I want to talk this morning about a teaching, one passage from our great ancestor, Tiantang Hongzhe, whose practice instructions I translated in Cultivating the Empty Field. So first, I'm just going to read the whole thing, and then I'm going to go back over it and talk about it at more length. Emptiness is without characteristics. Illumination has no emotional afflictions. With piercing, quietly profound radiance, it mysteriously eliminates all disgrace. Thus, one can know oneself. Thus, the self is completed. We all have the clear, wondrously bright field from the beginning. Many lifetimes of misunderstanding come only from distrust, hindrance, and screams of confusion that we create in a scenario of isolation.

[01:12]

With boundless wisdom, journey beyond this, forgetting accomplishments. Straightforwardly abandon stratagems and take on responsibility. Having turned yourself around, accepting your situation, If you set foot on the path, spiritual energy will marvelously transport you. Contact phenomena with total sincerity. Not a single atom of dust outside yourself. So, Hongxue was the great Soto or Zao Dong, Chinese Zao Dong, Chan master in the century before Dogen went to China and brought this tradition back to Japan. Hongzhe died 43 years before Dogen was born.

[02:14]

And his writings, well, I keep coming back to them, thinking about Sashin particularly. For me, they go very deep. So I want to go over this paragraph and talk about it this morning. So the first section says, emptiness is without characteristics. Illumination has no emotional afflictions. With piercing, quietly profound radiance, it mysteriously eliminates all disgrace. Thus, one can know oneself. Thus, the self is completed. We all have the clear, wondrously bright field from the beginning. So this clear, wondrously bright field, this field of emptiness, is the fundamental teaching and experience and awareness of suchness that we connect with, that all of us can connect with today.

[03:23]

when we settle into this body and mind. And emptiness is without characteristics. There's no particular qualities I can describe as aspects of this. And yet Hongxue demonstrates that we can talk about it. In the very beginning of his practice instructions, this section of his record that I translated, he says, the field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. Utter emptiness has no image. Upright independence does not rely on anything. Just expand and illuminate the original truth, unconcerned by external conditions. the starting point for Sashin, the starting point for Zazen, the starting point for Zen practice is simply to take the time to show up and settle into the elimination of suchness, this practice of awareness that is here from the very beginning, that all of us have some

[04:48]

taste or glimmer of. It is why you're here in the room right now. And in this passage I'm commenting on, he says, emptiness is without characteristics and illumination has no emotional afflictions. When we settle into this space of wholeness, of illumination, of just this, what's in front of us. There are no emotional afflictions right there. It's just this. And we can return to enjoying inhale, and exhale to feeling our uprightness, to attending to our posture, our mudra, the way our head is settled, back of the neck straight, chin tucked in slightly, looking down at the floor or the wall in front of us.

[06:02]

And then he says, with piercing, piercing, piercing, quietly profound radiance, it mysteriously eliminates all disgrace. So some of the other sections of this talk about this in other ways, but somehow when we are willing to be pierced when we're willing to feel the pervading quality of this quiet, deep radiance. Mysteriously, Hongzhi says, it eliminates all disgrace. Before we come to sitting practice, and maybe when we get up from sitting practice, and in our life as small selves in our conventional reality, we do experience disgrace, a lack of grace, a falling from grace.

[07:18]

And, well, I won't speak for anyone else, but some of us anyway do feel some sadness or even more some sense of shame or regret about how we have conducted ourselves in this lifetime and past lifetimes, or maybe even this past week. And actually, according to early Buddhist psychology, according to Abhidharma, this is the heart of wholesomeness. In the early Abhidharma psychology, the two The two aspects of reality that are totally unwholesome are lack of decorum, and we can translate it as lack of sense of shame or disrespect.

[08:23]

One of the things that happens when we experience this awareness of this quiet, deep illumination, this engagement with suchness, is that we may set up high standards for ourselves. or you may feel the ways in which we fail to express suchness or experience suchness. And this is part of being human. And to have some regret about that is the heart of wholesomeness, according to early Buddhist psychology. So, of course, there is this sense of non-grace. And Hongzhi says, with piercing, quietly profound radiance, it mysteriously eliminates all disgrace. If we can enjoy our inhale and our exhale and just settle into this uprightness and stay with it, and our mind wanders and we come back to our breathing gently.

[09:41]

Somehow this sense of non-grace, drops away. And Hongshu says, thus, in this elimination of this discretion on grace, one can know oneself. Thus, the self is completed. So, what is this self? This conditioned self? The fundamental insight of Buddhism, non-self, is that, of course, it doesn't mean that there's not a self. It doesn't mean, you know, lobotomy, Zen, or getting rid of your thoughts, or getting rid of this body. It means this self. And we all have ways in which our small self acts up. That's what it does. So what is the quote from Suzuki Roshi David about small self and big self?

[10:53]

Our practice is to die as a small being. Yeah. So we, you know, I would say gently let go of this small self. meet the suchness of just being here, present, allowing this pervasion of quietly profound radiance. Thus one can know oneself, this deeper, larger, more... There's nothing I can say about it exactly, but this self that is complete, there is hope. And then he says, we all have the clear, wondrously bright field from the beginning. So when we let go of this small self and the many different aspects of small self, the many ways we've been conditioned

[12:07]

And again, the rest of this passage will say more about this, but when we let go of that, we can connect with what Hongshu calls the boundless field of illumination. That is here right now. This is no small thing. Maybe it is a small thing in a way, but it's the heart of our practice. Maybe when we feel, oh, I can let go of that, it feels so simple. And yet, we can spend many lifetimes, many decades, sometimes quite unconsciously, holding on to obsessions and ideas of small self.

[13:17]

And yet again, there is this bright field of wholeness, this radiant field of awareness that is our truest, wholest, I don't want to exactly say the word self, you know, we each have some experience, some expression, some part in this. So, Hongzhi goes on. Many lifetimes of misunderstanding come only from distrust, hindrance, and screens of confusion that we create in a scenario of isolation. So first of all, this idea of many lifetimes of misunderstanding. When I try and teach Buddhism to college kids, and maybe to adults too, this is one of the most difficult parts of Buddhism.

[14:32]

There's no self, Buddhism says. or there's no fixed, eternal, substantial self. Well, how can something that isn't there fundamentally be reborn? Well, this has been a great topic of debate. and Buddhism some years ago now, but I feel like it resonates in our practice here in the West. There was a debate in one of the magazines between Bob Thurman, the great Tibetan Buddhist scholar and practitioner and translator for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Stephen Batchelor, who's a wonderful, very experienced practitioner and scholar who's done I think Tibetan and Chinese and maybe predominantly Korean Zen practice. And Bob Thurman, who now I guess is more famous as Uma's father.

[15:33]

Used to be that Uma was Robert Thurman's daughter, but anyway. Bob Thurman says that Bodhisattva idea doesn't make sense unless you really take on, believe in this idea of many lifetimes. And although Tibetan Buddhism takes it most strongly, most seriously, with the reincarnated tolkus like the 14th Dalai Lama and many, many, many other tolkus, Rinpoches of reborn great Tibetan teachers, And so this idea of many lifetimes is all through Asian Buddhism. Going back to the sutras where the Buddha will tell some of his disciples, oh, you're having this problem because of something you did 120,000 lifetimes ago, and he will say what he did, and so forth. Or all the stories about Buddha's past lifetimes in the Jataka tales, where often his animals did wonderful selfless things which helped prepare him to be the Buddha.

[16:44]

So thank you, Bob, for helping with our heat. That's fine. This is how we adapt. I haven't had it working, so I'm sorry, but I have a couple of speakeasies I can. So you were not able to get it working? No, I just want to check the thermostat, I guess. Sure. So this is our practice of adapting to circumstances. I think we had it left turned. Anyway, Bob Thurman says that we have to take literally this idea of many lifetimes, that the bodhisattva idea doesn't make sense otherwise. The bodhisattva commits to coming back again and again and again. and to being reborn in the world of suffering and samsara, to being fooled by it. It's not just that the bodhisattva comes back and is this great luminous being illuminating everyone from the beginning.

[17:52]

No, the bodhisattva is born into the world as a confused samsara being and then kind of remembers. So according to this idea, maybe some of us were practicing together in a room like this somewhere in China or Japan long ago. And so the Bodhisattva idea then is that to free all living beings, of course, we're not going to do that in our lifetime, in the 21st century. There's so many problems in the world, we can see that, and yet part of the Buddha way and part of the Bodhisattva idea is that raw, tender, beating, heart by heart, on each of our cushions and chairs, and expressing this in our lifetime, we help transform the world, lifetime after lifetime. So that's Bob Thurman's position about this.

[18:55]

Stephen Batchelor says, it doesn't make sense, rebirth. We have modern science, and this is just some old Hindu superstition, and we don't need this in Western Buddhism. And there is a way to see, I think, this idea of past lifetimes metaphorically. So each of us now sitting in this room has past lifetimes. In this lifetime has past lives, has other situations. How many of you have lived in Chicago all your life? No one? Okay, so there are lifetimes of living somewhere else besides Chicago in this life. Anyway, we can see this idea of many lifetimes in terms of all of the different ways in which we have been around in however many years we've been around since we were born.

[19:56]

And not just that, we can see this idea of past lifetimes as the thread I'm sorry to interrupt. Should I just go ahead and plug these in right now? Or is anybody particularly cold? Anybody particularly cold? I think it's comfortable. I think you could plug it in over there and put it in front of what was John's chair. Maybe, John, you'd be willing to switch to this chair for the rest of the day. Would you be willing to switch to that chair for the rest of the day? Sure. Great. So maybe you can have it next to you, Nancy, and monitor it. And maybe we don't need it right now. But you can put it to the side now and plug it in after. OK. OK. Thank you very much. So there are lifetimes of cold, there are lifetimes of heat. We all know this through a single year in Chicago. So again, Stephen Batchelor's idea of many lifetimes is, could be understood metaphorically.

[21:00]

We all go through various things in this lifetime. And even more than that, though, there is the tradition and the lineage. There are various traditions. There's the practice tradition of Hongzhe and Dogen and Sugi Roshi. There's the practice tradition of Nagarjuna and Shakyamuni. There are various lifetimes in which we learn from each other, and there are cultural lifetimes. So we have in our own, each of us in our own way, in our own heart. We are informed by the Buddha ancestors, other great spiritual teachers, cultural figures who, you know, in some ways are part of our many lifetimes. So would this life be the same without such people? And there are many examples for Nathan John Cage. For me, Vincent van Gogh and Johann Sebastian Bach, my life wouldn't be the same without them.

[22:06]

They are part of my past lifetimes, even though I'm not a painter or a musician. No skills in those areas. So one way to understand all of this teaching about many lifetimes, and I think this is what Stephen Batchelor is pointing to, is yeah, there are many lifetimes, and here we are in this lifetime, taking those on and supporting that and keeping alive this practice, tradition, and very many of you are keeping alive other valuable cultural traditions. So this is a little bit of a digression from what Hongxue is saying here, but he mentions this many lifetimes, and I think it's important to look at this. Personally, I don't think we need to take the idea of many lifetimes literally to do bodhisattva practice, to do bodhisattva work. If you don't think that's true, literally, it's fine.

[23:08]

We still are... taking care of this tradition from Shakyamuni, and the Sixth Ancestor, and Dogen, and Suzuki Roshi, and each of us taking care of various cultural traditions in our own way. And yet I'll confess that actually I do kind of believe in the literal thing of many lifetimes, and I can't explain how that works, but I actually do agree with Bob Thurman that there are these many lifetimes. But whichever way you feel about this, still, what Hongxue is saying is important for us to hear. So again, he says, many lifetimes of misunderstanding come only from distrust, hindrance, and screens of confusion that we create in a scenario of isolation. So maybe I'll start with this scenario of isolation.

[24:10]

All of us, each of us, all human beings, in some way or another, sees ourselves at some point as isolated, separate, disconnected. We feel lonely. We feel unappreciated. We feel misunderstood. We feel separate from some others. This is part of the way the human mind works. And so, seeing ourselves separate from others, we start to feel these screens of confusion, these conditions, conditioning, compulsions, habits of confusion and isolation and hindrance and distrust. We start to mistrust others in some particular ways, according to some particular condition patterns, and we mistrust ourselves.

[25:23]

And we don't value our own wondrous boundless field. And Hongzhe says, this is where the many lifetimes of misunderstanding come from. So again, you could see this as in terms of rebirth, literally, or you can see this in terms of the ways in which each of us in our own life has struggled with these scenarios of isolation. Our mind is very, good at developing all these scenarios of feeling separate in various ways from various people and from various things we think we need or want. And it's sad, and yet it's okay to admit to being human beings. in the teaching about the different realms.

[26:30]

We talked about hungry ghosts recently because we made offerings to hungry ghosts. Well, these hell realms and these hungry ghost realms are realms that we can create for ourselves also from these scenarios of isolation. And I kind of think it's inevitable in conventional reality. Maybe there's some Some people who are born, and maybe from many good works in past lifetimes, maybe just that's the way they are. I don't know. But maybe some people have less of these scenarios of isolation, or are naturally trustworthy, trustful, and trust themselves, and are able to see how to accept the reality of this life and world in a way that includes this boundless field. But my experience is that at least I think everyone that I've met and really talked to, we all have some woundedness.

[27:41]

We all are damaged in some ways, maybe some more than others, I don't know. But we all have been encouraged at some point in our past lifetimes, in this lifetime or in other lifetimes, whichever, to create these scenarios of isolation. And it's okay. You do not need to feel disgrace about this. This is our human life. Your sense of regret about it may be wholesome, it may be helpful, actually, what Hongzhe is going to talk about next. But first we have to just admit, oh, in this way, through this pattern, I'm creating these scenarios of isolation. I'm creating patterns of mistrust or hindrance or confusion where I try and grab this or push away that.

[28:47]

because I think that's what I need. So Hongshu says, with boundless wisdom, journey beyond this, forgetting accomplishments. This is kind of interesting. Journey beyond this. We don't have to be stuck in these patterns. We don't have to be stuck in scenarios of isolation. we can take on meeting these. So one thing that I'm coming to feel more and more is that the people who give me a hard time, which happens sometimes, are my best friends. And that when, you know, there's this thing in Buddhism about how to see the self, the small self, it's when we feel falsely accused.

[30:03]

I didn't do that, I didn't mean that. And suddenly this whole construction of a small self, in all its scenarios, veers up and, you know. So, Reality gives us a hard time sometimes, and that's, I think, a very good thing. And it's hard to see it that way. But sometimes, oh, okay, what is the lesson from here? And we sit with it, and oh, okay. And we can breathe and let go and return to that. boundless field and sometimes the same problem comes up again and again and again for many, many lifetimes. Still, we can start to see it and we can journey beyond this and forget accomplishments. It's interesting that he puts this in here. So many people in this room are very accomplished in many different ways.

[31:09]

Why does he say to forget accomplishments? Well, I think it's OK to appreciate the things that we have done that we feel good about or that have been helpful. It's OK. And we can indulge in these positive memories. And they may be comforting. And I think that's OK. But still, in this practice, when we journey beyond this, let go of accomplishments. How can we, maybe with that positive feeling or with some sense of accomplishment or whatever, just let go and actually be present here, now. This reality. How do we meet this reality? And maybe, you know, the past, the many lifetimes of accomplishment will be helpful as experience for, you know, acting skillfully now.

[32:21]

But still, skillful means is not about having some bag of tricks. Skillful means is about openheartedly meeting this, responding with whatever's at hand, trying to be helpful here, now. So he says, with boundless wisdom, journey beyond this. forgetting accomplishments. Straightforwardly, abandon stratagems and take on responsibility. So this is the one sentence in this that I most wanted to talk about, although I like all of them. But straightforwardly, abandon stratagems and take on responsibility. So we've all survived the many lifetimes of this lifetime and of past lifetimes. Maybe because we have some idea of how to do our life. We all have routines. We all have ways in which we function and techniques for accomplishing or taking care of this or that.

[33:26]

And yet, there's also this straightforward mind. So, Sato Sensei was here a while ago and did a calligraphy demonstration. He did the calligraphy that's on the wall there in our zendo. And what it says is straightforward mind or direct mind. This is the dojo. This is the practice place. This is the place of awakening. Straightforward mind, okay. Here I am, small self, big self, whatever. How do we just straightforwardly meet this situation? And then Hongzo says, abandoning stratagems, So I think part of straightforwardness is letting go. And this is also the heart of Dogen's Zazen practice, that our Zazen practice is not about techniques. So our usual way of thinking about practice is that we do something and it leads to something else.

[34:36]

Dogen is very emphatic that practice and realization are not separate. We don't sit waiting for enlightenment. How many hours of cushion time you accomplish is not the determination of awakening. Our awakening is what led us here in the first place. And then, of course, there's all of this process that Hongzhe is talking about here, by which we express and unfold and develop that. This is our training and practice. So abandon stratagems. Let go of accomplishments. This is difficult. We may be comforted by our accomplishments sometimes.

[35:41]

And we may be comforted by having techniques and strategies by which we cope with the various aspects of our world. And I would say in the realm of conventional reality, that's fine. We have to take care of things. And I want to talk about that more too. But fundamentally, our practice is about just this straightforward mind. just to meet this reality here and now, this boundless field of emptiness, this quality of wholeness here and now. So he says, straightforwardly, abandon stratagems and take on responsibility. So this is the heart of our practice, taking on responsibility.

[36:45]

Seeing that we do have an ability to respond, taking responsibility for our own practice as you're sitting on your cushion throughout a day of sitting. You know, I can't and nobody could come around and kind of you know, stand behind you and look at your mind and see what's happening and fix your posture and, you know, or whack you with a stick a bunch of times or do something to, you know, make sure your practice is right. No, please, all of you, each of you, this practice, this style of practice is about taking responsibility for your own practice. My job is to be here to consult with about it. And we also talk together and consult with each other. So it's not that we're isolated.

[37:46]

But how do we take on responsibility for the posture on your cushion right now, or chair? How do we take responsibility for the placement of our mudra? How do we respond to our ability to inhale and exhale? How do we enjoy our inhale and exhale? And it's not just, maybe we started with taking responsibility for our posture, for our practice, for how we are in this period of zazen, but also it means taking responsibility for others, for each other. So the wonderful thing about sashin is we each sit on our own cushion or chair, and we sit in the room together, The other people in the room support us to be ourselves, our deep selves, on our own cushion or chair.

[38:50]

And we do that together with each other, and Sangha is about... fixing each other, but supporting each other to take our own responsibilities. So taking responsibility is for self and for others, for our practice together, for expressing Buddha. Buddha is said in the Lotus Sutra to be alive for a very long time, many, many, many lifetimes. And one way to understand that is that Buddha is alive Here, today, in this room, because of each of us, Buddha is alive today, in this lifetime, on your Krishna chair. And you have responsibility for taking care of Buddha. Each of us takes care of Buddha today. And we take care of Dharma and Sangha.

[39:54]

We take care of meeting reality. So Dharma is, you know, the teachings the teachings of the sutras, the old teachings of old masters like Hongshe. This is supposed to be a dharma talk, so I'm supposed to be saying something about dharma, but you're taking care of it on your cushion or chair by how you hear about it. And then during zazen, or during kinyin, or during meals, how do we take care of meeting reality? This is taking responsibility for dharma. And then I've already talked about taking responsibility for sangha. So it means that we just appreciate that we're here together today and supporting each other to be here together today. And that we're taking care of this space. So Nancy and Titus, when we realized that the heat wasn't working, went down and did what they could do about it. And Nancy got our landlord, Bob, here to do more. And she will monitor the space heaters for the rest of the day so we don't freeze too much.

[40:57]

And you may have to monitor yourself on your cushion or chair in terms of how many layers you wear. We'll see. The sun's out outside. I think it's warming up out there. We do this together. And then there's the other part of taking care, taking responsibility. So again, Hongshu says, abandon stratagems and take responsibility. And in terms of the many lifetimes, this is about the Buddha's work. So the Buddha's order, the Sangha, the order of monks and nuns the Buddha founded, one way this is understood, and Robert Thurman, who I mentioned, has written about this very beautifully, is that the point of Sangha, the point of Buddha, is not just so that, you know, some of you guys can come here and feel a little less stressed and a little more calm on a Sunday morning, but that we're taking care of the world, too. We have a responsibility to the world. So, you know, I actually, you know, feel like I don't talk about this enough.

[42:07]

And I know some of you get a little nervous when I start to talk about it, and that's probably because I'm not skillful enough about talking about it. So this is one of my regrets. But we have a responsibility to the world, and there are various ways we can do that. There's not one right way, but the world isn't a big mess. I'm sure you've all noticed this in some way or another. The world also has many people, all the people in this room and many, many, many other people who are working hard to be aware and kind and take care of the world. But the climate is heating up, even if it feels cold here today. And our Senator Durbin says that the banks can run Congress. It sort of looks like that. Our society is corrupt and there's lots of cruelty and there are wars and there's great poverty and more and more inequity and so forth.

[43:19]

Anyway, part of our taking responsibility for practice is that we do have the ability to respond to that. And there are various ways to do that. So that's also part of our responsibility. It works on many levels, this practice. Many lifetimes. Many lifetimes in this lifetime. So, Hwang Cho says, straightforwardly abandon stratagems and take on responsibility. Having turned yourself around, accepting your situation, if you set foot on the path, spiritual energy will marvelously transform you. Contact phenomena with total sincerity, not a single atom of dust outside yourself. So having turned yourself around, each of us here in this room today, even if we still have many, many scenarios of isolation and patterns of distrust and difficult areas in our life, still, we have turned ourselves around.

[44:31]

We've sat and faced the wall and done this practice of Taking the backward step, as Dogon says, to turn the light inwardly and illuminate ourselves. And by that he means, maybe he means also this small self that we must let go of, as Suzuki Roshi says, but also this field of emptiness. So this is a basic Zazen instruction. Turn the light around to illuminate yourself. So when we sit, we're not thinking about the practice of everybody else in the room. We're sitting facing ourselves, whether we're facing the wall or the floor. This moment of being present is facing ourselves, our larger self. Includes Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, the world, reforming the world. Having turned yourself around, And we've all turned around from the wall to sit facing the center for Dharma talk.

[45:33]

Accepting your situation. Accepting is a funny word. We think of acceptance and patience as a kind of passive thing. Accepting our situation in Buddhism is very active, dynamic practice. What does it mean to really accept this Dharma position, this reality, this lifetime, and to do that again? And again, and again. How do we accept our situation? With all its problems, we have the ability to respond. This wholehearted, boundless field of radiance is about just accepting the wholeness of this situation. We can't figure it out. Our stratagems are not even, they're so tiny. They may be useful in some situations, but all of our accomplishments, whatever they are, all of our techniques and strategies and how-to manuals and so forth.

[46:38]

When we really accept our situation, we're accepting the wholeness of this boundless field. So he says, turning yourself around, accepting your situation, if you set foot on the path, well, congratulations. Really, I'm so happy. to have all of you here, because all of you are on the path. All of you have gotten up from your cushion and stepped, taken another breath and stepped in walking meditation. And more than that, you are all, in some way, really, deeply on the path. You are willing to be present with yourself and see how it feels. And look at your situation. And whether you feel disgrace or shame or whatever, you are here. You're facing yourself. This is a great blessing for the whole world. So, if you set foot on the path, spiritual energy will marvelously transform you.

[47:47]

So this is part of the Maybe there's carrot and stick in what Hongzhi is saying, but this is part of the good news. Spiritual energy is here. And part of what we do, sitting in Zazen, even for a period, and maybe even more sitting through a day, or sitting for longer, we feel this spiritual energy. We feel the arrival of breath, of inspiration, of energy, of creativity. So part of our practice is that. Just sitting quietly, creative expression arises. And when we get up from our cushion, we continue to express that creatively. So I've talked longer than I wanted to, but this paragraph is so rich. Contact phenomena with total sincerity, not a single atom of dust outside yourself. Contact phenomena, meet the world, meet the things of the world, meet the problems of the world, meet the problems of this life, of this body and mind on your cushion and chair with total sincerity.

[48:58]

So straightforwardness and sincerity, you know, two guideposts. What does sincerity mean? It's one of the great values in Japanese culture along with straightforwardness. How do we be sincere? How do we be honest with ourselves? How do we be honest with others? Sometimes we are not, even unintentionally, just because of these patterns of scenarios of isolation. And yet, can we hear each other? Can we sincerely meet phenomena? Can we take care of phenomena? So he concludes with Not a single atom of dust is outside yourself. How do we take responsibility for the world, the world of our society, the world of this body and mind, the world of our Sangha, the world of reality? Not a single atom of dust outside ourselves.

[50:02]

So I've talked with a couple people about a Soto Zen slogan. that I will close with. This is something that my teacher, Reb, wrote on the back of one of my priest rocks. Memitsu no Kafu is the Japanese. And it's pretty hard to translate, so I want to try and say something about it. But it has to do with meeting dust, meeting the dust of the world. So Memitsu no Kafu, the Kafu part is house wind, literally, or the style of the house. So this is the, style, the custom, the practice of the teaching of Soto Zen, going back to Dogen and Hongzhe, through Suzuki Roshi, you talked about this. Memetsu, literally it's minute or thread, And then mitsu is intimate or it's the character for esoteric, for mikyo, intimate, hidden, secret, but in this case, intimate.

[51:05]

So it's the house style, the style of our way of mimitsu, of intimacy with details, intimacy with the details of our lives. So usually in the context of Soto Zen, this refers to taking care of things very carefully. So what is the way to take care of coming into one day sitting in the heap not working? examine each part of it, try and figure out how to get the cold air from stopping to blow, and seeing if we can turn on the pilot light ourselves, and eventually calling the landlord and Nancy Will through the day, see if we need to use either of the space heaters. One little example. But it's also, you know, it's in our practice of sewing literally with threads to take care of each thread, of each stitch.

[52:08]

It's in our practice when we sew our robes. It's in the practice of meals. So when we have our meal, how do we take care of quietly, you know, not banging our spoons on the bowl and, you know, carefully, quickly, but not too quickly. carefully enjoying our food together, silently. So, Memitsu no Kafu is about taking responsibility for the details of the world. So we'll have temple cleaning later, too, and we'll be able to enjoy taking care, as best we can, of the details, taking care of our space. So... I guess I could say much more just about this little paragraph, but maybe that's enough for now.

[53:11]

We will have some discussion time later this afternoon. There's a few people who've joined us for the morning Zazen and talk, thank you. If any of you who joined us for the morning have any comments or questions, I'll take one right now. Kathy, quiet illumination. Thank you for taking a question. A comment more. When you were thinking about us as individuals becoming more aware of ourselves and accepting of ourselves, but also seeing the things that we would prefer would have been done differently, it seems to me that there's

[54:15]

what is working well, and what isn't working well, and what are things we're ashamed of, and what are things that need attention, and what doesn't, and how to accept it in a way that you're able to work with it, rather than getting polarized, for example. Yes, thank you. How do we carefully meet the situations of our world, each in our own way, from this place of straightforwardness and sincerity? Not easy, and yet also just taking care of ourselves in a way, and then how that gets expressed in our interactions with others also is part of

[55:20]

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