Well, just to prove to us that everything is changing, the protective spirits of this mountain have given us at least three seasons this week. We've gone from deep winter to summer in one day or two days. And our poor Easter snow bunny is just a patch now, unrecognizable patch of snow. Now, the last two lectures, case shows, maybe two or three, have produced a lot of energy. And I shouldn't do that again today, because we'll get the idea that Zen is exciting or something like that. So I think we need to calm down a bit. So I don't have anything to say.

[01:01]

But I'll rummage around and see if I can find something. So I've been asking everybody that walked by, give me a topic please. If there's one word that describes our practice, I would say it's intimacy. intimacy with yourself, whatever that is, intimacy with others, with animals, and with phenomena. And when I say our, again coming back to our culture of being young, ten or twenty two hundred year periods of shared consciousness at least of living together together I also am saying that it can be wholly wrong I mean we may be really on the wrong track I don't think we should say oh yes it's all cultures are somehow rearrangements of the same basic truths or they're all I don't know we may be pretty wrong

[02:28]

Or how we can live may yet be discovered, and certainly how we may live together is yet to be discovered. I mean, and religion is so far, I don't know, sometimes it's at least a mixed blessing. And certainly what's going on in the Balkans right now, where it's primarily religious divisions, when religion can't... do anything to stop carnage, or goes along with it as it has for centuries, this is not, to me, much of a teaching. Not that I have, or Buddhism necessarily offers anything better, but let's us discover something better. Let's not depend on Buddhism. And so one of the things I've said these days is simply enjoying being alive, simply being satisfied by being alive.

[03:50]

And you know, that's quite a lot, and it's actually a kind of description, definition of nirvana. But today I would like to emphasize not just that, but knowing that or finding simultaneously a thoroughgoing intimacy with yourself. An ease of course with yourself, but more than just an ease or a knowing of yourself, an intimacy of yourself that goes beyond knowing. And one of the reasons we're sitting is just to keep obstructing ourselves, seeing the obstruction of ourselves, just that thinking habits, basic kind of... What's the word now?

[04:56]

I can't think of it, moving around unsatisfied, etc. So we see that. What's, you know, after a while your legs aren't so bad. That's the problem. But we're so motivated to accomplish and do things, and now we're motivated to accomplish and do things as antidotes to all the doing we do, but we are. in a few generations, close to destroying the human habitat. Again, I don't have any answers, but let's at least see if, as much as possible, if we can start from a fresh start, from right where you are. What else are we going to do? I mean, let's learn as much as we can from ancient teachings and present teachings, but let's also balance that by starting right from where you are.

[06:12]

Right from where you is. And Dogen had this idea, and at least we can read Dogen in this way. And he used the word dokkan, meaning ring path, that the path wasn't a path to somewhere. It was a path that kept starting right now. Now, one person, actually, in this case it was Randy, said, maybe I should say something about inherency or inherent. So the two... basic, most basic delusions in Buddhism are the delusion of permanence and the delusion of inherence. And it's pretty easy to, if you care to, to analyze these away at an intellectual level, but at a subtle level, as I've said,

[07:26]

they're cellular, they're real basic, so we have to see it at a more subtle level, and that's what wisdom practices. So permanence means things are perdurable, or persist in some or assumed to be the same. Inherence emphasizes that things got started from a beginning point and more or less are always under the influence of that beginning. It's a little different, it's similar, but it's a little different idea. Dogen emphasizes a sort of non-theological idea. Theology is something that starts with meaning things are going toward an end point.

[08:29]

Directed somewhere. So we say beginningless, from beginningless time. So Dogen's idea is beginning from the middle, not beginning from the beginning. And that middle is you, your own intimacy with yourself. So Dogen tries to express this in things like birth doesn't obstruct birth. Death doesn't obstruct death. Birth doesn't obstruct death, and so forth. Now, how can we talk about this in practical terms? Let's talk about dualism and ambivalence. Now, again, I'm trying to kind of deflect my way in toward a center with you

[09:48]

to find a way to talk about something that's quite elusive. Dualism is to have a feeling, of course. I mean, again, trying to keep coming back to simple things and look at them carefully. One of the most important things to do, actually, is to keep examining the obvious, opening up the obvious. It's usually not so obvious. So dualism is to have some sense of a subject-object or a separation. And that's a fact of our existence. And non-dualism is to keep dissolving that particularly that difference when it's established conceptually and perceptually.

[10:58]

So the territory of dissolving dualism is in how we conceive of things and how we perceive things. And as I've been pointing out, this bringing your attention to energetically bring your attention and energy equally to each moment is a process of creating a basis for dissolving not the self, but how the self conceives and perceives. Okay. So the Sandokai, which we now chant in English, but we will eventually, keeps emphasizing merging. And merging is this finding yourself underneath the ice, shall we say, of conceptions and perceptions.

[12:12]

But it ain't cold down there. Or in here or something. But it's wet. Yeah. And ambivalence is more time-based. Ambivalence is we don't know what to do. What are we going to do? How do we make a choice? That's ambivalence. And ambivalence, you know, there's psychological and compulsive ambivalence. But ambivalence is is normal, commonplace for any time-based consciousness. Because how do you know what to do? Should I do this or should I do that? Should I stay three days after the practice period or one? What should I do? How do you know? My plane ticket, you know, the boat. Now I've spoken about trusting somatic intelligence, it's one way I've been trying to put it, which is you let things tell you what to do.

[13:18]

Or you let your body decide. Given simple examples, you know, come back to your room and you decide whether you want to, should I pick up the laundry? first, put away the laundry first, or should I make tea first?" Or something like that. So one way you can keep experimenting is you come in and you just do whatever your body starts doing. And my experience is the more I do that, my body actually anticipates things that are about to happen more than my thought. But it's a kind of craft. You get into the habit of letting something decide, trying not to decide intellectually, but letting a decision occur. Okay, now, Dogen's idea of dokkan, of this path as a circle, or, you know, something like that.

[14:24]

And we breathe that way, you know, one of the ways to is this visualization of the breath. I think it's the most basic pattern to come into in your breath, is to visualize your exhale going out, and it feels like it's coming in here. And once you begin to establish that circle visually, because it's... There's a I won't go into it. Anyway, to reinforce what you do with visual patterns or verbal patterns or conceptual patterns is all quite useful. And one of the things that we're not so aware of is the degree to which visual imagery is the root of the cons.

[15:27]

There are literature, but rooted in the cons is visual imagery. And those visual images are meant to be visually internalized, but this is another subject. And vice versa. But this circle, once you get in the habit of this circle in your breath, this circle expands to your backbone and the whole of your body, and then expands to phenomena. So it's a kind of rolling, you know, roll out a barrel. You kind of roll through the, you know, this circle. So, let's... Ikkyo.

[16:46]

Atmar brought up how some of the things I've been talking about are similar to what I've taught in the past, or mentioned in the past, what's called the meeting of the three. The you, the object, and the consciousness that arises. And that's also a basic practice to have the patience or allow the fullness of consciousness, awareness to arise on each moment. And then to allow that, here we're not talking about non-dualism again, to allow that consciousness to arise to grab you. Say you're looking at a tree, you let the tree grab you, and you grab the tree. It's a lot like hearing, hearing. So you don't... And often when we contemplate nature, or enjoy nature, there's often some kind of filtering that occurs where we also feel distant or something.

[17:58]

I like the Cavafy poem where he says something like... What a beautiful sunset, but did I see it? I saw it for a moment, but then I started having erotic fantasies and stuff. It's a marvelous little poem about how he tasted something for a moment, but couldn't stay in it. And I think it's useful to assume that the tree is enjoying grabbing you or holding you. I mean, Janie and I, we have such a good time barking together. And I think it's a real communication. And sometimes Janie likes it better than food. Now we, because we're modern, contemporary people,

[19:06]

and so forth. We think everything is psychological and self-interested. Janey really only wants a bone. I don't believe it. We think Dogen only wanted to establish himself in some Harold Bloomian sense as different than his predecessors and hide his influences, the so-called anxiety of influence. I think this is, you know, has some point, but I think it's also overemphasized and often nonsense. Jeannie only has certain things she can do with us. She can take a walk with us or she can get some food from us. And I think often she wants to get some food from us because she wants to do something with us. So if you give her something else, like a walk, she's probably... And sometimes she comes up and does a whole bunch of numbers, you know, and wiggles her head like that and twists her shoulders. So I give her some food and she doesn't even eat it.

[20:08]

And sometimes she seems to be most happy if I bark with her. At last, one of the boys, she thinks, or girls or something. And it's a refreshing contact for me too. I'm not just, you know, it's kind of funny and I'm a little embarrassed when I start barking with Janie, particularly howling. If it goes on for more than a few minutes, I feel like, It's a little embarrassing. So I like to go out in the woods with her, and then we can do it privately. Put a little screen around it. Oh, Jeannie. But it's like when we had the mountain lion here last year. There's something refreshing about hearing the mountain lion. and finding our own language and sounds in tune with, in tune with, aligned with, intimate with phenomena.

[21:21]

And I found myself sort of making the mountain lion sounds myself, feeling something refreshing. A dharma is, we could call a dharma maybe a self-caused moment, or a self-organizing moment, or own-caused moment, in which what appears, bringing your attention equally to it, your breath, mind and body, And Dogen's point is when there's total exertion, something is born that's new.

[22:31]

When there's not total exertion, what he means by total exertion is if there's only partial exertion, then you're just pushed by the past in your habits. But only total exertion breaks through into birth. So he says each, when he talks about birth doesn't, he means the birth in the middle of this moment. Birth is what we give birth to. Birth is what we give birth to. So maybe it's philosophical or scientific that each moment is completely new, but in Dharma practice it's your experience. This is this dokkan path. And we can also understand total exertion not being some kind of big effort, like here comes a dharma.

[23:35]

It's not that kind of effort. Watch out, dharma, here I come. But let's understand it as a lack of ambivalence. At this moment, you're not involved, should I do this or should I do that? There's just a total completion of this moment. It doesn't obstruct. There's no problem. It doesn't obstruct anything. When you totally complete this moment, it causes no harm in the world. We can also understand it as the fruit. Effort in Buddhism is technically the fruit of the first five of the Eightfold Path. Right views, conduct, or right views, intentions,

[24:46]

conduct, speech, livelihood, and then there's effort. Intelligence has also understood this. Intelligence is the fruit of a process of opening yourself to an immediacy and spontaneity. So intelligence is not so much a genetic capacity, but a cultivated capacity. And effort is likewise. When your views are consonant with reality, or with how things exist, and when your intentions express those views, and those views are then present in your speech and conduct and your livelihood,

[25:47]

There's an effort. True energy is released. It's not tied up in the job. You don't like speech. You're always kind of saying things that conflict with your innermost request, your inner feelings, and so forth. You're not leaking all the time. Outflows have been stopped. When outflows have been stopped, there's this effort which Dogen calls total exertion. But exertion may not be the... It's too... to doing a word. Let's say there's no obstruction to effort. There's no ambivalence in the effort. Now this sense of path is that when you're able to complete, find the intimacy of this moment. The path is like, you know, like dropping a pebble in water perhaps.

[26:54]

There's these circles that come out from this circle. And the next moment you exert or find complete what appears. The more you do this, the more the path takes care of itself. So it's called the sense of a path or a way is not that you do the path, but more that the path does you. You allow this giving birth to each moment to lead to the next birth of each moment. Each, as they say, veridical moment, veridical means truthful, each moment of truth, each truth moment of veridical awareness is Buddha's awareness.

[28:09]

So again we're talking about your actual experience as Buddha's experience. So each moment you complete what appears, the truth of what appears, you've generated a moment of Buddha consciousness. This is the understanding. That Buddha consciousness is transforming, giving birth to you each moment. When you take a dharma position, as I said, this is a dharma position, to find yourself at this moment, the mountain, mountaining, you, ewing, or whatever, ewing, I don't want any sheep around, anyway. you're developing a dharma body. It's not just that, well, you feel good, or you know what to do, you're not ambivalent.

[29:17]

Each moment creates something. So Dogen calls it birthing, a kind of, that's the word he uses, birth. We're giving birth through this sense of a dharma position of completing what appears. We're giving birth to a body within ourselves. You know, I like Hamburg a lot. It's a nice city. You'd think I'd change the topic. And Hamburg is a lot like, for me, Hamburg is a lot like Boston and a lot like London. It's not like Munich or Frankfurt. But my parents are Bostonians. I mean, they were born both fairly near Boston, and they both went to school in the Boston area, college, and so forth. And they feel like Bostonians to me, but for me, I'm much more of a New Yorker.

[30:20]

My aunt had a big influence on me, and New Yorkers have certain, I can spot characteristics New Yorkers have that's different than Bostonians. There's a kind of, if you live in New York, you become a New Yorker after a while. Though I was born in Maine, you know, Once I was driving to Maine, and I think of myself as a Mainer, not a maniac, and I was driving, and I stopped to get gas. And, you know, Maine people are a little hostile to non-Maine people, particularly in the backcountry. It's sort of, you know, it's like that joke that somebody stops and says, ask for directions, and how do you get to... And this guy from Maine says... I'm sorry you can't get there from here. There's that kind of unfriendliness.

[31:22]

You ask directions and they say, you can't get there from here. Oh, thanks. Why are you going there if you don't know where you are? So I went in this gas station. There were two young women. I mean, they were 17 or something. And I was a bit older. and had spent more years in Maine than they had. And I said, you know, I'm from Maine. One girl said, doesn't count for much around here. I said, can I pay for my gas there? Well, all right. What if you live in New York? somehow, after a while, you become a New Yorker. And if you live in these stories, if you live in this Dharma practice, you become a Buddha.

[32:28]

So I didn't change the topic. And as I said, the Tamek Ronda used to be, I mean, Ronda used to be She told me the schedule and talked about my Aunt Dot. And I think if you went back, if even a stranger, because she said, what about, you know, I don't know Aunt Dot, and so what's it mean to me? I think if even a stranger went through the kind of New York area of my Aunt Dot, they might become a kind of Aunt Dot Buddha. anti-buddha. Dati-buddha? No, no. That in English means crazy. But we might have an anti-buddha. So when you do this dharma practice, this dokha, this each, the intimacy of each moment being a birth,

[33:43]

You're giving birth to a Dharma body. You're giving birth to a Buddha body. And if you live in New York long enough, you become a New Yorker. If you live in these koan stories, you begin to, going back to what I said, internalize the imagery in it, the teaching in it. Now, it helps to have some enlightenment experience. It helps to have some realization experience. But you don't have to depend on some big experience, because if enlightenment means anything, it's always present. It's always right here in our face. It's always near. So even if you're not aware of it, it's functioning. So we're doing the practice after enlightenment before enlightenment.

[34:53]

This is good, I like that. We're doing the practice after enlightenment before enlightenment because much of this practice is maturing the experiences, the way of viewing the world that arises from enlightenment. But we don't have to wait for anything. This moment, right now, is everything, is enough. If you think it's not enough, it's not. But if you bring the mind that, as I say, just now is enough, if you bring the mind of just now is enough to this moment as it appears, in the fullness of your own intimacy with yourself, and with the fullness of what appears, this is enlightenment. This is the activity which produces a Buddha field, a Dharma body.

[36:01]

We could speak of the Sangha body of Dharma enjoyment. And I think we're creating a little Buddha field here. I suggested even earlier that you imagine a territory from the road to perhaps Dragon Peak, Spanish Creek, and the gold mine or something, and identify yourself with, bring into your attention, into your caring attention, every sentient creature. You can imagine here, insects, birds, even people, genie. And let your attention rest in this little Buddha field. And then the Buddha field of our seshin. But it's like our chanting. Sometimes our chanting is off, sometimes it's on. This Buddha field isn't something permanent.

[37:05]

It's something we're generating each moment. Some moments more than others. This sangha body of enjoyment. or the intimacy with yourself, self-joyous samadhi. Trusting, you know, simple things, like being able to trust yourself, being able to give yourself over to yourself. May our intention be actually happy in the end days.

[38:17]

We just will have it all, but this way should be all we can say on you. Allah, [...] Since the end we didn't sell any of this. I have no idea who you are, but I want you to sell it to me. We didn't sell it to you because I don't want you to go out to the world. I have no idea who you are, but I want you to put your hands to me. We don't have a lot of money, but we have a lot of business, so I don't want any of this.

[39:22]

I have no idea who you are, but I want you to put your hands to me. God, you are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. God bless you. An animal has survived us, had a training and birth become one.

[40:34]

It has lived its freedom, leading its way to the earth, even in the hundred thousand billion problems. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I, in a way, want to chase the truth of the life that I have experienced. Of course, near the end of Sushina I begin to get questions about how do we continue the practice in our daily life. And, you know, it seems that I can always say something about it, so I must have spoken about it many times.

[41:44]

I mean, must have, I have spoken about it many times. So today I'd like to emphasize that, you know, what kind of practice we're doing. The kind of practice we're doing you can't bring into your ordinary life. You can bring your ordinary life to it, but you can't exactly bring it into your ordinary life, if this distinction makes sense. Because I think to do this practice, it has to be your highest priority. If it's not, I mean, the way I... I mean, I'm open to all kinds of practice, but still we're trying to develop this place in Jnanasov 2 in a certain way. And we can include various kinds of practice, but still...

[42:49]

The emphasis for me is on Realizational Dharma. I don't know, trying to find a term or practice lineage. Now I don't mean that you shouldn't do what you have to do. If you have children or a job or a life to, ordinary life to lead. This is normal, usual life to lead. This is you know, what you have to do. But what you have to do doesn't have to be your highest priority. Does that make sense? You have to do things, yes. But if you really want to make this practice work, adept practice work, this realizational mind has to be what you love the most, or what you care about the most, or what brings you most into intimacy with yourself, the world, and others.

[44:01]

So what you have to do can sort of be a disguise for this practice. I don't think everyone should practice this way, nor will everyone. This is just for some peculiar reason my interest, and maybe I can say my failure or my inadequacy. Because Realizational practice can't really be taught. It has to be presented and we have to kind of move ourselves into it. Because as your practice develops, you'll discover that there's no way the most essential aspects of practice can't be taught.

[45:15]

I can hint or suggest things. What I've defined as my job is finding language and a way of, and a context for, a practice context for language, which, what's the word I used the other day, nudges us into realisational dharmas. Now one of the reasons I know, one of the eccentricities I have,

[46:19]

I even did it for the San Francisco Zen Center, which got hardly invisible, is I don't like the center to be listed in any list of Buddhist groups and things like that. I guess it's just eccentric, but it just came up today. Katrin said to me, the local business association, what's the business association? Creston Mountain Business Association. Creston Mountain? How can they use our name? Creston what? Moffitt. Oh, Creston Moffitt Business Association. This is an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Creston Moffitt Business Association. Yeah, there's a lot of business out there. Mostly monkey business and gossip. Anyway, so I said last year and this year, yes, let's join it and we'll pay our fees, et cetera.

[47:24]

But then they want to put us on the sign, you know. I don't see how we qualify as a business. So far we're a failure at business. And they want us to do various things, right? And it's not I don't really care, you know, what they do. I don't want our practice to exist in the world. I want it to exist in here only. So I want somehow to... When somebody says the Crested Mountain Zen Center, you know, as if it were an entity somewhere in the world, I don't like that. It's an entity only here. So this is eccentricity, but at least it... It does express the sense of... So, but then let's say, well then why don't I just sit here by myself, you know, with screens around me, you know, something like that.

[48:36]

Or we could add Randy and Rhonda Rocket Henny. Do you see how she rockets down? I decided the two Canadians, Tom McRonda and Rocket Henny. And somebody's balls in the way. Stand back. Here comes Rocket Henny. Or Gisela. Ran Geraldo, if we could get him to come back. Anyway, the original group, we could all sit here. So then why have we developed the Sangha? Because I really feel that even though I can't spend as much time with any one person, if we have a Sangha, I feel it's a better teaching situation than just three people. But three would be okay. So I think if you want to bring your practice into your daily life, you have to adjust your daily life to permit your practice.

[49:48]

Adjust your daily life to absorb your practice. I don't know, what's that mean? Maybe you take a bus to work so you can sit quietly in the bus instead of drive. Maybe you ride a bicycle or maybe you arrange your work. I don't know. I don't know. But the feeling has to be the highest priority is establishing continuity of mind throughout the 24 hours. So somehow you've got to come into this kind of intention to establish a continuity of mind And you can't do it just for yourself. You have to have the feeling that this is the practice of generosity, the biggest gift on this planet, which needs a few. And I'm not, you know, let me, as an aside say, I'm not really...

[50:58]

I don't put much effort into—I can't say I'm not interested—I don't put much effort into transforming society. I made, you know, the usual efforts of a young person and I was young. Grr. Grr. But now I feel the most important thing is us changing or us coming into birthlessness. Because I really do feel that our society won't survive and isn't worth surviving almost if there aren't people, some people, And not just Buddhist, but try to have this view.

[52:10]

Okay, that's probably enough. But I would examine yourself and ask yourself, what is your highest priority? And if practice is your highest priority, then you have to make your life reflect that. Then you can bring practice into your daily life. And I do not think practice has to be just monastic. Although, as you know, I obviously think a chunk of it, part of it has to be, should be. Lay practice is simply more difficult. And to get a certain momentum in your practice going and to be with people who share commitment to realizational practice is almost indispensable.

[53:35]

So also I would say that wherever you live, if possible, you try to practice with others in some regular way. To help yourself, but to just create a situation which is helpful to others as well. Now let me come back maybe to this sense of a dharma posture or dharma position. I think I've maybe talked about it too much because at this point its potential needs to just work in you. I mean I can only say so much and then you have to kind of feel into it yourself. But the essential view here is that you—to keep it somewhat telegraphic today—is that your perceptual and conceptual—it's hard to make these words do what I want—processes

[55:17]

are based on transiency, based on emptiness, based on seeing there's no substantial reality in the sense of permanence or inherence. But, I mean, it's an experience of something like If you think things are permanent, they seem to be going on up there. If you think things have some

[55:52]

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