I hope to see all of you in Dogsang, this sasheen. But for some practice period, some sasheen, I feel concentrated on Dogsang. And in this sasheen, I feel concentrated on our sitting. Both saschins, of course, are the same. We sit and we have doksan. What I'm trying to say is that even though we have doksan and you present your practice to me, I hope also that you can just sit, as if you were never going to be disturbed.

[01:17]

How are Practice and our everyday life. By everyday life I don't mean non-priest life or layman's life, I mean just what you do every day. Our practice and our everyday life are the same. There is a continual point of confusion and depth in our practice. Our practice is to make our everyday life, is to... We have a visitor out there. That's him looking about. Practice is to...

[02:40]

help us find the deep meaning in our everyday life, beyond comparisons, relative or absolute Tsukiroshi liked the story about Yakusan Igen. Yakusan Igen, you know, he's Yue Shan, it's his Chinese name. When we chant in the morning, it's the six patriarchs, and then Seigen Gyoshi, and then Sekito Kisen, and then Yakusan Igen.

[03:43]

and then Ungan Dojo, and then Tozan Ryokai. Tozan Ryokai being the founder of this, where this lineage splits off from, actually it's where the Seigen Gyoshi, that separates from Rinzai, but they're all mixed up pretty completely, especially up through Tozan Ryokai. So, we say Tozan Ryōkai founded this line. Anyway, Yaksan Igen hadn't given Teisha for a long time, lecture, and so the director, I guess, would be the director of the monastery, and said, you haven't given a lecture for a long time, would you please give a lecture?

[04:50]

So, Nyaksan came down from his room and entered the dharma hall and climbed up on his seat and climbed off and went back to his room. And the director went to his room afterwards and said, for a long time you haven't given a lecture and I asked you to do so and you just came in and left. And Yaksana said, there are many teachers, some teach about the sutras, some teach about Meditation, some teach about the precepts, but I am a Zen master." And he dismissed it from the room. Gutei, do you know Gutei?

[06:19]

Gutei's one finger. Gutei said, when asked about his way, he said, I received one finger from Tenryu. No matter what people asked him, he always just held up one finger. And it can be five fingers, you know, three fingers, two arms. But if you do it too much, people will get confused. So you can just hold up one finger. But every time you hold it up, you know, your finger, the circumstances are different. And it can be five fingers.

[07:21]

So Shikantaza, or our practice of just sitting, can be, maybe is the foundation for many practices, many practices. And it can take various forms, five fingers. Yesterday I talked about sight-seeing practice.

[08:31]

By sight-seeing practice I mean also trying to attain various samadhis in your practice. That's also a kind of sight-seeing. How to actually, through your resistance and your constant war with yourself, just accept what is each moment. It must get boring for you to hear this over and over again. And it's boring because you don't quite understand it. Another time, Yaksan asked a monk, how old are you?

[09:40]

And the monk said, I'm 72. And Yaksan said, are you 72? And the monk said, yes I am, and Naksan hit him. Another teacher commented on this by saying, the first, when asked about it, you know, by a monk, said, the first arrow penetrated, and the second arrow penetrated more deeply. So, The monk said, how could he have avoided being hit? Nyatsen said, when the emperor states his rule, or something like that, or makes a demand, all the princes will avoid it.

[10:56]

So, the monk said, What is the general meaning of Buddhism? And the teacher, in this case, said, to fill a ditch and a ravine. I think that's a very interesting story. When he asked, the monk said, how can a blow be avoided? The teacher didn't do anything but repeat the statement. Either way, you get a blow. You try to avoid the blow, you get a blow, you don't. Anyway, in other words, when the princes make some, the king, emperor makes some rule and a blow, everyone tries to avoid it. You're trying to avoid it. And he says, to fill a ditch and a ravine.

[12:05]

Now, when you... Because Luthier used to say, you know, when it's hot, you know, or cold, you're a cold or hot Buddha. And when you have painful legs, you're a painful-legged Buddha. When you have a monkey mind, you're a monkey mind Buddha. But is that a ditch or a ravine? How old are you actually? 72? What age? Nansen used to say, what can't be reached by wisdom should not be explained by words.

[13:15]

If you do so, horns will grow on your head. He means just fill a ditch. So how can you practice, you know? So you're not sightseeing or trying to gain something. So you're filling the ditches, filling the ravines. There's no need for you to have a lecture, or delksan, or anything.

[14:31]

Only the clear apprehension of what you actually are, without equivocation. without it sliding rapidly to the next moment. And we practice zazen because it's almost impossible to see what we are when you're living always in the midst of distractions. So in a sasheen, in this sasheen, there's nothing to do but just sit on your cushion. As if you were going to live forever there. It would be wonderful to see plants coming up between the tummies, around, sprouting.

[15:52]

And you're not moving. Several seasons passing by. If you can practice with that kind of feeling, someone will wake you up when it's time. Okay. This way you can actually enter the path with others.

[17:31]

You have some questions? I guess it's interesting that you say that it doesn't matter so much what you're doing about practice, as long as it's about practice. She said, sometimes she gets the idea from what I say, it doesn't matter so much what you do, as long as you make the right effort, or have the right attitude. It doesn't make so much difference what's done to you.

[18:51]

Okay. so

[20:45]

I just, like, I need it. Could you hear what he said? Hmm. Just let it come, as if it were part of you, and as if it were not part of you.

[22:13]

The machine is always I mean, maybe not always, but often, intensifies some emotions, or feelings, or attitudes, or something. Outside sashin seem ridiculous. In sashin, you become terribly angry at someone over something of three years ago, or something like that. Or you feel some powerful feeling about a situation or someone over some minor thing. or various episodes that have happened to come back very clearly. We don't want to figure these things out.

[23:18]

Just for some reason they're appearing. Just like everything else appears. If you're always looking for a reason, then your world is very tight. The other day we spoke about it. Do we have to die? And then that night, I went to him one night, he said he had to kill himself. He saw something there. What would you like me to say? It seems that to die would be to let the thoughts come again, maybe.

[24:24]

But to kill yourself is... It's more of a strong point. Is it a stronger way of saying it? Do you think it's a stronger way of saying it? No. What do you mean by stronger? No, it's like there's something different about it. I mean exactly the same thing. Just if I say in general to you, you should kill yourself. I'm afraid some of you misunderstand me.

[25:26]

I don't mean suicide. I mean you try to do something. It's rather subtle. But that kind of command, for some reason in English, is hard to understand. And in our language it has so many pronouns. You kill the self. In Japanese it's easier because there's no pronoun. So in Japanese it's something more like self-kill. Anyways, there's not much difference.

[26:32]

It's not like you think anything of it. It's not like you think anything of it. It's about trying to get something else. Trying to get what I think I want. What it feels like. You could actually come to me and want more than anything else. Now, I'm not responding exactly to your question, Blanche, but we ask questions and sometimes someone's question yesterday was a good example. Anyway, of course,

[27:42]

that want is the basis of our practice. But sometimes your questions, not anybody specifically, sometimes the questions sound like, you know, a photograph. If someone took a picture of this building and the guest dining room, this dormitory, and they said, looking at the photograph, why those two buildings are joined? Because you're not sorting out where someone says, if you're supposed to sit still, the point is sit still, don't rock back and forth, don't move, or don't balance your nature. Because you have to buy, if you tend to be... have some tendency to isolate yourself from people, take some balance to that, with yesterday's question.

[29:04]

So don't... How does that relate to sitting alone? It's kind of... The problem we all have, because our mind works rather two-dimensionally, and it relates things that aren't related, just because the way we think or in language it means they're related. It's one of the problems with talking about everyday life and ditches or ravines. You know, there's no way, in the way our mind works, that I can point out the difference between a ditch and a ravine. the difference between, are you 72? Yes, I am 72. So in your practice you get stuck on these levels, partly because you want to and partly

[30:19]

you believe what you think. So if we talk about killing the self, it's hard to… What part do we kill? If we have some desires, what Which desire? The desire to give up desires, or the desire to do such and such? One way Matsu used to do, that Matsu Baso started,

[31:25]

Most people would come to him with a question, which as Nansen says, if wisdom can't... but wisdom... Oh, I'm sorry, today I have a headache. Please go and see so-and-so. And so he'd go see this other teacher, you know, after trekking 40 days or so. He'd say, oh, I'm very tired today. Go see so-and-so. So they had some... Matt Basso started this practice of bouncing people from one teacher to another. And as long as they didn't know the difference between 72 and 72, they'd say, oh, sorry, I have a headache today. You know, you know, you know what your practice is. All you have to do is one day start.

[32:38]

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