You know, if everything is just as it is, which we always say, well, what are we talking about so much? I used to ask myself the same, that question a lot. And if, as I said yesterday, maybe we should just shut our eyes and accept that everything we want, everything that Buddhism is, is within us, or to just shut our eyes and let the tradition take us, then maybe there's nothing to talk about. I used to, Sukhireshi was, I admired his way, though I found it perplexing, because I would

[01:17]

ask him questions and he'd never give me an answer. And I remember asking him, after several years of listening to all this stuff about Buddha nature, you know, I finally said, what is Buddha nature to him? I got him on the stairs in front of Sokoji and I said, it's a nice day, we're staying in the stairs. I said, what is this thing you're always talking about? And he wouldn't say anything, so I said, no, is it, you know, I went into a thing about soul and I couldn't feel there was such a thing as a soul or something in addition to what we are, you know. And he wouldn't say either there was a Buddha nature or there wasn't a Buddha nature, he wouldn't say anything. Like, he just sort of, he said something like, it's pretty hard to understand, you know. So, there's a famous Zen master named Mu Zhou, I think that's how you pronounce it.

[02:41]

And he was, I think, a disciple of Wong Po. And he's famous for many stories, but he taught rather in the manner of Matsu, who Suzuki Roshi, of all Zen masters, Suzuki Roshi seemed to like Matsu the best. And I guess in Japanese his name is Baso, horse Zen master, because his tongue would touch his nose or something like that. Anyway, Mu Zhou was in that tradition and someone asked him, what can I do about the tiresome duties or tiresome need to put on my clothes every day and wash my face?

[03:47]

And Mu Zhou said, put on your clothes every day and wash your face. And then he said, if you don't understand that, what I mean, put on your clothes every day and wash your face anyway. He's also famous for saying, I call this a staff, what do you call it? Anyway, people ask me questions all the time about their daily life, et cetera. I said to one person, maybe he should, I'm joking of course, but I said, maybe you should paste a picture of Buddha on the dish you're washing or, you know, if you're washing dishes,

[04:55]

and you want to make it practice, maybe paint some Buddhas on the dishes and you can wash them. Anyway, there's nothing you can do, you know, you just have dishes, there's a dish. You can't do zazen in the dish pan. So you expect something, you know, other than this to be a staff, you know, you expect something, you know, dishes are just dishes, you know. And if you're going to wash your face in the morning, you have to wash your face in the morning. There really isn't anything more than that, but I'm not sure you'd sit through the sasheen if you thought that was all there was to Buddhism, you know, because you already wash your face every morning, you know, I think, most of you do anyway. All right. Anyway, I don't really know what to say.

[06:45]

There's the famous story in Zen, you know, that everyone knows that a mountain is a mountain at first, and then not a mountain, and then a mountain again, and that corresponds to the four Dharmadhatu, and what Suzukiyoshi always talked about, there's the world of form and the world of emptiness, and the world of form is emptiness, and the world of form is form, but we end up with form is form, this is just a staff, you know. And maybe that kind of explanation, there isn't any need for it, there's just this staff, you know, and just this, what we see around us. I don't, why do we have so much difficulty with all this?

[07:57]

Anyway, we're not able to just wash our face in the morning, actually. And Zen emphasizes that the problem comes from our tendency to cling to things, to want to grasp things, to want to make the world what it isn't, and that seems awfully simple, but I guess there's not really any other explanation. It really is like we have some kind of glasses on or some kind of shield or mask in front of us that we can't, you know, get rid of. And intellectually you can understand, I mean, you can, if you want to make that kind

[09:32]

of effort, you can figure out, you know, you can think your way through that mask. But even thinking your way through it doesn't help you much at all. Somehow you have to break down some kind of barriers we put up for ourselves. We... And barriers are physical and mental, they're actually in our body, you know.

[10:58]

And it's easy to see, and how difficult it is just to do Zazen. When those barriers are gone, it's quite easy to sit a Sashin. There's no problem about it. In fact, Sashin is just like everyday life, you know. In fact, it's rather easier, there isn't much to do, you know. Nobody bothers you much. We speak of an unimpeded mutual integration or something like that. I don't know how it's in Chinese, but... Anyway, if I lift up the staff, you know, we tend to notice the staff.

[12:11]

But you should also notice that every time it's lifted, you know, the background is different behind it. And you should know the background is as much a part of it as the staff. And who's lifting it? And who's watching being lifted? Anyway, we have lots of ideas of ourself and we try to get through them or give them up. And it's hard to do because we have no language for it or no way to get on the other side of it.

[13:18]

So we even see that there's a problem. I mean, to even see the barriers is a big step. So, one thing I've been talking about, this Sashin, is how not only through Sashin and but in many ways how we give up the ideas of self we have that are so persistent. One way is to take on another self. So I've been talking about taking the vow. And I don't just mean we all have to be priests. So I think it's nearly impossible to practice Buddhism without eventually settling on one way,

[14:33]

one of the Buddhist traditions. And within that tradition to practice it completely with taking a vow. But I don't think that, I'm not saying to you, you all have to become priests. No. But what it does mean, actually I think we'll have to work out, you and I and all of us together. So I'm not asking for suggestions right now. But I'd like you to think seriously about how we talk about stream-enters, how you want to be stream-enters. There's no reason you have to wear robes, you know.

[15:36]

Or carry curbs, money sticks, you know. And if it's, if the great Zen master Muzo can say it's just washing your face and putting on your clothes. I know a woman who is quite old now. She wants her ashes actually sent to Tassajara. Her first perception that she remembers as a child was lying in a crib and thinking it seems to be endlessly being dressed and undressed. And she remembers imagining a lifetime of being dressed and undressed. And I suppose that's what's happened to her, you know.

[16:43]

So if you become a priest it's even more of a problem, you're going to put on all these things, you know. And you have to go through it all over again. You barely get adjusted to blue jeans or something, or occasionally a suit. And then you have all this big cloth, you know. And you have all these funny things we have to do, you know, which you have to readjust to. It's rather interesting to go through it all over again. Yeah. Say that we work out some way in which there can be a lay tradition and you can practice Buddhism just by washing your face in the morning or passing the salt and pepper shaker or whatever, you know.

[17:48]

Though I don't think you have to know priestcraft, you know. Still I think it's important to know something about ceremonies, to have some practice, you know, to be able to offer incense or chant. So maybe some kind of priest who actually lives like a layman is what we're talking about. Because we go about washing our face and, you know, doing what we do during the day, driving cars and picking up coffee cups. But after you've done something like zazen and chanting and ritual,

[18:59]

like our eating bowls, you know, or wondering why we offer incense to a statue, you know. After you have to work to do this for some time, some genuine expression of our nature that's there for many of us, if not all of us, that actually exists, it's as real as, you know, liking the sunlight, becoming in the bathroom window when you're washing your face, you know, it's quite real. And after doing it for some time, there's some difference in the way you wash your face

[20:01]

or how you do it and how you pick up a coffee cup. You lift, you know, you've been exposed to the idea for a long time, if you lift one thing up, you change the whole world, or if you lift one thing up, you move the whole world. You understand what that means, you know. Then when you lift up your coffee cup, some much wider feeling of our existence. So, even though Buddhism may be just washing your face and putting on your clothes,

[21:10]

still, mostly, without practice, we don't know what washing our face and putting on our clothes is, or what we mean, if I say what I call as a staff, what do you call it? You start thinking, you know. As long as you have some doubt or anger or those kinds of unsureness, wondering about what you should do, then you don't, and it's not so simple as this is a staff. Do you have any questions?

[22:34]

Very good question, thank you. Yesterday you said something like, if some people didn't practice, the world couldn't go on. Could you explain that? Comment on that. Don't you think that's true? I can relate it to the cup, but I can't relate it to... Something about Afghanistan. That very beautiful Buddha is from Afghanistan.

[23:47]

Certainly, for many of us, it couldn't have gone on if Suzuki Roshi didn't exist. Yeah. Roshi, why did you roar on Tuesday night in the Zen Do? Because there was some feeling in the Zen Do of too much sleepiness, you know, just because of what he said. On the one hand, I feel amazed at how well you practice. You can't hear? I'm sorry. Oh. I'm amazed at... I know how hard sesshins are, especially for me. And I'm amazed at all of you, how well you sit, you know,

[25:06]

and how hard you practice, how seriously you practice. But then at the same time, I feel, not angry exactly, but some feeling. Don't they understand how important it is? I feel... So often I want to come around the Zen Do, and I want to poke each of you. But I don't know if you'd understand why I do that, so... I don't do it, actually. Yeah. What? Well, it depends what you mean by doubt.

[26:20]

Well... I mean, as a young man, or ever in his life, or what kind of doubt, or... But if you mean... There's one kind of doubt which is a very important part of our practice. But if you... You mean if he doubted what he was doing, or had some big doubt? No. Okay. Well, it's hard to explain, because the word doubt doesn't exactly, you know, fit. The word doubt doesn't exactly fit. But... Our practice has to be full of contradictions.

[27:24]

An important part is to learn to practice completely simultaneous contradictions. You know? So, we practice completely as if Buddhism was entirely within us. You know? But simultaneously we practice completely as if the tradition was taking us. As if we were learning from Suzuki Roshi, or something like that. So, both, you know. And likewise, we practice with complete faith in Buddha nature, or something like that. At the same time, we doubt. Yeah, there's some... No, I don't know how to express it, but... You accept and...

[28:30]

You are completely accepting and also ready to doubt simultaneously. But not doubt the validity, but doubt that you... That maybe... I don't know how to express it, I'm sorry. Sometimes I know, but... Is it possible then to know and not to know, and for that to be simultaneous? Yes, of course. Yes. You both know and don't know completely. And incompletely. Completely incompletely. But, you know, we practice happily, and yet Buddhism isn't a culture. Once more? Well, Buddhism...

[29:32]

It seems to be a language of living to have a culture, at all. Now, once... Does... In the middle of the sentence, I... It's outside of a culture. Buddhism seems to be outside of a culture. Well... I just have an idea that to be enlightened is to be not defined by a culture in some way. Ideally, yeah. But yet we practice happily, which are culturally transmitted by our culture. Well, Buddhism is... Is again... Well, ideally, a person... A good Zen master, say, is free from his culture. But in actual fact, he's usually free within his culture. The best teachers I've met are free of their culture. But yet still, their vocabulary is their culture. So Buddhism is...

[30:34]

In every place it's existed... Has... Been separate from the culture, but simultaneously completely at one with the culture. Because Buddhism isn't anything, you know. There isn't anything called Buddhism. So... It's just our nature, you know. Which we want to know it in its fullest sense. And when we know it in its fullest sense, we have to do something, right? We have to wash our face and... Put on our clothes. Is there anything more than washing your face and putting on your clothes? Is... Is that... Is there anything...

[31:37]

Is there just the action? And not the... Anything else? What else would you like? You talk about making... Resolves or... Or determining to do something. Or sitting. Or... Well... Um... Somebody is going to do that. Right. So when you're sitting, you're sitting. What about the decision-making? To do it. Well... If you're... If you're washing your face and you're not sure you want to wash your face, right? At some time in your life, if you want your life to function...

[32:39]

You have to decide, well, whether I like it or not, I'm going to wash my face in the morning. Don't you? You don't get up in the morning and decide, well, today I don't think I will, do you? Yeah. It doesn't really seem like there's a choice. There isn't. That's right. So, in that case... And you could not wash your face in the morning. Yeah. But you still wouldn't have made a choice... Not to. Well... Your friends might get after you after a while. I understand what you mean.

[33:40]

There isn't any choice, you know. And there is some choice. Because, as you know, you wouldn't have to wash your face. So we do. And actually, if you know yourself, there's no choice about whether you do zazen or not. But we think... Lots of us spend lots of time thinking we're not going to. Anyway... I don't... I don't... I don't like saying that because it sounds like I'm hooking people on zazen. And... Because actually, if you don't do zazen, that's fine too, you know. But we have to have some practice, I think. Without some practice, with the kind of nature we have...

[34:46]

You know... When... Who is it? Is it Matsu who rubs the tile? Suzuki Roshi's favorite story. He's rubbing a tile to become a jewel. You know that story? Anyway... What do you... He says, I'm pract... The teacher comes by and the... Monk is sitting there and he says, I'm... What are you doing? He says, I'm practicing to become a Buddha. Something like that. And then... The teacher... Later... He hears this noise, rub, [...] rub. And he turns around and there's the teacher sitting there with a tile and he's rubbing it away. He says, what are you doing? He says, I'm trying to make a mirror. But anyway... Still, even if you only make a tile a tile by rubbing, we have to do something. Even if we can't, a tile will always be a tile. Still, we have to have some practice.

[35:51]

That's all. What is the hara? The hara? You mean your stomach area down here? Well, the hara is the... Very important in Japan. Their whole center is down here. And... Seems in most body cultures that's true. But anyway, it's... I guess... The Indian tradition seems to emphasize all the chakras. And when Buddhism, when Zen gets to China and Japan, it begins to emphasize primarily this area, this chakra or your hara.

[37:02]

And it works just as well. And it just means that this area is where you... Where your center of balance is, where you put your energy or your breathing comes from. And mostly... This is also the most vulnerable area in our body. And also the area connected to the oldest part of our brain. So... It's the area we tend to be tightest in, we tend to try to protect, you know. But to let go here is very important in practice. Anyway, does that answer your question? I'm not sure our practice will ever emphasize hara as much as Japanese practice. But... It's very important to let loose here. And it's not something which... You can even... It's like one of those barriers that you can't see. You can't tell when you're loose here or not.

[38:04]

I mean, I know... I've told this story before, but I practiced for some years and I kept feeling this was released, this area here, you know. And I had to undo my belt, you know. And then... I'd been sitting about five years and suddenly... You know, it came down another mile. And... You know, I just didn't know. I mean, there was no way for me to perceive that it wasn't. So that's... One thing that in practice you have to have that kind of faith that the practice works. That if you do it long enough, things that you can't yet see as even problems will be solved. But the spirit... Maybe the best example of... Or a very good example of the idea of doubt

[39:07]

is the sutra says... Tozan Ryokai, who is considered the founder of the Soto sect. He's the To of Soto. His disciple is the So of Soto. And... Anyway, Tozan was a young man. I told somebody this story today. He was a young man. I don't know how old he was. I forget, 11 or 14 or something like that. And he went to a local temple, which is probably pretty much equivalent to going to the Baptist church down the street or the Methodist church up there. And... He started studying Buddhism with this priest. And he was chanting the Shingyo. It says, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no mouth. And he said, I have a nose and mouth and eyes and ears. So his...

[40:08]

That's very obvious, you know. But his teacher realized he was somebody unusual. So he sent him to a famous Zen master to practice. But we should... We should be able to ask that kind of question. We should be able to have that doubt, even though you have faith in the practice, because you've resolved your contradictions about it completely, you know, or even accepted the contradictions. Still, you should ask, why no eyes, no ears? Or if we talk about emptiness, you should say, what is all this talk about emptiness? That's not empty, you know. You should confront how little that is empty before you understand emptiness. And if we too easily think, ah, no eyes, no ears, oh, this is empty, or I don't exist. A lot of us so badly want to be somebody

[41:09]

and also want to be free of being somebody that we're willing to deny our own existence. To too quickly look for special experiences as some kind of reality or do Zazen, waiting for some magical change to occur. And you've got to realize there's no magical change going to occur. You're still going to be there with the same eyes, ears, nose, mouth, same body, same problems. So then what? So then someone says, everything you are is Buddhism. So you can sit there, your liver, various feelings you have, all kinds of sexual thoughts you have during Zazen. And everything. You can say, ah, that's Buddhism. But why is it Buddhism?

[42:10]

I mean, that's some kind of koan, maybe. But you have to actually ask yourself the question. You have to doubt it. You know, someone says this, no eyes, no ears. Huh? What do you mean, no eyes, no ears? Without that kind of spirit, you can't really practice Buddhism.

[42:37]

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