I'd wanted today to talk about the several stories about Joshu, concerning the ultimate path has no difficulty, only avoid picking and choosing. Can you hear in the back okay? So-so. Anyway, I'd wanted to talk about these stories about Joshu, only avoid picking and choosing, which I have also been talking about at Tassajar. Is that better? No. There's so many people here, you absorb the sound. Anyway, and I wanted this to follow from my talk in San Francisco yesterday.

[01:18]

But seeing so many of you who can't, who weren't there yesterday, I think I'll have to repeat some of the things I said yesterday. Because this is, the ultimate path has no difficulties, only avoid picking and choosing. His first line of Sozon's famous, the third patriarch's famous poem, is not easy to understand. It's a very good place to put your effort, this kind of question. Ultimate path is not difficult, only avoid picking and choosing.

[02:25]

Some monk said to Joshu, you always say the ultimate path has no difficulty, only avoid picking and choosing. What is not picking and choosing, the monk said to Joshu, and Joshu said, under heaven and earth, I alone am the honoured one, the monk said. But that's also picking and choosing, and Joshu said, you stupid oak, where is the picking and choosing? Another time, the monk asked Joshu, the ultimate you said, the ultimate path has no difficulties.

[03:27]

And Joshu said, he asked him to explain, and Joshu said, someone once asked me that five years ago and still I'm unable to explain. And there are two more stories connected with Joshu and this question. But before you understand this context of this kind of question, I think it's necessary for you to understand how completely Buddhism is a man-made – Buddhism says your world is a man-made world. We can say artificial world, artificial means man-made, made by man. We say, you know, there's suffering and a path leading to the end of suffering, and

[05:05]

that path is right views, right intentions, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right mindfulness, right concentration, right effort. These all mean you're choosing, you're choosing wholesome states or right action or right livelihood. How you live is extremely important, how you choose to live. And the degree to which we in the West tend to think, for some centuries now, that it's not quite possible to make mistakes, you know. We have some idea of laissez-faire or natural selection, but, you know, saying natural selection doesn't say anything.

[06:05]

We are the result of natural selection. What does that mean? We are the result of selection. We are the result of something. What is natural selection? Or we have some idea that in economics the marketplace will take care of everything. Or we look to some deeper truth – what does the one lead to, or astrology, or some system to protect us. But, as I said, some system or laissez-faire won't clean your house. You have to clean your house by your own decision. So, but Buddhism also says, when you practice, you can't find who is practicing.

[07:11]

Who is practicing? There is no self that owns anything. You can't find any self that possesses anything. You can't find any self that maintains or sustains any reality. And you can't find any self that has any particular characteristic, marks. The Tathagata is said to abide in the realm, abide unattended to signs. What does it mean, abide unattended to signs? So each of you, separate people, have come here to Green Gulch for some reason.

[08:20]

But if you are practicing meditation, you will find more and more, you can't find out who is practicing meditation. And in fact, when you do have an observer, you'll find it interferes. As soon as some observer appears, I'm practicing such and such a way, or as soon as you objectify your practice, I should slow down my breathing or something like that, immediately your practice, your consciousness even, is diminished. So, Buddhism, we can call Buddhism also, as I've said, dharmism.

[09:33]

There's no need for Buddha, from one point of view. You are the person practicing dharmism, so we can say Buddhism. But dharmism, if there's no self, what is perceived? What are we looking at? What is happening? And Buddhism reduces everything to dharmas. What kind of reality do we exist in now? So the dharma theory is a very radical theory. When you try to practice it, because it means you don't distribute your perceptions any more into selves or identity, dharmas are said to be multiple, momentary, impersonal

[10:46]

and modulated. Dharma is like the example I've been using, is if you see a blue horse, you just see blue, that's all. Nothing else. You may distribute that into the horse, with hair and eyes and everything, but it's not necessary to do so. If you do that, you are already involved in making something, it's a man-made operation. So how to let go of your making, you know, Blake says, when the Lord or something unfolds, when the light... When he unfolds it, it takes some eye to behold it, in this kind of closed system.

[11:56]

So in practice, I've also mentioned how Nargajuna says, A plus B doesn't equal A and B, but equals something new, C. So when we practice, we see our seeing, but also dropping and observing. So, we see our seeing, the making of something. Not depending on the systems, you know, when we... Sometimes we think ecology, somehow nature or some balance will eventually right itself, but when we have the capability of destroying the atmosphere of this planet, it doesn't have any meaning to say ecology will restore it or something.

[13:19]

So, we can make mistakes, and so choosing how we live is essential in Buddhism. So it's on this background, the realm of making mistakes, the realm of taking responsibility for how you live, what kind of decisions you make, what you do each day, which... It's this background, which this statement, the ultimate path has no difficulty, only avoid picking and choosing. I've spoken about this.

[14:34]

So much now, but I think there's some value in going over it. For most of you it's new, but I would like to let you pick and choose, but I'd like to have some questions from you about this, if you have anything to ask. How do you make a decision? He said, how do you make a decision? How do you make a decision?

[16:16]

You know, I don't know how to... Practically speaking I think we know how to make a decision, and if possible you make your base wider and wider from how you decide. But in Zen practice, in meditation practice, you attempt to find out what your intention is, uncover your intention rather than coming to some particular way. You find yourself doing something, so you just deepen your intention to practice, say. And finding out what kind of person, how you exist, you deepen your... by your practice

[17:21]

you deepen your energy and your consciousness, concentrating your consciousness, concentrating your energy. And from that point you ask the question, how do I make a decision? How do I make a decision? What is a decision? Because we are... in practice you are trying to get at what is the fundamental nature of making a decision. What is not picking inches, aren't you always every place you go, you know, not bumping into trees, isn't that a kind of decision? I think it's maybe too...

[18:51]

Without the background of practice it's pretty... without Zazen experience. So you can begin to have the confidence to let go, to stop, to not distribute your perceptions into horse or tree anymore, very close to, as I've said, don't average perceptions, don't average your senses. You find out a scale of allowing things to happen. With your man-made participation that you no longer make decisions in the usual way. Yes?

[19:55]

Not distributing perceptions, it's very close to not averaging your perceptions, your senses. You don't see the difference? You mean you want... Okay, there... You can say that the same thing. You want me to explain the difference? You mean? That's too much picking inches. Yes? When we practice, the basic part of the decision is becoming broader. My feeling inside is that the basic part of the decision is becoming narrower. I'm not so scared to concentrate on my knee. Yeah. That's true.

[21:07]

But as you don't distribute your perceptions, the scale... You know, there's a poem... In the commentary on the poem it says, the railing... Beyond the railing the mountains grow distant and water is chill. So, there's some feeling of what he's trying to convey is, when you don't distribute your perceptions anymore, you're not in the usual framework of time and space. And... Anyway, I think this is... You know, I've been talking about this at Tassajara, but it's very difficult for me to give you a feeling for it without more background.

[22:07]

So, I'd rather... It's a very important point in Zen practice and in Buddhism, this statement, ultimate path has no difficulty, only avoid picking and choosing. So... But I don't know how to express it to you without... Let me say, if you work on, if you try to not discriminate, to do each thing exactly as it's before you, and at the same time, have sustained concentration. You know, this is how we approach making decisions, with a great detail of attention. It... You are following? But it's...

[23:07]

Interesting how difficult it is to express this. Yes? You said four qualities, four words that you said... Four dharmas? Yes, the four dharmas. Multiple, momentary, impersonal and modulated. That's interesting. You know, I have such a feeling for this, but I don't want to hit you over the head with it, so I'm rather... Multiple. It means no origins. Nope, I understand too much of what you're saying,

[24:23]

but it seems that I get a feeling that this gets cut. I'm just curious, it's just... It's not... Like, to me, that's true. I'm not trying to figure it all out. You have all the information, you need all the variables to make a complete decision. Well... Well, one joke... The commentary, introduction to one of these stories says, when you don't... when you haven't yet penetrated, it's like a silver mountain or iron wall. After you've penetrated... I don't want to put up a silver wall today or iron mountain for you. But anyway... You know, I wanted to say something from yesterday, but I can't do it, you know. So...

[25:24]

Anyway, then the commentary goes on. After you've penetrated, you find you yourself are the silver wall and silver mountain and iron wall. Then if you say to me, he says, so what? You know, that's very good. So what? Then I would say, can you hear, can you hear, reveal an action, observe an environment at the essential crossing place, without any question of sacred or profane? Here you can. This may not be beyond your ability to apply. If not, listen to the following case. Then it's... The monk says... The monk says...

[26:28]

Joshu, you are always saying the ultimate path has no difficulty. Avoid picking and choosing. But what is not picking and choosing? And this is when Joshu says, under heaven and earth, I alone am the honoured one. But that's an interesting statement for you. Here, reveal an action. Observe an environment. What it is in Chinese, I don't know. I'm sure it's easier to remember it in Chinese. Reveal an environment. Observe an environment at the essential crossing place with no... without any sense of sacred or profane.

[27:32]

What else? What other comments do you have? I'm wondering if you could say what you would have said and made it clear to me. No, I can't do that, you know. It's not... It's because I have to say what I feel from you and I don't feel it from you. You can't... I don't have anything to say. All I have to say is what comes from you. Though it's true, if I want to say something to you, it's not so good. But, you know, at Tassajara we can talk every day and we can, together, find out something. And I want to bring you up to date, so to speak, because we are always finding out

[28:45]

how to express a little more what this practice, this multiple momentary flashing is. So I want you to be familiar with averaging senses or don't average senses or don't distribute your perceptions. And you're right, it takes trust. The power of the Bodhisattva is said to be illuminating trust, purifying intelligence and the power to meet people. That's very important, the power to meet people. These statements, if you...

[29:46]

are all things you come to because there's no alternative to them. There's no alternative to trust. You are a bunch of stuff, you know. Somehow you are there, a bunch of stuff. You have to trust your stuff. If you don't, you're in trouble. What are you going to trust then? That stuff over there? And that's worse. Isn't that making a choice? To trust your stuff? That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's a choice, but... what then isn't a choice? No, it's a choice, yes, it's a choice. It's a choice to deepen your intention, to concentrate your consciousness, to concentrate your energy. What isn't a choice? For the example I often use,

[30:48]

is if you're walking along in the dark... For the example I often use, is if you're walking along in the dark, right, and you bump into a tree, and you get up, and you walk around the tree, have you made a choice? All right, let's say you made a choice. If you're walking along and you don't even bump into the tree, have you made a choice? You didn't have to make a choice. But you made a choice. There's a flow of choices going on from that point of view. Oh, God. It's really... it's interesting, because

[31:51]

to give this lecture I have to pick and choose too much, you know, and I don't like it, you know. So, if you're completely ready, I can give this lecture, but it's difficult. I like it, though, because we have the problem in front of us. What is picking and choosing, and what is not picking and choosing? Yes, I've forgotten. Well, I've been experiencing from time to time this wishy-washy duality of not knowing what is next. And at these times, I think, if I were to make a choice, that would be picking and choosing. Rather, I would come down to waiting. If I don't know the parity, then I do not do waiting. That's good. That's good. That takes a certain... That's one way we have to practice.

[32:54]

And it takes some courage. Sometimes you have to choose, but in general, if you can wait, you wait. But that waiting isn't to let something else decide for you. And that waiting isn't, you know, laying back. It's an active participation in waiting, sometimes writing... Yeah, you... Just as actively as you'd make a decision, you just as actively wait. That's exactly right. That kind of concentration of your... is the development of this practice. And what I want to say to you is that in these four I gave you,

[33:55]

a concentration of intention, a concentration of consciousness, and a concentration of intention is fairly easy for all of you to understand. It just means you uncover what you already... what your stuff already is about. So you're a bunch of stuff, you have to trust that stuff. Does that stuff have anything called intention? Is there some way to not have an intention? Okay, so you're asking yourself that question. But that's fairly... fairly simple. And you want to... buy your... honesty or purifying thought or... I don't know how we describe it. You want to come to your fundamental intention.

[34:58]

So you're making that effort. What is my fundamental intention? That's okay. Anybody can do that. The next two, concentrate your consciousness and intention. Concentrate your consciousness and energy. These are, you know, I don't think too... you can't understand these unless you practice meditation. And I think maybe for a while it takes before you can see how your consciousness is more and more concentrated and how your energy is more and more concentrated and how you do that by not discriminating a kind of residing in your energy, a kind of trusting in your energy and your consciousness. And it's very much a gut feeling. I said the other day at the Thursday night meeting that practice is a kind of

[36:03]

sensuality in that it's very, very definitely a physical thing. You know, even in this room, this room is some physical air we are in and you physically are in it and feel it. Yes. Yes. So, there's a... So there's this concentration of consciousness and energy and a... trusting your concentration for these kind of decisions where you don't even avoid... hit the tree, right? When you don't even hit the tree those decisions that we can call them decisions

[37:06]

but it's almost a kind of illness when they rise to the level of a decision. It means you bumped into a tree, right? At a certain point you no longer bump into trees. So decisions of that kind don't arise anymore. Okay. And it comes from developing your concentration which is further developed by no longer distributing your perceptions into horses or something like that. So, you know, if space-time as Einstein expresses it is relative, etc. what is outside that framework? Space-time in that sense is already an identity. A self. Non-distributed perceptions are outside that framework. So, but still... Okay, this is still in the realm of man-made. You have your intention and you have your... concentrating your consciousness and your intelligence or energy.

[38:09]

The last one is the concentration of investigation and a better translation I think is the concentration of penetration. Penetration. And the only way to approach penetration this concentration of penetration and this is something I want to express to you so strongly which I have not been able to get you to understand how important the questioning state of mind is. What is it? What is it? All the time. The other half of Joe's talk. No matter what situation you're in what is it? What is seeing? What is this? By penetration we can say it's no longer man-made. Because penetration is... Cooperative, shall we say, on such a large scale.

[39:21]

It's not man-made. Okay, someone had something over... Sozon, yeah. Why would you set up an ultimate path? Why would you set that up? Why would you set up the idea of an ultimate path? That's a good question. Hmm. I don't like to keep using

[40:27]

the same examples I've used before but since we're going over the same territory I have to... I can't think of another one right now. I asked once when I was a kid my father... I said to my father, 12 o'clock doesn't exist. He said, all right. Why? I said, if 12 o'clock has any length of time it's either before 12 o'clock or after 12 o'clock. It's either a second before or a billionth of a second before or a billionth of a second after. And my father said, well, something that's approached and then passed we can say exists. I thought that was a pretty good answer. But also 12 o'clock is what? The sun is over our head, you know.

[41:29]

It's directly the highest point, 12 o'clock. But if you... But in Japan it's what? Seven hours ahead or something. So if you walk only one inch it's 12 o... Your friend is not standing at 12 o'clock. Your friend is at 12 o.111 or 00001. So what is 12 o'clock, you know? From what point... It's only a particular point of view, a particular distribution. So... The reality we're talking about is as ephemeral as what is 12 o'clock, as brief as what is 12 o'clock. So, two phrases I used at Tassajara

[42:32]

are right dharma, transmission of right dharma, and as Hakuen Zenji's teacher said or Dogen said and others, transmission of right meditation. Transmission of right meditation or transmission of right dharma or the ultimate path. Okay? Are that... My kids. Yes. I can't think of how to express it. If I throw a ball at you and you catch it and throw it somewhere else, that's externalization. If it disappears when it gets to you, that's right meditation.

[43:34]

When you... When you are at that point where no... There's... You know, Kaiin samadhi, ocean imprint samadhi, seamless sea samadhi, means it's when no opposites arise, no trees arise, nothing arises at the level of a decision. Someone else may have a decision you participate in, but nothing arises anymore at the level of a decision. This is right dharma or right transmission of meditation or the ultimate path, which you don't stray from. And this ultimate path has no difficulty, only don't pick and choose. So, I'm also talking about... I can't say internalization. That's wrong. As I said yesterday,

[44:40]

when we try to approach each other by... We know we're not entirely separate, so we try to approach by friendship or affection or whatever we... Some observation. It's more... The direction is more in... toward not distributing. That's more toward separateness, what I just said. But toward not distributing your perceptions toward dharma. Dharma gates are endless. I vow to enter them. Each... Each multiple dharma is a gate. Okay.

[45:41]

By this... By this... By this dharma gate, we find out how we exist with everyone. Did I cover most of the questions? Or is there one more? Yes. Is the ultimate path sort of like a balance? I'm trying to teach my son how to ride a bike. It seems that if he takes the time to think about what to do, the bike pulls over. It seems like the only way you'll ever go on the bike is to feel and respond at the same time.

[47:12]

Yeah, it's very similar to that. In everything you do, though, which takes a great deal of trust, it's like riding a... It's very much a kind of sport. What about training wheels? Treading... The treading wheel? The treading wheel. The little clock you put on the bike. Oh, yeah. No. Yes. Am I to... It seems that I've heard a question over here about the Buddhist way of answering. Yes. And am I to assume that because you did not answer it correctly that it's a Buddhist way? What I've been saying is... What I've been saying about right transmission of dharma or meditation is the Buddhist way

[48:14]

or not bumping... trees not coming up anymore. Hmm. Yes. Do you not pick and choose less and less to reach a point of no picking and choosing? Yeah. When in... You could hear what he said? No. Do you... Do you try to avoid picking and choosing? Okay, is that... All right, wait for it. In order to move toward not picking and choosing? Try to pick and choose less and less? The answer is yes. You may try picking and see what happens or even carry picking to an extreme and see what happens.

[49:14]

But generally, the basic way is to... when possible. In fact, why we go to a place like Tassajara is to create a situation where we can let go of picking and choosing almost entirely, if you... It's an opportunity to do that. Once you have that confidence, then you move through, you penetrate something. Yes. What do you do when you see a tree? You mean a decision you have to make? That's right views, right livelihoods, etc. You try to choose what you think is best. But the point of right views, right livelihoods, etc. is to create the wholesome states, the confidence, which allows you to abandon picking and choosing. It itself is not

[50:17]

this ultimate path. That's the eightfold path. The ultimate path is... but it creates the conditions where you have enough confidence in your stuff and you've created enough beneficial relationships that you can... Yes. Well, as long as there's a who trusting, it's not perfect trust. Yes. He asked, who is trusting? And now you said, is it a trusting in phenomena or energy? I'm not really asking who is trusting.

[51:26]

I'm asking, what is there to trust in? I mean, what is this... I feel it's kind of... Yes, when there's an object of the trust to some, you know, you have an externalization. And this idea of externalization I talked about from Yajna Dada losing his head and other things, which some of you are familiar with. And I talked yesterday about how Blake says, Job is in trouble and Albion is sick because they externalize nature into rocks and dangerous stuff. Satan is externalization for Blake. But this idea of externalization, it means the same as dharmas are multiple. Let me see if I can say something

[52:30]

to end this talk. Zen means, by your confidence, by your insight, or by your madness. Hakuen's teacher says, No place to put hands and feet, he dies agonizingly. No place to put hands and feet, he dies agonizingly. By your madness then, by being pushed to the point where you have no alternative, or by insight,

[53:31]

you come to the point that you have no alternative but to trust, trust without an object. Trust without an object. You don't know where this is going to take you. But you can see how you get caught in subject-object, in externalization, in discrimination. So you decide. Zazen is an ancient way to put our body into a position, to make a decision to put our body into a position where we can try to

[54:42]

trust, trust itself, shall we say. And you try to let go of externalization. You try to not distribute your perceptions. You try to not average your senses. And you have what is the most important quality, the courage to let go into this. Without... we're not talking about psychic phenomena, ESP or anything, or some levels, multiple levels, just talking about simplicity and trust to allow yourself to exist without definitions. Okay.

[55:46]

Okay. The result is a sense of self which covers everything. You no longer can see, except in some, you know, minor way, any difference between any person you meet and Buddha. Okay. And if we try to explain it in usual terms,

[57:47]

it becomes quite complicated. We try to contrast it to usual ways of existing, it becomes rather mystical. But actually, it comes from no such thing as that, but the simple willingness to trust, as I'm putting it today, trust, trust itself. And to do that by developing, deepening your intention, concentrating your consciousness and energy, that's as much as you can do, and developing that investigative, penetrating state of mind. So, which is the same as you were saying over there, actively waiting. You asked the pillar the question.

[58:52]

Okay.

[59:15]

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