Morning. Before I start my talk, I just want to explain why I'm sitting in a chair. For some of you who don't know, I have fluid on my knee, and so it causes pain. But I'm taking care of it very well. It's not arthritis. It's not bone on bone. My knee is actually quite healthy, but when you knock your knee in some way, twist it, the fluid in your knee tends to go to fill up your knee in some way, fill up the space, and then it swells up. And then it hurts when you walk, even when you're not walking.

[01:02]

How's that? We can't hear unless you say something. Okay, how is that? No, it's still distorted. You can keep talking. Do I have to explain this all over again? Anyway, my knee is in good shape. It's just a matter of time for it to come back to normal. So I was greatly relieved to know that. Yes. So, how's that? That's better. Today, we open our six-week spring practice period. Our head student, she's so, we call it,

[02:16]

who shares my seat and takes responsibility, is Mary Duryi. Her Dharma name is Hongkyo Josu, which means original home, stable center. So it's a very nice name. our original home is always with us. So, when we realize that, we don't have to worry so much about where we are. We're always at home in our stable center. Very nice. So, in our class, we're going to be studying the precepts, the evolution of the precepts. Evolution of the presets is a big study, so how to keep it interesting and graspable is what I'm working on.

[03:37]

But I don't want to talk about that right now. What I want to talk about is how we practice during practice period. So I wrote down, I always read this during every year, right? This is a list of things that I put together of things to think about or to practice during practice period. So a practice period is like a tune-up. Even the bodhisattva vehicle needs periodic renewal. So it's how we renew our practice. In the spring, everything starts growing. And during the winter, everything kind of calms down. So this is how we begin our year.

[04:37]

We actually begin our year our practice year, not in January, but in May, May 1st, along with the good planting date. You know, even though we want to plant our tomatoes early because the sun is shining, if you plant on May 1st, what grows is much stronger and grows as fast or faster than what you plant earlier. That's just an aside. So this is how we renew our practice for the rest of the year and what we can work on and how to help each other. So here's my list of practices. And so the question is, what is Buddhist practice? Why do we do this? So

[05:38]

There are many reasons, of course, but what I chose is really very fundamental reason. Buddha's practice is practice of renunciation. We hate that word. Because we want something. But renunciation means letting go. right? And so sometimes I think, well, Buddhist practice of letting go, you know, is punishment, but actually it's freedom. Buddhist practice is about freedom, how we free ourself from that which binds us, and that which binds us is our self-centeredness. So, you know, It's thought that the more we have, the better off we are. But actually, for a Buddhist, it's the opposite.

[06:43]

The less we have, the easier our life becomes. Technology keeps advancing like crazy. And so we have to learn more and more in order to just operate in this world. I don't want to go into that. But, so obtaining freedom is Buddhist practice. And the way to obtain freedom is not to be bound by things. It's very logical, very simple. So how do we keep from being bound by, what is it that binds us? Nothing binds you. Bodhidharma, when Taiso Eka, encountered Bodhidharma, he said, his student said something like, how can I free my mind?

[07:51]

And Bodhidharma said, well, show me your mind. He said, I can't produce it, I can't tell you, I can't show it to you. Bodhidharma said, there, your freedom. You have your freedom. So, here's my list of items. The following are items to be aware of during our practice period. One may be more pertinent to you than another, but each one is an important element to be aware of, I suggest selecting at least one to practice with and bringing it as a subject for discussion in tokusan. And if you practice, if you commit yourself to practicing in the practice period,

[08:54]

it's really a good idea to come and talk to your teacher in Dōkasan about how your practice is going. So here is a list. To not be competitive, which doesn't mean that we don't inspire each other. We do inspire each other, but to feel that the person sitting next to us is diminishing me because they're doing so well and that I should be doing better to catch up with them is a mistake. That's a kind of binding. It's a fetter. Each person Each one of us is in a different place according to our time of practice, abilities, understanding, and so forth.

[10:06]

So to feel that we have to sit in a certain way, that we have to sit in full lotus, like John here is sitting in full lotus. I used to do that too. until I had got too old. So, you know, do I feel like I'm in competition? No. So, don't feel that you have to be, that you have to do something that is beyond your ability. Just be yourself. Just to settle into where you are. This is called humility. Humility frees us. Humility means not to think ahead of yourself or behind yourself.

[11:08]

You need to be more than you are or less than you are. It means just being who you are, which is one of the hardest things to be. Humility is really hard for us. My teacher used to say, just do one, progress is very slow. Progress is one step at a time. Not to be ahead of yourself, not to be behind yourself, just right where you are and be satisfied. If you can do that, then the next step will be very easy because this step determines what the next step is gonna be. That's the way it works. The fastest way to progress is to not think ahead or think about gaining something.

[12:12]

Your peers, your teachers, your peers, your fellow practitioners will all recognize your practice. We all know where everybody is in their practice. So the less effort you put into trying to get ahead or trying to match somebody else, the further behind you go. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't inspire each other. The positive side is we do inspire each other through our effort. But when we try too hard or feel that some kind of envy or jealousy, it's difficult, very hard. So another practice is limiting our activity, our activities during this period, like to stay with the essentials and to realize what the essentials really are.

[13:25]

eating, sleeping, having a place to eat, having food, a place to stay, being with people that you are compatible with, and so forth. And not feeling, see what it feels like to not need so much. Because we're creatures of, Addiction. We don't even know how addicted we are. When we think of addiction, we think of alcohol and dope and stuff, but we're addicted to things which make us feel happy at the moment, but have no lasting effect other than to capture us. So we willingly offer ourselves as a slave to various activities.

[14:37]

So to be aware of when you do something once, that's trying it out. When you do it again, you have a choice of either not doing it again, or going ahead and doing it again, that's the middle place where you have a choice. After you do it a third time, you can easily be addicted to what, like addicted to movies or addicted to, we don't think that's an addiction, but it is, it can be. Addiction to chocolate. or whatever, things we don't necessarily think that we're addicted to because they don't seem to matter much. So, think about that. Then there's something called spring cleaning to create a clear path.

[15:41]

Do I need this and this? And also, not just objects, but mind objects. Do I need to think about this? Do I need to carry my resentments around with me all the time? Do I have to carry my jealousies or my whatever? I want to show you my favorite cartoon. This is my favorite cartoon. is by Ross Chast. You probably know this one. It's called The Mental Baggage Claim. You can't see this really, but I'll explain it to you. Yeah, but by the time it gets around, I will, I'll pass it around, but I'll explain it first. These 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 people are standing around the mental baggage claim.

[16:52]

I mean the baggage claim. The bags are coming around. And this guy says, excuse me, I believe I see my resentment of physical beauty. And this lady says, those lifelong regrets about stopping ballet lessons when I was 10, these are mine. And then this guy says, oh there, my hypochondria coming out right now. So that's what this is all about. Addiction. So to review and balance your activities, which means to look at what you have accumulated in activity, what is really useful and what is not.

[18:09]

And that's a kind of spring cleaning, you know. It's like, in order to create a schedule for practice, you really have to look at all of your activities. So when we've come to practice period, Some people, someone will say, you know, my life is just so busy, I just cannot do anything like that. And I think that's great, that's good practice. Good practice, it's honest. But then there's the person who says that. And then they say, but even so, I will try. Even though I don't know how to do it, I'll try. I'm not going to say that's better, because I'm not comparing.

[19:11]

But that's also really good practice. Even though I know I don't have time to do any of this, I'll still try. I like that. That kind of effort you can always find a way, you know. Zen practice, for me, is you can always find a way. There's always a way. So then, you know, because we have a lay practice, basically, even the priests have a lay practice, how you work at home, and the effort that you put into your family, or your work, or your daily activities. Because Zazen practice and daily activities should be one thing.

[20:16]

Even though they seem like two things, they're really one. And we say that over and over again, and then inevitably we say, but when I step outside the Zendo, there's all this activity going on, and I forget. Of course, this is the basis of our practice, is not to forget. Remember, that's called mindfulness. Mindfulness is even though all the cars and buses are rushing past and people whose faces look like paper bags. I remember when I first went to Tassajara, my first practice period, you know, you're isolated. And it was real isolation, 1969 or something like that. And people all looked healthy because of the cold. Did you ever see, you know, people, children in Tibet and in the mountains?

[21:22]

When you see their photographs, they all have these rosy cheeks and they look great. So then coming out of Tazahara into the city, the people's faces were remarkable because of many people's, their faces looked like paper bags. They were kind of wrinkled. No judgment, it's just that's the way it looked. So try to stay healthy and go out in the cold and take a walk. Don't stay in your house. So home and work practice, you know, daily activity is our practice. Daily activity is Zazen and daily activity is our practice. It's all one piece. harmonious family and Sangha practice.

[22:24]

Your partners are all practicing Buddhas. Suzuki Roshi used to say back there in the old days, you think that you're doing something special by getting out of bed at five o'clock in the morning and sitting Zazen while your spouse or friend or whoever it is is asleep in bed. But you should remember that your partner is doing practice sleeping in bed while you're doing practice sitting in the zendo. It's all the same, even though it seems different. So, helping others, it's really hard to help others in a fundamental way. Not withholding spiritually or materially. So how you do that, sometimes we try to help, but it makes more of a mess.

[23:27]

So how you actually help, that's a big go on for us. So paying attention, mindfulness, to how greed, ill will, and delusion arise, as well as when love, kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity arise. Make an effort to transform the former into the latter." To transform greed, ill will, into love, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity. Those are the four Brahma-viharas. And so greed, of course, is an aspect of desire. So how we control desire. But just to recognize when these dharmas come up, these are all dharmas, how to recognize when unwholesome dharmas arise, how to recognize when wholesome dharmas arise.

[24:38]

You can tell the difference. When you're addicted to something for yourself, those are unwholesome dharmas. When you're not addicted and free, you allow wholesome dharmas to arise because they're not self-centered. Love is complex, but basically, love is not self-centered. True love is not self-centered, or pure love, rather, is not self-centered. It's simply feeling your connection with everyone. Pure love is just feeling connection with everyone without being self-centered.

[25:42]

There's no acquisition in it. You're not expecting anything. And you're not doing it just for yourself. But when you can express pure love, you're also included. So it makes you feel good. And that's how you help people, basically. being aware of self-centeredness and letting go. When self-centeredness arises, of course it's arising all the time, it's kind of like we don't realize it. It's like the refrigerator, old refrigerator. It's there, the hum is there, but you don't hear it until it goes off. So, enjoy the relief.

[26:49]

Enjoy the relief. That's Prajnaparamita. Be aware of self-centeredness and letting go. Enjoy the relief of letting go. And also, when we do have some transgression, and we confess it and we repent, that's relief. That's release and relief. That's how we find relief. To hold on to our mistakes and defend them is to keep putting our foot deeper and deeper into the hole. And the more we defend our mistakes and our transgressions, the deeper we get caught into the hole. And then it's really hard to get out. And that's called suffering. So then taking on a particular personal practice, such as one precept, or one of these, you know, you recognize something about what you could work on in these admonitions.

[28:10]

So integrating practice and daily life activities with Zazen is a fundamental touchstone. And stillness within activity and activity within stillness. So Zazen is a great dynamic activity within stillness. And daily activity is great stillness within dynamic activity. So it's just the same, but the reverse. So that's what we need to be aware of. People say, well, how can I practice when I'm not in the zendo? You're always in the zendo. When you leave, the zendo is extended to wherever you are. If you can realize that, then you know how to practice.

[29:14]

So finding the right rhythm and making adjustments, it makes everything work more easily. So the right rhythm of practice is important. It's called the full circle of our daily life. Because our daily life has a rhythm. And so we make a full circle every day according to the basic rhythms of our activities. And to know how much, to know where you are all the time. within that cycle of activity. And then there's showing up on time.

[30:28]

My teacher always said, just be in time all the time. If you're always in time, in time, on time, there's no time. We only feel time when we're either behind or ahead. But when we're totally in time, you don't feel time. So time needs, in order to feel time, we need to have some opposition. That's the way it works. So to always be in time is actually to practice non-duality. because there's nothing missing. The stillness and activity are one piece. So don't be behind, don't get ahead.

[31:33]

Just be right in time. If you're playing music and you're right in time, as soon as you get out, a little bit, then you feel time. But otherwise, it's just your whole being is time. And when your whole being is time, there's no time. And there's some possible practice choices. I'll print this up, but notice when you're opinionated. And also notice when you start taking control and become overbearing, because you need to control, you have a need to control, and you think that by trying to push everything around the way you want, that you're taking control, but actually you're losing control. So practicing Shikantaza, that's our practice.

[32:53]

What it means is bringing each moment to life. That's Shikantaza. Bringing each moment to life without a future and without a past. It means, and without a presence. Just being present. without too much desire. And then there's cleaning up our act. I don't want to explain that. But paying attention to how greed, ill will, and delusion arise, and so forth. and treating each other respectfully as Buddha, beyond like and dislike. You know, beyond like and dislike, that's the hard part, how we meet each other and recognizing that the things we don't like about the person, things we do like about the person, difficulties and so forth, but at the same time,

[34:14]

you treat everybody with respect as Buddha, without picking and choosing. And we treat all material things with respect as our own body. We say the true human body is the whole universe. The bodhisattva's halo is the whole universe. So if we keep that in mind, we create peace in the world. given the difficulties of our world at this present moment. The impossibility, the frustrations, the attack on our lives and the life of the planet.

[35:18]

To maintain these qualities is to bring peace to the world. That's very important. And we think, well, that's just me. You know, what can I do? But actually, we don't know the far-reaching effects of our basic position in the world in our activity. Of course, we're in Berkeley, so speaking to the converted. So here's some personal practice choice examples. Opinionatedness. You know when you're being opinionated? Taking over. Withholding. Taking over means dominating a situation. And withholding means not actually being present.

[36:25]

Critical mind, value judgment, gossip, inability to say yes, inability to say no, awareness of habitual problems, problematic behavior, forgiveness, repentance, holding a grudge, Competitiveness, we said about that, desire, will, delusion, are all variants of greed. So, at the end of the Master Tozan's Five Ranks in the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, the last word is, work secretly like a fool or an idiot. To do this continuously is called the host within the host. We say hide your enlightenment in the dust, which means not to hide anything.

[37:48]

I mean, instead of aggrandizing yourself, just let your goodwill spread like dust everywhere. so that it doesn't stand out in any particular way. And as Dogen says in his Genjo Koan, the heart of his practice, to study the Buddha way is to study or practice the self. To study the Buddha way I'm sorry, to study the self is to forget the self, or drop the self, or that's called renunciation. So to study the self and be truthful is renunciation, to let go, so that you can be free.

[38:50]

And to forget the self, to drop the self, renounce the self is to be enlightened or confirmed by the 10,000 dharmas or big self. And to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas is to be free of one's body and mind and the bodies and minds of others. With no trace of enlightenment remaining, this traceless enlightenment continues forever. So traceless means no stink of Zen. No stink of I'm doing something, I'm washing the toilet for you. This traceless enlightenment continues forever beyond delusion and enlightenment. So this is hard practice.

[39:52]

This is why Zen practice is called hard practice. You know, because it's hard to do that. Self-clinging is hard. Self-clinging is a problem. But, you know, self-clinging means if I'm not self-clinging, I'll die. So what? You'll die anyway. As is said, in order to come to life, you have to die first. But what dies is our self-centeredness, not our true self. Our true self cannot die. If it could die, it wouldn't be our true self. So, you know, we have 16 precepts. And our class will be studying the 16, but we also will be studying the 250.

[40:57]

But the 10 clear mind precepts are no killing, no stealing, wholesome sexuality. I wrote that in. That's my book. Not lying. not intoxicating, not dwelling on the mistakes of others, not praising self and looking down on others, not withholding, not harboring ill will, respecting Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And if you want suggestions from me about Something that you should work on, you can ask. I know it's getting a little late, but you have a question or two?

[41:59]

Anybody? Oh yeah, Raja, you always have a question. That's good. So, moment by moment. Moment by moment. we find freedom. If the fetters come up or the unwholesome dharmas come up, we transform it into Yes, because it's little by little. We live our life little by little, moment by moment, one moment at a time.

[43:01]

But when we say transform, it's not exactly magic, but it's like when our innermost request is actually for wholesome dharmas. But we get distracted by unwholesome dharmas, right? So when the distraction is gone, it's like clouds and the sun. The sun is like always there. But the clouds come and cover the sun, right? It's not bad, it's just life. When the clouds are gone, then the sun is shining. So that's, you can call it transformation, but it's simply when there's no covering, our original face comes forth, shines forth.

[44:08]

So it's not like you try to do something. It's more like how, you know, when you realize that you're caught. That's what my teacher said, we're talking about all the time, don't get caught by anything. He used to say that all the time, don't get caught by this, don't get caught by anything. He didn't name specifically, he just said, don't get caught by anything. That was his mantra. So when we realize we're caught by something, to unhook ourself and That's our freedom. But how we do that is the trick. How we free ourselves is the trick. Because when we get caught by something, we depend on it. It's called the dependency, right? When you drink too much, it's called a dependency. So you depend on that. And so when you unhook yourself from that dependency, you depend on something else.

[45:13]

But it's tricky because we think that if we let go of that dependency will die. So, difficult, difficult. But the more awareness we have, the more mindfulness we have, and it's not fighting, it's letting go. Letting go is different than fighting. Flexibility and letting go is the name of this game. Fighting will not help. You see it all over the place, right? Diplomacy is tried first. I was just noticing, talking about getting caught, you said when we're comparing ourselves to someone behind us or comparing ourselves to someone ahead of us, And then the same phrases for time, when we feel we're getting caught by time ahead or behind.

[46:21]

So when we see, oh, I have time or I have comparison, we can say we're caught right away. And then what's the best next step? Yes, because this is what we learn in Zazen. Zazen is the teacher. When you get ahead of yourself, you start to suffer. When you get behind, you start to suffer. Only when you're totally present, without any opposition, can you be free. That answer does and teaches us freedom within the most restricted posture. The most restricted posture gives you the most, the biggest freedom. But not everybody believes that. Because, oh my God, my knee hurts. Yeah. But we have to learn how to get beyond the duality of being caught by our feelings and going beyond them.

[47:32]

Going beyond that. Going beyond that means to unhook yourself. Unhook yourself. It's all about self. I remember my teacher used to say, there's just painful legs sitting on a black cushion. But we think I'm sitting on the black cushion. As soon as you say, I'm sitting on the black cushion, you're caught by self. So how to be one with the circumstances is how you unhook yourself. But as soon as you have the opposition, you suffer. And Buddha Dharma is all about releasing you from suffering. Buddha says, the only thing I have to teach you is how to release you from suffering.

[48:41]

And as soon as we start to avoid it, we get caught by it. So as soon as you fight, you get caught. As soon as you don't like it, you get caught. So this is desire. Desire means I don't like it. I don't want it. I want something better. As soon as you start saying that, you get caught by what you want, by desire. The only way you can get out of desire is to let go. That's what Zazen teaches us, and it's a hard lesson, really hard lesson, and not everybody gets it. It's time to quit. Thank you.

[49:34]

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