I bow to taste the truth of God's desire to touch the earth. Good evening. Well, I'm very happy to be here at Tassajara. And I want to say how much I'm pleased with the way Tassajara is harmoniously working this summer. This is maybe one of the best, most harmonious summers that we've had, summer practice periods. And I attribute a lot of that to the practice leaders and to the staff and to the students. Someone asked me, why do you come to Tassajara?

[01:08]

And it's not easy to answer that question, but I come to, I think I come here to encourage everyone as much as I can. So this year, this summer, we decided that we wanted to have a practice period, summer practice period, that was well balanced and which offered the students a real taste of practice. It's easy in the summer because of the work load for the students to get so involved in the work that they forget that there's a practice. So to keep the work practice and zazen practice balanced is not so easy.

[02:19]

When we have so many guests and we have to take care of so many guests and take care of people in a way that makes everyone feel taken care of then it's easy to get to fall into the utilitarian side of things and neglect our zazen practice. So students work pretty hard. They get up, we get up in the morning and come to the zendo when everybody else is still asleep. And then after that, our day starts. And in the past, we've done the summer practice periods in different ways. I can remember when we had two periods of zazen in the evening, two periods in the morning.

[03:25]

This is in the early days. And the students ate their meals in the zendo. and took care of the guest season. But those days are gone. It was too hard. But over the years, we've been learning how to do the summer guest season. And it's not something that we've really learned yet. We're still learning and still developing our way of taking care of the guest season. It's far from developed. but to keep a balance between the utilitarian side and the spiritual side. You know, spiritual practice and everyday practice are not two things, but we have two extreme parts of one thing. So, people tend to think of

[04:29]

the mundane activities as mundane activities and practices like zazen and chanting sutras and study as spiritual side. So the practice of a Zen student is to bring mundane life and spiritual life so there's no gap, but it includes various practices. So we always have to keep a balance so that we don't fall into one side or the other too much. To do one thing and neglect the other And so every day we have to maintain that balance.

[05:36]

It's not something that's fixed. It's something that's dynamic and continually takes our attention. So for the practice of the Zen student is moment by moment how to maintain that balance. and how to include our spiritual practice in our everyday life. So, spiritual practice is taking care of the guests, working in the kitchen, making the beds, cleaning the baths. All of these tasks are what we call zazen, extending our zazen practice into our daily life. And one of the main practices, of course, in the summer is to serve people.

[06:44]

During the winter and spring, during the fall and spring practice periods at Tazahara, there are no guests and the students serve each other. When we eat during practice period, we eat sitting like this, right here. And the students take turns serving each other, right here in the zendo. So the practice of serving is right in the middle of our practice. And So it helps us to know how to take care of people. And then during this summer practice period, that serving practice is turned toward the guests. And it's our pleasure to serve people.

[07:48]

And it's right there in the center of our practice. the various practices that the students do and the interaction with the guests is an interdependent system that supports not only Tassajara but all of Zen Center. The students take care of the guest season during the summer and that enables them to do the practice periods in the fall and the spring. And the remuneration from the guest season supports all of Zen Center. So by taking care of our guests and our guests taking care of us, we all

[08:58]

survive in a wonderful way. So, serving people, service, is a very big part of our practice and also working together with each other. In a community like Tassajara, we have to have a harmonious practice, especially during the practice periods. when people don't come in and out and there's no entertainment, no place to go. And every day we pass each other 50 or 100 times on the path and are continually confronting each other in one way or another. So we have to learn to harmonize and everyone has to learn to get along with each other. When we work in the kitchen, the kitchen is a very small space, and the people that work there, work there the whole time.

[10:07]

They usually, there's a crew that works during the whole practice period of three months. Or in the summer, there's a crew that works five months. So these people, this is their practice. This is the practice of the students, how to harmonize with each other in all kinds of ways. every day, day after day, and it's very difficult churning out meals, preparing meals I should say, preparing meals without churning them out, without becoming mechanical, without becoming blasé, how to keep a fresh spirit continually in our daily life. So about the middle of the summer, the enthusiasm of the students starts dropping because it's pretty hard.

[11:21]

And so every once in a while we need to renew our practice and revitalize, return to our original intentions. So intention is a very important part of practice, maybe most important part. Tassajara is a wonderful, kind of seductive place. Everybody likes to come to Tassajara. We all like to be here. And we come for various reasons. But for a student, The main reason to be at Tassajara is to practice. And it's easy to come here for other reasons. So as much as I love the baths and the trees and the blue jays,

[12:28]

and the wonderful ambience of Tassajara and the location. I really come here just to practice, and I think I've always done that, beautiful as it is. I don't think I'm attached to Tassajara as a place. So a Zen student should be able to practice anywhere. This is very important. Sometimes someone will come to Tassajara, students will come, and they'll love the place and the people, each other. It's wonderful. But this is seductive. So if we're not careful to help people to practice, especially in the summertime, then students will, their experience will be of Tassajara, but not of practice.

[13:52]

And students will continue to come back thinking, well, Tassajara is a great place, but they won't have the sense of practice. So I worry about that sometimes. And I think a lot of us worry about that sometimes. The most important thing for the Zen student is practice. How to sit Zazen day after day, not depending on whether you like it or not. But just to do something over and over. to really question, why am I here? What am I doing here? So this should be the question of all the students. Every student should have this question, why am I here? It's okay to come for the various reasons that we come. When we come to practice as a student, we don't always know why we're coming to practice.

[14:59]

It's not clear always. As a matter of fact, it's almost never clear. We maybe hear about Zen enlightenment or something like that. But when we come to practice, almost everyone is seeking something for themselves. So the kind of egotistical motive often, mostly, when students come to practice, And in the process of practice, egotistical motive is transformed, should become transformed into non-self-centeredness. But this takes time, and it takes endurance, and it takes right motive. So it's really important for us to examine our motives, how to give up self-centeredness.

[16:15]

So when we come to practice, we have various reasons. So that's to be expected. But in the course of practice, our motives become transformed. or should be transformed into pure motivation. Pure motivation means to do something for the sake of itself, not for the sake of something else. It's like when we work, we just work for the sake of the work that we're doing. not being attached to some result. This is touching reality.

[17:17]

The point of Zen practice is to really touch reality. When you wash dishes, Just wash dishes. When you cook something, just cook it. When you go from one place to another, just be going from one place to another. But in our mind, we're always creating a scenario, a dream, and then living out of the dream. So it's hard to be where we are because we're always going somewhere. So the goal of Zen practice is to be where we are, which is a very hard place to be.

[18:17]

Because wherever we are, we're always waiting for the next place to be. and whatever we're doing, we're always anxious for the next thing to do. So when we find ourselves someplace, we say, well, what do we do now? So one of the biggest problems that we have as Zen students is a problem of restlessness. And so we sit Zazen in order to look at restlessness. So when our activity is just pure activity, then we become complete with our surroundings.

[20:11]

We no longer have something in between ourself and our surroundings, some idea about it. So when we interact with our surroundings, there's no separation between ourself and our surroundings. No separation between ourselves and what we come into contact with in our activity. We're no longer a subject dealing with objects. We create our world and the world creates us at the same time. When we work in the kitchen, we can say, I am cooking.

[21:26]

But actually, at the same time, I am being cooked. Cooking is making me what I am. In this way, there's no separation between ourselves and our activity. No sense of feeling lost anywhere. This is called religious security. No gap anywhere. So this is how we should be practicing. Sometimes we pay a lot of attention to concentration. We say we should have good concentration, which is true. But concentration is not everything.

[22:28]

We also need to practice kindness and compassion. So every day to sit Zazen and to extend the non-duality of Zazen into our daily life is our practice and this is why we should be, this is why we're here practicing and we extend this to our guests. And then somehow people sense it, but we don't always know what it is that we sense. And sometimes we don't even know what our practice is, but we're doing it anyway. So Tassajara was started, we got Tassajara in 1967, and nobody knew at that time very much about practice, but we had very good Japanese teachers, which we don't have anymore.

[24:01]

And we had a little kitchen over where the dish shack is, And the zendo was where the student eating area is now. Of course, that zendo burned down. So that's why we have this zendo. So we used to take the meals from the little shack, which was the kitchen, over to that old zendo, where the student eating area is now. And I remember the kitchen being so small and their server's coming out. And I remember opening the door once and there was this big flood of beans flowing on the floor out the door. And people used to spill the beans a lot. I remember they used to spill it on the Japanese teachers. Not on purpose, you know, it was an accident. I remember Chino sensei having this big pile of beans in his lap.

[25:05]

And another thing they used to do was serve, the Japanese teachers used to like to have raw eggs served so they could put it in their rice and then mix it in the rice and also sometimes in the soup. And so we'd cook, we'd serve that sometimes, but the cooks sometimes didn't tell us that the eggs were raw. They're supposed to say raw eggs, you know, But they didn't always do that. But we've come a long way since then. That was the beginning of our Tassajara cooking experience. And one of the things that created the Tanzahara cooking has been the need to feed a lot of people in a remote place some food that everybody can eat over a long period of time.

[26:20]

And that's not so easy. In those old days, in the beginning, we used to have the macrobiotics and the mucous-less diet people. It was kind of culinary anarchy. Everyone had some idea about a new way of eating, a new way of diet. And all of them had some value. And over a long period of time, we gradually developed a, especially for practice periods, a diet that was nutritious and everyone could take part in. Everyone can eat. And that also helped in developing the guest meals as well. And it's still going on. So it's a kind of necessity that created Tassajara cooking.

[27:27]

And that's also practice. how you take care of people, you know, a large group of people. And the Japanese teachers, their way of doing it was, whatever it is that was served, you had to eat. There was no exception. If it's served, you eat it. It didn't take into account anybody's problems, eating problems. And if you didn't want to eat it, you just open your bowls and not eat, not take anything. But we are more accommodating than Japanese priests. But their way is not bad.

[28:32]

When they were here, Everybody did it. Now that they're not here, people don't always do it. It's very interesting. They had a certain kind of authority, I think, that people paid attention to. But it's like a non-discriminating practice. Everything that they did, you know, Suzuki Roshi and Chino Sensei and our various Japanese teachers, All of the eating practices and other practices were geared toward non-discrimination. To just accept and not discriminate. Very hard for us to do that. But I'm very glad that I practiced with those teachers because it's a very valuable experience.

[29:37]

But as Americans, we are more accommodating. And I don't know how that's going to work out in the end. Maybe better. So, someone told me, you know in the kitchen, when we cut the vegetables, we sometimes give the best portion, the best part of the vegetables for the guest meals and the rest for the student meals.

[30:43]

I thought, well, that's pretty good. That's a very generous way of doing things. I don't know if that's true or not, but maybe it is. But that's a kind of discrimination. Separating out what's good from not good. Not as good. But that's a wonderful thing to do. And for the students, It's a wonderful way to not discriminate. Everything is good that we are served and the way it's given to us. And it's really a good practice to give someone the bigger portion or the better part. Very good training.

[31:49]

So, I just want to encourage students to when you get tired And when you feel that you have to do something over and over to realize that this is, to realize it as practice, you know, what we do is not different than what everybody does. People are always preparing meals, you know, making beds, doing all these things. But what's different is our attitude. The only difference is in how we see it. So that's why I say the most important thing in our practice is to have the right understanding, the right attitude about how we do something.

[33:06]

Because what we do is not different than what anybody does. But what our motives are is very important. To just do something without attachment to the result or without expecting anything. We don't do it in order to get ahead or to make a lot of money. Just do it, that's all, for its own sake.

[34:10]

So if someone says, well, you do this, Okay. Whatever it is. Okay. This should be the attitude of a good Zen student. Okay. It doesn't mean that you can't say no. It may be okay to sometimes say no. No is okay. a certain kind of willingness to do something without discriminating. Do you have any questions?

[35:32]

You talk about not discriminating. I mean, it's okay to complain sometimes. What do you mean by complain? Saying, I'm tired and this is hard. That's just a statement. That's just a statement of a condition. We should always know our condition. We should always be aware of our condition. I am tired and this is hard. That's just our condition. You can express your condition anytime. What's your complaint? Well, I think I'm the only person that doesn't slam the kitchen door.

[36:49]

Well, I remember in the old days, when we'd hear, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Slamming the door is a kind of expression. A lot better. You know, we have to express ourselves. We should be very free to express ourselves. No problem with expression. But if we can't express ourselves one way, then we take it out some other way. So you should be free to express yourself before you have to take it out some other way. So we should be willing to listen to each other.

[37:50]

People come and complain to me all the time. We should be able to do that. Have a sympathetic ear for everyone's complaint. Because if you're not heard, then you have to get yourself heard. So... You know... You should be like somebody's grandmother. And just... Just let everybody tell you their stuff. People tell me their stuff all the time, and I just... It goes in this ear, it goes out that ear. I don't keep it. If you keep it, then you have a big problem. But it's enough. It goes in this ear, it gets transformed, it goes out that ear, and then this person feels fine again, for a while. That's okay.

[39:21]

That's it. That's very good practice. It's like you would clean it in a way that would feel good to a Buddha or Bodhisattva if they were to come and sit there. And they do. After you do that, then they all come and sit there, or whatever it is. Good practice. This attachment to result idea, I'm not so sure about, because sometimes I think, if you're not getting the results you want, then maybe you should be doing some other activity. It's not that you're not getting the results that you want, but say if, supposing your activity is to

[40:24]

is to save all sentient beings. So, you may not be getting the results that you want, but you still have to do the work. So, in the case of you getting the wrong results, you should probably try something else, right? but in a case where the result is almost impossible, you'd still have to do the work without seeing the result. So, if you're working for peace, world peace, you can't be worried about the result, you just have to do the work because you'll never see the result. So, in the same way, this is kind of what our work is about.

[41:48]

So, if you have that kind of big mind, that understands that what you do has a result, but it doesn't necessarily appear for you. But you do the work anyway. So you practice that in all of your activity. Does that make sense?

[42:51]

Yes, but... I can see if you're working for peace and you could choose one way to do it, if you don't discriminate, you may be missing an opportunity to achieve a greater But even so, if you change your way, you still will not find the fruit of that result except for yourself. So I'm not talking about, you know, I'm talking about an attitude In my work practice here, it's important that I don't hold on to the result of my actions.

[44:03]

Because if I wash the dishes, and they're clean, and I like that result, and people eat off those plates, they're dirty again! And now I'm upset because these plates are dirtier, mop the kitchen floor, and it's clean for five seconds, and people walk in, and now it's not clean anymore, if I'm attached to that floor being clean, if I'm attached to the result, then I suffer, because it's just gone, like that. So the work is, there is no result to the work, it's just a continual process of washing the dishes over and over again, mopping the floor, over and over again. There is no result. That's a very good point, thank you. I think it's just about time if you have one more question.

[45:07]

Which do you believe is more important in practice? Your intentions or your actions? Well, when your intention and your action are the same, that's the most important. So again, it's bringing together. Yeah. Bringing your intention and your action together is called practice. Thank you. Thank you.

[45:45]

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