Good morning. Actually, let me just introduce our speaker this morning. This is Peter Overton. Peter, I'm forgetting, I didn't prepare, so I'm forgetting your dogma name. It's Unzan Kakudo. And what does that mean? It means, Cloud Mountain, realize the way. That's an encouraging name. Anyway, Peter is speaking as part of the a series of lectures that we're doing this month on Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, as part of aspects of practice, and so we look forward to hearing you. Thank you. Is the sound loud enough? Can people in the back hear me? Great. So, as we've all been experiencing over these few weeks, or many of us who have been engaged in this study and that Suzuki Roshi's words are wonderful, encouraging, and also very difficult at the same time, complicated.

[01:11]

We look closely and we find out things we didn't realize were there. So, the chapter that I am going to try to talk about a little bit is called, Attachment-Nonattachment. And this is a... Well, I'll just read a little bit, for starters. The epigram says, attachment, non-attachment. That we are attached to some beauty is also Buddha's activity. So, maybe attachment's not so bad. It starts off by saying, he quotes Dogen Zenji saying, even though it is midnight, dawn is here. Even though dawn comes, it is midnight. Then he says, this kind of statement conveys the understanding transmitted from Buddha to ancestors and from ancestors to Dogen and to us.

[02:18]

Night-time and day-time are not different. The same thing is sometimes called night-time, sometimes called day-time. They are one thing. So this is a statement which is an interesting opening salvo. I get from this that he's going to talk about the relationship between absolute, relative, our way of seeing things in their particularity, and our way of seeing things from a broader, more open perspective. In the next paragraph, he says essentially the same thing. Dzazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call Zazen everyday life, and everyday life Zazen.

[03:23]

But usually we think, now Zazen is over, and we will go about our everyday activity. But this is not the right understanding. They are the same thing. We have nowhere to escape. So in activity there should be calmness, and in calmness there should be activity. Calmness and activity are not different. So he's making this point a couple of times pretty strongly. So somehow I'm suspecting that somehow we're going to find out that there's something more to it than this. He goes on, Each existence depends on something else.

[04:25]

Strictly speaking, there are no separate individual existences, which is sort of implied by everything is dependent on something else in order to know what it is. There are just many names for one existence. Sometimes people put stress on oneness, but that is not our understanding. Now this is interesting. He's made a pretty strong case for things are the same, things are one, and then he's saying, well, we don't put emphasis on that. What's that about? We do not emphasize any particular point in particular, even oneness. Oneness is valuable, but variety is also wonderful. Ignoring variety, people emphasize the one absolute existence, as in, zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. But this is a one-sided understanding, the emphasis on absolute existence.

[05:32]

Excuse me, I'm just getting my place again. Ignoring variety, people emphasize one existence, but this is a one-sided understanding. In this understanding, this one-sided understanding, there is a gap between variety and oneness. But oneness and variety are the same thing, so oneness should be appreciated in each existence. So this is where he turns around and says, if there's one thing you can appreciate, that oneness in each individual thing that you perceive. That is why we emphasize everyday life rather than some particular state of mind. We should find the reality, which I assume is sort of like talking about oneness, in each moment and in each phenomenon.

[06:40]

Then he says what is often said in this book, this is a very important point. One of the sort of dualisms that we deal with, and this chapter is really dealing with the fundamental dualism of oneness and variety, emptiness, form. One of the dualisms we deal with is before and after, you know, something we're going to do in the future. And, you know, we need to have an idea of something in the future, even though it doesn't exist. We need to have that idea because that's how we negotiate our life, is by using this idea that the future is out there. It's true, it doesn't really exist. because it's the future. And it's dependent on something called the present, which we don't know what that is either.

[07:44]

But in any case, that makes it even less real. But in any case, we are dealing with our life in this place where if we get too caught up in following the details, too over-focused on planning, too over-focused on making sure things are happening the way we think they should happen. Life just isn't very much fun. Now I'm going to use this activity of, on contrast, when Big Mind, when Big Mind goes grocery shopping, there is a How does that happen? Big Mind goes grocery shopping. The first thing Big Mind does is form an intention to put the list in the pocket.

[08:46]

It's no guarantee, but it's a lightly held intention to, okay, this would be, I think I'm going to like this result. I think I'm going to do that. Then there's another intention. You've already done that. That goes away. Another intention to start heading in the direction of the Berkeley Bowl. And yes, yes, yes, it's somewhat likely in most cases that you're going to arrive there, but you don't know what that's going to be like. You don't know how long you have to wait at the crosswalk, whether you have to run to avoid being hit. How are you going to negotiate the parking? You know, nothing. You're just getting to the front door. And then, there's another intention. Oh, my list. And, oh, oranges. And what's after that? Oh, oh, something different. Oh, maybe I'll do... And there's a... So the whole process of Big Mind going shopping is a lightly held series of intentions, which

[09:59]

are just a kind of raft, a guide, an orientation to existing in this space, which is incredibly chaotic. And you don't know what's going to happen. You may see things. Oh, I didn't have that on the list. Get that. Or, oh, there is an old friend I haven't seen in two years. You know, if you're too focused on getting it done, you know, the to-do list mode, You won't see those things. So I want to ask, have any of you seen me in the Berkeley Bowl? Completely missing your presence. Well, there's one there. Good. So, the way we fall into one side or the other of form or emptiness is, when it comes to outcomes, is we get caught thinking, A, that the outcome doesn't matter, that I can just be in the space in a sort of wonderful presence, or B, that only the outcome matters.

[11:19]

And so, In Big Mind, there's both of this spaciousness and particularity. If we just go for spaciousness, our activity falls apart. If we fall into particulars, then we miss the beauty of each moment and thing. So I'm going to read a little bit more of this chapter. Dogen Zenji said, he's really relying on Dogen Zenji here, although everything has Buddha nature, we love flowers and we do not care for weeds. This is true of human nature. But that we are attached to some beauty is itself Buddha's activity. We should know that. If you know that, it is all right to attach to something.

[12:21]

So this is big mind again, attaching to something without grasping. If it is Buddha's attachment, it is non-attachment. So if it is Buddha's attachment, it is non-attachment. So in love there should be hate or non-attachment, and in hate there should be love or acceptance. Love and hate are one thing. We should not attach to love alone. We should accept hate. We should accept weeds despite how we feel about them. If you do not care for them, do not love them. If you love them, then love them. So there's no escape from either the weeds, the flowers, or our feelings about them. It's just part of the big mind. I was thinking about weeds this morning, or maybe actually it was yesterday afternoon.

[13:28]

I was out in my garden and I was picking some of the last few tomatoes that were around. And then I looked down at the ground and I said, man, these weeds are coming on strong. I think I'll pull some. And I suddenly realized I could be out here for an hour or two having a really good time. In some way, I love weeds because I love pulling them up. So, Suzuki Roshi is trying to point out that preferring flowers over weeds is Buddha's activity, as he has said, but if we can accept the difference between flowers and weeds, without creating a big story around it, then there's no gap. We cannot find a gap, actually, unless there's a dividing line or boundary.

[14:29]

So, how do we accomplish this feat of not fixating on our goals and intentions while moving forward through all of those proposed thoughts and actions, as though all of these things which might be intended are actually doable somehow? How do we move from A, which we think we recognize, to B, which we can't actually imagine? I'd like to bring up another analogy here. You know, there are various colloquial expressions which I think capture something about our understanding of Buddhism. You know, two sides of one coin. Is it two sides or is it one coin? Do we know? And then there's this other, when you have two things,

[15:43]

The next thing you have is tango. It takes two to tango. And our usual understanding of that is that it takes cooperating factors and conditions for something to happen. I think car accidents are a great example, where most often, not always, but most often, Each driver has some contributing action that leads to the outcome, which people get out of their cars and try to figure out what to do. Even a rear-ender, you can imagine, you showed up for that. You're the one who got hit. exploration of this, which I think is a little more interesting, which is about tango itself.

[16:47]

Is there anybody here who dances tango, studied tango? Long time ago. Yes. It's a wonderful form, art form. And usually it's two partners, and in tango One of the partners leads, and the other partner follows. But what does that mean? And the reason why I bring up Tango is because when I learned a little bit about it in the recent past, the instruction is that the person leading, when she leads, she does not communicate what she's going to do. She just dances. She does not give any hints to the partner.

[17:51]

And the person following does not anticipate what's going to happen next. This is a clear intention. Surprise me, because I'm ready for it. I'm there, I'm ready. It's almost as though the dancers It's very clearly two dancers, two different roles, but one dance. Period. This speaks to me a lot about how we try to work with our reality in how close we need to come to our everyday reality in order to work with it successfully in oneness. So, in tango, the dancers are, you know, even if they're oriented forward and toward each other, no matter whether they're going backwards or forwards, they're always oriented towards each other.

[19:03]

So I'm going to come back to Suzuki Roshi's story again here, or what he ever has to say. So, there's a good part in here. Let's see here, let's see where I'll start. Usually we think, he is foolish and I am wise. Or, I was foolish, but now I am wise. How can we be wise if we are foolish? But the understanding transmitted from Buddha to us is that there is no difference whatsoever between the foolish man and the wise man. Something to keep in mind these days. It is so. But if I say this, people may think that I am emphasizing oneness. Here we go again. This is not so. We do not emphasize anything.

[20:16]

All we want to do is know things just as they are. So how's that? How do we know things just as they are? It seems to me that's not falling into oneness or particularity. All we want to do is to know things just as they are. If we know things as they are, there's nothing to point at. That's interesting. If we know things as they are, there's nothing to point at. Because everything depends on something else. You can't point at one thing without pointing to everything. There is nothing to point at. There is no way to grasp anything. There is no thing to grasp.

[21:19]

Are we back at oneness already again? Wow! No thing to grasp. We cannot put emphasis on any point. Nevertheless, this is the good part, as Dogen said, a flower falls even though we love it, and a weed grows even though we hate it. Even though it is so, this is our life. So, one of the questions I've been asking myself, intensively, I have a Well, let me just tell the story, and maybe I'll take off from there. So a number of years ago, I went to a communications practice retreat.

[22:28]

And there was, you know, 50 people or something there for four or five days. And hardly any of us knew each other. Some people knew each other, but mostly people didn't know each other. And after a couple days of this, whatever we were doing, the leader said, now I want to ask everybody, When you first showed up here, when we first got together in this room, is there anybody here who didn't, within two minutes, have a story about everybody in the room?" And of course, everybody raised their hands. You know, we all, yeah, yeah, we did that, yeah. That was kind of surprising. And then she asked, is there anybody here who understood their story about that person to be correct after a day or so. Of course, nobody raised their hand because, you know, our minds just make this stuff up.

[23:36]

And it's part of what Laurie was referring to last week as the our sort of hardwired nature to explain our situation, to look for whether or not we are safe or not, whether or not people like us, all of those things are all about survival on some level. But they are happening all the time. Here I feel pretty safe, even though I'm kind of on the spot here. I feel like I know most of the people in the room, like this is kind of almost my tribe. And so many of us have been experiencing a sort of upsurge in the expressions of, I'll just call them expressions of tribalism during the election season.

[24:44]

So I want to talk a little bit about what it's like when you experience that perception of difference. Here we are again, difference and oneness. Experience that perception in yourself, that perception of difference. That person is other. That person, I don't feel safe. And I don't really want to talk about that, because I want to say right up front that going forward, what anybody here may think of as, or consider to be, or whatever it might mean to any of you to engage in political or social action, Whatever that might mean to you, that's going to be a lot of work. We know that.

[25:50]

But what I want to talk about is how we handle our own reactivity, because it's there. This is hard to talk about, so I'm going to try and get it right. When I, I'll just read a sentence or two here. When I think about how Donald Trump has expressed himself on any number of subjects, particularly women, I have to remember that my brain, my brain on some capacity works the same way his does. And I have chosen and trained and been brought up not to act and speak in certain ways.

[26:52]

And with this upsurge of what I perceive as a kind of tribalism or a kind of permission to simply ... to simply ... I'm going to use this expression, which is to other people, to create others, to create enemy images. of others. With the upsurge of the expression of that, one of the things that's difficult for me is that it brings up the part of myself that I really don't like, which is that same part. It makes it, you know, when people act as though this is perfectly normal to behave this way, it suggests that, oh yeah, it's perfectly normal to behave this way. that's really hard, and I want to care for my own reactivity in that way, you know, of my reptilian brain, and allow myself to forgive, and then move on with clear eyes.

[28:05]

So it's that part of our being that is so concerned with, you know, what we will sometimes perceive as biological necessity of some sort, really core issues of survival and all the variants thereof. respect, self-esteem, those are all kind of connected to each other in a web of needs around how we meet each other in community and in relationship. We were having a discussion the other day, or yesterday, where someone Hosan brought up his sort of ongoing dialogue with, I'm trying to remember his name now, who loves the dude.

[29:34]

Oh, Bernie Glassman. Bernie Glassman. And so I have a question about, is it just everybody's opinion or are there facts? And it occurred to me that what facts are, facts are shared reality. And we create that world so that we can function both in a really mundane way, drive down the street and so on and so forth, and also in our relationships to each other. Do we have a shared feeling about this or that? That's all sort of a constant negotiation. Sometimes our nature, in our practice,

[30:37]

we are trying to not exclude anything, including what might seem to be our darkest nature. But at the same time, we are trying to create something that is not subject to that. So, that's a sort of dark little exploration. I just want to say one thing that, and I don't know what's going to happen in our world, but I did notice a slight shift in language coming from the top. A tweet.

[31:46]

What it means, I don't know, but I'll just put it out there. As a suggestion that when people's situation changes, when you, for instance, become President of the United States, your situation changes, that changes you. Whatever you might have thought that is, it's something different. Just forgive me while I read this. I love the fact that small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud. It's a slightly shifting tone. Anyway, like I say, I don't know what's going to happen, but they're But it made me think that, in fact, people don't have the kind of control over their lives and the control over their destinies that they think they do.

[32:51]

How much more time do we have? Oh my goodness. Okay, I want to come back to Suzuki Roshi. Oh, here we are, quoting Dogen again. Dogen said, this is sort of prior to the other thing I just read, to learn something is to know yourself. To study Buddhism is to study yourself. This is from the Ginja Koan. To learn something is not to acquire something which you did not know before. You know something before you learn it. There is no gap between the I before you know something and the I after you know something. There is no gap between the ignorant and the wise. And then he goes on about a foolish person is a wise person, and a wise person is a foolish person, and so on. So, coming back to zazen, I'm not sure why I wrote this here, but zazen is something where we have to show up and start someplace.

[34:32]

I've heard Sogen say numerous times that when it's unclear what's happening, he gives himself Zazen instruction. And Zazen instruction can be, you know, it's pretty bare bones. I mean, we spend half an hour with folks. There's some folks here who just were, I think, received their normal program of instruction for coming here. And it's very, you know, it's basically sitting upright, and not getting fixated on anything, and see what happens. So we have to start someplace, and yet we go beyond those instructions. And then, if we feel confused, we start again, and then go beyond. And so even though we start somewhere, we kind of already know what to do.

[35:48]

This is because zazen is beginningless activity. And it is beginningless activity because we already know what to do, and it is endless because there is no conclusion to be reached. So I think I'm going to stop and see if anybody else would like to say something. Questions, comments, and Sojin, would you like to? Well, I just want to clarify what you said about what I said. I like that, but that's not what it said. I said, when you sit down for zazen, give yourself zazen instruction, as if you're beginning. I always say, go to your breath.

[37:20]

That's the last refuge for the student. Anyway, that's correct, but that doesn't mean that we don't have control over our life. Because what our attitude is within those changing circumstances, which we can't control, is how we find Thank you.

[38:22]

Anyone else? Kika? Well, how do you practice with aspects of your personality or your behavior that you really don't like? You kind of accentuated a point that you said, I really don't like that. And I just wondered, well, how do you practice with things about yourself that you really don't like? Well, the first thing is patience. which is closely related to forgiveness. There's a couple definitions of forgiveness that I like. One is to abandon all hope of a better past. And the other one I like is just to return to my bodhisattva vows. Just return. Because in there, there's no room for clinging and aversion, attachment.

[39:38]

A better past. Yes, Ed. Yes. to resist, but not react.

[40:44]

How do I say that? I keep my humanity, but I don't resist. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, Judy. I just want to say, there were a few of us who sat in the Embarcadero on Friday, and we're going to be sitting on a weekly basis, in silence and to bear witness. And our sign said, Sitting Together. We actually had a few signs, because those of us who just decided to just do something showed up in our robes, ruckuses, whatever we had. And so people just made signs and brought them. So some of the signs were, Sitting Together, Everyone is welcome. Resist hate. Embrace compassion and love and saving all beings.

[41:47]

So it was very moving to just do something. And so my question is something about when there's a pile of dirty dishes, How do you abandon hope of a perfect past so that you're not just standing there stuck and overwhelmed, but you just start watching? It's that abandonment which allows you to start watching. Can you do it alone? Are you ever alone? Looks like we're close to the end. I want to end on a note. Mushim and Keda spoke here a couple of months ago or something, I can't remember how long ago it was. But she had a message. It was a two-part message. I remember the first part, which is universal friendliness.

[42:50]

The second part, I can't remember. Compassion and universal friendliness. So I want to say it again. Universal friendliness. And that in no way impedes you from acting in whatever you think the world is. There's another famous koan about that, but I won't go into it now. But whatever you think the world is, acting, universal friendliness does not impede any of your actions.

[43:28]

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