I vow to raise the truth of every brotherhood. Morning. Morning. Not too loud, is it? No. That's great. This morning, or yesterday, I talked a little bit about this paragraph from Suzuki Roshi about ego. And I think you remember about ego and egolessness. and so today I'm going to talk about I'm going to comment on the whole talk which kind of led up to that and that's right kind of somewhere in the middle I'm going to read up to that point and then beyond so you get a wider picture of what he's talking about so he starts out

[01:23]

talking about our sitting position. So he says, in the full lotus position, we cross our right leg over the left and the left leg over the right. Symbolically, the right leg is activity and the left is the opposite or calmness of mind If the left is wisdom, the right is practice. And when we cross our legs, we don't know which is which. That's true. So even though we have two, symbolically we have oneness. Our posture is vertical without leaning right or left, backward or forward. This is an expression of perfect understanding of the teaching that is beyond duality. So he's talking about the ideal practice of Zazen, which is very difficult for most people to sit in full lotus, to sit with both legs crossed.

[02:50]

I started doing that when I was after I'd been practicing for a couple of years, it was very difficult. Zazen was very hard for me to begin with. And I had an excruciating time learning how to sit Zazen, just keeping my legs crossed. And Suzuki Roshi, you know, would always drive us to sit still and not move. And So I remember going through these excruciating periods of zazen and then getting up and my legs were all sore and tight and numb and painful. But after a couple of years, really not too long, seemed like a long time then, you know, when you're... When you're a young student, after you've been practicing for two years or five years, you think you've been practicing a really long time.

[04:01]

Anyway, so I started sitting in full lotus. And I found out that I could actually do it. And it was actually very comfortable. And I sat that way for about 20 years. But as I got older, my knee It would give me a little problem, so I stopped sitting in full lotus about 15 years ago or something. But recently I started sitting in full lotus again. But then my knee, I thought, I better not. But that was really a wonderful feeling to sit with both legs crossed. It's very balanced and you feel very settled. But Half Lotus is a very good position. Any position you take is a good position.

[05:05]

When I give Zazen instruction, I go through all the positions and I say, just take the position that feels comfortable and that you can sustain for 40 minutes. Don't try to sit in these positions, although these are the positions. Don't push yourself, you know, in some position because the person next to you may be sitting in full lotus. You shouldn't think, well, I should do that too. So be very careful. not to be competitive. There is a certain kind of competitiveness that is unavoidable. But you have to be very careful because each person's practice has to be suited to you.

[06:12]

We all do the same practice, but within that same practice, each one of us has to find our individual way. So even though, you know, in order to straighten out a snake, you put him into a bamboo tube. Still, the tube is not the same for every snake. So anyway, but we should try our best. But, so, you know, yesterday I was talking about moving and not moving. And I hope that people understood what I meant. I said moving, don't move, doesn't mean that there's no movement.

[07:15]

Don't move means don't keep on crossing your legs unless you really have to. But make the effort to stay in your position. And within that position, there's a lot of room for flexibility and for readjusting. So don't move doesn't mean to be like a statue. It means to keep the form. to stay loose and flexible and to constantly adjust your posture. So Suzuki Roshi is saying that this posture is not learning to do something. It's the expression of Buddha's understanding that you cross the right leg over the left leg and the left leg over the right leg.

[08:32]

Symbolically, the right leg is the active side and the left leg is the calmness of mind. So active is like practice. And calmness of mind is like wisdom, or like form and emptiness, or any opposites that you can think of in the realm of activity and stillness. And so when you cross them, you have the oneness of practice and wisdom, or practice and enlightenment. That's the basis of our practice. Practice and enlightenment are intertwined and they don't exist separately. And then sitting up straight, not leaning to the right or the left or backward or forward is the practice of non-duality.

[09:38]

Not favoring or being partial to any one side. So, Zazen is the expression of enlightenment. So when we sit in Zazen, this is enlightened practice as it is. So that's what he's saying. He's saying, this is an expression of perfect understanding of the teaching that is beyond duality. So then he says, when we extend this idea, this understanding, we naturally have precepts and the study of how to observe our precepts. The posture of Zazen is not just a kind of training, but is the actual way of transmitting Buddha's teaching to us.

[10:40]

Words by themselves are not good enough to actualize his teaching, so it is transmitted through activity or through human relationship. Sazen itself is transmitting Buddhist teaching. So we don't have to do a lot of teaching. All we have to do is sit upright in a correct posture. This is actually transmitting Buddhist teaching to us and then we can transmit Buddhist teaching. because it's being transmitted through us. So in some sense, someone says, yes, I'm a teacher, but in another sense, that's not so. Zazen is the teacher. Buddha is the teacher. And the teaching is transmitted through the practice.

[11:44]

So he says, the posture of Zazen is not just a kind of training. but it's the actual way of transmitting Buddha's teaching to us. Words by themselves are not good enough to actualize his teaching, so it is transmitted through activity or through human relationship. So human relationship, activity is like zazen, and human relationship is sangha. It's transmitted through sangha. This is why sangha is so important. You know, we say, yesterday we were talking about sitting alone or sitting together. Sitting alone can be okay or not, but sitting together, something is transmitted through sangha, through association. This is how we actually practice and learn, is through association. Teacher is one factor and Sangha is another.

[12:55]

Teacher is, you know, authorized to make a big mistake. It's called teaching. Saga is just as important because the students express the understanding. It's often said that you can tell a good teacher by the quality of the students. That's sometimes true and sometimes not, but it is true. Nevertheless, it is true. We learn from each other. The teacher learns from the students, and the students learn from the teacher.

[14:02]

It's not just one way. It's like we encourage each other's practice. The main thing about, I think, a teacher is to encourage the practice. And then when students encourage each other's practice, the teaching flows through the students. So when you practice alone, you don't get that. You don't get that wonderful support and the osmosis of transmission. five years, and I've learned a lot of things from a lot of good teachers here. But I'm wondering, during the Buddha's time, they were hermit monks a lot, the Buddha was by himself a lot before he attained enlightenment, and then they would come together for certain times.

[15:18]

Is there a time to be a You know, there's something called development. And so Buddhism has developed over 2,500 years or so. And the circumstances of Buddha's time were what Buddha was dealing with. And in his time there was a tradition, the hermit tradition, the Brahman tradition, the the yogi tradition, the mendicant tradition. And Shakyamuni started out as a mendicant and as an ascetic until he discovered that that wasn't the way. But a lot of the people that came to study with him were ascetics.

[16:20]

And they didn't have monasteries at that time. or they didn't have temples and monasteries. The temples and monasteries, I don't know exactly what they had, maybe they did, but biharas. So the monks were practicing in a style of the mendicants. And then as the Sangha developed, as a Sangha, the sangha would meet during the rainy season the monsoon season in the vihara and then the practice in the vihara developed and so there has always been a tradition of the wandering mendicant but the practice in the vihara and then in the monastery became the norm

[17:25]

So yes, there's a tradition of monks wandering during certain seasons and then gathering together to do the Ongo practice period. But depending on the circumstances, people practice in different ways. So in order to have, you know, the ideal way is to practice. This is a kind of, the practice that developed here is very unique because we have the opportunity to actually practice together every day. That opportunity is there. In no other country has this happened because lay people are lay people and monks are monks and the lay people come to practice with the monks at certain times but they don't have the opportunity to do the daily practice because most people who would do the practice in most countries are farmers or

[18:46]

people whose work and family become the focus of their life, and they don't do other things. So, we have a unique situation. If you don't have a Sangha, you have to practice by yourself. It's great, you know, for five years practicing by yourself. and sustaining your own practice. That's good. It's good to, at some point in your life, to practice by yourself in order to see how you can sustain your own practice. In other words, practice has to originate from you. One of the benefits of Sangha practice is that you have all this encouragement.

[19:49]

And so you feel like, well, there's the Sangha and I can join the Sangha and go practice with the Sangha. The downside of that is that you may never find the origin of your own practice because you're so dependent. So the advantage of practicing by yourself is that you have to find the origin of your practice because there's nobody else there to encourage you or to sustain you. And then you have to be the one that gets up every day and sits zazen. Good luck. The downside is that you develop your own style of practice which can become egotistical and not shared with anybody. People like it.

[20:50]

I can see people saying, And I'd like to kind of see if I can summarize what I thought I heard. Today? Yeah, right now. It's not a good idea to do it by yourself, unless you have to, because you can't find equipment.

[21:58]

Is that your summary? Yeah, I'm wondering if that's accurate. No, that's not exactly accurate, you know. It's very good to sit at home by yourself. You're not discouraging that. No. I'm not discouraging that. But if you only sit at home, you miss the Sangha. You miss the three legs of practice. Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Without one of the legs, it tips over. So, those are the three legs of practice. Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. This is the whole reason for the Mahayana, is that you don't just practice for yourself. That's the basis of Mahayana practice, is that you don't practice just individual practice for your own salvation.

[23:03]

You make sure that everyone is free before you worry about your own freedom. So it's like, am I my brother's keeper? Yes. Do you want to get on with the reading? Do you have time for it? Do you want to get on with the reading? I do. The question is okay though. Something that has troubled me ever since I've been connected with the Berkeley Sun Center, which is probably longer than your connection. But there is a wonderful egalitarian atmosphere in this room when everyone is silent.

[24:06]

We weigh on the strong. And the distinctions break down. But when we're outside and freewheeling, so to speak, it's a different matter. And there are the usual cliquishness, people gravitating towards those who they feel are interesting or want to talk to. That's natural. However, it excludes I have known people over the years who have dropped out because they don't consider that the Sangha is giving them the warmth and support that they need. Quite a few people, and good people, very good people, who could have a very strong practice here. So my question is, to what extent do the Those in this group, and there are quite a few now, who have a mature practice, have a responsibility to take care of the orphans, the foundlings, who once they got maybe more than a big toe in, you know, a whole foot or a leg, might have some tenacity of hanging around

[25:40]

And that's never discussed, or maybe it is in the inner sanctum, but it's never something that is brought up. How can this tendency which we all have towards cliquishness be softened so that the idea of the Sangha and taking care of one another has a broad base. Well, it is discussed a lot, and it is taken care of a lot. Pardon? It is taken care of a lot, and it is talked about a lot. Oh, so it's no problem. It is... Well, there are always problems, you know. But the problems... One of the problems, you know, is that... I think the problems originate from both sides.

[26:50]

And it's not just one way. And I think that in many cases we do go out of our way to be invitational to people. By we you mean? The saga. But on the other hand, We fail. So that's our failure. On the other hand, there are people who, no matter how much you court them, that they would never get it. And I have personal experience with that. So there is sometimes... There's no end to complaining. end to complaining, and feeling left out, and feeling abandoned, and so forth.

[27:52]

And no matter how much you make the effort, it doesn't work. So it's all individual cases, you know, and to discuss it, we'd have to take this case, and this case, and this case, you know. It's not a... there's a general view. but then there's the particular view. And we can discuss the general view ad infinitum, infinitum. But the particular cases, each one needs to be reviewed. But I have to say, we have discussed this over and over and made big efforts to be as outgoing and welcoming and friendly as we can. But I do admit we failed. Yeah, you use we in a collective sense. And so the body... It's a we, yes.

[28:52]

Yeah. Certain people maybe have made that effort. Certain people have, yeah. Yeah. But I was thinking really of... Oh, never mind. This is taking too long. What were you thinking? Of the... It's very clear, those who have a mature practice, and it seems to me that this is a fertile soil where it could percolate down, and whether it is addressed in a rather formal way by people with a mature practice. Well, we have, yes. As a matter of fact, we address it. pretty much constantly. Sometimes it comes up as a big subject. Then, you know, then it'll come up again as a big subject. But we do address it. Yes.

[29:53]

Thank you, though. What's it do about nothing? No, it's a do about something. But As I say, you know, we have to work harder at it. That's my question. No, it's not to do about nothing. It's maybe about your concern. Yes. Yeah. So that's important. Somehow we have to bring this to a closure. He says, in addition to precepts, we have the relationship between teacher and disciple.

[30:57]

The disciple must choose the teacher, and then the teacher will accept the disciple. Although sometimes a teacher may recommend another teacher. Between teachers there should not be any conflict. So if a teacher thinks another is more qualified, he may recommend him or her. A teacher may recommend him or her. So that's an interesting point. Sometimes, you know, people are looking for various things. Not everyone who comes to practice is looking for what's here. I've talked about this before, you know, there's Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. all three. Some people are interested in Buddha, they're interested in the teacher.

[32:13]

Some people are interested in Dharma, they're interested in the teaching, but they're not necessarily interested in the teacher or the Sangha. Some people are just interested in Sangha, but they're not interested in the teaching or the teacher. People that are interested in Sangha, but they're not so much interested in the teaching or the teacher, often feel left out. Because if they're only relating to Sangha, or a group that they can have camaraderie with, then that's not enough. Because it's not a social group, it's a practice group. So people are looking for a social group. There is a social side, but the emphasis is on the practice side, and we relate through our practice rather than through our sociability.

[33:20]

So, if the person doesn't relate to a teacher, or they're not interested in the Dharma, then there's not much for them here. So if you have that connection, then you don't feel so left out. So he says, once you become a disciple, you should devote yourself to studying the way. At first, as a disciple, you may wish to study under the teacher, not because you want to study Buddhism, but for some other reason. I don't know what other reason he means, actually, but people come for all kinds of reasons. But he says, still, it doesn't matter, you know. He says, if you devote yourself completely to your teacher, you'll understand, hopefully.

[34:24]

You will be your teacher's disciple, and you can transmit our way. How do you transmit our way? Because you're a teacher's disciple. I think that if you really become your teacher's disciple, you will be transmitting the way. It's very true. Of course, the teacher should know how to be a teacher. this relationship between teacher and disciple is very important. And at the same time, it is difficult for both teacher and disciple to be teacher and disciple in its true sense. So they should both make their best effort. So we say, you know, the student confirms the teacher and the teacher confirms the student. They have to confirm each other. But they may not see eye to eye, you know, It's difficult. Difficult relationship. And as the relationship becomes more deep and closer, it can become more difficult.

[35:34]

There's a lot of instances of teachers and their main disciples becoming estranged. That happens quite a bit actually. And it's happened to a lot of teachers in America and in Japan. Sometimes the teacher becomes so strict that no student can ever come up to their ideal. I've seen this happen quite a bit. This happened with Kadagiri Roshi, I think. no student could ever come up to his ideal of what a student or teacher should be. So he could never authorize anybody to be his successor. So if a teacher is too strict, then students will become discouraged, or they will never

[36:45]

finish, come to a place where they are confirmed. And if the teacher's too lax and too loose and just kind of allows, you know, too easygoing, then he may have a lot of students, but they don't have a lot of... the students don't come up to a high standard. So there has to be some middle way, you know, knowing how to be firm at the same time knowing how to be soft. It's called taking hold and letting go. So when a teacher takes hold, he grabs a student. And the student says, ouch. And then, let's go. That's the granting way, the grasping way and the granting way.

[37:50]

So take hold and then let go. So granting way, grasping way is to take everything away from the student. No, no, no. And granting is yes, yes, go, yes. Confirming. So both is necessary. So through a long process, a teacher's practice becomes more refined. And a teacher hopefully knows how to do that. Sometimes a teacher makes a mistake. But it's a learning process. And a student has to know You know, that when the teacher is being firm, to stay there and not run away. To be able to take that grasping and not feel insulted or demeaned or

[39:06]

You know, my ego is really damaged. My ego hurts. When your ego hurts, a good teacher will make the student's ego hurt. So, if your teacher doesn't make your ego hurt, maybe you need something more. You know, present yourself, present your ego a little more. Teacher also has some ego. And that can also hurt, but the teacher has to be able to present a good example of how to accept the damaged ego and not run away or blame the student. So then he says, when the teacher and the disciple practice together, we have various rituals.

[40:19]

Rituals are more than just training. Through rituals, we communicate in a true sense, and we transmit the teaching in a true sense. Observation of precepts is also based on the relationship between teacher and disciple. So to practice together, we have various rituals. procedures, you know, we have the formal practice. And the formal practice is not just training. We talk about Zen training, but actually it's not Zen training. It's simply intimate communication. You know, we have this session, 40 people or so, in a little room, all day, all night, eating food, going to the bathroom, sitting up close to each other, kind of crowded in.

[41:32]

And because we know how to move with each other through our form, We have harmony. And we have communication. And the communication takes place without saying anything. We often think that communication is best done through words because we're always talking and thinking. But actually, this deep communication takes place without thinking, without discursive thinking, except for the director. And totally silent for seven days. We all know what to do. And so this communication is like a thread that just runs through everything. And then I give little talks, verbally, to make your legs hurt.

[42:40]

Great success. So this is communication through pain. Communication through painful legs. We all know what each other's feeling. I was going to say something. Oh, yeah. You know, this is a kind of communication also you have with animals. You know, when I walk my dog, we have this kind of communication. It's silent and it's done through the eyes a lot. You know, he'll look at me and ask a question. Which way are we going? Or I'll look over there, and then I'll look over there, and then I'll look at me.

[43:49]

And then I'll look at him, and maybe I'll just take a step. As soon as I take a step, he knows what to do. So it's just like, you know, perfect accord, and communication, you know, without saying anything, and just by gesture, and by body language, and communication through eyes. Very interesting. So I'll continue this tomorrow. But I just want to read this point where we came to yesterday and talk about it tomorrow. We put our emphasis on selflessness. So if a teacher or a disciple's practice of ritual or observation of precepts is not selfless, then that's not the true way. When we practice together, we should forget our own practice. But what he means is that we should forget that we're just practicing for ourself.

[44:56]

It is each individual's practice, yet it is also others' practice. For instance, when we're practicing chanting, we say, recite the sutra with your ears. Then, with our ears, we listen to others, while with our mouths, we practice our own practice. Here we have complete egolessness in its true sense. And then he says, egolessness does not mean to give up your own individual practice. True egolessness should forget egolessness. As long as you believe my practice is egolessness or to give up ego, that means you stick to ego because you stick to giving up ego-centered practice. When you practice your own practice together with others, then true egolessness happens. That egolessness is not just egolessness. It also includes ego practice. But at the same time, it is the practice of egolessness that is beyond ego or egolessness.

[45:54]

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