Well, today, I would like to talk about Zazen, Zen meditation. This is probably the place for it. Zen master Dogen has a very famous writing about Zen meditation called Fukan Zazengi, Fundamental Principles of Zazen, and that text begins this way. The way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization?

[01:12]

The Dharma vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice? That's how Dogen Zenji begins his famous text on Zazen. Zazen is basically and fundamentally a useless and pointless activity. A person is devoted to Zazen not because it helps anything or because it's peaceful

[02:22]

or interesting or because Buddha said to do it, although we might imagine that it's interesting or useful or peaceful or Buddha said to do it, but we're devoted to Zazen just because we are. You can't argue for it or justify it or make it into something good. You just do it because you do it, and it's not even a question of wanting to or not wanting to. It's Zazen for the sake of Zazen. Birds sing, fish swim, because that's what they do. No one argues with them about it. And people who are devoted to Zazen do Zazen with devotion all the time,

[03:27]

although there is absolutely no need for it. Our life is fine already the way it is. Everything that happens is already a manifestation of our original enlightenment, even though most of the time we don't notice this. We don't need to enter another condition or to improve or disprove anything. The gentle rain of the Dharma is falling all the time evenly and freely on each and every thing, and each thing, whether it knows it or not, receives that rain and uses it in its own way, each one in a different way. And the whole world is unfolding in a beautiful and perfect interplay of forces.

[04:30]

This is true, although we may have some trouble appreciating this. After all, we are only people, and why would we not have trouble? And our trouble is this, that our minds are unable to see difference without making comparisons, without making judgments and preferences. We would like either everything to be exactly the same, which it really is, although we can't experience it that way, or if it has to look different, at least we have to rank things. So we have this kind of difficulty. And I want to be clear that this is a difficulty that has to do with knowing and thinking.

[05:41]

It's not a difficulty that has to do with our actual condition. It's just a difficulty of our mind and of our language. As far as our actual being is concerned, whether we have difficulty or not, we're just fine. So Dogen says, what then could be more foolish than the idea of religious cultivation, than the thought that we need to change our condition and become more holy or more peaceful or more wise? In fact, such thoughts and such desires only remove us from the holiness and peacefulness and wisdom that are the actual essence of every moment of our lives. These qualities and whatever exalted qualities we are trying to develop are with us right now, wherever we are.

[06:44]

So what's the use in making efforts to acquire them? Such efforts are only going to lead us in the opposite direction. Someone once asked Master Yun Man, what does it really mean to sit correctly and contemplate true reality? What does it mean, really, to sit correctly and contemplate true reality? And Master Yun Man answered, a coin lost in the river is found in the river. So what I have said so far I think is really the truth, or I wouldn't have said it. And I think we really need to appreciate this truth if we're going to really do zazen. And if we don't appreciate it, our zazen is going to be acquisitive.

[07:53]

Everything else in our lives is inherently acquisitive because our strong habitual sense of self always demands that we get some good out of everything that we do. And this is exhausting. Zazen is something different from this. And if we don't appreciate its fundamental pointlessness and uselessness, which comes from the fundamental all-rightness, you see, of our life, then we will turn our zazen into something acquisitive, and something that we don't appreciate. Something busy, another item on our list of to-do things, another obligation, just like everything else that we do. Now, once upon a time, a monk asked Master Yun Man,

[08:59]

What is myself? Master Yun Man said, I, this old monk, enter mud and water for you. The monk replied, Then I should crush my bones and tear my body to pieces in gratitude. Master Yun Man gave a great piercing shout. And then he said with some urgency and immediacy, The water of the entire ocean is on your head right now. Speak! Speak! And the monk couldn't say anything. So Master Yun Man, as he often did, answered for him, speaking as if he were the monk speaking. And he said, I fear that you, Master, don't think. I am genuine.

[10:02]

So the problem we have is that we can't really see zazen as useless, because our minds can't really accept the fundamental genuineness, the fundamental all-rightness of our lives. It's odd, but we are tremendously resistant to this. We really hate that we're all right, just as we are, because it's too simple. And we think that surely there must be something more than this. So we mightily resist this. And we can't underestimate the power of this resistance. It's not a detail or a quirk of our mind or a habit of our mind. It is really fundamental to the very nature of our mind.

[11:13]

In Sanskrit, the very word for consciousness is vijnana. And the word vijnana, the etymology of the word actually means to cut or to divide. In order for our consciousness to register experience, what we call experience, we have to cut or divide reality up into parts. And the nature of our all-rightness, the nature of our genuineness, is that it is radically indivisible. It's wholeness. Wholeness is indivisible. And so this wholeness cannot be an experience. In the way that we're used to thinking of experience. And even if we practice zazen intensely and have an enlightenment experience,

[12:25]

we will immediately confuse ourselves with this experience. Such an experience is a promising beginning. But we have to be careful to let go of it, careful to refrain from defining it or naming it, to refrain from making it into a cherished memory, into a hook for identity. Dogen goes on in Fukanza Zengi to say, after he has talked about what use is there to go off here and there to practice and so on, he says, and yet, and yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy,

[13:29]

the way in which we practice, the way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. Suppose one gains pride of understanding and inflates one's own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the way and clarifying the mind, raising an aspiration to escalate the very sky. One is making then the initial, partial excursions about the frontiers, but is still somewhat deficient in the vital way of total emancipation. And then Dogen Zengi continues, you should therefore, he says, cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech,

[14:34]

and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself. Body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay. You should learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself. Body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will be manifest. So this backward step is a very famous saying of Dogen. And in a way it is the opposite of knowing or experiencing. Not exactly the opposite, but maybe prior to knowing or experiencing. Maybe not prior to in time, but prior to in depth.

[15:39]

In any case, here all language fails us, because what I am trying to express has nothing to do with space or time. And our language is built from space-time metaphors. So it's hard to talk about this. We have an ongoing seminar at Green Gulch with some of the senior residents, and in the seminar we were discussing something like this, and one of the Green Gulch people, Jordan, who works on the farm, had what I thought was a terrific image to help to understand this point. He compared consciousness to cutting an onion. He used to work in the kitchen before. And a few days before he said this, I had been working in the kitchen and I chopped many gallons of onions, so I was struck by his metaphor.

[16:42]

So consciousness is like cutting an onion. The edge of the blade of the knife comes into touch with the skin of the onion, and then slices through, and the onion falls into two pieces. Every moment of our experience we cut like this, and so we feel, whether we're in touch with it or not, a deep and underlying sense of separation, of loneliness, of being divided from ourself, of being divided from everything, of being in exile, homeless, lost. And someone in the seminar building on this metaphor said,

[17:45]

yes, and just like the onion, when we split it in half, we cry. So the backward step then would be, using this analogy, the moment when the edge of the blade of the knife just touches the skin of the onion. At that precise instant, there isn't any division. There's not even a division between knife and onion, let alone between onion and onion. There's only one thing contacting itself. One thing completely in touch with itself. And this is always how our life is in the present moment.

[18:46]

One thing in touch with itself, not divided, not past, not future, and not present either. And this is the backward step. Resting in the very beginning of the act of consciousness. Now when I say this, it sounds as if it means that we should all carefully analyze every act of mind, and that we should watch carefully to return to the beginning moment of each act of consciousness. And although this might be an interesting exercise, a useful exercise, and an exercise, incidentally, that is absolutely impossible without the practice of meditation,

[19:48]

still, it's a fundamentally futile exercise, because, again, it's an exercise based on space-time notions of what consciousness is. There's an old saying in Zen, a fingertip can never touch itself. And in fact, that first undivided moment of consciousness can never be found in isolation, because it pervades the whole of consciousness. And the whole act of slicing the onion, even the tears, is the beginning. Now once a monk asked Master Yunmen, What is myself? Master Yunmen replied,

[20:51]

Yourself is the one who, when a free meal is being handed out, rushes to get in line. So... So again, I think what I'm saying here is true, but as with most things that are more or less true, there are always problems. And there are two problems with this, what I'm saying. First of all, it may strike you as mysterious or profound or hard to understand, and then this might lead you to imagine that there is someone who is not you who understands it, and that there is someone who is you who does not understand it.

[21:54]

And then you will compare yourself and reinforce your habit of thinking that you are not alright the way you are. So I've noticed that this is a problem. But the second problem is that whether or not you think you understand it, in either case you're wrong, of course, of course. Still, it remains the question, what are you going to do about it? It's a more important question. How will you live it? And to this second question, I would say just this, only do zazen and pay attention to your life. Sit with a spirit of the uselessness of sitting. Enter sitting not as yourself

[23:01]

but as someone who is bigger than yourself and includes yourself. Don't assume anything about anything. Just sit, as Dogen says, upright in correct bodily posture, neither inclining to the left nor to the right, neither leaning forward nor backward, he says in Fukan Zazengi. And just be determined to sit there without any idea of up or down, inside or outside, self or other, until the bell rings or you drop dead, whichever comes first. And then, assuming you have not dropped dead and the bell rings and you get up, resume your life as a person and just be aware and be simple.

[24:08]

Know all the time, as you will have discovered laboriously in zazen with some sweat, that what is going on in your mind is just what is going on in your mind, that thoughts and feelings are just thoughts and feelings. What is actually going on, events that you firmly believe, the thoughts and feelings in your mind are referring to and defining, what is really going on, you actually don't know. Don't forget that and you will forget it and when you forget it, remind yourself that that's the case, over and over again. And it's necessary, as you can already sense, that you need to have a sense of humor here, otherwise it's all too hard.

[25:14]

Don't get tangled up in what happens because while you're being tangled up in what happens, something else is happening that you are missing and it's probably important. So move through things as much as you can, just straight ahead without too much deliberation. Again, Master Yunmen once held up his staff and he said to the gathered assembly, when a monk sees this staff, he calls it a staff. When he walks, he just walks. When he sits, he just sits. In all this, he cannot be stirred. So Zazen is a very, very simple practice. When we sit in Zazen, we just take care of our posture and we try to pay attention to our breathing. When we breathe in, we know breathing in.

[26:18]

When we breathe out, we know breathing out. We give ourselves with great devotion and creativity and love wholeheartedly to our breath and we just forget about everything else without denying anything or burying anything. And when we forget to do this, we remind ourselves and we come back to the breath. And we try not to make the breath into something or to make the fact that we are doing Zazen into something. You know, there are no big deals in Zen practice because every single thing in our whole life and in the whole wide world is a big deal. So how could anything be a big deal? See what I mean? If everything is a big deal, there is no such thing as a big deal.

[27:20]

When we say something is a big deal, what we mean is that this is a big deal and that is not a big deal. So we don't worry about our Zazen and we don't have the idea I am doing it right or I am doing it wrong or something like that. We just do it, whatever it is, we don't know. My all-time favorite Zen dialogue about Zazen is the one which I quote whenever I get a chance. I can work it in. From Master Zhaozhou who was asked, What is Zazen? And Master Zhaozhou responded, It's non-Zazen. And taken aback, the monk said, How can Zazen be non-Zazen? And Master Zhaozhou said, It's alive.

[28:25]

It's alive. So, going back to Dogen Zenji's Fukanza Zengi, later on in the text he says this, The Zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon when he gains the water, like the tiger when she enters the mountain. For you must know that just there in Zazen

[29:27]

the right Dharma is manifesting itself and that from the first dullness and distraction are struck aside. So this sounds a little bit like a big deal, doesn't it? Ultimate reality does rather sound like a big deal in the English language. But actually, where would you find ultimate reality? Do you think it's under my Zafu? Do you think it's buried deep within your brain somewhere? Where the scientists have yet to discover it? Do you think it's in a high cloud or in the deep ocean? I think it is in all those places

[30:31]

and everywhere else as well. So sitting in Zazen and not sitting in Zazen is not preparation for something else. My Zazen and Buddha's Zazen and your Zazen are the same. All manifestations of ultimate reality and so is everything else. So Zazen is not a question of meditation or non-meditation. But as Dogen says, it's a wonderful thing because it is incorruptible. Traps and snares can never reach it. Reality is reality no matter what anybody does about it or doesn't do about it. You don't even need to understand it and you can't really understand it. All you need is confidence in it.

[31:36]

And once you sit down with real confidence in your Zazen practice not because Zazen is such a wonderful thing and so on but because it is supremely useless and supremely pointless then you have real confidence in your life. Now things could certainly fall apart completely tomorrow. You could become disgraced and humiliated. You could lose your job. Your house could burn down. Your reputation sullied. Your husband and wife could leave you and your body could completely fall apart. But all of these things would still be ultimate reality. They would always still be real life, genuine life,

[32:41]

all right life. And you would be able to bear them and be with them and see deeply into them for what they truly are. I have said many times sitting in this Dharma seat more or less that I believe we are living in an historical period in which we understand that it is necessary for all of us to be conscious and active in our life, in our world and I don't think there is a single person sitting here today or anywhere on our planet who can ignore this call to action. And yet, and yet

[33:49]

if we do not practice Zazen whether we call it Zazen or whether it's some other way however we call it, however we understand it if we do not practice Zazen we will not act in a true and accurate way. This world has seen plenty of action too much action. Our wonderful action has made a big mess of everything. What we need now is not more action we need clear action enlightened action and this means letting go of action in action. Thank you very much.

[35:00]

May our intention equally... No, that might happen. That might be your particular karma to experience this mind in that way but no, there's no marks to it. There's no specific and particular thing just like we could say a tree is this kind of thing we could all agree on that. So it's a different kind of thing. Does that speak to what you're phrasing? Yes? I didn't know that. Is that right? Is that right? Huh. Yes. I don't really know much about Christianity

[36:17]

to tell you the truth but lately I've been studying it a lot I mean as far as I can because I'm going to go to Gethsemane monastery in a month or two so I'm getting a crash course in Catholicism and I'm reading a lot of books and so on and maybe it's just that I'm putting a Zen spin on it but it sounds pretty good to me and I'm reading it and I say, yeah, that's pretty good especially reading Merton. The early Merton is a little bit crabby. If you read like Seven Story Mountain I was really shocked by how crabby he was in Seven Story Mountain and complaining about all the sinners and how bad he was and all this. I said, this guy is too crabby. I had a hard time getting every now and then it would be he writes smoothly so you read along but then I really felt like he better improve before the next book and he did. Once he entered the monastery

[37:19]

he had a much more accepting of the world and much more in love with the world. He was propelled into the monastery by his hatred of the world and he found a love for the world in the monastery and so his later books are much more wonderful to read and as I read those later books I thought yeah, I can relate to that, that's pretty good. So to me I thought it was not so different but I'm sure that I'm going to hear a lot about the differences and the similarities when I go to Gethsemane. We're going to have a Christian and Buddhist practice session with monks from all over the world. How I got in I don't know, they think I'm a monk I guess. I wanted to go so I didn't tell them any different. But this is something that to be quite honest with you my mind does not want to turn in this direction like in other words, is it the same or different?

[38:19]

Maybe it's because when you're in school they say write an essay about the similarities and the differences. And I suppose it is an exercise in clear thinking to point out the similarities and the differences between things. But when you talk about religious traditions it's very complicated because is the Zen of Dogen different from the Catholicism of St. Thomas? Or are you talking about the Zen of Jojo different from the Catholicism of St. Francis? Or the Gospels, which Gospel? I mean Christianity is same and different from Christianity, right? And Zen is the same and different from Zen. You look at two Zen teachers and you think they're really different from each other in their understanding, in their approach, and they're the same. So questions of similarity and difference to me

[39:23]

are not that interesting and I have a hard time thinking about them for a long time. This is probably unfortunately for me and I'd probably be a clearer thinker if I could think this way more but I'm just always thinking about, what is that? More like, is it the same, I don't know, the same, different, but what is it? That's what interests me. So, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, sure. I don't know much about that holiday. You'll have to tell me more about it later. Pentecost. Pentecost. Five something? Yes. Yes, Claire? Something came up the other day and it was about a youthful youth, a youthful sense of Zen and I'm dealing with healing from cancer at the moment and I was doing Zen then before I had the plaque

[40:24]

and I continue to do it and in my voluminous reading about what is good for me, what is going to be helpful for me in my life, I find that, in fact, meditation has physical, physiological repercussions and actually affects survival. So, you know, am I doing it just because it's going to help me get better? Am I doing it because I'm doing it and is it okay to do it for those sorts of reasons? I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, well, like, I go to places and I teach people a version of Zazen which I call, cleverly, stress reduction meditation. Like, I was in the prison, you know,

[41:24]

the San Bruno County Jail, and I was telling the inmates that, you know, this will really help you. You know, if you can practice this way, this will really help you to have some ability to work with your states of mind because they know that the consequences of them being carried away by their states of mind are dire. If they get carried away and punch somebody out, especially if it's a guard, but even if it's not, they'll be in real trouble. So, it's very important that they learn how to work with their mind. So, I was telling them, this really will help, you know. But, then I said, I mean, I didn't really say this, but more or less, but if you sit there and measure results, if you sit there and say, well, today did it do anything for me and what about tomorrow? If you have that attitude, then it won't help you. You have to relax and just trust your life and trust the practice.

[42:24]

You can't measure every minute whether it's helping or not. Because if you measure every minute whether it's helping or not, it's just going to make you uptight. And then you'll lose something that might be useful to you by looking at it too closely and measuring results. So, strangely, the best way to get results is to let go of trying to get results and just do what you're doing. So, of course, there's nothing wrong with thinking that meditation will help you, but don't grasp that too much. Have a little bit of sense of humor about that and a sense of flexibility about that. Because if you really zero in on that, like, am I cured yet? If you think, is my cancer gone away today? Is it gone tomorrow? Let me run to the doctor and see. You can see where that will lead you. You'll just become sick. You have to have some sense of acceptance in there, some sense of ease, and then it helps. First of all, basically what happens is my name gets on the schedule.

[43:28]

I have to give a talk that day. That's what happens. Then I have to say something. So, I think, well, now what am I going to say? I've got to say something. My wish is that I would say something that would be of some usefulness to you. That it would help you in some way. Although I realize that probably it won't. I don't have any illusions of grandeur. That's going to be some big deal. But I would like to be generally helpful. So I think of something that would be helpful. If I were to give you questionnaires at the end of every talk and ask for results, this would be a disaster. So, what am I trying to say? I actually forgot where I started from. Hopefully you're all smart people. You'll figure something out. So let's go on to another question before I really get confused.

[44:35]

Maybe there aren't any more questions. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes, that sounds good. And of course many Christians do Zazen, as we know. As Christians. Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, I would say that it would make you more thrilled about everything.

[45:53]

Instead of being thrilled about some things and running madly away from other things. That, I would say, would make you more even-mindedly thrilled about most things. Yes, Maria. Yes. [...]

[47:08]

Yes. [...] The whole world is upside down. The whole world is absolutely upside down. And everybody believes in it. Even though everybody knows it's a losing proposition. It's one of the most fantastic things that you could imagine, right?

[48:13]

Yes, it's amazing. And then when we really contemplate the extent of the harm caused by this, we could be overwhelmed. Because we can laugh, but people are actually being hurt every day in a serious way by this human selfishness and greed. People are dying right now. What we're talking here, people are actually dying because of this kind of greed and this upside down greed that serves no one. It's not like the people who successfully ply their greed are winning. They're not winning either. Nobody wins. And yet, it goes on this way. It's quite extraordinary. So we have to see it clearly and do our best to

[49:17]

just go straight ahead understanding what it is without having our boat sunk by it and trying to make it better. We don't really have any choice. But I really think that it would be a wonderful thing if you could every day sit quietly with your baby just in whatever way feels right to you to just be there breathing and feeling the sensations in your body and maybe even raising in your mind a happy wish for this child whatever it will turn out to be. Wouldn't it be nice for you to take some time every day along with all the other things I'm sure you're doing to take care of yourself physically to just have that kind of space? That would really be nice. And then afterward we'll take a questionnaire and see if it helped or not. Yes?

[50:27]

And yet it's upside down with all the light and sun coming in all the way. Yeah, we accept it completely. This is the way it is. We can't hate reality. It doesn't make sense. It's upside down. When you see it, it's upside down as I said earlier from a human point of view. And we accept it. That's the first step. Seeing it and accepting it is the first step to be able to walk through it without being burned down. So we have big problems, you know. Yeah. Does anyone have anything more cheerful to bring up?

[51:32]

Yes? Would you mind talking a little bit more about your trip to Gethsemane? Talking about my trip to Gethsemane. Well, somebody out of the blue wrote me a letter and said, would you like to come to Gethsemane Monastery in July and participate in a Buddhist-Christian encounter. That's what it's called, the Gethsemane encounter. Maybe we'll do encounter groups, I don't know. But the great attraction is that the Dalai Lama is going to be there and he's going to teach every day and it's only a small group of people. It's maybe like 30 people or 4, I don't know how many, but not so many. People from all over the world. In fact, I'm giving a talk there and I have to have my talk in their hands in June so they can translate it, because there's a lot of people apparently who don't speak English. And we're going to practice together at the monastery. I don't know, but I'm sure they'll give us some schedule and we'll do something and then there are going to be times of having talks and discussions

[52:42]

and the Dalai Lama is going to teach every day. I don't know why they invited me, I don't know them at all. I don't know what possessed them. I mean, I've never been a Christian. Gethsemane is somewhere in the rural area around Louisville, Kentucky. I was once in Kentucky. Anyway, I'll go to fly to Louisville and they'll pick me up. So, I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun. I'm really having fun reading Thomas Merton's books and reading about Catholicism. It's quite fascinating. So, I'll tell you when I come back, I'll give a talk and I'll tell you what happened. Oh, you have so many questions today. Where am I going?

[53:42]

Go to lunch. Soon to lunch, I hope. He said, I see myself going to lunch. Yeah. Yeah. I see myself. Gee, I never thought of it. How do I see myself? What do you mean exactly? I mean, where do I think I'm going to get out of this? Where am I going to be next year? Where am I going? Yeah. Yeah. Well,

[54:51]

a goal. A goal. Purpose. Well, my idea is that I'll just keep practicing Buddhism in whatever way the world presents itself to me until I drop dead. That's my idea, which will happen very soon, actually. Quite soon. And I'm well aware of that. So in the meantime, I'm going to get up every day and do the best I can and pursue the Dharma. But I don't know what that's going to look like. I don't really know. I'm here now and the likelihood of my being here tomorrow is probably pretty good. But I don't really know. Six months from now, one year from now, I don't know what will happen. And I've seen many dear friends disappear from this earth unexpectedly. But I like to have fun.

[55:59]

I'm going to go to Gethsemane, if I'm still alive, in July. I'm going to have fun there and then I'm going to go to Mexico and do this and that. I like to read. I read a lot of books. I've got lots of books I'm going to read sometime, if I get around to it. I am going to have lunch soon. I have a ceremony this afternoon that I'm going to do and I'm looking forward to that and do different things. I don't know. Is that all right? This must be the last question. Can you give me any idea what the scope of Zen practices are beyond your company? Can you become a monk and learn practices other than Zazen? I have no idea what the scope is. Are there a lot of practices? Well, yes and no. Zen is a pretty stripped down version of Buddhism.

[57:04]

Zazen is the basic practice, but along with Zazen, there's a lot of stuff that goes with it. There's Zazen and then there's the various temple bells and gongs and drums and chanting that go with Zazen. So you have to learn all that. You got to learn how to chant. You got to learn how to beat the drum. There's two different kinds of drums and gongs. So all that stuff you learn in the course of practicing in a Zen temple. Then there's ceremonies and rituals. So you learn a lot of ceremonies. This is if you're ordained as a priest. You learn all the ceremonies and rituals, but we don't have courses in it. You just learn it as you do it. The ceremonies come up and in the doing of the ceremonies, you're trained by someone who knows the ceremony and then you learn it that way. So there's that. And then there's study. We study different Buddhist texts. And then if you're becoming a teacher,

[58:07]

you learn how to give interviews and then you practice giving interviews. That's an important practice in Zen. And as a student, you go to interviews frequently and learn how to present your practice to a teacher. And then beyond that, there are many individual practices that can be given, but are not necessarily something that everyone does. So basically the practice is, I'm talking about now an ordained person, the practice is to do Zazen, lots of Zazen, intensive retreats over a number of years, to learn the monastic ground, go to the monastery, learn the forms of monasticism, learn how to take care of altars, and like I said, bells and gongs and all that, ceremonies, and study, and then hope that you have enough common sense that you can get through life without hurting anybody, if possible. And that's it. You just learn it by doing it.

[59:11]

And you either do it, and it's all very circumstantial, like I became a Zen teacher, but it was a big surprise to me, I wasn't trying to be a Zen teacher, and it was a great surprise when it turned out that way. So you can't really, if somebody came and said, well, here I am, and I think this is a really good thing, and I'm going to be a Zen master, so where do I start? What's the course? We would all scratch our heads and look at one another and say, what do we tell this guy? So probably what we'd tell you is, why don't you just come and do a one-day sitting and see what happens? And then if you did that, we'd say, why don't you do another one and see what happens? Why don't you sit for seven days and see what happens? Why don't you come and be a resident for six weeks and see what happens? Why don't you go to Tassajara and do a practice period and see what happens? Like that, little by little. And most people, especially the ones that come saying that they're completely committed to Zen,

[60:16]

are the ones who run screaming out of here really quickly, saying, get me out of here, this is the stupidest thing that I've ever seen. Why are these people like this? I'm going somewhere else where people are more reasonable and so on. Usually what happens, actually, it's true, usually what happens, the people who are most gung-ho are the ones who are gone first. Yeah, they're expecting it to be something really great, and then they find out it's just like everything else, there they are. That's everything. The main fact about everything that you do in your whole life is, there you are. And you go to the Zen temple and think, well, at least here I won't be there. But there you are. So get me out of here, I'm going somewhere else. And then we say, oh yes, please go somewhere else, I'm sure it will be better there. At least here I won't be there. So anyway.

[61:17]

Oh, goodness, it's past lunchtime. Thank you very much. Take care of yourself.

[61:22]

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