to say and left it in the community room. So I can't remember any of them, but they'll come. Mel promised me they would come. When you're ready for a teacher, a teacher will appear, right? The reason you say yes without hesitation is because you trust your teacher completely, right or wrong. If you don't, get another teacher. We trusted Suzuki Roshi completely. And it seemed to be just automatic. So that's the way it should be. It should just be automatic, no doubt. And the last day, yesterday we were practicing for the shuso ceremony and I'm learning my lines and one of my lines is talking about having this dharma staff and saying that

[01:27]

Although I'm like a mosquito biting an iron bull, I cannot give it away. And it's kind of funny because when a mosquito bites a human being, the human being gets malaria sometimes and suffers for a long time. When a human being is a mosquito biting an iron bull, the infection is Dharma. And it won't go away. You can't get rid of it. We all fed on the iron bull and were infected. And this is what's happened. So, I'm glad you buzzed around.

[02:34]

When I went to Sokochi, it was a place where I just came to sit. There were a lot of students that lived around, but in my case, I was a householder. I had three kids. I had a wife, of course, and a job, and I lived in Richmond, and it took the better part of an hour to get to Sakochi. But the infection was so strong that I would go there every day except Sunday.

[03:43]

I came from a Christian background and so it was strange to be going to some kind of religious related activity six days a week instead of just on Sunday. And I think the relationship was the best I could do under the circumstances. I came and sat. There wasn't a chance to interact with a lot of the people. I knew a few people. But I didn't spend a lot of time socializing because I had to go to work. That kind of brings me to one of the topics I wanted to talk about.

[04:46]

Has anybody felt any pain during this session? It's good to admit it. Has anybody not had any pain? If you've not had any pain, you've probably fallen asleep. See, I didn't know if anybody was feeling pain. There were all these Buddhas around me, you know. And I didn't talk with him after class. So there was just this feeling of that everybody felt just fine but me. And then one day we're sitting there, it was a session and some guy got up and went out the door And then we had this enormous screaming and crashing, you know.

[05:48]

And I thought, well, something must be happening to someone else too. And then every once in a while Suzuki Roshi would talk about pain, but he was somewhat inscrutable. I remember once at the end of Seshin, it was a seven-day Seshin, you know, we were really strung out. And at the end he sat up there and he kind of leaned back on the floor and he said, oh well, we've just finished five-day Seshin. Five days? That was seven! He didn't care. He was just sitting. There were a lot of things that I tried to do to deal with this pain.

[06:58]

And I think the one point I want to get across is that it helps to know that you're not alone. So everybody knows it hurts. That's good. There are other little things like don't close your eyes. Then you go into pain world. Just keep your eyes open. Keep breathing deeply and sit there. Oh, that brings me to the question of time. Oh, there's another thing I want to say. I'm somewhat rambling because I don't have my notes. But if anybody has a question, just ask.

[08:03]

Don't wait till the end because that may take us in some interesting directions. I just want to clarify that you're referring to physical, mental, emotional, spiritual pain, not just physical. I think the fellow that went out of doors and was screaming and jumping up and down had more of an emotional sort of pain, like he's probably nuts. But I'm referring to just right now, I'm referring to the pain in your legs. I'm glad you asked that question because it comes from the same thing, comes from attachment. And when pain makes you suffer, pain in your legs makes you suffer, it's because you're attached to no pain. And we get that way.

[09:04]

It's attachment, desires are attachments to a possible state, you know. It's always attachment. So I was talking about different things that I've tried. I mean, I'm not recommending anything. But I just want you to know the kinds of things that... Another thing that... works a little bit and doesn't work is knowing what time it is. But you're not allowed to have a watch in the zendo. So you're not supposed to know what time it is except for the doan. And I wasn't doan, usually in those days it was Ketagiri or Suzuki Roshi, usually. But I found that my breathing when I was centered and breathing in a regular fashion was three breaths a minute.

[10:16]

So 120 breaths and it's all over. Well, that's great, you know, right where you stand, you know. Okay. 50 more breaths and I'm out of here. But the problem is, suppose it's a hundred breaths and you're burning up in a fire. Then you've given yourself a trap. So, It's not so bad if you like, well there's 20 breaths left, I'll make it to the end, just sit through this, but then you can get into a trap. As you get older, at least as I've gotten older,

[11:19]

I don't have that good a concentration anymore, I forget. I count a little while, I forget. So I don't know what time it is. And I think it's best to not know what time it is. Just sit. Just sit. And don't worry. Relax. Another thing that that kind of goes through my mind and it applies right now is you don't want to damage yourself. I think Mel mentioned once there was some teacher who made everybody sit full lotus and they were all hobbling around. They all got broken. There were a lot of people that sat full lotus.

[12:24]

I was telling Mel yesterday, there was a guy that sat next to me one session. We sat seven days right next to each other. He didn't move. He sat full lotus. I thought, wow, that's really great. And at the end, at the end of the last period, he just sort of pulled his legs up like this and unfolded them. And I never saw him again. Mel said he used to do that. And I'm not surprised. But it wasn't Mel. I knew Mel then. So I didn't know what the standard was, but there were some pretty high expectations. But the question of hurting yourself, sometimes it's hard to tell.

[13:30]

I mean, there's this pain. But usually if you had an accident, like I had an accident a couple of months ago, I slipped on a muddy board and my right leg went out and then bent. you know, like that. So the knee got complaining. Now it doesn't like to go the other way. It went too far that way, now it doesn't want to go this way. So, and that's the leg I usually put on, the foot I usually put on here. And if I do that, then I get a different kind of pain. It's not the normal pain that you feel. It's a different kind of pain. It's a sharp pain, and it comes right away. And I just had the feeling... Well, actually, I did some experiments being a physicist, you know.

[14:34]

I said, well, if I go ahead and sit with this like this, will it get worse? Not as far as pain goes, but will I be able to walk? And I found that it wasn't a good... I was not healing. So I don't put that leg up. I put the other leg up sometimes. So you have to be careful not to damage yourself. Paul? When somebody said, Japanese style. The Japanese grew up sitting that way, sitting on floors. Just sitting, they would naturally sit in a lotus or a position like we're trying to learn. So we're trying to learn something that's foreign to us, to our bodies, especially as we didn't have that as a child.

[15:43]

And I mean, even the way that they go to the bathroom, more centered experience than we have. And so part of my experience is letting go of culture in a way, cultured habits. But I think that sack under a tree he's naturally going to sit in the lotus whereas a westerner sitting under a tree probably sits with his knees up yeah yeah yeah it's true and yeah no i was uh i was raised in chairs and stuff and it took me a long time.

[16:46]

I mean, I was very stiff and it took me a long time to get one leg up and then after a while I could sit lotus for a little while and then a little longer. But it took years to get my body to do that sort of thing, you know. sit in chairs? Yeah. Is there a difference? Well, it's a personal thing. I mean, you sit as best you can. I've always sat as best I can. You know, if I if I couldn't sit like in full lotus, I'd sit as close as I could to it. And that's what I did, is I tried to come as close to sitting that way. Because I do believe that, you know, with that solid triangular platform, it puts you in the best position so that you're upright.

[17:54]

And that's how you get your body to properly influence your mind and then it all works, you know. So, I think it's best to sit as close as you can but everyone has different limitations and so it's a whole range and the important thing is to sit, so. I think, yes. At what point would you decide, would you give yourself permission in sitting to move or to shift? I usually try to pick a position that I think I can hold the whole period, but then Sometimes I just can't, you know, and so I make adjustments, you know.

[19:09]

I think mainly it's to keep from disturbing the people around you. That's, at least in my mind, I don't want to disturb the people around me. I try to go all the way to the end, but then also... I was going to also talk about how pain is good for you, so if we get to that, I'll say something. Could you say, when you do decide to move, how do you decide? How do you know when this, okay, now I'm going to... It just seems to not... I don't seem to decide.

[20:12]

It seems to happen. I mean, at some point, my body starts to move. I usually don't decide. And I probably move more than I should. But, uh... I'm just a simple lay practitioner. So... Oh, oh, oh, yes. I was wondering if you could speak more about being a lay Yeah. Well, between lay and priest, we take the same vows, but the priests, have a lot of responsibility for maintaining the practice through the centuries and I think they're trying to do a lot of the same things but both sides suffer from attachments and

[21:57]

Actually, I think you can get attached to... you can get attached in a way to practice. And the same way you can get attached to family, see? And so it's the same. And it's just not... any way to escape suffering if you accept attachments. But then how can you not be attached to your children? So you'll suffer. But priests have families too, they suffer too. So a certain amount of suffering is just going to be there.

[23:04]

And I think in lay practice in some ways it's more complicated because you have to figure out a way to practice in the world as you make a living and as you have a family. And that's something that I think in the United States we'll be able to grapple with for quite a while. But I think that Suzuki Roshi was sending us on this path, making us something between a devotional practice and a monastic practice. You know, we're a great experiment. And so, it's up to you.

[24:15]

Ross. Thank you, Doctor. So as you were talking the other day about developing our hara in practice from down under, so to speak, and you mentioned a moment ago about your beginning of practice counting rounds of breath and getting a sense of the period ending, and now seems like you just have so much trust in the practice that you don't worry about the time. And I wonder about the relationship between how we develop our minds and then as we practice we start developing our hara and our intuition and our gut feeling and how we develop that and where the place is in our decision making to go up here and stay connected to the gut. Do you want to know Ross's question?

[25:19]

Let me repeat it. The question is, where in your practice as you evolve, tell me if I'm right, do you go from, does your head Does your center move to your hara instead of your head and then how do the two interact? Well it's like in the beginning of our life in practice our head is kind of leaning and at some point our gut is sort of leaning or kind of maintaining a ground as we work with our I think there's also something about the maturity of your practice where you just have this deep faith in the practice that everything will be okay and just stay with that rather than trying to figure out everything, either breath or whatever comes up.

[26:26]

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I don't worry about it. I remember there was a fellow named Silas Hoadley. We were talking about something like this, and he said, oh, something always happens. But you're right. I think your horror starts working on your mind and convinces your mind that it's being a little silly. And then your mind kind of steps back a little bit and just sort of watches and doesn't get as excited.

[27:32]

So then I think that is the evidence of faith. In practice, yeah. Yes, back here. Are there any parts of your life where you expected or hoped that sitting practice would affect that it didn't? Actually, it helped almost all. I mean, I can't think of a part that didn't help except that You know, I would like it to avoid, I would like, you know, like we have our service and we dedicate the service and one of the things we say is that we'd like to protect this temple from disasters of all kinds. It doesn't work perfectly.

[28:39]

Disasters happen. But I think they're lessened. So that's magic. But in everyday things, I think I can say that it's helped me in almost anything. I mean, like... Oh, recently I ran in a race, right? And I had to climb up over Mount Tam. And it was after a few weeks of the practice period. And normally, you'd be concerned and tired and this and that. But thanks to this practice, I was just running. It was fine.

[29:45]

I used to work as a physicist, and I used to have to deal with a lot of people, a lot of different people. And at least two-thirds of them were on the other side. And we would have tremendous battles. The other side? What do you mean the other side? Not on my side. Not, you know, not a different world, same world. So I remember talking, I used to go around, I used to come to Doksan and complain to Mel, and he'd say, I remember you said something, I still don't understand it. He says, something's missing.

[30:49]

He said, something's missing. Something was missing. I'm still working on that. I think it helped, though, in that I could step back a little bit and I could even apply anger as a tool. A lot of times, with these people, they don't respond unless somebody's angry and in their face. But when you get angry, really angry, anything can happen. So it was good to be able to step back a little bit and decide if some anger should be shown. So, yeah, I think the practice helped me in almost everything.

[31:51]

Doing mechanical things, doing the ability to just focus and think out a problem. without being attached to it, you know, being concerned about the result or just to see the problem. I think it's useful. Yeah. Mary. You spoke at the beginning about trusting your teacher. Yeah. And it sounded like you were talking about a kind of a blind faith. Yeah. and I wonder if you read the book Shoes Outside the Door. That's why I said... Well, because a lot of people feel, I think that they put blind faith, they put faith in Richard Baker and one of the things that people say over and over again in that book is I would never again give over completely to another person.

[32:56]

I would say give over completely but don't close your eyes. and if it may come time to get another teacher. I mean, we're watching... I'll tell you an instance, my wife's watching. Once I was down at Tassajara and I thought I lost my car keys and I knew, they told me that Mel was coming down. So I called my wife and asked her to take my extra set of car keys over and give them to him. Well, anyway, after I got, he brought them down, but actually I came back before he got there because I found my car keys.

[33:57]

But she did tell me when she got, when I got back, she says, His house is a mess just like ours. I guess he doesn't have his students working for him. So we can trust him. Go for it. Several books, like your talks. and I can't remember the names of them. It'd be nice if you left us with a bibliography or something like that. Oh, yeah. I've been reading. What was that? The Smart Mind or... Oh, yeah. The Brain. Yeah. What was it? Penrose. Penrose. That's a hard book.

[34:58]

Yeah. What was the name of the book? Oh, I don't know. I will find out. Something like searching for the non-existent science of consciousness. I think he was... We do have a number of books. I'd like to see a list there. Okay, I'll make a list. We have time. How much time do we have? We got 10 minutes. So I can tell you why pain is good for you. If I remember. I mentioned a little while back that you, whether you're a priest and have a

[36:04]

prescribed monastic life or if you're a householder and have an unprescribed household life you're still going to suffer. So the most of that suffering is not the physical pain like we feel when we're doing Sashin but it still comes from attachment and So if there's no way to avoid suffering, you might as well get used to it. So that's why pain is good for you. It helps you get used to suffering. And I know this doesn't go over very well, but that's the way it is. But it goes back to

[37:08]

time and attachments and being attached to a time that would give you different a different situation and that time is in your head and the time that you have is No time, it's just this. This time, this place. So when you have pain, the only way you can survive is to be right at that place. So it's good practice. to have some pain.

[38:13]

And I think I mentioned a couple of Saturdays ago that actually it's not unreasonable that the process that goes on as you have this physical pain modifies the connections in your brain. and makes you think differently. And if you're thinking differently, you'll think differently probably about the other types of pain. And so I think that the practice will save you. And so It's like Ross says, we should trust it. Just trust it, just do it. So, that's all I have to say about that.

[39:20]

So we can do some more questions. Andrea? Well, there's been various aspects of this practice period, and I've enjoyed it very much. It's not over yet. There's work, have been talks about Sakoji days, and talks on being time, the Dōgen, that's the being time. Walks in the Berkeley Hills, and then work practice, or shingling with you, and I was wondering if you could say something about the walks. The walks were great fun. Well, we have these bodies, you know, and they really are, you can't say they're connected to our minds, they are our minds.

[40:23]

And we think, you know, this self is something different, but it's just... it's just all the same thing. So, I think when we walk together, we... We come into harmony with each other because we're doing the same thing. It's like when we do services. And we're in the world. And it's beautiful. And we get ourselves all warm and moving. And it might not save us, but I think it makes us feel good.

[41:33]

That's why I put it in the schedule. And also because it was... I like to just walk with people and talk. The work practice is good for... I did that For a lot of the same reasons, it's very satisfying to work with people and to do things together and create something. I think it's as important as anything. We're trying to create a sangha and a Buddhism in America. And part of that is having a place to practice. So when we work together to make a place to practice, that's an important part of practice.

[42:35]

And it was a lot of fun to shingle with all the people that came. Yeah. This may be a dumb question, but what is, you said practice is going to save us. You talked about being saved. Yeah. What does that mean? Well, actually, being saved, I'll defer, but being saved is practicing. So if you practice, then you're saved. Thank you very much.

[43:21]

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