One time, a long time ago, maybe I can say once upon a time, there was a big rock, stone. The stone was sitting there for centuries, being treated by the elements, rain, wind, hot and cold. One day, it cracked open, and a stone ape came out of it. And after a while, this ape broke open, and a stone monkey came out. This monkey looked around, looked in the four directions, beams of light came out of his

[01:08]

eye, penetrated to the end of the universe, even up to the emperor of the celestial heaven. He noticed this beam of light, so he sent one of his generals out to find out where this beam of light was coming from. He said, oh, it's coming from a stone monkey that was hatched out of an ape. So the monkey went out and found other monkeys, and was town around with them, and they played and ate fruit and had some wine around. So one day, they came to a mountain, a big waterfall. They liked it. They said, oh, I wonder what's behind that waterfall. He said, if one of us would go in there, be brave enough, we'd make an arcane.

[02:08]

So this stone monkey jumped through the waterfall. He gets inside, and there's a big cavern, and there's water, like a lake under the river, with this iron bridge going over it. So he goes across the bridge, and he discovers this delightful place that has stone tables and chairs and stone beds and stone plates and all that. It's great. So he goes out and tells his friends, it's OK. Let's go in here. But later on, everything's pretty nice, and they make an arcane, and they've been living there for years and having a good time. One day, the arcane monkey was looking very sad. He was sitting there. And so one of his friends came up and said, what's the matter? You look so sad. He said, well, this is such a nice place, but I know it's not going to last.

[03:12]

Ask a hand. This one says, oh, I know what's wrong with you. Why? He says, you're getting into religion. This, what I'm talking about, is from a 17th century Chinese folk novel called Journey to the West. And it's really about the Chinese monk, the Tang Dynasty seventh century monk, who went to India and brought back the triple basket of the three books of Buddhism, sutras, and the Abhidharma. But anyway, some writer in the 16th century decided to make a fantasy novel out of this. I think everyone knew about this monk. He was a hero, something like Marco Polo.

[04:16]

In those days, the seventh century, he traveled to India. He didn't jump on a train or jet. Actually, he left China without the emperor's permission. He was kind of put to sleep in those days. And he was gone 20 years. But when he came back, they were quite happy with what he brought back. All the writings. And they started translating it. It's another reason we have some of the things today. Anyway, this novel, the guy decided to put this monk in. The first half of the novel is all about the monk. Going back to where we were, the monk, he got religion. And he says, well, what do you mean? And he says, well, there are three types of people here on earth that don't have to be bothered with impermanence. They're called immortals. They're called Buddhas.

[05:17]

And they're also called sages. So the monk, he says, well, I'm going to find these guys, and I'll find out what happens. Then the story really takes off. It's quite an interesting thing. It's long. Although Arthur Whaley has a shorter version called Monkey. There's one by Professor Yu. It's about four volumes. But anyway, it's fun. And it's still known today. This novel is very popular. Everybody in China, the children, know the story of Monkey. Monkey is in Chinese opera. There are parts of this novel that are kind of in opera, but in other ways, in comic books. In fact, I think not too long ago, there was a television, children's animated television show on. You see, on Saturday mornings, it was roughly based on this character. But usually when I'm here on the Saturday mornings, here, I see a lot of people, and I wonder why you're here.

[06:30]

Are you looking for immortality? Are you here because you're sad? Or because you have nothing else to do? That's a nice break from the weekly routine. Are you looking for wisdom? Enlightenment? I could say that, but you're not going to find it because you already have it. But... Monkey travels a long way, and he finds a Taoist immortal, and he stays around there.

[07:36]

He learns a lot. The Taoist gives him a name. One of the translations is Observer of Vacuity. I think it might be Emptiness. I can see Emptiness. I wasn't really going to talk about this. I wanted to talk about one of those three books that the monk brought back. We have the Sutras and Shastras. The Sutras are supposedly what Buddha spoke, Shakyamuni spoke. And the Vinaya rules the meanings of the order. In the Abhidharma, you might say it's psychology or ontology or cosmology. It's happening. But the Vinaya, the Book of Rules, we don't openly study it here.

[08:42]

We have it in the library. In the southern countries like Thailand and Burma, they follow that very much. It pretty much sets up your complete day and night. Everything is laid out. This is what you're going to do. How high your bed is going to be off the floor. Pretty much if you try to follow these rules, you would not be able to be a lay person, I don't think. I read a story about one of the first Theravada monks to go to England back in the turn of the century. It was very difficult planning a trip, but he wanted to stop and follow these rules. He was able to leave and go to a foreign country. He could break the rules left and right. He couldn't get on trains or something. It was all kinds of stuff, money, power. There was a lot of them. He can't ride a horse or a deer or an animal.

[09:48]

It's all... But we have our own... We study it here in a different way. How many of you here have not been to Zazen instruction? Okay. Anyway, when you go to Zazen instruction on a Saturday morning, usually the first thing you're taken down is the Zen bell. And you start being shown how to enter the Zen bell. And right away, the left side of this curtain you have hanging down there, you step in with your left foot in the lead. You run to the left again, step out. How to sit down, the direction that you turn. So anyway, we have all these rules. That's kind of our sense of our own life. When I give Zazen instruction, I usually talk a little bit about it.

[10:59]

And I say, well, the best thing to do, you won't be able to remember this, is just when you come here the next time, just watch other people. And hope that they're not new. But eventually, you come around long enough and you do find out. And sometimes somebody will tell you, maybe call over and across the Zen door, grab you and stop you from walking in front of the altar. Sometimes people will ask, why do you have these kind of rules? And I told this to Yuji Roshi. He was asked about that with, say this is, you follow these rules, so you'll be able to express your true self.

[12:02]

Your free self, you'll be able to express yourself freely. I had a teacher once who was a Chinese calligraphy teacher. He used to say over and over, while we were practicing characters, freedom comes through discipline. I know some of you are familiar with North Indian classical music. It's the kind that Ravi Shankar plays,

[13:06]

or Kamsa, Ali Akbar Khan. Anyway, I know some people who went into that kind of study, to study that music. And you go through like 7 or 8 years of extreme, extreme discipline. You just have to play all the notes exactly the same, over and over and over again. It's just real rigid. But the idea of that, is to become free enough, to have it built into you that you'll be able to improvise, completely free. But you go through this period of just bound to this thing. And then you're set free, in a sense. The Japanese tea ceremony is also like that. Every move is laid out, completely the same. Everybody has to do this thing. It drives you crazy. It might take 3 to 6 months, just to be able to feel like you're having a cup of tea, and being a guest. But again, you go through this,

[14:11]

in order to, I've seen, masters make tea, and they just like to do it now. They just like to do this type of thing. But they've been doing it for 20, 30 years. I was just recently reading an article, by a Japanese professor of religion. He was talking about this sort of thing, and how in the West, we have body and mind, separate, and the mind controls the body. But in the East, in Japan, there's not that sort of separation, it's body and mind. And he talked about two types of consciousness. This is like for learning, for creativity. He calls it bright consciousness, which is what we think of as mind-thinking consciousness. That we're going to learn something, we think it out,

[15:13]

and memorize all up here. And then he talks about the darker consciousness, which is basically like a body consciousness. And that the body is learning all the time, but it's not thinking about it. Again, using the tea ceremony, I've seen people who are beginning, let's say they're going to be a couple of months, and they're going to make the tea, and they're kind of like, trying to remember what to do next. And you'll see their hand go right for the proper implement. And that's their body. And then you'll see the mind take over and go, you know, jump back. The body's already learning. So this article, he said how when they teach over there, you use very few words, and it's mostly observation, where you watch maybe for months. And it's not so much talking about pick the bowl up with this hand, you watch somebody do it over and over again.

[16:15]

Your body's learning. I'm not saying they're not going to talk at all about it, but basically you learn with your body. Until you can do that with ease. So I think somehow what we do here with our rules of feet and stepping, step on this tatami and all that, if we let our body do this, if something happens to us, then we start expressing possibly our true nature. . . .

[17:26]

I remember there was a Japanese nun here for a while, a couple of years, and she had studied tea ceremony at a convent. And she said how she started out, she just stayed outside the room and she would see in, and her teacher would just give her the bowls and things to clean. She did that for three or four months. Just cleaning and looking. And then one day the teachers would come in and they'd feed her. . [...]

[18:51]

So I don't know what's my point. I'm lucky to discipline. Maybe that's it. . . . I came in today, I felt I had a beginning and then I had an end. I'm not quite sure what the in between is going to be. I think I've already passed the middle. But I've got something to leave. . . .

[19:56]

This is a more 17th century Daoist. Wrote this in a commentary on one of the hexagrams. Yi King . . . Not clinging to forms, not falling into voidness, not material, not empty. Since it is not a matter of seeking the real, one does not exclude the artificial either. Ever calm, yet always responsive. Always responsive, yet ever calm. It is not darkness,

[20:58]

yet resembles darkness. It is darkness, but actually not darkness. External things cannot enter. Inside, thoughts cannot arise. One does not seek reality, but reality is here. . . . I didn't say good morning, so I'll say good morning now and say thank you very much. Good morning. I was 18 at that time.

[22:14]

So I've been out here for 14 years. The Baha'is were very good people but there was a lot of faith in this is what they had to say and you believed it or you didn't do it. So at one point after 5 years I just decided that I was no longer willing to just accept it and to go along with it. So about the same time I was in San Francisco and I started working for a neurosurgeon and in the same office working there was Irene Horowitz who probably most of you know. She runs the Zendo in the evening for those of you who don't know who she is. So Irene and I have been friends

[23:15]

for probably 10 years. For the first 7 and a half years that I knew her I knew that she came to Zen Center and I knew that sometimes she'd say well I can't work late today because I really want to go to Zen Center and do Zazen. But I think during those years I really had no idea what Zazen was. I had no idea that she came here and stared at the wall for 40 minutes. I can't imagine why I didn't ask her during those years what exactly it was. I think twice during that time she invited me to a lecture once was here and once was at Green Gulch. I don't remember who I heard it was probably Baker Roshi but I'm not sure about that. I didn't understand a word at all. It just did not impress me at all. I was real intimidated by

[24:15]

the chanting, by the bowing and just had no interest whatsoever. I thought it was a little strange that Irene was involved in it. So two and a half years ago there was a period in my life when a couple of things happened at the same time I was diagnosed as having a pre-ulcer syndrome and so I got it into my mind that maybe I needed to do something to relax myself and I began thinking about meditation. And also at that time I had been living with a man for seven years and at that point he was in the army and at that point he was sent to Virginia for six months. And I had these images of myself wandering around the apartment sort of from room to room in this sort of depressed phase of my life. That wasn't the case by the way.

[25:18]

I had these ideas that this was going to happen so I thought that I needed something outside to keep me going. So Irene and I went to Green Gulch one Sunday shortly after he went to Virginia and we did Zazen instruction. And the next day I came here in the afternoon and sat and pretty much for the last two and a half years I've been here every day doing Zazen. I moved into the building a year ago. Actually it was a year and nine days ago that I moved into the building. Damn. I was pretty excited about my anniversary of being here for a year. And at this point I'm just doing my practice. I've gotten tremendously involved in temple jobs.

[26:19]

As some of you might have noticed I sort of seem always to be doing something. And I feel that that's my function here and that's what I want to do here. I eventually hope to become a priest. I don't really see myself going in the direction of being a teacher as far as giving lectures sort of thing. I see myself going off in another direction which I don't really know if there's these directions but I have in my mind that there's the teaching direction and there's the functionary direction. I see myself being a functionary. We're not sure of the meaning of

[27:27]

functionary. I function. I do things. Performing rituals. That's what we need is a dog. I like being in the zendo and that's why I see myself going in that direction. So I have a feeling I'll be there for a long time. Fortunately Diane

[28:30]

is somebody who is I need to always be learning something. I always need to have new things coming up. And Diane seems to know that and she keeps sort of piling more things on to me which is good for me. Although I have this terror that at some point I'm going to learn everything. I'm not quite sure what I'll do. So anyway at this point in my life I own my own business. I do medical accounting and I hope to go to Tatsuhara maybe next January. So I'm trying to phase out my business. But in the meantime I've just moved up to the second floor. So if you wonder why there's these sounds of printers coming from two doors down from the dokasan room it's because that's where my business is. I think that's about it.

[29:41]

I've covered past, present and future. So I think that's it. Does anybody have anything to ask? Richard, it wasn't clear after the first time you said why you came back in Setsubun. It wasn't clear to me. Sorry. When I first came here to sit? I don't know why I came here. No, it was clear. Oh, it was clear to you? I don't know why you came back. What impressed you about the first time that made you want to do it again? Or made you decide to do it again? Next. Next.

[30:47]

I'd like to know your emphasis on simple jobs. How much mindfulness is a part of your practice? Not how much mindfulness is a part of your practice, but how much mindfulness is a part of your practice? What? Answer the question. Actually, just remembering to do eight temple jobs every week and I have this constant awareness all the time of what day it is and what has to be done. And it's been a great practice for me because normally I don't remember things like that. I've really had to discipline myself a lot into phasing myself that way so I'm always there when I'm supposed to be there. It sort of connects you to the company.

[32:05]

Or just a moment to express something that I haven't had the chance to say in a long time. I'm glad you do it. I'm glad you do it. It's a practice. It's a really good practice. It's really meaningful for me, for my life. How? Because of the

[33:17]

ethics of view. The view that came in New York in the beginning of the year. It was part of the practice over twenty years ago because it was a practice of establishing a place for the notion of relationship with the other. That's the center of the importance of the notion of the other. I have to say thank you. I'm not

[34:26]

an exceeding person. All my other years have been exceeding. One experience that happened to me exceeding me doing this. Constantly craving what I was needing when I was twelve years old. Something like that. Growing up in New York kind of city. Downtown. This is downtown. And usually where I lived I didn't have many friends. A bunch of kids. But when it was summer particularly you know how hot

[35:28]

it can be in the summer. It was one of those days in New York. On this day I was alone. I was alone. I was alone. I remember being struck with thought. Why don't people feel sorry for me? I remember being startled by having that thought. I had a crack on my head. I was confused by it or something. But we did it. We did it. I didn't exactly know why. Years later when I could think more about it

[36:30]

what happened was this thought how I really felt was in great contrast to an image I had of myself which was a tough New York kid. A tough New York kid. All of us felt we were. We talked that way. We swore that way. We shouted at each other. We shouted at everybody. We were tough. There in my aloneness this thought of self-pity wham! I shook up. I was unconscious of my self-pity. I guess it was an interesting example of how we delude ourselves. So I spent the day feeling sorry for myself. In those days you could ride around you could get on the subway anywhere

[37:31]

and ride anywhere for nickel. There were many, many things you could do that didn't cost very little. They cost nothing. The world was open to me on that day. All you needed was two nickels to go and to come back. I overlooked those possibilities. I didn't see the reality of what was available and offered to me in those days. The feeling of separation, the moment of healing. I was reminded of this experience I believe of freedom. On Sunday morning

[38:32]

there was an informal discussion. One young man said he described how he has been practicing for ten years and travels around a lot and goes to various places in this country, Europe as well. He said or he asked some questions about when we go to these places why aren't they more open? Why aren't they more friendly? Why aren't they warmer? Especially in the Bronx. Especially in the Bronx. Why don't they show who we are? Why aren't they more open? You could feel

[39:33]

what he was talking about. He was feeling that separateness. He was feeling separate. He wasn't seeing. He was looking at what was being offered to him in these places. He just didn't feel separateness. He went to established places practicing. He was visiting. But more. More. Even more like he was not enough to have these opportunities. He was asking why aren't they more open? Why? When we want communication or we want

[40:33]

relationship with somebody it's two ways. It's two ways. You can't just expect to be an officiary of somebody giving you a communication and you know communicating and receiving at the same time. And maybe sometimes we need someone we need to have some communication we want to establish some rapport or relationship with another person. Maybe they're tired. Maybe they're shot. Maybe they're angry. Maybe they're frightened. Maybe they're just distracted. So maybe maybe the connection is not

[41:34]

ideal. For us for us we don't stay satisfied and we don't become dissatisfied because it's not ideal. We want to really have communication be aware of the person acknowledge how they are how they do so that we can have some relationship and not let it be let their state be some cause for separation or in our state some cause for separation. And

[42:36]

if we can give up our own particular need and want in that moment then we can understand the situation and we'll be able to make a connection and be able to make communication. But it requires awareness and acceptance or acknowledgement of the person and their situation. That thing going on with the English English feeling of separateness feeling isolated that kind of feeling is not unusual

[43:42]

I think it's the reason most of us start to practice a kind of feeling like that separate separate Shakyamuni Buddha started his practice because of that in the biography or the legend of Siddhartha he's like he saw everybody else's suffering and came up and helped everybody without some personal pain before I wonder how many of us here came to this practice because you thought when you started this practice

[44:45]

everything was together my wife and you need to settle in place you don't come to practice you come because you feel something painful feeling of separation is not unusual what you do with it attitude towards it important part somewhere back somebody said life

[45:48]

is a series of adjustments I don't know if anybody said that it sounds like fortune cookies but most people look at life that way one adjustment after the other I think we feel that way perhaps because we live in such a mechanical world look at the things that we use everyday modern day watches phones stoves

[46:49]

mechanical pencils at another level computers airplanes machines factories we say we have to adjust it before we use it I have to stop writing so I can adjust my bed I have to adjust my watch it doesn't work so we live in a world where things work only constantly we adjust them and we think of adjustment as being close the gap close the gap between where it is and where it should be to make some incremental incremental

[47:52]

adjustment my watch is wrong I have to turn it adjust it I can't adjust it you don't have to you have to change the numbers the car is going you have to adjust something before it goes and so on so we think that we have to adjust things before they work newcomer to this practice thinks I have to get enlightened before I can live my life in my practice though the other side forget that don't don't adjust yourself before getting into life because of the way

[48:55]

we have established a mechanical world that reinforces this notion that we have to do something before we can get on with something in this practice there is no such thing as incremental adjustment our idea is not we adjust something we do our idea is not I have to adjust it before it works you don't you don't think that way you don't adjust it before adjusting is more like flowing flowing water or breeze

[50:02]

we don't say look at the flowing river not amongst rocks we don't say look at the way the river is adjusting itself we don't say that we look at the we see the river and the rocks in the in the cry the flowing and the adjusting are not separate so we don't think of in our practice we don't think of adjustment as being some special step that we do before you know the story in your poem the last part of Get Your Poem where the master

[51:08]

his name was Potek that's an expansion of himself and the mother comes and says something like the nature of the wind is constant and it appears everywhere so why are you fanning yourself he said well you understand the truth of the nature of the wind is constant but you don't understand the truth of it appears everywhere what is the truth of the nature of the wind so why are you fanning yourself and the mother says I don't know what to write these stories always end with sometimes it may be he was confused

[52:09]

he went away for 20 years he was usually involved in writing but this story is about how we live our life just like this breeze just like the breeze in the everyday world for some people life seems to be a series of very big adjustments very big causes difficulty somebody feels that in order to do something they have to make a very big adjustment they might say it's too much

[53:10]

I can't do it life is like that everything seems to be a big adjustment I can't do it it only leads to more feeling of separation very bad feelings anger loneliness suicide murder great suffering pain but usually most people understand that the way we live the way we live our life we make small adjustments we have to do some big thing we don't try to do it all at once but small adjustments in that way

[54:10]

we can deal if your friend comes and says I'm raising I need to raise $10,000 [...] and he says could you give me a dollar and he says, of course of course we know the wisdom of doing small adjustments this is how we keep sane how we keep a well balanced life and a well balanced society how we learn and how we teach we try to manage but our practice

[55:15]

is beyond the notion of adjustment no such thing as big adjustment no such thing as small adjustment before we start to lie there is no separation there is no gap there is no feeling there is no need to make adjustments we have no separation we are aware and acknowledge there is no truth just one there is no separation just one so no need to adjust

[56:16]

no need to think about adjustment need to lie practice of no adjustment no adjustment is necessary awareness we are aware and acknowledge the effort and fear sometimes we discover our mind when we don't hear so we don't have to adjust we bring it back and we learn from that kind of experience that if we want to have continuous

[57:17]

awareness continuous presence we have to make a continuous effort continuous effort continuous awareness no adjustment we just walk through the notion that we can always make adjustments we discover behavior and say hmm I feel so good I can always come back I can always adjust we have that kind of attitude we can never have a flawed kind of mind we can cope with adjustments which is which is what makes us crazy

[58:20]

we make adjustments we go crazy success in everyday life people who are successful in everyday life what we say about them is they know how to make the right kind of moves he knows how to make the right kind of moves which means they know how to make adjustments they know what to do and when to do it and who to do it with they know how to make good adjustments somebody is a football coach or a politician

[59:21]

a manager in a business or something successful by society's standards because they know how to make the right moves by trying to make adjustments it can be a success from a society standpoint but for us true success is not spectacular true success is continuous confidence continuous confidence continuous confidence that we will be responsive money situation without feeling

[60:25]

we need to adjust this is true success feeling is also adjustment the most most important most important situation is with each other have some relationship with each other we know that we feel that good communication and good relationship are important not just because it's a kind of responsibility good citizens good friends for each other have society go very well take responsibility have a good relationship

[61:26]

but actually good communication good relationship is our true nature it's absolutely our true nature when we understand that when we do it in a sustainable way we can do it in a good we can do it in a good we can do it in a good way

[62:12]

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