Now tomorrow we have the Juso entering ceremony, is that right? Where is he? There he is. It's about time. Tomorrow we rename him Juso. [...]

[01:07]

Juso. Juso. We're at the hospital and they're going... I guess it was a tumor or something had to be removed, and everyone was trying to make the best of it for this little girl, three-year-old girl. And so she's drawing and fooling around and smiling with people, and the grandmother's kind of upset. The mother's trying to keep everything cool and the various complications, and the doctors are coming down and speaking to her and going back upstairs somewhere. And the little girl is saying, What shall I do? What shall I do? And the mother says, Oh, I think I should go to the toilet. Come with me to the toilet.

[02:36]

She grabs her mom, takes her mom into the toilet, and then says to her, What's going on here? And the mother says, What do you mean, what's going on? You're coloring and everything. And she said, I mean, what's really going on here? So the mother had to explain to this three-year-old girl that her father has cancer. There's an older student in Zen Center who isn't clear about

[03:40]

how or why he's here practicing. And I think he would say practice, in his particular case, practice has saved his life. But now it's saved, he wants to know what to do with it. And he has various plans, you know. So I told him he should leave. So it's rather abrupt to leave right away. I said, Just plan to leave one year from now. And between now and then, just get ready to leave. Not planning what to do, but finish your job here. So he's doing that.

[04:48]

And the other day I talked with him again, and he's told me, he's figured out several alternatives. One is to go do this and that, do some kind of good works, and the other is to make money, and the other is to do something else. So he's planning to do one of those things. But you know, actually, secretly, he thinks he's going to stay at Zen Center. So it becomes an excuse to fool around for a year. Do you understand what I mean?

[05:56]

So I said to him, that he should really leave, not plan these alternatives, but secretly think, Well, I'll probably stay, so this year I can not be so serious. I'd rather he, while he's here, really just be here, do it the way we're doing it, and then leave. That's much better. I don't mean there shouldn't be some transitional time for all of us to try on things, but I'm talking about a measurement or a naming, today. I'm always struck by what Picasso says about art.

[07:05]

In one place, someone's painter said to him, I paint what I can paint, what I can. Picasso said, I paint what I want. And he said, I must name, it's necessary to name things. When he paints, he means he names a foot, or names a eye or hand, or he names, he says, his dog's head on someone's knees, and he names knees. Another place he wrote, Swan on a lake is a scorpion in my hand. A friend asked him, What do you mean,

[08:11]

Swan on a lake is a scorpion in my hand? And so he drew on the envelope a swan on a lake, and the shadow of the swan, very clear on the water. And I guess, I don't know exactly, but from the way it was written, I guess it looked like a scorpion, when you took the shadow and the swan together. This is naming, too. I always appreciated, for some reason, a person who becomes a... You know, I was thinking of it yesterday, when watching people sew, how difficult it is to actually make a raksha, to take the measurements and do all the sewing.

[09:15]

It makes you appreciate the clothes you wear, you know, that we take for granted. How much simple measurement, or skill, or work goes into just what you wear. And as I started to say, I've always appreciated people who, from childhood, are just interested in hair, maybe grow up to be a hairdresser, or just interested in clothes. You know, usually we have some idea, oh, men don't do that, or that's not a real profession, or something. But right in front of your eyes are your clothes, everyone's hair. Artists often are quite interested, you know, even though they may be a painter or a poet, they're often quite interested in things like how we dress, or hair, you know, the look of things.

[10:32]

They see, you know, just what's before your eyes from childhood up, and you're interested in just what's in front of you, not some idea of profession. It always seems to me to be a kind of courage or freshness to be able to be interested in things, even. You have the courage of your interest, you know. You need to start out with, in the sense of naming, to name your language, to name your words, to name your sentences, measure your words. I've always been fascinated by those

[11:48]

from the time I was a child, by drawing, you know, some drawing, which you look at it one way and it's one thing, and another way it's something else, you know, depending on how you adjust your mind to it, it appears one way or the other. It always seems like a secret of how our mind works. And the other day I saw one where you put a group of dots together, two at a time. People perceive them as pairs, they don't perceive them as dots, separate dots. And if you put a line of dots like this, dot, [...] and you put a dot very close, next to that line, a little out of order, people don't perceive it as belonging to this line, even though it's much closer than the other dots.

[12:49]

Particularly if you then add some dots going off this direction, even pace, looks like this line ran into that line, and doesn't look like this dot belongs to those dots, but it's very close, almost touching. All the other dots are quite spaced. But we perceive the measurement of it, or the rhythm of it, or the relationship of it, much more than we perceive the closeness of it, or even its singularity. One thing that always strikes me, again, is one of the most interesting things to do with someone is to be a jesha and a doshi together. Doshi is the person who leads the service. Or anja, to work with someone like that.

[13:52]

Or just to work with the dawns. The altar is just an arrangement of stuff. You know? But how we name it or put it, you know, is very interesting. And almost everybody in Zen Center, in all three places, when they line things up, they line them up by the edges. Most people don't... I don't know who, because I don't know who does which job, but you don't center it. For instance, this mat tends to be to that side. People don't tend to center it with the center of the Buddha, but you put it because I guess the sticks are over there. So the two edges you line up, it's over that side, you know, because the sticks are over there, so you line...

[14:56]

In the incense box, the line down the middle, the line down the... It's not in the middle, but the line between the two sides. We don't have a word for it. Not in the middle. Sort of in the middle, but to the right of it. People line up that thing with the center of the Buddha, you know. Instead of taking the center of the box and lining it up. So you take some line and line it up. And I noticed in Nenju the other day, we did it much better this time. I have some more changes in store. But you did one thing I didn't imagine, you know, this time.

[15:56]

Which is, I guess, perfectly natural because everyone did it. Or maybe that's the instructions that Ino gave you. Tommy wanted to check it out hours before the ceremony and I wouldn't let him. I just told him a few minutes before the ceremony. So maybe he instructed you this way, but in any case, it's the same. When you came in and you went around, we did the Jundo, when you finished, when you completed the whole Jundo, you stopped bowing and stood up and walked back to your seats. And that's what I didn't expect, you know. Is that what you instructed? It was like you were supposed to complete the room,

[17:00]

like there was some magic in completing the room. Then you could just stand up and walk back to your seat. For me, there's no magic in it. I don't care whether you go around the room four or five times or once. It's just, we're in the room so we might as well go around once. And then you go to your seat, but the ceremony is just some politeness. We've cleaned this end up and so we re-enter it. Again, a very typically Buddhist thing to give something, to name it. Some kind of meaningless thing to do. So, I would have thought, when you had gone around, why don't you just join the line and sort of continue around, you know, till you got your seat. Now maybe you're supposed to do it that way, the way you did it. I don't know exactly. I forget how

[18:02]

it went at Eheji when I was there, but I think, I don't know which way. By my feeling, you just continue. In any case, there's no magic to it. And I think we do, psychologically, we get into a kind of magic, like whether you bump something once, twice or three times. You bump it twice, you may feel uneasy, I should have bumped it three times. Or, if I don't do something a certain way, something will happen, you know. But you know, if you speak English poorly, nothing happens to you. You may not get the form just right, but as soon as you make a double negative, a bolt of lightning doesn't strike you, you know. So, you can do the ceremonies anyway, you know.

[19:07]

It doesn't make any difference, you know. There's no magic to it, but there's form to it, and giving form, you know. To know the form or ceremony or ritual of your life, when there is a ritual to your life, you know. Yes. Again, I've always been interested in how important it is in other cultures, Chinese culture, for example, how important ritual is, one of the most important things, the whole book of ritual. And the other day I saw on television Ron Ayer's program. You know, Ron Ayer, some of you remember, was here, did that Time-Life Xerox program on BBC. Which, as you may remember, he was going to film us,

[20:12]

and then decided he'd rather come here and practice, so he wouldn't film us. And he went to... One of his programs, this last one was on India, called 600,000 Gods or 300,000 Gods or something like that. And there was an Indian man in it, a Cambridge professor, who went with Ron back to India to visit his family and the village he grew up in. And they showed a ceremony, which they make a kind of clay God of the school, and everybody chants and so forth, and afterwards they throw the God into the river, because it's just clay, you know. But for that time they use it, the clay. And the Indian man was saying, Ron was asking...

[21:25]

Ron always asks Castaneda-type questions, you know, kind of ingenuous questions, about ceremony and so forth. And he says, there must be some meaning. He says, I don't know what it means or if anyone believes in it. We don't believe in it, exactly. It's just this clay thing we made, you know. But I remember, he said, as a boy going to the ceremonies, and at first there's some resistance or you feel a little funny, and then there's a bump, he says, and you're transported and you're mumbling away, but... doing something bigger than you. How Seldom We Say Words Nowadays

[22:26]

A village recently, or I read somewhere, comments. How seldom we say words nowadays intended for one other person. But this is a distinction of Buddhism, you know, too. Words intended just for yourself. Words intended for one other person. Words intended for many people. And words intended for the gods. And words intended for the gods and words intended just for you are really the same thing. The sutras are organized that way, too. Teaching of Buddha, that he just spoke to himself.

[23:27]

Teaching of Buddha for you, particular disciples. Teaching of Buddha intended for many people. And then, of course, teaching of Buddha intended only for himself. Not for gods. How Seldom We Say Words Nowadays

[24:33]

So, can you read the sutras? Do you? You must find it sometimes. So, that you read the sutras and they snap into place, sort of, so that it's as they were written, knowing your particular experience. In fact, your experience, very recent experience. Very particular, something known only to you. This is one of the important ways to be able to read the sutras. And also important to be able to speak to others this way. I notice in doing the dawns, doing the chanting. Some dawns, you know, sometimes are very good at chanting.

[25:35]

And their chanting is at the right tone. Some people chant at a tone which no one else can enter. But some people chant at just the very good sound and at the right tone, but they still don't know how to let people enter. They don't know how to make little doorways in their chanting, by which people can enter. So, still, people don't join them, even though the tone, the level is right. It's a kind of ability, you know, to open a door in your chanting, so everyone enters. And in the ritual of your life, you know, each of us, whether we like it or not, does have a...

[26:37]

Whatever you do, just like those dots, your actions group together and line up. And you can project, you know, anyone who sees your actions over even a few moments, few successive acts, you can draw lines right into this ceremonial point or ritual point, projection point by which you are making your future. There's tracings, your actions are a kind of tracings. So we may not do ceremonies, you know, so much. Tomorrow we do a naming ceremony. And Mike Jambvold will not be just Mike Jambvold, not just Shungo, but Shuso.

[27:38]

Something he hasn't been. He's not just Mike Jambvold called Shuso. I hope not. We'll see tomorrow. And tomorrow night we have... I think, don't we have mid-practice period Halloween flicks, celebrations, skits? Hmm? Hoopla. Hoopla. No. That name... But usually mid-practice where we're in a practice where there's so much naming, you know. Getting on to the activity of naming, seeing how we name, whether we like it or not, the mid-practice period ceremony in Zen temples traditionally is rather an unnaming, when you sort of play with the names of things. I don't think it's intended to be that way, but it usually turns out to be.

[28:45]

Zhaozhou... Zhaozhou was asked by a monk, when all things return to the One, where does the One return to? And you know, Zhaozhou said, when I was in Jingzhou, I had a shirt made, or robe made. It weighed exactly seven pounds. And a man named Cao Feng was practicing with this, when all things return to the One, what does the One return to? And this is also just to... to name something, to care about... to care about. What is the form of our life? You begin to see it. You stop walking with a board on your shoulder. Do you know that? It's a good question to mention that.

[29:56]

Most people walk with a board on their shoulder, so they can't see to one side. You're involved in a ceremony. Your real life is in it. It's not just a staged performance. So I've been wondering, what kind of ceremonies could we do yearly? Harvest, something like that, or we do the memorial service for Tsukishi once a year, which I think is important to do. But I was thinking, maybe we should do a fire ceremony, perhaps at Green Gulch once a year. We'd have a big fire, and we'd all sit around mumbling in front of it, and you can burn your things. I think you could get into that. You could write down the names of whatever on a piece of paper, and...

[30:58]

or you could take love letters, old love letters. The Diamond Sutra. To burn it. I think we could get into that. Maybe I'm planning to do it, actually. We should do it for a few hours, get the fire. Anyway, Kao Feng was practicing, with all things return to the one. What is the relationship? It means, what is the relationship? What is the form of your life? What underlies the form of your life? Does something underlie?

[31:59]

What's really going on here? Why are you here for one year? Again, Picasso says, you know, he painted a whole landscape, and finally, after painting a whole landscape, he got to the stream, and finally painted a fish. And it turns out, he said, I found out what I wanted to do was paint the fish. But I had to paint the whole landscape to find the fish. I think that's why we practice Buddhism. We need to paint, you actually need to paint this life with some definite strokes to find out, to name it, actually. Real life ceremony. Name it, to find out your fish. Find out Zhao Zhou's seven pound shirt. So, anyway,

[33:02]

Kao Feng is working with all things return to the one. What is relationship? So then what does the one, all things, what is the one? What does the one return to? What do you, what is this one? So he's, doesn't, you can't make sense of it, so he's just saying it and saying it. And one day everything lined up. So everything was very clear and precise. And there was no effort in keeping it in front of him. Everything was one to one. Each word was named, each word was, everything was intended directly for one other person or for you yourself. Then one day he was chanting

[34:04]

and the poem came to mind. Who carries this lifeless corpse around? And at that moment he understood who carries this lifeless corpse around. What carries this lifeless corpse around? And he said, even space broke up into pieces. And everything was wiped away. So he went to see his teacher and his teacher said to him, who carries this lifeless corpse around? And he shouted, and his teacher raised his stick and he took hold of the stick and said, you can't use that today. You can't hit me today. And his teacher said, why not? And he walked out.

[35:04]

Gao Feng just walked away. So the next day his teacher said to him, all things return to the One. Where does the One return to? Gao Feng said, I hear a dog lapping boiling water from the cauldron. And his teacher said, who taught you this nonsense? And he says, you better ask yourself. That dog is lapping boiling water from the cauldron. You could say, just a dog is lapping boiling lapping water. But maybe we understand it better if we say, a dog is lapping boiling water from the cauldron. So again,

[36:15]

we need to do something bigger than ourselves, or act you know. Kind of, maybe like a poetry. The words are, we know the words, but we don't know the poem. Your life should be a poem. Rinzai, you know, Linji, he says, he always was, maybe he's the clearest Zen teacher. It's interesting, you know, he didn't have, we don't know so much about his disciples, and they,

[37:15]

the continuation of his teaching is more through the clarity of what he said and was written down. He was very clear, you know. Like Dogen, that's true of Dogen too. Usually to write something down is not successful. even disciple of the man who compiled Bluetooth records burned it. Almost all the copies were destroyed for a while. But some people, their teaching is so clear, it comes through, you know, later. And Linji always was pointing out to see what's really going on, if the person, when they speak to you, all right, what is the real subject of what they're talking about? Are they attached to object

[38:20]

or subject? And he said, sometimes you show form to adapt to a person. Sometimes you use your whole body. Sometimes you use the situation or express the situation through joy or anger. You use situational joy or anger. Sometimes you show half your body. Sometimes you ride on a lion. Sometimes you may ride on elephant. To name dog's head

[39:34]

on someone's knees. So we,

[40:37]

we have kind of packed or we've made a kind of agreement among ourselves to act out something that we didn't know a plan on. Something we, that we don't control ourselves. And we don't know just what will happen. And we turn to the shuso now. And shuso turns to us not as micro jambo but as shuso. And you each too as shuso. It's strange

[41:42]

but to name, to know when we are riding on tiger or elephant or when we are showing whole body or what are tracings or ritual point of your actions. To know measure of your life is to really know it. To see it. To see the preciseness of everything. Not to be so fuzzy. You know it's funny electrons, very small electrons are quite precise and immutable, almost immutable. And galaxies are

[42:42]

astrology seems quite astronomy quite precise. But somewhere in between we are very funky and fuzzy. We are made up of atoms and electrons but somehow we fuzz them all up. Or our mind fuzz them up. Somebody like Linji can see clearly. You are almost as precise as electron. But your greed, hate and delusion or desire or ego are like a board carrying a board. So you always are leaving tracing not like Dogen says no trace continuing endlessly. .

[44:16]

So the effort of our practice is to really be able to do something. It's like I noticed the way people work. Some people work they have a job and they do it like they barely fill the outline of it. And then a better worker fills the outline and adds things does more thinks of things to do is more creative will do more than just the outline of the job. But still it's a job they are doing. Third kind is a person that just has their own time and their job is their own time. Such a person gets the job done so quickly it doesn't fill up the day something you

[45:16]

fill up your life with. Your time you there's no time outside of you everything is your time and you just do things. This is what the koan of Zhao Zhou's robe is about one continuous road he emits one continuous road it says or his actions are like flint and spark when he speaks he speaks which means when he speaks what he says is very precise we find that preciseness which is you know by which we can find all things return to the one like Gao Feng everything suddenly lined up by his effort

[46:17]

what is what is it what's really going on like the little kid saying I mean what's really going on we think kids don't know but they know and kids participate in our fuzziness they learn pretty rapidly I have to fuzz things up for the for the parents adults and a lot of us get quite confused by it and stay fuzzy bright kids have and all kids are pretty bright have a terrible time with it it takes so many years for you to uncover your brightness anyway

[47:18]

so that's our experiment here to uncover our brightness to find a shuso or true monk of no rank in each of you fish of each of you so tomorrow please let's do naming ceremony of naming new shuso and buddha

[48:19]

Amen

[48:27]

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