As the ancestor says, the way of meditation does not require cultivation, it just cannot be defiled. So I don't intend to talk about cultivating meditation but rather how to let it be not defiled. It can't be defiled and yet somehow If we don't understand, we can feel like we're defiling it.

[01:11]

In the fascicle called The Whole Works, Dogen Zenji says, realization is life. Life is realization. This Chinese character which is, you say, life also is sometimes translated as birth. Realization is birth. Birth is realization. This is a gesture towards undefiled activity.

[02:24]

Life is realization. Realization is life. That's it. But what's life? And what's birth? Life is not what I think life is. And what I think life is is not excluded from life. life is far more than I think it is including what I think it is I mentioned earlier the description of Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva eyes of compassion observe living beings

[03:36]

happiness accumulates an ocean beyond measure eyes of compassion observe sentient beings happiness accumulating an ocean beyond measure. If we can live and observe living beings or if a living being can observe living beings with eyes of compassion, This is the path of meditation without defilement.

[04:50]

But again, how do eyes of compassion see living beings? I would say that the eyes of compassion see living beings Let this observation is whole-hearted. I said yesterday that I really had been wanting to come to the zendo to sit during this seshi.

[06:09]

I restrained myself from saying I was dying to get to the zendo. And last night when I was sitting For the first time, I really had some difficulty sitting. I had difficulty being wholehearted about being on my sitting place in my body. I watched my life flicker between apparently being there but resisting being there, being almost completely there. And I noticed the difference between being almost completely there, being quite resistant to being there, and to tell you the truth, I never did get completely there.

[07:25]

I didn't have time. Maybe for a few tiny moments I got there, to my life. I found a place where I was not resisting what was happening in my body and mind. And when I got there I relaxed. There was no withholding from this. And I tasted a little bit or almost tasted a little bit of the cool refreshment and release that comes or that almost came or did come as I stopped resisting being where I was, how I was. When you were resisting, being completely there was part of you of resisting.

[08:48]

Where was that heart? Um, I mean, where did it seem? Yeah. It seemed to be out here a little bit. It wasn't at the center. It wasn't exactly some place. It was going away. It was trying to get away. It was hoping for something else. It was looking for some relief. And yet every moment I had to make an effort to sit some way, so I did. Moment after moment I decided to sit this way and this way and that way and this way and that way. Every moment I decided a posture. I made a posture and I got a result. But there was another part of me that wasn't just making the posture, but was kind of like distracted from making postures. Yes.

[09:49]

She said, when you noticed that you weren't completely there, weren't you completely there when you noticed that you weren't? Yes. But sometimes I was going away and I wasn't in the center of the going away. I was... I was caught by my contrivance. And this morning too, although the sitting wasn't so difficult, other things I felt were difficult I had feelings my mind was evaluating certain situations in this in this zendo and

[11:00]

I actually thought, almost always at the end of Sashin I'm quite happy, but I wasn't happy this morning. But there too I thought, is there some way for me to get to the center of this unhappiness, where it can turn? So it's nice to have a happy feeling at the end of the session, but in that happy feeling I don't need to find the place at the center of that happy feeling where I'm released from the happy feeling. But the disappointment and unhappiness in some ways remind me where is the working center of this experience? And I believe that the working center, the place where it turns, is at the center.

[12:04]

And I don't want to be in the center of unhappiness and disappointment. I don't want to be in the center of that. I want to go someplace else. I want to be in happiness, but I don't have to be in the center of happiness. I can be in the suburbs of happiness and it's fine. I don't need happiness to release, I don't need to be released from happiness. I don't feel like I must be released from happiness. That's the problem with this kind of happiness. I do want to be released from my opinions which make me unhappy. But I believe the release does not come by any contrivance that I concoct.

[13:06]

The way of meditation does not need to be cultivated. It's just not defiled. In other words, meditating on this unhappiness, on this pain, how not to contrive any escape based on the faith in the teaching that says the escape will come when you stop trying to escape. You will be released at the dead, at the living center of this difficulty. Life is realization. Realization is life. At the time of realization, there is nothing but birth totally actualized.

[14:16]

Nothing but death totally actualized. This morning? The center of my happiness was found when I was released from it. The center, the place it was, is called realization. Would you speak up? In wholeheartedness. Would you speak up?

[15:21]

Would you be... In wholeheartedness. in going all the way to the bottom of the feeling, in not resisting it anymore, of just putting down everything else but having that feeling. Is the wholeheartedness a physical sensation? No. Wholeheartedness is the way you practice with a physical sensation. In other words, you just have that physical sensation and you have no other agenda. No. My unhappiness this morning was a mental thing. It was a view of the situation. It was an opinion about the seshi. It was a mental thing.

[16:22]

That was my unhappiness, was that view, okay? Which I was holding. And I was unhappy holding that view. By completely being unhappy with that view, that was my wholeheartedness. And in that wholeheartedness, I was released from that view. and I was released from the unhappiness of holding that view. I want to go a little bit further. When that actualization Actualization is life, life is actualization.

[17:25]

When that actualization is taking place, it is without exception the complete actualization of life. It is the complete actualization of death. Such a working, this word working or opportunity, key, such a working Makes birth holy birth. Makes death holy death. Completely birth, completely death. Such a working. Such, this pivotal working can cause life and can cause death. This pivotal working. makes life completely life, makes death completely death.

[18:26]

It causes life and causes death, this pivotal working. This pivotal working is located at the center of the life. Realization is just life and at the center of that life is the pivot which makes life life. and makes life wholly life, completely life. Could you speak up?

[19:28]

The pivot isn't anything. But without wholehearted effort, we won't experience this pivot, this place where spiritual working happens. Wholehearted effort gets you to the place where things happen. Things are happening all the time, anyway. But if we aren't wholehearted, if we are caught by the idea of being less than wholehearted, then we can't partake of the fact that life is precisely realization. The way you are is exactly realization, is exactly emancipation, is freedom.

[20:30]

However, if you're not wholehearted, you can't believe that because you're not precisely you. If I'm not willing to be me, I'll never be able to realize that being life as I am which the way I really am is not includes not the way I want to be or the way I think I am. It includes pain. It includes disappointment. It includes the results of evaluations which cause me to be unhappy. If I'm not wholehearted about this process of delusion which I'm involved in, then I will not be at the place where release is happening, so I won't experience release in this body and this mind. It will be theoretical.

[21:37]

It is the actual working. The release is not an experience that you know. It says, you know, observing sentient beings with eyes of compassion, an ocean of happiness beyond measure accumulates. This ocean of happiness is not something that I can say, oh, there's the ocean of happiness and it's this big. This is spiritual work turns here. This is not the work of my mind. The work of my mind, if I'm wholehearted about it, is my access to the world of actual release. release is beyond human agency is beyond human evaluation is beyond human occur you can't cause it you can't evaluate it you can't touch it it is happening right now however we do not appreciate that if we think that it takes something more than life to get there then we work then you can work hard at meditation you can work hard at it

[23:02]

which is swell, but if you then think that the way is going to depend on what you do or what you think, you defile it, you lose it. Working hard is okay. You can work hard. You can work real hard at trying to accept your experience. That's fine. But it's not the hard working that's the point. you could accept your experience in a very easy-going way that would be just as good. You don't have to work. But if you're working hard, then that's what you're doing. You have to accept that. But some people, sometimes, in a very relaxed way, in a very easy way, are themselves. That's okay. Being yourself is not an experience. It is faith. Dogen says a little bit later, know that among the immeasurable things

[24:40]

in oneself there is life and there is death death is part of what you are if you or I do not completely penetrate do not completely wholeheartedly live here in this moment then we also do not wholeheartedly accept our death which is right here too When you thoroughly penetrate whatever you're aware of, you penetrate death. When you hold back from what you are experiencing, you also do not wholeheartedly realize death. Speed is next.

[25:40]

The Buddhist word faith, you know, the Sanskrit word shraddha, okay? Shraddha means basically to sink down into and be completely settled in it. So it's not like you... In some sense, you trust Buddha's teaching, which says the condition of you being as you really are is what we mean by freedom. Okay? And if you completely settle into yourself, if you settle into yourself, that's faith. If you think, oh, uh... That's an interesting teaching, settling into the self, forgetting the self, being enlightened by all things.

[26:45]

That's a nice teaching. You hear that? That's called appreciation of the teaching, maybe, okay? Faith in the teaching is, some people don't even appreciate it, they just do it right away. You say, settle in the self, and they go, plunk, right into themself. That actual settling into yourself is the real faith, rather than kind of like liking the teaching. Some people like the teaching, some people don't like the teaching. The people who actually live it, who put their body on the line for it and sink their whole body on the teaching, that's fate. It's not fate in anything. You actually are it. You are the teaching. It's not over there. Which again would be something in addition to life. At the time of realization, there is nothing but life totally actualized.

[27:45]

When your life is just your life totally actualized, that is realization, that is faith. In a sense, faith is like the plunging into that wholehearted, nothing but life practice. which again realization is not anything different from that realization and faith are the same thing but faith is kind of like the door so they say that sitting in other words being yourself is the front door to realization but to sit is also faith And to sit and nothing but sitting is the same as life and nothing but life. Okay?

[28:52]

Rin? I think the one thing they were answering, somebody kind of, um, he was talking. We were talking to you about completely dying to do with it. Incompletely dying, walking to do with it, it wouldn't have a difference. The personal attention, I guess, was, well, how would you make a difference? That would be irrelevant. Right. Part of dropping in body and mind is not necessarily, is giving up the interest in being able to tell people whether this is life or death. And shifting your interest into freedom rather than being an information center. Yes? Yes?

[29:55]

Well, in the process of just being life, the way life appears sometimes is as subtle discriminations. For example, the subtle discrimination between one sesshin and another. or between one period of meditation and another, or between one kind of pain and another kind of pain, or one kind of posture and another kind of posture. This discrimination is happening all the time. It's how you make your posture. The slight differences in your posture are subtle discriminations. Incredibly, I mean, it's incredible the discriminations we make. It's just amazing, the human body and mind, what it can do. And it is doing it. We are doing these fantastic feats all the time. You must have subtle discrimination in order to engage the subtle discriminations which you are engaged in.

[31:08]

The seeing precisely what discriminations you're making is the subtle discriminating mind, which is the mind of non-discrimination. Wisdom of non-discrimination is also called the wisdom of making these subtle discriminations. The life of making subtle discriminations is nothing but realization. Wisdom of subtle discriminations is wisdom of non-discrimination, which means you just watch the discrimination, you're just aware of the discriminations which you are making. Non-discrimination is not thinking about some other kind of discrimination, it is thinking about the actual real living one that is happening now. The mind as it's doing this right now is being observed with eyes of compassion which thoroughly allow it to function as it is functioning.

[32:10]

And that takes you to a place where there is release, there is emancipation, there is culmination of the way at that place. I use this as an example. I talked yesterday about these leakages. Being a human being in the midst of basically an uncontrollable flux of experience. Having a human identity, an ego, It is inevitable that some tension will build up, will occur between what's happening and this self-agenda.

[33:12]

These differences, these conflicts, these tensions are called outflows. They are the source of misery. They're very subtle and sometimes they're gross. We must be able to identify them in order to plunge into our life. They are in fact the way our life seems to be at odds with itself. They are the story or the picture of how we don't seem to be going along with what's happening. And because in various ways we don't go along with what's happening, we suffer through this kind of upflow or inflow. We don't feel whole because of this tension. This tension is going on, this conflict is going on, it requires wholehearted attention to this in order to be released from it.

[34:28]

However, basically, it isn't that we, I don't understand that we eliminate this tension. I think it is inevitable. Or if it isn't, I'm willing to assume it is. Because I think if you can actually appreciate, watch this conflict, watch this tension, watch this struggle with eyes of compassion, you will be released. Even though it goes on. So... There's three kinds of these kinds of tensions basically, three types that the Zen teacher Deng Shan mentioned. Outflows that, in other words, in the flux of life, when we have certain feelings or emotions, like pain or pleasure,

[35:35]

When we have those feelings, oftentimes at those feelings we have trouble going completely with that feeling. That causes outflow around feelings. Another kind of outflow happens around our view, the way we see things, the way we evaluate, our judgment. When what's happening is such and our judgment is that it should be a certain way and not necessarily this way or not go that way and not go that way but go only this way, at that time we have the outflows around view. And the other kind of outflow is the outflow around words. It's when we say words And basically we become enchanted by the words, and we forget what the words actually are. The actual working of the words is one thing, and what we believe the word is, is another.

[36:45]

And in this confusion we have an other kind of misery. So as an example, I've given this story before, but as an example of outflow around views, I have this story which happened a couple years ago in regard to the Founders Hall. So this building was built pretty much and the mud was put on the walls and the mud started to crack because it got dry. And then the question is what to do about it. And one idea was to try to put the mud on again. Another idea was to put the mud on and add a chemical to it which would help it not dry up.

[37:46]

Another idea was to take the mud off, put plywood on the walls and spray it with stucco. When I first heard about these things, my mind was, there was a flux in my mind, and my mind was in flux. And I was perfectly, not perfectly, but I was pretty calm. The Kaisando, the walls were falling off, people had various ideas, that was the world. I was there, fine. Then some people started to talk to me and say how good it would be to do it one way rather than another way. and how ugly it would be to do it one way rather than another way. And my mind, in the midst of this flow, my mind started to settle into a certain position. Now here's Dung San's definition of outflows around views.

[38:46]

He says, when the key, this key, you know, when this opportunity or this energy, when the working, does not leave the position when the working does not depart from the position. In other words, when the working gets into a certain position and doesn't move from there, then you fall into a poisonous sea. When this working gets in a position, you get thrown into the poisonous sea. Tom Cleary translates this working as intellect. Because in the realm of view, when working is working in view, working becomes intellectual. So the type of working that gets stuck there is the working converts into intellect. So the view or the opinion gets stuck in a position.

[39:47]

It's no longer working. The whole universe coming down to this working and the whole universe is no longer moving. You have an intellect that's sitting like this, even though the whole universe is tugging and pulling, turning and twisting, your mind sits like that. This is the way to do it. Let's put the chemical in, which makes it not dry up. And let's not do the plywood and stucco. Because the energy, because the opportunity of the life gets stuck, you get thrown into a poisonous sea. And there was a time when my mind wasn't stuck, and then it got stuck. And then I got thrown into my life, working, stuck. And then I was in a poisonous sea, up to my eyes, in poison.

[40:53]

And I couldn't talk about this situation anymore. I almost talked to somebody about it one time and I could see that because of this, because I was stuck, you know, all the energy of my life coming down to this idea, this idea now was becoming extremely hot and had a great electrical force in it. It wasn't going with things anymore, it was the place everything collected. And anybody who touched that thing would be in danger. So of course, if I brought this stuck thing to anybody, anybody would say, okay, okay, and back away. But as soon as this hard thing was gone, they would just say, what was that? They would hardly even know what I was talking about. So I realized after just a little bit of talk that in that state I could not any longer discuss the topic and I disqualified myself from the discussion.

[42:00]

And then I was also, I came up to the zendo and I sat in that seat and I sat down and I thought I was very embarrassed because before this thing started happening I was, you know, not too bad. I was kind of like, I had my opinions and stuff, but they were moving occasionally, you know? There was nothing which was really stuck in my life. So I wasn't too bad. In other words, the ocean was, you know, salt water, and it wasn't that turbulent, and I was floating along. But now here I was sitting in meditation, it was a big mess. I was embarrassed that I had such a mind. And then from within me, a little voice said, clearly observe. I heard a little voice say, clearly observe. I don't know where that came from. I read it someplace, but it came up from the inside of me. And at that moment, I didn't do anything, but the working turned.

[43:13]

I let go, not I let go, just the ideas were let go and the universe started moving again. And when the universe started moving, when things started changing, the ocean went calm and went happy. Yeah, so like this key this this working of the universe you know there it is and suddenly kaboom it doesn't move and then you get very upset and So here's where discriminating... Here's discriminating wisdom. Here's clearly observing. You look and you see that. You see, oh, that's the problem. This is what's causing this mess. You see what the outflow is.

[44:17]

And that's the end of the outflow for now. What? I think we basically I think we do leak all the time because we have we have this we have this This little package here, you know We have a self a limited self which we have to deal with and because of that I Sometimes, subtly or grossly, in terms of views, the views that come from this self or associated with this self, or we have a view, which is just a view, and then we bring the view over to the self. Like, first I have a view, oh, there's this way to do it, there's that way to do it, there's that way to do it, there's that way to do it, and then some people come and start talking in my head, you know, and they say, hey, you're the abbot. Hey, what's the abbot gonna say? What do you think? And then start, and then sort of like the Abbot, you know, and then the Abbot and the ideas, and then sort of like, you can't have all these ideas, you've got to have one. So which one, and you stick those together, and then you've got something stuck in the middle of all this change.

[45:19]

I think the idea is that we're in here, [...] that we're in here. Yeah, it's a very different understanding. This is very different. This is the reversal of what people usually think. So, because we're something stuck in the middle of everything, stuff can come into us or leak out of us. We don't see it as the whole thing. We only see part of our life. which is fine, but when we hold part of it then great turbulence occurs.

[46:28]

Now if you see, once you see and accept you're holding to this and this is the turbulence or you're holding to this and you're getting overwhelmed or you're getting weak, once you see that process you're released from that holding and then your life becomes realization. But it's hard to be in that situation of being stuck and the pain and misery around it. It's hard to be there and to clearly observe. Clearly observe that from the Book of Serenity, again, the word clearly observe does not mean like clear, like a clear sky, observe. It means resign, observe. The first character is to resign or give up. You give up to what's happening and observe it. You observe what's happening rather than like my idea of clearly observing. You observe this, which is not clear, usually.

[47:30]

You see, this is not clear. This is confusion. Buddhas wake up to confusion. They understand minutely confusion. That's how they wake up. And it's hard to understand confusion because we don't like to see how confused we are. Buddhists look at our studying delusion. They are awakened about delusion, but nobody likes to look at delusion. The self does not like to look at delusion. Wholehearted practice is to be willing to acknowledge delusion. And when we acknowledge delusion, see how it works, we are released. So the way this energy works is it works, you know. It works and it works. And when it doesn't, and then when it works in such a way that it gets into a position and doesn't move, the way it works is it takes this living being and it pours it into poison.

[48:36]

That's the way it works. That's a perfectly good dharma way of working. That's in fact reality. And it's an illusion But that's the way illusion works, is that something which is supposed to be moving doesn't move, and because you see it that way, you have misery. But once you see that that's what it is, you see you're released. But the difference between being stuck and holding fast is something that, I mean, in the instance that you made, you know, whether or not this is stuck out or why, or why, or something went wrong. I mean, some people might not think it was such a big idea, or, I mean, a big deal. Well, what if the idea that it's going to take life, or... Could you hear that?

[49:39]

So, now that you used the word deeper, okay, you're in much more danger. Because you're going to say now, because this is deeper, that justifies me in holding this view. So, the poisonous sea, which you will be thrown into, if you hold on to this view, will be deeper and more terrible. it will be more terrible both in terms of how tenaciously you'll hold to your view and because you tenaciously hold your view you will be made proportionately more ineffective you will be proportionately less likely to recover

[51:10]

Because the horror of how you've disqualified yourself will be deeper. It's because even more than with the stucco, even more than with the stucco, you're sure you're right. You're going to hold on even tighter. Therefore, the poison will be more intense. And it will be harder for you to see that what's causing the problem is your holden. And it'll be doubly bad because it's not so bad to be ineffective about stopping stuccoing. It's very bad to be ineffective about stopping murder. So when something's more important or more, you know, whatever, then all the more you need to be flexible. And you need to not throw yourself into a poisonous sea and not be able to help. So like here, we had a fire here, right, in 1977. And we had an area at Tassajara, I think it's called Blue Line or Red Line or Black Line, is an area over behind the stone office where people who were stuck were sent.

[52:21]

When people are fighting fires, even the leaders sometimes get hysterical. They think, this is the way to do it. And they become incompetent. And anybody on their crew could say, okay, you're out. and send them over to that area to calm down. Because of this fire, people all the more, when they had an idea, held to it. Because they said, okay, this is my idea. And people could see this person has gone insane. And they could be sent away. And usually when they got to the place, they would usually agree. And they would come back and say, can I be back on the crew now? As a matter of fact, can I be the head of the crew? So, it's not that certain things aren't more important than others, they are. And certainly someone's life is more important than the stuck-oing. I agree, that's my value. I share your value.

[53:24]

It's not that you shouldn't have values, it's that you shouldn't hold to them. If you really want to implement your values, then you must be not attached to them. However, you do get attached to your values, And then you become ineffective. That's going to happen. But if you can notice that this is your value, you have attached to it, you're not moving from it, your energy is stuck. Not your energy, but the energy of the universe at your place is stuck on this. This is a tremendous power which is now backfiring and throwing you into hell. And there you cannot help people. Your value's not a problem. It's the holding to it. If you can let your value come in there and say, hey, there's my value, this is my value, then you can say, you know, it's really important that we go take care of this living being right now. And you can say that with no charge.

[54:29]

However, when you get a charge, if you can notice the charge and see how it's disrupting the situation, if you can see that fully, you'll be released and you can go back to work. But until you see that you're blocking the energy of the universe which is coming through you and making you a vehicle for enacting good values, you should not hold that. That's your life. If you can just let it be that, there will be realization. And then you can implement positive values. But if we hold There's outflow, and when there's outflow, the path of meditation is temporarily shot. And when things are more important, then you have to be more careful. And it's not that, well, this is so important that temporarily I don't care about whether I'm effective or not.

[55:30]

You are ineffective. You have made yourself incompetent. That's all. And somebody who maybe cares less than you and is unattached can come and do your job for you, which is nice. But it does require clearly observing these outflows. And we, every morning, or quite often anyway, we say all my ancient twisted karma because this Outflow is continuing. We do this. Inevitably, we do this. Let's notice it. That's how to end it. That's how to be free of it. And not try to get rid of our values because if you have values, you might get stuck. That's another way of getting stuck is to have the value of getting rid of values and getting stuck on that one. Dortea,

[56:32]

What was it? It wasn't yesterday. It was today. What? No. Yesterday? Was I unhappy yesterday? You said last night. No, last night it wasn't a view of Sasheen. Last night was my body. I had my view of my body. I was having trouble being in my body. That was my problem, and I was doing pretty well, actually. I haven't had that kind of problem since I was a kid. So I was happy that I could still subject myself to such a test. And after all that, then this morning, I had this opinion. I don't know if it's good for me to tell you this opinion. It might not be helpful.

[57:36]

Maybe we should stop. Because the kitchen is leaving now. I don't want them to miss out on anything. What? They put this chemical in it. And it worked, as you can see. It's pretty nice, huh? It doesn't look quite as nice as the mud, just pure mud, which looked, you know, so rustic. But maybe that, you know, again, the reality of the situation is this real wobby, you know, muddy wall, it fell off. You know, great idea, but it fell off. So it was, again, that was neat because a brand new building already looked ancient. It was nice. But still, you know, you have to put the mud back up because the... The things were exposed, and it just wouldn't hold up. So now this is kind of like a little bit suburban, that wall, but you know, it's pretty good. And it really is Tassajara mud in there. So that was the solution. And I didn't have to do anything, really, except get out of the way.

[58:45]

And the best idea won. Which happened to be my idea. But if I had said anything at that time, I don't know what would have happened to that building. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if the building would still be there. There'd be these two camps on both sides. So it was a happy ending because I noticed that I had become incompetent and disqualified myself from the interaction and the best idea happened. Who? Steve? Well, why are you saying that? Disappointment? Now, Steve, do you think if you ask this question, it will make the kitchen feel excluded? Well, what do you want to do?

[59:48]

What do you want to do? What do I want to do? Yeah. Go ahead. Stop. Stop. You mean her view of your disappointment was just a passing point? Really? So if that's okay, then you can ask me some other time. How's your left shoulder? We, you know, we can have another meeting someday. I do feel bad about leaving the kitchen out, kind of, you know, because... You know what I mean? I like to do this thing with the whole group. So, if you can remember your questions, we can talk about it tomorrow night. Alright? Remember your question? We can continue this discussion tomorrow night.

[60:40]

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