The missing linkage. Out here. Everything's working. Good morning. Well, we're getting close to the end of the year. This is my last talk of the year. Next Saturday I'm going to Kasahara for the day. Peter Shearson will be talking. So I'm going to comment on a talk of Suzuki Roshi's, which is entitled, for the book, Respect for Things, which is a good title for this talk. I subtitled it, Faith in Our Life. So Suzuki Roshi says, in our Zazen practice we stop our thinking and we are free from our emotional activity.

[01:17]

We don't say there is no emotional activity, but we're free from it. We don't say we have no thinking, but our life activity is not limited to our thinking In short, we can say that we trust ourselves completely without thinking, without feeling, without discriminating between good and bad, right and wrong. And because we respect ourselves, because we put faith in our life, we sit. So this is our practice. So there's a lot going on in this paragraph. When we sit in Zazen, we let go of thinking, we let go of emotional activities, and we let go of good and bad, right and wrong, and dualistic, discriminative thinking, which doesn't mean that these elements are not there.

[02:22]

We simply don't ... They're not the main subject of Zazen. So, all of these qualities are important in our life, but they're not important for zazen. So, there are terms such as, cut off the root of thinking, but that doesn't mean that there's no thinking. It's a kind of strong statement, actually, simply as we know. We simply let the thoughts come and go. We let life run its course. We let our emotional life express itself. We let our thinking life express itself. We let our discriminative mind express itself, until we realize that all this is not necessary for zazen.

[03:25]

Not only is it not necessary, but if we worry about it, it becomes a hindrance. So it's simply, what, me worrying? It's simply George Bush. So because we are not depending on these, we're not In zazen we don't depend on our thinking mind and we don't depend on our emotional activity and we don't depend on our discriminative thinking. So we can just simply depend on our nature. This is called resuming our original nature. It's called also not depending on anything in particular.

[04:29]

doesn't mean that we don't depend on something, it's just that we don't depend on anything in particular. You can't say, I depend on this or on that, because there's really nothing in this world of transformations to depend on. because everything is insubstantial. But we do have faith in our practice. We have faith in our nature, even though our nature is intangible. We have to have faith in our nature. Faith is the foundation of our practice. Faith is enlightenment. Faith and enlightenment are synonymous. So enlightenment comes first and then comes practice.

[05:40]

Enlightenment is what leads us to practice. We say Buddha seeks Buddha, not like my ego seeks Buddha. for enlightenment. But enlightenment is our nature. Our Buddha nature is enlightened nature. So this enlightened nature is seeking its realization. So usually what we call an enlightened experience is usually a realization experience. We realize our enlightened mind, or we realize our enlightened being. So we can say, yes, we're all enlightened, but that doesn't mean that we're all realized. Realization is an experience, but not necessarily.

[06:47]

So enlightenment is what leads us to practice, and faith is the foundation for enlightenment. Even though we don't feel that we have faith, we're searching for something, or don't know what to believe in, or don't believe in anything, or I'm not religious, or stuff like that, nevertheless, there's something that's bigger than, that includes everything. There's something that includes everything, and we call it Buddha nature, Dharma nature, we call it by various names. The term God is not used in Buddhism, even though some people like historians will talk about the gods of Buddhism, like Manjushri and so forth. These are not really gods, they're characteristics of our nature. But faith is like confidence.

[07:56]

Confidence is an aspect of faith. We can have confidence in many different things, and usually those things are dead ends because we can't really depend on them. So the big question really is, what do I depend on? So you can go through the litany of things to depend on, and it was not this, well not this, not this, until you get down to the bottom. That's actually a practice, to eliminate all those things until you get down to the bottom. And you can't get down to the bottom by searching or thinking, you can do it by practice. Not that thinking is not included, not that our emotional life is not included, but what we depend on is actually right in front of us all the time, but we don't see it.

[09:03]

So we say, each one of us is Buddha. So this is what Siddhi Rishi is going to talk about. So he says, in our Sahasran practice, we stop our thinking. He didn't really mean that. He means, although he says that, he means we let go of our thinking, or we don't attach to our thinking mind. And we are free from our emotional activity. We don't say there is no emotional activity, but we're free from it. We don't say we have no thinking, but our life activity is not limited by our thinking mind. So in short, we can say that we trust ourselves completely. So without the thinking mind, without attaching to thinking mind, without attaching to emotional activity, we trust ourself. What is it that we trust? If we identify with thinking,

[10:07]

as myself, if we identify with our emotions as myself and we're not depending on these, what do we trust? So in short, we can say that we trust ourselves completely without thinking, we're not depending on thinking, we're not depending on feeling. without discriminating between good and bad and right and wrong, and we respect ourselves because we put faith in our life, we sit. That is our practice. So when our life is based on respect and complete trust, it will be completely peaceful. Our relationship with nature should also be like this. We should respect everything and we can practice respecting things in the way we relate to them. So that's very interesting, it's like by respecting everything around us, respecting the form of things, by respecting each other and so forth, and the material things that we work with, why should that be?

[11:16]

Why should that arouse our faith? When there's no self, everything is our self. And when we treat everything with respect, we're actually treating ourself with respect. That's called self-respect. So self-respect doesn't come from isolating ourselves, but from sharing ourselves, by realizing that whatever it is that I meet is an aspect of myself, a form of myself. And because I have no special form, every form is part of myself. This is called understanding, it's called realization. So this morning when we were bowing, he's giving this talk at Page Street Zendo in San Francisco. Page Street Zendo in San Francisco, when we moved into that building,

[12:19]

because the kitchen is upstairs, because the kitchen was upstairs, they put the zendo in this big room, which was very convenient, under the kitchen, under the dining room, actually kitchen and dining room. Usually if you have a building the zendo will be above the working spaces, right? I mean that's kind of logical, you don't the spiritual place in the lower position, but it doesn't matter, you know, it's all the same, right? Spiritual, material, all the same, but not exactly. Even though it's all the same, everything has its place according to how it relates to everything else. So you don't put the toilet in the middle of the dining room. even though everything is in some ways the same, everything is different. So we respect the differences and there's a place for everything which is correct.

[13:28]

So people are sitting in the zendo down below and people in the dining room are scraping their chairs across the floor. And this is going on all the time, right? Not all the time, but occasionally. So this is the setting for what he's saying. He said, this morning when we were bowing in the zendo we heard a big noise overhead because upstairs in the dining room people were pushing chairs across the tile floor without picking them up. This is not the way to treat chairs, not only because it may disturb the people who are also because fundamentally this is not a respectful way to treat things. So he always taught us, when you move a chair, you pick up the chair and move it to where you want to put it. But, you know, we just kind of drag it across the floor. And it's not that it makes a noise so much, but it's disrespectful.

[14:33]

In other words, we just don't notice how we disrespect things. And we treat things for our own use. without thinking about what it is that we're even using. We take things for granted. We take our surroundings for granted. You know, it's very interesting when we think about our society and how it's been built up and how it works and so forth, and mostly we just kind of find our way into it and pick up on how to use it, but we just take it for granted, really take it mostly for granted. So he says, to push the chairs across the floor is very convenient, but it will give us a lazy feeling. Of course, this kind of laziness is part of our culture, and it eventually causes us to fight with each other.

[15:40]

Instead of respecting things, we want to use them for ourselves. And if it is difficult to use them, we want to conquer them. This kind of idea does not accord with the spirit of practice. This sounds like very familiar somehow. Sounds like war. Since we don't respect other cultures and we don't respect people, we move great masses of people or use great masses of people for our own purpose. Instead of respecting each person, instead of respecting each citizen or each Iraqi citizen, we just use people for our own purposes. We use materials for our own purposes. Imagine the waste that is so prevalent. really is heart-rending to see all the waste, wasting our money, wasting our materials, wasting people.

[16:53]

So in the same way, my teacher Kishizawa Ion did not allow us to put away the amado more than one at a time. The amado is like a box. that in a Japanese temple or house there are the sliding doors, the shoji screens, and then on the outside there's a walkway, a gaitan around, and then there's a box where in the summertime you put the heavy doors that you put on the outside for the winter, the sliding doors. That's called the amado, I believe. And you take the doors out and you store them in the amado. So he said, my teacher, Kichizawa, did not allow us to put away the amado more than one at a time. Do you know the amado? They are the wooden doors outside of shoji screens, which are put up to protect the shoji from storms. At the end of the building is a big box for storing the Amado.

[18:02]

Since they are sliding doors, one priest can easily push five or six doors and another priest can put them in the box. That's convenient. But my teacher didn't like this. He told us to move them one by one. So we would slide each door and put it in the box, one door at a time. It's not a convenient way to do something, but it's a way to be aware of what you're doing. We have this tendency to carry a lot of things at one time, you know, juggling all these things, because it's so convenient, we pile them up and then they're falling off and all this stuff. That's an exaggeration, but we do that. You know, there's a way when we're carrying things, how to carry something and how to put it down. Like when we come in the zendo, for instance, and we're carrying something, and then we walk in the zendo and we don't quite know what to do about bowing, because our hands are full, and usually our bowing, we put our hands together.

[19:19]

So what do you do with this thing that you're carrying? So it becomes an inconvenience for us, this object becomes an inconvenience. So we don't know what to do with it. So how do we include this object that we're carrying with respect? How do we continue to carry it respectfully and still bow? So we hold it respectfully and bow. trying to juggle things and bowing with one hand or something like that, we include everything in our bow. So then when we approach our seat, we put it down first carefully, respectfully, and then bow. So, you know, there's a way of doing things that is respectful.

[20:19]

It's not like there's a rule about how you do things. It's not the rule, it's like finding, if you really are paying respect to things, you find out how to do it. That's much better, actually, than following the rule. How do I do this? How do I treat everything respectfully? How do I treat what I'm carrying respectfully, and how do I treat what I'm approaching respectfully? And if we keep that in mind, we'll know what to do. Or at least we keep searching for what to do, which is called practice. Just following the rules is not practice. But finding out, how do I do this? How can I do it? Keeping that in mind, that's living practice. Although there are rules, and we do respect them, that's just, it doesn't come up to finding out how to do something. So when we pick up the chairs one by one carefully, without making much sound, then we will have the feeling of practice in the dining room.

[21:33]

We will not make much sound, of course, but also the feeling is quite different. When we practice this way, we ourselves are Buddha and we respect ourselves. To care for the chairs means our practice goes beyond the zendo. If you think it's easy to practice because we have a beautiful building, that's a mistake. Actually, it may be quite difficult to practice with a strong spirit in this kind of setting, when we have a handsome Buddha and offer beautiful flowers to decorate our Buddha hall. But we Zen Buddhists have a saying that with a blade of grass we create a golden Buddha, which is 16 feet high. That is our spirit so we need to practice respect for things. You know we say there's a koan about Shakyamuni Buddha walking with Indra somewhere in a retinue of Bodhisattvas and

[22:40]

One of the other of them stops and says, this is a wonderful place to build a temple. What will we build it with? And one of them picks up a blade of grass and says, with a blade of grass? Puts it down in the ground. That's a paraphrase. So I don't mean that we should accumulate many leaves or grasses to make a big statue, but until we can see a big Buddha in a small leaf, we need to make much more effort. How much effort, I don't know. Some people may find it quite easy, but for someone like me, great effort is needed, being very self-effacing. Although seeing a large golden Buddha in a large golden Buddha is easier when you see a large Buddha in a blade of grass.

[23:52]

In other words, if you can see a Buddha in a blade of grass you can really see a Buddha in a golden Buddha. When you see a large Buddha in a blade of grass your joy will be something special. So we need to practice respect with great effort. You know we say, Sambhogakaya, which is our wisdom, is to be able to see Dharmakaya, which is our essential nature, in Sambhogakaya, which is our transformation body. In other words, to be able to see a Buddha in a blade of grass. So in the Zindo, we can overcome, we can come, I'm sorry,

[24:55]

In this Zen Do, everyone can come and practice our way, experienced students and also those who don't know anything about Zen. And both will have difficulties. New students will have difficulties they could never have imagined. That's true, if they really practice. Old students have a double duty to do their own practice and to encourage those who have just come without telling them you should do this or you shouldn't do that. In other words, the old students should lead the new students so that they can practice our way more easily. I've always encouraged people, the older students, to sit in the front seats and to maybe sit next to somebody who they know is new, and without saying anything, to show people what to do who are new.

[26:04]

You should be able, you know, not just doing your own practice in your own space, but recognizing someone next to you doesn't know what to do. So, without saying anything, you help that person. That's definitely how we should practice. The older students should be encouraging the newer students. That should be just generally part of our practice. And you don't always have to do it by doing something, but by setting a good example. If we set an example, people follow. That's why I like to have the older students sitting in the front. to set an example so that people can see how we practice, and then it puts you in a position to be aware of how you're practicing because you're setting an example for people who are watching you. So even though newer students don't know what Buddhism is, they will naturally have a good feeling when they come to a beautiful Buddha hall.

[27:15]

This is the ornament of a Buddha land, but for Zen Buddhists especially, the true ornament of the Buddha hall is the people who are practicing there. So there are all the ornaments of the place, like a big Christmas tree. Whatever we do, we are considering how to do it. Since there are no special rules for how to treat things or how to be friendly with others, we keep studying what will help people practice together. If you don't forget this point, you will find out how to treat people, how to treat things, and how to treat yourself. So we always have to keep finding our way, even though there are rules, rather than relying on rules, we rely on our question, which is how to do something. How do I do this? That's the fundamental answer to most questions that people ask, but I can't keep saying that over and over again, but I do.

[28:26]

How do I do this? People say, well, how do I do it? That's the question you have to keep asking yourself all the time. That's practice. People say, when I go out of Nisendo, how do I practice? I don't know what to do. Just keep asking that question. How do I do this? How do I do this? Whatever situation you're in, how do I do this as practice? And that's your koan right there. Working on it all the time, it's ceaseless. Our koan, our genjo koan, is ceaseless. It's called the koan of daily life. People say, I heard someone say the other day, well, you know, when I came to the Zen Dojo, it was a Soto Zen temple and they didn't talk much about enlightenment. Because the Rinzai side expresses enlightenment all the time, pushing people to attain enlightenment, and Soto Zen doesn't do that so much, because we realize that enlightenment is our nature.

[29:45]

We start from enlightenment. Practice begins with enlightenment, but you don't know what that is. we emphasize realization, or actually what we emphasize is practice, just practice. With practice there is enlightenment, with faith there's practice, and with practice there's enlightenment. The three go together, faith, practice, and enlightenment. legs of practice. So this is what we call the Bodhisattva way. Our practice is to help people and to help people to find out how to practice our way on each moment.

[30:48]

To stop our thinking and to be free from emotional activity when we sit is not just a matter of concentration. This is to rely completely on ourselves, to find absolute refuge in our practice. So when we take the 16 precepts, the first three are take refuge in Buddha, take refuge in Dharma, take refuge in Sangha. But each one of us is Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. When we take refuge, we take refuge in the Buddha of our own big mind. the Dharma of our own big mind and the Sangha of our own big mind, which includes everything. So he says, we are just like a baby who is in the lap of its mother. You know, we say Prajnaparamita is the mother of all the Buddhas. So, being in the lap of our mother is like being in the lap of Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom or the actualization of wisdom.

[32:04]

I think we have a very good spirit here in this Zen, though, and I'm rather amazed at the spirit, but the next question is how to extend that spirit to your everyday life. You do it by respecting things and respecting each other because when you respect things, when we respect things, we will find our true life. When we respect plants, we will find their real life, the power and beauty of flowers. This is like, you know, Japanese culture is so very much influenced by Zen Buddhism. And when you see the flowering of Japanese culture, you see how that respect for things permeates the culture, even when people don't even realize that that's where the source. But that's a very important aspect that Zen Buddhism brought to the culture of Japan.

[33:18]

That's why there's so much ... you know, this can also be kind of ... we can get very fussy with taking care of things, you know, like every leaf has to be in its place and so forth, but we have to be careful not to be attached to order. There's a little story about the teacher that asked his disciple to sweep the grounds, to sweep the leaves off the ground, and the disciple was so proud of himself that he got every leaf, and the teacher went up to the tree and started shaking the tree, falling down on the ground. So that's the other side. we can get very fussy and very attached to order. Everything's in its place. A busy person doesn't have time to take care of all the stuff that comes in our life.

[34:24]

A person who's very busy often has big piles of stuff, you know, that no one can possibly take care of. So we have to understand that as well. That's our life, but it doesn't mean we don't make that effort and that we're not aware and we don't have that consciousness. Though love is important, if it is separated from respect and sincerity, it will not work. With big mind, And with pure sincerity and respect, love can really be love. So let's try hard and find out how to make a blade of grass into a big Buddha." So love, that's a whole other subject, what is love, a big subject. And there are various levels, you know, various levels of love, but basically it has nothing to do with self-interest.

[35:31]

In its highest form it has nothing to do with self-interest, but what we often call love is various aspects of self-interest and how we fool ourselves. and how we don't realize how insincere we are when we're talking about or when we're involved in captivation or seduction or whatever. But in its highest form, love has very little to do with self-interest. and has to do with respect and seeing into the nature of things and being connected with things and helping people.

[36:41]

You know, this is all based on when we talk about Vairochana Buddha, you know, who is Vairochana Buddha is this Buddha who is emanating light, just emanates light, which is love, but which is connection. Each one of us is an aspect of Vairajana. So when you look at the whole universe and ourselves, we are all one body called Vairajana. So nothing can get lost. And in Zazen, we let go of everything. In Zazen, we let go of everything and just simply sit in the lap of

[37:46]

Prajnaparamita or Vairochana, totally one with everything, that's us in. So, and what comes out of that is great respect for everything, which is our self, and that's called self-respect. So, do you have any questions? main subject of zazen? So what's the main subject? Oh the main subject, when you're sitting zazen, what is the main subject? Well the main subject is to not attach to anything but to be totally aware of being present.

[38:53]

The main subject Because we say, what is the main subject? Me? No. The main subject is Buddha. The main subject is Buddha. Letting go of self so that Buddha can arise. Why do you think he was surprised that there was such a good feeling? In a passage you read, you said, This is a good feeling, and I'm kind of surprised about it, but we have to extend this feeling to our everyday life. It seems like something was kind of surprising, like these American students and how they somehow could get... Amazed. Not surprised. Amazed. I'm amazed at how, you know, you people are doing this. Did you experience that side of him? Was that something you talked about a lot or did they express this sort of, like this isn't what I thought would happen?

[40:01]

Suzuki Roshi experienced us as totally naive babies, you know, baby practice, baby bodhisattvas, because we had no history. no baggage, and that's what he really liked about it. He really liked the fact that we had no baggage, no history, no attachments to that kind of life. So we could practice in a way that was totally unburdened by Japanese culture. You did it so well. Yeah, amazed, not surprised, amazed. You know, it's like when you plant something and then you think, well, let's see what happens, and then you get this huge crop and, I'm amazed!

[41:08]

Yeah, because actually it was amazing. starting out with a few people, you know, and then little by little, and then at some point all these people started coming to practice. And when Tassajara was started, all these people started coming to Tassajara, you know, and then pretty soon it just got bigger and bigger. So it was rather amazing, actually. And it was all due to Suzuki Yoshi's integrity. He didn't really do anything. His students did everything, but he really didn't do anything. He just was himself. He gave talks, you know, and he practiced with his students, but he didn't form Zen Center. The students did it. And he encouraged them and, you know, commented and added direction and so forth, but he really didn't do it, you know.

[42:10]

He just was there. I mean, he was like the center, you know, of the whole inspiration for the thing. So that's kind of amazing, like all this stuff growing up around him, right? Amazing, yeah. Nancy? I mean, the idea of seeing yourself in everything, every person. I don't understand that. Yeah, don't try to see yourself. No. What you see is yourself, without your idea of yourself. Don't try to see yourself. Just try to see the other person, and realize that is also myself. It doesn't look like me. It doesn't act like me. Don't try to see, that's just an idea, then you try to work your idea into the picture, that's not it, that's just your idea.

[43:21]

So, and it doesn't have much to do with feelings, I get irritated at a situation that is spawned by behaving in a certain way, for instance. Yes. People who don't realize their nature. So we have sympathy for them because they don't realize their nature. If you have sympathy, then you can love your enemy. If you realize this person just has no understanding of their nature, then you have sympathy, which rather than just reacting to that, you can respond, because you know, not always easy, but you know that it's because they don't have any understanding of their nature, and so you sympathize with that, even though you may have to kill somebody.

[44:25]

It seems like the way to access that sympathy, I mean, you've helped me a lot by understanding that the question is sometimes more important, but how does Buddha want to be treated in this situation? So I might feel frustrated, but if I said, how does Buddha want to feel in this situation, then I can get out the sympathy, or what did you say? The answer is always in the question. The question is the most important part. I find that right now. I'm helping to care for my dad, who's 94. Actually, his mind is pretty good, but he's getting really forgetful. And the other day I was supposed to take him to a doctor's appointment, and I had left a note for him and reminded him. And when I got there, he'd completely forgotten. And it was fine, because I didn't really have anything else to do. And we got there late, but that was fine.

[45:37]

I had called the doctor ahead of time. She said, no problem. I got home, and he said, thank you for not getting mad at me. And I said, why would I get mad at you? And he said, people do. Yeah. I can't say I do that every time, but I often feel like, oh, it's the practice that's helping. It's not me, it's not Susan, but it's this question that you help. Well, that's right, because we're half Buddha and half Susan. Well, I don't know about that. Well, it may not be half and half, but Buddha takes over. That's called the practice. Buddha takes over. Your patience, that's Buddha taking over. Giving the lead to Buddha rather than taking the lead, actually. Okay, you take over, please. And then Buddha takes over.

[46:38]

It reminds me of, sometimes if I'm in a situation that I see is difficult and I know I really need to do it right, I say to myself, How would I handle this if I had a really terrific practice? Well, in Shosan, somebody asked a question about, since I'm not a realized person, how do I be Buddha? Or something like that. Just pretend. As a matter of fact, that's the practice, it's like, just pretend that you're Buddha, make as if you're Buddha, that's the practice. And I'm just making that up, although I did once, but I found it verified.

[47:42]

Yes, so this is not, you know, the things that we disrespect and we can't respect them. So this is not a rule, it's an attitude, right? You have to remember that it's pointing at something, right? So if we try to apply something to every situation as if it's going to fix every situation, it's not. then mostly we'll be able to do this. Sometimes we won't. So disrespect is also important. See you on the other side. I don't respect things that people are doing, and I will not." So, it's the other side. But the side I'm talking about is, or the side that Suzuki Roshi is talking about is, Our attitude is one of respecting things, and if we keep that attitude, this will encourage our practice and also help to change things.

[49:17]

But it doesn't mean that, you know, you have to respect everything, not by any means.

[49:25]

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