I thought we could talk some more about this paragraph. The study of the Buddha way is to study the self. The study of the self is to forget the self. Forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. Those traits of realization remain, and this no trait continues in the sense. So any comments or questions about that? Is it my imagination or is this group spreading out more and more? It's a little romantic. Paul, which translation were you just reading from?

[01:07]

I was just reading... Can you have a touch on a high piece? Really? Um... I thought of a Shohaku Komura. No, no, no. It's where it's done. Karma spirit. I'll read you Shohaku Komuras right now. Shohaku says, the practice of Buddha's way is to practice the self. To practice the self is to forget the self.

[02:08]

To forget the self is to be verified by all things. To be verified by all things is to let the body and mind of the self, the body and mind of others, drop off. There is a trace of realization that cannot be grasped. We endlessly keep expressing the ungraspable trace of realization. Big difference. There is? Yeah. He says there is a trace of realization that remains. The one we chant, he says, no trace of realization remains. When we get to that, we'll look how he kicks apart the term. I brought his commentary on it.

[03:11]

I think that part's particularly useful to look at. how he understands the different terms in that. But first of all, let's go back to the first part. And let me offer you this one. And I think about the 60s, there was Elizabeth Kubler wrote Five Stages of Dying. Have you heard of that? Some heads nodding. Dying. Just because you're sitting so far away. Wasn't it actually the passages agreed? Did she pass away recently? No, no, I didn't know that you knew it. No, seriously, that's one of the obituary. She was the first one. I think it's better to call them five stages of time.

[04:14]

The first stage is all known. There's a way in which our first strategy is to separate from our difficulties, our pain, our hurt, turn away from it, to distract ourselves, to deny it. Someone at Zen Center once did their master's thesis on, what's the first thing people say when they get bad news? And his conclusion was, oh, no. Something like 80% of people, that's their first response. You just simply say, no. Oh, no. So maybe the first challenge is to turn toward rather than turn away. To make contact rather than to separate.

[05:20]

And often, you know, the first challenge, the primary challenge, is the most significant. Either we can separate from what is, create a story about it, and then practice with our own story about it. And no matter how wonderfully we refine our story and how dedicated we are to it, it is simply just our story. And so, as I was saying last week, we think of the first paragraph as the principle of practice, and then the second paragraph about how to direct our effort, and then the third paragraph about the engagement of effort. And then this paragraph is about the study that emerges from that. So first we deny it, then we fix it.

[06:31]

And she gives this wonderful illustration, you know, when she talks about those. I'll pay them and I'll eat lots of broccoli and I'll get exercise and I'll drink lots of water and I'll do meditation and I'll pray and I'll honor Mother Earth and whatever else, be kind to people. And somehow, through that process, there will be a transcendent occurrence and I won't be part of impermanence. I'll be safe. So something about how we engage our practice. We turn towards it and then we engage it not as a way to

[07:38]

control the nature of what is. I'm going to live with this. She calls this the bargaining faith. Somehow, if I practice a certain way, everything will work out just right. And right in the start, Dogen says, yes, but in attachment, flowers fall. Then in a virgin weeds grow. That in the arising of our human condition, things happen the way they happen. And then the third stage is anger. Then you realize, you know what? I'm doing all this Zazen. And still, my life isn't perfect. Still, it's not working the way I want it. and we become annoyed by that.

[08:48]

And this is a wonderful part of your practice. You start to notice how other people annoy you, how you annoy yourself. How this great Zen practice that you thought was going to really straighten everything out isn't doing it here. You know, you sit sashim, you get calm and concentrated and open your heart. And then you go back to work. You still get annoyed because somebody's used your coffee cup. Or whatever. It's like a grand disillusionment. And then the next phase is this profound disappointment.

[09:52]

Well then why even bother? If Zazian is not going to fix me, then why should I bother? If all this effort isn't going to guarantee any improvement in my life, then why should I make it? I just stay home, watch TV and eat ice cream. So. And then the final stage is coming to terms with it the way things are. And of course, that is chicken puzzle. But just be what it Because we love the nature of the system. But I would say that it's reasonable to recognize that our tendency is to go through that kind of process in a whole variety of ways.

[11:10]

there's a deeply ingrained instinct to turn away, to separate, to search for distraction. And that the study of this self is to study this process, you know, and to study, given that we are the karmic person that we are, how we engage each face. And how sometimes the phases come one, two, three, four, five, and sometimes it seems like they're going the other way. Or sometimes it seems like they get all four at once. You're angry, depressed, and you're bargaining, and you're trying to deny it all. It's studied itself. And that the whole, that whole process, with the first, very first phrase of the Ganga Kod, when all dharmas are Buddha Dharma, that all of that is Buddha Dharma.

[12:38]

With that kind of attitude, you know, the enlightened are enlightened about delusion. One thing you learn in doing hospice work is that when that awful moment comes and someone tells you they don't want to die, what can you say? Who does want to die? You can't fix it. You can't change it. You can try to deny it, but really you can't deny it. You can be angry, you can be frightened. A great matter of birth and death.

[13:44]

It stirs up the passion of the human condition. So to study the self, to study this passionate engagement in living, intertwined with dying. What do you think of that? That's not a good chapter. I'll keep going. So I don't want to die. But to realize that the constructs of self, you know,

[14:53]

self-created as a separate entity, self-created as living life based on aversion and desire as the path of liberation, that that self cannot experience liberation. And it's something in that, that self has to be given up. Can you say that something? Something in that has to be given up? Rewind. Rewind a little more. The self, you know, the self based on the strategy of separating, of avoiding, of trying to reconstruct reality in the way of our own choosing, you know, through our desires and our aversions, you know, that self cannot engage in liberation.

[16:23]

No matter how passionate and dedicated it is in its own agenda, that doesn't actualize the buddhidharma. And that's something that has to be released, dropped off. And then how does that happen? And then Dahlgren's already told us, you know, it's just like the enlightener enlightened about delusion, that the path of liberation is the study of attachment. The natural state of being is that everything is interconnected and dynamic. and that the efforts to make it static and of our own choosing don't work.

[17:37]

And that's what we awaken to. And how do we awaken to? By studying yourself. But isn't the self still part of that? In what way? I mean, when you said This self that separates or establishes itself by separation has no possibility for liberation. But then also... What do you mean creating liberation through engaging with desire and aversion? But anyway, what did you want to say? That it's, well, at one point it's kind of completely fallen away.

[18:41]

But in the process, in the struggle, with partly awakening itself there, right? And then the, I mean, then just like, um, Realization happens in delusion, right? You look exactly at that, exactly at the non-existent self, and in that way, the self is part of the liberation. You have to have the delusion to look at. to study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be awakened. Right, but they, yeah, they don't know how to say it.

[19:44]

So there's my description of the self. So then what would you say forgetting the self is? When we see the self caught in delusion, something is seeing the self caught in delusion, it creates a space or a place for it. Forgotten is probably a bad word of example I'm using. We no longer think of ourselves as that self. That's true for something. Big. Different. Universal. I've trapped in words here.

[20:49]

That's exactly what this whole koan seems to be saying. Through so many different angles. Sitting there in meditation and I see a delusion coming up on your own. There's a delusion. Only the self, I think, is capable of experiencing delusion as reality. So if we notice a delusion, there's something else there. Does that make sense? How do you know it's a delusion? How do I know? Well... You lose me at that point. I would say that's because sound outside. Oh, there's a motorcycle that's upsetting my meditation. Something noticed that there was motorcycle, medication, disruption, all these labels and things that we start putting on everything.

[22:10]

None of that stuff exists. I don't know that it exists. You want to come back and say, well, how do you know it doesn't exist? I don't. Or that is not known. Say I don't. So even to say that is... Where did you get us? Where did you get it? I think there is a point at which noticing selfishness or greed or catchment is possible. And labeling that as a delusion is possible. What's doing the labeling or how that happens, I have no idea. There are times at which I can, there is the experience of, wow, look at me.

[23:15]

Look at me just grabbing at that. Look at myself grabbing at whatever it is. And I think that's what this is about, is those moments where we can see our pattern towards attachment, when there's the awareness, when awareness is brought to this space experience, then that leads to awakening. Yeah. And when you see your awareness, then it's hard to stay trapped in that selfishness. It's hard to stay trapped in that self. begs the question, if I avoid the perception, there's an irritating sound, and just, there's a sound. I've used the word sound. I've used the word, and maybe I've guessed that it's more exciting.

[24:23]

Let me offer you another kind of language. If the arising experience is construed by the self, the patterns of behavior and the disposition if the arising experience is construed by the self to define reality that's delusion if the arising experience as seen as a rising experience that's awakening even calling it a sound isn't that delusion too it's just I've already slipped out of reality and labeled as sound. So aren't we just playing a semantics game? Absolutely. I say maybe.

[25:24]

Leave that one aside because the reason I use You know, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's, you know, five stages of that. It's because we do, we construct the life, we construct the self, we construct the reality, we construct the past, present, and future. We construct a whole sphere of relatedness. And that takes on its own substantiality. You know, it delights us, it frightens us. We dream about it at night. We yearn for where it's going to go or get frightened and intimidated by where it's going to go. And as long as we're held and met, the simple directness of the moment can't manifest.

[26:27]

The 10,000 dharmas can't come forward and show us the dynamic interplay of existence. But it seems that until you become so completely intimate with all forms to the point where you don't know that that sound is a sound or is a motorcycle or wherever, It's not until you reach that point that you forget the self. Until that point, you're just becoming... That's the study. Becoming more and more intimate with it until you... Until there's no distinction. Because as long as it's a motorcycle, that's a self. All of that is manifestation of self. Is it not? Strictly speaking, I would agree with you. Yes. What about not... Literally speaking, ah, yeah.

[27:35]

It's over your core. Do you know what I'm saying? Through the front gate, not even that can enter. Through the back gate, elephants. Isn't it supposed to be that there's self and not self? Hmm. Are you going to deny knowledge of reality? No. At the expense of... No. It's not, you know, we're not denying karmic existence. You know? We're not denying, you know, I mean, not to say that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages are the, you know, the dharma of dying, but what they do offer up a useful, in my mind, a useful description of the human condition. Because those are the patterns of the self, which when we look at closely, whether we take Keith's way, then you look at it closely and it deconstructs, it doesn't exist.

[28:56]

I mean, I would agree, the verb forget doesn't seem... Let's see what one shohaku uses. The practice, he does use forget. I'm sorry. They all use forget. Yeah. Well, okay. So doesn't that imply that there's a certain thing? I mean, there's got to be an object to forgetting. Well, maybe it's forgetting as much as that the world according to self has to be asserted. And when it's not asserted, it's forgotten.

[30:00]

Maybe that's it. You forget to assert the self. Because of total engagement in the actuality, in the actual arising experience. What is it that asserts itself? Now, this time, I'm with my hand and my words. So, I was looking into the Chinese text, and I was looking for this word. And Chinese, you say Wang, which composed of two parts. Upper part means to die, and lower part means to heart. And in this composition, the heart is the main significant of this character. And the Wang serves as just a radical. meaning to die, right? So in Chinese thinking, heart is a suffering of the whole body. It controls the mind, it controls consciousness.

[31:06]

So in that way, you can look at it as to die or to make your conscious thinking serious. And in that way, you open up. And that's how I lead through they'll get into this text to study literally, is to study the self. First you have to recognize you have this consciousness, and then you have to kill it. Not kill it, I don't know a better word, but take it down, right? And in that way, you open up for 10,000 things, and if you just see it, be still quiet and open, and then the 10,000 things will come forth into you. It seems like you can just receive and just make things emerge rather than trying to manipulate things. So all the... Like here is the view and there's everything around me like a circle or everything.

[32:11]

And all the arrows porting towards me become open. So I don't have to do anything. And I think that's what in the corner it's about to make everything around me building a fair opportunity to understand rather than me pointing out towards God and thanks. Okay. I'll say thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Anyone else offer up a notion with regards the activity of forgetting? Well, see you again. Somebody asked Suzuki, what's it like? Maybe to do one thing to reach it. That was nirvana. What? Nirvana. Okay.

[33:13]

Same thing? Nirvana. Okay. So forgetting or yes? The deepest experience that I had was the few times when singing, it wasn't me singing, it wasn't them listening, it was the music happening. And to me, it just, it was an end of separation. It's like, it's all this disappointing, energetic experiences. There's no me performing or whatever until later on with me. I'm done. And I think about it. But at the time, it's like, well, it's wonderful. But I mean, it's not like my normal thing. I don't get a mic. I mean, none of that happens. The music, I mean, it's one thing.

[34:22]

I'm not aware of myself as a doctor. Okay. Yeah. Anyone else? Yeah. You know, the first operation by now, I was very frightened. You know, I went through those stages that was about Kudala's describes. Not exactly, but that process. And after the operation, my doctor said, well, if you live for a year, that's a good sign. If you live for five years, we'll call you a cure. And a year later, I got another tumor in the same place. But I haven't had a whole year to think about it. And come and tell me.

[35:24]

Which I did, during the year. And when I went to the hospital, there was a 15-year-old, a second operation. But what I had lost was the cure. And all those things that Elizabeth Kovac described, did drop away. But really, what dropped away was the cure. And what was left was a sort of peacefulness. So maybe not so much forgetting as being cooked in the intensity of it and moving to a place of acceptance. moving to a place of acceptance but I didn't have any Buddhist concepts so I didn't think of talking about myself

[36:53]

The story in my mind, it wasn't a blue story. It was just facing just now. Because sometimes life takes hold of us by the lapels and doesn't give us any alternative but to acknowledge impermanence. And then part of the nature of practice is to let, encourage life to take hold of us by the lapels. We put ourself in harm's way. We engage our existence such that it can teach us. And then part of the dilemma is, well, who wants to do that?

[38:02]

That does not sound like a very pleasant thing to do. So in a way, even though in a way that can't be disputed, we can come at it through the side door because that's just too scary. So we come at it through the side door and we just say, what's happening? I just want to ask a neutral, straightforward question. What's happening? We just come at it with beginner's mind. What's happening now? What's happening here? And we see the arising of our karmic life. And we just pay attention to it closely.

[39:08]

And then as Dogen says later on, body and mind drop away. Or as he says here, we forget the self. We just... We forget our hopes and fears and yearnings and aversions and just experience what is. To study the way is to study the self. We just attend to it as thoroughly as we can. Without an agenda, you know? Without turning it into this great existential drama. Without some grand notion that we just taste our food, hear the signs, notice our feet touching the ground.

[40:28]

So it's like we practice despite ourselves. The 10,000 things come forth. So what do you say about that? What is it for the 10,000 things to come forth and awaken the self? And how to show how to put it. To be verified by all things is to let body and mind of the self and body and mind of others drop away, drop off. I'll just keep reading different translations until somebody said something.

[41:33]

I don't think we have that big translation. That's how I would say. That the ten thousand dharmas advance and realize the self is enlightenment. When actualized by myriad things, your bodies and mind, as the bodies and minds of others drop away. To be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas is to free one's body and mind and those of others. Yes. Yeah, I've been translating this text for years or, you know, looking at it and studying it.

[42:35]

And finally, what's interesting to me is that in the Japanese, the word for self is the same. To study the self is to forget the self. But it always seemed to me easier to understand if we said that to study the self would have a capital S in the sense that everything is the self. Mm-hmm. And in order to do that, you have to forget the ego, such that it's the sense of a separate self which creates a separation. So if that's not there, then whatever there is, that's the self. Whatever comes forward is the self, including greed, anger, and delusion. Because how can we say that something is the Dharma and something isn't? I'm just sort of adding on to that.

[43:36]

I mean, the body and mind dropping away piece, I mean, the body sort of implies the separateness. So if, in fact, we forget the ego, then that separateness drops away. And the separateness of others drops away. There's no separation. Right. It's all one. Right. You can't, you can't do that. Right. Body and mind always apply to being a separate, a separateness. Understandable way. Say that all the time where you can teach it to be included. How do we take this and convert it into practice?

[44:40]

One thought that comes to my mind, it's like sitting in Zazen and Being immersed in the intensity of it. Sometimes you're immersed in the intensity of it and it doesn't feel particularly concentrated. It doesn't feel particularly satisfying or authoritative, empowering. And then you, Zazen ends and you come up And you go into the courtyard and the sun is more the sun and the flowers are more the flowers and the space is more available to the experience.

[45:42]

Something of that nature. It's not the process of forgetting the self. and being immersed in what's arising and in what's happening because we're forgetting this self. There's no, oh, this is it. Oh, now, now I get it. Oh, you know, it's just itself. It's kind of nondescript. It's not special. It's nothing special. Something in process allows for the coming forth of everything else. The filter of this is on my terms. This is within my agendas. It's a drop and something comes forth in a more vibrant and vital way.

[46:52]

And then just allowing that, letting things be seen, letting things be heard, letting things be felt, touched, enabled us to drop us up. Letting the 10,000 things come forth supports us to forget the self. Forgetting the self supports us to let the tantricizing things come forth. Letting go of the self enables the full activity of the moment I mean, if we say, let's one be awakened, you know, then only if we take it in Daigaku's terms that that one includes everything, then we can say it.

[48:06]

But if we think about it as a one separate from all, then it's tricky language. And then to be enlightened by the 10,000 things, 10,000 dharmas, It's the free one's body and mind and those of others. So this is this phrase. It's free. It's a famous phrase from the Shobo Genso, Chinchun Datsu Raku, which And these lectures are now on the web? Yes. Good. Thank you, Vince. And everyone knows how to do that. Everyone has email. They're also done in the reading room, too.

[49:10]

But I would recommend that you read Shohaku Jakubomura Sensei's teachings on this. As he talks about this, And he talks about how this was a point of discussion between Dogen and his teacher, you know, what exactly is dropping off? And that from their interaction, it wasn't simply, you know, earlier on I was saying, I was using jhana practice, you know, immersion in jhana, you drop off. Various aspects of creating existence in terms of the self And as the mind becomes more and more concentrated those are dropped off And that the classic story about Dogen is he's sitting Zazen and the teacher says drop off body and mind and that

[50:21]

He has an awakening experience, generally translated as, you know, in his concentration, in his zazen, he let go of preoccupation. He let go thoroughly of all constructs of self. And in this particular lecture, Shohaku is saying that modern scholarship in Japan is saying that that story was probably made up by Dogen's disciple. Do I think it was? Do I think it was? Yeah. I have no idea. That's not true. I mean, it's true. We have to take that as being true. Why do we have to? Then, you know, the whole story of Dogen and his awakening just falls apart.

[51:27]

Oh, you should read this essay then. Have you read the essay? No. Yeah. So, are you saying that... This is similar to the jama practice, or is it not similar? No, I'm saying that... According to Shuhako, who has spent the majority of his adult years studying Dogen and Dogen's, the scholars have written about Dogen, he's saying that modern scholarship says that that is a misinterpretation. That it's, in a way, too narrow a view. They say that dropping off body and mind is only the activity of concentration practice. And in Dogen's interactions with his teacher, where he noted in his diary that the teacher described dropping off body and mind in a variety of ways.

[52:41]

The letting go of the hindrances is dropping off body and mind. Totally engaging the single act is dropping off body and mind. Being fully present and engaging the moment is dropping off body and mind. So in a way, all the ways we might think of going beyond the self, of letting go of the expression of dropping off body and mind, not just simply the product of jhana practice. Can I say one thing? You can indeed. Okay. The way I've always heard this story, and gee, I just believe that's the way it is. The Dogen, yes, when Nyojo Zenji went around, the Zen Doro, when he did his jimdo, he did caution the monk who was sleeping next to him. Yes. and said, Zazen is not sleeping. He is casting off body and mind or dropping off body and mind, as you wish.

[53:48]

Dogen heard that. He went and said, I've cast off body and mind, or mind and body have been dropped off. And Nyerza said, no. Dropped off our body and mind, meaning that originally there is no body and mind to drop off. It already has been in that condition. And then Dogen said, That's it. And that was, you know. That's kind of what Shohaki said in this Life's Gens Away. I pretty much remember him saying that story. Yeah. From what I know. That sounds like a sick, a sick patriarch. His story is, his poem, you know, there is nothing anymore within him. Bully is that. Bully chosen actually. That's right. And then he realized the condition where there was nothing. Until then, he thought there was something. They said, no. But I saw Buddhism is a construct of nothingness. So there has to be something first.

[54:54]

But it's filled with nothingness. I don't know how to explain that. Sounds like... Well, all I can say is that the story you just recounted was... That was my understanding, too. Okay. Well, I don't know if it's good or not. It's good. That's an important story. The contemporary Chinese master, Master Shenyang, had the same awakening experience when his teacher yelled at him, drop off. that he had the awakening experience. But then, you know, all the practices that he had done, you know, years before that kind of led into that room.

[55:55]

Yeah. I think maybe in more modest terms or maybe more practical terms, we can think of, you know, sitting in Dase, caught in the train of thought, And you let it go. You drop it off. Feeling an active emotion, which is compelling towards action, and you drop it off. I guess Dogen in other places talks about taking the backward step from acting the world according to me to just letting it go. Just dropping it off. So that we can do that in our emotional life. We can do that in letting go of our fixed ideas. We can do that in releasing the tension in the body with the axial.

[57:01]

We can do that in dropping the train of thought that's so attractive and compelling. We can do that in letting go of our old resentments. We can do that in letting go of our preoccupations and just hearing and seeing and feeling and touching. That we can see the whole range of action. We can do that in sort of staying separate from someone else and dropping our separateness and opening up. the whole range of activities of the human condition after drop off body and mind. But I think I'm going to disturb you by reading this.

[58:03]

Today, some Buddhist scholars For example, Professor Sujiyo Genyu of Yamaguchi University and Professor Ichi Shodo of Komazawa University thinks this is a made-up story like Hazem. Professor Ichi said that this is the worst made-up story in that it causes a misunderstanding of Jogun Zenji's teachings. Yogan Zanji never himself wrote of a one-time experience and then he was writing. But as I've said before, we have some meaning.

[59:08]

We read these things and we get some meaning. And then the challenge for it is to actualize it in our practice. That's the verification of it. So we can all conjecture about what exactly did Dogen mean and what exactly happened. What is it, all those 800 years ago? Who could say? But to take it and practice it and discover in our own practice, and that's Dogen's teaching, actualize it. So to ask ourselves, then, what is it to practice this? What is it to engage, drop off body and mind? To experience within ourselves, you know, in one hand, the intensity of going through some process, you know, that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross describes as these five stages.

[60:15]

and to discover that sometimes it's immense dropping off body and mind. It feels like an impossible task. And sometimes it happens so readily and easily and directly we don't even notice. Sometimes it's an act of extraordinary discipline. And sometimes we're just our hearts open through our own innate compassion and generosity. So we study drop-off body and mind in its endless way. And in studying drop-off body and mind, we study the path of awakening. And so that's what Dovan picks up. He picks up that notion and he says, And this dropping off body and mind, because it drops off our separateness, it's not only dropping off our body and mind, it's dropping off everybody's body and mind.

[61:31]

To be enlightened by the 10,000 Dharma is to drop off one's body and mind and those of others. And no trace of enlightenment remains and this traceless enlightenment is continuing forever. When we drop it off for part of what is, and there's no, there's no fixed form to that. It's not like it has some kind of special attribute that stays fixed. Sometimes the image of the bird flying through the sky. It has a path through the sky, but there's no... It's not like a jet. It doesn't leave a freak behind it.

[62:33]

This moment is completely this moment and can be realized as such. And even though that can influence the next moment, it doesn't give it a fixed shape. So dropping off body and mind is not a fixed activity, it's a dynamic activity. It doesn't always look the same. As I say, sometimes it might be discipline, sometimes it might be compassion, sometimes it might be concentration. Sometimes it's just letting happen. It's not resisting. It has no friction. So if the mind becomes fixed as to what it is then we right away in the sincerity of our fixed agenda

[63:51]

We lose something. Then it's just that this traceless enlightenment continues for heaven. Yes. How do we lose something that continues for heaven? Because it has no meaning. Sorry, it has no. It didn't. So then how would we lose it? That's the human condition. Any other responses to that? What could that phrase be referring to? No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment is continued forever. No concept of what it means.

[64:53]

It sounds like even that is true. Here's another translation. No trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. You would not be conscious of it? I wouldn't be conscious of it. It looks like not an achievement. It's not something you recognize as a platform. It's just something that happens and then it's realized and then you don't go. It sounds right. It sounds right. I don't know. It just sounds right. OK. Good.

[65:54]

Then what is it to enable it as a practice? I think Suzuki Roshi described this in this chapter, leave no traces, burn like a bonfire not like a smoky fire do completely what you're doing so he also uses this like metaphor or what it is like this phrase of no trace in conjunction with a completely engaging in what's happening right now what I'm yeah with Within the heritage of Soto Zen, it goes like two modalities, and one is complete receptivity.

[67:00]

She has a complete receptivity for what is. So there is no holding on to any fixed strategy or form. It's completely receptive to the moment. So this is like a traceless practice. It's just whatever is, is, falls away, whatever is, is, falls away. And then as Anas was saying, the other mode is completely engaged, wholeheartedly engaged in life. And then in a paradoxical way, in terms of logic, these two sort of come together. completely engaged because we're completely available. 10,000 things come forth and complete availability meets them and there's complete engagement.

[68:03]

Yeah, well that's the challenge of the practice. It just burns itself up completely in the moment and leaves no trace. And this complete engagement, complete engagement, complete engagement, you can either say it goes beyond time or that it reverberates through time. It's a constant potential in any moment. Can't be limited by time. Can't be held in it. It goes beyond it. It's kind of the hardest time I've got is when I think about things that I need more. You know, needing to? Like plan. Plan. Like goals or plans.

[69:11]

Okay, I need to do this tomorrow and I need to be filled. I mean, the easiest moments for me to experience this or something like this is OK, I've got the New Year time. I'm on vacation. I'm really seeing whatever it is I'm seeing. It's like you put it. Or OK, maybe it doesn't. No, I'm there. But come back home, and baby needs to be changed, and I have to buy diapers. It's so hard for me when it's about goals, a direction, need to get something done, go to work, or whatever. And I have a hard time kind of being able to really know. What's hard about buying diapers?

[70:18]

I think I'm so caught up in maybe 20 things, you know, buying diapers and getting this and getting the fiddle, blah, blah, blah. And so it's like, it's hard to see any one of those things or experience one of those things as they arrive. I'm really pushing myself forward because I'm trying to get things done. What would buying diapers as a Buddha activity be? What would be dropping off body and mind buying diapers? What would be totally engaging body and mind in buying diapers? I remember once I was paying my bills and I was writing the checks as fast as possible.

[71:38]

And suddenly I realized I was writing the checks as fast as possible. And I thought, oh, I don't like paying my bills, so I try to do it as fast as possible. When you're paying your bills, you're paying your bills. When you're buying diapers, you're buying diapers. I think there's some kind of texture or some element to dizziness and having lots of things to do. And I feel like it's a lot harder to just, OK, just get on the bus and this or whatever. I think maybe it's just because I'm not here. What about just dropping off the body and mind of endless things to do and be awakened by buying diapers?

[72:48]

How about just doing that? I might forget about those bills that happened. What's that? But then I might forget about those bills that happened. Yes, you might. All sorts of things might happen. Or it might not happen. But if you think about it, it's when we do this and both do it and try not to do it, and both do it and regret having to do it or resent having to do it, That's very complicated. That's a much more challenging proposition. I mean, buying the diapers is pretty straightforward. Go to the store, give them your money, get the diapers. They're not even that heavy to carry. It's not like you're buying cement.

[74:07]

You know, often it's what we overlay. You know, it's our environment. You know, I want to do this, or I feel like I need to do it, but I don't want to do it while I'm doing it. I want to do it and add to it. I want to do it and be doing something else at the same time. That's correct. Well, I sympathize with him. So do I. It makes me think of once in the burglary, Mel Weissman was sharing with us. And he said, you know, I just went to the store, completely walking to the store. I bought a loaf of bread. I came home. There was.

[75:09]

My wife said, you only bought one loaf of bread? Yeah. That's the problem. So can we see dropping off body and mind everywhere we look? Can we let the 10,000 dharmas come forth in every situation? Can these teachings become a vitalizing, active part of being what we already are? Yes.

[76:11]

The way you talked about buying the night first, was that an example of dropping off, doing so, dropping off body of mind, or is that an example of doing it engaging body of mind? Well, what I was just saying a little bit before that was, in a way, we drop off, but I need to be doing 20 things. I need to be doing this and I need to be doing that and I don't want to be doing this I want to be doing something else and Drop it all off and just buy the diapers They mutually support each other and sometimes It's discipline Just buy the diapers and just buying the diapers You forget all those other things Sometimes the bell rings for Zazen and you think, oh no, I don't want to sit Zazen, I'm too tired, I hurt too much, I hate it, all this stuff.

[77:19]

And you go there, you know, through your own dedicated discipline practice. And you get into your body and you get into your breath and all those things start to fall away. Oh, yeah, right. So sometimes either way, you know? Sometimes it's an act of allowing and sometimes it's an act of discipline, sometimes compassion. But how to see its many faces, it's because it's traceless. It has no fixed form. And then you can't say, okay, well then it's, everything's like buying diapers. No, everything isn't like buying diapers, in one sense. In the world of form it isn't.

[78:22]

And then in another way it is. Life is just one continual buying diapers. I was with you the last moment. Okay, well you can work on that one. What time is it?

[79:23]

Five minutes. Five minutes too. Okay. Well let's cook on what we covered tonight then. So if you were to take this Think about today. And as you think about today, just notice what comes forth. Just think about what you did today, what happened today. Maybe it registers most as an internal experience. Or maybe it registers as an event. And think about the teachings of what we just read. Think about actualizing them in whatever it is that has come forth from the day.

[80:39]

So what's the request of practice arising in your life at this time? Anyone care to say? Be here. Just to be here? Okay. To not create a self-improvement. To not create? A self, my self. To not create yourself in what you do. Okay. Anyone else? Just keep showing up. Okay.

[81:54]

Stop separating. Stop separating. Investigate. Investigate. What close? What goes on? Do what you're doing? To be diligently lazy. Diligently lazy? To be diligently lazy. So something about letting our human life register and allowing it to make the request of practice. I would say it has something of the flavor of dropping off body and mind.

[83:06]

And then actualizing that request is actualizing dropping off body and mind. And then our practice becomes a vibrant activity. Feels more like an opening than a controlling. But just letting, getting in touch with the request has a certain potency. And I would say, you know, this is what Dogen Zinji constantly referred to as a rising weight seeking mind.

[84:12]

Weight seeking mind, weight seeking heart. Just bringing that forth. Okay, thank you very much.

[84:28]

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