It was helpful yesterday to have been slipped that question. Maybe I'll go past trees and you guys give me a question, give me some excuse to talk about things I wouldn't otherwise talk about. Can you hear me okay? A little bit louder, okay. And it's interesting for me. It gives me a chance to say something, try to express something I wouldn't otherwise. I remember

[01:15]

Chino Roshi talking to me one day on the steps of the guest of the dorm. The steps that we had before Tommy fell off them. Do you remember when you fell off? So we repaired them. saying, why doesn't Suzuki Roshi teach? There are many things to teach about the more esoteric side of the Zen practice. But he didn't, unless you inquired, unless you, or some occasion arose. And sometimes he would say, he often would say, do you, do you understand? What was the story you told me yesterday, that somebody in the back asked? How come he always said, do you understand?

[02:52]

Why do you always say, do you understand, when you know we don't understand? Why do you tell us something you don't understand? Somebody asked Sukhirshi, why do you tell us these things that we... If you know we won't understand them. If you know we won't understand them, then ask, do you understand? And Sukhirshi said to him, now I'm getting mad. He paused for a moment and now he's announcing he's getting mad. He hit a stick and said, you're a jellyfish, you're spineless. I never heard him. Because you always want things to be clear. You always want things to conform to your understanding. But what I'm talking about, if I explain it, it's rather complicated. It's like, you know, our taking the

[04:21]

water in the refuse water, the nectar, the liquid ambrosia, and sweet dew, and dumping it in the bowl and touching the side, that comes out of Huayen philosophy. But if I try to describe it, it's rather complicated, but we just do it. So most of the life we lead, we just do it and we don't describe it. But something like this turning the question comes up. And you've been asking me. I have enjoyed it. Many of you have asked me questions about it, and also many of you have

[05:23]

are doing it, turning a question. So I start to explain it. And also, I know some of you find what I say hard to understand. I hear that every now and then. I can't believe it, but, you know, I hear you say it. And what I'm saying is really simple, but you're not familiar with the ideas, mostly. It makes a big difference. I remember Schneider here, David, he used to say to me after my lectures at Green Gulch, why do you talk about those patriarchs and Zen stories? He says, I can't understand them. Why don't you talk about something interesting? Do you remember you said that to him? No. You don't remember, yeah? Well, anyway, you said, every time you give a lecture you talk about the Blue Cliff Records, he says, you completely lose me. I'm not interested in those guys.

[06:50]

And then Zenshin comes running out of his cabin, I hear, the other day and gave him a koan on the run about why do we put on our robes when the bell is sounding. So, as we get more familiar, it's pretty clear. Cat just came in. Opened both doors. Just, really, just... Magnetic. It's okay, a cat can't stay away from the Dharma. By the way, Dzogchen works best when

[08:26]

there's a sense that we have a common craft we're talking about, and a common being, or shared being. And it's not involved in two personalities meeting, or some idea of two people. Just like, as I said once before, two car mechanics discussing a Volvo, I'll resist. But this turning a question also can be turning a statement. If you make a statement, emptiness even, It's like a question, because if you say emptiness to a tree, it's some contrast to a tree. So just, you take something and you repeat it. And basically it's mantra practice. And Soto Zen is, you know, Shingon and

[09:54]

Tendai schools are not very strong or active in Japan, and much of Soto and much of Tendai and Shingon, or tantric Buddhism and philosophical Buddhism, are built into the koans and practice. And in Soto particularly, Soto has strong, carries a strong Tendai and tantric practice. I don't know how much to talk about this kind of thing. I'm not so interested in the distinction between Soto and Rinzai, and the distinction of Soto as some northern school and southern school. It's interesting to try to figure out where that came from, because northern school died out, and Soto and Rinzai are very similar lineages and very intermingled lineages.

[11:14]

But Soto tends to be rather... You know, because the emphasis in Soto lineages is on the student creating the relationship, it tends to be rather loose. Rinzai emphasizes the teacher more creates the relationship. And Rinzai tends to be too rigid. And two, the koan system is quite rigid. And in a way Rinzai is not Buddhist enough. It more emphasizes just the sayings of Zen teachers, you know, patriarchs. koans. Soto is more Buddhist in a sense. Both schools have their weak points and both schools have gone through various troubles. For many, many years

[12:48]

the Rinzai schools were almost gone, just kind of appointed heads with no students. And it was revived in Kamakura, and Daitogu-ji and Myoshin-ji kept going, but the other temples disappeared nearly, just buildings. And Soto has had various problems, and right now is in pretty bad shape. But the mixture with Zen, of Tendai and Tantric Buddhism, may make Soto-ue too difficult. So it becomes some just sitting, or shikantaza, in quiet... how do you pronounce that word? Quietistic sense.

[14:10]

some of what I talked about yesterday. Well, let me go back to Tantric Buddhism. The basic idea of Tantric Buddhism is that you act as if you're enlightened. You act as the Bodhisattva or Mahasattva. So when you're saying, Om Mani Padme Hum, you are making your practice, then, as a dimension of the bodhisattva. And the way turning a question is, in Zen, it's the same kind of basically mantra practice but you are, we can say, enacting a dimension of yourself rather than the dimension of the bodhisattva. So the Zen emphasis on sudden enlightenment, the Zen of Soto and Rinzai is the same. But Rinzai emphasizes being more a special school of the teachers of the Tang Dynasty.

[15:57]

And Soto emphasizes a system you go through and teacher putting pressure on you. Soto emphasizes more enactment and mantra and using the koan as a kind of mantra. But really, you know, if you look at Yamada Momon Roshi's way of teaching and lineage and Suzuki Roshi's, it's very similar. Feeling is very similar. So it's... these distinctions are mostly in books, you know, not so... not so important. So as I was saying yesterday, the Sangha becomes beings as Buddha's mind or mind. Dharma becomes things as mind. Buddha becomes existence as mind or Buddha nature.

[17:32]

And as you, instead of bringing your activity to your dream, your daily activity, your conduct becomes a kind of ceremony, or conduct becomes the possession of sangha too. So sasheen is also an enactment of a way of life, a maybe enlightened way of life, to get you to follow it whether you're ready or not, so it becomes familiar to you. And someone here who's working

[18:46]

with a koan, with a Zen story, expressed to me the feeling that when you're trying to make the story your own, so it's like an event in your own life. Still, it's very refreshing, different from your own life in that it's not created from your projections. It's not created from your ego. So as this person expressed it, it's like maybe a landscape from a train. Now, enactment, I just don't know if I can get this across, but enactment includes the idea of agent again, or acting. If I say the word blue, if I just say blue, it doesn't have any meaning, it's just B-L-U-E. But if I'm blue, or an agent of blue,

[20:06]

Obviously, when I say blue, I'm not cascading with blue light. Blue isn't simultaneous with me. But if you say blue, to really convey blue, it's a kind of acting. Now, with your Desires, you know, we have various desires, and those desires have an object. But desires are also, instead of taking them as something we are trying to get, but just expressive of place.

[21:09]

The situation you're in, blue is something you're expressing. I don't know if I'm going to be able to make you understand what I mean. If you think of life as just something spontaneous, you're just receiving. It's more than just receiving because when you act you're summing up a situation. And that summing is creative activity. You recreate. It's not just some spontaneous response. You actually are, as I said last night, picking up the ball with both hands. This is also enactment or expressive activity. So in a sense, we are an agent of blue. or agent of Buddhism, or agent of summing up some expressive activity of place, emphasis on place. Now, if you have that sense in a... when you're

[22:35]

in this practice of, I'm calling, turning a question or statement or mantra. Or like Harry Roberts saying, wanting you to look for the flowers right there. So with practicing with a koan in that way, every now, you're not trying to get, skip through now to when you get your object of desire, you're Now is your object of desire, or means is the end. In no theater. One poem that I've used before, which is, you cannot find the cherry blossom among the splinters of a cherry tree. Cherry blossom is found in the sky of spring. So sky of spring, we can call emptiness.

[24:02]

So in no theater, you are always trying to express sky of spring or emptiness or formless world. So Zayami says, when you are expressing it inside you, it's emotion. When you express it with words, it's poetry. And with, but when poetry will no longer contain it, it's ecstatic dance, stamping your feet, waving your arms. This idea is also, probably comes from Buddhism, that activity is a kind of ecstatic dance that sums up each event. And when you bring the dancing and music and chanting all together, it's called opening the ears of the audience. It's a kind of culmination. Opening the ears of the audience.

[25:30]

So the activity, the undoing I've been talking about of Zen practice, the vow to be both universal and particular at the same time, we could call Zen activity as always opening the ears of the audience, or opening the ears of each situation. So to try to make what I've been trying to say fairly simple, the idea of activity in Zen is Each moment you are recreating. Each place is expressive. You are creating it by a kind of ecstatic dance or summation of everything. You do things completely. And so koan practice is the same, or asking a question. You just keep bringing it, like a mantra. And this mantra, you know, this usually focuses on a part of yourself or part of sense of your being which is not accessible to you. Anyway, so you... It's very similar to chanting the name of a Bodhisattva.

[26:59]

you chant something at some cross universal and particular crossroads. Two, I think to give you an understanding of it as enactment and ceremonies, what background of our ceremonies is, is maybe... I'll have to think about it more, about how to express it to you. Is there something you'd like to talk about? We never have questions. I never have questions. Because one day I said, shall we have questions? And someone sitting right over there shook their head no. So I stopped. Yes. Would I talk louder, please, did you say? OK.

[28:32]

Hiding phenomena in phenomena. Alright. That's what I've just been talking about. Hiding phenomena in phenomena. I'm still in some process of trying to have been since yesterday, of trying to think about how to express this. It takes me, you know, when I see something that I want to get across to you, it takes me sometimes a few days of turning it over and over to figure out how to say it. And phenomenon in phenomenon, I... I'll think about it tomorrow. Yes?

[30:04]

Why I shouldn't have asked the question? because it's a question which presupposes that this was, you know, what I was talking about was destined to happen. And so there's some relaxation in it. And not that it's zero and right now we're creating it. It's a reference outside the situation, you see?

[31:21]

Much better to express, which usually I would, was just with him. Right now we are creating a situation with no idea that anything has ever been created. There's more danger in that for us. Nothing, no place to rest, you see. No? Sort of, you see. No identity in that. In the first thing I said, there's some identity. Yes? I have a question regarding succession. When Suzuki Roshi decided that you were becoming a successor, did he tell you ahead of time? I got this big box with ribbons around it and I opened it up and there was nothing inside.

[32:54]

Rather interesting question. Why don't you repeat it? Can you hear? She asked whether a successor of a teacher knows ahead of time that he will become a successor and do other people in the community also know this ahead of time? Could you hear now? Oh, she's asked, did I know, first it was did I and then it was generalized and it was repeated to does the teacher. Did I know that I was going to be Sugiyoshi's successor? Or did it come as a big surprise? Well, it came as a big surprise, but I did know. Why does it interest you?

[33:58]

Why is that important? You don't want to think that my successor is sitting beside you and you don't know it? She's right behind you. It just came as a big surprise to me. Curiosity, you know. I'll answer the question, but curiosity isn't reason enough to ask. Just curious. How this whole business works? Well, we can pull down the blinds and talk about this thing.

[35:24]

Basically, a teacher is supposed to be, shall we say, a kind of enactment that throws you out of your personality. and personal history. And you need some permission or force of circumstances to do that. So it's not something one anticipates or something like that. A person who anticipates it has rather shallow understanding. or some egoistic understanding. But Tsukuroshi told me in about 1967 that I would be his successor. And he would talk to me, from then on he talked to me about it quite a bit at odd moments, like driving a car or something.

[37:12]

and other times just to say what I would have to do. And every time he talked to me about it, I just laughed. Come on. You know, like that. But I knew that in an emergency I'd have to do something. You know, if he was killed or something like that, I knew I'd have to do something. But of course I hoped it would be, you know, and thought at that time it would be, I don't know, 10 or 15 years from now. But no, I don't think... I don't think anyone else knew. I think so he told Yvonne a year or so later. And he announced it to everyone on the roof on New Year's Day or something in the building. I don't remember exactly. Anyway, when I got to Eheji, people at Eheji knew.

[38:43]

But surprisingly I didn't know how they knew. And I was a student at the age of three. But it's not, you know, it's not such a big deal, you know. Just among you, I could say, well, one or two of you could be my successor or three or four of you who I feel could stand being over-amped.

[39:51]

That's all. And we'd see how you did once you were over-amped. And it's not, it's not a job, the kind of job I have as head of a large kind of monastery practice community is not a job that's ever sought after. It's a job that's avoided. Traditionally it's avoided. To be your teacher's disciple Acknowledged disciple? Maybe that's nice. But to be head of all this? But, you know, someone has to do it. In general, in Zen, you don't As far as I know, in both Rinzai and Soto, only Harada Roshi ever made something of experience in Zen. But in general, I never heard Suzuki Roshi.

[41:22]

He did acknowledge a few people's satori experiences, but it was actually cases of not such strong students who needed some encouragement. But in general he wouldn't say anything. The closest I ever heard of him coming is one day he said in a Sashin lecture, someone in this room has just been enlightened but they don't know it. Several people in the room were cascading light. So in general, you know, I'd work on some story or poem and I'd go, I can remember going to him, I've told this story before, I'm between the bridge with my understanding, I caught him on the bridge and I said something, ego covers everything or something like that.

[42:31]

He looked at me and said, that's just what I just said. You have to know and you have to be satisfied with your knowing and yet also not sure or you don't care whether you know or not, you just live a certain way. You know, a lot of you feel, some people say, you know, I should be around here more and wish, couldn't I, et cetera. For my sake, I should be. I'd like to be wherever I am longer. But for your sake, I shouldn't be here any more than I am.

[43:46]

And Suzuki Roshi was never here more than this. And I've told you, at Daitoguji, except for Doksan, the Roshi entered the zendo twice, once or twice a year only. And then you do a Jundo and walk out. And the only person who had any contact with him was the Anja. and then, of course, Doksan and Tesha lecture. You know, a teacher should be a pedestrian of your conscious life and sattva, maybe, of your night. And Maybe it's too strong if I say, I love you or I feel some deep feeling, but I can't indulge you. I can't indulge myself. My relationship to you is to make you more independent.

[45:16]

some other question I don't think anyone can hear you in the back They're curious. Curiosity seems to play a very large part in our lives. It's like walking down a serving or something. You might get nervous or something. And the whole road she's living, I've never been curious. And that's all curiosity. So I'm just, I just would like some information on curiosity. You're curious. I'm curious. Is one thinner than the other? Curiosity is not… curiosity, you haven't demonstrated a need to know. There's no initiation in curiosity.

[47:00]

sort of casually. And often we are, curiosity is a way of accumulating information about a situation to do it in, or to decide whether you like it or not, or you know, something like that. To see if it fits with your ideas. So, questioning, real questioning is when something is welling up in you, you have no choice about it. And it's something that you do with both hands. And you're ready to understand. And if you're ready to understand, you almost don't need a question. Anyway, this business I've been talking about of agent and acting and our desires as expressive

[48:32]

and of place. This is something I want to come back to because it's fundamental to the practice of koan study and questioning and the nature of our existence. But I'll have to do it some other time.

[49:26]

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