What do you think? It's still really sunny. Maybe because the weather is still, morning is cold, but the afternoon is sunny. So it feels nice. Early fall. Doesn't rain yet. So in my talk today,

[01:40]

feeling in my talk is to set a tone for it. And what I want to focus on is why we're all here, and how we're all here, and what it is that we're doing together, and how we do it. I was thinking, during practice period... practice period.

[02:44]

What practice period is about is study in emptiness. We talk a lot about Prajnaparamita and emptiness. How do we see emptiness? What's that about? There are various ways to talk about emptiness, but emptiness is interdependence, another word for interdependence. So, in practice period, our world is like a microcosm of a vast world, a little world within the vast world. microcosm of universal life where each thing is interdependent with every other thing.

[03:53]

Each one of us plays a part in this drama called practice period and without all of us It doesn't work because there is no such thing as practice period. There is no such thing as us. But when we come together and decide to practice together and call it practice period, then we have practice period. So, essentially, practice period is empty, has no own being. It's only something that happens because of the various parts working together. Sometimes people say, well, I will come and join the practice period. If you come to join the practice period, what kind of attitude should you have?

[05:02]

Looks like there's a practice period, and I will come and join it. That's one way of looking at it. But actually, when you join practice period, you create practice period. So each one of us is an important element in creating this thing that we call practice period. And each one of us has a certain position. We take a part in this play. Everyone has a different role. But without all of these roles, there's no play. So each role, on one level, is as important as any other role. And on another level, we have hierarchy of roles.

[06:08]

we have the abbot, or the sado, or the director, so forth, all the way through every position. And it looks like a kind of hierarchy of roles. But on this horizontal level, every role is equal. And the way that every role is equal is that because of our interconnectedness and interdependence, if I'm working in the kitchen and I'm functioning in my role completely, then I'm actually making the practice period work. From my position, I'm controlling or Not controlling exactly, but as much as anybody, I'm making this thing work.

[07:23]

If I'm working in a garden and completely functioning in my position, then the whole thing works because of me. If each one of us decides, I won't do this, then ping, [...] we're all out and there's nothing. So there's only something because of each one of us making it so. So this is how we study the interdependent nature of our lives. and emptiness. There's no special form of Zen, but in order to recognize what we're doing and make something happen, we create an occasion.

[08:35]

And in one sense, it's like a puff of wind or a raindrop. But on the other side, it's our life, completely vital and important. So there are two sides to how we participate. One side is to make things happen. And the other side is to let things happen. Some of us are people who like to make things happen, and some of us are people who like to let things happen. But if you're a person who likes to make things happen, then you have to allow yourself to let things happen.

[09:45]

And if you're a person that just likes to let things happen, then you have to train yourself to make things happen. A well-balanced Zen student both drives the practice and follows the practice. So it's wonderful to just allow yourself to float through the practice. Because here it is, you know. Just do what you have to do. And you just float through. That's very passive and wonderful. But it's just one side. The other side is to actually drive the practice. Take responsibility for making it work. So to know when to drive and when to ride is called discernment, discrimination.

[10:57]

On top of our non-discrimination, or right in the midst of our non-discriminating mind, we have to have this kind of discrimination. When to allow someone to move us and when to move someone or something. how to allow the practice to move us and how to actually move the practice. So movers are sometimes called engines and those who are moved are sometimes called boxcars. But sometimes we're an engine and sometimes we're a boxcar. We actually have both, capacity for both. And knowing when to do what when to actually put yourself out there and when to step back, when to step forward and when to step back. Really important to be able to do both and to know the difference and know when to do which one.

[12:03]

My role, actually, I can do various things here. People give me a lot of power. to do a lot of things. But I want to give you a lot of leeway. I don't want to run the practice period. I don't want to tell everybody what to do. Sometimes I step forward and assert myself. And sometimes I step back and allow myself to be moved. So my position of knowing when to step forward and move things and when to step back and be moved is no different than yours. You may think, oh, he's got all the power and I'm just an Indian.

[13:15]

But no one takes your power away from you. You can find absolute satisfaction in your position, wherever you are. How do we do that? Sometimes we feel that we're being held under restraint. Maybe, but practice for us, I think, is to never be at a loss. No matter what circumstance we find ourself in, we always have self-possession.

[14:28]

No matter what the circumstance, we don't lose ourself. This is our practice. And it's personified or finds its great expression in zazen. So as our practice proceeds from zazen, Zazen is our model and our practice throughout the 24 hours. Continuous practice of Zazen. Knowing when to assert and when to be passive. Knowing how to turn things and how to be turned. Knowing when to give, knowing when to receive. and never being pushed off your place by anything. So I would like us to practice in a harmonious way, where we take each other into consideration whenever we do something, to know when we do something, how it affects our surroundings.

[15:51]

This is how we know ourself. Whenever we do something in this community, whatever we do affects everybody else in some way. We may not be able to see how it affects everyone, and we may not notice. Little things don't seem to affect anybody, but there's an effect. big events tend to come to the fore and we can notice them. But as you know, as time goes on, after a month passes by, pretty soon we get to know each other very well. And our actions become more and more effective.

[16:55]

You see how we affect, how whatever we do affects the whole piece of cloth, because it is like a piece of cloth. It's like one piece of cloth. If you pull it this way to straighten it out, then something happens over here. And if you pull it this way to straighten it out, then something happens over here. How do you keep it nice and neat? And it's just like sitting in zazen. Our body is like one piece of cloth. And if you sit up, if you straighten your back up, and it pulls on your thighs, you say, oh, now my thighs hurt. And if you sit back, your thighs don't hurt, but maybe your knees hurt. And if you sit some other way, maybe your back hurts. So how do you adjust it all so that you can really be comfortable, so that all the parts are working in harmony? So this body of people is just like one body sitting zazen in that sense.

[18:01]

And each one of us has responsibility for harmonizing, keeping the whole body in harmony. So once we join the practice period, we are it. When I was in San Francisco, there was a guy who wanted to come down to the practice period. He didn't have enough experience to come. And I was talking to him about some of the reasons why I didn't feel he was ready. And I said, well, you know, when you come down, we want to know that you understand what you're doing so that you won't leave when you see what's happening.

[19:09]

And he said, well, so what if I leave? What's wrong with that? Which proved to me he didn't have enough understanding to come to the practice break. Once we're here, we're here and we become part of the body. The fringes can be a little raw, the edges can be a little raw. Somebody can come and go, but that affects us. Everything affects everybody. We can absorb it. Whatever happens, we can all absorb because we readjust to do that. And it's good when we can do that. with awareness. So the whole body is constantly readjusting to circumstances. I'm not saying that the body shouldn't be affected.

[20:16]

or that we should all be so good that we never disturb each other. That's not right either. We'll never be that good, and we shouldn't have to be that good, that we never disturb each other. And whatever happens, on either side, we should all be able to adjust to whatever happens. But our effort, I would like to see our effort to Have that kind of awareness. That's our mindfulness. One of the controversial subjects we have is, how about talking? Talking is a wonderful way to communicate.

[21:33]

In monastic life, talking is usually held at a minimum because most of our talking is on the surface. We're sitting zazen, of course there's no talking. In the zendo there's no talking. And when we leave the zendo, our effort is to carry our concentrated attention into the rest of the day. That's our effort. And if we start talking immediately after leaving the zendo, It's easy to get carried away by talking. And we lose our concentration.

[22:36]

We lose our concentrated effort. When we have non-verbal communication, if you take one of the senses away, then the other senses get stronger. usually. If you are blind, then your hearing usually becomes very acute. And if you're deaf, your sight gets very acute. When you don't talk, you have to sense your sub-sensory perception becomes more acute. And you tend to hear what's going on around you better and not so distracted, even though we may be talking to ourselves all the time.

[23:40]

That's a distraction, talking to ourselves all the time. But the other side of that is that there is a place for talking. speaking animals, so we don't altogether do away with talking. But there is a time for talking and a time for not talking. And if we observe that, it helps us. Sometime, like yesterday, During the afternoon, I was walking through Tassajara and people were talking, it was word period, people were talking and laughing and having a wonderful time. I thought, gee, how great, how nice it is, you know? It's sunny and wonderful and people are walking and talking. It's really nice, you know? And the other thing that I thought was, but how wonderful to walk through here and not hearing anything.

[24:44]

to feel people's concentrated activity. So there are two sides, you know, and sometimes it's hard to say what we should do. In the past, we've said, no talking, I remember in the old I don't know how it is... I can't remember what we said recently, but in the past, we said, from the time we went to bed, we wouldn't talk until sometime in the morning. The way we have our schedule now, it's not really necessary to do any talking until after lunch. Except, you know, necessary talking. It's really not necessary to hold conversations or to do social talking.

[25:58]

When I say talking, what I'm talking about is social talk. And when I go out the door after leaving Zendo, Lu and I start talking to each other sometimes, you know? And I realize that's not so good. We always have something to say, so I always try to wait until... I don't always do it, but I try to wait until I get to my cabin before we say something, because we always have something to say. And that's a kind of mindful practice for me. to wait until I'm out of earshot of people, not just stopping on the path and talking about something.

[26:59]

Although, you know, I forget, and we all forget. I really feel that it's a definite advantage to us to have this concentrated morning. I think we all like the schedule. I don't know if we all do or not, but what I hear is that we all like the schedule. And we have a wonderfully concentrated morning. And then during our break, we can have some social time. And then during work period, we just work. And then during tea, we have a social time. I thought it might be a good idea to have, since we have dinner, in the dining room to have that kind of a social time. But we opted instead to have tea be a social time.

[27:59]

And instead of dinner. So that's the way that is. So we don't neglect social time. But social time, work is a kind of social time, but it's not a talking social time. It's not when you sit down. It's like when you smoke a cigarette. When you smoke a cigarette, just sit down and smoke a cigarette. To walk around with a cigarette, doing your work, is not our Zen practice. It's okay to smoke. But when you smoke, just smoke. When you work, just work. When you sit sadhana, just sit. That is the heart of our practice. And the wonderful thing about our practice is that it's so simple that we can do one thing at a time.

[29:11]

When you're in the city, city life, It's pretty hard to do one thing at a time. You have too many things going on. But here, at Tassajara, it's quite wonderful. We can do, really do one thing at a time, and really put our whole body in the void, doing something social, when you're not supposed to be, or when you're working. The main thing is to understand that that's what you're doing. If you realize this is working time, but we're doing social time, at least realize it. Because when you forget, then you get carried away. Two words can turn into four words, which turns into a hundred words, a thousand words. And you forget what you're doing because it's so wonderful.

[30:15]

You're in samadhi. You're out there working, and you're in samadhi. And it's so wonderful to get carried away with words in that samadhi. You don't realize what's happening. And it's just a dream, just a big dream. So practice is to wake up from dreaming. And if we continue, if we just kind of continually put ourselves into a dream state, it's not practicing. It's okay to be in a dream state if you know this is a dream. The main thing is to know, what am I doing? This is talking. This is dreaming. This is being awake. So we constantly come back to being awake. Nobody will punish you

[31:16]

if you fall into having a conversation during work. But somebody may say something if they feel disturbed by it. One thing that we should be mindful of is not disturbing other people or intruding on someone's space. Because if we are all working during work, and you come and start a conversation, it's an intrusion into that person's space. And a guy like me, when you start talking to me, I'll just sit there and listen to you. I don't say, shut up, or don't you know we're supposed to be working or something? I just let you talk to me. I'm having to be a polite kind of person. My father brought me up to be polite. But actually, what I want to say is, stop it.

[32:18]

And I usually don't. But I'm not saying that you should never do that. Because you can't help it. The problem is, or the fact of the matter is that you can't help getting into conversations during work time and other times when it's not the thing to do. I don't want to say not supposed to, but not the thing to do. But at that time, it's really good to be aware of what you're doing. That's the main thing. Always be aware of what you're doing, what's going on. Then you have the ability to start or stop it. You have some control in the situation. And you yourself should be the boss of each situation.

[33:24]

You shouldn't be controlled by the situation. So each one of us has equal opportunity to practice. And my position is, in my position I have certain things to do. In your position, you have certain things to do. And the things we do are different, but there's a wonderful equality about it, in that if you do all the things that you have to do, you'll be completely satisfied. If I do all the things that I have to do, I'll be completely satisfied. And it's not that the things I have to do are better than the things you have to do. They're just different things. Maybe you have some questions?

[34:45]

What about the time between dinner and study? It's starting to get dark and cold and lonely and afraid. Well, I think that My feeling is, although I have to check this out with people, I can't say what it should be, but my feeling is that it can be a quiet social time. I think there's a difference between when everybody gets together, that's one kind of social time. Another kind of social time is when people are more, less people together in one place, and more quiet kind of social time. I would think that would be appropriate. At that time of day, the apes of the Barbary Coast come together and moan in their caves. And then when the dark comes, they go ahead and do their thing.

[35:51]

But that one time I think was evidently a universal experience in that time of day. I can remember the sun going down by whaling. Sunset. I have a certain kind of lonely feeling that happens then. But anyway, I would say it's a nice time for quiet socializing. One of the things I notice about living in a small community of people is that there's a tendency to criticize other people as part of the talking.

[37:01]

I don't exactly know what to do about it. Well, I think that everyone here is beyond criticism, so I don't see any reason to do that. I certainly will try not to. Yes, I will too. Sometimes I think about, you know, we think about how everybody, everybody's false. And if you think about it, there's nobody that doesn't have all, if you start to think about what's wrong with each person here, you know, You just keep going on and on about their faults. I'd rather think about that everybody is just the way they are and try to relate to them just as they are.

[38:11]

That's what I try to do. Just relate to each person as they are. Not try to change anybody. particularly. Sometimes you want to. But I find that more effective, actually. Just respect everybody for who they are. To at least make that effort. Sometimes people say, well, just look at the good side of the person, or just ignore the bad side, the so-called bad side. But that's pretty hard. That's kind of ignoring something. I think seeing all sides of a person and accepting them as they are is more realistic.

[39:14]

And also, you may not like them. You don't have to like them. And soon we'll have a new Shuso. I can't remember exactly the date of Shuso, I haven't raised her money, but I feel very encouraged by this Shuso, Vicky. And I feel that she really sets a wonderful example for all of us, seeing She's had a lot of difficulty in her life and still maintains great effort.

[40:31]

So please help her, and I'm sure that she'll encourage all of us. Let her help you. Jai Gurudev!

[41:02]

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