As Reb pointed out to you in his first lecture, a theme of my talks is that there's nothing to talk about. Actually, it's a kind of a special problem for me to find out how to talk in this situation of Zen Center. There's no traditional pattern for it. You usually either are lecturing to laymen or to a group of people practicing Buddhism for a long time together who are all about, you know, the same. But it's interesting too, there's quite

[01:18]

a difference between talking with you here and talking with you, really, the same people almost, because you go back and forth, in San Francisco. In San Francisco, because of the city, people need more intellectual stimulation than you do. You need some other kind of talk. It's interesting, when I'm down here mostly, I can speak with you, and when I go to the city, it feels uncomfortable. And when I'm in the city, if I come down here, it feels uncomfortable. I'm not part of the situation. It's rather difficult. Suzuki Roshi's solution to the problem was that he almost always gave, actually, introductory lectures. After the first, I think I've said this before to you, but after the first couple of years, three years or so in America, he, from then on, just gave introductory lectures. And he would say to, if you listen carefully, you know, really carefully, it was more than

[02:22]

introductory lectures. But I got so I could give his introductory lectures by heart, and I knew about 25 variations. And he would say to me, you know, you don't have to come to my lectures anymore. He said, I'm sorry, but I have to. But I'm trying partly to give some of the kind of lectures he gave when he first came. And the reason for it is, I thought, you know, all the years I was practicing Buddhism with Suzuki Roshi, I thought everyone else was practicing the same way, you know. I didn't think about what other people were doing, actually. And I found out later that mostly they were not. Most people didn't,

[03:25]

they're no different from me, but somehow they hadn't quite got the sense of how to practice, you know. And not that I had the sense very well. I'm still trying. But there's both in the Soto and Rinzai approach, there are certain dangers. And Soto, the average Soto priest is rather complacent. He isn't challenged too much, and he gets rather complacent, you know, about his life. And the average Rinzai priest seems to be rather proud and feels he has some knowledge. Because Rinzai, you are prodded a lot more than we are in Soto. So you have to accomplish something. You know, this is only my own impression of meeting many Soto and Rinzai priests,

[04:31]

but I don't know if it's accurate. Anyway, that's my impression. Practicing, you know, Zendo is in some ways a kind of battlefield, should be a kind of battlefield. With yourself. Should be both a home and a battlefield. You should feel, I don't know, should. Anyway, both feelings exist. One is that when you come in Zendo and you sit down, you're at home, in some private place beyond possession. But also it's a kind of battlefield, you know. Even wearing an okesa like this is a kind of battlefield. It always wants to go other directions than we do. It's always coming down. It's a kind

[05:36]

of a... Our practice never lets you alone. We can't design the ideal clothes, you know, sort of some French suit that you zip up the front. Like some designers make, you know. Very convenient if you look like Buck Rogers. That kind of convenience has nothing to do with Zen practice. One way of... Some people say we shouldn't talk about Buddhism at all. We should just draw a circle in the air, or raise a whisk, or hit the student. Bang on the ground with your staff. And sometimes even Suzuki Roshi did all those things. But in that kind of instance, he quoted Dogen. He said,

[06:41]

uh, we practice to think that's the only way, is to be a cave dweller. But actually we have to practice in confusion. Our practice is to be in the midst of confusion, not convenience. To be in the midst of confusion and not be caught by it. So if we talk about Buddhism we cause some kind of confusion. And it's best if you just, uh, forget about it. Just, uh, my lips are moving, that's all. Don't worry about what I'm saying. And, uh, if you don't, uh, doesn't make sense, you don't have to figure it out. Dogen also said, um,

[07:48]

that Buddhism patriarchs appear because of the supreme way, because of the first principle. And they only practice the, uh, supreme way. And if, uh, there's an opportunity for Dharma to appear, Dharma will appear. And if there's no opportunity for Dharma to appear, no Dharma will appear. So how to practice in such a way that Dharma appears. Your true nature appears. The true situation of our life appears. If you don't practice what Dogen called the supreme way, completely, you can practice in Tassajara forever and you'll never know what Buddhism is.

[09:03]

Buddhism is something bigger than just you. So practice is said to begin with the thought of enlightenment. And actually, uh, to explain why some people don't become, don't have a Buddhist practice, the thought of enlightenment, they, uh, add in the sutras, uh, men or women of good family, which doesn't just mean, you know, you come from an upper-middle class family. Though, practically speaking, in traditional societies may have meant something like that because you had more leisure or education or opportunity to practice Buddhism.

[10:11]

It actually means some, uh, conditions prior to the beginning practice. Both the conditions of your life and family and social situation and another condition, uh, generally is translated as aspiration, some kind of aspiration, you know. And the thought of enlightenment doesn't, doesn't mean the thought of your enlightenment, means the, it comes to you that you can live in such a way to help all sentient beings, is one kind of translation of the thought of enlightenment. It comes to you that you can practice for all sentient beings, with all sentient beings. And one of the truths of Buddhism, one of the things that Buddhism points out to us

[11:21]

is you can't really get behind your practice if it's just for yourself. You can't really get behind your practice if it's just for yourself. So we say give up your practice for yourself, practice for all sentient beings. Luckily, uh, you're included in all sentient beings. And the thought of enlightenment bodhicitta can also be translated as an enlightened attitude. How do we practice an enlightened attitude? How do we practice as if we were enlightened? It's rather like, uh, maybe a piano player,

[12:24]

practices the piano as if he were a great concert pianist, but he never entertains the idea of giving a concert. If you practice Buddhism, entertaining the idea of when you're going to give a concert, your practice doesn't work very well. It's up to other people to decide when you give a concert to me, if ever. Just you practice whenever it is, as if you were Buddha, as if you were enlightened. So there are many hints, uh, in what we do in our routine here about how to practice bodhicitta. For example, we, uh, every time we chant the sutra, almost all the echoes say we chanted this sutra for all sentient beings. We eat the food for all sentient beings.

[13:32]

We bow regularly to, uh, say all sentient beings. When you're starting to practice or when you're practicing, you can't start some abstraction. I'm going to practice the thought of enlightenment, you know. I mean, it doesn't have any substance. You have to start with, um, simple things that you can do first. The same is true as with, uh, say, uh, Paul Disko studying with his carpenter. Paul's a pretty good carpenter, as you all know, and, uh, about as good as carpenters get. And, uh, but in Japan, he's pretty unskillful. He can't do the things that, uh,

[14:40]

the carpenters there do, and he doesn't know quite how to handle the tools and everything. So they start him out, uh, rather simply. He spends, now they may have speeded up a little for him because he's only going to be there a certain number of years, but generally you spend at least the first year learning how to sharpen your tools. And, uh, perhaps longer for a Japanese person in Japan. So Paul spends, has spent a lot of his time sharpening his tools, taking care of them. But that's one thing they tell you to do, but there are other ways in which you can try to learn what your carpenter teacher is doing. You can't imitate his skill, but you can imitate certain things. For example, Japanese, uh, people nowadays, everybody, I guess at one

[15:48]

time it meant you didn't do, uh, physical labor, but now everybody, particularly people who do physical labor, the way it works, have a long little fingernail. Some custom in Japan. And Paul has a long little fingernail. So you can copy, you know, your teacher's long little fingernail if you can't copy his skill. So one of, a story Suzuki actually told once was of a carpenter who was, I don't know exactly the situation, but they were either together or something going to visit, the carpenter was going to visit his father's grave. And, uh, it was also his teacher and the carpenter. And, uh, I suspect,

[16:49]

I suppose that Suzuki Ueshi had done a memorial service at the, uh, home of the carpenter for the father and the son that said something like, I'm going to visit the grave site, ashes site, today. So a conversation ensued, which Suzuki Ueshi repeated to us in a lecture, which, uh, was that when the, this carpenter was a young boy, his father wouldn't tell him anything. And finally he developed a, uh, internal dialogue. I mean, it's not just a simple matter of that you pick up what your father or teacher or carpenter or whatever it is doing by watching carefully. That's part of it. But some other kind of,

[17:51]

uh, communication begins in which you know what your, in which this man knew what his father would say to him if his father would have said something. So even after his father died, uh, he could discuss things in a sense, he felt, with his father. So he would go to the question and he'd have this strong feeling that his father would speak to him. And the same is true, uh, with a Zen teacher, with Suzuki Ueshi. At a certain point, Suzuki Ueshi sends you away from him. And you don't need to be actually physically with me or listen to me. But if something happens so that you can get outside yourself and know another person.

[19:09]

So it's Shingon Buddhism, you know, Vajrayana Buddhism, uh, emphasizes the teaching that Buddha told to himself. Zen has the same kind of emphasis that you should practice so that you, so that this kind of talk, you know, actually should be, help you talk to yourself. So Buddha teaches Buddhism. You teach yourself Buddhism. Buddha practices with Buddha. So, to go back to the thought of enlightenment, or enlightened attitude,

[20:13]

if we're to practice it, you have to have some realm, some field in which to practice. So I want to suggest four or five ways. They're already suggested, actually, in the meal chant and our, uh, the echoes, which you don't know what they say, actually, because they're Japanese, the echoes. Mostly, I don't know. But maybe there's five areas you can practice in to help begin your practice, like false fingernail. So, one is your will, and another is your conduct, and the third is

[21:19]

emptiness, and the fourth is samadhi, and the fifth is your body. Now, what I mean by this, I'll try to give you some idea. Now, as I often said, one of the problems in our practice, particularly for Americans, and I can't emphasize this kind of problem enough, is that our way of our language and our way of thinking gives us really rock-like ideas that we don't question, that seem so fundamental to us that they're like, I mean, more fundamental than air or something,

[22:28]

or space. We don't question them in any way. Certain things, thinking, you know, what thinking is, is one of these. Probably one of the most fundamental problems is the belief that something exists, but that's true for everybody. Some of you have it more fixedly than others. Some of you are rather practical in nature, and you adjust yourself to circumstances, and that makes practice in some ways easier, but it's also easier to adjust yourself to practice so that you don't really practice. Others of you, of us, have absolutely firm belief that something matters,

[23:38]

that somewhere something counts, and that something really exists. And you think when we say the world's ephemeral or insubstantial or something like that, that we mean that in a certain sort of scale, but not really. We don't really mean it. But we really mean it, you know. Until you give up your idea that something exists, you can't have any idea what exists, if anything exists. So, without knowing it, you know, you're always organizing your experience according to what, without knowing it, you think exists. Anyway, one of the problems is we talk about don't think, or the third patriarch said,

[24:49]

if you give up discriminative thinking, everything you see will be it. Of course, you have problems with what is it. It reigns, but there's no it. And Wong Po says, stop conceptual thinking. But here we're doing all this thinking, you know. But one way Buddhism uses, which involves your consciousness or awareness, but not your thinking process in the usual sense, is our, I wish it was Japanese, you don't have to worry about plurals and singular, vows.

[25:51]

Is it a, Bodhisattva's is said to be born when he has the thought of enlightenment, that he can help all sense of being, and when he makes a vow to do so, and when that vow or his accomplishment is acknowledged. So there's some kind of, you conceive of the possibility or somehow this enters you, and actually this has entered all of you. Some of you don't believe it sometimes, but the fact that it exists sometimes is what counts. So how do you strengthen this resolve? So you get strengthened in two ways. One is you make a vow to complete what you do.

[27:10]

A vow beyond living or dying to complete. Big vow. And also, you don't just bow inside yourself, but the world recognizes your vow, as Buddha touched the earth and the whole world testified. Everybody participates in helping you complete your vow. And when you practice, you know, there's a tacit, seldom explicit recognition that you know how to practice. And no matter if you've got, you know, like twice the problems as of the next guy, you still have the problems, but you know how to practice. So those are sort of some kind of essential

[28:14]

aspect of the thought of enlightenment. So the first area I mentioned is your will, is that, as you know, something like will, not the will power, but maybe closer to will patience, is an important part of practice. And we try to confront our self in this way, in seshins and in other ways. And it's not just a matter of, you know, developing stamina to sit through anything. It's that that quality of consciousness, which we sometimes call will, which sustains us, which isn't distracted, which is just here,

[29:30]

you know, is the condition of awareness, or the condition of practice. So the development of your will and practice isn't to make you stronger. It's true, it makes you stronger and you're easier to, easier for you to sustain the conditions, difficulties of ordinary life. But it opens up your consciousness. You can help yourself by making, by again making the vow, as we do regularly, I vow to save all sentient beings. Some teachers recommend that you begin zazen, every zazen. You say to yourself, I vow to save all sentient beings. I know the second or, or somewhere, I don't remember back,

[30:33]

second or third year I was practicing, for about a year and a half I said the vows, the beginning of every period of meditation. So you make some kind of vow beyond life and death to practice for all sentient beings. What's all sentient beings? But such a general vow is not enough. You have to make, bring your, that attitude into your conduct. So when we raise our rice bowls, we're saying this food is for all sentient beings.

[31:35]

The reason we have a monastery like this is to give you a chance to concentrate on your conduct. Somehow you have to recognize the larger dimensions of yourself. Ego is not a bad guy, you know, it's only, you say big self, maybe your ego is only your big self under small conditions. How to make the conditions of your life bigger, lighter. So, in everything you do, you can do it.

[33:03]

Reminding yourself it's for all sentient beings. This kind of practice brings your mental attitudes and your conduct together, so they're one piece. Until you get it together like that, you can't... your whole being can't be at... you know, I don't like these catchphrases we use all the time, at one with everything. Because in some ways it doesn't mean anything, you know, like it sounds, but... something like that. And just to practice in your conduct like this, moment after moment, with all sentient beings, is also not enough. You have to practice also in the realm of emptiness. Actually, there are no sentient beings.

[34:05]

Actually, this conduct has no meaning. Suzuki Roshi always talked about the double moon. The moon we... see in the sky, or see in our head, or see reflected on the water, or see shining on the trees. The double moon has no ego or particular existence.

[35:20]

And the third, fourth, is... samadhi. And what I mean by that is... that your practice doesn't arise from yourself. And the first, maybe, will is your beginning, the cause, and conduct is the path. But samadhi is maybe realization. But at first your practice arises, it's me doing zazen, it's me making the vow. But where did such idea come from? Actually, it's Buddha practicing Buddhism. When you practice Buddhism, you're facing Buddha.

[36:29]

Right now, practicing zazen, you're facing Buddha. And if you don't feel good about your practice, you don't have the sense of practicing what Dogen calls the supreme way, Buddha will go away. You'll say, come back, and he will go away. You won't feel comfortable with him. Oh, you don't, I don't belong here. But it's Buddha that practices Buddhism, not you. By the last one, I said your body. The last two are rather esoteric, actually. Samadhi and Buddha practicing Buddha, and bodhicitta as in realized in your body. It's something that you and your teacher will understand in dogsong.

[37:34]

We'll talk about, even without talking about it, when necessary. But it means that you realize, maybe you could say, it means you're 32 marks. When you get your 32 marks. Anyway, there's some kind of realization of bodhicitta, we say, physically. It's like being in love with emptiness. Some feeling, sitting on your cushion. I don't know how to explain it. I don't know how to explain it.

[39:09]

Is there anything you want to bring up? I can understand. Being at one with all sentient beings. But I don't know what you're saying. What are you saying? What's wrong? No, this kind of question. Your question is a very serious question. And also I find it a very amusing question. Because, of course, we say this all the time. Save all sentient beings.

[40:16]

But what do we mean, save? What do we mean, all sentient beings? Who saves all sentient beings? Of course, you don't save all sentient beings. How do we have the confidence that the three treasures save all sentient beings? That Buddha's way saves all sentient beings. At least we have to start.

[41:17]

Anyway, it's a fundamental problem. All beings are enlightened, but we talk about saving them. And we also say there's no beings to save. So, there's no answer you can grasp with your mind. Questioner 2 says, I don't have any answer.

[42:35]

Questioner 2 says, I don't have any answer. Questioner 2 says, I don't have any answer. Questioner 2 says,

[44:27]

Actually, nothing goes away. You're still there. It's a... Questioner 2 says, This is the kind of problem I get myself into, by talking about Buddhism from various points of view. The practice of Buddha practicing with you is a specific kind of practice for a specific time.

[45:34]

There are various things we mean by Buddha. There are various things we mean by Buddha. It's a problem for me, you know. Because in the context of this, of talking in this way about Buddhism, it doesn't relate to specific problems one or any one of you may have in your practice. It's a kind of background which doesn't relate directly to your practice, sometimes in an immediate sense, but rather gives you some sense of the context

[46:41]

in which you can practice. So you have to... Any talking about Buddhism is a kind of medicine aimed at specific things. So you have to help me, you know. What you do is okay. So right now, you know, you're enlightened. That's true. Right now, if you can accept what you're doing right now, without discriminating about it, that's enlightenment. But when you start to do that, you know, you start to actually... You've stopped discriminating about your practice.

[47:43]

You're just sitting. You don't think good or bad. You just sit. You know, sometimes your zazen is some comfortable, deep feeling or extremely good feeling, and sometimes it's just marking time on your cushion. But you don't say one is better or worse or anything. But then, you know, even if you've given up that, then you find, actually, you're discriminating your practice in another way, a more subtle way. So what to do about that kind of problem? It's... Practice is like a series of Chinese boxes, you know. You keep finding that the same problem you solve one time has some larger dimensions and larger dimensions.

[48:48]

And finally, the only solution is emptiness itself. And how do we practice emptiness? So... In... I'm trying to talk, you know, about... all of the Chinese boxes, not just the particular one we're caught in. So, this is partly a problem of how we think about what we hear. You know, what I'm talking about is not thinking, but doing. You know, I'm giving some kind of specific prescription. If you... If you have...

[49:53]

whatever problem you specifically have in your zazen, or in your life, still, one of the basic things in Buddhist practice is, we say, the thought of enlightenment, or practicing an enlightened attitude. There's no exactural words in English, particularly. So, how do you... Actually, I'm saying that all of you have such a thought or attitude, but how do you actualize it? So, what I'm suggesting is that you notice your practice from this point of view. Okay, then what do you do? So, I suggested five areas.

[51:07]

Mostly, I suggested two. One is the importance of vows as a way of breaking through conceptual thought. Recognizing that we're practicing for some reason. What reason is it? Suzuki Roshi always said, innermost request. David said, what do we have to save them from? Well, actually, there's nothing to save people from. Samsara is nirvana, you can say. So, what do you save people from? We're not going around knocking on doors saying, I'm the fuller bodhisattva, and I'm here to save you. That's not what we're doing. But for some reason, you're practicing, actually. The question David's asking is,

[52:10]

why am I practicing Buddhism? Buddhism is completely about saving all sentient beings. But what does saving all sentient beings mean? Why am I practicing Buddhism? It's a fundamental question, you know. Why am I practicing Buddhism? But actually, there's some reason why you're practicing Buddhism. You may not know why you're practicing Buddhism, but actually, you are practicing Buddhism. And actually, there's some reason. So, Buddhism also is completely, very much about awareness. Not about thinking, but about awareness. So, how to become aware of why you're practicing Buddhism, and to, in a sense, crystallize that awareness into a vow. And to bring that awareness into your conduct.

[53:12]

So, in answer to any specific question you can ask me in this context about my practices, such and such, I can answer. Bring the awareness of an enlightened attitude into your practice, into your conduct. Practice is trying to practice. There's no such thing as practice. It's just trying to practice. But why try at all? Why bother? And it's interesting. You can actually come to a conclusion, you know. Well, now I've been practicing quite a while, and I'm not happy, usually. And I'm not sad, and I'm not, you know, I feel pretty good all the time, and I don't have many problems. So, if this is enough, I've had enough of this. A lifetime of sashins, oh God.

[54:19]

So, you can try other things, you know. But it seems so dull and static. It seems like some plastic life, you know. Why there's no alternative to practice is really interesting. Anyway, thank you very much.

[54:43]

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