Sometimes I think you must get a little tired of hearing how in Buddhism it's so important that you maybe go so far as to give yourself up to satisfy other people's desires. I feel maybe you feel that way because it's difficult to see how important that can be. Can it really be that important? And also I think maybe really deep down we want this practice to be for ourself, you know. And we're willing to save all sentient beings if it helps us, you know. But anyway, you got yourself into this religion. I didn't get you here, you know.

[01:20]

And Buddhism is, you know, based on that idea. It's for everyone. I, part of the reason I talk about these things like joy or some stage in practice

[02:38]

– anger, etc. – is that you should know that such stages or such feelings, you know, Dharma, joy, are as real as your foot or hand or heart, you know. It's not something dependent on your particular talent or a gift from God or something like that, you know. It's something that's as real as, or realer than most things, you know. It's a fact that if you are free from conflicting emotions, free from, you know, aversions, hatred or anger,

[03:46]

it's replaced by joy, that's all, you know, as the third hindrance, I guess, is hatred or anger, and the antidote is rapture or bliss or joy. But it's all, we can all, maybe more accurate to say, if there's no conflicting emotions, then there's joy. And you can't approach anything, you know, even yourself, if you have conflicting emotions. Now, of course, the problem arises for you then, well, I just do feel angry or something, how do I get rid of it? It's a bad guy. Well, that's, maybe that's, you could say that if you're lost in the woods, you know, don't,

[04:57]

the way to get out is not to just start running, but to see the space between the trees, you know, that's not woods. So if you're actually practicing with your conflicting emotions, you can't get rid of them, you have to find the space around them. Or ideally, what you're actually doing is moving closer and closer to samadhi, which is an imperturbable and hence collected state of mind. And samadhi and joy are very closely related.

[06:00]

Samadhi, the state of imperturbability, can only come about when you have an enormous sense of confidence or ease. Ease and zest, sometimes the sutras say, but an enormous sense of ease, so easy you feel, you know, with whatever happens, even, you know, if some tiger comes to eat you, you feel quite easy. You know. You know.

[07:06]

And if you have that easy feeling, anything that happens is okay. So your samadhi is possible. In a distracted state of mind, there are very few possibilities, you know. You're just distracted. It looks like a lot is happening, but actually there's no possibilities. But when you have an imperturbable state of mind, there are many possibilities. It's very interesting how we faint, f-e-i-n-t, or both ways actually, fall asleep maybe,

[08:09]

when faced with reality. And by reality, Buddhism means that pure, shining, radiant mind, you know, dharmakaya. Even if you have an undistracted state of mind, when faced with a radiant, pure mind, still, instinctively, you pull away. Maybe out of fear, maybe out of humility. It's too much, you know, it doesn't. It's the abode of all the Buddhas. It's where all the sutras come from.

[09:12]

You don't belong there, you know. It's like in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. You can't look at the bright, clear light, you know. You turn toward the lesser, corporal light, you know, of our own body. We don't feel worthy or something. So, first stage of practice is maybe some faith. And second stage is maybe getting rid of desires, or conflicting emotions, or ignorance, or delusions. Until you have some concentrated state of mind, with sustained thinking, you know.

[10:19]

Smooth thinking, Suzuki Roshi used to say. Then some, at first maybe it's just a sign of well-being. When you start practicing, you'll notice after a while, you suddenly have a completely unexplained sense of well-being. Eventually this feeling is always there, you know. Just if you have it one second, though, you know you'll always have it, you know. When you practice Buddhism, you really must know that each stage is all stages. Any teaching you hear is your teaching, you know. Don't try to think, is this the real teaching or something? What teaching you hear is your teaching. And the other side is true too, that no matter what teaching that is presented to you,

[11:19]

you can only hear your teaching, you know. So right now, concentrate on what you understand as practice. At your own stage, don't think about anything else. If you think about, I'm predicted, or I know I'm pretty good, so-and-so said so, or I've got it all and they'll recognize it soon, you know. If you have that feeling, you know, Suzuki Roshi said, you'll lose the essence of the teaching, you'll miss the essence. Just what you are right now, as everyone identifies you, what's just before you, you know, is your teaching. So if you have that sense of well-being, you know, even for a second,

[12:28]

for no reason, causeless, you know, well-being. You didn't get a present, you know, it's not Christmas time, no one said anything nice to you, just it arose, you know. That means your practice is perfect and complete, actually. Even that you can hear the teaching means you're already pretty good, you know. If you can't hear it, maybe there's not too much hope for you, but if you can hear it, don't give up because you're 90% of the way, you know. The last 10%, Suzuki Roshi said, of course, is the most difficult. But still, 90% is pretty good, you know.

[13:34]

It's taken how many lifetimes to get to that point? So, as I said yesterday, until everything begins to fall into place and things make sense, you know, according to the Dharma or according to your experience, and you have some feeling that the welfare of others is assured, at least if they'd practice.

[14:39]

If you feel it's hopeless, you know, then you can't be comfortable enough to feel easy. I don't mean you have to be optimistic or something like that, but... The vow to save all sentient beings means, you know, it's possible. Or even if it's not possible, there's only one course, which is to act, you know, in each moment as if it were possible, as if it was possible, as if it is possible.

[15:52]

So you'll have eventually, you know, that sense of well-being will eventually become a joyful, easy state of mind, quite comfortable. That's maybe, we can say, the first bhumi from the Dasa Bhumika Sutra. And the second one is the stainless one or the uncontaminated practice. So the third stage of practice will be practice, you know, I can almost say after enlightenment, you know, but practice after you are quite easy and you can have an imperturbable state of mind, then you can widen the foundation of your practice.

[17:05]

At that time, your practice can in some ways be more for yourself. First stage, maybe you have to do zazen, etc., but you constantly are making an effort just to be easy with others, to accept others, not to exclude others from your practice. From your thoughts, you know. It's the most important admonition for a bodhisattva practice. But second, in this third stage and the second bhumi, you know, you make sure your practice. And third stage is the illuminated, illuminating, shining stage.

[18:20]

Second is stainless, you know. Third is shining. And this stage is partly what I was talking about yesterday when I talked about the bodhisattvas. Buddhism's aim is to create a person like a bodhisattva whose shining presence can reverse the snowballing effect of, you know, our big psychosomatic disease. From some imperturbable state of mind. Hmm.

[19:26]

So in your practice in a session, since you don't have too many distractions, you can begin to be calmer and calmer and stiller and stiller. And you can then begin to see how you produce distractions, even when you're not distracted, you know. And after you see you produce distractions, you can see how your daily life is a produced distraction. That you produce your daily life in a distracted way for the same reason that just as you're most calmly sitting and nothing is disturbing you and some deep unified feeling begins to come and there is no thought at all

[20:38]

and the radiant mind is shining, you know. At that moment you have some thought, you know, comes up about tomorrow or some sexual idea or some greedy idea, you know, comes up. Anything to distract you, you know. So it takes your attention away or it gives your attention some object. Ksitigarbha used to say in monasteries, monks are always very mischievous and it's the only thing I ever heard him say which he didn't explain or he'd always said, I can't explain it. Usually he would say something and it had the feeling or authority of

[21:40]

he knew what he was talking about. But every time he talked about the fact that the monks were mischievous, he'd say, I can't, but always they're mischievous. And I think it's the same thing, you know, as just as you are most calm, you are quite mischievous and you mess it up, you know. We don't like to be stuck, you know, even in enlightenment. So we want to move a bit. And it's quite fearful, actually. Rules, I don't...

[22:41]

Rules, rules in practice and in Buddhism, I think, are a constant problem for some of us. And maybe we think a layman's life, actually there are rules for a layman and rules for priests. We tend to think of a layman as someone who makes his own rules, who lives according to his own needs or desires or conditions. And a priest, someone who lives according to Buddha's rules or the Sangha's rules or according to the rules, according to the way other people want them to live or him to live, want to live. And this is interesting, you know, I don't think you, even you who are priests here at Zen Center, know

[23:49]

fully how many rules there are in a traditional monastery and what a satisfying experience that is. You know, our idea of Zen is to be free, you know, or something. When we start out we think Zen is some kind of freedom and maybe so, you know. I certainly used to think that, you know. I always, as when I was in school, etc., I always didn't follow the rules. I mean, I was known by everyone, you know, as a person who wouldn't follow any rules, did what he wanted to do, you know. I, it wasn't, I wasn't difficult about it,

[24:58]

but I just did it that way. If they said you have to have a Thai, when I was at college, you have to have a Thai to eat, I'd say, oh, fine, I won't eat, that's all. I don't know why I was like that exactly, but I was like that. But now, you know, if I, for instance, if I had a temple or a house that I was responsible for, you know, and I lived there all by myself, I would make about 100 rules for the temple. What time Zazen should begin, what time bells should be rung in the morning, etc. How you should stand in one room, how you should do something else in another room. And I would break them all the time, of course.

[25:58]

But I'd know I was breaking them, you know. That's a rather interesting experience. There's these rules and you know you're breaking them. Even having a rule to break is some satisfaction. Having no rule at all, you don't feel comfortable in this world, you know. I can't quite explain it, but maybe it's like, you know, as you practice, you become so familiar with your internal rules, you know, that you're... Well, I can't say that your white corpuscles do this and your red do that, you know. But that there's a sense of an order, an internal order that everything follows, you know.

[27:09]

And as you're as conscious as of your interior, so-called interior as this so-called exterior, anyway, the more I sense those inner rules, the more I feel satisfaction in outer rules, so-called outer rules. Tsukiyoshi always used so-called and the other day I was speaking to Mrs. Fisk and she said that as she gets older, she fears she's losing this so-called mind. I hope I can say that sometime. I think that's the good teaching of Nyogen Senzaki coming out,

[28:16]

her first teacher. I think rules also help us to know what we should do on each moment. Eventually, there's no question, you know, what to do on each moment. But until that's so, rules are a very helpful way to come to a feeling of just so, without equivocation. You can't have, again, there's no such thing as some mental experience of samadhi, you know,

[29:21]

if your life isn't also collected, if each thing doesn't just have its own place and without a lot of wobbling, you know. Each thing that happens is characterized maybe by imperturbability or finality, some thusness or suchness or something. So,

[30:31]

it's actually pretty difficult to practice or do your life and do your life until you have that feeling that you're maybe a non-returner, you know. That your practice is ever-present, you know. Even if you never do zazen or can't, it doesn't make any difference, you know. Even though you may enjoy zazen more than anything, nothing is being lost, you know. And when you do your whatever activity, it's not disturbing in such a way that you feel this is so disturbing I should be doing zazen. It's just something you're doing, you know, for the present.

[31:31]

We can't choose, you know, each of us, we can't choose our steps toward enlightenment or something like that and arrange them. Each of you will have this teaching or this practice right now and each of you will have a certain opportunity to do zazen or to be a priest or to be a layman or to stay in Zen Center or to leave Zen Center or to teach Buddhism or to not teach Buddhism, you know. It's not important about that. If your practice is sure it's not important, you'll just do what is afforded for you to do. In this way, though you don't notice it,

[32:56]

your life becomes more and more a life of samadhi. If you, especially if you don't try to look at your life and evaluate it, is it this or that, just trust, you know, it's your practice, just trust practice, you know. And keep weathering your life situations. If you keep weathering your life situations and continue practicing zazen, you don't have anything to worry about. Each stage of practice will be there for you. And eventually you'll know

[34:00]

yourself so well and you'll know others so well that the question won't arise, is this practice for others or for myself? Do you have some questions? ...

[35:06]

No matter what I say, there's always that problem. You shouldn't move if moving is moving. If you can move in a way that's still, do you understand what I mean? You know, if you move so often that you begin to feel distracted, then that's not so good, but if you are not straight and you can move quite calmly without getting your back or something, that's okay, there's always some movement, you know. Well, that's a...

[36:22]

Many... You know, many kinds of Buddhism which practice meditation other than zen, most of them, in fact, I don't think emphasize sitting as straight as we do. I know my impression, I don't know exactly, I do know about a great number of people I've talked to have practiced other Buddhism, other forms of Buddhism, and they, people like Lama Govinda and other people, and they emphasize a more relaxed, relaxed looking posture. And I don't know exactly about Tibetan Buddhism as a whole, but my impression is that some people emphasize extraordinarily straight posture. There's one posture that actually we can't do

[37:26]

because our arms are too long, but Chinese and Japanese and Tibetan people have shorter arms, and they... Let's see if I... I can remember how you do it. You sit half or full lotus, and then you... Anyway, you put your hands some way, I can't remember how, and then you pull your elbows forward and lock them in. Some way you place your hands and your fingers barely touch, and then your arms lock forward and push you up straight. And I don't, most of us can't do it. I'd have to put my arms underneath my bottom to do it, you know, because my arms reach, don't reach to here, you know. So my impression is, is that... My impression is that sometimes in practice, Tibetan practice, for instance, they may sit very straight,

[38:30]

and sometimes they don't sit so straight, and some people, some lineages emphasize sitting very straight, but all of Zen emphasizes sitting very straight. And as I implied yesterday, it's because we don't have much teaching, you know, much way we teach, we don't give you much instruction. So you really have to find the teaching in your own experience. So sitting very straight is important. But, if you're... when you're sitting, often we can have a wonderful feeling of Zazen sitting like this, you know. Or slightly crooked, you know. We get feeling wonderful, so steady, you know. And you know if you move, you'll disturb it, you know.

[39:31]

So you debate with yourself. Will they notice I'm crooked? I'm not going to move. You know. That's up to you, you know. But, if you're a courageous person, you'll straighten up. If you're a little bit greedy, you know, you'll stay there. Wonderful, you know. They're crazy. This is what the teaching is all about. But actually, if you don't worry about this lifetime, you'll say,

[40:34]

if I'm going to have some experience, some wonderful experience like that, I'll have it sitting straight. And until I have it sitting straight, I won't have it. And so you'll straighten up and say goodbye to that nice feeling, you know. Only in that way will you eventually have that feeling. Various feelings sitting straight, you know. And that kind of resolve to go all the way makes practice work instantaneously, actually. Doesn't matter then whether your zazen is good or bad or your mind is distracted or not distracted, if you have that much resolve. Thank you.

[41:43]

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