I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening. Well, this is almost the end of the first week of the practice period, and I think it's been a long week. I think it's been a long week for the practice period participants and also the staff and residents, other residents at Green Gulch. As you know, we started in the middle of the week, and so the week got stretched out a little bit.

[01:03]

It's been a full eight. It'll be a full eight days-plus that we've been practicing together, so I think we may be feeling tired and ready for the alternate schedule or the relaxed schedule, which is coming up after dishes tomorrow afternoon and on Friday. The word for practice period in Japanese is ango, and ango means peaceful abiding, peaceful abiding. In the opening of the practice period ceremony, I mentioned that Dogen had said for the opening of his practice period, peacefully abiding in this nest. And I was curious about that nest, what he might have meant by nest,

[02:04]

because I think in the kind of Zen center idiom, nesting or kind of making a nest for oneself is a no-no. It's something that we're watchful about. Oh, so-and-so thinks they're going to be here forever or something like that, making a nest. But in turning it over, peacefully abiding in this nest, what I feel that it means or what it means to me is peacefully abiding in this, what we use the word, I think, container, in the container of the practice period, the nest of the schedule and the relentless repetition, day in, day out of our ordinary life, supporting one another.

[03:11]

So in that way, it is a kind of nest that you can really, what happens in a nest, well, lots of things happen in a nest, but one thing is that the birds sit on eggs. They hatch eggs and they just sit there very patiently until there's pecking. And we sometimes say pecking out and pecking in, where the bird's pecking out, the newborn is pecking out and the mother and father are pecking from the outside to help break free. So peacefully abiding in this nest. I'm now settled on the word nest as a way to, as an image for coming here for these weeks. I'm talking to the practice period in particular right now, but I actually mean everybody who's come here to practice

[04:14]

to sit on those eggs together peacefully. So I think lots of things are coming up for people as it should be. People have been talking with me about loneliness and leaping ahead into the future and not feeling they're doing it right, whatever it might be. Also, people have been talking with me about anger and feelings about speech, both harsh speech and kind speech,

[05:17]

that they've heard while working and practicing here. So I think this talk tonight is just some way of being together and just bringing up some of the things that we're all working with in some way or another. I got a letter from someone who I practice with, actually at Green Gulch. We were part of the original five-person crew that was asked to come to Green Gulch when we first got it in June of 1972. I was, I think, 23, and he was younger than I was, so he must have been about 19. Many of you, or some of you know him, David Schneider. I haven't seen him in a long, long time, but he wrote me, he's in Germany, just a little card of congratulations

[06:19]

for the Mountain Seat Ceremony. And in the back, he said, if I were there, I would ask you this question. Is there any way to live without hurting someone else? Is there any way to live without hurting another? And I don't know the background of that question, the particulars, but I don't think I need to know. I think this is, how do we live in the world without hurting those that we love, those that we care about, or hurting ourselves? How can we live such a way? And this ties into some of the things that I brought up,

[07:21]

the emotional side of our lives, anger and strong emotions, negative emotions, I'm thinking of mostly. How is it that even with our best intentions and our vows and our pledges over and over, how is it that we lose our temper, that we get angry, that we say things that are hurtful? How does this happen, and what is the practice around that? Is there any way to live in the world without hurting? And in turning that over, I feel that until there's anuttara samyak sambodhi, meaning the utmost right and perfect enlightenment, there will be hurting.

[08:23]

Hurting will happen. And based on our misunderstanding or our ignorance about the way things are, we will hurt another because we believe that there is self and other separate. And what comes forth from that is, I better take care of number one over here, watch out for what my needs are, protect what I need, and then hurting another comes out of that. So in Buddhism, it's interesting, Buddhism acknowledges all the negative emotions and understands also that we want to be free from this kind of harmful activity and harmful ways of thinking. But also, we don't teach trying to get rid of, trying to get those things out of our life.

[09:25]

Instead, the teaching is more centered on knowing that these things are not in alignment with our vows and by paying very, very close attention to those very things, those very negativities, I'm going to call them, by being as aware and mindful and close to them as ever we possibly can, we protect others and free ourselves from those. So it's not by trying to get rid or suppressing or repressing or somehow blocking getting these things out of our life, but it's by the very attentive, close watching and awareness of these things that we are freed from them. And we also see that when we're that close, we don't necessarily have to act on those,

[10:33]

on anger or greed or delusion. So, not trying to get rid of anything and yet watching and being aware of every single thing, which is mindfulness. And the practice here is, or I should say in a practice place, the practice is set up so that mindfulness is close at hand, so you don't have to fight, you know, to find the conditions for mindfulness. The silence, the sounds of the monastery, the attitude towards work, the attitude towards meals, towards taking care of our own bodies,

[11:37]

all of these things are set up, you know, bowing in front of altars, in front of the bathrooms or the showers. This brings us back to our awareness. Mindfulness is the ability to bring our attention to shifting objects of awareness, you know, one thing after another after another, whereas concentration or samadhi is focusing the attention on one thing, one-pointed. But mindfulness is focusing the attention on one thing after the other after the other. So, they're similar in that there's focused attention, but one is the constant shifting and the other is one-pointed on one thing. So the teaching is that mind itself is Buddha,

[12:41]

this very mind is Buddha, this ordinary mind that includes getting angry and impatient and being parsimonious and praising self at the expense of others and all the other things that we're working with, and those very things we do not try to get rid of or think, once I get rid of those things, then I'll be Buddha. It's more, this very mind is Buddha. This mind, including all those things, all those dharmas, is none other than a Buddha mind. And just by saying that, I can feel it's like, it's like, well, how could that possibly be? You've got to either be ordinary, regular person, or you're Buddha. You can't, how could you put those two together, which is the kind of mystery of the practice that this very mind is Buddha. That's what I'm going to say now anyway, this very mind is Buddha.

[13:42]

So if we get stuck in either side, no, I'm not, I'm just an ordinary person, a regular old person, that's kind of a one-sided view. Suzuki Roshi uses small mind and big mind. If you've read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, there's small mind and big mind, so you get stuck in small mind. And that's not the whole truth, that's too narrow, it's too small. But if you say, well, I'm Buddha, someone might feel like you need to go to the crisis center or something, which has happened where people get maybe inflated in some way. Both of those extremes, you could say, are only part, partially, they're not the full, whole truth, which is this very mind is Buddha. And we have to discover for ourselves what that could possibly be. It's a mystery.

[14:44]

It's our wonderful mystery. So if that is the basis of the teaching, then everything that we do, it's not just, you know, taking a shower, it's, it's, moko yoko shintai to gan shujo, it's with all beings I wash body and mind, free from dust, pure and shining, within and without. This washing up, washing the face, washing ourselves is Buddha activity. It's not just any old thing. And yet, it's just washing up, you know. And the same is true of all of, all of the activities of the day. It's this ordinary and Buddha activity, ordinary activity and Buddha activity, and, and our attention and holding that in our mind, actually, bearing that in mind that this is Buddha activity

[15:47]

and this very mind is Buddha, this very mind that's chopping carrots, working in the garden, standing ready for service. Bearing that in mind is, for me, that, that can be a help and encouragement for practice. So, our, I wanted to talk a little bit about our meal practice. Did you have, did the practice period have orioke instruction today? Yes? Yes. Some people did? Who had orioke instruction today? Okay. That's, okay. So, our, our meal practice is, we have so many things going on at Green Gulch right now that there's a number of different meal practices that are happening. There's kind of a talking evening meal

[16:49]

with guests who are here and a buffet and going to get seconds whenever you want and so forth, same with lunch. And then for breakfast, we have a formal meal and we know that the practice period is doing a semi-formal meal where we wait, we offer up, the Buddha gets offered food first, we chant, we serve each other, we wait till everyone's finished pretty much and practice together with our, with serving and eating together. And then at the exact same time, there's another meal going on that's partly silent in the small dining room with staff members who are maybe going to work early or not participating. Usually staff doesn't choose to participate in the formal meal. And I'm not sure exactly, I think in the past we've asked people, because I think people would want to participate in the formal meal, but we've asked them,

[17:52]

asked people to make a commitment to do the full eight weeks worth of formal meals and that may be too much of a commitment, so they've been eating informally pretty much. So I wanted to say something about our meal practice. We're going to be having our first orioke meal tomorrow and Dogen, in his pure standards for the Zen community, which are rules and regulations and how to live in monastic life down to very detailed descriptions of which way you turn and which foot, just like we give the same kinds of instructions but even more detailed, how you do pretty much everything, I think. How you put your towel around you when you're walking to and from the shower. So there's a way, a mindfulness practice of carrying your towel folded a certain way over your left arm or whatever it is.

[18:54]

So in this chapter called Fushoku Hanpo, it's called the Dharma for Taking Food and I just wanted to read the first paragraph which gives a kind of teaching around what the practice is around taking food or eating food. A sutra says, and this is actually the Vimalakirti Sutra where Vimalakirti, the layman Vimalakirti, speaks to Shariputra who's begging, goes to his house with his begging bowl and he puts in this very delicious food into his bowl and then he says, like before you eat that and then he gives all these non-dualistic teachings and at the end, Shariputra doesn't know if he should eat it or leave it there or go away, he gets very kind of confused and bewildered.

[19:56]

That's another story, but what Vimalakirti says, or in this sutra it says, if you can remain the same with food all dharmas also remain the same. If all dharmas are the same then also with food you will remain the same. I'm going to read that again. If you can remain the same with food all dharmas also remain the same. If all dharmas are the same then also with food you will remain the same. And then Dogen says in commenting, just let dharma be the same as food and let food be the same as dharma. And a little bit later, if the dharma is bodhi, meaning awakening, food also is bodhi. Therefore, there's more

[21:03]

using words in place of dharma, if awakening is dharma then food is awakening. Therefore, food is the dharma of all dharmas which only a buddha, together with a buddha, exhaustively penetrate. For this reason, dharma is itself food. Food is itself dharma. This dharma is what is received and used by all buddhas in the past and future. This food is the fulfillment, that is the joy of dharma and the delight of meditation. And then it goes on in the chapter 2 to discuss the orioke meal and how this ceremony, we've been talking about ceremonies, how this ceremony of receiving food is conducted, I guess you could say conducted or performed, what the procedures are.

[22:07]

And it's more elaborate than our orioke. There's attendance that stand and don't eat at the same time and different sounds and different things that happen in this full minute. We have, even though people feel like we have lots and lots of ritual, it's really kind of pared down compared to Japanese monastic life. I also, in the chant that we do, we talk about the 10 benefits of food. I just wanted to read what the 10 benefits are. The 10 benefits are healthy color. This is the benefits to a person. Healthy color, strength, longevity, comfort, wholesome speech, good digestion, preventing colds, relieving hunger, relieving thirst,

[23:09]

suitable excretions, according to the Mahasangika Vinaya. I guess there must be suitable and unsuitable excretions. And then the three virtues. These are also mentioned in the chant that we do. The three virtues of food are soft, pure, and made according to Dharma. And then the six tastes are bitter, sour, sweet, spicy, salty, and mild, and that's according to the Nirvana Sutra. So, Dharma is food, and food is Dharma. And I would like us, and myself as well, to bear this in mind, and I think, as I was mentioning at tea

[24:14]

to the practice period, sometimes when we pare away all our usual distractions, being able to hop in our car and go do things and go shopping and various things that we're used to doing when we begin to feel discomfort, lonely, longing for something, feeling a kind of hole inside that needs to be filled somehow, you know, food can be used in that way as a comfort, right, comfort food. And in practice period and living in a practice center, when we make our commitment to stay here without leaving, food sometimes ends up being one of the main things that we end up using to take care of ourselves. And I am not saying

[25:16]

that this is either bad or good practice exactly. That's not what I'm pointing to. What I want to point to is that food is Dharma, and Dharma is food. So these ten benefits and eating so that we're healthy and can continue our way, continue our practice, have enough energy and health to do mindfulness practice, you know, and to carry out the Buddhist way. I think what I would like everyone to do is to bring their attention to how their eating practice and this teaching about food being Dharma, are those meeting? Is there some missing? What's happening there?

[26:16]

And I think if we look carefully, we can find sometimes some pain in our lives that food perhaps has been, food has been used to keep ourselves from feeling certain things, certain pain, and it's a great buffer, you know. So because, you know, I feel that the Buddhist practice starting from way early in Shakyamuni's time, if you read in the Vinaya about the monks' practices around begging and receiving food, for example, the teaching is that you go house to house asking for food. The tradition was to eat before 12 noon and to beg for your food. You didn't cook for yourself. I guess there was some cooking

[27:17]

for sick monks at some time, but the basic practice was you beg for your food and you go from house to house and you don't look around to see which might be a good house that might have some really good stuff and which house might not, and you don't spare the poor homes thinking, well, I won't ask for them because they need all the food they can get. You go from house to house because the poor homes, by giving to the monks, they receive a benefit by supporting the monks. They receive merit, you know, so why deprive? You don't want to deprive them of the merit of giving even a very small amount of gruel or something like that, nor do you want to skip that house because you think they may not have very much. Anyway, there's the most intricate discussions about this kind of self-clinging around food,

[28:19]

which is so basic, it's so old. Our relationship, emotional relationship to food, and so a lot of self-clinging comes up around food practice. So I feel that Buddhist practice in general has, and maybe all religious practices or monastic practices, I'm not really familiar with other traditions, although I know that they read, in some traditions, they read spiritual, from the Bible, while you're eating in the refractory, I think, things like that. So for our meal, we have 3 meals a day. We don't stop at noon, and this practice, when Buddhism went into colder countries, China, Tibet, China and Korea, these countries, they couldn't last, couldn't get through the day healthily without eating

[29:21]

something later. So we also have an evening meal, and during Sashin, and mostly Sashin, it's a smaller meal, and at Tassajara, during practice period, every day is like this. The evening meal is smaller, and it's called Medicine Stone, is the translation of the word in Japanese for that particular meal. It's thought of as medicine to keep you healthy and strong, but it's not a full meal. So our way of taking food, we sit, for a formal meal, you sit in Zazen posture, or if you're in the semi-formal meal in the dining room, you sit upright, you wear your Okesa, if you have one, or your Raksu, you wear formal attire, which it talks about in here. The meal is a formal event, receiving the Dharma

[30:22]

in this way that's, it's so wonderful to think of this Dharma, this wondrous Dharma that goes into your body and then becomes your energy for practice and for energy to listen to the teaching and to follow the way. But it's so intimate, it goes inside, so it's a formal thing. You wear your full robes, and when you're serving, you wear robes as well, you don't change into your sweats to serve you. You wear your robes in the Zendo for this formal activity, and the same in the dining room for the meal. And you sit quietly, basically doing Zazen. And they say in here, you know, it's very humorous because you can picture some of these monks are really young, I think they were ordained young. You know, it says you don't sit there scratching your head and looking around the room, you know, you sit in Zazen posture and quietly eyes cast down. But the fact that Dogen has to say,

[31:22]

you know, don't rub your limbs and don't, oh, don't quickly eat and then sit with your arms folded and look around and see what other people are doing. So you might enjoy reading this in here. So we sit quietly, basically until the meal is ready to go. Then we serve each other. And, you know, the communication between the server and the servee is very, that's another very intimate thing. There's one, you know, usually we like to serve ourselves, you know, you like just, you like to take just, you like the crispy part and you don't like the center or you like corners of the cornbread but you don't like the, and I want a lot of tofu and no kale for me. But for formal meal, the food is the Dharma and the Dharma is the food in it. You receive the Dharma just as it comes from the kitchen. And they, you know,

[32:22]

the pure, the three virtues, it's been, one of the virtues I mentioned was made according to the Dharma, prepared according to the Dharma. So the kitchen practice, they are also taking care of this food and the garden, you know, innumerable labors brought us this food. So we have all these different practices of caring for the food and the water and not wasting a rice grain, you know. Dogen also talks about the food, you should treat the food as if it were your own eyes, you know, it's that precious. It's, it is none other than Dharma, this food. So we don't waste, you know, we try not to waste or if we can't serve something a second time for various reasons, it's composted carefully and we recycle and there's all this. So in the kitchen it's going on. And then when it comes out

[33:23]

in these pots on the table sitting there, I remember my first session seeing those pots and I thought, there are these pots with their diapers on. They wear diapers when they come into the Zen Do because they're hot and they're put on the meal board. I think in the dining room we don't wear diapers, do we for the, no, I don't think so. So there were the pots sitting in their diapers all lined up in a row just being these little pots waiting with their lids on. I can't quite describe it but it was really wonderful how much they were being themselves, these pots with their diapers. Anyway, so there they are and then we lift off the lids. There's this, I realize I'm free associating here, but anyway, there's this New Yorker cartoon that was from like the 30s and it's this very fancy restaurant and this little man is sitting there and there's a great big silver chafing dish thing with a big cover

[34:24]

and the waiter who's all in a tux, I think he's, he lifts off the top and he says, Tomatoes, surprise! Anyway, that's the joke and there's this little there's this little tiny tomato on this big platter and the man is sort of looking at it, Tomatoes, surprise! So whenever I lift off a lid I always think, Tomatoes, surprise! Anyway, the first thing we do is we lift off the lid and then the fragrance and the delicious aroma of the food comes wafting out, you know, and we begin to salivate. If we haven't already started when we heard the oom-pah going because it's sort of like Pavlov's dogs, you know, you hear the oom-pah and you start salivating. And then, then the first pot comes, you know, it's very exciting. The meal time can be very exciting, especially during sashimi because nothing's happening. And then you lift it and it goes right in between you and one person waits, you know, hands the bowl and then you, and then this communication.

[35:24]

So the server, if you serve too slowly it's kind of annoying. Why don't they just give me my food, you know? If it's too fast it's like, I didn't want that much. So you have to be very intimate with each other. You can give the signal a little bit, enough, but you're watching, you're very, you know, and the more you get to know each other you know that so-and-so always takes three scoops of cereal, it's just, and so-and-so takes a little bit. This is, this is the kind of closeness that happens during practice period, during monastic life. How you know what each other likes for breakfast really, especially if you move around you get to know each other. And then serve yourself and then you pass it down, then everybody bows, then the next one comes. And it's this dance, you know, pots are moving and there's bowing and lifting and this and this and it's all silent and you're paying lots of attention

[36:26]

to each other and then they finally get to the end, they're covered up. And then, then we chant and remember and reflect on our practice and, you know, how the food got to the table and also coming up with that may be the people in the world who don't have food and also there may be greed in there and distaste, I don't like, I don't like oatmeal and, you know, so there's this, everything's going on, the whole world is there, the entire cosmos is there, past, present and future, everything, you know, my mother didn't make it that way, I'm allergic to this, why don't they have more vegan? It just, it's all there, everything, as we're chanting away and then we lift our bowls together and we take the first scoop,

[37:26]

the first mouthful, everybody puts in their mouth at just about the same time. Now that's what I call, you know, intimacy, right? So, this practice is unusual, I think, having this kind of practice, having a meal practice, that's this articulated and this thought through and this beautiful, you know, the meals in the Zen Do with the servers are, it's, I feel, it's a beautiful dance as people come in and move and up and down the rows, but the dining room meal can be also very beautiful, you know, if we're paying attention, you know, mindfulness and the more we get used to it, the more, you know, I was speaking with someone about the, how new everything feels

[38:28]

and how they feel like a little baby, you know? You know, if you're a person who has life other than Green Gulch, you know, you're used to doing things and knowing what to do when and you come here if you're fresh and new and you don't even know what foot to step into a room with or which utensil to use or where to put it and your shoes and, you know, it's, so you feel like a new baby, which is very conducive to a wake state of mind because you can't just rest on your laurels, not your laurels, rest on your taking for granted that you know kind of what's going on. You have to stay really alive and awake for such a thing as eating breakfast, you know? So this is very helpful for us to wake us up because, you know, we tend to get into ruts and habitual patterns, which is a kind of deadening thing that happens.

[39:30]

And so, so we have these practices that are offered to us. You know, Dogen talks about this. He's writing in 1246 this thing. It's so great. You know, he's talking about the practice that we really are doing, the same kind of feeling, you know, back in the 1200s, and he's just carrying on a tradition that had been going on in China, you know, since who knows when, when these monasteries were developed in this way. So my feeling is it's very creative, enlightened teachers working together to say what is the most conducive to help people to wake up? Well, let's not forget our eating practice. You know, let's really put some attention there. So we've inherited this because we have planted our wholesome roots in the past. We have come in contact

[40:35]

with these kinds of practices that will help us. And, you know, what I was saying about we don't try to get rid of the emotions, we just are freed up. You know, oh, I forgot to finish my thought about habitual thinking. So with these practices, the more we get familiar with them, the more we find we can actually, we feel freedom and joy expressing ourselves through how we scoop and serve our neighbor, serve our Dharma friend. The care and love that can be communicated by how someone offers you food, pouring out of the ladle, the food and bows and passes, is, it's inconceivable. So, you know, how do we live in the world

[41:35]

without hurting? How can we, is there a way to live in the world without hurting another human being? And we can start with the most simple things, the most basic things, like eating together. I should just say personally that the practices around food, receiving food and also cooking and offering food and receiving have been, for me, a kind of very transformative and very healing too. So with that being said, I wanted to encourage

[42:37]

the people who are at Green Gulch, staff members and people who are not in the practice period to come to formal breakfast. I know that, you know, we have six months of more intense practice, two practice periods with the January practice period in between. So it really is about six months of focus on the Zen Do and the practices. And then we have six months of the year where we focus on work more and the farming and the gardening. And we don't have a practice period for six months. And during that time, we do have one-day sittings and August session and so forth, but there are no formal meals in the Zen Do. So I just wanted to encourage staff members to, this is what the practice committee talked about this, one thought we had was just to set an extra table of eight so that you don't have to sign up for the whole, you know,

[43:39]

every day of every week, but that that one table of eight, there'd be eight set, or we could, if a lot of people want to do this, we could set more than eight. But I think the kitchen, you know, they have to divide the food into the pots and we have to, that's a complication of setting up pots if people aren't going to be eating from the pots. So one idea is to have a table that's set, and if you want to have formal breakfast that morning, just come and sit down. And if all eight seats are filled, then there'll also be a setup in the small dining room as usual, and also for people who have to work or go on a town trip or whatever. So I don't think we want to make a situation where we're saying this is the only meal offered, but to make it available for the rest of staff and others, I suppose, I guess maybe not a guess because they haven't been trained to do it.

[44:40]

It might not work out so well. So let somebody know if you'd like to do that, maybe Fu or Wren or myself. And the other thought we had during practice period was to add another orioke meal. Right now we just have half-day sitting, one breakfast a week, and the one-day sittings, and then Sashin. But it seemed like, and this came out of January practice period where we had two orioke meals a day, why not add, let's add another orioke meal, maybe Saturday morning orioke breakfast, and it will give the practice period more chance to do serving practice and do orioke practice before Sashin. So I think we're going to try that on, not this Saturday, but that's an idea. We'll see what happens. That might be. And non-practice period staff, people can certainly come to that as well.

[45:40]

So I think that might be all I wanted to say for tonight. Thank you very much. May our intention May our intention

[46:12]

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