I want to dedicate this Dharma talk, such as it is tonight, to Blanche, because she used to always tell me that I should be talking more. So, here I am, Blanche. And I also, in the city, before I came here, after she died, I was sitting by her body, and... I knew then that I was going to be coming to Tassajara this summer for a while, so I said, all right, Blanche, I'll bring you with me. I'll bring you with me at Tassajara in my spirit or mind or something. And lo and behold, here's today are all her, so many of her students, her lineage and her teaching wisdom are here tonight, too, with the sewing teachers. So I've been reading a book about Einstein.

[01:05]

It's a biography of Einstein, and it's a massive book. It's like 700 pages, a tone about Einstein. But I wanted to read it because every now and then you see a remarkable quote from Einstein that seems kind of wise and compassionate. He said, the important thing is not to stop questioning. Most people say it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong. It is character. So reading this book, it's actually very clear that it was his character, the quality of his character that made him so regarded throughout his life. course, he was a scientific genius who completely changed our ideas about time and space. But what people seem to find inspiring about him is not just his genius, but his person, who he was as a person, his character.

[02:14]

He was genuinely kindly and very significant. He was genuinely humble. He had a real quality of humility. and his first trip to the U.S. in 1921. This was after he had published his papers on relativity, and he was getting lots of attention and honors everywhere he went. And he was speaking to the National Academy of Science, and he said, When a person, after long years of searching, chances upon a thought which discloses something of the beauty of this mysterious universe, He should not, therefore, personally be celebrated. He is already sufficiently paid by his experience of seeking and finding. In another story, he was at Oxford having dinner with someone, and later his dinner companion said, I had the feeling I was in the presence of a very good man, a simple soul.

[03:19]

And he was also an amateur musician his entire life. He loved to play the violin. And he was playing with other people. He was playing in a recital once. And even though he loved to play, he actually wasn't very good at it. So he was playing in this recital with the other musicians, and apparently he was out of time. And one of them said, Einstein, can't you count? But he didn't take offense. He never took offense. So people were inspired by Einstein. Again, you know, his genius and his scientific ability. But over the course of his whole life, people were inspired as much or more so by his character and his actual genuine humility. There's this old Zen teaching story.

[04:27]

teacher Linji, also known as Rinzai, 9th century Chinese Zen teacher, and he was speaking to the assembly and he said, there is a true person of no rank who always comes and goes through the gates of your face. Who is this true person of no rank? Who is this true person of no rank? And no one can answer him. So all these old teaching stories, these koans, there is no answer, really. There's just the question. You have to practice with a question, to hold in front of one. So we can take this as a question to practice with. Who is this true person of no rank? Actually, our true person, who we really are, has no rank. Each of us is truly incomparable. Talking about a true person of no rank doesn't mean, of course, that people don't have different abilities.

[05:33]

Einstein had a phenomenal intuitive ability about physics. Or you could also say, and maybe it's saying the same thing, he had a deep love of physics and an almost mysterious attraction to physics. Other people? may have a love of music and attraction to music or art or growing things or raising a family or practicing Zen Zen teacher Robert Ake can use this phrase that I really love mysterious affinity these mysterious affinities that different people have so we can't be compared one to the other we can't be ranked And no rank means no superiority, no inferiority. Not necessary to think like that. When people study primate societies, chimpanzees, monkeys, they see that actually they do operate in terms of rank.

[06:47]

There's like a dominance hierarchy, the alpha position in a band. Very aware, the members of the band are very aware of cues of rank. And we, human beings, of course, are primates. And there are subtle cues about rank. And some human societies have more emphasis on this kind of rank than others. There's various formalities around rank. And in Zen, sometimes people comment on the hierarchy. You know, at Tassajara, we have a hierarchy of jobs, a hierarchy of administrative responsibility and teaching responsibility. and some sense of hierarchy depending on how long you've been at Zen Center, and it gets expressed in some of the forms, you know, leaving the Zendo first, etc. But none of this has anything to do with value, with some kind of value judgment. This is better than that, or this is more important than that, or more significant than that. None of this has anything to do with our true person.

[07:49]

One of the tasks of a Zen practitioner is to study this true person of no rank, you know, to see and acknowledge some hierarchy of roles, and not just at Zen Center, but in human societies, our workplaces, our relationships, and at the same time, to take it somewhat lightheartedly. Kaz Tanahashi was here, and he gave a talk a couple weeks ago, and, uh, Some of you probably know who he is. He's a master calligrapher, and he teaches calligraphy all over the world. He's also a master translator of Dogen. But during this talk, he said, I don't have students. I just have friends I practice calligraphy with. So we who practice together are actually spiritual friends to each other. We're practicing together and teaching each other all the time.

[08:53]

We acknowledge and respect teachers and at the same time we're all studying with and teaching each other all the time. We're all fundamentally the same, the same mind, the same fears, the same difficulties. The various roles within this monastery, you could say, are temporary expedients so that those with more knowledge or experience can do their best to make sure this practice and this place to practice is taken care of and continues into the future. You know, the Jiko, you all know who the Jiko is, unless you're a guest. Anyway, the Jiko is the person who comes behind carrying the bowl of flower petals that we use for fragrance. And they walk behind the priest who's coming to open the zendo or lead the service. They accompany the doshi. And they leave the zendo with them afterwards. And they always walk a few steps behind.

[09:56]

And often when I've been at Tassahara, when I was the doshi, it used to bother me that they were walking a few steps behind. I thought, why don't you come up and walk next to me? I even invited one or two once to come up and walk right next to me. And they wouldn't do it. Lift them up there. I'm like, why do you have to walk a few steps behind? But, you know, these days, especially on Doshi, and like first thing in the morning, you go around before Zazen to the various altars, and you open them for the day. And I feel such support from the Jiko. You know, they extinguish the altar after I leave. They wait outside the kitchen while I go in. They tell me, no, it's the gatehouse next, not the Zendo. So I, you know, so appreciate that they are there behind me. It's like they're covering my back, so to speak. Always accompanying me. So it feels like support, and it feels like taking care of things.

[11:04]

They're doing their role. You know, they're behind me all the time, covering my back. So it can seem like some, you know, ranking just becomes taking care of each other. And, you know, it even feels like play, us playing these roles together. It's just Dharma friends playing together, helping each other, and respecting the roles and respecting the form, but also playing within the form. But until you realize this, you don't realize it. Just like enlightenment is just things as they are But until you realize this, you don't realize this. And it's hard to accept things being as they are. So it's important to continue our practice through things we like, through things we don't like, things we question. And always we're studying our own self in the midst of this and taking it all somewhat lightheartedly.

[12:08]

I said one of the tasks of a Zen practitioner is to study the person of no rank in order to see through rank, ideas about rank. But actually the task of a Zen practitioner is to learn to see through everything, through everything, through various ideas, to non-discrimination, to what you could call emptiness. And very important to our practice, always matters to our practice is our character. This is what Suzuki Roshi called the quality of our being. And this is what really helps people, helps other people. It's the quality of our being. How do we treat people? Do we have respect for others? Can we be a true person of no rank in this human world? neither better nor worse than others.

[13:14]

True person means that you completely are who you are. You're just who you are. You bring integrity to being who you are. And it means treating others appropriately, with respect and with consideration and with kindness. Respect has no rank. We treat our shoes with respect. When we take them off, we line them up neatly. We treat the food with respect when we cook it and by saying thanks before we eat it. And we treat people with respect just because they're people. Kindness has no rank and humility has no rank. Humility isn't something inferior. In fact, someone who's humble, someone who doesn't have so much ego and they're not trying to be good, actually encourages other people to be themselves. It frees people from having to try to be good. There's this saying that says, treat everyone with the respect due a Buddha.

[14:33]

And if it's difficult to treat some particular person this way, then we look at what gets in the way. what comes up in us that we can't treat this person with respect, or that we have some difficulty with this person. This is actually our opportunity to look at ourselves and study ourselves. Before we figure out how to change the other person, we look at our own difficulty, our own unease, our own distress. We look at our roots of suffering within ourselves. For instance, you know, it's very easy to be judgmental, for us to be judgmental of ourselves or of others or judge ourselves against others. And it can be a persistent habit to cause ourselves suffering with this habit. So what do we do? You know, our practice with this is the same as our practice with all mental states.

[15:36]

We make an effort to notice ourselves doing it And then we can console ourselves. We can console ourselves for a tendency. Here I am again, judging myself again. Well, it's okay. Don't feel too bad about it. Just move on. So practicing like this, awareness of our mental states, our awareness actually wears out the habit. It dissipates the habit tendency. Awareness integrates ourselves with ourselves. You could say we return home and become our true self. When we recognize what we're doing, we become ourselves in that moment. Oh, here I am having a judgmental mind. And with that, we return to ourselves. Not by getting rid of anything, but just by recognizing it. And practicing this way, compassion arises.

[16:39]

and compassion arise. You know, oh, that's just the way I am. That's just what I'm doing. I just have to suffer with this for now. But this suffering actually tenderizes us, tenderizes us when we recognize it and are willing to stay with it rather than run away. It tenderizes us toward ourselves and toward other people. We can accept how we are, and we can actually accept how other people are. So Dogen Zenji, the 12th century founder of Soto Zen in this lineage, said, Each thing abiding in its own Dharma state realizes completeness. Each thing abiding in its own Dharma state realizes completeness. So we abide in our own Dharma state.

[17:49]

This is just how I am at this moment. This is my mind. This is my body. This is my Dharma state. This is who I am and this is the complete truth. Now Buddhism, we have this wonderful word called emptiness. And it can be understood in different ways. intellectually or philosophically. Nothing has any own being. Nothing exists in isolation. Everything is completely embedded in interdependence with everything else. All dharmas, all the constituents of existence are empty in their own being because they're linked with everything else. But also, we actually understand emptiness through our practice. There's a direct way to directly experience emptiness through our practice, to realize emptiness, to make it real for us, real in our lives, a real experience in our lives.

[18:53]

And zazen is our fundamental emptiness practice. Zazen empties us of our habit tendencies, habits of mind, habits of judging, habits of self, they empty out Sitting zazen, our comparing mind empties, our critical mind empties. And you especially notice this when sitting long, like a seshin, you know, after a long sitting, you can notice a real change in your mind. But it also happens during every period of zazen. Maybe almost imperceptibly, but it happens. Bit by bit, this emptying out. into a true person with no rank. Nothing special. It's just you yourself. So practicing Zazen and practicing an awareness in our everyday life, our mind and body become simpler and they become more empty.

[20:01]

We don't have to try to add anything to who we already are, like, oh, I should have more humility. We just empty out. Or we wear out the thoughts of comparing ourselves to others. Or we empty out the thoughts of who we should be. We empty them by recognizing them. Recognizing the self, we empty the self. Or as Dobin said, you know, studying the self, we forget the self. Little by little by little. And our true nature resumes itself. But also Suzuki Roshi said, In order to become ourselves, our mistakes and hardships are necessary. In order to become ourselves, our mistakes and hardships are necessary. This is why, according to the Buddha, patience is one of the greatest helps to our practice. The various difficulties we have, regrets that we feel about unskillful things that we do, or various mistakes we make and feel bad about,

[21:12]

really looking sincerely at our life, we're bound to feel sometimes, maybe many times, like a failure. Gary Snyder, in a letter he wrote to Philip Whalen, he said, if you are a practitioner of any serious discipline, the feeling of failing simply belongs to that life. Serious discipline. Because one is serious about it, One is paying attention and one cares. So failures, mistakes, hardships, they don't stop. But they do widen out into some kind of understanding. And we can actually experience how they widen into understanding. So what is this understanding? Suzuki Roshi said, We can only find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

[22:16]

So we can only find perfect existence right here in the midst of imperfect existence. Through our effort, practicing with and through various difficulties, we can come gradually and we trust that these mistakes and difficulties themselves are the path. They're the path itself, they're our practice itself, they're us itself. And more and more we can appreciate ourselves and our lives, even in the midst of various difficulties. We can appreciate that imperfect and perfect existence are the same. So we can stop trying to be perfect. And rather, you know, we just make our best effort in this imperfect world. Kazuki Roshi said, when we appreciate whatever problem we have as an expression of big mind, it is not a problem anymore.

[23:20]

And Dogen said, every handicap is fundamentally music. And Einstein said, and this is a quote you might have heard or be familiar with, a human being is a part of the whole, called by us, universe. part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." So that's why we're training. That's why we're training. That's why we are doing Zen here at Tassahara. What is the nature of this training? Well, on the one hand, we're training in just sitting.

[24:28]

Just sitting Zazen. Sitting with our best posture and letting come up what comes up and letting go what lets go. Not doing anything except letting Zazen empty us out. And a part of our mind thoughts and emotions are coming and going and in a part of our mind or not even our mind a part of our being we're watching this happen a part of our being is the observer when we sit in Zazen we're actually grounded in our body by this steady immobile position that we take so even though the mind is active and thoughts are constantly arising and falling at the same time We're grounded in our body, immobile and steady, and this is underlying the thinking. It's more fundamental than the thinking. And in daily life we train.

[25:29]

We make an effort to concentrate on our work and pay attention to our thoughts and emotions with as much honesty as we can. And it feels like it's hard to do this when we're busy with various activities and interacting with people, but more and more as we have actually the mind and body of practice, even in the midst of our activity, we're also grounded in being a steady observer of our lives. A part of us is grounded in observing. This is all called making an effort. all called studying the self we study the self so we can let go of the self not take it so seriously and see through it and then more and more you know very naturally gratitude arises and a kind of natural kindness as Einstein said our circle of compassion widens toward all living creatures and there's a natural deepening of appreciation you know of

[26:49]

whole of nature in its beauty ourselves and the whole of nature in its beauty the whole of existence in its beauty the one thing in this whole 700 page book about Einstein that I read that struck me the most was this one sentence and this was not too long after he had developed his theories of relativity so he was quite young he said for the rest of my life I want to reflect on what light is So, you know, this is interesting. This was his mysterious affinity, you know, the mysterious intention or karma, whatever it was that drove his life. He wanted to concentrate on something that was ultimately unknowable, ultimately unfathomable and mysterious. The light. He didn't say he wanted to figure out what light is. Rather, he wanted to reflect on the mystery. You wanted to concentrate on the mystery and penetrate it as much as possible.

[27:50]

So since I began practicing, and from time to time, I think, I have this healing. For the rest of my life, I want to reflect on what practice is. But better than the word reflect is concentrate, and better than the word practice is it. So for the rest of my life, I want to concentrate on it. So what is it? So the word in Zen, of course, that we use is suchness or thusness. Things as they are, reality as it is. And just like light, suchness or thusness or reality is actually unfathomable. Who am I? What is this life? What is death? We don't know. And we can't know intellectually. But... Even if we can't intellectually understand it, we can understand it in a way deeper than intellectually. We can realize it because we actually are it ourselves.

[28:55]

You know, we are it. We can't not be it. And in our practice, we're actually focusing on this unknowable. It's a mystery. Light is a mystery. Existence is a mystery. You and I are a mystery. But something... and it beckons us to concentrate on it, to realize it. So we pay attention. Now we're concentrated on our own activity. Everything we do, even our smallest activity, is it. Every interaction with a person is it. It's just what's happening at that moment. It's completely ordinary, and it's completely deep. Rinzai said, as I see it, there isn't so much to do. Just be ordinary, put on your robes, eat your food, and pass the time doing nothing. Doing nothing could be taken wrong.

[29:58]

It doesn't mean I watch TV all day, but doing nothing means just do what it's your responsibility to do. Just wholeheartedly take care of what's in front of you with nothing extra. No gaining idea, just concentrate on it. And Linji also said, when at these words you turn your own light in upon yourselves and never seek elsewhere, then you'll know that your body and mind are not different from those of the ancestors and Buddhas. And when on that instant you have nothing special to do, this is called obtaining the Dharma. So, there's just a few more minutes and I wanted to... a story about, or two maybe, short little story about Suzuki Roshi because I was able to practice with him for a couple of years. I came to Zen Center in the... I came directly to Zen Center.

[31:04]

I came to Tassahara. I wasn't practicing at Zen Center. I came directly to Tassahara and was practicing at Tassahara, but he, at this time, was already starting to become sick, so he was mostly in the city and I didn't see much of him. I sat a couple sessions with him in the city, and I had some contact with him, but not a lot. People sometimes ask me, what was he like? And what I remember most about him is that he was just there, you know, in a simple kind of way. And I think that he and Einstein in some ways were alike. They were both absent-minded, and both also had a kind of single-minded focus, intensity of focus. Both had humility, kindness, and a sense of humor, and didn't take things too seriously.

[32:05]

Einstein was a person of no rank. He didn't take fame seriously. and Suzuki Roshi to treat everybody equally, and also his teaching was of nothing special. So the old Zendo down there, which is now the student dining room, made out of rock, and that's where we used to sit. Sometimes I go down there and I try to see where I used to sit. Where in that stone wall did I used to sit? Because, you know, when you sit zazen, especially a long time, you kind of imprint on your seat, you know, the place where you sit. So I think I should be able to go down and look at those rocks and actually recognize what I used to look at, stare at for so long. But at the back of the zendo, at the stone dining, stone office end, was where the altar was, and it was a raised platform.

[33:10]

And the bowing mat was up on the altar, and the mokugyo and the bells were up on the altar. So the doshi leading service would lead it up here on this platform. And at the end of service, they would back, right back to the very edge of the platform, and there was two steps, two little wooden steps going down, and they would go backward down off those steps. So, you know, two little steps to get down. And I would be watching from my place further back in the zendo. I was a new young student, and my seat was toward the back. It was like there were these mysteries happening up there on the altar, and it seemed kind of high and far away. But I was always nervous, you know, that the doshi would miss that step and fall. But I would watch Suzuki Roshi, and he would just descend those steps very calmly, you know, with aplomb, a certain kind of joy, like he did everything And then he'd turn around and walk back between the rows of the students to the exit door, which was at the far end of the Zen door.

[34:16]

He'd walk down the hallway smiling the whole way. And I should amp, but just very quickly. We did an ashes ceremony, ashes scattering ceremony for him up at the ashes corner on the road. And it was Baker Roshi's idea to go up there and do the full moon ceremony up there on the mountain. And I was a kokyo, and so we went up at night taking Zuki Roshi's ashes, you know, to scatter some of them. But we got up there, and it turned out there was an incredible windstorm happening with wind just shooting up the side of the mountain and blowing clouds and fog with it. And it was so cold and so much wind and dust that we could hardly walk. Literally, we could almost not walk. So we staggered out a little ways, and then we did the Heart Sutra in Japanese, and Baker Roshi scattered some of his ashes, but actually they must have gone straight up in the air because of that wind that was just shooting up the side of the mountain.

[35:21]

And we realized there was no way we could do the full moon ceremony up there. You know, it was a powerful experience, though, to be up there on that mountain in that wild storm. so wild we could hardly chant. And his ashes just went away. Who knows where they went? They're gone. And then we came back down the next day and did the ceremony down here, the Fulham ceremony down here. And two quotations from my second teacher, Richard Baker. because I sometimes wonder, you know, with all this coming and going, the years coming and going, people coming and going, what's it all about? But my second teacher, Baker Roshi, said, vow to live the life you're already living. Intentionally live the life you're already living, just as it is right now. And then, now Suzuki Roshi said, zazen is like drinking water when you're thirsty.

[36:26]

Tomorrow morning we get to water, cool morning. Thank you.

[36:49]

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