Zen Buddhism takes the idea of emptiness completely, seriously, and our practice is most fundamentally based on the idea that we don't add anything to ourselves. said that Buddhist practice is zazen and doksan, and that's all. But it's also, the background of it is based on the vow to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And the other side of that is that you don't take refuge in anything else. And why that vow is a practice is because, not that we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, but that we don't take refuge in anything else. But, you know, when you do zazen, you're already alive for

[01:29]

the 40 minutes, whether you do zazen or don't do zazen, you're alive, you know, usually. And so there's, we don't add anything in that way, you just do zazen. And you're already breathing, so we notice that you're breathing. So what zazen is, since it's not anything, you know, it's just being alive for 40 minutes, sitting still rather than walking around or doing something. But we don't add, I mean, as little as possible we add. Since you're alive, you have to do something with your body. You can go sleep if you want, but if you want to not do anything and stay fairly awake, zazen is the best posture. to do that in. And since what the main activity you have there is breathing, that's the first thing we work with, just noticing that you breathe. And it's amazing how difficult it is for some people to just do that. I just talked on the phone with somebody

[02:59]

who, actually from Santa Fe, who can do zazen for 20 minutes, and then the second 20 minutes she gets nauseous and heat flashes and can't do it for that last 20 minutes. But anyway, she's alive during those 20 minutes. She simply cannot stay that extra 20 minutes. So I said, do 20 minutes, it's okay. Don't do 40 minutes. But still, it's rather interesting. She can't do that extra 20 minutes. So what zazen becomes is or what it is, and if you've practiced for quite a while, you can't say zazen is nothing, but anyway, we don't add anything to it, really. And likewise with doksan, it's nothing, it's just we come into the room together, and then what? I don't know.

[04:20]

So what that is, is the same as zazen, something we don't add anything to. And if we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, you know, but what's Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha? You know, show me Buddha, or Dharma, or Sangha. How can you take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, or Sangha? It doesn't look very much of a refuge. But actually we can take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. I mean we have some need in ourselves to take refuge in something. So as long as you have that need, we say take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. But that means you don't take refuge in anything else. Doping or juicing or sexing or

[05:22]

various kinds of your own practice. I mean, there's nothing wrong with those things, I guess. It's just that if you're really practicing Buddhism, you don't have your own practice. You may have your own expression, you know. You may do various things which are almost the same as practice, which is expressing yourself, you know. And that's different from having a practice, a separate practice you take refuge in, you know. Maybe it's, say many of you have your own diet practice and maybe to your own satisfaction you can prove that such and such a diet is best, you know, for everybody or for you. And of course, we are all a little different and you can have some different kind of diet because you are a little different. You can eat different foods and add a little to the diet that you have. But the spirit in which you eat should be you eat the same as everyone else eats. Whether it's a good diet or a bad diet is not important.

[06:54]

So you don't take refuge in some special diet that's going to give you some good health or some kind of... And we don't take refuge in astrology, which will give us some explanation of our self. We're not interested in We shouldn't be so interested in ourselves that we're curious about what kind of person I am, what type am I, this type or that type, and what will my future be or something. Maybe it's true, you know, but it's not our practice to be concerned about it. Again, you know, you may You may study astrology, but it's the spirit in which you do it. If you use it as a refuge, some place to protect yourself, then it prevents you from practicing Buddhism. So whatever we have, we should be able to share with everyone.

[08:16]

that some kind of practice you have which doesn't include other people. While you're practicing Buddhism in this kind of way is not limiting yourself to taking refuge in just Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. So that's actually quite a effort, because if you, when you realize that fully, you'll find you're always trying to take refuge in this or that. Everything you do, you're trying to take some refuge in it. If you have some good ideas about diet, to the extent to which they can be included in our diet, then you should eat with everyone what is included in our diet. Again, I don't mean that you can't go out to a restaurant or something, but you shouldn't have some special practice.

[09:41]

Whatever you need, you should have now. Zazen and Zen practice is based on the idea that you're already enlightened, based on the realization that you're already enlightened, that your true nature is fundamentally pure, that even your original face is pure, your essence of mind is pure. So there's nothing you need to add at all. So when you first start practicing about the most important thing to do is to is to stop creating karma and to try to keep this refuge, the three refuges, will help you stop creating karma. And there's several ways to do it. Yesterday I talked with the practice period

[11:10]

students and I said that Zen or our practice has three phases, the basis and the method and the realization. And the basis is recognizing suffering. recognizing the three marks of existence, that there's suffering and there's no self and there's impermanence. Those are the three marks of form or existence. That's more Hinayana. And the Mahayana way is more toward recognizing, accepting that your essence of mind is pure. So then the method is really to, first is to stop creating karma. And the Hinayana way is more the eightfold path, right livelihood, right view, et cetera.

[12:31]

And our way of expressing that is to go to Tassajara. Actually, Tassajara is the Eightfold Path because you don't have to worry about right livelihood at Tassajara, etc. You don't have to worry about so much. You just go there and live and it's based on maybe the Eightfold Path. You don't have the problem of what do I do and how do I support myself, etc. A simple way to describe the more Mahayana way of freeing yourself from karma that I like is to say, by the way, does that machine allow me to be heard back there? Is to say, with every thought, with every thought there should be no attachment to things.

[13:33]

And with every step, there should be no attachment to your place, your space. And if you can practice that constantly without interruption, it's the same as Eightfold Path. And you can practice that here in the city or at Tassajara, but actually it's more difficult. It's easier to practice the Eightfold Path, ah, this one night. Now I have a job which is, etc., or just to go to Tassajara. But to have that kind of practice, moment after moment, no attachment to things and no attachment to place, to continually notice that. First though, you have to be present. which takes quite a lot of energy just to not always be wandering. Usually we're wandering all the time, but just to be present where we are each moment takes usually several years of effort to get, so it's no effort at all. Suddenly you get through the hindrances which prevent you from doing that.

[15:01]

you know, prevent you from sitting that extra 20 minutes, or prevent you somehow from... make you... It's not that your mind exactly wants to wander off, it's made to wander off, you know. If you can't think of anything to think of, you spend a lot of effort trying to think of something to let your mind wander off on. Anyway, eventually you can just stay present. Then you can practice. No attachment to things. No attachment to your place in your activity. A poem Suzuki Roshi liked. that expressed his practice, he said, and Dogen's practice, went something like a bright full moon in the midnight sky. The ebb tide, or the tide is out, and no wind is blowing,

[16:26]

an abandoned boat on the shore. A bright moon, no tide, no wind, an abandoned boat on the shore. And there's two ways of, we talk about two ways of practice sometimes. I often say negative and positive, and many ways in which this can be expressed. And one is the practice of finding a following, of expressing the absolute.

[17:29]

in its expressions, maybe form practice we could say. The other practice is to unite with the Absolute, be one with essence of mind, dharmakaya. Actually we practice both simultaneously, The first one I mentioned is the practice of realization. Anyway, when Suzuki Roshi talks about a poem like that, The Bright Moon in the Sky, he means that your essence of mind maybe is like a round, full, empty moon. How do you come to realize your essence of mind?

[18:58]

We can start our practice saying, yes, your essence of mind is pure. But how do you know that, actually know that? Because your experience is that it's always that your actions are not pure at all. By pure, I don't mean in contrast to impure. I mean something more like complete, whole. Usually we find our actions one-sided or halfway or something. And then, of course, after you've practiced a bit you begin to see them as dust, you know, and all those stories about dust on the mirror and the book Zen Dust, you know. And we also express nearly the same thing. And Zen, in Suzuki, I actually particularly like this kind of expression, which is, you know, that something as dark as the midnight sky, or completely black, as black as tar, which supports the heaven

[20:38]

supports the earth, constantly moving or completely black. So in his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, he talks about each moment as a vast flashing into the phenomenal world. What we mean by all of this is found by just practicing zazen, without adding anything.

[21:53]

a monk, if I can remember, asked, again the same pattern, you know, a monk asked a teacher, no, a teacher says, Even if you say nothing, from the very beginning nothing exists, still you have no right to eat in the Zendo. So the monk asks, has a right then to eat in the Zenda. And the teacher says, the one who has not entered the door, the one who has not added anything. In one sense that just means the Bodhisattva who refuses enlightenment

[23:21]

But on what level do you refuse enlightenment? How thoroughly do you refuse enlightenment? So you have no possessions at all. This practice is exactly the same as your life. It's no different than what you're doing right now. It's not necessary to go to Tassajara or know anything about the Eightfold Path. Just return to your essence of mind. Anyway, it's pretty difficult not to add anything. Do you have some questions?

[24:26]

Yeah? Could you talk about charity? Charity? Giving money to organizations, accumulation of good and undesirable aspects. Someone asked me last week to repeat questions and he asked me to say something about charity and giving to poor people or organizations. Why not? When you give away, I don't think you should forget to give to yourself too. But actually, you don't possess anything. So, you use things. I always liked what Suzuki Roshi said, he said, these glasses, he has wore glasses too, he said, these glasses are not my glasses, they're your glasses, he said, but you know about my tired old eyes, so you let me use them, you know. So, if you meet people with tired old eyes, you know, you might give them some money or glasses or something like that.

[26:03]

The main practice, of course, of Buddhism, based on the idea of interdependency, or everything's changing so that if everything is interdependent, when you give to somebody, you're giving to yourself. So charity is just a way to acknowledge, to practice interdependency, to bring interdependency into your life without that idea of mine and yours. As long as you have mine and yours, we're not living that kind of interdependency. Yeah? Is it possible to keep practicing non-attachment every moment without thinking of some method to be non-attached every moment? You know, I'm constantly thinking of things in that vein. What method or system should I employ to be non-attached? What methods or systems have you thought of? For a long period of time I've tried to keep my posture straight, no matter what I'm doing during the day, but I find that I can't. If I think of my posture all the time, I can't function very naturally or effectively. Yeah, don't lose a finger in the lathe keeping your back straight.

[27:34]

Something, yeah, I like that. Another way is to try and be as relaxed as possible all the time. I've had more success doing that. And I feel like this relates with being non-attached. I haven't had enough time to... What has everything else turned into? Everything else has turned into just me thinking of something. I've been doing this work for a little while. Initial inspiration has kept me going for several days, several weeks. But after a while it's just become, you know, it's just an empty concept that becomes painful to keep thinking about all the time. I think we should trade seats. Everybody understands you completely.

[29:04]

I really don't know what to say because there's no method. I mean, you can try those various things but, you know, I remember that sweeping, you know, we sweep with a broom and you can center yourself with the broom before you start sweeping. It doesn't mean you maintain your posture. but that you have some centered feeling. It doesn't mean your posture is straight or relaxed or anything, but that you have some centered feeling while you're sweeping, you know. But you can't go around, you know, with some centered feeling all the time, or, now am I centered, or checking on yourself, you know. You have to, ideally you have no idea of practice when you're practicing. Practice is, as I was saying in the beginning,

[30:29]

You can't say what it is. We just do zazen, you know, and we are already alive and already breathing. And likewise when we're working, we're just working. It's no different from zazen. We're just working and we're breathing and we're... You do cabinet making, right? So you're working with tools and things. And it's no different from zazen, actually. But how... I think that the effort should be to just be present, not to try to, not to think about your posture or to be relaxed. Actually, it may be good to try to be relaxed in some ways.

[31:33]

Charlotte Silver's work is interesting in that way sometimes, because she works with any posture you have. So if you're working at a desk and you find yourself tense, you can just notice how your arm is on the desk, just the weight of your arm on the desk. And that kind of thing can change your whole pace. so that you're not like, generally our mind is so, our arm is so full of our mind it's ready to do this, ready to reach for the phone, you know, ready to do something. But if it's just there, you know. So that, that, um, Tsukurishi, when he worked, was always very relaxed. If he was actually doing something, he was tense, or pushing, or making effort, but as soon as it was over, he was quite relaxed, you know. So all those things are helpful, but basically I think that you can make the best effort in work or activity, the same as in zazen, by just attempting to be present. And when you find yourself wandering off, you're present again.

[32:56]

Because there is nothing, there's no such thing as practice. I mean, there's nothing in addition to, if you're working with a lathe, say, there's just your tool and a piece of wood and you standing there. There's nothing to be added to that. And if that's exactly how you feel, you're perfect. You can stop worrying about practice. But if you have some difficulty, what is that difficulty in addition to just you being there with your tool? So practice is concerned with what's there in addition to just you, the tool and the piece of wood. So we try to limit, it sounds rather interesting maybe just to be you. and the tool and the piece of wood, but actually it's rather wonderful. At least from my point of view, it's wonderful. I don't know about from your point of view. Anyway, you, this interesting problem you have, because it's very persistent. Yeah, well, how do you get to that point?

[34:18]

Well, maybe you can find out what's there in addition to you and the piece of wood and the tool. What is there in addition? No, I don't know. You can ask yourself that question, what's there in addition? Maybe dragons? By the way, Van, do you have that dragon? that you were going to bring this week? Oh. Can I pin the tail on him later? Anything else we should talk about? where everything you do is a relief. I find that when I approach that point, more and more attractive thoughts come into my mind. Thoughts of change and pursuing another path. Can these thoughts be actual thoughts towards what your real path might be?

[35:48]

You mean relief, for you relief means a change from what you're doing, like a vacation, to do something else? What I meant by relief was just to be relieved to have nothing else. We could talk sometime more specifically if you want, but all of us have things that we sense as fulfilling us, a particular job or a particular

[36:51]

being able to write poems or being able to do something. And, you know, that's just, that's natural. Like, we want to eat dinner, you know, we eat dinner. There's a problem in practice only when, about what you're fulfilling, what that self is you're fulfilling. Are you fulfilling your small self? or your big self. So there's two kinds of relief, in the sense you mean relief, to fulfill our small self and to fulfill our big self. And the most deep satisfaction comes when we fulfill our big self. But usually when we have that kind of thought, we're trying to escape from what we're doing. I mean, it depends on each person's situation sometimes. If you're in a situation where your job is obviously unsuited for you and you want another job, that makes sense. But over your lifetime, usually we have what we need. Somehow the railroad tracks of our life have led us to this point.

[38:20]

And we can only actually go from this point, we can't jump to another track over there. So the train starts to move when you're satisfied with what the train is. Instead of looking way up the track or where's that station over there, I should be on an airplane. Then the train just sits there while you think about the airplane. But if you accept the tracks that have led you to that point, your karma up to that point, and you accept the train that you're in, then you can start driving the train. So in that sense, you just follow your nose, whatever you are now. So next I go there and I go there and I go there. And if you follow your nose, you have some unimaginable, wonderful life. But if you try to figure out your life, I should be on an airplane. Usually, you won't even find the airport, and if you do, you only go to those places that you can think of. But actually, we want to go to some unthinkable place, and the best way to do that is just to follow your nose.

[39:44]

Do you feel a stranger to yourself now, as opposed to before you became involved in sin? What I hear about karma seems to be... to not create, you know, leave behind clouds of shield, seems to be the way my identity is involved. And not doing that, I can't imagine what that would be like. I'm almost scared. It seems like a white sheet, a bottle of air. Yeah, maybe so. Could you hear the question? He said, I may change it a little. If I do, please correct me. that he asked first if when you start practicing zazen, after you've practiced for a while, do you still feel a stranger to yourself in the same way that maybe you feel a stranger or estranged from yourself before you start practicing zazen? And he said that

[41:11]

creating karma to him means leaving big and little piles of shit all over the place, you know, or behind you, like the wake of a boat or something maybe. And he can't imagine his life apart from that, you know, pile of shit. In fact, he says the white sheet, you know, or white toilet paper maybe, scares him, something like that. Anyway, I changed it some, but excuse me. Well, I mean, first you, you know, you start composting. That's, you know, certainly we are various kinds of piles of shit, but you can take, you know, a pile of shit and make it into a Buddha. Actually, you can. So, that's what we do. We take our piles of shit and make them into Buddhas. But you have to do it with some confidence. Confidence that your essence of mind is pure. That you can compost, you know. So, I think most important is that confidence to start practice. You can't really practice zazen without that kind of confidence.

[42:44]

So, how you stop creating karma is the same as how you get rid of your past karma. If you can, you seem to use up karma, you know, as you go, but if you're accumulating it, it's impossible. You know, pretty soon you have a big pile that you live beside, right? You can't do anything. And it really starts with very little things like taking care of yourself and, believe it or not, hanging up your clothes, washing your dishes after meals, not stealing pencils from work. You know, all those things which you notice drag you slightly, give you a kind of you begin to try to not do. You try to not do things that bring you down, not do things that afterwards you have a crappy feeling about, not say things that give you that uncomfortable feeling. But if you find you still do it, you know, you look at your motivation and why, so at the same time as you try to

[44:10]

not do the things that bother you, and this is true for all of us, you know, of course. At the same time, look at those things from a, maybe we could say, higher point of view, because generally the very things that hinder us are also our freedom when we see them from another point of view. So we simultaneously try to accept our karma, accept our situation. And after you've been practicing zazen a long time, you don't feel any different from the way you felt before you practiced zazen, except you feel, other people notice some difference usually, but you feel you do feel like you're not separated from yourself. But again, that comes from examining, what do I mean by self? What do I mean by separation? How can I be separated from myself? What is this thing I think separates me? Where is it? So that's the reason we do zazen, because if you do zazen, you enable, it's not so easy to distract yourself from yourself.

[45:34]

So as you do zazen, you become more and more familiar with what you are, just sitting there. And as you become familiar with yourself and accepting yourself, you don't feel that separation and you don't find this part of you making karma over there. Yeah? How do you reconcile the feeling of purity that you speak of when you say purity of self with the horrors that are going on in the world, especially in this time that we're living in? And I see things just getting worse and worse, so much bad. How can you reconcile that with the purity of spirit that exists within people?

[46:47]

Maybe the biggest problem in practice is why we say nirvana and samsara are identical. Of course, we live in a polluted, messed up, and rather right now, particularly vicious world. But that's the railroad tracks that led us to here, that led the whole world to here. And it doesn't do any good to wish that we were on another track. There's no way to get off this track. So the only thing to do is to know what our tracks are, what the train is, and be ready for a long iron road. And if we can start

[48:05]

driving our own train, you know. Maybe other people can start driving their trains. If you can't do it, no one can do it. That's true. So if you can return to your own essence of mind, other people can. So when we practice, we really are practicing for everyone. We have to make that kind of effort, you know, to practice. One reason practice is so difficult is because it does include everyone. It's not easy. We're not just saving ourselves. We're saving everyone. So it's very difficult, actually. It takes an enormous amount of effort to practice, actually, fully practice Buddhism for everyone. Anyway, thank you very much. YAHUAH!

[49:06]

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