The point of Buddhism is always to return to your own experience, and in the city we're doing a sashin right now. That's one of the ways we try to practice returning to our own experience. After all, it's you that is practicing Buddhism, and everything is based on your own experience. But we don't always know what our own experience is. In fact, most people have a pretty limited experience of themselves.

[01:02]

First of all, we notice that we perceive things in terms of subjective or objective. I suppose there are some people who never even make that distinction. They just see things as they are, and they don't even think about the fact that they are subjectively coloring what they see. Nor do they think about the fact that as soon as you even say subjective, you're saying objective. If you make a distinction between subjective and objective, you're treating yourself as an object. You're seeing yourself as an object, as distinguished from other objects. So to say subjective means objective, and to say objective means there's someone perceiving, which means subjective. As soon as you see

[02:21]

yourself in that kind of thing, it's not clear what's subjective and what's objective. then something's funny. Something's missing, otherwise it would be clearer. So you can begin to characterize subjective and objective both as form. But form, calling subjective and objective form, the five skandhas, doesn't explain things as they are. And so you, from the idea of form, you get the idea of emptiness. Form is too limited, so something,

[03:25]

some wider idea. Form doesn't cover everything. So what we mean by emptiness is rather difficult to understand. Sukhir, as you said, it took him one year of contemplation on the Heart Sutra before he had some insight into emptiness. What we mean by emptiness, what's the point of practicing or working with a term like emptiness? So until you see the limitation of subject and object, and then the limitation of form, you don't see the point of emptiness. And as long as you have, as Suzuki Roshi says, the silt of your own experience, as long as

[04:36]

you're seeing things as the silt of your own experience, you don't see form as emptiness or emptiness as form. So in your practice, as you begin to see your karma, the formation of your karma, and by that process, through your freedom from your karma, you then can see what we mean by form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Anyway, already I started, although I started with practice, is based on your own experience, within one or two sentences I'm already talking about form is emptiness, emptiness is form, which is rather abstract.

[05:40]

But again, the point is not to try to understand what form is emptiness is exactly, but to return always to your own experience. What's my own experience? And to help you in this way, to help ourselves in this way, we do zazen. Zazen gives us more insight and experience than any other way. If you just did zazen, of course, zazen as something you do, as part of your life, gives you a sort of working area to begin to see your own experience. So our experience is limited, our own experience is limited by our ideas, by how we fence ourselves

[06:58]

out, actually fence ourselves out of our experience, by it never occurring to us. But such and such is impossible. Strangely enough, our head has some clamp on us that we think that we have ideas, experience takes precedence over ideas, but in actual fact our ideas control our experience. Sometimes some experience breaks through and is different than anything you imagine. But mostly the unimaginable that's all around us is completely unobserved because our ideas so condition us and control our perception. Anyway, we have many ideas, but

[08:07]

we can just right now just say ideas. And then there's the subject-object distinction, which controls our experience. And then there's the, if you look at the senses, the subject-object, you're perceiving something with your senses. And if you stop making the subject-object distinction, you start wondering, what am I perceiving? Because your six senses make some division, at least the way they usually work for us. But still we identify with things

[09:18]

as we perceive them. But Buddhism says, look at the senses themselves, not just the objects of the senses, or the source, the organization, organizer of the senses. Look at the senses themselves. So from this kind of hint, you may begin to look at how you perceive things, how your senses work. And we can say there is such a thing as sense-feels. If you begin to sense a kind of sense-feel, that there's a whole category of things that you perceive by your eyes, and the whole category that you perceive by your ears, and you begin

[10:19]

to see that something falls in between there that's neither covered by eye or ear. Anyway, the more you see how your senses work, the wider your understanding of what you perceive is. But the focus of our, aside from our eyes themselves and our sense-feels, the focus of your attention can be changed. So again, we don't usually think of the focus as limiting our reality. Most of us don't alter that focus, we just look at things. But from meditation you can begin to have the experience of a focus that is the beam of perception itself.

[11:23]

I don't know how to describe what I mean more accurately than that. And you can also further withdraw your senses. Sometimes you hear, just hear something and you can sense the whole world without any thoughts about it. But you can further withdraw your senses until all you hear is hearing itself, or seeing. I don't know how to describe

[12:41]

it, but seeing is seeing the very process of seeing. Almost your focus of attention, instead of being out there on the object or on the beam, your focus of consciousness is like inside your eye. The experience of this is to experience yourself entirely almost for the first time, some fresh being, some noble, extensive kind of place. It's almost like knowing yourself for the first time. You're not caught by the objects of your perceptions, there's some big, big field in which a voice may enter or something may happen. But you're located right here where you are. Your perceptions are no longer outside. You're completely located

[13:45]

here. Your hearing still works and your seeing still works. Your attention and consciousness is simultaneous with the very substance of being alive. This realm is what the sutras are addressed to. So much when you read the sutras doesn't make sense. But from this realm, when you're in complete possession of yourself, the sutras

[14:55]

make complete sense. Another way in which our experience is limited is the degree to which we can be conscious of our experience. As we know, mostly we're not subconscious. We're always in the various degrees of distraction and concern and feeling, etc.

[15:59]

And we don't mean, you know, sometimes we're concerned with ourself, sometimes we reject ourselves. And it looks almost like sometimes we're too concerned about ourselves, sometimes we reject ourselves. And rejecting yourself looks very close to not being concerned about yourself. And that's, for some of you, an important point. Not being concerned about yourself is not the same as rejecting yourself. So if you're going to return to your own experience, you have to know who it is that's sitting there. So first of all, you want to know what you are, what kind of ego you are, what kind of person you are, what kind of tendencies you have. And you want to try to give up always having your immediate, your

[17:21]

direct experience interfered with by thoughts of the way you'd like it to be, or the way you're scared it might turn out, or how you think it should be from your past experience. Anyway, if you can get rid of those through the kind of process I talked about of subject and object, understanding deeply subject and object division. So to increase our area of consciousness, we practice mindfulness. And again, this isn't a practice in which we try to alter what we're perceiving, but to notice what we're perceiving. And you monitor in a sense, monitor. Now I'm having such and such kind of thought, impure thought, angry

[18:27]

thought, clear thought. I know I'm having a clear thought. In fact, we practice mindfulness. Now I'm walking. Now the focus of my attention is in my feet. Now I'm washing the dishes or sitting, waiting. Whatever it is, you are mindful of it. But this also creates a person who's mindful. It creates someone who's mindful. So as an antidote to that, the perfection of wisdom turns it completely around and says, thoughts are known, say, as unlimited because we do not review the thoughts. Because when thoughts occur, we take no notice of them. Activity is viewed as unlimited because when activity occurs, we take no notice of activity

[19:32]

occurring. We don't review activity occurring. You see how it completely reverses? So first, we increase the degree to which we can be present in our activity as it's happening by bringing ourselves back into our direct experience. Then the practice of the perfection of wisdom based on emptiness, which says all dharmas are empty, don't exist, becomes useful because at that point we can then stop being caught by our direct experience. Anyway, in this kind of way, over some period of time while you're practicing,

[20:47]

you extend your consciousness, extend the area of your consciousness and come to know your experience free from such distinctions as subject and object and free from limiting ideas from the past, present and future. And knowing your experience thoroughly, even knowing the senses themselves and not the senses as perceivers. Then you practice giving up all monitoring, all recognition of perception at all. Anyway, this is the purpose of Zazen, to give you a chance to bring your experience into the present.

[22:11]

First conscious and then wider than conscious of your life. So whatever you find out from your teacher or from who is teaching, from the perceptions, the base is always your own experience. First of all, your own body. So you take care of your body some way and you practice Zazen. And you have some gratitude just to have this

[23:20]

opportunity to practice. Just, they say, to have the right time and place to practice is as unusual as a one-eyed turtle. Sometimes I could find a version of the story. Finding a floating piece of wood or a yoke and sticking its head through it to look out and see the sky. Maybe for one thousand years it will float around until the one-eyed turtle spots it. Anyway, that's the image that Buddhism uses a lot to say, that to have the right time and place. By time and place I mean not being born in one of the worlds of profit or loss. Involved in some world in which you can't get out of conditioned experience. So

[24:28]

you've somehow been born with an opportunity to see through or get out of your conditioned experience alone. And then you're supposed to have three mental opportunities or aspects which are trust and desire for enlightenment and clarity. So if you have a place and space or place and time, and you have the ability to trust and develop some clarity, and you have the desire for enlightenment, given this you can bring your practice, bring your

[25:37]

experience back always to the basins of it. In some intimacy finding out what you are. Without, for many of you what you should try to give up is criticizing yourself. Do you have any questions?

[26:47]

Yeah. Okay. [...]

[27:55]

Okay. [...] Hmm. Hmm. Why do you always argue with Buddhism? Anyway, what you say is true. But it's not just that, it's everything.

[29:05]

There's the practice of mindfulness, and there's just being mindful. Maybe if you're just mindful with no consciousness, that's enough, but as you say, the practice of mindfulness is useful. But also the practice of... not in the realm of doing, so it's hard to call it a practice, but the way the perfection of wisdom smashes that, is also useful. Maybe not useful right now, but it is useful. Yeah? But no one can do it for you, the thought of enlightenment and trust go together to

[31:34]

make one important thing, the courage of your convictions. And if you have some perception of that, there's no such thing as a room, and it's an artificial thing to depend on. And you feel chopped down when you depend on things which you know aren't dependable, and yet you don't have the... even knowing that, you can't walk out of the room, you just have to try. I mean, it's your own strength that you have to increase, and if you want to lift barbells, lift barbells. If you want to lift a very big one, you try a little bit every day. And if no one can come up and say... you can't ask the question, you know, where do I get

[32:34]

the effort, the strength to lift that barbell? It's just not a... it's a ridiculous question. I don't mean that, you know, that we don't all make that kind of distinction, but actually when you think about it, you can't say, where do I get the strength to lift this barbell? You have to do something, a little bit, a little bit, start with small ones, and so And so you actually have to see what is your strength, what are the limits of your strength, and you... if you can't get all the way out the door, you take one step, or you crawl, and then you rest for a minute, and crawl a little bit more. Anyway, you have to make some real move, as much as you can. And it makes something... if you say, oh, I can't get to the door, so I won't even try,

[33:38]

that's hopeless. Practice just means... there's no such thing as practice, it's just, as I always say, trying to practice. The decision to try, even that much, you know, is all of practice. So it's, unfortunately, and wonderfully, it's completely, everything depends on you. The whole world depends on you. This practice depends on you. If we're all dependent on this practice, there won't be any practice at all. Each of you has to practice completely, independently. If you do, it makes practice possible for others, too, as long as they don't depend on you.

[34:40]

I use that just because that's what the books always say. So, if I say it, then someone will ask the question, what is an impure one? Strictly speaking, there's no pure and impure. But we do notice that some things create karma for us and make us feel lousy. Anyway, that kind of thought which gives you a creepy feeling is impure. When you think it, you feel sort of squeamish, and you wish you didn't have to think it. But to try and get rid of it is even worse. That causes more problems, because then that's really characterizing as impure. Just say, oh, this is me, this creepy thought, it's me.

[35:59]

And if you accept it with courage, you'll be okay. The world of pure form, when you say pure, it also means complete or without fuzzy edges, or perfect. So pure, at some point in your practice, can be very meaningful, because the pure isn't in contrast to impure, but you purely see it. You see it so clearly, you see things so clearly, that the only word that rises to describe it is pure. Nothing there but the thing itself in some kind of shining clarity, without anything that normally you'd call darkness or shadow. There's no feeling of a place to hide, no feeling of any contamination.

[37:02]

Qualification. From that area of perception, everything is pure. But it is a little confusing, because it also overlaps on the idea of impure, pure thought, impure thought. Don't you make a distinction between yourself and this table? Okay, we also say everything is interdependent, interrelated, mutually co-arising.

[38:39]

And we also say that there isn't actually any separation between you and this. So, does that come in some conflict, if I say those things? Does that come in some conflict, when you're perceiving this is different from you? I hope it does. It must come in some conflict, because they don't make sense. Okay, so, then why is anybody saying all this stuff? Why doesn't it make sense to you, is the question. Well, we do make the distinction. And if you don't make the distinction, you'll run over somebody when you're driving or something. So, we make that kind of distinction. Why is this body so vividly perceived in that table?

[39:56]

You perceive your own body more vividly than you do this table? Most people don't, actually. You can see a lot of very muddy perception of their own body. Anyway, that kind of question... I don't know if I should try to answer it, but asking that kind of question of yourself is essential in this practice. If you want to actually know what your actual experience is... So, sometimes we say this doesn't exist. It's noisy, not existing. What do we mean when we say this doesn't exist? To what extent, if you'll fulfill a philosophical turn of mind,

[41:03]

does this only exist because you're perceiving it? Are you only seeing some aspects of it because your eyes only see them in this particular light, etc.? What is it that you're actually perceiving? Do you actually perceive this thing? I'm not sure how important it is to be that analytical, because you can divide it all up into its constituent parts and how you perceive it and how your mind organises it and calls it a table. I'm not so sure that's so necessary, but that somebody going through that process in great detail is a good part of Buddhism. I think for our practice, since we're not... You know the Tendai school, which goes into minute analysis,

[42:08]

philosophical analysis of our experience. In a way, instead of doing so much zazen, because we do zazen, the important thing is not to worry so much about philosophical distinctions, unless they suddenly become meaningful when you look at or find what your own experience is in zazen or in your life. Sometimes these kind of distinctions are useful to wipe away all the ideas you have, so that you'll be open to your experience in zazen or in your activity, so that you'll cease being a person working in the garden or something working in the garden or only picking up a carrot or whatever. That's an infinite realm of activity. We even know...

[43:16]

I don't want to get into such detail. Anything else? Yes. Is that the same as the ego? Well, Devamsa's way is more of an antidote to ego. And to building up karma.

[44:20]

And zen is more... Don't build up any idea of existence at all. For instance, Devamsa said, instead of seeing a tree, you seeing a tree. It should be subjective. Right? See the tree from the tree. Get into the tree's roots, shoes or something. Put yourself in place of the tree. Now, this is an actual stage in practice in which you no longer see a tree, say, as an object, but you are able suddenly to feel the tree in its growing process, changing, etc. When you look at a cat, you realize, oh, if I was a cat, I would be just like that. Because the form and the content are exactly the same.

[45:26]

So, sometimes you're a cat, sometimes you're a tree. But this produces another kind of someone. This produces another kind of existence called tree or cat, but it is an antidote to the limited ego point of view. Are you following me? So, in this kind of practice, you get so you're very sensitive to what creates karma and what doesn't create karma, and you simply keep out what doesn't. That's part of our practice too, actually. But we do something else in addition, which we don't see the tree from the point of view of the tree or the perceiver. And that's some subtle step, which is a little more difficult to get. But from that point of view, you can't say anything is pure or impure, nor do we try to keep out the impure, because everything is pure. So, we don't explain all of this background,

[46:29]

which guts in to this point. We just say, don't worry about it. When it comes, it comes. When it goes, it goes. And eventually, you don't even worry about when it comes. You don't even notice when it comes or goes, because there's nothing to notice, actually, even though there's something there. So, this has to do with a contrast between when you identify with a focus of consciousness or a focus of attention, in contrast to letting go of any focus of attention or anything that you call, this is me. It's a rather different world, but, you know, it's what we mean by satori. Mindfulness. First, you approach the situation through getting rid of the past, present and future and thinking about yourself, etc. And becoming aware of what your own experience is

[47:32]

and being mindful of your experience and increasing the area of your consciousness. That's how we start. That's a lot, too. You can do that.

[47:45]

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