I vow to chase the truth of the Buddha's words. the book about organic gardening and the complete book of composting. You should all read those books thoroughly. I'm not kidding. If you want to know something about yourself and about our life in general, you should read the book of organic gardening by Mr. Rodale and the complete book of composting.

[01:01]

It tells us all about interdependency and what to do with things, how to take care of things as they come and go. That's a composting. how to make the best use of our feelings, thoughts, emotions, objects, and how to keep the soil loose in which we live.

[02:12]

When you have soil, the main thing is to keep it very loose. If it's too loose, then plants fall over. they don't have anything to hold on to. And if it's too tight, the roots don't have room to move. And nutrients in the soil aren't available. So one of the important factors is to have nutrients in the soil. But mostly the soil already has nutrients, but it's locked up. somehow. It's not available to the plants. So if the soil is very loose and just the right kind of consistency, the nutrients that are in the soil will be made available to the roots and moisture will percolate up and you have this flow, wonderful kind of flow of life.

[03:36]

taking place in the soil. If we know how to live our life in that way, we don't need to worry so much. Most of our worries will vanish. Anyway, I didn't intend to talk about that, but in some way it goes with what I wanted practice, the most important thing is the problem of birth and death, or life and death. We have to know what we mean by that. Terry Dobson was here and gave us a kind of one-day seminar last month.

[04:39]

And for those people who attended, it was very... really put them on their toes. His background is in Aikido, but that's not what he's teaching. He's teaching how to be awake, And he said, I know that you Zen people are always faced with the problem of life and death. And a lot of people laughed. Which was a little embarrassing to me. Our problem, our practice is definitely concerned with the problem of life and death.

[05:48]

How to be alive. Even though it looks like we're alive, we're not necessarily alive. How to be really alive is the question. We can be alive, or we can be walking around half alive, or we can be ghosts. Ghost is someone who is not connected. There's no place to plug in. No way to connect with life. So they're in a kind of state of always moving around with no place to, no way to communicate. They say, I'm here. They wave their arms and they say, I'm here.

[06:51]

But nobody pays any attention because nobody sees them. You see right through them. They're ghosts. No matter how much I wave my arms and nobody sees me. You hear that a lot. So, how we maintain life in a real sense, how we bring our life to life, is our practice. How do we bring life to life? And the oldest description of practice has to do with mindfulness.

[08:00]

Through mindfulness we bring our life to life. But what does mindfulness mean? Mind, what is our mind? In the Satipatthana Sutra, it says we should pay attention to our body, feelings, mind, mental objects and objects of mind. Feelings, body, feelings, mind and objects of mind. And through the awareness of

[09:06]

body, feelings, mind and objects of mind, we practice mindfulness. It's obvious in Zazen, when we sit Zazen, it's obvious to us what mindfulness is, because there's nothing else to do but be mindful, careful and mindful. But how we practice mindfulness continually

[10:17]

is our big problem. How to practice mindfulness continually, without stopping. That's always our problem. When a feeling comes, when we have, say, a feeling of dislike, we should know. This is a feeling of dislike. When a feeling of anger comes, we should know. This is the feeling of anger that has risen up in me. When a feeling of pleasure comes, we should know. This is a feeling of pleasure. When a feeling of Joy comes, we should know this is a feeling of joy. When we're walking, we should know this foot is touching the ground.

[11:25]

Now this foot is rising up. Now this foot is touching the ground. We should know now there's inhaling. Now there's exhaling. This is how we are mindful of the body and feelings. So this kind of awareness and focus is called mindfulness. When we have a thought of some desire, say cake, we know there's a thought of desire for cake.

[12:32]

A thought of a desire for cake has arisen in this mind. We don't say in my mind, say in this mind. And when there's a desire for to go to a movie, you say, a desire to go to a movie has arisen in this mind. So whatever is happening in our body or mind, our feelings, we know that that's happening. And we pay attention to it. and we make some decision about it. But mostly we just watch, we're just aware of the feelings and body and the mind as thoughts, feelings and so forth come up.

[13:46]

Just have, just a bare attention on those as they arise. Something is always making us angry. The two most difficult things that we have to deal with are, on one side, anger or displeasure. And on the other side, joy and comfort. These are the two things that we have the most problem with. And they seem to be opposed to each other. And kind of in the middle is our mind. And the most important thing for us is to

[14:49]

to know our mind and to never lose our mind. What is this mind that we don't want to lose? We say that mind doesn't have any identifying mark. Anger is not mind. Joy is not mind. Feelings, thoughts, are not mind. They belong to mind, but they're not identified as mind. So mind is like unlimited. and unidentifiable.

[15:56]

It doesn't have a mark to identify it, but it's like the ocean. But when you look at the surface of the ocean, you see the waves, and waves are like thoughts and feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness and those waves belong to mind but only when they are there when we have a wave of feeling that feeling becomes the object of our mind and we say, I have a feeling because we identify with the feeling. But when that wave subsides, you no longer have a feeling.

[17:04]

You say, I no longer have this feeling. So, we can't really say that, we say that is a mind, that object, but Because it comes and goes, we can't identify it as ourself, because that feeling will be replaced by some other feeling, some other wave. So the surface of the ocean is full of waves. Sometimes it's calm, and sometimes it's choppy, and sometimes it's stormy. Sometimes we do what we have called, we have brainstorms. I remember Tazawe were talking about brainstorming. Let's do some brainstorming. So what we need to understand

[18:16]

What we try to get to is below the surface of the waves of our mind. When we still our mind, when we limit the activity of mind, the mind becomes very calm. And when the mind becomes very calm, you can see way down into it. after the dust settles, after all the silt and so forth settles, there's just clear water. And to experience this clear water and to always have the clarity of Mind, which is expansive, doesn't have a limit or a mark.

[19:22]

It is to have true mind. We say the natural order of mind. In the Meal Sutra we say the natural order of mind, which is mind with no marks, no waves. The mind that is the waves, the waves are not really separate from mind. Waves are not separate from mind. Thoughts are not separate from mind. But they're just momentary convolutions of mind. So we pay attention to the convolutions of mind because they're also a mind. But if we get caught up in the surface of our mind, if we get caught up in the surface of mind, we lose our bearings or our footing or our foundation in mind.

[20:48]

pure mind, clear mind. So we talk about non-attachment to feelings, thoughts, perceptions. To be able to let feelings arise, thoughts arise, mental objects arise, and to be mindful of everything that arises in us without being attached to anything. To be able to ride on that sea without being swamped So, the purpose of mindful practice is to be able to always establish ourself in true mind.

[22:05]

To always be established in true mind. For a Zen student, for a Buddhist student, the most important thing is to always be established in true mind, no matter what happens to you. If you want to know where your home is, if you always want to be at peace with yourself, you have to establish yourself in true mind. So, what our training is about is training to be established in true mind. Why we practice Dzogchen is to establish ourself in true mind.

[23:16]

our practice extends to everything we do in our life. So that no matter where you are or what you're doing, you're always established in true mind. So you ride the waves on the surface of mind, but you can see, you know what the waves are, and you're not fooled by things. You're not fooled by your own mind, and you're not fooled by your feelings, and you're not fooled by your body, and you're not fooled by the objects of mind. And you don't get turned this way and that way, and pulled around by things. So that's why our practice, we practice together, and we practice steady and constantly.

[24:29]

The characteristic of this kind of practice is constancy, over and over, every day, so that it becomes an integral integral part of you, you get our practice through the pores of your skin. So this constancy of practice and making hard effort, good effort, if you don't make the effort to practice mindfulness, nothing will happen.

[25:49]

It only happens through your effort to establish yourself on the mind, on the true mind. You have to make the effort to constantly establish yourself on true mind. So if someone comes up and insults you, or insults your mother, you're not moved, even though you have something flares up in you, you find your true mind at that moment. Rather than being carried off by your feelings or your thoughts, you establish yourself in true mind. If you can't do that, you can't see where you are in your practice. So, You're always establishing yourself on peace.

[26:55]

Constantly establishing yourself on peace. We talk about bringing peace to the world, but until we can establish ourselves on true mind, there will not be any peace in this world. As long as you give in to anger and Thoughts that carry, that take over your body and mind. You're losing your mind. It's called losing your mind. So mindfulness is always a step to constantly establish yourself in true mind and in peaceful mind.

[28:03]

We call it calm mind. calm mind which does not get disturbed by anything. Nothing can disturb that mind, even though there's stuff going on. Feelings come up. It's not that you cut off feelings and emotions. You can't cut them off. They just rise up. But even though anger comes up, even though rage comes up or lust or whatever, You establish yourself in calm mind. It takes practice. You can't just do it by wishing. And you can't just do it by resolve. You can only do it through practice. Day by day practice until you become it.

[29:04]

So when a feeling comes, you know, I have this feeling, or this feeling has arisen, and you establish yourself in true mind. So this is called relinquishment, actually, giving up. relinquishing your hold on feelings and thoughts. It's not a hard practice. It's a hard practice, but it's very easy. But at some point,

[30:14]

When you see the truth of it, it's easy. But it's a great struggle. And we always have it. It's not that once you're enlightened, you always act enlightened. We have to be enlightened every day. You know, you may be a great enlightened person for one day, or one moment, but you may be a dodo the next. That's right. Nothing is consistent. We have to constantly establish ourself. You can't, and this is mindfulness, this is bringing your life to life. You say, well, I got enlightened yesterday, you know, so I'm going to be okay for the duration.

[31:17]

Moment by moment, every moment, we have to have an enlightenment experience. You can't depend on what happened yesterday or ten minutes ago. So this is called being awake. Being awake means you can't depend on what happened yesterday or ten minutes ago. You can't settle down. So we forget all about enlightenment. You forget all about yesterday's enlightenment experience. and just bring this moment to life in awareness. Sometimes we feel, well, I'm not really that good to practice, to establish myself in practice.

[32:41]

I have all these evil desires. How can I practice at the same time that I have all these evil desires? So we get pulled off by various temptations in our life. And so we feel, as soon as I get through with taking care of all these temptations that are pulling me around, then I'll come and practice. But that kind of practice means that we're always never really getting down to it. You should practice with all of your evil desires. Maybe you go out and raise hell all night, whatever it is that you may feel is your nemesis.

[33:44]

things that you can't overcome. But shit sets off in the morning. If you continue your practice, no matter what kind of problem you're dealing with, then that problem takes on a different nature. You have to include big problems in your practice. That becomes your ginjo koan. Big problem that constantly pursues you, seems to pursue you. Actually, you pursue it more than it pursues you. You say, oh I have this problem, it's always pursuing me. But actually, we pursue it. But we can't help pursuing these things. We all have something drives us some difficulty.

[34:51]

But if you continue to practice with that kind of constancy, then that difficulty will become more and more plain, clear, as to what that is, what's going on. And then it becomes your koan. You just take this and swallow it. It's a mistake to think, because I'm so bad, I'll stop practicing. Big mistake. Practice is nothing other than our life and our problems. So on the one hand we have difficulty in On the other hand, we have ease. And we have tense, tightness, and ease.

[35:57]

If we're too easy, everything falls apart. And if we're too tight, nothing moves. So these are the two extremes. It's like in the ground. If we're too loose, we have our mudras falling apart and we sit like this. It doesn't mean anything. And if we're too like that, too tense, we can't float. And most of us are in one place or the other, too loose or too tight. We have to know how to bring those two together so we can feel natural. Poor word. that mean different things to different people. That we have... we're together and yet loose.

[37:03]

Together and loose at the same time. So Zazen is where we learn how to be together and loose at the same time. The two sides are brought together, right together. If we don't learn something from our Zazen, there's something wrong. immediately apparent to us. We're not taking a lesson from our Zazen. Zazen is our teacher.

[38:06]

And how to be comfortable, how to, within painfulness and mental activity and so forth, how to be comfortable in this immovable position where you can't do anything to change. It should be a lesson for us. When we learn how to master this zazen, we should learn something about life from it. It's telling us about our life. We should pay attention to the waves on this ocean of our mind, but we shouldn't be bothered.

[39:19]

Shouldn't let it bother us. We should pay attention and be concerned, but we should always establish ourselves in our calm mind. Don't let anything move you off that position. So you should always be able to breathe easily. When you're in a situation, look at your breath. Is your breath easy? One way to establish yourself is to establish yourself in your breath. We say, when you get angry, count to 10 before doing anything about it.

[40:23]

That's like establishing yourself in your breath. Take out your breath. Look at your breath. Take ten breaths. So really, the most important act in our practice is bowing, bringing our palms together, bringing all sides together, just in balance and harmony. And not to be fooled by anything. Maybe you'd like to discuss some of these points.

[42:17]

Generally, we think of our self as subject, and we think of external things as objects. And our cognition of things, when something appears to us, and it appears in some form, things appear in some form, and those are actually objects in our mind, and our thoughts about them are objects of our mind. We say, if we think, we can't think about something without We don't think without thinking, unless we think of something. When Thich Nhat Hanh was here, he said, you don't think without thinking about something.

[44:11]

There has to be an object, as well as the subject. The thought depends on an object. You can't think of nothing. You can try to think of nothing, but you have to... Thinking is thinking of something, and a thought and a thing. together are what create thinking. The cognition and the object together are what create thinking. So actually the subject and the object, even though they seem to be distinct, In our actual cognition of things, there is no subject or object. The thought itself contains the object. Even though we can go around and touch objects, those objects are objects of mind.

[45:21]

And so we're always dealing with our thoughts. This is the floor. That's my thought. But my thought and the floor are one piece. So when we... Our recognition is the floor and the thought are one piece, that is my Self. We identify that as my Self. If I saw a piece of wood, it's true that I am sawing a piece of wood, but I'm also sawing my Self. So we become very conscious of how we deal with things, how we take care of things, and how we treat things.

[46:28]

Because if you just treat things as objects, you're not taking care of yourself very well. And this is what happens to our world. Because we don't see everything as ourself, we don't take care of things very well. And we're getting ready to blow ourselves up. It's so obvious. We say, well, we'll blow them up. But they are ourselves. So we're always lighting a fire under ourselves, no matter what we're doing. So our training is also to take care of everything that comes within our reach. When something comes within our reach, or something is presented to me, I have to deal with it somehow, as myself.

[47:40]

Garbage? How do I deal with garbage? We put garbage in the compost pile, and then let it ferment, and we kind of give it the opportunity to recycle itself. And then we put it in the ground, and then we grow plants in the ground, and then we eat the plants, and they become garbage again, and then we deal with them that way. So we're very careful of how we deal with garbage. Even if we threw it in the garbage can, it would be okay, you know, and let the garbage man take it away. It would recycle itself somehow. But somehow, taking care of it this way, we feel closer to it. We establish a relationship with it. So, establishing a relationship with garbage, it's no longer garbage.

[48:46]

It's not garbage. I don't know what it is. We can give things various names. We can call it garbage, we can call it organic material, you know, whatever you want. But the way we treat it makes some difference. So, I'm a little even reluctant to throw away boxes and things like that, but they get recycled. Everything will eventually get recycled, but if we pay attention to how they get recycled, it makes us feel better about things, about ourself and about everything which is us. It doesn't belong to us, but it's part of our life. And if we think that this body is our life, that's only part of our life. Our surroundings is as much a part of our life as our body. So when we're not paying attention to our surroundings, taking care of things that we should be taking care of, we're losing our life.

[49:59]

So if we really just take care of what's around us, that would keep us pretty busy. And when we do take care of our life and things around us, it has immense influence in the world. If we can't take care of ourselves and our life, how can we change things? It's like a mosquito trying to bite an iron bull. So when we become thoughtless,

[51:16]

When we don't pay attention to the things we should pay attention to, when we don't take initiative, then we sink down into a kind of ghostly existence. Our society is going more and more toward doing less and less. We provide all these conveniences for you so you can do less and less. That's like leading us by the hand toward death. Doing less and less is actually going toward death. How we vitalize ourselves is to put ourselves into action, into activity, to creating life by involving ourselves, by having initiative. And when we neglect what's right here, it doesn't make any sense.

[52:28]

You know, sometimes we try to avoid doing something, but that avoidance is avoiding our life. You know, as soon as you just put yourself forward and step into the rhythm of life around you, you come to life. So how to make life, how to preserve it, how to make it work is by stepping into it. Then you close the gap between subject and object. You're just being involved with yourself, which is all around you. You step into yourself. A good Zen student should always have good, sharp awareness of what's going on around them.

[53:48]

And really be mindful all the time. Don't get, you know, our mind is always working very hard and it's easy to get sunk in a kind of mental lethargy. We have all these thoughts hanging on our mind, you know. and we can't see. It's interesting, when you stop the thoughts in your mind, how the world expands around you, you just suddenly can see. And in Zazen, even though you have a lot of thoughts, during Sashin, you walk outside and suddenly you see everything very clearly, because your mind is all that heavy thought accumulation. And all that worry, kind of worrisome, worrisomeness.

[54:56]

So, we have to make a conscious effort to be loose when we make a conscious effort to be loose in a mindful way. I think that most people are pretty tense. And part of your mindful practice should be to recognize where that tenseness is. Where is this tenseness coming from? Am I tense? To know when you're tense. And to make an effort to just let go of that tenseness. But when there's some looseness and fluidity and ease, whatever we do just comes out so much more satisfying. So ease is very important.

[56:02]

How to do something with ease? Efficiently and skillfully and mindfully with ease. Thich Nhat Hanh, you know, always asks people, he said, when you meditate, he said, you should have maybe like a Mona Lisa smile. Almost smiling, so that you have a hundred facial muscles that will relax. But the same for your whole body. The rest of your body should smile a little bit.

[57:06]

Your whole body should smile a little bit. You can enjoy yourself just by virtue of being. But then it seems to me that discomfort is so important and that it's in a sense very easy to just be comfortable. You don't really move unless you can tolerate quite a lot of discomfort comfortably. And I guess the difficulty that I have is not just that, it's finding a balance of, an acceptable balance of discomfort so that the discomfort doesn't produce a lot of anxiety and not teach

[58:10]

Well, you know, the true test, you know, is no matter how much anxiety is produced, or discomfort is produced, no matter what situation it is, to maintain that mind. You know, if we try and figure out some comfort, discomfort, you know, I don't know. I'm not sure that I know what you mean. It has also to do with activity and passivity. The one thing to just sit and accept what comes.

[59:24]

Is this lecture going to have anything interesting in it that is going to fall into my lap? But it takes some effort to really be in a mood and a place where you can struggle to To express your confusion to yourself. So that you're really searching. You're really actively looking. You're not just sitting and waiting for something to come. Comfortably. If you can be comfortable. Not everybody is comfortable. Actually the way to listen to a lecture is to just sit and be open. without really thinking too much about it. It's hard to do.

[60:32]

You always have somebody who comes up and says, well, maybe that's not right, or something. But that's OK. But to be able to just... The most important thing about a lecture, this kind of lecture, is you're sitting. your own, finding your own mind in this space, in this moment, maintaining true mind in this situation. Not so much what you hear, that's important, but the most important thing is for you to find your true mind in this situation. That mind tells us what to do.

[61:33]

It's not a matter of activity or passivity. What's the difference between being curious about something and really making something your own? It's not a matter...

[62:12]

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