Sometimes I feel like just letting you be, quite relieved that you're practicing and continuing to practice. And other times I feel I must hammer away at you or keep repeating things. Anyway, I'll keep repeating things. Because although my words are the same, what I mean will only be found on many and many occasions. I often talk about the particular or the details. And what I mean by that

[01:04]

is beyond your comprehension, beyond comprehension completely anyway, yours or anyone's. To go back to simple details that we were talking about last time, even our oriyoki, our eating bowls, which we're familiar with, I've still not ever had an anja who can take apart the eating bowls and put them together exactly as I left them. And, excuse me, Usually, I have to explain finely. But I shouldn't have to, just the way I leave them. First, I usually leave them the way they're supposed to be. Then I change them slightly. But it's hard to do, because even with the oryoki, not to say tea ceremony, there's no

[02:48]

exact logic about it. So if you really want to be careful, you have to write it down on a piece of paper. This was this way. Because when you go to put it back together, it comes up in a different sequence, and your memory, conceptual memory, won't supply you with the necessary details. Sometimes if you put it all the way back together and then undo it, you can remember. But Doan work is similar. Actually, I'm saying this now, not because I expect the present Doans to be able to do it, but I'd like the future Doans to be able to do it. Which is, if you're asked to be Doan, you should be able to come up here and do the complete service without mistake. Of course, you won't have the skill of how to hit the bell or something, but you should know the sequence. You're present in this situation for hundreds of days, and hundreds of times you've heard the service, and yet you come up and you can't hit the bells in the right sequence. Why is that? It's just a particular detail of our existence going on with us.

[04:19]

Maybe while no one depends on you, you should be completely dependable or know everything. When everyone depends on you, then maybe you shouldn't know anything. But if you're just here in service, not thinking about anything, you'll learn the service. You'll know when it's funny, as you do know when it's funny. If somebody does something wrong, you know it, but you are asked to do the service and you do it wrong. But why can you do the service, be present in the service and know if someone hits the bell wrong, but not be able to do it yourself It's the same as not putting the orioke back together exactly. It means greed, hate and delusion. Transmission isn't something about Buddhism, about this incense burner. It is the incense burner.

[06:07]

The last period of zazen, of a sesshin, is not different from driving a car or anything. It's so much easier, actually, during some difficult time, to have a good state of mind. As you know, in sesshin, you sit pretty well and your state of mind is much better than usual. so you get caught by buddhism but if you believe that sashin or zazen is buddhism you're fooled by the public relations department of buddhism the molecules of that incense burner are not more present in uranium we can't study we may study the molecules, better in uranium or something, gold, but they're equally present. Someone may have helped us by carving that statue, carving that stone, but that stone is no more Buddhism than the mountain or anything else.

[07:30]

Those of you who are talented, most people who are talented will stop practicing Buddhism because you cannot give up your substantial self, wanting to realize your substantial self or have others recognize the substantiality of you. Worse, if you're a talented person, you'll make a career of Buddhism. And if you do so, the lineage will stop with you. It's okay to have some career as a profession, or craft, or priest, or whatever. But you understand it as a mirage. It's just some way of helping people. And I'm not trying to say that, oh, so if you stay, you're practicing. If you leave practice, you're just, leave tassara, you're just involved in your ego.

[09:27]

If you realize this fact I'm talking about, you can leave Tassajara too, or do anything you want. But probably, if you're needed, you'll stay, and if you're not needed, you'll go. So later, later students will leave Zen Center, because they'll see Zen Center is well taken care of, they're more useful somewhere else. Greed, hate and delusion are relationship to things, not in the sense of dharma. Greed means you're attached to things. You believe in things, people and things. You believe something exists. And you don't feel you have enough or you want to accumulate something or you think things will help you. And hate or aversion is you're afraid of things, that's all. You think things will hurt you.

[10:57]

So you try to keep things away from you. If you want to be a priest or a housewife or a carpenter, scholar, some job, this is a kind of keeping things from you. And they're so complicated, actually. They're almost the same thing. If you are greedy, it's a kind of hatred. You want more at the price of something else, of someone else. Narcissism is not so. Maybe the purest form of greed That's not so involved with hatred or fear. So some interest in the status quo or maintaining your position is, by Buddhism classification, a kind of aversion.

[12:30]

anger or hatred or aversion from things. Enough is enough. You don't welcome things. One side emphasizes faith and the other emptiness. Delusion is, I think the best way to describe it is delusion is a belief in symbols rather than things. some confusion about things. So the three worlds of Buddhism are desire or greed, hate and delusion, and form and formless. And today I'm talking about the world of form, of detachment.

[13:57]

of, if you like, career or profession or being a priest or whatever, but with detachment. It means you do everything equally, without discrimination. that you know what's going on about you. how to let a situation lead you, how to give up a future, how to have your plans indeterminate, not knowing where you're going actually or what you're doing even, just the immediate situation. The particularity in this sense, not the generalization of Buddhism which applies to something.

[15:43]

is Tantric understanding, is Zen understanding. The 8,000 lines are the incense burner. That's all the 8,000 lines are about, is the incense burner is the incense burner. Buddhism isn't about something. Buddhism isn't that zazen is better than something else. Zazen is just how we help people, how we help others, and we are others.

[16:46]

some special experience is no better than some terrible experience, if you have pure detachment, free from greed, hate, and delusion. Where are your nostrils after you're born? Are you expecting your parents to rescue you or Buddha to rescue you? Or some explanation to be found which will help you?

[18:04]

Getting rid of fear, not in a psychopathic way, but the fearlessness that resides in the sheer particularity of things. Freedom from ascribing some, through greed, hate or delusion, some future quality to things or people. It's quite difficult, like a cat. You have to be able to walk away from your lost kitten after making sure you can't help it.

[19:16]

You may not be able to do that, you know, and still feel completely, but don't pretend you understand Buddhism then. any idea of understanding Buddhism anyway is wrong. What do you think there is beyond the sheer particularity of things without any thoughts arising? Who do you think is going to help you? Where do you think you are? Why do you still lean? A blind person told me once, it's quite interesting,

[20:50]

that to learn not to be blind, to look blind, you have to learn to slouch. Isn't that interesting? Blind people always walk very straight. So if you're going to make people feel comfortable, a blind person has to consciously learn to slouch. That's very interesting. So does that mean that the whole world slouches to make each other comfortable? I think so. We are myriad beings and all of our lives are present on this moment, but we are blind and deaf to them.

[21:51]

But we're waiting, they're all waiting to be spoken to. But if you're clogged up by greed, hate and delusion, you can't find this world of form and then formlessness. So it doesn't mean you always have to slouch. If you're practical, for instance, when we bow or walk shashu, sometimes our hands should be perfect. Sometimes we should do the service perfectly. And when we bow, our hands should be quite perfect. Sometimes, not so perfect. The thumbs slouch. It doesn't mean you should always slouch.

[23:04]

or always be perfect. If you're always perfect, like a blind person standing naturally straight, you make people uneasy. It's some aggressive feeling. If you always slouch, it's also some aggressive feeling, some disdain for trying, for competition, or encouraging people. So by our practice, by our right understanding, we should know when to slouch and when to do things perfectly or completely. how to encourage people and how to make people feel comfortable. It's interesting how a blind person can be free of that

[24:32]

mental world, visual mental world, and just stand straight naturally. And have we forgotten how to stand straight? Forgotten, it's our natural, easiest way to stand. If we lost our eyes, we would probably start standing up straight. Slouching is a mental world. And yet, if you always stand straight, people will think you're blind to them. I talked about in Green Gulch. Humlaan saying, in the whole vast world, nothing is obstructing. Why, when the bell rings, do we put on our robe, put on our sitting robe?

[26:29]

How do we find the 8,000 lines on the particular? If you don't know, still, and you can't penetrate this meaning, or you can't feel it even, Try to open yourself or encourage yourself with the awe of the particular. Say, maybe to yourself, the 8,000 lines are on this lousy cup of coffee or whatever you're doing. This meddlesome person You won't find it in Buddhism or in Sutra, just on each particular occasion, which includes this whole zinda, which includes the service.

[28:06]

Then when you do your particular work, you'll understand its extensions everywhere, for there's no boundary to be drawn. Maybe it's useful to think of yourself as 50-some sealed off bags of skin with no value whatsoever. Just eat and sleep your way through life. Maybe if you can get rid of any additional ideas about yourself,

[30:04]

You can find out what's there, what's there as fact. Not your ideas about what you want to be, or should be, or hope to be, or what people should see you as, but something incontrovertible. by the negation of everything you will find myriad beings, myriad dharmas. The negation of everything without greed, hate and delusion. So what is your relationship to things? What is your state of mind in relationship to things? How clear is your state of mind when you're hitting the bell? How present are you when you do anything?

[31:45]

not at some special time of doing anything, all the time. How purely and clearly do you see things from inside and outside, existing in their own nature, carrying their own weight, completely independent, instantaneously, there for you? Some gratitude is all you can feel at so many manifestations. This is a very nice place to live, Tassajar, especially after the first practice period, and you get used to it. Weather is beginning to change. It rained a little this morning during study. It's a wonderful, very immediate and direct place to live.

[33:14]

That should be enough. And I'd like to let that be enough. I don't know how to say it, but don't be caught by the topics, the topic of being here, the topic of things, the topics of your life. What is really going on? with so many beings present. Which one are we speaking to with each other? Zazen or cleaning? Or is zazen also cleaning?

[35:44]

As I was saying, Zazen, they say they hate Zazen. Cleaning first and Zazen second. If Zazen is also cleaning, then what formless world are you residing in? And can we meet each other in this formless world without adding anything to the particular Anyway, this is why we're sitting, not to get something over with, but because we recognize this as the most direct way to accomplish dharma, not confusing dharma with the usual world, usual way of seeing things and progressing and accomplishing.

[37:46]

The Dharma world is what should be present here at Dasa Harapani, not the stage to something else. I offer myself to you. What we keep doing, what characterizes all our

[38:54]

life, religious life, is offering. Not thinking or figuring out or philosophy or career, but just offering. purely offering but it's very very difficult to do especially if you don't know the real world we offer in until then you can try to give up

[40:01]

your greed, hate and delusion. Seeing things as they are, accepting things as they are. Then you'll find out, ajijuyu samadhi. So don't be fooled by the public relations department of Buddhism. Find out for yourself.

[41:28]

recreate the bosom entirely yourself. Quote yourself to yourself, not scripture to yourself. This way, the sutras will come alive in your mouth and your actions. And how to use the particularity of things will be apparent, will be your activity. If you were born outside this world, you would marvel at it.

[42:56]

But because you're born the treasure itself, you disdain, you ignore it. There's some story in the Lotus Sutra about a man who, while he's asleep, a jewel is tied up in his robe, in his clothes. And I guess also some gold or something is left, and he wakes up and finds the gold and spends it, and then seeks for the jewel for many years, until he finds it tied up the whole time in his robe. Just mean to stop discriminating Buddhism, not Buddhism, good or bad, fits in the jigsaw puzzle or doesn't fit in the jigsaw puzzle. Just let realization realize itself.

[44:30]

that the myriad beings all hear the Dharma by your activity which carries its own weight and yet is not going anywhere This way you can just hit the bell, and what you hear you can replicate, where there's no interference of belief in things and people.

[45:48]

For you found how things exist on each moment without any self. And it's possible to do. As easy as standing straight if you're blind. you

[46:37]

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