your story? He explained, oh, he didn't remember what he meant.

[07:36]

He said, I don't remember what I meant. He's still wondering what he meant. One of the images used for explaining the Ten Mysterious Gates, the Ten Mysterious Gates. No need to explain, actually, because it sounds so tricky to explain it. They're so semantic, you know, they're just little tiny differences. But actually, when you're practicing with someone, each one of those ten are ways we get caught.

[08:41]

So you can, when you're caught, they're meaningful. If you're not caught, they're not meaningful. But they all do a turn around a golden lion. Sometimes we see the lion, and then you're seeing form. Sometimes you see the gold, and then you're seeing essence. And the lion is completely gold. When you say lion, you're hiding the gold. When you say gold, you're hiding the lion, revealing one, hiding the other, etc. Anyway, it goes back and forth. Anyway, the story I told yesterday about the flag in the wind is a very good story. For you to develop a habit of trying to see, not the object of your mind, but your mind in everything.

[09:50]

And when wisdom does not reach it, what do you do? What do you do? When you seek your consciousness or your mind with your mind, how do you seek your mind with your mind? At this point, what do you do? When you realize your essence of mind, you have no problem anymore with form or emptiness or practice or ordinary life. The gold and the lion are completely one. The wave and the water are completely one. And, as Rupert, he always said, wave following wave, wave leading wave.

[10:55]

There's no problem at that point. Yesterday we talked about looking for clues. No problem at that point, whether you're following the wave or leading the wave. Everything, mutually, simultaneously. Making room for everything else. And so, at first you practice Darshan without obstruction, or you become the obstruction. Obstructed Buddhism. Just to let go, you know, and become one with the mind of the figure. You need anything more on your mind than what you hear at this moment, or what you see at this moment.

[12:13]

What you hear should penetrate your whole body. What you see... You don't need anything else. We are so corruptible. Not just us. Animals are corruptible too. But we're smart enough to be corrupted more easily than animals, I think. But we should also be smart enough to be free from that corruption. But most of us are just smart enough to be corrupted. I was so struck by this when Yogi Rishi and I and Oksan and Virginia...

[13:22]

And who else? I guess that was all. We drove across the United States in Trudy Dixon's car, and Mike Dixon's car, to visit Trudy at her ranch. It was a beautiful ranch just at the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming. Several hundred thousand acres. Her brother, Jack, who was quite a good friend of ours in some sense, and who was very close to Trudy, who is now just a footnote, that's kind of interesting, is now Assistant Secretary for Land and Water in the United States.

[14:31]

Land and water also mean mine in Buddhism. Not that that means anything to him, but it's interesting. But which means he's head of the Department of Interior, Department of Water Resources and Land Resources. In other words, he's head of the area of the United States and Alaska, larger than Europe. Huge portion of the West. He's been quite influenced by Trudy and her ideas of Buddhism in relation to land and water. So we spent quite a lot of time with him there, too, with Yogi Rishi. Oksan did tea ceremonies. He has a Japanese room at the ranch. Anyway, on the way there, we stopped at Yellowstone Park. Rishi Rishi and I noticed that all the bears were quite young.

[15:40]

Maybe one or two years old. We asked the ranger. It was just about winter. There was a lot of snow, but the roads weren't closed. We asked the ranger, why don't we see any bigger bears? He said, because they don't survive hibernation, because they eat all the candy and junk that the turrets feed them. So when they go to sleep for the winter hibernation, they don't have enough energy to last the winter and they die during hibernation. So they last one or two or three years while they're strong enough. As they get older, they can't survive their diet. We said to the ranger, is there some way to stop the feeding of the bears? They said, we've tried everything, but the bears are just smart enough to be corrupted.

[16:44]

Because they wait. When you arrive at the park, you're given this big thing. The paper says, don't feed the bears, blah, blah, blah. But then you're driving down the road and these two or three bears waddle out in front of the car and you can't get by. After this happens two or three times, you try to beat them, but they're too smart. Because they force your car to stop. There you are, and the bears are sitting up there. Then they get out of the way. And you try to start up, but before you've got a chance to start up, they come up and put their big paws all over the window. So it's really a startling event, because there's this enormous bear slobbering all over your window. And you can't really start the car up, because there's one on this window and one on this window, and you get sort of trapped.

[17:50]

And they won't go until you roll the window down and give them something. In the next bunch, you try to start up quickly, but after they get out of the way, they just land on the car. As a result, they're killing themselves. So we do the same thing, actually. But we should be smart enough to prevent that. The bears aren't smart enough, actually, to get free of the pressure. So it seems that some people have been able to... Let me start again.

[18:54]

I think a healthy society, culture, is one which is smarter than the individual. And gives you some guidance. And helps you be free from corruption. And it seems that society itself, particularly if it has a great ability, or decides to have a great ability to accumulate large advantages, corrupts itself. Certainly what's happened to America. So...

[19:56]

You can do... Your response can be to try to change society by some political action. Or just to try to start living the way you'd like society to let you live. Without being dramatic, I think that's what we're trying to do. And at such a time as this, it depends on... Individuals like us. Who for some reason, maybe just we're more desperate. Or weaker and more influenced by our disturbed self, or our disturbed society. And so we've banded together in some way.

[21:03]

But at such a time, historically, society depends on individuals who do this, to be wiser than the society. I don't think we can say we're wiser than the society, or not wiser than the society. That's not what I'm saying. But I do think that there's a... We have a big responsibility to realize our essence of mind. To find some way to live that's satisfactory. It may not be wise or stupid, just something that works for us. And the first precept of a bodhisattva is you help others.

[22:24]

And help has some wide, subtle meaning. If you wait around to be saved by Pavlo Citesvara or Panzeon, if you wait for someone to help you, you will have many troubles. But if you don't wait, you just start offering yourself to others. It's almost the same as being saved. There's a very interesting story. One monk says, How many hands does Panzeon bodhisattva have?

[23:31]

Panzeon and Kannon and Pavlo Citesvara are all the same. How many hands does Panzeon bodhisattva have? And the other monk says, His whole body is his hands. And the first one says, Oh, but your answer and my question are the same. And the second monk says, Ninety-nine percent correct. Do you understand? It's not very complicated. A hundred percent could be some finite number. Some relative number.

[24:37]

Ninety-nine percent, you don't know. Some vagueness. This whole slogan says ninety-nine percent is the correct answer. Ninety-nine percent is enough. It's enough. So your one practice includes everything. Help your whole body, his whole body, are hands. So one of the most wonderful things about life here at Tathagata is the way we actually do help each other. And if we can extend that spirit without discrimination to everyone,

[25:48]

I think you can realize the essence of mind. Immediately. One and the same. One and yet two. How can you hold yourself to this? Samadhi of oneness. Samadhi of one form. Realizing the essence of mind on everything.

[26:56]

If you have no wandering thoughts, right? Some other kind of desire. Everything you look at reveals. Anything you look at reveals everything. Sun shining. And if you have wandering thoughts even, those also are essence of mind. And give up the usual kind of rough discrimination. I really did find this machine difficult to leave.

[28:49]

I don't know how much you felt it. Because the feelings in here are so wonderful. I don't know how much you felt it. It's harder for us to know our own practice than for someone else to know it. I thought of that seeing all the blades of grasses out there, which are growing straight up, and yet by their own weight falling over. And you all experience yourself. You experience. If the grass was conscious, like we are, it might experience falling over. But if we look at it, we see their straightness.

[29:55]

And if you return to your own straightness, your own essence of mind, you won't have the burden added to your natural falling over sometimes. There's a saying in China and Japan, that when you're young, you have the face your parents gave you. And when you're over forty, you have the face that your practice gives you. And at first, you know, it's hard for you to know your practice,

[31:11]

to see that you're a new face. But... other people can see it. I enjoy myself. I have many things.

[32:13]

He would enjoy your laughter. He died two days ago. Just a tiny bit. Hakun, Russian. It's rather sad news. How old was he? Eighty or ninety-something? Nearly ninety or more than ninety? What? Ninety-five. It's mad. Anyway, this was at eighty. Well, that was... He was eighty when The Three Colors of Zen was published. Anyway. Anyway, he doesn't really die,

[33:20]

because his life spirit certainly is going on here in America. Anyway. Thank you. You're ten-two now. Schools of Buddhism, maybe, in America.

[34:31]

Zen Buddhism. One is Yasutani Roshi's school or way, and one is Suzuki Roshi's way. And... maybe... ninety-nine percent or ninety-five percent of all the Zen Buddhists in America are dependents of Yasutani Roshi or Suzuki Roshi. Yasutani Roshi's way was to spread the groups, and Suzuki Roshi's way was more particular. Group of students. And, for some reason, there has been quite an intimate relationship

[35:34]

between Yasutani Roshi's group and Suzuki Roshi's group. We don't have so much connection, actually, with the other groups, like Sasaki Roshi's group. But we've had quite a long and penetrating relationship with Yasutani Roshi's group in Philadelphia and Rochester and New York are the main ones, and there are small ones in Los Angeles. Of course, George Kaplow is his disciple, and Maezumi Roshi worked with him for many years, and Taishan worked with him for many years. Although Taishan is not his disciple, Soen Roshi and Yasutani Roshi are quite closely related. And Taishan was. Taishan Edo Roshi was Yasutani Roshi's main helper here in the United States.

[36:41]

He was quite a courageous man. In Japan, you don't mess around with your affiliations. It's not like here. You really don't. One mistake, and you're ostracized. And he was one disloyalty, I think, of the mistake. And he was all kinds of other mistakes. Anyway, he was ostracized by both Soto and Rintaro almost all his life because he was neither Soto nor Rintaro. But his own way, a disciple of Soto Roshi, Harada Roshi, and studying both Rintaro and Soto well, but he had the courage to say

[38:07]

that neither school in Japan was fulfilling its purpose, which was for people to directly realize the presence of mind and to practice dogma. So he withstood that kind of pressure, which in Japan is enormous, equally unusual, as particular as his being a pacifist during the last war, which is also, as you know, Japan, unbelievable. But both these men had some unique courage to stand up to their own culture, and as Buddhists, first, and secondarily,

[39:10]

you know, Japanese or some particular country, or man or woman or husband or wife. And so it's no accident that they came here, were able to come here, and meet with us so freely, with understanding of each other, and we understood, understand ourselves. We came here with Soto Roshi and his son, and my Sumi Roshi, and Edo Roshi.

[40:11]

And we had quite a good time. Someone actually gave a lecture. Was anyone here? You were here? You were here? Weren't they all here? Huh? You were here? Did you go to the ashes at the top of the mountain? Oh, but you were here when they visited. Talked here. I wonder why you didn't go up to the top of the mountain. Anyway, Soto Roshi gave a talk one time, and Edo Roshi gave a talk a second time, a very interesting talk describing Shikantaza

[41:16]

from a physical point of view, from the point of view of your breathing. Wonderful talk. Shikantaza Roshi and Edo had quite a good time together, quite a good meeting. They enjoyed each other a lot, and felt very generous with each other. Afterwards, Shikantaza Roshi and I talked a long time about how to help Yosuke Taniguchi in Japan and whether it was worth trying to patch up his relationship with Soto. We didn't think so, actually. Figuratively, we had some opportunity to do so, but at that time, Soto had to talk to you about their goals in war, spreading the Dharma around. Shikantaza Roshi talked afterwards, I believe,

[42:31]

a third class, I think, and he said, I think he said, I don't have much to say, because Sonoshi put in the, painted in, put in the left eye of the dragon, and Yasutani Roshi put in the right eye of the dragon, and it came completely to life. So I don't have anything to say. And that, on the 15th of this month, we're doing an ashes ceremony, scattering the ashes, ashes, on the top of this mountain. And that ceremony began at that time. You know that story, don't you? No? We, some of you know. I just think you'd like to hear more tales.

[43:32]

Just saying, you know. We, Sonoshi brought some ashes of Nyogen Senzaki Roshi from Japan to be in America on the altar of Edo Roshi's group when they were opening the new Zenda in New York and commemorating it at that time. And they thought they should bring some of the ashes here, which was a wonderful recognition of, by Yasutani Roshi and Nyogen Senzaki and Sonoshi, of our practices being one Zen in America. That Nyogen Senzaki's ashes should be here, where the Dharma resides, as Momona Roshi's visit,

[44:33]

Dr. Adler's visit, was very encouraging for us. So, we asked, they asked Zut Roshi, where shall we scatter them? Zut Roshi, without hesitation, he must have been noticing that mountain for a long time, said, on the first peak of that mountain. Because, from years back, I can remember him saying that he appreciated Nyogen Senzaki's writings for their directness and unaffected sincerity, very much. And it was the Zut Roshi who had noticed that mountain as the first place, and highest place, in which we can see Tathagata. So,

[45:35]

we decided to do it that evening that they were here. Which, coincidentally, happened to be a full moon. I don't know why. So, we went up there, and no one wanted to be... First, it was just going to be a small group of people, just Zut Roshi and myself and Dr. Adler Roshi, and we were just going up and just doing some private performance. But, the director should go, and the student should go, and, you know. So, pretty soon, there were 10 or 15 going, and the students rebelled. We, I did. And so, we started walking up the road. No one wanted to be left behind. I think Dan Welch decided to be left behind. Wasn't it right? Was it Dan? Good spirit. He was a good spirit. He was willing to stay behind. He was not late to be helpful.

[46:39]

He just waited. I think it was Dan. And all he had was a flashlight. But, he signaled to us, and we signaled to him. And we went up by various cars and walking, and we got to the top, and we didn't know what to do, and we kept waiting for... We didn't have any plans, and we waited for the moon to come up, and it wouldn't come up, and it wouldn't come up, and it wouldn't come up, and we kept seeing the glow getting brighter and brighter, and everybody would say, almost here, this is great. Finally, Sonoshi got tired of waiting, and he said, let's chant. So, we started, and we started all chanting, and the moon started coming up. And it sounded all fantastic. And Sonoshi got quite excited, and...

[47:43]

and... wouldn't stop chanting. We chanted everything we knew. We kept chanting. And I was standing, I think, between Suzuki Roshi and Yatakani Roshi. Maybe Sonoshi next to him, but I think Suzuki Roshi next to him. I think Sonoshi was next to Yatakani Roshi. I was holding, I know, in my left hand, Yatakani's 80-some-year-old hand, and we were going around in a circle like this, chanting, and the moon was coming up, all in a big circle, do you remember? And it was completely dark, we were stumbling over sagebrush and stone, and in the middle of it, Sonoshi said, this is true hippie dance. And Yatakani was dancing quite well, really. So, then later, Suzuki Roshi

[48:50]

told me, he would like to go now, so we gathered on the second piece. Asked me to please do that. Told me maybe one or two weeks later. So, this evening of the 15th, Sunday, is one or two days before full moon. And we'll gather Suzuki Roshi's ashes and chant the Yatakani Roshi ceremony, which is a full moon ceremony. I'll gather him, as he told us so well, at the beginning of the second piece, about the background and history of the Yatakani Roshi ceremony. Anything you want to talk about?

[50:01]

Anything to talk about? We have just a little more chance to continue this profound spirit that started in this machine. And, uh,

[51:16]

tonight I'd like to change the schedule just a little bit, which is, instead of having three long periods, I'd like to have two short periods and one long period. So, three 30-minute periods. And with five minutes of between them. The time works out to almost the same. In a shorter period like that, we can have a sleepy time, we can make, it's hard to make an effort sometimes for 40 or 50 minutes. You can keep up your effort to sit still and not move and not stray from your

[52:20]

essence of mind. So, with that kind of shorter period, you can sit with some vigor and keenness just to break it a little. And then at the last period, you'll have a regular length period. To just sit without making any effort and without moving at all. To end with a serious machine. Let's not think

[53:30]

we are not good enough. The fact that we have to realize that we have to. Let's practice as if we can do it now. No one within Joseph's school supposedly attained great enlightenment and was still a boy practiced any other way. This is the video of the moment when I realized I a good person.

[54:23]

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