You know, Master Dogen had a statement. He said, a Zen master's life could be one continuous mistake. Can you hear me? In the back? It's not going on. a term which you're probably familiar with, gyoji. Gyoji means continuous practice. So actually, a Zen master's life is continuous practice. But Dogen says it could be one continuous mistake.

[01:03]

So we never take anything like that literally, you know. particularly because he uses words in an ambiguous way or to express the opposite of what the term is saying. easily say, or you could just as easily say, a Zen Master's life is one continuous practice, or one continuous practice of enlightenment, which actually is probably the same thing, because he can use the word mistake to mean something great. And we're always mistaking something in our life. We don't always realize that

[02:05]

The difficulties we have, or the mistakes we make, are great opportunities for our practice. So one of the mistakes that we make is we think that enlightenment is some big event, a dramatic event. And so we, even though we know, or we were told it is, It's like, it's been likened to standing in the middle of the river and saying, I'll find the water someday. Master Esan said, it's like walking in a fog.

[03:09]

Little by little, your clothes get wet without realizing it. So this word enlightenment can be a big problem for us. But it's a good problem. Enlightenment refers to light, of course. Why else would we call it enlightenment? Illumination. So when we practice Azen, We practice silent illumination. Zazen is called silent illumination. This is Funger's definition, or the way he expressed it, and Dogen took that up and called it Shikantaza. Shikantaza is just this.

[04:14]

Just doing. without anything extra, without worrying about it. So, one continuous mistake, that's a good koan, a life could be. The life of a Zen master could be one continuous mistake. Suzuki Roshi talks about enlightenment. I would say that to discover the profound within the ordinary is enlightenment. We're always looking for something else. activity.

[05:19]

I get up in the morning, that's just ordinary. I'm sleepy, that's just ordinary. I go to the bathroom, take a leak, that's just ordinary. Put on my clothes, rub my eyes. That's all ordinary activity. We just do it all the time. So what's the big deal? The big deal is we don't appreciate our life as enlightenment. We don't appreciate the light of our life. To find the extraordinary within the ordinary is meaningful, but we ignore the ordinary and look for the extraordinary.

[06:27]

And so everything else becomes ordinary or gray. And that was the one thing that was wonderful. That's not an enlightenment experience. That's a delusionary experience. Because you compare it with all the rest of your life as being better than what you experience in your daily activity. The most mundane activity that you experience in your life is the most extraordinary thing in the world. But we don't appreciate it. Whatever happens to us is a doorway to realization. There's something called the gateless gate, the mumbankan, the gateless gate. The gate is no gate at all. You can enter anywhere.

[07:41]

You can enter into enlightenment anywhere, within the activity, at any time. But we have this barrier. Someday I'll experience enlightenment. The Big Bang Theory. So Suzuki Roshi says, in our practice, the most important thing is to realize that we have Buddha nature. The most important thing is to realize that we have Buddha nature. Intellectually, we may know this, but it may be difficult to accept. Our everyday life is in the realm of good and bad, the realm of duality. Well, buddhanature is found in the realm of the absolute, where there is no good or bad, and so there is a two-fold reality.

[08:51]

The two-fold reality is the ordinary, dualistic activity in which we find our life, and then the other reality, which is The reality where there is no good or bad, or no right or wrong. The absolute reality. Absolute reality and ordinary reality. What we call ordinary. But they're not two different things. They're just two aspects of the same thing. So there is a two-fold reality. It's called the two truths, actually. Objective and subjective. Our practice is to go beyond the realm of good and bad and realize the absolute. And it may be difficult to understand. So Hashimoto Roshi, a very famous Zen master, actually, who Katagiri Roshi studied with, who passed away in 1965, said that the way we Japanese cook

[10:06]

separately. They have the rice here, the pickles here, the tofu there, and so forth. It's all, all those ingredients are separate. We mix everything together. We have a stew. We like to put things together. So, the soup, the rice, the pickles, and everything, all get mixed up. But when you put them in your tummy, you don't know which is which. It all gets mixed up. The soup, the rice, the pickles, they all get mixed up. And this is the world of the absolute, where everything loses its individuality and becomes one. It will be transformed, changing its chemical nature, and will permeate our whole body.

[11:13]

In the process, it dies within our body. But actually, to eat and digest food is natural to us, as we are always changing. The organic process is called emptiness. The reason we call it emptiness is that it has no special form. It has some form, but that form is not permanent. While it is changing, it carries on our life energy. So, this is related to birth and death. We are all chemically organized, fundamentally organized. nature is continuously changing, and we call it birth and death. It just changes. Nothing is permanent, and everything is continually transforming.

[12:20]

So the realm of transformation is where we live, and it's called the dualistic world because we say good and bad, right and wrong, without being attached to good and bad and right and wrong, like and dislike, shouldn't be, shouldn't be, then we can express enlightenment, or allow enlightenment to be expressed through us. Because there's no hindrance. the chemical nature of food being digested in our tummies.

[13:30]

So Zen practice is mixing up the various ways we have of understanding and letting them all work together. A kerosene lamp will not work merely because it is filled with kerosene. It also needs air or combustion. And even with air, it needs matches. By the aid of matches, air and kerosene, the lamp will work. So all these ingredients are necessary for something to actually happen. Nothing happens by itself. So when we understand that nothing happens by itself, we realize that Although I have the feeling of individuality, I really don't work without all of the elements around me, which are surrounding me. To realize this is an enlightened understanding. So when we know how to harmonize with all the elements that create not only our surroundings but ourselves,

[14:48]

dramatic experience, but sometimes you do. It's great to have a dramatic experience, as long as the experience is not in the realm of comparative values. Because if you have a big experience and you see the experience you had in contrast to your normal experience as being better, That's not enlightenment. You understand? No. Sorry. So even in the same way, even though you may say, I have buddhanature, that alone is not enough to make it work. If you do not have a friend or a sangha, it won't work. When we practice with the aid of the Sangha, helped by Buddha, we can practice zazen in this true sense.

[16:03]

We will have a bright light here in the zendo and in our daily life. So, our enlightenment is not just our individuality. It's how our enlightenment is brought forth through our collective understanding. There are six types of Zen. There's the Zen of Kojigoku, which is, in order to get some position, it's called the Zen of Hell. It's when you really want something so bad that you allow yourself... Japanese priests monastery and they don't want to sit Zazen, they are only interested in gaining some position in the temple.

[17:06]

So they go through the hell of the monastery by sitting Zazen. It's called sitting Zazen because if you don't want to sit Zazen and you have to do it, it's called hell. trying to get something called enlightenment. And you know that it's some big experience. And you just keep seeking it and seeking it and seeking it. It's called lusting after enlightenment. And the more you lust after it, the further away it goes from you. Because there's not something you can get like that. It's something you already have. And then is the Zen of competing with others for Satori.

[18:13]

Satori is like an enlightenment experience. In Japan, the monks sometimes do that and compete to see who can, you know, And then there's the Zen of self-improvement, which is, these are mistakes, of course. These are all mistakes. Then there's the hermit Zen, which is somebody reads books on Zen, and they get some little knowledge, and then they sit around with their friends and expound their knowledge to impress people. But they never come to the Siddhas, These are all mistakes. And then there's the domestic animals then, which is mostly in Japan, you know, where somebody will go into the monastery in order to be safe.

[19:23]

Domestic, like a dog, you know, will hang around in order to eat. One time we asked Katagiri Roshi, why did you How come you became a monk? What motivated you to become a monk? Oh, because I like the food at the monastery. Of course, don't take that literally. So, Suzuki Roshi says, to have a so-called enlightenment experience is, of course, important. It's good. But we should have an enlightenment experience moment by moment. Every moment should be an enlightenment experience. All of your experience should be an enlightenment experience. There's no need to go seeking for an enlightenment experience. The experience you're having right now, listening to me, is an enlightenment experience. You just don't know it. So to have a so-called enlightenment experience is of course important, but what is more important is to know how to adjust the flame.

[20:36]

He's talking about the kerosene lamp. He likes to talk about the kerosene lamp because in Tassajara, we used to have kerosene lamps. We didn't have any electricity. And so when you turn up the kerosene lamp too much, it blackens the chimney and flames up. So you have to adjust it so that the flame is just right and there's harmony and balance in all the factors. So harmony and balance in all the factors gives you wonderful light. And you can read by it, you can see by it, and it works for you. So adjusting the flame is called practice. Not too much, not too little, just right. And we have to keep adjusting it all the time because everything is always changing. So how do we adjust to the changes moment by moment? This is enlightened activity, to be able to be aware, mindful, to continually adjust and be awake to adjusting to all the changes that are going on, that are more than we are aware of.

[22:06]

So when the flame is in complete combustion, But when it's not in complete combustion, it causes a stinky lamp, stinky light. When it's smoky, you will smell something. You may realize that it is a kerosene lamp. When your life is in complete combustion, you have no complaint, and there is no need to be aware of your practice. This is advanced practice. If we talk too much about Zazen, but maybe I'm a very smoky kerosene lamp. I don't necessarily want to give a lecture. I just want to live with you, moving stones, having a nice hot spring bath, and eating something good. Zen is right there. Just doing what you're doing, completely without being smoky.

[23:12]

When I start to talk, it's already a smoky kerosene lamp. As long as I must give a lecture, I have to explain, this is right practice, this is wrong, this is how to practice, blah, blah. It's like giving you a recipe, but it's not a recipe. It doesn't work. You can't eat a recipe. So it's just pointing and hinting and, you know, being aware and adjusting to circumstances This is what we call emptiness. If we are full of ourself, we have no flexibility. So flexibility is the key to everything. To be able to move in the right direction according to circumstances. If you think, I'm enlightened, you're stuck there.

[24:22]

And you can't move according to... You can't allow yourself to be... And so, you get a fatal blow. So usually a Zen master will say, practice Zazen, then you will attain enlightenment. If you attain enlightenment, you will be detached from everything. You will see things as it is. Of course, this is true, but our way is not always like that. We are studying how to adjust the flame of our lamp back and forth. Dogen Zenji makes this point in the Shobo Genzo. His teaching is to live each moment in complete combustion like a lamp or a candle. And this is the point of his teaching and his practice. So Zazen practice is a very subtle thing.

[25:24]

When you practice Zazen, you become aware of things you did not notice while you were working. Today, I moved stones for a while. I was working with him then. And I didn't realize that my muscles were tired. But when I was completely calmly sitting Zazen, I realized, oh, my muscles are in pretty bad condition. If I felt some pain in the various parts of my body, you might think you could practice Zazen much better if you had no problem. But actually, some problem is necessary. It doesn't have to be a big one, though. Through the difficulty you have, you can practice Zazen. Without a problem, you can't practice. You may think, I have no problem. This is called the world of problems. When we enter this Saha world, it's called the world of problems.

[26:26]

And we always have, not just one, but many problems. But we're always dealing with something coming up moment by moment. Just walking out the door, we have a problem. We have the problem of what's going on out there. And then we have to adjust to it. So this is stuff we don't think about a lot, but because we don't think about it, we just think, oh, this is just the usual stuff. meaningful point, which is why Dogen Zenji says, practice and enlightenment are one. Practice is something you do consciously, something you do with effort. And there, right there, is enlightenment.

[27:28]

Through your effort to practice, enlightenment is there. So, Gyoji, which is continuous practice, means that you live an enlightened life. sitting zazen on a cushion. Everything we do is practice. So genjo koan, meaning of genjo koan, is how your practice develops after you leave the cushion. The biggest part of our life takes place off of the cushion. If you think practice is just being on a cushion, then what about the rest of your life? The important thing is that there's no difference between sitting on the cushion and walking down the street. But they're two different activities. But they're two different activities with the same basis, which is Buddha nature.

[28:34]

Many Zen masters exists in this world. Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there, in the imperfection, is perfect reality. It is true intellectually and also in the realm of practice. It is true on paper and true with our body. You may think that you can only establish true practice after you attain enlightenment, but that's not so. True practice is established in delusion and in frustration. If you make some mistake, that is where you establish your practice. There is no other place for you to establish your practice. So we establish our practice on each moment, in each activity.

[29:40]

This is Gyoji, continuous practice. You establish your practice in our delusion. That's where practice takes place. It's in the field of delusion. Enlightened practice takes place in the field of delusion. So don't worry. Don't worry. We talk about enlightenment, but in its true sense, perfect enlightenment is beyond our understanding. is beyond our experience. Even in our imperfect practice, enlightenment is there. We just don't know it. So the point is to find the true meaning of practice before we attain enlightenment. Wherever you are, enlightenment is there. If you stand up right where you are, that is enlightenment. Without knowing who you are,

[30:48]

Without knowing where you are or who you are, you stand up. Here I am. This is called, I don't know Zazen. We don't know what Zazen is anymore. I don't know who I am. To find complete composure when you don't know who you are or where you are, that is to accept things as it is. That's practice. You think you know where you are or who you are, So, even though you don't know who you are, you accept yourself. This is you in its true sense. When you know who you are, that you will not be the real you.

[31:53]

You may overestimate yourself quite easily. That is enlightenment. It's called humility. Humility, in my understanding, means knowing exactly who you are. You don't think too much of yourself, and you don't think too little of yourself. You don't think, I am great, when you're not. And you don't think, I am no good, when you're not. You just accept wrong. It's just as it is. That's enlightenment, to see things as it is, without adding anything or taking anything away. I think our teaching is very good, but if we become arrogant and believe in ourselves too much, we'll be lost.

[33:10]

There will be no teaching and no Buddhism at all. When we find the joy of our life in our composure, we don't know what it is, and we don't understand anything, then our mind is very great and very wide. Don't know mind is, that's what Sun Tzu-lin used to say, don't know mind, just go straight. So, this is true here. And it means that we turn ourselves over to the universe, basically, because we're always relying on the universe. But we substitute, you know, because we don't trust or have faith in our universal nature, our Buddha nature, we invent all kinds of ways to protect ourselves. But if we simply give ourselves over to our true nature, I don't know is true knowing, actually.

[34:24]

I don't know is true knowing, because it's a big mind that knows. But we substitute, you know. Small mind is... Big mind expresses itself through small mind. So when we allow big mind to do that, we can trust ourself. Because we know that the universe is actually taking care of us when we allow it to. The Bible says something about the birds of the field. So our mind is open to everything, so it is big enough to know before we know something. We are grateful even before we have something. Even before we attain enlightenment, we are happy to practice our way. Otherwise, we can't attain anything in its true sense. So we simply practice for the sake of practice.

[35:29]

And we let practice. Practicing for the sake of practice means to turn ourselves over to Big Mind. to our universal nature. Things may not go the way we'd like, but do they ever? Sometimes, yes. You know, for someone who doesn't believe in themselves, in our practice, we give them a lot of encouragement to do that. someone who believes in themselves too much, we can help them to tone it down. So, no two people are the same. And so we have to work with everybody according to who you are and what your propensities are. But really, it's like when we sit in Satsang, we simply give ourselves over to the universe.

[36:33]

and trust the universe so that you don't cut your head off. There's no self-protection. There's simply vast openness. And we give ourselves over to that. And little by little, we learn to trust ourself in that way. Even though there's a lot of danger on the street, somehow, we know how to harmonize with it. You know, and, well... Sometimes the best protection is no protection. I remember when I used to drive a taxi back in the late 50s and early 60s.

[37:49]

And you meet everybody when you're a taxi driver. And you don't select who you're going to pick up. You just pick up everybody, because you want a lot of fares. Even though you say, well, that guy, that guy, or whatever, you pick him up anyway. So you learn something. I remember one time Mr. Baker asked me, where did you learn your dialogue? I said, on the street, driving a taxi for six years. Somehow, They didn't say, give me your money. They said, what would you do? What are you going to do about this? I said, well, if you want to kill me, go ahead. And then he put the gun down and said, I'm really ashamed of myself. So there's more than one way to protect yourself, which is giving in to get your way.

[39:03]

Enlightenment is how we allow the light to be expressed moment by moment. If we don't pay attention to every moment as the right moment and the right situation, you know it's the wrong situation. We miss our life. We miss our life. If we're only going after some ideal, we miss what's happening right now. But because we are involved in good and bad, right and wrong, want and not want, like and dislike, we obscure the light. And we don't appreciate what's happening in this moment. So enlightened activity is to be aware of what's happening on each moment as this is it.

[40:22]

This is the only moment there is. Why should we waste it in dislike or in looking for something else? It's okay to look for something else. We're always looking. Human beings have to keep looking for something else. because everything's changing. But because of our ideals, we miss the actual, what's actually happening. So there's a balance between the ideal and the actual. But if we get stuck with the ideal, we miss the actual, and we miss our life. So it's possible to be happy. It'll just keep going on and on.

[41:50]

So, in order to stop the battles, we have to stop the battles in ourselves. In order to stop the discontent, we have to stop the discontent within ourselves. Enlightenment is just what happens on each moment, if we allow it, if we allow that freedom to be there. So anyway, this is just, you know, not a formula. No formulas. It's just our attitude. Do you have a question? Yes. I have two, kind of. One is, I was thinking about life being a continuous mistake. Yes. And the idea of a mistake, this take, this kind of meaning that we're always deluded. It's always a creation of our mind, so we actually never really know what is. So we tend to try to find satisfaction in the trees, so to speak, in the bushes, instead of finding satisfaction in the fundamental.

[43:36]

What's the other question? The other one was that you were talking about the six kinds of Buddhist practice. They're not Buddhist, mistakes. Mistakes, yeah. They, I mean, aren't we, isn't that kind of what our day in session is like? Yeah. I mean, it's really not. Yeah, that's right. We're looking forward to the meal. We're looking forward to the rest period. You know, or we finally do something. We finally get that we're doing something, right, where suddenly we sit and our sitting posture feels really good, so then we feel like we're really good about that. That's right. So, we're practicing enlightened practice in the midst of our delusion. Right? Yeah, we're sitting as in, when is it going to be time for the meal, you know, as we look at that, and, oh, Jesus hurts, and, you know, our dress period. So we're just sitting there. I just wanted to share that before walking in I turned my phone on silent and sat down and just as you said this is I don't know Zazen totally unprovoked and on silent my phone beep spoke out and Siri said I can't quite get that.

[45:23]

What was that?

[45:57]

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