This is the true and simple power of true practice, of the true mind of faith, of the true body of faith. Good morning. How wonderful to hear the rain and the frogs last night. This is the fourth day and I'm feeling that people have settled into their sitting, settled into their practice. The fears about Seshin, for those of you for whom this was your first Seshin, seem to have

[01:05]

dropped away, the dread, by entering into the practice and becoming intimate with it. And the fears about it vanish. And you may have noticed that you can hear very clearly, your ears are open to hearing and your eyes are open to seeing. Before the Seshin, to tell someone about Seshin, ah, it's hard to do. In trying at a practice period tea to talk about the feeling of the eyes, the kind of

[02:11]

cool feeling the eyes have. As I began to mention it, someone said, no, no, I don't want to hear it, it's going to be terrible. What's she going to tell me about eyes? So sometimes Seshin is called the crown jewel of our practice. And how grateful, I know that for some people, gratefulness is welling up, gratefulness for their own body and for the other practitioners. Not that we don't get irritated with each other, but even so, feeling grateful to be practicing together. This is the fruit of our practice. I wanted to let you know how our mother bird is doing. Greg told me yesterday, this is a stellar's jay, stellar's, ah, I always thought it had

[03:12]

been stellar jay, the jay with the tuft on the top that we have at Tassara, but it's named after a man named Stellar, so it's called Stellar's jay. And the mother bird has a tuft as well, but it lies more flat, so you don't see it the way you do on the male. So she's doing very well, she's on just about the same schedule as we are. After lecture, she, let's see, was she taking a break then? Yes, she took a break after lecture, then she came back, and then at lunch she took a very short break. And then later in the afternoon, right around tea, at about 4.45, Matt noticed she was gone, she took a tea break, and then when she came back, he was watching as she flew in and came into her nest, settled down, and rocked her body right in there. It's true.

[04:17]

It's true. What else would you be doing? And last night during the rain, I thought, how is she doing, you know, the rain is coming down, and her shelter is just the leafy, the miniature leafy glade of this camellia bush, and probably the rain was soaking her, it was coming down pretty hard, and I began thinking is she cold, you know, how is she doing, she'll stay there, I know she'll stay there, come what may, and I thought about all the other birds that are nesting, the millions of birds that are sitting on nests all over California and all over the U.S. and all over the world, who are sitting stably on their nests, and if there's wind or rain or hail they are not going to abandon the beings that are in their care.

[05:26]

And so I realized I had some worry for her, how is she going to do, and then I thought about all the mothers and fathers taking care of their children and how, you know, if we actually looked and brought our attention to that, how could we bear it, you know. Someone sent me an email, it was ironic, an ironic piece about all this concern for this young boy, this Cuban boy, whether to keep him here or send him back, and the enormous fuss that's going on in Congress and Attorney General and INS and Cuba and demonstrations about this one boy. And then the piece went on to say how many millions of children are living below the poverty line in the United States and go to bed hungry and how come they're not written

[06:33]

up in the papers and people aren't demonstrating on their behalf and the irony there. So just as the mother bird is settling down, taking care of her life and the lives of those under her, we too are taking care of our body and mind, taking care of what's around us. This seems to be a very bird-like sasheen, just walking home, there was the group of whale went doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo down the path and then there was the robin having a little bite to eat and the sparrow, then there was the dove and the owl and it's springtime at Green Gulch. So I just happen to have this sutra called The Buddha's Law Among the Birds, which is

[07:43]

a kind of little-known sutra translated from the Tibetan by Dr. Edward Kansa. And in this sutra, Avalokiteshvara is a cuckoo bird and all the other birds, he gathers them and gives teachings to them. And I just wanted to read what the great cuckoo bird said to these other birds. And the birds that have gathered are the kestrel, the parrot, who's skilled in speech, the red-beaked Chinese thrush, who says things like, profit from, profit from. And the little red logopus, who says, no certainty, no certainty. And the lark says, the pleasures turn sour, the pleasures turn sour.

[08:44]

The owl rose and ruffled her feathers and said, what misery, what misery. And the dove said, the quest for bliss will lead to ill. So they all, oh, the pigeon, the pigeon says, well, might one despair, well, might one despair. And the white grouse flapped his wings three times and said, hard to fathom the full extent of ills in this round of samsara. Oh, here's another one, the little wagtail. The wagtail says, deep and vast. And it goes on, the golden goose and the king vulture, what does he say, oh, he has a lot to say. He says, one must open one's ears to such beneficial discourse. One must know the folly of this ceaseless busyness. One must know the true Dharma to be the basis of freedom. So, anyway, the great bird, a cuckoo, says, certain indeed it therefore is that these

[10:02]

are speeches like our happiness in this samsaric world. The trivial joys of this, our life on earth, are like a magical illusion, like a dream, a rainbow in the sky. The echo of a voice shouted into a deserted valley. These similes have all been taught by the Lord Buddha to show that these things have no permanence and no abiding substance. And he goes on, all the elements of this samsaric world and of nirvana are all the products of your own thought. Pure thought in its beginning is not distracted by any object whatsoever. It is empty and impersonal, unproduced, unstopped. It stays not, neither does it go nor come.

[11:04]

If one seeks it, one finds it not. If one looks for it, one sees it not. Mark in your minds the true nature of all conditioned things. And the last thing he says, I'm skipping around, you must therefore seek salvation in your own thought. I have placed your task before you. And then he sends them all out, now all of you, the cuckoo, the great bird continued, now all of you, met here and now, all of you birds, you all will gain in happiness if only you can act for others. Spread the great word of the Dharma and the fruits of that act will bring you benefits.

[12:12]

And then he sends them all out, birds of Tibet, he sends them all out for a year to spread the Dharma and pass the Dharma on to small birds, even to the very teeny ones who could not join us here. And then it goes on and it's the following year when they all come back, greetings, you great and noble bird, the vulture says, and in the last year since we met, has your body been in health and so forth? And then, oh, the guru of the small birds comes forth and gives salutations, greetings you great cuckoo of wide renown, fair to see your body's beauty, sweet to hear your gentle words. And the bird gives more teaching, but I won't go on with it, but I just want you to know about the Buddha's law among the birds. So, we've been talking about turning the light back, resting in the nature of mind, resting

[13:26]

in the moment, and I realize that many people are trying to take up this teaching and study it, and some people are finding it very enlivening. Other people, perhaps, are getting more confused about how they're practicing during Sashin. So, I just wanted to say that there are many, many practices, myriad practices, and the practices of calming, what I've been talking about may not resonate with you and what your needs are and what is beneficial for you right now.

[14:30]

This is always the case. Sometimes you hear teachings and there's no resonance. It makes you feel sick, maybe, and even though there's always some element of feeling when you hear something new, feeling that there's being pushed a little bit or brought to your edge, the edge of your ken, you know, it's outside your ken, your knowledge or familiarity. So, there's always that, but sometimes it's more than that and it's actually more confusing. So, I was listening to an interview on the radio. I don't have a tape deck in my car, so whenever I go anywhere, I listen to the radio and often these wonderful interviews with people. There was an interview with Pete Seeger who, I don't know if I thought he had passed away already or what, but he was talking about what a song is.

[15:34]

He said a song is like a basketball that's thrown up to the basket and if it hits, or up to a backboard, the backboard of the basket, and it hits the backboard and it bounces off one way and next time this way. It has rebound all different ways, the basketball. So, a song, when someone hears a song, it hits them a certain way depending on who they are. And the same with a Dharma talk or practice that's being offered. It will hit some people one way and other people another and it's fine to feel that this isn't accurate for you at this time because there are myriad practices, myriad practices all day long of kinhin and chanting and bowing and oryoki and washing dishes,

[16:42]

serving meals, using the bathroom, resting, having tea, taking a walk. These are all the myriad practices of body, speech, and mind. Not so much speech, I hope. Lots of body, I hope. And walking, sitting, lying down. So, there was a session that Suzuki Roshi led in the, I'm not sure if it was late 69 or 70, and he said, I would like everyone in the session to please count your breath. Please practice counting the breath during zazen, for your zazen. And I will practice this way too. So, I wanted to offer that as well, that you may have been practicing with counting

[17:47]

the breath or following the breath, and we haven't talked so much about the breath. I haven't talked so much about the breath. To settle your practice there is fine. The practice of turning the light inward with following your breath is to not think of the breath as outside yourself, as some external thing, but the mind where nothing is outside. So, if we think of our breath as something outside of us, or extraneous, or this added thing we're trying to make be a certain way or control, we lose the practice of counting the breath. But, attending to the breath as mind, staying completely with the breath, not as something

[18:49]

separate from yourself, is not so different from what I've been talking about. The practice of shamatha, there's shamatha and vipassana, insight, calming and insight. And we've been mostly talking about the calming, and the calming practices of allowing the mind to operate naturally how it operates, meaning when an object of mind arises, the mind notices the object. This is very natural, and this is not, one might think that this is a very hard thing to do, but actually this is how we function. There's the koan where it describes the teacher demonstrating this by calling to the monk and saying, hey you, and the monk turns his head, which is no different than if you call

[19:53]

out to a Buddha, because it would be maybe a little disrespectful, but to say, hey you, the Buddha would just turn his head, or her head. So, hey you, turn the head, is just resting in the mind. Someone calls your name, you answer. Someone bows to you, you bow back. There's not, there's no problem there, there's no problem. The problem comes, and this is the next part of the koan, where after he says, hey you, and the monk turns his head, then he says, what's Buddha? And the monk, it's a young monk, he kind of makes a face, scratches his head, and kind of runs away. So, what's the difference between, hey you, and what's Buddha? And if one is coursing along with turning the light back, this hearable arises,

[21:10]

what's Buddha? And there's a response, there's some response there. Of course, this kid responded by making a face and running away, which is suffering, which is our pain and our suffering. Now, there's other koans where someone says, what's Buddha? And the cypress tree in the garden, there's these koans that, how we understand them, or how I understand them, I don't know how I understand them. But, I think we all understand, hey you, and turning your head. Or, we all understand if a hand goes up like this while you're serving, that means stop giving them food, that's all, it's not a problem. It's complete communication, complete intimate understanding and calm. Now, along with that might be, if there's elaboration of the externals, or involvement,

[22:16]

maybe I gave them too much, or they're going to hate me, I'm the worst server in the world, or that kind of thing. Or, did I give them too much, I wanted to give them, did they really go up? Anyway, that's suffering. And, we can also relate calmly to that too. We can just relate to that mind of suffering that comes up. But, in working with the breath, whether you're counting your breath, counting exhales, and inhales, exhales one, inhale, exhale two, up to ten, you can, one practice that's been offered is to image the breath as coming down

[23:17]

and up through the spine in like an elliptical shape, down the front to the lower abdomen, exhale all the way out, and then in as an ellipse, up and up through the body. But, don't take that as a technique exactly. It's just, it's not a technique to get calm. It's just one of the myriad practices, one of the myriad practices to relate to also without grasping. So, we so long to be perfect, to be, to be, to not make the mistakes and to be the perfect one,

[24:22]

and yet our perfection is right within our imperfections or our limits. I wanted to read what Suzuki Roshi says about perfection. You know, I had a person who used to talk with me, she's not at Zen Center anymore, but she grew up in a family where she had to be really perfect, and she called herself the perfection soldier. She had to be the perfection soldier and not make a mistake, and I think she had to do it so that, well, I don't know exactly, but in her family ecology, she had the role of perfection soldier, and the enormous weight she carried around all the time, because nothing was good enough, you know, nothing was okay.

[25:30]

It was always not perfect. So the soldier part was this, I will make it perfect, and the marching to this all the time, so there was no rest, there was no rest. So Suzuki Roshi talks about, we should find perfect existence through imperfect existence. We should find perfection in imperfection. For us, complete perfection is not different from imperfection. We should find the truth in this world through our difficulties, through our suffering. This is the basic teaching of Buddhism. Pleasure is not different from difficulty.

[26:34]

Good is not different from bad. This is what the Fukanza Zengi says, of course. So, what does that mean when I'm saying about finding, or what Suzuki Roshi is saying, finding the perfection in the imperfection? And, you know, I think, if we have an, this is just an image for you, if you have an image, if I have an old stuffed animal, let's say, maybe you all had an old stuffed animal that was your favorite, or an old blanket, you know, and it got more and more tattered and raggy, and the ears fell off of the stuffed animal, but it was perfect, you know, it was absolutely perfect.

[27:38]

And to change anything about it, like I remember I had a stuffed animal named George, and I remember the neck, the stuffing came out of the neck, so the neck was like really thin, and that stuffing was all kind of down in the body. And I still have it, actually. And we never knew whether it was a dog or a rabbit, because it had long ears, but they drooped, so. Anyway, I remember my mother, it got dirtier and dirtier, right, because I slept with it all the time, carried it around, and she took it and she put it in the washing machine. And I remember saying, where's George? Oh, he's in the washing machine. And I went down to the washing machine, it was a front loader, and the... You could see the suds churning around and the noise,

[28:41]

and there was George going around and around, all in the suds, crying, help, help, probably. And I got down on my knees in front of the washing machine and sobbed and sobbed, right, because he wasn't going to smell regularly, he was going to be all different, it would never be the same. George. And he came out, and my mother was so clear, you know, he must be washed. And he came out, and he was different, his fur had kind of balled up in a way, it wasn't that nice, soft kind anymore. So, to try to improve on imperfection, you know, it's perfect just the way it is. Oh, that's another quote from Suzuki Yoshi, you're perfect just the way you are, but you could use a little improvement. So our perfection is in our imperfections,

[29:44]

just like George, he was absolutely perfect. And that's how we love each other, you know, we love each other for our very limitations, and we irritate each other, you know, but it's almost the true love, true love is right within the limitations, accepting someone for their limitations or with all their limitations. If someone's the goddess or the god on the pedestal, golden, shining, unblemished, untarnished, unapproachable, unreachable, you may love them in a way that's not true meeting. We only meet within the reality of our limitations, knowing fully our limitations with each other,

[30:44]

and the perfection of that, and finding our composure, Suzuki Yoshi used the word composure a lot, finding our composure right there, being willing to be who we are. So, a number of people have been talking with me, confessing, I actually hear it as confession, about how irritated and annoyed they're getting at very small things, like someone scraping their spoon against their bowl. You know, in the breadth of human activity that is harmful in this world, that can happen, that we know of, to scrape your bowl, to make a noise scraping metal against ceramic, is, where would we even place it, you know, on the continuum? And yet, and yet, you know,

[31:47]

you could just throttle them. Why don't they practice harder, you know? They're ruining my whole sashimi. They're ruining my meals, anyway. And then we look at the, at what level we can be perturbed, you know. Ah, yes, imperturbable, waste-seeking mind, but, you know, get them out of this endo so I can have some peace. So that's, that's one side of it. The other side is for, you know, how we practice with our oriyoki and the furniture of the zendo, you know. Because of the nature of our zendo, other more traditional monasteries would have, you know, a separate Buddha hall where you go for service and then the place where you practice, where your bowls are kept right by your place. And there's not all this furniture moving, you know,

[32:49]

and setting up and taking down and crawling on your people's legs to put your bowls away and all that. It would be very smooth, you know. But this is what we have. This is the perfection of our imperfection. And we get to practice right there. So the, bringing our full attention into our body, bringing, so the mind pervades all parts of the body and then we, this body practice, it's such a big body practice, does your mind pervade into your fingertips all the way through, all the way through your entire body, so that when you handle things, it's not this thing out there that you're kind of doing, it's this full expression of your understanding, your full love of beings, your full attention is through the fingertips, all the way out to the edge of your skin,

[33:49]

not kind of somewhere in there, up in your mind, intellectualized as, ah yes, I've got a nice body practice. It has to drop down and through. I have a dentist, a lot of you have the same dentist who, when she drills, you feel her consciousness going in through the drill, you know, and she actually visualizes, she told me, I hope this is okay to say, light traveling through her hands into the instruments in the people's mouths and this, you know, I actually feel that. I mean, I wouldn't have known that she's practicing that way, but I feel her attention and consciousness in the hands as she does those things and, you know, props open my mouth and digs around and all these things that are so intimate, you know. And I've had different dentists

[34:51]

and many different people clean my teeth and some people you feel like you're some object that they're working on like a quarry or something and for other people you feel like you are together doing, you know, practicing together and they're with you and they're willing to be intimate. So I'd like to ask everyone with Oriyoki and moving things around, all these movements, to ask yourself or find out, ask yourself, you know, am I permeated to the last cell? Now you may feel, well, that's hyperbole, you know, but it's at a cellular level actually that the practice penetrates.

[35:53]

It's that deep or wide or vast. So as you're handling things, can you bring your attention, this is exactly what we've been talking about, the, you know, the heft of the bowl, the smell. Someone told me that they realized they've never tasted food during Oriyoki. They realized somehow they've missed on the taste. It's the meal's over and they haven't really turned their attention towards the taste, the tasteable. I think the tasteable is the jiwa in Sanskrit. Oh, by the way, I made a mistake in calling perception samnya. It's not together makers, that's samskara. It's together knowers, samnya. J-A-N-A is nyalic, cognition.

[36:56]

So I wanted to correct that for the tape, for posterity. Anyway, paying attention to that which is before you is turning the light. Now, the before you, when we think of it as external to us, it's not necessarily this turning the light. But to think that this is mind, this is not external, these sense things are not somehow something outside me. This is sensation, perception. This is the five skandhas, the rupa skandha of form, form and color. And when we're making light, it's not sort of a moral thing. It's so hard to talk about this because I can feel it slipping into morality,

[38:01]

like being quiet with your bowls is you're a better person or something. Quietness is next to goodliness or something like that. But it's more as a practice for you. This is a practice, this wonderful practice, this gift of a practice for each one of us. And I want to somehow make that clear that when you're making lots of noise, it just so happens, if you're making lots of noise with your bowls or drop your spirit water into the bucket, somehow you're probably ceaselessly involving yourself somewhere else besides with what you're doing. So it's for you. The practice is for you. It's not to be good little boys and girls. I hope that's clear, because I think I have to be careful because I love it so much. It's been so helpful for me. I have to be careful about falling into

[39:04]

what looks like Paliana, you know, or morality, or sentimentalness or something. So there's so many things going on there. There's each one of us working with the disturbances, the minor irritations, the uncomfortableness of our life. And then for the practitioner, it's where are we bringing our mind right here, right now? Where are we? What are we turning away from? What is drawing our attention? What don't we want to face that we can't be there just with the bowls? So there's various ways to look at that. And then there's other concerns of, you know, creating an atmosphere of calm in the Zen Do

[40:06]

and joining with others, not having our own private practice. All these things all come together there. There's another practice that I wanted to mention about our chanting practice. And I'm not sure if this has been mentioned during the practice period, but there's a tradition, I could say, of at the end of the sutra, to chant the mantra, to have the voice, everyone's voice, trail out. So, So-Mo-Ko. Or whatever the end of the sutra might be. Often it's So-Mo-Ko or Bo-Di-Swa-Ha. And then the Kokyo, the chant leader,

[41:07]

their voice comes right in on top of that. So the assembly trails out and the Kokyo slides right in on top. So there's a kind of continuous sound through the service. And it sounds to me a little bit like we're just So-Mo-Ko, kind of ending it. I remember there's a story about Kadagiri Roshi. He was asked, I think when he was abbot, or maybe he was abbot of Minnesota, is there anything, Kadagiri Roshi, that we're not practicing with and you would like us to practice with harder? I think people thought he was going to talk about Sazen or something, but he just said, at the end of the sutras, please trail your voice out. I picture it like the incense smoke, where it's very light, it's not So-Mo-Ko, but just very light, but everyone doing it. So let's try that

[42:09]

and see what the service is with that. Last night, when the rain and the frogs were in chorus, I thought that it would be a wonderful night to come back to the Zen Do and sit in the dark, but I thought I would mention it today in lecture. There is practice that's offered sometimes, and I say this with a very light feeling, which is, if you haven't been drowsy in the day

[43:14]

and are sitting with awakeness and stability and would like to sit after the goodnight bell, if you would like, you could come back to the Zen Do, if you have Okesa or Raksu, it's not worn at this time, and just sit in the dark before bed. Now, when I say this with a light touch, what I mean is, I don't want there to be created a kind of competition thing, who's sitting, oh, I'm sitting more, they're not sitting, I'm a better student, which is why I hesitate to offer it at all, because that can get kicked up, that kind of comparative mind. So we used to have a practice years ago where you were not allowed to leave the Zen Do until the older students left, the last period of Zazen.

[44:16]

So the abbot would leave first, and then the shuso could leave next. It was by seniority, and the older students would dribble away, except for those ones that really wanted to sit for a long time, and they would stay put, and you couldn't leave until they left, and you would begin to be surprised at how strongly you felt about it. Remained in the Zen Do, sitting in Gotsu Gotsu Chi, sitting fixedly. So we let go of that practice. That was too advanced, I think, for us. But over the years we've had opportunities at times to, if you wanted to sit in the dark in the Zen Do, or you can sit a little bit in your bed, before bed sometimes, in your pajamas you're all washed up, or in your nightie, and you just sit in your bed for a little while,

[45:17]

and then, plunk, go to sleep. So it's a nice practice to do too. So I'd like to offer that, and when you come into the Zen Do, if you want to sit, come back. You can get your hot drink and get washed up. It's nice to get all washed up, ready for bed, and then come back. But don't come in your pajamas to the Zen Do. To actually pay very careful attention to eyes cast down, which is our usual practice in the Zen Do is eyes cast down, but in particular, eyes cast down, so you're not looking around to see what shadowy figure might be somewhere, and, oh good, they're here too, and oh darn it, I'm the only one, and all those slackers, you know, that kind of mind. So just eyes cast down, if you want to, and sit for a while. But this is only if you feel like this would be not hinder, hinder meaning make you sleepy

[46:24]

or hard to follow the schedule the next day, staying up a little later, okay? In the Zen Do, by the way, there's no candle, it's no altar lights, it's low lights, or just the lights by the stairs, maybe really low lights. So it's a little different than a regular period of Zazen, it's just you. So yesterday I ended the talk with this quote from Baizhang. Baizhang is connected with the sixth ancestor in the teaching,

[47:25]

and Baizhang says, if you realize there is no connection between your senses and the external world, you will be liberated on the spot. If you realize there is no connection between your senses and the external world, you will be liberated on the spot. And to me that speaks to there are no things before the eyes, that meaning is before the eyes. That which is before the eyes, is beyond the reach of eyes and ears. The phenomena is not reached by eyes and ears. There's no connection between our senses and the phenomena. It's the consciousness that we are relating to,

[48:28]

rather than the phenomena itself. So the external world, how we experience the external world, is mind. Vast mind. But don't worry about it. Because when I say worry, I mean don't elaborate on what I just said. Just stay with your posture, your breath, and the thoughts that are arising, and just stay with it, one after the other, by whatever it is that's arising. Like right now,

[49:35]

whatever is arising for you, don't run away from it. That pain let it just be. Let it fill. Thank you very much. May I...

[50:30]

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