So last night in this room we had some questions. I remember the last one. It's easy to remember the last one. Which had to do with the most important teaching. And I said non-duality. What that means for you in practical terms is to not sacrifice your immeasurable life. Not sacrifice your immeasurable life. not to be caught thinking that you know your life.

[01:13]

As soon as you think that you know your life, that's dualistic. So I want you to consider and imagine that you are much bigger than you think. Your life is much bigger. More vast. It has more depth than you think. There was another question about shadow. Light. Shadow. Shadow of beginner's mind. You know, shadow is not a bad thing to find. Without shadow, you couldn't see anything. So we need light and we need shadow. In fact, you might consider that we live in shadow.

[02:20]

You can't see behind your own eyes. So how to live and appreciate the... The expanded life is to meet what's in front of you as yourself. To meet who is in front of you as yourself. So that should be a kind of friendly, ordinary friendly feeling. Earthman asked about how, now that she's a priest, how to be a layperson. How to be ordinary. It might be easiest if we just say, well, everyone who walks in the door automatically is ordained.

[03:27]

So I have some feeling like that. Anyone who walks in the door is immediately a member. And then as you do things together, then a feeling of, say, a collaboration, of joining the Chusot. And the Chusot and I have had a few opportunities this practice period to eat our Oriyaki meals together. and we're beginning to get in sync. A sense of joining with each other, opening our bowls, joining each other, cleaning our bowls, joining each other, folding up our wiping cloth.

[04:33]

So you may consider that as you're doing your oryoki practice to harmonize with the person next to you. So we always have that opportunity to be harmonizing with the person next to us. And that means joining them in the full expression of themselves. Which may be something strong, it may be something weak, it may be something clear, it may be something questioning. There may be some hesitation. Whatever that is, that's also your life. So this is non-dual life, is to not set yourself up as something separate.

[05:42]

It also means that within yourself, you don't have some particular belief about yourself. that is more important than what you meet. If you have some particular belief about yourself, then that may narrow your existence and make it deluded, untrue. That's the usual way. The usual way is for people to live was some idea of exaggerated individuality. If you exaggerate your individuality then you exaggerate your delusion. You increase your delusion. And you fail to realize how much you are supported. How much you're supported by others and how much you're supported by the earth

[06:49]

the sky, by the air, by the water that is all around and within us. It's like if you, you know, on the surface of the ocean there are waves, right? And as a wave, you might think if you're a wave tip that comes up and you're right at the at the tip of the wave and you feel like, oh, I am so important. You might see another wave and greet it. Oh, yes. Oh, I see another wave. You're maybe not so important, but I see you. And I'm realizing that part of a whole body of water.

[07:54]

So a beginner's mind comes very naturally to children. And just playing. It's very natural. And trying to see how the world works. And being amazed. And being ready to be anything. Being ready to even change size. There was I read somewhere this little girl who, this was her, I don't know how old she was, maybe about seven years old, and it was her first time flying up in an airplane. And after the plane took off and they were up in the air, she turned to her mother and she said, when do we get small?

[09:14]

She'd seen planes take off and get smaller and smaller and smaller. And she was ready, ready to get small. So you don't really know what size you are. You think, you may think, have a particular size. And of course that's so, but it's in relation. It's in relation. But it's important, whatever size you are, to be that. Express yourself completely. And the sitting practice that we do, just sitting, just sitting, you express yourself completely.

[10:22]

When you are willing to be there completely, then other people can feel it. Oh, yes. There's a sense of some presence. And that's how we know each other in the zendo or the serving crew or the kitchen. We don't explain ourselves to each other, particularly during sashin. We don't... tell each other who we think we are, but we are paying attention to the feeling of each person. So even without looking up, you know, we have our practice of going around with our eyes downcast, not meeting eyes during session. So even without looking at each other, you have a feeling for each other. And you are expressing yourself completely, whether you are aware of it or not.

[11:32]

So you might as well be willing to express yourself, to be completely the person carrying the tray or the person walking, standing, walking, standing. And it helps to be willing to fully inhabit each moment, which also means to be willing to completely let go of the previous moment. And you can practice this with the breath. As I've been saying, be willing to exhale completely. In this practice of just sitting, just sitting, it includes a great awareness of the breath.

[12:47]

The body, posture, the breath. And we put emphasis on the out-breath. Being willing to disappear into emptiness at the end of the out-breath. actually, all the way throughout, in-breath, out-breath. There are many, many moments. So refining your attention means to experience, be there, be ready, and stay right with the experience of each moment. So there's a sense in which you kind of ride the current of the breath with your awareness, placing your mind, your whole attention in the current of the breath.

[13:57]

So it's different than, say, thinking about the breath. It's being willing to completely place yourself in the current of the breath. And when the breath ends, then you vanish with the breath. I'm trying an experiment today of having to stand off to the side. I brought a book I wanted to read a story. And then within the story, I have the experiment of changing the gender. Gender is very interesting, you know.

[15:11]

as we're acculturated, take on a particular identity or a particular role, and some of it has to do with gender. In a way, that in itself is something that contributes to a dualistic view. So one of the experiments that we have maybe in our culture today, in America anyway, is experimenting with at least having maybe a lighter permeable view of gender and the roles associated with gender. So this story that I'm about to read comes from one of my teachers.

[16:16]

He was not called a Zen teacher. He was called Yurok Shaman. And lived a good bit of his life up on the Mcklamath River, the lower Klamath River, Northern California. And his name was Harry Roberts. Harry was a big help to me when I was a student at Green Gulch Farm. He came in as a consultant, a teacher. He knew a lot about everything. And he knew a lot about the earth, a lot about plants. He was a botanist. But what most interested me was his training in the medicine tradition of the Urocs.

[17:23]

The Urocs have been having a hard time lately. What I just read in the latest National Geographic, there's some talk about removing some of the dams upstream on the Klamath River, which have made it difficult for the salmon to spawn. And... So this could be a very interesting development, promising development for the remaining fragments of the Yurok people living on the Klamath River. And also the Hoopa and the Karak living a little farther up. It was helpful for me to know that when I talked with Harry that I was tapping into a tradition of teaching that went back many thousands of years.

[18:28]

It's not so clear, but it looks like the Yurok people were living there in that same spot for about 12,000 years. Some say longer. No one really knows. but had a sustainable life and culture for that long time. So there are some teaching stories that are handed down, but this is a story of Harry's own experience. But I decided as an experiment to turn Harriet into Harriet. And instead of a small boy, to have a small girl. And instead of his uncle, to have an aunt. And then I thought I would call the aunt Tanta. Because when I was a small child, I had an aunt who we called Tanta Kaleen.

[19:31]

So please forgive me for playing with the gender. And it's a little hard to read. But as I was going through this before, I thought, it's interesting how often the gender-specific words pop up in the story. My Tanta Colleen. my aunt, my tonta, was sitting in the morning sun in front of her house, fixing the feathers on the long headdress wands for the brush dance. She had made a pot of sturgeon glue and was very carefully smoothing the feathers down and gluing new feathers in where the old ones were damaged or torn loose. She was working very carefully and slowly, for this was very fine.

[20:42]

Difficult work to do. I looked over one of the wands that she was repairing and I could barely see where the feathers were damaged. I told her that I didn't think she had to repair that one. She didn't have to repair that one. As I could barely find the damage. My Tanta just looked at me for a while. And then she asked me what it was that the wand I held in my hand was. And I said that it was a brush dance, headdress, wand. My Tanta waited a while and then asked me what it was for. And I told her that it was for wearing in your headdress when you danced, the brush dance. And that since one dance that night, no one could see that it was very slightly damaged. She looked at me some more and finally she said,

[21:46]

I know. We sat in the sun and I helped her fix the headdress. After a while, she said it was about time that I should begin to study to be a grown woman, a true person. She would start asking me the questions that a person must be able to answer so that I could understand the law. I asked my Tanta what was so hard to understand about the law. It seemed very simple to me because there was but one law, and that was merely, be true to thyself. My Tanta asked me, if you understand the law, why do you not understand why I'm fixing my headdress wants? This I could not answer.

[22:48]

So she said to me, let us start over again. What is it that you are holding in your hand? I answered, a headdress won't. My tante made no answer. She quietly kept on repairing her headdress. After she had finished, she put the headdress away and went to work chopping wood for her fire. When she had finished her wood, she got up and mended her dip net and started down to the beach to see if she could catch a fish for breakfast. She still spoke not a word to me. I asked her if I could go fishing with her. She merely looked at me and said nothing. I could not understand why she wouldn't speak to me. Finally, I asked her, what was the matter? Had I offended her? She smiled and said no.

[23:52]

That it was she who had not wished to offend me by interrupting my thoughts before I had finished answering the question. I said, but I answered the question. I told you what it was. She just looked at me some more. and said nothing. So I thought and thought and thought. And finally I told her, it is a headdress wand for the last night of the brush dance. She looked at me and slightly smiled and said, hmm. By which I knew that she meant, yes, that's a little better. It will do as a start. Now let's get after the answer. So I said, it's to show how rich you are, because it's the best and most expensive of all the headrest wands on the river.

[24:56]

Whereupon, my Tanta looked upon me with disgust and said, I thought that you wished to be a true person. Why don't you start to think like one? After having so expressed herself, she left. And not one more word was said to me that day. The next morning, my Tanta was again sitting in the sun in front of her house. This time, she was making some bone arrow points. She had been soaking the bone for several weeks in the creek, and it was nice and soft and just right for cutting into shape. I sat beside her to watch how she carved the bone and to see how she cut with the grain so as to cut more easily. Finally, she looked at me and said, well, this was very bad for me.

[26:06]

For my elder Tanta only spoke this way when she was very, very angry. I had seen big grown-up persons cast their eyes aside in blood when she so addressed them in council meeting. I had even seen important men leave the council and start out on long pilgrimages to high places when so addressed. And I was only a small girl. And so I just cried and ran. And cuddled up to my dog. And told my dog how hard it was for a little girl to have such a great tante. And my dog understood. And licked my face all over. And especially my ears. So presently my tante came to me and inquired if my ears were now clean enough to listen with.

[27:14]

And did I still wish to be a true person? I said, oh, yes, I did. My tonta said that since I was such a little girl, she would help me a little more. So I should tell her again what it was that the brush dance wand was. This time I told her that it was the wand which one wore in her headdress on the last night of the brush dance. for the final curing of a sickness in the person for whom the dance was being held. My Tanta smiled and said, that was a little better. But what was the brush dance really all about anyway? I said that it was to drive out the evil spirits, which were making the person sick. Tanta looked at me and shook her head. You sound like a silly old fellow, she said. I shall be kind to you this time and tell you all about it.

[28:22]

So she spoke. When a person is sick of a sickness which people cannot see, it is then for that person we hold a brush dance and the brush dance we sing fun songs and make jokes. Let that person know that there is fun in the world. While everyone dances around the sick person, the doctor talks to the person about what it is that troubles him. When that person sees that he is surrounded by friends who are singing happy songs to make him feel better, then he feels that it is people care for him. He feels safe and tells the doctor what it is that bothers him. And the doctor tells the patient what he can do about his troubles. On the last night of the dance, everyone brings out their very best costumes.

[29:27]

These costumes represent hundreds of hours of very careful work. They are made of the rarest and most difficult to obtain materials. They have been kept in absolutely perfect condition. Never does a costume ever show anywhere or that it has been used before. Everything is perfect. These costumes are the most beautiful things that an Indian can make. Thus, when one dances before the sick person, it means that the dancer has cared enough for the person to go all through all of that trouble in the hope that she can help the patient. Now, how could I respect myself if I only went halfway or three-quarters of the way to help someone?

[30:28]

If I'm not going to help all the way, it is better that I don't go to that dance at all. So when I make a brush dance, the patient knows that I am all the way for him, then he feels reassured and will quite likely get well. This is what the brush dance wand represents. This is the way to be true to yourself. Now let us see if you can think like a true person the next time we have a question. Then it was that I saw that the law was not quite as simple as it appeared today. Thus it was that I realized to be a grown adult meant to be proud. To be proud to yourself and everything. You could never be less than all of yourself without breaking the law. When I finally understood what a person who entered a brush dance was doing, I then wanted to know just what the dance meant.

[31:40]

why I was danced the way I was danced. I asked why the dancers did not all dance up and down in unison. This is what my Tanta said. The dancers do not all go up and down together because the world is like a canoe. If everyone leans to one side of the boat together and to the other side together, they rock the boat and pretty soon it turns over. I asked what the solo dancers were doing when they jumped in the middle and acted so strangely. She said, don't you remember the story of how when the world was reborn, creation appointed the giant woodpecker to go around the world and report how things were going. So in this, in this dance, women who have pure spirit jump in the middle and jerk their heads back and forth like a woodpecker and spread their arms and fly around and sing the woodpecker song and everyone wears woodpecker scalps and heads.

[32:46]

This is to remind the great woodpecker spirit that there is someone who is sick and he should go and report to creation that creation will lend her strength to the doctor so that the sick person or a child can get well. So that's my time to Harriet's story. Sorry about that. There we go. So this is a story about learning to live non-dualistically.

[34:04]

How to... Live non-dualistically means to have a great respect and consideration for each other. And to take great care, utmost care, with whatever we offer to each other. So that you can do it wholeheartedly. With the sense that each moment you're going all the way for someone. For whoever you meet.

[35:04]

For whatever it is that you take care of. It also recognizes that everyone is unique. Everyone is different. So naturally we have different ways of expressing ourselves. And we have different things. Each thing is different. We have a big bowl and we have a little bowl and a small bowl. Each has its place. Sometimes you may experiment by putting something out of order to see, okay, what happens then. So this is, beginner's mind is kind of living as an experiment.

[36:12]

Whatever you do, you pay attention to your own action. And then you watch to see what happens. If it's not so clear, then next time you do similar action and you see maybe more completely. Or in the case of working with someone else to clarify the mind, Clarify your understanding as in this story the small girl did with her aunt. It took some time. There were spaces in there. There was time allowed for settling. Time allowed for seeing that a half answer was just a half answer.

[37:16]

And a lot of listening. I like the part where the dog licks her ears, especially cleaning those ears. So I think we should respect the wisdom traditions of others. And the wisdom tradition that we are inheriting and embodying here. If you think about the time it takes to learn something, then you can't learn what's happening right now. If you get involved, that is involved in thinking, oh, this is taking too long.

[38:29]

So the moment of the opportunity to learn is right now. So I think a good practice phrase for Beginner's mind is this. Just now, just now, what? Just now, what is it? If you take good care of just now, without some too much concern about what is going to happen or how long it's going to take. Being willing to just settle into your out-breath disappearing.

[39:46]

And then continue to ask, just now, just now, what is it? This is refining your... Awareness. Refining your whole life on this moment. So whether you live or die is not something that you can't control. What you can do is take the best care of what's happening right now. another poignant, very poignant story of this is a small boy, I think about 10 his sister had cancer and there was a big discussion in the family about who could donate bone marrow so his sister could live and he so they were all tested and it turned out that he

[41:04]

had the closest match. So he agreed to give his bone marrow so his sister could live and went into the hospital and there was some procedure and they put needles and tubes and various things and as he was lying there at some point after a while he turned to the doctor and said when do I begin to die? So no one had realized that he thought giving his bone marrow meant that he would die for his sister to live. So this is beginner's mind.

[42:07]

your whole life is beyond knowing. And I think you feel it sometimes with each other when you notice someone is living from a narrower view of themselves. Then you feel, oh, maybe some sadness so then how to be willing to include and be all the way there with what you can't control giving up all of your desires, moment by moment, is the path of liberation.

[43:30]

The path of being a true person. So the practice of Sashin is supporting you to take this on it's pretty difficult even if you can just stay at your place even if your posture is not so good and just take care of that place And be there as much as you can. And when you notice, oh, I'm thinking about something else. I got carried away completely. I didn't even notice. Then bring yourself back. Just this place.

[44:34]

Let me say it took Chakyamuni Buddha many lifetimes before he could come and actually sit down. unbury of that tree. And join the tree. Join the roots. Live in the shadow. So don't worry how many lifetimes it takes. just get to know this one. And by the way, when you're taking care of your place, that front board is the meal board. And so we have a custom of not putting our feet on it.

[45:47]

So it's particularly easy with one last your seats down on the floor to step on the meal board. Let's see if you can step over the meal board. Or when you're up on the on the tan, turning around to turn around and swing your feet over the meal board. Now this is just one of the ways that we help each other, not interfere with each other. give each other the space to fully express. Non-duality. So this is a good time to continue sitting. Thank you for listening. May our intention equally

[46:55]

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