I vow to taste the truth of the Divine Presence. Good evening. I'll be back. So, can someone summarize what we discussed last time?

[01:12]

He did say, he did say compassion was the basis, but he didn't say that compassion was everything. He did say compassion is not everything at the same time. But he also made one point four times. Linda? Is that Linda? That's it. That's what I remember from last week. Uh-huh. That's it. Just... Oh. Gute's finger? Yeah. I remember that. You remember that, yeah. What did you remember about Gutei's finger? You shouldn't fake it. Hmm? You shouldn't fake it.

[02:51]

You shouldn't fake it? I read it well. I'm just being silly. Something about practice and realization not being separate. Okay. Yeah, practice and realization are not separate. It has to come from your own understanding. What was the title of the... Say it a little louder. Don't Practice with the Idea of Gain. Don't Practice with the Idea of Gain. Yeah. So, Don't Practice with the Idea of Gain was the subject. And what did he say about that? Just practice for its own sake. Practice for the sake of practice. Okay, don't practice for the sake of yourself, don't practice for the sake of others, just practice the Dharma for the sake of the Dharma, right?

[03:58]

Right, so that's what he says four times in four different places. Yeah. So what does he mean by no gaining? Practice and realization are not separate. Practice and realization are not separate. So, what would be a gaining idea? to get enlightened, to practice first. To do something today. Yeah, that's right. So, practice today for today, right? Tomorrow.

[04:59]

If we take care of today, today will take care of tomorrow. But if we're always working for the future, we miss today. So one step leads to the next step. And the goal of practice is to be where you are. But it's the hardest place to be. So in this next section, Dogen says, you should seek a true teacher to practice Zen and study the way. Then he says, a teacher of old said, if the beginning is not right, myriad practices will be useless.

[06:07]

So, forming good habits is the basis of practice. You know, my teacher, Suzuki Roshi, when I first started to practice, he was constantly adjusting my posture. He never allowed me to have poor posture, even though I may have poor posture. He would always correct my posture, over and over again. It's very interesting, you know, when I, every day I come in and I offer incense at the altar, and then I always line everything up on the altar, and people say, oh, he's really fussy. He's just, you know, anal or something like that. But I always line up everything. And I realized the other day, this is an example of Zazen practice.

[07:23]

When you practice Zazen, you practice it exactly that way. You line up body, breath, and mind. And you line up all the parts of your body in correct posture. And you do that in a very careful, intimate way. So that you're not leaning to the right. You're not leaning to the left. You're not leaning backward. You're not leaning forward. Your head is on top of your spine. It's not leaning forward. Your mudra is in good shape. All the parts of your body are participating in a very careful, carefully aligned way. and you're continually adjusting your posture. So when I come in and I look at the altar, the altar is an example of posture. And when everything is aligned carefully on the altar, it's saying something.

[08:38]

When we look at that, we feel some harmonious feeling. Did you want to say something Russ? Yes, thank you. Well, the objects of the altar are and the various other things in our life. And everyone, of course, has a different threshold about how aligned they want to be. But it's very easy to get, I think, attached to being too perfect. And I think that's what maybe some people are sort of snickering under their breath when they see you or hear you adjusting the altar, though the teaching is still there.

[09:40]

And I think it's an important thing to be reminded of as Hiroshi kept coming. It's not a matter of perfect. Perfect is not the point. to make the effort effortless, so that you're depending on balance. So when all the parts of your body are in balance and in harmony, that's not looking for perfection. It's simply looking for the right adjustment so that you can let go and you don't have to hang on to anything. You don't have to strain yourself and you have some ease. You know, when I adjust people's posture,

[10:44]

to adjust someone's head, they always resist. Not always, but, and to hold yourself that rigidly is not correct. There's no need to hold yourself so rigidly. So when you find the proper balance, there's no need to hold on to yourself. No need to compensate by being rigid. And when we're not rigid, we have some ease. And when we have some ease, we feel harmonious. And when we feel harmonious, we can let go. That's a different subject.

[11:49]

Perfection, you know, is just a translation. So I don't know what the right translation is, would be. I don't know, I don't think balance of wisdom would be a good translation. Probably something like perfection. Yeah, but that's a different context. opened it wide, very energetically, and then walked back and did service.

[13:10]

And it seemed like, it wasn't that it was so perfect, it was just like, it's a proper way. Either the door is all the way open, or it's all the way closed, but half open was not in balance. And it was a very powerful experience just to see him do this. So anyway, if the beginning is not right, myriad practices will not be right. So we should learn to do the practice correctly from the beginning. If we don't learn it from the beginning, then as we practice over a long period of time, it's very hard to correct the imbalance, or it's hard to readjust yourself. And I think this goes for almost all disciplines, not just Zazen or our practice.

[14:13]

So it's important to start on the right foot and continue that way. So then he says, how true these words are. Practice of the way depends on whether the guiding master is a true teacher or not. I just want to read my notes. So. Dogen is very adamant about having a teacher. And of course, he himself was looking for the right teacher. So he had to go all the way to China to find the right teacher. And he's always talking about his teacher.

[15:22]

But in Zen practice, because our practice doesn't depend on a sutra or some special teaching. It depends on, it's almost like an apprenticeship. I would say our Zen practice is sort of like an apprenticeship. So when an apprentice studies with a person, And Zen is transmitted from person to person. It's not transmitted from a scripture to a person. So that's why it's important to have a teacher. If you want to be a blacksmith, you find a blacksmith and you become the apprentice. Nowadays, we still have apprenticeships, but they're not called that. But our Zen practices, that's the way it's handed down.

[16:33]

So then he says the disciple is like a piece of wood, a block of wood. And the teacher is like a craftsperson. And if the wood is good, it's easier to shape it. But he says, without a skilled craftsman, its ordinary beauty, extraordinary beauty, is not revealed. So a good craftsman, you know, it's interesting, a sculptor often says, I see in the piece of wood the feature that I want to bring out, whether it's a shape or a quality. And the craftsman sees it in the wood already and then works to bring that out.

[17:41]

And so a good teacher sees the quality of a student and knows how to bring, or hopefully knows how to bring those qualities out. Not to shape a person into something, but to bring out the qualities of the person. So education, the word education doesn't mean to open your head and pour a lot of information in. The word education means to bring forth what's already there. So a good teacher is a good educator in the sense of bringing forth what's already there. If you try to make a student into something, that's not a good teacher. We don't try to make everybody the same. We all practice the same practice in order to bring out all the differences in our individuality.

[18:49]

So he says, even if the wood is bent, placed in skilled hands, its splendid merits immediately appear. In Japan, they have a tokenoma. Tokenoma, each house, I guess each house you would say, has a tokenoma, which is a little shrine place where they hang a scroll or have a statue and place flowers. And usually the tokenoma has a post, but the post is usually bent. And so if you have a post that has a bent shape, which is a log of some kind, you place the piece, the post, so that it's straight, but it doesn't look straight. You find the straightness of its curvature. You understand what I mean?

[19:58]

You find the balance of the, irregularity. And, you know, this is a kind of example of our lives because none of us are straight. None of us are straight, but each one of us is bent in some wonderful way. imperfect in some wonderful way, but within that imperfection is where we find our perfection. That's the imperfection of wisdom. So the perfect is found within the imperfect, always. A skilled craftsman finds, brings forth But the teacher doesn't really do that much. Sometimes the teacher has to work very hard with somebody, and sometimes not so hard.

[21:07]

And the student also has to work hard. So a student who works very hard to bring forth their nature usually has a very good benefit because of the hard work, because of the effort. You know, it's like, Sometimes people say, if you work really hard, you'll get enlightened at the end of your hard work. But that's not our practice. Our practice is within the hard work is where you find the realization. So the enlightenment is in every step.

[22:19]

is not at the end as a goal. We have to find the enlightenment in each step within delusion. You only find enlightenment within delusion. It's like, as one of the old Chinese said, it's like finding a pearl in a pile of shit. Isn't that right? It's like finding a pearl in a pile of shit. In order to make a pearl, there has to be some irritation. In order to make a pearl, there has to be a grain of sand, which is like a rock in your shoe that you can't get rid of. And then you get a bunion. So the difficulty that we have is what actually creates the conditions for your realization.

[23:26]

You know, we say, Master Guishan said, it's like, I say this often, like walking in a fog, You feel your clothes after a while and they're wet. You say, oh, gee, I've been walking in this fog for a long time and now my clothes are wet, huh? It's like you realize at some point that you've been doing this, that there's been some realization which you didn't realize. Some enlightenment that you didn't realize. But, oh, I see. Hmm. It's called quiet awakening. I'd call it that.

[24:35]

Quiet awakening. Usually we think of the big flash of lightning. But it's the quiet awakening. Oh yeah, I see. So he says, the disciple is like wood, like a piece of wood, and the teacher resembles a craftsperson. Even if the wood is good, without a skilled craftsperson, its ordinary beauty is not revealed. So there can be a lot of ability, but unless the student meets a good teacher who can help to bring out that quality, it doesn't necessarily manifest. Yeah. You mean like teachers who are troublesome?

[25:52]

Teachers who are clear and troublesome. I mean, I find that hard something. And how can you work with a teacher who is clear and still troublesome? Yeah, yeah. Well, it's interesting, you know. Sometimes we'll have a problem with a teacher. And we'll say, think, well, the teacher's the problem. And then the teacher may think, the student's the problem. And then the teacher may think, the student's the problem, and then realize, well, maybe it's me that's the problem. And the student may think, the teacher's the problem, but maybe it's me that's the problem. So it's sometimes easy to tell who the problem is, where the problem is, and sometimes it's not easy to tell where the problem is. But the important thing is that whatever it is that gives you the problem, it's your problem.

[27:04]

So for example, After Suzuki Roshi died and his successor became the abbot, I felt that the successor gave me a big problem. But it was my problem. It didn't matter. what that person did, or honestly did to me, but how that person's approach to me was, it's still my problem how I deal with that. So although I could easily say that I was mistreated, the reality is that it was a great advantage for me. because it threw me back on myself and I had to deal with that without losing myself.

[28:15]

So, whether it was on purpose or inadvertent, it was very good for me and I appreciate that. I totally appreciate it. I appreciate the difficulty I had, which was much, actually, when I think about it now, it was, I gained, I don't want to say gained, but I benefited by that much more than if it had been easily taken care of. So if we, and my lesson for that was if we, look at our own, deal with the problem that we have. And we can be grateful for that. That's enlightenment. Without blame. Because we're always facing something that's giving us a hard time.

[29:18]

Always. We're always facing, if we really think about our life, we're always facing something that's giving us a hard time. And then we blame the thing that's giving us a hard time. But that's just, you know, just life. When this person or this circumstance is giving us a hard time, and then we solve that problem, we just get a hard time from something else. And then we're dealing with that hard time. So life is always presenting us a problem, and we want to fix the problem, but actually to deal with the problem as the problem of how we find our own balance, how we find our own equanimity, how we find our own confidence.

[30:23]

That's the practice. You say, well, how do I practice out there in the world? Well, that's how you do it. Nothing throws you. You always find that quiet place within yourself, that still place within yourself that nothing can upset. And what it is that puts us in that position is our difficulty. And when we come to the Zendo, Zazen gives us that problem. Some people sit easily. But in Sishin, everybody hurts. But the person who has big difficulty has the big advantage. Russ.

[31:28]

Can you give some advice or encouraging words on how to deal with something that we feel kind of alone with a particular problem? When people say, you know, that's not my experience with him or her or this politician or whatever is going on. Well, there's some circumstances where sharing your problems is a good idea. There's some circumstances where not sharing your problem is a good idea. Sharing your problem helps to ease a burden, you know? And you get a shared view about something. That's good. But the actual problem you have is yours. Still, no matter what, anyway. Yeah. Scott? When is an example, when is a good idea not to share your problem? Well... But not sharing your problem means that there's something that only you can deal with.

[33:11]

When it comes down to it, there's something that only you can deal with. And you may share your problem. I have this problem, but I have to take care of it. In other words, I owe somebody a million dollars and I'm broke. And I can share that with you. But ultimately, I have to pay the, do the payment. And that's, that means that I have to find the means to do that with, and somebody give it to me, but then it doesn't solve my problem. Well, it's important to practice.

[34:28]

One reason why we practice together is because we share something. It's like when we're doing Zazen, as an example, say you're in the fourth day of Sashin, everybody's legs are hurting, And you share that. You don't even have to say anything. Just look around and there's this silent communication. And we all feel that we're all in this together. But each one of us has to deal with it separately. So he says, but by this you should know that realization is gender-wine or false, depending on whether or not the teacher is true or incompetent or false or whatever. And then he talks about Japan in the 13th century.

[35:32]

We have to remember that Dogen is in the 13th century. So he says, but in our country, Japan, 13th century, from ancient times, there have not been any true teachers. How do we know that this is so? We can guess by studying their sayings, just as we can scoop up a stream water and find out about its source. In our country from ancient times, various teachers have written books and instructed their disciples, offering their teaching to human and heavenly beings. Their words are immature, and their discourse has not yet ripened. So in other words, they're green. They have not reached yet the peak of study. So how could they have come close to this? the state of realization, or the step, or the limit of verification.

[36:35]

They only transmitted words and phrases or taught the chanting of Buddha's name. They count other people's treasure day and night, not having had a half a penny themselves. Well, Dōgen sometimes gets very critical And if you look at this from ancient times, you know, ancient times is Buddhism came into Japan around, I don't know, I'm not sure exactly when Buddhism came into Japan, but the maturity, or the, only a few hundred years before Dogen, and But I think the Tendai school, I talked about this before, and the Hasso school were the main teachings, and those teachings included some meditation practices, but it was not the same as Zazen.

[37:42]

So Dogen is talking about Bodhidharma's transmission of Zazen. as being the true teaching. And those other teachings, when Buddhism came into Japan, it was accepted by the government. And the reason why it was accepted by the government is because the priests proved that Buddhism would protect the nation. That was the main reason for the government accepting Buddhism. So the practices that people had up to Dogen's time were the practices of mainly protecting the government, studying Buddhism, doing chanting practices to protect the nation.

[38:54]

But Dogen was not so interested in that. He was interested in practice for practice sake. So that's why he criticizes the practice before his time. Main reason why he criticizes them. And because they're simply practicing for some purpose, like that. And that's one of the reasons why he talks about no gaining idea, or not doing it for some special purpose, not practicing for some special purpose like for the protection of the nation. We should practice for the protection of the nation. We need it. I think it's time to take a little break. And this break is a silent break for, as a matter of fact, we're just going to stand up and stretch and then sit down again. Okay, so then he's talking about the teachers from the past, from previous teachers in Japan up to this time.

[40:10]

Previous teachers are responsible for this. They taught people to seek enlightenment outside mind or to seek rebirth in another land. Confusion starts from this. Mistaken ideas come from this. Teaching people to seek enlightenment outside of mind is a distant goal, apart from our own experience. I don't know who does that. And then seeking rebirth in another land is like the Jodo Shinshu school of Shinran, teaching people, requesting a rebirth in the pure land in the West. So then he says, though you give good medicine,

[41:17]

If you do not teach a method of controlling its use, it will make one sicker than taking poison. So a medicine actually is a kind of poison, but if we take it in the right amount, it cures us, but if we don't use it in the right way, it kills us. That's just like Buddhism. That's what he's talking about. If you take it in the wrong way, it kills you, and if you do it in the right way, it enhances your character. In our country, since ancient times, it seems as though no one has given good medicine. There are as yet no masters who can control the poisonous effects of medicine. Because of this, it is difficult to penetrate birth and death. How can old age and death be overcome?

[42:20]

So this was a big, the main point for Dogen, actually. Can you hear me? Yeah. The problem of birth and death, he says, is that's the great matter, and how to overcome birth and death, which is Buddhist teaching, actually. He said, well, I got born and then I died. That's it. But that's not Buddha's teaching. Buddha's teaching is, there is no such thing as birth and death in an ultimate sense. Dogen says, there is no Buddha within birth and death. And then he says, there is a Buddha within birth and death. So this is a big koan that Dogen presents us with. So this is what, he said, this is what we should be dealing with, is the problem of birth and death, not fame and gain.

[43:42]

Or trying to have some position or practice for the sake of making money or something like that. We should practice for the sake of understanding the problem of birth and death, which is what everyone, is the problem of everyone. It's the universal problem. So he says, all this is the teacher's fault, not at all the fault of the disciples. The reason is that those who are teachers let people neglect the root and go out on the limbs. So the root is like the great matter. And the limbs are, you know, the incidental stuff. But the limbs are part of the root. So the limbs also in this sense I believe means study or academia or doing something for the nation, practicing for the sake of the nation.

[45:03]

So the root is getting at the great matter. So therefore, before they establish true understanding, they are absorbed only in their own thinking, and they unwittingly cause others to enter a realm of confusion. What a pity. Those who are teachers do not yet understand this confusion. How could students realize what is right and wrong? And then he says, how sad. In this small, remote nation, Japan, Buddha Dharma has not yet spread widely. True masters have not yet appeared here. If you wish to study the unsurpassed Buddha way, you have to travel a great distance to call on the masters in Song, China. And you have to reflect deeply on the vital road outside of thought. Until you have a true teacher, it's better not to study. This is very extreme. And although Dogen says this, I wouldn't hold him to it.

[46:15]

So when we read what he says here, we think, well, Dogen says, don't study if you can't find a true teacher. But it's kind of like Suzuki Roshi saying, get out, but come back. When he says, when Dogen makes an extreme statement like this, he's encouraging people to look for a teacher. He's not saying, literally, don't study if you can't find a teacher. He's saying, giving you this extreme example, and then saying, and then the meaning is, you should go find a true teacher. So it's kind of reverse encouragement. It's better not to study. Regardless of his age, and then he starts talking about the qualities of a teacher. Regardless of his or her age or experience, a true teacher is simply one who has apprehended the true teaching and attained the authentic teacher's seal of realization.

[47:25]

He does not put texts first or understanding first. That's interesting. Doesn't put texts first or understanding first. But his capacity or her capacity is outside of any framework. And his or her spirit freely penetrates the nodes in bamboo. Nodes in bamboo are like complications. Bamboo has these sections, and then they're solid inside, so you have to go through. The capacity of the teachers outside of any framework, in other words, no special way, And his or her spirit freely penetrates the nodes in bamboo. He or she is not concerned with self views and does not stagnate in emotional feelings. This practice and understanding are in mutual accord.

[48:29]

This is a true teacher. So emotional feelings, to not stagnate in emotional feelings. Everybody is very emotional. Emotion is very important for all of us. We have a feeling and then put it into motion. That's called emotion. And some people say, you know, unlike other people, I am very emotional. That's what you think. Sometimes the people who are the coolest, you know, are the most emotional. They just don't show it. Everybody's very, but some, there are people who don't let emotions come up, and that's not a good idea.

[49:38]

That's, you know, cold ashes. It's not that emotions, if emotions don't come up, then there's something missing. It's not that we, reject emotions, but we accept emotions, let them come up, but we know how to use emotions rather than being used by emotions. By use, I don't mean put them to use, but how we contain emotions. how we can contain emotions and use them in a helpful way or appropriate way. Every day, you know, I get very emotional about something.

[50:46]

And you do too. We all do. But how do we contain this? What kind of container do we have for our emotions? So he says, not stagnated emotional feelings. It's just like when we say, don't harbor ill will, right? Ill will comes up, but harboring is like this, right? we take it to our bosom and, you know, pet it and love it. So it's the same with our other emotions. We grasp the emotion. And when we grasp emotion, it makes us feel alive. So whether it's love or hate, you know, if When we have love, it makes us feel alive.

[51:50]

But if the object of our love doesn't love us, then it's easy to turn that love into hate or ill will. If we're just stagnating in a feeling of rejection, we have to do something with our emotion, otherwise we just stagnate. So we easily turn it into hate and that opens us up and makes us feel alive again. So the same energy can go one way or the other. Love turns into hate, hate turns into love, it goes back and forth. Those are extreme statements, but various forms of hate and love, they go back and forth. It's the same energy, and we use the same energy for a vehicle for all of our emotions.

[52:58]

So if we know how to temper our emotions, and use them in a helpful way. We don't have to stifle them. We can bring joy to people if we act in an unselfish way. But our emotions will kill us if we act in a selfish way. That's poisonous too, you know. Emotions can be either poisonous or beneficial. And when we act in a selfish way, emotion becomes poisonous. And yeah. I'm not really sure what my question is, but one time, when my bird Lucy died, I came to you and I said, you know, I feel like this has something to do with my housemate.

[54:12]

She didn't feel she was a tenant. And I said, I don't want to do this, but I'm feeling a real desire to blame. And we had been talking for several minutes, and you said, oh, no, no, no, don't do that. You're just sad. you're just sad. And I think that what happens with me, I think having been in this practice for a couple, three years, is I don't go to anger and defensiveness quite so easily, but then I'm left with, I don't know how I feel. It was sort of like you said, Dean, you're just sad, and here a year later, I am still amazed at, oh wow, I was just sad. And that changed everything for me. But it seems like, you know, sometimes it's not knowing what the real emotion is. Well, the positive way is to forgive. When you forgive, then you're unburdened.

[55:17]

And you can just feel sad. It's all right to feel sad. What if it's not about blame? What if it's, you know, someone's having an emotion that's fear? When it's, maybe it's not really fear, maybe it's something, they just don't know what it is, but fear is the response. Yeah. Well, we just have to be able to feel our fear. You know, what we say is, just let the fear be there. Just let, just experience the fear. as pure fear. Just see it as a pure emotion. And then you can ask, what is this? Whatever comes up, whatever emotion comes up, just experience that emotion as what it is.

[56:25]

This is like bare attention, saying it for what it is and not for what we think it is. So fear is an emotion, but blame isn't? Well, yeah. Blame is emotional. Blame is emotional. There is, this is a whole other subject, but forgiveness, and blame ties you to the blamed. Blame ties you to the blamed, and so you're not free. When you forgive, you're no longer tied to the blamed, and you're free. So forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean that now everything is all right and you can come back.

[57:38]

It simply means that I am no longer tied to, acute to this emotion about you. You're free and I'm free. It's up to you what you do next. But if I hang on to this blame, then I'm caught by it. So this is what he means by stagnating in emotion. Stagnating in emotion means we get caught by the emotions that we, you know, even emotion of love, you know, the love for somebody. that when you love somebody and connect in that way, you are connected, right?

[58:46]

Sometimes you're caught, sometimes you're not. But when you think about two people who've been living together for 20 years, and then they say, well, let's get a divorce. How difficult that is, because, you know, totally caught, right? It's like cutting you in half. So emotion, you know, the third, in the Xin Xin Ming, the third patriarch says, only when we're not caught by hate and love, do we have some freedom? It doesn't mean not to love. It says not be caught by. That's my free translation. Not be caught by, not be caught by hate, not be caught by love.

[59:49]

Anger comes up, love comes up, all kinds of emotions come up. But not to be caught by them. To have some freedom. Yup, I see it all the time. This is called going round and round. Round and round and round and round. Yup. That kind of reminds me where we started with this and that was having a good beginning point. The beginning is always now. So you start going down the wrong path. Instead of blaming yourself for going down the wrong path, you say, no, now is the beginning.

[60:55]

And so I'm correcting myself now. That's really a good point, you know. Very good point. That's, you know, beginner's mind. So you let go all the time, keep going. That's right. You continually unburden yourself. That's called renunciation, actually. Renunciation is continuously unburdening yourself from attachment to your own emotions and your own feelings and what you're caught by. So that you can appreciate what you're caught by. Actually, you know. You can appreciate your situation instead of condemning yourself for the situation. So how do we get out of self-blame, continually blaming ourselves?

[61:57]

Oh, I do it over and over again, then flagellating. How do you get out of that? and start appreciating yourself. Start appreciating your problem. Oh, I have this problem. That's my problem. I have it. Okay. When you blame yourself, you just get yourself deeper and deeper into the problem because the problem often comes from the blame. Say, you know, if you're overeating, and a lot of people do, the more you blame yourself, the more you wanna eat. It's just, you know, you just keep digging your hole deeper and deeper, instead of just accepting the fact, okay, I'll eat that. Well, maybe you don't want it.

[63:01]

If you allow yourself, without blame, then you can actually let go. And the possibility is there for you to let go. I don't say that you will let go. But the possibility there is to let go because you're seeing something objectively and not just emotionally. So you're unhitching from the emotion. and aversion, and that's, you know, always spoken of positively. But how is equanimity different from neutrality? Neutrality seems to be a little lacking in energy or connection or something. Yeah, you know, the still point is where nothing happens. This is called the unwavering pivot.

[64:08]

Confucius talks about this. Confucius talks about the unwavering pivot. And that's when everything comes to stillness. That's him, actually. And then when it leans, things go into motion because it's out of balance. So out of balance is the beginning of emotion or motion. So it's called the upright and the inclined in Buddhism and Confucian, the upright and the inclined. So when things come up, that's stillness and this is motion. So motion is always operating around the still point. So, equanimity, perfect equanimity is like a teeter-totter, like you, you know, the teeter-totter, teeters and totters on the still point, the fulcrum.

[65:14]

So, we always have to know where the fulcrum is, and then we can balance things. Equanimity, upeksa, is a Buddhist term for love. It's one of the four aspects of the Brahmaviharas. Loving, kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These are four aspects of love. And equanimity because it's dispassionate. It's love that's dispassionate, simply seeing things in a balanced way. That's where we have to be, actually. If you want to not be controlled by emotion, then we have to find that still point and that equanimity so that we can see things dispassionately.

[66:18]

Problem is that we love our passion. And the meaning of passion is suffering. That's what it is. Passion means to suffer. The passion of Christ. It doesn't mean that he's panting. It means that he's suffering. Yeah. Why should we want to eliminate suffering? We don't have to eliminate suffering. Go ahead. No problem. It's only when you don't like it that you come to that point. But people love their suffering. They do. We love our suffering. Because if we can't be happy, we wanna suffer. Because suffering brings out all of our emotions. It's really strong, you know? They're the major keys and the minor keys.

[67:20]

in music, right? The major keys are all kind of bright and up, and the minor keys are all kind of low and deep, deep suffering. So deep suffering is very joyful. We love it. We do. And wisdom comes out of suffering. So suffering is important, it's really important. And all of our wisdom comes out of our suffering. It also comes out of our joy. But in joy there's suffering, and in suffering there's joy. We want to divide the world into good and bad, right and wrong, suffering and joy. But it's not possible. That's called duality, discrimination. So enjoy your suffering and suffer your enjoyment.

[68:21]

So regardless of the person's age or experience, a true teacher is simply one who has apprehended the true teaching and attained the authentic teacher's seal of realization. That person does not put texts first or understanding first. The reason he's saying this, I think, is because he's not saying this is first and this is second, although a teacher will say, practice first and then study, usually. So it sounds a little funny for Dogen to say that, but it kind of shows his detachment from saying this is first and this is second. In other words, there's not a method. Teacher doesn't have a method, but simply responds to things as they are. If a teacher has a method, then they're missing, you easily miss what's really right in front of you. So some teachers have methods, you know.

[69:38]

And if you use the, I don't want to criticize Koan study, but if you practice Koan study, it's a kind of method, methodical working through. And that's very neat, very neat. But in our practice, Our practice is not so neat. People say, I don't get it. I can't quite touch it. It's elusive. It is elusive. When I was studying my teacher, he was really elusive, very elusive and subtle. And I think that the Suzuki Roshi students have some of that subtlety, but it gets lost in later generations. I don't know what Zen's gonna look like later on. But you know, there was no method

[70:42]

It's simply just responding to each person as they are. And then coming up with whatever is necessary to come up with. Just meeting each person where they are. And a good teacher sees into the nature of each person. because teacher responds to the fundamental nature, to the root and not the leaves. Ross. I was reflecting on your memories of doing the training there and chanting and you kind of laughed when you were helping us with the chanting that it's all going to be lost.

[71:57]

There was something about the sincerity, the preciousness of his effort there and sharing that Dharma and I could sense that you I think as you said, approaching each moment and determining what is the right, appropriate meeting between teacher and disciple. And I think that's what holds true throughout it all. And yet we still, because we are emotional, we have feelings and we're endeared by the things that are supportive and encouraging to us. Well, the main word is patience.

[73:29]

Infinite, infinite patience. Patience and equanimity. Because if you You want things to be correct. You want everybody to do things right, but things are not always correct. They're not always just right. They're not always the way you want them to be. People are not doing exactly what you want them to do. And so you cannot fall into blaming. You cannot fall into some false idea of perfection. And you have to realize that Everyone is in a different place, and it's not the form that's the important thing. It's not the place that's the important thing. It's the person, you know?

[74:32]

So, we could lose the Zen center, and I don't care, you know? But we should not lose each other, not lose the relationship, because Everybody's growing at their own pace, in their own way, and it's just a kind of guidance. It's not trying to make something happen. It's simply an unstructured guidance. So a good teacher has to be teached by example. You know? Shakyamuni Buddha ascended the platform to give a talk, sat there for a moment, and got down. A good student would have watched the way the teacher got up on the platform, the way he got down from the platform and walked away.

[75:40]

there's a Hasidic story about these students who went to see the master. And one student says, I went to see the master because he had all this wisdom to teach. And the other one says, I went to see the master because He has all these wonderful disciples, and the other one said, I went to see the master of Bhagavata, and the other person says, I just went to see him so I could watch him tie his shoes. That's exactly the way I felt about Suzuki Roshi, except he didn't have any shoes. I never saw him wear a pair of shoes. How does patience go together with practicing as if your head were on fire? How does what?

[76:43]

How does patience go together with practicing as if your head was on fire? Patience. Patience. Patience means the ability to be right where you are without any anxiety. or being right where you are with your anxiety. It's not waiting for something.

[77:36]

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