Well, I hope all of you are enjoying the holy days, the season of celebration, light in the dark. We here at Densit Village, we've been singing carols and eating cookies, and we're going to be lighting the Hanukkah candles on Christmas Day and celebrating the Buddha's enlightenment. We did that a couple weeks back. And then waiting for the Christmas sleigh to pass by overhead. All very familiar. Familiar things. So this next talk is in my beginner's mind, which is entitled Believing in Nothing Seems Like a Timely One for This Time of Year. I think we know about this idea of believing in God or in Santa Claus, you know, since we were children for some of us, or believing in the stories of Hanukkah, the Hanukkah candles, or in the enlightenment of the Buddha. These are things we can believe in, you know, among many others. But believing in nothing, we don't know very much about that. So you might recall from the Buddha's first sermon that he advised his monks not to fall into these twin traps of, on the one hand, believing in something eternal, like heaven or immortality, and on the other hand, believing in nothing, by which he meant nihilism, you know, really nothing.

[01:34]

He then taught the middle way that avoids these two extremes, by believing in something... On one side and not believing in anything on the other. So the middle way is the position that the Buddha takes on almost all of these dualistic propositions. So now here we have Suzuki Roshi telling us to believe in nothing, which he goes on to explain. The nothing he tells us to believe in is actually a something. He says a something that has no form and no color. A something that exists before. all forms and colors appear. Kind of hard for us to imagine what could come before the appearance of form and color. It's a little bit like waking up in the morning, you know? We've been in some kind of darkened space that we have no choice but to enter every evening. We've been asleep, and then we wake up, we open our eyes, and there it is, the world of form and color.

[02:37]

So he then says that no matter what God or creed we may believe in, the problem is that our belief is arising from self-centeredness, from the I, or the me, in I believe, or my beliefs. Self-centeredness is, by Buddhist definition, a delusion that requires a split between the believer, I, and what it is that I believe in, whether it's God or country or Santa Claus. So does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. We can talk about this in a little bit. So ultimately, it's our attachment to whatever idea is appearing within our stream of consciousness that Roshi is saying brings our suffering, our attachment to our ideas, to our beliefs, to our concepts. That aspect of our consciousness that takes its own ideas, its own concepts as objects from outside of itself. You know, I believe in as though it's something outside of myself.

[03:39]

as if me and my ideas, my beliefs, are separate from one another. Strange as that sounds, that's how we behave. So when we believe in something outside of ourselves, especially something perfected, a perfected being, like a god or like a 16-foot golden Buddha, we will become involved in idealistic practice, idealized practice, practice based on the idea of perfection. a perfection that we ourselves will never achieve. It's like having this perfect image of a perfect being on the end of a long stick that's attached to our forehead, and we keep striving to take a hold of it, you know, but always just out of reach, just out of reach. So when we are striving, we lose our composure. And the more we strive, the worse it gets. Roshi says that we are prepared to accept that everything we see is appearing from nothing, And knowing that there is some reason for this appearance, a reason that we can never know or never see, in that moment of true faith, we will have perfect composure.

[04:50]

So knowing that the present moment is coming out of something, it's coming from somewhere, but we don't know where. We can't really name all the parts and all the conditions that bring this moment into being. It's not possible. It's just too many. The entire universe brings each moment into being. But in this moment of true faith, we can have composure about the appearance or the arrival of form and color. Roshi then talks about physical suffering, such as headaches and stomach aches, which are made worse when we have an upside-down view of their cause. If we imagine the cause is part of all that exists before we have this particular suffering, it's part of all that brings us to life, everything. that's come into our life, that's made us who we are, we can do better accepting what comes without complaint. We can accept the headache or the stomachache, along with everything else that makes us who we are. So for a number of years, our teacher, Reb Anderson, would say to us, well, thank you very much, I have no complaints.

[05:56]

No matter what we were complaining about, he would say, thank you very much, I have no complaint. And I think he might have gotten that from Suzuki Roshi, maybe even this chapter, who reportedly said from his own deathbed, I'm not afraid or sad about dying because I know who I am. I'm not afraid or sad about dying because I know who I am. So my understanding of the Buddha's teaching about suffering was not that we won't have pain, but we would be able to accept that pain or that stormy day without asking questions like, why me? Or making statements like, it's your fault that I'm suffering. He goes on to say that it's much better for us when we believe in nothing, by which he doesn't mean this voidness that I mentioned in the beginning. He then says there is something, but that something is something that is always prepared to take some particular form.

[06:58]

And that form has some rules or some truth about its activity. And then he calls those rules Buddha nature. Or when the rules are personified, Buddha, himself or herself. So the personification of those rules that bring us into life, personification of that in a form that has an understanding of this whole thing that we're talking about, is Buddha himself or herself. So Buddha nature, when referring to the rules themselves, is called the Dharma or the truth about life and about the universe. And when we as individuals act in accord with those rules, we are the Sangha. So we have the Buddha, we have the Dharma, and we have the Sangha, the triple treasure. So even though he just gave those names to these three different aspects of Buddha nature, these three Buddha forms are in truth just one. existence, which has no form or color, and is always ready to take on form and color.

[08:02]

I think this is the main point he's making again and again, is that this nothing that we're being instructed to believe in is on alert. You know, it's ready. It has this possibility. It's almost like this infinite possibility to take a form. to appear, to appear as a color and a shape and a sound. But before that appearance, there is nothing we can get a hold of, nothing we can identify, nothing we can see or feel or hear. But out of that nothing, here we come, moment after moment. And he says that this is the absolutely necessary understanding of our life. Without this understanding, our religion will not help us. We will be bound. by our religion, and we will have more trouble because of it. If you become a victim of Buddhism, he says, I may be very happy, but you will not be so happy. So this kind of understanding is very, very important.

[09:05]

When we are self-centered, he goes on to explain, and when we hear the rain falling on the roof in the early morning, we might be very cranky about the day and about the walk that we need to take to the zendo in the mud. And so we will not be ready for the clouds to part and for the early morning sun to illuminate the mountains a little later in the day. Because our mind is focused only on ourselves and on what we want right now. What we think would be a more perfect way for the day to begin. You know, the perfect temperature, the perfect companionship, the perfect breakfast meal. All of which is hovering just out of reach. on that mobile that's dangling at the end of the stick attached to our forehead. These are our concepts. These are our wishes. And we have made them as if there's something outside that we could actually get that would be so much better than what's happening right now. He then tells us that by accepting ourselves as the embodiment of Dharma, of truth, that arises out of this nothing that he's calling Buddha, nature, we will have no worries about the day.

[10:17]

No worries about the week or the year or about our entire life. Since we don't know what will come next, we can appreciate the sound of the rain falling on the roof in the early morning. I remember something that Grace Diamond said in this film called States of Grace that we watched recently here at Encel Village. She said, nothing lasts, nothing, not great pain, great sadness, great pleasure, nothing lasts. It was really startling for me when she said that, very helpful. It came across as a kind of hymn or anthem for this teaching of both transiency and Buddha nature. Roshi says if you appreciate yourself as a temporal embodiment of truth and of dharma, You will have no difficulties whatsoever. You will appreciate your surroundings and you will appreciate yourself as a wonderful part of Buddha's great activity, even in the midst of difficulties.

[11:23]

This is our way of life. So this last part of his talk was very interesting to me. You know, he says that when we begin practice with the idea that by our effort, we're going to get enlightened someday, then we are practicing with a self-centered idea. He says that 99% of our thinking is that way, is self-centered. Our practice, however, works in the opposite direction. In Soto Zen, we begin with enlightenment. You are already awake, already Buddha. And then we proceed to practice. And finally, to think. So thinking comes last. You know, first, you're already awake. It's your Buddha nature. It's your inheritance. Then, the practice, practicing as your inheritance, you know, acting and studying and believing in yourself as an awakened being. And then you begin to think, you know, try to think about it and what you could say about it and what you might share with others.

[12:28]

If enlightenment comes first, Roshi says, before thinking, before practice, your thinking and your practice will not be self-centered. If enlightenment comes first, Roshi says, before thinking and before practice, your thinking and your practice will not be self-centered. And then by enlightenment, he says, I mean believing. Again, he says, I mean believing in nothing, believing in something which has no form and no color and which is ready to take form or to take color. This enlightenment is the immutable truth. It is on this original truth that our activity, our thinking and our practice should be based. So now I ask you, what do you think about all of that? Please join me in the conversation about this talk if you are able and would like to. And I particularly like to invite those of you who don't say much or haven't spoken yet to please feel like it's okay to do that.

[13:36]

I'd very much like you to do that. I'm going to just go around the square a little bit and welcome you before taking some comments. So Genevieve, welcome Genevieve. Thank you for coming. And Helene, good to see you. And Kathy. And Griffin. Amer. Corey. Hello, Corey. Hi, Jerry. Hi, Jerry. Millicent. Justin. Welcome, Justin. Jockoen. Hello, Jockoen. Welcome back. Good to see you again. Alicia, there she is. Brent, welcome, Brent. Cynthia Drew from Vermont Insight Meditation Center. Senko from Singapore. Good morning, Senko. And then we have Michael and Caroline, Carolyn and Tom. And there's an AC and a Genshin, Dennis. Hello, Genshin. Michelle and Melissa Kosan.

[14:37]

And there's an SR. That's familiar. I love SR. Welcome. Welcome all of you. So please feel free to bring forward anything you'd like to share. It's about this belief in nothing. How's that going? Can you all believe in nothing? Is that helpful? Amr, please. I was reluctant to raise my hand because I raised my hand a lot. That's okay. Everyone else does, you're in. Okay. Well, you know, it's reminding me of, I guess I would call it a practice that I have been doing lately, and I would be curious about your thoughts on it. So, like... I guess for a while I've been like, OK, I'm going to be a good Zen student and wake up at such and such an hour and sit zazen and et cetera, et cetera, read some Dharma.

[15:43]

And that never quite seems to happen. And, you know, then I can go into like, I'm a bad Zen student. I have no self-discipline, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I guess so recently I've been kind of working with like. OK, this is. This is who I am. And somehow my life continues to work with that kind of frame of mind. And some days I get up and sit and some days I lay in bed and that's OK. So. Yeah, so what you were talking about just kind of rang a bell there, so I'd be curious about your your thoughts on that. Well, you know, because we've spoken often, that whatever you do is fine with me. I feel like you have created your own decision about good armor and bad armor.

[16:49]

And I think we all do that. That's pretty common. So I think you're in good company. And I think mostly it's like... Just don't get carried away with either the good or the bad armor. You know, neither one's accurate. You know, you're not all bad. You're not all good. You're just this mixture of habits and wishes and energies and friendship. And you're in the Sangha. So we'll carry you. If you're not there, you know, maybe I'll be there. Or maybe Millicent will be there, you know. So we've got you covered. Right? Probably one of us is sitting every morning, so that's good. That counts. I feel like we basically, I've always appreciated Zen as a practice of we and not of me. You know, if it really depended on me, I think the whole, it'd be really sad. But fortunately, it really is we, the Sangha that has lived for 2,500 years.

[17:53]

The teachers have all died out, you know? over those 2,500 years. But the Sangha, the people caring, showing up now and then and building the temples and copying the sutras and telling their friends about it. I mean, that's really the magic of this tradition in my thinking. So thank you for being part of the Sangha. Well, thank you. And thank you, Sangha, for supporting me. Cynthia. Can you hear me? Yeah. Hello, Fu. Hello, Cynthia. Well, so I struggled with the audio at the beginning, and I missed a little of the insight. However, I will tell you, I got the part about being self-centered and about the way in which we inflict suffering on ourselves, and I am very good at this.

[19:01]

I have been suffering, I was going to say all day, but I would say it would have to actually be at least for 48 hours I have been suffering. And inflicting the suffering on anybody in my realm, which would probably just be Zach, and he's very patient. But I can't stop thinking about the next 10 years of my life. I don't know what to do with them. Well, remember I said that thing about a stick with a little thing on the end of it? Yes, this is where I need the help. That's the next 10 years of your life that's dangling out there. It doesn't exist. It never will exist. What you got is 24 hours, you know, one day at a time. What are you going to do tomorrow? Well... What are you going to do the day after?

[20:02]

When after tomorrow comes, what are you going to do tomorrow? You know, don't get too much further than tomorrow. You'll do things because you're a smart woman and you're going to need to think about the end of your career ending as a teacher and where you're going to live and who with and how much it costs and all that. You're going to think about all that. But you don't have to think about all that all the time. You can't. You have to do it as it's time. You know, as we got ready to move. Away from Zen Center after 45 years of living and having ample storage, a lawnmower if I needed it or anything else I needed. I just go grab it and use it. You know, I had to figure out how to shrink my life down into a rather small space. And I didn't have a huge amount of time to do that. But we did it. You know, we just little by little, you do what you have to do. You always have. And you will again. Well, this idea that you can't. Think about it all the time. I'm going to tell you that actually you are wrong there.

[21:04]

A person can, but they shouldn't. So the idea is you used to tell me, Cynthia, five minutes. Can you do five minutes? Yeah, I must have grown up a little bit because now you say, can I do a day? Yes. Yeah. OK. That's your new challenge. Right. And the idea of the stick with the carrot, it doesn't exist. I don't have to figure out 10 years from now because who could, but I can figure out today and tomorrow. That's right. And then see what happens. That's right. And Zach will be so grateful. Well, he tells me, he says, what would Fu say? This is what he tells me. Whenever I'm that person inflicting the suffering, on the others and it's just him. It's always, who tell you? And I said, you would say something about five minutes. That's right. And then silent sitting.

[22:04]

Sitting. Silent sitting. Okay. Me. You. Yeah. All right. Okay. Five minutes. And then maybe a whole day. Okay. I need help, but you know, maybe I need to call you up. I'll call you. That's what I'll do. Call me. I'll remind you anytime you want. I'll remind you. No more than a day. Between five minutes and a day, that's it. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Hi, Jerry. Where'd you go? Oh, there you are. You're not, you are muted. No, thank you. All these small details. Like you, after 18 years, I've moved the last two days into a smaller residence. So it's small steps at one time.

[23:09]

And I wish I could say I'm suffering more than Cynthia because I want to win this competition of suffering. Griffin said, no, she wants to win. Okay. I think everybody wants to win. Everybody wants to win. That's right. I was also very touched, as I always am, to hear Grace's name. I don't know if you'll remember, but I was working with Mark Lipman and Helen Cohn on the DVD. And that was quite an honor to do that. And those of you who have not seen States of Grace, it's on the internet. And it's absolutely brilliant on so many levels. So I recommend it. I have a quick question. Did you say the three steps, the three words were enlightenment, then practice, then thinking? Yeah. Okay. It reminds me, I'm a longtime professional development coach, at least in America.

[24:17]

We believe that if we can just change your attitude about things, then you'll change your behavior. And 35, 40 years of research has shown there's no truth to that. And I'm kind of blown away by this three-step, I'll call it formula, although it's more than that. In reality, what happens is, and school busing is the best example I can think of, you get people into behaving differently, what we would call practice. And over time, their thinking begins to change because they've had the experience of that practice. And it's amazing to me that more than 2000 years ago, that understanding was there. It's very encouraging, actually. Yeah. Also, the promise of this already enlightened. I mean, that's really shocking.

[25:19]

It is shocking. That's very radical. And Soto Zen is very radical in that way. You know, some of the other forms of Buddhism, well, first you practice, and then you concentrate, you meditate, and then you become wise. And Soto Zen has reversed that order. First, there's wisdom of you're already awake. What else could you be? You are sentient. That's right. And so you practice with your sensing. You practice understanding your sentience and your relationship to objects and so on. So you're practicing with what's already been told to you, the wisdom teachings. And then over time, you practice. And then your thinking begins to sound like that. You're sounding more like your sanity is returned. You're not simply caught up in delusional thinking. Yes. Thank you. That's lovely. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Jerry. Hi, Elaine.

[26:21]

Hi. Thank you so much for your wonderful talk. And hi to everybody. I started thinking about ritual. And I don't have much ritual in my life, except for maybe going to work. which is kind of, it's a ritual. But anyway, I started thinking about creating more rituals. And then I started thinking, why not make everything a ritual? Everything that I do a ritual. And that is somewhat helpful. It just keeps bringing me back to myself over and over again as I make more of a ritual out of things like washing dishes or opening and closing the refrigerator or just picking up and putting down something.

[27:35]

And. So that's what I've been kind of focusing on this week, sort of playing with it and trying to bring it up in consciousness. And the other thing is in what you're speaking about the already existing things, is that the same as the unborn? Yeah, the unborn nature of all being. Yeah, it hasn't come into existence yet. It's potential for birth. It's the potential for birth. We have the potential for death. As far as we know, it hasn't come into being. We don't call this death. We call this living. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate what you said. One of the things that I got... as a gift from studying Japanese tea ceremony. Years, years ago, when Mrs. Suzuki was teaching tea, I knew nothing about tea, but I wanted to get to know her because Suzuki Roshi had already died when I got to Zen Center.

[28:46]

And I thought, well, his wife will talk about her husband. So maybe I can get into the tea room with her and she'll start... telling stories about Suzuki Roshi, which she did not do. What she did was tell us about tea and how to do tea. And tea is this amazingly complicated movement of objects. I think maybe all of you have seen a tea ceremony. If you haven't, you can look at YouTube or something. But tea ceremony is all of these gestures, one after the other, which you learn. It's choreographer. It's really a high art form. choreographed, you know, to the hilt. The guests learn the choreography. The tea host learns choreography. And then you do this little dance together for about an hour. And as a result of that study for many, many years, also done in Sangha with your tea friends, I had the same kind of realization that you did, that washing the dishes is ritual. Putting my clothes away is ritual. Making the bed in the morning is ritual. Putting my shoes on is a ritual.

[29:48]

And how I take care of My shoe and my foot and the sock and all of that has this feeling of bringing life to everything I touch. You know, how to bring life to everything you do, because you are anyway. You're doing it anyway. So to be conscious, to be sentient about your activity is what we're trying to learn here. This is exactly what we're trying to bring for ourselves here. So keep going. Do another week. Yeah, okay. Okay, I'll keep trying. Great, that's excellent. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing that, Helene. You're welcome. Kathy. Oh, there we go. So whenever I hear terms like emptiness or nothing, the best way that I understand it is that everything is temporary and everything is changing.

[30:54]

So the eye that is here right at this moment will be gone in the next moment. And here at Enzo Village, it's beautiful to watch the leaves changing and the leaves dropping. And think of that as Well, the leaves were on the tree yesterday, but today there's nothing on the tree. And the eye that is observing the leaves on the tree is just in my apartment, looking out the window at this moment. And it's not like anything of it is permanent. It's all in flux all the time. And I think of the nothingness more in that sense than I do in the sense of the void.

[31:59]

So maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I think of it. Well, just want to step back a little bit more because the tree and the leaves and all of that are appearances. So there's appearance of a tree without leaves, there's an appearance of a tree with leaves. So there's still an appearance, there's form and color. So what this teaching is saying is before the appearance of form and color. Just before, it's really just before, like nanosecond before the appearance of like my hands. So the nanosecond before, there was a void, there was nothing. out of which everything arises moment by moment. If it weren't for that, we couldn't arrive because it'd be all clogged up with other stuff that didn't leave, you know, and still be there. The whole thing would be like a solid brick of stuff.

[33:00]

But we have to have this, like you said, transiency and also this emergence from the spaciousness, the vastness of the universe that allows for things like form and color, I often just say it's a miraculous appearance. Each moment is a miraculous appearance, whether it's a tree with leaves or a tree without leaves or whether it's you or whether it's, you know, other friends, whatever it is, it's happening. It's a miraculous appearance. And we don't know how this is happening. I don't know how I'm not making myself. You're not making yourself. I'm not making those trees. I am really useless when it comes to creation. But something's making me. Something's making you. And to get in touch with the gratitude for being made in this way that we really can't get a hold of, we can't take credit for. I feel like it's the awesomeness of it and the wonder of it all.

[34:04]

David Brooks just wrote an article in New Yorker that was published today, and some of you may have read, about his faith having come from awesomeness, like a moment of awe. He said, that's not religion for me. He said, the religion came later. He started to think later. I think he got into thinking, once he had this experience on several occasions, of amazement, of utter amazement at the beauty of the world. And from there, he kind of backed into... you know, the religion of Christian and Jewish religion, kind of Judeo-Christian system of thinking and believing, which is fine. I mean, he's a big thinker, so he thinks about that. He reads thinkers. That's what he said. So that's fine. But I think he's got the right order. It's that moment of amazement. It's a moment of being in the now, in the here, just being present. Well, you always are. Yeah, but I don't always notice. We don't always notice it.

[35:06]

We're not always in awe. Sometimes we're just playing cranky. So it's the wonder of it all. It's those moments when we really are, the self is dropped away. You know, there's not that I thing going on. The Buddha saw a star and that was his moment of recognition of non-duality. There was no separation between himself and that light in the sky. And that was his freedom. So, you know, this is pretty much the standard kind of observance of spiritual experience for a great many people. It's that. And then they kind of interpret it. You know, well, Jesus spoke to me. He came in my room. I think that's fine. People can have their interpretation of their experience. And they do. But mainly it's that experience that we share. And I'm sure my children have it. They're good at it. I think all of us have had those experiences. You know, awesomeness. And it sounds like you did.

[36:07]

So, well done. Griffin. Hello, everyone, on this solstice time. I'm getting glimpses of perhaps a middle way, a feeling I love. that I hate weeds. When you bring up a sentence which they resonate to because I have sort of witnessed it in one of my teachers, Madame de Salzman, I am not afraid of dying because I know who I am. And of course, I don't know really what's meant by I am. But I am oneness, beyond form of body and mind.

[37:11]

And I am duality. I am form and color. And then we're called to understand I am Buddha nature, which to me, I guess, embraces. It's not picking one. side or the other. But, you know, when I look at how that plays out in my day, you know, I'm thinking that from some particular state or state of mind, embodied calmness, or one side of that equation, you know, the I am one part, that I sort of dream that I can address skillfully my difficulties.

[38:15]

But I'm, you know, I'm only dreaming that I could address getting our finances in order with a sick, anxious husband. knowing that the second before they even say anything, garbage is going to come out. So, you know, it's like how to, what is that middle way? How to embrace that Buddha nature that you have. An inspiration or a vision. oneness of i am and i am both and yet um i don't know it's a dream to think i'm gonna stop stop dreaming you probably won't but uh i think you're on a good track

[39:29]

I think if you keep letting yourself include both sides of these dualistic propositions, but then also the real trick, I think, this teaching of your belief in nothing is before the words, before the speaking, to really allow the living body of you that doesn't have a person, doesn't have a history, doesn't have a... credit card or a driver's license just the living body the breath body to keep coming back in touch with that alive I'm alive I'm alive you know and then also elaborations all that thinking that you're doing that's fine that's that's kind of fun you know we can use these these talks by Suzuki Roshi to help us kind of navigate the the pathway But the real joy for me of the practice is when I'm able to just stop and breathe.

[40:39]

And, you know, to the sound of the rain, the sign of the sunlight coming in, whatever it is that's going on in the present, just give yourself the gift of that as often as you can. The worries will come back and the need to say something will come back. Never have to worry about that. But you give yourself plenty of rest and plenty of breaks from the assignment of being Griffin. Give that a try. I'm sure you have. Just give it another one. Thank you. You're welcome. Hi, Shozan. Hi, Fu. Hi, Sangha. I was thinking as I was listening to you respond to Kathy about the believing in just before the appearance of something.

[41:42]

And I was thinking I can get hung up on the word belief. And so I was changing it for myself. And I was thinking, for me, it's more like trusting in. Trusting in. Because once I start to believe, then I can keep going. Then I'm engaged in thought. And I was thinking, it's like trusting in, I trust the next in-breath will come. I don't have to think about it. Or it won't come, but I trust that it will. And I was just thinking, I was kind of just reframing it. And I was just wondering, what do you think about that? Because believing in nothing It's almost setting me up to find something to think about and attach to. But if I let go of that belief and trust, it's a little easier, a little more spacious for me. Yeah, I just, while you were saying that, I looked up trust. I like to look up words, particularly the origins of them.

[42:46]

So I did look up belief. And belief comes from love, beloved. So, you know, there's an interesting root. Trust comes from strength. The word strength. Interesting. I trust this. I trust this care will hold my weight. There's something about that there. And then faith is a whole other thing. That's kind of got another whole surround of meaning. So I think it really helps us to know where these words that we use and resonate with emotionally, what was the source of Where did those words come from? I remember looking up meaning. And one of the meanings of meaning was to moan. I thought, oh, now that's good. What's your moaning? What's your suffering? What do you moan by that? So somehow to find a way to find the right word, and maybe trust is the right word for you.

[43:48]

But maybe if you understood that believing has to do with loving, that which has not yet appeared, loving that out of which all things appear, the no thing, the no thing, the space of no thing from which something arises. That's the balancing of those two dualistic notions. There's the no thing and the something, and they're turning on one another. They're balancing each other. So... That's how I like to kind of play with those kinds of ideas so that I can settle with one that works for me like you're doing right now. So keep working with those and see if which of those possibilities gives you the most enthusiasm or inspiration. Yeah. Or just like spaciousness. Yeah. Because it can get real tight sometimes for me. Yeah. I know. The word believe, that got worked over on me a lot when I was a kid. Yeah. We were taught to say these, I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

[44:51]

And I still know that because they drilled it into me. So I've had to rework some of those terms so that I can feel that I actually mean something by them. I meant it when I was a kid, but what did I mean? What was I really saying I believe? And then I had to shift over to find something I could hold those feelings that would hold them for me. I can be with that way of understanding or that word, that language. So it really is a kind of, you know, like a hunt. You're kind of hunting for your own vocabulary. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Millicent. Good morning, Sue. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. See, right there is an example. Yes. Good morning. And it's only, I think it's probably only Singapore that would agree with you about that.

[45:56]

I think so. Hi, Sinko. Just a very quick comment, Fu. When you were talking, I had this kind of stab of delight when you were talking about a film, anyway, and you said, nothing lasts. And I thought, correct. It lasts forever and ever. Nothing lasts. It never stops. It never, it never, it's always. I don't know how to say it. It did. It's always nothing lasts. Yeah. It really lasts. Yeah.

[46:57]

Yeah. It's the Dharma. It's the truth. Which makes me feel so safe. It allows my own transiency. Yeah. Anyway, so I just wanted to, that sort of tips on its head when we normally say nothing lasts because we think of nothing as being the absence of something. But to think that nothing lasts forever. Right. That's all good. That's very good. Well, last forever, nothing. It does. I have to be careful, I think. You can correct me. You can guide me. I'm tempted sometimes to substitute the word nothing for the word absolute.

[48:05]

But they're only kind of... Poor human labels, aren't they, that we stick on, a bit like pinning the tail on the donkey. You know, we shut our eyes and pin on a word and hope for the best, basically. But, sorry, pause for your comment. Or not. Yeah. What was I going to say? You know, nothing lasts. I forgot what I was going to say. It's one of the great gifts of aging. Yes. Nothing lasts. You can always count on it showing up. It's all we have. All we have. We're moving more and more into that realm now. That's our parking lot. What did you ask me?

[49:11]

Did you ask me something? No. You don't remember either? It's turning into a delightful conversation. I just wanted to share that little insight about the permanent. Oh, absolute. Oh, and the absolute. Yeah, that's what you asked, yeah. For some reason, and I was just going to look up absolute, maybe one of you could do that and report that. Absolute, we don't tend to use that in the particular study books. team I've been on for a while, Reb said he uses ultimate. So ultimate truth and relative truth. Absolute sounds a little bit like the end, you know, and somehow the feeling of ultimate truth doesn't bear that same finality in at least Reb's way of thinking. I'm not, I don't, haven't, you know, done more than just agree to use ultimate truth, but I do feel a little softer. about ultimate truth and relative truth than absolute truth.

[50:15]

So maybe I'll look those up. Anybody look those up? Absolute? Yeah, Griffin, what do you got? Viewed or existing independently and not in relation to other things. Which are absolute? Or comparative absolute moral standards. Well, that's why it's no good. It's not in relation to anything else. How about ultimate? Because of my white hair and great age, I've forgotten the proper words, but do you remember those classes you gave us of the five states with the little diagrams with the black bits and the white bits and that sort of thing? I do. Five ranks. Five ranks. Yes. I... prowl around the fifth rank, you know, where these things, like everything, are not separate. Right.

[51:17]

The light and the dark. It's a woven image. Light and dark are blended. Yeah. Maybe nothing and something are like that too. Yeah, yeah, they are. All dualistic propositions. And, again, as you said, it's a language game. Because we're dualistic thinkers, which depends on dualistic propositions. If we go away from language, we don't tend to remember that we're riding the horse of language. That's what Nagarjuna said. You forget the horse you're riding. And it's language that's causing us great grief and confusion and the complexity of our thinking. We're amazing when it comes to complex thinking. But we also are not very good at knocking, stopping it. You know, stop it. Just stop it. I suspect English might be super difficult amongst the family of languages because we have so many synonyms for slightly different.

[52:21]

Anyway, that's a separate topic. Yeah, but it's good. It's a good thing to be thinking about language. So on the point, you know, maybe ultimate, maybe absolute, maybe whatever it is in the fifth rank. Yeah, the fifth one. We'll go over that again. That's a very good series to go through. I'm happy to read that study and look at the five ranks. Really helpful. Dongshan, the founder of Soto Zen, creator of the five ranks, is to help us to understand this dynamic between the light and the dark, the relative and the ultimate, right? How they dance with each other until at some point, the Tanakh Serling pictures are also very good in that same way. of showing us like you go through all that stuff, all that journey and torture and mountain climbing and spiritual exercises, and then you get at the end of your time and you're sitting in your little hut content. You don't need to do anything anymore.

[53:21]

Well, and then I'll pop off because hope is there. Sitting in my little hut, I'm keen to ask the sangha a bit of a favor. I moved Rahatsu Sesshin away from a very busy week and I'm going to sit, well, I'm hoping to sit Rahatsu starting December 25th and entering January 1st in my house. Machine off. Wow. Wow. Well, with the time zones and everything, but when you said to Amir that, you know, whether we sit, someone's sitting, and I suppose if you should ever think of it between the 25th and January 1st, any kind of encouraging energy would be much gratefully received.

[54:32]

Thank you, because I'm a bit scared. Well, Kat, I don't know about that part, but we will be there. We are there with you. Okay? This is a great crowd to have in your house. You bet. Thank you. Wonderful. You already know my house. You come every week. Yes, and we know your cat. So you're not stuck to alone. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for asking, giving us a chance to do that. Oh, you know, someone just sent a message that I was reminded that Alan Sinaki, who has been the abbot at the Berkley Sand Center for a number of years, we did a wonderful ceremony for him here. I'm not here, at Green Gulch, when he became abbot, and he's passed away. So please also send your prayers and your good thoughts to Alan's family and to the Berkeley Zen Center.

[55:37]

And I think we'll know more as the funeral arises, it comes forward and find out what, probably it'll be online so that we can join. If you knew Alan, or if you'd like to be part of that, when I get information, I'll let you know. So, Okay, Hope, what would you like to offer? Oh, hi, Sangha. The energy has shifted a bit after learning about Alan's passing. The first time I encountered him was at Green Gulch, and he was giving a Dharma talk. And he... he sang a song with a guitar in the zendo. And I had no idea that that was something that somebody could do. And people sang along and it was so joyful and beautiful.

[56:41]

And so Berkeley. So thank you for sharing that. What I want to bring to the sangha today is, well, I want to say to Millicent, I'm so, excited for you to sit. I finished Rohatsu last week, and I was also very scared. And there's really no words, you know? But after leaving Green Gulch, coming back from Rohatsu, I was determined to shave my head again. I have some hair. And I was determined to shave my head again. And there was this kind of urgency around it. And I was thinking, I'm going back to the city, going back to the marketplace, and this is my commitment, or this is a reminder of my commitment.

[57:46]

And I've had this sense of urgency around it, and so I decided maybe I should wait. What's going on there? But really... want to shave my head and there's this kind of something around it and I'm not sure what it was or what it is but I've been thinking about it and thinking about you know releasing the hair as a way to kind of support my precept practice and not misusing sexuality that I have used my hair as a way to or like real people in or manipulate myself in the mirror or kind of like perpetuate this gaining idea. Like there's something for me to gain by having hair and showing off this hair. And it's almost becoming this kind of painful practice to like

[58:55]

not shave my head and I feel a bit twisted around about it. Um, and like I'm working with, with this this week and I'm like, what's going on here? Are you frozen? no oh no okay um well that's uh exciting that's an exciting one i've gone through that over the years you know as a female i think for the men it's actually kind of cool you can see the other yeah there's another couple of them around yeah yeah justin and brandon armor very nice and yeah it looks good and um You know, there's no social stigma. And when I shaved my head, I had it shaved, completely shaved for seven years.

[59:59]

People often thought I had cancer. You know, that was the response. It was very rare that they guessed that it was a spiritual. It was my spiritual identity. And I didn't do it till I was ordained. So that was a big part of that decision. And it's a big part of the ritual. A friend, a Dharma friend, shaves your head. They leave a little tiny bit on the back. And then during the ceremony, the teacher takes that last little bit. They shave it off. And it's very powerful. And there are many things to say about having a shaved head. And some of you know who do. You know, you really feel the kind of energetics are all around you. One reason, oftentimes, soldiers have shaved heads. And monks shave their heads. Part of it is because when you're sitting long periods of time, you get very hot. And the heat just kind of goes off your head, you know. It's kind of a cooling tower.

[61:03]

So there are lots of yogic principles around having a shaved head and ritual principles. Whatever is moving you to want to do that, that's something to explore. You know, what is that? What's pulling you in toward doing that? You mentioned sexuality. I think I did that too. I thought, oh, I'm going to be really unattractive with a shaved head. But actually I wasn't. You won't be either because I was 28, you know, so you can't really hide that part. So part of it is like, you know, your efforts to manipulate the world in any way, shape or form are... Kind of futile. Really, it's not going to work. But you can work with that inner voicing. Something's asking you about that relationship with your hair. And that's important. That's your body. This is my body.

[62:03]

It grew out of my head. I didn't grow it. It just appears. So it's part of the miraculous appearance that we have hair. Some of us. Some of you lost your hair, you know. And so I don't know. I don't have to tell you, Hope, other than it's very important for you that you work with that. I can feel it. Your sincerity. And whichever way you go, you'll learn something. And like everything else, Shaving your head is transient. Keeps growing. You have to shave it again and shave it again. So, you know, there's no final. There's no final in this course. It's really now. I can't shave away my gaining ideas or shave away my sense of separation. Yeah. When I did shave my head before I gringled, that sense of separation didn't.

[63:10]

And so I was just suffering in this other way, which was feeling not conventionally attractive. And then when I've arrived in this way at this more conventionally attractive place, I'm suffering in this different way. And so there's this kind of like bobbing back and forth, like, okay, let's shave it again. Well, one of the teachers said to one of us women once, you know, do nothing for the eyes of the other person. Who are you putting on your makeup for? Who are you shaving your head for? Who is that anonymous other that you're speaking to? So that's an interesting practice too. And I think that's pretty powerful. Because in fact, it really isn't. There isn't an other that we're doing these things for. We have to settle that issue. Thank you.

[64:15]

Yeah. Senko, perhaps you'll be our last conversation. Hi, Fu. Hi. Yeah, thanks so much for the conversation that you had with Hope. It really reminds me of what Dogen said about study yourself. Because I think I took him the strategy of changing the form to... somehow correct certain things I don't feel right. Like changing some external things. But it really always comes back to studying myself. So I'm very, really grateful. So recently I had been thinking about this teaching about not one, not two. I guess I'm always confused about that. So I always try to experience not one and not two by comparing myself to the universe. How I am not, you know, separate on how we're actually, there's some boundary that we need to respect between me and others, right?

[65:18]

So somehow, I think for the past week or so, I started to feel like I was just too literal because there's no boundary of comparing. I guess the boundary I imagine of comparing myself to the universe, it's artificial. It's like every cell within me is not one or two. The skin is artificial boundary. So I feel like even the cell, they're going down the... Oh, sorry. And the kid is... She has three kids. Yeah, they're like demanding. We're in the hotel room in Hong Kong. So, yeah. So I'm thinking about the more like a microscopic level. Like even the cells, the... atoms the subatomic level it's not one or two like each part of my organ need to respect like they're separate they have different functioning but then they're also like together in one to make the whole thing work i don't know i'm going like to very like smaller level i don't know do you have any comments but it's like it's kind of helping me to understand this concept of not two not one

[66:34]

Yeah, that's great. I do all those things. I enjoy that, looking at the scientific part of it, at the atomic level, at the astronomical level. I mean, there's so many levels in which the universe is appearing for us and as us, both the macroscopic and the microscopic. So there was a film made some years back called Zoom. I think the Ames... They were a couple that made some great shares too. They did this thing called Zoom. And it was one of these early kind of animations where they had a couple in a blanket in a park in New York City. And then they did powers of 10. And then they would go 10 times away from the couple. And so now you're looking at them in a little square, you know, one meter by one meter. And then they get powers of 10. So now it's 10 by 10. And then they go... you know, powers of 10, powers of 10. And it wasn't too long before they're looking at the solar system from way out here. And then that doesn't stop.

[67:36]

They keep going powers of 10 until you're at the edge of the universe. So then they come back in the other way and they go into the couple and they start going into their cells. Powers of 10, right? Smaller and smaller and smaller. And same thing. They get to the final shot. There's nothing there because it's just vastness. You know, all the molecules are like, There's just space in between these little units of whatever it is. So either direction we go, it's like believe in nothing. That's much more what's going on here. There's nothing lasts forever. So we have the wonderful opportunity to look as you're doing at not one. It's not one. The universe would be silly to say it's just one thing, like a big lump. Yeah, that's kind of silly. Obviously, it's more than one. But then to say it's many things and that each of those things is separate, well, that's crazy. You know, they're not separate. They're all included in what this big bag we call the universe.

[68:36]

So we have this power of shifting from the view of it as a unity to the view of it as difference. So that Sandokai that Shurto wrote that's in our liturgy book... the harmony of difference and equality is all about that shifting the point of view from differences to the sameness and back again. So this, because it's not one and it's not two, we have to be able to shift from looking at one side, it's the relative side where things are in relationship to the other side where there's nothing there at all, nothing to say, no words, no language. Just existence. Yeah. The pivoting somehow really helps. I tried in a situation where I was just physically having a pain, maybe coughing or something. But then I feel like this is just me.

[69:37]

It's made up. There's some kind of channel between me and the universe. Even in a painful relationship with my family, let's say an argument, I feel like that's also me. It just feels less bad, I guess. You can do this. You keep working it. I think you've got lots of tools for looking at both sides of this in a way that will be very satisfying to you. It is satisfying. And just one comment. Yeah, I read this book, but he's not a Buddhist. And he didn't even like, but he wasn't in one of, you know, like Cal... I think Buddhism is a religion that actually can be consistent with my viewers. It's very interesting how, as you said, some of the deep-down theory in physics are consistent with the teaching of Buddhism.

[70:40]

When I read it, I was like, wow, every physicist is a philosophy in ancient Buddhism. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of those converts and they haven't left their disciplines. You know, like Ravelli hasn't left his discipline. He still loves physics. And who's the guy who was a philosopher who he's now a very well-known philosopher of Buddhism, but he was just a general. Jay Garfield? Jay Garfield. Yeah. Jay Garfield. Same thing. He was like... I was doing just fine. And along comes Buddhism. And he just threw his whole thing. He just kind of stopped with all the other stuff and really started to hone in on this Buddhist philosophy. And he wrote some beautiful things. So, you know, it's exciting because these really wonderfully educated and thinking and marvelous people are finding resonance with things that we all do. And it's nice to feel that. The growth of the wisdom teachings taking hold, you know.

[71:44]

It's lovely. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Hi to the kids. I will. Okay, everyone. Thank you so much. We'll have another one next week. I will be giving the talk on the 29th at Greenwich. So it's going to be a bit of a... Run back home. And if for some reason I don't show up, it will be because I didn't make it. So if you just see the banner and no foo, that's what happened. But I'm hoping to be back on the 29th to meet with you. So please take care. Have a lovely week. I hope you have a nice holiday. All of you in any way you're celebrating that. And you may unmute if you would like to say goodbye. Thank you. Thank you, Fu. Thank you, everyone. See you in the 29th. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Fu. Have nice days. Blessings.

[72:45]

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