We always say form is emptiness and emptiness is form. And when we chant the Heart Sutra, we say form is emptiness and emptiness is form. So in order to realize emptiness is form, form is emptiness, we practice paying attention to form. Since we can't understand emptiness is emptiness without practicing emptiness is form and form is emptiness. So we deal with form as form. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. If we want to know what emptiness is, we have to know it through form.

[01:14]

Let's say all conditioned things are empty. All dharmas in their own being are empty, meaning no substantial entity. But in order to understand about form and emptiness, we need to learn how to merge with form. I like that word better than be one with. Merge with form. So our Soto Zen practice is based on merging with form, being one with form. So our practice looks very formal.

[02:27]

because it's dealing with form. We pay very close attention to form. And we pay close attention to formality, the ality of form. In order to really focus on form, we magnify form. In order to merge with form, we magnify form. We make it into a big deal, big thing. So we pay close attention to details. And we make big effort not to neglect anything. And we make a big effort to be present. So when we practice at the Zen Center, mostly what we do is enter into certain kinds of forms.

[03:53]

Bowing, there's a form for bowing. There's a form for sitting. There's a form for standing. There's a form for walking. There's a form for breathing. There's a form for thinking or not thinking. There's a form for everything. There's even a form for going to the bathroom, but we don't say much about it. And why we have such forms is to magnify form. so that we don't lose it, we don't lose our consciousness of merging with form. Some of the forms that we have seem insignificant in a utilitarian sort of way.

[05:02]

or in a materialistic way, our forms don't make sense so much. It's when we work on a zendo, you know, we can see some progress in a materialistic way. But when we wash windows that are clean, doesn't make much sense in a materialistic way. But to wash windows that are already clean, is to magnify form in order to merge with form. To eat with Oryoki, to pay attention to all the little details, the minor details of Oryoki, is to merge with form, to magnify form and merge with form. And to see form as emptiness. Whether you see form as emptiness or not is not so important.

[06:06]

But just to be one with form, just to be one with the forms, to be one with each form as it emerges. just to be able to pay attention and to do something right for the sake of doing it correct, correctly. If you can do something correctly just for the sake of doing it right, without questioning or wanting to know the reason why or wanting to know whether it means something or not.

[07:11]

Just to be able to enter into the form completely, wholeheartedly, is enough. If you can't do that, then there's no way that you can enter into practice because entering into practice is to enter the form. It's how we practice mindfulness and concentration and wisdom. or prajna. So it's very important for us to, in our particular practice, to learn the forms.

[08:23]

Every day we learn the form of zazen. how to sit straight, and how to harmonize all the parts of our body and mind. This is the form that we're most interested in. And we learn the form of bowing. You know, you can bow in many different ways, but we have a form for bowing, a certain way to bow. that has a certain form to it. And that's how we bow, not some other way. We learn that form and try to do that form, try to express that form the best way we can, merge with that form. There are many ways to meditate, lots of different ways to meditate.

[09:28]

If you go to a yoga ashram, you'll find that there are many different ways to meditate. But when you practice zazen here, everybody tries to practice the form, this form, completely, to master this form completely. When we eat with our bowls, we make our best effort to master the form of eating with orioke, and to learn all the details, not to question the validity of it, but just to go with it. In Zen practice, you know, you have to go with the practice.

[10:31]

If you resist, then it just takes longer. You know, in koan study, the best way to deal with a koan is to just go along with it. The more you question, the longer it takes to understand it. And in the same way, all of the forms in our practice is a koan. If you go completely with it without thinking about it too much, What is it? Why do we do this? Just cut off thinking and go along with it and merge with it.

[11:40]

We've been practicing orioke for a pretty long time now and no one knows it confidently. The Doans don't know the Heart Sutra by heart. They have to look at the chart to see where to hit the bells. And we've been chanting the Heart Sutra in this Berkeley Zen Center for 18, 17 years.

[12:48]

In order to really feel that you're a Zen student, there are two sides. One is, two sides to practice. One side is leading and the other side is following. When we come to practice, we are following, just following along. And that's very good. If you come to zazen, come to practice, with the idea of leading, it doesn't work. You have to come with the idea of following. Because no one is going to let you do the leading before you can do the following. But at some point, when you merge with practice, you should turn over or turn around and lead practice.

[14:22]

There should be a point at which you turn around and lead practice. Now, someone who just leads but doesn't know how to follow can't practice. Even if you try, practice itself doesn't allow you to. And someone who just follows can never really enter into practice. To enter into practice, you have to be able to lead as well as follow. So if you're always just following, then someone's always behind you trying to get you to move. Always trying to move you. But you can only move someone so long, and then you give up. And then you say, well, it's up to you. So...

[15:25]

Ideal Zen student is one who leads and follows at the same time. To know how to lead and to know how to follow, and to know when to lead and to know when to follow, and to know when to do both simultaneously. If you know how to do both simultaneously, then you're a perfect Zen student with enlightenment. Leading and following at the same time is how we merge with form. If you can do it, you make less mistakes, you don't get in the way of things, and you know exactly what to do at all times.

[16:45]

And you have confidence in yourself, confidence in practice, and people look up to you with confidence. and you instill confidence in others. We say, when subject and object merge, we understand emptiness.

[18:01]

When you make a sound on the bell, it's subject and object merging. You should be concentrated on merging subject and object so that everything disappears when this bell is sounded. If the bell is sounded that way, That's what we should be striving to do when we're sounding the bell. No one hitting the bell, no beater and no bell. That's the kind of sound that we should be striving for. Yet everything exists independently. So we need to have that kind of motivation and that kind of drive in order to really practice.

[19:39]

And the goal of practice for a teacher is to have students who are independent and yet know how to lead and follow at the same time. how to be an engine rather than a boxcar. A boxcar always needs some power to pull it along. It just follows along behind the power, behind the engine. But it's necessary to be an engine to find your own engine.

[21:01]

And the purpose of practice is to help everyone to find their own engine. So if you don't have the spirit to practice in that way, bringing out yourself forward, then no matter how long you practice at it, you'll never get it.

[22:20]

When we sit in zazen, our whole attention should be in zazen. Finding the form. In zazen instruction, we give you the form of sitting. You're shown the form of sitting zazen. But actual zazen is your whole spirit involved in finding the form, moment after moment. It's not that you one time learn the form and then you sit in zazen. Every single moment of zazen is finding the form. There's no form that you can't hold on to. You have to continually create this form of zazen, form of sitting, moment after moment after moment.

[23:40]

And with that same kind of spirit, we continue our practice in all activities. moment after moment after moment, paying attention to the forms. And the forms are constantly changing. This is one aspect of the emptiness of forms, constantly changing. In zazen you should be aware of the constantly changing form. And how you're aware of the constantly changing forms in zazen is to be constantly finding your form. Constantly creating this form. If you go to sleep too long, your no longer sitting zazen.

[24:57]

When we sit, we should have in mind what is the perfect form of zazen. Very few have it. What is the perfect form for sitting? How do I fulfill this perfect form? How do I make it perfect? If you don't have that attitude, then your zazen is just kind of wishy-washy, or you settle for something. You just kind of settle for something. There's no end to finding this form. It's right one moment, it's not right the next moment. When you do orioke, you should be concentrated on not eating,

[26:27]

Eating is only part of that meal. How do I do this exactly right? How do I lay out the orioke cloth exactly right? How do I space these bowls exactly right? In the meal chant, we eat to support life and to practice the way of Buddha. It doesn't say anything else. The reason we eat in this way is to support life and to practice the way of Buddha. So eating supports the life and paying attention to the details of the form is to practice the way of Buddha. Why we pay so much attention to form? One reason why is so that we can see form for what it is, rather than just in a materialistic way.

[27:39]

Our life, you know, is surrounded, the forms of our life are created and surrounded, and they surround us for just materialistic reasons. So we need to know how to redeem form, actually. We need to give form some dignity, to understand the reality of forms, the emptiness of forms. You know, one of the biggest problems we have is that we always want to do everything in our own way.

[29:08]

Because it works for us, usually in a materialistic way. We grow up and by the time we get to be 25 or 30 years or so, 35, we've developed certain habits and certain ways of dealing with form, mostly on a materialistic level. So we feel that we know how to do things pretty well. And when we come to Zen practice, we have to unlearn the way that we do things and follow forms. That's very hard. Very hard to unlearn the things that we know so well, or to kind of set them aside, our usual way of doing things. And most of the resistance comes from not wanting to set aside our usual way of doing things.

[30:14]

Even if we do take the form, Underneath, you know, we still want to do things our own way. Actually, Zen practice, you know, is not to make you into a little soldier or make you into an automaton or a machine. or teach you some certain way, some certain kind of ritual, but to unleash your true form, to open up your true form, actually, and to help you to be independent in a true way. But first, we have to give up our usual way of doing things.

[31:32]

Actually, we don't teach you something in particular. something that you can put in your pocket or put in your bank, but just how to merge with form. Yeah. Usually, the way we end a practice is to come to the Zen Center and everybody's doing these strange things, bowing and chanting and sitting zazen and so on.

[33:00]

And you're introduced to it and we let you kind of fumble around until you find your way. If you're not willing to find your way, you can't enter. If you're not ready to find your way, you can't enter. If you're ready to find your way, then you put up with your ignorance. You accept the fact that you're ignorant and you don't know anything. And that's the first criteria, is for you to accept the fact that you don't know anything about this. And you just allow yourself to flow into it and have enough determination to want to find your way. And if you have enough determination to want to find your way, then you'll stay in it and find your way in it. And then people will help you.

[34:04]

And the more you want to have that desire, the more people will help you. It's just automatic. And the stronger your desire to practice and to find out how to practice, the more you'll be helped, and the more people will want you to practice with them, and the more responsibility people will want you to take. You learn how to follow, and then you learn how to lead, and then you learn how to do both simultaneously. And it's called harmony. Harmonious activity. And merging with forms. Merging with forms. And what, how characteristic of a good Zen student is that they're very sharp, and not dreamy, and right there, able to see a situation and understand it.

[35:47]

You know, in the pointer to the first case in the Blue Cliff record, the example is when you see horns behind a fence, you know the ox is it. There is an ox there. When you see smoke behind the mountain, you know that there's a fire. And this is like the everyday bread and butter of a Zen student, the way you see something and immediately you know the situation. That kind of awareness comes from not having any special ideas, but just having a great empty open mind. So in this two days of sitting, I would like us to really, everyone, to turn on their engine.

[37:16]

Find your own spirit and put it into practice. If you don't know something, ask questions. Ask somebody. If... If you're having trouble, see somebody. But... Let's not let down our motivation or our spirit. As we progress into the day, into the night and tomorrow, we should be building up our effort and our energy.

[38:25]

And as we begin to have some difficulty, we should match that difficulty right away with our energy and our openness. So that as we keep getting deeper and deeper into our samadhi, we keep opening up more and more and more. So moment by moment we're opening and our effort becomes more responsive. Samadhi, you know, is merging. The more we can merge with our activity, what we're doing, the stronger our samadhi.

[39:37]

That's what samadhi is, merging with what we're doing. Merging with form. Do we have a question? Well, when you talked earlier in your lecture, you talked about doubt. And I understand you're talking about doubt, about ways of doing things in small details. But also, in Buddhism they talk about big doubt. Can you say something about the difference?

[40:41]

Big doubt, great doubt, is something else. Doubt in that sense means that you doubt. Doubting isn't what we usually... Doubt is not the funny kind of word because it doesn't mean the same thing that we usually mean when we say doubt. Doubt is... the characteristic of doubt is more like, I don't know. I don't take anything for granted. That's the great doubt that we have to have. I don't... What is this? This is a hunk of wood? I doubt it. You know, I question it.

[41:44]

So, a great doubt means more like great questioning. Not taking anything at face value. willing to give up your ideas about things, willing to give up your preconceptions. And when you were talking about it, I was thinking about detail as something that's actually happening. It's sort of what... The way that we experience what's happening is passing details. And it's not something particularly special.

[43:00]

It's just what's going on. Yeah. That's right. something particularly special. We always say practice is nothing special. That's right. None of this is special. It's just that we're attentive to nothing special. Exactly right. But just to be attentive to this nothing special. Just our everyday food. I mean, you know, soup is nothing special. Bowls are nothing special. Sitting down is nothing special. But yet it's all very special.

[44:02]

It's very special when you don't take it for granted. When you take it for granted, we say, well, this is nothing special. Driving down the freeway at 60 miles an hour is nothing special. Everybody does it. But if you don't take it for granted, it's very special. If you're sitting in Sishine for seven days and then you get out on the freeway, I'll guarantee you that going down the street, down the freeway at 60 miles an hour is very special. Yes? This morning I was waiting for something special to happen. You were waiting for something special to happen? Usually what pops up is just details about I still have this anticipation of something special happening.

[45:17]

I feel like it, too, but I like waiting. Don't wait. Are you going to be sitting here today? Don't wait for anything. Just try to settle on what's happening. Just be completely settled on what's happening, because there's nothing else. You'll find there's nothing else. Just one moment after the next, just exactly what's happening is it. There's nothing to expect. Forget the future. Just don't think about the future, what's going to happen in the future. that will be taken care of at some other time.

[46:18]

So don't give up your present circumstances for something that you think is going to happen in the future. And that's the way you sit Zazen.

[46:35]

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