Tonight I imagine our life as an unlimited dark forest. And in the forest there's innumerable little clearings. And in each of these clearings a sense that somebody is there.

[01:02]

There may also be a sense that somebody else is in the clearing too. Now, one of the people in the clearing, one of the beings in the clearing felt to be me, or called me, or I. I seem to be in one of those clearings. And I'm imagining that in some of the other clearings in this infinite dark forest which is our life, which we share, there are other clearings, and in these other clearings some of you are feeling present. And these clearings are kind of light. You can see things there. And these clearings could be called consciousness.

[02:21]

And the the more or less unlimited dark forest, unconsciousness or unconscious cognition. And there is an intimate relationship between all the clearings and between the forest, the dark forest, and all the clearings. Whatever occurs in the clearings transforms the forest, and the forest is the support for the activities appearing in these clearings.

[03:25]

and the intimacy among all the clearings and the surrounding forest is also a cognition, an awareness. Now, the teaching of suchness is about the intimate relationship between the entire forest and all the clearings in the forest. Right now, in one of the clearings, I seem to be here.

[04:32]

hearing myself talk. And I'm imagining that some of you, and maybe all of you, are also present in some awareness, or there's an awareness to feel yourself to be here. And here means, from my perspective, there. The clearing that I'm conscious of and the clearing that I perceive are teachings

[05:33]

are appearing in the form of words. For example, the teaching that the intimate relationship among all consciousnesses, which are supported by a vast cognitive process where nobody's there, that the intimacy of this whole sphere of mind But that also is the intimate entrustment, the intimate transmission, which is Buddhist. And this intimate transmission frees the clearings, frees them of suffering, which appears in the clearings. And that freedom also resonates and transforms the forest.

[06:37]

And the forest then fosters more liberations of clearance. So clearance can be called consciousness, or consciousness where there's a self. Or it can also be called consciousness, or karmic consciousness. Because in these clearings, there are activities occurring. There's talk going on, there's language. And in that situation of language, there also seems to be patterns of addiction to language and patterns of addiction of how the self understands or how the self is understood in relationship to the actions.

[07:42]

These addictions then are conditions for stress, and suffering. And the whole situation is very challenging in the sense of very challenging to the attempt or to the practice still. Because these clearings, although they have light, potentially disorienting, or they give rise to turbulence and agitation to the point where it's difficult not to get disoriented, or for there not to be disorientation in the consciousness.

[09:02]

So not only is there stress, If there's addictions in the consciousness, it's also difficult to remember teachings which are liberating the stress. I often quote an introduction to one of the stories in the Book of Serenity. It's a story about the famous conversation where a monk asks the teacher, Zhaozhou, does a dog have Buddha nature? And the question is asked twice. The first time it's asked, I think Zhaozhou says, yes, it does have Buddha nature. And the second time it's asked... This is one of those intimate conversations. in Zen tradition.

[10:11]

But in the introduction to that story about the teachers talking to each other, the introduction says, even a highly cultivated person is turned about in the stream of words. There's a stream of words in consciousness, and even a highly cultivated person is turned about in that stream. And the first few times I read that, or the first many times I read that and thought about that, I thought, a highly cultivated person gets turned around, But maybe an even more highly cultivated person wouldn't get turned around. Now I think that even a really, even more cultivated person would also... But while getting turned about,

[11:25]

They would not be distracted by the turn. Usually when we get turned around, we are challenged to forget where we were the moment before. Because we're like upside down facing the other direction. Where were we? How can we remember when everything got flipped around? I don't know, but I'm imagining that we could learn how not to forget even when the world gets completely changed, or partially changed, or completely changed and then changed back. So in this life there is a possibility to develop a practice which again we call

[12:59]

we call the Buddha way, and we also call it the precious mirror samadhi, and we also call it the self-receiving, unimplying samadhi. These are names for the practice to learn to perform and engage in in the world of turbulent consciousness. So it is often said that, well, yeah, it's often said that Zen practice or sitting meditation is not the meditation of... So in the Buddha Dharma practice, sometimes we speak of three learnings.

[14:10]

And the three learnings are called, in Sanskrit, shila, samadhi, and prajna. Ethical training, concentration, and wisdom. So it is often said by our ancestors, our samadhi, Our meditation is not the meditation or the samadhi of those three. Or you can also translate it as ethical discipline, meditation, and wisdom. So our meditation is not one of those three. Our meditation is all three. So our samadhi is not the samadhi of one-third or one of the three aspects of Buddhist practice.

[15:27]

Our samadhi is a samadhi which includes all three aspects of Buddhist practice. It is also sometimes said that the samadhi we're talking about, or the practice we're talking about, is not the fifth practice of the six basic bodhisattva trainings. So the six basic bodhisattva trainings are generosity, ethical discipline, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom. Our samadhi is not the fifth of those six. Our samadhi is all six. So it's a samadhi of all six, or it's a samadhi of all three.

[16:27]

It's a samadhi of the buddha way. So, in the tradition coming down through Dogen Daisho, in that tradition, paying homage to him, that founder in Japan, we can pay homage to his statement that practice, which all Buddhas practice, is the self-receiving and employing samadhi. So it is a samadhi, but it's a samadhi about how the self is received and employed. It's a samadhi about the activity of Buddha That's the actual practice, is to actually be settled and undistracted in relationship or with the activity of Buddhas.

[17:44]

So again, back to the image, it's to be present and undistracted in the relationship of all ...and the entire cognitive realm which supports all consciousnesses. Which again, that awareness is called intimate communion among all beings, which is Buddha. So again, we're living in disorientation-ville, we're living in the clearing, which doesn't have to disorient us, but particularly when we're listening to words, we get turned up. We have this difficult place to practice samadhi, to be

[19:01]

still to be undistracted by all that's going on, all the words which are not just bouncing off us, but affecting us and turning us. So there's a teaching of suchness, which is an intimate communion, which is Buddhas and ancestors, and then there's others living with that intimacy. And the awareness can be what we call a samadhi. The awareness can be an undistracted awareness, which is challenged, very much by words, by gestures and by thinking, and especially by words, that consciousness can become a realization of one-pointedness.

[20:22]

It can become calm, but not rigid. It can become open, but not distracted. and open to the constant change, and yet not disturbed or agitated. And this is the way to practice with the teaching of intimacy, which is the practice. And also in the samadhi, the awareness of the teaching is also undistracted by the teaching. So the teaching is also not like pushing and creating turbulence. The teaching is received with the mind where the awareness and the teaching are one point in samadhi.

[21:28]

So the art of samadhi, the art of practicing samadhi is the art of being able to relate to all that's going on in karmic consciousness in such a way it's allowed to calm down. And there seems to be slightly different or quite different ways of talking about relating to all that's going on in a way that will be conducive to be calm and flexible and open and alert in consciousness. So one famous statement, it's translated as, cease all movements of the conscious mind, the gifts and views.

[23:01]

And that teaching seems to be a teaching about how to develop samadhi. Samadhi itself is trying to stop the movements of the conscious mind. Samadhi is the state of calm, collected mental one-pointedness that is the result of not getting caught up in the movements of the conscious mind. But it says cease Or sometimes it says, put aside or let go of the movements. In my experience, I feel better about the use of the movements or give away the movements of the conscious mind. Let go of the gauging of thoughts and views.

[24:15]

Let go of judgments. not stop the movements. So I generally encourage letting go of movement rather than trying to stop it. But letting go of it, again, doesn't mean... It means... and so on. So the bodhisattva path could be seen as a path that's letting go of the movements of the conscious mind by practicing generosity, ethics, patience, and diligence. And if you can do those practices, then you can let go of the movements of the conscious mind. And by repeatedly letting go of the movements of the conscious mind, this calmness and flexibility and openness is realized.

[25:37]

Many people come to Zen practice and hear, stop the movements, or even let go of the movements, and they try to immediately stop the movements, or immediately try to let go of the movements, practice generosity towards the movements. They're up for stopping the movements, and so stopping the movements might go quite well with not being generous towards them. Does that make sense? When it comes to movement, stop. Kind of, maybe a little bit mean, rather than, thank you for coming, movement. But I think some people seem to be teaching tell those movements to stop, and don't worry about being polite.

[26:48]

Just stop it. Stop movement, stop mind, stop moving. That might work for some people. I haven't seen it work for anyone. Maybe it does for some people. Maybe in some different cultures it works. But I think I have seen, or I imagine I've seen, people being really kind to the movements of their mind, and by being really kind to the movements of their mind, they let go of the movements of their mind. By being really generous with the movements of their mind, they calm down with the movements of their mind. And then continuing to be generous with the movements of their mind, they become more calm. And becoming more calm, they become more generous. And the process just becomes more and more kind, more and more generous. However, the movement may not really change. There may be just as much movement as there used to be, or even more, maybe.

[27:53]

Or maybe... Yeah, I think some people, you know, they have some movement, they practice generosity towards it, and then they calm down with the movement, and they relax with the movement, and they open to the movement, and they open to other things, and they don't get distracted by the movement, and they don't get distracted by other things. And the level of movement stays about the same. And then word gets out that there's a calm person in the neighborhood. So then they come and ask that person to do some extra work. And they bring their hysteria to her. And the person welcomes the offering of all these hysterias and relaxes with them and so on. And then when those people calm down, when those hysterias calm down with this calm, it gets out even wider and more.

[29:02]

So it's not really to eliminate the hysterias, because the more you calm down, the more hysterias come to visit. And not according to when you calm down, but according to your welcoming when they do come. The more you welcome that they come, the more beings come to you for help. Or, the more you welcome them to come, the more you realize how many by asking you help to help them. And then there's instructions like being mindful of the breath as a method or a technique for giving up the movements of the mind.

[30:13]

And it sometimes does help people to be mindful in consciousness, in the clearing, there may be some breathing going on, There's some breathing. Let's practice mindfulness of that breathing. Practicing mindful of the breathing, when you first try to do it, it's a little bit of a movement. Maybe. But relatively speaking, by being mindful of the breathing, by taking care of the breathing as though it were a precious living being, that might just incidentally entail that you give up a lot of other movements, you know, a lot of other thinking. So following the breathing or paying attention to posture may be a way to move into stillness and letting go of the movement.

[31:20]

And then once you notice that by being mindful of the breathing, you notice that you're letting go of the movements of the mind, you may be able to just continue to let go of the movements of the mind, and also let go of the movements of the breath, and let go of all the movements without necessarily giving breath the higher priority than other movements. But somehow to get a foothold on being generous and careful with the movements, it might be nice to pick a nice movement, like the breathing. It's nasty and insulting. But again, some people start following the breathing, and they start being mean to the breathing, try to make it long, because they hear it's a heck of a long breath. But to be careful, if you do follow your breathing, to be generous with it. And if it's a long breath, be generous with it.

[32:25]

If it's a short breath, be generous with it. Rather than, I've heard that short breaths are not so good. Some Buddhist teachers teach that short breaths are not so good, the long ones are good. They say that. So, when people hear that, they say, here comes a short breath, you know, like, Can you really say, welcome, short, stubby breath? Now here comes a rough, coarse breath. Really? No, not really. Try again. Welcome, short, stubby, ragged, uneven breathing. Welcome. Suzuki Roshi's son, our dear friend and teacher, Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi.

[33:27]

You know what he used to do? He used to smoke cigarettes. I don't know, is that what... I really don't. But anyway... he started to develop breathing problems. And his family asked him to stop smoking. But he kept smoking. And one day he couldn't... The air wasn't going in or out. And he was like, whoops. And I think for a little trouble welcoming, no breathing. It's hard, right? No breathing.

[34:30]

Suffocation is hard to say welcome to, even to think welcome. You can't even talk. Welcome? I think he was having some trouble welcoming it. And it went on. It went on. The no breathing went on. and he couldn't go, hey, welcome. Couldn't do it. Apparently, according to the way I heard the story. And then he heard her voice. His mother, who had died years before, he heard her voice calling out to him, calling him by his little boy name. I forgot what his little boy name is, but His name, his name, now it's Hoitsu, but you could also say Hoichi. So maybe his baby name was Ichi-chan. I'm not sure.

[35:31]

Chan is like, like, you know, Reb. And so Reb-chan would be like Rebi. So he heard his mother's voice and she said, you know, Ho-chan, or whatever it was. He heard his mother calling him by his little boy voice. He said he found a little, tiny, tiny little stream of air. And he just breathed in a tiny little bit of air. And I don't know if she kept saying, my baby, I'm with you. I don't know if she kept saying that. In the air. She let him... mind it again. I would say she learned to welcome his situation.

[36:33]

And in welcoming his situation, his throat opened the passage. By the way, I I have this idea that I might want to talk to you next week about the ceremony that we're going to probably perform on November at this temple. It's a ceremony for beings who cannot say welcome very well, and therefore their throats are blocked. And they're trying to get nervous, but they can't do it because they don't know how to welcome being hungry. I'd like to talk to you about that ceremony maybe next week. But I'm sort of talking to you about it now. That when we're breathing, whatever kind of breathing we're doing, thinking, whatever kind of thinking we're doing,

[37:43]

when we're sitting in whatever kind of sitting we are feeling or perceiving, in order to enter an undistracted, calm, open, flexible state which is available to us, we must welcome an agitated, tense, distracted, closed mind, if that's what happens to be there. Or some challenging opportunities. Some people tell me that they have a little bit of distraction now and then. And I'm saying, if you're kind to your distraction, you calm down and become less distracted by your distractions. If you're generous and ethical and patient and diligent with your distractions, samadhi becomes realized.

[38:53]

But I feel like it's always here. Samadhi is always here in reality. We are in reality in our real life. We are calmly, peacefully living together. But if we're not kind to what's going on in our little circle of light, there's all this rough stuff going on. And then sometimes the rough stuff goes away and smooth stuff comes. But then, you know, we can't be generous with that either. So we try to hold on to it rather than say, thank you, smooth stuff. Well, we kind of say, thank you for coming, but maybe when we say thank you, we just say, I gotcha. I've been waiting, and now I gotcha, and you ain't going nowhere. And then the smooth stuff says, oh, I came to visit you because I love you, and you're treating me so possessively.

[40:01]

Let me go, lover. No, I'm not going to let you go. Please, let me go. I don't want to threaten you, but if you don't let me go, you're going to be sorry. And we keep holding on. Sorry. And I'm just basically saying, just for your consideration. No matter how bad the addiction is, like addiction to avoid or addiction to holding on to pleasant ends, no matter how intense the addiction, I say, welcome it. That's how to get started. Started in transforming the addiction, our addictions, into liberation. And that if we can be generous, then we can check out to see if there's any shortcomings in our generosity.

[41:12]

Like, was I really generous, or was I secretly trying to get something? And then be patient if the situation didn't get transformed all of a sudden. Matter of fact, it seems like it's worse, more intense. And then be patient with that. And again, patient doesn't mean like, I'll be patient to get rid of this pain. Patience so you get rid of the pain. It's like entering into the center and the stillness of the pain. And if we can be still in pain, then we can be still in pleasure. And then, by continually being still amidst the pain and pleasure and confusion, the samadhi becomes more fully realized. So, maybe that's enough for tonight.

[42:19]

So, part of the practice is listen to the teaching. The teaching is that Buddhas and ancestors are intimate with us, we are intimate with them, This transmission is going on right now, and take care of it by remembering it. And remembering to take care of it. Remember it, and remembering to be still with it. And stillness includes all these compassion practices. And also, compassion practice is to be patient and generous with the shortcomings in our compassionate practice. To be patient when we forget to be compassionate with what's going on in our clear. Not good at patience, not good at generosity, not ethically careful, and not diligent.

[43:27]

Then we confess it. And then we look at how we feel. And if we feel sorry or regretful that we didn't practice the... And that's repentance. And that melts away the root of being distracted from compassion towards what's going on. And the forest and supports our consciousness, this part of what's supporting us in the forest is the results of past times when we were not kind. So that's why we can't just be kind once and then be kind at one time. However, the kindness we express towards what's appearing in consciousness now transforms the forest, which supports the next moment of the clearing.

[44:35]

And by continually, by, first of all, repeatedly practicing compassion, by repeatedly practicing compassion, and noticing when we don't, and confessing and repenting, we finally come to the place where we continually practice compassion. where we're able to be compassionate towards everything that comes in the clear. No matter how turbulent it gets, after long training, we can meet the turbulence with compassion. And meeting it with compassion, we can meet the turbulence with samadhi and meditation. We can be one-pointed with the teaching that this turbulence is a holy communion. that this challenge is Holy Communion.

[45:36]

And even that this easy challenge is Holy Communion. I often tell this story of mine. I had some hard times when I was a boy, and I was trying to practice Zen. But I kind of thought I was like, how come Zen's hard? I wasn't that kind of a boy. I was kind of like, oh, Zen's hard, yeah, right. I heard it was going to be hard, and it is. And then, about 45 years ago, there was a moment when it wasn't hard. And I thought, whoa, what's the matter? Am I kind of becoming psychotic? So I went to Sri Krishna and said, my practice isn't hard. Is something wrong? And he said, sometimes for you it's not going to be hard.

[46:44]

And he took a piece of paper, well, this is a laminated piece of paper, so I'm not going to bend it. And this is a holy scripture, so I'm not going to bend it. Anyway, he took a piece of paper and he folded it. He said, when we do origami, when we fold the paper, after we fold it, we press it for a while. We don't just fold it, now fold it. We fold it and press. And when you press... Origami is not too difficult, just pressing what's already been folded. It's the folding that's the hard part. You know, to get the fold right, the right angle, the right... whatever. But once you fold it, then it's not so hard. You just press on it. So sometimes the practice isn't hard.

[47:44]

So then you have the challenges to welcome not hard, and welcome, am I psychotic? Am I in denial? Is it too easy? Am I overlooking the challenges? Yikes! Back to where I was challenged. Do you understand, Roger? Yes. Now, some of you have never had the problem of, it's easy, so you're lucky that way. Just non-stop difficulty, you know you're not in denial. Anyway, we don't say that it's easy to welcome whatever's happening, just that it's necessary, that it's unavoidable, necessary. generosity. It's the beginning of the bodhisattva practice. The beginning of stillness. It's the beginning of transforming the addicted mind.

[48:46]

And it's not easy to do sometimes. But I'm suggesting that you do it with everything that appears in consciousness, no matter how cute or not cute. I'm suggesting. And so on. And I'm suggesting then you be ethical with everything that appears. This is the path to samadhi. And then with samadhi you can realize that the teaching of suchness is not the least bit separate from you. And your practice is not the least bit separate from Buddha's. That you are maintaining the Buddha way right now. And now. So that's the idea, but we need a mind that's not that idea to fully realize it. And this is how to develop, this is one story about how to develop this samadhi to go with the teaching of suchness.

[49:54]

So it's the samadhi to go with the self-receiving. Self-receiving and employing is the teaching of suchness. Self-receiving and employing is the holy communion. We have samadhi to go with that communion. Samadhi comes from by being in communion, passionate communion with all the stuff that's appearing in our turbulent, challenging consciousness. So I had this dream that you all understood me perfectly. Did you, Raven, understand me perfectly? It's kind of dark back there, I can't see your face very well. So, thank you very much for understanding me perfectly.

[50:59]

I'll try to join you on that. Amen.

[51:06]

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