Next weekend starts our spring practice period. Saturday, next Saturday, we won't have a schedule, a regular schedule, but we have lay ordination at noon. And this is confirmation of people's practice and acknowledges their tie with all the Buddhas and ancestors of the past. They become part of the family of the Buddhas and the ancestors. This is what ordination is. So the people who will have ordination, maybe 10, 11, I'm not sure now.

[01:17]

I thought I knew how many, but now I'm not sure. 10 or 11 people. And they have sewn their robe, their small robe, called a raksu. And that will be presented to them. spring practice period. So that's a nice combination to have this ordination and to start the practice period for six weeks. And when we have ordination, even people who are already ordained who come and witness this, all of us become ordained again through the ceremony. So it's quite a wonderful ceremony of bringing us all together in Buddha's world.

[02:24]

And for those who have already had ordination, to reaffirm that ordination. So everyone is invited to come next Saturday. Then on Sunday, we have a one-day sitting to open the practice period and enter our shuso. Shuso means the first seat, person of the first seat, student of the first seat. So Grace Shearson will be the shuso or the student of the first seat. And this person who is the student with the first seat, their position is to set an example of practice for everyone. That's their main function.

[03:32]

We choose a person who has a lot of experience in practice. You know, sometimes our shuso is someone who has had 20 years or 25 years of practice. That's pretty good. Often in a practice place, people are doing it when they're much younger, which is okay, It's very nice to have someone who is so experienced to be the head, the first seat. So this is very difficult, can be a very difficult position to always be out there as an example of practice for everybody.

[04:40]

And when you're in that position, you get a lot of feedback from people, and you begin to notice just what your behavior is like. So in one sense, it's a very honored position. But in another sense, it's a position which gives you a lot of feedback. So one should be up to it. And although it's an honored position, the shuso usually does mundane things like washing the toilets and sweeping the floor. The kind of things that people don't usually like to do. At Tassajara, they empty the garbage. The shuso empties the garbage and takes care of the compost.

[05:43]

But also, they have teas with people, with the members, and discuss the Dharma. So, you have both ways of practice. So, practice period is an important part of our practice. For newer people, newer members, practice period gives you an opportunity to find out what your ability is or what your capability is in organizing your life around practice. And that's very important. I always tell people when they come to practice, when they talk to me about it, that the most important thing is to know how to organize your life with your practice.

[06:56]

I avoid saying around your practice. Actually, the best way to organize your life is around your practice. Because if you really have a practice, then practice becomes the central part of your life. It has to. I don't mean that you have to put all of your time into being a zendo. That's not what I mean by that. What I mean, the purpose of practice is to find, discover, uncover the most fundamental thing in your life. That's the purpose of practice, to uncover the most fundamental aspect of your life. And when you uncover the most fundamental aspect of your life, that has to be the center of your life. It can't be otherwise. If you put it off as secondary, then it's no longer the fundamental thing. If you think that you can put off the fundamental thing,

[08:03]

or put it off to the side and make it one of the things that you do, then it's not the fundamental. You haven't reached the fundamental yet. The fundamental is that which you cannot do without. So, The purpose of practice is to reach the fundamental of your life, the primal ground of your life. And then that becomes the center of your life around which all of your activities rotate, or relate, or come out of. When you've reached the bottom of your life, and all of your activities express the fundamental. So, in order to practice in a real way, in a clear way, one has to know how to organize your life around practice or in relation to practice.

[09:26]

But it doesn't mean that, as I said, that you have to spend all of your time in the zendo. But you have to know how zazen and the aspects of formal practice take their place in your life, and how the rhythm of practice becomes a part of your life. So that's really fundamental. So for a person who is fairly new to practice, I always say, taking into consideration all of the aspects of your life, all of your responsibilities and activities, decide how you can actually sit Zazen.

[10:34]

Even if you sit one day a week and you mark that on your calendar, and at that time you do it, that's practice. So practice is not just sitting Zazen, but it's sitting Zazen with intention. By intention, I mean it comes from your decision. And it's not influenced by your feelings. See, our life is so influenced by our feelings. Today I feel pretty good, so maybe we'll go to Zendo. Or I'm feeling so awful, I should go to Zendo. You know, this is like being swayed by your feelings. But that's not true practice.

[11:39]

True practice is just to sit through your intention or through your decision. It has nothing to do with how you feel. So when the time comes, oh, you sit. That takes it out of the realm of whim and puts it squarely in the realm of intention, intentional activity, which is not influenced by anything. So even if it's one, you know, As an example, one afternoon or one morning a week, and one maintains that rhythm, then there's a practice, the beginning of a practice, the germ of a practice.

[12:47]

And through that steadiness and that rhythm, one can actually have a practice, because it becomes part of your life. It becomes an integral part of your life. And that's how it becomes an integral part of your life. The style of our practice is everyday practice. Daily practice is our style. It's not like going to church on Sunday. It's not that style. But daily practice is our style. And every once in a while, or once a month, we have longer sittings, like Sashin, and then we have five-day Sashins, and seven-day Sashin, and so forth, which are more concentrated periods of time, which is very good, actually, for us.

[13:57]

Because if you only go in a daily way, you miss something. For athletes, people who run, if you only do the same pace all along, there's something missing. You have to assert yourself in a stronger way from time to time in order to really stimulate your running practice. You have to do something, some extra exertion. So, sasheen and practice period is like a little extra exertion to enhance the daily life of practice. There are some practices where, Buddhist practices,

[15:03]

where people just get together once in a while and have a big concentrated experience. But that's not our style and never has been. And I remember in the 60s when there were teachers who used to fly from Japan and they were called jet set Roshis, and fly from one Sashin to another. And people would go from one Sashin to another, you know, and follow these Sashins of concentrated practice. But they didn't have much of a daily practice. They were trying to get something extraordinary. But the style of our practice is ordinary. Ordinary style, ordinary practice, which when you're not doing it, it looks extraordinary.

[16:08]

But when you're actually doing it, it becomes quite ordinary. So some styles of practice are extraordinary styles, where you just spend your time doing extraordinary things. So sometimes our practice looks kind of boring, And sometimes it's very boring. You need something to contrast and to refresh your energy. So practice period for older members is to refresh the energy. get rid of our complacency and get out of whatever rut we may have established and really renew our practice.

[17:16]

So this is the purpose of practice period, renew our practice. It's a wonderful time from through the month of May to the middle of June. And at the end of practice period, we have five days of Shem. And then we have a ceremony called the head monk's ceremony, shuso ceremony, where everyone tests the shuso with a question. So that's quite significant. So in this style of lay practice, We don't all do the same practice because every one of our lives are different. So our style is to, each one of us who participates in practice period decides what our level of participation is.

[18:20]

And you do that by balancing your practice with all the other activities of your life and see what you come out with. And then you make an effort to do as much as you can. And you write it down on a piece of paper. But it's not for me to look at. I may look at it, but it's for you to look at what you said to yourself. So this really helps you to see how you realistically can do something. Sometimes when people decide to do practice period, they come in with a lot of enthusiasm and over-commit themselves. Or someone else may be very cautious and under-commit themselves, even though they could do more. So, you have to find where you are in that scale.

[19:25]

If you're the type of person who over-commits, then you should be very careful about what you commit yourself to. So that's an important aspect of practice. It's the first aspect of practice. And if you're very timid, maybe put yourself out a little bit more and take a risk. Put some energy into your practice. So when each one of us creates our own practice in that sense, and we come together to practice, even though it's not even, there's a critical mass that creates a wonderful practice period. So this is very important because not only is it for practice period, but this helps us in deciding how we practice the rest of the time, what our commitment is the rest of the time.

[20:54]

And what I urge people to do normally is to schedule a rhythm of practice for a certain period of time, say a month or two months, and at the end of that time to review it and say, does this work? And if it does, continue. And if it doesn't, change it. If you just make a commitment and keep it open-ended, then pretty soon you find that life is changing and here you are trying to do this thing that you can no longer do, and then you become discouraged. So our commitments should not be open-ended, but they should have a time limit. So for this practice period, it's a six-week commitment.

[21:57]

And so it may be difficult and it may not. But if it's difficult, to keep with your decision. If it's too difficult, then change your decision somewhere. But do it consciously. Do it consciously and recognize the mistake. That's important. So, I guess what I'm saying is it's important to have conscious practice. Whatever you do, you should be conscious and aware. And if you make a mistake, consciously change it. Acknowledge it and change it. Don't try to force your way through something. It's like a new person sitting Zazen, who tries to sit through the whole period without moving, but you can't do it, so you move.

[23:08]

But you don't blame yourself or hit yourself, you just consciously make that decision to move, and then you continue. So another aspect of practice period is to bring to mind what is true practice. In the course of our daily practice, it's very easy to wander off, and we think that we're practicing for the right reasons, but we're not. There are many reasons that bring us to practice. And in the course of our long practice, we can clear up or find the true reason for practicing.

[24:22]

But we don't expect that everyone knows the true reason for practicing when they come. So, I think it's important to talk about what some of the non-reasons are for practicing. There's a list of six. six types of tainted Zen, which are amusing, and I'll talk about them. One is called Jigoku. Jigoku Zen is the kind of Zen that one practices in order to get some position, in order to

[25:28]

have some position in the Sangha. Usually that's not so strong in our American practice. In a practice that's well established over a long period of time, like in Japan or China or whatever, and you have a lot of hierarchy and position. this is more common in that kind of situation. And especially when a practice becomes rather old, people no longer have to do the real practices. They can just kind of filter through the administration. without actually having to do anything. And then you get a whole group of people who are like bureaucrats.

[26:36]

I think we have to be very careful of that in our practice, that we don't create a kind of bureaucratic zen, where people are kind of vying for positions and practicing in order to have some position. Then, that's also called the Zen of Hell. Or they do it in order to get certified. And then when they get certified, then they can go and have their own temple and have a nice easy life. Then there's Gakki Zen. You know, the Gakki are the hungry ghosts. This is the Zen of seeking enlightenment, desperately seeking enlightenment.

[27:42]

Hungry ghosts have big stomachs, huge capacity, but very narrow throats. And in order to fill the stomach, you have to get something down the throat, but the throats are so narrow that nothing goes down very easily. And so they're always starving. Even though they're in the midst of plenty, they're always starving for one thing or another. So most of us have some Gaki Zen in us. We want something really badly, you know, but because of our desire, We can't really digest it. I think a lot of people come to practice because they want to get enlightenment, which is normal and natural.

[28:46]

But once you enter practice, you realize that practice is for the sake of practice. and enlightenment comes. But if you keep practicing in order to get enlightened, nothing will happen. If you keep seeking real hard to get enlightened, nothing will happen. You have to settle into practice. If you only use practice as a vehicle for enlightenment, then by ignoring the primacy of practice, enlightenment will not peer. So practice and enlightenment go with each other. You can't just use practice as a vehicle to get enlightened. You actually have to settle into practice as your life's

[29:52]

Then there's the Chikusho Zen, which is a Zen of the domesticated animal. You join the practice because the food is good. I remember people used to ask Kata Giri Roshi in the old days, Why did you become a monk?" And he said, oh, well, because the food in the monastery was so good. He wasn't telling the truth, of course, but there are people who just want, you know, find a comfortable niche, you know. They'll join the practice and pretty soon, you know, you move them here and you move them there, you know, but they don't add anything, they don't contribute anything. They're just allowing themselves to be fed and housed, and they do just enough to get along.

[31:10]

So that's not a good reason for practice. And then there's the Shura Zen. Shura is a fighting demon in the six worlds. One of the worlds is the Asura world, where Demons are fighting each other. You can see it going on around you all the time. But this is the Zen where students compete with each other to see who can get enlightened first. To see who cannot do the other. Little competition is good because it stimulates people. It's stimulating. But this is like going beyond that and trying to be first, you know, trying to be the star. This is... and fighting your way, you know, and putting down others and trying to get as much knowledge as possible.

[32:20]

There are people who accumulate a lot of knowledge and knowledge is power. And if you have a lot of knowledge, then people come to you, and you can dole it out, little by little, as a very powerful person, feeding, you know, the fish, who will come and open their mouth. This is detestable. And then, There's the Nyingen Zen, which is a utilitarian Zen. I think this is the Zen that most people are trapped in, is what you get out of practice. You go to practice to get something out of it. Utilitarian. If I practice, I'll be better at work, and my body will get stronger.

[33:24]

It's self-improvement Zen. Naturally, all of us want to improve ourselves. And part of practice, if there's no improvement, then we feel something lacking. But it's not the purpose of practice. When you start to sit zazen, there are many benefits. Your body will feel better, your mind becomes clear. All these wonderful things happen. But those are by-products of practice. They're not the purpose of practice. Practice has many wonderful by-products. And some of the by-products are so wonderful that they look like the purpose. But they're just the by-products. The purpose of practice is to discover, uncover,

[34:27]

Original self. Naturally, when original self is uncovered, things happen. But you don't do it for that reason, for those reasons. And this is the biggest trap of practice. And it's the hardest one, I think, for most people. your friends will say, why do you do it? And then you say, yeah, why do I do it? That's a great question. And it's a question that we should all keep with us. Why do I do this? And when we do practice for some reason, it becomes self-centered practice. We don't want it to, but when we... The purpose of practice is to go beyond egotistical practice.

[35:42]

And as soon as we start to want something from it, then it becomes egotistical. You can't want something from it. The rest of our lives, we always want something from life, or we want something from our activity. We want a reward for our activity, a result of our activity. And in Zazen, we want a result, too. We do want a result. But Zazen, in practice, the reward is in the activity. The reward is in what you're doing. The result is in what you're doing. Not some result down the line. Although there will be a result down the line. But it's the practice of not creating karma.

[36:49]

That's what's causing it. It's a practice. It's the practice of not creating karma. And when you start wanting something, You're creating karma. So it's just very clear and simple. It's just Buddhist truth. The cause of suffering is wanting something. And this is our biggest problem. So what Buddhism is about is suffering and its cause, and how to not escape, but how to deal with it in a true sense. Because we'll never really escape from suffering. As soon as you try to escape from suffering, you just have more suffering.

[37:55]

But how to be free of suffering within suffering. So, this is, as I say, the biggest trap, you know, to just be able to sit for the sake of sitting, to be able to do anything for the sake of itself, moment to moment. It's called shikantaza. That's our practice. And all the koans lead to shikantaza. Just this, just doing, without being self-centered. If something wonderful comes, thank you. If something terrible comes,

[38:58]

Thank you. Shikantaza. Even though we may not like it, we accept equally. So the last one is called Tenjo Zen. This is Hermit Zen. Or it's also dilettante zen. Someone who learns a little bit about zen, comes to the zendo for a while, then goes home and has a kind of zen ambiance. Invites the friends over, you know, and impresses them with what you know, and so forth.

[40:07]

Also called hobby, hobbies. But that's okay, you know. That kind of person, unless they can at some point maybe wake up and let go of that and actually start to practice. But most important, thing, you know, is not to have egotistical or self-centered practice. And to know just what proportion or how your life is proportioned, you know, what the activities of life are.

[41:14]

The difficult thing, you know, even though we want to practice, even though we really want to practice, and make an effort, there are so many competing activities that unless you really put it into your life, on your calendar, you'll probably just be swept away by the competing forces in your life. I think in the old days, people didn't have so many competing forces. But nowadays, it's a torrent. You go home and you want to do something, but then there's the new record that you wanted to hear, there's the news, there's the paper, there's the wife or the husband, there's the kids.

[42:17]

Everybody's got their thing that they want you to do. Before you know it, you can't do anything that you thought about, you just swept away, right? So, in order to actually practice, our intention has to be very strong, and it cannot be, you can't do it through whim or through our feelings, depending on how we feel about it. It's got to be our decision. So practice period gives us that opportunity to regroup our practice, to refresh our practice, and reestablish our practice. And for a new person, newer people, to learn how to establish our practice. So I invite you, all the members,

[43:19]

to participate in the practice program. Do you have a question? When I think about my reasons for starting practice and my reasons for staying in practice, I doubt that I've ever known anything except tainted Zen. In fact, all of my motives, all of the pure motives, are always accompanied by less pure motives. kind of come to the realization, or at least the understanding of this, that actually all of my good intentions are always in cover with these other intentions. And I finally just sort of said, there's nothing I can do about this. So that's just basically what I have to live with. But when you go through this list, it makes me want to sort through again and go through this whole process of resigning myself to having all these impure motives. Well, that's our life, right?

[44:21]

Yeah, we want to do something in a pure way, but we have all these other reasons. And so it's really important to see that. You don't say, well, I'm not going to practice because my motives are not pure. You bring all your impurities to practice, and practice with them. after a long time, or a short time, or some time, they get ground away. And practice becomes refined. And practice is life, right? Our life is just the same way. We want to do something, We want to be, you know, get some idea.

[45:24]

We want to have a kind of pure, wonderful life. And yet, as soon as we start to move out, all of our demons and all of our desires, you know, just step right in front of us and start laughing. Think you're going to get rid of me? And the more you want to get rid of them, the stronger they get. So you can start fighting the demons, but if you just practice with good intention, even though all these other intentions are there, that one will be the leader, even though the other ones will be playing around and crawling all over you like children. trying to bring you around here and there. So, you just keep bringing yourself back. It's just like Zazen.

[46:25]

You know, you say, I'm going to sit in Zazen, and no thoughts. But you keep bringing yourself back. You know, coming back. You let go of the thoughts, come back. Let go a hundred thousand times. You know, let go. Just bring yourself back. You don't chase them away. You don't blame them. You don't say they're bad or evil or anything. You just, oh, Zazen. Oh, oh yeah, Zazen. Oh yeah, I remember I was sitting Zazen. That's all. And you just keep doing that forever. Or does it just seem like forever? Pure practice is within the impure. Pure practice takes place within the impurity of our life. That's where it takes place. So, we say the lotus grows in the mud.

[47:29]

So each one of us has a lot of impurities. This world is the world of impurities. But at the same time, our practices are impure within the world of impurity. Don't try to get rid of it. Just practice. Just do that one practice. within the muck, and that's where your life will shine. Otherwise, none of us would be able I got a kiss.

[48:32]

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