It's wonderful to see you all sitting here in this barn. I wonder if this is the first barn zendo, and of course it may be, because in Japan and China they don't have barns, at least animal barns. They don't have livestock for the most part, so they don't, anyway. I'm still recovering from having the flu, as I told some of you who were at San Francisco yesterday. And when I first got it and decided to rest, Reb went out and told Mel Weitzman, the director at Tassajara, that it seemed that maybe I had the flu and I was going to sleep for some time. And just then, Darlene Cohen walked by with a rifle she'd found on the road that a hunter

[01:02]

had abandoned, and Reb said, what's she going to do with that? And Mel said, they're going to shoot him, which in the way I felt Thursday might have been a good solution. I couldn't keep up or something, you know. Anyway, yesterday in San Francisco, I talked about how we practice Azen and who practices Azen. Can you hear in the back okay? And I finished talking about two sides of our practice. One side is we accept whatever we are endlessly, and we accept by practicing without even thinking

[02:30]

about what we're doing. And the other side of practice is that we are ready, ready for whatever it is, whatever our life is, whatever the world is, beyond our thinking. There isn't some attempt to figure out what it is or figure yourself out. As I said, talking about the Pali scriptures, how they encourage the monk to view his lustful mind as with lust and his angry mind as with anger, his mind without anger as a mind without

[03:33]

anger, without attempting to change the state of your mind. There's some secret in that, you know. If you can stay with what you are, what your angry state is or whatever state you have, then you can stay in the surface. It's like gaining control of it. You're not attempting to gain control, but something else comes into play. It's like the more you can stay with whatever you are each moment, the more you'll notice that if you have dreams, your dreams will be different. As you know, sometimes you dream, usually when you dream, there's occasionally a sensation

[04:40]

or often a sensation that you know you're dreaming, but it's often in the background of the dream or not so present. But as you begin to be able to stay with whatever you are each moment, that kind of awareness that you're dreaming in your dreams becomes the main experience of your dream. That's an area which isn't open to us usually, so open to us, but it's like a thread on which the dreams are strung like maybe jewels or pearls or something. And you can spill them off the string or you can change them as you wish. Anyway, the more you can just stay without interfering, the more you find you can move around, you can walk around in your existence.

[05:43]

There's two ... sometimes when we talk about Zen, we emphasize potentiality, you know. Like yesterday, I talked about how for a Japanese person, a Chinese person, they're not so concerned with having the words describe the thing, the thing be equal to the words that are describing it, etc. They don't look for correspondences so exactly as we do. They're willing to let go more of that kind of relationship. When I say that, I don't mean that on a cultural level they may have some other emphases which are equally entangling as ours, but at least if you're talking to a Japanese person, as I was referring to a conversation with Dr. Abe at Asahara, there's that kind of problem.

[06:50]

So in Japan, there's more of a feeling that words mean words and things mean things and the correspondences aren't so direct as we want them to be. But also we can say, as Sozon did, Sozon is the second founder of the Soto school. He lived in the 10th century, about 940 to 1002 or something like that. And he said words, the meaning of words is found in silence or in no words. This way of expressing our practice emphasizes the potentiality from which everything arises. So, as you practice, you become more and more familiar with how things arise and many

[08:06]

aspects of yourself that you hadn't noticed before. Another way of emphasizing practice is at the moment of articulation, the moment of action, when the potentialities, all your full potentialities have to be there at that moment. Anyway, we don't emphasize or we don't talk about so much the usual relationships that we see between things, this and that. But as I said, just to find out about gravity, Newton had to study the apple. Notice that it didn't go some other direction.

[09:07]

So we can say the apple is everything, everything as it is, and everything as it could possibly be. But still, there are some relations. When I say non-repeating universe, I don't mean that there are no other, no connections between things. Each time everything stopped, that when I'm looking there, I see Manjushri, and when I turn around, I don't know anything. Sometimes we have that kind of experience, you know, there's no connection. It's rather disturbing the first time it happens, if it happens to you, oh my God, where's the world gone? You turn around to see if it's still over there where you left something that you've forgotten. Anyway, that kind of experience is rather scary sometimes.

[10:18]

But there are connections, you know, and so what are the connections and how do we know the connections? Well, in our practice, we don't try to figure them out with our mind. We don't try to figure out who we are in that way. As, you know, I talked about the Vimalakirti Sutra yesterday, and in it where Manjushri is asked, how do we view living beings? And Vimalakirti says, as an illusionist sees an illusion, and then he also goes on to say, as a wise man views, or as a wise man sees the moon's reflection in the water.

[11:25]

It's interesting, he says, a wise man, you know, it doesn't, we're not, usually we see the moon's reflection and we think, well, that's not the moon, that's only the reflection. But in Buddhism, maybe we say, that's the moon, that reflection. Is it any less the moon than the reflection we see in our mind when we look at the moon? And then he says, or as a man views his face in a mirror. So, there's a famous story about Tozan, which I've mentioned in other lectures briefly, but have not talked about too much. Which is, after Tozan leaves his teacher, Ungan Donjo, Tozan asks him, as he's leaving,

[12:45]

what he should say, or what ultimate reality is, or how should he remember the teaching. And, Ungan Donjo says, just this one is. And then he said, please, when you're in your life, or in your practice, or in Buddhism, you must be careful, please be careful. So, Tozan left, and as he was, after a while on his journey, you know, he didn't, Tozan, we say, attained enlightenment many times, and you can't say which was his enlightenment

[13:49]

exactly, but anyway, on this episode, you know, crossing a stream, he understood what Ungan Donjo meant more fully. And he saw, as he was crossing the stream, he saw his reflection in the stream. And what he thought was, oh, he is not, he is me, he is me, but I am not he. And so then he wrote a verse about it later, which we have the verse, and the verse goes something like, don't try to figure out what you are, or don't put other heads above your own, or don't look elsewhere than what you are.

[14:53]

If you do, the truth will get farther and farther away from you. And then the next line is very interesting, he says, alone I proceed through myself. Alone I proceed through myself. He is me, and I am not him. Only if you understand this can you see what, you can, only if you understand this can you know what, how things are in absolute reality. This emphasizes objective reality in some way, you know, there.

[16:12]

You see the reflection, it's some objective reality, that's me. But he says, how he comes to that is, alone I proceed through myself. As I said yesterday, we don't seek or try to explain our practice in terms of some universal repeating self, but in some intimate, you know, moment after moment, secret, you know, private self. If you practice in this way, then what the relationships are between things is understood, not in the realm of thinking, but, and there are various practices and ways of opening

[17:24]

up your practice based on the relationships between the particular and the, and all or everything, and the particularity and particularity, and all and all. And as you become, can stay with yourself more, and can become more familiar with what you are, you're not so caught by one thing or another, so you can begin to practice and develop yourself. Many of the sutras say, well, in such and such a situation, if you have bad feelings for a person, cultivate warm feelings. Well, usually this seems pretty impossible for us, because if you have bad feelings for

[18:30]

a person, it seems artificial or almost repressive to add some warm feelings on top of that and feel good about the person when you really want to get him one. So you can't practice in that way until you can stay with what you are, and so then you can notice, actually, many kinds of feelings, many threads, and you can easily choose one and stay with one. It's not that you add something from outside yourself, all many, many things are there. It's very easy to be one or the other or to take various existences. So, Suzuki Roshi says that when you can see your reflection in water or in a mirror with

[19:35]

some warm, kind-hearted feeling, then you're practicing Buddhism. But generally, if you look in the mirror, I'm not sure you have warm, kind-hearted feeling. Oh, hello. I like Lew Welch's poem where he says, looking in the mirror in the morning, he says, I don't know who you are, but I'll shave you. Anyway, you look in the mirror and you don't know who that is, but, well, hello. You have some warm feeling for even a reflection in a stream, you know? If you feel in that way, that's not Manjushri, then, sitting there in the middle of the room. That's not some reflection. That's you. Rinzai says many monks are confused seeking Manjushri on the top of Mount Kyentai or Wutai

[20:39]

or in various places. But actually, he says, some imperturbable place in yourself is Manjushri. One of the ways to practice in this way is to begin to accept the reflections of yourself as yourself. So the way people treat you, you say, oh, that's me. If they treat you badly, you say, oh, that's me. If they treat you well, you say, well, that's me too. You know, you don't have to reject either good feelings people have about you or bad feelings. Anyway, you practice with them as accepting something you've produced and a much better way to know about yourself than trying to figure out who you are.

[21:43]

And you accept it without anger or trying to change the impression. If somebody has some impression about you, then if it's good, you try to make it a little better, usually. And if it's not so good, you try to change it. But just, if you're going to practice Buddhism, you should just accept what it is. Oh, so that's how they feel about me. And when you can do that, you can also begin to notice more and more how people feel about you and how complex the various kinds of ways we feel about each other are, where they come from. And at the same time, you'll, strangely enough, not give them so much weight. It won't be devastating, you know, if someone thinks you're a jerk. Because certainly we are, in some ways, you know, jerks.

[22:52]

So when you practice Buddhism, as I said, on the one hand, you accept everything just as it is, everything you are just as you are, endlessly, without any attempt to change it. Just find the space in it without angry feelings or rejecting feelings or loving feelings about it. And at the same time, that ability to stay there with it makes you ready for Buddhism or enlightenment or some wider view of the world without seeking it. The world is beyond our comprehension, and we can only participate in it without comprehension.

[23:59]

And we can't know everything about it, and whatever you know about it is a kind of gift. And to try to organize our experience with our intelligence or taste or creativity builds walls around us, actually. Whatever talents you have should illuminate your relationships with people, not isolate you. Thank you. Anybody have any questions? Any questions? Can you hear what he said?

[25:24]

He said, isn't staying with what you are in Zazen to dissolve what you are? Hmm. Now, if you mean what you are as some, you know, fabrication that exists over successive moments, that dissolves. But if you mean, just now I'm sitting here, you know, or just now I have a beard, that doesn't dissolve during Zazen. Yeah? I noticed a kind of fear that is in most of us, and certainly in myself, that leads to a timidity that doesn't allow us to fully experience, fully recognize experience,

[26:30]

because we're hiding somewhat from it. Do you have any idea what the root of that fear is? I want to answer, we're scared. I don't know, I suppose, you know, in our usual sense, unless you can figure out something, certainly our parents and family do their best to use fear to encourage you to be afraid, because it allows them to criticize you and punish you. And fear is certainly a useful feeling.

[27:36]

So, it's wonderful to be afraid, actually, it's an incredible feeling, you know, if you don't try to run away from it. But there isn't much point in trying to figure it out. It increases every time you're afraid, and it decreases every time you face it. And there's no other way, really, except to continually face it, you know, little by little, as much as you're brave enough to do. And it's the moment of confrontation where we dodge. It's the moment of actually being present.

[28:39]

And this is all there is, you know, this is what I am, which we do a little shift. And certainly, a teacher, when he looks for a disciple, the main thing he looks for, when he notices a disciple, whether the disciple is good or bad, he notices whether the disciple is brave or not. It's the main thing you need in Buddhist practice, is courage. And you, I guess, practically speaking, the way we practice is that you... Usually, one thing that makes practice take a long time is you do all kinds of things to prepare yourself for the moment that you might be brave. Figuring out, well, there's really no alternative, you know,

[29:47]

it's really not going to hurt, etc., etc., until finally you just have to... Generally, I think it comes out of a deep realization that there's no alternative. Anyway, noticing when that fear comes and goes, and exactly when it arises is part of your practice. And as that statement I quoted a couple of weeks ago, three weeks ago, from the Third Patriarch, it's when without fear of imperfection,

[30:48]

through imperfection and without anxiety, is the entrance into practice. And anxiety is some... As you become more familiar with fear, it's just some response we have to change, which isn't necessarily negative. And if you don't feel it as negative, you just stay with the fear, it's a good sign that some change is occurring and you can be open to the change. So you can use something like fear both ways. One is it can cause you to shut down, or two, it can cause you to open up. And if you have some courage, when you feel fear, it causes you to open up.

[31:52]

If you have five or six things you might do, and four of them seem pretty easy to do, one of them the little fear and one there's a lot of fear, probably it's the one with a little fear or a lot of fear that you should try to do. Anyway, you can use fear in that kind of way. And when you realize that there's nothing at stake, there's nothing to lose, and it doesn't matter much, you know. And in a way there's a lot to gain, because until you move out of your compass, out of how you're encompassed, your life is always rather tedious, and it's always dissatisfying. Yeah. Because sometimes I feel like I don't have, you know, the fear.

[33:23]

I was wondering where that was, like in Buddhist teachings. Just this place. First... Anyway, that's right, fear is quite good for our body. I think actually what he says is fear is good for our body. It's just a way of... You have to have some way to talk about the consequences of not facing fear.

[34:30]

So you say your spirit is killed. In Buddhism anyway we don't identify something spirit, but we use the word mind and spirit or something like that. And... Yeah. I don't... there's no... No what? There's no point in me trying to talk about your spirit. If you practice, you can ask yourself, now why do people use the word spirit? For thousands of years people have used the word spirit. There must be some reason. And even if we don't know what spirit is,

[35:36]

I mean even if we don't have the idea of spirit as a thing in Buddhism, still there's some experience of spirit. But for us I suppose the closest thing is... So the real way to ask a question like that is to show me your spirit in your question. Or to show me your lack of spirit or something like that. I can respond in kind maybe, you know. But to present it as something that you don't really care too much about, you know, and you're just asking, then it involves me in some intellectual discussion to talk about it. And it involves me saying things which may be confusing for you,

[36:44]

but if you practice Buddhism carefully and you are willing to give up your viewpoints and enter a non-repeating universe, you know, the door to that is nothing has any meaning. It all falls apart, you know. And it's a horrible experience. It can be a horrible experience, you know, because nothing has any meaning, you know. And people who are severely depressed find this experience of everything's not only the colors drained out of things and everything has no substance, but there's nothing which holds it together. Then in a very pure way, something holds it together. And that thing which holds together is you moment after moment. And that's when we emphasize your full potentiality

[37:49]

at the moment of activity, each moment. And to exist in that way is one of the ways a teacher, when he sees you're maybe ready, he'll suddenly try to do something to disturb you. But that moment, or that thing, which is maybe as close as we come in Buddhism to something called spirit. Yeah? Yeah. If you make use of everything, if you're on the way, if you have a sense of a path, then whatever occurs is the path

[38:51]

and whatever occurs is some kind of opportunity. And we're very interesting. We make constructs that work for a while and then we purposely see through them somehow. And if you want to live your life backwards, you know, then you patch that little hole and you make the construct you've got better. But if you're on a path, every time that happens you're ready to throw it all away. But... Sukhire actually used a very interesting image of the relationship between teacher and disciple. He said, the kind of relationship that should be between teacher and disciple is rather like the teacher had a telescope and he could hold it up and he could look at you very closely. But when you looked in, the teacher looked very far away.

[39:52]

Anyway... I think it's a wonderful idea. Because then I could see you very closely, you know, just what you are like. And... somebody told me this looked like a party favor. Anyway, not a telescope. But anyway, I can look at you through my party favor. And... see you exactly, you know. But you look and I seem very far away and so you feel you have some freedom and you have some space to do what you want to do, you know. And if you have some freedom to do what you want to do then it's even more interesting for me to look at you. I can see what kind of person you are, what you're doing. So we create some relationship like that, actually. How come you just don't like

[41:09]

throw a bunch of coal out for each other? I don't know. Giving up practice. Actually, I try to do one. So I can just live instead of practicing. And... I'm always throwing out coins, you know. But you don't know what to do with them, usually. What does giving up practice mean for you? Uh...

[42:13]

Just get down and live it instead of, like, practicing intellectually. Are you doing that? All by yourself? Without any aids? Oh, no. Everything all... Like what? Interrelated. Okay. Yeah. Can you speak louder, please? When... In my experience anyway,

[43:16]

when I look closely at what's going on, I notice the tendencies that I have and notice imperfections. And it seems like that's the first step for me to be spontaneous. It seems at that point that in order to live in a situation you can do a number of things with those tendencies. And maybe try and use them creatively or even if they seem somewhat negative to you, maybe that's your reflection, you don't particularly like them, maybe there's some way that you can use them or something. Anyway, that

[44:19]

that effort is in itself seems to have some imperfections somehow. I don't know. Is that trying to change yourself or is that trying to just work with what you might have at the point difficult in the end? Sometimes it may be trying to change yourself, but if your spirit is to work with just what it is, you know, to tread Buddhist path means to tread not Buddhist path. You know, whatever is not Buddhist, that's our path. Do you understand what I mean? Is it, whatever it is, is you do it, you know. And if you have some feelings like that or whatever your feelings are,

[45:19]

you work with them. But you have to have some care. Not to, as Bhundi Gandhonjo said, you have to be careful. You have to take responsibility for your situation and what you're doing and you have to notice carefully what you're doing and do it completely. Maybe, you know, there's from silence. Maybe the best way to practice is to have the feeling of from silence I'm watching or from silence everything takes forms. Do you understand what I mean?

[46:23]

Hmm. Well, we say non-action or a non-doing. Since you're all reading Castaneda's book, you know, I find it difficult to use terms like non-doing because Castaneda has such an interesting description of non-doing which is not exactly the same as we mean by non-doing but very close. What he describes as non-doing is is another, we describe in a different way if we described it. But alone I proceed through myself.

[47:29]

And you find some way you exist with everything at one with everything. I haven't found a way to describe to people like this outside of circumstances of work of practicing with each one of you individually what we mean by non-action exactly because it doesn't mean you don't take action. But you the best way is I think what Suzuki Roshi how Suzuki Roshi used the word waiting which I've talked about before. You wait for things. Wait for.

[48:43]

What do you wait for? If you look at a stone instead of looking at the stone actively looking at the stone you wait for it to be whatever it is. I don't know. It's something in your hand. What is it? Because we don't know what it is we wait for it. I don't know. What does it do? Then go wait. How can I get us started? How can I get us started? About non-action. But you're started already.

[49:50]

And if you practice as in accepting yourself just as you are as you're doing and being ready or waiting for whatever it is that's enough. It goes on and on. Everything's happening. Can you just wait with it? Just be it? Not turn it into activity? You'll start to glow. It'll be wonderful. Yeah.

[51:07]

The insect goes by itself. Yeah. It's like the frog very much. Just sits there like doing so as in but it's very alert, you know. Some insect comes by. I do my party favor. What? There's no problem there. I mean, there's no conflict with practicing with others or eating with others or doing things with others. It means what you give reality to

[52:17]

or what you give some value to. Yeah, I understand why you feel that way. Anyway, there's only a conflict on the level of words. There's only... What I mean by practicing in that way is to find your real, your true relationship with everyone. Not your thinking relationship with everyone. Just being there. I mean, we are... It's hard to believe but a lot of our problems with friendship is the word friend and what we think a friend is.

[53:18]

What we think... think about how to work with people. But when you find what that thing is, when you're... when you don't shy away from that experience which is you... which is actually you which is making the world each moment. Actually making the world each moment. Then you're making the world each moment and everyone's making it with you. And then you can create the world. Then we can actually practice Buddhism with everyone and save all sentient beings. Because we can create a world in which it's possible to save all sentient beings. In which all sentient beings in which all beings are actually already saved. Thank you very much.

[54:16]

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