I just went east for about two weeks and I came back Sunday. Actually, I thought Kadagiri Rishi was going to give the lecture tonight, but I came back. So anyway, he insisted I do it. And I have to leave again Sunday for Japan. And it felt very good to come back. We're very lucky to have this place to practice. I felt relieved, actually, to come back.

[01:02]

There are many people throughout the country that I saw, and some of them have everything they want in this culture, and still they're unsatisfied. In fact, the ones who have most of what they want are the ones who can't see what their problem is anymore, and it's easier for them to see that they want to practice Buddhism. But it's rather difficult to switch, you know. Since I see so many people, I can't always be sitting in zazen with a straight back. It makes people uneasy. So I have to take whatever they're doing, I sort of do whatever they're doing along

[02:21]

with them. And to switch back and forth like that is rather ... it's all right, but it's easier to be here. I don't have to do that. But everybody has problems. Every place I go, everyone is loaded with problems. And we have limitless problems because we have limitless desires, or at least some part of us desires are limitless. And we talk a lot about Buddha nature, and you think that, maybe you think anyway, that

[03:29]

we mean something like a seed or something underneath the leaf or underneath you or some thing that makes a flower red or you the way you are. And that if you get rid of your limitless desires, you'll find out some desireless state where you have enlightenment or something like that. But that kind of ... that's just an idea, that's not what we mean. We don't mean anything by Buddha nature. Maybe we mean emptiness or Buddha or maybe we mean evil desires. From Buddha's point of view, your evil desires are your Buddha nature.

[04:30]

And it's because we only see part of ourselves that we think our desires are evil. There's many stories about ... someone says something like, who is it that's ... who are you? And the person says, just the one who is standing before you. And the teacher says, like a donkey's ass or something like that. Because he ... how do you see yourself subjectively? We're always seeing ourselves objectively, and then we get involved in how other people see ourselves objectively. The other day I was at Lama, which is one of the longer lasting communes that is in

[05:46]

New Mexico and has been quite closely associated with us. And ... they want to, they're doing many kinds of practices, including zazen. I don't know how much they do zazen when I'm not there, but when I was there, when I was there they did zazen. And then sometimes they'd sing, you know, some Sufi song or some Hindu chant or some Buddhist chant. Anyway, they naturally want to know why we sit the way we do. And you can't explain everything, maybe. So finally I said, it's because many bodies are sitting there. You think only your physical body is sitting, so you try to take some position which is

[06:47]

comfortable for your physical body, but actually many bodies are sitting there. So you may not see all your bodies now, so you don't understand why we sit this way. But also I can say there's just your body sitting here, there aren't many bodies. There's nothing other than this that you see. Some time ago I talked about the story of Bodhidharma. Why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And the teacher says, in effect says, thank you for asking that question over and over

[07:52]

again. That's how we practice, over and over again. And another famous story about Bodhidharma is a monk comes up to Rinzai and says, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And Rinzai is washing his feet while he's being asked, and he says, did you have to ask me while I was washing my feet? So he didn't quite hear what he said, so he leaned a little closer, and then he says, well, do you want me to dump another ladle of dirty water over you? So, we ask that kind of question because we separate Bodhidharma and his coming from

[08:58]

the West, et cetera, you know. Who is Bodhidharma? Bodhidharma, there isn't a Bodhidharma and also a coming from the West. Bodhidharma coming from the West is who Bodhidharma is. Rinzai washing his feet is who Rinzai is. So he said, I'm washing my feet. So, if you have evil desires, you know, so-called evil desires, you can't separate that out from yourself. It's only evil because you don't see all of you, you don't know yourself subjectively

[10:13]

and objectively. If you know yourself subjectively and objectively, there are almost no problems. You don't have any problems, some kind of problem maybe, but it doesn't seem like It's very, the strength of our thin nature, thin self, you know.

[11:31]

Most of us are in, which has all the problems, is quite distracting. When we're with people, we get caught by it, I get caught by it. I'm with some people going somewhere and they so powerfully want reassurance and reference reference to this thin part of themselves which has problems. It's pretty difficult to even respond. If you don't say anything at all, it's not so difficult, but if you begin to talk, immediately you're drawn into reinforcing this thin part of them. And my thin part starts working very, very hard. Oh, to come back here where we can relate more directly with each other is such a relief

[12:59]

for me. You usually, when people ask for some kind of help, they're asking for help for a part of themselves that doesn't even need help. They should just let it alone, forget about it. People get so involved in themselves that they don't, aren't present. They're quite, so many people are so worried about what's happening to them or going to happen to them that they seem to be way down inside themselves. You can hardly see them or reach them, like hiding somewhere.

[14:05]

But if we talk about Buddha nature, people look way down inside themselves for Buddha nature. But maybe Buddha nature is the space from here to the wall. In the East, I talked with Charles Lindbergh, General Lindbergh, and I told him he was a

[15:36]

secret Buddhist, because almost everything he said was Buddhism, except he had some difficulty with cooperation and competition. He made up all kinds of situations of, what if you have to shoot to the heart or shoot in the air, what do you do, and he was very concerned about the problem of competition. But he told me about an interesting tribe in the Philippines, which has lived in this very small area for, I don't know how long, maybe several centuries. They don't have any sense of history and they don't keep track of where they've been and how many generations there were. But they do have, at the back of the cave where they live, a very smooth stone which

[16:39]

they sit on with their bare bottom and slide down, and it's quite a hard stone and it would take an awfully long time, several centuries, to wear it down the way it's worn down. So anyway, they've been in the cave a long time. And although they've been in the cave for this long time, and only, I guess they don't go more than a mile or half mile at most ever from the cave, there's about thirty of them living there. And there's been almost no contact with them for a long, long time because they're in a rather difficult place to get to and there's so few of them and they don't travel. But in this cave where they've been for a long time, there's quite a difficult access to it, and the stone there is fairly soft and you could cut steps up to it, and they've

[17:46]

not cut any steps. The cave is just as it is, they don't change anything. And there are no markings on the wall, there's no drawings of trees or animals or anything. I guess the tree as it is is enough for them and they don't draw a picture of it. Anyway they seem to have no sense of other at all. And, according to Lindbergh, they're quite intelligent. He thinks they would be able to do very well in our school system. But still they have not made any improvements or any changes to their environment except

[18:52]

polishing the stone at the back of the cave. Anyway and our culture is almost completely other. And I think in Buddhism and in most of our art we're trying to, though it looks like we're trying to make another other, I think we're trying to return to that place where there's no other. Do you have any questions, anything you'd like to talk about?

[20:15]

Yeah? You said that here we could relate to each other more directly. What could you mean by that? I guess I mean we practice zazen together, that we include each other. We don't, more of you, you know, are able to be open to how you include each other.

[21:24]

That doesn't, we don't have to make any effort to be close to other people, we're already, we already include each other. Yeah? What is the difference between subjective and objective? Hmm, what do you think? You must have some idea. Who are you? Anyway. Yeah?

[22:30]

It seems as though while desires may be limitless, it seems that certain of them are obstructions to harmonizing with the way, harmonizing with others, whereas others, where other sorts of desires can be transmuted or transcended or turned into something which we can work with. But in the sense that they create a disharmony, isn't there really such a thing as evil desires or are they, you know, are they evil? I mean, they come up and if we were to pay attention to them, they would be evil, for

[23:33]

our practice. For our practice. And if we're about to pay attention to them, you know. It sounds like you're thinking of yourself objectively. Pardon? It sounds like you're thinking of yourself objectively. When you really look at your desires, evil or good desires, you know, and you actually satisfy them in terms of what you really want, completely, all of you. They don't hurt anybody. Anyway, don't reject your evil desires, but don't hit somebody over the head either, you

[24:44]

know. Yeah. How are we to understand the vows then? Think of them. Which vow? Well, or which one? Desires are inexhaustible. I make a vow to... I like the New York Sandals translation, I'll boot them all. Well, you know, when you call them desires, when you single them out and call them desires, maybe you should uproot them. But it's a different way of, you know, I don't know what to say. Anyway, that's from an objective point of view.

[25:49]

From a subjective point of view, your desires are okay, yeah, and they're not, I mean, it's because we only perceive our thin self that we think our desires are a problem, or we have some idea that we compare ourself to. Anyway, there's two ways, you know, of course, when you start practicing, if you find yourself with, I don't know, I think almost always, if you just enter into your desires, it's enough. You don't have to try to even uproot them. Yeah? I'm not very good at technical questions, but anyway.

[27:14]

There's quite a dispute going on about whether it should be dharma or dharmas, and small D or big D, the time the translation was made. Anyway, dharma means, from one point of view, I think it means constructed things, up-formed, seen from the point of view of enlightenment, or from the point of view of Buddha. Empty, you know, with no self-nature, and dharma also just means teaching, or everything, you know, Buddha, dharma and sangha are just this. But sometimes we call it dharma and sometimes we call it Buddha times sangha. It depends on how we're looking at it to help us. We can't see it all at once, so we call it sometimes one name and sometimes another name

[28:26]

so that we can, so it will help us, you know, be free of it. Does that help at all? Yeah, you can call it that, yeah. Yes, that's a good definition. The best book I know that's simple on it is Dr. Konsei's book, the Heart and Diamond Sutras, called Buddhist Wisdom Books. It's got quite a good, it goes through a section of the Diamond Sutra and Heart Sutra, and then a short paragraph, and then an explication, and then a paragraph, and then an explication. And it defines terms like dharma and skanda pretty well, I think.

[29:27]

Where did Bodhidharma come from? You're always joking. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the, that's the ninth or something. I know that most of the dharma is more about skanda.

[30:58]

So, we should be listening. Yeah, you have to be careful about that. It's much better to assess it just as you are, is okay. Yeah. It's much better. Feeling that is very difficult. It seems like you have to feel that in order to, I can't say that unless I actually feel it. Perhaps I wonder how to align myself, how to actually stay in that presence, how to actually move in that community, especially in a situation, well, in my case, which is more out working,

[32:04]

I don't know so much. Well, I wouldn't. That precept comes to mind also. I wonder how to apply it. What kind of guidelines do you have for it? You know, that precept is very good for you. You're working with it, you know. That's good for you to continue to work with that precept. It's a kind of guideline. And when you accept yourself just as you are, then that's reminder enough to accept others just as they are. People don't always want to be accepted just as they are. That's maybe the main problem. Yeah. Sometimes you need some objective information, some idea.

[33:17]

For me, for instance, I don't know how to attempt it in Israel. Well, on my own, it's not my answer. I have an objective idea. I just can't do it on my own. So, you know, you know, Just don't think that you have an objective perception as you. Don't be attached to it as you. Yeah. It's some information for you. Yes.

[34:30]

Spontaneous mind wrestling with spontaneous mind. Spontaneous mind wrestling. Well, you know, it's not very satisfactory to get into those, you know, wrestles. And it doesn't go anywhere. So, when you see this, when you really completely, if you want to use the intellectual perception, when you completely see there's no alternative. You don't get, you don't try it so often. When a bell rings, you just get up.

[35:53]

It is a relative transfer from person to thing and thing to thing. It's all right. Person to thing. Person to thing. Well, you become a complete memory. Okay. Well, let's, well. Okay. You can make an explanation why we get stuck in, involving our parents and many things. Why we get stuck in stuff. But it's not useful. No, actually, no. We stick to it. We have to, when we're first starting to practice, we have to be rather strict with ourself. For a resumptuous practice. It's an ignorant idea to make it. We're very strict, but it doesn't help.

[36:57]

Yes, well. As long as you're, you're, as long as our spontaneous mind keeps you in bed and you're rather good at it, you have to be more respectable. I know, I know. It's kind of a question, to be honest. Once you've started practicing, you know what to do. Then, if you, if you take some resolution and do it, it's easy. It's easy in all aspects. I'm great. I'm great.

[38:17]

Well, that's a, that's a, um, difficult question to answer. I think that, um, like we said, the easiest way is to have some experience. So, really, we have to have some experience in time. So that you'll know what you mean by things like that. And if you, if I'm being effective, I may need support. So that can be another. Then, if you find yourself distracted by situations, you can bring yourself back to yourself. Bring yourself back to your calmness and mind. There was a thing, always told I was one of the sweetest in the world. Hence, I hear you, to tell you the truth, it's roughly I guess correctly, I don't know. I just, all the time, when I'm in this temple, I would walk around and say to people, hey, what's up? Ah, yes. Let me make sure

[39:21]

I'm talking the right thing. I just feel like it's dangerous to bring in that sort of thing. Let go. I feel upon having what distracts you. A familiarizer sometimes appears to be broken up again and again. What good will it do to trace it back? Anyway, if you do that to yourself, it still hurts. What for? It's a delusion, isn't it? Well, whatever it is you have, your practicing is to follow it back to its source. I said one day, most of our thinking is like watching basketball and only seeing the receivers. Because we don't see the outside eyes. That's true. We should know when our thinking is diluted and it's reasonably accurate. What good will it do

[40:24]

to trace it back? Absolutely. What for? It's a delusion, isn't it? A delusion, isn't it? I know it. I feel it's really a feeling of a natural relief. Just as it is as you. And with it, it just reacts with what appears as you. I hope it doesn't scare you to follow it back to you. Thank you very much.

[40:57]

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