invoking the presence and compassion of our ancestors in confidence that we are in our whole being the Buddha nature, thus we enter the Buddha way. And today also I'd like to say that our precious abbess has her birthday. Happy birthday. And Danny? Lori? Lori has her birthday? Lori? Happy birthday, Lori. I think I, towards the beginning of Sesshin, I think I wanted to make a gesture to speak to right faith in the tradition of the lineage of Dogen and Ejo and Tetsugikai and Keizan and so on, up to the founder of Zen Center, just to sort of

[01:37]

I'd let you know what I see as part of the faith of the tradition of this temple, but it may not be the case that all the Buddhist practitioners on the planet, or throughout of all time, have the same view, the same understanding of right faith. I don't even know if I do, but This is my understanding of Dogen's view of right faith, that the practice of the Buddha way is the practice of Buddhas. The practice of the Buddha way is not the practice of sentient beings, but the practice of Buddhas. However, the practice of Buddha is the practice of all sentient beings. and all Buddhas together. So sentient beings are beings who think they're practicing by themselves or with a few people, or maybe even with some Buddhas.

[02:48]

But the practice of the Buddha is with all Buddhas, all Bodhisattvas, and all beings. And my understanding is that for Dogen and most of his disciples down through the centuries, The lineage is practicing the Buddha way, which is the practice of a Buddha, which is the practice of all beings together with all Buddhas. And so the practice emerges from that communion. But in bringing this up, lots of other stuff came up and so it's taken quite a while to make that simple point. or that complex point, whatever kind of point it was. And I appreciate Michael's comment that he felt something fundamentalist about the way I am.

[03:58]

I think I should be open to that charge. But I thought, well, I'll be open to that, but the more I can see that I'm more like an evangelist, or an evangelist, like I can see myself, there's something about me that wants to overcome any resistance due to self-cleaning in all beings, that I'd be sort of like Buddha's bulldozer If anybody is holding on to anything, here I am to push on that a little bit until you feel something sticking, say, that's enough, stop. So maybe I pushed enough. Yesterday a couple of people came to see me and one of them said, sort of in response to the way I was talking, she said she thought I was saying something about

[05:00]

you or we should be good." I thought, did I say that you should be good? Whether I said it or not this person felt it and this person felt some difficulty because she really feels like we really are good, we are really good, and Buddha agrees with her. Buddha didn't say all sentient beings are bad, Buddha said all sentient beings really are the Buddha nature. They don't get it, but they are. Buddha said, also these good beings tend to be ignorant, and because of the ignorance they suffer. But they're basically good and they have a chance to wake up and give up their ignorance, which is really that they believe in a self of persons and things. Buddha said, if we develop a middle way view, we can give up, we can see and verify the selflessness of phenomena and realize freedom.

[06:13]

And someone else also said that he felt like I was pushing people to be good, pushing people to be compassionate. So, hmm, I thought, hmm, interesting that I seem to be pushing you to be good. Maybe I'm just pushing myself and you just happen to be in the neighborhood. Sorry. And since I think it's good for me to push myself to be good, I wonder why you don't want to do that too. I think I am susceptible to self-righteousness, and I think self-righteousness is another form of ignorance. Righteousness is okay, but to think that it's mine, I think is related to ignorance.

[07:25]

So, again, it seems to me that part of what the practice of the Buddha way is about is to help us, you know, enter into a process where the, you know, hindrances that have developed due to our past thoughts which means our past thoughts of the karmic type. In other words, our past thoughts which we thought were our thoughts, done by us. In other words, past thoughts mixed with belief in self. Because we have thought in the past under the auspices of ignorance, this kind of thinking and the speaking and acting which emerge from this kind of self-clinging thinking, this kind of activity has created some obstacles in us realizing our Buddha nature.

[09:24]

And so it seems to me that in the context of the spiritual communion, these obstacles, these hindrances melt away. And also in the context of spiritual communion, the belief in distinctions, in the substantial real distinctions between ourselves and others, the belief in the self of things, melts away. It partly melts away because in the context of this communion we study the Buddhadharma, But it's not just to study the Buddhist teachings, but to study the Buddhist teachings in the context of this process of communion that makes it really work. That's why we can't actually just go read the Buddhist scriptures by ourselves and fully realize their liberating import.

[10:30]

We need to not just read the scriptures and study the scriptures and meditate on the scriptures, but meditate on them in the environment, in the container of this communion with all beings and all Buddhas. That creates the warmth, or you could say the heat, to catalyze the study so it isn't too dry. so that it's rich and flowing and doesn't get stuck even in the teachings. So I was trying to start by setting the context for this, set up the cauldron for us to enter into. And one of the ways you enter the cauldron is by inviting the Buddhas, but when you invite the Buddhas, when you invoke the Buddhas, you also enter the process.

[11:31]

You start drumming, they start singing together. Maybe that's been happening throughout our whole lives. and hopefully it will continue and become more and more vivid and fully realized. I don't want to say concrete. I don't want it to be too concrete because then it might get too heavy and stuck. So actually it should be playful and flowing, this practice. was pretty good at reminding us to be playful.

[12:37]

He thought our practice was really important, and he really thought his students were really important, and he really thought the teachings of the Buddha, and the teachings of Dogen, and the teachings of Bodhidharma were really important, but he also said, what we're doing is too important to be taken seriously. because if we take it seriously and stop playing, we can just, you know, injure its vitality, almost like we can choke this wonderful practice together. So we have to be kind of gentle and and committed. So to combine commitment and sincerity without getting too serious. So, not serious and not not serious. Something playful between serious and not serious.

[13:43]

Neither one really. But just flow along with things. Sincerely, wholeheartedly, as much as possible, and if we are not being wholehearted, we have the practice of confession, which again, is an invitation to the Buddhas to come and meet us, so that again, in that environment, we can let go of our laziness, our ambivalence, or our excessive, what do you call it, our fanaticism, if we have that. So after Dogen died, Gikai kept practicing at Eheji with his older brother, Ejo, and at a certain point he wrote that, this is like in the year following Dogen's death, in the past year or so, I've been reflecting on the lectures I heard

[15:01]

given by our former teacher. He's writing something he said to Ejo, his new teacher. I've been reflecting on the lectures I heard given by our former teacher. Even though I heard all of them from our former teacher, note the formality, now they are different than at first. This difference concerns the assertion that the Buddha way transmitted by our teacher is the performance of our monastic task. I would say, you know, if you're not living in a monastery, that the transmission of our teacher, that the Buddha way transmitted by our teacher is the performance of your daily tasks.

[16:20]

The Buddha way transmitted by Dogen is what you do. day by day. Someone told me that his wife doesn't like Buddhism too much, but I told him that actually she should because Buddhism is devotion to your wife. When you go home from Sashin, you go home and you're more devoted to your wife than before. Then she likes, Buddhism says, do more retreats. Buddhism is devotion to all beings, including your wife. It retreats to help you make the way you relate to your wife, the performance of your relationship with your wife, you perform that.

[17:28]

as the Buddha way transmitted by at least Dogen. If you're in a monastery, it is the performance of monastic tasks. So this fall, I'm going to Tassajar into what's called a monastery. So the practice there will be people doing monastic tasks. Washing dishes, sitting upright, studying scriptures, listening to talks, having discussions, swimming in a nice swimming pool. So I will swim usually on my lunch, my noon break after eating. And so my vow is to swim, to perform my swimming. will be, at that time, the Buddha way transmitted by the ancestors.

[18:37]

But other people will be doing other things, because the pool only holds about six people. And then Gikai goes on to say, even though I had heard that Buddhist ritual is Buddhism, or I would say Buddha's ritual or Buddha's conduct is the Buddha way. In my heart I privately felt the true Buddhism must reside apart from the performance of daily monastic tasks. And I think that we have that feeling like true Buddhism must exist apart from devotion to my wife. And if you feel that way, your wife may not like to boot away. Like, okay, I'm taking care of you, but really I've got this other thing called true Buddhism that's over here that's not taking care of you.

[19:45]

She doesn't like that. She wants your total attention, right? She wants you to listen to her, not half, one ear. One ear, okay, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh. The other ear is like, what's Dogen saying? Oh, what does he say now? Oh, yeah. I vow with all beings from this life on through all countless lives to hear the true Dharma. Yeah, yeah. Yes, dear, uh-huh, sure. I vow to hear the true Dharma means that whatever you're listening to, you vow to hear the Dharma through the performance of the task of listening. When you hear the owls hooting, that's your task at that time. Dogen says, I vow to hear the true Dharma.

[20:47]

He doesn't say, I vow to hear the true Dharma in a few minutes after the owls have stopped hooting. I'm going to listen to the owls now, and then when I'm done listening to the owls, then I'll listen to the true Dharma. No. I think he means, I vow to listen to the true Dharma. That's what he vows to do, always listening to the true Dharma. I vow to listen to the true Dharma. And in doing so, no doubt will arise in me. In other words, you won't doubt. that this is a moment to do that practice. You'll do it with everything you hear and everything you see. Seems to me that's what he's saying. That would mean that you would listen to your wife when she's talking to you. So she would like the retreat if you got better at listening to the true Dharma all the time. But that's not easy to do. Sometimes we forget.

[21:49]

Anyway, that's the thing that Tetsugikai said to Ejo. He thought, though, he privately felt that true Buddhism must reside apart from our daily life, that the performance of our daily life must be a little bit different from the true Buddhism, the big Buddhism of the big Buddha. Siddhartha said, I forgot exactly how he said it, but he said, you know, there may be some really profound Buddhist teaching But I kind of like rocks. Give me a rock that I can move around a little bit, or at least give my strong disciples to move around a little bit.

[22:52]

That's what he liked, something he could work with. In other words, his work was the Buddha Way for him. He knew there were some really big teachings, and he actually studied them somewhat, but Anyway, so Tetsugikai thought that and a lot of people think that, that there's this really deep teaching that's apart from our daily life. The Heart Sutra doesn't say that though. The Heart Sutra says emptiness is form, the ultimate truth is the color of that rock and the sound of the owl. That means, not really that they're the same, but that you never have emptiness, you never have the ultimate liberating truth, someplace separate from the apparent reality that you're experiencing as a form, color, sound, smell, taste, touch, or thought.

[23:57]

Emptiness is never separate from form. So take care of form and you can see emptiness someday. Recently, however, Gikai says, the one translation is, I have changed my views. I wrote down another way. Recently, however, my views have changed. I think his views changed in the communal responsiveness with Buddhas. You don't have to change your views from delusion to enlightenment. Just live together with all Buddhas and all beings and they will change from ignorance to enlightenment. In that situation you will study thoroughly and joyfully all the great teachings.

[25:01]

Really, they'll just be like moving rocks in the garden. You know, I was just thinking, you know, sometimes I went to the airport, San Francisco airport and got on an airplane and flew to Japan, got off the plane, you know, in Tokyo or some place like that, usually Tokyo. and then travel to Kyoto or someplace like that, and go visit these lovely Zen monasteries, and then you go into the monastery, and then you go out into the courtyard, and they give you a broom, and you start sweeping the ground, and they have nice little stepping stones, and they have moss growing around, and bamboo trees, and nice little fences, and you sweep up the leaves, travel thousands of miles to sweep, And you feel okay because you heard that, that's what they do in Zen, they sweep. That's Zen practice, okay, fine.

[26:03]

Usually, you know, sometimes you go and you go into the temple and they sit down and they give you a talk about, you know, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, sometimes. But not very often, and besides that, they don't speak English usually very well, so even if they said it in Japanese, you might as well be sweeping the ground. But somehow I remember a little bit some of the talks I heard in Japanese or in somewhat sort of English. I remember those talks but I also have a real strong feeling of just being there out in the garden with the nice Japanese cultivated sort of ancient garden with the broom and the leaves. There's something about it that just continues to strike me as a taste of reality. Like the way the little bamboo broom touches the Japanese earth, and the Japanese leaves go flying into little piles.

[27:11]

And when you're done cleaning up, it doesn't necessarily look much cleaner necessarily than when you started, because things moved around a little bit. somehow some intimacy with the ground occurs, and it feels like, okay, yeah, that's worth the trip. Now, when you're doing that, you might think, well, maybe there's some Buddhism aside from me being here in this garden sweeping the ground, maybe some big Buddhism someplace, Maybe there is, but it really comes down to this, to this sweeping, because that's what's happening now. Or, perhaps you don't believe that and you think there's something else, but that feeling of something else is based on belief in a self.

[28:15]

If you're sweeping the ground and you believe that there's a self, then you're seeking some Buddhism someplace else. You're seeking some enlightenment someplace else than just hands on the broom handle. When there's no belief in self, there's no seeking. There's just, I got a broom, you got a broom, everybody's got to have a broom. And there's only one broom that's for me, this broom. good old this broom, and they're going to take it away pretty soon and put it back in the rack, and then I'm not going to have a broom. Now it's my practice. Oh, my hands are, like, open. But if I believe in a self, I'm going to look for something else to get, or I'm going to hold on to my broom. My views have changed, he said, I now know that my daily tasks, or the daily tasks and deportment, daily tasks and deportment themselves are the true Buddha way.

[29:37]

Even if apart from these there is also an infinite Buddhism of the Buddhas and ancestors. Still, it is the very same Buddhism. I have attained true confidence in the profound principle that apart from lifting of an arm and moving of one's leg, within Buddha's conduct, there can be no other reality. And again, Buddha's conduct, I like to say Buddha's conduct rather than Buddha's behavior, because the word conduct has the etymology of being led together. Buddha's conduct is not just what the Buddha is doing, Buddha's conduct is the way the Buddha and all beings are moving together. So our moving together, our deportment together, our Buddha being led together deportment, aside from that there's no other reality.

[30:55]

So I also mentioned that the name of the ceremony of receiving the Bodhisattva precepts is called tokudo. And part of the tokudo is to receive the precepts. But the name of the ceremony is tokudo, which means touching enlightenment. We receive the precepts and thereby touch enlightenment. Aside from this activity of receiving the precepts, from this thing we're doing, there is no other reality. It is the belief in self which thinks there's another reality, better or worse. Like some people are not receiving the precepts, they're like not so good, or there's some people who are like so enlightened, they're like beyond the precepts, they're separate from us.

[32:05]

But aside from this act, Aside from doing this together with all Buddhas, there's no other reality. This is touching enlightenment. Going for refuge in the triple treasure is attaining enlightenment. Caring for the triple treasure is attaining enlightenment. Sweeping the ground is attaining enlightenment. There's no other way. we think there is, because of self clinging. And receiving the pure precepts, receiving the first pure precept means you receive and practice regulations and ceremonies, that is touching enlightenment. You receive the second pure precept, which is to receive and practice all good.

[33:10]

that is attaining enlightenment. You receive the third pure precept and practice it, which is embracing and sustaining all beings, that is touching enlightenment. There is not another enlightenment over and above embracing and sustaining beings when you're embracing and sustaining beings, according to Dogen. And all Buddhas are doing, they're not doing anything else but embracing and sustaining beings. That's the business of Buddhas. Embrace and sustain beings. And beings, if they have any self-clinging, Buddha says, how are you feeling? And they say, well, it hurts, because I'm clinging to this thing. So this is the way it goes sometimes. And then sometimes Buddha says, would you show me what it is that you're clinging to? And the person says, just a second. And they look, and they look, and they look, and they can't find it.

[34:13]

And Buddha says, well, did you find it? And they say, no. And they say, how are you feeling? I feel good. I can't really find this self. Are you sure? Totally. Great. Congratulations. At that time you kind of feel, oh, I can see I'm getting some guidance here. This is really working. Other times you may say, I don't know what this guy is talking about. Why is he asking me about this self? So I feel almost that my social, some social input I've gotten makes me feel like I should say I'm sorry for being like I am and, you know, kind of being given the impression I'm pushing you to be good.

[35:24]

I kind of feel like I shouldn't be pushing you to be good. Part of me feels like I shouldn't be pushing you to be good. And also someone told me that at another Zen center where she practiced, they don't really emphasize, there's no pushing to be good there. They just practice zazen. And the understanding is, if you just sit, goodness and compassion will naturally arise from your just sitting. So I kind of hear that and I think, oh, if you just Aside from your devotion to your monastic task of sitting upright, there's no other Buddhism that all the wisdom and compassion will arise from. You will attain, you will touch enlightenment simply by embracing and sustaining the form of sitting. And that can be turned into, we're not pushing you to be good, but you should do the thing

[36:32]

called sitting. We're pushing you to sit, or we're inviting you to sit. We're inviting you to just sit, and not try to do anything more than sit while you sit. So again, it seems like it comes down to the same thing. Except that in that Zen center, or those Zen centers, people don't feel any push to be good. They just feel the encouragement for everybody to sit. And the understanding is, Buddha's wisdom and compassion will spontaneously emerge from the sitting. or even that Buddha's wisdom and compassion are already right there in the sitting for those who can see. So I don't know how, you know, it got to be that there's some pushing here, but it may be just because this is California, and California's making a new kind of Soto Zen that's, you know, kind of pushy. Kind of like the evangelist kind.

[37:34]

Do you want to walk for the wheel of the world? Yes, Jackie? I didn't say everybody thought I was pushy, just some people. These people were good people that thought I was pushy. It's not that I believe them, but I'm open to their charges of me pushing to be good. I'm open to it. But when good people come and say, I'm already good, why are you pushing me to be good? Or, I feel like you're pushing me to be good, but I think I'm already good. Yes? One difference is playfulness.

[38:43]

Okay, we're going to induct Buddha's deportment now, right? How do you do that? Listen to your wife. And if you listen to your wife in a puritanical way, when she switches topics, you may say, I'll listen to that, but not that, because you should be talking about that, but not this. When you're puritanical, you're not just a love slave. Right, Fred? If you're puritanical, you're rigid. If you're puritanical, you're rigid. But in acting the Buddha way, you've got to be able to flow with moment by moment, Zen practice, as you know, it's like somebody travels to Japan or China and they're out there in the garden sleeping and say, okay, this is Zen practice, I know I heard about this. Give me the broom and now let's go shopping.

[39:46]

Let's go shopping. What? That's not Zen practice. So a puritanical American Zen student or Japanese Zen student goes to the being engaged in daily activities which maybe they didn't think were going to be the performance of the Buddha way, because they have some Puritanism about what the Buddha way would look like. So just naturally, kind of, you know, it just naturally happens. Maybe the Zen teacher didn't even never go shopping, but when these people come they just feel like we should go shopping. Four shoes. And also, let's go listen to some lectures given by some women Zen teachers. What? I came to listen to male Japanese Zen masters, or male Chinese Zen masters. Well, let's go listen to some women who don't even give talks, who just help us arrange flowers.

[40:54]

What? So Puritanism will show up. Some sticking will occur. And even being playful, you should be willing to give up being playful and be puritanical. You're too playful, you should be more puritanical. What? I heard Zen was being playful, was being flexible and being able to flow with things. No flowing! Tighten up! Stiff up her lip! Don't cry! And then when you attain that, say, okay, now everybody cry. Come on over here and cry. Come here, I'm crying, you cry with me. Come on. No! Now you understand the Tridharma. And then the tears come. And it all melts away into a nice birthday party with flies on your eyes.

[41:57]

This fly is your friend? It sits right there in your eyes. You know that fly that was in the turd under the elephant's foot that walked around the Buddha? This is the disciple of that fly? Does this fly have those sticky little feet that's kind of like made those little tracks on your skin? See how patient she is? She's not swatting it, like some people I know. There's two of them now? Yes? I have to say that the pushing that I felt was coming from me, watching me, sent me about, and what I knew, the resonance that we were putting us in the middle of brought up to me shame, laziness.

[43:21]

You said a few minutes ago that one of the things that might happen I wonder how they came in. What?

[44:39]

Comparison? When you're doing the comparison, okay, at that time, all right, is your comparing activity, your mind going, compare, compare, is your comparing activity an invocation of the Buddhas to come and be with you? There it is, that's the problem. you know, you need to have all your daily activities, your monastic tasks, you know, people say, we didn't assign you to do the comparisons today, but while you're doing your monastic tasks your mind compares, you know, are these people doing cleaning the place as well as I am or am I doing as well as they are, you know, am I moving along the tan as fast, you know, This is part of monastic tasks. Monastic tasks are not sitting out there separate from your body and mind, you know, you have to like use your mind to take a hold of the wiping cloth.

[45:47]

So your mind, you know, you compare whether you're gripping it according to instructions or not. So is everything, moment by moment, inviting the Buddhas to come? So if you're comparing and inviting the Buddhas to come, then you're realizing this communion, then you're There's no other Buddha way than you invoking the Buddha's conduct as you're doing whatever you're doing, so if you're comparing then you missed that opportunity. So that's it, that's fine. And then I say, well, like, you know, I've also been quite, you know, amazed by this leg healing. It's just amazing how fast it's healing. It's like, I just watch it and say, wow, it's just amazing. It's amazing to me how rapidly it's healing.

[46:49]

Because it was kind of like, you know, there was a point there when it was like really like unhealed, you know, the night after the that leg was having a real hard time, you know, and the next day it was like... it really was like... terrifically different, and then I've watched the swelling going down, I just keep testing the limitation, I go, well, can this happen? And then I sometimes... walking up and down stairs, at first I was, you know, like just putting the leg down straight and using the other leg, then little by little just see if it you know so I keep testing the limit but I don't I don't push too hard on those limits I just keep testing them like I'm testing the limits with you too you know like how much can I touch how much can I touch you you know before I get a feeling like that's enough stop it okay

[47:59]

So I think for me, you know, working with limits means kind of like dancing with them, you know, put a little, offer a little, offer something and see what response you get, offer something and see what response you get, so that's what I've been doing with this leg and so it's really, you know, but I do not, I think actually I back away from feedback that it's not appropriate all the time. I surrender to limitations all the time. I don't think people see that I do that, but I do. I feel too much and I back off over and over for years and years and years. I've been doing that. That's part of the reason why I continue. People who don't back down, who push too hard, a lot of people come to Zen Center and have quit because they've made Zen practice too hard because they push too hard on the limits and they just say, you know, Zen's too hard, Sashin's too painful because they push themselves too hard.

[49:11]

After a while it's just like hell thinking of going back to another Sashin. But I know that I'll always, you know, won't make it so hard on myself so I'm not afraid to enter the fire because I know when it gets too hot I can be a wimp. But, although I'm a wimp for the moment, I'll come back again. I'm not going to give up, but I'm not going to push myself too hard either. And with my leg, I just kept testing, and it just, it unfolded. It folded. And now it's folding again, and it's like, it's okay. And people come and say, does it hurt? And I look and I say, well, not really, a little bit. you know, there's a thing, sometimes when you move into your limits, there's a little bit of a stretch, a little bit of a... your nervous system goes, is this okay? And you say, well, I don't know, let's try it. So you learn.

[50:13]

Sometimes you go too far. A few times I go too far, but then I learn, it's a mistake. Sometimes I don't go far enough, I learn it's a mistake. So this is the balancing thing. So I had a new But before this operation, I had another limitation, which was for 30 years, I've had a torn cartilage, which I've been working with. I've been sitting cross-legged with a torn cartilage for 30 years. Actually, it's more than 30 years, I think. But anyway, approximately 31 years, I was Tanto here, and I sat over there where Galen is sitting, and I sat you know, on the edge of the towel with my legs down when I first tore the cartilage. I couldn't cross my legs. And then I found a way to cross my legs. And then over the years, I've been working with this torn cartilage and I found a way.

[51:15]

Now, this other thing behind my knee, this little pearl, which he said is two centimeters across. It's almost an inch across, this pearl. It's a big one. that's creating this thing which I thought maybe was creating some problem in my sitting, so I went to the doctor and did the operation but they couldn't get to the pearl, but while they were looking around for the pearl which they couldn't see because it was not in the knee chamber, it was behind the knee chamber, when they're in the knee chamber they said, oh look at that cartilage there, it's torn, let's fix it. So without actually I hadn't thought that I should have an operation to fix that torn cartilage because I was dealing with it, but now that cartilage is somewhat repaired, so in fact that limitation has gone away. So now, what will my next limitation be? What will it be?

[52:15]

New limitations will come. I don't know what they'll be. But I know they keep coming. This one goes away, hello! Maybe a fly in my eye. And the fly goes, and maybe it's some other thing. A challenging Zen student in my eye. Well, it's interesting, you know, the hands aren't flying. Oh, there's one. Sometimes the hands go phew, ten at once, and then sometimes everybody's kind of quiet for a while. It's interesting, the rhythm of the questioning.

[53:21]

Yes? in neither case is it the self that's doing it. The self doesn't imagine the self, and the self doesn't invoke the Buddha. There isn't really a self. But there is the, you know, misconception that there's a self. There's that, and there can be a consciousness which

[54:26]

sees that misconception and believes it, and there can be a belief in that misconception, and then based on that misconception we think of doing things by ourselves over in the corner, we don't want Buddha there with us, because we're embarrassed, because we know Buddha might... we don't know, we're not sure Buddha would like what we're doing, so we don't want to necessarily invite Buddha. So when I say invite Buddha, I don't mean the self invites Buddha, I mean your Buddha nature invites Buddha. come and be with me whatever I do, you're always welcome to practice with me. And if I'm ever doing anything that's not appropriate, or if there's any activities here that's not appropriate, maybe if you're here, you can give me a little comment, like, this is not appropriate. You can come out of your own mouth, you know, and you're doing something. And again, I told someone the other day, this example I gave, over and over, it's a simple little example.

[55:29]

So it's like, not exactly my absolute first job when I entered the monastery of Tassajara, but it was my second job. My first job was to drive a truck. It came out of the initiatory sitting period called Tangario, and the dear work leader, Dan Welch, says, So I got in this truck, which was parked on a hill, facing the men's dormitory, and I got in the truck and turned it on and started driving, and there was no brakes. So I fortunately pulled the emergency brake and stopped just before I hit the dormitory. So I did know how to drive trucks, but that was where they'd stayed there. Then the next job was to repair the water lines and I went to prepare the water line for the guy named Jim McGuire. And I remember his name, partly because there was two Jim McGuires in the same practice period, but also because this thing happened between us.

[56:38]

We went and repaired the water line, and it was broken in many places, so we repaired it, and then we went to the next place to repair the next break, and when we got to the next break I said, let's go back and repair the break that we just repaired. And he knew what I meant. We both knew that we didn't really repair the previous one. We just sort of did, because we had several breaks to repair. So I went to the monastery because I wanted to invite the Buddhism ancestors and these other monks to practice with me. And when you initiate yourself into that community, then when you do things, you kind of know a lot of the time, you get a little message, this is not really right. This is like half-hearted. This is not whole-hearted. This is like being a little bit here and a little bit over there. This is not what we came here for. This is not what we came here for. This is not what we came to life for. We didn't come to life to do half-hearted living.

[57:40]

We came to do what we're doing as the Buddha way, which means as the whole-hearted way of practicing together with all beings. That's what we're here for. And when we don't do that, If we invite the Buddhas to be with us, then we get reminded. Oh yeah, this is like not wholehearted. I went to Japan to practice Zen and I'm sweeping the garden and I'm wondering, when am I going to be done sweeping? When are we going to go into the temple and like have a real meeting with the teacher? When are we going to get the tea and cookies? When are we going to get up out of the garden and sit on the Thammas and look out the window at the garden? Maybe with some Zen monks out there sweeping to watch. Our mind works like that. That's the way our mind works when there's self-cleaning. So we go to get trained to give that up and just do this completely and we know, we feel, we're moved deeply when we're involved in the complete

[58:51]

wholehearted, present, word, thought, or posture. We know what that's like. It's called zazen. We call it zazen. And it is enlightenment, according to this school. It is not that you do zazen and get enlightenment. Zazen is the sitting as Buddha's sitting. There's no other enlightenment. It is the eating as Buddha's eating. It is the sweeping as Buddha's sweeping. It's not over in the corner half-heartedly doing something without Buddha. It's like not even the slightest discrepancy, giving up all distinctions and just being here with the whole works. That's it. Right? That's what we're here for. Of course. Everybody knows that. Yes. I think so.

[59:54]

That's one of the conditions. But also, there was the nature, which sensed that it might be possible to become free of the suffering, which he didn't completely understand at that point, was based on this self-cleaning. He didn't see the root cause at that point of self-cleaning, he hadn't understood it. On the night of the Enlightenment, he understood that suffering is based on this self-cleaning. Before that, he had not actually understood the Four Noble Truths. He knew something about suffering, but he didn't know the truth of suffering until the night of his enlightenment.

[61:00]

He knew that there was suffering, and he thought that there might be a way of being free of it, because he lived in a country that had lots of practices for people to become free of suffering. But he didn't yet see that selflessness was the key issue of ignorance. It's not really from the self. It's not really from the belief in self. The belief in self is the condition of ignorance which is the source of suffering. The actual impulse comes from wishing to be free from suffering. It's not the self that wishes to be free from suffering. It's Buddha that wants to be free of suffering. Buddha appears in you because Buddha wants you to be free of suffering. When you wish to be free of suffering, that is the birth of Buddha in you. That's when Buddha is surfacing. When you see suffering and you feel compassion for it, that's Buddha emerging in you.

[62:05]

That's your Buddha nature working. It's not the self that's causing the wish to be free of suffering. The self just wants to keep getting control of things. The self is willing to suffer indefinitely as long as it's in charge. The self is just like, let's reproduce. Make more of me. Let's have more of me, more of me, more of me. It hurts, but you know, at least I'm powerful. And in fact, the self is powerful. It's a power tripper. It's an illusion, but it's a very powerful illusion. If illusions had no power, they wouldn't live. It is powerful, but it's miserable, too. And there's another possibility of life without being on a power trip, which is called Buddha. And when we see, yeah, power is great, you know, Shakyamuni was a powerful guy, good archer, good horseback rider, lots of nice harem. He was going to be in charge of a big, you know, complex... His father wanted to take over the family business.

[63:12]

He was a powerful person, powerful self. But he had a strong arising of compassion in him. Strong compassion. That's not the self. That's compassion. Compassion doesn't have a self. Compassion doesn't have a self, I don't think. And it's not a self. It is actually the root, the seed, which gives rise to the Buddha realization. That's the way I see it. And then further we wish to have wisdom because we see that although we wish to be free, there's something about the way we think in terms of self that makes us always like seeking something. We're never satisfied with this broom.

[64:15]

We want to get a better broom, you know, like Harry Potter, right? Wants that they want the best broom. This is like, you know, normal deluded teenagers. but we wish to be free of this, we're yearning to realize the end of yearning for ourself, and to switch to yearning for the freedom of all beings, which is happiness. It's an incomplete work, the freedom of all beings, but it's not unhappy. Universal compassion isn't in an unhappy state, it's a happy state. It feels good to really want everybody to be free. That feels good, but it also hurts a little bit, because, you know, it hurts a little bit to see people suffer, but it doesn't hurt to want them to be free and want to help them.

[65:15]

And that's the Buddha thing in you. That's the Buddha thing in you. That's the Buddha seed in you that drives you to realize Buddha's wisdom. So any hindrance to this work will melt. It's not the self that's driving this, because the self can be forgotten, and the process of compassion can go forward without holding on to the belief in self. But if there was no belief in self, there would be none of the kind of suffering that Buddhas appear in the world for. So if nobody had believed in self anymore, There wouldn't be any sentient beings and there wouldn't be any Buddhas. But we don't have to worry about that, right? If I could suggest what?

[66:31]

Well, one of the ways that Buddhas are, what do you call it, one of the ways you can feel them present is when you feel moved by your practice. When you're happy with your practice, that's the sense that they're here. Like I said, when you're pounding the drum, you can't sometimes hear the singing that's going on at the same time, but sometimes you do sort of feel it. Sometimes you do feel them all around you. It feels good. You start to feel not so alone in your practice. Just like when I was reading that story, I felt not alone in my reading. I felt really enriched unexpectedly by some resonance with my with my former teacher. I started to think of conversations I had with him, which were like the conversations that Gikai had with Dogen.

[67:37]

There still were bald-headed guys in the picture, but there's bald-headed guys in your life too, and sometimes you might be practicing and suddenly feel like some of the ball-headed guys who aren't invisible all the time, they're kind of with you, maybe you feel that, that even though they're on the other side of the bay sometimes, that when you're over in Berkeley that they're kind of with you, you kind of feel that, you know, that comradeship, that friendship, that closeness, which doesn't have much to do with distance. You feel the communion. But if you don't invite it, you might not feel it. If you go shopping, you know, if you go sit at, I don't know, is the Mediterranean still on Telegraph Avenue? If you go into one of those many lovely coffee shops in Berkeley and sit down and you don't invite the ancestors, then you might feel like you're sitting all by yourself at your chair, you know, waiting for your protein, you know, rather than

[68:44]

you actually say, well, I'm going to have my protein now, but I'm inviting all the Buddhas to come with me, and somehow you feel company. And you look around the room, because you invited the Buddhas to come, you look around the room and you feel like all these people are your brothers and sisters. You feel it. This is like you start to feel it. And it feels good. And if they need your help, you're not afraid anymore. Like, what if they ask to have some of my protein? What would I do? You don't have to wonder. You know, you just say, well, let's see if anybody comes over and asks. If they do, I can order more protein. Say, you know, here, have mine, I'll give you some, I'll get some more. And you say, what if they run out? I'm not worried about that anymore, because you've entered this communion where you really feel like, hey, I may die today from lack of protein, but if my friends get it, I'll die happy. And, you know, they'll all say nice goodbyes to me. We're really sorry to see you go.

[69:47]

You were really a good provider. You really shared your protein with us. You were a great person here in our world. You really loved us. You were not a waste of life. But if you don't invite, make that invitation, you might not feel that way. If you feel that way, I think you've already invited it. But most of us need to like actually welcome Buddha, welcome sentient beings. We need to do that thing called welcome, come, come, you're welcome, please, thank you for coming. Here, have a seat, have some water. We need to do these things usually to get hooked into how everything we're doing is doing that. And then after a while, every step you take is really like, come on, Buddha. Come on bodhisattvas, come on all beings, here I am, I'm here in the world for you, with you, and you're here for me.

[70:50]

We're doing this together. After a while you don't really have to say anything, you just feel like everything you do is invoking, invoking, invoking. Because you listen to the teaching and it's really sunk into your bones that your daily activities are invocation. And images of bald people may not be there anymore. until you see a so-called bald person. And then say, oh look, there's an actual bald person rather than an invisible bald person. But sometimes it's invisible bald people. Sometimes you feel they're all, you don't see any bald people around, and some people see bald people sitting right in front of them and they're meditation Christians. You say, OK, fine. Don't get too excited about that. Some people see golden Buddhas coming over the ridge, you know, Green Gulch or Tassara. It's okay if you see that stuff, but I never saw anything like that.

[71:50]

But I had seen regular people, and it was as good as seeing a Buddha. To me, regular people. because somehow the invitation was made, the invocation was made, and therefore I was allowed into the realm that they were allowed into, which is where we're together, and we can't see that realm really, how we're really together. It looks like we're separate, you know, it looks like we're independent, that's how it appears. This is how it appears. That's okay that it appears that way. The problem is we believe it. We think it's true. It's not true. It's a misconception. And to believe it is ignorance. So we need to train ourselves to stop believing that our separateness is true. But it helps to know that really we're in an environment that's not like that.

[72:59]

from the start. So we in a sense have faith that really we are interdependent, we are practicing together, and that the practice of Buddhas is this way we're all practicing together. We need to invite ourselves into that realm by inviting all beings into that realm. Does that help? Okay, is that enough for now? What? Now or never? Or now and never? Did you say now and never? May our intention be

[73:53]

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