This will probably be the last class we have during this intensive. It's a kind of farewell class. We'll start Sashin, and there will be some Dharma talks during Sashin, but this is a different situation where many of you feel free to ask questions and so on. I have some more things I'd like to talk to you about, but I thought maybe I would just say a little bit and then see if you have any questions about the teachings. And what I wrote up there is, on this side, towards me, it says Chinese character, which is pronounced , and then Chinese compound , and then on the other side, the Chinese character .

[01:17]

And so, As I mentioned before, nyo means like or as or such. And nyose means such. It's a technical term. It means suchness or thusness, the way things are. the way life really is. And then ze means yes, affirmation, agreement, this, is, things like that. And then I just put in parallel not thinking with nyo, and thinking with ze, and think not, excuse me, and I wrote not think, non-thinking, but actually I probably more accurately should say thinking, not thinking, is myoze.

[02:35]

And how do you think? Not thinking, not thinking. So this is an example of, we have this text which says, the teaching of suchness, which is nyose no ho. Nyose ho, the dharma of suchness. And this is to tie together that expression, the dharma of suchness, the suchness there in Yose, with the instruction, not the instruction but the story, about the monk asking our ancestor what Or what kind of thinking are you doing when you're sitting in samadhi? And the teacher says, thinking, not thinking.

[03:39]

How? Thinking, not thinking. And the teacher says, non-thinking or beyond thinking. So zazen is the performance of the teaching of suchness in our daily life. And in that performance of the teaching of suchness, we're performing thinking-not-thinking. And the way we do that is called non-thinking. So I want, I'll probably bring that up again during Sashin, but I want just to sort of put that out for you to tie together that story of thinking not thinking with the expression for suchness.

[04:48]

Suchness is thinking not thinking. And then suchness is the way beyond thinking. It's the way we do it. Suchness is inconceivable and our practice is inconceivable. Thinking not thinking is beyond thinking. So now if you have any questions about anything, I'm open to it. Yes? I'm just trying to imagine, so the monk says, what do you think about, and what is the ancestor's name? Yarshan? Yarshan says... says, you know, nyose, and then this… No.

[05:55]

I'm putting their conversation in relationship to the song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi, which starts out with nyose. I'm tying the story or this instruction in the Fukan Zazengi, the story about Zazen, with the song of the Jyomir Samadhi. So these different texts I've been trying to show are different ways of practicing bodhisattva samadhis. So the samadhi in the Fukanzazengi, It says, once you've settled into samadhi, then, and then he tells this story. And then he says, this is the essential art of zaza. And then there's a somewhat different story going on in the Song of the Jomir Samadhi.

[06:59]

A somewhat different story going on in the self-receiving and employing samadhi, these three texts we've been using. And I was trying to write this here to connect the beginning of the Song of the Jewel-Mir Samadhi with what is called Zazen in the Fukanzazengi. So the Fukanzazengi is, in that story it's saying, think not thinking, and that's suchness. So we're actually practicing. And it says in there, if you want to practice, in Phukan Zazengi it says, if you want to practice suchness, practice suchness without delay. Don't practice suchness, don't wait to practice suchness, you can do it right now. Is that clear? The teachers for think not thinking are not nyose.

[08:03]

Do they come out? Actually, if you wanted to do this, but if the student would say, how do you zay? Because zay is thinking. What kind of zaying are you doing when you're sitting in samadhi? And then the teacher would say, I'm zaying, no zay. I'm thinking about suchness. What kind of thinking are you doing? I'm thinking about suchness. How do you do that? It's beyond, almost like beyond suchness, but that's going too far. Now, how do you do that? Beyond thinking. Yeah, so you can do that, although there's no text like this, but I could write one now.

[09:08]

Student comes with the teacher and says, what kind of ze are you doing? The teacher says, I'm no ze. The student says, how do you know no ze? And the teacher says, I'm no ze. Try that. See if anybody, if anybody, Chinese person thinks crazy. So I saw Devin and I saw Dina and Batya and Doris. Yes? Yes? I was wondering about the word unmistakably. It sounds like you're saying that there's a dropping away of body and mind that happens in consciousness. It sounds like unmistakably implies that you see it. Oh, yeah, I thought the opposite. You will in zazen unmistakably drop away body and mind.

[10:16]

And he thought that means you can see it. Thought it meant you wouldn't see it. If you saw it, you'd be mistaking it. If you saw dropping away body and mind, then that would be a mistake. See, you don't unmistakably drop away body. You do unmistakably drop away. You don't mistakenly drop it away. you don't think, oh, body and mind, you don't see with your consciousness body and mind drop away. Because when I collectively use the word unmistakably to mean, oh, you see, you saw it happen, unmistakably that happened. Well, I don't know if this is a good translation, but I think what you're saying gives me another point on that. Unmistakably means that you will drop away body and mind, but you won't make the mistake to think that the way you think about it is the way it's happening. But another unmistakably is more like inevitably. You for sure will.

[11:19]

You know, you'll never miss the chance. In zazen you for sure will, in zazen, the body and mind are dropped away. And you won't think that your ideas about it are how it happened. So thank you for that. In other words, in zazen, body and mind drop away, but the dropping away is not a perception. There's perceptions going on, but the dropping away is the dropping away, including the perceptions of dropping away, but there's no perception. The perception of dropping away is not the dropping away. The recognition of the dropping away is not the dropping away. But you could have a recognition. And there's a story about that which is tied into this expression. Supposedly when Dogen was his teacher said, you people should, when you're sitting, you should be dropping off body and mind, not sleeping.

[12:29]

And then he realized body and mind dropped off. Supposedly he realized it. Maybe. I guess you could say he must have been able to recognize it because he went and told Ru Jing about it, his teacher about it. But the recognition that allowed him to report it was not it. I saw Devon, but my seeing Devon is not Devon. But then I go tell people, I saw Devon. And then they say to me, yeah, you seeing Devon is not Devon. And I say, thank you, I agree. But anyway, he went and told Ru Jing. So I think body and mind are dropped off. Ru Jing said, praised him. And then he said, you know, don't praise me so easily. And then Ru Jing said,

[13:29]

dropped off body and mind. He said, body and mind dropped off. Ru Jing said, some compliment? Ru Jing said, oh, dropped off body and mind. Body and mind dropped off? Dropped off body and mind. So there can be recognition, and then you can give reports Sometimes people, after retreats, they have people write poems and give reports. But those reports are not the realization itself. Did you have your hand raised? You have to wait in order. I'll be right back to you. Next was... Dina. Do you agree with this, Nina?

[14:34]

I feel like Zazen is our opportunity in the eternal now. So coming to the cushion, we're just collecting into the present moment. So in that direction, losing body and mind, Who'd that mean? Did you say losing? The expression they use is not so much like losing, but it sort of just drops off. Does it just become a happening? Life is just this thing. This is just happening. It's not always, I have a body, I have a mind. It's just what is here. The awareness, I have a body, is an expression of a body-mind.

[15:42]

And that awareness just drops off. You're liberated from your consciousness which thinks, I have a body, or I don't have a body. or I have a friend. Those are examples of body movements. And in Zazen, all that's just dropping off. And that dropping off occurs in being collected and open and relaxed and settled. Thinking in a certain way. And then it happens when you're in samadhi and when you think a certain way. Like you think in a way that's beyond thinking. Then body and mind drops off. In that situation body and mind is dropping off.

[16:43]

Could you re-think that you're not thinking the same if you doesn't think? You could say thinking doesn't think, or you could say thinking is not thinking, and not thinking is thinking. You can do a lot of rephrasing here. So part of what's going on here is to the creative, the intimate creativity of thinking. Because thinking is, you know, totally including our whole life. So it has tremendous creative possibilities. And in samadhi, we can play with it and not be rigid about it and be open to the intimacy of thinking with our whole life.

[17:52]

It's part of our human situation is we're thinkers. And many of the human thinkers would like to escape from being a human thinker. There's that famous statue by Rodin called The Thinker. that guy in that bent-over posture. At one point, not too long before I came to Zen Center, I was thinking about that thinker, and I thought, oh, oh, oh, I think it had something to do with this picture I saw, which I've told you about, This picture of this man sitting upright, practicing Zazen, and the subtitle of the picture is In Deepest Thought. And I thought, yeah, I said, deep thought, when you're in deep thought, you're beautiful.

[19:01]

It should be kind of, you know, elegant in the sense of, you know, simple. Elegant is related to simplicity and noble and sincere and so on. And then I thought of the thinker who's bent over with his chin on his hand and I thought, yeah, that doesn't look like deep thinking to me. maybe hot-headed thinking or depressed thinking or whatever, the body doesn't seem to be expressing deep or deepest thought. And then I went to the Rodin Museum many years later. Years later, I went to the museum. And when I was there, that statue was there.

[20:07]

And I saw it, and actually I don't know if it was the real thing or a replica, but anyway, it explained at the museum that that statue was supposed to be sort of on the portal or the doorway of hell. The statue was not intended as like the way to go. That was not like the art of Zazen or the art of being an artist. It was kind of like a warning about hell. When you think all bent over, your thinking gets really, doesn't drop off. It gets all stuck in your mind. Your body doesn't drop off because it's all stuck in your thinking. So we sit up so our body and mind can drop off. In the noble samadhi, body and mind drop off.

[21:13]

So it's a body practice, and that's part of what attracted me. I told the story of my wonderful, brilliant advisor, a kind of renaissance man, intellectually a renaissance man. And he talked to me actually when we had our interviews, which he was very generous with me. He did a kind of yogic thing with his legs. He was quite tall and he wrapped his, he sat cross-legged like this and wrapped his foot around like this. Do you see? He just did a little bit of a yoga thing there, which I appreciated. And one day I was walking down positively 4th Street, the street in that song, and there was a McDonald's on 4th Street in Minnesota.

[22:21]

And I saw my advisor in McDonald's. And he was bent over, his tall body was bent over and his head was like down in his lap eating a hamburger. And I thought, he's so brilliant but I don't want to study with that body. And so I went to study with Suzuki Roshi whose body I I thought, yeah, his posture is a posture I want to learn about. And, yeah. So next was Bud. Yeah? Just one more question. Yeah. In the last class, we talked about the idea that you need to watch the field. Doesn't that go back to your perception of whether it was right or wrong? My perception?

[23:24]

Yeah. Yeah, it does. My perception was it didn't seem to be helping the deer be calm. It seemed like the deer was calm. And my perception was he was becoming more agitated as he was being supposedly helped to his peace. Hmm? Isn't suchness neutral? No, suchness isn't neutral, but also suchness isn't positive or negative. Suchness is beyond your thinking. But still, and the teaching of not killing comes from suchness. And in a way, it looked to me also, in my perception, it looked my friend was killing the deer. That's what it looked like.

[24:25]

And suchness is saying, not killing. So I was kind of like, in a way, I was, for the sake of the deer, I guess I was willing to go against suchness. Suchness is not killing. Because I thought it might help the deer if this thing was done. But when I saw it, I didn't think it was suchness, I didn't think it was helpful, and I thought, I'm sorry, I think it would have been better to leave it alone, find some way to protect it from raccoons and stuff, and just let it die by itself with, you know, not by itself but in a protected way if possible. That's what I thought would have been better. But this is all my perception. But my actions are not just my perception. Like I'm acting, I'm talking to you now, and I can perceive that I'm talking to you, but my actions are not just my perception of my action, or your perception of my action.

[25:37]

My actions are coming from, you know, a good place, and a good place is not that suchness is good, but a good place is the place of realizing suchness. I think I was, I don't know, but I I think when I, maybe, I don't know, maybe when I saw that this was a mistake I was going towards suchness. Maybe when I saw that this enactment of killing is not, this is not suchness, so to see I don't feel this accords with suchness. I don't feel this is a proper attunement with suchness, this activity.

[26:43]

I think it would be better to be more quiet and gentle with this deer. But this is my perception. And so the next time that happens, I probably would want to be more careful. And that being careful maybe helps attune to something you can't see. Bhatia? I suffer an obstacle, but I'm clinging to it, and I'm getting attached to it. Thinking of thinking, and it's always resonating in my mind what my teacher says, just sit. Goodbye. the way of letting go, and I know that the Buddha mind is self-generating and appears everywhere, and this is the basic reality.

[27:58]

So it's kind of hard to drop body and mind. Do you say it's hard to drop body and mind? It's kind of hard to let go of clinging. It's kind of, in a way, it is kind of hard to let go if you try to let go. So letting go when it happens is not really hard. It just happens because the conditions are there. But before the conditions go, then it is kind of hard to let go because you're not letting go. So it promotes letting go to be gentle and accepting of not letting go. Being accepting and generous towards clinging doesn't make the letting go happen.

[29:13]

It just maybe opens the door to the letting go which is going on already. But if I try to let go, I could feel like it's quite hard because, in fact, it's sort of the wrong way. It's kind of hard to go through that door by walking into that wall. But if we're quiet and still and open, we may open to the letting go that's going on, which we don't do. It's not human action that is letting go. It's letting go of human action, which is, human action is often clinging. But some arts are hard to learn. But once you learn the art, then the art is to open to the artwork.

[30:14]

And, excuse me? Maybe it was a side comment you made when you said that for you Rinzai is more psychological, but I don't really know why. Could you say a little bit more about that? Well, if you emphasize recognition, there seems to be an emphasis on recognition, and there can be recognition of freedom from delusion. Exactly. not on Rinzai, just the freedom from a delusion, you can kind of recognize, you can see it, it can be a psychological experience. So a psychological experience, psychological experience or function is more accessible to Westerners because we are kind of psychologically oriented.

[31:28]

Yeah, I just don't see it so much in Rinzai. I don't see that it's more in Rinzai. Well, they put more emphasis on, for example, of getting Kensho. Yeah, they emphasize that, yes. Yeah, and that psychological kind of appearance a lot of Westerners find attractive. Whereas the description of practice in the self-receiving and employing samadhi, I think is, you know, it's inconceivable. A lot of people maybe find it less accessible or, yeah, less accessible. However, there's more Soto Zen in the West than Rinzai.

[32:31]

And maybe in the full spectrum of what Rinzai offers, what I'm saying is not correct. But what Westerners see is an aspect of Rinzai that attracts Westerners that Soto doesn't offer. and get access to it, like get something. So there are stories of Rinzai practice places where they yell at people, get Kensho, get Kensho, get Kensho, and everybody's like, yeah, let's get it. And at the end of the retreat, they say, and sometimes they even say who got it. And then, you know, I don't know what happens when they announce that, maybe they cheer or something, but that's quite accessible. In Soto Zen maybe we also would like to have something to show for our .

[33:39]

But maybe we don't, which is maybe not that accessible. It means literally, see nature. So it's like you see the Buddha nature, not Buddha nature, you see true nature, you see Nyose, and then maybe you have a recognition that you saw it. And actually there's a dead expression, you know, attributed to Bodhidharma about a special transmission outside the scriptures that doesn't depend on words, that points directly to the human mind and seeing nature and becoming Buddha. So I think Soto Zen puts more emphasis on becoming Buddha, and Rinzai seems to put more emphasis on Kensho, seeing nature.

[34:53]

And becoming Buddha, in a sense, follows. So then people say, we should get Kensho. And then Soto Zen people say, well, what's that? And then they find out that Rinzai knows what it is, so then people go to Rinzai. You said, I think, that Dogen's teacher said that we have this... If you sit up writing, you will definitely... realize Buddha nature, as in, it is realizing Buddha nature. Not in your perception, but that will definitely happen. If you sit upright in the samadhi of zazen, dropping off body and mind occurs.

[35:59]

That's what Dogen says. His teacher didn't really say, his teacher just said, do it. He said, you guys should be strapping our body and mind, not taking naps. You're definitely doing it, you're definitely doing it, as far as I can see. But Dogen's teacher says, no, you're not definitely doing it, you're just thinking. Say again? Yeah, he was being a little dualistic and could be criticized for what he said. Maybe he shouldn't be saying to them, you shouldn't be sleeping. Maybe he should have said, your sleeping is so lovely, your sleeping is dropping off body and mind. But he didn't say that. But it does seem to contradict that if you are sitting up in this position, your body and mind out there But in relation to me, it feels like out there, because I can't perceive it, will definitely drop away.

[37:06]

And he's saying, no, it won't, you're asleep. It should be dropping away. You're asleep, but it should be dropping away. He didn't say, he didn't say, sleeping, he just said, rather than sleep, you should be dropping off, you should be involved in the dropping off of body and mind. Another way to hear that was, If you don't do the practice, you know, then you don't miss the opportunity to realize the drop in mind. If you don't make your posture or your thinking the practice, then you miss that body and mind is dropping off. But you miss it anyway because it isn't ever set. No, you don't miss it. You miss the realization of it. That's right. You don't see it.

[38:13]

You make your hand gestures expressing it. So when you make your question, how do you see it? You make that question the expression of it. If you don't make the question, how do you see it, the expression of it, then it's not realized. But if you do make the question, how do you see it, the expression of it, that's how you realize it at that moment. If you make the blinking of your eyes the expression of it, that's how it's realized at the moment. Well, your intention would be probably that you would like to express the Buddha mind in your actions. You would have that intention, you hear that in teaching, and you say, I would like to use my hand gestures, my arm gestures, my words, I would like to use them to express

[39:23]

Buddha mind. I would like to use my activity, moment by moment, to express dropping off body and mind. Dropping off body and mind. All day long, dropping off body and mind. I would like my dancing to express the inconceivable dancing of dropping off body and mind. That could be my intention. Then, when my actions are given to expressing body and mind, that's how I realize dropping off body and mind. And if I'm asleep, and in my sleep I'm not using my sleep to express dropping off body and mind, opportunity to realize it. But it's not a perception that my hand gestures are expressing the Buddha mind seal.

[40:51]

That's not a perception. I perceive my gestures. And I perceive that I have gestures to express the Buddha mind seal. perceive that. And I have faith that the way to realize the Buddha mind seal is to use my gestures for that purpose. If I'm asleep or distracted, I may forget or not use the opportunity of what I'm doing now to express the Buddha mind seal. So it's about being conscious of what your intention is. It's about being conscious of your intention, yes. It's about making your actions line up with your intentions. As far as you can. Not as far as you can, as you are doing your actions now.

[41:55]

And if you veer away from your actions now, either because you don't want to actually express the Buddha Mind Seal, or because you think the Buddha Mind Seal would be better expressed later, because this isn't a very good action, then you miss the opportunity at that moment. For example, that moment is this moment. So are you using what you're doing right now? If you're not, it's like you're asleep. Well, when you say you're doing your best, do you use the statement, I'm doing my best? Is that the opportunity you're using? Yeah. But I don't know how best to express the good of my field. I don't know. The best way is to use your actions of body, speech, and mind. It's not just best, it's only. Best and only are the same thing, I guess.

[43:02]

But it's probably better to drop off best and just say only. All you can use to express the Buddha mind seal is your daily actions. Even though your daily actions, I don't know, they may have Difficult daily actions, they might be impatience. They might be disrespect. You might have a disrespectful thought. So you might say, well, I think I'll wait till I have a respectful thought and I'll use that thought to express the . I'm suggesting don't wait for another thought, use this one. And then maybe a respectful thought does arise, and of course then I would say, use that one. Whatever thoughts you have in your mind, see if you can use this thought as the opportunity to practice dropping off body and mind with this thought.

[44:06]

But that doesn't mean that you're trying to drop off body and mind, you're just offering this thought for dropping off body and mind. you don't deal, you give what you do to the Buddha mind seal. And you probably would want to do that. Those who do that probably are people who want to do that. But wanting to do it, or the root of that kind of practice, but even if we want to, we still, it's rather subtle and our mind is conditioned to veer off from what we're using right now and try to use something better. Like that story about, it's a cartoon, these guys are standing on the street and under a street lamp at night, and a policeman comes over to them and says, what are you guys doing?

[45:16]

And they say, we're looking for his watch. We lost his watch. We're looking for it. And the guy said, did you lose it here? He said, no, we lost it up the street, but the light's better here. So Joel and Al and Todd and Miliu and Karen Okay. I have a question about suchness. I'm not clear about it. It came up with the story of the deer that what you and your friend did was not suchness? No, I don't think I talked about it. I don't think I said what my friend did. Oh, this action? I don't think I said anything about what my friend did. I'm not talking about my friend.

[46:19]

Okay. I'm not judging my friend. I'm not judging my friend. What I said was that the teaching of not killing comes from suchness, comes from the realization of suchness. So when I observed what was going on there, I didn't feel like this was helpful. I feel like, oh, this is really the meaning of not killing. I didn't feel that way. I felt questioned about whether we were following that practice, or if we weren't, I felt like we weren't helping the deer. And so I'm saying, maybe when I feel like we're not helping, maybe I'm moving towards suchness. I'm not saying, I can't say something's not suchness. Yeah, I'm not going around saying that's not suchness. I'm just saying when I start to feel that things are not in accord with the precepts, maybe I'm kind of moving because I'm, what do you call it, I'm, what am I doing?

[47:27]

I'm meditating on the precepts and feeling out of alignment with them. Well, it's this issue that, like, if such a thing is just what it is, as it is, which is sort of my understanding, things as it is include things that in consciousness I don't like, like killing. Yeah, and it includes things in consciousness you do like. So I was confused. There was some reference to suchness, even the expression going towards suchness. Yeah, I did say going towards suchness. So I'm saying when I see something and I feel like it's not in alignment with the precepts, then what I'm doing is I'm looking at actions in relationship to the precepts.

[48:30]

And I think looking at actions in relationship to precepts is going towards suchness. It's going, yes. It's the natural result of recognizing suchness. No. Suchness cannot be recognized. What can be recognized is human action, for example. I can perceive my actions, his actions. When I feel uncomfortable about how this action corresponds to these precepts which come from suchness, I'm going towards suchness or I'm settling into suchness because I'm meditating on the teachings of suchness. And I'm looking at my action and my friends' relationship to these teachings. So when you start to look at your actions in relationship to the teachings that are coming from suchness, in some sense you're moving towards intimacy with suchness.

[49:34]

That's what I would say. Yeah. I think I have a problem The meaning of the word suchness or what that word refers to, I mean, again, it is like it is. Just things as it is. Like they're things that are. Suchness is not about how things are or aren't. It's not that. But it deals with them, but that's not what it's about. It's inconceivable. It's not about our and not our, exist and not exist. It's not about that. It's this samadhi. It's an inconceivable thing. But it's not separate from anything either, because that's another concept.

[50:39]

Okay. Well, this is a delightful situation of not knowing what suchness is. We don't consciously know what it is. Our consciousness doesn't reach it. The teaching of suchness is taught by our consciousness. In order to have peace in the world and have freedom, we need to express suchness with our consciousness. And our consciousness doesn't reach the suchness. And that includes the precepts, very much so. From one point of view, you can say it is the precepts. Al? Yeah, I want to go also on that.

[51:46]

The deer. We live in peace. But at this situation, sometimes it nukes on the path. The intestines behind them still live and crawl. Deadly hurt. I can see that. You don't know what to do. We had this together. And I said, don't kill him. I was about to kill him. I think the deer... And even if you Newts don't like to be touched. My grandson wanted to pick him up, but it's not good to touch him either. Yeah. So, yeah, so... The deer is running against the fence because he got in the yard somehow. Yeah. And he doesn't find his way out. Yeah. So he runs in and again breaks his leg. Compound fracture is deadly for him. If you leave him there... will die probably because the coyotes will kill him.

[52:54]

Yeah, that's what I thought we should have done. We should have made an agreement with him. But he's suffering. Well, he's suffering, but he didn't, he seemed, I thought he was suffering too. Okay? Okay. But when my friend tried to help him, he seemed to be suffering more. I don't know if he was, but he looked pretty calm. He looked quite calm and relaxed. Yeah, but is it not about ending suffering? Isn't bodhisattva activity to end suffering to all people? And sometimes, if we put these fences, we already, like this, kill. Because these fences down there are dreadly for deer and all that. Yeah, so look at the fences, and you're looking at the fences and you feel, these fences, I feel uncomfortable.

[53:59]

And I feel like these fences are, I feel uncomfortable about how they relate to not killing. Is that how you, yeah. So you feel that way. Right? Yeah, so you're feeling responsible, you feel some discomfort about how that fence relates to the precept of not killing. And that's what I'm saying. Meditating on that is where it's at. Yes, I agree. The tears. Okay, now we have a deer dying. Now we have a new situation. I cannot say, oh, poor deer, and walk away. I'm not telling you to... So what do you want to do with the deer? Kill him. So you want to kill him, and if you do, then I feel maybe uncomfortable, unless I can have some information that the deer is saying thank you.

[55:11]

If the deer could say, thank you, that would make a big difference to me. But the deer didn't say thank you. If you're suffering and I come over to kill you because I want to put you out of your suffering, and you say thank you, maybe I ... But if you say no thank you, then maybe I don't continue. And I say, Al, I think you should stop suffering. And I know how to do it. And you say, it's okay. Leave me alone. And I say, no, Al, I know it's good for you. This is what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to like... I didn't suffer enough. Yeah, I think you have suffered enough, Al. You've had enough. It's time to end suffering. And you say, no, no, I think I had some more suffering to do. I think if I suffer some more, I'll be more enlightened. I say, Al, but I know Al, but no. You're actually, it's time to go, Al.

[56:19]

Back to the deer. That's what we were doing with the deer. We thought, you've had enough suffering, deer. That's what we thought. And we thought, he's had enough. We're going to end his suffering. And we didn't. As far as I could tell, we didn't. We increased it. And so we're going to do that. And maybe if you do kill a deer, you'll learn the same thing. I guess you'll find out if you try to kill a deer. I guess you'll find out if killing a deer is, if you feel like, yeah, that was really cool. It's hard. No, maybe hard or easy, it doesn't matter. What matters is help. And I felt that was hard and I felt it wasn't helpful. And so everything you look at, if you see some discrepancy in your mind between the precepts and the action and you feel uncomfortable, I think that's good.

[57:25]

It's good when we see the discrepancy. Seeing the discrepancy isn't good, but if we do, it's good if we feel uncomfortable. And then we deal with that. We meditate with that. So my friend did this in between the precepts. He saw it suffering, and he wanted to do this thing. But when I saw this action, I felt a discrepancy, and I feel good that I... that I feel good that I'm uncomfortable when I see a discrepancy. But I don't know. Then we start the new practice of how do we deal with the discomfort we feel when the action and the precepts are apparently in tension. Then now we start practicing with that. So if you and I find a deer and you want to kill it, ...uncomfortable, then you and I talk about it. And I also might feel comfortable trying to control you and tell you what to do, because that goes against another precept maybe, apparently.

[58:32]

So I get into the discomfort of meditating on these precepts in relation to meditation. But I'm saying to open to that discomfort that comes up sometimes between the precept and our action, I think that's moving towards suchness. That's moving towards where the precepts come from. And it's painful and difficult sometimes, but I think we should do it. Because that's how you get, you get to suchness by practicing ethical meditation. Generosity, ethical meditation, patience, that's what takes you to the samadhi where you realize suchness and then you understand not killing more deeply than we did before. But what if the deer was brushing like this chicken? I don't know. I'd have to see. But the deer was not. The deer was calm. But I'm asking you to imagine.

[59:35]

Yeah, you're asking me to imagine, and I'm saying I don't know. You're making an imaginary thing, so I imagine I don't know what to do about it. I have no clear sense of what to do. You show me something right now, I'm dealing with what's right now. I'm dealing with my friends right now. If you wanted to ask me, what would you do with us if we did such and such? I do not know what I'd do if you did something other than what you're doing now. Now, I'm dealing with what you're doing now, and I really don't know about that either, but this is what I'm doing. Who's next? Todd. My question is about attachment. I'm interested in what keeps us being attached to thinking, maybe. What keeps you attached to? To thinking? Yeah. Being human? or to practices that I know better but I still find myself defaulting to being attached to what I know is comfortable and not venturing beyond well for now my recommendation is that being human was my response that didn't settle it for you so I would say let's forget it because the reasons for these things is basically inconsistent karmic causations

[61:01]

And it's inconceivable. It's okay to wonder about it, but to put time into it, trying to figure these things out, is, when I say, it's the word, most of us do not have time for it. things to do with that are necessary in order to understand the question. We need to be in samadhi, and in order to be in samadhi we have to practice generosity, ethics, patience, and diligence. We have this work to do. If we do this work and enter samadhi, understanding suchness, when you understand suchness, you're open to understanding causation. you understand and realize the inconceivable about why humans are the way they are. In the meantime, those are stories which are opportunities to practice towards them and so on. But I don't know why we don't all constantly abide in profound samadhi, contemplating suchness.

[62:15]

I don't know why we're not doing that all the time. But if we do it more, we will move towards understanding how that works. Who's next? I think Mio, you, and Karen were way back there. Behind you, I can see an object. And I think if I name that object a tree, Everyone in the room will have some idea of what I'm looking at. I've looked at it over the past few years. It's now been quite quiet, maybe in a small dance. And I've seen it with wind, and it's been in a bigger dance, and I've seen it in big storms in a bigger dance. And it seems to be that it's always been whatever it is.

[63:17]

I've seen limbs cut off it, and it's... Part of it is lifted up. It seems to me that it's always been what it is. What it is, I call the tree. I'm just wondering if I could, one, make an assumption that it's in Samadhi. Two, Maybe that's a side effect of somatic, or three, just go, well, let just all ideas you're having, just let them all go and don't worry about it. Are you asking for anything? I'm asking you to give me some feedback on those three points. The first feedback that comes up is, I think you said something about the tree is what it is? How do you put it? Yeah.

[64:18]

It's always been the tree whatever action has been going on. Okay, so that's the first point. The tree has always been what it is and you can't see what that is. What you see is not how the tree is. You see how your mind is. However, what I'm saying is, can I take that then, accepting that, can I then say that is a good model for me in terms of being who I am? Being in Samadhi, being fully who I am, therefore being in Samadhi. Or, that's the second part, and the third part is to recognize that those are all just thoughts that I'm having and just let them go. If you want to enter samadhi, if you're not in samadhi and you want to cultivate realizing samadhi, then letting go of those thoughts is the way to do it.

[65:29]

Once you're in samadhi, then you can start thinking about things like words. like words like tree. Then by contemplating the word tree in Samadhi, you have the opportunity to realize what a tree is. But you have to deal, you know, in order to realize what a tree is, you have to go beyond the word tree. And it's hard to go beyond the word tree if you're not in samadhi. Otherwise you're thinking about it, but you're not open enough to your thinking about it and to the word to enter into intimacy with the tree. So what you just said to me sort of brought up an image that the tree is in samadhi.

[66:32]

Although I don't know what Samadhi is, and I don't know that the tree knows what Samadhi is, I cannot discount the possibility that the tree is in Samadhi. I have no problem with the idea that the tree might be in Samadhi because it has an easier time of letting go of its thinking than I do. human beings really have a hard time letting go of their thinking. And I think maybe trees either have an easier time or that they slowly that it looks easy to us. And the next person was Karen, I think. Is that right? I think that the samadhis we've been studying are reality, are the realization.

[68:02]

It's our actual life together. It's not the natural state of a human consciousness, because human consciousnesses are so turbulent. But the relationship between this turbulent consciousness and that turbulent consciousness, and that turbulent consciousness, and also between this consciousness and its unconscious processes in body, and that consciousness, its unconscious. The relationship between all living beings is this samadhi. So that's the reality that the Buddhas are realizing, and teachings about how to realize this samadhi. And the teaching goes to living beings who have consciousness, and when the teaching reaches living beings that have consciousness, it gets converted into word images. But these word images can be used to train the consciousness to open to the conscious living, which it can't reach,

[69:04]

but it can realize if it opens to it. And there's practices to open to this inconceivable jewel mirror samadhi, this inconceivable art of zazen. We can open to it. We're already living it. But if we don't open to it, we can't practice the art. But if we do open to it, our daily activity can be the practice of this samadhi. which our activity doesn't reach, but our activity realizes. We don't reach it, but we realize it. And we're living in it all the time. Again, it says we're moving in it all day long, but our consciousness doesn't reach it. And Buddhas are moving in it all the time, and they're realizing it, and it's separable from them. Next. What I recommend is to open to the drowsiness.

[70:25]

And if you open to drowsiness, there is the possibility that you will go to sleep. Right? And if you don't open to the drowsiness, there is the possibility that... And when I said that, she went... Yeah, and you also fought what I just said. So the fighters don't like me to talk like this. They want to fight it. And... So... From my experience, the drowsy people who fight it go to sleep faster than the drowsy people who don't fight it. Not fighting is not the same as indulging in it. Fighting is not the same as not falling into it. But if you don't fight the edge of a cliff, you might fall over.

[71:30]

And if you do fight the edge of a cliff, you might fall over too. It takes, it's more draining to fight the sleeping sometimes than to just relax with it. So I sometimes, when I feel this drowsiness come, I go, oh, I'm so drowsy, I'm so tired. I'm going to rest in this drowsiness. And then I wake up. I become more awake, more energetic, because I take a little rest in the drowsiness. But if I fight the drowsiness, then I sort of like maybe suddenly conk out. We used to carry a stick at Zen Center. And we sometimes... In one period, two people carrying sticks in Zendo, and they'd hit people. Some people would ask, some people would not ask, and they got hit.

[72:31]

And some people, as soon as they got hit, the person walked away, they'd immediately fall asleep again. Also, sometimes in the Zendo it was like, I often say, it was like a field of grain in the wind. His body's just gone. And I don't know exactly. I think we got a little less sleep than we did. And also, I think maybe people became dependent on the stick to do their work for them. Anyway, now we don't use the stick for various reasons. We don't use it much anyway. We just rarely use it. But my observation when I'm awake, looking... There's less people nodding off now than there were back in the 60s and the 70s. Yes, ma'am? Yeah, oxygen helps.

[73:53]

Also, when you're feeling drowsy, breathe. That's also good. And maybe breathe a little bit more deeply, but not noisily. But anyway, some other people recommend, like, open your eyes wider. I sometimes do that. But... not indulging in drowsiness, but like really open to it, I find sometimes refreshment. But there are many, and I, again, there are many people who fight it, and I've seen how that goes, so I'm no longer fighting the drowsiness, but I want to be respectful to all the people who are fighting it. Sala? I would like to know what is a helpful way, or potentially, what do you think is a helpful way of having the conversation of physician-assisted suicide and also the suicide of voluntarily drinking?

[75:21]

So what do I think about voluntarily stop? Well, I don't know if I, because your answer right now, I don't know what, I'm asking what's a way that, what's a way to have a conversation is really what I'm asking. Think more than what you think right now. Oh, okay. What's a way to have a conversation? Well, you can think in your mind, have a conversation with yourself. like this. If I get to a certain state, I think I might try to find a good way to stop eating and drinking. And I read a book one time about a method that they use in India to gradually, you know, gently stop eating and drinking. I actually thought it was kind of a very... And the person in the story that I read, the person was in consultation.

[76:27]

I don't know if this is a Buddhist nun or a Hindu nun. I think it was a Hindu nun that she was going through this process, which has a name, about how to read the Buddha in a gentle way, in a careful way. And she was in consultation with her teacher about it. She was a nun, so maybe she didn't have to talk to her family. But I think that I would recommend that if you're contemplating reducing your food intake for the sake of not being around and getting more and more, I don't know what the word is, perhaps troublesome to people or whatever, that then if you'd contemplate that, talk to some people People who are close to you are on board and see if they feel calm and relaxed about it. Because some people do do that and their family says, yeah, it's okay.

[77:32]

You can reduce your food. And there's ways of doing it that are, what do you call it, more likely to be successful. hurting yourself by not eating and then starting to eat again. To do it in a careful thought out, maybe some even traditional way, and then have the conversation in your own mind and with your teachers and your friends. Yeah, so when you're demented, it's hard for you to have conversations with people. So it's maybe good to start having the conversations now. Well, I myself would not starve a demented person unless they told me beforehand that they want me to.

[78:40]

So, okay, thank you for saying, really have the conversation now that that at least allows the possibility of morally to follow those instructions. And if the demented person says, give me more food, then I would follow the person who, instead of the one who told me, I would, when I get, if I become demented, my family has this history, and if I become demented, I would like to actually just reduce my food intake. And you could say, well, what if I still want to have food at that time? Then would you want me not to feed you? And they say, yes, I would want you not to feed me. And then I might say, I don't agree to this. I'm not signing up for this program. If the person who I have before me is saying, I do want to eat, telling me you don't, I can't agree to this program.

[79:44]

And maybe they can find somebody who will. And then maybe that'll work out. But I myself could imagine saying that to people, you know, if I became really demented, I would, you know, I would like someplace where I don't have to tell people I want to eat and where nobody has to, like, not feed me, where I just won't be near food. And, or even as I seem to be approaching that time, would you please take me out in the winter and leave me? And then they say, well, what if you say you don't want to go? You know, when it seems like it's time to go, I say, I would think the best thing for you is not to take me if I say I don't want to go. Don't go against me at that time. If I, here we go, if I tell you now that if I get to be pretty demented, I would like you to take me out into the mountains and just leave me there.

[80:55]

Okay? And then if the time I don't want to go. I don't want you to force me. Because I don't think that would be good for you or for me. However, it's fairly likely that even though I don't want to go, a couple hours later, I will. A couple hours later, remind me, a few minutes ago, did I want to go? And I said, no. And do you remember that? And you can show me a video. of where I actually asked. Oh, there I am asking you to take me. Oh, okay. Okay, let's go. So then you start riding up to the Sierras. And in the car I say, we're going to the Sierras. And I say, why are we going there? He said, well, you're going to go there and I'm going to drop you off. And I say, well, why are you going to do that? He said, because you asked me.

[81:55]

I did? Yeah. And he showed me the video again. And I go, well, it's me, isn't it? Okay. I don't want to do it. So we stopped the car and go to a truck stop and have some coffee. And I say, what are we doing here? And he said, we were on our way to Sierra's, but then you said, you said, you know, you didn't want to go. Earlier you said, I said, well, now I do want to go. Now I remember. Yeah, and I also can tell that I know I have this problem. Let's keep going. So it may take quite a while to get up there. But, you know, this is a big project to do this in a way not pushing the person. And same with, you know, somebody like my friends used to say, okay, here's my cigarettes. Don't give them back to me. And then they say, give them back. And I say, you told me not to. And they say, well, give them back.

[82:56]

And I say, you told me not to. Give them back. And I give them back. If they don't want, you know. And then they say to me the next day, here's my cigarettes. Keep them for me. I say, well, yesterday we did that, and you asked me for them back. I say, well, please do it again. At a certain point, I might say, you're not ready. I'm not going to do this until I feel more confident. I say, you really want to. And I'm not going to start fighting with you over these cigarettes. I'm doing this as a service, and if you don't want me to do it, you can fire me. But at a certain point I might say, you know, it's not time, you're not ready for this yet, because you're not ready. But then later they might. And my granddaughter, I kind of took care of her yesterday, and she said, my parents said I get to watch one show. I said, okay, so guess what happened after one show?

[83:57]

Can I have another show? She said, Her parents said, only one. She said, yeah, but I really want to watch another one. I said, OK, just one more, OK? Yes. So we watched one more. And then it turns out that when the second one was finished, I was in another room. So she called, granddaddy, the show is over. I want another one. And so she comes running over to me, and there's an iPad, and the iPad was on, and she knows how to YouTube kids' app. So she just ran over and pressed the app, and she was already watching another show. And I said, you know, we said just two, and... And we were grinning just two, and now you're watching some more. And she said, well, the iPad, not the TV.

[85:02]

And I said, I really don't think it's good for you to keep watching these videos. And she said, well, I want to. So then I go away for a second and I come back. And somehow the cover of the iPad, I didn't do it. But the cover of the iPad got closed down. So then it goes off. So then she opens it again, but she doesn't know how to get it going. And somehow she didn't say, you turn that thing back on. She didn't do that. But she became somewhat depressed and unhappy. It would be a big, sad situation now. But she didn't... Actually, before that happened, she was going to throw the iPad on the floor if I didn't let her watch the shows. Again, it's not worth it to me to... to fight her about this. But then it got closed and she got really sad and she went into her room and did some kind of meditation and came back.

[86:07]

And then we did all this wholesome activity, joyful activity, not video related. And it's basically, I think, the same. This is the conversation. How do we get off addiction? How do we get off life? There's a time we can work this out, but it's sometimes a lot of work. But I vow to be up for the work rather than like, you said it, so we're going to do it that way. But I think I would If I became really demented, I would like you guys to either help me not eat so much for quite a while in a kind way, or take me up to the Sierras and take me out in the woods in the winter and say goodbye to me.

[87:11]

Look, he's sitting so nicely under that tree. And just leave me there. I would like that. rather than make all this, what do you call it, extreme effort to take care of somebody who can't take care of himself anymore, which, you know, it's a very new thing in the world that we're so affluent. We can take care of people who can't take care of themselves beyond what they actually would want. But I'm saying this to you now in public and I've also written it down. I don't want to be kept going if I can't keep myself going. But if I change my mind, please, wherever that demented person is. Demented, by the way, means de-mentous, out of your mind. But that means conscious mind.

[88:14]

You still have an unconscious mind. And it maybe still wants to eat. It wants the body to keep living longer. So we should respect that. But still, we can take a walk in the woods. We haven't dealt with all the questions that were raised, right? One, two, three. So could we do three and stop? Would that be okay? Yeah, this iPad might get thrown on the floor. But on the other hand, if it gets on the floor, she knows also if she throws it on the floor that then the iPad might not be available ever again. So she didn't really throw it on the floor.

[89:14]

She actually was thinking of ripping off the case. Okay, so let's start with Rachel. Thank you for so many questions. I had a question a while ago. I know that some things exist conventionally are not in my conscious mind because I see their residue or I see how other people or animals react to them. or I see the replacement positive effect, I was wondering how, like, what are some of that suchness exists, or even Somali, like, even though we can't realize it? Well, I don't even, I don't necessarily trust something that I think I realize, so what are some of the residues?

[90:18]

Well, there are certain things that appear in consciousness that, for example, a story of someone doing something really wonderful appears in consciousness. Sometimes we find out that the person who did that was following a certain teaching. And sometimes we find out the teaching that they're following is the teaching of suchness. So we can see in consciousness, we recognize this thing which is so lovely and all kind of amazing. Like how can that happen? How can this person be so kind and so energetic with people even when they're not nice to her? And so we say, I'd like to learn that. And then you talk to the person and they tell you, well, I've been studying the teaching of suchness. And so you say, well, maybe I'll try to learn that too.

[91:25]

So that's one of the ways we get that suchness when it touches our body and touches our body, it touches our unconscious process and then our and our consciousness makes an appearance of it. Sometimes the appearance encourages us to learn more about this appearance, and then the appearance often leads us to some teaching about the people who act like that. They did some kind of discipline, like they sat, or they had a close relationship with a compassionate teacher, they studied certain scriptures, they practiced certain precepts, and by their training they became like able to do these wonderful things in relationship to other beings. So like my story is to see somebody do something really neat in relationship to other living beings that didn't to learn. It wasn't like walking on the water.

[92:27]

It was like just being generous when people are mean to us and being generous when people are nice to us. I'd like to learn that. And then I find out, oh, that guy had a training program that he went through. So then I tried the training. In the training program, part of the training program is the teaching of suchness is intimately, that's part of what comes up in the training program. So then I say, well, okay, I'll do that. So somehow the teachings touch us and kind of sees it in a reduced, simplified version that our consciousness can recognize. And based on that, we enter the practice. Okay? Dora Lee? I have a question about meditation and the relationship between the two. In my zazen, I... First was very trapped in a kind of grinding out story that goes over and over.

[93:36]

And then through the sort of body practices, like my whole consciousness shifted. And I was in this sort of calm, tranquil place. But then I felt this sort of clench, almost like trying to pull me out. Something trying to pull you out of the calm? Yes. So at that moment, I felt sort of like wielding my sword and staying in comfort. But I wasn't sure. Well, actually, I don't know about actually. Another way to look at it is we're in a calm place and somebody comes up to us and says, would you please get up off your seat and come with me? I'm here to deepen your calm. I've come to deepen your calm. And the way I've come to deepen your calm is I'm asking you to let it go and come with me.

[94:42]

I want to show you something that you can't see right now because you're holding on to your calm. I've come to liberate you from your calm. Give up your calm and we'll go to a calmer place. When you get to the common place, I will have done my job." Which was, I've come to rouse you from your attachment to this excellent place you are, to help you let go of it and enter a more profound samadhi. It's really asking you to leave samadhi. Even something that says, you self-centered, uncaring person. You're just sitting here developing your own tranquil, blissful state. You don't care about other people. And I'm here for into the same samadhi. What is the difference?

[95:50]

Is there any difference between zazen and shikantaza? Is there a difference between zazen and shikantaza? They're synonyms. Well, Dogen says, the zazen I'm talking about, he tells what his zazen is. So the zazen he's talking about is also called just sitting. Shikantaza is Thinking not thinking. How do you think not thinking? Non-thinking. That's a description of Shikantaza. Shikantaza doesn't mean there's no thinking. And again, I'll talk about this more during Sashin. In Shikantaza, we have what's called right thinking. Right thinking. You know, the Eightfold Path, right view, right thinking, and so on, ending with right samadhi.

[96:55]

In right samadhi, there's right thinking. Samadhi is right samadhi. It is right view. It is right thinking. And right thinking is not thinking. How do you think not thinking? Non-thinking. Essential Art of Sazen, this is right thinking. So Shikantaza is right thinking. Another version of right thinking is, just sit. Just sit is a translation of Shikantaza. But it's words, it's thinking, just sit. The thinking, just sit, is right thinking. That's Zazen. Zazen is right thinking.

[97:59]

Zazen also means sitting meditation. Some people do sitting meditation and some people, okay, so again, settle into a steady immobile sitting position. That's part of Zazen. Some people stop there. That immobile sitting position, they are sitting in samadhi. And they call that zazen. And that is samadhi, and you can call it zazen, but Soto Zen, Dogen Zenji say that's settling into a steady immobile position. That's the first part. Okay? It's kind of, you could say half. It's the state of mind in which you practice right thinking. So for Dogen and other people in this tradition, there's samadhi, and then there's a way of thinking in samadhi, which is wisdom.

[99:09]

So the zazen that I'm encouraging is a state of samadhi which is practicing wisdom, which means thinking. To just do the first part is called samadhi, and you can call that sitting meditation. But the sitting meditation I'm doing is that part, and then moving on to do just sitting, which is to think, just sit. And to think, just sit, if you understand what that means, which takes some work, is right thinking. So again, In the Eightfold Path, there's Right Samadhi, and then there's Right Thinking. And Right Samadhi is Right View. But it's not just Right View. Right View works with Thinking, works with daily life.

[100:10]

So some people call Zazen Samadhi, just Samadhi, and that's okay. Zazen is samadhi and wisdom. And samadhi and wisdom is just sitting. Which is zazen? Zazen means, can mean practice or meeting. So zazen sometimes means going to meet the teacher. In a chat. Sanzen means, in this chant, sanzen means zazen. Sanzen literally means practice zen. And sometimes in some situations it means sitting in meditation. Sometimes it means going to see the teacher. Okay, I think we took care of those three questions.

[101:17]

So much for your diligent presence, and sometimes you got sleepy, but you hung in there, and so did I.

[101:32]

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