Good morning. The weather has turned yet again, and we have a crisp autumnal day, which is quite wonderful. The air feels pretty clear, which is also good. Leslie Bartholak was supposed to have a lecture today, and she gave us a heads up a few days ago. Oh, Jake is here. How is Leslie? Okay, yeah, she has a virus of sorts and sends her regrets and so I'm filling in. My talk today, since we've been, we're in aspects of practice and we've been going through chapters of Suzuki Roshi's book, Not Always So. And fortunately I kept a list of what all the senior students were, had chosen as chapters so I could find one that was not redundant.

[01:08]

And the chapter that I decided to speak about is not always so. That's the chapter in the book. And it really didn't occur to me until this morning. I was sitting Zazen, you know, and of course concentrating on my breath and posture the way I do every moment of the day. And it occurred to me, oh, I wrote a song called Not Always So. And so I thought maybe I would sing it for you. I'll teach you the chorus first. And then the verses are a little, at least the first two verses are somewhat irreverent. perhaps rather than non-PC, we could say they're non-DC, non-dharmically correct.

[02:15]

But you can get the idea. So sing the chorus. Not always so, not always so. You can't always get what you want, you know. I prayed for rain and it started to snow. The way of the world is not always so. Got that? Try it. Not always so, not always so. You can't always get what you want, you know. Well, I prayed for rain, it started to snow. The way of the world is not always so. Now it veers off. My fiancée, she was a wonderful girl. She meant more to me than this big old world. I went to see her late last week. I crept to her window to have a peek.

[03:18]

She was wrapped in the arms of my best friend Joe. I shouted through the window, no, no, no. She winked at me and said, I don't love you no more. The way of the world is not always so, not always so. Not always so. You can't always get what you want, you know. Well, I prayed for rain. It started to snow. The way of the world is not always so. Mama saw a chicken out in the pen. She dreamed a fried chicken with that nice fat hen. Mama grabbed an axe. The hen said, wait. She flapped her wings and flew out the gate. She stood in the road and gave a little crow. Said, ain't gonna be nobody's dinner for four. Chase me if you want, but I got to go. The way of the world is not always so. Not always so, not always so. You can't always get what you want, you know.

[04:21]

I prayed for rain, started to snow. The way of the world is not always so. Sound good? Sometimes I'm up and sometimes I'm down Sometimes it feels like I'm spinning around Wrong or right, good or bad Loose or tight, happy or sad I'm never sure which way to go Or what I'm gonna find further up the road Nothing is certain that much I know The way of the world is not always so Not always so, not always so. You can't always get what you want, you know. Well, I prayed for rain, started to snow. The way of the world is not always so. Not always so, not always so. You can't always get what you want, you know. Well, I prayed for rain, started to snow.

[05:22]

The way of the world is not always so. Thank you. So this is what Suzuki Roshi said. The truth of our practice is two words, not always so. And he said, oh, two words in Japanese. So it's been really interesting to me reading kind of in depth, reading these these chapters are not always so. I see some common themes in this book, perhaps in Suzuki Roshi's teaching, perhaps in Suzuki Roshi's late teaching, and they're all touched on in this chapter, but really what I've been hearing is

[06:30]

I've been hearing these themes in everything, in the ones that Laurie and Susan did, in Alexandra's, and then reading ahead. And, you know, some of these, he's very, he's constantly talking about watching out for a gaining idea. And in that sense, meaning practicing to become enlightened. And I think that, you know, I'll come back around to this. And to see enlightenment as an experience or a thing. And I suspect that he was emphasizing that because he probably saw that that was what interested, that that was kind of something that was driving a lot of the mostly youngish students that he had in the late 60s, early 70s.

[07:44]

And I remember we were, when we came to Zen, you know, it's like, oh, enlightenment, that would be a good thing, you know. So that's one of the themes. And as. As a counterpoint to that. He was often talking about. A non dual understanding as a way of. And the way to go about that is by including everything. In your Zazen. So not just including. The. line from your koan or a particular image or a very tight focus on your breathing, but to include everything that comes up in mind. And I think that's a mark of his teaching. And he's quite, as we'll see when we get to this, it's really difficult to pin down

[08:55]

precisely what Suzuki Roshi is saying, because every time he gets to something, he'll, in a certain way, undercut it or slip away, which is something that we may have noticed Sojin Roshi doing. Sojin Roshi, he's a very good student of his teacher, and he has that same capacity. Uh, and you know, we want to say, please just tell us already, you know, but no, because as one of the chapters that I think we'll study later in the next couple of weeks, one of the chapters entitled is entitled, find out for yourself. And, uh, that's what we need to do. The other thing that I, that I find thematic, uh, is. And I hadn't noticed this previously, and it may be something in perhaps this phase of my life, but the words sort of leap out at me.

[10:06]

He's often talking about dying. He's talking about the small death that comes with every exhalation. But he's also talking about practicing as if one were dying, practicing with one's death. And it's like this is part of a deep message and training that he's trying to convey to us. So, There are other themes which I will get to, but I would like to read you a little from this, from Not Always So, from that chapter. The epigraph, I like the epigraph. Real freedom is not to feel limited when wearing this Zen robe, this troublesome formal robe.

[11:13]

Some of the newer priests can tell you how troublesome it is. But it's really not so much of a trouble if you just take your time. Similarly, in our busy life, we should wear the civilization without being bothered by it. without ignoring it, without being caught by it. So this civilization is our troublesome robe. It's both, we can't avoid it because it's part of the condition of our life. So he says, without ignoring it, We're not trying to retreat from it or pretend it isn't there or pretend it's all empty. You know, empty in some cosmic sense, but without being caught by it either.

[12:16]

And this is what's this is exemplary of that slippery, difficult quality of Suzuki Roshi. So that's the epigraph. He begins this chapter in Buddhist scripture. There's a famous passage. that explains that water is not just water. For human beings, water is water. But for celestial beings, it is a jewel. For fish, it is their home. And for people in hell or hungry ghosts, it is blood or maybe fire. If they want to drink it, water changes into fire and they cannot drink it. The same water looks different very different to various beings. Most people think that water is water is the right understanding and that it should not be a home or a jewel, blood or fire. Water should be water. But Dogen Zenji says, even though you say water is water, it is not quite right.

[13:22]

So some of you may remember if you've read Dogen, if you've read The Mountains and Water Sutra. Let me read you a passage from that. In seeing water, there are beings who see it as a jewel necklace. This does not mean, however, that they see a jewel necklace as water. How then do we see what they consider water? Their jewel necklace is what we see as water. Some see water as miraculous flowers. Hungry ghosts see waters as raging flames or as pus and blood. Dragons and fish see it as a palace or a tower, or as the dharma nature of immaculate liberation, or as the true human body, which is of course 70% water, or as the physical form and mental

[14:28]

Humans see these as water. Given that what different types of beings see is different, we should have some doubts about this. Is it that there are various ways of seeing one object? Or is it that we have mistaken various images for one object? So I think that this metaphor echoes passages in earlier Buddhist sutras, but this is probably what Suzuki Roshi is bringing forth. This passage and other passages like that from Dogen. He says, When we practice zazen, so switching from water, he says, when we practice zazen, we may think this is the right practice and we will attain something correct and perfect.

[15:37]

But if you ask Dogen Zenji, he may say, not quite right. This is a good koan for you to say, study. When we say water is water, we understand things materially. And now I'm going to have a sip of water. This water that a moment ago was in this cup has now gone down the gullet and becomes part of my body. This water becomes part of my flesh and blood. It's no longer just water. When we say water is water, we understand things materially. We say that water is H2O, but under some conditions, H2O may be ice or mist, or it may be vapor or a human body.

[16:47]

It's only water under some circumstances. For convenience, we may tentatively say that water is water, but we should appreciate water in its true sense. Water is more than just water. When I am drinking water, water is everything. The whole world is water. Nothing exists besides water. When we drink water with this understanding and attitude, that is water and at the same time, it is more than water. So this is true of anything that we encounter, whether it's water or a stick or another person. But where he takes this is back to Zazen, extending the metaphor to our meditation.

[17:53]

So he says, when we, quote, just sit in meditation, we include everything. There is nothing else, nothing but you. That is shikantaza. Shikantaza is what we translate as just sitting. It really means somewhat, literally it means something like just hit sitting. So it's like just come to the point of sitting. He says, that is shikantaza. We become completely ourselves. We have everything and we are fully satisfied. There is nothing to attain, so we have a sense of gratitude or joyful mind. So this is, maybe we don't have that, or maybe I might think I don't have that in any given moment.

[18:57]

I think what he's saying is this is the quality or characteristic of Zazen. The Zazen he's talking about includes everything. It includes, right now, the kind of fading sound of the jet that's going by. It may include the faint sound of birds. It includes the tree that I can see that's perfectly framed by that window there, filling it completely. It includes your faces. And at the moment, I feel really grateful for that, just to be completely alive and open to and receptive to whatever emerges. And then he has a kind of critique, Suzuki Roshi says, I think I understand why you practice Zazen.

[20:07]

Most of you are seeking something. You seek what is true and real because you have heard so many things that you cannot believe in. You're not even seeking for what is beautiful because you have found something which looks beautiful may not actually be beautiful. It's just the surface of something or an ornament. You're also aware how people can be hypocritical. Many people who appear to be virtuous don't convey real gratitude or joyful mind, so you don't trust them. When we've been around on this planet for a while, we can become a little cynical, skeptical, or hardened. Things are not as they appear. things are certainly not as they are being sold to us or conveyed to us.

[21:16]

And sometimes we're disappointed in the people around us. Sometimes we're disappointed by people in our community. Sometimes we're disappointed by ourselves. I think what Suzuki Roshi is saying is that Maybe the best thing you can do in that circumstance is just sit down. Just sit down and encounter yourself and find what may not be conventionally beautiful, but something that you can lean on in yourself. So he says, you don't know whom to trust or what teaching to believe. So you've come here looking for something. I came here looking for something, I bet most of us did. And he says, I cannot give you what you are seeking.

[22:21]

Because I myself don't believe in any particular thing. You know, this is I think of one of our teachers, Bernie Glassman Roshi, who in later years recently, he's very influenced by, he's become close with Jeff Bridges. And I think the point of connection was the big Lebowski, people seen that? Yeah, the dude, right. And what Bernie has adopted for himself, there's a dispute that takes place in the movie and the dude says, well, that's just your opinion, man. And this is what Bernie has owned for himself.

[23:27]

He'll say, that's just my opinion. just my opinion. So he talks about the Four Noble Opinions. And he takes this kind of Buddhayana position that everything is an opinion. So this is on one side of your understanding, that everything is a point of view. It's very clear to me that there's water in this cup, and I trust that it's not blood. And I don't think it's an opinion that it's water. And yet from another perspective, it may be blood, it may be fire. It's an opinion, it's a perception, and we can, you know,

[24:28]

I find myself resisting that perspective a lot when Bernie says it. There's some things that are not opinions and that's true in our relative world. But I think Suzuki Roshi is making the same point and that's the point, not always so. That's the point of beginner's mind. In beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. So he says, I myself don't believe in any particular thing. I don't say water is water, or that water is a jewel, or that a house, or fire, or blood. As Dogen Genji said, water is more than that. We may want to stick to righteousness, beauty, truth, or virtue, but it's not wise to seek for something like that. There's something more. To seek for a great teaching like Buddhism is to seek for something good.

[25:44]

Whatever you find, you will be like a sightseer. He talks about this is another term that he uses variously in these lectures. even though you don't travel in your car, spiritually, you are sightseeing. Oh, what a beautiful teaching. This is really a true teaching. To be a sightseer is one of the dangers of Zen practice. So, I don't know, what he means is just to be a spectator, to be a sightseer means, you know, you go someplace looking for something and you may find what you're looking for. And if you're a sightseer, then you walk away and you go to the next one, next thing. You go to the next church, or the next temple, or the next art museum, or the next mountain. And what Suzuki Roshi is saying is don't be captivated by

[26:50]

Says, to be captivated by the teaching doesn't help at all. Don't be fooled by things, whether it is something beautiful or something that looks true. Real freedom is not feeling limited while wearing this Zen robe, this troublesome form of robe. Similarly, in our busy life, we should wear this civilization without being bothered by it. without ignoring it and without being caught by it. Without going anywhere, without escaping it, we can find composure in our busy life. I'm not so sure about finding composure so much as we can compose ourselves. It's not finding something as if it were external. It's actually, it's a wonderful word, composure.

[27:53]

It's the act of composing, of collecting, of recollecting, of formatting oneself, of composing oneself. And then composure is present. It's not something we find. It's something that we embody. It's something that we bring forth. He then goes into another metaphor from Dogen. Dogen Zenji says, to be like a boatman. Although he is carried by the boat, he is also handling the boat. That's how we live in the world. Even though you understand how to live in this world like a boatman, that doesn't mean you're able to do it. It's very difficult, so that's why you practice Zazen. I've been studying, with some people, been studying two fascicles of Dogen, and one of them, Zenki, which is sometimes translated as total dynamic working, he uses this metaphor of a boat, and he uses it in many other places.

[29:15]

I like this passage a lot. So it takes it a bit further than Suzuki Roshi does here. So birth is just like birth, and you could use sometimes translate birth, sometimes life. Life is just like riding in a boat. You raise the sails and row with the oar. Although you row, the boat gives you a ride. And without the boat, no one could ride. But you ride the boat, and your riding makes the boat what it is. Investigate a moment such as this. At just such a moment, there is nothing but the world of the boat. The sky, the water, and the shore are all the boat's world, which is not the same as the world which is not the boat. In other words, the boat is the entire reality.

[30:19]

When you ride in a boat, your body and mind and the environments together, the virons together, are the undivided activity of the boat. Thus, birth is nothing but you, and you are nothing but birth. The boat is nothing but you, and you are nothing but the boat. When you are in the boat, You are creating the reality of the boat. To I was talking about this with someone, you know, it's like. If you were a rock. That is tumbling off of a cliff above above the ocean and there's a boat in it. If the boat falls, if the rock falls into the boat. The boat is not a boat. The boat is, whoa, this is a hard place in the water. You know, this is not what I expected.

[31:24]

I expected just to be able to tumble down. So it's not a it's not a boat. It's our functioning in that reality that makes the boat the boat, and it's the boat's functioning in the reality that makes us us. and it's acting together. Yesterday I was saying, I said, this is Suzuki again, however painful, however painful your legs are, you shouldn't move. And some people may have understood what I said literally. In other words, You say, the Zen teacher says, don't move. Oh, don't move. Okay, I will move. What I was really saying is that your determination to practice Zazen should be like that.

[32:27]

If it is too painful, you can change your posture. But your determination should be like that. And should be, it's also a good example, he says. It's not necessarily so. It's not a command, you know, it's not a godly edict. You have to use your sense, but you also have to look at what is your inner intention. So the secret of Soto Zen is just two words, not always so. Oops, three words in English. In Japanese, two words. Not always so, this is the secret of the teaching. It may be so, but it's not always so. Without being caught by words or rules, without too many preconceived ideas, we actually do something. And doing something, we apply our teaching.

[33:30]

We practice zazen like someone close to dying. There is nothing to rely on, nothing to depend on. Because you are dying, you don't want anything, and so you can't be fooled by anything. All of us have had this experience, not just of dying, but perhaps of being very tired or very sick, and you're lying in bed and you think, well, I might like to roll over and you just don't, you know? It's like, I don't really need to roll over, you know? You just, it's not worth the energy at that moment, even though it would take so little to do it. We don't want anything. So this is pivotal section here. Most people are not fooled, most people are not only fooled by something, they are also fooled by themselves, by their ability, their beauty, their confidence, their outlook.

[34:55]

Mostly, I think the point is we're fooled by ourselves. We should know whether or not we are fooling ourselves When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be so big. When you are fooled by yourself, it is fatal. We really need to ask ourselves at the heart of our practice, what is it that I am doing? How does the circumstance that I'm experiencing arise from my own actions? From my own intentions? From my fooling myself? Not how somebody else caused it.

[35:57]

How I am responsible for myself. without taking that into account. And I will say it doesn't mean there's nobody else out there doing things without taking myself and my responsibility into account. If I miss that, then I'm really fooling myself. And this is where I think about this mind training verse, low John verse in the Tibetan tradition. Uh, Fold all blames into one. Which means essentially. Take responsibility for everything. This is the chapter that that Leslie was going to teach today was is entitled The Boss of Everything.

[37:00]

That's the same point. It's not bossing around, but it's like, okay, I'm gonna take complete responsibility for whatever happens. And that means looking first to myself, looking first inside. Suzuki Roshi says, you may feel some resistance to this Zen way of life, but don't be lost in resistance. If you are deeply involved in resistance or fight, you will lose yourself. You will lose your strength, lose your friends and your parents. You will lose your confidence, the brightness of your eyes. You're a dead body. And no one will say, oh, I'm sorry. No one will say that. Look at your face in the mirror to see if you're alive or not.

[38:04]

If you're alive, if I'm alive, if I can move my face and the face in the mirror is wiggling his nose and blinking his eyes back at me, then I better take responsibility for myself. Even though you practice zazen, if you don't stop being fooled, it won't help you at all. Do you understand? He says, let's practice hard while we are still a little bit alive. And then he says, thank you very much. Thank you very much. So we have a few minutes for questions or comments. I just feel these, I really am so happy that we're studying this book for aspects. I feel like it's just jumping with life to me in a very fresh way.

[39:11]

I encourage you to plunge into it. So questions or comments? Yeah, here you go. I would ask you, when you're drinking the water, and you're experiencing nothing but the water in you at that moment, that's not really an opinion, and I think you're saying that. I have a really simple answer. I really don't know.

[40:14]

I don't know. I'm going to have to leave it at that. Yeah. Um, well, I think he's speaking metaphorically, perhaps. Um, let me just I want to find it. So just, uh, Mm-hmm.

[41:18]

Okay, yes. When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be, I'm sorry, let me give you more context. Most people are not, most people are not only fooled by something, they are also fooled by themselves. We should know whether or not we are fooling ourselves. When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be so big, but when you're fooled by yourself, it is fatal. I think one thing that comes to me is that Fatal here means if you are fooled by yourself or fooled by your thinking or fooled by your opinion, then you have killed who you really are. You have killed, you have done fatal damage in that moment. Fortunately, we have the notion of rebirth in Buddhism. So fatal, you know, and then you're,

[42:35]

You can be, when you breathe in, you can be reborn. So don't worry about it too much. But don't be fooled by anything. That's kind of my understanding of that. Yeah. Jose. How do we go about expressing something that is so? Like what? Like maybe your experience is something that you're trying to express to someone and they're telling you it's not always so. They're right. You know, it's your experience. I had evidently Ellen Webb quoted me back to me after class. It was something that she disagreed with that I had said someplace.

[43:37]

And I said, I said, well, you know, you can't disagree with that. That's just my opinion. You know, but. We rely on our friends. We rely on the information that we gather in the world. It's just really important to gather widely. I mean, this is one of the things that, speaking with one of my teachers, Shota Harada, I was asking him, how could the Japanese, how could Japanese Buddhism have sanctioned the kind of terrible deeds that were done in the name of imperial way Buddhism during the 30s and 40s. And what he said was, well, that's as far as people could see in that context. So it's important to recognize even if you're a fish in water, water is like air.

[44:43]

And air is like poisonous because you don't have water. So it's not that's not a question of opinion so much, but it's definitely a question of perspective. So you need to have a wide perspective and recognize, I think, recognize the limits or the potential limits of your view and keep trying to widen it. That's why we study. That's why we have friends. That's why we have teachers, people we trust. But, you know, nothing is a guarantee. Nothing is a guarantee. Nothing ultimately can protect us from from our delusions. But if we listen to people, they'll help us wake up. Maybe one more, yeah, you know. So about finding composure, I actually like that expression, not in the sense that you go and find it somewhere else, but in the sense that when you shed a certain amount, you find it's already there.

[45:59]

Yeah, yeah. It's not put together, but it's already there. You're locating it in yourself. Yeah, I totally agree. But it's just not, sometimes when we say finding something, it can sound like an external, whereas really it's internal. I think probably we should end. Oh, is that true? Yes. Penelope, last time, yeah. Yeah. You should always, I mean, I think it's if you hold the idea

[47:23]

you know, roughly of this, whatever I'm thinking. I mean, this is, it's condensed by the bumper sticker on my car, which says, which says, don't believe everything you think, you know, that's, that's a simple condensation. So you should, as we practice, I think we can become increasingly awake to the, to the fact that we're capable of diluting ourselves. And we just, I think a really awake person has what they have insight into is into that dream-like, convincing dream-like quality of existence. But it's also, I just want to be clear. bad shit happens too, you know, and things that it's not all just an opinion. There's things we need to take responsibility for, but we don't always know when we're taking responsibility, how that is going to play out.

[48:31]

That's also part of the story. So we can love stories. I love stories. I love to read them. Uh, I love to make them up. Uh, and I also, uh, have come to trying to see through them. That's all. That's the best we can do. You can enjoy them, but don't believe them. You know, it's like if you believe, you know, literal belief in the Bible is full of wonderful stories, you know, and a lot of harm has been done in the world in the name, most of the harm that's been done in the world has been done in the name of one or another story. So be careful. Thank you.

[49:18]

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