I love to taste the truth of the truth. When I think about Sashin and see us all sitting here, What comes to mind is the story of the bodhisattvas in the bath. You know the story of the bodhisattvas in the bath. In the Surya and Gama Sutra, there is a section where Buddha is holding the Surangama Assembly and he asks the various twenty-five bodhisattvas to say something about how they entered enlightenment, entered the Dharma door of enlightenment through the various sense gates, through the dharmas of sense.

[01:18]

So one bodhisattva talks about how he entered through seeing, and another one through hearing, and another one through smelling, tasting, and so forth. And Bhadrapala bodhisattva, when it was his turn, he said, I entered the Dharma door through touching. He said one time, aeons, kalpas ago, when I was the disciple of the very first Buddha, there were 16 arhats, and we used to practice, we used to take a bath every day, just like a tassel. We used to take a bath every evening. And so one day, the 16 of us went down to the bath, and as soon as we got in the water, as soon as we touched the water, we were enlightened through touching the water.

[02:40]

Without washing away the dust, And without washing our body, we entered the Dharma door of complete understanding through touch, through touching the water. All of us at once. This is a very unusual story. It's also a koan in Blue Cliff Record, case number 78, I think. And then he said, what we realized was that water does not exist, the non-existence of water. And then he said, subtle touch produces illumination.

[04:05]

Subtle touch produces illumination. So sometimes I think of our assembly here as the Sashin Bath. We all enter this Sashin Bath together, and we all touch the same source, touch the source of water. When you touch the source of water, when you touch the source of your nature, things don't exist. Even though things are here, even though water doesn't exist, it doesn't mean there's no water. And how we enter

[05:13]

The Dharma door is through our body. There's an old saying, you know, are you a monk of body or a monk of mind? There are some people who have been had realization through study. Actually, I believe Sekito, he said, was enlightened through studying the Chao Lun when he came to a certain passage in the Chao Lun. He was enlightened in several Famous people were enlightened through reading, through studying, but almost everyone has realization through the body. And why we sit sasheen instead of studying is because realization comes through the body.

[06:25]

And touch, of course, is one of the main functions of the body. How do you realize the non-existence of water through touch? We say, when you become one with the object, there's no you and no object. When we sit zazen on our black cushion, and you may have painful legs,

[07:37]

But painful legs are just sitting zazen. If you say, I am sitting zazen, black cushion, then there's still you and zazen. In order for zazen to be zazen, you have to be completely you. But if you say, I am sitting Zazen in a black cushion, you are not completely you. You're only completely you when there's no you. To be completely you, there has to be no you. For water to be completely water, there's no water. But it doesn't mean that you don't exist or that water doesn't exist. So the reason why we have such strict, put so much emphasis on small, apparently insignificant activity as walking in a certain way and sitting in a certain way is

[09:08]

So you can experience yourself completely. When you bow, just bow completely. But what does it mean to just bow completely? What is a bow? Just, you can say, a great act or an act of greatness. Just, to just bow is not so easy. We're always thinking, why am I bowing? Who am I bowing to? Do we have to do nine of these? I did this yesterday. Will we have to do it again tomorrow? This is maybe number four, number five, number six. As long as we have some idea I am bowing for some reason to something.

[10:17]

We're still in the realm of separation. So our Zen practice is over and over again to bring each moment to life completely. Really hard. Very hard. Almost impossible. We're always sliding off. Not only you, but myself. All of us constantly sliding off the realm of reality. to just be able to walk, take a step completely, pretty hard. When we walk in a zendo, to just walk, just to take a step, feel your foot on the floor.

[11:30]

Before you put your foot on the floor, you say, there's the floor. But as soon as your foot meets the floor, There's no you and no floor. There's just this act. Just this. To feel the floor completely with your foot. No foot and no floor. I notice in the zendo, we walk sometimes when we come in and out. When we think about it, when we think about it, pretty slow. It's not a matter of slow or fast. But when we walk in and out of the zendo, sometimes we have a goal, we have some place to go. So we forget about just walking, and we're going somewhere. Going somewhere is okay.

[12:46]

We have to go someplace. But in the realm of this particular practice called Sashin, When we walk in the zendo, we don't walk to go someplace, even though we're going somewhere. Our steps bring us someplace. But there's only this place where we are now. So sitting, eating, walking, standing, are all dharma doors. You can enter that door anywhere, anytime. So we enter that door breath after breath, step after step, act after act, with no thought of attainment, no thought of attaining anything, no thought of getting someplace.

[13:51]

When we work, we work in the same way, even though there's some... Working has some different feeling to it, in that we think we're getting something done, we're accomplishing something. But within that accomplishment, we should be able to enter into the Dharma door. Within our complete activity of this moment, there's great dynamic action. And within each moment's great dynamic action is complete rest, complete stillness, complete just-this-ness. So we have this opportunity, which is rather rare, to practice in this way, to illuminate our subtle activity.

[15:36]

Subtle activity illuminates This practice in China was once called silent illumination, practice of silent illumination. We don't call it the practice of silent illumination, but silent illumination is there. Subtle touch. What is subtle touch? Subtle touch is no gap. If you want to become, if you want to understand water, just be one with water, completely water. If you want to understand zazen, just be completely willing with zazen.

[16:47]

No gap means no thinking about it. so so so So in our practice today, I suggest to be really aware of touch.

[18:40]

Whatever we touch with our hands or our feet or any part of our body, to have subtle awareness. when you hit the bell. How do you hit that bell? How do you touch that bell? What are you trying to accomplish? How do you make an enlightened sound on a bell? How do you enlighten everyone with the sound of the bell? In Japan they make huge bells and in the monastery they hit the bell in the morning and people in the village hear the bell and it has some meaning for them.

[19:46]

How do you sound the bell that wakes everyone up? How do you convey that? How do you convey enlightenment? Through the sound of the bell. Subtle touch. But yet, you have to do that. When we chant, chanting, the meaning of the sutra is in how you chant it. If you look for the meaning of the sutra in words, you can find it. But real meaning is in how you chant it. The message is within you. We talk about Heart Sutra.

[20:51]

We should understand the Heart Sutra intellectually. We should know what it's talking about. But real meaning in the Heart Sutra comes back to you. You're the Heart Sutra. Heart Sutra is not something written down on a piece of paper. How you produce something without a thought. completely wholeheartedly. With no gap. When you serve someone, how do you serve someone completely?

[22:02]

when the person that's being served holds out their bowl, and the person that's serving serves in the bowl. What's happening there? That's the critical point. And then how you take the bowl back, and how you respond to each other. Critical point. No server and no one being served. When you carry the stick and hit someone on the shoulder, there's no person being hit, there's no one hitting, and there's no stick. Just... That's all. So this is, this kind of practice, if we don't practice in this way, we're just wasting our time.

[23:28]

If we don't have this kind of effort, make this kind of effort, it's wasting our time. This is called practice of renunciation. It means understanding no self. Constantly giving ourself up in order to enter the Dharma realm, moment after moment. It's a little bit like baptism.

[24:29]

When I think of the sixteen arhats entering the bath, I think a little bit about it. It's like baptism. I'm not sure exactly, but it feels that way to me. It feels like immersion. Zazen is like immersion. Immersion in Buddha nature. Not to produce something, but just to be it. Just to be ourself. Suzuki Roshi always used to say, just to resume to ourself. Come back to ourself. without trying to make some special distinction between dirty and clean, or pure or impure.

[25:43]

If you try to be too pure, then we have to throw some mud at you. Our practice is not to be so pure, you know. All of us are good and bad, everybody, without exception, good and bad, pure and impure, all mixed up together. But in each moment we can find our nature. So in this zazen bath, without washing the dust or washing the body,

[27:02]

through subtle touch, find illumination. This is what already happens anyway, even if you try just a little bit. But if you You know, I have good effort. With a big effort, we have a big Buddha. Do you have a question?

[28:15]

You know, to do what you have to do. Just to do what you have to do. And whatever happens within that, whatever happens within what you are doing that you have to do, to just be one with it. But also, when you talk about being one, you know, that together with being one is also the notion that it seems like at the same time they're realizing that there's a difference. And that those going together, it seems, I wish you'd put in a word for that. When you say to be one with something, I want to hear also that also you have to be aware of the difference in this relationship between those two.

[30:02]

But if you talk about being one with something, something is already implied. So you can't talk about being one with something without the something. But the main thing You know, when you say one with, one with is a little bit inadequate to express, you know, but it's actually inexpressible. So you have to say one with. So that's maybe not such a good expression, but it's close.

[31:07]

Also, you have to realize that the words, don't hang on the words. Don't get attached to the words. Don't think one way, you know. The understanding comes from you, not from me. I'm just saying. If you practice this way, you have your opportunity. But I can't say, you know, I can't tell you. Sometimes, you know, oneness is described as not to, because if you say, be one with, then it, like you say, it becomes actually kind of dualistic. So the expression is usually, not two, which implies oneness and also doesn't give you something, some idea about it.

[32:28]

Yes. Well, I'm not sure if I can. I don't think I can. Well, I'll say this. Enlightenment is our nature. Enlightenment is light. And realization is the recognition of that, or the revelation of it. to realize our nature, to realize, to make real something that's illuminated, to manifest illumination. I don't want to talk too much longer, but I will a little bit. But right effort during formal practice is to really follow the schedule.

[34:14]

What does formal practice mean? Formal practice means you can leave yourself behind. You don't have to think about yourself at all. You just leave it all behind. And this is a way that you can enter. So some people say, well, formal practice is too formal for me. And it inhibits what I would like to do. I would like to do it this way. I would like to do it that way. So formal practice is like a maze, in a sense. It allows you to leave yourself outside the gate. And if you can go through that maze, then you can find yourself. But we want to find ourself through our desire, desire mind. And desire mind is so subtle that we don't even know when we're necessarily, when it's using us or whether we're in control or not.

[35:23]

So entering formal practice is to leave desire mind outside. And just everybody does the same thing in the same way. And to just be able to follow that completely, that may give you a lot of trouble. And the trouble it gives you allows you to see where your desire mind is, in other words, where your ego is. So we're always up against ego within our practice. And formal practice is the guardian, you know? It's like one of those guardians at the temple gate, you know? Doesn't let your ego get in there. You know, it's the guardian at the gate.

[36:25]

You leave your stuff outside. But we always want to bring our stuff inside. And the formality says you can come inside if you leave your stuff outside. And the proof of leaving your stuff outside is to be able to follow form. So it's not a difficult form to follow physically, but it's a difficult form for our mind. Difficult for our mind to enter into the form because we have our own way of doing things. And it goes counter to society, in a sense. But actually, if you're working on computer chips in Silicon Valley, And you have to put on certain kind of clothes, go into a certain kind of room, and everything is done in a certain special way.

[37:35]

If you bring your own idea into there, if you bring your ego into there, poof, it's all gone. And this is the same, very similar. When my wife was going to nursing school, in the chemistry class, the teacher was showing them how you pour one chemical from one vial into another. And there's a very special way of handling everything. You grab certain things with certain fingers, and these things you grab with these fingers, and you pour it a certain way, and you put this in a certain way, and you don't do it any other way. If you do it some other way, you start bringing your idea into it, things don't go well, they don't go right.

[38:38]

So, you learn to do something in a certain way, in order, for the sake of the thing, And so that you can operate in a certain way and there is a certain result. And any kind of highly skilled production has to be done very carefully. And Zen practice is the same. The way we practice Zen is like that. Somewhat like that. You try and do the practice, the formal practice, as precisely as you can. And it helps you and it helps everybody else. And you learn something. Something comes out of that. It's possible that something won't come out of that. People are people, you know. Someone can go through the entire training and still come out completely deluded. There's no guarantee.

[39:40]

Nevertheless, to go through the form of practice gives you the sense of practice. I think that it's necessary to feel friendly towards that form. Yeah, well, that's a good point. You should feel friendly. When you feel friendly toward the form, then the form feels friendly toward you. That's right. Because you create the form. You think that the form is something imposed. When you think that the form is something imposed, that's not friendly. But if you completely enter, then you create the form. There's no form that you're not... Nobody's imposing anything on you at all. You are creating the form. That's the catch-22.

[40:42]

That's the catch-22. It's... That's the koan. Who creates it? Do you create the form or does the form create you? What we encounter at first, you know, the form we have here is similar to the social forms that we encounter as we grow up and people build their character and what to do and what not to do and how to behave and not behave. It is something we encounter from the outside as we grow up and then we become it. Right, so all forms don't help us, but some forms are helpful and some aren't. And also, the forms of practice change. And the forms of practice change with the times and they change with circumstances and what's needed.

[41:49]

And there is no special form of Zen. I've said this many times before. There's no special form of Zen. Any form can be the form of Zen. The Dharma door is everywhere. But if you don't know how to... If you don't know the form of the Dharma door, the entrance is everywhere, you don't see it. So in order to see it, you practice in a certain way. in order to help you to see that. So the formal practice is to help us to see. It's a limited kind of practice, very intense. It helps us to see how you entered the Dharma doors anywhere. But if you don't have that, then, you know, you don't have any education. There's no form.

[42:51]

No, there's not that realization. So there's a price for getting attached to the form. Right. And we can also get attached to the form in Zen. You know, that's dangerous. So we have to always be very careful not to be attached to the form of Zen. But not to be attached to the form of Zen doesn't mean not to do it. And the various forms that we have now, you know, we're not necessarily the forms that Darwin had, or they're forms that evolve in time through people's experience and so forth. And we have to evolve our own forms. And we are, but slowly, slowly. First we have to understand the forms that are given to us. When we understand those, then we can change the forms. But if you try to change the forms without understanding the form, or why we use it, then we just end up with mush.

[43:56]

Everybody's got their own ideas. So it's a process. If we're worried too much about it, then there's some problem. It may be because you don't like form. Many people have various reasons, you know, why they don't like the form. So, myself, I'm not a conservative, but I'm put into a conservative position, so I look very conservative. Because I have to withstand all the forces that want to change the forms. I look like a conservative. But actually I'm not anything.

[44:59]

I just have to take the position that I take according to what's around me. Anyway, but we still have a few minutes. What about spontaneity in form? That's right. If you just bow without any idea about bowing, that's spontaneity in form. If you just eat without any idea of eating or good or bad or I like it or don't like it, just eat, that's spontaneity in form. If you just chant, if you just sit, that's spontaneity. We think every day, bowing over and over again. There is no bowing over and over again.

[46:00]

There's just this bow, and then there's just this bow, and just this bow. If you think, I'm repeating this over and over, that's not spontaneity. Spontaneity is to be completely in each moment. Without the repetition, you can't produce that kind of spontaneity. You get bored with everything and you need something new always. And we think that that's freedom. We need this freedom to always do something new. But actually, we can't repeat anything. Nothing is repeated. Everything is spontaneous, without exception. Spontaneity is within you. You may get stale, you know, it's easy to get stale, but the staleness is not in the form, the staleness is within you. That's one reason why practice is seemingly repetitious, so that you can find your spontaneity in each seemingly repetitious act.

[47:12]

Each time you do it, it's completely new, completely different moment, completely new now. Oh, I've done this a hundred times. Then, you know, it's possible to get tired of something, you know, I understand that. But the spirit of Spontaneity is within you, is within bringing each moment to life. It doesn't matter what the activity is. It doesn't depend on some special activity. And that's the kind of training that we have. That's what training is about, actually. And it's easy to get stale. You know, to come in the Zen Dojo and say, geez, you know, I did this yesterday. You know, do I have another bow?

[48:17]

Another chanting of the Sutra? But it's because you're not there that you say that. As soon as you put yourself completely without reservation, then it's all new and it's all wonderful. It's not up to something outside. It's up to you. There are many ways to practice Zen, many different forms, Rinzai Zen, Soto Zen, so-called. Actually, we don't really practice either one. But we say, well, this is the Soto school, but it's not really. It's just Buddhism, some kind of form of Buddhism, Buddhadharma. Any one of these forms that you go into, you'll see, you say, geez, you know, that's wonderful, but I don't think this is so good.

[49:26]

It happens every place you go. If you're used to practicing in a certain way, and you go to another place, you say, they don't do that right. We do it this way. They don't. Oh, no. Look at the way they bow. Listen to the way they chant. It's true that some people do things better than others. This will happen to you wherever you go. If you're used to practicing in a certain place, wherever you go, you'll start criticizing. But, you know, you just do it. Do what people do. And pretty soon you'll find that you can do that, and you can find yourself in it, and you can find a way to practice in that situation by letting yourself go into the situation. When I was driving my Volkswagen, my 64 Volkswagen, I thought it was the greatest car in the world. And it was. Still is.

[50:26]

But somebody else got into my car. Jesus, old Rattletrap, how does it go down the street? How does it function? People were afraid to drive it. But to me, it just ran so beautifully and smooth. wonderfully, you know, I'd take it anywhere and to me it was the best car on the road. And then I got my new Toyota. And I got used to driving that, you know, then I got back into my Volkswagen again. And at first it just felt like I couldn't control it. The contrast just, you know, in a short time. But after a few minutes, after about 10 minutes, I was right back where I was before with the Volkswagen. You just kind of adapt to situations. If you don't adapt to the situation, you can't do anything. But if you know how to adapt, you can do anything. It doesn't matter where you're practicing. You can practice any place you are with any vehicle you have.

[51:30]

It doesn't matter. My Toyota isn't really any better than my Volkswagen, honestly. It feels different. But it's really no better. Yes? I heard Joseph Campbell speak about a year or so ago, and he was talking about this sort of thing. In his journey and path himself, he sort of tried to become other forms. He started to dress in a dhoti like an Indian for a while, and thought maybe that was what he had to do be the particular that he was interested in, but he never passed and people always thought he was strange and it never really worked. So finally he decided that he would just be who he was and wear what he wore, which is a suit.

[52:33]

And he said that he was wearing the outer garment of the world and the inner garment of the mystic way. That's good. Yeah. I've always felt that way myself. So it enabled me... It didn't matter. So it enables me to wear robes and feel comfortable. Because it really doesn't matter. I feel just as comfortable enough. Levi's. Yeah. Just time? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Shreem Brzee

[53:21]

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