Good morning. Is it loud enough in the back? How about now? Let's see. I'm testing. One, two. Can you hear in the back? More? A little more? How about now? How's that? Okay. Good. Good morning again. It's a beautiful autumn morning. Today we're having our one-day sitting. That is the close of the four-week Aspects of Practice period that we've been doing here at Berkley Zen Center. A number of you have been participating. Probably 20, 25 of us are in session, and then everyone else has arrived for his asana lecture. And we'll resume our sitting until about 9 o'clock this evening. I've really enjoyed Aspects of Practice

[01:09]

this year. I mean, I think I enjoy it every year, but who can remember? I know I'm enjoying it this year. It's been a somewhat intimate group, smaller than often, but a very rich investigation. We've been investigating the heart of our forms, which I think dovetails with my topic for today, form and intention. We've been looking at the forms in their specificity, in kind of the broader way to see them as part of our practice in our life. We've been looking at ways that they might be a limit to us, or have a shadow side. We've been looking

[02:12]

at all these different dimensions. And the energy was very good, and the inquiry was very lively. We've had classes and lectures on bowing, on serving and eating, on the feeling of our forms, and as I said, the shadow side, and so on. And we knew from the outset that we were not going to in any way be systematic or exhaustive. Maybe exhausting, but not exhaustive in our investigation. And so we've not come to the end of it, and we won't today. We'll just put a close to this particular interval of time, and then continue to look at what

[03:13]

we're doing, which we're always looking at. So I want to thank, in particular I want to thank the senior students who have helped lead the classes, and the discussions, and the lectures. Leslie Bartolak, Ross Plumb, Greg Denny, Ron Nestor, Peter Overton, Laurie Sunaki, Karen Sondheim, and David Weinberg. Most of them are here today, which is nice. So thinking about form and intention, we've been thinking about it in different ways this week and today. Today, just walking in here, there's a form that we have developed to begin

[04:19]

the lecture, and the lecture itself is a form. I come in, and the first thing I do is I bow to the room, I bow to everybody that's in the room, and then we bow to Sojin, or Sojin's seat, which makes a lot of sense when Sojin is in his seat, and might seem a little strange when he's not. Is he there? I don't know. But that's the seat in this sense, whether, irrespective of how you feel about it, the abbot is sitting in the Buddha position, and so we bow to that seat. And then we do bows to the altar. So we're maintaining our intention,

[05:26]

and that's a very formal side. The other thing that comes to mind for me this week is, since last Sunday, each day I've been going down to Occupy Oakland, which is, I really encourage you, they haven't cleared everybody out, did they? Because they've been threatening. I really encourage you to go and check it out. It's a very creative environment where, at least from one perspective, you can see forms are being created all the time, forms so that people can live in that space harmoniously, and express their deep intention, express

[06:32]

the various, very wide range of feelings about society and life. And this is like a really amazing creative experiment that's going on there. So one of the things that's going on is, some people have gotten together and we have a meditation every day at noon. And we just sit there. I heard on TV yesterday, I think it was NBC, somebody representing Occupy Oakland was taking people around, and he was talking about the various things that are going on, and he said, oh, we have meditation and yoga every day. And I said, wow, that's interesting. Even though it's not clear what it is we're doing, we're manifesting a form

[07:36]

and offering it. And I would just say, I'm going away tomorrow for a couple of weeks, and I'm sort of sorry that I am, because after having sat there for the week, I think that what I would like to do next week would be actually come forward a bit more and find out more about how things are working there, and contribute, participate in a way that goes beyond the meditation. But the meditation is a wonderful thing to offer, and that's a form. So I wanted to talk about a koan, which has come to mind this week. It's Case 4 in the Book of Serenity,

[08:48]

or the Shoyu Roku, which is a 12th century Chinese koan collection, one of the major collections of Zen stories that we have. And this one is called, The World Honored One Points to the Ground. I'll read you the pointer, the case, and the verse, and then read you the case again. The pointer, which is kind of an introduction, says, As soon as a single mote of dust arises, the whole earth is contained therein. With a single horse and a single lance, the land is extended. Who is this person who can master in any place and meet the Source in everything? The main case. As the World Honored One, that's the Buddha, was walking

[09:58]

with a congregation, he pointed to the ground with his finger and said, This spot is good to build a sanctuary. Indra, emperor of the gods, took a blade of grass, stuck it in the ground and said, The sanctuary is built. The World Honored One smiled. The verse says, The boundless spring on the hundred plants, picking up what comes to hand, he uses it knowingly. The sixteen-foot-tall golden body, that's the Buddha, a collection of virtuous qualities, casually leads him by the hand into the red dust. Able to be master in the dusts, from outside creation, a guest shows up. Everywhere life is sufficient in its way,

[11:00]

no matter if one is not as clever as others. The main case again. As the World Honored One was walking with a congregation, he pointed to the ground with his finger and said, This is a good spot to build a sanctuary. Indra, emperor of the gods, took a blade of grass, stuck it in the ground and said, The sanctuary is built. The World Honored One smiled. There's a wonderful footnote. There's a number of footnotes in this by the assembler Wansong, a Chinese monk, when, in commentary on Indra, when he sticks the blade of grass in the ground and says, The sanctuary is built, the footnote says, Repairs won't be easy.

[12:05]

So that's the case. I love the first line of the pointer. As soon as a single mote of dust arises, the whole earth is contained therein. As soon as you have anything, as soon as you have this world, this mote of dust, then everything else unfolds from there. You can't have one speck of dust without everything. And each molecule, each atom, each speck of dust is intimately related to each other. And we are in a particular dance with each

[13:16]

other. And that dance you could call form, if you like. So the Buddha is walking with his congregation, with the Sangha, with the monks and nuns. I've always liked this image in the verse, it says, casually leads him by hand into the red dust. I remember reading in college, The Dream of the Red Chamber, and I think the beginning of that, it's called Another Adventure in the Red Dust. So it must be that the dust in China, the dirt in China is red, like, at least in the part where they were writing this, like, you can imagine, like Georgia. Has anyone ever been to Georgia? It's like red dirt. So they're walking in

[14:26]

this dusty environment. And he says, this spot is good to build a sanctuary. And Indra takes a blade of grass and sticks it in the ground. So, and he says the sanctuary is built and the World Honored One smiled. What was he, it's interesting to consider what was he smiling about? Was, did he, was his smile like Mahakasyapa's smile, like his, the Buddha's smile to Mahakasyapa that, oh, there was some recognition? Or, as one commentator puts it, was it the smile of an indulgent parent saying, well, it's very nice what you did, but kind of extra. What is the sanctuary? What is the form? All over Asia, pretty common you

[15:43]

see stupas or sanctuaries, sacred places. And if you look at them in profile, they, they're the shape, they're just like our shape as we're sitting, sasen. They're kind of narrow at the top and they widened out to the base. So the sanctuary is extra. There is no place that's not good to build a sanctuary. And there is none of us that is other than the sanctuary itself. All of that is, is true. And yet, there's the call to take some action

[16:45]

or make some effort. In the verse, it says, it talks about, well, in the, in the introduction, it asks the pointer, who is this person that can master in any place and meet the source in everything? And in the verse, it says, uh, the 16 foot golden body, 16 foot tall, golden body, a collection of virtuous qualities, casually leads him by the hand into the red dust. Leads Indra, leads you, leads Randi, leads Walter, uh, leads Felix, by hand, taking

[17:49]

you by hand into the world. And says, this would be a good place for a sanctuary. Uh, and we might say, oh, okay. Uh, and in our action, the next sentence is, able to be master in the dust. Uh, from outside creation, a guest shows up. So to be master in this sense also means to take care of the guest, to take care of what's around us, to take care of the world. Uh, if you think about going back to Occupy Oakland, somebody walked around and saw, oh, Frank Ogawa Plaza. This would be a good place to build a sanctuary. And

[18:58]

over a period of days, I went down early, there weren't so many tents, and now you can't even, you can't get any more tents in there. And, you know, there are people who are, uh, who are cooking food enough to serve everybody, uh, who are washing the dishes, uh, the blades of grass are somewhat trampled down, but the trees are protected. People are taking care of the trees, making sure that they're not being treated disrespectfully. Uh, so, you have, and you have the blending there of guests and hosts. Uh, the guests are also the hosts, and the hosts are also the guests there. They're living there, they're serving each other, they're taking care of the environment as best they can, they're taking care of harmony

[20:04]

and, uh, potential conflict, uh, because it's not so easy. I mean, I don't, I'm not idealizing, uh, this, this setup, you know, and I'm also not saying that I feel entirely comfortable there. And yet, to recognize there's something really creative. I don't know would I feel entirely comfortable if I were, uh, Indra walking through, uh, the Indian, the dust of North India? Maybe, maybe not. So, uh, Rama was probably here when, uh, bought this place and there must have been, I suspect it was a, uh, a collective decision, this

[21:07]

place, this would be a good place to build a sanctuary. Uh, and there was no temple here in, what, 1977? 79. When did, but when did you buy it? 78? 79. 79. It was, you know, it was a bunch of houses, and people, sort of had the vision and the community had the vision, this would be a good place to build a sanctuary. And what's interesting is that the building is still going on. Uh, you know, uh, two, three weeks ago we, uh, we worked to do seismic reinforcement on the, on the back porch there. And, uh, really thinking about that the other day as we were sitting in the, uh, in the community room and there was an earthquake. And, hallelujah, the porch didn't come down. Uh, this is also the form

[22:15]

of our practice, to take care of our practice. So, um, but where we started, where Berkeley's Zen Center started, uh, Suzuki Roshi pointed across the bay and spoke to Sojin and said, that would be a good place to build a sanctuary. And Sojin Roshi said, and he was just male, he said, okay. And he went and he rented an apartment and started to sit and opened the door so that people could come and sit. And the sanctuary emerged from that. The form is linked to the intention. The intention is our intention to practice.

[23:21]

And the form is our way of expressing it. Suzuki Roshi was very, in my beginner's mind, he talks about this. This is one way of seeing our practice. It's in the, in the chapter that's called Limiting Your Activity. So we're often saying there's not a goal or an object to our practice. There's just practice for its own sake. And he said, you may think that if there is no purpose or no goal in our practice, we will not know what to do. But there is a way. The way to practice without having a goal is to limit your activity or to be concentrated on what you're doing in this moment. Instead of having some particular object in mind, you should limit your activity.

[24:24]

When your mind is wandering about elsewhere, you have no chance to express yourself. But if you limit your activity to what you can do just now in this moment, then you can express your, express fully your true nature, which is universal Buddha nature. This is our way. When we practice zazen, we limit our activity to the smallest extent. Just keeping the right posture and being concentrated on sitting is how we express the universal nature. That's the form of our practice. Then we become Buddha and we express Buddha nature. So instead of having some object of worship, we just concentrate on the activity which we do in each moment. In that case, Indra was just concentrating on placing that blade of grass.

[25:27]

And I think what the Buddha was responding to with a smile was he could see the intention and the concentration of that activity. We just concentrate on the activity which we do in each moment. When you bow, you should just bow. When you sit, you should just sit. When you eat, you should just eat. So by limiting our activity, we bring our awareness to it and we bring our intention to it. And then it becomes, in that sense, a form. And it's really helpful to me. It's really helpful to limit my activity because my mind and energies want to wander widely and it doesn't feel so good.

[26:35]

It feels kind of aimless. So to bring myself into focus, I really feel like finding this practice which I came to relatively late, in my mid to late 30s, that has... My whole life has unfolded from that in the same sense that to place the blade of grass is to create sanctuary, to allow everything to happen, to allow the mote of dust to arise. And in my case, for me, as the mote of dust to drift in through the gate and sit down was exactly what was needed.

[27:39]

And my life has unfolded from that point in a way that I'm incredibly grateful for. And that doesn't happen also without you. Each of you is doing this. Each of us is doing this and helping each other. Some people have been here a long time. Some people have been here longer than I. Some people are relatively new. But each mote of dust that drifts in through the gate brings something unique, brings the form of their own life to this practice and also enters the form of practice. So it's not that our lives are easy. Our lives are difficult.

[28:48]

But yet we still find the effort and intention to come and share together and do this. And that creates, even in the midst of the difficulty, it creates some sense of freedom, some sense of freedom to sit here today in Seshin, to come each morning or each afternoon, to be planting that blade of grass on the black cushion each day and building a sanctuary right there. When I give Zathan instruction, it's interesting, this struck me when I was reading this koan, I often describe a way to think of your body as a blade of grass.

[29:53]

Ah, you know, if the wind blows, it's flexible. It's flexible and upright with root in the ground and the stem that reaches towards the sky. When the wind comes, when a feeling comes, you bend over in one direction and then in whatever is the appropriate time you come back to the center. When another feeling comes, or another sensation, or the wind itself, or the earthquake, you know, you bend over in the other direction and you come back to the center. Ah, so it's a wonderful model for practice. Let me read the case in the verse once more and then leave time for some discussion.

[31:06]

As the world-honored one was walking with congregation, he pointed to the ground with his finger and said, this spot is good to build a sanctuary. Indra, emperor of the gods, took a blade of grass and stuck it in the ground and said, the sanctuary is built. The world-honored one smiled. And the verse, the boundless spring on the hundred plants, picking up what comes to hand, he uses it knowingly. The sixteen-foot-tall golden body, a collection of virtuous qualities, casually leads him by the hand into the red dust. Able to be master in the dusts, from outside creation, a guest shows up. Everywhere life is sufficient in its way, no matter if one is not as clever as another. So, I invite your questions or thoughts. Ken?

[32:14]

Thank you for mentioning Occupy Oakland. I would like to encourage you, as Alan did, to visit that and see how that functions, meet people, soak up the ambience. But there's also an Occupy Berkeley that is smaller and is in the Civic Center Park opposite City Hall and Berkeley High and so on. And so, I would say, go to Oakland. I would actually recommend doing that first, if possible, to get some idea of how these things function. Because this is a thriving community there, and you can see how it works, get an idea. When you go to Berkeley, Oakland, Occupy Oakland really doesn't need anything from you. You're welcome to take part or contribute, but it's past the critical mass stage.

[33:22]

If you go to the Berkeley one, it has, as of a couple days ago when I was there, it has 16 camps. I suspect that with this weekend, it may have 20 or 30 or so. But it's just getting started. And it can use help. It can use participation, if you're interested in joining. It can also use things like food, cooking equipment, you name it. If you go there, you will see that they're starting with very minimal stuff, and you can find out what they need. Perhaps in the last two days, they've already gotten some of that. But this is an ongoing thing where you can just see what's happening. If you go to Oakland, they have also a General Assembly every evening at 7. And so, ideally, I would suggest that you

[34:23]

go there maybe late afternoon, and then hang out for the assembly, which you can just watch, or you can even take part if you feel like it. In Berkeley, they have a daily assembly at 6, and that assembly takes place on Shattuck and Center in front of the Bank of America, where they have a tinier Occupy thing right in front of the bus stop there. So, I can't encourage you enough. Go there and see it. You're not going to get an idea of what this is like just by reading about it. Yeah. I mean, I keep thinking, wow, this is going on. There's something creative going on really close by. I also really want to recommend, he's not going to probably promote his own writing, but Ken wrote a wonderful essay, which is on the Bureau of Public Secrets website. That's his website. It's a really excellent perspective. And he happens

[35:28]

to have... I just happen to have... Do you have a stack of them? I have a stack of them. So maybe, since it's such a pain in the neck, we can't discuss, but after the lecture, I'll be out in front, and so people can get this if they want. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. If the blade of grass is the form, what is the emptiness? What the grass emerges from. The blade of grass is the form. Right. No, I'm saying, it's also empty. The blade of grass is made of non-grass elements. The blade of grass exists because there is wind and water, soil, air, nutrients. That's the expression of emptiness.

[36:28]

The expression of the form is not apart from emptiness. A blade of grass, we know what a blade of grass looks like, but it doesn't exist apart from the complete interdependence. So that's why he says, if a mote of dust arises, the whole world basically rises therein. So it is emptiness. It comes from emptiness. It will return to emptiness, and yet it has a form. The same thing is true of this building. It's here now. It might be here in a hundred years. I doubt it'll be here in 200 years, but the effect of what's happening here today, in some imperceptible way, will carry through. For example, also just one of the things, where we have our meditation at Occupy Oakland,

[37:34]

we're right on the plaza, kind of below. It's a raised thing, and we're sort of on the edge, and there's a bunch of benches, which have been sort of staked out by a lot of the kind of homeless people who are living there. And over the course of the week, imperceptibly, there's been some relation formed between us sitting there and these guys. It's like you could hear, you know, like they were really loud at the beginning of the week. They're getting quieter, and they're saying, oh, they're meditating, you know, and they're not arguing. So I'm not trying to blow that horn, but it's like you can see it. Things have an effect. Forms arise out of emptiness. When I was there on Thursday, one man was telling a story about how he was going to design a special

[38:38]

sleeping bag that you could blow up, and it would be all ready. You know, you could just carry it with you as a little bag, and then you could blow it up and just get inside, and it would be waterproof. And the other man was poking holes in the first man's sanctuary. He was explaining to him all the ways that it wouldn't work, and then the first person was rebuilding his sanctuary in response to the naysayers' comments. And it was very, very interesting. Yeah, it was fascinating. It was kind of an amazing idea, and he told it. It was also kind of interesting to hear the other guy kind of knock it down. He would build it back up again. But they were going at it with gusto. And we were just sitting in Zostavsk in the middle of it. Not listening, right? Yeah. And there was an expletive about every third word. Every third word, yes.

[39:38]

The sanctuary was decorated with expletives. Right. Christy? I have a question about something you said towards the beginning in regards to the case of the issue of extract was too much in our doing the forums. And I wonder about it a lot, because you also were naming, obviously, the individuality of all of us coming in through the gate. And I struggle with that inside myself and in what my perceptions might be of other people when they're expressing forms of how can we work with when we might be doing a little extra and when it's just truly our natural individual expression. Well, I think we've been talking about this, and I don't think we're going to come to a conclusion, but my experience, my own experience, and it continues in this practice and also in learning

[40:40]

music, is there's a form. And I try to do it. I try to get my mind and body around it. I don't have mastery of it at the beginning. And I look for help from people who can teach me, and I look for how it feels within my body. And then after a time, it becomes natural. And what's interesting, all of these are moments of practice. I don't want to say stages, but they're moments of practice. There's practice in each, and there's practice of just naturally bowing or naturally chanting. But the place where you're unsure, that's actually being in this mind.

[41:46]

The place where you don't exactly know how to do this. And that's always, I never exactly know how to do Zazen, but that's a fruitful and creative place. So, there is mastery, that's one thing, but we shouldn't wish for it too much. This is another thing I was going to read. In Not Always So, there's a wonderful chapter that is called Just Enough Problems. Some of you may have started this session because you had many problems.

[42:52]

You thought that if you sat here for seven days, your problems would be solved. But whatever problems you have, they can be solved anyway. Buddha will not give you any more problems than you can solve, or more than you need. Whatever the problems are, they are just enough. If these are not enough problems, Buddha is ready to give you more, just so you can appreciate your problems. You could say our forms are our problems. And I think one of the ways to practice is to make your problems a form, in a sense, and be able to enter them, and be grateful for them, because they help us

[43:58]

be, they help us grow, and because they also remind you, if I have problems, oh, that must mean I'm alive. If you're not alive, you have no problems. So, if you have problems, it means you're alive, which is probably a good thing. Yeah. Sort of following up on what you just said, about beginner's mind, it seems to me like another piece of that equation is both, there's, I guess it's like, how do you deal with the fear of doing it wrong? How do you deal with the idea that I'm not going to do this because I'm just making a mess of it? Well, that's been a question that's come up continuously in the course of this month. You have to be kind to yourself, first of all. I mean, one of the principles, I think, of this

[45:13]

practice is, it is complex, it is formal, and there's no notion of sin in Zen. There's also the expression, one continuous mistake that we're making. So, we have some, it's helpful for us, if people are in a teaching position or instruction position, to be kind, and in our instruction or correction or teaching of a particular way to do something. And I think, hopefully, what we're trying to generate is an attitude of kindness towards oneself. But it's the kindness, it's also the kindness of a mother or a father, where, so one's attitude

[46:19]

towards oneself is unconditioned love. And sometimes, and also, you have to set boundaries. So, you see yourself, you're not sure how to do something, or you feel like you've made a mistake. Can you accept that, and learn from it, and not get caught in a judgment? There's really not much use for judgment in this practice, and often, only in very certain circumstances in life is it a relevant concept, but it's all over the place, and we internalize it, and use it to oppress ourselves. I'm putting my, I don't know if I'm getting this exactly right, but Samuel Beckett, you said, try, fail, try again, fail better. Oh, that's good, yeah. Well, we do that, we do that all the time here.

[47:20]

Megan? Besides the other things you mentioned about the blade of grass, the most mysterious thing to me is that the blade of grass has the intention to be a blade of grass, and we don't know where that comes from. No, and, how did, how did the intention to be Megan manifest? It's pretty strange, you know, and the blade of grass also has the supernatural ability to somehow find the smallest crack in the rock, or cement, or sidewalk, and grow up through it. And that's, I think, that's a good way to be, very persistent in our intention and our

[48:25]

practice, and I think that's a good place to stop. Thank you very much.

[48:30]

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