The Sixth Patriarch said that your mind is a field of blessedness which does not stray and in which wisdom naturally arises. that kind of a statement be? I think we like to hear, it gives us a good feeling. But how seriously do we actually take it? Did the sixth patriarch know what he was talking about? I think you all suspect he did. So what to do about it if you do take that kind of statement seriously? How can it really make any sense since most of what we perceive are the

[01:27]

products of mind or the objects of mind. And we mostly perceive the objects, don't see them as products. Anyway, the objects and products of mind. Those products or objects which arise we don't see as wisdom. Wisdom means actually anything that arises is wisdom. But it means something. Perfect wisdom means absolute or thorough, thorough or complete, or something very precise. Anything you think, anything that occurs, anything that happens can be wisdom, but for most of us it's not. We perceive the objects and products of our mind, but not the field of blessedness, nor do we feel our mind is a field of blessedness, I think, mostly.

[02:39]

But actually I think we practice Sashin because of some urging, Suzuki Yoshi called it your innermost request, some urging to know, some intimation, that your mind is a field of blessedness. When you look at your mind, I think first of all we have certain categories in which we think our mind or we are doing something with the products. Usually it falls into the categories that we know, we've been told, like expression or suppression or repression. And Buddhism adds a Actually, Buddhism isn't so interested in those three. Expression, of course, but it's... We can say some other things before we talk about expression. One thing I can add is, which I've mentioned before,

[04:23]

is, I guess, noting, you can say, just noting what your state of mind is. It's a kind of mindfulness. But whatever your mind, whatever appears, you just... you don't do anything with it. If you're angry, you're angry. If you have a certain mood, you have a certain mood. And there's no attempt to transfer that mood into action, or to get rid of it, or to any medium, any other form. Buddhism's, you know, on one hand we say everything changes. You can see that everything is changing, but, and the practice of of giving is a practice based on the idea that the fact that everything changes. So it's some way of responding in your practice to the observable fact that everything changes. But we also can say nothing changes, in the sense that Dogen says, ashes are ashes, firewood is firewood,

[05:54]

This is more like wisdom, too. Just anger is anger. What happens to you in a certain way is just that. There's no effort in you to change, no need, no desire to change one state to another state. What you see, you just see. No interest in doing anything with it. It doesn't mean you can't have that interest, but at least you should know that state. Closely related to that state is, I'd add another one, repression, suppression, expression, and noting, just as it is. I'd add another one, which we could call purification, purifying. hard to name, but it doesn't mean purifying the objective world, although it does too, but as a practice, at first we don't need to speak of it from that point of view. The world remains as it is, it's just the way you perceive it is free of possessiveness, is what to purify means.

[07:29]

You can find such a thing happening if you practice a sesshin. At the end of a sesshin you feel something different than you did at the beginning. And if you live at Tassajara for a while, most people find after a while they begin to have dreams which are almost always positive. They feel good about them, they don't have They're about the same stuff, maybe some compulsive dream they've had, but yet there's something different about it. Rev came to Tassara the other day and gave a lecture based on the lectures he's giving as part of the Zen Buddhist study center in San Francisco, a program that was being developed. And it was a wonderful lecture and it encouraged me to say something about Abhidharma practice. I have never mentioned it much, very little, because

[08:54]

It's a little bit, studying it, it's a little bit like chewing old potato skins. It's, as Reb said, very dry. But he also pointed out something, which I think you will all experience too, if you study it, that it works. You know, you read it for a while, and then after one week or so, pretty quickly, you find it working. When Suzuki Roshi was first here, as I've said before, we thought he was going to leave quickly all the time. And so there was some pressure on us to study hard because we felt like he was gonna take all the blues and back to Japan with him. And there surely wouldn't be a drop left for us. And one of the things, anyway, I felt and was encouraged by Suzuki Roshi

[09:58]

that all of Buddhism is in its later developments. And I had a number of problems I couldn't figure out how to work with, so I looked into Abhidharma psychology, philosophy. And Tsukiroshi said that Soto school, Zen as a whole, too, is particularly based on Theravadan practice and Abhidharma practice. So I spent maybe two years practicing in this way, in the way Theravadan monks practice, the way you keep your mind on what you're doing in great detail. And I studied all of the different detailed descriptions of your mental states

[11:00]

And although some of it, in fact, you can poke holes in the whole system, not too big ones, but you can poke some holes. And some of the definitions don't, in the end, you know, there's various kinds of definitions. There's the kind of definition where you take something vague and you make it become more precise. And sometimes you take something precise and you squeeze it and it becomes wider. Then there's the definitions which you don't touch. Abhidharma takes something vague and makes it more precise, but it gets awfully precise. There's some limitation in that. And a lot of its attempts to make something precise are kind of half-true. But half-truths are quite valuable because it means many people tried very hard to understand what this thing we are is. Sometimes they said, oh, this is some part of your mind, much more complicated than id and ego and things like that, which Western psychology has worked out, some complex situation. But when you try to experience it, when you try to feel it out, you can't quite make sense of a lot of it. Sometimes it's because you aren't yet subtle enough to know.

[12:31]

And sometimes it's because the definition itself is inaccurate or they didn't work it out too well. Anyway, there's various reasons that you can't grasp something or make sense of something. Sometimes it's the kind of thing which is going to be extremely important to you and you're resisting. And so you don't know whether it's a poor definition or you haven't practiced enough to be aware of that kind of thing. Or you're quite aware of it and you want to push it away. So those kinds of things, when you come across them, it's quite useful to mull and muse on it. without any effort over a long period of time until you find out that it's inaccurate or become familiar or that actually you were resisting for some other reason. Anyway, when you study it you find some things don't quite make sense. But on the whole it's an amazing system

[13:57]

analyzing many, many possibilities of the mind and coordinating them with other possibilities of the mind and producing such and such and such and such a wholesome state, such and such and such and such an unwholesome state, etc. And the effect of it is rather like some good car mechanics, not very many, but a very good one. can listen to a car engine and tell you immediately what's wrong. Well, such and such. They can just hear. Maybe there's hundreds of possibilities, but they can tell you right away. I think such and such is wrong. Well, you, if you don't study the Abhidharma psychology, philosophy, are a little bit like that because you just hear your own engine and you can't tell what it is and your mental vocabulary for discriminating what's happening is primitive. So the Abhidharma system gives you a very sophisticated, subtle, refined way to notice what is happening in your own engine.

[15:22]

Well, as you practice Hazen, you know, as you practice the Sashin, you slow down internally, so you can see what's happening to you quite easily, like watching a tennis match in slow motion, so you don't get caught, you know, back and forth, wondering who's got the ball. You can see very easily how there's going to be a serve. But we're serving, you know, many different kinds of balls sometimes, nuts and balls, various kinds of things we're actually serving. And with that kind of way of looking at, without getting familiar with the whole thing, you don't have to become a scholar of the system, but just familiar with that way of looking, you can see how

[16:30]

One situation, almost identical, is unwholesome. One situation, almost identical, is wholesome. And you can begin to see how, in each event, where your possessiveness is. So... giving, you know, maybe the very first practice in Zen is to notice your karma, how your karma is formed, how your activities cluster, how things that arise in your mind obviously have a pattern and the pattern perpetuates itself. But if you can begin to slow down the process and begin to see each moment which is in itself unique So as, you know, you get to be not self-conscious, but like if anyone tapped you on the shoulder at any point during the day, you could tell and ask you what's happening in there. You could say, oh, such and such. You would know immediately. With some slow people.

[17:45]

Well, giving as the second practice after noticing your own karma is the practice of giving, the first paramita. Giving up, giving in. Giving as making, realizing that everything is common to everyone. And making an effort when you do something for a particular person to realize you're doing it for everyone. and you're doing it for that person's enlightenment. This is something maybe slightly artificial, but actually it answers some feeling we have and balances our possessiveness. It's a way to get a look at your possessiveness. Resistance. So, to give away give as the second first paramita means to give away everything outward and inward so you give away honor and dishonor or safety or health or your life or death the sixth patriarch after he made the statement I made your mind is a field of blessedness does not stray and

[19:12]

wisdom naturally arises. He was speaking to the fifth patriarch. He actually said, my, my. And he then said, and what work? I don't know what work you will give me to do. I think that last part is especially interesting. Anything. You can give me the work to be woodcutter or sixth patriarch. It doesn't make any difference. That kind of mind is not possessive of anything. So anything that arises is wisdom. And this kind of abhidharma practice is the basis of practice in a monastery like Tassara. You make everything in such detail because your actions are not just mental actions, but physical actions. Physical actions are more formed, so more persistent, and also easier to work with because more formed. So Zen particularly emphasizes working with your physical habits.

[20:41]

So in a monastery or in a practice place like this, or San Francisco too, we have various, particularly Tassara, various rules, and everything is worked out in some detail, exactly how you step in with your foot into the room, and how you leave the zendo from your cushion. And you'll notice sometimes that, for instance, you leave If you're stepping out with the right foot, if you're stepping out on the right side, you step out with your right foot and don't step on the sill. And left side, you step out with your left foot. And it seems rather silly and arbitrary, and it is, but if it doesn't make any difference, why not do it? So we do things like that. When you have that kind of thing to look at, you find everything comes in. Why you get impatient with doing it, so you have that paramita. Why you don't have the energy sometimes to figure out which foot you're using. Where is your energy? And sometimes you're already out the door before you've realized which foot you're talking about.

[22:03]

If someone tapped you on the shoulder, you wouldn't even know. Oh, yes. And sometimes you are almost to the door and you have to adjust your foot to go out. But sometimes, after a while, somehow, you leave your cushion and you don't think at all about it with any conscious direction, and you step out. So it doesn't make any difference, of course. Our practice is to make more conscious this elements of your existence. Because when these things arise, what we mean by unwholesome is it has all kinds of little gooey stuff attached to it and it immediately

[23:08]

irresistibly turns into something else, is drawn into something else, leads you into something else. And you can find out in your zazen what a close relationship there is between your thinking, your energy, and tiredness. And certain fantasy needs. How you can be doing zazen, trying to stay awake, And two things happen simultaneously. If you fall asleep, you instantly start thinking. Fantasize. Or if you start thinking, you instantly fall asleep. Now, not everyone falls asleep when you start thinking. But if you're at that point where you're quite tired, if you can sit without thinking, you can stay awake. But the need to process things unconsciously, the need to have that unconscious space which no one can look at, not even you, is so deep, it will push you into sleepiness so you can do it. And it takes so much energy to think. It's exhausting.

[24:34]

If you don't think actually so much, just when it's necessary, you don't have to eat so much. It's quite clear, the relationship. It's like our mind is like a television set which feels that the whole purpose of the house is that the television set should be on. But somehow the house has no meaning, you know, unless the television set's on. And since the television set controls its own dials, it's always changing channels, It's as if the television set went off, the whole house would disappear. But the field of blessedness that the Sixth Patriarch is speaking about is certainly not a television set. So if someone says Zen practice is to get rid of your ego, it sounds like an impossible task, but if you can actually see each moment, if you're quite relaxed and can see what happens each moment, how things arise concurrently, you can see, too, in your actions, by noticing your actions, like tasahara, or by noticing, just in any situation, your mental and physical events,

[26:05]

you can notice the amount of possessiveness about each thing and you actually will be able to discriminate that thing which is something added about you want it to be such and such a way or it makes you feel uneasy or it doesn't make you feel uneasy or you like it or you hope other people find out about it or they should know I have that thought or they shouldn't know you can see it and you can begin to let go of it. And ego is nothing but the sum of all those little possessiveness. So, the thing about Zen practice is that it's pretty difficult, both difficult and easy. It's difficult because you have to do it. I mean, you can't sneak up on Zen. You have to make a decision to do it. And if it's only one period of Zazen a day, you have to do it pretty regularly and your priority has to be high.

[27:35]

you can't... and you have to bring everything to your practice, whatever it is you bring into your practice. I don't mean you have to go to Tassajara or something, but you have to. Practice Zen with some decision. It doesn't work to sort of do it with other things. but it's also a shortcut because of that. So if you seriously want to know what the Sixth Patriarch meant, if you want to exist exactly as the Sixth Patriarch existed, if you practice Zen, actually practice Zen, I guarantee you, you'll know. It's very definitely

[28:41]

a Buddhist shortcut, but it takes some putting other things aside, it takes some giving up for a period of time. Purification means everything is complete in itself. means complete, not pure, impure. So everything exists in its own terms and combines in its own terms, not by some anger, greed, delusion, desire, possessiveness from you. And that purification actually exists. Everything is the same except It's not in the categories of like and dislike, and it's an enormous difference. And everyone feels quite easy. And it actually, you know, maybe it's just an accident or some illusion, but you watch. You'll find people coming to Tassajar, to Green Gulch, for instance. And they say, oh, I used to be at Green Gulch years ago. Now it's so

[30:13]

Since you've been here, the hills are more beautiful. Something happens, actually. So this sashin is kind of an opening, the first opening of green gulch. And it is a purification, maybe, of this endo. And that's purity. And there's no doubt that this kind of practice gives you a feeling of elevation. Not higher than something else, but we don't have a word for it exactly, but some wide not narrow feelings, being able to see some distance, but it arises from your own mind.

[31:25]

So then practice is how to not get caught by the things which arise. Not make a log jam. Then we call it laying down of concurrent causes, all those things which not are the logs themselves, but get the logs jammed up, so you don't know what's happening. Even ritual is part of this process. You'll find if you don't, you know, doing service and bowing and chanting may have not much meaning to you. For some people it doesn't have much meaning, But if you notice what your psyche, shall we say, is like when you're doing it, and say you stop and you do something else, something happens when you don't have any externalized ritual in your life. For most people, some internalized ritual starts happening, which gets everything all bent back on itself. You can notice an actual difference.

[33:55]

Our practice then is just to actually realize what the Sixth Patriarch meant, to exist in the same way he does, which is quite possible, as you know is possible, and to share that with others.

[34:41]

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