Good morning. Seven days and we're just getting started. Someone reminded me that in one of Luke's books, at the end of seven days, The teacher says, well, it's going so well, we'll have another seven. It's also wonderful to end things. You know, every time I speak, I tell you everything I know.

[01:15]

I don't leave anything out. You make me know something. actually, or feel something, and so I say that. But when I look at what I talked about during this session, I talked about quite a few things, maybe more than you can apprehend all at once, because maybe some things are unfamiliar and we should really concentrate on what's familiar to us. There's no sense trying to make some effort to understand what's unfamiliar. Do we have a visitor?

[02:15]

That's like the story, Seppo and Tozan story, and the Rinzai and Huang Po story. It doesn't matter whether Seppo understood at that time or not. The important thing, Tozan offered something to Seppo, and Seppo eventually understood. And the stories are offered to us in that, continued for us, because through the kindness, through the genius of the patriarchs, they offer these stories to us, which we don't understand, but we will eventually.

[03:25]

So when Joshu put, Seppo put the firewood down, and Tozan asked, How much does it weigh? How heavy is it? And Seppo said, No one in the whole world can lift it. And Tozan said, What about, okay, but what about restoring sight to my eyes? And the other story, you know, Rinzai and Huang Po going to the field, and where is your matic? Someone else is carrying it. No one can lift this one up, said Huang Po. So Seppo could have done it too. Rinzai just took it and said, then how come I have it?

[04:34]

It doesn't make any difference whether Seppo understood at that time or later or anything. I use genius and kindness of the patriarchs together because I'm, again, in this sasheen, trying to look at how our language reflects the most basic definition of us. Genius and kindness are the same word again. Gene and kind come from the same word, and it seems to be that the through your guardian angel you through this power you see things as they are so you see the order of nature and the order of nature is makes everything in kind or kindred so you're you have humankind everything

[05:49]

Human is humus or earth or humble and similar. The genius to see the similarity or the identity of each of us. And so you have kindness and care. There's a Japanese poem which goes something like, from the splinters of a cherry tree, you cannot find or make a cherry blossom. Only the sky of spring can make a cherry bloom.

[06:53]

And today I'm trying to talk about the sky of spring. I want to introduce you to more of your own history. You know, if you're climbing a mountain and you get stuck, because there's a wonderful episode with John Muir being stuck on the face of a mountain, which occurs in a Mike McClure poem, too. I think it's a McClure poem. And he's completely frozen and he doesn't know how to move in any direction.

[08:07]

And suddenly something takes over and he moves with great precision and clarity on tiny things up the face. That's, you might say, a situation of real choice. And we need to be in that kind of situation more. To be religious means, I think, a religious person is someone who puts their life always in the context of life and death, not in the context of human society or their own personal history. Excuse me, but religious, all right? Religious comes from to bind or to re-bind, to re-acknowledge your unity with God or with where you came from or your source, which was presumably severed when you had physical birth.

[09:21]

means leech line, religion, and rely, and to leap and wedlock. It's interesting, they're together, aren't they? To make some marriage, but to leap also. So we're talking about this entrance, this readiness. You can't come to a point of commitment by forcing it. And some kind of special experience It may be helpful, you know, but basically commitment, the deep turning which allows you to become one.

[10:33]

Two is another saying. Two is always two, but one is many. As long as you're ambivalent, it's just two things. But when you're one thing, your strength reaches to everything. So the deep turning that allows commitment or resolve to your own, we could say, inner process, to the context of life and death, to rebinding, is very close to enlightenment itself. And some of you, I think, are looking for some Not just some satori experience, which that kind of insight is very helpful, that kind of opening.

[11:35]

But satori experience is essentially an opening to the opportunity to make a commitment. To the recognition for, the recognition that your companions are waiting for you. That your companions are waiting for you. But some of you have, partly from acid and books and things, you're waiting for the great white light or something. But that's like tennis or some sport. That's helpful, actually. And if you practice meditation long enough, well, maybe write practice long enough, you'll understand anything that happens to human beings.

[12:41]

But some people have an inclination, like some people are good at tennis, some people are good at mystic experiences. And actually each of us, if you meditate again, if your practice is thorough, Well, fine, you have certain ways in which you can practice with others that are more effective because of your own tendencies. But to think that you don't have a chance to practice until you have some mystic experience is not right. just to keep making yourself ready, to make yourself a vehicle which crosses over, emptying yourself. You know, the way we write a poem, a poem is maybe a very personal, very intimate expression of ourself.

[13:53]

Everyone has a few in a drawer somewhere. And yet, how does a poem actually occur? It's when you're empty and suddenly the situation colors you. Suddenly you're ready for something that you didn't know and it flashes across you. You can't have forced it, but craft is an important part of it, but talent is not so important. As I started to say a while ago, like Cézanne, who was such a great painter, and probably Cézanne changed European painting forever, and everybody, Picasso and everybody, comes from Cézanne. But Cézanne wasn't very talented. He couldn't draw very well at all, but he had enormous craft. And that craft made him ready to see things.

[14:59]

So in Japan and China, too, the emphasis is not on talent at all, but craft, how to prepare yourself. Not even how you do the bowl, but how you prepare yourself. So Zen, too, is how we prepare ourselves, how we become a vehicle. And the statement which Suzuki Roshi made over and over again to Katagiri Roshi and other teachers, just sit, [...] means become a vehicle, become a vehicle, become a vehicle. If you're on that cliff in a situation of real choice and you're stuck there, you will see things you never saw before. Tiny root, little tiny stone, ledge, some curve to the surface that looked straight before, and your hand will become enormously sensitive at

[16:16]

finding some way to adjust your weight and move your body upwards or downwards. It's the difference between the Boy Scouts and a Bodhisattva, or Santa Claus and Avalokiteshvara. description is the same, but detail is different. And it's one of the interesting changes that occurs to us if we practice. It's not just the many ways we turn around or find some

[17:23]

new way to live or change our life, but the way in which the ways we've come to to live, the early decisions we've made, suddenly become something we can act on in great detail. The quality of our experience is so different. It's as different as Santa Claus and Avalokiteshvara. And it comes from having that kind of observation when you're stuck on a cliff. You know the many Zen stories about what do you do when there's a tiger up there and jagged peaks below and you're hung by a rope on a loose tooth. What do you do? Call the dentist. Anyway, that kind of detail is necessary.

[18:30]

And just as you have a history, as I said, you know, of That person who first reacts has its own history. He always acts with anger about such and such, or with relief about such and such. And then the observer always has, maybe has a more changing perspective. Sometimes he thinks this is good, sometimes he thinks it's not so good. And that has a history. But these are conceptual histories, you know. And your body also has... We can say your body. I don't... Maybe I mean the sky of spring has its own history.

[19:42]

Your body or your hand. A hand, a man, maybe the basic word for man is man in most or many languages. And it means, I guess, hand. intelligence of the hand which makes us what we are, not our conceptual ability. Thinking, you know, thinking at base seems to be when you, I've pointed this out before, when you take away ego, when you take away fear, thinking is mostly gratitude. observation with some gratefulness. And thank and think are the same word. Thankfulness and think are the same word. Maybe the antidote to the Rand Corporation and all those places is a thank tank. New Bodhisattva thank tank.

[20:50]

Doing good works. I'm afraid it wouldn't go over very big. I'm going to suggest it to Ellsberg, though, since he's retired from the Rand Corporation. He'd start a think tank, see what he says. He lives near Green Gelt, you know, and Pat wants to come to Zazen at Green Gelt. You hear this?

[21:57]

So I'm talking about this other history you have, which is a non-conceptual history. I don't know, my words are not so good, but I think you'll understand what I mean. So there's In several ways we can observe things. And I suggested the other day, everything in its own rhythm. Everything in its own rhythm. This is a kind of way to observe things. And maybe it's a rather calm way. I'd like to suggest that you try, as a practice, observing things with some calmness, without expecting anything.

[23:10]

Just, you know, the famous phrase, snow in a silver bowl has some calm feeling. Just observing things. the steam coming off the roofs when the sun comes up on the plastic windows. Without any thought, you know, just an empty view. Next way I'd like to suggest is that you view things with some depth, with some deep feeling, where there's no boundaries, where you maybe have to feel it, but it's so many facets, it's endless. So when you look at something, you have a feeling for the depth of it, something you evoke.

[24:18]

something, some endless feeling when you observe something. You can't find its boundaries. Third is to view things as a mystery, as unexplainable, as not beyond comprehension, to allow things to... First of all, to stop the motor explanation, explanatory mode that starts immediately, to try to explain. Not to Just view the unexplainable as unexplainable, but stop trying to explain the explainable.

[25:30]

Just look at something and feel its unlikeliness, its mystery. grief, some sense of empathy, emotional empathy with the transiency of things. This kind of observation Maybe you do it with your mind a little out of focus and your eyes a little out of focus. You aren't quite trying to grasp things, just gently to apprehend things.

[26:38]

This is not just something you do which you hope will turn into a poem quickly, you know. You do because eventually you're going to understand it. It stays mysterious, stays sorrowful. You're not going to cheer it up. You're not going to eventually be cheery. It stays deep and without boundaries. It stays calm and unapproachable. We do this maybe as a practice, because it is actually a part of our body. It awakens us, because we have also a history in this realm.

[27:53]

Nakamura Sensei was here, you know, and she taught no chanting. And there's various levels of no chanting. And they are very subtle. And part of it is based on the feeling, which comes from Buddhism, that the audience has four sets of ears, something like that. Maybe one is ears that hear the music, and the music has some rhythm. And another is ears which hear the poem or the chanting, the meaning. And then there's the ears by which we usually hear things. And then there's the ears of the mind or of the sky of spring that knows the mystery of things, that knows the detail on the cliff, that knows some non-conceptual history.

[29:47]

And the skill of the playwright is to awaken these four sets of ears. And individually, different parts of the play are meant to bring in these different things. The most difficult chanting, in some plays it's simplified, is when you bring all four sets of ears together in one impact. Wonderfully subtle concept, isn't it? But this comes straight from Buddhism. When we meet somebody, which set of ears are we speaking to? When we relate to somebody, which history are we speaking to? If you want to awaken these you find somebody who's waiting for you, or you find out that everyone's waiting for you.

[31:02]

We don't know we're waiting. This is Bodhicitta, Bodhisattva's vow. to awaken with everyone, to realize everyone is waiting for you. When you acknowledge that, you become one, no longer two. And you can act as one in the present, precisely You can act now precisely in terms of your future, our future. The sky of spring, sometimes called the Sambhogakaya,

[32:22]

or I called it yesterday, white sound, the day before yesterday. And I wasn't kidding. We are white sound and some utter blackness where we can't feel anything, form and emptiness. And we're very creatively playing in this realm. I was talking about, the other day, matter as mother. And ma of matter means good, but it means good in the sense of occurring at the right time, so you get mature.

[33:35]

Interesting. So, how to know? Ma, ma, [...] every moment, ma. Do you understand this sky of spring? It's nothing special.

[34:59]

It's very difficult to describe, but it's nothing special. Maybe that's what Wang Po was raising up, was the sky of spring. It's amazing the matic didn't blossom up. all kinds of flowers. You know, we do the full moon ceremony. as a crossing over like the moon goes through its transition. The Bodhisattva or full moon ceremony is a purification ceremony where you clear yourself out, empty yourself out to be a vehicle for crossing over like the moon.

[36:14]

Nothing special, but we need some emptying, some space-like quality in order to have things blossom. In order, like in the tenth ox-herding picture, he performs no miracles, but he causes withered trees to bloom. how to act in this realm is something you can't do, you can only make yourself ready for. And our practice is a readying, readying. I think Suzuki Roshi says in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a ready mind, Zen Mind, ready mind. A ready mind is something, he says.

[37:51]

heading the title of one of the section. Some of you had some questions the day before yesterday, even if we didn't get to... Do you still have them? There were four. Were you one of the four? Let's have one of the four first. Okay. There's a little hut with a mural wall. The rains came down. That's a lot of rains. I walked away some of that manure.

[38:56]

I put a couple of stones and wood to start up walls again. I think around back there's some more walls still. Maybe it's not so good. I'll continue working on this wall in front. We'll go around back and look at that manure back there. What's the difference between bells and toolbox? Why did you build a house of shit in the first place? It was good the rains came. Thank you very much.

[40:00]

God bless. God bless. No. We talked about that once on a four and nine day, didn't we? Till five o'clock or something. But I was. It's a rather subtle distinction, so I think you should just think about it.

[41:11]

A different kind of society. A society based on a contract tends to have professions and explicators of the contract. But a more traditional society has crafts. and but we could talk about it some other time yes I don't know I can't How does he not have a real choice? Maybe you should go up on Flag Rock and stay there. Yeah, what's interesting about it is when you're in a situation of real choice, you're no longer making the choice.

[42:30]

Something else takes over. Whenever you're in a situation of choice, of you can make a choice, it's some shilly-shally. What would you suggest? Well, it's a situation of choice. There are thousands of choices, whether you go up or down or sideways or over that way or straight up.

[43:36]

how you make the decision, maybe you don't make it so logically, but you make a decision, or something makes a decision. It's a great source of awareness that we can advocate. Well, it's various stages, you know.

[44:39]

We're talking about the situation in which you don't have to acknowledge anything. There's ways. There's no price. Things don't count. and then when you find out. I don't know, I think it must be clear. But when you look at choice or decision deeply, you have to enter it through considering choice or decision.

[45:46]

But when you enter it deeply, you see that there's no choice. Choice means no choice. But I can't say no choice without the word choice. And it's like that mountain. You'll see more and more. You examine choice or commitment and you find there's the sky at spring or something. But you, yourself, must have had that experience when you... I talked about this a year ago in San Francisco for three or four talks. But you find yourself, when you made the decision to, I don't know what, go to college or not, or leave home or something, It just came upon you what to do. You can't choose, and finally you go out for a walk and you feel something. You had no choice.

[46:48]

I did it. When you really made the decision, you say, I did it. I had no choice. But there's some preparation. Some getting ready for choice, like getting ready for writing a poem. Yes. Like I spend a lot of time like sleeping well, Am I going to, how carefully am I going to go about my prevention, or whatever, I don't need a lot of information for the rest of my life.

[47:51]

Is that, like, 40% certainty? 46% proof. That's right. Snuck up on you. Yeah. Yeah. Some of you are already surrounded. You've been snuck up on thoroughly. And some of you think you're very involved and no one has snuck up on you at all. Buddhism hasn't really snuck up on you. But I don't, you know, I'm talking about commitment.

[48:51]

But I don't mean commitment to Zen Center or even Buddhism. I mean, that The fact of our existence, or the fact that we have to decide, does it matter, eventually has to come through to us. I don't care what you do, you can do anything, but this you have to do. Everyone has to. Otherwise you live like a hollow shell, just two, never one. And as I suggested, you know, there's three... If, as a member of the Sangha, who becomes one, you know, with the Sangha, there's maybe three possibilities. Staying to manifest, to thoroughly manifest Zen.

[49:57]

Or to practice in a... some profession or line of work or present-day situation, returning things to their source, or to start out with some way of life that hasn't been done yet, trying to find some alternative way of life. I think these are three. There's a fourth, of course, which is to go back to whatever you were doing before you came here. That's a little hard to do completely. Some people manage it, okay. Yeah. They don't seem to be in the same place as the Zen Center. No. Well, they could be. Maybe the Zen Center gives some preparation for those three, but rather embryonic form.

[51:08]

Everyone can't stay in the same center. It would be not fair to other people, too, if everyone stayed here, too self-contained. Really to know, as I said I think earlier in the session, really to know, to enter that place where you're completely alone, is exactly the door to knowing other people. Because it's there where you know, it's at that point at which you know other people. To know another person's aloneness is to know them. There that you can meet.

[52:10]

So we, one thing you, we go through if we practice is that dreadful, sometimes usually dreadful awakening to how completely alone we are. Nobody can help us, nobody can understand us. It's all up to us and our life itself is completely our responsibility, completely generated by us, completely just white sound until you generate it. That's the real great yes or great no. To know, to find that out and start generating. Instead of saying, look, that was a little too much, take another pill. Yeah. I mean, when asked this, I mean, we can say we've been vigilant, and that we just want sound.

[53:24]

Sometimes there's a real joy in seeing and in practicing and in learning. Some thought, maybe a thought of doing that, you know, you want to do it. You want to work. That we can't really do it? Well, it's Just one of those things, you know. It's like there can be a very beautiful tree. There's that beautiful redwood tree. Redwood type tree growing behind my cabin.

[54:24]

Struggling every year to survive. Its roots must go down pretty deep. And I don't know what it will become. And it's surviving quite well in a climate where it doesn't have enough water in the air and things. And yet, in some foolish moment, I could, within a minute, cut it down with an axe. We can do things like that. And we don't know what we've done. But, you know, the problem is when you think, I can't do it. We know that I is not very real, so forget about it.

[55:28]

Buddha can do it. So, be a team. So you get all the bodhisattvas and buddhas on your side. Yeah? In regard to Oryuki, in regards to Oryuki, the first goal is the three-way goal, the second goal is the diagonal, and the third goal is the side-way goal. What is the clock that you have to have between the tops of the screen? And what is the first one? I didn't even know the second bowl was the dharma bowl. Is that true? Is it?

[56:29]

Is it true? Do you know that? What have you been reading? Did you think that up? It's pretty good. People, please continue. Who is the person who is doing the bow? I don't know. This is your ceremony. You have to explain it to me. Buddha bow, because it originally was a skull, represents a head. the main ball. Other balls are just convenience. In any way, we don't need so much symbolism.

[57:38]

Symbolism is okay if you have a way to act with it. Just something to help us and we wouldn't get too involved in it. Yes? Come on over here. There is meeting without the need for confirmation, but there is no meeting without confirmation. Yes, sir?

[59:02]

Did I say that? Maybe. I guess you could say, I don't think I said that, but you could say the sky of spring is a vehicle. Carrying delusion and enlightenment. Making everything possible. About the what?

[60:32]

The food? We say the first bite is for... Yeah, it's not for the fruits, it's for someone else. Really, why was this biting gone? Why did everything just... seem like nothing? It's all this... Our chant, We Generate the Three Treasures and We're Thankful for This Meal, The Work of Other People and Suffering by Other Forms of Life, is about exactly the same as Harry Roberts'.

[61:50]

And the Bodhisattvas and What we chant, that's the same too. Bodhisattvas and what we chant, that's the same too. We chant the ten names of Buddha, and that's the same too, as we venerate the three treasures and are thankful for this meal, the work of other people. It may be obstructing to you, but still the same. Yes, go ahead. The one that was published in Look? Yeah, I think that's it. Yes, that poem is also very Buddhist, of Gary's, influenced by Buddhism.

[63:20]

Well, you don't maybe understand the Ten Names of Buddha. Do you want to understand the Ten Names of Buddha? What's the difference between symbolism and... Oh, I don't know. The meal chant, the meal, the way we do the orioke is based maybe on the five ranks of Tozan, the mutual interpenetration and the offering of food and the touching of your bowl to the wastewater bucket.

[64:33]

That's not...it's different from symbolism. It's not symbolic. It's acting out something in various realms. It's...the symbolism is different. Anyway, but I don't feel like going into it right now. It's rather a whole different type of discussion. Yes? And it's from Shashu position, not from here. Some people do it here, even though I remind them they still do it from here. When you first came, did Gassho feel appropriate? Don't worry about it, just do it.

[65:36]

All these things have some, usually there's some basis, sometimes they get a little disconnected. But usually it's, for instance, on the kakimonos, you know, the hanging scrolls, they used to be tied from the top by these two strands that came down. And now they're no longer tied, and the better scrolls have the strings hanging down, but they don't use them. You roll up and then you fold them and they hang down. The less good scrolls have them as a design. But it's not a symbol. It's more like an appendix. You know, your appendix you have. You don't use your cow's stomach anymore, but you still have it.

[66:42]

Your appendix isn't a symbol of a stomach. And a lot of the things we do, like this, actually are the remnant of some practice related to the hara or to the chakras. And many, many things we do you don't understand until certain parts of your body are awakened. Buddhism is very deep and you cannot understand it in one lifetime. But if you throw your lot in with all the Bodhisattvas, all together, everyone all at once can understand Buddhism completely. And we always are manifesting it. Yes? Who what? Coming to Zen Center?

[67:45]

Yeah. Well, you suspect that people in Cent Center… This is the joy of the Dharma. It's like a bowling alley. I can't hear you. Please keep quiet. I hope so.

[68:58]

I've never speculated about previous lives, not even about this life. Yeah, I don't know. There are certain seer types you go to. And they'll tell you you were an abbot of a Tibetan monastery. That's usually what they'll tell you. Maybe it's true, but the trouble, I'd recommend none of you go to Sears, all right? Because you try to make the shoe fit so completely that you're pinched the rest of your life. You lose some flexibility by thinking you know something about yourself.

[70:01]

Yeah, I don't know what Rick was referring to. Mrs. Carlson. Mrs. Carlson? I don't know how he'd know this story, what he was referring to. Mrs. Carlson, who was, of course, Chester Carlson's husband. Well, she is sort of the boss. Anyway, she's ... Chester Carlson is the person who mainly gave us the money to buy Tassajara. Maybe $200,000 altogether. Anyway, she's a very interesting woman and she's interested in other lives and things like that. Very interested in reincarnation and has financed most of the reincarnation research.

[71:12]

And one time I was telling her a story. in which I, as a kid, had a little... I shouldn't tell you this story. I've told you this story. My parents had this little Buddha, which I didn't know what it was, and it used to sit on my mantelpiece. my family's mantle. It may have come from China or some place because my great-uncle was a clipper ship captain. He had six or seven clipper ships in succession, not all at once. And he used to go back and forth to China. And so we had various things from China and Japan when I was a kid in our house.

[72:17]

We had this little Buddha, and my mother would tell me the name was Buddha, and I somehow couldn't remember the name. So I found on an old map this mysterious-looking city called Krakow. So I called this guy Krakow. And I don't know why I did it. I can't explain it. It's the previous life, I guess. I slept in the basement in this cracked house, and we had this I slept in the basement in this tract house, and we had this bunk bed with a ladder, and I put a candle on one, and I'm completely an atheist, you know, when I was a kid anyway. I guess I am now, too. I used to do things like go into the Catholic Church with my Catholic friends and say, strike me down, something like that.

[73:29]

They'd all weep or get mad at me or something. But I wanted to see what was what, you know. I was a little stupid, but anyway. But the same time I got this darn little Buddha and I put him on the pamphlet and all the kids would come in at one o'clock. during the day in the summer, and we'd all get in a line, we'd go around in a circle going, bow to Krakow, bow to Krakow. I was in 5th, 6th, let's see, I was in 6th grade. How the hell does that make you, 12? Why did that make me? Anyway, Mrs. Carlson somehow I heard this story and thought that this is proof of previous lives as a Buddhist or something. But Suzuki Roshi said that Zen Center, he needed, he was going to be in this country for such a short time, he needed people who were already prepared.

[74:38]

He wasn't talking about previous lives, he was talking about some developed awareness some confrontation with real choice early in life. And I think there are lots of themes in our civilization, Western civilization, which are becoming some undermined of our culture, or under-culture, which is coming to the surface now, which precedes LSD and all those things. which made us interested in such chemicals, actually, which comes out, too, as the transcendentalists Thoreau and Emerson think, and comes out in lots of... You can see it in lots of contemporary poetry, Olson and other people, and you can see it earlier, Whitman. And this is a kind of preparation for us.

[75:42]

So Rick may have been referring to that too. But now Zen Center is... I think Zen Center can now... Maybe any person can come. They don't have to be a Buddhist previously or have some preparation previously. Hmm. Hi, Nathan.

[76:58]

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