Yesterday I mentioned that someone came and asked me for meditation instruction and confessed that although she was not asleep in her meditation, at least sometimes was not asleep, she was not interested in what was going on either. And I felt that this was being told to me because she thought this was a problem, that something was wrong with her practice. The being awake was okay, but not being interested, I think, worried her. And she thought that I could give her some instruction in meditation so she would be interested in meditation again, something like that. But still, when I heard her say, I'm not asleep and not interested, that sounded like one of the doors to liberation called the wishless door.

[01:25]

How can we be enthusiastic about practicing not being interested? One of my friends... years ago mentioned to me that the great teacher, Wong Bo, was described as walking around in the world as though he were too sick to care. This is a Nirmanakaya Buddha. appearing in the world as though he were too sick to care, not interested, too sick to be interested, or appearing to be too sick to be interested.

[03:04]

So after I brought this up, someone came to me and said, well, I think it's really interesting. I find it fascinating. wondrous and miraculous. And I noticed as he was telling me that he felt that things were interesting that I didn't say, and this person didn't say to me, that things aren't interesting. It's rather that we're not interested. This is not a statement about the world. The world is whatever you want to say about it. You can say it's interesting or not, but this is more talking about an attitude of not being interested, not being interested in miracles, not being interested in wondrous things.

[04:15]

Not being interested in hell. Not being interested in sentient beings. Not being interested in sentient beings. Eyes of compassion, observing sentient beings. An ocean of accumulated happiness beyond measure. Eyes of compassion are not interested in sentient beings. Eyes of compassion are awake and not interested This is the kindness that can untangle the mess.

[05:35]

This is the kindness that can liberate all beings. It has been taught that the first pure precept, I vow to avoid all evil, is a meditation on the body of truth of the Buddha, the body which does not come here and does not leave from here. the body which is not the same as us or different from us.

[06:46]

We, our practice here, our practice here is the adornment of this body. Our interest and disinterest are walking around with eyes of compassion and are walking around with eyes of involvement and greed, all this is the best we can do in our practice. But when we have eyes of true compassion and when we actually practice being awake, not asleep, and not interested, we are then the adornment of the body of reality of the Buddha.

[07:54]

This not being interested is to entirely renounce everything, to give up on this life. to give up on making anything out of this life. When we give up on trying to make anything out of this life, we enter Buddha's way. And then we can really make the most of this life. This is called avoiding evil, avoiding all evil. We stop trying to improve things.

[09:05]

We accept ugliness and imperfection. We stop trying to improve it. This person who said that he thought it was interesting also said, well, is this not being interested kind of like making a great effort to do nothing? And I said, yeah, it's like making a great effort to do nothing, or staying close and not doing anything. Because we sometimes get interested, we can't stay close.

[10:22]

Or even when we stay close, if we start to do something, we can't stay close after that because things don't work out the way we are trying to make them go. The Avatamsaka Sutra says that all things have no abode and no definite focus or locus can be found. All the Buddhas abide in this, ultimately unwavering. A scholar of the Buddhist canon came to talk to a disciple of Matsu whose name was Daiju Eikai and asked the Zen teacher if there's any change in true suchness.

[12:02]

And Eikai said, There is change in true suchness. The scholar was expecting him to say, no, there isn't change. So he said, Zen Master, you're wrong. And Ekai said to the scholar, do you have true suchness? And the scholar said, yes, I do. And Ekai said, if there's no change in true suchness, then you are determined to be an ordinary monk. And then he gave the verse.

[13:10]

A good teacher turns three poisons into the three pure precepts. Turns the six consciousnesses into six spiritual powers. Turns defilement into bodhi. Turns ignorance into great wisdom. There is change in true suchness. If you're attached or get stuck in the view that true suchness is like this, then you're outside the way. The scholar said, Teacher, you said before that there's change in true suchness.

[14:16]

Now you say that there's no change. What is correct? Hekai said, It is like someone who sees the true nature is like a wish fulfilling jewel manifesting many forms. It is correct to talk about change. It is also correct to talk about no change. Those who have not seen true nature and hear that true suchness changes, have ideas about changes. If they hear that there's no changes, they have ideas about no changes.

[15:26]

The scholar said, now I see that your school cannot be measured. And then Ekai said, this is where all Buddhas live. This is where they find their source. And this is where Dogen Zenji's comment on the first pure precept comes from. to fulfill all the forms and dignified deportments. This is to avoid all evil.

[16:42]

During Soji, I was walking around and I came upon someone and she was moving right along. And I thought, well, should I bother her by putting my palms together and stopping? I didn't actually think, should I bother her? I just thought, well, maybe it's too much to put my hands together. And then after I put my hands together, I thought, well, should I stop? Is that going too far? Will I then force her to stop in her tracks? Anyway, I put my hands together, and I did stop, and I did bow, and she stopped too.

[20:59]

But I don't know if she got her palms together, because by the time I got my palms together and stopped, she was already kind of past me, sort of a little bit to my back. But she did stop. I heard the kind of skid marks, skid sound. I don't know how dignified our deportment was at that time. Maybe it would have been more dignified if from a greater distance I had started thinking about greeting her and then she would have had more time and it might have been more dignified. Dignified deportment is the ever-changing manifestation of that which doesn't change.

[22:40]

You know, no matter how long you practice, you may still not know how to handle a greeting. Whether to bow or not, or if you do bow, not to know what happened. I think there's an anxiety there between, as I said yesterday, our plant-like security and spiritual risk. Maybe somebody can walk by somebody else and I don't know what, nothing happens.

[24:16]

But if you don't greet somebody or if you do greet somebody, there's a potential risk there spiritually. On the other hand, you can rest in your plant-like security even if you're moving like an animal and not come up and face this risk. How are we going to enliven and walk around this suchness?

[25:21]

Now somebody said last night, it's alive. quoting an ancestor. But I wonder, is it alive? When I bowed to that woman, was it alive? Was Zazen alive in that bow? Buddha's truth cannot be perceived. Realizing this is called perceiving Buddha's truth. Bowing to somebody on the path, I can't perceive Buddha's truth, neither can she. What does it mean to realize when we meet another person that you can't perceive the truth?

[26:46]

What does it mean to realize that together? Realizing that together, that we cannot perceive the truth, is called perceiving the truth. Realizing that together is called dignified deportment the posture you use the posture you're in the posture you fulfill when you meet someone else and together you realize that together and separately you cannot perceive the truth when you realize that then you too are the perception of truth. How do you make that alive?

[27:52]

How do you, without forsaking your plant-like security, how do you take a spiritual risk as a human animal? This living thing is the issue. So a monk asked Dung Shan, among the three bodies of Buddha, which one does not fall into any category? Among the three bodies of Buddha, where is the life? Where is the life of the body of Buddha? And Dungsan said, I'm always close to this. Another translation says, I always heed this.

[29:12]

I heed what doesn't fall into any category. Since I brought that up yesterday, and first I said, I'm not going to ask you to heed or stay close to that which doesn't fall into any category, and then I changed my mind and asked you to do it, I wonder, have I done it? Have I heeded that in the last 24 hours? How can you heed something that you can't see?

[30:31]

How can you heed something you can't perceive? fulfilling the forms and dignities. Always staying close close and yet not getting involved, not getting entangled in this living thing.

[31:49]

So a monk said, wrote a verse, this closeness is heartrending if you search outside. Why does the ultimate familiarity seem like enmity? From beginning to end, the whole face has no color or shape. Hearing this poem, somebody said, this is good, all right, but it still goes too far into wind and smoke.

[34:20]

I like this one better. Not entering the world, not following conditions. In the emptiness, of the pot of the ages, there's a family tradition. White duckweed, gentle breeze, evening on an autumn river, an ancient embankment, the boat returns. single stretch of haze. Duckweed is a plant like the kind that grows on the Green Gulch Pond, although I don't think that's duckweed.

[35:33]

Is that watercress? I don't know what it is. Anyway, duckweed's a plant that grows on the surface of a pond like that. And this particular one has white flowers. gathering white duckweed on a tranquil lake.

[36:54]

The day turns to dusk in the South China spring. On the river Dong, there is a returning traveler who meets an old acquaintance. Several years ago when we were studying this story of always close, in this verse about the ultimate closeness, or this closeness is heart-rending if you search outside, someone wrote a verse in the class.

[38:04]

This closeness is heart-rending if you search outside. Within its own closed circle, intimacy with oneself, with another, with it. Seems like enough. Step back, step outside, and it's chilly. Breath of emptiness creeps into the cracks, reminding you that nothing is enough.

[39:30]

Why does the ultimate familiarity seem like enmity? The connection is absolute. What is divided is joined by the very division. Between the eye and the vase and the hand and the water is only connection, a continuum of being and experience. And so it is between I and thou, between I and I, between I and it. All there is, enough and never enough.

[40:41]

Doesn't it seem like enmity when what gives you all that is, and everything and everyone gives you all that is, that he or she is, gives all that is, possible to give, can never give enough. I can't decide whether to tell you who wrote this and not say any more, or to say more and not tell you who wrote this. I think it's more interesting to tell you more and not tell you who wrote this. This is written by somebody here at Zen Center, and I feel really disconnected from this person.

[41:56]

very disconnected, very divided from this person. And today I find this 10-year-old poem very encouraging. In this way I feel the separation that I feel from this person maybe means how connected we are, because I feel a strong separation. I feel enmity. I feel enmity about this person and I think this person feels enmity about me. In a way I feel like apologizing to some of you that I don't feel enmity towards. Ten years ago he was writing poems like this with me.

[43:14]

I forgot this poem. And then I didn't finish the poem. He quotes another Zen student who I can say the name of. He quotes her saying, nothing helps, but everything is on your side. Layla Bockhorst. And he finishes the poem by saying, I'm always close to this. What do you do with this? How do you not get interested? And again, one form of being interested is to back off. What am I going to do about this guy who is so separate from me?

[44:23]

In the dark I slipped and fell in the mud and got all dirty. Today I dropped my little notebook in the mud and it got all dirty. It's all dirty. While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead, I played about the front gate pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts playing horsey. You walked around my seat playing with blue plums.

[45:26]

And we went on living in the village of Chonan, two small people without dislike or skepticism. At 14, I married you. I never laughed at being bashful. Lowering my head, I faced the wall. Cold to a thousand times. I never looked back. At fifteen I stopped scowling. I desired my dust to be mingled with yours forever and forever and forever. Why should I climb the lookout?

[46:35]

At sixteen you departed. You went into the far Kutoyan province by the river of swirling eddies. And you have been gone five months. Monkeys make sorrowful sounds overhead. You dragged your feet when you went out. By the gate now, the moss has grown, the different mosses, too deep to clear them away. The leaves of autumn are early, falling in the wind. Paired butterflies are still yellow with August over the green in the west garden.

[47:46]

They hurt me. I grow older. If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Jiang, please let me know beforehand and I will come out to meet you. as far as Chofusa. This is called The Letter of the River Merchant's Wife by Li Bo, the Poet of Night. In the practice of Zen, part of it is to be concentrated, to be concentrated and stable.

[49:17]

What are you concentrated on? What are you trying to stay close to? And this concentration is always united with wisdom. They're never separate. And recently a friend of mine told me that When the great ancestor said that in our way concentration and wisdom are always united, he looked up the character for wisdom, and the character actually means kindness. And he told one of his professors about it, and the professor said, that's a scribal error.

[50:29]

The word for kindness that's written there and the word that's usually used for wisdom are both pronounced hui. So the scribe heard hui and wrote down the character for kindness, but it should be the character for wisdom. So end of scholarly discovery. However, I thought that was really interesting and so did he. Even though it may be a mistake, I think that what wisdom is, really, for us Westerners, what insight is, has maybe more to do with kindness than what we usually think of when we hear of insight or wisdom. But also, what kindness really is, it has more to do with disinterest than what we usually think it does. She said, she said, if you're, if you're coming down, if you're, if you're coming down through the narrows of the River Gyan, please let me know beforehand.

[52:05]

I will come out and meet you as far as Chofusa." This is a dignified deportment. She doesn't say, I don't care what river you're coming down, I'll meet you anywhere. She sets a limit there. She'll meet him as far as Cho Phu Sa, if he's coming down that river. This is a form. She writes a letter. She states her conditions precisely. She lets him know where she'll meet him. It's realistic. It's realistic.

[53:12]

It's disinterested. It's awake. It's very close. almost unfriendly. This greeting that we do with each other, this meeting, this connection, this separation,

[55:11]

How we do that is the way we realize the body of truth. Tungshan is always close to this. Buddhas are all living there. This is their source. This is their joy. This is their energy source. If you're coming down the River Jiang, please let me know beforehand, and I'll meet you as far as Chou Fu Sa.

[56:53]

They are intention.

[57:09]

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