Good morning. Good morning. So let's do the same exercise, experiment, as we did with our other field trips, just to take the body and the mind of Zaza and let it bring forth that open, spacious, appreciative way of being. And let that hold the events and memories in the images of yesterday. So when you're ready, you can speak.

[01:36]

Eyes that meet the world with loving kindness. The wind blows clear through without any instruction at all. Happy children. And some confidence. Learning and practice loosely with lightness and peace. Expansiveness and the joy of life. You can get there on foot, my bike, my car, a bar.

[04:24]

I prefer sitting in a big vehicle. that opens the Dharma eye, the mind-body that brings forth the Zen mind that sees Zen practice in each situation.

[06:07]

So the challenge of our practice is to stay close, is to stay connected to God, mind body and the idea of doing a retreat is that that becomes a deliberate endeavor that that agenda is primary whatever we're doing whether we're sitting eating or working and trying to stay close to that Zen mind so that that Dharma I experiences, what arises in that way. And then that experience has what we might call, to use a different term that we haven't used before, foreground and background. We have the foreground of a particular event, particular place,

[07:12]

And then we have the foreground of what in the temple, the Thai Buddhist temple in Fremont. And then we have the background of the Thuravadan tradition from Thailand, from beyond that. Southeast Asia from Shakyamuni Buddha. And then from a Zen mind, when these horizons are held, then there's a sort of calling quality to how incurred it meets it. What is it to be happy every day?

[08:15]

What is happiness? What is its relationship to renunciation? And how what we might call realistic, skillful? You could look at the Theravada tradition and actually if you read similarly in Shobha Genzo He looks at the fascicle called Chukai Tokudo, where he's talking about renunciation. And he says, you can practice liberation under any circumstance, but it's a whole lot harder as a white person. And that's basically what he says. And then interestingly, two-thirds of the way through, it calls up some Zen examples that really plumb the depths of that statement.

[09:23]

But when Zen mind holds these kinds of questions, it's quite different from figuring it out. So you apply your thinking to what is happening. Zen mind, that becomes another attribute to something bigger than the conclusion of your thinking. Does that make sense? You notice, oh, here's the way, here's the thoughts that arise with it. When we inquire into skillful causes and conditions, what is that? Leave home. limited possessions, this ain't only what's given on a daily basis.

[10:29]

You know, I had this image of like, each person walks in the door and it's like, okay, they come to reality. And what they do, like they're a doctor, nurse, engineer, whatever, it's kind of, it's just like a minor detail of life. This is where the real world happens. The real world happens, and it happens in this context. Can you bring forth this open, generous webbing that initiates a sense of ease? Or do you bring forth something else? You know, I think of how sometimes people say, well, life there in the real world. And we could just as easily turn it around and say, well, in here in the real world.

[11:42]

But in the Thuravadan tradition, some proposition of entanglements, the complications of all that are so challenging that it's skillful, it's necessary to release something. To not be so caught up to what you might call manipulate your relationship to it. Entanglements of karmic life can be met and skillfully related to on the level of entanglement. You set up a certain life for yourself. My day will be at ease because I won't have a two-hour commute. I won't have to spend this much time

[12:51]

going to the grocery store, buying food, preparing food, worrying about where the money for the food is going to come from. All these things. So that kind of perspective. And then last night, I was trying to take that not as a critique at all. almost like turn it on its head and say casting yourself completely into it is also renunciation I was thinking about that a lot yesterday and I was wondering if they ever feel any kind of burden that They're in this beautiful monastic setting, and they're really happy, and they're cultivating all this beautiful gratitude and feelings and whatnot.

[14:03]

But I wonder if they ever feel any burden that their community is open. But in a way, it's so contained that it doesn't seem like can reach, I don't know, other people who are also really suffering out in the world. Any other questions? It was more of a comment than a question. or are they doing it right? Or is there a way fully effective?

[15:04]

It's more like it's exactly what it is. What is it? How does it bring forth the Dharma? I mean, maybe we can say that the karmic realm creates karma. Karm has its own limitation. That's part of what the Shogo Gangsa was saying. There's harsh signs. There's pleasant signs. All the senses have their own karmic attributes. That's not where freedom is fine. But that does have consequence in its own life. And it does have efficacy. Even in the Mapagana, we say, well, live by the precepts.

[16:09]

You just have a different formulation of what that is. Can I ask you something? Yes. Is it a different formulation, or is it a different basic stance with respect to the precepts? how we're understanding the proposition. If you understand that the priests have not to kill me this way, then you could say, oh, that interpretation is different from that interpretation. The interpretation that don't kill means don't kill. Or if you understand the prophet, the precept to me, that killing life is not so literal as, or to put it another way, that we inevitably were part of the wheel of life.

[17:45]

think just by being a vegetarian, we're stepping out of some way that we are just part of the way of life. That's an illusion. So therefore, the proposition to not kill sort of shifts. So we could say, if you take it that way, you could say, well, then that point of view was different from that point of view. From that point of view, you might conclude well, then to comply with the precept looks quite different. It's we appreciate and humbly accept that we're part of all life. And we don't engage that wheel of life in a selfish, greedy way, causing harm. Can I ask one question about the spirit of inquiry.

[19:02]

And you talked about, for example, happiness. What is happiness? How do we know it? What does it look like? And you said considering that the Zen line is different than figuring it out. Yes, we understood what you were saying. I thought I did, but then as I continued thinking about it, the way I originally thought I understood it was I approached it from experience, from my experience. My experience, though, then I got stuck in equating my experience to my feelings about it, and I know it's more than my feelings. then I just got lost. And what the Zen mind consideration of that, that question really is. Yeah. And this is the very territory that the Sandvukai is trying to explore. That as a karmic human being, we generate particularity.

[20:16]

as part of the chain of cause and effect certain thoughts, certain feelings arise then the Dharma eye looks at those thoughts and feelings not so much to be defined by them but to see them as the current example of interconnection so the Dharma is the Dharma about karma And the dharma eye looks at karma and sees dharma. And even that is just a more subtle version of labeling this interconnected dynamic flux. And so then that points towards the dharmakaya, which is going beyond even that, not even being caught in the insights that arise. But just seeing them come up, or as Bishop, not drawing any conclusions.

[21:27]

Okay, this is the feeling I have. Okay? So does that make it? I find it delightful to watch the children leave the procession yesterday. So does that mean it's a good thing to do? It's the appropriate thing? That's the real way. And if you don't have children, it's not the real way. To watch all that and to watch how approval can be attributed based on the sentiment or the feeling that we have in relationship This going beyond that, how do we allow for that? So how do we allow for the particularity in all its variation from the phenomena to the ideas to the feelings to the way we give it connectedness and meaningfulness in our definition of reality?

[22:45]

to considering what is, if I'm going to practice, how should I live this way? What strategy, what rules should I live by? Should I only have four pieces of cloth? Should I only eat what's given? Or should I enter into the great wheel of activity in this time and place and let it sort of like take me apart just to be part of it. So I did, yet last night I was sort of complimenting the beauty, the simplicity of the Theravati with in a way the beauty of the Mahayana that says enter into it and awaken in complete connection with it.

[23:53]

It awakens us, we awaken it. And that renunciation is non-separation. So holding the arisings with Zen mind, Sometimes in Zen, like we say, as I was saying earlier, each statement implicitly referenced all three realms. The karmic, the manifest experience, the dharmic, and the going beyond both. illustrative of the Zen heritage. And then when things arise for us, whether it's as something as simple as a difficult interpersonal exchange or something as vast as, what is appropriate spiritual path for me?

[25:14]

trying to say and illustrate is the mind of inquiry bringing forth meaning these experiences with the mind of inquiry. What is that? As we start to appreciate that it's not coming up with the right answer. It's not saying well we're doing it right and they're doing it wrong. Or maybe they're doing it right, we're doing it wrong. Either way, as in Zen we'd say, either way misses the point. But it's not about a fixed answer. So Xingyan says, and quoting a fitness coined by the sixth ancestor, The mind doesn't move.

[26:28]

So let me ask your inquiring mind, how do you relate to that? Let me illustrate it a little. The response stimulates our thoughts and our feelings. We grasp our thoughts and our feelings and we enable, we spark our patterns of thinking and feeling. And the world becomes, reality becomes within that so there the mind the heart's moving a lot okay then maybe in contrast we could say we become quiet our mind is not so active

[27:59]

wall there's just phenomena arising and falling away is that the mind not moving is the other one the mind moving or put it more subtly is the other one inevitably is there a mind that cannot move in the middle of karma Is it only the territory? Is it only the consequence of serenity? How does that job work? Earlier when he's talking about the story of the two monks and the bride waiting, and the teacher comes along, and they're arguing about whether the bride is moving or the wind is moving.

[29:04]

Well, that's exactly what I'm getting to. I'm posting it as a question. Well, but the problem I have is you're asking whether the mind's not moving. I'm asking what's your appreciation of that statement. I'm saying, you know, that that's a statement. Or to put it in Zen terms, it's like, that's a call. And a koan, as I've been saying, is a dharma flower offered up to the mind of inquiry. It doesn't have a fixed answer. It's not like, well, I'm not going to speak because I don't know if I've got the right answer. It's something about engaging the proposition that awakens something. And each human awakens who they are.

[30:07]

You don't awaken to some abstract answer. You awaken with what's present. Of course, maybe now I frightened you all to death. Nobody's going to say a word. I was going to say, or what pleases the teacher. Right, exactly. I have an abstract answer. Meaning that which does not move? There is that which does not move. Meaning what? Meaning there is true mind or there is something that's which does not move.

[31:18]

How does that fit with the notion of interconnected dynamic being? There is an aspect of awareness that perceives the dynamism of everything coming into being and isn't Equally reflect and appreciate. It's a little different from saying there's a true mind or there's that. It sounds like there's a separate object that's not involved in this. shift of a level in the sea, it can be about the relatedness of what's arising.

[32:37]

Just a second and get somebody on this book. I was going to continue what she said about awareness, this unmoving awareness that sometimes might seem when you're caught up in a thought or something. It's still there. It's just small. But the awareness doesn't care that you're caught up in a thought. And at times, the awareness can be It's like we can say what you're calling constrictive.

[33:43]

We could say, well, that's the particularity of the event. It happens. It has a certain shape, form, color, sign, mental conception, maybe associated emotion, contextual cultural relevance any or all of those has died and then that can also be related to as indicative of something bigger interconnected being I was going to say that the mind of always moving and gives rise to or gives rise to all phenomena.

[34:54]

So then when Zen says the mind does not move, has it just got it wrong? Is it what? Did it get it wrong? and not thinking that there is another ingredient, I'm at a loss of a word, but another phenomenon on the side of your perception that is moving and allows awareness to rise beyond our thoughts. Does that sound like that? Well, here's the point I was trying to make. So this statement is pointing towards non-moving. Right. And you're saying it always moves.

[35:54]

Right. So then I'm still asking you, then how come this statement is presented? us as a tool to develop our own awareness of no mind. Maybe. But does that mean to say that actually, even though it says it doesn't move, that's an incorrect that it always moves my perception is that it's not correct or incorrect it is a statement that we can use as a tool to develop our awareness that it's okay to say the mind doesn't move the mind does move

[37:14]

Did you see how your statement shifted? But originally you said the mind always moves. That's right. And then you said, well, it's a statement to help us see that we both of these have an expression. or that both of these are offered up to enable the mind of inquiry to experience directly something that goes beyond the ideas they present. Yeah. I think I was very, I have always been influenced by the mountains. And then at the end when I think he says that is a mountain

[38:18]

There's a quality there that brings forth in me a vastness that I can't really explain to you in human words, but it's a feeling and a perception. And that's what came to my mind when you posed this question. Is that less money or more? less definitive than saying the mind always moves. Than saying the mind always moves. It sounds like maybe it's opened up to a broader range of possibility. So it seems to me that

[39:30]

In Zen, we talk about all things being contained in mind, the whole universe is contained in mind. And so if conditions are arising, they arise, they fall away, they become the cause for the next condition, all of that's contained in the one mind that doesn't move. Is that what you're pointing at? All of that's contained in the one mind that doesn't move? What was I pointing at? In terms of interconnectedness? I was trying to stimulate the mind of inquiry so that when we read the next piece of the Sandhuukai, it spoke to you in the same way, stimulating the mind of inquiry. Now the Sandhuukai is starting to say, well, fire heats, wind moves, water wets, earth is solid, eye in form, ear in sun, nose in smell. And then you could think, well, it's sort of like saying, okay, well, here's what really is.

[40:34]

But all it's really doing is presenting more dharma flowers. And with the mind of inquiry, which is related to this koan, like we could say that moving Separating or staying separate from detachment is its own kind of fixed view, too. And to sit in zazen and be totally disconnected from everything that's happening in a blank state, you could say, well, that's the mind that doesn't move. But that's not it either. That's just the consequence of separation. consequence of going blank. Not to invalidate what you're saying, but just to say that maybe as a koan, the way to think about a koan is it's always dynamic.

[41:50]

It doesn't take a fixed view. It's like, OK, that's the answer. That idea is the answer. No, that idea is just another Dharma flaw you hold up and let it illuminate everything. Illuminate form and emptiness. Illuminate the particular and the interconnected. Or maybe more particular, illuminate your own karmic horizon. Oh, look at what's happening here. And then a way, and when I was also trying to do this, have you appreciate that you can use your mind like a two and say, OK, it's that. And I think, hmm, well, what about that? Well, maybe that's leaning a little bit too much this way. And look, even in your Zazen to watch, you can lean towards bringing forward this set of conditions

[42:58]

as conducive openness to presence, to what I've been calling this mind of inquiry, this awareness that engages without grasping. So bringing forth these sets of conditions. But then on the other side, it's when bringing forth a willingness to experience and not to claim whatever arises. And then we could say, okay, well, the Hinayana, the Theravada, leans more towards set up the conditions that enable it. And then the Mahavayana leans more towards just this complete willingness to experience everything. But, you know, the yin and the yang, the dark and the light and the northern school, the southern school, is saying, this is a dynamic relationship.

[44:04]

Don't end up with a fixed view or you'll miss something. You'll miss. And even in our own practice, we're always, each period of time, we're adjusting. Is it time to keep emphasizing the subtleties of your posture? Or is it time to just open up and let everything be exactly what it is? When you settle into Zazen, that's a dynamic question. It's arising like a con each time you sit. In fact, when you settle into the period and there's awareness, that's a dynamic question the whole way through the period. So is that the moving line or the not moving line? They're in dynamic relationship.

[45:06]

That wasn't my question. Well, that's my answer. They're in dynamic relationship. You said, is it either or? And I'm saying, it's a little bit like saying, well, should you pay all your attention to your posture? Or should you just be open to what your body is at any moment? Which one should you do? Well, it's a dynamic answer. It can't be- He presented that way way back when. Did you not present it as the Zen mind does not move? He wasn't presenting anything. He was presenting something for us to think about. He wasn't giving us an answer yet. Is this the going on beyond?

[46:11]

I find myself intrigued with that part, mind, no mind, phenomenon, no phenomenon, but they left a teaser in there of the going beyond both of that. So I find myself not wanting to bother with the Is this mind or is this no mind? Is this moving or not moving? I want to know what's going on beyond this. You do. Yes, I do. What were you going to say, Mitch? Or do you still have it to say? Yeah. It sort of confused me most of it. The best I can come up with, as I Saturday, is when there's form, when form is present, the morning is moving. And when there's emptiness, there's nothing to move.

[47:11]

We were saying a little bit earlier. be totally removed from the world of form to experience non-moving? No. Yeah. I mean, isn't that jazen? Isn't jazen deep experience of non-moving? Dropping out of your mind. Isn't that the experience of not moving? Yes. But the koan of it is that on the other side, if that becomes just blindness, then it's just blindness. I didn't say it was nothing.

[48:17]

I said it was empty. Yeah. But I'm saying if it becomes blindness. to make it a progression, and then we're looking at the northern school, then we could say, well, you sit zazen and you experience something about sadness, to just take it into more tangible and more accessible terms. You experience something about sadness, and then can you get up off your cushion and walk into activity and stay You just walk into activity, and then boom. All the habits of thought and feeling get triggered. The dynamic, the provocative, and the grasp. And there you are. You're back in your stuff. This is the territory.

[49:24]

My answer is doing the math. I was thinking the mind doesn't move. So many things does it, zero. But zero isn't nothing. It's like a potentiality there. A one can go there, or a mind, or something like that. That's what it makes me think of. There's a potentiality there to be open to that. But whatever that is, rather than it's Not anything yet, but it's... Okay. Well, let's move on because here's what I'd like us not to do is just have it become more and more abstract until it sounds like, hmm, it's one o'clock. Time flies when you're being abstracted.

[50:27]

What I was hoping to do was have us collectively maybe more like feel or appreciate the mind of inquiry. The mind of inquiry turns ideas, turns a proposition, turns a thought, turns a feeling. One way we could talk about it The mind of inquiry turns it rather than being turned by it. Something comes up, and it does you. Something comes up, you get angry. Something comes up, oh, unpleasant. Look at that. Pleasant or unpleasant speech. Pleasant or unpleasant sight. Pleasant or unpleasant smell.

[51:29]

way we can think about it. Then you're turned. I hate this. I love it. I approve it. I disapprove. This is it. This is not it. I'm a good sense. You're dumb. I'm a bad sense. Life's wonderful. Life sucks. It's a good return. And then that not being turned can then include and it doesn't turn it because it stays separate from it. It turns it because it's not reliant upon it

[52:32]

It's not good work. It's not reliant upon it for some sense of well-being. It's like if you think about it in a visceral way, in a precognitive way, or as the Sangokai would say, in the darkness, in the subconscious way, in that term, using the word in that term. It's like something in me says, I have to have this or I'm done. And it's like, things have to be a certain way. And from the perspective of the Mahayana, part of this koan realizes or manifests itself. things just being the way they are and giving our existence over to them and this is Pablo Neruda playing with the ferocity of that request it's like being in a vast terrible ocean in a tiny little delicate glass boat so utterly fragile

[54:01]

at least it could be made of solid steel but now it's just a little it's just a little glass thing and then it just plays with that image so that and then the Sangokai so it lays like this and then it talks a little bit it says clear and murky phrases are distinguished in the light when awareness shines on this thing the phrase that says this is it that's not it when awareness shines on that that has its own kind of dharma gift to it.

[55:02]

Oh, look at that. I'm insisting that this is the way to practice. And sometimes we do that implicitly. Someone who walks in front of the author and is then like where I've reached. How dare they. How sacrilegious in our hearts of worship. throw that heath out or whatever you know you just to watch yourself maybe for you it's it's when they forget to scoop time and get the tofu and the miso soup that's just me So that's the destructive behavior of a bad Zen student. A good Zen student always remembers the dictating of the tofu.

[56:07]

How our mind brings forth its fixed definition. What is it? What is that way of being that goes on? That sees it and turns it, the thought, the feeling, whatever it is. What is that? And how is it? What is it to stay close? What is it to let it be active and influential? Or even more risky, what is it to let it be definitive? and murky phrases are distinguished in the light. And then we can see the phrase that allows it to turn. We can see the, huh, no. Or we can see the mind that says, I'm going to tell the eno.

[57:16]

As soon as we get out of here. I'm going straight up to her office, leaving her a no. When I was her, I got no token. Please talk to the serving group. I got the message. No, I'm the head server. I wasn't serving. It's a big one that sits on the floor.

[58:26]

I would say to one of the units, I said, when the same number of people complain that it's too hot as complain that it's too cold, you know the temperature's just right. If you're waiting for that moment of serenity where everybody in the Zen group says, perfect. Well, that's quite elusive. The four elements turn to their own natures just as a child turns to its mother. I don't know if you've got to read Suzuki Roshi's saying that each one of these elements has its own kind of maturing capacity. So that kind of sensibility We are not so accustomed to that kind of thinking, that we exist in four elements.

[59:40]

It is kind of helpful. When you're making up the Dharma name, it has two parts to it, and the first part is more elemental, but not just elemental in those four elements, but also elemental in terms of It might be a mountain, a river, a tree, or sky, or dark gate, or something. And it's a great way to think about someone. Well, is that person a mountain or a river? Or a moon or a lake? It's like, what's that kind of nature? What are they in that? And that can be very helpful. helpful to think about ourselves in those kinds of terms. It's sort of shifting our notion of identity.

[60:42]

Well, I'm such and such a kind of person. I'm someone from Minnesota. People from Minnesota don't do that. Whereas if you think I am a solitary peak. The second part of your Dharma name is the kind of expression or fruition of your Dharma. There are variations on this, but this is the kind of notion that we've been educated about in the Zen heritage, in our center. We once did a kind of process where we talked to a whole bunch of people and in particular people from Japan So the second part of your dharma is the fruition of your dharma aspiration.

[61:52]

Each person conjures up their own aspiration. Out of their being comes the fruition of their dharma. closely linked to your karma. And then it's so interesting because sometimes I can remember Lauren Stewart, a Zen teacher who died about a decade ago, she said, Zen students should have serious faults. That way you've really got something to work with. If you have a really nasty temper, then you constantly see it and you go, oops, oops. And you see its intensity and its ferocity. And then you've always got something to work with.

[62:53]

You're never winding around thinking, I don't have anything to work with. And then you work with it and you work with it and you work with it. ripens and ripens and as deep as that is in your karma makeup your dharma reaches the same place the same depth so this sense of being and of course it requires patience and diligence all those wonderful qualities. But from a practice point of view, great. Then you'll be patient and diligent and understanding of others who have a similar kind of disposition. So but here, to consider our basic nature,

[64:04]

I think we're more persuaded from a psychological model. I know one teacher who gives all his new students the Myers-Briggs test. He says, here you go, do this. This is for your own education. You do it and you look at the bottom and then you say, oh, I'm such and such kind of person. He's not trying to be humiliating or anything else or making you feel wonderful. It's just like, here's information about your karmic disposition. Your basic nature from a psychological model. So your basic nature from the four elements model. Are you more earthly? Are you more wind? Are you more fire? More air? more water.

[65:08]

I think for us as Westerners, even though we're not so suffocative, even though we're more inclined, I would say, you don't have to agree with us, but I'm saying it anyway, we're more inclined to a psychological construct than just thinking, oh, I'm more earth. I'm more earth than wind. It's actually an interesting thing to look at and consider, kind of shift your notion of self around it. And when you read it a little bit, you get a sense for what a fiery nature is. or a solid nature, earth nature, or the fluidity of water, or the energy, the moving versus power of nature or wind.

[66:27]

So in a way, this is like, to my mind, it's a little bit like Pavluna wrote his poem. It's like asking us to have an appreciation for this dimension of our being. You know, maybe Pavlundra, this poem is talking about the dimension of cast into the sea of interconnectedness. And this is asking us to look at the dimension of basic nature. Yeah. We're a person and that person has certain dispositions. They tend to come up, you know? They tend to return to the way a child returns to its mother. And of course, there's kind of the conditioning. You could say, well, this sort of thing makes me angry.

[67:30]

This sort of thing makes me laugh. But something beneath that, too. Something in the basic nature. And across the globe, there's all sorts of qualifications or categorizations of this. The uncomplimentary one of Padidharma, Buddhist psychology, is greed, hate, and delusion. So there you go. Which one of those do you want to be? You want to be a little bit more creative. Which combination? Oh, the Enneagram. You've got nine choices. One useful teaching from the Enneagram that I find useful is that the Enneagram says, here's your basic nature.

[68:31]

And when you're calm and relaxed and confident, it expresses itself like this. And when you're stressed and upset and sort of off-center, it expresses itself like this. And you know, oh, there's the range. So that attribute, when it's based on confidence, self-confidence, and relaxed attitude, comes forth like this. And then when it's based on this kind of condition, it comes forth. So that's the way I read this part. They work this way, as humans. This is part of what it is to be a human being, you know? Just kind of how it is. It's enneagram, is that what you call it? Enneagram? Enneagram? You don't know enneagram? I've never heard of that before, I'm going to look it up. Okay. Enneagram. I think there's two ends. Enneagram.

[69:33]

Enneagram. Thank you. Yeah, there's several books in the library on it. Any last thoughts or questions before we close? I kind of thought when I read those lines of whatever said about ice pertaining to water. I think of it as like that sense of self becomes solid and then we just act it up and then when we're more reflective

[70:39]

My core dispositions are a little like this. My basic personality is a little like this. When we're more reflective, it encourages it to be more fluid. Again, shifting from the kind of coming from the mind that's more harsh or unsettled of the mind that's more relaxed. The mind that can go, oh, look at that. Look at the intensity with which that emotion's coming up. Look how much that delights me, saddens me, infuriates me. And that kind of fluidity in contrast to, goddammit, I know I'm like that.

[71:40]

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