I am allowed to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. I think that might be a bit too loud. Hello? Hello? Well, oh, good evening. In March of this year, something happened to me. And it was a ceremony that took 21 days to accomplish. I'm not used to that sort of thing. And it was really something.

[01:03]

Every morning I got up before everybody else did at City Center and toured the building and stopping at all the altars there and offering incense and doing bows and chanting special chants. Most of which I had no idea what I was saying. Is this working okay? I mean, like, if I turn my head one way, you'll not see it. And also, while walking to the various altars, there's a special chant too. I do know that it's from something called the Surangama Sutra, but I had no idea, still have no idea what that was either. But supposedly it was supposed to be very good for the temple. And then, after that, then I had to bow, do a full bow and offer incense

[02:07]

for each of the names of the Buddhas and ancestors. And there are about, yes, the 93rd generation. So there must be, what are there, 90? A lot, there were a lot of them. And so that meant doing about 100 bows or so during each day. I finally caught on to do the 90-some bows before breakfast. And then I would spend a couple hours each day with my teacher and we'd go over all the secret stuff. And then, when we got through with that, she said, well, what do you want to do? And I said, I would really like to study Kodo Sawake Roshi. He's dead now, but when he was alive, he was a real renegade and just a very feisty call-a-spade-a-spade Zen master.

[03:10]

So we did that. And it was really great because she was, I'd read something very outrageous and absurd and she'd sit there and think for a minute. Then she'd say, oh, you know, I think that means such and such. And, oh, yeah. So my teacher, I wouldn't want to say this in public, but my teacher often thinks she doesn't have much to offer sometimes and she's very, very mistaken. She has an amazing intuitive mind. So, having not said that, the ceremony of 21 days finally ended by two night ceremonies, the last two nights. And the first one was, well, you know, I don't even remember what it was about, but there were four of us. And it involved all kinds of words and motions and movements and things and sitting in a seat and people parading around me and stuff,

[04:11]

which was very cool. And then the second, then we had ice cream. Really. And then the last night was just between me and her. And we did some business first, some more secret stuff. And then she said, well, now the rest of this is just icing on the cake. And what that meant was she gave me all the stuff I'd ever need for the rest of my life. One of these things, and a staff and a whisk, horsehair whisk, very pretty, and a whole bunch of other things. Plus, she gave me her very, very clear, complete approval, entrustment, encouragement, and almost snipping the apron strings.

[05:11]

It was the best rite of passage I have ever seen, and certainly the only real one I've ever been in. when I think of how our society pretty much has done away with rites of passage, I'm not quite sure why, but it was really, really nice to have one. So, the result is that I've been acting funny from this ceremony, I suspect. And what did I do? Oh, I think one of the... Oh, well, I've been speaking out uncommonly, assertively, perhaps. In certain situations. I did that at City Center. But then I got down here, and in May, May 24th was my birthday, and I've been at Zen Center for 16 years, and have avoided the work circle,

[06:13]

the morning work circle, for 16 years. So they wouldn't sing happy birthday to me, that kind of spotlight, and I would just feel humiliation. Isn't that strange? But it wasn't strange to me. It was a true thing. One must avoid work meeting on your birthday. And so, I was sitting, yes, I was sitting talking with some people, and all of a sudden, a song, Dancing Queen by ABBA, went through my head, and there's something about, I don't know why, that song, that I feel like I can do anything. Am I saying too much? So I said, okay, I'm going. I'm going, and I'm going to like it, as a matter of fact, because I was already moving, which I usually don't do in public either. So I went to the work circle,

[07:16]

and those who know me very well had apparently vowed they weren't going to say anything. And so I was waiting there, waiting for it, saying, okay, I'm ready, let's go. But somebody else who didn't know that particular thing about me said, it's Kosho's birthday today. And so they sang the song, and I really loved it. I really liked it. It made me move. the point of this is that I had a talk prepared to give tonight. And in thinking about it, let's see what happened. And I had a chance to talk with several people today that were really suffering, really suffering. And in the light of that, my talk seemed, let's see, maybe too heady, or too exciting, perhaps.

[08:18]

But I didn't suspect that it might touch them. And so what I did was I said, well, to hell with it. And I thought I would just come here and sit here, and usually I have a desk here that helps break my fall. Should I fall? And I decided, no, I'm not even going to do that. And what I'm really interested in is what some of you would like to hear about. So having said that, not just, not like, tell us about Anyuttara Samyak Sambodhi, or especially not about the 12-linked chain of causation, but something that, well, I've asked two people already,

[09:19]

so I have some ideas. Is there somebody who has something in mind? Ah. If we realize that we are needy, that we feel incomplete, and that we feel that someone else or something else is going to fill that need in for us and make us complete so that we feel less needy, when we realize that that's an illusion, that it's only ourselves that ultimately can fill that need, how do we start? How do we go about figuring out what that need is? So the question is when we feel needy and we want to fill that need with somebody else,

[10:22]

but we know that that's delusion, how do we start? I suppose that affects the soup that is our lives. I'm glad you mentioned that suffering. Some of you may not know it, but I'm a great proponent of suffering myself. I encourage it whenever I see it. The reason is, one teacher put it, enlightenment doesn't abolish suffering, it depends upon it. So, when one feels one is needy, what do we do? Escape at once. Whenever we experience suffering, or even see it coming around the corner or smell it, we try to escape. And that, of course,

[11:24]

is rarely a good idea because the more we resist it, the more powerful it becomes. And so, in the case of being needy, it still works, for a million reasons, which I won't go into now, but as far as I can see, one has to deal with that hole, which means entering into suffering, hopefully with an open mind and a loving heart, because with any kind of hatred or aversion, the whole thing gets worse. So, it comes down to, can you stand yourself? Can you stand your life? And it's not easy. Somebody told me that they were talking with somebody else, and the other person said, you can tell if you're in the right place spiritually

[12:27]

if you're at peace and happy all the time. I suppose those of you who have lived in community would get the supreme joke of that. Well, I said I had... Well, I have one word to say about that, and it's not something I would say in public, but I did say it there. No, we're not here to find the peaceful, untroubled life. We're here to jump right into life in its fullness. And that means, can we stand the joy? Can we stand the fear? Can we stand the pain? Yes. Can we stand ourselves? Can we stand each other? Can we stand that mosquito? Things like that. So, in fact, since you've got me on a roll, there was a... I wonder if I should say this, but I will.

[13:29]

I work in the shop, and we get things called work orders, and there was a toilet seat that had broken off in one of the guest cabins, and the cabin crew thought that might be a hardship for some person, especially at night. And so my plan was to take the one out of the men's dorm, take one and replace it, because we didn't have a spare. And the idea was we are training to deal with suffering, and we don't expect that of guests. Is there another one? Oh, Tova,

[14:34]

would you tell me the time, please, when I need to stop? Where's Jeremy? There you are. Say it, say it. You told me earlier. Oh. Oh, who does? You do? One, one, one. Only one per customer, sorry. Jeremy. Well, well, shoot, I don't remember it, Jeremy. Oh, do say it. Okay. Because Esten sort of answered my question, so I'll say what Jeremy's question was. We have an ideal that we're striving for, or working for,

[15:35]

or falling, or whatever. We think that there's something out there that we're supposed to become, and we have to deal with it. And the question is, we do, don't we? We do. We are like that. I forget how I was not too many years ago, of thinking that all I know for sure is it's not this one. I had some sort of, I guess, ideal. Of course, ideal is kind of a difficult thing because there is no such thing as, I mean, ideal means idea. And in terms, it means mostly not real. Ideal is mostly not real. It's a tiny bit real, but not much. In my other talk,

[16:36]

I was going to talk about how Dogen, in his rules on zazen, one of the things he says that's outrageous is, have no designs on becoming a Buddha. Can you imagine such a thing? Why would he say that? I mean, it seems that being a Buddha would be a wonderful thing. I don't know what that is. I can't speak for everybody, but we probably think it's not me. It's something else. It's someone else. Preferably many centuries ago, like saints in the church with legends and magic and all such stuff. But Dogen says, have no designs on becoming a Buddha. And I think with a lot of his instructions I'm almost certain that he had incredible designs on becoming a Buddha.

[17:40]

Just like in that same piece, he says, don't go off to dusty realms to study the way. Or he also says, don't rely on knowledge or chase after words and phrases. If that were true, to be taken literally, we might as well just pack up and go home. Do you know of a dustier place than Tassara? And he, just like most of the other founders who turned out to be founders of the major religions, did those very things. He went off to China. He dared, braved death on the Sea of Japan to go to China and hunt up the true teacher whom he found after a while. So he went off to dusty realms. And this was love at first sight. And he awakened with this teacher after only four months. What he found enabled him to be able to say,

[18:44]

you don't have to go anywhere. So I think it's really good for us to remember sometimes you have to go a long ways to not go anywhere. But he said, why leave the seat in your own home? So for me, the question, well, where is home? Where actually is home? I think maybe we carry it with us. So, at any rate, to have an ideal of Buddha I think is very inspiring and it really helps. Because it offers hope, I think. It offers perhaps a relief of the needless suffering that we have. So I think that's really cool. The only problem is, if you get too stuck to that, you're making it worse. You're making your suffering worse. Because it's, I want to be like Buddha. I'm going to do what I need to do to be Buddha. Well, I has been the problem all along. So the more I strengthen my resolve,

[19:46]

my ego resolve, the more in trouble I get. Does that make sense? So you have to be really careful with using something for fame or profit. To manipulate something like manipulating practice or manipulating Buddha so that you can have a better life. Because it doesn't work. But it's a good place to start. You have to finally get to a point where you can just surrender. I think that takes trust and trust takes time to build. And one last thing on that. There is in our tradition something called Buddha nature. And what the folks found was that maybe Buddha wasn't just an ordinary, just an amazing person

[20:48]

with nobody else like him. All we could do was try to do our best to maybe approach just a little bit. But what they found was that we actually are Buddha. We actually are. That sense of striving, controlling self and all of our habits and memories of who we think we are or who we think everything else is, that tends to cover it over like clouds covering the sun. So our practice, Zazen, is just sitting facing the wall, totally useless activity because it can't be manipulated. Does that make sense? It's a totally useless activity where you resolve to sit there for no apparent reason. But you're just going to sit there with your life, with your life as it arises, as it comes and goes through you and not try to control it.

[21:49]

And trying not to react in habitual kinds of ways. So that releases the other one. These are the manas, vijnana and alaya-vijnana, parts of the mind. And once they settle and relax, then the buddhata, the light of the buddhata, rises from the luminous ocean of who we really are. Please. Yes, in that regard, I feel, personally, I'm at a certain kind of crossroads in my life, and needing, I feel, to make decisions about what I have to do, specifically about my employment, and maybe I'm ready to retire, maybe I'm not exactly. And I wonder, like,

[22:55]

how much control or my ego steps into that, and how much do I step back and allow things to happen. It's a very scary thing to... I'm not clear about how you can let loose of that control, specifically, because it's really down to earth what you do. That's like saying, OK, I'm going to sit here, and I'm going to let go of the control of my ego. Nothing happens. Back may hurt, lower back hurts when you do that. Have you noticed... First, there are a lot of people here who come here for a couple of weeks or a couple of months or a couple of years

[23:57]

to try to figure it out, to try to find out what should they do with their life. Have you noticed, you must have noticed, you folks must have noticed, that gathering pros and cons and ruminating about them doesn't help. Have you noticed? Is it just me, or have you noticed this? It doesn't seem to help. You can gather all kinds of information and start using our logic to sort through them. That seems to make so much sense. If you don't have any greed or hate or not wanting to face anything, then the logic serves the passion. Have you noticed? I can't think of an example right now, but... No, I can't think of an example right now,

[25:00]

but take my word for it, that whenever there's passion involved, the logic serves the passion. It's like being in love, for example. Have you ever tried to be logical while you're in love? They don't come together, or any kind of reasoning you have serves only the passion, so it can go anywhere it wants. So, the short of it, I think, is that this thing we have of zazen, what I've found in my own life is that when I have a crossroads to take, I will go through the ruminating first, and I'll try to understand it, and I'll fret, and I'll worry, and I'll get upset and frustrated and all that. But then, if I'm lucky, I'll sit in meditation, making an effort to just clear everything, and breathe, and feel myself breathe,

[26:02]

putting the mind, the attention in the body, the breath, and just doing nothing, nothing other than that, just breathing, just living, just being alive. And I find that whenever the ruminations start to come in, you just, ah, just a little later, I guess, just a little later, and I go back to breathing. And what I find is that often an answer, maybe close to a good one, comes up from that nothingness. The intuition. Once we get our controlling apparatus disengaged just a little bit, and it's very difficult, because it doesn't like that, it gets scared and exerts more pressure, but once we can disconnect just slightly, step back, take the backward step, then intuition rises. That's what I find. And you know what?

[27:03]

Who can know? I only know if I've made a right choice maybe six months to a year later. Then by then it didn't really matter. So part of our practice also is being able to cope with not knowing. And when you think about it, that's a pretty good strategy, since we don't know an awful lot. An awful lot. But somehow making peace and accepting and knowing, life unfolds on its own. Do you believe that? It sounds so easy, but it's so hard. I made the decision other times to sit every day, and I decided to make it a part of my life, and yet I find myself

[28:09]

sometimes days without sitting. What's wrong? What can be done? Well, what's wrong, what can be done? Did you hear the question? Wants to sit by himself, finds he can't. What's wrong? Nothing's wrong. So I said to me, why do you think I live here? Even when I did live by myself, I would have people come sit with me so that I would. We have this thing, there's a Greek word, somebody mentioned it the other day. What is it? What was the word, the Greek word that says we do... Yeah, that one. What was it? No, that's a tree.

[29:11]

Sorry. Well, anyway, there's a Greek word that we tend to do behaviors even if they hurt us. So, for me, I know Zazen is really the only medicine that works in my life, and take me away from here, and I'll watch TV. I say, not too proudly, eat popcorn and drink more grape soda. But I can't stand that for long. That's the saving grace. So I have to come back. But I don't think anything's wrong. It sounds perfectly natural to me. It's very difficult to do anything alone, because so much comes up. And it can be very boring, very boring. But when you have more people with you, the more logs on the fire, the hotter the fire. It's very encouraging, very encouraging.

[30:16]

So, I don't know. I really don't know about that one. But good luck. Do you have a cat? Dogs. Dogs like to sit. They do. Greg? Okay. So, Dogen said, when you sail out in the middle of an ocean, and you look around, it looks circular. It doesn't look any other way. It's infinite in variety. It's like a palace. It's like a jewel. But what do you tell somebody who's stuck out there in the middle of the ocean, and all they see is the same old self, the same old thoughts? You know, I don't think it's very helpful to tell them it's like a palace, it's like a jewel,

[31:18]

when they can't see it. Oh, no, no, no. That depends on your point of view, you know. Did anybody hear that? I think your question is, it seems like the same old thing, [...] same old thing comes up. Same old stuff. I say, good. Just think what it would be like if they were different every time. You know? So, about yourself. That narrows the playing field down, doesn't it? It's the same old thing, same old thing. So, you get a lot of practice opening your heart to the same old thing. That sounds really good to me. Congratulations. What? You're buying that? You know, someone feels really stuck,

[32:23]

you know, like they're bored of themselves. Bored of themselves? Yeah. Good heavens. Is this you? No. Well, this is a friend of yours. He's like, oh, sweetie, I know, I know. You know, these are things called samskaras. It's the fourth skanda. And we have skandas, technical thing, but I think the whole idea of the skandas is to show how difficult it is. Because by the time you get to the fourth one, which is the habitual mental formation realm, it's really hard. And in that realm, you know who you are, you know who you aren't, you know who they are, you know who they're not. You always do that. Like not going to the work circle,

[33:25]

for example, on my birthday. That was a stupid habit. In the beginning. And what evolved from that was a whole, I mean a whole great unconscious scenario based in fear. So, I think if nothing else, the Buddha points out how difficult it is to face oneself. But boredom is a good sign, though. That's good. I think that means some motion is about to occur. Because we don't change anything unless it hurts enough. Unless it's too painful. Just don't fall asleep. Chris? Just tell us a little about practice. What do you think the most important thing is about practice? I just have. I already did.

[34:25]

Again, I think it's zazen. And please don't get me wrong, I don't like zazen. And I'm not trying to sell it. For me, it hurts. Physically. And it's very difficult being that out of control. Realizing how out of control I am. I can't control what happens, what comes. My mind produces thoughts like a popcorn machine. It slows down every now and then. But it's very difficult. And it's the only thing that works. And it's completely... Well, one of the things that Kodo Sawaki Roshi said, that you have to get it through your thick skulls that zazen is not good for anything. And until you know that zazen is not good for anything, then it won't be good for anything. Suzuki Roshi used to use the expression,

[35:40]

this is the most important thing. And each time he'd say it, it would be something different. So, it makes me laugh. How about in our walking around everyday life, when we're not in zazen? Oh, Chris, you walked into one. Then we're in the realm of dream and delusion, aren't we? I mean, we are anyway. But the idea is to practice enough in this room, in this little room, so that we can carry that mind outside. And I asked... My first practice period was at Green Gulch, and I asked the Ino, they were talking about awakening, which we don't say much about, but I asked, geez, how long does this take? And she said, about 20 years. Oh, 20 years. Yes, it takes a long time to be able to... So this is serious business, sitting in here.

[36:42]

So get as much of it as you can stand, because it's the only thing that retrains the mind, I think, to even faintly see reality, because we don't see it so much, I don't think. It's time. Thank you very much. I want to thank you for being passengers on this solo flight. Thank you very much.

[37:13]

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