We are part of a tradition that can be traced with some historical accuracy back to, I guess, about 700. I mean, there may be some times in there when they weren't quite sure, but they have kept fairly accurate records going back pretty far. By the time you get to Bodhidharma, no one knows, but not too long after Bodhidharma, you have fairly accurate historical records. And some people can trace their blood family back pretty far, maybe that far and farther. But probably there's more real connection between us if we're practicing Zen and so-and-so who was a teacher in the 8th century

[01:23]

than there is between your actual family only a few generations ago, let alone hundreds of years ago. You can't say what they've been teaching all that time. Talking yesterday of the practice period, students, we talked about the fact that Suzuki Roshi mostly talked about, or often talked about, attitudes,

[02:26]

your attitude toward this or that. We have lots of thoughts about things and those thoughts interfere with the flow of our being and how to stop them. I mean, sometimes Buddhism is expressed as simply as, if you can stop your crazy mind, then enlightenment appears. How to stop it is nearly impossible. Sometimes, of course, teachers reverted to, every time the student starts to think of anything, you hit him. As I said yesterday, the only person Suzuki Roshi ever dared treat that way was Philip Wilson, who was pretty big.

[03:38]

That's Philip here. Philip and I both got beat up occasionally. Suzuki Roshi told a funny story in a lecture a while ago. He said, if you do a sashin the way a horse pisses, that's not doing a sashin at all. Actually, he said, and then he tried to explain it and what he meant. It's some expression in Japan, don't do it the way a horse does. Which means a horse, when it pisses, it just stands there in this long, continuous stream, which Suzuki Roshi says lasts quite a long time, and then stops.

[04:45]

And so, anyway, what he was talking about is, if you think time exists as some continuous thing, if you practice a sashin the way a horse does, it's not the way we practice a sashin. You practice a sashin by at least each period by period. You don't think, now I'm going to do a seven-day sashin, but just now I'm doing one period of zazen and one period of zazen. Actually, each moment you just do one moment of time. You enter into each moment of time without any idea of the next moment or the previous moment. Sashins are actually a help to learn this, to do this.

[05:53]

And not necessary, but for most of us, sashins are difficult enough that, at least for many of us, they're difficult enough. For some of you it's too easy, but when it's very difficult, you're forced to just say, oh, well, okay, I'll try this next period. Because such a thing as time doesn't exist. No, there's just a series of events. Actually, there are things and they exist simultaneous. The things themselves are time. You, yourself, are time. So you can't lose time or waste time or save time.

[06:53]

There's no way to do that. You actually are time. So usually the way we come to an understanding of time, of ourselves, is through our breathing. Everything breathes, and we breathe. And, again, there's no way to teach breathing exactly. I can give you some suggestions, and Roshi in many lectures gave suggestions, but it's something you have to let yourself do. Breathing does itself. But to have really still breathing, the kind of breathing that we do,

[08:03]

see, we say your mind is still and shining. So to give you some experience of that, we encourage you to learn to sit still. And to sit still is actually a skill, and it takes some effort to develop the muscles in your back and through your body, which support you. But more than the muscles that support you, it's necessary to get free of all those things which tie you up, because generally our body is actually rather rigid. So after you have some freedom from the things that tie you up, then you have to make some effort to sit straight and simultaneously relax.

[09:12]

Let your breathing get deeper and deeper. And we don't breathe much with our chest up here at all. There's almost no movement up here. And when you make an effort in breathing, maybe the effort should be on having a good exhale, fairly complete exhale, and afterwards a slight pause, and then the inhale comes naturally. And if your mind is fairly calm, your breathing gets slower and slower until there's only one or two or three breaths a minute. Good. But if you enter into each moment of time,

[10:54]

then also you're freeing yourself from causation. How to... Well, let's see. One thing I talked about yesterday was when you are... Sometimes you have the idea that when you're practicing that it means you should be aware, is this practice, is this not practice? And that's not what we mean at all. We mean that's practical, you know. It's practical not to eat too much. But deciding whether you eat too much is not really what we mean

[11:59]

by being aware of what you're doing. We're not... That kind of awareness stops what you're doing. So we just mean be aware without any idea of value judgment. Now I'm doing such and such. Whatever it is, good or bad, just now I'm doing it. Or something's doing it. So it's a kind of problem. How can we practice if we don't have any idea of good or bad? I think though when you're beginning practice you have to have some idea of good or bad.

[13:00]

But at the same time we want to be free of it because as you let go of the way you want to be something takes care of you. You don't have to worry. And you'll be what you need to be, should be, or something. Can we open a window somewhere, one or two? I think it gets rather warm in here.

[14:07]

We don't have to open them all. Anyway, we have many attitudes of our own which we want to identify. Maybe that's enough. And in Zen practice there are many attitudes which help you,

[15:10]

actually attitudes that have been passed for hundreds of years from teacher to teacher to teacher to teacher. So as our practice is moment after moment in that way our actual, what our existence is, is moment after moment in that way. As there's no thing called time there's also no simple understanding which covers everything. So I think last week or week before,

[16:17]

I can't remember, I spoke about the story number 17 in the Hekigan Roku, Blue Cliff Records, about the teacher says, excuse me, the monk says, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And the teacher says, sitting long and growing weary, which I explained was a kind of greeting, meaning thank you for practicing so long, thank you for asking this question over and over again. And you should know that

[17:22]

Kyo Rin, who was the teacher, had practiced with Unmon. Unmon was a very famous Zen master who, I guess in the Hekigan Roku there's about ten or fourteen of the koans in the Hekigan Roku are about Unmon. And six or so on the Unmon kan are about Unmon. One of the famous koans about Unmon is someone asked him, what is Dharmadhatu, something like that. He said, the flowering hedge by the toilet. And if you live in Japan that has a little different meaning than here because the toilets are just, you know, sort of a hole, like an outhouse.

[18:23]

And so they often plant flowering hedges around them which have quite a strong smell. Anyway, Kyo Rin was with Unmon. A long time, fourteen, eighteen years, eighteen years I think he was with Unmon, traveling with him and doing his laundry and carrying things, taking care of his temple, etc. And then he was at his own temple which I think was called Kyo Rin for about forty years. So, I don't know, I guess in recent times in Japan you don't usually stay with your teacher that long but

[19:26]

Tsukiroshi stayed with his two teachers for a long time. He was unusual in that. I think he was with his first teacher from when he was about twelve to thirty and he was with his second teacher who was the expert on Dogen at that time until I think a little bit before he came to America. In other words, he was late fifties or something. In that koan, the commentary in that story in which the monk says, Why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And the teacher says, Thank you for continuing to ask the question. In the commentary they talk about

[20:30]

it may be all right when not even a needle can enter and that means ultimate truth where not even a needle can enter. So, the commentary says, it may be all right when not even a needle can enter when you know ultimate truth. What about when the great waves cover the horizon? So, from one side, great waves means samsara, confusion, the difficulty that we have in this life. And from another side, the waves just means our activity, our expression of truth. So, just as our karma is built up

[21:41]

moment after moment, so, to free ourselves, we practice moment after moment. Even if you know ultimate truth, the commentary says, when you're here, whether you're in the city or in ordinary circumstances of life, does that really help you? We use questions in Zen a lot because of many reasons, but a question is much bigger than an answer. A question has no boundaries, answer has some fixed form. So, what we try to, what practice is, one of the things we try to do is to find some question or word,

[22:45]

some key word in a phrase, which stops our thinking. We can't make sense of it, you know. And most of you give up too easy. You say, well, I had this one word or this question now and I can't think of anything this week or next week. But, on the one hand, maybe you shouldn't expect to think of something for one or two years. But on the other hand, each time you have doksan

[23:49]

or each moment that you confront the question, you should have a response. So, again, as I said yesterday, Dogen, Zenji's famous words are ashes are ashes, firewood is firewood, not that firewood leads to ashes. And so doksan is doksan. It's not a reflection, it's not a reflection of your zazen, though it can be, or of your life. It's just doksan. And this period of zazen is just zazen.

[24:49]

When I was at Tassajara this time, Ryuho-san gave me shatsu, this kind of massage, pressure massage, where you press on certain points. And he's asked me many times, and so this time I said OK. And it's rather a little bit painful maybe, but it feels good. And he presses in various places. One place affects your eye, another place affects your stomach. And actually when he pressed, before he said, this affects your stomach, I could feel my stomach go... But he doesn't concern himself, and I think this kind of medicine comes out of this way of thinking

[26:05]

which is more useful, more common in China and Japan. We think if you want to treat the eye, we treat the eye. But because they see everything as interrelated, doksan is doksan, or ashes are ashes. So when you press on the pressure point, you just press on that pressure point, you don't worry about the eye or the stomach, just that pressure point. So when you do zazen, you don't worry about, does zazen affect such and such? Or when you're taking a breath, you don't think, is this breath going to... You just take a breath. But we are so conditioned to expect something

[27:13]

that it takes a long time to actually be alive in each breath, that we always are looking for something to happen or something to be there. Finally, when there's nothing there, we go through a long period of being bored. Just another counting my breath, kind of boring. Maybe, I don't know, if there's a longer period like that for us than there are for Oriental people, but... Eventually, when you give up the ideas and expectations, something spontaneously arises each moment. I don't know if I should say something, but anyway.

[28:19]

I think coming into practice fairly gradually, as most of you do, though, is pretty good, because there are so many... Practice is really very subtle, and a great deal about Zen teaching is just trying to get people to get the hang of it, to catch on to it. And how does he communicate that he's caught on without saying something? So, as most of you start, little by little,

[30:12]

you come occasionally, and then you move nearer, and sometimes you move into the building, and then out, and then back, etc. Then you begin to get into practice, and it's quite different than when you first start, and you do everything, and none of it seems to be anything but doing things. It doesn't all hang together, you know. Just trying to really live, knowing, being,

[31:15]

the fact that you are time itself, takes quite a lot of time. You have to repeat it over and over again, because always you find yourself, when you actually look at yourself, and look at your actions, you can check up very easily. Am I behaving as if I am time itself? Well, most of the time you're not behaving as if you're time itself at all. You're behaving as if you're under some pressure, or you've got to go somewhere. It's true, we have to go somewhere and do things, because other people are time itself too, and they want you to coordinate with them. But still, when you feel you're time itself,

[32:15]

there's no anxiety about it. Do you have any... Is there anything we should talk about? Is there some reason to breathe just with our abdomen, and not with our chest, and say, just do it that way? Of course there's some reason, but it makes your practice much simpler if you just do it that way. Actually, there's no need to know the reason.

[33:21]

I don't think it's so helpful to know the reason. And as you begin to do it, you'll understand the reasons. Anyway, it's much steadier, it's the main reason. You can't actually sit still when you breathe up here. But also your whole way your mind works and everything is quite different when your breathing is up here. What is consciousness? What is what? Consciousness. What is consciousness? What is consciousness? This kind of question, actually, you should ask yourself, I think.

[34:42]

It's like Tozan, when he was young, saying, What do you mean, no eyes, no ears, no nose? I have an eye, nose, etc. We should question, what is time? What is consciousness? But the questioning mainly is with ourself. You should be very familiar with the question and try. I mean, you are conscious. And what is your consciousness? Since you are it, you know, you can spend... We should spend in our practice some time on something like,

[35:55]

what is consciousness? And we should spend some time on, what is eye consciousness? What is hearing consciousness? Then when you are very familiar with hearing consciousness, everything you know about the way you hear things, you've noticed, then when someone says, turn your hearing inward, then you know what that means. But until you've asked yourself for a long time, what is consciousness? There is no way to respond. The way to respond is to... be conscious. Be conscious. If I ask you, what is consciousness?

[36:59]

Then you should be conscious, in a way that I understand, you know, what consciousness is. But by consciousness, we also mean, I don't know, there is no word for it, but we mean something like readiness. We don't just mean what you can hold and think about. We mean what you can be. To be conscious is to be ready for whatever happens. It's much wider than just what you know or can think about. Not awake to things exactly, but awake for things. But when you really understand consciousness,

[38:09]

you see it's much wider. This is another thing, like time or something like that. When you really understand consciousness, it's much wider than you could have imagined. And it becomes clearer why so many things in our lives happen like coincidences, which aren't a coincidence at all, but a kind of... what's actually included in our consciousness. I don't know if that makes sense to you. It doesn't make sense to me either. Yeah? I haven't studied the Book of Changes

[39:11]

for a long time, almost 20 years. But for quite a while, I used it every day. Ezra Pound used it every day, so I used it every day. And I rather like the Book of Changes. It's very stimulating. But it's basic. What it's based on is the same as the idea of time I'm talking about. Instead of looking for causation, if you're going to look for meaning, you don't look just at what happened before you. You look for what happened simultaneous with you. So, astrology is the same. What happened simultaneously with your birth. Right now we throw the sticks. That happens simultaneously with our own existence.

[40:14]

So we can look at it. But also, you can look each moment you are being thrown. Right? So, each moment you can look at yourself. So, in Zen practice we don't, we don't, you know, until you look, know thoroughly what it is that you are that's being thrown each moment, we don't look at outside things, outside patterns. So we talk about big mind or everything is mind, which means look at what's being thrown each moment. You are what's being thrown each moment. So, the I Ching is, is uncanny, uncannily right. Seems so.

[41:17]

But even, just because it's right, we don't, we're not so interested in trying to understand ourselves that way, because we want to understand what we are that's thrown each moment. So, we look at ourselves with that kind of intention. It's much harder to understand what we are that's thrown each moment, partly because it's more complicated and partly because we are it itself. But, in the end, you know, that's what our practice is. Even if we can't, in this entire lifetime, know for an instant what's thrown, our practice is the attempt to know what's thrown each moment. Anyway, thank you very much. Thank you very much.

[42:19]

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