I bow to teach the truth without the covering of some words. Namo tatsa bhagavato arahato samma samaya. Sambuddhassa namo tatsa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa. Namo tatsa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa. Buddham, Dhammam, Sangham namassami.

[01:02]

Good evening. It's a real privilege for me to be able to be here and to speak with you this evening. For many years I've been a devotee of Suzuki Roshi primarily through his book, which when it arrived in the monasteries of Asia where I was living at the time it was published, created a great sensation and delight. I remember people seeing it and saying, Oh, it must be a book about how to begin Zen practice. Well, I don't really need to read that. And then opening it and discovering what wonderful and beautiful expression of Dharma it is. My own background, I began study and practice about 20 years ago in the Theravada tradition

[02:18]

and spent six or seven years primarily in Thailand, also in Burma and Laos, training as a monk and a layman both for different years in monasteries, in two kinds of monasteries. Several of the years I spent were in rural forest monasteries where we would eat one meal a day and go out every morning with our begging bowls to take whatever people offered us as our food, live very simply. And our practice of meditation was equally simple, sitting and walking and paying attention. I also lived in some very large meditation centers where there were hundreds and at times a thousand or two thousand people practicing together at a time. In current times in Thailand and Burma, there are still 250 or 300,000 monks and probably 50,000 nuns.

[03:22]

And although many of the monasteries are corrupt or decadent in some ways, there are still a number of hundred monasteries that are impeccable in their way of practice and in the spirit of the living Dharma that is taught and transmitted. The training in Theravada Buddhism is a very simple one. There is study of sutras and Abhidharma, but in the forest and in the meditation centers, it's a series of practices, shamatha, vipassana, metta practices to develop clear seeing and loving kindness or compassion. What I'd like to speak on tonight is a teaching that, if you'll forgive me, is one that is used very often in the beginning of practice for people. I suppose it's fitting at this center, given Suzuki Roshi's teaching. And it comes from several of the sutras in the Sanskrit and Pali canon.

[04:24]

And it may give you a sense of both the straightforwardness and the way in which practice is approached in Theravada Buddhism. Hopefully it will be helpful to you. There is a text that I was given by a friend who is a Catholic monk, by a man named Evagrius. Evagrius was one of the masters in the Christian desert tradition. He was a father who taught in the 2nd or 3rd century AD in Egypt. And it talks about what happens to people when they go out into the desert to begin to practice. It speaks in terms of demons. First come the demons of regret. Why did I go out into this desert? It's hot and I'm thirsty. And it was really comfortable in Alexandria. Following that, if you overcome the demons of regret, come the demons of irritation and anger.

[05:28]

You know, it's too hot, and the practice is too hard, and the place is too uncomfortable, and the meals are too simple. They are followed by various other families of demons. And when you've overcome all the major demons of anger and fear and so forth that arise, then there are clans of demons that sneak up behind, says Evagrius. These are, for example, the demons of pride, who come and say, you got rid of anger, you're really doing good now, aren't you? There's a very good friend of mine. This doesn't sound like a sutra, I know, but the sutra is buried in here, so please be patient. And also, as you sit, sit attentively, but also comfortably. There's no need to sit too rigidly for this talk, if you like. A good friend of mine, someone perhaps many of you know, he's written some books on Buddhism, was an early student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche,

[06:32]

and in 1969 decided to undertake intensive practice at Tale of the Tiger, Karmacholing, in Vermont. So he went off to do a three-month solitary retreat in a small cottage. He took with him a big bag of brown rice and several spiritual books, and he was lucky, it was a cottage right on a bubbling stream in the mountains. He went up and began to practice, and at first it was peaceful and beautiful, as it can be at times, as you know, perhaps. But after a while, the demons came, boredom, and the various kinds of things that come when one sits. And the worst that happened is that his mind started to play songs. He would sit, you know how it does that in Sashin sometimes, perhaps? Some of you may know. And it wasn't just that it played the top tunes, it played the Star-Spangled Banner. This was not his favorite song.

[07:35]

And he was distressed, and he would sit down and, you know, he'd read a little more of Rinpoche or Roshi or whatever, and sit down, begin his three months to get enlightened or whatever. And then in the time with the sounds of the bubbling stream, the band would strike up, and the Star-Spangled Banner would begin. It got so bad for him, that one day he said he got up from his cushion, and he went outside to the stream and started moving rocks around to see if he could get it to play a different song. Now, both the text of Evagrius and the Desert Fathers, 1800 years ago in Egypt, and this man's experience in Vermont, raise a universal and basic question in our Dharma practice, in the meaning of practice for us. And that question very simply is, is it possible not to get trapped by our minds?

[08:39]

Not to get trapped by the different kinds of energies and projections. It's the stream, and it's the noise, and it's the street, or it's the various demons that come. And our planet, the place that we live now, is a world that is bound in a great measure by forces of greed and prejudice and fear. There's wars in 40 countries right now. Is it possible, can we learn, before we even help the planet, can we learn somehow not to get caught by our own minds? In his teachings, in the sutra that I'm basing this talk on, several sutras actually, the Buddha described very systematically the energies which trap the mind, which catch us or cause us to be bound or unliberated, unfree. And he described them, the word in Sanskrit is nirvana,

[09:42]

or best translated, it can be translated, sometimes it's hindrances or seductive energies or difficult energies, those energies of mind which come and basically fool us in our practice. And depending how we learn to work with these seductive or difficult or hindering energies, either it can be a confused struggle, like my friend who went out to try and change the music in the stream outside him, or we can use them for greater awareness, greater understanding, greater freedom, and perhaps to open not just our minds but our hearts in some way, to understand with compassion ourselves and the practice that we undertake. So how to work with the difficulties in practice? The first thing that's necessary is to identify them clearly. The Buddha outlined them in five major categories.

[10:46]

The first category is sense desire. Now, what's wrong with sense desire? Desire for pleasant sights, for pleasant sounds, for smells, tastes, physical perceptions, or pleasant thoughts and feelings. What's the problem with desire? First of all, desire is a complicated word in English because it has many meanings, whereas in Pali or Sanskrit or some of the sutras, desire has several different words that make it up. It can be the will to do, chanda, which is a very neutral energy, or it can be lobha, which is desire associated with greed and grasping, or it can be the energy to act based on wisdom or compassion. Desire, as I mean it now, is that based on greed or grasping. Now, what's the problem with it? One, it keeps us fooled into thinking that some sight, sound, taste, or smell

[11:48]

will make us happy and will last. And since if we pay attention to sounds and sights and thoughts and feelings, and they don't, that can't be. Secondly, it keeps us external, it keeps us looking for satisfaction through something outside ourselves. It's what's called the if-only mind. If only I'd started to practice a few years earlier, before my kids were born, then I'd really be a great Zen student. Or, if only I got to work with... I don't know who you get to work with as teachers, you probably get assigned to different ones. If only I got to work with that teacher, then my practice would go better. Or if only I didn't have to work to make money, I could take time off, or they had more sashin here, something, then my practice would get better. Or if only I could find the right job, or the right relationship,

[12:50]

if I could have that thing, then I would be complete. So it fools us. Is that possible? To be complete from some thing, some person, some experience? And at first, when one undertakes practice, it's, you know, especially in the way that I teach, which is a lot of intensive retreat settings, people start thinking about all the things they want outside. Well, you know, when I get back, I'll eat this, and I'll do that, and so forth. Later on, when you've been in prison for a while, in some Dharma situation, a retreat, or a community, like prisoners, your desires become appropriate to the situation. And so people in our retreats think more about just the food for that day, because that's about the only desire that's left available to them. Or there's something that we call a vipassana romance, which happens, people come, and they sit in the retreat for two weeks in silence, and basically aren't supposed to communicate with one another,

[13:53]

but they check each other out anyway. And even though we say, stay with your own practice, they'll see someone, and you sit and imagine, and there's this person, and you think, gee, it would be nice after the retreat, or the scene, to meet them. Maybe we could talk together, we could even go and sit somewhere together, perhaps. And then the mind goes on and imagines the courtship and marriage, children, divorce, if it's really accurate in most cases, and all without even saying a word to this person. So this is the force of desire. This is the first one. And it tangled our mind in lots of different ways. The if-only quality. It said, desire creates what we see. In some sutra somewhere it says that if a pickpocket meets a saint, he sees only the saint's pockets. And there's a sutra about these two thieves who went to see the Buddha, and one went and got really inspired by the words of the Dharma,

[14:57]

and was enlightened, as it always happened so easily in those days. The other one was very busy going around picking people's pockets, and they met up afterwards as they planned, and he said, what's the matter with you? You didn't get any good stuff. I mean, there's gold and jewels. What you want limits what you see. If you're hungry and you walk down the street, what do you see? You see restaurants. I could have feta cheese and Greek salad over there, or pizza. What you desire limits the perspective of the mind. I'd better go on, or I won't get through them. The second is the opposite of desire. The second hindrance, or the second difficult energy. It's aversion, hatred, ill will, dislike, judgment, irritation, condemnation. And it's a little easier to work with than desire in one way, because it's not so sneaky. It doesn't come up and say, hey, come on, if we get this, we'll really be happy. When you're angry, generally it hurts.

[15:59]

It hurts in the body, some way in the mind. So you get a little more sense that there's something to work with there. Now we have an amazing capacity in our lives, not only to be angry at things that are happening, but at things that have happened, which no one can do anything about. And even more amazingly, we can sit, or walk, or whatever, and get angry about something that might happen, that someone might do. So this is another difficult energy. Judgment, irritation, ill will. There, in our tradition, we speak of also the Vipassana Vendetta, which is the opposite of the Vipassana. There's somebody in the community that bugs you, and they're always doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. We'll get to that later. Now the third of the five hindrances is called Sloth and Torpor, by the Buddha. Tinamitta is the Sanskrit word. It's sleepiness, dullness, lack of energy, foggy, lazy, spaced out.

[17:02]

It's what Evagrius, in his text, called the Noonday Demons, the ones that come right after lunch. The Siesta Demons. It's another difficult energy in our practice, in our lives. The fourth is restlessness and worry. It's an agitation of mind, anxious. It can be remorse, or guilt, or worry of those things, or commotion, or just a sense of restlessness in the mind and body. Often trying to escape from the fact of the three characteristics. Not liking impermanence, or not liking dukkha. Do you know the word dukkha? The Sanskrit word for unsatisfactoriness or suffering. Or not liking emptiness in some fashion or other. It has to be more solid or more meaningful or something than it seems. So agitation, restlessness of mind. And the fifth is the worst of all, the fifth category. It's the worst because it stops practice dead in its tracks. And this is the energy of doubt.

[18:06]

Doubt about oneself. I can't do this. Zen is too hard. Or my legs can't take it. Or I should go and work for a while. Maybe come back. I should do therapy first. And then I'll come back and be able to do Zen better. Or maybe after my kids grow up. So doubt about oneself. Doubt about the practice. This is kind of silly. Everybody is sitting in black robes and doing this Japanese thing in the middle of San Francisco. Or doubt about the way of practice, or the stick, or the form of the breath. Or whatever one works within one's practice. Or doubt about, is this the right path for me? It's so hard. My knees hurt. I'm not getting anywhere. I sit and I still have a lot of thought. I should do Sufi dancing. Or doubt about the teachers. I mean, you know, how do they know?

[19:08]

They're just other Americans who trained like me. How do I know that they know anything more? We don't look so enlightened sometimes. So there are all these categories of doubt. And they arise. And when one believes them then, everything stops. Are they familiar to you? It is a beginning talk, but often times people who have practiced a lot still recognize them. Now they all make it impossible to see clearly when we get caught up in them. And the image that the Buddha used in the sutra is of a pond. He says sense desire is like putting beautiful colored dye in the water. And so you get entranced by the reds and greens and blues. And you can't see clearly to the bottom. Anger and ill will is like a pond on a hot spring. Roiling and boiling, steam. Again, it's not clear. Sloth and torpor is like an algae covered pond.

[20:12]

Thick layer of algae. Restlessness and worry is compared to a wind swept pond where there are waves. So again, the water is not clear. And doubt is a pond with mud stirred up from the bottom, the Buddha says. Again, difficult to see clearly. To see with clarity or wisdom. Now if we can learn to work with these difficult or seductive energies in our life, it can free up our practice a lot. It can give us a lot of vigor and aliveness. And also a tremendous amount of understanding of what the world around us is caught in. It can bring a lot of compassion and love. Or the qualities of a bodhisattva. Come if we learn how to work with them. How to do it? Well the first thing that we need to not do, we need to avoid, is suppressing them. Because if you say, well, desire is bad, and anger is bad, and restlessness is no good, and you kind of stuff it down, what happens?

[21:14]

It comes up someplace else later. You know, because that's the way the system works. It's a part of us. And so if we pretend that we don't have this arm sooner or later, it comes around and says, no, I'm connected with you. It's somehow a part of us. So to do that deadens us. And it's not genuine practice, it's fear. All right, so we don't suppress it. Suppose we choose not to suppress it anyway. The second alternative, which also isn't so good, is to necessarily act on them all. If you act on all the desires, and all the anger, and all the irritation, and all the things that come through, you'll probably get yourself in a lot of trouble. If your mind is like everybody else's mind, or like mine even. You don't need to speak of other people. To act on all of them, at least living in community and society, is just about impossible. It's not to say that one doesn't sometimes act,

[22:15]

but to compulsively have to act them out is trouble. It's trouble for us. So then what? What's left? There are then, given by the Buddha, two ways to deal with these kinds of energies. The first and the most productive is to use them directly and immediately for insight, for understanding, for the development or growth of our practice. How does one do that? By taking them as our meditation, by using our capacity for awareness, or attention, or mindfulness, or fullness, to see them without judging them, without clinging to them, without condemning them, saying they shouldn't be there, they're no good, without identifying with them, without saying this is I, or me, or mine. To see them directly for what they are. And what are they? They're physical sensations, thoughts, feelings, or emotions.

[23:21]

They're energies of the five skandhas. And they're empty. They arise, they pass, they're elements of the body, they're elements of mind. Thus shall you think of this fleeting world, says the Diamond Sutra. A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. So one way to work with them is to begin to pay attention and see their true nature without pushing them away, or condemning them. It's difficult, but it's possible. And with this basis of openness, or awareness, or attention, then these things which seem difficult actually enrich our practice. I'll go into detail in a minute about how to do that in these situations. If we can learn to do that, then we can find our natural mind, our mind that doesn't cut off, or separate,

[24:22]

or say, this is no good, and that is good. The second suggestion of the Buddha is if it's not possible for us to use these as a part of our practice of awareness, then there are specific remedies that are used in occasional cases to cool us out, to unhook us, to get us back to a place of balance or openness with these different energies. So then we can be aware. Let me go through them again systematically and talk about how to work with them specifically. Sense desire. And it's not just sense desire in terms of wanting ice cream, or sex, or a good movie. But it's really looking at the energy of wanting itself, the energy of desire. It's powerful. Don't fool yourself. It's a big one.

[25:23]

Basically, they say it makes the whole show, actually. The force that keeps the whole of samsara going around. It's real interesting. And it certainly makes a lot of our world that we know in a more limited fashion also operate. We just have to look at our culture. How to work with it when there's desire that arises in our experience, in our practice? And I hope you understand that I mean the word practice both as sitting and practice as shopping in the supermarket or driving. It's all really the same. How to work with this force of desire? Be mindful of it. See if you can learn to look at it very directly, to allow yourself to experience it, and to see what it is. Because it is such a powerful force. And it's actually very interesting. What does desire feel like? Have you ever really investigated the word in the Factors of Enlightenment by the Buddha?

[26:23]

It's Dharma Vichaya. It's the quality of mind which investigates or looks directly at our experience. So desire comes. Fine. Thank you. Here it is. Wanting. You sit down for a meal and you're hungry. What is hunger? What is it like? Did you ever look closely? Is it your tongue that's hungry? Or your eyes? Or your belly? Or your mind? Can you learn to experience hunger or wanting or desire fully and directly without judging it or condemning it or being caught up in it? It takes some practice. But it's a wonderful thing to do. Because as you learn to do it then that which before caught you up becomes a source of understanding or insight or wisdom. Now Oscar Wilde said, I can resist anything except temptation. So it's important to understand that desire is very powerful. You know, it's not so easy.

[27:25]

And it may take you 20 or 50 or 200 times. But the spirit of the practice is the same. It's to look clearly at the nature of the five skandhas of what we are. What makes up our world. There's a story of Mulla Nasruddin, the Sufi kind of sage and wise man and fool all rolled together. He went to the market one day and there was a special sale on hot peppers. And they were so cheap. He said, what can I do? Bought a big bushel of them, right? Took them home, sitting in his kitchen, eating them. Tears are rolling down his cheeks. It's very painful. Student comes in and says, Mulla, what are you doing? Eating, you know. It's hurting, what are you doing? He looks up and he says, I keep waiting for a sweet one. We do that with desire. We keep thinking if we get that, then we'll be happy, then we'll be satisfied. Don't listen to it. It's not true. Now suppose you can't be mindful

[28:29]

because it's really strong and you want it. It's not all to say that all desire is so bad. Anyway, we act out a lot of desire, some of which is mixed with compassion, some of which is just something we need to play out. If you act on it, at least be aware when you do it. So bring that awareness to learn about what it's like to act on desire and see what it feels like. But the way to unhook yourself, the antidote to desire, is a quality of renunciation. And it comes really from understanding impermanence. So if you haven't really stuck on something, imagine in your mind that you get it. There you have it. Whatever it is that you wanted. Whether it's sense-oriented or thought or person-oriented, there you have it and you go on for a while and what happens? Look at it really seriously. And if you look, you start to discover just in imagining it that it changes because that's the nature of everything.

[29:29]

So that's the reflection that's helpful. Another thing that's helpful is moderation. Moderation in food, moderation in sex, moderation in sleep, so that one doesn't kind of over- over-strengthen the habits. One doesn't feed them so much, because then it becomes difficult to be aware. But that's a whole other talk. Alright, so how does one work with anger when that arises? Or irritation or ill-will? Same. The same basic principle. Be mindful of it. Have you experienced anger in your practice? What is it like? What does it feel in the body? What does your breath do? What's the temperature of anger? That's the skanda of the physical element. What is the feeling quality of it? Pleasant, neutral, unpleasant? What are the thoughts? What's the space of mind with it? Let yourself really look at it. Again, it's a powerful force,

[30:30]

and it runs, and as I said, there's wars everywhere. Not everywhere, but lots of places. Can you learn about anger in your practice? That's a challenge that the Buddha offers to you. Here's an energy that's difficult to get caught up in. Can you learn to work with it? To be mindful, not to judge it, not to condemn it. Now, it's difficult, it's true. There's a story of George Gurdjieff, who had a large community outside of Paris in Fontainebleau. Before the war, one of the community members was obnoxious. He was a terrible man. He was an old Russian who got irritated at everything. He was grumpy and surly, and he was messy, and he didn't clean up after himself. He wasn't even personally clean. He smelled. He was the kind of community member that you least want to have. And he got in fights all the time with people. And at one point in their community, it got so bad, and he fought with so many people,

[31:31]

he got really dejected, and he left for Paris. Gurdjieff got upset. He got in his car, and he drove off to Paris, and he said, please come back. Please come study with us some more. And the man said, no, it's too hard, and they don't like me, and they all give me a hard time. Which they did, because he gave them a hard time. Gurdjieff finally said, after all this pleading, he said, well, I'll tell you what, I'll pay you. Come back, and I'll give you $500 a month, or the French equivalent. The old guy said, God, how can you resist that? All right, gets in the car, drives back to the community with Gurdjieff. All the people are aghast. They just got rid of him, and here he's back again with Gurdjieff. They have a meeting. What are we going to do about this guy? Gurdjieff comes to the meeting, and he explains. Why can't we get rid of him? He said, this man for our community is like yeast to bread. He said, without this man, you wouldn't even know about your irritation.

[32:33]

You wouldn't know about your fears. You wouldn't know about your prejudices. He said, this man is the teacher for our community. And then he walked upstairs. And so that's the spirit of being mindful of anger. That's the spirit of being mindful of judgment, of irritation, of ill will. It's not that it's bad. It's just another one of the play of the elements. But is it possible to use it to learn, to get to where wisdom or understanding of its true nature comes? Now, there's an antidote to anger as well. Antidote to irritation and ill will. And that is loving kindness or forgiveness. And if you're angry, sometimes you can do some kind of reflection on the qualities of compassion and loving kindness. Sometimes that won't even work. You're just pissed. In which case, what you might do is ask yourself the question, what would it take for me to forgive this person?

[33:33]

What would I have to do? Or what would have to happen? Or what would I have to learn? Not even asking yourself to do it. You just ask real honestly, because you're holding on, I'm not going to let go of this. What would it take for me to let go of this? And just to look at it. That itself starts to soften the edges and kind of open it. It's valuable. Thomas Merton said, true prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart has turned to stone. So it doesn't matter if it gets really intense. That's a place you can learn a lot. Now there are a couple of other associated energies with anger. One is boredom. Did you ever look at boredom directly? I don't like it here. I'm bored. I want something else. It's a kind of aversion. Another very important one is judgment. And the third kind of aversion is fear. What to do with judgments? If you've looked in your mind, most people anyway, have just a panoply, a barrage of

[34:36]

them. They come and, yes, you're doing well. No, you're not. I wish this. I didn't. Don't wish that. No, you didn't. In and out, God, I'm getting concentrated. Finally, I'm getting quiet. There's the judgment. What I tell people when there's lots of them, count them. See how many judgments you can count in an hour. In, out, oh, I'm getting settled now. Three. Hey, I shouldn't be judging. This is no good. Four. Oh, well. Oh, God, my knee's starting to hurt. How long will this be? Five. No. Oh, it's all right. I can get quiet again. I wish they'd be quiet. Six. Oh, I shouldn't be thinking. Seven. And you just, then it becomes sort of like the arcade at the amusement park or something. You simply know. Because what is judgment? It's a thought. Again, it has its own energy, which is anicca, dukkha and anatta. It's impermanent, it's empty, it's selfless, if you see it. How to

[35:37]

work with fear? The same basic principle. When fear comes, and it will if you practice for a while, everybody touches it. See if you can learn to let yourself feel it. Experience it. Be mindful, aware, allowing, know it, experience it. Now what will happen if you do is that you'll get afraid, because it's scary. And it will take you 30 or 50 or 300 times of paying attention to fear. But if you do, at some point it arises in your sitting or in your life, and it comes, and there's the physical sensations and the sweat and breath and whatever, and you go, oh yeah, there you are, hi! It's like you become so familiar because you let yourself face it and see it, that it becomes like a friend. It's just another element of the skandhas. I'd better move along here if I'm to finish tonight. The third of the five

[36:38]

difficult energies, sloth and torpor. What to do with that? Sitting, you know, you're not allowed in this tradition. Possibly people cannot. I guess they hit you or something. Actually, I have done some Zen practice with different Zen masters, and they did hit me, it's true. How to work with it? The first, again, the main interesting thing is to see if you can work with it as an object of your meditation. So you start to get sleepy. That's interesting. It comes in sort of like the fog comes over the city. You know, first there are little tendrils, and you feel it kind of in your neck back here, and your posture just shifts imperceptibly just a little bit down. And that's a signal something's going on. And so then feel what it does in the body, what the physical elements are and how they change. Then you're paying attention to that. Then there's the quality in the mind. Did you

[37:39]

ever really look at what sleepiness feels like? It's very interesting, and it's hard to be aware of because you're sleepy. But you can. You can begin to kind of poke at it with your awareness, like the sun on the fog. And if you do, sometimes, even if you've been sleepy for 10 or 15 minutes, all of a sudden it'll disappear. Has anyone ever had that experience where you sit with it? And then you start to see, God, it's just another one of these energies. Interesting. So you take it as your object of attention. Now, if you can't do that because it's too strong, you're sitting at home or you're involved in something, you can work with it. It's a workable energy. You sit up a little straighter. You're not allowed to. There are certain mudras that we use at times to work with sleep. I use one where I forget the name of it where I make two rings with my fingers like this, and then as soon as I feel them touching, then I start to nod again. Sitting up straighter, doing more walking meditation or something more active. But

[38:40]

there are times in one's life or practice where it gets very strong. When I lived in the forest, I had terrible bouts of sleepiness. Partly it comes when concentration is out of balance with energy. So you need to raise energy. That's the balance for it. You can walk. My teacher said, walk a lot. So I walked and I walked. I'd sit down. I'd still be sleepy. He said, okay, walk backward. Walk backward in the forest. Walk backward at night in the forest. It woke me up. It worked for a while. But then I'd sit down again and, you know, there it would be. The concentration was out of balance with the energy, basically. That's another talk on the balance of the spiritual faculties. We'll leave that for a moment. So he said, alright, for you we have the remedy. There's a well near your cottage. Go sit right on the edge. I go and I walk and I sit down. I begin my meditation. I start to get sleepy. And I look down and there's

[39:43]

50 feet of space. The adrenaline rush. It's workable. In some fashion or other. Alright, restlessness and worry. How to work with those? Again, the same principle. Restlessness comes, you're sitting and something has happened in your life and you're really restless. Or you're not sitting, you're walking, you're traveling around. What to do, especially I'll take it for the moment in sitting. What to do when restlessness comes and it's very strong. Be mindful of it. Look at it directly. Feel it. Experience it. What is restlessness like? It's this movement of physical sensation in the body. It's sometimes associated with a number of rapid thoughts. So there's a series, a sequence of thoughts. There's certain feelings. There's body sensations. But then what happens when you're really restless? Then what do you do? Okay.

[40:44]

I'll die of restlessness. Let yourself die. Be the first Zen student ever to die of restlessness. You just surrender. Open yourself to it. Fine. They'll have a service down at Tatsahara for me or whatever it is. And simply to that extreme, allow yourself to experience it with awareness. With mindfulness. And what happens? Nothing. You just discover it's another energy. It's another part of the skandhas. Now what happens if you're worried and all this stuff keeps coming again and again and again and it's hard to be mindful of it? A couple of things about restlessness. The antidote to it is concentration. So go back and count your breath again, even if you're doing Shikantaza or some other more advanced practice and you're real restless and you can't deal with it. Do some walking if you're on your own or go back and count your breath. Do something very simple and concentrating. And that's sort of the antidote to it. The other is, I remember an experience being

[41:46]

in a Burmese monastery where I did a year-long Sashin. I was put in a cottage and I had one room and I had a meal a day and I'd sleep four hours a night and then I sat and I walked alternately. Sit for an hour and then walk for half an hour and then sit for another hour for a year. And I would see my teacher every two days for about a ten or fifteen minute interview. And at first I was all over the map, but gradually I learned how to work with the forces and energies that came in that kind of training. And eventually I got to where there was a great deal of light and rapture and openness. It was like the breeze would come through the window and it would just pass right through my body. Things weren't so solid. It was wonderful. I got attached to it. And I was sitting there. I'd been out of this country for four or five years and practicing as a monk and traveling before that and so forth. One day I'm sitting in this

[42:48]

state of great silence and openness and all of a sudden I see on the screen, you know the screen that comes, I see a sink and soap bubble. It's strange. It's watching, paying attention. It's supposed to. And then the audio portion comes on and it goes use Ajax. And in that moment I realized the mind has no pride whatsoever. And it will do anything. And so it will worry about anything and it will make itself upset about anything. And the other antidote for restlessness is some sense of humor about this thing. It records everything. It's all in there. Your third grade teachers and the magazines you read. It's all in there. So, St. Francis de Sales said, what's necessary is a cup of knowledge, a barrel of love, and an ocean of patience.

[43:49]

Doubt. This is the last of them. Getting there. What to do when doubt arises? About oneself, the teachers, the practice, the timing, I can't do it, it's too hard, they don't know, I don't know. We both don't know. Doubt is a very important quality. If you haven't doubted much, you probably haven't looked into your mind much. What is doubt? Has anyone looked at it to see what it is? It's what? It's a series of words in the mind that says he or she or I or it or this, and then there's a verb, right, and then there's some conclusion. It's a series of words that we believe. It's possible to learn to allow doubt to arise and say, oh, interesting, doubting, doubting, just like anger or judgment

[44:51]

or fear, simply to see it without saying, I'm not a good Zen student or I shouldn't doubt, or that's one side, judging it, or the other side of believing it and saying, yeah, it's right, this is no good and doesn't work for me. Because then you just go around in circles endlessly with your doubt. Instead, you step back, you make your mind a little bigger and you say, that's interesting, there's doubt. Now, I had a very hard time in my practice at certain periods as most people do, but I think mine was even worse. And in the Forest Monastery, I got very dissatisfied with my teacher, because we had to sweep the grounds and go on alms round and chant a lot every day, and I just wanted to do that kind of intensive cave practice. I was really going to get enlightened or bust in my youth. And so I got upset with him, and also his teachings, he wasn't very consistent. He'd tell one person one thing, another person another, you know, and I got so upset that I went to him one day and I said, you know, I want to leave, I want to go to a Burmese monastery.

[45:52]

That's sort of like telling Japanese you want to go to a Korean monastery, something just not done. And he said, yes. I was the only Westerner there at this time. He said, yes, what's the problem? And I said, well, you know, it's too noisy and this and that, and I can't sit, I've got to sweep and chant and all these other things and it's interrupting my meditation. And I said, and then you? He said, yes. I said, you're not consistent. I mean, you do this and that. Yeah, you don't look so enlightened to me. I was really annoyed. And he laughed. He thought it was very funny, too. And he said, I don't seem so enlightened to you. I said, yeah, you know, when I look at it, really, honestly. He said, that's really a good thing. I said, why? How come? And he said, because if I fit your model, your image of an enlightened person, you'd still be caught in looking for the Buddha

[46:52]

outside yourself. And he's not there. There is not a person that you can imitate. Even the Buddha himself. We're the Buddha here. Maybe he is. I guess we're all Buddhas or something in this tradition. Anyway, we're this one here, Siddhartha Gautama, sitting up here. You still couldn't imitate him, because you're not him. You're you. So doubt is very, very important. And it's very important to learn about it, to honor that it's a part of practice, and to learn how to work with it, and not get so caught in it. Because nobody is going to be someone you can imitate. That's not the purpose of practice. The purpose of practice is to see what is true, and to live out of that truth, and nothing else. Now, there are also antidotes for a lot of doubt, because there are two kinds of doubt. There's the small,

[47:53]

niggardly, piddling, baby, annoying doubts. And there's the great doubt, which is what am I doing here? What is this? Who am I? Whatever you want to call it. That's a wonderful doubt. What is this body-mind? We came in and we got given this thing, you know? Little things on the end, and fur up here, and stuff. How did I get this? When you have a lot of doubt, and it's too much, then the antidote is inspiration, or faith. And you can do it by talking to someone that will inspire you, by reading books that inspire you, by reflection on the fact that the journey of awakening, the path of liberation, has been done in every major culture, in the desert, in Egypt, in China, in India, over thousands of years. And it's the most precious and important thing that a person can do. And God knows this world needs some people

[48:53]

who aren't so caught up and afraid of greed, and desire, and fear, and prejudice. It's the most wonderful thing. It's difficult, but to inspire yourself with the possibility that it's been done again, and again, and again. Each sutra that the Buddha used in his teaching, if you look at them, they're shaped like a Bodhi leaf. I don't know if you've ever seen a Bodhi leaf, but it has a big bottom and comes to a little point. They all come to one point. They all come to the point of liberation, of freedom. And enfolded in each sutra are all the other teachings. So in this one, on the five hindrances and how to work with them, it's also an example of the four foundations of mindfulness, which is the heart of the Theravada Buddhist meditation. Awareness of the body, awareness of feelings, awareness of the contents of mind, and then awareness of the Dharma,

[49:54]

of the very principles that make it up, of impermanence, of emptiness, of what this world is made up of, of its true nature. Also, in it, one can see very clearly the operation of the Four Noble Truths. Do you know the Four Noble Truths? Are they taught as part of your teaching here? The Four Noble Truths and the opening that's possible of liberation, the opening of the mind. I actually prefer the word heart. Sanskrit, the word is the same, citta, for heart and mind. And the mind is usually nutty for a long, long time. Maybe even after you're fully enlightened, I don't know, but for a long time, the heart can get more open, more settled, and it sort of watches the mind go off, and it says, that's interesting, and it doesn't get so caught in it. The Four Noble Truths. So you see that there's suffering, you see it inside, you see it in the world around, and you honor it. It's true, it's part of up, down, light, dark, pleasure, pain, duality. You see that there's

[50:56]

a cause, and the cause is attachments, getting caught in these things very directly. You see that there's an end to it. And I remember, again, my teacher Ajahn Chah used to wander around the forest monastery and he used to make fun of people as part of his way of teaching, but with very good humor. And he'd come up to people, especially if they looked like they were having a hard time, he'd say, gee, how are you doing? You suffering much today? And if they said yes, he'd say, oh, must be very attached today, and then he'd kind of walk along and go somewhere else. It's that simple. If you're suffering, it's kind of a little blinking light, beep, [...] take a look and see what you're attached to. And then the way, or the path, which is the path of awareness, of awakening, of attention, of seeing things clearly. Now, I guess I end with one story

[52:00]

and then I'll take some questions. If it's alright to take a little bit longer, maybe 15 minutes or so. What to say? People understand practice at times in the beginning as a getting rid of these things. I'm going to make my mind clear or empty or pure, get rid of my desires, have no more anger, no more doubts. As one's practice matures and one's heart opens, one begins to discover the obvious, which is all these things are simply a part of the energy of the skandhas. And the only game really is to learn how the different ways that we have to relate to them. The Buddha never even said they were bad. He simply said that they're difficult, that we get caught in them. And when we do, then there's certain kinds of suffering that results. That's all. And so we can learn. We can use our practice in our life

[53:01]

to learn, to open our hearts, to work with these things. They become what Suzuki Roshi called mind weeds or Trungpa called manure for Bodhi, the crown of a Bodhisattva. Actually, they make the practice very vital and alive and juicy if we incorporate that which seems to be difficult as a part of our being, as a part of our practice. Now there's a story of Mulla Nasruddin again. He's traveling between the country of Turkey and Persia. He's got his donkey and he's going back and forth between the two countries. He looks sort of suspicious. He's kind of a strange looking guy. So the border guards stop him and search him. They don't see anything. He goes by, but he starts doing it regularly. Every morning he comes by with his donkey and in the afternoon he walks back and trudges home.

[54:01]

He's starting to dress better. Nice shoes, better clothes. This guy is up to something. They stop him. They search him completely. They empty the saddlebags out looking for opium or jewels or something. Oh, there's a straw for the donkey. Every day it goes on. Finally one day one of the border guards meets him in the marketplace in the tea shop. He says, Mulla, sit down. You know, I've retired. I don't work with those guys anymore. But I have to tell you this. I'm dying of curiosity. Every day you go back and forth and I really want to know you know, what were you smuggling? And he says, simple. Donkeys. This is the donkey. We keep thinking of the opium or the jewels or something like that. The donkey is the practice and it's the place where joy, where understanding, where real compassion and wisdom grow. Right in the middle of that stuff and not in some other place.

[55:03]

So, if you like, please, any kinds of questions. What do you mean by go to the bottom of it? I said there were two ways to work with it. This may help to clarify it. Again, the first is simply to pay attention to it and experience it as it is. Not try and change it into anything. There's irritation in this particular moment or anger and you just look at it and experience it without trying to change it into love or anything else. And there's a wonderful secret about that, which isn't

[56:05]

translated properly, but that is that awareness or mindfulness actually is the same as or is the source of love. Because what's love? Love is, in part anyway, that being with or experiencing or connecting with something without condemning it or trying to change it or saying I want it to be different. Is that correct? It's accepting or opening to it. So what I suggested as the first possibility is to pay attention to it. Not that it's going to turn into love or some joyful or beautiful feeling. It's just anger. And it's fine. The second suggestion, which may have been what was confusing as I spoke, is that sometimes if you're stuck in it a lot there's an antidote or a remedy that is helpful not always, but for certain people. And that is to do some reflection on compassion or loving kindness or forgiveness. And I've experienced

[57:07]

times being very angry with someone over some time and then doing a kind of, there's a traditional loving kindness meditation where you imagine the person, first you feel love for yourself and then you imagine the person as a tiny baby when they're helpless and when they can't earn love, they just get it as a being. Or as a very old person who's dying who no longer wants anything from you. And when you see that they too are involved in this cycle of being born and dying, just like us, then it becomes more possible to forgive them or open to that. I don't know if that answers your question. Is openness and acceptance sometimes just mutual? Sure, absolutely. It's simply seeing what's there. So sometimes you could be very angry and you know you're sitting, we'll take it for the moment in sitting because it's the simplest, you're sitting in Zazen and irritation

[58:07]

or anger comes. It's not to turn it into love or anything, it's just to say, hmm, anger, interesting. What's it feel like? In the body, what's it like? Is the mind big or small? Is there some space quality of it? What's the temperature? What is it like? And to look really closely. And the more closely you look, the more the basic truths start to reveal themselves. Because if you look at anything very closely, you start to see that it's changing. When you're away from it, like in a movie, you sort of get the whole solid screen, but if you look real close, you see that thoughts and feelings and sensations are all in change. So it's not permanent. And also if you look very closely, you see what it's made up of, which is particular elements of body and mind. So it's not solid, it's not I, it's not self. It's not that one need reflect on that, but through attention, those aspects of wisdom become clear. So it can, just as you say, it can be

[59:08]

neutral. And that's fine, that's lovely. And for some people who've never been angry, who are really afraid of it, it's very wonderful and helpful when it comes up and they begin to learn how to just experience it and look at it. If certain people have suppressed it a lot. It's scary and it's difficult, but it actually liberates a lot of energy. Other questions, please. Yes, you spoke of training in various different places and different monasteries, and I wonder if in your experience you should tell us about differences between practices for men and women. Differences for men and women. Well, one thing to say is that there's still a great deal of chauvinism and limitation for women's practice in most of Asia. I understand that's true to some extent in Japan and Korea in the Zen tradition, and it's also so in the

[60:09]

Theravada tradition. There are some wonderful nunneries which have just women and some women meditation masters and lineages, but in most monasteries there'll be two sections for men and women, and the men get the nicer cottages and the better food, and the women cook and clean as their meditation practice, as often as they do sitting. And so it's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. The best meditation masters will work with men and women equally, but the opportunities for practice are a lot more limited for most women in Theravada countries. And it's stupid, and it's sad actually, but it's been that way for a long time. Hopefully as Dharma becomes, I mean it's clear as it becomes more American that the consciousness that's happened between men and women here becomes naturally a part of our Dharma practice as well. Was that what you wanted to know? Yeah, I was wondering more specifically about

[61:12]

different teaching techniques that might be for men or for women. They're taught exactly the same, because greed is the same for men and women, and anger is the same, and doubt and understanding and wisdom and awareness are the same. So they're taught in the same way. I caught a glimpse of something you said, which I think I really like, but I'm not quite sure what it was. There was something about the heart in the mind, and the heart becomes softer and more free, and is able to watch the mind continue to do what it wants. Is that something like what you said? Yeah, one of the teachers that I worked with would express practice very much in this way. He said it was really much more a matter of heart, of the heart

[62:13]

opening, of not judging, of seeing clearly with the heart, and that to control the mind, I don't know if anybody's tried, that's a tough one to tell you. And it's not really the right way of practice, it's not the middle path. But it's more, and I think one can sense it as one learns to settle in one's sitting practice and in the rest of one's life. It's more of an opening of the heart, and that opening is both wisdom, which sees that things come and go, and understands their nature, and an opening of compassion. And then in that, the energy of what we call mind in English, of primarily the thought mechanism of worry and planning and remembering, it doesn't get fueled as much by the heart, one doesn't get caught up in it as much, and so it doesn't go as far away. And it settles down more easily. And that's a traditional Theravada expression of the development of practice. Please. Many of us are

[63:14]

working in working in Zen Center, and our practice in working in the building, in the kitchen, or in businesses, and so forth, seems different from just walking, simple Theravada practices of walking in the forest, and so on. And recently we've been in the community, there's been we're thinking we should let's get into this mindfulness practice, you know. So I'm wondering if you can give some suggestions about how to practice mindfulness in a situation which is more physically complex. Sure. Sure. A couple of things to say. My teacher Ajahn Chah who was really a rascal, he'd find out immediately what you like and what you didn't, and make you do what you didn't

[64:15]

like. So if you wanted solitude he'd send you to a monastery in Bangkok on a noisy street. And if you liked people and so forth, he'd send you to some cave somewhere. And so the spirit of his practice was to find the things that one was attached to and not necessarily just to stay quiet in the forest. If you liked being alone, he'd make you teach. You know, if you liked showing off and teaching, then he'd send you to somewhere where there were a lot of other teachers. And he got your number real quick. It didn't take long at all. It was interesting. He could see people very well. So that one part says that in a way what practice is, he talked about it this way. He said that the way I teach is that there's a road that I know pretty well or very well and maybe it's foggy or it's dark and I see someone going down and they're about to fall off in a ditch on the right hand

[65:17]

side. So I yell, hey, go to the left. A little while later I look down and that same person is about to fall in a ditch on the left hand side. And so I yell, hey, go to the right. He said that's all I do in my teaching is see where people get attached and remind them that they need them. So the practice of mindfulness in complex situations. One is to look for signals. The signal is if you're suffering that's a signal. It says, alright, be mindful of what you're attached to that's creating that suffering. It's not to say you should get rid of it. Nobody even says you shouldn't be attached. It's simply to learn about it. So if you discover that you're irritated or hurt or angry or whatever, use that as a signal to be aware of what you're attached to. Mindfulness of the body. We did some very complicated activities, not just sitting or walking in silence, but greeting guests

[66:17]

or cleaning or building buildings and he would come out, our teacher would come out and he would work along with us and he would work and he'd come up to somebody and say, can you do that? Someone was laying bricks, can you learn to lay bricks more consciously? He'd talk to them about it. Can you be there? Or he'd go up to someone and say, where are you? And they'd say, well gee, I was actually off in Bangkok imagining something else because our minds go off so much. And he'd say, can you learn how to come back? So part of the practice of mindfulness is what's called collecting the mind or gathering the mind. And it doesn't mean to be just with one thing at a time because when you drive there's seeing and hearing and so forth. But it's to be with your body when you walk or when you sit or drive or speak and experience what's in that present moment rather than being lost a lot in planning or remembering. A couple of things that are helpful. One is that you can make a note of planning when you notice you're planning.

[67:17]

Oh, planning. And you've been away. And then you take the needle off the record really it just goes around and you come back again. And then it comes again. You're there and all of a sudden you realize you're planning not only the party but now you're cleaning up the party. So again you take the needle off the record and you come back. So one is collecting the mind. The second is looking for signals, particularly where you feel pain or suffering and you get caught. A third is staying focused in your body. A fourth one, and this is a very interesting reflection, is why don't we want to pay attention? There are a lot of times when we don't like to pay attention. Have you noticed that? Even in people who really want to do mindfulness practice, I'm really going to be aware. They get sick of it. I just don't want to be aware anymore. If you discover that you don't want to be mindful, which is fine, that you're spacing out a lot

[68:19]

or away and not present, then a very useful thing to do is take a peek just for a second and see what it is that you don't want to be aware of just for a moment. There will be some part of your experience or your being that you don't want to feel. So you go off and you space out into thought or planning or remembering and it will usually be something unpleasant in the body or it will be some emotion that you don't like or more fundamentally it will be some aspect of the three characteristics. It will be something changing that you don't want to change. It's insecure or fearful or it will be some aspect of dukkha or pain or it will be some aspect of emptiness where you feel lonely or bored or meaninglessness or something like that. If you notice that you're not present instead of trying to yank your mind back and say, I should be aware see if you can just

[69:19]

notice what it is that it's hard for you to be with and that becomes actually very interesting then instead of it being a struggle against something, it brings the quality of investigation. I guess the last thing to say is that it's real hard to do in complicated situations. I went to interview Mother Teresa last year for National Public Radio on Spirituality and Social Responsibility with a number of gurus and saints and all these people in India. There was someone who interviewed her before me. She's such a wonderful teacher and inspiration. He was saying after she put out all serving and loving and all her thing, he said, it's all right for you Mother. You live simply, you're a nun, you're a renunciate, you have just two saris and you get up and whatever but he said for us, us householders, it's more complicated. Work and jobs and family, you know, marriage and children and she said, oh no

[70:20]

she said, I'm married too and she held up the ring which is the symbolic wedding of the nuns of her order to Christ. She said, I'm married too and he can be very difficult sometimes. And if it's hard for her, one of the great things that I've learned as my own practice has gone on is that I don't hassle myself so much anymore. So I don't have a real fixed idea of mindfulness but it's more like a cover of awareness and then when I feel myself getting caught or I notice that I'm spacing out, I'll take a look and see what's going on there and that's more the spirit of it than it being real aware all the time. I don't know if that's helpful but I hope so. Please. Could you explain further about the meditation and

[71:22]

viewing the sconces as being empty? The meditation is viewing the sconces as being empty. People know what the five sconces are? Most people anyway. The physical element, the element of feelings, the element of perception or recognition, the element of volition and all the other mental qualities of reaction that come in the mind and consciousness. It's not particularly a question of reflection but as one pays attention in one's experience to physical and mental events, if you look at them and you feel them and you experience them, what do you see? What's the first very obvious characteristic that they have? Excuse me? An idea about them. Suppose you look at thought for a moment where you feel a feeling or a sensation and you really look at it

[72:24]

for a while, what happens to it? It changes. That's one of the very first things you see. That process of change is kind of the entree, the entry into what I meant by the emptiness of the sconces as well. If you look at it closely you'll see there it was for a moment of thought and then it's gone. Where did it go? It came out of the void, my Ajax commercial and then it disappeared. It can't be I or me or mine. If that's me, I'm dead. It's gone. It's noticing without reflection but with a clear observation the characteristics of your experience. Not just the content, not just the story you know, Romeo and Juliet and what's going on and getting into the drama but really looking at the process of its arising and passing away. That's the start of it anyway. Last question, please.

[73:31]

I have a question about concentration and antidepressants. In a way, I'm surprised that you can... I guess that's why I left it about optimum concentration or optimum concentration. An obstacle to concentration, right. And probably last year when I concentrated on this I was looking at a grant and I was starting to do something that I think is worth and viable Right, like a mystery novel or... But in a way I understand it and in terms of it, that's what I want to do but I have an opportunity to do it. Can you? Yes, I can. I want to tell another very brief story. Again, Nasruddin figures in this. He was out in his garden one day sprinkling breadcrumbs all around it and a neighbor came to him and they said, Mullah, what are you

[74:33]

doing? Why are you sprinkling these breadcrumbs all around? And he said, to keep the tigers away. And his neighbor said, but there are no tigers within thousands of miles of here. And he replied, effective, isn't it? Well, I have to figure out how they could come together, didn't you? My intention in this story is that with the teachings that you hear, including the ones that I present tonight, some things will be helpful, some won't make sense, and some will be wrong for you. For some people who are sitting and they feel restless, to count their breath or do something very rote like that helps them. For other people, it's the wrong thing and they need to get up and walk or move their body some, or they need to lie down and relax. That story, the crumb story is a really essential one for the heart of everyone's

[75:35]

practice, because nobody can tell you how to do it. And even in the sutras, there's a beautiful sutra I was teaching to a group of people recently, on the purification of gold, where the Buddha says, at certain times the goldsmith will blow on the fire to make it hotter, and at certain times he'll sprinkle water on, and at certain times he will just watch it, and gradually the gold gets purified, if he knows how to do it. Similarly, in purifying the mind, at certain times the person will apply concentrated effort, and a great deal of energetic effort. At certain times they will apply the quality of a soft or open awareness, and sometimes they'll just observe without doing anything to the mind. So he was saying, you can experiment or learn in your own experience what it takes to be more present. And when we teach our walking meditation, which is different than in that people do it

[76:37]

in their own individual space, rather than as a group. People will do it for half an hour or 45 minutes. The instruction is to walk at that speed which most helps you to be present. For some people it will be quite slow, and for those same people or others at another time, it will be more rapid. So the spirit and the heart of the practice is to discover in yourself what it is that allows you to see clearly. What it is that works for your own opening, for your own understanding. And that makes it much more adventurous, much more interesting, much more exciting than any kind of imitation, even imitation of the most gorgeous and glorious form or tradition. So I close by reading from Zen Master Rinzai, just a paragraph or so. Followers of the way, he said, this one right here before your eyes, himself, I guess,

[77:38]

listening to Dharma with you, is one who enters fire without being burnt, goes into water without being drowned, and plays about in the three deepest hells as if in a fairground. He enters the world of ghosts and dumb animals without being molested by them. Why is this so? Because there is nothing he dislikes. If you love the sacred and dislike the worldly, you will go on floating and sinking in the ocean of birth and death. The passions arise depending on the heart. If the heart is still, why then need you fear the passions? Do not tire yourselves by making up discriminations, but concentrate on what you do just here and now, and quite naturally, of itself, you will find the way. May your intention

[78:38]

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