You people, students, are, I don't know why I feel this exactly, but I feel you're very lucky this practice period, lucky to have Kadagiri Roshi here, and I came at the beginning of the practice period and watched Tongariro begin, and saw the new gathering in the beginning of practice period, and I've been here once or twice since then. And there's quite a difference. At the beginning, you all have sat quite a while, and you all sit pretty well, but there's

[01:04]

some difference, actually. The way you sit is much more settled. Maybe it's the sesshins helped, I don't know. But, and the whole practice period has a very settled feeling. The posture looks nearly the same, but more relaxed and comfortable and straight. Okay. Okay.

[02:16]

Okay. Your practice should absorb the practice period, should absorb the city, and should absorb your past, your present, and your future. Traditional Buddhism speaks of four wisdoms.

[04:10]

I can never remember a list, but anyway, I think they're the great mirror wisdom, and the universal wisdom, and the observing wisdom, and the perfecting of action wisdom. That really means to absorb everything, those four wisdoms. And if you can learn how to absorb the pain and your zazen, and the other people, when you look at other people, they should just be part of you. You include everything.

[05:16]

If you have these four wisdoms, then you can act in the world. Then whatever you do as practice, you can perfect your action in the world. So when we talk to you about zen, we're making suggestions to your absorbing mind, not to your usual thinking mind. I guess it's called the alaya, I don't know how to pronounce the word, anyway, the eighth

[06:28]

consciousness, store consciousness, anyway. Buddhism talks about eight consciousnesses. So instead of talking about what to do, how to do it, we make some suggestion to your absorbing mind. And unless you're open to absorbing, you don't know what we're talking about. So when we practice Buddhism, we reverse the whole process. Instead of doing, we stop doing and start absorbing. So we try not to discriminate. So non-discriminating, non-differentiating are important parts of wisdom. So if you can practice not differentiating, practice non-discrimination, it's not, I mean,

[07:46]

many of you think non-discrimination is nothing makes any difference, you know, something like that. But that's not what we mean. What we mean is, it's a suggestion about how to open yourself up to absorb. If you can learn to absorb, if you can have that ability you have, that power you have to absorb, to be opened up, then everything you do is practice. So instead of talking so much about how we hear and how we see, etc., though that's in the sutra we chant every day, the Heart Sutra.

[08:47]

No eye, no ear. It's very interesting that Tozan, who is considered to be the founder of the Soto sect, when he was a young man, went to, I guess, a village temple or the local temple and started studying Buddhism, and in the sutra, this is a story, whether it's true or not exactly, I don't know, in the sutra, must be true actually, in the sutra when it came to no eyes, no ears, no nose, no mouth, he said, What do you mean? I have an eye, nose and mouth. You should ask that question too. You can't understand what no eyes, no ears, no nose, no mouth means, unless you say, But

[09:54]

I have an eye, nose, mouth. I have an eye, nose, mouth. You don't know what each thing is. One of the practices in early Buddhism is you take a hair and you actually look at the hair. Is it brown or white?

[10:55]

You find a hair in your food. You actually look at the hair. And you visualize the hair and you have an image of the hair and you look at all your reactions to the hair. Not so different from visualizing a Buddha to visualize a hair. So basic Buddhism talks about that and then how we feel, you know, unpleasant if the hair is in our food. What is one hair? But then the Avatamsaka Sutra says the whole world, everything, the whole cosmos is in a single hair. Millions of Buddhists preaching. So if you can practice non-differentiation, non-discrimination, just absorb.

[12:26]

And you really can absorb, so there's no you absorbing, there's just absorption. Then you can begin to take activity through your ears, through your eyes, through your mouth. And you can perfect that. But first you have to know what a thing is, what a hair is. And I think it's a little difficult for us. I mean, I see in some ways how certain things are easier for Japanese people because they're

[13:43]

much more used to what a thing is. This morning at Chosan we looked at a fan, what a fan is. And what a fan is to a Japanese person is so much more than what a fan is to us. I mean, everything, you know, what silk thread is, what are the possible colors for thread, is so much more to a Japanese person than to us. But if we're to practice Zen we have to open ourselves up to the same understanding of things, because our practices, Zen practice, Chan practice, is so passed and taught through

[14:43]

things. So nobody explains why we take the kesa and put it on our heads in the morning. But you should know what your head is. What your head is in practice and what your head is in Zazen. What the robe is, Buddha's robe, passed from teacher to student, teacher to student. So you shouldn't just accept, well, we put our raksu on our head. Like you shouldn't just accept no nose.

[15:45]

Actually you have a nose. So you should ask yourself, why do we put it on our head? But not why in the sense, should I do it or shouldn't I do it. Here's this thing I'm putting on my head. This is my head. If you don't know anything actually, why? After many years it's still, you know, the robe changes and your head changes. The same is true in little things like we come in the door and we turn our shoes.

[17:06]

When you go in, in Japan anyway, you turn your shoes backwards, so that when you step out of the door your shoes are there. When we take care of a room, you know, our robes, we do it in a certain way. And it's not different from a ceremony on the altar when we pick up the objects of the altar a certain way at that time. But for Zen Buddhists we don't feel you should only pick up the thing in the altar. It's not so important the altar. How do you pick up your teacup? Your shoe. How do you place your shoes? Is that maybe your shoes or your vajra?

[18:09]

I don't know. What is a vajra? Vajra is... Excuse me. Actually, originally I guess it was Zeus's thunderbolt. It's that little five pronged, three pronged thing that Shingon sect in Japan uses and Vajrayana uses. Vajrayana is... There's Hinayana, Mahayana, people talk of Vajrayana. Vajrayana is this thing, five pronged or three pronged. Sometimes it's the Diamond Sutras, the Vajra Chakriti, is the Vajra Sutra. Sometimes it's translated diamond, but I think that's incorrect actually. It's actually thunderbolt, but either one, diamond or thunderbolt.

[19:46]

Any other questions? What does Vajra symbolize? Many things, maybe it's the Adi Buddha. Do you know what an Adi Buddha is? It's not so important, that kind of thing. Excuse me for introducing the word. Actually, as I've said before, I don't know. I guess I get mixed up about what I've said where. Actually, you know these... It's helpful to know something about what these words are, maybe.

[21:15]

Because there is a... It's a kind of special language. Zen, we say, what's the first principle? You can't understand what the first principle is from the word first or principle. So, if you talk about the first principle, what do we mean, first principle? It's kind of a code. I don't think there's much of a point to try to learn a lot of things, that's not what I mean. But at the point at which your practice is sort of up against a wall, and you begin wondering, what are these people talking about? No ears, no nose, the first principle. At that point, you want to communicate with your teacher. Then you try to find some way to say something.

[22:18]

But you can't say it, because if you say it, it's already wrong. So you have to just exist. Maybe your existence says something. At that point, this kind of special language arises. What is the first principle? Yes. Yes. Yes.

[23:41]

Of course. The idea is that this life here is based on that kind of... You know, Tsukiroshi always talked about form is form, and there's emptiness, and form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. Form is form, and emptiness is emptiness. So what does form is emptiness mean? I don't know. Then why add form is form, emptiness is emptiness, and all those variations on it? Because maybe I think they're a helpful way when you really try to understand what happens when I go back to the city.

[24:44]

How do we practice when we go back to the city? How do we practice here? In San Francisco, everyone is concerned with how they're going to practice when they get to Tassajara, plus, of course, how they're going to survive in the city. And here, everyone is concerned with how they're going to practice when they get to the city. So here, you're learning to absorb. Maybe form is emptiness, as you're learning to do without certain things. You're learning to do without private time, in which you have to do what the schedule says. You have to do what the schedule says.

[26:27]

Keep your Samadhi. Keep your Samadhi, something we talked about the other night. Govinda refers to it, and you must know it, as something to keep. Keep it for your teaching. Keep it for your teaching. I don't know if you want to read that. You are not sure if he means that to be a koan, or if he's just talking to you. As monks, we have simply a lot of experiences, as in... ... I don't know the...

[27:35]

... I don't know... I don't know, nor do I know if anyone knows, who were his audience for each different kind of lecture he gave. But... Of course, it's not exactly layman if you're talking about different kinds of Samadhi. But I would have to read exactly what he said, and know the context. I remember sort of that part. I'd have to see it. But... It's interesting, you know, when... ...who say, nothing exists. But then they say, what is enlightenment, or something,

[28:47]

and they say, the tree in the courtyard. Or there's not even a tree in the courtyard. And what... When they say the tree in the courtyard, do they mean Samadhi? What do they mean? That's rather interesting. I don't think it should be answered. What can they possibly mean? Rather interesting. So you have some... ...question like that. If you... ...let it, you know, rest in you, or be in you, then when you see a tree, or you find your own experience, it's different.

[29:49]

It opens your experience up. It's rather useful, not for an answer, but how it opens your experience up. Yes. Can you tell us about your experience? I already told about it this morning, but you weren't there, right? A third of you were, so... Maybe not one third, but a lot, so I'll have to tell another version. Can I do that? Anyway, he's... I don't think there's... I don't think we should get too interested in him as a good Roshi,

[30:54]

because the likelihood of his ever spending any time here is extremely slim. And the likelihood of any of us being able to study with him, even going to Japan, is extremely slim. Because he's old, 72, and he's, I guess, untold, and it looks like it's true. Newspapers refer to him and such. As the most active priest of any Buddhist sect in Japan. So he doesn't have time to do anything. His way of being in Japan is interesting, because he's, of course, extremely busy. At least his time is very full. And when he's in the city,

[31:58]

of course, he has many people who do things for him, but he just does everything on the telephone. He has two rooms where he works, one in Kyoto and one in his temple in Shofuku-ji, I think it is, in Kobe. And the one in Kyoto, he has, say, this is the room, he has a table and some stuff. And he's got maybe six teapots going. Because while he's talking he gives you, maybe to distract you, and also because he's hospitable, every kind of tea. A monk brings matcha, so you have matcha, and then he picks up a teapot with leaves in it and he pours hot water in it, dumps you a cup of ocha, and then bancha comes, and then he takes another ocha. So in a half-hour conversation he's sort of doing things, and pouring tea all the time. He has a wonderful way,

[33:01]

he's extremely skillful, but at the same time there's kind of wonderful sloppiness. And he just tips it and the water goes all over the table, misses the cup. Then you have a cloth, of course, a beautiful piece of cloth. And he has things piled around him, mail and books. The room's about this full. He's got a little clearing in the middle. Looks like he takes a letter and goes, chunk, chunk. And at his place in Kobe, his room in Kobe, the stuff reaches to the ceiling. It's piled around him, there's a little space. But he seems to have three kinds of activity. One is a rather busy priest

[34:08]

who does things representing all of Japan when it's required for a Buddhist priest to represent Japan. And... I guess he is now, or he has been anyway, the head of, president of the Rinzai University, Hanazono Daigaku. So he's very involved in that. When they have a strike, a demo, he's involved in that. And he's a popular lay teacher. So his lectures are very popular with laymen. And he gives quite a few lectures to laymen. So he has that kind of life. And then he has a second kind in which he is, I guess, considered one of the top, or the top by Teamaster's calligrapher in Japan.

[35:09]

And so he... I'm sure that various people think other people are the best, but I've heard him mentioned most. In which he's the center of a kind of people very involved in Buddhism who once practiced, or still do, or who are writers, or businessmen, or doctors, or professors, or volunteer probationary officers. I mention that because one of the people accompanying him was a volunteer probationary officer in Kobe. And they come to his temple and he makes calligraphy and talks with them in quite a different manner than either his administrator side. And then he has a third where he spends most of his time in his Kobe training monastery during the training period in which he is completely a traditional teacher

[36:14]

with a very strict, rather severe relationship to monks. I know a German man who studied with him for some time and then got married. Five minutes after he got married he was thrown out of the monastery. So he... And there he just works with koans and works with his students. He also is head of a convent. In Japan there's a kind of high culture scene which is really... I don't mean high culture, but high in the sense of... exclusive. It is exclusive but only because you either participate in it or you don't. And it's largely involved with tea. And it's a kind of religion.

[37:16]

And in that religion he's one of the bosses. Anyway, aside from all that kind of background he's an extremely calm, gentle man. He doesn't seem to have any particular style that you can pinpoint. He's Rinzai or Soto or something. He's just an extremely calm, gentle man. He likes China very much. He wears a Chinese-style roshi beard and hair. And... And he's the most... Of a man of his age he's the most like Suzuki Roshi of any person I've ever met. He's about the same size and extremely gentle, open feeling including everything, everybody around him.

[38:18]

And... Actually, he's amazingly like Suzuki Roshi. Though his background is very different. Suzuki Roshi is from a kind of farming village in Chizuoka. He's from... He reminds me of Kyoto. But their feeling is almost the same. Amazing. So he stopped at the Zen Center and it was quite an honor. I guess most of the Zen groups in the country wanted him to stop. And then he went to Mexico where he has a disciple, Eijo Takata where he will spend... I guess do a sashin with him and a few more days and then go back to Japan. Does that answer your question? Sure. Thank you. Did you mention anyone of a different age that recognized Suzuki Roshi?

[39:24]

Of a different age? You said that... Oh, yes. Let's see. Maybe cut it here. See, I didn't know Suzuki Roshi when he was 40 or 30. So I have no way of knowing what a priest at 40 is like. From what I know of Suzuki Roshi's early life he was quite different in a sense. People felt the same about him, I guess. But his life and what he did and repairing... He had a lot of responsibility for several temples and involved in rebuilding them, things like that. And his life at that time was... What kind of man he was, whether there's other priests who are, say, 35 in Japan or 25 at Eheichi, who...

[40:27]

What they'll be like when they're 65, I don't know. So that's why I said like that age, I don't know. So there may be some very good priests who are just like Suzuki Roshi when they were 30, when he was 30, I think. Pretty hard to practice Buddhism in Japan now because the whole thrust of the country is into this. The only preserve I see, better preserved in some ways than the Buddhist world is the Kyoto sort of high culture world which seems to continue rather unchanged. But the Buddhist world does too, but it's pretty hard to practice Buddhism the way you have to

[41:28]

for many years, 10 or 15 years, without caring about much else. Japan's very busy with automobiles, very active, busy country. What creates

[42:49]

Raman Yamada Roshi is his commitment to practice. You wouldn't expect Buddha to have any less commitment than completely to be Buddha. And you can't be a Zen student unless you are committed completely to being a Zen student. You can't find a teacher until you're committed completely to being a Zen student. If you expect that kind of... If you expect Raman Yamada Roshi to be Raman Yamada Roshi or Katagiri Roshi to be Katagiri Roshi, then you have to completely be a Zen student. If your commitment doesn't match their commitment, you'll never know anything. There's no possibility of real practice

[43:53]

occurring between you. So as long as you're thinking, maybe I'll practice Zen for five years, maybe I'll do this, it's maybe some kind of therapy for you to practice here. Maybe it's... Underneath that, there's a commitment that you don't know, and you're absorbing or getting more open. But actually, real practice doesn't begin until you see that you have to make that commitment. Somehow, you're turned under, inside or over, when you... And there's no alternative but to make that commitment. If nothing exists, then what is there except your desire to be Buddha? It's not tomorrow, you know.

[44:58]

You can't look around waiting for it to happen, waiting for it. And now, this experience will come in the next Sashin, and I'll have commitment. And now, slowly I'll become Buddha. Slowly my practice will improve. That's true, you know, slowly your practice will improve. But to seek reality, to think, I'm going to find out what reality is, you know, then I'll understand. That really separates you from... You are reality. The world is an illusion

[46:30]

sustained by Buddha, by the sustaining power of Buddha. And the world is an illusion sustained by your power, too, your power to practice Buddhism. And you decide Not exactly decide, but that's why we have the vows. You vow to save all sentient beings. You vow to be Buddha. And you can just look around. What can you be? You know, you can look at yourself. Who's there? So, Buddhism is... Zen is very existential in that instance. The existentialist says there's... there's nothing, so I have to decide what will my life be. And we have to decide what will our life be. And you decide, I'll practice Buddhism.

[47:31]

And if you wait around for it to happen to you and then you'll start practicing, or you wait around to make sure there's not something else you really want to do that's more interesting, and after you've checked out all the possibilities, then you'll decide that's not... that's not what reality is. Is there enough... enough time and space to trust in yourself? You have to trust yourself. Have patience with yourself. You have no alternative. Yes, you demand of yourself

[48:37]

by trusting yourself even if you can't. And you trust people around you even if they're not trustworthy. So you decide, I'll trust people. Of course, you can't, you know, be an idiot and taken in by everybody, but you can. Maybe that's better than going around making sure you're not conned. Let people con you, you know. Let people do whatever they want to you. No, don't con yourself. Do you trust people around you all the time? Do you trust them? Still you trust them. Your trust shouldn't be based on... on whether they're trustworthy or not.

[49:38]

Yes. Do you think you're right if you understand what's going on? Yes. Thank you. What I said was, if you let people con you, there'll come a time in which you won't be able to trust them anymore. And what I mean is, say you take this attitude, well, just let people con you. Basically, it's trustworthy. And you understand that if you let people con you, then you have your mind. you let people con you, you let people con you, and then, you get betrayed. So, underneath that, I was talking about on a more shallow level, you feel a lot of retaliation for the vengefulness

[50:42]

that happens and that doesn't seem so obvious. It's true, you know. I understand if you if you feel betrayed, you know. But it's okay for people to betray you. If you understand people, you understand why they want to betray you. It's okay. That's rather that's what compassion is. Feel for them, feel with them, feel even they're betraying you. But if there's nobody there to betray, how can they betray you? Yeah. I like to know when they're doing it, though. You never let me con you. You're a special case.

[51:44]

Yeah. Do you want to let them all do? No. Sorry. If you don't understand what I mean right away, it's best just to forget about it. Zuki, or she, always said that a thief is stealing for his mother.

[52:49]

On some level that's true, you know. So if you... I don't know. Anyway. That's a big problem, people coming to the gate. You want to take your peaches or something. I don't know what... That's the most painful problem probably Zen Center has. But there's something to... It's a different kind of problem, but there's something to knowing what you're doing and what you can actually say. In the same kind of question, maybe, if an anthropologist or sociologist comes and says, what is Zen? We have no obligation to tell them. If someone,

[53:54]

if somebody asks does Soto use koans or not use koans, there's no reason to answer anybody about that. If you're practicing here and you're practicing with a teacher, you'll find out whether Soto uses koans or not. There's no other answer. So, if people come here and we're practicing, we have some reason for practicing in this way, for not moving during Zazen. So we don't move during Zazen. And we also say something should exist in the world which includes a group of people practicing together in an isolated way in the mountains. If you let everybody come who comes just for any reason,

[54:55]

you know, then it's the same as moving during Zazen. It's okay to move during Zazen. You should have the freedom to move during Zazen. But you should also have the freedom to sit still during Zazen and the opportunity to sit still during Zazen. Yeah? Yes? I agree. So we say, this is not Buddha. This is not Buddha. And if you say to somebody who wants to do such and such or practice Zen, they want to know what Zazen is, well, I don't see any reason to even explain how to sit to anybody. You know? Just give them enough... enough...

[55:56]

Then they have some idea they know what Zazen is. Just give them enough information so they don't feel too awkward coming in the Zendo. But the best, only thing is try it yourself. Try sitting. So, no is very important. In fact, we don't use no around here enough. It's important to say no to everything. If you confront that no, you know... Yes? Yeah. We talked about this in San Francisco a while ago.

[56:57]

And the important thing about instruction is that you're not teaching somebody how to do Zazen. You're encouraging them to do Zazen. So the point is to get them started doing Zazen, not to show them what Zazen is. So, I'd just been to an Aikido class the night before, and someone took me and wanted me to see his teacher. And it was interesting because when they attack, you know, you use their power and you swing them around into another direction. So when someone is coming with their power, their curiosity, what is Zazen? What is Zen? Should I practice? To satisfy it by telling them what Zazen is, is not... What you really want to do is take that interest and go and lead them right into Zendo and sit them down in a cushion. Yeah,

[58:01]

I'd give some instruction, you know, just enough to get them into the Zendo. And so that they don't fall onto the, you know, climb up on the altar and sit. You have to tell them something, you know. What does it mean? How do you make that? It's a big problem how to make that. Have commitments

[59:24]

what holds your whole life together. Thank you very much.

[59:40]

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