I often wonder why Buddhism, why it's relevant to talk about Buddhism. I don't have any answer. I guess what I'm implying is that it's actually relevant, of course, in every circumstance, but you can't make it relevant for someone for whom it's not. And sometimes when I

[01:03]

When I find Buddhism most relevant, I wonder how it could possibly be relevant to anyone, because it's so... It's so common and rarefied. the same time. And it comes down to what we're already doing, so that should be enough. But for it to genuinely be enough for us is quite difficult. we have such deeply pervasive ideas of self, of existence.

[02:21]

This story, again, of the Blue Cliff Records, raises this kind of question. Holding up a husk of millet seed, what is a husk of millet seed? You know, this is the Prajñāpāramitā literature. What is a dharma? What brings one, though, is interesting, to ask oneself this question. Sometimes it's the extremity of suffering. And suffering is usually the outcome of greed, hate and delusion, or extreme responsibility, some excessive sense of responsibility.

[03:30]

So you look at the suffering in the world or the situation of various people and what can you do about it? When you ask yourself this question you maybe have an excessive sense of responsibility because why should you concern yourself with it? I don't know, I don't want to speculate about this problem too much, but I want to talk about it a little. Not to say something about it, but rather to awaken you who are practicing Buddhism to this kind of consideration.

[05:15]

Now when you try to sincerely do something. You are brought to this kind of consideration. What is? What is it? What's what? What is it? So if you pick up a cup, or you look at your hand. You know, you find yourself suffering, so you look at your hand. What is this thing that suffers? What is this? What should I do?

[06:27]

What should this thing do? What is this thing which is going to sleep or waking up? or talking about what merit or usefulness do my words have. When you examine in this way, everything more or less collapses. And yet, when we try to find out something, we tend to reduce it to its elements. But one thing that Buddhism points out is that it's impossible to perceive a isolated event or phenomenon. There's no perception of an element. There's no way to perceive your hand as an object.

[07:31]

So, you know, Seppo holds up this husk of millet and says, What is this husk of millet? But there's no way to perceive that husk of millet. And he says, if you throw it down, it's imperceptible. But he's asking the question, how then do we act in this world, you know? If you're sincerely trying to act in this world, what act do you produce if there's nothing which can be perceived? this kind of problem is very abstract it seems but if you're genuinely suffering sometimes with no end in sight you come to this kind of discussion with yourself and yet and Buddhism has tried to resolve this discussion and yet a mind

[08:36]

which cares, a person who cares about it can't discuss it. You can't... It's very interesting. You have to... Sounds like a contradiction. A person only gets this point who cares tremendously, but if you care about it, you can't see anything. So, again, maybe at the extremity of suffering, when you don't care anymore about anything, or on your deathbed, when you don't care, you can see quite clearly. So, the Prajnaparamita literature says over and over again, suffering beings. There's no suffering, no suffering beings, no suffering to see. And yet we not only don't really believe that, but it's almost immoral to believe that because it's so apparent that there is suffering beings.

[09:47]

Anyway, when you see that you cannot, that it's actually an impossibility to perceive something as an object, you'll see seppu, you'll see maybe a millet seed husk, holding up seppu, holding up a millet seed husk, So what Seppo is holding up is himself holding up a millet seed husk. Do you see that? So that is how we act in the world, maybe. But that, you know, we can see with our eye, but from the point of view of your true eye maybe, you see space, you don't see anything.

[11:36]

So if you don't see the husk of millet and you see maybe that consciousness holding up, some such feeling is that. So the idea of Dharma in it has in it the idea of realization because when you see that you can't act on or exist in or perceive individual elements that always present is a mind and matter and forces, you know, Buddhism would say that kind of way. But they're always present. You can't isolate one from the other. So the idea of dharma is completely inexplicable.

[13:09]

You can't cognize a dharma. And yet at the same time, the recognition of the world as dharma is the recognition of Buddha. So if you are sincere enough to if your mind doesn't care enough you know doesn't has given up caring giving up caring means not having any attitudes or views from your preferences or sense desires etc so whatever it is is okay then you're there's a kind of process which carries things to their conclusion. So in what realm do things

[14:27]

exist so they can hurt us, can cause suffering. And we do fear. Each of us suffers on the level at which we fear we can be hurt. And it's different in each person. For some of you it's not touched. For some people they're always touched. because that level is very accessible. For some people it's only in certain circumstances. But at that level we fear our dissolution of our body or personality or hopes or something. But that level only exists in its accumulation or karma. And it's interesting that our ex-president. I think he's the first person to be done in by electronic karma.

[15:36]

The level at which he wanted success and which he feared was the very level at which he was done in. So you can maybe identify that level at which you feel you can be done in and then you can examine whether that level is real, whether anything exists or that's just some illusion. So maybe Buddhism is a practice, Zen Buddhism anyway, is a practice for those, not just for those people who are suffering and want some relief, but for those people who are willing to act, actually act in the world, willing to want something and try to get it.

[17:13]

If you want to end suffering, if you want to help somebody, if you want to get rich, if you want to satisfy yourself in some way, if you genuinely want and you follow that want out to actually try to do it, you find nothing exists that you can get hold of. The futility of it is enormous. When you are overburdened by the world systems and suffering and complexity, you know, the husk of millet seed which represents the whole world, what is it? It's your own attitude or view, even in that instant which is causing suffering. So again, the idea of dharma has the idea of realization in it.

[18:20]

So it's a spiritual view, we can say. That's what a non-Buddhist would say, a religious historian. The idea of dharma is not scientific, but a religious view of the world, because it has in it the idea of realization. Because when you see that you can't You know, there can't be a science, really, of just matter, because mind is there. That which studies it is there. That which observes it is there. And so, when you see that there's nothing that you can perceive or act on, in an objective sense, you are thrown back on some mystical experience or religious experience because there's no way to define out your, you know, you're again a black, black or pale.

[19:22]

There's no way for you to grasp what a dharma is or what your life is. So it's realization or it's wholeness. The intent of the entity becomes your practice. So practice or realization is one with an accurate observation of this which we are in the center of. So, when the Prajnaparamita Sutras say that the Tathagata is not to be known by his marks, it's just like Seppo saying the whole world is not to be known by its husk.

[20:41]

To really see this is some freedom. Everything is being held up. Each person you meet is a husk of millet being held up by you, by Buddha. So this entire dharma, you know, we call dharma body or Buddha. For the nature of it is Buddha. is realization. So this Manjushri is a husk of millet held up, you know, this time in the shape of Manjushri, so that we can recognize that the nature, ultimate nature of reality is realization. So, Sepo is saying this. the ultimate nature of reality is realization.

[22:14]

So, then Engel goes on to say, when you are trying to point out that the ultimate nature of reality is realization, there must be no roaming eyes or hesitating hands and feet. Form and reality must be one. Guidance and temperament must be one, etc. And that one or zero, acting in zero, I say, is the intent of our meditation practice. So when you hold up a husk of millet seed, or seppo the teacher, do you see his transgressions, or do you see a millet seed, or do you see Buddha?

[23:31]

For a Buddhist, you see Buddha. And that kind of vision allows you to, that kind of vision, allowed by meditation practice. First, it's rather difficult to, you know, even hearing these kind of words which I think are, you know, too philosophical and abstract. much of our thinking is philosophical and abstract, and much of our justification for our actions is our philosophical and abstract rationalization. So some such discussion like this is useful, I think. But meditation practice gives us some sense of concentration from not being so disturbed by our senses.

[24:54]

And we feel some feeling. But this also can be an addiction. And so some of us either retreat into practice or into some kind of isolation to hang on to this addiction of concentration. We don't want to meet anybody because if we speak we lose our energy. We don't want to leave Zen Center or leave Zen life because we lose our energy. It takes various forms, but it's a kind of addiction, a kind of clinging to our own secret as if Seppo possessed some secret by seeing Togasan, Togasan carrying his bow. We have some secret in Buddhism because we carefully think that realization is our own possession.

[26:03]

that our misery and karma is our own so realization and some secret we must protect because it's the only thing which will balance the teeter-totter. So we keep a secret or promise of enlightenment on one side trying to hold up our karma on the other. So you're rather protective of your concentration and privacy. or practice afraid to give up your belief that you yourself are an entity which has a destiny which will realize something which can be perfected realized there's no person there even to realize The Bodhisattva is all of us and everything, the Dharma body itself.

[27:18]

And as I started to say, you know, at first it's rather philosophical and inconceivable and unbelievable to think that you can't actually perceive something as an object and so you keep making an attempt to in various forms you try to perceive your relationships with people as an object which can hurt you or help you or you don't like yourself and so you perceive someone who could like themselves and to be okay But for some of us it's necessary to thoroughly investigate this until, you know, as in Buddhism they say, the horns of the rabbit.

[28:28]

Or, you know, flakes in the air that you see because you have an eye disease. You don't actually concern yourself about the horns of a rabbit because you're quite sure rabbits don't have horns. So when you're quite sure that you can no longer perceive, you know, an object, you no longer concern yourself with it. Though you may get caught up again and again in perceiving some situation as an object which, etc., you know, and it exists in maybe karmic terms. But eventually you find you thoroughly know by your meditation practice, by jnana and by prajna, by wisdom you thoroughly have experienced and know that there is nothing that can be perceived or acted on in that sense and from that moment you're in a different kind of world

[29:49]

So the problem is not with the world, but with your views, your own views and attitudes. And your own views and attitudes are the subject of meditation. But that includes stop those protective views. Is there something you'd like to talk about?

[31:49]

The process of discrimination, non-discrimination, something that seems to work itself It seems to be actually a select process. I guess this thought ran through my mind as we were cutting down all the good people in the shoes on the hill yesterday. I kept thinking, well, why are we discriminating against these trees? I guess I'm resting on my laurels. Not discrimination. Not discrimination is really sort of a selection at all. Because it's obvious that if people were allowed to follow a space that they didn't want, there wouldn't be space for anyone else.

[33:12]

He has eucalyptus trees here in his endo. Yeah. Q. When I see something right now, holding up on the husk of noise, the mind of course is quite remote. Doesn't discrimination have its place because it allowed us to choose to do that then? Yeah.

[34:43]

I don't want to respond. Just... Yeah. I don't understand when you say that nothing can be perceived as logic. Something like that everything can only be perceived as logic. Actually, you have to come to the point where you need to see that to see it.

[35:58]

You know, I can't answer your question actually, it was just accepted by some talking. When you're at the point where you completely, what is this? then you see there's nothing to perceive. Then you can ask yourself, what is that process that asks, what is this, that attempts to perceive something? And that process needs to wither away. Are you saying who is doing this?

[37:01]

Yes. This kind of discussion is too abstract for me, actually. Excuse me for doing it. Many of you need to do it, actually. If you could carry through, you have some difficulty. But if you could carry through a process that you think is your difficulty, instead of stopping it and then worrying about it, you could resolve it. But this kind of thing is quite intimate. It can't be talked about like this, really. So I'm only suggesting something about what Seppo was doing, saying, what is this which is as hard to find as a lacquer pail in the darkness? And in that

[38:04]

The commentary by Setsho, the line I forgot was just a kind of repetition of before. It says, beat the drum and search everywhere and you still won't find anything. And then, for whose sake do the hundreds of spring flowers bloom? The particular problem of how you discriminate something, do we cut down the eucalyptus trees, the clear space for a building, or do we do zazen? You can reduce it to some It's the subject of this story again, you know?

[39:20]

How do you do something on purpose? But... No, I'll let you resolve whether you cut down the utility of treason or not. And when we're involved in the world, with people who don't share our background, this question comes up continually. And how, when the same question arises in some situation, presents itself. Well, there's two ways, positive way and negative way.

[40:36]

One way is you go along with it. You bullshit too, you know. So completely that it's obviously bullshit. And that can be helpful. Or you are rather like Bodhidharma. And you don't allow yourself to be caught by the situation. Actually, that's practically speaking what you do. Actually, the bullshitting with people is more effective. People too easily perceive Bodhidharma. and then they can too easily it just becomes mental furniture for them. So people have to play out their situation.

[41:47]

Sometimes you can play out that situation with them. But at the same time if you are not critical, but not caught. There's some space. What we're talking about is realization. So, if you act in a way which is holding up the millet seed, and there's no alternative, there's no specific action that's possible. But that's almost impossible to see, and yet, impossible to avoid. bullshitting with people. I can't reconcile that with being a juggler and being involved with juggling.

[43:00]

What do you mean by juggling? What do you mean like you look at the ... you don't look at any one ball or you drop it? What we're... I find this kind of conversation as I'm expressing rather frustrating because it's extremely important but unable to be

[44:44]

It's very intimate and it's only able to be conveyed really by our mutual association. How you actually drop your idea of self and yet act in the world is something quite intimate. How you actually participate with people and not be critical. And if no matter what I say it's So I don't know what to say. But maybe most fundamental is that you don't compare and you don't have a critical attitude. Genuinely you're not critical. And yet, I don't know what to say.

[45:49]

some kind of crime. I mean, specifically, he's collecting his tapes. If the tapes didn't exist, he couldn't have been impeached. Oh, I didn't seem to be telling the truth. Both are true, yeah. Somehow or other, I was a little off the criminal story, too. Somehow or other, I saw this piece of NBC. But anyway, I was wondering if we practice And isn't there a karmic result, something that happens that takes us out of the deadly world? The activity becomes somewhat, it may be terrible to say, preconditioned. Like what do you mean by preconditioned, for example? by recording tapes that eventually could have caught on these tapes was a preconditioning of the expression.

[47:51]

Something like that. We practiced some kind of zazen. I don't know if it's right zazen or wrong zazen, but just zazen. when Laura and I and everybody here goes to town or has some work to do, that our expression is conditioned by this activity today. Oh, pretty much so. In fact, I hear from people, they can spot a Zen Center student from about, you know, a thousand paces or something. Or some people remark they've seen several of us, with hair too, you know. In different situations, you know, different places in a room, there's something similar about all those people.

[48:58]

But that's more true of... You know, I remember pictures of Mike Dixon. You know Mike Dixon? I remember pictures of Mike Dixon's wedding, first wedding trip. There's these pictures of all these guests and then there's the pictures of the Zen students and particularly Mike. And there's Suzuki Roshi and everybody has half lowered eyes in the picture. It's wonderful, you can look out and spot everybody who does eyes and they're all standing there. But that's more or less true at first, you know. After a while it's not so true. Anything you do, of course, affects you, you know. Eventually, it's usually not so.

[49:59]

For somebody whose practice is quite mature, it's not so observable. Yeah? I can't see if there's conditioning in karma. How is there no self then? I can't see if there is. If there is conditioning in karma. Why there's no self? Yeah, from the point of view of karma there's some kind of karma. But from the point of view of, oh God knows, It's true but it's difficult to express it. But from the point of view of that which is no point of view, okay, there is no karma. But how you take that point of view which is no point of view, I mean maybe we simply say stop thinking, but it means no longer having the, in your actions,

[51:08]

various kinds of patterns, attitudes, views, etc. And it's actually possible through insight and meditation to drop those patterns. But it means you have to drop your desires too, because those patterns are reinforced by our desires as well as our habits or karma. Then the question is why bother? Some of us bother because we get so messed up, you know? And some of us bother maybe because we have a taste for it. Or if you are genuinely greedy, you'll practice Buddhism.

[52:18]

If you're really greedy and really want things, you'll find out the only thing you can get is Buddhism. There's nothing else. So... So, my fellow greedy buddhists, what else should we talk about? I go through a heavy change-up during an encounter, let's say a heavy encounter with a person, let's say it's a person who wants to be involved, and that person, maybe the person is asking for some help, I have these recurrent headaches, I don't know what to do about them.

[53:30]

And they say, well, we'll watch and see what happens. Well, later in the days, you see the person flamming their head against the wall. And at that point, you suggest that perhaps there might be a link between the headache and the wall bang. And at that point, there is an uproar. Let's just be critical. You would take this away from me? What do you mean? I'm at this point I don't think we're changing at all. Make some connection that we need to cause in that relationship or you sort of simply ask me for help. I should make a suggestion at this point that we might consider it. I hope your legs are all right.

[54:35]

You know, we're not trying to come to any conclusion here, but it's very nice to talk. Well, as you know, you know, it doesn't help much to point out the cause to someone. They're the same. The cause and the effect in that case are the same. Unless the person really wants to put themselves in the position of finding out for themselves. Anyway, you can try various things. You can also offer the person a cup of tea. It's very hard to drink a cup of tea while you're banging your head. Or you could join the head-banging. You could sit beside them and, you know, they might say, well, Harry, why are you banging? Or you could say, now you really don't have enough force in that, and you could grab them. So it really hurts, you know. Your example is not

[55:44]

foolish. I know some extraordinary situations actually of where people's karma has them in just that kind of situation and their whole life reinforces the need for that headmane which also has some good effects. and their life won't let them get out of that hidden agony. And I've seen, you know, often I've seen situations of that are quite terrible, which it's quite clear that to the people involved that, you know, I wouldn't be and wouldn't do that, but yet they don't mind my participation because I am not comparing it.

[57:07]

And yet they include me, or us, or Zen Center, and actually Zen Center is sometimes included in what I'm talking about, because of some reminder to themselves or something. Anyway, it's... These questions are... The level at which they exist, you can't answer them, because the way we actually participate with other people is not on this level of form. You don't see... Those who see the Tathagata with their eyes have not seen him. When you see a situation like that with your eyes you don't see it.

[58:12]

And maybe one of the elements is you don't care about the person's headaches. You do care but actually in some way you see such things aren't important. So you can act. I don't know how to explain that. Another way of saying it is that dharma or elements or matter is seen as a kind of commotion and by doing zazen you reduce your commotion and so you reduce commotion everywhere. to stop the world or to stop suffering means to stop the commotion so by your activity you stop the commotion you even if you stop it a tiny bit you stop the commotion so there's no way to stop the commotion completely and you can't grab something and stop the commotion and you can't be separate from it and stop the commotion unless the person is

[59:31]

The negative way doesn't work unless the person themselves wants to stop the commotion. Then you can be Bodhidharma and rather detached. So for a person who doesn't want to stop the commotion, the only way to stop, to reduce, since we're practicing Buddhism and there's a sense of realization or we have some sense of that as an effort, we sense it through our practice, the ease of reducing commotion. So we have a tendency to want to reduce the commotion. So that's maybe some view, but anyway. The only way to do that with a person or a situation which doesn't want to reduce the commotion themselves, who hasn't been turned around to see that it's beneficial to reduce commotion, the only way to do it is to join the commotion. Because to be part of it, separate from it, does nothing.

[60:33]

So if you join the commotion, you by your practice, without doing anything, reduce the commotion. So there's some trust that has to occur. Maybe this is like non-doing. As long as you're trying to do something, it doesn't help. That just increases commotion. So how to join the commotion? and know that you're joining it reduces the commotion, is to not compare. And when you're like that, people genuinely will trust you, even though you're not participating or wouldn't do it yourself. So normally, some people say, we don't want that person around because they're critical of this way of life. But if you're a person who does not compare, but really, they don't mind your being around even though you don't do it, because there's no record being kept in you of it in a comparative way, you understand?

[61:35]

So, you're not excluded from situations, what you would be if you were critical. So, you don't, so you're able to accept what it means, I am joining your commotion. And if what you see is me, if you see the commotion, you're not perceiving what really is here. That's the second principle, so you shouldn't be... So the second principle is not just form, it's form from the point of view of Buddha. So if you... So the second principle is used in Buddhism. So this story is about the second principle. So I don't know how to convey to you, but at some thorough-going, deep way, if you can realize your own commotion, which we could call the relative, and the absolute,

[62:58]

the background or emptiness on which that commotion seems to exist. Reducing that commotion, because there's no separate body to perceive, actually, reduces the commotion everywhere. So when you fully see that, you no longer have the question or bothered by the problem. Am I really helping people by doing zazen here or should I be a doctor or should I be doing something else? What he's saying, Setpo is saying again, is what we need are people who have reduced, eliminated their own commotion. This is the only way to eliminate the commotion of the world because it's one, this commotion. So we eliminate our own commotion and yet join the commotion. As long as we're alive there's some commotion, but if you have practiced well enough, if your practice is mature, that commotion is not you any longer.

[64:16]

That commotion can't be described. that commotion just arises according to particular circumstances, in tune with particular circumstances. Form and reality are one. Expedience and the real are together. So right now, maybe some of you have been sitting for a long time, you have some commotion in your body and legs. Where is that commotion happening? Now is some chance, just now, to just let that commotion drop away.

[65:27]

Pretend you're me, but you're my girlfriend.

[66:00]

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