I've been on this earth as I've been waiting and I'm all purely met with even a hundred thousand of us having to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I To taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. And unsurpassed. Treating imperfect them all. Gather with thee in a million and a hundred thousand million galpas. Having you to see and listen to. To remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the desires of the world.

[02:56]

Sir, heaven is fading and the perfect dharma. It is worthy, even in a hundred thousand million couples, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept I love to taste the truth and to target us words. Good morning.

[04:02]

Thank you all for coming to Green Gulch Farm this morning. Bright and cold. And thanks to everybody online for logging on. It's nice to be in the presence of Sangha, of people together each in our own way turning towards something important. So those of us in residence here at Green Gulch have been in a practice period, a nine-week practice period, We've been discussing the practice of stillness, which will come as a great surprise to any of you regular attenders.

[05:20]

And it's been so beautiful to see the blossoming of joy in the practice of stillness. The other night, we had a conversation about these so-called seven maxims of Soto Zen practice these seven images of radical utter stillness images like make yourself like cold ash and Sit as though you were an incense bowl in an abandoned shrine. Or sit like a blank piece of white paper.

[06:33]

be like cold and barren ground. And we talked about these, and there was this joy that was remarkable. Maybe it had to be there. But... Something about the stillness or the silence, even though these images seem kind of lifeless, so still they're lifeless, and they kind of lean into the lifelessness. For example, sit until the mold grows on your mouth and the grass comes out through your tongue. It's kind of like, sit like a corpse. You're like, oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? Where's the life? But then we touch that, and all there is is life.

[07:44]

All there is is the brightness. It's sitting empty and still and open in the midst of the vibrance and livingness of life. Our great ancestor Hongzhi, offering these teachings, says, this restores wonder. Practicing in this way restores wonder. And it's sitting in the brightness that's illuminating everything. So in exploring these images of radical stillness or silence, always in the context together with these teachings about brightness or luminosity, illumination. And this opens a gate for this practice called silent illumination of just sitting in completely still in the brightness, as the brightness of being. So our ancestor says, silent and still, getting words, bright clarity appears before you.

[08:55]

My favorite of these has been to sit like a burnt-out stump on a mountainside. So I now have this great warmth for my friend, this stump, and the image keeps getting more animals, you know, and plants, and there's cloudy days and sunny days, and this stump. Again, you know, I maybe need to move on. But these teachings to me, I feel this great warmth. I feel this great receptivity. The stump is not resisting anything. That's maybe harder to see. But as I practice with this image, I feel like the stump is just totally open to whatever's there. It's not resisting. It's not trying to be anything other than itself. It's not running after anything. It's not getting confused by Black Friday. I mean, the sales probably already end it.

[10:15]

Maybe if you get back home in time, you know. Some of them are still going, but the stump is not confused. It's not resistant. And it's in the midst of this ungraspable, inconceivable brightness and aliveness. By stopping and opening, that's just what manifests. For Thanksgiving this week, we decorated the zendo with the abundance of the harvest, so full of vegetables and farm implements. Totally pointless, beautiful activity of celebrating so much work, you know? Those of you who celebrated this work this week, So much work. Pointless. Beauty.

[11:16]

So as part of the decorations, this is my usual seat. And some farmers put a dead stump on my seat. And I thought, that is the nicest thing that anybody has ever done. I felt so seen. And like that some things that this is getting through, that the stump is, that the stillness and just itselfness of this stump is getting through, that we see the warmth of that and the light in that. So thank you to the farmers who put that stump there. I'm sorry to be back in the seat having bumped the stump. And there was, I heard, our retired elder Mick would tell a story.

[12:24]

I think it was, maybe it was Sohan Roshi, or maybe I'm getting the Roshis mixed up. Anyway, there was some, I think, Rinzai sect teacher who put a pumpkin on his cushion and then rang the bell for the interview, you know, for the meeting with the teacher, and everybody went in and there's a pumpkin. So silent and still forgetting words bright clarity appears before us. And so to open to the bright clarity that's here in the stillness it's helpful to have a clear mind. And as I've said before I wish this wasn't the case because it's hard to have a clear mind but it does seem to be that when our mind is clear it's easier to welcome and receive the light that's coming in I keep feeling and using the example of a friend if we're welcoming and opening to a friend

[13:45]

It's helpful for our mind to be clear and not thinking about another friend while we're talking. You know, when we say clear mind, it sounds like we're on some weird trip or trying to get some state of clear mind for its own sake. But it's about there's something precious and beautiful in front of us that's asking for our attention. And if we love it, we'll try to not be so distracted so we can be there with it. That's all. And that's sort of the relationship that we're cultivating with the light or with aliveness. Does that make sense? I want to be here for it. So that's why I clear the mind. Don't clear the mind because thoughts are bad or just because there's something here that's asking for my attention and I want to show up for it because it won't be here long and it's precious. So we practice clearing the mind and one of the ways that we practice clearing our mind is by attending to our breath as you all know and as many of you are doing now.

[15:00]

So we feel the flow of our breath out and in and then our mind and naturally clear of this kind of gunk or sticky film, kind of oily residue in our mind and heart that clogs a little bit our experience of the aliveness of this moment. Suzuki Roshi talks about the shadows, which is kind of an interesting way to think of it. Shadows or traces. Like there's all these traces and tracks and shadows in our mind now from our past thinking, from our current thinking and views. And that's making it hard for us to share the feeling, to actually connect with the feeling that's being offered in this moment.

[16:15]

by the room, by the light, by the sound and the sensation. So we practice clearing our mind and dropping into our body by tending to our breath. And doing so is also welcoming. It's a way of taking... meeting and appreciating the breath it's not for something else only so Suzuki Roshi says follow your breath not to avoid your thinking mind but to take care of your breath just a nice way to think don't use your breath to like do something with your mind just follow your breath because it's a good way to care for your breath and your breath is calling for care I think that's a wonderful tender teaching from from our founder. And part of how we practice breathing sometimes is that we exhale all the way into the stillness and calm at the end of the exhalation when we're not trying to get anything, not trying to hold onto anything.

[17:42]

just breathing all the way out. And then from that place, an inhalation comes as a gift. So the Buddha has this instruction, which again, many of you know, about how to take care of the breath, and it was coming to mind these days, so I wanted to share it. a beautiful instruction that in a way from the get-go sets the Buddha's teaching apart a little bit from forms of meditation that are about coaxing the mind or getting achieving some kind of state so do you remember this the Buddha says when you're breathing out a long breath you are intimate with breathing out a long breath And when you're breathing in a long breath, you know and are intimate with breathing in a long breath.

[18:47]

And when you're breathing out a short breath, you're intimate with that short breath. And when you're breathing in a short breath, you're intimate with that short breath. It's very simple and very profound teaching. It's not the teaching of, okay, we're going to have a really long exhalation and at the end is going to be the profound, utter stillness and then you'll receive the inconceivable brightness flooding in on the inhalation. If we ever speak like that, we try to apologize immediately. The point is, sometimes the breath is long and we're calm. And it's beautiful, and we're intimate with that. And sometimes the breath is short, and we're despairing, and we're intimate with that.

[19:52]

And that, for many of us, is like a life-changing possibility. Rather than getting our breath and body, getting our life into some state, or just intimate with how it is right now, or moment after moment. To fully be, to fully feel, to fully exist as we are now. That sound familiar? Sound right? So then whatever is arising, however we feel, is totally welcome.

[21:16]

So I was having this experience this week of Thanksgiving where You may also feel this, that there's a feeling you're expected to be having at Thanksgiving. Do you know what I mean? You really should be grateful. And you're invited in various ways, at least some of us, to prove you're grateful. to perform your gratitude. So that's a nice, it seems, it's a lovely thing to touch, to be encouraged and invited to touch our gratitude.

[22:22]

But what if we're not feeling grateful? There's something anyway to perform the gratitude. If we're anyway just performing and generating feelings of annoyance and irritation and constriction, it could be healthy and beneficial to try another act for a day and try to lean in, try to grasp this feeling of gratitude. But from the point of view of this wisdom of Buddha's teaching of when the breath is long, just let it be long, When there's joy, just be intimate with the joy. When there's closedness, just be intimate with the closedness. It's funny to say, feel a certain way. So I bristle a little bit at being told how to feel. Feel grateful. And then I fall for it. Try to prove, prove. I think I'm grateful. Am I grateful?

[23:23]

Am I grateful enough? Am I as grateful as the Shusul? So Suzuki Roshi has this wonderful teaching which is our practice is to be free of dualistic views and fill our whole being with gratitude. To be free of dualistic views and fill our whole being with gratitude. So I want to come back to the breath.

[24:26]

So when the breath is long, we know it's long. When the breath is short, we know it's short. When we're really intimate with the breath, our teacher, Dogen Zenji, founder of Soto Zen in Japan, says, the breath is neither long nor short. This is Dogen being free of dualistic views. You could try this now. So breathing in, you could say, I'm intimate with the long breath. But what is the feeling now of the breath actually? The immediate, ungraspable, subjective experience of having this breath. It's not quite like a long breath or a short breath. We can't quite say that it's a coarse breath or a subtle breath. These are kind of ideas or views that we put on top of this immediate lived experience of the breath.

[25:33]

So Suzuki Roshi says our practice is to be free of dualistic views like long or short or coarse or subtle or I like it or I don't like it. and fill our whole being with gratitude. So when I'm asked to be grateful, or feel that I'm being told that I should be grateful, one tendency would be to look for the things that are smooth, not coarse, the things that are long, not short, the things that I like or don't like, as opposed to don't like in my life. And be grateful, be grateful for the good stuff. And we can feel that, we can find that, we can appreciate all of the great things in our life and then we can be grateful for them.

[26:49]

And sometimes we're so weighed down by our thoughts and views and feelings that it's hard even to access what those good things are. So we might feel, this is a miserable, supposed to have this feeling of gratitude and I can't quite find the pile of good stuff that I'm supposed to be grateful for. So you might feel that to feel the gratitude, we're supposed to steer around the things that we don't like and appreciate the things that we do like. Suzuki Roshi is offering our practices to be free of dualistic views. and fill our whole being with gratitude.

[27:56]

When our mind is calm and we're not carving our life into these piles of good and bad, like and not like, When we're clearing our mind we can touch the feeling of just being alive and then our being fills with gratitude. My friend shared a quote with me that I appreciated a lot and he did too from Katagiri Roshi who is a Japanese Zen teacher, really important teacher in Zen in the U.S., an important founder of the Zen Center. He has a line that says, even though you don't like your life, just live.

[29:12]

I thought that was an excellent line. Even though you don't like your life, just live. I hope we all like our life. May all beings delight in their life. But there's something, you know, this, even though you don't like your life, it kind of puts us on the spot a little bit. Like, well, how did he know? You know, I'm editing Suzuki Roshi, another really important Japanese teacher in the United States. This even though and even if is a thing that comes up again and again. And I usually, there's some kind of like, often you see even though, but it seems like really it's even if. And so I often correct that when I'm editing Suzuki Roshi.

[30:12]

I change the even though to even if. So then it would say, you know, even if you don't like your life. But I think that's really not so good. I think this is a much better way to say it. Even though you don't like your life. be great, you know, find, engage it fully, and then you're dropping down below this dualistic way that you're engaging. The dualistic way is this sort of kind of uncomfortable, almost violent habit of words and thinking that's cutting this reality of our life into things that are being weighed and compared. So Hongjer says, silent and still forgetting words, bright clarity appears before us. The words, the long or short or like or don't like or good and bad are this coarse and subtle.

[31:22]

Reality, our actual lived experience right now, ungraspable, unfathomable, intimate, is totally free of all of those ideas that we have about it. And so the invitation of Buddha Dharma is to live in this more direct way, free of these views that we have about it, and actually contacting directly this unspeakable, indescribable, ungraspable feeling of being something, of being here, of being. So usually if we don't like our life, of course that's a big problem for us, and we think that then the path is to figure out how to like our life, and that's good.

[32:27]

And I guess we should do that. And, you know, generating gratitude is going to be a good way to work on that if you want to take that up. But the Buddha way is like not just trying to balance out that don't like your life with the like your life. The Buddha way is just live. Don't get confused by the noise. Be that stump. Don't get confused by the noise of, I like my life, I don't like my life, things are going my way. If you like your life, and that's like the ground of your well-being, you're in a super precarious situation. First of all, you could like it more. You know, see above Black Friday.

[33:30]

If you had the right stuff, you might like it more. And it could change at any moment. The things that you like about it, you know, when you like it, it's like things are going my way. That's usually, it's like, are you happy? Yes, things are going my way. The thing is, they stop going our way because they're going back and forth all the time. So instead of trying to just keep that balance, always on the like it more, good stuff, not so much bad stuff, that's how I'm going to be fulfilled and joyful and beneficial. It's just live. It's be free from the dualistic views. That doesn't need to be the only way that we engage our life. Come into your body. Be still. Feel the impossible mystery and open brightness of that there's anything that you are.

[34:36]

So, even though you don't like your life... Is that uncomfortable? The relief, you know, the Buddha teaches that this kind of dissatisfaction is fundamental. So I feel a little defensive, you know, like, well, I like my life. I think. But there is this, even when things, you know, because things are going my way, I feel pretty good right now. So Dukkha or... this kind of fundamental dissatisfaction, there's always this little bit of dissatisfaction. And so to say you don't like your life is to kind of raise up that part that's dissatisfied, that's constantly dissatisfied, that's like inherently dissatisfied. Buddhism, a lot of people think is kind of depressing or negative because it wants us to start there.

[35:51]

Like, do you notice that you're fundamentally dissatisfied even in this subtle way? And, you know, it's great. No. Or some of us relate deeply and some feel that, well, yeah, but that's, then I'm not going to be, if I let that in, I'm not going to be grateful. So let's like sweep that under, you know, when we set up the house for the Thanksgiving guests, you know, let's put that behind the sofa or something so that we can be gratitude, you know, be grateful for how much we like our life and the people in it. So, but just to have that permission to say, oh yeah, even though you don't like your life, don't worry about it. Don't worry about liking your life. There's something way more interesting than that happening. And that can be the ground of our being. Way more interesting, way more intimate, way more awake and alive and engaged. So Katagiri says, just live, which is kind of a very Zen way to put it.

[36:59]

And a Zen Center teacher, John King, used to, for a time, came into the prison where we had a, and still do have a Buddhist program. And he said this wonderful thing of, in prison, when he was visiting the prison, offering the Dharma, he felt he didn't have to pretend that his life was working. Nobody is pretending that things are working out for us. So I don't have to come in here and be like, oh yeah, things are great. Everything's looking up. It's just to be the livingness. Sometimes I like it. Sometimes I don't like it. That's kind of the noise. not the ground. If that's the ground, we're sunk. Ed Brown, our early Zen center member and Zen teacher, he likes to tell the story of working in the kitchen at Tassahara and hating everyone in the kitchen with him and asking Suzuki Roshi or informing Suzuki Roshi about how terrible

[39:11]

the people who were working with him in the kitchen and was impacted deeply because he talks about it decades later by Suzuki Roshi's reply, which is, it takes a calm mind to see virtue. Wonderful line. It takes a calm mind to see virtue. So I feel in a way that's also what I'm speaking to. It takes that stillness. It takes that calm mind. to allow the gratitude for what is to fill our being. Maybe I'll share one more reflection and then we have a couple minutes if there's any comments. Thank you for your kind attention so far today. Not too long ago, I gave a talk about a golden lion.

[40:23]

And I thought I could say just briefly about the golden lion. People enjoyed the talk about the golden lion. So it was a good talk. And then, so that was good. I liked that people thought it was a good talk. But then afterwards, people would say, you know, after my talk, people would say... I really liked your talk about the golden clock. Maybe some of you will say that to me today. Yeah, I really liked your other talk. So I want to give the good talk and I don't want to give the bad talk. But if I'm in the point of the frame of mind of a good talk or bad talk, And you all are in the frame of mind of a good talk or bad talk. We are in the dualistic views. We're missing what's here.

[41:25]

And then we're not grateful. I drove all the way over there. And he just didn't seem to know what he was talking about or why. It was a bad talk. that goes into the pile of things I'm not grateful for. And which is scary because that pile is getting bigger. And it's a holiday where you're supposed to be doing the other pile. So dropping below the piles of like and dislike of good and bad. So the golden lion just very simply is just such a beautiful metaphor. I think we should all know it and keep it in mind if we're studying the Buddha Dharma. It's just a very simple image of a statue of a lion, a golden statue of a lion figure.

[42:30]

This is an image used by the Tang ancestor Fatsang to share the teachings of the Empress Wu. And he reveals the teachings through the statue in various ways. But the gist of it is that the gold and substance and the lion shape are inseparable. So many of us practitioners, you know, we want to see the gold. We want to see the essence of reality. We want to see this brightness. But it seems like there's something in the way, which is kind of like looking at the golden lion statue and say, well, if the lion would get out of the way, then I would see the gold. I came looking for the gold and all they have is a lion. The gold, this brightness, this being, this thing for which there is natural gratitude,

[43:40]

This Buddha nature or emptiness is the substance of each thing. It's the thing we don't like and it's the thing we like. The aliveness is totally present in the thing we don't like and in the thing we like. And we're no closer to it. I like lions or I don't like lions. We're no closer or farther from that substance, from that essence, from that immediate feeling of being here. Whether it's good or bad, whether it's like or dislike, we're the same distance from that.

[44:45]

Nothing is in the way. You don't have to get past the thing you don't like. The thing you don't like is your life. So just live that thing you don't like and live that thing you like. And when you have time, get more of the stuff you like and get rid of some of the stuff you don't like. It's fine. But don't be confused. There's just gold. That's... That's actual ground for our life. Anybody have a comment or question? Our practice is to be free of dualistic views and fill our whole being with gratitude. Thank you.

[45:53]

Would you suggest like actively trying to take things from the bad pile and put them on the good pile by like trying to be grateful or like trying to see the value in bad things that happen to us? Like, and I kind of think of that as like Dharma gates are boundless. I've had to enter them. Yeah, I mean, it's like the, you can do that. You can do that trick. You can talk yourself into that the bad things were good. Sometimes the bad things are just bad. But yeah, you can do the thing. We don't really, you know, it's like the, you know, the thing about the horse and the son and the broken leg. You all know who come to things like Dharma Talks all over that story. You think it's a bad thing and actually it's a good thing, but then maybe it was a bad thing.

[46:57]

Then maybe it was a good thing. So, yeah, that's good. We can grow. I mean, I guess I mean it. When you have like some free time, why not add to that like pile? This is like we should thrive. We should take care of ourselves. We should do whatever we can to have all of the good in our life for ourselves and for each other. And if that means reframing some bad thing, that is like wise and profound and worthwhile. And if you want to do or tap into Zen practice, the Zen approach includes all of that. It's not instead of anything. It's just meanwhile, before it's transformed, before you figured out how that bad thing is really for your good pile, there's something happening here that's not any of that that's the most obvious close thing which is your being alive and to just to be still and forget words you will appreciate that your being will just fill with the gratitude and just for that moment of ungraspable being

[48:22]

And Suzuki Roshi also says, you know, you might not feel it as gratitude. He says when we say we enjoy something, it's already over. While we were enjoying it, we didn't feel anything. You know, we didn't feel like something. So we might feel it as gratitude. It might be subtle. But it's just a practice of now and then connecting in a more basic way with what we are. Letting that be the ground of our life and feeling that, well, I can be grateful for that because that is absolutely impossible and magical that there's anything. Again, I often share Suzuki Roshi saying, you're more concerned with your problem than with the fact that you're alive. The fact that I'm alive. Let that be the gratitude. Not, I solved this problem and I don't have this problem and so that's what I'm grateful for.

[49:26]

but also this background fact that there is, the fact that I'm alive. That's what I'm just very clumsily trying to point out. But yeah, do as you will with the piles on your personal time. Any other comments? Hi. As you were speaking, About stillness, I don't know if everyone could see, but the still thing behind you moved. The petals of the flower fell. Illustrating your point perfectly. Yes, you were still, so you could just totally still and open. Still, you can see the vibrance of everything. When you're moving along with it, you can't really see it because you're so confused. But when you're still, all the leaves are fluttering. It was beautiful. Yeah, thank you for entering that stillness.

[50:29]

Could you say a little more about what you mean when you use the word intimate? To say more about what I mean by intimate. Yeah, so we could say that when the breath is long, we're intimate, or we know that the breath is long. We just welcome it fully. making room for allowing, welcoming, being not separate from, you say becoming one with, but that's, it's a good way to say it, honestly. I don't know. It has a ring to it. Becoming one. Sounds like that's exactly what people not here think we're talking about.

[51:30]

Becoming one. But it's good. Becoming one. Being not separate. Seeing that that is just your life. Your life is not other than that. It's not me and this thing. Anything that's appearing in your life is your life. This is also an extremely obvious thing. And everything is alive with your life. Because it's made out of your life. Because that's the only thing that's happening in your experience. Anything that's happening in your experience is made out of your experience. It's alive. So that intimacy of not being separate, not inside or outside. And in Zen, the intimacy has also this forgetting words. Bright clarity, intimate clarity appears before us. So the intimacy always has this flavor of not really knowing. So Dogen Zenji says, the breath isn't long or short. To know that the breath is long and welcome that, and to know that it's short and welcome that, that's pretty good.

[52:34]

That's pretty friendly. That's pretty welcoming. But even more intimate would be to not even know if it's long or short. It's just this immediate, not compared to anything experience, free from dualistic or comparative thinking. But yeah, intimacy is a powerful Wonderful word to explore. Can we be intimate with each thing? We are already excruciatingly, as you've noticed, intimate with everything. And I guess part of the teaching in Zen is just to surrender to that intimacy. Stop fighting that we're together with everything and just welcome everything that arises. Don't put it in the piles. Should have arisen and should not have arisen. This question comes from Anna Marie on Zoom.

[53:41]

Question. We seem to like to tell ourselves stories. We tell ourselves, if I do this or that, say this or that, then this will happen, instead of accepting the moment. the situation as it is. While stories can be good, might the problem be that we get caught up in the fiction of our lives instead of the reality of our lives as they are? And by telling ourselves too many stories of how we want it, we miss the wonderful moment as it really is and what it is has to teach us. Getting mad because reality doesn't fit the story we created. Thank you. That was much more efficient than this hour we just spent together. It's okay to have a story. It's good to have a story. We have a story. Just if that story is the ground of our life, it's going to be hard to feel that real gratitude.

[54:47]

Okay, one more, and then we'll end. Thank you for your teaching. Good talk. I particularly like the story about the stump. Yes. That stump is on the bench right outside the door. Okay. It's a thing of great beauty. Okay. Go visit the stump. See if you feel its warmth and love and how it allows undistracted each thing. One more comment there. which is relating this talk to the idea of the idiot. The idiot. The idiot. And how that possibly relates to having a beginner's mind, which is maybe that things happen to us and not to try to separate it actually into good or bad, but just to let things happen to us and experience things.

[55:57]

And I think outside of Buddhism, there's a lot of pressure to categorize, to be an expert, to look like we have our lives together. And so I think a lot of the pain that comes with these separations are exterior pressures, not coming from the inside. Thank you. The only thing I would add is that our life is in this kind of very alive, dynamic relationship naturally with everything. So part of being open is that we're receiving our own alive activity too. And so it's responsive and connected. It's not just passive. Abhi, did you have something? Okay. Thank you again. If you're invited to or feel inspired to touch gratitude in your life, please consider rather than reaching for some story or reaching for the emotion that you may or may not have access to, to try to connect deeply with this moment as it actually feels right now below all of your dualistic assessments.

[57:38]

and stories. Thank you. ... [...] I'm sorry.

[58:46]

I'm sorry. ... [...] We will be blessed with the story of the universe, and we will be blessed with the world.

[59:46]

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