Good morning. Good morning. Well, we have some wonderful news. I'm not sure everyone's heard about it, but the baby chicks, the baby birds hatched. Did you know that? No. Greg, our resident birding person, where are you, Greg? Saw that she was looking in the nest and the mother bird wasn't there, and then she looked and noticed that they were broken open, right? And in fact, part of the shell was still sort of attached to the bottom of one of the little birdies. And the mother's been staying very close and sort of on top. You can't see them. She's really protecting them with her body, and they must be underneath her. And Greg also mentioned to me that it's very important

[01:04]

that they be given, that we not go around and point, because it's a very vulnerable time right now for the baby birds. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, Greg, but when ornithologists are studying birds in these nests, they fake out other birds by pointing at different places where there aren't nests and then studying the nest, because the birds will actually go after the humans have been there and get the birds. They'll notice where the human activity has been. So we should be kind of surreptitious about looking in. Anything else we should know, Greg or Gary? Well, I just noticed this morning, they're also doing oreo cookie breakfast. Daddy came and gave food to mom. Mom gave food to the babies.

[02:06]

They don't use oreo cookies at all. They use oreo cookies. Oreo cookies. I saw one of the birds flying around on the veranda, trying to see what we were doing inside, trying to get up to the windows and find a perch. Very interesting. The server's meal? Looking into the server's meal? This was after, this was on break. Uh-huh. Buddhist law among the birds. So someone mentioned that they thought that I was like a mother bird and I thought I might be the brown-breasted Dharma warbler. Western species. Okay. Now, if you really want to hear my imitation of a crow, I can do that.

[03:07]

Later, I'll do it later. Okay. So the mother bird is feeding them and the father bird is feeding them, and this Pete Seeger, the basketball in the backstop, you might feel that I'm feeding you, and you're like little baby birds going, ah, sort of like Olive trying to get those pears, just the mouth. Or not. The backstop, it bounces according to whatever the causes and conditions are. But a couple of people mentioned they felt the talks were sweet, very sweet, and I realized this is how my mind's working. Mother's milk is sweet. Human breast milk is sweet.

[04:14]

The baby's first flavor that they receive if they're fed by breastfeeding, as humans have been for lo these many years mostly, it's sweet flavored. So I think that's important. But they say about the Dharma that it's sweet in the beginning, sweet in the middle, and sweet at the end. It does have a sweet side to it, and there's also the bittersweet. So I think it's important. You know, I was talking about projections and idealizing and having someone be the shining one. I remember somebody once, when I first started practicing, now literally I had been there a week, and they had just gotten there. So I was a week senior to them, and they sat next to me at a meal and said something like, Oh, your practice, da-da-da-da-da, and how long have you been practicing?

[05:18]

And I said, I just got here last week. But it was a kind of idealized thing. I think we want to see shining practice bodhisattvas, and we see them. If we want to see them, we can see them. But when we separate ourselves from someone through idealization, then we may be reticent to meet. But I also realized that the way the human process of projection, transference and projection, these kinds of things operate, it's beyond our poor power to add or detract. We can't control it, actually. We can study it. But to put someone in a central position in your life, I feel this is a very useful thing at times,

[06:25]

a very useful phase maybe to go through, to have someone be very central. And then at a time that's appropriate, you let go. When it's time to let go, if you hold on, I guess it's like that image of the raft. You use the raft to cross the river, but then if you drag the raft up the shore and kind of portage all over the world, your shoulders get really sore. But I think it is important to include shadow. We were talking about shadow earlier on. Not looking for shadow exactly, but just knowing that there is shadow there too. Not digging for it, just not kidding ourselves that there's no shadow. So a shadow story about me came up,

[07:27]

because being sweet or good or the mother bird, I think it's useful to know about shadow. So the story that came up for me this morning to tell is about a person who, for I think about two years, had been coming to Sashin and really wrestling with whether or not to receive the precepts based on some understanding that if this person took the precepts, that meant they couldn't go out and have fun with their friends and they enjoy a good bottle of wine at dinner sometimes and that would mean they couldn't do that. They just saw it as rigidly cutting themselves off from their life force, and they were not about to do that. And they wrestled, and we talked regularly for about two years. And at this certain point there was a turn and this person came and said they really had settled and they now wanted to receive the precepts. And I was very happy for them and for the world,

[08:34]

and they said, and I'm going to talk with Rev tomorrow about receiving them to ask Rev. And I talk about the shadow, it was like, what do you mean, Rev? For those of you who don't know, Rev is one of the main senior Dharma teachers here, and my teacher. We've been working for the last two years, down in the mines here, turning this and studying it together and examining it, and that's all I get. It's very funny. And I was happy for them that they had settled, and they... Rev is the person they want to relate to in this way, and, you know, I realized pretty soon,

[09:36]

or did I? Yeah, that whatever they wanted, it was okay, it doesn't matter, the precepts are free-flowing, nobody has a corner on the precepts. But this thing of, ooh, that student is kind of a plum. I remember someone saying about someone at Tassara, they are a real plum, you know, and they're interested in being ordained. Who was going to ordain them? This is the shadow side. I just wanted to bring it up so you could taste it a little bit. So this goes on, but... the examining it and the studying it and the confessing it is, you know, freely moving in our life, integrating dark and light. So I just don't want you to fool yourself about... But that's how it was for me, too, when I first came. Ooh, the older students, and anybody who wore a raksha had to be enlightened,

[10:37]

I thought that's what it meant. You got this thing you got to wear, you know. Raksha was the little robe, you know. I want to be like that. I want one of them, whatever it is, you know. So this is the perfection and imperfections. You know, we find wholesome, being wholesome or whole is integration of light and dark. It's not just all the light that would be kind of lopsided. What are those countries that have like 24 hours of light? Who was telling me? Michael was telling me, yes. 24 hours a day during parts of the year is all light and then the opposite, yeah. Northern Sweden, yeah. So anyway, I wanted to bring... I've been talking about... Yesterday I talked about my stuffed animal, George,

[11:40]

and some of you have been to Doksan, have met him, but I thought I would bring him out because I found him in the memento, my memento box. And I noticed he has this tag still from going to camp. My mother sewed it on. It says, Linda Ruth cuts. And I forgot about... He has this sort of bell in his tail which used to be really special. Now, I've been thinking a lot about George because... I remember we drove, when I was 7, we drove to California from Minnesota and one of the things we would do... There were no seatbelts at the time.

[12:41]

There were no seatbelts. My sisters, the three of us, sat in the back, my mother and my uncle. My uncle drove us. And then we'd roll down the windows and then we'd put our stuffed animals out the window and then they'd fly through. And I just remember them flying through the wind, you know. He liked that. He doesn't smell regular now. He smells very musty, so don't smell him if you meet him. But he's perfect, isn't he? Perfect. Just the way he is. No neck. So, some of you may remember, I know some of you have been telling me about your own stuffed animals and memories have been jogged about things that have been very important. I'll put him right here. Our earliest impressions.

[13:51]

Oh, let's see. What else do we want to talk about? Oh, also, I was thinking of doing my imitation of the Wicked Witch of the West just to show you, you know, that I wasn't all sweetness and light. I will. No, I'll take it off. I'll take it off because I don't want to split your ears. So, let's see here. Oh, yeah. You know, in the Fukan Sazengi, it says, do not pass your days and nights in vain. And it occurred to me yesterday as I was trying to talk about Oriyok. By the way, I thought, this may just be total projection on my part, but I thought lunch and breakfast were very quiet meals. Did anyone else feel that way? Oriyoki practice. And it's the fourth day and the fifth day, I think, settling into the body practices more.

[15:05]

I think that's part of that. But I appreciate everyone, all of us practicing hard with our Oriyoki bowls. In the Fukan Sazengi, you know, do not pass your days and nights in vain. And you find this phrase in a lot of different places. Do not pass your days and nights in vain. And I realized part of these admonitions about doing that which is before you and so forth is so that you can live your life thoroughly, so that it doesn't pass you by. It's not that the days and nights vainly pass by. It's that we are vainly doing other things and our life, like the person who said they don't think they taste their food in Oriyoki. Do we? And it's not grasped, the food taste.

[16:10]

It's available but ungraspable. But are we there for our life, for all the different parts of our life? So this attention to detail, attention to each thing we do and our body and breath, because it goes by very fast, you know. The other day someone was talking about they look in the mirror and they see all this skin, this person is over 50, all this skin of her neck is all wrinkly, you know. It's all wrinkly. When did that happen? That's not me, all wrinkly there, on my neck, like a goose or something, you know. And my hands, I look at my hands and they're all wrinkles. They're not smooth, you know, compared like my daughter who's 19, you know, her hands. But it's just like this, you know. So do not pass your days and nights in vain in our Zen practice,

[17:17]

being exposed to these practices that say, you know, what was it in the 60s? Be here now, you know. To thoroughly live, thoroughly live every day and yet not grasping. Another part of the Fukanza Zengyi that we never talked about in the class and that I wanted to look at is that line between the sharp and the dull-witted. There is no distinction. So these practices that we've been talking about, turning the light back and think of the mind that thinks, reverse the thought to think of the thinking mind, these practices do not depend on being really bright, you know, like really on the ball

[18:18]

and really, you know, you did well in school or you're smart. It is not dependent on that kind of intelligence, really. It's a very simple instruction. It's basically think of the mind that's thinking and what is the mind thinking of? Bird, lunch, breath, bird breath, breath mind, bird thought, bird brain. So I think we almost make it more complicated. We add and elaborate and what could it mean? I'm going to try this and how about that? Maybe she means this. It's simple. It's simple. I think actually it's simple and we've been hearing it from the day we walked in

[19:22]

in some form or another. Now as I practice with this more, whatever I pick up, it seems to be pointing to the same thing. So often we have some idea about ourselves, either I'm the brightest, you know, based on, you know, where we were in our family ecology, you know. My middle sister, for whatever reason, she was a great, she was a tomboy, she loved sports and all sorts of activities like that and she didn't like to read. My older sister and I loved to read. So she was the designated one who wasn't smart for some reason. She was the one who thought, and in fact, I asked my mother about this recently and she said, it's terrible, but I thought

[20:22]

because she didn't like to read, she wasn't as smart as you and your sister. So my sister carried that and when she finally got her Ph.D., she said, you know, I got my Ph.D. to prove to Daddy I wasn't dumb. This is an enormous, enormous life, you know, energy and flow that goes. I'm the dull-witted one or I'm the bright one, so how come I don't get this or I must get it because I'm the bright one. Haven't I always been top of my class or whatever? This is a kind of small and narrow way that we think about ourselves and we carry this. Fu and I have a good story. She comes from a family of very tall people. She was the shortest out of tall brothers and sisters. She always thought of herself as being short. I, on the other hand, besides my dad, I was the tallest. My mother was 4'11", my sister 5'1",

[21:25]

and I was almost 5'3", and I thought I was tall and thin until I got into the world. So we carry the, and I still think of myself as tall. So what is tall and what is short? So to let go of dull or sharp-witted, it doesn't have to obstruct you. Between the dull and the sharp-witted, there's no distinction. Just practice fully, wholeheartedly, that's all. A dull person like Hui Nung pounding the rice unlettered, uneducated, when he went to the monastery after hearing the Diamond Sutra in the marketplace. He went to find out more about it, and they put him in the, he actually had a little encounter there with the fifth ancestor who thought,

[22:26]

this guy is pretty awake, I better hide him away a little bit. He put him down in the rice-hulling department where they took the hulls, I guess brown rice, they took the hulls off and made it white rice, is that what happened? So just working that way between the dull and the sharp-witted, there's no distinction. If you practice single-mindedly, that in itself is negotiating the way. Is that the old translation I just said? It probably is. So if you just practice single-mindedly with sincere heart, with our broken hearts, we accomplish the way, we realize the way. It doesn't depend on the things that we thought it was going to depend on and that we worked really hard to put in place.

[23:28]

It's not that those things are bad or don't function well for the benefit of all beings, too. To be in the world and have certain skills, that's fine. But in accomplishing the way we have to let go of all those ways that we're expert. So another way of... another wording, phrasing that I came upon for think, not thinking by the Zen teacher Harada Roshi is leave thinking as it is. Think thinking as it is or leave it as it is. To just thinking as it is. So it's not a matter of making your thinking

[24:30]

one way or another or making your breath long or deep. It's not deep enough. I better make it more deep. It's just... This is the instruction you get in Zazen instruction the first day. Just count the breath if you're counting just the way it is. If it's long, count it long. If it's short, short. If it's shallow, if it's rough, just as it is. I'm going to sneeze. So leave thinking as it is. Thinking is... If we think we're supposed to stop thinking or somehow make our thoughts be a certain way, this is creating traps and snares, I think, and also doing damage actually to our free-flowing human full functioning. So please notice

[25:33]

if you're trying to stop thoughts, get rid of certain ones and only get certain other ones. Leave thinking as it is. We usually don't do that. So that's why they say, I think, it's not thinking or non-thinking because it's not our usual way. Our usual way is leaking ashrava, flowing out towards objects and elaborating and involving and trying to control. So this turning the light back is, as I mentioned, when the 10,000 things come fast and furiously, don't try to control them. Leave thinking as it is. Leave it. Leave it. And that in itself pacifies the mind or is calming of the mind. Now, one of the things that come fast and furiously are, you know,

[26:33]

our karmic, our ancient twisted karma. You know, the thoughts of what we omitted to do when we could have done, what we did do that was harmful and the experiences we had that were painful and the murkiness of all that and the pain. Sometimes this comes very fast, you know. So leave thinking as it is. I wanted to read a story about, so we have Bodhidharma's disciple was Bodhidharma Daya Yosho, Thaiso Eka or Hoika, Thaiso Eka Daya Yosho and you probably, he's famous for, you know, standing in the snow, wanting the teaching

[27:34]

and cutting off his arm finally and finally Bodhidharma felt he was sincerely wanting to hear the teaching and taught him. And Hoika's disciple, Thaiso Eka Daya Yosho, Kanchiso-san, was, he had leprosy. He was a person who had leprosy and he was old when he came to practice. He was over 40. Someone was speaking to me about how, you know, how difficult it is they feel for an older person to come to practice. Just their bodies are, you know, maybe have more difficulties, are less flexible or so forth and that the young people have more easy time. But I'm not sure that's true. You know, I think it depends on, it's sort of like with the dull and the sharp-witted. With the young or the old, there's no distinction. Just practice the way single-mindedly.

[28:35]

It doesn't matter. So Kanchiso-san came. He was over 40. He had leprosy, which I've never seen anyone with leprosy. Those of you who've traveled in India probably have or other places. But I've seen pictures. So this is, you know, a terrible physical affliction and on top of that, where he lived, in the time he lived, it was considered to be bad karma, to be the fruit of bad karma. So not only are you physically riddled with a terrible disease you're dealing with, but people who look at you in that time, and I think we still carry a lot of this too, are saying, well, that he deserved it, right? That's why he has leprosy because of all these terrible things he did in his past. So that sets up a, you know,

[29:40]

that sets things up that not only do people not want to be with you because they're afraid of the disease, but you're a bad person and that proves it because look at you. So here he was and he came to Hoika, and he said to him, my body is infected with leprosy. I beg you, O priest, to cleanse me of my wrongdoing. So he believed it too. I must have done something terrible. This is the proof. And I take it from me, cleanse me, make me pure again in body and mind, O priest. And Hoika, Taiso Hoika said, bring me your wrongdoing and I will cleanse you. Kanchi Sosan said,

[30:48]

he paused a while and then said, when I look for my wrongdoing, I cannot find it. Hoika replied, I have already cleansed you of your wrongdoing. You may rely on Buddha, Dharma and community of believers. So I think we feel the weight of our ancient twisted karma heavily, heavily and if we try to look for it, just like the orioke balls that I was talking about, if you look at, you know, an act that you did, let's say, or something you omitted doing, and if you look and examine as carefully as you can, you see that the causes and conditions that were present,

[31:50]

that arose, that if you look at that act or that omission, you see that there was all sorts of things that were not the act itself that were there, meaning it is made up of non, the elements that made it up, there's nothing there that you can grasp. It was made up of, you know, your past, present and future, your ignorance, how you were treated, fears, and it's like you can't get at, and this is, you know, when people work with prisoners, you know, what was that movie that I didn't see with the nun who came? Dead Man Walking.

[32:51]

Yes, have some of you seen that movie? Well, what he was in prison for, what he did was terrible, was horrifying, and yet the more you study the life of this person, you see the pain and the suffering of his life, and I didn't see the movie, but the more you look at your own suffering or what karmic events, you see what contributed to that, what were the causes and conditions, and the causes and conditions of that and that and that and that, and out and out and out until you can't grasp it, you can't. So Huika said, bring it to me and I'll cleanse you. I beg you to cleanse me of my wrongdoing. Bring me your wrongdoing and I will cleanse you. But when he looked for it, he couldn't find it. What was it?

[33:55]

Could you have done anything else? But there's pain there and there's repentance and confession. That's why we chant every morning, all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born of body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. I acknowledge this fully and I let go of it. And this doesn't need to obstruct me from practicing. And we just chanted the Ehe Koso Hotsu Ganmon, which talks about that too. They're asking, free me from karmic afflictions so that I can practice the way without difficulty. And just chanting that chant, I feel, is the true flavor, the true color of practice. Having that arising

[34:57]

of wanting to acknowledge, live thoroughly, and having the heart to look at our life. That's the bitter, you know, the bittersweet. There's the bitter, that it's like medicine, you know. Bitter medicine. I was telling someone it's like Chinese herbal medicine. You know, you get this concoction and you drink it, and it's bitter. But it must be swallowed. And we have to bear it. You know, I talked about bearing it. So... So between the sharp or the dull-witted or the light and the dark, there's no distinction. We can practice the way fully.

[35:57]

And Kanchi Sosan went on to write that the shin-shin-ming, you know, the sutra on trusting mind, the supreme way is not difficult, it is just avoiding, picking and choosing. That's what he wrote, which we looked at a little bit in the class earlier. So... the cleansing of our karmic past, you know, there's a way that we, when we study now, we buy... Let's see. What brought us to practice is often these things that are karma, ancient twisted karma. I always think of Zen Center

[36:59]

as like the French Foreign Legion. You know, the French Foreign Legion. People come there and you don't know what's gone on for them. You don't know what suffering they've experienced. But you can trust that they have seen, they have experienced, they have received suffering. That's all. There's no... It cannot be any other way because people won't stick with practice unless there's some suffering there that must be attended to. It must be. So, leave thinking as it is.

[38:02]

Even this painful, painful thinking. You know, if our effort is to, you know, try to push it away, suppress, repress, block it, you know, be the shining Bodhisattva. You know, I told that story about someone calling me Little Miss Bodhisattva. As they were breaking the precepts by talking about somebody, I... We were in a boat, I think it's a canoe, and they were behind me. They were the passenger in the middle. I was the bow. There was somebody in the stern. And they were busy going on and on and on about somebody. And I was very, you know, assiduously paddling and not participating in this gossip and slander. And she said,

[39:04]

Well, what are you so silent about, Little Miss Bodhisattva? So, you know, nailed right there. It's like, No, I don't do gossip and slander. I... whatever. But not seeing that I was already slandering her, right? Big time, holier than thou, praising self at the expense of others, and all the rest of it, you know. So... How did I get into that? I was going somewhere. Back up the tape so I can hear. I really lost where I was going with that because it was so strong, the image of paddling and how she got me. Anyway, it's just admitting where we are, just admitting who we are and remaining upright.

[40:06]

That's upright. So we get a chance to do confession and repentance every morning, and you can do it, you know, more than that if you want to. The... You know, since we've been talking about birds, I came upon this that I... I had read it before in another lecture earlier in the practice period, but it's the mind and environment using birds instead of buildings, towers, trees, you know. So the mind and environment koan is Yangshan asked a monk, Where are you from? From you, province. Do you think of that place? I always think of it. The thinker is the mind and the thought of is the environment. Reverse the thought, you know. Therein lie mountains, rivers, and... So here's this one.

[41:07]

But there are many ways of access to the principle. I will point out one entryway by which you can return to the source. Do you hear the cawing of the crows and the chattering of the jays? Isn't that great? The student said, I hear them. Now turn around and listen to your own hearing essence. Are there still so many sounds in it? The student says, When I get here, all sounds and all discriminations are ungraspable. And the teacher says, Marvelous, marvelous. This is the sound seer's gateway into the principle. The sound seer is Avalokiteshvara, the one who hears the sounds of the world or sees the sounds of the world. Now, you know,

[42:12]

when we hear sounds, if we reverse the thought to think of the thinking mind that's thinking sound, it's called the sound seer, the sound seer. You say that when you get here, all sounds and all discriminations are totally ungraspable. Since they cannot be grasped, does that mean that there is empty space at such a time? The student says, Originally not empty. It is clearly not obscure. I'm not exactly sure about that for me. What is the substance that is not empty? And the student says, It has no form. There is no way to express it in words. So do you hear the cawing of the crows and the chattering of the jays? I hear them.

[43:13]

Now turn around and listen to your hearing essence. Reverse the thought to think of the thinking mind. Now I'm going to make my sound of the crow if I can. But this isn't a real crow. This is just a sound I used to think was a crow. Ah! Ah! Is that what a crow sounds like? Probably not. A startled crow. The kitchen has left, which is my cue that it's getting close to 11. I just wanted to say something about resting. I looked up the word rest,

[44:20]

which those of you who know me, I love to say rest. I love to do this. And I just wanted to read the definition of rest. The act or state of ceasing from work, activity, or motion. Quiet. Peace, ease, or refreshment resulting from sleep or the cessation from an activity. Sleep. Death. Relief or freedom from disquiet or disturbance. Mental or emotional tranquility. Termination or absence of motion. And then in music, an interval of silence. I can't read my writing.

[45:23]

Having to do with the time value within a measure. And then the word restive. You know the phrase never give a lady a restive horse. Is that familiar to anybody? I don't know where it comes from, but it's a phrase, I know. Never give a lady a restive horse. So as we ride the bucking broncos of our karmic life and our sensations, you know, riding it, bucking as it's bucking along, it reminded me of a restive horse. And this phrase, never give a lady a restive horse, came up. And I think it's an old phrase from the 1800s or something. But restive means impatient or nervous under restriction.

[46:27]

So that horse, you know, out in the mountains, down at the beach, running around, it's not restive, not impatient, but when you have some restrictions or limitations, like scheduling bells and silence, then there's nervousness or impatience that arises with those conditions. So nervousness or impatience under restriction or pressure. And it means uneasy or restless, difficult to control, refractory, which I don't know what it means exactly, refractory, unruly, refusing to move. A horse or another animal refused to move is also restive. So, you know, it could be nervous and fidgeting and restless and uneasy,

[47:29]

or it could just be stuck, you know, that's the other side of it really, just refusing to move freely according to causes and conditions. So I know a number of people are working with resting in the moment, finding their tranquility with whatever the causes and conditions are, finding their rest there, not looking for the breaks, you know. I love Sashin, I really feel great in the breaks, but during the rest of the time it's really hard. Or somebody else might feel, I feel great during Zazen, but at the breaks I begin to feel uneasy, you know. So finding our rest in whatever the causes and conditions and give a lady and a gentleman a rest of horse. I think that challenges us, right? How did you like the lecture, George?

[48:37]

Thank you very much.

[48:46]

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