I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. This morning, perhaps for those of you who haven't been at the lectures lately or in the practice period, we've been studying a poem called Xin Xin Ming, On Trusting the Mind, On Trusting the Heart, a poem on the trusting mind. It's variously translated. It's the first Zen poem attributed to the third ancestor of Zen. And I've been trying to, you know, I've been studying it and trying to understand it and

[01:07]

trying to elucidate it and with others trying to elucidate it in classes and tea discussions. And this morning, the universe conspired to show me a bit of it in just noticing the... what happened in my mind, or noticing what happened, noticing what happened. And so I may tell it to you in some detail, not because you're interested in what's going on in my mind, but because some aspects of it may strike a familiar chord with you. At a certain point, a few of the lines of this poem came up for me and I said, oh yeah.

[02:11]

So the lines that I want to look at this morning are, again, variously translated. One thing we're doing in the class is looking at eight different translations of this poem. It's one that's been... is a great favorite and has been translated many times. But there are a few lines that in the most prevalent translation goes something like, to set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is lost to no avail. So just the experience I noticed, this morning's... early morning Zazen was very peaceful. Yesterday was kind of a busy day and it was wonderful to just sit this morning

[03:15]

and there was no one to talk with and practice discussion. There was nothing I had to do but sit. And I felt so settled and peaceful and it was just really sweet. And I have to admit, I kind of liked it. And service was great. The chanting was strong and everything was going just beautifully. And then during Soji, I cleaned up a little mess that I'd noticed and I was very pleased with myself. And then the gong rang and I put on my robes and went with Bijan with some incense to open the Zendo for breakfast. And so there'd been several minutes since the gong and I expected... I'd noticed just then, I might have saved myself a lot of grief, right?

[04:19]

But I expected the servers to be down there and the food to be on the table and, you know, the head server to be there and so forth. Well, that wasn't what happened. Excuse me, this has got nothing to do with any criticism of anybody. This is just... this was just what was happening in my mind. So, in my old habitual way, I got a little flustered. Well, why isn't the food here? Where are the servers? Where's the head server? The table's not even moved away from the wall. Bijan, put down the incense and let's move the table away from the wall. Busy Blanche. Those of you who know me will know that that's pretty typical of me. Old habit. Well, that table, when it's loaded up with everything, is very heavy.

[05:23]

I could hardly move it and so it made a lot of racket. You probably heard it in the Zen Dojo. It dragged on the floor. You know, and then we went in and we offered incense and we sat down and it was a while before the meal board towels came in and my mind is going... Where are the meal board towels? What's going on? And I don't know what happened to the essential peace of the mind, but I didn't find it anywhere. There was just kind of yabby-yabby. And it also affected my body because I couldn't just sit still and wait for whatever was coming next. I was looking to see where's the head server? What's going on? What's that empty seat doing on the tawn over there? Why didn't Eggison put somebody in it? Ah! So, I have, you know, I notice, I know this tendency of mine

[06:33]

and so I have a mealtime mantra, which is, keep your eyes down and shut up. But I just couldn't remember this morning. So, the meal boards were wiped and I forgot to bow and bring my bowls out front. I'm sitting there, you know, and people are bringing up, Oh, bowls, yeah, right. And then, at a certain point, we start the chant and I start putting my utensils in my bowl before it's time. You know, I just get completely whatever I may have known about the normal forms of doing orioke were just shut because my mind is going blah, [...] blah. So, gee, you know, I've been sitting here a long time.

[07:36]

All these people that are not used to sitting, their legs are going to kill them before the meal is over. Anyhow, it's... So, when the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is lost to no avail. To set up what one likes against what one dislikes is the primal disease of the mind. It isn't that we don't have likes and dislikes. Of course we do. Human beings have likes and dislikes. They're very mercurial, you know. At the moment that we like something or want something or expect something, it's absolutely true, right, whatever, you know. But if you would just kind of review some of your likes and dislikes.

[08:41]

Your likes in clothing, you know. Are they the same as they were some years ago? Do they change, you know? Your likes in food. Do they remain constant or do they change? Choose, just kind of investigate any like that you have that you sort of really think is important and essential. Is it always like that or... Do they come and do they go? Do they... Are they in constant flux either rapidly or slowly? Are they really the essential truth of things the way it feels sometimes when we're really caught up in our preferences? Or are they just momentary states of mind? With longer or shorter moments perhaps, but...

[09:52]

Are they not pretty ephemeral? And even though there may be something that you like or something that you dislike, does it require so much fuss and energy to grasp after what you like and push away what you dislike? Or can you just notice when something is other than you might have hoped or expected to notice, oh, I have some hope or expectation. Well, so... The world is as it is. And we bring to it our ideas of how we would like it to be

[11:00]

as when I had some expectation that, well, the food is always down here by now and so is the head server. Something as silly and petty as that can just make waves in the mind and the mind's essential peace is gone. And I know that all of this is trivial and yet I had caught in it. And I can see that this kind of yabbering about what I like and dislike or how things ought to be or how I want things to be is stuff that I kind of... I think I must kind of enjoy doing it. Otherwise, why would I do it so much? It's kind of entertaining or... I don't know. It seems to be something that I like to do

[12:04]

and perhaps you do too. For me, maybe I think of it as kind of an addiction to a little excitement, a little juice to keep my mind busy. And if I don't entertain these thoughts when they come up, then what happens next? Well, sometimes. Sometimes it's very peaceful. Sometimes if it gets too peaceful, I think I get a little frightened. If I can't kind of identify myself

[13:07]

by my likes and dislikes or my ideas or my preconceptions or my views, I may begin to get a little lost. And maybe that's not the most comfortable situation in the world for me. So I bring up a little excitement and I can avoid noticing that actually there's nothing much there. It's just breath. And posture. It's just sitting there. It's just sitting there being open to breath coming and going. Is that okay? Is that enough?

[14:08]

Where is self in that? If self isn't there, then what? Then who's doing this? What's happening? When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is lost to no avail. What is this deep meaning of things? Can I just stay in this not knowing of simply breathing in and breathing out? This openness to whatever arises without grasping after something familiar to identify with.

[15:19]

Do I have to keep stirring the pot? You know, if you have a glass of water and let's say you scoop up something from a pond, it's kind of cloudy, and you let it sit a long time, it settles and becomes very clear. But often, if we use that as an analogy for the mind, often we stir it up again. It's more familiar when it's stirred up. These little waves on the surface of the mind, this little cloudiness in the clear water, we can recognize. When it's really clear, there's no difference between this mind and any mind. So how will I know who's me? This clear mind is so vast,

[16:38]

it's no longer contained in whatever idea I have of who I am. Someone sent me a card. I don't know where he found it. It has a poem by Edgar Guest. No, excuse me, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued is just beyond your grasp. But if you will sit down quietly, clarity may alight upon you. I don't know about happiness, but clarity, I think, is like that.

[17:44]

If we sit down quietly and don't pursue it, perhaps clarity will arise, and perhaps not. It's pretty ephemeral. It has a mind of its own, perhaps. We can't control it one way or the other. I'd like to share with you R. H. Bly's commentary on these lines. He translates it slightly differently. The conflict of longing and loathing, this is the disease of the mind. He says, something arises which pleases the mind,

[18:47]

which fits in with our notion of what is profitable for us, and we love it. Something arises which thwarts us, which conflicts with our wants, and we hate it. So long as we possess this individual mind, enlightenment and delusion, pain and pleasure, accepting and rejecting, good and bad, toss us up and down on the waves of existence, never moving onwards, always the same restlessness and wobbling, the same fear of woe and insecurity of joy. In addition, the mirror of our mind being distorted, nothing appears in its natural, its original form. The louse appears a dirty, loathsome thing, the lion a noble creature. But when we see the louse as it really is, it's not merely a neutral thing, it's something to be accepted as inevitable in our mortal life. As in Basho's verse, fleas, lice, the horse pissing by my pillow. It may be seen as something charming and meaningful,

[19:52]

as in Isa's haiku, giving the breast while counting the flea bites. And the next two lines, not knowing the profound meaning of things, we disturb our original peace of mind to no purpose. He says, when we are in the way, when we act without love or hate, hope or despair or indifference, the meaning of things is self-evident, not merely impossible, but unnecessary to express. Conversely, while we are looking for the significance of things, it is non-existent. Our original nature is one of perfect harmony with the universe, a harmony not of similarity or correspondence, but of identity.

[20:53]

So, this original peace of the mind, or this clarity that can arise, when we are not identified with what we like and what we dislike, that mind can be vast, that mind, Vaid says, is identical with the whole universe.

[22:01]

So in that mind, this idea of a separate self disappears. So we sit upright and breathe and just notice the tendency to fuss, a tendency to get excited, and a tendency to grasp onto ideas and projections, and anything that we identify with or that we can't identify with, because this disappearing of this separate self,

[23:16]

while it may be very calm and clear and peaceful, blissful even, is also worrisome and frightening. And there's the other side. We may find ourselves blissful in this calm, clear mind, and then we want to hold on to it. We don't want to give it up. It's ours. And that too can be a trap. Zen practice is not about disappearing into some blissful state.

[24:23]

Zen practice is about being able to recognize that our mind is one with the universe and myriad things are appearing and disappearing all the time, and we are present, interacting as one of these myriad things in the universe, responding to whatever arises in our daily life. We are not disappearing from the world of our daily life into some blissful escape. We are trying to settle ourselves on this essential peace of the mind so that we can, moment after moment, interact with all that we meet from this settled state,

[25:30]

meeting whatever arises directly without the interference of clinging to likes and dislikes, so that we actually can meet things as they are because we are as we are. And since we are as we are, we have to fully accept this mind that clings to preferences as, oh yes, hello again. Mm-hmm. Busy this morning, aren't we? Ah, well, hello. And so we move from peaceful mind to disturbed mind,

[26:35]

to peaceful mind to disturbed mind, and that's how our life is. We each have our own favorite flavor of disturbances, and we can take them more or less as they are, less seriously. And I think the best we can do in practice is just to learn to take our particular brand of preferences more and more lightly. Because to want to be without preferences is another preference. It's kind of like this infinite regression. But just not to be so caught by it that we attribute reality to these preferences. They're just passing fancies of the mind.

[27:36]

They come and they go. This week it's this one and next week it's that one. As long as we don't reify them, we don't get so stuck with them. And if we reify them, when we notice that we've done that and made it into something real and firm and substantial, we say, oh yeah, it's not really substantial. This is what we mean by the essential meaning of things. Nothing in the world is substantial. It's all constant flux. It's all coming and going, arising and passing away. Everything that we think is thing is arising and passing away. And that's just the nature of things.

[28:41]

That's how it is. And when we can feel okay about that, when we can settle with that, when we can allow everything to be as it is, then we can be as we are without disturbance. When we get caught up in our habits, then we're caught up in our habits. That's all. So today, let's just, those of you who are in the one-day sitting, let's just return to the zendo and sit some more and just be with what is. Enjoy your breathing. Struggle with your preferences. Whatever is going on, just be with it, moment after moment.

[29:52]

Thank you. May our intention...

[29:59]

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