So I've been studying Ganaparamutta with a wonderful group of people for this past week. And the zazen was so impressive to me. The zendo has been so still when we do our special zazen at 8.15 in the morning that I've decided tonight to give a practitioner's talk. I think that some of the things that have come up while we've been discussing and while I've been having private interviews with them incline me in that direction. I would like to take on the subject of some of the questions that people ask me about practice, about deepening practice. So practitioners often say, I want to deepen my practice.

[01:08]

So what is it that people mean when they say such a thing? And I think basically I've come to the conclusion that there may be three different things that people mean by doing this, by asking this. And what people usually complain about is practice is losing its lusters. It's boring. It's getting routine. And to me, that often means, when people say that, that it's stop producing the energy and calm that people love it for when they first start practicing. But when people tell me this, they don't feel experimental. They don't feel like changing the way they do it or adding something or something like that. I think that people think that something this old and mysterious and this many words have been written about it that they just shouldn't mess around, question it or challenge it in any way that they must be in the wrong.

[02:25]

They don't have the talent to go on or whatever it is. I don't think it's like that. And I also don't think it's the fact of practice itself that this has happened, that it no longer recharges people's batteries. I certainly think it's not the fact of our 2,600-plus-year contemplative wisdom tradition. I think it's our minds. I just think that we habituate if we do not reinvest energy and commitment in our practice. After a couple of years, I think it gets pretty routine. I think our brains, our minds have a natural tendency to adapt, to habituate, to flatten out experiences that we repeat over and over. And our practice will become stale or

[03:26]

one more thing that we have to do in an already busy day. That's so sad to me when people say that. You know, it's just one more thing and it doesn't really contribute, you know, to the rest of the day when it's gotten that far. But yet people have persisted, you know, in the faith, even when they describe it that way, in the faith that maybe it will do something. So this is... generally asked by a practitioner, this kind of deepening request is asked by a practitioner who has not yet made practice the basis of their lives. They're still wondering what can it do for them. And not that that is a bad question to ask, I mean, you know, here it is something like 40 years from me and I'm still wondering, what happened there? could have been making money.

[04:30]

So I'm intrigued by this question of what do people mean when they say I want to deepen my practice. And especially with mirror practitioners say five, ten year or under five to ten year category. I think that that means for most people like that, that they would like to get more consistent to move practice from a thing they do to a more central position in their lives. Maybe they feel swept away by gaining and losing mind. And they want to put a pole in the rushing river of gaining and losing mind. And they want that pole to be at least as reliable as gaining and losing mind. They want to stop, stop that flow of being pulled here and there. So the rushing river of self-interest is not satisfying to a person who's been sitting for a couple of years, but there's some question about how this poll gets reliable, gets stable.

[05:41]

And second, I think the second thing that people can mean by asking this question is how do I deepen my practice these are people who have sat for a while this is really 10 12 years something like that and they're now feeling restless like they have too much energy and these years that I'm pilling on these categories are you know so wildly individualistic as to not mean anything but this is someone who's been sitting a little longer than the first category they're moving away from sitting now after practicing for many years because it's too still and they feel restless they've got a lot of energy they want to travel to go to Tibet you know the practice over there must be better they want to write a book they want to start a romance start a business the thing here is the energy excess energy so in

[06:47]

a real practitioner, someone who really has stayed with the practice for a certain amount of time but is starting to move away, this usually means they haven't plowed enough of the energy that their practice created back into the practice. They haven't plowed it back into mindfulness, which for some reason people think of as a beginning practice. I mean, Mindfulness is forever. So sitting creates tremendous energy, and it's big and bright energy. It's creative energy. It's not just restlessness. It's demanding something from you. And I think this is why people want to start businesses, write their life stories, get into a romance, that kind of thing. So if you feel there is restlessness and it's leaving you away from practice instead of deeper into practice, this is a problem.

[07:51]

You need a demanding practice to sop up this demanding energy. And usually in San Francisco, if I'm seeing people there, I usually recommend when someone starts talking like this that they come to Tassajara because you will take care of that. So I think there are things you can do if you start to feel this way. You can study with a teacher instead of on your own and be challenged by someone else. You can present your practice to someone else, which is a pretty scary proposition for a lot of people. And that is immediately more energetic. You can study the precepts and observe one precept literally for a year. Figure out how to observe precepts literally. That takes a lot of energy.

[08:52]

You can do long sittings, five-day sashins, seven-day sashins, and do them regularly, like every couple of months. I really think long sittings are very important to this practice because it takes a couple days for you to give up. You can... Get through a one-day sitting just by counting how many more zazones there are. But you can't get through a five-day sitting that way. If you do that at some point, your mind just won't do the math. You just give up and submit. A long sitting is very important for a long-term practice. And also you can take on a personal koan. I really like personal koans. I've done many of them. I've always been involved in them. This is a koan that you personally take on. The one I've most recently been studying with for many years, almost 10 years now, is what do I trust inspired by the Xin Xin Ming, which some of you know is my favorite poem.

[10:09]

So what do I trust? And it just changes from every couple of years. It's a different thing. I think, oh, I'm through with this. I've got all the information I need. And then, boom, more stuff comes up. And for a long time, for many years, I practiced with, how does the Buddha get angry? To try to explore and encourage my own anger. That's a separate practice from figuring out what to do with it. And I had a student who took on the koan, how can I be loved? As I told the group today, she's one of my favorite examples of a personal koan. Oh, I don't want to keep you up. So within a week, her koan had changed How can I be loved too?

[11:12]

How do I love? And so on and so on. And how do I cause my own suffering? How do I separate myself from others? That's very creative to do that. How do I struggle? What is my struggle? It's often said that practice is a lack of struggle. So... You know, how do I struggle? In what ways? In what subtle ways? Well, you could take on a mindfulness practice. So I saved this for last because it's my favorite. Taking on a mindfulness practice really invigorates your practice. And it should be something that's really meaningful to you. Like taking on, I will make a connection with every being I encounter. Baker Roshi suggested this to me. this was an interpretation of saving all sentient beings to contact everyone that you encounter or everything I do will make the world a kinder place to create a samadhi of kindness that you know your organizing principle for how you conduct yourself is kindness and you know that's not as easy as it looks because what is kindness to blah blah blah

[12:36]

It gets complex, but there are three basic mindfulness practices that I recommend. One is mindful awareness of everything you touch, feeling the texture and temperature of everything you touch. You know, I really feel that... I mean, I finally came to terms with Zen forms over this practice, you know, of touching the incense, touching the... the bowls, the incense bowls, and touching clothes, touching just everything you touch, being mindfully aware of that contact. A second mindfulness practice that I've done for years is being aware of bodily sensations with all your movements. And a third mindfulness practice is being aware of the animal presence of every being that comes into your energy zone. to just be aware, to eventually get to the place where you can close your eyes and know how many people are in a room.

[13:43]

Because your body absorbs their vibes, their feelings. So those are things you can do. And then the third, to enliven your practice, and then the third meaning that I think that I want to deepen my practice has is, and it's related to the second, but it has much more awareness in it. I think it could mean that the practitioner has a deep yearning, which has been uncovered by sitting practice, a deep yearning to experience the ineffable, to connect with their life in a very direct and immediate way, to go beyond labels, to go beyond concepts, to go beyond pleasant and unpleasant, comfortable or uncomfortable, to just be in your life.

[14:49]

This is a deep yearning that I think that all of us have, consciously or unconsciously. because of what we're willing to put up with to have these kinds of experiences. I think it's very important for people who have a practice. So this is a difficult consideration to deepen one's practice so that your life is basically it comes out of directness or intimacy. And when you separate things out, you're plucking them out from the flow. So I think it's difficult because it takes tremendous energy to overcome our intellectual conditioning and trust our experience as adequate. Trust our experience we have as adequate. But the main reason that you might want to refresh your practice

[15:58]

is that you have changed enough since the beginning so that your original reasons and assumptions for practicing are no longer relevant. They're no longer why you practice those original reasons. And if you keep trying to fall back on the same old thing, you have a vague sense of they're no longer applying to you. You may not say those words to yourself, but it doesn't fit anymore. And a mistake would be to think that you've reached an end to the benefits of your practice or to think you don't have what it takes to crack the next barrier and then to quit, to fade away from practice. So I think to the contrary, that you don't have what it takes to penetrate the next barrier. To the contrary, I think your practice at that point has deepened beyond the reach of gaining mind.

[17:00]

You have to notice that over the time you've been practicing you've been developing an inner life that has grown beyond your original reasons for starting to sit. And this inner life might have become without your noticing as it went along more compelling than the temptations in our culture. Your inner life might have become more compelling than material things or entertainment or stimulation that is offered by our culture. And as I've said many times before, I think that over the years of practice, that 80% of the changes that happen with practice are subterranean. You don't really notice them unless there's a reason to. You start to do something and they, oh, This is different from how I used to do it. Usually it's someone else who points it out. Gee, you're different in that way.

[18:03]

But it's just as well that you don't notice what's going on because you would interfere with it. If you did, you would think that it meant a different thing. I really don't think that we are qualified to judge our practice because we always judge it from improvement or gaining mind and it has nothing to do with that. Gaining mind is trying to, using gaining mind to judge your practice is like trying to pick up a dime with a baseball mitt. I mean, it's just too gross. But I do think, I do think that said, about all the changes being subterranean and all, I do think that the lotus and the fruits of practice, or some fruits of practice, are very encouraging to us. and keep us willing to put up with the discouraging stuff, like years and years and years, and no satori and sashins, that kind of thing.

[19:12]

So I wanted to mention some fruits of practice. I'll mention them for another few minutes before I end. One is it's nonlinear beyond your wildest imaginings. It just doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, I've noticed a couple of things, and I just, where did that come from? I mean, I'm just not that kind of a person. Well, first of all, finding value in forms, in Zen forms. I never liked them. I was at Zen Center for a couple of years before I bowed. I didn't have an altar, even at Tassajara. I love the forms now. I don't know. I can't tell you. I really love to feel my body do forms. I love to touch the things involved in forms. And another thing is I know I'm unable actually to seek revenge when I've been hurt.

[20:23]

I am a Scorpio and I have always entertained elaborate revenge schemes and put them into practice. Setting up a string of dominoes that all I have to do is push the first one and the person is destroyed. So the last time that happened, the last time I thought, that is unforgivable. that this person has done this to me, and I know just how to repay. And I went to put that first domino up, and I couldn't do it. And I kept trying. I kept trying over the couple weeks that we were having this contention. And I couldn't do it. I finally gave up. I never thought of it again. I couldn't tell you what happened. It's just that, how could I do this to a Dharma brother?

[21:28]

That's what kept coming up when I went to do it. How could I do this? And I did stop gossiping. And I'm not interested at all anymore. I mean, that used to be major for me to say something witty and have people appreciate how witty that I could put someone down. I haven't done it for years. So I want to quit soon, so I'm just going to mention a couple more. This I particularly enjoy, particularly enjoy this particular fruit, which is that not continuing judgments past the present moment. And this is an example I'll give you from Russian River Zendo. There's a woman who comes very often to our sangha. She's not a student of either Tony or me, but she does sit.

[22:35]

I mean, she's a good person. And she is very resistant to forms. I have nothing against this. She did want, when we first put a Buddha on the altar, it took us a while to get a Buddha on the altar for reasons I won't go into, which are logistical. When we first put a Buddha on the altar, she said, well, if you put a Buddha on the altar, which you like, can I put a Jimi Hendrix album on the altar? LAUGHTER This is karma. I understand this is karma. But she has a very irritating habit of when we're having a silent discussion, she will talk at length, and then she'll go home and have doubts about what she said. She'll think, I shouldn't have said that. So she'll call us up. She doesn't have this in private. She calls us up and says, oh, I didn't mean to say that.

[23:39]

She does this every week. Now, we could not answer the phone, I understand that, but it doesn't seem right to not engage this. So I thought, this is the most annoying person in Sonoma County. And I thought, you know, she just has scattered mind, and this mind, and that mind, all the minds at my expert disposal in Rhode Island. That was, oh, the first couple of times that this happened. And then the next time I saw her, the next Saturday program, it wasn't there. The judgment was gone. It was like I never saw her before except in my warmth for her. I thought, that is so interesting. Well, it happened the next week and the next week and the next week. Every time I see her, I let her annoy me anew.

[24:40]

Laughter It's like you're not tearing this huge bag over your shoulder anymore. You know, it's just right there in the moment. I really like that a lot. Then the last one I want to mention is that even though the intensity of emotions seems to increase, at least for someone like me, who I was numb for most of my life, this is really an important aspect of practice to me to develop my emotions which I have been working on for over 20 years to know and feel deeply so the intensity of emotions for me is very I mean I have it I have access to my emotions now and they're very intense

[25:42]

But ironically, they're less encumbering. It's just like the getting irritated that that woman only happens when she irritates me. She can bear, you know, a couple of hours. I can bear a couple of hours, excuse me. If they're not as encumbering, even though they're very intense, heartbreak is okay. Completely going to pieces is okay. I'm naturally hysterical. And I went through my favorite student's death. Marvin Mercer died last year. My cancer being strung out over losing my memory and my brain, which I just loved. So when you're forcing, when you're forced against the wall, Taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is all there is.

[26:43]

The present moment is the only reality. And in the present moment, emotions can be very intense. But in the next moment, there's something else. And so I think that that intensity combined with not being as encumbering is gives one a buoyant feeling, a light feeling. So I want to stop here. I brought two poems to read to you from students who were in a mindful retreat with me, and they're very present, but I'll only read one of them so that we can go. And this is by someone some of you know, by Ilani, who's now back in Germany. And this was written during a sashim here. During hyung-hung, you gracefully hovered in, settling... Oh, this is to a dandelion seed.

[27:49]

To a dandelion seed. During hyung-hung, you gracefully hovered in, settling down on my zabaton next to my shin. We sat zazam together in stable, immovable sitting. I am not moving. You are not moving. All day and a bit of the night we sit, and I am bowing to you. With every zazen-ending bell, I bow to you. I see only you. You are my heaven and earth, your head photogrammed, smooth and soft, ready to fly in an endless sky. You seed, rough and all-containing, growing on sour earth, turning it into healing bitterness. in a happy yellow. You really give everything you can. Let me bow to you again. Next day, you are swept away in beautiful soji. Gone, gone, gone beyond.

[28:50]

Thank you very much.

[29:05]

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