As you know, Buddha's most basic statement in Buddhism is the four holy truths, and that there is suffering and a cause of suffering. And because there's a cause, freedom from suffering or a path away called Buddhism. And what, how to get free of maybe not suffering but the cause of, the kind of cause that leads to suffering. How to get, you know, into our own process so that we see what leads to suffering. This was a

[01:26]

very big problem for me and I talked about it at Green Gulch last Sunday. For me it took the form of accepting, we always say in Buddhism you should accept everything And yet I didn't, I was willing to accept that I might always suffer, you know, or that there may be no alternative to this life, you know, and whatever it is is okay. But somehow to counsel acceptance to everyone seemed some denial of responsibility. And I remember the first question I, if I remember correctly anyway, the first question I asked in the Mondo ceremony with Suzuki Roshi, Mondo question and answer ceremony at the first practice period at Tassajara,

[03:01]

I said something like, you know, we in Buddhism say that to accept everything, and maybe that helps us, you know, people who practice with us, but does it help anyone else, you know? And I used the poem about the bamboo, you know, which although it moves in the wind, you know, and its shadow sweeps across the stairs, the dust on the stairs is not disturbed. Or the poem, Sitting Quietly Doing Nothing, Spring Comes, Grass Grows by Itself. That has a very nice feeling for us, but actually I felt we had to disturb the dust on the stairs. Anyway, I asked a question like that. And the next mondo, the ceremony, I asked, I said, for the big mind, the bridge flows. You know, the famous story, you know, does the river flow or does the bridge flow? And I said, for the big mind, the bridge flows.

[04:36]

If everything has such independence, how do we find our own responsibility?" And Suzuki Roshi said, right under your own feet. At that time I didn't know. To give everything its own independence is to find your own responsibility. but how to give everything its own independence. And again, Sunday, last Sunday I spoke about Lew Welch's poem, his great poem, Invention Against Invention, which is in the latter part of his new book. And he says in it, you know, he cries out, actually in sort of capital letters, you know, any shape, give me any shape beyond invention." The poem starts out with this suffering that we invent. Or Suzuki Roshi says, everything is the echo of our own mind and actions.

[05:54]

He ends the poem actually with wanting to, from some garden below invention or some grove which he can't wish away, he wants to blow the candles out. Anyway, I think after you've tasted all your desires, you know, you'll find maybe your most basic desire is a shape, some shape beyond invention. Not knowing maybe how to do that, we sit still, as we practice Seshin like today. I think Zazen is a seeking for a shape beyond invention, beyond causation, outside of causation. It doesn't mean, you know, that you shouldn't sweep the stairs, you know, with a broom or whatever, but you should know how the bamboo is sweeping the stairs, or helping, or how to. We talk about, you know, non-doing, and also Castaneda talks about non-doing.

[07:49]

And it's some secret I can't... It's certainly something you have to get the hang of how to... It's interesting because rules and following through are very much a part of practicing non-doing. how to, you know, if there's some rule or you make some rule, you just do it without it being in the realm of wanting to do it or not wanting to do it. And if you're participating in some situation, you don't participate in just the aspects, you know, just the aspects you like, you know, eating a meal or something, you cook and eat and wash the dishes. Anyway, all aspects of the situation are your guide. But that seems like it's in contradiction with refraining from doing. But you should refrain from doing sometimes.

[09:16]

Just when something is about to be spoken, don't speak it. Just let, I, you know, it means that you are right there, you're right participating with the situation and ready maybe to make some very accurate response. But our responses tend to, particularly if our responses tend to define or direct, they kill your situations or what's happening. So the more you can learn to not respond, but I don't mean some withdrawal or frozen or stiff behavior, but maybe, you know, it's like high school kids, you know, often joust a bit, you know.

[10:41]

It's half fun and half fighting. They push each other a little and push back and there's something like that. And actually every situation is rather like that. You know, you don't know what's going to happen, you know? Or it's like floating down a river with someone and you're having a conversation but you don't know what rock, you know, it's going to You know, like that. But most of us are trying to stand on the beach, you know, saying, oh, let's put a road through or do something, you know. But actually, when you have that sensation, you know, then you don't do anything. Mostly, maybe there's some little push you give or something involuntarily happens to make you lean to avoid a stone. But when you don't follow, when you don't take up some possibility, when you have this state of mind, you know, every possibility is there, and all quite active somehow. Maybe it reminds me of the sensation of

[12:10]

You ever seen a slow motion movie of a smoke moving or plants moving? There's some quality of something moving by its own power, and everything actually moves by its own power. Bhumi, you know, which is a very important, one of the most important of the ten Bhumis, stages of enlightenment practice, is steadfastness. And it's steadfastness in the face or in the light of cause and no cause. In situations you're able to be quite calm when there's no cause at all. You can just give everything its own freedom. Just, you know. If you can do this, you know, you can hear

[13:35]

Maybe you're a sravaka already. You can hear the sound and make everyone hear the sound. Between sounds, you know, you can hear. Your hearing doesn't need any object. your mind doesn't have to be just sweep the stairs or dirty stairs, you know. Just the bamboo shadow is sweeping the stairs, you know. We neglect we neglect maybe some great doing for small doings, you know, which we can act on or feel that we're controlling or participating in. But this kind of

[14:54]

world, you know, which is your world, all of our world, but seen from a different angle or several angles, you know, is not discovered, you know, by some magic, but by very continuous and persistent effort to be mindful and present and alert and willing to play with your situation, to constantly be giving up cause or result or just to not be involved with results or your own investment. to give up actually accomplishing anything. Even the Lotus Sutra says Buddha subdues his disciples the way a rich man fools his long-lost son. There's some story about the son reappears after

[16:31]

ten or twenty years lost and it's not clear he's his son and he lives in a very, in some kind of shack. And he participates in the life of the situation, the father, but doesn't have any sense that the property and houses and etc. are his. And when he has completely no sense, then the man, when he's old, after about 20 years, I think, in the story of this man living that way, the son living that way, he gives him everything. And Buddha in the same way says he, this Lotus Sutra says, Buddha in the same way subdues the minds of his disciples so that they don't care about Buddhahood or Buddha lands or being free from suffering. And when they're willing to accept everything in this way, then they receive everything. They can see

[18:00]

maybe better than receive, they can see everything. The facts of your existence, our existence, is many small events. So the first effort in your practice is to become one with the many small events of your life. If you try to work with big events, you will not know anything. We want to work with the atoms of your life, your activity. Then you can see how your own will or consciousness participates by taking it away or letting it be or participating because others want you to participate or not sometimes or when you want to, you do it and sometimes when you don't, you don't, but in small, many small things, just like some tendency to some decision to say something, to resolve some conflict, you don't do it.

[19:25]

But it's quite subtle because you can fool yourself into thinking you're doing this by reserving participation, by saying, I'll let the world go by or on. or I'll let my doing speak for itself. It's really not in the realm of

[20:48]

doing or not doing or this or that action, but in the investment you have, the investment in not doing or the investment in doing is the same. You want no investment, you know, you want to close all your accounts. So you're, as the Lotus Sutra says, so your fires of wishing and wanting are extinct. So you have satisfaction because you've seen the voidness in everything, the invention. You've seen through the invention.

[21:53]

But there's, you know, there's the whole invention of ourselves, the whole invention of our karma, which is very complicated and hard to work with. And there's the invention, the invented world and persons we live with. But that invention you can't penetrate so easily. But the invention of yourself in each moment, you know, you can do something about by seeing it, by seeing how it's an invention, by un-inventing it or re-inventing it or allowing it to be invented. But the allowing it to be invented is quite, is a freedom. And that way, you know, you can participate by saying or doing or in any way your actions, you know, are without repercussions, they don't produce karma because they're quite available to anybody. They become other people's actions.

[23:30]

So on the one hand, they don't produce karma, but their effect is very powerful. As the bamboo's shadow has no effect, doesn't move the dust yet, maybe, The effect is very powerful. So in this way, you know, when you're sitting, you should know yourself and trust yourself. I don't like to say it, but your body is actually Buddha's body. I don't just mean some idea,

[24:59]

And I don't mean that you're superhuman, but I mean you can't completely understand what we are unless you recognize that we're Buddha. That you are what we mean by Buddha, in the fullest sense of what Buddha means. that you don't have anything to worry about, you know, just pierce through invention and rest comfortably with your breathing and your feelings and anger or whatever your, don't reject this is not good and that's good or You know, sometimes we go too much one way or the other. Our responsibility pushes us to feel lousy all the time, or we overdo, you know, force ourselves, or our anger has some small object, you know, and so it gets us in trouble. But anger itself, maybe, or responsibility itself, you know, may be, you know, the sword of wisdom.

[26:24]

But you're trying to cut down the wrong thing, that's all. So you should trust even your lust or your anger. But you're the object of your anger or your lust or your inventions. You should see as an invention and not be caught by the object. When you can see that, it doesn't make any difference whether you satisfy your desires or not. So you're quite free, you know, to have any desire you want, you know, or that's there. And it tells you something, you know, is how we know, how we begin to trust, you know, our own I can't say guide or voice or anything like that because already that's dualistic. Even before you have inner voice or guide or suggestion or intuition, you should have acted, but acted in the realm of non-doing.

[28:02]

Everything is acting like that all the time. We don't need some special problem to give us the sensation of being alive. You don't need an object of your existence to pass your life away. just maybe jousting with our breathing and feeling and the breathing of our friend, the feelings of our friends. I'm describing it like it was a great big jello. A whole city in a great big jello. But it's rather like that actually.

[29:29]

great big dessert for Buddha or somebody. Does anyone have anything you want to talk about? Is it dangerous? Seems like what matters? You mean if you fear the effect of your actions, you have to be careful? Is that what you mean?

[31:36]

freedom to act or not to act? First of all, I think you need the freedom to not to act before you can know the kind of freedom I'm talking about, to act. just to be able to sit still without agitation. If you can't do that, then there's some, you're being so pushed around, you have to learn how to cope with what's pushing you around. what's pushing you around is you. So you should be able to welcome that which is pushing you around without letting it push you around.

[32:59]

Q. I don't see how it's good to take it, but to build up stuff in your head where it keeps Yeah, but if you're adding your invention to their inventions, you know, it actually doesn't help much. When you can, in an inventionless way, when you're action has no trace of invention, or it's pure invention, you know. Then, you know, you can dispel other people's inventions. So, it's we, you know, who are practicing Bodhisattva's way, you know, are aiming at one goal.

[34:47]

freedom from invention. There may be other ways to apply one invention with another invention or against another invention, but our way is to get free of invention completely. Well... It helps. If you want to get to some shape, as Lew Welch said, beyond invention. What's happening there when you're not moving or thinking? What is invented at that moment? If you're present at that moment, you'll know everything. I'm sorry, you're a woman. I don't know if women's lib is willing to give up intuition.

[36:29]

We want intuition, we men should say. What I'm talking about is actually rather difficult to understand. It's not something you can understand, but if you practice Zen for a while, at least you though you realize it's not something you can do by understanding, it makes some kind of sense. But when you first encounter the idea, it just sounds like words, you know. Maybe your intuition is better than trying to figure it out, you know, to trust some guide or intuition, you know. Who is that guide and where does that guidance come from? Your guide is

[37:49]

The guide you can recognize as a guide or the intuition you can recognize as intuition is a sly trickster, actually, and you have to be careful. He may or she may be right 90% of the time, but 10% of the time it will be fooling you for some interesting reason. So, at that point you want to be able to, you know. So, don't trust anything. What's that? Well, I can say opposite things, it's all right. I'm sorry. Maybe I should say, we trust because we have no alternative but to trust, but you shouldn't even depend on that. There should be some doubt, some jousting.

[39:30]

even with absolute trust. I trust Buddhism completely, but I don't know actually if it's any good at all. I just decided. I just decided, you know, to trust it. It's been interesting, you know. But you may have some better way. So Buddha is your friend and someone you joust with, maybe. Okay.

[40:25]

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