I want to talk about that. This morning I vow to taste the truth. Good morning. Excuse me. It was just enough time between the time I arrived upstairs and now for my sinuses to completely fill up. So I can't be helped. Did you ever do something and have that thought, did I just do that right? No. witness whatever that was that I did when I came here. So I want to speak to anybody who's new here. Is there anybody who's new here? Congratulations. Hopefully, since this moment has never, ever, ever, ever occurred, hopefully this is a new experience for each of us. But for those of you who think you are here for the first time, I do want to congratulate you for having maybe unwittingly stumbled onto a gold mine.

[01:18]

You couldn't have known before you came in. There may have been rumors. But if you stick it out, you'll find out. It's a gold mine of self-discovery, actually. Even though we don't usually see it that way. When you come here, you think that you're going to find out about us. And you will. Only about 2% of it's actually about us. The other 80... Oops, the other... Whatever, you know. So... So part of the Buddha's discovery about how wonderful it was to be a human being was that he noticed that most of what we do and think and believe has been conditioned.

[02:23]

That somebody sold us ideas about who we are, who we should be, what things really are. how life is supposed to work, things like that. In other words, hardly anything is original. And that's what we come to find out by coming here. So I hope that by capping the seed of doubt, you'll be able to start to notice how, what kind of mind do you bring to a situation? What kind of mind? We usually don't think of it that way. We usually think we're going to a situation to scope it out and find out what's really going on. But actually, what we're really seeing is our own mind reflected back to us. For example, if you've been trained by the PTA, the Parent Teachers Association and Friends, to be cautious,

[03:31]

And fearful. When you come to a place like this, you'll see threat everywhere. If you've been taught to see that behind every dark cloud is a silver lining, you'll find this place to be a place of springs. It'll be marvelous. If you've been conditioned to be judgmental or cynical, you'll find this place to be a wasteland. If you've been trained to be an expert, you'll be surrounded by incompetence. If you've been taught to try not to be seen, you'll find that you are engulfed in everybody else's curiosity. That kind of curiosity that hurts as it probes. If you've been taught to be a victim,

[04:32]

you will see persecution and unfair treatment at every turn. If you have, and who doesn't, have issues with mother, you'll either find Zen center to be coherent, and no nurturing whatsoever, or too much attention. No, engulfing. If you have issues with father, you'll either find Zen center to be too strict, Or have absolutely no guidance whatsoever. I think one of my favorite, I don't think, I know, one of my favorite people was a guy named Marvin. Marvin. He came here in his 70s. And I lived in Tassajara, so when I would come up here on vacation, and usually people come to... come to City Center on vacation from Tatsahara so that they don't have to see anybody.

[05:34]

So we all try to be very, very hidden. Some of us. Well, actually, I. I do. But Marvin I liked because Marvin was very shy and very quiet and very down-to-earth. And I would ask him when I would come up and see him, similarly, Marvin had said, how's it going? And he would say, I'm still looking for snake oil. Okay. Is that a generational thing, snake oil? It's like snake oil would be like a fake remedy that some sort of barker type would try to sell you. So Marvin was always looking for how we were trying to dupe him. It was sweet. It was sweet. He was very sweet about it. And so then he stuck it out.

[06:37]

He even stuck it out so much as to live here. He took up residence here. And when he was 80, he was ordained as a priest. Well, I never got a chance to ask him if he did actually find some snake oil. But apparently sticking with it opened up maybe his trust. So when I came here some time ago, I, for some reason, booked a guest room here in the city center. I've never been here before. And... See if I can flip that over with my sleeve. The first thing that happened when the door opened, I sort of remember who it was, but that didn't really matter.

[07:49]

What caught me was my nose. I smelled the smell here that I'd never smelled before. And it was this incense here that is the same Well, actually, I didn't know or care then, but it's the same instance that they use at one of the big training temples in Japan, in Heiji. And I'm glad they do, because it smells really nice. If it had been the other training temple, major training temple in Japan, I would have gotten carsick and thrown up. That's true. That's true. So luckily, it was from Heiji. And then, and the strange thing was I felt like I was home. I felt at home, coming into this very formidable building. But I think the good thing for me was that there weren't many people here then. So I didn't feel like there were all kinds of people coming at me, you know, wanting to know things or wanting to help or, you know, friendly people are.

[08:56]

So then... When I went up to the room, when I found the room, I don't know if any of you have ever noticed, but it's impossible to find room numbers in this building. It doesn't really make much sense. I've not figured it out myself yet, actually. So I did find the room, and it had something I'd never seen before. It had these things for a floor, tatami mats that you're sitting on. I'd never seen those before, but what got me was the smell. It's the smell of grass, which for me means the associations that are summer, beautiful sunlight, good times, that sort of thing. So I was sold. I was sold. And I came back a year later pretty much for good, thinking that I was signing up for the about six week training period at Green Gulch.

[10:02]

But what I didn't notice was that beneath my signature in very, very fine small print was you've just signed on for the 20 year plan. Luckily, very luckily. My own, the mind that I brought, the conditioning that I brought was one of fear. Fear. Or anger. It's twin sister. And from, yes, from father I got fear for good reason, mind you. It's good to be afraid of him. And from mother I got judgmental. Judgmental. And she got that from her mother. For my grandmother, God-lover, there was always something wrong. Always. Everything. There was always something wrong. And my mother would complain endlessly as well.

[11:04]

So, I mean, I didn't know that was conditioning. I thought that's just the way the world was. There was always something wrong, and you should be afraid of it. So, consequently... being at Zen Center, I began to notice was that I was surrounded by very scary idiots. But sticking with the program, I was able to, I mean, it took years. I mean, it takes years to see through that mirror. It's kind of a move you can see partially through, but mostly it's reflecting back you. So Trungpa said something that I never forgot. He said that self-discovery is one insult after the next.

[12:10]

Who here doesn't know that? So I was insulted for years. And you kind of find out that we have so many blind spots, so many prejudices, so many gifts that we invert. In one of the chants that we use, the Heart Sutra, it says, it speaks about inverted views, our inverted views. I think it used to say, Did they say perverted views? Which probably has some truth to it. But we changed it to inverted. And so I never quite really knew what we were driving at with that word. But I looked it up in a little dictionary that I actually found on my computer. I have no skill whatsoever on my computer. And somebody else showed me that you press this button and all kinds of wonderful things show up to just appear on your screen.

[13:15]

The temperature and anywhere you want to know. And a dictionary. A dictionary. And so I typed in this morning, inverted, and it said to turn something inside out. How perfect. Because when we think we're seeing others and things, we're actually turning what's actually inside out. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing our insides. I'm seeing my insides on each one of you. Luckily, I've come a long way. And a teacher sitting there, I asked him, what's this thing for anyway? And he said that when you hold it up, you see Buddhas everywhere. There's another thing that we chant where we talk about these things, these views, these conditioned views.

[14:24]

We call them erroneous imaginations. Isn't that marvelous? What a phrase. Erroneous imaginations. In other words, we're totally deluded. Erroneous imaginations. In other words, are we imagining them, but we're imagining them wrong. But the good news with that is that When we're able through our practice to stop them, for example, I may look at somebody here and think, oh, yeah, I know what that person's like. If I can recognize that and stop it and realize, no, I don't. I don't know that person at all. I barely know myself. So with that little flash of truth, the erroneous imagination can cease and then the acquiescent mind realizes itself. I whipped up acquiescent too this morning. And it means, at its root, remaining at rest. Remaining at rest.

[15:25]

When you think of how your mind usually is, rest isn't the first word that comes to my mind. So we're often very agitated by our minds. Just to sit here. is very stimulating. All these sense things and sounds, although we haven't had any Harleys go by yet. And the light, the smells, everything, it can be very stimulating. For me, overstimulating. For some others, just stimulating. And our mind... Ah, there's one. Our minds are... are actually, all the stimulation takes place in the mind at rest. Our actual minds are still. And so when we can cease the erroneous imaginations, then that mind at rest reveals itself.

[16:33]

And I think what we find... is what Suzuki Roshi became his trademark, Beginner's Mind. The name of this temple is Beginner's Mind. And what is it about Beginner's Mind that we value that the rest of the society world doesn't? Have you ever gone to a job and you expect yourself to know how to do it before you learn it? Or is that just me? Where not knowing is embarrassing. Where to be found not knowing is almost humiliating. So, at least that's my experience. Nobody likes a beginner, right? Unless you're, well, I'll just say that much. We don't like to be beginners, I don't think.

[17:42]

And it really shows when new people come to a place like this and you put them in the kitchen or they go to work in the kitchen and they try to appear as if they know what they're doing. When actually it doesn't matter at all. That's part of the whole thing. Not knowing. Not knowing that that's okay. That, again, took me years to be able to even mildly believe that it was okay not to be an expert. It was okay not to know. It was even okay to say when somebody asks you something, I don't know. That would have been impossible not too long ago for me to say. So this beginner's mind has a curiosity about it. It's like we have a couple little kiddies that... They're in the building a lot.

[18:45]

And the thing I think that's most refreshing is that unbridled curiosity that really has no expectations tacked on it. They're open. I taught Sebastian, how old was he? Two? Three? Two. I taught him how to open a cupboard. You know? Okay. I loved doing it. And I apologize to his father. But to watch him learn, it was kind of clumsy at first. And I kept guiding his hand on that little lever in the behind that you can't see. And it was great watching him learn that. And since I'm going to be leaving, not too soon, too bad. so to see beginner's mind that's not quite fairly beginner's mind because beginner's mind has patience I've not seen that so much in little kids patience they want to know it all now and also beginner's mind is very accepting because it knows it has no choice no

[20:13]

What are you supposed to do? Fight the world all the time? Demand that it be your way? Beginner's mind knows that it is not that way. So we have a method. We do have a method. It's at least 2,500 years old, which doesn't mean that it's a good method or the right method. Well, one that you should trust automatically just means that it's old and it's lasted, maybe for good, and maybe worth trying out. I was able to spend some time at Campo Abbey in Nova Scotia. Anybody know where Nova Scotia is? I didn't particularly know where it was. And I was raised in Maine, the northeast.

[21:19]

We didn't go north. You don't go north. It was a different country. So I never went there. And it was... The mass bay that I had there was a couple of old farmhouses linked by covered walkways and things. It was out on this promontory that stuck out into what could have been the ocean. I guess it was a bay, but it was Hudson's Bay, apparently very big. So it seemed to me like the ocean. It looked like the ocean that I had known in May. So, and it was winter. Actually, it wasn't so bad. Apparently, in the summer, they have black flies everywhere, so you can't really go outdoors. But in the winter, it was really, really cold.

[22:24]

I'd come from here and went there and from Tassajara in the summer, which is not cold. So that took some adjusting. And the wind was gale. Gale winds and the snow is beautiful. It's very beautiful. She stayed inside. But we didn't stay inside because twice a month we had to do this ritual which meant everybody in their robes and things and mucklucks and hats and horns and flags and banners and things going outdoors and running around the place three times. A couple of us made it once I think and then hid inside. But we were old, so we could do that. A little of the point. This is where I peddled children. This is her place. And she was there for the whole thing. And it was really great getting to know her. She's a wonderful woman. And that's my point.

[23:27]

But my point is that twice a month we would do a ceremony of affirming our vows as monastics. And so they do all kinds of formal things and bowings and turnings and things like that. But what struck me was the way the ceremony ended. And so the teacher, Pema, Pani Pema, would say something about the precepts that they had taken. And then she'd say, it is the method. And we'd say, it is excellent. This is the method... I practiced this this morning. Can somebody do that loud? It is excellent. That was such an affirmation.

[24:30]

You don't usually think of precepts in terms of, this is really good news. So... So I want to look at that method just for a few minutes. From my point of view, there are three parts to the method that we teach that we have gleaned from over 2,000 years of the Buddhist teaching. And the first one are the precepts that we deal with. I think, unfortunately, our culture sees precepts as commandments, whereas we're do this or else. You should do this. You ought to do this. You're a bad person if you don't do this. That's not the way we look at it at all. At least from my point of view, we look at it in terms of like guide rails on the path. You know, when you're driving on a highway, there are guide rails, and what are they for? Are they to stop accidents? Well, not really, because you can crash into them.

[25:32]

but they keep you from going into the ditch, hopefully, where it's really painful and there's a lot of suffering in the ditches. So we have these precepts, these guidelines, these guardrails just to let us know that if we break this one, we're going to end up in a ditch. It doesn't mean you're a bad person or that you're stupid. It just means that when you do this, that happens. That's all. No judgment implied whatsoever. So they're kind of, in one way of looking at them, they're kind of beneficial. They're not punitive, certainly. Just as if, well, if you do this, most likely this is going to happen. Just so you know. And then, of course, we run into them anyway. And sometimes go into the ditch. And when we do, we just come back out on the road, you know, after suffering, of course. Suffering some... The other thing we have as part of Zen training are the Zen forms, which some people have a lot of trouble with.

[26:40]

Luckily, I didn't have trouble in terms of you can't make me do that. It was more in terms of how do you do that? How does that person move like that? And I wanted to do that. So forms are... Or, you know, like putting your hands in gashio or how to bow. And what you find, if you stick it out, is that it gets more and [...] more refined. More refined. We call it, we call it entraining, it's like squeezing a snake into a bamboo tube. And if you stick around, if you get through... the resistance, in whatever form it takes, you find that it really is, that you're trying to squeeze yourself into this little teeny tiny tube, which when we do, finally, it's the whole universe.

[27:46]

And there was no squeezing at all. Just felt like it. Just seemed like it. So... So we have these forms that we do. Like oleokia, it's a way of eating. It's an eating ceremony. And I think the first time you do it, it's really horrible. You don't know where to put anything. We eat in Zendo, so you're raised off the floor and chopsticks and sticks and things tend to fall off onto the floor, which is embarrassing for some. So everything can go wrong. I just tell one thing. I had these really neat bowls. We were very proud of our enunciation. And part of my pride was these wonderful bowls. And I got them from a place, actually. They used the bowls to eat with. And I remember sitting at Tassajara, and I had just gotten my soup in the middle bowl.

[28:51]

And I set it down very carefully because I'm mindful. And the next thing I knew, it was upside down on the floor. And oddly, what arose in me was, oh, it was sad instead of you idiot or whatever. It was genuine sadness. But that was compounded with gratitude when the server came over and just very calmly, without any emotional rays directed at me, I picked it up, cleaned it up, took it outside, and brought me back some more soup. That's a beautiful way to live, I think. So these Zen forms, are pretty good at reviewing our stubbornness.

[29:52]

Do some of you remember Shirley Temple? She was a little girl and very, very popular in the movies in what, the 30s, 40s? 30s. And she was kind of short. She had these curly hair and she was really cute. and she could sing, and she could dance, and she could also have fit. And she would stand there and make pout and go, I won't, I won't, I won't. And I see that in so many ways in people's resistance to the forms. Like, I'm sorry, we don't go in with that foot, we go in with the other foot. And you can just see them inside going, I won't, I won't, I won't. So the films reveal our stubbornness, which of course is a great source of suffering.

[30:58]

The films also reveal our inherent dignity as well. You can see with somebody who's been at it for a while. And it's not just Buddhist forms. It's any kind of form like etiquette. Etiquette can be beautiful. Or somebody who's really skilled at the job they do. You can see it. that it's not them doing it. It's almost like something's flowing through them. Like art, for example. Art is form, but there's nobody in the way. There's no ego involved, I think, in true art. So we learn the forms are all actually very dignified in shape, in form. So that once you get the hang of it and stop hitting it, or stop trying to get it, then you become dignity. Not that you weren't before. Dignity, after all, just means worth.

[32:00]

Actually, it means worth. I remember reading something that ended with, and she walked. What? She walked with the dignity of somebody of utmost importance. And the third thing we have to offer is what we call Zazen, which is sitting meditation, in one way to look at it. And this is where we realize eventually, I hope, or maybe moment to moment, every now and then, that stillness of mind, that stillness of mind. And we usually do it by trying to bore ourselves to death. Because when, you know, as you sit down and face a wall, that is not a comfort. It's not a comfort.

[33:01]

Speaking of which, I just read about a study where they took 90 people and let them look at, they agitated them They did something to agitate them. And then let them look at a natural setting, trees. Then they looked at one of those flat screen things with a picture of the natural setting. And then they had them look at a blank wall. And what do you think they found? I'll tell you. Looking at the natural setting was calming. Very quickly calming. Looking at the picture... of the natural setting, it didn't do anything at all. And looking at the blank wall, that was no help whatsoever. In fact, it kind of made it worse. So, if you think you've come here to find peace, you will.

[34:05]

But not the kind you think. Not the kind you think. So, What we learn in zazen is to be able to sit upright without wobbling. That takes practice because we want to wobble. We're built to wobble. For example, just our eyesight, we are genetically geared to notice movement. When somebody moves, we notice it. Or sound. If you want somebody's attention, whisper. and the like. So finding stillness is not an easy thing. And being upright in it, not moving. It doesn't mean not moving. It means not moving. They're different. Unmoving and resolute. That's how the Buddha sat, unmoving. It doesn't say unmoved. It's not like it closed out the world.

[35:09]

And that's not what we're doing either. we're in fact opening to the world, opening everything, opening every sense, including the mental one. So we're not shutting down, we're opening up and remaining upright in the midst of that. So we study this method for years and years and years. And slowly but surely, we... Learn to accept the truth, I think. The truth. Not our made-up version, but the truth and whatever that is. So if you come here, for example, and you think you're seeing us, over time, you will begin to see us. And what that is, who could say? Who could say? The truth can't be captured in a few words.

[36:11]

or many words, but we have to say something. So I began by saying this phrase we used in that chant before the talk, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Tathagata means Buddha. So I vow to taste the truth. Taste the truth. Do you find that odd? Taste the truth? Well, I like it myself. And what I wanted to end with was a poem. I'm not a poem kind of guy, but I think there may be, well, there's one that I know of, this one. It was my favorite because I think it speaks. It speaks to what we're doing, what we're doing.

[37:15]

And it's a poem that came from a 17th century Welsh Anglican priest. He was a country parson. And this is how he describes it. Law, bad, we welcome. yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin. That quick-eyed love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning if I lacked anything. A guest, I answered, worthy to be here. Love said, you shall be ye. I, the unkind, the ungrateful, Ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee.

[38:16]

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I? Truth, Lord, but I have marred them. Let my shame go what it doth deserve. And when you not, says love, who bore the blame, my dear, then I shall serve. You must sit down, says love. and taste my meat. So I did sit and eat. Thank you very much.

[39:01]

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