I feel, I feel relieved to be able to practice here with you, Buddha's disciples. Can you hear me back? No? No? I feel relieved to be able to practice here with you, Buddha's disciples, not just here in Tassajara, but also in San Francisco and Green Gulf. There is some noticeable advantage to practicing here, which I feel strongly every time I come back here, which is that you're much more pinned down here, like a butterfly specimen.

[01:11]

Each become our own sort of specimen, and the schedule and feeling here keeps us rather pinned down, and it also makes my life much simpler. If I was with the, what, there's forty-five or fifty people here? If I were with all of you in some other place, and each of you had independent schedule, and could decide to do what you wanted, my life would be, I mean, to try to practice with you would be like practicing in the city. So, in the city, just a few people cause a great deal of confusion, and there's calmness here for

[02:21]

you and for me, because we each agree to do the same thing. Without that kind of agreement, there's a great deal of confusion, and mostly not really in freedom. Questioner The willingness to do what everyone else does, and the willingness to, so there of course are some binds that we feel, but anyway,

[03:42]

and the willingness to practice Zen, Zazen, come to service, even when it seems rather routine or boring or pointless, or it doesn't seem to fit our mood at the time, just to essential in our practice. I'm trying to, without the ability to do that, I think practice

[04:43]

is impossible. As long as you have a rather coarse state of mind, Zazen is rather pleasant. In fact, you can get addicted to Zazen. So you wake up in the morning, and to do Zazen is to have some finer kind of state of mind. And as long as you have that kind of experience, Zazen is a kind of doing that you can do. You can continue it. There's some reason to continue it. But after a while, when your state of mind is always quite fine, and Zazen is no different, it becomes much more difficult to do Zazen. There's almost, there doesn't

[05:49]

seem to be any reason. You get up in the morning, and you feel wonderful, or you feel quite, there's no problem, and Zazen isn't going to change anything. It doesn't feel any better to do Zazen than to not do Zazen. Almost no difference in your experience during Zazen and outside Zazen. This time, if you don't have the ability to do what seems pointless, you're Zazen. You won't do Zazen. So what kind of framework or state of mind we have which allows us to do Zazen?

[06:50]

It's something we have to consider. A wonderful thing is happening in Zen Center, which is that we're becoming Buddha's disciples, not my disciples or Suzuki Roshi's disciples. So we're practicing here together as Buddha's disciples. Actually, you can't separate your inner teacher, for whom you're always a disciple,

[08:26]

and your teacher, and Buddha. But if you emphasize one only, there's some imbalance in the practice. And I think in Zen Center now, maybe for the first time, we're beginning to have an awareness of our practice as Buddha's disciples. Although it's rather difficult, actually, to practice closely with a teacher, it's easy to practice at some distance. You don't see your teacher very often,

[09:26]

and you have some ideal sense of the relationship. But if you practice closely, spending a lot of time together over a long period, you get stepped on a lot. And it doesn't feel so good. Sometimes it's just because your teacher is different and has some different habits that you have to adjust to. And sometimes it's because he's stepping on you on purpose where it hurts. Anyway, we don't like that experience so much. But to practice in that way is, on the other hand, pretty easy,

[10:28]

because we only have one person to adjust to. But if we're practicing as Buddha's disciples, that practice is much stricter and much more difficult for us to have some experience of. And on this point, I worry a little bit about Zen Center because in China and Japan, the practice of the Way has many small rules that you learn from your other monks or other practicers and from your teacher, which,

[11:30]

if you're caught up in your state of mind, are always a nuisance. And we don't know any of them, but only maybe one or two people in Zen Center have any idea of this practice. To have a sense of it would have required you to be alert to this side of practice and to have watched Suzuki Roshi with an eagle eye for several years in every detail of what he did, how he walked and picked things up and stepped and when he did certain things. I think the closest we can come to that of practice now

[12:41]

here in Zen Center, which also helps us to find our physical location, is to do tea ceremony. But unfortunately, it appeals to women more than men. Most of the men students in San Francisco do it once or twice and then they feel um... they feel observed too closely. A man wants to have, I think, some confidence in his actions and not have little details observed, and he feels rather tied down or feminine or something

[13:47]

if the details of his activity are observed. So to try to do tea ceremony is rather disturbing. And two or three people, older students, started it and stopped after one or two lessons. And a couple unusual people you wouldn't expect are continuing. Anyway, February 15th, three days ago, I believe, was Nirvana Day, the day Buddha entered Nirvana. Supposedly lying down between the twin Sala trees, and by his own will,

[14:50]

choosing to enter Nirvana. Even though he ate supposedly a boiled pork, still there is a choice you choose. You don't fight with. You choose to die. And for this reason, there is a close relationship between Nirvana and enlightenment. Sometimes enlightenment is called Nirvana. And there is some confusion between what we mean by Nirvana or enlightenment, which is which. And we choose to

[15:53]

let our desires, which link us to a substantial reality, die. You know, Bodhidharma's supposed conversation with Emperor Wu about, you know, is there any merit? I don't know who I am. Afterwards, the Emperor supposedly had some understanding of what Bodhidharma meant,

[17:01]

and he composed and set up several tablets. Whether this is actually true, I don't know, but they say so. And one tablet says, as long as you give mind some substantial reality, you are eternally a human being. And if you don't, you are free. Something like that is the last one. Or as the Sixth Patriarch said,

[18:02]

originally not a thing, where can dust alight? This problem of, if Emperor Wu said not substantial, not giving mind to substantial reality, how about this? Certainly, I don't think anything in the West which really isn't based on some substantial reality. Whenever we speak of seeking outside yourself,

[19:13]

this means giving some substantial reality, giving reality some substance. As long as you blame your situation, oh, such and such happened, you are seeking outside yourself. So, Buddha in his last sermon talked about we should have small desires and a calm, serene mind. I mean,

[20:15]

how do we get rid of desires that dominate us? How do we get rid of desires at all? I don't think most of us really want to get rid of desires. And we don't really want to get rid of our problems either, because we think that our problems are our happiness out of adjustment. And that if you could adjust your problems a little better, you would have some happiness. So because you think that that the other side of your problems is happiness, you cling to your problems. And

[21:30]

This whole question, you know, of giving up your desires, which Buddha spoke about in his last words, is pretty confusing, you know, for us. I mean, it really means giving up your desires, but I don't think it means what you think it means. And it's rather a tricky point, because giving up to most of us means stopping up, and from the point of view of Buddhism, it means knowing what drives our desires.

[22:44]

Instead of being driven by our desires, we find out what drives our desires, how to use our desires. What your, maybe, Suzuki Roshi said, your innate nature drives your desires. But it's our desires which link us to a substantial reality. And as long as you have some view, some unconscious or conscious acceptance of a substantial

[23:52]

reality, you can't actually practice Buddhism. Things are neither produced nor continuing. But I say that, and there's no way, actually, except through a practical, your own confrontation

[25:05]

with the layers of ideas you have that will be exposed as you practice. You know, there's a famous story about the two monks discussing the flag that's moving. One says, you know, it's the wind that's moving, and the other says it's the flag that's moving. And the Sixth Patriarch says it's the mind that's moving. But he also is saying, which he doesn't say, but he means, that if the mind stops, you

[26:06]

know, the flag stops. But I think most of you think that, well, if I die, still, the world goes on. It's just my apprehension of it ends. So, for all practical experience, it may stop, but it goes on. The flag still moves if the mind stops. But, he meant, if the mind stops, the flag stops. And the Diamond Citra, it says, everything originally pure. Pure. Or formless.

[27:20]

Why then mountains and rivers and the great earth? And then it says, abiding nowhere and yet activating mind. If we have to. If we have to say something, we can agree with Dai Ju, who is a 9th century Zen master

[28:45]

in China. He said, awakening, aroused potentiality itself is reality, is our true nature. So, perhaps we can say what Buddha meant by small desires, is you don't have desires which link you to things, but all your desires are in one desire, to achieve nirvana or enlightenment.

[29:56]

So, ultimately, your practice is to arouse this potentiality. And it comes and goes as a feeling, but the actual experience of it is quite fragile because we are constantly being caught by the thoughts of future and past on either side. Or, trying to give it some conception, as soon as you stir your mind, it's gone. So, to give up your dominating desires means to be willing to suffer without a desire.

[31:14]

Whatever their situation is, you are willing to accept it without reservation, not conditioning for your own benefit or your benefit by benefiting them. You know, Suzuki Roshi told a story which I think I've told you before about the girl who was beloved by birds, you know that story? Well, I'll tell it rather briefly. Anyway,

[32:18]

she decided to commit, or anyway, she committed suicide and threw herself by throwing herself into the ocean. And the birds tried to find her by filling up the ocean with grains of sand. This is a story told to Suzuki Roshi by his teacher at Eheji. And anyway, they, of course, didn't find her, but they filled up the ocean and made a beautiful land. And Suzuki Roshi's teacher at Eheji said, I don't speak about a beautiful land. How about picking up a grain of sand? Or Dogen said, out of every time you hit the mark, an archer hits the mark,

[33:21]

it requires 100 practices. So each practice is hitting the mark. Still, this kind of story has the idea of some end product, like hitting the mark, or a beautiful land. And actually, there isn't any end product. The grain of sand is the beautiful land. Our path is not a path, it's our shoes, your own shoes, your own feet. You're not practicing for some later time.

[34:25]

Emulating Buddhist disciples in some previous time, or for some later time. Later, you'll practice with people. Now I'm just practicing, but later I'll really practice with people. It'll count sometime. Right now, you're practicing with this particular group of people, who are Buddhist disciples. Not some beautiful land elsewhere, right now. Right now. Your actual nature is not...

[36:12]

We're not here to practice Dogen, or to carry the serving bowls well, or... to be kind to each other. But to realize our nature, which is not confined anywhere. It sometimes is a plant, sometimes is a great bird, that covers everything. Sometimes a shadow reaches everywhere.

[37:21]

Right now. Right now. Yeah, could you say it louder, please?

[38:38]

I say third or fourth. Oh, yeah. I remember I was saying that our mind is two-dimensional. And that's all kind of the same thing. If you'd like me to say, don't indulge yourself in some more concrete way. Thank you. I can't think of any other way.

[40:14]

Don't you indulge yourself sometimes? Don't you indulge yourself sometimes? You have to choose the easy way over the way you know you should do. That's not enough sometimes. Usually if you just choose what several things happen, or there's several possibilities, and one of the possibilities makes you nervous, maybe that's the one you should choose. Anyway, you should think about it like that. But usually we know inside, or some feeling, what to do, but it's not so easy to do.

[41:29]

And so we indulge ourselves. To get into the idea that there's a substantial reality is to indulge yourself. But for some people that belief is so permanent that they can't shake it at all. I don't know, it's a little difficult to... ...talk about our practice so clearly.

[42:44]

But it doesn't seem so real when you talk about it. Somebody else get their hand up over here? Yes, there you go. What? I couldn't hear that. I couldn't hear that. I don't know. I don't know. Well, all that's rather true. It depends on...

[43:52]

I mean, each time I'm speaking in a specific context. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You know, it's... I'll just say, just this night, that if you have no idea of a substantial reality, it's quite easy to sit completely still. This idea of a...

[44:58]

I don't know. Anyway, to speak about it is so elusive that I have to... It makes more sense in actual communication sometimes to point out exactly when someone is seeking outside themselves. Mostly, you don't realize you're seeking outside yourself because you take certain perceptions for granted. So when we talk in this way, it's rather like hinting, not anything. One way to practice is to thoroughly... After the contrast between coarse and subtle is gone,

[45:59]

then you have to maybe have a pretty good understanding of... Either you have to be sort of pushed by a teacher or you have to, in addition, have a pretty good understanding of the way it must be, and that is contrasted with the way you keep seeing it and doing it. Yes. Yes. Well, you know, there's no such thing as self.

[47:19]

So there's no self-denial. But since people think they have a self, we talk about being selfless or something like that. But... What I'm wondering is... How can... You know, to think about Buddhism is to create problems. I create some thing that looks like this. That we supposedly don't understand. Then we all ask questions.

[48:22]

But it creates some barrier between us. Sometimes I feel giving Kesho is okay. Sometimes I feel it's better just to see each of you individually. Because to speak so generally causes some problems, I think. Yes.

[49:33]

Partly... You know, Suzuki Roshi... Yes. Suzuki Roshi used to say, people come and tell me terrible problems they have. He said, they look so worried, and so I make a big face. And I sit there and listen. And... He said, I can't see why they think there's such big problems, but they're obviously upset, so I make a big face and listen. And sometimes... I'm not... You know, I have such confidence in you,

[50:38]

and in how your practice is, that I can't... It's difficult for me to take seriously your problems, actually. Because I see them all, you know, as... You say you have a problem, and you see it... I'm not talking to any specific person. You see it as something fixed, and I see it as something changing. So I can... My own feeling is it's clearly changing. So there isn't much to say. But...

[51:40]

Anyway, I haven't found some way to get at... how I mean to give up an idea of a substantial reality. So... So I feel I've caused some problems for you. I hope this isn't too specific. He said that we have ideas about our problems, and we can go on having problems, and we're attached to our problems, and the other side of that is not. And he also said that we should accept ourselves as we are. And if we accept ourselves right now as we are,

[52:42]

a lot of us can have problems, but if we keep accepting ourselves as our problems... So... That's probably the reason why I feel it's too low. If I'm accepting my problems, then I'm doing what you're saying is such a... You just kind of put down what you're saying is such a problem. No, I'm not putting it down. Do you think there's such a thing as not having problems? I don't know. I don't know. It's my experience. Well... Okay.

[53:50]

Hmm. I think of what she used to say... Accepting or receiving... Actually, I think he used accepting, but I think a better word is receiving everything. Anyway, receiving everything as it is, he said. Seeing things as it is. And sometimes he'd say seeing things as they are. Seeing things as they are means suffering with everyone. And seeing things as...

[55:25]

it is means... Just the ordinary person you are going through the day, not apart from everything, but not suffering from. And that not suffering from means...

[56:31]

... comes from giving up... yourself to, what Suzuki Roshi would say, Buddha's mercy. Some... allowing some... not your own power, but some power that's in everything to take care of you. So your problems are only problems if you... when you care about them. Actually, that's true. If you care about dying, then there's a whole range of problems that you have. You don't care anything about what happens to you. There's nothing... There's no problem... I know it's too simple to say, but there aren't any problems.

[57:43]

There has to be a kind of indifference. It doesn't matter. And caring at the same time. But I'm talking today, you know, about being... Buddha's disciple. So I wish I could give you... The problem I'm having is I... don't want to give you from my own experience, you know. I want to give you from Buddha's experience. And... Suzuki Roshi could do this. Because for so many years he'd been part of a... Buddhist culture and practiced and bowed. Knew how to be Buddha's disciple, not just his teacher's disciple.

[58:51]

And that throwing away, which we could see when he bowed... That's how we bow to save all sentient beings, or bow to save all sentient beings. Anyway, it's something we actually have to... actually now in Zen Center, are having in common here in San Francisco and Greenbelt. I feel it in all three places. A... A practicing together as Buddha's disciple. Sharing... Buddha's power, maybe. And...

[60:33]

And I certainly don't mean that you should pretend that you don't have any problems or they're not real. But that your scale of... of... reference should be very wide. Thank you.

[60:58]

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