I guess this is the last lecture I'll be giving this practice period, but since it looks like quite a few of us anyway will be practicing together for quite a long time, we'll have a chance to study more. And anyway, I think all of you in some way will be practicing Buddhism forever. And it looks like today is going to be quite a nice day. At least now the sun is out, which means the road will maybe get dry, which means you can drive your

[01:07]

cars out. Anyway, we can get out easier to the real world, where you're going to go see your parents, those things which are the hardest thing to find reality in. I think at Christmas time and springtime you're all quite vulnerable. Last spring and this Christmas I began to get the same kind of questions from people about falling in love and what to do about your family, and it's certainly true we are more vulnerable.

[02:31]

My daughter, who's very matter-of-fact, said about my sister's death, why didn't she wait till after Christmas? Anyway, Sally doesn't see the other side of Christmas, or being in love, or something like that. But she also said to Virginia, you know, it was quite a difficult experience, of course, for Virginia and everybody. And Barbara took a kind of pill called Sleep Ease, which is maybe some over-the-counter sleeping pill you can get, which is actually a pretty deadly poison. So it doesn't just put you to sleep, it's rather

[03:43]

extremely unpleasant. Anyway, so everyone was quite upset, maybe. But no one said much. But Sally said, finally, after several weeks, she said, every time I look at you we both know what we're thinking, and it's icky. Anyway, I think that maybe the most difficult thing for us is times like Christmas time and springtime. And I don't know where Houston

[05:11]

Smith gets his information, but he says that, Buddha says, that if there'd been any problem bigger than love and sex, he wouldn't have made it. Which, I don't know how he knows Buddha said that. Anyway, it's probably even a bigger problem than food trips. Food trips seem to be more manageable. Tsukiyoshi used to talk about sex and love sometimes, but he said the oddest things. And mostly, in Zen, we don't want to talk about things which are so much a part of our life and

[06:17]

our practice. You should know, without talking about it too much. So, like with food, we just have some simple rules about eating, you know, eating something of everything, and eating at the same time. But, so we need some simple rule about being in love, or Christmas time, things like that. But it's not so easy to find some simple rule. Such feelings seem to me a little bit like blowing soap bubbles. And soap bubbles are quite beautiful, you know, there's all these wonderful reflections on the

[07:24]

surface. They're quite wonderful. And you get quite involved with them. And then you jiggle your bubble pipe and they float off. And then you skip, then you want to go with them. I think a lot of you are still looking for those, a lot of bubbles that floated off, remembering how beautiful the reflections were. You know, I think the thing to do is to, if you find yourself stuck with a bubble pipe, and it bubbles on it, just blow very gently.

[08:26]

And maybe it'll get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until the reflection and the world are the same thing. And maybe you're okay. I think most of, actually, probably most of our feelings are some twisted form of love feelings. Nukiroshi said very interesting things, like, uh, much of what he said, it was very difficult to, partly because of his

[09:36]

use of English. And it was difficult, but partly it was easy, because his grammar and syntax would be all mixed up. But just in those areas where it was most mixed up, he'd be trying to say something, feel something that wouldn't come out. And in one lecture I worked on recently, he said, if you can't have any, if you can't have some direct experience of time, then appeal to your direct experience in everything, you know, which changes, which is time. But he used the word appeal. You know, if you have some mechanical understanding, you say something

[10:45]

like, uh, exist, you know, in your direct experience. Limit yourself to your direct experience. But Nukiroshi said, appeal. And in this lecture, he was talking throughout about warm, kind-hearted feelings. As the basis for, not just soap bubbles, but as the actual basis of our existence.

[11:47]

So, anyway, whatever you feel, or exists as you, in a wide sense is Buddhism, and in a narrow sense is your individual interest. So, Buddhism doesn't, I don't know if this makes any sense, but, because this is a distinction Buddhism

[14:03]

makes, you know, not Zen so articulately, but a distinction between your own physical experience, which includes sex and love, and your own physical experience is considered, in the realm of what I talked about last time, as a seal. And we make our body a kind of seal. Each experience, if we can stay with it, is a kind of seal, vehicle, or I mean, not vehicle, receptacle, for everything that comes and goes. But you have to know how to stay. And love is more your relationship with other people. And, in the wide sense, compassion. And com, C-O-M, in its various combinations,

[15:09]

combine and compare, etc., seems to mean, have the idea of bringing together in an even way, like a honeycomb. So, compassion is some even feeling where you don't say this person is better than that person, but you experience that same feeling, but very widely. I can't say diffusely, because it's not diffuse, but it doesn't discriminate. Such small differences as what kind of person we are don't exist. And the idea of sealing is related to our ideas of vows, or holding a vow.

[16:23]

And the Rakufusatsu, the ceremony we'll do tomorrow, which we're doing it in English? Japanese? Oh, okay. Do I still have to chant my line? Last time I chanted and someone came to me and said I should become a Doan and practice chanting something. So, I'll try harder tomorrow. I find it a little difficult to chant in Japanese. I mean, except the things we chant regularly. But if you can do it, I should be able to do it too. I should try. No, I'll really mess up tomorrow, I'm sure. Anyway, the idea of a vow, you know, we say, I vow to save all sentient beings.

[17:33]

That's, you can say, entering the Bodhi Mandala, or entering the stream. But to stay there is to turn the vow one more time and say something like, I vow to do nothing else until I attain this vow. Do you understand what I mean? That's holding the vow. How to hold the vow. To make the vow is one step. The second step is how to hold the vow. So, the Raku Vesak ceremony is like that. We not only make clear our karma or our karma. Confess isn't exactly right. Confess our karma, something more like.

[18:39]

Recognizing, not hesitating to look at and be maybe humbled by our karma. And then, you know, you call forth all the Buddhas and then you vow to save all sentient beings and we repeat it over and over again. And that repeating is part of holding. In Buddhism, we use our mind, not so much to analyze, but of course we do analyze as long as we can keep from getting caught by the result. But we use our mind for how to hold a vow, how to make a vow and hold a vow. Because we don't think of our mind that really takes care of us as being just that conscious thing. Conscious thing is useful for making vows and holding them. And rather difficult if you do much elsewhere. Your intelligence is much wider and deeper than that.

[20:00]

Suzuki Roshi's favorite story, which I suppose you must have heard, but maybe he stopped talking about it so much in the last three years or so, four years. But he used to lecture about it, used to seem to me about every once a month or so, I would hear that story again. And it's about Nanaku and Baso. And Nanaku is N-A-N-G-A-K-U. The G is sort of sounds like the N-G on the end of I-N-G. Anyway, Nanaku was a disciple of the Sixth Patriarch.

[21:41]

Seigen Gyoshi was a disciple of the Sixth Patriarch. And Seigen Gyoshi is, from Seigen Gyoshi who was the number one disciple of the Sixth Patriarch, I don't know because he was best or worst or something, but maybe he was oldest, I don't know. Anyway, he inherited the robe and bowl, but wasn't supposed to pass them on. From Seigen Gyoshi come three of the schools of Zen, including Soto school. And from Nanaku come two schools of Zen, including Rinza. And the other three disciples of Sixth Patriarch's lineages sort of disappeared after maybe five generations. They became Tendai or disappeared into other schools. Anyway, Nanaku had a very great disciple named Baso, who we've mentioned before,

[22:52]

who's described rather like he was a football player or something, most of the descriptions I've heard. Anyway, Baso was doing Zazen. And he sat, I guess, and did everything very fiercely. And he was sitting with great determination. And Nanaku came by. Nanaku knew how good Baso was. Nanaku came by and said, what are you doing? And Baso, without hesitating, stuck his foot in it and said, I want to become a Buddha. I want to become enlightened. I'm practicing to become enlightened. So Nanaku, a few minutes later, Baso heard this

[24:10]

noise, some kind of rubbing noise. He couldn't figure out what it was. He looked and Nanaku had the tile, he was sitting with a tile, rubbing it. So Baso said, no, he must have known he was supposed to ask. He said, what are you doing? He said, oh, I'm trying to make a mirror or a jewel. Baso must have said something. I don't know what he said next. But anyway, Nanaku responded, it's the same to try to make a tile, a jewel as it is to try to attain enlightenment by doing Zazen.

[25:16]

And then Nanaku added, if you have a cart and an ox and the cart won't go, do you beat the cart or do you beat the ox? Anyway, Baso must have been sitting with some idea of what a

[26:44]

Buddha was, what enlightenment is, and with some idea that he wasn't enlightened. And we can't practice Buddhism with those kinds of ideas. I'm not enlightened or I'm enlightened or I have some idea of enlightenment that I want to attain. Your idea immediately excludes real practice. It doesn't mean you don't polish a tile, but you polish a tile to make a tile not to make a tile a jewel. So he said, if you beat the horse or the cart, the horse or the heart, it's easy to get them mixed up. But obviously you hit the horse or the ox or whatever it is.

[27:51]

And the heart. How to accept everything just as it is. Us and everything. Anyway, we can't have any ideas about it. Dogen said, when a tile is a tile, Zen is Zen.

[29:45]

Another interesting story is a famous story is, I think, Dogen is one of the two people, Dogen we talked about already in the seventh story in the Blue Cliff Records about Iccha. And I think they're discussing about something the Sixth Patriarch said, which is why does the solitary body, something like, why does the solitary body expose itself in the midst of the myriad appearances, in the midst of phenomena, phenomenal world. So Dogen's friend says, I think this is what Dogen's friend says, how do you interpret that?

[31:16]

Or what do you think? And Dogen started to raise his whisk. And his friend said, well, why do you interpret in that way? And so Dogen said, well, how do you interpret it? Of course, his friend raised his whisk. Anyway. Okay. So I'm solitary body in the midst of these myriad appearances.

[32:26]

Or it suckers you into the other side. Ah, the myriad appearances are me. Raising the whisk is rather interesting. Maybe that's myriad appearances. But every time you raise it, you know, the background is different. And what raises the whisk? Um, that point in the, when Tsukiyoshi told that story in the lecture,

[33:40]

uh, he finished the lecture. And before he said, do you have any questions? I asked a question. And, uh, for me, maybe pretty near that time or a few months before that, very important, uh, to me had been, uh, Gutei's one finger. And Gutei, you know, lived, I don't know, maybe a hundred or so years later. I think he was about third or fourth generation after Baso in Baso's lineage. Um, anyway, Tsukiyoshi, uh, I guess had several times gone through at very odd moments, you know,

[34:49]

just after finishing, he used to do. He talked about one finger several times. And then he, in those days, did every, all the service himself. And he rang the bells and hit the Han. And one time I remember after he finished the Han and the bells, service is over and he was just ready to leave. And suddenly he raised one finger. Anyway, every time he did it, I was sort of really wiped out. Cause I don't know why, but it was really hitting me. I didn't exactly know what was hitting me, something. So, when he talked about this question and answer with, uh, why is the solitary body exposed in the myriad appearances? Then I, he stopped. And so before he said, do you have any questions?

[35:52]

I said, uh, is it the same as one finger? He just ignored me and said, maybe I talk too much. Anyone in this long rap about talking too much. And, and, uh, how maybe he should just talk talking. That if we don't have that, uh, more important than, uh, many problems in your life might be to be able to ask good questions. But if you just ask useless questions, he said, you'll never understand anything. If you think we're trying, you know, we're talking about practice. He said, not about reality. If you try to ask questions about reality, you're completely mistaken.

[36:59]

So, so we are all, we're always solitary body and solitary body is maybe myriad appearances.

[38:19]

Anyway, I can say many things, but we can say, we talk about three appearances, empty, everything is empty. Everything is not empty. Everything is empty and not empty. We can add a fourth. Everything is neither empty nor not empty. So don't this Christmas, I don't get caught by,

[39:28]

soap bubbles. But maybe you should be completely caught by soap bubbles because you're generating the world each moment. Do you have some questions? Yeah. What do you think?

[40:36]

Why don't you think that for a while? Yeah. What? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just coming into Zen center was that was enough. Just take me and I've been around for a while. I've seen this tremendous ego. I see it more clearly in myself

[41:52]

and I see that it wasn't just enough and that now this myself is creating and understand the environment and now it wants to create a comfortable situation. It gets a lot of kicks and hard times and each time it gets knocked down and tries to rationalize the experience of something to make something comfortable in that environment. I see that and I worry that maybe I'm just creating this ego structure stronger and stronger. You mean your

[42:59]

ego is trying to make Buddhism and Zen center a home? Maybe we have here a rest home for old egos. Ha ha. We have to have some place to go. Apparently you can treat your ego like a prize fighter who always wants to fight. All out of proportion to anything that's meaningful and you can just go home

[44:00]

and leave him there in the amphitheater by himself. He'll keep fighting away you know, shadow boxing and eventually he'll be tired out if you don't pay too much attention to him. So in a lot of practice how do you practice with that? Just like that. Your first attitude was when you first came was quite good. If we have some very helpful to practice is some conviction deep seated conviction that Buddhism is right or that if we have to have some explanation of the world Buddhism is as good as any. Some feeling like that

[45:01]

that you don't you may question but you question in the way that you keep coming back to it to question and question other things but anyways, you see what I mean? Some conviction like that helps. The other thing that may help is to have no idea of practice or attainment that you can practice Buddhism even. I know I'm struck by many things when I go over old lecture notes in those days when Suzuki Yoshi was talking about Baso rubbing the tile we had no feeling that we could even be a tile let alone a jewel

[46:01]

and it seemed almost tragic that Suzuki Yoshi was saying all these things which were seemed like jewels maybe anyway, he was up there talking like the sutras and saying things that seemed wonderful but he needed some decent students to practice with we couldn't figure out why he was here in America or wasting his time with us and it seemed tragic that such a teacher should do that anyway we had no idea that Zen Center would ever exist like this if you want to be a good a jewel maybe

[47:03]

you're going to have to use some really heavy polish on that tile but then you'd say some soft polish like straw is okay too that's alright that's Zen then he'd say if you want to make the cart go fast you have to hit that off pretty hard but then he'd say but then you don't see the flowers you go so fast so don't go so fast but you have to be ready for the steep road so if you want to be strict with yourself you should be strict with yourself but not everyone should be strict with themselves anyway in that kind of context where he always let us just as we were that's okay somehow practice continued and is continuing

[48:05]

yeah can you speak a little louder and slower please if you have some idea that you're when you eat meat because your parents do you're killing when you're eating something you're killing if you refuse to eat meat on your parents table what are you doing to your parents anyway you should consider that too and that's why it's a problem for me because I have

[49:10]

to move out that's the problem the fact that I have to move out is a burden and also the fact that I need to take care of myself is a burden now if I went to Canada to meet parents in an office and and came to know them that I didn't need to take care of kids especially for me and I told them that I thought I was a good kid and they gave me they were mad at me they were mad at me and I wasn't mad at myself the whole time I was in Canada

[50:11]

everyone was mad at me yeah if you're a buddhist maybe they were a better buddhist than you so when you leave you're leaving tomorrow tomorrow day after tomorrow please have a double hamburger and eat one of them for me I went to a restaurant in New York with Suzuki Roshi once and and somebody took us to dinner at this restaurant, at this hotel Prince I can't remember the name of the hotel and it said lobster on the menu and Suzuki Roshi had never had lobster in the United States before, rather different Japan but also they don't eat

[51:15]

you know lobster quite the way we do it if they do it, they cut it up into little pieces usually shrimps are quite small so it said two lobsters so Suzuki Roshi I said that's a little bit much but maybe he imagined two shrimp this big platter came with two huge lobsters and I had one of two huge lobsters so we had four lobsters and our rich friend, you know was eating a fruit salad we both felt very un-Buddhist and sort of embarrassed but Roshi couldn't possibly eat

[52:17]

so I had to eat three lobsters and I ate one of them for you yeah I've said so before I think, why did you hear what he said? he said I've said that Suzuki Roshi changed his lectures later and I've said that partly

[53:20]

because I have the same problem that he faced which is how to talk about Buddhism and he of course talked about Buddhism in the way the people who were there could understand and that's one side another side is he didn't want to talk about Buddhism in ways people couldn't understand so his lectures on the surface got simpler and simpler and he'd been studying at that before he came with Kishizawa Roshi who was this great scholar and had a famous library Roshi was his Kishizawa Roshi

[54:23]

was under in the hierarchy under Suzuki Roshi but actually Suzuki Roshi was his disciple and so Suzuki Roshi spent many years and had great sympathy for the necessity to if we're going to teach Buddhism particularly to have some understanding of Buddhism from the point of view of the teaching too and of course your actual experience can't to just study it without your actual experience has no meaning but he also got better at giving lectures which were on the surface just talking about whatever the weather and you had to get more and more alert to talk, to understand what he was saying

[55:24]

but you could feel what he was saying so there was some difference it wasn't just that he gave up talking about one side is he gave up talking about things he didn't think anyone could understand and were confusing to people whose practice wasn't ready to understand on the other side he began to get better and better to talk not about Buddhism but about the students and in talking about the students to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about, about Buddhism do you understand what I mean? so it's not that the lectures got worse or better or simpler just his mode was different later but it's not important for you to know that you weren't there in those early lectures no need to know what they were like I'm just expressing my own difficulty

[56:28]

with what I should say I don't want to confuse you and yet I those were the times which were the most important in my practice so naturally they're partly what I talk about are you looking for it? I can see it but I don't want to talk

[57:32]

about it I can't just be a real human being Well, if you're already thinking how unpleasant they're going to be, you are putting the cart before the horse. Why don't you just sit in the cart and beat yourself? We can

[58:33]

all say, now there's a good tendency to look at him. Tina's not going to say we'll like it very much. You were talking before about the pre-thought, the thought before the thought arises. In the definition for hard-toe, it's the Chinese word for calm. They use it, it's the essence of the sentence, or penetrating the thought before current, penetrating the pre-thought. Is there something penetrating before the thought? It seems like there is, but then there isn't. It seems like you're pushing against nothing. It looks like there's maybe nothing there, but then again, there's something that I'm trying to break through. Is there

[59:44]

something that I'm trying to break through? Is there some penetration before the thought? Any other questions? It's wonderful how our mind works. It's so obvious we hit the ox, but our mind is on the cart. Maybe we should hit the cart. Maybe. I've read a lecture on this before, and it's been four or five months, and it's like there's a trend in the world of hitting the cart. I have a nice little book about it, but I

[60:49]

don't know if it's about the ox and how it survives, or how it survives. That's from I have a nice picture on the cart. You have something? He's giving me lectures about me. I've got a husband and wife team now. What was that? He's giving me lectures. It's really striking. Oh, he's giving you lectures. I've got the cart. I should hit the cart. One advice Suzuki Roshi gave in Los Altos was, it's in the beginner's mind, I think.

[61:58]

Don't listen to my lectures and then go home and lecture your wife or husband. So, he tells you to beat the cart. Does he mean himself? There's a story, you know, when the monk asks, what is the first rate meaning? And the teacher says, if I say anything, it'll be second rate. But first rate and second rate are the same. So maybe we do beat the cart.

[63:00]

What's interesting is our mind that's trying to figure it out. Yeah. I think it's not fair to ask him to comment on someone else's lecture. This is something that's been in my mind for a long time. I guess it was last summer, Claude gave a lecture in Cincinnati. And he spoke about first order questions. And when we begin practice, we're involved in the first order questions. But the longer we practice, the more we're around, the more we get involved in 16th order and 32nd order and 64th order questions. And you can get away from the central core of why we're practicing here. So, after his talk, he asked me questions.

[64:12]

And Dan said, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And Claude said, ah, real question. I didn't think anyone would ask me that question. I mean, I forget what he said. But I was struck by that. So later on, after several more questions, I said, what is a real question? And he said, a bit deeper than that. A little bit perplexed ever since. My question is, what is a real question? Laughter Now he's going to ask you. Laughter

[65:26]

I don't have any answer. Laughter I suppose a real question is when something pushes up through you. Laughter And even if you decide not to ask, or you don't have any question, something pushes up through you. So that you're sitting almost like that. Then from there you can ask some question. Or you're ready to receive some response.

[66:53]

Laughter Laughter You want to just be ready. Laughter Laughter

[69:08]

Please, be relaxed, and enjoy yourself over the holidays.

[69:21]

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