I enjoyed the questions you asked yesterday. They were all very basic kind of questions about our practice, but also with the sense of many alternatives or not a simple, well, if it's this way, then it can't be that way.

[01:12]

If someone asks, for example, just talking about questions again, what is the altar? Why do we have an altar? If they haven't done any work before they ask the question, it's almost impossible to give any kind of response. By work I mean, why would you You know, why would you yourself ask such a question? And what is the difference between this spot on the wall and that spot on the wall? What's the difference between an altar and not an altar? What is not an altar? What's the difference between your eye and your cheek? Why, what is the meaning of a chakra? What does What is a bower bird doing, building its bower? And asking the question also, you know, from the point of view of questioning the validity of

[02:53]

an altar, but also if you happen to like altars and accept them, also you should question, why do we have an altar? But if you're just asking, why do we have an altar? No one should trouble to answer such a question. If you can't make your question in the richness of your own experience and some work. If you've considered what it means to ask, why is there an altar, or what is not an altar, then it's possible to have some open communication between us, between all of us. Mungo.

[03:55]

Some people practice Buddhism in order to forget themselves, but Dogen's famous statement, you know, is to study Buddha's way, or learn Buddha's way, is to study yourself, or to learn yourself. And to study yourself or to learn yourself is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to be, Dr. Abe translates it as, confirmed by all the dharmas. And Suzuki Roshi and I translated it. to be identified by all things. Usual translation is to be enlightened by all things. But to be confirmed by all the dharmas is probably quite accurate translation. And to be confirmed by all the

[06:28]

Dharmas means to drop off mind and body and to drop off the mind and body of others as well. And this means, you know, No traces of enlightenment remain and no traces continue endlessly. But some of us forget that second. To study Buddhism is to study the self. To use... For some of us we have a kind of sensual experience. our life or our Zen, and we try to forget ourselves by, through our senses, through hard work or through undisturbed Zazen or through being alone in the mountains or seeking hard practice, where we won't be actually able to be disturbed by others.

[08:02]

It's one maybe fake hard practice is to be strict with yourself, but not let others be strict with you. But to just let others be strict with you, just to submit without any mutual understanding is some dead practice too. There's no way to exactly say anything in words. There are some people who, in Zen Center, who Actually, their way of practice is to submit to whatever situation. Either they want to be on top or they want to submit. And they don't have their own space, which requires neither submission nor being on top. And the purpose of our practice is really to find that space of our own.

[09:41]

And actually, when I said Tassajara is too easy, that disturbed a number of you. Many people spoke to me about it. I don't mean it shouldn't be as easy as it is. It should be easy, too. In fact, any monastic life, any life like this that you get used to, becomes easy. I know Suzuki Roshi used to say, when we were first starting to practice, how For him, it was invisible, hard or difficult. He didn't notice it, you know, because he was so used to it. And it becomes like that, so there's no question of hard or difficult or easy. If you went to some other practice, it would be unfamiliar, so rather maybe annoying,

[11:09]

to try to get used to it. It's important probably to have some time which is relatively easy but attentive and not disordered. I've noticed in fact that sometimes rich people who've had an opportunity to have, whose life has not been just lazy, who've had an opportunity for some undisturbed, not too pushed around by troubles and conditions, that gives them some strength that a person who's always pushed around finds hard to have. So, some easy time, like part of the life of tassara is, in which we have space to find our own pace, we can just know our own pace without worrying too much about what other people think, or not having to worry too much about what we're going to eat tomorrow, something like that.

[12:38]

It takes a long time, actually, to find your own pace, and be able to have that as your reference, so that you aren't always pressured by having too much to do, or what? Or some push in yourself to do more or something inadequate, some inadequate feeling, so that you really know you are your own time and space. There's a word in Japanese Soku Fui, which Zukiroshi used to talk about. And it means, I think I mentioned it maybe the other day, it means not to be attached to and not to be separated from. And it's a very important

[14:05]

It's very important in Zen practice. Without it, you'll lose your fundamental way, and it's not something you can read about, you know, or study, or reason out logically. In fact, our practice as a whole, you can't apply logic to it exactly, because logic always presupposes some value. judgment or some point of view, and that your point of view, from which you'll extrapolate logically, will change. So you have to be willing to let Buddhism be something you can't understand completely. If you can understand it completely, you'll just be in a closed room. So, Buddhism, we practice Buddhism maybe because it makes sense to us, or we are in love with it, or something. Some confirming feeling, you know, either logically or emotionally. But not that any particular part has to be logical.

[15:40]

If you try to be logical about your practice, you'll define yourself out. But just somehow we feel it makes sense, so you trust, as Dogen says, the Buddhas and patriarchs and this traditional way. tomorrow will have its own thoughts or way of presenting itself. So, Sokufui means that Like Tsukiroshi used to say, Zen art comes from Sokofui. It's not realistic, and it's not abstract. It's not exactly like what you're painting, and yet it's not just involved with the ink. Some space.

[17:12]

For we say Zen and everyday life are the same thing, but also they're not the same thing. Allowing for that kind of space in which contradictions can exist is some indeterminacy. your own space, something more real than what you can figure out. You know, the mathematical pi can't be expressed in numbers exactly, 3.14, etc., etc., But it exists. And maybe Soka Fui is something like that. That space of ours we can't describe, mentally or physically even, and yet it exists. And to find it, you have to make the world disappear.

[18:43]

As the... It's amazing how we use our eyes and ears to blind ourselves. To see what is usual and to hear what we expect. But you know in the ten ox-herding pictures, I think the ten ox-herding pictures will make more sense if you go backwards, starting from the last picture, entering the world. And that sense of work, work of being a priest or being a layman or being whatever, with no trace of practice even, is the last picture. But before that, the world has reappeared, forgetting ourselves and forgetting even

[20:10]

and dropping away mind and body, and dropping away mind and body of others, something, the world reappears. And the picture before that is just an empty circle. So while our practice is maybe sometimes easy and sometimes difficult, here you have some opportunity from yourself to make use of your zazen. And stop blinding yourself. giving up your history. I don't mean to deny what you are, but to find yourself on each moment, to be faithful to yourself just as you are, angry or hearing something,

[21:45]

Sometimes some visual impression will come to us in zazen, or at other times, or some words. And if you can pull away that aspect of your mind which is trying to make something of it, to create a world of it, it will explode into some multidimensional vision or meaning which is everywhere. And it means just to look in that moment as if nothing else existed.

[22:54]

And whatever you find there, we do act on, or are. It doesn't mean to carry some regime of hard practice with you. from one place to the next, from here to Monterey. Just stop putting everything into some kind of a box. Some more. Any other questions?

[24:33]

talk about, yeah. I'm doing what? Standing aside? When you started, it just felt like me. That feeling of waiting that comes with acknowledging the teacher, sort of waiting for that moment when you feel that you're on the line. Maybe that recognition is also when you recognize yourself. But it felt to me like I could feel myself thinking of you as someone outside of myself, and hoping that you would notice me. And then I realized that obviously you don't see myself.

[26:06]

It's just hard to believe that it's happening. Dogen emphasized transmission from oneself to oneself. we do zazen, one reason we meditate is that we can meet ourself and our teacher simultaneously. A mother person can be actually wonderful and Maybe at first you have to be dependent on someone who you can trust, but eventually it doesn't even require someone you can trust, because you don't expect anything.

[27:26]

Especially if you can be dependent on someone who's not seeking outside themselves. What you're dependent on then can't go away. When Suzuki Roshi dies, it doesn't go away. Yeah. Even if you don't want to be with me, I'm here for you. Stay with me. Even if you don't want to be with me, stay with me. Even if you don't want to be with me, stay with me. Yeah. Well, there's various

[29:22]

meanings of dependence. I think emotionally what we mean by dependence is one thing, but logically what we mean by dependence is something different, maybe… Pardon me? Yeah. Let's drop the word dependence and say, trusting, just trusting things. and being willing to, ultimately, to trust anything. You know, if somebody's going to kill you, you trust the person. Reminds me of a story. You know who Rose Klein is?

[30:53]

from the New York Zen group. Do you know? Her son also, I think, practices in the New York Zen group. And she was at Zen Center the other day before she came out for two or three days and stayed at Green Gulch and things. And she has never been, she's a social worker, and she's never been attacked in New York. And every social worker is always getting beaten up or attacked or something. And she was in some very difficult part of New York City. And someone came up, suddenly came up to her in the dark, she was coming from someplace, and put a knife at her throat and said, give me all your money, took her purse. And she said, wait a minute, wait a minute, there's no money in there. It's in my wallet. She started trying to get into her wallet, which is back here. And he was quite, you know, stunned by it, right? And he said, no, she said, she could see, obviously, he was an addict of some kind. And she said, while he was trying to take her money,

[32:23]

She was trying to get the wallet out and he was trying to figure out what to do. She was saying, you need treatment. You need treatment. And then he just started to run. And she was hollering, you need treatment. My name is Rose. I'm at such and such a hospital. He was running down the street. He was, come to the hospital. My name is Rose. And so she went to the hospital and told them that this person, somebody might show up asking for Rose. And three days later he showed up and asked for Rose. But she wasn't thinking anything about being in danger or anything. She was just relating to him. She didn't see the knife or anything. kind of feeling is quite good. You find yourself in a situation where you know the best thing is to open up to them and see what they want from you. But your whole body is just

[33:48]

You know, you're trying, but your body is not quite there or something is not totally there with that movement in there. Maybe it's just a matter of time and practice or something. I just wonder what it's like for you. We worry about ourselves. We get scared. To trust situations and people and to just move in accord with your teacher or with your friends isn't something that will magically appear. It requires some

[35:21]

effort or attentiveness, I can't exactly explain what effort it is, some willingness to do it anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, I don't understand about body and mind, and we're going to get told that it's important to drop it. It's just a poetic phrase of bad poetry to me. I can't come in on it. I don't know if it can be tuned in on, but Dogen and other people who use that kind of phrase are describing an actual experience of suddenly you feel like you're invisible. There's no mental consciousness or body consciousness or eye or ear or separate sense perception. There's just

[37:08]

total familiarity with everything you see as if you're one with it and not as if you're perceiving it. It's like suddenly consciousness as residing in body and mind or the senses drops away and it's just you feel like you've disappeared. So, Dogen says suddenly body and mind drop away. something, some experience like that. Yeah. The hiker? Oh, yes, okay. Bodhidharma's friend, the second patriarch. He said, drop off the mind and body of others. He was sort of emotionally attached to Guru Yama. And then he dropped off. But before that, maybe he had dropped off his own body and mind.

[38:36]

Could you hear what she said? No. She said... It wasn't really a question, a logical question, it's a sort of statement. I'll just make the statement in my own version, okay? The second patriarch must have been rather attached to Bodhidharma if he was willing to cut his arm off or to practice or something. And is cutting your arm off the first step toward giving up mind and body? And then Gogen says, forgetting mind and body

[39:38]

dropping away at mind and bodies of others also. Is that another step? Anyway, something like that, you see. You know, it's... Our life is really quite strange and mysterious. And Although we say seeking outside, don't seek outside yourself. Actually meeting yourself, as Bodhidharma said to Huiko, you can't receive the seal, the Dharma seal of all the Buddhas from another. Or Dogen said, transmission from oneself to oneself. oneself is intimately connected with meeting another, being able to meet another. That kind of contradiction is also meant by Sokufuri.

[40:54]

So we start out studying our Buddha's way and studying the self, and we end up forgetting the self, forgetting, dropping away mind and body, and even of others. So we started out with Buddha's way, which is the Sangha, etc. Is there anyone enough on that for now? Yeah. The traditional way is just a... seems very... oriented to a leader and teaching. To what? To teachers and leaders. And he said, did he have some leads? Bob Dillman, the leader of the party, says, don't follow leaders. Watch the party leaders. Excuse me for phrasing the question, because I

[42:42]

What are you asking exactly? Don't follow the leader or follow the leader? What? What? Hmm.

[43:47]

Well, your question is like the altar question, you know. The more we've all thought about what is a leader and what is not a leader, what is, is it possible without leaders, what are the various kinds of leaders, it's quite, and what is just some friendship with each other. It's pretty difficult to talk about this because there are so many meanings in one word like leader. Suzuki Roshi wasn't exactly my leader. excuse me, I just thought of a cartoon showing two Martians being brought to Nixon and they absolutely cracked up, because they've been, you know, take me to your leader. Anyway, Tsukiyoshi wasn't exactly my leader, he was just somebody I

[45:59]

love and wanted to try to understand, that's all. I just tried to understand them and if anything, I was his leader because his whole, every effort was try to make things easy for me, try to make things, to give me things. He tried to buy my clothes and tried to anything. It was interesting to see See, Huey Newton, I was, some people were there the other day and they remarked on it, but to me I don't notice it so much because it's more part of them. But here's Huey Newton who's known as such a powerful leader of all the blacks. the United States, one of the main leaders, and also who, I must say, he has a lot of nerve. He now has proposed removing the vice president and president, and he has written a paper on it, and he's sent it to all the parties, and he's willing to try anyway. Anyway, here were some people I brought to see him about some poetry, some poems he's

[47:38]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Erica Huggins and some other people. And Huey just runs around filling everybody's teak up and wiping up the salt and adjusting everybody's chair and somebody's about to take their sweater off, he jumps up and he takes your sweater off and he's the perfect Anja. And he's completely attentive to everybody. And he's carrying on a conversation, but he's always out filling people's cups and glasses and wiping, they spill water. He's waiting at that end of the table, he jumps down, wipes it up, goes back to his seat completely, you know. I mean, he's perfect for, he's a perfect follower, actually. So, you can be a good leader when you're a perfect follower. A leader is, in this sense, someone who decides to just try to do what... express what we want, what all of us want, not to get out ahead of the group and point the way. That's a different kind of leader.

[49:00]

but rather to just be attentive to what all of us want. And this Sangha is mostly taken care of by all of us, more and more by all of us, and in a few years I hope I won't be the only person giving lectures, etc. But the question has almost never occurred to me, of leader and follower, at least not for many years, just what's there to be done and how do we do it? You know, I'm sorry I'm stuck up here, you know? Wearing these robes and everything, but... I can't be helped. Yeah. There's a story about a rose in your hand, and a guy who... What was he addicted to?

[50:35]

Yeah, heroin I think was what she found out, what she guessed. What did you think he might be addicted to? Air? Violence? Mary, you had another, before you were going to say something. Sometimes you may have to... Yeah, okay. Hmm.

[51:37]

Well, when I was here before, I talked about the various meanings of the first precept of kill. Do not kill. Do not kill and do not harm. Don't kill your Buddha nature. Maybe so to kill your petty nature or small nature. So when we hit with a stick, maybe we're being strict with something. You're a tensor, so you may expect something of people. But actually your expectation should be enough without doing too much more than that. Yeah. Yeah, it's not something I can say but you just give people some space and yet

[53:46]

In yourself you have some feeling of what you expect. That's usually enough. It's the only way to know, and if you become too rich you can relic the things and won't listen to occurrences.

[54:27]

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