Good morning, good morning. Well, happy Mother's Day, everybody, and I want to congratulate all of us for having a mother or having had a mother one time. In the Buddhist world, there are many realms and many world systems, and being born from

[01:03]

a mother is one possibility, and there are others. There are sky-born creatures and moisture-born creatures and all sorts of individuals who are not born from mothers, and it's very precious and auspicious to have been born from a mother, because if you're born from a mother, then it's guaranteed there will be at least a little bit of suffering and that there will be at least a little bit of love. We don't know how much of each, but these two things are pretty much guaranteed if you're born from a mother, and these two ingredients are necessary ingredients for liberation and peace and joy. So that's why I say congratulations to all of us to be in that situation among all the

[02:05]

creatures in the many world systems. We have this wonderful possibility channeled from enormous karma through a mom to us. So that's great, huh? So after the lecture, be sure to call up or give flowers or something, and if you are yourself a mom, double congratulations and gratitude. You may not have known what you were doing, but most of the good things in life come without anybody knowing what they're doing, I suppose. Zen tradition is always making fun of literature and writing, and almost no Zen teachers are

[03:19]

right, but I confess to a long writing habit myself. It's a little embarrassing, but what are you going to do? So today, I thought I would do what I seldom but very occasionally do, which is rather than giving a regular Dharma talk, I would read for you one of my essays. So it's different, you know, an essay is different from a talk because writing is different from speaking, and writing is more dense and less involved with a dialogue than

[04:26]

it is with monologue. So I apologize in advance for not only having this unfortunate writing habit, but also for ... well, we'll see how this is, maybe you'll find it interesting. Last time I did this, I was surprised that people found it of benefit. So in any case, I don't have another talk, so we're going to do this, for better or worse. And the occasion for this essay was I was giving a talk in the city on Zen. You know, one of those talks where you're supposed to address yourself to an audience that might not necessarily know much about Zen, and you're supposed to tell them the main point of Zen. So this is always a challenge. So it's interesting, Blanche and I, Blanche and I are co-abbots of Zen Center, and we

[05:30]

were both giving a talk on this topic the same evening, and so we were both thinking about it, and we called each other up on the phone, and it turned out, to both of our surprise, that we both had the same idea as to what was the essential point of Zen. I was very surprised that any two people would have the same idea, let alone two abbots, you know, would have the same idea. But we both had the same idea, and the idea that we both had was that the essential point of Zen is questioning. So the name of this essay is On Questioning. So here goes. Are you ready? Good. Get comfortable. Relax. Don't worry. And here we go. Traditionally, the Zen stream in Buddhism is said to begin with the strong words of

[06:35]

Bodhidharma, who said, and I'm sure you've heard this before, a special teaching outside the scriptures, pointing directly to the human heart without any mediation. So from the start of Zen, Zen presents itself as the essence of Buddhism, the kernel or core of Buddhism, with everything else extra stripped away, direct and experiential, having nothing to do with faith or piety. And of course, we're all familiar with the style and the tone of the literature of Zen throughout its long history, and that literature bears this spirit out. I don't think it's that the Zen tradition is particularly reformist or iconoclastic. In fact, throughout Zen, there's a general respect for Buddhism per se, the Buddhism

[07:43]

that runs parallel to and precedes Zen. It's just that all the schools of Zen understand the essence of Zen to be something deeper and wider than any particular school of Buddhism or even any particular religion, including Zen itself. So you might say that Zen is the only one of the world's great religious traditions that explicitly makes going beyond itself the essence of what it is. So what then is the core of Zen? What is it that Zen advances as the core of Buddhism, the core of the religious quest? And as I said a minute ago, I would say, and Blanche agrees with this, at least on that particular night we agreed that the essence or core of it is questioning. The active, powerful, fundamental, relentless, deep, and uniquely human act of questioning.

[08:52]

Questioning that leaves any possibility of or any notion of answering far behind. Questioning that produces a doubt so deep and so developed it eventually becomes indistinguishable from faith. Questioning that starts with language and concept but very quickly burns language and concept to the ground. Questioning that brings humanness to its edge and pushes it off so that being, existence itself, as manifested right here in this body and mind, in this time and place, becomes foregrounded. So I really think it's true that in Zen there aren't any doctrines.

[09:53]

And that Zen isn't an ideology, it's an experience. But if you think about this a little bit, you realize that it's not an experience either because experience is always something that begs description and explanation. We know we have had an experience because we can talk about it. So understanding experience this way, then experience itself is ideology. So this questioning of Zen takes us deeper even than our experience. When a child first learns speech, it learns to name. But soon after it gets the hang of naming, very soon, nouns give way to sentences and questioning begins. Where did Daddy go?

[10:56]

Why is Mommy crying? Why can't I have more ice cream? When will we have to go? And then when the child gets older, why do I have to be nice to her? Where did Grandma go when they put her in the ground? Do I really have to grow up? So the child's questioning begins with noticing the obvious. That things in the world don't make sense. And that we are given explanations that are bogus and conventional. Children see this right away so they ask questions that adults really can't answer. So adults think that it's cute. And they shake their heads and they laugh and they smile. Which is the way that adults avoid these issues entirely.

[12:00]

And it turns out that growing up has to do with putting aside these childish questions. Which are, after all, expressions of wonderment. Uncoverings of the boundaries of speech and thought. So growing up turns out to be about suspending questioning. Burying it. So that we can get underway with the practical work of getting a living. And cooperating with the existing arrangements in the world. Growing up is submerging questioning. So questioning is submerged but it doesn't really go away. It's present below the surface. Sometimes we notice it's there because it manifests as anxiety. In the middle of the night for no reason.

[13:07]

Or as a vague dissatisfaction with conditions as we find them. Or as an out of scale feeling of anguish at instances of loss or defeat or disappointment. And sometimes it comes to us that it is necessary for us to resume our questioning. But we really don't know how. Sometimes we don't even realize that we need to do this. On a discursive level, questioning has no end. Questioning seems disruptive and distracting. It causes us to hang back from our activity. It creates in us an inability to commit ourselves to anything. Because we can't seem to leave aside our questions, our concerns, our doubts.

[14:12]

And they seem to plague us to stand between us and full-blooded, full-bodied, fully engaged life. But this kind of questioning is not the questioning of Zen. It may begin us in practice but we go beyond it. Because this kind of discursive questioning flows from and only goes as deep as the personality, our history, our desires, our fears. But Zen drives the process of questioning deeper than this. In Zen meditation we concentrate on the breath, as you know, in the belly. And we concentrate on the posture. And these are ways, focal points, for us to rest alertly and radically in the present moment. Practicing in this way, we eventually let all thinking fall away,

[15:20]

but not by striving to eliminate thinking. Rather, we simply allow thinking without becoming active in it. So we allow thinking, but we don't become active in it. And in this way, we let thinking think thinking. And when thinking thinks thinking, it easily comes to rest without us in there, murking around, making more of it than it needs to be. So this sort of powerful focus of Zen practice, focus at a single point with spaciousness in the present moment, with all the depth of the present moment, hones down and develops questioning until it easily goes beyond language, goes beyond the discursive, goes beyond the personal, goes beyond desire and fear and hope. And questioning then becomes reduced to an intensity

[16:27]

that burns up even inquisitiveness and desperation until life just is questioning, nothing but questioning. And everything else dissolves. Everything else seems partial or exaggerated somehow. So this questioning is, as I'm saying, the essence, this kind of questioning, which I hope I've succeeded in describing at least a little bit, is the essential point, I think, of Zen practice no matter what school or tradition. And it's not about belief. It's not about doctrine. It's not about faith. It's only about what is confirmed and sustained by what actually happens and by trusting what actually happens, moment after moment,

[17:35]

even as we know that what actually happens, moment after moment, is disappearing like smoke. And with this process there arises in our life a kind of a certainty. And then the next thing is that there is a constant letting go of this certainty and a willingness to stand in the middle of uncertainty because uncertainty, radical uncertainty, is the only thing that has the rock-solid feel of truth. Uncertainty means readiness, willingness to meet each moment. Uncertainty is only a problem and a weakness when there lies underneath uncertainty a desire for a secure outcome.

[18:41]

But in reality no outcome suffices. No outcome can rise to the level of this thoroughgoing questioning. So uncertainty is pregnant with possibility. Uncertainty is an endless adventure and the questioning simply goes on. So I'm trying to get you psyched up about this questioning and I hope that you like it. But I realize in saying all that I've said it may sound rather more exalted than it is. I think that to live a Zen life or we could say more accurately to live an authentic human life is a heroic thing to do. I think it is heroic. But it's also very ordinary.

[19:46]

We don't want to over-exaggerate it, you know. It's also very ordinary. And Zen is nothing if not practical and very grounded. So when students come with the joys of their questioning and their spiritual insights often I say, you know, go work in the kitchen. Don't worry about all this nonsense. Just cook the meal or just plant the vegetables, sets. So Zen is very grounded. And this is one of the cardinal aspects really of Zen questioning itself is that the profundity and thoroughness of questioning if you really understand it must be identical with ordinary everyday affairs. And with everyday practice whether it's in a temple situation or in an ordinary life situation

[20:48]

one gradually becomes to integrate questioning into ordinary activity. Chopping wood, carrying water, like they say. So that the process of questioning then which does go on in the midst of these activities purifies our everyday life. Questioning is like a scouring pad or a torch scrubbing or burning away all the dross and scum of desire and confusion that so covers our ordinary daily activity. That's why in Zen they always say when we walk, we just walk. When we eat, we just eat. That means everything extra burned away. Just the act of presently, authentically being, doing whatever it is that's there. Nothing extra on top of our activity can withstand the heat of questioning.

[21:51]

So this is the main point. But then there are many implications of this we have to think about. After all, this is about questioning, right? So we have to question this further. If we have a true spirit of questioning in our lives then there's really no possibility of a thoughtless acquiescence to personal, social or political injustice. One is clear that convention you know, what's conventional is just what's conventional. And one is forced to look deeper at the implications of our own actions the implications of institutional actions and of course one has to act on what one sees

[22:56]

as a result of this looking more deeply. And so, despite the checkered history of Zen Buddhism in Asia it has not been, you know, the greatest institution in Asia and we have to admit, unfortunately it doesn't have the most unblemished history in its short time in the West either. Despite that, and knowing that clearly I am myself convinced that the true spirit of Zen is one of this kind of questioning which leads us to a radical kindness and a righteousness. And I am convinced also that throughout the long history of Zen in all the cultures where it has been there have always been examples of this true spirit of Zen and that there always will be.

[23:57]

Now, so we have to then think about what about these religious establishments that have these checkered histories one of which we're all enjoying the fruits of right now as we sit here. Practically every one of these religious establishments have a story behind them that begins with this essential questioning but often leaves behind that questioning after a while and becomes an establishment protecting itself in various ways. It would be nice to think that well we can just why don't we just uphold the essence and be independent of the establishment which is a good idea and it would be comforting and a very positive and good position to hold but I think it's probably naive

[25:04]

because the fact is that these insights and practices this powerful questioning tradition is carried into contemporary possibility by the very institutions that at the same time tend to erode it. So we need to come here or somewhere to activate this questioning practice in ourselves. The fact is we need these places. So one has to somehow work with the system in some way, in some relation to it. I've thought about this for a long time and I'm convinced that there is religion as an offering for people. Religion is for people to help them, to serve people and that people need to be served

[26:09]

by the great religious traditions. But there is such a strong tendency to forget about this for the institutions and the traditions to feel that people are supposed to serve them somehow and people also want to forget about it and think that they should serve the traditions and the institutions and I think that we all want to forget about it because our questioning doesn't go far enough. Our questioning inevitably gets tamed. This questioning is wild, you know. You don't know what's going to happen. So eventually we tame our questioning and we codify our questioning and naturally we want to do that because we want to know what's going on, we want to get the answers. We want to find ourselves dedicating our lives to a path with some certainty in it. So we want to rely on authority outside of ourselves,

[27:12]

an authority that is somehow more impressive with big robes. See, look at this. Aren't you happy to see all this? Don't you feel confident? Now that I'm wearing about $2,000 worth of Japanese robes we can all feel much more confident that we really know what we're talking about because we're well-dressed and we have big Buddhas. Look at these Buddhas. It's very comforting, you know. So we all want that, you know. We would like to think that, well, it's not just poor little me, you know. And out of this eventually issues a certain amount of tragedy which is questioning's legacy. But still,

[28:15]

there is a constantly nurtured possibility and individuals, groups of individuals, and maybe even once in a while, from time to time, entire cultures can escape the consequences of this tragedy and break out into open spaces of calmness and kindness and justice. It does happen. And even if it doesn't, the hope of it is endless. And this hope is an aura that constantly illuminates questioning. So, more implications of questioning. What about having a sense of values? How can you have a sense of values

[29:19]

if you're questioning? Is that radical? Can you have a sense of values? And I would say, yes and no. The values, though they seem benign and positive, also easily become grounds for self-righteousness and self-deception. Holding values too firmly without a constant questioning, I think ultimately does become destructive. And the true spirit of questioning, I would say, takes us beyond values to connection. And I think that connection, a felt sense of our connection with everything, is the source of all values. So with this kind of questioning, with this kind of connection,

[30:21]

there isn't any real me and real you. There's only the unfolding of a single, seamless question. And our kindness comes from this unfolding. And this kindness has no signs or marks. We can't be sure what it looks like. No one knows how it will appear in a given moment. So it's a little tricky, maybe even a little dangerous. And then there's the question. Could you actually survive, you know, questioning in this way, in the ordinary, everyday world? And here I don't mean the world that we always talk about, you know, of chopping carrots and planting the garden, cleaning the temple, because that's kind of easy. But can you survive this way in the complicated and less pleasant world of jobs and money and taxes and romances and

[31:22]

kids that don't listen to you and don't like you and television and advertising? Can you do that? Is that possible? Is it just a dream? Yes and no. I would say that the clarity of questioning can, you know, in this way, this Zen way, driving it that deep, can give us a sense of, a feeling of equanimity and energy, which we need and can use to pursue what we need to do for the course of our busy lives in whatever way those lives unfold. So that part is good. But the harder part is that I think questioning does make it impossible

[32:25]

for us, if we really question and we're really serious about it, to hold certain kinds of views, to act in certain kinds of ways. And I think, I mean, I shouldn't be telling you this probably, but I think that it's true that the logic of deep questioning may lead us into some impossible situations in the world we live in. Situations, the only way out of which might be, you know, loss or death or something even more difficult. And there is a pervasive tendency, and we have that same tendency ourselves, I myself have it, to think about Buddhism or Zen as a polite and positive answer to all our world's woes a civilized and benign path toward a comfortable, reasonable happiness. Which is, you know,

[33:28]

there's a lot of truth to that, I think. Buddhism is a clear way of life that is helpful, I think, in living. And Buddha was the first and the greatest of all psychologists how to manage our mind and our emotions so that we can be happy. But I think at bottom, if our questioning is really relentless, we may find that it causes some problems. We may have to change our lives in some fairly serious ways. We may become, you know, quite miserable and having to face great choices and decisions. Which misery and which problems only appear as problems, of course, from the outside?

[34:29]

Because from the inside, questioning is freedom. And the person who is willing to question to this extent is free to choose this or that, to live or die, to win or lose, to come or go freely. And this kind of thing, I think, is discussed traditionally in Zen in the course of talking about the two kinds of teaching. You know about the two kinds of teaching, the kind that gives life and the kind that takes life. Do you know about this? Have you heard about this? We try not to mention it. But this is one traditional way of looking at Zen teaching. The teaching that gives life

[35:32]

and the teaching that takes life. And both kinds of teaching ultimately are necessary. In the Blue Cliff Record collection of 100 koan, there's a story told in one of the cases about the pilgrim Sudana, who decides that he's going to be an herbologist. So he goes to the Bodhisattva Manjushri to study herbs. So Manjushri says, well, the first thing you're going to do to study herbs is go out and find an herb that is not medicinal. So Sudana goes around looking for an herb that's not medicinal. And of course, in the process, discovers that there isn't a single herb that is not medicinal. And he comes back astonished and tells this to Manjushri. Everything is medicinal. Everything. Whether we like it or not, whether it fits in with our plans

[36:32]

or not, is medicinal. So when Manjushri hears this, he says, well then, find me an herb that is medicinal. That should be easy. And it is. Sudana just reaches down right in front of him, picks up a blade of grass and hands it to Manjushri. There's an herb that's medicinal. And Manjushri receives the blade of grass and says, this blade of grass is a sword that gives life and takes life. We all like giving life. And we all know about this. Nurturing ourselves and others. Forgiving ourselves and others. Taking care with loving kindness of ourselves and others. And this is necessary, absolutely necessary in order for us to practice. But taking life, we don't like

[37:33]

so much. Taking life involves taking life goes along the path of freedom and involves letting go. Giving up not only of some of the things in our lives, but of everything. Fundamentally and finally. Everything. Giving up everything. Freedom means nothing to hold. Only in this way can we really be free and can we really have ease. Can we really have peace. Only in this way can we really manifest kindness at all times to everyone and everything. If we follow it through thoroughly, questioning will take us this far. So, this is the end of my essay on questioning, except

[38:34]

now I'll read you a little poem called Questions that I wrote about this. Could have said the whole thing in this little poem, but then we would have all this extra time. And there aren't that many muffins to go around probably. So I'm going to close with this poem called Questions. Questions. Why is this day different from yesterday? And why am I and not you or her or it? Why does the pond ripple with the wind and why does the dog bark at nearly everything and why is that annoying to me? Why is it music moves me and why do I

[39:35]

nearly cry when someone's selfless for a moment even in a movie? Why was I born? Why do I live another day? Where did I come from and where am I going? Why do flies appear suddenly from nowhere and what do flies think about? Or grasshoppers or fish, say, trout, large ones that hover gracefully facing upstream and why is it the water oozle twitches like that or for that matter what about the several things in this world that don't speak or see or decide or taste anything like bacteria, phytoplankton, amoeba, mites? What's the measure of this world? Is small smaller than large

[40:35]

or is it larger and is there any small or large outside mathematics and does it make any difference and to whom? You? Me? What does language do after all? Is it another organ like a nose and did everything that's ever happened happen by chance or is there a design? What's a design anyway? Is there anything but design and can anyone anyway ask a single serious meaningful question? Can I? Thank you. Now we're going to have

[42:01]

some dialogue and it doesn't have to do necessarily with the dharma talk it could have to do with anything about practice or anything else but I might not know anything else or even this but that's okay because somebody else might so you can bring up anything you like and if it's something that I don't know anything at all about I'll tell you that. Yes? Well, I'm going to try to repeat what she said because I got the speaker here also then we can get her on the tape. She's asking me to say something about spirituality and she what that means or what that's about and she prefaced it by saying that she appreciated the idea of questioning as the essence of Zen practice and that a friend of hers

[43:01]

is writing a book about spirituality and children which raises the issue what is spirituality and she had a couple of thoughts about it that had to do with innocence without naivete and she said as an adult living life as an hypothesis rather than as a fact which I thought were pretty good so there's the answer right there maybe she wants me to use my own words to say the same thing so I'll try to do that. Is that a fair characterization of your question? Okay So I after many years of feeling very uncomfortable with the words spirit and spirituality I just it rubbed me the wrong way I finally it's so current now that it would be an exaggeration

[44:01]

to not to use these words so I use them and the good thing about them is they seem somehow less threatening than the word religion and then they also are good words because if you're in conversation with someone or presenting practice in a situation which is not Buddhist or not Zen then you can use the word spirituality and everybody shares that whether you're a Christian or a Jew or Hindu or whatever we can all talk about spirituality so I think that's one reason why the word spirituality has become so much more important is because there's so much more dialogue between the different traditions now which has been I think a very positive and helpful helpful thing so but it is a kind of a vague word of course what do we mean by it and like all words when you think about them long enough you really get confused

[45:02]

you have no idea what anything means if you really think about anything but I'm sure you've heard before and many people always say that the actual root of the word spirit in Latin is spiritus and in Greek it's pneuma and it means breath so it's that the breath which of course is so important in meditation practice when you the breath is the essence of life, of our actual life and it's something magical in a way, in other words we're these machines you know we have these different organs and so on and so forth, but how does it come happen that we breathe and that this whole thing is set into motion and I know in the Jewish tradition there's a notion that God breathes life

[46:04]

breathes the breath into the human being and that sets all of this in motion so spirit and breath are very much connected and that seems like a good way to think of spirituality, it's about the breath, about that essential aspect of our lives apart from our cultural or personal histories, stories attitudes and so on of course those can't be dismissed but the essential point out of which all that flows is the spirit the bottom line, the basic baseline of what it means to exist we could say is spirit so that's maybe how I understand it and so that's why I believe everyone is concerned with spirituality because everyone breathes and everyone, however much they're concerned with this level of existence this basic bottom line level it's there for all of us, whether we think about it or not, or whether we choose

[47:06]

to put our energy there or not, it's there and there are times in our lives when it's unavoidable when the only thing that will help us is to touch ourselves or be touched on that level. Other times maybe people can survive just nicely without even worrying about it, and that's fine there are times when we really need that, to be touched there so spirituality comes into play, and I like your idea of innocent and not naive because I think one of the most important things that militates against our having the courage to contact ourselves spiritually is the so-called real world you know, where we say, well, that's not that's impractical you know this is not what people are concerned with and how can I ever survive if, and so on and so forth all of which has some truth to it but the consequences of cutting off ourselves in that way in the name of the real world

[48:08]

or in the name of being realistic, yeah that's what we say realistic, got to be realistic so I think yeah, I think that to be practicing the way is to be naive, not naive, to be innocent to be innocent, and hopefully we can be innocent without being naive so that's, I like that formulation, I think that's really good I like that follow up I think as you were talking it helped me see the problem I was having with how to raise spiritual children what most people really do is treat it as a verb they're talking about behavior not the noun because as you say, spirit is there, and when people say spirituality, they really mean the manifestation of that in the real world, they don't really mean spirit, they mean skillful means yeah, well

[49:09]

bringing up the issue of children how can I raise spiritual children that seems to me like a terrible question to start with I think if you started with that question, now let's get these children spiritual here then it seems like that would be a bad idea, it seems to me it's really about teaching parents not screw things up forget it, just I think a better question is how can we make sure that these children can be themselves most truly, and that I as a parent or as a mentor or teacher or whatever can help them in whatever way I can, as a catalyst to find their own way to their own hearts whatever that may be because the trouble with defining spirituality is that then we say, well now somebody's going to be spiritual and that means they're going to look like this and talk like this and so on and so on, and then of course children being the intelligent creatures that they are they immediately see that the only answer to something like that is rebellion

[50:09]

and non-cooperation which is totally understandable we have had for example, various attempts at Sunday school and all this sort of thing which have always failed and I myself have never thought that such things were the greatest idea, but activities with the kids, to conclude them, and we have the birthday for them, and we have retreats here for them where activities are emphasized but to give them this is Buddhism the first noble truth, the second noble truth the third noble truth, and the fourth noble truth and the Eightfold Path I mean, to me that would not be all that helpful, but they find out about these things, because they ask and if you're practicing and you're there for them, they know believe me, all our children know about the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path they know about it, but they never learned it in Sunday school and if they don't know about it, then they don't need to know about it and they know that

[51:11]

if they ever do need to know about it, they know where to go who to ask yes and the Buddhist perspective of non-duality, is the mother and father one I'm not sure I understand your question not really, you know Buddhism is lacking in any kind of serious, systematic teachings about parenting about marriage and so on, because the Buddha basically said more or less, the Buddha said all that stuff is way too hard laughter he did that's basically he said that is way too hard, you know, if you're going to if you're going to laughter this is true, those of you who know the teachings, know that the Buddha said from the very beginning, he said, let's not get involved in any of that, if we're going to have liberation we're going to have to do it stripping our life down to basically the easiest

[52:13]

situation, clearest situation, and from that situation we can maybe have a chance at least, of going beyond human attachment so he cut all that out, so therefore in order for, so then of course there are many later movements within Buddhism, and the Mahayana movement which was emphasizing more lay life did have a lay practice, but the truth of the matter is that most of the main teachings of Buddhism are about monkhood and nunhood and so we have to take these same principles the Mahayana movement in Buddhism tells us that one can apply the insights the deepest insights of the Buddha to any situation in life, and that there are benefits in any situation for helping other people so it's really up to us to apply these teachings to the situation of parenting and family and so on and that's what we're struggling to do

[53:13]

and it's very creative and challenging work but we're struggling to do that, but there isn't any kind of doctrine, I know that in Christianity there are many such formulations and the whole notion of the father and so on in Catholicism of course the father and Mary as the mother is a very powerful symbolism and imagery but not quite as far as my knowledge goes not quite the same emphasis on that in Buddhism yeah asking about the tradition in Zen to make fun of writing and so on somebody else asked me about this when we were out there having tea oh, it's just a joke because one can get too interested in one's own

[54:14]

insights and thoughts and ideas and attitudes to be uninterested in them and to suppress them and denigrate them is poison of course and that's what someone brought up earlier in the tea and also to become too interested in them is no good either so it's a kind of joke in Zen and of course a lot of Zen people did write poetry in fact Zen has probably the biggest literary tradition of any other religion bar none there's more Zen books and collections of sayings and so forth and commentaries on them and so on and so forth than any other tradition so it's a kind of a Zen is full of jokes joking is one of the main ways of talking in Zen like a typical story when Master Rinzai died he was on his deathbed

[55:16]

and his disciple was there with him and he looked into his disciple's eye and he said, I can't believe that I taught my whole life now I'm dying and this blind ass is going to be my heir I can't believe it and so this is the title of one of the Buddhist magazines it's called the Blind Ass or the Blind Donkey and so this is the typical Zen thing of putting somebody down and yelling at them as a form of praise, which might be a form of praise and might not, one is never quite sure is one of the literary techniques, because it is a literary technique used in Zen so in the same way there's a sort of funny attitude about writing and sometimes I get email messages from Gary Snyder and he has a little motto that goes at the bottom of his email messages that says something like I forget what it says, but something like only idiots and dogs would bother

[56:16]

to waste time on literature, something like that so anyway of course I do a lot of writing and I'm only sorry that I can't do more and I do workshops with writing and encourage people to write and all that so yeah as I say the problem is not with writing, the problem is with our attitude about it so if we have some freedom within writing then writing is no better or worse than anything else. In Zen they say there's a famous saying in Zen you can't eat a painting of a rice cake you know the implication being eat the real rice cake, not a painting of it which is often taken to mean don't get stuck in the words you know rest in the real experience and then Zen Master Dogen who is the founder of our school has an essay called Painting of a Rice Cake

[57:17]

in which he argues in a very sophisticated way that would put to shame most linguistic philosophers of the present that a painting of a rice cake is itself a rice cake and this is true of course how can we say that the experience of writing and reading is somehow not an experience of course it's an experience it's not the same if I write the sky if I write down the sky and you read the sky it's not the same as looking at the sky but it's not nothing, it's another kind of experience it's no less profound than looking at the sky it's just that it's different and the problem is sometimes we think it's the same it's not the same as long as we understand that then we can be free within language and we have to be because there is no other choice otherwise we're bound endlessly everybody's a writer you know

[58:19]

did you know that? who escapes language? is there anybody who doesn't use language and describe the world to themselves? no, we all do that and we're imprisoned by that so we have to understand language and be free within it because there is no other option that's what Dogen was pointing to when he said a painting of a rice cake is itself a rice cake is a word that we use outside of religious context about righteousness self-righteousness righteousness as a positive virtue self-righteousness as something that's not positive I agree with you I think that if you really apply yourself to practice whether or not you are constantly or even sometimes concerned with ethical scruples and so on, you will become

[59:20]

it will become difficult for you to act without being kind without being careful of others so in other words in Zen practice ethical practices flow from the sitting practice and the ritual practice because as we become more aware and as our heart opens through the sitting practice then we can't harm anything, we can't harm anyone and I think that when we have a strong experiential basis in that way of life it does influence other people and people notice that, not that we're trying to do that, but that does happen and people I hope are influenced by it for the good of course it's easy to get subtly self-righteous about these things, which they call in the tradition, another example of Zen use of language they call it the stink of Zen you know, a good Zen person doesn't smell

[60:25]

like Zen let's go of Zen so it's easy to have the stink of Zen, which is very common we're enthusiastic about the practice and we do it and we think it's great and all that and naturally but then people who never heard of it are going to really be our best teachers pointing out with deadly accuracy where it is that we're holding on to Zen and where it is we're stinky and then if we're attentive we can let go but there is this powerful relationship between the meditation practice and ethics and the more our meditation practice is developed and the more we extend it, the more we're always seeing more deeply into our conduct and conduct becomes the practice after a while how do I you know what's the thing to do now and how do I do now we keep trying to practice

[61:25]

compassion and harmlessness and noticing how we're not doing that mostly ethical practice is a meditation on how we're not keeping the precepts how we're not sufficiently harmless, not with a sense of guilt and self flagellation but with humility and dedication to trying keep on trying so I often one of my great talks is on failure you know I once gave a talk during practice period on failure, I really got into it and everybody got so depressed you know at the end of the talk because you fail you know a good Zen student is failing all the time and enjoying it not at all daunted by it how could you not fail yes sir so he's bringing up questioning is endless

[62:26]

doesn't it lead to confusion doesn't it lead to numbness or apathy and so on well I talked a little bit about this in my essay where I made a distinction between discursive questioning which is what you're talking about and Zen approach to questioning which although I can say something about it I don't think you can appreciate it unless you practice it because it's really about practice and so this is the kind of questioning that takes questioning as I said deeper than language on the level of language and concept we will be confused and dissatisfied the more we look the deeper we question and as I said you know we become confused we become unable to commit ourselves to something because why this why not that this is not blah blah you know we can go on like that endlessly and this happens to people in the modern world with all of our choices and all of our possibilities how are we going to know what to do we can do this we can do that this is good this is good that's not good blah blah blah you know on and on and on

[63:27]

it's a modern disease so that's right if you question you can become paralyzed but the question that I'm talking about completely has to do with meditation practice where you take the question till it merges with your life so there's a brightness to it and it's not a you see the problem with questioning that you're raising is you think there's an answer yes of course you burn down one answer but that kind of discursive questioning in the middle of it is the whether you know it or not is the idea that somehow there will be something coming zen questioning like I say burns down language and concept and questioning just becomes the vitality of life itself without closing off possibilities so just questioning you could say throw out the word questioning okay we go beyond questioning to readiness

[64:29]

presence intensity and then so that's you know and that's what I'm saying is that questioning leads us to that place and then it's not confusion anymore it's the opposite of confusion it's real clarity even though we know that we could be wrong and we could change course and so on but that doesn't matter because we know that there's a rightness in this moment of our living so that's a very different thing from oh I don't know what to do and blah blah and I'm not sure about anything and so on it's very different in practice when we through our practice we become very certain as I said there's a certainty that arises out of this and then we let that go because this moment's certainty is the next moment's worn out doctrine so we are certain now and we let go of that and then now we're certain and we let go and now we're certain so there's this questioning as I also said in the very beginning questioning driven so deep it becomes indistinguishable a doubt so deep

[65:32]

it becomes indistinguishable from faith so that's what this is different it's a different thing although as I completely agree with you that many people through Zen practice can get to this place where they're confused but it's a stage along the way it's not what we're trying to cultivate in the practice so thank you for bringing that up again because that's one of the things about an essay like that is you zip along saying all these wonderful things and since you don't go into them very much in an essay because the reader has it on the page and can think about it they go by fast so that was a point that needed to be emphasized more and I appreciate you bringing it up I'm trying to communicate no assumptions, just now thank you, there you go he should have given a lecture yes well

[66:42]

I got stuck on the Sunday painter so in other words starting something and not finishing it and wondering whether just doing something has to do with it's similar to this man's question can this practice lead us to be the kind of person who just does a million different things and doesn't get anywhere and doesn't complete things and doesn't follow through and so on and so forth is the practice in itself the end result? so yeah is the practice in itself the end result? well I think in these kind of questions we have to be sophisticated and use common sense also, use common sense so if let's say, let's take the example of the Sunday painter that stands for anybody who doesn't follow through, doesn't complete things and they say, oh I'm doing Zen today I'm a painter and tomorrow I'm an architect and on Wednesday I'm going to be a physician I'm starting medical school I'm going for a week and then after that I'm going to go

[67:46]

to law school and I'm just doing it and I'm Zen because if I really became a doctor then that wouldn't be Zen because then I would just old stuff so you're laughing because it's ridiculous one would have to question now are you really doing this? or are you using an ideology of just doing something as a way of avoiding doing something so I think in my own experience is that there's a lot of commitment involved in anything that we do in our lives that's worthwhile and certainly in Zen practice there's an enormous commitment in fact a commitment that transcends even one lifetime so there's not a contradiction except in logic in thought between just giving ourselves to what we're doing and having

[68:46]

a sense of real commitment and follow through because like I say really doing something means doing it with all its implications if I go to medical school the implication of that is great so I have to follow through with that you see I can't just go on Wednesday and then switch on Friday now we do what we do with some strong commitment and feeling of decisiveness so if I go to medical school on Wednesday and I die on Thursday I have completed medical school do you know what I mean? because I completely did it and I have commitment to following through on it but if it turns out that my karma is such that it ends here then it ends here and I accept that as the whole story so if I start a painting and I don't finish it it's finished if I start a million paintings and I never finish any of them I better look more deeply at myself

[69:47]

so this is very practical stuff that I'm talking about it's about real life so it's not some crazy idea about this or that so yeah of course we follow through we follow through with relationships we follow through with agreements and professions and skills and in our practice more than anything we follow through with our practice lifetime after lifetime this commitment to seeing everything through and going deep with our heart and our questioning this is our biggest commitment of all yes well it's the relationship between Zen and Buddhism and is Zen outside of Buddhism of course Zen is a school of Buddhism Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism but the teaching in Zen as I said defines the deepest aspect of Zen as being beyond Zen so Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism

[70:49]

and it has a hierarchy and it has all these things and it teaches the teachings of Buddha but Zen purports to be the essence of the Buddha's enlightenment the essence of the Buddha's mind which is non-dual which is not limited to Buddhist teachings so it's a sort of funny paradox that on the one hand yes Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism I am a Zen Buddhist priest and I can perform rituals and this and that but also this is all just a cover story and in reality we can't define or know the measure of this practice so that's also part of Zen so it's kind of both so you're at a time

[71:50]

in your life of lots of questions and uncertainty and anxiety it sounds like so you're saying that the heart beating fast breath is hard to contact well sometimes it's like that and there aren't any tricks to change that sometimes life circumstances of our lives put us in a moment of great difficulty and it's very natural for the heart to race and the breath to be shallow so the way we practice at times like that without trying to change that or thinking that we're going to find some magic bullet from Zen that's going to make us feel differently and suddenly be calm but the way we practice with that is simply to allow it and be aware of it and try to come back to the present moment so when my breath is shallow

[72:52]

I'm aware that my breath is shallow when my heart is racing I'm aware that my heart is racing and I accept that as my condition and I try to let my awareness be wide enough to include that and I even can notice my heart is racing, my breath is shallow and I wish it weren't so and I'm aware of that and I try to be patient in the present moment and the Buddha taught in the Mindfulness Sutra that awareness itself always heals without trying to change something simply to be aware is to heal and you might notice that when you are aware of your shallow breath it changes a little bit yeah stay aware no really you'll see, eventually it will change and if it doesn't change you'll still be aware there is no other way maybe there's some medication you can take probably

[73:52]

make your breath shallow and calm you down there's tranquilizers and so on and I suppose that there are times when we get so freaked out that that's what we should do but basically in Buddhist practice it's the practice of patience and awareness and the certainty that everything is temporary you will not be in this state the rest of your life and even if you are in this state the rest of your life you will not be in this state forever that's true you might be in this state for a long time one has to simply find in that a place to be aware there is no other way that I know of maybe somebody else could tell you another way anybody else know another way? maybe there's another way I mean you know there are, like I'm just reading this book about Prozac maybe you should take Prozac sounds like a really good deal you know I have a friend

[74:55]

who's had problems in his life for 30 years and he started taking Prozac and that's why I have this book because he said it's totally changed my life it's the best thing that ever happened to me all these problems that I had that were so bad now they're gone so I want you to read this book and tell me what you think so that's why I'm reading this book about Prozac so I'm not joking sometimes we're so out of whack that in fact it's too much and we need to do something like that to calm ourselves down temporarily there's nothing wrong with that if that's what has to happen you have to be practical and figure out what's going on and what really works and what do we need but generally short of that kind of thing I would say just to be patient and continue to practice awareness sometimes sitting practice at a time like that doesn't work yeah when there's a high

[75:57]

state of anxiety sitting increases anxiety so at that time I often recommend to people walking meditation as being more it's more calming in other words when the mind is agitated sitting puts a certain amount of pressure on you because you're just there facing it without any support but the breath walking meditation is more supportive because there's the earth there's the sky there's the trees if you're outdoors there's more movement of the body it's not as pressured so it can calm you down more if you're quite agitated but if sitting works sitting I found in dire states of mind myself that sitting was beneficial to me it did I would feel somewhat relieved of my anxieties and troubles but when conditions are there in your life creating anxiety there will be anxiety as long as the conditions are present and then it's just a question of how do you work with it

[76:58]

how can you best be with it when the conditions dissipate as they will inevitably anxiety goes away so I'm sorry that you're having that now but all I can say is as many people have said and I'm sure you yourself have thought that these moments arise in our life that watershed moments moments when we're about to in effect be reborn into a new condition and passing from one condition to another is always deeply unsettling so remember that maybe it can be okay be better mm-hmm it's very diabolical to do it Sunday painter and I completely agree with you yeah sure yeah no I do of course I mean the

[77:59]

nice thing to me the nice thing about the arts is that they're fun and freeing and wonderful and full of play and yeah I would think it would be I'm a Sunday poet right so so yeah we don't need to make everything into a career right with all the desperate weight you know that all of that implies so of course yeah I agree with you yeah Judy yeah yeah how to create questioning on a group level not just an individual level well I think that depends of course on the group and the size of the group and the nature of the group there are some groups that are really unwieldy like you know the United States

[79:03]

government or something you know it's hard to imagine how you could institute a questioning spirit in something so vast about which you know like a big octopus you don't know where the tentacles are but if you but with a group that's small enough to where people know each other and there are possibilities of instituting you know ways of speaking to one another and teachings about questioning about the necessity of keeping what we're doing alive and each individual doing constant self-examination but you know like an example of this was the other day I was at the Zen Center board meeting and so I think I one board member wrote me a letter about this because it was shocking to them that I said in the board meeting that I didn't think that the survival of Zen Center was the

[80:04]

most important thing I didn't think that us surviving institutionally was more important than for example taking care of one monk who had served the community for a long time if doing that meant that we would cease to exist as an organization I thought that was more important so that caused other board members to question we thought that the purpose of the board was to preserve the institution somebody wrote me a letter saying that a board member I haven't responded to his letter yet but I would answer that's true the board's function is to see that the organization is preserved at all costs and the abbot's function is to question that and cause all the rest of us to question it too so then an individual can take up

[81:06]

this kind of role or it can be institutionalized a role like that we have abbots at Zen Center to raise those kind of questions any organization can have and then structuring certain kind of meetings being able to have in an organization a time when we get together like a lot of organizations do this now they have a retreat right and they get together and that's what they do at the retreat they say what are we doing here, what's it all about are we really fulfilling our purpose let's renew so I think a lot of organizations do that so there are ways of doing it taking responsibility for it as an individual instituting forms within the organization where that's what you're doing but still it could still happen anyway and a lot of times those very forms become so you go to the retreat and you sit around and you talk about are we really doing what we want blah blah but that's become institutionalized too right so you just have to keep your eyes open like I was saying in the talk that a certain amount of that

[82:06]

is inevitable I feel organizations are going to have that get stuck that way and organizations come and go and things will die and are reborn and that's just life so I don't know if that helps at all yeah definitely definitely the only thing is that one wouldn't want to make an ideology out of that either so putting your body on the line is something that you do when necessary not something that you go around looking for ways to put your body on the line every minute because that's what questioning is questioning is just following through and being honest with what arises so you know like I always say in some Zen places we give students big problems so that they can break through them but I don't believe in that I feel like life itself is a problem and you will

[83:08]

have a serious problem eventually if you live long enough so it's not necessary for one to search for ways of sometimes people do that they look around for ways of creating risk situations and I mean I suppose that's okay but myself I don't think that's necessary but you're right that you must when the time comes you have to do that you can't retreat otherwise you know that you're not really living your life fully you're not really being true yeah so the issue of reincarnation and also bringing that up with a sense and karma bringing that up with a sense that somehow it's not discussed in Zen or we don't like to talk about it well I know that years ago when we were working on our study curriculum this was in the time when Tara Toko Rinpoche, a Tibetan Lama was coming here annually and giving us teachings

[84:08]

we asked him we asked him about our study curriculum and he said you must start with teachings about reincarnation and past lives because Buddhism makes no sense whatsoever without this he said it really strongly to us and we thought about it and he was a wonderful teacher whom we respected very much and so we thought about this a great deal and we decided not to follow his advice because of the situation in which the cultural situation in which we're teaching and the difference between that and the cultural situation in which he was teaching we felt like it might have the opposite effect of the one that he that we're all he and we were all trying to produce which is to give people what they need in order to practice we felt that it would not be beneficial now it could be that it's beneficial to you or various individuals but we felt like to front that is the most important thing

[85:16]

would not be beneficial now in Buddhism clearly there's no question that rebirth is a teaching of Buddhism this is clear the Buddha on his night of enlightenment saw his past lives and saw the past lives of many people so there's no question that this is part of Buddhism and we all know that our brothers and sisters in the Tibetan tradition have much lore and many teachings about this and a whole religious system that's predicated on this, that's why Tarotoku brought this up with us and now Zen has a kind of as a doctrine Zen has an agnostic view of reincarnation and I often mention this typical Zen story to express how Zen as a tradition, again it's talking about Zen as an organized school of Buddhism, views this Zen story that I often quote is the story of Guishan and the water buffalo

[86:17]

Guishan said, when I pass away I will be reborn as a water buffalo on the side of the hill and you'll be able to tell because the water buffalo will have written on its side the characters Guishan when you see the water buffalo with the characters Guishan you know that it's me reincarnated so when you see, when I pass away and you see that water buffalo if you say it's a water buffalo you'll be wrong and if you say it's Guishan you'll be wrong and this is what you're hearing and this is why you don't feel met in your question about reincarnation because it's very good Zen doctrine and there's a reason for that, looking at it that way because to attach to reincarnation and grasp reincarnation causes suffering now, I said before that it's clear that in Buddhism reincarnation is a true teaching it's also just as clear and just as deep in Buddhism

[87:20]

that Buddha taught there is no one who is reincarnated there is no something that's the essence of me that zips out of me and zips into another body and then that thing zips out of that body and zips into another body there is no such thing that's zipping this is clear very clear teaching of Buddha so then this brings up the question if there's nothing zipping then who is being reincarnated? how can that be? you know, and so this is discussed at tremendous length in the philosophical texts of Buddhism now, I have to say that in Tibetan Buddhism and other traditions that have popular Buddhism, a big folk tradition in Buddhism they kind of like snuck in a little bit of zipping because, no really because in other words culturally this whole thing about reincarnation is very important in popular Buddhism so the truth of the matter is that if you analyze and say what they say about reincarnation

[88:22]

it sounds pretty much like there's something I am being reincarnated, but the I in philosophical Buddhism in the deepest traditions of monastic Buddhism and meditative Buddhism it's clear that the nature of this I that's being reincarnated is unreal so the way they explain it is like something like this, they say maybe it's like an acorn you put an acorn into the ground and it becomes an oak tree do we say that the acorn, where's the acorn? do we say that the acorn is in the oak tree? or now is the, well the acorn is gone, totally gone and now there's an oak tree, and yet the oak tree is in the lineage of the acorn that's why we say that the oak tree came from the acorn because although the acorn is completely gone there is this kind of causal connection just like this between the acorn and the oak tree even though the acorn is gone and so it's that way there's a stream of karma

[89:22]

that flows on in that stream of karma, just like water there is no piece of water that you can pick up there's just a flow, right? and it flows on through many lifetimes and that is why it's entirely possible that you could remember something I have myself, to tell you the truth, I never talk about it but I have myself remembered something that wasn't in my life that I remembered with a vividness that was clear that, you know, it was something there, whether I want to call it a Guishan or a water buffalo, you see, that's the problem if I say, that's a water buffalo then I'm attaching, see if I say, that's Guishan, then I'm attaching then I have a problem, but yet I know as you know as well that there's some experience there so, yes if our life were not deeper than just this tiny span of time, between the time we're born and the time we die we wouldn't be here we wouldn't be in this room, talking about this stuff

[90:23]

if we didn't know that our life is more than that so yes, it's more than that so is there reincarnation? of course there is of course life is more than this of course it's bigger than this of course we came from nowhere and we're going nowhere and our life is endless of course it's true so we need to touch ourselves at that level whether you want to hold to a doctrine of reincarnation and say, I used to be such and so and now I'm such and so and so on that's up to the individual if it's helpful there's nothing wrong with such a notion as long as we all understand that like all notions, it's empty of any fundamental reality it's just something that helps us to believe in and this is true of all the doctrines of Buddhism so that gave you a long rap there about this but anyway, I affirm

[91:25]

what you have found in your own life that you know to be true, that is helpful for you so, you're welcome I bet it's time to go almost last question yes I bet it's time to go almost

[91:43]

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