As you know, fundamentally I think that you can't talk about practice and you can't think about practice. Not to say you can't even do practice. There must be some realm of practice. Remember that you can't think about practice. Talk about practice. Then we can talk about it. And talking about it actually helps if you remember that that the words aren't very real. And also, it's also true that what we say about practice makes much more sense the more you practice. At first, you know, we can talk about stage one, two, and three, and things like that. It all sounds nearly the same. And we use words like joy. Actually,

[01:31]

What we mean by joy in practice isn't exactly the same as what you may feel at Christmastime or after you've just received a Guggenheim. It's something that you... Something that allows you to bear this life. Anyway, there's maybe three reasons We talk about practice, one being. There are certain things you should know that give you confidence in practice. It's useful to have some idea of transiency and what cause and effect is, or isn't, and what the sangha is, or why we have rules, that kind of thing. That's one reason. Another is that it's a kind of antidote or medicine for particular problems you have at various times in your life and practice. And third, it's just encouraging some kind of friendliness. Anyway, last time I said, as the chant we do at the beginning

[03:05]

this beginning of the lecture, study group. The chance to practice with a way that Shri Mataji has given us is really very rare. In fact, we talk about three great opportunities, or there's three opportunities. One is the path, or the sangha, the way, and the other is a teacher and instructions from the teacher, and the third is your own effort, your own ability to make use of a teacher and a path. And I also said we should not let this practice day be an easy one, but bring some fundamental problems. Of course, you always have some fundamental problems that you may not know. Practice allows us to work with our fundamental problems and also allows us to see them as problems, allows us to see

[04:31]

When practice is difficult, for instance, it's easy to see some problem. When practice is not so difficult, it's not so easy to see the problem. But still, practice helps us. But, anyway, today I'm talking in threes and three great opportunities. So now, three reasons why we give lectures. Now, three reasons why, or three entrances, three ways we can actually work with a fundamental problem. Three entrances into practice. And one is your life energy, your energy body, mind, breath, prana. It should be at some... There's no word to describe exactly, but it should be the same as space and time. It should be the same as each moment.

[05:55]

It's more than just your breathing, but of course we count our breaths and practice with our breath to make us, to have our consciousness, our mind move with our breathing. It's actually the same thing. It gets out of kilter. So our prana, vital energy should turn with each moment, be present with each moment of your consciousness. So that's one thing we that gives us some idea of practice, what we can do. If you have some idea in your head, you know, I'm just counting my breaths, then it's rather boring practice. But if you come to see or have some sense that it's more than just breaths, it's your whole vital energy that your attention is on,

[07:23]

then even though you don't know quite what that means, still, your attention is a little different than if you think it's just breath. So in that way, talking about practice helps you. But actually, prana or light energy doesn't mean anything, really, in comparison to actually being The second is your essence of mind should be... I don't know what to say exactly, but maybe manifest. And that we can...

[08:48]

we can talk about, I think, this liquor issue, for instance. Under this topic, we will divide it maybe into four points, four steps in practice. And the first step is we have, through the rules and precepts, we free ourselves from of sensual desires. And when you're free from desires, you have mental joy. And you have, excuse me, a physical joy. Mental joy. And when you're free from physical

[09:53]

excuse me, when you have... when your thinking is... maybe... first, when you first start practicing, your thinking is rather rough and inconsistent, or very rough and inconsistent. And after you start practicing, your thinking becomes still rather rough, but more consistent. And this... When your thinking becomes more consistent, you have physical joy. Again, I don't like to say it. Maybe Tsukiyoshi said joy, and there's no other word, but it doesn't... If I say that, you start looking for joy in your practice. We don't look for something in our practice. Anyway, the way we have that our thinking becomes more consistent with the Eightfold Path, which mostly means right thinking. So then there's freedom from the joy. There's some non-attachment.

[11:26]

And then your thinking is more consistent. This is stage two. Your thinking is quite consistent. Your thinking at that time, it becomes very clear why you should be free from thinking, or why non-attachment, or what emptiness means. Third, we have calmness of mind. And last, we have essence of mind, where there's no joy or no... Anyway, this last group, what I mentioned first, has a second entrance to the essence of mind that we manifest. Anyway, actually, we're in all

[12:31]

four of those stages simultaneously. Sometimes our thinking is more consistent than other times. And of course we... To be free from sensual desires also means to accept Anyway, the third entrance is, or the third way we direct our... suggest... make some suggestion to ourselves for practicing. The third is we keep our consciousness under examination. And this is how I mean to bring some fundamental problem

[13:45]

So, of course, if your vital energy is focused, and you have some fairly consistent thinking, and you bring your consciousness under examination, then some fundamental problems of our life can be present. It's a process. Your consciousness on your examination of your problems is a process. It's not some state. It's a process. And what I'm trying to do is give you some way to look at your practice or to notice your practice.

[14:48]

I'd like to talk about the five hindrances, impediments, which, again, are particularly the problem you're facing in the four stages I mentioned. And the five impediments are anger, sloth, not being able to get up in the morning, lust, restlessness or excitedness, and doubt. I think it's pretty clear what all of those are except excitedness. So I'd like to talk about excitedness. Again, this doesn't mean you're one type. You're only a slothful type and you can't do everything. Usually, Not just in the morning, you're also excited. Excited state of mind. This is true for everyone. Everyone has this same kind of difficulty. It's very useful when you can see it. And the hardest one to see is excitement. Because you have no calm state of mind usually to compare your excited state of mind to.

[16:21]

that you don't know, we're talking about an excited state of mind. The usual state of mind is an excited state of mind. America is a huge excited state of mind. And it's pretty hard not to get involved in it, if you go to San Francisco. Anyway, maybe no one has ever made several flies holding a convention in your ear or flying around your eyes and mouth while you're trying to eat. And at some point you almost start flailing mildly at your base or at the dishes. The point that the flies get to you we could say is an excited state of mind in comparison to our usual state of mind. But our usual state of mind is an to an excited state of mind in comparison to a calm state of mind. But we don't have any comparison, so we don't notice that your mind is quite excited, just as if the flies were getting to you. Because everything gets to you. Things that happen during the day are for no reason. You become rather angry. You find some funny feeling or something's wrong.

[17:48]

things discomfort you. That really comes from an excited state of mind that's too reactive to things. And it's connected. Excited state of mind also includes remorseful or guilt feelings, all those kinds of feelings. Usually, from excited state of mind like that, and depressed state of mind the same, means that you have some fantasy about the way things should be, which you can't get rid of. Usually it's stuck way back in your mind, and you even forget about it, but it's there and represents a comparison with everything we do. And a lot of you, when you do zazen, are sitting there thinking and thinking. I can tell your head is forward. You just sit there thinking about, why I didn't do this, or why I can't do that, or why, or something. You have all these figuring out about how it could be, or should be, or might be, or isn't like that, or something. That's all an exciting thing, right? I don't think it's necessary to figure out what that fantasy is.

[19:18]

Buddhism isn't psychology in that sense. We must try to figure out what it was or who said what to us or dropped us, you know, whatever. We recognize a certain state of mind as remorseful or guilty or excited. And recognizing that, we try to cut through it. And the easiest way to cut through it a particular state of mind is physical. And the easiest way to cut through sometimes physical difficulties is with some mental insight. When you have right thinking, you have physical joy. So all you have to do, you know, if you're a doctor and you're in thinking, You don't have to try to stop thinking so much and try to figure out. Generally, you notice only in thinking. So then you try to figure out how to stop thinking and you still keep thinking. All you have to do is sit up straight. If you sit up straight, put your shoulders back, pull your chin in a little, you stop thinking, actually. But pretty quickly. And it requires some effort.

[20:46]

And that effort is pretty hard to make because all of that fantasy, which may be some kind of huge structure that stretches up above these mountains and pulls your head back down when you start thinking. But if you're practicing Buddhism, are able to cut through that and sit up straight. Of course, it's more... If you have another problem, if you don't have difficulty in your zazen, you don't have much pain or it's quite easy to sit well because it's kind of physical, personal one, then you can really get carried away And if your fantasy happens to be a harmless one or a successful one, in other words, people like it, you may never find out until you're quite old that you missed being alive. So for that kind of person, some other kind of

[22:15]

Maybe you need a teacher. That kind of person needs a teacher like Rinzai or Baso or a teacher like that. Anyway, it's pretty hard to cut through all that, or even to see what it is you want to cut through. And this particular school of Buddhism emphasizes Zazen. And everything comes out of Zazen. All the teaching comes out of Zazen. And so for us to have these four, these three entrances, to have your vital energy,

[23:17]

at the proper point. We sit in this way, just as this statue. I think we're pretty lucky to have this statue here, and the one. It's a brother in San Francisco. It's probably nearly 2,000 years old. And I guess this posture goes back I guess the earliest known figure is the Mohenjo-Daro figure, which is about 3,000 BC. I can't remember. Anyway, for at least 5,000 years, this posture has been synonymous with wisdom. And it means It means your vital energy, it means your spirit body. I don't know what to say, but it means not your physical body, but your vital energy, your essence of mind. So this posture, while it's not necessary for Zen,

[24:50]

Practice is pretty essential, as those of you sitting in a chair know. It's much more difficult to sit in a chair than to sit this way. It's almost impossible not to lean back. Anyway, it takes more effort to hold your body that way in the end. To practice Zen, you have to be able to support your own weight. You don't find a deer, you know, leaning against a tree. You can have your prana alive, you know, you have to support your own weight. And Seiza posture, some of you do Seiza posture.

[25:52]

It's pretty easy. I used to do seiza as well, when I first started, sometimes, in sashimi. My legs never worked very well. And superficially, you get into zazen more quickly in seiza than you do in plastic surgery, particularly if you have pain. Plastic surgery is possible. There's no way for me to exactly say the difference except this posture is like maybe a bow that's strung. And Caesar is like an unstrung bow. This posture strings us just right. Strings our prana maybe just right. So, the other day when I had to go to the city to do that funeral service, I stopped at the natural food store in Carmel Valley. And they have a newspaper article on the wall about TM. I'm not sure whether it was trademark or transcendental meditation. It's transcendental meditation.

[27:23]

and described some scientists and they talked about they discovered a new state of being usually they say three, what is it? sleeping and awake and what would be the third? dreaming they discovered a fourth state which is meditation or dogma so their article was an expression of the curiosity of these scientists about this fourth state of being they discovered. But from the point of view of Zen, it's not a fourth state of being. It's the only state of being. The other three are rather ephemeral, like a dream. the most maybe real state of being. Everything else comes out of that. So, to give that some reality, some life, when we practice in this kind of situation, everything is based on Zazen. It takes precedence over everything. And we don't even follow necessarily the course of the sun

[28:57]

the rhythms of the plants, the cycles of the moon or astrology. Zen in this sense differs from Confucianism and Taoism. I mention this because I often seem to imply that Zen or Buddhist way of looking at things is almost synonymous with Japanese and Chinese culture. In many ways, its basic perception of space and how you handle things is very similar. It's not exactly the same as Japanese and Chinese. Popular Daoism, for instance, is very concerned with, you know, yin and yang, the rhythms of the universe that you get in tune with. Confucianism is very concerned with the social rhythm, the overall social body. But Zen is much more independent than that. Everything comes out of Zazen. The sun, you know, maybe

[30:21]

does its own zazen, and so it comes up. But we don't follow the sun, we follow zazen. Maybe if you follow zazen, you follow the sun. So, this actually presents an interesting problem at the farm, because the farmers want to follow the plants, and they want all the people there to do what the plants require, to live around the rhythms of the plants. And it's in quite a marked conflict to the schedule of the day, which cuts right through any rhythm, just now it's time to do Zazen. So much time has to be set aside each day for Zazen. Of course we have to plants, time to take care of the plants, but we do zazen anyway, if it's time to do zazen. So we set aside a time, a place like this, where we can give primacy to that state of being called zazen.

[31:49]

And so the life here is based on the Eightfold Path and the need to do Zazen. We're making some changes in the schedule, which may be a little confusing to you, but they're pretty minor. It's interesting how minor they are, actually. This life we're following here is pretty complicated and not written down anywhere. Nobody knows. There's no way to write down all the details of this, so there's no way this life exists except in the memory of people, in the habits of people. So of course there's some divergence. between, from one person to the next, whose experience has been a little different. And we've had quite a few different teachers here who've been from, studied at different monasteries or the same monasteries at different times and had different teachers. And it's amazing how similar, just in small details, they're different. Even when

[33:19]

their lineage and practice, time and place is quite separate from another person. The differences are very slight. And of course the rules are meant to be adapted to a particular situation, a particular time. Recently, and things, lots of things tend to get fixed and it's hard to change them. I mean, for example, several years ago, traditionally, by the way, we would always face each other because you can hear each other chanting better that way. And several years ago, maybe four years ago or so, we were chanting here and there weren't many people. I can't remember. Maybe people had gone to the city or something. Anyway, the people up here could not hear. We were doing the mokugyo, couldn't hear the chanting very well. So I turned around and said, everyone face the altar please. Everyone turned around and faced the altar and finished the chanting that way. And we'd never changed. Until the other day. I realized it was a mistake several years ago. We never changed it. I wasn't here so much. But actually,

[34:45]

And another similar one is we go out the door and we bow as we leave. Actually, in Soto, if you're going on the left side of the door, you never go to the middle. You go on the left side, you step out with your left foot. You go on the right side, you step out with your right foot. And you don't step on the little board. It's kind of a... Rinzai has a little different way of Rinzai. You go to the door and you spin around and bow quickly and step out backwards. Anyway, it's just some way of having your... a way of practicing having your consciousness on each turning.

[35:51]

So how we got into this habit of bowing to Suzuki Roshi used to wait in his office at the building on Bush Street and as we came out of the zendo we bowed to him. So those who were alert enough to notice how Suzuki Roshi stepped out of doors himself, because he never said, but those who noticed, would step out with the right foot, and then if it's a small door, where there's no middle, really, or side, and you just go through the middle because it's the only possibility, then you step out with the foot nearest where the door is hinged. Anyway, you step out with your right foot in that case, and Suzuki or Shiden would bow, and you'd bow. But of course, most people never notice He was actually stepping out with one foot instead of the other foot. He didn't bow when he went out the door himself. They would just come right through the door bowing. So it just got into a habit. When we went through a door, we'd hear the door bowing. So I don't know whether we should change, but it's kind of interesting. There's nothing to bow to out there except that fence. It's Indian. Is that the direction India's going?

[37:23]

No, dogs. Oh, India, that dog. I thought you meant his home. I thought you had your compass out and were figuring out where India was. I didn't know you were into such advanced practice. Anyway, so at some point we should make some of these things more consistent. And so this practice period will, instead of announcing a new change every day, which is a little confusing, we'll accumulate several small ones about eating bowls and other things. There'll only be a few of them. Another thing we want to do this practice period is, I don't know if we can actually, but it would be nice if we could change some of the sutra, some of the chanting, to English. And we'll try to do that. Anything else you want to talk about that you want to bring up?

[38:52]

Of course. Of course. You'd be more sensitive to what the plants needed. But you can get into a whole thing of cosmology based on plants and plant ribbons, then your day goes that way. And if it's planting time at 4.30, you plant at 4.30, even if it's Zazen time. But when you're primarily a monastery and secondarily a farm, you plant after Zazen. even if it's half an hour late, according to the moon. Anyway, it's not quite so simple as that. It's a feeling about what takes precedence and what... In a way, it comes down to one person's feeling of what's natural, and it makes Buddhism look unnatural.

[40:19]

In Buddhism we have no idea of nature in that usual sense. We're not... Buddhism cuts through that idea of nature. Yeah? In the past, when people were traveling, they were so busy, they didn't have the capacity to do their business. Well, if you have a baby, you probably don't live in a monastery. Or your practice is taking care of the baby. That's true. Buddhist practice is whatever we encounter. So it's practices about how you... if you actually encounter what you encounter. And practice is only to help you do that.

[41:26]

If you're sick, or at a job, or a baby, or whatever it is, you have to take care of that. Maybe before you have a baby, you come and practice in a place like this. Maybe after your child has grown up, or old enough to be in school, you can come and practice in a place like this. In between, you have to find some way to practice and take care of the baby. Both are pretty interesting. And there's another practice we should do sometime, and I'd like to have them do, which is to go to a place where you have nothing to do. You have some small room, maybe two tatamis long, big enough to have an altar at one end, maybe, a few clothes and books at another end and one tatami length in the middle. And you don't go maybe more than five or ten feet from the house in any direction. And you stay there three months. Then you don't have anything to do. No reason to get up. No reason to do Zazen or anything. Then you see what happens.

[42:57]

You have to figure out something. You have to find some way to be alive. So that's also a problem. Yeah? I don't know if you've heard of Prince of Wales? Prince of Wales, yeah. in the summertime. And sometimes it looks as though we're neglecting some propagation that we've taken upon ourselves to get in order to quote practice unquote. In other words, when you're neglecting a practice, you've got to get Well, it's rather interesting to do something like we do

[44:25]

in the guest season. It parallels in some ways leaving the monastery and going to your home temple part of each year where you take care of the city or village or whatever it is and the people who come there to chat or play bingo or have kindergarten or whatever happens in the local village city temple. But we're not performing religious services, exactly. We're giving people an opportunity to share our practice space with us, without having to practice. this may be some new thing to do. Traditionally, Buddhism takes time. I think that society benefits. We must all think that society benefits from having some people in it have the time to meditate. But if you have the time to meditate, and really the time it takes to actually meditate and practice thoroughly,

[45:54]

is very difficult to do if you have some job or something. Almost impossible. And so for most people it's necessary to have a fairly extended period of time where they don't have to do much else. And so it requires outside support. Traditional Buddhism has required outside support to exist. And when the outside support has been taken away, citizen disappears almost. And it's also, as also the farmers, it's also a way of our being able to practice with other people who aren't necessarily into sitting every day. And you have, if you spend any time going around the country. This is maybe in some ways, except for the benefit we give ourselves in practicing, it's the most direct way in which other people benefit. There's just an enormous number of people who feel that the guest season at Kassel Hall is fantastic. So, I know that there are two sides to this.

[47:27]

One is that we're shortchanging the guests by practice and by some attitude that they're second-rate citizens down here. And the other side is that it's a big distraction to practice and they shouldn't be here. As long as we have people here, actual people here, there'll be those two sides. There'll be some squabble between the two sides every summer. And each summer, I think, the guests will be treated better or worse, depending on which side wins. And I don't think there's any easy solution to that, but I do think the guest season is one of the most important things we do. Maybe the Dissent Center's door for students, the door is the city. And what happens up there, everybody who ends up at the farm or here comes through the city. So how that door is, how it's open, how it has enough of a practice of its own to make it a place worth practicing in and living in, and yet also has the door open enough to let people come in, people in the neighborhood to have a sense of what's happening. So San Francisco is the door for

[48:52]

people end up practicing Buddhism. But maybe Tassajara on the farm would be a kind of door for people who may not practice Buddhism, but whose heads would be turned around to another possibility. Anyway, I haven't been down here for some months, so I don't know exactly how the balance goes. But on the whole, it's not so bad. Far more complaints come from the students than from the guests. Anyway, to understand exactly what we should do and what you mean, I'd have to be down here to see. It's certainly going to be a continuing problem. The culture? Yes, of course. Not every... I mean, usually

[50:36]

In Japan, say, when they talk about a person being enlightened, they mean actually enlightened in terms of his own culture. But actually what Buddhism means by enlightenment is free from your culture too, which is pretty difficult. Difficult to get free from your own ideas and fantasies, but much more difficult to get free from your culture's fantasies. But that's actually what Buddhism means. But you still have to have some kind of way to express yourself. So you take care of plants, make babies, have a culture. We're creating a culture right here. I understand what you mean, but from one point of view, it's a form, but from the point of view, if you say nothing exists,

[52:08]

Whatever we mean by that, if you say nothing exists. Still, there must be some way to practice. So, we take that form which is most empty, which is present. But actually, there's no need to do anything. But most of us find We have need to do something, so... And the only thing which ends up to satisfy us, once you've been hooked, is practice. And this kind of life here, for instance, even though you don't do it all your life, somehow... becomes natural. Becomes, and that's not exactly what I mean,

[53:09]

Even when you're following some other schedule, which then you see as a schedule, the baby's schedule, or the company's schedule, or the city's schedule. Behind that, you feel your life moving by this schedule. And so, some natural satisfaction, I think, maybe is undercooked.

[53:41]

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