I vow to teach the truth about the fire-dance works. ordinary mind is the way."

[01:08]

Joshua earnestly asked Nansen, what is the way? Nansen answered, the ordinary mind is the way. Joshua asked, should I direct myself toward it or not? Nansen said, if you try to turn toward it, you go against it. Joshua asked, If I do not try to turn toward it, how can I know that it is the way? Nansen answered, the way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion. Not knowing is a blank consciousness. When you have really reached the true way beyond all doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can it be talked about on a level of right and wrong? At these words, Joshu was suddenly enlightened. This is case 19 from Mumon Kang.

[02:15]

And I've talked about it recently. And I want to continue to talk about it. Mumon's commentary, Mumon's the compiler of the Mumon Kang, And so Mumon has a commentary on his case. He's trying to show, to make it clear to people what this case is about. So he says Nansen, Nansen was Joshu's teacher. Nansen, you know, is famous for cutting the cat in two. And he was the teacher of Joshu. And Joshu is maybe the most famous Zen master in China. He lived to be 120 years old. Maybe that's why. If you can get to 120, you're doing pretty good.

[03:21]

Nansen was asked a question by Joshu, and Joshu's base was shattered and melted away. He could not justify himself. Even though Joshu has come to realization He will have to delve into it for another 30 years before he can realize it fully. And then, Mumon has a verse. He says, the spring flowers, the moon in autumn, the cool breezes of summer, the winter's snow. Four seasons. If idle concerns do not cloud the mind, this is man's happiest season. When Nansen says, ordinary mind is the way, we must understand what he means by ordinary mind.

[04:30]

And Joshu is asking, how do we get to ordinary mind? It may seem simple. Ordinary mind is just ordinary mind. Joshu is asking a question. He doesn't presuppose that Nansen is going to say ordinary mind is the way. He just says, what is the Tao? What is the way of how do we enter Buddhism? How do we enter into our original face? How do we know ourself completely? How do we recognize unlimited mind? Nansen says, just your ordinary mind, just ordinary mind is the way. Nothing special. Suzuki Roshi always used to say, nothing special.

[05:37]

That was kind of his motto, nothing special. But to reach nothing special is not so easy. Ordinary mind, if you take it a step further, in the fundamental practice of Buddhism is called mindfulness. mindful way or mindful practices, the fundamental practice of Buddhism, and it's called the way. The way is mindfulness. So we have to know what mindfulness means and how to put it into practice.

[06:44]

Mindfulness of ordinary activity. Usually Our life is, we go from event to event in our life. And as we grow up, we begin to have some goal. When we're a child, a child just takes up what's in front of the child. For years, you know, the child just takes up what's in front of him. I say him or her, Him means her as well. And without any goal, the child has no particular goal. So whatever comes, the child takes up and discards and takes up and discards.

[07:52]

And the life of the child is just taking up and letting go and taking up and letting go. And it's a pretty easy life in a way. It has difficulties but there's not much sorting out. But as we grow older we sort out more and more and then we reach a place where we define our goals. in order to reach our goals we sort out our life into large events and small events and the big events are the ones that are most meaningful to us in terms of our goal and the rest of it is we don't pay so much attention to.

[08:55]

We have to do certain things, but we pay less attention to the events in our life that are not connected with our goal, or not part of our goal, so to speak. If we're very successful, and we have a lot of success in the main events of our life, then we feel pretty satisfied. But in everybody's life, there's frustration and difficulty in reaching the goals that we set for ourselves. And in our attempt to fulfill our goal orientation, we tend to neglect the subtle events or the seemingly insignificant events of our life. And we take for granted the insignificant events of our life.

[10:06]

But for a Buddhist, for someone who is looking for the Tao, we can't neglect anything. Every moment of our life is significant. When we get up in the morning, opening our eyes is a significant event. Getting out of bed is a significant event. Walking across the floor is a significant event. If you really pay attention, to the significance of all the events in your life from the moment of waking up to the moment of when you're finished going to the bathroom and getting dressed and sitting in zendo quite a space of time and action has taken place.

[11:10]

If you're really aware It's a... that whole event becomes a... that whole series of events becomes a kind of lifetime. But if we're just... if our main goal is just to get to the Zendo at five o'clock, in the morning and we ignore the actions in between waking up and coming to the zendo, if we only have that one event uppermost in our mind and just kind of rush through all those small events, that's called wasting our time. We have so much time.

[12:14]

in our life, and we have a great opportunity to live our life in time. Our life is definitely bound up, inextricably bound up with time. We have so much time to bring our life to life. In Mumon's poem, He says, if you just get rid of all the insignificant factors of your life, your life will become quite wonderful. From one point of view, you can say, well, just eliminate the insignificant parts of your life. That's one point of view. Another point of view is, when you really focus, when you really become one, merge with all of the insignificant moments in your life and events, then there are no insignificant events in your life.

[13:31]

There is no trivia in your life. And when all the moments in our life become real, become significant, become lived completely, this is called the path, entering the path. How we enter into the path is just to enter into our life, it's in front of us. In another place Joshu says, when Joshu is older, he says, in answer to somebody's question, he says, you're turned by the 24 hours. But I turn the 24 hours.

[14:35]

turning the 24 hours means paying attention to everything, living each moment's event completely. There's no event which is any more significant than any other. But what we call a discriminating mind is the mind that says, This event is more important than this event. But the non-discriminating mind says, this event is this event, this event is this event, right now. Without comparing this event to this event, the non-discriminating mind doesn't compare in that way. It just takes up what's in front of it. and says, I see, this is what there is to deal with, and deals with it on each moment.

[15:59]

So Buddhist training, Zen training, is training of the non-discriminating mind. It doesn't mean that you don't distinguish between one thing and another. But without comparing one moment's event to the next, you don't say, this moment is better than this moment. So that's why we call practice practice of non-discrimination. To bring each moment to life through time and its event.

[17:08]

To be able to do that is called Zen spirit, to be attentive to each thing. So Zazen, of course, is the epitome of that kind of activity, non-discriminating mind, and complete attention to each moment, each moment's event. moment after moment. So Suzuki Roshi could sum up our whole practice by saying our Zen practice is just living your life moment after moment, just living your life completely moment after moment. But Suzuki Roshi's understanding of living your life completely moment after moment is different than ordinary

[18:18]

understanding of how we live our life, moment after moment. So to live our life completely, moment after moment, is to not put so much emphasis on goal orientation. So when we come to enter into practice, we say there's no goal. No goal to Zen practice. doesn't mean that we don't have some purpose. But by cutting off goal orientation, we're just left with this, just this. But if we're used to living our life according to some goal, then when we're left with just this, we don't know what to do with it.

[19:22]

So, in order to come to realization, when we come to realization, we can say, oh, just this. This is it. This is good enough. This is what I have to take care of. Isn't that wonderful? So we can turn our attention to each moment, fully to each moment. It's not so easy because we do have goals in our life. We don't have to eliminate the goals in our life in order to practice the way, but we need to understand What is it? Regardless of goals or no goals. We waste a lot of time.

[20:34]

And we disregard a lot of time. and the world creates, we create a lot of madness because of our goals. Sometimes we call an enlightened person someone who has nothing to do. Because an enlightened person has nothing to do means that that person can do anything, not bound by anything.

[21:48]

but can respond to responds to every moment situation and fully lives each moment situation. So a person who has realization and has nothing more to do, no ego, so to speak, and takes a vow to help all sentient beings is Bodhisattva. That's Bodhisattva path, this path. Buddhist way, and can respond to all situations.

[22:54]

Because once you have nothing more to do, everyone's suffering becomes very vivid. People's suffering becomes very vivid. So you can help people. You can see their suffering. and you can help them. But if you have too much suffering yourself, it's hard to help people. If you have too much, because you worry too much about yourself. And when we worry too much about ourself through our own suffering, we can't do anything for other people so easily. So it's very helpful to come to realization and have nothing more to do. And then you can turn your life over to people.

[23:59]

You can help people. You can just respond to what's needed. So that's maybe the goal of practice. Mumon, in his Nansen, when he's talking to Joshu, says, even though you understand, you still have 30 years to go before you really understand. But that's a kind of compliment, you know. practice is unlimited. You now understand that your practice is unlimited because you have no particular goal.

[25:01]

You can just respond and enjoy your life forever. For 30 years you can enjoy your life. In a way, we have to become like a child again, without being a child. So we don't return to being a child, because you can't return to anything. There's only so-called going ahead. But we're a child, and then we are an adult, and then we are a child again. But the child we become again is not the same as the child we were. The child we become again is the adult who abides in a non-discriminating mind.

[26:05]

So abiding in non-discriminating mind is the same as not creating actions which lead to attachment and suffering. And so the goal of practice is to be very careful to not create actions which lead to suffering and attachment, or attachment and suffering. and to help other people to do the same. So what we need to concentrate on

[27:33]

is how to turn the trivia, how to transform the trivia of our life into meaningful action. The small events in our life are like the glue that holds out the main events together. There will always be main events in our life, but if you observe an accomplished Zen master, what you observe is that each moment's activity is like a main event, no matter how insignificant Suzuki Rush gave a lecture one time about going to the bathroom.

[28:41]

About how wonderful it is to sit on the toilet. Kind of relief. He said our mind should always be, we have to also relieve our mind in the same way. We take care of our body, you know, but And in a way, the body is somewhat self-regulating. The mind is not so easily self-regulating. And we store up so much, you know, our mind gets so full, but we don't relieve it. And so, because our mind is so full, we get sick. If our body is that full, we get sick. But it takes longer for our mind to for us to realize that our mind is sick because there's so much, so much stuff. And we feel that we have to cram more and more into our mind in order to be smart, in order to have knowledge.

[29:54]

But in Zen practice, knowledge is emptying the mind. And zazen is like going to the bathroom for the mind. So we come out with a clean mind, which is just ready for the next moment to end. The pain in our legs helps to wring out our mind, like our mind going through the wringer. Squeezes it all out. Helps us. So we're always ready for something fresh and new.

[30:57]

So rather than setting some goal for ourself in practice toward enlightenment, enlightenment is right here in front of us all the time. And all we need to do is turn toward it. turn toward this moment. If you look for the path over there, it's like going away from it instead of going toward it. How we turn toward the path is just to take care of what's in front of us, moment by moment. But it's not so easy. I would like you to raise a question if you have one.

[32:31]

Yes? I've always confused you with the idea of preference and to how we really think about that. It's green and there's red and maybe I prefer green to red. So it's the problem only if I'm spending my whole life trying to avoid red and just running after green in some kind of obsessive way. Is it more of an extreme type of preference that we need to avoid? Well, we always have some preference, you know, for something. But in the life of gaining something, the more we want, the more preference we have.

[33:38]

Preference is a kind of a discriminating way of preference rises through discrimination as we want something. So wanting something is desire, right? And desire is called the foundation for suffering. So what we do when we create preference through desire is to split our world in two. And it's very hard not to live in that dualistic two-sided world, the world of desire and discrimination and preference. And the goal of Buddhist practice is to bring the dualistic world into one world.

[34:55]

And it's called the world of non-discrimination or no desire. But that's very hard. It's very hard because we want so much. We want this and we want that. It's natural to have desire and it's natural to have aversion but if we want to seek the path which is free from suffering then we give up that desire or that kind of preference or that dualistic our desire based on dualistic understanding and bring our attention to cultivating the path which is understanding or bringing together the dualism into

[36:13]

Oneness. And it doesn't look good to us. When we do that, then our desire is, instead of turning toward preference, turns toward truth. We give up our preference for truth. That's the path. And that's why it's so difficult. Because we have to give up our preference for green, you know, and take red. Okay, I'll give up my preference for green and I'll take red. And then we become satisfied with red. Because you're seeing it as the same? There's no real difference between green and red? If you say they're the same, that's not quite right.

[37:15]

And if you say they're different, that's not quite right. Are they the same or different? That's the big question. You can't say exactly. We always have preference. Even if you're enlightened, you have preference. But your preference is based on non-preference. In other words, in order to see clearly, we have to go beyond our own preference.

[38:22]

Preference means partiality. So we're always looking at things through the eye of partiality. That's called ego. not complete. We want to have complete seeing, then we have to give up our partiality. No other way. Otherwise we're always seeing things partially. We want to see them completely, we have to give up partiality. So the smaller we get, the bigger we get. And the smaller we get in a partial way, the bigger we get in a real way.

[39:28]

Because we begin to see things in a bigger sense. But it's hard. Practice is very hard. We don't like to give up our small self, our partial self. But when we can do that, and can really merge with reality, then our life becomes more enjoyable. But we think that the things that we have, or the things that we want, will make us happy. And that's called delusion. There's a movie out right now about this deli, where he becomes whatever the other person is. He's like, we're just with them. And then to cure him of this ailment, they teach him partiality, discrimination, so that he can say, I like bread, I don't like bread.

[40:30]

Like that's what makes us individuals, is that type of preference. Right. So, in order to enter practice, we have to give up that dualistic preference. until there's just oneness. But you can't live there. You have to live in the dualistic world of the world of preference. I like this, I don't like this, I want that, I don't want this. You maybe don't have to learn to do that, but you have to enter back into that dualistic world. So that's why I say, it's not one, it's not two. And this is called stepping off the hundred foot pole. We have to, this is why we say back and forth, zazen and daily life, zazen and daily life.

[41:35]

Coming into zazen is to give up all preference and just merge, but then we can't live our life that way. We have to live our life in the world. So then we live our life in the world of preference. But our preference is based on this non-preference. It's called discrimination of non-discrimination. Discriminating on the basis of non-discrimination. It's a little bit intellectual. What you're saying is that if what we want most is to save all sentient beings, then whether we have a red shirt or a green shirt, or a red bow or a green bow, it matters a lot to me. Maybe I like fast cars, but if I want to save all sentient beings, it doesn't matter what kind of car I have.

[42:38]

Yeah. Maybe it's just enough that I have a car if I need to get somewhere. Right. That's a good point. Right? Maybe it's just enough, maybe it's enough that I just have a car and I'm able to get someplace. Very good. Somebody back here. Is it possible to choose without all the prejudices? Is that what you mean by... I can't remember the phrase there. The discrimination is a non-discrimination. Say it again. I can't remember the phrase you used. Not discrimination, non-discrimination? Yeah. Is that when you can make choices without having them based on preference? Yeah. That's when you make choices that aren't based on preference. It's kind of a technical term, you know. When we say desire, when we say no desire, you know, it doesn't mean that you don't have desire.

[43:46]

You have to have desire. can't live without desire. But it means non-self-centered desire, non-selfish desire. You have to have a desire to eat, you have to have a desire to sleep, and you have to have a desire to get up, and so forth. But those aren't the desires we mean.

[44:03]

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