I'll go away. I think, from what we've been talking about and from the questions you're asking yourself about practice, about what you should do, some very fundamental questions come up. Come up in various ways, like who's in charge or what's in charge.

[01:27]

do we have, what's the relationship between our karma and our practice? Can we really make a decision to change the path of our life, our destiny? Kind of free will type question. What I've been trying to do is sort of rough out, sketch out, rough out what most of us turn over during the first year or two of practice.

[02:37]

to areas of mind and consciousness and attitude that we begin to be aware of by practice. Even the four jhanas or trances, jhanas, are not completely unfamiliar to us. Although their presence with any completeness or thoroughness is not here for most of us.

[03:40]

Still, you shouldn't expect in the future, at some point you will have very clear, ah, this is the first. Then you'll have a year or two of the second. Something like that. And then, great anticipation of the third. Actually, the way we practice in Zen, since we emphasize the fourth, giving up the first three. You sometimes are experiencing one, sometimes another. Sometimes you'll notice and sometimes you won't. And over several years, if you looked back and tried to describe your experience, you could say, yes, those

[04:56]

Those things happen, rather in some sequence, but scattered all over my life, all over the last few years. Anyway, as I said, roughing out what is happening to most of us in our practice. Because it does raise some questions which you have to cope with. The practice of precepts and Abhidharma psychology and mindfulness It's our kind of yoga. If this posture is yoga, main yoga posture, then precepts are also a kind of yoga, kind of posture for our whole life. And you can't do this practice by

[06:30]

just a posture. If you control your breathing and control your mind by your breathing, when you cease to control your breathing, your mind will cease to be controlled and go back to its old causes and inclinations. So, a kind of right thinking or right inquiry has to be practiced too. Kind of yoga of our precepts, mindfulness, etc. Combining this right inquiry, developing, refining your attitude, becoming aware of your many attitudes, coupled with zazen practice. And of course they go back and forth. To really do zazen practice without right inquiry, you would

[07:59]

your sadhana practice would become quite stagnant and forced. So one, they're not separate. Sadhana leads you into right inquiry, etc. So what you find is you'll find is lots of concepts, lots of entities being formed all the time and many of them are antiques, old furniture that you've got. And the more you find out all your antiques, and contemporary furniture. Like one of those stores that used to be on Macalester Street. The more you see, it could have been any one of the stores. It doesn't make much difference, you know, sort of like a shopping list.

[09:28]

It ceases to be possible to identify with this particular collection is mine. It's yours, but it's so little different from everyone else's. And you see how easily your particular collection of concepts could have been any other, could have been slightly different given different circumstances. This develops your feeling for others because when you see somebody, it's very clear, there but for a concept or two, go I. Criminal or whatever, you know, very little difference. sort of grab bag of concept. So you feel more compassion for your friends. And as you can begin to have some detachment

[10:52]

and we can say slowing down of your mental processes, more experience of space anyway in your mental processes, you can begin to take this kind of inventory. And, as I've said, this inventory increases your detachment, freedom from identification with a particular I. At this point it's not so difficult, you know, to make a choice. Which do I want to do? How do I want to live? Which of this collection do I want, you know, and which do I throw out? And it doesn't make much difference. You can choose your career like reaching into a, you know, a Halloween grab bag, pull one out, pin it on yourself. Or, you know, what most of us do is we

[12:26]

you know, pin one on to ourselves that we've already got some experience, have some experience in. Might as well make use of what you've wasted your time doing. So you take the one everyone knew you'd take anyway and pin it on yourself. there's some freedom there because you realize it could have been anyone, almost anyone. So the question of what is the barrier in our practice and how do we help ourselves, how do we take care of ourselves, Who is making the decision to choose this one or that one? What is consciousness? You're conscious of choosing, conscious of your concept. Is this consciousness you? This question and the questions I'm posing now, no one will answer for you. I will not answer for you.

[13:59]

Anyone who gives you an answer is misleading you. This is what you are and you should ascertain it for yourself. Am I this consciousness? How can I use this consciousness? Is this consciousness something substantial and continuous? Yes, sir. Now, from the point of view of the practice of perfect wisdom, just choose some focus to meet people in. This is one of the practices of perfect wisdom. One is the non-abandonment of others. Another is to choose some focus, realizing it's unreal, and yet some focus that you can meet people in. Not to be, you know, a doctor or a lawyer or carpenter or scholar or whatever

[15:25]

to achieve something, but just as a way of meeting people. You may be a very good doctor or whatever, but your purpose is just to meet people. Just to free them from the apprehension of a basis. And you act in such a way that They won't be fooled by appearances. Once you've chosen your focus, being a priest,

[16:32]

or a doctor, lawyer, administrator, wandering monk, whatever you've chosen, you then direct your thoughts at it. Again the question is, is this natural? Isn't it something artificial? Who's directing your thoughts? Who's focusing your consciousness? This question you must confront for the next few years, at least increasing your familiarity with all its turnings. Anyway, at this point, seeing your ragbag of concepts, you choose one.

[17:37]

You may choose Buddhas or Kesa. You may choose something else. You may choose to be a farmer. But whatever you choose, you then direct your thoughts at it. All of your energy goes into becoming a farmer or a priest or something. what you think you become. If you're practicing Buddhism, if you want to become a Buddha, you think, I will become a Buddha. I will practice Buddhism. I will free myself from entanglement. I will free myself from anger. This thought then is very powerful. You will see in your own practice the immense power of thinking, directing yourself, I will be concentrated. So, this is, you know, from one direction how the power of, you know, some chant or practice which says, I will get wealth, or I will achieve worldly success and get a new Dodge Maxibus, or something.

[19:06]

It will appear. You watch. It will appear in front of the building. I think I'm kidding. Where do you think Zen Center came from? Just a lot of us kept thinking Zen Center would appear, and here it is. I can't believe it, actually. I keep expecting it to disappear. They tell me Julia Morgan designed this building, but I don't know. She did. We made it here. Anyway, you direct your thoughts this way. And from the point of view of perfect wisdom, it doesn't matter whether you're directing your thoughts toward being a weaver or a Buddhist, Buddha. Anyway, in a like way, you now deepen the production of the thought of enlightenment, of the welfare of all beings.

[20:21]

and many opportunities begin to arise for you to be a farmer or a weaver or a Buddha or to engage in the welfare of all beings. You begin by this process to see, to have confidence in how we participate in the production of our world. And you cease to fear the environment. You cease to fear outside versus inside. And you begin to sense of what Tsukiyoshi always called Big Mind, at this point you can begin to give up much more completely. But enlightenment and this practice in its fullest sense is not something you can try to do.

[21:48]

It's something that happens to you, or just comes upon you, or sneaks up on you. David. David, you? Oh, there you are. Yesterday you were talking about the raucous substantiality of your thoughts. Anyway, your thoughts were very substantial. Anyway, I had an image of a kind of colliding world, you know, of these thoughts of yours. But I think we all too much, and you too much, have the feeling of a cause leading to a cause, or practice leading to practice, or practice leading to enlightenment, or now I'm practicing and such and such should happen, or the sutras say such and such.

[23:21]

The question here then again is, is moment after moment related to each other or is each moment discrete? Is each moment separate? What is the nature of momentary experience? Is it continuous or is each moment everything disappear and reappear anew? can you choose your destiny? In other words, another way of saying it is, can you say, this is my grab bag of karma, now I'm going to do this. Can the next moment be completely separate? Or can there be enlightenment? Instantaneous enlightenment. Now I've got it, or now I have it, now I have it. Now I have it, now I surely don't, or whatever

[24:27]

Suzuki Roshi on this point told a famous story about Yakujo and the fox. Do you know the story of Yakujo and the fox? All of you? I heard Mumon Roshi lecture on it too. It's the only Teisho lecture in Japanese I've never even known the subject, huh? I was able to pick out the word Yakujo and fox. So I knew, but somebody afterwards came up and said, what was he talking about? I said, he was talking about the story of Yakujo. I enjoyed the Teisho, but that's all I understood, Yakujo. Anyway, the story is a pretty good story, I think. Yakucho is lecturing in his temple, and every day he lectures. Some old man is in the back of the lecture hall, and

[25:51]

and then goes away. And then after some time, one day, one of the lectures, when all the monks leave the room, the old man who has been coming and sitting in the back doesn't go. So, he comes up to Yakuja and says, I'm not, I'm actually a fox. And I've come to hear your lecture because many years ago, before you came to this temple, I was abbot of this temple. I was here in this temple. And I answered a question wrong, wrong. And because I answered it wrong, I was turned into a fox.

[27:04]

And I, trying to understand the Dharma, could you please help me? And Yakujo said, what was the question? And the man says, the fox man says, A monk asked me, does one moment lead to the next moment? Or can we be free from our karma? And Dr. Joe, the fox man, said, I answered the question, yes. By zazen you can be free from your karma, transcend your karma. And I was turned into a fox. So I'm living as a fox in the mountain behind your temple. And I can't be free until I find the answer to this question.

[28:28]

Anyway, he said, he answered, no, we are not tied to our karma, we can transcend it. We can get free from cause and effect. But now I'm a fox, I can't get free from cause and effect. So, Kapi Jo said, ask me the question. So, Foxman said, can we get free from cause and effect by zazen or any way? Can we get free from cause and effect? And Hyakujo said, Hyakujo said, no, you cannot get free from cause and effect. You are a fox and you are going to continue being a fox and in your next life you'll be a fox, reborn and reborn as a fox. And at that moment he achieved enlightenment and was freed from cause and effect. Is he still a fox? No, no, he died. And they went out, Gyakujo told his

[30:02]

We will go out in the mountain and find a fox which is dead and bury it with the ceremony for a priest." And they went out the next morning and found the fox and buried it. So we have to be free to come and go, cause and effect, yes and no, dualism or freedom from dualism. This kind of freedom grows out of

[31:05]

Realizing your rag-bag of concepts is not intrinsically you. But it's not simple cause and effect. If by practice you will get free of cause and effect, that's not so. some more... I can't say more than that, but... an unexplained freedom you'll have on each moment. that you should start having right now in trying to let go of your entities.

[32:13]

I think that's enough for now. At least you can realize that arguing right and wrong, shouting quads, expecting practice to help you each moment you should be as free as possible from previous moment in giving up your security in finding out what to do Yesterday, there were a number of questions at the end, and I think I responded to some of them. Mary, you asked about, is hearing, understanding, and activity one? That's what you said?

[34:10]

How can you hear continually? Without interruption? That's good. I hope you can hear me better than I can hear you. No. We would hope so. Did you hear what she said?

[35:12]

I like the first way I remembered it. Without any interruptions. Hearing, understanding, activity. Hearing means patience. enough for an emphasis for you. Just to hear without trying to understand and just to hear over and over again is the deepest way. As soon as you try to understand, you interrupt the penetration of the hearing. Just to hear till you can hear it in yourself.

[36:15]

and it will continue to penetrate. And you, John, asked about stuff and entrance. Stuff and emptiness are not two. The idea of form and emptiness is helpful to us in developing our detachment, but a real understanding of form is emptiness, and emptiness is form, and emptiness is emptiness, and form is form, is not natural to us until we experience

[37:57]

how we are not obstructed by it. When you experience, when you find out your boundaries, and then, which is necessary first, and then how you're not obstructed by it, you understand, form, you will. If someone asks you about some ultimate expression of what we experience, you'll say, form, exemptions, et cetera. And I forget what you said. I want to go to sleep and the discussion of distressedness or theology. Oh yes, we talked about that. We talked about that. David Chadwick doesn't sleep so much anymore. At least when I'm there. As far as I can see he doesn't. Well, I don't think you have to be so concerned with that except that we have a habit of falling asleep when our mind gets to a certain kind of place.

[39:17]

So you do have to break the reflex of sleeping, otherwise your certain kind of state of mind appears, and it's so close to sleeping that you will automatically go to sleep. One of the reasons we do without much sleep and sashimi, etc., is to begin to be able to go back and forth across that boundary. We actually want you to be rather sleepy, Kuntzadzin. and trying to stay awake. Because there's no other way except the tangible experience of trying. But pretty soon you'll have crossed back and forth over that boundary so many times that you'll begin to be able to stay awake even when you're asleep. Yeah? What about like drinking coffee or tea in the morning? Well, maybe if we were purists,

[40:47]

we would not drink any coffee or tea. But since we have the good excuse of Bodhidharma's eyelids, he took his eyelids off because he was so awake. The tea plant grew from his eyelids, supposedly. And ever since then, Zen people have drunk a lot of tea in order to stay awake and silent. Tea, I think, is a little better for you than coffee. Coffee tends to, at least the experience I'm familiar with, coffee tends to upset your stomach and digestive system quite a bit, and tea doesn't. I think it's, in some moderation, okay to take a cup of coffee or tea a few times a day. I don't think you should take methadone. Every morning session. Coffee mostly.

[42:14]

Anyway, I don't know exactly, but mostly it sort of gets us over the hump, you know, but it doesn't last so long. Some people are more susceptible than others. Sometimes almost just drinking hot water will help. Yeah. I was worried about what to do with my life. Is there any difference? No. I don't know. Yes and no. There's some difference. There's some difference in how you make your decision. Really, is there no difference? Really, there's no difference.

[43:44]

But we do have to take care of our own fundamental practice and mental and physical well-being before we can help anybody. At least make some efforts in that way. Yes. Once he gets settled in what? I tend to fall asleep rather quickly. Today, I was beginning to think that it was a major accomplishment, but it was not this time. I don't know. It was the first day that I was having trouble getting my mind set up and having to settle in. I don't know if I can suggest something.

[45:16]

I'm quite familiar with what you're talking about. Should I talk to the one who's asleep? I want to. I want to answer the question of the one who is asleep. It is really, sometimes it is really ridiculous if you try to explain to someone. Well, we learned to count to ten when we were about four years old and then we lose the ability and we start practicing again. What is this different mind that can't count to ten? Why is the settled mind can't count to ten but the unsettled mind can count to a hundred?

[46:38]

But is it really sleep though? Hmm? Is it really sleep though? What is sleep? Well, that's what I'm asking. There are 60 million years of correlation between religion and life and sleep. There's a real correlation. One, you get conscious, and the other one... Q. You mean you think the ordinary sleep of someone who goes to bed is original mind? A. It's like that. Except there's a whole world of different stuff, but you forget. Q. What do you forget? A. Everything. Well, okay, the reason why I ask that question is because I had Sashima bring it up, and I was sitting next to Naoto, and at least four nights, every session, he would

[47:50]

but the minute it left he went back to sleep again. I just couldn't understand how that could happen. I know that's not true. He must have had beautiful shoulders. But that's why I asked. Yeah, it's terrible that he sleeps so much. I get quite angry at them. My good friend, Usain, who is now, I guess, head monk of Daito-ryu, when I first went to Daito-ryu, he entered about the same time I did. And he really slept, and they really hit you at Daito-ryu. It was just kid stuff by comparison.

[48:50]

because they hit four times on each shoulder, not twice, and they hit with a much bigger, twice as... The stick is wider and thicker and longer than our stick, and the winter stick especially. And they hit, as I've told some of you, you know, you're facing out, so you bend over like this and you put your head... I can't bend over too far, I'm sorry. My nose will... I asked him to shorten it, but he wouldn't. You have your head on the tongue, and so your whole back is flat out, you know, and they hit you, anywhere across your back, willy-nilly. Particularly there was one monk who was half-American, really. He put the stick back and touch it to his tailbone and lift up on his tiptoes. So that's eight times and one hitting. And then in a 30-minute period, his son would get hit maybe four times. So that's 32 hits.

[50:13]

And you could sort of, if you really accept the state, it doesn't hurt much, it doesn't leave much effect. You resist it, you start swelling up. But if you just completely relax into it, it's not much. It does sort of knock the wind out of you occasionally. Anyway, it's much harder than you think. And I don't think it's necessary to hit that hard. It's more Japanese culture. But, uh, your son would sleep like that. And sometimes, he was pretty new monk, so he was not so alert. And at that time, at one time, this actually happened several times, but one time was the most dramatic, because he was sleeping. you know, back, bobbing back and forth. And the bell had just rung, and Zazen had ended. Actually, we used clackers, you know, as a bell. Clack. Everybody bowed, and Zazen was over. And actually, we do, ordinary monks did one more period in the equivalent of the, you know, left, or the Tantra, left. Big, strong, striped style there, you know, going across the Zenda. It got about even with Yusan.

[51:39]

And I don't know if you've ever seen sort of karate stuff, you know. Suddenly he just turned and spun the boat like this, racing like this. And he hit Yuson straight on the chest like this and just lifted him right off the pillow and he fell into the air and went onto his back. Sound asleep. He really was startled. He woke up. And then the head monk just... And they used to holler at each other. They'd hit him a certain number of times in the evening. And then suddenly, the head monk would just start hollering, you... I don't know in Japanese, but it sounded like a whole, you know, slur of profanities. You... He'd quickly jump up and scoop up his pillows and run out.

[52:47]

And he'd have to sit out in the garden and so he'd spend the rest of the evening sitting outside. I've threatened a couple of people with that but I've never done it. At a certain point they threw him out of his window. So that sleep is not the same as original mind. The sleep of you, after you've, say, been practicing ten years, and the sleep of you when you started is quite a different sleep. Quite different. Very inactive. Inactive, undisturbed sleep, physically and mentally. No dreams and no physical movement much during sleep. You can try it, you know, by doing something like going to sleep and balancing something on your forehead. We, sometimes people, try such stunts. And you see if it's still there. Yes.

[54:18]

What does it mean, the apprehension of a basis of a basis? It's a wonderful phrase, isn't it? I know the reason. I read the suture, and I didn't know what it meant. I looked it up, and I couldn't find it. And I knew it meant something pretty important. I thought I knew pretty much what it meant, but I couldn't understand why they'd think out a phrase like that. They needed to come up with some other phrases. Well, it's Dr. Konsei's phrase. He has a neutral turn to his language. It's a wonderful phrase. I like the word apprehension because it has both understanding in it and fear. Apprehensive. I think it means, literally what it says, to think that there's some fundamental reality. Labouring, you can say I'm in a misapprehension of the basis. But there is some basis, absolute. That would also relate to grasping, the idea of prehensile and using it to evolve it. Not to deny it, and it doesn't have to depend on attention. I always took that to mean hold on to it, grasp it. Yeah, so it's the same thing. Yeah? With the live story, like, down the door, it's not the one you thought was funny.

[55:48]

The practice was added to consider that we accept the same moral principles, which is different from how we would compare to a practice of considering some ideas, a practice of discriminating more than the other. You mean, how does working with a koan, how is it the same or different from the discrimination or process of the Abhidharma? In some ways it feels the same because it's the statement of continuing to be with some particular mental process that sort of concurrently gives me some words, but I'm not sure if that's complete. Well, I think the process of working with a koan is not so different from the whole process that we learn in Buddhism of being attentive to our train of thoughts, train of that tip.

[57:10]

With Abhidharma it's more a kind of noting and analysis and with koans it's something you can't think about but you can keep salt and pepper your reality with it. It's there. You can't think about it, but you keep adding it as an ingredient into each event. And exactly how to do that partly depends on each koan, and partly depends on your own development. And how to do it is a basic part of koan. So, how to do it is part of the koan, and it's up to you to figure that out. So I can present such a story and you may find it useful and now and you may not even remember it till a year or two or five from now and it will suddenly be useful. And it may be useful now and then useful again a few years from now. And you may decide to work with it or it may catch you and you may work with it with me.

[58:38]

Or you may just have it as some ingredient. That's one way we work with cones. Yes? I have a question. Is there a problem with our boundaries? Don't look so worried. Pardon? Don't look so worried. Okay. It seems to me that the boundaries Why do you want to know the best? One boundary is we want to know anything.

[60:04]

So we may find, of course, many boundaries, historical boundaries and personal boundaries. Even after we have seen our dad-dad and our boundaries, and we have some detections, still what is the barrier in essence? Doing things that yet most still what is part of boundaries. Dogen said on Mephistopheles, when there's a great cause, there's a great need, there's a great use, and when there's a small need, there's a small use. And utterly filling the one's boundaries. And then, but it has the idea that I expressed today of coming and going.

[61:10]

I sometimes feel something like from the hermit's cave, you know, from the mountains, a solitary cloud finds its refuge. I don't know if you know what that means, but a cloud finds its refuge everywhere. That's coming and going. we find out when we know our boundaries, not just the boundaries, we find out where we are in the practice. Oh, I have this habit or that habit. The Bodhisattva, this is quite a fundamental question, Nyana and Mahayana, of stopping Nirvana or the Bodhisattva giving up enlightenment. But you don't need to know that. Just what is in front of you, you practice. That's all. Yes. Yes.

[62:25]

My actual strength, my will, will come from my actions. I have a feeling that I'm never going to be the same again. That I'm just a coward. You know, I don't have it. But that I'm such a coward that I, that mentally I have no choice but to change anything that I'm practicing. That's right. That's like if you are very honest coward, you eventually end up a Buddha. No, that's true. What? He was very honestly sleeping. No, but yet, though, your weakness is your strength. That's very easy to say, but we'll find out how true that is. If we find out why we started to practice, how we entered Buddhism, we can find out how to enter ordinary life. If we find out how we came to suffer, we can get free of suffering. I'm not just responding to what you said.

[63:53]

We can come and go quite freely. You don't have to fear. ability, by this possibility of changing my life or choosing something in and on, I won't give up what I've always wanted. You may have to give up what you've always wanted to get there, but then what you've always wanted will be, you won't want it so much, but it will be quite accessible. You can come and go as you wish, taking care of yourself. and nothing.

[64:33]

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