Good morning. This morning, I'm going to comment on a talk of Suzuki Roshi's, which the trans, no, the editor, named Beyond Consciousness. So Suzuki Roshi talks about how our true nature is actually beyond consciousness. So we have our conscious life and our unconscious life, which are not two things. but we talk about them in two ways in order to explain this phenomenon.

[01:02]

He says, this is a little bit difficult, it can be a paragraph, so you have to listen closely. We should establish our practice where there is no practice or enlightenment. We have to establish our practice where there is no practice and no enlightenment. As long as we practice zazen in the area where there is practice and enlightenment, there's no chance to make perfect peace for ourselves. In other words, we must firmly believe in our true nature. Our true nature is beyond our conscious experience. It is only in our conscious experience that we find practice and enlightenment, or good and bad. But whether or not we have experience of our true nature, what exists there beyond consciousness actually exists, and it is there that we have to establish the foundation of our practice.

[02:20]

If you have Zen in my beginner's mind, you don't have to take notes." So what he's saying, in effect, is, you know, sometimes he talks about material and spiritual as being the same thing, or all being on this side. And what is not spiritual and material is on the other side. But what we think of as usually spiritual being on the other side of material. That's the usual way of thinking. This is spiritual, this is material. But material and spiritual is all on the other side. It's all consciousness. It's all within our consciousness. But our true foundation of our life is beyond consciousness.

[03:29]

So enlightenment is on the side of consciousness. What we call enlightenment is on the side of consciousness. What we think of as enlightenment. I can get enlightened. That's material. That's why we don't emphasize, although we do emphasize, we don't ignore so-called enlightenment, we don't emphasize enlightenment because true enlightenment is beyond enlightenment. So he says even a good thing, even to have a good thing in your mind is not so good. Buddha sometimes said you should be like this or you ought not to be like that. But to have what he says in your mind is not so good. This is why, you know, Suzuki Roshi didn't talk about precepts.

[04:42]

in the sense of good and bad, and right and wrong. He didn't emphasize studying precepts from that point of view. But to have what he says in your mind is maybe not so good. It's a kind of burden for you, and you may actually You may not actually feel so good. In fact, to harbor some ill will may be even better than to have some idea in your mind of what is good or what you ought to do. That's radical, darn right. To have some mischievous idea in your mind is sometimes very agreeable. That's true. Actually, all good and bad is not the point.

[05:48]

In other words, good and bad is not the point. Whether or not you make yourself peaceful is the point, and whether or not you stick to it. So, this is difficult. because we are attuned to right and wrong, good and bad. Our minds are always dwelling in the realm of duality. So he's not afraid to say that sometimes you should be bad. It's okay. Sometimes you should be mischievous. Not yet, it's okay. And that releases a lot of something, but we're still cautious. It's not that you should go out and do bad things, that's not what he's saying, but he's trying to help us to see that there's something beyond our dualistic way of observing our life.

[07:08]

and where we get our information, and where we get our, because we believe that we exist only on this side, we have all these rules. For the Suzuki Roshi, precepts come from the other side, the subconscious side. subconscious side is the true informer. But we set up rules and regulations and laws and so forth in order to govern our behavior and then we feel either good or bad about what we do according to those rules. So his radical understanding that true precepts don't come from there.

[08:13]

True precepts come from our basic true nature and when we are totally in touch and give ourselves over to our true nature then we know what to do. Like In other words, we depend on our intuition, which is not believed in anymore, but intuition is where our true precepts come from, because intuition means directly touching. That's what it means, without having to go through the process of thinking. So he says, when you have something in your consciousness, in your conscious mind, you do not have perfect composure.

[09:22]

The best way toward perfect composure is to forget everything. You know, we say ignorance is bliss, right? But this is not bliss in the ignorant sense. The best way toward perfect composure is to forget everything. then your mind is calm. This is like Dogen saying, his great insight was to drop body and mind. When your mind is calm and it is wide and clear enough to see and feel things as they are without any effort, the best way to find perfect composure is not to retain any idea of things, whatever they may be, to forget all about them and not to leave any trace or thinking, I'm sorry, any trace or shadow of thinking.

[10:26]

But if you try to stop your mind or try to go beyond your conscious activity, that will only be another burden for you. So he's not advocating that you stop your mind or that you stop your thinking. He's actually talking about zazen. This is what we do in zazen. And then he quotes a hypothetical question. I have to stop my mind in my practice, but I can't, so my practice is not so good. This kind of idea is also the wrong way of practice. So if you stick to your thinking, or if you try to get rid of your thinking, neither one of those is right. My practice, so this kind of idea is also wrong. So do not try to stop your mind, but leave everything as it is. Then things will not stay in your mind so long. Things will come as they come and go as they go. Then eventually, your clear, empty mind will last a pretty long time.

[11:28]

So he's not just talking about sitting, he's talking about the activity of thinking beyond thinking, which is not just sitting still, but as a basic understanding of how we operate. There's a very interesting movie, I don't know if you saw it, It's called The Man Who Knew Infinity. Did you see that movie? Well, it's the story of a mathematician from India, a true story actually, based on a true story. And he's just a young guy, poor young man,

[12:35]

whose whole life is devoted to solving mathematical problems, just naturally. He has no, he's not taught to do this. and he doesn't have any paper or anything, he's got some chalk and he's writing his formulas on the sidewalk, you know, and he's so obsessed with it that that's all he does, doesn't do anything else. He's married and his wife says, can't you do stuff with me? He's saying, just a minute, just a minute. So, and he's treated, you know, Like, I kind of, you know, what's this guy doing all the time? You know, why doesn't he go to work, you know, and get a job and support his wife and all this? So, but somebody recognizes him and kind of mentors him, and he realizes that these formulas, you know, are, there's something extraordinary about this. And so, and I can't remember his name,

[13:43]

What? Ramartin. Ramartin, yeah. He knows that there are formulas out there. He kind of has a good idea about the world of mathematical formulas. And so he answers a lot of these questions mathematical questions, you know, and he's answering all these questions that are very profound and nobody can really answer, has been able to answer. So his mentor sends off the answers to these questions to the School of Mathematics, I think at Harvard. or Oxford, and the professor looks at them, you know, and he says, whoa, and from India, what? So anyway, they invite him to give him a scholarship to come, and here comes this, they don't know who's coming, you know, and here's a skinny little young guy, you know, with sandals on, and they don't know what to do with him.

[15:03]

But they give him a space, and he's coming up with all these formulas. He's working night and day, and that's all he does. And all these great mathematical questions, which these professors have been working on for years, he just answers them. But they're suspicious. And they're thinking, how does he do this? And his professor, who is his mentor at Oxford, says he likes him. He grows to like him. They treat him like a Dalit, you know, or untouchable. And he gets a lot of flak because so many people are jealous of him. He answers all the questions in our classes, you know. And they keep saying, we want... Well, I'm getting there. Oh, okay. Don't take my question. So they say, well, how do you get these?

[16:07]

You have to have proofs. We can't publish your stuff. We like your stuff, but we can't publish it, because there has to be proofs. He says, I don't have any proofs. I can't prove this. Why should I try to prove it? This is correct. I just know it's right. And the argument just keeps going on and on, you know, and the professor keeps saying, we can't publish this stuff without the proofs, even though they're right, you gotta prove that they're right. And he says, finally, he says, the professor says, where do you get this? Where do you get this? He says, I get it from God. It just comes to me, I just know it.

[17:15]

I don't even have to think about it. I just write these things down. And all the professors go, what? Really? No, I mean, it just puts a finger in their eyes without trying. How can we explain this? Nobody can explain it. So eventually, they give it his due, which I guess they're better judgment, but they do it. And fortunately, he gets tuberculosis and dies, and you know, it's kind of tragic, but it's a true story. So this is what Suzuki Roshi is talking about. Actually, if you simply let things work, if you stop trying too hard and give yourself over to your better nature, to your true nature, your true nature will inform you.

[18:34]

You already know what you need to know, but we don't give ourselves the opportunity to do that. practice is to give yourself over, stop trying too hard, stop interfering with what you already know so that what you know can actually come forth. And then what do we really need to know? So he says, you know how to rest physically, but you do not know how to rest mentally. Sometimes we call, as I was saying, giving your mind a rest. Even though you lie in your bed, your mind is still busy. Even if you sleep, your mind is busy dreaming.

[19:37]

Your mind is always in intense activity. That's not so good. we should know how to give up our thinking mind, our busy mind. In order to go beyond our thinking faculty, it is necessary to have a firm conviction in the emptiness of your mind. Believing firmly in the perfect rest of our mind, we should resume our pure original state. So sometimes he calls it readiness. or he's always talking about to rest in the calmness of your mind, to reside in the calmness of your mind. That's what he's talking about. We have so many mind waves, and to come back to zero, we're always coming back to zero. And so people, we say, well, how do you practice after you leave the zendo?

[20:39]

You leave the zendo, but you don't leave the calmness of your mind. You don't leave zero. You're always in the calmness of your mind. You're always in zero. Problem is, we leave the zendo and get involved in our mind waves and forget all about the calmness of our mind. coming back to breath, the rhythm of our breathing, residing in the rhythm of our breathing, right here, when we have a problem, to come back to the rhythm of our breathing so that we come back to rest in the calmness of our mind, of our big mind. And then something comes out, you know, Sometimes we get a question and we work really hard on how to answer the question.

[21:52]

And sometimes we don't know. And a good way is to say, I don't know. I don't know is how you save yourself. Not knowing is the highest. let go of knowing, then the answer comes from your deep nature, just all by itself. It wipes your mind clean, and then your intuition produces the correct answer. That's the only way you can deal with deep questions and shallow ones. Dogen Zenji said, you should establish your practice in your delusion. Even though you think you are in delusion, your pure mind is there.

[23:00]

To realize pure mind in your delusion is called practice. If you have pure mind, essential mind in your delusion, the delusion will vanish. It cannot stay when you say, this is delusion. This is hard for us to say. It's hard enough for us to say that we did something wrong. And maybe even harder to say, I think I'm deluded. If you can't admit your craziness, then that's really crazy. My comment from before is actually what I'm going to comment about now, only it seems deeper now. The idea of having a bad thought in your mind Well, yes.

[24:27]

A bad thought, you can, to keep the mind clean all the time, whether it's good or bad, is right. Practice. You're always sweeping. Sweeping away the good and sweeping away the bad. The problem is that we keep choosing. And it's true. There is good and there is bad according to human understanding. But when we sweep away both the good and the bad, it means that our mind is clear. And a clear mind is the mind that goes beyond good and bad. So good will fall away and bad will fall away. So we're always standing in the presence of just the way it is, but that's good.

[25:31]

I'm not contradicting what you say. So to realize pure mind in your, Delusion is practice. Trying to get rid of something in your mind is really hard because when you try to get rid of something in your mind, your mind always wins. That thing always wins. If you try to get rid of the pain in your legs, will laugh at you. Ha, you try to get rid of me? I'm gonna bite you even harder. You know, if you have a pure mind, a sensual mind in your delusion, the delusion will vanish by itself.

[26:43]

you may be wrong. It cannot stay when you say this is delusion. So in other words, and this is basic Buddhist practice, to acknowledge your states of mind. This is angry mind, this is avaricious mind, and so forth, which I am experiencing at this moment. helps to allow your pure mind to arise. And when you actually acknowledge what's there, it helps it to not be so, there's a way to manage it. So you cannot stay when you say, oh, I'm sorry, it cannot stay, your delusional mind.

[27:50]

It cannot stay when you say, this is delusion. It will be very much ashamed. It will run away. So you should establish your practice in your delusion. So establishing your practice, we usually say, is enlightenment, right? But we establish our enlightenment in our delusion, because that's the dualistic world. Enlightenment is part of the dualistic world, and delusion is part of the dualistic world, and they look like opposites. But when enlightened mind recognizes delusion, then delusion loses its grip. And we understand, yeah, this is delusion. We live in the realm of delusion. We have to. And when we try to get rid of delusion, it just gets stronger. This is to attain enlightenment before you realize it.

[28:57]

Wherever you are. Even though you do not realize it, you have it. So when you say this is delusion, that is actually enlightenment itself. If you try to expel the delusion, it will only persist the more, and your mind will become busier and busier trying to cope with it. This is not so good to just say, oh, this is just delusion. You don't have to be bothered by it. Now, that's an interesting statement. In Zazen, we have all these thoughts, and then they bother us. So what we say is don't be. Yes, some more than others. Don't let them bother you. Don't be bothered by it. That's true, but not easy to do. But that's why we have to practice over and over. So when you just observe the delusion, you have your true mind.

[30:01]

Just observing. You have your true mind, your calm, peaceful mind. When you start to cope with it, you will be involved in delusion. So whether or not you attain enlightenment, just to sit in zazen is enough. When you try to attain enlightenment, then you have a big burden on your mind. Your mind will not be clear enough to see things as they are. If you truly see things as they are, I think he probably said, as it is, but the editors, no, that's not good English. So if you truly see things as it is, then you will see things as they should be. On the one hand, we should attain enlightenment. That is how things should be, but on the other hand, As long as we are physical beings, in reality, it's pretty hard to attain enlightenment. That is how things actually are in this moment.

[31:08]

He talked about should be and to be. To be means as it is, or as where we are. So should be is how we should be, and to be is how we really are. So we have the ideal and the actual. And then he says, when should be and to be, when should be and to be is the same, then we have peace. So this is how things actually are in this moment. But if we start to sit, both sides of our nature will be brought up, and we will see things both as they are and as they should be. Because we are good right now, we want to be better. But when we attain the transcendental mind, we go beyond things as they are and as they should be.

[32:13]

In the emptiness of our original mind, they are one, and there we find our perfect composure. So if you want to have composure, that's where you will find it. Usually religion develops itself in the realm of consciousness, seeking to perfect its organization, building beautiful buildings, creating music, evolving a philosophy, and so forth. These are religious activities in the conscious world. But Buddhism emphasizes the world of unconsciousness, or beyond consciousness, or subconsciousness, or whatever you want to call it. The best way to develop Buddhism is to sit in zazen, just to sit with a firm conviction in our true nature. This is called faith, and Dogen talks about it. He says you can't do zazen unless you have faith in your original nature. This way is much better than to read books or study the philosophy of Buddhism.

[33:17]

Of course, it's necessary to study the philosophy. It will strengthen your conviction. Buddhist philosophy is so universal and logical that it is not just the philosophy of Buddhism, but of life itself. The purpose of Buddhist teaching is to point to life itself existing beyond consciousness in our pure original mind. All Buddhist practices were built up to protect this true teaching, not to propagate Buddhism in some wonderful mystical way. So when we discuss religion, it should be in the most common and universal way. We should not try to propagate our way by wonderful philosophical thought. In some ways, Buddhism is rather polemical with some feeling of controversy in it. You know, Buddhism is creative, it's a creative religion, it's not stuck in some dogmatic way.

[34:27]

Although there seems to be dogma, Buddhism is not dogmatic, there's nothing that you have to believe. You do not have to believe anything, and polemical means you question, right? We're always questioning, and questioning is our practice on the phenomenal side. So we have 12 different schools of Buddhism, and each one has its own path to the Dharma. And they used to argue like crazy. There were 18 schools before the first century, 18 schools of Buddhism, and they were all arguing about argument. Well, some argument was fierce and some was just thoughtful argument, but the argument was important. It's like, well, what's the truth?

[35:29]

But the argument is good, it's not something that, have a piece of fruit, stomp your, you know that one? The Jewish mother says, like the kids are fighting each other, she says, oh stop fighting, have a piece of fruit. It works, yeah. What was I? So, in some ways, Buddhism is rather polemical, with some feeling of controversy in it, because the Buddhist must protect his way from mystic or magical interpretations of religion.

[37:01]

Suzuki Roshi used to say, Buddhism is not mystical. It's just our way of life. But philosophical discussion will not be the best way to understand Buddhism. If you want to be a sincere Buddhist, the best way is to sit. We are very fortunate to have a place to sit in this way. I want you to have a firm, wide, imperturbable conviction in your zazen of just sitting. Just sit. That's enough. But sitting is everything in your life. It's not just placing your butt on the cushion. So this is, yes, Bud? I used to have a couple of quotations on my wall. I think it was a poem by Shelley, I don't really remember, but the gist of it was that intuition is the voice of God.

[38:05]

quotation was Thoreau who said, the intuition is liable to corruption as any other faculty. So how do we know when it's our true nature speaking as opposed to the evil genie in there? Some people, it seems to be the evil genie is always speaking. English shall not be named. But how do you know? How do you know? Life will tell you. Life itself will tell you. Whatever you offer to the world will be received in some way, and you'll know whether it's so or not by the response you get. It's called, when your life is the life of creating karma, you get a response.

[39:20]

And whatever response you get will be true to the act that you produce. So when you're creating karma, there's good karma and bad karma, so to speak, in the human understanding. And then there's But karma is produced in the dualistic side. And when your responses are coming from the intuitive side, it's not really producing karma in the same way. So I remember Suzuki Roshi talking about the one, he talked about the six powers of the, when we chant the echo, the dedication that we chant at noon.

[40:33]

The six powers of the arhats. Yeah, the arhats are producing, they're magical powers, actually. But the true Buddhist practice, the true Buddhist power doesn't look like power. It's the power to go beyond karma, to go beyond good and bad, right and wrong. And to go beyond, even though we live in the dualistic world, to not create karma in the dualistic world, which is pretty difficult. But even though we create karma, it's not harmful karma. because our activity is not self-centered.

[41:36]

Karma comes basically from self-centered activity. Karma comes from our ego and our self-centered activity, whether good or bad. Sometimes we do good things, but it's self-centered. Sometimes we do bad things, but it's self-centered. When there's no self in the activity, it's not creating karma in that sense. That's how we know, and the result is there. And you know what you know. Because life verifies this. It either condemns us or verifies us. Whatever we meet, It verifies us or criticizes us in some way, but it lets us know it's a mirror. Life is a mirror. And so, you know, all of you out there is my mirror.

[42:39]

And you're looking at me, I'm your mirror. I mean, you're my mirror, I'm your mirror. So we're mirroring or eating each other. Alan? Sometimes it verifies and condemns us. Well yeah, that can happen. Well yes, of course, condemning is verifying as well. But verifying, in this sense, because we're talking about how do you know? How do you know that you're doing the right thing? Through intuition. That's your question. So it verifies your intuition. I'm responding to what Bud was saying, the quotation from Thoreau, and I'm responding to thinking about the petitions of the world.

[43:40]

It happens right now, I'm reading a biography, a really excellent biography of Ulysses Grant, who seemed like a fundamentally good person. And the choices that he made in order to do something in the karmic world entailed the death of hundreds of thousands of people. And some people, it's okay, we sit here and we're looking at... Well, life is very heavy right now.

[44:46]

There's a lot of, and so, you know, sometimes, you know, Suzuki Roshi says, it's okay to be angry if you're angry. Just be totally angry when you're angry. If you're totally angry when you're angry, then you're allowing anger to pass by. because we perpetuate our states of mind moment by moment. What we do is hang on to our state of mind, and states of mind are continually coming up. This is what we call our thoughts. We call them states of mind. There's no particular state of mind to cultivate. So anger comes up. That's anger. I get lots of anger, you know, but I realize that I don't have to hang on to my anger. I can have a big gap between angry episodes.

[45:52]

I can be very angry at what happened, and at the same time, I can just let go of that and take care of the business or whatever and have a calm mind, and then I can pick up my anger again. and indulge myself in it. That's because you have a way. That's because, yes. That is exactly more karma, you indulge your anger. Yes. And it leads you to the risk of acting it out. Yes, I understand that. So I'm only using that as a kind of, you know, You are deluded like all of us. Well yes, that's my delusion, yes. So, I'm not saying that you should do that. But if you say, I'm really angry now, wouldn't that be the place to say, and this is delusion?

[46:57]

Yes, so that gives you the space, right? And if I want to, I can pick it up again. Right. But that's not saying it's delusion. No, it's not, it's still saying it's delusion. I can pick up my delusion and indulge myself in my delusion knowing it's delusion. Not righteous, he's not saying it's righteous. It's not, yeah, it's not like, I'm saying that, I think, it's a turn, you know, It's a way of saying something. It's not saying that I will do that. You know, we say one thing to mean something else. We say, like, when you read the koans, the teacher will say of another teacher, oh, you know, he did this stupid thing, and he's really saying that he did some wonderful thing, right?

[48:05]

So you use language in a way when you're saying one thing to mean something else. And if you take it all literally, then you have a problem. Don't take it literally, what I said. I'm just asking you not to take it literally. And I said, you take it up again and indulge. That's just, don't take it literally. It's just a turn of phrase to mean that I have the freedom to take it or leave it. That's what I'm saying. If you take it literally and work on that, that goes beyond the meaning. Right, but I mean we all have certain things that we need to work on. Yes. Yeah. That's literal in some way. Literally, literally so. To the letter. Yeah, literally so, but a turn of phrase does not necessarily mean literally what it says.

[49:10]

And so you have to be able to discern when something is said literally and something is said as a way of indicating its opposite sometimes. Yes. So take it up. and is saying, I have the freedom to do that. It doesn't mean I'm going to do that, but you have the freedom of taking up or letting go. If you don't have the freedom of taking up or letting go, then you're caught by the anger or whatever it is. Just to further clarify, I think what I hear you also saying And the way that I've learned to work with it is that when, for example, anger arises, I can experience the sensation of anger, the mindset of anger myself. That doesn't mean that I go back with someone in an angry way.

[50:12]

It means I can allow anger to arise and allow anger to pass. Yes, allow anger to arise and pass. Yes, I think that expresses it. And it's time to go, even though it brings up a lot of questions, but that's good. But anger can be an indulgence, definitely. And that's why we get caught by it, because it's one way of releasing our emotions and our And it's one of the most difficult ones to deal with, because it's such a pleasure. Oh yeah, anger is a great pleasure. It is, for me.

[51:14]

Not me, not for you.

[51:15]

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