The day after Valentine's Day, I guess, is the date that's set for Buddha's parinirvana day. And actually, of course, they don't know exactly what the dates of Buddha's life and death were, but anyway, we take some date. celebrate it or note it. I know, I remember years ago lots of Nirvana day would come around and there'd be lots of questions like, what is parinirvana and what is nirvana and what is enlightenment and what's the difference between Buddha's enlightenment and Buddha's nirvana when he died, that kind of question. They're interesting questions actually, it gives you something to think about and thinking doesn't bring you to much of an answer.

[01:26]

But one way of ... Again, I want to warn you that I say too much when I talk, so if you don't hear me that's good, and if you forget what I say that's better. But if you do remember something of what I say, you have to remember that it's only one way of looking at things. Let me give you a kind of example. You might ask me a question, did you know that such and such was the case? And I might say to you, You don't need to know that," meaning that I'm not going to answer. So I might say, you don't need to know that. But if you'd asked the same question of Suzuki Roshi, he probably would have just said, I don't know. So by my pointing out that you don't need to know, I may be saying too much, when Suzuki Roshi only says, I don't know.

[02:57]

You're stuck then with, does he not know? Or does he know and he won't say? And then you have to look at it from another possibility, which is that he really doesn't know. Or that he knows and decides that there's no reason to say, answer. or that he could know, but because there's no need for you to know, there's also no need for him to know, so he's forgotten, right? Okay, so there's a difference there between the I don't know based on I don't need to know and you don't need to know, and the I don't know when he really doesn't know. But is there really a difference between the two, the two I don't knows? So then again, how do we take this and compare it to, say, Buddhas who are supposed to have all knowledge? And here Suzuki Roshi is saying, I don't know. Then what do we mean when we say Buddha knows everything?

[04:30]

But maybe Buddha doesn't need to know everything, so he'd say, I forgot. Another kind of example is, I saw two leading Zen leaders discussing a, well it came up about somebody who was a sort of Hindu leader, right? And the Hindu leader had talked about all of these special powers that he had, and the two Zen leaders were saying, I only call them leaders because they are heads of groups and they've also been in Zen a long, long time, so they should know something about it. And so they both sort of laughed about this Hindu who talked about these special powers and thought they were real, etc., right?

[06:02]

In this particular case, we're not talking about all special powers, in this particular case the power wasn't so special, and both the two so-called Zen leaders knew that it was true. But even to themselves in the private conversation, fairly private, on an automobile, they weren't admitting to each other they knew it was true, but it was more amusing just to say, These Hindus involved in special powers, you know. And it wasn't a criticism of the Hindu man, that's just his way, and his way should exist. So, I'm not trying to create a situation where you think there's something secret that you don't know. Well, on a simple level it's just that it's more interesting not to talk about what you don't have to talk about, and to talk about it from the point of view of Zen is loss, you know, maybe. But more, what I'm trying to suggest is that there's a continuum between not knowing anything

[07:33]

and knowing everything which is the same. So there's a continuum between your life in the most ordinary sense and the complete nirvana of Buddha. So Suzuki Roshi says, I don't know, not really knowing, and I don't know knowing but not talking about it, or knowing and having forgotten are the same. I don't know if that makes any sense at all to anybody.

[08:36]

It's important, as I said to someone today, to be able to have, to exist in seemingly contradictory realities, wisdom and compassion, you know, emptiness and form. the inclusion of all possibilities. So the middle way, so-called middle way, doesn't mean the middle, it means the range from both extremes. But if you have all the possibilities you can't go to extremes because that would be to limit the other possibilities. So how do you practice so that you have in your practice all the possibilities. In that way there's no contradiction between nirvana and samsara. So you should be able to live as if

[10:20]

there were nothing but emptiness, as if nothing existed. And without contradiction you should be able to live as if everything existed. So in that way we can say you are already enlightened. In Buddhism sometimes this is called the realm of totality, in which everything simultaneously is existing. So, from your point of view, maybe enlightenment is

[11:46]

you know, what Buddha achieved, or the turning around that happened when Buddha was under the bow tree. But maybe from Buddha's point of view, enlightenment was when he died. But both those points of view should be possible for you. If that's possible for you, you see, then you also are Buddha. But you can't, but Buddhas are, as you've noticed, usually Buddhas are sitting on, human beings are sitting on just ordinary sort of stands. So this is probably Bodhidharma. And gods are sitting on, well they're flying in the air or something, you know, they're not really sitting on anything. But Buddhas are always sitting on lotuses. or usually, because the lotus, you can't have a Buddha without a lotus almost, because the lotus roots it into the ground. So, without samsara you can't have nirvana, without nirvana you can't have samsara.

[13:15]

Suzuki Roshi talked some years ago on, actually it was a Sunday preceding February 15th, and he said that a dragon does not exist in clear water, meaning a Well you could say a fish if you like. A fish can't live in clear water, he has to live in a lake or a stream or a river where there's food for him to eat. So we say in Buddhism a dragon can't exist in clear water. So what this means in your ordinary practice is that, it's one reason pain and zazen is so helpful. Not to go through pain is helpful, but to know how to be free from it is helpful. So that after, in a sashin, you can get so, no matter how bad the pain is, you can sit there absolutely calmly

[14:58]

without any distraction on your face, without any disturbance in your body. So, like when you hit the drums, if you find you get into the rhythm of the drums, in a way you're being caught. You should be able to hit the drum and be absolutely still simultaneously. If you want to, you know, dance or something, you can move with the music or whatever. But you shouldn't necessarily be caught by, in other words, whatever happens to you shouldn't necessarily take you over. You should be able to feel the rhythm completely and yet stay still. So you should be able in zazen to feel the pain and yet stay still. And so when you're It's very interesting to see somebody, they've just gone through a sasheen, they did pretty well, sat still through the whole sasheen, and then they're in a situation where they get flustered and the flusteredness is written all over their face. But likewise, you should be able to be flustered by some situation and still remain calm within the situation.

[16:23]

It's exactly the same. So, dragon exists in maybe muddy water or something so So if we have this realm of totality, say, then there's nothing fixed or there's no way, it looks like, to practice, because everything you do is Buddha, etc., etc., but that's not true.

[17:45]

It is true and it's not true. So we have some kind of rules or way of giving some definition to the situation and one is we talk about taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And that also means to protect. That's one side. You can take refuge in it. And the other side means to protect Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. That at all costs, your life is based on protecting Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So if you have a love affair, for instance, which interferes with the community, or prevents you from coming to zazen, then you're not practicing Buddhism then. If you can have some kind of love attachment and continue your practice, then the love attachment can also be part of your practice.

[19:12]

Do you have any questions? Yeah? Shouldn't be. What did I, what? Well, there were several people actually. You can be as flustered as you want, you know, sometimes we're flustered, that's all, but we should also have some calmness in it, and some people think that their practice is zazen or sashin, somehow standing the pain is one thing, you know, but then they're in the midst of being whatever, you know, and they can't, you know, they don't treat it the same as the pain. You see what I mean? So if you can treat that in that way, then you can practice. So the same way you accept the pain in zazen, you should accept everything.

[21:33]

Yeah? I guess I can't really understand the way in which it seems like you're almost saying that your mind should be in two places at one time, or something like that, which I don't think is what you really mean to say. That is, you know, if you're being clustered at the same time as you're trying to maintain some calm, aren't you, your mind kind of divided, or is it, are you saying that your mind should not be Your mind is actually everywhere at once, what I mean by mind. And anyway, the more you practice, you see that your mind includes, even in a limited sense, many, many things. So generally, if you talk about consciousness, you know, see we don't talk so much about consciousness, we talk about being ready.

[22:39]

So, you can... I don't know how to... answer. You ask very good questions, by the way, interesting questions, but they're very difficult to answer because they're answerable really by experience. I can create some simple model of the mind, You're driving along a highway and you think that you see a lot of billboards, and you think the billboards are, I mean, they're so close together, you can't see anything but billboards. So you think, ha ha, that's reality, those billboards. But then, when you slow the car down, you look and you can see between the billboards, and you can see a landscape out of which the billboards are created.

[24:05]

and you see that trees were cut down to make the wood for the billboard and ink, etc. So, likewise, when we slow down in zazen, we see that our various moods, attitudes, thoughts, feelings are actually like these billboards. And this is a background out of the mind, shall we say. Actually, there's a background of that. even emptiness, but there's a background out of which these thoughts, these billboards are constructed. So most of us actually live in billboard land all our life, you know. And we don't ever see behind the billboards. But behind the billboards is obviously some ... you still exist between thoughts. So you need some Once you really see that, feel that, exist in that, then your maybe center of balance shifts to that landscape of the mind out of which the billboards are constructed. Till you know that without even knowing it, you can't sit calmly in zazen.

[25:27]

So, when you're doing some specific thing, of course, you do it completely. And if you're working on, I don't know, a math problem, you're conscious of that completely. But still, you don't, you know, anyway. Do you see what I mean? No, I don't mind at all. Do you think there's any kind of relationship between Zen and various kinds of psychotherapy? I would say that Zen is a form of psychotherapy, but those forms of psychotherapy in which you try to understand how your various thoughts and patterns of being have existed. Do you think there's a relationship between that or would your opinion be that you can get lost in that, get too involved in how your thoughts have arisen? You can get lost in anything, even Buddhism. It's maybe a better place to be lost in, I think, than most, but anyway. Well, two things. One is, Buddhist psychology, in the last session I talked a bit about, in sort of an absence of a psychology or an absence of an identity,

[26:59]

what Buddhism tries to do. Anyway, it gives you a series of practices rather than beliefs. And the practices, when done completely, on the one end are you and the other end are Buddha. So, from one point of view, they're the activity of Buddha. From another point of view, they're your activity. Anyway, Buddhist psychology, which there is sort of such a thing, first step in that is to understand what we mean by the five skandhas. Anyway, Buddhist psychology is very, very different from Western psychology. Western psychology tries to solve the problems of the mind in terms of the mind. So, it pushes one side, one part of the mind tries to correct this part, right, that kind of thing. And Buddhist psychology just, you know, undercuts the whole problem altogether. Just forget all about all that and what your mother said to you when you were a child or, you know, etc. It has no interest, you know. Just see how your mind works and be free from it.

[28:20]

So, Buddhist psychology, in a sense, tries to solve the mind's problems in terms of all things, not in terms of the mind alone. And when I say Buddhism is a set of practices, not a beliefs or philosophy, the example I used in the Sesshin was that Buddhism says everything is interdependent But interdependency is the practice of humility, because when you see how interdependent you are, there's humility. I hate to use words like humility and sincerity because they're sort of bad words, you know. Anyway, but there's no choice, you have to use them. So the practice from the Buddhist point of view The first stage of enlightenment is called great joy, and great joy is based on the practice of charity, because that joy comes at the time you realize the nonexistence of the subject-object relationship. So you can be generous very easily because you're giving to yourself. No problem about being generous, you know, or keeping what you need for yourself, but in that sense

[29:55]

Suzuki Roshi used to say, these glasses I have, he said, you know, these belong to you. He said, but because you know about my tired old eyes, you let me use them. So, when you own things in that way, it's quite different, you know. Okay, that's one response to your question about psychology. So, Buddhist psychology and the way of life based on Buddhism is quite different. Secondly, I'm quite familiar actually with almost, I mean, I think as familiar as you can be practically anyway without, I don't know, how much more familiar you can be, but with the recent developments in psychology group therapy, etc., here in this country, and lots of other techniques of working with like most of the... Buddhism doesn't already include either directly or instead of it they have something they think works much better. And there are a number of things which they specifically don't use

[31:24]

But it's not a matter that they don't exist in Buddhism, it's that Buddhism for good reasons, from the Buddhist point of view, has chosen not to use them. So, if you really want to practice Buddhism, anything you need to come to terms, to solve the reality of your life, you turn to Buddhism for, you find it in Buddhism. If you find it somewhere else, you're not really practicing Buddhism. It doesn't mean that the other thing is bad, it just means that Buddhist practice is really the effort to find it in the practice. When we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha and nothing else, that's what it means. You take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And when you make an effort, your effort is to protect Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So anything you do, and really practice, real Buddhist practice is based on an overriding desire

[32:52]

aim, huge aim to do that. And when you do that, nothing else, you know, is ... everything else, shall we say, marriage, any other kind of relationship you might have, is not secondary to that, but rather you have such a strong feeling that without Buddha, Dharma and Sangha nothing else really can exist in its full terms. So this gives you some measure of when you're practicing Buddhism and when you're not. So if you find lots of your life activity does conflict with your protecting and taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, then you know that your practice is just for yourself more therapeutic. some balm you take when you feel upset. And there's a good reason why most of Zen students in America are young, is because most of you are upset when you're young. Fairly simple, actually. Because the years when you're 20 are difficult years, you know? So you practice Buddhism, but when you get to be 30 you stop, you know? That's okay.

[34:20]

I'm glad to see you make it to 30. There are innumerable ways in which we know ourselves. For example, my mother happens to be here at this lecture, so she's never been in California before. And she knows me in some way, which most of the rest of you don't know me.

[35:24]

but she doesn't know me in many, many other ways. And I know when you're growing up you think, well, and many of you still say in your 20s, look back and you see this enormous lifetime you spent with your parents. you're pretty involved with whether you did right or wrong or how you hurt your parents or how you didn't hurt them. But from your parents' point of view, unless they had ten children or something, the length of time their children are growing up is just very short. I mean, I have a daughter who's nine years old, and for her, I am a good part, well, all of her life up to now. But for me, most of my life was before, and the last few years there's some participation in her life, and it'll only be a few more years and she'll be gone. And for me, it's just some short, maybe 10 or 15 years of real contact.

[36:50]

So, knowing, say, Suzuki Roshi. On the one hand, Suzuki Roshi is just a man. And it's very interesting. When I first knew Suzuki Roshi, all he showed me was Buddha. In the last years I knew Suzuki Roshi, He showed me this little old man who watched television in Japan, liked sumo wrestlers and, you know, argued with his wife and things like that, right? So he made me come to terms with both sides. In the beginning I wanted Suzuki Roshi to only be Buddha, right? So I kept him like that. We participated in keeping that going, right? But I wasn't capable at that time of treating him as Buddha and also treating him as a householder. So, Suzuki Roshi has, in a sense, and it sounds funny, he had a role to fulfill as teacher. But many students wanted to treat him as a friend. They wanted to treat him in their terms.

[38:20]

So many people never developed a relationship with Suzuki Roshi because they wanted him to be a friend, but his job was to be teacher. And that goes back to what I've been talking about recently of the difference between person and persona, the mask or your role. So then, so your teacher Part of relating to a teacher is your teacher shows you how to identify with him completely, so you are him, okay? Simultaneously, he shows you how to conceive of yourself as a sick person and him as the physician. You know, it doesn't matter whether you're actually sick or not. In other words, you treat yourself as a sick person and him as the physician. You also treat him and yourself as if you were equals. And then you also treat him as sometimes he's a householder. And then within that, you also treat him as if he were Buddha.

[39:48]

So, by doing that, you find within yourself the householder, the teacher, the sick person, the Buddha. When you have that, then you have this realm of totality in which there's enlightenment and nirvana, samsara and nirvana. But if you're involved with, I'm not sick, or something like that, or I'm a good student, or something like that, you know, then you can't treat yourself as a sick person and him as physician. Nor can you treat yourself as equal and him as equal. So everything you need is within you and within Buddhism, and your practice is to make that possible for yourself. Okay, there was a couple other questions. Yeah? What is the process of mind that you're trying to follow up?

[41:33]

You want to watch your mind and see how it works. And what process is that exactly? And how does it differentiate? How does it differ from psychology? In other words, I'm not sure that I see the difference between understanding your mind in Buddhist terms and understanding it in psychological terms. Well, one big difference is Buddhist practice isn't so much aimed at the cure as acceptance. So, well, there are many, many differences between Buddhist psychology and Western psychology. I mean, the whole fundamental assumptions about what a human being are are different, but that's pretty complicated to get into. But you would never say to, say, a schizophrenic person, so I don't think such a thing actually as schizophrenic exists, but somebody is defined as a schizophrenic person, and you'd never say to them, if you were a psychologist, well, be schizophrenic.

[43:00]

completely, right? But in Buddhism we would. That's rather different, you know? So, if you're afraid, you just are afraid completely. If your mind is whatever is there, if you find whatever is there, you are it completely, you just notice it. So actually, when I say readiness, you see, rather than in this area of light called consciousness, see the difference between what Buddhism means by light and what ... I don't know, I don't want to get so complicated. Anyway, what I mean by readiness is that whatever you are, you're ready for. Whatever role you have to take, you're ready for. Whatever you have to think, you're ready for. Doesn't mean you know it. You're ready to know it. You're ready to be it. So if you are open to all your possibilities, then you're ready.

[44:29]

No, we don't want to understand anything. Why understand it? If you try to understand your life, you can only have the life you can understand. That's pretty superficial life, you know, actually. Do you understand? I've got one more question. You don't give up easily. That's good. Watching the body, you know, like you kind of watch the body. You watch the body to be aware of it, not understand it. Well, sort of. I mean, yes, it's right, but I don't think you actually know what that means in Buddhist practice, so it's hard to answer. You see, somebody a while ago, a few lectures ago, asked me a question about mindfulness, what the practice of mindfulness is. The practice of mindfulness is a

[45:58]

the major activity early in your practice. And I said to the person that it was to really answer the question I'd have to be in a close relationship with the person. And I was talking about the whole problem of explaining practice to ourselves and people from other people being interested in Zen and how meaningless it is to be interested in Zen. Anyway, after I made this point about how you really couldn't answer the question of mindfulness, actually, after lecture, I guess, someone came and told me and said, well, that person immediately, some students went up to him, one or more, I don't know, and explained to him, answered the question for me. Of course, they missed the point completely of what I'm trying to say. Anyway, mindfulness is our practice, but what we mean by watching your body or watching your mind or watching your activity or being your activity, it's just very difficult to say. And the best way to practice Buddhism is to come to a place like this as often as possible

[47:29]

and to, just sort of without thinking too much about it, do it. And then, as you have specific problems arise, you try to present those as questions to yourself over and over again, and maybe you come talk to me or somebody. It's putting attention on these things, being able to get out of the fog so you can watch, that eventually makes it possible for you to solve these things, but they go away. And then you discover Brutal Nature. Well, yeah. What kind of thing is that? Your Buddha nature, what kind of thing is that? What kind of thing? Yeah. Well, it's a thing that's, you know, beyond the mind. And it's something that isn't bounded by thought, it's something that is.

[48:54]

It's a shoebox? Smaller than a shoebox. Maybe so. Anyway. Okay. Thank you very much. Namaskar.

[50:01]

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