Recently, I've been talking about intimacy in our practice. Dogen Zenji says that why we don't know we are already enlightened is because enlightenment is too intimate for us. He uses the word, term, intimate enlightenment, not highest enlightenment or ultimate enlightenment, but intimate enlightenment. So how to be intimate with ourselves is the sense and direction of our practice, especially at the beginning.

[01:24]

It doesn't mean that all of the things which separate you from yourself and other people like your desires or your aversions hate and anger or your delusions are just there to be gotten rid of because they separate you they destroy your intimacy with yourself That's true, if you're not intimate with your anger and your delusions and your desires, but if you're quite friendly to your anger.

[02:29]

Anger is not yours alone, you know, it belongs to everyone and it arises from some causal conditions which include others. So anger doesn't have to separate you from others. The very intimacy, actually, of being angry with someone can make you closer to the situation. When you understand when your practice becomes more and more as your practice becomes more and more intimate you'll find new understandings of everything precepts, precepts like do not kill

[04:36]

As you become more intimate with yourself, you realize that do not kill means you can't kill anything. There's no way to kill anything. To try to kill something is just to create in samsara more of what you're trying to kill. When you understand what others are, you know, you can't steal. When you understand, you can't possess anything. There's no point to stealing anything. Counting your chickens, Others are only in your own mind, not outside yourself.

[05:54]

What you call outside yourself is only some distinction you make in your own mind. What you call others are not outside yourself. Dogen actually for the word he uses of intimate enlightenment, he uses a word which means as one with whom you are intimate or an intimate friend. But some of you, you know, resent even Buddha, practicing Buddhism. you want to do it yourself, or you resent even maybe Suzuki Roshi, which means you don't want to practice Buddhism yourself, you resent the fact that you have to practice Buddhism, that you have to do something.

[07:13]

You want to get through this samsara as quickly as possible and attain enlightenment. But this is to reject samsara. You can't reject samsara. Although the ultimate nature of samsara is sunyata, emptiness, still it's characterized by bewilderment, confusion, suffering. Suffering just means you're off the path. Your hands on a hot stove, it means your hands on a hot stove. If you're suffering, it means you're off the path. Being on the path means to become intimate with your suffering, with samsara, with your confusion.

[08:25]

If you can give up discriminating between subject and object and dwell, Dogen says something like dwell in the midst of all things in their infinite use. Buddhas dwell in the midst of all things, when you dwell in the midst of all things. And pebbles, bricks, plants, all, I don't know how to translate the next part, but it says, demonstrate Buddha's grace. Anyway, it's...

[10:38]

Anyway, it's... We say our small mind, but... What your small mind is, maybe takes some years of becoming more intimate with yourself. In small mind then we say if you sit in big mind everything will be When I try to say, I can't find any words to say what I mean.

[12:46]

A small mind doesn't like rules and wants to get through the practice as quickly as possible but the big mind has no idea of fast or slow and actually rather likes rules because of rules two leaves are different and because they're separate the sun can shine through them, or they can be green. Various phenomena can happen. I've given three lectures in the last three days and my feeling now is

[16:19]

just to sit without any thought arising. Hearing things but no idea about what you're hearing. is better than any lecture I can give you. Okay.

[20:49]

I can ask you what you actually feel or hear. But even that disturbs. As soon as you recognize what you hear, feel, close the door to becoming more intimate with your practice.

[24:24]

If you look on the world as a creative thing with a purpose, any purpose at all, your purpose for you, you cut yourself off. the actual simultaneous purposeless arising of everything. Dharmakaya Buddha means this realm, emptiness. Sambhogakaya Buddha means the intimate realm of communication, where we know each other and everything thoroughly, without effort, without separation, and in which we express our Buddha nature.

[25:57]

Do not kill sometimes means don't be lazy, expecting Buddhism to manifest itself effortlessly. You have to make some effort to realize the path. stop the activity of your small mind and nirmanakaya buddha means you yourself the realm of activity in which you manifest These three are simultaneously present.

[27:14]

Buddha means these three. To take refuge in Buddha means to take refuge simultaneously in these three aspects of Buddha. So when we really talk about intimate enlightenment, intimate communication with ourselves, with others, we have to give up ordinary kinds of communication and expectations. How else can we hear? inanimate objects preaching the Dharma.

[28:22]

You know the famous statement, although you do not hear it, do not interfere with that which hears it. You can't make any effort to hear it, but you can make some effort to not interfere with that which hears it. and not be in a hurry, willing to wait forever for the sound of Buddha's voice, for the sound of your own nature and everything. not rejecting Buddha's practice or a friend's practice. You have to transform yourself from someone who is concerned about time and place, to begin to know the real space you live in, what actually the space that you are, that you live in is.

[30:09]

It's not dead space, you know, there, between us. Only your small mind, you know, which wants to grasp things and make everything simple and convenient, thinks of this as dead space. in which you make distinctions about near or far. This is more mine because it's near me, that's more something else because it's far. Near and far don't exist, Practically, you know, how does such a realm help you in your usual situation?

[31:50]

Knowing that we exist in this way gives you an ultimate or true perspective on everything. You see, you know, you're quite easily, if you do one thing thoroughly, you do everything. You know this to be true. so you're not concerned with what you're leaving undone. And you don't give things such importance at first because you know you can't understand

[33:10]

the relationships between everything. And so you trust, you know, your opportunity at a particular time to do something as well as you can. If your mind is calm in this way, everything you put down, place somewhere, you place it in your mind.

[34:32]

When you pick it up, you pick it up in your mind. And everything is always present. So there is nothing to lose or gain. And anything, anywhere is will realize its infinite usefulness And everything you are will be its own infinite usefulness if you can not make separation between yourself and others, this and that.

[35:44]

expectation or worry expectation or worry or guilt which removes us from the situation we're in always we're overlooking the jewels You can practice by catching yourself when you're in some situation and you expect something. To wonder why you think it's more over there soon rather than now When you have everything you need now, everyone will know they can't keep anything from you, and so everything will be given to you.

[37:28]

It will be so relaxing for other people to see you. He already has everything. He doesn't want to take anything. He doesn't want to possess anything. we say, like the ocean, you know, which, although all the rivers enter the ocean, you know, the level of the ocean stays the same. As long as you think you're incomplete, you will be incomplete. that when you realize how complete you are, everything will rise up to complete you. Your practice doesn't need to be known or experienced.

[39:03]

Anyway, this way of talking may be too serious. You should know the infinite realm of all possibilities exists and is in your hands right now. And that there's no alternative to that. And that there's no reason to be dissatisfied or look for something else. Just open your hands and close your hands. And if you have some deep dissatisfaction, it means you are not intimate enough with yourself to know how to act in each situation.

[40:45]

So we want to practice We say secret practice, we can say intimate practice and realize intimate enlightenment. That touches each one of us with Buddha's grace. It touches each one of us with the phenomenal nature of this world. When you can practice in this world, you can go anywhere, in the cities or in the mountains, among all kinds of situations, without ever touching anything in the sense of interfering.

[42:37]

There is so much space and without ever leaving your true home. Excuse me, that's a serious statement. Do you have some questions you'd like to talk about? I had a feeling that my body was disorganized.

[43:54]

I would learn to control myself. After you've had the time to do it, then just think in the future. And just think of everything, the action you've been through, you think how are you going to do it, for which the action you're going to do it. And just start. We'll get to that very soon. Can you all hear what she said?

[45:03]

She said, Dogen says that you climb up to the top of a hundred foot pole and then you, with your whole body and mind, take one more step And although, if she has her hand on a hot stove, it doesn't hurt so much, still, how do you tell when you're still clinging to the staff? And then she said, did I cause her a problem by asking her, how are you? Maybe that's clinging to the staff or wondering about whether you're clinging to the staff is clinging to the staff.

[46:24]

Anyway, it means that you come to the end of thinking or figuring out And as I said once, you turn your lights out in the dark. Stepping one more step off the end of the pole. Without doing this, you know, the infinite realm of possibilities won't take care of you. Suzuki Roshi used to end his lectures always with, do you understand? And I always objected to that. And I told him, I don't want to worry about whether I understand.

[47:28]

Quit asking me. He said, oh. So I don't usually say, do you understand? But sometimes I do. I don't know why I say, how are you? I don't really care too much about how you are. But I look at you and I feel the same thing. I can't hit you. I can't bow to you in the middle of the hall. So it's the most easy thing to say is, how are you? If you suddenly, when I say how are you, if suddenly rays of Buddha come out from all directions in your head, that would be okay too.

[48:39]

Thank you so much. our practices. Very interesting, too interesting. As I said yesterday, you know, Our practice makes us more and more able to be conscious of our true activity The true activity which we cannot control But our practice says is at the same time to Not be conscious to refrain from being conscious To allow our practice to

[50:19]

flow without restraint. Some other questions? Yes. And not just within you. Why does it sound strange?

[51:25]

What was the last thing you said? Can you all hear what he said? No? I didn't hear. No? This room is so easy to hear in, I'm never quite sure. Leyland raises the problem of who is deciding you're complete. Complete, you know, words like who or complete are just words, of course.

[53:02]

and since this is a practice you can use them you're actually already complete but if you notice when you're doing things as if you weren't complete you can counteract that tendency by reminding yourself that you're already complete. In this way, eventually you will have some sense of how to live as if you were complete Not expecting anything, not looking for anything.

[54:14]

Satisfied with being incomplete. This is more than complete or incomplete. I don't know what word to use, but maybe it takes some sincerity, but not ordinary sincerity. Maybe some futile belief. If you question too much, you know, is this complete or will it work?

[55:31]

Don't make too much distinction between yourself and others, as if you could fool some other person. As if you could fool somebody into thinking you are complete, or that there'd be any point in that. You can practice with great sincerity and effort, but if you reflect on that practice, you take all of its strength away.

[57:03]

And it's just you doing it, without anyone to help you, without anything to help you. And this is just some euphemism, a deluded way of thinking about the actuality of our situation. Have I ever told that story before?

[58:39]

Well, right now that would be too long a story. What she asked was, the last three lectures, city practice period and yesterday and today, she has wanted to ask me to tell the story of how Suzuki Yoshi began teaching Americans. It's too long story. He began because of you. Yeah. The first year I was working at the University of Colorado, I was going to Cambridge for a school year. I had to find a job at the University of Colorado. I was looking for opportunities, and there wasn't anything for me to do. So when I was trying to figure it out, I was very bad at it.

[59:45]

I didn't know what I was doing. You should have done this and why don't you do this? I felt that I felt very wrong, and I was wondering if I could change things to show you that it kept going, and it's happening. So, I went over to him and I yelled at him, and I just kind of handed him my handkerchief, and I said, get the hell out of here! And he just, like, he told me, and he was so warm. And the next thing I knew, he just punched me in the mouth. And I was so surprised. I just kind of stood there, and then I just grabbed him, and I just grabbed him, and I head-bumped, and I just held on to him, and I didn't know what he was going to do to me. I didn't know what he was going to do to me. I didn't know what he was going to do to me.

[60:46]

And then, finally, he punched me in the back of the head. And he said, now I'm going to get my order, get me my ice cream. And I said, I'm going to get the police. So I went to the top and grabbed a package and gave it to him. and I didn't trust myself with that. And I wondered if I was such a pig. You know, I think you made a mistake, because at this point I knew that. I knew that I couldn't be a Christian if I wasn't, and so I got so angry, I couldn't be, and I just started shouting at him, and I didn't like him. So the whole time he was talking, I thought, well, I felt like it was okay.

[61:51]

I felt like it was completely okay. But I also felt, at the moment, trying to communicate some things with the information. I'm not into that. Things with the information. So, I wonder if you could speak to that. I don't think it's useful to think about your life in terms of, was this a mistake or that a mistake? It's just not a useful question to ask. This happened, you know? That's all. And how it happened and how it precipitated, you know, in advance of your being conscious of it. is maybe interesting. That's all. You know, you're the boy and you're anger and the whole situation is one piece.

[62:57]

Sounds rather quite pure actually. Afterwards he just wanted his ice cream. Is that what your scar is from there? I was wondering why she had a scar on her face. And then you can change it. You can do it by adding a little block. You can do it by adding blocks. You don't have to do it by hand. [...]

[64:05]

You don't have to do it by hand. You don't have to do it by hand Well, maybe that same situation wouldn't have happened to Suzuki Ueshiba. You can say that. So maybe, eventually, your space will be such that that kind of event doesn't happen in it. But if it does, you only can look at it. You can call it a mistake, but how can you correct your mistake? Because in such a situation you can't point to I've been in very similar situations myself. And probably everyone has. I was lifeguard in a... I was the first white lifeguard in a black swimming pool in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[65:06]

And all the other lifeguards were drunk. And there was one person who had some privilege because he was a friend of the head lifeguard so he could do all kinds of things which no one else could do. And I couldn't discipline him. But these other kids then did the same thing he did and it became a tolerable situation. And so I stopped them. I was 17. They got very angry with me because I didn't discipline him and I did him. I didn't know what to do, but I felt I had to do it. And they all waited for me afterwards. I felt like you did. But I had some confidence that I did.

[66:11]

Given the circumstances, I did what I could do. And I walked out at five o'clock and they all were waiting and they separated and I went through the middle. I was quite scared. I don't know. You can pinpoint some. I did this if I hadn't gotten so angry. Anyway, it sounds pretty good, the way you handled it, actually, given the fact that you got so angry.

[66:51]

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