I couldn't find my glasses this morning, so I can't see the people in the back. But can you hear me if I talk like this? Did somebody say no? A couple of days ago somebody told me about recent scientific theories about the cause of the flu. He said that this year the problem of the flu is going to be worse than usual. He didn't tell me why, but he did tell me what they now think is the cause of the flu.

[02:07]

So the theories that he's heard, the latest theories he heard is that all flus come from China. And that ultimately the source of the flu is a duck. a Chinese duck, which produces these new strains of virus, and then they spread all over China, and then they spread to the rest of the world, and then a new strain comes later. And I have no idea as to the truth of this theory, but I liked it. And I thought about, why did I like it? And I thought, well, the reason why I like it, I think, was because it was so simple and a little bit cute or pretty and useful because you can talk about it.

[03:16]

I don't know if it's beautiful, but... And I remember a few years ago, I heard some physicists talking about their understanding of the universe and accounting for what they observe in the universe. And one physicist said that they have actually a battery of theories all together account for pretty well everything that they found out about what's going on here. But they don't like having a whole bunch of theories, and they don't like the complexity of their account. They're all hoping, and they kind of believe that the final conclusion will be simple and beautiful. I, in a sense, I want to present something simple.

[04:39]

And in a way, Zen is that way. It can be, in a sense, presented and can maybe ultimately be something very simple. I think, I don't know if the word Zen is true, but I like the word, Z-E-N. It's simple. I have nothing against, you know, other forms of practice like vajrayana and vipassana, but they're harder to spell. They're longer. Not so simple. You never heard of, you know, vajrayana haircuts, right? Or vipassana cigarettes. But there are, you know, Zen haircuts, Zen cigarettes, Zen plants.

[05:42]

And I guess, you know, you know about that, right? Zen and the art of, rather than Vajrayana and the art of, or Dzogchen and the art of. So, speaking of physicists, last time I talked here I mentioned that something Albert Einstein said, a simple statement that human beings, we human beings, the way our minds work, this is not a direct quote, but The way our minds work is that we consider our thoughts and our feelings, our perceptions, as separate from the rest of the world.

[06:47]

And this way of thinking creates a kind of optical delusion, which in turn creates a kind of prison for us. and makes us feel separate from other beings and makes our desires tend towards being personal. And our affections tend to be, because of that, about those closest to us rather than for all beings. So the important thing is to find some way to get out of this prison so we can have a wider sense of affection and concern and desires for all beings. So what is a simple way to do this? Zen practice is a kind of simple way to do this, but not easy, but simple. And the simple way is, but difficult way, is through

[07:59]

complete self-acknowledgement and self-expression. So complete that we transcend it and realize who we really are is all sentient beings. I'm going to read a little poem here. It's a children's poem, which I have read before, and it, for me, has the quality of unfolding new teachings again and again. It's called, How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird, by Jacques Prévert.

[09:03]

And you might keep in mind, as I read it, that this, from my point of view, this could also be called how to paint the portrait of a self. So first, echoing Albert Einstein, first, paint a cage, a prison, with the door open. It didn't actually say prison. It didn't actually say prison. It said, first paint a cage with an open door. Paint something pretty, something simple, something useful, something beautiful for the bird.

[10:22]

Then place the canvas against a tree in a garden, in a wood, in a forest. Hide behind the tree without speaking, without moving. Sometimes the bird comes quickly, but she can just as well spend long years before deciding Don't get discouraged. Wait. Wait years if necessary. The swiftness or slowness of the coming of the bird having no rapport with the success of the portrait. When the bird comes, if he comes,

[11:29]

Observe the most profound silence till the bird enters the cage. When the bird has entered the cage, gently close the door with a brush. Then paint out all the bars, one by one, taking care not to touch any of the feathers of the bird. Then paint the portrait of a tree. choosing the most beautiful of its branches for the bird.

[12:38]

Paint also the green foliage and the wind's freshness, the dust of the sun, and the noise of insects in the summer heat. Then wait for the bird to decide to sing. If the bird doesn't sing, it's a bad sign. A sign that the painting is bad. But if the bird does sing, it's a good sign, a sign that you can sign. So then very gently pull out one of the bird's feathers.

[13:53]

Ouch. and you write your name in the corner of the picture. So this little poem maybe qualifies for what the poem recommends. It's something pretty, something simple, something maybe beautiful, something useful for the bird, for the self. If we, if our self is in a cage, in isolation from the whole world, then part of what we have to do to paint its portrait, to paint the portrait which will be a portrait which will sing, which will be a good portrait, we have to first paint it in a cage.

[15:19]

And in the cage, After we paint it, we need to put something in that cage to attract the bird. Even though it's kind of redundant, the self's already in a cage, we need to reiterate our condition. We need to get ourselves into awareness of our imprisonment in our own thinking. so that we can live fully in each moment free of our thinking. In order to be free of our thinking, we need to get inside of it. We need to inhabit it. In order to inhabit it so fully, so vitally, that we become free of it. that we do not get stuck in it anymore.

[16:23]

And in order to get ourselves into our thinking, we need to put something simple enough to find a way in. If the entrance is too complex, we may circle around it for a really long time before entering. If we circle around long enough, we'll still enter eventually. But to make things simple and hopefully offer an immediate or quick entry point, we offer something simple. We offer something pretty, something useful, hopefully beautiful. Our breath. and our posture, not necessarily our body. Some of our bodies, we may not feel some of our bodies are simple or pretty, but they are useful, I think, and our posture is useful, and our posture is beautiful, and our posture is pretty, accessible.

[17:43]

So our posture and breath can be a way to attract ourselves into the cage. And if our posture and breathing are not attractive enough, well, let's try to think of some way to paint them so that they do attract us. Or if you can find something else that will attract yourself into yourself, then that's fine too. Sometimes people in meditation, they sit for a while and their breath and posture isn't that attractive to them. But then something called pain arises and that attracts them. They don't want that to attract them, but as it gets stronger and stronger, they are attracted by it. Then they try to run away from it, but it gets stronger and stronger, and they have to notice it again, until finally they find that the more they go towards it, the less it increases to get their attention.

[18:58]

Pain is another simple, useful thing, although we don't usually consider it to be beautiful or even pretty. The first step is to set up the situation, create some form that you can enter, make it attractive. Second step is to enter it completely. Then once inside, once fully installed in our experience, not running away from it anymore,

[20:18]

What's this painting the bars away business? Now, at this point, I still hope to stay simple, but now things get kind of intense. Once you inhabit yourself and are no longer running away, This phase of learning how to paint the bars away, it's hard to get. I find simple instructions in a way, but hard to get. My basic principle here is that if you concentrate enough on your experience and you thoroughly follow through moment by moment with what's happening with you, that in the thoroughness or completeness of that engagement with your experience,

[21:45]

the bars will naturally be painted away. Painting away is not another action. But again, by thoroughly inhabiting your action, by thoroughly acknowledging your action, your personal action, the bars, the limits, the boundaries are washed away. And you realize how profound and how vast you really are. Without forgetting that you're also shallow and tiny and limited. Through accepting completely our shallowness and our tininess, we realize our vastness and profundity.

[22:56]

By being willing to live completely in each moment, we realize the freshness and vitality of each moment without getting stuck in our thinking or our not thinking. In fact, how we thoroughly express ourselves is, must be very simple. And it requires the utmost from us. It requires everything. Now I'm going to try to do something which In a sense, it seems kind of complicated, but maybe it won't be.

[24:27]

Who knows? That's just my thinking. And that is, we're studying a story here at Green Gulch and also in the city center, a Zen story we've been studying for quite a while. It's a story from the Book of Serenity, Case 32. It goes like this. A monk came to see the teacher, Yangshan. Yangshan means revering the mountains or being a disciple of the mountains. The monk came to Yangshan and Yangshan said to the monk, where are you from? And the monk said, you province. And Yangshan asked the monk, do you think of that place?

[25:30]

And the monk said, I always think of it. Yangshan then said, the ability to think is the mind or is thought. That which is thought of is the environment, the surroundings. Therein are many things. Reverse your thinking and think of the ability to think. Are there so many things there?"

[26:41]

And the monk said, "'When I reach here, I don't see anything existing at all. And Yangshan said, this is right for the stage of faith, but not yet right for the stage of person. The monk said, would you have any further particular instructions? And Yangshan said, to say that I have Any particular instruction, any further instruction or not, would not be accurate. Now you have a seat and a robe, and from now on, you can see on your own.

[27:47]

I see in this story an analogy, or this story is a Zen version of the second part of that children's poem, which I'll try to show you. And I see in this story a classical Buddhist way of having the bars painted away, and recreating the world. But I don't have time. But I'll still try. But in order to get you engaged, I'd like to have you be the monk, and I'll be Yongshan, okay? Let's see if you can get into the story a little bit. Where are you from? Are you from U province?

[28:56]

What did you say? Do you ever think about U province? Never? In the commentary on that line they say, they say, this monk should confess. The ability to think, the subjective mind, the active side of mind, or the active side of thinking is what we call thought, what seems to be the subjective mind. That which is thought of, the passive mind, is the world, the environment. And in that world, in that environment, there's many things. He lists many things, but I didn't say them.

[30:11]

But there are infinite things in this environment. We can think of infinite things. Now, reverse your thinking. Turn your thinking around. and think of the ability to think. Are there so many things there? When I get to this place, the monk said, I don't find anything existing at all. And Yangshan said, this is right for the stage of faith, but not yet right for the stage of a person. Or we might say, not yet right for the stage of a bird. The instruction of turning the mind around is an instruction on how to let the bars be painted away.

[31:22]

the monk followed that instruction thoroughly. Or anyway, he followed it obediently with faith, and he successfully realized the bar is being painted away. But as you can see, he didn't yet see the trees being painted back in and the branches under his feet. and the heat of the summer and the insects' songs. So he wasn't yet at the stage of a person or of a bird, and he wasn't yet able to sing. So Yangshan wouldn't let him sign. However, He had gotten into the cage. He was in the cage before he met Yangshan.

[32:26]

He was already concentrated. And he was thinking of where he was before he got into the cage. You province is where we come from. There's no cages in you province for us. That's why we left and came to Zen. to get ourselves into full admission that we think that the environment is out there and we're over here, that we have a mind like that, and it's a prison. This monk was already concentrated. He was in the cage quite thoroughly, and the teacher then told him, reverse your thinking. even concentrating, even admitting that you're a human being is already a reversal of the usual human values.

[33:32]

To be honest goes contrary to some of our main habits. To admit that we're human, to admit that we're always trying to be something other than human, This is part of the reversal. But then, after completely admitting, then you have to go even one step further. Well, actually, I take it back. If you completely admit, naturally, you go one step further. And that is this turning, the mind turning around, the thinking turning around By thoroughly admitting the thinking, the thinking turns around and looks at itself, looks at its ability. And when you look at the ability to think, by the nature of the mind you cannot find anything.

[34:41]

And you realize in that way, or you have actually a direct experience of the ungraspability of yourself, of your thinking. And in the process of this turning, working with people and myself in this turning exercise of reversing the mind, of turning the light of the mind backwards and shining back and looking at yourself backwards, people often, I often experience getting dizzy. And I recently heard in a dance class, the dance actor said, when you first start turning, you get dizzy. But after you do it for a while, You won't notice it at all.

[35:47]

One of the things that happens to people when they start to turn is, well, one of the things, what happens to people when they turn is, of course, they have many experiences. Experiences are flying by. these experiences are sometimes quite unusual. Just like when you actually turn or spin on a dance floor, it seems to be different than when you just walk straight ahead. Turning and walking straight ahead, in both cases the recommended practice is the same. Namely, don't indulge in or deny what's happening. As you walk through your ordinary life, many painful things and pleasant things may happen.

[37:01]

We need to find the path which walks straight through our life, the straight path the upright path through our experience, where we don't indulge in what's happening or deny it, where we don't become hysterical or obsessive. Most of us have some tendency towards one of those extremes. And when we're off in indulging in our experience, if that's our usual pattern, or anyway, off into denial of what's going on, we often feel fairly secure because we're, you know, we're used to one of those poles, one of those extremes. But it's cold at the poles. And in the middle, it's very warm. But it's always easy to slip off the middle into the poles.

[38:12]

So if it's pain, it's easy for us to indulge in it or repress it. we need to develop, or it's useful to develop, a sense of when you're indulging in something, or when you're indulging in the pain or the pleasure, or when you're denying or repressing the pain or pleasure, when you're indulging in fear, or when you're denying fear. What is the way to meet fear, to meet anxiety, to fully acknowledge it, and when you fully acknowledge it, that's enough. What's that like? Well, it's not like anything at all, is what it's like. It's completely profound and vast at that point. And there's nothing comparable to it.

[39:21]

And therefore you can't grasp it in terms of anything. You have just been liberated from whatever it is by finding this balanced relationship to it, by not trying to get rid of it and not trying to hold on to it, by not getting stuck in it, we say. To live fully in each moment without getting stuck in your thinking comes when the mind reverses. And the mind reverses when you completely live in each moment and fully accept the thinking that's going on. Then you don't get stuck. And one of the signs of not getting stuck is that you can even get stuck. Suzuki Roshi says, attachment's pretty good.

[40:23]

When you can be attached, that's a sign you may be able to practice non-attachment. Some people have only realized non-attachment. Oh, I forgot to tell you part of the story. He said to the monk, you get the seat, you get the robe, and from now on you can go on your own. You get one mystery, he said. But there's three mysteries. One mystery is the mystery of detachment, the mystery of not getting stuck in your thinking, the mystery of not getting stuck in the prison of thinking and believing that you're separate from other beings. The next mystery is not getting stuck in not getting stuck or not getting stuck in non-attachment.

[41:33]

And the third mystery is not even getting stuck in the concept of not getting stuck. In not getting stuck. This monk realized not getting stuck. And in painting the picture of the bird, if you just painted away the bars of the cage, and stop there, you would have realized that's realizing one mystery. Getting in the cage is very important and takes a lot of effort. When the cage is painted away, when the bars are painted away, you realize one mystery. You realize you never were in the cage. Other beings never were separate from you. You don't have to do anything to make it that way. It was always that way. That's the first mystery. But if you stop there, well, that's good, but you've got more work to do.

[42:38]

Namely, you have to start painting back in the branches and the insects and the sky and the leaves and so on. And even then, after you paint it back in, if you then get stuck again in that... You've got two mysteries now, but the third one is to not even hold on to the recreated world and therefore be willing to get stuck again. So the turning is very important. It's this turning because the self, when the self or the bird actually sits on the self and is with the self, the self naturally changes. Everything changes and so does the self. The bird changes, the self changes, everything changes. But the funny thing about the bird and the funny thing about the self is the self changes completely back into the self.

[43:46]

So it turns around on itself and it doesn't turn partway back it should turn all the way back to a regular old self again, not to a kind of like halfway self or a new version of the self, but a totally changed self that's so totally changed it doesn't have to be the slightest bit different. If it has to be a little bit different, it hasn't really changed that much. I mean, it hasn't changed completely. It might have changed a lot, but not completely. And again, walking straight ahead in ordinary life before you even try to turn around, it's already the challenge is to do that without indulging or denying. When you start turning, you get new kinds of experiences. You get a sense of dizziness. And then you may think various things that happen are the complete turn, but they are not the complete turn. There's nothing wrong with them. They're just new kinds of experience that come to you when you try to look back in a direction that you have not previously been recommended to look.

[44:56]

Most people have not been told from the time of childhood to look back at your ability to think. I never heard of that before I came to practice Zen. And even I didn't hear it right away when I was practicing Zen either. First I heard, get in the cage. Follow your breathing. Concentrate on your posture. Watch where your feet are going. Take care of yourself. Be present in each moment. That's the first instruction. Get in the cage. But once you're in the cage, there's this other instruction. Turn the light around and shine it back on the self. Find out what that is. It's a simple instruction again, but I find very difficult to do. However, there it is. In the bird story, it's painting the cage the bars away. In the Zen story, it's to reverse your thinking and look back at this wonderful capacity of the mind to think of objects, to think that something's separate from itself.

[46:08]

Look back at that ability, and that will free you from believing in your thinking and getting stuck in it. And then we must take one more step beyond that, which the monk in this story couldn't take. But the teacher, anyway, pushed him out the door so he would proceed to eventually reenter the world, coming out of his liberation from entanglement. He would reenter entanglement like the bird did. entangled with insects, sun, sky, and trees, and air. Fresh air, fresh insects, fresh sky after coming out of the cage. And then, that's not the end, but does the bird sing?

[47:12]

And if the bird can sing, that's a sign that you can sign a bird that lives, he lives in, I hope he feels okay about me saying this, he lives in Kentucky. And he wrote me a letter a while ago asking, I think in his letter maybe he told me, I'm not sure, that he wrote to many Buddhist groups around the country asking if they would give him the precepts by correspondence. which we don't usually do. It's better in person. I think it's better in person. I can see the person and ask them if they really want to receive it and all that. But anyway, he wanted it by correspondence. And I don't remember exactly, but I kind of said, well, why don't you come out to Zen Center and do it? And I think he said, well, I can't because I have asthma.

[48:15]

So he can't make the airplane trip, and he's actually not healthy enough to drive that far either. He's a little bit, you know, in those high number of years old, around 60 or so. But anyway, he's not so healthy. So I said, okay, I'll give you the precepts by mail. And we did sewing by mail. various kinds of teaching by mail. And now Tayo and some other people are going to make a tape where he can play the tape and do the ceremony at home. And I'm going to make a name for him and things like that. Someone said, well, why did he choose Zen Center? And someone else said, because Zen Center was the only place that answered his letter. So one of the great things about, I'm not so great, but one of the great things about Zen Center is I have an assistant who can help me, you know, deal with the mail.

[49:28]

So it's one advantage of a big organization is you can get some help coping with the requests like this. Anyway, this man is very happy to be receiving the precepts. And he's at least ten years older than me. And he sends me lots of letters. I thought it would be okay to read this to you. He said, in the fading years of life, I have come to that for which I came into existence, to accept and to cultivate. For years previously, I read and talked lots about Buddhism. He came to Zen Center a long time ago when he was healthier, when Suzuki Roshi was alive. I don't remember him, but anyway, he came to Zen Center. And so he's been studying Buddhism for at least 25, 30 years.

[50:31]

So I read and talked lots about Buddhism. But it was all wasted years because I didn't give much thought to actually practicing it. to actually getting in the cage. I have lived, really lived, and experienced much, but the happiness of the moment never lasted beyond the moment, and I remained miserable most of the time. Now I am happy. but too sick and too old to really appreciate it. But this was the life when I had to get it all together.

[51:38]

And I'm still getting. In a way, this has been the most important of all lives I shall know. Isn't it? I think so. I think the future lives from here on will be easier somehow. Thanks again. With my palms joined, your spiritual son. I hope this lecture was simple. I hope we all get in our cage and spin around until we completely realize who we are.

[52:43]

The spinning is what protects us from the hysteria and indulgence on one side and the denial and obsession on the other. Spinning in our body and breath and thought. Okay? Let's all take inspiration from this gentle man in Tennessee not to waste any more time and really just go to start practicing together. Okay? May our intention be Oh, a buffalo. Is there anything you'd like to discuss?

[54:17]

Yes? I don't have a particular question, but I just wanted to thank you for your time with me. Thank you. Was it simple? No. Was it useful? Very useful. Thank you. I'm glad. I never know if it will be. That's my hope, but It's not under my control, fortunately. Yes? I have a question about this indulging business. Yes? With me, for instance, when I was growing up, I had to push away a lot of the pain and a lot of the suffering, and I couldn't feel it. So now I'm just starting to begin to feel some of that pain and suffering that I distanced myself from when I was a child.

[55:25]

Is that indulgement or is that something else? Well, no. Well, it could be. You know, it's like there's these two poles, right? And the poles, in some sense, You can be at these extremes with less presence and less energy. The middle is very slippery, constantly turning and, you know, you can't be lazy there. So if you have a background of denial and obsession, there's similar phenomena, denial and obsession. We often use, well, like little kids sit in their room, you know, talking to their pets or something or their little toys about stuff as a way to keep away the pain that just happened. or something like that. We do certain things to keep ourselves from feeling pain. Like telling yourself everything is okay. Like telling yourself everything is okay, or telling yourself other people are blah-de-blah, criticizing other people, making a lot of money, being busy.

[56:29]

All this stuff can be used as a way of denying pain. When you start to admit it, you can swing over to the other side and start mucking about on it, over it, and getting too much attention to it. So when you first start recovering from one extreme, you'll oftentimes, rather than come right back to the middle and stop, there's a momentum of recovery that sends you back to the other way a little bit far. That's so natural. That's natural. And then you come back this way, maybe say, well, you know, admitting this stuff, see what I get into when I admit it? So I think I'll go back to denying it. But it wasn't just that you admitted it. You admitted it and went too far into it. Which you're right, that's not much better than the other side, but if the movement's like this, gradually it tends to go like this. And then you get to the center, and then you say, oh my God, I can't stay here, and then you swing back to the pole. But, you know, the poles are cold, and the center is... Also, when you're off to one side and you're tense in this way, you're tense in that way...

[57:32]

Like if you're doing a yoga posture or something like that or a psychological posture and you're tense, you're going to fall in a particular direction, which can be predicted by the nature of the tension. Okay? But if you're balanced, you can fall in any direction. So if you're way over here into denial, you almost have to swing back all the way over before you can balance out. Yes, but also if you're way over into denial, you're going to fall toward denial in a certain way more likely than you're going to fall towards indulgence. Once you develop this habit and get over there, you're going to keep falling in that pattern. Once you have certain physical holes and patterns of holding your body in a certain way, Once you're in a certain posture holding that way, then you can sort of predict which way you're going to fall, fairly likely. But when you're balanced, when you're really balanced, you can fall in any direction, which is kind of scary.

[58:33]

You don't know what direction you'll fall. So what sometimes we do is to, if you bang your head on the wall, you know approximately where it's going to hurt. It doesn't always work exactly. Sometimes you bang your head, it gets hurt here, and also you throw your neck out. Whereas if you just walk straight, you can fall any direction, hurt your elbows, your knees, your head. So we tend to avoid that center place, and a lot of people encourage us to do that. And so we have to try to bring ourselves back to just trying, possible, to be balanced. But you balance from where you are. Once you're balanced, then you can start turning. When you start turning, these extremes don't hold. After a while, you can turn without getting dizzy. Or, rather, the turning can happen without getting dizzy. And you can be present without holding the present. You can be concentrated without being rigid. So we need to be concentrated and flexible at the same time, but not concentrated abstractly, but concentrated in the particular place we are.

[59:41]

Meantime, there's these swings from one side to the other going on, too. when walking straight ahead and also in turning. Yeah. Sometimes in studying this case, you know, when I start talking about this case with people, they get dizzy. But that shows that's a good sign. It shows you're turning. Yes. For me, coming to Zazen on the weekends here in the city, kind of like a treat. But I find now that I'm starting to see that it's not just a weekend indulgence for me. something that, like you pointed out, you know, it's a constant thing, each moment. And to not just look at it like, well, I'm going to go to Utah on this weekend, and, you know, I'm not going to ride my bike or do something else because it's a new toy or a new thing.

[60:43]

So I was wondering... Could you hear him? No. No? Well, he said that he first started practicing zazen, and it is kind of a treat for him, but he's starting to see that it's not just a weekend treat, but it's starting to become more constant, and it's not just a toy. I mean, the newness of it kind of wore off to the point where I realized that I'm at the point of... I see the need for practice... CONSTANTLY. GOOD. THE AWARENESS OF THE NEED OF BEING AWARE OF THAT. I KNOW THAT THE ZENDO IS THE THE PLACE TO COME AND DO THE FORMAL, BUT DURING THE WHOLE WEEK AND WHILE I'M AT WORK OR WHILE I'M DOING WHATEVER, CAN I DO SAUSEN, YOU KNOW, LIKE I WOULD DO IT BY MYSELF, JUST EVERY DAY, TRYING, LIKE CIS, AND ALSO ANOTHER THING, LIKE MY FIRST SAUSEN SITTING, SHE SAID THINK ABOUT NOT THINKING, AND THAT WAS A PRETTY GOOD TOPIC.

[61:54]

I mean, really, it was, you know, because instead of just sitting there and allowing whatever is going to happen to happen anyway, is there a certain focus on the sitting each time or just whatever comes? It's good to have a focus, and what in the focus, if you wish, the focus can be whatever comes. You can decide, whatever comes, I'm going to focus on it. I'm going to really give full attention to whatever comes. If pain comes, I'm going to completely notice that. If fear comes, if a sense of my body posture comes, if my awareness of breath comes, whatever the sound of a bird comes, whatever it is, I'm going to give it full attention as though this were the arrival of my freedom. This is going to be the moment in which I'm going to become free and happy. I'm going to give it that kind of attention. except really whatever comes from whatever direction.

[63:02]

So that's called faith in the present manifestation of reality. It's here right now. Or like Buddha, also in the Book of Serenity, the Buddha's walking along with his group. And he points at the ground and says, this is a suitable place to build a sanctuary. So every moment of the day, if you can, have the feeling of stopping and pointing to this place as a suitable place to build a sanctuary. And then one of the people in his assembly was what he called the monarch of the gods, took a blade of grass and stuck it in the ground and said, the sanctuary is built. So, first of all, moment by moment, point to this place as a suitable place, and then take a blade of grass and put it in the ground and say, this sanctuary is built.

[64:13]

A blade of grass means something fresh, whatever it is. Take what's happening and put it in the ground and build it. So, first of all, respect the place and then build your sanctuary, moment after moment. Why don't you just practice yourself saying, sit aside at times during the day? You mean like formal sitting? Yeah. Yeah, and then I think it is good to, especially if you don't live in a community that has like an established schedule, if you live on your own, then you have to create your own sort of internal schedule. And it's good to sort of be specific with yourself about when you're going to be sitting. You don't have to sit any particular amount. It can be once a week. or more. I think the important thing is that if you don't specify how much it's going to be, then you miss an opportunity. And it's not so much how much you think that people at Zen Center think you should sit, but rather how much do you want to sit.

[65:22]

If you want to sit every day, fine. Then? The next question is, do you want to commit yourself to sitting every day? If you do, fine. If you want to sit every day, but you don't want to make the commitment to sit every day, okay, what do you want to make the commitment to? Maybe you say, I'd like to sit every day, but actually I'm only going to commit myself to sit Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Well, that's fine. And then I would also suggest you say, what time of day do you want to sit? And then what time of day will you commit yourself to sit? Say, okay, I commit myself to sit. When I get up on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, how long? Indicate precisely what you want. I want to sit for an hour and a half, but it's impractical, so I'm not going to commit myself to an hour and a half. I'm going to commit myself to ten minutes because I can make that commitment. And you commit yourself to sit when you get up, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for ten minutes. And then also, in what room? I'm going to sit in this room. In what posture? I'm going to sit in this posture.

[66:24]

You make that commitment. And then, in addition to making that commitment, I would suggest that you make it for a certain period of time. Don't make it indefinite. Make it for between one month and three months. not more than three months, not more than a season, because things change. And it's good to make a commitment for like a season or less, not too short either, because then you have to spend all your time renegotiating with yourself. So what I just went through with you might take you a while to make that effort to set this up. It's worth, I would say, if you do it for a month, it's worth your time. You don't need to do that for a day. It's for at least a month. between a month and three months. And also maybe write it down. Write down, I'm going to start on this day. For two months, I'm going to do this. Write down what you're going to do specifically about that. And at the end of that time, stop doing that. Stop that program and review what happened. And you might find, well, I did what I said. And that was good.

[67:26]

I want to do it again. Or I wasn't able to do what I said. but I still want to try it again, so I'll try the same thing again. Or I did what I said and would like to do a little bit more. And so on. Or I couldn't do what I said, I'm going to try to do a little less. I'm going to commit myself to less. And then make a commitment to start on another date for a specific amount of time, and at the end of the time, again, stop, review, and so on. So in the monastic situation of a community situation, we practice like that. We don't have a schedule like that goes all year round. We practice with a rhythm. So part of the year we have a lot of meditation, then part of the year we don't have so much. And that's traditional, that Zen yogis intensify their practice during certain times. Our Buddhist yogis practice intensively for a certain time. Intensively means lots of formal meditation. And then they sometimes have a break and just go wandering across the mountains for months or whatever, maybe with no formal commitment. And then they come back to another training experience.

[68:28]

Because we do change, and what we want changes. Same in relationships. You make a commitment to a relationship, but things change, so you sometimes have to reiterate your commitment, or make your commitment again, refresh it and renew it, because that's the way human beings are. This is a way to keep coming back to yourself as you are now becoming. And even if you don't fulfill your commitments, once you make them, they're useful. Unfulfilled commitments are more useful than making no commitment at all. We can't really accomplish much without commitments, but you don't have to perfectly fulfill them in order to learn. Sometimes you learn most by not fulfilling your commitments. You learn that it hurts or whatever. That's learning. So some people, you know, like me, if I'm walking around, you know, downtown at Macy's or something and I look at my watch and I think, oh, it's 5.30 and I'm not at meditation, only a meditator thinks that.

[69:33]

So noticing that you're not doing what you said is a form of meditation. But you don't even notice that if you don't say you're going to do something. Noticing that you're not being kind is a meditation. But you wouldn't have thought of it if you didn't think of being kind in the first place. So committing yourself to kindness, committing yourself to being present, and when you aren't, you still learn. So as soon as possible, think about what you want to do in your practice. Think about what you want to commit to. Make the commitment when you're ready, not when you think you should, but when you want to. And make that commitment, and be specific, and then watch what happens. And then stop and review at some point, and do it again, and again, and again, until you start singing, right? Until you're a diamond, a singing diamond. Yes? I was going to ask you about thinking about thinking.

[70:37]

I've been practicing looking at... Excuse me. Before you go any further, it's not thinking about thinking. Thinking about thinking is just regular thinking. Okay? Which is fine. We do that. We think about thinking, about thinking, about thinking. It's thinking about the ability to think, or think about the mind that thinks. It's different. You can easily think about thinking and be quite, you know, just continue your usual habits. But if you think about the ability to think, you'll have a very different thing will happen. My question was, what is the difference between that and observing the behavior, becoming an objective observer, which is what I've been practicing, trying to kind of develop that skill. But how is that different from thinking about the ability? Could you specify what the ability to think is?

[71:40]

I cannot specify what the ability to think is other than saying that it is consciousness. Thought or consciousness is the ability to think. And if you think about the ability to think, you will not be able to find anything. But it's important to have an experience to enter a realm where you can't find anything, where your usual habits of grasping and dualistic thinking and separating yourself can't operate. When people first try to think of the ability to think, what they usually wind up thinking about is another kind of thinking, or they think about objects. Usually you think about objects. Thinking is the mind thinking of something. It's the active or subjective part of the mind operating on the objective part of the mind. That's what we usually call our life, subject, engaging, aging, object. So the ability to think of things is not objective thinking.

[72:46]

It is subjective. It is a subjective function of the mind. But the subjective function of the mind, the ability to think, cannot operate without objects. Thinking has to have both. Thinking involves subject and object interacting. So on one side there's the ability or capacity to think, on the other side there's the passive, that which is thought. These two together make thinking. There's no thinking before the thought grasps an object. So thought has a capacity to think. When objects arise, which are the passive side of mind, you have thinking. So you're supposed to now turn the mind around the ability to think, turn the ability to think around to look at itself. And, of course, it cannot get a hold of itself because an ability cannot be an object. Huh? It's too busy turning around. And if you make the ability into an object, then you've just, that's not the ability anymore.

[73:48]

That's now the ability made into a concept and made into an object. which is part of what happens to people when they try to do this exercise, is they run into new kinds of objects called the ability to think and so on. So they start running into material, which are called intermediate experiences, which are very unusual. And then sometimes they think these unusual experiences, because they sound, they name them in various exotic ways, they think that these new experiences are where they're going. And then you need some guidance to realize that these are just more objects that you're creating by a new exercise. And they're still just objects. You haven't really turned around and looked at the realm where there's no objects. You haven't got there yet. But that's not bad. It's just you've got to keep turning through this material, which is new and interesting, or tempting to think that you've got home to you, province. And teacher can help you say, no, that's just more objects. That's not the objectless realm. Objectless realm is where you came from. We come from a place where there's no objects. There's just you. And not you as an object.

[74:50]

And not you as a subject. Just you. And we're going back to that place by this exercise. And when we get back to that place, you've freed yourself from objects. You're disentangled. You're unattached. You realize the unattached, ungrasping mind. Which is, you know, that's the realm where you realize that there really isn't anything out there. There's just you. And that's not anything. Then, turn again. Back into the world. And embrace all phenomena. But having realized that there's nothing, you have a totally different attitude. Namely, you realize everything is something. Equally. That's the process. It's very challenging, and so we're trying to work on that this fall with this story as a kind of guideline. You could say it that way. Actually, everyone really values their self. That's part of our fundamental human predicament.

[75:55]

And by this exercise, everything could be as dear to you as yourself. Everything could be as dear to you as your eyeballs or your golden teeth, whatever. Anyway, whatever is most precious to you, once you realize that it's nothing at all, then you realize everything's as precious to you as that. And then you can really care for things, not because you think you should, but just as an expression of your nature. It's effortless. Well, because you can't realize that yourself is just as important to yourself as you are to yourself. Yes. It sort of like starts to con. Yeah. Right. Maybe they're not different. Maybe they're supposed to be different. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. About the thinking of witnessing, I think of this in outside of myself. It's sort of the opposite of what happened while I was listening to your lecture.

[77:10]

I feel like a dark clay pot, and then it's all empty in the picture that you gave. I could see the pictures. He painted it with words. It became real in my mind. I guess that's my mind, whatever it is. But that bear sung in this singing bird. I want to know about the singing bird. So how much would you tell me about the singing bird? What would you like me to tell you about the singing bird? Well, I don't know. I just love it. I mean, I love the thought. And I guess it's a thought. And now everyone's talking about the process of what it is, and... When you fill this empty vessel with this image, this beautiful image, I'm sure everyone sees it as a beautiful image, it brought to mind another image that had come to me about when I was stopped on the street by a crazy lady, you know, who...

[78:27]

I see her often walking around. She's probably not crazy at all. I see her too. Maybe I am. But she started, she said, what are all these people doing? What are all these people doing? And I said, oh, they're going to the film festival. And she says, I know you. And I said, you do? She said, yes, you're the lady. I said, the lady? Yes. And this woman starts yelling sometimes, so I didn't know whether I should go away or not. But for some reason, I just, I didn't have anywhere to go, so I just stood there and listened to her. And she said, yes, the one with the pink house. And I said, oh? And she said, yes, yes. I said, where? I said, I don't No, you said, don't you remember me? You stood in front of that pink brick house in a long fur coat. She said, it was a three and a half million dollar house. You stood there. Don't you remember? And I said, no. Tell me where the house was.

[79:30]

And she says, oh, back east, back east, you know. She says, I don't know what you're doing. And I said... No, but thank you for telling me. I had the image of this lady in a long fur coat, wearing a pink fur coat, you know, back east in upper New York. And it was like a wonderful story that she gave to me. And then she said, she said, of course, you have your house. I said, I've long ago lost my house. You have. And I was really glad that I had not sort of been frightened away because I had seen her, you know, fly into rages at people. But I thought, well, if I just listen and enter her reality, then we could tell each other something. And I thought, well, maybe they'll never like it.

[80:34]

I was a lady, you know, and I liked that idea, just standing there, nothing else, just that image. It was funny. It was wonderful. Well, anyway, I don't know what that means to do. I call it the wild mind. I think you were next. Pink. Kind of brick-like. In that same story, how do you see the connection between the painter and the bird? Well, I don't know exactly, but I think the painter is like your idea of yourself now, or your idea of the actor or the thinker.

[81:36]

Like there's a thing called the thinker, or a thing called the painter, or a thing called the person. And you need to set up the situation. where the self which will complement your idea of yourself will come, or where you'll inhabit yourself as the painter, you'll inhabit yourself as the thinker. You'll admit that you're thinking. You'll concentrate on your breathing and your posture and your sense of identity and all that. And as a painter, you're creating a situation where you can meditate. You're setting up a situation where you'll be able to meditate and become aware of what you're up to. I think he was next. I'm not sure. What do you think? He was next. I was hoping to share this mental game I've been playing with myself for years because I'm curious to feel it illustrates this process of the mind's ability to think.

[82:46]

When I lay down to rest or sleep or eat for acupuncture, when my eyes were closed, I started trying to do a backflip in my mind, to raise my feet, to actually see, to visualize myself doing a complete turn, coming around and returning to that position. And I could never do it. I always stopped at this point. And I'm learning that my eyes aren't open, I'm not focusing, I'm not objectifying my vision. My intention is to actually see things going past me as if I were diving on a board or something. But if that is so much as because I'm just trying to see something in my mind, I can't because there's no light in the shed. I regret that. And that's an out there. I can't hit it. I just hit this wall so hard. It's a fitting illustration of someone trying to do this but not being successful. When you try to do this and you think that doing it will give you a particular type of image, like for example of yourself flipping backwards, then what you do is you become more, which is a perfectly reasonable attempt, what that tends to produce is a more vivid sense of how you make objects and how solid objects are.

[84:02]

I'm wondering if the object, though, is... does it... does it have... does it have to be a focus on... Pardon? Does it have to be... In your mind, you're focusing, you're seeing images, though. Those are just as objective as these kinds of objects. However, it's a little bit easier to catch on in certain ways by keeping your eyes open. But most people are not aware of how solid they make objects. I mean, you do, like, you do make them and you do believe they're solid, but most people are not aware of how solid and how real they think things are. Or in other words, how they think things are real before they even touch them. And one of the things that happens in doing this exercise of reversing your thinking is that if you think, which a lot of people do, that this process of reversing your thinking will produce a certain set of images or that it'll go a certain way, then you get more into the fact of how solid you make those images and you really feel like you're going up against a wall.

[85:12]

or that you're flipping back and burning out or blowing your fuses or hitting a wall, and that you can't do it. A sense of can't do it is another solid image that has a real impact on you. I'm failing. I'm not able to do it. When you actually do it, you do not have a sense that you can't do it anymore. When you have a sense you can't do it, it shows you're trying. And you're actually being somewhat successful at warming up to the exercise when you feel like you can't. But when you're successful, you don't think you can. Also part of warming up to the exercise is to think that you're successful and to be quite sure of it or somewhat sure of it, either way. The more sure of you are, the more you're actually still dealing with objects. called the object of I just successfully did the exercise. At that time you should go to a meditation teacher and tell about your success and they can point out to you that that's still just an object. And when you can't find anything at all, can't find success or failure or objects or flipping backwards or flipping forward or whatever, then again you should go and express that and see if you've really completed that because if you complete it you should naturally go forward from there and be back into objects again.

[86:32]

So one Zen teacher expressing the same exercise, he said kind of what the, he had a four-line verse. And the third line of his verse was kind of like this monk's verse. Third line of the verse was basically, when I get here, I don't find anything at all. I think first line was something like, traveling over the summits. That's the objects. And then he said something about turning the mind. And then he said, I don't find anything at all. That's where the monk got to. But then he had one more line. And the line was, blue mountains fill my eyes. So then again, objects come back to you after you can't find anything. So the monk, it says, the monk got one mystery. and the stage of faith. The teacher got three mysteries, and the stage of faith and the stage of person.

[87:39]

So your attempt to do this flipping is like the exercise, but you didn't complete it yet. But hitting the wall or being frustrated is a natural thing that happens to people when they try to make this flip. But when you make this flip, you should come right back to where you are, and there should be no, you have no evidence of succeeding. You have no residual images to show that you made the flip. I don't know if I said it felt frustrating. He said you hit a wall. Yeah, but that's not necessarily frustrating. In fact, that's why it continues to . I feel like every time it's a little closer towards coming around. So it's kind of something that . I'm not saying you should feel frustrated by that. If I hear that from somebody, that they're hitting a wall, I don't say you should feel frustrated. I say, actually, that's good. You're getting a sense of how wall-like your images are. Even the images in your mind with your eyes shut have a wall-like quality.

[88:43]

Concepts to us are like walls. They say like locks, doubly locked. Images in our brain. in our mind are really solid. We say these images are like rocks. And feeling that, you've actually gotten the sense of how you attribute substance to your own thinking. So that's good. But a lot of people in your position say that that's frustrating. But the frustration is also good. It shows you're into the process. It shows you're really trying. You know, maybe you should be a little bit more frustrated. Because you don't have much time to finish the flip. No, you're next. If you still want to be. What is the difference between entering fully and indulging? Well, you know, I don't know. That's not just an intellectual... I mean, that sounds like sort of a... That's not just an intellectual thing?

[89:46]

No, it's not. What's the difference? I don't know. Well, as, you know... That's a good example. You said it wasn't just intellectual. Why can't it just be intellectual? Because it's coming from my actual life. It's not just a clever, even though it was a rather clever question. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between, because I don't think I really know how to enter something fully, so I'm trying to find out. Right. So I'm trying to kind of, you know, I'm sending the message, okay, you're backing away, let's try not backing away, and let's try to enter it. Okay, there, stop, okay? You find yourself trying to back away, and you say, let's not back away, okay?

[90:49]

Not accepting that you're backing away is a kind of indulgence. But I'm seeing that I'm backing away. That's enough. And I'll go on from there. Don't try to manipulate yourself out of backing away into going forward. If you don't, you'll go forward. If you try to resist the person who's backing away, you're indulging in that person. You're giving that tendency more reality by trying to not go in the other direction. If you would just let it be that, then you wouldn't be indulging or denying. you'd hit the mark. And you'd be this person who's kind of like doing something that doesn't sound that cool, called backing away. But that's who you'd be. And if you'd let it go at that, that's perfect. Is that a trick? Yes. I mean, that's what you think you're doing, so that's your thought. Let it be that. That's not hysteria.

[91:51]

That's not denial. However, to try to now, okay, now this is not so good, and try to now act from there, that's That's extra. That's not quite on the mark. But you see how elusive and how balanced and how ready you are to fall in any direction from that place? Of just, I'm backing away and that's it. Now from there you can just back away again, or you can go forward, or you don't know what can happen. So to me then, when I hear you say enter fully, I feel that as what really is indulgent. That would be indulging. And when you say enter fully, it's not going to have the feeling of... It's going to have the feeling of... It's going to have the feeling of balance without the feeling of balance. When you're really balanced, there's no feeling of balance. Feeling balanced, you're starting to go off balance again. there's no indication of being imbalanced you just are but it's hard to stay there we want to go to the pole of I'm balanced or the pole of I'm not balanced which you know we feel oh now I know something got some indications here but just being balanced is if you think you're backing away being balanced is just to be thinking you're backing away that's balance now you're ready for the next thought

[93:18]

So when you're looking at this in a way you haven't before, and you sort of have the idea that you're trying something new, or you're trying to do things in a way you haven't done before, what are the clues that you are divulging? What are the clues that you're indulging? Yeah. Well, first, having any clues is a form of indulgence. So there's going to be some indulgence. Right. As you start to do this new thing, some things are going to happen. And those things that are going to happen, guess what you're going to think those things are? You're going to think they're clues. You're going to think they're indications. They're not clues or indications.

[94:25]

They're just something that's happening. But just to sort of do something new without an indication of whether you're doing it right or wrong, we can't do that, so we make everything that happens into clues. Like, oh, I'm not doing it, or I am doing it. That's going to happen. And when I see that happen, I say, good, you're trying. This happens. But this is not what it means to be balanced. This is not what it means to reverse the mind. When you reverse the mind, you have reversed it. In other words, you're willing to live your life without any clues.

[94:51]

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