to some extent I feel like a broken record in the sense that I always talk about the same thing over and over. Upright sitting, upright sitting, upright sitting. Zazen, zazen, zazen. Doesn't he have anything else to say? And so I hide behind Suzuki Roshi and tell you that he said one time to us, all that a Zen priest is supposed to do is encourage people to practice zazen, to practice upright sitting. And I just use that as an excuse, actually, because if it were supposed to do something else, I wouldn't know what to do anyway. So if you'll excuse me, I will talk again about upright sitting. Please listen to it anyway, even though you've heard it before. Maybe this time. Maybe this time, right while I'm talking, you'll attain complete, perfect liberation.

[01:08]

Liberation from what? Liberation from any misunderstanding we may have about ourself. which is the same as any misunderstanding we have about our relationship with others. This is the root cause of our problems, I propose to you, this incomplete understanding of what we are. So, as you've heard before too, the practice of Buddha's Way is the practice of studying the self. And the practice of studying the self is, when we first hear about that, we may think, well, I should find myself and then study it, which would be fine, except that when you go look for the self,

[02:21]

what you find is again just some selection that you make about what yourself is. So the way of studying the self, the gate into studying the self is this upright sitting. By sitting upright we enter into the real study of self. Not the self we expect to study, but the self that presents itself to our study. The fresh, unexpected, troublesome, difficult, immediate self. That's the one that's fruitful to study. And again, I would propose that we don't really

[03:26]

engage with things if they're external or anyway far away. It's when things get close to us that we really engage with them. And the self that you choose to study is not close enough. But the self that comes up because you're not defending is close and it bothers you. Recently I said to some people who came to talk to me, the first question I asked them was, instead of asking them, what's most immediate to you, which is what I wanted to know, I said, what's bothering you? And one person told me, he's had this problem since he's been sitting, he's having a problem with swallowing. It's not that he can't swallow, it's that he is swallowing, and swallowing has become a much bigger thing than he ever knew it was before.

[04:33]

And this is a common thing for beginners in sitting, especially in silent sitting, is they have a problem with swallowing because they feel that their swallowing has become amplified and is noisy. Usually people get over that, but at the beginning they often have a problem with that. Not everyone does so, so if you haven't had a problem with it, don't worry. It's not required. So this one person has been having a problem with swallowing, and he noticed that part of the reason why it was bothering him was because he was afraid it was going to bother his neighbors. This loud... He thought it would disturb his neighbors, so he was worried. But then he sat there and watched that. And again, I proposed to you that it's not so much that you swallow more when you're sitting than normally. As a matter of fact, if you hold your tongue on the roof of your mouth, you will eventually swallow much less than usual until finally you don't have to swallow at all, which is part of the reason for putting the tongue on the roof of the mouth is to quiet that area of your body.

[05:46]

but if you're worried about swallowing then of course you swallow more and more loudly but the point i'm trying to make first off is that by sitting still and quiet you start to notice things like that you're swallowing this isn't what you thought you were going to study when you came to buddhism but in fact this is what you wind up paying attention to among other things and then you start noticing that you're worried about bothering people and then he noticed that the reason why he's worried about bothering people is because he's afraid that they would dislike him for the noise he was making. And then he started to notice that there was somebody there that he was worried about being disliked. And what did he find? He found this thing called self. And then he said to me, well, is this kind of like the right direction? And I said, I don't think it's right or wrong, but I think it's good because I feel like you're getting intimate with yourself.

[06:55]

So I would propose to you also that the more you study the self, the more you see how self-contradictory it is. And the more you see how self-contradictory your self is, the more fully you realize what your self is. And the more fully you realize what yourself is, the more you will feel fulfilled. The more fully you can affirm the contradictory nature of yourself, the more fully you can affirm your life. And if you can affirm your life, you will be able to affirm your death. you will have the courage to just sit and be not just yourself the way you think about yourself, but yourself beyond your idea of yourself and yourself in complete identity with what's not yourself.

[08:32]

Last night I was teaching a class in Berkeley and I said at one point, You know, does it make sense to you? Do you understand how it is that the most terrible things in the world are just for your benefit?" And they said, no, they didn't understand that. They made these sad looks on their face that I said that. Do you understand how these terrible atrocities that are happening in the world are for your benefit? And if you can see how they are for your benefit, how you will be much more effective in ending them. This is pointing at the self-contradictory nature of our existence. Upright sitting will allow you to settle into this completely

[09:46]

self-contradictory identity. I've told this story. I'll tell it again. I hope it's okay. It's a story about George Washington Carver when he was a little boy I think he lived in Alabama on a poor farm and a certain area of the farm that wasn't being used he made a little garden and since he didn't have money to buy plants at the nursery he gathered plants that nobody wanted sick plants And he took them to his little garden, his little greenhouse, and he took care of them.

[10:50]

And they became well. They became healthy. He knew how to heal the plants. And the ladies in the neighborhood heard about him and asked him if he would take their houseplants. And he did. And he took care of their houseplants and then would return them after they were healthy again. And they asked him, you know, little boy, how do you know how to, where did you learn how to heal these plants? And he said, all the little flowers talk to me and so do the hundreds of little living things. I learn what I know by watching and loving everything. Watching and loving. Watching and loving.

[12:01]

Studying, but not studying as an object. Studying that's closer than that. Studying that's so close that you're bothered And loving, not loving according to your idea of loving. I mentioned the other day that in the middle of a talk here in this room, the word love came up out of my own mouth. I was giving the talk and I said the word love and I realized while I was talking that I didn't know what it was. And I was embarrassed because I thought, well, since I'm talking about it, I should know what I'm talking about. But then I felt like, well, maybe it's good that I don't know what love is. Because actually, who does know what it is? Is love something you know about? Well, maybe. But anyway, I didn't. And I also had the distinct impression that a few weeks before I did know about it, but I forgot.

[13:04]

So now I'm thinking that, I know, although I don't know what it is, I kind of have a feeling for it. And so I would say that loving things is, you could also say is, if you use this strange language, is what-ing them, is wondering what they are, is respect, respect in the sense of looking again. There's Sharon. But who is Sharon? Look again. Don't be so sure. You know, a lot of those plants that were brought to the little boy, to the little George Washington Carver, a lot of those plants were coming from ladies who probably were loving their plants. You ever heard of loving to death? You ever hear of overwatering?

[14:14]

Is it possible to put too much fertilizer on something and then if it gets sick to put more on? Yeah, it is possible. Out of what we call sentimental compassion, with a sentimental compassion in Chinese is translated, is written, loving view. Loving view, but loving in the sense of it's over there. I'm here, it's over there. I'm not it, it's not me. Rather than something more contradictory, I am it, it's not me. You see, because we think it is us, we think we know how much water to give it. We give it as much water as we think we would like to have ourselves. But because it isn't us, we don't know how much water it should give us. it should receive. So we should sit still and listen and listen until it says, water, fish emulsion.

[15:28]

And then we think, well, what if it never says so? And then our anxiety of looking at the plant as though it's not us We think, well, what if it dies before it tells me it wants water? Then I'll be responsible for the death of the plant. And we get worried. And out of our worry, before we know what the plant wants, we pour some water on it because, well, at least we can't be faulted for not caring. But did we care enough to withstand the anxiety? Did we have the courage to feel the anxiety of not knowing when to water the plant, of waiting until it tells us? Did we have the courage to be and feel what we were feeling until it was time

[16:41]

Are we clear about our relationship with the plant? Do we think we are the plant completely or not the plant or a little of both? What is actually our self? What is the plant? Loving is more than just liking something that you have decided about Although that is part of the fun of love, of saying that somebody is a certain way and kind of grooving on your perception of it. That's part of it. It's okay. But another part is, who is this? Who am I? Again, there's a story in the scriptures of a father and a daughter who were acrobats. And the daughter was standing on the father's shoulders or maybe on the father's hands.

[17:53]

And the father said to the daughter, daughter, please, you know, be careful. Take care of yourself up there. And the daughter said, no, father, you take care of yourself. I need you to take care of yourself. Just before I came down to give this talk, as I was walking out the door, my daughter said to me, Goodbye, Daddy. It was very nice. Such utterances are not so common anymore. That may be one of the last times I hear that. So I'm in a good mood. because she's in a good mood. But it's hard for me to live not knowing who she is.

[19:04]

It's hard for me to live in the presence of the awesome mystery which I call daughter. It's hard. I like to put her in a little box and then I know when to water her. And I know everything about what she should do then. I know when she should go to sleep. I know when she should go to work. I know when she should clean her room. I know everything then because I know what she is. This is not love. I can give it a bad name if you want, but anyway, it's not love. And then I don't learn The gate to learning, I propose again, is to sit upright in that anxiety. loving everything, what-ing everything, how-ing everything, who-ing everything, when-ing everything, wearing everything.

[20:32]

When you ask these questions, when I ask these questions about each thing, then I say, I love it. Of course, first, I have to see it. observe it and then love it by asking these questions in other words be with it in its local finite way and then open up to its infinity by asking questions but again these questions must not just be questions outside myself they must be questions which impact on me unless they touch me I won't really grapple with who is she. It isn't an abstract cold who. It is a who that touches my anxiety. It is a who about a she or a he that gets to me.

[21:38]

It isn't a who about a she or a he that's far away that doesn't bother me. It is a who and a what and a how about a he or a she or an it that hurts me. And I don't have to make it hurt me. All I have to do is sit still and it will hurt. And it hurts because I think it's not me. And it hurts because it is me. How do I live in such a dynamic, intense world? Don't move. Or I should say, not moving is how I live there. And in that not moving, this dynamic, barely tolerable, dramatic show manifests

[22:48]

It isn't that I'm passive. I have to work. I have to work, you know, to the... I have to work beyond the limits of working to be able to stay there. All my habits are rearing up, are rearing up, getting ready to split from this place where I'm touched. where I meet and interact with the ungraspableness of each thing. And don't try to limit it and demean it into something smaller than it is to remove my anxiety. Anyway, this is big talk. I can barely do it.

[23:56]

Ever. And what I'm suggesting is we work towards doing it all the time. So in one sense, sitting upright is the entry into this intense, contradictory, dynamic reality. And it is also, it's the way to get into it, and it's the way to be able to live there. It's not just the way to get into trouble. It's not just the way to take trouble. It's the way to be able to take trouble. It's the way to be able to sit peacefully in the middle of trouble. Carlisle said that genius is the Did he say the transcendent ability to take trouble? Or did he say it's the ability to take transcendent trouble? I don't know which.

[24:57]

But anyway, the ability to take a lot of trouble with everything. The ability to, the capacity to have problems with everything. To have everything be a mystery, an awesome mystery. somebody said to me a few weeks ago something about he wanted me to give him some zazen instruction so I said okay don't move and he obediently practiced that practiced not moving and he came back to me and he showed me the results of his not moving and the results were that while he was practicing that the thought arose in his mind I am great And then he felt terrible thinking that about himself. There it was. A revelation.

[26:00]

Unexpected. And it's a double-edged revelation because in fact it's true. We are great. We are great. And then we take it personally and become arrogant. Again, if you sit, if you don't move, you will realize how great you are. Then probably you'll take it personally because that's your habit. Just like you take personally that you're a jerk when you think that. So then when you take it personally, you're arrogant. You aggregate. Is that a word? Aggregate? Abrogate? Abrogate to yourself your greatness. is then you feel ashamed. But uprightness will allow you to sit there through this process, through this dynamic, contradictory process of, poor me, I'm great, I'm arrogant, but I'm confessing it, so I'm pretty good, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

[27:08]

It isn't by willpower that you can stand to be who you are. It's by your unborn, unmoving nature that you can stand to sit there and love yourself. Love yourself. But not love yourself like some object that you decide when to water yourself, but love yourself in wondering, in a dynamic, grappling way, what is this? Feel how bothered you are by it. Get close enough so that whether you think good things about yourself or bad things about yourself, it bothers you. Or whether you think nothing about yourself, it bothers you. But again, you don't force yourself to think these things. Because anything you force yourself to do, that's not what you should be working with. Again, if you want to force yourself to do some things, some of those things are pretty wholesome. Like if you want to force yourself to follow your breathing, that's fine.

[28:15]

I hope you enjoy it. I really do. If you want to force yourself to do anything wholesome, fine. But your real work is not what you force yourself to do. It's what comes into your hand when you sit still. That's my faith. So again, I told you that story over and over. Thoreau says in Walden, all you have to do is sit long enough in an attractive spot in the forest And all the inhabitants will exhibit themselves to you in turn. Not your agenda, not even their agenda. It's the agenda of the entire working of the forest. Presents you the animal, the plant, whatever it is, the rain, the wind, that you're supposed to deal with now. You don't have to run around and look for things. The world will roll at your feet in ecstasy.

[29:18]

you just don't move. And then when it presents itself, then love it. That's all. It's simple and nothing could possibly be harder because it is the complete reversal of enormously powerful habits. So don't be hard on yourself if you find it hard. It is hard because our habit is to move away from this center and to hang out in the suburbs. We have habits and many things in our culture encourage this. So it's not really all your fault. It's not really all your fault. It's not really all my fault. But it's also not an excuse. is just part of the rationality of what we have to face. Namely, we have to be really thorough about being where we are.

[30:23]

And then we will get lesson number one, lesson number two, and so on. And we will realize the true self. And once you realize what the self really is, And what Buddha called the real self is not-self. And not-self does not mean not-the-self. It's something more dynamic than that. It means that the self is identical with not-the-self. Is this the right time to stop?

[31:40]

Yash is looking at his watch. Does anybody have a watch that says when it's the right time to stop? How about, we don't know what the right time to stop is, but is it a good time to stop? It's always a good time to stop. Are you guys ready to stop? Oop, one person's not ready to stop. What more do you need to stop? You don't know? You don't know, but you have a feeling you're not ready. You don't have a feeling you're not ready, or you're sure you're not ready? You're not quite ready. Okay, one person's not ready to stop. Let us help her. Feel closer to being ready? I put my glasses back on, but this thing's falling out.

[32:52]

It's back in. When I stop, I feel something. I stopped, by the way. I just stopped. And I feel closer to you all now. Isn't that funny? Yeah, it's true. I stopped and I feel closer. How about you, Sharon?

[34:00]

What? How about you? How about you, Sandra? So I stopped. But the funny thing is I can keep talking after I stop. That's the kind of person I am. I just want to mention one happy coincidence that I noticed today when I was talking to... We have five people visiting from Eugene and I was talking to one of them and I found out that they've been studying and talking about how it is that Zen practice is not just something you do. And I said, oh, that's great, because we've been talking about that here, too. We've been studying this awareness, this self-fulfilling awareness, this awareness which leads to the fulfillment of our understanding of what the self is.

[35:14]

In other words, Buddha's mind. And how that is, that awareness is the awareness of the meeting of me practicing and confirming things on one side and things coming forward and practicing and confirming me. We've been studying this dance between the self practicing and confirming things and things coming forward and practicing and confirming the self and how those two things meet. We've been studying that, right? And so have they. So, pretty good, huh? How'd that happen? Anyway, it's nice to see people practicing with us, even without us sending any messages through the world in any way that we know.

[36:17]

But the funny thing is that, as it says in this thing we chant in the morning, that when this meeting of the world of delusion, where you think you can practice and you can confirm things, when that world of delusion meets the world of enlightenment, where things come forward and realize and confirm you, when those two meet, this is the Buddhist seal, the Buddha mudra. And when this mudra is experienced in your body, speech, and thought, then the whole phenomenal world also is sealed by that. So up in Oregon they were doing it and it was coming down and sealing us and we were doing it down there and sealing them. We can dance together at long distances this way. So do you understand anything?

[37:24]

No? Well. I was instructed by ducks on the pond. The ducks on the ponds gave you duxon? Yes, they did. They would move all together on the pond. And when they would turn, they wouldn't turn this way. They would turn this way. Dozens of them at once. Some Zen teachers say that if you practice Zen for a long time, you can do what ducks do. Without even hanging out with ducks. Any other things you want to say before we close down the shop tonight?

[38:30]

What? You're welcome, snowy forest. So he said, I learn what I know by watching and loving everything. And I say that sitting upright is the entry into watching and loving everything. Summertime, and the living is easy.

[39:52]

Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high. Your daddy's rich, and your mama's good looking. So hush, little baby, don't you cry. One of these mornings, you're going to rise up singing. you're gonna spread your wings and you'll take to the sky until that morning there ain't nothing can harm you so hush little baby don't you cry Penetrator.

[40:45]

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