Good morning. Well, there's always the perennial question concerning our practice. Is that on? Okay. Which is, a kind of misdirected question, in a way. The question is, how do I take my practice into the world? As if there are two different places. As if we were taking something and taking it, one thing and putting it someplace else. So often we want to know, well, how should I relate to my boss, or how can I relate to mean people, or how do I control my children, and practice.

[01:21]

How do I take this practice and apply it to all the things that I do? That is a kind of misdirected question. The question should be more like, what is the common denominator for all activity? whether it's in a zendo, or in your home, or in your workplace, or whatever, or in your political schema. How do I address the plummeting economy? So, what is the common denominator? What is the fundamental thing? what is the fundamental attitude that, no matter where you are, is truthful.

[02:31]

I'm going to use this koan as an illustration. It's a koan that's very familiar to us. Zui Gon calls his master. Zui Gon, Osho, called to himself every day, Master, and answered, Yes, sir. Thus, then he would say, stay awake. Yes, sir, he would say. Henceforward, never be deceived by others. No, I won't. So, Mumon, Master Mumon has a comment. He says, old Zuigan buys and sells himself.

[03:53]

He takes out a lot of God masks and devil masks and puts them on and plays with him. What for? One calling, the other answering. One wide awake, the other saying. He will never be deceived. If you stick to any of these, you will be a failure. If you imitate Zuigan, you will play the fox. And then Muman's verse, he says, clinging to the deluded way of consciousness, students of the way do not realize the truth. The seed of birth and death through endless aeons, the fool calls it the original self or the true self. So, Zui Gan was an old Chinese Zen monk. and every day he would call to himself, Master.

[04:56]

And then he would answer, yes, sir. I guess he would say, yes, sir. That's kind of, I don't know if you would, but say, hi. So this brings up the question, who is the Master? What does he mean by Master? Mister, Meister, Master. Is that Master? Maybe. So, Master, he's calling, he's saying, Master. Does that mean his ego or his self? When he says master, he's addressing his Buddha nature, his big mind.

[05:59]

Master. So this is, who is the master? That is an old koan, which is a good koan for everyone. Who is the master? Who is the motivator? Where does this all come from? What is it that controls me? What is the source of all of my activity? Where does my activity come from, spring from? Where does my truth come from? So this is all contained in this term, in this address. Master, he's addressing master. And then he answers, yes sir.

[07:07]

So when he says master, this is like addressing Buddha. When he says yes sir, this is himself. what he feels is himself. Suzuki Roshi liked to say, we're half ordinary person and half Buddha. This is a kind of illustration of half ordinary person, half Buddha. He's addressing Buddha as master, and then he's answering as ordinary person, yes, then he would say, be wide awake. But what does it mean to be wide awake? Wide awake is like without any idea. To be really wide awake is to not have any preconceptions

[08:17]

nothing in the mind and be totally wide awake. This is called big mind. Suzuki Roshi used to talk about big mind and small mind. Big mind is like totally wide awake because it's open to everything. There's no partiality in this mind. totally devoid of partiality, just seeing everything as it is and allowing everything to be just as it is. And then the answer is, yes. Yes, sir. Henceforward, never be deceived by others. So this is What it means to be deceived by others is not necessarily other people.

[09:26]

This others, not deceived can also be don't be fooled by anything. Don't be fooled by the ideas that you have in your own mind. Don't be fooled by your own mind. Don't get caught up in your delusions. Well, how do I know what are my delusions? When our mind is open, totally open, with no preconceptions, with no assumptions, this is true knowledge without partiality. He asks himself and he answers himself. He poses a question and then answers the question, as if he's two different people. Uman's comment, old Zuigan buys and sells himself.

[10:32]

He takes out a lot of god masks and devil masks. In other words, he takes two parts. This is like a stage play. a puppet play, one puppet saying, Master, and the other saying, Yes, sir. This is like a little drama that's cooked up by Uman. And so he takes out a lot of god masks and devil masks and puts them on and plays with them. What for? Why does he do this? One is calling, the other is answering. One wide awake, the other saying, he will never be deceived. If you stick to any of them, you'll be a failure. If you imitate Zui Gon, you will play the fox. So if you stick to any of them, sticking to one side or the other side, sticking to Buddha or sticking to ordinary,

[11:41]

Ordinary is Buddha, Buddha is ordinary. In Soto Zen, the fundamental of Soto Zen is sentient beings and Buddhas are not two things. Sentient beings are Buddhas, Buddhas are sentient beings. So we have these two aspects of our life. Buddha, an ordinary person. Who goes to work? Who goes to school? Who takes care of the kids? Is it Buddha or you? So, in Ordinary person is called, you know, we say big mind and small mind.

[12:45]

Big mind is the mind that's totally dark. In other words, it's the background of everything. And when lightning strikes, it lights up everything. So we have this contrast of dark and light. but they're not two different things. So, how do we live an enlightened life in our daily life? When we sit zazen, this is big mind. No preconceptions, no opinions. Everything gone. Just big mind. So, big mind is the mind which needs nothing.

[13:50]

There's nothing to gain. There's no place to go. It's just here and now, with this. But small mind is the mind that needs goals, needs to have differentiate between good and bad, and right and wrong, and so forth. So this is what we're faced with all the time. How do we make choices based on good and bad, right and wrong, I want, I don't want, and so forth. And this is the life that we're talking about. How do I take Big Mind into my daily life? We don't have to take Big Mind into daily life. Just simply stop having opinions. Mind is always there, but it's always covered up by gaining mind.

[14:53]

But it's natural, you know, to have gaining mind. It's natural to have goals. And in our work life, in our daily life, we do have goals. So we say small mind as if it was something bad compared to big mind. But small mind is simply the mind with which we operate in the world. It's not bad. We say Hinayana and Mahayana. And Hinayana is a kind of negative term for a certain way to practice Buddhism. But actually, it's not. It's simply narrowing something down. We actually practice Hinayana practice with a Mahayana attitude.

[16:02]

So our practice actually becomes very narrow. And in that narrow practice, which is very important, we operate in the world. So, how do we practice all the time, continuous practice, which does not depend on circumstances, has nothing to do with the circumstances, whatever circumstances there are, which create problems, which we conceive of as problems, are not really problems. There's simply ways, every problem that comes up is simply an opportunity to practice Big Mind within our activity. So how do we do that?

[17:06]

if we are always aware of big mind, always aware of don't be fooled by things, which means don't get caught by anything, and always come back to big mind, which is to let go. Within our life of taking on things, we also have to be letting go at the same time. But we sink our teeth into something and hold on like a dog with a bone. We're not always aware of that. How to let something come and let it go because there's nothing to hang on to. the only changing circumstances.

[18:20]

So, Zuligan Osho always called to himself every day, Master. It's not that he called it every day, he called it all the time. All the time, Master. In other words, big mind. Big mind, big mind, always reminding himself, reminding his big mind. And answering, yes, sir. Then he would say, be wide awake. Be aware, in other words. Always be aware. So no matter what we need, how do we always be aware? So that's why practicing Zazen is waking up. It's called waking up. We fall asleep, and then we wake up.

[19:26]

And then our mind drifts, and then we wake up. So in Zazen, the only thing to do is to sit up straight and breathe. That's all there is to do. Pure activity with no motive. This is pure activity. And then our mind drifts. And then we call out, wake up. Okay, we come back. Yes, sir. Over and over again. Over and over again. We call out to ourselves, wake up, wake up. Okay. And then we drift into dreamland. Wake up, wake up, okay. So this is how we practice in our daily life. It's the same practice as sitting on the cushion. We find ourselves drifting.

[20:28]

Wake up, wake up. And waking up means letting go. Because in order to wake up, we have to let go. So this is called leading a simple life. Leading a simple life means being careful of what we get caught by. We say that things are catching us, but actually we're catching them. Nothing can catch us unless we want to be caught. So favorable circumstances will come up, things we like will come up, and things we don't like will come up. And every day, we're transmigrating, or transforming ourselves through the six worlds.

[21:40]

Sometimes we're in the heavenly realm, sometimes we're in the hell realm, sometimes we're in the fighting demon realm, or the hungry ghost realm, or the animal realm, and we simply allow ourself to practice in each place. You know, in the six worlds, in each world there's a Bodhisattva. That's you. How do you bring up your Bodhisattva mind? letting everything come and letting everything go, to be able to actually flow through the transformations and not get hung up by the transformations. It's like a river flowing, and then there are these little eddies on the edge where you see the water circling, and the little twigs are circling, and then pretty soon there's a kind of buildup.

[22:49]

Don't let yourself go there. Get back into the middle of the stream. So how do we stay in the middle of the stream? There's no special formula. There's no formula. There's no rule. You simply always be waking up to Big Mind. which is free of everything. So, Romain says, clinging to the deluded way of consciousness Students of the way do not realize the truth. So the deluded, what's the deluded way of consciousness?

[23:53]

It's thinking, getting caught in our small mind and not getting beyond it. He says, the seeds of birth and death, the seed of birth and death through endless aeons. The fool calls it the original self. So the seed of birth and death is called the realm of karma. where our actions create the circumstances for being caught in a small mind. Fools call it the original self. You know, someone told me recently that she goes to work every day, and when she goes to work, she enters the office and she realizes that she's looking for something to be critical of.

[25:13]

She said, I realized that I'm looking for something to be critical about, something to be angry about, something to accuse somebody of. This is an example of being stuck in your small mind. To meet every situation without a preconception, even though we think we know what's going to happen, or we think we know who somebody is, when we stick to our idea of who somebody is, then that we stop the process of allowing them to change. Even though I know who somebody is, I think, and I know what their reaction is going to be. The only way to address this person is to not have any thought in my mind at all, and simply respond to what's there, because what's there today is not necessarily what's there tomorrow.

[26:27]

But we tend to create an idea about something, about a person. and then we get stuck in our idea, and then we have a partial understanding of this person, but not a complete openness. You know, the shuso, the head monk, head student, when they have a shuso ceremony after the practice period, and everyone asks a question, The only way to respond to the questions is not to have anything in your mind at all. And you have to be able to trust that. You have to be able to trust that. I have no preconceived idea in my mind at all, and I'm not going to explain anything to anybody, and I really don't know anything. And the person asks the question, and then boom.

[27:32]

Because there's no hindrance to the vital response. And this is the way we practice in the world. Instead of saying, oh, I know what that's about, or blah blah blah, just have an open mind, because you already know everything. We already know everything. But we have to learn everything that we already know. And when we have an open mind, a mind that's not dominated by preconceptions, people respond to that. My teacher always had an open mind, and all the students responded to that, and he didn't do anything special.

[28:38]

He didn't do anything special at all. The only special thing he did was have an open mind, which is very special and very rare. So, practicing the world is exactly the same as practicing the Zendo. It's just that the circumstances are different. So, how do we find our freedom on the cushion, and how do we find our freedom when we're not on the cushion? It's exactly the same. Do you have any questions? Oh, Ross.

[29:44]

You have to be careful when you're talking to yourself. Not to be fooled. Yeah, not to be fooled, that's right. Not to be just muttering, you know. We find ourselves muttering all the time, you know, get out of the way, you know, why did you do that? I was in a car with someone who I respect a lot and they were really getting angry at the driver of the impatient. That's me. it's like small mind, and then if you get raised up to, this person is not in my way, why am I getting so impatient? Exactly, that's right. Yes, that's waking up. You don't have to call yourself, I mean, if you imitate Sui Gon, then you're a fox, right? You have to find your own way of waking up. So,

[31:44]

Driving is a really good example, because we find ourselves muttering all the time, most of us, and then you kind of take a step back, you say, is this necessary? Wake up, you know, and then phew, you know, and you kind of relax and listen to the radio. things, right, until you have the opportunity to go and get around. You know, in India, if you've ever been to India, people drive with their horns. You cannot drive unless you have a horn. And even in traffic, even with a stoplight, even when people are stopped at the stoplight, everybody's pushing their horn. I'm not criticizing the Indians. They're very good drivers. But, yes. Suzuki Roshi talked about being the boss of yourself.

[32:57]

That's it. I'm wondering, how does that relate to this master? I mean, when you wake up, to big mind, stay awake in big mind, you are the boss, because nothing can control you. Not that you're bossing everybody around, that nothing can control you, it's just a term he used, you know, because he liked to use English, American terms. Don't chicken out and things like that. So be the boss. He picked that up. It's kind of an American term. But that means don't get caught by anything. Sometimes it feels extremely much harder to do this than other times.

[34:02]

Yes. So those, like those different realms, hell and the hungry ghosts and gods and everything, sometimes maybe we call it that because some of them are much harder than others. So sometimes the experience, you know, like say in your head or in your body, you feel like you have physical forces, just painful things happening. So instead of saying, yes sir, you say, forget it, shit on you. You know, like really, really bad reactions. You know, when it's really hard, when it feels really hard in your body, is that, and your mind, is that something we're just deluding ourselves about too? Do you have any advice for that? Well, that's being caught by something. It's being caught by your resentments.

[35:03]

I would say, in that case, is being caught by resentment. I resent this happening to me. So, when you recognize, this is just, you know, I'm allowing myself to be caught by resentment. Wake up. This is a dream. It's a dream? Yes, and we think it's reality. When you're dreaming, you feel it. In a dream you feel something too, and when you're asleep. But we're dreaming while we're awake. This whole thing is a dream. The whole thing is a dream. So waking up means wake up to the dream.

[36:09]

So you're saying that we have an expectation that we should not have these painful states, and when we have them, we resent it, and then we're lost. Yeah. Well, we're caught. But you can get uncaught. Even in a difficult state, we could let go of that expectation that we shouldn't have a difficult state. That's right. Exactly. And therefore, the resentment evaporates. Yes, it can. Yes. Yeah. I have this, you know, these things happen to us, right? Painful things happen. But we practice with those things. How do I practice with that thing? How do I practice with this pain or with this stuff? And then that brings us back to what we're doing. That wakes us up. Why am I compounding the problem?

[37:28]

Kate? It's a fascinating talk. Two things. One is that, if I can remember to do this, what often will help me do this is, in the middle of a difficult situation, if I have the time or the presence of mind to say, How would I handle this if I were really enlightened? And then do that. Yes. Oh, absolutely. The other thing, I noticed, and I do think this has to do with getting older, I noticed that something really mundane. I'm looking for a salt shaker. And I'm thinking so much about looking for the salt shaker. But you don't see them. It's right. in front of me, and I know it's not that my vision is going. It's that I'm thinking about a salt shaker instead of seeing it, barely even.

[38:33]

Totally. I know that money. I'll tell you when I get older. You had a question? I can't remember your name. Yeah. And that's often what I get caught up in. And I've been practicing all the time trying to tell myself not to be afraid.

[39:36]

But I'm always afraid. Yeah. It just doesn't... It's not like you can just tell yourself, wake up. It's like waking up, telling yourself, wake up, is like drawing a blueprint. But you haven't built the house. And learning how to really wake up is building the building. And those are, for me, separate still. I can tell myself I'm feeling agonizing fear that's stopping me from functioning as well as I could, causing more mistakes, etc.

[40:50]

Causing more trouble than need be. Causing more agony than need be. And I understand, yes, I need to wake up and stop being afraid and stop letting your small mind run away with things and get caught up in the eddies and stuff. But there's a difference between being able to say that to yourself and building the house. Right, that's right. So, building the house is called creating practice. How can I actually create a practice which is open to you to do? And then, it's not wake up, it's how can I wake up? you have to ask yourself that question.

[42:00]

How can I do this? How, how, how, how is the critical word? How? When something, when you meet an obstacle, how can I deal with this? How can I wake up? But it only, You're right, you need the foundation. So, for us, in this practice, we sit zazen every day, which revolves around the practice. The practice revolves around zazen. Then you build a foundation. Well, there's no easier or harder. I mean, like, because you're not distracted because of anything?

[43:04]

It's because it does and teaches you how to do things. So it's kind of like lifting a five pound weight and then you can move forward and when you are challenged and you're strong enough to... Right, you know, if you pick up a baby elephant when it's first born and then you lift it every day, something like that. Yes, you know, somebody who has never practiced will say, well, how can I stop being angry all the time? Well, I can tell you how to do that. But that doesn't mean you can do it. So I would say, well, start practicing. And it's all the time. Yes. All the time. No matter what you're doing, you always have to think of where your breath is, and how you're sitting, and what your body's doing, and what your mind is thinking.

[44:08]

Yeah. It's not like you sit down and then go and forget about it, and then come back again when you're not feeling good. Continuous practice. And? So, I've got this big mind and little mind thing. So, I'm not so over, I get sort of the effort to have more of a big mind. I get sort of tired of the effort sometimes. So, when there's a situation that comes up and sort of like, well, I'm feeling a little cantankerous about it, I can't let go of it. Sometimes I just decide, you know what? I'm not going to, I'm just really, like, be self-indulgent and let this, you know, thing play out and be kind of a butt-head for a while. Is that, I'm very consciously, you know, is that... That's good.

[45:12]

What mind is that? That's good. That's good mind. Good mind. Yeah. Because if you try to do something too hard, you defeat yourself. So, you know, without feeling guilty and getting a guilty trip about yourself, like, you know, I can't handle this, I'm just gonna do this, right? More than I can deal with now. So, you have to have something to fall back on. Otherwise, you get so frustrated trying to do something good that then you start kicking yourself and all this. So the main thing is, yes, you have to kind of watch the TV every day for a week or something.

[46:13]

And then you come back, right? So that's the way it is, it's not a straight line. And given the complexity of our life, it's really hard to maintain that practice mind all the time. So you have to give yourself a break and fall into dissolution. Dissolution, not disillusion, but dissolve yourself. because we're creatures of habit and it's hard to change ourself. So we don't try to change ourself, we simply, you know, over a period, practice is slow, progress is slow, it's not fast. So how do you live on each moment? That's the whole point is, how do you live on each moment, moment by moment?

[47:16]

But to maintain, stay in big mind is to not connect the last moment with the present moment. There is some connection, but this moment is totally empty, and this moment is totally empty. But small mind connects all the dots and creates a kind of continuity of activity. And then we get caught up in the continuity of activity and lose the sense of each moment is a discrete moment of emptiness, which is called nirvana. Yes? I guess the activity that I'm struggling with, because that feels like a difference between here and the not up there but up there, which is even I can be in the middle of the river, and I can not get caught in the jetties, but there are activities that take place, and not doing an action is an action in itself.

[48:30]

So, as much as I can, I try to ground myself, and remember that a minute ago is different from now. Yeah, that's the question. How do I do that on each moment? Because within, Zazen emphasizes the emptiness side. And our daily activity is like the movement side. So within the movement is stillness. And within the stillness is great dynamic activity. It's just the flip side of things. So when you're sitting Zazen, within stillness, it's called the great activity, great dynamic activity, because your whole body-mind is totally alive, totally functioning as one.

[49:39]

If you really practice Zazen correctly, tremendous energy all the time, but it's very smooth. And when you're in the world of activity, you're totally still while moving. So it's not like you're doing one thing or the other, it's just the flip side. So when you're moving, there's ease within the movement, ease within the activity, centeredness, and that still point is right at the center of your being, which is informing all of your activity.

[50:43]

All of your activity is coming out of that still place. So you're always centered. Otherwise you get eccentric. So I think we have to kind of end, right? We do have to end.

[51:08]

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