I hope to see all of you in doksan, this sasheen. But for some practice periods, some sasheens, I feel most, I feel concentrated on doksan. And in this sasheen, I feel concentrated on our sitting. Both sasheens, of course, are the same. We sit and we have doksan. What I'm trying to say is that even though I hope we have doksan and you present your practice to me, I hope also that you can just sit as if you were never going to be disturbed.

[01:17]

How our practice and our everyday life—by everyday life I don't mean, you know, non-priest life or layman's life, I mean just what you do every day—how practice and our everyday life are the same is a continual point of confusion and depth in our practice. Our practice is to make our everyday life, is to—we have a visitor out there, Catherine is looking about—practice is to help us find the deep meaning in our everyday life beyond comparisons,

[02:56]

relative or absolute. Sukhiroshi liked the story about Yakusan Igen. Yakusan Igen, you know, he's Yue Shan is his Chinese name. When we chant in the morning, it's—what is it? It's the six patriarch and then Seigen Gyoshi and then Sekito Kisen and then Yakusan Igen and then Ungan Dojo

[03:58]

and then Tozan Ryokai. Tozan Ryokai being founder of this—where this lineage splits up off from—actually it's where the Seigen Gyoshi that separates from Rinzai, but they're all mixed up pretty completely, especially up through Tozan Ryokai. So we say Tozan Ryokai founded this line. Anyway, Yakusan Igen hadn't given Taisho for a long time, lecture, and so the director, I guess, would be the director of the monastery, came and said, you haven't

[05:03]

given a lecture for a long time, would you please give a lecture? So Yakusan came down from his room and entered the Dharma hall and climbed up on his seat and climbed off and went back to his room. And the director went to his room afterwards and said, for a long time you haven't given a lecture and I asked you to do so and you just came in and left. And Yakusan said, there are many teachers. Some teach about the sutras, some teach about meditation, some teach about the precepts, but I am a Zen master. And he dismissed

[06:09]

him from the room. Gutei. Do you know Gutei? Gutei is one finger. Gutei is one finger. Gutei said, when asked about his way, he said, I received one finger from Tenryu. And no matter what people asked him, he always just held up one finger. And it can be five fingers, you know, three fingers, two arms, but if

[07:25]

you do it too much, people will get confused, so you can just hold up one finger. But every time you hold it up, you know, your finger, the circumstances are different. And it can be five fingers. So Shikantaza, or our practice of just sitting, can be, maybe is the foundation for many practices, any practice. And it can take various forms, five fingers. Yesterday, I talked about sightseeing.

[08:56]

Sightseeing practice also means to, by that, by sightseeing practice, I mean also trying to attain various samadhis in your practice. That's also a kind of sightseeing. How to actually, through your resistance and your constant war with yourself, just accept what is each moment. It must get boring for you to hear this over and over again, you know. And it's boring because you don't quite understand it, you know. Another time, Yaksan asked a monk, how old are you? And the monk said, I'm seventy-two.

[10:21]

And Yaksan said, are you seventy-two? And the monk said, yes, I am. Yaksan hit him. Another teacher commented on this by saying, the first, when asked about it, you know, the monk said, how could he have avoided being hit? Yaksan said, when the emperor states his rule or something like that, or makes a demand, all the princes will avoid

[11:32]

it. So the monk said, what is the general meaning of Buddhism? And the teacher, in a ravine. I think that's a very interesting story. When he asked, when the monk said, how can a blow be avoided? The teacher didn't do anything but repeat the statement. Either way, you get a blow. If you try to avoid the blow, you get a blow. If you don't, you know. In other words, when the princes make some, the king, emperor, makes some rule, kind of

[12:36]

blow, everyone tries to avoid it. You're trying to avoid it, he says. And he says, to fill a ditch and a ravine. Now, when you, so Siddhiqui Rush used to say, you know, when it's hot, you know, or cold, you're cold or hot Buddha. And when you have painful legs, you're a painful legged Buddha. And when you have a monkey mind, you're a monkey mind Buddha. But is that a ditch or a ravine? How old are you, actually? Seventy-two? What age?

[13:37]

Nansen used to say, what can't be reached by wisdom should not be explained by words. If you do so, horns will grow on your head. He means just fill a ditch. So, how can you practice, you know? So, you're not sightseeing or trying to gain something. So, you're filling the ditches,

[14:54]

you're just filling the ravine. There's no need for you to have a lecture or doksang or anything like that. You're just doing anything. Only the clear apprehension of what you actually are without equivocation. Without it sliding rapidly to the next moment. And we practice zazen because it's almost

[16:06]

impossible to see what we are when you're living always in the midst of distractions. So in a sasheen, in this sasheen, there's nothing to do but just sit on your cushion. As if you were going to live forever there. It would be wonderful to see plants coming up between the tatamis. Round, sprouting, and you're not moving. Several seasons passing. If you can practice with that kind of feeling, someone will wake you up when it's time.

[17:13]

This way you can actually enter the path with others. Do you have some questions? I get the feeling from what you're saying that it doesn't matter so much what you do. As long as you practice. As long as you make a lot of effort. Sometimes she gets the idea from what I say it doesn't matter so much what you do as long

[19:41]

as you make the right effort or have the right attitude. It doesn't make so much difference what's done to you. It's just a constant stream. All of it is the same. Did you hear what he said?

[20:44]

Just let it come. As if it were part of you. And as if it were not part of you. Sachin is always, maybe not always but often, intensifies some emotions or feelings or attitudes or something. Outside Sachin seems ridiculous. In Sachin you become terribly angry at someone over something of three years ago or something like that. Or you feel some powerful feeling about a situation or someone over some minor thing.

[22:06]

Or various episodes that have happened to you come back very clearly. You don't want to figure these things out. Just for some reason they're appearing. Just like everything else appears. If you're always looking for a reason, your world is very tight. The other day you spoke about we have to die. And then that night on the next night you said we have to kill the self.

[23:15]

Did you say something about that? What would you like me to say? It seems like to die would be to let the thoughts come and go. But to kill the self, it's more of a strong form. It's a stronger way of saying it? Do you think it's a stronger way of saying it? No. No, it seems like there's something different about the two. We mean exactly the same thing. Just if I say in general to you, you should kill yourself.

[24:27]

I'm afraid some of you misunderstand me. And I don't mean suicide. I mean you try to do something. It's rather subtle. But that kind of command, for some reason in English, is hard to understand. And in our language which has so many pronouns, you kill the self.

[25:30]

In Japanese it's easier because there's no pronoun. So in Japanese it's something more like self-killed. Anyway, there's not much difference. They sound like the same thing to me. They sound like the same thing you said today. To give up, trying to get something else, trying to get what I think I want. But it feels like to do that for something I want more than anything else. Now, I'm not responding exactly to your question, Blanche, but we ask questions and sometimes

[26:42]

someone's question yesterday was a good example. Anyway, of course, that want is the basis of our practice, maybe. But sometimes your questions, not anybody specifically, sometimes the questions sound like a photograph. If someone took a picture of this building and the guest dining room, this dormitory, and they said, looking at the photograph, why those two buildings are joined? Because you're not sorting out where someone says...

[27:51]

One way Matsu used to do, Matsu started, was people would come to him with a question, which as Nansen says, if wisdom can't... What wisdom can't reach, you shouldn't explain with words. Someone would come to Baso with such a question, some kind of question. He'd say, oh, I'm sorry, today I have a headache. Please go and see so-and-so. And so he'd go see this other teacher after trekking 40 days or so. He'd say, oh, I'm very tired today. Go see so-and-so. So they had some... Baso started this practice of bouncing people from one teacher to another.

[28:52]

And as long as they didn't know the difference between 72 and 72, they'd say, oh, I'm sorry, I have a headache today. You know, you know, you know what your practice is. All you have to do is one day start. That's it.

[29:47]

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