I am the creation of your Lord, God of the worlds. Good morning. There will be various people sitting up here during Soji's absence. And next week it will be Meili. The week after that, it will be Leslie James, who's the current president of San Francisco Zen Center. She's been giving lectures for a year or two, but she's never lectured here. And then the last one will be Norman Fisher. A lot of people know he started out as a student of Mel's a long, long time ago. He was at Greenbelch for many years as a priest. And then he went to New York to practice at the Convention of New York for a year or two with his family.

[01:04]

And they came back to Green Gulch a few months ago. But he hasn't been here for a long time either. And then the last weekend of the month we'll take it off, right before Sashi. And what I'd like to talk about today is way-seeking mind. We've been talking about way-seeking mind for a long time in Monday morning talks, from a kind of a biographical point of view, how our way-seeking mind led us to this place or this practice, how our individual life path led us to this path of the Buddhas and the patriarchs. What I'd like to talk about is what is the way and what is seeking and what is mind.

[02:09]

Dogen said the way is basically or fundamentally perfect and all-pervading. So why do we have to practice? In Japanese, apparently, there's a little phrase that comes before this first phrase in the Fukanzo Zengi and it means something like, after searching exhaustively the way is basically perfect and all-pervading but they leave that out in all the English translations and Maezumi Roshi says it's because it's a kind of a formula and people, the translators feel it's not translatable but he thinks that's maybe a mistake. And if you think about that, putting it first, after searching exhaustively, the way is basically perfect. It's a little different. We find, after searching exhaustively, the way is basically perfect and all-pervading.

[03:18]

But still, our search isn't over. even if we do find that the way is basically perfect and all-pervading. The way that he's talking about is the Tao or the Truth, the way things are. And this way exists whether we happen to find it or not, whether we happen to notice it or not, or discover it or not. This is the way of way-seeking minds. mind that seeks the truth and some way to be in accord with the truth. And practicing the way means behaving in accord with the fundamental truth. The famous Rinzai master Bunen said, awakening to the way is pretty easy but accomplishing practical application is what's so difficult.

[04:21]

actually awakening to the way isn't all that easy. But I think he's right that accomplishing practical application is what's really the most difficult for most of us. We may feel that we've searched exhaustively to find this and we may have some period of feeling that we found something but even after we get settled in our practice and or particularly after we get settled in our practice our search or our seeking should really just be beginning EQ said that what we're searching for is the source of our own mind.

[05:28]

Actually not all of us are searching for the source of our own mind. Not everybody comes to practice to search for the source of their own mind. Classically there are four levels of aspiration in Zen students. There are people who just kind of happen on it kind of wander in. And a lot of us are like that. And there are people who do zazen because it makes them feel good or it's good for their health or their state of mind. There are people who practice because they believe in Buddhism or the exalted nature of the Buddha way. And there are people who practice out of some determination to realize their true nature. Actually, we're all operating at a different level, often at the same time.

[06:34]

But in many schools, if you go to talk to a teacher, one of the first things the teacher will ask you is, which category do you fall into? And will teach you according to how you classify yourself. but I'll be talking about determination to realize our true nature as the reason for practice or the kind of aspiration. And one of my favorite way-seeking mind stories is the story of Banke who was a a Rinzai teacher and when he was a small kid I guess in school they taught him Confucianism and there was a concept called bright virtue which caught his fancy and he wanted to know what bright virtue was and he asked all his teachers and his teachers didn't give him answers that he liked very much and it really bothered him that they didn't seem to know what bright virtue was and he wanted

[07:54]

he felt he needed to know. And he went on a search for many years, 20 or 25 years, going all over the country. He started out as a boy of about 12, asking various people, what is bright virtue? And the best answer he got was something like, bright virtue is the intrinsic nature of good in each person or their fundamental nature. And that didn't satisfy him either. He really wanted to know what that was. And he did all kinds of practices and austerities and very much like Buddha. And he ended up getting pretty sick and pretty discouraged. And one day, He had tuberculosis and one day he was very sick and weak and he coughed up a big glob of blood and splattered on the wall and he saw his true nature.

[08:59]

If you can really get to your fundamental nature, it is said you should treat it as if you were raising an infant. if that requires that kind of care and feeding. You don't just find it, you know, and put it in the drawer. All these stories that they tell about the teachers that suffered and struggled and finally they found it, it makes it sound as if once you find it, you find it, and then it's not a problem anymore. That's kind of literary fiction. It's not really the way it is. And sometimes you read another point of view which talks about continuous practice. And it's continuous practice that we emphasize. But the continuousness of practice isn't just, you know, getting here and sitting and

[10:13]

doing what you're supposed to do, that's real important, but that's not all there is. There's got to be something fueling that, you know, what is it? And that's way-seeking mind, and that's seeking has to be renewed. And if seeking is renewed constantly, then that kind of pain and suffering and struggle that Banki went through and we all go through is also constantly renewed. it means there really isn't much of any place to rest. Once Bodhi mind is awakened it kind of has to go to work or it goes back to sleep and has to be awakened again. Either way our task is to figure out how to keep moving. The mind that we talk about as way-seeking mind is again the mind of the way.

[11:20]

It's just a circular kind of a statement. Big mind, the mind of the truth, the mind that includes everything. What we think of as our practice begins when our individual life path meets up with the universal way, the way of living in accord with the great reality. But always we have our individual life and our small mind and our little concerns, and always that's part of the great reality, but we don't always see it that way. And if we continue to live our uniquely individual life and really appreciate it and practice together, our life gradually expands and our view switches and we can see the universal side of it.

[12:24]

Sometimes we see the path or a practice, the path is kind of like a... I used to think of the path as just kind of like, you know, a path or a road, a freeway, you know, it goes from here to there, wherever there is, and Sometimes Suzuki Roshi quotes someone or describes it himself as the path is like a railroad track that goes for thousands of miles, one track, single-minded way. And that's kind of a useful analogy for some things. And if you see the path as a track or a road, you know, you can kind of see yourself as like driving your car down the road, And various things happen when you drive your car down the road. Sometimes your car stalls right in the middle of an intersection. Sometimes you get in a traffic jam. The traffic jams that we get into are the circumstances of our life.

[13:31]

And all the various circumstances of our life that make it hard for us to do whatever it is we want to do. Those circumstances, those traffic jams, are places where we slow down and it looks like nothing's happening and we have a chance to do something. We can let nothing happen or we can look at what's coming at us. What is this traffic jam made of? What do you do when you get in a regular traffic jam? You know, do you sit there and grit your teeth? And I do that a lot. There are other options. And the same is true with the traffic jams, the bigger traffic jams in our life. Sometimes things go kind of okay,

[14:37]

And we just kind of want to coast. Just kind of want to put the car in neutral and coast. And... it's okay. It can be dangerous. You can do a big hill and you're coasting. But when you're just coasting, what are you doing? Are you looking at the view? Are you... paying attention. It's hard to coast without kind of disengaging. Mostly we have to stay, we have to keep our gears engaged in order to keep moving. We can't really coast for very long and we lose it. We have to... And then getting back in gear, you know, sometimes there's a kind of... It's not so easy. One of the things that really interests me is how do we stay engaged and how do we keep seeking and not get stuck and get unstuck when we do get stuck.

[15:52]

On the one hand, there's nowhere to go and nothing to gain and we don't have to do anything. And on the other hand, we have to keep moving. When we get discouraged sometimes it's because we've been engaged in a kind of gaining idea or trying to get somewhere in an attached kind of way. But when we get stuck, you know, sometimes it comes from complacency or forgetting that we have to, you know, that we have to keep seeking.

[17:01]

So even though there's nothing to seek, we have to keep seeking. So one side, you know, one side of seeking is kind of gaining idea, and another side of seeking is what Suzuki Roshi called inmost request, our deep desire to know our true nature. In Sandokai it says, to be attached to things, this is delusion, but just to understand that all is one is not enough. That means not taking anything for granted. It means investigating. What is this? All the time. What is this? What is this? Is this the way?

[18:04]

Is this my way? Is this the way of the Buddhas? How did these things fit together? If we really question deeply and continually, we'll periodically become very confused and very disturbed. And we should become confused and disturbed. If we're not confused and disturbed deeply from time to time, we're not we're not doing our homework. I'd like to read you a piece of a T.S. Eliot poem which I think describes very well confusion as the way.

[19:12]

In order to arrive there, to arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, you must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know, you must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. In order to possess What you do not possess, you must go by the way of dispossession. In order to arrive at what you are not, you must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know. And what you own is what you do not own. And where you are is where you are not. Where you are is where you are not.

[20:23]

Can you be there? It's not very comfortable. Feel that. Know it. It's scary. Know your separateness and your aloneness and your fear. You don't have to get stuck there. But you do have to know it. Because your fear and my fear and our problems and our pain are the fear and the problems and pain of all life.

[21:36]

Take your questions and your doubts very seriously and then look into the eyes of your friends and the people on the street, and your teachers, and the people who are giving you a hard time. Can you see your problems and your questions in their eyes? And can you see them through their eyes? When we get stuck is sometimes when we feel that our problem is unique and unsolvable because our circumstances and our needs are so special, and they are. But they are also the way unfolding.

[22:48]

Our life is unfolding just like a rose or just like a flower but some of us are roses and some of us are daisies and some of us are dandelions and we have to know our nature. If a rose wants to be a daisy it's a big problem. So sometimes we think, oh gosh, I'm just a dandelion. Those other folks, they're the roses. It's better to be a rose. That's not necessarily knowing your nature. That's seeing something and putting a label on it. In order to accept even the possibility that your problem is part of the universal problem.

[23:58]

You have to let go of part of the armor that builds up your uniqueness. And even a little chink in that armor, even just a little, you don't have to give it up all at once. Just kind of look around the corner of it. Then you can let your problem grow and let it include other people and more. You can let it build so it becomes part of a bigger question and a bigger doubt. Big doubt is part of big mind, it's the other side of big faith. And the deeper your question goes, the more you allow it to include, the deeper your confusion will be and the greater your pain will be, until you become just a mass of doubt,

[25:23]

and confusion. That's when things really begin to clear. But for a while you may feel that you're walking around like a, kind of like a raw nerve. That's what Zazen is about. And that's what Sashin is about. That's why we talk about sitting still and not moving even when it hurts. It's not about being a samurai. It's not about masochism. It's a way of describing how to get through those deeply confusing and troubling times in life. What sits still when everything is in confusion?

[26:27]

What is it that's constant when everything is changing? We express that with our body in zazen but that's not the thing. Zazen is maybe the purest or the easiest or the best way to express whatever that is, but it's not the thing. The teachings and the rituals and all that stuff points at whatever that is that doesn't move. But even Zazen isn't it. Adjusting our posture moment after moment, expresses our commitment not to take sides, this side, that side, but just to see through the sides, just to be in the center.

[27:49]

but still the storm will rage around us and then the sun will shine. The path isn't just like a freeway and our life doesn't just go in one direction. When I realized that, I thought that it was just because my life was so confused that it didn't go in one direction. My life seems to me more like, instead of like a ball of yarn that just unwinds and goes somewhere, more like a lot of thread all going in different directions.

[28:54]

And sometimes all I see is the end. One pointing that way, one pointing that way, one pointing that way. But actually they all come from one source. And sometimes that's more comforting to think of the path in a more circular or less linear way because that's also true. I think what's hardest for most of us is to not choose sides, to not choose to believe in our doubt and forget our faith.

[29:59]

or believe in our faith and forget our doubt, to believe in our solution and forget our problem. Whenever we're aware of one side, the other side is always there, whatever the other side is. And if you're not aware of the other side, try and think about what it might be. It's not necessary to be aware of both sides at once, when it comes time to make a decision or to act it's important to take the other side into account even though at first and at times you may just be doing it in your head but that's what balance is about and that's why we put so much emphasis on sitting up straight Sitting up straight is like integrating the opposites and making them part of our moment-to-moment life.

[31:11]

All the various opposites that make up our life and that make up our personality and our experience. So it's a constant effort and as far as I know it never gets really done. but moment after moment and day after day we just keep working on it. Maybe you want to ask some questions or talk about something? Well, personally, for you, what inspires you and what demoralizes you? Same thing. Anger inspires me and it demoralizes me.

[32:24]

And sometimes it inspires me and sometimes it demoralizes me, usually not both at the same time. And doubt inspires me and it demoralizes me. So I usually go through some stages with it. Usually the... the anger or the energy side comes first. The belief in whatever it is that I'm angry about comes first or the belief a kind of energy in my doubt. I think one of the things that has energized and inspired me, and I see this in a lot of other people, is that I'll have some doubt or some question about

[33:43]

some aspect of the practice. I used to really hate the ritual and the bowing and the service and stuff like that. And I hated it so bad and it bothered me so much that I couldn't for a long time come. I would faint during service with some regularity or I'd get really nauseous and I'd have to just crawl out. That was just kind of one manifestation of a kind of real fundamental doubt about what was this practice really about? And it took various forms. And I still have a lot of doubt and real basic questions about what we're doing with the forms.

[34:47]

And the way I would phrase those questions isn't so different from the way I would have phrased them 15, 16 years ago actually. What's different is that I don't feel quite as attached to any particular view of what to do about it. And I see in a lot of people doubt coalescing around some often very accurately perceived flaw in the way the practice is being run or the way it's being taught or the way it has been transmitted to us. But together with that is some very personal partial view of what what to do about it to make me comfortable.

[35:51]

And once we let go of what to do about it to make me comfortable, then there's some clarity to that question. And that question, that's when the question becomes part of the big universal question and it's not just my question and my problem. I used to have some feelings about literature that just would have been interesting. And it wasn't indulgent as much as you describe.

[36:58]

And it's come to be better and better, I can't say why. But I noticed that after sitting there all night, the frustration felt good, you know, it relieved my back. And it struck me that poor Richard was kind of a kindness to me. And that feeling about it, you know, Well, one reason why the change occurred was that you didn't build too big a fortress around your not liking it, your dislike of it.

[38:08]

The more we build up a fortress around what we like or we don't like, then the harder it is for a sense for it to change, you know, because it's like a Like a wall. I'm going to talk about, what is this in the middle? I'm going to try it. All along from the first to the second century to the level of, describe yourself as having gone through a dry pygmy. And she was talking about 20 years. Or I want to know about hopelessness and business about being confused and disturbed. I think I understand a little of that. But I've got this uncomfortable suspicion that if you know there's life at the end of the tunnel, there isn't. I find that very discouraging. You know there's light at the end of the tunnel.

[39:25]

Are you ready to plunge into the darkness? Nobody will make you go. I think that that state is particularly well described by some of the Christian mystics, and I'm just beginning to read them. I mean, great expectations lead to big disappointments. It's such an obvious one. If you have any type of medication student or practice of anything, you just watch your mind and you just concretely watch your big expectations. the more you build on that expectation, and then you just wait, and you'll see some big disappointment, inevitably.

[40:38]

Eventually. Sometimes not, but most of the time, there's some kind of thought karma to that. And the other thing, I was thinking of re-seeking mining. One time in my life, And how for about three years I didn't practice at all. And I thought sin was very far away from me. And I thought I'd never practice actually, not until I was an old man. And that was my attitude at the time. And how it came back on me more and more gradually. But how for me to be so in the middle of it at one time and then just totally leave it behind. It was a very strong karma period of my life.

[41:47]

Actually, I quit sitting for four or five years, more or less entirely, and I felt that it just wasn't relevant to my life at all. But if I look back at that time, at least for me, it was a time I don't think I've ever practiced harder. I didn't sit, and I didn't do anything formal, but I sure did struggle with whatever it was. It didn't... the question didn't stop questioning me. It didn't let up. And eventually I came back to this form of it. I think actually it's pretty... Once you get... Once you start asking the question, it's very hard to stop. Once you start practicing, it's very hard to stop. Even though you may not practice in a formal way. Do you think that... Part of my question is, at least for myself, I don't know if I could have done what I was doing to live out this certain karma in this relationship I was in and where I was going.

[43:21]

I don't think I could have done it if I was sitting at the same time. I had to go through some unconscious stuff with outside of me at that time in my life. Does that appear to go for you also? Well, I think we all have various things that we have to do and we just do them in whatever way, you know, we do them. But I think it's, I just, for me, I think just the main thing is not to be fooled by the idea that when you're sitting, you're practicing, and when you're not sitting, you're not practicing. You can be sitting and not practicing, and you can be practicing and not sitting. It has to do with the quality of attention you're paying to your life, you know. And I think it's that quality of attention that's really important. It's really important to me. Liz? I wanted to put in maybe a word for the light at the end of the tunnel.

[44:24]

It's an interesting question always to think about because if you are really greedy about the light at the end of the tunnel, of course you're in trouble. But I do think that Buddhism is quite optimistic about the light at the end of the tunnel. as long as you're engaged in the way that you just described, as long as the question is really there, and you're willing to keep working. There are many descriptions of many different ways to work, but they all are quite optimistic. And so the fourth and final level of truth is that there really is a way to combat it. So it's maybe that the light is really in the tunnel. Bob? I was thinking as you were talking about ways to unwind, I think I sit because sometimes when I'm sitting I can feel at home, just kind of comfortable with myself, with my life, that it's okay.

[45:38]

for that reason, to get that feeling, even though it doesn't always come. Maybe other people don't have this difficulty so much of feeling sort of lost. That's a way of Who's the cook at Zanzibar who's published so many other books? Ed Brown. Ed Brown. I bought his latest cookbook, and he has these little poems interspersed with the recipes. One of the poems talks about being at home in a universe that was not what he was making. That's the way I feel sometimes, like it's a very strange and hostile and nervous, confused world. for me to somehow cope with my own confusion, nervousness, and sense of being lost, I use Zazen.

[46:52]

So Zazen is like a way of accepting the unacceptable, or finding acceptance. That's kind of an intellectual way. formulation of it, which is probably right, but for me it's the feeling. I think we all want that feeling of being at home with ourself. I think sometimes I think that in other times, like when I was very small, which was just the early 1950s, late 1940s. The world was different. This country was different. And it was maybe easier for people to feel at home and feel comfortable with themselves, with their neighborhood, and so forth. And since then, I think things have become more, some of the social structure has broken down and it's a little bit harder to feel at home.

[48:02]

Maybe it's a lot harder to feel at home. But I think it's something we all need very much. And without it, it doesn't really matter what we think about. a fancy house, or what you like is not going to happen. You should read the Windhoek article by your friend, who's actually a doctor. I will, I've got it. Thanks, Tony. I was thinking, when you were talking about the storms raging all around us, I did also remember the wonderful quote from Saint-Exupéry where he said, life is like stepping on a ship which is about to sail out to sea and sink.

[49:07]

He had a lot of reassuring analogies like that. Another one that I always liked was that life was like one continuous mistake. I didn't want to throw in my light at the end of the tunnel, the freight train approaching. Within the light there is darkness. But do not be caught by that darkness, because in the darkness there is light. But don't be fooled by that light. Light and darkness are a pair like the foot before and the foot behind and walking.

[50:12]

One foot after another. Thank you very much. Shreem Brzee.

[50:32]

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