Good evening. What do I want to say to you tonight? First, I want to say thank you so much for being here. each and every one of you. I don't know each and every one of you, but I think I'm grateful for each of you being here. Those who I know, I'm certainly grateful for. You know, we make Tassajara together. Tassajara isn't just sitting here waiting for you to come back. We're making it each day, each time. So thank you. Thank you for making this. special place so that's one thing I want to say to you and connected to it I want to encourage you to do the main practice that we do here which is to study the self Tassajara is I believe Tassajara is set up

[01:44]

over thousands of years. And I actually believe, apart from the Zen part, apart from the Buddhist part, pre-Zen, pre-Buddhist, somehow Tassajara is set up to support us in this study of the self. And of course, I mean, the parts that are Zen are kind of obvious, you know, like, wonderful food... the baths, a place to sleep, enough safety, not total safety, but enough safety that we can stand to look at ourself. We don't study the self as a way to be separate from things. We study the self because it's the most intimate place.

[02:47]

to meet things, to meet everything, to meet anything, is right here. How does this body, how does this mind, how do these emotions, how do they experience the world? That's part of the study of self. What happens here when something happens here or in here? So we aren't studying it to be separate. We're studying it to see how do we interact? How do we live? How are we affected? How do we affect what happens when I do something? How does that affect the rest of the world? So this intimate place that only you can know, only I can know, how that happens in this body and in this mind that is... different is very similar to other humans and we can start to see that how oh I feel this way oh other maybe that's what other people are feeling too but nonetheless it's unique to this this being these nerve endings these so only you can study you

[04:11]

I've been thinking for a while, what does it mean to study the self? It's not, as I've said several times in lectures, it's not like studying for a test. It's not like studying how to, I don't know, anything you can think about. It's not like get it in your mind, get the instructions, figure out what's going on, often think about studying something is I will master it or get to understand it. It has a lot to do with our mind and often has a lot to do with control, which is a deep desire of ours to be able to control everything, actually everything. Just enough, maybe not everything, maybe just enough to make my life work so that like urge that you know really a kind of deep uh fear you know a deep fear that somebody should be doing that and i can't trust anybody else to do it so i better do it and this i that i'm talking about when i'm feeling that way is pretty much my thinking brain

[05:44]

It feels like I need to understand what's going on here. I need to figure out how I should act. I need to figure out how they should act. I need to figure out how to make them act that way. I need to figure out how to make me act that way. It's a lot. We're taking on a lot, and yet it's obviously necessary. I forget how that connects back to where was I going. So it's not that kind of study. It's not that kind of study where we have to figure out how it works. It's something much gentler, much more open-hearted. I've said in the past it's sort of like a baby bird learning to fly. How does that happen? They don't look it up in a book. They do watch their parents, and we're not quite sure who to watch. So I have a different analogy today.

[06:48]

Last night, early this morning, I woke up wondering what I was going to say tonight. And this story that I've read many times and talked about many times came into my mind, which is a koan in the Book of Serenity, which is the Soto Zen koans. So probably a number of you have heard this before. It's one of the, I think it's maybe number three, because I haven't gotten very far in the Book of Serenity. Keep going back to the same ones. So in this one, the Buddha was walking in a garden with Indra, the king of the gods, and a lot of his disciples. He's walking in the garden, and at one point he stops and he points to the ground and says, this would be a good place to build a sanctuary. And Indra takes a blade of grass and sticks it in the ground and says, the sanctuary is built. And the Buddha smiles. So this, you know, it's a great story.

[07:53]

It's a great story, I think. One part of it has always bothered me, which I haven't brought up before, but I will now. Which is, they must have had really different grass than our grass. And they must have had really different ground. You know, they must have had much harder grass and much softer ground to like... Stick a blade of grass in the ground. Anyway, so. So the story kind of changed for me during the night. Indra was gone. It's us. We're walking with Buddha. And Buddha says, this is a good place to build a sanctuary. This is a good place to build a sanctuary. And a sanctuary is a place that's safe enough. It's not safe, like nothing bad will ever happen here.

[08:55]

Bad things will happen to us. For sure, we're going to die. And probably a whole lot of other things. Most of us won't die here at Tassajara, though somebody has. More than one person has. But one person that I know has died here at Tassajara. But a lot of other things have happened here at Tassajara. There's been a lot of bruising of egos. There's been a lot of clashing of important ideas. And yet, it's a pretty safe space. It's a safe enough space to discover a sanctuary, to find out, could there be a sanctuary here Is this somehow a sanctuary? I mean, really, I think most of us feel like, in some way, when we're really looking at it, I mean, if we're looking out there, we can see all kinds of danger.

[10:00]

You know, what they think, whether they like me or not, what they're going to make for dinner. Many, many things can go wrong out there, right? But I think if we're honest, or at least for me, if I'm honest, the places that maybe seem the least safe actually are here. Why am I having that feeling? What is going on with me now? Why am I so upset about this? Why can't I understand what's happening over here? Why can't I stop from obsessing? Why can't I control what is so close to me here? Why does it feel so out of control? So this studying the self to build a sanctuary, to see if there is a sanctuary there, to see if what is there is actually okay.

[11:04]

I think this is really the main, I believe, this is the main message of Buddhism. What is here is actually okay. Sometimes it's said, you are Buddha. That means you are okay as you are. It means you fit. It means you belong. You belong. You're not wrong to be, which is another, I think, deep fear that we have that somehow I'm not right. I'm not the way I'm supposed to be. Or these bad things wouldn't be happening. Like, I wouldn't feel bad. Somehow we have the idea that we should never feel bad. If we do feel bad, it's because something's wrong. And there's really two choices. If something's wrong, it's either their fault or my fault. Our big fear is it's my fault, which is why we spend so much effort sometimes trying to make sure that it's somebody else's fault.

[12:13]

What did they do wrong? Because we're also like, what did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? So this teaching of Buddhism, you're not wrong, but it doesn't mean you're right. It means you are. It means what is here is here. What it really means is it's here by dependable arising. It's here by the... effect, impact of everything. So it really couldn't be anything else because everything is making it. But that doesn't mean it is something. It's constantly in flux. So you can't say, oh yeah, I'm okay, I'm good, and I am this, so deal with it because I'm good. No, it means in this moment, And then in this moment, and then in this moment, we are created by everything.

[13:19]

And at the same time, everything we do has an impact on everything. So we can't give up the responsibility for our actions, our feelings. So back to then how to study this, back to this blade of grass and my reinterpretation. So this picking up a blade of grass and putting it in the ground, if you can do that, is really a kind of precise, simple, what else would I say, nonviolent action. picking up a blade of grass, putting it in the ground. So I would say that this blade of grass, this impossibly strong blade of grass, is our attention.

[14:25]

It's just our attention. So as we are looking to see, is this a safe place? Is this a sanctuary? Can I be safe with this? Can I be in a sanctuary? Can I build a sanctuary here? We pick up our attention. our attention, which is going somewhere, and put it here. Put it here. Put it wherever it needs to go. Whatever's calling for it in our body-mind if we weren't trying to get away from it. There may be things happening in our body-mind which are like, no, I do not want to feel this. I don't want to pay attention to this. But as we can, which is not all the time, we're not totally in control of this, but as we can, notice, oh, let me bring my attention back here.

[15:28]

Let me just put it here as if I was putting a blade of grass in really soft ground. Bring that attention back. And Buddha will smile. Let me stop there and see if anybody has anything they want to ask or bring up. If you don't, I'll figure out a way to go on. But if anyone has anything. This belonging, this finding.

[16:33]

Well, let me say, I think that another kind of deep, primitive concern that we have is whether we belong. That's one way that our... uncertainty of whether we're all right manifests is that we can feel we can actually feel both ways we can feel like i don't belong or we can feel like um maybe i'll belong too much you know maybe i'll be swallowed up by some hole like tasahara but other things too so to notice this feeling of not belonging or fear of not belonging, I think it's really a very human thing. You know, we come from tribal roots where belonging was crucial to our survival and where, you know, being ejected from the tribe was a really serious consequence of actions.

[17:53]

And then... And animals don't seem to do this, right? I mean, maybe those young male animals of various type that have to go off when they're ejected from the tribe, maybe they feel something like that, but it doesn't seem like it. It seems like they figure out how to do their life without feeling insecure about it. But in human society, where things have gotten so... where we don't know where our tribe is, and where we fear the other tribes, where we want to be sure that we are not in certain tribes, and we are pretty suspicious of them. And then we want to be sure that we're in the tribe we want to be in. If we know what that is, or if we don't know what that is, we want to be in some tribe, even if it's only a tribe of two, like somebody who says, I'm your tribe, and you are very special to me.

[18:58]

A lot of us want that, even if we have a bigger or we want a bigger tribe. We still want somebody who says, it's you. You're the one. To try to meet this feeling of, do I belong? Am I okay? So to notice that feeling when it happens can be really important because it's a pretty yucky feeling to feel like I'm not belonging. And to get away from that feeling, we will do lots of things. We will pretend to believe things we don't believe. We will definitely... point our finger at other people in other tribes just to distract ourselves or to make ourselves feel like part of the tribe that isn't them. So to carefully, when we get a sighting of it or a feeling of it, pick up our attention and put it on that fear of not belonging.

[20:12]

And see if you can make a safe space around that feeling, not by talking yourself out of it, not by reminding yourself you actually belong to whatever you belong to, the congregation of stupid people, if nothing else, or some better place. To just let the feeling... Be that feeling, just a feeling. Not necessarily true with a capital T, but a vulnerable feeling. And to see, can you stay a safe place? Meaning, you know, can you be upright? Can you do whatever you need to do next? And sometimes it may be that you can't be standing upright. Maybe you have to be laying down upright. Maybe the... The feeling is so strong that you actually need to go lie down or maybe you need to walk because there's so much energy bound up in it that you just need to move with it.

[21:21]

But can you let the feeling be there and just be a feeling without believing it, without arguing with it, without arguing for it? And C, can you counter the feeling of, I can't have this feeling. This feeling will kill me if I have it. I cannot stand to have this feeling. Can we be this, sort of what, you know, what says she, well, to me, this is a lot of what says sheen, you know, all of you know what says sheen is. Does anyone here not know what says sheen is? You're all Zenies, right? It's kind of what sesheen is when some part of your body gets to the point where you can't stand it. It's very interesting to see that, oh, I was talking with someone about this yesterday.

[22:30]

There's the pain, say, in your knee. And then there's the pain of I can't stand it, I can't do this, which is kind of like a little cap of pain on top of the other pain. And if you can notice that and sometimes actually stop feeling like I can't stand this because, in fact, you are standing it, the cap of pain can go away. There's still pain there, but it's not as bad. as when added onto it is the, I can't stand it. And this is, you know, in sesshin, it's very physical. It's very, there it is. You know, you either stand it or you, maybe you move and maybe that helps. Although at some point in a sesshin, it doesn't help, right? Like you move and then there it is, or it's in a different place or something. So maybe you stand it or maybe you get up and walk out. But a lot of us just stay there. We actually do stand it. So in our life, when we're not in sesheen, we can do that with different kinds of pain, some of them not as bad as sesheen, some of them maybe as bad as sesheen, if you have the kind of sesheen I have.

[23:51]

And I think the way to do that, the one way to help yourself do that is this analogy of picking up our attention and putting it where that emotional or physical or mental pain is and help trying to make a sanctuary, to make a safe enough space for the feeling so that you can study it, so you can see Maybe not in a way that you would be able to say. You may not be able to give words to it. We so want words. We want to be able to describe what is going on with me. It's a little bit trying to get control over it. We have the idea that if we can describe it, we'll be able to make it go away or turn it into something different.

[24:54]

So it may not come in English or whatever your favorite language. describing things is. We may never be able to describe it in words. We might be able to, but we might not. That's not really the crucial part, is not to be able to say what's happening. The crucial part is to be able to let it happen. We cause most of the suffering that we cause, I believe, but please notice this for yourself. Don't just assume that I'm right, but please notice. But I think that we cause most of the suffering that we cause for ourself or for others because we don't want to have our feelings. Just because we don't want to feel a certain way. Like, people get afraid of not having various things, you know, food, land.

[25:59]

and they kill people for it because they're afraid of not having it. It's pretty bad not to have food, not to have land. We do it. We actually do have food. We have plenty of food. We have a place to be, and still we don't want to have a feeling. We do things that cause ourself and others harm, actual harm. So the crucial point is can we make sanctuary where our feelings can be feelings where there can just be a feeling of I think I don't belong I think I'm not good enough without believing it with letting it just be there as a feeling and then life goes on you know then Maybe someone proves to you that you belong by asking you to do the dishes. You're our favorite dishwasher.

[27:03]

Would you please? Once again, thank you all so much for being here, for your practice, for your energy, for everything it took to get you here. Thanks. May you. Thank you. . [...]

[28:23]

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