I vow to teach the truth of theology, talking to us as workers. Morning. I've been thinking lately about, or observing, and thinking about the fact that we have two minds. We seem to have two minds. And one is the mind of deep intention. Sometimes we call it mind of vow, but I call it deep intention. And this is our true nature, which is seeking to express itself and to find itself in all things.

[01:17]

And the other mind is the mind of desire, which is looking for success or satisfaction. kind of worldly way. And these two minds are often competing with each other. The mind of deep intention is what leads us to practice. and we become inspired in some way because when we hear stories of the old masters or when we encounter our practice for the first time, when we hear about enlightenment and so forth, we become inspired and this deep mind

[02:48]

response to that, and then we bring forth the way-seeking mind and start to practice. But at the same time, we have the mind of desire, which is looking for self-satisfaction, gratification, wanting things, wanting success, not wanting failure. So the mind of deep intention is the mind, you could say, of non-duality. And the mind of desire is the dualistic mind, which is making value judgments continuously in the realm of liking and disliking, wanting and not wanting, and success and failure.

[04:03]

Whereas the mind of deep intention is not concerned with success and failure, or having and not having, And this is the mind of practice. So we say practice is non-dualistic. To have the mind of practice is to arouse the non-dualistic mind, which is not concerned about success and failure. having and not having, doing good and bad, or falling into distinctions and judgments based on materialistic evaluations. So this mind of deep intention is not easy to maintain.

[05:22]

That's why we say practice is difficult, not because your legs hurt when you sit zazen, but because it's so hard to maintain a mind of pure activity, pure non-dualistic activity. Because we're always falling into what Suzuki Roshi would call gaining mind. mind which wants something. So I notice, you know, in our practice, when we begin to practice, mind of deep intention is there, is aroused when we begin to practice. And, of course, the mind of deep intention which is aroused to practice

[06:25]

and which motivates us to practice is also competing with the mind of desire, which wants something. When we put our body and mind to some task, we want something out of it. Where do I get out of this? And so we're looking for success. At least success. And interest. We want something interesting. Life should be interesting. And maybe exciting to boot. But The mind of deep intention doesn't need interesting things for satisfaction.

[07:30]

And it doesn't need success in a dualistic sense for satisfaction. You know, Suzuki Roshi quoted Dogen, who said, Zen Master's practice can be one continuous failure. And people sometimes misinterpret the meaning of that and think, oh, these Zen masters should be failing all the time. But that's a dualistic understanding. It doesn't depend on success or failure. I have one continuous life of continuous failure is the same as a life of continuous success. And a life of continuous success is a life of continuous failure in reality.

[08:43]

So sometimes I'd see people who feel discouraged. after practicing for a while, and the euphoria of beginner's practice starts to wear off, and you didn't get the enlightenment that you thought you would get, or the deep peace that you thought that you would get. or whatever it was that you thought you would get through practice. The only thing that you really get through practice, if you want to be successful, is maintaining deep intention, no matter

[09:53]

whether you're successful or not successful, whatever that may mean to you. I don't want to say vow, because vow is a little bit strong. It's good. Vow is okay to say, but vow kind of has the feeling of, I vow to do this. But reality is that your deep intention is just always there. You don't have to make a particularly specific vow. in order to maintain your deep intention.

[10:56]

If you just pay attention to your deep intention and let your deep intention be the guide and continuously come back to returning to deep intention you will understand your own nature. And the more we allow ourself to come back and reside in deep intention, the more we trust our true nature. Thinking mind, which tends to be dualistic, I'm sorry to say, is wonderful and necessary. But deep intention of true nature is the most fundamental.

[12:09]

And when thinking mind is guided by deep intention or true nature, non-dual natures, then thinking mind functions properly and guides in a correct way instead of being misguided. As you can see, the world is mostly misguided by thinking mind. We have so much unrest and war and violence and arrogance and so on and so forth because

[13:21]

thinking mind is unbalanced and not rooted in deep nature. We become top-heavy and see everything in a dualistic sense. It's either or, good and bad, right and wrong, grasping and rejecting. and rooted in desire, totally rooted in desire. So for a Zen student, success means to be able to stay with our deep intention and practice within deep intention using big mind as a touchstone and not measuring our practice

[14:52]

in terms of success and failure, and not measuring our practice in terms of getting, gaining something, or losing something, or being right or being wrong. So, this deep intention Staying always rooted in Big Mind is what our practice is. Non-dualistic practice, which is one with everything. There's a lot of jokes about that, but... I don't like to use clichés, but once in a while they pop out.

[15:59]

So sometimes I see people wondering, or getting discouraged, you know. Like I've been practicing for a long time now, and I'm getting, you know, things aren't happening. You know, I've lost my excitement, or I've lost my... whatever... expectations. The best way, you know, to do practice is totally without expectations. You will be totally successful if you practice without expectations. I mean, no expectations. This Zazen, and you get up in the morning, and you sit Zazen, and you go to work, or do whatever you do, without expecting anything.

[17:12]

And you do this day after day, without expecting anything. This is the most fundamental, successful way to practice. Because whatever you expect will not occur. And you'll be very disappointed. Enlightenment is not what you expect. If you have some idea of enlightenment and then try to fill that idea with your activity, it won't work. You just become more and more deluded. So without any idea of enlightenment or success or gaining anything, just to do it is tasteless practice.

[18:20]

It's like tofu before you put the soy sauce on it. Cold tofu. It's very good. But they say, there's an old saying that the food of the gods It's totally tasteless to ordinary mortals. And the taste of Zazen is totally tasteless to people that have expectations. If you don't have any expectations, you'll be able to taste what's there. If you have no special ideas, you can really see what's happening.

[19:37]

So, you know, to see everything just as it is means to have no idea about anything. If you have some idea about something, about things, you can't see everything as it is. You always see through the glasses of your idea, through the lens of your idea, through the filter of your mind, thinking mind. So, to be able to let go of ideas, opinions, desires, wanting, judging, And just let life, as we call it, express itself.

[20:42]

And just let, allow consciousness to see clearly. Just have enough bare attention to allow consciousness to to let seeing see, to let hearing hear, to let feeling feel, to let tasting taste. Without any kind of interference, It's not so easy to taste that taste. Sometimes we can do it. But when you practice Dazen, to just let everything go, keep eyes open to let seeing see.

[22:00]

Don't say, I see. I see the wall, or I see the spider crossing the wall, or I see the dust motes on the wall. Just let seeing see. When the car goes by, no need to say, oh, that was a car going by. Just let hearing hear some sound. to actually experience the freshness of the activity of that moment without any idea about So there's really no need to be discouraged in practice.

[23:08]

The main thing is to arouse the mind, deep intention, and let that be the guide. Let that be the motivating force of your practice. You may have what you think is good zazen, You may have what you think is bad thoughts in, but it really doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with it. Through your deep intention of practice, you do your best. Because if you don't do your best, you're not totally alive. So you put all of your effort into your activity in order to bring yourself to life. in order to bring life to life. That's practice. To sit zazen, you bring your whole body and mind into one activity, which is called total exertion.

[24:21]

Total exertion to do one thing thoroughly, moment by moment, without any expectation, or without wanting to gain something, forgetting all about enlightenment, forgetting all about Buddha, forgetting all about pleasure and pain, or peace, or agitation, just trusting your nature, totally trusting your nature. When you can do that, then the mind of deep faith arises, and you realize that deep faith in your nature is your nature.

[25:38]

It's not something stuck on or something that wants to grasp in order for security. We don't need to bring forth faith to grasp something for security. Without security, And you can be totally secure. By letting go of everything and trusting your free fall into your true nature, you will be totally secure without trying to be secure. So allow your deep faith to arise. You can't stick it on. So, when you can just practice day by day, not just in the Zen Dojo, but in your daily life, same way, without worrying about enlightenment, or Buddha, or success, or failure, or whatever, just continuously, that's practice.

[27:07]

You don't have to be discouraged. No need to be discouraged. The only way you can get discouraged is by expecting something. As long as you're not expecting something other than what you're doing, no need to be discouraged. It's only when you want something. So Buddha said, in the Four Noble Truths, Buddha said, the basis of suffering is desire, wanting something. Wanting something is the basis of our problems. If you look at your problems and trace your problems to their core or to their source.

[28:11]

I think you'll find that at the source of your problems there's some desire. Desire is necessary. Picking and choosing is also necessary. Attachment to desires, attachment to picking and choosing, which comes through self-centeredness, that's what he's talking about. Without desire, you don't feel alive. When it becomes transformed, it becomes way-seeking mind.

[29:16]

So these two minds, the mind of desire and the mind of deep intention, are really the same mind, two aspects of the same mind, they're not two minds. One desire mind is controlled by ego or the sense of self. And mind of deep intention is the mind beyond self. Mind which is beyond self-centeredness. So, when the mind, an ego mind, turns itself in, turns itself around, and offers itself to Big Mind, then it becomes absorbed by Big Mind, and becomes a servant of Big Mind.

[30:38]

And it's no longer called the mind of desire, it's called the mind of deep intention or way-seeking mind. But it keeps popping up all the time. So, in our lifetime, there's always this tension going on between deep intention mind and desire mind, going on all the time. And we're always contending with this. And sometimes one is leading, sometimes the other one is leading. And if we have maintained a strong mind of deep intention, Even though we keep falling into desire mind, we shouldn't get discouraged by that, because it's normal, natural.

[31:53]

And this is where I see people getting discouraged, because they feel, well, since my mind of desire is so strong, I can't really maintain my mind of deep intention. And maybe I feel ashamed because my mind of desire mind is so strong that I can't, you know, I'm ashamed because I feel like I'm a hypocrite. If I practice the mind of deep intention, my mind is actually always going on in a desire mode. But for practice, no matter what's going on in the desire mode, the mind of deep intention is still there.

[33:01]

And we can always come back to the mind of deep intention no matter how much we fall off. And it's just a matter of turning around and coming back and constantly returning to that mind without being discouraged. This is actually called true repentance. True repentance is When you see that you need to get back to the mind of deep intention, you simply turn and come back. And you're always accepted. So our propensity often is for wandering and doing zazen.

[34:45]

The mind is always wandering off. You know, we sit with the mind of deep intention. But the fact is that the mind is always wandering off somewhere in the realm of desire. coming back, over and over, coming back. That's our life. Since we live in this dualistic world, it's hard not to act in a dualistic way. But this is also the world of non-duality as well, but it's harder to see. And when we have the touchstone of non-duality, then we know how to act in the dualistic world without being caught by that duality. And this is success in practice.

[35:51]

If there is any success in practice, it's being able to see through the duality of the world and to act within that duality in a non-dualistic way, in a non-selfish way. So through this day-by-day practice of no expectation, After a while, you begin to see how the ups of your life and the downsides of your life and the way feelings come and go, the way thoughts come and go, the way events come and go, and yet there's a steadiness that you see that's not affected by the way things come and go or the changes that are constantly taking place.

[37:02]

And then when you recognize this steadiness, which is not affected by any of that, then you begin to realize your true nature, which is not affected by change, even though it's the basis of all change. And then you realize that whatever happens in your life, there is a core. This is where words start to get dualistic. There's something that's not affected. Do you have any questions?

[38:38]

Yes. Thanks for your talk. In one way, our practice gets stronger as time goes by, hopefully, you know. Also, it seems that as we mature, that issues and pains and problems that maybe have been in our life for a long, long time, then can start to surface. aware of the suffering of the world. Yes, as we become more open, then we become more aware, and issues get bigger.

[40:00]

But you also get bigger, so you can handle the bigger issues. If you look at Zazen as an example, when you begin to sit Zazen, you can't handle very much, you know. You can't handle very much pain, you know, both physically and emotionally, as much as you thought you could. But as your practice matures, you open yourself so that pain is not such a problem. And as you open yourself, there's actually, the pain is not less. It's just that it's not a problem, because you're open.

[41:03]

And it doesn't feel like pain. What felt like pain in the beginning doesn't feel like pain, because the pain is just an idea you have. Actually. The pain that you feel is just an idea, even though you don't think so. But when you realize what it is, you realize that pain is a concept and an idea. And although it's there, it's not necessarily what you thought it was in the beginning. As you let go of ideas and opinions and dualistic thinking, mind opens up, body opens up, and you begin to feel the pain of the world.

[42:12]

And then you see all these big issues in the world. And you have to be careful at this point because our suffering, we begin to take on the suffering of the world. And you can do that before, of course, we do that anyway. But you have to be careful because to feel all the suffering in the world would totally smash you. So, you have to have some objectivity at the same time. Like, I always think a doctor, a surgeon still has to eat dinner. A psychiatrist still has to go home and sleep at night.

[43:17]

You can't carry everything around with you. Even though you have to understand what's happening in the world, you cannot carry everything around with you all the time. Otherwise, you would be totally helpless. You wouldn't be able to do anything. So, yes, you become more sensitive, I would hope. But also more understanding, I hope. And how do we help the world? Then that question comes up. What do we do to alleviate the pain in the world? So my choice of how to alleviate the pain in the world is to teach pain. To teach people how to handle pain, which is called Dazen. That's my contribution. How do we handle suffering?

[44:19]

Because no matter how much you want to stop the suffering in the world, the conditions, you're not going to stop the conditions that cause suffering. You can't stop the conditions that cause suffering, because this is the world of conditions. This is the world of conditions. Conditions cause suffering. No, they don't. Conditions cause events, and our response is called suffering. Our response is suffering. Conditions don't cause suffering. You can't say, you made me feel this way. You made me feel angry. I know it looks that way, but you didn't make me feel angry. You did something, and my response is to feel angry. So, you know, if everybody looked at their own response and how we respond to things, we'd have a different world.

[45:28]

But we don't look at it that way. So I would like to help people in their responses to look at what our responses are to conditions so that we can deal with our suffering from the right point of view and not blame the world for our suffering, but look internally at our response to the world. But it doesn't look that way. It looks like you're causing my suffering. And we get caught by that. And we really get caught by that. And we're all put in a different position. And we all have different circumstances in our life. And we all are blaming something for our suffering.

[46:34]

But actually, the suffering comes from inside. So, we have to work hard to be able to see it that way. And to maintain our right view. because we fall into it all the time. It's almost impossible not to fall into it. And when you look at some of the horrific circumstances in the world, you say, well, how can it be that this person is not causing my suffering, or this nation is not causing my suffering, or this group of people is not causing my suffering? Within the conditions that we have, we have the opportunity to let go of our suffering. Yes? Just to continue that, we have the opportunity to by seeing that we're creating it ourselves.

[47:37]

Yes, by seeing that we're creating it ourselves. Sometimes you see it, and you know it, and you own it, and it doesn't go away. That's right. That's why Zazen is so important. Because in Zazen, you come to realize that you're creating your own suffering. Realize it in a different way. Because it penetrates into your bones, and you can't avoid it. And there's nothing to do and there's no escape. There's no escape. I mean, you can uncross your legs, you know, and walk out. That's not an escape either. I remember the first Sashin that I had, Sokochi in San Francisco. It was after, you know, sitting for about half a day. I said, how can these people do this? And I walked out, and I wandered down to Aquatic Park.

[48:42]

And every place I went, I knew I couldn't escape. There was no place to go, even though I was free to walk around anywhere I wanted to go. There was no place that I could escape, that I could go to. And so I went back. Wherever you go there, there you are. take care of it in a certain way.

[49:47]

So if you see somebody shooting somebody here, well, you have to intervene. But we're talking about the suffering that's caused by ourself. And if someone comes and kicks us in the shin, well, it depends on the circumstances. Precepts depend on circumstances. You cannot pull out a card that says, oh, now you should do this. It doesn't work that way. It's like you have to respond to the situation. And the more you are able to practice non-suffering, then when you get into a circumstance, then you will act according to what you've been practicing, hopefully.

[50:55]

And that should come to you. But to have something written out and say, well, you should do this and this circumstance and this and this, that doesn't work that way. You may make a mistake. That's okay. So when he kicks you, you may react and kick him back. That may be okay, and it may not be okay. If it's okay, it's okay. If it's not okay, then it's a lesson. So anyway, we want to act perfectly in all situations, I don't know what that means. To act perfectly in all situations is to do the best you can. And if it works right, that's very good. And if it doesn't work right, then that's a lesson. So whatever way it works out, if you can use that, you've done the right thing.

[51:58]

Okay, this is the last one. I said that was the last one. What do you think that the universe is in pre-arranged harmony? Pre-arranged? No.

[52:24]

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