I was saying, every spiritual tradition has a vocabulary that is a way of pointing us toward what we're doing. So in Buddhism, a word that we use a lot of, a lot, is the word dharma. In fact, this is a dharma talk. So I thought I'd begin this morning by talking a little bit about the word dharma. I know many of you know this word. It has three different meanings, actually. And the three meanings, when you think of them as

[01:17]

being one meaning, it's interesting. The first meaning of the word dharma is its meaning in technical Buddhist philosophy and psychology. In Buddhist philosophy and psychology, the word dharma means something like the smallest indivisible unit of experience, kind of like an atom or a molecule or a quark or something. Except it's referring not only to physical experience but especially to subjective or inner experience. So a dharma cannot be divided

[02:18]

into something smaller. Some translators will translate it as thought moment. A dharma is a thought moment, thought-moment. So in the Buddhist psychological conception of experience, what happens in our life is that things come and go moment by moment. There's a new creation each moment. Our experience is like a snapshot. It comes up in a moment, and the next moment another snapshot comes up. And in that snapshot, there's a lot of different things, just like

[03:20]

if you have a snapshot of your family having dinner at a restaurant, of which my family has about 10,000 such snapshots. My mother-in-law is into snapshots at restaurants. Anyway, if you have a snapshot like that, it has the different people, you know, the tablecloth, the table, the background, many elements make up that snapshot, right? So in Buddhist psychology, each snapshot moment has in it many, many dharmas, physical basis, perceptions, feelings, volitions, intentions, and so on. Each moment arise, making up a snapshot. And then the snapshot

[04:31]

falls out of existence, and instantaneously, before we even noticed that it fell, another snapshot appears. So it's like a movie. It looks to us like a continuous flow of events, just like a literal film, right? A moving picture, which is made up of lots of snapshots that are just flipped by so fast that the illusion is that it's an ongoing event. And that's how our life is. So our life looks continuous, and in a way it is continuous, but it's also discontinuous. And we are aware, usually, of the continuity, but we don't appreciate the discontinuity. So anyway, that's a very simple explanation of something that's fairly complicated and technical. And dharmas

[05:40]

are the indivisible, teensy, experience moments that make up, many of which make up, each moment of our lives. So that's one meaning of the word dharma. Another meaning that's more metaphysical and broader is the idea of dharma as the law of the universe, kind of like the law of gravity. Not a law that someone legislated, but that is built into the workings of the universe. So dharma is the way things go, the way the universe works, the flow of things. The pattern of the flow of things is the

[06:43]

dharma. So this is the profound dharma. And then within that profound dharma, sometimes we say each thing has its dharma. The dharma of water, you know, is to flow down and to freeze at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and so on. This is how water works. This is the dharma of water, and the dharma of human beings, and the dharma of plants and animals, and the dharma of you, and the dharma of me, each one with our own internal law and destiny. So this is the second meaning of the word dharma, the way things go. So this translation, sometimes they translate it as the law. The dharma is the law,

[07:47]

in the sense of the natural order of things. And of course, the third meaning is the literal teachings of the Buddha, what the Buddha taught. The words written in the sutras and things said about those words, things indicating the meaning of those words. Of course, in Zen, we have a... Zen, you know, is famous for being a teaching outside the scriptures, and so in Zen, often we say things like, listen to the dharma and the sound of the wind through the trees, things like that. So the

[08:55]

Buddha taught for 45 years or so, and said a lot of things, so the dharma is pretty vast. And you all know, I'm sure, the story of how the Buddha came to teach the dharma. He was a prince in a well-to-do upper middle class family. His father was a king, but not like a big deal king, probably like a medium realm king. And Buddha was expected to inherit his father's kingdom. And his father, like all good upper middle king families, tried to make a nice environment for the Buddha in which he didn't have

[10:05]

to see anything too unpleasant or difficult. He went to the best schools and so forth. And so it was extremely shocking to him to realize, when he slipped away a few times from home and from the neighborhood, that there was such things as sickness, old age, and death. This was shocking enough, but to discover on top of that, that everybody, without exception, was subject to these things. This struck the Buddha as the most shocking thing that you could imagine. And I don't know if you remember, if you have a childhood memory of the first time that you discovered this. It's very shocking. You know, what? You mean me and mom and dad are all going to get real old and die?

[11:10]

Really? No. It's very shocking. So when the Buddha discovered this, he vowed to find a way to go beyond it, to conquer sickness, old age, and death. And that was the spirit with which he left home, gave up his birthright, and sought the spiritual path, and had many adventures and so on. And eventually, sitting under the enlightenment tree, he did clarify this issue and conquer birth and death. And then he didn't really need to do anything after that, he was perfectly content, but at the request of others, he decided that he would teach to try to find a way to convey this insight to others in the hope that others may also be able to experience this and become free of birth and death. So that's the third meaning of the Dharma, this

[12:21]

teaching that the Buddha gave as a way of trying to convey and explain the experience that he had had and the understanding of life that he had had. So you might wonder, the Buddha escaped, conquered sickness, old age, and death? Really? He never got old? He never died? Well, he did and he didn't, you know. Now what the Buddha saw under that enlightenment tree, after many hard years of practice, was his true self, the self that does not die, the self that is not born. He saw that he was his body and mind, and all the

[13:27]

thoughts and emotions and sensations associated with that body and mind. But he also saw further that who he really was, his true self, was not limited to this body and mind. Now, it's not that the Buddha transcended his body and mind. Rather, that he fully gave himself to his body and mind without holding anything back, remaining present and aware, with a strong intention. And through that close attention to what his life was, as it was, he found out that his life was much broader and much, much deeper than he had ever imagined.

[14:28]

And so he was free of his life, through his life. So when the Buddha passed away, I imagine that he must have been sad to leave such a wonderful world, to leave all the people who had lived and practiced with him for many years. But I also imagine that, in another way, he was not sad. He was ready, and that he let go of his body and mind, and in doing so, found a great freedom, and a great release, and a great joy. Between each and every moment of our lives, there is a gap, a complete ending.

[15:56]

The present and the past and the future are actually convenient ways that we have of understanding our life. But if you analyze the present and past and future, they don't really make sense. And they don't really explain the inexplicable fact of what we call time passing. If we pass a house, you know, as we're driving in our car, this we can understand. We know where we're going and we know where the house is. But where does time pass to? Is there a repository somewhere of time that has passed?

[17:02]

Someone is saving it for us? And where did time come from in the first place? And anyway, where are we coming from? And where are we going in our life's journey? If you've ever had the good fortune to attend a birth or a death, and really be present there, you know that there are no easy answers to these questions, no answers that we can explain in words. In the last 10 or 15 years, there's a great burst in scientific information. More scientific information has been unearthed in the last 10 or 15 years than in hundreds and hundreds of years before that.

[18:13]

But the accelerated rate of scientific information is almost impossible for anybody to keep up with. So we know a lot about the process of birth and the process of death. Tremendous information on a cellular level. But still, no one can really understand the very beginning of birth, and no one can really understand the very end of death. These things will always be unknown, no matter how much information we have about what happens after that, or up to that. Between every moment of our lives, there is a birth and a death.

[19:13]

So in our life, we must live a life that includes and honors loss. Every day, millions and billions of times, we say hello to our life and goodbye to our life. To be open to this sense of coming and going, this sense of receiving, and especially, I'm talking this morning about this sense of loss, to be able to integrate this into our daily experience in a clear way is really necessary. Since loss is really there, we can't ignore it. And if we try to ignore it, eventually the world is going to remind us of it, and we might not be ready for that reminder.

[20:26]

And if that moment comes and we're not ready, we will then be aware of how much of our life we've actually missed, how much of our life we've actually denied. And this will be a very difficult time. But if we can have an active practice of remembering the loss that is the part of every moment of our lives, then we can be like the Buddha, treading a lifelong path that puts us in touch with what is deepest and most enduring and most beautiful in our own lives. The Buddha didn't speak too much about love, because he was acutely aware of the difficulty of attachment that love can bring, and all the pain that can come from that attachment.

[21:36]

But I believe that to move into body and mind and heart, to allow all our experience of body and mind and heart to the very end, is necessarily to move into time and move into loss. And to do this is to be open to love. And love is wonderful and beautiful and painful and sad. But to love, to really love, is necessarily to lose something that we hold very, very dear. There's a story that I always like to bring up from the old days when Buddha was around.

[22:45]

There was a king, and there wasn't all that much entertainment in those days. So spiritual practice was a kind of form of entertainment for people. They enjoyed listening to the various teachers and so on. It was a big thing when some new wandering ascetic came into town and everybody went out and heard him or her. And the king would always get a private audience and put on a big meal and stuff. So this was a king who had heard and seen his share of spiritual masters coming through. So one time he was chatting with the Buddha and he said, You know, I find it very interesting that of all the teachers that I've encountered who talk about transcendence and joy and so on, you're the only one who's constantly talking about impermanence and loss and death and all this stuff.

[23:49]

He said, it's kind of depressing in a way, but the funny thing, he said, is that when I observe the communities of the different teachers, even though some of the communities, a lot of people look like they're having a hard time or morose and so on, but in your community, even though you're always talking about loss and death and everything, somehow all the monks and nuns have a smile on their lips most of the time. I find that very unusual, very odd. So I've been thinking about all this, I suppose, because I've been reading T.S. Eliot's great poem about the spiritual path called The Four Quartets. And I want to quote you from the beginning of the second of the quartets, which is called, the title of it is East Coker.

[25:03]

Yeah, it's the second one, I think. And East Coker, the title is interesting, why it's called East Coker. That was a town in England which was purported to be the birthplace of a man by the name of Sir Thomas Eliot. And you know, T.S. Eliot, that's Tom Eliot, right? That was his name, Thomas Eliot. So this Thomas Eliot was born in the 16th century, same name, right? So Thomas Eliot, who was born in East Coker, was one of the first Englishmen to welcome the Renaissance period with its disestablishment of the obedience to the Church and strict interpretation of the Bible and so on into a more humanistic world. So T.S. Eliot, in the 20th century, was returning to a more religious way of life.

[26:16]

As you know, he converted to the Anglican Church. He was born in St. Louis, right? But he became English and joined the Anglican Church and he was very conservative and very much believed in religious institutions. And I think that he felt like Sir Thomas Eliot was going one way and he was coming the other way. And he appreciated that kind of movement back and forth that happens in a lifetime and in a culture's lifetime. Maybe that's why, anyway, he named this section of the poem East Coker. I'll read you the opening section. In my beginning is my end. In succession houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place is an open field or a factory or a bypass.

[27:18]

Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, old fires to ashes and ashes to the earth, which is already flesh, fur, and feces, bone of man and beast, corn stalk and leaf. Houses live and die. There is a time for building and a time for living and for generation. And a time for the wind to break the loosened pain and to shake the wainscot where the field mouse trots and to shake the tattered tapestry woven with a silent motto. Birth and death are not really two things. Birth depends on death and death depends on birth. If you look closely, closely, closely at birth, you will see death.

[28:32]

And if you look closely, closely, closely at death, you will see birth. I was just doing a session in British Columbia and one person said that she was a labor coach and she had been with a woman delivering a baby. And after the baby was born, she went two floors up in the same hospital where there was a native woman that she knew who was 105 years old who was dying. And she sat with this woman and she said, It was the same feeling. It was the same thing. As Ecclesiastes says, which T.S. Eliot is quoting, echoing,

[29:38]

everything has its season. Things come up and go down. Everything is part of the whole. When there is birth, there is creation. There is great joy and always a flurry of wonderful activity. And then eventually there is confusion and things get complicated. And there is loss and there is grief and there is letting go and there is absolute stillness. And then there is beginning again. When we sit in the zendo, each period of zazen, we carefully settle ourselves and we let go of our lives.

[30:42]

And then we get up and we receive our lives again and we run around and do things. We eat food, we digest our food, we take that energy and expend it for the benefit of others, and we get rid of the waste part in the toilet. We go to sleep, we wake up, and we start all over again. No beginning, no ending, no development. The goal of our practice is not to be more than we are, to learn something that we don't know, to become wise or to become perfect. Actually, all these goals and desires that we have are just our way of refusing to live life as it actually is, moment after moment.

[31:56]

Of course, every day we do things, and we all know there are so many things to do. But how do we do those things? We do them just to do them. Because to be alive, to be the person that we are, means that we will engage in activity. And through that activity we express our love. for this strange and beautiful life that we have been given. So, I'll give you another passage from East Coker. There is, it seems to us, at best, only a limited value

[33:03]

in the knowledge derived from experience. The knowledge imposes a pattern and falsifies, for the pattern is new in every moment, and every moment is a new and shocking evaluation of all that we have been. We are only undeceived by that which deceiving could no longer harm. In the middle, not only in the middle of the way, but all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble, and here he's echoing Dante, whose great poem begins with something like, In the middle of my life I was lost in a dark wood. So Dante was the originator of the mid-life crisis. And his mid-life crisis puts all our mid-life crises to shame.

[34:05]

It goes on for thousands of pages and takes him to the depths of hell and all the way up to heaven and everything in between. So he's echoing here, you know. Dante's talking about middle life too, you know, all our experience that we have through living. But in the middle of the way, but all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble, on the edge of a grimpen where is no secure foothold, and I think that that's the beginning of a line from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Conan Doyle. So he's also the first post-modern putting in the highbrow and the lowbrow. Anyway, if you think Conan Doyle's lowbrow, or Dante's highbrow, or eyebrow, or what? It's going to be hard getting through this passage with all these asides. Anyway, let's get back to it here.

[35:19]

On the edge of a grimpen where is no secure foothold and menaced by monsters, fancy lights, risking enchantment, do not let me hear of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession, of belonging to another, or to others, or to God. The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility. Humility is endless. The houses are all gone under the sea. The dancers are all gone under the hill. So I bring that passage up because I think it's a very nice expression

[36:19]

of our goal in practice. Humility. Humility is endless. And he understands humility, I think, in a beautiful way. Not to be marked too much by our experience. Not to be too much under the sway of what has happened to us in our lives, but rather honoring that history and that past to be open to each new moment as it comes. And it may be that what comes to us in each new moment is what we would call good. And it may be what comes to us is what we would call bad. But no matter whether we call it good or bad, we are ready and open to it with love and curiosity.

[37:24]

Ready to face it and to work with it in our practice as best as we can. To me this is a great way to consider what humility is really all about. A willingness to face what comes without arrogance and without preconception. And we don't really know how we're going to react. The next moment may come and we may find ourselves screaming and yelling. I was reading in the newsletter of the Hartford Street Zen Center somebody was interviewing Phil Whale and Phil said, probably when I die, and Phil is in his seventies and not in great health and so he's thinking about this, he said, probably when I die I'm going to be screaming for my mother. God. So if we scream for our mother, then we scream for our mother.

[38:25]

And we do whatever we can the best we can. And I really believe that our practice of sitting and walking and bowing and eating and cooking and cleaning up and gardening and farming and taking care of things and each other helps us deeply to live in this way, in this way of humility. Our practice gives us the patience and the strength to just face each moment without goal and without expectation. In a way, as I sometimes say to myself and others, this practice is such a simple, stupid thing, it's almost embarrassing to mention it and to have a job where you constantly are talking about

[39:30]

the simplest thing in the world that doesn't amount to anything. It's kind of as if we would rather, instead of just thinking about this and following up with this, we would rather think about becoming enlightened or having some fantastic experience or drama or seeing into the nature of existence or something like that. Not to say that all these things aren't very nice. They're very nice. But really and truly, don't you think that these things are more or less, when we think of them and when we wish for them and we strive for them, they are more or less imaginary projections of our constricted mind? Just to face each moment with some strength and some patience and some love

[40:41]

without a lot of mental baggage and emotional baggage, I think I would settle for that. Wouldn't you? Yeah, it wouldn't be too bad. It's a very human, human path. There's a saying by Master Wuzhu. He said, Past and future Buddhas are working for someone else. Who is that? The past and future Buddhas, Shakyamuni Buddha and Maitreya Buddha, are both working for someone else. Who is that? Master Mumon, in commenting on this saying, says, If you can see that person clearly,

[41:44]

it will be like bumping into your own father at the crossroads. It's unmistakably him. And Master Mumon also wrote a little verse on this saying. He said, Don't draw another's bow. Don't ride another's horse. Don't discuss another's faults. Don't mind another's business. The one who Buddhas of the future and the Buddhas of the past are working for is the one in us who faces each moment with strength and patience and openness and humility. It's ourself, not somebody else. And not a projection of ourself in our minds.

[42:48]

In other words, it's not our conditioned, confused self with a history that turns us. Rather, walking the path through that self, through that history, to the very end. To find our very simple, true self. And when we can do this, we don't have to wonder whether we're missing something in our life or not. It's very clear. This is it. This is our life. Some other Zen masters wrote little commentaries to this saying.

[43:51]

Master Yen Yu says this, The past and future Buddhas are working for another. Do Zen followers of past and present know or not? Where the wine is fine, you don't need wine. You don't need to hang a sign. He rhymes so nicely in English. He must have known English, right? Where the vinegar is sharp, why put up a gourd? That's what Master Yen Yu says. In other words, when you really meet your life in this way, your life it's not necessary to advertise or make up a story or let everybody know or have a reputation or be anybody or take any credit. You can be free of all that.

[44:56]

Just to live is enough. Master Namtang wrote a verse. This one's really interesting, I think. Imagine, this is a verse on the saying past and future Buddhas work for another. Who is that other? Namtang's verse goes like this, Old in years, the season late, pleasurable things far away. It's not like childhood days when you didn't know how to be sad. So what does this poem have to do with the verse, with the saying? I would say that

[46:00]

to find our simple self down the end of the road we walk through our body and mind and heart is to really become a mature person. And this is what we all have to do. This is our destiny. Just as a child feels so strongly it's his or her destiny to grow up. They don't question it, you know. Should I or shouldn't I? I mean, it's not a good deal in a way but still they're going to grow up. In the same way we must go through the pain and sorrow of loss inside us and all around us. We can't be children all our lives only wanting what's pleasant

[47:04]

and crying when things don't go our way. To establish ourself in the way of the Buddha is to live with a joy and a truth and an honesty that doesn't leave anything out. And I'll conclude my talk this morning with one last passage from East Coker. No asides, I promise. This is a famous part. You probably know this part. In order to arrive there to arrive where you are to get from where you are not you must go by a way

[48:05]

wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know you must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. In order to possess what you do not possess you must go by the way of dispossession. In order to arrive at what you are not you must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know. And what you own is what you do not own. And where you are is where you are not. Thank you very much. Question and answer period.

[49:08]

But I always say that I consider it more like discussion period so that we all can discuss. You know, I feel bad you guys standing up there. Would you like to sit up here? Oh, you got to leave early. You can't get a seat, huh? Yeah, it's too bad. I hate to see you having to stand. Well, they want to be in the back so they can leave. So anyway, that means discussion. That means people can bring things up and other people may want to respond to what's brought up and I can respond too. But I'm not answering all questions. Yes? Oh, I hit the Han. Maybe they didn't hear it. Well, you can't hear it, huh? Well, if you want to hit the if you want to go hit the I didn't know they were doing the clackers every week. Downstairs in the dining room,

[50:08]

I guess. But anyway, we can still we can get started. Yes? I have a question. Yes? I constantly ask myself what my practice is about. Louder. I constantly ask myself what my practice is about. And today you mentioned that to look into the nature of things is I thought you said a projection of one's imaginary imagination. Did I understand you right? Is that what you were saying? Yeah, for those of you who didn't hear what she said, she said, I'm always asking what my practice is about. And she said, did I say today that to look into the nature of things is imaginary projection of the mind? So, in other words, I guess implying, gosh, you know, I always thought that was a good practice and that's something I've done. Is that not a good way to practice? I think that is

[51:15]

a good way to practice and I think that is what we're trying to do. But sometimes we take a concept like that and invest it with desire and imagination and projections. So, I didn't mean to suggest that to practice that way is necessarily bad or any problem. But, the practice wishing and hoping, you know, for something to happen that's not now in our lives is, I think, not so effective. So, you weren't saying that to perceive the nature of existence is really just your own projection? Yeah. Well, this gets into a fine point. Okay? She said, you weren't saying that to perceive the nature of reality is just a projection, were you? It gets into a fine point

[52:16]

because then you have to analyze, you know, the nature of perception. Can you perceive the nature of reality the same way you can perceive an apple sitting on the table? And, of course, you know, yes and no. You know, nobody ever says, no, I just perceive the nature of reality and here's what it is. And then you say, great, thank you, now I got it too. You know? Wouldn't it be nice if spiritual practice worked that way? Save us all a lot of trouble, right? But, it doesn't seem to. It seems like we come to some deep understanding on our own and it's not the same thing as perceiving an apple on the table. Maybe we could also say it's not exactly different either. But, perception always involves discrimination. Discrimination always involves separation. Our practice

[53:17]

is about that and about something beyond that too. So, yeah. Yes? I thought your talk was just incredible. Oh, thank you. I need to get the tape. What? You're going to get the tape? Oh. I've been feeling recently like the Buddha felt when he discovered about dying. It's been a lot of people that, in my life, their friends have recently died or gotten sick and it's gotten very close to me which made me think. Yeah. You know, contemplate my own life even more. You know, what's really important. And I see it just fleeing. It's just like when I moved to California 12 years ago and, bang, here it is.

[54:19]

And, time is going by very quickly and all these people are dying. I mean, someone called me, a good friend of mine called me last week and she said, her brother just died. And then, my girlfriend's ex-husband died. These people were 46 years old. And, I wonder, what does this mean to me? Why am I hearing all this now? Am I ready to leave the planet until it comes into my mind? And, what to do? Yeah, during our, when we have special periods of practice, we have a little ceremony. We have like, we, there's a day off Thursday afternoon and Friday. And so, we have a little ceremony to mark the end of the week of the practice period. And, in the ceremony, the head chanter has a chant

[55:21]

that says something like, we should all practice as if our head was on fire. You know, because, it's an urgent matter. That's what it says, I think this particular Han over here that we bang on doesn't say anything on it, but the Han is supposed to have calligraphy on it. And the calligraphy is supposed to say, birth and death is a grave matter. Don't waste time. And I think one of the things I was trying to say in my talk today is that's true every minute. That's always true. And then there are times in our life when it begins to dawn on us, when things happen that begin to make us realize, wow, you know, that's really true. So, we give some real attention to our spiritual practice. We say, this is not a luxury. This is not something that we, when we have the time, you know what I mean, when everything else gets taken care of, we do it. It doesn't actually take any time to do spiritual practice,

[56:22]

you know what I mean? It doesn't take any time at all. It's how we do everything we do. The spirit with which we do it and the way that we approach our life. And when this dawns on us, it's like we should say, yeah, I have to, in whatever conditions that I find myself in, in whatever way that I can, I really have to tend to my spiritual practice because it is an urgent matter. My hair is on fire. That's why it's all gone. My hair is on fire and I better, you know, tend to this. So, I think that's very true, you know, this urgent matter is an urgent matter of every moment. So, please reflect and every one of us, you know, we reflect on our own life. How should I practice now? What's the way for me to practice now? Some people, they come to the temple and they throw away everything in their lives and they're here for some period of time. Other people find a way to do it in the context of their life because that's what they have to do. But, whatever our situation is,

[57:23]

objectively, to me, that has to be a high priority. Otherwise, we're fooling ourselves. You know, we're fooling ourselves. Our head is on fire, definitely. So, thank you for reminding us all of that. It's true for all of us. But, it is also true that when we get to be a certain age, we begin to realize that the dead are in the majority. And we notice that, you know, so many of our friends, you know, people that we know, and when you're young, it seems to be something that's rare. You know what I mean? You feel. Most of the people you know and the things you're interested in are very much alive. When you get older, it's like, wow, you know, I mean, I have the same situation. So many of my friends and teachers are gone now. And I still, you know, continue my relationships with them. But I see the difference, you know, between the time when they were walking around and the time now when I don't see them in the way that I saw them before. I notice that there's a big difference there.

[58:24]

And, you know, more and more, I have more and more people who have joined the majority of the dead, you know. So, you get to notice that then all of a sudden your body starts giving you messages like, hmm, maybe this won't go on forever, you know. There's a little pain here, a little something there, and you start getting the idea. Yes. So, it's pretty important stuff. Yes. This, the notion of time really perplexes me. I have an extremely difficult time with it. And, and the Deepak Chopra said something that I've heard also in Buddhism but I think it was coming more out of the Vedanta. And he said that if you ask yourself who you are, you will find the answer in that space between your thoughts. Now, if that's true,

[59:25]

and I've, you know, been told this as instruction during meditation, if that's true, I'm having very small periods of time when I am who I am because I'm almost never aware of that time. Well, of course, you're who you are all the time, right? Sort of, I guess. I mean, I mean, we want to know, you know? We would like to feel like, you know, we know what's going on and we're in touch with it. And that's natural, right? We all want that. But truly, and I think, you know, we all have experiences and tastes of that in our lives. And we have to be, you know, realistic. The truth of the matter is that those moments when we really feel the ecstasy or whatever the feeling is to us

[60:26]

of being in touch with ourself in that way are signpost moments. They're not every day, every single moment moments, you know? That's the truth. Sorry, folks. But that's really how it is. However, having said that, I think also with our practice comes a maturing of our ordinary experience to where we have a sense of this great surround lots of the time. Whenever we don't lose ourselves in dispersion, we can feel a sense of, even though it's not one of these heightened moments of experience, still there can be this feeling of being in touch with our true life or our greater sense of who we are even though it's not coming to us with the force that it may come to us in other moments. I think that although it's there in every moment, the stuff that we do in spiritual practice, and it doesn't matter really what tradition that you practice in or what you

[61:26]

work toward as your practice, but doing those things that are your practice often will evoke those moments. So, often, you know, like when I do the evening service, you know, I go to Zendo, I do the evening service and I walk out of the evening service and I say to myself, gee, that was really a religious experience. You know what I mean? Because it had that real sense of the timeless in it. And if we do those kinds of things in our life, if we sit every day, if we offer incense, if we practice, if we chant a sutra, if we study a spiritual text, for some people it may be if you go outside and look at the sun, you know, and see the sun coming up. Or go to the ocean. Why do we like to go to the ocean and look at the sea? Because sometimes in looking at the sea and just calming the mind, we get a taste of that. So, spiritual practice is all about being sure that we have a regular way of getting in touch with that in our lives. That it's not just when we feel like it or when we need it or when, but it's a regular way

[62:28]

that we have of doing that. And of course, there'll be times when we go sit by the ocean and look at the waves and our mind is distracted. Yeah, there'll be those times. But if we go every day, there'll be lots of times when we, our mind is settled and we feel our connection. And I think we really need to do that. You know, it's so easy to forget, right? I mean, we're all experts at forgetting. You know, and I am too. It's so easy to forget. And so you have to remind yourself. You have to take a breath and say, oh yes, I'm still here. This is still my life. Look at how I'm getting involved in my confusion. You know, we had a, I'm on the chair of the board of directors of our hospice project. And yesterday, we had a retreat, you know, where we were sort of making a plan for the activity of the next several years. And we had a strategic plan. We're going to do this and we're going to do that. And we got all excited about it, you know, and oh, this is a problem because if this doesn't happen, then that won't happen, this and that. And we were all, everybody talking at once,

[63:29]

you know. And at the end, I said, don't forget, you know, we just made this up, right? That this is going to happen and then that's going to happen and that's going to happen. I mean, it would be nice and it's good to have a plan. We should all have a plan. But after all, we just said that this was the plan. Why should we now get, you know, confused and upset over this plan that we just made it up, you know? And isn't our whole life like that, right? So, I think to just take a breath and remember, you know, wow, we just said that we were going to do this and we just decided that these things were important. Not to say that they're unimportant, but let's not get carried away here, you know. And we, I think we all know the feeling of being carried away by things in our life. And so, I think when we get carried away, it's time to take a breath and ask, you know, what am I really doing here? What's really, just like you said, you know, what's really important? What's really important? And I think that in itself is a wonderful spiritual practice, to ask yourself what's really important. If you could do that,

[64:30]

you know, in the morning when you get up and at night before you go to bed and a couple of other times at strategic moments during the day, this would be a very powerful spiritual practice. What's really important? You know, I think we go through days and months and weeks without ever thinking what's really important. Yes? Do you know people that are in this sort of timeless reality in their day-to-day activities I mean, I still have that as a goal, but I get frustrated because it's not reality. But do you actually know people that do that? Well, I think, you know, if you set aside your imagination about what you think that's going to be like, right, then I would say it's not so rare. I would say it's possible. But that means, what that means is, you know, really facing each moment with what's actually there, not having an idea about what it would feel like because with that idea then we say, you know, we may be in a timeless moment right now, but we say, well, that doesn't feel like what I know what a timeless moment is supposed to feel like.

[65:31]

How do I know? It doesn't feel like this. That's what I know. Right? But it might be a timeless moment, you know, right this minute, right now, when you take your next in-breath. It might be a timeless moment if only you let it be. It's very true. Yeah. Harman? Yes. The timeless moment, I know that, as you say, when we stand and look at the ocean, we stand and look at a great body of water or a mountain. And I've always been not surprised, it's always been very comfortable when I find myself doing that. There are other people that are doing that too, usually in the same place or close by. And that's such a human thing that we do. It's such a shared human thing. I've always been surprised there's never a name. I've never heard a name for what it is that we're doing. You know,

[66:33]

something that is so fundamentally shared by all humans, to go to the beach and stand and look at the water. It's just instinctive. It's very core of me. And nobody had to train me to do that. It's just instinctive. Yes, yes. And there's no name for it. Well, yeah, there should. Maybe we shouldn't have a name for it. Maybe that's why it doesn't. It doesn't matter what your thoughts are. Well, when you said that, it brought to mind a book that I read really closely some years ago that I think is really, for me, was all about this. It's a book by Gary Snyder called The Practice of the Wild. The Practice of the Wild. And he spends a lot of time in that book talking about what is the wild and what does it mean. And I don't remember exactly what he says, but something like, you know, we are wild, right? We have a wild space in our lives that's not civilized and that doesn't have all the stuff on top of it that we usually run around with. And that's why when we see a mountain

[67:33]

or see the ocean, the wildness of those scenes touch us. And I think a lot of people who are some of the great environmentalists, there's some quote that's often used maybe by John Muir or something like that or maybe Thoreau, something like, in wildness or in wilderness is the salvation of humanity or something like that. The sense that if the forests and oceans and mountains disappear or become taken over by human beings, we human beings will lose something that we absolutely need. I think environmentalists are very aware of this and often talk about that. If you want to be selfish about it, look at it that way. Say, yeah, we need this. We can't afford it. Never mind about protecting the forest. We can't afford to let the forest go for us. There's that side of it, too. And I think a lot of people definitely understand this and I think many, many people who like, you know, a lot of people say, I don't like to go to the park or something because there's so many people around, you know,

[68:34]

so many people around. But, you know, I feel like I used to feel that way when I was young, but now I don't really mind because when you go somewhere, especially if you walk a day or two, you have to let your car behind, you know, and walk a day or two. After that, you really feel like whoever you see is there for the wildness in themselves to meet the wilderness that they see in front of them. And so there's a harmony. You don't feel like tourists, you know. So, yeah, I think this is whatever we call it. I thought Gary's idea was pretty good. The practice of the wild. Yeah. Looking at landscape. I once wrote a little essay on looking at landscape, on the healing aspects just of looking at landscape, just to look at land when you have a vista of seeing something. You know, whatever it is, you know, it's very calming and very profound, I think. Just looking at landscape is very profound.

[69:34]

Yes? Talking about wild things, this thought came to my mind that I would love to tell all of you that what you probably know that the Headwaters ancient forest is about to be logged and some environmentalists are trying to find a solution so that the government can do something about it. And I called Clinton's office to be effective. And to please say that Headwaters ancient forest, which is right now in the balance. So if you can call that office, it may or may not help. Thank you. I have a question all the same lines as the environment. I know

[70:36]

while the Buddha experienced his enlightenment under a tree, outdoors obviously, and I know there's an appreciation of the natural environment like you were just discussing. So I'm wondering why is it that in Zen Buddhist practice it's always indoors against a wall and why isn't, why hasn't a regular form of the practice developed that it's outdoors in nature? That's a good question. Could you repeat that? She said, given all we've been saying, how come Zen practice is always happening inside? How come we don't go outside? May I suggest that there are such things as walking outdoors and Thich Nhat Hanh in particular is very interested in long outdoor walks, mindful walking in nature and looking at nature while one is

[71:37]

fully aware of the present and so forth? That's true. Yeah, that's what I was just going to mention. And they got the idea from the Ring of Bones Sangha which has been doing it for years where they go hiking and they sit and so on. So there are forms of that and certainly sometimes in our sasheens we sit after hours outside. We have night sitting. We sit out late at night in the garden or on the deck of the zendo and listen to the frogs or whatever is happening during that season. And I think it's a really important point that to remember that the practice that goes on in the zendo is not the whole of the practice. I think there is definitely a virtue to sitting in the zendo together because something happens. We share in a way and we can deepen our sitting in a way by doing that. But that's not

[72:40]

the whole of the practice. Most of the practice happens outside that room, right? In our daily lives, in our walks, in our times at the ocean. All of that is part of our practice so it's not as if we say that's where the practice happens. It's not. And so I think your suggestion about walking in nature is wonderful and I do that practice myself and it's quite wonderful and you can do that to practice walking meditation outdoors, just walking up and down outdoors or just the practice of looking, going for a walk and just looking. Not to go anywhere but just to look. Many, many kinds of practices in Buddhism that are done that involve outdoors and involve being in touch with nature. I think there is as I say, it's also good to sit together in the Zen Dojo so we don't want to not have that. But that's not the whole thing. And we could also do more with, you know, sit in the Zen Dojo for a while and go outside and come back in.

[73:41]

We could do more with that and sometimes we do that but we could do it more. And I'll think about it, how we can do it more. Thank you. Yes? Just for what it's worth, in the Sashin in August, after, the morning after Fall Moon, you had us sit on the deck outside at 5 o'clock in the morning. And I was thinking of it this morning that for me, I didn't sit, but I walked on the pad with, the cement pad with the handicapped entrances. And it was, for me, one of the most magical experiences I've ever had. Between the mist and the moon and seeing all the bodies of the people sitting with, you know, many people draped with things. It was kind of a cross between, it was another lifetime and it was this moment. And it was right here.

[74:41]

And it was just very, very special. Well, that brings to mind another important aspect of this is that this is kind of odd, but if you sit in the Zendo a very long time, this is what you experience, if you sit in the Zendo a really long time and then you go outside, maybe in a week, you spend seven days sitting in the Zendo and half an hour outside, you really experience the outside. You could spend that same seven days around outside and you won't experience it. But if you sit in the Zendo and then you go outside, you really experience it. And we have had many wonderful times like that. The time that that same year that was in August and earlier in the year, or I should say at the end of the previous year, in December, we had Sashin. And that's the Sashin in December when we celebrate Buddha's enlightenment. So in that Sashin we went out before dawn to look for the morning star. And that was great. Those of you who were in that Sashin it was one of the most

[75:42]

amazing experiences I ever had where we started, we went out because we went for a big long walk and a way down past the garden through the fields. And we started going out and of course it wasn't quite light yet but we looked up at the sky and Wendy was leading us, you know, and Wendy and I I was second behind her and we looked at each other and we chuckled because it was a typical Green Gulch morning, right? Complete fog. So here we are going out to see the morning star just like the Buddha saw it, you know, complete fog. So we said, well, you know, that'll be the morning star for us, will be our fog. So we just walked and we walked and we sort of gave up on the whole idea and we just enjoyed, you know, the pre-dawn darkness and we're walking along and all of a sudden somebody's tugging on my sleeve and they're pointing at the sky and up in the sky you could see the morning star very faintly behind the fog and the fog was lifting. Little by little

[76:44]

by little by little lifting and lifting the star getting brighter and brighter and brighter and then there it was the morning star completely bright in the sky and the fog came back little by little by little and it was gone. And all 60 of us in this ashram were just watching it. And as soon as the star was completely gone the entire group burst into laughter. Just spontaneously we all started just howling with laughter. And afterward I said yes, this is the typical Soto Zen. Soto Zen, you know, is just walking around in the fog basically. I said yes, it was the perfect Soto Zen lightening morning. But that was a wonderful moment which came because we had been sitting there you know, for six or seven days and then we went out walking and seeing that. It's kind of similar to what you described. So yes, it's wonderful to experience the natural world teaching us the Dharma.

[77:46]

It's a great thing. And certainly if you look at Zen literature most of it really is about that referring to those images. And the ancients practiced lots of hermitage practice always on mountaintops and stuff like that. So yeah, it's part of our practice too. Yes? In some of the old stories the Zen master has a student meditating watching a mountain. Yeah. I've wondered often about that. Is it an antidote to the introverting inward practice meditating against a white wall to compensate for it? To bring something that brings the senses outward? What is behind that? Yeah, well that's a good point. I mean I don't think of our meditation practice our Zazen practice as going inward. And I think to think

[78:47]

of meditation at least from the standpoint of our Zen tradition to think of meditation as a going inward a withdrawal from the world is not really the way it is. Actually to meditate is to see our absolute unity with what's outside of us. To sit in Zazen is not to sit inside and not to sit outside. It's to sit right on the border between inside and outside. And maybe that's why those masters because when you look at a mountain long enough of course you can't say the mountain's outside. If you sit there and you sit and breathe with that mountain I think the mountain is inside. So it wouldn't make any difference then whether the person said indoors or outdoors? No, I think it makes a difference. It does make a difference. Yeah, I think different kinds of practices are good at different times. But I'm just commenting on what I feel is the real nature of Zazen practice. It's not inside and it's not outside. And so therefore to sit and I've done this a lot you know and I've done lots of backpacking trips

[79:47]

you know and sitting outdoors looking at something and just breathing with it it becomes clear that it's neither inside nor outside. And what's inside of us is also neither inside nor outside. My thoughts, you know my thoughts are really not inside or outside. And that's one of the things we learn when we do Zazen is we see that truth. And that's a very very important truth. There's no inside the sutra says there's no inside no outside no in between. Is that why you leave your eyes open? Uh-huh. It's one of the reasons why. When I meditate I always close my eyes. Uh-huh. If you close your eyes you tend to go more inward and to think more and have you know visions or whatever. If you leave your eyes open as we do we encourage in Zazen then you're sitting more in the present moment which includes the outside and the inside. Are you able to reach silence in keeping your eyes cautiously open? Oh yes. Because one of the funny

[80:48]

things that happens if you sit there with your eyes open is after a while you don't see anything. Because you're not focused. Usually you see we go around we live our lives like this. We're very visually oriented you know. We tell where we're going and what's going on by our eyes. If you withdraw the attention from your eyes even though your eyes are open you don't see anything at all. Of course it helps to have a simple set of stimuli like a white wall where there's nothing happening. But you don't see anything. Try it sometime you'll see. You have the sense of being present in the room but you don't see anything because you're not looking. But if a spider crawls across the wall you'll notice the spider. And then when it's gone you won't think about it anymore. Somebody else? This is my first time

[81:49]

doing this and I wonder if it's possible to say what the purpose of doing Zazam is. What are we doing? Since you're your first time here you have a unique opportunity to tell us the rest of us who have been here for a while. What is it that's going on here? Me. Yeah. Me either actually. So what is the purpose of all this stuff, right? What is the purpose? Well the Buddha's experience was that he came to see experientially that human life had tremendous suffering in it that was inescapable. This was not a theory for him. This was what he felt. He really felt this. And so he felt there must be a way of doing something about it.

[82:49]

There must be some way that I can live that will lead me to a greater understanding to get past that suffering. And so he began to do the practice that we now do. And I would say that one way of addressing that question is the purpose of our practice the purpose of our path is to end suffering. Our own suffering and the suffering of others. I always say to people who don't who hear that and they say well I'm not that there's not that much suffering and it doesn't really bother me that much. My response to that is always congratulations. Please enjoy yourself. And why bother? There's no reason. This is not a truth that all and sundry must you know somehow I mean if it suits you if you feel compelled because of the experiences in your own life to take up the path please join and even if you want to just come to hang around and see what's going on

[83:50]

please join too. But I would never urge anyone you know to get involved in something like this unless they feel that they need to unless they feel because of the conditions of their own life it really makes sense to them. So I think suffering is a good way in. Yes? When it seems so I think when you start to practice it it's about avoiding suffering the things we discover it's not about avoiding suffering and not avoiding suffering to stop suffering. That's right. Because in the beginning yeah well this is like because there's a trick to it to turn off suffering. that's very true. The cause of suffering is that we avoid suffering the pain the fear of suffering. Yeah. When you give this up and look at your face it stinks it's just there it's how they are okay I lost my leg okay I'm sick and this is happening and that's it. And is this me now? Yeah. How can you stop suffering? Right.

[84:52]

Yeah the cause of our suffering is that we avoid the conditions of our life. When we stop avoiding the conditions of our life a great deal of the suffering of our life goes away. It's not so easy I mean you say it as if it's easy. I don't want to fool you. We're here for the first time. He's I think what he says is very true but it's not necessarily so easy. It takes some effort. Yeah. I've been doing this practice for about four years and the first three years and several months has been wonderful in a lot of ways. But in retrospect I realized that I wasn't doing much suffering. incidents were occurring that caused me to suffer during those first several years fortunately. Lately now that they are I'm looking at the insubstantial the ideas of insubstantiality and nothing to cling to and I've got I'm dealing with more fear now than I've ever dealt with before. In the past

[85:53]

I had things to cling to that may or at least seem to help me in the short term. Right now it's only fear that's fueled by this idea of nothing to cling to and I wonder if you could talk about that. Well along the path it's pretty inevitable that we encounter fear. And we can practice for a long time and not encounter that but sometime along the line we encounter it. But before I say something about that I just want to back up a moment and be clear that I don't mean by this suffering as a way in. I don't mean by that that we need to find some suffering, right? Anybody have any good suffering? Would you like to beat me up or rob me or something like that so that I can have some suffering? No, I think the suffering comes from an existential recognition of the temporary quality of our life which is true right now even if everything is wonderful, right? That's the

[86:54]

source of suffering. Even though a lot of times in our life we may live our life and not be in touch with them it's actually always there and sometimes something happens that makes us realize that and sometimes nothing happens and we realize it. We realize it. It happens that we realize it. When conditions arise in our life that produce suffering what we would call conventionally suffering whatever we're going to lose something our body or someone else that we love or our job or whatever it is something in our lives that's precious to us or the opposite when we are forced to confront something that we absolutely don't want to confront we don't want to be around and there's no choice but to confront it anyway, many things can arise in our lives that will make us experience what we usually think of as suffering then fear arises and all of the things that we heard about our practice that we've been easily able to accept and deal with now are much more difficult to accept and deal with because now it's very concrete and very real and our true inner feelings

[87:56]

come up and our fears come up these are important times these are times when you know an ancient worthy rolls up his or her sleeves and says good now I really have to work with this and Suzuki Roshi says somewhere in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind in one of my favorite passages something like if you've never sat through the night in anguish you know on your cushion then you really haven't known what it is to be a Zen student eventually we all come to this and then it's a big challenge and then when our fear arises we have to now instead of doing the usual which is wow this is lousy let's go to a movie or you know this is no good maybe I'll go out or we can do this or that or watch a video or whatever you know or what can I do to make this go away I think our practice tells us this is what's now

[88:56]

arising in the body in the mind this is what I have to turn toward and we turn toward it it's not easy we study it we stay with it we watch it change we watch the conditions that produce it we come to see how it is that it will pass away fear is not constant fear goes away in moments it comes back how did it go away what made it come back how do I study that how do I practice with that and we practice like that and we have you know that's when we really turn toward the teachings you know and toward the advice and support of our teachers and friends in the Dharma and we work through that situation and we stay with our practice and then we find at the other end of that situation that we've deepened our practice and our understanding and our appreciation for our human life and for what's possible and what's real you know so those times come to all of us there's no life even the most blessed life that doesn't at some time or another confront suffering

[89:58]

and fear and like I say for us those have to be opportunities to work more deeply not easy I don't say it's easy but we we work so please you know I know you will you know having practiced as you have you'll work through this yes um where are children in these teachings? where are children? where are children? um I'm looking at the average ages of people here and I'm wondering when does Buddhism appeal to the young adult or the child yeah yeah I think the practice that we do with the emphasis on meditation um most of it most little kids uh don't aren't so interested you know so we have ceremonies and rituals for the children that they participate in and enjoy and mostly

[90:58]

the practice of the children is the practice of their parents when you have little children you practice with your children I don't know of a single actually it's been one of the interesting things you know for us early on I mean we sort of thought well should we be having Sunday school should we have the Buddhist catechism we should tell them the 15 articles of belief of Zen let me see what were they anyway uh should we teach them how to gassho and all that and uh we we never really seriously considered such things because it didn't feel feel right you know but I don't know of a single child who's grown up in the community which is to say with parents who have been active in the practice in one way or another who doesn't have a pretty darn good understanding of Dharma from you know from a child's point of view obviously but pretty they have some where did they get that from they got it from the way that they were treated and related to their parents because their parents were practicing so like many other traditions I think the way that the children practice to a

[91:58]

great extent is in the home through the relationship with the parents and the way there's many there are lots written actually about things ways you can practice in the home with the children doing meal chants and different things you know lots of ways of practicing we have here at Green Gulch a number of family days family practice days every year where parents and children come together and practice together as a family that happens three four times a year and of course that tradition comes out of Thich Nhat Hanh's tremendous work with children and retreats that involve children and all that and all the books and stuff that you can find out about what the things that he's done with children we also have some annual rituals and festivals that are specifically for children and the children come and I often think that when the children come and see actually see the Buddha in the flesh you know on Buddha's birthday I feel like that's not a small thing and I remember last year Wendy Johnson

[92:59]

played the Buddha in the Buddha's birthday pageant and I remember after the pageant was over she didn't take the mask off and she was sitting there surrounded by children for hours after the pageant talking to children in the character of the Buddha you know she couldn't stop being the Buddha and I think for those children that was a wonderful experience so there are those kinds of things there's no doubt that more could be done and probably we don't do enough but I think that the practice for children is something that's really decentralized you know it's not coming from the temple as in sort of setting forth it's coming people are discovering it and it's very different in different families you know like there's some families who combine practices that they have learned or adapted from their own adult practice with their family life combining that with their traditions that they grew up in Judaism or Christianity and there's all sorts of things I think every family ends up with a kind of unique mixture of things that they do

[93:59]

so children do practice do practice there's all

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