My last chance to talk with you this practice period. I always feel simultaneously that I don't want to disturb you with more talking. That talking isn't necessary and it always misses the point, and you already know the point. I have that feeling. But then at the same time there are so many things I'd like to go over with you. This practice period maybe we talked 25 or 30 times about all kinds of things. Yesterday I talked about how all suffering, all mental illness, all confusion, all confusion

[01:24]

comes from simply an inaccurate understanding of our actual situation. If you really understand our situation, what you call suffering, what the boundaries between pleasure and pain, etc., are is entirely different if you understand actually what our life is or our situation is. And all the problems in the world come from an ignorance of this, of our actual situation. And in this practice period I've been talking maybe mostly about the nature of our mind or being and our divorced mind, our divorced being.

[02:33]

And partly I've been talking about the scale of this endeavor, this enterprise. Talking about our society and culture, civilization, whether to be a king or a Buddhist. What a bodhisattva, an enlightenment being, is. What is the activity of samadhi? This is some unusual idea I think for us, that samadhi itself is the source of activity.

[03:43]

The power of samadhi is, of many and many samadhis, is some activity. So samadhi is a, maybe we can say, a still, calm, imperturbable state of being. But we come to know the power of that imperturbable state of being, that the activity of that is called prajna, wisdom, the wondrous activity of enlightenment. This is another kind of activity than our culture has any language for. Sometimes we say non-doing.

[04:47]

Anyway, the feeling for confidence in its power. And yesterday we talked about how Buddhism is a medicine. And if you know what this medicine is and can administer it to yourself, then how can you refuse it to someone else? How can you offer some lesser medicine? There should be, of course, many kinds of medicines, many kinds of prescriptions for each circumstance, each person. But if you know there's one big remedy, all remedies partake of this remedy.

[06:27]

If you don't know and cannot administer this remedy to yourself, then any lesser medicine as a king, according to Buddhism, as a king, or in any way you can, you help people with their situations. But if you know the big remedy, you cannot help somebody with some remedy which is only temporary, so easily, which only alleviates their situation. And sometimes it's in quite some contradiction, because to alleviate someone's situation is to prevent them from knowing the truth. So, sometimes, real medicine is to just let people suffer.

[07:47]

There are many things about Buddhism we can't understand and about our Buddhist way of life, because we can't express the scale of our activity, of the actual activity of all of us, not just Buddhist. It's impossible to see the scale of your life, the scale of this planet, of the stars and Milky Way and stars and galaxies. And this scale has disturbed people forever, from the very beginning, if there's a beginning. The scale has disturbed people. Even on the small scale of our personal life, we don't really dare to, very seldom do you

[09:54]

dare with another person, to express the absolutes in which your own survival is contained. The other day at Jamesburg, I looked at a book of bats that was there, and there's an interesting picture in it of some fox bats, very beautiful bats. They must be very intelligent creatures, because they fly in such an intricate way, so much more intricately, so much more controlled than a bird, in their wings, which have five fingers. But there are three or four fox bats, for some reason excluding another bat from the

[11:02]

community, and they all are so beautiful, soft brown fur, nice face, little nose, like a little fox, like a dog's nose and face, and little brown hair. Very sweet looking, quite harmless looking, or cuddly looking, except three or four are with great calmness proceeding up a branch toward one of them. Very relaxed looking, very intent looking, and one of them is absolutely terribly struck, backing up, eyes bulging. For him it's evil, or something horrible. And the next picture showed him being bitten, and he dies from his wounds. Probably he doesn't die from his wounds physically, but he dies because of the confrontation. And how many of us can realize what we would be like if we were cornered?

[12:11]

I've seen people cornered occasionally, who work for companies or universities, when something big is at stake, well it's terrible to see what the people will do. Even in this community, when we discuss, should we do this or that, or what should be the composition of the community, in terms of priests and laymen and men and women and families and children, if you try to express how deep the feeling is on various sides, which we ourselves don't let come to the surface, people think, oh, you must be exaggerating. It sounds like a romantic novel or something dramatic, but actually those kinds of feelings

[13:17]

are there ready and ready to be amplified, but mostly they'll come out in small ways, and they'll control the actual nature of this community, what kind of people are here. In many small ways, people will be, and feel so comfortable. With no aggression from any particular person or any negative feeling, it just doesn't seem appropriate to be here. But that appropriateness, if you took all that inappropriateness and squashed it, instead of three years, into one week, you'd have some terrible situation like the fox bats. And in our society, such exists.

[14:18]

In mythology, greed, hate, and delusion are personified as demons, yakshas, rakshas. And society is, in some instances, viewed as a castle built on top of a tree made from human parts, half-eaten by demons. In the Middle Ages, the businessmen used to carry a thief's thumb with them as a good luck piece for good success in business. And in Japan, businessmen and people who want to make a lot of money worship the fox and have fox shrines in their companies, which is often some sleight of, like Hermes, the

[15:21]

thief's thumb. As I said about Boy Scouts, that's, we keep that for children, we know that Boy Scouts are not successful. But for Buddhism, these are demons, and we call them demons. And how to confront those demons, not as a king or administrator or social worker, but in our practice, is how we benefit people. So, the Lotus Sutra is much about this kind of confrontation. So it goes back to some basic questions I've talked about before, talking about hubris

[16:30]

and such things, and variance and invariance, whether things change or are stable, what's the absolute? And another major question is, where did the light come from? What's the source of light? Why is there darkness and light? Why are there stars and sun? And do we have any control over it? And is the light you yourself? So that recognition that you yourself are the light, are of the same nature of the gods or the stars or the sun, is some recognition that you must have taken some vows or submitted yourself to the orders of the world in order to stand. There's a story of Shiva, the Milky Way, as in some ways a disturbance in heavens.

[17:46]

There's also the Ganges, which is the source of everything, and it pours down from heaven and is caught in his hair for hundreds of years, and he slowly lets it trickle down so it doesn't flood the world. There's even, you know, since we've had a controversy about whether it should be nectar or ambrosia or some, when the gods become many gods, when the gods relate to humans, and when the gods' food is separated into ambrosia and nectar, this kind of separation is considered a falling or a disturbance from the whole. So this disturbance from the whole and bringing it back together again, as the sutras are, a sewing or a seam, as Nirvana or Suzuki Roshi's grave site or stone is called a seamless mound.

[18:54]

Hakuin speaks of some white milky substance coming down. Bodhicitta is also understood as some fluid like that, some power, you know, which you learn to, by your practice, to absorb. The Ganges, as some source of great power, you see in the Diamond Sutra, over and over again they say, if a man and woman, da-da-da-da-da, you know, in the morning, as I said yesterday,

[20:13]

to decide to give up as many times as there are grains of sand in the river Ganges, or as many kalpas as there are grains of sand, etc. More important than that will be reciting this sutra once. So Buddhism places itself in this kind of world mythology as saying, this practice which brings wholeness, which allows you to act in the standpoint of your own samadhi or being rather than taking some particular standpoint. As with intellectual understanding you must always take some standpoint. With Buddhism you take your standpoint in something empty or without marks or without

[21:18]

any place, particular location. This is contrasted with something so powerful as the very foundation of the Ganges River. It's not just a big number. It means the Ganges River represents all the power from which our culture, civilization and everything derives, and yet reciting the Diamond Sutra once is more important. If you too, if you have some intellectual understanding or attempt, if your intellectual

[22:21]

understanding is only partial, you want to know what a situation is before you act, but this makes you a coward, as Suzuki Roshi said. We have to act in incompleteness, not knowing, everything changing, and how to act in incompleteness, acting in the realm of the changing rather than the specifics, the things, with an imperturbable state of mind, or it's only possible with an imperturbable state of mind. Only from, if you can have an imperturbable state of mind and being, can you understand anything actually. That kind of mind penetrates everywhere.

[23:24]

And is why Buddhist practice is considered, in Buddhism anyway, the great remedy. Because it allows you to recognize. The suchness, the Tathagata, the reality of you at this moment, not separate from gods or sky or anything.

[24:43]

Dogen says, foolish people assume that water is found in rivers and streams, but he says that rivers and streams, water, he says, water makes rivers and streams within water. It's only that when water descends, it's called rivers and streams. When it ascends to heaven, he says, it is dew or rain. In the sky, it's blue and leaves green. So, our practice shouldn't just be considered in the Zen though, or in any particular form,

[25:51]

but should freely reach everywhere. Anyway, I'm describing practice in this way. So that you can get a feeling for the scale of Buddhism. Buddhism is not just a practice meant to solve your problems. It's meant to solve your problems in the context of society and this universe. By a recognition of all aspects, the entire flow, which you are from past, in all its forms.

[26:56]

And in the present, what you are actually subject to. We practice, so we practice to become the remedy itself. We ourselves are the remedy just in living from day to day with our quite ordinary activity, but not being caught by anything. So, I think you have understood what our practice is.

[28:33]

And how we offer ourselves to this great activity. It's not so well known and most people can't hear it, but you can hear it. And so you must act in accordance with your deepest understanding.

[29:35]

I think you can, as I always say, I think you can do it, are doing it. And for me it's a great opportunity in this lifetime to practice with you for three months and again and again. Do you have something that you should talk about? Yesterday when you were talking about Buddha, giving up, wanting to be a king,

[30:56]

Aestheticism to become Buddha, that's what you said. Well, I remember specifically from a year ago when you said you gave up Aestheticism to become Buddha. Well, what I would like to know is what you didn't give up. You. No. No? Why not? Well, that's. At least not yet, he hasn't given up. Why didn't he go swimming? Why didn't he go swimming? Well. He may have gone swimming. Well, but what the story says he did was, after he gave up Aestheticism,

[32:00]

A, is that he sat for seven days or seven nights or something. It didn't say that, it said he chose that particular activity. And I would like to know why. Rather than going swimming? Well, he could have done anything. He could have committed suicide. He could have gone swimming or eaten some more or gone to sleep, which is what I think I would have done. But instead he sat. I can't. If he had given up everything along with Aestheticism, I don't think he would have chosen to sit. I compose scrolls of each of you. Your scroll would be great reclining Georgette asleep after giving up Aestheticism. But with one eye open. I don't know why he didn't go swimming.

[33:02]

And why such a big deal made up the story. Why he sat this way, you mean? Why he sat this way after giving up Aestheticism for seven days or seven nights, and for that reason I had to stay up until one o'clock the other morning. Why did you do it? Well, I would have been embarrassed if I found out that everybody else was staying up. I don't know actually why I did it. But it occurred to me for one reason or another that I would have been embarrassed. If you don't live at Tassajar, you won't be embarrassed. If I don't do it. Well, I don't know why I did it. Maybe you should find out. Yesterday you said maybe in a hundred years there would be a Buddha born. And it wasn't okay at the time, but then I thought, what do you mean by that?

[34:11]

It seems like there's some Buddha already. What's going to happen? I don't know. Don't worry about the one hundred years or one thousand years. Yeah? I have a little trouble listening to lectures because it seems like the words go in logically. As soon as they hit me, I'm like, this is worse. I can't remember anymore. But I still feel like I took something home. I just wondered if it's okay to not know what happened. And kind of what we're doing, when we're sitting in a lecture, is that it's not like the usual words. It's not like the usual words.

[35:18]

It's not like the usual words. I probably know. That's right. What you said is right. That's what happens. Should I be doing something? Should I try to do something? No, I'm speaking to you. Whatever happens is okay. I'm speaking to you, not your head. Living in a world where water is also an outstretched, how do we express our responsibility? Living in a world in which water is also a palace for dragons, thrashing your tail occasionally. Yes.

[36:31]

Don't get stuck in the water. Yes? Yesterday you talked about turning towards emptiness. Can you talk about what that means? Can I talk about what it means? You can't hear what she said? I didn't hear anything. She said yesterday I talked about turning toward emptiness. And what does that mean? Turning, you understand turning. Okay, turning toward emptiness. Now... Yes, me too. If you find yourself...

[37:32]

Well, how can I say? That's all right, just do it. Okay, just try to understand what it means. Just have a sense of various possibilities in your activity. What are those possibilities? First of all, you should know in some particular activity, what are the possibilities. And if you know those possibilities, you'll see this is... Where are you just at any particular moment in an activity? What's there? David, I guess... I don't know. You shouldn't choose.

[38:36]

I don't know. I mean... You know, I mean, I... Even if it was for... If it wasn't for some press conference... I don't know. You shouldn't do it. It seems to me that... Well, I remember... For weeks, I didn't know how to express... I didn't know who to talk with. Then, as far as being compassionate was concerned, he decided to speak for other people, for all people. And yet, at the same time, he didn't believe this. He didn't acknowledge it was really important. And he was very clear, it seemed to me, that he was a leader.

[39:44]

He was a world-renowned leader. And the first people that he met were... He said, exactly, he said, Don't call me Lord Brahma, call me Buddha. Whatever you want to call me. So, he did decide to do it. He did. He decided to come back out into the world. At least, I mean, I think it's what we need. We shouldn't hang around or go anywhere. We shouldn't have to show up in the first place. Thank you.

[40:44]

Don't be confused. Don't try to match things up so carefully, so it causes confusion. Anyway, there's... What we mean by choice is something... You have to say, he chose, or you chose to practice. But, as you know, if you make a very big choice, you say, I had no choice. So, choice, what choice is, is something subtle. Some other space, you know. And we take some particular form, seven days in the forest and then doing it, for some communication. Maybe it's not something we chose,

[41:52]

or didn't choose. There are many ways. Each event has many ways it could be described. But it happened a certain way. Or we tell the story, in this case, a certain way. Suzuki Roshi, you know, when he first came to America... He had... No one knew him, he lived in that small tower. And after... being here ten or fifteen years,

[42:53]

ten, twelve, fourteen years, he was quite famous. You'd go to places in other parts of the country who'd never met Suzuki Roshi, never heard of Zen Center even, and there would be his picture on their wall. But Suzuki Roshi's understanding of himself didn't change at all. It didn't make any difference to him whether he stayed in that room, and no one knew him, or everyone knew him. Just what he came in contact with, he did. He knew this, but it was of no importance to him. He knew this, but it was of no importance to him. If it's useful to someone to think Suzuki Roshi is a great teacher,

[43:55]

he might encourage them to think he's a great teacher. If it's not useful, he wouldn't. It doesn't make any difference. You can't actually do anything like the Suzuki Roshi, if it makes some difference to you. You can't actually do anything To do something without limits means that you really can't care about it. But he knows what his practice is. But there's no comparison.

[44:58]

There's other ways to express that. It's a question that's come up from other people. Something else. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I understand. Let me come back to what you said a second ago. Say that you are extremely intelligent. Some particular person is extremely intelligent.

[45:59]

If you don't know you're extremely intelligent, you're going to have some difficulty. Because we know anyway. I've talked about this in relationship to the various worldly treasures. Money and beauty and intelligence and energy. If you use your intelligence to rate yourself, you'll feel guilty actually. Even though we don't recognize it, you'll have some guilt about it and your intelligence will be impaired. And you won't be able to take into account

[47:07]

how you affect people because of your intelligence or beauty or energy or funny looks or whatever. So to know just what you are is necessary. And one of the abilities to look at just what we are and face our faults and our, in ordinary terms, our faults and our virtues, is essential. But you should be able to do it quite detached, quite neutrally. Otherwise you will use those, mostly in society, as you know. We don't talk about too much. We minimize those differences. We don't like somebody to say, I'm such and such, or we don't want to say, I'm such and such. And it's not just because it's embarrassing, it's because we work those things all the time. You know?

[48:08]

We work them to our advantage all the time. So we don't want to show our cards. You know? That's why IQs at school are secret. Oh. IQ I always define as being able to be ordinary, faster than other people. Since it's based on average intelligence. But you can only look at yourself and see yourself as Buddha, a Buddhist, or intelligent, or a failure, you know,

[49:09]

if it doesn't matter to you. If you see some scale in which such differences are insignificant. Merely some opportunity, like having a hand to do something. You know you have a hand, and there's no problem about it. But if no one had hands, then you'd have some difficulty, you'd want to hide your hand, because it would represent some power. But it represents some power anyway. So although we may know what the score is, we may only let someone know we know,

[50:11]

when it doesn't make any difference to them either. About doing unto others as they wish to be done unto, even in little things like strawberry shortcake. I think so. You give someone a great big strawberry shortcake, if that's what they want. We should open maybe near a pastry to satisfy all your desires, ice cream parlors. And let people eat whatever they want. But maybe you don't put the ice cream in a bowl, which would be turning toward emptiness.

[51:16]

Practically speaking, this comes up all the time, having to have a drink with someone. Or whatever activity you're in. You have to do it completely, or you're criticizing them. And yet you have to do it in a way which doesn't encourage them to have another drink, maybe. And there are so many ways in which we drink, not just drinking. How we talk, how we act, how we move, what we're doing is all part of drinking. But in some cases, you should even help them, encourage them to have another drink. Because that's what they really want,

[52:28]

and there isn't really anything else they want. And... more because it's better to do it in excess. Anyway, there's many ways you... If you know, if you have a imperturbable, you know, state of mind, or quite calm state of mind, you'll know what to do on each occasion. You don't have to have some theory, some theory, or some plan. On each occasion. Luki Roshi, remember in One Old Wind Bell, he wrote, on each occasion, dot, [...] with a lot of exclamation points? You remember that? On each occasion, you know what to do. Something arises. You know, oh, I'll do that. And we don't know, you know? Like, it's like writing a poem.

[53:30]

Sometimes you don't know where a line came from, or picking up the brown telephone. You know? We don't... Suddenly we find ourselves doing the strangest thing we never would have thought of, you know? Putting an ice cream cone in someone's head, or something, you know? So... you've done it, and for some reason you did it. But if you're there, conscious while you're doing it, you can have some confidence in your activity. If you did it from some neutral state, not angry, not upset, not aggressive, not fooling around, not being flipped, then you can trust your action. Some other question? After the corner of the case is picked up,

[54:32]

it seems to get pulled down. The women hang. Oh, it's wonderful. It seems a great thing. What? Although it's a puzzle, you have to look in yourself for the answer. You know what? You were just telling me about when you can't just sit around and wait for some neutral state of mind, that's what I'm thinking about. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think that instead of getting more simple mind, life is getting much more complicated, minute by minute,

[55:32]

that you have just told me. I mean, this is a closed energy system. We are often able to see the result of remarking people of something we do or couldn't do in the past couple of days. It'll come back. And it seems that I've behaved more continuously than I ever did. I'm not often in neutral state of mind, so I don't see the result of my actions as being quite something. All right. That's why I'm thinking about sometimes we can't wait for neutral state of mind. No, we just do the best we can. We can't wait, it's true.

[56:36]

But each time you can maybe not be quite so catastrophic. And as you have a calmer state of mind, smoother state of mind, everything you do will be, we can't even say spontaneous anymore. When you see it as spontaneous, it's already a contrast to something. So, anyway, there's there's no choice but to go ahead and make mistakes. Holding back, you make bigger ones. Well, actually, I've been thinking about that, but I'm not so sure. I've held back

[57:39]

not because I have a calm state of mind, but because I'm doing it. I mean, in fact, it really doesn't matter whether I'm doing it or not. To do something is almost always better, I think. But we should know what we're really doing. Usually, our activity is just right. But our expression is in some particular realm. And because it's in some particular realm, we have after effects in other realms. But if we can act so it's not in any particular realm, but the same feeling is there, then it's doesn't cause so much trouble. almost always you will find

[58:51]

that anything that you want to do or comes up, if you can understand it, you know, even some ego trip, you know, I'm director. I always tease directors. And you wonder, why did I think that funny thought? I'm not proud of being director. Why did I think that? But if you look closely, you may see that well, somebody might have misunderstood this, which so-and-so said. But if because of how I explained Tussauds Sahara, because I'm director, he'll understand that that's more what we meant. But maybe it occurs to him, it's just I'm director and that person didn't know what they're talking about. But if he gets to the if he takes it at that level, it's some ego thing. But if you look at actually what motivated,

[59:51]

usually it's for some reason like, oh, I hope that person understood it better because they realized that I'm an older student. That kind of more close examination usually reveals that our motivation is quite deep and pure. But because it gets caught in a particular realm or because we are so quickly greedy for a a badge, as soon as it has a badge-like quality, we pin it on and don't allow the experience to continue what we really meant, what the flow really is. And this flow, which begins to be activated in us through Zazen practice, includes the flow of the Milky Way, as I was talking about today. Some big flow of everything, which we finally are able to sustain. Okay.

[60:54]

So are we. Good. Can we calm and not be afraid to go ahead and express those tendencies? I think it makes it bump people and uncomfortable. Do you understand?

[62:05]

That's where the energy comes from. Okay. Do you have any choice? But to try, that's all. I'm trying to keep back and hold it in. Well, it's useful to be familiar with that state of being in which everything is present and expressed but not acted on. Why act on it? Why carry it that step further? Actually,

[63:16]

the more you have a calm state of mind, you find you are thousands of things, not just some simple thing. You can't do them all at once. So are when you separate out that way you can see many thousands of things before we were only seeing a few. But when there are so, so many, finally it's just something that you can't cognize. It's more like the power of samadhi, some non-doing way of being, which your very attitude is understood intuitively, without any necessity to communicate.

[64:17]

We put some value on turning it into some expression which then we are going to receive some benefit from or the other person is going to receive some benefit from. But that kind of giving is too reward-oriented. When you don't need any rewards and you know they don't need any rewards, then just what you feel is there for everyone. It's some most powerful form of expression. So we start out, you know, Buddhism, with some kind of faith, some kind of an intuitive sense of Buddhism. And that faith must be activated by doubt. So in Zen we emphasize doubt.

[65:18]

What is it? Can it be so? And that doubt leads you to deeper and deeper and deeper confirmation and to samadhi, jhana, practice. And the realization of that is prajna, wisdom, which is all of Buddhism, which is what Zen is really about. Zen isn't just the fifth paramita. Zen is a way of practice through the practice of jhana to realize from faith and doubt to the full activity of prajna, which can't be compared to anything. As the Diamond Sutra says,

[66:25]

when the tathagatas... When you look for the tathagata in appearances, you can't see the tathagata. But when you see the tathagata in non-appearances, when you realize there are no appearances. How to say it? I don't know. That is to realize, to see the tathagata. And to be able to act in some subtle, loving, full kind of... I don't use the word love much, but actually the widest sense of the Christian idea of love is very close to perfection of wisdom. It's some state of being,

[67:26]

some active, great functioning which upholds everything and in which there's no conflict. When you begin to feel this stirring, you understand how much we love each other. And how much we want to help each other in the most intimate way. And how this practice, this very posture even, cares for everyone and cares for you. How wonderful it is.

[68:27]

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