I am bound to teach the truth of the gospel to others. Okay. so

[01:18]

Yeah. The most difficult thing that we have in our practice is the ability to understand

[04:02]

what our practice is about. It's very hard to understand. I mean, it's very easy, but we have a lot of difficulty. And where we have difficulty is in understanding that Everything that comes up in our life is our focus of practice. Even though we say so, we forget and we don't quite believe it. We still see our activity daily activity as something separate from our practice.

[05:07]

We still see the problems of our life and the things that our engagement in life as different than our practice. I want to explain a little bit about why we bow. In our study period, we're studying our service, the various aspects of our service. So I'll talk a little bit about why we bow and what our attitude is toward bowing. I've talked about it before, and I think that what I say will probably not be different from what I've said before.

[06:28]

As you know, in Buddhism, there's no... Buddhism doesn't recognize some god as running the universe. So when we bow, we don't bow to some god that's running the universe. Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, historically was a person. But Shakyamuni Buddha doesn't run the universe. Never did. from the universe. But at some point in Buddhism, early Buddhism, people needed to feel some kind of bigger feeling than Shakyamuni Buddha as a person, that there's something behind Buddha and that Buddha is a manifestation

[07:43]

Shakyamuni Buddha as a person, or what we call a nirmanakaya Buddha, a personification of some nature or some universal feeling. So they started to talk about Buddha as in three different ways, as Nirmanakaya Buddha, which was a manifestation of Buddha as a person, and Sambhogakaya Buddha, which is the manifestation of a bigger Buddha nature, the active side of what we call dharmakaya buddha. Dharmakaya is like the great potential of everything, great potential power which is manifested in various ways.

[09:03]

And the active side of the dharmakaya is called sambhogakaya. And in order to express or explain or think about the universal power, the Buddhists expressed it as Dharmakaya, unlimited, inexpressible life of the universe. without any special form or color. And sambhogakaya is like the spirit of that dharmakaya, which is manifest in the world. Dharmakaya spirit. And it manifests in someone as a person.

[10:04]

So each one of us is nirmanakaya Buddha. In the old meal sutra cards we used to say, instead of saying the Nirmanakaya Buddha, we used to say, well it says Nirmanakaya Shakyamuni Buddha. We used to say the innumerable Nirmanakaya Shakyamuni Buddhas, which is everyone, all of us, Buddhas. But we also think of ourselves as sambhogakaya and dharmakaya. All three is manifest in each person. But dharmakaya is kind of inconceivable. Inconceivable nature.

[11:08]

So we feel that our true nature is this dharmakaya, but dharmakaya is the nature of everything, true nature of everything, that's manifest and unmanifest. So since everything is a manifestation of dharmakaya. We all belong to the same society. We all belong to the same, everything has the same nature, essential nature, and we call it Buddha nature. In people we call it Buddha nature, in dogs we call it Buddha nature. So, rather than thinking of some deity, we bow to our nature.

[12:21]

When we bow, we bow to our nature. So, if you say, to who do we bow? When we bow, we say we bow to ourself. We bow to ourself when we bow. Who are we bowing to? We're bowing to ourself. But if you say, well, who is your self? That's a big question. What self is it you're bowing to? Big question. Not our ego self, but our big self. So when we bow, we touch, formal bowing is to touch your elbow, both elbows, both the backs of both hands, and your knees, and your forehead. So all one, two, three, four, five, six, seven places.

[13:28]

Everything's down on the floor. And then our behind goes down too. Don't leave your behind up when you bow. Some people bow like this with their behind sticking up in the air. But Suzuki Roshi used to call that ego. So as much as we wanted to get everything into the act, put all of ourselves into the act, nothing left out. And all of our activity should have that kind of expression to it. So, bowing is the same as zazen. In zazen, we should be completely there. Nothing left out.

[14:31]

And in bowing, the same. So, bowing is an expression of our practice. If you understand bowing, you understand our practice. So we don't do it for any purpose. There's no purpose in it other than to be what we are. So the main point of practice is to do something just to express what we are, to express our big nature. In the rules for the Tenzo, Tenzo Kyokun by Dogen Zenji. He talks about three kinds of mind. Big mind or magnanimous mind, joyful mind, and and parental mind, mind of a parent.

[15:59]

And in order to be effective, in order to be effective as the tenzo or the cook in a monastery, you need to develop these three minds, three kinds of mind. When he talks about the tenzo in a monastery, He's also talking about whatever you do, whatever kind of activity you do, you should have these three kinds of mind. But he's talking specifically about the tenzo or the cook, chief cook in the monastery. And cooking is also a metaphor, you know, for our practice. How do you cook? How do you cook something? How do you Cook something for yourself and for others. And our practice is very often described as cooking.

[17:04]

When we sit in zazen, we're cooking. It's like sitting on a stove or being in the oven. Suzuki Roshi used to describe our practice as, he'd say sometimes, when we're sitting in zazen, Say, you're just like loaves of bread in the oven, or like vegetables in the pot, in the stove. Cooking, or working, refining. So big mind or magnanimous mind is the underlying basis of practice, and big mind or magnanimous mind is the mind that is not self-centered or selfish, or it's the non-acquisitive mind.

[18:21]

mind which does not do something for some reason outside of the doing. And it's the mind which is imperturbable, and it's the mind which we develop through cooking and zazen, which is not concerned with gain and loss. but it's not concerned with having and not having. And it's not, isn't swayed by feelings or emotions. And it's never, it always regains its balance when tossed about. And a joyful mind is like the mind which, because it has that quality, a big mind, is always joyful.

[19:34]

It doesn't need to have toys in order to be happy. And as a matter of fact, the less it has, the happier it is. happier it becomes. And also, because that mind, mind of, because it's a natural product of the mind of, magnanimous mind or big mind, It sees things very clearly, as they are, and because of its stability, joy naturally arises.

[20:38]

So that kind of joy is not the usual kind of joy that we get from certain kinds of accomplishment, but through accomplishing, through the accomplishment of big mind, the joy naturally arises. And the third mind is parental mind, which is the mind which allows you to take care of everything, because there's nothing to do. You naturally turn to taking care of everything around you, taking care of the people around you, and taking care of yourself, and treating each person as your child. It's the mind which takes responsibility.

[21:53]

And because through taking responsibility, you think less and less about yourself. Your joyful mind arises spontaneously. Because you're less and less obsessed with your own Self-gratification. So joyful mind is kind of in the middle between these two big minds. And it's a kind of product of parental mind and big mind. So even though, if you're a monk, you really don't have anything to do.

[23:09]

When you become a monk, there's absolutely nothing to do for yourself in the usual way. In the usual way, people have an occupation. You change your occupation. The usual way is to do something in the world and have some ambition and gain some result from your ambition. But when you become a monk, you stop, you cut off the roots of ambition and you don't have anything to do in that realm. If you do something in that realm, It's not quite right. But you do have something to do, but it's not in the usual realm of worldly ambition.

[24:16]

Your task, the task of a monk, is to cultivate these three minds and to live through vows rather than through just karmic retribution. Last time, the time before, we talked about karmic consequences of our actions. If we do something, that's karma. whatever we do has a result depending on what we do. If we do something good, we have a good result. If we do something bad, we have a bad result. So we're always planting seeds. And tomato plants don't come up from corn seeds.

[25:21]

If you plant a corn seed, corn comes up. So that's karma and karmic consequences. So when you cut off the root of creating karma, living through just karma, then you have to live by vows. And the vow is to live for the benefit of all sentient beings, basically. not just for your own self-gratification. And when we practice Buddhism, that's really what we're doing, whether we're a monk or a layperson or whatever our status is. That's what we're practicing. So even though we have worldly occupations, families,

[26:28]

lots of concerns. Our practice is to be able to fulfill vows, practice through that bodhisattva vow, within our daily activities. This is where the hard part is. Why am I doing what I'm doing? That question. Why? If I'm making a lot of money in my business, how is that practice? We have to examine our motives in our life.

[27:30]

It's easy, it's easier in some ways if you are a monk to understand, to know what you're doing. Because your activity doesn't get confused. But the thing that we have to remember is it's not so much what we do, but what our attitude is in what we do. If we have a bodhisattva attitude, then no matter what our occupation or what our worldly responsibilities are. We can bring that attitude to what we're doing. We don't have to stop all the worldly activities.

[28:43]

That's not the point. The point is how to bring, how to make our world, a bodhisattva's world, within our various activities, within our life work, within our family life. One thing we can do, you know, we should treat everyone as Buddha. Our attitude to our people is that we should treat everyone as Buddha or as a Bodhisattva. If you, when you do that, you cultivate big mind. You don't see the separation between yourself and others.

[29:48]

You may feel funny about somebody, but if you think of that person as a bodhisattva or as Buddha, that person becomes... you and that person are not different. In all of our relationships, we should see everyone as Buddha, no matter how difficult that is. If you can do that, then you can feel that you have something to practice with. And then you know how to treat people, whether or not you treat them that way. You may not treat them as Buddha, but if you think of them as Buddha, at least you have a way of dealing with them. Then you can see your own shortcomings. And it's also necessary to see everyone as Sangha.

[30:59]

The people that you work with and who you associate with are a Sangha in a big sense. Even your so-called enemies are Sangha. And how you conduct your life in truth, is dharma. No matter how you're negotiating something with someone, you should always do it as dharma, not just in some ordinary way, not in some acquisitive way or selfish way, but how do you manifest the dharma in all of your relationships? So for a person who is practicing, the most important thing is how you treat everyone as Buddha, how you treat all of your activities as dealings with things as Dharma, and how you see everyone as Sangha.

[32:19]

That should be the most important thing. And if you're not thinking in that way, you just It's not practice. But everything in our life, every moment and every situation in our life demands that kind of thought, that kind of attention. There are various kinds of Zen practice. But in our practice, our practice is based on settling ourself on ourself, which means our activity itself plus ourself is ourself.

[33:28]

Whatever we come into contact with, moment after moment, plus our self, is our self. There's no, if you point to yourself, if you say, this is my self, that's not enough. This plus this is my self. You can't leave out your environment or your immediate activity or anything that you happen to be associating with from yourself. You can't leave that out. So, you plus what you're doing and all of the factors involved in what you're doing at any given moment is yourself and it's always changing, constantly changing. So if you hurt someone, neglect something, that you hurt yourself or you neglect yourself in a true sense.

[34:51]

When we practice, we really should practice for the right reasons. There's several kinds of Zen practice which are things, types of practice which we should avoid. And there's a list of types of Zen practice to be wary of. This is a part of a lecture by Uchiyama Orochi, who recently retired as the abbot of Antai-ji Temple in Japan. Antai-ji is a very small temple, maybe like this zendo.

[36:06]

or maybe smaller, but very famous in Japan because of their strict practice. There may be eight or ten monks who beg for their sustenance and they don't have any electric lights or telephones. And Uchiyama Roshi who was a disciple of Sawaki Kodoroshi, who was a kind of very famous homeless monk who died about 20 years ago or something like that. Uchiyama Roshi has written quite a number of books. And his tradition is very close to our tradition.

[37:12]

He recently wrote a commentary on the Tenzo Kyokun, which I have here, but it hasn't been... someone gave it to me. It hasn't been distributed here yet, but when it comes, I want you to read it. Is that Shambhala? Oh, it is? But he talks here in his footnotes. This is his last lecture before he retired, part of something from his last lecture before he retired as the abbot. And in his farewell to Antaji, Ushiyama Roshi's final taisho, or dharma lecture, before retiring, he discussed in some detail the so-called Roku-do Zen, that is, six types of Zen. And he said, here's his description of the six types of Zen.

[38:24]

It pretty much works out that the depth of one's zazen becomes determined by the attitude with which one sits. The so-called rokudo zen has no connection with shikantaza. Shikantaza is what we practice, which is just sitting without any expectation, which is the basis of our attitude. of the three minds. It is best to stay away from these types of Zen. Let's just look at them for a moment. First of all, Jigoku Zen. You know, there are some people who, upon just hearing the word Zazen, get all nervous. This occurs particularly among priests. I'm talking about the kind of priests who are required to live for a certain period of time in an official sodo in order to receive papers which entitle them to be called priests and to take over as head of a temple.

[39:35]

This is in Japan, very common. They hate being there in the first place, but there's no way to avoid it. And on top of all that, they're forced to do Zazen. Doing Zazen under these conditions is called Jigoku Zen or Zen of Hell. But I think this applies also to other people. People who, say, want someone else to, for some reason, come to Samsang for some other reason than their own reason. someone's husband or wife. In order to keep up with your wife or your husband, you feel you should come and sit Zazen.

[40:36]

But it's terrible because you don't really want to do it. I think that's a good example. Or someone who has some idea about what they want and is just kind of going through the motions those people don't last very long. But the other kind is I feel a lot of sympathy for. We should be very careful how we treat our spouses so that they don't feel they have to do what you're doing in order to keep up with you. It can cause a big problem. You should treat your spouse very kindly and see their practice as, whatever it is that they're doing, as practice. You get up in the morning and they're still sleeping.

[41:42]

You say, you lazy bum. That's very bad. They're doing, Suzuki Roshi used to say, they're doing sleeping practice. We shouldn't put, it's hard, you know, because we want someone to, we want to practice with somebody and feel some companionship with the person we're with. It's important to support your partner in the practice that they're doing as their practice rather than expect them to do what you're doing and to change their life all around to do it and to go through something, some grueling practice just to make you happy.

[42:47]

The only way that you can possibly be comfortable in practice in zazen is to completely give yourself to it and go along with it. It's the only way you can be comfortable. Otherwise, you're always uncomfortable. And to subject someone to that who's not ready for it is pretty miserable. Then he says, there is Gakki Zen. This is the type of Zen done by people who forever go around lusting after enlightenment. We see people, you know, who come and they maybe come for a little while, but we don't talk about enlightenment, so they leave. Then they go someplace else, you know, and they're always going from one place to another.

[43:57]

looking for enlightenment, and when they see practice, they're not interested. They're not interested in practice, they're just interested in getting some enlightenment someplace. They see enlightenment as an object, or as something that they can acquire. Once they get it, then they think that once they get it, they'll be satisfied. So in order to discourage those people, we never talk about enlightenment. Then, he says, next comes Chikusho Zen. The word Chikusho in Japanese refers to an animal that can be domesticated. say, a dog or a cat or maybe a cow. Now, in that same sense, there are people who enter a monastery or a temple because they hear that they'll get fed just by following along.

[45:07]

Occasionally, those kinds of people even stray into antaiji. That's the little temple. They figure that just being here and sitting in the sashi, they will be able to get along. When this kind of person shows up, I just have to throw him out. There is an expression, yoraba taiju no kage, my Japanese is very bad. It means to look for rest or protection under the shade of a big tree. When people try looking for shade under a scrawny little willow like Antaji, though, they're looking for it under the wrong tree. I mean, even thinking about being able to eat heartily at Antaji, there just aren't any big feeds. The only thing you're likely to get is plenty of brown rice and miso soup three times a day.

[46:16]

An itinerant priest thinking he will be well taken care of at Antaichi is really mistaken. That sort of Chikusho Zen is just no good either. People like that ought to be ashamed of themselves. Fortunately, we don't have any free food. We have free cookies after lecture. But there is a danger of finding a comfortable niche, finding, for a resident at this place, finding a comfortable place to being able to do Zazen and doing a kind of minimal practice just enough so that you can be comfortable. And that's, that kind of Zen is not so good for someone who wants to be a resident.

[47:29]

Your motive should really be to want to practice hard and to put your whole life force into practicing. And we talk about, Karnagiri Roshi used to talk about the difference between an engine and a boxcar. The engine has power and motive and force and moves itself and carries others along with it. And a boxcar just follows along. Whichever way things go, it just goes that way. So our training should be to how to be an engine, how to be a motivating force. When you can do that, then you have real practice.

[48:34]

There's maybe three stages. One is being pulled along. The other is walking on your own feet. And the third is being able to bring everything along with you, to help move everything along with you. He says, then there is, following this is Shura Zen. These are the people who compete with others to gain satoru, or else they vie with one another over whose practice is more severe. That's the other song. Some carry around the kiyosaku, beating each other with it. That is Shura Zen. A lot of the monasteries in Japan have become over-strict.

[49:56]

They become training places for young men just out of high school. And so, since there are so many young men, the feeling is a kind of post-graduate vitality. the young monks are always beating each other with sticks with their kiyosaku and their pride is in how many kiyosakus they've broken in a certain period of time. And so people who, serious people who go to monasteries in Japan get kind of discouraged because of that kind of macho style. It's good to avoid that kind of style. Certain styles in Zen spring up because of certain circumstances.

[51:06]

And if you look at a certain style that's been around for a while, you think, well, that's what Zen is all about, because you haven't seen anything else. And some of the styles in Japan seem like that's real Zen, except that they're just styles that started maybe 100 years ago, or 200 years ago, or 50 years ago for some reason. And unless you know something about the background of Zen or Buddhism, and other times you feel that And that's what it's supposed to be. And the people that practice those practices feel, well, this is the way it's supposed to be. One thing that we should realize is there is no special way that it's supposed to be. The kind of macho type of Zen is just something that developed in maybe the last few hundred years in Japan, but is not really a characteristic of the way Zen has always been.

[52:33]

And we should be careful that we don't get caught by certain trends that don't apply to us. He said, then there is ningen zen, the zen that human beings do solely for utilitarian purposes. This is the thing I was talking about previously in his book. That is, people doing zazen to get their heads straightened out, or for good health, or sexual stamina, and so forth. Anyway, they do zazen in order to gain something from it. There are a lot of books out now on humanistic Zen, or Zen for the body, or Zen in psychology. These are clear examples of Ningen Zen, seeking something beneficial for humanity. In any event, the motive for doing Zazen is to get something in return.

[53:35]

And this is, we can understand Zazen just for itself, not to get anything in return. But we say, but at least it's for humanity. At least it's for the good of humanity. That's, you can say so. But strictly speaking, we do zazen to do zazen. If we don't understand that we do zazen just to do zazen, then we'll never understand it. And it's the very basis of our practice. Everything else comes out of that. But it's not, it looks like isolation, isolationism or something, but it's not. Out of that zazen for zazen, if you do zazen for zazen,

[54:45]

Everything you do will be for the thing you're doing it for, and not for some other motive. If you want to help humanity, then you help humanity for the sake of helping humanity, not for any other reason. Your motives will always be clear. If you're a doctor, you'll be a doctor for the sake of being a doctor, not for any other reason. If you do medicine, you do medicine for the sake of medicine. If you're a mathematician, you do mathematics for the sake of mathematics. When you're eating your breakfast, you eat breakfast for the sake of eating breakfast. When you walk, you just walk.

[55:47]

When you breathe, you just breathe. But in your breathing, everything else is there. This is a key point. This is cultivating a big mind and also parental mind. A parent just does something for the sake of the child with no thought of reward. It's just as things come up, you just take care of it. That's all. And because we have that empty mind, mind of emptiness, we have joy.

[56:54]

Anyway, finally, we come to Tenjo Zen. These are the people who want to become hermits. There seem to be quite a number of young Americans who like this kind of Zen. It seems as though these young people are trying to run away from the noise of American materialism, so they go up in the mountains to bathe in the quiet relief they find there. Or when they get bored doing just that, they get caught up in Zen as a hobby and enjoy just polishing the scepter some priests carry around. Those people are just practicing Zen as a hobby. Naturally, this sort of hermit Zen has nothing to do with the Buddhadharma. To figure out whether or not you're practicing true Zazen, you have to look at your practice from as broad a perspective as possible. Once you get stuck in one of these six types of Zen, you're no longer able to see an overall view of the Buddhadharma. So each one of these types of Zen looks at practice from a very partial point of view.

[58:03]

Hermit Zen is kind of egotistical Zen in order to get away from everybody to do something for yourself. In order to develop, do something. You can't stand to be someplace where there's any noise or commotion or something going on that's not something that you chose, or it's not satisfactory to your way of doing things. Even though you may feel that you're doing it for the sake of everybody, it's still very egotistical. The best place to practice, even though, no matter what you read in the books, you may read Dogen saying, The best place to practice is in the countryside, in the mountains. Dogen will say, the best place for cultivation is in the mountains, deep, in the deep mountains.

[59:12]

But actually, the best place to practice is right in the heart of the city, where you have everything going on that you don't want to go on, to have going on. And horns honking and sirens going, and people getting killed and murdered. all the distractions that you feel are detrimental to your practice, the best place is right in the heart of the city to practice. When you can practice right in the heart of the city with all of its distractions and Then you can go to the countryside and enjoy that practice. Go to the deep mountains and enjoy deep mountain practice. But you should never go to the deep mountains to practice as an escape.

[60:15]

There's no place we can escape to. You can get away from things, but you can never get away from yourself. In the midst of the confusion of our city life, we practice big mind, magnanimous mind, and joyful mind. Right in the center of all of our problems, And if you want to know what your practice is, if you sometimes get confused, don't know what your practice is, just look at what's right in front of you.

[61:29]

No reason not to know. So, someone who's practicing for a while, who stops, may think that they've stopped practicing.

[61:54]

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