You know, I have like three things going on here. My glasses, my hearing aids, and this thing. All trying to fit behind my ear. This is caused by twitching. I don't know what to do with it. How's that? That's good. Okay. Thank you. So last night when I came in Zendo to end

[01:04]

our evening, I got to just about where Raghav is, and my legs felt rubbery, you know, like I couldn't, I didn't feel like I could keep going with them. That was very sudden, suddenly. And so then I sat down on the tan, and then things shifted, and I got up and continued, and I felt okay. So I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay, I think, so far. And I don't know exactly why that happened, but my guess is, I don't know if I want to go on about it, but my guess is that I've been sitting in my chair doing dokusan, and doing a lot of sitting in that chair, and it has a new cushion which is very stiff. And because it felt like that cushion was the impression on my back of my leg up here.

[02:16]

in my upper thigh, was that it was pushing against me, and it was a kind of phantom feeling. I think it was cutting off something, like a nerve or something. So, it really felt like a nerve was being blocked. And I've felt that before over the years, you know, every once in a while. You know, the nerve was blocking something and it was hard to move. So, that's what I think. Also, I was very tired. I realized that I was very tired. I already did a seven-day session about two weeks ago. with Gil Fransdal. He asked me to help to participate with him, which I've done before. It was nice. They have a half hour of walking in between Sazen periods.

[03:18]

That's very different than the way we do it. But I'm not sure I like that. But it's just a different way of doing things. So, here I am, and here we are. And so, to continue… How's that? That. Is that better? Some people say yes, some people say no. That's really hard. Huh? Good enough. I think. Yeah. So today, I'm going to continue my comment on Suzuki Roshi's talk.

[04:24]

My bookmark here is very old. This book was published in 1970, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. This is the original copy. It was Dolly's copy, actually. She had her, he signed his name in it. And it says $3.75. You might find that amusing. So this is about transiency. It's titled Transiency. The basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of transiency or change. I remember he always used to say that the one thing that is original in Buddhism as the basic thing is change.

[05:41]

The only real truth is the truth of change. That everything changes is the basic truth for each existence. No one can deny this truth, and all the teaching of Buddhism is condensed within it. This is the teaching for all of us. Wherever we go, this teaching is true. This teaching is also understood as the teaching of selflessness. Because each existence is in constant change, there is no abiding self. In fact, the self nature of each existence is nothing but change itself. and the self-nature of all existence. There is no special separate self-nature for each existence. And this is also called the teaching of nirvana. So that's an interesting People often ask, well, what is nirvana? And we try to think of things to say.

[06:44]

Nirvana is basically the total acceptance of change. You can say other things as well. When we totally accept that everything is constantly changing and accept and flow with the change, with ease and joy, that's nirvana. When we don't enjoy it, it's suffering. Really, it's either you do or you don't, and either you have freedom or you have suffering. The freedom is called nirvana and the inability to go with the change is called suffering.

[07:48]

So when we realize the everlasting truth of everything changes and find our composure in it, we find ourselves in nirvana. So Suzuki Roshi is always talking about composure. You should always find your composure and never lose your composure. That was one of his basic teachings, maybe his most basic teaching, to flow with the changes. So, and that's what we call freedom. Freedom is to flow with everything as it manifests, how something arises and something, the rising and falling away, the rising and falling away of everything.

[08:57]

moment after moment. In Buddha Dharma, in the Abhidhamma, they think they have the right number. The old Abhidhammas thought maybe they had the right number of changes that happened in a minisecond. But the Indians loved numbers, you know, they really loved numbers. So they have enormous numbers for that are metaphors for distances in time and space. And they say there's maybe 600,000, I don't know what the number is. It's an enormous number of moments in a moment. Many moments within a moment, 600,000 or something like that. So, and probably they're right, you know, and the number they have is simply a large number to indicate that there's a large number.

[10:00]

So, it's really uncountable how many moments of change there are in any moment, because there's nothing but change. And we tend to think that things are solid and stable, and we look for solidity and stability. But we have to find our solidity and stability in each moment. It's not guaranteed. So that's our task. That's our basic task. And as I always like to say, gravity is pulling everything down to it, and what I call spirit or energy, or inherent motivational energy is always pulling us away from gravity. And so how we work with the change that in this case changes, continual changes. We live in a world of gravitational pull and we're always finding our balance with it.

[11:06]

So our task is to always find our stability in an ever-changing environment. And so whatever we do is determined by that in some way. So if we want our freedom, it's not so much, in Buddha Dharma, freedom is not so much the freedom to do whatever you want, it's the freedom, it's the ability to be free of being caught by change. That's freedom, the ability to be free from being a victim of change. So without accepting this fact that everything changes, we can't find perfect composure.

[12:13]

But unfortunately, although it is true, It is difficult for us to accept it because we can't accept the truth of transiency. We suffer. So the cause of suffering is our non-acceptance of this truth. The teaching of the cause of suffering and the teaching that everything changes are thus two sides of one coin. Subjectively, Transiency is the cause of our suffering. Objectively, this teaching is simply the basic truth that everything changes. So, yes, these are the two sides. As we talked about yesterday, subjectively, we have our ideas and our desires about how we want to live, and objectively, things just happen the way they happen.

[13:16]

So we rail against the deities, so to speak. How come you're so mean to me? But things just happen the way they happen, and we accept things or don't the way they happen. So sometimes we think that if we just flow with the way things go, that's weakness. And so, and we feel that by exerting ourselves in opposition is strength. Well, sometimes it's one way or the other, but actually strength is in, well, sometimes weakness is really strength, and strength is sometimes weakness. And Suzuki Hiroshi talks about this too, about, Sometimes what we think is weakness is really strength, and what we think is strength is really weakness. We think of war as strength and peace as weakness, but actually peace is strength and war, with all its effort, is weakness.

[14:34]

So this teaching is simply the basic truth that everything changes. Dogen Zenji said, teaching which does not sound as if it is forcing something on you is not true teaching. Teaching which seems like it's forcing something on you is not true teaching. You know, we say that Buddha is an obstacle. Buddha is an obstacle. We think that Buddha is kind and wonderful, which is true. But if Buddha doesn't accord with our idea of what we like, then we question whether Buddha's true or not.

[15:44]

So truth is an obstacle to ourselves because our wishes and our desires are not necessarily reality. So because we live in the kind of delusion when we come up against Buddha, Buddha tells us things that we don't like to hear. You know, in our practice, the practice is open and welcoming, kind of welcoming, but not necessarily. I remember when we first started to practice with Suzuki Roshi at Sokoji, and even the pastry, there was a kind of, people would enter the practice, but there's always a kind of aloofness. And people would think, well, Zen students are really cold. There's no warmth in them. Because when you enter the practice, you have to find your way.

[16:53]

It's not welcoming with open arms. It's welcoming, but not with open arms. We don't embrace you because we don't want to fool you. into thinking that you're entering something wonderful. True. This is not some easy kind of, you know, lovey-dovey practice. It's a practice that challenges you, your understanding, your opinions, and your understanding of who you are, and where you are, and what the truth is. So you come up against yourself, Of course, Buddha's not doing anything to hurt you. You just simply come up against your own resistances and your own delusions about who you are and what you want. So Buddha's an obstacle. When you enter into the practice,

[18:02]

And you find yourself challenged. That's not Buddha challenging you, of course, it's just reality. And since Buddha is reality, reality is an obstacle. Reality is an obstacle. So we do a lot of studying and we think we understand what Buddhism is. But when you come up against the practice, it's a different story. And I'll answer your questions in a minute. It's a different story when you come up against an obstacle, when you come up against a practice. Practice is an obstacle. You sit in the middle of sashin and your legs are hurting and you say, how did I get into this? There's always a day or a moment when you say, how did I get into this? I want to go home. Yes, so practice is an obstacle.

[19:06]

Buddha is an obstacle. So we have to accept the challenge of Buddha and find our way. How do we deal with this problem? John? Yeah, that's the obstacle, basically. It's ourself. We said practice looks like a tall silver mountain, which you can't climb up. It's difficult to climb up. It's a sheer obstacle, but it's really only a piece of paper. You could walk through it if you understood how to do it. It looks, when you are facing your ego, it looks like a thousand foot cliff and a high mountain, and when you let go, you can actually just walk through it.

[20:16]

The hard part is how we let go, because we're so dependent on our self-centeredness and our ego and our misunderstanding, partiality, that when we come up against the reality, we either go through it or we kind of slip off to the side and go away. The challenge is, the penultimate challenge is when you face that place where you can't continue and you can't not continue. That's when you, then the question is, what do you do? That's the koan of our life. We have all these koans that demonstrate for us that problem, the problem of the self.

[21:20]

and we study these koans and maybe we even pass these koans, but the real koan, the koan that all the koans are about is what you do when you face the place where you can't continue and you can't go away. So sometimes we go away and then we come back and then we, get to that place, and we go away, and we come back. And that's normal, fairly normal. But because you enter the practice once, you can never leave it, even though you go a thousand miles away. You can't leave it because you always have the problem. and going away doesn't help.

[22:24]

So objectively, this teaching is simply the basic truth that everything changes. And Dogen said, teaching which is not sound, as if it is forcing something on you, is not true teaching. The teaching itself is true, and in itself does not force anything upon you or on us. But because of our human tendency, we receive the teaching as if something was being forced on us. But whether we feel good or bad about it, this truth exists. If nothing exists, then this truth doesn't exist. But Buddhism exists because of each particular existence. So sometimes we say that your teacher is your enemy. We like to think that our teacher is our friend, but your teacher is your friend. And you may think, well, my teacher is my enemy because my teacher doesn't understand me.

[23:34]

When you say, my teacher doesn't understand me, that may be so, but probably not because We don't want to see ourself. We say the teacher doesn't see me, but it's me that doesn't see myself. So teacher's an obstacle. And teacher isn't necessarily a teacher, you know, in the usual sense of the word. what we think teachers teach, like mathematics or physics or something like that. That's not what a teacher is in the Zen. A teacher is simply someone who blocks your way, someone who stands in the way. So, you know, sometimes you have to argue with your teacher, sometimes you hate your teacher, sometimes you love your teacher, whatever.

[24:43]

But the teacher doesn't have all those feelings. Or if the teacher has feelings, the teacher's not hanging on to how the teacher feels about you. It's not about that at all. It's just about either something works or it doesn't. That's all. Either it works or it doesn't. And then either the gate works or it doesn't. And the teacher just has to be somewhere and just happens to be in your way. it's really important for a teacher not to get caught by liking and disliking a student, or to complain about the student's behavior in a way that you're attached.

[25:55]

You have to complain about this behavior and that behavior, but nevertheless, you're not attached to your feelings about it. And at any moment, you're ready to see when the student changes. A good teacher sees immediately when a student is changed, has some kind of transformation. You notice right away. Because the teacher is always tracking the student, but is not interfering, or is not judgmental. People don't understand that always. So sometimes the teacher is your friend, sometimes the teacher is aloof or seems disinterested or whatever, maybe angry, but the anger is simply momentary.

[26:56]

It's not a grudge. Teachers should never have a grudge against a student. Because the teacher is always ready to acknowledge the student, one way or another. So you can see the teacher as your enemy, because he's not accepting what you say, not acknowledging you as you want to be acknowledged. We all want to be acknowledged in one way or another. But when the teacher is, something must be wrong with the teacher because he's not acknowledging me. So, as Joshu said, one time.

[27:58]

It's okay if you slobber all over me. It's fine with me. I don't mind so much. So, the teaching itself is true, and in itself does not force anything upon us. But because of our human tendency, we receive the teaching as if something was being forced on us. But whether we feel good about it or bad about it, This truth exists. If nothing exists, this truth does not exist. Yeah, it only exists when there's something there. Buddhism exists because of each particular existence. We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence. We should find perfection in imperfection. Suzuki Roshi gave this example

[29:02]

You know, we think of Zen masters being some perfect person who does everything perfectly, like drawing a straight line without a ruler. I can do that, but that doesn't mean anything really. It's just some ability. I was taught how to paint a straight line by my contractor. how to paint a straight line without using tape. But that's just some skill, right? Doesn't mean much. But he said, when a child draws a line, we don't see it as perfect. It's just a line, and it's so pure because he's not trying to do anything except express himself in a very pure way. That's perfection. The child's scribble is perfection. our ability to draw a straight line, not necessarily perfection, it's just a straight line.

[30:09]

But the child's whole being is in this crooked line, which is perfection within so-called imperfection. So sometimes trying to be perfect is not Zen. as someone who can sit perfectly still, full lotus, straight back, blah, blah, blah. We admire that. We say, oh boy, if I could only do that. And it looks perfect. But someone who's just struggling to walk in zendo and making every effort even until they have big problems. We ordinarily would think of that as imperfection, but their effort and the quality of their activity is so total and complete

[31:30]

That's perfection within the imperfection. So the imperfection doesn't hinder the perfection. The imperfection is, we live in an imperfect world that's trying very hard to do what it has to do, basically. It's an imperfect world, but it's totally perfect. Everything is perfect as it is. So we can't improve on it. I remember at Tassajara, someone said, well, to Suzuki Roshi, would you like to make a Zen garden here? And he said, this place is perfect as it is. It's a perfect Zen garden. Why should I ruin it with my ideas? So he said we should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

[32:33]

We should find perfection in imperfection. For us, complete perfection is not different from imperfection. The eternal exists because of the non-eternal existence. In Buddhism, it is a heretical view. He likes to use that word, heretical. I think he uses, it's a little too strong, but he uses it. The eternal, the, where am I? In Buddhism, it is a heretical view to expect something outside of this world. So to expect something outside of this world means this is where we exist, and this is where we should find our true being. There are various practices where people think this world is imperfect, so there must be a perfect world outside of this world.

[33:38]

called heaven, the heavenly place outside of this world where God exists. And so, this is the forsaken world or something like that. So, he's saying, It's a heretical view to expect something outside of this world. We do not seek for something outside of where we are. This is ourselves. We should find the truth in this world through our difficulties and through our suffering. So rather than putting off trying to make this a, to find our truth here, people say, well, in the next world, we'll find our truth, we'll be comfortable. But how do you find it in this world?

[34:41]

How do you find yourself in this world? So this is called religious practice. Without a deity, without anything supporting you, How do you find your way, a perfect way in this world? It's not that nothing is supporting you, but as, because everything is supporting us. Everything is supporting us. Everything is interdependent and supporting us. That's called emptiness. So in this world of emptiness where nothing is permanent and everything is changing, and everything is supporting everything else, how do you find your way? How do we find my way and the highway and the way for everyone? Because whatever I do affects everyone else. And whatever anyone else does affects me. So we should find the truth in this world through our difficulties and through our suffering.

[35:48]

So he says, our difficulties and suffering are our equipment. to our tools for finding our way. If we don't have any difficulty or suffering, that's either naivety or enlightenment. So somebody can go through the whole thing up to 100 years old and never have any problems. Well, that might be enlightenment, but I don't think so. That can't happen. It doesn't happen. Although some people are happier than others, and through various circumstances and their ability to deal with circumstances, some people are more capable than others from the beginning, but still. we should value our suffering.

[36:52]

We should find our happiness through our suffering. The person who has a lot of suffering, physically or whatever, and can smile and see their suffering as it is, and be somewhat lighthearted about it, is a kind of enlightenment. When we accept our suffering as oppression, we have a problem. But when we can find our freedom in our suffering, that's enlightenment. Not to get rid of our suffering, but to use our suffering to find our way. So we should find the truth of this world through our difficulties and through our suffering.

[38:00]

This is the basic teaching of Buddhism, even though the Buddha is reported to have said, I only teach suffering and the freedom from suffering. That's all I teach. So this is the basic teaching of Buddhism. Pleasure is not different from difficulty. Good is not different from bad. Bad is good, and good is bad. They are two sides of one coin. So enlightenment should be in practice. That is, the right understanding of practice and the right understanding of our life. So to find pleasure in suffering is the only way to accept the truth of transiency. You may say, I don't believe it.

[39:00]

And you may say, there must be a different way. That's the obstacle of the Dharma, if we think that. So without realizing how to accept this truth, you cannot live in this world. Even though you try to escape from it, your effort will be in vain. If you think there is some other way to accept the eternal truth, that everything changes, that is your delusion. This is the basic teaching of how to live in this world, and whatever you may feel about it, you have to accept it. You have to make this kind of effort. I remember Master Hua, he was called Toh Lun before he established himself in San Francisco in the city of 10,000 Buddhists.

[40:03]

Then he became Master Hua, but he was Toh Lun when I knew him. But he had a very nice thing that he printed up. He said, everything is a test to see what you will do. Everything that you face is a test to see what you will do. Test your freedom, test your anger, test your intentions and your understanding. And to test your understanding of a cruel world. The cruel world means the objective side as opposed to the subjective side. The objective side just does what it does, regardless of who you are or what you would like. Things just are the way they are because of various causes and conditions.

[41:06]

And the subjective side is, I like it or I don't like it. So until we become strong enough to accept difficulty as pleasure, we have to continue this effort. Actually, if you become honest enough or straightforward enough, it is not so difficult to accept this truth. You can change your way of thinking a little bit It is difficult, but this difficulty will not always be the same. Sometimes it will be difficult, and sometimes it will not be difficult. If you are suffering, you will have some pleasure in the teaching that everything changes. When you are in trouble, it is quite easy to accept the teaching. So why not accept it at other times? You know, we can say, this too will pass. When we are talking about the political situation, we think that the world is coming to an end.

[42:17]

But this too will pass. So we have to have big, big mind to encompass the fact that everything is changing and will change and will not remain the same. And the pendulum is always swinging back and forth. We think, oh, everything's going to go this way now. It's great. And then, boom, it all swings the other way. We think, oh, my God, it's terrible. Everything changes. It comes back again. That's the big view. We have to be able to exist in the big view as well as the small view. It's terrible. It's awful. Or it's really great. And the big view is everything will change. And we have to have enormous patience, enormous patience. It's like Sashin. Sashin is big patience, enormous patience.

[43:23]

It will change. We do one period of zazen, and it's excruciating. And we do some qianhen, then we come back, sit again, and it's easy, wonderful. And then it just kind of, you never know. If you say, oh, oh, it's gonna be this way again, then you're causing trouble for yourself. But if you simply say, this is the way it is now, moment to moment, if you're just on each moment, just practicing breath and posture and letting go of thoughts moment by moment. You're living one moment at a time, one breath at a time. So in that way, we have some freedom from suffering because we're not caught by our own mind. So when you are in trouble, it's quite easy to accept the teaching.

[44:32]

So why not accept it at other times? It is the same thing. Sometimes you may laugh at yourself, discovering how selfish you are. When he says selfish, he means self-centered. But it's good to use the word selfish because, well, I'm not selfish. I may be self-centered, but I'm not selfish. That's the way I thought. We were sitting in Zazen one time, and he said, you don't know how selfish you are. And I thought, well, I may be self-centered, but I don't think I'm selfish. That was something I had, a kind of koan for me. But no matter how you feel about this teaching, it is very important for you to change your way of thinking and accept the truth of transiency." So it's interesting when he says, until we become strong enough to accept the difficulty as pleasure, we have to continue this effort.

[45:36]

It sounds masochistic. You know, I'll just make myself painful so I can think of it as pleasure. That's not it. Painfulness comes unasked for. And so how we respond to life is practice. You know, without the difficulty, there's nothing to respond to. James, did you have something you wanted to say? Really?

[46:38]

Sounds to me that's the opposite. Well, that's a good question. Yes. When Dogen went to China, he had this question. If everybody has the Buddha nature, why should we have to do anything?

[47:44]

That was his go on. If everybody has the Buddha nature, why do we have to do anything? That's indirectly addressing your question. It's like if we just accept everything, why do we have to do anything? Well, if you really do accept everything as it changes, then it doesn't mean you can accept all the things you want to do. If you know how to ride the wave, you don't have to do anything that will cause suffering. Yeah. Yeah.

[48:48]

You know what Bill Sokol used to say at KPFA back in the 50s, if you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own. He said that every Sunday after Bach. He introduced the Bach program. I will give you an example. I'm not tooting my own horn, but I say, you can go to as many programs to learn about all this as you want, but it won't do you any good unless you do something yourself. When my example, which will be the end of my talk, is I gave a talk at Green Gulch last Sunday.

[50:26]

I think it was last Sunday. And there was, when I got out of the sendo, there was a little Afro boy sitting there on the steps with his hands in his head like this. And I just went over to him and I said, you okay? And he said, well, I have a little stomach ache. And I said, well, what are you doing here? How'd you get here? And he said, well, I came with my class. And I said, oh, well, would you like some tea? And he probably never drank tea, but he said, okay. I said, do you want something to eat? Are you hungry? And he said, no. I said, well, I'm going to go over to the dining room because it was raining, so the meeting was in the dining room afterward.

[51:29]

And so I came down and I took him over to the dining room. and the dining room was filled with people, and I took him over and asked somebody to give him some tea and stuff, and I kind of guided him through this thing, and he said, would you like me to get my class? And I said, yeah. So he went over and he got to five people. They were not a class exactly. They were kind of like a group of people from 60 to 15, about five or six of them. And it was an interesting bunch of people because every one of them was different. There was an Asian girl and he was black and the other guy was an old musician. So then he started asking questions. I said, do you have any questions? And they gave me some questions. And then he started asking me questions, and he wanted to write down in a book.

[52:31]

He started coming to life, actually. When I saw him, he was really morose on sitting on his steps. He didn't know what to do. And by the time he started asking questions, he started writing down my answers, and he started getting more and more interested. And the older guy, who was kind of the leader, said, well, let him answer the questions in this little handheld thing, you know, that we use. What do you call that? I don't have one, so I'm not familiar with it. And then I said, no, I want to talk to the kid himself. I don't want to talk into the machine so that he could write down the answers afterward. I want to talk to him so he and I could have the interaction between us.

[53:32]

And the interaction of him asking questions and me answering him, he just got brighter and brighter and brighter. And then they all had to leave. And when they left, he gave me a big hug. That was so wonderful. It was like, I didn't have to go to a class to learn all this. I just put my heart out for this kid. And he responded. And they wanted to come back. They're from Oakland. And the leader said, you know, I'm a musician. We'll come back and play for you guys. So this kind of just interaction between people that takes some, just responsive to each other. That's what makes things happen. And we make all these intellectual ideas about how to make things happen.

[54:43]

It doesn't work. But when you actually engage people one at a time, things work. That's the end of my talk. The truth of transiency. Once Richard Baker asked me, well, where did you get your education? And I said, as a taxi driver, you meet people one at a time, and anything can happen. I highly recommend it.

[55:32]

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