Quite a few of you people are not old-time Zen students, right? Some of you are fairly new to practicing Zen. Is that right? Anyway, some of the oldest members of the community are taking a course on basic counseling skills. to supplement our usual skills. And the psychologist who's teaching the class said something like, these people are the most unresponsive people I've ever met. The other day in the class he was talking to us and he said, he said, almost no one was looking at me. They just sat there looking down. A bit of a problem we had here.

[01:07]

Now, little did he know that they were sitting there totally absorbing what he was saying, you know, deeply moved by each thing. Since he was the teacher and the therapist, they didn't think they needed to tell him. Anyway, that just occurred to me when I looked at your faces, because... Now you people are sort of looking at me. A few more years. Anyway, what I want to talk about today is what we call Right View. In early Buddhism it was called Right View. or right attitude, and in later Buddhism called the thought or attitude of enlightenment. To start out, I might mention that early on in Buddha's teaching career, he taught what is called the Eightfold Noble Path

[02:26]

This was his summary of the practice. And these eight folds, or these eight aspects of his teaching, which are also eight aspects of reality itself, because in fact reality is practicing. It's not like reality is doing practicing, but practicing is reality. And it has these eight aspects. One is called, first is called Right View. In Sanskrit, Samyak, Pali, Samyak, Sanskrit, Samyak Drishti. And then, that's the one I want to talk about today. Then we have Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

[03:34]

These are the eightfold path. Now, am I speaking loudly enough for the people in the back? No. Could you hear what I said about those eight? Yes. You can hear it, but you want me to talk a little louder anyway? Okay, so... I see. Well, that's the case of everything I'm saying. This is just review, right? Okay, so first is right view, right intention, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. So it seems like one through eight, but actually it's a circle.

[04:35]

You start with right view and you end up with right concentration, but then the right concentration is on the right view. So it goes round and round. And also, If you have the right attitude or right view when you do your concentration, that produces an even more correct view. And the view keeps evolving and so does the concentration. The whole process keeps evolving round and round. But I want to emphasize the right view part. I've said this before and I'll say it again. There are wholesome activities that we can do. For example, to pay attention to what you're doing is wholesome. To drive a car carefully is a wholesome thing to do.

[05:41]

To not drive too fast is wholesome, and so on. To not eat too much or drink too much. These are wholesome things. To pay attention to how you put your feet on the earth. It's wholesome. These are wholesome yogic activities. We even have a course here at Green Gulch on driving as a yogic practice. And yogic practices are wholesome, they produce beneficial results, and that's good. However, if these wholesome activities, these yogic practices are done in conjunction with the right view, the right attitude, or the proper orientation, then these wholesome activities become liberating activities. They do more than just make our life more pleasant and give us good opportunities for awakening.

[06:46]

They actually use these opportunities for setting us free and helping others too. So there are many yogic activities that I did, like the ones I just mentioned. Anything you do really with wholeheartedly concentrating on the activity is a yogic activity. But your attitude is very important, too. So this right attitude, as I just mentioned, is the first on the list of all the Buddhist practices. And it's also the last on the list. And again, if you'll excuse me, I'll use the Sanskrit word samyak. Samyak means right. or correct or proper. And drishti means a view. And actually it means a philosophical view. In other words, not just like, oh, looking at something, but actually a position that you take.

[07:55]

It's a rigid view. And this view is traditionally broken down into five types. For example, one view is called, actually called Satkaya Drishti. In other words, it's the view which thinks that the body is true, that actually thinks that our body is a true thing and attaches and holds the position of the existence of a body. which is the same as, in that sense, holding on to a self. It's the view of the substantiality of a self. That's one view. It's a philosophical position which most people hold at some point in their life or all the way through. Another view is called the Srila Bharata Paramarsha, which means adhering or holding on to conventional theories of conduct.

[08:58]

And in Buddhism we have precepts, and in your home you may have precepts, and in some societies there are precepts of conduct. And to hold to those precepts and to have an understanding of those precepts and to hold to your understanding of those precepts is this kind of fixed view. It seems like you're trying to be moral, but actually you're just holding to your idea of what they mean. You have a fixed position on what they mean. You think you know what it means to not kill or to not steal or whatever. And to hold to your idea. These precepts should not be actually viewed this way. You should always, rather than hold them or hold to your understanding of them, they are to be studied. They are to be practiced. And we should approach them with a question of how are these practiced? Am I doing this properly rather than I am a righteous person because I do these things this way.

[10:05]

So that's an example of another fixed philosophical view that I know what's right and this is the way I do it and I do it or don't do it, is also the philosophical position of holding to the extremes of annihilationism or eternalism, namely that things are going on forever, or that things actually are destroyed. These are two extreme positions. And so on. There's these drishtis, these views. And in short, the right view is what we call, in shorthand, in Zen we call the right view, no view. But no view doesn't mean you don't have a view. It means you don't have a fixed view. It means if I have a view, I always have a view. We cannot have a view. But it means that I don't hold to my view, that I can take different points of view. And other people's points of view are different from mine, and I can appreciate them.

[11:09]

Although I don't really understand them necessarily, I can enter into a dialogue with other points of view. I can move. So it's a participatory type of view with other beings. This is no view. Let's see. Let me give you one little kernel of something. And if you want to talk about it more, question and answer, we can. And that is that in Buddhism, I heard somebody say that in any deep religious tradition, eventually they'll get into scholasticism. And there is a scholastic tradition in Buddhism, which we sometimes call Abhidharma,

[12:14]

And in that scholastic tradition, they have a list of ultimate elements of existence. And one of my teachers in Abhidharma was having a discussion with another Abhidharma teacher, and one of them said, blah-de-blah, drishti. They use that Sanskrit word, which means view. And the other one said, well, drishti is not one of those ultimate elements. View is not one of those ultimate elements. And the other one said, well, how can it not be? It must be. I mean, look at all the discussion about drishti. They wouldn't be talking about something that didn't exist. And what they found out was that the reason why drishti wasn't on the list of these elements is because drishti was appearing under another heading. The heading it was appearing under was it was appearing under wisdom or insight. They didn't include drishti under fixed view.

[13:20]

They included it under this no view and insight. And realizing that, they had quite an interesting discussion, which I can go into later. So right view. Today, basically, I'd speak about it as, you might say, keeping your eye on the ball. Have you heard that term? It's kind of a sports term, isn't it? Keep your eye on the ball. Is that a familiar term to most people? So, as you enter into any kind of spiritual practice, before you start, you should figure out what the ball is and keep your eye on it all the way through. All the way through. And in a number of sports, particularly I know football, baseball, and golf, it's very important to keep your eye on the ball.

[14:35]

Even though you don't think it's your job, like if you're just a blocker or something, you still should keep your eye on the ball because actually the ball is kind of where it's at. I mean, let's say your job was to block, you know? But the ball was sitting there. You're supposed to block this guy, but the ball's there. Well, you should pick the ball up and make a touchdown. Just take it and run away with it in the right direction. Don't hold rigidly to your assignment if the ball appears. And in golf, too, I don't play golf much. I used to play when I was a kid, but recently I went to play golf with a friend, and I became aware of how important and difficult it is to keep your eye on the ball when you're swinging. You ever tried to do that? Bring this club up and you bring it down very, very rapidly. And if you can keep your eye on the ball, a lot of good stuff will happen with the ball and the club. And even if it doesn't happen, you'll see what happens and you'll learn.

[15:41]

But there's a strong tendency as you come through to look up. And then it's kind of like, good luck. The club goes all kinds of strange places if you don't look at the ball. It basically kind of like... I suppose if you're really a good swinger, just you can depend on your bodily movement to sort of guide it. But still, keeping your eye down there is quite difficult and very helpful. And the same in Buddhism, if you keep your eye on the ball. What is the ball? In early Buddhism, the ball was... impermanence was the ball keep your eye on impermanence if you can keep your eye on impermanence then when you do these various practices you do them with the right attitude namely yes you're doing them but you're not exactly getting anywhere or accomplishing anything because everything you accomplish is fleeting away and yet you continue to do the practices because keeping your eye on the ball helps you not only

[16:52]

be free of obtaining something or grabbing something on the way, but simultaneously encourages you to keep going. It encourages you to make the effort without clinging to any fruits. So it's a nice combination of driving you forward and keeping you pure, if you keep your eye on that ball. Another way they talk about the ball is basically the ball, keep your eye on selflessness. But that may be hard to see at first. So there are exercises in how to experience, how to examine your experience of a self and try to find out what it really is. So in Buddhism, one of the first teachings of Buddha was the teaching of no self. But no-self does not mean that there isn't a self. No-self is a nickname for the correct understanding of self.

[18:01]

The correct understanding of self is called no-self. Or realizing what the self really is, the true nature of the self we call no-self. Just because... We would like to say, well, the true nature of self is such and such or so and so, but we can't think of anything that really hangs in there that will really characterize it. So we just revert to, well, all I can say is no self. That's the least misleading thing I can say about the self. Because anything I tell you about the self, you would think, well, then that's what he chose to say about the self, so that's what the self is. But the self isn't any particular thing. It can be anything. Absolutely any experience could be a self. So there isn't something called a self. Now, most of us kind of think, well, there is such a... I mean, I'm sort of a limited thing, aren't I? Well, yes, I am, but that's not... I'm limited, but what I'm limited to is constantly changing.

[19:09]

So actually, no self means a self is totally free. and you can't predicate it really at all. So if you can keep that no-self attitude, that's another way to keep your eye on the ball, so to speak, as you try to live your life or as you try to do these other practices. And again, you may hear somebody say, Buddhism denies the existence of the self. But that does not mean that Buddhism says that there is no self. It just means it denies the existence of a self in any way you can specify, finally, or uniquely. And that should be good news because, again, that sets the self free. We must have a self. It's just that we can't say what it is. And there's something wonderful about us that we're willing to dedicate ourselves to...

[20:12]

to take care of something which we don't know what it is. There's no sharp line between the the way I've been talking and the way I'm going to talk next. Namely, I've been talking somewhat oriented towards the earlier teachings of the Buddha, the teachings of the so-called individual vehicle, or the teachings of how to set your individual self free. Then the next kind of teaching is a teaching called universal vehicle, or the vehicle that is to set all beings free. the vehicle of this enlightening being, or the bodhisattva.

[21:20]

Again, there's no sharp separation here, but you can discriminate between the two. I mean, there is a sharp separation, but they're not really two different things exactly. They're one, and yet they're not one. So in the bodhisattva tradition, or the tradition of universal vehicle, This right attitude is called right attitude, but it's also called bodhicitta, which means the thought of enlightenment, or the enlightened attitude, or the enlightened orientation towards reality or towards the practice. Now these enlightening beings, these bodhisattvas, are in very close connection with each other. They're aware of each other. And their awareness of each other is called the bliss body of Buddha.

[22:29]

In other words, they're very happy being enlightening beings and they're very happy that they have some friends. And they're very happy to experience their connection with the other beings that are working to benefit all living creatures. But they aren't aware of each other like, oh, exactly like, oh, hi there, Gil. How are you? Or, hi, Nancy. I'm glad to see you're working there. And it's not exactly that kind of awareness. It's more awareness that they're taking care of their work. And by taking care of their work, they find out that they're doing the same work as the other ones. In other words, we're connected through our work. not connected through our, like looking over at the other person as a separate person that you're connected to. You're connected actually through the essential function of your effort. Because all the bodhisattvas are looking at the same thing. They're all focused on the same issue, which is the issue at hand.

[23:32]

other words the issue or the fundamental is right at hand and they're always looking at that they're looking at uh how the fundamental is coming through this situation in other words they're looking at non-duality and the fact of being focused on this they share And the fact of being focused on this is their helping activity. They keep their eye on this ball, non-duality, and this is simultaneously their helping activity. Another way to say this is that they forget the self. Their orientation is having forgotten the Self.

[24:36]

They are studying, like all of us, or we are studying, like all of us, we are bodhisattvas too, and we are studying, and what we're studying is the Self. So again, keeping your eye on the ball is to keep your eye on the Self. But to keep your eye on the Self, or to study the Self, Truly, when you really do get into studying the self, what you find out is that the self is ungraspable, and you find out that the self would best be typified as no self. So the bodhisattvas find out the same thing as the early individual vehicle people. Or as Dogen Zenji puts it, when you study the self, you forget the self. When you really study the self, you forget the self. And to forget the self means that everything that happens in your life is awakening.

[25:42]

That's awakening. Sound of my voice, feeling of your back. Everything that happens is awakening. If everything that happens is awakening, that's what it means to forget the self. So, in other words, your eye is on the ball all the time. Everything you see, it isn't like, you know, you're eating an ice cream cone and then your eye's over there on the ball. The ball's over there, sort of over to the side or down in front of you or something. When you're eating the ice cream cone, the ball is right there. It's right if you're eating the ice cream. If you're tasting it, the ball is in the taste. It's not in the taste, but it's not separate from the taste either. It doesn't depend on the taste, but it's not independent of the taste. How can you wake up by eating an ice cream cone?

[26:48]

Well, that's the only place you can at that time. To keep your eye on the ball means your eyes on the ball at that time, too. That's your orientation towards that activity. You're always in this place. Or I shouldn't say... Anyway, not to say you're always in this place, but to keep your eye on the ball, to share the view of these enlightening beings is to find this place, really find this place. And if you can find this place, then all your actions that come forth from this place actualize the fundamental point or realize the issue at hand. They realize it at hand or at this place, if you find this place.

[27:49]

So the right attitude to approach our life is from this place. And this place has, you can't say what this place is, and yet it is always very clearly here. The fundamental comes to a point. It always comes to a point. The point is here. And when I say here, I should clarify, I don't mean Zen Center or Green Gulch or up here where I am. I mean here for me, but I also mean here is for where you are, wherever you are. Reality or the ball is continuous, uninterrupted. unobstructed, because it has no opposite. It has no opposite.

[28:58]

It flows into everything. The opposite of reality is reality. The opposite of a fact is a fiction. But if you turn reality upside down, you get upside down reality, which is reality. You can't get rid of it. But do you live that way? Do you live in an un-get-rid-able reality? What is it that flows through all your activities? What is the fundamental that keeps coming to a point in your experience? You don't have to say. You just live that way. The great issue is of birth and death, the great and most important thing is always right at hand. Or that's another way to say, everything that happens is awakening, or you are awakened by everything that happens.

[30:03]

Now, I guess if I say, do you feel like everything that happens is awakening, or are you awakened by everything? What do you say? You say, no, I suppose, huh? Or you say, not everything, anyway. Well, it seems like, am I talking loudly enough? No. If I ask you that question, you may say, no, I don't really feel that way. But can you ever feel that way? Like something, you feel awakened by something? Well, start there then. And at that time, I ask you, did you forget the Self at that time? I don't want to make too strong a case for it, but that's where I would suggest, right around in there where you are awakened by something, you forget the Self. And awakened by something sometimes means that you're surprised by something.

[31:15]

You see someone Maybe you expect them to look a certain way and you experience how different they look from the way you experience. Almost like waking from a dream. The way people actually, not the way they actually are, but the way I or you actually experience them is always different than we expect. And in that case, each experience is a surprise and an awakening from the dream of what we thought it was going to be. If it's something we planned on in a way. And if you're talking to someone and you keep your eye on what's going on, they keep surprising you. If you get lazy, then you think, oh, that's pretty much what I expected. Basically the face is the face I thought it was gonna be a second ago. The nose is about in the right place, the eyes are still pretty much in the same spot. I mean, for all practical purposes, it's the same face. And I can look away and look back, oh, it's pretty much the same. And as I mentioned a while ago, that attitude is the source of burnout.

[32:25]

That lazy attitude of looking at something and not being surprised. Of sitting on a chair and not being surprised that it holds you up. If you do that, this is what you call, this is what kills, this is what takes our life away. And again, if you sit on a chair once, and before you sit on it, you expect it to hold you up, and then it does hold you up, you may think, well, that wasn't so tiring. I survived that all right. But if you do it again and again and again and again, you'll dry up and lose your life. And also the example of like if you're a runner or a postal delivery person, if when you're running on the ground, you assume that the ground's going to hold you up,

[33:36]

and you don't have to think about whether your foot's going to be supported or not. You can run that way for a long time, but eventually you'll hurt yourself very badly. You'll kill yourself. You'll really reduce your energy, and you'll burn out. But if you don't know when the floor is going to hold you up, each step, you're really not sure how it's going to be, where it's going to be. You can run like that forever, and you can also stop running. and you won't get burned out. And the same way, meeting a person or meeting anything, if you don't notice how surprised you are by the way it really is. In other words, being surprised, I'm saying, is like being awakened. A friend of mine was at Tassajara and she was having a dream, but she was walking in her sleep.

[34:39]

And she walked out of her cabin in her underwear in the middle of the night. It was in the winter too, I think. And she walked out of her cabin and she walked up to the mountain and started climbing the mountain. And as she was reaching up, climbing a rock face, as she was reaching up, she woke up. Looking at the rock and the blue sky. Can you imagine that? Opening your eyes in a dream and seeing a blue sky. Or waking up in the morning and seeing a blue sky instead of your ceiling of your room. And holding on to a cliff. Well, that's kind of awakening, isn't it? Awakening to a different world than you thought you were in. this kind of thing is happening all the time actually unless you say it's not and i asked you a few minutes ago if it was and you said it wasn't i said is this happening all the time and you honestly said i don't think so but that's what that's what makes it not happen is that you're holding you remember yourself you know you remember yourself so i say are you awakened by everything you remember oh no i'm not not me

[36:01]

Or, this isn't awakening. If you forget yourself, you'll also forget what awakening is. And if I ask you, if you're awakened by everything that happens, you might say, strangely enough, yes. You could also say no. You can say whatever you want. But the reason why you say yes or the reason why you say no is not based on your idea of what awakening is and whether it checked out according to your standards. Our standards of what awakening means are just that. And if it weren't for those standards, in fact, everything would be awakening. because without those standards you also wouldn't be able to you also would forget the self so what is the ball again ball is to be awakened by everything or to forget the self

[37:16]

So I would naturally ask, and I think maybe some of you are thinking, well, how again do you awaken, how again do you forget the self? And again, I said, be awakened by everything that happens. How do you be awakened by everything that happens? There's no way to do that. But in fact, it's just that everything that happens does awaken us. These things that are happening to you right now and that are happening to me right now, these things are awakening us from a dream. And the self is forgotten at that juncture. And there's no way to prove this or disprove it. Well, you can disprove it, but there's no way to prove this. There's no self to apply to the situation. Last night we had a party here and the kids did some artwork.

[38:58]

Of course, these are Zen Center kids, so they don't have the same background as some other kids. But anyway, they made some artwork. And one of the pictures was of a big blue car. And inside the car was a Buddha. Buddha was driving the car. And there was a road and so on, and there was a sign by the road, and it said, Enlightenment. And then it had arrows on the sign, and it had arrows pointing in both directions. And then under the arrows it said, Unknown number of miles. Now, unknown number of miles, of course, one of the numbers which we're not sure of could be, of course, zero.

[40:04]

It could be not at least a bit far away. As a matter of fact, if the arrows are pointing in both directions, maybe this is enlightenment, right? It comes from here and goes this way and that way from here. After all, Buddha is driving the car. So, in fact, Buddha is driving the car. That's the only way it can possibly be. Buddha has to be driving the car. However, if you don't want to go that way, we can give you a ride over to where Buddha is driving the car. But really, when you get there, you'll find out Buddha is driving the car. Now, I say that, but again, remember that when Buddha's driving the car, the self is forgotten.

[41:07]

It's not Buddha sitting in the car saying, I'm Buddha driving the car, and isn't it great? It's not necessarily like that. It's just driving the car. And it's just, you know, the fumes and the traffic jam, or the lack of such. It's just what's happening that's awakening you. It's the only way. And that is... That's happening without any self being attributed to that. That's just the things happening as the things happening. All things are advancing forth and confirming themselves. But again, maybe take away the selves and just say all things are advancing forward and confirming all things. Steering wheels are advancing forward and being steering wheels. Or the feel of the steering wheel is the feel of the steering wheel. And that's awakening. Because the feel of the steering wheel is never what I thought it would be. And enlightenment is never what I thought it would be.

[42:10]

I didn't think it would be this. But so what? And you may be sad that it's not what you thought it would be. But the message from the ancestors is, if it's not what you thought it would be, that's exactly the way it always is. It's never what we thought it would be. It hasn't happened that anybody, it ever turned out to be what anybody ever thought it was going to be. But you see, that's what it means to forget the self. Again, if you think it's going to be this, it's not going to be this. If you think it's going to be that, it's not going to be that. If you think it's going to be the same as this, it's not going to be the same as this. If you think it's going to be different from this, it's going to be what it is.

[43:13]

It's not under our control. But, although it's not under control, it's continuous. It's running through everything. It's always right at hand. And it's not what we think it's going to be. It's like that. Keep your eye on that ball. And it's a real, you know, it's a hard one to keep an eye on. But it's hard to keep your eye on a golf ball, too. Isn't it? When you start swinging. If you're just standing there looking at a golf ball, okay, you can do that for quite a while. But take a swing. See if you can keep your eye on it. Take a swing and try to make a good hit. And then keep your eye on it. So we're trying to do quite a bit here. And with all of our activities of our life, it's pretty hard to keep your eye on this ball. Even now, while I'm talking and you're listening to me, you probably can hardly remember the ball. If I would shut up, it'd be easier for you to remember the ball. But in fact, things keep happening. So it's hard to keep returning to the issue at hand while things are happening so totally energetically.

[44:22]

So I'm not saying it's easy to keep it, but I hope anyway you do. Hope I do too. So this is the right attitude or the awakened attitude with which we do our life, our good life. This is the attitude with which we do the various things which we do. This is the way Buddha does Buddha's work. Something like this, not quite like this. Is that all I really think I need?

[45:25]

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