First I'd like to ask if we could do the meal boards, cleaning boards, in the morning a little differently. When they're brought up, the boards of people sitting up here can be wiped. But then when they're put there, immediately we'll push them down. So we'll wash the boards at the beginning. and the person who's brought them will go to the end of the aisle immediately and pick them up. Actually, that's the way it's done in Japan, in a monastery, except that it's done, the person who brings them runs along the board to the end of the aisle, and then he goes off with it, except With our eating board so low, it would be quite a sight running along. So we didn't do it that way from the beginning. But we started using those boards in the city for this last sashim. And we decided to do it that way. It makes more sense. It means at the end someone doesn't have to come and get them. Just done at the beginning.

[01:30]

So as soon as the person puts it down, you don't have to wait for the other side to have it. Since it's put down, just start it down. And I'd like to make three changes in the meal chant, and see if I can do it just by, we can do it just by my mentioning it, or maybe we have to write it out. We'll see. First is, to drop in the grove, just Buddha was born at Tambini. And second, to substitute Varanasi for Benares. We call the Indian consulate, actually we did this several months ago, but I never, I have some, there are quite a few changes that I've Rather than wait and do them all at once, we'll do these three. We called the Indian consulate some months ago, and they said, oh, we're not going to use that colonial name, Benares, that the English gave us. We're going back to Varanasi. We used to have Paranasi, but that's the Japanese pronunciation. So we'll use Varanasi now.

[02:53]

And the third is, in the first three of the ten names of Buddha, we'll drop the adjectives and reverse dharmakaya and vairocana and locana and sambhogakaya and That's simple enough. Well, we'll say homage to the Dharmakaya Vairochana Buddha. Now we say homage to the boundless Vairochana Dharmakaya. Right? So now we'll say homage to the no-boundless and Dharmakaya first, Dharmakaya Vairochana Buddha. So homage to the dharmakaya avairocana buddha homage to the sambhogakaya locana buddha homage to the nirmanakaya shakyamuni buddha and from there on it'll be the same homage to the future Maitreya buddha. All three places are chanting it and all three places can't remember the adjectives

[04:21]

can get to homage to, omnis, complete, manifest. The adjectives can come up. So we have to say something more fundamental, and then we can have adjectives as we want, as we do with Avalokitesvara, the perfect wisdom. And Dharmakaya is maybe a kind of adjective. If you understand what Dharmakaya means, then you don't need boundless. Boundless is a rather limited idea, actually, compared to Dharmakaya. As you may know, I think we'll do are scheduled to do two shosan ceremonies this practice period. Did you know that? One in the middle and one at the end. And the one in the middle will come in a week or two sometime. It was, I don't know, it's a week or two away.

[05:47]

I think there's some confusion between the Shuso Ceremony and the Shosan Ceremony, and also I think that we can use the Shosan Ceremony as a way of understanding the role of asking, the point of asking questions in Buddhism. At Eheji, the Shosan ceremony is done twice a month on, I think, the 1st and the 15th, or approximately that, twice a month. But there, the Godo Roshi, who's really in charge of the practice of the monastery, seldom gives

[07:00]

tesho, and never really is available to ask questions of. So he usually is the person who does the shosan ceremony twice a month, and it's the only opportunity to ask some question. But here we have most lectures afterwards, we have various questions. So maybe we don't need the Shosan ceremony at all. But I thought this time we might do it. Not twice. Chino Sensei, I believe, does it once a month. Not twice a month, I think once a month in Los Altos. And he's several places at once. Each week he goes to several different places, so it may be a way for him to concentrate on questions once a month.

[08:25]

I'd like you to spend some time wondering what a question is, or why we should ask a question, or what a question is, or what is a Buddhist question. What's the point of asking a question? The best attitude is that the person you're asking the question of is just another aspect of your own mind. You're asking your own mind a question in a more intensified way, maybe. If you ask a challenging question, you know, it means you, because you're really asking yourself, it means you doubt yourself.

[09:53]

Or if you ask a question expressing gratitude or some feeling, thankful feeling, you're expressing your own relief. Both of these are okay, but most useful question is when you're asking a question the way you'd ask yourself a question. sincerely, very faithful to yourself. I mean, there's no reason to fool yourself or to worry about any considerations pertaining to the question except to present it to yourself. Except, of course, we even fool ourselves, or don't, or avoid asking ourselves questions, but as much as possible, to present a question as we would present a question to ourselves. Something we

[11:20]

feel our practice or life is currently revolving around or stumbling on or pushing against. And the question is a Buddhist question. If It's a very fundamental question, including past, present, and future, and including other people, either or for, asking it for someone else, as well as yourself. So your question should be, I mean, usually if you find a question, since you have some question, often, is there another question behind that question? Is that based on some other more fundamental question? So you should reduce it.

[12:39]

your question to the point where you can't reduce it anymore, or if you reduce it further, it no longer has any meaning for you. At a certain point a question becomes just too big or too fundamental, and we can't feel it anymore. So it should be reduced to the point where we can still feel it, and yet it is the most basic form of the question. And you can use some Buddhist subject as, or I should say, answer. You can look to Buddhism for something, dharmakaya, emptiness, or something like that, and you can ask, what is the dharmakaya or what is emptiness? That's like looking at an answer and seeing if you understand it. And it won't have much meaning if you ask that kind of question just as a question. If you ask, what is emptiness? Someone will tell you form. That's all.

[14:04]

You should ask, if you look to Buddhism for your question, you should look at something you're pushing against. Something that you have some feeling about, or blank feeling about. Some blank feeling, I mean something you feel is important, but you don't have any feeling for it, or resolve. You can't resolve it. That sometimes means you're actually trying to make sense of something like compassion. It's just a word. Anyway, there are also, of course, in Buddhism many basic types of questions and answers

[15:32]

And I don't know if I will, but perhaps I'll discuss some of the basic questions that are asked in Buddhism over and over again, and why they're asked over and over again. And how each time, for you, they can have some meaning. How to give them life for yourself. Anyway, the Shosan ceremony shouldn't be such a big deal. While you're asking some question, that's very important to you, of course, still, we should just be talking back and forth as one mind. Going back to the question of Bodhidharma and the Emperor, where we left it last time was the introductory word had presented the two people who are going to meet.

[17:17]

and Engo presented them, their characteristics as the characteristics of their practice. So he presented the practice of the emperor and the practice, the characteristics of Bodhidharma. And then the next part is the dialogue of Bodhidharma and the emperor meeting. And one of the fundamental questions in this particular story is the encounter between two people, any encounter between two people. Not all Buddhist questions resolve to a basic encounter between two people, though often they do. There's some kind of form of, who are you? But this question particularly, between Bodhidharma and the emperor, is a form of that feeling we may have

[18:50]

we all must have at some times of wanting to meet someone, wanting to encounter someone like ourselves, or in Jungian terms, you know, our anima or animus, some desire to meet that woman or man in ourself, or teacher or saint. that person who's going to change our life or resolve our questions or supply the missing parts. So the emperor was, you know, maybe looking for such a person. It's not only, of course, the emperor and Bodhidharma meeting, but China and India meeting, as Suzuki Roshi and America meeting. So it's a very big kind of encounter or question, and very similar to the kind of

[20:12]

encounter and question that you yourself are in. Why am I practicing this Japanese, Chinese, Indian religion? Who was Suzuki Roshi? What are we doing here? Should we go to Japan or China or India? And the emperor is not presented as just a worldly nobody. He's not presented as some corrupt

[21:15]

worldly emperor, but as a maybe great Buddhist emperor, representing China. And Bodhidharma comes. And the emperor is looking for someone. Because he's looking for someone, He can't see who is there looking for a saint. He asks him, because Bodhidharma maybe looks like a holy man, I don't know, but he says, asks him, what is the fundamental essence of reality? Something like that. Bodhidharma says, no holiness, no fundamental essence. And so, the emperor says, but aren't you a holy man, or who are you? Bodhidharma, of course, says, I don't know.

[22:42]

I'm not some special holy person. But Bodhidharma is coming to China, too, and he's looking for someone, too, actually. What is the difference between what Bodhidharma is looking for and what the emperor is looking But Bodhidharma is looking for someone who does not seek outside himself. The emperor, as we know, is concerned with the merit he may have achieved by building temples and how he may affect his society, etc. So he is by that, you know, seeking outside himself. So Bodhidharma leaves. So it may be we should look at who Bodhidharma does meet. As you know, he goes to China, across the river to another part of China, and

[24:19]

It sits before a stone or wall, which a place becomes known as Shorinji, and sits there a long time. When you enter Eheji, You are asked over and over again, why are you here? And the monks seem to know they're supposed to answer, wall gazing. They're not supposed to give any answer other than just wall gazing. Wall gazing means Bodhidharma. Anyway, Kui Ko hears that Bodhidharma is there and he goes and wants to speak to him and Bodhidharma does not move or say anything.

[25:47]

So, though you all know the story, I think I'll repeat it. He waits there quite a long time and finally he decides many Buddhas and patriarchs have given even the marrow of their bones and the blood of their veins to feed others, should I not likewise offer myself." So he continues to stand there, and it's early in December, and it's snowing. The next morning, snow is even deeper than it was here at Christmas time. Maybe the story says waist high, and he's still standing in the snow. So Bodhidharma says to him, what are you standing there in the snow for? And he says, I only want to, please show me the entrance to the gate of sweet dew, the Kanromon, which is also a mantra used in

[27:22]

I said in the funeral ceremony for Vocha Fiske and Alan Watts, the gate of sweet dew, please show me the entrance. And Bodhidharma says, who are you with arrogant mind, you know, and superficial attitude, asking me, begging me to show you this. Are you, in other words, he's saying, are you just asking a question? Or are you really ready to put mind and body, all your eggs in one basket? Are you ready to completely completely attentive, something like that. And Huiko supposedly takes out a knife and cuts his arm off at the elbow and offers it to Bodhidharma.

[28:49]

and Bodhidharma understanding this, accepts teaching it. And Hui Ko asks, what is the Dharma seal of all the Buddhas." And Bodhidharma says, you cannot seek the Bodhidharma seal of all the Buddhas from another. You cannot find out from another the Dharma seal of all the Buddhas. And Huiko says, but my mind is still restless. It's not quiet. Will you quiet my mind? And Bodhidharma says, show me your mind and I'll quiet it for you.

[30:30]

And Huiko says, I have searched for my mind and I can't find it. And Bodhidharma says, I have quieted your mind for you. And Huiko is enlightened by understanding being one with what Bodhidharma was, is. This is a very simple story, a rudimentary story, but can you actually feel such a simple story? Can you earnestly practice that way? And how thoroughly we mean in Buddhism to

[32:41]

practice non-dualistically, to not seek outside yourself, is really not so easy to understand. It takes quite a few years before you recognize how thoroughly and completely you must practice non-dualistically if you are to realize this Zen way. Maybe this kind of story is for a mature student who can sip in utter darkness. In the city, someone asked me,

[33:43]

But there are some things we can depend on outside ourselves, can't we? For example, sun comes up in the morning, and because the sun comes up in the morning, we get up. We look to the sun. That is regular and we can depend on it. But actually, that's not so. Sun does not come up for you. Sun just is going about its way. And you should likewise just be going about your way. The sun should come up in you. Maybe sun comes up in the morning because you get up. Actually, it should be that way. We can't say what came first. You can say, well, the sun is before us, so the sun created the earth and plants, and then we were created, and so we are dependent on the sun. But it actually doesn't work that way. I remember

[35:04]

Sally, my daughter, she used to be doing something and I'd say something to her. Do such and such. And I'd say, and don't argue with me, I'd say, after all, I made you. You belong to me. She'd say, no, it's too late. Now I belong to me, she said. She said that when she was really little, I was quite surprised. I was saying, you're at least half me, I said. You should do what I say. She said, no, it's too late. I belong to me. And that's true. Each of you belongs to you. And sun belongs to sun. So we don't look at the stars or The sky is through a pipe, as one translation says. We don't look at the stars or the sun or to some reader. We don't go and ask that our fortune be told, even if it's true or the stars are right. To do that sabotages your practice.

[36:36]

It's not a matter whether it's right or wrong. It just sabotages your practice. That when you try to think of your destiny in that way, trying to figure out what comes next or what's in the future for you, you lose the center of your practice, which is to know the sun comes up in you. And because of that reason, you get up. Is there something you'd like to talk about, some question or topic? The difference between saving and giving comfort to people, and how can you really, giving comfort would just be like helping, and then they go on saving.

[38:28]

That's true. And giving comfort. I don't know. Nothing else will do, maybe you give comfort. Listen, I don't. Myself. It's not so useful to just make someone comfortable. It's better that they suffer, actually. I don't mean to choose you should suffer and you should not or something. Just... The most important thing is just to be with the person. Maybe to suffer with them. But sometimes people want to. If you're suffering, and people want to comfort you, maybe you should let them, because it makes them feel better, from the other point of view. Jyotishan has brought me various medicines. Last night, some kind of Vicks VapoRub pill. I never take medicine, but she insisted, so I took it.

[40:27]

And I decided to take it without water or anything to see what would happen, to see the effects. And so I watched it for several hours. And this first, this hot air started to rise, and then fumes. It was like swallowing a bottle of mixed paper rub or something. And it was rather interesting, actually. This morning she made some kind of kumquat tea. She gave me. Anyway, she knows how I feel, but she enjoys doing it, and I enjoy letting her do it. That's all. Speaking about being, the other night we were talking about being sick in more ways than just having a cold. And I wanted to say that for someone practicing, to have some mental illness or physical disability or some kind of problem is not a hardship. It's not something you want to get rid of.

[41:54]

because you want to be like other people. And as you know, if you visit somebody in the hospital and your feeling is, I don't want to have that problem, you won't help the person much. And our attitude isn't I have something wrong with me. I want to do the best as possible to get rid of it so I'm like other people. Having something wrong with us, we recognize that many people have something wrong with them. And if we can cure it or take care of it or accept it, other people can take care of it or cure it or accept it. So your being able to means other people can. And if you really have this attitude, you can help many people with many kinds of difficulties, because you understand intimately their own situation. But if you reject it, even if your rejection is a form of just trying to get rid of it so you get better, you won't understand other people, suffering, or life, or joys even.

[43:21]

So if you're, say, even schizophrenic, you should recognize, I'm schizophrenic. They call me schizophrenic. What does this mean to be schizophrenic? How can I still function? like a bodhisattva given some burden to solve for others. It becomes your work. And in all our practice, those moments of uncertainty or doubt or when you no longer are in touch with yourself, are doors, a kind of door opening in our practice. Usually we get, almost always we get sick when we get out of touch with ourselves and

[44:53]

Now, sometimes we may get sick anyway, and sometimes we won't get sick when we're out of touch, but usually it means when you can see it happen, it's when you got out of touch with yourself. But again, our way is not to try to live so you're never out of touch with yourself. that's being too careful. Just whatever happens you may find it's too much but you must do it. And then when you're sick it's rather interesting to explore it. I haven't had a cold like this for a long time and

[45:58]

I find it quite interesting. My sinuses are very plugged up and I've found I can circulate air through my sinuses and clear them out and then I can plug up the other one and then I can circulate air through it and clear it out. And I can locate the various points where I'm sick. And if you can keep your mind without thinking about something else, you can make your mind make you well. But if your mind is always floating off into thoughts, you can't even circulate air through some section. of your body, if you think about anything else, if your mind gets distracted for a second, your breathing will just become usual breathing. You have to be able to do it, and it takes maybe, for me it took maybe two hours to clear one sinus of concentrated breathing, the first time I did it. And although it's not part of our practice to

[47:18]

do that kind of breathing where you go in one nostril for some number of breaths and then in another nostril and then into just the left lung or just the right lung. That kind of thing you should know how to do, actually. We don't do it to attain some special feeling from it, but you should be able to flexibly breathe. just to be able to do it, then if you have a cold sometime, it may be useful. And it also will make your breathing more balanced to be able to do both, because you'll find that the more you can sense your body, you'll find one side of your body is warm

[48:29]

and another cold, or one side is light and another dark, you don't notice it till you can experience your various parts separately. As long as you just have a kind of generalized experience of yourself, there are many places where you can be sick and you can't tell. And when you're sick, you're generally sick, rather than sick in some particular place. Some other question? Yeah. The motivation for Riko cutting his arm off is maybe he's proven that his commitment is that deep, that he'll cut his arm off. He has some idea. If I cut my arm off, that proves that my commitment is that deep. So I'll do it.

[49:57]

That doesn't make his commitment that deep. Yeah, it doesn't, no. If you did it to make your commitment that deep, it wouldn't work. It doesn't work, yeah. If you don't mind, it's all right. Here at Tassajara we practice, we get chilled blades. You think that's hard? No. I don't like the cold. Anyway, I feel in myself and other people

[51:01]

such that I am committed, that I am not rejecting some feeling of mine, or something like that. I mean, if you stand the cold, that means you're a serious student. Yes, or many things, you know. If I work late at night, that means I'm compassionate, if I do such and such. So, I don't know exactly what my question is. Maybe the relationship between that thought or that sense of things, which is quite common to me, and the other sense of things, of if you don't care so much, then it's okay. They don't have any relationship, or one leads to the other, or what? Maybe sometimes one leads to the other. I'd have to see the context in which Rinpoche writes that to know exactly what he means. There are many kinds of false hard practices, so I don't know which one he means. I know what you mean.

[52:48]

My only worry, maybe, is that our practice here is too easy, actually. It's pretty easy to live here, you must admit. Don't you admit that? Too easy, maybe. In what way? Don't you like living here? It's easier than being in the city, maybe? Anyway, a lot of people get here and don't want to leave, anyway, and when they get to the city, they think, oh, God, is this distracting and disturbing. Because we've removed distractions, it's a lot easier. Yeah. Is it good to be a little harder to serve, so you'll be able to practice more and get better in the future? Well, I wouldn't be as hard on myself as you are sometimes on yourself. Some, we should

[54:16]

know roughly what's happening to us and do things roughly in accord with everyone else. Just this morning, I was thinking, I walked into Page Street on the street, and now I have a monastery, a farm, a temple. A lot of people would be very envious. But, am I going to spend the rest of my life listening to him? Well? Silas is gone. There is no way out. You are losing hope, huh?

[55:52]

No, after a certain while you'll be kicked out. That's what Gary, the first part which you said to me, that's what Gary Snyder said. Don't make it so easy, he said. A monastery in the mountains, a building in the city, a farm. Don't solve people's problems completely. That's true. Yeah. You had a question? You did? I think many of us have. You were talking about church and stuff.

[56:58]

Many of us have an impulse to take care of someone. Isn't it maybe better, for instance, that Joshen Sein take care of someone who can take care of himself than that we use that impulse on someone who thinks they need to be taken care of? It doesn't form any kind of dependence. I mean, it's better for Joshen Sein to give medicine to someone who doesn't need medicine than to give medicine to somebody who wants it? Maybe so. Something like that sort of mothering instinct to take care of it. For someone who isn't going to depend on it, you know it's not going to be the case. I have no one way to answer the various questions you've been asking.

[59:05]

When you don't mind whether a situation is strict or not strict, and the question of it should be easier doesn't arise. I mean, unless it's ridiculous. Somebody's got a hundred pound stone on you or something while you're trying to do zazen. That would be unnecessary. And there are practices that they do. like tying your foot with a rope and jumping off the waterfall up here, something like that, and it catches you. That kind of ... Buddhists have done practices like that. Maybe that's too much, you know, so we don't do that. It's maybe too stunty. But when the traditional practice that we've inherited, it doesn't make any difference to you. Actually, any situation you're in is quite strict when you see the elements of it. So then you can be in a situation you'd describe as loose, maybe we would.

[60:55]

then that is, at that point it doesn't make much difference what kind of situation you're in. To be only in a situation like Tassajara all your life, especially with the same people, you know, wouldn't be, it might be something pleasant or limiting, but it wouldn't be what we mean by Zen practice. To be here for a while and then maybe to be here taking care of the practice is okay, but more than that is not to make sense. I feel like in a way there's an accepted kind of way to respond to people and situations and it's a quite really

[62:56]

Then when I fell, I sprained myself. Maybe I should go to medicine for a while. Maybe consider finishing my work. I can't hear you. I'll be talking about after you've practiced for so long that you have only a few things to say. I'd like to take this in. I keep trying to create this educational moment. Well, it doesn't work that way, you know. It surprises me because I remember talking to Suzuki Yoshi about this very point.

[63:58]

talking about love and compassion and such feelings and at that time I'd been practicing about five years or six years or so and I didn't feel love for everyone or just wasn't so I felt some people were jerks and some people were and were hurting other people or hurting, you know, in some wide sense, or blind. And so my practice at that time certainly wasn't to pretend I felt good. That's just the way it was, you know. You have to be quite faithful to yourself. If that's what you feel, that's what you feel. Why is there some need to express it? Is it honest to express it or dishonest not to express it? I don't think there's any link.

[65:54]

You know, to be faithful to yourself and what you feel doesn't mean you have to force that on other people. If someone comes and begs you to tell them what you think of them, please, you might say, you're a jerk. You know, if that's what you feel. But if they're not begging you, there's no reason to do that. That's what I was talking about the other night, about that very important point in our practice. is letting things exist just as they exist, but not feeling the need, breaking that link to... that compelling link we have in our own society to express it or give it form or acknowledge it or tell somebody about it. From the point of view of Buddhism, that's sort of an unreal world, you know, to feel that you have to... that it doesn't really exist or count or something unless you... and that things should count or

[67:17]

That that's honesty? I don't know why it's honesty. Just you had some feeling, that's all. It's your own mind. Yeah? to take care of yourself and not paying any attention. And like a couple of weeks ago, Dave came back from having a talk with Dr. Warner about show blinds and said it's necessary for you to wear gloves during this Alzheimer's. So I said to him, That's more than I said, but I didn't say gloves. Yeah, I've said before that we don't, there's no fixed rule, right, about such things, like as, before you finish, let me just talk about that. I've said to people who have chill blades and such, last year and other times,

[68:46]

that they should take care of their hands and David Schneider went to the city and if you want to you can cover your hands depending on the temperature and but maybe the message is getting across to you is but I don't really mean that I really mean being be tough and keep your hands out there and so when Dr. Wenner talked to me about it and before looking at Linda's hands I had been thinking about it more and I decided to emphasize that you can cover your hands during Zazen if you want. But you have to make this kind of decision really on your own, thinking about your hands. Because I don't want to rob you also of the chance to learn how to keep your hands warm yourself. So if I say, oh, everyone cover their hands, I mean, some of you will cover your ears and your foreheads.

[70:11]

cheeks. So you have to decide for yourself. All I can say is it's good not to cover yourself too much. In Japan you always keep your window open, they say. This is your window. You always keep this open. You never have a turtleneck or something. And you always keep your hands out. And it's quite possible to keep your hands warm. When I'm sick like this, it's very clear. It's much more difficult for me to keep my hands warm. I can't get the heat into my hands. And I lose... I know I'm sick as soon as I feel any chill, because I lose control of my body heat. So... Somewhere you have to find some balance in between. It's like... Again, when I first started sitting, I couldn't keep my, I've told you before, I couldn't, my knees wouldn't touch. And for two years it took of sitting before my knees would touch the cushion. And Tsukiroshi told me to sit in a chair and etc. But I decided to sit.

[71:38]

And I would spend the first five minutes or more getting my legs together. I sat on three pillows. And then I would force them down into, as you know, what I call the half lily posture. And then at the middle of the period, I was about ready to spring into the air when they'd open them up again. And everyone told me not to move. By this time, I'd been sitting a couple of years, people said, don't move. And so the Kiroshi said, no matter what, don't move. But I knew for myself that I was never going to learn how to sit if I didn't do the best I could at the beginning of the period and move at the middle. Because if I didn't do that, I wouldn't ever put my legs down. So the middle of every period, I moved. I'd wait till a certain time when the stick went around. And actually the rule is you can move if you ask for the stick and are hit, then you can move. It's the technical rule. Otherwise you can't move. So other than that you're never supposed to move. So I'd wait till the stick came and move.

[73:01]

And I just did it, you know. This is what I have to do. That's all. So you should be able to make a similar decision. This is what I have to do to take care of my hands. And if it's some problem, you should come and ask the Eno. I would like to put my robe over my hands. That should be enough. You shouldn't need to wear gloves. I can't imagine. If you put your robe... If your robe doesn't reach your hands, then you may have to wear gloves. So, if your robe covers your hands, as some of you it does, then you can make a pocket. This one wouldn't work. The wind goes through it. The other kind you can use. But I can't, I don't, as I say, want to rob you of the chance to learn how to make your hands warm yourself. And in many things you should know your second wind. And I'm afraid our practice is not difficult enough, really, for many of you to know your second wind in everything. But it's okay. It's pretty good. I think we're okay.

[74:34]

ascetic practice meant to reject the body for some spiritual understanding is not our way. That's why we sit on a soft cushion and pillow and accepting body and mind, not rejecting body and mind. Well you're, this is the same, I don't know, it's the same like your question Sue. Maybe spontaneously it does happen, but anyway at the time I talked to Suzuki Roshi about that, I found I was just accepting that I felt this way about some people and that way about other people and if it was always so it would be all right. But now, I don't know, now I couldn't, I couldn't, I'm just not interested in

[76:22]

whether a person is good or bad. It just doesn't concern me. It's just I have a different way of viewing it. So it is different from then, but it's different from then because I accepted that as the way it would always be, not because I sought some difference. And I asked Suzuki Roshi that same question my first or second winter here at Tassara. Because he talked about, as someone, you said yesterday, generating heat between your thumbs and spreading it up your arms. And I used to sit there generating heat and freezing. And by the way, he said yesterday, put these two joints, the two middle joints together. But I think that's actually, that's one way it's taught. But taking into consideration our hands, which are different from Japanese hands, and various ways, and what I worked out and talked, and what Suzuki Yoshi and I finally agreed on, was the best way is end of your fingers to the end of your fingers. So the tips of your fingers come to this line approximately.

[77:45]

And then you lift up through here, making an oval. And as I think I've told you, I misunderstood Tsukiyoshi to say that they shouldn't be touching or a tiny space as if a piece of paper would go through, as you said yesterday. But that's not right, actually. For one or two years, I did that. I thought Tsukiyoshi said. He said, actually, something. At that time, he didn't speak English. so well, and he said something like, as with enough pressure together to support a little piece of paper. And I thought he meant separated. So I spent two years learning to do that, and I could just keep them and feel the heat between them, but I wouldn't touch them. And then I asked him about it one day, because it seemed unbelievably difficult. Took me a long time to learn to do it. And he said, oh, no, no, I didn't mean that. Just put them together, but not too much pressure. So you put them together without too much pressure. But then later when I asked him about heat yoga, he said, oh, he'd given a lecture. He said, you start it between your thumbs and you spread it up your arms. Well, I just spent the most amount of time trying to get my mind in my thumbs and flames around my hands.

[79:14]

I'd imagine heat and finally it took me a long time I could get heat to come up like that much. And you try to bring your consciousness through your body in along the inside of your skin and along your muscles and you can actually be conscious throughout your body if you give up ideas about what consciousness is. I don't know exactly how to explain. But those efforts help make you more alive throughout your body. But I don't know... So I asked him that question. I said, how do you do this? I said, I'm having a terrible time. How do you make yourself warm from your thumbs? He said, well, First of all, it has to be very cold. And second, you have to have a powerful imagination. And imagination or thinking has a great deal to do with it, actually. So I would imagine. But, I don't know, now my hands are just warm, usually. And I actually, first I noticed my hands were just warm, usually.

[80:41]

And second, I noticed that a year or two later I found I could make my hands warm or cold or just by thinking they should be warm or cold. And then I began to notice the process. But it's not something so, what we're talking about is not so easy. It's not learned in a day. And it's not learned by learning it. It comes about because you One of the most important things, there's an enormous power to your mind if it's concentrated. If you can think, for instance, there's a story in some airline magazine I read about plants and the research on plants is rather Interesting, it's been going on since a girl in high school, not being a trained scientist, I think it's back in 1950 something, she did a high school plant, a high school project, you know, which no scientist would have ever done because he wouldn't have thought of it. But she just, innocent high school girl, went home and played classical music and popular music to her plants. And she found out the plants that

[82:09]

classical music played to him grew better. Of course, no one believed it at first, but a version of her study got published in the Scientific American. And since then, many people have studied it and confirmed a great deal of that kind of research. And one thing they've reported recently is that if you put wires on this little plant, you know, and you think, and you intend to, I'm going to chop this plant into bits. The plant goes, you know, all the wires and needles. But if you think, I'm going to do it, but you don't really mean it, the plant doesn't react at all. And there's an interesting story in Nancy Wilson Ross's book about the world of Zen. Do you know that story about the fencing with the bear? Many of you read it? Near the back. This guy fences with a bear. He beats this one young kid who's from college, challenges this guy who runs marionettes. He's a puppeteer. And the puppeteer, who's quite used to maybe responding to this, he wins the sword fight quite easily. So the boy says, go out and

[83:29]

I've met my master, now you'll meet yours." And they go out, and there's a trained bear, this is in Russia, and there's a trained bear. Anyway, there's a trained bear, and he says, try to poke the bear. So he tries to poke the bear, and every time he tries to poke the bear, the bear just knocks the sword right away. And he does some feints. You know, a feint is a kind of, you try to fake the guy out, right? And the bear would never answer any feint. which a human being always answers the fates, you know, almost always, but the bear absolutely wouldn't even defend himself when he didn't intend the thrust. Now whether this is a true story or not I have no idea, but it's interesting. Seems true. In the story the guy says, I believe it. But there's an enormous power to our thoughts that are intended. So you can have many kind of disturbing thoughts, most of them are intended to disturb you, you know, not intended for anything else. But if you have some concentrated thought that you intend, my hands will become warm. But how to be sure, you said, what's sincere practice, is when there's no ambivalence at all about that thought.

[84:58]

And if you have some, I'm going to make this a serious thought, you're already ambivalent. What that non-dualistic way is, is difficult. But once you can have concentrated thought like that, which is not ambivalent, it's quite easy for your hands to be warm or whatever. Okay. question that so many people have asked already, but it concerns certain dependents, specifically dependents on the future. When my first teacher died, it was a secure issue. Let's say my whole wife died at one point, to put it rather grammatically.

[86:01]

When I look back on it, I see that there are a great many things that's integrated in my life. So, to phrase the question, now I'm going to be something like, I mean, should we depend on anyone or should anyone allow us to be dependent on them? It's not a great danger. But yet, if we think we can be totally independent and ignore our interdependence, our inescapable interdependence, It's the other side, too much the other side. Well, you should be able to be dependent on someone and independent. If you can't be dependent on someone, it means you're weak. Do you understand?

[87:27]

you should be strong enough to also be able to be dependent and independent. If you can only be independent, to be just dependent is too weak, and to be just independent is also weak. You should be able to be both. It's like asking questions. As we started out, if you ask questions expecting something from Buddhism, some answer from Buddhism, you're already separated from your question. Is it? Well, I'm sorry. You should know. At least you should try to make it healthy. That much.

[88:23]

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