This is like the floating lecture seating. And this has been at my request so that I can feel all of you more directly than if you're in a line straight in front of me. But maybe a little more symmetry is possible. My first summer at Tassajara was in 1969.

[01:03]

And the dimensionality of the zendo, the proportionality, was not so dissimilar to this. Rectangled, but with a fair amount of space in the center and a divider, a couple of rows. One side of the Zendo seating was along a stone wall. The side that I sat on was facing Tassajara Creek. It was a wooden wall, tongue and groove like this, painted gray. There's a little notch in between the boards.

[02:14]

The boards don't sit flush. And I sat down five or six seats from the altar. and the second period of Zazen one morning facing this gray wall hearing the sound of Tassajara Creek I had an experience something broke open for me And following Zazen, there was service.

[03:15]

Following service, there was Oriyoki breakfast. Excuse me, following service, there was a short period of study and then oriyoki breakfast. And I was bursting with this experience. And so right after breakfast ended, I went to Suzuki Roshi's cabin and found him in his garden. And right after the breakfast was over, I looked for Suzuki Roshi in his hut and found him in his garden. And then I told him about this experience. Then he asked me some questions. And then we discussed the experience. And he said something very generally like, well, this is what we mean when we talk about practice.

[04:23]

And following this pause, there was another period of zazen. And shortly after the period began, Suzuki Roshi came up alongside me. The seat was empty next to me on the right. And he said to me, but very quietly, he said, you know, in Zazen we put our left hand on top of our right hand. And he didn't talk very much in the zinda, but he spoke very quietly. He starts giving me Zazen instruction.

[05:27]

And I start to laugh. And then he starts to laugh. And then he goes back and sits down. And there are different ways that one may understand such an exchange. Beginning a relationship with my first teacher. But what was most and remains most impactful for me He's here we are once again sitting Zazen. Somewhat we may consider to be an important experience for us.

[06:29]

What we may consider to be a trivial experience for us. Inconsequential, not very meaningful. Not about getting anything. Other than simply entering the space of this moment together. And Suzuki Roshi often would talk about no gaining idea. And we chant every morning, nothing to attain. Bodhisattva has nothing to attain. And the bodhisattva, in some translations in English, it says, and the bodhisattva depends on this non-attainment.

[08:13]

What does it mean, the bodhisattva depends on anything? The bodhisattva is both creating this non-attainment and continuing to rely on it the way a spider makes a web. Excuse me, can you say that again? I don't know if I can. The way a spider depends upon a web

[09:17]

A web that it both weaves and walks on is the way the Bodhisattva depends on non-attaining. Another translation, one by Man Red Pine, a translation of the Heart Sutra I like very much. And another translation from a man named Red Pine, a translation from the Heart Sutra, which I like very much. A bodhisattva takes refuge in this non-attaining wisdom beyond wisdom. It's the kind of... Home without walls, the home that we take wherever we are.

[10:21]

And the English translation, as I understand, of the Deutsch is the Bodhisattva lives, Prajnapara. And the German translation, as far as I know, is that the bodhisattva lives in prajnaparamita. Bodhisattva's aliveness is in this way of being in connectedness. Bodhisattva, we may say, is a being that cherishes no notion. Responds both inside, outside, and simply here to everything as it is.

[11:23]

But it's not about gaining anything. Yet so often we have this feeling we're here and the world is out there. And as we talked about before the self gets active the self wants to do something. Wants to gain some understanding. Wants to put an end to our suffering. He wants a little bit of relief, a little bit of peace.

[12:47]

And this sense of separation creates a gap. And we tend to fill the gap with our thinking. Practice is like this. Practice is not like that. This is what practice really is. This is how it really feels. And so we separate ourselves from ourselves. And so-called upright effort in practice is about not adding anything extra.

[13:53]

Not creating a gap and then filling a gap with thought. beliefs and preferences. So zazen is not something we do. If we're doing zazen, if we have some idea there's zazen in us, and we fill the gap with our idea of zazen, that's not zazen. That's just another place for us to hook our identity.

[15:05]

This is who I am. This is what I'm doing. So we say these things. And we say these things, when Zazen is Zazen, you are you. It means not interfering with Zazen. It means not treating ourselves as an object. Not having some feeling. Understanding is some place out there and we're over here and we're going to go get it. It feels like some kind of innocent misunderstanding.

[16:06]

We might just as easily say understanding is continually expressing itself as each of us uniquely and Miraculously and particularly in this moment. Nothing to attain. It's so difficult to believe it. Ourself is constantly trying to do things to make this situation into the way we want it to be. We want to be happy. We may be happy for five seconds, fifteen seconds, even a thousand seconds, but everything is continually changing.

[17:29]

But we have some idea that we fill the gap between ourself and our life, one another, this world, Keizan Zenji says, the world is perfect just as it is and we human beings make trouble for ourselves. Kesam Senji says, the world is perfect as it is, and we human beings create difficulties for ourselves. Continually filling the gap. And according to one view in Theravada practice, there are four stages. The first stage is the cessation of thinking.

[18:38]

So no more gap. Then there's a second stage. The second stage is joy in body and mind. The mind and the body become bright. There's an emotional and a physical clarity. The being becomes light. The being is the space in between. And then the so-called third stage is just this physical joyfulness.

[19:49]

A light, a luminosity of being. But the fourth stage is nothing at all. Not even these joyful states. The fourth stage is just what's here. Nothing special at all. Nothing to attain. Possibility present for us in each moment. Expectations are maybe valuable.

[20:55]

Most of us wouldn't come here and do this without some expectation. Maybe we'll get some understanding. Relief from our difficulty. A way we may be able to find a way to help someone we care about or this help the listen to the voices of this world. And we may develop some understanding. We may find some peace. But the real point, the real thing that we may take away But the real, the essential, what we then maybe take away, is not some understanding, but a way to practice with whatever comes up.

[22:21]

Without an idea of getting something. Without an idea of getting something. In a lecture once, Suzuki Roshi once joked that there are two laws to practice. And the first was, if you seek for something, it's going to make things difficult for you. And then he laughed. He said, I'm making this up. I don't know about these two laws. I'm just making this up. Maybe you're going to add a third law. And the second law is, and in order to be alive, we have to give. It's not about what we're going to get.

[23:42]

It's not about solving our problems with the same level of intelligence that created them. We'll never get out of the difficult. It's not about solving our problems with the same kind of intelligence that it created, otherwise we'll never get out of it. But what can we give? And there I had an opportunity, I spoke to Bert this morning. You can add, Otmore understands much more than I do about the medical situation he has, but they're going to put some kind of bucket through his mouth, into his stomach, into his gallbladder, break up some stones and take them out. Is that roughly correct? Mm-hmm. Anyway, the point for me in the call was he said, you know, I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning. Auf jeden Fall war das Wichtigste für mich in dem Telefonat.

[25:06]

Er hat gesagt, also heute Morgen bin ich um 4 Uhr aufgewacht. And he said, I feel like I'm practicing with you all. Und dann hat er gesagt, ich habe das Gefühl mit euch allen zu praktizieren. It's not about him getting something. Es geht nicht darum, dass er etwas bekommt. What is he giving us? Was gibt er uns? What is he sharing with us? This is a very compelling and powerful law. To enter a situation, even a difficult situation, Eine Situation zu betreten, sogar eine schwierige Situation. I told him I didn't want him to take that talk about there's no hard as seriously as he did.

[26:08]

Ich habe ihm gesagt, ich möchte eigentlich nicht, dass er diesen Vortrag darüber, dass es kein schwierig gibt, so ernst nimmt, wie er das getan hat. And it's not just giving when it's easy. Und es ist nicht nur zu geben, wenn es leicht ist. It's giving from what Suzuki Roshi calls this bottomless calmness. A place we can't think around, but we can feel around. A place we can't think around, but we can feel around. Wholeheartedness does not begin to describe such a space. And it's wholeheartedness because it's our wholeheartedness. Continually entering what Baker Roshi refers to as a compositional space.

[27:26]

Compositional. Composition, composing. I know, I know. It's just hard to say. Compositional means each of us alone and all of us together are continually shaping the space. It's a giving in the sense of giving ourselves, giving ourselves up. Finding ourselves in these pauses which we talked about, we don't exactly know what's going on, we don't exactly know where we are.

[28:52]

But being there together, we're not lost. Because we're composing the space together. So on October 10th, we will together make a shoe-sew entering ceremony for Serio Erich Griesler. And to make it together means it's not just a few people in the procession or the Doan. means we all join together as we're able to make the ceremony for Seiryu Eric Griesler's entering.

[30:10]

And we may make what would appear from the outside to be some mistakes. But they're mistakes according to an idea we might have. But as we're fully able to be present with one another, what comes up in our aliveness is not a mistake. It's about doing something apart from allowing this bottomless calmness to come up like a well, wellspring into our presence.

[31:14]

It's not about us gaining anything. Rumi says that there are two kinds of practitioners on the path. The one that comes dutifully out of their Religious belief. And the one that loves true nature. And the former stays close to the midwife. Because they want her milk. And the latter loves the beauty of the nurse.

[32:40]

The former memorizes the proof texts of doctrine and repeats them over and over again the latter dissolves into whatever brings them closer to true nature Thank you very much.

[33:34]

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