the
we did take a breath in the middle of that line

so i just want to apologize for those of you who came to hear cathy williams she went to the hospital every day and to get some tests and she's having some pain in her tummy
so she couldn't do the talk today so my name is tear and i'll be your speaker this morning
how many are new
not too many air
couple
yeah

i was just with a group of people with whom i study little bit
pretty regularly
and i was impressed
with
knowledge and sincerity of there
understanding and practice
i'm at every so often when this happens to me i am again ah encouraged it encourages my practice because i hear the dharma from ah from in a fresh with
freshness with with a kind of
appreciation that sometimes after practice for a long time you can fall into the the glue 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 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
a poem and teaching by dog and zingy the first paragraph of the game joe on
and many of you will recognize this
when all things are a buddha dharma there are birth and death there are defilement practice buddhas and sentient beings
when all things have no self there is no delusion know buddha no sentient being no birth no death
buddhism originally as beyond all positive or negative all duality so they 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 dogan zingy says when all things are buddha nature there are defilement practice birth and death and so on he is talking about the teaching of the understanding that everything is just the way it is
now when he says when all things have no self
then the way we thought things were appear a little bit differently

and when he says buddhism as 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're thinking it's going to lead to is basically when it says like the nike air just do it
right what we think about when i think when even that that add 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 heirs and we are too
two i think we are to we emphasize too much a kind of freedom that's really an indulgence
that doesn't really include or connectedness
it doesn't really include a and understanding that what we do influences everything
and so we
run rampant over the world

so buddhism is not talking about huh 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
the freedom that buddhism is talking about is beyond happy or sad it's beyond good or bad
so what does it mean
it does mean justice is it it does mean just to it but what's the difference

the difference is is that for example when we have a problem or when we are unhappy
we or even when we're happy
we grab onto that we grab onto whatever it is we think is contributing to our happiness are contributing to our awakened state
who are contributing to r
creator whatever we cling will grab we grab on to other if we think that's going to do it or we grab on to self my problem my life my happiness my being awake even my ego
listeners my emptiness
my understanding
my my my
based on this idea of separation based on this idea this 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 everchanging we make what is this amazing mystery
we make it
clunky solid controllable not really you think so we'd like it to be that way
and dead
it's like when
i read i just read this image the other day i really like it is like when a storm over this in tiny packers new book she was in new england she has a place in new england it's spring water
and and they have a lot of whether they're so she said in a weather in whether you know some they'll be like she looked out the window and here comes there are 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 it starts to rain and there's thunder and and then it rains forbidden in the rain gets lighter and then there's the clouds breakup and then there's less when and then the sun comes out and stuff i did and we would call that a storm
we just grab it out of this ever changing
you know bubbling
thing that surround the earth know including the earth because the earth participates right the water goes up from the earth into this guy 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 and
and that's why it's so good to live in san francisco because
yeah i feel so sorry for the meteorologists in cash and fisker
they are so sincere you know every day they stand out there and they will maybe it's like they're going to tell her for tomorrow's weather is gonna really and inevitably they don't have a clue
through printer
now in l a when i used to live in l a that meteorologists sounded really good because every single day if you know eighty three degrees
hey really had down and then they would say something like no big we're going to have a big like like we're going to have a big something changing the weather and they make it shall i guess this huge catastrophe right there's only like a breeze and we are

so
many people are going to leave our sanga in the fall and they're going to be going and staying and tassajara our monastery
and am
sometimes we think that monastic practice is like the practice and
thrill hard for me not to say it is
but it it's not
what happens in tassajara is is that the difference between should be and being becomes kind of clear that actually what we what are the forms that we participate in in our everyday life the things way the way way should
would you know relate to each other the way we should bow the way we should pass to suit your cards the way we should pick up the commands you are the way we should
walk into the xander the way we we should stand the way we should eight oreo okay
is to be there is no separation between sometimes what we think of our rules and forms and 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 left shoe on they do in jewish
we
we do our morning ritual we feed the cat or way you know make a certain breakfast to our way walk to work or we sit on a bus senator and kind of way or we take our car all day long were performing our our so-called should were performing the form
mes of the rituals of our daily life and if we just understand these as the container
of our monastery and as in a certain way we don't have to go to touch a hard to practice we can practice deeply right here in the city
it's just that it has a heart it becomes very clear
get what way
the way way the way we relate to our lives the way we relate to rules and forms
is our life
and it is through these
i was gonna say structures but the unanimous structures are 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 ah
practice how side awakening

so oftentimes when we're doing they should we do them because 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 on so shouldn't be happening to me in this way we live our life with lots of should
and it's natural because of the world is changing 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 onto 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 as exactly what i'm supposed to be talking with you
okay status way now
no other cars or motorcycles are going to pass by
but that's how we we think that we can control things we think that we can arrange our lives everything is going to be just so
this is the practice of the first kind of understanding of freedom but not but as understanding of it
so this pain the suffering that we go through is good
and the bigger the suffering nine with can't

but it's not bad either
however there is it is is because when we really suffer deeply we come to a place where we
ah 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
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 an 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 our heads all the time when we don't really realize that we are being run by them we just go ahead to react all the time to causes and conditions and were just very reactive and
when you sit down the first thing that happens when you sit down is you can't stay present because your mind is just all over the place and sometimes people talk to me and say i'm not i'm not sitting very well because i have this mine you know my mind just won't stay still
and i'd never they think i mean you know this is not the way my mind usually is but they think it's not the way their mind usually as because they've never stopped to look at it but it is the way our minds in the beginning our through 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 say and you can take that mind that has a little distance from the usual from the way you usually think there's just a teeny weeny separation all you need is like a teeny separation and then instead of
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 white your tendencies are and what the pattern jar here life
and so these problems that before you thought were an insurmountable now become workable
they are interesting
they're the way that you get a really good look at who you are and dogan says to study the buddha ways to study the shelf well what self do you think you're studying some already pure self know 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 were just basically enormously selfish we don't want to say you know whoever the images that we want to put out there for everybody else i actually underneath there's this tender soft sensitive gentle little bang in there
we don't want to admit that we look a certain way or that we have a certain sexual orientation or that were poor that were whatever it is whatever it is were embarrassed about
there it's going to be that's the self that we study that's the self that we want to have blue
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 bake in the karma that is particularly the karma that created this body and mind
gift living in shanghai
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 a gift because in this other person knows it will maybe i can do that to maybe i can show people who i really am inside and they 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 you so called problems
are 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 is that we going through it's workable
it's interesting
it's fascinating
you know
some people are saying buddhism is a selfish practitioner and certain kind of way it is because we're studying us all the time and really we do think that were the most interesting thing happening

so when this when you know the self enough when you've studied self really deeply and well
you can actually forget it
because you're not afraid of in 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 not embarrassed that who it is that you are anymore when you know it's thoroughly enough you can actually be who you are in kind of forget it you not all the time referencing everything back to yourself
and then you get really a chance to be
to just be
then that's a different kind of freedom because your 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 my it's also do again
for some gonna read it and then i'll talk about a little bit and then i read it again
the essential function of every person
a functioning essence of every person moves along with your non thinking and is completed in the realm of non merging
has it moves along with your non thinking it's appearance is immediate
as it is completed in the realm of non merging completeness itself is realization
if it's appearances immediate you have no defilement
when completeness is realization you stay and needed a general nor the particular
if you have immediacy without defilement immediacy is dropping away
in quote with no obstacles
realization neither general nor particular his effort without desire
clear water all the way to the bottom a fish swims like a fish
vast sky transparent threw out a bird flies like a bird
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 way 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 it's 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 duality
this completeness itself this duality this realm of problems this realm of samsara is itself realization is itself freedom
if it's appearance is intimate immediate it 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 immediacy this just being present his dropping away
self again and again and again with no obstacles
because obstacles are just freedom it is our way there workable
they are the path they are realization right there if we just don't cling to him
realization neither general nor particular his effort without desire no grasping know clinging no expectation no attachment or attachment without self
clear water all the way to the bottom
a fish swims like a fish
just to set fish swims like a fish and fish land
there's just fitness
vast sky transparent through out
bird flies like a bird
same with ash
no
cities
and we live tassajara and we live
just this ten dec
ten this
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
i hope that there
english is so ceremony and said he says these are beautiful days may a good health continue
he's a beautiful days

enjoy