Well, yesterday was pretty hot. and today it's a little bit cooler. So yesterday was pretty hard for most people, I think. It's hard to sit when it's so hot. Your clothes stick to you and you don't feel so strong and you feel sleepy and uncomfortable. When we started Tassajara, we used to have sashin in the summertime, but we stopped doing that.

[01:18]

So I don't know if this is the best time to have sashin. The smart ones, you know, didn't come this time. So, you know, but I think everything is turning out okay. Everybody sat real well yesterday, and it was a good effort on everybody's part, so that's a, you know, it could have been more of a problem, but we seem to have used the difficulty to enhance our practice. So when we do something difficult and get through it, we feel pretty good. If you want to sit down here, it's okay.

[02:24]

It is okay. They had the fan going. Say something meaningful. So, you know, the question also comes up, you know, why are we, when the sun is shining and everybody's taking the three-day weekend, and there's so many wonderful things and opportunities, why are we here?

[03:27]

It's a good question, you know? And I'm sure it runs through the minds of some of you. But here we are, so that's all I can say about it. It reminds me of a talk by Suzuki Roshi where he says, last week, I don't know whether this is better or worse. Last week, one of the Sunday school children saw me sitting Zazen and said, I can do that. I can do it. She crossed her legs and said, now what? Now what? I was very interested in her question because many of you have the same question. You come here every day to practice Zen and you ask me, now what?

[04:35]

Now what? I don't think I can fully explain this point. It's not a question that can be answered. You should know for yourself. We sit in a formal posture so we can experience something through our bodies, not by my teaching, but by your own physical practice. However, to be able to sit in a particular way and to attain a particular state of mind is not perfect study. He uses the word study here, because that word study, the Japanese character is study, but it really means practice. Just like to study the Buddha way is to study the self, to practice the Buddha way is to practice the self. That's actually more the meaning.

[05:38]

So after you have full experience of mind and body, you will be able to express it in other ways as well. Without sticking to a formal posture, you naturally convey your mind to others in various ways. You will have the same state of mind sitting in a chair, or standing, working, or speaking. It is a state of mind in which you do not stick to anything. So this is the purpose of our practice. The purpose of our practice is not to stick to anything. So when people ask this question about why do we practice or why are we doing this, this comes up. For most people, during Sushin especially, you know that you wanted to sit Sushin, but in the middle somewhere, you say, why am I doing this?

[06:52]

Why did I say yes? So we struggle with the reasoning, which is actually good. We should know why we practice. Not just because we're supposed to, but we should know why. It's to help us understand why we shouldn't stick to anything. Because when we sit zazen, we know that if we stick to something, we'll have suffering. Sticking to something means sticking to our idea about things, sticking to our opinions, sticking to what we think is right or what we think is wrong or anything. Sticking to our preconceived notions.

[07:53]

Mostly, I think, sticking to our preconceptions. about things, about, oh, I know what he's like, or I know what this is like. We do have our experience. And so through our experience, we build up a set of concepts which contributes to what we call our understanding or our knowing. And then we condition ourselves through these concepts. And then when we act, we have what we call conditioned responses. So it's not so common to respond from a place of a pure response.

[09:01]

because most of our responses come from our conditioning. And so we're caught in our conditioned responses or our habitual ways of responding or looking at things or reacting. So I think when he says not sticking to anything, basically he's talking about our conditioned responses. and our inability to act from a pure place of not knowing, which is more like basic knowledge, true knowing. He says, A Japanese visitor was speaking about Japanese literature.

[10:07]

Japanese people have been studying Chinese characters and Chinese culture since about 600 or 700 AD. And after using Chinese characters, they established their own way of writing. So Japanese is a little different than Chinese. The same thing will happen here with our practice. 100 years after the Japanese government stopped sending students to China to study Chinese culture, we had an exquisite Japanese culture. So I think what he's saying is when we, maybe 100 years from now, we'll have a really good American, at least American Zen culture, which will be independent of foreign influence We should never be independent of foreign influence because actually there is no such thing as foreign influence. We just call it foreign influence. Sometimes people say, well, when can we let go of these Japanese forms as if Japanese forms are foreign?

[11:20]

to us, as if there's something called foreigner. But that's just an idea that we have as foreigner, because we see the world as divided between various countries and cultures, which it is. But actually, foreign is simply a state of mind, or a concept that we have. when we let go of the idea of foreign, then all cultures are our own culture. But anyway, given that, at some point, there will emerge a, maybe, uniquely American Zen culture. That's possible. just like happened in Japan. The Japanese Zen culture became independent of the Chinese Zen culture.

[12:28]

So in the Fujiwara period, especially, we had beautiful Japanese literature and calligraphy. There was a lot of freedom. Artists and scholars studied the arts, philosophy, and religion. And they tried various disciplines, and they had good teachers. The work that followed the Fujiwara period was not so good. According to my visitor, some of the later calligraphy was too formal and showed too much of the artist's ego. So this is usually, I think this is the way cultures develop. First there's the pure, activity and then there's a kind of imitation which becomes formal and egotistical. It gives rise to egotistical expression. So according to my visitor, some of the later calligraphy was too formal and shows too much of the artist's ego.

[13:37]

We cannot see any personality in their calligraphy. Here he's talking about the difference between ego and personality. Sometimes we equate personality with ego. When we talk about a personality, we tend to think, well, that's the person's ego. But actually, there's a difference between true personality and ego. True personality is the persona which each one has, which distinguishes our characteristics, but is independent, not necessarily the same as ego. Ego is something that's put on top of personality and obscures personality. So we cannot see any personality in their calligraphy. The personality we see in art should be well trained

[14:41]

without much ego in it. I think you can understand the difference between personality and ego. Ego is something that covers your good personality. Everyone has character, but if you don't train yourself, your character is covered by ego, and your character is covered by ego. You cannot appreciate your personality. So in practice, You know, we come to practice with our ego. And practice should, if you practice diligently, should refine your personality so that the personality comes out and the ego diminishes. This is, you could say, one of the purposes of practice, is to bring out your true personality, which takes the place of ego, and ego just kind of drifts away or collapses because there's nothing to support it.

[16:01]

Through long practice and training, we get rid of ego. A word in Japanese that expresses this training is neru. Neru is how we refine silk by washing it many times so that the threads are white and soft enough to weave. We also use the character for iron. We temper iron by hitting it while it is hot, not to forge or shape it, but to make it strong. Hitting it after it is cold doesn't work. Training is something like this. So, you know, soft silk and sharp iron. These are like the two sides of our personality. One is soft and pliable. Softness and pliability and adaptability.

[17:04]

And the other is strictness and sharpness and durability. To forge, to temper, which is a good word, to temper metal, iron, steel, it's put into a forge. And the forge is really hot. And then when the metal comes out, the blacksmith pounds it to give it strength. And this is a kind of metaphor for practice. Buddhas are forged in the crucible of practice. Zen students are forged in the crucible of practice. So it's good when practice heats up. and you have something to deal with.

[18:07]

You have some pressure. It's also said that diamonds are forged in the great heat in the center of the earth. So practice should be a kind of crucible. This is why we have monastic practice. Manasic practice is more crucible for practice because it's very limited and there's pressure. But the other side is softness, soft mind. Tsunsugi Roshi is always talking about soft mind, which doesn't mean a soft brain. Softness, soft mind is flexible and pliable and doesn't get stuck in stubbornness.

[19:14]

Stubbornness is a good quality when it's used as perseverance. but it's a detrimental quality when it's used as resistance. So to have a soft and pliable mind is necessary for practice. And as we practice more and more over a period of time, the mind becomes softer and more pliable and less resistant and more adaptable and able to adapt to circumstances and not be stuck in opinionatedness and conditioned responses. So these are the two sides. One is the soft side and the other is the durable side.

[20:21]

And if someone is too soft and too pliable but has no backbone, then we put emphasis on sharp steel, training that person. And if someone is too sharp and willful and strong and has no flexibility, we put the emphasis on flexibility. So we, you know, always looking at a person's character. What is their character like? And then we work with that person to emphasize the side that's, the weak side, to bring the weak side up to make it stronger, and the strong side to make it more flexible. And those, we're always working with those characteristics with every student. as long as the student will reveal themselves.

[21:25]

Some students don't like to reveal themselves, but even though you don't reveal yourself, that is a characteristic of your character, so that's something to work with. How do you reveal yourself? Some people are too revealing. Please stop revealing yourself. So how to create this balance so that your true personality will come forth and you'll know yourself and everyone will know you and trust you and whatever your true personality is. But actually, our true personality is usually acceptable to everyone. It's our ego that is unacceptable, that causes the problems.

[22:35]

So, practice is the crucible for creating this situation. So, sitting Zazen, listening to the teaching, and having dokusan, or practice instruction. Those are the three aspects of practice that allow us to have this kind of practice, to make it work, actually. So what we do in Dogasan and in practice instruction is to help people to stay on the path. That's the purpose.

[23:40]

It's not to be your psychiatrist or your therapist or whatever, but simply to help you in staying on the path of practice. in whatever way that's necessary. Sometimes it's just listening to your story, or sometimes it's giving you some suggestion of how to deal with your life, or how to maintain a Zazen practice, or what to do in Zazen, or how you find your way as practice in your daily life. But you should know that this is what is actually going on. So sometimes practice is likened to a kitchen where everyone's being cooked.

[24:55]

She used to say, sometimes during zazen, you are like loaves of bread cooking in the oven. getting done little by little. And, you know, the book, Dogen's book on, or his fascicle on the Tenzo Kyokun, how the Tenzo behaves themselves. It used to be called Refining Your Life, which is appropriate, but now it's called something from the Zen Kitchen. Change the publisher, change the name. But both is right. Both titles are good, Refining Your Life and Refining Your Life.

[25:57]

Something about the Zen kitchen. From the Zen kitchen to enlightenment or something like that. Yeah. So here we are in the Zen kitchen. And we always use the kitchen as an example of practice. There goes the Tenzo now. Yes. Escaping from the zendo to the kitchen. OK, through long practice and training, we get rid of ego. A word in Japanese that expresses this training is neru. Neru is how we refine silk by washing it many times so that the threads are white and soft enough to weave. We also use the character for iron.

[26:59]

We temper iron by hitting it while it is hot, not to forge it or shape it, but to make it strong. Hitting it after it is cold doesn't work. Training is something like this. You've got to strike while the iron is hot. When you are young, you have a lot of ego and a lot of desires. Through training, you rub and wash your ego, and you become quite soft, like pure white silk. Even though you have strong desires, if you temper them enough, you will have strong, sharp iron like a Japanese sword. This is how we train ourselves. He says, when you are young, you have a lot of ego and a lot of desires. But I would change it to, at any age, He said, this is not something for me to talk about, but something I must show you by my everyday life.

[28:01]

My everyday life, which is not so good. So he admits that his everyday life is not so good. I am afraid you will study only my weak points. So we should know why we practice Zazen and we should be able to tell the difference between something that is good and something that just looks good. There's a big difference. So as a teacher, you know, teachers should know their strong points and their weak points. And they know what they should, teachers should know what, is a strong point and what is a weak point. I once said about Suzuki Roshi that people sometimes would say, well, did Suzuki Roshi have any faults? Nobody talks about his faults, but I always talked about his faults. And I said something like, one time, Suzuki Roshi did have faults but he recognized his faults.

[29:07]

He could see what they were and so he was always working on dealing with his faults and he never hid them. And so we didn't see them as faults. We only saw them as his practice. Can you remember an example of something that he admitted as Well, he would talk about his forgetfulness, you know, which he talks about here. His forgetfulness and maybe, you know, although he could see things very clearly, I didn't see what he was doing as faults really. I don't think I ever really saw a fault in him. I just saw him always working on his practice. So to me it never seemed like a fault.

[30:11]

Usually a fault is something that a person does when they're going against what they're supposed to be doing. So he would like really admit, oh I forgot to tell you. Yeah, or whatever. when you try to cover it up. Yeah, when you try to cover it up, maybe, or not see it, or, you know, yeah. But he didn't have so many faults. I mean, you know, like, he would argue with his wife. I don't know if that was a fault. He didn't call her any names. I don't know. I didn't recognize him as having faults, but I cannot say that he didn't have faults, because even if I didn't see them, I cannot say that he didn't have faults.

[31:17]

I have to say that he did have faults. And he himself said, everyone is half good and half bad, including myself. But his faults are not something that stood out, let's put it that way. He knew what his faults were, but it's not something that stood out for everyone. I knew that he had faults and problems, but when he was in Japan, he was very strict and very stern and sort of more critical. When he came here, he wasn't critical. He let go of that critical quality, but that had been a kind of fault when he was in Japan. So when he came to America, he kind of abandoned his son to be the abbot of

[32:18]

his temple, which can be seen as an opportunity or can be seen as a fault. You know, his son thought it was a fault, but he saw it as an opportunity. Anyway, Bo Ko? That was one good thing about Crooked Cucumber is that it gave people a more human I'm just not a revered Zen teacher at the age of 60 or whatever, but he had his own life that he had very, very painful experiences. World War II, death of his first wife, and many, many things that he struggled with. So the example is, and he would say, don't look at my faults or my weaknesses. And this is true of any teacher.

[33:22]

Whenever we have a teacher, the teacher has examples to be followed and examples not to be followed. And you have to be able to discern which ones to follow and which ones not to follow. So, otherwise you can't have a teacher. And so it's up to the student to know what to be discerning. In the old days, all the teachers smoked except Suzuki Roshi. So everybody was smoking. They were smoking anyway. And with Trungpa, everybody was drinking. He was drinking like crazy, all his students were drinking. So Suzuki Roshi, among all those teachers, was the most conservative. He was very conservative and very strict.

[34:27]

At the same time, he had a very soft mind. Bill Kwong and Yoshimura, who was one of our Japanese priests, and myself, during Sashane's at Page Street in the 60s, would, during the breaks, we'd all go down into what was then, was now an office in the front and smoke our cigarettes and laugh. You imagine that? And every once in a while he would come down, you know, he'd poke his head in. He didn't like it, but he didn't say much, you know. He said, when you're ready, you'll stop smoking. It's not good to smoke, but when you're ready to stop, you'll stop. That was his attitude.

[35:30]

He'd say, you should stop going around. But he left it up to you to make this decision. But then, one time, it got to be too much for him. And he came and he said, I think you should all stop smoking. So that was one of the times that I stopped for a while. But I stopped for good in 1973. So thank goodness. So he says, I'm afraid you will study only my weak points. We should know why we practice Zazen, and we should be able to tell the difference between something that is good and something that just looks good. There's a big difference. Unless you train yourself through hard practice, you will have no eyes to see and no feeling to appreciate something that is truly good.

[36:32]

Only when many people have the eyes to see or to feel something good will we have good teachers and students. This is mutual practice. mutual practice between teachers and students. So the teachers should inspire the students, and the students should inspire the teacher. It's not just one way. So sometimes I need a little inspiration. No, I'm only kidding. Buddha was great because people were great. When people are not ready, then there will be no Buddha. So I don't expect every one of you to be a great teacher, but we must have eyes to see what is good and what is not so good. This mind will be acquired by practice. Even in the Fujiwara period, Chinese culture and calligraphy were far superior to Japanese.

[37:34]

The Chinese people had various brushes and always used the brush more than the Japanese people did. The Japanese had fewer materials to make brushes. We had lots of bamboo, but few sheep or animals from which to make brushes. So our training in calligraphy was more limited than that of Chinese people. But even before Japanese people mastered Chinese calligraphy completely, they had already started a unique Japanese calligraphy, and I find this very interesting. Their own way, right? Using what they had. So this is also kind of, you know, a wonderful way of thinking about practice is to use what you have, to use what's at hand, not to try to get something, you know, the best of this or the best of that, but simply to use what we have. And this is definitely a part of our cooking practice, not to necessarily get the best ingredients or the most fancy stuff, but use what's at hand and make

[38:39]

Make what's at hand into something wonderful. Or bring out the quality of what's at hand. You can't make something wonderful, actually. You can't do that. You can only bring out the quality of what's there. Trying to make something wonderful is putting something, an overlay over something. So gilding the lily. So we want to bring out the true quality of each flower, of each ingredient. So we don't put too much on top of it to obscure its personality. Sometimes food comes out as ego, you know, by putting something over the personality of the food, of the ingredient. So, you know, Chinese brushes, Chinese, they use fox, They use badger. They use wolf. Wolf makes very good brushes. They use goat.

[39:42]

Goat hair is white. Fox is brown. And there's quite a difference between, but you know, the poor animals, you know. But you know, look at your shoes. So historically, Buddhists have been very sincere about this point, this point being soft and sharp, I think. That is why we have Dharma transmission. Chinese masters especially put strong emphasis on transmission. It is necessary to master the teacher's way completely before you are free from it. And this is very hard practice. So when you sincerely practice with your teacher, then you absorb the teacher's way. That's traditional, Chinese and Japanese. You absorb the teacher's way, and then you emerge with your own way.

[40:49]

If you don't emerge with your own way, then you simply, we say you have to surpass your teacher. Surpass is maybe not the right word. I think that's not a good description. I would never surpass my teacher. But I would find my own way through the top of my teacher's head. by being born through the top of my teacher's head, I'll find my own way. Maybe that's what is meant by surpass. I remember a wonderful quote by Suzuki Roshi. He says, I have my own pace. You may be faster than I am, or have more ability than me. But I just have my own pace, and if you feel that you need to... I'm kind of paraphrasing it.

[42:00]

So please, go past me if that's what you have to do. Pass me up if that's what you have to do. So, he says, that's why it takes so long to be, such a long time to be a Zen master, is that this is very hard practice. It's hard to practice with your teacher. It's easy in some way, but it gets harder. And then, teacher and student have to, really work very hard to harmonize.

[43:01]

Many things come up. Ego comes up, personality comes up. And so giving dharma transmission to someone is not just a perfunctory performance. In Japan, it's become very, you know, they just do it. But in America, it's more, we're much more careful about how we do that. And for me, I've given dharma transmissions, probably more dharma transmissions than anybody else in America. But, It's when a person, when I feel their ego is at a low ebb. It really depends on how little ego they have in the final analysis. And that's hard.

[44:02]

Someone may be very talented and very able, but it's like, you know, there's a koan, the buffalo jumps through the window and all head, body and all four legs go through except the tail. What is this little tail? Why doesn't this little tail go through the window? So he says, it is not knowledge and it is not some particular power. The point is whether a person is trained enough to be like pure white silk and very sharp iron. At that time, without trying to do anything, you'll be able to express your personality in its true sense. If we cannot see any true personality in a person's work, it means that that person has not yet eliminated their habitual way.

[45:05]

My own habit is absentmindedness. So is mine. I'm very much like that. My own habit is absent-mindedness. I am naturally very forgetful. Even though I started working on it when I went to my teacher at the age of 13, I have not been able to do anything about it. It's not because of old age that I'm forgetful. It's my tendency. But working on it, I found that I could get rid of my selfish way of doing things. If the purpose of practice and training was just to correct your weak points, I think it would be almost impossible to succeed. Even so, it is necessary to work on them, because as you work on them, your character will be trained, and you will become free of ego. So you work on the points that will never be accomplished. You work on the stuff That is your problem, it will never work out. But in the course of working on it, you will refine your character. So that's why it's good to have a problem.

[46:10]

If you don't have a problem, you can't do that. People say, I am very patient. But actually, I have a very impatient character. So see, people think, everybody says, oh Suzuki Roshi is very patient, but actually he's very impatient. So this is part of what he's always been working on is his impatience, which looks like patience. That's what he's working on. But people don't see it because, is he covering it up or is he? No, because he's dealing with it. He's aware of it and dealing with it and using it as a tool for patients.

[47:18]

So you don't see it as a fault. because he's dealing with it. Didn't he say that people think I'm patient? So what it sounds like what Richard's saying is that he might be not saying anything, letting the person just go on and on about their life or whatever, and not reacting or saying, what's taking you so long? in being patient. So, you're asking, is he covering up, or just... Well, that wouldn't be covering up. It's being aware. It's being aware, but not expressing it out. He's expressing impatience as patience. So, he's having the... He's having an impatient reaction, but his expression of it, or his expression of the situation is a patient expression.

[48:27]

So like if you see a chocolate ice cream cone, and your desire wants to go to the chocolate ice cream cone, but you say, well, I know that I want that ice cream cone, but I won't have it. Is that covering up? I don't think so. That's exposing. So, My inborn character is very impatient. I don't try to correct it any longer, but I don't think my effort was in vain because I studied many things. I had to be very patient in order to work on my habit, and I must be very patient when people criticize me about my forgetfulness. Oh, he is so forgetful. We can't rely on him at all. What should we do with him? My teacher scolded me every day. This forgetful boy. But I just wanted to stay with him. I didn't want to leave him.

[49:33]

I was very patient with whatever he said. So I think that is why I am very patient with others' criticism about me. Whatever they say, I don't mind so much. I am not so angry with them. If you know how important it is to train yourself in this way, I think you will understand what Buddhism is. So this is the most important point in our practice today. Yes. I wonder if there's something about his being aware of his impatience as a way of asking himself to understand more deeply where the person is coming from. And that's why he might be perceived as being more patient, because he's actually using it to turn the situation around. He's not reacting out of his impatience. He's actually noticing his impatience and that's asking himself to open more broadly to see more than he would otherwise.

[50:38]

Of course. So, you know, you use a fault to make it into an asset. So we don't try to get rid of things. You can't get rid of who you are. This doesn't work. But you have to use whatever propensities you have. They can go this way or they can go that way. They can either be detrimental or they can be useful. So how do you make, we say great passion is great Buddha. So great passion can be detrimental or it can be enhancing. It can be useful depending on what you do with it. So, you know, as long as a person is willing to be open to

[51:55]

whatever problems they present, everyone is willing to work with that. So we don't condemn people for their transgressions when they're open to reform or open to looking at that, dealing with it, We don't have Buddhist prisons because we see that people become prisoners of themselves. And what we want to do is unleash that or open the gates so they're not prisoners of themselves. This is the biggest problem. We don't have to imprison people. People are prisoners of their own making. So practice is, how do we help people free themselves?

[53:03]

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