I'm not teaching Buddhism, not teaching you Buddhism, just to help you, but also to help myself, because I completely understand that you're not separate from me. And I'm not teaching Buddhism just to help you. In another way, too, which is that I expect you to teach Buddhism to others. For we're not separate from anyone. And mostly we teach Buddhism by our way of life, and if you read the early sutras and commentaries, they are mostly about the way of life, detail by detail how to live this Buddhist way of life, and even

[01:32]

how to prepare the seat for lecture, how many claws should be on it, details about how to make the cloth. One way is you take old, as the robe is made from supposedly scraps of cloth, to make some kinds of claws for sitting on, they would take scraps of fibers and put them together and pour cooked or boiling rice water over it and make some kind of paste. Then sometimes that, when that was worn out, it was used for the edge of the Nishidana Zag, the bowing cloth that we use. And in ordination ceremony, as you've seen, we are we receive the objects of life, eating bowls and a cloth to bow on and clothes to wear, etc.

[02:45]

But there are many perplexing problems to realize our way. And it's always, I find it interesting that the Protestant interest in Buddhism in this country is almost invariably with the philosophy. And the Catholic interest is almost invariably with the practice. And popular Catholicism seems to be mostly faith, and of course there are ways of Buddhism which are faith, which may be the most direct and accessible way for most people. And in popular Protestantism it seems to be conversion, the idea of by yourself attesting to or deciding on Jesus, on Christianity. So you use some philosophy to bring you around. But the Catholic more feels he already accepts his religion. And yet he wants to bring it home or make it a detailed part of his life. So Catholic monastics in this country

[04:33]

have actually seemed to have studied Buddhist monasticism more than anything else except their own religion. In Zen we're interested in both, how to turn ourselves around and also how to make it work. And if you do it by your, as we were talking about yesterday, by your taste, you can't do it because when it's difficult or when it's actually changing you, you will give up. You must have understood yesterday from what I was talking about how in Buddhism we make something work through practice that we only maybe partly understand and we have to realize it fully by our meditation and by our Buddhist life and in fact the various

[06:01]

interlocking systems of Buddhist philosophy, which were very much a part of the development of Japanese Buddhism. The various schools, the Sanron and Hosso and Kusha, etc., Vinaya, then were rather brought together in Tendai and Shingon, or Kegon, Tendai. They create a system which, if you take out the various emphasis on showing one school is more important than another, that's rather a superficial side of it. The most important side is they use the different, you know, if you accept one, it's a little difficult to explain,

[07:02]

if you accept one philosophy and it makes sense to you then you use it to penetrate by practice another philosophy or vice versa. As I was speaking about yesterday how developing an even mind which is understood from the point of view of practice of friendliness and we're all you know, from some moral point of view, we're all Buddha's disciples or we're all one being. How that's used to enter, you know, a new kind of realization of the nature of our existence, which doesn't need to pose you and other beings or any reasons why to do it, you know.

[08:04]

So the paramitas, giving and conduct and energy, are all understood on various levels according to your seriousness or the intensity of your practice, which is closely one with how deeply you question what's going on. So, as I was saying yesterday, you must have understood how we understand by faith, or zazen, or practice, how through understanding X completely, we understand the whole alphabet, or any alphabet.

[09:07]

how in Huayen, this is a Huayen or Kegon idea, that smallness and bigness, sameness and difference, subjectivity and objectivity, one thing and many things, all can be understood on one thing. And you don't just understand the essence of everything, you also understand the particularity of everything by one thing. So this is some mystical idea, which philosophically it makes sense, but to realize it, to actualize it, is rather I don't want to say. Anyway, it's our job, if you want to practice Buddhism thoroughly. There's a Zen teacher named Goso Hoen, who is Engo's teacher, and the fifth

[10:48]

great-grandfather teacher of Mumon, and he was quite maybe influential in the creation of the Koan series of stories, Hekigan Roku and Mumonkan. And he seems to have been particularly concerned with this kind of question. that we've been talking about this week and came up yesterday, that very fundamental but simple question, what is the difference between things? What is the difference between going to Zazen and not going to Zazen? Between you and someone else, between your desirous state of mind and your satisfied a relaxed state of mind. How can this idea of Buddha as all knowledge have any meaning if we're separated from ourself by various states of mind of past and future, of deluded and clear, etc.?

[12:10]

This question has to be realized thoroughly if you are to understand what Zen is all about. Not so easy. Maybe the most fundamental question. Hoen Roshi as a young, not so young, I think he was ordained when he was 35 or so, so there's still hope for us.

[13:14]

teacher was ordained very late, too. He was in his mid-thirties. Anyway, Hoen Roshi was listening to, was reading, I believe, some Huayen-type sutra about how many things are realized in one, how subjectivity and objectivity, etc., and some non-Buddhist scholar argued with this. It can't be so, and logically, etc., and it's only provable by its own system or something like that. Of course, Buddhist logic has some way of coping with all those questions, but that's not the way we answer, solve such a question, which is very particular in our own life. Why should we change what we're doing and go to Zazen? Why should you? Except you like to go to Zazen. How is what you're doing now and going to Zazen one thing and yet different? But not just an idea, actually one thing which you know it as one. So some monk was there and this monk said, as drinking something hot or cold

[14:45]

you know, we know it personally, whether it's hot or cold. And Hoan Roshi must have had that characteristic of, I think, probably all good Zen teachers, you know, some simple, maybe simple-minded quality, like Tozan. You know, he heard the Sutra, no eyes, no ears, no nose, and he said, what do you mean? I have eyes and ears and nose. We need that kind of simple-minded attitude to study Buddhism. But some detail, some detail. The most physical example of the detail I can give you is, I've mentioned it before maybe, the story of John Muir climbing on a cliff and he suddenly freezes not knowing where to go and there's no handholds nothing to do nothing no way he can go up or down and suddenly something takes him over and where there were no handholds before suddenly he sees in great detail the face of the cliff just some slope of it where you can push your weight

[16:14]

some tiny thing. And he, without thinking, is taken over and moves with surety, unconscious surety. We need to bring that detail where we just don't see the high points into our practice. So Hoen said, I know what is hot and cold, but what does personally mean? He said, you personally know hot and cold. I know hot and cold, but what does personally mean? So when he asked this question, The monk said, you should go study with a Zen master. So he went. And he became enlightened on the same kind of problem. His teacher, I believe, Hakun Roshi, was saying,

[17:40]

at such-and-such a place, Mount such-and-such a place, Mount Roll, there are many, several monks who have achieved enlightenment and they, if you ask them, That's rather interesting. If you ask them, not that they do it without being asked, but if you ask them, that's a rather positive thing to say. If you ask them, they will give some lecture on Buddhism. And if they're presented with a koan, they know they can give you excellent response. and they can write some good commentary on the sutra. But actually, they don't understand the Buddhism, they haven't got it. And again, Hoan Roshi, this problem, what is sameness and difference? They can do it, they have achieved enlightenment, said his teacher, but they don't understand.

[19:08]

On this problem, Huan Roshi understood himself into Buddhism. One of his stories is, Shakyamuni and Maitreya are his servants. Who is he? Shakyamuni and Maitreya are his servants. Who is he? If you think that he means Shakyamuni and Maitreya are just teachers for you, to help you, and you're Buddha, that's wrong. I think it's wrong. Who is he? How do you identify Maitreya or Shakyamuni or this unnamed other for whom Maitreya and Shakyamuni are only servants? How do you identify anything?

[20:38]

Another of his stories is, Senjo and her soul are not separated. That story, Senjo was rather a beautiful Chinese girl, and her older sister died. Her father loved her, especially because of her older sister dying. And when she got older, because she was quite beautiful, she had various suitors. And the father picked one of them, but actually, secretly,

[21:48]

her lover was her nephew, or her cousin. And her father had actually rather, I guess, kiddingly said when they were children, your cousin is such a nice man, you'll make a good couple, you should get married when you grow up. And that, anyway, when they got older they found they were in love Many were lovers and both of them were quite depressed. The father picked a suitor he didn't know about. The nephew, his nephew I guess. So, he was so depressed, the cousin, that he left town and he got into a boat and was going along. from the boat he saw along the shore a figure running along as if to follow the boat so he rowed ashore and it was Senjo and they had some reunion and agreed they could not now go back so they went to some other province where they lived for five years

[23:22]

They had two or three children, according to the story. I don't know how... the historical background of this story, how well-known it is in China or anything. Just it's part of Zen literature. Maybe it's a popular story in China. Probably it is. Anyway, after five years she missed her homeland very much and her parents and she felt quite ashamed at having been a disobedient daughter. So she discussed it with her husband and he felt the same way about missing his homeland. So they went back. They decided to go back and ask for forgiveness. And they got to their homeland and the nephew went up to his uncle's house and apologized and said, I'm very sorry that Senjo and I went off. And we had two children, et cetera. And he said, what do you mean?

[25:04]

Senjo has been sick in bed here for five years, hardly saying anything. And he said, no, no, she's at the boat with me with our children, etc. So he went, he sent someone and there she was at the boat and so he went up to her room and there she was in bed sick. told her what had happened. She got up and supposedly they met and the two girls became one. Anyway, the story is Senjo and her soul are not separate. And she said, Senjo said, I felt so terrible, I remember, as if in a dream I tried to follow my husband, and I don't know, she herself did not know which is real. Anyway, this kind of story, Hoenn Roshi also tried to get us to deal with.

[26:33]

How can you understand such a true story or ghost story? Anyway, what is sameness and difference? Coping with this problem is necessary if you're going to realize your strength and your

[27:35]

joyful inner, what should I say, transparency. Sometimes this is realized by samadhi. Some static or pure blissful state of mind in satsang with no object. And sometimes it's realized by the actual experience of the Dharma or the phenomenal world as being one with us. These two aspects are the aspects I've been talking about of monju type emptiness practice and samantabhadra type form practice. And the third which is that you don't, that there's no measure, this means Buddha, there's

[29:07]

of your experience as form or samadhi or any description? Who is he? Practically speaking, how do you give up measuring yourself? How do you give up cognizing yourself? You can try various things. Don't look in the mirror. Especially not to check up on yourself. Or in shop windows as you pass. How do I look today? How will people see? You can stop doing things like that. you can try to stop the dissociation of yourself in which you feel you are someone's projection that you belong to someone else that your life is based on some fact that you have to maintain or you'll disappear

[30:42]

At least in Zazen, you can try to stop perceiving yourself. If everything's an illusion, if everything's changing, if everything's changing, there's much more security, as I said yesterday. He said, when you, by our practice, find you no longer satisfy any single desire, any special desire, but all desires, you know, extending all desires to everything, you don't just realize, he said, some harmonious, some harmony of our desires, but something more than, other than harmony even. Intimately we know things, as there's some Buddhist statement by Holding up one, we know three, or six, one thousand. Anyway, this is our Buddhist life, our Buddhist conduct. It's the practice of how we try to, at first,

[32:24]

live this kind of life, live a life based on enlightenment until it's completely familiar to us. Eventually we may create it by that inner revulsion or instant, instantaneous awakening. But again, we have a problem here. If I say awakening, Buddha means the one who is awake, but I'm saying no measure, no awakeness even, no cognition, no perception of a who, who is Buddha or Maitreya or the Master. Moon and sky are one or two. Hill and valleys are one or two. Just to say, well, they're all interdependent, you know, that's, you know, if you can understand that fully and act in that way fully, that's a big practical step, but that's not real understanding.

[33:58]

Moonlight is sometimes one on the water, sometimes scattered by the waves. What is real difference? Are we one or two? Not one, not two. Or both at the same time. or sometimes one and sometimes two. How do you personally know this? Buddhism is just our human experience, just you yourself. So by our zazen, by our effort in satsang, you can come into possession of yourself. And only when you know this thorough, intimate familiarity can you find you don't possess anything and truly give it away. Until then you can't understand why you should give it away, you hardly know it.

[35:40]

Is there something you want to talk about? In what way does cause and effect exist? In what way does cause and effect exist? I suppose, I don't know very well. Maybe in that, but if I had to say, I've stated in functions and a lot of different ways. It's hard to be in touch with that principle.

[37:06]

Yeah, well, sometimes we say in Buddhism there are two truths. One is the truth of the particularity of everything, cause and effect. And one is the kind of truth I'm speaking about today. But are there actually two even? That kind of question, if you can answer it, it would be wonderful for all of us. We can all understand it. You know, what is that story? When you understand that candlelight is, how the poem goes, something like, because it's so easy, it's difficult. But when you understand that candlelight is fire, your meal hasn't been prepared for you for a thousand years. This is a denial of cause and effect.

[38:44]

Doesn't the candlelight cause the meal in that story? Cooking the meal? Uh-huh. That's the idea. But then why does he say your meal's been prepared a thousand years? Already prepared. Muhammad comments on the story about, he doesn't say anything except to the story about Shakyamuni and Maitreya are his servants, who is he? Mumon says, you should know him as if you met your father. You don't need anyone else to tell you, this is your father, you know. In Buddhism, what we're talking about, You have to know. You recognize it in that way. Without question. No one has to tell you. What's interesting is that we can describe, you know, everything I've said today. You yourself, I think, from your meditation practice.

[40:16]

Know, and your own thinking, know that these are approximations, at least, of what we experience. But when you look at them, they're contradictory. But there's no contradiction in our life. We each exist. So how can we resolve that contradiction? Like meeting your own father. means you have to face these contradictions in that kind of detail, how I know she did, until you know why, as Dogen said, blue mountains are walking. Sometimes you just

[41:28]

Secret is, you know, where to look for it, you know? You can't look in argument, you can't look in philosophy, you can't look as an observer of your assignment, you can't look dividing things into self and other the precepts, or morality, or maybe some warmth is where we look. Some warmth in our zazen, some warmth in our feelings, you know. Warm, kind-hearted practice, as the Kyoshu used to say.

[43:04]

By this warmth we can penetrate. How easy it is to overlook and how fundamental the truth is at the same time. You all have some intuition of this, and yet at the same time you want to say, it's too much, or it can't be so, or it sounds impossible, or that's good for someone else. But you're here because you have answered some feeling.

[44:25]

So the big question and the simple question is, are you going to answer it completely? When you decide you will, Buddhist practice is pretty easy. Anyone can do it, even a fast horse. which only needs the shadow of the whip can do it. Warm it up. It's warmer than something else. If it's you, it's warm.

[46:01]

Yes. Could you hear in the background what she said? She said what? What about the practice for mothers and children, and what about the place of children in our practice or our community, right?

[47:34]

She says that, how can the children share the practice? And that when she was a child, they shared morning and evening, noontime too? Just morning and evening? Morning and evening they had some prayers or And children are religious, she says, too. More than us. She didn't say that. Okay. Okay.

[49:03]

She says, when you have, this is next week's month's talks, she says, when you have an attitude of faith, or this is part of it, this suggests an attitude of faith, because faith, if you have faith in your You can share it with your children, but if it's more mental or intellectual, you have to wait until they're functioning that way. Okay. Well, let me speak about it a little bit. First, of course, the answer to your question will have to be solved by you, and Meg, and Gloria, and the various mothers and fathers. So far it's been more a question of, you know, the mothers have had this question more than the fathers.

[50:26]

I think we, at Zen Center, are actually going to have to find an answer to this question. Which is different? Probably different, or at least we may turn out to be the same, but we can't use traditional examples, I don't think. And... The examples I can think of aren't so helpful to us. I think we will solve it. Partly it's going to take more mothers and fathers and more children. We don't have enough yet. I'm not suggesting you get to work.

[51:45]

Oh, oh no. Shoot. Yeah, go ahead. And she was fine. I mean, she was really ready. And when I pulled me off him, and I came in, I think he interrupted me. And she said, I'm great, but I didn't mean to interrupt him. And he goes, OK, there you go. And he's kind of like, you know, he's really pleasant. There's this kind of thing, though. And then I looked at all these people, and then he goes, you know, it's great, too. But we don't have such a good, you know, it's not as much of a formal environment. I've been through this before, in Berkeley and here.

[52:56]

If I continue, we'll have our schedule all mixed up again today, like yesterday. Yeah, I don't know what the answer is. Of course, Berkeley, Sandow is good. but this zendo is also good, and so this zendo is necessary too. I suppose we could scatter tiny zendos around the valley for some more intimate feeling. But basically I would say it's two problems. One is the point of view of Archimedes, and the other is the point of view of Buddhism. And as a Why I say I'd like to have us have more, we can't do it till we have more children, is because I want to solve this problem. I keep trying, but there isn't enough to do it, and it takes quite a while. It's quite difficult for mothers, again particularly, to accept that changing diapers is also practice.

[54:31]

That practice, as Narnaka said, fundamental practice, if you want to do zazen, don't sit. If you can understand that, then there's no problem about it. But to solve this problem, you have to have a number of parents who are in mutual agreement, which takes quite a while. And we have to have a number of children who are roughly the same age and are staying together. And now, as soon as we get started, the children go off to different schools. They're different ages, so they can't all play together. Maybe there's about 50 children connected with Zen Center, but they're so scattered. a few of the age group which we can try to solve this problem. So it's going to come from more parents and children and more intention and willingness of the parents to work it out. I think the community as a whole is willing

[55:50]

Now the community of Buddhists, this is a new sangha, this sangha we have is a completely new type of sangha. There's no sangha in the world divided into Tassajara, Greenbelch and San Francisco, you know, in three locations trying to independently survive, you know, by its own efforts. I don't know of any such. And our community developed rather by happenstance, you know. We just wanted to do zazen, but then we had the babies, you know. And then we had to support ourselves. You know, Zen Center supports 70 people. No? 70? 50? 70? 60? 60 or 70 people Zen Center supports. I mean, it's absolutely mind-blowing. Every time I see such figures on a piece of paper, I can hardly believe it. It's some miracle. Of course, we all live on tiny amounts of money, but still, it's a miracle that so many of us can be supported by Buddhism to practice, you know, and to take care of our teaching and study and farming, ministration, etc. So it may be a function, probably, of being in a non-Buddhist country.

[57:19]

But anyway, we have created a community which is an excellent way to practice and by which we are, I think, can have all the phases and opportunities necessary for Buddhist practice. And I don't think it would be good if we were all single men or all single women. But the other side is Well, so first we have to find some way to take care of the children, and we will. But as... I don't think we'll do anything like parochial education. It's not something Zen does. Zen occurs when you ask yourself some fundamental questions, and not till then. There's no need to try to to teach a child something. Just by the way we live, the child will learn something. You know, as I told you, my daughter's Christmas letter. She knew something. But there's a feeling the child should be free to decide on their own.

[58:39]

So, you don't encourage a child to go to Zazen. In fact, in general, in Zen, you discourage people from Zazen. Dangaiyo! Go away! You don't want to be here! There's no food for you! Get out! Who the hell are you anyway? Who is Dogen? Pow! That's the way you get treated. Do you really want to? So, with a child, you don't encourage them. Of course, by the way we live, they will understand something, and by the sincerity and accuracy of their parents, they'll understand something. As they wish. You know, my daughter used to join me in Zazen, and she'd sit for about one minute, and I realized she, for her, in her time scale, that was 40 minutes or so. and other experiences she had trying those. And you should see little David Chadwick's son, Kelly. He's so funny. He walks around all the time like this. And if he has an apple or something, because David's always carrying him, you know, like this, and David's carrying him and talking to people. So Kelly walks around with teddy bears or apples.

[60:08]

Quite funny, since sometimes he's found in the garden with a snake wrapped around him and things like that. It's quite unusual of a boy. But all of them do that. They chant and they mumble things. He enjoys doing it. I think children can, if they want to come to Zendo and sit, they can sit, or if you're a Jikido, they can come in while you're working. But our practice isn't just Zazen, it's our way of life. So if our way of life is accurate, the children are practicing with us. So I think that the children will participate in us by our way of life, and if they want something else, we'll find out from them. fundamental problem is how to give more attention to the children, and how to have the understanding and practice more widely familiar, that anything we do is practice. So we don't have to feel I'm excluded from the Zendo because of such and such. But it also is going to mean we have to have more communal acceptance by the parents.

[61:36]

of taking care of the children. So anyway, I don't know what will happen, but we'll solve it.

[61:45]

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