In this study period, which is just beginning, we're focusing on six prajnaparamitas. I understand that Norman Fisher gave a nice talk last Saturday. When we have study period, as we've been developing our study periods, we've been trying to pick a subject which is not just academic, you know, not just an academic study, but those subjects of dharma which

[01:18]

those aspects of Dharma which we study with our body and mind and spirit, like the Eightfold Path and the Six Paramitas, and we studied precepts, and we studied the eight aspects of the enlightened person. those kind of subjects which we can put our attention to in our daily life easily and which really form the basis of dharma. So eventually, you know, we can educate ourselves in Buddhist dharma. as we keep practicing and having study periods, eventually we can go through the whole, study the whole dharma, the whole, theoretically we could study the whole Tripitaka this way, over a period of time.

[02:39]

So, I feel that we need this kind of education, not just academic education, but to learn how to put, how this kind of dharma is applied to our life. So this week we were supposed to be studying Donna. which is the first paramita. We're supposed to see how it applies to our life. So our study, you know, was to look at our activity and find out, what is dana? What is giving? What is the meaning of dana? How does it manifest in our life? So with that in the back of my mind, I've been thinking about how dana manifests in my life and in my practice.

[03:58]

And I notice when I have a relationship with people and with things, I can see my own selfish mind, my own self-centered mind, and I can see my own hang-ups and blocks and the way I do things in a repetitive way that stop me. It's really, this Donna is, if we look at every act that we do as Donna, then every time you do something you can see whether there's openness in giving or there's holding and withdrawing or avoiding. So when I think about Donna, about giving, I realize that

[05:14]

Dana in its basic sense is our natural, the natural tendency of our spirit is Dana. What we really want to do is to give. In other words, we want to be as completely open as possible. And we want to have as much life as possible. So, if you look a little deeper, Dana is actually, maybe you could say a life force, which is, which wants to express. And the problem is there are all these forms in the way. Maybe the most pure kind of life force, or dana, is expressed by a puppy dog.

[06:28]

You know, just without thinking about forms, or worrying about forms, it just goes. Just complete free expression. But when it goes, Sooner or later, it gets stopped. That free expression runs into a wall or runs off a cliff. I used to have this dog who was so exuberant, wonderful dog, and he would just go. About five minutes later, he'd be over a cliff, down at the bottom of a ravine or something. But we want that kind of expression, you know, just complete giving ourself to life. But when we do that, we always end up yelping or hurting or, you know, what's the problem?

[07:35]

Something wrong, we run into a problem. So our life becomes formed by these problems that we run into. the resistance and the things that make it impossible or difficult for us to express our spirit. And these things, these problems are called forms. And all of these forms contain the spirit. So the problem becomes, you know, we have to start finding forms to contain the spirit, or contain this dana, contain this giving nature, in order for it to work in our sphere, in our world.

[08:41]

So as we grow up and become more mature, we find various forms that we can work in. And some people never find the right form. Some people can never, you know, go on in life and they can never get contained. So, you know, genius is something like this. Genius is maybe have to have so much spirit that they have to invent forms for it that haven't been created yet, or create forms that haven't been created yet. And artists are like this, because there's so much exuberance and life force that they have to create forms to contain it, and we call it art. But artists are usually very miserable on the other hand because they can't fit it all in, you know.

[09:53]

The art form doesn't contain it all. And you find musicians, you know, jazz musicians in the nightclub, you know, when they have a job, everything's going great. As soon as they stop, it all falls apart because they don't have a form to contain the rest of their life. So, at some point in our life, we find that the forms are not satisfactory. And we keep looking for the right form. Some people can easily go, you know, put it into the box and you go from this room to that room. That's admirable, but not everybody can do that. So in Buddhism, when Buddha started Buddhism, he said, if you want to have some satisfactory form for your life, you should

[11:14]

give up the old forms and follow these forms, which lead to Buddhahood. And that was called leaving home and taking precepts. Precepts is the other, the next paramita, which is shila. Shila means precepts. Sometimes it's called morality. Morality is part of shila. but in a very big sense. It means following the forms that lead to, how can I say, contentment or tranquility or lead to satisfactory life. a life which is not just constant frustration or sense of what... So, dana is wholeness or giving of life force and shila is its containment or the forms that

[12:50]

give it some ability to work. Sometimes the forms are very rigid. In Buddhism, there must have been some pretty bad monks in India in Buddhist time. Because Sheila became In India, Shila, or these precepts, 235 precepts, became the form of practice. And later, the Mahayana developed 250 precepts, actually more. But for Zen practice, Zen practice is not so concerned with so many forms, so many rigid forms of practice.

[14:01]

We have usual Zen precepts are 16. We studied the precepts, so I don't have to go through that. But using the forms of which appear in our life. If we know how to use the forms which appear in our life as the forms of practice, then we can see. We can be more involved in life in the world instead of trying to make a perfect life. The problem with so many rules for our spirit is that we may come out perfectly pure and perfect.

[15:09]

If you have so many rules for practicing, then you have a kind of idealistic goal of perfection. the perfect person, Buddha. Creating the perfect person. But I think that Buddhists found that, as time went on, that to create the perfect person it's not necessary to have so many rules. And to give a little more room to for spirit. And perfection is not the goal of Buddhism. I think that Buddhists find out that perfection is not the goal of Buddhism. I think it's a big disappointment for some people. When you do something,

[16:18]

If you want to do something well, you know, you start out very carefully. And you're very mindful. You know, one of the reasons for having so many rules in early Buddhism was because mindfulness was the main practice. Mindfulness was uppermost. So in order to be mindful, it's much easier if you have everything laid out for you, or if you just know exactly what to do in each situation. It makes it very simple. So in order to avoid confusion, people withdrew from usual activity and just practice these various rules.

[17:23]

And not that it's easy to do that, but it's true that you can be very mindful that way and have good concentration. But Later, and maybe not everyone, the form of practice changed radically over 2,000 years, 2,500 years. And that Vinaya practice of 250 rules, although it continues today in certain places, is not practiced by all Buddhists, although mindfulness and concentration and so forth is always uppermost.

[18:33]

With less formal forms as the point of practice, all forms become forms of practice. We talk about this a lot, you know, in our life. How can we practice in our life if we're not in a monastery, if we're just going to work every day, taking care of usual kind of things that people take care of in the world? The only way we can do that is if all the forms of our life become the form of practice. How do we have a kind of wholesome practice for our life, allowing our life force to be completely free? So freedom and structure go together, are inseparable.

[19:48]

as exemplified by Zazen posture. Zazen posture is the strongest posture. If you understand Zazen posture, you know that it's the strongest posture. But in order to allow ourself to be completely free, we have the strongest posture. It's like In order to contain molten metal, you have to have the strongest steel bucket. If you have a strong steel bucket, then you can pour molten steel into it, steel which has no form. So if you have a good structure, you can allow your life force to be completely free. When we sit zazen, our body is taken care of.

[20:59]

And we can just let ourself go completely. Isn't that wonderful? Just let yourself go completely. Let go of everything. So the strongest discipline also implies the most freedom. That's why Zen practice is usually associated with discipline. It doesn't mean, you know, to be... Discipline sometimes is associated with meanness, but we don't imply meanness in discipline. If we want a strong spirit, and if we want to let ourself be completely free,

[22:16]

we have to have a strong containment, a strong structure to contain it. So, dana is perfectly expressed in zazen. The most basic expression of dana is zazen. Complete giving, completely giving up, giving over, giving to. There are other forms of dana. All the other forms of dana take their spirit from basic, this basic dana. Giving, dana is also described as giving material things and giving teaching and so forth.

[23:20]

Don't withhold anything. That's Dana. Don't withhold. If somebody wants something, give it to them. So giving of, you know, giving of material things is very important. Sometimes we feel reluctant to give things, you know. If we give a gift, sometimes we have to decide, well, shall I give the thing that I want or shall I give something that I'm not so attached to?

[24:22]

If you give something that you feel good about, something that you want, you usually feel better about it in the end. You feel that you've given something. But the thing about giving of material things is, you know, in the Diamond Sutra it says, there is no When you give a gift, there's no giver, no one who is being given to, and no gift. Just give and forget, you know. If we want to understand Dana, we should see how we feel about our gifts. Do we feel reluctant after we've done something or do we feel that we want some reward?

[25:31]

One of our problems with giving is that we feel that we want something back. You know, I gave something and now I want something back. But to expect something back is not really Dana. If we give, something will come back. But if you expect something back, nothing will come back. This is like the law of Dana. If you expect something back, nothing will come. Even if something comes, it's not Dana. So just to give and forget, this is how we say we always will be supported. If you practice dharma, you will always be supported.

[26:36]

It means that you give without any expectation, but because of karma, something comes back. So life is reciprocal. Our actions are reciprocal. If we do a good action, some reciprocal good comes back. And if we do a bad action, something reciprocal comes back. But we can't always judge what's good and bad. Sometimes we can't. And Liz made a, I said to her this morning, she had put a little shirt on Daniel, which I liked.

[27:37]

I thought, oh, that's really a nice little shirt. I haven't seen that before. She said, well, I gave it to somebody. I made it and gave it to somebody for their baby a while back. And now their baby has outgrown it and she's given it back to me. But there was no intention of that ever coming back. Just a little example. So if we know how to forget, give and forget, we can continue our life. Our life doesn't depend on getting something in return. If your life depends on getting something in return, then you're caught. You're always waiting for something. When we're waiting for something, we can't go ahead with our life. If we resent somebody, you know, we can't include them in our life.

[28:51]

So dana, you know, is the ability to let go of resentment and let go of expectation. And if you're always ready, you know, if you have some difficulty with somebody, and even though you have a hard time, you may have some resentment or some jealousy or difficulty someplace, but if you're always ready to give up, then when that person changes or reforms a little bit, you immediately can respond to that. And without any hesitation, that person becomes your friend. So the more that we can cultivate shila, you know, the forms, pay attention to the form, the more freedom we actually have for our spirit.

[30:17]

You can look at an old, well, trained Zen master who has, if you look at an old, well-trained Zen master, that person has no difficulty and no real desire. Some basic desire, but a person's basic desire is just always going along with things. Always going along with everything. A kind of harmony, you know, without too much difficulty. Always giving himself to the forms.

[31:26]

flowing smoothly with whatever form is there at the moment, never attached to any particular form, but able to conform. I've talked about conforming before. Sometimes people get upset because, you know, we're non-conformists. We're a room full of non-conformists. Conform, you know, is to take the form of your present activity just to be completely one with the form of your present activity. It doesn't mean to go along with President Reagan and the present administration.

[32:35]

Always giving yourself to the form, being one with things. In Buddhism, you know, there are many, many long lists. There's a whole book. Kanze, Edgar Kanze, made a whole book of Buddhist lists of shila, you know, the various practices. The ten this's and the eight that's and the thirty-sixth and the thirty-seventh and so forth. These are all very, these kind of categories, you'll find in Buddhism, are kind of academic way of looking at Buddhist practice. But in our actual life, we can't practice that way. And how we actually practice is to have something to focus on.

[33:51]

In Buddhism, even though they had something like the 37 limbs of enlightenment, which are various practices, monks would just focus on one, one of those. And I practiced the whole 37 through that one, not try to take on this enormous amount of practices at once. For our practice, zazen is our one focus. But we also study all of the various practices of Buddhism. So we understand it, you know, and we can see it from these various practices. So we should understand that. Today, you know, we can study our whole practice from the point of view of Dana. Next week, we can understand the whole practice from the point of view of Sheila.

[34:57]

Next week, we can understand our whole practice from the point of view of patience, kshanti, and so forth. And then the next week, from the point of view of vigor, and then from the point of view of meditation, and then from the point of view of prajna itself, pure prajna. So, dana on one end, and prajna on the other. And all the others are kind of in between. And Prajna pervades all of them. And Dhana pervades all of them. And each one of them pervades all the others. But when we live our life, we don't think about all that. We just go ahead. Like some general said, When the troops are at home, they're training, and they learn how to drill and march and shoot and so forth, and salute.

[36:12]

But when they get out in the field, everything's in chaos, and they just shoot their guns. They just... If you have a basic understanding then that permeates your activity. But you don't think about that when you're moving around in the world. And it's the same with zazen. When you sit in zazen, then you step out into activity. But you don't think about zazen when you're out working and so forth. But it's there. It's in your activity. I think it's good to think about Donna, you know, in the background of your activity. How can you be as fully alive as possible and still be contained, have some ease?

[37:24]

You know, spirit seeks spirit. We all want to, you know, I think everybody wants to feel ultimately one with everybody else. But there are all these bodies in the way, you know. There are all these forms and bodies that are in the way. And sometimes we say, well, let's get all the bodies out of the way. Then we can do it. But you can't, you know. The bodies are all there. The forms are all there. So we have to deal with the forms. We have to exist within these forms. And it's kind of crude, you know, if you think about it. Life on Earth is very crude. Even talking, you know, is very crude. Speaking is very crude. forming words and making sounds in order to understand each other.

[38:39]

Okay. So the more and more we want to focus on our basic nature, resume our basic nature. be more open and be able to really communicate, you know, with people, with everything from a basic level.

[40:34]

It's wonderful how after Sashin, everybody, although nobody spoke to each other, everybody seems to have a basic feeling with each other. That's hard to describe. Even though the forms are there, still there, his bodies are still there, it's very transparent. So usually what holds us back is our own sense of self or thickness.

[41:42]

Thickness of the skin. Dogen says the skin is thick. Do you have something you'd like to say, a question? I find that when you're constantly dealing with people and giving the best you can, whatever you give, sometimes it's very exhausting, especially when it's out form a relationship when you're teaching or when you're just having a conversation because sometimes you don't really have a goal and you're just sometimes trying to teach somebody something or you don't have that basic conversation and I don't know why it is that sometimes you're exhausted

[43:03]

Well, it's important to know your goal. You know, what am I doing here? What are we doing here? You know, in this... within some situation. What is this about? You know. And then... you can frame a form. A form will become framed. So, quite often when that happens, it feels like, well, there's some confusion, you know? You don't know, uncomfortable, you don't know which way to move, you know? Because of not being clear about what you're about, what your goal is, what you're doing. So that's actually a good situation because you can see that you're not clear. And then you have to try to figure out, well, how can I get clear about this? What am I doing?

[44:23]

What am I really doing? And that what am I really doing becomes your koan. What am I really doing here? What is this really about? And then, the other thing, too, is that somehow you don't want to confine somebody else's spirit into your idea of form. Somehow guide somebody else to find their own forms, but that means that they have to be clear about what their problems and questions are. It makes it very hard. Yeah. Well, you know, you have to practice, continue to practice, and it's not easy to figure those things out, But working on that is your practice. That right there is where our practice is, is dealing with that kind of problem. It's not easy, not an easy thing.

[45:30]

In relation to that question, One of the things is that because, in a sense, we're so unfamiliar with the various forms, or the various possibilities for forms, that our energy doesn't flow freely. I know in communicating with other people, I have this experience, where I don't really know how to communicate in such a way that they can hear it, or what they're like, and what they need to hear, or just the basic energy of that person. I can't really understand it or feel it. well, I'm not familiar with those forms. And so somehow my energy then, as you mentioned, butts up against all kinds of obstacles, and that's very exhausting. Whereas if I really knew other people well, or various forms well, then the energy would flow so very freely, and then there'd be no sense of exhaustion. So it takes really being various ways they can be in the world, so various, so complex.

[46:36]

I was thinking in relation to what you were saying about con-form and what came into my mind was being like a con-man in con-form. And two.

[47:02]

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