Today there was a rattlesnake down, they tell me, in Grasshopper Flats or on the path up to the cemetery, I don't know exactly where, but over toward where, when I was here last time, where I talked about the cemetery, over that way. And there's a famous story in the Hekigan Roku number 22, about a snake appearing in a temple. And Seppo, it's about Seppo as the abbot, and I think Mummon is a disciple and somebody named Chokei and somebody named Gensha.

[01:05]

Anyway, I guess the name of the temple is Milk Mountain or Bone White Mountain, Elephant Bone Mountain, Elephant Bone Mountain. So Seppo says a dangerous snake has appeared in this monastery, in the grounds of this temple. and everyone should go look at it." Maybe such a snake did appear in Sephpo's temple, but actually he's saying, you should face the Absolute. I don't know who says what, anyway, there's three of them.

[02:31]

I think Chokye says something like, oh, you know, we're quite monks here in this temple tremble at the sight of the Absolute. And then Gensha, He says, well, then you, I'm not disposed to go, you go and look at the snake. And then he says something and Choke, Choke says something and Sep Gensha responds, why use even this white mountain? And then Umlan startles everyone because he takes a stick and throws it down in front of Sepo.

[03:34]

Umlan is really wonderful. Gensha's answer is interesting. Why use even this white mountain? Why use even this temple to seek enlightenment? What necessity is there to look at the Absolute? The Absolute is everywhere. Why use even Tassajara? The umlaan just throws a stick down, like it was a snake, maybe. Later on in the story, Setso, you know, Setso is different from Sepo. Setso makes, in a commentary, says, look under your own feet. Anyway, this kind of story is

[04:54]

very interesting and hard to actually make any sense of. You know, similar stories are somebody asks, what is the first principle? So the teacher answers, if I answer, it will be the second principle. Or, you know, you can say, what is Buddha? And you can say, well, if I answer, it won't be Buddha. So it looks like there's nothing at all to do. I mean, everything just as it is, is enough. But that's not what we mean. Am I speaking loudly enough for the back? Thank you. One of the early forms of the Prajnaparamita literature parallels something that's pretty much in the

[06:28]

heart sutra that we chant every morning, no eyes, no ears, etc. But in this particular way of stating it, you know, Subhuti says, what about the five skandhas? Buddha says, well, there's no five skandhas, etc. Everything is, every part of Buddha's path is negated. So then Subhuti says, If a bodhisattva takes this seriously, that nothing at all, that there's no teaching at all, that nothing at all is present, then he will neglect the perfection of wisdom. He'll ignore the perfection of wisdom. He'll pay no attention to the perfection of wisdom. Buddha says, yeah, that's great.

[07:35]

That's why the perfection of wisdom is so great. When Suzuki Roshi talked about this story from the Blue Cliff Records, he told a story in the beginning which made a very deep impression on me at the time, so much that immediately after hearing the story, I went to sleep and didn't hear the rest of the lecture. But I wanted to concentrate, I think, on that story.

[08:38]

You know, I didn't want any more. That story was enough. And the story is about when Seppo was studying. And Seppo, who is the person in this story I just told, who said there's a snake in this monastery, anyway, when he was a younger monk, Setpo was quite famous for hard practice, practiced many years, thirty years, and I guess he joined Tozan Ryokai or his school nine times. Anyway, he was with a friend named Ganto, and they were on a trip somewhere, hiking. And they came to the foot of this mountain at a sort of pass, and there was quite a lot of snow, and they were camping.

[09:45]

And Ganto was always quite happy, and he went to sleep immediately. But Seppo couldn't sleep. He sat up doing zazen. Ganto, after a while, woke up and said, Why don't you sleep? What's wrong with you? And Seppo said, Because my mind is not as clear as yours. I can't rest. There's some uneasiness. So, Seppo had been with Tozan Ryokai the founder of the Chinese Soto school, he's the Toa of Soto, had said to Sephpo at one time in the monastery, who was working on some rice, you know,

[10:55]

Do you take the sand out of the rice or the rice out of the sand?" And Setpo couldn't answer, so he turned over the rice. And Tosan said, get out of here and go practice somewhere else. Anyway, that reminds me of a story. I can tell about Ed Brown. I think it was Ed. I was in the city one day, some years ago, and Ed or somebody spilled the rice on the, what? Beans? Oh, the beans. He spilled the beans. Now I'm spilling the beans. Anyway, he spilled the beans. And they were all over the sidewalk. And I came by and I looked, If I didn't say, be sure to get the sand out of the beans, I fought it, you know.

[12:03]

And then I was in the city for some length of time, one week or two weeks. It wasn't right away I came down to Tassajara. And I came down to Tassajara, and I was eating beans, you know. I was just, what a big stone, you know. So I took it out and I put it in my sleeve. And, uh, I debated for a while whether I should tell the kitchen or not. I was pretty sure I knew where the stone came from, San Francisco. And, uh, I didn't know if I was the only person who noticed it. If I was the only person, I thought, well, he got every piece of stone out but one. So maybe I ought to complain if I was the only person to get a stone. So, uh, I went to Suzuki Roshi's cabin and... I can't remember exactly how the conversation went, but we talked about various things.

[13:19]

And was there any... how was the food? Did he notice anything? He said, no. He didn't notice anything. So I thought, well, maybe... There was no stone in the food, you know. But he was thinking the same way as I was, that if no one noticed it, he wouldn't say anything, right? I was thinking if no one noticed it, I wouldn't say anything. So pretty soon, I thought, well, I won't say anything, but I'll take the stone out of my... I reached in my sleeve and took the stone out and I held it up. And he looked at it. I didn't sort of hold it up saying this was in the food. I sort of just held it like that. And he went... And I looked over and there were three stones on there. On the little bureau he had there. So then I mentioned it to Ed. It didn't come from the street.

[14:33]

That makes it all right to have stones. Anyway, Seppo, you know, didn't know how to answer when he said, do I take, do you take the sand out of the rice or the rice out of the sand? So later he went to a man named Tokusan. And Tokusan, when he left Tozan, and Tokusan, I don't know what the story is, but anyway, Tokusan slapped him. But at that time he had some enlightenment But his friend, Ganto, who he was camping with, didn't accept these two experiences. So while he was sitting up, unable to sleep, meditating, Ganto said, you depend.

[15:47]

There should be nothing in your mind. You depend too much on these experiences. He meant you shouldn't want to have anything in your mind. He wanted to have something. So at that time Seppo was more free from his ideas. How to practice in this way is not easy at all, because there's nothing to rely on. How can you open up your mind and practice in this way?

[16:58]

without any idea of Buddhism even. Somebody said to me, somebody knows some story about me where some reader said, I had a previous life, in a previous life I was head of a Tibetan monastery. No, it's not true, by the way. Anyway, but the difficulty with this kind of idea is that, you know, I don't have any special thing I've got from previous life. And Suzuki Roshi and you don't have any special attribute If you feel that there's some, oh, he's different, or so-and-so has some previous life which has led to such-and-such, then you don't have any confidence in your practice.

[18:25]

Actually, we're equal completely. And if there's any difference between Suzuki Roshi and us, it's just practice, it's not some special attribute that he has. Gensha saying, why use even the White Mountain, means why, it means There's no outside to the universe. Why use anything outside yourself? So as I said last time, Suzuki Roshi asked for just a simple, un-teared mound.

[19:34]

Maybe he'd like the outline to be the same as the whole universe, which, of course, is no outline at all. We have many activities of our mind, thinking, imagination.

[20:42]

And usually these faculties separate us from ourselves. So here at Tassajara, the practice is to just be concentrated on one thing at a time, but all your faculty should be present. When you look at a tree, a tree should be everything you can imagine. In other words, your imagination and your thinking coincide exactly with what you are doing. You don't imagine anything which isn't what actually is before you. But it doesn't mean you don't imagine. I don't know if it makes any sense, but usually I think when you practice, you try to cut down what you perceive, rather than open up what you perceive. I watched Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar at the beginning of a movie a while ago, and it was interesting to see their hands.

[22:34]

because their hands just, you know, rested on their instruments, looking like any ordinary hand. But their hand is full of knowledge that my hand is not full of. Because as soon as they started playing, their hand did all these extraordinary things. But without thinking, they could look around at everybody, you know, and talk, not talk, but smile, I mean, communicate out to the audience, back and forth at each other. And their hand just did everything. Without thinking. So... Ganto was saying to Seppo, you know, why don't you let your Buddha, why don't you let Buddha do everything, rather than thinking, I must practice such and such a way, or my mind is not clear, or Uman said such and such, or Tozan said such and such.

[24:00]

But how to let go like that is really very difficult. And for most of us, the distractions of our physical habits won't let us let go completely. And as long as you have some anger or sometimes need to forget yourself, your practice, It's that way you know your practice is not thorough. So you need some experience of not having to think. And so this kind of life we have at Tathagata is not so different from Ravi Shankar, Sitar maybe, is that it is practice that you should do this life till you can do it without thinking completely.

[25:16]

If we can take this little sort of model life we do here and do it effortlessly, then you can actually let go. At first you have a lot of resistance to it, etc., and then after you, even if you don't have resistance to it, it takes time to be familiar with this life here. Working with Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks is a very good experience for them, because in their work you become intimate with yourself

[26:28]

And our practice is to be more and more intimate with ourself and with the life we have, so that there's no division between us and other, or personal and private, or public and private. No tension between public and private, every society has in some form or another is a kind of technique of social control, which you have to observe, but you don't have to be caught by it. Okay.

[28:17]

As long as you have any attitude whatsoever, the world is divided into many parts. When you give up having any attitude at all, you're, we say, you're Buddha nature or Buddha comes out. And this isn't something that happens instantaneously at this particular time and then for, then on it's complete. It's not a thing, it's a process. Although it becomes possible to you suddenly, your life then is clear that what practice is then is continuing that openness. Then it's no longer practice,

[29:55]

the actual expression of our nature. So practice eventually disappears. It still looks like you're practicing, but after this kind of opening, practice is just the way to express our true nature. Is there anything we should talk about?

[31:05]

I'm going to the city tonight, and I'll be back as soon as I can. Please take care of your practice.

[31:36]

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