I want to thank everyone for that wonderful day, 27. I thought for a minute we'd talk about the ceremony. I don't know if that's kosher to do. I didn't ask the boss before he left. But I know there are a couple of answers that I felt I've been thinking about afterwards. I can mention those and then maybe we can talk for a minute if you have something hanging on that you want to say that felt funny. Somebody asked me, what causes difficulties? And I said, Buddha nature. You remember that? Afterwards I felt like that was kind of a cop out or And that's true that everything is buddha nature, right? But to say, it says in the books, but to say that... And so difficulties arise because of buddha nature, or cause of buddha nature, or are buddha nature. But maybe if I had said attachments, that would have been better. Who asked me that?

[01:31]

I think attachments is a better answer. Someone asked me about saving sentient beings. What was that question? What did you say? Oh, you did. How to save them? Pardon? How do we save them? Oh, then after that I thought, maybe I could have said, maybe we should save them for later when we know what to do with them. What about now? Okay, now. Then what would you do? That's a trick one. Then maybe later on this summer we'll talk about it some more. You know, if you have some idea, and I do. Somewhere we know all those answers, I guess. Someone asked me about posture. Why is zazen posture so important?

[03:04]

Why are we supposed to pay attention to our posture? Yeah. And then I remember I said something like I remember reading I think Suzuki Roshier says that to take this posture is already some manifestation of the truth. But also and I'm sure there's some reasons more specific, but for me it's like the ceremony or like practicing Buddhism. We've been told by teachers down through the years that this is the way we do this. We've discovered through the years that if you practice Buddhism in this way it works, and so you sit this way and you do this, and that in turn is one of the

[04:05]

Reasons I think we say, I say when I'm not worthy of or you don't deserve this is because, you know, we didn't think it up. But it's being created by us at all times and it's been handed down to us by our teachers through the years. This is how we do this thing. So, okay, this is the way we do it. And then doing it, I think we find out Why, as we do it, the more, the longer we sit. When you find the right posture, whenever that is, I don't know. Maybe then we'll know. I wonder sometimes. Baker Roshi told me once, well, it takes 10 years to learn how to sit, and this is my 10th year, so I'm hoping that it'll happen this year. Maybe this year. I think of Buddhism and our practice sort of like tea ceremony. It's something that people have done. Somebody invented it and it's been refined and passed down over the years and it's sort of a gift that's given to us and we do whatever we're going to do with it. Some sense of

[05:39]

not deserving or not being worthy of it. We say in all those little talks that's made up that we just read, they make some sense to me. Like you won't really deserve it or be worthy of it until you become it. Does anybody have something more to say about the ceremony in terms of our questions? Something that I didn't handle so well? Afterward, I thought about the answer about wasting time. Someone asked a question about if you go to Zazen and fall asleep, are you wasting time? And you said you can't waste time. You are time. And I wondered if... But you can waste time, too. Yeah. I wondered if, yeah.

[06:42]

Did that answer satisfy you? No, I've thought about that one too. That one came up in my head again, that I kind of got rid of that one either. But I didn't... Then I thought, well, the only thing I could have said afterwards was that, but we can waste time too. And I wouldn't know what else to say after that. That's all I have to say. That's good. Thank you. So, oh, I thought your talking was going to take about 10 or 15 minutes. I went to Baker Roshi and said, I'm supposed to give a talk on the 30th. What should I talk about? And he said, oh, I don't know, whatever you want to talk about. I said, well, I could say something.

[07:49]

He said, talk about love. And I thought, oh, dear. I said, well, I've been thinking about it a lot, and I don't really have so much of an idea of what it means, because what I see, people that are involved in love, what it means to them, it seems to me, is just some temporary emotional involvement. That's what it looks like to me, anyway. He says, well, you know, what is love in practice? And he said many things, but I was so busy trying to tell him what I didn't know about it, or I didn't want to talk about it, that I didn't listen to what he was saying, as usual, you know. Why don't you tell me something, and I'm talking so fast, there's so many words going through my head that I don't listen to him. And afterwards I think, oh, fine, what was I doing in there? my head and mouth going a mile a minute and my teacher is talking to me and I'm not even listening to him. Are you listening? Is he there? Anyway, he said something wonderful. He said, a love in our practice. I heard that. And I heard, just the three of us in the room saying, well it's like Suzuki Roshi in the teacup.

[09:14]

Then I realized that all of the 27th, the shuso ceremony day, was Suzuki Roshi and the teacup. It wasn't any different. It was the same thing. And then I thought, oh dear. I found, all of a sudden, I found out something I didn't know before. It came up that love existed. There was a thing called love. So I said to David, there's some words written about love around. I want to start reading about love. I got a few here. Maybe we can talk about love through the summer more, too, and things. I think it's something else we can talk about a lot. I used to think it was, uh, corny, not something to talk about or think about so much. Until Baker Oshie said, Suzuki Oshie and the Chika.

[10:36]

Until Vekaroshi said, Zuki Roshi in the teacup. Can you hear me all right back there? Love in Buddhist Sanskrit is called Maitri. It is where Maitreya gets his name. It is one of the four immeasurable states of mind. along with compassion, sympathetic joy, even mind-ness, mind-ed-ness, sometimes translated friendliness. Can you still hear me? Can you still hear me? Fading a little? I hear myself pretty well with this. And then, uh, four immeasurable states of mind. That Sanskrit word I won't try to read. C-A-T-V-A-R-Y-A-P-R-A-M-A-N-A-N-I. Immeasurable states, otherwise known as pure abodes. A common Tibetan prayer formulates them as follows. Immeasurable love arises from the wish for all living beings to have happiness and the cause of happiness.

[12:01]

Immeasurable compassion arises from the wish for all living beings to be free from suffering and its cause. Immeasurable joy arises from the wish that living beings not be sundered from the supreme happiness of liberation. And immeasurable impartiality arises from the wish that the preceding love, compassion, and joy should apply equally to all living beings without attachment to friend or hatred for enemy. I like that... I always said that. To me, love was the base feeling that you have for everybody, instead of this special feeling that you have for someone that makes you feel good, like, you know, Four immeasurables. The immeasurable... The immeasurable of love, wishing all living beings to have happiness and the cause of happiness. The immeasurable of compassion, wishing all living beings to be free of suffering and the cause of suffering. The immeasurable of joy, wishing all living beings not to be apart from the supreme happiness of liberation. The immeasurable of impartiality, being free of affection and aversion.

[13:44]

In Suzuki Rush's book, this is a small, small thing here. Most people insist on some idea. Recently, the younger generation talks about love. Love, love, love. Their minds are full of love. And when they study Zen, if what I say does not accord with the idea they have of love, they will not accept it. They are quite stubborn, you know. You may be amazed. Of course not all, but some have a very, very hard attitude. That is not naturalness at all. It's in the fascicle about naturalness. Even though they talk about love and freedom or naturalness, they do not understand these things. And they cannot understand what Zen is in that way. If you want to study Zen, you should forget all your previous ideas, And just practice Azan and see what kind of experience you have in your practice. That is naturalness. So there's two little things about love there.

[15:00]

I was walking with Suzuki Roshi once in the courtyard at, I'm just throwing this in, at Page Street. This was before the Buddha Hall was where the living, before the Buddha Hall was where it is now. It was just a big living room, the fireplace where the altar is, and a baby grand piano. And it was a beautiful night like the nights are here. Some nights in the winter when it's crisp and the stars were out, but it was kind of warm. And Pat Lang was sitting in playing the baby grand piano. She's away now with Sasaki Roshi, I think. And Suzuki Roshi, all of a sudden I found the two of us walking around the courtyard by each other in some way. And I said, Roshi, we have such a beautiful house. He said, we have everything we need. And I always remembered that little story, so I didn't know, thinking about it.

[16:41]

You know there's that song that says, you don't know what love is until you know the meaning of the blues? I was thinking about that and I think that a lot of us get that feeling, that emotional, feeling sorry for yourself, feeling confused with what love is. Some idea. I have of what love is, anyway. And, uh... I... I think, uh... I spent so many years feeling sorry for myself. Uh... I think 15 years, anyway. Completely feeling sorry for myself. I don't think you can know anything as long as that feeling sorry for yourself is in the road of... of things. But it's not so easy to say you're not going to feel sorry for yourself anymore because it's in the road. It takes a lot of energy to feel sorry for yourself.

[18:21]

Does anybody want to say anything about love? John, I know you do. I will. Okay. My grandfather, who was married for about 50 years to my grandmother, but on the surface they had this not very close relationship in the sense that we think of a close relationship. That is, they hardly ever talked to each other. And he was sort of very religious and she wasn't. And they would sleep in the same room. But, uh... They did sleep in the same room? They didn't. Didn't. But they... Can you hear her? So, you might... A little bit louder. Um, you might think that, uh... They weren't really happy. Or they didn't really love each other. Like, that's what I definitely thought when I was 14. They didn't take much of their relationship. Um...

[19:52]

But my grandfather once, then I started dating at that time, and my grandfather said, oh, you don't know what love is. He said, love is living with a woman for 50 years. I kind of never forgot that, because it so startled me at the time. But I must say that I wonder if, If it doesn't have something to do with practice, like you spoke of practice in the beginning of this lecture, that is just, you find out what it is, why you do it, and you can sort of make some commitment to some situation and maybe just fly it in there. I don't think you can know anything, you can't know anything if you don't stay with something, right? Yeah. And... You know, I don't think I know what love is, but I'm just beginning to learn that that ceremony turned me on to something. I guess it was y'all. But, uh... That old lady that asked me the question about the teacup and Suzuki Roshi, she knows what love is.

[21:22]

And she doesn't feel sorry for herself. She's not here right now. Anyway, let's sit hard in this machine. And, uh... experience what love and practice is. When you go by my room, go inside and look at a picture that's above the table I use for a desk. There's a picture of a man there holding a teacup.

[22:12]

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