Sesshin Day 4

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BZ-02316
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my pleasure to introduce our speaker today j van after as any of the of you know i think he's that she's so for this spring practice period
j receive late ordination from surgeon much sheet in two thousand and one when he was given the name potion bulk event which means dharma faith and a joint practice
and at our temple he's held a number of physicians have to support the temple and currently is vice president of the board
jake was a teacher in public schools for thirty four years mainly teaching fifth and sixth grade
he retired four years ago and since then he's been doing things like a lot of hiking and working as a docent and hike later for group on that the alpha and state park they're also play softball and she also has done an excellent job of holding down the home front
while i was still working take care of the cats
he has been teaching us what it means to wash your whole so we look forward to for what he has to safely
thank you was
so perhaps ten minutes ago i was passing through the kitchen and couple of people were there
the head cooks at home are you giving the talk and i said it yourself and someone said
i'm told him yes are those your lecture notes
as if it appears so
me
so am
bit of background on is so yesterday afternoon surgeon roshi
wanted to speak to me and so on he said would you want to give a talk tomorrow
yeah to coughing afternoon well you know rehearsing zazen try to get out is now actually
how is fine i don't usually get to talk i get ahead
and there were plenty of opportunity in the future but thank you for asking
of oh can we just thought i would check in with is a high pressure
and
there's the i'm not as rambling on it was going to get pointers so
maybe an hour later so he said he would like to see and
that he said have you changed your mind found wanting to get
and i said no surgeon
you asked me an hour ago and i'm still the opinion that i'd rather not
who
look at me some food
as a surgeon would you like me to give it off and he said well yes i were
i said i'll give a fuck
but i said find me some material i don't have time to hit the stacks so so of course he hands and mind against mine very perfect
so this is the fourth day of the sheen and
i've been averaging about five hours of sleep someone said that much self again
i decided last night not to dwell on the talk foppish and try to fall asleep and actually did so that was good
now another piece to
surgeon asked me to get his talk was he said well you know in japan there is an indirect way of asking and know you didn't i didn't pick up on that i said i'm i'm just american you're american drug speaking western guy
and said that and he nodded his yeah so
isn't i've told this is that to be amusing although maybe there's some amazing it's because it's really hit home at a place that i need to be hit home that and that is as i've said in one of my talks i have a plan by often dwell and planning line
for from procrastinators you know i'll give you some of my so i tend not to procrastinate
although sometimes i like to pretend i do i don't
when i was given my com
our in at don't know early march the very next day if not that night i was researching and looking at my car so that i had my first to saturday talkie well at hand
before practice for it began this is a confession and
the friday morning and evening talk the way in my talks i wasn't too worried about that pathetic interfax so this was this is the way i do things i specifically requested that there be a clock for me here so that i could manage my time know why there
there's no clock so this is go it's go
because i'm having to really live in no planning no sense of time accept should have been continuous time and not just kinda this time so i don't know if there is method in your manners surgery moshi but i suspect probably a little bit because you know me
so well so i think it worked out how probably for my benefit perhaps not for years to much
and i'm going to end right on time so i'll be watching that dawn closer ever yeah the heartedly someone said to me you know jake use humor a lot
beware of not
hiding behind your humor and he and others have pointed that i think humor has two aspects for me one it's a way not to take myself seriously because i have a tendency to want to go to that place and the other is by making light of things i can
in
i have my shields up and so
whatever one might say is the shield is already have i used to work as a playground director in san francisco in the in the haight ashbury and also
after hunters point are right and how to respond veneer and it was in school charles drew school debate and you know kids in
those areas cap all the time you know academies capping his
you say something if someone else in someone else is something back you and the idea which i've got now is if you can be teased mercilessly mercifully and not lose your cool then you were okay and you are a cool guy
and boys for people news and
i really learned that in on the playground for the and i was the kids would tease me and say something back itself deflecting and what really brought out in laughter was when you can laugh at yourself when someone would cap on you and you would burst out
having a hi-fi those days was high and and altadena the yeah and i play senior league softball in this isn't just a you african american phenomena i play with sixteen seventy and eighty year old geezers and catherine is what we do it's just constant kidding another rousing one another
it has that aspect and i think you know as it's protective but it's is also not taking yourself seriously
anyway my topic well
i selected the topic of unadorned practice so is leslie said in her introduction
at my layered nation surgeon russia gave me two names potion
which is dharma faith and book run which is an unadorned practice and it's my understanding that the first name was more as i was seen
and i think
dharma face did it well i have trust him in him self
dharma
not particularly a skeptic guy
boko ran unadorned practice
is what hard because the pointer
the way so to work at that and surgeon
have another bowls out with that i thought although at the time i wanted something live mountain cloud or something
i want money
just like jake i didn't originally life in and jake yeah because when i was growing up and i'm this is not premeditated going off the track because it's somewhat related to unadorned practice i was the only jacobs in my class
the only people named jake where people lived in the eighteen sixties and for identifiers as far as i knew and currently my grandfather is i was named after him
in my remember to high class in spanish we had a nun who didn't know too much spanish and she said jacob well i know i'm just going to be diego james
indiana need further condensed and jacob jake was just not cool and then you know are you going to use the jake you know that is it's the john john is jake and so there was that ah and there are jake brakes for the works you know they
slow down with them anyway so to my name i can like jake now seen a number one for the past ten years
a half and so to come come around but i like my name than iraq my name
adorn practice because it has been something i've i've wrestled with and thought about over the years
so
hundred on a practice what i thought about it has changed over the years you know when i first got and i thought more of oh my office and practice because i thought trilling
at practice was inside the gate and was very specifically inside these walls and particularly my serving i was very finicky and i was called to task and out not by sodium but other people i've come on like that here but i was one of those you know how many steps for me this
yeah
when the head server comes wise if it had server in and shochu that was written national for for god's sakes one does not approach the altar in gotcha so i brought that a good practice to me this is to give you an idea of how
there's a debate over that and i like yourselves approve any was looking like so i figured well that's probably with surgeons looking at my i need to maybe
i have i've got too much adorned practice too much on the forms and and i was maybe a little over corrected the people and i can remember my head serving meeting sometimes up and dollars for and that's work can katie now are and there's some with one or two people here out on engineers who are really care
who let me know that this is a bit much for your mind so but now i think of hundred normal practice is more what i talk about in regarding my car and for those of you weren't here when i have talked about my on it was case number seven in the moonlight car
where a monk enters the monastery and says to master joshua
please teach me and master joshi you ask them up have you eaten your rice porridge yet in a monk reply we yes i have a master joshua said well that go wash your goal
the my bow with some understanding with some inside
well i am that monk and are not bound and with some understanding but i am that mock and i understand that and as i said in my
come on
talk for me have i eaten my rice porridge is have i done my zaza
well yes i did have to periods of thousand and then i skip the last one because i was working on this talk but that doesn't you
so
by the way in reading suzuki roshi
this morning there was where suzuki roshi was saying
zazen is rice rice as as and newsline and then i missed that my first saw rats on get a plugin that cat so that's how i look at and then we'll have i wash my ball for me to make long story short i came to really embody that it was
was to to
everything is awesome to meet myself whatever i did whatever i do
similar to chose us wherever i go i meet myself and that has really
something to here for me
an unadorned practice and for me is to me everything i do everyone without adding stories which are to skate what's in front of me which blind need to what's in front me
it is interesting in preparing this talk
at first i was a little unnerved than i went to a place of over not equanimity and then i came out of have an oh my god you know you know
just do what's in front of me if i am one of the just do it notes get these stories are going back well if this is unprecedented haven't been searching on t v as the day before and maybe does you know i have always stories about this is not fair
he just wants a day off
herself shave shape just return and going to get the talk
are i'm getting a tough
and
and if i think it's point it to me that zen mind beginner's mind was what surgeon or she pointed me toward with a couple of sessions because this was the first he says for example i picked up
and way back in the early seventies i i have a low sodium first he said well you can use my book says they're paging through a fascinating there always notes and tensile only and i can do agree with the pestle analysis because then you can let
it go you can erase for search and i really didn't get that until results and anyway he's got a knows his stuff and then i realized i want to make my own notes so i went to the book box in the community room i stole a book
if i didn't i actually pay for it was fourteen ninety five and i to have to think dollars and attack and put it in a slot for nice if you haven't had the cash up in this hot so i've got are going to in pencil in my own notes and that for me was embodying the suzuki roshi is talk for many years ago and it felt good
to do that so
with that i'm going to read a few selections from zen mind beginner's mind of suzuki roshi
and the section i
picked out is called no trace
and since there are three parts to this book
parts part one right practice part to right attitude part three right understanding services from right attitude
services if he or she says when we practice in our mind is calm and quite simple well i had to say
i know it's house but then you've said is not always so so i i get that but yeah to gone but usually our mind is very busy and complicated and it is difficult to be concentrated on what we're doing well case in point i must have spent a good thirty minutes
just her
gnashing my teeth and now what was mean if i think it's i was complicating this oh really
this is the for because before we act we thick and this thinking leave some trace
our activity is shattered by some preconceived idea the thinking not only leave some trace their shadow but also gives us many other notions about other activities and things
these traces the notions make our minds very complicated
i'll stop there this is so true for me i've spoken has talked about how are my stories are tend to compartmentalize and i would build
houses of my house and i would keep some stories and some floors and others and and often i wouldn't let them meet and it also effective really how i
meet people are we how we did meet people and i guess that now that i'm over a complicating things with my commentary
which is added and is totally unnecessary commenter a quick story to collaborate associates sir i think i told us one but i love it because it involves the masha and and so i was sitting there is a dog yeah for follows now and
there was someone else next to me in that person is not in this room persons flung practiced years and so it was time for me to pass
it will certainly pass in our form to offer and the person
what it means it or
not now and with in calgary i love do you look well i had recently been for okay and structure
and i darn well and sure we don't do in the form of city center toss a higher but that's okay we have come for we offer help push you to always have to do that this soon the custom herder in of course for one year or yoking struck you have to teach both ways because you never know it going to get
there are some people who go way back here who will never offer you think of mushroom and that's because there's a second you enough
hi i'm not looking at it and now so anyway but the point is
he spent not the next zaza period after that visit the next day and has done just she thinks she says and it was kind of ridiculous and by the second day i was gone and this is not this was many years ago but still and afterwards and she was going to the same thing because afterwards if you know when you're out there and talking
we really what up to one hundred and in and were laughing and almost crying and and where you are and how was it was good so we gotta go there but we were both doing the same thing so there was a trips now that's kind of a silly example perhaps perhaps not but you know another
one which i will admit to was that
you know i've kept myself a strange over the years from certain people because i felt slighted and in is interesting because i would construct logical reasons why i should be selected and have was appropriate to be slashed and
and so that remained and yet there was a heart boss because in certain cases these are people i really loved that i was not going to
say i was wrong or let's talk about this and i have to say and that's happened in this practice here and i have to say there's some people who have been real bodhisattvas for me and so on i'm sitting here today who have said to me you know
i was really hurt by what you said or since i hurt you and could we please talk about this and not just let it fester and i get that can not to say month
air again but can i didn't get that
so when he speaks to a tracer shadow i think if that is a shadow sir
there's a a very
the person who know on their practices here and who i've
something came between us and i
felt that that person did not meet me when i tried to reach out to that person and
i've kept myself away from that person
but i know
that person reached out to me through email and we're going to have eat again
probably joy and talk about he
and there was someone and there's someone here today point of that very thing out to me you know
have you ever thought of talking to the person well i thought you know that person i apologize that person did not apologize to me
i felt the person treated me like an object
and
good i don't know if the person that
and i'm not going to go there and only factor
so that's another example
when we do something with a costs complicated mind in relation to other things or people or society our activity becomes very complex
and i was thinking too
how about maybe why i like backpacking so much and ah i think it's related to simplifying things and you know i like to do cross country backpack in some of you i have done i've done it with some of somebody in one the reasons i like that is i'm
i'm hiking on the trail which could be a well-groomed great trail you know
the mind may be on what you're looking at it may not be
but as one as one
leaves a trail you have become more and more attentive you have to pay attention
because if you don't you may stumble and fall in may hurt yourself
this is class to class three is when one is doing cross country travel and you need to use well true three is where you need have three points in contact with the ground barack two feet and a hand to hand and foot because if you lose
contact with three points or down to to contact you are in jeopardy of
of of injuring yourself and you've all means there's going to be an accent you may not be killed for
possibly even a veronica lake and i've been in those situations but i have to tell you the clarity of mind fast passes over john muir's spoke about this he was climbing mouth river and he reached a point climbing my rare
ah where he said i reached a point where i couldn't either go up nor down
if i were to try to go up and lose my whole i would fall to my death if i try to go down i would lose another hold and fall to my gf outlay and so he froze and and he said a clarity came over his mind
and he just to just if
and he got down so
ah
so what's interesting to me is that in our practice is clarity you don't need to go class three backpacking to rich that high clarity yeah
opportunity in why i get so much because his justice it's just you in iraq
you are the rock
so i think what astronomy to this practice in a very early on it was is that our experiences as in of of
being able to let go of this garbage they came up not saying go away when it comes up on for a breath breath breath and that's really with a rock climbing cause it's breath you have to be one with your breath when you're in those situations if you're tense you have to be relax you have to watch
watch your breath as that's discretion of the ultrasonic gear relax let things go for a walk in the breath
how come
suzuki roshi goes on to say most people have a double or triple notion in our activity there is this thing to catch two birds with one so
that is what people usually try to do
because they want to catch too many birds they find it difficult to concentrate on one activity and they may not end up catching any for is it all
that kind of thinking always leaves its shadow on their activity
and i don't think he's referring here to multitasking in the sense of riding a bike riding a bike your steering you're shifting i love the new shifts you breaking the are turning your balancing you might arise multitask you know that's one full activity is
just riding a bicycle is right
but i think it's more for me it's when
i'm not paying attention because when i'm riding my bike i tend to pay attention is what are not paying attention wholeheartedly to what before me because i'm also trying to send my whole heartedly pay attention to something else into something else and i think that's what he's talking them
and
when that happens there are traces
is it if you leave a trace of your thinking on your activity you will be attached to that trace one that's what i was saying about when i've gotten
upset about people who i thought to have slighted me in some insulted me
it's not what transpired is that trace in my mind that's rendered that is a created a chef
and is i become attached to it
i know this because otherwise why haven't i just say let it go but now it's too
it makes my ego feels can get to let it go it makes me feel a little more important now so yeah
he says and also you may say this is what i have done
something complishments but actually it's not so in your recollection you that i did such and such a thing in certain way but actually that was never exactly what happened
when you think in this way you live at the actual experience of what you have done
so if you touch to the idea of what you have done you are involved in selfish ideas
eager top stuck in the either
yeah i was thinking about this election sodium rashi
does not talk about you do not talk about accomplishments
and
i always have wondered about that but in reading is
i think that gained some insight

in ordered not to leave any traces when you do something you should do it with your whole body mind he should be concentrated on what you do you should do a completely like a good bonfire
you should not be a smoky fire you should burn yourself completely if you do not burn yourself completely a trace of yourself will be left in what you do
you will have something remaining which is not completely burned out
and this metaphor really resonates for me too because as a backpacker campfires go with the territory although not anymore i use him in l yeah you know days to cook over the campfire and i know the smoking calf hair his and i know what the clean earliest now we use
these little gas and stoves because there are ecologically nurse
sandra how to throw the i don't think i
drumming up the woods with my campfires but yeah he's hit it you know it's the smoke
oh the trace that are creates the problem is rarely
and i'm not going to say never because it's not always have but it's rarely the app that creates a problem it's the trace the smoke gap remains that clogs their lungs clocks or minds is those stories

and getting back to my time
i wash your both i really feel fact that applies to every moment
every month
to meet myself whenever i do to meet myself wherever i go
i can say i feel
we are washing the bowl
right now
baking soda machine
found throughout the city us
this really clarify
a little something that you left out we went well it's a story about when i asked you to do this
never really help them
she's so injury ceremony now yes that's good there's a little drama the gap between the never in the doshi kill the
suso
after the this this user has been in the ceremony is little drama where this issue so starts walking live and then the average we walk away nor do i look good no issues this is too late for me too much really i mean i can't do this is a he starts working away
and the other chases it is none can you can you can do this and he's okay is mayor healthy a good health
continue
these are beautiful days these are beautiful day in good health continues
it's of the
it should put the hose on me he no easy the before if you should usually
this issue so gets a job get into shape and i've said that's right i remember that
but secretly i wanted to continue because i'm to roll
the
isn't that fellow so good i thought you know it's my second issue certainly with several said
anything would you like you i said but how would you feel that you mean
has to be something like that yeah
and he's our not
and then
when just before electrician make me this event day
now i have been asking me do it
the waited another hour of before you guys
have you considered a heads off the hook for out
everything is just fun
good
professor that to
ah i see the searchers now
no is a five and wanna let people ask some questions using okay well you got any no homogenates we all we have even some candy and while if you have any questions or comments then cut us a trivial but i'm
chinese crested are some skirt going to and say why do you say come last year when there's no age
that's because i'm from del norte county and not done naughty and i'm there we asked to speak like that we say willow couric and sell well creek that's why
it's the capital
that's your phone
he

three is something i really vessel with this and no traces
as i heard just speaking to dispel the interaction and then some story i can get into about willingness
have someone else or else is no and so it's running if you might
say something about
no traces in the not knowing
so to speak where someone else is at
ah
so
not knowing where the other person s in with an outright who has to know who who has the trace
this one are there
i'm asking you to understand your question
the sky question
and i'm now i think that sort of answer
hey jay
i know you've only had a few months you
what is wrong
and i'm sort of wondering right
i'm wondering
have you see this
the jersey shoes
have you seen starring jesse shoes
oh how's i'm in my shoes

isn't there a
the weight and headed story
where it's foreign investors have proof
well
you're asking how how did i in by side view and if i
obviously i'm that after serving wondering have an in-store right from various angles hard you're working with this
and so i just made this because i have traditional you there
and so i'm wondering a sound like you having historic minute
if you also have disturbed start
ah
and
the monkey junction georgia was a monk

a
the era ancient tangled karma
is just with us and it comes and goes without our seem to have control over it
somebody says no trace leave no trace
i can't follow the advice with this karma just arising all the time
can you who was watching the cardinal arise over time who is as letting not letting it's just
are you
you're the boss
do you want to be the boss but do you want to be the boss
i know i'm asking i know
know it's silly to say i'm the boss
well that's what you're feeling is invited whatever they would what are we talking about the boss of being
not manipulated by by source
why not getting
sucked into thinking you are your story source that's what however
because what's left after the stories are gone
what is that
yeah
this
as was i
tom
yeah
if that's not your experience as for great
i just went into a cloud of com
the well
i love your
klaus now when there's some blue sky next them
partly cloudy
the temperatures in the seventies
yesterday afternoon i not
thanks todd j was his top sort of life which see a clash three
have our you took that class or class to just like the i was a concert and yeah that's pretty good yeah because i knew i was there to do is fire me you know
yeah no faster
am
john go active lenders question little the is totally different perspective in there are we live in a a the relative world all the time and
we have in our families and our relationships attachments we leave traces with each other and do you balance of the practicality reality of everyday life where you leave a trace where you don't leave a trace how could you
no
check with leslie i'm sure that to if you leave traces with each other
well yeah very practical sense
since you brought up less like ah we don't go to bed
angry on it i can't ever remember going to bed
without having talked if the if if this penetrates so i think
that's frankly
the longer you let things simmer sometimes things have to percolate a little while but
so i will say
fair
that then need to a question
st rita
can you let go of subreddit by yourself
and i'm talking about that as the question and i think i'm in my last saturday now friday talk
and you've learned a nephew were a town
because i think
there are times when the stories are so dominating our that
zazen
will not
if you can't let go and i gave a good example of my friend who recently hanged herself because she was so immersed entangled in her stories that a tormented her center that she felt she had one option that is take right
so even though she was in therapy in iowa that and psychiatrists and
yeah and there are there times when i've said too that it thinks she's coming up and zaza they're different levels with
sometimes it's a simple matter of talking to someone i felt like in such as someone once in his salary director
remark and and kept coming back that third talk to that person in on bigger scale
ah
you know with depression and and things like fact that cause for concern grocery bench in this yesterday that there's something to you know you need to see psychologists for need someone to talk it maybe a friend is not enough you need this i followed is the therapists investors
with me and my pain i live with
i would get very depressed and i went to slow doctors and freshly i've found it right next to a treatment for me so that could not be worn down by that
and not
suffer but doesn't it who wasn't doing so but he has also said i had some severe problems with obsessive cop compulsive disorder in also depression and panic
therapists and we've looked at the root and anger and mother knowledge and that help but it's really only been funneling through zazen that i let that the remnant scope like the traces finally go and i'm at peace with with mother the catholic church you have any resentment
yeah don't have it sits with on a practice offers it does seem to me and
we or create our reality
our ability to sort out
let's delusion was not really depends on each person's of delineated sift through the grades and separate them to then those individual enjoy and so what you know what that makes it you know some people nine hundred and i'm like addresses with again
there's some people who try to talk to meet and share with me and there's other people we're just not the cigarettes and beer
it's a dance and with those people that you just can't get anywhere with then let her go
yeah i mean what's the option to hold it if the person really well period
tuesday i think