of the Soto Zen tradition. Or you might say beings who aspire to be true disciples of the Buddha. Or you might even say those who aspire to realize Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings. So priests and laypeople who aspire to realize Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings for some time now have been talking about Zen. And Zen for me is a provisional word. It's a nice short word which we use to talk about something which is a sort of a longer word which is the practice

[01:01]

of the Buddha's ancestors' meditation practice, which means the Buddha ancestors' way of living, because when you're a Buddha, it's no good unless you're a Buddha all the time. So Buddhas, basically their life is meditation. It isn't like they meditate for a couple of hours a day or a couple of minutes a week. The way they are is the way they are. They're kind of concentrated on being Buddha. So, the way they are is the way they care for life. And the way they care for life is the way they are. And that's actually the case with all of us. The way we are is the way we care for life.

[02:04]

And so for some time now these people who are devoted to this practice of the Buddha, which they sometimes call Zen, they've been saying that To practice Zen, or to touch Zen, to reach Zen, is dropping off body and mind. And so this fall I've been bringing this up again and again that to reach Zen, to reach the practice of the Buddha ancestors, is dropping off body and mind. And I said over and over again that this is not something which a person does.

[03:12]

This dropping off body and mind is Dharma practice. It is the practice of Dharma. It's not something that a person does. So that's why I'd be careful of prepositions like, the practice of Zen is dropping off body and mind, rather than the practice of Zen is to drop off body and mind. Take that preposition out of there, because if I say the practice of Zen is to drop off body and mind, that seems to, I guess to me that would encourage the way of thinking that to do it sounds like there's a subject which does the dropping off body and mind. Doesn't that sound like that more to you? But it's not that the practice is not a subject that drops off body and mind. It's not that reaching Zen is for the subject to drop off body and mind.

[04:18]

dropping off body and mind, which means that the subject's dropped off and the object's dropped off. The subject-object situation is dropped off. Including the body-mind attitude that subject and object are two, are separate, that idea is dropped off. The subject doesn't drop out the idea that the subject and object are dropped. The subject's dropped because the subject is something that is an artifact of having body-mind, of there being a body and mind. There's no subjects floating around, dissociated from body-mind. There's some subjects which we'd like to be, but this is an unhealthy situation. It's called being dissociated, and they give you medications for that. So you say, no, I'm not dissociating anymore from the body-mind.

[05:25]

So from the beginning I want to emphasize that the practice is being brought up which is not a practice that a person does. It is the practice of Dharma. But the practice of Dharma is about persons. In a sense, it's about persons being shed or body-mind persons, which is the only kind that I know about anyway, it's them dropping away. That's the practice. Okay? I don't do it, you don't do it, Buddha doesn't do it, but all sentient beings together are actually body-mind dropping off. That's the practice. Oftentimes when I hear that there's going to be a one-day sitting, particularly when I hear that there's going to be a one-day sitting nearby, I get this feeling, this kind of, I don't like the word clean, but it's a kind of feeling of how clean.

[06:52]

What a clean thing to happen. These people are going to come and sit in a room for a day, they're just going to sit there. Kind of clean as a whistle. What are they going to do? They're going to sit there. And they're going to stand up too. They're going to walk too. But basically, they're just going to sit in the room. What a clean Saturday. It's wonderful to go shopping, to go buy shoelaces and vitamins on Saturday. Clean your garage. That's nice too. Saturday is a great day, but to just sit there for a day and a whole bunch of people just to sit, it's just so clean. It's so simple. It's so radical. It's like a snapshot of what everybody all over the universe is doing on Saturday. Because actually, in a given moment, everybody's just like on the Earth, sitting there, or on some other planet, sitting there.

[08:00]

They're just like, in a moment, they're just like right there. We spend the whole day just like celebrating being right here. Again, one more time, right here. Right here. And not only being right here, but not trying to get anything out of being right here, right? Now maybe a few people straight in here are trying to get something. We don't check you at the door to see if you're trying to get something. But most people are just coming in here to come in here. Just to be and just to sit and then just to leave when there's time. But basically It's just a fabulous thing. Even if I don't participate in the sitting, I think it's so nice that it happens. And people all over the country appreciate that it happens.

[09:03]

It reminds them while they're shopping of something about their shopping, namely body-mind dropped off shopping. The body-mind of shopping dropped off. Now today, at both noon service and morning service, we'll be chanting a section of the It's called the Ji-Ju-Yu-Zam-Mai section or the self-fulfilling samadhi section or the self-fulfilling awareness section of that text, or self-receiving and self-employing.

[10:08]

Ji means self, Ju means receiving, and Yu means function or activity or employment And zammai means samadhi or absorption. So it's about being absorbed or being very intimate with the process of the self receiving its employment And it's to be absorbed in the actual process in a given moment of the self receiving its employment, its activity. The self in each moment receives its function. And to witness the self receiving its function is to witness

[11:13]

that there is no self independent of all beings giving it its function. To see the self as it receives its activity is to see what the Buddha called no self. It isn't that there's no self, like not there at all, it's just that in each moment the self receives its function from the entire universe. The entire universe arises and gives the self its activity in the universe. And if you see that, you see that there's no independent self. And this is a core teaching, the core realization and the core teaching of the Buddha.

[12:21]

To be absorbed in the self as it receives its function is to be absorbed in no self. and to realize, actualize no self, which is to actualize selflessness. Before we see the self as it receives its function, we think that the self has a function, that you've got a self and it's got a function. We missed the part about it having been given its function. And therefore we think the self has and owns its function, and then the self uses its function to function, to act upon the world, which it doesn't see has given it its activity. This is called selfishness. You see the self.

[13:25]

You don't see that it's interdependent. You think it's independent and it has a function. And you don't say, thank you. You say, take that and take this. Old world, please be this way and be that way. All beings, Let me, over here, separate from you, who has my function, use it on you, hopefully in a good way. But anyway, I got it, and now I give it to you. Rather than, first of all, you gave it to me. And I have no function aside from what you give me. I have no existence as a self aside from what you give me. So the self-receiving and self-employing awareness is to witness how the self arises, how it comes to function, to witness that, and to be no place other than that.

[14:42]

And therefore, the body-mind drops away in that world. Or that is the world of body and mind dropping away. And then there is a realization of everything not only giving the self its function, but everything giving the self its life. Therefore, everything enlightening, enlivening, and realizing the self. everything without exception. Birth, death, sickness, health, praise, blame, smiling faces, frowning faces, all faces give the self its function. And the way of entering or being in this samadhi, the way of discovering this samadhi, you don't make this samadhi happen.

[16:01]

This is your actuality already. The way of being the samadhi is just to be yourself. Just to be the self. If the self you've got now, the self that appears to you now is a self that got its function and acts on the world, just be that. Be the self that thinks it can practice Zen, that thinks it's separate from the practice of Zen, even the practice of dropping body and mind. With the dropping body and mind, I'm going to do it. If that's the way you feel, be that self. So the self, just be the self, but also be the self, then gradually try to be the self. First of all, the self that's like doing this and doing that, but then gradually or suddenly be the self that's just the self.

[17:05]

Rather than the self that's doing this or that, be the self which is just the self. Be the self which is just the self. This being the self which is just the self doesn't cause the self to be the self. It doesn't cause the body and mind of the self to drop away.

[18:09]

It's just simply being in accord with what's happening. And being in accord with what's happening doesn't cause what's happening to happen. What's happening can be that you're in accord with what's happening, you know, that you're in accord with it, or it can be that you're struggling against it. Either way, what's happening is what's happening. Even if you're struggling against what's happening, it's happening that you're struggling against what's happening. I mean, it's happening that you have that delusion that you can struggle against what's happening, even though What's happening completely includes that you're struggling against it and that you're rejecting it. We cannot actually get away from what's happening, and even our struggle against what's happening, it's still perfectly happening. But we can dream, and we can be confused and think that we could actually resist what's happening. Most people are able to do that.

[19:17]

you know, be involved in that delusion. And as a matter of fact, most people are almost always involved in that delusion nonstop. So that's part of what's happening is that people think that they can manipulate what's happening, even though they can't. So if you happen to notice that you're into that delusion, then the samadhi of the self-perceiving and employing samadhi, the samadhi, the absorption in the self-perceiving as function, is just to simply not be anything but this person who seems to think that they can get away from what's happening, or make what's happening go this way or that way, or even practice Zen. just to be that person, whatever that is. And again, that doesn't make what's happening happen.

[20:21]

But if you don't accept whatever delusion you're involved in, then that lack of acceptance blocks you from realizing this body-mind dropped off. Because you say, I'm not here. I'm not going to be with this body and mind. Therefore... I'm not going to be with this body-mind dropped off. So, although you don't make it happen by being here, if you're here, you happen to be where it's happening. So, you get to live happily. But if you're unwilling to be here, where you're deluded and miserable, then if you're not willing to be where you're miserable, you just got to keep being miserable until you're willing to be here with with no agenda other than the agendas you have. If you've got your agendas, whatever they are, all you've got to do is just be that, or completely.

[21:33]

The slightest bit of holding back is sufficient to make you dislocated from the place where the body and mind drops off, which is where you are all the time, And being a little bit away from the body-mind dropping off is, you know, some parts not dropping off. And that's enough to be extremely uncomfortable. And based on that discomfort and that delusion, you name it, it can happen. So that's why I think these one-day sittings are so clean, because there's, in a sense, there's this opportunity for each person just to be each person and nothing more.

[23:03]

And the way the thing is set up, it looks like that's all we're offering, pretty much, is for each person to be just themselves. And you get to be yourself any way you are. You get to blink. You get to cough. You get to cover your mouth when you cough. If you do, please do. You get to eat lunch. You get to taste every bite. And if you don't taste your lunch, you get to not taste your lunch. You get to be exactly what you are every moment. That's all that we're offering, basically. When I think of the day being clean, that's what I think is so clean about it. We're offering just you being where you are, receiving your function every moment.

[24:05]

Every moment you get the gift of your function, of yourself. That's all you get, and you get to appreciate that gift every single moment. And Being there as that gift comes, seeing how that gives you your function, you enter true enlightenment, or it's the true gate to enlightenment, according to this tradition. All the Buddha and all the ancestors uphold the Buddha Dharma. and have made the true path to enlightenment to sit upright practicing in the midst of self-fulfilling samadhi. To practice in the middle of this absorption in you being just you.

[25:08]

Okay? And I just wanted to parenthetically give one more talk, and that is that you may have heard about seeing practice as something about getting rid of delusion and attaining enlightenment. Sometimes Buddhism's taught that way. Get rid of the delusion to attain enlightenment. or, you know, we're all deluded, and if we get rid of this delusion, we can attain enlightenment. And, you know, I kind of think, you know, from the deluded perspective, I think it's kind of true that we're all deluded. I mean, I can see that. Can't you? But even though I can see that we're all deluded, at the same time I can also see that we're not separate from the ones who aren't deluded.

[26:31]

That there's no Buddha separate from these beings who are all, you know, all deluded. So there's two things that I can know, or you can know. One is that we're separate, that we're independent of each other, and that's like a substantial thing. We can feel that way. And we can also see that that separation is insubstantial.

[27:33]

we can see, we can know those two things. But the way we know the first thing, the way we know that we're diluted and that we're separate, is with a kind of dualistic consciousness. a kind of conceptual, discriminating consciousness. And with that consciousness we always see substantial things. We always see separation. And we're always seeing a world which obscures the other world. We're seeing a world of separation that obscures the world of interdependence. But there's another thing we can know, but we know it with a different kind of a mind, which we also are inseparable from, the Buddha mind, which is non-conceptual.

[28:51]

It doesn't actually see things out there. And not seeing all things out there, it sees that things aren't independent and aren't substantially existent on their own. And in this world where things aren't independent and [...] aren't independent, in that world, things are really different. Yep. Things are like they are in this thing here. You know, grass and trees and walls and, you know, asphalt and pyres and nuts and bolts and chainsaws and pollution and everything is teaching you dharma. Everything's sending you like this liberating, glorious light of love.

[29:54]

everything. And then it bounces off you and resonates back to them and wakes them up. And then the rocks and the chainsaws and the drug pushers and the murderers and the presidents and the secretaries all jump with joy from this light that's bouncing off you from them. And then they wake up and bounce it back to you and everybody's saving everybody. And everybody's turning the Dharma wheel and everybody's living in peace and harmony and safety without moving a particle of dust. You'll read about this at noon service again, what it's like in the world where things aren't substantial, where deluded people and sentient beings don't have two separate lives. where sentient beings who are deluded people don't have two separate lives, and where Buddhas and deluded people don't have separate lives, where there's no thing out there anymore.

[31:08]

There's just one big light. And it's a safe light. It's not like, you know, jam-packed full of ultra-violent radiation it's going to, you know, hurt your complexion. But then it says, after it talks about this world, gives you a little snapshot of this world where all this good stuff is happening, it says, all this, however, is not, you know, something of perception. Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. All this, however, does not appear within perception because it is unconstructedness and stillness. It is immediate realization. So you can't see it with your regular perception, how we're all helping each other.

[32:17]

But this situation where we're all helping each other is going on right now, it says. in the unconstructive stillness of this moment, we're helping each other. Okay, ready? One, two, three, don't move. Okay, right now we're helping each other. Before anybody moves, in the stillness of the moment, right there, boom, we're helping each other. Can you see it? No, you can't see it in the normal way, but... That's what you will understand and see, not as a perception, but you will understand, you will know this if you would dare to be just yourself. If you would dare to be the self, which is just the self, which is unconstructedness. Got a self? That's already been constructed, but the self being the self is unconstructedness in stillness. That's immediate realization, and that is the situation in which this amazing world of peace and harmony is realized right now.

[33:30]

So you don't do this unconstructedness and stillness because nobody does it. It's not constructed. Looking at Toby, who's a construction person. But Toby being a construction person, when he's a constructed person, That's constructed, but just him being that is unconstructed in stillness, in its immediate realization. This is called the samadhi of the self. And this is the true gate, or the gate to true, the true path to enlightenment. It says to sit upright, but that sitting doesn't, you know, it's when you're sitting, it's sitting, but it's also standing upright, walking upright, reclining upright. In other words, again, that you're perfectly not adding or subtracting anything to the self at the moment.

[34:38]

That's what we mean by sit upright. And that's pretty much it. Up to this point. The world has just been completed up to this point, and you're here. AND NOW AGAIN. Now you look like you understood completely what I said.

[36:25]

Is that right? You look like you understood completely because everybody here is completely just being themselves right now. So that's what I meant. Thank you. Anything you'd like to say before we do it again? So whenever I give a talk like this, I always think, this is probably the last talk I'll ever give, because there's really nothing more to say, except to say the same thing again. And how could that be necessary? But then I remember, oh, people forget. They forget about the samadhi of the self.

[37:29]

I can mention it again tomorrow.

[37:33]

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