I haven't given a talk here for quite a long time. In the intervening months, Green Gulch got a very nice public dress system thanks to, I guess, some donations. But today it doesn't work. So I can say, can you hear me in the back? You can? Okay. Okay. I had a basic idea for this morning's talk, a basic concept, and then it split into two.

[01:37]

but still I think I can temporarily hold it to two ideas or two images. The one is the practice of zazen, and the other is or a related image or idea is the image of the cauldron or crucible. So that's sort of a title or something. And when I thought about this and started elaborating these ideas, after a little while, I thought to myself, what does this have to do with the many homeless people in America?

[03:03]

What does this topic have to do with coping and helping others cope with suffering that we feel for ourselves and the pain that we feel when we see other people suffer. What does the Cauldron and Zazen have to do with that? I feel that what I'm going to talk about today I hope, I have faith that what I'm talking about is a way to prepare ourselves, first of all, prepare ourselves for coping creatively with our own suffering, and in that way to help others

[04:07]

Do the same with theirs. To make ourselves ready to help ourselves and to make ourselves ready to help others. And I'm aware of the fact that there's many ways to do this. There's many styles, many forms. suggested in the past for how to help yourself and how to help others. And Zen practice is one of those alternatives. I think that you may see today that the way I'm going to present Zen practice will have, will relate to a lot of other ways So in one sense, although there's many ways, their roots are very close.

[05:16]

For me, my original interest in Zen practice was not specifically in Zen meditation. My interest in Zen practice was stimulated in two areas. Actually one area, but two different types of examples. One was examples of people who happened to be Zen monks, stories about their lives. And these stories were stories about their relationships and interactions with other living beings. In these stories I felt, I didn't feel primarily that they were being helpful to others, but I think I felt more that their actions were enlightening to the people they met and probably a great happiness to themselves.

[06:43]

And also that I saw their behavior as the kind of behavior that if other people could learn it, the world would be a better place, a happier place, a more interesting and alive place. Another way of saying what I saw there was I saw something beautiful. That my primary attraction was aesthetic. And again, I'm sorry, but the story that comes to mind is a story I've told too many times. And I just want to tell it one more time. It's a story about a Zen priest named Hakuin.

[07:47]

And this man eventually became noted as a very strict Zen master. As a matter of fact, he retired when he was 58 years old because he became, he wasn't able to train monks anymore because he got too sweet according to himself. He couldn't train them anymore because he was getting too sweet. And from then on, for the next 30 years of his life, he just painted pictures I don't know what point in his life his story took place, but anyway, at some point in his life, a girl in his village, he lived near Mount Fuji, not too far from Suzuki Roshi's temple, near a town which is now called Mishima.

[08:49]

And Mishima is a fishing village. And a girl in the village became pregnant and told her parents that Hakuin was the father. parents went to Hakuin and criticized him severely for being such an unworthy priest and told him that when the baby came, he could take care of it. And he said, and he wasn't the father, by the way. He was unjustly accused. And he said, When they said all that to him, he said, oh, is that so? And then he got a wet nurse for the baby and took care of the baby for two years. And then after a while, the girl told her parents,

[09:58]

the whole story, namely that actually a young boy in the village was the father and not Hakuin. And they went to Hakuin and they said, we're so deeply moved that you took care of our grandchild all this time and were so kind to her and you didn't even defend yourself or Anything. You are really a great priest. And he said, oh, is that so? So, and they took the baby back. And when I read that story 20-some years ago, or whenever it was, I don't remember, I I just thought that's the way to be.

[11:08]

That's the way to be. So beautiful, so close to what we all can do, just a little bit, just a tiny bit of difference between I didn't do it and oh, is that so? Or I'm not gonna take care of the kid, you do it. It's not my responsibility. That little bit of difference, just a few words difference. And also when they criticized him and praised him, that he just felt pretty much the same way. Kind of surprised in both cases that people were talking to him like that. I just thought it was beautiful and I wanted to be like that somehow. I had no idea how he got to be that way, but I thought it was wonderful. And then I also around that time saw a picture in Life magazine of a person, a man, sitting on some tatami mats with the light

[12:19]

Look, the shot was over at his back, and he was just sitting on some Tommy mats, and the light was coming in the room at his face. So you just saw his silhouette there on the mats. He was sitting in Zazen. And I just thought, it's so beautiful. I want to do that. I didn't so much think, oh, this sitting there is helping people or he was helping people. I just thought, that seems like the right way to be. Whether he helped those people or not, I don't know. I think maybe he did. But before I know whether he helped those people, I feel like he was acting beautifully. He was acting right. And we'll wait to see whether it helps people. And in fact, 300 years later, it helped me. It helps you, maybe.

[13:22]

There's no end to how much a beautiful action can help, a right action can help. But this Zen style that I just said, those two stories, those two pictures, that's just one style. That's just the so-called Zen style. which I happen to find beautiful. But there's other ways that also are beautiful. So Zen, for me, the aesthetic was a kind of simple one, like a simple story, a simple picture in a complex world. Sometimes Zen priests learn some rituals. In tantric Buddhism, there's various kinds of mudras that they go through.

[14:31]

Anyway, various complex mudras that they learn. In Zen, we kind of just have like one. And maybe two, maybe three. But not so many anyway. Mostly just this one. This is the main mudra we do for people. And lay people and priests both can do it. So it's kind of a simple way. And in the early days of Zen in China, before they even thought of the word zazen for what they were doing, they used to use the word one practice samadhi, or the absorption in one activity or one practice. A simple practice, one practice. Another way to translate this is

[15:36]

the absorption in oneness, or absorption in the oneness of life, or concentration on the unitary form of all life. And the way we usually start out by concentrating on the oneness of all life, or the way we start doing this one practice, samadhi, is we look at, we concentrate on breath or breathing. Another simple practice. Just pay attention to breathing in

[16:38]

and breathing out. This is a concrete way to absorb yourself on life. When you first start meditating on breath, you may not feel like you're concentrating on the oneness of all life. You may only feel like you're paying attention to your own life. So that's how we start. We start maybe just thinking that we're paying attention to our own breath, our own life. This is a simple start. But the full meditation is that we're actually going to try to see and absorb ourselves not just into an individual life and not just into all the different lives, but into the individual life and all the individual lives and the oneness of all the individual lives.

[18:04]

that this will be what we call zazen. Am I talking loudly enough still? The one practice, concentration. Another way we put this is we say a very standard Zen phrase is birth and death. Life and death is the great matter. Life and death is the great matter. In other words, there's one thing to pay attention to. there's one thing to concentrate on, and that is birth and death.

[19:09]

It's the great matter. Another way to say that is, this my life, my life is very important. Your life is very important. our life is very important. That is the great matter. That is what I believe Hakuin was doing when those people came up to him and insulted him. He was concentrated on the one great thing. All the time, concentrated on the one great thing. So people come up to you and they say, you are a terrible priest. You go, oh, is that so?

[20:14]

Of course, it's quite a surprise that someone's calling you a terrible priest. Because you're just a living creature there, meditating on your life, and suddenly someone says something interesting like that. And then they toss you a baby. Oh, meditate on the baby now. Life. Feed baby. And then a couple years later they come and say, oh, you're a great priest. Oh, wow. Is that so? Me? So I want to act like that, but I can't act like that. I have to be taking care of myself in such a way that that's my natural response. And so the image of the cauldron is a way for me to...

[21:26]

elaborate or help focus on this. This is a glass of water here on this tray up in front of me. So I have this tray now. I put it in front of me and this will be my cauldron in front of me. One of the early early Buddhist meditations actually is to concentrate on a disc like this. Put a disc in front of you. A blue disc, a blue disc, what colors? A white disc, various colored discs. Put them in front of you. Actually put the disc in front of you. Make a little mound and focus your attention on this disc. But For the Zen monk, this disc, inside of this disc or inside of this cauldron, what's inside there, what's in this cauldron is the oneness of all life.

[22:36]

Birth and death is in the cauldron. And you put the cauldron in front of you or inside of you and you look into the cauldron or the crucible. or the container, the vessel. Absorbing yourself into this cauldron, into this vessel. Concentrating on this container. Staying in this container. Taking care of the container. Don't let it get broken. Be careful of the container's walls. Look into it. The churning, swirling universe is there.

[23:39]

A Buddhist scholar said, our deepest unconscious human beings at the human level the deepest unconscious desire is to experience the flow of quality out of the foundations of the world that's what's in the cauldron the flow of quality out of the foundations of the world this flow of quality out of the ground of life, this is where all life, this is how all life is connected.

[24:51]

And we're not just looking at our individual life when we look at this. In Macbeth, in Shakespeare's Macbeth, at the beginning, I guess, is it at the beginning? There's a cauldron, isn't there? And there's the three sisters around the cauldron. Is that right? Huh? What? People up here said witches, and they said sisters is better. I did some research on this.

[25:54]

Shakespeare did not call them witches. He called them the three weird sisters. He did not call them witches. I always thought in my mind, when I thought of that scene there, I always thought, these are three witches. But they aren't three witches according to, that witches is a different word from weird. Weird means, weird means, you know, in Elizabethan English, it's W-E-I-R-D. But the earlier English word is W-Y-R-D. And that word weird means fate. The word witch comes from wicca, the female form of wicca.

[27:00]

Wicca and wicca are witch and wizard. The word wizard does not have the same root as wicca and wiccae. The word wizard comes from wise. Sorcerer. Spellcaster. Divinator. These are related to witch and wizard. But weird, the word weird is related to fate. Fate. The Greek and Roman, the Roman goddess, triple goddess, three sisters, fata or fortune, three sisters of fate. Fate comes from fatum, and fatum comes from faki, and faki means to speak.

[28:06]

Weird in English comes from word, w-u-r-d, and urd, u-r-d, earth and word. Fate leads, the idea of fate is the origins of the word weird. It is the three weird sisters, the three sisters of fate. These are not witches. These are the triple goddess of fate. And both the English word weird and the Latin predestined. Our sensations are predestined. Not our response to them. The moment by moment sensations of our life are coming up all the time. That's what's in the cauldron — swirling, uncontrollable, choiceless experience.

[29:14]

That's our fate. Our fate is in that vessel. We do not control the colors, sounds, smells, touches, and tastes that we experience. These are choiceless. These are determined by the past activity of all living beings. They're what's on our plate. We cannot control what we're given. Or a better example, it's more like we're a cook in a restaurant and we get these orders. Hamburgers, French fries, glass of coffee, water, steak. The orders come. The requests come. And we cook them. But we can't control what the people order. That's the fate of the cook. You can't control the color of the light coming in the window right now.

[30:20]

None of us can. All of us together can't, but all of us together is closer to what determines the color than one of us. Because it's not only all of us, but all the other people who are living today, all the other animals, all the other trees that are living today, plus all the other animals, people, and trees, and everything that's lived from beginningless time produces the colors, sounds, smells, touches, and tastes that we experience. And as these sensations arise in the cauldron, we look in there. We don't try to change the colors. We don't try to control the sounds. This is a hopeless activity. What we do is we look at it and we observe how it arises and how it goes away and take care of the container.

[31:21]

So I feel there's two important aspects of our work in making ourselves ready to take care of ourselves and making ourselves able to take care of ourselves and therefore able to take care of others. One is to take care of the container. Make a vessel for our experience. We have it already. And we just need to take care of it in our own body. We need to take care of our bodies so that it can be a container for our experience. It already is a container for our experience, and yet, if we don't take care of it in certain ways, we can't stand by the cauldron and look in. We keep running away to eat, to sleep, to do something else than look in the cauldron.

[33:58]

And the same, a relationship with someone else is also a cauldron, a vessel. And we have to take care of the relationship so that inside the relationship we can look and see that spontaneous flow of quality out of the foundations of life. If we don't take care of the container, the vessel of the relationship, well, we just, we have trouble experiencing what's happening. For example, anger can sometimes break the container, but if the container's strong enough, the anger can stir up the contents of the relationship in a helpful way.

[35:06]

you have to be careful what emotions you give rise to in relationship to the container of your experience. Whether they're actually stirring it up or giving it life or seeing the life through the anger or whether the anger is hitting the container and going to break it open and we're going to run away. So attachment and anger are very, generally speaking, be careful of them because they might break the container of your own sitting or of a relationship. Sometimes, however, they could be helpful. But you need a strong container to use them.

[36:16]

And I'm not even talking about intentional anger. I'm talking about looking at something that could possibly cause anger. not to be intentionally angry or violent, but to look in certain areas that are uncomfortable or to bring up certain uncomfortable things with another person that might produce anger. Before there's a container, maybe you don't even need to look at these things. But if there is a strong container, you can look at some difficult things the relationship may be able to survive. If there's enough relationship, you can bring up difficult topics. But if there's not enough of a relationship, even if it's an important issue, if you bring it up, you or the other person may run away and not even look at what's happening anymore.

[37:35]

So it's a subtle matter. The word gratitude comes to my mind in this connection. Gratitude seems particularly helpful in taking care of the transformative vessel.

[38:39]

gratitude to another person, recognizing all that they've done to take care of your relationship in the past, to make it a vessel that can be a source of growth. Gratitude to them so that also you can be sure that anything you say to them will be able to keep the container, keep the crucible, keep the cauldron. Even though you may have to say a difficult thing, still it's in a context of gratitude and respect for the relationship. and with yourself sitting by yourself watching to see

[40:19]

anything that might make you run away from looking at your whole body, make you run away from looking at this swirling world of life which is always right before us. irrelevant thoughts and feelings constantly popping up in my mind while I'm talking to you. I say irrelevant because, again, I'm not in control of them. They aren't happening to me.

[41:23]

I'm not in control of them actually. And I don't tell you them all because they're just popping, you know, I don't want to expose you to the chaos of the cauldron. But the relative, whatever relative coherence of my talk is because I'm not telling you everything that's popping into my mind. But many experiences, I'm flooded with experiences all around what I'm saying. Many, many other thoughts are coming up. Since you're not making a presentation, you don't have to select so much. You're having, probably all of you, many, many experiences around sitting here and hearing me talk and so on. But if you were to give a talk and you were to say these things one after another, it wouldn't necessarily be a coherent, a logical presentation. But it might actually, I should say, it might be quite coherent, but not necessarily logical according to our usual idea.

[42:34]

And therefore, we sometimes may not want to see these things because they don't make sense according to certain criteria. And yet, as I hear these things come up, although I don't necessarily think they would make sense to you, I feel that they're very relevant. For example, one thought that popped in my head was some people asked Willie Mays, What's the secret of your success? And he said, they pitch him, I hit him. They hit him, I catch him. That just popped in my head, Andy. Thank you. In some ways, it doesn't seem relevant, but it is relevant, isn't it?

[43:39]

And also popped in my head is just a minute ago, I had a daughter, a girl was born that we call my daughter, right here next to this building, just a minute ago. Do you remember? And right afterwards, I came in here and gave a lecture about what a surprising event that was to me to see this person emerge in this world. Just a flash ago. And now, that same person goes to dances and does slow dances. Just like that. Just a newborn baby, and now, actually, kind of a woman. I mean, she's into it. That's in the cauldron, you know?

[44:46]

Babies born, grown women, old women, just voo, voo, voo, voo. Your birth and your death, your whole history swirling around right under your nose. Without programming it, it's popping up. Memories, feelings, physical sensations, not in our control. But this is the looking in there, in this swirling world of feelings, emotions, concepts, images, awarenesses, all this, and colors, sounds, smells, touches, and tastes that's being that's being produced by the whole universe converging on our little body right now. Look at that. Stay with that. This is called the one practice concentration.

[45:53]

This is what all the Buddhas and Zen ancestors are trying all the time to pay attention to. They sometimes get distracted when they're sort of off-duty as Buddhas or Zen ancestors. They don't look at it. And maybe very few can be on duty 24 hours a day looking into this world where our life is constantly emerging, where this flow of quality is coming forth out of the ground of the world, the world comes forth from here, from there, from there. It doesn't come from someplace else. This is the center. This is the cauldron. And this is the cauldron, but there's no place that isn't the cauldron. This is the cauldron, but the cauldron's all those other places, too. None of you are any farther from the cauldron than I am. I'm no farther from the cauldron than you are.

[47:00]

Life is emerging fresh, spanking clean and new, and swirling with ancient time again and again. The cauldron stands for cyclic, perpetual, recurrent existence. which is different from the Christian cross, which has this tendency to stand for one life, one death, going straight forward. The cauldrons round and round again, swirling life, birth and death, birth and death, birth and death, birth and death. With the three weird sisters sitting around looking in. So weird originally did not mean strange.

[48:04]

It meant this is our destiny. This cauldron is our destiny. This is our fate. This cauldron is what we have to deal with. We can't get away from it. We can only pretend to get away from it. And that's not so healthy for us. So take care of the cauldron. And if you take care of the cauldron and look at it, you're doing the concentration of the ancestors of Zen. This is what they look into all the time. And many stories come up in that cauldron. Any stories can come up in that cauldron. Don't try to control the story. Just try to be calm with the story and put your hands, hold on to the cauldron tight and just, or loose or whatever, anyway.

[49:10]

Stay with it. Take care of it. Pay attention to it. So this is a way to talk about Zazen. This is an amplification of a very simple practice. It's simple, but it's not easy to do. But it's very simple. Just keep coming back to this, to what's right under your belly button. When I was, I was in Japan last fall and

[50:28]

visiting Suzuki Roshi's home temple, Rinso-en. And at that temple now, his son, Suzuki Roshi's son, is the abbot. And I told him, his name is Hoitsu Suzuki, I told him I wanted to meet a Zen teacher who's alive still, an old Zen teacher who's alive, and who was one of Suzuki Roshi's good friends. I wanted to meet him. I've heard of him for a long time. And actually Suzuki Roshi wanted me to study with him. So I said, I want to meet him. So he said, okay, I'll call him. And he said, he was commenting on this teacher. This teacher's name is Noiri Roshi. He said, Noiri Roshi is always doing zazen. So Nagyuroshi is always looking in the cauldron.

[51:30]

If you go to see him, go to his temple and see him, you know, come into his room, he's sitting zazen, enjoying the cauldron. And you come up to him and you go, Just kind of like come way from way down there, you know. Kind of like, oh, you. He says sometimes you call him on the telephone and try to make an appointment, you know. You call him and say something. And he goes... And then you say, oh, I understand.

[52:40]

Thank you very much. So, you know, after I hear that, I'm not so sure I want to go see him. But in a way, I do want to go see him. I want to go see somebody who who can get by with hanging out there so much of the time, who, you know, he won't reject you, but he's mostly hanging out there, and it may take him a while. You may get, in other words, when he says, you don't necessarily say, well, could you say a little bit more? Kind of like, This means, is that enough? Do you understand what I mean? Do I have to speak anymore? Can I go back now to my sitting? That's what I like to do. Yes, sure, go back.

[53:43]

I understand, that was good enough. If we keep pestering, probably eventually he would say more, but this is his first reaction anyway. It may not be so clear as, oh, I see, but it's coming from that same place, you know? So these ladies were not witches, exactly. They were very deeply interested in the turn of fate. And if you went up to talk to them, too, they might have had some similar kinds of sounds coming out of them. I don't know. This is a very deep cauldron.

[54:41]

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