With each one of us, we try to find out what is accurate conduct. This is what I started speaking about at the beginning of the session. Suzuki Roshi said at one point, if you think the precepts are some kind of rules by which you should lead your life. That's a big, big mistake. It may not be From one point of view, maybe it's not so serious, but from the point of view of Zen practice, it's pretty serious.

[01:19]

It's amazing how little sense of the inside of things we have in our culture, how even sometimes frightening it is to think that things don't aren't really meaningful on that level at which we first apprehend them. So I've been trying to give you some feeling for conduct. And we talked about the precepts, you know, first as Do not kill, do not take what is not given, etc. And I spoke about the precepts from the point of view of do not think you can kill something, do not think you can steal something, etc. And I would like to suggest a third way to understand the precepts, which is do not

[03:02]

Use your power to kill something. Do not use your power to steal something, to steal something. Do not use your power to commit adultery, to get away with something, with being free of your karma. Do not use your power to deceive. This is a rather important point, I don't know how clearly I can convey it to you, but because most of you have no real experience of your power or the power of Buddhism. So you don't realize your power to kill someone or to lie or deceive people. So from the point of view of

[04:29]

contact, as I've been speaking, there's three pretty important things. One is how to accept properly from others. We've been talking about Hisan and Tok-san's meeting. How to accept properly from others, how to meet other people, how to meet any occasion, but most difficult and most important is how to meet other people. To finally meet, be able to meet other people and laugh with them, in some, like it was a natural phenomenon, not some personality involved. When we meet people, If we have no idea of others, no desire, no past or expectation, we meet each other very quickly. Instantly we find each other. But when there's something else there, there's some kind of skirting

[06:02]

sometimes a dance of avoidance or fear or aggression, sometimes a dance of attraction, some coyness. We don't need either of these. Whenever two people meet, or three people, or four people, or whatever, it's a kind of performance, or communication, as I was speaking about last week. There's no help for it, but to be so. But if you are conscious of it, and you have some desire, you become a con-man. you become someone who maintains your own power, who wants to buy and sell other people so they don't disagree with you. So, not performance but practice so that you don't know what you're going to do. You're not looking for anything. You're not expecting anything. So sometimes a teacher will hit you or shout

[07:31]

Or, Dogen says, raise the whisk. Various kinds of things. And you may think, well, Dogen says, are ways of pecking on the shell. But you may think it means that you're startled. But it means that finally you The event happens in a different time for you. You're not startled at all. You don't lose your composure. You either are quite calm or you know how to act immediately without thinking. So first is how to accept things from others. and another is being able to making your area of familiarity your own, some kind of preservation.

[09:00]

care in your conduct. And another is being able to act on your motivation. Until you can act on your motivation, and actually one step further, first we find out what our heart's content is, or our And then we develop that motivation as intention. And our intention covers everything. So being able to act on your motivation, being able to

[10:02]

make your area of familiarity your own under various circumstances, and how to accept from others, how to accept yourself as other. many teachers have answered to a variety of questions about what is Buddhism or what is the secret of practice, how do you maintain your deep experience of things as they are and many answers are everyday mindedness and Suzuki Roshi practiced everyday mindedness. And when I was with Suzuki Rishi, even though he practiced everyday mindedness, I was as alert as I could be for anything he might do. I always expected him to do something unusual.

[11:37]

And occasionally he did do something unusual, but even when he was practicing everyday mindedness, even something unusual was just something he did every day. By everyday mindedness, I don't mean he tried to do something. In contrast to being unusual, he tried to do something ordinary. But even just finding he did simple things as it came up, putting things on the table, sitting on the couch in his office, etc. I found that if I was alone with him, I often seemed to, I wasn't alert, I seemed to lose his attention, you know, as if he was bored and went on to something else. And when we were with other people, I often had the feeling that I'd missed an inning. Things were somewhere, I hadn't quite figured out how they got there.

[12:59]

And when he was with some other good Zen teacher, even though I was completely alert, I couldn't keep up. They were always way ahead of me. I didn't know how they got to what they were talking about or what they were doing. Or I used to have the feeling they were going very slow to include me. Nice pace. very kindly keeping me in their presence. Sometimes I said very foolish, embarrassing things trying to be funny, trying to participate, you know. Some I still wince when I think of it. Anyway, I tried to be as alert as possible, just staying with what he did. Some things would be unexpected or bothersome. Eventually, that kind of thing disappeared too.

[14:33]

As we began to have, as we began to share responsibility for Zen Center, different kinds of problems came up. Sometimes because of his unfamiliarity with American culture. And almost always, he turned out to be right, even though I sometimes couldn't understand why he was treating somebody a certain way. But occasionally, once or twice or three times, I didn't agree with him. I could see the effects on other students of some particular student, and I felt we should do something. And he felt we should do something, but we didn't agree. I don't think I mentioned this to you. I discovered it the other day, a few weeks ago.

[16:08]

I was going through a, for some reason, an old, you know, year, date book for 1968. And I found written on February 1st, February 1st, a little thing I scratched down. And it was, you know, this was, I'd been with Suzuki Yoshi about seven years by that time. And I'd never disagreed with him. I'd always found some way to, to accomplish what he wanted. But it was very, very, very, very difficult for me. So I found written today, just this little note, today I defied my teacher. It wasn't so strong as that, it was quite small, but I felt like I'd taken on the world or

[17:15]

And I wrote, today I defied my teacher. Went to a foreign restaurant and ate beef for the first time in years. The poor animal was well-chewed. Across, a man sat looking at me. like a god, would he smile? Anyway, I found that written in my book. I didn't eat meat because of some disagreement with Suzuki Yoshi, but just I went somewhere familiar where I'd eaten many, many, many times before I started practicing. by myself, you know, I was just eating. I wrote a long letter, if I remember correctly. I wrote a long letter to Sukhesh describing in detail why I felt strongly about this point

[18:44]

And the next day, he called me up on the telephone. And he said, first there was some silence. He said, hello. And I said, hello. And I started to say something. And I talked for a little bit. And he said, oh, that's all right. I just wanted to hear your voice. Goodbye. So I was completely won over. What could I do? So I had to learn to exist in space, you know, where we seem to be disagreeing occasionally. which was inconsequential. It was like some play we did. So in how to practice a conduct it's pretty important to learn some restraint. Restraint in your

[20:15]

actions and expression of emotions, and until you have some confidence in your strength to express or not to express. And quite important is to know what not to talk about. There are some things we just don't talk about. Partly just talking in general is some kind of leaking of your strength. But I mean... Accepting... Accepting properly from others means

[21:17]

being able to meet them, of course, without your history involved, or desire, etc. But it also means putting yourself on the line. You're willing to take things just as they are. And not knowing what not to talk about is quite similar. It's you... Some things don't belong in words, and no matter how much somebody wants an explanation or needs some help, you know, in that way, you... are willing to take a chance and put yourself to leave that which belongs unspoken, unspoken. Not because you shouldn't communicate it,

[22:41]

Partly you have to give up the feeling of needing some confirmation or reality. You know, we have a sense that sometimes things are only real when they meet something else. But talking is not the only level of confirmation, not the only way of communication. So you take a chance on communicating something to someone, or to yourself, too, finding out something for yourself, too, by some means which you can't determine. You know it doesn't belong in talking or in some other kind of expression, you may feel, but you don't know what kind of expression it needs. So you don't have any choice except to...

[23:58]

Take the easy way out and try to put it in some way, shouldn't you? Just become one with it and maybe that is enough and you'll find out how it's expressed. So we develop our strength this way, our activity which doesn't think and our ability to maintain our own area of familiarity. So with strength and renewing our motivation, developing intention. And making, how should I say it?

[25:02]

Well, making your area of familiarity Buddha's area of familiarity. You don't possess your power. You don't possess your area of familiarity, which by your conduct you have simplified. You can't meet people, actually, if your area of familiarity is below. All kinds of crap, things that you're unsure of. things you're ashamed of. So you must find out your motivation, that you, your heart's content, what you feel most comfortable with and be able to act on it through practice. And eventually your area of familiarity is quite

[26:05]

So you don't have to flinch. Your area of familiarity is something you share completely with others. This is what we mean to save all sentient beings. So this point conduct is to direct your effort to doing things for others, not for yourself. In this way, you don't run the danger of using your power to kill something, to steal something, to be free of karma, etc., to deceive someone. The other day I had a dinner with Gregory Bateson. I'd never met him before and he's quite an interesting man. We had a good time together. One thing he told me which I thought was rather interesting was there was a Japanese woman in New York who

[27:41]

For some reason, they were interviewing, it may have had something... I think it had something to do with... I can't remember exactly, but anyway, they were trying to understand Japanese customs in relationship to parents. And so they were questioning her in detail about her relationship with her father and the customary relationship with the father. And she went into great detail about the various kinds, the various ways they treated the father, you know, respectful ways, bowing when he came in the room, whether your eyes were averted or not averted, what order people went to the back, where you sat at the meal table. Many, many, many, many details. And I guess for a complete week she recounted these

[28:43]

incredible details a Western person would think of, how you respect the father. And then at the end of the week, she said, you know, but we don't respect the father. They couldn't imagine what she meant. So he tried to find out what she meant. And she said, we practice respect with the father because someday we might have to respect someone. That's really quite important. You practice conduct with your teacher and with each other because sometime your pure conduct is going to be absolutely necessary. Hopefully before you die, but certainly when you die. Anyway, maybe that's enough about conduct. Is there anything you'd like to talk about?

[30:12]

A few days ago you were speaking about holding back something that was an obstacle that you were familiar with. How was that different from the strength that you were speaking about today? You were saying this in a very short way. You mean, when I was speaking about your area of familiarity? You stay in your area of familiarity as you press on the unfamiliar? Is that what you meant, holding back? What do you think I meant by holding back? I don't remember exactly. Okay. I feel you remember. When you were speaking of holding back, it was something we might do to prevent it, actually, from seeing what we're doing. But I think that holding back and restraint might actually involve some similar activity, which is about to say something. I don't quite understand what you're saying. Yes, sir. If you're too restrained, maybe it's not so good. If you practice restraint, maybe it's okay.

[31:41]

I can't cover, you know, but if you're restrained out of some fear, It gives you some chance to look at your fear and there's no reason. We practice restraint not out of fear but out of strength. You have some sense of what you want to say and you don't need to say it or not say it. Holding back is you're afraid to say it or something. Restraint, you don't need to say it or you can say it. Sometimes it's rather useful just to

[32:44]

If you practice this very simply, you'll see. If you are about to say something, and it's perfectly okay to say it, but you don't say it, you'll feel some inner strength. Why? It's rather interesting, because it doesn't do any harm to say it, but to not have to do something. to be able to have more play or participation in your situations. Since you're actually creating the situations, it's very helpful, rather than just treating a situation as something objective, which controls you, or you must fight with, to see, by practicing restraint, you see that you're creating the situation. You don't have to say something. What would the third way be?

[34:14]

What's that? Shoot flames at the top of your head. Yeah, there's a third way. We've talked about it pretty often here. To express it or repress it is not so important. Actually, it's not so good. As I put it, if you express it, that's just suppressing it down someone else. So, to just allow... You should be able to have many contradictory feelings. If you try to just have one feeling, you are always adjusting and erasing, etc. So, allowing yourself to have many contradictory feelings which you don't bother to try to straighten out, you know. And the more you can do that, the more you can then, when you have some feeling, you can allow it complete expression within you. You feel it completely, but you don't act on it. And you can still go quite about what you're doing. Maybe you feel some complete anger, desire,

[35:37]

confusion or fear, and yet, oh, I'm now quite fearful, that's all. But you don't try to, you definitely do not try to ignore the fact that you're afraid. Most of us, oh, I'm not really afraid. Oh, yes, I am really afraid. But you just go on with what you're doing. When you can begin to have that kind of space and allow many feelings, some of them will turn out to be quite insubstantial, things you were quite afraid of have no root at all. Some of them will turn out to be more persistent, and we can eventually find a more accurate motivation. by allowing, always allowing whatever is there to be there. There's no need to express something. And then I talked about this in a further way a few weeks ago, how this

[37:12]

actually then as you develop your concentration that becomes a kind of deity. You relate to your fear or anger or the mixture as a deity which you offer incense to. Oh hello anger, here come along let's go out for a walk. Maintaining some friendly relationship like that, your anger changes into various beings. And eventually you have the power of anger, rather than anger has the power over you. Yeah. Just finding out why we do things.

[38:35]

why we want to do certain things. As long as you have some motivation. Well, it's rather, anything I say, it's rather... I say a word and it covers tiny little, many little things. You know, I spoke about when your actions no longer come from your, you know, we do things and you wonder why you do them, so you find out it's from some mood you had at the beginning of the day, or from some preference you have, or something you feel uncomfortable with, or that you feel safe with.

[40:03]

Eventually, not by psychology, but eventually we can just begin to identify those, because through zazen you become more and more familiar with yourself, or you make more and more your own, your area of familiarity. So your moods, you see exactly on an action, the mood that's there, or the feeling that's there. You don't do anything about it, but you notice it. At the same time, you're shifting your effort from goals to just trying something. And that trying coming from some effort to do things for others rather than yourself. It's just more troublesome if you try to do them for yourself. But if you just look at your motivation, more and more thoroughly removing what is artificial, you... Anyway, Buddhists think so, and I find so. The only motivation you have is, inadequately translated, to save all sentient beings. There's no other motivation which really stands up. Everything else is some

[41:37]

It comes from some fear or possessiveness. So recognizing what our motivations are, we make them our intention, which covers everything. But giving up Finally, even intention or Buddhism is not necessary. Not because they're not very useful or real, but because you're no longer looking for anything. You no longer supply meaning. You just meet something.

[42:41]

Not knowing what will happen. There's no more moods or something involved. Intention? I don't know what it means. Just find out for yourself. Do you have any motivation or intentions? What could I mean? Why would I make a distinction? I can't explain it exactly. It's up to you to figure it out. Yes? Now, you know, when you do that, sometimes you get hurt. I mean, I know that happened to me. How do you handle that when you get hurt from being, say, open with somebody? It's not important. Well, I have to handle that. Like, say, say, you know, a simple example.

[44:10]

Somebody needs $5, and he doesn't pay me. I'm hurt by it, because I trusted him. And now, sure, $5 is not consequential. But the fact that he betrayed my trust, and this can happen with other incidents. In fact, it happens all the time, where we get hurt because of the shortcoming in the other person that we really didn't expect. How do I handle my reaction? Preventive medicine. I'll explain. His question is excellent. Because it's a very clear example of the problem we all have. But when you lend somebody some money, don't expect anything. Just give it to them. And if they don't pay it back, continue to trust them.

[45:22]

Do you want another five dollars? Oh, that will really embarrass. OK. You know, that's a real thing. I think perhaps I could handle that emotional. But even the material things, I am still angry at someone who didn't give me back twenty dollars in 1958 or 9. I made him promise to give me that twenty dollars back. I'm not really angry anymore, but I remember being angry. I never resolved that problem at the time.

[46:27]

There's another person who's around here who used to call me in the middle of the night. It was incredible. He'd call me up and tell me he was going to burn a building down and he was just about to do it. I'd be sound asleep and I'd lie and talk to him, you know, for three or four hours. Don't burn the building down, come on. And he was always borrowing money from me. I would give him money, and I'd say, I'm giving you this money, but for your sake, you should return it. I don't care, you keep it, but for your sake, you should return it. I think I gave him $20. And several times I gave him money. And other people have loaned him money, too, and had the similar experience Yvonne has. And when I came back from Japan, I'd been back about two weeks, and I went out the door, He's rather short. He was hiding behind the pillar. And I came by and he reached out five dollars and put it in my hand. This was four or five years later. And it was the last of the twenty. He'd given me five three other times. Anyway, we've developed some trust between us.

[47:51]

take a practical point of view, which is, it's really the other person's problem, it's the other person's karma. If they don't pay you the money back or you trust them and they hurt you, it's their problem. So then how do you alleviate their problem, actually? How do you make them feel better about treating you poorly? It's not so important how we feel. But we take a chance because it's the only way. It's the only way that's interesting. Without that, our life is rather dull. How can I put it? Through our practice,

[49:36]

we develop some confidence, maybe some area of familiarity again, and we feel some unconscious activity or some unclear areas in us. And we've developed enough confidence to know actually we're already living with those areas. So we can't find out. It's better to make a mistake and find them out than to just live with them, maybe. So we actually try to do things to expose ourselves. Because, ah, oh, wonderful, there, we just made a fool of ourselves, you know. Or we just, it gives us some chance to act. Until that comes, there's no chance to act. Why was I, why did I get myself in this situation? You can ask. Without the situation you wouldn't see that you

[50:59]

So maybe the way is like I described Suzuki Roshi's interpretation of do not commit adultery, to have the power of the scoundrel, to be able to forget about what you just did and concentrate on what you're about to do. So if something happens to we forget about it and do something next. Sukhirishi used to ... I'm a pretty mild person, and Sukhirishi was a pretty mild person, it seemed, but he was not so mild sometimes. You may know, I've told you before, he used to beat up on various of us occasionally. And it was quite startling. You'd be coming, walking into his office or something, he'd grab you in front of everybody. And often I didn't know what was going on. Sometimes he was angry at me.

[52:28]

Sometimes he was angry at someone else who he was demonstrating. Instead of hitting them, he would hit me for them, so they'd see. And sometimes he was letting me think he was punishing them, punishing me for them, when he was really punishing me. I could never be sure what was going on. It would be clear to everybody he was punishing this person and not me. But later I'd realized, actually, in a more subtle way, I was doing the same thing as the person who made the obvious. I did. Callousness. It was always rather interesting to feel it, you know? What do I do next? I always thought. I didn't mind, actually. Actually, it was nice to get any attention from him. Even something unusual. And often, sometimes just the opposite. When I was quite accurate, you know,

[53:51]

discuss some koan. Someone would ask him some koan and he would discuss it. And I would feel something and I'd go up to him later. What about? Or I'd look for an opportunity and say something out of context and because it was out of context he'd know I was referring to the koan. And sometimes he'd be very rude to me immediately as I did that, walking away. Or he'd tell me he didn't like the way I walked. Many times he told me various ways he didn't like the way I walked, with my arms or just

[54:54]

I didn't understand something because of the way I walked. I wouldn't have noticed, you know, if I hadn't been ready for anything. And because I was ready, he would try something. If I wasn't ready, he wouldn't even try something that I wouldn't have noticed anyway. And many times he tried to communicate to me without my noticing, even though I was trying, I was ready. But this is not true just between teacher and disciple. It's actually true among all of us, where something in us is always reaching out for each person. Yes? Is there that element, you know, when I said getting hurt, okay, is there some element of that in both the right state way

[56:23]

She made a slight comment as he walked away. Is there some of that in there? was a flash of lightning. That's all. We can't say what was in there. It's too late. ISAN raised his whisk. Maybe ISAN could have shouted and TUGSAN could have raised his whisk. They knew each other before they met. So there was no need for them to spend much time. And even if there was some complete disagreement between them about their styles of teaching, they still was

[57:53]

They knew each other before they met and laughed about it. They didn't care. Do you think when the lady made the slighting remark about the monk, he was disturbed? And when Joshu came, do you suppose Joshu was disturbed when she made the slighting remark? There he goes, just like all those other dumb monks. Joshu probably laughed. Yes, exactly. Why shouldn't I be like all the other dumb monks? Do I want to be better than other monks? I'm just a dumb monk. The more we realize we're just dumb monks, the more we can feel something with each other. When I realize you're really talking to me, I have no trouble speaking to you. My great pleasure.

[59:21]

be with you and sit with you. Thank you very much.

[59:35]

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