It's getting just a tiny bit colder. Still, this is the warmest Rohatsu Sashin at Tassara I've ever been at. How about you? Anyway, some suggestion about your hands, which may get cold. or your thumbs. If you dress your torso, your body, too warmly, you can't keep your hands warm unless you have minute thermostatic control, which I doubt you have. It's rather difficult. So if your torso is too warm, your body won't produce heat for your hands. So your body has to be sort of equally chilly. if your hands are going to be warm. So if you dress cool enough so your body is a little bit chilly, then your body will make enough heat for your body and your hands. Otherwise, if your body can warm your hands, you'll sweat inside.

[01:24]

Another thing is some of you sort of look around the zendo during kinghin or other times. If you have no... Some people have some responsibility, like Leila and other people, to look around, you know, and that's all right. But if you don't have such reason, there's no reason to look around except curiosity or your mind is working. And if we're trying to not think so much, why encourage yourself by revolving your head this way and that way, or looking? All of you are practicing pretty well. It's not so easy to do a session, particularly if you haven't done many, and not so easy to

[03:02]

have given up as much as you have just to be here. So from that point of view I can... I feel some gratitude for your practice, and you may notice in a sasheen how at times you do... I think all of you will feel some kind of gratitude for Zen or practice or Tassajara or something. This is an example of what happens when you practice. It's maybe pure thinking, more like pure thinking. Our mind is acknowledging our life. And usually our distractions are not pared down enough, away enough for us to feel that gratitude, that fundamental, what Tsukiyoshi called the fundamental desire that replaces special desires.

[04:32]

You may notice everything seems clearer when you look around outside. Practice in this way will make you a different person after ten years. Of course, after ten years, if you look in the mirror and you hadn't looked for ten years, you'd think you were different anyway. Well, I used to have hair there or something. That's true, too. You're a different person in that way. The next moment, you're a different person. even though you feel I'm the same young person who was there. It's not so. But if you practice, you'll be... people you know will find you a different person. It'll be hard to remember why things were so difficult once.

[06:02]

But that practice, that practice that I'm speaking about now, is wonderful, but it's also not good enough. And I don't mean to be giving you a hard time, but the difference between that practice, which will make you a different person, and that practice, which is the practice of the Buddhas and patriarchs, is only a tiny bit difference, just some slightly greater effort, constant effort. And you have that chance. So that's why I say it over and over again. It's like when I was young, I was told Jesus was perfect. man and the apostles, etc., you know, and the prophets and all that stuff. And at the popular level of presentation of Christianity or Judaism, it seems we can only be followers. And Jesus' apostles were a rather quirky lot, anyway.

[07:33]

One isn't sure one would want to be like one of them. But it's not presented as something you can do. In Buddhism, we're not asked just to be followers. and to benefit from Buddha's teaching, but to realize it as Buddha did, as the patriarchs did. You know, I wouldn't say to be a perfect man, but to know yourself, to know what way-seeking mind is. this is a real chance and there's no reason you should stop, you know, halfway. The Diamond Sutra, the first seven sections are like this.

[08:56]

like what I've been talking about. The first section is Buddha puts on his robe and goes begging and eats breakfast and washes his feet and sits cross-legged, arranges his robe That's the first section, just how we take care of ourselves. How you come to sit zazen, adjusting your body and mind is the first section. And the second section is The action of the Sutra is begun by Subuddhi, who asks a question, who makes a statement. And he says, at least in the Chinese version, he says, you have entrusted the Bodhisattvas with the Dharma. This responsibility is such a great one, what should we do?

[10:24]

And it's true, you've been entrusted with the Dharma. The meaning of the five five-hundred-year periods, or twenty-five-hundred years, or the decline of Buddhism, supposedly, means there is no omnipotent God who is going to protect Buddhism forever. It's up to you. Buddhism will exist if you continue the practice and transmission of Buddhism. So it's entrusted to you, so it's some serious responsibility. It's not someone else's. You can't depend on it existing forever, unless you do it. It exists in you. Buddha's way is the truth is minutely observable, if you minutely observe it. It's not in Buddha's time or in sutras. It's right here, not very far away. And the third part in the Diamond Sutra is

[11:58]

The bodhisattva has no idea of being a bodhisattva, no self. There are no appearances, no form. If he had some particular appearance, he wouldn't be a bodhisattva. He has no thought coverings. no idea of self, he creates no mental images. And fourth, is the Tathagata able to be, is Buddha or the Tathagata able to be seen? Does he appear? And he says, no, the Tathagata cannot be seen, but if you can see appearances as unreal, you will see the Tathagata.

[13:29]

This stream, in many ways, is a good teaching for us. Where does the stream begin and end? The water going over the rocks or the sound going over us. Which is the stream? But also, you can hear anything you want to hear in the stream. Isn't there some term, white sound? I don't know what it means exactly, but I guess it means background sound. Maybe that's white sound, white water. And anything your mind wants to hear can be produced from that white sound. It's like all the symphonies and operas and conversations and Gettysburg addresses and

[14:31]

are all wrapped up in there. And if your mind wants to hear it, some beautiful music will waft into your cabin, and the zazen bells will ring, and you'll hear the drum going, and you'll hear various people talking. Because your mind wants to hear that, it appears. But how do you not know that everything is not white sound, white form, and what you see is just because your mind wants to see it? How do you know? The word for illusion in Chinese and Japanese is eye flower, things you see in the air by your eye but have no roots. Maybe everything's just an eye flower. Anyway, that's Buddhist teaching. So how to

[15:54]

stop dualistic thinking and small special desires, is to see that tathagata maybe is white form, vairochana. Oh, I forgot one. What I just said was fifth maybe. Fourth was, how does the Bodhisattva practice if there are no appearances? He practices by giving, constantly giving away. Giving but not abiding anywhere. Not possessing anything and yet giving everything. And then I think sixth is, Subuddhi says, will there still be 500 years from now, in the last 500 year period, will there be people who hear the Dharma and have faith in it and understand it and expound it? But Buddha says, don't speak that way.

[17:36]

And I already spoke about that. You can't sit back and depend, Subuddhi, that there will always be people to teach you. It's up to you. Don't speak that way. And Buddha goes on to say, to conceive of the Dharma in that way is to hold the Dharma, to give some reality to the Dharma. The Dharma itself has to be given up. So, he says, don't speak that way. And the seventh is, Is there such a fixed Dharma as the Absolute, as the Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi, Supreme Perfect Enlightenment? And, Buddha says, there is no such Dharma, no such Supreme Perfect Enlightenment to be known.

[19:10]

So what we are talking about must be heard between the words, because we can't say, as someone said yesterday, we're only talking about half the story, because we can't talk about it quite by Roshana Buddha. Dogen says, there are mountains seen in the air, mountains seen in the sky, mountains hidden in the sky, mountains hidden in marshes, mountains hidden in mountains, mountains hidden in hiddenness,

[20:45]

Maybe Buddhism is hidden in hiddenness, but perfectly plain. So, Dogen says, this is what, when a sage says, mountains are mountains, he does not mean mountains are mountains, he means mountains are mountains. That's what Dogen says. So anyway, Togin tries very hard. You actually can't... The clearest places where Suzuki Roshi is saying what he feels, you write them down and it's just confusion. You can't... Just a bunch of senses that are not connected and it doesn't make any sense. So you can't really write down Buddhism. But Dogen tried very hard. I never know, maybe he tried harder than almost anyone. He says, I quoted, I started to yesterday, I didn't, he says, since ancient times wise men and sages, buddhas and sages have

[22:20]

lived by streams. And when they live by streams, they catch fish, they catch men, they catch the way. These are all traditional water styles. Maybe yesterday, what I said about baso, And he said to Layman Pang, in one gulp, swallow all of the West River. Must be a traditional water style. And Dogen goes on to say, there must be hooking the self. hooking the way, being hooked by the hook, being caught by the way. And someone said, our way is like fishing with a straight hook. Maybe you won't catch many fish, but many will come to visit. And they can just go away.

[23:49]

So maybe your Zazen, Shikantaza, is like fishing with a straight hook. That's another traditional water style. Anyway, I find these Dogon I used to find Dogon on time, years ago, very interesting. Now I find Dogon on water very interesting. He says we mustn't view, as I said yesterday, water as used by humans from the point of view of human assumptions. Mountains and water don't exist in the human realm. How do we know how other creatures and dragons use water? If you want to study water, Gautama says, you must study. You can't study human water. You must study the water of Buddhism and study how

[25:18]

how we understand the water used by Buddhas and Patriarchs. So, although we view everything as ephemeral or just appearances,

[26:38]

You have to find your own existence, and your own existence also you can view as ephemeral. Your own responses to the sounds in the stream. Another way of expressing it, Keizan Zenji, who I mentioned yesterday, when asked to express his understanding. He said, a black ball hurtling through utter darkness. And his teacher said, say it another way. He said something like, I eat when I eat and sleep when I sleep. I wear clothes and sit sazuni. So what I'm trying to convey to you is

[28:10]

that what the Buddhas and Patriarchs say is true, and not true in the abstract or in ancient times, but right now for you, that it's not different from you, and that you too can know Buddhism and know yourself thoroughly. If you know your body, you'll find your mind. And if you know your mind, you'll know your body. And it's not a big deal. You know, we're not talking about something even terribly difficult. The secret is your way-seeking mind. Is your conviction, if you are thoroughly convinced, true or not, you're going to practice Buddhism. If you're only going to practice Buddhism because it's true, that's not convinced enough. Even if it's not true, you're going to practice Buddhism. That's as good a thing to do as anything else, isn't it? Choose something, you know. If you're going to choose this, choose it completely, and just do it.

[29:36]

with that kind of persistence. You can't do that. Looking for a safe place is the most dangerous thing you do. If you know that, you'll be able to realize your practice of Buddhism. So, a Sashin is your chance to deepen your taste, your feeling for Zen, for practice, for concentration. It's your chance to know, have more intimate sense of your mind and body.

[30:46]

And your ego doesn't want you to know Buddhism. It's smart. You can see when there's a showdown or the stakes are high. So it will prevent you. It will make your legs hurt pretty terribly. and it will do everything possible to convince you you shouldn't be doing this. But if you can realize your fundamental desire, your way-seeking mind, You will support everything you encounter. You will give life to everything you encounter. But even though we know that fundamental desire, we somehow want to keep our special desires too.

[32:11]

And there's nothing wrong with some special desire, but it has to be seen as something you can't grasp, that you can't possess. But to have it, you have to be willing to give it up. So you can have anything. Buddhism does not, the most serious Zen practice in the world, doesn't exclude anything from your life, actually. Except dependence on things. You may have a taste of that in your zazen if you can sit through difficulty and you can sit quite clearly, consciously. Sometimes, maybe for a short time or two or three periods, you'll feel some wide, clear feeling.

[33:28]

Like you're made of something you can see through. And everything will appear very clearly to you. Maybe there will be some constant visual pattern or image with no thoughts at all. Just something that sustains itself. And maybe your mind won't even make any patterns. Or maybe you'll find you can move your consciousness to your chest or elbow. Or various thoughts can come in quite harmlessly like birds flying by.

[34:33]

no need to catch them or even know what kind they are. In this kind of state of mind, you can Let's understand better what we mean by karma, because while various thoughts will appear, suddenly some great big clumsy thing will fly in and you'll lose that sensation immediately. It'll be like deflating a balloon or something. You'll actually feel a sense of lowering. So it's not up or down, but some feeling we have like that. And you'll be caught up in form, various patterns of thought.

[35:55]

But when you have that experience, that blissful, calm, light feeling, clear feeling, not even feeling, maybe we can say blissful, calm, light, clear, not modifying anything, anything that occurs Good or bad is some, takes that, lessens that feeling. But something that causes harm to others or is angry feeling or that immediately ends that feeling like that, closes it right up. So at this level you can see that there is something we can call good or bad. But the thing itself is not good or bad, but the degree to which you are attached to it or disturbed by it. So the measure is the amount of disturbance it causes. And you can see that some things disturb you more, some things less. And some of the most disturbing things aren't things themselves, but just a kind of coagulation of your disturbance.

[37:35]

You can't say they're real, they're just something you've created to be disturbed by. So this kind of experience, you know, the beginning of the experience of what we call samadhi. One of the things we can call samadhi. Is the test of Buddhism, it's not the end of Buddhism or the aim of Buddhism, it's just the test. And it's some revolutionary test, too, because by it, maybe,

[38:45]

all governments would fall. How our society is organized wouldn't make sense. And if your Buddhism starts out with faith, it has to start out actually with faith because you can't understand Buddhism completely. Samadhi is how we make sure and how we see how our karma is created and know how our actions affect others. But this kind of experience depends on patience and accepting suffering, and being free from fear, and being free from worries such as your reputation, or how you're going to make a living, or death, or fearing the effects of your actions.

[40:12]

If you have some fear about how your actions will affect others, how you're going to make a living, this experience isn't possible, really. Some suggestion. And if you harbor, if you're not quite comfortable in your practicing of the precepts, you can't have this kind of Samadhi, which tests and proves your Buddhism and your life. As long as you do things that you don't feel comfortable about, you can't have sense of feeling because it will be disturbed. And if there are things you don't feel comfortable about, The answer, as many of you asked such questions in the Shuso ceremony, is just to stop. No discussion about how to stop, but just stop. And if you can't stop, each time an opportunity occurs, try to stop. There's no magic. Just stop, or try to stop.

[41:33]

And if you don't stop or don't try to stop, it means you don't want to stop. So why don't you want to stop? That desire you have to look at. That's why we say you have to end desires. To be able to see things as they are. To see the water of the Buddhas and Patriarchs. or the dragon's water. So the preliminary practice for the fifth paramita, which is what I'm

[42:41]

been getting around to the last few days, is the four unlimited feelings. So you practice the various paramitas, perfecting their observance. And you know what your own precepts are and Buddhist precepts are, and you Follow them. Which is, again, not a big deal. It means just in your actions, each moment, being conscious and doing what seems right to you. It's that simple. Just doing what seems right to you in any particular moment. And if you make a mistake, it's all right, if you've done what seems right to you. So the preliminary to the four states or eight states of jhana are the four unlimited feelings of unlimited friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy and even-mindedness or equanimity.

[44:15]

So you should explore your feelings of friendliness, I think, first of all, with each other. There is no earthly or heavenly reason to dislike another person. Your values are all mixed up when you have those kind of feelings. If you're humble with yourself, you can have compassion for other people. and take some joy in their actions.

[45:27]

No reason to be angry. So, anyway, an assessing is probably your best chance to be able to sit with even-mindedness, not distracted by anything. Finding a concentration, it's not concentration on one thing, excluding others. That's one stage of contemplation, concentration, which in Zen we don't emphasize very much. There's some way we can teach how to concentrate, how to develop more and more concentration on one thing or some mandala. And sometimes we use that, but usually we don't. And even so, if you use that, once you can hold one thing, the point is to remove that one thing. Then what?

[47:15]

So we start with that then what? Our concentration is a light or energy that transfuses everything, not any particular thing. Maybe more like a juggler doesn't concentrate on any one thing when he drops it, just concentrated. And if you took the balls away, he still could be concentrated. If you only know the war between your parts, mind, breathing, feelings, this way or that, you don't know very much. But when you are concentrated, without dualistic thoughts, mind and body and breath one, you can then be quite sure about this world and your life and what to do.

[48:27]

And it's nothing special, just what you see before you. Thank you.

[49:09]

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