I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening. I'd like to say how very happy I am to be here. Since I first visited in 1970, I've considered this place my true home and a kind of physical support for the experience of Zazen, his deepest refuge. And when I still lived in Oregon and would come down to visit, and after I moved in and would go away for a week or two and then return, I still find that when I enter the front hallway after being gone,

[01:02]

it's a strong experience, which includes the residual odor of incense in the building and the view of greenery through the courtyard window, that the fundamental experience is the tremendous relief to be home. I've spent more time in Zazen here than anyplace else, and it's with much gratitude to you, I feel, for continuing the practice here and caring for this space. Thank you very much. I'm not used to microphones. In Soto Zen, you may have noticed that

[02:08]

we don't speak much about enlightenment, so much so that even the terms enlightenment, satori, kensho, are treated almost as if they're taboo. One of the stories that you may have heard about Suzuki Roshi is once when an American student was visiting with him and his wife, the student asked, why Suzuki Roshi never talked about enlightenment in his lectures. At that time, in the 60s, most of the books available on Zen were by D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts and Paul Rips, and they had quite a bit of material about enlightenment and the enlightenment experience, but little, if any, on how to practice. And enlightenment was probably the most well-known aspect of Zen at that time,

[03:16]

and of course it was described in very attractive, desirable terms. Mrs. Suzuki answered the student, saying that Suzuki Roshi didn't talk about enlightenment because he'd never had it. And this was her sense of humor, but it's also indicative of the way enlightenment is downplayed in Soto Zen. The concept of enlightenment isn't used as a way of advertising or creating a desire for practice. Soto Zen emphasizes our daily practice, our lifelong practice, in which we may have many enlightening experiences, but enlightenment isn't the goal or the finish line for Soto Zen.

[04:18]

We just continue our way, whether we think we are enlightened or not. During the ordination ceremony, the ordinees are asked, even after acquiring Buddhahood, will you continue this truthful practice? Suzuki Roshi compared practice enlightenment to going out for a long walk in heavy mist, so that when you come back indoors, your coat is wet. But it's hard to locate that point at which the coat went from being dry to being wet. Practice works on us in this way. Day after day, breath after breath, we change. But it's hard to find that place where you can say,

[05:20]

before and after. So it's a process that continues as long as we practice. I think when I began practicing, I think when many of us began practicing Zazen, we had the idea that if we just kept at it long enough, sooner or later, surely we'd get enlightened. At least the difficult parts of our lives would go away. There'd be some real improvement. And the first time I tried to meditate, I was in high school and didn't have any instruction. I just sat down and leaned back, shut my eyes, and waited. And I did this several times before I completely gave up, because usually by about ten minutes,

[06:23]

I was either asleep or so bored that I stopped. And several years later, I visited my first Zazen group, and when I heard that people actually meditated for 40 minutes, I thought, if I could just make it through the period, I'd probably be enlightened. The idea of 40 minutes was so overwhelming. I think we tend to have pretty strong expectations. It's part of our human condition. And when we meditate, we hope for positive and pleasant experiences, some sense of peacefulness or concentration or freedom. But as long as we conceptualize the state of mind and grasp for it, we push it away, like a swimmer reaching for an inner tube in the water.

[07:30]

So we don't really talk about enlightenment, because as soon as we conceptualize it, we're separate from it. And because we really can't conceptualize the inconceivable. When we practice, I think one of the things that generally happens is that the boundaries we use to define who we are begin to blur. You might find yourself identifying with things that you would normally consider outside yourself. I remember hearing Robert Thurman talk once. He's the disciple of the Dalai Lama. Talking about what it feels like to be a Buddha. And he said the way we have a physical, tactile sense of our body,

[08:35]

which begins inside and extends in every direction outward to the limits of our skin, which is what we normally think of as ourself. The fully enlightened Buddha has a physical, tactile sense of the whole universe and everything in it. So for the Buddha, everything is inside. There is no outside. Sometimes in practice, we play with concepts, like, what is self? What is mind? What's the relationship between body and mind? Where do I end? And I think one of the characteristics that practice is working

[09:39]

is that we tend to meet things with less hesitation. And it might be, if you're walking down the street, down the hallway at work, for some instant, when you see a piece of trash, you might have the sensation that the piece of trash is not outside your mind or separate from yourself. And I found, living here, I had a lot of opportunity for this kind of experience. I think partly because the building serves so many different functions. As a temple or meditation center, we had high standards for how we wanted it cared for. But it was also a residence for many people, and provided office space and practice place for kitchen crew and maintenance crew,

[10:40]

a library and classes, and on and on, as you all know. And it wasn't uncommon to find a coffee cup in the hallway and other misplaced things about the building. And it seemed like there were some who, out of haste or carelessness, would leave remnants of uncompleted activity. And then others, there might have been some overlap, who, in their irritation, found these remnants. When a piece of trash or a forgotten cup address you, how do you respond? Do you meet it without hesitation, spontaneously? Or how many times do you spontaneously respond? What determines the response?

[11:42]

Is it your state of mind or the circumstances? When you see trash, do you include it as yourself, or do you draw a line? This is the boundary somewhere here. And I'm in here. The trash is out here. When it's said this way, it looks like the activities of picking up papers blowing in the wind, or cigarettes burning in the gutter, or coffee cups slowly growing mold over there in the corner, would express non-discrimination, and that refusing to do so would be indicative of dualistic thinking. Or, this may sound like a lot of trivia,

[12:48]

but this is the realm of practice. This is the koan we meet day by day. You know, a simple event which we're confronted, and there's no one fixed response which is enlightened activity. There's just confrontation and response. Meeting or avoiding. In each moment, we have the opportunity to choose either to fall back on our habitual patterns or to open to what's before us. So looking at questions, who are we? Where do we draw the line between self and non-self? It's a way to practice with your personal koan.

[13:59]

Thinking usually doesn't work. Observing your actions. Watching your responses is the direction to work with. So when you pick up trash, do you pick it up because you recognize it as yourself, as your mind? Or do you pick it up because you hate trash? Do you leave it where it is to remind others that trash is filling our world? So please be careful. Or are you so consumed by your thoughts and other mental activity that you don't even see the trash in front of your feet? So this realm,

[15:08]

chopping wood, carrying water, picking up litter, is the immediate realm of our way. I'd like to talk about Yakujo's Fox. A koan from the Blue Cliff Record. Yakujo, or Bai Zhang, lived in the 8th and 9th centuries in China. And according to the records, he lived to be about 95 years old. And... He's attributed with having established the monastic code that's still used in Zen monasteries in Japan. And one of the stories he's known for

[16:10]

is that even after he became elderly, he still went out every day and worked in the fields with his monks. One day his monks begged him to relax, take a rest. But he wouldn't. So they hid his tools so he couldn't work. They went to his room and shut the door, slid the screen, whatever. And a while later his monks came knocking on the door saying, Dinner is ready. But he wouldn't come out. He said, A day of no work is a day of no food. This, at least as far as we know, is the first example of importance being placed on daily, ordinary activity.

[17:14]

And it characterizes one of the aspects of Zen, that our practice is equally important in everyday activity as it is in our meditation. In the koan, Yakucho was giving a series of talks, maybe daily lectures during Sashin. And every day an old man would come into the lecture hall with the monks, listen to the lecture, and then leave with the monks. One day he remained behind. Yakucho asked the old man, Who are you standing here before me? This is one of the more common questions in Zen stories. Usually when a monk meets a new teacher or goes to a new monastery. And Blue Cliff Records has Emperor Wu,

[18:17]

when he meets Bodhidharma, asking, Who are you facing me? To which Bodhidharma replies, I don't know, confounding the emperor. Koans express the tension or interplay between conventional reality, the relative truth of our everyday world, and the absolute truth of non-duality. So often in koans there's a dialogue which bounces back and forth between the relative and the absolute until the student realizes that these aren't two realities, that they coexist and occur simultaneously. So when Yakucho asked the old man, Who are you standing here before me? The old man said, I'm not a human being.

[19:21]

I was head priest of this mountain monastery in ancient times. When a monk asked me, Is the enlightened person subject to the law of cause and effect or not? And I answered, No. The enlightened person is not subject to the law of cause and effect. Since that time I've been reborn 500 lives as a fox. Please, will you say a turning word and release me from this fox body? And then the old man continued and asked Yakucho, Does the enlightened person fall under the law of cause and effect or not? And Yakucho answered, saying, Such a person is not subject, is not blind to cause and effect.

[20:25]

Such a person does not evade the law of cause and effect. And fortunately for the old man, he was enlightened and made his vows and said, I have been released from the body of a fox, which can be found on the other side of the mountain. Would you please perform a funeral ceremony for me as for a deceased monk? And Yakucho then had a monk strike the signal board and announced that there'd be a funeral ceremony for a deceased priest. And Yakucho led the monks to the far side of the mountain. And with his staff, he poked out the body of a dead fox behind a rock

[21:27]

and performed a cremation service. Later that night, he told the monks the whole story, the old man. When he had finished, Obaku, his chief disciple, came forward and said, As you say, the old man missed the turning word and was reborn 500 times as a fox. What would have happened if he had given the right answer every time he was asked a question? And Yakucho said, Come here, come closer and I'll tell you. And then Obaku stepped up and slapped Yakucho in the face. And Yakucho laughed and clapped his hands and said, I thought the barbarian had a red beard,

[22:34]

but here is a red-bearded barbarian. And of course, this is the end of the story. In Chinese culture at that time, barbarian referred to foreigners, non-Chinese. And the red-bearded barbarian was Bodhidharma. He traveled from India to China, as attributed to having established Zen. And this is supposed to be a compliment to Obaku by comparing his understanding to that of Bodhidharma's. But in this story, I think the most apparent meaning is the importance of cause and effect, which none of us can escape. But in hearing the story,

[23:36]

I think it's easy to get the impression that we'd better really watch what we say, give the right answer every time. But in Buddhism, right and wrong have no inherent existence. So here we are, moment after moment, creating karma, but having no fixed standard that we can measure or know the effects of our actions. Dogen Zenji commented on this story by saying, All the past students and those who negotiate the way on Mount Kyakujo

[24:41]

have sought to clarify how we're influenced by karma. He says, don't look for an easy answer. We can't say either no for the enlightened person, karma ceases, or yes, it never stops. If we mistakenly answer no, we'll misunderstand yes. Dogen says, basically, the law of karma has no concrete existence, yet it's always present. Here we are, moment by moment, being confronted by just what's before us. And I think the realm of practice

[25:47]

has to do a lot with conjuring up the energy to just open our eyes and face, a piece of trash or a coffee cup. There's no formula for practice and no final answer. It's just moment after moment, confrontation and response, meeting or avoiding. Sometimes we pick up litter and sometimes we don't. Sometimes we speak and sometimes we're silent with our intention and our effort. So, instead of trying to reach out for enlightenment,

[26:52]

we can try to investigate how we create ourself, how we create our separateness, by looking at our boundaries, where we draw the line. Also, by playing with the view that objects are self, meeting something as your mind, playing with those definitions, inside and outside. In this way, you start drawing a bigger inside. Do you have any questions? No, I said...

[28:04]

That's all I have to say. Do you have any questions and answers? No, I hope not. Do you have any questions? Basically, in 1981, a couple of people who were living and practicing here moved to North Carolina and started a small sitting group which amounted to about six or seven people for a long time. Then I moved out in 1991 and we started having more satsang

[29:06]

and some all-day sittings. It's a lot of people spread out in different directions. We have zazen right now twice a week, on Tuesday nights and Sunday mornings for two periods of zazen, ken-hen, and service. Last year we had our first four-and-a-half day satsang. Mel came out. So we try to have the bodhisattva ceremony once a month and we have lectures once or twice a month and all-day sittings every six to eight weeks, something like that. Ah, ah... Well, we moved into a beautiful space

[30:08]

about a year ago and people who are renting us the space that's in the middle of their home don't practice, but they wanted us to meet there. So, we love the space, but now they want to use it differently so we need to find a new space. And when I first heard this I was so depressed I couldn't imagine looking for a new zendo again because, you know, they advertise we're looking for space and someone calls up and you have to kind of explain, well, it's for meditation, but it's also a temple and we do funerals, and they're not always on Tuesday nights. And then we like to sit, you know, all day sometimes and we need parking for 20 cars. So, I thought, is there any way we could buy some land? So, we're looking to buy land, which is a lot cheaper in North Carolina than out here, to see if we could build something very minimal,

[31:10]

a room and a toilet. And we found a piece of land that looked real promising and very quiet, but not too far from the freeway. And we just found out a couple of days ago that the clay soil isn't perking the way it needs to to support a building and it would have to run a pipe 700 feet from the building to the septic field. So, we're not going to get that particular piece of land, but we're still looking and still hoping to someday have a permanent Zendo and maybe one or two caretakers. Yes? What does it feel to you to have carried, or been in the process of carrying the practice from here to an eminent place? Well, part of it is when you're here,

[32:15]

you're in a particular context where people are kind of used to forms and different things. So, part of it is just staying real flexible. You know, we had a two-day Sashin a couple of months ago. It was unusually cold, and there's no place where we meet for practice instruction, really. So, I got on this back porch, but it was 38 degrees, and after a couple of hours, it was... But it's kind of continually adapting to find the essence of what you're doing and express it in whatever ways are available. You know, to think, why do we do this? And to save most of it. And my experience here is it gives us an instruction every Saturday, and lots of people would come every week,

[33:19]

and you'd almost never see them again. Most of them you'd never see again. And it's the same experience out there. We advertise the Sashin instruction sometimes, and lots of people come. And what I've learned is that the people who come and say, I'm going to become a member, those they don't see again. But... I lost my train of thought. Well, why don't you just ask the same question I asked? Oh, it didn't... Yes, I was trying to avoid it. You can tell. I know that you're here to work with the Noah Wexner, for Dharma Transmission. Why don't you just say a few words about just sort of the meaning that has for you. Dharma Transmission,

[34:19]

I think one aspect of it is another stage of priest ordination. So, priest ordination, first of all, you get ordained and receive the precepts. And then usually some years later, it becomes so intense, you start taking more responsibility for the practice by giving lectures and meeting with people and ringing the wake-up bell, emptying the garbage. And then sometime after that, Dharma Transmission, part of it is... I can't... I can't express it, but... Receiving permission to give precepts in wedding ceremonies, funeral ceremonies, ordination ceremonies. And I think that, maybe more than anything,

[35:20]

for me, it means having the responsibility of teaching precepts in the non-dual way we work with them in Zen. So what I've been doing is, last week, studying with Mel, kind of word by word, different fascicles and commentaries on different transmission documents which have to do with the teaching. I guess I feel like there should be something

[36:26]

really big and beautiful to say about it. I can't quite say that. Thank you very much.

[36:41]

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