last Sunday, before I got up in the seat that was in this position, the higher seat than this, I asked if I should sit in it and some people said yes. And I think I said that it's the storyteller's seat. So again, I'm sitting in the storyteller's seat. I tell that story. I don't know if I should be sitting in the storyteller's seat, but I think that's where I am. No matter what, almost no matter what I think I might talk about, whenever we chant that vow, I always feel like it's good to talk about what we just chanted.

[01:03]

today when we recited that we vow together with all beings from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma. And then it says that upon hearing it we won't have doubt and also upon meeting it, hearing it, and meeting it, we will renounce worldly affairs. So if I may comment on that, it seems to me that that vow is saying, once we hear the true Dharma, we will renounce worldly affairs. Now, another way to say it is, before we hear the true Dharma, it's pretty hard to renounce worldly affairs because a lot of them are very deeply habituated in our body and mind.

[02:16]

So they easily continue. But when we hear the true Dharma, something happens to us and we have a chance to renounce worldly affairs. One kind of worldly affair that we might be able to renounce then is giving up discursive thought. And as we all know, to sit and try to give up discursive thought is quite a feat. Quite a feat because discursive thought even if we're just looking at the floor, looking at the wall, and it's very silent, suddenly a story arises about whatever.

[03:17]

I confess that a story arose recently in my mind about car insurance. or get into car maintenance, you know, when you're going to take your car into habit, an oil change or something. You can think about those kind of things when you're looking at a wall. And then to renounce that, how can we Just by my own power to renounce it, it's really difficult. So anyway, upon hearing it and meeting the Dharma, we will renounce worldly affairs. Another kind of worldly affair, of course a deeper one or more important one to renounce, is to renounce our misconceptions. To renounce practicing Zen to get something. as someone said to me recently, seems like I do this to get that, I do A to get B. Or I do A just to do A so I'll be pure.

[04:36]

So I do A just to do A so I'll get C. This thing about doing something to get something that's deep, this deep habit. But maybe if we hear the true Dharma, we can give up doing things to get something. Not even doing things to receive something, but doing things maybe as receiving something and doing things as giving something. But hearing the true Dharma is mentioned as a key thing. What does it mean to hear the true Dharma? What does it mean, what does the Dharma that you hear or the voice or the word or the sound of the Buddha, what does that mean?

[05:50]

Maybe it means an inner sound that you hear. An inner sound that you hear through the medium of the Buddha. The Buddha isn't exactly the Dharma. But by meeting the Buddha, by meeting the Buddha's face, you can hear the Dharma, you can hear the inner sound by which the Dharma manifests to you. Just like sometimes you Maybe if you're reading, sometimes when you're reading, or many times when you're reading, you're reading, you're looking at the paper, but you hear something, you hear a voice while you're reading.

[06:58]

You hear the words. And sometimes when you're reading and hearing the words of the book, you hear another sound which is not written on the page. Like one time I was reading the Lotus Sutra and it didn't say on the page, but the Lotus Sutra said, close the book and go help people. Stop reading this book. There's an expression, let your voice which has the excellent sound of a drum, go forth. And there's an expression, kind of a funny expression in Sanskrit, dharma dandubi, dharma dandubi, which means the drum of dharma.

[08:10]

How can we inwardly listen so that we can hear the Dharma dandubi, the sound of the Dharma, the Dharma as sound? One time I was listening to a Zen priest give a Dharma talk. And he was a person who was born in Japan, so English was his second language. And he was trying to give this talk and he was doing pretty well. And other days, however, he was clearer and he was really having a hard time. And I could kind of understand what he was saying.

[09:24]

It was going all right for me. But I had this feeling came over me that while he was talking in this English as a second language, English, that I was simultaneously hearing something else, something that made me feel really good And I thought, maybe it's the Dharma. Even though he's struggling to speak English to us, and we all appreciate his effort, it's not that clear what he's saying, actually. And he's not very happy with how it's coming out either. He seems to keep slapping his forehead and saying, no, that's not what I mean.

[10:25]

And yet, something much more important than what we say, something, some inner sound was coming. Some inner sound was being heard simultaneously with his sincere, kind effort. How can we open ourselves to this inner sound of Dharma? How can we meet the Buddhas face to face and in that meeting hear the Dharma? I wonder about this because I hear about it. I hear about hearing the Dharma and it seems to be very important.

[11:28]

some of us are aware of the power of our storytelling, of our discursive thought and how we feel a strong force to continue storytelling otherwise we might lose our sense of self to keep the buzz going because if it stopped we might lose the sense of self. Not every story we tell is just to create and get in touch with the sense of self, but that drive to keep the story going, to keep the story of our job, our family, whatever,

[12:55]

I think it's good that we notice it, and notice it, and notice it, and notice that we're caught in the worldly affair of discursive thought, and confess it, and if we feel sorrow and embarrassment about it, let that work on us. But also just, I mentioned in addition that it's, if I can hear the Dharma, It helps me continue to practice in the midst of these worldly affairs and get more and more ready to let go of them. And again, I refer to the story, which I think I said first appeared in Chinese records in the early 11th century, the story of the Buddha Shakyamuni meeting face-to-face with Mahakasyapa,

[14:34]

But I did a little research and found that there is an earlier record in the very early ninth century, around 800 Common Era. And then I looked at some research about how the story bounced around and changed somewhat over the next two or three hundred years, particularly over the next two and a half centuries. It changed somewhat, the story of the Buddha meeting Mahakasyapa and raising the flower. And a little bit more on that part of the story is that the Buddha was sitting in the assembly and deities divine beings showered him with flowers and he picked up one of the flowers and turned it. And in the way Dogen tells the story, he picked the flower up and turned it and winked.

[15:52]

And Maha Kashyapa broke into, they say broke into in Chinese, broke, his face broke, his face broke into a subtle or slight smile. That's one version of the story. And then the Buddha says, I have the treasury of true dharma-I, the inconceivable mind of nirvana. I entrust this to Mahakasyapa." The Buddha raised the flower and again in

[16:59]

he raised it and twirled it or turned it. So I don't know if it went like this or just rotated it. But anyway, he picked it up and moved it a little bit. Maha Kashyapa smiled and then he said, I entrust the entire treasury of true Dharma eyes, the inconceivable mind of Nirvana, I entrust to Maha Kashyapa. The inconceivable mind of Nirvana mind of Nirvana, of course, doesn't belong to Buddha or you or me. We all share in it. But he entrusted it to Mahakasyapa. He said, I entrust it to you. Please take care of it. Don't let it be lost in the future. That's the story of their menju, their face-to-face transmission. And even today, even in recent times like in the last year or two or three or ten and probably in the next year and ongoingly, we reenact that scene in Soto Zen.

[18:30]

At a certain point in training of priests, the teacher and the successor meet and the teacher says, Well, actually, just like when Shakyamuni Buddha touched Mahakasyapa, I now touch you and I entrust you with the treasury of true Dharma eyes. We reenact a story which I don't know what evidence there is that it ever occurred." You could say, well, the fact that people are still doing it, maybe that's evidence. Why would people continue to enact a story if it didn't happen?

[19:38]

And I think it's possible that people would enact a story that never happened. Like a football team might lose a game and then afterwards they might put on a little show, a skit, of winning the game and reenact that story of them winning that game year after year. even though most people that saw the game would say the other team won. People can do things like that. So I've heard of this story and the ancestor of our tradition here, Ehe Dogen, he apparently heard that story too.

[21:02]

And then he writes on a piece of paper, Once Shakyamuni Buddha on Vulture Peak in India, in the midst of a vast assembly of beings, held up an Udambara flower. Not just a flower, but an Udambara flower, which is a very rare flower. And winked. Venerable Maha Kashyapa smiled. And Shakyamuni Buddha said, what I said. Dogen says that. Actually, he also probably said it in the historical present. He spoke in the historical present, so he probably actually said, literally, Shakyamuni Buddha is sitting on Vulture Peak in India in the midst of a vast assembly.

[22:06]

He raises a flower and winks. Mahakasyapa smiles and he says, I now entrust, I have the treasury of true dharma eyes, the inconceivable mind of nirvana. I now entrust it to Mahakasyapa. So Dogen is not, actually he's not saying that that did happen. He's saying Shakyamuni Buddha is doing that right now. At the same time he, it's historical. He knows that. But he doesn't say there's a story. But I am saying there's a story like that. And the reason why I say that is to encourage us to not be dogmatic about this story.

[23:08]

Encourage me not to be dogmatic about this story. How sincere is my vow to hear the true Dharma, have no doubt about it, renounce worldly affairs, maintain it, and then, through that, realize the Buddha way? I wonder. Another story, actually I read a novel one time about a Christian monastery where the monks in the monastery, and not just monks but also some other people too, started to be found dead here and there throughout the monastery.

[24:54]

turns out these people were poisoned and they were poisoned by a poison that was on the pages of a book so that anybody who anybody who touched the page of the book and then without putting their hands on that antibacterial stuff and washing their hands off without washing their hands if they would touch the book and then put the book somewhere around their tongue, which people often did when they touched books to move them, these big vellum pages. If they touched the book and then put it near their mouth, which they usually did, they would die from the poison on the book. someone put poison on the pages of the book, particularly if someone put pages on certain pages on the book.

[26:03]

And the pages that they put the poison on were the pages where it told a story of Jesus Christ smiling And one monk thought that no one should hear that story because it's so heretical that Jesus would smile. So anyone who read that, that text, would die. But the monk didn't want to destroy the text because he loved the text. He valued text so much, he didn't want to destroy it. But he also didn't want anybody to know what it said in the text, so everybody that read that So we have a story that Mahakasyapa smiled. But I've also heard some people say that the Buddha does smile, but the Buddha never does a full smile.

[27:08]

The Buddha just does a slight smile. And the Buddha never does, never laughs with his mouth wide open. And never like, you know, does a belly laugh. Some Buddhists say that. Did you know that? And in fact, that's why some people like those Buddhas, those forms of Buddha with their hands up in the big pot, you know. They like the happy Buddhas. Because you don't find too many statues or paintings of Buddha going, ah, ha, ha. It's heretical. I wasn't attracted to Buddhas who didn't laugh. I was attracted to Zen monks who laugh. And now I've met the Buddha who just smiles subtly. But really I've met the story that the Buddha doesn't really laugh that much. And I've heard a story that Jesus doesn't smile or laugh.

[28:11]

So I told some stories and And one of the stories I tell is that the important thing about these stories is that we don't hold to them. That's one of the important things. I guess the other important thing is when we listen to the stories, that we're vowing to hear the true Dharma. Not just when we hear these stories, but all day long. We vow to hear the true Dharma Well, actually, I don't know if that's the important thing. That's the important thing for me. Because I don't want to tell you, you should be vowing to hear the true Dharma. I just want you to know the story that a lot of people in the tradition say that that's really important to hear the true Dharma, because then you can practice much more effectively, much more successfully, then you can much more likely be able to give up discursive thought and calm down and see the way to give up trying to get something out of this life.

[29:41]

But we need help, and one of the ways we get help is by hearing the Dharma. And I say this again and again, it's not what you say or I say that's the true Dharma. And now I say that the true Dharma is something you hear inside at the same time that you hear silence, you hear it, at the same time you hear speech, you hear it you can hear it inwardly no matter what's going on outwardly it's possible and that that inner hearing has been said to really be helpful and I I often think of some someone told me one time he said I really appreciate

[30:52]

that there's a lot of you at Zen Center who sit still and witness silence. I'm glad some people in this world are doing that. We need people witnessing silence. And sometimes I witness silence. But then discursive thought comes roaring in and the silence is hard to witness. But maybe when I lose touch with the silence, one of you is in touch with it. And then when you lose touch of it, I'm in touch with it. And then when we lose touch with it, somebody else is aware of it. So that we are listening to silence together. We're helping each other so that there is in the room, almost always, witnessing silence, that we're helping the world that way.

[31:56]

Because in that silence, when you hear the drumbeat, it might be the Dharma. And one of the ways to test it is, does it take your pain away? Does it clear your heart of bitterness and anger? the true Dharma, when we hear it, is for that purpose, to cure us of these obstructions. But if there's lots of noise inside, it's hard to hear it. Because is it the noise that's the Dharma, or that other little voice, that other little I don't know what it sounds like.

[32:59]

It can be anything. But the thing is, it speaks in silence. So please, let's do our best to witness silence. Even when the wind's blowing, witness silence. But when the discursive thought's blowing... Unless we're really, really settled in witnessing silence, we may lose touch with it. And then again, if we can't hear the silence, it's hard to hear the Dharma. The inner ear that hears silence, when it hears something in that silence, that's Buddha's voice. Once again, there's sometimes I'm sitting with you and it's silent in here. And somebody coughs sometimes and it doesn't disturb it.

[34:05]

I mean, I don't lose touch with it. But sometimes somebody coughs and I lose it. And sometimes nobody coughing, there's no sound practically, and I lose it. But I think maybe you've all had a taste of the silence that we have supported to happen here. So please take care of it. Even while I'm talking, can I hear the silence? When I'm not talking, can I hear the silence? And then what sound is coming in that silence? Is it the wonderful, beautiful voice of the Buddha?

[35:16]

If anybody wants to come up here and say anything to me, there's a place to sit here. You're welcome to come. Or you can also, if you want to come up and say something to everybody, you're welcome to do so. Antoine, would you move that cushion over a little bit or take the book away? Thank you. Is your name Yoshi or Yossi? Yossi. I would like to share a story with you that happened yesterday. Whatever happened today too. During the... You know, I think if you use this right here, you better try it.

[36:39]

Just hold it up. During the tea ceremony yesterday, I heard the noise of the crunching of the cookies. And it brought memories to me, like my service in the army. some expression about wetting the cookies when people wanted to munch on it without other people knowing, other friends. And it took me to somewhere else where I looked at everyone who was sitting on my aisle And I saw all the movement and everyone there and I started to giggle because I got a joke. It was, it seems like a cosmic joke, like, you know, there is, in everybody there is someone thinking.

[37:47]

I'm watching and I'm, and it's just happening on its own. And yet this morning when I sat in my meditation, my mind came back and started telling stories. And it seems like it's even more vengeance, you know, every time there is something that happens during the meditation, the mind comes back from what we call the unconscious and shows itself. Right now I'm just sitting with it trying to see what's up, I mean, when the mind is going to stop completely telling stories. And in the meantime, enjoying the stories, you know, it seems like it's my doing.

[39:08]

I mean, there is complete participation when the story comes up. Then something pays attention to it, and it seems to me that it's a fear of death of some sort. If I won't think, I will die. That's what's coming up. And for now, I need to say to you that If I don't think I will die. I was on the radio one time on what is called Forum with Michael Krasny and it was a discussion about monastic practice and during one of the breaks he said, on the radio, silence is deadly.

[40:09]

You can't stop talking very long on the radio without losing your programming. People turn the channel really fast if they don't hear something. Let's see if they can hear you.

[41:22]

Okay. I was going to say something, then it's actually related. Can you hear her in the back? No? Yes? Okay. To what Yoshi said. I've been, since I've been sitting on the chair for the past couple of years, I've been having a more difficult time concentrating. And slowly... getting the hang of it. But last night I was sitting and sort of disparaging myself, thinking, you can do better than this, you can do better than this. And then the thought arose, you're quite concentrated in class when Reb is speaking, particularly if it's complex. Because if you miss a word, you may miss paragraphs. So then I thought, well, what if in the silence I listened as if every bit of the silence was an important teaching?

[42:34]

So more like, I'm going to die if I'm not silent. And it was very helpful, very helpful to imagine that the Buddha is teaching with that silence, every bit of it. So I was happy to hear that. Could everybody hear that? I'd rather use that than talk loud.

[43:47]

My grandfather died yesterday, and I spoke with my mom on the phone last night and this morning. And she'd really like me to be there now, but also told me last night that she wanted me to do what I really wanted to do, And we agreed that we'd sleep on it. And I called her this morning and told her that I wanted to not go to Minnesota at this time. And she told me about some funeral plans. And she likes music a lot. So she told me about some, we talked about musical choices.

[44:54]

And my grandfather played harmonica. And she had a copy of Ave Maria with harmonica. And I asked if she had it on hand. And so she put it on. We didn't talk, but we both listened to Ave Maria. And then the song ended and we couldn't talk to each other, so then there was silence. And then she said she was glad I wasn't coming home. I'd like to ask you about working with worldly affairs and hearing the silence.

[46:47]

You talked about thoughts of car insurance. And there is, for me, there is car insurance and mortgage insurance and health care insurance and concerns. And when I'm... I often forget that there's There's a non dual world. It seems like there are choices to make if I'm here or when I'm here I'm not her home earning money and The mortgage company doesn't care that I'm here trying to learn the silence. They want the money So how do how how do I live with that? How do I work with that Have any ideas how to hear the silence? Well, when you've been talking about shamatha, I've been working on quieting my mind and seeing what might open up with that kind of mind rather than my struggling mind.

[47:55]

But no, nothing has happened yet. No answers have. Well, I guess what's happened is that I'm asking these questions. I mean, I've always valued, my values are shifting. And I've often, I've often seen money as the answer, or money as the route to relief of suffering. And now I'm asking about that more, that there are other roots. And that's why I'm here. I don't think listening to silence is the point.

[48:56]

The point is listen to silence so you can hear the Dharma. And if you're in a room like this and nobody's asking you to pay your insurance premium, even then it may be hard to hear the silence. Right? Because some inner dialogue is about the car insurance or whatever. The point is to use silence as a way to open the door to hearing the Dharma. If we can renounce discursive thought for a while and learn to listen to silence, then we have a chance to listen to silence doing what people are talking, what other people are talking.

[50:00]

that is difficult. There's also the possibility of when it's not so difficult, when the only person who's talking is myself, that if I can hear some silence I can hear the Dharma. And when I hear the Dharma I'll be a different person when I go back to dealing with various types of insurance. Insurance, you know, to make ourselves safe, right? So going back to the situation of trying to help yourself and others, take care of yourself and others, if you've heard the Dharma, it'll be different. That's one story. But again, it's hard to hear the Dharma if we don't put down our discursiveness about protecting ourselves and others.

[51:16]

It doesn't seem to be that that brings peace, although it's necessary to do that. So we have a chance now to see if we can find some silence in the next few days. And if we can get used to being silent, that will be a resource to find more opportunities to remember that maybe that was a good thing that we were silent for a while. But until we hear the true Dharma in that silence, the big change hasn't occurred. And so if we go back to becoming involved in discursiveness again, and we haven't yet heard the Dharma, we won't be able to really find peace.

[52:22]

That's a story I tell you. And if we don't find peace, say, well, it makes sense that I don't find peace because I haven't heard the true Dharma yet. I need to hear that. So again, I have to go open the door for that by being quiet so I can come in. And I forgive myself for not making it quiet because I have a deep habit to make noise so I'll feel safe. But I understand that if I keep making noise and I don't hear the silence, I won't hear the Dharma and I won't feel safe. I won't feel peace. So I see that it makes sense that I wouldn't feel peaceful. But still, can I, when I don't feel peaceful, just leave everything alone

[53:30]

let it go silent, let it go still, and give the Dharma a chance. If I don't give it a chance, it's not necessarily going to overcome my resistance. It's knocking on the door. Will I open the door for it and listen to it? It's coming, you know. It's coming. If we can just stop making noise inwardly and let it come in. Give it a chance. Then when we go back to work, That's wonderful. A wonderful application of hearing the Dharma is to go back to work.

[54:36]

But if you haven't heard the Dharma, you haven't heard the Dharma. So we need to hear the Dharma. It's how we're going to do that. That's actually a great challenge. And about you, Dharma, are you talking about the teachings? I'm talking about the sound, the inner sound, which is the way that Dharma will manifest to you. It will manifest, you'll hear it in silence. You think it's already there? Dharma is all-pervasive. It's singing to us all day long. The Buddha's voice is coming to us all the time. We have to open our mind to it by giving up the chatter.

[55:41]

And not only that, but in addition to being quiet to let it in, the giving up discursive thought makes us more soft and calm so that when it comes in, our bodies and minds don't get knocked off by this amazing sound of dharma, by the voice of the dharma through the medium of the Buddha. So practicing tranquility both opens the door and makes our body and mind ready to hear and able to be present for it. The price of admission is part of the time being really quiet, not getting involved in discursiveness. That's the price. So this is set up for that. And we're all having some taste of the challenge of that.

[56:47]

OK. Last day of class we were talking about how to practice with discursive mind.

[57:56]

Can you hear him? The last day of class we were talking about how to practice with discursive mind. And you said something about not necessarily following the breath. And then I was just kind of confused. And since then, I haven't known what to do when I come in this endo. Because that's been my practice, following the breath. And now I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. And I'm not sure if I've been forcing my attention on the breath. And so I was wondering if you could elaborate on that. If you hear some discursive thought going on and you just let go of it, that's basically what's needed. But if it helps you to follow your breathing in order to help you let go of discursive thought, then it's fine to follow your breathing.

[59:04]

As I mentioned, some people like juggle. Was it Keith that was juggling? When you juggle, the juggling draws your attention to the juggling, and you don't tell too many stories while you're juggling, otherwise you'll drop the balls. If you're tightrope walking and you start thinking about your girlfriend, you fall off the rope, unless you're a really good tightrope walker. And so then you can balance and also daydream. But for beginners, certain things like that help. So the breathing is kind of like a frame that you can use to just be very simple with something, like just follow the breath. Don't comment on it. You can notice its qualities if you want to, but don't talk about it. So looking at the breath as an object really gives you a chance to look at the object, the actual object of Samatha is not the breath, the actual object is giving up discursive thought.

[60:18]

And if following the breath helps you, fine. So if I see a thought or something arises and And then I just come back to the breath? Is that what I do, or should I? You can do that, or you can see a thought, and just see a thought, period. Like if you see a thought, blue, or a thought, pain, or if a thought, Saturday, or a thought, lane, those thoughts, if they arise, in that thought lane, there's just a thought lane, that's it, period. That's not discursive thought. Discursive thought, there's Lane and he has to go to the kitchen and do some work and he's really a good kitchen worker and I wonder if he'll be appreciated today and all that. That's not... And to get caught in that. But just Lane or Amy or Charlene, those things by themselves, just letting them be what they are, that's not discursive.

[61:21]

And that's kind of unusual. So if you hear... and no comment, that's not discursive. And then what? And then back to the breath? I'm saying you don't have to go back to bed. You can, if you want to, follow the breath. So in that follow the breath, it's breath, period, [...] breath, period. Not breath. And Lane's doing a good job of breathing now and he's going to be a good yogi and blah, blah. Not that. Just breath, [...] breath. Not being discursive. Not wandering around the breath. So what was it that you were commenting on? From your own experience, you were saying you were forcing yourself? I was forcing myself on the breath. I was so greedy to get concentrated, to get relaxed and tranquil, that I wasn't relaxed and tranquil.

[62:31]

I was holding myself onto the breath. I did do that successfully, but didn't produce tranquility. It was just a power trip. I was actually being discursive still by saying, stay with that, stay with that. Or else. Or else you'll be a flop, you'll be a failure at Zen, or whatever, you know. You have to leave Tassajara if you don't finish this next period properly, barefoot. So it's funny to follow your breath. I think it's getting, I see somebody else coming up, but I think it's getting, kind of going up for a long time.

[63:39]

But I appreciate you being willing to come up, Astrid. I appreciate you being willing to come up here. That seems to be what you were about to do. Pardon? I think maybe it might be good to, people have been sitting a long time. You know, maybe this is enough. Okay. May our intention

[64:08]

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