welcome Reverend Anderson, who spent with us about five days. He has been at us a number of times before. He also spent some time with us in one previous month's long. He became an abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center and also the Tassajara hot springs. We just spent some time recently when he and brother David Stegler-Rast were doing a baptism for Fritcher of Congress's daughter, Juliet. And at that time, Reb also mentioned that Dr. Juliet was born on the day when he became Abba. We will be doing some practical Zen meditation with him.

[01:02]

He also, I hope, will talk about the history of Zen, about the principles of Zen, and that we had a very special request for him to do something on the problem of spiritual emergencies and the hindrances of the spiritual past from the Zen perspective. Wonderful for everyone. I feel a little bit at a loss for what is most appropriate this morning, since I don't know what you were doing yesterday and day before and so on. But I'll just put... So we talked a little about the historic Buddhism in general and specifically about Vipassana.

[02:18]

And then we had Wilson Smith who talked about Buddhism theoretically. Well, I thought, since I don't have so much time, I guess I have to recognize that I want to, I have unrealistic hope to accomplish a great deal in a short period of time with you all. And this is just a kind of a hope that I have. So I have to restrain myself and I have to fundamentally first of all, not accomplish anything. When we only have a little bit of time, then maybe it's easier for us to understand Buddhism.

[03:26]

If we think we have many more years to study, we may not have the proper attitude So I'm kind of thinking, I only have this morning with you, and therefore we can't accomplish really anything. Actually, I'm going to be here a few more days, but I don't count that time. Zen is a nice short word, isn't it? Just three letters in it. And it's such a nice little word that people use it for many other purposes, like there's Zen in the art of this and Zen in the art of that.

[04:30]

Are you familiar with those kinds of things? In San Francisco, there's Zen hairstyling. And there's Zen cigarettes in Japan. Because it's a nice short word, you know. Graphically, it's easy to do things with it. That Z, you know, and then you can do all kinds of nice things with the E in the end. But one of the essential points is that there's nothing to accomplish. and that there's nothing to learn. And this statement is also kind of one-sided in itself, but I still said it. The word Zen is the name of a school of Buddhism, and

[05:41]

Zen itself is the key which unlocks the teachings of awakening, the teachings of Buddha. For example, I just a minute ago gave you a teaching. I don't know if you noticed. The teaching was, really there's nothing, you don't have to learn anything. That's the teaching. the teaching that the processes that you're experiencing right now are themselves, just as they are, complete, perfect, unobstructed freedom. That's teaching. I've heard it before,

[06:47]

It's been said before I heard it. And I'll say it again. Zen is what unlocks that teaching and makes you see that it's your life. So in a limited sense, Zen means concentration or absorption. In other words, the The situation or the state of absorption or concentration is the state in which what I just said becomes realized. In state of concentration you can have a chance, an opportunity to realize that what's happening to you itself is the immutable knowledge of all the awakened ones. Otherwise, it's just maybe a nice story or a nice idea.

[07:59]

Absorption can have many, many kinds of absorption. But the one that I thought I would bring to you today, which maybe Jack already talked to you about, is absorption on the breathing process. You've already been working with this, haven't you son? It's pretty simple. You just devote your attention to your breath. You become attentive to your inhaling and exhaling. Right now, are you inhaling or exhaling?

[09:55]

Are you able to do that? Anybody have any problems with that? Unable to do that? You are? You'd rather you find yourself paying attention, going away from it? You're resistant to breathing, or you're resistant to being aware of your breathing? Did you try it just now at all? What happened that you had trouble? What was the problem? My mind came up with being annoyed.

[12:30]

I get annoyed. I start thinking, this isn't what I want. Just angry stuff. It always comes up. It's not just... Is it uncomfortable? I said, no, it just feels bitchy. I feel bitchy. And I came in here not particularly bitchy. As soon as this came up, it's like breathing. As soon as the idea came up or as soon as you tried it? The idea of following your breathing or the actual following the breathing? No, I'm trying. Doing it, if I do it, then I usually give up that. When you asked, I was in the process of, Well, while I was sitting here, following my breathing, on one side I felt pretty comfortable, because it was kind of nice to follow my breathing.

[13:53]

And I guess I personally would think, gee, I might want to spend some more time doing that. You know, for my own personal comfort, I would be happy to do that, I think. Felt like it anyway. But I felt also uncomfortable, I felt uncomfortable though for the other people in the room. Because I thought, well maybe Maybe some people aren't doing it. Maybe I'm the only one who's doing it. So I thought maybe I should check. Maybe a good way to teach would be just to come here and me follow my breath, and if nobody else does, that's okay. And anyway, that's what I'm teaching, is following a breath, so I should just do it, I guess. But still, I thought, well, maybe I should come out and check just a little bit to see how you all are doing.

[15:03]

And sure enough, I found out there's some resistance. There's millions of reasons why you'd resist, like it's a different world. And even for me, I stopped following my breathing, too, to come and talk to you, to ask you how you were feeling. In a sense, that was my resistance to it. But it's a reasonable resistance, isn't it? Because here I should be concerned about you all. But then maybe I could actually follow my breathing through the resistance. And maybe you could, even while you're feeling bitchy, you could try to follow your breathing through that. And maybe I could follow my breathing even while I'm checking to see how you're doing.

[16:10]

Again, as a human being, I hesitate to intrude upon your life. But the other thing I want to tell you is that in following your breathing, it may be helpful if you sit up straight. You don't have to sit up straight if you don't want to. You might find it a little bit easier to experience it, not necessarily, if you try to sit with your back straight. Partly because it's a little bit more comfortable if you're back a straight.

[17:57]

And what is actually the experience of an inhale? What is the actual experience of an exhale? How does it feel? Where do you feel it? Do you feel it around your nostrils? Can you feel the breath there? If I check around my nostrils, I can feel something there.

[19:23]

And commonly I call this feeling, I guess it's the breath, moving against the surface of the nostrils. Also, I feel a difference between the inhale and the exhale. The inhale feels different from the exhale. Do you feel the difference between the two? Is one a little bit warmer than the other one? Is the inhale warmer than the exhale, or is the exhale warmer than the inhale? Also, I feel one of them is a little smoother than the other one.

[21:02]

Which one is smoothest? With these words that I'm saying, I bring my attention and perhaps your attention to the breath at the nose. Just being aware of the breath as it interacts with the sensitive surface around your nose, just being absorbed on that can be a key which will unlock the teachings of awakening.

[22:45]

This type of awareness is the medium in which you can learn who you really are. Can you feel, as you exhale, can you feel what happens in your chest?

[24:19]

Can you feel your diaphragm moving with the breathing? Can you feel the diaphragm go down when you inhale? and come up when you exhale. Then you feel the diaphragm going down and letting your lungs get bigger on the inhale. How about your lower abdomen?

[27:28]

What happens there as you inhale and exhale? your lower and your lower back how is it there as you inhale can you feel any difference between the inhale and exhale in your lower back

[28:42]

I find it easier to tell the difference between the inhale and the exhale in the abdomen than it is to find the difference between the inhale and the exhale in my lower back. How about you? The difference in the abdomen for me on inhale and exhale pretty easy to spot, but the difference in the lower back is pretty subtle. How about the middle of your spine? Can you feel the breath there? back of your neck and up into the base of your skull.

[31:49]

Can you feel the breath? Can you sense the breathing process through your whole spine? How about under your armpits? Can you feel the breath there? Sometimes it helps to move your arms a little bit away from your body so that you can feel the ribs.

[32:49]

Feel the skin under your armpits and the breathing going on there. and the ribs expanding sideways with the breath. feel the breathing in the palms of your hands.

[34:15]

soles of your feet. What I'm leading up to is to have a sense of your whole body breathing as your whole body being breathed and the whole body breathing.

[35:55]

whole body absorbed in the breathing process. I have been mentioning the gross parts of the body. What about the subtle parts of the body, the sense organs? Does the capacity of seeing, the capacity for sight, does it vary with the breathing?

[37:51]

Actually, I've been talking about the sense capacity of touch a lot. I've been asking you how does touch vary with the breath in these different parts of the body? But how about sight? How about hearing? Do they vary with the breathing? The drumming. The chainsaw. The surf.

[39:18]

I don't know about each one of you, but it feels to me that there's some tasting of Zen here, right now. And when this tasting, or even before this tasting of this concentrated aspect of our life is thoroughly fills our whole body and mind. Then you feel something is missing. By experiencing the concentrated quality of your existence,

[42:43]

The fact that you don't have to learn anything becomes a problem. Maybe it's a problem before you even start to get concentrated, but it becomes even a more more vital problem. The Buddha said, all living beings without exception fully possess the wisdom and virtue of all the awakened ones, of all the Buddhas.

[45:15]

But because of misconceptions and attachments, they do not realize it. Thinking about all living beings really means all of them. All kinds of human beings, trees, worms, cockroaches, fleas, ticks, rats.

[46:45]

And I was thinking, I thought of that partly because I feel kind of like a rat in a trap with all these tape recorders around me. And the people trying to catch the rat, pushing the bait closer. That's my question. So rats and people equally, fully possess the wisdom and virtues of awakening. But because of misconceptions and attachments, they do not realize it.

[47:54]

We, you individually, do not have to move from where you are right now in order to attain awakening, in order to be free. Where you are right now is the place where all Buddhas have attained freedom. However, because of misconceptions and attachments, we do not realize this. But if I tell you this

[49:12]

then your problem is not so much how to be somebody else or how to go someplace else, but your problem is how could this possibly be perfect freedom? This should be a problem for you. If it isn't, then you didn't really listen to me. Now the word karma is almost an English word, isn't it?

[50:46]

Maybe you can find it in the dictionary now, an English dictionary. Does everybody here know what the word karma means? Anyone who doesn't know what the word karma means? Karma means action. literally means action. And in common parlance, when people say, well, that's your karma, they often mean that's the result of your action. So karma comes to be used to refer to action of a living being and the results of those actions. And karma comes in three varieties.

[51:54]

The fundamental type is the karma of thought itself, thinking. Then, after that kind of karma, it ramifies into physical postures and vocal activity, speech. These are the three modes of activity of living beings. When there is life, there is consciousness.

[53:09]

When there is consciousness, there is karma or action. The basic kind of karma, the karma of thought, is defined as the overall pattern of a moment of consciousness. Or it's the tendency, the overall tendency of a moment of the consciousness or a moment of experience. That tendency can be translated into a physical posture or a vocal utterance.

[54:36]

These actions and their result are what we call the world. The world is the result of action. Fortunately or unfortunately, there seems to be another world.

[56:05]

A world of non-action. Or a world that's not created by karma. The atomically created and the uncreated are that which is born and that which dies and that which is not born and does not die.

[57:20]

These two realms in the body of truth are non-dual. The true aspect of awakening holds the realm of the created, the karmically created, and the realm of the uncreated, holds them in non-duality. this body of reality interacts with a living consciousness. It unerringly produces wisdom, compassion, all kinds of virtues and knowledges.

[58:27]

This reality body, this true aspect of Buddha, is constantly interacting with every living being. It's running into everything all the time, never stops. Nobody can make it start or stop. And it is, in fact, the perfect balance and perfect marriage of that which is not born and does not die and the world of the living. It is their perfect non-duality, and that non-duality interacts, of course, with one side of that non-duality called life. or living consciousness.

[59:37]

And when it interacts, it produces Buddha's wisdom and compassion in all living beings. So when this truth, this truth of non-duality, interacts with a cockroach, it produces Buddha's wisdom and compassion. But of course, because of our preconceptions and attachments, we do not realize this. When we see a cockroach, because of our preconceptions, we do not realize this. And it looks like the cockroach doesn't realize it either. Now, I have not spent much time studying cockroaches, to tell you the truth, so there may be some cockroaches that realize this. Actually, there is in Buddhism a little bit of a problem.

[60:41]

Although we say, although Buddha said, all living beings, even the dirtiest sewer rat, fully possesses the wisdom and compassion of Buddha. And he said, but because of preconceptions and attachments, they don't realize it. He also says that none of the rats can realize it. A kind of, perhaps, in modern days, Buddha may be accused of being a racist. Or anyway, what do you call it? A species-centered in terms of saying what's possible for different species. He said the rats fully possess the Buddha nature and the Buddha wisdom, but they don't realize it. Human beings usually don't realize it either. But they can.

[61:45]

All they have to do is realize that their preconceptions about what perfect life is are simply preconceptions. And even those preconceptions are completely non-dual with Buddha's wisdom. Even at the moment, that you think, I can't possibly be awake at that moment. That idea that you're not awake as an idea of not being awake is exactly the contents of non-dualistic wisdom. and is inseparable from it. Even while you say, I feel bitchy, that bitchiness, as exactly as bitchiness, is the contents of non-discriminating wisdom and is inseparable from it.

[63:08]

Buddhas are those who have awakened to the nature of delusion. They thoroughly understand what delusion is. Buddhas do not meditate on enlightenment. Enlightenment is not the content of Buddha's meditation, of Buddha's wisdom. The content of Buddha's wisdom, of non-discriminating wisdom, is the karmically created. And Buddhas know the karmically created as the karmically created. They have no illusions about illusion. They know illusion for what it is. Our emotions, our feelings, our physical sensations, our conceptions, all the wide variety of thoughts and mental constructions, these are the karmically created that compose our experience.

[64:45]

These things, as they are, is exactly the situation of awakening. But part of these things is to say, no. Buddhas are no longer fooled by this at all, and they actually realize the awakening which all of us are fully possessed and fully possessed of. There's another kind of spiritual entity that's important, which is called the bodhisattva. Buddha means I think Buddha is the past participle of buddh, which means to awake. Buddha is the past participle of awake, the awakened one. That's Buddha. But there's another term called bodhisattva, that same root, buddh, or bodhi, which means awakening, and sattva, being, the awakening being.

[65:57]

They are different from Buddhas, in that they have not yet fully realized awakening. They too fully possess Buddha's wisdom and virtues, but they have not yet realized it. But they are called bodhi beings or workers for awakening. workers for their own awakening and workers for the awakening of all beings, they have not realized Buddha's wisdom and compassion. And they will not do so until everyone else has.

[67:00]

and they realize that it is impossible to realize it until everyone else has. These are the two important types of workers for awakening and freedom. There's another type called a living being. Of course, Buddhas and bodhisattvas, or the awakened ones and the enlightened ones and the enlightening ones, or the manifestation of awakening itself, and the workers for that awakening, they are also living beings. But there's another kind of living being, are those who refuse to believe that they are bodhisattvas, who, because of their preconceptions, do not believe that their life is the unfoldment of awakening.

[68:09]

So there's three types. Buddhas are those who are awakened about what delusion is. Sentient beings or living beings are those who are deluded about what enlightenment is. Bodhisattvas are no longer deluded about what enlightenment is. They thoroughly believe this is it. They really believe this must be it. This is what I have to work with. But they can't yet realize it because they won't realize it until everybody else does. They have an attachment to their vow to save all other beings. They are still hindered by awareness itself. They are no longer hindered by

[69:10]

preconceptions about what awakening is. They really believe that the illusion as illusion is what they should be meditating on, and they do that, experience as experience. They're not deluded about what awakening is anymore, but they are still limited and hindered by awareness itself. by consciousness itself. And they're willing to do that. They're willing to do that. One of the most famous Zen stories is about a Zen teacher named Zhao Zhou, a Chinese Zen teacher who lived to be 119 He didn't care that it was impolite to live that long.

[70:14]

One day, a monk came to him and said, does a dog have Buddha nature? And Zhao Zhou said... The famous answer is he said, no. So, and he said it in Chinese, and the way he said it in Chinese was, I don't know exactly in the Tang Dynasty what the pronunciation of that character was, so I better not say. Some people think that the sound he made was the sound of a cow. Anyway, in Japanese, the way they say it is, moo. That's what they say he said, moo.

[71:21]

So that famous moo koan that you've heard about, moo, that's where this koan started. Does a dog have Buddha nature? And the Zen teacher said, moo. In other words, no. Doesn't mean no, but that's what he said. Another day, a less famous answer was, the monk said, does a dog have Buddha nature? And he said, yes. In Chinese, you. Then the monk said, well, if it has Buddha nature, why did it come into the skin bag of a dog? And Zhao Zhou said, because... it knowingly and willingly transgresses. The workers for enlightenment knowingly and willingly transgress.

[72:34]

They enter into the world of the karmically created, knowingly and willingly. Again, we all knowingly and willingly enter into the world of illusion. If you're bodhisattvas, you're honest and you say, yes, I do. I do that. Anyway, Zen is a tradition of these workers for enlightenment. People who, if you say, who knowingly and willingly transgresses, they raise their hand. I did it, I'm sorry. I did it. I entered the world. Out of compassion, awakening enters the world.

[73:40]

And takes as the topic of the meditation of awakening, takes as the topic, the karmically created. Various arrays of illusions, confusions, feelings, conceptions, emotions, you name it. the karmically created or illusion itself is the foundation for the existence of these enlightenment workers in the world. In that sense, Buddha is not really in the world. Buddha is no longer hindered by awareness itself.

[74:45]

And also Buddha is not hindered by preconceptions about what awakening is. Buddha has awakened and is awakening itself and is realized awakening and is realization beyond realization. There is this kind of Buddha. But the actual practice is the practice of those who are working for their own and others' awakening and freedom. And that is in the realm of illusion. and we don't wish to have a different topic. When I first came to study Zen in San Francisco, in one of the first lectures, I think maybe the first lecture I heard my teacher Suzuki Roshi give, he said at some point in the lecture,

[75:50]

enlightened. And I thought, uh-oh. Here I've given up most of my life and livelihood to come and study with this guy, and now he says he's not enlightened. But I thought, well, He's still about the most interesting person I've ever met, so I think I'll stay. Because I actually didn't come necessarily to meet somebody who was a Buddha or who was enlightened, but I came to meet someone who knew how to practice Buddha's way, who knew how to practice Buddha's meditation. That's what I really wanted to do.

[76:50]

So if he knew how to do that, and it seemed like I felt like he did. When I first met him, I thought, he knows how to do this practice, this sitting practice. So he can still teach me, even if he's not enlightened. He's such a kind person. I'll stay. The next week, he said, I am Buddha. I am Buddha. And I thought, this is more like it. And the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas are not dual. They're non-dual. They're not two different things. But... There is such a thing as called awakening and those who have awakened and those who are working for it.

[77:55]

There's those two things, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, not just one or the other. And they're not dual. They're non-dual. You can't separate them. You can't have Buddhas without these Bodhisattvas or Bodhisattvas without the Buddhas. It's like a mother and a daughter or something like that. and with parent and child. You can't have a parent without a child or a child without a parent. They're non-dual, but they're also not the same. One carries on the work of the other. One is the source of the other, but you can't separate them. In this way, we are sentient beings enlightening beings or enlightened beings, take your choice. And by the way, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are non-dual from the sentient beings.

[79:06]

It's just that the sentient beings are the ones who have the opinion, who have certain opinions about what awakening is. They're experts on awakening. The Buddhas are not experts on awakening. They don't know anything about awakening because they can't know anything about what they are. They're just it. If they moved a little bit over to the left or to the right and looked back at themselves, then they could see what awakening was and then they'd be experts on awakening too. Okay? And being experts on awakening, they would not be Buddhas anymore. They would be sentient beings. So you people probably don't think you're experts on awakening, right? Maybe some of you do think so. But if you don't know so much about awakening, then how do you know this isn't it?

[80:10]

And you think, well, I don't know that much about awakening, but I know at least enough to know that this isn't it. I know that much. I don't call that an expert, but... But really, if you don't believe that this is awakening, then you really do think you're more of an expert than me. Because I just told you it is. But not just more an expert than me, more of an expert than Buddha, who also said, the way you are right now is the wisdom and compassion of Buddha. But you're enough of an expert, so you don't quite believe that. Or do you? If you do, then you're not an expert on awakening anymore. And if you're not an expert on awakening anymore, then you're a bodhisattva. And what you are as a bodhisattva is you're not yet an expert on delusion. You're not yet an expert on delusion.

[81:13]

But you're coming along, you're learning about it. You're going to study it. You're going to find out what is delusion? What is confusion? What are emotions? What is feeling? What are conceptions? What is the body formation? What are the organs? You're studying that stuff. And you study it wholeheartedly because you believe the Buddha's teaching that this is the material that you awaken on. And Buddhas are those who have actually, they're not even working for that awakening anymore. They have actually seen what illusion is. And they also have seen that most people, although they are perfectly endowed with this Buddha nature, this awakened nature, perfectly endowed with it, completely jam-packed full of it, they don't realize it. He also sees that. In other words, Buddha's not stupid. He knows what's going on.

[82:17]

People don't believe that. And he also says, I said this race problem or something, he said that the cockroaches cannot realize it in the cockroach form. They have to actually evolve into being human beings before they can realize it. So part of the work is to also bring along cockroaches and rats and encourage them to practice as much as they can under the present circumstances so that they can be humans, to be compassionate towards them, to teach them compassion so that they learn as much as they can out of it. And if they learn a little bit, they will evolve and get to be humans. But it doesn't mean that they don't have the Buddha nature. That's why if you're practicing, you should see the Buddha nature in them. And if you don't see it, then remember that it's just because of your preconceptions that you don't see it.

[83:18]

The teaching is that it's fully present in all beings. You should treat all beings with equal respect. And if you do, those beings will learn from you how to do that. And if they start treating, then they can start treating other beings with respect. Like, trees seem pretty respectful above the ground. But under the ground, sometimes trees are not so respectful. Sometimes they, especially with the big ones, sort of push the little ones away. These big roots come down there and the little tree trying to come up and they just sort of take all the water. They don't say, oh, poor little roots coming down here, I think I'll move out of the way here. Some of the trees do, I think. And those trees are evolving. They have heard the teaching from some Buddha that All the living beings, all those other roots down there, are also worthy of respect, and they give them some space for water, and so their roots can grow.

[84:24]

I don't know how much concentration you have left to pay attention. Should I keep going a little longer? Break? Okay, break. Hello. I thought I might finish that other story that I started, namely the famous version of that story about the dog.

[86:09]

So the monk says, does the dog have Buddha nature? And Zhao Zhou said, no, or doesn't have any. And then the monk said, well, but all living beings have the Buddha nature. So why doesn't the dog? And Zhao Zhao said, because the dog has karmic consciousness. Not just dogs have karmic consciousness, no, either, as I just told you, all living beings have karmic consciousness. So that would also be, you could say, This monk already knew the teaching that all living beings fully possess Buddha's wisdom. That's why he asked the question. Then he said, so since everything has it, how about this dog?

[87:14]

Does the dog have it? And he said, no. But all beings have the Buddha nature, so why not this one? And Jajjaso's, because it has karmic consciousness. Now, what that means... is many things, but anyway, it's to say that because the dog has karmic consciousness or because you have karmic consciousness, you don't have the Buddha nature. It's because you have karmic consciousness that you don't think you have Buddha nature, or you can't realize it. That's why you don't have it. So that story is basically what I was saying, of course the dog does have Buddha nature, but actually it's not so much that the dog has Buddha nature, but the dog is Buddha nature. It's not so much that you have Buddha nature, but that you are Buddha nature. But still, if you ask, do I have Buddha nature, I might say no.

[88:18]

And the reason why I say no is to tell you the reason why you don't have it is because you don't think you do, or because you have still holding on to karmic consciousness. But again, as I said, enlightening beings do hold on to karmic consciousness. They're willing to hold on to it and work in the world through it. And because you're willing to work in the world through it, for that reason, in some sense, you lose it. But you do that willingly and knowingly so can you identify how you willingly and knowingly enter the world can you see yourself doing that and it is that topic that's the topic that is recommended namely what you're doing to observe your karmic activity honestly

[89:28]

And that's why we need to practice Zen in order to do this, because you need some considerable amount of absorption on something like the breathing in order to have enough composure that you can enter this world of, you know, this extremely high-energy world of of your life, of life itself. You need sufficient composure in order to face how tremendously responsible it is to live. But this is not a responsibility that somebody's laying on top of you. This is a responsibility which you've already picked up. You have willingly entered into this very heavy situation, this very special situation situation of human life. So we need some way to appreciate what a big thing we've taken on.

[90:38]

And we will have a lot of trouble realizing what a tremendous responsibility this life is, unless we have quite a bit of composure. Because without composure it's too frightening. to see what a big responsibility we have with this life. So the enlightening being is born out of this non-duality of that there's no living beings to help.

[91:44]

Or there's actually no basis to all this stuff, to all this all this delusion, all this confusion. There's no basis to it, which doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means that it's so deep that you never get to the bottom of it. It's bottomless. It's extremely profound. Everything is extremely profound. So profound that it has no beginning and no birth and no death. And there's nothing to be done. On the other side, There is the feeling that there's a lot to be done and that things are very superficial. And we're superficially affected by superficiality. That little things make a big disturbance up on the surface. And we care about that. So there's this kind of miraculous combination of those who care the most, who have the ability to care the most, are those who are also connected with and live from the awareness that there's nothing to care about.

[93:16]

Not because it doesn't exist, but because it's so vast and so deep that there's nothing you can do about it. But there's nothing you can do about it isn't good enough. It's so vast and it's so deep it's nothing at all. It's beyond anything. And what we need to do somehow is enter the center or the essence of this nothingness. Or enter the center even of this feeling that there's nothing you can do.

[94:21]

And when you get to the essence of the feeling that there's nothing you can do because everything's so vast, suddenly it turns around and you come back into action. You're freed from the feeling that there's nothing you can do. And that feeling that there's nothing we can do is lurking all the time, like in these pictures. This vast, huge, dark pit where human beings, all human desires, all human wish, is just vanity. We need to enter that feeling of, I was going to say, hopelessness or emptiness, and nothing matters feeling, and it doesn't matter what you do kind of feeling.

[95:44]

But again, that's quite frightening to enter that space. So again, that's where the composure comes in. And also you have to care to enter it. You have to care to enter where you don't care. And then you become released from not caring. We cannot live in a state of not caring because we do care. But we don't care enough is the problem. We think that we have to defend ourselves, that we wouldn't be able to survive if we cared as much as we know we're capable of.

[96:57]

And now I'm going to try to bring up, I think, a new type of idea. And I hope it doesn't overburden you. But the ego or the small self, again, in reality, the small self or the ego is non-dual. with the cosmos. Your small self itself is really what's happening. It's actually, truly the cosmos itself. It's the whole story. But if you look at what's happening through it, it's just a dream.

[98:52]

Same with the words I'm saying, our language. Our language is actually the cosmos. But if you look at what's happening through language, You're just confused. So somehow, not somehow, anyway, a big part of Buddhist teaching is how to see the self for what it is. It's kind of like if you have a grid or something. and you put it over your face like this, or maybe not even up so close, but at a certain distance, and put it between yourself and other things, you can't see the things so clearly through the grid. The grid of your self-clinging obstructs your being able to see that everything's perfect, including the grid that's interfering.

[100:15]

It's perfect. But if you know you have a grid there and you look at what the grid is, you can see through it. It's that if you don't know you have the grid there, it's obstructing you. But once it's there, you have a perfectly good view. It's just that it's a view through the grid. The problem is if you don't know that it's there. So it's good to study the grid, study the self. And if you study the self, you'll forget what it is. You sort of lose it. And what we mean by forgetting it is that everything, all experiences, could awaken you.

[101:19]

So in Buddhism, you may hear that Buddhism denies the existence of the self. Have you ever heard that? And one of the basic teachings of Buddhism is called anatman, which could translate it as something like no self. But that's a teaching called no self. It doesn't mean that there's no self. The teaching of anatman, or the teaching of no self, is the teaching about what the self really is. So to deny the existence of the self means to deny that the self exists in any of the ways that you think it does. Not that it doesn't exist, but that the way it exists is beyond any of the ways that you've been able to think of how it exists. For example, it doesn't exist the way you usually think it does.

[102:50]

It doesn't exist the opposite from the way you usually think it does. It doesn't exist both the way you think it does and the opposite of the way you think it does. And it doesn't exist as neither of those. It doesn't exist in any of those ways. How does it exist? It exists as when you forget about it. How does it exist? It actually exists the way the self actually exists is when everything wakes you up. That's how the self really exists. When a twitch in somebody's cheek wakes you up, that's what it's like when you forget the self. When the way things are wakes you up, that's what we mean by no self. In other words, it's not a problem anymore to have one. Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha and all his disciples and descendants, they all had nice healthy egos.

[104:01]

From the beginning of their practice to the end, they did not destroy their egos. Some people even say Shakyamuni Buddha had a really big one. So what is the self, you know? You could say, well, the self is all these pictures. But who is a self like that? Nobody has a self like that. But that's what the true self is. The true self is all this stuff. And not just all this stuff sitting on the wall, but all this stuff awakening you. But still, there's some feeling of the self.

[105:09]

Is the self that picture? Is the self that picture? Is the self that picture? Is the self this feeling? this emotion, if you actually get into your actual experience and come down to that, then you say, now where's the self? And if you find a self, then I would ask again, what is that self? Is it one of these pictures? Is it a feeling? Is it an emotion? It's got to be one of those things. It's got to be a concept, a feeling, an emotion, or a form, or consciousness itself. And pretty soon you don't know what the self is anymore. You can't get a hold of it. And yet it doesn't disappear. It still fleets in and out of your life. It does perform a function. A very basic and important function to life itself. Namely, it performs a function of splitting what is one into two.

[106:12]

It is the source of life and it can be also the source of misery. It splits the field of consciousness into two parts called subject and object. This is a transgression which you all have willingly and knowingly done. Now you may say, well, I don't know about the knowingly part. Maybe I would accept I willingly did it, but I don't know that I did it. So I'm speaking to your Buddha nature when I say you willingly and knowingly did it. If you have some preconception about what knowing means, then you may say, well, I didn't know I did it. Some of you may even say you didn't willingly do it. But you willingly, I'm suggesting to you, to speak to you as enlightening beings, as workers for awakening, you split what was one into two.

[107:24]

You split your consciousness into subject and object. You split your mind into that which can be aware of things and that which things can be aware of. You split it, and I don't begrudge you splitting it, but you transgressed when you split it. But if you didn't transgress, you wouldn't be alive. If you don't split the consciousness or the mind into two parts, there's no possibility of awareness, consciousness, or life. That split is necessary to maintain throughout living. And, don't worry, it's being done. Until it stops being done, and then that's the end of the story for a while. But that splitting, that thing that splits, right at the splitting, that's also the place where the mind, the two parts of mind, meet.

[108:32]

So one way to look at it is that it splits. It transgresses the nature of the oneness of mind. But the other way to look at it is once you have consciousness, And consciousness is consciousness always of difference. Once you have it, the way back to oneness is through the thing that splits. So like the word cleavage, you know the word cleavage? Cleavage means to cut, right? It's the cut between things, but it's also the place where they meet. The cleavage in the breast is where the breasts meet. It's the place where they're joined. but it's also the place where they're split. The ego is where the whole mind is split, where all of life is split into two parts, and it's also the place where the mind is joined. So if you study the self, you first of all see how the world is split, but then you also see how the world is joined.

[109:44]

It's there that you see that it's joined. That's why you study the self. And when you forget the self, not take it away, but forget it, just like you forget the splitting function of the word cleavage, then you see the joining function of the ego. In other words, everything wakes you up. You keep realizing the oneness of things and how everything is Buddha through the study of the self. which means a dedication to study your experience, your karmic creations, the creations of your action of your life, to study them. And again, to study them fully without just sort of studying the parts you like requires concentration.

[110:50]

But again, Concentration is something you already have. In Buddhism, whenever you're told to do something, you're always being told to do something you've already got. So if you're being told to concentrate, it just means to appreciate the concentration which is already there. Which again, due to preconceptions, we think we don't have. So we need to do a special remedial exercise called concentration. to remember, to rediscover the concentrated quality of the mind. Once you realize that, then you can zero in on that which splits it, and then you can zero in on that which joins it, or the joined quality of it, or the fact that all living beings are actually perfectly connected and getting along quite well. And again,

[111:52]

you have nothing to learn. And when you really believe, when the teaching of you have nothing to learn completely fills your body, it isn't that you give up, it's that then you really go to work. Then you can really work to help everyone. But this is a work, or this is a sense of you have work to do based on fullness. So like in Zen when we take a bath, we take a bath, we go to the bathhouse and we take a bath because we're clean. And we really need to take a bath too.

[112:56]

We want to, we really sense it's time to take a bath. and we feel something needs to be done in the bath department. But the reason why we feel that way is because we're clean. When you're thoroughly clean, when you're thoroughly imbued with the teaching that you're already complete, you feel you need to do work. You can also feel you need to do work based on feeling that you're dirty or that you're or that there's something wrong with you. That's okay too, to do work from that point of view. But that's not actually yet the work of awakening. The work of awakening is based on that you don't need to do it, that you already complete. That's what makes you feel like you have to do it. So you're not spreading the feeling of deprivation and pollution and something wrong. You feel a need to spread the word of the perfect oneness of all beings you really care again you know and you enjoy that caring that caring is beauty that caring is beautiful and you need that beauty and that's why you knowingly and willingly transgressed because you know

[114:28]

You knew, on some level, you can't have beauty unless you get involved in the mess. Unless you come into the world, you can't have beauty. Over in the realm of where there's no birth and no death, there's also no beauty. Where things are extremely, extremely calm and silent, there's no beauty. But beauty is based on that. Without that, there's no beauty either. So I have, like you, I have entered the world, and one of the contents of my practice is I sometimes notice greed there, especially greed around the teaching.

[115:49]

Sometimes greed that I want to keep it all for myself, not give it to anybody else, but sometimes I want to give too much. And I have a feeling like I'm on the verge of giving you too much. There's several other things I want to say. But I think I should share with you that I probably have given you enough even though I want to give you more. Don't you think so? Isn't this enough for today? You said that in this process it's not One doesn't dissolve the ego. We've been talking a lot here about ego death. How can we reconcile that? But this is an important step in the cleansing process that's necessary to connect with who we really are. Are we using wrong term knowledge?

[116:52]

No. The ego is constantly dying. And like everything else, the ego is dying all the time. The problem is that people don't realize it is dying. But it's also being born again all the time. The ego is evolving constantly. It has to keep adapting. And there's a kind of basic ego that we have to have all the time, and that also is dying. And there's also a kind of more puffed-up ego that is also dying. Anyway, to hold the clinging to the ego is the problem. And to actually experience the death of the ego, the way I was talking about today, is simply if you tune into your experience, and as you become more able to sort of see your experience and be able to tell what's going on, are you aware of an emotion now, a feeling, a conception? some kind of, are you aware of concentration itself?

[117:56]

Are you aware of faith? Are you aware of diligence? Are you aware of self-respect or lack of self? What are you actually aware of at that moment? And little by little you get more and more intimate with your actual experience. Then you say to yourself, by the way, what is the ego? What is the self? And in that context, you can find out what it is. And it is one of these things. And if it's one of these things, it's not ego is the way you usually thought it was. In that sense, your ego dies. In other words, you let go of it because you see there's no place. You reach for it and you get a feeling. Or you reach for it and you get an emotion. Or you get a taste. Or you get a concept. And that's not an ego, the way you usually want to go around. And those things are constantly evolving too. In that sense, it dies. But another one comes by. Then you try to get that one. So constantly you try to get it, you never will. So I have a standing offer at Zen Center of $10 for anybody that brings me an ego.

[119:01]

And nobody's ever collected yet. They've found it, but by the time they brought it to me, they couldn't find it anymore. So that's what I think we mean by ego death. Ego death means temporarily letting go of your grip on this thing which... If you looked at what it was, it wouldn't be an ego anyway. You're holding on to something in the dark which you call ego. If you bring it out here, you find out you can't call that ego anymore. So it dies. But then a few minutes later you say, oh, I think I found another one. So where is that? Pull it out there. What is that thing? And you look at it. I often feel it's like that, you know, when you do that thing and you look at your finger and you make two of them. You know what I mean? How does he double? And you reach for one, but you get both. Or you reach for one of them and you get the other one. It's like that. And for people that are holding on to the ego very strongly, to reach for it and not get it is a big event.

[120:08]

And yes, it is. And it's cleansing. It's cleansing to experience that. It's a real relief. There's a definition in Western... psychology which comes from Freud, the idea that somehow the ego has something to do with the correct perception of reality and being able to act adequately in terms of what's happening around you. And the experience in the work that we have been doing that that's not the ego that dies. So there's another element which really psychology doesn't talk about. And I like your idea that there's one kind of ego which is the puffed up ego that sort of is wrapped around it. And that seems to be the one that dies. And I wonder if you can say a little more about the distinction between what you see as ego and the puffed up ego. Where does it come from? What is it? And how does it change in meditation?

[121:10]

Just to carry the thing of puffed up ego a little further, if you could puff the ego up to the same size as the cosmos, that would be okay, too. If you could possibly do that. But if you left out one little tiny fragment in the whole cosmos, you still would be suffering. The other way is to notice, for example, this basic function of ego. One of the basic functions of consciousness is this ability to split itself in two. That must be continued. Okay? And the simple perpetuation of that is necessary for life. That is, in a sense, that we cannot let go of. And that is the essential ego which we must keep. Okay? And that's protecting life and driving life forward. Now, in association with that, all this other stuff gets glommed down, which is any kinds of...

[122:16]

It could be any experience you could add onto that basic chord. Okay? Various kinds of conceptions, you know, like man, woman, American, Czechoslovakian, so on. Or big, small, smart, stupid, good-looking. All these concepts can be glommed onto that basic chord. Because the chord you see is going to be reliably intact, and so it's a good place to store up stuff. all this stuff can also be cut away. Now, as you start to meditate, what you find is this stuff that's coagulated around this basic function of ego, which is not seeing reality itself but making possible life, This extra stuff, let's say it has a shape like this.

[123:20]

And there's various ways to tell what the boundaries of that thing are. It's kind of like maybe in a cloud chamber, but anyway, by the way you react to certain phenomena, you can determine the shape of this thing. And also... One of the things we experience in Buddhism, this gets off into a whole other thing now, which maybe we should talk about later, is that some people who come to practice Buddhism, the shape of the extra stuff around the basic ego is such that the boundary is very undefined. Or they've shaped it in such a way that it has a very unclear or disordered pattern. In other words, the formation of the ego is... motley or patched together in such a way it doesn't hold together in an easily describable shape.

[124:24]

Not to say it doesn't have a shape, but its shape is complex enough so that the person can't get a sense of it. And this is a not sufficiently developed ego. It's gone beyond the basic, but the additional shape has become so complex and disordered that it's very difficult to describe it in any way. a short period of time. And people like that need help in getting some sense of the texture and contour of the ego and maybe reshaping it some. But if we assume a fairly well-defined ego, ego that doesn't have boundary disturbances, then you can find it. And once you find it, then you look at this stuff, what this stuff is, and you find out that it is these kinds of experiences. And as you find out what these experiences are, then you ask, is this a self? Is [...] this a self? You just keep going round and round asking. With every experience that you sense is within the borders of ego, you ask what you call self.

[125:30]

You get to be the definer. Then you examine those. What is this other than one of these categories? And you will invariably come up with that it is one of those categories. And at that point, you let go of it. And that way, this whole puffball becomes seen through as not an ego, but as psychic functionings, various kinds of psychic functionings, which are just these various types. And you come back down to this basic function, which is not an ego either, really. It's not a self. It's just a basic function that's very necessary. So I... what I think I skipped over was that some people come to Zen or to Buddhism with unformed egos and they hear that Buddhism has a teaching of not-self. And so they think, well, that's for me. As a matter of fact, I might get a promotion in Buddhism because they have an actual sense of not being able to find themselves or not having an ego boundary that they can deal with or they don't know how to interact with people because there's holes in the surface of it or something or diffused areas between themselves and others and they think,

[126:45]

Buddhism will be good for me. But actually, Buddhism is not yet intended for people like that. They should, first of all, form their ego better. And that's why therapy would be more appropriate at that point. To get a sense of what is the shape of the ego and do you really want this big hole in here or would you like to close it up? Or do you have stuff inside that really isn't part of it that you'd like to sort of disown and so on? Then you bring this big or little ego to the study and then you look at what is it? And gradually, the whole thing... you can see through it it just becomes a it's perforated or it's just it's emptied however new possibilities keep coming back you can recreate and associate make new ones but the new ones that come now you see them for what they are and they're no longer obstructions matter of fact the way that they happen is enlightenment itself so then they become now revelations So then it becomes the precept of reality interacts with your consciousness and produces these sprouts.

[127:53]

And you see how it happens, and it's the unfoldment of wisdom now. But the wisdoms are just the turning around all these delusions. So that one I just told you about, the basic delusion to bifurcate or split consciousness, when you see the other side of it, is called the wisdom of sameness. Once you see how the bifurcating function works, you realize the wisdom of unity or sameness. Once you realize that the whole ocean of images, if you can say yes to all of them, then that ocean of images and illusions becomes a perfect mirror wisdom. And... So on, all these kinds of functions of consciousness, once you understand how they work, they become various kinds of wisdom. And in terms of spiritual emergency, I think this point I just raised might be good to bring out a little bit more.

[129:00]

This thing about the people coming to spiritual practices that don't have well-formed egos may be an important sub-variety. Quite frequently it happens in Buddhism that we find this. both in psychedelic work and reading work, I see frequently this ego death, rebirth experiences. From this point, what seems to die there is what you call the pafta ego. Not the kind of ego that just simply makes the distinction, subject, object, and is basically neutral. But it appears to be more or less a kind of sum total of frightening or painful experiences in the past. So it really eliminates somehow negative programming. And then what seems to remain is much more of a neutral. People don't lose body image. Through the body ego, they don't lose discrimination between me and the external world.

[130:04]

But this distinction is sort of pragmatic. But it's not... they don't buy it philosophically or they don't buy it spiritually they know that somehow for pragmatic reasons you exist as a separate entity but then on another level there's some kind of much more complicated reality as to what your identity is whereas I think that the person who's living much more in the puffed up ego is buying it totally not just living it pragmatically but also buying it totally philosophically this is what is happening Yeah, I say, you know, the purpose of the ego is... I'm going to miss a rat. The purpose of the ego is like to get the food in here rather than over here. That kind of thing. You have to do that. Even after a complete perfect awakening, you can still get the food in here rather than sort of over there or up there.

[131:08]

That Buddhas don't lose their ability to do that. They keep that basic thing of locating where your mouth is. And these kinds of things are practical, and that's all. Most of the discriminating distinction should really be able to say where there's real danger, where there isn't danger, which the path of ego is not able. Or how important things are. That's right. Because you're totally encumbered by all these adhesions. And ironically, the adhesions are not... are not necessarily, they're often things that you denied. Because you denied them, they stick to you. If you admit them for what they are, they don't adhere so much. So if you could once now go back and go through all this stuff which you've accumulated around your basic practical ego, a lot of which is stuff that you denied, so when you stop denying it, it may be a big shock. If you once get back down to this pragmatic level of living, then the new things that come don't tend to adhere so much.

[132:13]

And you're able to stay at this very, very poor kind of situation. Very poor and simple kind of life where, as they say in Zen, you know, you eat when you're hungry and you sleep when you're sleepy and you crap when you have to crap. I mean, that's kind of where it is. In the level of an individual ego, it's pretty simple. And, yeah, so I... In many of the traumatic situations that come up in this context, you know, simply situations where at the time that they were happening, the person was not able to process them on the line, just experience them and let them go, but somehow they stuck. There is some kind of incomplete experience of it, and you're not finished with it when the situation's over. Right. We don't train our children to... to process their experiences. We don't even know often, so it's hard to train them.

[133:16]

So it seems to be an inevitable process of not being able to handle things, not finishing them off. And because they aren't finished off, they stick. And we have to finish them off at some point later. And it's almost impossible for a teacher or a parent to see what the child's not processing. So you probably can't protect them from it anyway. we still need, I guess, Buddhism or something later in life to fix it up. But if it were done earlier, that would be okay, too, if people never sort of did that. But it seems to be there's actually a positive side of the practice at a later age when you've got all this extra stuff is that maybe you even understand better than you would if you, as a child, didn't accumulate this stuff and sloughed it right away. Maybe you wouldn't understand the process as well as later going through it all. from adult to adult.

[134:10]

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