We do take a breath in the middle of that line. So I just want to apologize for those of you who came to hear Kathleen Williams. She went to the hospital the other day to get some tests and she's having some pain in her tummy, so she couldn't do the talk today. Okay, so my name is Tia and I'll be your speaker this morning. How many are new? Not too many today, huh? No? A couple? Few? Okay. I was just with a group of people with whom I study a little bit, pretty regularly, and

[01:03]

I was impressed with the knowledge and sincerity of their understanding and practice. Every so often, when this happens to me, I am again encouraged, it encourages my practice, because I hear the Dharma with freshness, with a kind of appreciation that sometimes after you practice for a long time, you can fall into the gloom of taking it for granted, and it isn't something that I ever want to take for granted, so when I hear it come back at me fresh like that, it's very encouraging to me, to my practice.

[02:06]

So, I'm encouraged to be here and talk with you from that. I'm going to read the first paragraph of a profound and beautiful poem and teaching by Dogen Zenji, the first paragraph of the Genjo Koan, and many of you will recognize this. When all things are Buddhadharma, there are birth and death, there are defilement, practice, Buddhas, and sentient beings. When all things have no self, there is no delusion, no Buddha, no sentient being, no birth, no death. Buddhism originally is beyond all positive or negative, all duality.

[03:07]

So there are birth and death, defilement and enlightenment, sentient beings and Buddha. This is our fundamental practice. This is the practice of freedom. It is not the practice of no more problems. It's not the practice of happiness. It's the practice of joy. It is the practice of freedom. When Dogen Zenji says, when all things are Buddha nature, there are defilement, practice, birth and death, and so on, he is talking about the teaching, the understanding that everything is just the way it is. And when he says, when all things have no self, then the way we thought things were appear

[04:18]

a little bit differently. And when he says, Buddhism is originally beyond all dualities, we are back at the beginning again but with slightly different understanding. So, when we first sometimes start practicing, we think that Buddhism is going to lead to maybe some kind of freedom, but oftentimes the freedom that we are thinking it's going to lead to is basically when it says like the Nike ad, just do it, right? What we think about when, I think when even that ad, when that ad comes on, you think, okay, just do it, basically just do whatever I want to do. That's freedom. That's the kind of freedom that the West airs in.

[05:20]

We are too, I think, we are too, we emphasize too much a kind of freedom that's really an indulgence, that doesn't really include our connectedness. It doesn't really include an understanding that what we do influences everything. And so we run rampant over the world. So Buddhism is not talking about just do it in the sense of just do whatever it is I want to do, whenever it is I want it. We're not talking about getting whatever we think, whenever we think it, to make us happy. It's not talking about that kind of freedom. It's not pushing away problems.

[06:23]

The freedom that Buddhism is talking about is beyond happy or sad. It's beyond good or bad. So what does that mean? It does mean just this is it. It does mean just do it. But what's the difference? The difference is that, for example, when we have a problem or when we are unhappy or even when we're happy, we grab on to that. We grab on to whatever it is that we think is contributing to our happiness or contributing to our awakened state or contributing to our freedom, whatever. We cling, we grab, we grab on to other, if we think that's going to do it, or we grab

[07:33]

on to self, my problem, my life, my happiness, my being awake. Even my egolessness, my emptiness, my understanding, my, my, my. Based on this idea of separation, based on this idea, this illusion of separation, we hurt other people and we hurt ourselves. Based on this idea of me and mine, we grab, we cling, we make what is fluid and ever-changing, we make what is this amazing mystery, we make it clunky, solid, controllable, not really,

[08:38]

we think so, we'd like it to be that way, and dead. It's like when, I just read this image the other day, I really like it, it's like when a storm, I read this in Tony Packer's new book, she was in New England, she has a place in New England, it's spring water, and they have a lot of weather there. So she said, you know, weather, in weather, you know, they'll be like, she looked out the window and here comes their clouds and then it gets kind of dark and then there's wind happens and then there's the clouds get dark and then maybe there's lightning and then it starts to rain and there's thunder and then it rains for a bit and then the rain gets lighter and then there's the clouds break up and then there's less wind and then the sun comes out and stuff like that, and we call that a storm. We just grab it out of this ever-changing, you know, bubbling thing that's around the

[09:52]

earth, you know, including the earth, because the earth participates, right? The water goes up from the earth and into the sky and down to the plants and into us and out of us and, I mean, it's one huge thing and then we just take something out of it and call it a storm and we understand it and we're going to predict when they come, right? And that's why it's so good to live in San Francisco, because, you know, I feel so sorry for the meteorologists in San Francisco. They are so sincere, you know, every day they stand up there and it's like they're going to tell us what tomorrow's weather is going to be and inevitably they don't have a clue. It's really funny. Now in L.A., when I used to live in L.A., the meteorologists sounded really good because every single day it's, you know, 83 degrees. They really had it down and then they would say something like, you know, big... we're

[10:55]

going to have a big, like... like we're going to have a big something change in the weather and they make it sound like it's this huge catastrophe, right? But it's only like a breeze somewhere. So many people are going to leave our Sangha in the fall and they're going to be going and staying in Tassajara, our monastery, and sometimes we think that monastic practice is like the practice and it's really hard for me not to say it is, but it's not.

[11:55]

What happens in Tassajara is that the difference between should-be and being becomes kind of clear, that actually what we... the forms that we participate in in our everyday life, the things we... the way we should, you know, relate to each other, the way we should bow, the way we should pass the sutra cards, the way we should pick up the gamasura, the way we should walk into the zenda, the way we should stand, the way we should eat oreoki is to be. There's no separation between sometimes what we think of our rules and forms in our life. And it's clear, if you are careful and are sincere about your practice in the city, that we have exactly the same kind of container. We get up in the morning, we brush our teeth, we put our right shoe on before we put our

[12:58]

left shoe on, they do in Jewish. We do our morning ritual, we feed the cat or we, you know, make a certain breakfast or we walk to work or we sit on the bus in a certain kind of way or we take our car. All day long we're performing our so-called shoulds, we're performing the forms of the rituals of our daily life. And if we just understand these as the container of our monastery, in a certain way we don't have to go to Tassajara to practice, we can practice deeply right here in the city. It's just that at Tassajara it becomes very clear that what we... the way we relate to our lives, the way we relate to rules and to forms is our life. And it is through these, I was going to say structures, but they're not even structures,

[14:03]

our life, it is by living our life that we actually understand that our life is actually the life of everything else, that we live one life together with everything else. There is no separation, there is no practice outside awakening. So oftentimes when we're doing these shoulds, we do them because a lot of times we have pain, so we should, you know, we should be a certain kind of person, we should relate to people in a certain kind of way, thus and thus and so and so shouldn't be happening to me in this way. We live our life with lots of shoulds and it's natural because the world is changing

[15:08]

the way it does and the way our minds as human beings are structured, we grab after things that are not graspable, not possible. We can't hold on to them, we can't have them, we can't possess them, we can't have states of mind, pleasant ones, all the time. I can't make it so the motorcycle doesn't run up page three, it's exactly what I'm supposed to be talking with you. Okay, stay this way now. Shh, no other cars or motorcycles are going to pass by. But that's how we think, that we can control things. We think that we can arrange our life so everything is going to be just so.

[16:10]

This is the practice of the first kind of understanding of freedom, but not Buddha's understanding of freedom. So this pain, this suffering that we go through is good, and the bigger the suffering, the night one's in it. But it's not bad either. The reason is, is because when we really suffer deeply, we come to a place where we want to practice. We come to a place eventually where we know that these very falling-down places are the places that we get up.

[17:15]

It's good to fall down, and it's good to get up. You have to fall down to know that the earth that we fall down on is the very support that we need to have in order to get back up again. These problems that we think we want to get rid of are the very things that show us the path. They are our path. So when we first sit, well, before we sit, actually, we have all of these thoughts going on in our heads all the time, and we don't really realize that we are being run by them. We just go ahead and react all the time to causes and conditions, and we're just very reactive. And when you sit down, the first thing that happens when you sit down is you can't stay

[18:21]

present because your mind is just all over the place. And sometimes people talk to me and say, I'm not sitting very well because I have this mind, you know, my mind just won't stay still. And I never... they think, you know, this is not the way my mind usually is, but they think it's not the way their mind usually is because they've never stopped to look at it. But it is the way our minds in the beginning are, they're all over the place. And then, slowly, slowly, slowly, we come to a place where the mind is really quiet. And then you can really look very careful to see. And you can take that mind that has a little distance from the way you usually think, there's just a teeny-weeny separation, all you need is like a teeny separation, and then instead

[19:27]

of buying into all of those thoughts and all of those problems, you can watch instead what the mind is doing and how it's going, and how it's automatic, and what your tendencies are and what the patterns are of your life. And so these problems that before you thought were insurmountable now become workable, they're interesting, they're the way that you get a really good look at who you are. And Dogen says, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. Well, what self do you think you're studying? Some already pure self? No. The self that we study is usually the one we don't want to look at, at all. We don't want to see that we're just basically enormously selfish. We don't want to see, you know, whoever the image is that we want to put out there for everybody else, that actually underneath there's this tender, soft, sensitive, gentle little

[20:32]

being in there. We don't want to admit that we look a certain way or that we have a certain sexual orientation or that we're poor or that we're... whatever it is, whatever it is we're embarrassed about, there it's going to be. That's the self that we study. That's the self that we want to have bloom and put out there for everyone to see because finally I can look at it myself. Because finally I'm not afraid to be who I am. Because finally I can actually stand up in the person I have come to be, in the karma that is particularly the karma that created this body and mind. And that's a gift living in Sangha. Because when you see another person stand up with what you know they have difficulty with and put it out there and fall apart when it's time for them to fall apart, this is

[21:43]

a gift because then this other person knows, well, maybe I can do that too. Maybe I can show people who I really am inside and they won't reject me. Maybe I can change in this way and they'll actually be there with me. So, when you get to the place in your practice where your problems, your so-called problems are not seen as problems anymore but really the meat of your path, then everything is workable. And even though we still hurt because of that, because of whatever it is that we're going through, it's workable, it's interesting, it's fascinating, you know.

[22:52]

Some people say Buddhism is a selfish practice, you know, in a certain kind of way it is because we're studying us all the time and really we do think that we're the most interesting thing happening. So, when you know the self enough, when you've studied the self really deeply and well, you can actually forget it because you're not afraid of it anymore, you're not afraid that it's going to carry you away and do something that you're afraid of doing or being, you're not embarrassed at who it is that you are anymore. When you know it thoroughly enough you can actually be who you are and kind of forget it, you're not all the time referencing everything back to yourself.

[23:59]

And then you get really a chance to be, to just be, and then that's a different kind of freedom because you're not looking at yourself anymore you can actually see and pay attention to other people, you can be there and when life asks you to do something, when your life asks you to do something, when life comes together and brings you forth, you can respond. It becomes so simple. It's just a question of really being present. This is a favorite poem of mine, it's also Dogen. I'm going to read it and then I'll talk about it a little bit and then I'll read it again. The essential function of every person, the functioning essence of every person, moves

[25:10]

along with your non-thinking and is completed in the realm of non-merging. As it moves along with your non-thinking, its appearance is immediate. As it is completed in the realm of non-merging, completeness itself is realization. If its appearance is immediate, you have no defilement. When completeness is realization, you stay in neither the general nor the particular. If you have immediacy without defilement, immediacy is dropping away, in quotes, with no obstacles. Realization neither general nor particular is effort without desire. Clear water all the way to the bottom, a fish swims like a fish, vast sky transparent throughout, a bird flies like a bird.

[26:12]

The essential function of every person, our true nature, the functioning essence of every person, he just flips it from the other side, the activity, the total dynamic working of each of us and of everything, moves along in oneness and is completed though in the realm of non-merging, in the realm of duality, in the realm of forms, in the realm of differences. As it moves along in your non-thinking, as it moves along beyond differences, its appearance is intimate, we can meet it immediately. As it is completed in the realm of non-merging, in the realm of difference, in the realm of

[27:17]

duality, this completeness itself, this duality, this realm of problems, this realm of samsara is itself realization, is itself freedom. If its appearance is intimate, immediate, if we are just here and present, we have no duality, the self has nothing to do. When completeness is realization, you stay neither in general nor particular, you stay neither in the absolute or the relative, it's beyond both, those are just, you know, terms, life is beyond terms. If you have immediacy, if you have intimacy, if you have just presence without duality,

[28:21]

immediacy, this just being present, is dropping away, self, again and again and again, with no obstacles, because obstacles are just freedom, it is our way, they are workable, they are the path, they are realization right there if we just don't cling to them. Realization neither general nor particular is effort without desire, no grasping, no clinging, no expectation, no attachment, or attachment without self. Clear water all the way to the bottom, a fish swims like a fish, just that, a fish swims

[29:25]

like a fish in fish land, there is just fishness, vast sky transparent throughout, a bird flies like a bird, same with us, you know, cities and we live, Tassajara and we live, just this then this, then this, it's not so complicated, it's difficult, but not complicated. The most important thing is to keep going, that's what Suzuki Roshi said over and over and over again, please, just keep going, just practice, just be yourself, it's a beautiful day.

[30:34]

I hope that in the Shisho Sermon it says, it says, these are beautiful days, may your good health continue, these are beautiful days, enjoy. May your good health continue, may your good health continue, may your good health continue.

[31:07]

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