Too serious for people. It's because I need to be strict with myself. So in this talk I'm actually talking about myself. When the mind is stuck, when the mind is holding onto something, we suffer. When I turn this way, you can't hear me, huh? Because this is on that side. So, what to do? Hello, over there? No. Hello, over there? No. Hello? [...] Yeah?

[01:15]

What's so funny? Hello? Hello? As I was saying, and serious now, when we have suffering, when we are in pain, except for like physical pain or something real, the stuff on top of the pain, the suffering on top of the real pain, when that happens, it's a clue to me that I'm holding something, I'm holding onto something, my mind is holding onto something, some image of myself, some idea of who I want to be, some idea of who somebody else is, something like that. And I've actually been experiencing such a thing. And it hurts, it hurts.

[02:18]

It's not so much now for me the actual suffering anymore that hurts. What hurts for me now is I feel separate. And it kind of saddens me, although that sadness, if I were really strict, and I am going to try better today, I get to be strict because we're sitting, right? If I were really strict, I would say that that sadness too is just a passing show. I can feel that sadness, but I don't have to locate myself there, I don't have to dwell in it, I don't have to milk it for anything other than it is. That's strict. I like strict. I feel... Can I say I feel better when I'm strict with myself? All right, I'll do that. Anyway, many of us are sitting, one day sitting today,

[03:23]

so I'm going to talk about the relationship that we can develop with our mind. And sitting a whole day is a really good opportunity to watch, to look at what that relationship is. And for the most part it's a relationship with how we create and hold on to our idea of a separate self. And even those of you who are not sitting today, the mind or the relationship that I'm kind of going to talk about today can be just as well used at home in the so-called lay world. There really is no difference. It's just in the lay world it's more difficult because there are more distractions. And those of us who have opted to live in a situation where everyone is telling us all the time how to practice, it's in a way because we need those reminders all the time.

[04:23]

It's easier to have that kind of reminding. So it's more difficult if you're just sort of out there trying to do this practice. It's heroic, kind of like that, if you're doing it. Now, if you're not doing it, it's not heroic, it's just slogging through. Last week I was in Los Angeles to visit my dad. My dad is 84 years old, going on 85, 84 and a half, going on 85. Only kids say that, right? By the time you're in your 30s you don't say 32 and a half anymore. So my dad doesn't say 84 and a half. The time goes by so fast. So anyway, my dad is 84 and a half and he is experiencing the indignities of old age and sickness. He has emphysema.

[05:23]

Actually, he's in really good spirit, so I don't mind telling you this. If it was in a really bad situation, I probably would keep it to myself. But he's doing pretty well in the situation that he's in, which is pretty dire. He has emphysema. He's had both his eyes cataract operations. His lower back is painful for him all the time. And he has a heart condition for which he's had a couple of operations already. And my stepmother has ovarian cancer. So between the two of them, every time when I call up, I never know which one's going to be in the hospital, you know? It's kind of cute. So the reason I'm telling you this is because over the past year or so, my father and myself and our family have been trying to decide what to do with my dad after he dies, right after he passes away. So my father wants to be cremated because my mother was cremated

[06:27]

and we scattered her around, and so he wants to be cremated and scattered around where she is. But my stepmother, we're Jewish, and so cremation is not something that is recommended. There's been too much of it anyway. So my stepmother was adamant. She did not want my father to be cremated. She wants my father to be buried. She wants a memorial. She wants some kind of closure. She needs to have some place to visit him, and on and on and on. And then as she was saying this, this weekend, at the end of it she kind of stopped and then she said, and besides, I may not be there anyway. And when she said that, we all laughed because it may very well be true. My stepmother may die before my father dies. So at that moment, the ice kind of broke and we were able to say, well, okay, fine, my father can be cremated and my stepmother can be buried if she wants to. So it worked out real well. However, my father, the very next day,

[07:28]

I get a call from my brother, and my father, the very next day, drove into, underneath actually, he's fine by the way, he drove underneath a truck, in which he smashed his, the whole front end, of course, of his car, his gun, and the truck wasn't hurt at all. So even though one situation in his life has been settled, he's actually confronted now with a much more difficult letting go or giving up, because this has to do with his image of who he is, because he's always been a very independent man, and now he may have to give up his license, which is very difficult. It's very hard for him. But we are all, actually, in our lives, faced with difficult choices,

[08:30]

and in order to do this practice that we're about today, we have to seriously give up stuff. And the main thing that we have to give up is the idea, the kind of insidious idea of... Do you know what I'm going to say? You do, don't you? You must. The idea of a separate self. And in my experience, it's not so much that we let go of this idea, it's more like we just don't hold on to that idea. We kind of renounce holding on to whenever we create our self again and again and again and again. And if we look closely, which is what many of us are going to do today,

[09:34]

we will see that the mind, the things that arise in what we call the mind, are not under our control at all, and our emotions are clearly not under our control whatsoever, and our bodies are not in our control. Yes, I can pick up my arm if I want to, but that's not what I mean, you know. When I was at IMS in Massachusetts, I had a kind of an interesting experience where I really understood that there was a bird outside on a branch. The bird was singing and so on and so forth, and I was really looking at the bird and I thought to myself, that bird is like an automaton. It's, you know, all the genes and its instincts or whatever have gone into making that bird sitting on that tree just exactly now where it is. And there was no...

[10:38]

Really, in some sense, there was no difference between that bird and myself. All of my habit thoughts, all of my conditioning, all of my, you know, emotional states are arising because of causes and conditions. And I'm not in some sense, in some real sense, I am not in control at all. And so then the question is, why in the world do we identify with a self that behind all of these arising events cannot be found? So, I'm going to tell you three stories, short stories, today about two of our ancestors.

[11:39]

One is Bodhidharma and his disciple, Weka. Bodhidharma is the man who presumably brought this kind of sitting meditation from southern India to China. And Weka was his first disciple. I say so-called because we know that there was such a man, Bodhidharma, but we don't know so much more about that person. But it doesn't really matter because they're such good stories that they're relevant to us anyway. And you can identify also. I bet you that these stories will be familiar to you. When Weka, the student, came to his teacher, he was having some difficulty, and he knocked on Bodhidharma's door and said, Please, I'm a mess. My mind is like a wild ox.

[12:43]

Can you calm it for me? Please help me. And Bodhidharma said, Well, show me your mind. And Weka didn't know what to say, so he went and he sat. And it doesn't tell us how long he sat for, but he went away sitting. And then later he came back to Bodhidharma and he said, I can't find it. And Bodhidharma said, Aha! I have pacified your mind for you. And that is kind of, in a way, we can say, first stage of what some of us will do today. We will settle. We will let everything go for a day, a gift to ourselves. All of the concerns of the week or however long,

[13:46]

all of the emotions, all of the thoughts, all of the things that we would, during the week, get distracted and caught by, okay? We will just let it settle into the earth. Just let it drop off and go into the earth. And just look carefully. When he came to Bodhidharma, Weka was caught by a self-centered dream. Believing in those thoughts and emotions is a dream. It's a dream of self. It's a self-centered dream. It's an illusion that we recreate again and again and again. And Weka finally got present when he was sitting,

[14:49]

and he saw no mind. If you don't hold on to thoughts, you can actually see that there is no thing called a mind. There are thoughts that arise. There is even an idea of self that arises. There are emotions that arise, and so on and so on and so forth. But there is nothing behind that controlling it at all. In the Vasudhimagga, the Vasudhimagga is the path. It's called the path of purification. It's a big kind of manual of meditation. The Vasudhimagga puts it this way. There is no doer but the deed, no experiencer but the experiencing. Constituent parts alone roll on.

[15:55]

It's really neat. It's such a relief, really. It's a big relief. We don't have to arrange our lives at all. We don't have to fix things. Constituent parts alone roll on. Watch it. Just watch it. This is how T.S. Eliot put it. At the still point, neither from nor towards. At the still point, there the dance is, and do not call it fixity or a thing. At the still point, there the dance is, and there is only the dance. Okay, so now we're present,

[16:59]

and we can see that there are just constituent parts arising and passing away. So now what? Well, same old, same old. Another time, a bit later, Bodhidharma told Weka. He gave him further instructions. So this isn't really a dialogue. It's just Bodhidharma giving instructions to his disciple. And these instructions are important to me. Okay. When you still all conditions externally, and there is no more sighing internally, the mind becomes like a wall. Of course, there's no inside and outside, but just for now.

[18:04]

When outside things don't catch you, when you're not distracted by the things of the world, by what you think is other, when you don't activate thought around perception, and when you don't cough or sigh in the mind with internal events, emotions, thoughts, and so on, when you leave them alone, and don't activate your mind around what arises inside, then you can settle, settle, and your mind is like a wall. Bodhidharma says, make your mind like a wall. Jesus says, you know, in the world but not of it.

[19:08]

He probably meant the same thing. And, of course, this is the hard part, because we have to renounce our involvement with our self, the self that arises. We have to let that alone, and don't do anything with it when it arises. And it's not just in Zazen. It's easiest in Zazen. It's also in our daily life, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the living room, in the dining room, in the TV room. TV. TV. You have to watch out for TV. My dad made me buy a TV. He didn't make me. I bought the TV.

[20:11]

But he said, this is the last thing he's probably going to give me in his life, right? And so the way he put it was, he said, it would make me happy if you got a TV. What can I say? All right, I'll get a TV. So I went out, I got this TV, and I now have this TV in my house, and I watched it for about a week during the Olympic time, and it was spacey. It just made me totally spacey. After watching TV, like for an hour, I had to really make an effort to bring my concentration back again. It's amazing. Anyway, no one is watching TV today. We're watching the TV in here. And approach it just like a TV, just like if you're watching TV, just like that. Really, I'm not kidding. Like it's somebody else's. Don't get involved with it. Like it's somebody else's emotion, somebody else's mind.

[21:16]

Leave it alone. Make your mind like a wall. Weka already made great effort to be present, so now he just sits and does not get involved with any distractions that come out, come from outside or inside. We don't get rid of anything, and we don't have to build up this tremendous concentration. We just have to be mindfully aware. Oh, I gave away the last story. We just have to be aware, clearly aware of what's arising, and don't locate yourself there. So here's the third story. After a while, and again we're not told how long, some of us take a long time, forever even. There's no end to this practice.

[22:19]

After a while, Weka comes to Bodhidharma, and he says, I have no further involvements. Bodhidharma doesn't fall for it. He says, Aha! Doesn't that fall into nihilism, or thinking that nothing is there? Weka did not get defensive. His mind is settled. Didn't have to get defensive. He says, No way, Jose. Absolutely not. This is a serious time now, at this point. Something may be happening. So Bodhidharma says, Prove it.

[23:31]

And Weka says, I gave away the line. Do you know what he's going to say? Weka says, I am always clearly aware, and no words can reach it. I am always clearly aware, and no words can reach it. And Bodhidharma says, This is the mind reached by all Buddhas. Have no more doubt. Ah! Terrific! I am always clearly aware, and no words can reach it. He is not denying that things arise. He's just saying that those things don't reach the place

[24:35]

where no one is busy. Because he's always simply, clearly aware. And that's all. The Chinese characters for clearly aware mean abandoned. Abandoned. Not abandoned. Abandoned. Give up. Resign to. So we observe in such a way that we give up even observing. We resign to don't know. We abandon ourself. And be totally vulnerable to experience with no ideas about anything. Just clearly aware. Present. Relying on nothing. At all. This place is very quiet and very still.

[25:35]

And it's a big relief when we experience that. Because all that's happening is life is coming forward. Just life coming forward. And then you just respond. You don't even have to think about it. You just are not creating and recreating all these ideas of what you should and shouldn't be doing. And if you have them, it's not even a problem. They come and you're just not holding on to that. You're just clearly aware. And you lack nothing. Because everything is there for you. You lack nothing. Just awareness. Clearly aware.

[26:39]

Just watching. Like you're watching a TV. Only it's a much more interesting story because it's yours. So maybe you won't get spacey. Maybe you'll actually be present for it. Because the truth is, if you're not present for it, we suffer. So if you're tired of suffering, if you've paid your dues, if you want integrity in your life, this is integrity here. Wrapped, stuck in integrity. You have to try to have integrity otherwise you'll be embarrassing to death. So please, today, let's make our best effort. Okay? Let's make our best effort. Let go of things of the week. We get a gift. You've given yourselves a gift.

[27:40]

Okay? Let things come up. Don't go for the dream. Go for your life. Whether it's sad or happy, it doesn't matter. Just clearly aware. That's all. It's enough. We study. We're going to study the mind that's no-mind. And we can choose. We can choose to hold on to the self-centered dream or we can choose to sit with a mind like a wall, settled and attentive to this life. Our life. Our gift. It's a gift. Here's Dogen. A poem by Dogen. His teacher, actually.

[28:41]

It's a poem by his teacher, Tendo Nyojo Taisho. The whole body of a windmill is like a mouth hanging in emptiness. Without choosing which direction the wind comes from, for the sake of all beings, ting, ting, ting. The whole body, who we are, is like a mouth hanging in emptiness. Without choosing which direction the wind comes from, without choosing what arises, for the sake of all beings,

[29:43]

we just respond, ting, ting. So, we have this chance today and, again, I'm talking to myself through you. We have this chance today to recommit to our intention, to see clearly what is the self, the idea of self, to not hold on to it, to sit upright, clearly aware, with a mind like a wall, for ourselves and for the benefit of all beings. May our intention...

[30:51]

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