Today is again the first day of sesshin. For most of you, some of you I know, who I see for the first time, don't know what a sesshin is. Sesshin is when we sit for seven days, starting from this morning until night, this coming Friday night. So usually it's a good time to review fundamentally why we sit. It's said in many ways in… Can you hear me in the back? Okay. It's said in many ways in Buddhism that the truth is not something outside you. But when you for the first time

[01:33]

realize the truth can't possibly be something over there, something outside. This is, I think, a tremendous relief. It doesn't help us to figure out how to find the truth. so much to realize we can't look for it, we can't be separate from it. So really, not knowing what to do, we do satsang. And if you don't know what to do, just sit down. And the concentration of sitting is different from the concentration of trying to find out the truth in everyday activity. The concentration we mean by sazen is objectless concentration.

[03:04]

I don't think we can emphasize just Shikantaza because it takes a great deal of stupidity or sincerity to just sit for ten years. Because, you know, your mind will always seek something, track something. And how to stop it is another kind of tracking. Many poems try to express it. One, lifting a hand, the stone lantern, announces the dawn. Emptiness nods its enormous head. But this ability which we can catch in a poem like that to let things be,

[04:35]

is very hard to do in everyday activity or even in zazen. So it takes a great deal of patience and sincerity to actually make shikantaza work. So you can try to develop concentration in your sitting. and in your everyday activity, but objectless concentration is pretty difficult to realize in everyday activity. The concentration or power, that lets you do anything, that's very flexible. The concentration that's already there and ready to change direction at any moment So this concentration, which isn't limited to one thing, but ready for everything, we find out by zazen practice, and one of the main shortcuts is zazen practice. All day long, for seven days, to sit on your cushion.

[06:16]

without doing anything else. So our sitting may begin from our feeling of being separated from the truth or separated from calmness or separated from our friends some kind of loneliness or anguish. But inside that loneliness, which you can't retreat from, you can find aloneness, as I've said. Aloneness is not the same as loneliness.

[07:18]

So again, in sasheen, you can practice utter aloneness. Even though you're with many people, sitting, utter aloneness. And inside aloneness, you find everything just as it is. So, aloneness and just as it is are very similar. From aloneness you see things. The willingness to be utterly alone, you can see things just as they are. a kind of poverty not needing anything else. And we see then causation. Just as it is, just as it is.

[08:44]

And... It's no surprise how things occur then. I like the story of Muso. he was supposedly riding a boat, a ferry boat, and it was quite full and they took all the passengers possible. I don't know if you know this story, but they took all the passengers possible and just as they were about to pull off, some rather drunk samurai type showed up and insisted on getting on the ferry boat before it pushed off. And it was quite tippy and he got in and he was quite tippy. And he kept insisting as they were going across that Muso, who was there with his Jisha, his attendant monk, that he should get out, throw that old priest out of the boat, he kept saying. And his

[10:20]

attendant was no slouch and he wanted to throw the samurai out of the boat. And this man kept cursing this priest, get, why don't you get out of the boat? And finally he had some, it's in the story says an iron fan. What the hell use an iron fan? I don't know what the original means. iron fan, anyway. He fanned him one on top of the head, Muso, and Muso's head bled. And he had to, Muso had to restrain this, his attendant, even more. There's some poem that goes with this story. A beater and beaten, mere players in a game, ephemeral as a dream. And you can't do this, you can't be so composed as Mousseau in such a situation unless you understand exactly what's going on.

[11:54]

Anyway, everybody got to the other side and Muso I guess said something like this poem to his attendant monk. And getting to the other side they all got their stuff together and this samurai, drunken samurai, came rushing up to Muso and bowed, prostrated himself and bowed to Muso and became his disciple and traveled with him from then. It means Muso had to see into this samurai. He wasn't just under any circumstance being composed, no matter what happened.

[13:00]

would sit there like a stone. No, he understood what to do. Again, some Zen poem tries to express it by saying the difference, by posing the difference between the feeling of a mild spring day in contrast to the wintry moon high up in the sky and from the deep pond a carp jumps. Do you feel the difference? Mild spring day is very nice but another poem is the music stopped. Nothing, something like nothing touched, the shadow not even touched from my door of the moon eye in the sky. In a Japanese garden or pond often it's very calm looking and then suddenly one of these big carps they put in the pond

[14:28]

comes up from deep down. Some power here or feeling of accuracy or activity. Muzo was the national teacher. He was a very famous teacher. And probably he had many possessions in the sense of temples and things to do. But in the Zen sense, you know, he had no possessions, nothing to fight with this drunken warrior with. And he understood exactly what this person was about. There's a big difference between being concerned with how to take care of yourself and being concerned with how to take care of others. A big difference between your rights, what to, how not to let you be hurt.

[16:00]

and forgetting about that and be concerned with how to help others. And practice and liberation is always in this realm. to find you are not separated from anything by entering, having the courage to be utterly alone. I was talking about tekiteki, so jo, and doksan, meaning to go towards zen. Another word used at Daitoku-ji for zazen, for sanzen or doksan is shouken.

[17:07]

Shokan means to really meet. So really meet in this context means utter aloneness meets utter aloneness. No need for something else, no loneliness just as you are without any addition is okay, then you can meet. Then you will find you are not separated by grasping from things. I was just with The sculptor, Noguchi Isamu, who like us is irrevocably involved with Japan and the Orient because he's half Japanese, he is naturally involved with the Orient. And he says that in Japan his feeling is, no matter how much the temples and Buddhism has been commercialized

[18:35]

Only Zen doesn't teach anything and is, in a fundamental way still, despite the tourism of many temples, taking care of the culture. They're not trying to do anything, they have much more the view of custodians. And sometimes Zen priests are criticized, you are nothing but a custodian of a beautiful That's true, you know. But that's not the only side to it, you know. You're also the custodian of your body. During Sashin you will experience being custodian for seven days. What to do with this body for the next period, you know, on the third afternoon? My God!

[19:38]

Some other custodian is needed. You're not yet Muso. But he feels they are willing to not always try to change things, not always try to make something new. And so, of all people in Japan he finds, and he's speaking mostly of Shikoku, I believe, where his experience is most common, where there are many kinds of temples, it's the Zen temples which are taking care of the culture. some similar feeling to if in this neighborhood we just try to take care of the neighborhood as it is. Participate in the neighborhood as it is. Not thinking of new buildings or something. This feeling is very close to Zen.

[21:12]

And it also is close to a feeling I tried to convey at Green Gulch last Sunday. Not of everything is one, but oneness within oneness. Or penetration, you know, I used the story of the monk asking Umo, what is the samadhi This is a very good question. What is the samadhi or objectless concentration? What is the samadhi of particle after particle? What about activity, he means? How can there be objectless concentration and activity? And Uman says, rice in the bowl and water in the pail. And by this he means, to give you some suggestions of what he means, he means penetration, to penetrate each thing by its

[22:58]

concentration or your concentration. As you know, this is a different aliveness. Like when you chant, the chanting comes alive. When you penetrate your chanting. And the chanting is a very fertile plant. It leads to many things. I drive, of course, quite often to Green Gulch and Tassajara, and many times, most of the time, someone else drives me. And it's interesting to see, because most people, even good Zen students, they don't penetrate their driving. They're thinking about something else while they're driving, and they're watching the scenery. for something to happen. Their mind is saying, stay out of the road, and they're hoping nothing appears in front of the car. And they mostly assume that nothing will appear in front of the car, as long as they're on the freeway. And if something did appear, it would startle their train of thought.

[24:24]

because they're thinking of something else about half the time. But how responsive the car is when somebody isn't thinking of something else but just penetrating the driving and the other drivers and the scenery You know already before it happens when someone will cut in front of you. But this kind of concentration is not developed usually in ordinary activity. It's developed in sesshin. It's developed in daily zazen. where you have a chance to experiment very directly with objectless concentration. What is it? What can it be? So this is why we say in Zen, you can burn the sutras. We don't need the sutras. Because what I'm talking about and what any Zen teacher is talking about

[25:54]

a can't be expressed in words. I always say that. I'm sorry. Where is it expressed? Now, Dogen says something interesting. He says, it's okay to burn the sutras But the word is also the truth. I discussed this at some length at Tassajara last spring. Is the finger pointing at the moon the truth or the moon? Well, the finger is also the truth. Sometimes we say, don't mistake the truth for the finger. the sutras for the finger, but the finger is also the truth. The truth is not outside us. Or Dogen says, you can't eat painted cakes, people say. But by my understanding, Dogen says, you can eat painted cakes, quite delicious. Truth is not outside you. He says, so the letter, to understand the letter.

[27:23]

it should be like something, you know, on rugged mountain outcropping in the sea. And you can't see it, but if you swam out and climbed up on the far side, facing the ocean at the top, would be carved a single letter. Very mysterious. In this sense, the letter is the truth. if you see it with that kind of penetration. Ingo says in the Blue Cliff Record, in the whole universe there is nothing outside. The great truth or the great Tao. It's very interesting, he says the great Tao, because Tao means way. So we're not talking about a field or something, but a path, the samadhi of particle after particle.

[28:33]

So we realize the activity of the truth in this relationship of recognition, of really It's very interesting that it's so. Obviously, the arrogance of wanting to do it alone or thinking there is such a thing as some pride in

[29:58]

or fear of dependence. That's pretty obvious that that is a hindrance in understanding. But the naturalness and ability to, from utter aloneness, to recognize the truth in everything. This is a kind of guide, you know? Don't be so arrogant that you think you don't need a guide. So the guide is, do you really need or not? Did Muso really know that samurai from the moment he got on the boat or not? So, this is very useful. As you know, Nakamura Sensei, who teaches tea at Gringo, goes back to Japan where she has younger teachers than herself because she needs this

[31:34]

guide. So the great Tao, why it's a path not a field, means this cooperative relationship which you awaken to, become active to, when you can be utterly alone. For example, trying this practice in Sashin, your breathing becomes your friend and your heartbeat and your truculent thoughts. And without flinching, first of all, you really meet yourself. So you can actually feel beater and beaten, a mere player in a dream.

[33:02]

in a game, ephemeral as a dream. Letting go, origin resumed, says one poem. So for a long time practice will be something like being custodian of what you yourself are until you actually know objectless concentration and objectless activity.

[34:40]

Just the practice of that easy, blissful feeling of having no worries, of being actually able, like sailing out on a ship under the Golden Gate Bridge, seeing San Francisco disappear into the darkness. You can do your session for one week. If you can just do this much, be able to put aside everything. You will come closer and closer to the great blissful ease that does and becomes. So, as I said once, so tasty You'll understand why we call it a refuge. And finally, that refuge extends everywhere. Stone lifting a hand, stone lantern announces the dawn. Emptiness nods its enormous head. Your stream of blood and heat

[37:05]

and breath and feelings one flows. by being able to be undivided, by being able to be utterly alone, sitting, no matter what happens. Completely and finally at home. Your home. Where else? Sometimes we have to have this true home and quit worrying about the extensions of it. For a while, be able to. Just origin resumed. So please, this Sashin, take care of your true home.

[38:31]

someone must take care of their true home. Some people sometimes must take care of at least their true home if we are going to take care of our wider home. You know, there's some danger if you meet, as Robert Duncan said yesterday, if you meet terror. of the Vietnam War, say, with greater terror, you can't fight terror without becoming terrible yourself. Faced with this choice to fight terror with greater terror, you must look at some more profound alternative. you must return to your true home, sometimes. You'll find some subtle activity, like Mousseau. Beater and beaten. Mere players in a game, ephemeral as a dream. And this happens, I know this happens. And we change our life around, widen our life around,

[39:59]

this samurai can become Muso's disciple. To meet the truth. The gratitude to recognize how to meet the truth. In this case, your opportunity is by your calm sitting for a second day.

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