Okay, I'm ready to start. Good evening. Oh, good evening again. Not only am I ready to start, but it looks like we're ready to start because everybody's arrived and is in their chairs and so on. I guess tonight I wanted to talk about, I thought I'd give it a kind of a Buddhist theme. Since I tend to give talks and not tell you what it's about and let you figure it out, but I thought tonight I'd give you this sort of Buddhist terminology to put around it or label it. Which I don't know whether that's useful or not exactly for you. It depends whether you're interested in Buddhism, I guess.

[01:08]

Anyway, tonight I thought I'd talk about the way-seeking mind or the aspiration for enlightenment. That's way-seeking. You know, a couple of years ago I said I talked about way-seeking and then after my workshop there was an article in the Fresno Bee that said I talked about waste-seeking mind. W-A-Y. The way-seeking mind. I thought waste-seeking mind was pretty good because it's maybe analogous, but anyway. So I wanted to start by telling you some stories which for me have in some way reflect on this topic or theme of way-seeking mind. The first story is one that Robert Bly tells about a friend of his named, I think his name is Bill Stafford. He's another poet.

[02:13]

And he at least for a while in his life had a practice of writing a poem every day. And it wasn't always so easy, you know, because he had to get his kids up. He'd get up early enough so that he could work some before he had to get the kids up and make breakfast. And then he was working some and he could come home at lunch and he had a little place where he kept the poem in the meantime, a little shelf. He could work on it. And he would finish it in the evening after everybody was in bed. So this is like a lot of things we do. You might do zazen every day. Some of us cook every day. We do certain things every day. Well, one day he was being interviewed and the woman said, how do you do this? How do you write a poem every day? You can't always be on. You can't always have a good poem come out. What do you do? And he said, I lower my standards. The second story is about a young sculptor who apparently was visiting. Is it Henry Miller who's the famous sculptor?

[03:30]

The writer. Writer. I think it was, yeah. Henry Moore. Moore. Henry Moore. I think he was visiting Henry Moore. And he had sculpted a little statue of Apollo. And he showed it to Henry Moore and he said, you know, I've been working on this, working on it. I can't seem to get it right. And Henry Moore said, throw it down on the floor and see how it looks then. The third story is, the third story is from, is more or less a Zen story. I think it was so in Shaku. Probably many of you have heard this story. It was in the wind bell a while back. I think it was in one of, Rev told it in one of his talks, but this is when Shaku was a fairly young man, maybe 11 or 12. And he'd gone to study with his teacher. So he was living in a monastery.

[04:33]

And one day his teacher said, asked him to go into town and get some pickles. So, and he was supposed to be back, of course, in time for dinner, the pickles. So he started on his way to town and on his way to town, at some point he passed some big posters that were illustrating a circus with wild animals and acrobats, jugglers. And he started looking at this poster and it was very intriguing to him. And he started imagining the circus and how great it would be to go to the circus and all the things that were going on there. And then he heard the bell for dinner, or maybe it was for service. So he has 15 minutes and then the service is a little while. Anyway, he heard a bell from the monastery, so he went running into town. And he got to the store and he said, give them to me. And the storekeeper said, what? And he said, the pickles.

[05:36]

And so he got the pickles and he went running back towards the monastery and then he realized he didn't have his hat. So he went running back to the store and he said, give it to me. And the storekeeper said, what? And he said, my hat. And the storekeeper said, you mean the one on your head? And so then he went running back to the monastery and that's the end of the story. Except that Suzuki Roshi's commentary on the story was, he was a very good boy. The moral of the story, right? And the last story is one that I was just reading and I've been looking through since. Kaz Tanahashi was just here a few days ago who does these brushstroke paintings. And there's little poems, sort of little poems or sayings in this book.

[06:40]

Anyway, he says one day someone was visiting him and went over to the wastebasket and started taking pictures out of the wastebasket, the ones that he'd thrown away. And the person looked at the picture and said, turned to Kaz and said, what's wrong with this one? What's the problem with this one? And Kaz said, no problem. And then he said, for it to be art, there has to be a great problem. And if there's only a minor problem or no problem at all, then it's just trash. So I think these stories, for me, illustrate something about way-seeking mind, something about the aspiration for enlightenment. And first of all, but they also illustrate, I mean,

[07:44]

they give you something of the context for way-seeking mind. You know, the fact that, you know, somebody wants the sculpture to be art and we want it to be better. We want it to be better. It's not quite right. It could be better. Life could be better. It's not quite right. How do we get it better? Or, you know, the poems can be better. Things could be more perfect. And yet, we see from these stories that it just doesn't work like that, does it? And so, what is the response in these stories? Does the person stop writing poems because he can't write perfect poems or better poems or great poems every day? No, he goes on writing poems. But he lowers his standards. So, the way-seeking mind in that case is the mind that continues to write poems,

[08:54]

continues to cook, continues to meditate, continues to go to the meditation hall, even though it's not that great, maybe. You know, the meals aren't that great. The meditation isn't that great. You're falling asleep. But the way-seeking mind goes anyway, still writes a poem every day. Or, what about this sculpture? You know, I thought about this. It was interesting. I've heard this story some years ago, and I always thought, well, maybe if you throw it on the ground, it would look better. And Patti and I tried this. It was one of her sculptures. Patti said, I just can't get it right. And I've been working on it for hours and hours. I said, throw it down on the floor and see how it looks then. So, we tried it. We went outside and threw it down on the floor, and it actually had a little more vitality then. You know, this is a clay piece, right? So, instead of being sort of stiff and kind of, you know, it was a little more lively, but it finally ended up a little further out from the porch in the bushes.

[09:57]

But tonight I was thinking about that story, and it occurred to me for the first time that it was kind of a joke. You know, it's like, if the food's not good, well, throw it on the dirt and see how it looks then. I mean, if you think it's not perfect enough, now, like, let's really ruin it and then see, is that going to make it better? I mean, you see. So, again, like, what about the way-seeking mind here, you see? It goes ahead, and at some point, whatever it is, you have to operate. You operate. You can't wait for your life to be perfect before you express yourself, or your speech to be perfect, or for your art to be perfect, or your cooking to be perfect. We all have to be out there presenting ourselves and our work in the world. And in the story of Shon Shaka, I mean, it's so clear that, I mean,

[11:07]

we all know how attractive and how compulsive or engaging the imaginary world can be. And yet, when it comes time to respond and be in the world, he comes back. He comes back. And he realizes he has things to do. But then he gets so excited about doing it, he forgets his hat that's on his head. Isn't that wonderful that he's so eager, you know, and so passionate to do what he's asked, even if he gets sort of confused along the way? So again, you can see that the way things work is not that we get some idea and then we can just go straight to the goal. This is the way all of us are. You know, we don't go straight there. We can't just go to the store and come home with the pickles.

[12:09]

We have to. We have to imagine things along the way. It's who we are. And somehow that comes back into the world again. And I think that story about the painting, I thought about that and know that there's no problem, but also, of course, our lives are like that, right? So if your life has no problem, is that a very interesting life? Is that a life that grows or a life that develops? No, we have to have actually a great problem. And if we have a great problem, we have something that brings our awareness into our life. That great problem is what engages us so we're not constantly in the circus world, the imaginary circus world. The great problem is what brings our awareness down into this life and into this body

[13:13]

and out into things, onto things, engaged in things. Because with such a great problem, we don't have any choice anymore. You know, when you have to do it. And we each have our own things that we have to do like that. Pretty much. I mean, it's hard. And then even if you try to get away from it, you know, and not have any of those kind of problems or obligations, then here's another big problem. How disconnected you are from everyone and from your life. So in some way, a way-seeking mind understands that there won't be the kind of perfection that we would like

[14:16]

and goes forward in life anyway and is willing to have, in fact, in some way, deeply appreciates the problem, the great problem which it is to be alive. Now, it's also said that way-seeking mind is the mind that sees into the nature of impermanence. So this is another way of saying it. Impermanence is to say that things don't attain that perfection and if occasionally, once in a very infrequent while they do, it's gone. And you'll have to do it again. And you can't do it that often. And so then this brings us into a different kind of world or a different kind of relationship with things

[15:17]

once this mind, once we awaken, or this mind, not that we do it, but once this mind is awakened in us, this way-seeking mind or aspiration for enlightenment, because we see the impermanence and we see that we can't make a great poem every time, a great dinner every time, and yet we go on. And so then, where does one's effort go? So for me, this brings up what Suzuki Roshi used to call inmost request. Given the nature of our life and our experience like this, and as it is in these stories, what do we really want? What can we actually do? What's our deep wish? And we can't put it out anymore exactly into creating perfect poems

[16:22]

and perfect dinners and great periods of meditation. So we have to look more deeply into our life. And in some way, I think it helps to articulate each of us for ourselves, what is my inmost request? What is my inmost wish? Because Buddhism has many answers. Inmost request is to be compassionate or kind, to grow in wisdom, to attain complete liberation. But I think it's also helpful to express it in some way that's your own language and something you can relate to. So I think of something like for myself, I think of a wish to accept all those poems that aren't perfect and to appreciate these things that haven't reached the pinnacle of perfection.

[17:28]

Including me and my friends, and my mind, my body, my thoughts, my feelings, the world. To accept and appreciate it in some very fundamental way. And it doesn't mean that, you know, often if I say something, when I say something like this, people say, well you shouldn't say that because there's all this work to be done to make things better. But we're still going to work on another poem tomorrow, we're still going to cook another meal tomorrow, we're still going to go to the meditation hall tomorrow, but are we going to wait for it to be perfect before we have any appreciation or respect or warmth for my life and for other people's effort and for the world, for nature? I don't think so. I don't want to wait that long. Because that's like waiting for this imaginary circus.

[18:32]

Or I think sometimes just to be able to breathe easy or to rest assured, to be comfortable in my body, in my mind. To be willing to settle there. So if there's some way that you can say this for yourself in a very simple, direct way, I think it's useful to bring that up and remind yourself what's really important to you. Because then it's something you can rely on and something you can work on and something that is a root for you in your life, that will give you nourishment. Because otherwise there's all these imperfect poems, sculptures that don't quite measure up, dinners that never made it, periods of meditation that you slept through.

[19:39]

But what about your inmost wish just to be at home, to settle yourself here, to express your warmth and compassion, to be appreciative, to have some gratitude for life. So it's very interesting, of course, the world today. I was watching Bill Moyers interview Jacob Needleman a few weeks ago. It was mostly about money. Because Jacob Needleman is writing a book about money and people's relationship to money. But he started out talking about how we've had a hundred or more years of producing, inventing, producing, manufacturing, labor-saving devices.

[20:42]

And we all have less time than ever. Isn't that interesting? And the less time than ever is not just, of course, the labor-saving devices, but it's also our habits. I was at home sometime after I'd seen that. I was at home and I was getting ready for a dinner I was going to cook later. It was just in the morning and I was getting ready for this dinner I was cooking that night. And I was somehow quite harried and kind of worried and anxious about whether it was all going to happen the way it should according to the high standards that I maintain for these things. And my daughter came by at some point and said,

[21:45]

Don't you think you could smile? And I realized I didn't even have time to smile. And that takes a lot of time. Isn't that interesting? But we experience our life that way. I don't have time to smile. It doesn't take any time, and yet it feels like it's going to take some time to smile. And it might take some time even to breathe. Sometimes we don't even have time. If you get into a situation like that, you might even think you don't have time to breathe. But if you took a more relaxed or fuller breath and you weren't holding your breath, that would take time. So you better breathe very shallowly and wait until everything comes out okay, and then you can breathe. And smile. But of course by that time you're in such a habit of breathing shallowly

[22:54]

and waiting to see if things come out okay and not smiling that how can you smile when you're so out of practice? It gets very hard. And then to breathe. Because then also there's the next thing after that that you better hold your breath about. So again, what will remind me, what will remind us to breathe and to smile? And even if we're busy and we have things to do. Sometimes it's so hard, I found it really hard that day to let go. So it's pretty important to be able to have time or take the time for very simple things. And each opportunity as much as we can. And having a cup of tea, sitting even by the pool.

[23:56]

It's very easy sitting by the pool to not even have time to relax. We're still busy even though we sit by the pool. And meditation is a wonderful place to finally take the time to be with yourself, with your breath, with your body, with thoughts, sensations, with experience. To have the time to be with the way things are. Imperfect, not good enough, could be better. But at least because we have these bells at the beginning of the period, you're kind of obligated to take that much time to be with things. But even then, it's easy to be busy. Trying to make a good period of meditation better than the last one. At least as good as yesterday.

[25:00]

And how well are you doing? How well am I doing? And to try to find some way to make it better. Instead of stopping at some point and saying, well throw it down on the floor, see how it looks then. Break a leg, break your back, see how you feel then. Or as Thich Nhat Hanh says, get a toothache, see how you feel then. So it's easy to be busy in meditation. And it's easy to think how much, all those other people are sitting so still and I'm wiggling so much. Or isn't it great, I sit so still, they're all wiggling. So we can have many kinds of thoughts about how to make it better, how well we're doing, we need to do it better. And we can spend all of our time being so busy about that and we forget about actually being with things. But at some point, if you obsess enough about all those things,

[26:04]

you'll have to be with those thoughts anyway. That'll be something. So anyway, recently I came across, last talk I gave here in the dining room, I also found something from the San Francisco Chronicle for your edification. And tonight I bring you once again the words of the San Francisco Chronicle on the subject. Last time it was the question man, this article is from the people section. It's June the 21st. Picture here, wonders of the wild and windy north coast shoreline. Near Shelter Cove, nice picture. Anyway, the article is called Rewards and for Creativity. I thought this was a really interesting article. Patty found it and pointed it out to me. But, you know, researchers are finally getting around to this kind of thing.

[27:08]

It's taken them a while, right? So here's the article, at least the beginning of it. If there's one thing that will excite a 5th or 6th grader, it's a free movie ticket. That's what psychologist James Garbarino figured. So when he asked 12 girls individually to try to teach a new game to a younger child, he promised each a ticket if she did a good job. Then he also asked another group of students to try their hand at tutoring, but he didn't promise them any movie tickets. So what do you think? The group that wasn't promised movie tickets did much better, obviously better at teaching the game than the group that was promised the movie tickets. So the group that was promised the tickets took longer to communicate ideas, got frustrated more easily, and it ended up with pupils who didn't understand the game as well as the children who were taught by the girls who weren't promised any movie tickets.

[28:09]

And then it says, a little sub-caption, Not a fluke. And then it says, Before you dismiss these results as a fluke, consider these findings from several other experiments. Children who were expected to receive a prize for making collages or telling stories proved to be less imaginative at both tasks than those who weren't promised anything. Two or three weeks after being told they would get an award for drawing with felt-tip markers, this is preschoolers now, preschoolers were less interested in using the markers than the peers who didn't expect to be rewarded. Teenagers who were offered a reward for remembering details of a newspaper story they had recently read

[29:12]

had poor recalls and those received nothing for their efforts. So the article goes on, and the conclusion is that actually rewards hamper creativity. Rewards get in the way. As soon as we start to think about, What am I going to get? What am I going to have to show for this? Then pretty soon we try to figure out what's the least amount we can do and still get the reward. It's like at the post office. When I worked at the post office, I think it's still a bit like this. People would brag. The big thing at the post office was, during breaks you'd sit around and talk and somebody would say, Well, I slipped out and went down to the Embarcadero and went in a bar and I came back two hours later and I still got my thing signed out and nobody knew I was gone. It wasn't that great. Then somebody else has a better story. They're trying to top each other with how little they did and still got paid

[30:15]

and haven't gotten fired yet. That's a government hobby. Yeah, it's a government hobby. But it works like that in school. I was in school and I did the same thing. I tried to figure out how little can I do and still get an acceptable grade. I got a very good grade, actually, because I have high standards. But still I figured out how I could do as little as possible to get that high grade. This is very interesting and it works the same in meditation or in the kitchen or in a relationship. As soon as we start thinking about how can I meditate better, what am I going to get out of this, how come I'm not getting those great results, then we get busy thinking about all these things and then we go, like, well, what's wrong with me? How come I'm not getting the reward?

[31:16]

How come things aren't coming out better? And there's a difference. They finally point out at the end of the article some psychologist has made a distinction between task involvement and ego involvement. And when someone apparently is scientific now, when somebody is task involved, then they do much better at it than if they get... As soon as they get ego involved, then it's not so great anymore. So to come to some understanding of... But this is so strong in us, looking to get something out of what we're doing, looking to get some reward for it, looking to get some approval, looking to get some respect, looking to get some gratitude from other people, trying to measure up to some standard where if I finally measure up to this, if I finally do that, then I could like myself, then I could respect myself, then I would feel all right about myself.

[32:17]

But of course, when we get involved in that kind of thinking, then the standards just go up. Well, I know you did that very well, but now you have to do this other thing. That was... You sat still for one period, but now you'll have to sit still for a day. Oh, now you've sat still for a day? Well, now you really should be able to sit still for a week. But you're still sitting 40-minute periods? You better sit a two-hour one. No, I think you should sit still without moving... well, all day, or six hours. So there's always some new level. So in some ways, to think or to realize or to settle into one's life and to acknowledge inmost request or wish is to go against this current that says accomplish, achieve, attain, possess, get.

[33:23]

I have to stop here to take a minute or two to hear the crickets and come back to something simple. So we hear this kind of advice sometimes in Buddhism, and I thought I would share with you some words from Dogen Zenji. In regard to... He says... So practice the Buddha Dharma, he says, when you practice Buddha Dharma, don't practice Buddha Dharma for yourself.

[35:14]

And don't practice with the thought of helping others. Don't practice for some miraculous effects or for some special benefits. Just practice the Buddha Dharma to practice the Buddha Dharma. This is something very simple. When you have a cup of tea, then have a cup of tea. When you're cooking, then cook. When you're sitting, then sit. And when you have a moment to breathe, then be with your breath. But not because it's anything that's going to come from that. Just do it to do it. Even doing it with the thought that it will be of benefit to others will distract you. Is it enough of a benefit yet? Has it helped anybody?

[36:16]

It doesn't seem to have helped them enough. I think I need to try harder. Pretty soon we're all just thinking about, have we achieved that result enough yet? So this is a kind of offering. This kind of effort is a kind of offering almost, just to... we offer our life in this way. Very simple, very immediate, very direct. One Zen teacher, I forget if it was Yaku-san or one of them, he said, Awkward in a hundred ways, clumsy in a thousand. Still I go on like this. So we're each like that. This is way-seeking mind, the aspiration for enlightenment.

[37:18]

Things aren't perfect, and still we make our best effort and our warm effort to be in our life. Thank you. All right. So this is not anything new for you, I don't think. I appreciate your efforts in this regard. Thank you. It's sort of funny for me to sit, I live and stay right across the creek from here in cabin 1B, so I get to hear a little bit of dinner conversation. You know how sound carries in the mountains. So I hear various things about whether you should or shouldn't come to Ed's talk.

[38:23]

And what did you decide? I thought, well, I'd check it out, you know. I love it. And then just before I was coming over here, I heard someone say, I think I'm going to miss the Ed show tonight. I had no idea. Come and give a talk. Thank you. So last night I started talking about way-seeking mind, or aspiration for enlightenment. And essentially two elements, considering essentially two elements that the nature of life day after day and moment after moment is not the way we would like it to be if we had the choice. Usually we can think of some way it could be improved upon, and yet it can never be improved upon enough.

[39:30]

So what a fix we're in, how do we go on? And the thought of enlightenment or aspiration for enlightenment, the way-seeking mind goes on anyway, and making some effort to be in harmony with things, and to find some simple beauty or sustenance or nourishment moment after moment in our life. Of course, there are further elements to this way-seeking mind, so one of them is, Dogen Zenji says, way-seeking mind is to awaken in others the thought of way-seeking mind, the thought of enlightenment. And then he said further, way-seeking mind is to awaken in others the thought of awakening in others the thought of enlightenment. In other words, we could all be encouraging ourselves in this way

[40:36]

to settle into our life, to make ourselves at home, even though the world is not the way we'd like it to be, and things are not as great as we'd like or might wish for. And it's the problems and difficulties in our life especially that bring us down and into our life, and help us settle into our life, and work with things finely, very carefully, meticulously, laboriously, so that we can sustain ourselves and those around us. And so, in the stories we find that I told you yesterday, we found the young man who daydreamed about going to the circus still brings the pickles back for dinner. He comes back, something brings him back.

[41:37]

His connection with other people, his thought of others, his word, he agreed to do it, he agreed to come back. And we can see how the meal that we eat is better than the one that we tossed in the ground in a fit of pique because it wasn't good enough. That one out on the ground there is not very good anymore. So when we take the effort that we've made, even though it doesn't in some ways measure up, and we toss it into the ground, or in some way disparage the effort that we do make, it doesn't help to sustain us. The food isn't very good then. So I want to tell you a poem that again is about, for me,

[42:43]

in this context, the thought of enlightenment or way-seeking mind. This is a poem by the Indian poet Kabir. It's translated in this case by Robert Bly. Although we had another Kabir translator here recently, I'm using one of Robert Bly's and not one of Linda's. It's one of my favorite Kabir poems. It's a very simple, I think, graphic demonstration of this Kabir poem. I said to the wanting creature inside me, what is that river you want to cross? There are no travelers on the river road and there is no road. Do you see anybody wandering about on that bank or resting? There's no river. There's no boat.

[43:45]

There's no boatman. There's no tow rope and no one to pull it. There's no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no ford, and there's no body and no mind. Do you really believe there's somewhere else that the soul will be less thirsty? In that great absence you'll find nothing. Enter into your own body then. There you'll have a solid place to put your feet. Think about it carefully. Don't go off somewhere else. Kabir says this, just set aside all imaginary things and stand firm in that which you are. Okay? Get the feeling of that?

[44:49]

So we have some tendency in our life to think that there's somewhere else things would be easier, things would be better. And of course we spend a lot of time looking for those places. A new relationship, a new guru, a new diet, something outside of this that would be the answer and it would be somewhere else. And the suggestion in this poem is enter into your own body. Do you really think there's somewhere else? Whenever you get to somewhere else, as soon as you get there, you'll be there. And you may find various people who impress you as being great teachers or learned people or wise or brilliant. But if you're not careful, you'll give them your power and you won't understand that that same understanding and wisdom and power is in you.

[45:57]

Instead you will ask someone else, what do I do? So anyway, here's a suggestion for you. Enter into your own body. There you find a solid place to put your feet. This is a very powerful kind of moment or decision or commitment. And for each of us to give our word that we will do this is a very powerful commitment or vow that we can make. People make it in different words, different language. Someone I talked to recently mentioned having trouble overeating for many years. And she did therapy and she went in search of gurus. After two years with a therapist, the therapist said, I'm not going to work with you anymore. You have too much resistance.

[47:01]

You don't really want to change. Isn't that a terrible thing for a therapist to say? Instead of, I haven't found out yet how to work with you. And putting it, this is what, you know, but this is also what we tend to do to ourselves when we go to the therapist in the first place. I need your help. So we should be, you know, we need to be careful in those situations. In some circumstances it may be quite useful. But it's more helpful if the therapist at least can take some responsibility too. I haven't yet understood how to work with you. So the therapist says, goodbye now. You have too much resistance. And there's gurus and there's, you know, books about diets and books about various things. But she said finally she made a decision

[48:03]

that the answer must be in her own experience. And that was the only place she was going to find it. She wasn't going to find it anyplace else. It's very powerful. And did she say, and did I have any reason to believe that it was in my experience? No. She said, I decided that it was in my experience on the basis of nothing at all. And then she said it was much harder than I thought. It's a lot of work. But this is a different kind of work than the work of maintaining a kind of illusory world of everything being okay and fine or we're going to make it better and better and so on. And it's very different than, you know, for instance, I've told this story before, but I heard a story of, you know,

[49:05]

and it may or may not be a true story, who knows, but this young man goes to meditate in the Himalayas somewhere in Nepal. He gets a cottage out somewhere and he's got his bags of food and he sits there and he cooks a little bit of rice and stuff each day and a few vegetables and he practices meditating, sitting and walking, sitting and walking. And after a while he begins to hear marching music in the creek. You know how the sound of the creek makes music sometimes? It wouldn't stop making marching music. Do you know how annoying that can be? Da-da-da-da-da-da. You know, all these trumpets and trombones and things. So he tried everything or thought he tried everything. He tried loving the sound. He tried being kind to the sound. He tried becoming one with the sound. He tried all the techniques that he'd heard of. And at last he gave up. And he went out to the creek and began moving the rocks.

[50:08]

Hoping that if he moved the rocks a little bit, the tune would change. This is a kind of, we could say, misplaced effort. But we sometimes try to rearrange our life in this way. Moving little things around and little pieces around and hoping that the music we get is a little different. So it seems to require a bit more work or a bit more commitment than that. So this brings up something about what is it to enter into your own body or what is required, what is necessary. And the expression I thought I'd use tonight is faith. Faith as in, I will find out how to do this even though I have no reason to believe that I can.

[51:17]

And faith is interesting. There's various kinds of little stories in Buddhist literature about faith. As an aspect of mind, faith is said to lead the way. And then the rest of the mind can follow. So for instance, if there is a forest fire and all the animals are running away from the forest fire, they get to a big river, they stop. The river is infested with crocodiles and alligators or whatever. And they are hesitant to dive into the river even though there is a forest fire coming down on them. Faith is the one who dives into the river and leads the others across to the other side where there is not a fire going. We're switching metaphors here. We just talked about there's no other side, there's no river.

[52:28]

Anyway, faith is the one who will dive in even though it's dangerous and the rest of the mental factors follow and faith leads the way to the other shore into this new world. Which is an uncertain world. But the understanding is that the uncertain world of the river, that by going into the uncertain world of the river with the crocodiles, there is another shore where things will be more stable again. Anyway, something is necessary to dive in. And often it is some kind of, as I've been mentioning, forest fire. Some kind of divorce. Some kind of problem. A very bad back. Cancer. Somebody in the family dies.

[53:35]

Somebody else in the family gets sick. Any number of things that tend to be the impetus. Or we have a problem. Overeating, alcohol, drugs. Something that is undoing our life. Undermining our life and burning up everything. So faith is the one that dives in, leading the way through the dangerous waters. What we think of as dangerous waters. Or faith is also seen as, interestingly enough, faith is also seen as the water there that we are diving into is rather murky. It's swirling around. It's dark. It's volatile. There are colors coming up every now and again. It doesn't look like it will be much to dive into. And faith, if you put some faith in there, the water clears. The water becomes calm.

[54:36]

So faith clears the water. Faith is said to clear the water. So this faith, you can also think of as a kind of a vow or a commitment or your word. I'm going to do this. I'm going to get to the bottom of things. I'm going to sort things out. Even though I have no reason to believe that I can. Even though I haven't been able to up until now. Still, I am going to do that. And sometimes, you know, we make that kind of expression to other people. Sometimes we just make it to ourselves. But if we make it clearly enough to ourselves, then it will take us a long way through the difficult times ahead. And every time that we need to remind ourselves, it will clarify our awareness. When we bring that back to mind, it becomes clear again.

[55:39]

We remind ourselves. And the circumstances which seem unbalancing or in some way disturbing are now clear the direction, it's now clear the direction to go. So I want to give you now some, a couple of traditional stories about this entering into your own body, this giving your word, making a vow. In this case, it's a couple of stories about some monks in China. And Zen teacher Dogen, when he went to China, met these two monks. Zen teacher Dogen was born in Japan. And in his early twenties, he decided to go to China to study Zen. Because Zen, in China, Zen China was where it was really at. And Dogen didn't feel he'd met any really great teachers in Japan.

[56:40]

So he went to China to meet someone he really considered enlightened. So I hope this is also not confusing for you, that we've talked about, you know. So if you do go off in search of teachers anyway, don't, you know, turn, you can't still, you can't turn everything over to them and say, here's my life problems, will you fix them? And then when you fix them, you can give me back my life? Doesn't work very well like that. So you've still got to understand that you're going to have some work to do. Anyway, Dogen goes to China. And he said one day he was practicing in this monastery. And he walked outside and into the courtyard. It must have been a place somewhat like Tassajara. Most temples are in monasteries, excuse me, are in mountains. And as he walked through the courtyard, there was an old, the old cook,

[57:47]

the head cook was there in the courtyard putting out mushrooms to dry. It was extremely hot, probably like here, you know, maybe it was over 100, 115, we don't know. But the man was sweating profusely. Dogen says he was bent over like a bow. He had big, bushy white eyebrows. He was sweating profusely. Dogen went up to him and asked, how long have you been a monk? And the man said, 68 years. Dogen said, isn't there someone else who could be doing this work for you at your age? And he said, others are not me. Others are not me. Dogen said,

[58:49]

you know, it's very hot right now. Couldn't you wait until later in the day? The old monk said, that's not now. For another translation he says, Dogen says, couldn't you do this later? And he says, until when would I wait? When else is there? And the other story concerns the second... Oh, and the end of this story, Dogen says, I walked away somewhat chagrined, realizing how important the position of cook was.

[59:54]

And he says, And the other story he tells concerns a second cook monk. And this time, Zen teacher Dogen, he was still on the ship from Japan, I think when he first arrived. And while he was there, he met a monk who came to the boat to buy mushrooms. And so Dogen became acquainted with this old monk. The old monk said that he was 61 years old, he'd been a monk for 40 years, said he had grown up in the west of China, and he'd been away from home all that time for 40 years, and living in various temples, and that recently he had become the head cook at a monastery at Mount Baiyuan. And Dogen thought how fortuitous this is,

[61:01]

that he would meet someone like this. He asked the man... Oh, and the other... So the cook monk said, further to Dogen, he said, Tomorrow is the fifth day of the fifth month, and we have a special offering on this day, and I didn't have... I wanted to make something good for the offering to all the monks. So I thought of making a noodle soup, but we didn't have any mushrooms. So I wanted to get some mushrooms. Dogen said, When did you leave your monastery? He said, It was after the noon meal. And how far away is it? It's about 12 miles. So he'd walk like from here to Jamesburg to get mushrooms for the next day's meal. Dogen said, This is how fortuitous this is. It's a wonderful coincidence that I've been able to meet you,

[62:03]

and I would really like you to stay, and I'd like to offer you a meal. And the Tenzo monk said, I'm sorry, that won't be possible. I have to get back to my monastery tonight and prepare the offering for tomorrow, or it won't be good. And Dogen said, Aren't there any others at the monastery who can do this? If just one cook is missing, then something will be lacking. And the old cook said, I have accepted this responsibility in my old age. This is the fulfillment of a lifetime of practicing Zen. So I can't give this to someone else to do. And besides that, I didn't ask for permission to stay out overnight.

[63:05]

Dogen, being the persistent young man that he was, said, But why do you spend your time cooking? Why don't you, in your old age, why don't you practice meditation and studying the scriptures, studying the words of the ancient teachers, instead of wasting your time and going to all this trouble to cook and to work so hard? And the old monk, he said, laughed a lot and said, Dear man, dear young man from a foreign country, you really don't understand about meditation practice or about the words of the ancient teachers, do you? Dogen was really persistent, right? So he said, What is the meaning of practice?

[64:12]

What is the meaning of words? And of course the old cook monk was very kind and said, Let that question settle deeply into you and penetrate it and you'll come to the answer. So we need some question like that. What is it to enter into your own body? What is it to dive into the depths of your life? What is it to have the question settle into your heart? Later on, Dogen was studying at another monastery and this old Tenzin monk came by to visit him and said that he was retiring shortly and would be returning to his native place

[65:15]

and he had heard that Dogen Zenji was at this temple and he wanted to come by and visit. So again, Dogen said to him, Tell me, what are words? What is practice? And the old cook monk said, To understand words, you should understand the origin of words and to understand practice, you need to understand the origin of practice. The origin of words and practice is what moves you. What moves you? What moves each of us in our life? Where is it coming from? Dogen said, Well, what are words? And the monk said, One, two, three, four, five. What is practice? And the monk said,

[66:16]

Nothing in the entire universe is hidden. So it was a kind of little commentary about this. Dogen says later on he came across a poem by another Zen teacher. And he says, Because of this poem, he said, If you listen to this poem and you will understand, you will see that his words were in accord with good understanding. And the poem is about as follows. With one word, seven words, three or five, no matter how much you investigate myriad phenomena, nothing can be depended upon. Night advances, the full moon falls and sinks into the ocean. The black dragon jewel that you've been searching for

[67:20]

is everywhere. So enter into your own body. This is where this black dragon jewel is in our own experience, in your own experience. There may be some work to find it there. And we don't always recognize the black dragon jewel as the black dragon jewel. We might just think it's a carrot. We might just think it's a breath. We might just think it's anger. Or depression. So further, when Dogen then talks about cooking, he says, that for the cook to work in the kitchen

[68:24]

is the expression of way-seeking mind. You don't need to go to the Zen dojo to find way-seeking mind. Or Suzuki Roshi said to me, when I was first going to be the cook here at Tassajara, after Zen Center bought Tassajara, and I asked Suzuki Roshi, what shall I do as the cook here? And he said, when you cut the carrots, cut the carrots. When you stir the soup, stir the soup. When you wash the rice, wash the rice. You can study that for a long time. It's very good work. Because you might think that when you cut the carrots, yes, there's cutting the carrots. But what is cutting the carrots? It's not anything particular. When I first started that practice, I thought that cutting the carrots was in a little space, about a foot square on the cutting board in front of me.

[69:26]

I didn't realize that that was connected to arms, or shoulders, or back, or legs, or other people in the kitchen. I thought it was just that little place. But we need something like that kind of advice, or that kind of promise to ourselves, to do that kind of practice, and to make that kind of effort, to find the Black Dragon Jewel in cutting carrots. It's not something you do when you just walk in the kitchen and say, now I'm going to cut the carrots and find the Black Dragon Jewel in the next two minutes. Thank you very much, Universe. This isn't the way things work, right? So I want to read you a... I've got something else to read you tonight. This is from Wendell Berry. I'm getting it out of the Coalition Quarterly here,

[70:30]

but it's also in a book called, Standing by Words. It's from a chapter called, Poetry and Marriage, the Use of Bold Forms. So when I read this, I want you to think. You can think about marriage if you want, but you can also put in place of marriage, you can put Zazen, meditation, which is also a form. You can put in cutting the carrots or cooking. But the point here is that somebody is acting with faith and giving their word and committing themselves to carry out a particular form. I'm going to cut the carrots now. I'm going to do meditation. I take this person as a partner. So I'm going to read, I don't know, two or three different paragraphs from here.

[71:31]

The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words. We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving. The promise must be absolute. For in joining ourselves to one another, we join ourselves to the unknown. Isn't that true when you sit down in the black cushion? Say, I'm going to sit here for 40 minutes. Who knows what will happen? We cannot join one another. We can join one another only by joining the unknown. We must not be misled by the procedures of an experimental thought. In life, in the world, we are never given two known results to choose between, but only one result that we choose without knowing what it is. Marriage rests upon immutable givens

[72:38]

that compose it, words, bodies, characters, histories, places. Some wishes cannot succeed. Some victories cannot be won. Some loneliness is incorrigible. But there is relief and freedom in knowing what is real, what is possible. These givens come to us out of the perennial reality of the world, like the terrain we live on, like our own bodies. One does not care for this ground to make it a different place, or to make it perfect, but to make it inhabitable. To flee from its realities is only to arrive at them unprepared. So partly what I want to convey

[73:47]

or bring home to you in some way is we have such a kind of how do you say, tendency or easy tendency to think that some freedom or ease or liberation is apart from forms. When we get our work done, when we complete something, then we have some freedom. So this is beginning to talk about how it is that forms in fact give us freedom and open our mind, open our awareness. Whether it's the form of a marriage or the form of meditation or the form of a meal, even the form of a breath. Everywhere there is form and yet there is some possibility of openness there, of opening up in some way.

[74:49]

Properly used, averse form like a marriage creates impasses which the will and present understanding can solve only arbitrarily and superficially. These halts and difficulties do not ask for immediate remedy. We fail them by making emergencies of them. They ask rather for patience, for bearing, assurance, inspiration, the gifts and graces of time, circumstance and faith. They are perhaps the true occasions of the poem, occasions for surpassing what we know or have reason to expect. It may be then that form serves us best when it serves to impede our mind, when it serves as an obstruction to baffle us and that when we don't know where to go our real journey begins, when we don't know what to do our real work begins.

[75:59]

The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings marching songs. In Taking the Path of Zen, Robert Akinroshi says, it's not unusual to find true resonance with a so-called advanced koan in just a single sitting or a single doksan, but more often time is necessary and sometimes one gets stuck and one must stay there for a while. That necessity to stay there for a while is the gist of the meaning of form. Form joins us to time and to the consequences and fruition of our own passing. The Zen student, the poet, the husband, the wife,

[77:08]

none knows with certainty what he or she is doing or is staying for, but all know the likelihood that they will be staying a while to find out what they are staying for. And it is the faith of all of these disciplines that they will not stay to find that they should not have stayed. Did you get that? So it's faith that was willing to stay for a while not knowing what it is staying for. And often we need to give our word that we will do this, that we will stay for a while, whether it's for the period of meditation or to cook a meal,

[78:09]

or to marry, and even though we are baffled and we don't know what we are staying for, and we understand that even though we may have grown apart, we may grow together. Even though things aren't going so well now, they may go differently later, and we're not anymore looking for a quick and ready solution in the way that our mind would like. And our own bodies and our own hearts, we have a body which is born, and our body also is something that when we enter into our body, we can stay there for a while

[79:13]

not knowing what we're staying there for. And something comes out of that that we don't know, but we can have faith that it will be, it will have been worth waiting for. And that we won't have stayed for nothing. I always feel when I give talks at Tassajara, you know, I wonder, you know, there are different kinds of talks that people give, and I was, especially since tonight, you know, I sort of hear this business about the Missing the Edge show, and I realize again, you know, and being here I realize that, you know, this, all of you, this is an initiated audience. This is not the general public, you know, this is not a television talk show. You've all, you know, chosen to be here, you've chosen to come here

[80:15]

and sit for a while and listen to the talk. And so I feel able to give the kind of talk that I give because you bring what you bring to it. So I encourage you to, you know, touch that in yourself and to seek the origin of that and know the place it comes from and settle there, live there, abide there. And when you do things, when you cut the carrots, you cut the carrots and be alive there, cutting the carrots and finding out what that is and sitting, walking, having a cup of tea. In some ways this is entering into a kind of soup or stew or, you know,

[81:22]

the underneath. Life on the surface is so much like billboards and things and when you get underneath, it's not always so clean and neat. In fact, it isn't clean and neat there, but by making this decision or vow or commitment to do it and giving your word to do it, you can do it on each occasion. So thank you very much. I'd like to remind you that the area out here at this time in the evening is a quiet area, so if you'd like to visit or talk with your friends, you need to go some ways down that way or up that way or down that way. And a couple of you, I know usually a couple of people stay anyway, we'll put them back together too. All right.

[82:20]

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