Good morning. I just found this fortune cookie. What are the lucky numbers? You can all go home now. Would you read it again? Adversity is the prosperity of the great. I'll say it again. So I'm going to continue from where I left off yesterday.

[01:13]

Suzuki Roshi says, we have to understand things in two ways. One way is to understand things as interrelated. The other way is to understand ourselves as quite independent from everything. When we include everything as ourselves, we are completely independent because there is nothing with which to compare ourselves. If there is only one thing, how can you compare anything to it? Because there is nothing to compare yourself to. This is absolute independence, not interrelated, absolutely independent. So here, independent actually means at one with. I read this part yesterday, I think. This is a description actually of Zazen. If we look at it like the ocean, I want to talk about Zazen and the kitchen.

[02:20]

Two aspects of Zazen. So when we sit with our legs crossed, this is like sinking deeply into the ocean. And when we work in the kitchen, it's like writing the waves. The waves belong to the ocean. The waves are the activity of the ocean, and the ocean is the essence of the waves, the body of the waves. So there's really no difference between the waves and the ocean. that take place seemingly on the surface of the ocean. So Suzuki Roshi once said, Zazen is like, or Sashin is like being a turtle when drawing in all its legs.

[03:30]

Nothing can harm you. You're well protected, even though you may not You're well protected in Zazen. It doesn't matter if someone comes and cuts your head off. That's happened, actually. That happened to several Zen masters. But sometimes, it happened that the Zen master would, when the robbers came, just sit there in Zazen, and the robbers would look at him and go, There's nothing to take. So why would you bother with this guy when there's nothing to take from him? Anyway, so we have to understand things in two ways. One way is in zazen, I mean in sitting, cross-legged, it's great dynamic activity within stillness.

[04:36]

And when we work in the kitchen, it's profound stillness within activity. It's the same thing, it's just the reverse. But the qualities are the same. So the kitchen is just another way to practice asat. We let go of our props and crutches and just allow our self-nature to reveal itself. We don't add anything to it and we don't take anything away. Whatever we can lose doesn't belong to us. This is what sansen is. So what's really fundamental, it cannot be lost, and it cannot be gained.

[05:46]

So it's just what is. So when we do that then, thoroughly, it's very difficult, because what we bring is our dependencies. So we come and sit down and our mind isn't working, in our bodies, the postures that we take in our bodies are dependent on our state of mind. You know, the state of mind determines our postures. If we are fearful, then it shows up in our posture. If we're anxious, it shows up in our posture and our deportment. So whatever our state of mind is influences our postures. It's very difficult to sit up straight, which is normal.

[06:51]

It's very difficult to find the norm, because the norm is that which is not influenced by anything. So we call it innocent. or natural, or fundamental. So in Satsang, we have to let go. I say we have to. If we say there's some goal at all, it's to let go. that are holding us up. That's why we sit up straight and we don't lean against anything. We don't lean against the wall. Our effort is to keep shedding anything that doesn't belong to us.

[08:03]

then we have our freedom. And, of course, that which is the most dear to us is our self-centeredness, our ego. So, eventually, we have to let go of that as well. So, working in the kitchen We have to find our composure. In Zazen, as we let go of everything, we have to find our composure without being propped up. So when we work in the kitchen, or when we do any activity of course, but I'm using the kitchen as an example, we have to find our composure so that we can work smoothly

[09:12]

in a small space with other people and produce something for the saga within a certain space of time. We can't be too late. The food can't get burned. We can't get angry at people because they're not doing what we think they should be doing. It's like the cauldron. The cauldron cooks. The cauldron cooks sages and Zen masters. It's very hot, just very hot. So, when we observe, we can see how everyone is affected when they work in space, and the

[10:24]

because the cooks have a great responsibility to deal with the menus, make sure that everything is there, be able to ask this one to do that and that one to do this, and at the same time make sure that everything is going along as it should. So some people get very nervous. Some people get very angry, of course. And some people just have good composure. But this is the way it is with Zazen, right? In Zazen, some people get very anxious, some people get very nervous, some people get very angry. I've never understood that. But people come to me and they say, Zazen, I get very angry, very angry. And I wonder, why?

[11:29]

I think one reason why is because we want the world to conform to us. But, you know, in life we have to conform to the world. When we conform to the world, then the world naturally conforms to us because we are flexible. But when we're not flexible, the world can't conform to us. You spoke yesterday about the food in Japan being not so nutritious. Not the food in Japan, the food in the monasteries. So maybe it's simple, rice, miso soup, pickle, and it's the same thing with very little variation. And in light of what you just said about the complexity of the kitchen and all the flavors, here in America, as much as I love the food here at Berkeley Medicine Center, I wonder that the cauldron is the same in Japan?

[12:36]

Or is it a different kind of practice, and the students, the tenzos, are not working in the same way as they work here? I'm getting to that. Thank you. So typically, Ordinarily, in the past, in the monastic life, food has always been offered to the monks. Well, it goes different ways. In China, in India, monks couldn't handle, couldn't dig in the earth or handle money, and everything that they ate was offered. That's why we say in the meal chant, our virtue and practice deserve this food.

[13:39]

Because the only way the monks got fed was through their virtue and practice. If they didn't have any virtue and practice, nobody would feed them. So that was the reason for receiving food. So arhat, the word arhat means one who is worthy of being fed. But we're in a different situation. Mostly lay people who work for a living and we pay for our sashim. But still, we pay for the sashim, we pay for the food and somebody buys it. But this is not too different from monastic practice, except that the monks don't pay for the food. So, you know, when you just beg for your food on the street, you just take whatever is offered.

[14:45]

That's it. You can eat it or not eat it, but usually the monks go out and beg for food and then put all the food together and they have a communal meal. Then they have cooks. So cooks and kitchen workers are part of practice, have always been part of practice. The meals are part of practice. They're treated as practice. We don't put a gourmet chef as a tenzo in the kitchen.

[15:53]

Not that that's not good food, but the attitude is different than a tenzo who practices. because the whole thing is practice, not just a job. We're not trying to turn out gourmet food. So the question is, what kind of food do we try to produce for the monks? In Japan, in the olden days, monks were just dependent on offerings. So the food, sometimes it was okay, sometimes not okay. Sometimes it was nutritious, sometimes not nutritious. But the attitude was that whatever it is, that's what you eat. In our society, we live in the cornucopia of the world.

[16:59]

California, Berkeley, Berkeley Bowl. The premier grocery store in the world. So we had a lot of choice, you know, which gives us a problem. So, ordinarily, you can shop and do whatever you want. You can go to Chinese restaurants, Japanese restaurants, hamburger joints, but when we come to Sashim, we eat the food that's provided. We do offer the money, but we don't say anything about the food. We don't say, I'm giving my $40 or whatever it is for Sashim, and I want this. Great, I thought about this.

[18:02]

I thought about the servers coming in. Should we tip it? Anyway, that's getting a little out there. So what do we serve? What's our attitude in serving food and in making food, creating food for the Sangha? So, this is seven days of monastic practice, quasi-monastic practice. Seven days of hibernation. Because we have a complete practice, it's not just a sitting practice. Many meditation practices now, retreat, and you just have a sitting practice, and then someone makes the meals for you.

[19:06]

You hire people to make the meals. They used to do that in monasteries in China in the beginning, back in the 6th century. The monks would hire people to cook for them and all that, and they'd have tea about 8 or 9 times a day, before Bodhidharma. Who had to do this? He said, no, no, no, sit down. He doesn't. But so we have an elastic attitude to what we're doing. So since our practice is simple, the food should be compatible with the simplicity of our practice. And I've always advocated simple food for the practice. It can be the same food every day. But what, you know, because we're such gourmets, that we have to have a different food every single day, every single meal, and nothing can be repeated, which is okay.

[20:15]

Variety is wonderful, but it's not necessary. Sometimes I say, yeah, we can have a meal two or three times during the day. When you eat at home, usually for breakfast, little variety, but when we come to sashimi, we have to have something different. So it's really strange. So someone was saying that they felt that they had to compete with some of the other tensos, different one every day, in order to get some extraordinary meal out. And so I think Yeah, we should compete, but not that way. It's okay to compete to see who can make the simplest meal out of the most ordinary ingredients that is fit for a simple student.

[21:25]

That to me, that's our real practice, is to take the simplest ingredients and bring out what they have to offer without covering them with something else. Gourmet meals often are combinations of this and that and put together in such a way that they enhance each other. That's great. And make a kind of beautiful magic delicacy. we start creating food in our head. And then it comes out kind of like, it's great, but there's something about it that is not fit for a Zen student. In Japan, they have the kaiseki.

[22:25]

Kaiseki is Zen food, the temple Zen food. has mostly little things that are in the little dishes and each one is exquisite. But that's guest food, it's not monk's food. And when you're a guest you serve So, Zen practice is more rice and miso soup, but I don't think we should just eat rice and miso soup. I think we should have nice menus, but instead of

[23:29]

the natural flavors of the plain food, ordinary food. And to make it, I think that a good chef is not the one who puts a lot of stuff together to make an exquisite thing, but one who takes a simple ingredient and really eases out or There's a word there, coaxes out the natural flavors without covering them over as a head trip. We don't need to do that because it can get into a kind of ego trip, but actually can be enhanced by other flavors as well, but not to cover the original flavor.

[24:46]

And this is Zazen. That's what we're doing in Zazen. It's the same thing. We're bringing out the original flavor of our life in Zazen, without covering it over with something else, or needing to prop it up with something else. So Zazen and kitchen work, same thing. And also, when the Tenzo is working with the kitchen staff, how does the Tenzo bring out the flavor of each student? Everyone has their own flavor. Every person has their own flavor, and how does the Tenzo, allow that flavor to arise in the student. You don't have to be bossy, but the student has to be willing.

[25:51]

So I've always said that when you go to the kitchen, as a kitchen worker, your attitude is toward the Tenzo, But so often, the kitchen worker says, I know how to do that. I've been doing that all my life. I can do it this way. So then you set up a kind of disturbance to just be able to receive, to offer yourself and receive what's given and do it that way. And so the tenzo should be able to say to the it's this way, not that way. And you say, oh, okay, let's cut it this way, then we'll cut it that way. So, everybody's working together, harmoniously, with their egos, way in the back, and not in the front.

[26:58]

Then you have a wonderful time. Working in the kitchen is so much fun, during Sesshin. It's a little different from Zazen, in that way. But when you're totally concentrated and working harmoniously with yourself, intimately with yourself, intimately with the tool, intimately with the ingredient, concentrated, totally concentrated, aware of what's going on around you, and weaving in and out in a harmonious way. It's just great. It's like, life is fun. You know, why should it be so difficult? It's joyful. Maybe fun is not forever. It's a joyful experience. It should be a joyful experience. It can be a joyful experience. And the joy that rises up through that experience is fundamental joy, not just fleeting joy.

[28:07]

in the head temples, Eheji, Sojiji, Japan, used the Tenzo's or the Roshi, someone who's a teacher. So, you know, we have people who read Tenzo, doing this. But actually, you have to be able to put yourself in that place, even if you're not a teacher. Teacher doesn't mean that you're teaching people a lot of things. It means that you're acting with composure. That's all. You're acting with composure, and then everyone else is at ease. When you're not acting with composure, people are not at ease around you. So you find your own composure.

[29:16]

It means you're not being pushed by the time, you're not being pushed by the ingredients, you're not being pushed by how everybody's doing. You simply are acting within stillness. And then everything comes out the way it should, without having to do much. I only have so much time to do this. It sets up anxiety. So when you feel that anxiety, you just come back to composure. Oh, and then start from there. You're always starting from composure when you have anxiety or fear. And then you're always coming out from the Buddha.

[30:18]

And then things around you are harmonizing with you because you're harmonizing with them. So that's how we work in the kitchen. And it just does that. So our complete practice means not just sitting with our legs crossed, but during sashi, practicing in the kitchen and serving. Serving is the same thing. It's so much fun, so joyful to serve people, to serve the Saga. It makes you feel young again. So it's the same attitude. When we have composure, we don't bump into each other, we don't, you know, try to hurry up, go too slow or go too fast. Sometimes people think mindfulness means As Alan was saying yesterday, that mindfulness means we should go real slow and do everything... No.

[31:23]

It simply means we should do everything with composure. So if it needs to be quick, it's quick. If it needs to be slow, it's slow. It has nothing to do with that. It has something to do with it. Just being composed so that when it's time to go slow, you go slow. And when it's time to go quickly, you go quickly. And you know which is which. What Suzuki Roshi talked about more than anything else was composure. You should always be finding your composure in big mind. So then he says, now the text says, all the objects are the senses. The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body are gates. and sense objects enter the gates. We talked about sense objects and the senses. They are interrelated and at the same time independent. For eyes, there's something to see. For ears, there's something to hear.

[32:24]

For nose, there's something to smell. For the tongue, something to taste. For the body, something to touch. There are five kinds of sense objects for the five sense organs. This is Buddha's common sense. Referring to them here in the poem Everything is interrelated. So it's the same as saying flowers, trees, birds and stars, streams and mountains, but instead he says each sense in its objects. So the various beings that we see in here are interrelated, but at the same time each being is absolutely independent and has its own value. So this value we call ri. Ri is that which makes something meaningful. Remember ri and ji. Ri is numinal. Ji is the phenomenal side.

[33:25]

Ri is sa-zen. Ji is working in the kitchen. So this value we call ri. Ri is that which makes things something meaningful, not just theoretical. Even though you don't attain enlightenment, This enlightenment we call re. The fact that something exists here means there is some reason for it. I don't know the reason. No one knows. But everything must have its own value. It's very strange that no two things are the same. So there is nothing to compare yourself to. So you have your own value. So later he calls what he calls your own value virtue. because value has the sense of being comparative. My car is worth so much money. My house is worth so much money. I am worth so much and she is not worth so much.

[34:28]

So we are always comparing. This is the realm of G, the realm of comparative values. But virtue means that which you can't compare anything to. So each one of us no way to compare. So when Suzuki Roshi addressed us, or talked to us, he talked to us in the realm of virtue, not of value, not that you are less or more than somebody else, but you are totally you, and that's what gives you your virtue, because there's nothing to compare you to. So this is your Buddha nature. which is incomparable. So that value is not a comparative value or an exchange value. It is more than that. When you were just sitting zazen in the cushion, you have your own value, I've heard you.

[35:33]

Although the value is related to everything, that value is also absolute. Maybe it's better not to say too much about that. So, the third line of the poem of this particular set of four is, interacting brings involvement. A bird comes from the south in the spring and goes back in the fall, crossing various mountains, rivers, and oceans. In this way, things are interrelated endlessly, everywhere. bird stays in some place, at some lake for instance, his home is not only the lake, but also the whole world. That is how a bird lives. So there is no false boundary. So in Zen, sometimes we say that each one of us is steep, like a cliff.

[36:36]

No one can scale us. We are completely independent. But when you hear me say If you only understand one side of the truth, you can't hear what I'm saying. If you don't understand Zen words, you don't understand Zen, and you are not a Zen student. This is really important, if you take everything literally. sing-song, you know, but it's very poetic. And Chinese people think in poetic terms, and talk in poetic terms, speak in poetic terms, especially in ancient China. And so their speaking is poetic. And something like Sando Kai is poetic.

[37:39]

And when you try to put it into prose, it doesn't work very well. And the Zen masters, back in the Tang Dynasty, were poets in the sense that the language, that's the way that they think in those days. So they're always using metaphors and using one word to mean something. Maybe it's opposite. Quite often it's opposite. And we do that too. When people, 2,000 years, analyze our language, I said, what do you say? Oh, shit, you know. Oh, I'm talking about defecation. I think, I'm talking about defecation. They must be pooping all the time. The language is like that. If you take it all literally, you get lost.

[38:45]

And then we argue about it. So Zen words are different from usual words. Like a double-edged sword, they say one thing, but they mean something else. You may think, so he talks about a double-edged sword. Like a double-edged sword, they cut both ways. So cutting both ways is like, you hold it back, And you go forward, but when you go back you have to be careful what's behind you because if somebody's standing behind you, they're going to hit with a sword. So, it goes both ways, see? So, he says, you may think I'm only cutting forward, but no, actually I'm also cutting backward. Watch out for my stick. Do you understand? Sometimes I scold a disciple.

[39:51]

No. And the other students think, oh, he has been scolded. But it's not actually so. Because I can't scold the one over there, I have to scold the one who's next to me. That's true. I remember him doing that many times. And one time, I was supposed to ring the wake-up bell. And somehow the clock said, you know, it's too early. So I got up an hour early and rang the wake-up bell. And everybody started coming out of their rooms. And they were looking at the... Wait a minute. Suzuki Roshi came out. And there were people who think, well, we should go back to our rooms and get another hour of sleep. But he said, no, go to the zindo. The bell rang. Go to the zindo. It has nothing to do with what you... What time is it?

[40:53]

When the bell rings, you just go to the Zen Dojo. So everybody went back to the Zen Dojo. And then he went around and hit everybody. But he didn't hit me. Because I didn't go to the Zen Dojo. That's the thing. Where were you? Well, I'm just kind of standing out there bewildered. It was a long time ago. I lost my composure. So, he would do things like that. Then this very common is Japan, you know. he wants to scold the monk over here, you hit the person next to him. Why do you do that?

[41:58]

It's just a double-edged sword. When you go down the line, I use the Kyusaku mistake. When you hit one person, everybody wakes up. So it's like everything is interconnected. This is like an example of how everything is interconnected. You do something over here, you know, and something over here gets affected. In seventh grade I had a teacher whose way of maintaining discipline was if somebody was talking he'd take an eraser, a black wood eraser, and he'd throw it at them. But his aim was poor. So he'd usually hit somebody else, but there'd be this sort of cloud of chalk dust. And everything would stop, and the whole class would just go back to what it needed to be. And it was great.

[43:01]

It was like this great teaching. So here he gives an example. He says, when I was quite a young disciple, My Dharma brothers and I went somewhere with our teacher and came back pretty late. Maybe three or four of his young guys. They were pretty young, I think 10 or 12. There were many venomous snakes in Japan. There are. My teacher said, you are wearing tabi. You know what tabi? White socks. Japanese white socks. You are wearing tabi. And I am not, but they're sandals, so their clothes are sticking out. A snake might bite me, so you go ahead. We agreed and walked ahead of him. As soon as we reached the temple, he said to us, all of you sit down. We didn't know what had happened, but we all sat down in front of him.

[44:03]

What inconsiderate boys you are, he said. When I am not wearing tabi, why do you wear tabi? I gave you a warning. I'm not wearing tabi. You should have understood and taken off your tabi, too. But instead, you kept them on and walked ahead of me. What silly boys you are. This is an interesting story. I mean, it's a little bit crazy, but it's like teaching. Zen teaching in Japan is 20% instruction and 80% observation. You don't get taught. I was never taught how to do the service or how to do the bells or any of that stuff. We were never taught that. We just learned it through observation. Everything we learned is through observation. That's the method of non-method that was used by all the Japanese teachers.

[45:15]

Because when you're observing, you're intuiting what you need to know. And in America we expect everybody, you know, why don't you tell me this way? People would ask Suzuki Roshi a question, why do we do this and why do we do that? He'd say, oh we just do it, I don't know why, we just do it. We never give a reason for anything. No reasons, just You don't have to explain anything. Sometimes explanation is good, you know. But the explanation was very poetic. For instance, back in the 60s, nobody had raksas. We didn't have lay ordination, except for a few people.

[46:16]

But we used to have the meal chant, the rope chant. In the morning, after zazen, we'd do the rope chant. I asked Suzuki Roshi, what is that chant that we do in the morning after zazen? And what is the translation of that? And Kanagiri started looking through the drawers to see if he could find them. And Suzuki Roshi pointed to his heart and said, love. So he didn't have to explain anything. He just gave me something more than I asked for. He would always give me something more than I would ask for. So he says, we should be alert enough to hear the meaning behind the words, that's all. We should realize something more than what is said. So then he talks about another, gives us another example, which you probably know about.

[47:22]

One night, when I was a student at a Heiji monastery, But I was scolded. Don't open that side, one of the senior monks said. So the next morning, I opened the left side, and I was scolded again. Why did you open that side? I didn't know what to do. When I opened the right side, I was scolded. And when I opened the left side, I was scolded again. Scolding, you know, Japan. The teacher, if you do something wrong, you'll get scolded, even though you don't get a reason. But you never get anything if you do something right. And I just inherited that kind of way of doing things. But people really complained a lot to me. You never compliment me. You never say when I do something right. And I thought, well, there's something to that.

[48:25]

So now I'm effusively But still, you can go overboard. But I think it's good because we need reinforcement. But it's a different kind of attitude in Japan. You have to come up to the practice. That's just the way it is. There's no accommodation. You have to fight. In a real, when it's really strong, when it's really not, you know... It's like the salmon going up the stream. You have all this... What was that thing? Adversity is the prosperity of the great.

[49:29]

That's the attitude. You have to fight your way up. really work hard, and there's very little accommodation. It's mostly, you know, like that. And you have to find your way to get there. And that brings out your strong spirit. And more than you would think you have, if you continue. So, when I opened the right side, I was scolded. And when I opened the left side, I was scolded again. I noticed that the first time, a guest had been on the right side. And the second time, a guest had been on the left side. So both times, I had opened a side so that a guest had been exposed. That was why I was scolded. At Eiji, they never told us why. They just scolded us. And then you had to figure out why. Your words were double-edged.

[50:33]

The Sando Kai's words are also double-edged. One side is interdependence. ego, and the other side is absolute independence to ego. This interdependency goes on and on everywhere, and yet things stay in their own places. That's the main point of the Sando Kai. So, you may have some questions about that. I don't know if it's about that, but I was thinking, where does just doing it, just doing what you're told, meet finding out for yourself? I couldn't hear. I said, where does just doing it, as you're told, or as is demonstrated for you, or the Tenzo tells you to chop a carrot a certain way, meet the teaching of finding out for yourself, being your own authority, according to the Buddha?

[51:37]

In that particular case, I would say it's finding out how to do what you're asked to do by yourself. Someone asked me to do this, so how can I actually do it? in that case. But in the kitchen there's more instruction, because you don't want chaos. There's more instruction, because if one was to say, well just cut the carrots however you like, well they wouldn't fit into the dish. the way it should be prepared. So you have to give instruction. So the way to find out for yourself is, is this taking anything away from me?

[52:54]

Is this taking away my individuality? It's a good koan. If you have any resistance. If you don't have any resistance, then everything flows. But if you have resistance, So there's always, you know, there's often resistance. Not too much though. People are pretty compliant. But not everything is that way. So... Also, in Japan, a lot of the practitioners are young people, so they're not formed as old people, and they're more malleable.

[54:04]

They're more willing to do what their elders say. We should understand that the meaning behind the word, and I think everything, it goes in a certain way. It's not like, oh, it's not always so. I have a little footnote that I wrote a long time ago.

[55:05]

It says, students often feel that if they submit to giving themselves over to practice completely, they will lose themselves or lose something. I can give you this much, but I'm going to keep this much. I have to keep this much for myself. So there's a koan, you know, the buffalo jumps through the window. All the head, the feet, the body, all go through the window except for the tail, that little tail. Why does that little tail not go through the window? That little tail is a big problem for us because the tail can get caught in the window and The buff oil is hanging right there and that's really painful.

[56:05]

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