You know, the first lecture of a practice period, I think it's important to remind ourselves of how short a period of time we can be here at Tassajar. And also I want to say, in particular in this practice period, having a woman shuso, or not yet, but trainee to be shuso.

[01:05]

I think we have a chance in America at this time to open up Zen practice. I don't know how to say it, but in a more real, less symbolic way, to the male and female side of our life, aspects of our life. and the power of differences. And what I'm struck with, always, as I say, coming back to Tassajara, is how different it is from the city. And I was just at Tassajara, at Shobwan, in the Sierra, for several days, and there, dirt is so red.

[02:49]

quite white-red. And at Green Gulch, it's black. And here, it's brown. In the city, it's cement, or gray. And to me, the biggest difference is the dirt. How much dirt is under this zinda where we sit? Lots of dirt. Lots and lots of dirt. And under my cabin there is a lot of dirt. And yet, that dirt is quite different here or Greenbelch. And we right now, too, have important opening time in history for looking at

[04:20]

what life is. So it's not just that you have space and clearing in your own life to come to Tassajara, but our society has a clearing in its confusion, because of its confusion. to try out something like Buddhism. And at the same time, as Buddhism becomes more accepted, there is some danger here in it becoming more accepted. And yet, by being more accepted, it makes you accept it more. You have to accept it more. it less and less can be something you are doing outside the mainstream of your life, or as a way to be outside the mainstream of life in America. Or Europe,

[05:51]

or even the Orient, too. You'll find out, I think. People in the future will thank you for having practiced at Tassara. We're practicing. Zen is maybe a kind of invisible shamanism, where even you, who are practicing, don't know. Zen practice is so subtle, even you don't know what you're doing. We try not to know what we're doing and Zen practice is so subtle, most of it we can't know anyway. But people will thank us for practicing, for having the opportunity to do something like be at Dussehra. Anyway, this is how I feel. You may not feel exactly the same way.

[07:11]

In shamanism, you know, a rope is often used, like Indian, a snake or rope going up out of a can. Rope is often used to symbolize two worlds, linking two worlds. Being here, I think, should awaken for you a sense of another world. We can say shamanistic world, maybe. And yet the same world. So I hope being at Tassajar gives you intuition, ability to act on You're what I would call, Buddhism would call, your true body. You're space, to have insight into space, nature of space. Nose is, Durden said, eyes and nose. He found out in China, vertical and horizontal.

[09:04]

Nose doesn't change much but is characteristic of us. Eyes change quite a bit and are expressive of us. Mountains don't change much and sky is very expressive. Branches of tree. don't interfere with each other. Things don't interfere with each other. We say everything is mind, but to find out everything is mind, it's necessary to proceed through your body. I think we have trouble with

[10:07]

too much to do or feeling oppressed, you know. When you try to do things mentally, you end up doing things halfway. You have some idea of what to do. But if you follow your acts, If you drop something, you pick it up, you close the door. Each thing you do thoroughly, if you do everything quite thoroughly, your mind has to give up its plan and how much time and what you thought you were going to do in this life, because your acts can't keep up with it. But if you do each thing quite thoroughly, starting from this moment, time becomes much more realistic. It proceeds then from each act you do. And you can find your freedom from

[11:34]

encumbering physical world, to understand, to find out necessity. Lama Govinda, last Sunday I guess at Green Gulch, mentioned the importance of gravity. I think that's quite true. Something I've tried to talk about in various ways. You may, we may think we want to be free to do things as we wish. But if we're free to do things anyway, everything should be free to do things anyway. If that were so, everything would be floating about. You'd come to the zendo and it would float, and float it off somewhere.

[12:47]

Everything would be bumping into each other, careening around space with no gravity, like inside a space capsule. You'd be running around trying to hold things down. There'd be no meaning to the idea of Tao or path, path that you find out with your own feet. Not by map or fast transportation. And path which is always in you. What you do, what you've done leads to now. And you are treading path of what you've done until now. So, because each thing has its place, we can have a path. The Prajnaparamita Sutra says, neither bound nor free. Form is neither bound nor free. The world is not made up of have-tos. If it's have-to, like I have to die, I have to pay taxes,

[14:23]

That's some mental rushing world. You haven't proceeded through your body. If you proceed through your body, you don't have to die. It doesn't conform to you or occur to you as You don't have to spit, you just spit. You pay taxes? Oh, want some taxes? Okay, here, take this. That's all. Proceeding through your body, you will die. It's not a have-to. Have-to implies some alternative, like you could float in space. If you do your practices, each thing, quite thoroughly, this is not have to. When you do it halfway, then you're in a world of have tos. I have to finish it or I have to do something. But to do it thoroughly isn't a have to do it thoroughly.

[15:48]

If you just do things, each thing you do, each step quite thoroughly. I think some of you were in the city when I talked about Junko, carrying two sticks. To attend the Zenda, not to hit people, to attend the Zenda, and most of the time, as I said, Five percent of the time you are actually walking, not hitting. So point is just to walk. So although Tassajara is quite different from San Francisco, and quite different from what we will do other times in our life, And we find out love is impermanent, breath is impermanent, everything quite impermanent, your parents are impermanent, your friend is impermanent. At the same time

[17:08]

Realization or beginning realization means you find out continuity or space-like adamantine body. Tassajara, you find out tassajara everywhere. In walking with stick, you find out stick everywhere. You know, again, I'm not kidding. This is quite real experience. to find out this continuity, which we can say is emptiness, or absolute, or space. And as our society, which is happening so rapidly, accepting Buddhism, accepting way of dharma, people will find out this way of dharma or continuity despite changing circumstances. But you may need Zazen or Tassajara to find out. So Buddhism doesn't emphasize some cosmology or the

[18:41]

alignment of planets or astrology, but space. So dirt may be different, but there's a great deal of dirt. And style, you know, I think I should say something about style. Style of Zen practice is very important and very powerful. It's so powerful, style is so powerful, that often it lasts much longer than the content. Pretty soon people are just doing the style. So you may think, well, style is something hollow and we should return to content. Style is unimportant, it's just hollow. But this is ignoring importance of form or unity of form and content. It lasts so long and becomes hollow because it's so powerful.

[20:07]

Some content without form is impossible, some jello. Water is useless unless it's in vase or pitcher, spring or mist or rain. Its usefulness is always some form, mist or rain or spring. And style of Zen practice is very important. You know, not to overfill your bowl in the Zen. Some people pack it. Vegetables hanging over the edge. You can have a second helping. much better take a second helping and fill it up so not much sticks out over the top there is old dried flour on my desk

[21:34]

looking like some waste material among pencils, erasers, and such things. And I thought, maybe I should throw it away. It's just been sitting there for quite a while. And there was a Buddha, a Buddha I have on my desk. And instead, I took the dried flower and put it in front of the Buddha, and it looked wonderful. I tried it with an eraser, too. I put the eraser in there. I could get the eraser, so it looked pretty good, but the eraser felt better on the desk. This is style. to know how to put something in front of Buddha to know style of Tassajar or style of San Francisco how to present way of Dharma how to proceed through your acts with everyone

[22:53]

Anyway, our historical period and your personal history have given you some chance to be here. And as you know, and maybe I shouldn't mention it so often, but Buddhism, if the Dharma is going to find a place in the West, it is up to you. You are the ones doing it. You are members of one of the oldest Buddhist groups in the West, and you are among most senior people practicing in the West. hard to take it seriously. But it's true, this historical period and your personal history have given you this opening.

[24:16]

and we have to find out anew what our life is and what Buddhism is what necessity of life is I have to sometime, do Ash's ceremony for Trudy Dixon, who edited Tsukiroshi's book, and who died of cancer when she was 29, I think. And it can be, you know, I have many things to do, and living are more demanding, and so I can view it as a chore, something I'll have to do sometime. And it's so, but also the power of truth is not gone.

[25:59]

And there's her husband, former husband, and her daughter and son and brother. And I can view it as chore or I can view it as opportunity to join myself with Trudy's power, with her brother, with her daughter. And most important, I think I must find a time to do it when her daughter is ready to understand her mother and her mother's death. So at the same time, so all the time, I am preparing for this joining with her. I think this kind of activity is what we mean, what Buddhism means by merit. Not to see something as a chore, but what you are doing, what you have to do, you find out the continuity of it.

[27:29]

to find out the continuity of your acts, to proceed through your body, you can find out mind is Buddha. Even though, Nanchuan said, mind is not Buddha, wisdom is not Tao. That's also what I mean. So I hope we can, by being at Tassajara, begin to hear another language. We know if you see a tree, there is tree. And there's the word tree. And there's something other than tree and the word tree.

[28:56]

something ten thousand kelpas old a language of birds or trees or animals or stream a continuity of language that begins to speak with you And sometimes I'm a little... So when you... but when you want to, if you're writing a poem is to complete the experience, you have some experience, and instead of trying to describe it or redo it or explain it, you're writing a poem is completing it. I think this is... to me anyway, this is...

[30:57]

at least from a Buddhist point of view, how I would understand writing a poem or any act. We should have confidence, I think, that people come up to here. We don't have to explain it, but we may complete it. This is also what I mean by doing things thoroughly. Everything you do is to complete it, not to redo or grab hold of something. So, maybe, palm begins where your experience stopped. Experience that you may have wanted to capture. This is also what I mean, to proceed through your acts, or to find necessity, or to find way of dharma in everything you do, or continuity, or absolute, that when you leave tassara, tassara is still, yielding to you.

[32:26]

So I hope by practicing here at Tassajara and practicing Buddhism and this practice period, we realize impermanent nature of everything and realize continuity, deep continuity, deep maybe shamanistic language. Although we seek to find out magic formula of how you exist, how we exist individually, how we all exist, how we exist with others, everyone wants to find out this magic formula. And most people seek it in the language of their society. Dress, style, employment, and so forth. But we are seeking it in a language that doesn't know any particular period

[34:24]

or any particular form. Sometimes it may be mist, sometimes it may be a glass of water. Neither bound nor free. This deep continuity of life, deep language of life, space like a body that always exists and every circumstance, every difference, every variation is the expression of one mind or whole mind. We find out

[35:49]

how to express particular without violating the absolute. This is Five Ranks of Tumshan. Or I may put this down quite silently, or I may put it down with its characteristic noise. Do you understand that? Or you may put dried flower in front of a Buddha. You have this chance.

[36:55]

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