It's got a lot of solid hardwood on it. Okay.

[01:12]

Okay. Zen is characterized in most people's minds, can you hear me okay in the back? Zen is characterized in most people's minds by an emphasis on

[02:24]

egolessness. And nowadays we hear there are many practices, therapeutic practices or psychological practices, which emphasize being less egoistic In some way, emphasizing selflessness. At the same time, of course, strengthening your ego is also important. many of the therapies of contemporary therapies. And Buddhism also has this emphasis and yet much of Buddhism

[03:41]

I don't know quite how to say it, but emphasizes more what is the best way to function. And egolessness is described in these terms. So the emphasis is on morality and taking care of your life and so forth. But Zen practice... You see, I just finished doing, with many of you, a seven-day session. So, generally, when I talk here at Green Gulch, because, again, so many of you don't practice regularly, and I don't like to

[04:54]

discuss, as I always say, Buddhism or Zen, so it separates people. However, you can intellectually understand Zen and you can get a pretty good feeling from and good orientation, beneficial orientation in your life, I think, from studying Zen. But really Zen comes down to what I'll call a yogic experience of egolessness. The experience is not so unfamiliar to people in usual circumstances, and yet it is very elusive and something is made of it. In fact, often we have more, if you're so inclined, we have more mystical experiences or some floating experience or something

[06:22]

wonderful or scary and unusual before we start practicing Zen. And when you start practicing Zen not much happens, you're just sitting, you know, there. And you keep waiting for something. At first some experiences happen in your zazen and then you wait for the big one to happen in your zazen. And zazen gets more and more boring and ordinary. And maybe you get discouraged. Ten thousand hours you've sat and nothing to show for it, you know, at least that you can remark on. But actually, next stage is your life begins to change. and if you're alert you see, you're actually doing things differently. The next stage is your zazen itself takes on concentrated blissful quality.

[07:43]

So purpose of Zen practice is to make this experience more and more are common more and more every day so that it occurs in the particularities of your life. And I think today I should be talking about yogic side of practice. And as I've said, it's helpful to understand yogic side of practice, even if you're not practicing it, because those so-called yogic experiences come up, actually, in your everyday life, but go by unnoticed. So, by the emphasis on yogic experience,

[09:11]

And by some people emphasizing it strongly, it helps other people to notice this kind of fleeting experience in their usual life and gives them some ability not to capsulate it, not to conceptualize it, to notice and yet not make something of what you've noticed. If you make something of it, you render it ineffective. So, I spoke, I believe here, about ego being conceptual thought, particularly, you know, if you're trying to identify ego. What is ego? Very difficult to identify a soul or ego, and there is

[10:13]

many, [...] many pages in many books on the ways you can identify something as ego or soul, and soul, and why those identifications themselves are stretching the point or meaningless. But in your practical experience, you know, what is ego or identity? you can see that you're a cluster of desires or experiences, probably a nameless cluster. So first, I'm saying, you can notice it in conceptual thought, particularly comparative conceptual thought. Or, say, in Sachine.

[11:17]

We are doing our eating bowls. We have these bowls. And we spread out a cloth and there's a little kind of table that you open up and you put your bowls on them and eat. And it's rather tricky, you know. Actually, if you aren't fairly alert, You get it all mixed up or you knock your bowls over. You have to be paying attention or you can't do it. Even if you've been doing it for many years, if you're not awake or paying attention, it's not the kind of thing you could eat with and have a conversation and be drinking wine and etc. You couldn't do it. It requires more attention than that. and the eating, it requires attention and concentration, or you fall behind. So if you do up your bowls, it requires some skill. If you do up your bowls and have them all tied and finished, and you notice you're ahead of the person next to you, and you take some satisfaction in being ahead of the person next to you, then you know ego is alive and well.

[12:44]

When you have that kind of comparative thought, that's ego. Comparative with whatever, you know. If you just finish your bowls, though, and you take some satisfaction in there done and you tied it fairly neatly, if your state of mind is a little distracted, claws, everything is amazingly sensitive. The claws are a little bit awry, etc. And if you finish it, and if you have some satisfaction in it looking okay, then that's all right, that's not exactly ego. Just some satisfaction in your effort is Okay, I'm not trying to suggest every kind of thinking or satisfaction is ego. Practically, I think you can emphasize noticing comparative thought as ego. And this thinking separates you from things.

[14:08]

Dogen talks a great deal about time and space and time as not being separate from you. I've talked about this too many times. You know, in practice again we want to look at transiency, at the shortness of our life, you know, and at the impossibility of anything existing outside time, or time being somehow independent of physical objects. So the more familiar you can be with these obvious ideas, you know, cemetery meditation, in Sashin I said, Probably you should look at photographs of dead relatives. It's a form of cemetery meditation. Their clothes are still around, but they're gone. Your clothes may still be in a drawer, but you'll be gone. Your clothes are more long-lasting than you.

[15:31]

So to become familiar, really familiar, by repetition, by practice, that time and space are one. There's a story that the Dogon liked. Ungan asks Dogo, Why does Kannon have so many, Kannon Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara, have so many hands and eyes?" He's often portrayed with 1,000 arms and hands and 11 heads. And anyway, he asks, why does Avalokiteshvara have so many hands and eyes? And Dogo says, It's like groping for your pillow at night. It's a very good answer. It's like reaching for your pillow at night. And Mungan says,

[17:14]

Madhogo says, one of them says, how do you understand this? And he says, his whole body is covered with hands and eyes. His whole body is hands and eyes. And Dungan says, that's 80%. And he says, well, how would you understand it? And he says, throughout his body are hands and eyes. Anyway, emphasis here is, of course, on your physical experience, non-conceptual physical experience. So it's the same as this emphasis on time and space are one. Time and space are inseparable.

[18:16]

You and everything is inseparable. Time and space are inseparable. You and time, you and space. You find out things in their minute particularity. Time and space is not separate from the minute particularity of everything. which we don't meet by conceptual thought. So we meet by... Dogen says time goes from past to present to future. And he also says it goes from today to today. And this again emphasizes simultaneity or inseparability. And that simultaneity means you've cut off conceptual thought.

[19:20]

Now I wanted to, I want to talk, usually after Sashin, I want to talk with those of you who didn't attend Sashin about some of the main things we talked about so you are familiar with, because always and I refer to it, so you are familiar with what we talked about in Sashin, but it's so intimately connected with practice itself, I feel, you know, I'm forcing something on you, some ideas on you. Maybe I should just say, please do zazen.

[20:29]

So, you can find out experience of simultaneity or inseparability. Another similar story, Umon asks a monk, �Where are you from?� �Where are you where have you come from?" And he says, West Chan. And West Chan is the name of a place or a person, I think also the name of a teacher. So he says, you know, it's just ordinary conversation, where have you come from? And he says, West Chan. And Unmon says, what words and phrases are being used in West Chan these days. And this monk, who's quite alert, he just thrusts out both hands. And as he thrusts out both hands, Hung Mon slaps him. And he says, the monk says, I'm still talking.

[22:04]

So, so, [...] smart answer. It emphasizes simultaneity. Later in the commentary in the story it says, the monk knew front but didn't know back, or didn't know 360 degrees. For simultaneity again emphasizes meeting each other, actually meeting each other not in usual time and space or past and future.

[23:05]

but in the inseparability or simultaneity. So, you know, just to put out your hands, in whatever way we can meet. So it's a kind of playing. The monk almost, you know, he understood but not quite as free as a monk. to play. Ikkyu was also... Ikkyu was a famous Japanese Zen master. And when he was out on a boat in Lake Biwa, he had, after practicing for a long time, he was 26, he heard a crow cawing and he had very deep experience and all his doubt and uncertainty melted away. And he came back to, rode back to, must have been one of the temples on shore of Lake Biwa where he was practicing. Many temples are still along Lake Biwa shore. And he went in and asked to see his teacher, Kaso,

[24:35]

And his teacher met with him and he told his teacher what happened and Kaso said, ah, very good, you are now an arhat, you have experienced the level of arhat, but you are not yet a Buddha. And Ikkyu said, Well, if this is the level of our heart, I have no interest in being a Buddha. I am completely satisfied.' So, Kasso, of course, said, Well, then you are really a Buddha.' Now, you may understand this, that a Buddha is… something higher than our heart. But it may not be so. Buddha may be lower than our heart. And in general, Zen, for instance, if we're talking about yogic experience, Zen Buddhists are usually quite a bit less skillful than someone who emphasizes yoga. Most Zen monks can't stop their heart

[26:04]

and they wouldn't look forward to being buried for 20 minutes. Those various experiences that yogis do. So it means you really don't care whether you're our heart or Buddha. You are satisfied. And then the meaning of this experience is not to make the quality of Ikkyu's experience on the lake is not to make something of it that separates him. Now I'm Buddha or this level or that level. Meaning of the experience is that it joins him with everything. He experiences simultaneity and inseparability of everything. Immediate shortwave broadcast. with London. And it's this aspect which makes Buddhism a religion and not some kind of attainment or special practice. But it is this, to give a lecture

[27:32]

like this is a very interesting experience for me because, you know, I've been practicing for a long time, not so long, but long enough to enjoy practice thoroughly. And I want to share my practice with you. And in Sashin, I'm glad they actually end after seven days, because it might get too far out if we went. ...and practicing very intimately with you for seven days. So each day we could... I don't know how much you understood of what I was trying to talk about, Maybe I didn't express myself so clearly, but each day I was able to discuss things that's almost impossible to talk about under any other circumstances. I described it as fleeting, as trying to discuss some nuance of driving a car, which always just depends on a particular situation.

[29:02]

and having driven a car for a long, long time with alertness. You can't later call it back up because it's so particular to the occasion. And so, during Sashin, we were able to talk about things that were very particular to that sitting, day after day. And we took the poem of Wendell Berries, which I mentioned in lecture last time, which ends with, you know, which ends with, Until I lift the earth I cannot move, as the Bodhisattva vowed.

[30:03]

and the lines by Wong Wei. How can you say the spring wind has no understanding when it brings me so many petals? How can you say the spring wind has no understanding when it brings me so many petals? And I added, who can deny the wisdom of the city where so many faces greet the ancient smile? Who can deny the wisdom of the city where so many faces greet the ancient smile? This rather corny or romantic, you know, idea, you know, and until I lift the earth I cannot move. We were able to talk about four, seven days. What is our body? What is another person? What is aloneness? How to find out what really being alone is?

[31:39]

difference of aloneness and dying, and relationship between or being dead, and relationship of aloneness and time or dying. And what are, you know, more than one person? Anyway, we can talk about those things, and usually I'm able to, after Sashim, share them, share what we've talked about with you. But more and more it seems difficult. It's difficult for me to do it, you know. Today I'm trying it,

[32:42]

I feel, you know, a profound reservation. Because when we are not all there, so it's quite familiar with us, it's like EQ, making something, you know. Are you our heart, or Buddha, or have you had some experience, or what is simultaneity? Because Zen isn't, the emphasis is not in Zen, you know. Because it is fundamentally a religion, it is not on any kind of experience that separates only that joins you. But naturally, if we practice seven days, we get very familiar with each other. In a way, someone who doesn't practice those seven days won't experience. So I guess I'll have to give up.

[34:04]

Everything is different or has its own particularity. And when you practice seven days, when you and I and our friends practice seven days, we can find out something together. We help each other find out something together. So I can encourage you, though, to try to do zazen. And if possible, try to do it with other people, some practicing group. I don't care what group. Naturally, if you live nearby, it's easier with this group. Sometimes, at least,

[35:19]

others. And to try sometime, one day, sitting. If you can't sit cross-legged, come and sit in a chair. and see if you can sit in the midst of your restlessness, in the midst of what you want to be separated from, you know, pain, painful legs, boring, restless sitting with many things to do. That's a kind of pain. If you can find your ease in suffering or pain or anguish, And also, if you can find your ease in desire, in the midst of many desires, desire to leave, desire to do something, ambition, sexual desire. Machestasy is emphasized in many religious experiences, practices, because

[36:44]

It is so useful if you can find your ease, freedom from desire. But it's the same if you can find your ease in suffering, what you want to escape from or what you want to get toward, be attracted to. If in both those cases you can find your ease, This is the way we move toward simultaneity, inseparability or oneness. So you have the joining, you know, not of desire, but the joining of inseparability, the joining of simultaneity. This bliss of simultaneity, literally bliss of simultaneity, is most profound, wide experience that you can name. We can say there's something beyond what you can name, but most wide, nameable experience, I think, in human history that we know about in every tradition.

[38:07]

And it is, you know, a human occasion. It's not something for some special person. It just means you find that ease in the midst of what you're attracted to and what you want to avoid. You don't have to move toward it. This is time You are free for a moment from time moving from past to future. So Dogon says time moves from today to today. He means simultaneity. Umgan and Dogo, his whole body, Avalokiteshvara's whole body, his hands and eyes, his growth reaching for your pillow in the dark. This effort is practice and is simultaneity. We don't know, we don't do it by usual method. Whole body and hand is our hands and eyes. Not usual way of perception, conceptualized perception, eyes, ears,

[39:40]

It's nature of this existence, time and space, and nature of your human existence. Om Man, extending both hands. Again, these stories all emphasize Simultaneity. Simultaneity is another way of saying egolessness. I enjoyed talking this session, too, about the city. Just I want to put in a plug for the city, and then I'll stop. Cities are where people meet each other. And we don't know cities, you know, because we don't have walking cities anymore. We have automobile cities, which are so dangerous, because no one is on the streets.

[41:15]

I'd love it if we could find a way to make our towns and villages and cities, like San Francisco even, if we could change it into a walking city. Then we have a chance to greet the ancient smile. Hmm.

[42:09]

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