I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. So during the session, when I go back to my domicile

[01:01]

during breaks, there's always something to meet me. My son is, it's summertime and he's home, he's working in the garden in the morning. And then he's around for a while and then he goes off to soccer practice. And there's a walk in the door and he'll be reading. He's reading The Three Musketeers for about the third time and he'll say, listen to this. And then he'll read out loud about what Aramis said to D'Artagnan and you know, how they fooled the Rishalu and it's really a good story. Today, while I was getting ready for the talk, he was reading to me about Porthos and

[02:05]

Porthos of the four Three Musketeers plus D'Artagnan, Porthos was the one who was kind of brawny, I mean very brawny, big muscle guy. And he didn't think a lot about things. He just trusted his friends and if they said, you know, do this, he just did it with full heartedness. And the passage he was reading to me was how they fooled Rishalu's men by setting up people who had already died in this fort and putting hats on their heads and guns in their hands so it looked like there was a whole bunch of people defending the fort. And Porthos kind of didn't understand what they were doing. Everybody else understood, but he just did it, you know. Very kind of true heart

[03:07]

spirit and he trusted his friends and after he got done reading this, I remembered, I kind of jumped to another book, like three books further on when they're older, when the Three Musketeers are older and when they die and I remembered, I flashed on Porthos' death. This is in Man in the Iron Mask and he dies just in the same way, he's he doesn't understand, it's with Aramis, who's kind of very intellectual and Aramis gets him all involved in this plot that comes to no good and at the end and he didn't understand really what it was all about, he just went with his friend and at the end they were trying to escape and they had to blow up this

[04:08]

cave trying to get to the sea and their boats and the whole cave these big boulders and giant rock pieces fell down on top of Porthos, like one, two, three and he was so strong he was actually holding it all up to help the others escape he was holding it all up and then there was a shift and this other one came crashing down and he just couldn't hold it anymore and then several men came up with these levers to try and with iron bars trying to lever off the the rocks and they couldn't even lift one of them even with a lever, and Porthos died saying to these fellows too heavy with a kind of smile on his face and when I first read that book

[05:14]

which was a couple months ago it didn't strike me as very sad it was just the story and Porthos' end, but today when I was thinking about it I felt this breaking of this true heart of Porthos so I feel like I have seishin ears, you know I'm I can hear in a different way than usual and I can remember in a different way remember about Porthos and his death and you may be feeling that too that you have your eyes are kind of washed and they feel washed

[06:15]

like the actual feeling of the eyes when you blink is very misty, moisty and fresh feeling not only how the eye feels but how the eye what the eye sees is is and not with any deliberation on your part or trying you just see very fresh our the bathroom has this window that doesn't close properly and we always get lots of moths and bugs that go flying into the bathroom and yesterday this bug sort of landed on me and I looked down and it was the most it was bronze and sparkling and you know it like was some it looked like it

[07:17]

you know could have been fashioned by some jeweler to be put in with Tutankhamen or something in the pyramids it was just the most beautiful little insect that landed on me and I probably it's sisters and brothers have landed on me many times but I never noticed before this bronze beauty and you may be feeling that way too seeing some grasses waving to you and pebbles tickling you, tickling the bottoms of your feet and how wonderful to walk innocent with no deliberation on your part no trying to have it have the world be fresh yesterday I had to leave Sashin

[08:20]

for the afternoon to pick up my daughter who just came back after being gone for six weeks and she was flying by herself back from a adventure and I wanted to be the one to pick her up at the airport and not to send a friend so I got to my jeans in the car and drove through rush hour traffic to SFO to the United Shuttle and I missed tea so I had tea out there, had a nice cup of tea and a cookie I tried to choose one that would be sort of Sashin like one of those dry biscottis it was really good, dipping it and eating it in the airport and

[09:28]

I found as I got in the car that my tendency was to kind of want to switch on the radio which I really enjoy listening to the radio in the car I don't read newspapers but I listen to NPR and I wanted to switch it on and I thought no I'll just that didn't seem like in keeping with the Sashin so I didn't flip on the radio and just drove quietly but there's big news out there I hear from my husband who does listen to the radio he comes home too from work and tells me things and is very active during breaks there's lots of news about president Clinton which you'll all hear about you know later

[10:29]

well I'll just tell you one thing um he said well I actually wasn't going to get into this but anyway he did that testimony testifying you know and then he gave a little talk to the nation and he said, just tell this one thing that he said that he misled people to he admitted that he was trying to protect himself from embarrassment he said protect himself first and then his family from embarrassment he admitted that and somehow with Sashin ears I thought well that's pretty good you know to actually admit I had self concern here and was trying to protect myself from embarrassment so these actions

[11:34]

came from that but I actually haven't heard more than that and all the polls and the reactions but trying to protect himself so what do we do to try to protect ourselves from embarrassment so we've been hearing this wonderful teaching from Reb Tenchin Roshi about all the buddhas crowding around us close crowding and supporting us and you know so you may when you hear that teaching feel like

[12:36]

I don't know what he's talking about or I can't hear this I don't want to hear this so that teaching for you may be you know Reb was talking about granting and grasping open hand and closed hand both of those kinds of teachings are compassion teachings and it's just it doesn't matter which one is offered basically they're both based on compassion so but you know can you receive maybe you can receive granting one day and grasping the other and vice versa and maybe you're making an effort

[13:39]

to just try on the teaching just have it come in through the ears Shuddha Mayaprajna in through the ears audible Shuddha is hearing just let it come in without trying to keep it out or deliberate and cleverly kind of stop it somehow with your own ideas just let it come in or maybe you feel like I can't let it come in it makes me it gets me upset somehow so I'll just sit Zazen I'll just I'll just sit during the lecture and practice uprightness or maybe a million other things so I remember someone said after a lecture

[14:42]

they said to the person who gave the lecture couldn't your lecture be more deep and the person I thought answered very appropriately they said I just try my hardest and this was my lecture for today so whether you feel the lecture is deep or not so deep or whether you let it in deeply or not it doesn't matter so much so so what's it like when you hear a teaching and it feels like it's that you can't get a hold on it anywhere it's like a sheer cliff it's like a glass mountain

[15:43]

or something you hear it, those are English words but there's like there's not even a little handhold or a little foothold there's not even a nail ledge and yet you trust that the other person is speaking from compassion and they are trying in the best way they know how to to meet you and help through their own expression of truth but when you hear it it's like this glass mountain or so so then what? so I feel like that sometimes and it reminded me of

[16:45]

there's this phrase in the the shuso ceremony right before the shuso the head student for the practice period or head monk begins their final initiation ceremony which is the shuso ceremony question and answer ceremony and everyone in the practice period plus all the former shusos ask, all the former shusos who come to the ceremony ask a question and at that time the person may feel like they can't there's no way that they can actually that they can do anything to meet this situation there is nothing it is beyond their abilities to actually get in there and make it happen in the way they want it it's outside of one's control

[17:45]

and in the statement that you say right before these questions begin to come to you you say and you're holding up this dharma staff and you say although only a mosquito biting an iron bull I cannot give it away meaning you can't give this responsibility or give this job to anybody else although only a mosquito picture this mosquito kind of on the back of this iron bull or iron ox crawling around there trying to get its little proboscis, is that what it's called? into some spot to get some little tiny in somewhere and there's nowhere that it can you get

[18:45]

the feeling? although only a mosquito biting an iron bull I cannot give it away meaning give this staff away to somebody else somebody take this from me and at the same time the shuso with all and I remember how I felt I wanted to be nowhere else but right there my whole life had brought me to this moment and I was there with every ounce and feeling just like a mosquito biting an iron bull very alive and at that time there's no strategies, no words of wisdom that anybody told you no

[19:46]

admonitions, no guidelines, no nothing that's going to help you take that's going to help you and right there is all the buddhas are crowding around you, inside and out supporting you right there, right at the time when you feel like you're only a mosquito biting an iron bull now that may seem like a contradiction a mosquito biting an iron bull is like helpless and you know in a very being dominated kind of by this situation giant iron bull, little tiny mosquito but actually

[20:47]

for me it is this is what our life is like, like mosquitoes like a mosquito biting an iron bull there actually are no little holes to get your proboscis I'm going to call it proboscis to get your proboscis in there there are no holes there is nowhere to get it in and get even that much of a an edge up, you know it's actually that's our world together like mosquito biting an iron bull with no no way to get a lever underneath the big rock so in a story of one of our ancestors

[21:49]

Yakusan Igen Yakusan Igen was practicing the precepts for a long time all the precepts in a very particular way maybe you could say a dualistic way but practicing very carefully but feeling like this was getting a little dry, kind of not so alive and moisty, misty so he asked Sekito Kisendayo Sho whose poem I read the other day he said I've been studying the canonical teachings for a long time but I hear that down in the south there's a way of practicing Buddhism that's directly pointing to the Buddha mind can you help me and

[22:53]

Sekito Kisendayo Sho said this way won't do and not this way won't do and neither this way or not this way won't do either how about you and Yakusan Igen was speechless and so Sekito Kisendayo Sho said you should go and speak with Master Ma Baso and Baso was like a dharma cousin of Sekito Kisen each of their teachers had the same teacher the sixth ancestor taught both of their teachers and they were the next generation

[24:00]

so they shared lots of teachings based on his understanding and style so Master Ma Baso he went to him and told him the same thing I've been studying the canonical teachings for a long time and I hear in the south there's this way of directly pointing to the mind can you help me and Baso said sometimes I have him raise the eyebrows and blink sometimes I don't have him raise the eyebrows and blink sometimes I have him both raise the eyebrows and not raise the eyebrows and blink how about you and at that time Yakusan Igen had a great understanding

[25:02]

and he bowed deeply and Baso said what have you understood that you bowed deeply and he said when I was with Sekito Kisen I was like a mosquito mounting an iron ox or biting an iron ox and Master Ma said you have understood guard it well but your teacher is Sekito Kisen that's your real teacher so in the commentary on this by Keizan in a book called Transmission of Light he said he says at the time of Sekito Kisen when he was with that first teacher before he was sent away he was like a mosquito mounting an iron ox

[26:06]

with no place no place to get a hole no place to enter and that where he dropped he actually at that time had no understanding no deliberations no manipulations he couldn't he was stopped from that kind of trying to seek for something outside himself and he was a true iron person right then and there he had but he didn't know it so being a mosquito mounting an iron ox is a true person without seeking anywhere he was just stopped cold without any he couldn't lean in any direction any direction he went like the mosquito there is nowhere in

[27:07]

and that allowed him to just well he was speechless right but he didn't know he was still clinging to the ungraspable it says in the commentary so you have a situation of ungraspability where you can't get a hold and then you add some kind of clinging to that that's kind of where he was at he was clinging to the ungraspable which is impossible right so in that with just like that he went to the next teacher and the next teacher kind of this just occurred to me like a mosquito he kind of went he just kind of I don't know why that's what he did he licked him off and then he understood

[28:09]

that he had understood and didn't know he understood so we may be feeling like mosquitoes on iron oxes and there is nothing and along with that feeling like this is wrong I have got to understand somehow and that's this that's extra that's this seeking after that's not that we don't make effort I'm not saying that we sort of become these puddles or something of I don't know weariness or something but our allowing ourselves to just be the way we are without seeking to

[29:11]

kind of get that hold can we sit there so in Zazen we're taught to sit upright not leaning forward or backward right or left this is the expression of not clinging to the ungraspable and we do have tendencies everybody has tendencies patterns and tendencies the word tendency comes from tend and tend is to stretch like to stretch out like a tendon it's very interesting

[30:11]

this stretching out it's to move or extend in a certain direction is to tend right to tend to a direction move or extend to be disposed or inclined so to have a tendency is to be inclined inclined in a certain way and also some words that come from it are tense a tent picture the stretching of the tent over something distend intend pretend to kind of stretch into kind of fantasy portend is to stretch out into the future you know and then there's the greek in greek the same is the words from that are peritoneum which is the part of the body

[31:14]

that in childbirth really needs to stretch it's kind of your bottom kind of this it's very helpful if it can stretch to let the baby out so this kind of stretching is with tending when we tend tend or incline we're stretching away it's like that mosquito stretching out that pubiscus to kind of get it in somewhere that kind of tend and it's interesting in Sanskrit the word for the root to stretch or to weave is the root of the word tantra I thought that was pretty interesting so that's our tendencies to tend but the word attend is has a slightly different cast to it the word attend

[32:15]

and attention attention means to concentrate our mental powers upon an object that's attention and also a close or careful observing or listening so to attend is observant consideration and also courtesy consideration or courtesy is to attend to something so I think we have our tendencies and we also have the ability to attend which kind of brings back the stretching back to listening and considering with courtesy and observing clearly what's going on for us exactly what's going on for us without stretching away and that takes

[33:17]

effort but not an effort that tenses you I feel like sometimes when we say effort there's people get very tense sometimes which falls back into our tendencies and wanting to stretch ourselves out and when you stretch something you attenuate it it gets very thin and like that's another tendril and string actually and tension it gets very thin and kind of fragile, tender so to have a kind of relaxed attention while you're sitting that's not overstretching you know the parable that the Buddha, I mentioned this to a couple of people with the stringed instrument too far stretched and it can break and it doesn't make beautiful music

[34:17]

and too flaccid not stretched enough doesn't make beautiful music either so you want it to be to have observant consideration and listening and courtesy that's pulled just right so when we sit is there some way that we can have a relaxed open lighter feeling maybe in our minds as we're sitting not striving for perfection not giving it all up just wanting to go lie down even with the ungraspable having a

[35:19]

lighter touch when it comes to the mosquito and the ox not so worried so Suzuki Roshi says Zazen should be like drinking water when you're thirsty if we're thirsty and we don't have to kind of deliberate about it if we're thirsty and if we are if we're in a situation when we have water potable water and we're very very fortunate that we do have

[36:20]

potable water you know there's so many places that don't so we're actually able to when we want a glass of water when it arises that thirst thirstiness we get to have a big glass of water if we're paying attention sometimes we don't drink enough we get dehydrated so so this feeling of sitting as drinking water when we're thirsty very kind of natural so can we have a can we rest in a kind of natural sitting even with this ungraspable even with hearing the teaching that we can't get a hold of right there all the buddhas

[37:26]

gather for they couldn't be any closer inside and out supporting you you don't have to lean you thank you very much for your attention I just want you all to know that this lecture was given for me too thank you very much

[38:30]

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