This sesshin ends our Siddhi practice period, although I hope in some way we can continue to do something like a Siddhi practice period here together, because for me it's very fruitful to be able to practice with you. We started out talking at the beginning of the Siddhi practice period about practice in the city and how to practice in the city. We talked about some specific things which maybe are necessary, like some feeling for

[01:11]

practice, or knack of practice, that each moment gives us a sense, or is a sense we have each moment of practice, and that you almost have to get by the feel of it. And we talked about the differences between merit and karma, and practicing for enlightenment or practicing out of disgust for samsara, or practicing in a bodhisattva way.

[02:15]

And I think the city offers the truest opportunity to practice in a bodhisattva way, and yet it's also the place which we mostly practice as a kind of therapy. We always talk about in Zen things like, if you can call it a thing, ultimate reality. But ultimate reality isn't something different from what you're doing all the time. So what do we mean?

[03:22]

Why do we say ultimate reality? Maybe we mean something like a reality that is not based on symbols. Anyway, it's the problems of how we talk about practice and how we practice are complicated in a situation like the city. What I've been talking about during this sesshin is an intellectual description of the world from the point of view of Zen experience. It's not a very satisfactory way to actually practice or teach Zen, and I've used the vocabulary

[04:28]

of Tendai philosophy and Huayen philosophy in order to describe this experience. But maybe this kind of approach is necessary in the city because you are so confined, we are so confined in our thinking when we practice in the city. What Zen has done is they've taken the philosophy of Buddhism and turned it into a lifestyle or a way of life, a way of training, a way of life training. So at Tassajara we don't have to worry much about the philosophy of Buddhism because the life itself is based on the philosophy of Buddhism.

[05:31]

So if you just do it down there, follow the schedule, even though it seems ridiculous, you know, we can then concentrate more on directly your feelings or even we can say Zen is maybe some aesthetic response to things. But we can't confront that in each of us unless or as long as your thinking confines you. So here in the city somehow you have to come in contact or conflict with your thinking

[06:42]

processes. So in this satsang we've spent some time talking about time. And although you can recognize that absolute time or basic time, you know, is something that includes past, present and future, isn't just a series of nows, which is generally the popular idea of ever-present now or something, and isn't divided into past, present and future. As Dogen says, you know, spring blossoms as a flower.

[07:44]

Spring isn't separate from the flower. And the flower expresses spring, or you yourself are time itself. There's no such thing, you know, as being out of time or having no time, you know, except in a very limited sense, you know. You are, you know, the thing itself. But even though we can intellectually understand that, to actually practice with that, because we have a projected self, we have a mode of existing based on a division into past, present and future.

[08:48]

And you have so many separations, you know. One of the separations we talked about too is that we identify with a focus of attention. For instance, we say, my body, we say, my body or my being, right? But we, and we identify with the thought which says my body, the thought which says my body is me. But my body is some possession of that thought which says my body. Do you understand what I mean? This is a very important point, actually. Because this focus of attention, we totally and unconsciously identify with. This focus, this thinking is, this thought is me, and what it perceives is not me. You can understand that, you know, maybe intellectually,

[09:55]

but you can't act on it, I'm quite sure. You will just completely act as if this focus is you, and you'll make decisions from that focus, you know. And you'll feel good or bad according to that focus. We've also discussed choice, and how if you take, you know, you should ask yourself in practicing, questioning everything, you know, what is it that exists here, you know, what is it that exists here? When I say time, does time exist? Does space exist? When you're in the midst of making a decision, instead of just trying to make a decision, should I do this or do that, question the very process of decision.

[10:58]

Is there such a thing as a decision? Is there such a thing as a choice? We start from zero in this practice. We don't say, well, of course there's a choice, I'll make a choice. In practice, while you're practicing Zen as your main effort, you question even if there's such a thing as choice. And if you question that carefully, you know, you'll come to the point where you will see that consciousness is an arena, you know, maybe, into which everything can... you let everything come, or everything comes anyway. And which proceeds from maybe principle or emptiness at that point into form. Now that's just an intellectual thing to say, but in the creative process which we are each moment creating ourselves, imagining ourselves,

[12:01]

the realization of yourself, now we talk again in Zen, realize yourself. I mean, then we say there's no self. I mean, it's just completely confusing unless you either are in a practice situation where it's all taken care of and you can just be bopped, you know, by yourself or by coming into conflict with your situation. Or you have to sort out, like practicing Asidiya is quite difficult because everything is based on these patterns, which if you're going to act and be with people, you have to act in those patterns and then those patterns reinforce your way, you know. So maybe what I'm trying to do now is to make you... I'm not trying to give you an explanation, I'm just trying to make you understand so much as to make you question your explanations at a very fundamental level of what's going on here. You know, nothing's going on here. Is something going on here?

[13:05]

If you remove all ideas at all of what's going on here, will everything become black suddenly? What's going to be here? If you have no perceptions of it at all, no patterns, no traditional patterns, will this room disappear if you don't have the idea of a wall, you know? So when we say, realize ourself, if we try to describe it intellectually, maybe you can say it's something like no longer being at conflict with that conscious arena, which has no identity and yet is each moment creating everything. So for your practice, you know, it doesn't help so much to have such an idea,

[14:10]

you know, but maybe it'll give you some confidence in our practice to see that things that don't make sense are actually based on a rather different from the reality. So for your practice, the important thing is your actions, your actions each moment, what you do each moment, how you do it each moment, where you're at each moment. Questions of good or bad are not really even relative, you know, like if you throw a piece of paper at the wastebasket and you miss, is it bad that you missed or good that you missed, you know?

[15:11]

Or is it maybe a suggestion that if you missed that you really should have walked over and put it in the wastebasket, you know? Anyway, questions when you see it as simply as that, as your disaction right now, questions of good or bad don't arise, it's just you threw it at the wastebasket. But there's no question for you that if you want to throw it at the wastebasket and you want to avoid getting up and walking across the room for some reason or other, if you're lazy, you know, or whatever, sometimes it's fun to do it, there's no question if you missed that you're trying to do it, you know? You don't say, well, I shouldn't try to do this because I shouldn't try to make a distinction between bad or good, you know? At that level you don't make a distinction between bad or good,

[16:14]

you just try next time to hit the wastebasket, you know? So the distinction between bad and good is rather funny when you are actually just paying attention to one event after another. So, this separation, I want to say again how important this separation that we cause by focusing on one aspect of our existence as being us. So, in that way, when we do that, we make a separation and we sometimes say our thinking is bad because it's me, you know, or some other thing which isn't thinking is good because it's

[17:15]

emptiness. But if you can drop the identification of you with some focus, so you're not saying this thinking is me and that over there is the observed, that maybe they're different but you don't identify with one as being you, then immediately you see the relationship between them all and they're just, the idea of a separation no longer exists even though they're at that moment different, you know? So, at that point, you're no longer at war with yourself. The various things that happen in you

[18:21]

are all you, you know? You don't say this one's bad and that one's good. And once you do that, again, you don't, you're immediately unable to make the separations of your situation from you, of spring from the flower, of you from your life situation. It's all a given, like your nose or something like that, you know? You don't worry about your nose too much, your arms. And when you see your whole situation as a given, you're not involved in trying to change it, this way or that way, in the same way, you know? Change is a wholly different kind of process, a kind of choiceless choice, you know? Some Zen master said, if I can remember how he put it, you know, just let yourself, just yield to everything as yourself,

[19:30]

rising and falling according to the occasion, in this way being both sage and common man. How do we yield to everything? Practically speaking, you know, again, how does this, how do we not make divisions? This will, maybe this next one you'll object to. So, first let me say, when we point out, the moon is in the water, you know? Zen says the moon's in the water, you know? We tend to make a distinction, that thing in the water is a reflection of the moon. But what Zen's pointing out is the water as well as the moon, and that's the moon.

[20:39]

Do you understand? That the moon in the water is the moon. You don't make a distinction, there's the moon and this is a reflection of the moon and that's the water. Moon and water are one. If you look at the moon, then you get involved. Is it air I'm looking at through or something? I mean, how do you separate out the real thing which is the moon? Anyway, it's all an aspect, whatever you look at is an aspect. So, the aspect in the water is the moon. We don't take away in our head, that's the water and that's the moon. So, here's what I was going to say. When you're, say, in some kind of bad mood, you know, you have some funny feeling, you know, say, and someone comes to visit you,

[21:40]

most of us try to cut a hole in that bad mood and put the person in, say, I shouldn't lay my trip on this person. He doesn't. So, you try to separate your bad mood away and act toward that person as if no bad mood exists, you know, but that causes some problem to do that. You can't actually do that. So, if you're in a bad mood, you don't separate the person from the mood, no more than you separate the moon from the water. Do you understand what I mean? It doesn't make sense, I think, but... But this requires some detachment, some existence that isn't past, present and future.

[22:46]

So that... Oh, it's too complicated to try to explain it. I know, you see, if I... I can see it, you know, and I can see you doing things and I can say, oh, he's making that kind of distinction, so I can do something that follows you up making that kind of distinction. But I don't have time to spend so much time with all of you, you know, so I'm trying to give you some way of looking at yourself in ways you wouldn't ordinarily do so, but my words are, they're just, it's like trying to throw darts at a constantly dissolving target. Nothing sticks, you know, it's terrible. So, don't pay any attention to what I'm saying, but try to

[24:07]

realize you can look at yourself without categories, you know. There's another saying, I don't know how it goes, take the food away from the farmer and the hungry cow, some statement like that. What does that mean? I know. Anyway, you have to enter into the opposites, so I don't know how to explain it anyway, but this point about the mood I'll try to talk to you about a little more. If you have a certain mood, say, whatever comes into that, accept it as that mood without trying to change your mood. It doesn't mean you have to force your mood down the other person's throat, you know,

[25:13]

just they enter and you're talking to them and you don't try to say, oh, I don't have a headache or I don't feel so good or I feel pretty good or I feel funny toward this person or I don't feel funny toward this person or whatever you feel just exists there, you know, and the person exists there. So, if you start trying to separate out your feelings or mood from the person and to act toward the person according to you, I think we all do this actually, we're always cutting our consciousness up into parts, which is when you're practicing we don't so much practice with specific things, I did this and I'd like to do it better or something, but rather

[26:22]

we observe the state of mind out of which the thing we did arose. And you don't, and you work with, and you don't try to change that state of mind, but you work with that state of mind or be with that state of mind as it becomes another state of mind without changing it. Maybe the most important factor, thing to have in Zen practice, you know, if you're going to practice thoroughly, is enormous patience and no shortcuts, no rushing. In fact, in our practice, we tend to do things the long way, you know, without looking for shortcuts. But in your Zen practice, we don't say, oh, this state of mind is such-and-such and I see

[27:26]

its bad qualities and I'll try to change it to another state of mind. More, you say, this is a state of mind I have, will it ever go away or will it stay, if you're going to think about it, you just, what if it's there, if it's going to stay the next 100 years, oh, all right. You don't think, I'm going to be enlightened and this state of mind is not it and I have to go through this process. Don't worry about it, you know, that's some idea of yourself. Just right now, you have a certain state of mind. Because the you, there's something happening, you know, of itself, time itself doesn't exist except as a constant blossoming of flowers or something. So you don't have to worry about something

[28:32]

happening. It's happening so fast, in fact, you know, that we're always trying to slow it down by making it look like it goes fast. If it's supposed to change, it'll change. So, just the substance of what you are, you know, right now, without comparison to anything else. But of course, you'll find, you make comparisons immediately. If we start with the first line of the poem, I mentioned yesterday of Tozans,

[29:36]

if you look elsewhere, you will stray from the truth. If you look elsewhere, that's what we're always doing, actually, looking elsewhere. I mean, that elsewhere is what I've been talking about. How immediately we divide. If you really can't, I mean, how thoroughly we mean in Zen practice not to look elsewhere. Just whatever you happen to experience as the nature of yourself at this moment is enough. And the next moment will yield something to do, if you can yield to it. So, even if you want to start completely from scratch, you know, like,

[30:44]

you can follow this, you know, you think, well, I can do this because I'm already practicing Zen, or I can do this because I have a job to do and it gives me something to do, so I can do the job, etc. But say you arrive in Detroit, you know, without any idea of what you're going to do and with five dollars or something. You could follow this still, completely. You could, with five dollars, you need a place to sleep, so you can rent a room, right? You could sit down in the room and then you could see what needs to be done. Well, you might clean your room. You finish that, you might clean the rest of the boarding house. You know, right? And if that's done, you might look out in the street. Oh, then you could sweep the street, you know. Pretty soon, everyone in the neighborhood would be absolutely amazed at you, you know. People would be offering you jobs.

[31:48]

Everybody would stop and talk to you, you know. So, one thing would lead to another. You'd probably be mayor of Detroit within six months. You know. We don't have to do more than this, you know. Our karma, our whole life situation is right here. So,

[32:59]

as Alan said yesterday, you know, spontaneous mind. Not objects, not perceptions or ideas about what to do spontaneously arising, but mind itself spontaneously arises. But to know this way of existing, you have to be able to give up the focus called me. Whether the focus is where it is in your eye field or whether the focus is on particular thoughts.

[34:07]

And this, I think for some of you, this practice, when we describe it in this way, seems impossible and far away and requires some great prowess or something like that. Maybe it is the most, maybe we could say it's the most fundamental adventure, the adventure on which all adventures are based or something. But it's not far away, you know. It's no farther than the other side of this thought. So,

[35:22]

if you're going to yield to whatever you find yourself to be or the situation to be in each moment, that yielding also means an acting. There isn't some life separate from acting on it, taking a breath, your heart beating. You know, picking up something. And it's in this act after act after act that Buddhist practice exists or our path exists. This is the path itself, this act after act after act. So, you're presented with possibilities all the time and you see some of them and you don't see

[36:56]

others and some possibilities give you the creeps, you know, or you just don't like that area or you're scared of something. So, if you're going to act, you know, actually act and not just do what's safe, you have to be willing to fail. So, maybe the most helpful part of our practice is failure. Without some uneasy feeling or willingness to fail or the sense of making mistakes or stumbling, you can't find your way, you can't practice Buddhism. That willingness to fail and a sense of where we're afraid is our primary guide.

[38:01]

And it's exactly what, if you act in this way, you'll find, if you try to define it, seems to be most human. And it's when other people most enter with you into your activity. So, you have to be willing to try what appears to you without regard to whether you can do it or not or whether you're going to fail. If it appears as something to do, you do it. And if you're so scared, you know, that you just simply are frozen at the idea of, well, some of

[39:09]

us are frozen at the idea of talking to certain people or looking for a job or something. Other things that you yourself only know, some intimate area for yourself that you shy from. But those very things are what you should try to do. And if you can't do it at all, you should make some motion toward it, you know, a little bit toward it. This attitude, you know, I don't know, it sounds like a cliche, you know, moves mountains or something, but actually it's amazing. If you try, just try in this way, completely try, you know, some small thing even that you're scared of, or

[40:26]

you can change everything. I mean, whole countries can be changed by such actions. And most importantly, you know, if you can't do it, you should try. You yourself change. You come into possession of yourself. So,

[41:36]

just to take some minute attention to your life, to what appears before you. So, without any idea of it succeeding or not succeeding, just this is, this moment in which I must do such and such. Without any rushing ahead in your mind, I'm going to get over this, doing this thing so I can get to that thing. Someone told me recently that the greatest, I may have told you this already, I told some of you about it,

[42:59]

that the greatest potter in Japan was such and such a person, and I began questioning him because I hadn't heard of him before. And he's not a craft potter like Hamada, but a potter who's, I was told, has worked in all the classic traditions, styles, and his works are in art. Anyway, I'd have to explain the Japanese pottery world. It's divided up into various things, sections of craft pottery and art, sculpture pottery, etc. That's too complicated to explain. Anyway, he was considered, supposedly, according to my friend Walter, who's Noguchi's

[44:04]

disciple, the greatest potter in a century or more in Japan. So I questioned more about him, and it turns out he considered himself a cook. He was a cook, you know, and he had a restaurant in Kamakura. And his restaurant became so famous for the food, he was such a good cook, that the emperor himself came to, hearing the reputation, came to Kamakura to eat at his restaurant. And all he was doing is trying to cook his meals carefully, you know. And he couldn't find dishes to put his food into that were appropriate for the food, so he built a kiln in back of his restaurant, and began making dishes just for his food. And these dishes are known, he's now known as the greatest potter in Japan, just because he went from, I'm cooking, to, I don't know how true

[45:10]

this story is, but it's a wonderful story. Must be true. I believe it anyway. Because I think life works that way, you know. If you want to cook, you cook meals the best you can. And if there aren't dishes, you make the dishes, that's all. If there are dishes, you buy them, that's all. It's like, in a similar vein, it's a little different. It's like Chester Carlson. Invented xerography, you know, xerox. And he has been the largest. He made more than 500 million dollars from xerox. And his aim was to give it all away in his lifetime. And he nearly succeeded. It's hard to give away that much money. It reproduces itself faster than you can make

[46:13]

decisions about it, you know. And he gave away all but maybe 50 million or something before he died, I think. Anyway, and he gave, he's been the main supporter in the United States of the peace movement, of Linus Pauling, of Zen, and of extrasensory perception research, and of the Hindu groups. And after he invented xerox, from seeing people taking pictures, and cameras into him, he decided to do something like that. So he studied physics in order to make an invention. He made the invention and he realized he couldn't patent it. So he went back to school and became a patent attorney. And his patents are, I'm told by some lawyers, are the best examples of airtight patents ever written. The patents he wrote in school

[47:16]

are now studied in law school as the examples of airtight patents. And then he patented his invention and made 500 million dollars and gave it away. I guess he wanted to give it away rather than Mr. Watson or whoever is head of xerox, I can't remember. Anyway, so all you have to do now, we have to do, is go back to our cushion and sit quite comfortably. And the first thing you'll notice is you're still breathing. And you can say, oh, I can start with a breath. So just start with a breath.

[48:18]

And something will happen throughout the day. And if your back slumps, you can straighten it. And if it hurts, you know, or you're afraid to straighten it because it gives you some still, just straighten it as much as you can. You think you're, most of us anyway, think there's the world and here's me and I have one vote which doesn't mean anything,

[49:21]

which isn't effective. That kind of externalization of our life or our existence in terms of politics or something is really terrible. How little, how completely we don't see what this subtle existence we live in is and how you are not isolated. The whole world extends from this place which you are. And all you have to do is take care of your practice, of your mind, the minute details of your existence in each moment

[50:23]

without trying to make something of it. You don't have to worry about Buddhist philosophy or anything, just this minute activity that unfolds all of Buddha's teaching. And it's exactly the same as Buddha himself practiced, as the patriarchs practiced, as Dogen practiced. There is no other possibility, there's no other way.

[51:30]

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