Last week, when we were sweeping the grounds, I noticed somebody carrying a broom, their broom, and I thought, what's wrong with this, what I'm watching? When I saw the way they were carrying the broom, I thought, there's something wrong with this, or something not right, not connected. And then it occurred to me that the person was carrying a broom as an object. Not as a broom, but as an object. By that I mean the person wasn't recognizing the broom nature of the broom. not recognizing the nature of the broom as a broom.

[01:23]

And then I thought, and I was carrying my stick like this, and I thought, well, what if I was carrying it like this? That would be making an object of this stick. So what I thought was, what I realized, when we make something into an object, then we close the gap, or we open the gap between ourself and life. The way I relate to what I'm carrying or with what I'm using or whatever tool I have or whatever object I'm using, the way I relate to that is what brings life to life.

[02:54]

I can either kill life or bring life to life. And when I relate to something just as an object, I'm actually killing its life. We have tables and chairs, and we manufacture all kinds of things out of dust. All these created things are nothing but dust. And when an ant or a caterpillar looks at a broom, they see an entirely different world. It doesn't mean anything to them as a broom. But to us, it's a broom.

[03:56]

A broom is a broom. A table is a table. A chair is a chair. Sometimes we use a chair as a stool, and sometimes people will sit on the table. But when we know how to respect the shape of something and its use, we close the gap between the subject and the object Our true life begins when there's no gap between subject and object. How we appreciate the use and the shape and the form of things is very, very important.

[05:04]

Suzuki Roshi used to say, don't use the table for a chair. The table is a table and we must respect its tableness. We tend to think that we can manipulate objects. The world is an object, big object, and we can divide it into smaller objects. and use it any way we want. In a more easy to understand sense, when we walk into a forest, a forest is full of living beings, And it's easier for us to realize a tree is a growing thing.

[06:11]

Nature's hair. But what about objects that we manufacture, that we create? When I carry the broom, as a broom, I make it into a broom. And the broom makes me into what I am. It's easy to think, I am what I am, and that is what it is. That's true. Everything is what it is. A broom is just a broom, or a stick with straw. or whatever you want to call it. And we have some idea of what I am, which varies according to our perceptions and our understanding.

[07:20]

But when I pick up the broom as a broom, the broom creates me and I create the broom and there's no gap. The broom is not an object. The broom is myself. And I am the broom. Yet, the broom is the broom, and I am what I am, each independent. And I hang up the broom after sweeping and go away. And the broom lives its life independent of me, and I live my life independent of the broom. The broom has something to do with my life, even though it's hanging up there and I'm doing my life. This is actually a basis of Soto Zen practice.

[08:30]

Dogen says, In the long winter, when I see the snow on the mountain, the snow makes the mountain. And because of the mountain, I can see the snow. So today we have one day, all day sitting. Our practice is to close the gap between ourself as a subject and ourself as object.

[09:42]

There's also a gap that exists between ourself as a subject and ourself as an object. When we see the world as object, we also see ourself as object. When I look at my toe, my toe is down there as an object, but I have to bring it into my body and give it a place. It's independent. Actually, quite independent. And yet I cannot ignore it.

[10:51]

And when I give it a place in the scheme of body parts, there's no gap. between me and my big toe. And yet, it practices all by itself. When I'm sitting Zazen, just as my old teacher used to say, painful legs are sitting on a black cushion. But they're not objects. They're independent. They're just practicing independently. And their pain is their pain. And I let them have it. But they're not something apart from me.

[11:56]

So all the various hundreds of little body parts are all lined up independently and yet one piece no gap but we do create a gap when we're not attentive when we're not aware when we think it's not important. When Master Tozan was leaving his teacher Yunyan,

[13:04]

He said to his teacher, what kind of portrait shall I, what kind of impression? How will I paint your portrait? Meaning, how will I explain to people what you were like after you die and I leave? And Yun-Yun made a circle and he said, just this. And Tozan, Dungshan, didn't quite understand. Still something he didn't quite understand. And then when he was on his way crossing a stream, he looked in the stream and he saw his reflection in the stream, saw his face in the stream. and made up a little poem.

[14:16]

The poem is translated various ways, but Suzuki Roshi translated this poem in his own way. So I call this Suzuki Roshi's poem based on Dongshan's poem and then I cleaned it up a little bit, so it's my poem based on Suzuki Gershi's poem, based on Deng Xian's poem. Do not try to see the world as an object, or do not try to see the world or yourself as an object. The you which is seen as an object is not you yourself. Now, as I walk alone, wherever I turn, I meet myself. He is just me, though I am not he.

[15:23]

When this is understood, then you have your own true way. Do not try to see the world as an object, the world or yourself. The you which is seen as an object is not the real you. What you see as an object, either as yourself or the world, is just an idea. Everything has its objective reality. you are you as an object to me, and I am me as an object to you. But that's only part of the truth. We can't stop there.

[16:27]

This is where most of us stop. At the same time, I create you and you create me. Whenever we meet with anything, we are both created and create. This is how creation happens. This is called no-self, and it's also called emptiness, and it's also called interdependence. Because of our feeling of independence, we think we are independent. But that's just a feeling we have. We also feel hungry and thirsty for various things, which means that we're not independent.

[17:37]

If we were completely independent, we wouldn't need to eat or drink or screw. Excuse me. So everything we do creates our life. And everything around us is ourself. When we don't understand this, we feel alienated. And when we try to, when we feel alienated, we try to fix the world so that we can be comfortable. And then we start killing each other off. He says, now as I walk alone, walking alone, as I say often, alone has two meanings.

[18:52]

Fundamentally, it means at one with, but the other meaning is isolated. So when we say alone, we usually mean isolated, but root meaning is at one with, nothing outside of. So he says, now as I walk all alone, at one with everything, wherever I turn, I meet myself. He is just me. It could be it. He is more personal. And he could be talking about his teacher, Yun-Yin, or he could be talking about Buddha nature, Dharmakaya. or his true self. He is me, though I am not he. He is me means I am one with everything.

[20:02]

And though I am not he means everything is independent of me at the same time. You are you and I am me. The post is the post. yet my fundamental nature is not different from the post. My real self includes the post as myself. So once that post was a tree, And we went up to Gary Snyder's place, Kit-Kit Dizzy, and he helped us cut down these posts, these posts which were once trees. So when we were looking at the trees, we related to them as trees.

[21:08]

And when we cut them down, we related to them as logs. And when we put them here, we related to them as posts. And now they're posts. They're not trees, and they're not logs. And we don't treat them as trees, and we don't treat them as logs. We treat them as posts and respect them as posts. And when we do kin-hin, they're a little bit in the way. So they influence our life when we're doing kin-hin. And we are respectful of them. And we have relationship. Respectful relationship. He says, when this is understood, then you have your own true way. So this is Tozan's famous poem, in a way.

[22:15]

So when we're in the kitchen, we always use the kitchen, I always like to use the kitchen as an example of how to practice. Because you have your space in which you're cutting vegetables, and you have your stove where you're cooking, and you have the stores and the ingredients And this is a world and you're dealing with all these elements. It's like a juggler. Jugglers are wonderful because they keep these objects in the air and keep them all moving in this wonderful way in time and space. and shape. And when you focus on this, they're not objects.

[23:33]

The juggler and the juggled are one piece. As soon as there's any objectivity that intervenes, the whole thing falls apart. And our life is just like this juggling act. And working in the kitchen, you have your space and you relate to the vegetables. You relate to your tools. You create. You separate. what you want to use from what you don't want to use. And you put the things that you want to use in this place, and then the rest is garbage. And you put the garbage in the garbage can. But garbage is not just garbage.

[24:39]

Garbage is something, if we call it garbage, then Garbage is something wonderful. Garbage is life. Garbage has so much life. It's being transformed into some form of life which we're not concerned with, but we should be. because this transformation is life itself. And if garbage is garbage, then we are also garbage because we're decomposing and breaking down and resurrecting. And garbage is breaking down and decomposing, and it's also resurrecting.

[25:47]

Death and resurrection. continuously going on. So we should be very careful how we relate to garbage. By studying garbage, we can understand ourself. If we don't understand garbage, we can't understand ourself. Because we don't understand garbage, we're killing ourself. It's true. Just like if you don't know how to go to the toilet, you'll die. We keep producing nuclear waste and we don't know how to eliminate it. We put it in the closet.

[26:56]

But the closet is glowing. There's no place for it to go. So we understand something about garbage, but we don't pay attention. So you cannot eliminate anything from this world Nothing can be eliminated. Everything is here. It's here. It's going to stay here. Maybe not in the form, the objective form that we see it, but everything is here and it's going to stay here. And we need to understand this and deal with it correctly. So I don't want to change the subject, but I do need to say that we're going to have a practice period, six-week practice period, starting May 1st.

[28:21]

And I just want to remind everyone of that and kind of bring it up. I think the theme for our practice period could be how not to see yourself and the world as an object. In this practice period, six weeks, we have a head student, head seat, shuso means head seat, which will be Ron Lister, who's been practicing here since 1969 or 70, something like that, a long time. we will have a class and the class will be selected cases from the Shōyō Roku, which is a collection of koans, 100 koans, like the Blue Cliff Record or the Mumonkan.

[29:50]

which hasn't been so widely... well, it wasn't published until a short time ago in English. And we haven't studied much the Shogyo Roku, called the Book of Serenity, sometimes called the Book of Equanimity. I kind of like both titles. the Book of Serenity. It would be good if the members are going to sign up for the practice period to do it soon, so we know how many people will be there. During practice period, Given the kind of practice we have here, which is mostly lay practice and people going to work and having different kinds of schedules and so forth, we ask you to make a kind of commitment that is compatible with your work schedule and your daily life.

[31:13]

So that it's not so important how much you do, but that you commit yourself to what, that you do what you commit yourself to do. Most important thing is your commitment to yourself. And maybe stretch yourself a little bit so that you have something to work with. Sometimes it's good to give up something in order to do the practice period, in order to have time. Maybe you go to bed a little earlier, a couple of nights, in order to get up in the morning to do Zazen for a period of time. So you can think about that and think about But we don't say everybody should come to Zazen every morning and every evening and stuff like that.

[32:31]

It's not a monastic practice, but it's a practice that helps us to focus once a year on what our practice is and bring all the loose ends together. And practice period is always very beneficial for everyone. So the details are on the shoe rack. Do you have any questions, Ross? You can change the nature of something.

[34:22]

You can change the use of something as long as you're doing it consciously. That's right. This fan is a fan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what matters is the life. Regardless of subject and objects, what matters is life, doesn't it?

[35:28]

I don't understand what it is that matters in what you said. Well, what matters is seeing everything as it is, instead of not just seeing things as they seem to be. That's what matters. Usually we see things from the point of view of our partial understanding. I think in my life, for example, there's pieces of me that I don't want.

[37:04]

I don't want to put them in the garbage. And sometimes, and I kind of understand this as possibly a misdirection. So you say, what you were saying, you know, you can't get rid of your waste. It's always going to be here. And you can't get rid of yourself. And what I'm doing here, I am not trying to What I don't understand is I'm not throwing in the work to some part of that great thing, even though there's a total acceptance that something is changing.

[38:34]

Well, you have to find out how to include that thing you don't want. You may not want it the way it presents itself, but you have to include it somehow. So, how do you balance all of the elements? That's what we're all doing. How do we balance all of the elements? Because you can't get rid of them. and that it would influence you. So how do you include everything in a way that all the elements work together in a harmonious way? How do you juggle the balls?

[39:35]

You talk, for example, that sometimes we want So long. See you.

[40:17]

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