Today is the last day of our seven day Seshin, called Rohatsu, which is in honor of Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment. It always falls at this time of year. And so I wanted to say how much I'm impressed by so many people, so many of us taking the time out of our busy lives to sit here and torture ourselves. Just a joke. A little bit of truth. So this is the last day and there are several things Several things that have come to my mind, and I'm trying to figure out which one I want to talk about.

[01:04]

One of them, I'll tell you what they are. There are more, and we have a limited time. Someone asked, how did I decide how to organize my life, or organize my life, so that we could develop the zendo. What did I have in mind about how to develop the zendo? What kind of practice to have here? What was the format, so to speak? So that's a good one. Which, yeah, the other one is, do you know that we're all a little bit crazy?

[02:12]

In varying degrees, but it's a characteristic of humans. If we say, I'm not nuts, you're really nuts. And then someone asked about actualizing the fundamental point. What does that mean? And another one is there are two modes of teaching. One is people who go around teaching large crowds of people about the Dharma and moving around to spread the Dharma. And those working with a few, a small number of people very closely in one place over a long period of time, which is our style, my style. And how we practice, how we actually actualize enlightenment.

[03:27]

How is enlightenment actualized? And what the heck is it? So, I don't know which one you want me to talk about. Yes, we're about to do Buddha's enlightenment ceremony. Yes, this is true. What is it? What is Buddha's enlightenment? Well, knowing, fully understanding your delusion is Buddha's enlightenment, which is not a definition. If you come up with a definition of enlightenment, it's not a definition.

[04:34]

But that's what we all want. We all want a definition. Not all of us, but we want, what is it? And so we go chasing our definition. But whatever idea you have is not it. So that's the problem. As we keep saying over and over, We don't, in our particular practice, we don't practice to attain enlightenment, which is very disappointing. But even though we say that over and over and over as the theme of our practice, after 20 years, somebody still asks the same question. or doesn't believe it. It's hard to believe in some way. All you have to do is believe that, and you've got it.

[05:39]

But we don't want to believe it, because we want to believe that there's something wonderful called enlightenment. Suzuki Roshi used to say, you should be very careful about wishing for enlightenment, because when you finally have it, you may not like it. And it's true, actually. Very true. So, enlightenment is not something that we find at the end of our practice rainbow. Enlightenment is what brings us to practice. So we start out with enlightenment. And that's a big disappointment. Is this enlightenment? This is enlightenment? Yes, enlightenment brings us to practice, and practice supports enlightenment.

[06:41]

So, as Master Dogen says, one moment of practice is one moment of enlightenment. But it doesn't look like enlightenment. That's the problem. I've been practicing for 20 years and it doesn't look like enlightenment. It doesn't look like the idea I had. That's why if you wish for it, you know, you spend 20 years and at the end you say, well, where is it? What is it? What is it is a very good question. Because the answer to what is it is, this is it. So, enlightenment, you could say, is radical sobriety. Radical sobriety. What we would like to think it is, is radical feel-good.

[07:52]

So, it's basically living our life one moment at a time, as my old teacher said, thoroughly. It doesn't matter whether it's what you like. It doesn't matter whether it's what you don't like. It's not a matter of feeling good or feeling bad. liking or not liking, having or not having. It's just being present with whatever it is. This is it. Being present with whatever it is. That's why Zazen itself is enlightenment. Because what Zazen is, is just Moment after moment of this is it.

[08:58]

This is the whole universe on this moment with whatever it is. It's radical acceptance. That's why we enjoy the pain in our legs, or whatever we have it. Pain in the butt. So we sit in Zazen, you know, seven days, walk a little bit, eat a little bit, do various activities. All of it is enlightened activity. Has nothing to do with whether you like it or not. Has nothing to do with how you feel. Just matters, has to do with the way things actually are. Things as it is. Radical reality.

[10:08]

If you feel great, that's enlightenment. If you feel terrible, that's enlightenment. If you're hurt all over, that's enlightenment. If you feel good all over, that's enlightenment. as long as you're not discriminating. So, it's called non-discrimination. Zazen is, sitting in Zazen is non-discrimination. You're not, discrimination means to divide. So, we live in a dualistic world. This and that, right and wrong, good and bad. Enlightenment is not good or bad, not right or wrong. We have this opportunity. It's not that the dualistic world is the only place where, it's not that there's no enlightenment in the dualistic world.

[11:16]

But our enlightened mind is to accept the dualistic world and see through it, to see through duality to reality, to see the real world, which is not different from the dualistic world, but to see it as one. So it's one, but it's also two. Sometimes we think that enlightenment is simply to see the non-duality of the universe, of our world, of our activity, but it's also to include the duality of our world and our activity. So to understand and see that we're a little bit dumb, I remember Kata-gyuri used to say, in order to practice Soto Zen, you have to be a little bit stupid. And Suzuki Roshi also used to say, Soto Zen is for people who can't do anything else.

[12:38]

That's enlightenment. That's true enlightenment. We always like to think that we're great, we can do something wonderful. But realizing that we're imperfect is when we really realize that we're imperfect and accept that and enjoy that. I enjoy my imperfection. That's enlightenment. Instead of thinking there's something wrong, So when I think about, I think about this a lot, especially during Sashin, just Sashin, I was thinking about how everybody shows their, the characteristics that they don't want everybody else to see. Because you can't help it. When I think about the world, you know, you live in Berkeley maybe, You have neighbors and you go to work and, you know, you see people kind of the way they really are, but they don't show everything.

[13:56]

And so you think, you know, when you compare Zen students with ordinary people, when you compare Zen students with ordinary people, they really look demented. The reason why is because when you're in close, it's like family members, you know, when you're in close, day after day, eating the same food, fitting the same size in, you think, God, you know, Zen students are the dumbest people in the world. But they're not. They're just like everybody else, except that you don't see it in everybody else because you don't have that closeness, that intimacy. When you are intimate with people, it's very different than when you're just kind of acting in certain ways with people.

[14:58]

But if you took a block of people and put them all in one house for seven days, whoa. So actually, I think Zen students are pretty damned enlightened. It's true. To be able to exist together for seven days and maintain our loving kindness and our compassion, and our ability to get along with each other given the differences, given the characteristics, different characteristics, and even complaining about the person sitting next to you silently. You know, why is he doing that? How come she's scratching her nose? That kind of thing, you know.

[16:06]

and being able to maintain your composure. And maintaining our composure when our legs are aching or day after day and so forth, and knowing how to let go of our animosities, let go of our attachments, attachment to self. Enlightenment means non-attachment to self, basically. Non-attachment to self. So when you sit thus in, you have to let go of yourself. You have to drop yourself. It's pretty simple and the hardest thing to do. The hardest thing to do is the simplest. And the simplest is the hardest. So we entertain ourselves with complexities in order to maintain our life in the world.

[17:09]

That's what we like to do. I mean, we're driven to divert ourselves with complexities, and therefore we don't have to look at the simplicity of reality, of just this is it. So in Zazen, that's what we're doing. There's nothing else. No entertainment. Zazen. Well, you know, we do distract ourselves with complexities in Zazen, too. We think about stuff, or we allow often the stuff in our mind, which is like bubbling up all the time, the mind needs something, I mean the thinking mind needs something to entertain it. So we grasp onto whatever's there and milk it for whatever we can. Like this big mental cow.

[18:14]

But then we run out of stuff to think about, so we think about the same thing over and over again. We get these loops that just keep going around. What was the last tune you heard, you know? The last tune you heard goes around in your mind over and over again. But fortunately, I have some really good music going on in my mind. But that's okay, you know, it's life as it is. It's life as it is. So, to get down to the barest, you know, the barest activity in your life and being able to sustain yourself there, pretty good. It's enlightened practice. You know, we're always looking for the place to get the most comfortable.

[19:28]

So if you really look around and see what's happening, human beings want to be comfortable. So we choose, you know, we get more and more comfort equipment. And then when you get it, Yeah, it doesn't really make you comfortable for very long, and so you have to find some other comfortable equipment, you know, as an alternative. And we keep going around getting more and more comfortable alternatives. But Zazen, we take all those comfortable alternatives. You can have a cushion for your behind and a cushion, yeah, two cushions, one underneath your behind and one underneath that for your knees. When I first started practicing at Sokoji with Suzuki Roshi, we sat on the floor. We had a goza mat, which was very thin, and we could sit on the goza mat. And so your ankle would, you know, working itself into the floor.

[20:32]

It was very hard. And later, we had tatamis, I think. And Goza Mat was like a luxury, very thin. But we learned how to deal with our pain. We learned how to deal with our discomfort. I remember Suzuki Roshi talking about, we are protected from within. So outer circumstances, of course, We engage in outer circumstances, which make us look for comfort. But with Zazen, we find the comfort inside, without seeking for something. And we find out how to actually be one with discomfort, so that it becomes comfortable.

[21:39]

It becomes comfortable if we know how to let go of ourself. So, Zazen is kind of like training in how to let go of ourself. Let go of ourself clinging, basically. We have this phrase in our meal chant, to have to be free from self-clinging. That's a very significant statement because we cling. In Zazen, since there's nothing to cling to, you're just sitting on this cushion and you can't lean on anything and you have discomfort. And you can't do anything about it outwardly.

[22:44]

So you have to find how to get out of that. Not how to get out of it, but how to find your comfort. How do you remain there? How do you stay there without crying? It's not worth crying until you let go. So it's really hard to let go. And so instead of letting go often, since there's nothing to cling to, we cling to ourself. It's the only thing there. So we get more and more tense, until finally we let go. So Zazen is a great teacher. It teaches us everything we need to know fundamentally. So the teacher just kind of, you know, gives you little hints and stuff, you know, direction. But teacher can't save you. You have to save, allow Buddha to save you, actually, by just letting go, opening up and letting go, instead of closing down.

[23:58]

Because we think there's some intrusion. We feel the intrusion of discomfort. So It's counterintuitive. Instead of closing down or resisting, we open up and include. When we open up and include, that's called enlightenment. To give yourself over. Give yourself up. Give yourself up and you're comfortable. You can be comfortable. But we think of all kinds of ways. I remember when I was first starting to sit, you know, First what we do is we think, well, now the sharks are eating my legs. I used to think that. Maybe God will help me. Well, no, that didn't help either. And nothing helps as long as we're resisting. And the more we resist, the more difficult it becomes. So we just kind of, okay, give up.

[25:00]

And then everything falls into place because we're part of the universe. universe with universal activity, and you realize that we're part of the little speck of the universe, or the whole thing. Instead of isolating ourselves, we share ourselves. So we say we sit with everything. We sit with nature. The whole of nature is our sitting space. Once we let go of our self clinging, we realize that we're just part of nature. It's called cosmic activity. It's also called great dynamic activity. But it's enlightened activity because there's no self-clinging.

[26:06]

Then we can sit very comfortably and enjoy it, unfortunately. But joy has a lot of different characteristics. But it's okay. You know, we have the joy of Within joy is, within pleasure is pain, and within pain is pleasure. If you only want one side, you suffer. So our suffering, the pain is just a feeling. It's just a feeling. But when you don't like it or don't want it, it's called suffering. Think about that.

[27:09]

So, there is outward suffering, which is war and terror and all those things. And then there's inner suffering, which is how we respond to things. So, what we're concerned about is the inner suffering, mostly. As long as we're discriminating and dividing the world into pieces, we have suffering. That's what it is. It's called discrimination. So, in order to go beyond discriminating mind, we accept everything equally. Everything is equal. Pain is equal to pleasure. Pleasure is equal to pain. Good is equal to bad. Bad is equal to good. That's the only way that we can escape.

[28:12]

But escape means going right into the center of. The way to escape painfulness is to go right into the center of it. If you want to get rid of your headache, you go right into the center of it. As long as there's division, there's suffering. But division is also necessary. So it's necessary to have our suffering. You can't escape from this world of suffering. As long as we know that, we can accept our suffering. If we try to escape it, then it's really suffering. So as my old teacher said, your problem is your practice.

[29:20]

When we have our problem, our problem is our practice. If you try to get rid of your problem, It's okay to get rid of our problems, right? Nevertheless, our problem is our practice. He would always say, you better be careful about getting rid of your problem because you may get a bigger problem instead. Something bigger may come and take its place. which is not untrue. So it doesn't mean, you know, it's a little mysterious, but basically it's how we handle things carefully. And whatever we do, we should be careful about what we do, because there will be a problem.

[30:31]

So you have to decide, which problem do I want? This one or that one? So always making choices. So if we make our choices on the basis of self-centeredness, then we get the consequences of self-centered choices. If we make our choices on the basis of non-attachment, or non-self-centeredness, then we get the fruit of that choice down the line or right away.

[31:34]

So being careful is enlightenment too. So it's not like there is an enlightenment saying that you get and put in your pocket. It doesn't work that way. There's simply enlightened activity. how you act in an enlightened way, which is always to assess the singleness and duality of any situation, the oneness and the complexity of any situation. So you're causing the least amount of pain for people, not just for yourself, but your surroundings. So Buddha said, according to what we think we know, nobody knows what Buddha said actually, but everybody knows what Buddha said at the same time.

[32:51]

But he said, all I teach is suffering, the causes of suffering, and the way to deal with it. That's all. That's enlightened activity, according to Buddhism. Suffering, the cause, and the cure, or the way out. which is called the path. So the enlightened path is the path itself. So where we're going, I was impressed by something Mary said yesterday, or the day before, or yesterday, yeah, about river rafting. So when you're going down in certain places, there are a lot of currents coming together at the same time. You have to choose which current, you very carefully choose which current you're going to go down, so that you come out in the right place.

[34:00]

And it's very subtle. and you have to be really good at it. So we should choose the right current. It's called practice. Choose the current of practice, which is the enlightened current, which takes you to the right place, which is right here.

[34:24]

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