I am not allowed to chase the truth that the Tiktok does not work. Morning. As you know, of Thursday I'm going to leave for Japan for a month. And I kind of left this time open in case you have any questions or something that you'd like us to discuss before I leave. So I'll give you a moment Yes, you have something.

[01:02]

Eric? Yes, I'd like to discuss makyo. Makyo. I'm just curious on where, although we're not supposed to cling, you know, we're not supposed to be going toward anything in particular. We're also not supposed to be going away from it. But it would seem that in this particular case, it's something that It seems that there are things that are considered... I mean, all states of... Should I talk about it? Yes. Makyo is a word which means something like delusions, and the things that fall into that category Well, Makyo specifically applied to something that happens in Zazen, specifically dreams, fantasies, mostly relates to dreams and fantasies and conceptual thinking.

[02:30]

Not so much, but mostly to dreams and fantasies during zazen. So when we sit in zazen, we try to make our effort to put our attention on our body and breathing so that our mind is very clear. If you have concentration, good concentration, and your attention is focused on your posture, on posture, and focused on breathing, that's the subject of your effort. The effort is directed in that way. when your thought is the same as your action, there's no gap between thought and action, then we have very good zazen, so-called good zazen.

[03:46]

But even though we try to do that, Various thoughts and fantasies and dreams come into our consciousness. Always arising. Dreams and fantasies are always arising. And they're very interesting. And we get caught paying attention, more attention to the dreams and fantasies than we do to our zazen, to our posture and breathing. And sometimes these dreams will have a tremendous dream. And this dream can be, like in the old days they used to say, you'd see all the Buddhas. Your mind would reach into all the Buddha lands and so forth. or you transport it into various heavens, or transport it into various realms.

[05:02]

And sometimes people think, oh, this is enlightenment. And they go to the teacher and the teacher says, makyo. Just makyo. Just dreams and fantasies. Enlightenment is no gap between your mind and your body. So the various ideas that we have about enlightenment and the various fantasies we have about Buddha or heaven or something like that, which we sometimes feel are very profound, and sometimes they are very profound, but they're not it.

[06:11]

So we can have very profound thoughts, actually, in zazen. Sometimes some very profound things come up. problem with it is that every one of those falls short of enlightenment. And so they're called makyo because we tend to feel that they're something and yet they're not it. So it's like very close It sometimes can be very close, but it leads away from the way rather than toward it. And we can also have makyo, you know, just in our walking around life. We do that a lot. But it's specifically, the word specifically is related to thoughts and zazen.

[07:15]

Thoughts and fantasies and zazen. And sometimes certain feelings we have. We have a feeling that our body is huge or some kind of strange feeling with our body, which may lead us to feel that we're having an extraordinary experience. But usually that's just makyo, too. Well, it seems to me that there's considerable value, actually, in that as long as you don't become preoccupied about thinking whether it's enlightenment or not. And if you do, whatever is happening goes away anyway, because that's what you're thinking. I wasn't through speaking. Oh, I'm sorry. But that's all right. I was going to say something like that. Present the other side. Makyo is also very valuable.

[08:28]

If we try to push makyo away, or try to get rid of it, then we're cutting off something that's very valuable. If you understand that it's makyo, it's fine. If you understand that your dream is just your dream, or your fantasy is just your fantasy, that's fine. But then you can just have a wonderful fantasy, or a wonderful dream, or a great idea. as long as you know that that's what it is. So we're constantly having dreams, and when we sit in zazen, the dreams come up one after another, and we just allow them to come up, and sometimes we enjoy them, sometimes they're just there.

[09:42]

But when we start to become attached to them, or when we start thinking this is it, then it becomes makyo. Maybe it isn't even makyo until we start thinking of it in terms of something that it's not. It's just a dream or it's just a fantasy. It means this is what it is. But we have all kinds of different levels of thought that appear in zazen. Sometimes we may remember that we left the fire on on the stove, you know, and the pot's empty. So that's good, you know, and we get up and turn it off. That's kind of a different level of thought.

[10:47]

And since the emphasis in zazen is to find a footing which is deeper than our thinking, our thinking will never reach to that place, and our idea and our fantasy will never reach to that place. That's why most teachers are very strict about makyo, about the content of your makyo. Very strict to point it out to you. Because people always have a tendency to think, well this is it, or this is great, or this is relating. So in zazen, to not have a single thought, other than the thought of zazen, is very good.

[12:05]

Then it's much easier to find that footing. which is beyond thinking mind. But at the same time, we always have thinking, and that's part of zazen. The fact that our mind is always working and creating something is part of zazen. And we have to accept that, but we don't have to get carried off by it. So if we get carried off by it, then it's makyo. has nothing to do with the present situation. Yes.

[13:11]

If one Well, it seems to me, I'd like to hear you say more about, I appreciate everything you said about the content and the catching and so on. You said something about sometimes one has profound thoughts in Zazen. If one is always thinking in Zazen, watching, and when something comes up, asking, who is it? Whose thought is it? Where does it come from? That's just part of the procedure. When one has some kind of experience that's strong and you don't know where it came from, it seems to me that there's a lot of value in that because it really shows you. You know that things come up inside of you, which technically are yours, but from someplace else. You just know it because there's no other way of experiencing it.

[14:12]

one shouldn't get attached to whatever that experience is or anything more than that, but it seems to me that just that experience of just knowing that what's coming up in you is coming up from the larger self that you're sitting in is very important. But that's not makyo. Makyo is more a fantasy. But, you know, sometimes the sort of far out, the weird things that happen, especially in the Satsang, that is Makyo. On the other hand, that is really pushing you and telling you something. Yeah, so, Makyo is just, is there. And it's like, what's it telling you? Well, that's what I mean. It's telling you that what you think you own, you don't own.

[15:16]

Yeah, if you know what makyo is, if you can see makyo as makyo, then it's helpful. It's like using anger to help you. Or using strong emotion or strong thoughts to help you. turning them around. If when you have makyo, some strong idea, you can say, this is not it. And it'll help you, can help you. But everything can be help. And our thoughts and fantasies during Zazen can help us.

[16:22]

But the important thing is to not be caught by them, not be carried off by them. It's really important if you can recognize this is a wonderful dream that is happening. It's a wonderful dream. If you can realize that, then it's fine. It helps you. The story that's related to this is that there's a story of a monk who's cooking, and a Manjushri appears in the steam from the kettle. The monk tells him to leave him alone, because he's cooking. You see him appearing and he's cooking. He says, go back to the kettle and leave me alone. What you're saying is, if you could ask Manjushri to help you cook, please.

[17:35]

Please do. While you're standing there, will you please stand up? Yeah, if you can do that, it's OK. I think it's, I'm not sure of the pronunciation. It's Hindigit. I can't pronounce it. Some German word, Hindigit. that the actor is to truly convince you that what's going on is really happening and you can really get totally involved in the play, but somewhere back in the depths of your mind you know it's not happening. So you know it's just a play. Yes, so you can enjoy it, you can get scared, it's not really there. But there's something in realities

[18:37]

But when you're in makyo, or in these dream states, and you don't, you can get totally convinced that you're a part of it. And it's basically the same question I've been asking for a long time. If you can get confused in the makyo and feel that's really happening, that's really real. What's happening here and now, What's really happening? And what is my own delusions in that respect? Just keep asking for the stick. It's like the state between waking and dreaming sometimes. In the afternoon I'll get kind of sleepy after lunch, you know, and I'll read, start to read, and then I'll start to drift off, and I'll have these little dreams, and they'll be very kind of real, but then they're not real, and I can go in and out of the dreams, and when I'm in a dream it seems very real, and then a moment later I pull out of the dream, and I realize it was a dream, and I can wake up quickly, and I realize it was a dream, but while I'm there it seems very real.

[20:14]

And it's not exactly sleeping, and it's not exactly being awake, but it's kind of in between. And you have a whole bunch of these little dreams. And they seem real, but they're just dreams. It's something that the whole thing is happening in your own mind. And I remember sitting through early Sashins, when I had a lot of trouble, I had big problems one way or another. And they were dreams that were continuous for seven days. And I dreamt about things that had nothing to do with any of my experience. I don't know where they came from. They were just dreams that some kind of association had set up. And some fantasy mechanism was, some mechanism was turning them into fantasies that I'd never even dreamed up before or heard about before or seen.

[21:22]

And your mind associates, just makes associations so quickly with, all you need is just anything and your mind will make associations and you'll start dreaming about things. And your mind can just create any kind of fantasy. I remember that. One Sushena in particular. It was just sheer fantasy from one end to the other. But, you know, I set Zazen through it all. And that important thing was, even though my mind was working like crazy, my so-called mind was working like crazy, the body was sitting Zazen. And we tend to feel that we associate zazen with our body and mind, but if our mind is inattentive or preoccupied, then we tend to feel that we're not sitting zazen, but actually the body is sitting zazen, even though the mind is working.

[22:32]

And it's very important to have confidence that while the stuff is going on in your mind, The body is still in zazen. This part of your body-mind is concentrated on zazen. That part is as important as the mind part. So what we keep, we keep waking up to the body. In Zazen, we just keep waking up to what our body's doing. While you're sitting in Zazen or during Sushumna, are there any thoughts that are not, that you would not consider to be, or ideas, are there any thoughts or ideas that you would not consider to be mocking?

[23:37]

general way, you could say that all the thoughts are makyo. In one sense, you could say that all the thoughts are makyo. But makyo doesn't necessarily mean bad. If we attach bad to it, then it gives a different flavor. All the thoughts are makyo, but they're not bad. And they're not good. They're just the thoughts. And if you stop judging them, then you can sit zazen pretty easily with all those thoughts. But as soon as you start judging, oh, this is a bad thought. Oh, this is a good thought. Oh, this is wonderful. Oh, this is terrible. As soon as you start judging, then you start judging your zazen. And you start creating more makyo. Real makyo.

[24:42]

Whereas this makyo is just makyo. Everything, all the thoughts that come are just makyo. No problem. What's real makyo? Huh? What's real makyo? Well, real makyo is when you start saying, oh, this is a great idea. This is it. Or, this is awful. Oh, this is terrible. I'm so bad. I should leave. That's when you're caught by it. Caught by your makya. Smaller than capitalism. Yeah, smaller than capitalism. But, you know, makya is okay. Just don't Don't be bothered by it so much. Don't let it bother you.

[25:44]

As long as you don't let it bother you, it's just there. And it's just like, you know, and the same with the sounds outside the zendo. They're just all happening inside your own mind. Just let them come out, come and go. Everything passes through. Then you can become quite empty. If you just let everything come up and pass through, no problem. But as soon as you start getting carried away by your thoughts, one way or the other, then it becomes makyo, with a big N, capital N. But if you can just let everything come up and pass through, which includes the pain in your legs, Anything that bothers you or worries you, just let it come up and pass through, and you just sit exhausted. Anger comes up, it just passes through.

[26:50]

Desire comes up, it just passes through. It comes up and goes. If you try to cut off thoughts, then you have a bigger problem. Because then, when you start having thoughts, you start condemning yourself, or judging your zazen. This is the problem that even older students fall into, constantly. I sat the whole period of zazen, and I couldn't count my breaths, and my mind was just all full of thoughts, the whole time. That was really bad, wasn't it? Well, that's just what happened. If you start judging it, it's good or bad, then you're being caught by your busy mind. But if you don't try, if you don't make an effort, that's not it either.

[27:56]

See, if you think, well, it doesn't matter, I'll just let my mind wander around, you know, that's not the same. So we have to make the effort to concentrate our my body and mind. But at the same time, thoughts are coming up, things are coming up. But if you don't let them bother you, and if you don't attach to them, just let them come. You can sit quite easily. You can let anger come up and pass. You can let desire come up and pass. You can let various fantasies and dreams come up and pass. But you're always bringing yourself back to this. And as you keep bringing yourself back to this, this is where you are. You realize this is where you are.

[28:56]

And if you enjoy a dream, that's fine. No problem. You can enjoy it. But if you hang on to it, when you realize that you're dreaming, you should let go of the dream. Just be able to let go of the dream. Even though it's a wonderful dream, you know, you may want to follow it up. But just let go and then come back to your painful legs. That's hard to do, you know. It's hard to let go of your dream and come back to your painful legs. And then you kind of yearn for the dream again. I wish I hadn't let that go, because now I'm just stuck here with my painful legs. It was a little bit better when I was dreaming. So instead of dreaming, you So what do I do now if I'm not dreaming? You know, all I have is my painful legs.

[30:03]

Then you can put your mind in your hara and watch your breath and become really absorbed in breathing. Yes? It could be both ways, either way. It could happen either way. This changes the subject. I'm just wondering about this trip. I'll let you know when I get back. I'll let you know what happened. I'm not going with any preconceived idea about it, actually.

[31:34]

I'm washing my bowl, so to speak, and just leaving it open, leaving my mind open to what comes up. I don't have a particular idea about it, And I do have ideas about it, but I'm trying not to express them. I'd rather wait until that happens, and then I can talk more freely about it, I think. Is that okay?

[32:42]

Okay. Well, the actual ceremony of dharma transmission is between two people. And it's a very private ceremony. And most of the things that you do in the ceremony are not, because it's a private ceremony, the things that you do are not public knowledge. But it's a kind of ceremony of recognition and handing down to, or maybe you could say, twining eyebrows.

[33:55]

establishing or recognizing a very close relationship with no gap between teacher and student. Oichi, I guess Oichi was not really my teacher, but Roshi's son, and Suzuki Roshi was my teacher, and since Suzuki Roshi died too soon, and various other circumstances which you know about, Oichi is substituting for Suzuki Roshi, who was my teacher. even though we haven't known each other so long, the feeling of it is between myself and Suzuki Roshi.

[35:14]

So that's the essence of the ceremony. And it takes about a week or two to really complete the ceremony. There's a lot of calligraphy that I have to do. I have to make my own transmission documents. And a lot of it, most of it has to do with lineage, writing out the names of the patriarchs. If you ever had a lay ordination, you know, you have a Kichin-yaku, which is the bloodline of the Buddhas, the patriarchs. And you receive one of those when you have ordination. And that has all the names. And that's one of the documents that you have to make.

[36:19]

And there are other documents, too, that are complex like that. And you have to do it from scratch. And the documents are much bigger than your little paper one. It's big, long pieces of silk that you do it on. So that takes about a week, at least, to do. And then the ceremony takes place around that. People, when they arrive at the Zen Center for the first time, arrive in different stages of awareness and different degrees of psychological development.

[37:22]

Do you think that there has to be some kind of clearing process psychologically before you can really practice Dazen? Or can you trust Dazen to do that for you? The creative process... See, the way that originally, and we still have vestiges of this, originally, coming to a Zen center, the process was, you enter the door, And nobody tells you what to do. And you just find a seat, you know, and then when everybody bows, you don't know what to do, you know, you're looking around and you kind of do it with everybody. If you can't do it, then you go out the door. And if you want to do it but can't, you know, but feel funny about it, you kind of go along with it, you know.

[38:30]

you may ask some question afterward. You know, what did you do? What do you do? And then someone can talk to you. But until you ask a question, nobody will say anything to you. So a Zen center usually looks very cold. You see, the people are very unfriendly there. But this is part of the process of being able to enter in. Because in order to be able to enter into the practice, you have to start shedding some things. kind of go in without your usual preconceptions and without your usual ego feelings. And if you can start asking questions, that's good. Or if you can just kind of watch and go along with things, that's also good, as long as you're feeling your way in. So, feeling your way in is part of the process. however you do it, there are various ways of feeling your way in.

[39:36]

It may be that you don't ask any questions and you just go along with things, or it may be that you immediately start asking questions, or it could be that you go along with things and ask questions at the same time. So that's kind of a, that's the doorway. It's a kind of, a little bit of a maze. you know, but that's traditionally the way that it works. Because people start calling Zen students cold and unfriendly, we make more overtures, you know, and we greet people, so we do it a little differently. We've devised, just a minute, we've devised a way of doing it being more, and that's probably okay. It must be okay because that's America, you know. But I think that way works fine too. But the process of having to find your way lets you know what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do when you're in that process.

[40:51]

Sometimes people go away and then they'll come back later and go through the process. So It's not that we have a certain type of person that's a Zen student, but you know, we don't have people that are boisterous or we were kind of boisterous in some way, but there's a certain kind of elimination process. You know, certain people whose personalities don't fit yet. You may sometime, but they're not ready yet for that. And so, those people who can make it up through that stream are the people that usually continue. Is that kind of what you were...? Well, that's a good part of it, but the other thing that I was wondering about is, are there some people who might need to have some other kind of psychological development take place

[42:01]

help of some kind before they are really ready to sit Zazen, or will Zazen, can you just skip over that part and let Zazen do it for you? Sometimes. Sometimes Zazen will do that. Depends on the degree of someone's psychological problems. Some people we ask not to come. Some people psychologically are not suited. And so we say, please don't come or you're not ready somehow. I used to try to deal with everybody, no matter who they were, no matter what their psychological problem. I used to spend weeks just talking to people, you know. And sometimes it worked, but mostly with people that really needed psychological help, I couldn't do that. And I just had to let go of them. And a lot of people just need psychological help rather than, sometimes they can do both.

[43:07]

And that's okay. But sometimes they're not ready yet and they just need to be, have psychological help. And sometimes there are people that come and go. But you have to, there's a certain psychological You have to be fit in some psychological way before you can do it. Sometimes the zazen will really help and sometimes it doesn't make any difference at all. And sometimes it will make it worse in the sense that at least... but the worse is maybe better because it'll bring things to a head where a person will go someplace else and do something decisive. But I wouldn't say it's for everybody. Anna-Marie?

[44:10]

Yeah, I was just, I felt that Megan had, her question was not quite an original answer to that. I felt that she asked more about people's different developmental stages than Megan kind of asked. Yeah. Yes. I hear the phrase sit zazen sometimes when I'm hungry. Is the word sit redundant there or can one also breathe zazen, eat zazen? Yeah. Sit zazen, eat zazen, walk zazen. Be what you do. The main point, you know, in sitting is to be sitting.

[45:11]

And we call that zazen. When there's just sitting, that's zazen. And when there's just reading, just eating. In the morning, you know, we have breakfast and it's just eating. That's also zazen. And so that's how we carry a practice into our daily life. So when we have, say, Saturday morning, we have work period, that's a very important part of our practice, to be able to work together. And we have the feeling at that time of zazen, and the continuation of zazen from sitting into work period.

[46:25]

And so working together is a very valuable way of understanding zazen. contain that, keep that attitude during work. Concentrated attitude. Just struck my mind, I learned a wonderful thing just recently I learned it from someone here, that when someone is angry at you about something, my tendency has always been to take responsibility for their anger. You know, they're angry, uh-oh, what am I supposed to do about this?

[47:31]

But it's the most freeing thing to realize if someone's angry at you, that's their anger. You know, maybe there's some relationship that you have to clear up about that, but you're really just not responsible to solve someone else's anger for them. Or two, what we usually do is take the anger and throw it back in some way. or hide. It's really something to be able to stand up and see it. Not be angry back, not react, and not run away. At that point, it's zazen. The point where you don't throw it back and you don't run away.

[48:32]

You can practice zazen on that point. But anyway, even though I'll be away for a month, I'll be practicing zazen with you. And I'll send you some postcards. Bring you back some nice things. Thank you.

[49:15]

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