The third patriarch of China was quite famous for a statement he made, which is, he said, the supreme way is not difficult. As long as you can keep from discriminative thinking, everything you see is it. It doesn't say, everything you see is it. It says, if you keep from discriminative thinking, everything you see is it. I think Les, the other day in a lecture, talked about this Blue Cliff Record story, number 35,

[01:06]

which also says something quite similar. It says, without the third eye, without some magic stone that the Taoists wore on their arm, How can you tell the difference between dragons and snakes? If your ears only just hear sound and your eyes just see what's there. Dogen commented on the third patriarch statement rather interesting story about a Garuda. I don't know if I told you this story before. But Dogen says there's this great bird which covers the whole sky and one beat of its wing causes tidal waves. And then at the bottom of the ocean there are all these dead fishes and dragons

[02:38]

and some alive fishes and dragons. And then the Garuda bird flies over and he only takes the alive ones. And Dogen says, this is true non-discrimination. So the question is, what will you see if you don't discriminate? Only alive dragons and fishes? One thing we need for confidence in our practice is the assurance of the knowledge that everything we do is linked. On the one side you know of course through your karma that whatever you do links up to other things. And also your zazen links up. The zazen is not

[04:01]

something you do in some isolation from the rest of your life. And I think Zazen is a pretty difficult thing to have confidence in because as Zen practices it, it's in the realm of non-doing. Very little is given you. Some Buddhist sects, they give you, oh, now we'll do intensive meditation for six months or two years. Then after that, we'll study the sutras. And then after that, something else. That kind of meditation may give you something to do. But in Zen, you just do zazen. And there's almost no effect or fruit of it that we can rely on. Except we know that everything in our life is linked. So if you do zazen, everything in your life is zazen.

[05:34]

So you don't have many opportunities, actually, to do zazen. And when you have one, it's a rare opportunity. Because even when you have the chance to do zazen, it's so difficult, actually, to concentrate, to stop thinking. But each time you do, it penetrates. So you worry, you know, I have to take care of such and such, so I can't do zazen just now. But that means you don't have confidence in the way everything is linked. If you have confidence, you'll do zazen just now and take care of that, whatever you have to do in the time for that.

[07:02]

There's no way to explain how everything is linked. My mind comes, you know, how a flute is carried, or how some dancers motions are carried in everyone's hands throughout a culture. How your activity, how our activity is carried in subtle ways throughout this culture. I spoke, I think, just before I left, about three modes of existence, sort of complex, gross, subtle, and the combination, or sometimes we say seed. Our real activity is on that level of seed.

[08:39]

So as you know yourself more and more subtly, without your consciousness straying, everything becomes quite transparent. And such ideas as independence or naturalism or mysticism, we don't have anymore. I think we get caught by the idea of expecting some special experience or some mystic experience, which may be there, but if you have some idea about it, or you attach some meaning to it, your practice is only in the first mode, which is linked only by thinking. Or if you think that everything you see is it, in some natural way, that's also a rather primitive idea.

[10:09]

Karma, one way to understand karma is that everything has a tendency to cluster. So there's two important factors about karma, maybe. One is to know that everything comes from you. And second is that everything has a tendency to cluster. So depending on what kind of realm you give meaning, your thinking will cluster around that. So the sense of an ego is only one way in which your thinking clusters around a way of giving meaning.

[11:37]

And we hear, you know, quite often, what's wrong with the modern world is that people's lives don't have any meaning anymore. And we can't, it's difficult, I think, for many people to imagine a life without meaning. So you can say, well, I practice at Zen Center, so my life has some meaning. Or I'm an architect. I have a family, so it gives my life some meaning. And what about the person sitting in a hotel room, you know, we imagine ourselves possibly becoming?

[12:46]

with nothing to do and no job and no friends and what we need, we think, is to give our life some meaning. So we should go join Zen Center or something like that. kind of meaning is very selective. It's what gives us satisfaction or what kind of meaning fulfills our ego or our selves. You actually don't need that kind of meaning. If you're in a, for some reason, find yourself in a hotel room in a strange city with nothing to do and a new life to start, if such a person can actually just go out of the hotel, walk down the street, and respond to the first situation that comes,

[14:12]

You know, maybe somebody is loading beer out of a basement, those metal doors that open up, and into a grocery store. And there's too much, so you start helping. And then he thanks you, and you go on down the street, and then you come to a sign saying, help wanted. Dishwasher. All you have to do is walk right in, say, here I am, I'll wash your dishes. If you could respond in this way, your life would be quite simple. And when you took care of the dishes, you know, if you also had a wider sense of just not looking for a job, but just taking care of situations, you'd take care of the whole restaurant. And they'd make you manager, probably. Though you'd have to be careful living this way, because soon you'd have a chain of restaurants. And many friends, you know. He began as a dishwasher. You don't have to have any meaning, you know, to do that.

[15:39]

Thinking and the sense of an ego are very closely connected. Thinking is the realm in which ego moves. And we talk about giving up thinking, but we Maybe we don't see all the forms in which thinking really exists, and one is meaning. Meaning is just another form of thinking. But sometimes a person who, one of the most The most common way somebody tries to give up thinking is when they're confronted with compulsive thinking. And most of us don't really try to give up thinking. It seems impossible, and anyway, that's where our life finds its meaning. So we don't try, actually. But a person who has a problem with compulsive thinking does try to stop his thinking.

[17:14]

And it's pretty difficult to try to stop just ego or just some particular thought pattern. It's sort of like a broken record. It's hard to get a scratch out of a record. But it's easier to change the whole record. And you change the record by finding out how your thinking is clustering around some particular set of values, some meaning, or how you give things importance. Oh, this should be the natural way, or some special experience. Or I should do it like he did it. It was like they wanted it to. More difficult. We can't see beyond the edge of the record we're going round and round on.

[18:39]

So one way we do is we change the realm of your thinking by linking your thinking with your breathing. You know, one, two, and then following your breathing. Following your breathing links your thinking to your energy. A different realm than linking your thinking to your breathing. And your thinking changes. in the realm of breathing. So stopping thinking, actually stopping thinking is perhaps the most effective way to get free from ego, because you take away the realm for ego. And to stop thinking you have to take away

[20:23]

the fuel of thinking. And the fuel of thinking is some meaning or some focus, some locus of your thinking. And you can cut through this in your zazen. by bringing your thinking and your breathing together and your whole body motility with some intense concentration and not moving. The Heart Sutra, we chant, says, all things or all dharmas are marked with emptiness. They do not increase nor decrease, are not tainted nor pure, do not appear nor disappear.

[21:49]

Oh, do not appear nor disappear. Do not appear nor disappear, this non-discriminative thinking. Emptiness for yourself, your own practical experience, means you've stopped thinking. But it's hard to stop thinking as long as you give meaning to it. And you give meaning to it if you can't find some trust in the third mode.

[23:04]

when you realize that you don't have to do anything beyond this moment. There's no point to all that thinking. It's not even pleasurable. But as long as your whole life exists in thinking, if you stop thinking, there's this enormous blank gap. and your life has no meaning or seems empty in a hollow sense. But when thinking is just a disturbance, you know, in some much wider sense of being alive with all things, interdependent and one with, then you can give up thinking. While I was away, I was told that

[24:43]

practice in the zendo, it was a little lax. People started being late more often, etc. Maybe because of spring coming? Anyway, I understand quite well the need for some variation and why we make very real decisions to practice a little differently or to concentrate on some task we have to do or to take some psychological space for some But generally that choice is an error in judgment. It's not wrong. If you contrast practice, this is practice, this is non-practice, then you have more trouble with the decision.

[26:16]

But when it's all worldly or all practiced, you don't have that distinction. Then it's just a matter of judgment. Whether you choose short lengths or long lengths, what I mean is, usually, sometimes we do have to do something right now. Even for our practice, we have to do something, like write a letter, what it is. And that's also, when you don't see that as non-practice, but that is also practice, then it's only a matter of judgment whether you choose that thing which has short implications for your life or long implications. That's too crude a way to say it, but I don't know how to say it any other way.

[27:30]

the more you see how your life actually exists in a realm in which your one breath following the other next breath, the preceding breath, has more real connection with everything than what you think about everything, and takes care of your life much more surely. Can you begin to give up those things we think we have to do? As long as you have these links, you have to use the links. And you can use the links by changing your realm of thinking. And eventually you can break the links. And we can talk about then spontaneous activity without any reference or meaning, not natural or mystical.

[28:59]

Tomorrow is the shuso ceremony, and this is a very important time for each of you who become shuso. It's the time in which your practice, with everyone begins. Phenomenal sense. You know when we take jhukai or lay ordination, our practice that's taking the refuge.

[31:38]

You can't hear in the back, right? He said, on the one hand, stopping thinking sounds like a superhuman effort or accomplishment. It's probably impossible to have a blank mind. And the second is maybe it means some kind of thinking which negates thinking, or some attitude which tends to interfere with, or a kind of moment-by-moment antidote to thinking.

[32:53]

Something like that? I was going to ask you, what do you think? Do I think? Yes. Too much. Anyway, he feels some contrast between these two. The second one I didn't describe exactly right for him. Anyway, not thinking. Anyway, your question is in the realm of thinking, right? And my answer must be in the realm of thinking if I open my mouth.

[33:58]

So on the one hand, you can take it out of the realm of thinking, you can just have confidence that it's possible and that you're going to keep doing zazen without thinking about it. That's one way. And the various jhanas, you know, this stage and that stage, mirror mind, etc. These stages, you know, One reason we have them, of course, most people never accomplish so much. But without that kind of stage, you'd think very quickly, oh, my practice is quite good. But if you take the sutras seriously and those stages seriously, as real as they are, then your practice is a lifetime practice. And you can also know, as long as those stages don't make sense to you, or as long as when you do feel they make sense, that sense isn't confirmed by your life and your teachers,

[35:35]

in your activity, you should have some caution in your idea about practice and Zen. Anyway, Dogen says, think non-thinking, which may help, If you confront thinking with thinking, you know, you have a pretty hard... It seems impossible. But if you can take away those things around which thinking clusters, your thinking no longer has any fuel, no longer has any reason. You know, there's no... something comes up and there's no... nothing in it for you to think about it. Now, of course, if there's some reason for thinking, that kind of thinking just goes. You don't even stop and say, oh, I'm thinking. Very quickly you decide to do something.

[36:55]

I think short of some arduous beating, you know, which is one way actually. One way they do in monasteries is you can tell actually when a person is thinking in their zazen. And you can stand near them and every time you see a thought go across their head you hit them as hard as you can. After several months of that, you know, or several years, You're cautious about thinking. Thoughts creep in. Watching for the stick. You try to sneak out quickly. Actually. But I don't think that would be so palatable for you. And it does limit practice to a few people. Because most people take one look at the monastery and they say, uh-uh. Only some person who is able to be tough like that with themselves from the beginning can enter such a practice. So I think the only way for us is to

[38:29]

take away the fuel of our thinking. And eventually you'll find that thinking, you can no longer call the activity of your mind thinking or subjective or objective activity. But at each moment of your practice you have to just have some confidence in practice and not try to figure out how practice is going to help me practice or something like that. Just practice and go on with your thinking, that's all. Accepting that as your thinking changes

[39:54]

through your practice, through changing the realm of your thinking through practice, you'll understand what all the sutras mean. I didn't say exactly that, but that's a rather interesting statement. Maybe I said that, if I did, I don't know. She says I said maybe. You should have caution before you think about your practice, or how you think about your practice. Did I say that? Something like that? What could I mean? I don't know what context I was saying, as an isolated statement. Yeah? Oh, I know. Oh, I understand now. Okay. I meant that it cautions us not to come to conclusions that our practice is good or bad or finished or

[41:25]

Because when you see that, you can see, oh, my practice is... I don't even understand what that means. So, you can't form an idea about your practice as being such and such. You see what I mean? Yeah, okay. I don't... I don't... Why is it unfortunate? Can't you have confidence and doubt? You do, I think, actually. Your body does. Maybe your head doesn't. But your body is way ahead in your practice. Your mind is lagging behind. You couldn't hear what she was saying?

[42:42]

Anyway, we had an interesting conversation. She says that she can't imagine forming an idea about her practice, because she has so much doubt about it to begin with. And I said, OK, or good. And she said, well, that seems like an unfortunate situation. And I said, why do you think it's unfortunate? And she said, I don't know what she said. Anyway, why? Oh, because she should be confident. So, I asked, as you heard, why can't you be confident and have doubt? Doubt, you know, In each thing you do, you have some confidence. As in, picking up something, a cup, or making a mistake, you just do it, you know? Being sick, you have some confidence, just doing it. You're doing it, that's all there is, right? Your doubt is, who is it that's doing it?

[44:17]

Or if you ascribe some meaning to your doing it, you doubt that meaning. You don't doubt the doing itself. You see what I mean? Anyway, that's some starting point for working with doubt and confidence. After you've been practicing a long time, you begin to want some conclusion to your practice. Or after you have solved many of the problems that you found were impediments or thought were impediments to practice, you begin to have some idea about practice. But if you read the Sutras, you can see how

[45:21]

The word that comes to my mind is sniveling. Maybe that's too strong. How small our practice is. Anyway, let's have a good shiso sermon tomorrow. You're wrong.

[46:02]

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