When I was asked to give this talk some weeks ago by Meili, I said, OK. And I thought about the nature of this talk, that it's a public talk, and that for about an hour, the spotlight is on me. And I thought a little bit more about that spotlight and the idea of being public. And while it's true I'm sitting here and talking and you're listening, the fact is we're all giving a public talk. And when I would hear things like that years ago when I started this practice, it seemed very far-fetched. It seemed like otherworldly that we're all giving public talks.

[01:03]

The literature abounds with allegory, metaphors, things which really stretch our mind. And what's becoming more and more apparent is that The stories are inspirations for our practice here and now. And the metaphors and allegories are there to support us. And the names of the old Buddhas are no other than ourself. We just had our ceremony to make public our transgressions through body, speech and mind. And when you think about it, we are always transgressing and we're living this life and expressing ourselves through body, speech and mind.

[02:07]

When I talk to people about practice, the most popular question And the most popular complaint is, how do I bring this practice into the world? I need to get back to the zendo more. I need to sit morning, that's when serious people sit, zazen. I need to sit practice periods. I need to sit sashins. Well, all of those things I just mentioned are really valuable supports to our practice and for our realization. We commit ourselves to practice every time we sign up for Sashin. We should commit ourselves to practice every time we sit down on the cushion. And most importantly for me and the thrust of my talk today is we need to recommit ourselves to wake up and practice every moment because 20 or more hours out of each day we're not here in the Zen Do.

[03:25]

And if we're struggling to get to the Zen Do, We are setting ourselves up to be frustrated and not supportive of ourselves or other people. I don't want to minimize the zendo, it's a really wonderful space, it's a quiet place, it's a refuge, it's a sanctuary, and it gives all of us, including myself, an opportunity to see the myriad facets of ourself. a little more clearly than when we're out in the world with our families, at our jobs, and the various things that come up. In order for this practice to transform us, we have to somehow get a grip and take what we learn here out into the world. So the question is, what is practice?

[04:47]

And what isn't practice? And where do we practice? For me, what is practice is when I have an opportunity to wake up and be confirmed by my consciousness of what is going on in this moment. Most of the time, we're dreaming. Most of the time, I'm dreaming. So it's pretty simple. It's simply allowing the phenomenal world to come into our consciousness. Now we sit Zazen and assume a particular posture and we're in a nice quiet room that's set up for Zazen and for waking up, it's bound to happen.

[05:58]

We're bound to get glimpses of this greater universe that we are only seeing partial most of the time. While I was composing my notes, I heard in the background an airplane overhead. Now I was partially aware that this airplane was going on overhead, but my intention and focus at the time was composing these notes and trying to convey the heart of my practice to you all. And it was impossible to do both things because we can only be aware of one thing at a time. So I put my pencil down and sat in my chair and listened. And we've all had these experiences in the Zen-do of just being present as airplanes go overhead

[07:07]

or as our heart beats or as we hear someone scratching beside us. Now there's nothing particularly extraordinary about an airplane going overhead, there's just a sound and a so-called self perceiving the sound and In that moment, I had a realization. The realization was myself, my so-called self, and this so-called airplane were one thing. Now, it wasn't a profound experience. It didn't confirm all of my old twisted karma and transform it into loving kindness in all ten directions. but it was a realization and it was quite simple and one of my hooks in practice is reading the literature and hearing stories of enlightenment experiences that seem unattainable and there's different degrees of waking up and

[08:38]

At best, we can hope for great realization, but in the meantime, what are we doing? There was a certain sense of completeness in just sitting there, listening to the airplane, listening to the sound without thinking about airplane. And we all have the opportunity to do that. But it's only, only we can do that. No one is gonna tell us. We have teachers and friends that encourage us, but it's really up to us to say, wait a minute. My life is a little crazy. I'm lost, I'm confused, nothing makes sense. How can we just take a moment and appreciate what in fact is around us?

[09:45]

And by grace, by good karma, by the fortune cookie that we got at lunch or whatever, somehow or another it happens and there are affirmations along the path. In the Book of Serenity, case four, there is a story. And here is the story. As the World Honored One, that's Shakyamuni Buddha, was walking with the 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, this sanctuary is built. The World Honored One smiled.

[10:48]

When I would read stories like this, I would have all sorts of fantastic images of sanctuaries being built from that little blade of grass, and we could go to movies now and see all kinds of universes being created by technology. And while early on in my practice it was something to aspire to, to want to see and experience, what's happening now is, again, no grand enlightenment experiences. I'm not up here to say I'm an enlightened person. But what I am seeing is sanctuaries being built and created in the simplest of circumstances. As I said earlier, there's Buddha, and there's Indra, the king of the gods, and all these images, but who is Buddha, and who is the king of the gods?

[12:04]

Mel's reminded us more than once that these people are no other than ourselves, the bigger self, the no-self self. One of the reasons why we One of the reasons I enjoy being here in the Zen Dojo is the forms that we have here and that we take care of this space in a sanctimonious way and we're reminded by Mel and others to let go if we start getting it too attached and the sanctimoniousness becomes tainted with ego and being puffed up. So how do we create sanctuaries outside of the zendo? When can we create a sanctuary outside of the zendo?

[13:07]

In the commentary to this case, it says, when the World Honored One spread his hair to cover mud and offered flowers to Tipankara Buddha, also known as the lamp. That Buddha pointed to where the hair was spread and said, a sanctuary should be built in this place. At that time, an elder known as the foremost of the wise planted a marker in that spot and said, the building of the sanctuary is finished. The god scattered flowers and praised him for having wisdom while an ordinary man. That means while Buddha was an ordinary man. The story Tian Tong quotes here is much the same. Now Dipankara is a Buddha that lived many, many eons ago and he met this fellow and predicted this fellow to become Shakyamuni Buddha in this particular eon. So I read this and I said, well that's a nice story. Now how am I Dipankara Buddha?

[14:14]

How am I the guy who becomes Buddha? Well this morning earlier during service I was leading the chant and I garbled some words, I made a mistake in the chanting and then I had to continue going on. And in a linear fashion there were a few seconds where there was this mistake and then there was catching the mistake and moving on. And the way I look at that is that Dipankara Buddha makes a mistake. Dipankara Buddha catches himself. Dipankara Buddha continues chanting, and Dipankara Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, and as we chanted Maitreya Buddha, future Buddha, the Buddha in the next eon or in the next moment, and all that

[15:15]

It's simply about mindfulness, being aware of each moment as it arises and passes away and making a vow to wake up. Nothing particularly fancy. The language is very fancy. The language is there to encourage us. So in order to really get some encouragement, we have to make it our own. We can change the names of the characters, but essentially it's ourself and different aspects of ourself. There's another very inspirational story And that's about when Siddhartha Gautama, before he became enlightened, was sitting and he was tempted by Mara, the god of illusion, to kind of keep him from his aspiration.

[16:25]

And Mara had all sorts of ways of trying to tempt Buddha off of his, or Siddhartha, off his seat. And finally, Siddhartha put his hand down to the earth and pointed it, pointed to the earth. The earth shook as a witness to this fellow who was making this sincere effort to wake up. And as the story goes, that sort of ended Mara's opportunities to knock Siddhartha off his seat. And then Siddhartha became greatly awakened And the first Buddha image that I received was as a gift from a friend before I left the Zen Center in New York where I started practicing. And it's a simple little image, but it's this image of the Buddha touching the earth. At work the other day, I was at the espresso bar.

[17:37]

And this is a very hot little corner. It's about the size of this tan that I'm sitting on. And on one side is an urn with coffee in it and hot water. In front of me is a machine with three spigots to make espresso drinks. And to the right is the milk and the cash register and the pastries. And further to the right is a whole line of people wanting things. And there's a few people up there with me working and it gets intense there and you can only do one thing at a time and yet it's so overwhelming and we all have our lives, life situations where we have a lot of things to do and we're trying to do one thing at a time and there are demands being put upon us. and sometimes we freak out when it's just too much and we have to go for a walk or whatever happens. The other day when I was feeling overwhelmed with all of the activity that was going on there, I didn't think about it, but I put my hand on the counter for about a second and everything just became still.

[19:00]

And like I said, it wasn't any sort of grand, huge revelation. All it was, was things became really still and quiet, and I was able to proceed with all the lattes and all the things that I had to do in that moment, in that little space. Now, I thought about that experience afterwards and the distractions or illusions that Mara was presenting me. at work, all the things that I had to deal with in my mind about non-work related matters were plaguing me and they went away with that simple gesture.

[20:09]

It also could have been a gesture of just putting my hand on my nose or knocking off the spigot from the espresso machine, whatever. But anyway, as it turned out in that moment, it was just putting my hand on the counter. Now, we all have opportunities to do that, and we often do that. If we're busy with something, we'll put our work down for a second and just sit there, put our arms on the armrest of a chair and sit there. But I was struck by this image and the story around Siddhartha Gautama's trials and his temptations and the physical symbol of just touching the earth and just touching space. And when we get a little shaky, either physically or emotionally, oftentimes we will put our hands down. And I encourage people to do that. We can't leave our hands down too long, especially if we have a lot of responsibilities. So it's a matter of getting up and continuing on.

[21:13]

But in order to have some kind of clarity of how to continue on, we have to build a sanctuary in that moment and see what needs to get done and carry on. So our Zen practice is full of forms, and the Zen Do is our laboratory. We're able to see all these forms and critique the forms, tweak them. A lot of people get turned off to our practice because of the forms. It's a bit too rigid and too formal and too authoritarian and whatnot, too old and antiquated.

[22:16]

Well, I'm not in that school, so I can't argue that side of the story. But I wanted to reiterate some points that Mel has made and just talk a little bit about how I follow the forms and how they help me. The other day, I was talking about walking on the balls of your feet when you're in the zendo, because when you walk on your heels, it's like hammers, and you're sort of hammering the floor. You have to make a conscious effort to walk on the balls of your feet. It's not how we normally walk. And when you make a conscious effort in the way you're walking, as I said earlier, you're actually waking up in the moment of your foot contact the floor. It feels gentler and there's just a different atmosphere that's created. Mel often says, assume the atmosphere of the Zendo. So we walk on the balls of our feet and we do other things here also.

[23:21]

So what do we do when we get outside the Zendo? Can we walk on the balls of our feet? Can we go up and down stairs on the balls of our feet or more gently? in our offices? Can we walk on the balls of our feet? Or, in some way, remember how we were walking in Zendo and take that space out. Take that atmosphere of feeling out into other aspects of our life. Well, sometimes we can't. Say we're an athlete and you're running around and you're just trying to get to one place or another. Well, those circumstances are a little different. There's always an exception. But by and large, we have an opportunity to walk the way we walk in the zendo elsewhere. And I encourage everybody to try that out. Try that on for a little bit of time and see how it feels. See how it feels. Many of you have CDs, and when you finish playing your CD, try putting your CD back in the CD case, reading as if you're reading it like a book, but not just any way, but actually so-called upright.

[24:58]

Now, you have to be present in order to do that. It doesn't mean you're enlightened, it just means you have to be present in order to do that. But check it out. You put the CD back like so, close it up, and put it on the rack. Same thing, if you don't have CDs, you can do it with a book. You can do it with anything. Basically, it's taking care of what you're utilizing and putting it back in a certain way. Not any different than how you handle your oreoki bowls when you're eating here in the zendo. or how you handle your shoes on the shoe rack, placing things down in a certain way. Now, one can put them down in a haphazard way, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with putting your shoes down or putting your CD back any way you want. But there is something that is different when you do things with that sort of caring way, the way we do it here in the Zendo.

[26:00]

A friend of mine stayed in my apartment some years ago and when I went back to, after he left, I went back to play some CDs and actually was able to see what he was listening to while I was away. Which is kind of a fun little byproduct of my mindfulness practice. He's got good taste. How do we close doors? When we come into the Zendo, it's like two hands. You take one hand on the door and the other hand on the frame, and you close it gently and across. But typically we don't open and close doors out in the world like that. We kind of just close them. Sometimes we have to because, you know, carpentry isn't so good and we have to slam it, or the knobs and such don't work so well.

[27:10]

But try actually doing that kind of practice. You have to slow down and really be present. And what's being present about anyway? Is that what all our practice is about, is just being present? Well, as I mentioned earlier about the chanting, being present enabled me to see kind of where I was spaced out and garbled some words in a chant and took care of my space and myself and was able to carry on in the future in a more careful manner and a more settled manner so I could actually appreciate and be more with what was going on during service. So that's sort of a fundamental part of our practice, and it can help us in how we've been in our past relationships, being present, what's going on now in this current relationship, and how our future relationships will be.

[28:19]

So the past informs the present, and the present informs the future. It goes the other way too, but that's... I don't quite know how to explain that. I don't quite understand it myself. But certainly going from left to right, it worked. I understand. There's a reason why everything is lined up so kind of perfectly or near perfectly here in our space. And a lot of it has to do with sort of Japanese culture and how things are done in Japan, small space. It isn't more enlightened or more Buddhistic because you can go to other cultures and experience how Buddhism is practiced and see different expressions.

[29:26]

And things are not like so neat and orderly and right angled and all that. For some reason, before I got into Buddhist practice, I'd been into right angles and neat and orderly sort of things. And so when I came to sitting practice, it wasn't so difficult for me to maintain that order. So I'm not judging other ways of practicing, but what I want to share is just what I've experienced in seeing things that are ordered in a certain way, in a certain pattern. When I was in Japan, I went to this temple, and there were a thousand and one Kanons, or Avalokiteshvara sculptures, in this room. And in order for them to fit all 1,001 images in there, there had to be some sense of order.

[30:26]

They could have just been put there, and that would have a different feeling. But when I turned the corner from the hallway and then just looked down this gallery and saw all these images, I had tears in my eyes. All the images were essentially the same. carved out of wood. And the order and precision and the care and placement of these images was such that when you looked as you walked down, you just see these lineups, kind of like bleachers. And you know that there are a lot of people taking care of that space and that vastness of compassion that was in that room as a symbol. As I was leaving, I was thinking, jeez, I wouldn't want to dust all these. It's really messy. And coming around the other corner, I didn't have tears in my eyes.

[31:29]

I was kind of smiling because you could sort of see little bits of dust because it's impossible to keep all that clean. That's the other side, the entrance and exit. When I go out to eat, if it's a regular sort of sit-down restaurant and not a Bongo Burger or some such restaurant, as far as sit-down, not to place any disparaging comments on Bongo Burger because it's one of my favorite places to work, if it's a restaurant with a regular ceramic plates and silverware and napkins and all that, it's ordered in a certain way that's very pleasing and it kind of invites you to sit down. And then you have your meal.

[32:31]

And then how do we end our meal, typically? Well, typically we just sort of, we put our stuff down, then we leave. Well, how about... placing things in a certain way that's taken care of. Rather than sort of bunching a napkin up, it's folded it up in some pattern. There's no sort of form here. You can kind of make up your own form. But some way that the napkin was actually cared for and taken care of before placing it back on the table and having your utensils maybe lined up in a certain way. Not too unlike the way we do oreo at the end of our meal. Again, you have to be present for that. It's certainly going to turn the bus person's head when they come there and the table is basically taken care of. But there's a sense of completion that you're kind of giving back to the space, to the restaurant, and to the universe.

[33:34]

phrase from Suzuki Roshi, and it's from the chapter on Zen and excitement. Our unexciting way of practice may appear to be very negative. This is not so. It is a wise and effective way to work on ourselves. It is just very plain. I find this point very difficult for people, especially young people, to understand. On the other hand, it may seem as if I'm speaking about gradual attainment. This is not so either. In fact, this is the sudden way because when your practice is calm and ordinary, everyday life itself is enlightenment. So this is everyday life that we have here.

[34:57]

We have some time if some people have some questions. and to actually do it is something, it's sort of focused on the way you do things anyway, it's just more so. But what do you tell somebody who doesn't come from that type of background, who likes to come home and just throw things all over the place and relax, that to suddenly have that practice is coming from very different ways? It is coming from a different place and I think it's hard for people to adjust to that. At work it's very much unlike my apartment and it's a constant letting go for me to see the other side and to wake up in the chaos and mess and confusion there.

[36:22]

as I was doing my vows here, there's a stick of incense underneath the tan that I had to sort of let go of and just leave, pick it up. So it's not all tidy because wherever we go we have to adjust to circumstances. But for me, I would ask the person, well how do you feel? How do you feel after your day? And things don't have to be tidy. One can zone out in front of a television and just kick back and just have stuff spewing about all over. It's okay. And my next question to them would be to find their source of discomfort and to see if their sense of space is helping or hindering their

[37:52]

mental space, if their habits or manners or personality as such, if that manner is supporting their life The story goes that Yasutani Roshi's most deeply realized disciple was the sloppiest of all the students that he had. And when Roshi would come to his room, he would sort of cower in all this mess and be very embarrassed. And someone asked, about that, why he would do that, why he just sort of, this is just how it is. And as the story goes, that he was sort of completely ashamed that he couldn't do any better.

[38:58]

This is just how he was. And yet at the same time, he was the most realized student that he had. So there's a reason There's a reason why we take care of the forms in our space here. I don't know, for me it's settling and I think for most people here it has to be. That's why people keep coming back and it lends clarity and some insight into our life. So everyone has degree of Ordinariness that they can put into their life and It's not all the same so for some people actually Maybe just taking care of one thing on a desk is enough.

[40:02]

I one note or something. And for somebody else, it might be a lot more. There's this broad continuum of people and effort that's being made. And that's the beauty of our practice, is that we don't have, there's not just one way. And that's been the biggest lesson for me, that it's not just one way. Does that, thank you for, it's a good question. you were raising your hand for? A question. Okay. Or a comment, actually. I appreciate the invitation to mindfulness and tidiness. I wanted to put in a pitch for other ways of bringing the forms into our lives if, especially what you were saying, right? And someone might just take one area, one thing to take care of.

[41:03]

There's also forms that we practice, taking refuge, vowing, keeping an altar, lighting incense, maybe saying the meal chant, these little ways of bringing the practice in a formal way into our everyday life. The way I was raised as a Christian, it was infiltrated in much the same way and so I just sort of wanted to add that in as a way of both bringing the mindfulness and also the relationship to form in a meaningful way to a daily life. Yeah, altars don't have to be elaborate. You can get a piece of velcro and put a Buddha on your dashboard. That's how you do full bows there. But there are ways of doing it. And essentially the altars are there as reminders to ourselves.

[42:09]

I had to chop wood in Japan to heat water for our baths, and I've never chopped wood before in my life. There was this stump, and there was this axe, and there was this really hard wood that was all sort of twisted. It was like there was this altar that I had to sort of bow to and hack away. And I cut my hands off. It was really pretty difficult. And finally, I wasn't cutting myself so bad. But it had to be treated like an altar, which is a sign of respect and a place to focus our attention. Yeah, thanks. That's a really good point. I know you haven't, there was a long time when you didn't do that much chanting and you had some anxiety about it and I kind of remember that process and I thought, gee, something has really shifted.

[43:20]

And then I did notice, not in a dramatic way, what you called the garbling. And so I'm struck by your experience. I garbled, I garbled, I garbled. Well, there's that. Yeah, question. I mean, because, you know, I share with you the tendency toward being neat and structure and finding a calm within that. I'm also very aware of a way in which it's always compared to even a greater norm of neatness. So they strip away, whether it's messy or neat, it's about comparing and not really

[44:31]

all the different ways that really are out there in the real world. And I don't know how that fits together with, it's certainly, you're not the only one who thinks you've garbled it when you look at one syllable. We all do that each in our own way. That's right. And I'm just, I don't really know, there's something I'm sort of trying to understand about comparing and that really when there's that comparison there is And I do it all the time. And I am very sensitive when others do it to me. And I don't know exactly what my question is, but there's something I'm trying to incorporate here. And I'll just leave it as a comment. OK. Well, there are a few points I could comment on or respond day.

[45:37]

One is my not taking on the job of Kokyo was not out of reluctance or hesitancy. What was the word that you used? Anxiety. Anxiety about it. It was more of I wanted other people to be able to chant because it's easier to pick the people who are around a lot or who are doing a lot just to get them. Could you do this or do that? And it takes more effort to bring in more people. And there's lots of really wonderful voices here. So I have chanted as the time or the situation required, but it was to let other people come forward. There's, karmically there's a reason why we're in situations that we find ourselves in.

[46:53]

And I look at my personal relationships and my livelihood and those are places that test my capacity to manifest compassion for myself and for other people. And when I have a little perspective, I can actually bow to Pete's. I can bow to people who have Prompted some discomfort in my being and I offer a lot of incense and bow In the direction that the person in place resides to help me and There's a Slow turning a really slow turning.

[47:56]

I wish it would happen quicker and as I was chanting today I felt on sort of each successive sort of round, just more sort of momentum and letting go and just allowing more to come out. And that's just like anything, it just comes with practice. And the more we do things, the easier it is. And the more we do things when they're these so-called mistakes, it's okay We don't get caught by it and we're able to continue on if we haven't practiced so much then the mistakes can really Impede us and not allow us to really kind of go forward so The the last thing I want to say is to just encourage people to sit as much as they can whether it's here or at home have these practices in between and And in that way, we're building momentum so we don't get knocked off so easily.

[48:59]

And when we do get knocked off, we can put our hand down, get back up, and carry on because it's up to us to do that with the help of our friends and Buddha, who are not two. I think it's time. Thank you all very much. Peace.

[49:26]

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