I want to talk to you some more about everyday life or everyday practice, which is more or less what I was talking about yesterday. And to give you a more of an idea of feeling for how Buddhism actually views the world of karma. The image usually used is a kind of net, you know, it catches you. But in our terminology we could almost say it's a kind of machine of which there's no escape from. The idea of interdependency or everything

[01:15]

changing means that everything is so minutely linked that everything you do is linked to everything else. So there's no place to hide, you know. How you behave on each moment is part of your practice. I think this is a story Suzuki Roshi told, but I'm not sure where I heard it. Anyway, this teacher, I guess he was then a teacher. The story I heard

[02:22]

so long ago, it always amused me. The teacher, this teacher's teacher, you know, they're both teachers. Was very impressed with this man who was this real teacher, I guess. And one day he followed him when he went to take a leak. And just to watch how he took a leak. And when he was alone like that, he somehow let go of his practice. But no, he was okay. Submitted himself to it. Some of you feel, I think, more alive during the breaks than you do during the Zazen period. You seem to think there's some space between where you can go.

[03:28]

In some place you can hide, where life is more real or something. And there isn't any place. And when you see that, when you really see that, you know, there's, you have to have your freedom now. You're going to have any kind of freedom. It's got to be now. You can't wait till the break. Because there's no break. So you have, the only way to practice Buddhism, practice your life, is to enter directly into everything, you know. Zazen or the break or whatever. And without discrimination. It's, let me give you a kind of example of discriminating. This is really rather

[04:50]

unimportant and of course we do this and we make this kind of discrimination, but discriminating between Zazen and not doing Zazen. Say you come in to the Zen Dojo a little late, for some reason or other. Maybe you have diarrhea, your period, or you were too warm in a sweater and you changed or something. So anyway, you come in, but of course you feel a little guilty, because you used it as an excuse, you know. Still, even though it was a good reason. So you feel a little funny. So you hurry up to your place, step over your cushion and sit down. Partly you're involved in what other people think of your being late. But if you're late, you know, whatever the reason, even if it

[05:56]

was an excuse, still there's no escape from it. Just, still you should enter just as if you came in at the proper time and come up and sit at your cushion. Then you're not discriminating. And when you sit down, of course there's some difference between walking and doing and sitting Zazen. But if you come in, if the way we usually come in to do Zazen is we come up to our cushion and we face our cushion and we bow. And then we turn around and then we bow. And then we sit down. And you fold your legs and turn around or turn around and fold your legs, whatever your custom.

[07:05]

That's some way in which you go, some gradation from walking to sitting Zazen to stopping to sit, stopping sitting Zazen. But if you are in a hurry or you're just coming in the Zendo and say no one's here or something, you just can step, sit down. Or if you're, you come in, you've been carrying the stick, say, and, or you're tinking or something. And there's only maybe three or four minutes or five minutes in which to do Zazen, to sit. So instead of going through the procedure which would use up the whole five minutes, you sit straight down. But that's some kind of discrimination between not sitting and sitting. If you only have five or four minutes, maybe this

[08:19]

seems a little foolish, but you come and you bow and then you turn around and bow. And you sit down and you start to fold your legs and you rock back and forth and then the bell rings. So you get up, that's all. But that way you're not discriminating between sitting and not sitting. You're just, your Zazen then is whatever it is just then. Do you see what I mean? I don't mean you have to, you know, tie yourself up endlessly sort of following some pattern. But just if you do the next thing, it's a little like, you know, the minute hand comes closer and closer toward eight o'clock and then it's just one minute to eight and then one second to eight and then one millionth of a second to eight and then one billionth of a second after eight.

[09:22]

And, you know, was it ever eight? That's a rather simple, you know, idea. But all you can say is that the minute hand approached eight and then it seemed to be on the other side so it must have been eight. And maybe we should say that about Zazen. I approached Zazen and I bowed and I rocked back and forth and later I stopped rocking and I got up. Maybe somewhere in there Zazen exists. But there's no time when you can say this is when Zazen begins and this is when Zazen ends. Of course knowing this, you know, still sometimes we may sit more quickly or abbreviate how we sit down so that we can sit quickly. That's all right. But that's not the only way you should feel about it, just that.

[10:25]

And likewise, you know, every action in karma means that everything you do is a kind of seed. You know, it can't, it has to be a seed. Maybe if we're in the realm of non-doing it's not a seed. But mostly everything you do is a seed. And you can't exist somewhere where you're not, everything you do isn't a seed. There's no escape from that. So to take some responsibility for that is our practice. When you begin to see that, when you begin to see the network you're in and the responsibility each moment for this seed, you know, it's

[11:38]

rather scary and sometimes maybe you want to cry about it because it so minutely involves you with everyone. That's interesting for me to see the serving going on because the kitchen isn't there and they've made all this food. And then it gets put in these big bowls and then it passes from the tips of seven spoons into 180 or 150 bowls. And you've all got it worked out wonderfully. You're all like farmers going along with a little spade. And you turn the dirt just a little bit. And as Alan Chadwick would say, you know, you don't just poke a hole in the earth and throw the seed in, you know. The seed will grow differently. If you, the way you feel, you know. And you know all these high school science projects

[12:42]

where they played Beethoven at plants and the plant actually grows differently or likes it better if you say nice things to it. It seems to be true. If that's true for plants, it's certainly true for us too. So all of you looking lines look like sprouts, you know. And all the farmers out there watering each little plant. But the important, each point is important, but one important point is exactly how you, the spade or the spoon, you know, puts the food in the bowl. In actual fact, that's where most of you are a little sloppy. You carry everything in very well and you get to the point of actually putting the food in the bowl and I don't know

[13:45]

what happens. Gets on the side. But the same is true in the kitchen, you know. The way you chop the vegetables actually has to do with the way it affects us when we eat them. You know, maybe it's not so noticeable, but you can't really hide in the kitchen and say, well, maybe it's important how I feel when I serve the food into the bowl and that will affect how, you know, whether I spill it or don't spill it or how the person receiving the food feels. But all the way through, you know, that's true. And if you're angry chopping the vegetables, that anger, something is communicated in the food. But if that's so, then you might as well be angry, you know, chopping the food. It's a good

[14:59]

place to be angry chopping the food. I mean, you can't, if there's actually no place to hide, you know, then you might as well forget about hiding and be angry when you're angry or whatever it is. Do you see what I mean? And I don't want to create some prison. It is a prison, actually, a kind of prison, but I don't want to make you think that there's some, no escape from it. Because if you start feeling this way and then you don't see the other side, emptiness, then you're so nervous when you're chopping the vegetables. What kind of mood am I in when I'm chopping the vegetables? We can't exist that way either. So, you know, let's, we can express our sadness or our anger, whatever it is, but we can't express it in a

[16:20]

certain way. We can't express our sadness or our anger or our desire or our moods in, and actually we do express them in everything we do. And we absorb, you know, when we eat the food, we absorb the kitchen, you know, moods, anger, et cetera. You know, we say that the main bowl that we eat out of is the food that we eat. And that's the main bowl that we eat out of is Buddha's head. And, you know, something like that said,

[17:39]

and it sounds like a nice thing to say. Maybe, I don't know. But as you practice with your Ayokis, which become in some ways more and more difficult to do, the more you can do them. I mean, if you just do them, you know, it's fine. But as you can just be with one thing at a time, then everything you are comes out in that one thing. So suddenly, it becomes more difficult in a way, but you are also more able to do it. This is about, partly I talked about this when I talked about failure, how the ability to fail continues, but becomes involved with more and more minute things.

[19:00]

So, as you are using your eating bowls, you know, and you more and more have this feeling of giving up. Just what's here, plus the intimate relationships of everything with what's here. And you see so clearly how you're thinking about things is just not real at all. That the real connection with everything is through that bowl. So, your whole world, you know, is your eating bowls. There's nothing outside your eating bowls. Your whole universe is that spoon, actually. And when you feel this, you see that, I don't know, I guess you're with me, when you see this, you look into that black bowl, if you have the monk's one, and it's like you're looking right into the whole universe.

[20:38]

The whole starry, black sky is there. And then you see what is meant by, this is Buddha's head, Buddha's mind is everything. And it reminds me of, it's Krishna, isn't it, who hung out with all those cowgirls? Isn't that Krishna? And I guess one of them brought Buddha a glass of milk, maybe thinking he was Krishna. Anyway, Bala Sarasvati is a really great dancer, Indian dancer. And one dance she does, she dances, she plays Krishna's mother. And Krishna's just a little boy, you know, kind of mischievous. And she's, I can't remember why, but anyway, for some reason she's reprimanding him or something like that, and he opens his mouth, and she looks in, and she sees the whole universe in his mouth.

[21:53]

And she's so wiped out, and they're dancing. It's that kind of feeling. So how we practice with each thing we do, practice on everything, with everything, is how you practice all your life, in any circumstance. And it doesn't mean to be trapped by, you know, just freely doing what you have to do.

[23:03]

When you can have this kind of freedom, there's some inherent joy in your mind or being that just comes out on everything. Every circumstance brings it out. The blue yukka, which is the same blue as the sky, or the warm dining room by the fire. Whatever it is, some joy comes out. So when you… One of Tozan's verses is an old woman sees her face in a mirror and rejects her shadow or something like that.

[24:19]

Or the sixth patriarch is supposedly said to the fifth patriarch when he first met him. And the fifth patriarch said, he said, I came to seek Buddhahood. And the fifth patriarch said, you're just a barbarian. How can you talk about being Buddha? And the sixth patriarch said, there's no difference between northerner and southerner, etc. He said, my mind is a field of blessedness, or my pure nature is a field of blessedness, and wisdom spontaneously arises from it.

[25:39]

What work will you give me to do? So the sixth patriarch, the fifth patriarch said, you know, you'd better go in the woodshed and hide and chop wood or something. But this idea of hiding too is pretty important. You know that… I'm sure to get all… get these stories all mixed up, but you know that Baso was, as I've said,

[26:46]

it's Rukyoshi's favorite Zen master, and he seems to have been really, you know, fantastic. I guess he's called Horse Master too, because his tongue was so long, it could touch the tip of his nose. Anyway, he had many, many disciples, full disciples. And Tozan, who's the founder of the Soto school, studied with many of Baso's disciples. He studied with Nansen, who he went to visit first. We talked about Nansen when Nansen asked, who will… will anyone come when we offer… will Baso come when we offer him food?

[27:46]

And he also studied with Hyakujo and Reimoku, I believe, and Isan. Isan was third generation from Baso, but Hyakujo and Nansen and Reimoku are all first generation. And Hyakujo was one of the teachers of Ungan Donjo, who we chant, you know, Ungan Donjo Daiyosho, Tozan Ryokan Daiyosho. And Ungan Donjo's other teacher was Yakusan Igen. But anyway, all of these guys are all mixed up with Baso's disciples, and you're all mixed up with Baso's disciples.

[28:50]

So, talking about minute relationships, here's these guys talking about how they're going to offer food to somebody, and it's still, you know, very involved in your life, maybe more than your actual parents in some way. Anyway, when Tozan was going to leave Ungan Donjo, Ungan, some kind of dialogue ensued about, I'm going to leave, but I don't know where I'm going to stay or go. And Ungan said, are you going to Honan province? And he said, no.

[30:00]

He said, are you going to your native town? And Tozan said, no. And he said, I'll, well, he said, I'll return when you have a place of abode. And Tozan and Ungan said, it will be difficult for us to meet. And Ungan and Tozan said, it will be difficult for us not to meet. And, anyway, he went away. And then later, when Tozan was preparing to offer food for Ungan, who is now dead,

[31:05]

he said, some disciple said, why, anyway, there was some lengthy discussion before, but then he says, why do you not offer food to Nansen, who was your first teacher? Nansen, he went, and Nansen was offering food to Baso. They were on a food trip, I guess. And, so, he said, I offer to Ungan, not because of his virtues or his great qualities, you know, as a Buddhist,

[32:11]

but because he refused to reveal the teaching to me. So, oh yes, go back. I think you're able to follow what I'm talking about. When Tozan took leave of Ungan, Tozan said, well, what will I do if a hundred years from now, which means after you've died, what will I do if someone asks me to give a portrait of your teaching? And Ungan said, just say, this is, or this is it, or something like that.

[33:17]

So, that's what he said to say. So, in this second dialogue, when this disciple is asking him why he's offering to Ungan and not to Nansen, he says, well, what instruction did you receive? And, of course, as I said, he answered that he honors him because he didn't reveal his teaching. And then he says, and he asks in another way, what instruction did you receive? And he said, I, he said, do you follow his instruction? Something like that. And he said, I have followed it. And he said, well, why don't you entirely follow it? He said, because, and so Tozan said, because it would dishonor him if I entirely followed it.

[34:23]

Now, do you follow it? Anyway, they really got into it, because when they died, both of them, Ungan, into this food tent, Ungan prepared a big feast. He said, tomorrow a monk will depart. Let's have a departing feast. So, they prepared a big feast. But during the night, Ungan died. And when Tozan was about to die, they, he said he was going to die, and he got up there, and everybody started weeping, or something like that. You know, just crying. And he died, you know, and everybody cried.

[35:26]

And then he came back to life. Which is great, you know, he came back, because he asked Nansen, because of the question about the Matsu show up. So he came back, and then he prepared a great, he lived another two weeks, and he prepared a great meal, a departing meal called the Fool's Feast. And then he died. So all these stories actually have quite a lot to do with how Suzuki Roshi died, too. He knew all these stories, and we had various conversations in which we knew the stories. It was rather interesting. So, we offered him food, during this session, too.

[36:31]

So, we offered him food, during this session, too. We bow in much the same way, you know, we don't bow to Buddha, exactly. We bow with the same kind of spirit, in which we, I said, we wait. We bow to each thing. Or, sometimes they say, each thing chants the name of Buddha.

[38:01]

It's all the same, saying the same thing. So your relationship to each thing, you know, chopping vegetables or something, there should be some kind of bowing to it. Maybe, that's, we can keep up with the Vajrayana's 100,000 bows, that way. They do 100,000 bows, we have to do it. We can do it each time. That kind of practice was very important to Suzuki Roshi. And if you have that kind of freedom in each moment, if you're trying to work each moment, you know, there is no freedom in it. But if you have that kind of freedom in each moment, just whatever that moment requires, bowing to that moment.

[39:08]

That's what, one thing we mean by detachment. The more you can practice in this way, the more the rest of your life takes care of itself, you don't have to. Don't worry, everything comes into a kind of harmonious relationship. But it starts with just what you're holding, just what you're doing. This idea of no viewpoint,

[40:18]

There's a garden at Ryoanji, and I've actually never checked this out, you know, whether this is true or not. But it's supposed to be true. There's, I guess, five stones, seven stones, anyway, some number of stones are out there in the garden. And supposedly from any place you walk, one stone is hidden. So no matter what you do, you can't see all the stones. I don't remember that being true, but that's supposedly true. But that, in a way, it suggests that, like Avalokitesvara, you know, looks down from on high, which means no viewpoint. So, you see all the stones. You're not taking one viewpoint, which always hides some stone. Which, strangely enough, means the same thing as just, just your whole world is the eating bowls.

[41:24]

And you can't, um, you can watch a chrysanthemum bloom, or a flower bloom. Or you can take a space, you know, trip to the moon. But you won't know what the moon is any better, or you won't know what a flower is any better by watching it bloom. The only way, you know, to understand everything, or to enter everything, is to do zazen, or to... Zazen in the wide sense, sitting with everything. So, on the sasheen, you know, when you're sitting, just you.

[42:47]

If you're eating with the bowls, just you and the bowls. Doing zazen, just whatever's there. Can you call it you? Do you have some questions we might talk about? Yeah. How does breathing...

[43:49]

become wise breathing? I don't, you know, just calm breathing's enough. You don't have to add some idea of wise, or just breathing. You don't even have to say calm. Okay. Well, all the religions, some of them I understand intellectually, and some not at all, and some things I can't do very strongly, but I don't have a lot of ideas. Okay. So, once in a while...

[44:54]

Pardon me? Once in a while, what? Maybe just breathing. Just breathing, yeah. Okay. I don't know how to... Yeah. Yeah, it's just there, that's right. Why can't I understand? Why can't I understand?

[46:02]

She... She said, why does she hide her understanding from herself? Why... She seems to know more than she wants to admit to. Giving up, you know, is... Giving up is a kind of dying.

[47:08]

But it's also... kind of sad. Because everything you've...

[47:24]

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