First, before I start, let me say that when I correct your postures, don't bow, sort of to say thank you afterwards, it's not necessary, because what happens of course is you're sitting like this and so I straighten your head and you bow and you come back up like this. Actually, the problem of ... closely related to ego, in fact, of course ... You know, Buddhism doesn't say anything about that. It says that ... it's just that ... Actually, Buddhism says

[01:14]

some about this, but by inference, but mostly it doesn't talk about it because Buddhism has been mostly passed on by celibate monks, and so it's not something they write about, you know. But conditioned relationships are more difficult and more limiting than unconditioned relationships. So to free yourself from a conditioned relationship takes a great deal of time. So if you're going to have conditioned relationships, ideally you have a limited number of them, whatever the conditions are, you know, not just sexual. And you have the time to respond fully to the conditions. So, you know, like you should have a lifetime if you're married to someone. And what you find is that unconditioned relationships are actually more satisfying and deep than conditioned relationships, unless you have a great deal of time to spend to free yourself from the conditions. So that's what we learned from our teacher.

[02:40]

That's why Suzuki Roshi was pretty careful to have as unconditioned relationships with you as possible. He didn't go to the movies with you, at least very seldom. He didn't go out to having a drink with you very much. He didn't go on picnics with you. He tried to put you in a position that you had to find an unconditioned kind of relationship to him. And your practice should be as unconditioned as possible. So if you have a friend that you practice with, or a wife, or husband, your practice is not really together. Each practice is separate. You may help each other's practice, but you don't practice Buddhism together.

[03:43]

You practice your conditioned relationship together, but you don't practice your unconditioned relationship together. Though eventually, your relationship together after a long time may be like a Buddhist practice. A couple things from yesterday. One is, some of you are quite worried about making mistakes. in practice or in your life, and you ask questions about how to stop making them. So there are ways to try to stop making mistakes, but one thing is you don't worry about making mistakes. We all make mistakes. If you're tired, you make more. If you're anxious, you make more. If you're something... If you make a mistake, you just do it, you know, completely, and then you go on to the next thing, you don't worry about it. You just recognize that, you know, you spilled the soup or something, right? And the next time you try not to spill the soup, but you don't get involved and just spill the soup, that's all.

[05:08]

from yesterday is you asked what are koans or how do you use a koan or inner practice or something like that. Zen is, well, first of all, you can't really work on your practice. The first practice is to learn to sit still. And you can't really go beyond your practice, and teaching doesn't really begin until you can sit still. That's sort of like has to be first.

[06:10]

Then at the point at which you have, we say everyone has Buddha nature, but not everybody realizes their Buddha nature. And to realize your Buddha nature, I mean, it's only your mind that has the problem. Because your mind separates itself into thinking about things, so it doesn't know its own nature. So, at the point at which, say you can sit quite still, at the point at which you're beginning to seek for a language to to realize your nature, you know. It's there, but some expression, you feel some need for an expression. Not necessarily in words, but some need for an expression. At that point, you seek for a language to talk about what can't be talked about.

[07:30]

So, when a student is at the point where he's seeking for that language, then you can start using koans. Because koans are an expression of that language. It's one reason they're sort of difficult to understand. And so, koans are, there are two aspects of koans. There are problems given, based on anecdotes usually, given by teachers to students, which illustrate certain aspects of the teaching. In fact, they're classified into levels, you know, these pertain to this and these pertain to that, and kind of related to the Well, it's one of those contradictions. The Zen school, which emphasizes sudden enlightenment most, uses the koan system the most, which is graded according to steps of deeper and deeper. Anyway, the koans are graded according to the difficulty and breadth you need to grasp, or not grasp, but have an insight into what they mean.

[09:05]

The other side of koans is that it's a process of working on problems. It's a way of presenting a problem to you. Then, if we're talking about traditional koans, like Chinese or Japanese koans as passed on from teacher to disciple. We're talking about not only a special language, a language developed by people when they're at the point of seeking for a language to talk about what can't be talked about, but you're also talking about a culture which is extremely homogenous, much more so than the West or America in particular. And within that homogenous culture, a small group of people who developed a special way of talking, and based on all kinds of needles in the haystack. So there's all kinds of references to things that you need to know to make sense of a lot of the koans. So if you talk about traditional Chinese and Japanese koans,

[10:30]

You know, except for a few, for the most part, unless you make a lifetime study of Chinese and Japanese culture, you can't use them. But from the point of view of a way of asking yourself questions, you can use an approach like Cohen's. And the Soto way, of using koans also is more applicable here in the United States than the Rinzai way. And the Soto way is to try to precipitate in the student a problem based on his life which works the same as a koan. There's another difference with Rinzai, which you see the teacher and he presents you with a koan, is that the teacher doesn't tell you he's giving you a koan. He just, except unless you come and you say, I have this big problem, and he says, okay, you know. But generally, after you've been practicing a while, you don't have big problems, or your problems are so big you don't see them.

[12:02]

So, the teacher tries to cause you some trouble, maybe make you angry, or withdraw his being your teacher, or throw you out of the temple, or precipitate a trouble between two Dharma brothers, or make you feel, more specifically, to make you feel sure of yourself when you shouldn't feel sure of yourself, or uneasy when you shouldn't feel uneasy, so that you, he may always say, ah, you're wonderful, but you know you're not, so. In various ways, he tries to cause you some kind of problem. And at different times in your relationship with your teacher, he'll try to cause you a different kind of problem based each time on where your practice is. And sometimes he'll give a classic koan to you, just a usual koan that's right from the tradition, and it'll just be in the middle of a paragraph.

[13:27]

You know, the other sentences will be about, you know, the kitchen or cooking or something, and then right in the middle there'll be a koan and it'll go on. Unless you look carefully and see that the sentence doesn't quite make sense, you know, you miss it. And if you miss it, you don't deserve to know it, is the idea. like Suzuki Roshi in relationship with students, pointed out over and over again to them their weak points. Usually, if possible, not by saying so, sometimes by waiting one year or two years for an opportunity to say something, sometimes by pointing out to some student who's strong enough to bear the brunt of some mistake, when he's actually talking about another student who happens to be overhearing, who's not strong enough to bear the brunt of what he would say. So, that's various ways of presenting a koan to you.

[14:51]

A koan is a way of, sometimes I call them questions, is a way of presenting to yourself over and over again, through repetition, a question in the deepest way you can to yourself. And you actually can do that with anything. You know, any of you have some question, some problem in your practice or in your life, why do you feel a certain way, or why am I not making any progress, or why do I feel uneasy, or whatever. You know, you can take a very simple question. It takes some experience to do this, but it's a wonderful thing, actually, because you can ask yourself anything. What is reality? why am I whatever you know any question you can ask yourself but it generally works best if it's

[16:08]

if it's a question which in some ways is very meaningful to you and often you don't know the question at all. You feel something, I don't know, some uneasiness. You can't put your finger, your mind on exactly what it is. So you wonder, what is it? And sometimes it can be a question which is You don't want to know what the question is. And when you do know, it can terrify you to ask yourself the question. It could be something that is just the very thing which threatens you most. And so, this point in practice is why courage is so important. One reason in Zazen, sitting, the difficulty of sitting, part of it, the point of it is to arouse your second wind, your courage. I think there's a story about Tilopa, who I think is the teacher of Marpa, who's the teacher of Milarepa, I think it's Tilopa, there's a kind of fanciful story about him walking, coming up, I remember it's years ago I read it, but anyway,

[17:46]

It's coming to a river, and he asks a young boy to carry him across, and the boy says he will. And in the middle of the river, which is quite small, Tilopa, through magic powers, makes the river rise and rise and rise until it's a furious stream. And finally, the water is, you know, underneath this boy's nose. And the boy never falters, he just carries him straight through the stream. And because of his testing his courage like this, on this basis alone Tilopa chose him for his main disciple. Anyway, but courage is not the same as being foolhardy. You have to test your strength little by little, you know. And each session you get a little better at sitting without moving. Some teachers, you know, are like football coaches and they say, come on, let's go out and get that sashin. And he gets everybody all excited and they all charge down to the zendo.

[19:12]

I've sat in zendos like that, it's pretty exciting. For several weeks, when I first sat in a zendo like that, I was pretty charged up. In this particular zendo, there was a lot of hollering and knocking people off their cushions onto the floor. It's quite startling to be sound asleep and be knocked onto the floor. Particularly when the tatami is about this high off the ground. And if you sleep a little bit more, they scream at you and hog it out in that damn garden, you know. Anyway, I think the problem with that is, it makes you pretty alert, but the problem with it is, is after about, I don't know, for me, about three or four weeks or two or three weeks, I was pretty bored with it. It was kind of, you know, it was done as a kind of And I think, I feel Suzuki Roshi's way is, at least for me, is better, is to try to get you to encourage yourself to practice. So little by little, you know, this sashin, I don't know, to me anyway, seems pretty loose, you know.

[20:42]

People come in and go, and I go out in the street. I've had to go to the funeral home each day, the last three days, to make some of the arrangements. Coming back, sometimes we see somebody who's supposed to be sitting, walking along the street, you know, somewhere. Anyway. But maybe, slowly, more and more of you will come to stay on your cushion. So little by little you get so you can sit more firmly. And likewise, little by little you present questions to yourself which are deeper and shake you up more. And so when you have some uneasy feeling and you can begin to feel into that uneasy feeling for a question or a problem, When you have the question, you have a good part of the answer, actually, to know the question is more than 50%. So, you have a question, and then you take the question and you present it to yourself. If it's a koan, you may just take, well,

[22:07]

I mean, all koans are not like this, only some koans are like this. I mean, a koan like Mu is quite different, you know. That's a kind of, if anything, a physical experience. But to limit my conversation right now to these kind of questions, if you then take this question and you present it to yourself and keep it before you all the time, Why is it such and such? You're driving a car. Please be alert when you drive a car, but anyway. Still you have, why such and such? Why such and such? Why such and such? And you also have to be in such a situation, you have to be quite flexible. You have to be persistent and keep the question before you. And you also have to be flexible because the question will change and you have to let it change. And sometimes the question will become, why such and such? Why such and such? And pretty soon you'll notice that actually what you're sort of humming to yourself is, why not such and such but that and that? And you say to yourself, well how did such and such change to that and that? Anyway.

[23:32]

then usually it's because there's some relationship. Actually, that and that's a better question than such and such. And if this process continues and you just keep this before you, not thinking about it, just keeping it before you, because what you want is your whole mind and body to work on it, so you keep it before you. And sometimes, one form of the question you'll realize is the answer, kind of answer. But also, more likely, is after one week or two weeks or one day or two days, the question disappears, but it's still there as a kind of sensation, you know? Not sensation, but it's present with you, working, you know, stewing around, sort of. And then you may forget about it completely because it's pretty hard to keep something before you all the time. But maybe one month later you realize, well I forgot all about that. For three days I did that and I forgot all about it. But sometimes you may look at your life then and you may see that your life is expressing an answer to that question. That actually you're now living in a way which that question no longer arises. So then

[24:58]

eventually some other question arises. I did a practice like this for quite a long time some years ago and I got so that I could present a question to myself in this way. It takes a while. First times you do this, it takes sometimes months, you know, of presenting the question to yourself. Particularly if it's a fundamental question, you know, like Dogen's kind of question of why, if a man has Buddha nature, do we have to practice? That kind of question you present to yourself for years, five years. So Buddhism is not very exciting. If you're not willing to present something to yourself for five years, you should go away. But I got, after a while, that you begin to open up channels in yourself for such processes. So I could ask myself a question like this and generally I'd have some sort of sense of resolution within a day or so. I remember one time, this is rather funny and it's not typical but it's a rather interesting example.

[26:27]

I was asking myself this question over and over again, you know. And suddenly I had, I don't know what I was doing. I was working or reading or sitting somewhere or working in the kitchens and I don't know what, but somewhere. I was awake anyway. And this, I had a kind of, my mind is very visual and it works very visually. And I see ideas as sort of layouts, you know, or objects. Anyway, this sort of kind of vision appeared to me of just a situation of a sort of room and there was a phone ringing. And it was a brown phone for some reason. And this darn brown phone kept ringing and I kept trying to concentrate on my question, And I was thinking, why such and such, why such and such? And his phone was going, bring, bring. And I said, why such and such? So I thought finally, well, that damn phone, I don't want to go away, you know? Why such and such? And it went, bring, bring. So I thought, well, my rule is in such things is whatever comes up, I notice. No, whatever's there, I notice. Whatever presents itself, that's me. So I thought, well, OK.

[28:01]

There's one of the demons from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, you know, has taken the form of a brown phone, you know. So, I thought I should recognize it, you know, as my own thing. So, I went and picked up the phone, you know, and, you know, of course, not really, but I picked up the phone, and the phone told me the answer to the question. It was marvelous, I don't know. So anyway, when you present such a question or koan, kind of koan to yourself like that, whatever comes up is related usually, particularly if it comes up several times. So then you recognize it, that's me, that's me. When you say inner practice, I don't know exactly what you mean, maybe I know, but I don't know if there's such a thing as inner and outer, you know, but I think one can say secret practice, because your practice must be secret, because if you try to give it language, you limit it.

[29:39]

completely, if you try to talk about it not only to other people, or your wife, or whatever. I mean, that's why even though doksan is quite ordinary, you know, nothing special, still you shouldn't talk about it with anybody, not even your wife. And your practice, you shouldn't talk to anybody about except sometimes if you know they already know, and then some friendly gesture you can say, aha. So then two people can, some friendliness and acknowledging that you both are doing the same thing. But your practice and how you try to practice each day, and it's best if it's secret, you know. You can talk to your teacher about it. It should be unconditioned. Okay. No, you could ask yourself, why can't you sit still? What I mean is that your practice really can't begin

[31:09]

teaching really can't begin in the fullest sense until you can sit still, because you can't stay with anything until you can sit still. Until you can stay with yourself, at least simply physically, you can't stay with practice. Now, there's a difference between fidgeting, you know, touching, scratching your face and moving. and involuntary movements or semi-involuntary movements. And some people have involuntary movements during their practice. That's a different kind of thing. That comes from there's some blockage of your energy. Your energy changes somewhat when you do zazen and it tries to, it moves in a little different kind of passage. And some people, they can't quite get it free, and so sometimes they move as in this kind of movement is sometimes, or sometimes. Or sometimes you feel a movement down here. At a certain point in your practice, there'll be a great deal of trembling down here sometimes.

[32:22]

That kind of movement should be still too, but there's a stillness in that movement already. That's not the kind of movement just, you know, your face itches so you scratch your face or you find yourself, you know, or when you hold the sutra card it's down and up, you know. At least you should be able to stay with yourself, which means to be able to sit physically still. I think the time is up.

[32:56]

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