Well, first I want to say that I appreciate your coming out to sit with us and listen to this talk today in this rain. After Sashin last Saturday, someone We were outside and someone said to everybody, you know, this Zen practice is kind of like the emperor's clothes.

[01:15]

If you take away the cushions and the zendo and the bowing and the robes and the incense and so forth, you don't have anything. What he said was perfectly true. That's quite right. If you take away all of the phenomena that make something, you don't have that thing. If you have an automobile and you take off the hood and the doors and the wheels and the chassis and the various elements, you don't have anything. So in order to establish something, you have to have, in order to establish a car, you have to have wheels and doors and a hood and an engine and a muffler and etc. And then you have an automobile.

[02:18]

You can talk about automobiles, but until you have all the elements that go to make up an automobile, you don't have a car. And it's the same with Zen practice. In order to manifest practice and make it visible, you have to have a Zen dojo and cushions and incense and someone to talk about the Dharma and someone to sit zazen and all of the various things that go together to make what we call Zen practice. It's perfectly true. When you take stuff away, you can't seem to think. So actually there is no special form of Zen practice. Buddha Dharma is everywhere.

[03:24]

It's like electricity. Electricity is everywhere. But if you want to use it or manifest it, you have to invent the light bulb. And if you invent circuitry and light bulbs and switches, then you have electricity and you can use it. And if you want to have Buddha Dharma, even though Buddha Dharma exists everywhere, you create some circuitry and some light bulbs. In order to light up, in order for that light to come through, you have to have a light bulb. So each one of us has a kind of light bulb screwed into our seat here, manifesting the Dharma, expressing the Dharma, expressing Buddha nature. And then when we enter that form, we learn how to express Buddha nature.

[04:43]

And then we can use all the forms of our life to express Buddha nature. There is no special form, but we create this form as a circuitry to bring it forth. And But when we know how to do that, we can bring it forth no matter what we're doing, because it exists everywhere. So that's our practice, is to be able to bring it forth wherever we are. No matter where we are, we're not lost. That's the result of practice, should be. know how to practice, if you really know how to practice, then no matter where you are you're not lost and you can find your way. So there are several, there are two sides of practice and

[06:01]

In our particular practice there are three ways to plug in. One is through zazen and the other is, second one is to listen to someone's lecture, listen to the teacher's lecture. And the third is to go to the teacher for instruction based on zazen and the lecture, something that you heard. That's very close practice. There are several ways that people practice interview. which is sometimes called dokusan, sometimes called sanzen, has various names, practice instruction.

[07:07]

And there's a name that you haven't heard called sanshimonpo, sanshimonpo, which means questioning, answering. But I'll talk a little bit about what I know about sanshimonpo. Sanzen is a term that's usually used when you're in Sashin and you go and visit the teacher for four or five times a day with a koan. That's more usual, sanzen. And... Noka-san is when you have a question or something you want to discuss, then you go see the teacher. And San Shi Mon Po is more like an ongoing relationship with the teachers, where you

[08:17]

you create a long-standing relationship, some kind of relationship where in some rhythmic way you're continuing a dialogue, practice dialogue. If you read Dogen's Hokioki, Hokioki is a record that Dogen kept of his interviews with his teacher, Lu Qing, in China. And when he came back to Japan, he finished the Hokkyoki, and there are several translations. And if you read the Hokkyoki, you can get some picture of Dogen's Sanshi Monpo with his teacher, the jinn.

[09:33]

Kind of the spirit of that dialogue. It doesn't have the same spirit as what we think of as Rinzai Sanzen, to come with a koan and present your answer to the koan. It's not like that. It's more questioning and answering. It can be in various ways. not necessarily so abrupt. So, but anyway, the Sanchi Mampo is actually more like what we do, more of the feeling of ongoing relationship between a teacher and a student, which

[10:48]

gets deeper. And to ask, to question further something that the teacher has been talking about, or to bring up some point in Buddhism to talk about, to discuss, or to bring up to work on a koan in some way, on one of the standard koans in some way, or to bring up some point in your life that's important so that you can use that point in your life to see the koan in it. A teacher should help the student be able to see the koan within their problem. so that you have a way of working with your life as practice, and so that you're not just stuck in your life as a victim.

[12:03]

The problem with our problems in our life is that if we don't have some larger way of working with them, we become the victim of our problems. And we try to get out of our problems, and the more we try to get out of our problems, the deeper we get into it, stuck in it. We become very attached to our problems. So in order to see our problem as a koan, means that we begin to work with the problem as something that's there and not something that we want to necessarily get rid of but something to accept and to see a larger picture of it behind just the problem and help us to

[13:18]

get beyond our thinking mind a small way of thinking about it and it's not that the teacher answers your questions or tells you what to do that would be to actually to stop the process but to make the question clear What is the real question? What are we really talking about? And not to tell you what to do, but to help you to find your own way in what to do. And sometimes there's a psychologist who calls Sanchi Monpo Zen counseling.

[14:33]

He wants to equate it with psychological counseling, but he's very smart and he says, but it's not psychological counseling, which a psychologist would do, but it's the counterpart The psychologist tries to get you, tries to get whoever it is that they're talking to, to adjust to life, society. Whereas the teacher, Zen teacher, in Sanshin Monpo, helps to guide you to find the path. to find a new way, a way-seeking mind on the path. So there's some similarity, but the purpose is a little different. And I think it's really important to know that difference.

[15:43]

So a teacher is You know, sometimes helping you to adjust to life in society, but actually what the teacher is interested in is helping you to find your way on the path and to arouse your way-seeking mind. Whether or not you adjust to society, it may not be so good to adjust to society. But on the other hand, it may be, you know, but that's secondary point. Primary point is how you adjust to the path, how you find yourself within practice so that you can help yourself and you can make your own choice what you want to do with your life in society.

[16:48]

adjusting to society may not be the best thing for everybody. So actually to help you to be more independent in your thinking so that you can make your own choices based on your own understanding. So it's a kind of disservice to answer your questions or tell you what to do. But sometimes, you know, that's okay. Sometimes you have to answer the questions and sometimes you have to, you know, well, you should do this, you know, sometimes. But mostly it's to help you to clarify your problems. And sometimes to give you a problem. And sometimes to cut off your obsessive thinking.

[18:11]

To help you cut off your obsessive way of thinking about things. So dialogue between teacher and student is a very important part of practice. And if you don't do it, you're missing something, some kind of guidance. Some people can have pretty good guidance, self-guidance. Actually, the point is to finally make you independent so that you don't need that kind of guidance, so that you're your own guide. That's the point, to help you to be your own guide. Even if you have, even if you are your own guide, it's still important to test yourself.

[19:31]

So the student needs to be tested by the teacher, and the teacher needs to be tested by the students. And it's a two-way dialogue. People need to see where each other is that. So zazen, if you just sit zazen and you don't pay much attention to dharma or teaching and you don't come up with some kind of questioning. It's really hard to experience, practice fully.

[20:42]

To have a really full, fully rounded practice, all three are necessary to some degree, in some kind of balance, within some kind of perspective according to your life style. In lay practice, the picture is much broader. But still there's opportunity and you can take opportunity to actualize that. Maybe you have some question about it. Well, I guess I got kind of stuck when you talked about the difference between having a dialogue with a teacher and having a dialogue with a counselor.

[22:07]

It seems to me that if you really take this practice seriously, then mental health, in fact, is the expression of the way. I was trying to remember the words. way is inside of you and if you don't, if you express it, it works with you and if you don't express it, it works against you. So I wondered if you could, if you could say something more about, if you think there's a difference and if so, what the difference is. Difference, well, say... Between what a counselor does and what the, the difference between being adjusted to society. If there is a difference, They overlap, but they're two different things.

[23:16]

They're different in that in adjusting to society what you're talking about is how you get along with people and with your environment and with I think. I don't know. I've never had that kind of counseling. Exactly like that. And with your own psychological state of mind. Working with your mind in a psychological way. And... San Shimonpo is a kind of counseling. But the point is... to help you to understand yourself beyond psychology, beyond the psychological mind, psychology of mind.

[24:20]

But that's also included. But the Zen counselor is not a psychologist, strictly speaking. The point is different. But what you say has a lot of validity. The way you said it, I can't remember exactly the way you said it, but when... How did you say that? The path and the mental health? That if you don't express what is within... The other one, before that. To express the path is to express mental health, something like that. Yeah, but one without the other. I don't think that it's possible to have mental health without expressing the path, even if that puts you in enormous conflict with society. Yeah.

[25:23]

So the approach is different. You know, one approaches it from the point of psychology, the other approaches it from the point of view of the path. But they both, they overlap. This takes home to me, this whole subject, because I've really been trying to integrate both of them, or all of them, or whatever. And I've done a lot of therapy in my life. And I'm finding that it's missing something, but there are more and more therapists who are trying to combine the two, or are trying to bring everything together. And I find that I'm not getting what I need if I just go to one or the other. And I find very often the spiritual realm, wherever that may be, does not understand the psychological or the emotional self.

[26:25]

And vice versa. And I've been told that possibly, well, by a psychic, that I possibly have to make a choice. And I don't want to. I don't think it's necessary to make a choice, actually. But, it's a complicated question. Because I've done the therapy and I don't think And if I feel that unfairly, I won't continue. But I think that if I go to work and film practice helps me in my work, I think also going to therapy is going to help me in respecting my work in the office, in this temporary office.

[27:44]

I really agree with this one. After three years of therapy. which, as far as I can see, is in practice. So I don't... the overlap... But it's true.

[29:08]

It's not untrue. But still, even though the therapist is helping you to find yourself, they're still trying to make you, I mean, enable you to exist in society. I'm not denying what you say, but it's still a broader, there's a broader implication to it. The thing about practice is a little different. And the difference is, you know, we talk about, well, this will, whatever it is, this will help me to do something. This will help me in my work. This will help me in society. But the fundamental thing about practice is that We practice for the Dharma.

[30:11]

We don't practice specifically just to help ourself. We practice for the sake of the Dharma, which is bigger than just ourself, more than just our idea of ourself. That's the most fundamental thing. I'm not saying it's different from psychiatry or therapy or whatever, but it is a fundamental thing in Buddha Dharma, is that you practice for the sake of the Dharma. And in the process, you're helped, other people are helped, but the energy or the effort is to practice for the sake of the Dharma. Not for the sake of myself, or the sake of yourself, or society, or anything. But just for the sake of the Dharma.

[31:15]

And that's not a selfish viewpoint. It's a selfless viewpoint. And... Yes. So it's very fundamental in the Dharma. And when we talk about Dharma, you know, have some dialogue, that's the point that we're always getting to.

[32:21]

And that sometimes gets lost. Sometimes gets lost. And sometimes, you know, you have to emphasize helping yourself. Sometimes you have to emphasize helping other people. But the basic thing is that we really practice for the sake of the Dharma. Bill, did you have something to say? Yeah. I'm just observing every few months. Zen versus psychiatry, where psychology comes up. And having also, like many of us, done both for some time, we addressed this issue. But if we're clear about what we're looking for with each training or what each offers, then it's a little easier to do both, or one or the other, a little more wholeheartedly. And for me, I always think of the heart of the Sambhogakaya, where the Absolute meets the relative of two arrows meeting in midair.

[33:40]

I think sometimes we get stuck trying to find that precise point, you know, where they meet. Psychiatry being maybe more emphasizing relative, or who we are as individual person and Zen, definitely more emphasizing who we are as one. But, you know, they overlap, the arrows meet, converge, and interpenetrate. Yeah, I agree with you that I'm not at all interested in the confrontational aspect of psychology and practice. And I'm only talking about both of them as a kind of, in a differential way, but not as opposed to each other in some way. That wasn't at all my intention. What may leave us first? Well, I think it's an inevitable discussion because I think we're really working out something as it comes up each time.

[34:50]

And what it is, I think for me, it's working out. always been... some non-Buddhists have, for me, such a clear sense of practice. So for me, it raises the whole issue about, of course what's Buddhist is the Dharma, or what you were saying, the whole body of Buddhism. But then, as we practice, we just recognize other people's non-Buddhist practice all the time. And so this kind of discussion, I think, moves us towards talking about that. But it does seem to me that there's a kind of developmental issue that everybody is, of course, working on their own koan, whether they're Buddhists or not. I mean, we're all in the midst of our own koan. And that for some people, it's quite obvious that saving somebody else is just the same as being saved yourself. that those connections are.

[35:53]

Are there other people who are not at that point, but still have their own koans? Yeah. Well, you know, I think that it's a test of your good understanding if you can approve somebody's practice. You know, who's not a Buddhist, who's not, you know, never heard of Zen or anything. You know? We have to forget Buddhism, you know? When you're out there in the world, you have to forget Buddhism. And you're just dealing with who's who, you know? And lots of people have really good practice, you know, good understanding, good, you know, healthy way and, you know, perception, so forth. And you have to recognize that, you know, and it's very good to recognize that.

[36:57]

Because there are a lot of people that you have affinity with, who are not practicing the same practice that you are. And there are a lot of real, you know, we talk about ancestors, you know, in the lineage. that's like specific ancestors for our specific lineage, you know, in Buddhism. But there are also many people, you know, the world's full of ancestors, full of patriarchs and matriarchs, you know, who never heard of Buddhism. And we have to recognize, we do recognize all those people. So... How do we recognize them? You should recognize him. You know? Bow to him. He comes up all the time.

[38:02]

When you recognize, you know, someone, you say, geez, you know, great understanding, you know, I really appreciate this person. We can show appreciation for people's understanding, you know. And we can even show appreciation for people's not understanding. If we can show appreciation for people's not understanding, we can certainly show appreciation for their understanding even more so. The point actually is to be able to appreciate everyone eventually. It's harder to do. You know, it's like the priest said, don't be stingy. Don't be stingy with the Dharma. It means that you really appreciate everybody.

[39:11]

When they do something, even though they don't know that they're doing it or are unselfconscious about it or never heard about Buddhism or Zen or anything, you know, naturally appreciate that person's way. And you don't have to say, gee, that's just like them. You just appreciate them. So it's true, the world is full of patriarchs and matriarchs. They've never heard of Buddhism or Zen or anything. If I fear that I've practiced for myself, how should I work on practicing for God?

[40:42]

Well, that's... If you're really serious, you take that question seriously. You want me to answer your question? Yeah, how... how... Supposing I answer your question. Will you do what I ask you to do? Yeah, that's a good answer. Oh. What if it's not a good answer? I won't do it. Then it's your answer. The birds have it. The birds have what? An answer. Yeah, they do. Don't be lazy.

[41:47]

Actually, you already do it. But you could do more. In other words, there's nothing really holding you back. Accept yourself. When we begin to practice, we follow the way.

[44:00]

But at some point, we have to lead the way. At some point, you have to lead the way, as well as following. You have to also follow the way when you lead it, but at some point, you know, you're kind of pulled along the way, and at some point you push it. That's where you have to find yourself. driving the way. Okay, thank you.

[45:42]

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