Good evening. Oh, good evening, really. Let's see. Okay. I've gone wild up here. Hello? Yeah. Anna gave me a fan. For some reason, I'm burning up today. So it's about three o'clock. And I think I lost my fan. Oh. Life is like that. All preparations up. Is that me doing that? A little bit? Okay. Bring it down. How's that? Better? Okay.

[01:05]

So it's nice being here. Warm. I'm not sure what it's about. I went to Helen Winger's cremation at 2 o'clock, and since then, I've been hot. We had a little champagne party earlier for somebody in development, and I was sort of sweltering the whole time. So before the lecture, I went home and put on my swimsuit and lay on a bed, relaxing. And Ana gave me a fan. Oh, here it is. It's in this impossibly long pocket, which I can't get down this Chinese pocket. It's down in the bottom. Thank you, though. So I want to talk about a few different things tonight. I like titles for these talks. So this talk is called Cherry Pie Enlightenment. Cherry Pie Enlightenment. And it's because last week was a memorial for John King, who died two years ago.

[02:11]

He was a priest at City Center and a good friend to all of us. So I got to do his memorial lecture and his memorial service at Hartford Street. So he's sort of a charter member there. And in his last lecture, which was July 6, 2006, he said, You know, I haven't been able to eat now or taste anything for five months. He was dying of cancer, esophageal cancer. And he said, you know, it's really important when you have a chance, you should really enjoy cherry pie. I miss the flavor of cherry pie, what it tastes like to eat something so exquisite and to be alive in that way. Words to that effect. So, and then I did my talk about John and... I thought of a talk I could tell funny stories about John, but in a way that isn't the point of somebody's life, the complete point of their life, although their human side is often in a sort of humorous story.

[03:18]

And so then I was thinking about, you know, what were his attributes? What did he bring to practice? Why did people like him? You know, the people that knew him that are still here. had certain things that they really enjoyed about John. So to prepare for the lecture, I went around asking people, you know, I said, well, what do you remember about this fellow? And I created sort of a raucousel out of their memories to use for the lecture, for the talk. And one aspect, there were many, one aspect was he was joyful. You know, he had a sense of humor about things and a warmth for people, an immediate connection. which was very heartening, very important for me. I don't know about for other people, but for me. And it was, in many ways, my practice here is grounded because of my relationship with John, you know, the 10 years we had together. His humor and humanness and support of often my neuroses, my fears,

[04:27]

really wanting the best for me, really sort of staying with me through these difficult periods was very encouraging. So I thought a little bit about joy. What is joy and inspiration in our practice? What is it that gives us joy and inspiration? And then I thought, there's several things that happened. And several months ago, a friend said, you know, you're kind of a wonderful guy and you're kind of friendly, but I never think of you as a priest. And I thought that was an interesting statement. So it started me on a sort of a path, like what is sort of priesthood and how am I a priest or not a priest? And how does friendliness and humor or warmth fit into that, you know? So I've kind of been researching with myself how I feel about that and these aspects of joy and connection, inspiration. and support that we can give each other and ourselves.

[05:28]

So my first topic hitting here is, can a Buddhist be happy? Even joyful and under what conditions is it acceptable? When is this going to be okay? And so I've been sort of thinking about that while examining my own practice. What is it? Sometimes I look at my own practice and it's kind of dull, I've noticed, you know, in the past year, kind of dull. So I've been kind of doing an inventory of my own practice. And so I've been trying different things. I mean, I haven't experimented too wildly yet. Although I had, oops, again, I had a coffee yesterday with Carol Dougherty, who's been studying with the Tibetans in Boulder. And she said she did her first sushin with the Tibetans and five days in they had a banquet and a dance party. So I was very curious about that.

[06:34]

What would it be like to dance together? What would that instill in us? What kind of feelings would that bring out? What is the nature of the healing quality of joy and happiness? and born, you know, is there a positive virtue in this? So we've been mulling all this over. And maybe to start with, though, I wanted to, just in memory of John, and it's a nice beginning for this talk, it sort of sets the frame for the talk, too, because when he died, this was his favorite passage from Suzuki Roshi. So I'll read a little bit. We say everything comes out of emptiness. One whole river or one whole mind is emptiness. When we reach this understanding, we find the true meaning of our life. When we reach this understanding, we can see the beauty of human life. And before we realize this fact that everything comes out of emptiness without fail, can't hold on to anything.

[07:40]

You know, got to give it all up. Everything we see is just delusion. And sometimes we overestimate the beauty and sometimes we underestimate or ignore the beauty because our small mind is not in accord with actual reality. To talk about it in this way is quite easy, but to have actual feeling is not so easy. But by your practice of meditation, you can cultivate this feeling, not this idea, this feeling, this sensibility. When you can sit with your whole body and mind, with the oneness of your mind and body, under the control of the universal mind. Do you sit under the control of the universal mind? How is that? Do you open in that way when you sit? Under control of the universal mind. What is that? What does he mean, universal mind? You can easily attain this kind of right understanding and your everyday life will be renewed without being attached to an old erroneous interpretation of life.

[08:45]

When you realize this fact, you will discover how meaningless your old interpretation was and how much useless effort you've been making. You will find the true meaning of life. And even though you have difficulty falling upright from the top of the waterfall to the bottom of the mountain, you'll enjoy your life. Now, John, and the passage that he told Paul to remind the monks that Tassajara is in here too, in Nevada, the waterfall, he said, As he was dying. And Paul was leaving. He said, Paul, water is water. And he smiled. And to truly see the water, you have to taste deeply of emptiness. Or the interconnection, the dynamic flow of all things. And let go. Not try to hold on. So maybe this frames this talk on happiness. True happiness or true joy. So... Life is too seriously to take too seriously.

[09:51]

That was my next thesis, you know. This is too damn serious, you know. It really is. It's very painful. To really get in there and work with it, we have to have a sense of joy or a sense of connection. Sympathetic joy is one of the Brahma Vaharas, the great abiding places. To wholeheartedly... have this kind of interest in other creatures. You know, not a self-centered interest anymore, but a curiosity and a healthy interest in other creatures' welfare and their joy. It allows us to actually do this work, which is vital. You know, this work of transformation and waking up has to be done. This is what we vow to do. We vow to save all beings. We're not just here. We vow to save all beings. This is our operating system. uh assumption here is bodhisattvas so i have a koan i'm starting to like koans more and more so this won't go on too long probably a few koans one koan this is from michael wanger i think i'll hold this down here michael wanger's book 33 fingers a collection of modern american koans and this koan is called bateson's sense of humor

[11:16]

A famous writer who was known for being highly articulate and witty came to meet Gregory Bateson. They chatted for a while and then the writer left. Bateson remarked to a student, at first I thought he had a sense of humor. Then I realized he did not. Have you ever had that happen where you think so? But it's kind of biting your clothes. It's quite intellectual, but something's missing. The student was confused by Bateson's remark and asked him to explain what he meant by a sense of humor. Gregory looked at the student for a moment before replying. It's knowing that you don't matter. There's a quote about Gregory Bateson was a creative innovator in many fields and a little bit about him. And then Michael's comment. Beside what is said, the attitude of the speaker is particularly critical. The best teachers are serious all the way down to the bottom and completely playful. Completely themselves to the smallest millimeter. and willing to over-incure him the whole goddamn edifice in an instant.

[12:20]

Suzuki Roshi said, when I drink this tea, I drink the whole universe. How important are you? Won't you come out and play? Do you just send or can you receive? In the world of objects, your funny bone objects. Ha! I always sneak in Katagiri Roshi's first speech, you know, to his donors in Minnesota. It's the same vein as Bateson of not taking yourself too seriously when he meets his donors and says, and I think Neil still uses that on his blog at Hartford Street, and he meets his donors for the first time and says, I feel sorry for you people. You are going to die soon. And then he laughs. and horror in the room these are his donors who are going to support minnesota zen center but this is wild big crazy humor you know but in the midst of this we eat omelets you know we drive cars we sit zazen and life goes on in its crazy fashion and we practice together you know from that ground there's a kind of joyful possibility this return to uh this type of emptiness this kind of big place so

[13:47]

So that's why I like the category quote, and it feels in line with Bateson. So, joy. Can we have it? Is it good for us? How much do we get? What's the difference between joy and happiness? I had lots of questions for myself. Do we work with it? the small self, or do we obliterate it? Do we numb to it? What's going on? How do we practice this way? How do we use these tools in this seemingly confusing world that we live in? So if afflictive emotion, klesos, afflictive emotions like greed, hate, and delusion, the traditional poisons, cause pain and cause a diminishing of energy, And cause actually our bodies to misfunction. A joyful quality can be quite useful perhaps.

[14:51]

To bring an openness and a willingness to each situation. And to open our hearts in this way. To seeing the best in each other. Hoping for the best in each other. That we all wake up. So there are positive qualities. I was reading in the paper the other day. They said... And in fact, the klesas actually cause, you know, the hindrances triggered by the klesas. And one is torpor, anxiety and distress. And torpor actually has the quality of... That's usually my job. I fall asleep over there. Torpor is the... I've been sitting at Hartford Street falling asleep so much, finally somebody came and said, do you know you fall asleep over there? I'm so tired at 7 o'clock at night. The Klesa's, you know, actually lead to this diminishing with purpura. It's actually the brain congeals. It slows down. It gets dull and heavy.

[15:53]

And I was reading the paper. They were talking about post-traumatic stress disorder, saying that actually the brain is actually shrinking. There's actual tissue damage and there's rerouting of neural circuits to the back base of the brain so that a certain type of rut, almost a certain habitual right with post-traumatic stress disorder happens so in a way you know joy or lightness or this kind of activity I think can be very useful you know could be very useful in a reversing this kind of damage and then also looking at all the creative possibilities in a situation too so so I'm getting really big on joy these days so I'm interested in giving joy Gita came over to my apartment and it's now got this elaborate altar and she was really impressed. It's getting kind of dramatic. And we don't talk about nirvana much. We say, well, it's out there. It's probably good. I don't know what to do with it. We kind of can't aim for it as bodhisattvas.

[16:57]

We don't really touch on that whole topic. Nirvana is seen as great contentment, ease, even bliss, a type of joy. neither existence nor non-existence. So I think it's okay to aim for this big awakening, this big activity of joy for everybody. And I kind of practice with that now a little bit with my own meditation of taking refuge and then reminding myself I'm not just sitting here just to be here, but actually I'm here... to express this activity of awakening that this is the true nature of existence this uh quality of being alive and awake of maybe luminous quality that's here waiting to express itself and it needs uh energy or activity ceaseless energy or activity of a certain kind so i kind of remind myself before sitting bar

[18:01]

And I still fall asleep, but... Mark. Here's a little chant that I used to... It's from the Dalai Lama. For as long as space remains, for as long as sentient beings remain, may I too remain and dispel the miseries of the world. So it kind of sets the frame for sitting, for the activities of Dharma together, too. It's a big undertaking. And it needs a joyful heart, an open heart, too, a curious heart. Now, luckily, I thought, you know, you always have to have a Buddhist tenet. It's very important to find something to hang your hat on if you're going off in a direction here. And not that we don't practice or espouse joy. We just don't talk about it too much, or I haven't talked about it too much or explored it. So, luckily, the seven factors of enlightenment... Bingo. Number four.

[19:03]

Rapture. Joy. A state of lightness. A state of contentment. Even bliss arises. An open quality. An exploring quality. And it usually comes up. There's seven factors of enlightenment. And they're divided into two groups. And I'll leave the first one out because it's It's the one that you hear about the most, but it's usually sort of tedious, so I'm going to put that one aside. These are the arousing factors of enlightenment. Curiosity, or an investigating mind. A deep curiosity, but now this curiosity is no longer self-centered. It's no longer about making the best deal for yourself, about getting out of here, because you're not going to get out of here anyway. You might as well give that up, right? You still think you are, so that you can still try to make a deal, but it won't happen. So you have a lot of time and a place to make this a deep investigation.

[20:09]

What the heck is going on when I'm so angry? What the heck is going on when I take this vow? What does it feel like, my meditation? What are the qualities? What's no self mean? What's no self mean? So this kind of investigation is to investigate to investigate. It's a deep curiosity that begins to naturally arise, so says Shakyabuni, when we activate it correctly, when we attend to our practice correctly. There's an effort involved. And of course, curiosity, when you're really curious, have you ever played games, you're really curious... There's an energy, a natural energy that arises. You don't have to kind of have a tainting report there or something, but there's a natural curiosity. What the hell's going on? You know, why? I try so hard and I'm always so confused.

[21:10]

So there's a natural curiosity that comes out of energy and curiosity begets a kind of energy also, a wonderment, you know, especially if there's nowhere else to go. And it helps to establish that ground of this big open space or this universal mind to go back to, to taste deeply of that, to let go of all of our... So we say return to breath. This is a way of returning back to this big space to give ourselves the freedom to be surprised maybe at how big things are. And then if these two things are activated, buzzing away, then we have some opportunity for joy. There is a natural joy that arises. And it's okay to get there from happiness.

[22:15]

In other words, sometimes I think we dull down our own happiness by things. Can't have that. We don't pay attention to it. I think we have to investigate everything. Completely. All of our power, our energy is connected to these sources. One half becomes samsara. The other half becomes nirvana. One half of happiness, when it's claustrophobic and self-centered, is a trap. And the trap actually can have a religious basis, too. We can actually get in it backwards. We have to be very careful not to be self-centered in anything. So this is the universal mind. This is the big ground you have to practice on. it's out of that ground that true joy begins to arise so then when these are activated by this deep inquiry which also helps to have a big motivation bigger so Mahayana we have a big motivation bigger than I'm just going to get out of here which is craziness anyway

[23:30]

then there's a chance for these sources to truly activate in a way. You know, I read years ago when I first started practicing 20 or 30 years ago, Trungpa Rinpoche said, when you put your feet on this path, you're not going to get off so lightly. And I thought, ah, nonsense. Actually, I didn't. There was a little chill. I thought, oh, God, this probably means something. I'm going to find out. You know. As you become less self-centered, it's almost as though the virtues of a bodhisattva become virtues unto themselves. They don't concern you in a sense. It's like Suzuki Roshi giving a zazen instruction saying, don't worry so much. Your feet sit zazen, your back sit zazen, your breath sit zazen. Each thing completely sits zazen. You're not controlling this. Just do your best. Very similar sort of sentiment. Don't get off the path so lightly, although we don't know that sometimes, you know.

[24:32]

The next three factors, I want to get them all in, too. I read Kathleen Williams gave a lecture in 2002 on this topic, and she said, I'm not going to get all seven in. I can feel it. I'm going to be a little more cursory. The second are considered stabilizing factors of enlightenment. Ease is a stabilizing factor of enlightenment. Finding true ease or tranquility. Concentration and equanimity are considered stabilization. So we have to get aroused. We have to have some energy for this stuff. We have to have some joy. And then we have to have a sort of stable application. Tranquility, another phrase for tranquility is shamatha, or finding ease and abiding. For instance, often there's a book on the Brahma Vaharas that suggests that if you find yourself in an incredibly dull, often dark place in your own heart, despair and self-criticism, it suggests you back way off from concentration and insight-seeking until you establish this ground of ease again and tranquility.

[25:52]

And you have almost a playful sense again of things. And then you can apply your energy. So this tranquility is a very important part of practice. This all goes together. It's not like you. This is like the cherry pie. It cooks together. One part informs the other. With true ease, joy can begin to arise for the first time. If you don't have tranquility and an easy basis in your body and an uplift quality, then, of course, you feel it. uneasy all the time, hedgy all the time. Concentration, Buddha's very interesting, you know, he studied, apparently, he became the master in his lifetime of many, many forms of practice, you know, of deep and occult forms of meditation, practice in India. He had concentration that could burn a hole through things, you know.

[26:55]

meditation on small discs until they would dance in the air. But when he began teaching people, he realized, apparently, I wasn't there. You can tell by his teachings that this isn't necessary. You don't have to spend 20 years meditating on discs and doing these. It's not necessary to do what he wanted to teach about, which is to relieve this anguish or suffering or difficulty that can come about when we're self-centered, when we get confused, when we obscure the truth. So Avija, the first of the 12 links, is darkness, when darkness happens. It can happen in many ways. So we have to guard against that with each other, be supportive of each other. Our imperfections are possibilities for big advancements. We have to kind of see that and be generous, I think. I'm up to six.

[28:00]

Now, here's the here's the one that's always the one that's on everybody's top ten list. Mindfulness. Attention. And it's considered a juncture point for all of these. So usually it's listed first as a factor of enlightenment without mindfulness, unvarying mindfulness. Paul just recently did a workshop, which he does an incredible job on the Satipakana Sutra, or these foundations of mindfulness, or Sati, mindfulness, or to remember, to recollect, to recollect, and come back with your attention over and over. And so, these are all short. I'll keep my head up. This is by, I'm trying to get every tradition in here tonight, in one poem too, by 830. Sayada Upadita, Burmese master, mindfulness. So sometimes, you know, mindfulness is seen as a sort of dolphin, like moving stone statues around, getting things to line up.

[29:09]

And again, often that's because it is based on a kind of self-centered belief in separation. So it's quite clumsy. Or so it seems when we're doing it. Like, I should really be paying attention to my feet when you're going out to dinner. And it doesn't seem like such an interesting thing to do. So maybe you shouldn't do that. So Sayada says, Sati mindfulness is the first factor of enlightenment. By the way, this book is loaded with training examples if you ever want to get down with the Theravadan masters here. Mindfulness has come to be accepted, the accepted translation of sati into English. However, this word has a kind of passive connotation which can be very misleading. Mindfulness must be dynamic and confrontive. It's interesting. Mindfulness should be dynamic and confrontive, alive. In retreats I teach that mindfulness should leap forward onto the object, covering it completely, penetrating it.

[30:17]

Not missing any part of it. The Tibetans say, you know, that sense or that kind of mind actually is vitally alive. In fact, it's even when we think it's not alive, it's seeing everything. We enter a room. In fact, we don't even want to admit how alive it is, how much you know about Mark Lancaster. He doesn't want you to know. It's vitally alive, you know, in all of its manifestations when you enter any place. But when we undertake the practice and begin working with it, sometimes it's very dull. It requires an effort that seems kind of leaden and we lose interest. So I think also here, ease and joy are quite an important quality. Not taking ourselves too seriously. Being open to the whimsy of... each situation as it expresses itself knowing you really don't matter it's not about you in that way it really isn't and yet you're vitally connected to it and that it's a gift moment by moment this situation and there's room for all of us and we all

[31:45]

want the best for each other. We want to all wake up together. That's what we're doing. It's about done. So at this point, this one came up at one of our residence meetings. It's kind of an interesting juncture point in practice. The creation of the watcher usually comes up with initial mindfulness. Usually we live in the realm of desire, kind of casting about and habituation. trying to be as happy as we can be, because that's what we all want to do. All creatures, all sentient beings want to be happy. But we're quite confused about what it means to be really happy. And that's why I think it's very important not to give up on happiness or to just cut it off, numb out. You really need to make an exploration about what's going on when this need is so strong. So usually, you know, at some point, for me, this is how it was.

[32:49]

At some point, I tried every which way to be happy, and then finally I realized it wasn't going to work so well. But I didn't really admit to that, but I started paying more careful attention, and that's the creation of the Watcher, which is sort of a spiritual friend, a cognitive spiritual friend, who seems, you know, it balances between your inclinations and confusion and the world out seeing world outside and mediates tells you oh i've got to make changes i've got to act in a different way i've got so it's a kind of assessment that's very healthy but along with initial mindfulness it can be very dull too it needs some inspiration again that's this is the purpose of this talk it needs some lightness eventually i think Naturally, the watcher disappears. You know, the watcher disappears in the practice itself. It's an artifice.

[33:51]

It doesn't exist anymore than separation exists. But initially, it has a kind of value to keep us on target. The factors of enlightenment actually replace it. You know, these activities, these completions, and the taste of emptiness begin to... move us away from that sort of need. You know, when Shohaku, we were talking about meditation and being attentive to breath, and Shohaku said, you know, I never think about breath, I just breathe. And Suzuki Hiroshi, I was just reading that, it was interesting. He said, well, it's not so much you think about or concentrate on your breath. Breath. Breath. It's an activity. We're a little afraid of the rawness of this activity, actually. We're afraid of the rawness of our life, the gritty texture of it. Only because we're self-centered that we think something will be denied us.

[34:55]

We'll lose out, perhaps. That's one possibility. So I guess more and more I'm thinking of new ways to approach this inquiring into the small self, you know. How to go back and explore it, touch it, find its natural basis. How does happiness become joy, great joy? I was reading this book. Norman recommended Negative Emotions. Destructive emotions. And so I read that and then I was reading healing emotions. And there's a section in there that's quite interesting that I find very useful also in this discussion of joy, attributes of awakening and self.

[35:56]

What is this self? What do we do with it? The small self, the one that's right in front of us. The one that we say in the Genjo Poan to study the Buddha way or to study awakening is to study self. How do we do that? Is it bad or good? Do we get rid of it? Does it disappear? So I was reading in the book of Healing Emotions, the Dalai Lama is having discussions with a number of scientists, and they're talking about the American propensity for self-dislike, which all the Europeans agree is phenomenal. You've probably heard this before if you've read these books. And the Dalai Lama is astonished. Oh, my God, how can people live that way? And the Europeans say, well, if you go to America, there are all these books on self-esteem and self-esteem classes. It's an obsession, dislike and need to build something. So the Dalai Lama is very concerned, and they're talking about this. He poses the question, does a Buddha, an enlightened being, have self-interest or only concern for other people?

[37:05]

And the answer is, and this he says, is a crucial point. The Buddha has both self-interest and interest for other people. It doesn't go away. It doesn't flicker out in that way. Without that, and I chopped off a few words just a bit, without that, you would have no self-confidence or very low self-esteem without some healthy self-interest, some healthy way to work with your training. So... If you stay in a healthy, there it means, I think, this is the nature of your work. To turn around this situation. Initially, we start out self-centered, desiring our own happiness. And we begin not to cut it off, but to look at it more deeply. And it grows. It encompasses more and more things.

[38:05]

It's an intelligent inquiry into the very nature of our entanglement. But we need to have a kind of action plan based on our real existence as human beings, our real psychology, have a real intelligent look at this. For some reason, I don't know. I think sometimes we're afraid to do that. We're afraid we'll get lost. And again, because of emptiness, we can't. There is no thing we can cling to. We can hold on to. We can't even hold on to this life. In many ways, we control nothing in the way we think we do. So to espouse, to realize if this is true, that this ethical basis that we take the precepts on is this great goodness or this great openness. that exists, and this is our heritage, as the Buddha says, we all possess fundamentally, from top to bottom, this deep awakening.

[39:13]

This would be a source of triumph and joy, too, and inspiration. I think that's it. It's 8.30. Anybody? No, I don't want to do a question. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Do I have to love myself in order to experience joy? I think you have to truly love yourself in the biggest possible way you can. I think you have to really. Sometimes if you beat yourself up, we beat ourselves up so much. It actually is a self-centeredness to be that self-critical. We need a powerful antidote to come back to the center, to realize that both being narcissistic, which would be the other part, is also too much.

[40:15]

So we need an antidote, a healing antidote, in order to come back to a place. You know, like training wheels on your bike, they drop often. You don't need them. You go, we. But while you're leaning, it's scary as shit. So you need to come back. You gotta get yourself back up. So yes, apply love and deep kindness as an antidote. Yeah. You won't get lost in it. I wouldn't worry about that. Yeah. [...]

[41:26]

Well, in many ways, if you really cared about yourself and you understood the nature of your quest for self-centered happiness, you would understand the meaning of suffering and begin to care about other people powerfully. You would be moved deeply in your own heart. You wouldn't play around. Yeah. That was the attack on Dogen, by the way, you know, in the 12th century in the Ikizan province. Those damn Zen Buddhas, they're always... They don't pay attention to society. All they care about is themselves. So that's a good... Maybe I'll leave that answer, though. Okay. No? No. Okay. Because I never read a poem, I get a poem. And that's it. We'll all go to bed. Okay, this is Philip Wayland. Philip Whelan was a poet over at Hartford Street.

[42:28]

Was he out of Hartford Street? He died. He had a heck of a good time in his life, I think. Hidden to our Chinese ancestors, I praise those ancient Chinamen who left me a few words, usually a pointless joke or a silly question. A line of poetry drunkenly scrawled on the margin of a quick splash picture. Bug. leaf character of teacher on paper held together now by a little more than ink and their own strength blush momentarily over it their world and several others since gone to hell in a handbasket they knew it cheered as it was by and conked out among the busted spring rain cherry blossom wine jars happy to have saved us all

[43:23]

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