I had the thought to have today be the last day for what I sometimes call regular doksan, regular interviews. And then tomorrow I would be available for what I call brief interviews, so if you'd like Regular interview, today is the day. And tomorrow, if you'd like a brief check-in, a brief meeting, five minutes or less, you can do that tomorrow. The last day, I thought maybe I could just sit with you. Or I don't know if sit, but I'm going to be in the room here all day. I might be doing some aerobic activity.

[01:06]

During this talk this morning, I'd like to say some things about taking a few steps deeper into the cave of the ancestors' meditation practice, the ancestors' samadhi. So starting with the Buddha, he just said, train yourself thus. In the herd, there will be just the herd, and so on up to

[02:34]

IN THE COGNIZED, THERE WILL BE JUST THE COGNIZED And then centuries later, Bodhidharma said, recommended to pacify the mind with no contrivance, using no device. How? Simply by outwardly having no involvements.

[03:37]

having no involvements with objects, and inwardly having no involvements for so-called external objects not being involved and for so-called internal objects not being involved. Simply not being involved with the objects of cognition. the mind is pacified with no contrivance other than just not getting involved. And that's what the Buddha taught too. Simply, when something happens, that's it. No further involvement, no elaboration, no gasping, coughing, or sighing. no approval or disapproval, and so on.

[04:41]

Just in the heard, there's the heard. In the known, there's just the known. Or in hearing, there's just the hearing. And in knowing, there's just the knowing. And when in hearing there's just the hearing, there's no way to grasp the herd. When the herd is just the herd, there's no grasping of the herd, and so on. So there's no grasping, no involvement.

[05:46]

outside, Bodhidharma said outside, seesaw involvements, another way of saying it is outside. The mind is not activated around the objects. The objects are known, but the attention is trained in such a way that the mind is not activated around the objects. The objects are not grasped, and in that non-grasping there is a calming through non-grasping. Objects arise, that's it, and there's a calming around this non-grasping. Through this non-grasping there is calming. No technique, just no involvement, and through no involvement the mind is calmed with no contrivance. So I see these teaching of the Buddha and teaching of Bodhidharma very similar. Outside, cease all involvements.

[07:14]

Inside, no coughing or sighing. Some people say, translate it as outside, externals are put to rest. But it isn't that you put the externals to rest, it's that you put the reaction to rest. And then a few generations later, there's an ancestor. Let's see. One, two, three generations later, you have the fourth ancestor. Bodhidharma is the first. The fourth ancestor said something like, one way to put it is, mindfulness of Buddha is mindfulness of mind. And mindfulness of mind

[08:20]

is mindfulness of no objects of mind. Or is mindfulness of mind with no objects. Another way to put it is, Buddha's mindfulness is mindfulness of mind. And mindfulness of mind is mindfulness without objects. Without objects means without grasping objects, without grasping external phenomena. It's the mind which doesn't grasp them. And the fourth ancestor also taught this expression which echoes through the Zen tradition for many years after.

[09:26]

He's taught to turn the light around, to turn the light around and shine it inward, to turn the mind's light, to turn the attention back inward on the mind itself. In Dogen Zen she says, put aside all these various activities of activating the mind around the world of objects and learn the backward step, which turns the light around and shines it inward. which shines the attention back inward and trains the attention onto the nature of mind itself.

[10:43]

You look at the nature of mind itself. You train the attention to abide in the nature of mind itself, to abide in the non-grasping nature of awareness. and in this training the mind is stabilized. Also, Bodhidharma was approached by one of his students, who we call the second ancestor. The second ancestor, I think, said something like, My mind is agitated. It's in turmoil. Please, pacify my mind." And Bodhidharma said, bring me your mind and I will pacify it.

[11:50]

So the second ancestor went off to look for his mind and came back after an undetermined length of time and said, Teacher, I cannot find the mind. I looked everywhere. He turned the light around to look for the mind so he could bring it. and he said, I couldn't find it. And Bodhidharma said, I have pacified your mind. If you really turn the light around and look for the mind and can't find it, your mind is pacified by not being able to find the mind. Mind cannot be found and not finding it is abiding in its non-grasping nature. By looking for the mind and not finding it, he couldn't find anything else to grasp onto either.

[12:59]

Except maybe, of course, I can't find it." So Bodhidharma sent him, taught him the backward step. And learning the backward step, and looking for the mind and not finding it, we realize that body and mind of themselves drop away. Turning the light around.

[14:37]

Shining it inward. one may be able to see the ungraspable space-like quality of awareness. And in this ungraspable space-like empty mind, which you have found, but you don't think you've found anything because you don't know what it's like to find something that you can't grasp, but in fact you have found the mind when you found something that you can't grasp. In this ungraspable empty mind no things can be grasped either. So you're a total failure at grasping and you're beginning to train yourself in this moment, and not grasping anything in mind because the mind you've got isn't giving you anything to grasp.

[15:47]

If you look away from this mind, out towards the objects, and project concept onto it, then you can, you know, however you want to grasp it, you just put the label, put the handle on, and you can get it. But now with the light turned around, you're making yourself unable to get anything. And one moment of that is a moment of training in this backward step, is learning this backward step. When this becomes steady, the mind is stabilized. Now I'm going to take a big step but just for a minute. And that is, I said, you know, that something about, you know, not grasping anything in mind, not grasping the signs of objects, relinquishing

[16:58]

everything in mind. I also said relinquishing all views is emptiness. But one detail of that which I'd like to bring out today is that relinquishing all views means relinquishing all views, and it means actually some views in particular among those all. So if you relinquish this view or that view, like I always say, I talk through this example of relinquishing the views that Italians aren't skillful. that's fine, and that's a case of relinquishment, of not grasping that concept. But there's other concepts or misconceptions which we all must also relinquish.

[18:08]

But we may not be able to relinquish them unless we see them and see that we hold them or anyway see them and then not grasp them. So once your mind is stabilized it's possible that the certain misconceptions will be presented to us which we may not have been able to notice before. And if these misconceptions or conceptions are presented and we can continue to practice non-grasping not activating our mind around these concepts, around these conceptions, then emptiness is realized. And I'm speaking particularly of the conception that these objects are out there on their own, separate from us, existing independent of us, not depending even on our mental imputation to exist.

[19:16]

instability, we can actually have a chance to see the arising of this misconception and continue to practice relinquishment of that conception. And then we have what we call the realization of emptiness. So there is a potential shift, which I haven't talked about, between the practice of relinquishment And then in some sense, I mentioned, you know, seeing that relinquishment is also a kind of giving. And in that giving, notice that what you've relinquished, you've also given. And notice what you've given. And through noticing what you've given, you both appreciate what you've let go of and that what you have let go of, you get to appreciate what it is. And then you get to appreciate that what it is is something that is not out there on its own, but it actually is something which is inseparable from your mind.

[20:33]

And through this you realize your inseparability from all things. So there is one phase, the initial phase of relinquishment, of focusing on letting go, is in some sense narrowing When you calm down and see the nature of what you've let go, and see that this is a way of giving, then through what you've let go, you become connected to everything. And in the process of seeing that what you let go of connects you to everything, you realize that what you let go of is not independent of anything. And it's non-independence, actually, its interdependence becomes a way that you're connected to everything and realize the interdependence of everything. This one thing, perhaps, which was once out there independent, when you let go and see its interdependence, it becomes a way for you to see how everything is connected.

[21:42]

This is called insight. But I want to caution you not to get heavy-handed about this slight change of perspective from not grasping something and being well-trained at not grasping something or being well-trained at not grasping anything, calming down, and then just and it's almost like a heavy word in this situation, but contemplating what it is that you're not attached to. So you shift slightly from the one-pointed non-grasping to contemplating. Again, I had the words so heavy.

[22:47]

Analyzing what it is that you're not grasping. Penetrating what it is that you see you're not grasping. That's how when you're in the practice of this light being turned around and shining back on the mind itself, that the things that arise to this mind which are not grasped, in this context, these things drop away of themselves. You don't have to cause them to drop. In that context, these things naturally empty themselves and drop away of themselves. You don't have to like bore holes in them with your vision. You just look at them.

[23:49]

Before you weren't really looking at them. You were aware of them, but you were like training yourself not to grasp them because as soon as you're aware there's a tendency to grasp their signs. Now you've trained yourself to be upright with them. I hesitate even to say stand back or sit back. but you're actually meeting them in this way of settling with simply knowing without slipping into grasping their signs, calming down by this training, and now just slight change. And maybe you shouldn't even do anything to cause it to happen, but it might happen, something might happen, and you might say, Or like your hand, you know, looking at your hand and looking at this thing called the hand and not grasping the sign of this phenomena, calming down, not activating the mind around this phenomena, calming down, and then somehow maybe it touches your nose and you say, what is that?

[25:02]

And you see. You just happen to look at what you haven't been grasping And you see. Like what is the name of Dogen Zenji's wonderful disciple, Koen Eijo, the second ancestor in the Japanese tradition of Soto Zen. He said something like, Something, kind of a horrifying thing he said, but anyway, for 40 years I have been walking in Chinese fashion. And I think that, just today I thought that what he meant was he was wearing Chinese fashions. Clothes imported from China, Chinese style. But that's one way. The other way is he's walking in shashu, you know, with his hands like this.

[26:06]

This is kind of a Chinese way of walking. For 40 years he's been walking like this. Just walking like this for 40 years. Actually, I think the way things start was, most bestial of humans am I. I don't know what he meant by that, but maybe he meant, most graspy and clingy am I. I'm the most clingy and grasping of all the humans. I've got this habit worse than anybody. I'm the most greedy and attached. The most confused. Maybe that's what he meant by bestial. For 40 years, I've been walking in this Chinese fashion. You know, Chinese fashion.

[27:12]

In the herd, there's just a herd. Today, I touch my nose anew. So, I don't know if you followed that, but what I meant was that if you just have a hand, and if you happen to have another one, and you put them together for 40 years, you can take it apart during those 40 years too, of course, but off and on for 40 years, you put your hands together in this posture, and you learn to

[28:35]

Be in this posture without grasping anything. The hands are touching. There's a touch there. There's a touch. There's a touch. There's a touch. And in that touch, there's just a touch. And then one day, the hand raises up and touches the nose, and you get to see what the hand is, or what the nose is, or what a touch is. For forty years a touch has just been a touch and then one day in that calm you're touched and you look to see what being touched is. And you get to see that that touch is not out there, is not in here, and that touch connects you to everything in the universe. That touch which is not out there connects you to the whole universe that's not out there. So some people want to know, you know, when we say, I don't know what, they get scared that that means you can't have any, that you're not supposed to have any sensory experiences anymore.

[29:59]

In the herd, they're just a herd and so on. It doesn't mean that at all. It just means that you train yourself, you train your way of experiencing. It isn't that you don't have any experiences. Oh, I know what the person asked me is, how can you tell the difference between just like taking care of your body and indulging in sense pleasure? How can you tell the difference between just simply taking care of your body and activating your mind around your body? Or another way to put it would be, how can you tell the difference between taking care of hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, smelling, and seeing, and thinking? How can you tell the difference between just taking care of that and clinging to it and grasping for these things, trying to get a certain kind of hearing?

[31:04]

Like, I'm going to go to the symphony. What's the difference in going to the symphony to get something, to grasp beautiful sounds and just go to the symphony because it's good for your ears? What's the difference? How can you tell the difference? Well, that's what you're training to see. How can you listen to something without trying to, without grasping? And how can you, yeah, how can you listen to something without grasping? Even when someone says to you, do you want to go to the symphony? How can you hear that? And just hear. In the herd, they're just a herd. And then train yourself so that you say yes when invited, but you say yes from not clinging to that sound and not wishing for anything other than that sound. And yet you say yes or you say no. How can you tell the difference? This is the training. to see if is there some using of this sound or this touch?

[32:13]

Are you using it to distract yourself from your life, from your pain, from suffering, from other beings? Are you using it as a distraction? In other words, are you grasping? And in grasping, it does distract you. Anything you hear that you grasp, it becomes a way to turn away from the thing itself. So again, not so much even as to stand back, but be upright with whatever is happening and not grasp. And these kinds of things can happen and you can take care of the body in this way. And you can maybe learn there was grasping, there wasn't. And then again, if you can deal with sights and sounds and smells and touches and tastes and cognitions in this non-grasping way, then each one of these things can be ways of entry.

[33:25]

As Bodhidharma said, when you deal with things in this way, with a mind like a wall, in other words, a mind like a wall means A mind that doesn't attach. Walls don't attach to things. You go touch a wall, that's it. The wall doesn't reach out and grab you. It just says, thank you very much. And with that kind of mind, thus you enter the way. And in the, what is it, the Surangama Sutra, the Heroic March scripture, the Buddha asks a number of bodhisattvas, which one of these modalities is best for entering the way? Is it through the heard, through the seen, through the touched, through the tasted, through the smelled, or through the cognized?

[34:31]

Which one of these modalities which you're training yourself to not grasp around, which one is best for entering the way?" So various bodhisattvas get up and say, I think sights are best. And then they tell a story about how when some sight came, because of their way of training with this sight, their mind like a wall responds to this sight, they entered the way. Somebody else comes and says, I think smells. Like for Proust, it was smells, right? He smelled the madeleine. Now some people say, no, I was tasting the madeleine. But I think it was smelling. So Proust was in a state of non-grasping, I think. So when he smelled that madeleine, the madeleine was not out there. And the past was not out there.

[35:34]

the entire world, past, present, and future, was connected through tasting and non-grasping. And then this great work of art comes out of this realization, this way of seeing and understanding through tasting and smelling as such. But one of them that's kind of, in some sense, most fun because we have a cartoon about it is one of the bodhisattvas that Buddha talked to was named Bhadrapala Bodhisattva. And he said to the Buddha, I think touch is best. Buddha said, how so, Bhadrapala Bodhisattva? He said, well, one day I went to the baths with my sixteen friends. So sixteen bodhisattvas and they were all male bodhisattvas in this case because they were on the men's side of the bath area.

[36:43]

He said, when I entered the baths, when I touched the water, I entered the way. So when you wash your face or when you wash your body and when you touch the water, When you touch the water and in the touch there's just a touch, this is the mind like a wall through which we enter the way. So for him, touch was the way. It's a sensory experience that occurred to him while he was washing the body. So all the things we do to care for our body, touching, tasting, smelling and thinking, Each one of these, in non-grasping, becomes a good door to the way. And body and mind of themselves drop away.

[37:49]

And they drop away through non-grasping. and when they drop away, your original face manifests. You see your original face and your original face is your bath water, the taste of your toothpaste, your friend's face, your enemy's face, a blue jay's beak, whatever. Whatever it is, you see your original face, the face you had before your parents were born and the face you'll have after your children are dead. You get to see that when body and mind drop away through not attaching to the experiences of body and mind, through not grasping One day, Dogen remembered a story.

[39:08]

He remembered a conversation he had with his teacher when he was in China. His teacher was teaching him. His teacher said something about, he said some kind of things that sounded a little sectarian, which I won't repeat because I don't want to pollute you with anything that sounds sectarian. But anyway, he said that the Buddha ancestors' meditation practice that in the Buddha ancestors' meditation practice, in their sitting practice, the vow to save all beings, the spirit of great compassion is the primary thing of their sitting. They are not concerned in their sitting that they attain great samadhis or that they attain great concentration. This is not their primary concern. I just might parenthetically mention that they sometimes do get quite concentrated, those Buddha ancestors.

[40:13]

It happens sometimes that they become very stabilized and calm. But this is not their primary agenda. But they accumulate great samadhi power. Their primary agenda is the welfare of all beings. That's at the beginning and the middle and the end of all their sittings is this vow. Therefore, they sit, these Buddha ancestors sit in the middle of the ordinary world. They have the ability, some of them, to go to heavens, which some of you may figure, well, so what? I can't go there anyway. But anyway, they could go there, but they don't. They sit in the middle of the ordinary world, like they sit in rooms like this with people like us. That's where they sit. And they sit with this spirit of great compassion. They sit in the center of the world of suffering. And they always practice with this vow, life after life, world after world.

[41:24]

And sitting in this way, in the middle of suffering, the world of suffering, of all beings suffering, with this vow, they attain this soft mind, or flexible mind, or sometimes translated as meek mind. It means meek, soft, flexible, various ways to translate it. the character, the Chinese character, looks very leafy, kind of like a little bush. They attain this pliant mind by sitting in the middle of the world of suffering for a long time. They attain it. Great flexibility.

[42:26]

And then Dogen asks Bujing, his teacher, well, what is this flexible mind thing? And there's two different ways it's translated. I think they're both kind of interesting. It's Tayo's name, right, Tayo? It's part of Tayo's name. It's flexible mind. Have you got that flexible mind yet? Have you attained that yet? So Dogen says, one question is, what is this flexible mind? And one answer is, it is the vow of Buddha ancestors to drop off body and mind. So by sitting up, and that this vow to drop off body and mind is the seal

[43:31]

of the Buddha ancestor's mind. It's like that. The seal of approval of a Buddha ancestor's mind is to have this softness which they attain by sitting in the world of suffering for many lifetimes. So one understanding is that what this this quality of their mind is That they have a mind which has arisen in the middle of the world, of sitting in the world of suffering, and its seal is that it's characterized not only by the vow to benefit all beings, but also the vow to drop off body and mind. The vow to not grasp anything in mind or body. So to me, that translation makes a lot of sense. In other words, that if you sit here in this world of suffering with this vow for a long time, you will actually, I mean, it will arise in you to wish to actually not attach to anything.

[44:46]

If you really want to help people and you actually sit with these suffering people, if you really want to help all beings, not just people, but also various kinds of, I don't know, in Asia they don't like insects very much because, you know, insects are like, they don't have, this is in the days before they could kill them effectively. So insects were a big part of their life. So they say even insects who are probably crawling over us right this minute, even these insects that are biting me right now, I want them to be free. Bow. Sitting here, finally I attain the mind which is I really want to not attach to anything. I really want to let body and mind drop. Can you imagine you might really want that? That you really might want to not attach to anything if you sat that way for a long time? The other translation is a little bit different.

[45:48]

It says, after being told about how these Buddha ancestors attain this flexible mind, the question is, how do we attain this mind? And Ru Jing says, to actualize Buddha ancestors dropping a body and mind is the essence of this mind. So that's sort of saying that this mind, you attain it by actualizing the dropping of body and mind. So that's saying rather than you sit this way for a long time and you wish to, you vow to attain dropping a body and mind. This is saying you sit this way for a long time and you actualize dropping a body and mind, and that's the flexible mind. So in one case, the flexible mind is the willingness to drop body and mind.

[46:51]

The other case is that the essence of this thing that you attain is dropping body and mind. But the second translation in some sense doesn't make sense in terms of the question because he says, how do you attain it? And he just told, I guess it does, how do you attain it? And he just said, you attain it when you attain this other thing. You attain flexible mind when you attain dropping of body and mind. Or rather, flexible mind is attained in the attainment of dropping body and mind. So if you look at that, then maybe what happens is that if you sit with that vow, if you sit with the vow to benefit all living beings for a long time, you sit for a long time to benefit all living beings, then you actualize. you attain the mind whose essence is the dropping off of body and mind.

[47:54]

So body and mind happens by you sitting this way. But the unsaid thing is that sitting this way with this vow means sitting this way with this vow and that's the end of the story. You're sitting here for the welfare of all beings. That's primary and there's no secondary. You're not sitting here wishing to save all sentient beings and grasping things in your mind. You're sitting here not grasping things in your mind and all that's going on is the wish to benefit all beings. And things are arising and ceasing That's going on too, but there's no grasping of these things. So everything's happening, there's a wish to save all sentient beings, and there's no grasping after anything.

[48:57]

Which is actually what's going on anyway, right? Except we sometimes think we are grasping after something. So then we feel afflicted by the grasping and disturbed by the grasping. Have you noticed that? I know of actually somebody who's noticed that. Matter of fact, he told me that he notices it quite often. He's actually done a census of his mind. And I don't know if he was kidding, but it came out, the census came out with kind of an interesting result. he's kind of you probably heard this figure before actually it's quite often used so he might have been just exaggerating or just being silly or whatever but anyway he said that 99.9% of the time he notices he's grasping or he notices he grasps 99.9% of the time that he grasps after things in his mind

[50:17]

and one, you know, one hundredth of one percent of the time he's noticed he doesn't grasp. That's on the average, right? It doesn't mean, like, he goes 99.9 and then does one and then goes another. Sometimes he does three of them in a row, three of the non-graspings in a row, and then does, like, what is it, like, 296 point, you know, whatever, And the way he expressed this, you know, this once in a great while, you know, one hundredth of one percent of the time when he doesn't grasp is he said, I do sometimes see, I have seen that a mess is just a mess. Now, all of us have seen messes, but have you ever seen that a mess is just a mess without anything further?

[51:37]

Ever seen that? Just a mess and that's it? Without like, I wish it would go away, or my mess is better than her mess, or her mess is not as messy as my mess. Just a mess is a mess. This guy once saw, once in a while he sees that mess is just a mess. And right now I feel like I did when I heard that. I feel goosebumps. I have tears in my eyes because this is emptiness. The fact that a mess is just a mess is the emptiness of mess, is ultimate truth. Ultimate truth is, you know what messes are? They're just messes. That's it, that's all they are. They're nothing more than that. And they're nothing less than that. They just are a mess.

[52:41]

Once in a while, you get to see that. Which is like touching the water when you go in the bathtub. Just touch it. It's a touch. And then the touch is just a touch. A touch is just a touch. That's it. And you know, kind of like, you know, I'm Mr. Encouragement, right? So when I hear that somebody had a moment of a mess just being a mess, I'm very happy that somebody on this planet had such an experience as a mess is just a mess. This is like a wonderful thing to hear about. It's possible that this can happen, that your mess can just be a mess. But this poor person wants to know how that can happen more often. This is grasping again, right?

[53:47]

Well, how can I remember that? Why do I remember that? That's grasping. At the moment that the mess was just a mess, you didn't say, now how can I remember that this mess is just a mess? You just mess is a mess, that's it. Then you slip into, well, how can this happen again? You're not into a mess, it's just a mess anymore. You're into, that was great that that mess was just a mess. I want more of that. So mostly, once a person's seen this, they spend so many other moments trying to have a mess just be a mess again. So now they're in the mess of trying to get the mess that's just a mess back. Understandable, but still it's so wonderful that this has happened to this person, that there was such a moment. It makes a life worthwhile, one moment like that.

[54:52]

And That one moment will eventually, if this person then says, I take refuge in that moment. I don't cling to that moment. I return to that moment. I take refuge in that moment. That's the way I want to live. This will eventually realize Buddhahood. And if you sit here in this world of suffering, such a moment will occur when a mess is just a mess. So if you try to remember it, you're grasping. If you remember it, you're not grasping. Just remember, hey, a mess is just a mess. So what? Oh, so what?

[55:54]

What do you mean, so what? A mess is just a mess. Wow. Now, how can I remember that again? No, forget that. Let go of it. Do not grasp this wonderful thing of a mess just being a mess. Do not. That's worse than trying to grasp, or even once you do have a mess, it's a mess, and then grasp it. That's worse than fighting the mess, trying to get rid of the mess. That's really bad. So do not grasp that. That's called grasping emptiness. Losing it and trying to get it back is not so bad. But having it and holding it, that's really bad, really harmful. Again, that's not most people's problem. This is called meditation illness. So you just sit with this great vow and the willingness to drop body and mind, which is the same as the willingness to have a mess just be a mess, will be attained.

[57:12]

trying, me trying to have that experience is not wishing that other beings would be free. That's wishing that I will be a great yogi. I will have this wonderful experience again. Or if not again, for the first time someday I will be able to be a great yogi. This is not the vow. The vow is, I hope that they will all be great yogis And I vowed to be a great yogi to help them. But I'm not concerned primarily about my spiritual attainments. And in that space I have a chance to have a glimpse of what it's like to have this mind which is not trying to get something and really sees

[58:18]

that the touch is just a touch. So I'd like to end with a heretical song. The beginning of it's heretical. It gets better after that. You must remember this. A mess is just a mess. A sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply as time goes by. And when two lovers woo, they still say you're a mess.

[59:23]

On this you can rely, no matter what the future brings as time goes by. I think it goes, moonlight, no, no, no, no, no, no. But since Vernon's in the room, I won't try that more complicated part. Was it going through anybody else's? A mess is just a mess, right? How can you avoid... Huh? But when I heard a mess is just a mess, I think a kiss is just a kiss. A kiss is just a kiss. How about that? Maybe we could have a ceremony where we kiss each other and see. If the kiss is just a kiss.

[60:29]

Well, that kiss was just a kiss, but this one wasn't. This is like a keeper. Let's have one more of those. What? Yes. May our intention

[60:58]

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