It's a beautiful, sunny day at Greenbelch. Here too. And everyone maybe envied you being in the Sashin as they went to the beach. And down to the fields to work. And as I said last night, Tsushima is a treasure, invisible treasure. I remember, after I'd been sitting, I have told you before, after I'd been sitting about, I don't know, five or seven years,

[01:04]

I was doing Sashin at Tassara. And you know, my legs never got better. So I always, you know, I sort of expected, I didn't put too much hope in it, but I sort of expected sometime my legs would feel quite good during Sashin. Wouldn't always feel like a beginner. And after five or six or seven years, during one Sashin it occurred Isn't it about time they felt better? But they didn't. So I imagined, sitting, I imagined, what kind of life have I chosen? What kind of career? Endless sashins I saw stretching into the future. And I thought I should just... I felt quite easy. I would just walk away. It's all right. Since I trust my feelings usually, I thought, okay. But I didn't go. And I told Suzuki Yoshi, you know, I almost left this Sashin, you know. It was so dumb to be sitting there with painful legs and so many more Sashins to do if I continue practicing.

[02:34]

He said, oh, but now I find Zazen such a treasure, invisible treasure. You don't notice if you don't do it. We need something like Zazen, and I don't know any substitute. Something. at least like Sachin, to do once a year or twice a year, something which uncovers, as I said, deep, a pulse of our life. When I was at Lindisfarne, Howard Odom used the word pulse, or he used it, as a word for the most fundamental description of reality. And I thought that's a pretty good word, so I'm trying it out.

[03:50]

And I said to you who are in the practice, in the study period, Friday night, that beginning to practice, starting to practice, is like falling in love. When you have to trust, trust your feelings, And yet you don't know what to do, what is going to happen when you jeopardize yourself. I used to think all life is in jeopardy and only death is not in jeopardy. But Tsukushi says, death, your death, your death, your death is accumulation of your whole life. So, death is also in jeopardy and yet beyond this jeopardy we must trust. Shō Itsu, abbot of Tofukuchi, I read, he said, if you need

[05:27]

non-discernable to become distinguished, then you are at third level. And if you trust in utter darkness before a breath is drawn, this is still only second level. Before a breath is drawn in utter darkness, if you trust, even this is only second level. And yet language is so interesting, so powerful. I'm very involved in language, in English language, how to express things. And yet it's also easy to get caught in language, particularly when you're pushed into some new area, some new personal area, Especially we want some confirmation of reality from language or from some acknowledgement from our teacher or from our friend or our lover. Or when we have some feeling we, as I say, we want to make it into a poem or a painting. We want some confirmation.

[06:55]

In New Zealand there's a political party, Hazel Henderson, I say, new political party, and its platform or its motto is, we do not inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it from our children. You know, even though you know this, that's not something new to you, to make sense, but yet to say it in language, I think we feel it. In some pointed way, because someone found something interesting, concise way to express it. We do not only inherit the earth from our parents, but also, or we borrow it, rather borrow it from our children. And ecologist Garrett Hardin said, why shouldn't we rip off the future? What has it ever done for us? Also, this is some

[08:29]

way of expressing. Why shouldn't we rip off the future? What has it ever done for us? Anyway, we can find our self, actually, through language or expression. If we don't look for confirmation, but just I think the best word to use is access. So there's no escape, as I say, from everything changing or ongoing, better than ongoing is too passive, undoing. Always there's some, we can't think without the sky. Your hands are so expressive, they smell and sweat and are warm or cold. And eyes are open, narrow. So there's no escape from, no way to avoid expression or language. As Bhasha, when his teacher said, what about, what have you gained?

[10:05]

What have you learned?" And as you know, I think he said, after the rain, bright green moss, he said something like that. And his teacher said, what about before the moss? And as you know, at that time he said his thing. main part of his famous haiku, frog jump in, water sound. We can say this is seal, not in the sense of the confirmation, just some exact expression of access. Not in the sense that, you know, I told you Rambo's poem. I am an ephemeral and not too discontented citizen of a metropolis considered modern because it has evaded all known taste in its furnishings, exteriors of its buildings, and even in the layout of the city.

[11:32]

Here there is no, he says, here there is no trace of any monument to superstition. Morals and language have been reduced to their simplest expression. And these thousands of people who do not even need to know each other manage their education, business and old age so that their lives are something like that much less long than a mad statistics would calculate for the people of the continent. A hundred years ago, you know, he said that. And today it's the same. We have no... Maybe you can say everything is a monument to

[12:34]

superstition or our cargo cult culture. But he meant there is no trace of power of inconceivability or power of what you can't discern. And sangha and... I think we can say sangha and lineage. Lineage and sangha are the structure and continuity of our history and society. And for us, you know, the universe is people. And as dream, you know, I said once,

[13:38]

all our thinking is, we can say, all our thinking is censored dreaming. And you'll find during Sashin that dreaming or another kind of thinking, actually more whole kind of thinking, comes into your mind, becomes conscious to you. And dream You know, Diamond Sutra and Ikkyu and many Zen masters say life is like a dream. In various ways they say. Waking up, no trace. But our life is not just like a dream in its ephemerality. but also because enlightened life or sangha or lineage has same function as dream as dream can link us to everyone or some deep experience we realize our connection with everyone and past and the present and the future

[15:08]

we borrow the world from our children. So Sangha in a way is to turn, dream inside out as your dreaming receives your And what you can't discern, what you can't conceive, what doesn't fit goes to your dream. And your dream may give you permission or give it back to you. But our society can receive us. Our pace our deep pulse, main pulse, inmost desire of our life. It doesn't have to just be received by zazen or by dream. And in our practice we refrain from secondary experiences as much as possible, television and movies and so forth, music. It's okay, it's fine to listen.

[16:36]

During Sashin and other times, particularly when it occurs to you, I don't have to have radio on or something, but it doesn't mean you don't... You're not looking for your experience to be confirmed through some song or something, some novel, some poem. Without any object of expression, You can... I don't know how we can say emptiness. Deep feeling, deep pulse of your life receives you. In this sense, lineage receives you or sangha receives you. And the power of inconceivability is also activity of this power, you know, is reverence or respect or trust beyond jeopardy. In the wedding ceremony, I think Protestant wedding ceremony, it says, I plight thee my truth. It means I jeopardize my truth. I plight thee my truth. I jeopardize my truth with you.

[18:05]

we put ourselves on a line on the limb with everyone for some higher truth or wider truth or something you can't call truth. So it's again like falling in love to jeopardize your personal truth. And for so many of us it's hard to actually even see where you are. You're afraid the here will wipe out the past So you don't quite look, you don't know where you are when you're walking or driving, you don't look. You know, as Gary says, you don't know what plants are around you. You don't know most of what's around you. So you can't take your bearings from the present. You don't want to sacrifice some direction you got in the past. But our practice is to take our bearings Right now, in Sachine, moment after moment, or on every occasion, in jeopardy, life and death in jeopardy, death is accumulation of our entire life, and yet beyond that to trust, even beyond utter darkness and before breath is drawn,

[19:35]

Sachine can uncover this deep pulse in which you can enter. So activity or words is a kind of entrance. So you're turning a question, turning whatever form comes up, many waves, but one big, calm, continuous pulse, deep wave. There's some, as Tenshin Sensei said, some play, always some play or pulse. We join. Jeopardy actually means fair game or fair chance. 50-50. Some dangerous situation. But those are pretty good odds. You don't have to think everything is I have to control everything. You can let things alone. Through trust, beyond jeopardy, beyond worrying about it, beyond needing confirmation, beyond that deadly activity of reducing everything to its simplest expression, morals and language.

[21:09]

I like the feeling of Ryokan's poem. On the first day of the month, I think, October, in Europe, on the first day of the month, going with my begging bowl, I've told you this poem before, going with my begging bowl out in the street, going with my begging bowl through the city streets, a thousand gates unbolted in the dawn, ten thousand houses with kitchen smoke slanting up. The morning's rain has washed the road clean. The autumn wind shakes the rings of my staff, metal rings. That's maybe key lines. Anyway, from one point of view, autumn wind shakes the rings of my step. And I go begging, following footsteps of ancient Buddhists. How wide, how boundless this Dharma world. How wide, how boundless this Dharma world.

[22:39]

Tsukigoshi says that when we sit, or sit seshin, our effort becomes more and more pure, more and more unambiguous. And that pure effort, he says, will purify our surroundings, we'll find out by this pure effort, purifying our effort, we'll find out how to take care of ourselves or conduct ourselves, and we'll find out, we'll begin to learn from others, we'll begin to learn from others or from everything, and find ourselves just friendly with people. This is maybe our political philosophy too. activity of sangha and lineage. So to make that leap and trust

[24:25]

main pulse of your mind, not waiting for undiscernable to become distinguished or clear. Warm and hearted practice, as Sakyoshi would say, in utter darkness, beyond, before a single breath is drawn. practices, the sasheen practices, a kind of treasureship to find out our deep pulse of our life, deep pace or breathing space of our life.

[25:41]

and to join it. So,

[27:15]

so so so

[28:10]

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