I'm, every Saturday, I'm supposed to say something here, and since it's almost impossible to say anything about Buddhism, you can't explain Buddhism. I never know quite what to say. And when I want to say something to you, I get into trouble. Our wants usually causes a lot of trouble. I have maybe two wants that affect me when I talk to you. One is, I would like you to be open with each other. I think that's the most important condition for practice, is to be able to be open with each other. And the other is, I guess I want you to do what you really want to do, or have what you really want to have.

[01:27]

But when I speak from that point of view, I feel I'm causing some trouble. Usually I, if I don't have any idea at all about, you know, nobody's here, if I feel like nobody's there, and I don't care about your practice at all maybe, then I can talk much easier about Buddhism. If you're outside Buddhism, Buddhism may be very mysterious. Actually, it's very difficult to understand or even show it, give anybody an idea of what we mean by Buddhism. And the way we talk about Buddhism is pretty confusing.

[02:48]

One story Dogen used was when there's a great wind, a great bird like a Garuda whose wings cover the entire sky and his wings cause a great tidal wave and open the ocean up and under the ocean expose many dragons, and some are dead because of this great tidal wave, and some are alive. And then, Tsukiroshi says, Dogen's konnichiwa, Dogen's good morning, was capturing a live dragon. So Dogen's sense of strictness was like that. His way was, when he did anything, it was capturing a live dragon. So that story maybe doesn't make too much sense. And it's easy to get caught in these stories that don't make too much sense. Another one,

[04:19]

Roshi was in a sashin in the third or fourth day. The teacher, who was a very good teacher, who Roshi liked a great deal, when he died, he called for his monk who helped him to come, and the monk came in. He said he wanted a glass of water, he wanted some water. So the monk brought him a glass of water and had the pitcher. And he took the pitcher, instead of the glass, he took the pitcher, tipped the pitcher up, and then went, ah, threw the pitcher into the air and disappeared from this world. But part of this is that there's some way you're supposed to die when you're a Buddhist. If you're good, you're supposed to do certain things and you're supposed to sit up in bed and do zazen and then go, you know. And it's quite not so uncommon that this is what is done.

[05:48]

So he had a great sense of humor, and Suzuki Roshi says that maybe a sense of humor is more real than reality. And anyway, so he drank this pitcher of water and threw it in the air. It was some rather funny thing to do, actually. Anyway, this same teacher was in the middle of a session with Suzuki Roshi. And he was a young monk, Tsukiyoshi was a young monk. And they were all very tired and practicing as hard as they could on the third or fourth day, I guess, and they needed some encouragement. And he said, you know, he started talking during zazen, and he said, a sparrow breaks a stone tori, stone gate. So they all pondered about this, you know, deep question. And actually he was just joking. And Suzuki Roshi didn't find out until years later that he was actually just joking. So anyway, you can't be sure of anything.

[07:17]

There's nothing wrong with any particular view you have. The problem has occurred when your views are one-sided. So how to get rid of one-sided views? You know, you walk around like you had one blinder on sometimes. We all do. So we can see over here, but we can't see over there. I remember asking some advice of someone in Japan about a garden, and I wanted to know what to plant in the garden. And I couldn't get him... Well, first of all, he wanted to tell me what he wanted the garden to be like. And no matter what I asked, he told me what plant he wanted there. And I was just interested in information. Then I finally got him to realize that I didn't want just what he wanted. So next he told me what's supposed to grow there by Japanese custom.

[09:03]

So that was a problem. I wasn't just interested in what's supposed to grow there. I was interested in what could grow there, what kind of plants could grow there. But you have to be nearly enlightened, I think, to just give information free from what you want it to be or what it's supposed to be. So it's pretty hard to have discussions with people about anything because they always have some idea about about the way they want it to be or the way it's supposed to be. I think our own views, of course we have our own views about things, but maybe they should come last. It's so difficult to...

[10:13]

I don't know. It's so difficult to get free of what we can't know we have. We don't know we have. There's a saying in Buddhism, or in Japan, I guess, that you can't tell how heavy the load is until the bow that you're carrying it with breaks. And some of us can't tell how heavy the load we're carrying until we break. We don't know, you know. But when you get free of that weight, you actually feel very light. Maybe that's one meaning of enlightened, is when you put your load down, you feel very light.

[11:37]

Anyway, a while ago I talked about restraining your feelings or your passions or something like that. And that's called negative, the negative way. This is not Buddha. This is not Buddha. The positive way is this is Buddha. Whatever you feel is Buddha. So in that sense, from that point of view, maybe Buddhism is a kind of organized love affair with Buddha, you know? Because you have these feelings, you know, so how to express them? I suppose Freud would say that religion is a sublimated form of love, but Buddhists would say that love is a sublimated form of Buddhism.

[12:52]

Actually, when you want to express your love fully, you know, it's more than just for one person or one thing. Anyway, what I'm talking about actually is there's a koan story in the Blue Cliff Records It's number 17. And a monk asks the teacher, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And the teacher says, in the literal translation, the teacher says, to meditate long and grow weary. But actually what that means is, it's a kind of greeting or saying, which means, thank you for listening so long, or thank you for paying attention to your practice. So the teacher's answer

[14:16]

means, thank you for asking the question again. Now I guess there's maybe 500 koans or Zen stories based on or around the question, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? So the student said, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And the teacher said, because he said, thank you for asking the question again. So our practice is like that, you know. He's saying, just practice really. Ask the question again and again. And I think most of us are too satisfied with our answers or our practice. And we're, particularly, we get satisfied with our intellectual answers or we're satisfied with the idea that we can solve our problems or the way to do something is such and such. Instead of questioning thoroughly what we do, nothing wrong with any specific thing, but we tend to be limited to it.

[15:46]

And intellectual explanations are pretty difficult. The same koan in a comment, the commentary on the koan says that some intellectual understanding is like a heavy basket or the kind of wicker or straw, sort of framework they put under skirts to make the skirt stand out. So it has both meanings. And in either case, I mean, the skirt looks the same, but it doesn't have life. So many times our intellectual understanding of Buddhism is just right, you know, but it's like a basket or something. There's no life in it. But particularly when our intellectual understanding is just right, how difficult it is to get free of it. Another wonderful thing in this koan is a statement that says,

[17:13]

It's like blowing on the salad. And what that means is we have some experience of hot soup. So because we're afraid of hot soup, we get the salad and we blow on it. And we want to make everything okay. So a lot of the time we're going around blowing on the salad. And maybe we've had some hot soup experience with Christianity or Judaism or something. We treat Buddhism the same way. There's no reason to treat Buddhism like it was a hot salad. Actually, that's what we do a lot of the time, is we have some experience and some success in surviving the various crises of our life. And then we treat everything with some kind of caution. We don't let it get too close. We treat everything like it was a hot soup or something.

[18:34]

Anyway, to continue on this koan, in Setso's statement about it, he talks about the white waves that flow from the sky, and this means great activity. The point here is, the point of this koan is, how to cut off one-sided views, but to have our, to continue our original views. In other words, how to, this is maybe a positive way, this is Buddha, this is Buddha. So generally we think the rough waves are water. is what we want to escape from. But it's only what we want to escape from if we're on a raft in it. But if you're the ocean itself, then the waves can be so high that they cover the sky. It's quite natural to have various passions and feelings, likes and dislikes.

[20:28]

So the teacher's response to all of this was, thank you for continuing to ask the question, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? For us, this is, I think, one of the hardest parts of practices, is to continue to ask the same question over and over again. we expect some kind of solution pretty quickly, one week or one month. And pretty soon you lose interest in it. And if you can't hold yourself to some question, to your practice, for one year or two years, 24 hours a day, you really can't practice Buddhism. If I think about what makes practice work, it's that kind of intensity over a period of some years.

[22:15]

Moment after moment, only catching live dragons. Practice is, of course, helpful to you, even if you don't practice in that way. But maybe I get in trouble when I say this, some weak point maybe. I want some of you to practice that way. Actually, it doesn't make any difference what you do. It's the same actually for you whether you practice or not, but you don't feel so comfortable if you don't practice. You are carrying a big invisible load.

[23:31]

So what Buddhists are always talking about is Buddha's space. I don't know how else to say it, but maybe Buddha's space. Buddha's space that includes everything. There's many names for this. You can call nirvana Buddha's space. The first principle, we say the first principle being emptiness. So actually there's nothing that we can do to help each other except to continue to ask why Bodhidharma came from the West. There's no way to explain Buddhism to each other. We can be as open with each other as possible, willing to share.

[25:21]

ourselves with others. And if you have this sense, then you can actually practice in the mountains by yourself. What I'm talking about doesn't mean that you have to always be with people, or always have group practice, or always be seeing a teacher. Once you have this feeling, you can be separated from your teacher for many years, and it doesn't make any difference. Do you have any questions? No. To see everything as Buddha, it seems like at least there must be one intellectual step involved. And yet you say that intellectual steps make a person thrive.

[26:48]

Well, we use our intellect, of course, in Buddhist practice, particularly in Zen we use. It's, as I said, the way of knowledge, so we know what our practice is. But we want to give up thinking about practice. You especially want to give up your own views about things. As Dogen always says, just give up body and mind. Don't have any, anything you thought before, give up. Just do what the rules of Buddhism are. And you have to, maybe it sounds terrible, and for some people that sounds terrible, like you've become a robot or something. Actually, we need that time of just trusting. So we just do it, you know, and you give up whatever. I mean, it may be wrong, but maybe other things are wrong too. So you just do it. So you don't have to think much about it if someone says to you, you know, you should treat everything as Buddha.

[28:15]

Just then you try to treat everything as Buddha. Practice. You may come to the conclusion intellectually that you should try to treat everything as Buddha. For some reason you may think about life and practice and various levels of human beings and Buddha and nirmanakaya, etc., and you may decide Oh yes, from cosmic point of view, everything is Buddha. So to recognize that, I will treat everything as Buddha. You can come to that kind of understanding. But that doesn't have any meaning unless for 10 years you try to treat everything as Buddha. And the effect of trying to treat everything as Buddha for 10 years or 20 years or 30 years is the real difference between Suzuki Roshi and us. Something, as I said to the practice period yesterday, that many things

[29:33]

that I came to through my practice, not just intellectual idea, but that I knew, for instance, that you can't explain your practice to yourself. That practice is beyond explanation. The other day I noticed I wrote that in a brochure, maybe eight years, six, seven, six years ago, five years ago. And I know I discussed that or had some communication about that with Suzuki Roshi before that even. And Suzuki Roshi accepted my understanding at that time. I couldn't I had many intellectual explanations and I was really caught in that briar patch or bramble place, you know, that only a brayer rabbit can survive in. And by the time I had been practicing that many years and wrote that saying, my life was entirely different. I was the same, but something was completely different. But now when I look back on

[30:59]

when I wrote that it's like at that time I didn't understand it at all because now I've been practicing with that for an additional six years and something very different is I mean I'm still exactly the same but something there's some difference. So when you ask questions, for instance, in lecture or doksan or anytime, your experience is, I mean as the sutras say, you know, we're asking so-and-so, there at his shoulder, and then for the benefit of everybody there, he asked a question. So when you ask a question, you're asking a question for yourself and for others, even if no one hears you. Even if you're asking again, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? Asking the question has nothing to do with wanting to know why Bodhidharma came from the West, or whether you know or don't know. It's like your heart beating.

[32:30]

There's no way I can explain exactly until ... some people here feel that, I know. Some of you don't feel it. You're practicing and your practice is good, but you don't feel this kind of thing I'm talking about. Why you just repeat that question? Why did Bodhidharma come from the West? Yeah. I think the buyer has to find that. I mean we'll put in a request later for a living dragon. Since you're the buyer that's your responsibility to bring us one. Maybe next Saturday at this time you'll Okay. Please try. Someone over there had a question. Yeah. I don't know. Because you're quite beautiful just as you are.

[33:57]

Maybe you don't feel so, but I feel so. As long as you feel that difference, your practice will have the energy, the kind of energy necessary to solve that problem. When you no longer feel that difference, your practice will have a different kind of energy, but still we practice. You know the other day I was watching, I went to the symphony because a friend of mine's friend is the conductor of I don't know, he's a conductor anyway, and he was conducting the San Francisco Symphony. I guess he's now a conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. And he's quite a vigorous guy, about, I guess he's about 29, maybe? And he conducts as if he had a magic wand, and he sort of goes like this and music appears.

[35:21]

He goes, boom, a huge cymbal and a crash, and he jumps and bounces. He's very lively, rather. He really acts like, it feels like, and he doesn't use, for the most part, any score or anything. It just feels like he's making the music appear out of it. Anyway, there's all of these people sitting in the orchestra. They're all working hard. And they're working really hard, you know, and they're so intense, and I thought about all the hours they practiced, etc. I said to Virginia, who was with me, I said, I said, look at that, their whole life is just sitting there wiggling that bow back and forth. And she said, well, your whole life is sitting there without wiggling. So, she understands me.

[36:48]

What space is left to ask a question? None. But still you can ask a question. Just as you cook the lunch for everyone, you can ask a question for everyone. You can't ask a question? Well, if you only want to cook the lunch, that's very good. Yeah? Last week you said, like, when something terrible happens you should feel the heat. Could you go into that a little bit? Why?

[38:22]

You don't want to go into it when something terrible happens. Anyway, it's okay. I mean that when you have a sense of practice, the kind of way I'm talking about practice, is that whatever happens is a relief. I don't know, I can't explain more than that. It's like when I said everything seems familiar, same kind of feeling you have, this is familiar. Can you give an example of when you've done things? I mean, you know, like some... a few examples of... When something terrible happens? Yeah. Okay. I don't know if I should... Anyway, I'm a little hesitant to say things because then you'll try it, you know? And I don't want you to try terrible things. Anyway, once...

[39:55]

for me a kind of difficult time as I was driving along once in a car. And I had practiced a pretty fairly long time at this time and pretty hard, you know. And I felt everything seemed quite light, you know. And every area that I was conscious of seemed quite light. There was no problem. But there was some kind of dark area, which gave me some queasiness. I didn't want to think about dark area. Some little... It used to be mostly 99% dark, right? Now there's this little dark area left, right? So I said I was driving along and it had occurred to me before about this dark area. So I said, I know exactly where I was. I was going around the cloverleaf, entering the freeway from University Avenue in Berkeley.

[41:24]

And I thought, well, you coward, why don't you just enter the dark area now? So I decided to enter the dark area. And I said, what is that dark area? And I drove along. Well, it was pretty scary for maybe one month or so. And I'd been practicing a pretty long time at this time, five years or so. So anyway, this great area of anxiety and darkness and things opened up, which, and I'd been through many, but this was sort of the last one, you know. So at that time I felt a great relief that it happened. But especially after that, if... And now I don't feel... I feel pretty nearly the same all the time. But sometimes something occurs, something happens which gives me some small anxiety, you know? And I sort of want to encourage it. It's rather interesting to feel anxious again. So I think,

[42:52]

Wonderful, what's causing that?" But I mean I can't really give examples more than that except that when you're practicing so that your practice practices doesn't eliminate all problems but it allows you to solve all problems. Or if it doesn't, you don't care if you solve them or not, you're ready to go down with the ship, you know? It doesn't make any difference, you know? So, when you have that feeling, when a problem comes, you welcome it, you know? Or what I said last time was, when people realize you're dumb, it's a relief to finally have the secret out. They know I'm dumb. I can stop hiding. That's true of everything. When other people know us, at some, you should feel relieved. The other day I was walking along the street with someone and there was a hitchhiker and he asked me, and I was just wearing dungarees and

[44:17]

I don't know, a shirt, nothing special. And the hitchhiker asked the friend I was with for a pencil and he wanted to write Berkeley, you know, because he was hitchhiking. So my friend gave him a pencil and he looked at me and he said, you a teacher or something? What ashram are you with? And I don't know, I said, ashram? What do you mean ashram? Why do you think I'm... He said, you look like an ashram person to me. I said, my dungarees? He said, I don't know. He said, you just look like an ashram person, the way your dungarees are on. Really, that's what he said. So in a way, I feel sort of stuck. I don't want to be an ashram person. But anyway, it's sort of interesting to me. If he'd said something else to me, I would have felt the same way. Ah, so that's what I'm like. Thank you.

[45:49]

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