from the screen, you may not be able to hear me sometimes. So if you can't, please raise your arm or something. Studying Buddhism is not like studying anything else. You have the problem of how to study what can't be studied. And Taisho, actually, then lectures are not lectures. Lectures usually tell somebody some information.

[01:02]

is a kind of encouragement in which we speak about our actual experience. But the important point is you, not the teacher. I can't do anything, actually. If you're going to study Buddhism, you have to do it. I can ask myself, why should I even give Kesa?

[02:34]

And I can do it out of a... I do it maybe because I have some affection for you. But my affection for each of you is not to change you. So you're just okay as you are. So why bother to give you a lecture? Of course, I also have some feeling about how we can be friends and how you might be. But still, I don't want to disturb you too much. So I have some resistance to giving a lecture, even though I'm supposed to. So you have to give me some good excuse

[03:58]

If you want me to give a lecture, rather than just talk to you about something, you have to give me some reason to speak to you. And the only way to practice Buddhism is with a way-seeking mind. If you have a way-seeking mind, you don't have much trouble about how to practice. But how do you get a way-seeking mind? Now, if Sue and the people who work in the kitchen prepare a meal for us, we can enjoy how it looks and anticipation of it,

[05:29]

everything we can see about it. But as Tsukiyoshi has pointed out, you know, the food is of no use to you till you eat it. And what happens to it in your stomach is in darkness. You don't know exactly what your stomach is doing. And you have to practice in darkness like that. And you can't know what we mean by darkness or the absolute unless you know the limits of your own thinking. Most of you, I notice, seem to live in

[06:30]

Well, you emphasize the emotional and thinking side in an interesting way. If you're the kind of person who has got everything pretty well thought out, that they do each day, then you live in a great big mixed-up emotional world, of which your big world is all feelings and etc. But if you're the kind of person who is emotional about everything, your big world is extended by thinking about it. And in most cases you don't know the limits of either your emotions or your thinking. So you always try to practice within the realm of thinking or feeling. But actually, you tend to notice only your thinking world or only your feeling world.

[07:54]

Anyway, one of the reasons we practice dharma is so that you can know the limits of your thinking and feeling worlds. If you know the limits, you can see how unreal our thinking and feeling worlds are, how thin they are, and how there's some world that exists that we can't think or feel about. but yet we're very much at one with. As if you were in a huge stomach. We're all being slowly digested. And you don't know how to let go and allow the digestive process to go on. You keep trying to retain your specific apple-like quality, or egg-like quality, or something. You know, another example Suzuki Roshi liked was

[09:31]

Newton. Apple. Falling. One of the things that you are not... You're not a Westerner. One of the first things you read about when you read about the West. Anyway, We tend to think that the apple falls because there's some rule, like there's a law of gravity, so the apple falls. And if you feel that way, you ignore the apple. It's like because we ignore... emphasize the world of light. We want to know what our food looks like, and so you begin to get apples that taste terrible, but look wonderful. And we get our whole culture geared toward producing things for light and not for darkness. They have no food value or

[10:59]

taste just great big like painting. There's no reality other than farmer so-and-so's apple grown in Sonoma County. There's no other kind of abstract apple. And if you live in this way, then everyone knows not only which farmer has the best apples, but which trees produce the best apples. And you don't have such an idea of apples. And you don't have the idea that there's some law of gravity. Gravity and the apple are the same thing. Without the apple there can't be gravity. So the apple produces the rule. And you produce Buddhism.

[12:20]

But you get all mixed up, you know. For instance, we all get all mixed up. If we're doing service, say, and you're supposed to bow twelve times, nine at the beginning and three at the end, You may have some uneasy feeling if you only bowed 11 times because for some reason your knee wasn't right or something. Or because you're some you know, cosmological chart says something about you. But to study astrology is sort of like thinking about a generalization of Apple, what sign you are. It may be more subtle than your usual way of thinking, but it's actually not very subtle at all.

[14:03]

What's the actual quality or experience right now? And you can tell the stars to go to hell, to heaven. I mean, maybe many things affect you. That's true. But you affect them too. Apple produces gravity, and you produce the stars. So you don't have to live in some fear of all these outside elements which you can't control. But still, of course, if you should bow twelve times, you should bow twelve times. But if you actually can't, it doesn't make any difference. You know, everything is happening.

[15:49]

And how are you going to practice with everything? You need some kind of great perseverance, which doesn't need any satisfaction. You know, if I suggest to you, you work on a koan, even directly,

[17:55]

Sometimes I may suggest it indirectly, but you don't notice. If I suggest it directly, for one or two weeks you try, and then you come and you say, well, really I've forgotten about it and it's pretty difficult to keep my mind on it. I think I should try some other practice. It means you don't You're not ready to practice. You don't know how to practice. Everything you see is the apple. or as you, or as the koan. Even if you've forgotten the koan, everything you see is the koan. You have to have the kind of persistence,

[19:22]

that if you've been given a koan, if nothing happens or no one asks you to do something else, ten years from now, oh yes, I'm still working on that koan, though I haven't thought of it for four years. We don't have to just think of that specific phrase. You can't practice, you know, what can't be practiced unless you can practice when there's no practice. For that reason, we usually don't give you too much. You know, most of you start out counting your breaths

[20:32]

And it becomes more difficult to count your breaths. You start out with some usual kind of conscious effort. And you can count, of course, one to ten. Anyone can count one to ten. But as you do zazen, your mind becomes more aware of itself. And what you notice is greater. And so it becomes harder to count. One, and then many worlds appear, you know. And two, and twice as many worlds appear. And three, you may not get to three. So you think you've stopped counting your breath.

[21:35]

But maybe two years later, you say, ah, four. You've just had one two-year-long breath. Without that kind of attitude, it's pretty difficult to practice Buddhism. Oh, I have four. Then you start off on five. When we say count your breath, we don't mean just one, or just air. Everything that happens when you count your breath. But you want to select out, oh, this is counting my breath and this is not. Or this is the corn and this is not. And this is gravity and this is the apple. Why not quit indulging yourselves?

[22:56]

If you can begin to see the limits of your own six senses and how they fool you. Even if you don't know what practice is, you can have way-seeking mind, constant pressure at the barrier you can't see. Being alert and ready

[25:08]

Each thing you do you should follow through on. Whatever you do is it, right now. Just do it. Thoroughly. If you have any questions you can talk about. And if you're feeling this way,

[26:44]

Right now, standing on your own feet, sitting on your own cushion. We don't need Buddhism or anything. Yes. Yeah, until you can do it, you go through a trapped phase. That's all. Okay? And that's a very important time. With this, you know, partly you get fed up with it. Oh, I'm tired. Worrying about it. But you can't do it, or you're not sure it's right, so you check.

[28:02]

Then you have to give up checking, and it's okay if it's not right. But then it's not right. But then it is. But how do you know if you don't check? Rather interesting. Anyway, you need a little eyeball on each ankle. It's like an electric eye. Yeah. Someone else said... Yeah. I think the problem is that I think it's a trap of wanting to like me because I think it's a violence against me. And yet, I think, on the other hand, we need to have the spirit to make me happy.

[29:04]

Can't you do two things at once? If you feel, oh, enlightenment is not important, Practice is not important even. That's one-sided. If you think, I must be enlightened, that's one-sided. Actual, your existence is between those two extremes. You don't need either idea. If I say so. One thing, you know, it's true, as I talked at last practice period, several lectures about bodhicitta, or the thought of enlightenment. So that's the main, maybe, spur in our practice. But the thought of enlightenment means many things, and how you practice. Do you remember all the different five ways

[30:33]

gave you to put into practice the thought of enlightenment? I probably wouldn't remember either. That's all right. Anyway, one thing is you can think about why you want enlightenment and for whom. Anyway, maybe your effort will be, feel better if you try to work for the enlightenment of everyone, not just yourself. Q. May I ask a question? The first thing she said was the problem of enlightenment, seeking enlightenment.

[32:02]

Now, she said, there's a kind of chasing your tail of what does it mean to want to enlighten others to save all sentient beings? Doesn't that mean you have to save your own self, etc.? Well, you should chase your tail until you stop. until you have no doubt about your own practice and practicing for others. If you have some doubt about it, you can't try to enlighten some other person. But you don't always want to be going like this, either. So how are you going to cut through that? let go of it. Yeah.

[33:11]

I want to ask you to talk to us about one thing. One thing that you've always said is that we should fight against the pain and we should be careful not to give the pain the easy way. I'm not going to give the pain the easy way. I'm going to give the pain the easy way. I'm going to give the pain the easy way. Practically speaking, you mean? Well, we could have three months of Tunggayo.

[34:16]

The last practice period we had very good conditioning for the practice period, for some reason. And after you get accustomed to being here, you can treat being here pretty much like being at home. It's rather nicer than being at home, actually. And if we have that kind of comfortable feeling, you know, there's not a practice period. That's all. Do you understand what I mean? I don't mean you should be uncomfortable. You know? It's almost impossible, you know, to say what I mean. In addition to saying, when I say you should have a way-seeking mind and some strong persistence, you know, some kind of flame, almost, I also mean just relax, you know, it doesn't make any difference, you know, don't be so serious.

[36:06]

You. I don't know if it's true, but it's not as bad as we thought it was. You know, you can't say, perhaps it's not as bad as we thought it was. It's [...] not as bad as we thought it was. I have a question. I have a question. I have a question.

[37:17]

Hmm. I can't exactly explain. I just have this feeling, you know. I can't hug all of you, you know. It would be rather confusing if I, instead of hitting you with a stick, I went around the room to give each of you a hug, you know. Actually, that's, you know, I don't know, sometimes I feel that way and I have to restrain myself, you know.

[38:19]

if you'll forgive me for saying so, quite fierce. And I come in a zender and I want to barf all of you. I have to restrain myself then, too. Sometimes I'm very nice at that time, you know. Because I'm rather angry with you, because you're just lazy. Not you, particularly. You indulge yourself. You make life so difficult, because you want so much from it. It's not worth all that. You're going to be over pretty soon. But I also don't want to interfere with you. So, some kind of dependent relationship is, if it's only dependent, is not very helpful. But affection and trust and way-seeking mind are very closely

[39:51]

There are different sides of one thing. You can't have a way-seeking mind unless you have a trusting mind. And if you don't have any particular expectations about people giving you something or liking you or disliking you, there's no reason to dislike anyone. I mean, you can't think of some good reason to dislike them. And they're quite Each person is quite beautiful. Like you can't dislike this flower or that flower. It's just there. Passion and compassion are pretty closely related. Maybe compassion is combed passion. Combed out, evened out. So you have to trust the situation you're in, or it's very difficult to practice.

[41:19]

Um, Georgette is very interested in truth, and she asks very accurate questions. And in the city last time, after lecture, I go into the dining room, and some of the students come in there, and Georgette asked a very interesting question. She said, can you give me one good reason why I should trust this particular moment more than any other moment? That's a wonderful question. I can't think of any one good reason why you should trust this particular moment more than any other moment. I mean, I don't know, you can't think of any reason. But that's just the problem. At that point, you have to trust this moment. If you trust it and you sit down on it and you find it's a great big tiger's mouth and it swallows you, you still have to trust it. You don't have any alternative, that's quite simple. If you don't trust this moment, what next? Can you trust the next moment or the previous one?

[42:50]

At some point, you have to just settle down and say, all right, this is the wonderful, boring, lousy life I'm stuck with. And this is it. This is the glorious Buddha land. And there it is. This is that sunroof. And it's raining out. It's not very tasty. But as long as you think you have some alternative to this, you can't. You're really in trouble. This is all it is, you know, you and me, this old economy. And the door is, you know, through failure. You know, Baba Ramdas wrote me a letter about one week ago, and he said he was in a one-month retreat in Arizona.

[44:26]

with only one book, one text, some kind of thing, translation or something of the Third Patriarch. And he quoted a poem from the book, this book he had. Ram Dass is quite a wonderful person. Like Allen Ginsberg, he's able to have a very wide And so he was spending, starting to spend this one month with this one book of the Third Patriarch. And the poem is, One thing, all things, move among and intermingle without distinction. You understand? That means the realm of darkness and the big stomach. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. So the door is non-perfection or failure.

[45:56]

giving up. To live in this space is the road to non-duality, which means way-seeking mind, which doesn't distinguish between enlightenment or not enlightenment. because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind. Non-duality, you know. You can't possibly know what it is if you don't have a trusting mind. So actually this poem is just backwards.

[47:04]

We start out in the beginning with a trusting mind, but after many explorations, we find out there's no alternative but a trusting mind. Then you have a way-seeking mind. All things. That's a very good poem. Then he said in a letter that he went to a sashim with Sasaki Roshi in Los Angeles, and on the cushion next to him was Leonard Cohen, and he wore blue sneakers. It's not what? How to do it. That's one way.

[48:49]

You're never going to give up. As long as you think, oh, this way is maybe too hard, I'll try this way. It won't work. Right now, just give up. Yeah? I hear you. If you can't find a trusting mind anywhere, what?

[49:53]

Start trusting. You know, our practice is very minute, and you notice, oh, here I have some attachment. Oh, I'll try to not care about it so much. Non-discrimination is so important. And you notice here, oh, I don't trust this situation, or my reaction to this situation as it may hurt me or I feel. Well, anyway, you do it. Some big... Well, maybe you can use some idea like Buddha is taking care of us, which is certainly more true than you're taking care of yourself. completely, you know. We can take care of ourselves up to a point. But wider than that, it's some miracle that we continue, that we even exist. And you have to trust that miracle. It's not so easy because we have bred into us many years of distrust.

[51:32]

And we've also, as I've talked about last practice period, developed this strategic mind, which is bent on survival, and we apply it to Buddhism, being the best survival technique we know. But then we find out we have to give up strategic mind, to have undifferentiated mind. But how can you practice undifferentiated mind when you're looking for it through differentiation? Do you understand? All you can do is do your life. All you can do is what you can do, and trust that maybe this is the way. And yet, if you have some doubt,

[52:38]

But you continue, staying with each moment. You will find out what way-seeking mind is, trusting mind is. It was a form of self-defense, and she hit me on the head. Then it was more of a stress. I never knew what it was. And I don't know why. And then I was sent to some place, and I was treated for that night. And then I was sent to New York State, and then I was sent to New York City, [...] and then I was sent Some other people have asked me about that same poem. I can't say exactly what he meant, but if I said that, what I would mean is, don't trust this or that thing. Suzuki Roshi said, I can't trust anything

[53:51]

except my pillow and my feet. In Buddhism, actually, we don't trust anything except emptiness. Our trusting has no object. If you have trusted some thing, it's rather dangerous. You can't trust when you're making a soup, that the soup will come out just right. But it's useful to you, actually, to have something you can trust at first,

[54:53]

So, you have Zazen you can trust. And you have Buddha you can trust. And, you know, I'll try to be as trustworthy as possible. So, to some extent you can trust me, but I can't be completely trustworthy. You don't want... you want to be non-dependent. Not independent, but non-dependent. Trusting everything without any expectation. And then I close.

[55:58]

Must be so. Yes. Just realize everything is inadequate. As Suzuki Yoshi said in, I think, The Beginner's Mind in the second lecture, how to take care of your cow is to give him a wide field. In that lecture he says, everything is beautiful because it's in disharmony against a background of harmony, or it's always failing or inadequate.

[57:02]

So everything you do is some, if you're actually alert, is some failure. Anyway, there are various ways you can start trying to let go of always trying to do things right. One way Suzuki always suggested was 90% is perfect, or 80% or 60%. So if you do something, 90% or as much as you can, that's perfect. Sometimes you ask me a question or a thought, you know, I escape a little bit, I think about it, and then at some point it disappears. I'm not being very pretentious. I'm just asking you to be honest with me. There's no particular reason. It's a repetition. In some way, I think myself as something real. It's not just something I say. It's a part of me. As far as seeing it, what I can do is go back and count it back.

[58:38]

Where did it disappear to? Why don't you jump in? That's persistence.

[59:27]

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