I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening. So we were in the middle of Walk Like an Elephant. We were on page 30. I think I'll re-read something that I read before because I think it's important. Dogen Zenji makes this point strongly, referring to a story about the first ancestor in China, Bodhidharma, and the second ancestor, Taiso Eika.

[01:13]

Bodhidharma tells Eika, For Eika, this was a very difficult practice, as you must have experienced. But he tried very hard until he finally thought he understood what Bodhidharma meant. Then Eika told Bodhidharma that there was no break, no gap in his practice, never any cessation of practice. And Bodhidharma said, Eika says, This is not so different than the case of the sixth ancestor, I don't remember right now, is it in Nankaku Eijo, anyhow, saying,

[02:25]

Who is it that thus comes? And after eight years, he says, Oh, I understand. And so he says, Okay, who is it that thus comes? And he says, To say that it's anything would be wrong or wouldn't get it. I don't actually remember the words. And he said, Well, does that mean there's no practice and no realization? And the monk said, No, it's just that they cannot be defiled. Cut yourself off from outward objects and stop your emotional and thinking activity within.

[03:27]

You hear this kind of advice from old Buddhist teachers a lot. Sort of this cutting off, stopping desires and things like that. Whenever I hear any modern teacher comment on that, it always is like, Oh, well, what he means is, don't be attached to external objects. Let your desires arise, but then don't attach them. I'm wondering about this kind of, I'm not saying we're changing the teaching, but the relationship between our saying, Oh, just don't be attached. And they're saying something a little harsher. Yeah, well, you know, this is something that you talk about a lot, Eric. It comes up all the time. Are we tough enough these days? Are we watering down the Dharma? You practice with as much intensity as you can bring to practice. And don't worry about what teachers say.

[04:30]

The fact is that desires will arise. And we let them come and let them go. And we may get to a point when desires don't arise. I can't tell you about that because I haven't got there. Perhaps Bodhidharma and Thaiso Eka got to a point where, in fact, desires didn't arise. But I can't testify to that. But whether they arise or not, not to be caught by them is what I think was taught by Bodhidharma and by modern teachers. Don't let them drag you around. But just be still. Don't move. In the face of desires, don't move. No, I think so.

[05:44]

I can't say what Bodhidharma meant with that kind of precision. But not moving seems very much to me like cutting off. Just being able to be where you are and respond to what arises without attachment. And I don't actually see a lot of difference between cutting off and not being attached. You know, when I cut off my hair every week, I'm also not attached to it anymore, right? I don't know why. It's not attached to me, right? In Winnie the Pooh, there's a...

[06:49]

I'm sorry. It's not attachment, always. Loses his tail. At some point he says, but I was very attached to it. So I was attached to that hair and then I shave it off and that's the reminder of cutting off desires. The verse we say actually is now I'm being shaved, may I with all beings cut off selfish desires forever. But we have to do it every week. We don't manage to cut them off forever. They keep popping up and we keep cutting them off. Somebody had their hand up? I'm just wondering about the cut yourself off from outward objects as more...

[07:49]

Cut yourself off from no outward object. There's no outward or... You mean there's no inside or outside? Yeah. Well, yeah, seeing that there's no outside or inside is another way of cutting off. Yes? Yes? I think so. I think so. That's the only thing I can think of. Has anybody got any other ideas? I mean, that's what it seems like to me. Okay. What? He said, who is it that's going to scold Suzuki Roshi if he called it a trick?

[08:53]

Oh, I don't know. Someone who's... What? No, I don't... Someone who's maybe... Maybe a Rinzai teacher might scold him. I don't know. So, cut off from outward objects and stop your emotional and thinking activity within. Both. So, just be unmoving or unmoved. This is a question that's coming up in the translation of... Fukan Sasangi. The translation we had been chanting, Thomas Cleary's translation says, immobile. And we wanted to change that to what the translation conference came up with, immovable. Simply because, you know, half of the people say immobile and the other half say immobile.

[10:02]

There's no immobile in the dictionary, but it seems impossible. The people who say immobile are unmovable. So, we were going to change it to unmoving, which is in the... Has that letter been posted or do I have a copy of the letter that needs to be posted? From Linda Ruth about the liturgy. You know, this Liturgy Translation Project versions that we've been using, there was some feeling of not wanting to give up all the old chants that some of us knew by heart. So, we made some compromises. And one of the things we decided was to go back to Thomas Cleary's Fukan Sasangi, which we chanted for years. But we wanted to change that one word, immobile. And so, we were going to take immovable from the translation conference. And then I said, maybe it should be unmoving.

[11:05]

I mean, does it mean cannot be moved, which immovable means? Or does it mean not moving? I don't know. I wonder, I thought that maybe this Bodhidharma Maya is more of a description of that than a prescription for that. Maybe so. But I would shift to the next sentence. When you become like a brick or a stone wall, you will enter the way. I don't want to be like a brick or a stone wall. I don't mind being unmoving. Well, isn't a brick or a stone wall unmoving? Among other things. I don't see a brick or a stone wall as being fully human. Could you put a flower or a leaf or a tree in there as well?

[12:06]

On the brick? No, I meant substitute brick and stone wall. When you become like a flower, you enter the way? I like the way it hurts. It doesn't say that you're going to stay like a brick or a stone wall. Well, let's see what else Suzuki Roshi has to say here, because... I think what he's saying there, when you become unmoved and unmoving, but can just be still, not grasping for anything, not pushing anything away, but just be right where you are. So Suzuki Roshi says, We do not practice Zazen to attain enlightenment, but rather to express our true nature. Even your thinking is an expression of your true nature when you are practicing Zazen. Your thinking is like someone talking in the backyard or across the street.

[13:08]

You may wonder what they're talking about, but that someone is not a particular person. That someone is our true nature. The true nature within us is always talking about Buddhism. Whatever we do is an expression of Buddha nature. When Eka, the second ancestor, came to this point, he told Bodhidharma he thought he understood. A stone wall itself is Buddha nature. A brick is also Buddha nature. Everything is an expression of Buddha nature. I used to think that after attaining enlightenment, I would know who is in the backyard talking. But there's no special person hidden within who is explaining a special teaching. All the things we see, all that we hear, is an expression of Buddha nature. When we say Buddha nature, Buddha nature is everything. Buddha nature is our innate true nature, which is universal to every one of us, to all beings. In this way, we realize our true nature is constantly doing something.

[14:10]

So Eka says that there's no cessation in practice because it is Buddha's practice, which has no beginning and no end. Then who is practicing that kind of practice? Personally, he may be Eka, but his practice is constant and everlasting. It started in the beginningless past and will end in the endless future, so it is difficult to say who is practicing our way. When we practice Zazen, we are practicing with all the ancestors. You should clearly know this point. You cannot waste your time even though your Zazen is not so good. You may not even understand what it is, but someday, sometime, someone will accept your practice. So just practice without wandering, without being involved in sightseeing Zazen. Then you have a chance to join our practice. Good or bad doesn't matter. If you sit with this understanding, having conviction in your Buddha nature,

[15:15]

then sooner or later you will find yourself in the midst of great Zen masters. So the important point is to practice without any idea of a hasty gain. Without any idea of fame or profit. We do not practice Zazen for the sake of others or for the sake of ourselves. Just practice Zazen for the sake of Zazen. Just sit. So I particularly wanted to do this particular chapter just before Sesshin. Is there any more discussion on this chapter before we start another one? Any more objection to what Suzuki Roshi said? Well that actually wasn't Suzuki Roshi, that was Bodhidharma. There was you objecting to, right? I don't want to be a brick! I don't want to be a brick!

[16:24]

I'm not sure that's the same. He's saying cut yourself off from outward objects and stop your emotional and thinking activity within. There is some quote of Bodhidharma about inward no coughing and sighing. Coughing has this sense of pushing away and sighing has the sense of longing. So it feels to me, it feels like grasping and averting. It's coughing and sighing. I was thinking about Sesshin a little bit. That quote, I think it's from the first case, about hanging like a windmill in space and not caring whether the wind comes from the east or the west.

[17:28]

I think that is a poem by Rujing. It's quoted in Makahanya Haramitsu, which I happened to have just read this evening. He said, my late teacher, the eternal Buddha said. So I think it must be a poem by Rujing. But anyway, we're trying to do a sit, a vast emptiness without caring which way the wind is blowing. Yes? I've just been reading Carl Bielfeldt's thing on Dogen's Manuals of Meditation. Manuals of Meditation, yeah. So I'm still trying to understand this meaning of no objects. Because on one hand it sounds like kind of a trance state, like flatness of non-thinking,

[18:41]

rather than what we often talk about, which is objects arise because they're grasping them. The no objects is just they arise in caps, it's like clouds. It's not like a completely empty sky, it's just like... It's like people talking in the backyard, he said. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's about not being caught by them, not being attached to them, just let them come and go. One time I think Suzuki Roshi said something like, open the front door and open the back door and let them come in and let them go out. And he also said, you don't have to invite... We have the expression, you don't have to entertain every thought that arises. And Suzuki Roshi says, you don't have to invite every thought to sit down and have a cup of tea. It's very similar to our expression of not entertaining thoughts. So it's not... I mean, to stop thinking is another thinking.

[19:49]

It's another activity, it's not just sitting there. But just to let them flow by like Tassajara Creek, is, I think, what our effort is. He says, I used to think that if I could just do that, I'd find out who was in the backyard talking. It's just Buddha nature, he says. That's interesting. Everything, I mean, this is kind of interesting that he says, a stone wall itself is Buddha nature, a brick is also Buddha nature, everything is an expression of Buddha nature. All the things we see, all that we hear, is an expression of Buddha nature. When we say Buddha nature, Buddha nature is everything. Buddha nature is our innate, true nature,

[20:51]

which is universal to every one of us, to all beings. In this way, we realize our true nature is constantly doing something. So Eka says, there's no cessation in practice. So the next section, this comes from Suzuki Roshi, it's called Letters from Emptiness. And the quote for this whole section is, all descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness, yet we attach to the descriptions and think they're reality. That's a mistake. And the quote from this first talk is, although we have no actual written communications from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what's going on in that world,

[21:53]

and that is, you might say, enlightenment. When you see plum blossoms or hear the sound of a small stone hitting bamboo, that is a letter from the world of emptiness. Of course, both of those are things which have been mentioned in the literature as moments when someone woke up. Shikantaza is to practice or actualize emptiness. Although you can have a tentative understanding of it through your thinking, you should understand emptiness through your experience. You have an idea of emptiness and an idea of being, and you think that being and emptiness are opposites. But in Buddhism, both of these are ideas of being. The emptiness we mean is not like the idea you may have. You cannot reach a full understanding of emptiness with your thinking mind or with your feeling. That is why we practice Azen.

[22:54]

We have a term, shōsoku, which is about the feeling you have when you receive a letter from home. Even without an actual picture, you know something about your home, what people are doing there, which flowers are blooming. That is shōsoku. Although we have no actual written communications from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what's going on in that world. And that is, you might say, enlightenment. When you see plum blossoms or hear the sound of a small stone hitting bamboo, that is a letter from the world of emptiness. Besides the world which we can describe, there is another kind of world. All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness. Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake, because what is described is not the actual reality.

[23:57]

And when you think it is reality, your own idea is involved. That is an idea of self. Many Buddhists have made this mistake. That is why they were attached to the written scriptures or Buddha's words. They thought that his words were the most valuable thing and that the way to preserve the teaching was to remember what Buddha said. But what Buddha said was just a letter from the world of emptiness, just a suggesting or some help from him. If someone else reads it, it may not make sense. That is the nature of Buddha's words. To understand Buddha's words, we cannot rely on our usual thinking mind. If you want to read a letter from the Buddha's world, it is necessary to understand Buddha's world. To empty water from a cup does not mean to drink it up. To empty means to have direct, pure experience without relying on the form or color of being.

[25:00]

So our experience is empty of our preconceived ideas. Our idea of being, our idea of big or small, round or square. Round or square, big or small, don't belong to reality, but are simply ideas. That is to empty water. We have no idea of water, even though we see it. When we analyze our experience, we have ideas of time or space, big or small, heavy or light. A scale of some kind is necessary, and with various scales in our mind, we experience things. Still, the thing itself has no scale. That is something we add to reality. Because we always use a scale and depend on it so much, we think the scale really exists. But it doesn't exist. If it did, it would exist with things.

[26:04]

Using a scale, you can analyze one reality into entities, big and small. But as soon as we conceptualize something, it's already a dead experience. We empty ideas of big or small, good or bad, from our experience because the measurement that we use is usually based on the self. When we say good or bad, the scale is yourself. That scale is not always the same. Each person has a scale that is different. So I don't say that the scale is always wrong, but we're liable to use our selfish scale when we analyze or when we have an idea about something. That selfish part should be empty. How we empty that part is to practice Zazen and become more accustomed to accepting things as it is without any idea of big or small, good or bad. Yes? What's the difference between the plum blossoms and stone-hitting bamboo that he describes in the previous chapter's description

[27:08]

of psychological methods and the sort of negative description of what seems to be a human experience? What he's describing is what happened to the person in that story. Not... At that moment... Excuse me, I don't remember the names of the Chinese characters, but at that moment, someone had been practicing and practicing and he was raking in the garden and a stone hit the bamboo and that was a letter from emptiness. For that person. That broke through his conceptual thinking and woke him up somehow. That's not the same as studying that koan

[28:10]

until you wake up. I think what he's saying, the difference is you actually experiencing something. Maybe it's you go out and rake, just to rake. You sit Zazen and you rake and something... Just enter your activity totally, being completely present with what you're doing and a letter from emptiness may arrive for you. But it will be your letter from emptiness. It won't be one that you read about in a book or you heard about from a teacher. It will be your actual experience of dropping body and mind. It won't be your teacher hitting the person next to you with a slipper.

[29:15]

But it will be whatever it is for you. If you just sit Zazen and become unified in body and mind then there's a chance that a letter from emptiness will arrive and you can't plan it ahead of time and you can't describe, you can't... You know, it's just... You can't make realization happen but you can be ready for it to happen. It comes to you as a gift from the universe. It's not something you can... You know, what was it... Iken Roshi said something about realization is always an accident but Zazen makes you accident prone. So that what we can do is make our best effort to just cut ourselves off from outward objects

[30:19]

and not get involved in emotional and thinking activity and something may come into that space and you'll say, Oh, of course. Why he's calling it a letter from home is that those kind of experiences there is something deeply, deeply familiar at that moment. It's not... exotic or something. It's... Oh, yes. That's why he's calling it a letter from home. It's... Oh, I know that. Yes?

[31:24]

I was just struck by something. Maybe it's a letter. I was just struck that so much of our practice is amazing to focus inward, right? Shine the light inward. And yet all these ancestors seem to have become enlightened or awoke when they heard something from the outside. Often sounds, sometimes sights, yeah. So, I mean, I don't know. It's just a position that by going inward something might happen, maybe nothing at all and yet it seems like what happens comes from the outside. Well, the sound, is it inside or outside? That is the question. No. I mean, the bamboo and the stone are outside, but the sound, where is it? Or the sight of the peach blossoms, you know.

[32:31]

The peach blossoms are there, but the... The sight of the peach blossoms involves inside and outside if you want to refer to inside and outside. The seeing is as much inside as outside. Anyhow, that's my... Yeah? It seems like maybe what's being talked about is pure perception that we have no description for and when we try to label or put a name to something then we believe that label or name that brings up an image or an idea, so these moments of pure perception have no description. Right, right. At that moment you're not thinking peach blossom, at that moment it's just the experience. At that moment you're not thinking stone and bamboo, it's just the sound. No. No. Okay.

[33:36]

How we empty... How we empty that part is to practice zazen and become more accustomed to accepting things as it is with any idea of big or small, good or bad. For artists or writers to express their direct experience they may paint or write, but if their experience is very strong and pure they may give up trying to describe it. Oh my! That is all. I like making a miniature garden around my house but if I go to the stream and see the wonderful rocks and water running... These rocks and water. Right here. If I go to the stream and see the wonderful rocks and water running I give up. Oh no! I shall never try to make a rock garden. It is much better to clean up Tassajara Creek

[34:38]

picking up any paper or fallen branches. In nature itself there is beauty that is beyond beauty. When you see a part of it you may think this rock should be moved one way and that rock should be moved another way and then it will be a complete garden. Because you limit the actual reality using the scale of your small self there is either a good garden or a bad garden and you want to change some stones. But if you see the thing itself as it is with a wider mind there is no need to do anything. The thing itself is emptiness but because you add something to it you spoil the actual reality. So if we don't spoil things that is to empty things. When you sit in Shikantaza don't be disturbed by sounds. Don't operate your thinking mind. This means not to rely on any sense organ

[35:38]

or the thinking mind and just receive the letter from the world of emptiness. That is Shikantaza. To empty is not the same as to deny. Usually when we deny something we want to replace it with something else. When I deny the blue cup it means I want the white cup. When you argue and deny someone else's opinion you are forcing your own opinion on another. That is what we usually do. But our way is not like that. By emptying the added element of our self-centered ideas we purify our observation of things. When we see and accept things as they are we have no need to replace one thing with another. That is what we mean by to empty things. If we empty things letting them be as it is

[36:38]

then things will work. Originally things are related and things are one and as one being it will extend itself. To let it extend itself we empty things. When we have this kind of attitude then without any idea of religion we have religion. When this attitude is missing to our religious practice it will naturally become like opium. Someone slipped a little Marxism into his life there. To purify our experience and to observe things as it is is to understand the world of emptiness and to understand why Buddha left so many teachings. In our practice of Shikantaza we do not seek for anything because when we seek for something an idea of self is involved. Then we try to achieve something to further the idea of self.

[37:40]

That is what you are doing when you make some effort. But our effort is to get rid of self-centered activity. That is how we purify our experience. For instance, if you are reading your wife or husband may say Would you like to have a cup of tea? Oh, I'm busy, you may say. Don't bother me. When you are reading in that way I think you should be careful. You should be ready to say Yes, that would be nice. Please bring me a cup of tea. Then you stop reading and have a cup of tea. After having a cup of tea you continue your reading. Otherwise your attitude is I'm very busy right now. That is not so good because then your mind is not actually in full function. A part of your mind is working hard but the other part may not be working so hard. You may be losing your balance in your activity. If it is reading it may be okay but if you are making calligraphy and your mind is not in a state of emptiness your work will tell you I'm not in a state of emptiness

[38:41]

so you should stop. If you are a Zen student you should be ashamed of making such calligraphy. To make calligraphy is to practice Zazen. So when you are working on calligraphy if someone says please have a cup of tea and you answer no, I'm making a calligraphy then your calligraphy will say No, no! You cannot fool yourself. I want you to understand what we are doing here at Zen Center. Sometimes it may be all right to practice Zazen as a kind of exercise or training to make your practice stronger to make your breathing smooth and natural. That is perhaps included in practice but when we say Shikantaza that is not what we mean. When we receive a letter from the world of emptiness then the practice of Shikantaza is working. Thank you very much. Yes.

[39:47]

When I was at Rinzou Inn last time one of the people in the group asked Hojo-san when he began learning calligraphy he said before thinking he said watching my father before thinking before thinking is very important. That was very interesting to me. He began to learn calligraphy watching his father do it when he was a very small child. So there is something about calligraphy where before thinking is very significant. Yes. It's funny since when you responded to my first question I felt like something

[40:54]

and I feel it coming out again which is that that is true with calligraphy but that is only true with calligraphy which has been really hard for a long time. I tried to do calligraphy without knowing anything that way and it doesn't come out very well. The before thinking thing is true but there are a lot of rules and stuff you do first and then when you do this non-thinking stuff with calligraphy it's not just like that. Sazan may be like that too. Yes. I don't know if it fits you but kind of triangling off of that what I feel in this conversation about this is I had this experience in practicum where I was my work at practicum was sewing and using a machine and I'm actually I know something about sewing but I'm not good at it that way but sometimes I would get to a place to try and figure it

[41:55]

not knowing what to do and I would just kind of close my eyes in a way and let my hands feel what to do. I could see my mother's hand and it was like it was not like I ever studied her she taught me something but there was something else and just watching her hold the material and think it through and do something that actually came through which has the feeling kind of of not before thinking you kind of learn and know some stuff but there's some other you know sometimes I refer to it as like an intelligy that isn't in your head it's like that like that reaching back to the pillow or something I don't know if that's so I think the difference in what if I encourage you and then go to thinking

[43:00]

that you grew up watching that something's silent anyway is that helpful? yeah I mean if I tried to so your description would never happen to me if I tried to because I don't have that background that's right I think that's what this story is about more than the starting point yeah well I mean I did get the feeling in that exchange that I can study calligraphy for the rest of my life and I will not have it in my body the way he does because it's you know I don't know if I would ever get past thinking but I might I don't know I mean if you just do it and do it and do it maybe you can get past thinking

[44:01]

but certainly it was there was something that he learned about calligraphy from watching his father it was not about words it was not about rules it was not about how to do it it was more about what kind of state of mind is necessary in order to get yourself out of it and just I don't know just let the ink and the brush and the paper make the calligraphy using you to make the calligraphy I don't know that's anyway I think those two about Shikantaza and Letters from Emptiness is a good

[45:02]

preparation for Sashin and maybe we don't need to say anything more tonight and do you think you've let everyone know everything they need to know about Sashin from the Ino's point of view I have one small thing about the service tomorrow okay so it's kind of exciting we're going to chant the samrokai and the harmony of difference and equality all together we're not going to announce it separately so, ahm I thought about just putting it off as the separation but apparently there's going to be one big bell at the end of the samrokai and it goes directly into the er im thought about

[45:53]

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