The high today was 83. 83. This surpasses even my powers. I think the princess herself is doing it. 83. Did this side of the room set up my platform, or to that side of the room instead of my platform, because I'm way over on this side. It's nice to be with you. You want me to come over there? Actually, we did this more traditionally in this room. It has certain limitations. I should be sitting right there, as long as I have the gall to speak to the Buddha. Normally you face the Buddha and talk. But you'd all look at the scenery. It shouldn't be good.

[01:04]

This time, after lecture, people were bringing me unusual experiences they had since I mentioned it yesterday. But you know, it actually doesn't mean anything. We should, as there's a saying, we should seek tonight's moon, not yesterday's moon, You know, it has Blanche's, say, Schumpo's experience with her father or the police officer. It has some meaning, but only in pointing a direction. But the only thing that actually counts is your this action or your next action, everything else. Zen is not some possession, you don't possess anything. And when you stick to things, it's not Zen. You want to be some kind of person, it's not Zen.

[03:01]

Rinzai always said, man of no rank. I know someone got mad at me once. You talk about man of no rank, but you're sitting up there in that platform with those robes on. There is that kind of problem. It's true. It's a very small problem. you perhaps get into trouble with this kind of comparison of Zen, some experience with your past, or some experience of this teaching in others. Of course, some other person's practice encourages us, but it's, you know, Zen is more like sleeping or taking a nap than it is some special thing, you know? Think of me as the chaplain. It's not, you know. Who wants to be the chaplain at a college? Almost no one. That's all.

[04:37]

People talk to me, you know, about being teacher, something like that. It's like a kid wanting to be a fireman, you know, and all they've got is a match. With no equipment. No fire truck. You're, as we say, to practice as if your head was on fire. worry about being something. And I can assure you, most of being a teacher is a nuisance. I am so relieved, I can't tell you how relieved I am when I'm just here and have nothing to do. It's all right to be a student. I am a student.

[05:42]

Zen is not a possession, or a field of experience even. Zen makes your whole life a field of experience. I remember, again, when I was younger, living in New York, I wanted to be, maybe like Einstein, wanted to live in a lighthouse. I wanted to live on a coal barge. Like somebody I knew, Alexander Troki, you know, he used to live on a coal barge. And it's sort of like being a hermit in the sewage outflow of a city, kind of urban hermit, you know. So you get trotted up and down the Hudson on a barge, and you have a little room. I guess the law requires, or the unions require, or something, that each one of those barges have somebody on it. So you may have noticed, you see a string of barges being taken, at least in the East Coast, I don't know about here. Up the river, each big, dark barge, and they're huge, like football fields, has a little tiny cabin that's a 10-mat, three-mat,

[07:05]

house, and it has a bunk in it and a wood stove or a coal stove. It's hard to get a lighthouse job and you have to know how to be a radio operator and stuff like that, but this kind of job, you can be quite incoherent most of the time. You just get dragged up and down. Einstein ended up in a patent office, and you and I, we ended up in this zendo. Maybe this is our lighthouse and our barge and our patent office, and Zen Center, you know, should be that, I feel, that kind of thing. Actually, your zazen is your hermitage, wherever you are. This is your mountain peak. or Denny's. A woman in Denny's said to me, I paid with my credit card, she said, I think I told you, Zen, she said. She says, my mother likes Zen. Thought she liked yogi Bajong or something, I don't know, some yogi, but anyway, for a while she liked Zen. A man named Hofstetter, who's written a book,

[08:38]

a new book, rather peculiar book, called Gödel, Escher and Bach. And it's all about the boundaries of thought as it comes out of trying to play with computers. But he's got a whole section on Zen and the Mu Koan. He's got a bunch of Mu games. And he got into that because his high school English teacher read Mu Man's Mu Koan to the English class. No one read the Mu Koan to my English class. This fellow's now about, I guess, thirty, thirty-five or something. Anyway, I haven't read the book, just looked at it, but he doesn't seem to realize Zen, yes, is a kind of game to get you out of your thinking reality, but it really means to stay in one place.

[09:40]

the mental and physical discipline, discipline of mind and body, so that you can stay in one place. And once you get that, it is so joyful or so pleasant that it really does take the Bodhisattva's vow to bestir yourself and do something, you know, because you're so relieved, you know, to be left alone. But all phases of our activity are to be left alone too. Running on the Roka is to be left alone and to stay in one place. Dogen says full moon or quarter moon is the complete moon. Quarter moon is the complete moon. All the

[10:47]

All the phases of the moon are one complete round circle, says Dōgen. That's right, you know. Socrates used to talk about the double moon. The many phases of the moon and the one complete round circle. But the real complete round circle is full moon and the many phases of the moon. This is to stay in one place also. So you are not changed by your distraction. Moon does not, isn't changed by, how do you say it? Moon isn't changed by change. It's change itself. So if you change from one to one to one, this kind of change, but it is Zen. But if you are changed by, you can't stay in one place, this is distraction, or ambition, something like that. So Zen means to be able to stay in one place.

[12:11]

someone leaves you in a corner and they come back a few years later and there you are in that corner. Straw. Eat something, you know. That reminds me, you know, I said the other day, God isn't too far out an idea, you know, for Buddhists even, even though this is non-theistic practice, really. If gods exist, leave them alone," said Buddha. They don't have any effect on our life. You know Michael, well I was going to tell you, Michael Murphy, you know who he is. When he came back from Moscow, I don't know if I ever told you this, he, this is what he had talked with someone there, and they'd agreed to do an experiment. And I can't remember exactly what it was, but at a certain time of day, Michael was going to think, listen, feel. He could receive something from this guy at Moscow. So they... at that time, and Michael

[13:41]

described what he received, and I can't remember exactly what he received, but it was something like a vase with four legs and a straw in it, a movable straw, and what he received later in a letter that was sent was an elephant. was thinking of an elephant with a trunk, a toy elephant, and the trunk moved up and down. There's no reason to doubt this kind of experience. And it's not explainable exactly. But our ideas of time and space are not the only form of existence. So Chi Chang, I believe, says, the kitchen muck entering the kitchen. And Dogen says, this idea transcends time.

[15:04]

There are lots of kitchen monks entering the kitchen, this exhausted kitchen monk entering the kitchen, this Sushum. And when you finish Sushum, they have to continue, so we can all party day after day after Sushum. But Seshina won't ever end, so don't get your hopes up. But this isn't explained either by Chardin's, Teilhard de Chardin's New Sphere. New Sphere is the, or maybe it is, I mean I shouldn't put anything down, but New Sphere, you know New Sphere? N-O-O-S-P-H-E. Chardin carries, I mean it's the opposite, way far, the other end of the scale from samsara. Because he has really the idea of progress, Christian idea of progress.

[16:23]

And he thinks that we're all getting more and more ethereal all the time and that as being develops, it gets more mental and higher as, you know, there's crabs and horses and then people and so forth, and higher forms are coming which will be even more like that. And pretty soon there's just going to be this big new sphere of kind of disembodied being And that's how communication exists throughout the world and so forth. And we'll all disappear in this new sphere. And Shraddha has quite a lot of followers. But anyway, samsara is not some idea like that. So to be a head of Zen Center or a teacher of Zen is sort of like being a head of naps. I see a lot of you napping. Or a head of sleep or something. You know, it's not much of a job. Zen is something like that, you know, like sleeping. It's not a job.

[18:01]

We're trying to find out, actually, how to put people at rest, and to just rest with each other. Dogen talks about jijuyu samadhi, self-joyous samadhi. Self-joyous samadhi is the way we transmit from Buddha to Buddha, patriarch to patriarch. Now, there are many things to study in Buddhism. I count ten main things we should study. Vinaya, you know, how we form of our practice. And we have to study that, looking for essence of vinaya, rules of monastic life and sensual life. And we should study Abhidharma, which is a mental insight or

[19:05]

study of how our mind exists, health of our mind exists. And we should study Yogacara. Yogacara is physical insight. It's called school of mind only. But mind only means this body is mine, so it's a study of how your body is mine. So this is where this kind of experience I occasionally tell you about comes from. Yogacara is the study of your body. And last, in the Sashin in San Francisco, I talked about Avalokiteshvara and how to create many arms to create warmth in your body. This is the same kind of thing. It's just the study of your body, not some possession. And it's interesting, you know, because there are certain points in our body that we trust more than others. You'll find that out.

[20:38]

It's strange to say so, but we do. And there are also points in our body that are more conscious than others. And those points which are more conscious than others, you should utilize. The practice of Yogacara is to utilize them and spread your consciousness out from there. You have to start somewhere. You have to start with the points that you can make more conscious. Breathing is only the beginning. So we say to follow, to count your breath. Okay, then next is to follow your breath. And there's following your exterior breathing, and you just have your mind on your exterior breathing. But then, next is to follow your interior breath, your energy, actually. So sometimes we call that fetal breathing or embryonic breathing, like mother breathes for, the embryo breathes. And this means to follow your energy. But again, you must be able to stay in one place to actually do this, some flash of an experience. Nice, but it's TV.

[21:53]

but to consistently be able to do this. And at some points in our body there is more, as I said, we trust more, our hope... have some hope there, but unfortunately those places also become clogs because they become... we take refuge in them, a kind of island, and you don't want to go out from there, so they get rather jammed up. But chakra is more like a beachhead, You can make a landing there. You're out in darkness of your body. And this practice continues. And some of us learn it by necessity. It's turned out to be very helpful to a number of people to use visualization with cancer. And cancer is a tough enough problem to make you learn how to visualize. And you can see the use of it. But, you know, we lead our interior breathing by a kind of vision.

[23:18]

kind, starting with your breath and following your breath, and more and more subtly. Anyway, this is Yogachara, and you learn about your physical insight. And we should also study Prajnaparamita literature and Majamaka, which is action as insight or pure action. And we should study Avatamsaka, which is perfection of the world. And also then we should study, we should have some historical perspective, so we should know roughly what happened, and we should study life of Buddha,

[24:23]

And probably we should study logic. I'm laying out a little program for you. And finally, but not quite finally, you should study koans. This is a way of teaching. And finally, if you get that far, you should study how we confirm our practice or transmission. This is interior form. and includes lineage and ceremonies. How we confirm our practice. And we're always trying, actually we're always trying to confirm our practice. When I talk about Spinoza, I say, I'm trying to confirm, I'm trying to, you know, everything is practice we can say, but also at some point, what is practice specifically? So if we study our own culture, you can see it. When the woman in Denny's asked me about Zen, something specific, what is, in the midst of Denny's, what is Zen? In the midst of your own life, how do you confirm your practice? You must examine your history and yourself very carefully.

[25:55]

This practice, though, actually comes usually later. First practice is just to try on everything. Dogen also talks about a Juki. Juki is the prediction of enlightenment, prediction of enlightenment. And we're not trying to bring something into our consciousness. But we're trying to extend our consciousness to things. So you're trying to bring your consciousness to things, bring your consciousness to your whole body. Bring your consciousness to each thing. Seppo says, One of his expressions he always used to express Zen is, we met, we meet, we met in front of the monastery. He always said, we met in front of the monastery. Where is this place? We met in front of the... It's not in front of the monastery, that's just some idea, but we met in front of the monastery. This is also, he calls, divine light.

[27:26]

is Buddha's Divine Light. We met in front of the monastery. To point out also, what is monastery? That we are creating soundly. Where is this place? We met in front of the monastery. So to extend your consciousness to everything is Jyuti, or the prediction of Buddhahood. So everything then is Juki, is the prediction of Buddha. You may not be conscious of it, you know. When your consciousness, when you cover everything, you know, Dogen says, Juki is not in one thing. You cannot find Juki in a speck of dust. Juki is all things. You can find Juki in all things but not in one thing.

[28:28]

And when you cover all things, this is the prediction of Buddhahood. So again, it's not to bring things into your consciousness, but to extend your consciousness to things. And you may not be conscious that you are Jyuki. But just the same, you are Jyuki. Like, quarter moon is full moon. And moon in puddle is Juki. Escher has a drawing of a puddle. It's not quite like this, but it's a drawing. It could be a drawing of puddle with tire tracks through it. And yet, perfect moon and complete leaf.

[29:33]

some water. So even though you are not conscious of it, you are juking, prediction of Buddha If you become conscious of it and extend your consciousness to everything, to make everything fruitful, without reservation, we say you are enlightened. Dhamma now speaks about divine light in the monk's eye. But it means, again, to come back to, to be able to stay in one place.

[31:01]

And if you can stay in one place, you find out how you cover everything. It doesn't mean to become robot of your society or of your job. And then we have this whole wisdom study of Abhidharma and Yogacara and so forth, this great body of human knowledge. to confirm this practice in others and in ourself. Same activity. Always yuki or prediction of Buddhahood and means of transmission is self-joyous samadhi, which arises when you can stay in one place. and staying in one place, you make it possible for other people to realize quarter moon is complete moon. So, everything is Buddha nature. And your job, you know,

[32:40]

as a Zen Buddhist, layman or priest, is to make this full moon, complete moon, that includes all phases of the moon, clear to everyone by your actions. Dogen always emphasized, you are Inca. You know, Inca is seal of transmission that teacher gives. a disciple who has received his entire being. But Dogen says, real Inca is your every action. You are Inca. And everyone is always approving of you or acknowledging you. This is real acknowledgement. Not some piece of paper or even your teacher acknowledging you. Real acknowledgement is every circumstance of your life, every person you meet. This is also Jyoti, prediction of Buddha.

[33:56]

A gigantic bird flew in this room. You'd be very impressed. Or a four-foot-long dragonfly. I'm changing the topic. But a tiny dragonfly is four feet long. It fills your vision if you bring it up close. This is also to be ruined and homeless. You know, no idea, big or small. Big or small, you can see. If it's a big dragonfly, you'd be quite... but small dragonfly, tiny little bug, you don't notice. But there's actually no big or small, distant or near. And this kind of perception, you know, should... this is... all faces of the moon. It's not just some nice experience some afternoon, but rather it permeates everything. It permeates even when you're angry in the kitchen. No big or small, near or far. Then you can stay in one place. And everything is revealed.

[36:30]

One ancient Buddha, one Zen teacher said, my wisdom increases and increases because there is nothing for my mind to adhere to. Someone else said, stop adhering to opposition. It's like a feud. You know, there are many wars on this planet. The Pentagon counts, since the Second World War, I guess, the Pentagon counts 452 wars on the planet, characteristic of human beings, and two of them came close to nuclear

[37:58]

shooting at each other. And this is also a realm of suffering and many, many problems, you know. Political changes, starvation, and so forth. but it's not the only realm in which we exist. And the more we forget the cathedral, and the more we think it's the only realm in which we exist, the more there are wars and trouble and ambition. So maybe Zen is for a few outcasts or people who found it difficult enough to live with themselves that they had to make, you know, misfits. Tsukishi said there should be some teaching for us misfits. Maybe Zen is it. But maybe we can make use of being misfits.

[39:13]

to solve our own immense personal problems, you know. Maybe we can realize ourselves that wide way in which we exist. And realizing that, maybe we can remind others. If you can remind others true realm, maybe, of our existence. Where is a snowflake when it melts and reappears? Maybe the same drop of water is blown up and down in a storm, turning into a snowflake and melting again. Where is the snowflake? Does it exist or not?

[40:17]

Do you know some guy jumped out of an airplane once, a parachuter, and I think, I can't remember he spent four or five or six hours being blown around without his parachute open. Supposedly it's true, he got caught in some incredible storm over New Jersey. Kept blowing. And finally he wrote a book about it. Finally was dropped out of the storm and pulled his parachute. I think six hours, maybe, something like that. He was ... Something like that's happened to two or three other people, if it's true, but he was one of the most extreme. You'd need a lot of Zen practice to survive that, probably worse than Sashin.

[41:23]

to keep your wits about you. Wits about you. You have to be quite relaxed. Dogen says, also, we're all a thousand feet up. You know the story about hanging over a cliff with a thousand feet below you? Everything's a thousand feet up, even the kitchen sink. Anyway, all these ten things are just the study of how we exist. Profound teaching, I think, anyway, left for us by people, out of their great kindness, not knowing, will anybody get it, you know? Maybe we'll establish a religion and there'll be

[42:42]

churches and temples and so forth, as a way of hoping somebody gets it. But really, getting it is just to be able to stay in one place. Staying in one place you may find out how we exist. And zazen, as I said last night, takes care of us. It turns our whole life into a field of experience. I don't know why we're doing this, but I'm very grateful we are polishing this jewel together.

[44:15]

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