Wherever you are Enlightenment is Here

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he said

is
well soon as you so

since
thank you
well i had a really nice experience bowing at the altar
ah
i try to notice and be completely aware of the altar every time i bow and i always take i always try to beat buddhists eyes
today the sun was shining on buddhist mouth in just the way that it looked like buddha was smiling
and i thought
ah i've met buddha
and that is really what
i kind of want to talk about today so it's interesting that i had that experience
as you know we're doing as visit respects a practice now for week practice intensive that we do every year at this time of year and were all studying a suzuki roshi is not always so which is a compilation of lectures that he gave towards the end of his life
and today
i'm gonna be talking about wherever you are enlightenment is there
and also not sticking to enlightenment those are two chapters in the book
as alan mentioned when he gave his talk one of the things that we find really interesting now is going back to the original lectures of to suzuki roshi to hear what actually did suzuki roshi say and then how is that the interpreted in the book and often
there are some wonderful things you find in those lectures that probably would have been difficult to convey in a book but really
for me provide sort of the underlying key
sometimes the little turning word that helps actually understand so i'm going to be going back and forth between was written in this book and then summer suzuki roshi or talks from the transcripts
so this chapter is wherever you are enlightenment is here and it begins in our practice the most important thing to realize
is to realize that we have buddha nature intellectually we know this but is rather difficult to accept our everyday life is in the realm of good and bad the realm of duality while buddha nature is found in the realm of the absolute where there is no good and no bad
there is a twofold reality our practice is to go beyond the realm of good and bad and to realize the absolute
it may be rather difficult to understand
sauce and practice is the mixing of the various ways we have an understanding
and letting letting it all work together
a kerosene lamp will not work merely because it's filled with kerosene it also needs air for combustion and even with air it needs matches

by the by the aid of matches air kerosene the lamp will work this is our zazen and practice

maybe i am a very smoky kerosene lamp i don't necessarily want to give a lecture
true i just want to live
i can't see i can't i just want to live with you moving stones having a nice hot spring bath and eating something good zen is right here when i start to talk is that all it is already a smoky kerosene lamp as long as i must give a lecture i have to explain the
this is right practice this is wrong this is how to practice zazen it's like giving you a recipe it doesn't work
so then he said so so this kerosene lamp metaphor is very he's giving this lecture towards the end of this life at tassajara and
one of the things that is important to understand when you're reading these this kind of the context so when you he uses the metaphor like kerosene lamp
that is because everybody everyday at tassajara is experiencing how to flight a kerosene lamp and for those of you who've never had the pleasure ah it's an art form and you have to make a decision every time you go into a dark room whether or not you want to deal with
the horrible kerosene fumes that can choke you are or some awful black
does that comes up and as you're learning you may maybe by the time the end of the practice period as you kind of get the knack of how to turn it just right
and i was thinking about
that
that metaphor ah being being about balance in our lives being about how we
how we balance the aspects of our life sojourn once told me that balance was my colon and life and i think it's true
always how to balance
my practice life my formal practice life with my professional life with my life with kids with my life with a partner of having some friends occasionally
and having that somehow balance that balance of practice and not feeling the great separation between coming in here and experiencing some really tranquility or experiencing some into intuitive
of sense of of getting emptiness a knife and and seeing beginning to the beginning to understand some of the habits of bind all of that coming in here and having these experiences and then rushing out
because i needed to get home because the kids were coming home from school or i had to get some something done for work that was due the next day
and i thought that i kind of had done that pretty well
that i
i i managed to make some decisions are prioritizing this part of my life was in was in this position and it it varied according to some life circumstances obviously if i have a family member who is in crisis i needed to
i needed to take care of that that's part of my life that's a balance of my life
but i would always a surgeon encouraged me to always have a have a commitment to a certain level of practice that i could do
and stick to it
so but that
that it wasn't
somehow that you just had to be sitting in the zendo all the time in order to practice that you you had to make decisions about your practice of your life as well
and
i thought i
after she she's going to sleep i thought i actually
kind of had that down you know it took me many years but a kind of had it down so but i was but i each time i fooled myself
i fool myself into thinking oh i've got it you know and i i can kind of seamlessly move back and forth
and then when i began to concentrate my practice my life more here being ordained and having more responsibilities here
i thought that i could really handle it that there was no limit i could just do whatever that wish we weren't whereas to say yes i could do whatever was was asked of me and i would just be fine and for a long time i actually surgeons would say to me sometimes that maybe you're doing too much and i say no i just i'm so happy when they
i'm here and i'm doing things
a but one thing about
practicing for a long time as you reach these points of extremely ability where
when you really think that you have
ah practice as a teacher you practice as a sitter you practice in some job or whatever that you're doing and it i was amazed to notice and it was pointed out to me by some of my a dharma brothers and sisters
that i was off
and i didn't know that i was off i knew that there was something not okay in this happened in in the last four five months i knew that my expression there was something about the way i was expressing myself
oh that was
not the way i like to express myself there was some edge to it that i wasn't sure where it came from and
and if i finally
actually said i have to really step back i have to step focus more on on formal practice
rather than sanga practice and and look a little bit more carefully and i think what i found was that there was some there was some ego attachment to
the one who had to do certain things
ah that i i had to do it if i didn't do it
so there was something like that going on i can't really put words to it but it was i wasn't even aware that it was going on
and so
i am
so it it it actually made me more aware that you know we can fool ourselves into thinking that our practice is doing things here doing jobs being part of saga being part of sitting practice whatever it is and even within our practice there's the balance
and even with an n any and he talks about this all the time and i discover it all the time i mean it's not like this is the first time that have happened but was the most embarrassing to me
because i
wasn't
i wasn't reflecting i didn't i didn't have i didn't you i didn't step back enough i didn't because i wasn't quite enough something something that i let my own
ego mind slip in
and so i think he's talking about so when he's talking about out enlightenment which we assume that an enlightenment we have some awareness of a both the things that are going on in our life as and and and can practice with those
as well as the realm of emptiness the realm of the absolute where we understand that it's the that there's nothing to get there's nothing to hold onto and yet it seeps in and it's own and it takes a kind of vigilance
a vigilance actually it takes even harder practice sometimes oh and even when you practice for longer periods of time is whenever you think you've got you get something you get a big wake-up call that somehow there was something
there's something glaring that other people could see
but you couldn't say
which is the vimeo the value of sanga practice if you have a relationships with saga practice
so that's kind of ah what susan
what he he says here
zazen practice is a very subtle thing when you practice you become aware of things you did not notice while you were working today i move stones for a while and i didn't realize that my muscles were tired but when i was calmly sitting zazen i realized oh
my muscles are in pretty bad condition i felt some pain in the various parts of my body you might think you could practices and much better if you had no problem but actually some problem is necessary it doesn't have to be a big one through the difficulty you can practice awesome
this is an especially meaningful point which is why dog zingy says practice and enlightenment or one practice is something you do consciously something you do with effort there right there is enlightenment
so it's in the aha
of oh look i did it again or all look i see what's going on right now

many zen masters missed the point while they were striving to attain perfect design things that exist are imperfect perfect that is how everything actually exists in the world nothing we see or hear is perfect but right here in the imperfection is perfect reality it is true intellectually and
also in the realm of practice practice it is to on paper and true with our body

and here's up
section from his transcribe talks so even so you know i explain the other night if we you know if we realize that our practice is lazy practice then you may feel you don't feel good
and this kind of mistake is happening every day
and we cannot enjoy our practice what should we do and what i said was that you realize your practice is not good what mind you know found out you're lazy practice your big mind found out your mistake so if you find out the bit the big mind which is working on your lazy practice small minded practice
then at that point at least your practice as good so before you make some complaint you should appreciate the big mind which which appear in your mind that was you know my answer
oh whatever you do is it is okay but i don't mean that i don't mean this important point is you know only when big mind appear the small mind you know will vanish should vanish you should not compare a big mind to a small mind
what i meant is don't worry about your small mind when you have big mind
how to continue your to practice on big mind as the point that is the point but i didn't i did not mean even though you have lazy practice of is okay that is a big misunderstanding it's not okay but if i say so it's not ok you will be disk
you will be discouraged if it is not if i say it is not okay so your practice though will be continuous you know practice of not okay one after another not okay practice will continue you feel in that way but if you carefully know think about it the continuously practice wrong practice
his big minded practice continuous activity as of mind well i'm an expert at this if you understand in that way you know true understanding of practice this point is very important so even though we finish our says shane we should continue well organized life to have real enlightenment when you practice
as hard according to the right instruction of your teacher then that is how you have real enlightenment experience but even though
you want to have he he repeats himself and funny ways even though expect you even though you wanna have this have a taste of to practice it may be difficult to have
the only way
to have it is to just continue right practice following the right instruction in the right teacher that is the only way if you follow read schedule in your practice you know naturally some day you may have a taste of it nowadays you know we make a date
ah people are always making dates ah but as enlightenment is not something you can meet
on a date
and he actually goes on to it goes on to talk about young people dating but i won't go into that but it basically basically as saying
it we we really can't be having opinions
about all of this
we we are really just living and and experiencing it moment to moment without judgment
but with awareness and that awareness the awareness of what's going on and saying oh ahah there it is again or not even saying that
a habit of mind a habit of mind that we that we don't like the shows up over and over again however many years we practice that old habit mindell show up now and then
it's just that old habit of mind that's what it does is it is coming up there from your elia maybe you haven't totally transform transform your storehouse consciousness yet knows still have some of those conditioned responses
i do
so but you'd but it's the way you deal with them not that you have them so accepting completely accepting you as a human person who lives in a dualistic world and who falls back into ego sometimes and who falls back into dualism and just saying i fell back into dual
as him again i recognize that the recognition
and the okay this with the recognition
that is the true understanding
it's it's take this risk combining of the relative in the absolute in the moment of your particular experience and recognizing it not as something magical i mean that's the amazing thing about suzuki roshi to me as he takes it he gives you want to one example after another
of of what's really going on when he's giving these lectures these people have been sitting there for days and sixteen and they're experiencing all of these things he's talking about and he's telling them whatever he was going on with you you're still here you're still sitting
pay attention is all here
so it's it's really interesting that he doesn't try to go
in especially in in in the books that we have to read he doesn't try to take you on some trip to some other land or to something obscure it's always write down right here where we were we work
and i think that
ah that ah that is what we take out we take when we leave know what we take when we leave our sitting is we take a mind that can see
and if we are without mind that can see and that awareness
we have it where it's with us always it's with us always in sometimes the balances off as
you know that was talking about balance before the balance is off you know sometimes you're seeing the you know this this field of of of the of duality and there's little peek of the oxtail
there's that there's the oxtail pictures when you're trying to find practice that you're trying to find enlightenment and there's that little tale that peeks out from behind a bush so sometimes you're you're you're caught in your life that there's if you pret if you're practicing consistently the little tail pick up and remind you oh i see and other times
you can get a little bit lost on the other side and kind of not be became kick taken care of what's in front of you because you're you're in this ah constructed world of you're feeling like you should be in this on constructed world of the absolute so you have to have a little pay
king from tripping when you're doing some canaan to recognize that you'd better pay attention to your feet
or an ache in your leg that gives you a clue that you do have a body you can't get you can't get away from it
as much as we try
so
the other aspect of this that i wanted to another aspect i wanted to talk about was
that i think is really important
ah
so i will read a again from suzuki roshi is transcript
and it has to do with following the rules and observing the structure
in my lecture sometimes i say everyone has buddha nature and whatever you do that is you know buddha activity i say but on the other hand i say you must follow the rule and when you practice zazen you should practice in some certain way keep your spine straight cross your legs
eggs and pull your neck as if you were supporting something and pull your chin there are many you know instructions
you will be confused when i say
you know it looks like a contradiction to say to rule to put emphasis on rules and follow our schedules it is if whatever you do that is you know buddhists activity than why must we have a rule this is a question you may have
from one viewpoint there are two two completely different viewpoints one is we say everything has buddha nature nothing is great or nothing is small too small to lift up a speck of dust means to lift up the whole universe when we say that way it means that we were
talking about our original nature from the standpoint of the of the absolute when we you know put emphasis on strict rule at that time we put emptiness on actual practice the relative practice is the way to achieve and have direct experience of the first principle only when you practice you put
the first principle is the absolute you put emphasis on your practice you will you know experience you have the direct experience of first principle but when you know we talk about by words we cannot say both sides at once then we talk about you know the first the absolute everything has food in
nature period no words follow everything has buddha nature so
he
he makes a point about the rules and about following the structure and
and that's and he has that that is very important

ah and dogan dogan also talked about the rigorous practice
and and the this the struck the structure of vigorous practice
and in an indulgence guidelines for practice he talks about having a strong relationship with a good teacher
studying the sutras all of these are part of your practice
even though
zzzz and ah it isn't as the heart of the practice but zazen alone is supported by relationship with the teacher our relationship and study an ongoing vigorous
following a schedule making a commitment structuring your life and a certain way that allows you to practice this this structure this there's a certain discipline that's inherent in zen practice that i think we don't always talk about
and it's very easy to fall off you know it's very easy to ah not get up in the morning it's very easy to say well i just don't feel well so maybe i won't do that
it's very easy to to to say well i'm going to zazen but i really don't have to talk to a teacher or i don't i don't really feel like reading
i i had an aversion when i first started practicing to to study i had done a lot of studying in my life have lot of reading of medical journals and i really did not want that what i loved about practice was ah was the actual sitting practice that was it for me
and as surgeon said well
just go to the class and do zazen
and i did that i i went i and i still he says it's important for me to go to the class i'll go to the class of do zazen
and
i think that
that really you know it it kind of somehow seeps in even though you're not you're going with the idea that i don't get this eventually over the years you get you start getting things because if you try to get it too much intellectually before you've done enough sitting then sometimes it the
the the intellectual or the discursive thought that the the conceptual thought kind of gets in the way of the actual practice but if you just take in the stuff as part of your experience and again just take it in without judgment take it in as much as will come in without without you
judging yourself about not not studying hard enough for not getting it or why aren't i doing this or how smart or meyer but what i can do that is talking and that doesn't and that is in the way but you just go and this idea of rules and discipline
it it's really to be at the heart of a lot of
a lot of this
because
ah when because it really makes a difference to make to set an intention
it really makes a difference
and i'm gonna say something that will sound contradictory now because everything always sounds contradictory so on the one hand
so so there's always this discernment
when we make a decision to participate or to engage in difficult practice to to sign up for this machine to decide we're gonna do that despite some
hindrances
the one on the one way we don't want to be guilty about a true a illness or something that we have or some limitation that we have that doesn't allow us to fully practice but on the other hand it's also helpful to push that limit
oh i have decided to track to do the this machine and june in spite of the fact that he had
ah inflammation of my sciatic nerve and i had no idea how i could do that and people said why are you doing this there's no way you should do this it would be too painful and if a will there's what's the discernment what is the discernment do i want it am i wanting to do
this because my ego is wanting to do this and and really cut through everything and to have strong i am or feel good about myself because i'm i'm willing to do this or do i really know what what it was going on here what what's going on here with me and so i thought well i really have a yearning
to be part of this machine
that's what i do every year i wanna do that is part of what my life is how do i how do i work with that and what was interesting
was
was it it it's just the typical thing about what he's talking about you know enlightenment limelight is everywhere in this imperfect world i had to really work really hard
two
beer to figure out what was bearable in terms of sitting to explore positions to take a rest and you know and and put my heating pad on my back but there's something that happened in the working with this imperfect and perfect self
with an intention with a devotion to practice with a with a whit with with a an aspiration to just be part of the practice period proud of part of this machine and and and over the period of five days you know i reached that period sometimes a two or three days in when you don't know why are there
you wish you could get out
but i i just said i it doesn't have to be this or that you know i can work with this disability and be here
as much as i can as fully as i can and and i think that's what
kind of having some distance some kind of there's something about discipline must have been is a bad word in our culture
but i think that and week and we were not having in this kind of practice pip place and monastic discipline but there is something about the need for some commitment it comes from somewhere that in our deepest place
and then we just we just do the best we can
oh knowing that we can stumble but i'm making that commitment the or something really changes in people's practice when they do that
it's like i these are the days when i mean this was sojourn taught me years and years ago and ice you know i swear by these are the days i'm getting up that's it
the alarm come rings you get up decide to come every day you come every day it is just the way that is but it comes first with this setting of an intention a deep deep setting of an intention and it doesn't have to be an intention to sit every day it can be an intention to sit once a week or
twice a week or whatever but it's some intention
that you follow through on
that that is part of this process because otherwise why would we see why would we stick with it
ah
there was another
another another i another point surgeon or that that dumb he made also he said to have so-called enlightened experiences of course important but what is more important is to know how to adjust the flame in our everyday life when the flame it is incomplete
now is it it know this is not good
this is not the one anyway
a what he what he talks about it is in one of these is
the need that that you also need a saga friend you also need a friend
to practice with you have any friend and he support that that also is a part of practice
so the other day
i think the big at the other
point that he makes in this and these chapters is that the danger when you start to practice and when you start to do wholehearted practice as you can get attached to the practice and you can get attached to the idea of enlightenment
and you can get and touched to the idea of the of of the dwelling in the realm of the absolute
and we don't have much time so i will just read it
usually we practice
we expect something if we try hard our practice will improve know this was not it visit
curtis winning the six ancestor said to dwell on emptiness and to keep calm mind is not zazen he also said just to sit cross legged posture is not zen at the same time i always struck to say to you just said if you don't unders
stand with our practice is and stick to the words you will be so confused but if you understand what real zazen is you will know that the ancestors words or a word of warning
now are says shane is almost at an end now there's talk of on the pseudonym and soon you will be going back to your homes and becoming involved in your everyday activity if you have been practicing true zazen you may be happy to go back to your life you may feel encouraged to go back but if you feel hesitant to go back to your life city life for everyday life
it means that you will stick to zazen that is why the sixth and sister said if you'd do well on emptiness and stick to your practice than that is not true zazen
so
this is basically reiterating
what he's saying all along which is we have a practice that practice is as in but that zazen is everywhere
that we take that zaza mind with us that we see everything in the way that we see ah when we're when we're sitting now we're never going to do that completely so we're going to have this dynamic dance this endless dynamic dance and the endless dynamic dance
is
what it is
it's never gonna be empty house is never gonna be easier it's always gonna be messy and going gonna go in and out of feeling really cool and frequent not so
and that is that is what it is
the dance with no expectations
time is it
to somewhere to have i could ask so as are there any questions you
ah ko

words

yes

why is it so alluring it seems to be human nature that we seek pleasure and avoid pain you know it's in our dna
but
the animals go for something sweet not something sour you know we just have a survival mechanism right that the the six that as the the desires
bliss maybe and practice actually is shouldn't be teaching us to find bless it should be teaching i mean it it it is a way to find tranquility with or without bliss
so if we let ourselves go into the void or we go into the realm of of a bliss ben where where do we were only going to there's no you know there's only went into that right misery
so the once you once you go after it
even if you think you catch it
you caught nothing
mary

mm-hmm

yes

yeah i think it's i think that's right and it it's funny that that they call zazen or shama to practice tranquillity practice because but it's actually it's settled it's being able to be settled with the with all of it right it
equality like a like a com i mean there's some place that's always calm but there's the other there's the there's the other dimension that's always their thoughts are always popping up
feelings are always popping up so it is it's it's it's the if you if it isn't is not a steady-state it it there's no way it's a dynamic
dynamic activity yeah

i could say no she talks about face types and doubt types i'm a face type
i'm
i think
ha
some of it arises from ah from buddhist understanding i think you know some of it arises from knowing
that if i am practicing
i'm
and if i am responding
if i'm in in a place where i'm practicing enough so that i can be responding from a place of awareness
there is positive reinforcement
even though i don't necessarily do it for that reason there's a change there's there's a chain you know it gets reinforced sustained and committed practice gets reinforced by woods but what your work what your world is it's not perfect but things do you know there is there shifting that happens
so i've i've an intention to
i have an intention to help people i've always had that i was born with it
but
but the intention to do that through practice is that that by
by becoming a person who can
process
things and and kind of act skillfully that that's that's a rewarding practice that that changes your life is much less melodrama
and much less up and down there's much more evenness to life so so i think it's two things one is i have an aspiration to follow the bodhisattva vows but other other of the other that thing is that the equality of your life actually changes
your relationships change go

oh okay

yeah well he catherine said when you can't do it anymore i think that there are physical limitations and there are mental limitations you can you know you can't you you come here you try
and and there's there's things that happen that are reality for your body
judy judy burleson once suggested in a different context that we provide people with a a schedule to dues to do session at home and the way that they can
which sounded like actually sounds like a good idea for some older folks who can't actually do the rigors of zazen practice here but they really are limitations right people can't set the sitting is agonizing
they can't stay awake that long and it's harmful to them they have a weak heart or they have a weak lungs and mean there's reality that's when reality comes in as the messiness of life
so as that's another way of so so it's another big challenge of how do we gracefully and sincerely continue our practice with our limitations and that's not only old older people as people with other
ha other disabilities i mean you're amazing you you do a lot more than many people with your level of disability you do it by intention and by commitment

i think i think we encourage people to find somebody to talk about the with
to make the decision
i think that'll they'll be the last thing

oil

fa

but that's a discernment process of the other and the other thing is to just work with a teacher or a front door my friend to figure out what works and and and then do that and as long as you do that whatever that is that's the same commitment
so you don't measure it by number of hours or you know how much pain you sit through
it is not measured that way it's measured by you making a commitment a sincere commitment to do what you can with with the with good intention and and and be with the practice in the way that you can
and then you're there
yeah