One time, a long time ago, maybe I can say once upon a time, there was a big rock, a stone. The stone was sitting there for centuries. He treated the elements, rain, wind, hot and cold, One day it cracked open and a stone ape came out of it. And after a while this ape broke open and a stone monkey came out. The monkey looked around, looked in the four directions,

[01:05]

Beings of light came out of his eye, penetrated to the end of the universe, even up to the emperor, the celestial heaven. He noticed this being of light. So he checked in with his general about to find out if light was coming from him. Even though it was coming from a stone monkey, it was passed out in an ache. So the monkey went out and found the other monkeys, and uh, just come around with them and they'd play and they'd crook and that's why they're around. So one day they came to a mountain, a great waterfall, and they wiped it. And they said, oh, I wonder what's behind that waterfall. He said, if all of us would go in there, be brave enough, we'd make it more king.

[02:09]

Well, this stone went up, jumped through the waterfall. It's inside, and there's a bay, a cavern, and there's water, like a river, like a spire bridge going over there. So he goes across the bridge and he discovers this delightful place that has stone tables and chairs and stone beds and stone plates, and it's great. Then he goes out, tells his friends, it's okay, let's go in here. They're like, well, everything's pretty nice. And the king, they've been looking there for years, having a good time. One day the king monkey, It was looking very sad. It was sitting there. And so then I thought, I tried and stood up and said, what's the matter? You look so sad. He said, well, this is such a nice place, but I know it's not going to last.

[03:12]

It has to end. I said, oh, I know what's wrong with you. Why? He said, you get the religion. This what I'm talking about is from a 17th century Chinese folk novel called Journey to the West. And it's really about the Chinese monk, the Tong Dynasty, the seventh century monk who went to India and brought back the triple basket of the three books. sutras and the . But anyway, some writer in the 16th century decided to make a fantasy novel out of this. And everyone knew about this.

[04:13]

He wanted to be a hero, something like Mappet Pole. He went west in those days, the 17th century, to travel to India. He didn't jump on a train or a jet. Actually, he left China without the emperor's permission. He couldn't just leave, you know what I'm saying? And he was gone 20 years. But when he came back, they were happy with what he brought back. They brought back all the writings. And they started translating it. One of the reasons we have some of the things today. Anyway, this novel, the guy decided to But this monkey, the first half of the novel is all about the monkey. Going back to where we were, the monkey shows that religion, and he says, well, what do you mean? And he said, well, there are three types of people here on Earth that don't have to be bothered with impermanence.

[05:13]

They're called immortals, they're called buddhas, and they're also called sages. So the monkey says, well, I'm going I'm going to find these guys and find out what happens. Then the story really takes off. It's quite an interesting thing. It's long, although Arthur Whedon has a shorter version called Monkey. There's one by Professor Yu, about four volumes. But anyway, it's fun. And this is still known today. This novel is very popular with everybody in China. Children know the story of Monkey. In China it's opera, parts of it, there's a lot of it. There's an opera, and then there's comic books. In fact, I think out too long ago there was a television, children's animated television show. You see it's Saturday morning, they're out there based on this character. Usually when I'm here on a Saturday morning here, I see all the people and I wonder why you're here.

[06:30]

Are you looking for immortality? Are you here because you're sad or because you have nothing else to do? It was a nice break from the weekly routine. Looking for wisdom? Enlightenment? I could say that, but you're not going to find it because you already have it. But... Monkey travels a long way and finds a, it sounds like it's a Daoist, the mortal.

[07:34]

And he stays around there and then he learns a lot. And the Daoist gives him a name. That was one of the translations for the Observer of Back Cubity. I think it's like the emptiness, the seeing emptiness. I wasn't really going to talk about this, but I wanted to talk about one of those three books that the monk brought back. We have the sutras and Shastri, the sutras are supposedly what Buddha spoke, Shakyamuni spoke. And Vinaya and Ruth's, the meanings of the order, The abhidhana, you might say, is psychology or ontology or cosmology and what's happening. But the Vinaya, the book of rules, we don't

[08:40]

openly studying it here than you have in the library. In the southern countries like Thailand and Burma, they follow that very much. It pretty much sets up your complete day and night. I mean, everything is laid out, just what you're going to do, how high your bed's going to be off the floor, It pretty much, if you try to follow these rules, you will not be able to be a layperson, I don't think. I read a story about one of the first Theravadan who wants to go to England back in the turn of the century. It was very difficult planning a trip, but he wanted to follow these rules. And being worried to go to a foreign country, You'd be breaking rules left and right. It's all kind of stuff, money. Anyway, there's a lot of them. But we have our own. We study it here in a different way.

[09:42]

How many of you here have not been to the Zazen instruction? Hmm? Anyway, when you go to Zazen instruction on a Saturday morning, usually the first thing you're taken down is the Zen book. And you start to be shown how to enter the Zen book. And right away, he said, you're going to the left side of this curtain we have hanging down there. You step in with your left foot. You'll be up to the left again, step out. How to sit down, the direction that you turn. Anyway, we have all these rules. That's kind of all the night, in a sense, so our only fight of the night. When I give some of the instruction, I usually talk a little bit about it, and I say, well, the best thing to do, you won't be able to remember this, and just when you come here next time, just watch other people, and hope that they're not new.

[11:11]

But eventually, you come around long enough and you find out, and Sometimes somebody will tell you, maybe Paul will run across to them, they will grab you and stop you from walking in front of the altar. Sometimes people will ask, why do we have this kind of rule? He was asked about that. He said, you follow these rules so you'll be able to express your true self, your free self, and express yourself freely. I had a teacher once who was a Chinese calligraphy teacher and he used to say over and over while we were practicing characters, freedom comes through discipline.

[12:33]

You know, some of you are familiar with North Indian classical music, the kind that Ravi Shankar plays or Kamsahamnath Ali Akbar Khan. Anyway, I know some people who went into that kind of study to study that music and You go through like seven or eight years of extreme discipline. You just have to play all the notes exactly the same over and over and over again. It's just real rigid. But the idea of that is to become free and to have it built into you that you'll be able to improvise completely free. But you go through this period of just bound to this thing. And then you're set free, finished. The Japanese tea ceremony is also like that. Every move is laid out, completely the same.

[13:58]

Everybody has to do this thing. And I take three to six months just being, feel like they've had a cup of tea and being a guest. But again, you go through this in order to, I've seen masters make tea and They just like what they're doing now. But they didn't do that for 20, 30 years. I was just recently reading an article by a Japanese professor of religion. He was talking about this sort of thing and how in the West we have body and mind sort of separate and the mind controls the body. But in the East, down in Japan, there's not that sort of a separation, it's body and mind. And he talked about sort of the two types of consciousness.

[15:01]

This is like for learning, for creativity. He calls it bright consciousness, which is what we think of as our mind, thinking, consciousness. Like we're going to worry something, we think it out and run the ride, all up here. And then he talks about the darker consciousness, basically like a body hunting, and that the body is learning all the time, but it's not thinking about it. Again, using the tea ceremony, I've seen people who are beginning, and let's say they're going to be a couple of months, and they're going to make the tea, and they're going to kind of like, kind of remember what to do next. And you'll see their hand go right for the proper implement. And then you'll see the blind take over the goat and jump back. The bodyguard, they learned it. So this article, he said how when they teach over there, you use very few words.

[16:02]

And it's mostly observation where you watch. maybe for months. And it's not so much talking about, pick the bowl up, what we're saying. If you watch somebody do it over and over again, your body's learning. I'm not saying they're not going to talk at all about it, but basically you learn with your body. Until you can do that with ease. So I think somehow what we do here with our rules of stepping and how to step, if we let our body do this, if something happens to us, then we start expressing possibly our tribulations. And I remember there was a Japanese nun here for a while, a couple of years, and she had studied tea ceremony in ,, and she said how she started out, she would stay outside the room, and she could see in.

[17:46]

And her teacher would just give her the bowl that they had to clean. They did that for three or four months, just cleaning and looking. And then they would just come in, and they'd So I don't know what's the point.

[18:54]

I'm not going to disappoint. Yeah, that's it. I came in today, I felt I had a beginning, and if I had an end, I'm not quite sure if I can tweak it. I think I've already passed the middle. But I brought something to the beginning. This is

[19:58]

or a 17th century Taoist commentary on one of the hexagons in Egypt. Not clinging to forms not falling into voidness, not material, not empty. Since it is not a matter of seeking the real, one is not excluded the artificial either. Ever calm, yet always responsive. Always responsive, yet ever calm. It is not darkness, yet resembles darkness. It is darkness, but actually not darkness.

[21:05]

External things cannot enter. Inside, thoughts cannot arise. One does not seek reality, but reality is here. I didn't say good morning, so I'll say good morning now. Good morning. I was 18 at that time, so I've been out here for... 14 years.

[22:19]

And the Baha'is were very good people, but there was a lot of faith in, you know, this is what they had to say and you believed it or you didn't do it. So at one point After five years, I just decided that I was no longer willing to just accept it and to go along with it. So about the same time, I was in San Francisco and I started working for a neurosurgeon. And in the same office working there was Irene Horowitz, who probably most of you know. She runs the Zendo in the evening, for those of you who don't know who she is. So Irene and I have been friends for probably 10 years. For the first seven and a half years that I knew her, I knew that she came to Zen Center, and I knew that sometimes she'd say, well, I can't work late today because I really want to go to Zen Center and do Zazen.

[23:32]

But I think during those years, I really had no idea what Zazen was. I had no idea that she came here and stared at the wall for 40 minutes. And I can't imagine why I didn't ask her during those years what exactly it was. I think twice during that time she invited me to a lecture, once was here and once was at Green Gulch. I don't remember who I heard. It was probably Baker Roche, but I'm not sure about that. didn't understand a word at all. It just did not impress me at all. I was real intimidated by the chanting, by the bowing, and just had no interest whatsoever. I thought it was a little strange that Irene was involved in it. So two and a half years ago, there was a period in my life when a couple of things happened at the same time.

[24:39]

diagnosed as having a pre-ulcer syndrome. And so I got it into my mind that maybe I needed to do something to relax myself. And I began thinking about meditation. And also at that time, I'd been living with a man for seven years. And at that point, he was in the Army. And at that point, he was sent to Virginia for six months. And I had these images of myself wandering around the apartment, sort of, from room to room in this sort of depressed phase of my life. That wasn't the case, by the way, that I had these ideas that this was going to happen, so I thought that I needed something outside to keep me going. So, Irene and I went to Green Gulch one Sunday, shortly after he went to Virginia, and we did Sazen instruction. And the next day I came here in the afternoon and sat, And pretty much for the last two and a half years I've been here every day doing Zaza.

[25:45]

I moved into the building a year ago. Actually, it was a year and nine days ago that I moved into the building. I was pretty excited about my anniversary of being here for a year. And at this point, I'm just doing my practice. I've gotten tremendously involved in temple jobs. As some of you might have noticed, I sort of seem always to be doing something. And I feel that that's my function here and that's what I want to do here. I eventually hope to become a priest. I don't really see myself going in the direction of being a teacher as far as giving lectures. I see myself going off in another direction, which I don't really know if there's these directions, but I have in my mind that there's the teaching direction and there's the functionary direction.

[27:00]

And I see myself being a functionary. . We're not sure that you're a functioner. I function. I do things. Forming rituals. Okay. I like being in the Zendo, and that's why I see myself going in that direction.

[28:21]

So I have a feeling I'll be there for a long time. Fortunately, Diane is somebody who is... I need to always be learning something. I always need to have new things coming up. And Diane seems to know that, and she's sort of piling more things onto me, which is good for me. Although I have this terror that at some point I'm going to learn everything. Then I'm not quite sure what I'll do. so anyway that's at this point in my life i'm i'm i own my own business i do medical accounting and i hope to go to tassajara maybe next january so i'm trying to phase out my business but in the meantime i've just moved up to the second floor so if you wonder why there's these sounds of printers coming from two doors down from the dokusan room it's because that's where my business is so

[29:30]

I think that's about it. We've covered past, present, and future. I think that's it. Does anybody have anything to ask? Richard, it wasn't clear after the first time you sat while you came back inside the moon. It wasn't clear to me. Sorry. When I first came here to sit? Yeah. I don't know why I came here. No, it was clear why you came. Oh, it was clear to you? Why you came back. Why? What impressed you about the first time that made you want to do it again? Or made you decide to do it again? Next. I'd like to know, in your emphasis on temple jobs, how much mindfulness is a part of the practice?

[31:09]

Not how much mindful you practice, but how much mindful you practice. Actually, just remembering to do eight temple jobs every week. I have this constant awareness all the time what day it is and what has to be done. And it's been a great practice for me because normally I don't remember things like that. I've really had to discipline myself a lot into phasing myself that way, so I'm always there when I'm supposed to be there. All right, next you can cut. It's just a moment.

[32:16]

There's something that, well, I haven't had a chance to say for a long time. I think it's, I'm glad to be able to say it. with me here. It's not here, but there. Here is the crack that, it will be yours to crack. I'm going to eat before I have to find my bike. How did the concept, the efforts of you, the people that came to York and then to you, start to practice?

[33:28]

I couldn't believe it all because He was a good man. [...] You say, how do you like me? How do [...] you like me? I am a Brick City person. All my early years in Brick City.

[34:35]

What experience that happened to me in Brick City, I hate very little. It's very certain. I can't wait. I could have been like a 12-year-old or something like that. I was growing up, you know. You know what, I don't think, right? Out and out. This is what I found. You know, I grew up. [...] It was very important. But when we were in the summer, the summer, particularly, you know, it was quite hot to be in the sun, quite muggy. It was a wonderful day in New York City. But on this day, I was not alone.

[35:46]

I was alone. I remember being stuck with the thought, why will people feel sorry for me? I remember being sorrowed by that thought. I don't know if it was infused by it or something, but we get rid of it. We get it. Because I didn't know why it would dry. A few years later, I couldn't think more about it. happy was that it's not how I even felt. In great contrast, I need to image other myself, which was probably your kid. Probably not your kid.

[36:48]

All of us probably were. You talk that way. You swear it that way. You shout it, and you gently shout it, and then you go, ooh, happy. Very my loneliest I was so angry, I shook up. Unconsciously thinking of myself. Which was an example of how we remove ourselves. So I said, I'm really sorry for myself. One day, you could ride, like I'm somewhere in New York, you could ride anywhere for a nickel. The main effort could be that it would cost, it would cost very little, it would cost nothing. The world was over to me on that.

[37:49]

I mean, it was two nickels, though, in the combat. But I couldn't. I overlooked those possibilities. I didn't see the reality of what was available and offered to me. Instead, I was really part of that. I didn't feel separation. It wasn't clear. It reminded me of this experience a couple of weeks ago. I'm suddenly going with the internal, starting, questions and discussion. One young man said, He described how he has been practicing for 10 years and travels around a lot and goes to various places in this country, Europe as well.

[39:02]

He said, he asked some question about, when I go to these places, why aren't they more open? Why aren't they more friendly? Why aren't they warmer? especially in democracy, especially why don't they show who with them are not? Why aren't we more open? In the field of this problem, if it's, if it's not separate, if it's really separate, if it wasn't seen, if it wasn't networked, was be offering him. He would just be extremely happy. Separate, yes. Salish curses, practicing. Couldn't visit him, but more, more.

[40:08]

Even more, at least. MacMillan had these opportunities more. He was asking why it wasn't very more open. We want communication. We want a relationship with somebody. It's two-way. It's two-way. Except that this year, if somebody gives you a new picture, you know, you see it in time. And maybe sometimes we need someone for love.

[41:10]

We didn't have some predication. We want to establish some rapport, relationship, and other person. Maybe you're tired. Maybe you're shy. Maybe you're angry. Maybe you're frightened. Or maybe you're just distracted, behind the line. So we need connections now. ideal for us. We don't stay satisfied and we don't become dissatisfied because it's not real. We want to have communication. We have to be aware of the person. And now it's up to us to do so that we can have some relationship and not let the mistake be some cause of separation.

[42:28]

Or others will be a cause of separation. We can give up our own intuitive, easy one in that moment. Then we can understand the situation and we'll be able to make a good commitment. But we may not be able to make a good commitment. But it requires awareness, acceptance, acknowledgement of the person, the situation. That one man at Greenhouse, I have the feeling it's not so difficult.

[43:42]

I think it's the reason why I started practice. I feel not bad. I'm suffering. I'm suffering. We've been suffering through the story of this fact because of that. We need to keep it up. My other people, my lady-in-command, Siddhartha, he was fighting. So I believe what he knows is suffering, and very low belief. People want to help everybody. But I bet you he felt some personal pain before that. I don't know how many of us here came to this practice because we started this practice

[44:45]

Maybe he wants to get everything from his wife. You can see seven points. You don't come to practice. You come because you feel something painful. Separation is not unusual. What we do with it is important. Our attitude toward it is important. Why? somewhere somewhere somewhere in the that said, on life, there's a series of adjustments.

[45:50]

I don't know if anyone said that. Keep it out of life. What most people look at, like Matt White, on adjustment after the other. I think we feel that way perhaps because we live in such a mechanical world. We have watches, we have stoves, mechanical pencils. And at another level, we have computers, airplanes, factories. We say, we have to adjust it before we can use it.

[47:14]

And I didn't get back to it and say, oh, wait, I have to stop writing so I can adjust the letter. Or I don't want to adjust my life because it doesn't work. So we went in a world where it didn't work only because we could adjust them. And we think of the suggestion of being, you know, close the gap. To put the gap between where it is where it shouldn't be. That makes a big difference. I think about just not watches. I don't want to have to cut it or something. Adjust it. So people can't adjust it. You don't have to change that number. A car doesn't always have to adjust something before it goes.

[48:16]

So you think that they adjust things before they work. Newcomer to this practice thinks to get the white one before I came into my life. Don't get in the cycle, but don't be too old, you can't cut before now, you don't adjust yourself before getting a good one. It comes in a way, we've established a mechanical world, it reinforces personality. You have to do something before you can become something. In this practice, there is no such thing as incremental adjustment.

[49:21]

Our idea is not to do just what we do. Our idea is not I have to adjust it before it works. No, just before. I'm adjusting it more like a flow. A flow of water or breeze. If you look at the forming of the river, we don't say what the way the river is coming, we guess at itself. We look at the river and the rocks, we cry.

[50:27]

Following and adjusting are separate. It's not that we don't think about it. In fact, the adjustment is being some special step like we did before. You know the story in the poem. The last part of Get Your Koan, the master, he said, he said, it's fading himself. The monk comes and he says, the nature of the wind is constant and it appears everywhere. So why are you fanning yourself? I said, well, you understand the truth of the nature of the universe, but you don't understand the truth of it.

[51:41]

It appears everywhere. I said, what is the truth of it? It's everywhere. It's the fancy stuff. And it's one for the right. This story going in with. You know what I mean? I had to make good use of it. People have waited 20 years to use it. You know, this story is about how you do it, why, just by using it. It's brilliant. [...] But in the everyday world, for some people, life seems to be a series of very big adjustments, big conflicts with difficulty.

[52:56]

Somebody feels that they're going to do something, a very big adjustment. I'm saying, no, it's too much. I can't do it. But it's like that. Everything seems to be big, just couldn't keep doing it. It only leads to more feeling of separation, very bad feeling, anger. Non-Muslims are committed to suicide, murder, or great suffering. Usually, most people understand that it wouldn't be good, it wouldn't be good if our life were to be made with really small adjustments. If you do some big things, they don't track you.

[54:03]

do it all at once, but small adjustments. In that way, we can give. We can give. If your friend comes and says, I'm raising, I need you to raise $1,000, we'll probably give $100. And he says, could you give me a dollar? He said, oh, of course, actually, of course. So, you know, the woods are not small adjustments. It's how we keep sailing, how we can become well-balanced, like a well-balanced society, how we learn and how we treat. You've got to manage. That's a good idea. You've got to manage it so you can do it. But our practice is beyond any notion of adjustment.

[55:18]

No such thing as big adjustment. No such thing as small adjustment. Before we stop the mind, there is no separation. There is no gap. So there is no feeling of needing to make adjustment. One can have no separation. aware and acknowledge. Then there is no two, just one. No separation, just one. So no need to adjust. You need to think about adjusting.

[56:22]

You do what? Well, that means a kind of astrology. You know, just a little. Just a little. Awareness. Well, awareness, analogy, the river, clear, done. Sometimes we discover our mind went a little weird, so we go back to yesterday. We're back. And we learn from that kind of experience that we want to have continuous awareness, continuous presence, we have to make continuous effort. Continuous effort, continuous awareness.

[57:26]

The biggest block in the notion that we can always get an adjustment. It's kind of amazing. You can go about daydreaming, but it feels so good. I can always get back. I don't need an adjustment. wouldn't be that kind of attitude. And you're going to have a flowing kind of mind. [...] Success in everyday life.

[58:43]

People who are successful in everyday life, what we say about them is, oh, they know how to make the right kind of moves. We don't have to make the right kind of rules, which means we don't have to make adjustments. We know what to do, when to do it, and who to do it with. We don't have to make any adjustments. Some of it's a football coach, a power cushion. to manage a business or something successful, like society's named it, because we know how to make the right moves. Then we get success. That means, sorry it's a bad point, but for us, true success, true success, is not

[59:54]

It's very captivating. It's very captivating. When you success, you continue with confidence. Continue with confidence that we will be responsive Even in this situation, without feeling the need to adjust, this is true success. What's the point? It's an important situation to be like this with each other, to have some relationship with each other.

[60:56]

And you've known it, and you've treated it, from communication and through relationship. It's quite important. And not just because it's a kind of responsibility. good friends for each other, have society go very well, take responsibility, have good relationship. But actually, good communication, good relationship is our true nature. It's absolutely our true nature. Understand that. You would think of the Egyptian.

[61:58]

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