I vow to chase the truth about Thutmose's words. Good morning everybody. Good morning. According to the Buddha, the way to be happy is simple. Just let go. If you let go a little bit, you have a little bit of happiness. If you let go a lot, you have a lot of happiness.

[01:06]

And if you don't let go at all, you will have lots of misery. And the Buddha recommended this practice of letting go, not because it sounds good, or it's a high ideal, or is somehow morally superior, but because it's very practical. And not only that, basically it's the only thing that will work. Because whether we decide to let go or not, things will slide away and we won't be able to prevent it. So, it's much better to let go and cooperate with the way things are, than to try fruitlessly to resist the irresistible shape of reality.

[02:12]

But letting go is hard to do, because our human mind persistently wants to hold on. Every one of us has an enormous and very ancient habit of holding on. In fact, one way to look at who we are is, we could say, we are nothing but holding on. Holding on is literally us. And we deeply don't want to give ourselves up. And letting go feels like dying. And nobody wants to die, because if I die, it's the end of me. I don't like that. So that's why letting go is kind of hard, because letting go is dying. It's a kind of dying. Sometimes letting go may literally be what we call dying, because someday we all have

[03:32]

to let go of our life. But actually, whether letting go is what we call death, or whether it's just everyday letting go, really and truly it is a death anyway, because every moment we have to die. Every moment we do, anyway, die to this moment of our lives. Every moment, this moment is gone, and in a billion, trillion worlds it will never come again. If it's a wonderful, pleasant, transcendent, happy moment, it will go away. If it is a terrible moment of anguish, suffering, it will go away in exactly the same way.

[04:40]

Every moment dies to itself. And this is how it is, that every moment of our lives takes care of itself completely. Every moment contains within itself its own perfect resolution. So letting go is already happening. To practice letting go means that we would participate with this actual moment-by-moment dying, which is life. So, to let go is to join up with our life. I know when I put it this way, it sounds a little drastic. And I know that a lot of times we don't like to hear it described in this way.

[05:45]

But it's really true. Letting go really is a kind of dying, and that's why it's hard. But dying isn't just dying either. Dying also means freedom. Dying means release. Dying means peacefulness. Dying means laying down the big heavy burden of our life and just wandering off into the mountains for a big endless hike, just wandering around free like a cloud. Dying means that we don't hold on to anything of the six senses, whatever we see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or touch, or think. We just fully appreciate it for what it actually is.

[06:49]

We don't me-it and try to hold it fixed somehow. We just let it come and go. We allow it to be born. We allow it to die, as it really is being born and dying on each moment. And I really think that this is the kindest way to live in harmony with everything. And I also think that it's the only way that you could love. To let each thing really be what it is, and then to let it go. To let each thing be free. To try to hold ourselves, or our world, or another person in place somehow is impossible. Nothing can ever be held in place. And our lives are very pressured, very stressful, very burdensome,

[07:55]

exactly because we are trying mightily to hold in place what cannot be held in place. We are trying mightily to preserve the unpreservable and fix the unfixable. So it's tough. It's tough. It's a losing battle. Actually, everything has integrity, as it is. Everything is surrounded by immense space. Each of our thoughts, even our miseries and sufferings, certainly trees and grasses, the sun and moon and clouds, our amazing human body, everything passes and reappears, just as it is, all of it operating together in a marvelous harmony of freely passing by.

[08:59]

If only we will let it. If only we will let go and allow it to be that way for us in the course of our living. So the life of letting go is the life of freedom. It's the life of non-attachment. Non-attachment doesn't mean we are distant from things or have no warmth or no care for things. The word non-attachment, though, I like for today because it does suggest some distance, some feeling of distance or spaciousness. And I think in the case of loving, there always has to be some distance and some spaciousness or openness. In an ordinary life, there is always some quality of desire. If there weren't any desire, there couldn't be any life. Life and desire go hand in hand.

[10:07]

But how do we relate to that desire? If we hold on to our desire too strongly, it becomes confining. And if there is too much strongly held desire in our loving, then our loving, another person, becomes confining. And pretty soon, it's not love anymore. It's dependency. And sometimes dependency even turns into antipathy without our even realizing it. So real love, I would say, has some sense of distance in it, some sense of space in it, some non-attachment. And with the eye of non-attachment, we can see that the object of our love can never be possessed, can never be held in confinement.

[11:11]

So maybe this seems tragic to you, that we can never possess, we can never hold that which we love. And in a way, it's literally tragic. This is what tragedy is. But it's only tragic if you don't like it. It's only tragic if you are insisting on not accepting it. Then it's tragic. If you can accept it and embrace it, then you can see that it's really a good thing that we cannot possess or hold on to the object of our love. Because if we could hold on to the object of our love, it would only be our invention. It wouldn't be a living thing. Living things are lovable. Inventions are not really capable of being loved. Any living thing needs its own integrity, its own freedom, its own space.

[12:15]

So that's why I say there always has to be some element of non-attachment or letting go in loving. And desire itself, also if you study it closely, has this very same aspect to it. Our own desire has a kind of spaciousness, an integrity to it, if we will allow it to be that way. If we don't insist on grasping it too hard and crowding it too much. Of course, as a rule, we do crowd in our desires. We do insist on our desires. In some way. And then desire becomes painful because fundamentally our desire can never be satisfied. In Buddhism, we have the image of a realm in which beings live out their lives in unsatisfied desire. Beings called hungry ghosts, who are constantly ravenous, big fat tummies and needle-like throats,

[13:24]

never can find enough to satisfy them. In the human world, we understand this as the mind of addiction, endlessly desiring, never satisfied. Crowded, desiring mind. But if we practice letting go, and open up a big space in the middle of our lives for our desire, and for the object of our desire. In other words, allow our desire just to be itself. And allow it to just go away as it will. And allow the object of our desire to be itself. Not what we want it to be, but to be itself. And then to go away as it will. Then desire doesn't have to be suffering. And we can enjoy our desire and its object.

[14:30]

Whether we satisfy, so-called satisfy, our desire or not. As I said before, everything is already letting go. You and I are already let go. Because of this, really, although we think so, there is no need for us to satisfy our desire. It can come and it can go without being satisfied, and that's alright. Sometimes, of course, it's appropriate or it's right for us to satisfy our desire. We can do that. But even then, we don't possess anything. We just have a moment of enjoyment, which is wonderful. And then, it's the next moment. We let go. So desire can come up in our lives, and it doesn't have to be a problem.

[15:31]

It's very human, very wonderful. Let there be desire, sometimes satisfied appropriately, sometimes not. And it's like this with aversion too. Aversion is inherently unpleasant. Desire seems to be pleasant in a way, but actually, when you look at it closely, if you crowd it, it's not pleasant. Desire is quite unpleasant if you crowd it. But you would think that since aversion is anyway by itself inherently an unpleasant thing, that we would be easily, automatically able to let aversion go. You would think so. But of course, if you have studied aversion in yourself, you know that that's not so. We don't relate to our aversion in that way. We want to get rid of our aversion, desperately. We want to feel badly about it, desperately.

[16:33]

We want it to go away instantly. Somehow. Because we do not want to feel the unpleasantness of our aversion. Why doesn't it go away? Get me out of here, we think. So we don't know how to let our aversion be our aversion, and give it room, and give it space, so that it can come and go. So in this really upside-down way, we actually encourage our aversion and all our negative emotions by our unwillingness to allow it to be there and go away. By insisting that it not be there at all, we make it more. By not allowing ourselves simply to be there with our aversion and feel its inherent unpleasantness,

[17:36]

we heap unpleasantness on top of unpleasantness by trying to run away. If we could just be peaceful with our aversion, we could just let it go away. And then aversion also doesn't have to be a big problem. We don't have to defeat our humanness in order to be happy. This is what I'm saying. We don't have to defeat our humanness in order to be happy. We have to cooperate with our humanness. Defeating our humanness is not going to work. Believe me, you already know. It's not going to work. It's like a general sending squadron after squadron of suicide troops

[18:40]

on a mission, smashing up against this impregnable 10,000 foot wall over and over again, never getting anywhere. Enormous energy and effort required for this fruitless suicide mission. Better than that would be just to have a few unassuming scouts mount their ponies and slowly ride along the edge of the wall until they come to the end and then go around. That's the way to be happy and to help others to be happy. Once upon a time, the hermit of Lotus Flower Peak held up his staff and he showed it to the assembly. And he said,

[19:42]

when the ancients got here, why didn't they stay here? He held up his staff and said, when the ancients got here, why didn't they stay here? Nobody said anything. So he answered himself, because it's no help for the way. Then he said to them, so what about it? Again, no answer. So he said, with my staff across my shoulder, with my staff across my shoulder, I pay no heed to people. I go straight off into the myriad peaks. This story appears as the 25th case in the Blue Cliff Record. Today is International Women's Day.

[20:52]

Did you know that? It's International Women's Day today, so happy International Women's Day. And in the 24th case of the Blue Cliff Record, it's one of those cases, there aren't so many, but one of the cases with a woman, a Zen master in it, the one preceding this case. Her name was Iron Grindstone Lu, a very famous lady in our tradition. She was called Iron Grindstone, you can imagine, because she was tough, and she would grind down any smart aleck monks that came her way. She'd just chew them up and spit them out. So they called her the Grindstone. And in case 24, the Grindstone, just very briefly, just to give you a flavor for her, the Grindstone, she was living in a hermitage and came up to see the master of the monastery, Guishan,

[21:56]

and she sort of burst in on Guishan, and she said, there's a picnic tomorrow up on Taishan, are you going to go to that? Well, the thing is that Taishan was about a thousand miles away. So this was not your ordinary question. And Guishan, they were good friends, you know, and Guishan was her teacher and her dharma companion. So Guishan, hearing this question, immediately lay down and went to sleep. And the Grindstone, without batting an eyelash, walked out. And that was an encounter in case 24 of the Woodcliffe record. So this is Iron Grindstone Lu in celebration of International Women's Day. Anyway, she was a hermit, just like the hermit on Lotus Peak.

[22:58]

And if you think about it, a lot of these old stories are full of hermits. They're sort of like the Zen masters who live on the mountains in large monasteries. And then there's these hermits who live in small hermitages, sometimes not too far away from the mountain monastery, but far enough away so that they don't have to be bothered with all this stuff. So I think that it was pretty usual in those days in China that there would be hermits who, after many years of monastic practice, having saturated themselves and graduated, they would stay long enough in the monastery until they could say, like the poet Hanshan, I've been on cold mountains so long I can't remember the road I came by. I think when they felt that way they were ready to leave

[24:00]

and wander off like a cloud on their own into the mountains. And so the grindstone was like that. She had a little hermitage not bothering about much. And that was the same as the hermit of Lotus Flower Peak. And he lived near the peak for many, many years. And whenever anybody came around he would hold up his staff and say, when the ancients got here why didn't they stay here? And nobody seemed to be able to answer that question. And I guess one day he said, well I'll go up to the monastery and I'll tell you why. In Christian monastic tradition there's also the old tradition of the hermit. In fact, Christian monasticism began with hermits in Egypt. And gradually the Christian monastics

[25:01]

divided monasticism into two varieties. One was cenobitic monasticism which was for monks who lived together as we do at Zen Center and make communal life the focus of their practice. So that was the cenobitic monasticism. Then there was the eremitic monasticism which was for hermits who were graduates of the cenobitic life. The cenobitic life is necessary because it teaches you the basics which most of us don't really know yet. The virtues of kindness from deep down. Peacefulness from deep down. In cenobitic monasticism you learn how to meditate. You learn the skill of harmonizing and getting along with others. And you learn how to overcome your more gross defects of outer and inner conduct. And so the Christian

[26:04]

monastics thought that many years of this training was a necessary prerequisite for the eremitic life which is a life of total freedom without any rules and a life as the Christians would call it of every moment in contemplation of God or as we might say everyday freedom. Freedom of everyday suchness moment after moment. Oddly in Chinese Zen an image of the eremitic life is Hotei the fat Buddha. A jolly fat Buddha with a big satchel on his back full of presents like a kind of Chinese Santa Claus who goes into the marketplace and gives gifts. This is the image of the eremitic practice in Chinese Zen. Because unlike the Christian hermits

[27:07]

who were very strongly shunning the world not wanting to be impure in contact with an impure world the Chinese Zen hermits were not antisocial. They were in their innermost being completely outside of society because they were free of it but they weren't antisocial. In any case in both Zen and Christian monasticism the eremitic life gradually kind of disappeared. At first people said well in the old days people were ready for it but nowadays nobody is ready for it. Nobody is advanced enough to live the eremitic life. And after a while it actually began to be viewed as a selfish or a negative thing. And those of you who enjoy the writings of Thomas Merton know that Merton

[28:07]

battled with his abbot for about 20 years to be able to live an eremitic life outside of Gethsemane monastery. And finally about two or three years before he died his abbot let him have a hermitage which was very close by the monastery but independent of the monastery so he lived by himself. And then unfortunately only a few years of that he really had a good time. He really enjoyed himself in that hermitage. Of course he had plenty of visitors and this and that. He had a good time. People would bring whiskey. So he had a good time. He liked it. And in Zen a similar thing happened. There was not much at least in Japan and somewhat in Korea but in Japan not so much

[29:09]

eremitic practice. Cenobitic practice of course is very strong because you know it involves lots of people and it creates an establishment and many donations come and you have a powerful useful institution which like all good institutions wants to protect itself. And you know we don't want these hermits who are basically anarchists running around causing trouble. Anyway in the old days in China there still were hermits like this and lots of them was this guy called the hermit of Lotus Flower Peak. Now in Zen monks always have traveling staffs that they use for their time on the road. Traveling staff symbolizes

[30:12]

the life of the monk the homeless life of freedom wandering from place to place to study because in Zen, Cenobitic monasticism there was never a vow of stability as there was in Christianity and is in Christianity. So Zen monks always wandered from place to place. So the staff symbolizes is a kind of a metaphor for the freedom of the awakened life of the monk. So when the hermit holds up his staff and says when the ancients arrived here why didn't they stay here? He's saying you know we all think we're going to awaken and then somehow we'll stay in awakening and everything will be fine. This is what we're all aiming for right? Get me out of here I'm going to get into this other room I'm going to get out of the room I'm in this other room called awakening where everything is nice and the table is always set and nobody has to wash the dishes. So the hermit

[31:17]

of Lotus Flower Peak says when the ancients attained awakening why didn't they stay there? This was a good question for twenty years nobody could answer this question. So as I say one day he went up to the monastery and asked the same question nobody could answer so he said for himself he answered because it's just no help for the way. So I confess to you that I'm I wouldn't say a major but a sort of semi-major baseball fan. If I had more time I think I could be like serious more serious and committed baseball fan but I am a baseball fan and everybody who likes baseball will tell you that baseball is just like life. Baseball is like a deeper version

[32:21]

of life. So you are the batter right and in your life one pitch after another is coming. If you miss a pitch you forget about it you have to get ready for the next pitch if you're thinking about the last pitch the next one comes and you're dead. You have to do what you do on this pitch and then just be ready for the next one. If you hit a home run you got to forget about it and get ready for the next pitch. One of the interesting things about baseball is that there is a tremendous failure rate in baseball. So I was thinking about this and did a little math. Now

[33:22]

I think you could say that every time at bat there is probably an average of four to six pitches each time you come to bat. So let's say five pitches. So that means in ten times at bat fifty pitches, right? Well if you could hit successfully out of fifty pitches three then you would be a superstar in baseball and you would be able to make five or six million dollars a year. If you could hit successfully three out of fifty pitches. So in other words in baseball a failure rate of ninety percent is actually pretty good. So with a failure rate like that one doesn't think about failure. You only think about

[34:24]

this pitch. There is only one pitch that you are ever dealing with in a game of baseball and that is this pitch right now. So I tell you this as an explanation of why it is that when the awakened ones got here they don't stay here. Because you can't abide in awakening. You can't abide in the home run that you hit yesterday. You have to forget about it and just deal with the next pitch. Hitting a home run is not helpful at all whatsoever for this pitch now. In other words the hermit is telling us the only way is to let go, let go, let go moment after moment. There is nothing

[35:24]

to know, nothing to do, nothing to have. Our practice is simply to be ready to live in this moment now. So to make the point even stronger and clearer the hermit goes on and says well what's about it? What's this like? What's it like to live that way? How do you do it? What's it feel like? Again no answer from my staff across my shoulders. I pay no heed to people. I go straight off into the myriad peaks. So people here doesn't exactly mean people. It means sticking to people, having no space in our relationships with people.

[36:25]

Or it could also mean the people inside of us, all our delusions, all our confusions, all our insights, sticking to none of it, just passing by with a smile or a greeting or a kind word or a shrug of the shoulders. But anyway with some goodwill and some spaciousness and going on into the myriad peaks, thousands and thousands of peaks, step after step, each step new and fresh, each step completely unexpected. I just disappear into the myriad peaks. Suzuki Roshi had a comment.

[37:28]

I'll read you part of his commentary on this case. He was working from a different translation of the case, so some of the things might not exactly line up, but you'll get a flavor for what Suzuki Roshi, this is an unpublished little book, he commented on a number, not all of, but a number of the cases in the Blue Cliff Record. So he says, for those who understand the secret of a life of non-attachment, the question about when the ancients got here, why didn't they stay here? The question might be an interesting problem, workable, in other words, interesting, difficult, but workable. For those who do not, for one who does not understand this way of life, the question may be a very difficult one. Even if a student has a good answer for it, the answer may be

[38:31]

as difficult for him as gold dust in his eyes. Therefore, one day the hermit answered for his students because it doesn't do any good for the way. In this circumstance, what is non-attachment? And then he tells the story from the Vimalakirti Sutra of the time when all the bodhisattvas and the monks were together and all of a sudden nymphs from the sky rained down beautiful flower blossoms onto them. And the bodhisattvas, the flower blossoms fell on them and just fell onto the ground. But the good monks the flower blossoms stuck to them stuck on their robes and they tried to get them off but they couldn't get them off. They were stuck on the robes and it was very upsetting to them because you're not supposed to wear adornments on your robe.

[39:32]

Monks are supposed to be pure and unadorned and simple. So they were a little upset that the flowers that rained from the sky only stuck to them. And one of the nymphs said you know what's the matter? Why are you upset about this? And the monk said you know well it's against the rules to have flowers stuck on our robes so it's upsetting. And the heavenly maiden the nymph got angry and said to the monks whatever your liking may be a flower is a flower and it's beautiful. If you think the flower is good or bad it's only because of your discrimination your mind not because of the flower. And then

[40:33]

Suzuki Roshi comments on this. When one keeps one's mind pure on some object or movement leaving its true nature to the object itself in other words without putting your own ideas onto it giving it space then the oneness of subjective and objective occur. Here exists one sole independent activity. Flowers should be left to their own colors and their own graceful movement. The hermit should use and care for his staff yet he should neither depend on it nor ignore it. He should treat the staff the same way he treats his breath in Zazen. In our Zazen our mind must always be kept on our breathing. The breathing should not be too long too short

[41:34]

too heavy or too light. It should be natural. We say our exhale does not come out of the world and our inhale does not stay in our five skandhas. This way when we sit we truly become one with the whole world. Here the great activity takes place and the absolute independence comes true. That is why the hermit said they don't have to depend on their staffs or their staffs staying in awakening is not useful for the way. And then he quotes at the end Suedo's poem on this case. In the beautiful garden or by the flowing stream the hermit does not stay. He is already out of sight. And then Suzuki Roshi says

[42:37]

this is how we Buddhists should be. I got a wonderful letter the other day. Some of you maybe know some old timers maybe remember Nick and Louise Charles who used to be for many years were residents of Green Gulch. And they Nick especially was a worked on the farm and he became very committed to farming as a way of life. You know farms small farms are of course we all know being gobbled up by developers to build shopping centers and high rises. My parents used to live in Southern Florida and when they first

[43:39]

moved there they had their place and then orange groves you know miles of them and every time I go visit them more condominiums more malls fewer orange groves. This happens everywhere and it's kind of a shame because the life of small farm life is you know a very wholesome life. It's kind of disappearing. Anyway Nick and Louise Louise had a farm and her family it was actually a ranch a sheep ranch and so they went when they left Green Gulch they went to live on the family sheep ranch and they ran it for a number of years but then it became impossible to continue because the economics of it and all the different family members involved they had to sell it and they were very you know it was really sad. So when the ranch finally got sold they sent out a letter

[44:39]

to all their friends and the letter has a little statement on it and a beautiful picture of the sheep ranch in snow and it says the letter says with deep gratitude for our mother Evelyn Pryor who has tried against all odds to keep her farm in the family in loving memory of our grandparents Edith Nurse Stevens and Frank Warren Stevens in loving memory of our father Murray Pryor we remember with respect the effort of all the people who worked on this place and then there's a picture of the sheep and then it says underneath 1852 to 1997 they had the ranch that long. Then there's a poem by Mary Oliver called In Blackwater Woods which I'll read for you as a conclusion to my talk this morning In Blackwater Woods

[45:43]

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds and every pond no matter what its name is is nameless now every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation whose meaning none of us will ever know to live in this world you must be able to do three things to love what is mortal to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it and when the time comes

[46:45]

to let it go to let it go so I'm finished but I'll tell you one thing that you might be interested in I've been for a long time associated with our Zen hospice project over in the city and they asked me to tell you about a few things that are coming up that those of you who would like to practice the Dharma of service can participate in and there's information about this stuff in the Green Gulch office if you're interested but in April 15th begins their semi-annual training for volunteers it's a great opportunity to volunteer to work with hospice patients as you practice Dharma and are in a supportive

[47:46]

group with others doing the same thing so if you're interested in that you can find out more in the office and for those of you who know that you're not able to volunteer they're having a weekend called Facing Death Together which is April 4th and 5th coming up soon so information on both those things are in the office and it's a really great program and I would urge any of you who have the slightest interest in it to think about it so well the talk began and now it's over how do you like that? it's about how it goes so it's very nice to see all of you I'm down at Tassajara now for several months so I'm no telephone

[48:47]

no fax machine no email no nothing it's great I recommend it but it is nice to come up and visit and see everyone so please take care of yourselves and thank you for your wonderful peaceful attention this morning I bow to Tsleil-Waututh the first grade beings are never blessed I bow to Tsleil-Waututh delusions are inexhaustible I bow to Ndeng Ndeng

[49:52]

Dharma case is so timeless I bow to Ndeng Ndeng The best ways are dispensable, I vow to become it. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Karma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. The best ways are dispensable, I vow to become it. Good morning everybody.

[51:38]

Welcome to Green Gulch. And the first thing I'd like to do is ask some of you who are residents that need to leave to go to the kitchen or to set up the tea and the muffins, if you'd please excuse yourself. And if the rest of you would stay pat, I've got a few things to mention, to announce. One thing I want to mention is each Sunday, you know, we have a different member of our community, our sangha, that will speak. And the schedule of who is going to be giving Sunday talks is posted over by the office at the kiosk. And for some weeks now, it's mentioned that I think that next Sunday, Linda Ruth Cutts, Linda Cutts, would be the speaker. And many of you may know her, some of you perhaps don't, but Linda has been for several years now the tanto, or head of practice, at Green Gulch. And she's been on about a two-month-long medical leave of absence. And she's recovering very well from the operation she had, and is going to be coming back to sort of join our practice life very soon,

[52:39]

maybe even tentatively in a sort of partial way next week. But she won't be giving a lecture next week. So I wanted just to say that. She asked me to announce that she wouldn't be giving the lecture. The person named Daigon Luke, who's our sort of acting tanto, or head of practice, will speak in her stead. And Daigon gives a really good lecture. So you've got something to look forward to, actually. Even though we're not supposed to measure these things, you know what I mean? I wanted to mention that something coming up, it's about a month away. But the way time flies, you know, it's not that far away. It's our annual Buddhist birthday pageant. It's going to be April 5th, I believe. Let me see. Yes, April 5th, Buddhist birthday pageants. It's a big event here at Green Gulch. It takes up the whole morning and a good part of the afternoon. It's particularly something that children and families like to do. And on that day, we won't be having our public lunch that we usually do.

[53:41]

You need to bring your own picnic lunch. But we will be offering a cake and juice and things like that. So it's a very different sort of Sunday experience. The lecture is much shorter, and then we'll have a Buddhist birthday ceremony and then the pageant that follows. So that's coming up in about a month. So put it on your calendars, please, if you're interested. Another thing that's happening, one more sort of announcement of an upcoming event, sort of, again, in the sort of family vein. On March 28th, on Saturday, there's going to be a family day of mindfulness that will go from 10 a.m. to 3 in the afternoon. Wendy Johnson is going to lead that. Wendy Johnson is a long-time resident here at Green Gulch, and she's the person who coordinates many of our family events here and leads also the once a month on Sunday, the children's program that we have. So Wendy Johnson will be offering this five-hour-long, sort of middle-of-the-day Saturday event for families. And you can sign up for it if you're interested in the office. As usual, following the lecture, we're going to have tea.

[54:46]

And today it will be out in the area right behind the Zen Do over there. And then perhaps 15 or 20 minutes or so after tea gets underway, then Norman will return back to the Zen Do, to the meditation hall. I say Norman, maybe you know this, Norman Fisher was today's speaker. He's one of the two co-advocates of Zen Center. Anyway, Norman will come back in here and answer questions and join in the discussion. And at 12.45, as usual, there will be a lunch provided to those of you who are interested in the dining room. Right as we get up now, I'd like to ask if those of you sitting in chairs, after the first four rows, we'll leave the first four rows of chairs so people can sit in them for the discussion. But from the fifth row back, if you could help by taking your chairs out, carrying them through those double doors. And if I could see a few people who are residents here at Greenville who know how to put the chairs away in the closet that are in the back, raise their hands. Can I see some volunteers, please? Maybe they all escaped.

[55:46]

Anybody who thinks they know how to help with the chairs, thank you. There's one, and you'll figure it out, I think, pretty easily. And also, I need some people to stay behind for a few minutes, maybe two or three minutes, to help move some Zavatons around and rearrange the Zen Do. So, thank you, all of you who just raised your hand. And anybody else who didn't raise your hand but still wants to help out, please hang around. And then finally, the last thing I want to say is, don't forget to help support Ringulch's activities and our Sunday program and all the things we do, including Buddha's birthday pageants, etc., by making donations. You can send them in the mail, you can drop them off in person, you can put them in the We're Will, but don't forget to help support Ringulch. We really appreciate all of that. And to make it easier, on Sundays we have baskets at each of the exits, and you can drop something in them. We'd be grateful. Thank you. Thank you.

[57:33]

First of all, the ones in the back, you can pick up the Zavatons. Right now there's a little bit of a traffic jam going on here. You can stack them up on the floor, because it's going to be the most dangerous place to get them done. And then also, once the Zavaton is on the floor, you can pick up the Zavatons as well. The ones that are this size, you can stack them up on the floor. You can roll them up, things like that. We're beautiful. Anybody need some instructions on how to help us? Let's start by picking up the Zavatons. We leave this front row here, but we take away the back row. You can carry them out of the way. And you know what this end of it looks like. Here.

[58:55]

Good morning. You have this? Good morning. We leave this front row. How are you? Yes, okay. Yeah, okay. Okay. No.

[60:24]

So, as most of you know, we have about an hour for dialogue and whatever. Yeah. I have a question. Yes. How do I adjust myself to allowing the person that I feel is not getting ready to let go? When I want to help her to be able to let go before she dies, I can't let go of trying. I don't really know how. I know who you're talking about, I think. Well, letting go only has to do with your letting go. It has nothing to do with somebody else's letting go. Forget about it. There's nothing you can do, you know. There's nothing you can do. Only you let go yourself. That's the most powerful thing that you can do to help someone else to let go.

[61:44]

If you try to get somebody else to let go, you're just like stuck on tar baby. You know tar baby? You get stuck on tar baby and that's it. You can't get loose. This is one of the hard things, because we know what somebody else needs to do, right? And, you know, we may be entirely right. We may be entirely right. John Kabat-Zinn yesterday in the workshop told a story. He said a friend of his years ago was going to get married and came to John and told him about how he was going to get married. And John said to him, don't do it. Don't do it. He told him all the reasons why it wasn't going to work and why you shouldn't do it and all that. And, of course, the guy went ahead and did it and got married. And it didn't work. It was a miserable marriage. It lasted three years. The guy got divorced. It was a total mess. And afterward he said to John, it took me three years to figure out the hard way

[62:47]

what you apparently could see in 30 seconds. So sometimes we actually do know what somebody else needs. But that doesn't help. You know, we could tell him. We could sit him down and explain it to him, you know, as John did to his friend. Here's why this is not going to work out. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they can even agree. So I think that we just have to, and we have to be willing to love somebody anyway, love them anyway, even though they're doing it all wrong and they're messing themselves up. And they may be even, in many cases, dragging us down with them in the course of all the mess that's going on. All we can do is let go ourselves and love them anyway. I mean, if it's a situation that's so horrendously unwholesome that the only thing that we can do is walk away from it, sometimes that's what we have to do. We try our best. Maybe we do. John did say to the person, I don't think you should do it. Maybe sometimes you say, Okay, I can't go on this anymore. I'm telling you, you really need to do this, and I can't continue anymore.

[63:48]

I'm going to try to work with you on this. Sometimes that happens. But one has to have a feeling of just knowing that in the end, a person hears what they will hear and does what they will do, and there's nothing that we can do to make it happen, really. So I'm sorry. I wish I had a good, Oh, just say this, and then she'll let go, and then everything will be fine. I wish. It would be nice. A let-go pill. They're probably developing. Developing. But it will be another 30, 40 years before we know the horrendous side effects, so we better be careful. In the meantime, we're stuck with this. Yes? I think this is going to be a practical question. Quite some time ago, I came and talked to you about understanding that there was a problem with illness and death and its symptoms,

[64:50]

and then noticing there was a resistance to the symptoms, which made things worse, if it would just be the symptoms. And we talked for a while, and you said, well, then that's your personal koan. What is resistance? And I have come to the realization pretty quickly, actually, it didn't take long, that, like you said in your lecture today, all I was was resistance. It wasn't this illness, it wasn't the symptoms, it was just, all I was was resistance. And that dealing with resistance on subtler, subtler levels brings you up against the ultimate resistance, from whom you can't walk away. You're the person who's not doing anything, you can't walk away. And so my question is, besides just sitting and practicing and practicing, are there techniques to use, as if you were weight training,

[65:51]

that a weight is just too big and it breaks you, to somehow, when you're sitting with it, and it's bigger than your skill, you feel the resistance bigger and bigger, can you sort of say, is there a technique that helps you say, not right now, or I'll only take this much, because I have to ease into it? Because you can't exactly have a training partner at those moments. Yeah. You hear all that? About resistance and how to work with resistance, especially resistance that's really strong and overwhelming, seems to be overwhelming. Well, of course, no resistance is really overwhelming, because the resistance is only the resistance of our own mind, and our own mind is always exactly big enough to contain our own mind, right? So there isn't really any such thing

[66:55]

as resistance that's overwhelming, although I'm well aware of the fact that there are times when it really seems that way, it's very convincing, and one has to honor that it is that way in our experience at this time. And so, it doesn't ever do, I think, to be idealistic in our practice. Like, I should be able to overcome this resistance now. I think one always has to do the best one can and take a rest. So remember always that there's no goal and no accomplishment other than being as authentic as possible with this moment, whatever shape that takes. And sometimes the shape of this moment is a tremendous resistance and anguish that we just can't shake, no matter how much we breathe and how much we stay put and this and that, it's just there. So then, at that time, we have to just be there with that

[67:55]

and know it for what it is. This is a resistance that feels, or an anguish that feels overwhelming to me, and all I can do is breathe and grieve over it and not push myself too hard. I know that this anguish someday, in my practice, can be met. But for today, all I can do is breathe and be here and take care of myself. So we take care of ourselves. I think there's a lot to be said for the practice of simply, in those times, taking care of ourselves as if you had a baby that you loved very much and you thought, what would this baby like now that would be pleasing to her? Would she like to take a walk? Would she like to just look at the clouds? Would she like to read a poem? Would she like to take a warm bath?

[68:57]

We have to really, and then very, very with loving kindness, do those things. I really love Ed Brown, because Ed Brown somehow shows that cooking a meal, like for yourself, getting everything, beautiful fresh things and putting them out and then cutting them and putting them together in this wonderful way and then making the table nice, something like that is a wonderful gift for yourself. Sometimes in your moment of deepest anguish, doing something like that is a way of stepping back a little bit and saying, well, you know, that's what I have to do now. Those kind of things. Picking a flower, you know, putting it on your table. So, sometimes that's a very skillful way to practice with our deepest hurts. And then there's dark days where nothing works and we're just a wreck. That happens too. And we have to be willing to be that way if that's what it is. So, I think the more we practice,

[70:01]

I really feel, this is my faith, that the more we practice, the more we know that things come and go. There's good things and bad things. There's no escape from difficulty. So, we expect, you know, difficulty will come. That's going to happen. You know, Buddha talked about sickness, old age, and death. There's going to be, in every life, sickness, old age, and death in some form or another. And we're going to have to, our practice has to be big enough to contain that. So, with that kind of determination and faith in our practice, we really can have the courage to face anything. Even, you know, the difficulty of our own mind that won't let us rest. We can face it. And I think that, you know, some sense of faith in, I mean, I hate to be so religious about it, but, you know,

[71:02]

faith in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, you know, helps, right? You have faith in that. You have faith in the Sangha for support, whether it's people who are right there or people that you hold in your heart. You have faith in the teaching and, you know, that this does help. And that alone, you know, gives you tremendous strength and the ability to see something through. It's when you feel totally lost and totally alone and that there is no way, you know, that's when, that's the worst. And I think the more you practice, the more one's faith in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha understood in the widest possible way, the more that that faith takes hold in us. And even when things are really rotten and really tough, that faith can still be there, you know, even if we can't access the teachings at that moment. We know that they're there and that does help, so. But I know that there's tight corners, you know, in life for all of us and sometimes, and they do pass, of course. So, anyway, I hope that helps a little bit.

[72:05]

Carolina, did you have something? Yes. And then Xavi, yeah. People remind me of something. I do art with a group of people and one of the things we always laugh about is that you're always the last to know. Yeah. Everybody else knows and you don't. Yeah, yeah. You know, oh, you finally took that. Yeah. I know, I know, yeah. Again, to refer to what John was saying yesterday, he said that, right, that you can see somebody else driving off a cliff, but then you get in the car and you drive off the cliff in your own life the next minute, you know, even though you might easily see that they are driving off a cliff, yeah. You're the last to know, that's probably true. Norman, I'm involved in a situation that a client of mine is not respecting an agreement and it's been delayed now for eight months and they're being very powerful, the big corporation, and I'm about to go to court on this.

[73:07]

I know that they have done things like that to two other consultants and they dropped it and I feel about thinking about letting go of all this and just let them do their thing and, you know, just never do business with them again and completely let go. But there is this other part in me that tells me, well, you know, there's money involved in you, like three months worth of spending for me or income, let's say, and also that these guys are going to do it to somebody else. So I'm sort of thinking of going to court, but somebody is telling me in the back of my mind that a disciple of Buddha doesn't go to court. Did you hear that? The Eleventh Bodhisattva Precept. A disciple of Buddha doesn't go to court. Correct. Well, I never heard that precept myself.

[74:15]

And I think that letting go certainly, you know, letting go is a complicated issue. In life, you know, we get into the things that are not so simple, right? Not so black and white. Sometimes letting go does involve, you know, standing up and trying to right a wrong. You know, sometimes it does. But, believe me, it'll eat you up alive unless you do it in the spirit of letting go. So you can go to court. You can, you know, what I'm saying is sometimes one has to go to court, okay? I don't know about this, but sometimes one has to go to court. But if you do have to go to court, you better go to court in the spirit of letting go, because otherwise I hear so many horrible stories of people going to court and eating their hearts out and, you know, just being miserable for years. These things drag on and on and on. So you have to do it with the spirit of, okay, you know, we're going to go to court here and we're going to like, this is the whole thing, you know, always, right? Sometimes you have to say, okay, we're going to like do something here.

[75:20]

It's necessary for us at this time to do something that's very hard that might take the rest of our lives to see this through. So we better do it with a good spirit of we don't care what happens. We're just going to put effort in. Effort, effort, effort, effort. Just like in Sashin, you know, if you sit in meditation and you think, okay, I'm going to get enlightened now. You know, it's hopeless. You go crazy, you know. Or if you think, okay, that was the third period of Zazen in this Sashin. There's 72 periods of Zazen in this Sashin. I only have 69 to go. And you check them off, you'll be one miserable guy. The only way to do Sashin is like this period of Zazen, best effort, 100%. Bell rings, forget about it, get up. Next period of Zazen. This period of Zazen, 100%. Well, you have to go to court that way, too. Use my best intelligence, do the best I can, you know. Follow the precepts, not be mean-spirited and so on and so forth. But this is wrong

[76:21]

and I'm going to do my best to, you know, right the wrong. And win or lose, I don't know. And then you have to think about what it costs you, too. I mean, sometimes you don't go to court because you say, well, if I go to court it's going to, instead of costing me six months of, three months of salary, it's going to cost me 33 months of salary and anguish and so on. And then you just, and then you notice inside how you want to go to court because you want to get that rotten guy who did that to you. So then you notice that, say, wow, you know, how far can I get on that motivation? That's what happens, that's why going to court is such a bad deal for everybody. When they go to court with that spirit, then everybody's miserable, suffering, you know, because everybody's, whatever the issue was, you forgot about it a long time ago. It's all about the escalating fight that develops over all the rotten, underhanded things that we have done to each other. Pretty soon, you don't even care, you know, about the original issue. All you want to do is, like, get your satisfaction.

[77:22]

Well, that's a losing. Don't do it that way. Do it because it's right to do it. It's right to do it, you know, so that you can get your money back and so that you can show this big corporation that they can't get away with this and so forth. But do it in the spirit of letting go. You might spend three years in court and lose, you know, and if you don't do that in the spirit of letting go, if you lose, like, you're totally going to be miserable. This way, okay, I spent three years on this, I lost, fine. But I did it. Good, I feel good. I did it. You know, I did it, I put all my energy into it, I lost, fine. Let's go on to the next battle, you know. You have to do it. You have to have that spirit, you know. And like I say, I have no idea what's right in this case, you know. Yeah, but you have to have that spirit. Sometimes that's like activism, right? You know, activism in the spirit of the Dharma has to be that way. Activism, you have to look at it in the long run, you know, not in the short run. So that's the spirit. Yes? Yes. I don't know if I understood this properly,

[78:27]

and if I did, then I don't understand it. Well, it's possible I didn't understand it either. Go ahead. When the ancients got here, why didn't they stay? Because it's no help for the way. Yeah. I understood you saying that when they got here, that means to enlighten. Yeah. They had to let it go. They had to let it go. Yeah. It's no help for the way. I thought it was. I was supposed to be there thinking about it. No, no. No, enlightenment is the biggest disadvantage of all on the path. Really. If you have enlightenment and you hold on to it, then you're stupid, you know? Yeah, then you don't have it. Yeah. So that's the nature. In other words, there is no enlightenment. We all think, you know, like I was saying in my talk, we all would like to walk out of this room where there's such a big mess and walk into this other room called enlightenment where everything is nice and the table is set and somebody else washes the dishes and we're fine. That's how we think of it.

[79:29]

No matter how much we know that that's stupid, we really think of it that way. We would like to get out of this condition and into another condition that somehow is permanently pleasant. This one is a mixed blessing. But the whole point of that story is that enlightenment is not another room that we go into. Forget about enlightenment. Just think about letting go on every moment. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to just face each moment and let go. Sometimes it's wonderful and sometimes it's terrible. Sometimes we're really sick or something. Sometimes somebody screws us out of three months' salary. It's not that those things don't happen to enlightened people. They do. Buddha had problems like that too. He got upset about it sometimes. There was a famous time when there were some different groups of monks fighting with one another.

[80:30]

So the Buddha went to them and he said, What's the matter with you? And they didn't pay any attention to him. The Buddha, the enlightened Buddha. They didn't pay any attention to him. So he said, Well, the heck with you guys. And he went away. He left the sangha. He went and made friends with a big elephant and hung around with this elephant because at least the elephant didn't give him trouble. And it was a funny story because the elephant also was the head of a community of elephants and the same thing happened to the elephant. So basically Buddha and this elephant hung around together by this tree stump, kind of walking around the tree stump until they cooled out enough to go back. So anyway, this is the point. Forget about enlightenment. Forget about it. Just think about letting go in this moment and then letting go in the next moment.

[81:31]

Just being alive. Just accepting the challenge of being alive every moment the best that one can with what arises in this moment. It's absolutely guaranteed that whatever our spiritual condition is, that we will meet moments that are enormously difficult in our lives. This is guaranteed. Same with Buddha. I mean, Buddha, at the end of his life, he was sick. I mean, terrible. He had diarrhea, bloody diarrhea, and awful. He said to his disciples, My body is like an old cart that's strapped together with straps and all kinds of jury rig to make it go. He said, That's the only way I'm surviving. He said, This is a very unpleasant situation to be in my body at this time. He was in his 80s and spent a whole life living outdoors, wandering around. He was like really sick and tired. So if this happens to Buddha,

[82:32]

we know that it also happens to us. So that's guaranteed. And we have to have a life and a way of practice that allows for that. And as the Buddha found, he could have some peacefulness, even though there was that suffering. Meeting the moment of suffering with clarity and without running away, he could find peace. So there was trouble in the body and so forth, but the Buddha could feel, All right, that's normal. I knew it would happen, so I can face it. I can even find some pleasure in it, some depth in my suffering. So this story is really telling us, forget about idealistic notions of enlightenment. Just think about letting go and being present, and that's a craft that we start working on now, and we never stop. That's our practice, I think.

[83:32]

Do you understand? Yeah. Yeah. I guess what I don't understand is that so many stories between various monks seem based on their having a common experience of reality that's deeper than what I've had. I can't understand what you're saying a lot of the times. I know some of it's probably cultural, but what is it? And a deeper understanding of reality seems like a really desirable thing. Yes. Yes, well that's again, the story is saying, and there are, we can, in our practice, understand reality deeper. But the story is saying, what about when the monk understands reality deeper? And the answer is, let it go. See? Because if you understand reality deeper, and you say, I understood reality deeper yesterday, how come I'm not in a good mood today?

[84:35]

I should be in a good mood, I'm enlightened, how come? Then you're really suffering. So if you had, that's what I was saying, when you hit the home run, that's great, you get more money if you hit a home run, frequently. So it's wonderful to hit the home run, but for this pitch now, the home run doesn't do you any good. That's the point. So not to say, yes, we do have deep experiences in our practice, and we do understand reality in deeper ways, and things happen, and it's wonderful. And there are these moments of tremendous realization, and that's great. But in the end, we let go of everything, including that. That's the burden of this story. So that's why, in our way of practice, you can emphasize the wonderful realizations, right? Or you could emphasize letting go of those realizations and just facing this moment. When it comes to just facing this moment, there really isn't any difference. Regardless of how many deep experiences we have had or not, there's no difference

[85:37]

between any one of us here and Buddha, right? Because we're all just facing this moment. So that's the part we emphasize in our way of practice. You could also emphasize the realization experiences, but the problem with that is that you might then think about holding on to them. So this story is emphasizing, yes, these experiences are wonderful, but you have to let go of them because they're no help for now. That's the burden of the story. Yes? So you say that with enlightenment, every moment you have to hit another home run. So if you're a Zen master, you wouldn't have stirred in a bull's-eye every time you threw a dart at them. But what would be there? Wouldn't it be an ever-growing compassion? What would be the result of that understanding? Yes, and also I would say, to use that metaphor,

[86:37]

if you really were practicing with skill, or whatever you call it, forgetting about skill, when you struck out, it would be a home run. Always a home run. Sometimes the home run goes over the fence, and other times you strike out and it's a home run. See? I'm recalling the story of the dove landing upon one's hand, that enlightenment falls upon us. And if we try to hold the dove, then of course that changes the experience. Right, you can't hold it. So what's the relationship between enlightenment falling upon us like that, and doing preparation for that happening? Well, in practice it's necessary to make effort,

[87:43]

a joyful effort, but effort without desire. In other words, effort without expectation of result. Which is always its own reward, right? If you arouse yourself, and give yourself fully to what you're doing, regardless of how it turns out, it's really a wonderful moment. So, we don't aim for or expect enlightenment, or aim for or expect some important experience. Sometimes we have important experiences, and they come. There are people who have very important experiences without doing any practice, formal practice. And there are people who do formal practice and have very few such experiences, and other people who have many experiences like that. And it's all just karma. It's all as it should be. But always, no matter what it is for us, there's always how do we meet this moment. So, sometimes in Zen study,

[88:45]

in some ways of looking at Zen study, they talk about enlightenment, and then they talk about character development that has to go hand in hand. Realization and development of character. And one without the other is like a chair with a missing leg. It falls down. You can have very powerful realization experiences, but if you don't integrate them into your life, it's pretty meaningless. And on the other hand, you can be a very together Zen student and have everything be very nice, and do everything very nicely, and everybody likes you and so on, but you really don't know your life, and so there's still suffering there and still trouble there. So you have to have both. You have to work on both sides. And again, the story that I told this morning emphasizes how realization experiences have to be let go of all the time. And all the ways of Zen always say this, regardless of what the style is, there's always this point being made.

[89:46]

It's just a question of emphasis. Yes. You talked today about desire. Yes. Sometimes in the moment you let the desire pass, and other times you said it's appropriate to act on the desire. Practically speaking, when is it appropriate to act on the desire? Well, it's very much according to circumstances. And one learns by trial and error, I suppose. Make some big mistakes, and then you'll find out what not to do. And in our practice we have precepts that we study and try to work with, and the precepts give us a kind of a guideline, although even the precepts, the more we look at them, the more we see that, well, the precepts don't really tell us what to do now or now or now or now. And we grow in our ability to discern what it is.

[90:48]

Because if we are attuned to our own life and the whole universe which flows through our life, if we're carefully attuned to that, we feel pretty clearly, uh-uh, that's not to do. Not to do that now. Causes suffering, causes pain. I don't even want to do it, because I see a mile away, you know, the consequences. Before we're attuned in that way, we might think, hey, this is pretty good, you know, wow. And then trouble ensues, and we don't know how that happened, and we learn little by little. So in a way you could say practice is a whole process of attuning ourselves to our own life and the whole life of the world that we are completely a part of our lives, and our lives are a part of it. And then doing that, it's easy to flow with desire in an appropriate way. There's a famous koan where somebody says to the master,

[91:49]

what is the entire lifetime teachings of Buddha? And the master says, an appropriate response. Just knowing, you know, how to respond appropriately now to what our life is. That's the whole teaching of all the ins and outs and angles of all of Buddhism really comes down to that. And that's what we learn, you know, from a lifetime of practice. So I don't know, you know, what's appropriate. You have to see and find out. And we make mistakes. Definitely one of the things about the precepts is that we violate them. We will make mistakes, and then we have to really honor that we made a mistake, know that we made a mistake, feel some remorse for it, and go on. That's how we learn. I don't gain...

[93:05]

That's not my experience. That's their perception. So my experience, whether it resolves unsatisfactorily in a marriage or a relationship or some other particular part of a path, that's my trial. And what becomes part of my practice is that I have to move through, regardless of what somebody else might be receiving. Even if they knew what I'd come through later ahead, that's their experience. It doesn't really help, yeah. That's right. So we have to go through our suffering sometimes, you know. Sometimes, especially, you know, like with someone you love, a child or a spouse, you see them suffering, and you can't bear it, you know. Sometimes, you know, they have to suffer. They have to go through that. That's how they're going to get to the next place where they have to get to in their lives. And even though you know, if they would only do this, they wouldn't have to suffer, you could tell them that, and it won't help, or maybe you don't tell them, I don't know. But sometimes they just have to suffer. And that's true.

[94:06]

You know, from the standpoint of Buddhadharma, suffering is not a bad thing. I mean, we don't look for suffering, definitely. Our effort is to try to be happy. But we know that suffering will come, and suffering can always be instructive, and it can always be transformative. So we don't feel suffering as something completely negative to be avoided. And that's right. People have to go through what they have to go through. For me, it's been being as engaged, as engaged as I can be. As engaged as I can be.

[94:57]

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