I first came to Tassajara in the spring of 1972, I think, 37 years ago. And I was, as usual at that time, following my now husband, Keith. So he had come to, I'd followed him to San Francisco Zen Center. And then after a year or so, he went to Tassajara as a guest student. He wanted to be by himself for a little while, but then I was allowed to come. So I and some other woman, who I have no idea who this person was, we hitchhiked down from Page Street to Tazahara, several rides. And I remember walking along the road towards Jamesburg, so somewhere there. I don't know how much of that we walked, but feeling very overgrown and with spanish moss and getting very as it was we'd left in the morning but it was getting to be evening at this time so it's getting dark not it wasn't getting dark yet but it was getting gloomy feeling and then somebody some family with a camper gave us a ride from somewhere toward that end of the road all the way into tasar they weren't really coming here but they gave us a ride all the way here

[01:28]

And so we didn't really see any of the road on the way in. We were in the back of the camper jostling along. So we got here to Tassajara and it was night. And I don't really remember much else except that I didn't like it very much. The one other thing that I remember is that in the morning we were in the old Zendo, of course, down where the student eating area is now. And there was Zazen. which, as usual, was painful. And there was service, which, as usual, was a little bit of a relief because it wasn't so painful. And then all the new students, the people who hadn't been to practice periods, had to leave because the students had breakfast in the zendo, the residence. And we went over to the dining room with some very gruff, doan-like person. I actually know who this person is. It was Jed Lind, who I don't think any of you know.

[02:31]

Is that true? But he still lives somewhere around here. Anyway, he was very stern and gruff, and we had to have breakfast silently, you know, with some chance with him. And... I don't know if this could be true or not. It seems like it would have been more for dinner, but it seems in my memory it was for breakfast, that we had this ghoul-like thing that was pink with bits of cauliflower in it. But somehow it ended up pink. There must have been beets, must have been somewhere around there. So anyway, it was pretty bad. I thought it was pretty bad. And all about it, we stayed for... I stayed... Keith and I together stayed for maybe a week or ten days. And mostly I felt like I was just being told to go here and then go there and then go here and then go there and do this and that. Anyway, I was not very happy.

[03:32]

And it took maybe two and a half years before I came back for a practice period sort of ready to fall in love with Tassajara. And at that first visit... And then continuing on, actually, one of my questions, ongoing questions, has been, what are we practicing here at Tassajara? You know, the first visit, it was more, you know, like, what are they doing here anyway? And after that, there was a more friendly feeling to it. Like, what is this, to me, effective place after that, when I came back when it was time for me to be here? a very effective place in what's going on here. And I can't say that I actually know. You know, it's kind of mysterious what happens here. But since I'm here and have this microphone and all, tonight I'm going to say that what we're practicing here at Tassajara is great realization of delusion.

[04:42]

Great realization of delusion. In the Genja Poan, which we chant about every five days in the morning service, Dogen says, those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas. And I think it's something that we shy away from. It doesn't quite meet our deepest hopes, or maybe not, I don't know about our deepest hopes, but our more... the surface hopes you know our hope that when we come here we will leave our delusions behind somewhere they will you know naturally fall away in this monastic setting and we will sit quietly and be enlightened study the self maybe and be enlightened so those might be our hopes but what actually happens i think is that we have the opportunity to greatly realize, deeply realize delusion because it follows us wherever we go.

[05:51]

So that's one question. If that's what we're doing here at Tassajara or in our practice, wherever that might be, is realizing, deeply realizing delusion, in some ways that's quite wonderful, you know, because for one thing it's easy to find, right? close by, shows up every once in a while. It doesn't even really say we have to study our own delusion and we can certainly see other people's. They're like pushing at us all the time. But I think there's a trick here which is that we are greatly deluded about delusion. So when it shows up it's not so easy to study actual delusion. because of our delusion about delusion so we get confused about it and we think it's a bad thing it's a good thing it's a pretty thing it's an ugly thing we look at things and we have our deluded experience of them and then we have our deluded thoughts about our delusion so there are a couple of ways that

[07:10]

practice, but also life, help us to get through our delusions about delusions down to the real thing, the real delusion. One of those ways that life can help us is it's sort of at various times pushes us so deeply into our delusion that we can't hold on to our stories about it. Let me just say first that our biggest delusion, that I think as human beings, our biggest delusion that we carry around is about ourself. And it's a very complex delusion. It's a very complex thought, feeling, experience that we have about ourselves.

[08:13]

It's not so easy to say, this is who I think I am, although at various times we could say things about that, you know, things that are important to us. And we, some of us, you know, regularly sort of run down that list to make sure that we still know who we think we are and which part of it is important to us and maybe which parts we'd like to get rid of. So there's a lot that we can say about our thoughts, feelings, experience of ourself. But it's very complex, and it's our most, I think, our most... It's our deepest delusion because we care the most about it. Because that's the one that we really... Like, who am I really? How do I be the... the me that I'm really supposed to be? How do I manage? And, you know, we have different things that we care about this at various times.

[09:14]

Even say that we're practicing Buddhists and we want to be bodhisattvas, you know, it might be, how do I be the most beneficial being that I can possibly be? Which is a good question. The problem is we usually have answers to that, you know, like I should not be selfish. I should be generous. I should be kind. I should not have this feeling. So when something happens in our life that takes away, pretty conclusively sometimes, takes away some of those identities that we've either realized or hadn't realized are very important to us, that sometimes puts us in a kind of open space. So these are usually pretty traumatic happenings. You know, if we lose our career or our job or our health or someone who we love or someone who we thought loved us, you know, if we lose one of those things and then we find that, oh, I was...

[10:29]

assuming that was who I was. I was relying on that in some way. And then it's not there. There's some confusion that happens in us, like, well, maybe I'm nobody. That's a sort of common feeling, that there's just a kind of empty place that we didn't, whereas we were kind of relying on before, where we thought, oh, this is who I am. But then, oh, I'm not? What then? And that feeling, uncomfortable as it is, is very alive, uncluttered by the delusion of who I think I am with some possibility of actually meeting who I am, scary as that may be. So this is why great suffering, or this is one reason at least why great suffering often leads to transformation. whether the person who's suffering has been doing some kind of practice or not.

[11:33]

Sometimes they will have a real discovery of the freedom of finding yourself in each moment instead of carrying around an idea of this is me and how do I live up to it. So that's one way that life or practice can help us in this kind of painful way. Another way that more usually practice helps us do the same thing, really, is it seems like the opposite. Instead of being such a traumatic thing, there is a space that can come from being somewhat safe for a while. And I think that's one of the things that happens at Tassajara, that there's... especially if you stay here for a while, but I think actually even guests who come for a short while feel it, you know, that here's a place where, you know, the food comes regularly, you have some place to sleep, you're not likely to get fired.

[12:40]

The people, I didn't say you wouldn't get fired, right, so don't. You're not very likely to get fired. The people, you know, seem to... You know, not always and not everyone, but pretty much there's a pretty accepting quality coming toward one. And in that setting, sometimes our constant maintenance of me and who I am and who I need to be starts to relax a little bit, usually without noticing it much. And also, you know, doing the same thing every day. You know, people sometimes notice it as, like if they feel like they need to do something for their life, like apply to school or, you know, write a letter to somebody or something. It's very hard to get it done around here. It's like, you know, there's not that kind of push.

[13:42]

It's just like, I've got to do that. Instead, life just goes along, you know. You get up in the morning, you put on the same clothes, you come to Bizendo, several hours go by. You have breakfast, and then you work, and then there's, you know, and the days just flow along, maybe you've noticed. So, you know, it may seem like I'm forgetting who I am. I'm forgetting the things that I need to do. And I think that's actually part of the point, to at some level forget, consciously or unconsciously, probably in some ways more unconsciously, the... the constant maintenance of the idea of who I am, which softens us and leaves some space for the momentary who I am to appear and to be noticed. It's always appearing, but to actually be noticed and be settled into in some way, or to be accepted more.

[14:43]

It's kind of like... or one way to describe it is being willing to not know. Both of these things are being willing to not know who we are, being, again, consciously or just unconsciously willing to be in that place of not knowing. I was reading one lecture by a... a Zen teacher who said it's kind of like going into a cave, a very dark cave, with a small but powerful flashlight. And so in that cave you can kind of point your flashlight here and there and see various things. And if that cave is me, but me over time, there's always a new place to point your flashlight and see what's in you know, this little nook, that little cranny, and then those nooks and crannies are various anxiety-producing things.

[15:53]

For sure, they're anxiety-producing before we look in them. You know, they creak and growl and whatnot, and then you shine your flashlight over there, if you dare, and then look and see what it is. Mostly, once we actually look at it, it's not nearly as bad as it sounds in the dark. But a lot of our time, we're like, no, no, no, I won't look, I won't look. But in this cave that this teacher was describing, that's the point of being in the cave, is so that we can actually look, because that's where the parts of our self and our delusion are hiding out. That's where we have to go to actually see them. to have great enlightenment about our delusion. Another way I've thought of it sometimes, which is a little less ominous to me than this cave, is just that we actually are in the dark.

[16:58]

We think we know what's coming, but we actually don't. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, much as we... think we do and we you know we might very well be right about some portion of it but actually we don't know we actually are in the dark and there's this tiny little spot of light called right now right now we can see and experience something so one of the things that we can learn about our delusion if we if we look at it that way if we close enough to it, if we're not distracted by thinking we know what's going to happen tomorrow or thinking we know what happened yesterday that still needs to be taken care of or thinking we know who I should be or who you should be or what this situation should be like or what this meal should be like or what this crew should be like or what this teaching should be like.

[18:01]

If we can finally get to that one little spot of light without the shields of everything we think we know and just be there, one of the things that we might learn there, I think we will learn there, is that we don't know very much. And that what we know is actually, or what I know, is actually from this perspective. You know, even though in this little speck of light here we are all sitting in this room, I actually don't know how you're experiencing that. You know, I might be able to make some pretty good guesses, especially about some of you, if I know you better, but really, no matter how good my guess is, I have my own experience of now and only that. And each of us has that. So if we, once we learn that, and see the truth of that, it kind of changes even our ideas about how things should be, because we see, oh, I have a kind of limited view of this situation.

[19:14]

I have a small amount of information in a situation that's very complex. Now, Suzuki Roshi says that once we actually know that, that that is big mind. We might have thought big mind was actually, you know, somehow getting up above this limited body and being able to, you know, float around on the ceiling of the Zenda and see what was really going on here. But that's not what he says. He says, having big mind is actually knowing that you're sitting where you're sitting and you can only experience it, it, the big it, in whatever way this set of senses you know body and mind karmic body and mind can experience it and to know that moment after moment after moment and then to go a step further and be willing to be that part of the whole to just you know like this is my part without holding on to it without saying this is the right part or this is the wrong part or this is my part and it will be my part tomorrow

[20:28]

And the day after that and the day after that, I will still feel this way about, no, who knows? A perspective might change completely, it often does. So to learn that, to realize, not just learn, but actually embody or settle on that experience of delusion you know that's a kind of delusion to only know my part to to get as close to that my little part as possible and be willing to be settled there and the fact and it's not a static place you know it's very much a moving place so how do we do that If we start thinking about that with our mind, we get kind of dizzy, or I do anyway, and it's not really something you can think about very easily, but it is something that, in fact, we're doing all the time, just in a kind of confused way, because at the same time, we're trying to make it all match our views of it.

[21:38]

But to actually settle there and be willing to, or able to, maybe, be at ease there is greatly freeing. several things I was thinking of maybe bringing up but I want to limit it we have to limit it and I just read this statement of Layman Pang Chinese Buddhist lay person who was very very wise and he wrote this about about being a human

[22:52]

I think about being a human and having a human body which has the senses. In Buddhist psychology, there are six senses. The regular five Western ones, you know, sight, sound, those are the senses, right? Eyes, ears, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling. Mine's not so good, so I forget that one, but... And then in Buddhist psychology, they add a sixth one which is very, very helpful. It's called the mind. So besides having all those physical senses, there's the way we put them together and what we think about them, which very much impacts and translates how we experience those things. So he talks about the six senses. He talks about them as a gang of thieves. One gang of six thieves You fool people completely, life after life.

[23:56]

Now I know you and will not be your neighbor. If you don't submit to me, everywhere I go, I'll inform people about you, causing your road to be cut off or causing your effects to be cut off. If you agree to submit to me, then I won't discriminate. I'll stay together with you and together witness birthlessness and breathlessness. So, you know, this quote is a little tricky because he sounds at some point like he's trying maybe to cut off the senses, to get rid of them, this submit to me thing, whatever that means. But the way I'm choosing to understand this from my Dharma, you know, the perspective, the only perspective I have at this moment. One gang of six thieves, you fool people completely, life after life.

[25:02]

So we are, you know, very much caught up in our interpretation of our senses. And it's not surprising. I mean, that's what we've got. We've got our senses. You know, they come to us through this karmic body and mind. That's our experience. And our mind is part of that. And everything our mind has experienced Perhaps life after life, but certainly in this life. And we believe it, of course. But it's fooling us. Once we see that, now I know you. Now I see that I am only from this perspective, and I've added in a lot of confusion. Now that I know you, I will not be your neighbor. Meaning, I take it to mean, I won't just be your friendly, chummy, going along with things, neighbor kind of person. Instead, I'm going to, if I feel like I'm being pulled around by my views, and especially, I just want to say again, my view of myself, because that's the strongest one, I will tell people about you.

[26:13]

Most important, again, is to tell myself, remember, don't be fooled. Don't be fooled. Who are you really? Oh, yeah, I don't know. I don't know who I am. Okay, so be here in this little speck of light and see, who am I? Don't be fooled. I'll tell people about you, causing your road to be cut off, causing the effects that normally our ideas about ourself and our ideas about everything, those effects that would normally happen to be cut off because, in fact, we know, don't believe them. if you do agree to submit to me then I won't discriminate I'll stay with you and together witness birthlessness and deathlessness so we won't abandon our senses won't abandon our karmic body and mind will be willing to be this person

[27:20]

Because this is the only one we've got for liberation in this life. This limited perspective from this limited body and mind. Study this self. And together with this self, this body and mind, witness whatever there is to witness. Birthlessness and deathlessness, according to wise layman Pang. So that's my... hope for what we are doing here that we are settling into the study of the self which is the study of delusion and the study of our particular delusions to the point of great realization of delusion and that in that study we help each other by allowing each other to be deluded with us and turning our attention back to this little speck of light where, you know, everything is unknown except what we can learn right now, leaving, you know, the great darkness free to manifest whatever it manifests, whatever we are.

[28:43]

So, thank you very much.

[28:48]

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