We're in the middle of a, or maybe not the middle, but one-third or so, one-quarter through a special period of practice here at Green Belch, a month-long sasheen. It's called a special sasheen. And it's special because it's a sasheen for Zen teachers, and there are Zen teachers here from all over the world, literally all over the United States and Europe and Japan. Maizumi Roshi from Zen Center of Los Angeles is here, and Tetsugen Sensei, who is the head of the Zen community in New York, and an old teacher of mine. It's delightful to see him here. And Genpo Murase, who teaches in Salt Lake City, and Chozen Bez, who teaches in Portland, Oregon, and Daido Rui, who teaches at Mount Tremper.

[01:12]

And there's a monk named Tenryu who leads the German Zen Society. And a monk named Fukuzan who teaches in Paris. And we have Yoshinomi-san, who's the head of the International Division of the Soto Shu Headquarters, and many other supporting Zen people. So it's a great deal of fun, it's very inspiring to see them all. You know, when you so-called complete your training in Zen, which is rather humorous, but... Then you're given a new ordination and you get a brown robe.

[02:19]

The outer robe is brown, and before that the outer robe was black. And there's a little bit more freedom of expression, you know, with the brown robes. There's various colors based on, you know, taste. So, usually in the Zen dojo there's one or two people who put on brown robes, and our brown robes are rather austere. Like this one, you can hardly tell it's brown. But now, in the morning, in the Zen dojo, there's all this incredible flash of yellow, light brown, and this color brown. It's very beautiful, actually. It's like a sky, like a sunset, you know, lots of different colored clouds. And all the different Zen teachers put on their colorful robes in the morning. And then we're going under the direction of the Soto Shu priests. I want to say the world's most elaborate, but it's probably not the world's most elaborate, but...

[03:27]

certainly the most elaborate ceremony and ritual that we've seen around here. A lot of people think that our everyday ceremony and ritual is pretty elaborate, but it's nothing compared to the ceremony and ritual we've been practicing this month. It's very impressive. In the morning, when the officiating priest comes in for the morning service, there's a whole procession that comes in. One person carrying the incense, another person carrying the box for the powdered incense, another person ringing the bell. It's like a whole color-blind army, you know, marching in. It's kind of neat. The purpose, this session is being sponsored by and given to us by the headquarters of Soto Zen in Japan.

[04:29]

And they've been sponsoring these kind of meetings for Western and Japanese Zen teachers for some time. And the fundamental purpose of these meetings is to see what it's like to practice together the same practice across a wide divide that separates East and West. It's very odd, in a way, because all of us, whether we're from France or Japan or America, share a deep feeling for and understanding of the beauty of Soto Zen, including the forms and the rituals. Yet there really is a different feeling, a different approach,

[05:35]

between the official Soto Shu headquarters and our Western Zen. It's odd because, as I say, in many ways the practice is identical, and in many ways the fundamental feeling of it is different. In Japan, Soto Shu, Shu means school, Soto school is the established institution. It has a constitution and a set of doctrines and beliefs. There are over 15,000 dues-paying Soto school temples in Japan, and priests to go with them. And this has been, you know, this is many hundreds and hundreds of years, and so these doctrines and beliefs are really in many ways embedded in the culture in Japan.

[06:42]

In many ways, to be Japanese is to be Zen Buddhist from your very bones. And maybe Japan is Westernizing, and this is less the case today than it was 100 or 200 years ago, but still, as of now, the deep structures of Japanese culture are very much Buddhist, Zen Buddhist. Which is to say, very refined, very worked out. Now, here in the West, we have a culture that has not yet been tamed, I think. It's a little out of control, and in many ways naive.

[07:44]

I often think that all over the world, people look at America and they think, how wonderful, how naive. Even in a little village in Mexico, they shake their head and say, how wonderful, how naive. But with that naivety comes a kind of energy, of course, and a kind of rawness, and a kind of reckless idea that you could do anything, or you could try anyway. So our Zen practice here in the West is like that. Untamed and naive and full of energy. Always ready to change something. Flowing from the energy of the people who come to practice, and their needs, and their very real spiritual quests. Here, the vast majority of people practicing Buddhism

[08:57]

are lay people, who may not even feel that they're a Buddhist. And if they do feel they're a Buddhist, they probably also are many other things, and they work in the world and do things. In Japan, as I said, there's a vast establishment, there's a whole priestly class, which we don't really have here, we have a few ragtag priests, maybe one or two. And the rest of us are trying to do many things to keep life together, body and soul together. This is changing a little bit now, but in Japan, most lay people wouldn't dream of doing Zen practice. They would think to support Zen and have Zen rituals. But to actually do the practice, they would think much too difficult for an ordinary person.

[10:00]

Much too difficult. I remember when I visited Japan and went to Eheji Monastery, they had a big gathering where a priest was showing the lay people how to sit Zazen, and they were all going, Oh, this is so hard, and how could they do this? These wonderful monks, they can do this, it's so fantastic. Here in the West, we take it for granted that we can all do it. And we do do it. As I say, actually, to some extent under the influence of Western Zen, this is changing in Japan. There are now in Japan groups of lay people doing Zazen, but I think this is a sort of a latter-day development. And many traditional Japanese still feel that the practice is for the priestly class. So there are lots of big differences. And in many ways, I think the Japanese can't understand what we're doing. And I'm sure in many ways it's the other way too. We don't really understand and appreciate what they're doing.

[11:03]

And yet, there's this wonderful sense that we're doing the same thing. Below the level of what we can explain and understand culturally, there's a wonderful feeling of sharing the same practice. And again, I remember when I visited Japan, I wanted to go to Japan and offer a stick of incense and bow at Suzuki Roshi's temple. That's what I really wanted to do. And so I did. And we stayed for a number of weeks at his temple. And while we were there, it so happened it was the annual founder's ceremony. And so once again, Suzuki Roshi's temple is a relatively large temple and has a lot of sub-temples under it. So when the founder's day comes, all the abbots of all the sub-temples show up to the big temple for the founder's day ceremony. So all these abbots showed up and they were all very elderly guys,

[12:12]

very traditional elderly guys. And they are guys, they're always guys, of course. And it was really, you know, the earlier generation Japanese people are smaller. They're bigger, they're growing bigger now. So they're really small. And they really looked like they were from another era. And the ceremony of, the founder's ceremony was relatively complicated. But we Western priests knew how to do it. Because we do similar things here. So it was an amazing experience, you know, to be circumambulating the Buddha hall at Rinzhoen, chanting in Japanese, which we know by heart. You know, Japanese chants, some of the Japanese chants we know by heart. So we could all be chanting in the same language, something that we knew very well, marching around honoring the founder. And that was a very special feeling, even though when the ceremony was over

[13:15]

we couldn't say anything to each other. And I have no idea what our lives were. I'm sure I have no more idea of what goes on in one of these abbot's sub-temples than he has of what goes on in my life. And yet, the feeling of real intimacy in that ceremony was quite real and very moving. I don't think I'll ever forget it, as long as I live. So anyway, I had a talk the other day. Maezumi Roshi was, believe it or not, reading to us from the Soto Shu Constitution. They have a constitution with bylaws and sort of principles of purpose and so on. And one of the things that he read was that in Soto Shu one of the key principles or purposes is the practice of shikantaza, or just sitting.

[14:17]

That to promote the practice of shikantaza is one of the key purposes of Soto Zen. Shikantaza means sitting zen. So shikantaza means mere or simply or just. So shikantaza means just sitting without anything else added to it. Just sitting. And this just sitting that I feel is the simplest and most basic of all spiritual practices. It means sitting without any special object of belief or faith or technique. Just sitting. So when we give instruction in zazen or shikantaza,

[15:23]

maybe some of you sitting here were at the instruction this morning, we do teach many details of posture and we teach a way of breathing, breathing practice. So there is technique in a way, but we're very conscious that this technique is provisional technique. It's not the technique that makes the shikantaza. This technique is just to sort of untangle the natural technique that's buzzing around in our brains called confusion or delusion. But it's just provisional. What we're really trying to do in practicing shikantaza is just to let go of everything and simply sit without worrying about our body, without worrying about our mind, without worrying about our problems or our non-problems.

[16:25]

Just to be there, sitting, simply and basically in this present moment of our life. Surrounded as we are by a vast universe in which we are at every moment implicated, in which we at every moment effect. To just be there and do that without anything extra is our practice. So fundamentally this practice of just sitting, as Doug and Zenji, the founder of the Soto School has said, has nothing to do with the sitting posture. If you actually fully enter into this practice of just sitting, then it really doesn't have anything to do with a particular posture or a particular way of breathing. It's something that exists in all postures and in all states of mind.

[17:27]

So on the one hand, yes, we sit a certain way, of a certain kind of technique, but really it's not a technique and it's not a sitting practice. It's a very deep and basic transformative orientation or attitude in our living. That's what Shikantaza really is. So no matter whether we're sitting or standing or lying down, feeling good or feeling bad, feeling peaceful or not feeling peaceful, we can be practicing Shikantaza if we have entered into Shikantaza and make that our orientation in our living. I have been doing this practice for a long time, I think, and lately I've been impressed with

[18:41]

how healing the practice of Shikantaza actually is. And I really feel from my own experience, but more than that, through the experience I have with other people in their practice of Shikantaza, that really there's hardly anything that I can imagine that we can do that's more fundamentally and more deeply healing for our lives than to just sit. So right now, this is what interests me in my practice, and it's odd that while I am concerned right now with the simplicity of Shikantaza and very little concern with its elaborations in terms of teaching and doctrine and monastic forms in much international brigade,

[19:44]

with bells and gongs and incense and robes and elaborate doctrines and so on, still, I think that this healing practice of just sitting without expectation, without desire, without hope, is something that can be a great benefit to anyone, not just to those of us who feel like we're interested in Zen Buddhism for whatever good or bad cultural reasons, but anybody. People who have other religious beliefs or no religious beliefs. So this is my big interest, is to share this wonderful treasure with everyone.

[20:51]

Nowadays, I think we all know that there are lots of different ways to work on ourselves, lots of different ways to fix ourselves. And while they're not all helpful, many of them are. There are many wonderful, effective ways to fix ourselves. But I think that if you pay attention as you fix yourself, you will find that when you fix something, and you really do fix it, right underneath there peeps up something that you didn't notice before that also needs fixing. Maybe your laughter maybe shows that you know exactly what I'm talking about. So when you fix that, and you find that at a little deeper level there was something else that you didn't notice that also needs fixing.

[22:02]

And you fix that. And there's no end to fixing, actually. And maybe we come to the most extreme level of fixation at the most basic place where you are broken. You are broken because you are a human being, and you are alive. To be a living human being is to be broken. And it can't be fixed. So the funny paradox is that when you sit down doing Shikantaza right at that place that can't be fixed without any thought of fixing anything or healing anything,

[23:05]

healing takes place. This is the funny paradox. If you try to fix or try to heal, you will be frustrated, but if you just let go and sit down, right there, healing takes place. Whether you live or die, whether you're sick or well, a real healing takes place right at that place. So I really appreciate this simple practice because of this. And whether we're Japanese or French or German or American or from the East Coast or from the West Coast, or we move quickly or we move slowly or we hit the bells this way or that way, it's all the same for all of us. There's a story I want to share with you this morning

[24:15]

which appears as case number nine in the Momonkan, the Gateless Gate collection of Zen stories. This is called Chinran's Non-Attained Buddha. This is the case. This is the story. A monk asked the priest Chinran of Sinyang, the Buddha of supremely pervading, surpassing wisdom, did zazen on the Bodhi seat for ten kalpas, but the Dharma of the Buddha did not manifest itself and he could not attain Buddhahood. Why? Chinran said, your question is exactly to the point. The monk said, but he did zazen on the Bodhi seat.

[25:17]

Why couldn't he attain Buddhahood? Chinran said, because he was an unattained Buddha. That's the story. And then Master Momon comments on this story. He says, I approve the old barbarian's realization, but I don't approve his understanding. If an ordinary person realizes he or she is thus a sage, if a sage understands he or she is thus an ordinary person, that's Master Momon's comment, which clears it up considerably, right? Then, to make it even more clear, Master Momon writes a verse that says, better than knowing the body is knowing the mind in peace. When the mind is realized, the body is no longer anxious.

[26:21]

When body and mind are fully realized, the saintly hermit declines to become a noble. So I want to comment on this story a little bit. The story was actually taken from the Lotus Sutra, Chapter 7 of the Lotus Sutra, in which there is a story like this, where there is this super-surpassing wisdom Buddha who sits for ten eons and doesn't attain Buddhahood. Of course, as usual, the story is taken out of context and the meaning is totally different in this koan than it is in the original, but that's what the Zen guys often did, decontextualized something and made it often the opposite of what might appear in the original sutra. A kapa is a really long time.

[27:24]

They say that if one of the celestial beings that live in the Buddhist heavens were to fly down with a feather every, let's say, three years or so from the heavens and brush the feather against the top of a one mile high mountain, then the amount of time it would take that celestial being to wear down the mountain with the feather every three years, coming down, brushing it, that's a kapa. So that's a very long time. So for ten kapas this Buddha sat there in meditation, but did not realize the Dharma. How come? This is like someone saying,

[28:28]

I've, you know, done fifteen one-week sessions, I've turned my life upside down to do the Zen practice, I came to Greenbelch for a practice period, I went to Tassajara, I've been traveling all over to different teachers, I lost my job, you know, my husband left me, and it hasn't done me any good. Why? So, the monk is, you know, quoting the Lotus Sutra, but I think he's also got a personal stake. In this question. It's a pretty serious question for him. And Ching Chong, you know, comes from a line of Chinese Zen that was famous for being very gentle.

[29:32]

So, somebody else might have whacked the guy, you know. And you hear about that a lot in the Zen stories, but Ching Chong came from a line that would always be very gentle and affirming. In commenting on this story, Akin Roshi quotes his teacher, who said that that's probably why the line died out. They were too nice. They didn't last very long. But maybe that's not why the line died out. Maybe they ran out of money or something. Or maybe it was just chance. Who knows? There's nothing worse than thinking that if I do this, this is going to happen 300 years from now. Who knows what's going to happen 300 years from now. Sometimes do the wrong thing and you get the right result.

[30:35]

Anyway, this is the monk's question. And Ching Chong, in a very nice way, without hitting him or anything, says very politely and gently, Oh, your question is exactly to the point. Which is probably not what the monk wanted to hear exactly. And this again is one of the secrets of our practice. In Zen practice, there aren't any answers. There's not a single answer. There's only questions. Questions. Now, when I say this, I don't really mean there aren't any answers. What I mean is the question is the answer.

[31:42]

And when I say the question is the answer, I mean when you really ask the question. With your whole heart and soul, and absolutely nothing held back from the question, then the question is the answer. When you have a question like this that really, really matters, and you don't distract yourself, but day and night, for your whole life through, if necessary, you stay with this question, you eat and sleep this question until it pervades everything that you do, then the question is the answer. When you ask the question with every breath, and you're finally willing to let go of all your speculative answers,

[32:53]

and you don't care anymore about Buddhahood or enlightenment or Zen practice or fixing anything, then the question is the answer. So this is a funny paradox again in our practice, and it is, I assure you, quite humorous. Sometimes it appears to us as frustrating, I know, or painful, but actually it's a little funny. So when Ching Chong says your question is just to the point, maybe right then or maybe two years later after working on this, the monk comes back and says, but still he doesn't realize Buddhahood, why? In other words, he's not satisfied, the monk has not satisfied himself.

[33:56]

Ching Chong has not satisfied the monk, and he again asks why. And now Ching Chong responds, he doesn't attain Buddhahood because he is a non-attained Buddha. He is a non-attained Buddha. The Buddha is already the Buddha from beginningless time. You and I already share in the nature of Buddha from beginningless time. We don't need to be fixed, we don't need to be changed. The healing of your life, of my life, is already effected. This is the process of our just sitting practice.

[35:01]

To sit without any thought or idea of anything, but just to surrender to our life in our sitting, is to come into touch with that person in us who is beyond attainment and non-attainment. Whether we're smart or dumb, or good or bad, or handsome or ugly, or worthy or unworthy, or Zen or un-Zen, it doesn't really make any difference. We just are completely what we are, and there's nothing further needed. In the ordinary world, we feel we have to justify our life.

[36:04]

We have to have something to show for it. In the world of the non-attained Buddha, our life, just our life, is enough, more than enough. If we draw a line in the dirt, and we say, I must cross that line, this is my goal, maybe we will cross that line, maybe we won't cross that line, but if we do cross that line, there we will be, on the other side of that line, with some momentary purpose, momentary satisfaction, and the same problem that we had before. From this side of the line, it looks like there's a line. From the other side of the line,

[37:10]

the wind blows and there's no line anymore, only dirt. From the other side of the line, there's only dropping lines, erasing lines, letting go of attainments, and that's the attainment, see? Letting go of attainments. That's the healing, letting go of healing. Even if we die, we are healed. Now, the founder of the Soto school is Dogen Zenji, but you don't say it that way, you say, Dogen Zenji! Dogen Zenji! Dogen Zenji says one of my favorite sayings of Dogen Zenji.

[38:14]

I was talking about Dogen, and one of the people came up to me and said, Don't you say Dogen? My Zuni there, she said, We always must say Dogen Zenji. I said, Well, we don't have to. We just can say Dogen if we want. But not today. Dogen Zenji says... Ah, it's really funny, isn't it? Dogen Zenji says that... Here's one of his sayings. He says, To be deluded... Now listen carefully, this is a good one. To be deluded about enlightenment is delusion. Got that? To be deluded about enlightenment is delusion. To be deluded throughout delusion is enlightenment. It's a good saying, huh? To be deluded about enlightenment is delusion.

[39:18]

To be deluded throughout delusion, that's enlightenment. And that's what I'm talking about. Do you see what I mean? So it's very funny. It's very funny. Zen practice to me is kind of like a joke, actually. And to be alive is kind of like a joke, don't you think? It's rather silly. It's kind of like a joke because we die. See? We're born. It doesn't matter what we do or we don't do. Every story ends the same. We die. You get it? So our life is this funny thing

[40:21]

where we take seriously what is a joke and we joke about what is serious. This is our life. And I've often felt that this is the essential nature of comedy itself. Right? That's what's funny. When the pompous guy slips on a banana peel, we laugh. And when Forrest Gump gets elected president, that's funny because it's just the opposite of what we expect and think. So I think we laugh a lot in Zen practice. It's quite hilarious. When we're sitting in sashay and our legs are hurting, we really chuckle. When we're wasting our entire life, you know, trying to attain the understanding of the Buddha, which we had before we started, this is very funny. Don't you think? So it's a very odd sort of paradox.

[41:29]

It's very funny, but very funny. And very real. So that was my little comment on the story. Now I'll comment about the comment. In one's comment, I approve the old barbarian's realization, but I don't approve his understanding. If an ordinary person realizes he or she is a sage, if a sage understands he or she is an ordinary person, the old barbarian, of course, is referring to Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, who's often sort of used to equate, meaning Zen practice itself. They call him a barbarian because he wasn't Chinese. And as you all know, anyone who isn't Chinese is a barbarian. But... or Japanese. But there's some affection

[42:32]

in calling Bodhidharma a barbarian. So I approve the barbarian's realization, but I don't approve the barbarian's understanding. So in Zen practice, it's about realizing or actualizing. In other words, making the practice our life. And making our life the practice. That's why, you know, our practice here is very much a daily life practice. Eating, sleeping, bowing, chanting, working, cooking. All of that is part of the practice. And in Zen monasticism, all of it is ritualized to train to the point where really our whole life is the same as the practice.

[43:32]

And the practice is the same as our whole life. It's not like we go to the temple and practice and then we go home and then we're not practicing at home. All acts of body, speech and mind are the practice. And my old teacher, Tetsugen, who's delightful, as I said before, to have him here, he always used to say when I was studying at his shop, Zen means life. He used to translate, you know, Zen means life. So, understanding something or explaining something, this is good. It's fine. I think explanations are very good and I'm a great fan of clear explanations. I think explanations should be clear and understandable. And explanations are very useful. But this is not the same as

[44:35]

completely entering our life with our love and completely making our whole life the practice. It's not the same as being able to expound the sutras or exploring the doctrines. The sutras and the doctrines are very helpful. They're wonderful entertainment, substituting for the entertainment that will go on in our minds if we didn't study the sutras. So, it's very important and I'm a great believer in studying the sutras, but it's not a substitute for making our life the practice and the practice our life. We think of the Buddha or the Buddhas as different people. There's one, there's one, there's one. But Buddhas are not people. Buddhas are functions in the world. So now, Buddha may function

[45:38]

in the middle of this person. Buddha may function in the middle of that person or that person or that person. So, Master Mungon is saying, when an ordinary person realizes, enters fully into the practice, so that there's nothing left over, then that person is functioning as Buddha. And when a so-called Buddha understands, which is to say, is caught by his realization and objectifies it and begins to explain it and believe in the explanation, in other words, draws it as a line in the dirt that he thinks he walked across, then that Buddha has just fooled himself and is now an ordinary person in disguise as a Buddha. And this happens, too.

[46:43]

There is often the case with Zen stories and verses that there are various simultaneous and opposite understandings of the same thing. It means this and it also means that. So I think this line, to me, also has another sense, this line, if a Buddha understands he is an ordinary person, I think also means to me that if a Buddha appears in this world free of understanding and therefore fallen out from being a Buddha, our gifts hurt each other. Sometimes in the middle of a tough and frustrating situation it may be difficult to see it as a gift, but if you practice right there, Shikantaza, and practically speaking you can do it by stopping yourself as you are spinning in your frustration. I do this, you know,

[47:50]

stop myself, take a deep breath, breathe in, really aware of my breathing in, and breathe out, really aware of my breathing out, and then I just relax my shoulders because the funny thing is that when I am frustrated and I notice my shoulders are getting tense, I just relax my shoulders and remind myself that none of this matters, that my life and death is right here, the same, and what about that this situation is Buddha for me, a gift to me, that if I fix it, it's all right, if I don't fix it, it's just as all right, then

[48:53]

it changes, and I don't have to be caught anymore. Mulan's verse, So knowing the body means taking care of our ordinary life, our job, our house, our relationships, this is the stuff that we need to take care of, and this is where we fix things, and we should fix things, it's stupid not to,

[49:57]

and no matter how much we fix, when our life is still fundamentally broken, we're not at ease, we're anxious, so already fixed, it's also important to settle our heart, to settle our mind, and when we settle into our life this way, completely, by which I mean to let go of our life completely, by which I mean to see how it actually is with our life already, to see that there's nothing separate from our life, nothing different from our life, then our heart can be at rest, and what are we going to worry about? What would there be to worry about? At this time the body is no longer anxious, we can take care of the body, take care of the life

[51:02]

the best we can without having to be anxious about it, and we can live this way, as Master Mulan writes, we don't need to be a sage or an ordinary person, we can be whatever we need to be under the circumstances, if it's time to be a sage, let's be a sage, if it's time to be an ordinary person, let's be an ordinary person, this is the real freedom, this is the real ease of our life, to simply be what we need to be at that time. So you see, there's not that much to all this, you know,

[52:04]

really, Shakyamuni Buddha filled volumes, but the teaching of Buddha doesn't amount to too much, really. It's so simple, there's hardly anything to say, and yet, I read along for over an hour, and there's, you know, rooms full of sutras explaining it all. And it's so pervasive that everybody's doing it all the time anyway, and yet, we have 350 monastic rules and details. So when you see a Zen teacher in her robes walking around looking very official and important, actually, they don't have anything to do. You know, if you say, what's my job? I say, oh, I just sit around.

[53:05]

We were joking in the Wittoway lives, Tokubetsu, Specialist Ashrin, that when the Buddha said everything is changing in the Wittoway mountain was, you're always changing clothes. You put on your robes, you take off your robes, put on your real clothes, take off your real clothes, put on your formal robes, put on your informal robes, put on your kesa, take off your kesa. And this is, this is the great characteristic of monastic life, is changing clothes. So this is what we do. We sit around, we change clothes. Occasionally we get up and bow. So this is my job. I sit around, I change clothes, I bow occasionally. Which is the only thing that could explain why people could come from all over the world to do it for a month because they really don't have anything else to do. Could you get up and go somewhere far away? You know, because you're too busy. But these guys have nothing better to do than,

[54:13]

you know, fly across the ocean at ruinous expense so that they could sit around and change their clothes. So it's a great embarrassment to me that this is, that this is how it is. But it's also a great deal of fun as we're all perishing here right before our very eyes. To enjoy ourselves in the process and to go straight ahead with it and into it is a great deal of fun. To be an unattained Buddha is great fun. So, I'd say that that's about enough of that and now I should read some poems. Okay? Just a few. In the spirit of fun,

[55:16]

this is a poem I think I read in a session lately. But I, it's kind of nice so I'm going to read it again. This poem is called The Boundary of Blur. I don't think I read it in a Sunday talk so, did I? It would have been such a shame. You'll remember. The Boundary of Blur. This is the end. I am whole. I shudder to think of it. I am also, like they say, yellow and a feeling of excellence like flowers is mounting to my head. I am free in the snow but this doesn't belong in my eyesight not in the least. Advice. This is the advice part of the poem. I always feel that if you're going to read a poem you should get a real good advice with it. Why read a poem if there's not a little advice? And,

[56:18]

in postmodern poetry, you know, they hate advice so I'm criticized so I figure if I'm going to give advice I might as well label it, you know, in the poem. Okay. Advice. So this is the advice part. Advice. Be gracious in your living that all the little things that have seemed in the past to be unimportant rise to the surface like cream on milk. Lend kisses always to everything. Don't kick anyone out of bed. Be gracious also in the face of hardship. Those moments that split time out of its bland redactions and naked pearls of hearts because there is something inherently manly in sidestepping an argument in freeing oneself from the wheeze of position, contradiction, and tongue. Remember, above all, to toss what has hammered you the plates

[57:21]

of your disposition overboard as soon as possible so you can decorate your life with an abandon seldom considered but always present. This will collect you in the places where you will go in times of true trouble when everyone's standing at the limits of discourse. Say ankles but mean bread. Say spatula but mean asparagus. Say spruces but mean tractors. End of advice. Now it goes back to the poem part. Instantaneous fodder for money machines to implant freezing shadows of disorganization on everything and call it perfection. Desire as its socks roll down. Of this, if of nothing else, we can be sure. Roses and pearls pile high in our bedrooms

[58:21]

where so much is at stake. Scoop yourself up and call yourself your name. Weave off your disguise and prod yourself free of your mental constructs. Little by little, the occasion presents itself. Eyesight is no better than wind. The windows rattle against the wrists of eloquent flux. We slaver at the boundary of blur. So that's the boundary of blur. And one more little one. This is called What a Wonderful World. After that great Louis Armstrong song, you know. What a Wonderful World. This one's short. What seems separate, weighty, out there is actually already dissolved because the moving into it is a giving up of everything

[59:22]

that has already been lost anyway. So it's easy to do. Everything works together, even griefs. Nothing more clever than the mind to tangle things up in, without which we couldn't ever do or even ever appear. I'll read it once more, then I'll close. What a Wonderful World. What seems separate, weighty, out there is actually already dissolved because the moving into it is a giving up of everything that has already been lost anyway. So it's easy to do. Everything works together, even griefs. Nothing more

[60:24]

clever than the mind to tangle things up in, without which we couldn't ever do or even ever appear. So that was the Dharma talk. Now for the commercial. This short commercial on behalf of our sponsor, Shakyamuni Buddha International. And I'm advertising two products this morning. One is the Buddha's birthday celebration, which is April 9th. This year, Sunday. And we're going to have our first organizational rehearsal today at two o'clock

[61:27]

out in Milan. We're going to meet. And for those of you who aren't familiar with this, this involves, this is a great, you know, pageant with a poem that I wrote. It's the script. And there's an elephant and lions and tigers and flowers and music and masks and pantomime and so we need lots of helpers. And it's great fun. But you do have to make a commitment to come to the rehearsals. And there are, I think, three of them on these next weekends. I think one's on a Sunday and two are on a Saturday. It'll be in the afternoon from about two to five. So I'm looking for helpers. I'm the director, you see, that's why I'm so interested in this. So if you want to help, please come today at two to see what's involved. And the second product that we want to interest you in, if you are susceptible,

[62:27]

is to come and practice at Green Gulch as a resident. We have a practice period coming up on April 16th after the Buddha's birthday. And there's still some room left. In fact, there's lots of room left. That's why I'm advertising. So, I'm trying to run up some business here and see if anybody wants to come and join us for a six-week period of practice. We'll have a daily schedule that includes four periods of zazen and work periods and meals and classes and individual meetings with the teachers. And, as I have said before, I'm really trying to explain to everybody that,

[63:31]

you know, in the past, people used to think that there's a big gap between residents of Green Gulch and non-residents. That if you're not a resident of Green Gulch, if you work and have a regular job, you can't really be a resident here. But I don't think that's true. And I'm hoping that we can change that game as time goes on and that people will know that you are welcome to come and be a resident for whatever period of time works in your life. To be a guest student for one week or two weeks or one month and do the daily practice is something that we want to encourage you all to do. And the best time to do that is during practice periods when we intensify our schedule and there's more teaching and more focus on the people who are coming to practice. So this is a time to do that. And if any of you have ever had the idea that you'd like to do that, now is a good time. If I'm catching you at a bad moment

[64:32]

because you can't schedule yourself that soon, think of doing it some other time. There'll be a practice period next week in the fall, next year, I mean in the fall, this year, but later this year in the fall. And then next year in January and then later on in the year of February and March. So I would encourage any of you to come to this one in April and if you can't, to ask the office to give you an idea what the calendar is for the fall, winter, and spring practice periods coming up so that you can work it out and try to come. Like I said, a wonderful experience. Residential practice is really wonderful. It's even better when you don't do it for very long. Those of you who are residents know what I mean. But no, to do it for six weeks or seven weeks is a real joy. It's a great thing.

[65:33]

So we have a dormitory, we have poetry, we have a commercial. What else should we do? I have an idea. Why don't we chant? May our intention may our intention

[65:51]

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