This question of society and sangha is much more important for us than most previous Buddhist times, I think, because they lived in much stabler social situations. And the wisdom of the sangha was all... was worked out. You just had to live it. Now we have to think about it again. Most of Buddhism... Buddhism is so vast because

[01:02]

And it's much more than thinking. The philosophy of Buddhism is pretty simple, but as the story of Keichu's cart points out, it's not just a matter of form and emptiness or philosophy, it's if you take away the front and back and wheels, what will it be? When you have what will it be, you have something very deep and profound and many, many, many, many stages at which we don't get it or are caught by some level We have many agreements, as I pointed out, that, for example, we think we don't know anything and we have to study or be educated to learn something. And many people always have this weight on them that because they haven't learned something,

[02:50]

do certain things or think accurately. They don't have enough information. We saw it wasn't true during the Vietnam War. All the experts were wrong. Anybody with common sense or whatever, pretty easy to see how wrong. If you have a vested interest, no matter how expert you are, your thinking is vested. Information doesn't help. And another agreement is that Buddha is dead. The patriarchs are not here. They're far away. But in fact, some of you are pretty good. Actually, some of you, there's a few people in Zen Center who I'm very encouraged by. And several more who, you know, some of us are pretty close. But most of you aren't, even those of you who are

[04:16]

Pretty close, shall we say. You're not ripe enough to understand, even if you catch it. But it's clearly possible. Clearly what we're doing here works. And many of you, a remarkable number of you, if you continue, will transmit Buddhism to someone else. We also have the idea that you can sit down and figure things out. It's like we can sit down and figure out a government and imagine all the problems. correcting previous karma or history. But as you know in your own practice, if you correct something, sometimes it was covering up something much worse.

[05:39]

So Buddhism is to get out of these agreements. The Sangha is different from society. It's to get out of these agreements. So an interesting fact of world history is that civilization is mostly, as Jeff would say, flatlanders. Civilization will spread thousands of miles on a plane but it won't go up a thousand feet. That's really very interesting. Mountains, just a few thousand feet, one or two up, and civilization is not present in the same way. This is true in China and it's true in Europe. Christianity never made it into the mountains of Europe much. The mountains were always first. The whole country would be Christian and the mountain people would be Muslim. Or they'd switch to black masses or some devil, unusual version of Christianity. Or then they'd be Christian for a while. But it never made much inroads.

[07:11]

And you couldn't get mountain people to pay taxes and things like that. So every Zen temple is called a mountain. The name includes mountain, and the gate is called a mountain gate. Even if it's in the middle of downtown Kyoto, it's called a mountain. because it's free of those agreements, because of sangha, not society. So in this, you know, other people are like, you know, our head, you know. Everyone is, you have two thoughts, you know, and they rub against each other, and it's not much different, you know, whether I have two thoughts or I have one and Bill has one. So we are polished by that. Each one of you is my head, another thought which I must find my composure with.

[08:46]

So as you begin to view your fictitious identity, your fictitious being, and explore its full heights and depths and initiate it, that fictitious being, you'll find, includes everyone else. And there's very little difference between the different parts of you and the different parts of each of us. many of the most fruitful ideas nowadays seem to be coming from religious thinkers, especially in the West, from Catholics. And I guess that would be natural.

[10:36]

By the way, I've been talking about natural, so the way I use the word natural means like some rocks on the mountainside, they just slide down the hill, and how they fall is natural. And as we talked about last practice period or a couple ago, if you try to arrange some rocks so they look natural, it's very difficult to do it. But the way the rocks fall down the mountain is just the mountain's karma. It's just the total sum of the circumstances. Karma is very useful to us as an idea. because it's completely mechanical. There's no essence in it. There's no soul in it. You don't have to worry about messing up your soul or your essence. Just accumulation of stuff you have to cope with. And there's an enormous power in being one with your karma as a psychopath.

[12:08]

You might say a psychopath, if we define a psychopath as someone who has no sense of shame or guilt, they don't suffer from their actions. They can do anything. These such people, if they can stay out of trouble, are often very powerful people, very influential in society. because their intention and their karma are one. They don't have any reservations. So natural in this sense of just being one with your karma without reservation. It may not be Buddhism, but it's very powerful and convincing. This sense of interplay with ourself is, in that sense we can say,

[13:24]

I don't know if there's any such thing as a pure psychopath. There certainly are operative ones. I think most people... I've never met someone who doesn't have some reservation of shame or guilt. Guilt is not so useful, but shame is a very important aspect of practice. Why was I talking about shame? Unnatural. I can't remember. Oh yes, that's right. Thank you. Anyway, religious thinkers seem to have, I'm noticing, three characteristics. I don't know if I talked about this before. One is, there's certain kinds of things they don't have to think about.

[15:20]

They don't have to think about whether we should live on a spaceship or not, like the New Coevolution Quarterly talks about going to. They don't have to think about it. They know they're not going to live on a metal ship in space, you know. So they don't have to think about certain kinds of things. They don't have to consider all possibilities. And the reason is because they – and this we can make a second point – is they affirm, they don't criticize. You don't worry about putting down this or trying to correct that. You just affirm what works, you know, or you affirm what you feel. And you ignore. and with people. This is the background of see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. A very, actually, Buddhist idea, too. Is it when a person, you know, is it before you, as I've said, if you

[16:40]

are philosophical, it stops it, or if you're critical, it stops it. Sometimes we have to, may criticize someone, but it must be in the context of the person of trust and the person soliciting the criticism, or making themselves available by their life for it. Otherwise, you just mix and has no effect except to make a breach. And you tend to stop the person if you react to their negative side, but there's some motion when you react to their positive side. So to affirm, you know, intrinsic to practice. And third is you have some mountain or some place outside society. You're not so relativistic. You're not seeking your base. Society is not your base. In our practice, Zazen is our base.

[18:05]

Okay, choose card. The word mind, big mind, small mind, our mind, means basically vow. It has the same meaning as remind, and sometimes mind is used for remind. And it has the meaning of mind your children, mind your P's and Q's, mind, be aware of. And it means in a repetitious way, over and over again. So vow is just to

[19:12]

is a further statement about awareness, awareness that you keep repeating. And yesterday or the other day I used the example of the difference in drawing a line, particularly with a brush, because there's much danger in drawing with a brush. With a pen, the pen controls your line, but with a brush there isn't much control on your line except you. So if you draw a line with a brush, if you draw it with awareness, oneness with it, it's quite a different line than if you just draw it. The more fully you can be there, it'll be clearer in the line. Though you may not have had that experience, because you don't draw right with a brush. In chanting, you must have noticed

[20:20]

in Sashin, where our awareness is much more up or open, chanting is far more alive and together. And I must say, recently in this practice period, chanting is not... Usually chanting at Tassara is better than at Green Gulch in San Francisco, but in this practice period it's not been so good. I can barely hear it up here. And it kind of I hear a few voices, but no movement from all of you. I don't think your awareness is in your chanting. And you can try that, to bring your awareness into your chanting. So, to mind something has the sense of affirmation in it, too. Attention has the sense of affection, like you watch a child. And love, love has both qualities in it. You love someone and one side is you're very attached and possessive.

[21:48]

And the other side is you're very forgiving. You forgive somebody you love, you forgive their faults, and you forgive their idiosyncrasies. And in Buddhist practice, this side of love is emphasized. When you have more detachment, you're not possessive, but the forgiveness side is present. So awareness and vow and affection, attention and forgiving are all very, very similar, different words for the same activity, a kind of warm activity. It's not just philosophical or tough or something like that. And so, of course, you have compassion or to suffer with someone. But again, we're able to suffer with someone who's sick, you know, mentally or physically.

[23:12]

But I think we have a lot of difficulty suffering with the Page Laguna Association, or the Rotary Club, or something we find very boring and pedestrian. You can't put up with people's petty and greed, hate, and delusion. So vow is this kind of personal attention or awareness in which you bring to your awareness your intention to practice or whatever you

[24:39]

whatever moves you most fully, without reservation. And it will have various forms. The vow is not, you know, to save all sentient beings or however we translate it. For each person will actually be different. and at different times in your life will be different. It's very personal. Goso, who I mentioned before, who told the story about the buffalo, was the teacher of Engel, I think, who did the Blueprint records. And he had one theme, as Dogen did too, he had one theme throughout his experience.

[26:11]

and it was the unity of subjectivity and objectivity. And he had that kind of very simple, practical turn of mind, like Tozan. Why does the sutra say, no eyes, no ears, no nose? I have an eye, ear, nose. That ability to see the obvious, is also to break through agreements. So, there was... he read some discussion that to see with Buddha's eye... I think maybe Lankavatara Sutra or someplace... to see with Buddha's eye is to unite subject and object essence and circumstances, etc. And some non-Buddhist in this thing he read said, how can you prove it that subject and object are one? And the teacher in the story answers, it is the same as to find out for yourself personally what hot and cold is by drinking something.

[27:42]

And Goso Hoen, reading this, said to himself, I know what hot and cold is, but what is the unity of subject and object? It takes that kind of turn. And the ability to believe what you read, and the ability to believe your own experience. I know what hot and cold is, but I don't know what the unity of subject and object is. So this was his theme. And on several occasions, his satori experience turned on this point. and even the various koans for which he's famous turn on this point, including the buffalo. His own final understanding came when his teacher, Hakun,

[29:10]

said that there are several young monks at Mount Goa whose understanding is very good, who have had satori, who can speak very clearly about the koans, and who can make excellent commentary on the sutras. and give very good lectures, but they don't understand it. On this story, you know, Goso realized finally Not very cold yet. Most of you can probably remember what I've said about the cold in the past, but some of you are new, so I'll mention some things. One is, it's quite customary in monasteries in Japan, is that when it's cold, first of all, you're supposed to keep your window here open. You're not supposed to wear turtlenecks and things.

[30:49]

But if you do, I'm sorry. Seems to me that Uchiyama Roshi used to wear a turtleneck and sleeves coming down. So I just gave you an excuse. But generally, we leave this open and we keep our feet bare. I mean, no socks or tabi are on them, even though they're covered, and you keep your hands uncovered. But it's quite common for monks to put oil on their hands, hand cream or, I don't know, What's that stuff called? Miner's lettuce? Cornhusker's oil. Cornhusker's oil, yeah. Cornhusker's oil, yeah. But it's water-soluble, so maybe it's not so good for the beds, but it may help you who tend to get, I think if you get

[32:01]

What are they called? Chillblains. Chillblains. You shouldn't go into the hot baths. But if you are on the edge, it might help to have some kind of hand lotion that isn't water-soluble on your hands. Anyway, it does make a difference. When I first went to a heiji, several monks supplied me with all different kinds of hand creams. I never used them. I've tried them a couple of times. Daito-ji monks came up and gave me these various equipment for survival. Anyway, it's important that your body breathe. And as I've said before, if you keep your body too warm, you can't keep your hands warm. And there's no sense making it too difficult for you to learn how to keep your hands warm. But the difficulty is helpful. It's important that you, in practice, learn how to maintain your body temperature.

[33:17]

Excuse me for then being a bit esoteric, but your body, your ability to control your body temperature is very closely related, again, to your ability to maintain attention, awareness, affection, et cetera. They're all very closely related. Those stories, you know, if your nose is cold or something, someone, or your ear, someone's talking about you or you're angry, that kind of thing is true. It means if you can't keep your blood in your legs and hands and face, etc. It means something in relationship to other people and to your own realization, to this awareness that is on everything and you shift your identity to.

[34:31]

So you don't have to, just because your hands are cold, though, you don't have to sit and criticize yourself, saying, I am a no-good Buddhist with cold hands, you know. If you have cold hands, well, try to warm them up. And if you can't, well, I guess you have to cover them up. So if you want to, you can cover your hands if it's quite cold, but please don't be, you know, sissy. And it's okay to use this mudra. If you want. You just put your hands together like that. Then if you use this mudra, you pull your hands up against your stomach. You don't let them sit in your lap. Up against your stomach. So I don't mind if some of you use this mudra and some of you use this mudra. As you know, most of you know, I think down should not be used in the Zen dojo. It makes your body clammy. And if you sweat under your robes, you'll be much colder because it means your body is losing heat.

[36:03]

It's trying to get rid of its heat when you sweat. And with no insulation, you can't... I mean, no breathing through the down and plastic. You can't control your body temperature at all. But on the other hand, You know, our practice is ascetic. On the other hand, I don't want you to wear just your black summer robe and be naked underneath. That's too much. Even if you can do it, you know, please slouch a little, like I was talking about blind people, slouch. I want to read to you something about down, which I read to some of you last year, but it's quite interesting, so I'll read it again.

[37:26]

I love it. Anyway, this is about the end of the 12th century in China. There's another one here I'll read first. I like reading these things. Anyway, he's on a trip. And about noon, we untied the boat and passed three mountain point. On top of the point, there's a new shrine to the river dragon. A Taoist half-drunk was standing out on the very edge of the sheer moss-covered bank, watching the boats go by. Just a look at him was enough to make your heart turn cold with fear. He must be some kind of eccentric. In the river there were dozens of porpoises, diving and surfacing, some black, some yellow. Suddenly a creature, several feet long, bright red in color, and shaped like a huge centipede, stuck up its head and swam upriver. It splashed water two or three feet into the air and was really a fearful sight. That night we spent at Kooltao mouth. On the 23rd day,

[39:28]

We passed sunny Mountain Point and for the first time caught sight of Mount Chiu Wa. The banks of the river are covered with reed blossoms. That's down. Are covered with reed blossoms. They look like snow. Once when I visited Yen Wei, the chief priest of the Temple of the Heavenly Well, he told me that the old monks of Mount Lu used the fluff from the reed blossoms to stuff their robes with When Yen-Wei was young and living at the Temple of the Compassionate Sun, he too made himself a robe of this kind. He, too, made himself a robe of this kind, but when the Chan master, the Zen master Fo Tung Chung, saw it, he gave Yen Wei a fierce scolding. If at your age you're already so concerned about keeping warm, how can you put your mind to the study of the Dharma, he said. When the interview was over, Yen Wei questioned the other monks, and they told him that of 300 men at that temple, no more than three or four had reed blossom robes, and they were all over 70.

[40:43]

At this point he felt very embarrassed and quickly took off the robe. We tied up at Plum Root Harbour and spent the night. Is there anything you'd like to talk about? Yeah. I wanted to ask you what is the difference between shame and guilt? How does shame work? I don't know how to...

[41:47]

I haven't thought about how to describe the difference. But guilt is, I think, particularly Western and has the sense of, you were wrong to begin with. Anyway, it sticks to you more, guilt. Oh, of course. It can be in Christianity, of course, or is. But I guess guilt is more directed toward the past, and shame is more

[42:49]

guilt kind of condemns you. Shame is something that you just notice you did something that you wish you hadn't or you don't feel content with, and it is more directed toward the future, in the sense that next moment you try to do something about it, you try to stop doing it. You're not condemned by having done it, you just didn't like that one thing. It doesn't condemn you. Shame doesn't condemn you. But the sense of failure or the ability to feel our transgressions or mistakes is essential to practice. Is there some difference between attention and concentration? Could you hear? Is there some difference between attention and concentration? Yeah. In a Buddhist sense, attention, I think if we…

[44:43]

would come first, you'd start trying to pay attention to what you're doing. But there's some effort in it. And concentration is, the more you're concentrated, the more there's no effort. You're just already one. Like we may pay attention to our breathing, and trying to pay attention, or we may even forget to pay attention And we may be distracted by something. And then suddenly we'll find ourselves concentrated. One with our breathing. That kind of... You know, Buddhism is very difficult to do. It sort of sneaks up on you. It's very difficult to concentrate by your effort, actually. Many people... I was talking with someone the other day about this. Many people actually concentrate by listening to the radio. They do something to distract themselves. Musicians and athletes and others often will think of some, you know, drivel, dinner or something, and it allows them to concentrate. Because they don't have the ability to have their mind to actually have non-thinking, they must occupy their mind with something that doesn't interfere with what they're doing.

[46:11]

And that's... you can have concentration without attention, in that sense, you see what I mean? But we practice with attention and awareness. These are all, you know, your effort, you know. A vow is the reality that we have to, each moment, do it. Yes? I wanted to ask you about illness. Illness? It seems it's always sort of a prevalent thing here, especially when you get cold. I remember something you said a long time ago about when people withdraw their support from you or you think they have, people will get sick then. I don't know. I think I got sick maybe two weeks ago or so, for a day, and somehow I felt it happen because I hadn't been honest with myself or something like that about what my intentions really were. I don't know what you thought about it. Did you hear what he said? Yeah. It's undoubtedly true. It doesn't mean that all

[47:44]

I think... but to go from that to say that all sickness means that your state of mind was bad or something like that is not so either, because we slouch, you know. Right? In Zen we slouch, you know. Someone said, why do we walk differently, why do all of us, you know, walk differently in the Zendo than we do outside? Well, because in the Zendo we have a kind of mutual agreement, it's all right to be strong. Outside we don't have that agreement. So in the zendo we can stand straighter, or sit, or be rather more strict with ourselves, or allow ourselves to feel more alive or strong. Outside it's some offense to people if you do it, and people will actually cut you down if you do it. So, all these things, slouch is some escape, you know, and at the same time it's some compassion. Everything in life has these two sides. So it's very difficult to figure out what we're doing. You need some sensitive

[49:14]

supportive environment to find your balance, what's hot and cold, by your own personal experience. So, if we live with people, if we bring the mountain down to the slum, because that's where people are, then we're going to be sick sometimes. If we join with people, we'll be sick. And you'll tend to get sick at any transition in your life. Whether it's an emotional transition or a physical transition. But I don't think, on the whole, I think we're not so sick here. Not so prevalent, actually. At Green Gulch, it's a more... Everyone gets sick at Green Gulch. The way Tassajar, everyone used to get sick. Here, it's not so bad. But certainly people tend to get cold when people get cold, chilled, when they're mad or sad or something like that. You can usually... The germs are floating about all around, you know, all the time. Whether you decide to invite one in has a lot to do with your state of mind. So knowing that, you can usually get better quickly.

[50:46]

If you just decide to get better, enough of this not being supported. Okay. All right. It helps your state of mind. We'll all benefit. Ulysses stopped the war by changing his mood. Everyone's state of mind improved in ten directions. Do you record that unless you're so poisoned? It's true. Yes?

[52:21]

And she said, is there a difference between keeping the top part of your body warm or the lower part? Do you have a choice? Oh, I see. I thought you meant by your own effort. I mean, by dressing. I didn't realize any of this was that finely tuned, deciding which part to keep warm. I think I'll be chilled in the upper half. He can do it. All right. I don't think... since we fold our legs, I don't see much reason for wearing underwear, thermal underwear on your legs. Walking around, it may be necessary. And it's your legs which get coldest, the hardest for your body to heat. As you know, the Japanese have these tables where you put your legs, so if your legs stay warm, your heart can heat the rest of your body.

[53:37]

more easily, but we cross our legs, so it's actually better to not isolate your legs from each other with thermal underwear. I think some kind of underwear is good to wear on your legs, but lightweight... Yes? I don't understand the relationship between effort That's true. That's right. It's wonderful. It's so mysterious. That's true, but if you have no concentration and

[54:42]

You have nothing. You want to do something, right? So you make an effort. To pay attention. Yeah, to pay attention. To listen. To listen may be a more subtle word than to pay attention. You can listen to what you're doing. It may be sort of like in between attention and concentration. But we, you know, we... Effort is not it, you know. And there's no such thing as no effort. Effort is always tacked on to another effort, because there's no life without effort, though we may not call it effort. But without effort, we don't get to the end of our fictitious being. Effort's not it, but effort will make everything unbearable. Until you suddenly realize... I don't know.

[56:14]

So effort is scary and exciting. And it's certainly rewarding in its own terms, but it has no... it may be repressive, you know, like ascetic practice is often repressive, just another way to repress ourself. But at the same time, to baby ourselves, is also another way to allow our repression to go on undisturbed. Practice requires some delicacy and openness and trust and stopping to baby, stopping bathing ourselves indulging ourselves which will lead to depression if you indulge yourself

[57:27]

and an ability to see where our practice is, not some textbook idea of practice, but what's actually there to be taken care of right in front of us, wherever we are. We want practice to be something big, you know? It's like competition. We struggle. You know, we don't We find it quite easy to say, well, I'm better than so-and-so at that, or I proved that I could do that. We find it easy to say that when we've won. But if we're losing, we turn very philosophical. It's not necessary to win. We don't need to compete, you know, etc. But we hardly notice that there's a whole level we've just said, well, I'm better than that. So our practice is in that kind of invisible realm, which, you know, we say, well, my practice is in recognizing I'm not perfect. But maybe that's too easy. That's like getting through helping somebody when they're sick, not in the

[59:03]

boring details of their life, not recognizing what about all those ways in which we assume we're better than others, take for granted, oh, I don't, you, you, if someone, If someone you take, think is a complete nonentity, runs off with your wife, you feel terrible, or your husband, or is suddenly promoted to past you in a job, because we just take for granted. Sometimes we are misusing the people around us and looking towards some real practice in the future. It's ridiculous. So an ability to recognize where our practice is.

[60:08]

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