Good evening. I was just noticing, it doesn't take long to notice, when you sit still, how fast you've been going. So I felt like I just hit a wall, you know, like splat, and everything stopped, which was really nice. I've been... moving all day, and the last few days I have wonderful things. It's all stuff I enjoy. Right now I'm involved in actually giving Dharma Transmission to a student of mine who is here from the East Coast, from Lisa Sangha in Vermont, the Brattleboro Zen Center. And it's been just so nice having him here. His name's Hakusho. And this week, starting tomorrow, is the beginning of what's called the seven day. ceremony and before when we first were learning how to do these ceremonies um they were just seven days so people received arm of transmission and the whole thing happened in one week but then um i think it was um hoitsa suzuki a suzuki rishi sun who suggested to us that we add another two weeks so that people have a chance to kind of get back into the schedule and if they haven't been living it in the community they can go back onto the

[01:27]

sitting zazen and getting to know people and do some ritual each day and working their way into the seven days. So that's been happening. Hakusho goes very early in the morning, about an hour before we sit and does offerings, has some attendance. carry an incenser for him, and he goes to all the altars out there in the dark. He goes to the Suzuki Roshi stupa, and to the library, and the kitchen, and the bathhouse, and then the zendo, and so on. So he finishes that just about the time that the Han is starting for zazen. Then he does that again in the evening. So every day he does these two, what you call the jundo, going around to the altars, making offerings. And then he does a service every day, which has a lot of moving parts. It's about a two hour service. And now he's going to be starting to do some calligraphy, which will be most of what he does for the next five days.

[02:30]

And Yeah, it's just a lovely thing. I have a binder about that thick with all the instructions. That's the part I'm just kind of like, hmm, how am I going to remember all this? And so I'm making little flashcards of myself. But anyway, it's all very joyful. It's the sort of thing that we love to do. And it's kind of like a, you know, definitely on call for this week. So it was very nice just those five minutes of sitting here without the engine running on high octane. So I've been very happy to also come back and look at the notes from the Genjo Koan, the study we're doing right now. So I thought I'd start with just a brief recap of some of the teachings that I brought up last week. So to study the Buddha way, And Nishiyar Boksan, his essay is in this book called Dogen's Genjo Koan, with three commentaries.

[03:38]

So Nishiyar Boksan, who I've mentioned to you, but I'll say it again, was a teacher of... Tishizawa Iyan, who was a teacher of Suzuki Roshi. So this is a very intimate connection to our founding teacher, Suzuki Roshi. So they all, he was just a young monk studying with his very senior elder monks and scholars. And so it's quite wonderful to have English translations of Nishiara Boko-san's teachings, who was considered to be a really very accomplished scholar and teacher of Zen, of Dogen. in particular. And then there's also, in these three commentaries, Suzuki Roshi's commentaries, which are quite wonderful. And then there's also... Oh yeah, Uchiyama, who is Okamura Roshi's teacher. So, since he put the book together, he has his own teacher's commentaries, which are also quite helpful.

[04:39]

So, Nishira Boka-san says that to study the Buddha way is not to study the Buddha way as something over there with the self over here, then that would be dualistic. So to study the self is to study how this very body-mind is the Buddha way, is the Buddha Dharma. So always bringing it back into our own skin, into our own minds, in our own activities. You know, all of these teachings keep saying, how about you? And how about you? So our tendency to externalize what we learn or think about something we want as being something over there or later or somewhere else, this is all about bringing it back home, bringing everything back onto the One, the center, the centrifugal force that's at the center of the universe, which each of us is, right, each of us is the center. So what is this entire body fully becoming the Buddha Dharma? He asks. It is dropping off both the Buddha Dharma and the Self all at once.

[05:44]

Dropping off the Buddha Dharma and the Self all at once. To study the Buddha way as anything other than the Self is separating the subject and the object. And that is not the Buddha Dharma. So again, it keeps laminating. Whatever you're studying, that's you. Whatever you're doing, that's you. And that you is the entirety. It's connected to everything. So as soon as you're connecting with what it is you're doing wholeheartedly, then you're connected with the entirety of the wholeness of the universe. It's happening with that wholehearted attention to exactly what you're doing, like right now, like right now, not some other time. And yet, if we hold on to our old views of ourself, and how we think of ourselves. There isn't any room for any other version of ourself to grow or to be seen, and particularly a version of ourself as Buddha. And that's very hard for us. I mean, I asked the students this morning, you're Buddha, right?

[06:46]

You know that? And they're all going, no, you don't know that. But you are. That's the teaching. So try that on. How would that fit? How would that feel to you if you even considered for a moment that you are what is meant by Buddha? You are awake. And now how do you manifest that awakening in this world? How do you understand it? That's what the teaching is all about, how to understand what it means to be awake. So it's only by forgetting the self, the old one, that the forgotten self opens a space in which myriad dharmas come forth and actualize themselves as you. So you open up space by dropping the old ideas you have, whatever you're caring about yourself, I'm not good at this, I'm terrible at that, whatever those things are that we tend to accumulate and believe more than we believe the good things about ourselves in most cases, that space has to get cleared up. That's almost like cobwebbing or getting the dust bunnies out of your room, cleaning the space, cleaning the space so that there's room for all these other teachings to come forth and be actualized

[07:52]

as you, to become who you see yourself as. Boksan says, if you surrender and throw your entire body into the Buddha's house, today's practice of walking, abiding, sitting, and lying down is done from the side of Buddha. If you have a little more weight on the side of yourself than on the Dharma, then Dharma is not transmitted and the way is not attained. So if we are in the way, if we're blocking ourself, our true self, from experiencing being exposed to the reality of what it truly is, then we're basically lost. We kind of lose behind ourselves. There's this truth that's not able to come out into the light, into the world. So this is where the intimacy of our practice appears when the self stands alone as all things. I walk alone as all things. When you have a meal, you fully become. the meal. When you walk the dog, you fully become the dog walker.

[08:55]

And when you sit upright in self-receiving and self-employing samadhi, you are nothing other than upright sitting. To abide at ease at the place of no abiding. Bogustán then says that people today are suffering because of attachment to ideas of self and ideas of things. This is called hell. And even though we might think that detachment is harder, it's the holding on to things that makes our lives so difficult. My love, my house, my life, my family, and so on and so on. We all know how to do that. We all know how to hold on to things, at least with our ideas, that we can. I was saying to a student this morning, he said, I'm really attached to this idea that this person here is just horrible. And then the person got sick and I didn't want to take them food. And I thought, well, that's really interesting. So you're really attached to that, yeah? And he said, I'm really attached to that.

[09:55]

And I said, well, were you attached to it this morning when you were sitting zazen? And he kind of thought for a minute. He said, well, not really, not this morning. So you put it down sometimes and then you pick it up again. So that's not much of an attachment. it's more like basketball. So how you see yourself being attached to things as though you have a permanent aversion to something or, you know, I just, I just whatever I think of that person, this thing happens. Yeah, but most of the time, you're not thinking of that person. So trying to see the space between what we think of as our attachments, trying to notice how much space there is between all of these things that we believe are holding us, you know, binding us, the unboundness, that's one of the words that use for awakening is to be unbounded. Leaving off my gives everything in our life more room to breathe. In such a state, everything that the eye touches, that the ear hears, that the nose smells becomes a gift from the present moment.

[10:58]

And unless we learn to receive rather than to take the gift, even if we live 100 years or 1000 years, we will never know a moment of true freedom. We need to learn how to receive. I think a lot of people have trouble with that. They're very generous in terms of giving to others. It's very easy. Gift giving is something a lot of people enjoy doing. But there's some kind of tenderness about receiving. Oh, no, no, it's okay. No, no, you don't have to do that. So we really need to learn how to receive graciously what's being offered to us all the time. Every moment is a gift, truly. So this week I'm going to start looking at the next paragraph in the Genjo Koan about riding in a boat and watching the shore. When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. You kind of imagine that. You're riding in a boat and you're paddling along and then the shore is moving, you know. The dock is up there now.

[12:01]

It used to be right across from you. Now it's moved. It's gone. It's gone upstream somehow. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self. So this paragraph is addressing one of the more common errors that we make in viewing the world from our own set point of view. You know, we tend to think that the mind, you know, my mind, is permanent and that the world around me is changing. And this is the example of seeing the shore moving when actually it's our boat that's sailing along. So it wasn't long ago that our own human scientists were quite convinced that the sun went around the earth. And that was all part of God's great plan for the stars and the planets, that the Earth was at the center, and there was this harmonics that had to do with, I've seen drawings, I'm sure you all have too, there's drawings from the Middle Ages of the Earth-centered universe with all the stars and things nicely arranged, like music, cosmic harmonics.

[13:18]

And then those, of course, who dared to disagree were punished. at the stake, mostly. So along with being ignorant, our species has a long history of being quite vicious towards those who refuse to be ignorant along with them. And those things don't seem to change very quickly. So deluded thinking is thinking that is not looking at the wholeness of reality. Dogen's teaching here is a criticism of this short-sighted thinking that while excluding wholeness includes the idea of a self that is separate from the whole. So we leave out wholeness, but we include the idea of a self that's not part of wholeness. Wholeness is over there, and I wasn't invited to the party somehow. I've been left out. So a self that is permanent, this term permanent self in Sanskrit is Atman. And Buddha taught Anatman, no self. That was one of his primary teachings, Anatman. So this self, this eternal self, Atman, in...

[14:21]

Hindu teaching and many other religions is an eternal soul that somehow exists forever while the body of the self passes away. So we've all heard that. We had that option to believe that probably when we were children that was an option that was given to us. Everlasting life, as was said in the sermons that I heard when I was a child going to church. So this is a common tenet. in most of the world's great religions, and I think it's quite comforting for most people. It's not something I would want to dissuade anyone from believing if they were nearing death or struggling with something. It's like, that's just fine. Please, hold on to that. If that's comforting, that's wonderful. But in Buddhism, this is called the Shrenika heresy, after a teacher by the name of Shrenika who proposed such a separation between the soul and the person, or person, and their body. In general, that the body and the soul or mind could be separated at the time of death, and then the soul could go on and have this eternal life.

[15:31]

So this is a mistaken view, says Boksan. It is outside of the way. So Buddhadharma is one thusness of body and mind, the non-duality of nature and form. In Buddhism, when we say the mind and body are permanent, That includes that the mind and body are impermanent. Buddhadharma includes both sides of any proposition. So that kind of puts us in what's called the middle way. Is it permanent? Is it impermanent? You can make a case for both of those. Just don't fall into one or the other side. Don't grab a hold of one or the other side. Just be willing to consider. Is that so? I don't know. How about that? I don't know that one either. So we're just very interested in moving, keep moving, and being very curious about ideas. There's a saying by Dogen that the green mountain is always walking and a stone woman gives birth to a child in the night.

[16:34]

The green mountain is always walking. A stone woman gives birth to a child in the night. And what this is referring to is the wholeness of living things and things that living things live on. So the Green Mountain is walking. Those are the living things that walk on the Green Mountain. So those two are together, they're not separate. The Green Mountain is walking. Our walking makes Green Mountains. Green Mountains makes our walking. And the Stone Mother is the rocky planet Earth that did give birth. to living beings at midnight. I mean, right? I mean, that's how we got here. And although we don't see how she did it or how it happened, we can see. We can breathe. We are what we call alive from the stone mother. So I mostly call how we got here and what's going on a miraculous appearance, you know, from the darkness of the night into the light of the day.

[17:36]

Miraculous appearance. So because we walk around using our body and our mind throughout each day, we think they're permanent, you know, more or less, like riding on the boat on the ocean and seeing the shore moving on by. That's just kind of, that's common sense, right? But when we look closely, what we call body and mind perish in each and every moment without a shred of evidence that the self sitting here right now was somewhere else earlier this morning. I mean, that's kind of an easy access for me. I often say that to the students, they come in the room, and we're talking about impermanence, and I go, well, what happened to the person that walked in the door 20 minutes ago? Where'd they go? There's no trace. There's no evidence of that thing that's gone, completely gone. And not too long from now on, maybe another 20 minutes, this thing right now will be completely gone.

[18:38]

Where'd it go? Where does it go? No trace. Bukhsan says that even if we get to this stage where we see that neither the self or the world is permanent, it takes an even greater effort to free ourselves from the dualistic view that heaven and earth entirely perish. That would be nihilism. Everything is going down. It's all going to be destroyed. I mean, I can get there. I can go there. solar flare and this will just be a little cinder and all be gone and you know so why are we being so careful with our dusting and our libraries and so on you know i can i can get i can do that one that i have a little bit of access to that way of thinking then on the other hand the idea that heaven and earth continue forever that's eternalism so again you're setting up these two polarities you know two examples of extreme views that the buddha cautioned his monks against in the very first sentence of his very first sermon Because there are these two extremes that ought not to be cultivated by one who has gone forth, by one who practices the way.

[19:45]

And what are the two? The Buddha said, he gives these examples. The two that he gave examples of, two extremes, are devotion to the pursuit of pleasure and sensual desire, so luxury, not luxuriating, and just pleasure, living for pleasure. Hedonism, that's one extreme. He says, which is low, coarse, vulgar, ignoble, and harmful. And the other side, devotion to self-mortification. Extreme asceticism, which he had tried. He'd done both, actually. He'd been born a prince and had everything he could ever possibly want. Right there, whenever he wanted it. And then he became an ascetic and gave up having anything that was soft or comforting or kind to him or He gave up eating. He gave up bathing. He gave up cutting his nails. He just kind of let it all go. And so that's the other extreme, this devotion to self-mortification, which is also painful, ignoble, and harmful. And then he says, the middle way between these extremes, discovered by the perfect one, avoids the extremes.

[20:50]

It gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment. So you've heard about the middle way many times, and probably you're going to hear about it again and again, because this is the primary, you know, the magical formula for Zen is the middle way. We are the students of the middle way between the extremes. You know, on this hand, oftentimes I think I said to you all that when I first came to Zen Center, people would say, they say something, but then on the other hand, I go, why are they always saying that? They go, And they go, and then on the other hand, so they were always kind of contradicting themselves. You know, they set up something and then they go, well, on the other hand, maybe it's not a good time to, you know, whatever. So that became pretty obvious after a while and I started to, you know, kind of get it that, well, this is kind of part of this teaching of what's going on here. And certainly this is, in terms of the philosophy of it, that's the middle way. Avoid the extremes of one side or the other and just stay fluid.

[21:54]

you know allow yourself to be very curious and interested in what's happening but not settling onto you know not landing on the flower just kind of hovering hovering right nearby and then go to another one and hover nearby but don't grab don't grab them don't land on them you know that's not my flower that's the kind of thing that we tend to do focus on that says in a very typical Zen way, that the views of eternalism and nihilism are not necessarily invalid. Heaven and earth function in these two ways and would not be maintained without both. However, if we fall into or onto one side of the extreme view or the other, such as there is something or there isn't something, we are going against the true body of reality. So therefore, to maintain a self that is beyond the two views, using those two views freely for the benefit of liberating ourselves and others is called not getting stuck.

[22:57]

Nihilism and eternalism are to the left and to the right of the Dharma, which is just where you are right at this moment. So that's the next paragraph. That's what I came up with. this evening, which leaves us quite a bit of time to talk about whatever you like. And I hope you have things you'd like to talk about. I would appreciate it. Helene, good afternoon. There you are. There I am. Hi, Fu. Hi, everybody. A couple of things. Well, last week, I was kind of excited about the idea of being conscious enough to label what was tripping me up, like a situation, and I can say...

[24:12]

That the disturbance is my desire for things to be different than they are. Oh, good. But I don't know how to actually do that. Well, just leave out but. And I'm actually going to do that. Because that is the teaching. That's a really good teaching. Okay. Just don't use but. You've got to throw but out. It's just... It kind of defeats the thing you just said. But, no, and I really am going to do that, and it's a little challenging. And I'm still going to do it anyway. And how do I do it? And how do I do it? Yeah, well, that's great. How is a perfectly good question. That's a good question. It's really hard for me to concentrate my way out of my greed, hatred, and delusion. Yeah, I don't think you're alone in that.

[25:15]

I think that's why this whole religion has been set up for all of us who can't concentrate ourselves away from greed, hate and delusion. So we use all these supports like altars and Zafus and friends and chanting and suture books. You get so busy with all that stuff that you don't have time for that other stuff. There's no time for delusion. You got to read the Flower Ornament Sutra, you know? Yes, I think so. I get all caught up in the drama that seems like it's just in my face and I forget like a Dharma talk or, you know, it's kind of like I work across purposes to myself because there's so much confusion that i generate yeah yeah they're called mind flies just swatting at flies there's one of dogan's fascicles just he's just swatting at flies i think he was really i hate that and i hate that it's gone geez dogan must have been hot and must have been flies in the room because he was really having a hard time you know and they wrote it down what did he say he said oh what an awful place this is i hate people you know so

[26:40]

Yeah, we all have bad days. And that's part of the deal. Because if we didn't, we wouldn't need any of this stuff. Yeah, what would we be doing here? I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea. Riding in boats, watching the shore. Yeah. Yeah. Another question I have is like the space between our thoughts You had a question about that? That's everything else. It's not your thought. That's the missing piece. Something's missing. Quaker's arm. What's missing? Everything else except my thought. So that's the vastness, the spaciousness. Look what's around. You know that. Instead of looking at these guys, look at this guy.

[27:44]

spacious yeah i mean that's the big guy you know this is puny and and uh and captivating you know we're very captivated by our tiny little presence in in the universe it's got our attention so how do we turn our attention to our real self study the way study the self that you really are space between the words There's a practice, there's a sutra called Shurangama Samadhi Sutra, the Heroic March Sutra. I like that name, don't you like that? That's good, isn't it? Yeah, Heroic March. I think we're all heroes. That's right. And we are marching together. I mean, you know, we're unarmed, that's important, but we are marching together. And so one of the teachings there is to look, one of the meditation practices

[28:44]

is to when you're meditating, try to see the beginning of a thought. And the best way to see the beginning of a thought is to watch for the end of the one you're having now. Is that still shikantaza? Well, it's kind of a more like a board game you can play when you're not doing shikantaza. If you get really bored, you can just do other little things every now and then. No one will know. It's okay. No one knows what you're doing when you're sitting there. I had no idea. I've told the students, and one of these days, I'm going to walk around the room and ask, what are you doing right now? What are you thinking about? It makes them laugh because I know they're doing something, and they know they're doing something. And so it's okay. There's no rule about doing something while you're sitting quietly. Well, I really liked what you said about that student who said that he had never spent 15 minutes doing nothing.

[29:49]

Yeah. So that's a very nice image, I think. Very nice. Very nice little boy. And I think it was really clear to everyone that, you know, what he really, really got from our little time together was some amazing little gift. I don't... I doubt I'd love to see him again, you know, maybe I have maybe he's probably 30 now. This is a while ago. So it would be really interesting to in fact that happened to me the other day, we were having a ceremony, actually Reb's 80th birthday party. And his family was there and I hadn't seen his grandson since he was kind of a little guy. And there's this man standing there with a beard and long hair and I'm like, I know this person. I know I know this person. He wouldn't help me out at all. He knew who I was. And finally I went, Maceo? Sure enough, there he was, all grown up. So that little boy, maybe he'll come back, all grown up, and still have a fondness for not doing anything at all, as I hope you do, Helene.

[31:00]

Thank you. Yes. Marianne, hello. Hello, Sangha. Good evening. Good morning, everyone. I was fascinated by this line, and if you could just expose on it a little bit more. Throw your entire body into the Buddha house. Can you say a little bit more about that? Is it all about practice? I mean, could you just kind of expound on that just a little bit? It just really took me. I wrote it down a couple of times here. Yeah. Well, you know, all kinds of things or images are coming to mind, you know, like all these people who... are, you know, big soccer fans, and they just throw everything they got into the game or into the, the goal that you just watch them, they're screaming, they're just so thrilled with this sort of, what is it they're thrilled with, you know, something is so exciting to them.

[32:05]

And I think that's that kind of energy, we give to things that we really care about. It's like, I love you, Buddha Dharma. I just want you to have my whole being. I want to really offer it to you and my attention and my care and my, you know, all these little things that I have gathered around me because they represent something to me about the Buddhist teaching and about how precious and sweet that is, you know. And so I think it's really about kind of orientation. How are you orienting your life, you know? And words like that are, you know, are the kind of motivation. That's like motivational speakers. These guys who are teaching these things, they're motivational speakers. They want you to arouse, you know, arouse your bodhicitta, the thought of enlightenment. Right, right. So I guess I was just thinking that the house indeed, you know, when you come into the zendo, there's something that, you know, you could really love that as you're saying, you can embrace it.

[33:10]

you want to embody it you want your feet to feel the ground and you want your your bottom to feel the cushion and so all the thing but also the practices right the practices of walking of sitting of chanting as part of the house right what we do in the house totally your body is the house ah okay there you go yeah the whole body whole whole body the true human body is the universe itself so your body is bound unbounded When you throw your whole body in, I'm throwing the whole universe in, and it's coming with me. And it is. I bring everything with me when I bring myself forward. Even if I don't bring myself forward, everything's with me too. But it's a very different manifestation. And as humans, I think we like to encourage each other. I like encouraging kids and grownups and myself. to want to. I remember years ago, Reb said to us, you know, there's a big fallout after our former abbot left, a lot of people were very depressed and unhappy and like, Oh, now what do we do?

[34:20]

Our teacher's gone. And, you know, it was so sad. We all felt so terrible. And he said, Well, this is I want the I want to do this Zen center. And if you want to do this, well, then let's do it. If you don't want to do it, probably you should leave. and find out what you want to do because that's what you should be doing. I cannot make you want to do something that you don't want to do. And if I try to do that, I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to pull against something that's resisting. So much better to go with what's cooperating. Do you want to do this? I would say that to students. Do you want to do this? And they go, yeah. And they go, well, then I'll help you. And if you don't want to do that, I'll help you too. I'll help you find out where you should go. You know, what would be a good thing? What do you like to do? Right. You know, and I think they would kind of, they get afraid that somehow, you know, leaving here is, I don't know.

[35:26]

I think sometimes people are concerned that they're flunking Zen or something, you know, they don't stay, like they're flunking religion. Yeah. No, no, no, you can't flunk Zen. You can't flunk religion. You know, the sacred is everywhere. You are the sacred. Right. But there's that human being that starts to feel like, you know, somehow they failed. So that's not a good thing. I would never want to see someone leave feeling like that, but it happens. Right. Well, thank you. That was wonderful. Thank you. You're welcome. Lisa. Hey, how are you? I'm doing pretty well. Good, good, good.

[36:38]

And it's what you said about bringing your whole self along versus no matter what you do, you're bringing yourself along. Yeah. Right. But there's clearly a critical distinction there. You know? Or there is because otherwise... We're enlightened, but we don't know it. That's right. But we're never going to know it. If? When? When? Yeah. How? How? You know, I'm having trouble. I think it gets down to Doken's question about why practice? If you're already enlightened, why practice? What did he say?

[37:39]

I'm not sure. No, you do not. It's just you're forgetting from the moment. So he got enlightened. What did he learn? What enlightened him? What did he hear that enlightened him that gave him that moment of relief? What was the dropping body mind? Yes, drop body mind, including why practice? Why should I practice? He stopped this thing. of picking and choosing between, well, there's a good reason, there's not a good reason, give me enough of a good reason, or I won't stay here if you don't give me a good enough reason, well, that's not a good reason. So he stopped doing that. He dropped that. So that comes back to another question. What does it mean to drop it? What does it mean to drop body-mind? Do you want to try it? Sure. Right now? You ready? Yeah. Drop it. Okay. Do it again. There's this small space of nothing. It's kind of potent.

[38:42]

It's a very potent space. It's ready to receive. Yeah. But you kind of go like, do it again. But what about, no, one more time, do it again. That's the heart sutra. No. No. But what about no? No. Take a break. And then when you get a big enough break, which you know very well, when you've had a big enough break, there's some relief from all that you were carrying. Like that thing I was saying in the beginning, like I just hit this wall. I was so busy and running around doing so many things and taking notes and trying to remember this. All of a sudden it was like a mosquito hitting a windshield. You know, it was just like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, bad image. Okay, okay. Mosquito biting an iron bowl. It's just like, what? It was just, you know, all of a sudden it just stopped.

[39:45]

Yeah. What a relief just to have, oh my gosh. And then I could notice my breath. I could relax my shoulders. But as soon as you get that relief, I'm sorry, you get that relief, then you're thinking because all of a sudden it's few and that's the thought too. Yeah, that's okay. Thoughts are fine. It's like, you know, I'm always seeing this kind of sawtooth wave here. Yeah. Drop, but then all of a sudden, you know, very quickly, right after the drop, something creeps back in. Drop, creeps back in. What did Dogen say is the one true thing? My favorite poem. Black rain. Ah, good thing. I know. It reminds me all the time when I'm sitting, I'm like, whoa. What is the one sort of thing here? Black rain on the roof. Just what is. Fukakusa temple. That's just what is. What temple? Fukakusa. That's where Dogen was staying at the time that he was actually hearing the rain as the one true thing.

[40:52]

So you're interpreting that you're very much focusing on the drop there. Yeah. And when I hear that, I interpret it as just this absolute entity that is. That's the rain. It's not a nothing. No, it's just whatever. It's just suchness, thusness. It's what is. It's not a big thing. It's not a bucket of water. The drop is... Drops of water. But there's no separate... They're not separate from everything else. Nothing is. Yeah. But we're missing out on the education that the world is giving us about impermanence, about transiency, about dropping, because he didn't drop anything. He saw it drop. He didn't do anything. He was able to, he was able to, you know, kind of hear what his teacher said.

[41:57]

What are you doing here? Just sleeping? Drop body and mind. he could hear that and somehow it triggered for him. This like, I never thought of that. I've been thinking of everything else but that drop thinking. Let it just let it drop, it drops. It dropped. That's what thinking does that just like rain, it just drops. Like I asked the young man this morning, you know, like about this thing he was attached to. I said, Well, then, you know, do you still have it? You know, it was like five minutes later, I turned to him, I said, do you still have it? He said, no. I said, well, where'd it go? What happened? It dropped. He didn't drop it. We say we forgot. I forgot to get it. I couldn't get it. I let it go. I didn't let it go. It went. It goes into a speechless, it goes into a language-less spot. Yeah.

[43:00]

Yeah. Like ocean waves, I like your ocean waves, the waves come up. And oh, hi, waves, hi. Hi Lisa, hi Fu. We never leave the ocean. We are reality itself and then we just function in different ways. There are just all these variations on, you know, G, lots of G running around. So we have all kinds of little skills and trips that we can do. Look at all these things I have to play with. And we forget what an amazing thing it is, this life, to be alive. So I think we're called to our senses. Come back to your senses. And sometimes people, as you know, when they get hysterical, give them a little slap. Come back to your senses. Meaning hearing, seeing. Tasting, touching, feeling. Come back, get out of there.

[44:02]

Yes, but not thinking. No, you're already doing that. Come back to your thinking. The other five senses. You don't have to invite them back to their crazy thinking. They got that one down. Yeah. Just come back, come back, come back, come back here. And it's a practice. We practice dropping. As soon as, you know, especially when you get the, who can untangle the tangle? That's a cool one. You know that one. Who can untangle the tangle? What's the answer? You can't. You have to cut through it. That's one answer. That's a good one. The other one is the one who tied it in knots in the first place. Or who can take the bell off the tiger? The one who put it there. So, you know, we're the agent of our own distress. And owning that... is step one. You know, it's an insight when you see how you're projecting your ideas, your objections, your whatever's opinions on things, important things.

[45:10]

It's our disease and how we keep things separate, you know, not liking. It's not just that though, it's pretty funny. Oh, well, if it's funny, it's funny. It's really pretty funny. It's great. It is funny. And you know that thing Suzuki Roshi said about what Zen masters do when they get together. They laugh. They laugh. They laugh a lot. And I've heard them. They're very silly. Very silly. They think everything's funny. So is this what you're going to send a Hakusho back as? A goofball? I'm working on it. You know, he says, you know, I'm Swedish. I know you're Swedish. It's okay. There's humor in there somewhere. Definitely. He's lovely. He's totally lovely. Thank you.

[46:12]

Thank you for your question. Okay. Helene, you're back. Did you find the space between your fingers? I'll let you know. That's us, you know. You'll be the first. You're in the space between your fingers. So I just wanted to say along the lines of the conversation and what Lisa was saying, I've been listening to Okamura Roshi's talks. And one of the things that this conversation about drop body and mind made me think of the teaching he offers from his master was opening the hand of thought. Yeah. That just seems like a really good way to, I mean, it's,

[47:24]

It's dropping body and mind if you open the hand of thought. Yeah, that's right. Anything that helps. Any phrase, you know, make bumper stickers out of them, you know. Right. I have a bumper sticker, my plate or my license on my car. Got it. It says, just this is it. So, you know, you try to kind of put it out there. So maybe someone will read that and go like, what does that mean? Why open the hand of thought? What is that? But that make a great bumper sticker, right? Yeah. So we want to remember. Things that we can remember are really helpful. Little slogans. That's why there's some... Tibetics do a lot of slogans. Very helpful. Because we're not that... We can't carry a lot of baggage. But we can carry little clips or jokes or good phrases like that one. Open the hand of thought. And when do we want to remember that?

[48:27]

When we are grasping and thinking about something, just drop it, open, let it go. Let it go, let it go. We won't have it anyway. It's not even there. There's nothing there. And it's also like the idea of like the juxtaposition between firewood and ash. Kind of like, where does the fire go? Can't say. That's good, too. Don't know is a really good one. Yeah, I love that one. That's my favorite. Don't know. Don't know. And that's the truth. Yeah. Don't know. Very confident in that. Is that the response to the monk knocking on the coffin and saying, dead or alive?

[49:39]

No, he didn't answer. And the monk said, if you don't tell me, I'm going to hit you. And the old monk, the old teacher said, He said, I won't say. And so he said, I'm going to hit you. He said, I won't say, dead or alive. And so he hit him. Great story, huh? Yeah, I don't understand. Well, he wasn't going to pick one side or the other. He wasn't going to tell him yet dead or, oh yeah, he's alive. Eternal or transient. He's eternal or, you know, he's nihilism or eternalism. I'm not going to tell him. The middle way would be, I don't know. Well, he was trying to teach this young guy, perhaps not to be so rude. Don't beat up your teacher. That's kind of not a good way to go. Anyway, pretty strong. I'm not going to say, I won't say, I won't ruin your search by telling you the answers.

[50:42]

I'm not going to help you pass the SATs. It's not going to do you any good, you know. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Mr. Spina, was your hand up or you changed your mind? It was up. I was just going to mention, since we were talking about Shaku Okamura, I remember reading something that was really powerful in Lion's War where he was trying to explain shikantaza specifically um and he mentioned somewhere that when we're sitting it's interesting or it's important to notice the difference between thinking and non-thinking essentially is is what what he was trying to explain where if we imagine that our minds will ever stop producing thoughts he explained it as if our brain is like our heart right our heart beats and our brain will produce thoughts the difference is how do we approach those right how

[51:45]

real do we make them how much do we believe them and when we find that we're making something out of them right then then we're away from the realm of non-thinking right yeah yeah thinking so it was something that was very powerful to to remember i think at least from the start and it might be something that that happens often is we believe that it's about clearing the mind as if you know as if nothing whatever as if we could stop the heart from beating right so it was very powerful read those words, and start experiencing it as well. So I really appreciate Okamura's Roshi Roshi's teachings. Yeah, yeah, that's very important. My metaphor for that is, like the way snails make slime, humans make thoughts. Yeah, that's exactly it. just ride along this little trail that we're producing you know that's exactly yeah where did that slime come from yeah oh yeah and uh it's fine we have to that's how we move that's how we move we keep moving and then we think it's the shore that's moving not us yeah you know well that reminds me of a very bad joke you want to hear it

[53:06]

What did this snail say when it was riding on the back of the turtle? I think I've heard this one before. Yeah, I'm sure it's old. It's a good one. When my daughter was little. Whee! That's a good one. You know, that reminds me, for some reason, it reminds me of we're having a lot of flies at my house here. My mom and I have a different method of taking care of them. Hers is a little bit more, you know, more on the killing aspect and trying to really get them. And I do a different aspect of trying to catch them and release them. And I was trying to catch them with a cup. And I thought to myself that I remember someone telling me that the reason why we can never get them if we want to swat them is because we're moving extremely slow to them. Right. So then I figured, well, what if I move even slower? then it's as if I'm not even moving to them. And I figured that was the secret to catching flies is just moving extremely slow that they don't think anything's happening.

[54:14]

So I've been, I don't know what that reminded me of, but I guess for the scale, right? It's all speed, right? Relativity. Isn't that what it all, what we're all speaking of. If it's not, if it's not relative, it's emptiness, right? We had a serious fly infestation because there was a dead rat that got squished under the bed in my bed. in my little spare room. And all of a sudden there was these little black pellets all over the floor. We were like, what is the what are these you know, and then we found the dead rat that was disgusting enough, and took it out. And then he's a little black pellets, which we thought we got a lot of them. But actually, they were fly eggs out which maggots came and then and then from them came these flies. So I opened the door when one afternoon, and it looked like a billion flies in the room. And so I had read that flies can smell protein from three miles away.

[55:15]

So I hung a piece of protein out the window, and I opened the window, and they all went flying out. So give it a try. That might be the way to go. I mean, they just were like, hey, there's lunch. And they went right out the door. So anyway, I should patent that. Yeah. All right. Nice to see you. Great seeing you as well. Okay. All right. I'm off to the next thing. What is the next thing? Oh, I know. The big ceremony starts tomorrow for Hakusho. So... Next time I see you. Oh, I think I won't see you next week. There was the banner, and I think it said there's no class next week. I'm pretty sure. Is that right? Yeah. Okay, so I'm sorry. I'll miss you. But I will see you the following week. And I hope you all stay well. Oh, we have a terrible outbreak of COVID here. I thought it was over. Two people came back, and within a week, 10 people are now going through it.

[56:24]

So anyway. I hope none of you are in the line of fire and that this will eventually calm down. I started wearing my mask today because a couple of friends on Facebook have just gotten really sick from COVID. And you kind of forget about it. If you get it, it's serious. It's serious. We'd like to forget about it, but it's actually really, you know, it's... And these are pretty young people, but one of them is quite sick. So I just, you know, if you just get your masks out again. I don't know if it's a new up, you know, up Wallenian. I think there is. I think there's a new. Yeah. Hi, Dean. You know something about that or what? Yeah. I just wanted to say that, you know, a lot of places have continued to test wastewater, which is a way to check it. And wastewater levels. About three weeks ago, they started going up in the south, the northeast, the northwest.

[57:28]

And California now, and there's starting to be more hospitalizations. So I think we really relaxed a lot of the mask wearing, but the virus didn't go anywhere. So it's not anybody's imagination. I think California might be somewhere about 9% positivity test. I mean, it's really, really going up. Yeah, just know that it's not our imagination. It's with us. We will live with this. And open your doors, open your windows, put your masks on. It's not so bad. We're sitting with our masks again. They're kind of familiar. Yeah. All right. Good to see all of you. Good night. Take care. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good night, everyone. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.

[58:29]

Bye. Nice to see you. Thank you. Good night, everybody. Good night. Good night. Stay well.

[58:39]

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