And since the, I think every service since I've been back, the incense has been out. Maybe I should say something about keeping incense going. If you put the sticks of incense, put the powdered incense on top of it, on top of the ash, evenly spaced, the slight space between each fire, it will go out. It's not, you can't treat it like a, you know, arrangement of sticks of incense on the ash. It's a fire and you have to figure out how to get the fire going, like building any fire. I remember when we first started offering incense years ago, we all thought there was

[02:05]

sand in the incense. We got the finest sand we could find, broke the incense trying to push it in. And then when we tried to lay sticks of incense down, sideways, on their sides, they went out immediately. And the reason we use ash and not sand, obviously, is that you can heat up the ash. And in Japan, of course, you can buy various grades of ash. The best ash, probably, I don't know what it's made from, but some kind of hard wood hand-picked or something. Anyway, it's very easy to get glowing. So, if it's damp, I drink up, sometimes we roast the ash.

[03:06]

We bake it, because you want to dry it out thoroughly. If it absorbs dampness, it'll be... It won't go. But, you know, in Eheiji, it's colder than here and damper than here. They keep it going. So, I think when you light it, if you have a flame on the sticks and hold it near the ash for a moment, you'll heat up the ash around it. Or you may have to have the points of fire initially a little bit off the ash, pointed up slightly, to give them a chance to get going and heat their surroundings. If they don't heat the surrounding, the surrounding will absorb all the heat. They'll go out, of course. So, you have to build a little fire, which heats the ash, in order to keep the incense going. If they're too close together, the fire won't breathe.

[04:15]

There'll be no... The space between two logs is actually hotter. If you put it too close together, it won't. If you put it too far apart, they don't help each other. So, according to the weather, it will change. My... This morning, we recited the name of my aunt, Dorothy Dudley, who died. She wasn't... There's no reason to talk about her. As a Buddhist, she was quite an ordinary person. And... I don't think she professed anything. But she was quite an influence on me.

[05:16]

And... When you ask... Her life was interesting enough, I suppose, to say something about her on the day shortly after she died. And she was very, very down-to-earth, straightforward person. She was one of the first people in the United States to go to a school to study how to run a museum. I think one opened it in New Haven or Hartford, someplace. And she was young. For some reason, she decided to do that. And, in fact, her classmate was Dorothy Miller, who became a pretty well-known first curator

[06:20]

of the Museum of Modern Art. And Dorothy, my aunt, Dorothy Dudley, and Dorothy Miller and Alfred Barr were the three people from the beginning of the Museum of Modern Art who stayed from the beginning through the longest. They were kind of founders of the museum. And Dorothy... Again, not Dorothy Miller. That's my aunt. She... somehow was willing to leave all of... which was a good painting to other people. And though she was pretty involved in that herself, there were lots of people interested in that. Not so many people interested in how you actually took care of the paintings. And in those days, no one knew how to take care of these paintings in this country, and

[07:21]

also particularly the large paintings that soon were to be painted. So she took on the job of taking care of the paintings, how to pack them, ship them, how to import them, where you get them through customs and things. And she ran the department there. She was registrar and took care of much of the restoring to it. And she got the first rank. At that time, unless a sculpture was representing a person, it wasn't a sculpture. It was considered an objet d'art. So it couldn't be brought into the country without paying some duty. So she went before Congress and got Francusi's bird recognized as a sculpture. And she wrote a book on how to be a registrar, which is used all over the world now.

[08:30]

It's the main book on it. Anyway, she lived in New York, and I remember when I was a child, I took for granted, if you lived in New York, you were a bachelor and had lovers and led the life you wanted to lead. So I took for granted when I was young that you could lead whatever life you wanted to lead. And she, I think, she lived with various painters for a while. I think Jackson Pollock and Nile Spencer, some of you may know who they are, at least who Pollock was. And she was a good friend of Calder and has many paintings and sketches and mobiles and things from those people. During the last part of her life, last 20 years or so, she lived with a sea captain

[09:40]

type who was quite wonderful man and finally married him. And when she died, I talked with him on the phone just afterwards, and he said to me, I don't know how to express it, but she was one classy dame. I thought that was a great statement. She was one classy dame. She was quite wonderful person. The day they took her to the hospital for the first time, there was this heart flutter which happened. She was 76. And at that time, retired, but head of the Maine, State of Maine Historical Society. And she came out, and my brother, I have a half-brother named Fred Radcliffe, he's 10 years older than I am. He was there, and as she was coming out of this coma, looking like death longed over for exile.

[10:41]

First thing she said as she sort of came into consciousness, looking at John, John, you were following the ambulance too close. And she wanted her briefcases immediately so she could get back to work at the hospital. How she knew where John was following the ambulance, I don't know. John, when I came to California, was very helpful to me because just before I left, I came to California with only $25 and just got on a Greyhound bus. And he said, if I ever need any help, I can call him. I never called him, but it was...

[11:42]

Anyway, it gave me some confidence that I could if I needed to. She died pretty easily. For the third time had this heart, rapid heartbeat, and made it to the hospital, and slowed her heart down, and she talked with my brother on the phone and joking, and then she asked for a cup of tea. And the nurse went out and she drank her cup of tea, and when the nurse came back, she died. I think I should tell you also about the situation with Jackie Warshaw.

[12:48]

As you all know, she came down here. Because her husband has been beating her up for five or six years. And she stayed here about a month, I believe, to give herself some space. Because in the past, he's always been able to force her to come back. But this time she felt her life was on the line, so she did manage to stay away. And then she wanted to stay at the Green Gulch, because she feels safer there. And she's not a member of some center, so she's paying some fee to stay there.

[13:53]

And as we expected the other day, last week when she gave Mira to her husband for his visiting, he took her away and hasn't returned her yet. He didn't return her last Sunday, I guess it was. And then a whole bunch of stuff ensued. He had a ticket to the Philippines, and we tracked airplanes to Hawaii, and on the way to the Philippines, and so forth. And then there was supposed to be a hearing Wednesday, and he appeared, and he'd gotten some lawyer, he must have paid this woman lawyer quite a lot of money, to try to change illegally the jurisdiction to Oakland,

[15:00]

and give him some flimsy excuse for keeping the child. And he's charged, Zen Center, with being like the People's Temple, an occult. And we're brainwashing Jackie and the child, and we have out-of-state facilities, and we're going to take the child to out-of-state facilities, and she'll probably be killed. And so, it's a pretty cheap shot. Strangely, Jackie's lawyer, a woman named Cecilia Lannan, was a close friend of Congressman Ryan, who was killed in Guyana. And... It was Ryan who encouraged her, got her to go to law school.

[16:04]

Anyway, I'm not particularly concerned about it, but it's what it's an example of what happens. Maybe it's a good example to discuss with you. My daughter, Sally, is mortified at the idea of it hitting the newspapers, because there's a good chance it will, because such a court case is open to reporters, and reporters regularly go. If the Chronicle Examiner are responsible, they won't publish it, or if the judge is responsible, he'll dismiss that as an issue. Because everything stated is untrue. We're giving her free room and board, and we're not permitting contact and so forth.

[17:17]

And that she's a member, whether she is or isn't, it's irrelevant. It might be better for Jackie's case to live outside Green Gulch, so he couldn't make the charges she's being kept by Green Gulch. But she prefers to stay at Green Gulch if she can, because she feels safe. So, you know, our purpose as a meditation group, or church, or whatever we're called, in one sense, would certainly be to give refuge to someone. I think if we do what we think is right, whatever happens will be okay.

[18:22]

But it is kind of a nuisance. We have to supply witnesses for the trial, and so forth. In fact, my daughter, she says already people at school say, what are you living in that community like? I talked with Danny Weinstein, who's now Judge Weinstein, the other day. Some of you know he comes down to the no-race. And he says that many people now are using, not people as angry or paranoid as Jackie's husband,

[19:26]

but many people are using the people's temple for their own ends now, to get at somebody whose job they want, like the sheriffs or something. People's temple's bad enough, they're going to use it. So he was supposed to... Krishna, Jackie's husband, was supposed to return... not go out of state, which he did, and also take her only to Disneyland, and return her. He claims now that he's not violent, and Jackie is, and Jackie beats up the child. He was given... the judge kind of exasperated, gave him until the 29th, which was yesterday?

[20:31]

The day before yesterday? The day before yesterday. 5 o'clock, and he didn't return her. He's in hiding, his lawyers don't even know where he is, he's changed lawyers for about the 4th time. I don't know what will happen. This time we can't go out and hunt for Mira, because if we do, it will lend fuel to his case, that we have these people who are trying to kidnap his child. Now, at least Jackie will have to do it more, to try to find. It's interesting that courts don't do much, courts don't know what to do in a situation like this. No one will help find the child, no one will charge the father with kidnapping. I'm a little worried about Mira, because he tends to discipline and force anyone in a situation that doesn't agree with him.

[21:47]

So, I'm a little worried about Mira, but I hope it turns out okay. Last time I was talking about images of the One, and riding up to the city I heard a song, Cry me a river that leads to your ocean. I thought that was a pretty good image of the One. There was an earlier, and I heard also an earlier song, in the oldies but goodies station. The song, Just Cry Me a River, our updated version is, Cry me a river that leads to your ocean. Shikantaza is the practice of non-attainment, or faith, faith that you are already good at.

[23:19]

Faith that everyone is already good at. Or Shikantaza is a big vacation from whether you are good or bad. Just be able to sit without any idea of good or bad or yourself. If you can do it, be one exactly with what you are doing, wherever you are, without either inheriting or succeeding, you are already a master example. This practice of non-attainment, or zero as some, maybe I can say, is also what we mean by Shikantaza. I believe in Japan now they say, if you have a phone number like 201-4561, they say, ni zero ichi re, ni roku san ichi roku.

[24:42]

But re is the word for zero. But now I believe they use it for the dash. So, they use zero now for zero. So they say, 201-0, and that zero is a different word, re. And it's the absence of a number. Or a space. I think with kids you can count. Instead of counting your fingers, one, two, three, four, five, you can count the spaces. One, two, three, four. Then you've got this one, five. And you've got this one in between. This one in between goes everywhere. It begins to be hard to count. One, two, three, four. But if I count this, what am I counting?

[25:48]

I'm counting less. So this is a path that always appears before us and joins everything. Zero doesn't have to be like in our number system, a fulcrum, or beginning of one, two, three, four, five. And numbers don't need any beginning. All numbers are just each other. Five is two plus three. Numbers spontaneously appear. The idea of zero as a beginning where there's no number, it's like the idea of time. I mean, we can have the thought, but there's no possibility of such a thing, of no number. If I count the space, I'm still losing it. So this is also meeting no one on the ancient path.

[26:54]

This ancient path, we can't say there was any finger or treading the hidden path. We cheat, says something like, when everything is empty, there is no comparison. And nothing has any flow. Or you can ask, what is the flow? The true image of the body. What is pure image of the body? Or, what is formlessness? What is concentration?

[27:58]

You can abstract, briefly, blood from the body, but it doesn't have any existence except as part of the body. Blood has no form of its own. Isolated form. And you can stop thinking in terms of form. Shikantaza is to stop thinking in terms of form. Separate existence. To take a vacation from comparisons. There was...

[29:05]

a man named, in Japanese, Nittanka... Tanaka... Nittanka Tennin. He was a disciple of Sekito Kise. And he was studying with Sekito, but he was also preparing to take the government exams in China, which are given, I gather, every few years, I forget. And you prepare for it. Like, I think the only thing we have is anything similar, bar exams for the law. But these covered every subject of the law. Subjects which were considered important in China. And he was on the way to the exam, which he'd been preparing for, and he met Sekito Roshi. And he said, Sekito Kise said to him,

[30:07]

Do you want to become an established government official or a Buddha? Shucks, he said. I want to become a Buddha. So, he had his head shaved at that time. And never took the exam. There was another famous layman named Yan Zhao, I believe, something like that. Yan Shou. And he... Oh, Tanka Tengyin, that was his name. He also was the guy who burned the Buddha to keep warm. And probably he wasn't so cold. Probably his monks were blind. And supposedly when they came and said, Why are you burning the Buddha? He said, I'm looking for the relics. If it's a Buddha, there should be relics. That's very much like the story of Tosu.

[31:08]

In the Second World War, Minao's a pretty smart fellow. New Electronics was one of the people supposed to study radar and know what radar was about. But radar was... You weren't even supposed to mention the word during the Second World War. It was secret research. And they didn't know much about it in Japan. So they would acquisition rice for the radar machine. And give it away in the streets of Tokyo. Because no one knew exactly, so he had this job. He would order all this rice. And go out and give it away. Anyway, Yan Zhao was such a person. Gave away. Minao also, you know. Somebody asked him if he had any lineage. He said, I am a child of a desert rat.

[32:11]

Anyway, Yan Zhao was convicted. And sentenced to death. Arrested and convicted and sentenced to death for giving away government funds to the poor. And people knew he was a good person. So the governor or emperor or whoever it was. Said that if he... Tell me how he faces death. And if he shows any discomfort. His intent is not very deep. But if he shows none, I'll pardon him. So some representative of the head of the government was there. Just as he was about to be executed. He said, I offer this life to all beings.

[33:18]

With a big smile. So they said, you win. You can go free and shave your head. I guess he accepted the sentence. And his name, Yan Zhao, I believe means extended life. And from then on, he practiced with people and compiled teachings from various teachers for people. I don't think Yan Zhao had to become a monk to do it. Maybe we can all find some way in our life to express our deep concern for people.

[34:32]

And our desire to be honest with ourselves and with each other. And I think the best basis for doing this is detachment and freedom. From so many problems that comes by doing shikantaza or doing zazen. Being able to know the true vacation. From good and bad and so many disturbances. To know whatever happens is just some appearance. And it goes away. And each of us can find that in our suffering. If you're really able to not be so damned interested in yourself.

[35:34]

Give up always. Be able to give up always thinking about yourself. Start out at least taking a vacation. Asking what is true in each other. The body. Where are Buddhist realms? What is pure body? I think I told you Harry's statement about making a canoe. Yes? In the city. Not here. Here? Oh, here. Well, I'll have to do it again anyway.

[36:48]

You know, Harry was complaining about how people work at Green Gulch as usual. Though, since he isn't so painful in his hip anymore, he doesn't complain about us quite so much. Anyway, he was saying, if you make a canoe out of a log and you just chip out the inside. Just to chip out the inside. As if you were supposed to get this stuff out of there. You won't find the form of a canoe. Each chip has to be all good stuff. Making the whole form of canoe with each chip. This kind of effort on each thing. Proceeding, as I say, through your acts.

[37:53]

With a sense of form, a sense of absolute or emptiness on each action. So that you are master of what you are doing or one with what you are doing. Wherever you are. It starts, obviously, as I always say. Right now, not later when you had Satori. Right now, you just take possession of what you are doing.

[39:03]

You are breathing, you are sitting. Without any comparisons. If you can do it, it's Shikantazma. In everything you do, not just sitting. And it's very simple, but pretty difficult to do. But there is no reason to put off starting until you are stronger. Or you got some things out of the way. Or you thought through some things. Just start your practice. Your life of non-attainment. Your life of Shikantazma. It will be much simpler for you.

[40:12]

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