It's wonderful to see you all sitting here in this barn. I wonder if this is the first barn zendo. Of course, it may be because in Japan and China they don't have barns, at least animal barns. They don't have livestock for the most part. Anyway. I'm still recovering from having the flu, as I told some of you who were at San Francisco yesterday. And when I first got it and decided to rest, Reb went out and told Mel Weitzman, the director at Tassajara, that it seemed that maybe I had the flu and I was going to sleep for some time. And just then Darlene Cohen walked by with a rifle

[01:01]

she'd found on the road that a hunter had abandoned. And Reb said, what's she going to do with that? And Mel said, they're going to shoot him. Which in a way I felt Thursday might have been a good solution. I couldn't keep up or something, you know. Anyway, yesterday in San Francisco, I talked about how we practice asana and who practices asana. Can you hear in the back okay? And I finished talking about two sides of our practice.

[02:05]

One side is we accept whatever we are endlessly. And we accept by practicing without even thinking about what we're doing. And the other side of practice is that we are ready. Ready for whatever it is, whatever our life is, whatever the world is beyond our thinking. And there isn't some attempt to figure out what it is or figure yourself out.

[03:13]

As I said talking about the Pali scriptures, how they encourage the monk to view his lustful mind as with lust and his angry mind as with anger, his mind without anger as a mind without anger, without attempting to change the state of your mind. And there's some secret in that. If you can stay with what you are, what your angry state is or whatever state you have, on the surface it's like gaining control of it. You're not attempting to gain control but something else comes into play.

[04:18]

It's like the more you can stay with whatever you are each moment, the more you'll notice if you have dreams, your dreams will be different. As you know, sometimes you dream, usually when you dream, there's occasionally a sensation or often a sensation that you know you're dreaming. But it's often in the background of the dream or not so present. But as you begin to be able to stay with whatever you are each moment, that kind of awareness that you're dreaming in your dreams becomes the main experience of your dream. That's an area which isn't open to us usually, so open to us,

[05:21]

but it's like a thread on which the dreams are strung, like maybe jewels or pearls or something. And you can spill them off the string or you can change them as you wish. Anyway, the more you can just stay without interfering, the more you find you can move around, you can walk around in your existence. There's two... Sometimes when we talk about Zen, we emphasize potentiality. Like yesterday, I talked about how for a Japanese person, a Chinese person, they're not so concerned about their physical appearance. They're not so concerned with having the words describe the thing

[06:24]

or the thing be equal to the words that are describing it, etc. They don't look for correspondences so exactly as we do. They're willing to let go more of that kind of relationship. When I say that, I don't mean that... On a cultural level, they may have some other emphases which are equally entangling as ours. But at least if you're talking to a Japanese person, as I was referring to a conversation with Dr. Abe Tassahara, there's that kind of problem. So, in Japan, there's more of a feeling that words mean words and things mean things and the correspondences aren't so direct as we want them to be. But also, we can say, as Sozon did... Sozon is the second founder of the Soto school. He lived in the 10th century, about 940 to 1002 or something like that.

[07:36]

And he said words... The meaning of words is found in silence or in no words. And this way of expressing our practice emphasizes the potentiality from which everything arises. So, as you practice, you become more and more familiar with how things arise and many aspects of yourself that you hadn't noticed before. Another way of emphasizing practice is at the moment of articulation, the moment of action. You know? When the potentialities, all your full potentialities have to be there at that moment.

[08:42]

Anyway, we don't emphasize or we don't talk about so much the usual relationships that we see between things, this and that. But, you know, as I said, to find out about gravity, Newton had to study the apple. Notice that it didn't go some other direction. So, we can say the apple is everything. Everything as it is. And everything as it could possibly be. But still, there are some, you know, relations. When I say non-repeating universe, I don't mean that there are no connections between things

[09:57]

each time everything stopped. But when I'm looking there, I see Manjushri, you know? And when I turn around, I don't know anything. Sometimes we have that kind of experience, you know? There's no connection. It's rather disturbing the first time it happens, if it happens to you. Oh, my God! Where has the world gone? You turn around to see if it's still over there or you left something that you've forgotten. That kind of experience is rather scary sometimes. But there are connections, you know? And so, what are the connections and how do we know the connections? Well, in our practice, we don't try to figure them out with our mind. We don't try to figure out who we are in that way. As...

[11:00]

You know, I talked about the Vimalakirti Sutra yesterday and in it where Manjushri is asked, how do we view living beings? And Vimalakirti says, as an illusionist sees an illusion. And then he also goes on to say, as a wise man views... or as a wise man sees the moon's reflection in the water. It's interesting he says, a wise man, you know? It doesn't... we're not... Usually we see the moon's reflection and we think, well, that's not the moon, that's only the reflection. But in Buddhism, maybe we say, that's the moon, that reflection.

[12:05]

Is it any less the moon than the reflection we see in our mind when we look at the moon? You know, and then he says, or as a man views his face in a mirror. So there's a famous story about Tozan, which I've mentioned in other lectures briefly, but have not talked about too much. Which is, after Tozan leaves his teacher, Ungan Donjo, Tozan asks him, as he's leaving, what he should say, or what ultimate reality is, or how should he remember the teaching. And Ungan Donjo says,

[13:12]

just this one is. And then he said, please, when you're in your life, or in your practice, or in Buddhism, you must be careful. Please be careful. So Tozan left, and as he was, after a while on his journey, you know, he didn't... Tozan, we say, attained enlightenment many times, and you can't say which was his enlightenment exactly, but anyway, on this episode, you know, crossing a stream, he understood what Ungan Donjo meant more fully.

[14:16]

And he saw, as he was crossing the stream, he saw his reflection in the stream, and what he thought was, oh, he is not, he is me, he is me, but I am not he. And so then he wrote a verse about it later, which we have the verse, and the verse goes, something like, don't try to figure out what you are, or don't put other heads above your own, or don't look elsewhere than what you are. If you do, the truth will get farther and farther away from you.

[15:22]

And then the next line is very interesting, he says, alone I proceed through myself, alone I proceed through myself. He is me, and I am not him. Only if you understand this can you see what, you can, only if you understand this can you know how things are in absolute reality. This emphasizes objective reality in some way,

[16:31]

you know, there, you see the reflection, it's some objective reality, that's me. But he says, how he comes to that is, alone I proceed through myself. As I said yesterday, we don't seek, or try to explain our practice in terms of some universal, repeating self, but in some intimate, you know, moment after moment, secret, private self. If you practice in this way, then what the relationships are between things is understood, not in the realm of thinking,

[17:36]

but, and there are various practices and ways of opening up your practice based on the relationships between the particular and all, or everything, and the particularity and particularity, and all and all. And as you become, can stay with yourself more, and can become more familiar with what you are, you're not so caught by one thing or another, so you can begin to practice and develop yourself. Many of the sutras say,

[18:37]

well, in such and such a situation, if you have bad feelings for a person, cultivate warm feelings. Well, usually this seems pretty impossible for us, because if you have bad feelings for a person, it seems artificial or almost repressive to add some warm feelings on top of that and feel good about the person when you really want to hit him one. So you can't practice in that way until you can stay with what you are, and so then you can notice, actually, many kinds of feelings many threads, and you can easily choose one and stay with one. It's not that you add something from outside yourself. Oh, many, many things are there. It's very easy to be one or the other or to take various existences.

[19:43]

So Suzuki Roshi says that when you can see your reflection in water or in a mirror with some warm, kind-hearted feeling, then you're practicing Buddhism. But generally, if you look in the mirror, I'm not sure you have warm, kind-hearted feeling. Oh, hello. I like Lew Welch's poem where he says, looking in the mirror in the morning, he says, I don't know who you are, but I'll shave you. Anyway, you look in the mirror and you don't know who that is, but, well, hello. You have some warm feeling for even a reflection in a stream, you know. If you feel in that way, that's not Manjushri, then, sitting there in the middle of the room. That's not some reflection.

[20:48]

That's you. Rinzai says many monks are confused seeking Manjushri on the top of Mount Kyentai or Wutai or in various places. But actually, he says, some imperturbable place in yourself is Manjushri. One of the ways to practice in this way is to begin to accept the reflections of yourself as yourself. So the way people treat you, you say, oh, that's me. If they treat you badly, you say, oh, that's me. If they treat you well, you say, well, that's me too. You don't have to reject

[21:51]

either good feelings people have about you or bad feelings. Anyway, you practice with them as accepting something you've produced and a much better way to know about yourself than trying to figure out who you are. And you accept it without anger or trying to change the impression. Somebody has some impression about you. Then if it's good, you try to make it a little better, usually. And if it's not so good, you try to change it. But just, if you're going to practice Buddhism, you should just accept what it is. Oh, so that's how they feel about me. And when you can do that, you can also begin to notice more and more how people feel about you and how complex the various kinds of ways we feel about each other are,

[22:53]

where they come from. And at the same time, you'll, strangely enough, not give them so much weight. It won't be devastating, you know, if someone thinks you're a jerk. Because certainly we are, in some ways, you know, jerks. So when you practice Buddhism, as I said, on the one hand, you accept everything just as it is. Everything you are, just as you are. Endlessly, without any attempt to change it. Just find the space in it without angry feelings or rejecting feelings or loving feelings about it. And at the same time, that ability to stay there with it

[23:55]

makes you ready for Buddhism or enlightenment or some wider view of the world without seeking it. The world is beyond our comprehension. And we can only participate in it without comprehension. And we can't know everything about it. And whatever you know about it is a kind of gift. And to try to organize our experience experience with our intelligence or taste or creativity builds walls around us, actually.

[24:59]

Whatever talents you have should illuminate your relationships with people, not isolate you. Thank you. Anybody have any questions? Staying with what you are is not a... isn't it? To dissolve what you are, just be. Or maybe I don't know what... Can you hear what he said? He said, isn't staying with what you are in zazen to dissolve what you are? Now, if you mean what you are

[26:09]

as some, you know, fabrication that exists over successive moments, that dissolves. But if you mean, just now I'm sitting here, you know, or just now I have a beard, that doesn't dissolve during zazen. Yeah? I've noticed a kind of fear that is in most of us, and certainly in myself, that leads to a timidity that doesn't allow us to fully experience, fully recognize experience, because we're hiding someone from it. Do you have any idea what the root of that fear is? I don't know.

[27:18]

I want to answer, we're scared. We're scared. I don't know, I suppose, you know, in our usual sense, you can figure out something. Certainly our parents and family do their best to use fear to encourage you to be afraid, because it allows them to criticize you and punish you. And fear is certainly a useful feeling. It's wonderful to be afraid, actually. It's an incredible feeling, you know, if you don't try to run away from it. But there isn't much point in trying to

[28:30]

figure it out. It increases every time you're afraid, and it decreases every time you face it. And there's no other way, really, except to continually face it, little by little, as much as you're brave enough to do. It's the moment of confrontation where we dodge. It's the moment of actually being present. And this is all there is, you know, or this is what I am, in which we do a little shift. And certainly a teacher, when he looks for a disciple, the main thing he looks for, if he wants to, when he notices a disciple, whether a disciple is good or bad, he notices whether a disciple is brave or not.

[29:33]

It's the main thing you need in Buddhist practice, is courage. Maybe, you know, there's from Maybe the best way to practice is to have the feeling of from silence, I'm watching, or from silence, everything takes forms. Do you understand what I mean? Well, we say non-action

[30:36]

or a non-doing. Since you're all reading Castaneda's book, you know, I find it difficult to use terms like non-doing, because Castaneda has such an interesting description of non-doing, which is which is not exactly the same, as we mean by non-doing, but very close. What he describes as non-doing is is another, we describe in a different way, if we described it. But alone I proceed through myself. And you find

[31:43]

some way you exist with everything, at one with everything. I haven't found a way to describe to people like this, outside of circumstances of work, of practicing with each one of you individually, what we mean by non-action exactly, because it doesn't mean you don't take action. But you... The best way is, I think, what Suzuki Roshi... how Suzuki Roshi used the word waiting, which I've talked about before. You wait for things. What do you wait for?

[32:50]

Wait for. What do you wait for? If you look at a stone, instead of looking at the stone, actively looking at the stone, you wait for it to be whatever it is. I don't know. It's something in your hand. What is it? Because we don't know what it is, we wait for it. I don't know. What does it do? Then go wait. How can you get us started? How can I get us started? About non-action. But you're started already.

[33:58]

And if you practice as in accepting yourself just as you are, as you're doing, and being ready or waiting for whatever it is, that's enough. That's enough. It goes on and on. Everything's happening. Can you just wait with it? Just be it. Not turn it into activity. You'll start to glow. It'll be wonderful. It's like a frog.

[35:16]

The frog sits and it doesn't do anything, and when something passes, it goes... Yeah, the insect goes by and goes... It's non-action. So you sit like a frog. Yeah, he's like the frog very much. Just sits there like doing zazen. But he's very alert, you know. Some insect comes by. I do my party favor. What? What? There's no problem there. I mean, there's no conflict with practicing with others

[36:19]

or eating with others or doing things with others. It means what you give reality to or what you give some value to. I don't see a conflict. It just seems like it makes it difficult. Yeah, I understand why you feel that way. Anyway, there's only a conflict on the level of words. What I mean by practicing in that way is to find your true relationship with everyone, not your thinking relationship with everyone,

[37:20]

just being there. It's hard to believe, but a lot of our problems with friendship is the word friend, what we think a friend is, what we think about how to work with people. But when you find what that thing is, when you don't shy away from that experience, which is actually you, which is making the world each moment, actually making the world each moment, then you're making the world each moment and everyone's making it with you. And then you can create the world. Then we can actually practice Buddhism with everyone and save all sentient beings because we can create a world in which it's possible to save all sentient beings, in which all beings are actually already saved.

[38:25]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[38:29]

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