You know, Suzuki actually laughed all the time. Well, not all the time, he didn't make jokes, he would give a talk, and then at the most either sublime, not really sublime, but at the part of his talk where he was talking about something, some complete tragedy in life, he would giggle. It's really funny, it made you kind of think about where he was coming from. When you meet somebody like that, you have to be careful, because you want to offer him your life, you know, you want to offer him your life. So, be careful. I've heard it said, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this talk, I have to calm

[01:07]

down. Okay. Or maybe not. Maybe we'll see what happens. I've heard it said that the most important matter is the matter of life and death. Why do I always talk about these kinds of things? I used to think that that meant that there was a problem to be solved. I mean, that's how it's kind of presented, right? The matter of life and death. So, I sort of thought like it was a problem, like a mathematical problem, and I was good at solving things. So, I was going to go right ahead and solve it. And what they said was, you know, just if you get enlightened, then you could... I mean, when I first started, I started sitting in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Zen Center, and at the time, they were doing, it was Mayuzumi Roshi, he was doing Koan. Koan... Well, anyway, the fellow named Yasutani Roshi came, and he was doing Sesshin.

[02:16]

He would come every year, I think. He came, and Hirata Roshi one time came, and... Anyway, when you're sitting with them, they gave you a Koan to do, like Mu. So, I thought, kind of the way they presented it, like in the Three Pillars of Zen, that book, if you got enlightened, and it's kind of like that, you know, if you get enlightened, your problem of life and death will kind of be solved. It's sort of a little bit how it's presented. Anyway, that's how it was presented then. I think now it's different. I think there's a kind of a softerness, a kind of a modified Koan practice. Is that right? It's a little bit less... A lot less. When I was there, it was really something else, but it was really strict. We'd stay up all night, you know. One time I stayed up all night, and it was like I was just woozy, and I was really tired. Anyway, I was making a tremendous effort, but the effort I was making was grasping after I'm digressing.

[03:22]

So let me get back to my talk here. Anyway, I thought life and death was something to be solved, and I would just go ahead and solve it, and that would be that. But it turns out life is not like that. Life is not a problem to be solved. You know, I think when you're young, there's lots still of possibilities. But when you get older, you get a kind of a taste that life is a little bit more... not serious, but it's actually happening. I think when you're young, you kind of feel like the idea of life is sort of happening,

[04:25]

but because it doesn't exactly clearly have an end, you don't quite get that it really is actually happening now. Does that make sense for people who are a little bit older? So anyway, life is not a problem to be solved. It's a mystery to be lived. We live it moment by moment, and it goes on until we're dying, and then we live death moment by moment. Perhaps for some people, they have mentors who help them along, or who they can watch, who live life well. Like Suzuki Roshi, you wanted to live life like he did. And for other people, they don't feel like they had that kind of guidance.

[05:30]

I've come to believe that being able to live a life of integrity and maturity takes a lifetime of attention, courage, patient determination, and hopefully an abundant sense of humor. It's not easy to live well, I think. It's really difficult to stand up in your own life as it has come to be, and to take responsibility for all of the things that, all the karma is an easy way of putting it, all the things that came together, you and everything else, that created you, us, at this moment in time. I think the difference between a child and an adult,

[06:39]

no matter how old they are, is that a child still doesn't take responsibility for their life, their feelings as their own. They're still blaming, they're still putting it out there, finding fault, making excuses, feeling self-pity, and so on and so forth. Indulging in various kinds of distractions and... I'm watching your faces and I know that you know. An adult, no matter what the difficulty, no matter how much the appropriate blame, in a certain way, finally says, it is my life and I must stand up here and I must live, I must make of this life an offering, a gift.

[07:44]

So, with our own wounded hearts, with something inside us that knows in a physical way that we are truly and ultimately at home in the mystery, still we reduce the word, we reduce this mystery to the word life, to some idea, some concept of me, of other, of whatever. But we must walk forward into the fear, into the sense of separation, letting loose our hold on whatever it is, walking, best we can, upright into the complete unknown. There are others who have done this in the past who can guide us.

[09:04]

There are some who walk with us now who offer a hand for stability and they can only do that. We can only walk with each other in the suffering or, when people are actually engaged with the practice, just encourage them in their joy and insights. And there are those of us here in this room who will do the work that must be done. To end, little by little, the trail of karma, the dualistic world that causes such suffering for us and for others. As we do this work, we get glimpses,

[10:10]

big glimpses sometimes, small glimpses, we get insights, and then again we're thrown back into our usual habitual stuck places. Eventually, if you do this long enough, what becomes real, or at least what becomes apparent, is not the insights as truth and not the stucknesses as truth. It's just swinging back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until finally we get let go of holding to some kind of insight as the truth and we let go of our sadnesses and wantings, our mountainous wantings.

[11:14]

We even eventually let go of practice. And having gathered a certain amount of strength, we begin to actually stand up as the person we have come to be. When this happens, the burden of the self is lifted slightly, or more so, and then life presents itself in its pristine purity, no matter what it is. Whatever it is, it sparkles with the vivid energy

[12:23]

of thusness. Just the light of the sun coming through the back of Kris's ear, making it red, from my view. He has blood coursing through his whole body. He's alive. His heart is beating. He's breathing. He breathes. Is that enough? At the sixth day of seishin, that place in us that already knows the world of thusness can hear the Dharma, can accept the Dharma, not with the intellect, but with the body. And we say, something in us says, yes, yes, I know that to be true. So today I'd like to share with you some of my favorite words

[13:28]

pointing to a place that we already appreciate in the deepest heart of our true selves. These are the words of Dogen, our ancestor, the word magician, impossible to understand anyway, the profound healer, and Soto Zen master. This is a paragraph from One Bright Pearl, or sometimes it's called the One Bright Jewel. Being thus is the One Bright Jewel, which is the whole world in the ten directions. This being so, and though it seems to go changing faces, turning or not turning,

[14:30]

yet it is a bright jewel. Don't try to understand. Just listen. It is precisely knowing that the jewel has all along been thus that is itself the bright jewel. The bright jewel has sound and form. In being already at thusness, as far as worrying that oneself is not the bright jewel is concerned, one should not suspect that that is not the jewel. Worrying and doubting, grasping and rejection, action and inaction are all but temporary views of small measure. Isn't it lovely?

[15:33]

Such lusters and lights of the bright jewel are unlimited. Each flicker, each beam, each luster, each light is a quality of the whole world in all ten directions. Since it is not action or thought caused by something existing which is not the bright jewel, the simple fact is that forward steps and backward steps in the ghost cave, in the mountain of darkness are just one bright jewel. The lusters and the lights, I love how he says that. It's us, you know. We're a luster. We're a sparkling beam of life.

[16:36]

We are this one bright jewel. As you know, Dogen's main teaching is that practice and realization are not two different things. His teaching continually points to that truth. It's a teaching of total commitment to each activity, total commitment to sitting. That's it. You just take your body down to the zendo and you plop it there and you sit and you're totally there, no matter what's going on in your mind or heart or body. You sit there letting the stuff of your life, of life, be what it is, nonsense or not-nonsense, whatever it is. Complete commitment, as Blanche would say, wholehearted practice.

[17:38]

Just sitting. Nothing special. My first teaching when I was in L.A. was from Maizumi Roshi. It was during Soji, I think, work period, during a session, and I was on the stairs, I think, with a vacuum, and he came by and I asked him some frustrated Dharma question, which I don't even remember what it was, and he looked at me, just like in one of these, you know, blue-cloth record stories or whatever. I asked him this great question, he looks at me and he says, just vacuum. It was too subtle for me. I was still into being enlightened and I struggled for years. I'm a very stubborn person.

[18:41]

Years I struggled to get enlightenment. Luckily, it didn't happen, because my bigger problem, my bigger problem was that I thought I was a failure, and so therefore I was able to look at that for a very long time. This suffering that we have is the motivation for practice, so don't poo-poo it. It's very important to stay with the suffering, because it is the, first of all, the reason we're suffering is because it's our small, separate self. That's the reason why we're suffering. So, we have to study that in the first place, and many things happen when we study it, but besides eventually being liberative, it also is the source of our compassion, because when you can really accept your own suffering

[19:46]

and know where it comes from, that it's dependently co-arisen and not your fault, then when you see other people suffering, you really don't want... I mean, you really want to carry them gently, or be strict, if that seems to be appropriate, because you know how much it hurts. But the other thing is, it really is our motivation, because when you're finally tired, when you've paid your dues, and this takes a while, when you're finally tired of all the grasping, of all the wanting things to be different than they are, of all the suffering from avoiding relationship, when you're really tired of it, that won't motivate you. And it's almost the only thing that motivates people, unless you have a great enlightenment experience, and then you're also motivated. But it's really tricky, because people get caught there,

[20:46]

because what they are motivated to do is go back to that old experience, and that's exactly what doesn't work. So in some way it's easier if you just don't have that experience, and just slog through your suffering bit by bit. Maybe not as much fun, but very effective. This is Dogen's glimpse of emptiness. You have to study the self, because you have to know that it's a delusion. Well, you can study anything, actually, it doesn't really have to be the self, but the self is the bottom ignorance. But you have to pass through either a really deep understanding of impermanence, which you can do right now, for the next two days, keep looking at the stuff, coming and going, coming and going, or dependent co-arising, everything is completely dependent on everything else,

[21:47]

there is no you there, or emptiness, all of that is emptiness, just different ways of finding it. So here's Dogen's peak, small, short peak, so listen carefully, I'm only going to say it once. You might know this one, I like it a lot. You ready? No wind, no waves, an empty boat, flooded with moonlight. Very nice. Very quiet, isn't it? Very still. Here's another one of my favorite things,

[22:51]

it's from the Genjo Koan, you'll recognize it. A fish swims in the ocean, and again, don't even bother to understand it, just listen to the refreshment of the Dharma. A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims, there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies, there is no end to the air. However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large, their field is large. When their need is small, their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range. Each of them totally experiences its realm. If the bird leaves the air, it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water, it will die at once. Know that the water is life, and air is life.

[23:52]

The bird is life, and the fish is life. Life must be the bird, and life must be the fish. It is possible to illustrate this with more analogies. Practice enlightenment, and people are also like this. And I think I want to read just one more. First I'll read it with a teeny bit of comment, and then I'll read it again without any. This is the acupuncture needle of Zazen. The essential function of each single Buddha... That's us.

[24:52]

The function... That's my comment. The functional essence of each single Buddha manifests as non-thinking. Okay? That's not thinking and not thinking. It's non-thinking. It's letting thinking come and go. Okay? Completes as non-merging. We've studied that in the Sandhaka, so you know what that's about. Manifestation as non-thinking. This manifestation is intimate in itself. As you do non-thinking, your life arises right in front of your face. It's immediately in front of you all the time. Completion as non-merging. This completion is verified of itself. Completion is realization. It's intimacy. This manifestation that is intimate in itself

[25:59]

is never defiled. Okay? If you're just present now, there's not duality. Even if it's dualistic and you're completely there, it's not dual. That's a little subtle, but... it's true. This completion that is verified of itself is never absolute or relative. When it's realized, you don't stay in duality. So when you have this sense of separation, you simply don't hold to that sense. You renounce barriers. You renounce the barrier that you feel between yourself and whatever. The thing that you're always... when you recoil in a relationship, when you're always sort of turning away, you feel that in the body as contraction. Contraction itself is pain.

[27:00]

It's painful to feel separate like that. As soon as you feel that contraction, you just release it. You don't hold on to smallness. You let down the barrier. And if you let down the barrier, the heart is already open. You don't have to work at opening your heart. It's already open. Intimacy that is never defiled or dualistic, this intimacy is liberated without relying on anything. There isn't anything to rely on anyway. Verification that is never absolute or relative, not dualistic, this verification is genuinely actualized without any attempt. Without attempt is effort, but no desire. Water is clear to the bottom. A fish swim like fish. The sky is vast, reaching into the heavens. Birds fly like birds.

[28:02]

So now I read it without my comment. The essential function of each single Buddha, the functional essence of each single Buddha, manifests as non-thinking, completes as non-merging. Manifestation as non-thinking, this manifestation is intimate in itself. Completion as non-merging, this completion is verified of itself. This manifestation that is intimate in itself is never defiled. This completion that is verified of itself is never absolute or relative. Intimacy that is never defiled, this intimacy is liberated without relying on anything. Verification that is never absolute or relative, this verification is genuinely actualized

[29:04]

without any attempt. Water is clear to the bottom. Fish swim like fish. The sky is vast, reaching into the heavens. Birds fly like birds. We're in the sixth day. Our lives, as they will be in a few days, those thoughts are not yet necessary to think about. Keep the fruit of your effort going. Don't dilute your mindfulness now. Don't make contact with other people unnecessarily. Don't waste the next two days you've worked for this kind of concentration. You can still give up everything in a moment.

[30:13]

You can surrender to the flow, simply watching the constantly changing patterns of emotion thought, watching the sense of separation. Be gentle and patient. For the next two days, watch the self constantly being created. When you are including everything in your zazen, allowing yourself to flow with each new sensation, thought, or emotion, you have perfect composure. You are the one bright jewel, temporarily, with the name Peter, or Jenny, or Aaron, or Susan,

[31:16]

or Deirdre, or Jeff, or Joan. It is not necessary to get rid of anything. Just watch the difference between wanting and how that feels, and not wanting and how that feels. Let us continue to make our best effort together. Let us realize the one bright jewel at the center of each of us, the jewel that each of us is, each one of us a facet. Being thus is the one bright jewel which is the whole world. Being so, even though at times it seems to go changing faces, joy or sadness,

[32:19]

yet it is a bright jewel. It is precisely knowing that the jewel has all along been thus. That is itself the bright jewel. In being already thus, as far as worrying that oneself is not the bright jewel is concerned, one should not suspect that that is not the jewel. Isn't it lovely? Such lusters and lights of the bright jewel are unlimited. Each flicker, each beam, each luster, each light is a quality of the whole world in all ten directions. It is not the plants and trees of here and there.

[33:26]

It is not mountains and rivers of heaven and earth. It is far beyond such duality. It is just one bright jewel. Please continue and together practice diligently two more days.

[34:06]

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