I vow to take the truth of Thabitabba's words. Good morning. I'd also like to wish you Happy Boys' Day, which if we were in Japan, we would be celebrating. What is it? Girls' Day? I thought girls were in May. Boys' Day. Boys are in May. It's Happy Girls' Day. Even better. It's also Happy New Year if you were on the Tibetan calendar.

[01:01]

And the moles and gophers have arrived in the lawn, and elsewhere, I'm sure. And the golden-crowned and white-crowned swallows in the canyons are getting ready to leave. And some swallows have been sighted. And so, spring is arriving. What I'd like to talk about this morning is something that Mel mentioned in his talk on the first day of Sashin, when he said something about our doing our best. And I have found myself coming back to what does that mean? And what constitutes doing our best? And the troublesome aspect of saying something like that to ourselves, if it in any way feeds our judging voice,

[02:04]

as my husband calls it, Joe Judge, Cathy Comment, that little voice that keeps niggling at us about, are we doing it as well as we're supposed to, or the person next to us, or according to some standard that's out there in our mind somewhere. So that comes up for me in thinking about what does it mean if I say to myself, I want to do my best. Am I setting myself up for that kind of judgment and comparison and critical mind which keeps me preoccupied with the kind of worrying which seems to be such an obstacle to being present and awake. I also find myself wondering if in some sense we have any choice,

[03:10]

actually, but to do our best. If we can have some generosity of mind, we may be able to understand how in each moment we do as fully what we are able to, given what we understand and the causes and conditions of our lives and our circumstances. And how if we can have that attitude, we can continually find new ways of being open and alert and awake and have the insights that we can have as we sit here together day after day, moment after moment. For those of you who've been here for the last couple of months, you're going to get tired of me referencing this letter

[04:14]

from the precious lessons from the Zen Forest, but it's clearly working in me in a way that I keep coming back to. So, for those of you who've heard this quote before, please bear with me. There is in the lesson on page 110 in the translation that we have in the library here a letter from Yuan Wu to Wen Wen Wu, in which he says, Who has no faults? To err and yet be able to correct it is best of all. So how does that stack up against doing my best? And if I'm also trying to appreciate what happens when I make a mistake and can then, with the help of my friends

[05:17]

and some cultivation of alertness, correct whatever those mistakes may be and work with the faults that I can see. Yuan Wu goes on to say, Since time immemorial, all have lauded the ability to correct faults as being wise, rather than considering having no faults to be beautiful. I don't know about you, but I grew up thinking that to be beautiful meant not having any faults at all. So I was sort of relieved when I read that line. Thus, human actions have many faults and errors. This is something that neither the wise nor the foolish can avoid. Yet it is only the wise who can correct their faults and change to good, whereas the foolish mostly conceal their faults and cover up their wrongs.

[06:22]

In the midst of all of this that I've been studying and thinking about, what keeps coming up is how much of the language that we use is in fact comparative, and how much the particular language that we have to use, that is the English language, emphasizes differences and dualism, and that we hopefully can stay alert to that and find some understanding that isn't just stuck in a kind of dualistic way of thinking. So maybe this business of doing our best has something to do with a willingness to understand that we have faults, that we make mistakes, and to be open-hearted and delighted when we can see those things

[07:27]

and begin to turn them, to correct them or adjust them in whatever way we can. It begins to feel for me like a kind of a continual refining process where whatever I'm working with in myself and in my activity each moment, each day, is some moving from big gross stuff that I'm working with to more and more refined territory, and it seems vast and endless. Heaven forbid that we might run out of something to do. Another way that I think about this business of doing our best is that it seems to have something to do with not forgetting

[08:30]

or with being in touch with my deepest intentions, how it is I wish to be in this world. And the more I can do that helps me be more awake and less stuck in that kind of sleepy, habitual, preoccupied, or gone somewhere else way of being, the more this leads to insight and some developing capacity for seeing things as they are. When Mel was talking yesterday about the seven faculties, what came up for me last night just as I was going to sleep was having a kind of xylophone. If you had a xylophone when you were a kid,

[09:30]

there are these small ones that sound tinny, but in fact I think what we need is a really beautiful sounding xylophone. And each of the metal bars on the xylophone can remind me about mindfulness, investigating dharmas, energy, joy, concentration, calmness, equanimity. And because Mel has been talking about being in time and harmonizing with each other, with ourselves, harmonizing these actors, these elements, these faculties, I think of having this kind of instrument alongside me which I can keep playing.

[10:32]

And hopefully not just keep banging on one of the bars and forget that there are six others. Something else that I've noticed in the last few days as we've been sitting together is how much my experience that I would say is doing my best seems to be those moments when I can forget about myself in terms of a kind of worrying. When we do the meal chant, there is that line that says may all be free from self-clinging. And in those moments when we can let go of that clinging to self-habit, worrying, being the center of the universe,

[11:35]

when we can do a practice like the one some of us do or some of us have been considering from the Shantideva text about exchanging self for other, that there is a kind of capacity then to find energy that I sometimes didn't realize I had or compassion or patience or insight that I might not have imagined possible if I thought about it from the standpoint of worrying about myself or being preoccupied with my own suffering and small-minded experience. We study ourselves, but we also want to forget ourselves in some sense. There's another verse in the Shantideva text which I keep coming back to.

[12:48]

Why be unhappy about that which can be remedied? Maybe doing our best is doing whatever we can to remedy that which can be remedied. But there's a second section of the same verse, which is in the chapter on patience, which is, what's the use in being unhappy about something which cannot be remedied? And of course, the trick is knowing the difference. Sometimes we bang around trying to fix something that doesn't want to be fixed. It seems to me that from some point of view, what we're doing here together this week is pretty radical, pretty far-out thing to be doing,

[13:52]

sitting here, mostly sitting here, for seven days. And how much we think we can't possibly do it when we think about it in terms of seven days, or as some of us might be thinking today, what day is it? We got through the third day, that's supposed to be the tough one. But we've still got nearly four more days to go. Pure, unmitigated suffering arises. And doing our best goes out the door, or locates itself in the knees and takes some different formation. But if we can remember that we're sitting here just right now

[14:54]

during this time that's called lecture, or during a period of zazen, and not think about the next period of yin-yang, or zazen, or service, or lunch, or heaven forbid, the break, the oasis of the break, that the way we can sit together is one breath, wholeheartedly one breath right now. There are certain kinds of things we never have time for, we don't get around to doing, like this settling that we're doing this week. And so we rope ourselves into this room together, making some agreement that we'll stay here until we all get up and leave. And we actually do it. And it strikes me as rather far out and quite marvelous.

[16:00]

Peter has been reading Heraclitus. One of the old Buddhist ancients, who said, and I'm now quoting third hand, that we never stand on the same piece of earth. We never take the same breath twice. I really appreciate enormously the kind of emphasis that we're having this week on being beginners, and exploring for the first time our posture, and our breath, and chanting together. Each syllable, with the card in front of me, each syllable I never saw before.

[17:05]

Finding out how to bow, each time the bell rings, and we all bow together. So by roping ourselves into this wonderful big room, this valley for a week, we meet something which is inconceivable, and which cannot be located. And I find myself bumping into my mind, trying to locate, and trying to conceive, how much I try to name or describe whatever arises. And in sitting in the way that we are,

[18:10]

I begin to see how often in my life that which is inconceivable, or that which I can't imagine doing, that I push away... I push away by trying to control it, or name it, or identify it somehow, describe to myself. So... We chant in the morning this line about when the stone woman begins to dance. What a lovely way to talk about that which we cannot describe, the inconceivable mystery. One of the things that I know has been coming up for some of us

[19:22]

as we've been sitting has to do with some deep, intense feeling or thoughts, particularly grief or fear. And I realize that part of what seems to happen with grief that arises, for example, is something like a chain that's made up of many links. So I have, in a moment, grief arising, and then it's connected to another grief that happened sometime recently, and then there's another link to some experience before that. And so there's this link, a chain link, that stretches back sometimes to our childhood,

[20:26]

so that what arises in this moment reverberates a whole series of arisings throughout our lives, and sometimes we feel rather overwhelmed by the experience. But it isn't just what's arising in this moment. It's all those arisings which are attached to each other, and which sometimes we sort of hold on to, we cling to. And so we certainly allow these things to arise, but can we also allow them to slip away, the way the breath does after it arises, and there's also the exhalation. So that after a while, when grief or fear arise,

[21:30]

it is only that which is arising in this moment, and we aren't still experiencing the sticky stuff from all those moments in times past. And then there's a kind of radical hanging out with whatever comes up and subsides. Sometimes painful, but not so overwhelming if we are with ourselves right now, and don't include a lot of baggage about the past,

[22:32]

and a lot of worry about the future. And it seems to me that when that happens, there is this wonderful co-mingling with the arising of some sadness, also some joy. And we're always so surprised. When we sit together like this and our legs hurt, and we have some intense discomfort, which we can't even imagine sitting with, and we also have a kind of joy or happiness arise. Hard to explain it. But it does seem to be our experience over and over again. I'd also like to tell you a little story.

[23:42]

Somewhat risky, because... Anyway, you'll understand. Anyway, a few years ago, when Bill and I drove to Santa Fe to take Hillary to school, we took our time getting there, and one of the places we stopped was Canyon du Chez, which, for any of you who have ever been there, is a remarkable place, and is a place that has been considered a sacred or holy place by the Southwest Indians for centuries. And this particular day, we were down in the canyon, in one of the particular canyons known as White House Ruin. And in the floor of the canyon, there is a meandering river with cottonwoods. And in the late summer in August,

[24:48]

which is when we were there, there is a trickle left, but mostly there's just this broad riverbed which the Hopi Indians farm in the summertime. So we had gone to the ruins, and then had gone into a grove of cottonwoods to take a rest and have some lunch. And way off in the distance, I heard this strange sound, which for a long time I couldn't imagine what it was. But after about an hour, I suddenly realized that it was a herd of animals coming up through the canyon in our direction. And in fact, after a while, there appeared in through the grove of cottonwoods mostly a herd of sheep with a few goats, a few sheepdogs, and a completely mad shepherd.

[25:50]

He laughed. He just laughed all the time. He thought we were the funniest things he'd seen. And clearly, the dogs and the goats were in charge. The sheep were not in charge. The sheep were just everywhere. And the goats kept everybody together, and the goats figured out where to go next. And the shepherd was along for laughs. So after a while, because we knew that there was a storm gathering and we thought it was not such a good idea to stay too long down in the floor of the canyon, we went back up onto the edge of the canyon. And I lay on my belly with my chin hanging over the edge looking down into the canyon for a long time until it was almost dark, watching the shepherd and the sheep and the goats and the dogs.

[26:57]

It was amazing. There was, because of course where I was, I could see down into the valley, and I could see everything that was happening, all of the elements of this particular configuration. And as they moved along through the canyon floor, some of the goats and a large quantity of the sheep took a sharp left turn into the garden of the Hopi family that were, the Navajo family, that were spending the summer farming in that particular area. So suddenly there was the woman and some number of children all running around, waving pieces of cloth, blankets, yelling and screaming, clapping their arms trying to get the sheep and occasional goats out of the crops. The shepherd was in some entirely different part of the canyon

[28:03]

with no idea where his herd was. And the dogs were busy rounding everything up. So yesterday afternoon, yesterday morning, when Mel was lecturing, I don't remember exactly what he said, but some reference to our minds. And I realized that my mind is that of a flock of sheep and a few goats and a couple of dogs and the shepherd. And it's funny, but it's also true. And I realized that doing my best has to include accepting all of them

[29:06]

in some friendly way and doing what I can to keep the flock together, cultivating concentration and compassion, and playing the xylophone. It's a very odd combination of images, but for me it works as a way of checking in to the present moment and seeing with some kindness something about the nature of mind, especially after a few days of sitting quietly as much as possible with the back straight, staying with my breath at least some of the time.

[30:12]

I think that's enough of what I wanted to say. I wonder if any of you have something you want to bring up or talk about for a few minutes. Yes? Is there a difference between calmness and equanimity? Well, I think there is. For me, my understanding of equanimity is more what arises when I can remember what that verse from Shantideva is about, understanding that that which can be remedied, I can work to remedy, and that which cannot be remedied, I shouldn't be unhappy about. A kind of willingness to let things be as they are,

[31:27]

so that my state of mind is not going to be disturbed when things don't turn out the way I want them to be. And I think that the more we cultivate some awareness of all the suffering that arises when we move between aversion and desire, what arises then is some possibility for equanimity, a kind of deep capacity not to be disturbed by things, because it's in the nature of the way things are. Calmness. Talk about calmness. I have to think about it.

[33:01]

I've actually been thinking about it since Mel's lecture yesterday, but I feel a difference between the two and I'm not quite sure how to talk about calmness. Martha? I was hoping that you would have a question about calmness. The calmness seems to be in the inner state. It's very powerful. It's something that is tied up with the relationship with the mind. Equanimity is a relationship that happens in the mind. The senses are very much the same. I'm not sure if you can hear me now. It's a program. My sense is that my capacity to cultivate calmness

[34:10]

has to come first, and that real equanimity is in some later stage. And I think, of course, the difficulty with emphasizing calmness is we can have some tendency to try to do it as if... I'm going to walk around here and look as if I'm calm, and then I end up doing a kind of lid on whatever is rumbling there inside, which isn't so calm. I also think that calmness comes... One thing that I feel pretty clearly about is that if I feel conflicted, if my actions are not aligned with my intention, it's very, very difficult for me to be calm.

[35:13]

That's where I think the precepts can be extremely helpful. That if there isn't some alignment there, it's pretty hard to be calm. Carrie? How does sense of alignment come up? Whatever comes up in my mind, in my life, is not immediately getting brought alongside of another by whatever it is. And equanimity, I think, is more of what... not creating your idea of what is really bad for you. This is a... depending on what you're saying, there's a wonderful story that someone once told me about equanimity. I can't really remember what it started with, but a young man, he sent off to war,

[36:21]

and he spotted him in a horse, and the neighbors talked about how lucky he was, and he had a horse, and he gave it to his son, and he sucked it into the grain, and he swung off to Europe, and the horse ran off, and the horse that was left ran off, and the neighbors said, how unlucky you are, and then his son comes back, and he doesn't have any arms, or something like that, and how unlucky you are. In one sense, he was, oh, you're so lucky, and he just comes around, and you're so unlucky, and you need to somehow set yourself out of that. Well, so much of it seems to come back to the kind of ground of the Buddha's teaching about the nature of things, is that they are impotent. And if we really understand that, we don't get upset and excited.

[37:27]

When things change, it's much easier said than done. That's part of what I mean when I say I think what we're doing together is pretty radical. I think that the whole teaching that comes from the Buddha's teaching is based on this observation about the nature of things, and a kind of insight about what happens if we live our lives non-possessively and non-violently. That's very penetrating. Not what the world we live in, in ordinary terms, suggests at all. You said your story about the shepherd was risky.

[38:42]

I didn't get what you mean. Oh, just owning out loud such a strange description of my mind. I'm probably the only person who feels that way. Is that the hobby part of your mind? I think so. Get your sheep out of my garden. That's mine for my dinner. And of course, as the woman and her children were taking blankets off of the clotheslines and lapping them up and down, what they didn't realize, they were on a kind of rise, and some of the goats had gone around

[39:43]

and were coming in the back way, while they were over here doing battle. Totally, complete chaos. The goats had it very well figured out. And the entire scene was so exquisitely beautiful. There I was, you know, some several hundred feet up off the floor of the valley in a perspective that is usually reserved for the birds. I thought, well, that's a pretty nice way to think about the mind, you know, in terms of being friendly and not too critical or judging. May our intention

[41:08]

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