Enlightenment as Everyday Life; "Nothing Special"

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Serial: 
BZ-01421
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Koun Ejô and Suzuki-roshi commentaries, Sesshin Day 3

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Auto-Generated Transcript

well yesterday's talk
ah
towards the end
i wanted to and on time so i had regressed read hurried through the last part and parcel
well how can be on her into the last part
so
i said that i will
i talk about that today
so i do when
fulfill my promise
but i also have something else that i'm i'm talking about so i'll rushed through this
slowly
i can't remember exactly what the last part was but
i'll start from where am
ah koon angel
talks about a summary of com your job
and he also mentioned the ocean field samadi
ah he says from the beginning this somebody who come here joe joe my is the dojo dojo
we usually associate that with a day or martial arts and also them
a dojo and zendo gender is a place where you sit zazen
dojo is the practice place in a monastery so if you good to aig didn't exactly com present because the dojo because the much live there it's the their home for dojo is more like in the in that sense homeplace though
way place
and i literally though
joe the
the way place to place where you practice the way
and then though is a place where you practice of him
but he said that this somebody is the dojo in other words we say sometimes people come to a you know when i shall try then i shall i can finally returned home that's the dojo the to dojo is
when i said thousand i really felt at i returned home so
that's experiencing this mit
a dojo now returning home
so he says from the beginning this samadhi com users in my is the dojo
the place
would add a place to practice which is the ocean of buddhahood
ah which is kanzi can are currently in the i the great ocean samadhi
it's like the ocean
ah
now is the metaphor for buddha nature or for our nature to nation or
we talked about the ocean and a wave
so our life is a wave and this ocean but ocean away by the same thing
java is the summary of
copy and since i'm i is the great ocean samadhi which is ah
we get separated because the ocean is a nature
so this is the to him which is the sitting in the buddha the practice of the buddha which has been faithfully transmitted since you are already a child of the buddha sits stably in a manner of the buddhist practice
so you simply practicing buddha who you are
i never sit in the manner of hell dwellers hungry ghosts animals fighting spirits human beings heavenly beings ostrava walk-ins are project gudas so he's talking about the six world so the world
over the heavenly would don't sit in a matter of
those in the six world the heavenly world the hell realm fighting demons animals hungry ghosts and humans
you're sitting buddhist practice so when we should thousand although it is human practice it's good practice
buddhist practice as because we are buddha
we're not seeking buddha were practicing because my buddha when seeking enlightenment were practicing in there because enlightenment is or what leads just to practice
where does nothing to seek simply express and buddha-nature and are enlightenment
so
these six world practices are
ah

ah
i'm not practices obliteration
the practices with practices of the six world
design of the six world
our practices with cheapest bound to the world

so this is a footnote here he says this these refer to attitudes toward practice which are based on a desire to gain some sort of reward
the sitting of traffic as and project buddha's refers to an attitude in which practice in viewed as a means to escape from samsara
in hokie hokie which is a dog games account of his
dash is docusign to actually with his teacher know joe
no joe says apparently the in of in our hot or a shrub aka and of a project buddha is not favoured flavored but and so is not flavored by desire yet it lacks compassion
therefore it is different from the zetas of the both buddhas and eight yards in which compassion is primary and one bar to save on bags
so that's one big difference
so hum
most
the a meditation practices of those new six world or to gain something
whereas thousand is the practice of the buddha which is not again something
hmm
so this is a practice she can't answer in this way for pregnant she kept other is the practice of no gaining mind
don't waste your time this is the dojo of straight mind straightforward mind and this is called call milazzo za my inconceivable liberation
hmm
so now i had planned actually to
talk about this
comment on istock issue the key she's
which got labeled not sticking to enlightenment
yes
yeah
a thousand
ancestors is not only not gain something from doing something away
however screech in here in well
giving something away
is like am
selling watered by the river
in which you
ah anybody can
and in which there's no price
except your life

ah
so
security the this talk is about the reason i wanted to talk about just because he talks about
the last day of machine and the first day of your life after fishy
so he could he says the one on the sixth ancestor said to dwell on emptiness and to keep a calm mind is not thousand
oh
after all and are very folders
if you've ever read the platform teacher you run across this these statements were
is don't sit is has done to censuses as don't sit like in the immobile position like a block of wood you know sentient beings are animated and block of wood is inanimate
so when does he talking about after on you know
he also said just to sit in the cross legged posture is not them
at the same time i always say to you just fit
if you don't understand what our practices and stick to the words you will be confused
but if you understand what real thin is you will know that the ancestors worse or a kind warning for us i can remember reading the platform sutra and running across these phrases after practicing for some time
and thinking this can't be what it says
you know
fifteen hundred years or so of
then practice and
ah about which paul point two thousand sitting and then he saying this someone else mr brent thought about this as well during all that time and if everybody did
so and i thought well what is it that he's actually saying he can't be saying don't sit virgin he can't be saying that this is not the right way
even though that's what dosages is
so we have to understand
and read between the lines to read the actual meaning and not just get hung up on the word
and then i realized
what if he's when he when he's really saying is
don't get caught by sitting zazen don't get attached to sitting like a block of wood
ah
don't stay in in position
oh and thinking this is all there is without
applying this to your life
so
that's what you think that's what we agree that he was talking about
and ah so superior she opens that with and as an opening statement and then the rest of it is kind of like applying the understanding of what six answers you're saying he says now are says she is almost at an end
and soon you will be going back to your homes
and becoming involved in your everyday activity
if you have been practicing truth as in you may be happy to go back to everyday life
you may feel encouraged to go back but if you feel hesitant to go back to your city life or everyday life it means that you stick to thousand
is why this expenses he said if you dwell on emptiness and stick to your practice that is not true versions if you draw an emptiness and stick to spread the practices or them
that's not true love him
hmm
so
ah
i never when i was we sitting at so koji and we'd sit for sheen and secure issues encourage us to come back the next day and sit zazen in the morning
i'm not too you know this is idea we have
of
we sat seven days and now we can take a break and arrest which is okay
but his understood what he was trying to to say was this is one continuous practice of our life where they were sitting in that in or whether we're in our ordinary daily life is not to things
not something separate but
the is not something separate from my daily life
so
ah to just continue to sit ordinary daily period of the right after session is like there's nothing special had happened
don't think there's something special that happen and don't get caught by your samadi
this
you know we have this wonderful
most of us
the when you walk out the door you feel bad
yeah but ah
trailing that everything around you is alive and shining
which is wonderful but
you can't try to capture that
and take it with you
you can only take with you would you have on each moment
so
ah you know this is very common that we tried is we want to stick to something i had this wonderful experience and i've never been able to get there again
kirschner you never will
the arab you will never reach capture anything because the bird is out of the cage
float away
yeah
and you have to see
we have to be able to see where we are as the right bird
so
you may feel encouraged to go back but if you feel hesitant to go back to your city life majestic designs in
you know i was talking to bob
hi know we're not supposed to talk inches shame but i'm trying to bob
we both agreed you know that
fishing had this wonderful feeling and it was just getting going which is getting into it just been began to settle indecision and is over
i'm
and this feeling of gee i wish we could continue this machine and the other hand when it's really going to be nice to go home
so yes it's time to go home you just go home
but you know is a feeling of invariably nice to continue
i remember the accuracy say telling us you know there were people who were we to kill him when always want to sit through opinion
he said when time looking him everybody gets off the time and best champion
together
nobody should the by themselves while everybody else of doing kill him
we want or have been as great really good version and we want to continue that feeling
but the bell rings and it's time to do can have so you should do let go up here wonderful feeling and to kill him
this is practice
that being attached to some special state of mind or some wonderful feeling when it's time to do something you just do it and lack of
this and entered this
sometimes when we have worked period we assign people to do things
you clean the toilet you know hammered the nail new model on and people who can i do cherish i didn't really want to do that
this is arm
a preference
which is highly discouraged
so i remember somebody saying every session they make me clean the toilet
and the heat what a wonderful opportunity you have and
they're thinking gosh you know i will get this lily to created the pilots you know is called the prime the primo activity the fifty monistic
anyway
ah so hey onto some preference that we have some something we want to do i am really like to please let me do that for as much as you asked to do something
which i know
do this
when you're totally free of bit of preference then why aren't you
do something like
and know you would like to do this way and juliet
that's the way it is know finish your local a preference that's why letting go of preference if you want to it if you want to advance in the zen system
this is it this is just isn't just a minute let go of preference
and then you get everything
they finish it that as long as you want something you get nothing
this ago holding tight and let him go
they never let me do anything they always saying now the amish you know dynamic got her
vision i go preference then you can do it everyone
for whatever is appropriate that you want
p they asked me to do these nice things
anyway
when you practice as and moment after moment you will accept what you have now in this moment and you are satisfied with everything you do
the left key that's what's that his about the being satisfied with what's happening in this moment and where you are
and what you're doing
because you just accepted you don't have any problem
are you have any complaints
that is awesome even if you can't do that you at least know what to do
then settings as in will encourage you to do other things as well just as you accept your painful legs while city you accept your everyday life which may be more difficult than users in practice
so actually there's no escape
i remember my first machine
at for koji
and around eleven o'clock i said i can't take this anymore
so i left
and i went down to the marina walked around but there was nothing i could do it was like
the world without their and i wasn't but part of it there was no place for me to to fit into that world
so i went back to that and deserves an issue
and i realized that there was no place i was even though i left sixteen i was not at the good place question go
and my commitment and my whole being with insists she even though i was not there so there no physical except to go back and finish machine
to live with my first lesson
in continuous practice
and that there's no escape there's no place to escape to
hmm
so he says if you come to have a taste of real practice especially in this
and then returned to your busy activity without losing the taste of practice this will be a great encouragement even though it is difficult and even though you are busy you will always have the taste of calmness in your mind not because you stick to it but because you enjoy it
when you enjoy it you don't have to stick to it so if you have a real taste of our practice you can enjoy it all the time whatever you do
so
i'm no
within
if everything we do is
at within practice and if we have continuous practice than everything we do is continuous practice no matter what it is and then there's some feeling of not there's no way to be a victim
you can't be a victim because this is not the world against you this is everything is practice
and so sometimes we say hell is just another place to practice
all the difficult
events in our life i'm just
means a practice
so we come up against very difficult circumstances we can't change the world you know
someone just how we gonna change where have all these terrible things happening
that needs to be addressed through your practice
we have to be able to
except what's happening in the world as
an address it as an element of our practice
otherwise if you can you go crazy

so
this is he may think you have attained enlightenment
but if you are busy or in some difficulty and think you need to have some experience again that is not real enlightenment because it is something as thinking too
real enlightenment as always with you so there's no need for you to stick to it or even to think about it because it is always with you difficulty itself is enlightenment your busy life itself is enlightened activity that is true enlightenment
i'm so a practice because enlightenment because everyday life
am
you know
ah i it was billion that uses if a family of
putting a marker on a boat
the fishermen goes out in the ocean any catches his great big fish so he puts a marker on the boat he tomorrow come back in this place
for those like revisiting your enlightenment experience
you can't find it i can get him to revisit my last match
click can find of it you know for the murder on the boat is like trying to revisit your enlightenment experience
am

hum
this is there's no need to think about enlightenment
enlightenment is always with us is like closer than hands and feet
but if you tried to make it into something
you live it
if you start to fiddle with it you lose it if you try to see it you lose it
you can be it but you can't see it is here as you take a peek
i wouldn't take a peek at my enlightenment
disappeared
you can only act and an enlightened way
which includes
dealing with your difficulty
so is it nowadays people are dating but enlightenment is not something you can see you can meet as a date i've never taken to i'm that daniel my son jay how can you never date you should dad nowadays people
don't be that's old fashioned
i thought what did they do he said they just hang out together
men as to sounds pretty good actually can like that better by system
so if you organize your life and get up at a certain time pick up your bag lunch and you should do it and a certain time and leave for work then even if you have a girlfriend or boyfriend you will beat them for this is interesting kind of that he's turning toward says there's no need to make a day
eight
had a certain time she will come to the corner where a usually see her
that is our way it is rather foolish and troublesome to make a phone call you if you make a date by telephone hey i'm leaving now if she doesn't come to the corner you'll be disappointed
if you do not make a date and she comes to the corner you'd be really happy
say it's like let things happen naturally you know don't try to force the issue but ah
i can remember
in the sixties
yeah fifty when a lot of the zen teachers came to america and they were trying to get people to experience can show and then driving and deakin show in the zendo you know every in a medium and and yelling and shouting you know and if i have a can show experience
this is like forcing and as a like
putting flowers pottinger far as in it and darkroom a fortune and bloom and off season
ah the it come out okay you know as far as but there's something about them this different than a natural for a flower that blooms in it's proper time
so ah you can force a can show will be
but ah
that experience
jim be and difficulty because then the always trying to revisit that experience
suzuki roshi
how always put that never condone that kind of activity
if
the enlightenment of from within the normal activities of your daily life
didn't that make more sense yes enlightenment is shows your daily life as ordinary activity is just that we don't see the ordinary activity as enlightened activity that's a problem when you become enlightened nothing changes
isha that you see something that you thought was ordinary in his real sense in his two cents
you see the real nature of when you always thought was ordinary and and the it is ordinary
ordinary means enlightened
so this is why and our practice we emphasize the ordinariness a daily life
if you stood around like a zen master know that's funny
you should not stand out in some way the person who has good understanding doesn't try to stand out and some special way as enlightened
but may actually the kind of stupid
category get she had been pretty to you're in photos then you should always be little bit stupid
he meant don't stand out in some way don't show off your knowledge or your understanding
because no matter how much understanding we have it still a pittance
ha
so he says this is how you attain enlightenment is not a laughing matter
the real not to make any date means not to expect are set to a stick to enlightenment when you are encouraged by enlightenment and seeing her even just a glimpse of hers enough
it's you know because
a dog in talks about thoroughness qiu jin
thoroughness it's it's a big subject but basically thoroughness means ah synthesis
it means
ah when
you see one thing you realized that that one thing is the whole universe
that's thrown thoroughness so you you understand that
ah
a tree
as eternal life
as well as
temporary life
that's thorough enough for you seen the sacred quality of each thing
of each person each tree each animal each blade of grass
has the same nature
and so throw meaning everything has the same nature
though we respect that nature and we work and an address each
ah entity
as
ha
with the quality

so it's like if you if you're if you're in love you know you may see eye to eye with this person to in love with for a second and it makes your whole day happy you don't have to be with her own name or him on bail
our the because that one gland that one glance includes everything
so that's kinda like the metaphor you don't need so much
that that's what makes it easy to be satisfied

so like the whole relationship is included in the glance in a contact
so this is what the sixth ancestor meant when he said just to dwell and emptiness is not true practice originally originally he paid attained enlightenment by one famous statement without dwelling and anything you have to mine actually the statement is without
the dwelling any place any special place without any special place to stand
you have to mind so if you stick to something you will lose your enlightenment even though you try hard to make a date or an appointment it doesn't work the enlightenment you obtain in that way is something that you stick to not something that is always with you that always encourage
ages you
so
this point is very important even after we finish our sir sheen continue to practice your everyday lives and have real enlightenment this then he talks about machine but
sir
ah
you know we say how do we enter enlightenment
and it's called the gate landscape by move on the big mistake
jake there's no special
place you can enter anywhere
how does where's the place to intervene anywhere my revive right here right now
the change is always open
but the gate of my mind is often closed

so
even though we may not think
our recognize our enlightenment
as long as we
our faithful to our practice
enlightenment is there and at some point you recognize that that's called realization
oh yeah
i see what is now
just what i've been doing a whole on
hum when rinzai with enlightened by overcoat
he said nothing special to go back and then at off

get your question

i appreciate your encouragement for us not to get sg special day for mom
my question is about your practice fresh and different or the line between nothing special and nothing going on oh yeah nothing special means everything is special
right
and if easy for for myself others to can get to
hey nothing nothing special going on because if i think something special going on catching to and so i'm curious about that know edge of practice where we keep the india can keep aware that night kit
what does family lives
the problem with that can do at that
can i understand your question is because we that's the dualistic way of thinking
in which we better we get lost his in dualistic thinking
it's nothing special
well if if you think you do realistically then you think there's nothing special but you know bar
but if you're not thinking do realistically nothing means everything
special needs not special not special meaning special
we have to stop the the domestically
if you if you're thinking too realistically then you fall into that kind of
it's either this or that so nothing special means all thief have this special holiday of
ah belonging to everything else
so hum
betrayed everything in a very special way because you are special because you are you
but it's nothing special just the way it is
so it might be arises where we get discouraged and we feel this
yeah that less
the thread that's just that's that's turned that into his is nothing special going on here because my whole world it is it
he filled with that plateau of discouraged
when it and then the question is where's my practice
three it always turned back to where's my practice how is this practice how is what a the street practice
how is how do i practice with this discouragement so if you if you just leave it you can use the discouragement and discouragement but i'm
i can remember you know times when i was discouraged or
had some kennard a really difficult step going on
and all i could do was sit thousand
i couldn't walk back and forth i could all you do it just two thousand and i should i'm just gonna sit here until
this is resolved
and it it worked
i mean if to examine for a purpose but
but the purpose was to to come back to reality and they come back to stability
so ah
in difficulty and discouragement coming back to stability is the practice
over and over yet you know where we're sitting as i then the have always wondered why are we dreaming and they will keep coming back the prior keep coming back so we we know that's given in zazen but it's the same thing in our daily lives it's not different that's how we practice that
azazel in the zendo and practice in our daily life is exactly the same or mind is always wandering up and would always bring it back
oh heard over him
but if one practice that's how we can taint continue to be aware of our practice and if we just keep doing it a read all the time you know we're lost we get lost and we come back we get lost the and we dream and we wake up
oh no present
no
as a special
ah
i was struck by but
practice tomorrow after
yeah yeah yeah you think about training for her
you do it every year
we're
to djt
but your what that is
special about you
yes
for me
just because the the that sauna
right and it's especially ramp
but everything is especially bit
everything is a special event
there's nothing know that's ordinariness
ordinariness means everything is a special event
you know if you're an athlete you practice you know every day and then you do your act
and then you continue to practice because join your act is especially event but it's only a blip on the screen
you're a musician the practice you know all the time and then you have a concert what are some cheaper and it's especially bad and it has its glory and or whatever or this is appointments or whatever
an easy
he practicing because practicing is what you is is your lunch and the event is an event is just a configuration in that practice
just one other configuration in their practice
so
practice is continuous and then we have events gov
and even poem for sheen
and is very special but the practice is also very special if if you're doing scales you know how better the vehemence of the earth personal practice practice being involved in the every day special quality of
whatever you doing it's on the same
now we say well this is a special practice called sixteen but actually this is ordinary activity and the special practice is what's gonna happen in your daily life when you tomorrow when you wake up that special practice
mrs just ordinary but we just ten think well this is special because that ordinary so we're comparing one to the other and you can just as well turn it around

for special ordinary special ordinary all the same
going with that a make a metaphor i was thinking in a way i
a theatrical performance be happening
a good a in that and practice and heard and then you have to play but you ready for a long drive
and you have to do it
night next that no matter how you're feeling or what's your friend and new life yet to be on the stage and do it
and a and a really good actor usually when they're not on mistake it looking at everything around them and they're taking a thing so that the next play there
have a great something
ah so and and their accounting
giving every day
alicia the clown whose
rough
not everybody makes the cut american idol it means equal there are shocked
carefully they've got married ah so some of us
one make sure that kidding ourselves that our effort
that's right that's why practice he don't
it's a
no grade
would they call it
when you go to cook but when you go to college mentor give you grade
pass fail but this is this is this is passed pass
with
that's exactly the patriots were were all failures enough members is figure she's saying the asian in practice should just be like tossing a a a sieve into the ocean
jason about
great failure you know
that's wonderful
for our practice is to be the great failure
then everything is wonderful
but how
like manager says well l years
well you know if if you can let go of success and failure
hum him what you do on be successful
helen
yeah
you could have my invasion the music
this sleeping on the realistic
how much
the judges have certain kinds of technical stand things differently
a cut people who don't have people on that basis society but when i watch that
watch it
you can respond you know your item authentic hero
and when to give with these people are hot or not some of them are doing something that is a for their d
and real it just doesn't fit know it doesn't fit in the box of what these conventional standards are
yeah and i'm sure there is def self delusion that the scale of the next evolution but
ha fifty whenever that me
hey everybody is team
that's i think but
gotten back
find year stability
zazen whether we do it in our minds and wandering along with police and to return to get and our facility even for a moment up
so you can you should operation
yeah

the idle away that
no
town on the as suggested deal
why are
grass
as i you yesterday
i've lost very dear friends
nationally
feeling very fast about it
and especially recently and said i decided to the assumption like i was not i would come back
and i and it's really gotten back
and i think hard
master is
credit i just recently lost
she is only thirty and so part of it is he breathing it living my friend and then part of illnesses slight panic and what am i
there's there's so much time and then sitting
then i say i'm doing this
you are everything that you know it's good or things i had
so i feel much better

on
i think i intuit and it's about the right time they never watch
john
don't think i into it is over there
the
homes which is the right them
the