Good morning. Today is almost the middle of our practice period, six-week practice period, and I'm happy to see that things are going well and people are remembering that that's what we're doing and that we're keeping our commitments. in the middle of a practice period, whether it's three weeks, I mean, six weeks or three months, the middle is always the kind of, things begin to slow down, especially in the spring. In the spring, we want to do something.

[01:05]

We want to get outside and we want to move around with nature. So it's very gratifying to see so many of you here today, given this long weekend. So I just want to remind us that to continue to keep our energy going and to keep our commitments for the rest of the practice period. Today, I just want to say a little advertisement. Sorry, but I have a, I had a lay raksu that I must have loaned to somebody.

[02:09]

And if I loaned it to you, would you please return it? I'm not sure what happened to it, but I think sometimes I loan it to people who forgot theirs or lost theirs or something. So if you have that and you remember that I loaned it to you, please return it. Today, I'm going to comment on a lecture, a talk by Suzuki Roshi. 1968, talk he gave in 1968. Last weekend, we had the 100th anniversary of Suzuki Roshi's birth at Zen Center in San Francisco and at Green Gulch. And it was quite a nice event. And so, kind of in honor of that event, I wanted to present something of Suzuki Roshi's teaching here today.

[03:13]

And this, interestingly enough, this talk that I'm going to comment on is very pertinent to what we've been studying lately. And I've been going through my office in a kind of spring cleaning to eliminate things that I don't need and to rearrange things and clean things up. And I ran across this talk at that time. And then he talks about spring cleaning in the talk. So everything kind of comes together in this talk. So he says today, he's doing a sashin. So he says, today I want to explain our way of zazen. Are you familiar with the well-known story of Gutei attaining enlightenment when Tenryu held up one finger? At that time, Gutei said, I received Tenryu's one finger, which I had been using my whole lifetime, and I have been unable to exhaust it.

[04:22]

So if you know this story, that Gutei, when someone would ask him a question, He would always go like this. That was his response to every question, so the story goes. And he received that from Tenryu. He was enlightened when Tenryu did this, and so he always did this himself because it was his own enlightenment, because he realized what was going on. So he was free to use the one finger because it came from his own understanding. Then there was this little boy, this poor little boy, who was a kind of acolyte, and when Gutei was away from the temple, people would ask the kid something, and the kid would go like this. So one day Gutei asked the kid something, and the kid went like this, and Gutei chopped off his finger.

[05:24]

you don't have to believe everything they give you. As I was explaining to somebody the other day, Zen, the stories in Zen are kind of Zen legend, you know, it's like, so, and they express something, but they're not necessarily based on fact. They're based on fact, but they're not necessarily totally factual. So you can believe it or not. Depends on you. So there is another story. One day, Master Yakasan was asked to give a lecture to the monks. He stepped up to the lecture seat, sat for a while, and then returned to the floor and went back to his room. The director of the temple went to his room and asked him, you haven't given us a lecture for a long time, so I asked you to do so. But as soon as you appeared on the seat, you returned to your room.

[06:31]

Why is that? Yaga-san said, there are many teachers. Some are teaching Buddhist precepts. Some are giving lectures in sutras. And I am a Zen teacher. That was his answer. What do you think of that? So this kind of leads us in to Suzuki Hiroshi's talk. So he says, I may ask you, what have you been doing during Sashin today? Some of you must have been very sleepy, and some of you must have had pain, terrible pain in your legs, and some of you must find it difficult to stop your monkey mind. So you may think that even though there are quite a few people sitting, only some people are practicing Zazen in its true sense, meaning no pain, no monkey mind, no problem. She's saying you think that's real Zazen without any problems. So today we have not much time for Dōkasan, but if we did have Dōkasan, I think there would be many questions about this, about breathing, about pain, about your monkey mind, or what should I do with it.

[07:42]

As we have no Dōkasan today, it may be a good idea to give you some instruction about Zazen, but the instruction about Zazen is not exactly what we usually think of as Zazen instruction. He talks about Shikantaza. Tenryu, holding up one finger, means practice. Shikantaza. Shikantaza is the basis of our practice. It means just this, just doing. When we sit, we just sit. When we eat, just eat. Nothing extra. I mean, just doing something with nothing extra. It also means no gaining mind. So we've been talking about no gaining mind lately. And there's always some question about that. People are always asking questions about no gaining mind.

[08:44]

If I get something, does that mean that I have gaining mind? So does that mean that I should never get anything? Or what? So we have to understand what this means. Shikantaza is the basis of the practice. So what Tenryu demonstrated is shikantaza, in which you have no gaining idea. So no gaining idea and shikantaza are two terms for the same thing. You just sit. Last Wednesday and Sunday, I said that in Zazen, you should be an obstacle to Buddha. Buddha's light. Because you practice Zazen desiring or expecting to have complete calmness of your mind, the various problems you have become obstacles. Because you want something, the thing you want becomes an obstacle. So we want calm mind, but we have monkey mind.

[09:53]

We want a good feeling, but we have a bad feeling. We want enlightenment, but all we have is delusion. So when we have these kinds of problems in our mind, then those are obstacles. Sorry, but they're obstacles. The second noble truth is that desire, we say delusions, but desire is the cause of suffering. And how do we get out of suffering? Well, deal with the desire. When you have no gaining idea, then everything which appears in Zazen will become one finger. In other words, whatever appears is practice.

[10:54]

At that time, your Zazen becomes powerful Zazen. When a monk asked the master, what should I do? This is Tozan. When the monk asked Master Tozan, Dongshan, what should I do when winter comes? The master said, be cold, Buddha. And when summer comes, be hot, Buddha. Actually, it's like when cold comes, let the cold kill you. When heat comes, let the heat kill you. That's more literal. Kill you means cut off your discriminating mind. You know, we want to become comfortable. We spend all our time trying to be comfortable in one way or another.

[11:57]

So we want everything to adjust to ourself. Our effort is to order the world in order to adjust the world to our disposition. And when the world is all ordered in a way that makes us feel comfortable, then we think everything is okay. But actually, it's not. Once we get comfortable, then that comfort becomes uncomfortable. You know, you sit down in a comfortable chair, but after a while, the comfortable chair becomes uncomfortable, and then you wanna move. So there's no real place to sit or to be where you're completely comfortable for any length of time. And so we're always moving and arranging everything, arranging our surroundings in order to keep making ourselves comfortable. And then we don't like it when something intrudes and upsets our comfort.

[13:00]

But he says, you know, when winter comes, just be cold. When summer comes, just be hot. When pain comes, just be painful. When joy comes, just be joyful. So, this is called adjusting to circumstances, adjusting ourself to the circumstances. So, therefore, you can be you'll find yourself comfortable wherever you are. You don't need to arrange the circumstances in order to make yourself comfortable. You find the comfort within yourself by adjusting to the circumstances. And so when you have no gaining idea, you become various Buddhas moment after moment.

[14:12]

cold Buddha, hot Buddha, powerful Buddha, or monkey-minded Buddha. When you want to have calm, serene mind, you'll be discouraged by your monkey mind. But when you have no gaining idea, you can just sit and accept everything with a calm mind. then monkey mind is one finger. Tenryu is one finger. In this way, moment after moment, various Buddhas will appear in your practice. At that time, it is not ordinary monkey mind. It is monkey mind Buddha because you accept monkey mind. You don't try to criticize monkey mind or eliminate monkey mind or squash monkey mind. You know, we have this, we get into terrible circumstances by criticizing ourself. When we're not perfect, when we're not doing things the way we would like to do, or the way that we think things should be, we start beating ourselves.

[15:21]

Instead of just simply accepting what's really there. We're very judgmental people, creatures. And that's also, you know, judgmental Buddha, if we understand it correctly. If you understand judgmental Buddha correctly, then that takes the sting out of judgment. So, At that time, it is not ordinary monkey mind, it is monkey mind Buddha. When it is hot, it is hot Buddha. Yakasan demonstrated his practice without words. Tenryu just held up one finger. He held this one finger up without any gaining idea. Without trying to teach people, he just held it up. This one finger is right. To hold up two fingers is also right. But if you demonstrate in this way, people may be confused.

[16:30]

So he just pointed up one finger. If you know the meaning of one finger, you can hold up three or four fingers, doesn't matter. You know, we say, no attachments, have no attachments. But if you understand the meaning of attachment and non-attachment, then attachment itself becomes non-attachment. Because we see things from one side only, we create a problem. Because this one finger can be various things, According to the situation, we call it the true one finger. Avalokiteshvara is supposed to have 33 different bodies, which he uses in various ways to save people.

[17:33]

But even though she takes many forms, her true body is one. So we say, just to sit. Just to sit does not mean to have a bottom to your practice. when we are ready to practice in various ways, that is shikantaza. It is the foundation of various practices. If you do not have this secret of practice, you may be easily discouraged. If you make some progress, naturally you'll stick to it in the same old way that you usually stick to things because you feel very good about your practice. you may feel that you made some progress, but even so, if you attach to it in the usual way, you will surely be discouraged, and you'll be very confused, and you'll wonder what Zazen is. So there are a lot of things he's talking about here. The bottom line is that what we rely on is Buddha, our Buddha nature.

[18:37]

And Buddha nature is nothing special. But all of the things grow out of all of our psychophysical, emotional life grows out of Buddha nature. So one finger is the bottom line, two fingers, three fingers, four fingers. It's like, you know, if you take a balloon that has, that when you blow it up, all these little figures pop out of it. You, and pop, pop, pop, pop. All these little dogs and puppets and things. But the inside, inside is breath, key. So ki is like the life breath that fills everything. No breath, no life.

[19:41]

So no Buddha nature, no life. But even though you say, oh, there's a little dog or there's a little cat or something, it's the breath that fills everything. It's the basic nature that fills everything. So it's the one finger. Everything is a manifestation of the one thing. So when you understand the one thing, when your bottom line is the one thing, then whatever comes up is simply transformations of the one thing. So this world is called the world of transformations. Then there's the world of dharma body. And then there's a world, the realm of essence body. Dharmakaya is the essence body. Samogakaya is the wisdom body.

[20:46]

And Nirmanakaya is the transformation body. This is the realm of all three are present. But in the realm of transformations, this is where we usually where our attention is usually focused is in the realm of transformation. And that's the realm of pleasure and pain and growth and rising and dying away. The realm of birth and death is the transformation world. But we think, well, that's the only world. because we can't see easily underneath that, although we do intuit it. The wisdom body is our understanding. And the essence body is our nature. That's the one finger, but the one finger covers all three.

[21:50]

So all of our manifestations, arise out of the essence body, the dharmakaya. So when we base our understanding on dharmakaya, then we can more easily past, live our life in the transformation body, because we realize that everything, what the bottom line of our life is. So he says, because this one finger can be various things, Buddha nature,

[22:54]

arises as the variety of things. We call it the true one finger. So Avalokiteshvara has 33 different bodies. Well, that's just a way of speaking. It means that we can transform in various ways. It's not that we transform, it's that whatever circumstances we are in is a transformation. And then whatever circumstances we're in, Because we understand this, we help people in any situation. Those are the transformation bodies of Avalokiteshvara. For the Bodhisattva, every situation is an opportunity to practice. Instead of simply seeing the world as an adversary, you see it as a place to practice. That's Avalokitesvara's transformation body.

[23:57]

So we say, just to sit. Just to sit does not mean to have some bottom to your practice or an end. When we are ready to practice in various ways, that is shikantaza. So whatever circumstance you find yourself in, that's it. That's the place of practice. And it's just this. just shikantaza. It's the foundation of various practices. If you do not have this secret of practice, you may be easily discouraged because you think, oh, this is good and this is bad. But good and bad are simply judgments. A bad situation is not necessarily a bad situation. A good situation is not necessarily a good situation. We just call it good and bad according to our like and dislike. But a bad situation is just this situation.

[25:06]

A good situation is just this situation. But what comes up in us is, oh no, that's bad. Oh, that's good. So we hang on to, or we want something good. Sometimes we have a Kensho experience. Oh, that was enlightenment. So I wish I had that again. But I've never experienced that again. And I know I'll never experience that again. So what am I gonna do? All the rest of my life is kind of meaningless compared to that experience. So you sacrifice your life thinking about some experience you had which you thought was enlightenment. Real enlightenment is to accept the experience you're having right now without judging it.

[26:11]

It's just this. moment after moment. There's no special state of mind to have. Our states of mind are changing all the time, faster than we can account for them, moment by moment. This is what we mean by accepting things as they are. even though you accept something as it is, you say, well, will it always be this way? No, because nothing will always be the way it is now. The way it is now, you can't even grasp now. Now, grasp this now experience, it's already gone. So there's only now, [...] now.

[27:17]

And yet there is now, which is always now. This is continuous now. And then there's discontinuous now, which is all the increments of our life. But both of those, they're present at the same time. The eternal now and the ephemeral now are simultaneous. So he says, it seems difficult to sit without any gaining idea. But as you sit today, you should at least be completely involved in the atmosphere or the feeling of the zendo. You should not carry any ideas into the zendo. When you enter the zendo forgetting all about what you have been doing, you should just sit. Zazen is not the continuation of your everyday activities.

[28:23]

In Zazengi, that's one of Dogen's fascicles on how to sit Zazen, Dogen says that you should just let go of everything when you sit Zazen. You should just put everything aside and just sit. It takes time before you know what Zazen is. We say so because without this kind of conviction, you can't let go of everything and practice Shikantaza. If you think, I'll sit two or three months more, then your practice is not pure enough. You are just practicing zazen in the same way that you ordinarily study a subject. I'll study the subject and then I'll know about it and I'll go on to something else. That's not zazen. We should not mix up our practice with ordinary training or ordinary idea of exercise. When you understand this point, you will realize why we have a place like Tassajara Monastery.

[29:26]

You'll also realize why the old Zen masters had a difficult time in their practice. They put everything aside and practiced our way without any gaining idea. That was their effort. To practice our way in order to attain enlightenment is not good because this gaining idea is not pure enough. Instead, you should attain enlightenment forgetting everything else, we say. Practice Zazen without any gaining idea. This is a stronger, more strict kind of instruction. Without trying to attain enlightenment, you should just practice Zazen. Practicing Zazen to attain enlightenment may be pretty good, but it's not good enough, not strict enough. I think you're very sincere students, but your conviction is not strong enough. He's talking to the students. He likes them, but he's talking to them this way. So your conviction is not strong enough, not pure enough.

[30:29]

I think that is why many teachers expel their disciples. This is something we talked about in our class or in our last Friday. Go away, the teacher says, but they also meant don't forget to come back. Go away and prepare yourself for coming back again. That is real kindness. I think almost all of you should be expelled from the Zen Do, and we should start Zen Center all over again. How about it? Go away. Let's do it again. We must have this kind of spirit or else we cannot clean up our mind. So, you know, he sometimes talks about if you get started, well, Dogen says, if you, don't have the right beginning, then it's easy to go off on the wrong tangent.

[31:36]

And if you've ever built a house, you know that when you lay the foundation, if your measurement is a quarter of an inch off, by the time you get 50 feet down the line, it's a foot and a half off. I don't know what the exact measurement is, So to have the right beginning is really important and to practice with the right understanding from the beginning is important. So he's saying, let's all get out of here and reconsider what you're doing and then come on back and we'll start all over again. Clean the house, clean up the house. So then he says, in Japan, we have a general house cleaning once a year. We watch the newspaper in order to find a clear day with no wind or rain. On that day, we take everything out. We expel everything, including all the shrines, and clean the house completely. So then you put everything back. I was in Japan last year for Suzuki Roshi's 30th anniversary memorial service, 30-year memorial service at Rinzōen, his temple.

[32:50]

And It was amazing because the whole temple was cleaned up. Not so many people doing the work. It's all shoji screens all the way around. on the outside and inside, and covered with paper. So we took out all the shoji screens and hosed them all down, took off all the paper from all the shoji screens, of which there were uncountable ones, and put glue on them and laid them back down again, laid the paper on them and put them back. So that took several days to do all that, but I was just impressed with the fact that they would go to that much effort for a ceremony. So he says, without this kind of effort, you let things pile up one after another. Then you will easily be caught by your same old way of life and you can't practice zazen in its true sense.

[33:58]

So I think what he's talking about here is you let the stuff in your mind pile up. You let the stuff in your emotions pile up. You let your surroundings pile up. And your mind is not free. Your body's not free. Your emotions are not free. We just get caught by all this stuff because we're so invested in latching onto things. You know? I remember, there's an old Hasidic story about this guy comes to the rabbi and he says, Rabbi, you know, the evil urge keeps chasing me all the time. You know, I have these urges to do all these things. And it's just that the evil urge pushes me on and on and on. What should I do about that? And he says, the guy says, well, I don't think that's your, I think if you stop chasing things, then you won't have so much of a problem.

[35:09]

It's not that the evil urge is chasing you, the demons are chasing you, you're chasing the demons. So we kind of get things reversed. We think that things are coming at us, but actually we're taking hold of them. We can't blame circumstances or outward things. We have to look at what we actually hook onto. So when something has us, we also have it. I think that letting go of things quickly, addressing our problems quickly, the longer we hang on to a small problem, the bigger it gets.

[36:14]

And this is so evident in Zazen. We have a little bit of a problem, and then we focus on it, and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Pretty soon we can't stand it. But if we simply let it come and go, just let everything come and go without attaching to it, we can be comfortable inside. We can actually accept things as they are. So without this kind of effort, you let things pile up one after another. Then you will be easily caught by your same old way of life, and you can't practice zazen in its true sense. When you have this kind of spirit, you can practice shikantaza. When I first came to America, as our older students know, I put emphasis on way-seeking mind.

[37:22]

When we have true, pure, way-seeking mind, we can practice our way without any problem. When you are too bothered by questions or problems in your practice, it means that you're not practicing Shikantaza. We all have questions, and we all have problems, and we want to have these problems solved, but if you concentrate on solving the problems, you can't really practice. You have to practice in the midst of the problems. The problem becomes your practice. If you think, well, after I get rid of this problem, then I can practice. That's not practice. Practice is being one with the problem and not trying to get rid of the problem. If you try to get rid of the problem, the problem gets bigger and bigger. Simply be aware of what you're doing. You know, in Buddhist, any Buddhist meditation, simply to observe how something arises and how it ceases.

[38:36]

Just to simply be aware of how everything arises and ceases. That's the bottom line. Bear attention. Then, although There are problems, there are things arising and falling away. There's calmness within the practice. That's calm mind. You're not turned around by things. There'll always be problems. You get rid of one problem and another one arises. As I always say, you should be thankful for the problem you have now. Because if you get rid of that problem, you may get a bigger problem. So when you are too bothered by questions or problems in your practice, it means that you are not practicing Shikantaza.

[39:43]

If you practice Shikantaza, you will be monkey-minded Buddha in Shikantaza. You will be pain-legged Buddha in Shikantaza. Your whole body will be an obstacle to Buddha. To be an obstacle is itself Buddha. Is there any problem when whatever you do is Buddha? That is shikantaza. When our community is based on this understanding, there's no problem. We will even enjoy our problem. To have various problems is to have various mandalas. I never heard him use that word before or after. more of a Tibetan term, but he says, to have various problems is to have many mandalas. Without Shikantaza, all the teachings and mandalas will be a cause for trouble. So when I think about what he means by mandalas, you know, mandala in Buddhist terms, Buddha is in the center. And the mandala is like a Buddha field.

[40:48]

So whatever your environment is, is your mandala. So we have various mandalas, and within those mandalas, our Buddha fields, we have various problems and various conditions. And if it's truly the mandala, then everything should be taken care of as in the realm of practice, not simply in the realm of good and bad and desire. not in the karmic realm, but in the Buddha realm. So, that's shikantaza. If we become successful and our community expands, we will have problems. The more successful you are, the more problems you have. Matter of fact, big problems. So we should think, why do we have this kind of problem? The more I think about this point, the more I realize why Dogen Zenji put emphasis on Shikantaza.

[41:52]

So he says that before we practice Zazen, we should set up our pure practice in the midst of delusion. Before enlightenment, we should attain enlightenment. If you set up your practice in the midst of your delusion, that's already enlightenment. You don't have to wait to become enlightened. Do you understand this? Sometimes he says, if you enter the zendo by mistake, you should leave. If you want to enter the zendo, you should really be prepared for pure practice. Big mistake. Isn't it interesting? If you enter the zendo by mistake. I think all of you entered the zendo by mistake. Of course, he's laughing. If so, take a rest in our Zen apartment across the street and come back again.

[42:54]

When Dogen set up his first temples, I'm not sure where exactly, but he had a sign that said, if you are not sincerely intent on practicing, dealing with the problem of birth and death, there's no sense in entering this temple. You should go someplace else. Fortunately, most of us go home every day. But don't forget to come back. Every time you come to the Zen Dojo, consider what it is that you're doing. What am I doing? We shouldn't do something just by habit.

[43:56]

There is a habitual way of doing things. Whatever we do over and over becomes habit. But we should examine our habit. Is this the right habit to do? Maybe we shouldn't be practicing. I don't think I've ever sent very many people away, but people know when to leave. But they come back. They go through a lot of different things for one reason or another, and then at some point, all right, back, and everything becomes resumed. So just as if they'd only been gone for a day, just take up where they left off, Gee, we're all these new people, you know. But do you have any question? I was interested in the word conviction. It's just something that he said about you don't have enough conviction.

[45:03]

That's an unusual word. Yeah. So it seems to me that the question then is depth of belief in what? And it's hard to think that he was saying, you know, do this practice well. It seems to me that he's saying you don't believe that this not doing is sufficient. Yeah, that's right. Faith in several things. Faith that you yourself are Buddha. Conviction. Well yeah, conviction. I'm convinced that that's so. And also I'm convinced that practice is a matter of everydayness, it's not a matter of working to get something called enlightenment.

[46:11]

Well, I guess I would say you're probably right. But my point is a little different. What is your point? is just not doing. And this addresses the problem of non-deeming minds. We have a big problem, I think, with coming here and thinking that it's going to deliver, either for us or for humanity. If you believe that that is an utterly non-doing activity, then you have a conviction in Shikantaza.

[47:22]

Right. That's what I'm saying. Oh, I see. Yeah, that's good. I like that. Yeah. Somebody way in the back. I can't see who it is. Okay, yeah. The practice here seems very special. It's not random at all. This is an issue that we've discussed sometimes. But it creates a kind of internal tension for me.

[48:24]

There seems to be... Yeah, I understand. That creates a problem for me. That's good. That's very good. It shows that you have some engagement. You know, something that Suzuki Roshi said, you know, even though there's no self, there still are some rules. Rules. Yeah, even though there's no self, there are still some rules, you know. So, when we see a building, You say, well, that's a building. But actually, you know, it's just empty. But the reason it's standing there is because it has some rules. So nothing exists without some rules.

[49:29]

Nothing exists without a structure. So you want Zen without a structure. When you leave the Zen Do, there it is. No problem. But when you come to the Zen Do, it has a structure. Otherwise, you don't recognize it. So the structure creates the atmosphere for practice. I can't hear you. I'm going to drop a bomb. Yeah. The practice. Well, no, no, that's a sophist answer. You know, if you come in the gate and your hands are dangling by your sides and there's nothing to indicate what to do, we just kind of stand around and everybody starts talking to each other.

[50:32]

Let's have some beer. Yes, of course. Yeah. But, you know, if it's just an idea, if you didn't have the practice, you just have an idea about it. Everything has a structure. There's no way to study something without it being structured in some way. But we have some reluctance to enter a structure and we have to examine why that is.

[51:38]

What keeps me from doing that? Or why is that the problem? Maybe, do I have a problem? Am I the problem or is that the problem? The sixth ancestor says the reason for formality is to reduce ego. So, I almost never have the urge to ask this kind of question, but it's related to when you can see the teaching and then see what's being said and see it can be used in different ways, right? So, let's say we're in a relationship and we can say with acceptance, ah, this relationship is not working.

[52:50]

But then there's a quality in which we can go quickly to that answer. Oh, it's through acceptance. But actually, we're not willing to do the outcome of chemical work, or perception, or being able to really perceive deeply what's going on enough between ourselves and that person, for example. to really divine and actually bring it to this level. And so there's a way in which we can use that teaching. Oh, let me just accept this as it is. Well, accept it as it is doesn't mean things can't change. I understand. But you know, it's that spiritual bypass type of, you know, I guess I'm just bringing that out on my mind. Well, let me just say something about that. Accepting it as it is means to really see it, not to avoid it. But we can use it the other way. Well, yeah, but you shouldn't use it the other way. That's not what it means. But you understand what I'm trying to say. I understand exactly what you're trying to say. That's a question that comes up for a lot of people, you know.

[53:52]

What do you mean, accept things as they are? I want to change. Blah, blah, blah. But accepting things as they are, you can't change until you see the way things really are. So when you really see the way things are, accept the way things really are, then you have a basis for change. so you know where you are at all times. That's the basis for change, is to bring yourself up to the point where you really see the reality, accept the reality, because often we're not accepting the reality, we just have an idea, or it's your fault, or you know. or it's my fault or whatever, but we can't see the reality of the situation. I just want to bring that up. What?

[54:54]

You said when we come in the zendo, Tsukiroshi said, just let go of everything. Yes. Right. And then monkey mind is Buddha monkey mind. Monkey mind is precisely not letting go of everything. If you have monkey mind, you can't let go. That's the little crux of it. Letting go means don't try to stop monkey mind. Letting go of your judgment of monkey mind. I don't want monkey mind. I want calm mind. That's, I want, I want, I want. So just accepting is let monkey be monkey. But in the midst of, let monkey be monkey and you pay attention to your breath and your posture.

[56:11]

And just let the monkey jump around and you pay attention to your posture and your breath. And the monkey will try to distract you. Look at me, look at me, look at me. And you say, go ahead. So this is the challenge, just to keep coming back to posture and breathing. Over and over and over again. That's all you have to do. You're not trying to push anything away, you're not trying to hold on to anything. That's shikantaza. So you walk into the marketplace and all this stuff is going on and you don't try to stop it. You simply stay with your Buddha mind. So whether you're on the top of the mountain or in the busy marketplace, so to speak, you don't get turned around.

[57:17]

You always know where you are. Who's the monkey? So, the monkey's okay. It's just a monkey. We should be kind to monkeys. We should be kind to ourself. You're so unkind to yourself. Terrible. Self-forgiveness is really important. Very important. It's not like, you know, now I'm good. Not that I forgive myself I'm good. It's that I can forgive myself and I can continue. But if you don't forgive yourself, you can just carry that burden around with you.

[58:22]

One burden after another, you know, and then we compound the burdens. And it gets heavier and heavier and heavier. So, you know. And so, you know, the monkey is a kind of distraction. But if we set our attention on where we want to go, which is a desire, but it's a good desire for practice. And the monkey comes right with us. We carry the monkey and everything else with us, but the monkey loses its power at some point. And even if it doesn't, it's okay. You know, Xuanzang, who went to China, I mean, he went to India to get the sutras in the fifth century from China, went with a monkey and a pig, and a monkey, piggy, and... The what?

[59:32]

The what? Anyway, the third one, right? And they all became his protectors. You know? So they became trans, they were reforming. And he was this pure guy, you know? So it's really an interesting story, because he's this epitome of purity, and they're all of the demons, right? And the demons go along with him. He doesn't chase them. They help him, you know? So be kind to them. These are...

[60:20]

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