You know, sometimes my body's been working so hard to help them, and I don't want them to help me, but they really should help me, and I should be able to push them away. See, when I think that, it's something Someone's kind to give up. Thank them. Thank you. It's our judgment that what kindness is is part of the problem. Well, this person deserves to be kind to who that person doesn't be. This is good kindness. This is not so good kindness. Where do you find it?

[01:03]

Thank you. Yes, we would think. Sashina is actually a rather unique part of our practice. Most of the time we talk about dealing with our everyday mind and just going through the activities of our daily life. Sashina is a little bit different.

[02:04]

It kind of takes you out of your daily life to have a look at it. in the same way. So it's quite natural for us to talk about kindness and how we manifest it in our everyday life, but in Sashin, where everything is seamless, supposedly, it's all one. One what? I don't know, but It's all one. Kindness doesn't stick out so much. When we start to practice, we practice different practices like kindness, generosity, patience.

[03:14]

But during Sashin, they're all one thing. They're all rolled up together. It's like we push the variables as much as we can go in a duality world. And then in non-duality, we let it go to get some insight. So... We've been talking about kindness and helping. And they can be teased out as separate variables. But there's just this moment in which everything is rolled up into it. So that's why in my class I mentioned this as waking up.

[04:19]

I shouted to wake myself up. Waking up means waking up from the dream of kindness and non-kindness. Waking up from the dream of who I am and who you are. Waking up. Here's a good example of this by Frank O'Hara. This is a neat poem. Why I am not a painter? I am not a painter. I'm a poet. Why? I think I would rather be a painter, but I'm not. Well, for instance, Mike Goldberg is starting a painting. I drop in. Sit down and have a drink, he says. I drink, we drink, I look up.

[05:22]

You have sardines in it. Yes, it needed something there. Oh, I go and the days go by and I drop in again. The painting is going on and I go and the days go by, I drop in. The painting is finished. Where's sardines? All that's left is just letters. It was too much, Mike says. But me, one day I'm thinking of a color, orange. I write a line about orange. Pretty soon it is a whole page of words, not lines. Then another page. There should be so much more not of orange of words of how terrible orange is in life. Days go by. It is even in prose I am a real poet. My poem is finished and I haven't mentioned oranges yet. It's 12 poems. I call it oranges. And one day in a gallery I see Mike's painting called Sardines. I know. So take any point, it's all connected.

[06:27]

So to wake up. wake up in the midst of our striving in the midst of our doing many practices but to wake up beyond practice and non-practice striving or not striving whether there's kindness or no kindness you know the Three pure precepts are to do good, avoid evil, and help people. Sometimes it's called to do good, avoid evil, and go beyond good and evil. Helping people may be good or bad, but we should try.

[07:59]

A couple years ago, I was in the hospital for sort of a minor thing. It was kind of scary, but it was no big deal. I stayed two or three nights, and I think the first night I stayed, well, first of all, UC Hospital is a wonderful place. It's got people from every country speaking every language. It kind of felt like I was on spaceship Earth. Anyhow, I was on spaceship Earth, and the light in the hospital was kind of weird. It's kind of white, eerie light sometimes. And I was going in and out of sleep. And then I woke up, sort of woke up, to an itchy and scratchy cartoon.

[09:15]

Do you know them from The Symptoms? It's a completely mean-spirited cartoon. But it has its moments. And also there's also a change in the light. They change black and white during the cartoon. And I sort of woke up. Kind of crazy waking up, waking up to imagining a cartoon in a hospital. But it put a perspective on my life outside the hospital or what I came in with, what I was going out with. You know, we're really attached to our storylines. Even if we're not attached to our storylines, there's a storyline that we're attached to. We have storylines about how people have wronged us, how people have righted us, how things are unfair, how things are bountiful.

[10:27]

But when you wake up, it kind of all drops away. And then, of course, you're surrounded. You go back to sleep again. Over and over we do sashin in order to wake up, in order to see ourselves in the midst of our stories. There's even a sashin story, whichever one that is. But actually, even though I don't always know it, we're free on every moment. Then we pick up our story again.

[11:40]

It's not a story that's wrong, because we all need a storyline, or else we're not in the play. But we should hold it fairly loosely. We have to uphold our end. My son came home and I had to remember to play the parent part a little bit at least. But kindness is a way to go beyond kindness. You know, there are those people who often are kind to us, but they're kind in a sappy way, which is still pretty good.

[12:43]

But it's not so real. And there's a part of them saying, look at me, look how kind I am. That's okay. But it's not kindness beyond kindness. Kadigiri Roshi used to talk about his teacher, Hashimoto. Hashimoto had shoulder back pain. And Kadigiri Roshi would ask him, can I get a massage? And he would go. But then one day, his teacher was in the bath and he just started to massage him. And the teacher relaxed. These Japanese monks who came with hoitsu were rather inspiring themselves.

[13:45]

They were all looking for ways to help. And also noticing if they helped too much, they'd stop. It was as if their whole mind was turning to aid. very good training. But it's important to do these qualities beyond them. You know we say wisdom beyond wisdom is real wisdom. Wisdom that stands out as wisdom apart from everything else. That's okay, but... And it's necessary.

[14:51]

You have to be wise before you can be wise beyond wise. You have to be kind before you can be kind beyond kind. I like this poem. I don't think I've read it in Dharma Talk before, so I think I should read it again. I am not a painter. I am a poet. I am not a painter. I am not a poet. I am a Zen practitioner. No. I am not a painter. I am a poet. Why? I think I would rather be a painter, but I am not. Well, for instance, Mike Goldberg is starting a painting. I drop in. Sit down and have a drink, he says. I drink, we drink, I look up. There's sardines in it. Yes, it needed something there. Oh, I go, and the days go by, and I drop in again.

[15:54]

The painting is going on, and I go, and the days go by, I drop in. The painting is finished. Where's sardines? All that is left is just letters. It was too much, Mike says. But me, one day I'm thinking of a color, orange. I write a line about orange. Pretty soon there's a whole page of words, not lines. Then another page. There should be so much more, not of orange, of words, of how terrible orange is in life. Days go by. It is even in prose I am a real poet. My poem is finished, and I haven't mentioned orange yet. It's 12 poems. I call it oranges. And one day in a gallery, I see Mike's painting called Sardines. Probably the first lecture that was about sardines in this building.

[17:01]

So, it's not always so easy to define what we're doing. Because in defining what we're doing, we limit it. really talk about orange, you may not use orange. You have to mention everything else in the world to show how orange fits in. So I can't help but notice that some of you are struggling during the session. So am I. And That's just another factor. It's not better to have no pain in Sashin or to have pain in Sashin.

[18:17]

Each one is total Sashin. Our wanting to choose one or the other is quite natural, but perhaps a little foolish. You should use, I would suggest that you use the topic of kindness as a jumping off point. To be kind to yourself. Oh, I know what I just want to talk about. How can you be kind when you don't feel kind? Well, you know, Not so much lately, but I used to do big events for Zen Center, a big Buddhist film festival, and Suzuki Rishi's 100th birthday, and events like that.

[19:22]

And everyone would, you know, at the last minute, everyone was trying to go faster and faster, and the picture of their voice started to get higher and higher. And being one of the leaders... All the intensity comes to me. And I used to get upset. But now I say, wow, this is going to be interesting. This is a real challenge. How can I have the spirit of the event, which is one of kindness and taking care of people, be manifest even as we're getting a little excited? And I usually tell, have a meeting with a group of people and say, now's the best time. We all want to do a good job. But if something goes wrong, don't take it out on anybody else.

[20:25]

And of course, something always goes wrong. That kind of kindness is good for the person who's practicing it. Because when we blow up or get upset, we usually don't like it. Even as we're righteous about it, I thought, wow. Or even as, you know, there's this famous story about a jack. I mean, not so famous. There was someone who had a flat tire and he looked in his car and somehow the jack was missing. So he knocked on the first door and said, do you have a jack? And the person said, get out of here, what are you doing here? He went to another door and knocked on the door and he didn't even ask the question and the person berated him.

[21:32]

He knocked on the third door, the person answered and said, he said, I don't want your fucking jack. So, as much as possible, to let one thing be one thing, and not build it up for the next thing. You get a little annoyed, you take it in stride, but you have a little annoyance quotient which is building. And if you're feeling overwhelmed, you can ask for help. And when you ask for help, don't say, no, I can't take it because I've defined the situation in a way that I'm going to be stressed and I can't be helped.

[22:49]

Redefine the situation. or let go of your stress, either one. You know, we're trying to do a lot here. It may not look at just sitting quietly, but we're actually working. Now, here's a typical part of Sushi. I'm uncomfortable in my seated position, yet I know any way of change is going to be just as uncomfortable. Well, let's not change for now. But neither option is any good. What was I talking about before that aside?

[23:54]

Thank you. We're trying to actually do a lot here. We're trying to reprogram all our conditioning. Conditioning has come from us, from our parents, from society, from lifetimes. We're trying to get underneath it. The only tool we have is a kind of Meditation tool with people who have had some experience with meditation. That's all we got going against thousands of years of conditioning. Who do you win all the odds on? I think meditation will win out eventually. However, it may take us quite a while. So we're trying to do a lot here. You know, if you have a short distance to go, you can go fast. You've got a long distance to go. You have to go at a pace that you can continue endlessly.

[25:03]

So some of you may have been here for two years and say, I'm still not enlightened. Two years. How many more? But you may also say, I'm here 30 years and We're not all saved. I guess I'll just have to keep going. So that's what I want to encourage you to do to keep going. Because, as I say, getting up and moving out of this room won't be any better. It may feel better temporarily, but in a way, you're never going to leave this room.

[26:20]

Don't be frightened. You may leave this room, but As long as you're in this room, you'll never leave this room. The space of realizing what you are here right now can open and open and open. Even in the midst of the pain of your legs. So I've been talking about having basically two tracks. One, working on characteristics such as kindness or patience or helping. Doing that as best you can.

[27:23]

And at the same time, going beyond it, looking for a way which is not oranges or sardines. The first time I saw, I think it was the first time, I think it was the second time, I saw Suzuki Rishi. He was giving a lecture at Sakoji, and there was a tea. I think we were sitting in the pews, and everyone got tea and cookies. And he gave a little talk, and he said, when I drink this tea, I drink the whole universe. And the way he drank the tea was quite convincing. I think it was at the same day that I went with my friend who we had started sitting together.

[28:32]

We sat five minutes together every day, which was very hard because we had no experience of anything more. So we had some fairly big opening experiences hearing Suzuki Roshi and going to setting three or four 40-minute periods. But my friend saw a newspaper headline, which was ICBM Missile Approved by Congress. I don't know if you remember that, but that was a little bit of a big deal. My friend who got so open got then completely paranoid, said it's all over. It was all over, but it had nothing to do with the ICBM missile. But he latched onto that fear of a not-so-good thing. Sometimes when you get open, you're liable to let in some powerful notion and have it take you over.

[29:46]

In a way, that's our routine sitting. Sitting is a way of making ourselves stronger at the same time we're becoming more sensitive. I have a friend who wrote a song called shipwrecked on the shores of Nirvana. I think it says she is shipwrecked on the shores of Nirvana. She said that each one of you will have your enlightenment experiences and you may not like it. Most of the time we think of enlightenment as a grand ego gratification.

[30:54]

But noticing that you're connected to everything may not always feel so good. It means you're connected to other things that you don't like. So, recapping. Recapping. Allow yourself kindness. Let other people be kind to you. Don't shut them out. Even if they do it in a way that's too much or embarrassing or gets you tense up. Let go and say thank you. Whatever quality you're working on, whether it be kindness or insight or helping, realize that it's just a string, a thread that's connected to everything.

[32:24]

Wisdom beyond wisdom. Kindness beyond kindness. Friendliness beyond friendliness. Nikki wrote that great blog. When I came to Zen Center, I liked it because people weren't smiling and trying to incorporate me to the cult. Because sometimes it was a little much when all their eyes were down there. It was a little too much. So welcoming beyond welcoming may be giving you the space to find out what you want, if it's here or not. It's okay to be friendly too, but But that's an important point. If you come to a place and you're friendly, they smile and chat a lot, appreciate that.

[33:33]

If you come to a place where they don't, appreciate that. Swami Satchidanatha was, I heard him on a radio program many years ago and he said, when people come to say they're disappointed, I asked them who made the appointment. We make appointments all the time, have expectations. And it's sometimes it's certainly necessary to have some expectation. If you're a parent, you have to have some expectation of your child. Otherwise, he'll go crazy. But too much expectation is too much like you want a droid.

[34:52]

Or you want, or another category of Rishi's story is, he says, Many of you practice your life as if it's a vending machine. You put the coin in the bottom and you expect the soda to come out of the bottom. You put the coin in the top and you expect the soda to come out of the bottom. And when it doesn't, you take the machine. So a machine is a very It's a projected test. The same says she and someone can say, oh, this is the worst. I don't know why I do this. Or say, wow, this is the greatest. And it's all true. Wake up.

[36:06]

Wake up. Wake up. Okay. Have a good session. Wake up. Thank you.

[36:37]

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