I guess I said so yesterday that I have some feeling of appreciation for your practice, this practice period. It's a little different than last practice period. Maybe it's a little too sleepy and easy, but it has some more penetrating, persistent feeling. Maybe I didn't say that yesterday, but it was in my mind to say it yesterday. I never know what I said. The practice has more the feeling of being continued without end. If you have the idea, I will practice for two months more or two years more, that kind of practice doesn't work at all. It's not a matter of when it ends or begins, but of your conviction. So ascent practice is not like

[01:30]

anything you've ever done before. And your ideas or experience don't apply to this practice. Even your experience of this practice doesn't apply to this practice. If you have some idea, my practice has been such and such and I've made progress and I'll continue it, that limits your practice to think that way. We don't need any idea of accomplishment or progress or dissatisfaction or satisfaction. Just keep bringing yourself back to the door of our practice. Entering the zendo, entering your zazen. Before we come to the zendo, being prepared to enter,

[03:04]

I'd like to be able to pull the whole zendo out from underneath you. And you'd still go on sitting. Pull the whole world out from underneath you. You'd still just go on. Without any idea about what you're doing. Something will present itself to do. And you won't know quite how you did it. Something arose to do it. This way we engage ourself with everything. Not just people. Not even just people. Sometimes I have the idea, well, a few of Zen Center students are practicing, but most will practice for a while and go somewhere else. And by and large, that's been true in Zen Center. And I think that reflecting your own feeling

[05:09]

I treat you as if you're going to be practicing forever, but actually you convince me that you're not. I don't think we have to have such a careless idea, hoping for something better, or hoping to improve. ourselves only. I don't think we have to feel we have to leave to make way for some new bunch of students to come. There's no reason we can't practice together. for a long, long time as Buddha's disciples, as monks. Human Roshi felt that way about us. He just saw

[06:41]

monks, lay monks or priest monks, or male monks or female monks. He just saw a long tradition of people like us practicing. He didn't see that some of you weren't practicing and some of you soon wouldn't be practicing. Just to continue without I want to say without effort, but you don't understand what I mean if I say without effort. When problems appear in our practice, not coming to the edge of the problem and saying, oh, this thing over here is a problem, what shall I do with it? But entering right into it, absorbing it, letting it go right by us, into the core. Becoming one with it. Being the problem. Suzuki Roshi used to say we should be an obstacle of Buddha.

[08:06]

Without being an obstacle of Buddha, you won't have any practice. You won't have any way to know your true self. You know, you only see The sunlight, really, when it shines on something, something is the obstacle of the light. So all the particles of air and stones and earth are obstacles of the light. Buddha is the obstacle of Buddha. I want to be able somehow to get you to practice without some

[09:43]

gaining idea, or you can transform your gaining idea into an idea of enlightenment, or you can give up any idea at all and just enter each moment again without any idea. When you come into the zendo, you shouldn't bring any ideas, just again practicing as if it was the first time. And sometimes you'll be awake and sometimes you'll be sleepy, depending on the time of day and what stage your practice is at. And you'll try to be awake. And that trying to be awake is

[10:49]

closely related to awakening, like the ditch and the ravine. To be awake, but not conscious awake, not controlled awake, just cognizant. And then, when you actually have no idea of anything, you may hear, as we did this morning, the birds start to sing. And something else will awaken. And you'll start to sing. Anyway, we want to have this kind of persistent practice. Always ready, always giving up our ideas. Just sitting, just doing what you're doing. And if you start to think, and you can't stop your thinking, then bring your thinking around to what you're doing.

[12:31]

And when you're breathing, just breathing. Just breathing. Sometimes maybe an idea will play around it. Oh, I'm almost just breathing. But actually just breathing. And if your breathing becomes very, very slight, but just what then is your consciousness attached to? Anyway, finally our consciousness doesn't need some activity. And when you practice, you may be in a whole session. You'll only have one period, or one hour, or one ten minutes, in which you don't have any idea of anything except... No except, you know? You're just... You can't say. And then you'll retreat from that. You'll try to repeat that, you know?

[14:23]

think, next period I'll try that again. That was wonderful. And you'll get worse and worse for the rest of the session. But you need some retreat, I think. It doesn't matter, retreat, or doing it, It's like Dogen saying, for every time the archer hits the target, he practices 100 times. And each practice is hitting the target. You are only separated from Buddha by your thinking.

[15:29]

There should be some soft sureness in your practice. Somebody was discussing something with And they were saying, well, what about this good teaching? And Rev said, oh, if that, something like this, I don't know exactly how it went, but he said, oh, if that's a good teaching, I would call it Buddhism. That kind of attitude, anyway, is necessary, whatever it is. That's Buddhism. That's practice.

[17:05]

We may be. To say we are already enlightened doesn't mean some idea of enlightenment or some confidence. that everything's okay, or even that thinking, I haven't achieved much, but my practice has been pretty good. That's some false base for your practice. Enlightenment is there when you are ready to know it or ready to notice it. But we don't notice it. Over and over again we don't notice it. Some idea prevents us.

[19:24]

Some expectation prevents us. Some refusal to let go of our baggage prevents us. So maybe our practice is to go from place to place with our baggage. Maybe sitting down and sleeping on it, waiting for something to arrive, forgetting a suitcase here and there. going from situation to situation. Every time you see you don't need some piece of luggage, just leave it there. So when you sit down on your cushion, actually all of you have all this baggage stacked around you that you're sitting in the midst of.

[21:12]

as much as possible you want to stop carrying it around. I want to tell you a little bit about the people I talked about yesterday. For these people practiced this way. Very persistent. As long as they had their baggage, they carted it around and they would keep shoving their baggage under their teacher's nose. Here's all my baggage. What should I do?

[22:37]

I'm not going anywhere much. Anyway, so Sekito, I'll start with Sekito Kisen. He wrote the Sando Kai that we chant every morning. And he was born about 700. And his disciple was Yaksan Igen. And at that time, the two great teachers were Basso and Sekito. And he was with Sekito. Actually, I think he received Tokudo. His head was shaved by Nannaku, the Sixth Patriarch's disciple. And then he did other things, studied Buddhism, various kinds of Buddhism.

[24:10]

Then when he was about 28, he went to see Sekito. And Sekito sent him to study with Baso. Baso was Nanaku's disciple. You all know who Nanaku is, right? The guy who polished the tile for Baso. Remember? Anyway, he went and studied with Vassa for a while, then he went back to study with Sekito, and he became Sekito's main heir. Then he went off by himself and borrowed a cow barn, maybe like Green Gulf, of some farmer, and he lived there

[25:14]

for some years, until his disciples have accumulated, built him a little hut, and in that hut he studied sutras a great deal. But he also, he wouldn't allow his students to study sutras, but he studied quite a lot. He's the one I told you about yesterday who, when the director, not this director, he doesn't have to ask me, I talk too much. when the director came to Yaksan and said, you haven't given a lecture for a long time, please come give a lecture. And he came and then just left. Anyway, Yaksan's two main heirs, partly I'm showing you how all of these people were interconnected, Baso and Nanaku are. Rinzai line and Seigen Gyoshi and Sekito and Yakusan Soto line. But actually lineage is much more like that trellis out there. It's all like that, you know, people going back and forth. So Yakusan's two main disciples are

[26:43]

Dogo Enchi, Dao Wu, and his younger brother, Ungan Donjo, who was Tozan Ryokai's teacher. And Ungan Donjo studied with Hyakujo. You know who Hyakujo is? A day of no, which Mumon Roshi talked about, Hyakujo said a day of no work is a day of no eating. That's what Buddhist economics, Zen Buddhist economics are based on. Very important change, actually, from Vinaya way of practice to Chinese Zen way of practice. And Yaksan, for those years after his ordination by Nanaku, by

[27:45]

Nanaku, yeah, studied the Naya way until he joined Sekito and Baso. Anyway, Ungan Donjo studied with Yakujo about twenty years, nearly twenty years, taking care of him in various ways. When Hyakujo died, his elder brother, Dogo Enchi, was a disciple of Yaksan. He persuaded his younger brother to join him with Yaksan. I don't know how old he was, maybe 40 or so, 35. So they studied with

[29:28]

You can see, you know, here's these people studying with the greatest Zen masters in our history and how many years they persisted in their practice. Just practice it. Anyway, they went to visit then Nansen. Nansen is the guy who held up the cap. I don't know how to say it exactly. Devoting yourself through wisdom or devoting yourself to wisdom. So he said, what is your name? And he said his name. Charles or whatever, but the meaning of it, because it's clear in Japanese and Chinese what the meaning is, wisdom, devotion, something. So Nansen responded and said, when wisdom does not reach it, what

[31:06]

What will you do?" And Dogo Enchi said, uh, it is better not to talk about it. He just said, it is better not to talk about it. And Nansen said, you're the one who's doing the talking. Horns will grow on your head. So then a few days later, Dogo Enchi and Ungan Dojo, his younger brother, were mending their robes, and Nansen walked by and said, The other day I said, When wisdom will not reach it, what will you do?" And Dogo, who was about ten years older, got up and just walked away and went into the zendo. And then Nansen left, and Hungan Dojo went into the zendo and came up to his brother and said,

[32:33]

Why didn't you answer the master?" And his elder brother said, Oh, you're a clever fellow. Something like that. So, Lungan was not about to give up. I like his persistence. Anyway, so he went and ran after Nansen. He came up to Nansen and said, How come a brother monk wouldn't answer you." And Nansen said, that is the way to enter the practice with other beings, non-human beings, all beings. And he said, so then Ngandonjo said, what is the way of all being or non-human being. And Nansen says, don't you know that that which wisdom won't reach, which you can't reach by... How do I say it? You shouldn't talk about it? So, Lungan Dojo didn't understand.

[34:04]

Actually, neither Dao Wu, Dogo Enshi or Ongan Dojo, both didn't understand exactly. The older brother was a little... least knew how to respond the better. Actually, both responded just right, you know. They both tried something, you know. Anyway, this is a very important point, you know. How do we enter the practice with all being—mountains, trees, babies, people, plants, the wind? You can ask yourself the same question. That which cannot be reached by wisdom, what will you do?

[35:41]

Later they went to... Since Hungan Dojo didn't understand so well, his brother suggested he return to see Yaksan. So he went to see Yaksan. Yaksan... I guess that Yaksan said, I have a headache today. So he came out and his brother said, what did he say? And he said, he wouldn't tell me. And later they went back and studied with, again joined Yaksan's group. And Yaksan asked them, that which cannot be reached by

[36:56]

wisdom, what do you do?" And Togo Enchi just walked away. And Ngan Donjo said, why did he not answer you? Still quite persistent. And Yaksan said, he understood me, that that is the way to enter the way with all being. Later, Of course, Ungan Dojo and Dogo Enshi became the main heirs of Yaksan and Ungan Dojo, actually his name was then, went to live in a cave called Ungan Cave, and he spent the rest of his life there.

[38:18]

I thought I'd show you the fan that Mumon Roshi gave me. When he gave it to me, I said, Now I have your wind in my hand. Maybe I was asking him, I was saying, We are Zen Center is ready to study with you if you'll teach us is what I meant when I said that. I think that's true, that we're ready if he wants, if he will. So I said that. And then I, I don't read this. It's pretty difficult to read that. So then I went

[39:40]

outside his cabin and I asked Noriko, what does that mean? And she said, it means the clear wind is in your own hand. So you can practice that way.

[40:11]

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