You know, in Buddhism, we're trying to kill you, and some of you are putting up a pretty good fight. And you means some person that prefers you to other things. We're coming up to the session which commemorates Buddha entering nirvana, enlightenment, and which our teacher entered nirvana. And the last couple times I've been talking about pure practice. And you shouldn't confuse pure practice and preparatory practice. Some of your questions

[01:07]

are about this difference. I mean, you can say there's no difference between preparatory practice and pure practice. But actually, for most of us, we're trying some kind of preparatory practice, which sometimes is pure practice. Only in this next session you can sit one hour. That's wonderful. Supposedly, Buddha had this big fight with Mara, Mara's daughters. It's usually personified as, or objectified as evil. And actually, Mara means

[02:13]

everything that's good, the things you prefer. Mara maybe stands for home and family, all kinds of things that are really important. But it stands for preferring those things over other things. So there's quite an interesting kind of play, interplay, between Buddha conquering so-called conquering desire of Mara, and at the same time, accepting the glass of milk from the beautiful or not beautiful, I don't know, milkmaid who sounds like had sort of a crush on him, hung

[03:19]

out near him, some kind of tender relationship, as described. Anyway, he gave up asceticism and accepted the milk. And when he died, he ate, no one knows, but anyway, it's that spoiled pork. And there's other theories, but the other theories which try to make it a non-meat dish, usually ascribe it to some edible that doesn't grow in India, anywhere near, but I don't know. Anyway, the story is he ate pork. But if he was such a great teacher, why did he eat spoiled pork? And Buddha's enlightenment is followed by, is preceded by accepting the milkmaid, the milk.

[04:32]

And it's preceded by his confrontation with desire. In the same way, I was talking yesterday about how we can see what looks like our desire or attachment or our fear may be a signal for us to practice. So we should enter the light areas and the dark areas, things we particularly like or and the

[05:42]

things we particularly avoid. To accept everything is to be Buddha. When we say observe things, we don't mean to stand separate from them. You have to be mixed up in it and mixed up by it to actually observe it. It's like scientists find, if they use an electron microscope, to look at something. You know, the looking at it bombards it with electrons and things and changes it when they look at it. So if you observe something from outside, you change it. You have to be it itself, which is mixed up. You have to actually poison pork and actually die. So nirvana and enlightenment

[07:06]

are such mixed up ideas. Buddhism, it's hard to distinguish which is which. Maybe there's some feeling that maybe everybody has to give up everything when they die, whether they like it or not. But if you're practicing Buddhism, you give up before your physical death. You give up everything or accept everything. You can't be free unless you accept everything. You can't accept everything unless you're free. There's some exclusion, you know, you're not free. So mara means to find the areas which you don't want to enter or

[08:15]

don't want to give up. If you're attached to family, maybe you should be a monk sometimes. If you're attached to being a monk, you should also give up the monastery. I don't mean you get a divorce or leave the monastery. If you're attached to your teacher, you have to give up your teacher. How to do that is not for each of us, you know. To enter the areas we haven't, don't want to enter. To accept the areas we don't want to accept. There's no instruction

[09:18]

manual because there's no, mostly you can't see the door. So you can just have this strong feeling of readiness. And if you're ready, you're ready. That little guy we talked about yesterday, the signal. There's the little door that you're scared to go in through. But still, it doesn't mean something mechanical like, oh, I'm scared to do that, so you do that. Just the

[10:33]

readiness itself is entering. If you're actually ready, there's no hesitation. So in our practice, we should give up the idea of time and space. Mostly time and space are just an extension of your self-possibilities. I can do such and such next week. I can go over there. But here, right here, is all there is. And there flows through here. Here flows through there. So we practice Shikantaza without any idea

[11:43]

of time. When you exhale, it's going to be your last exhale. And it slowly goes out. And you fade away. Just fade away. Maybe you're going to die. No effort, even, to make the inhale. If you don't inhale, it's okay. We'll carry you out of this endo. But probably you will. But we don't want to emphasize inhaling too much. Trying to be alive is one of our problems. You don't have to try. You're going to be alive for a while, probably. Oh, no, not very long, but pretty long.

[12:45]

But your life will flow back, flow in you each moment like an inhale. If you emphasize anything, you emphasize your exhale. So our practice to be ready is, in Zazen, is to go away with each exhale. Or give up with each exhale. When you can really do that, then we say big mind or something. Some, the usual you that prefers things dies. And some other, true nature or something,

[14:10]

what you say, comes up. Just give up on each exhale. And you don't have to wait till Sashin, you know. You can start right now. Each period of Sashin, you know, it's not so useful to have an idea of seven days of struggle.

[15:36]

I'll get through it. That's some idea of time, you know, which just extends you who's going to get through it. Just go to the first period. No idea of time or anything, just giving up on each exhale. And next period, same feeling. Next period, same feeling. Maybe eventually someone will tell you that Sashin is over. And there's no point in struggling with our pain the same way. As if someone's going to overcome it. Someone's going to stand it.

[16:40]

You should, you know, know your pain. Your mixed up feelings. Everything. Without any context of it's going to end or be overcome or begin. No idea of anything. Thank you. Thank you.

[18:08]

If you find your... This kind of practice is like maybe a billiard ball or something. There's no way to get inside it. If you find your practice is sort of no idea of anything practice, it's pretty boring. Or you fall asleep since you have no idea of anything. Sleeping is the closest you come to no idea of anything. And it's sort of true. It's a very deep habit that as soon as we let go of our usual consciousness, we fall asleep. And if we don't fall asleep, we don't know what to do. My daughter. I discovered jumping rope to no form, no color, no... I don't know what will become of her.

[19:26]

She tried Zazen. She likes to go to service. She gets up at no one's home. She comes over to Vizenda. And for a while she came to Zazen, but now she just comes to service. When she went to Zazen, she sat down. In five minutes she thought of everything she could think of. And then there were 35 minutes where she couldn't think of anything. She said it was terribly boring. Usually we don't have that problem of 35 minutes when you can't think of anything. But we get to that point too, and then it's pretty boring. Just... Anyway, that means you're still doing preparatory practice. And you have to find some way, you know, to make an effort to stay awake.

[20:33]

To have a kind of awakeness through you. And so you follow your breathing. Breathing is an easy way to follow your consciousness into your knees, ligaments, feet. You know, we have... If something happens in your stomach, say, you have nerves there which send information to your consciousness or processing station or something, and you... You know there's some lump in your stomach or gas, but until those nerves are bumped, you know, in some way, we don't feel anything in our stomach or legs.

[21:41]

But the nerves are there, but we're not subtle enough to have our consciousness there, unless there's some gross pressure or bump or... But actually your consciousness can be everywhere. You know, if I say consciousness and you think, ah, I know what consciousness is, then you try to apply a unit of that to your knee. And it's not what I mean. But anyway, we follow our breathing. Maybe imagining it's going, that you can feel it. Maybe imagination is very useful, because it can help us, lead us. So you can imagine how my breathing is going to my knee and to my foot and up across my back or in my shoulder.

[22:48]

And you can begin to have access to your whole body and everything that happens, not just your physical body. Instead of feeling located somewhere, where you feel located. Eventually, you know, there's no location at all. So we can say that you've been killed. Do you have some questions you'd like to talk about? Yeah.

[24:06]

I was wondering when you were getting all this stuff done. I thought that even when you get it done, just when you decide to do this, I mean, don't you just have to go along? Because if you do that, you have to decide to do anything that will affect you. But I just have to wait for it, so I can stay there and wait for it. And I know that I'll wait for it from all of us. I mean, that's how my practice has been ever since I started. But all together, eternally, I always just have to wait for it.

[25:18]

That's what I mean. We make a decision in our practice. We do make decisions. But not by some will, but as Darlene says, when... you're ready to make the decision.

[26:21]

But still, it's a decision, a kind of decision. And the basis of decision is very mysterious, you know, and fundamental to this life. I don't know how to explain it. It's a little bit like the problem in Christianity of free will and, what is it, determinism or something. God decides everything and you have free will. That's some Christian expression of the same problem, but it's not possible to explain.

[27:31]

But accepting, you know, is everything else. Just as it is, to accept the world just as it is, is to create the world, to decide to create the world. It's the nature of being alive. Some other... At that point, to be the higher being of God. Well, sometimes, I think there's a...

[28:44]

I don't know what you're saying. Those are interesting problems. You can do whatever comes next, but if you find that you're at a place where you are making a decision, like, ah, should I do this or should I feel this other feeling, you know, let go into this other feeling, then try one or the other. Some kind of experiment in our practice. But when your practice is closer and closer to what I call pure practice, there's no decision, just... there's nothing you have to do.

[30:00]

But when you have to do something, then try it this way. But don't try it with the idea that it's some fixed idea, just a try-on. Do you understand that? Yeah? Counting your breaths, following your breaths, or anything you do in your practice. I think pure practice means maybe two things.

[31:08]

One is the effort to... when you're doing your practice, within the doing of your practice, the effort to give up doing is pure practice. And completely having given up doing is pure practice. Anyway, it's just words for just some attempt to talk about something we're doing, to give ourselves some more space in it. But actually, there's just one whole you, which includes all of us. And we can't divide it up. And it's divisions are continuous.

[32:22]

But I have five minutes. You said when you gave up, you said, I believe you. You said go up. What do I mean by that? I don't know. When you decided to become Georgian.

[33:54]

Why don't you stay with your questions? And giving yourself permission. Do you mean permission as I've spoken about it sometimes? I don't know, you know, to make some distinction between them, I could say.

[35:14]

The decision is to see the inevitable, to do what you know is already done, or that you have to do. Permission is to do what you know you can't do. So permission comes from some other part of this whole being other than you. You can give yourself permission sometimes, but actually it's much better practice to receive permission from everything, or from your teacher. Does that make sense? Yes.

[36:16]

Do we sit with our left hand over our right? Let me check. Yes. I don't have any explanation, no one has any explanation, though there's lots of explanations, so when I hear the explanations I forget. But most Buddha statues sit with right hand, have the right hand on top of the left. And Rinzai sex sits with the right hand on top of the left. Soto sits with left hand on top of the right. But sometimes it sits with right hand on top of the left. Okay? You have your own left hand, and your own right hand.

[37:40]

Why does your left hand sit on top of your right hand? Why don't you get down inside your left hand and ask? I'm not kidding, you know, I'm... It's the only way to find out why your left hand is on top of your gay left hand. What are you doing on top of my right hand? And you can find out, maybe, sometimes, because you can go, can't see, or just switch. Put your right hand on top. Try it out, see how it feels. Sometimes we sit this way, too. Sometimes, Rinzai sits this way a lot, Soto doesn't sit this way so much. And there are various ways to hold your mudra. One is...

[38:47]

Japanese people have rather short arms, you know, so... There's various ways. Tibetan people, too, have rather short arms. And there's one unbelievable posture, I think I've tried to demonstrate it, that you lock your elbows in. I couldn't possibly do it with my arms, which are long. But Japanese people often hold their mudra up here. Which is rather different from us, you know, up to your navel. Because our arms are rather longer. So... Suzuki Roshi did it both ways. When he first came to America for most of his life, he sat with his hands resting on his lap or on his foot. And then later he moved up. Someone told him, oh, you should sit with your hands up. He said... So he was always quite willing to try.

[39:51]

That's one reason the many rules we have in Zen Center are so confused. Because he would teach us how to do Kihin. And then some visiting teacher would come and say, oh, I do Kihin this way. So Suzuki Roshi would turn to all of us and say, well, from now on we'll do Kihin this way. So we'd all change. Pretty soon everybody was completely mixed up with what he was saying. I usually stuck by the way Suzuki Roshi told us first, just because... As you know, I guess I told you that when Suzuki Roshi first... His English was not so good at first. And it was hard to figure out what he was saying a lot. I had a lot of problem with the word alert. Because I thought he was saying our heart. And he kept telling me to be more our heart. And I thought that was, you know, instead of being a Bodhisattva, I was supposed to be more like an our heart.

[40:57]

I had a problem with that for two or three years. And he also said you should have your thumbs... Separated just by the thickness of a piece of paper. Actually he said your thumbs should touch together with enough pressure as if to support a piece of paper. So I spent more than two years... Learning to keep my thumbs just barely, barely separated. And I could feel this little synapse, a vibe, a little heat. And sometimes they'd just bounce off each other. And I'd say, oh, failed. But I actually got pretty good after all. I could sit there and they almost never touched. And I could still feel the warmth between them.

[42:00]

But then I found out that it was wrong. But it was wonderful to do it. So it actually doesn't make much difference whether it's wrong or right. But then there's... You can hold your mudra this way with your thumbs and first finger rather in a parallel plane. Vertical. Or you can turn it back, have your thumbs in the middle. Or you can have it either those two positions and with your hands flat or turned back. Like this. With your thumbs more or less against your stomach. In other words, you can have just this part of your hand against your body, or close. And your thumbs out in a plane. Or you can tip your hand this way so that this point and your thumbs more or less touch. Generally, Suzuki Yoshi favored the way in which the palms, your fingers and palms are more or less flat.

[43:10]

Horizontal. And this is vertical. But he thought it was all right to sit this way too. Actually, each way is slightly different. So... Anyway, the idea is that you're left... Left. Now, Nancy Wilson Ross, who's written several books or edited several books on Zen, before she wrote on Zen, wrote a novel that was a bestseller in the 30s, I guess the 30s, called The Left Hand is the Dreamer. It's kind of interesting that she would see that

[44:15]

and then spend the rest of her life writing about and interested in Buddhism. But anyway, The Left Hand is the Dreamer, maybe. Or some more passive side. And the right hand is more active. So, in Soto, which emphasizes... Zazen. Zazen. An emptiness more than Koan study. Bringing your mind into some confrontation. Emphasizes putting your left hand on top of your right. And your left foot on top in full lotus. I think that's right.

[45:16]

But actually, most of you sit left or right depending on how your legs work. And you don't have too much choice. Though some of you may be able to switch. So, since most of us don't have so much choice, we have to find out what it means to have the left foot on top and the right foot on top. Maybe when we only always have the right foot on top, or only always have the left foot on top. But it doesn't... By the time you're able to distinguish the differences, it doesn't make any difference. So, it's not so important to figure out. But there's some slight difference. It's pretty important that we bring our hands together.

[46:20]

It's important that we bring our hands together. It's important that we bring our hands together. Come to know and recognize that there's an opportunity. Like gold. You hear in the back? She said she's come to have some recognition of boundaries or realm of her own life. And it is important to explore it or find what the boundaries are. I don't... I think that's almost hopeless. Like searching for the grail. Just give up the boundaries in your breathing. If you can give up actually one boundary,

[47:51]

all the other boundaries, spring up to fill the hole. And then you can get rid of them. Anyway, we take one thing, one year. You know, Dogen said something like, on what roadside weeds will the dew of our life fall? And then we think, this weed is not so good, I'm going to... the treasure is over there. Now obviously, we all know that that doesn't make sense. But still we do it. The treasure is right before us. Doesn't matter which weed.

[48:56]

So we... There's no point in having any idea of time and space. Just... You know, I can say a simple verbal thing. That you know, no matter what you do in your life, wherever you go, you'll always just be in a place you could call here. That's really quite simple. But if you fully, fully, fully know that, most of your problems will be gone because you'll... you'll know completely what's here, and then everything that's there will... will become here, moment after moment. There's no need to make decisions or anything about your life.

[50:09]

Whatever roadside weed, in this case it's Zensen, Tassajara, and... and your breath. So we practice, not so much by exploring out there somewhere, but what can you do now? Well, you're breathing, that's all. Where are the boundaries in my breathing? So if you ask yourself some question, what is the limit of my realm? You can immediately apply that same question to your breathing. What is the limit of my breathing? The other day, I said something about...

[51:14]

that... practice for women was a little different than for men, or Zazen was. And that... I guess I said that in a rather curious way because I've had some curious questions about it. So I said I'd say something. Actually, I think the... the geography is the same, it's just that the map is a little different. There's usually more difference between person to person than there is between man and woman. But there is some... the way one makes one's... through the countryside of practice is a little different, but it's just a matter of emphasis. But it's also true, there's some difference

[52:26]

if you come from the middle of America and if you come from the East Coast. Actually, there's some difference in the way you practice. But still, the geography is the same, just the roads are a little different. Questioner asks a question inaudible Some doors? Just a door. Questioner asks a question inaudible No, it belongs up there. Well...

[53:28]

Scouting around a bit is okay too, you know. Do you understand what I mean? You know, um... I don't know if this is a problem for you, but for quite a lot of people it's a problem. Will I go crazy? In practice or in your life, in various ways. Questioner asks a question inaudible And how to cope with that kind of fear,

[54:34]

which we can't say isn't a real fear, or a fear about a real possibility. I mean, sometimes some of us do go crazy. So you can't pretend, well, you can't go crazy, because that's just fooling yourself. I'm just talking about this, you know, as an example of the door, you know, any door. But still, it's also true that you can't go crazy. Where are you going to go if you go crazy? This is just a big mental hospital we live in anyway. Whether you're inside one wall or outside another wall, it's all... it's not going to change things.

[55:40]

Questioner asks a question inaudible The problem is, you know, we have this bully that bullies us. And if the idea of going crazy disturbs you, the bully will threaten you with going crazy. And if you finally get over that one, then it'll think up something even worse to scare you. And you have to find some way to work with the bully. And the bully will do everything possible to prevent you from killing him. So you have to, like just when you were bullied as a kid, I suppose you were all bullied as a kid sometime, you have to figure out how to work with the bully, play his game too. If he takes your hat... Okay, you can have my hat. So likewise, it's really quite simple

[56:56]

if you're being bullied by somebody who says, well, you're going to go crazy, eventually you have to say, all right, I'll go crazy. Anyway, you know, the Indians had... Indian, the context which Buddhism grew up in had some idea of a heaven and a hell. And the Buddhist idea of nirvana is neither heaven nor hell. And a Buddha should be able to exist in heaven and hell. So if going crazy is... if that's where you're going, you know, Buddha goes crazy too. But we don't, you know, just practically speaking,

[58:06]

we don't want to go crazy and be nothing but crazy. So it makes some sense to know what your strength is. And know what kinds of things make you feel very uneasy or super uneasy. And... But when you have some real feeling for your own territory, you can't... That's no solution, that's like preparatory practice. At some point you have to say, whatever happens, okay. If I go crazy, if I have cancer, whatever, problem. Problem.

[59:12]

If no problem, if I never have any suffering to help me through Buddhism, I have no real problem, I'll never be enlightened, I don't suffer like other people. Well, then you have to be ready to practice Buddhism with no suffering. Never putting your right foot on top of your left. But knowing what putting your right foot on top of your left is. .

[60:15]

.

[60:17]

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