Grace held most of the practice positions here and was a head student. And then her and Peter left Oakland and moved up to Norfolk on the foothills of the Sierras. And now they are leaders of the Empty Nest Zen Bell. Empty Nest because they're And Grace and Peter oversee the Central Valley Zen Department. I just made that phrase up. There's a Modesto Zen group and a Fresno Zen group. And of course, they're in Norfolk. And there may be others, but I don't know. So I sort of think of Grace as a circuit priest. She sort of circulates throughout the Central Valley. She's sort of keeping things moving there, bringing us into the Central Valley. Thank you, thank you Ron.

[01:15]

Thank you for presenting my checkered past. You know, being a circuit priest is most applicable. On Thursday night I went to Modesto and I had prepared my lecture and it was in the car in my suitcase and my car was broken into. And one of the things that was stolen was the book, the lecture, and the suitcase and my purse and all of that stuff. But part of what I was going to talk about were the seven vows of the way-seeker in Kosho Uchiyama's book that was translated by Shohaku Okamura. And one of those seven is the understanding that losing is enlightenment and gaining is delusion. So by that, since we lost the lecture and everything else, all of us can be in alignment. That was easy. The thief took care of that.

[02:18]

I'm not sure. It probably needs to go higher. Okay. Thank you. Now it's on. Is that right? Oh, I could attach it to my teeth. I'm not sure. How's that? I don't find a layer yet. Is there a turning it up or now is it on? Now it's on. Good. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Okay. Facing the right way. Well, it is on because when I hold it up to my face, it's on. Okay? I'm going to try. Okay. The reason I was thinking about these seven points of the Way Seeker that we heard Shohaku talk about this chapter in Opening the Hand of Thought a couple weeks ago here.

[03:28]

He gave a wonderful couple of talks. And the reason I thought it was such a rich topic is that this was Kosho Uchiyama's last lecture after many, many years of teaching. So he distilled it down to seven points. We should all get so clear. And I thought, if he got it down to seven points, those seven points are really worth looking into. Maybe you don't know who Uchiyama Roshi is, but he really actually restored some of the homespun feeling of Zen. I think that he's one of the reasons that we actually sew our robes versus buying them in Japan, which all the other monks do, except from his order. So, Joshin-san was not a student of Uchiyama's. She was a Dharma sister, so it was actually their teacher, Kodo Sawaki Roshi, who brought the sewing back as part of the practice.

[04:33]

And Kosho Uchiyama had studied philosophy in university before he was ordained, I think. And he was very accessible and was interested in being accessible to Westerners. So there was a whole scene of Westerners who flocked to him in Japan in the 70s and so on. And Shohaku is one of, Shohaku sensei is one of his disciples. So actually, I have another connection to Uchiyama Roshi in that the first time I went to Japan in 92 with Blanche, she went to see him, but I was too busy shopping to stop for that visit. So I vowed that I would get back to visiting him. And when I did, I think it probably was 95, and So I called Blanche to see how to see him. And she said, call Shohaku.

[05:35]

And just as I was getting ready to leave for the airport, the phone rang. And it was Shohaku. And he said, OK, you need to reach Tom Wright in Kyoto. And here's his number. And you can ask him if you can still see Uchiyama Roshi. So when I called Tom Wright, he said, no, he's too old, and he won't be seeing any new students. But why don't you try Fukushima Roshi? And it turns out, even though Fukushima was in the Rinzai school, they were very good friends. And every now and then, when I practice in Japan with Fukushima Roshi, and I listen to his lectures, and I can only get little phrases, I'll hear him quoting Soto no Uchiyama Roshi. I guess they studied together or something. So they have this friendship that crossed over the Soto Rinzai boundary. So I have a lot of feeling of connection to Uchiyama Roshi. And in this chapter, The Way Seeker, there are seven points that are presented about practice and how to have a sincere and effective practice.

[06:38]

And actually, the middle point which is make your vow and root it deeply, for me, is the heart of the whole talk in the chapter. And I noticed, as I was thinking about it, I think that Gene has uncovered in the sowing process that the middle joe, the middle panel in Urakasu is called the heart panel. And it's because it overlaps outward to the other five joes. So the middle one in the five joe is three, and it overlaps two, and it overlaps four, which overlap one and five. In the priest's okesa, there are seven. And so the middle one is four, and it overlaps three and five. And it's what holds the whole thing together. So in my studying these seven points, I felt that the fourth point, the middle jo, the middle connector for the seven points, the fourth point, which is make your vows and root them deeply, was really the heart of the practice.

[07:52]

And I'll tell you the other points too, but mostly I'm going to talk about that. When you find something that you feel is really essential to practice, you always find it elsewhere. for Dogen, his chapter on Gyoji, you know, ceaseless practice, the practice of practicing for itself alone, you know, to making this vow to continue the practice. And I noticed in Joko Beck, she talks about the difference between aspiration and expectation. In other words, we're just making this vow and we're keeping this vow without an expectation of what it brings to us. And the Tibetans talk about using adversity, turning all adversity and transforming that into a vow to practice. So I think this is a very essential point of practice. The first point is that Zazen is the true teacher, or I better get the order right since I made such a fuss about them.

[08:59]

So that's actually the second point. The first point is studying and practice the Buddhadharma only for the sake of the Buddhadharma. And the second one is that Zazen is the only true teacher. That doesn't mean you don't have a teacher and that you don't have a personal relationship with a teacher, but there is a bigger teacher, and through that bigger teacher you can examine your own teaching relationship with your teacher. So the biggest teacher is the Zazen itself. And the third point is that the Zazen must work concretely in our lives. So this is that we don't just do Zazen on the cushion, but that we find this way that we make our vow on the cushion by letting go of our thoughts, and just being with whatever arises. When we find that place in the laboratory of our cushion where it's fairly quiet, we can carry that or re-find it in our lives.

[10:08]

So this is the third point. And then the fourth point is about making the vow and rooting it deeply. The fifth point is realizing that Developing and backsliding are your problem, are your responsibility. That means you don't blame circumstances for what's going on with you. And the sixth point is the sitting silently for 10 years, then another 10 years, and then sit for another 10 years. So actually, I started sitting in 1966 with Suzuki Roshi and Peter and I left the country in 68. So the 30 years is done. They don't say what to do after you've sat for the 30 years. So then you have to figure that out. So I guess the math was pretty good because it was somewhere around 96 or 97 then I moved up to the mountains.

[11:11]

And the seventh point is to cooperate with one another. so that you can create a harmonious place to carry out your practice. I just say a little bit about each of these points, especially studying and practicing the Buddha Dharma for the Buddha Dharma itself. Many times we have an idea that if we practice, we're going to become a better person, or people will like us better, we'll get rid of our faults, and so on and so on. And this brings up a lot of greed. So one of the things that we're doing by taking the vow, and I'll talk more about the vow itself, is continuing the practice without transferring the energy we have usually caught in all these greedy aspects of our life. You know, I want to be in better shape. I want to be emotionally more balanced. I want to be more effective in my work. We're transferring all the energy from our greed and our expectation and desire to our practice itself.

[12:21]

So this is why the vow itself is a vow without a goal that can be met. Suzuki Roshi says about this vow that we don't take vows. To take vows that can be met is not Buddhist practice. We take vows that are impossible to meet. That's why you do the Bodhisattva vows, as you did just before the talk. And at the end of the lectures, beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. This puts you in the spirit of the one vow, which is to be with life and take care of life, however you encounter it, but not for your purpose. So this is what the vow is about. And some of you may know when he says this distillation sentence from his whole life of teaching, study and practice the Buddha Dharma for the Buddha Dharma itself, that of course Buddhists are big on lists, so there's a list of five ways to practice.

[13:24]

Three of them are considered by Zen people not so great. The first one is called Bumpu Zen, which Bumpu is from Bumpo, I think is an ordinary person. And this ordinary Zen is a Zen that we do to get something for ourselves. And we do it as just another activity so that we can enhance ourselves and add to our ego and we're a better person. And Gedo Zen is something that's a little bit outside of Buddhism in that it involves practicing for special powers. The other one is, I remember it as Hinayana, but actually the translation in Japanese is Shoujo Zen, which is practicing so that you realize enlightenment, but the heck with everybody else. We're moving sort of up the food chain here into a higher and more abstract goals, but they're still goals.

[14:30]

And the fourth way, which actually we consider ourselves as part of the Mahayana way, and the fourth way is daijōzen, which is the great way. Mahayana being this practice of the bodhisattva, which is what you vowed to do today, you know, to let go of all of your selfishness and be present for life. um... but it still has, even though it's a wonderful goal, the goal of saving all beings and waiting for yourself to come across to save all beings, this Daijo Zen is still, according to this classification, not the highest. And the highest is called Saijojo Zen, which is just to practice for practice itself, purifying one's practice, purifying oneself. And, you know, in a certain way, we can say that's the vow itself. The vow itself is to, every time we encounter something, whether it be on the cushion or off the cushion, we encounter it intimately and clearly without distorting whatever we're encountering with our own selfish perspective.

[15:49]

And it sounds like a fairly decent idea, except when somebody hurts our feelings, for example. If somebody hurts your feelings, immediately what comes to your mind is, they did this to me, and I have all these feelings, therefore, so on and so on. So what this vow actually means is every time thoughts and feelings, impulses arise, that we stop and that we settle ourselves somehow to actually say, well, what would happen if I took away all my filters? What would happen if I just encountered this situation just as it is without adding my two cents worth. Now, since you happen to be there, since you happen to be there, there may be something for you to do about it. I like to say this is not a teaching that encourages you to be a doormat.

[16:54]

That's a different training. It's a different religion. This religion is about if I let go of all of my ideas and I continue to do so, then an appropriate response will arise. not one that's my first impulse, which is based on my habits. So this is what the vow is about. And so when I look at this vow and the first three points and the last three points, which I'll say again, the first three kind of set the stage for the realm of practice. First, this is the realm that we're practicing in, this realm of the great vow, not the realm of wanting something for ourselves. And the second, which is zazen, is really where we encounter this realm. And the third, that this realm is not just on the cushion, but in our daily life,

[18:01]

It won't work if you practice on the cushion and you're a big jerk when you go out in your life. Because, you know, I don't know how long you sit every day, but most people, if they sit an hour in the morning and the hour in the evening, that's a lot. It's you got another 16 waking hours of the day to be a jerk. Guess what wins in terms of keeping the habits going? You know, zazen is powerful, but it's not powerful enough to overcome your stubborn and habitual responses that you keep doing. So how you find out where your spot is, where you regress, where your wound is that you try to cover over, where you try to strike back or regress by, oh, poor me. You need to find that and you really need to work that. And that's where you get the practice of making the vow off the cushion. But first you need to quiet things down. You know, I worked as a psychologist for a number of years, and there would be some people who came in who were clinically depressed.

[19:12]

And so the first thing you do is try to take a history. Now, if somebody cries through the entire history, you know, you have a different kind of problem. You can't find the problem. We can't find the problem because everywhere you touch the person, like you're a doctor, right? Does it hurt here? Does it hurt here? Does it hurt there? Everywhere you touch them, it hurts. So you have to find some solution to that, maybe some medication or something, so that you can actually talk and find out where the real pain is. But for us, doing Zazen settles things down sufficiently so we can see where it still hurts. We're supposed to find where it still hurts. And then when we find that, then every time that comes up, we can track it back. What am I holding onto there? And how can I be present without bringing up that old story? So the first three suggestions for these seven are about this realm of practice.

[20:16]

And then the fourth is really the heart of what this practice is. The last three are about how do we do this practice. So let's go over those. First of all, you realize when you're having difficulties, the fifth is, realize that development and backsliding are your responsibility. So when you're having a problem, you don't say, this damn practice, this practice isn't working for me. The reason it isn't working for you is you're not doing it. As soon as you have this, oh, it's not working, guess what's not working? The Tibetans talk about this. Drive all blame into the one culprit. There's only one culprit. So as soon as you have that realization, you take everything that occurs within your practice place and you work with it as strengthening.

[21:19]

I was up in Lori's apartment waiting since they're refinishing the floor in Mel's office. And it's kind of wonderful to come and have the expectation, such as I did, that I was actually going to have my lecture with me. But to have an expectation and to have a quiet place to prepare, and of course then they're refinishing the floor so I couldn't be there, so I went up to Lori's. Then when I was getting ready to put my robe on, I realized I was having really a hard time concentrating on the robe chant. And then I recognized, because I was sort of in my own space here, that I was listening to some music. Something sounded like Saturday Night Fever, you know? Some great 70s dance music was really blasting loudly. And so the energy to come forth with the rope chant has to get a lot stronger. And this kind of effort is really wonderful. There's a point.

[22:21]

in this chapter of the Way Seeker in this book that lists these seven points where he talks about all the dangers that the first ancestor encountered on going to China. But in fact, in our ordinary lives, I mean, the first ancestor, Bodhidharma in China, did not have to go to Berkeley Bowl on a Saturday afternoon. So this is where you really get a chance to strengthen and root that vow. It's not life-threatening, it's not like mortar shells blowing up in your yard, but this is your life. And this kind of static and irritation is all meant to help you root your vow more deeply. And if you use it that way, you can see that the muscle required to come forward with your practice will strengthen significantly. When you're sitting on your cushion, it's quiet and people are being nice. You know, nobody's pushing you out of line or there's a lot loud distractions.

[23:27]

We learned this, Peter and I, in practicing in Japan. And where we practice is a little bit like animal house sin. And I really don't understand it, nor do I recommend it. It just happened to be my karma. And sometimes I would sit there session after session saying, what did I do? My only conclusion was that some previous life I'd been there, and I'd cut out of a number of sessions. Because after I did, I think, seven or eight or 10 sessions there, I realized I had done as many sessions as a monk does in his first year of living there. Of course, it took me, you know, five years to do that many, but it's all right. Granny can do it at her own pace. Anyway, I realized I'd done like a full year, and all of a sudden there was this kind of sense of release. So, you know, maybe I was there in a past life and didn't complete my curriculum, because here I ended up in this hell realm practicing, which was very strengthening to practice, very strengthening, because it isn't quiet in there.

[24:31]

First of all, there's shouting from time to time. There's a monitor who's continually walking around the zendo, and you're facing in, so you get to watch the show if you want to. And then they start beating on the monks, and the stick, this thick and this wide, and the monks are very athletic. You have to be or you'll be dead. They're all in their 20s, so they stand up on their tiptoes and they take this bat and they hit the monks on the shoulders, not because they asked for it, just because. And they do that four times a shoulder, six times an hour, 20 hours a day. And they're standing up on tiptoes and wielding this thing as hard as they can. I used to object to the stick here until I went there. Now it's like. Although I understand people have issues with it, and I can understand those issues too, but that's cure. If you go there, you say, oh, that's the problem, that it becomes sadistic.

[25:35]

So there's this beating going on, you know, and you're sitting in the zendo for some 20 hours a day. And of course the monks don't move. And you know, I also had the impulse when I was there, my first session, to get up and grab that stick away. and beat up the monitor. But I realized, you know, as I continued sitting for those many hours and not getting much concentration going, it was like listening to the music in Laurie's apartment. You know, it's hard to concentrate when this is going on. But I thought, you know, they want to do what their ancestors did. And the ancestors devised these ways. They would sit in trees, so if they fell asleep during zazen, they'd fall out and die, or they'd sit on the edge of a well. So what they did in this temple was institutionalize that kind of attention. that other people, when they went to that temple, I brought other people in, not because I recommended it, I told them, you know, this is pretty intense, so, you know, beware.

[26:41]

But when they went, they said, you know, that was the most awake period of Zazen I've had in my entire life. And because it's so terrifying. I mean, this is hell realm that you're sitting in. And what I learned then, after the first session, I don't know that I learned it during the first session, and I have no idea why I went back, but, you know, it was kind of curious. Anyway, what I learned was that I needed to get my attention deeper than my circumstances, and these circumstances were so compelling that it kept pulling my mind away from what was going on. So once I got that, you know, and the monitor who comes around with the stick They don't hit the Westerners. But he does come around and tap the floor in front of your face. It's like he's fishing for your attention. So that you, you know, your job is to just, and probably does it when he sees your eyes wandering.

[27:43]

And your job is to just root your attention deeper and deeper with all this that's going on. And it's true that you have a very deep experience of Zazen in a way. I think the Buddha said if your life depended on you walking through a busy marketplace with a jar of oil on top of your head and balancing it and your life depended on it, could you do it? And I think that sense of urgency is what they teach in this temple. It's institutionalized and something that we haven't quite gotten to yet because it's hard enough to get people to give up their cell phones for the day. I mean, this is enough hardship for us. So when we come here, we don't want to be treated badly or made more uncomfortable than we already are. So this is something that we're still working on. How is it we will bring this practice from the Asian countries, which has so much hardship in it, how will we bring that to America in a way that's culturally appropriate?

[28:55]

So we have to find something to do to really deepen the practice. This is my idea as a psychologist. finding people's defense mechanisms is a fairly effective way of working with people, you know, and not hitting them with a stick. So a lot of people have said, everybody's scared of me. So maybe that's because I do that. It's like I'll go right to that spot and say, how about that? So realizing that this backsliding development or your responsibility endeavor to practice and develop sit silently for 10 years, and then cooperating with one another to create a place where sincere practitioners can bring forth the practice. So those are all the hows of how we actually do this, how we take this vow. I wonder if somebody could state what they think this vow actually is. I'm asking now.

[29:59]

I'm going to wait. until somebody raises their hand and says something. No, I didn't hear the question, I'm sorry. The question is... I wasn't paying attention. Would you hit her? The question is, can you state actually what the vow is when you say, make your vow and root it deeply? What is this vow? Yes? Just go for it. Yeah, go for it, and we'll see if you can say it in your own words. Defining freedom? Finding freedom. Finding freedom is good. Finding freedom is good. As opposed to being constricted by what you bring to the picture.

[31:00]

But finding freedom is almost a result of what happens when you make the vow. Somebody else have some ideas about how to express it? Back there, I thought somebody had a hand up. I already scared you. Good. Absolutely. Big part of it, but the point is, why would you vow loving-kindness? And I think that's the question, that the vow is deeper even than the vow of loving-kindness. And the vow of loving-kindness comes out of this really basic vow. So? Connect. Connecting with whatever arises in this moment. That's pretty good. Anybody else want to say that? whatever is arising and then you can have freedom because you can see where you're caught and hanging on and then you have the opportunity to see the choice to let go

[32:03]

to practice a kind of naked awareness, to practice a kind of naked awareness, so that's right. Yes, to stay awake, but that's a dynamic process because just as when I was at Tofu Buji and the first couple sessions I did there, staying awake, I was awake but I was listening. I found I wasn't counting my breath, I was counting the hits. I was counting the hits that they were giving the monks. So staying awake to something very deep, and it's a dynamic process because there's constantly a pull from one thing or another thing to pull your attention, like Velcro, and like the monitor fishes for your attention with a stick. And sometimes they go around with that stick right to the very face of the monk, and make a circle right in front of their nose and see if the mind follows that circle rather than that awakeness staying with a kind of soft focus that's present with just being connected to life.

[33:16]

And that's what that place that we're finding in Zazen. So we need to find it in the quiet place and then it gets a little stronger. Once it gets a little stronger and we've found it, then we can begin to practice in our life. I wanted to, yes, Yes. When you're with whatever is arising, in the sense that you described in Japan, when the man comes with the stick, that is what is arising then for you at that moment, isn't it? Right. Existence. Existence. Yes, it is arising. But what happens is your attention sticks to that. It's arising and the whole universe is arising. So there's a way that you perceive it softly within a very big context. And what happens is you lose your relationship to the context.

[34:16]

Now, the Tibetans talk about this as the essence of mind. And this connection is in what's arising all the time is arising in the essence of the mind. The objects of the mind or what we perceive, think, and have sense and feelings about. What happens is that we get attached to that stick, just like Velcro, we grab it because it's arising in the mind as an object, and we lose our relationship, our connection to the essence of mind, the pure awareness itself. And so then we forget about everything and we're focused on this one thing that we either want, like, dislike, and we make up our story about it, and we lose our relationship. Does that make sense? So I wanted to just share a little bit. This actually, I think one of the first lectures when Peter and I returned from Canada, one of the first lectures I heard Sojin give. was about, called the Komyozo Zamae, the Samadhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light. And I think it gives some instructions maybe for during meditation as to how to find this essence of mind.

[35:23]

I have some earnest advice for those who sincerely aspire to practice. Do not be pulled by a particular state of mind or by an object. Do not rely upon intellect or wisdom. Do not carry in your hands what you have learned on the seat in the Sangha Hall. That means the particulars. Now I turn left and bow. You know, this is what I do under these circumstances. Not the particulars. So don't carry in your hands what you've learned on the seat in the Sangha Hall. Cast your body and mind into the great Komeo-Zo. and never look back. Neither seek to be enlightened nor drive away delusion. Neither hate the arising of thoughts nor love thoughts and identify with them. Just sit stably and calmly. If you do not continue to think, thoughts will not arise by themselves. Just sit as if you were the boundless empty sky or a ball of fire.

[36:30]

Trust everything to inhalation and exhalation." So I'm going to stop there and allow for a few more questions. I think there's time, is there? Okay, great. Yes? That's the Komi Ozozomai. Is that joy? Well, joy can be in there. It's in the pot. But it's not dependent on joy, nor is it limited to joy. But it includes joy. Yes? Are you pointing to, you mentioned bare awareness. Yeah, there's something that's there. It's very interesting.

[37:32]

It's not dependent on us. Actually, it inhabits everything. So it's the most amazing thing that when you sit down, and this is very profound, but we can skip right over it, that you are aware of your mind thinking. Now, there aren't two heads. So one thing is thinking, and the other thing is aware of the thoughts. It's the awareness, that awareness which permeates everything and is not dependent on your thoughts or your emotions. That's what we're allowing to come forward and that that is what we actually are, that's what we actually are. So it's really allowing that naked awareness to come forward and to flourish and to know it and be able to differentiate between it and what we're thinking and what we're feeling. One of the great experiences for me Everybody has a type. Some people are fearful types, and some people are bold types.

[38:34]

And people know that I happen to be one of the more bold types. And it's just my signature. It means that I'm really afraid, so that I have to be very bold in order to not be caught by my fear. But everybody has their relationship to it. And when I was in Japan, I learned the difference doing Koan practice, the difference between knowing and acting like I know. Because, you know, you have a Koan master who has been practicing since he was 14 with Koan, and you go in with your answer. Say, well, this seems pretty damn good, you know. And he looks at you, it's like, get out. You know, they don't have to be nice there. See, that's a real impediment to Zen teachers in America. that we have to be nice because you catch on much faster if somebody isn't nice because it's such a lousy experience to have someone go, you know, I mean, it doesn't literally go like this, but he just gets a look on his face like something stinky just came in the room and then he rings the bell.

[39:39]

It's like, yeah, it doesn't say anything. Sometimes he says, no good. And then you get out. And sometimes he just says, get out. But when your answer sucks, It's like that, it's not the right, they're actually right answers to the koans. And this is interesting, that monks have been giving when they get to this naked awareness place, they can just see it and then you say it. And that's a different feeling than being confident. So actual, and so it was very interesting to me because I struggle with this overlay of being confident and bold and courageous and it was like, well that's gone. That just takes about 10 seconds for him to smash that. Okay, now, what's actually there? I enjoy your lectures, but I often come away, to be a bit blunt, feeling like this is sort of wussy sub-optimal Zen. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Wussy sub-optimal Zen. What is? American Zen? Or my talk? Well, I mean, I don't know much about American Zen.

[40:40]

I know about Berkeley Zen Center. So do you think I'm saying that Berkeley Zen is wussy sub-optimal Zen? Sometimes I have that feeling. Yeah, well that would be fine. You can just say that. I would say to you then that realizing that development and backsliding are your responsibility, please deal with it. It's not up to me. Yes? If naked awareness could say something, what would it say? It would breathe. It would breathe. Breathe. It would breathe. It breathes. Yes, it breathes. So it says whatever it wants to say. It's just breath. The naked awareness is, it sounds to me, like what the Hindus call the witness, is that right?

[41:49]

Yes, yes, the observing self. And it's important to understand that the mind functions within that. It is not a function of the mind, the mind is functioning. It's like the mind is a light bulb and the awareness itself, it goes into the light bulb. So, you know, it lights it up. One of the most helpful things I remember learning here ever was the description of the mind as another sense organ. Yes, very much so, yeah, so there's something that animates all the sense organs and also the world, and that awareness is what we're connecting with. Okay, I think that's it. Things are numberless.

[42:42]

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