I vow to taste the truth of Tathagata's words. Good morning. I would like to talk about how the activity of practice is independent from the world of our mental constructs or from the story which we are constantly telling ourselves. A long time ago in China, there was a monk named Fa Yin or Hogan. And early in his monkhood, he went on a pilgrimage. One day while he was traveling, he was caught in a rainstorm and took refuge in a nearby monastery.

[01:07]

As he was warming himself by the stove, the abbot approached him and asked him where he was going. Fa Yin said, I'm just wandering. And the abbot asked, what is the purpose of your wandering? And Fa Yin said, I don't know. The abbot replied, that which doesn't know is most intimate. This is also translated as not knowing most closely approaches the truth. The abbot was validating this space of I don't know, where our thinking stops,

[02:14]

where we are no longer able or interested in figuring it out. The place where we meet the limits of our thinking, is the place where we begin to trust. We all existed before we could think. So you could say that we're all older than our thinking is. Before we could figure things out, we were eating and swallowing, feeling warm and comfortable or not, breathing and smiling. Practice cannot be engineered or directed by our conceptual thinking.

[03:25]

When we try to control our practice with our thinking, what we are doing is the practice of figuring things out, not the practice of Buddhism. In order to be free from our rationalization or conceptualization, we need to trust something wider than our thinking. It's been said that the answer or the experience of koans is found in our muscles. Fa Yen's teacher said, that which doesn't know is most intimate. In Zen practice, we have the forms which can help pull us out of our story.

[04:29]

After many years of practicing with the forms, I found that many of them are arbitrary or agreed-upon ways of doing things. For example, we enter the Zen Do on the left side of the doorway and step into the room with our left foot. And we do this not because the left side is inherently right or has some sacred meaning, but because we've agreed to do it that way. And when we decide to do something in a particular way, it helps us pay attention. It helps rescue us from our train of thought. And in this case, it helps us bring our attention all the way down to our feet.

[05:37]

Using the forms, entering on the left side of the doorway, turning clockwise when we sit down on our cushions, bowing at the bathroom altars, bowing to each other when we pass in the hallways, helps us notice our preferences, our strong or subtle likes and dislikes. The forms are a background against which we can contrast our usual tendencies and conditioned activity. By doing such meaningless activity as bowing to cushions, stopping and taking our shoes off before we enter a room, and then stopping and putting our shoes back on,

[06:42]

holding the sutra cards with two hands instead of one, this helps extend us beyond our rational, logical minds. We bow to each other. We bow to our cushions. We bow to the altars. Not because we here are Buddhists, so we bow to each other, or because the Buddha figure is sacred, or because this temple is special. We bow because everything is special. And what all this bowing and stepping forward with a particular foot does is help pull us out of the realm of our mental constructs, into the realm of what is actually right before us.

[07:47]

In the 9th century, about 150 years before Fa Yin's story, the Soto Zen lineage was being established in China by Tozan Ryokai. Actually, both Tozan and Fa Yin entered the monastery as children, maybe around the age of seven. But one of the ordination rules established by Shakyamuni Buddha is that a monk could not receive full ordination until the age of 20. So, for both of them, I think soon after they were ordained, probably when they were 20 or 21, they began traveling. Tozan traveled to different monasteries, visiting different teachers. And when Tozan came to Isan, Reyu, or Kueishan,

[09:03]

he asked Master Kueishan, I have heard that the national teacher maintains the doctrine that inanimate objects preach the Dharma. Could you please instruct me about this? And Kueishan said, please tell me the context in which this took place. So Tozan told Kueishan the story of the national teacher, which goes, a monk asked the national teacher, what is the mind of the ancient Buddhas? And the national teacher said, a wall and broken tiles. And the monk asked, are they not inanimate objects?

[10:06]

And the national teacher said, yes, they are. And the monk asked, do inanimate objects preach the Dharma? The national teacher said, inanimate objects are continuously and vigorously expounding the Dharma. And the monk said, I don't hear it. The national teacher said, even though you do not hear it, do not hinder that which hears it. And there is some more dialogue, and finally the monk asked, which sutra teaches that inanimate objects expound the Dharma? And the national teacher said, the Avatamsaka Sutra

[11:12]

says that the earth expounds the Dharma. Living beings expound the Dharma. In the three worlds, all things expound the Dharma. This was the story that Tozan told Kueshan. And when Tozan finished, Kueshan said, yes, that teaching also exists here. However, one seldom finds one capable of understanding it. And Tozan said, well, I don't completely understand it. Could you please clarify it for me? And Kueshan raised his whisk, saying, do you understand?

[12:17]

And Tozan said, well, no, I don't. Could you please explain it? And Kueshan said, it can never be explained to you by means of the mouth of one born of a mother and father. And at this point, Kueshan referred Tozan to another teacher, to Ungan Donjo. So Tozan traveled to Ungan's mountain and asked Master Ungan, when the inanimate preaches the Dharma, who can hear it? And Ungan said, the inanimate can hear it. And Tozan said, can you hear it? And Ungan said, if I could hear it,

[13:20]

you would not be able to hear me preaching the Dharma. And Tozan persisted, well, why can't I hear it? And then Master Ungan raised his whisk, saying, can you hear it? And Tozan said, no, I can't hear it. And then Tozan asked, which sutra teaches that the insentient preaches the Dharma? And Ungan said, the Amitabha Sutra says that water, birds, tree groves, all without exception, recite the name of Buddha, recite the Dharma. And at this point, Tozan got it. He understood how the inanimate preaches the Dharma.

[14:26]

And he wrote a poem, wonderful, wonderful, hard to comprehend, that non-sentient beings expound the Dharma. It simply cannot be heard with the ears. But when one hears sounds with the eyes, then it is truly understood. That's the end of this story. Japanese monastic forms have had a strong influence on tea ceremony, and tea ceremony has strongly affected the forms used in Japanese monasteries. It's been said that tea ceremony embodies the Buddhist insight

[15:28]

that all things, even such ordinary things as a bowl, a spoon, a piece of cloth, space in a room, are alive with the same aliveness we are. How can we practice with the inanimate? How can we see things as the mind of the ancient Buddhas? We offer incense and bow. A bell rings and we stand up and fluff our cushions.

[16:30]

We build a raised threshold in the entryway, so we have to stand up and step over it. The way we enter a space, the way we pick things up and place them down, the way we meet things, all things, without exception, recite the Dharma. In this realm, all things are equally real, equally important. All things are alive. So that when we're washing dishes, we're washing the mind of the ancient Buddhas. We could say

[17:37]

that tea ceremony is one long conglomeration of details, one after another. Or we could say it's a world, a world complete in itself. I studied tea ceremony with Mrs. Suzuki, Suzuki Roshi's wife. And the way she taught tea ceremony seemed to be endless details. There is a very precise way of doing everything, of standing and sitting, the way you stand up, the way you place each foot as you walk in the tea room. And each utensil has a very specific way it's picked up and held.

[18:37]

This is all in addition to the several different ways of actually making tea. But I decided that I didn't want to have to memorize each step and try to carry the burden of that around in my mind. So I tried to encourage my body to learn this ceremony. I wanted to rely on something other than my thinking to know what to do next. And I have a similar feeling toward Doan work and orioke practice. When I eat with my orioke, I try to set aside my thinking so that my body and mind are free to engage in the activity of just sitting and eating. And when my attention becomes distracted,

[19:41]

when I start thinking, it's often sound that brings me back. The sound of rough movement or the sound of a rough, distracted mind. When we eat with our orioke, we sit in zazen position with our backs straight. And we hold the food rather high so we don't need to lean over or curve our backs. We hold the food up to our mouths rather than bringing our mouths down to the food. And we hold the bowls in our hand as if they were a part of our hand or an extension of ourselves. Rather than treating the bowls

[20:41]

as if they were some external object that we manipulate for our use. And when we pick up the bowls and place them down, often we use two hands. Bringing both hands to an activity helps bring our whole attention to what we're doing. If you have a bowl or a tea bowl or a cup at home without handles, you can practice drinking tea using two hands. Using both hands helps collect and focus the attention. In this way, drinking a cup of tea can be a concentration practice. In tea ceremony,

[21:49]

the emphasis is not on making tea perfectly without making mistakes. When I studied tea, we would have tea class each week and I would make tea for my partner and then watch while my partner prepared and served tea to me so that in the course of a year I might have made tea or seen it being made nearly a hundred times. And then several times a year all the tea students would get together for a formal tea ceremony. And four or five people would make tea for their partners. Everyone in the room was very familiar with tea and the hosts had practiced many, many times. But I never went to a tea ceremony

[22:50]

expecting that it would be done perfectly right. There are too many chances to have a gap, to do something out of sequence, or to pick something up in the wrong way. So although we spend a lot of time and energy learning the forms, the point of tea ceremony, or the emphasis, is not on learning to recreate the forms perfectly. The emphasis is on taking care of your state of mind. And we can use the forms to support the way we take care of our state of mind. But in tea, whatever comes up, whatever happens,

[23:53]

we stay with our state of mind. We address just what is there before. What is there for us. In this context, when we're making and serving tea to someone, we're not serving tea as much as we're serving our state of mind. When the bell rings, we stand up and fluff our cushions. The fluffing is a direct expression of our state of mind. When we put on our shoes, we are wearing Buddha. When we put on our shoes, and when we walk down the hallway, we are walking

[24:54]

on the mind of the ancient Buddhas. In Zen practice, the emphasis is not on sitting Zazen in full lotus position with a completely straight back, never moving. The emphasis, the point is what? Why are we really here? Kenneth Patchen said, there are so many little dyings. It doesn't matter which of them we call death. Please,

[25:56]

trust your feet to walk into the darkness. Trust that which doesn't know. May our intention...

[26:22]

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