I think that one that is important for us to remember, or always come back to, what is the purpose of Buddhism? Why do Buddhists appear in the world? And what's the purpose of this practice? The Buddha's, Shakyamuni Buddha's first sermon, first talk to people, He said that all beings, one of the main characteristics of human beings, nature of human beings is suffering.

[01:12]

And that The purpose of Buddha appearing in the world is to deal with the suffering of human beings. That's the only reason for Buddha appearing in the world, is to help deal with that problem. So in our practice, that's the reason why we practice. Sometimes we lose sight of purpose of practice.

[02:15]

And it's pretty easy sometimes in Zen practice to lose sight of that because we talk about various things. and you can practice for a couple of years without ever hearing of the Four Noble Truths. Four Noble Truths are the foundation of Buddhist practice in that the first two truths state the problem or the condition, the human condition and the reason And the second two truths state the cure. So there's a problem and a solution. So Buddha said,

[03:24]

the human condition, the characteristic of the human condition is suffering or dis-ease or unsatisfactoriness, something like that. You can call it various things. And the reason for it is due to desire or want, wanting. And the third truth is that there is a way to deal with it. And the fourth is the various practices of Dharma.

[04:32]

The Eightfold Path, the Six Paramitas, whatever, the 37 Limbs of Enlightenment. There are many lists, Buddhist lists of ways of practicing in Zen practice, our understanding comes out of Zazen, but it includes all of those lists. And every day, not every day, but frequently, we say, we recite the four vows Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them, we say. We used to say, I vow to save them.

[05:39]

So these four vows are a response to the four truths. Four vows are the Bodhisattva's response to Buddha's four truths. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them from suffering and confusion. We now say, I vow to awaken with them, which is the same thing, but stated in a different way. Awakening with them means also to suffer with them. It's a kind of interesting way of stating it. To say I awaken with all sentient beings means that I am compassionate toward all sentient beings and include them in my big mind.

[06:47]

And can open to their suffering. And it also means that as I awaken, I awaken with all beings. And it means that I'm not fully awake until all beings are awake. So this is Bodhisattva's vow. to awake simultaneously with all beings, but not just to save ourself. It's like, maybe like the captain of a ship who makes sure everybody gets off the ship before it goes down.

[07:48]

The second vow is delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. We used to say desires. Desires are inexhaustible because actually desires corresponds directly with the second truth that The problem that we have is the problem of desire. We don't like to, so much like to face that problem, because we say, without desire, what am I? This is our sense of self, our sense of ego, which clings to desire. And we're pretty much all the same. But yet we need to, whether we cling to ego or are afraid to let go of desire or can't deal with it, we at least need to recognize the problem.

[09:34]

The problem of why we suffer. And desire has many facets. It includes both grasping and rejecting. Clinging and turning away. I think maybe the fundamental polarity of our life is clinging and rejecting. So in desire, these are the two polarities of desire. Clinging or grasping or wanting and

[10:44]

rejecting, or repulsing, or turning away from. And both of these give us great problems. This is the duality which is created by desire. And in the world, people are kind of turned by these two polarities, or these two sides of desire. And it's called the realm of suffering beings, suffering beings in the realm of desire. Buddha says desire or suffering is when you don't get what you want and you get what you don't want.

[11:54]

And you're with people who you don't want to be with and you're not with people that you do want to be with. And you have some work that you don't want, and you don't have some work that you do want. And you want to be well, but you're not. And you want to have something, but you don't have it. So this is the realm of desire, and we're constantly being turned by it. pulled around by the nose. So the third truth is that there actually is a way.

[13:01]

This is the cure. The first one is the diagnosis. The first two are the diagnosis. This is the cure. There is a way to... Escape is not such a good word. Sometimes to escape from suffering. But escape is a little extreme, I think, because it has the connotation of leaving. And One form of Buddhist practice is to completely put aside any kind of desire in order to escape from the consequences of desire and live in nirvana.

[14:05]

As someone said, it's like running away from the fire in order to drown in the ocean, or running away from the tidal wave in order to burn up in the fire. So in our human life, pretty hard to escape. But if we can't escape, then what can we do? So, the Buddhists have thought up lots of tricks for dealing with suffering, because that's what Buddhism is about. The so-called Hinayana way is to leave behind our passions and feelings and live in a kind of arid world where such things don't come up.

[15:33]

But Mahayana way is in the midst of desire, in the midst of the world of passions and desires and problems caused by them, to find complete freedom by through non-attachment. So in a sense you can say to be in the world but not captivated by the world. Pretty hard.

[16:36]

In Sachine, it's like facing suffering or being immersed in suffering in order to be free from suffering. If you know how to merge with the problem, you can find freedom right in the midst of the problem. You can be totally free right in the midst of the problem. If you try to escape, it's suffering. Pretty interesting. So this is called non-duality. Non-dualistic activity. There are no two sides. When you're sitting in Zazen and you have some problem, if you just sit with the problem, even though you may have some pain or some difficulty, you can stay with the problem.

[18:02]

You can have some freedom within the problem. But as soon as you want it to be a different way, then the problem becomes a problem of suffering. So wanting it to be a different way is desire. As soon as you want it to be something other than what it is, you've fallen into the realm of desire. So, acceptance, being able to accept what we have exactly as it is, without trying to escape or change. When you try to change or escape, you create duality. Duality is not something that exists.

[19:08]

It's something that we create. Originally, we are one with everything. A feeling is just a feeling. But as soon as we don't like it, As soon as we don't like it, we make a judgment. I don't like this. We don't even have to think that. It just comes to us. Then we've fallen into duality. So it's like walking a tightrope. It's the tightrope of not falling into like or dislike. It's a tightrope of not falling into, of staying above right in the middle between grasping and aversion.

[20:14]

Sometimes we get a very nice feeling in Zazen. Oh, this must be enlightenment. This is what I've been looking for. And then we want it to be there. And as soon as we start to grasp it, we fall into suffering. or we have some pain and then, I mean, I don't want to be here. And as soon as we don't want to be there, we fall into the pit of suffering. So just to stay right in the middle, no aversion, no grasping. No, just this is what it is. Suzuki Roshi, in the very first lecture in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, says, Zen practice is not difficult because of the pain in your legs.

[21:39]

It's difficult because it's very hard to keep our mind pure. And purity of mind means non-dualistic mind. It's very difficult not to fall into, to keep our non-dualistic mind, to stay in the realm of non-dualistic mind. This is pure practice. And it's called waking up to reality beyond desire. As soon as we want to escape into one, into grasping or rejection, we fall into duality.

[22:50]

So we're constantly living in a dream rather than living in reality. Most of our life is spent in a dream. Pretty hard to wake up, actually. It takes something really extreme to wake us up. We have to kind of be forced into it. If you think about it, why do we all come to sit in this sashin? Why? You know, at some point we say, I did one last year and one the year before, and now I'm doing this again. I don't know why I'm doing it, but there's some reason why I'm doing it, some good reason why I'm doing it.

[23:55]

And we know, but we don't know. We know, but at the same time we don't know. Because we like the feeling of waking up, even though it's very hard to maintain. Even though we don't even know that that's why we're doing it. This is Bodhisattva's contribution to the world. to help people to wake up. So the pain that we have is not such a big deal, but it helps us.

[25:05]

It's the other side of our usual desire. We don't desire pain, unless we're masochistic. Sometimes people think that Zen students are masochistic because they sit in pain all week. But pain and suffering are not the same. There's a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is a feeling, and suffering is a judgment, or a way of describing something. And one is associated with the other. But we have to be careful that we don't always associate one with the other. Pleasure is pleasure, pain is pain, and suffering can accompany either one.

[26:11]

Because everything is constantly changing, there's nothing to hold onto, nothing that we can keep or grasp. So, just to be able to accept everything as it changes, right away, and not judge what it is. You know, Dogen's teacher, Tendo Nyojo, had a wonderful poem that Dogen liked so much about the wind bell. hanging in the air, the wind bell constantly going ding, [...] east wind, south wind, north wind, west wind, all day long, without discriminating.

[27:28]

The wind bell just sings ding, dong, ding, ding, dong, ding, So this line, this tightrope of non-duality is the eye of the storm. And the storm is caused by the polarity of aversion and grasping.

[28:36]

Wanting and Rejecting. We have to do these, of course. We're always choosing something, and we're always rejecting something. This is our life. We always have to make some choice. Moment by moment, we make a choice. In the realm of duality, But if we understand the world of non-duality, then we know how to make those choices. Because our choice is not based on self-centeredness. The world or the realm of non-duality is based on self-centeredness, ego.

[29:42]

so-called ego. We make our choices based on desire. That's called ego. And choice based on non-duality is in the realm of reality, or truth. And we can all experience it for ourself. That's why we're here, to experience that for ourself. So Zazen, or Cixin, is just a pure and simple Buddhist practice without too much talking, or maybe I talk too much, but without too much interference.

[31:07]

proving this truth and living in it. So, in this time, we're constantly falling off and getting back on, you know? And we can see it moment by moment, how our mind works. and how we react and respond to grasping and aversion. Pretty hard to just stay there in the middle. And during Sashin, everything gets magnified as our attention and concentration gets more and more focused, we build up a lot of tension.

[32:14]

And sometimes it spills over and we start to laugh at some little thing, you know, uncontrollably. or somebody next to us does something funny about the way they eat, or we see something funny the way somebody walks, or we don't like the way somebody does something, we can't stand it. These kinds of little things build up and magnify And we can see how our mind easily falls into liking and disliking, avoidance and grasping. It's all right there in front of us. Somebody asked me, where does compassion come into all this? Well, all together, you know, we're all, compassion means to suffer with.

[33:23]

passion is literally suffering. But it also has the meaning of just to be comrades together in what we're doing, to be able to sympathize with each other. And I think we do, even though we may get these feelings of aversion, or sometimes somebody across the aisle will appear very beautiful, and we have some deep desire for them. And then we think about that. I think desire really comes up a lot. Day after day, people are together and there's something ennobling about Sashim.

[34:27]

And the men become more handsome and the women become more beautiful. So it's easy to get caught by attraction. So we're dealing with all this stuff, you know, all at once. And we can watch and really make an effort to stay in the realm of non-duality. That's our practice. That's our effort. And when we fall off, we get back on. We're constantly falling off, falling down into the pit. There's nothing to do but climb back up. But that's our practice, always coming back.

[35:33]

We get thrown off. And ordinarily, if we're by ourself, we might get discouraged. But since we're all together doing this practice all together, you know, sometimes I see people go like this, you know, put their knees up and their head down on their knees, which is a symbol of total discouragement. But then everybody else is sitting. they start sitting again, because there's nothing else to do. There's no place else to go, nothing else to, no way out. So we just start sitting again. So it's wonderful that we can support each other this way. Just our presence helps all of us to get through this thing.

[36:37]

After we leave and go out into the world, our practice is exactly the same, but we don't always recognize that. It's hard to recognize it as soon as we leave. We get caught up in the world, in the realm of rejection and aversion. It's called discrimination. Discriminate means to divide things into pieces, or just to divide. Discriminate is to divide. And this Sachine practice is to unify This is the practice of unification.

[37:48]

But when we go out into the world, it's the practice of discrimination, to see everything in its unique separateness. But within that discrimination, we should carry our non-discriminating practice. And in this practice of unification, we should be able to see everything in its separateness beautifully together. A wonderful thing about this practice of unity, unification, is each one of us stands out with our true personality, completely individual. So for the rest of this session, let's please make our effort to keep a non-discriminating mind as the most important point.

[39:36]

Don't fall into the trap of grasping or aversion. And keep right there, middle way. I'm struggling with the idea of spiritual desire. Spiritual desire? I'm trying to get into these postures and forms and staying there. as in setting up a duality for me. My understanding of meditation is through my relationship with the now. I'm trying to be the now all the time. And every time I'm struggling with this posture, it gets me out of the now. So I'm wondering whether that is, in fact, setting up more of a dual structure, more duality.

[40:47]

When you think about it too much, it sets that up, yeah. Just do it. Maybe you're not thinking enough. Maybe you're not thinking enough. Maybe you need to think about it more.

[41:59]

We can get very trapped by our mind, you know. Mind keeps trying to, it's like if you are a, if you put a mouse in a cage, you know, keep trying to figure out how to get out. Or if you put a butterfly or a bee against a window, keep trying to figure out how to get out. and just keep fluttering against the window. No need to keep fluttering against the window. Being will find freedom by just being. Sorry.

[43:33]

How do we get out of this cage? Nope. What's the problem? Hmm. Well, maybe you should take an easier posture. You know, when you, uh, uh, When struggling is not the way, but before we find the way, we have to struggle. You have to stretch yourself farther than you think you can go.

[44:50]

Before you can find that ease, you have to pay the price. by struggling. The ease doesn't just come with wanting it. It comes through our effort. Nothing comes easy. Anything that's worth something doesn't come that easy. So... It takes a big effort to get to the point where it's effortless. We can say, well, you know, it's real comfortable, true action is effortless. But before you can come to that effortless place,

[45:56]

You have to work pretty hard. What I'm finding is the technique or the struggle. And occasionally, like maybe for a minute every day or so, I find the light in it. Well, maybe you're not putting enough into it then. Because there's only that. That's all there is, is what you're putting into it. There's nothing to get.

[46:59]

Yeah. Joe? What is what? I've just been talking about it for the last too long. Just put yourself wholeheartedly in the present without holding back. Don't hold anything back. We say the spirit of this practice is like walking in a fog.

[48:40]

You don't know you're getting wet when you walk in the fog, but at some point you feel your clothes and they're wet. That's a characteristic of our practice. Thank you.

[49:18]

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