This week, Bobby and I are giving a class on letting go in Zen, yoga and painting. Have you let go yet? Our table said reserved for those who are letting go. Seems like a contradiction. Xu Tanpo, the Chinese poet, wrote in 1066, August 1st, August 5th, 1088. Close. One desires pleasures and fears a hard life.

[01:07]

These are sentiments one entertains before leading the so-called pleasurable or hard life. After one is in it, one tries to think of the envy and the fear and finds that they are gone. Then where are the pleasurable and unpleasurable moments after they are passed? They seem to be like a sound, a shadow, a breeze, or a dream. Even these four things are somehow more tangible. Besides, how is one ever going to find happiness by countering one illusion with another illusion? Huh? How are you going to do that? I wish I could express this deep truth to you, but I cannot. Su Tung Po led an interesting life.

[02:14]

He had the highest scores on the government tests to get jobs. And he was advisor to the emperor. Every morning he would get up, he would sit, he would get dressed. Then he would sit on the porch nodding out until the emperor's carriage came to pick him up. He thought that was the best time to meditate. But things weren't all hunky-dory. He got into a feud with the emperor and was banished. So he knows about the pleasurable and unpleasurable times. So how do we deal with fear? Things I like, I resist.

[03:17]

I resist everything. As if I had some choice that resisting would help. And control is a little bit different. Control isn't a metallic thing. Dogen writes in Butsuyo Butsu about a story about someone asks a teacher, How is it when hundreds and thousands of millions of things happen all at once? What should you do? Hundreds of thousands of millions of things are happening right now. He says, only don't try to control them. Even if you try, you can't. So some people say, well, I'm not going to be disciplined. I'm not going to try. But that's... That's being safe.

[04:22]

It's dangerous to try to control. And it's dangerous to also notice that you can't control. I can't even control the seat. Thank you, but I think I'll try. Thank you for offering. I remember when I was about 15 years ago, we were doing a ceremony for Suzuki Roshi in the Kaisando. And it was in the spring, and there were a lot of deer flies, horse flies.

[05:24]

And everybody was complaining about the horse flies. But I said, thank you, Suzuki Roshi, for the deer flies. They show us how easily we're perturbed. We love Tassajara, but if there were horse flies here, we'd get upset. fear. I recently have had some painful medical treatments, which are these Chinese medicine and Twina massage. It's very painful. It just really hurts.

[06:28]

But I realized after the treatment, I felt like I got cleared. The pain left me fresh. And then I fell asleep. But I think pain does do that sometimes. We try to avoid pain. But it's just something that can clear things. If we resist pain, we're blocking everything. So the truth will set us free.

[07:59]

And to live the truth takes courage. But this courage is not so special. It's just being with the way things are instead of resisting it, instead of avoiding things. Zen Center is a wonderful place, and I always say that if it was a perfect place, I wouldn't be here. And there's great courage in living in this community, living with other people, because other people are difficult, and you're difficult to other people. And to try to run a community, always somebody's going to be upset. And then if you try to run a community too much, you try to control things too much.

[09:06]

And if you don't try to control things, it's a mess. Over and over control is a mess. And yet people stay knowing that it's a mess. There may not be a better alternative. But to live the truth... of holding back. That's very important. And of course, those people who think they're living the truth are very self-righteous on telling the truth. But when you're telling the truth, you don't know if you're telling the truth or not. It's your best shot. And you listen to how people respond and say, They're not getting it or I'm not getting it or somebody's not getting it.

[10:07]

Zen practice is about falling down and getting up. If you don't fall down in Zen practice, you don't have anything to offer. It's our failures that we have to offer our students. Our failures in getting up. In the midst of our failures. And it's not about being a particularly wise person. That's funny. It's about being there with other people. Seeing them. Reflecting them back. And never knowing if you're right. But that doesn't stop you from telling the truth as you see it.

[11:17]

One of my favorite Kagura Roshi stories is when it's in his community, set up a fundraising event. And they got beautiful food and wonderful room and they just wheeled in Category Roshi to say a few words. And he said, you're all going to die. You may think he was giving the not so high Dharma, but he was giving the truth. Unfortunately, it may not have been the best circumstance to give the truth. But if I had been there, I think... I would have appreciated it.

[12:33]

Appreciated Katakiri Roshi's courage. And not selling somebody short that they couldn't understand it. I think it takes tremendous courage to live this practice. And I salute you for doing it. And you could use a little bit of improvement. Sometimes we're courageous in one area, but not in another. And sometimes we know too much whether we're courageous or not. And it's on the edge of not knowing that real gifts happen. I used to, the suture of the sixth ancestor, I used to not like it so much.

[13:41]

I thought it was too hard on institutions. The hero was an anti-institution person who left. And the whole institution went raving mad after him. That's one way of looking at it. But now I appreciate it. The student-teacher relationship is as important, if not more important, than the institutional relationship. Institutions are necessary. Institutions carry the teaching of Zen. But institutions get involved with the culture that they're involved in. In Asia, I think Buddhism really helped cultures did not be so warlike and to be more subtle. But then the kind of warlike nature of the country affected Buddhism.

[14:51]

It's a trade-off. You can't relate to something without trading. We think that we can control things because we think that there's a one-way thing of control. But karma... says that we're all affecting everything and everything's affecting us.

[15:58]

So control is a limited idea. Mutual participation is what happens. We affect others and others affect us. And it's a little bit Sometimes there's an edge of control which is not respecting other people's viewpoints. And, of course, there are those who don't want responsibility. And that's no better. That's worse. Learning what real control is and what not control is can lead to the next step. Avoiding responsibility doesn't lead you any further. So,

[17:20]

Experiencing your pain and not resisting. Oh, I know. Actually, the most important part of the whole talk I haven't talked about yet. Which is I'm really struck by how much in the West we have poor self-esteem. And that makes it very hard to practice. Because we can't see ourselves... as we are because it's too devastating because we think we're worse than we are. Or we don't want to go there so we think of ourselves in the best possible light. Either way, it's kind of not meeting things as for what they are. I wonder, it's probably an oversimplification, but I wonder if original sin has been a real sticking point for us in the West. And Buddha nature may have been a little bit more useful.

[18:27]

So for those of you who have poor self-esteem, don't go there. How do you not go there? Go there, but keep going. You have to see... You have to see your weak points and your bad habits. But it's a good thing. That's not a bad thing. You know, I notice when I show my paintings, I want everyone to say how much they like them. I don't want complicated criticisms. But that's just my bad habit. I was talking to someone who told... This person I've known for a long time, and he's pretty resistant to certain shortcomings that he has. But he told me what his therapist told him, which was great.

[19:35]

That's about 80% right, as far as I could see. And it was great. It was such a gift to have that open up for them. But he either took it all or threw it all away. He couldn't take it as useful information to travel with. Well, I'm not saying he couldn't. Probably he could. That's my negative viewpoint. So I think this negative self-esteem, which the Dalai Lama didn't believe it at first. He said, no. Poor self-esteem? That's terrible. But it's terrible because you can't take criticism in its right way. And we think of Zen as a kind of perfect cover in which there aren't faults.

[20:49]

Zen teachers I know may have faults. Except maybe one. But most of them do. And that's their strength. Because they live in the world in which they have faults. And they keep going. If you don't think you have faults, I worry about you. When people come to Zen Center and they sit in full lotus And they have no problems. They never last. Because it's human beings that we are. And that's what makes our practice so worthwhile. It's not a practice of enacting something. but of transforming something.

[21:58]

So really what I want to say today, even though I've said a lot of things, and I haven't even talked about letting go yet, is that Pasahara is an amazing place. And you've put yourself into an amazing situation, which our ancestors have created for us to see the truth as it is. And it takes our work to do it. When people talk to me about teachers, I say... The teacher is no use to you until you realize you're completely in charge of your practice. Then you realize you could use all the help you can get. Now, letting go. Well, the first part of Zen practice is discipline.

[23:16]

Which, if you're like me, I'm a pretty lazy person, and discipline is an important thing for me to have... begun to experience. And it's not about your feelings or... It's just about straightforward doing the best you can. Not listening to your excuses. But after you've been disciplined, you have to find the soft side in yourself. I think the first few years of Zen practice is about finding what it's like to be anyone. Whatever temperature it is, whatever food is served, to not

[24:25]

Work on your individuation so much, but what it's like to be anyone. But then you need to know what it's like to be you. What things work for you and what things don't. The more you can be anyone, the more you can develop your individuality. The more you develop your individuality, the more you can be anyone. Each will hold the other back unless they're both put forth. So letting go is going to the edge of what you know and then keeping on going into the unknown. Letting go in Zen practice is to keep on going. Letting go in yoga is to push your body and push it past where you push.

[25:33]

Letting go in painting is to not have any idea what you're painting. Discovering in each stroke what is there. And that happens after discipline. Without discipline, You're just doing your habits. Are there any questions? This is a confusing morass of things I've spoken about. you know something is true or you feel it's true and you don't act on it, you're living a lie.

[26:44]

Now, if you act on it, you may find out that it's not the truth. But if you don't act on it, you'll never know. Does that help? Yeah. And we don't have to act on it by... gesticulating and waving our arms. Do you understand? Yes? Thank you for your talk, Michael. So, courage could sometimes be defined as facing fear. But hearing you talk, I think maybe you I think fear and resistance are pretty similar things.

[27:54]

And resistance is, I resist things because I don't want to feel pain. But I find when I feel pain, it's not so bad. I mean, it's terrible. but then it's gone. What do you think courage is? I think courage is being still when you want to run away. Yeah. You exemplify that very well. We think of courage as being a big noble act, but it may be not acting. It may be just watching very carefully. Without putting ourselves down or other people down. You don't have to be right or you don't have to be wrong. I was talking to someone today who...

[29:02]

a decision that the staff had made which I agreed with it sounded a little arbitrary but she started to get all wound up about it about how how bad and messed up they were but we're all messed up and we live in a community because we're not perfect And what we think is a mistake may not be a mistake. So we should thank people for taking positions of responsibility. This was a minor thing. This was not a big biggie. But it's easy to get worked up into how all of Zen Center is terrible because of one little thing.

[30:10]

Or we're terrible because of one single thing. You should see yourself for who you are. And you're not the worst person in the world. And you're not the best person in the world. You should learn what you need to improve. And if you're not convinced about something, look at it some more. Or try improving. See if it works. This is a community which everyone is working on themselves in order to work on us all. We can't glorify ourselves or demonize ourselves. That way we'll get it right.

[31:18]

One more question. Yes. Yes. We need to let go, but we don't know focus on the pain. Find out about it. Study it. Ask it to teach you. Instead of, I don't want to go there. And it's okay sometimes to say, I don't want to go there. You can do that as a skill and means, but sometimes you're going to have to go to it. Sometimes we say, the time's not right for me to do it. But to study your pain is to study your Buddha nature. You think so? Okay. Okay.

[32:26]

Well, thank you for all coming and spending your time here. And I'll get off this lumpy seat.

[32:35]

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