I appreciate your trying to sit on the tatami again, but I missed my gallop. If you tried next year, it would have been all right with me. I haven't talked to Ed about this, but if possible, I'd like to make the lecture in the afternoon, after work period, because I don't seem to be able to completely escape from people. And I think I can spend be interrupted less if I want to be here in the morning if the lecture comes after work period. Generally, we used to have lectures in the afternoon in the city, but we changed because usually lectures and taisho is in the morning. In the Tatsuhara, we do it in the morning.

[01:29]

to make the schedule work for the people who aren't in Sashim. We have 5.30 Zazen and lecture at the same time, Saturday, etc. I think since we have a work period here, which we don't at the Tassakhara, it works better to have a lecture after that. So if that's all right with you, we'll change. My main, my really almost only responsibility is you people who are practicing. And I don't feel so good when I can't sit with you.

[02:33]

Not because you need me to sit with you. Actually, or I need to know you better. Actually, I know you pretty well, I think. And I'm not worried about you. But I enjoy it more to sit with you. Maybe it's more pleasant for you, too, if we sit together more. Actually, I have two other responsibilities. One is... The second one is to provide a place for you to practice. And this is usually the work of teacher when they are young. And Suzuki Roshi spent most of his 30s and 40s creating places to practice, fixing temples and working with carpenters, etc.

[04:06]

And it's included, I'm actually supposed to supply you with clothes and food, your robes. So we provide, if you get ordained, we give you at least some of your robes. The Zen Center, I can't afford all of your robes. Tsukiyoshi used to feel badly about that. He gave me my robes, completely. And later I came and gave him the money. He was so embarrassed. He knew I could get it easier than he could. Anyway, while it's possible, I'm supposed to create a situation which helps practice. So, that responsibility is not so time-consuming, actually.

[05:36]

The third responsibility is, which I try to avoid a little bit, is I'm supposed to be ready to give the Dharma, or to teach, or be with anyone who wants to. One thing you're not supposed to do, you're not supposed to spend much time with your supporters. of the people who feed you. So I try not to spend much time with the people who feed us. But I'm supposed to spend time with the... anybody who wants to... receive ordination or practice. I discussed this at some length with Chino Sensei one day. I told you about it, I think. Looking for a way out. He said, you're right, you don't have any choice. You can't limit the number of people. But certainly, my main responsibility, as Suzuki Yoshii's way, as Suzuki Yoshii taught me, is to practice primarily with people who are practicing Zazen regularly.

[07:07]

to avoid getting too involved in third one. Japan, I tried to avoid practicing, getting involved with people. And here, that's one reason I don't give any outside lectures or anything. So, in some ways I try, like today, trying to shift the schedule is my trial to be able to concentrate more with you. When we teach Buddhism,

[08:44]

If we're going to teach Buddhism, you have to become quite familiar with all the ways your mind and body work. And you have to develop some way to speak about the pitfalls in practice. It's not an essential part of Buddhism, but since you have to practice and study Buddhism, and you have to develop some mutual understanding with your teacher, You too, it's almost the same, because you too have to develop some way of expressing your practice, some way of communicating with your teacher. So there's a great deal of play that goes on in Zen teaching about these

[10:14]

attempts to communicate. For example, the other day, I think most of you were here when I spoke about Sui-Gan's eyebrows. Do you remember Sui-Gan's eyebrows? As I've talked about it already, this story has many feelings, understandings, ways of understanding. But, you know, the old saw is that if you talk too much about Buddhism, your eyebrows get longer. So, Suigang says, I have talked all summer long about Buddhism, and look, and have my eyebrows grown? Now, one thing he's doing here is he's playing with the idea of a sign or a symbol, eyebrows meaning something. And he's, instead of saying, I've talked all summer and my eyebrows have grown long, he says, have they grown? And then, you know, his Dharma brothers continue the discussion.

[11:49]

The question of a sign or an entity is another very basic way to look at our practice. For example, if you see somebody who's confused or detached, And you say, you shouldn't be attached. You shouldn't be free from a possession. You should understand emptiness. If you say so, you are treating, you are posing. You're taking his idea and you're posing it with a contrasting idea. So when you do that, you're trying to influence him. by Buddhism, but it's not Buddhism when you present Buddhism as an entity, as a sign, you see. Even if the sign is the signless, it's a sign. Even if you try to straighten somebody's possessiveness out by saying, don't be possessive, it's a sign. So, in that sense, you're treating Buddhism as a possession.

[13:12]

And this is just a mode of samsaric intervention, it's not Buddhism. You may play with it, you may say it or disagree or say something but agree. You can say things, you can teach things. We can talk about Buddhism. But how to talk about it so it does not become an entity in contrast with the person's life. Or how to express more than just that is the problem of teaching Buddhism. how to express yourself without, you know, you can intellectually understand, no entity, no sign, but in practice your mind won't work that way. Your practice won't work that way. You always will be dealing with signs. And if you start practicing Zazen,

[14:41]

You may start because you have some particular experience, some deep insight in which you feel, this is the way it is, how clear it is. When I lift up my foot and put it down, there's no hesitation. So from such an experience you may practice or some vision or some deep feeling in meditation or some experience of no body. Something may encourage you to practice. So this is a sign. So you begin to practice. And as you practice, you try to check your practice by seeing if the signs increase. More vision, more feelings of clarity, more of this and more of that. And yet you have less

[16:06]

You remember, boy, the wonderful days before I started Zazen and I was a mystic. Now I'm no longer a mystic and everything is so ordinary. The thrill is gone. So you'll become discouraged, unless you have that irreversible decision I talked about yesterday. But zazen, if zazen is working, if your practice is working, you're seriously practicing, you will less and less have experiences you can identify as entities. this good experience, this sign that I'm progressing. And you will need the four transit

[17:35]

the four kinds of meditation, which will begin to give your mind and body the ability to exist without entities. But without this meditation experience, it's virtually impossible not to keep making entities. Now, irreversibility is one of the signs. The stream enters, the once-returner, the never-returner, these are signs. The prediction of your teacher, these are signs. I asked Suzuki Yoshi one day,

[18:39]

I can't remember my exact words. Visually, I remember it completely. We were driving. He was in the front seat and I was in the back seat. And I made him turn around and back to me. I was behind him. I tapped him on the shoulder or something. And I was with my friend and I asked for my friend, actually. I said, In effect, I said, can we, if we practice, can we, you know, and we felt, I felt like a completely immature, gawky American. I was quite skinny, funny looking, young person. And I felt that way. And I said, knowing how unlikely it was. I said, can we, if we practice, understand Buddhism completely, or be like you, or something like that. And he said, politely,

[20:16]

Yes, you can if you practice hard enough and are patient long enough. If any of you ask me, I'll tell you the same thing. But when he told me, I decided to trust him, to not assume he was just being polite. I decided. to trust him. And why not? I said. I had nothing to lose. So I decided to believe him. Okay, if I practice I can do it. That becomes a prediction. when your teacher decides to teach you. There's a point at which it becomes a prediction. And this confidence, this is the meaning of lineage. You can relax, you can rest assured that you can

[21:57]

achieve Buddhahood. And the non-abandonment of others means you are no longer abandon yourself because you have great faith in Buddhas and Patriarchs and the lineages. And the prediction is very close to the signs of irreversibility. And the signs of irreversibility are not the 32 marks or something, but simple things like you no longer put other people down. You don't really find it possible or very difficult to put someone else down. Or when you do something, you're quite clear. You no longer have that feeling which... Again, I told you about reading about someone in a magazine who talked about his life but then said sometimes he feels it's a great sham. And again, recently I was talking to someone who often has the feeling maybe he's just fooling others. When you no longer have that feeling,

[23:28]

a tree is not fooling anybody. Then, you know, that's a sign of irreversibility. I've often talked about the bully, you know, the bully, that you have part of you which will bully you, try to stop you from practicing, try to... will encourage you if you continue as you are, and will disturb you if you change or develop. And a more, maybe,

[24:35]

That's more related to just the continuation of yourself or the development of yourself. But the development of you as Buddha we talk about, not the bully, but Mara. And it sounds like the Christian devil. Mara will tempt you with this and that. Mara will talk you into thinking you're already Buddha. Mara will tell you, those monks have been practicing forever and they're giving up enlightenment and it's a waste of time. Or, you know, that kind of thing. But this means that you, let's take it from another point of view. Again, giving up the idea of a sign. If you have some dream, And you think, oh, this dream means such and such. This is taking something as a sign. If you view the dream as Buddha's dream, then it can't mean something. I shouldn't or should do this. You turn everything into the Dharma. So if your dream suggests that you shouldn't do this or that, you change the ending.

[26:00]

And you can change it while you're sleeping. And if you don't change it while you're sleeping, change it while you're awake. You don't let fate or the stars or any sign deter your practice. If you do, it's Mara. If you don't, it's Buddha who's dreaming. Because all Buddha's dreams are dreams of Buddhahood, we could say. this is a sign of irreversibility again. That you no longer make signs, that even the sign of irreversibility is no longer a sign. So, nirvana, to attain nirvana,

[27:31]

is a sign. And to attain nirvana, the Mahayana way of understanding this is to say nirvana would mean that dharmas exist or something exists which can be ceased. But in Buddhism, in Mahayana Buddhism, nothing exists so there's nothing to cease. So there's no, as the sutra says, there's no reality limit. So, the Bodhisattva's way of giving up nirvana is enlightenment. His giving up enlightenment is enlightenment. So how does this differ from ordinary activity? If you have some idea that ordinary people and Pratyekabuddhas and patriarchs and etc. Disciples are different. This is some sign of hindrance. So we're talking about a whole new way of thinking

[29:00]

which doesn't exclude anything and operates without discrimination. If you begin to view all your thoughts as Buddha's thoughts and you turn your thoughts toward space or non... how can I say? Maybe it's easy to say that things exist only temporarily, provisionally. that nothing is concealed. You just continually practice this in this way, just to continually make yourself ready. Without any attempt, to have some experience of some sign, and to find out how in your activity to give up making signs,

[31:17]

needing the reassurance of some sign. So the sign of irreversibility is no sign. No putting others down. no doubt, but when you I can't quite express what I mean.

[33:08]

The experience of this practice is to give up progress, to give up signs when signs appear. I'm doing pretty well. You forget about it. Such and such is such and such. You try to let go. So you less and less know exactly what you're doing, but at the same time, luckily, what you're doing becomes very clear in the sense of lifting one foot or putting one foot down, speaking only what's necessary. Or when you speak, you don't just... one sign is you don't prattle on about whatever's in your head.

[34:31]

You just speak in the mode of communicating. There's no need to speak otherwise, unless you're asked. You find it, by continually dropping signs, you find it easier and easier not to speak if it's not necessary. nor to speak if it makes people comfortable. Your intelligence, you know, as I said, questioning. Your intelligence is acute when there's questioning. And your intelligence is deep when there's patience. And your intelligence is productive when there's faith. But this is all based on this irreversible

[36:01]

That decision I talked about yesterday, which is no longer a decision, when Buddha practices you, when your dreams or life or science, everything you transmute into dharma. And the act of giving is kind of alchemical process of giving yourself over, of transmuting So giving is a kind of chemical process. Those of us who are most encumbered are most involved with science and statuses. But even those of us who are free from science almost invariably treat being free from science as a sign.

[37:25]

So we are talking about something that from most people's point of view is rather mystic. That you have gone through meditation practice and sasheen, you have begun to be able to let your mind and body exist or be signless. Anyway, these are the four trances, four sources for meditation. And you'll feel your vision change in zazen sometimes. And you'll remember experiences you've had at various times. And eventually you'll notice that these experiences are not separate from what you through zazen practice just began to feel was your ordinary life.

[39:12]

It was ordinary, but the ordinariness gets deeper and deeper, or wider. And things begin to have four or more dimensions. But this is a cooperative process. of turning yourself by patience, by patience turning yourself over to concurrent causes. So you trust concurrent causes which allow, which mature with you, your friends who mature with you. Not impatient. Anyway, this is again the meaning of the lineage. To really act in the signless is the prediction.

[40:40]

is the irreversible, the decision which isn't any longer a decision. Even if you don't try, you will try. And to practice with your body, speech, and mind is to practice the body of Buddha. By your body, speech, and mind, which you can practice with, you can find out Buddha's body. which dreams your dreams.

[42:02]

It sounds like foolishness until you, usually by meditation, have some experience of yourself, which transcends your usual way of feeling. and beginning to trust this wider experience. We call it the Buddha's body or the Buddha practicing. It cannot be simply identified with just you anymore. And as you're able to develop the simple skill of letting go of entity,

[43:16]

The body, which has no boundaries, becomes your activity. There are boundaries everywhere, between your blood cells, between your fingers. What is a boundary? Please just join us. and everything is joining us. Dharma means the apprehension of everything united, not the apprehension of a basis. And to act as surely in that united body, as your own body acts when it's not divided against itself. This is a kind of, you know, like this, and suddenly it clicks together. And usually it first happens when two people click together. No longer can you say the two people are separate. This is transmission.

[44:47]

And you will find, when you have that experience, that you know almost everything. You know what's going to happen in the future. Not because the future is presently existing somewhere and you can see it, in the sense of science fiction, but because you very clearly now know how things click together. It's quite clear that it's boom, boom, boom. So they have to warn priests, don't earn money predicting the future. After meditating a while you can get good at guessing anyway. If you really have clicked the way I'm talking about, you won't predict anything. Because your activity, everyone's activity, is a click.

[46:17]

So whatever Sui Han's eyebrows mean, it means Buddha Dharma. There's no question about that. You may wonder, Often, what is Buddha Dharma? What is perfect wisdom? You can read the sutra over and over again about perfect wisdom, one thousand times, and you still cannot define perfect wisdom. The sutra does not make it clear. But only when you have clicked with Buddha Dharma, unfortunately, can you understand

[48:25]

There's no understanding of it actually. Being Buddhadharma, being perfect wisdom is perfect wisdom. So it means progress through dropping entities. Patience, the calm patience of the lineage. taking by your complete decision and unwavering energy. Everything has a sign. Everything has a sign of your irreversibility. Your activity

[49:33]

is a Buddhist activity itself. With this kind of understanding, which isn't gotten that easily, your point is good enough. It's the most restful way to go, but rather difficult for us, without permission. So difficult without real modesty. Because otherwise it seems so important to us. Has some value or danger in relationship to what we want.

[50:30]

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