I don't really have much to add to what I've already said. If I could take away from you every idea you have of Buddhism and every idea you have of yourself, your life, and do it without getting you depressed then you could find out what I mean, what Buddhism is. Rinzai said, this lump of flesh, true man of no position comes and goes. Who sees him? And some monk came up and said, I, who is this man of no position? And Rinzai grabbed him and said, say it, say it.

[01:34]

And just as he was about to speak, he said, what is this lump of shit? He said, this man of no position. So by the time he was ready to say something, Rinzai took it away. Goryo has three barriers which are quite interesting. One is, why is my hand like Buddha's hand? That's very similar to the 89th Hekigan Roku story.

[02:43]

The story Sukhirishi told several times about Ungan Tonjo, our ancestor, and Dogo. Ungan says to a Dogo, what does Avalokitesvara do with those thousand hands and eyes? Dogo says, it's like reaching for your pillow at your back in the dark at midnight. And Ongan says, I've got it. And Dogo says, what have you got? How have you got it? Ongan says, his whole body is his hand. And the second of Oryo's three barriers is, why is my leg a donkey's leg? This is the same as your question yesterday. Isn't, aren't we Buddha? Why is this hand the Buddha's hand? Why is this leg donkey's leg?

[04:13]

And there's some poem about it. Before I take a step, I've already arrived. Which is like Dogen's, you know. Arrival hinders arrival. Before I take a step, I've already arrived. freely crossing the four seas, I'm riding backward on my lineage or my, we could say, Dogon's three-legged donkey. This kind of poem means transcendence or Samantabhadra practice. But also, it's not just some mental freedom. It means too, and this is maybe some secret side of it, that you actually have the experience of arriving before you take a step. Of being so present that

[05:44]

you know what you're going to say before you say it, before you think it. Some experience like that in everything you do. So it's philosophical on one hand, but real understanding you can tell because the person has physical experience of it too. So usually both sides are there. And Oyo's third barrier is, everyone has his own cause of birth. What is the cause of your birth? This question is of the same importance as when we started Sashin talking about

[06:49]

the experience of finality, of death, or something beyond your reach, or all of our corruptibility. In this one, what came before you? What caused you? How do you own your own cause? What is the cause of your own birth? Some teacher said, in the morning I had gruel and now I'm hungry. I'm always hungry. Some of you come to Doksan. Yesterday a number of you, in fact, came to Doksan. I thought this was a rather interesting feeling. You came to Doksan like I was a garage mechanic, and you were tooling in in your Maserati, or your jalopy in some cases.

[08:21]

asking me, something is a little funny, I hear a buzz in the engine, could you tell me what the problem is? But some technical approach, that's rather good, that's some detached idea, feeling. I noticed that kind of thing. This is not, everyone isn't exactly the same so you won't have this same experience but you know I got a cold the other day. Everyone at Tassajara, I just spoke to Tassajara, no one at Tassajara is sick and everybody in the Bay Area is sick it seems. And Tsukiyoshi had the flu for so long. And Sally last night was supposed to, play was supposed to be performed and all afternoon people were phoning back and forth angry at each other because they weren't going to come to rehearsal because they were sick. You must come. And then finally, late in the afternoon, everyone called each other and said, we're all sick. And they canceled the play because everyone in the cast was sick. Anyway, I got this chest cold. I hope it's not the flu. But I knew when I got it. In fact, I mentioned to someone, maybe Lucy,

[09:48]

that the tips of my thumbs got cold. And I knew I was going to get the flu or vulnerable when the tips of my thumbs got cold. Because usually I can keep my, my hands just stay warm. At least on the inside, outside sometimes they're cold. But occasionally, I completely lose my heat, shrinks or something. And I completely lose, sometimes on the tips of my fingers, but usually my thumbs. It's cold through and through on the tips of my thumbs. And always in that case I'm rather vulnerable to getting a cold or something. That's some technical problem. Notice as you become more and more just aware of your body with some detachment. Some of you drive in with your cars though. when really you should be seeing a psychiatrist instead of a car mechanic. Or some of you come to see a psychiatrist when all you need is a driving lesson. There's some confusion in some of you about who the driver is and what the car is.

[11:16]

That kind of thing. Suzuki Roshi. said that he, when he was a young priest, he often felt very disagreeable with having a particular way to practice, some particular way of the temple he was at. So he would go away to some other temple. But at that temple, he said, he felt like he had to act like a follower of that temple. And he felt disagreeable about having to act like a follower of this other temple, which he was not. Sometimes I think you feel disagreeable with Zen and practice and same kind of

[12:41]

problem, you know, what is Buddha all the time. I'd like to just give you your freedom, but you've tried to have some freedom. There's no way to have freedom without restriction. And yet restriction isn't Buddhism, isn't freedom either. Anyway, what I've said in Sashin so far is enough for this year. Do you have anything about it you'd like to talk about? Yeah? I'd like to know more about the world of my work. About what? The world of my work.

[14:22]

Let me tell you a story first, which I forgot. Some monk asked, Mooku, I think his name is, asked Rinzai, what is the main eye? Avalokiteshvara has one thousand eyes. What is the main eye? And again Rinzai said, responded in the same way, what is the main I? Say it. And Mooku grabbed Rinzai and pulled him down off his seat and climbed up on it himself. Rinzai very meekly and politely came up and said, I don't understand. What is it sir? And leaned into his ear and then pulled it right off the seat. And then Muku got up and just went right out the door and Rinzai got up and went right out the door. Both were trying to trap the other in some possession.

[15:43]

And neither would be caught. They both split. No one would stay on the hot seat. Actually I don't want to say too much about it. He asked if I would say something more about the will body. The reason I don't want to say more is the same as I was saying yesterday, is when you are practicing just to notice something is already to attain it. And in this kind of discussion, just to hear it, if you don't understand it or it doesn't respond to something, it's okay. If you continue practicing, eventually it will.

[17:30]

doesn't make any difference whether you understand now or in the Tang dynasty or in Maitreya's time, you know, it doesn't make any difference. But it's some... When we When we practice, we start out, of course, with two parents and various ideas, and mental and physical experiences of outside and inside. And as you begin to trust your senses, not averaging your senses,

[18:43]

Do you all understand that idea? Don't average your senses. Trusting each thing. Finding out there's no way, nobody to help you. You're the cause of your own birth. There's nobody to decide for you. You have to decide. Something has to decide. If there's a decision. If there's a decision. So everything becomes equally real. This thought, this feeling, etc. So you begin to find this... As you clear away, you know, you find more and more harmony. And that harmony in which your thought, your most ephemeral thought, is as real as your physical body. so-called donkey's leg, you know, which has arrived already. Your intention itself becomes your body. And that intention and your thoughts and your body and outside and inside

[20:08]

That experience, sometimes we can talk in various ways, we can call a heat body, bliss body. Something, something you sense that when you begin practice is mostly out of focus, or you could say in focus in patches. More and more that comes into focus and finally it's the same as everything, but at first you experience it as something separate. And it's rather, I think for most of us, it's the awakening of our bodhisattva's vow, it's the awakening of our intention which awakens and expresses the will body. A good practice for this is that sea of sound practice that I gave you yesterday. And if you've responded to this, and yesterday you immersed yourself in this sea of sound, you will have noticed that each event is also a sound, each step you make is a sound, each thing you do is a sound, some rhythm, some vibration. And as you found

[21:37]

And this kind of practice should continue over time. You know, we need Buddhism or bowing and altars because there must be some vehicle for our heart and feelings over time for this practice to mature. You can't just... It's not just an idea. Your whole body must have time to mature in it. So you need something to do. So we've created this something, that's all. And something usually is necessary without object. As I've said, shaking hands is one thing, but this goes nowhere. And true practice goes nowhere. It's like useful practice goes nowhere, like gassho. So as you immerse yourself, are intuitively aware of this sea of sound, without discriminating it, without being controlled by what you hear, some limitless, countless sound, always merging, but heard in detail. If you have some intuitive, semi-conscious feeling of this all the time,

[23:08]

after one year or so, you'll have quite a different feeling about everything. Even just a little, you may feel something different. How precise each sound is, and how ephemeral, how completely gone it is, or replaced. And how ephemeral our events are too, each event, each step, which has already arrived is a sound, and gone. Your history is gone like that. So the ability to do zazen like space itself, or like, or one with the sea of sound, is

[24:10]

to do that and be one with it is the will body. Okay. Yeah. What kind of question is this? Show me my trail. I'll ask it. I see. I have to answer your question just now.

[26:51]

Let me come back. Yes? What will I do when the great white waves come crashing in? You have a good memory. She said, what will I do when the great white waves come crashing in? That was a lecture a long time ago. What will you do? I don't know. What will you do? It's foolish to think they're in the future. Why put it off? Yeah? I appreciate what you're bringing in. I really enjoyed it. You just talked about everybody practicing what this means now. And I've been drawn to some of them.

[28:14]

And sometimes I have a feeling that I should just be with one for a year. Other times I just feel drawn to all of them. Could you hear what she said? She said the various practices that I have suggested at various times, she's drawn to some of them, but she feels that she should maybe take one for a year or so. and stick with it, rather than trying one or the other. That's right, you should take one, one that either you've started already and stay with it till you resolve it, or one that seems to stick with you. But if you do one thoroughly, all the others will become part of it, actually. If you do it, any practice, you find the sea of sound is there. That's that confidence that if you study X thoroughly, you'll understand Y and Z, etc. That's true. If you study yourself thoroughly, you'll understand the Buddha.

[29:42]

We were talking about spiritual friends, and it's occurred to me that I really have a blank space with respect to having a new kind of... I don't even know what I need to know. And I almost had a sense that it's kind of even more basic definition of my life outside of Buddhism, that almost the society has lost the skill unit, or that I personally didn't pick up the skills the society had in encountering people. So anyway, there's this kind of feeling in my life. Yeah, I think you're right. I don't think there's much problem with finding a friend when you've thrown your lot in with everyone, when you realize we're in

[31:16]

Someone. You will recognize someone. Yeah? It's like I can't find... I don't want to take a vacation, I don't want to be here all the time. And the session goes on, by getting to Alabama, I'm here. And now I recognize, oh, this is first Alabama. In Hawaii? Maybe the first cousin came when it was a little warmer?

[32:47]

So the problem is, how do you go directly from waking up to third zazen? It counts differently, I suppose. I don't know. How do you go directly to third zazen? I was more wondering what the nature of our sleep is. I can't seem to find my attention so right to sleep. I don't mind it. I'm just wondering what to sleep. What's happening underneath that roof? Well, basically, I don't think there's much to be said for it except to wonder why first zazen is different than third zazen. But that's that problem I was speaking about. Why do we change our activity to go to zazen? What's the difference between the state of mind early in the morning and in the afternoon? What is the difference between waking and sleeping?

[34:15]

was the difference between desire's state of mind and satisfied state of mind. That's maybe a very fundamental and overlooked question by most people who practice, taking for granted that there's a difference. The only thread I think you can weave through it is your intention. And when your intention becomes, by your effort, becomes strong enough, your sleep will become waking sleep. You won't have any difference, almost no difference between waking and sleeping, and when you first go to bed and when you wake up. That's not so difficult to achieve in Sashin, rather difficult to achieve all the time. But again, once you achieve it, it's rather useful to notice when it wavers, or when you dream. When you have that, you don't dream anymore. So sometimes, when you have some dreams, it's rather interesting, what it means. Like you're going to get sick,

[35:46]

So, what is the difference? You can ask. And deepen your intention. It's the effort. That's all you can do. Some other questions? Yeah. He took two hundred words about quantity. And he said, who is the man who can swallow the whole of the West River in one gulp? Which sounds like a very much extravagant sort of man. Can you hear what he said? He said, who can swallow the whole of the West River in one gulp? And he said, that's a bit on the extravagant side. This Dogon, this half-dipper bridge, which is the strength. Is that earthbound? Is Dogon taking water out of the river? In half-dippers? In half-dippers, yeah. Keeping half-dippers.

[37:09]

Well, he's asking, what's the connection between Dogen's practice of half-dippering from the river and swallowing the whole river in one gulp? One is Buddha and one is Bodhisattva. I've seen you down at the beach. Yeah. I have a question.

[38:36]

I knew I was the culprit. Did you hear what she said? I shouldn't repeat it. She said, the way we keep Berkeley Zendo small is we let so many people leave to come study with you. I'm sorry. Some of it emerged here. Yeah, I'm sorry. What? You should thank me for that, I see. So you have some obligation to help Zen Center with all its problems that you've sent over here. Yeah, Zen Center's responsibility is to offer this kind of practice, and I guess we just have to keep the number of seats limited. For a few years, anyway, there's going to be tremendous interest in American Buddhism. Then maybe it will go away, and we'll sit here and desert as Zen does later.

[40:12]

Yeah. Averaging the senses. Not so important except to the extent that we have a belief that reality is obtained by averaging the senses. you have to. If you hear it but don't see it, or can't imagine what it is, you tend to think it's not real. Or you don't trust it unless you can confirm it with other senses. And science, of course, carries that to averaging it over time. If you can repeat the experiment, it's real. If you can't repeat it, it's not real. But for us in our practice, we're not concerned with repeating it. Though we repeat things, as we were talking with Mark yesterday, over and over again, it's so we can find out how to make each thing fresh. It's not the same. So if we do it the same over and over again, you will find out how it's not the same. Each time is unique. And as long as it

[41:45]

seems dull and the same, you know, you haven't noticed how unique each thing is, and how spontaneous. Rather like the old priest, Zakyoshi told about, who was so weak No one knew if he was going to be able to get back up and down. For him, each bow is something completely unique. The last one, maybe. But for us, the bow should be the same. And we sometimes say to ourselves, underneath, I plunge into the bow. No, we don't know. Even the ground may disappear. If you average your experience, your life is rather dull. And comparative thinking is the same. Your mind becomes very dull and duller and duller by comparative thinking. And when you stop it, it's nothing but dullness for quite a while. Yes.

[43:22]

Yes. You bend over like that. If you bend over like this, it's not as painful. Yeah, you bend over. You just lean forward. Use your arms. Some people when they bring the Everything is to be done. We do one thing at a time, so there isn't a kind of merging rush into the next thing. The practice is if you come, you bring the water, say, and you bow. You don't start bowing as you're walking up and sort of worried that I'm going to have my bowl down there before you're ready or something so you're moving the pot out while you're bowing. Your mind doesn't need to be working. All you do are, now I'm bowing. And then I put my bowl out, you put the water out, now I'm pouring. If you want to apply your thinking to your concentration like that, it's all right. Now I'm pouring. And then most of you bow before I bow. I have to take the

[44:47]

Setsu, the stick, and put it in the bowl. Then I have to move my hands to the side, and then I bow. And usually while I'm still taking the Setsu, you're bowing. I don't have to get away, I guess. I always want to come back. So you wait till I get it, and then we bow. And with the water, you try to make it very convenient, you know, you put the bucket way down there, so I could just tip the bowl. I wouldn't even have to lift the bowl, I could sort of just... But the result is I have to bend way over. I did once. They dumped it. They fed me to the spirits. But you pick up the bowl and then, I mean, I don't have to be so convenient. I can lift it and dump it, you know. And here, the most common thing we do, not wrong, but the Tassajara way. Tassajara way because we

[46:16]

serving is on the floor, you can't hold the salad bowl-type serving bowl. Actually, I think the most convenient way, and the usual way it's done, which is to hold it in the crook of your arm against your chest, and you hold the pincer, or whatever, this way. And we can almost stand up. You can stand up straight, you know, and the person can put their bowl out, and you can serve that way. But then you don't bow this way. You shift it to here and bow. Then you put it back. But some of you are holding it, bouncing it in one hand, and it's precarious. Or you're holding it with your thumb, like this. It feels uneasy. I was wondering if in the sense that form and energy are the same from a Buddhist understanding. You mean like scientific? Well, I don't trust science.

[47:43]

Now we can say anything you can name including energy is form. If you ask what are all of them, your intention is what form is and energy is actually. Back to Buddha and Bodhisattva. You're a disciple of Kalu Rinpoche, isn't that correct? So I didn't know exactly what he teaches about Buddha and Bodhisattva. We're always talking about it, of course, but so I don't. The whole of what we're talking about is it, but bodhisattva is our realm of practice, our intention. And the realization of that intention is Buddha.

[49:29]

But you don't practice the realization of that intention. You practice only to help others. That's all. Maybe it's two names for one thing, but only by giving up a Buddha, by killing Buddha, can we approach Buddha. and that there's always some approach, in the realm of form there's always some approach. If you have some other idea, you know, it's already wrong. You're sitting right by that drafty door. I am too. It makes me cold. Breeze goes right across the back here. It's like sitting at a campfire. This side is quite warm and that side is quite cold.

[51:03]

Maybe you should change your seat. Anyway, go ahead. She's talking, but she's always chattering and cold. Or trembling. What's your choice? She said sometimes in the midst of trembling through and through

[52:04]

suddenly she'll go and there'll be a calm through and through, right? Okay. Who is doing which one? You can pretend you can choose for a while and try to be calm and sit still sometimes and sometimes to let the trembling go But who is it that causes your birth? Who is it that caused the trembling or any thought to come? These tremolings are like the Dharma tremolings. All these tremolings were like legions of beings marching through the Dharma hall.

[53:57]

OK. And that is, is there some qualitative difference between a spiritual friend and this elite friendship that we have in some other sense? Or what is the particular characteristic? A spiritual friend may not like you, even, but he helps you all the time.

[55:00]

spiritual friend is someone who's always concerned with your well-being. Someone who loves you tremendously may not always be concerned with your well-being, they may be quite possessive, angry with you for being better than they are, or worse, or different. But we can't, again, to find a friend We have to be, excuse me for sounding like Norman Vincent Field, but... You have to be a friend. You have to be concerned for someone else's well-being, without discrimination. If you have that feeling, you're likely to find someone who will like you, or return that feeling. Aren't you always concerned with Michael's well-being? Or as much as possible?

[56:28]

to the extent that we can't be, and to the extent that we find out we can't be concerned with another person's well-being. And it's particularly poignant when you're a parent, because most parents find out they're not always concerned with their children's well-being. Sometimes they almost throw them down the stairs, and then you feel quite guilty. So it's some lesion that by practice we find out how to heal. But it's also quite natural. As someone said, they've begun to let themselves off the hook. First you have to start letting yourself off the hook.

[57:42]

What is the nature of your breathing? Forget about Bodhisattva and Buddha. What is the nature of your existence? What do you want to do? What do you really want to do? What do you really want to do? Many of us look back over a year or two and only one or two things stand out as having been. We are glad we did, but we don't change our life to do those things. Usually, at least secretly, we know what we want to do or would like to do if we thought this world was ideal.

[58:58]

But why not pretend this world is ideal and start? To find out what you really want to do without any reservation and to decide to do it is the Bodhisattva's vow. Realizable or not, you just decide to do it. How many countless beings actually will decide with us when we make that decision?

[59:59]

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