As you know, this is the first day of the five-day sasin, and I thought of the word retreat. The word retreat is quite different from the word sasin. The Shin is made of two Chinese characters. The first character in Japanese way of pronouncing it is Setsu. The second character is Shin. Shin means mind or heart. And satsu has many meanings, but it means to embrace and sustain, or to care for, or to nurture, or to gather, to guide, or to be guided.

[01:14]

And it has the nuance in Buddhist circles to be guided. by Buddha's compassion, or to receive Buddha's compassion. So sasin means to embrace and sustain your heart and mind and body, to care for it, to nurture it, and to let your body and mind receive and be guided by Buddha's compassion. The word retreat, as you know, means to retreat, to come away from or turn away from something. That means a more positive word for a way to relate. But I think the word retreat is good to look at. Can you hear me okay back in the remote regions of the hall? So retreat.

[02:21]

We have a three-month retreat here, we say sometimes. And within the three-month retreat, now we're having a retreat within the retreat. So we're retreating from what? If we're having a retreat. And sometimes people say that we retreat from the world. But what is the world? I think that the world is actually the name for the way of living where we retreat from our life. The world is the name we use for retreating from our life, for turning away from our life.

[03:22]

So my feeling is that a retreat of disciples of the Buddha is to retreat from retreating, is to retreat from turning away from your life. In other words, it's a retreat to turn towards your life. And we have a special arrangement now of these days and hours being set aside for us to turn towards our life, to face life. I say our life, I mean all of our life. I mean to face our life with all living beings. The time to retreat from not being intimate

[04:37]

with what's happening. In other words, it's a time to be intimate with each moment of experience, a time to be intimate with each phenomena we meet, with everything. And I would mention two basic levels that we are habitually prone to retreating. Two levels of ignorance, two levels of ignoring life, turning away from life.

[05:42]

we ignore, we tend to ignore our retreat from conventional truth, from the conventional world. And we tend to ignore it the way it is. And we also tend to turn away from and ignore the ultimate truth. I guess I feel that turning away from ultimate truth is the most fundamental ignorance. And that turning away from conventional truth is derivative of that. How can we be free of the process of ignoring our life?

[07:05]

How can we become free of retreating from our life? How can we become free of our habit of turning away from all living beings? And thus, how can we reverse the process of ignorance? Well, what is not usually mentioned so explicitly in many Zen texts, but I've been working on this practice period with you, in some ways the first step in turning around and becoming intimate with your life is to become comfortable.

[08:09]

Find some way to actually get settled with what's happening. Some way to encourage yourself to take your seat in the moment. almost like seducing yourself into the world, encouraging yourself to inhabit your body and mind. To inhabit your body-mind. To be kind enough to yourself so that you'll be willing to face ignorance and the consequences of ignorance, or face the consequences of ignorance and thus also face the ignorance.

[09:47]

If there's any ignorance, there's suffering. We have to make ourselves settled enough and comfortable enough that we can face the suffering that arises with ignorance. And this is practices like loving kindness. This is practices like following your breath. This is practices like concentration. Practicing concentration in the kindness that you can allow yourself.

[10:57]

And when you're concentrated, it's more possible to be comfortable under the circumstances of ignorance. Concentration is a great gift that you can allow yourself to receive. Mindfulness is a great gift that you can allow yourself to receive. Patience with this pain is a great gift you can allow yourself to receive. Being careful of each thing you hear, see, touch, smell, taste, and think.

[12:12]

Being careful of each thing you say and each thing you do with your body is a great gift. Being enthusiastic about this whole process. is a great gift that you can allow yourself and this kind of kindness will make it possible for you to be comfortable under the circumstances of your life which this week is doing quite a bit of sitting and walking meditation or working in the kitchen And also, I guess everyone will be doing some work. During this week, during these five days, we will experience some pain. All of us, I think, will, unless some of us are completely enlightened.

[13:15]

And even if we are completely enlightened, we will feel pain. in sympathy and out of love for our fellow beings. So please make yourself comfortable under the circumstances of this rather rigorous five days. Enjoy this time. A great gift is being offered to you by the universe, please accept it. And in that way, give it to yourself. Also, you can enjoy giving it to others, that you allow others to also make themselves comfortable and at ease and at peace in the midst of the difficulties which we are experiencing.

[14:18]

to be at ease, to be buoyant, to be light in body and mind while we sit in meditation, walk in meditation, eat in meditation, chant in meditation, work in meditation. If we can receive this gift and feel comfortable in this earthly plane, on this earth with a body that responds to gravity and which is pulled to our seat, if we can become comfortable, then we will be ready to contemplate we will be able to contemplate reality which starts by contemplating our ignorance and our pain admitting our ignorance admitting that there is some delusion here that there is some ignoring of ultimate reality at least and maybe conventional reality too

[15:51]

If I'm not comfortable, it's very difficult for me to become even more uncomfortable by admitting my delusion. But Buddhas admit delusion. They admit their own delusion. They admit other people's delusion. But mostly they admit their own. They see other people's, but they don't have to admit other people's delusion. They just see it. But they admit their own. And by admitting their own, Buddhas have a chance to contemplate delusion. And in the midst of the contemplation of delusions, Buddhas are greatly enlightened. They are greatly enlightened in the midst of delusion. They're comfortable enough to face it, to see what it is, and understand what it isn't. Once we're settled in our circumstances, we can work on refining our attitude or our posture with which we face our circumstances.

[17:22]

Once we're not running away and retreating from our life, we then can... Well, if we really weren't running away at all, we would already have the proper posture, but... Let's say we have our feet and now we can work even more in more detail and more intimately on how to face our circumstances in such a way that we can really contemplate the truth. The way of contemplating the conventional truth And the way of contemplating ultimate truth are basically the same. Sitting wholeheartedly, being upright with whatever is happening is the way to contemplate conventional truth.

[18:28]

Sitting upright wholeheartedly is the way to contemplate ultimate truth. Contemplation of conventional truth naturally opens into contemplation of ultimate truth. And contemplation of ultimate truth naturally opens into contemplation of conventional truth. Round and round. The many old-time Buddhas have offered, in the conventional world, they have offered words in their bodies to show how to contemplate the truth.

[19:42]

The Buddhas have also said what the truth is. They've said what conventional truth is. They've said what ultimate truth is. And they've talked about ways to contemplate conventional truth in ways of contemplating ultimate truth. One of the points that I've already made, and which I will make again now, is that the Zen school offers, talks about and offers expressions of the ultimate truth to beginners. Actually, now, to people who come for zazen instruction at this temple, our first zazen instruction actually is often a conventional truth.

[21:10]

But if new students come to our morning service, they will hear a teaching of ultimate truth right away. They will hear the Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra is almost entirely a conventional expression, because it's in words, gesturing towards ultimate truth. But old-time Buddhas like Nagarjuna say that without being grounded in contemplation of conventional truth, it's not appropriate to be taught the ultimate. So we offer the Heart Sutra, and you say, well, aren't we offering the ultimate teaching?

[22:24]

And someone might say, yes, but most people just let it go. If someone were actually to show you what the Heart Sutra was about, that wouldn't be appropriate if you weren't grounded in conventional truth. The old-time Buddha, Tungshan, when he was a little boy, I don't know how old he was, whether he was six, seven, eight, something like that, I think. His name was Liang Jie. That's his monk's name. He went to a temple when he was a little boy, and it was a Zen temple, I think, but I'm not sure. But anyway, it was a Buddhist temple, and they were chanting the Heart Sutra, probably in Chinese. And when they got to the part where it said, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, and so on, he said, but I have eyes, ears, nose.

[23:38]

Why does the heart sutra say there aren't any? And... The teacher he asked at that time said to the little boy, you're too much for me, and sent him to another teacher. Now, I'm not criticizing Koth, but when we came to Zen Center and we heard that, how come we didn't say, wait a minute, how come we just let that go by? How can we even say, what about conventional truth? I have a nose. What's as hard to just saying I don't have a nose? It doesn't actually say you don't have a nose. It says in the context of emptiness, in ultimate truth of emptiness, there is no nose.

[24:42]

So maybe you all understood that. We have to face first of all that we have a nose, and eyes, and a body, and thoughts. To face that first before understanding what the Heart Sutra is about. The Heart Sutra is, as one scholar said to me, it really should be called the Heartless Sutra. It's cutting all human sentiment. The Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths. The Buddha taught the truth of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the truth of the stopping of suffering, and the truth of the path.

[25:48]

The Heart Seeker says there's no suffering. No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. Before we can really contemplate that there's no suffering and there's no origin of suffering, we need to face the conventional truth, which is there is suffering and there is an origin of suffering. There is suffering, and the origin of suffering is ignorance and attachment. There is suffering in the conventional world. It appears, and it appears with ignorance. It appears with ignoring the interdependence of all life. Suffering appears because we ignore that nothing has happened.

[26:55]

We ignore ultimate truth, which is right under our nose all the time, which is nothing's coming and nothing's going. We ignore that, so we grasp and we suffer. We have to face that first. Now, it turns out that's not something you have to go very far to find. It's right near. All you have to do is make yourself comfortable enough to be still and quiet, and you'll start to notice something a little uncomfortable. We have to be comfortable enough to notice basic discomfort. Not just the discomfort of our knee or our back, but something more subtle than that, which is constant. If we can be still and quiet and comfortable enough to let ourselves continue to be still and quiet, we will see the truth of suffering.

[28:10]

We will see that there is suffering all the time in the conventional world. The conventional world is non-stop suffering. Even when we're having a very pleasant experience, there is something bothering us in the world where self and other are appearing to be separate. in the world where something seems to be coming up and going away. In that conventional world of arising and ceasing, there is always anxiety. If you can make yourself comfortable with that anxiety, you will see its origins.

[29:18]

If you can be comfortable with its origins and still with its origins, your eyes open to conventional truth, then you'll be ready to let the sentiments which are the origins drop off. and enter into contemplation of the ultimate truth, which is no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no suffering, no origins, no stopping, no path. No twelve-fold link of causation of suffering and birth and death. There isn't any in emptiness. Some of you may spend the whole session just getting comfortable.

[31:37]

You may start to get comfortable, and then just as you're getting comfortable, you may start to get uncomfortable, and then try to get away from your discomfort, which won't make you more comfortable. And you'll see that, and then you'll come back to try to be comfortable. So some of you will spend the whole session trying to get settled, and that is fine. Some of you will spend the whole session trying to face your life, to face the difficulties of your life. And that's not separate from facing the contemplation of the truth. Not separate at all. But some of the things I may say about how to contemplate the truth, you may feel like you don't want to apply them.

[32:40]

That's fine. So I offer words, conventional words, about how to meditate in such a way, how to contemplate in such a way as to be able to open to the truth. And when I make these sounds, if you hear these sounds, these sounds are part of your life. See if you cannot turn away from them. Just see if you can just face them and accept them as the sounds that are coming. Don't necessarily have to follow them if they're not appropriate. I will go over instructions from the ancestors that I've given before.

[33:45]

And although I'm prone to just out of, what do you call it, I don't know what the word is, but I'm prone to talk in a non-chronological order, I'm going to speak in a chronological order anyway. So I'll start with the Buddha's instruction about how to contemplate the truth. And he starts, he says, train yourself thus, which I hear as train yourself in the way things are. And he starts with the conventional world. He doesn't start with no eyes, no ears.

[34:53]

Doesn't start with no colors, no sounds. He starts with colors and sounds. Train yourself thus. Train yourself in the way things are by working with colors. In other words, work with what's seen. So here's an opportunity for you to work with what is seen. Colors. And the Buddha said, train yourself like this. In the color, in the seeing, There will be just the theme. In the herd, there will be just the herd.

[36:02]

So right now, I'm seeing the colors, and my mind put these colors very rapidly together into human, into a pattern of colors, which I then can see as the concept of a human being. Okay, right before me, I see, right in front of me, two, I see the concept of two human men. Now a while ago, I also had the concept of two human men dozing. That's a nice little tandem there, right next to each other, two of them dozing. I had that concept. So there was colors. There were colors. I didn't hear any sounds emanating from that area. They're just colors in various patterns, which my mind put together into man, human man, and then moving, dozing human man.

[37:26]

If I just let the colors be colors, the mind could still take each of those colors, which I let just be colors, and put them together into a series of colors, which then could be the basis for the idea of human body, human male body. It could be color, [...] many colors coming in in a short period of time, giving me the justification to say, come up with human body, male human body. I could be practicing maybe just like the Buddha of letting the color just be the color. And still, the mind could then come up with the concept of human. And still let that concept just be a concept.

[38:38]

And still, also, given other information, come up with another concept called dozing. Human. And let that concept just be that concept. That could happen. If I just let the color be the color, I will not identify with the color or disidentify with the color. If I just let the color be the color, it won't be like that color is me or not me. If I look and see a color, I won't say this is my body or not my body. I mean, conventionally I might, but if I really just let it be the color, I won't identify with color, even if the color seems to be coming from the area which we conventionally call my hand.

[39:45]

I will not identify with the color of my hand if I just let the color of my hand be the color of my hand. If I just let the color of my hand be the color of my hand, I won't identify with that color anymore than the color of Brooke's face. I won't identify or disidentify with either color. There won't be me here and hand over there or me here and Brooks over there. This is the end of suffering. The conventional world is color and self and others. I start there feeling like, oh, here's a color and it's not just a color, it's over there. It's not just a color, it's color and over there.

[40:49]

I conflict, I compound, I defile the color with the concept of over there rather than color and concept of over there. If I let color be color, At that moment, before there's any other infection of that color with anything, that's the practice the Buddha is recommending. That is the way to relate to the conventional world in such a way that you open to the ultimate world. Now, if I in the conventional world, taking a color and taking another color and taking another color and taking another color, many colors, enough to make, come up with a reasonable, in the conventional world, a reasonable concept of Brooks.

[41:55]

And I let that concept just be that concept. In other words, I let the thought just be the thought. Then again, I don't identify with him or disidentify with him. And he's not over there and I'm not over here. Even though I'm now dealing... You want to change the tape? Go ahead. I'll stop saying anything interesting. So if I just let the concept of Brooks just be concept of Brooks, then there's no here or there or in between. That's ultimate reality. In ultimate reality, there isn't here or there in between. As a matter of fact, there isn't even the arising of Brooks or the going away of Brooks or the arising of me or the going away of me. There's no coming, no going, no increase, no decrease. Then there's the dozing. person.

[43:00]

But there's just a dozing person. There's just the idea of a dozing person. That thing appears in the conventional world, this arising of the dozing monk. If the idea of dozing monk is just the idea of dozing monk, and in the idea of dozing monk there is just the idea of dozing monk, then there is not here or there or in between. In other words, there is no coming or going of the idea of dozing monk. And even though the dozing monk appears, the dozing monk teaches ultimate reality. When treated in that way, the ultimate reality is being shown by this monk, which he's always showing, but which one can see now if one just lets what one sees be what one sees, and let what one thinks is the case be just that.

[44:19]

Now, if I look at the dozing monk during my talk and I don't just let the dozing monk be the dozing monk, then I might think, not just dozing monk is dozing monk, but dozing monk in my talk next to another dozing monk in my talk. these lots of dozing monks. And everything starts getting squished together and defiled. Then there's like me over here and them over there. This is... That comes and that goes. And that hurts. And that's conventional reality of the appearance of things in certain patterns, which I cling to, and then there's suffering. But if I don't do that, then each being, the awake ones and the dozing ones, is the solitary revealed body of ultimate truth.

[45:36]

Each person is showing the ultimate truth. When I look at them in this non-sentimental way, And they're always, everybody is actually always giving. Every sentient being you meet is always giving the unadulterated supreme reality. Never does any dharma not offer that. It depends on how you look at it, whether or not you see it. But I need to be comfortable enough to feel my own situation enough to be able to let things just be the way they are.

[46:40]

I need to be comfortable enough to dare to let what I hear just be what I hear. If I feel in pain to such an extent and I'm not patient with it, then I'm defensive. If I'm not patient with the pain I've got now, I do not want any more. But if I'm patient with the pain I've got, I can maybe accept another dose. And if I can accept another dose, then I perhaps could let that dose just be that dose. And even if it's painful, I can still just let that be that way. And then the pain drops away. There was a monk.

[47:53]

I think he was a monk. No, he might not have been a monk. He was a a, what do you call it, a theology student. He was a theology student. He lived in Kiev. And he was in great pain in the midst of his theological meditations. And he heard about a great teacher who lived 400 miles away So he walked 400 miles to see this elder of the church. I think this elder's name was either Elder Ambrosi or Elder Seraphim. I don't remember which one. Anyway, this elder had been, when he was in a meditation retreat one time, some robbers came to steal some stuff from him and beat him up.

[48:55]

didn't have anything, but they beat him up. And as a result of that beating, he was deformed and hunched over for the rest of his life. This theology student traveled 400 miles on foot to see the elder. And when he got to the town where the elder lived, he said, well, where's the elder? And the people in the town said, he lives out at the edge of the town. In a little hut. So he went out to the edge of town. He found the hut. He went to the hut. He looked inside, but no elder. So then he started walking around the hut in the tall grass around the hut. And he saw in the tall grass kind of a bent form. When he went closer to it and he saw it was the elder sitting in the grass bent over. And he was asleep.

[49:57]

He saw the elder sitting asleep in the grass and all his suffering dropped away. So if I look at the sleeping monk one way, I feel, oh, sleeping monk in my talk. bad milk or something if I look at the monk in another way all my troubles drop away not because he's sleeping not because he's awake but because I let him be what he is and he delivers the truth to me as his life because I have the right way of looking at him Everybody is always a great teacher to you if you can walk 400 miles to meet them and go out in the tall grass and look at them.

[51:09]

Make that kind of effort and you will see the truth in each thing. You have to take care of yourself though in order to take that 400 mile walk. If you don't, you're not going to make it. You're going to poop out in the suburbs of Kiev. You've got to take care of yourself, you know. Stop occasionally, check your blisters. Oh, I've got blisters. You know, rest, you know, a little bit of blister rest. Get up and keep going. Be kind to yourself. Say, you know, you're doing, this is good. You're taking this walk. This is good. You're a good monk to make this trip to see, to find the truth. Encourage yourself so you can see. And then when you get there, just let the tall grass be the tall grass and let the old monk or young monk just be the young monk.

[52:13]

In other words, let your concept of this person just be what that is. It's just a concept. It's just a thought. Just that. Then it has nothing to do with you. When it doesn't have anything to do with you, then you can let it in as it is. And then you can realize old monk in the grass is not old monk in the grass. There is no old monk in the grass. Nothing happened ever. Nothing came, nothing went. So this is the first instruction. Just let these things just be these things. That's it. That's the way they come. Let them be that. Don't leverage them.

[53:15]

Don't try to make any profit on them. Don't take them personally. Just let each thing be that. Until it gets to be like that. which it already is, but our habit is to make it more or less than that. To give each thing a coming and a going. A past and a future. Drop away past and future of yourself and of everything you see. Just let it be as such. Discipline yourself in this way. And you will see what's really going on. So this is Shakyamuni Buddha's instruction on how to meditate on what's happening.

[54:07]

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