... [...] It was a very specific story for us. A lot of these projects are also similar to this. I thought it was my construction to me and I looked for a bit off my mind. It was the story that I really hated about that particular. It came out from my house and then I think about this. It is to see if the end was a sense to you and to get to the radio and where am I going to the next set? I did a lot of hypothesis researches, which even thought about it was in life as always.

[03:10]

So where is this? I'm not going with this, but I'm not going with this. [...] good morning everybody you all look pretty good you're feeling good good it's nice to be here at green gulch it's been a while uh And the floors in Cloud Hall have been refinished and they're brilliant, shining, really. They look like they looked when they were first installed.

[04:14]

So how about that? Things get aged and messed up and then they get repaired and they become renewed. It happens like that. And it looks like Manjushri has a new pad to sit on or a new upholstery for an old pad to sit on, and it even looks like the kobaku is new or different, or maybe I'm misremembering. But if I'm misremembering, just as well, right? It's still new to me. So it's nice to be here, even though it's the first time I've ever given a Dharma talk at Green Gulch sitting on a chair. So that means... I didn't think about this, but it means I'm some inches lower than I would be if I was sitting, whoops, over there. So that means I can see you a little bit less well. But I can see you all right.

[05:19]

And we're all here very charged up and excited about Suzuki Roshi's new book, Jiryu's new book. And I was thinking as I was walking up and down out there, on that wonderful floor, how happy Sojin Roshi would be to think that the book that he worked on of Suzuki Roshi's words with Jiryu would be presented by Jiryu, and he's gone. I think he would be happy about that. I think he would think, that's good, that's better that way. Otherwise, poor Julia's gonna have to drag me along, you know, this way. He doesn't have to do that. But I want to talk about a different book today, not that book. This is a book by the pretty well-known Japanese Soto Zen teacher, Kosho Uchiyama Roshi.

[06:28]

He was the abbot of Antaichi Monastery for a number of years. And the name of the book, the title of the book, is The Sound That Perceives the World. The Sound That Perceives the World. And it's a book about Kaze on Bosatsu, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, who, as it turns out, when you read the book, was very, very important to Uchiama Roshi. And this book is not out yet, I think. Being Yourself is out, just out? Next week. Next week, yes, almost out. This one is probably further out, but I'm reading it in an advanced copy because Tricycle Magazine asked me to review it, so that's how come I've been reading it. Probably it's some months away from publication. In this book, Uchiyama Roshi tells the rather dramatic story of how he first encountered Kanzai Onbosatsu. And this was during what's called in Japan the Pacific War, known here as World War II.

[07:40]

And things were really, really, really hard in Japan during that time. There was no money, there was very little food, and everybody was just scuffling to survive. And Uchiyama Roshi was living in a little temple with two other monks, And they were determined to keep up their zazen practice no matter what. But the government took over the temple because they needed it for refuge for orphans from the war. So they had to leave. And someone offered them a job in the deep mountains cutting wood to make charcoal. which was the way that the Japanese heated their homes. They had these little hibachis and they burned charcoal so that you had to go and somebody had to produce the charcoal. So they got a job doing that and they were very happy to have a place to stay and have work. Plus they were city boys and they thought, wow, what an adventure this will be, living in the country in the mountains.

[08:49]

But it turned out to be more of an ordeal than an adventure. There was very little food. There was no heat. It was freezing cold, snowing all the time, and they had to lug heavy equipment on steep and narrow mountain paths to cut the trees, to bring back, to bake in the ovens to make the charcoal. They didn't have proper gloves, so when their hands weren't freezing from the cold, they were blistered and burned from pulling. the logs out of the ovens. And Uchiyama tells the story in his book. It does not spare any of the gruesome details. So one day, in the midst of his struggles and despair, he just felt that he could not go on even one more day. He would rather die than live another day like this.

[09:54]

And he just reached the absolute bottom. And all of a sudden, he spontaneously found himself, without intending it, chanting over and over again, Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu, Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu, Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu. And Kanzeon Bosatsu filled his body and mind with And all his thoughts of suffering and misery and despair just completely disappeared, and he felt happy and lighthearted. And he was able to resume his work and, of course, survived that period of his life. Now, the funny thing about this is

[10:57]

is that Uche Avaroshi was not a pious or religious type of person. He was a very practical, rational, down-to-earth guy, and even, I might say, a little rough or gruff. Not that he was exactly unsympathetic to people, but when people came to talk to him about their problems, he would often say, you know, it's just your own mind, just forget about it. It's just your own stupid thinking that's causing your suffering. And he did not want himself to indulge that thinking, and he didn't want them to indulge it either. As a soto priest, he came from a rather unconventional lineage that rejected the religiosity of ordinary soto zen and emphasized zazen, zazen, only zazen, only zazen. His teacher, Sawaki Kodo Roshi, was known as Homeless Kodo because he refused to take on a temple with all of its donors and social groups and memorial ceremonies and funerals.

[12:10]

And Uchiyama Roshi, as he often says in his books, figures that most religion, including Zen, is pretty much nonsense and that offering incense and bowing to statues was the height of foolishness. A total waste of time. And not only that, he thought that so-called enlightenment was an even bigger waste of time. It was that kind of stupid fairy tale that people were telling themselves. A kind of Disney movie or psychedelic indulgence that he had no use for whatsoever. So he was a radical, zen, tough guy. Zazen, Zazen, Zazen, his sessions were famous for, he's to call them sessions without toys. No Dharma talks, no Doka-san, nothing but relentless Zazen, 50 minute periods, one after the other after the other all day long.

[13:17]

Which makes it even more amazing that he would spontaneously begin chanting Kanze on Vosatsu in the middle of his despair, and that it would work to relieve his suffering instantaneously. He was not that kind of guy. And there is a long tradition in Buddhism of calling on Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva in times of stress, distress, and trouble. And this tradition comes from the famous 25th chapter of of the Lotus Sutra, maybe you know this chapter, sometimes they extract that chapter from the Lotus Sutra as a separate sutra, and they call it the Kanan Gyo, the Kanan Sutra. And the sutra begins with a bodhisattva by the name of inexhaustible intent, questioning the Buddha, asking the Buddha, why does this bodhisattva, Kanan,

[14:21]

have the name Perceiver of the World's Sounds, because that's what the name means. And the Buddha replies to that question, suppose, this is a quote from the Sutra, suppose there are immeasurable hundreds, thousands, ten thousand, millions of living beings who are undergoing various trials and sufferings, If they hear of this bodhisattva, perceiver of the world's sounds, and wholeheartedly call out his name, then at once that person will perceive, sorry, then at once that bodhisattva will perceive the sound of their voices and they will all gain deliverance immediately from their trials. And that's why he's called Kansayan, Perceiver of the World Sounds.

[15:23]

The sutra then goes on for many, many pages, enumerating various kinds of disastrous situations that might occur, and then a person calls out to Kansayan and is delivered from their troubles. And here's a few lines from that part of the sutra. If a person... who upholds the name of Kansayan Bodhisattva, enters a great fire, the fire will not burn him, all because of this Bodhisattva's awesome spiritual power. If a person being tossed about in the great sea calls out the Bodhisattva's name, that person will find a shallow place. If hundreds of thousands of myriads of kotis of beings who seek salvation, gold, silver, lapis lazuli, mother of pearl, cornelian, coral, amber, pearls, and so forth, enter the great sea, and evil wind may toss their boats into the territory of the raksha ghosts.

[16:33]

But if among them there is even one person who calls out the name of Konzeon Bosatsu, they will all be saved. from the difficulty of the rakshas. And that's another reason why he's called Konseyon. And this last one reminds me of the story of Dogen, who was coming home from China by boat, and this happened. The whole seas were in turmoil, the boat was about to capsize, and Dogen fervently chanted the name of Konseyon Bosatsu, and the entire boat was saved miraculously. So we read in the biography of Dogen. Now, it wasn't because he believed one word of this that Uchiyama began chanting Kanze Onbosatsu. He explains the reason why he did that was because he had had a lot of conditioning as a child.

[17:45]

that had to do with Konseya. His grandfather didn't like the Pure Land Buddhist temple down the block. Maybe you know the Pure Land Buddhist tradition. It believes that it's impossible to practice Buddhism in this world because it's so difficult to do, as we can see. You know, it's really hard to do. I'm so busy and everything. So they thought, forget it. This is not a place to practice Buddhism. The only place you can practice is in the Pure Land. So we will chant Namu Amida Butsu, praying to be reborn in the Pure Land where we can begin to practice. That's the Pure Land practice. So there was a Pure Land temple down the street from Uchiyama's grandfather, and he didn't like that temple. So maybe, possibly for spite, he made his own temple. for Kanzayon Bosatsu and had many images of Kanzayon Bosatsu in that temple.

[18:53]

That temple burned down before Uchiyama Roshi was born because in Japan, temples always burn down. They almost like have to build two temples, one in the shop for when the first one burns down because they're all made out of old wood and they're thatched roofs and everything. So they burn. So this temple burned down But a lot of the images were saved and Uchiyama Roshi's mother had those images and she kept them in her house and often prayed to Kanzayon Bosatsu and chanted the Kanangyo Sutra when he was a boy. He didn't believe in any of that, but he had seen it as a boy, which is probably why in the moment of his great need, he began spontaneously chanting Kanzayon Bosatsu. In Uchiama Roshi's books, he tells a lot of stories about himself and his life.

[19:56]

And his life was pretty interesting and surprising, maybe. We all have a projection, you know, what must be the life of a Zen master in Japan. So here's the actual life of Uchiama Roshi. He was a university student in Western philosophy and married when he was still a student. But his wife, they were only married a short time and his wife died of tuberculosis, which precipitated a spiritual crisis for young Kosho Uchiyama. And he went to work in a Catholic school where he was teaching mathematics. and he was very inspired by the Catholics, and he really seriously considered whether to become a Catholic priest, but in the end decided not to do that, although he really loved the Bible, and he read the Bible his whole life and quotes the Bible extensively in all of his books.

[21:01]

Three years later, he met Sawaki Koto Roshi, and then he ordained as a Zen priest and married again. But this was another tragic brief marriage. His wife was pregnant. She carried the child term and died in childbirth along with the child. And although Uchiyama Roshi somehow didn't get tuberculosis when his wife had it, in those days, you know, they weren't in Japan. treatments for tuberculosis were not available. He didn't seem to get it, but he somehow had a latent case of it because in his later life, he was plagued by very, very weak health. And by the time he was only 61 years old, which seems so young, right, 61, it's like, wow, barely middle-aged. Don't you think? Yeah.

[22:06]

He was too ill to sit zazen anymore. And by 1975, he had to retire. He was 63 in 1975, and he had to retire as the abbot at Antaiji. And at this point, he married again for the third time. And this time, the marriage lasted until his death in 1998. And he has a wonderful disciple, Shohaku Okamura, a Japanese soto priest... a wonderful Soto priest who has lived in America most of his adult life and is one of our great Dharma treasures. His many books on Dogen and commentaries and translations are a real boon to us. And he also is retired, so Zen priests can retire. How about that? We never heard of that around here. But he retired also. Maybe partly because he too practiced really hard practice in his youth and maybe kind of wrecked his health too, I don't know.

[23:13]

Anyway, he's not too healthy and he retired also and lives in Bloomington, Indiana. He probably still teaches some, I guess. But he's retired as Abbot of that community, the San Shin, Zen community. So Uchiha Moroshi's best known teaching, and anybody who's ever heard of his name knows this. His best teaching, his most important teaching, his most wonderful teaching is called, in a phrase, opening the hand of thought. Beautiful phrase. You automatically know what it means when you hear it. A great expression. And that's how he expresses the way we practice zazen and the way we live. That's his way of talking about Dogen's fundamental and radical teaching that enlightenment is not some special state or special achievement that only the spiritual elite are capable of, but is simply our ordinary, everyday mind and life.

[24:30]

slightly shifted. This very slight shift that almost, you could say, doesn't even exist at all makes all the difference. We are naturally, constantly living from the position of ourself. Of course we are. What other way could we live? I am me, so I do this, I do that, I think this, I think that, I believe, I hope, I disagree, I agree with this and that, and so on, because I'm me. This is called a closed hand of thought. It means I'm over here, you're over there, I'm over here, the world is over there.

[25:45]

So naturally, for defense, we close our hand. I close mine, you close yours, and we try to live together. as best we can, closed hand to closed hand. To practice is not to destroy thought, to make thought go away so that we have a peaceful, empty mind. To practice is simply to open the hand of thought, to allow our thought, our life, to come and go freely. As human beings, of course, we will have thoughts and emotions and all kinds of self-centered desires. Uchiyama Roshi calls these secretions, like a gland secretes fluids, the brain, the mind secretes selfish thoughts.

[26:57]

It's only normal. This is natural to us. And it's even beautiful in a way and really and truly not a problem until we close our hand. Then it becomes a really big problem. And there's a lot of suffering that comes from that closed hand. which is also, of course, a fist. But when we open the hand of thought, we allow everything to simply come and go. It's all right. We no longer set ourselves apart. So there's nothing to defend. And there's no reason for contention.

[28:02]

We are simply willing at every moment to join the flow of reality completely. So in his book, Uchiyama Roshi says that calling out to Kanzayon is exactly the same thing as opening the hand of thought. It's just the same thing. It's another way it looks, but it's the same thing. Just as in zazen, we allow thought to arise and disappear, and we use our body and our breathing to help us to do that. So when we chant the name of khanzeon, whether we do it aloud or silently, we are also opening the hand of thought, letting go of our self-centered habit and allowing what is to simply be what it is.

[29:06]

This is such a small thing, but it is so radical. Try it and you'll see what I mean. As soon as we can do that, in that very moment, we are free from suffering. In the snowy mountains of Japan long ago, Uchiyama Roshi was freed from his troubled thoughts simply by filling his mind with the thought of konzeon. It was still cold outside. The temperature didn't change one degree. His hands were still frozen and blistered. They were still painful. But since his mind was no longer obsessed and troubled, there was also, at the same time, no pain.

[30:12]

Maybe you noticed when I spoke it that the title of Uchiyama Roshi's book is not Perceiver of the Sounds of the World, It's the sound that perceives the world. Did you notice? Also, when he translates the name Kanzayon in the course of the book, he often translates not as hearer of the sounds of the world, which is what it literally means, but as the one who sees the sounds of the world. And in both cases, he is trying to make the point that the whole essence of kanze on bosatsu and the essence of opening up the hand of thought is that, in a sense, we stop perceiving altogether.

[31:20]

That is, we stop being over here looking at something over there that is not ourself. The truth is, everything is ourself and not ourself. There is no me over here and you over there. To say that konzion hears the sounds of the world as if she were not herself those sounds, as if the world were not herself, would be to fall again into the natural confusion and suffering whose essence is separation that is so deeply ingrained in everything that we think and feel and imagine.

[32:27]

When he says see the sound, he means be the sound. When he says the sound hears the world, he means that the world isn't the world as we see it, the world of objects and separate existences. This is not such a big mystery. You can actually practice this in your ordinary life. When you hear the sound of a robin singing, don't hear a robin singing. Hear yourself. And you know what? When you hear the robin, in that moment, the robin hears you. The robin is literally actually creating your life in that moment. That is your life, if you listen completely.

[33:38]

And we look at other people, don't we? As if they were actually other people. We see them entirely from our own side. And so when they hurt us or upset us, we have feelings and ideas about this. And we project those feelings and ideas onto this object out there we think of as the other person. But did you ever think that when you see the other person, the other person also sees you? We are creating them and they are creating us in that moment. The flow of their living and the flow of our living is one beautiful flow of reality between us. When we open the hand of thought, we don't see other as other, or self as self.

[34:50]

And right now, we can be saved from our suffering. So this is a great practice, to call on konze on bo satsu to save you. And if you find that zazen is too hard, you know, you've been sitting and trying and struggling, and it's just too hard, quit. Give it up. And just sit there, breathing. and saying, I quit zazen, kanzi on bosatsu, please save me now. No more zazen, kanzi on bosatsu, kanzi on bosatsu, no more kanzi on bosatsu. And if you think, well, okay, that's good enough for Uchiyama Roshi, because after all, as you just explained, you had all those early conditionings. I don't have that, kanzi on bosatsu is totally foreign to me.

[35:54]

Well, I have an idea. Why don't you use your breath in just the same way? You know, your breath is not Japanese. It's not American either, is it? Or any group or nationality or ethnicity or gender. It's just your breath. Your life. You've known this breath your whole life. Is there anything that's closer to you than this breath? And the breath actually is. Konzeon. Bosatsu. So forget about doing zazen and just breathe in and breathe out with this spirit. Please save me. Breath.

[36:59]

Please help me. And you know what? Your breath has been helping you. Right? From the first to the last, it will help you. Without fail. And I'm speaking from personal experience, because I do this all the time. It's wonderful. When my tooth is being pulled, I'm breathing. I'm breathing. It helps a lot. When I'm going to some bizarre medical procedure, breathing. It helps me to endure it with some composure. And I don't even mind at all. Because I have been practicing with the breath for a really long time, I don't have to think about it or remember to do it.

[38:02]

As soon as something rough comes up, I'm breathing and I'm paying attention. The breath has been a reliable friend for me. Always has helped me. And I recognize how precarious it is. Maybe someday, It won't help me because maybe I'll lose my ability to breathe smoothly. It's a blessing. Most of my life, almost always, I can just breathe in and breathe out. It's pretty good. But maybe sometime I won't be able to do that. But even then, even then, I have faith that the breath, even so, will help me right up until the end. In his book, Uchiyama Roshi makes it very clear that it isn't the magic of the words Namo Kanzion Bosatsu that helps you.

[39:07]

It's the mind that opens to those words. Chanting Namo Kanzion Bosatsu is the same as chanting Namo Amida, Buddha, regardless of what Uchiyama's grandfather thought. It's the same as chanting Namo Kiei Butsu. which many of us are quite familiar with as we stitch that mantra into every stitch in our rakasu or okesa. It's also the same as calling out to the Virgin Mary or calling out to God. Please save us. Please help me. Please help me. And I'll never forget one of my closest Zen friends who once came to see me elated. And he told me, he said, You know, I've been trying to practice zazen for 30 years, and I never could do it. It's been so frustrating, and I finally figured it out. I said, wow, how did you figure it out?

[40:08]

What do you do? He said, well, I just sit there, and I start saying, please help me. Please help me. Please help me. And now I feel like I can do zazen. I said, wow, that's amazing. Who are you asking? to help you. And he looked at me as if that question never occurred to him. And he said, you know, I have no idea. I don't know. Actually, If you call out to Kanzeon Bosatsu or Amida Buddha or Shakyamuni Buddha or God or the Virgin Mary, it's exactly the same. You don't know who you are calling to. And if you think you do, you're not calling to Kanzeon Bosatsu or anybody else.

[41:17]

Classically, they say that the difference between Zen practice and pure land practice, and it's also the difference between Zen practice and other theistic practices, that difference, they say, in Japan, is the difference between what they call joriki and tariki. And I'm sure some of you have heard of these terms. Joriki is self-power. and tariki is other power. So in Zen, they say, we're tough guys, we do it ourselves. Thanks to the efforts that we make on our cushion, we awaken. Joriki, self-power. But in Pure Land practice, we call on Amida Buddha to save us, or in Christianity, we say, everything is up to Jesus or up to God. That's tariki. Other power. Amida saves us.

[42:24]

Jesus saves us. God saves us. Not we ourselves. In his book, Uchiyama Roshi makes it perfectly clear that when you really understand self and other, you can see that this distinction must be spurious. What is other? It's the self. What is the self? It's the other. And this is not a funny Zen paradox. This is simply and obviously the way things are. We know this already. Life is a flow coming and going flowing through us and on past us. It's not a thing.

[43:26]

It's not an object. It's not a possession. It's a flow on and on and on. It goes. This whole world and all its trouble is not other than ourself and we are not other than it. In our practice, everything that happens is our life. We are responsible for it. We do our best to take care of it. And we are constantly asking for and receiving the help we need. So that's what I wanted to tell you this morning. Thank you for listening. Now, we have... 18 minutes. 18. For any comments or questions.

[44:29]

And I resist the idea that you have questions and I have the answers. I resist that idea because it makes me into a fool and a stupid person. I don't want to do that. So it doesn't have to be a question. It can be a comment or a statement or whatever. And I will respond if I have something to say, and if I don't, I'll say, thanks, let's go to the next person. So there, I guess we have a custom of the mic and all that, okay. 17 minutes. No pressure, yeah. Thank you, Norman. Good morning. Opening my hand to thought, allow me some foolishness, but it reminds me of something that you wrote in the book on imagination, the opening of that book in which you describe the poet Robert Desnos being led from the concentration camp about to be shot by the Gestapo.

[45:52]

And what does he do? he turns to all of his fellow concentration camp members and to the Nazis, and he asks them to open their hands, and he reads their fortune. And he tells them, oh, you're going to have a wonderful life. You're going to get married. You're going to settle down. You're going to have a farm. And this is a transformative moment, of course. And as he does this again and again and again, the Nazis decide, according to this story, which may or may not be true, not to kill these people and take them back to the camp instead. And I wonder about that. You wonder about it in the book. You wonder whether it's true or not. Nobody really knows for sure. It's an anecdote. And you puzzle over this. And then you say, but of course it's true.

[46:54]

whether it's factually true or not. And so in this desire to be saved, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about imagination and whether this call for help is itself an act of imagination. And if so, what does that mean about how we erase this distinction of self and other... You did a great job telling that story. It's a wonderful story, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, yes, I'm always thinking about what a tremendous bias we now have in the world toward materialism. And I don't mean buying stuff. I mean the belief that the real world is the material world. and anything that is not the material world is of a degree less real.

[47:57]

And I think it's because we've invested so much in the material world, and we know so much, we've learned so much about it, it's been very exciting, all the things we've learned about the material world, just in the last hundred years. So we're all like children, excited with a new toy, and we can't see anything else but this new toy. So we think that the imagination is just content for platforms that make money. But the imagination is real. In a different way, but real. Every thought, intention, and feeling you have is real. When you invest your heart in the thought that this world could be just and could be peaceful, when you invest yourself in that and act on it and believe it, and treat others as if it were so, you are making that world.

[49:00]

Spiritual practice is entirely an act of the imagination. That's what it is. Every art, every story, everything that's not in front of us materially is an act of the imagination. In fact, your life is imaginary. The past is imagined. Literally. As is the future. So the world of the imagination is very strong in all of us. And unfortunately, with our emphasis on materialism, we've created... I mean, it's so funny. We're so rich. We think we're so rich, but we're very poor. We're very poor in the spirit and in the imagination. And that's why we're here. That's what we're doing in this room. That's what we've been doing in this room for 50 years. So thank you for that. It's a way of framing it. We don't even need those words, but that's right. Another hand in the back.

[50:05]

Can you stand up so we can... Good. Thank you for your teaching. You look very familiar to me for some reason. Yeah, you look familiar to me. Do we know each other well? Yes. Oh. You saved my life one time. Oh. So, commonly, I love the notion to open your hand to thought and the notion of richness. On my walks in the hood, I meet homeless people. Yeah. And this fellow, Mark, I mean, they're often considered delusional or schizophrenic. Yeah. But he's the richest man I know. Yeah. And there's a contest with children. They put one child in one room, and he wears out the toy, gets bored. The other child does the same thing. And the third child, there's a room full of manure, and he plows into the pile of manure and digs and digs and digs.

[51:14]

He says, well, what are you doing? With all this manure, there's bound to be a pony in here. Wonderful. Nice to see you again. I'm glad I saved your life. Whatever I did or didn't do. Probably with somebody else, you're mixing up with me, but that's okay. Hi. Hi. Thank you for your Dharma talk. My pleasure. I have fun giving Dharma talks, you know? Oh, that's great. It's totally selfish. I've heard that's not the case for other people. Well, they take it more seriously, I think. Since starting Zen practice, I stopped chanting. And I used to really like chanting, actually. And I used to chant, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Ram, Hare Ram, Hare Hare.

[52:21]

And it really brought me that same... Since I was a kid, that same conditioning and stuff. And I stopped because it seemed like it was working because it was making other thoughts not happen. So that the only thing that was there was the chant. So then, because of what I learned... it seemed like, oh, maybe this isn't a good idea because I'm not including, like, what's actually might come up, what might be secreted naturally. So I wonder what you have to say about that. Well, that's a great point, actually. Are you practicing here at Green Gulch? Yes. Yeah, so there's chanting here, right, every morning and evening, and there's chanting.

[53:22]

So it's not like you don't chant. You still chant. That's true. So there is chanting. But no, I think that's very wise because it's for sure, there's no question that we all know this, that fanatical spiritual practice can be a way of avoiding what's really the case within you. So if you had that thought and you came into this path for that reason, I'm sure that's a trustworthy thought. within yourself. So it's very possible that you'll be just like Uchiyama. You'll practice Zen for a long time, and you will take care of all that's within you, leaving nothing out. And then someday you'll start chanting, what was it you chanted? Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna, yeah, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, again, and it'll be a totally different thing. Then you'll say, ah, now I understand what the Hare Krishna chant was.

[54:25]

Now I get it. Before, I was using it kind of like a drug to prevent myself from feeling anything. Now I'm using it as a wisdom. So the same thing can be more than one thing, depending on how we hold it in our hands. So maybe, let's say you could say you were chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. I'm not saying this is true, but you could put it this way, with a closed hand of thought. And now after practicing Zen, someday maybe you'll shen it with an open hand. Thank you very much. Thank you. Oh, 11.13, so seven more minutes. This is so serious around here. You've got to... We've got to really stop when we're supposed to stop. Luckily, I've got a brief one, I think. Oh, good. I'll try to be brief if I respond. I'd love to hear a little bit more about Uchi Yamaroshi's roughness and gruffness. As I personally move many years into practice, I feel like my personal wisdom is growing and assured, and selfishly, that's great.

[55:33]

But if anything, my sympathy for others is not growing nearly so fast. And my understanding of Zen is that that's not a good thing. That's the cave of demons, and I'm supposed to get out of that. So I'm curious to hear more about Uchiyami Roshi and what he did or did not do about his gruffness and his roughness. Yeah, well, that's a great question. So I would say that I don't know, but I would be willing to bet a lot of money that Uchayama was a lot gruffer in his books than he was in real life. That, in fact, he was kind to people who came to see him. And the reason why I've been willing to bet that is because after he retired as abbot of Antige in 1975, from then until 1998, which is 23 years, he just kind of hung around in his house and received anybody who came to visit him.

[56:38]

And so he tells a lot of stories about a lot of different people with a lot of human problems who came to see him. And I don't think they would have come to see him if they didn't feel that he was respectful of them and could offer them help. So the question then is, what helps? And I think Uchi Amoroshi is right that it doesn't help. If you come to see me and say, you know, my brother-in-law is a rotten person, And he's constantly insulting me and I hate him. And I said, tell me what he's done. And then you tell me what he's done. And I said, yeah, he is a hateful, horrible person. You're right to hate him. I hate him too. Just hearing you. I don't think that I'm helping you if I do that. I don't think I'm helping you. But if I listen to you and I say something to you like, well, you know, I wonder if your brother-in-law maybe didn't have some problems too.

[57:39]

What's his life been like? Something. You know what I mean? There's a way of helping you without, I can really hear you and I can honor what you're saying, without indulging your attachments. And I think that's probably what Uchiyama Roshi did. So, I don't know. The people are different in their personalities. I think he did have a rather sort of gruff and, what's the word, a sort of skimming along kind of personality. Other people are more empathetic. And we're not all the same. We're not all supposed to be empathetic in the same way. But definitely, I think it's a measure of one's practice, the extent to which you understand that others are yourself. And if you see others as a pain in the neck, then you actually, the truth is, you see yourself as a pain in the neck, too. So look a little more closely. I often say to people, you know, sometimes people practice... and their spouse doesn't practice, and I asked their spouse, how's he doing in his practice?

[58:46]

Is he a better husband? Or is she a better wife? Or partner? Because if the practice doesn't do that, if the practice makes them more self-centered, all they want to do is run away from their spouse to practice, then they have to think again. They're missing something. Maybe that's okay for a while. We can be patient with it. But in the end, no. Because you're just making more suffering. The more you pay attention to yourself without paying attention to the rest of the world around you, the more suffering you're making. But you know, I think that every rule becomes oppressive. So there's no rules here. Because you take a rule, and then immediately you misunderstand it. That's what makes it a rule. So you just have to pay attention. What's going on here? The Buddha said, suffering and the end of suffering.

[59:47]

That's why I'm here. So our practice is to make less suffering in our own lives and the lives of those we love in the life of the whole world. And if we're not on the path of ending suffering, if we're making more suffering, then I don't think that's what the Buddha was teaching us. So we have one last hand and we have exactly two minutes. And it's too bad you're so far away. Come halfway to meet the microphone because time is of the essence. I appreciate that adherence to the schedule. Yeah, totally. Some of the last comments you made about thinking about not just the Zen tradition and the pure Zen tradition, and like self and other. It might be something from the Korean Buddhist tradition of seeing three gates of the Zen tradition, the Pureland tradition, and then like scripture.

[60:48]

How do you view scripture fitting into this idea that you've been talking about today? Well, I think that study of the Dharma, which is what scripture is, right, is part of our practice. And in a way, hearing a Dharma talk is studying the Dharma. That's why we say, we chant in the beginning as if hearing the Dharma talk is like opening up a sutra. And that is an important part of the practice. But in Zen, the emphasis is on our own immediate experience. So we're not trying to follow the scriptures and imitate them to the letter. We're trying to use the scripture to help us illuminate our own experience. But certainly, I know in my practice, I've always studied, since the very beginning, studied the Dharma. And I really appreciate studying the Dharma. And in a way, studying the Dharma is not accumulating information. It's bringing ourselves to some peacefulness and understanding.

[61:52]

So yeah, study is important. Thank you. And I think we're out of time now. So we have just enough time to chant. Chant. And then go away. Thank you. . It's a hard time, but it's a hard time. It's [...] a hard time.

[62:56]

It's a hard time. It's a hard time. We were talking about this. We were talking about this. We were talking about this.

[63:16]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_82.02