With these two doors open, it reminds... I don't think I'm getting anything. Do you hear me? Okay. With these two doors open, it reminds me of the old saying, the cool breeze blows through the empty hall, which is the condition of zazen. Or should be. Little turbulence in there. Well, today, this afternoon, we have the shuso ceremony, so I want to talk a little bit about that, about our attitude. So, you know, shuso, When you ask the Shuso a question, I think that you should be careful not to make it a compound intellectual, academic,

[01:15]

Exercise, that was the right word, exercise, which will bore everyone. But I remember at the Dogon conference in Palo Alto, after everybody gave their talks, people asked questions. And there was one guy that asked this question that went on for about three minutes. And I was so disgusted, you know. I said something like, my memory is very short and I can't absorb all those things. So please, when you ask a question, make it succinct and to the point. And then when the sushu makes a response, it's not an answer necessarily to your question. It's a response.

[02:34]

The important thing is not the information. The important thing is the energy that's transferred. So information is important, but it's not as important as the energy that's transferred. So it's kind of like a spark, something that's vital, some vitality that's true. The answer to the question is not necessarily true, even though intellectually it may be true. But vitally, it's not what's required, like a question and a response. I'm not saying that every response should be explosive, that's not what I'm saying. That's pretty good. But it's not a discussion.

[03:37]

And it's not an explanation. It's not an academic exercise. So when the shuso gets caught by making an explanation, then the whole thing starts going downhill from there and can't help making explanations thereafter. So for the shuso, you have to be very careful not to get caught by trying to make somebody understand what you're saying, because that just seduces you into explaining. Difficult. This is the test of the Shusos, not their intellectual acumen, but their actual Zen practice. a little different than shosan with you?

[04:41]

Well, shosan with me is a little different because I'm talking mostly to my students. And so there's a different kind of relationship. Yeah, it's a different kind of relationship. So sometimes I will say something. But the last shosan, I think I didn't say more than two words to anybody. A few more, but that was pretty good. We're getting there, we're getting there. I'm getting there. So this afternoon, will you have a golf counter of each word that I tell you? Five words, seven words. So, we want to create this vitality. And then we'll feel satisfied. And it won't take so long.

[05:42]

As soon as we hear somebody explaining something, everybody goes to sleep. Oh, I wish this was over. So we have to keep the interest alive. Okay, so now I'm going to give my talk. Well, yesterday I was talking about no gaining mind, and we've been talking about that. And I'm not sure that we really understand what that means, no gaining mind.

[07:03]

So I want to talk about it a little bit more. Dogen Zenji, one of his most well-known statements is, don't seek for fame and gain. Don't practice for fame and gain. Don't practice in order to work yourself into a position where you become famous or where you gain some kind of recognition. It is the hardest thing, you know. In other words, to practice for the right reasons. Basically, it's practice for the right reasons and no practice for the wrong reasons. Practicing for the wrong reasons is a perversion of the Dharma.

[08:09]

So we don't practice to gain something. We practice to let go of whatever we can let go of. So gaining is simply the opposite of that. We don't practice to improve our health or to gain strong legs or to be a good Buddhist or anything like that. In Dogen's time, one of the reasons for this, of course, in Dogen's time when he went to China and also in Japan, when the Dharma, when Buddhism becomes widespread, then a lot of people are doing the practice, and then they start doing it for various reasons, which is normal, I mean common, in any religious practice.

[09:18]

People start doing stuff for the wrong reasons. And when you have a spiritual practice, a bureaucracy, people are always vying for position, right? So, you know, if you look at what's happening in Japan, what's happened in Japan, there are temples where people practice and so forth, but there's, you know, the hierarchy creates a environment where people are working for position or working for support or working for a name, fame. So you want to become a famous monk or you want to have a position as the head of a temple, and this was very widespread in China

[10:23]

people were buying their way into being the abbot of a temple, for instance. And, you know, you do certain things and you pay so much and so forth, and then you can become the abbot of this temple. So, Dougie was very down on fame and gain. And gaining mind, you know, Not just in that realm, but also in the realm of what are you doing when you're practicing? What are you doing when you're sitting Zazen? So he said, so many people, so many teachers have had good understanding of Zazen, but almost no one understood Zazen as Zazen. They've all had good reasons for practicing Zazen, but very few had the understanding of practicing Zazen for Zazen, which is how you actually practice in the most fundamental, pure way.

[11:39]

So, if you have a goal, then the goal easily becomes an obstruction to practice. If you're practicing to become something, that goal can become an obstruction to practice, because then you're sacrificing everything for the goal. So the actual practice exists moment to moment. In order to sit Zazen, in order to sit Sashin, the only way we can practice with any kind of imperturbability is from moment to moment. If you look at the goals, well, the goal is to complete seven days of Zazen.

[12:46]

It doesn't work. The final goal is to get out of here. It has to be moment by moment, adjusting yourself to each moment, simply adjusting and finding out how to exist at each moment with what's present. Although there is a result, naturally everything has a result, a beginning and an end. But if you practice to achieve the goal, a goal helps us because it gives us some direction. Just because we don't have a goal doesn't mean we don't have some direction. There is a way to go, but the way to go is moment to moment, so that you're bringing your life to life moment after moment.

[14:01]

You're living a complete life on each moment, because there's only this moment, and this is where it happens. So Zazen is moment to moment to moment. And there are actually no moments. There's only one moment. But on that one moment, there's this, this, this, this. So that's how we can sit with the difficulty we have. And the difficulty actually helps us to do that. If we sit satsang without any difficulty, it's OK. But it doesn't have the vitality and the focus that it does when we have a problem. So, sitting without a problem is not as vital as sitting with your problem.

[15:11]

So that's why we actually appreciate our problem And this is how we can appreciate our life. If we live our life in the same way that we live our zazen, then we can appreciate our problem and we can adjust to our problem moment by moment. So we waste a lot of our life chasing after some goal. And that in the future, you know, we'll have something. And we easily forget that right now we have something, but we don't think it's as good as that thing we're going to get. That's the problem. So this is the problem with discrimination. Discrimination means this moment is not as good as the next moment is going to be because our yardstick is some ideal.

[16:14]

We measure everything through our ideal. idea about enlightenment, we're measuring our life through the yardstick of that ideal. Things should be good. My life should be good. And so, since our life should be good, it's bad. True. Good and bad are just two sides of our discriminating mind. Actually, what's good is bad, and what's bad is good. It's just a matter of our attitude. Yesterday, I read you a couple of little quotes from Sawaki Roshi.

[17:18]

which are the epitome of this. I'll read them again. If I can find them. What's the use of doing zazen? There is no use in doing zazen. Until this penetrates your thick skull, and you are really doing Zazen that is of no use, it is really of no use. So, the important point is Zazen is totally useless. So, if something is useless, why do we do it? Because we want everything to be useful. we're hooked on usefulness.

[18:22]

So pure existence is not useful. Zazen is pure existence. It's the other side of comparative values. It's not in the realm of comparative values. But we live in the realm of comparative values, good and bad, right and wrong, gain and loss. Zazen is not concerned with any of those things. It's simply pure existence. But we don't value it because it's like clear water. We'd rather have Coke And then he says, the Buddha way is not to be distracted.

[19:24]

In other words, to not let yourself be distracted, not get distracted. It is to become your roles in the bone. In other words, the Buddha way should be your role in life and not to be distracted by other things. by gain and loss, good and bad, so forth. This attitude is called samadhi or shikantaza, just doing. We don't eat food to take a shit. We don't take a shit to make manure. But in recent years, most people think that you go to high school to get into college and you go to college to get a good job. So what he's saying is pure practice is not to do one thing in order to get something else.

[20:25]

We do one thing to penetrate one thing and do one thing thoroughly. Then the next thing we do that one thing, penetrate that one thing thoroughly, then our life comes to life on each moment. We're bringing our life to life on each moment and not sacrificing this moment for some other ideal. So it's not that we shouldn't have an ideal or a goal, but the goal is not the point. The goal should help us to find ourself in each moment, rather than sacrificing each moment to reach the goal. So a goal can be useful if we never reach it. And that's Buddhism, actually, the unreachable goal. So we say we just have to practice forever.

[21:27]

Geez, you know, when is that to end? But it shouldn't end, because the goal is in every moment. The real goal is to be here, not to be there. But that's a kind of carrot goal. The carrot goal keeps you going. And when you get there, then you just have to do something else. Goal is kind of a false place to be, because you just have to do something else when you get there, which is okay, of course. So there's only stages of where we are. So not to add anything extra, Yeah, well, you should be careful about that too.

[22:43]

So, pure existence is just a term. You're already there. So, if you want to be, you know, if you're greedy for pure existence, it means you're greedy for being where you are with what you have. So, that's okay. So Dogen, I mean Suzuki Roshi, every once in a while I read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, but for years I don't read it, I don't look at it for years. And I just go about my business, and then every once in a while when I look at it, it just gets deeper and deeper. But I looked at it today. And he's talking about purity and practice, stepping off the 100-foot pole and no gaining idea, which is all the same.

[23:49]

He says, by purity, we do not mean to polish something. He's referring to polishing a tile, I think. Or trying to make some impure thing pure. You know, it's just talking about Nansen and Matsu, yeah. Nansen is sitting Zazen and Matsu comes along and asks him what he's doing. He says, I'm sitting Zazen. He says, well, why are you sitting Zazen? He says, well, to become a Buddha. And so Matsu picks up a tile and starts rubbing a rock on it and he says, Now he says, what are you doing? And he says, I'm trying to make a mirror out of a tile. How can you make a mirror out of a tile by rubbing it with a stone?

[24:56]

Well, how can you make a Buddha by sitting Zazen? In other words, by polishing your practice by sitting Zazen, trying to get something called being Buddha. So in America, we don't think so much about Buddha, really. I mean, Buddha, when we use the word God, that means something to most people. It's somewhere in your guts. It's not in your head. Of course, for me, that is, I think for most people. But Buddha is more of an idea for most people in the West. In Asia, Buddha has a kind of feeling like God has for in the West. It has a kind of vital feeling. So when you say I'm practicing to become a Buddha, it has some meaning. So Matsu says that the implication is you can't practice zazen to become a Buddha.

[26:09]

You simply practice Zazen to practice Zazen. And that's Buddha. But if you are doing something in order to make something, that's not Buddha. But Buddha practices Zazen for the sake of Zazen. That's no gaining idea. You can't gain Buddha because There's another story. Chi Shou Buddha, right? Chi Shou Buddha, Buddha who was practicing Zazen for ten kalpas and didn't become a Buddha. Why didn't he become a Buddha? Well, he's already a Buddha, so he can't become Buddha. Anyway, by purity, we do not mean to polish something, trying to make some impure thing pure.

[27:15]

By purity, we mean things just as they are. When something is added, that is impure. So you can't add something. You know, what we do often is go around from one place to another, gaining information and certain practices from this one and certain practices from the Tibetans and from the Vipassanas and the Pure Land and have a little basket and we put all of our tokens into the basket and we have some knowledge, but that's not it. That's actually a distraction. It can be helpful. because it focuses our mind on practice. But it's adding something to yourself. When something becomes dualistic, it is not pure. When something is added, that is impure.

[28:18]

And when something becomes dualistic, that is not pure. If you think you will get something from practicing zazen, Already you are involved in impure practice because it's egotistical. That's the problem. It is all right to say there is practice and there is enlightenment, but we should not be caught by that statement. You should not be tainted by it. When you practice zazen, just practice zazen. If enlightenment comes, it just comes. We should not attach to the enlightenment. This is what it means by stepping off the hundred foot pole. You have, oh, I have enlightenment. So you rest in this wonderful, comfortable place of enlightenment. But there's no place to rest. There's no place to stay. You have to step off the hundred foot pole and let go of your enlightenment, quote unquote. If you have enlightenment, it won't

[29:22]

go away, so you can leave it behind. If it's not enlightenment, then you can let go of it, and you don't have to worry about it. You shouldn't have to worry about it anyway, because practice is enlightenment. But if you have something called enlightenment, be careful. Need some help? No, he said improvement. Well, you shouldn't get stuck in I'm okay as I am. Although I'm okay as I am, that's a dualistic statement. So the other side is, you have to do some work.

[30:27]

Get busy, buddy. Do some work. You have to continue to work. You can't just float through practice. So yes, you're fine the way you are, dumb and stupid and unenlightened and so forth. You're fine that way. You can use a little improvement, meaning, don't get stuck there. As long as, you know, get busy and practice. You should practice hard. You know, practice your whole being. If you practice with your whole body and mind and your whole being, you have satisfaction, no matter what happens. If you only practice half-heartedly, you have half-satisfaction. Practice is only what you do. Enlightenment is only what you do.

[31:29]

There's nothing there. There's nothing there. It's only what you're doing and how you do it. So, if you give yourself totally, then you have yourself totally. If you give yourself half-heartedly, you only have half of yourself. That's all it is. Anyway. You gave a talk at KidSanto a while ago. You think it's a medium. I remember that. Yeah, that was a very good statement. Right. You think it's a medium?

[32:34]

Yeah. Why is it called work? Well, that's our language. Work means doing something. It could be called play. I'm allergic to work. Why don't you call it play? Okay. Yeah, you love play. I do. You like to play? Yeah, so we just call it play. That's even better. Much better. Cole? moment is being with our planning or being with our future in a momentary way.

[33:55]

I don't know, there's something about fully embracing this interdependence of present with the future. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So we have a goal, right? I am planning this, I'm getting all this stuff together because I'm going to do this, right? That's okay, but the this is an idea. The getting the stuff together is what's actually happening. So the getting together is the important thing because this is your life. That's why, you know, Sweeping the floor is the most important job. It's one of the best jobs, and cleaning the toilets is really good, because you're there. Whether you want to be there or not, you're there.

[34:57]

It's such a simple activity that your whole body and mind is involved in. Ryutakuji, when I was at Ryutakuji, the monks, all day long, are sweeping the grounds. That's all they do. And I remember at Page Street, when Suzuki Ryoshi was in his room up there on the street, and during Soji in the morning, He said, I just love to hear the brooms going on the street, on the sidewalk. Because I know everybody's sweeping their mind. Sweeping their mind clean. So, the one we're sweeping, the highest... It's easy to sweep if... If you don't follow sweep, no good.

[36:08]

That's right. You know, to keep our mind clear all the time, even though it's full. When I was abbot at San Francisco Zen Center, you know, you have all these responsibilities and things coming, and I was also abbot here, and, you know, people who want your attention. And my practice, I decided my practice was to never feel that I was ever interrupted. So when somebody would call, I would just give them my attention. When something would happen, I'd just give it my attention. And this, what I was doing, it's still there, but I'd give my attention to whatever was going on, whatever was wanting my attention at that moment. there's always that, well, what about the thing that you're doing now?

[37:42]

Somehow, everything gets taken care of when you give space to your mind to take care of whatever's happening. And I think, if you think you're being interrupted, then you're letting go of this moment, which is the most important thing. I remember Suzuki Roshi talking about that, to think about his wife. My wife calls me, I'm reading a book or something, and my mind says, can't you wait until I'm finished? But instead of doing that, I put down the book and respond to her, even though I may not want to. Otherwise, I'm just stuck in my own mind. So to actually let go of my, where I'm stuck, even though it's what I want to do, I respond to what she's asking.

[38:49]

I'm not that good myself, but it's like, we think that what we want is the most important thing, but to be able to let go and respond to what's calling us is to keep our mind clear. Because what clogs our mind is our ego. So when you're chopping the carrots, the knife's sharp, and if you're not really just, if you're thinking ahead, you're going to cut yourself.

[39:57]

And there's this real pleasure in just slicing through again and again and again. Well, in connection with that is my experience of working in the kitchen. is that if I really pay that attention to what I'm doing, I don't have to worry about what time it is or when the meal is going to get done. Because when you're not worried about it, everything comes out on time, because you know that you have so much time to do it, and then you just let go of that, and it works. you can tell yourself what time to get up in the morning without an alarm clock. And you will. You're phased. It's true. But we use an alarm clock because even so that's true, we may not.

[41:00]

But if you know how much time you have, then you can let go of that and just pay attention to each moment's activity and it all comes out in time. Most of the time. Nothing is forever. I mean, nothing is always true. You said a statement or two ago, I mean, before the discussion of this prayer, that something about ego. But that's true. But when ego is in the way, then it's in the way, so how do you get rid of it? You don't get rid of it. Don't try to get rid of it. Just simply come back. But it's in the way. I know. You know. Don't try to get rid of ego. Just simply come back to a clear mind. But how can you if the ego's in the way?

[42:09]

Because there's no such thing. Pardon me? There's no such thing as ego, so you can't really get it out of the way. Ego is just a term for self-centeredness. So you center yourself in a different way. Center yourself in a different way. If you start battling ego, that's just ego battling ego. So it's just fighting itself. Instead of fighting ego or trying to get it out of the way, you're fighting a phantom. So simply pay attention to what you're doing. So when you find that self-centeredness coming up, you can let go and come back to what you're doing. We do it all the time in zazen. We dream, then we come back. But we don't try to push the dreams away. We don't try to get rid of our thoughts or bury our feelings or something. So we should pay great respect to our ego.

[43:09]

Yes, pay great respect to your ego, and then your ego will respond by paying respect to you, whoever you are. You have to make friends with yourself, you know? It doesn't make sense, because then you'd be happy, you know? Why make yourself unhappy by, oh, my ego is so bad, you know? There's just your ego telling you, you know, Making it worse. Make friends with your ego. I mean, you know, like. And we enjoy our ego. Enjoy your self-centeredness. And then it's much easier to handle, deal with. He's worse than I am.

[44:19]

But truly, we should not be fighting with ourselves. That's not a good way to handle it. Otherwise, we just can't settle. We have this ego. It's part of us. And it's not a matter of getting rid of ego, but it's incorporating ego. Put it to work. It's all this energy, you know. Well, to work for its own demise. It'll hang itself. You can't kill it. You really can't. You can't kill it because it doesn't exist. You can only kill something that exists. That's right. Yeah, if you make friends with it, it doesn't exist.

[45:39]

That's right. Kind of like that. It's our illusory thing. It is a thing, but it's our illusory thing. And it feels, but really it's something that we build up. I sometimes say, and Tsukigoshi said this, and I take it up and expand on it, He said, we're half Buddha and half ego. He didn't use that word, he said, ordinary being.

[46:40]

But that means egotistical being, if you want to use it that way, we can use it that way. Half Buddha and half ego. Well, let Buddha lead. When Buddha leads, then ego follows, rather than ego leading and Buddha following. Let your Buddha side lead your ego side, and then Buddha will come to the edge of a cliff and make a right turn, and ego will jump over the cliff. Anyway. Uh-oh, we're over. Okay, Leslie? So, when one is involved in an activity, or activities wholeheartedly, not being interrupted, but just doing it, can body and mind drop away?

[47:47]

They're not there. Well, it's not that they're not there. Go ahead. So what is responding to each What's responding? Well, it's not that I disappear. Body and mind dropping means doing something totally, so that there's no gap between body and mind and what we're doing. It seems like pure activity. Pure activity, yeah. This is called just doing, which is the same as zazen, body, mind, and breath. are one with the activity so that there's no separation. That's body-mind dropped.

[48:49]

Don't take it literally. There's nothing that's dropped. Ego is dropped. It's just not there. It's simply pure activity. It's just pure activity. Well, that's right. That's right. non-discriminating activity, because discrimination means divide. I can understand that in relation to cutting ferrets, say, but what I struggle with is

[49:58]

I wish I could do that. No, I don't want to do that. Well, don't do that. No, because you're getting caught by your activity rather than controlling your activity. You're being caught by your activity rather than being the boss. You're letting the computer be the boss. So, wait, that's different. I know when I get caught that way, I just realized the way I get caught is there's a hidden gaining idea is that I'm going to get the computer to make this flyer the way I want it to be, or I'm going to win that solitaire game, or, you know, and that's where the addiction comes in and how I get caught.

[51:41]

But don't we want everything to come out right? Yes. I think we do. Yeah. Well, you know, it's not so much control. It's, when I say being boss, it's like I'm not letting something control me. But we all want satisfaction in whatever we're doing. Of course, that's not gaining anything. We do want satisfaction. I mean, there's nothing wrong with satisfaction.

[52:45]

But satisfaction comes from being one with what we're doing. Yeah, the computer actually is our teacher, because it reflects back to us accurately what we're doing, or not doing. I mean, I get it all the time, and what I'm not doing, I say, God, why did that disappear? So, you know, and it's not satisfying.

[53:48]

Anyway, you know, you get into all this stuff, but my new show, but for many years, I never wanted a computer. But here we are, you know, we have this stuff, so we have to deal with it. And we are seduced into wanting stuff. The computer is just one more vehicle for communicating, for seducing us. The new AOL is like, you turn it on and there are these dancing people. Really great.

[54:53]

And then the guy's going... And you're trying to read your thing and he's going... Watch me! Watch me! Bye Wesley! Anyway, you know, way over time, I still have more to read. Do you have more questions? I think that the dancing people brings up something interesting, because for me what's missing in relating with the computer is the body. It's like there's one little part of my mind that's completely turned on, but at the end of the session with the computer I'm like... We can be cutting chocolate.

[56:09]

Do the dancing figures on the computer have anything to do with the wooden man getting up? is what's working and it covers or cures what is happening to the senses and to the body. So what is it about mind that commands our attention? Well, we overstimulate our mind. And it's easier to catch the mind than it is to catch the body.

[57:15]

and the mind will become attached to things. So there's all kinds of stuff in this Saha world that is vying for our attention, wants our attention. It's like everything is eating everything else in this world. So there are things that want to use our mind to feed on. and we willingly give our mind to these entities that are eating our mind. So, you know, big mind includes our body, whole body and mind. So, there is a way of sitting at your computer where you have the right posture right correct height, how to sit in a chair, how to hold your hands, those are all important things because you have to make a conscious effort to include your body in what you're doing when you're doing the computer.

[58:34]

That way your body is included because you have one. And it's there, but you forget about it because the mind is so seduced into the little box. Put your head in the box. So you have to make conscious effort to include your body and make it all one, work together when you're doing this. And that way you can practice while you're doing the computer. So how do we practice in that state? The body is more present in many ways than the mind, because the mind dreams, and the mind has dreams within its own environment, whereas the body is here.

[60:04]

So there's a disconnect, easily disconnected. So when together, I think practice is to always have the body, mind and breath working together, harmoniously, and then you can always be totally present, but we just get carried away, and we don't realize that we're carried away. we don't realize the disconnect that we have. And then when we look at the world after Zazen, we see, I remember the first time I came out of Tassajara after my first practice period, and just seeing how the world was rushing by and how people were in there,

[61:06]

Dreamworld was really a shock, a real shock. But then you get absorbed into the dreamworld, you know, and you don't notice it anymore. So that's why the body is satisfied, it doesn't want anything more than what it's doing. Yeah, well the body of course is under the control of the mind, yeah, it follows the mind, even though it has its own responses, but basically it follows the mind, and our satisfactions are Although they're bodily satisfactions, they're really mental. there is some way maybe that we can maintain that.

[62:55]

When we get a computer, our identity very quickly becomes associated with what our mind is, and we are, what we fundamentally lose that connection. Well, yes, it's dropping our idea about ourself, our built up, our construction. and resuming our fundamental nature. So dropping body and mind is like letting go of our construction, basically. I think that's what you're saying. But then when we drop our construction, what do we have? That's actually part of walking off the pole. OK. I just wanted to say one thing.

[64:00]

So Suzuki Roshi says, people ask what it means to practice zazen with no gaining my idea. What kind of effort is necessary for that kind of practice? The answer is the effort to get rid of something extra from our practice, which is our construction. If some extra idea comes, you should try to stop it. You should remain in pure practice. That's the point of our effort. Stop it. This is a little crude, but you get the idea.

[64:38]

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