Good evening. I've been feeling in a state of poignancy lately. And you have to be careful about poignant feelings because they can be very sappy especially I've noticed I think I feel poignant about something and then I think about something else and I feel poignant about that too and then it seems like maybe it's everything seems a bit much so I want to be careful not to be sappy But at the same time, I want to show some respect to this feeling.

[01:04]

So I think that, I was going to say where it started, but that's probably not quite accurate. But anyway, I went to a memorial service of a good friend of mine recently, last week. His name was Ted Marshall, and he was here at Tassajara. with me and many other people back in the 70s, and I just wanted to say a little bit about one year in that time. At this memorial service there were many people from those days. Ted was my age, he was almost 69, and he had had brain cancer for quite a while, but he stayed very present. And in fact, in the last two years that he was living with cancer, he and a number of these people who were around back then started doing a Lotus Sutra study group.

[02:12]

I'm not sure how often they did it. There were about five of them. One of them was on the East Coast and Skyped in for a couple of hours. Could have been every week. I'm not sure. Anyway, and also, so this was back, the year I'm going to say a little bit about was back in 77, 78. But, so Ted was practicing back then. But he finally took the precepts two months before he died. He had resisted taking the precepts. And I heard from some people who were there that it was a very beautiful ceremony. And after the precept ceremony, you get this piece of paper that has your lineage on it. And he sort of held this paper and he said, well, I guess it's a done deal. Finally, after all this time. So, 77-78, from the summer of 77 through the spring of 78 was the most exciting year at Tassajara and may it ever be so.

[03:14]

Let's never have another year like it. I was at dawn that summer of 77 and And back then, we had an eno and three douans, and we did all the jobs. It wasn't like now where different people can sign up for the douan jobs. We did all the jobs, and that was all we did. I mean, we had certain other jobs that were ours, but we didn't help the rest of Tassara. We didn't drive stages. So by August of that year, and also I'd been a douan for two practice periods and then the summer. By August of that year, I was really bored. Really, really bored. I remember standing to the Han, doing the Han for the 100th time, more than the 100th time, and just thinking, this is never going to end. I'm never going to get to be anything but a Doan. And then the forest fire started. And things got very exciting, but also very boring.

[04:16]

I stayed boring because, you know, we were just... sitting around looking at the fire in the distance. So Ted was our fire marshal. He had actually had some firefighting experience, and different than now when we're trained, when we tried to train crews a little bit, but really nothing like the training that we have now. So, you know, the Forest Service came in and evacuated us, and we all left, but also the Forest Service and the sheriff were also not quite as educated in certain ways then as now. So they would block the road down at Jamesburg during the day, but then they'd drive away at 5 o'clock. So at that point, many people, including Keith, my husband, and Ted, guys, mostly guys, would drive back over the road, and they then put PVC piping along all the

[05:19]

you know, along the old Zendo down there and the kitchen. And they would, you know, put more fuel in the generators and start the generators and the pumps and, you know, spray water all over Tassajara all night long and gather up a bunch of more stuff to bring out and then come back out to Jamesburg before the sheriff arrived in the morning. So this went on for quite a while. Them waiting Tassajara down at night, bringing out, we brought out, Almost everything that was in Tassajara went to Jamesburg on the lawn. And until finally, at some point, Richard Baker convinced the governor to send in what are called hot shots, people who came in and started a fire on the other side of the creek so that we would have a safe place to run to if a firestorm started, if it came up the creek. And then we came back in. Then a whole bunch of us came back in and stayed, and with the help of the Forest Service, fought the fire.

[06:24]

There's much more detail, but I shouldn't go into all of this, because then, finally the fire was out, and then the next thing that happened was that we had 100-year storms, so it was all burnt all around us, and that year, the average rain for Tassajara is 39 inches. The last few years, A couple years ago, we got 13 inches. This year, so far, we think we've had 26 inches. That year, we had 89 inches. And on the hillsides, they just couldn't hold anything. So the creek was pitch black and running at the highest. It went over the old steam rooms, if you know where the old steam rooms are. Went over the top of that. So then we had a foot... And Ted was our flood marshal and told us when we had to go to the dining room because it was raining and the creek might rise.

[07:25]

We all had to be in the same place, except for those who got to go out and walk up and down the creek and watch the creek. Anyway, so we made it through the floods. And then the next April, the Zendo fire started and the old Zendo burnt. So one, and that's a whole story in and of itself, which I won't go into because I'm supposed to be giving a lecture on something that you can practice with, not just telling you my life. So I'll just pull this story together quickly. One of the things that's so poignant for me is at this memorial service that I was at, somebody who from back in those days told me what she thinks is true and is that it was so sad that Ted and another man from back then who was at the memorial service had always felt so bad about what happened in that year in this one thing that they never came back to Tassajara.

[08:33]

And what they felt bad about was that during the floods, the road washed out many, many times, and the water, you know, the water comes from the water. tanks up there that the pipes would wash out. So they finally hooked up all this fire hose that we had left over from the forest fire to get water down here to us. And they looped it through the trees so that the floods wouldn't wash it out. And in April, and also they hadn't repaired the fire pump, which had given out toward the end somewhere in there. And, you know, it was now so much rain, nothing could burn possibly. So they hadn't fixed the fire pump, and they hadn't gotten those fire hoses with the water in it down out of the trees. And when the Zendo burnt, when they turned on, first of all, the pump would go on, they turned on the standpipe system, which was gravity-fed normally, you know, the water.

[09:34]

There was no pressure in the line because it was looping through the trees. So these two people, supposedly, maybe have felt so bad about that, them being the fire marshals and the flood marshals, that they never came back to Tazahara. I've seen them many times and had many friendly interactions with them. But if she's right, I had no idea this was happening. And I certainly will talk to the remaining living person who might be feeling that way and tell him, what I tell you is that we are so lucky that Zendo burnt down. And nothing burnt except, well, a few other things, but the kitchen didn't burn, the pine and stone rooms didn't burn because of the hard work of all the students who were here on that day. But this Zendo is hundreds of times better.

[10:36]

It's way less cold in the winter and way less hot in the summer. in the old Zendo, and they should come here as heroes. But now Ted, he's here. He must be here floating around somewhere. Anyway. Okay. Can that possibly connect to what I wanted to talk to you about tonight? I'm not totally sure, but let's see what we can do. You can help me. As I said in some earlier lectures. This summer I'm trying to lecture about various things that are said in a fascicle of Dogon's called Only a Buddha and a Buddha. And tonight I wanted to talk about there are at least two things, two things I want to talk about that Dogon, two ways of describing what it's like to have Buddha's wisdom.

[11:41]

What does that mean to have Buddha's wisdom or the wisdom of a Buddhist, the wisdom of Buddhism? And these two things are, one, to be unstained, and the other, to turn freely. So to be unstained and to turn freely. Now this being unstained might not be what you think of. You might think of, you know, like being able to follow the precepts. You know, not being stained with bad actions or bad thoughts. That's not actually what this unstained is. In fact, when we were taking the precepts the other night with the full moon ceremony, I realized, I don't know about you, but I've broken most of those precepts. That's how to be, it's not really very possible for a human being to be unstained in that way.

[12:44]

Like, never kill anything. Never take anything that isn't given. Never misuse your sexual energy. Never lie. Never, anyway, you may have been able to do that. I haven't. And luckily, that's not what Dogen is talking about when he says being unstained. Instead, he's saying that to be abstained is to not be colored by the misunderstanding of dualism. So by that, he means the misunderstanding is that there's actually two realities. There's what's happening, and there's what should be happening. We have that misunderstanding many times. We think... This is not what should be happening. There's another possibility here if they would just try harder. Or if I would just try harder.

[13:46]

Or, you know, if things got moved around a little bit, if I could convince them there's a better way for this to be. So to not be stained by that misconception that there are actually, there's dualism. separate way that things could be different than they are. Dogen goes into it, he gives a kind of simple example for us to understand this. He says to be unstained is like not wanting more color or brightness when looking at flowers or the moon. So to be unstained is like, it's very simple. We've all done it. It's not wanting more color or more brightness when you're looking at flowers or the moon. Just the way they are.

[14:48]

That's the way this flower is. That's the way this moon is. We've all experienced this probably most of the time we experience that when we're looking at flowers or the moon. It's just that there are things that we think are not quite as pretty as flowers or the moon, namely ourselves and other people and situations. I think ourselves are the hardest ones to do it with. Sometimes we deflect that onto others, but really when we not so much look at ourselves but experience ourselves, we often have this feeling that This is not the right way. This is not the right reality. There's a different way to be. I shouldn't have to be this sad. I shouldn't be this angry. I shouldn't have this, you know, uncomfortableness in the pit of my stomach. And we often don't even hardly notice that thought.

[15:52]

Like, it shouldn't be like this because we so quickly go to what's making me feel this way. What's wrong in this picture? I think we pretty naturally, we have like a, you know, a train track that goes immediately from feeling uncomfortable to somewhere. We have our habitual ways of going. There's really only two choices. What's wrong with this picture? There's either me or them, or me or it. There's, you know, me or something out there and we're feeling our way around for what is it and usually it's pretty quick we can tell what it is because we've thought it before we have the same thoughts over and over again about what is wrong with this situation so Dogen is saying to be unstained is to not

[16:56]

It's not necessarily to not have those thoughts, but it's not to believe them. Actually, it is totally to even include those thoughts, those habitual thoughts. How do we be unstained even about those thoughts, that there they are, part of who I am, is to have this feeling of, oh, I'm not quite good enough. I didn't try hard enough. They don't like me enough. He goes on to say that when you... To be a disdain does not mean that you try forcefully to exclude discrimination. So we might think that to accept things as they are, as they're happening, to have only one reality, the one that's actually happening, is to... We often do have this thing, is to stop our discriminating mind, to...

[18:03]

not allow thoughts of it could be like this or it shouldn't be like this. But Dogen says it's not to stop those thoughts from happening. Actually, the unstained state has room for those thoughts too, as thoughts. Not as another reality, but as part of this reality. In this reality, I have this feeling that this is not good enough or I'm not good enough or they're wrong. he says to, so it's not to forcefully exclude discrimination or that you establish a state of non-discrimination. Being unstained cannot be intended or discriminated at all. So being unstained is not something that we can make ourselves into. Being unstained is like looking at flowers and being happy to see flowers.

[19:07]

That's not something we make ourselves do. That's something that happens because we're there for it. And there's a flower, and we're happy to see it. There's the moon, plenty bright enough, even if it's just a sliver. We don't argue with that. That's the kind of being and staying that Dogen's talking about. Now, how do we get there? That's, I think, what zazen is about. That's what this practice is about, is we sit down, we stay with what's happening, and we find out, actually, we clarify that there isn't any other reality than this. How do we clarify? Sometimes we clarify by trying to get to that other reality, you know, really hard, trying to intend no discrimination. trying to get rid of some part of ourself and finding out, no, that part is actually there.

[20:08]

Then there's this other way that is experiencing or being Buddha's wisdom, which is turning freely, which might seem like the opposite, because being unstained in this way, in this way where... It happens that we can actually accept the way things are. We can accept, not necessarily with our mind, but including our mind, but accept deep in our stomach that this is life. This is me. This is what's happening. Being unstained in that way is a kind of settling. It's kind of being grounded. It's kind of being able to stay there with what's happening instead of jumping off to what's wrong with it and why is it wrong. That's a kind of not being able to stand to be there.

[21:13]

I have to go to what could be done about this. So it's a kind of subtleness, a kind of groundedness. And that might seem like that's the opposite of being able to turn freely. This being able to turn freely is sometimes described as being a mouth hung in space. It's also described as being like a wind chime hung in space, which I like a little better. Mouth seems... I don't know if there's a mouth hanging in space, but it's a similar thing. It's... It's something that is hanging there in space freely, can be totally affected by any breeze that comes by, and sound. It actually speaks. It makes noise freely. It interacts freely with what is happening, no matter what is happening. It's able to turn. So this may seem like it's the opposite of being unstained,

[22:18]

grounded this is this is where we are but actually in the way that the world works it's actually the same thing to be because this and this thing that we are unstained about that we're accepting is not stuck you know this feeling that I'm not good enough this way that they're treating me this whatever it is that's making us feel uncomfortable is not just that it's freely turning in space or rather freely turning in dependence on everything else so therefore to to stay with it to stay in this unstained state We need to be able to turn freely. We need to be able to feel what we feel when they say you're wonderful.

[23:19]

We need to be able to feel what we feel when they say you're terrible. And then we need to be able to let those go and be the next wind chime hanging in space, responding to what is. this simple statement of to be unstained. Also, Dogen starts out this passage by saying to have the wisdom of the Buddha is called being unstained. And then he says, to not know what this is like is foolish. This is such a Dogen statement, you know, as if... But... he's pointing to this is just the way things are. Things are the way they are, and we have this idea that they should be different.

[24:26]

And because of that, it's very hard for us to actually meet our life and meet ourself, meet the world as it is, and be able to turn freely with it. So this simple... that he gives us of it's like seeing a flower and being not thinking that is the wrong color or not not colorful enough or seeing the moon and not thinking oh this is this is not a good enough moon give me another moon that simple experience that we have how do we get there about ourself how do we get there about the things that seem to be impinging on us more than flowers in the moon and again i'd like to say i think this is just we we sit down and we meet it we try to stay there for all of it one of the parts about this that's so hard for us is we have this tremendous urge to feel like we need to be in control

[25:39]

And there's way too much to be in control of. So this is a slightly uncomfortable situation for us. That's why we do things like Sid Zazen together for the support of each other so that we're not left there alone feeling so out of control. Here we are in the Zendo together. There'll be a Dawn who will ring the bell. There's lots of pretended control around. sooth our little hearts. Okay, now I don't know how to hook this back to Ted. They say in a good lecture you're supposed to hook back to the beat. So I'm going to open it and see if there's anything that you want to say for a moment and then we'll see if there's a closing statement that can pull it all together somehow. Does anyone have any? Yes, Chris. So I had a question But it's also kind of a recap.

[26:40]

Great. It ties into Ted. Thanks, Chris. So you're saying that if we sit zazen and just sort of work with ourselves over and over, at some point, maybe gradually or here and there, maybe all at once and forever, we'll be able to look at ourselves the same way that you look at flowers and not think, oh, it could be more colorful. Or the moon, oh, it could be brighter. We can look at ourselves and think, I'm not laughing at anything. I'm okay exactly right now as I am. Yeah. So maybe if Ted and other gentlemen had looked at the situation and not been thinking, oh, we should have taken the hose down, or we should have fixed the pipe, the pump, sorry. If only we had done that and this other... perfect world that the Zentno wouldn't have burned and we could come back.

[27:43]

But since it's not, then like they damaged themselves almost like from attachment to that idealistic world that they had settled on. Yes. I mean, we don't know what they thought. It's all secondhand, but we've all done things like that. So something like that. Yeah. And I, I think that the way that we can get to that place, you know, the, place you first described of oh here am I and this is the way I am it's not like it's a defensive thought like I'm okay don't anybody question that and it's not like now I'm there you know there's you know Susan Kiroshi said there's still room for improvement which that's lucky because life is still going on there will be requests yet coming forth for our being able to turn freely. But I think the way that to get closer to that place is to notice when it isn't happening.

[28:46]

To notice when we're feeling, oh, if only I had fixed that pump. And when we notice that, you know, if there's still a pump there to be fixed and you can fix it, fine. That'll definitely make you feel better. But... If the pump is long gone and you're still, or the words have already come out of your mouth and you can't really pull them back in, then I think it's very useful actually to notice the feeling that comes with that thought. Think that usually the feeling is actually prior to thought. Like we're feeling uneasy about something and then, as I said, without even... and almost we think, why am I feeling bad? Oh, I said that thing. But to actually just have the feeling as the way the world is right now, the way this world is right now, and to find out, I think we will find out most of the time, maybe all the time, that we can have that feeling.

[30:00]

Just have it as a feeling. It doesn't mean it's true it just means oh I have a sick feeling I have an abandoned feeling I have a not good enough feeling that is actually part of us and is an understandable part it's a human part so there we are sitting zazen walking around zazen having a feeling humans do. Thank you for pulling it all together. Does anyone else have anything? Yes. How do you reconcile that acceptance of where you are now with a desire to improve yourself? If there's, you know, a thorn stuck in my hand, I can spend lots of time trying to accept

[31:03]

if there's a thorn in my hand, or I can just pull it out. Yes, yes. Definitely. If there's something you can do, do it. But a lot of the thoughts, a lot of the, you know, we spend a lot of time thinking, I really wish I didn't have a thorn in my hand. Oh, I wish I didn't have a thorn. I wish I hadn't gone through that thorn bush. I wish I hadn't stolen that rose. I wish, you know... I don't know, should I ask them to help me pull it out? I should be able to do it by myself, should I? So, yeah, if you can pull the thorn out. Most of our things that we're worrying about are not quite as simple as a thorn in our hand. But it doesn't mean there isn't something we can't do about it. So, yes, go ahead. But the problem is we get an idea, oh, I would be able to pull that out, or I would be able to stop having that kind of thought. Oh, I didn't do it.

[32:03]

There I am, having it again. So we have lots of circles that we go through. You know, this practice that we do here at Soto Zen is called just sitting. But it doesn't mean that all we ever do is sit. It's just when we sit, we just sit. But, you know, we eat, we talk, we walk around, we do all kinds of other things. We always do that. So, yes, pull the thorn out, if at all possible. But don't spend a lot of time worrying about whether you should pull the thorn out or not. Not that we don't think. That's okay. It's also okay to think. But if you watch your thinking, I think most people see that we think in really crazy ways. We think the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. And then we think contradictory things.

[33:04]

So that's okay. That's fine. That's how human beings are. But the problem is we think that our thinking is where all the answers are going to come from. Not so. Yes? May? It sounded to me like being unstained is synonymous for acceptance or would be one way of saying it is accepting what is And turning freely is that skillful response to what is. I'm curious if you agree with that, if that seems like a way, one way to interpret turning freely. And then if that's the case, it seems like being unstained would need to be the precursor to turning freely. In order to skillfully respond, we need to actually be present to what's happening. to respond most skillfully, to actually have accepted what's happening, so we're not moving from a place of grasping or resistance?

[34:12]

I would say yes, and I agree. I think turning freely is responding skillfully or accurately. And I would say that often when we are not able to accept deeply what is we do do our habitual way of getting away from it. But I don't think that all of our accurate responses come from like skillfully, there's an idea in skillfully like we are doing it, which again is kind of identifying with our mind and how we're going to decide to do it. And I think part of what practice is about is learning to trust that we are actually in tune with things. Except for this defensive getting away from habit that we've built up to try to protect ourselves.

[35:15]

This protectiveness. So, you know, we all respond accurately most of the time, actually. And then we mess up sometimes. So, I think actually they can both grow on each other. They can help each other grow. That sometimes by noticing, oh, I did just respond accurately, even though I thought that I hadn't, it helps us to trust and therefore settle more into maybe it's okay to actually be who I am. Thank you all very much and look forward to continuing this experiment with you. Thanks.

[36:22]

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