To remember and accept I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening. So, first thing we have to do is adjust the microphone. Am I too soft or too loud? Sounds alright? Is this volume okay? I'm Catherine Thanos and I teach usually in Santa Cruz

[01:10]

and often in Monterey at the Zen Center in both communities. And once a year, Tassajara allows us to come in from both communities and spend a day sitting meditation here in the Zen Do. And on Sunday morning we work with the community to pay back the generosity of allowing us to come and sit during guest season. So I want to extend my deep gratitude again this year for the kindness of the community in allowing us to come in and the care that you have shown us today. Especially arranging such beautiful weather for us. That was very thoughtful. I want to dedicate my talk tonight to Louis Scheiner

[02:21]

whose name is on our altar. We had a memorial service for him this evening. Louis, Dr. Scheiner, used to come with his wife and friends many summers in a row in the 70s and maybe after that but I was managing the guest program in the early 70s and I would see him and his wife, Michael, every year. And they were very friendly. They live in Mill Valley. And he was one of those people who always made himself available to the community for medical resource, for medical assistance anytime there was a need and he was here I could always ask him and he would make himself available. So when I saw his picture in the Chronicle

[03:26]

and David found this issue for me I didn't recognize this picture because it's been about close to 30 years I guess 25 years and if he were to see my picture he probably wouldn't recognize me. You know, he's younger than I am so he shouldn't have passed first. He apparently was in Switzerland at a meeting and on his way home it says and he began to have an irregular heartbeat from a heart condition and lapsed into a coma from which he was not resuscitated, could not be revived. So that sounds as if it was rather unexpected and shocking to his family. But it does awaken memories and

[04:30]

feelings of appreciation in me. And I think many people here probably have no idea. I don't even know if Leslie remembered him. Maya knew his name. So I wanted to mention that at the beginning of the talk. In preparing for my remarks tonight I was looking at the Tenzo Kyokun by Dogen Zenji. Dogen Zenji was the Japanese monk who went to China in something like 1220 and had a very profound awakening experience and brought this tradition that we are enjoying and practicing and transmitting

[05:41]

brought it back to Japan and is kind of known I think of him as the patron saint of the Soto tradition. He brought this tradition to Japan and was committed to revitalizing and clarifying just sitting. And Suzuki Roshi brought this tradition and the teachings of Dogen Zenji to America. So we are now practicing in the tradition of this Japanese monk who lived from 1200 to 1253. He died when he was just 53 and gave many incredible teachings and writings for us. So one of the most accessible writings is his instructions to the Zen cook Tenzo Kyokun

[06:45]

and there's a commentary on it written by Uchiyama Roshi in which he quotes a Chinese text saying Sangha, that's community, is the most precious of all things. Those who live in this community are unfettered by the pettiness of social affairs. Such a community manifests a refined posture devoid of fabrication about the world. And that really caught my eye. It wasn't what I intended to talk about but I'll start by talking about how cherished, how fortunate we are

[07:49]

to be living in a community that practices being devoid of fabrication about the world. When we first come to practice that is a frightening idea because we would much rather have a fabricated life that's more entertaining. And we like to embroider our life with excitement, passionate things, colorful things, many flavors and tastes. And it takes some years of practice to learn the relief and the ease of heart of living together where we can speak truth. Our truth as best we know it. We can be unfabricated with each other. We can finally say this is what I think, who I am.

[08:50]

Not presenting our persona or my best foot forward, just myself as I am. This is such a relief. And it's not a diminished sense of self at all. I think of practice. We talk about coming to practice to become awakened. But I think it's becoming awakened not to our Buddha nature, not to our Buddhahood or to enlightenment, but to our human nature. There is no difference in my mind between Buddha nature and human nature. We don't really know how to be human beings in this culture and in this world. It's very hard to truly be human, to be completely, completely human all the way down to the bottom, which is the only place where we can find peace. To find peace is a very rare thing.

[09:54]

So to be in a community where we practice devoid of fabrication about the world, pretty extraordinary. We can make mistakes. We can stumble. We can pick ourselves up. We can try again. Because everybody is stumbling and picking themselves up and trying again, over and over again. It's the human way. It's the path. It's the only way. I was in Los Angeles at a retreat last weekend. It was held at the Zen Mountain Monastery of the Los Angeles Zen Center. This is Zen Mountain Monastery. Zen Mountain Center, we call this one. The shape of that one is a little bit different.

[10:59]

The intention, the practice is the same. It was very familiar to me. And they have an abbot there who was talking about, gave a talk and asked for questions. And one of the questions by someone who was new to practice caught my attention. She said, they're teaching counting breath. One to ten, one to ten. I don't know if we're still doing that here at Tassajara. We've stopped doing that in Santa Cruz, in Monterey. We're teaching following the breath mostly. But if you get confused while you're following your breath you can always return to counting. Go from one to ten. And if you get up to several hundred it might be time to come back to one. So there are various ways you can practice. Anyway, she was saying that

[12:02]

the instruction which was to return to counting gave her the impression that the state of mind that was desirable in meditation, sought for was this place of equanimity and ease and detachment. And that wasn't at all her experience. She felt involved with the fearful mind or angry mind or obsessive mind and didn't feel that this practice made a lot of sense. She felt distant from it. She was caught up in thinking mind. So I wanted to reiterate. You probably all know this, but in case you've forgotten there is thinking in zazen. The kind of thinking that we do in zazen

[13:03]

we call non-thinking. So we have it both ways. It's true that eventually, gradually, in meditation we learn distance from the passing of thoughts through the mind. And we do learn some detachment. Initially, we're just completely caught up in the fabrications of the mind, the thoughts feelings and sensations. Don't know quite what to concentrate on. That's why we say one, two, three, four. Or follow the breath. Or put your awareness someplace in your body

[14:05]

because there was so much happening initially. But gradually, it gets sorted out and people are able to sit as the posture becomes easier with some ease and equanimity. And in this text, the Tenzo Kyokan Dogen does talk about magnanimous mind, big mind the mind that views all things with impartiality and from a stable position which is ultimately the point of practice, I think is to rest in a space, mind and body where we view things with some detachment where we're not caught up in the tumult, the confusion the agitation, the passions. They pass through, it's not that they go away

[15:07]

but we're not so identified with them. We don't believe that they are who we are they're just, as Uchiyama Roshi says they're just the passing scenery of our lives. We even learn that it's not as much fun to be a wildly extremist in our views George Bush, the war although once in a while we ventilate our energy and take an extreme position it actually is more satisfying to take a balanced position and include all of the things elements of the situation. That's where we come to rest on the ground, on stable ground. This thinking mind this non-thinking mind, not different

[16:11]

we have the mind that thinks and the mind that doesn't think and they're running at the same time, same mind. Okamura Sensei says there's thinking but I don't think there are thoughts but I don't think this is about what it is the mind is passing thoughts I like to say that you're not choosing the thoughts that are rising in your mind so in that sense they're not your thoughts at the same time they are happening in your mind so it's helpful to take responsibility for them. When I was down at Idyllwild doing this retreat I noticed how many discriminations my mind was making

[17:12]

this was an entirely new community to me I didn't know, maybe I knew one person in the group of 20 something or other and I found I had opinions about almost everybody you know, somebody reminded me of somebody that I liked or somebody that I was uncomfortable with so I had an endless assortment of opinions but because it was a silent retreat I didn't have to talk, I didn't have to express any of this I just noticed them passing through my mind and by the second day I'd gotten to know people and they became my friends but before I knew them there was this you know, this shadow or this screen of judgment that was, you know, that was put on everybody

[18:14]

it's very interesting the mind is endlessly discriminating my mind is endlessly creating discriminations and this mind that's detached and watching with equanimity and calmness is the same mind that watches discriminations without acting on them, without being attached to them without giving energy to them and that's something we learn to do it's not the first thing we do because we've learned to trust our mind to believe in our mind, to act on our mind so

[19:17]

this practice of non-discrimination of seeing with equanimity arises in the midst of discrimination we practice non-duality in the midst of duality arising of duality and we practice wisdom practice exercising our Buddha nature in the midst of our deluded mind and, you know, Suzuki Roshi would say something like be grateful for your difficulties because they are your practice opportunities and we like to say that to each other oh, another opportunity for practice you know, when you've fallen off a cliff or something wonderful however, it's true and you will come to value and cherish

[20:19]

your difficulties because when we really have fallen flat on our face smashed ourselves to pieces it's the only time we are motivated deeply enough to do the hard work of confessing and investigating this deluded mind actually owning up it's very interesting owning up to what is happening inside most of the time we blame everything outside we blame people and objects for our difficulties there's we come to see that there's no difference between inside and outside one of the definitions for non-duality or wisdom or enlightenment, I think is when there's no subject or object

[21:21]

when there's no separation between the one who sees and that which is seen this is a place of practice where the one that is seen is a reflection of our own mind and we understand that, we know that that what we hear is a reflection of our own mind our own habits of hearing our own concepts when we stop solving, trying to solve problems outside and take the backward step and turn inward to the divided mind to the confused mind to the frightened mind irritated mind there's some profound coming to rest because this is where our conflicts will be resolved

[22:24]

this is where our conflicts will be healed when we own up to the conflicts, the division, the ambivalence the confusion inside I had a very dear friend with whom I've had a very painful falling out over a situation I cannot imagine it having a different ending a very conflicted situation and we have been unable to talk with each other for almost a year now but deep within I think we have both longed to reconcile we have wanted to reconcile if we could get over this kind of hump

[23:25]

this conflict in our relationship and I was talking with someone about it looks now as if it's about to happen I'm so relieved it's one of the great joys of my life and somebody asked me, how did it come about? and you know, how do we solve the conflicts of our lives? how do we work with the fear? the anger? the way I work with these situations is we can't work directly because it's the little mind that's very opinionated that knows how to problem solve that's trying to work on itself and it can't do that because it's not wise enough it's hammering away at itself in the same way that it got led down this garden path

[24:26]

into difficulty so this little mind has to yield authority to big mind and has to wait and hold the situation in the biggest possible way Suzuki Roshi said, you know you should give your cow a big meadow this is what he meant whatever you're dealing with give it a wide space and hold it and breathe in and out and don't necessarily try to do anything because in my experience most of the things we try to do when the problem is really deep enough we can't and the healing comes when we finally give up in my case I can't solve this I'm helpless, I can't do this and then there's a great relief

[25:29]

because in the first place we thought we should be able to do it we thought we should be smart enough to solve our problems by ourselves but if they're deep enough you know, like a deep relationship, a solid relationship a marriage some kind of real problem at work we have to allow the healing that happens, the deep movement I think of the universe because it requires a deep turning inside to be able to look at the person and yourself in a very forgiving, open way there's nothing to be gained anymore from trying to have my way so we can see that there's not my way or your way there's just some way we agree to come together to work, to allow something to happen and

[26:33]

the surprise of this all is that things do move things do move and turn in unexpected ways and something shifts and where you once couldn't talk to somebody suddenly you reach out to them and once they couldn't talk to you and suddenly they reach out to you there is something that just happens when we're open to it when we're willing to hold it in the deepest part of our mind and leave it alone and trust and with the deep intention of healing because our intention our deepest intention is to heal both ourselves and each other it's not to win or win or lose has nothing to do with this I didn't intend to talk about that

[27:40]

now where are we? do not resuscitate I've never talked about that I want to talk about do not resuscitate somebody in Santa Cruz the other night asked what is delusion? I know you're all interested in these topics and I'm bringing up the gutty stuff so what is delusion? I looked it up in the dictionary a false belief without reservation as a as a result of self-deception that's good a false belief as a result of self-deception that's what delusion is actually delusion is self-deception the mind well the mind doesn't intend to

[28:44]

but the mind can't help it because the mind is carrying history karma from generations you know we inherited our minds like our bodies so we inherit all the habits of our parents and grandparents etc so we inherit this mind that has opinions and judgments and makes value judgments and wants to win doesn't want to lose and feels ashamed and feels frightened and feels glamorous and then doesn't feel glamorous so I think delusion is and Buddhism teaches that and the person who asked the question is a long time meditator this isn't just somebody who walked in delusion is

[29:46]

seeing objects seeing something fixed stable concrete you know like each of us thinks that each of us is a you know each of us is a fixed personality person you think that you're the same person yesterday as today as tomorrow etc we all believe in the self however it is the teaching of our tradition that the self is an idea it's a concept and when we project the mind onto things which is what happens when we see objects outside we are actually bringing our mind to objects and making and objectifying making concepts the mind conceptualizes so what the mind reflects back

[30:47]

is not the thing itself but a mental image which is an abstraction which is off the mark because the mind that's perceiving other people or objects or things places is making them up according to its own standards don't make up standards on your own making up according to our own standards according to what pleases this mind and body what makes me comfortable things it is the teaching of our of Buddhism our tradition our practice that things do not have fixed nature that nothing is solid permanent things are impermanent things are

[31:47]

things are suffering everything is suffering things have no enduring permanent identity there's no things have no self nothing has permanent enduring identity do you believe that? this is hard to believe because certainly we have permanent enduring identity we think so when they asked me in the hospital if I wanted to be resuscitated I wanted to be resuscitated I wasn't sure it was politically correct I thought I should say no you know but actually I wasn't ready to give it all up then and fortunately it didn't come to that but I believed in the separate self however the way in which I believe in a separate self has a lot of flow in it

[32:48]

I can see that I'm very changeable I'm not the same person from day to day in fact I sometimes think you know I get these grandiose ideas I want to go out and stop what's happening in the world I've always had a little megalomaniac idea about I should stand up and really say stop this is too crazy this is too insane and then I think but I've sometimes my passions don't endure I might feel very passionate right now but I don't know about tomorrow or the next day in fact I noticed when I was in college that I was very passionate about some things but they political they didn't always last so what am I talking about? well do not resuscitate

[33:52]

the way in which we and everything exist the teaching tells us is as flow if you look closely into your own mind and breath and body sensation you will find that things are you can't locate things you can't find a particular place when you're looking at something from a distance you can see an object distance creates the illusion of perception when you're looking from here at the ocean or the mountains we see something concrete that we can identify as mountain or ocean or tree but when we go up to it

[35:00]

right next to it we don't know what it is the mountain is rocks and dirt and shrubs sometimes rattlesnakes flies flies bugs mosquitoes what is a mountain? what is the water, the creek? when you go down into it or there it's movement it's wet it's some fish some plant life we can't say when we're in the creek what a creek is we become part of it especially with water we become so immersed in the water in the flow we don't know

[36:01]

our nature is to move to live to flow to be transparent I think becoming awakened becoming liberated is the process of becoming transparent to ourselves is the mind becoming transparent to itself consciousness I'm using consciousness like the word mind becoming transparent to itself so things are not hidden to ourselves our own motivations our own delusions deceptions are not hidden from us that's the process of becoming enlightened and awakened or becoming human or becoming a person able to be in the world unfabricated

[37:03]

just as we are I don't know about you but that's to me an exhilarating thought we have been studying the we've been studying the Diamond Sutra and I wanted to mention just briefly the teachings of the Diamond Sutra teaches the perfection of wisdom that's the perfection of the tradition that we're practicing the perfection of wisdom usually is thought of as emptiness emptiness meaning usually no separate self existence that none of us exist separately from each other from the universe we don't exist separately from the air the water the earth the plants in it each other we can see here

[38:03]

in this community the beauty of the harmony of people living together cleaning the baths for us cleaning our rooms planting the garden doing the cooking serving and dish washing the perfection of so emptiness simply means it's another way of saying fullness interconnection interdependent dependent co-origination co-dependent arising these are different words that are used nothing happens by itself so the Diamond Sutra is an expression of the emptiness side and I used to think that learning about emptiness and expressing emptiness was the highest wisdom I tend to be an extremist I think most of us in this tradition are extremists we want to be perfect we want to do it right

[39:04]

etc and now I know that any time we get attached to anything whether it's emptiness or self or George Bush or anti-George Bush whatever we get attached to the problem is the attachment not that we have these thoughts or these feelings or this interest in emptiness co-dependent origination but that we take take our residence there we take our stand there we plant our banner there now I think the highest wisdom is form and emptiness because they co-exist they are not separate each of us is a form and each of us is also somebody said the other night delusion each of us is also wisdom we are simultaneously empty of

[40:05]

separate existence and we're full of the whole universe we are each a separate entity and we're completely inter inextricably interconnected so the form side is true we practice with the form side the emptiness side is the ground form and emptiness that's the teaching of the Prajnaparamita literature and the Diamond Sutra the Diamond Sutra talks about talks about a bodhisattva who creates the perception of a being a self a life or a soul cannot be called a bodhisattva so if any of you folks are thinking that anybody exists as a being a life a soul or a self technically you can't be called a bodhisattva

[41:06]

however we loosely call ourselves bodhisattvas because we know that even though we get confused and think there's a separate being, self life or a soul that somewhere deep inside we know that this life is temporary transient impermanent and we will what's the word transmigrate to another life form we will return to everything and everything will return to one the Diamond Sutra is always talking about non-attachment it talks about I'll close with this this light isn't

[42:07]

quite bright enough however we'll try oops, not that one when, here's chapter four when bodhisattvas give a gift they should not be attached to a thing I think this is very good because we're so attached to giving and receiving when bodhisattvas give a gift they should not be attached to a thing when they give a gift they should not be attached to anything at all just think about this for a little bit they should not be attached to a sight to a sound a smell, a taste

[43:07]

a touch or a dharma when they give a gift thus, subhuti fearless bodhisattvas should give a gift without being attached to the perception of an object and why? subhuti the body of merit of those bodhisattvas who give a gift without being attached to it is not easy to measure the body of merit of bodhisattvas who give a gift without being attached is not easy to measure those who set forth on the bodhisattva path should give a gift without being attached to the perception of an object so here's what I think about that if you want to give a gift without being attached to the perception

[44:08]

of an object I think you should go to work in the intensive care unit of some hospital because the care that I received was not personal it was completely personal at the same time it was impersonal because these nurses work 24 hours a day every day and one of the nurses that took care of me had been there for 16 years she chose the most intense life or death situation and they were so astonishingly kind and tender and it was also impersonal it was just what they do and that to me is the enactment of giving a gift

[45:09]

the gift of their presence the gift of their attention the gift of their kindness the gift of their non-judgment in a life or death situation without being attached that was clear so that's one place that we can practice if you have some work situation where you can practice non-discrimination you know, the greatest gift that we can give is the gift of our presence our availability to each other non-judgmentally that's the practice of non-attachment of generosity and the person who receives the benefit of that practice guess who that one is that's ourselves the person who

[46:10]

some place in one of the Dalai Lama's teachings the person who extends compassion and loving kindness to others is the immediate beneficiary of that spirit and that energy so those of us who would like to be liberated might consider practicing compassion loving kindness generosity forgiveness friendliness as best we can to others because generating that spirit of loving kindness and giving just generating it freely benefits guess who it benefits us the spirit of generating that feeling enhances us your mind our minds become like this

[47:12]

our bodies become like this big hearted big minded so the secret of this practice is to give it away and I'll see you all tomorrow for private consultations on this one so maybe it's a little bit late you've been working hard you might like to get to sleep thank you very much bye tension weight

[47:46]

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