We want to develop some feeling for practice. It's not something you can learn through some experience or through insight. But although you may get started through insight or through some experience, the actual feeling for practice, which you can trust completely, comes about usually rather slowly and has been passed to us by Suzuki Yoshi. And now I'm trying

[01:06]

to give you a feeling for practice. And we're trying to continue what Suzuki Yoshi started, the feeling for practice that he started. But, you know, a feeling for practice is not some… Well, you can say that the feeling for practice is… almost you can say it is ultimate reality, you know. But when we say ultimate reality, we don't mean something in contrast to this reality that you see. Not something hidden behind this reality,

[02:14]

this reality is just an image of, symbol of. So what is this reality we apprehend? First of all, you know, it's you. You're apprehending yourself. Apprehending. But also, what are the aspects of what we see? If our activity itself is our practice, you know,

[03:16]

why do we have this problem with seeing things as they are? What do we mean when we say to look directly into the nature of reality? That kind of statement implies something other than this, you know. As I said yesterday, if we practice the four mindfulnesses, mindfulness of body and feelings and mind and objects of mind, you can come to some calmness, some

[04:32]

way in which you can see minutely how things happen, exist. So the first thing you notice is that everything is changing. And of course, Buddhism is posited on the idea that, the fact that everything is changing. But everything is changing in a time. Everything is changing or conditioned, looking at it from the point of view of time. Things arise and decay. But things also, if you look at them, you know, we can say

[05:34]

sometimes things are also perfect, just as they are. That's outside a time or space framework. But we can also notice that everything is a part of a whole, and also a manifestation of the whole. And sometimes these kinds of distinctions are not reality itself, you know, but they're useful to make because we get caught by one or the other. There's some poets now, their poetry is always pointing out the universality of everything. But this

[06:40]

is to be caught, you know, by one aspect of everything. And many Zen stories are meant to catch a person. Who's caught by everything is one, or one is everything. And also, every part is different from other parts. The world isn't all apples or David Chadwick's, or some particular person. And yet each part is also in some way the same as other parts.

[07:40]

So when you see something, you can't say, it's the, you know, I think there's some statement Buddha has asked, you know, do we view things as images, or as the mind itself? Does one dharma grasp another dharma? Buddha, you know, answers in this, Buddha is said to have answered in this context, you know. In effect, he said, the image is the thing itself. So if you see the reflection of the moon, the reflection of the moon is the moon. The moon

[09:32]

you see in the sky is the moon. We can't say, that's not the moon, the moon's up there. Or as Durvamsa said the other day, you know, this is the sky. The sky isn't just up there somewhere. Well you experience it at Tassajara very clearly, because we live beside that stream all the time. Where does the stream begin and end? Is the stream just the water on the rocks? Are the rocks not the stream? Is the sound of the water over the rocks not the stream? Is you, is the sound of the water over you, you know, not the stream? Where does the stream begin and end? Where do you begin and end? You think, you know, when I say something like this,

[10:43]

well that makes sense, but it doesn't have much reality for you. It's like an idea or some nice thought, you know. Mostly, you know, practically speaking, you do have a beginning and an end. But actually you don't. And it's only because your mind constantly overlooks actual reality that you think that. Our mind is very clever and convincing and seemingly controllable. So if you combine such a mind with our tendency to be, you know, greedy and deluded and angry or,

[11:55]

you know, we say greed, aversion and delusion, that's just some way to characterize our tendencies. And you put all that in the service of an ego and you have a pretty tricky combination. Almost it's impossible to see things as they are. So somehow you have to practice to see through greed, hate and delusion, to find some way to practice so you're not caught by your tendencies. The mind can be free from the tendencies, simultaneous. And our mind is quite lazy and tends to simplify

[13:18]

things. So you can understand the story I've told you, I think, many times about Tosan and Ungan Donjo. After years of practicing with various teachers, still he hadn't quite got the feeling for practice completely. And he asked his teacher where he would meet him or where he would meet Buddha, how he would continue the feeling of practice that his teacher gave him. And he didn't quite understand, you know, what his teacher said. But as he

[14:27]

was walking, you know, he saw his reflection in a stream and he, to express how he felt at that time, he composed a poem which goes something like, if you look for him elsewhere, or if you look around for truth, it will recede from you, or it will be farther and farther from you. He says, something like, alone I proceed through myself. He, referring to the reflection or to Buddha, he is the same as me. I am not he. He is me. I am not

[15:34]

he. If you understand this, you are at one with ultimate reality, absolute reality. This kind of intellectual presentation of our way of looking at things, is for some people, you know, quite useful to catch themselves or counteract their preconceptions. You have some idea of what you see, it's actually quite fixed, you don't

[16:40]

notice it, you take for granted. The way you perceive things is accurate. But if you remember, you know, these various kinds of ways of looking at things, or these aspects of things, and actually see them on everything, more and more you will begin to see things from a much wider point of view, a point of view which always includes you. So eventually you can't

[17:46]

be, you know, disoriented or separate from things. The nature of reality isn't such that you can be separate from things. There's no way to be lonely. Everything is appearing here, each moment. We can almost say solely for our benefit, but it occurs in such a way that, if you actually are participating in it, there's no trouble. It's because of our idea

[18:55]

of what we mostly see. Even if we try, as I say, what you see, normally what we call present, it's already past. By the time you see it, it's over. So our normal six, what we call our usual senses, always perceive the past. So how can we actually be the past, present, and future, included in each moment, as this thing we all are is manifesting itself? And our effort isn't to, little by little, see it more and more. It doesn't work that way. You

[20:17]

can remind yourself about it over and over again, which helps, but your effort is to, constantly to cut off discriminating thoughts, to return to your essence of mind. If you have this feeling for practice, you'll follow, as Suzuki Roshi said, innumerable precepts, automatically. So you need some conviction in this practice, not relying on other things.

[22:01]

And you need some faith to let go of your discriminating mind. Maybe after you see, clearly, the futility of our discriminating mind, it's useful, but not useful in the service of an ego. Maybe when you see the futility of it, you can try to let go of it, try to let go of it. Not little by little, you know, being satisfied with some progress, but completely, each moment, just try, now, to let go of it. So, maybe what we mean by ultimate reality is the

[23:43]

inexpressible unity of all these relationships which we can identify, you know, particularity, or sameness, or oneness. Actually, they're just, you know, names. But there's some inexpressible unity of this, that you yourself are. And this is a kind of, we can almost say, a kind of knack, maybe it takes ten or fifteen years to get, but a kind of knack for letting go, but a kind of confidence and trust, you know. Because it's, like I said, you know, it's like turning your lights off on the highway at night, you know, it's rather scary. You'll turn them back on quite quickly, you know. And if you're practicing Zen,

[24:49]

when you first try to let go, you'll turn on your discriminating mind almost immediately. It's terrifying. Somebody might do almost anything to you, or take advantage of you. You might lose out in some way. But how to just not care, you know. Take some kind of big chance. There's really nothing stopping us, you know. It's not a matter of acquiring some ability, but rather getting rid of the interference, you know, the hindrances, or fear, or preconceptions we have. So, something like the feeling for practice, which is without form, or how to let go, how to stay with your essence of mind, you know, is quite fragile,

[26:18]

because we replace it immediately with some form, or object of perception. So, you need the example of Suzuki Yoshi, who could do it, who lived that way, and quite effortlessly. Otherwise, when you practice, you keep overlooking it, not noticing. So, we do Zazen, and the more you do Zazen, the bigger the spaces between the words get,

[27:25]

the bigger the spaces between your various activities get, between your thoughts. Even when you have as many thoughts, the spaces are what you… How can I say? Anyway, you cover everything. That way, with that kind of experience, then, you can begin to have the confidence, you know, to let go. Yes.

[28:27]

Or the inexpressible unity of everything. Then, you will find, still, some point that you can't resolve, or that always seems to be an obstacle, and that your teacher can help you with, or your experience with others helps you with. And you… You know, our practice, our particular Zen way of practice, is to emphasize this kind of… noticing this kind of obstacle, and sitting on it, or committing yourself to resolve this one point,

[29:48]

whatever that point is, when you have an obstacle. Without an obstacle, there's no chance to practice. So, your Zazen and your practice here in this community, and your relationship with your teacher, is meant for you to bring out some obstacle that you can resolve. By placing it in your stomach, you know, or becoming one with it completely. Do you have any questions?

[31:33]

You think so? I said, maybe they'll be there forever. There's no point in saying they'll go away. What do we usually mean by discriminating? I don't like to say to cut off discriminating mind completely, though that's actually what I mean, because then someone will ask, Well, what if I'm about to, you know, trip over something on the stairs, shouldn't I pick it up, and then shouldn't I figure out why it's there, etc.?

[33:22]

Of course, our discrimination, our mind, is useful to figure out such practical things. But usually we're not in gear. Our mind is like an engine in neutral racing. And if we can keep our, if our mind is related to practical things, and when those practical problem is solved, that your discriminating just stops, that's okay. So, if you ask, though, how does enlightenment use discriminating mind? It doesn't make sense as a statement about enlightenment. We can't characterize enlightenment in that kind of way.

[34:34]

Certainly some, we say, discriminative awareness or wisdom, you know, certainly there's some kind of, I'd say there's something we can call wisdom, maybe. But it's not in the same category of usual discrimination, because you participate in the arising of things. So you don't have to think about them in the same way, because you don't arrive on the scene after it's over and have to figure it out. Do you understand what I mean? You don't have to figure out how the accident occurred, because you are in the midst of it. So just the process itself is wisdom. There isn't an observer of it who says, oh, now I'll discriminate about this or that. So, today, because of the bad weather, it's not so many people, which is a good feeling, actually.

[35:58]

I'm wondering what to do about the lectures in the city. I've been thinking about it, discriminating. Because our practice is actually quite intimate, and it's one thing to practice with people you know. Maybe best is one-to-one. Maybe that's not so good, because then the student becomes too dependent on the teacher. The student should be thrown out or left alone, so he depends on himself. He is the same as me, but I am not him. So, anyway, it should be some few number. And the better we know each other, the better it is for us to find out how to practice together,

[37:06]

how to be one with that inexpressible unity. It's pretty difficult even to be one with ourself. We feel separated from our hand, or from things we do. And we feel even more separated from what we call objects. So, how to open yourself up to some other person? It doesn't matter whether the person is good or bad. If you can be one with someone, with their faults and with their good qualities, or whatever, however you want to describe their aspects, then you have some chance of being one with your own aspects,

[38:11]

whether you describe them as good or bad, or whatever. So our practice, what Suzuki Roshi used to call warm, kind-hearted feeling, our practice is some intimate feeling. Intimate with everything, because everything is us. So if you have, if we have twenty new people or thirty new people, still that's okay, maybe we can be in some touch with that many people. But in San Francisco, every Saturday there seems like a hundred. One solution is to put the parking lot a mile or two from the place where the lecture is,

[39:23]

but in San Francisco we can't do that. Constant bad weather, which Greenbelch has during certain times of the year. Everyone is curious about Buddhism, but maybe it shouldn't be so easy as just coming to a lecture. It's so easy to get the illusion that you understand practice. Maybe you hang out around Zen Center for a few years, and what you do actually is you use up the actual opportunity to practice. You change your ideas around a little bit and take what is convenient for you. And then somehow it isn't answering the fundamental questions of your life,

[40:31]

so you go somewhere else. Maybe you lose the opportunity to ever answer anywhere your inner request. The moment of your life is actually right now, not, I'll wait till some crisis, I'll wait for some opportune time. With that attitude, the opportune time will never come. This moment, right now, is your opportune time.

[41:41]

Hmm? Hmm. Hmm. We are not separate from Buddhists anywhere, ever, at any time. Their practice is your practice. That was one question.

[42:56]

I shouldn't say anything about it. Already it's explained too much. It's rather interesting just like that, don't you think? Like that. What question? His question? Oh, I'm sorry. He said, can I say something more about he is not, he is me and I am not him. I am not he. I am not he. Thank you very much.

[44:06]

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