The great thing about Zen, great pleasure in Zen, is that it doesn't exist. So you may ask what you're all doing if it doesn't exist. Why do we have to set up school or tasahara. Partly it's because it's you against all of civilization and your mind. Zen is, we can say, an antidote to civilization. Maybe it's also the creator of civilization.

[01:04]

Real civilization. You have, by some chance, been born a complex human being. And we have created this tremendous apparatus in which we live. And its fruits are wonderful. but almost 99% of people get poisoned by the fruit. So, Zen is one of many maybe secret civilizations which stemming from one or more people who have found some way to return to their original nature and have passed this way along.

[03:06]

And this passing it along is one of the primary forms of Zen Buddhism. For Zen, Buddhism doesn't exist as an abstract philosophy, true at all times and places. You have to have some form to pass the teaching along, and you have to have some form in which to live in this world.

[05:13]

And so Zen's form is passing the teaching along. And we emphasize from warm hand to warm hand, or mind transmission. So perhaps the most fundamental form in Zen is offering tea and cakes to our teacher as if he were here. I think you, all of you who were in the last practice period, remember that I talked about Nansen and Tozan, discussion about a memorial service.

[06:22]

As I told you yesterday, Nansen, who held up the cat, you know, was a disciple of Basso, who was a disciple of Nanaku. And Nansen was visited by and his brother, Dogo Enchi. They're rather interesting, by the way, because they practiced together as brothers. Maybe in the stories about them I feel some similarity to our husbands and wives practicing together. You have to maintain some distance in practice. So one lets the other come to his own understanding without trying to help or teach.

[07:42]

So Dogo Enchi was rather interesting with his brother. Oh, what a clever fellow you are, that kind of remark. Hungan Dojo's disciple, of course, was Tozan Ryokai. And Tozan also visited Nansen before he went to study with Hungan Dojo. So, I'll tell the story again, just briefly. A few of you weren't here last practice period. Tozan was quite young and came to Nansen's temple, and it happened to be the day before they offered food to Baso. And Nansen said, tomorrow we offer food to Baso.

[08:51]

Will he come and get it? And no one said anything. And Tozan from the back said, he will come when he has companions. And Nansen said, this is quite a young person but worth teaching. And Tozan said, don't criticize me in that way. So this story is, I think, very characteristic Zen story and very important for us

[10:00]

as we are establishing a Zen tradition here, pretty much the same way they did at that time. We are much more like that time than any of the Zen periods after that. On the one hand, Nansen, who killed the cat, is offering food to his teacher. And yet he says, who will come to have this food? Maybe he's saying, Buddhism, Zen doesn't exist. No one will come. It's not necessary for anyone to come.

[11:11]

But, Tozan says, he will come when he has companions, when a companion comes forward. So our practice, Zen practice, is to come forward. We have to have some grid to catch you on. You can ask, well, if Zen doesn't exist, why do we have teachers and disciples and robes and drum, et cetera? Although this is a meaningless question,

[12:17]

It's a very important question to you. And answering it is the nature of your practice. So if 99% of people get caught by civilization, caught by their ego, and don't know real satisfaction, how to create some way

[13:24]

To catch people out of that and set them free is the big problem of Buddhism. Even if you want to practice, you know, even if you know that as some inner desire, without some example of Buddha or Buddha's disciples, almost no one in any period in history, not even one person, will have the ability or confidence to devote his life to practice.

[14:40]

You know, when you, to enjoy yourself, to enjoy your eating, say, you need to have the pure taste, a taste which needs no object. And if your life is based on form and color only, various sense objects, you can't enjoy form and color. Nothing will be enough. You'll have one pastry, it's delicious, one more pastry, two more pastries.

[15:50]

And then pretty soon, you'll always want something in your mouth. It will be difficult to go to work meeting without sucking on something. It will be difficult to go to bed without having something before you go to bed. Not just eating, but in everything, we want something. And if your mind doesn't have some object, you'll fall asleep. and no object will satisfy you. But if you know the pure taste without tasting anything, then when you taste something, like Mumon Roshi, when we gave him a cookie, he said, Oh, delicious! Please give me another one. That's quite different from our usual wanting one more.

[16:59]

When it's taken away, he has a pure taste. So in our practice, we don't... we offer you as little distraction as possible, the same for example, music. Your ears are music. Everything you hear is music. If you get used to producing especially beautiful sounds, or listening to especially beautiful sounds, you'll lose your way. It always used to amuse me during the acid decade, or whatever it was, everyone would say, oh, music sounds so wonderful when you're stoned. I always wondered why they turned on a record player immediately.

[18:12]

Because everything sounds wonderful. But if your ears are only used to some object, Everything doesn't sound wonderful. So nothing in your life will make any sense to you till you have that pure taste, which doesn't need any object. But how are you going to return to that pure taste? By just indulging yourself? By someone telling you that's true? Oh, that's very interesting.

[19:12]

That makes good sense. Pass the pastry. Doesn't do any good. You need some quite rigorous way. Our way is based on the sage and the baby. And it's quite difficult. And maybe it's not for ordinary people. But if you're an ordinary person like me, and you get caught in this way, I don't know if you can get out. So those great teachers of that time that I've been talking about,

[20:19]

8th century, 9th century, 7th century. They understood this pretty well. And even so, often they didn't. It took them many years to understand completely, or do it completely, or be it completely. And their teacher would catch them. So even they had such a hard time to realize our practice completely.

[21:37]

So Soto and Rinzai have various different, subtle different emphases. And I thought I would speak about it a little from one point of view. But the Soto and Rinzai you read about are just painted dragons, carved dragons. They're not the real dragon. There was a famous artist, I think his name was Ekko. Anyway, he always painted dragons. and supposedly even made his house like it was a dragon's lair.

[23:48]

And he often said, I'm so interested in dragons, I love dragons so much, I wish a real one would come and visit me. And supposedly one came one day into his room, a real dragon. He was quite terrified and he started to draw his sword. And the dragon was a bit dismayed after being invited. And he left. Anyway, our practice, Rinzai or Soto, is concerned with a real dragon, a real dragon here in this sendo. But all of you want to make a carved dragon.

[24:52]

This is my practice. But if it came to life, you would be quite startled. Hey, come back! So Soto and Rinzai have this problem that there are two versions of the dragon that have been carved. Soto is interesting because it's much harder to paint the Soto dragon. It doesn't lend itself so well. But it's also interesting that Soto Way has endured so long. You know, in China, the Rinzai school, sometimes we say that Seigen Gyoshi, is that his name?

[26:08]

Anyway, Seigen. the disciple of the Sixth Patriarch was the first disciple of the Sixth Patriarch, and Nanaku was the fifth or fourth or fifth or something. And Soto stems from Segen and Rinzai stems from Nanaku. So sometimes we say that Soto is the elder brother's way, And inside is the younger brother's world, and the younger brother has to make some effort. Anyway, maybe being the younger brother's school, it started out rather smaller. But it became more and more successful, and there were many lines of

[27:11]

Zen and of Buddhism. And finally, the Rinzai school, Lin Chi school, absorbed all of Buddhism, but first it absorbed all of Zen. Only Soto was able to remain separate, which is quite interesting, I think. And, of course, they adopted each other's ways. The problem is, the real dragon, you know, you can't paint or see.

[28:15]

If you say, ah, this is dragon, already it's just carved dragon. But if so, No, maybe here. I should tell again, because it's Suzuki Roshi's memorial day. His favorite story, and maybe Dogen's favorite story, of Nanaku and Baso. Baso is quite powerful Zen student, and Nanaku comes by and says, what are you doing? And Baso says, I'm practicing Can't you see? I'm practicing Zazen."

[29:19]

And Nanaku said, Why are you doing that? He said, To become a Buddha. And so Nanaku picked up a tile and began to. So, Baso, What are you doing? Nanaku said, I'm making a jewel. Then Nanaku said, when your cart will not go, which do you hit, the cart or the horse? Don't you know that ordinary mind is Buddha? So if we say ordinary mind is Buddha, many problems can appear immediately, particularly in Soto way, because after ten years of doing zazen, silent illumination practice,

[30:43]

Darshan is pretty good therapy, and you feel pretty good. Your life is simpler. And you're middle-aged, and you think it's about time you knew something, right? So you say, I have achieved this way. And he's quite honest. He just hasn't quite seen around ordinary reality to true reality. So, it allows many people to fool themselves. So the Rinzai line, to cure this problem, requires certification.

[31:55]

So they emphasize the patriarchs, the warm hand to warm hand even more. And each koan maybe is like a scale of the dragon. and with it they measure your practice. This wasn't true at this time of Tozan and Rinzai and Nansen, but later they set up this system. And the koans are wonderful and quite hard to be caught by the people practicing.

[33:10]

So Rinzai became quite, we'd have to say, fashionable, both in China and Japan. So people who wanted to practice a short time, governors and artists, would go to Rinzai school for some intense experience. So the criticism of Soto school, the valid criticism of Soto school, is it allows too many people, too many practicers to fool themselves. And the criticism of Rinzai school is it allows too many people outside those who practice regularly to fool themselves.

[34:17]

But real dragon is just the same. So the division, maybe survival of Zen depends on the existence of both Soto and Rinza. Maybe they're just two streams that need each other. It's quite natural for some people to say, Soto way is just a bunch of bums sitting on cushions all the time, you know?

[36:11]

They don't know anything. We want some more powerful way that pushes people. So they practice that way. And it's quite natural for, if there's that way, for some people to say, this way is okay, but I'm bored with shouts and hitting and attachment to these forms, this koan or that koan. It's too artificial. So those people practice it. Soto. But actually, the actual dragon is, the actual stream is the same.

[37:17]

Maybe actually one is the left bank and one is the right bank. So in your own practice, what is the real dragon? What do we mean when we say Zen doesn't exist? when you have some indescribable good feeling.

[38:23]

How do you stop yourself from immediately looking around for the source? Oh, was that a sound I heard that caused that? What was I just thinking? That was wonderful, the effect of that. I'll think that again. It's almost impossible in your practice. You kill your progress, if we talk about progress, by trying to repeat it, like my daughter's jokes. Who cooked that food? The pure taste of our life goes away as soon as you want to find what caused it.

[39:31]

There's no cause. How can you live in that place where there's no cause? Where the real dragon lives. Some of you, I sometimes want to, your practice becomes quite dull, and sometimes I want to stimulate your practice.

[40:40]

But as that story says, Baso will wait for a companion to come forward. No, you have to come forward. And if your practice is quite dull, you should know from that how dependent you are on taste, some particular taste, until the pure taste of your practice, of your life arises. then we don't need Zen, or any grid, or anything at all. And at this time, many of you will go off somewhere, should go off somewhere, as they did at that time.

[41:54]

Some of you, I think, will actually go off and live in a cave, as Nansen did. Actually, he didn't live in Ungan, lived in a cave. Nansen built a hut by himself in the mountains and stayed there 30 years, going there when he was 48, and didn't become known as a teacher then until he was 77 or 78. And he lived until he was 97, I believe. And some of you, like Tozan or Rinzai, may become head of a large group of people practicing together. And some of you may live on a farm somewhere, like Yaksan Igen.

[42:56]

But if so, we should know each other well. And we'll keep Dharma connections, whether we see each other or not. And our form will be to pass this teaching along. I think each of you can do it. Some of you think I'm criticizing most of you, you know?

[44:06]

Maybe I must like someone. But actually I'm criticizing part of each of you. Do you have some questions? Yeah, like I said yesterday, Zen practice is not like anything else we've ever done. So at school or jobs or whatever, you make an effort a certain way, and it produces certain results.

[45:14]

That's not our effort. And that kind of effort in Zen will make you sick, as it makes society sick. You can tell immediately. I said yesterday, you should sit like a rock. I can also say you should know that place in you that sits like a rock. It doesn't just mean sitting without moving, so that's very helpful. It means ordinary mind is Buddha. That's sitting like a rock. How can we learn from the example of Buddha what it was to be learned?

[46:26]

That the 1%, that the 99% don't know. He spoke about that. No one in history could do something, and I can't remember what it was. And nobody would escape, I guess, escape from that culture, unless there was an example, somebody who did it. How can you learn that from Buddha? How can we learn to free ourselves from our civilization by Buddha's example? I guess what it is to me is, when you're talking about, well, living in a place where there's no problems, or having a pure taste,

[47:34]

That's out of the range of my experience. Yet my experience was satisfactory. How to learn that alternative from the example given? Why not learn that alternative right here in this zendah? When we talk about Buddha, we're talking about ourself. It's no point in going back historically and saying, Buddha, such and such. What do you mean, exactly? I didn't mean it historically.

[48:39]

Your example or the example of the teacher trying to do us. I can hear the words, you know. Yeah, the next story. about Toza following the story where he said he will wait for a companion is about teaching, hearing the Dharma from inanimate beings. And the wonderful phrase that occurs in that group of stories, which I talked about last practice period, is, although you do not hear it, do not interfere with that which hears it.

[49:44]

And yesterday, how do you reach that which wisdom does not... How do you... The English is very funny. How do you reach what you cannot reach by wisdom? And then he said, How do you... It is the way to enter with all being. Not just by not speaking. Anyway, we can say at least, anyway, that what you're saying is our practice and what I'm talking about. How do we know the real dragon? How do we not interfere with the pure taste? How do we not interfere with that which hears it?

[50:59]

It's very subtle, we have to say, I guess. As long as you're in the realm of form and color only, it's impossible to imagine. And there's no instruction that can be given you in form and color to explain. So we say, just sit. Just penetrate deeply into your own existence. And when you see something taking form, cut it off. which also means give it its own existence.

[52:07]

Cut it off from yourself. Anyway, we learn more than you think. Literally, you learn more than you think. We're here, and the way of our practice is actually something wondrous. And it's seeping into us, like Suzuki Roshi used to say, like mist soaks your clothes. We can't say, oh, this rain shower or that drop, but more and more, without knowing, We as a group, and everything in this valley, and all things, if you're practicing, begin to illuminate each other.

[53:15]

So without pointing out how you're learning, you're learning. And you'll know many years later how much you learn. for it works in some really wondrous way, and very deeply, and invisibly, and the fruits are very unexpected and may only be visible a long time from now. That's actually true. so we can have great confidence in our way. So our sitting in this sashim should just penetrate and penetrate without any idea about sitting.

[54:40]

As if you were riding on the whole earth.

[54:54]

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