I'd like to begin by acknowledging again that many of us have been or are now engaged in an arduous process of settling into a steady immobile sitting position. in a sense, the word arduous is a synonym for difficult, but the first meaning of arduous is requiring strenuous effort. If you can settle into a steady, immobile sitting position without strenuous effort, you're a bird.

[01:01]

and congratulations, but most of us have some struggle in settling. And we are in, most of us either have been in that process and are now settled or are now settling with strenuous effort. We acknowledge and express gratitude for the strenuous effort of this community of practitioners. already in this third day morning, very settled quality is starting to appear in a very encouraging way. Thank you. And I, playing the role, now, playing the role of teacher now, I play dope song with you and reveal to you that after yesterday's talk I thought, that's pretty much it for me.

[02:23]

That's what I want to say, and I said it. Maybe that's enough. We don't have to have any more of these talks. But then someone came and told me that she had a really bad headache on Monday and couldn't really hear anything I said. And somebody else came and told me that they can't remember anything I said. So I thought, well, maybe I'll say the same thing over again. because maybe quite a few people can't remember a thing I brought up the first two days. And even if you do remember, it's sometimes good to warm up. One, two, three, what did we say the practice was? Oh, yeah. It's the practice of enlightenment. That's the point of it.

[03:25]

What did we say the practice was? Oh, it's helping others. What did we say helping others was? Oh, it's understanding that they are our self. You're welcome. Did somebody say that enlightenment is equivalent to ritual performance? Somebody did. Now today, since enlightenment is equivalent to and consists of ritual performance, then also helping others is equivalent to ritual performance. And I think I mentioned that I keep being happily surprised by the things I say, and I'm surprised to say that, that helping others is ceremonial.

[04:39]

Understanding that others are ourself is ceremonial performance. Not all ceremonial performance is understanding that others are ourself. In fact, my experience of myself and others is that you can perform ceremonies for a long time before you understand, before there is understanding that others are yourself. But turning it around, I feel differently. Namely, when I am myself, everything I do is ceremonial performance. When I understand, or in the understanding of others or myself, my actions are ceremonial performance. Another way to say this is when you see that all experience is emptiness, then you understand your actions are performance.

[06:01]

Those who understand emptiness, they understand their actions are rituals. Rituals to realize what they understand. Those who do not understand emptiness, those who see form and feelings and perceptions as non-empty, they also actually, they don't know it, but they're also performing a ritual based on their understanding that and have a self and feelings are substantial and self and people are substantial and have a self based on their understanding they also perform rituals but they don't think they're rituals they think they're realities They think forms have a real substantial existence. Actions have real substantial existence. These actions aren't rituals. These are real actions in the real world.

[07:07]

Get real. This is the ritual performance of delusion. This is the ritual performance of samsara. When you actually think your actions are real, and actions that you see others doing, you think that they're real, that they're substantial. But when you see that they're empty, you realize this is a ritual performance of the truth. When you see the truth, then everything is the truth. If you don't see the truth, but you make, you intend to make your actions rituals, then the time will come when you will see the truth. And then, from then on, you don't have to make your actions or you'll see that that's all there is. In the realm of emptiness, that's all there is, is ceremonies enacting the highest meaning.

[08:10]

Once again, if we don't yet see that, then if we settle into, if we do the arduous work of body-mind complex, and then make the settling and all actions with and towards and from the settling ceremonial performance of the Buddha way, we will understand emptiness and we will perform that emptiness which we understand. Seeing emptiness all action is a ceremony. Seeing emptiness, all action is enacting enlightenment. Seeing emptiness, our actions, our ceremonies are helping others. And again, seeing emptiness is the same as seeing that others are yourself.

[09:13]

When I was a kid there was a baby food company, or maybe it wasn't a baby food company, but it might have been a baby food company because I remember the slogan which was, babies are our business, our only business. So was that right? Others are our business. We have no other business in the Buddha way. There's no me in addition to others. There's just, well, there's me, but that's just others, and there's nothing to me other than others. So then, I have no agenda than others, so all my activity is ritual dash enlightenment. Another definition of enlightenment besides ritual performance is, well, coming face to face with Buddha, or Buddha meeting Buddha is enlightenment.

[10:39]

But it's not just Buddha meeting Buddha, it's the ritual performance of Buddha meeting Buddha. Enlightenment is understanding, of course, the truth, the Buddhadharma. Understanding Buddhadharma happens when Buddhas meet Buddhas together. Buddhas are performing ceremonies. I mentioned this before, I'll mention again in the Sesshin that the early Buddhism has a reputation of a tradition where the founder had no ceremonies. And my understanding is that basically he's telling his students no ceremonies to get something. In the Indian milieu where Buddha lived there were ceremonial professionals who performed ceremonies and were making pretty big bucks

[11:46]

for that reason. And some of them maybe did the ceremonies to try to get those bucks. Also, they got the highest status in the society, the Brahmins. They could sing Sanskrit very nicely and they do ceremonies. Even today, you know, like if you ever watch any Indian movies, like that movie, what's it called? Monsoon Wedding, that's it called? I mean, those people know how to do ceremonies. If you're going to get married, be an Indian. Boy, they know. I mean, we do okay here. It's a nice simple version of a wedding we do here at Zen Center. But boy, they really know how to do ceremonies for thousands of years. They do really good wedding ceremonies. There's problems, but they know how to do it. It's beautiful, isn't it? You see that? However, the Buddha said, don't do ceremonies to get anything. He said that as one of the few things he said in English.

[12:48]

However, his monks, his students, both lay and monk students, when they came to see the Buddha, they followed a ritual procedure and he didn't say, don't stand on ceremony. He didn't say that. If they didn't and they said they're sorry, he forgave them. But they did a ritual thing. He would say, for example, he would say, Monks? Huh? Yeah, they say, yes, sir. Yes, venerable sir. Monks? Yes, venerable sir. When they came up to ask a question, they did it in a certain way. They didn't do it in any old way. They did it and pretty much they all did the same way. And if they didn't do it the same way, it was a major statement. And in Zen stories, too, there was a ceremony about how you go to meet the teacher. And if you didn't do it that way, you were making a big statement upon which you would probably question, how come you didn't do the ceremony? And then a story would unfold out from there.

[13:57]

did do ceremonies with his students, but also, this is something that surprises me to say to you, the Buddha himself, the historical Buddha, was performing a ceremony all the time. Everything he did was a ceremony, and the ceremony he was basically doing was he was doing the ceremony of being a Buddha. He was ceremonially performing being a Buddha. He was, if I may use a word that has caused a crisis here, he was pretending to be a Buddha. And he did a really good job. Almost like people thought, well, there is the Buddha. But he wasn't fooled by that. That's why he got to do the part. The people who were pretending to be Buddhas and thought they were Buddhas they should get dethroned, part anymore, because they forget they're acting.

[15:03]

They're playing at being Buddhas. Buddha playing at being Buddha? Uh-huh. That's what I'm suggesting. Our great founder, the Buddha, was a historical Buddha who ritually performed being a Buddha. not just a Buddha which is a human, but the real Buddha, which has no fixed form. So he would take this fixed form and that fixed form, you know, here I am, Shakyamuni, a brown whatever, you know, Here I am, Shakyamuni, 45 years old. Here I am, Shakyamuni, 60 years old. Here I am, Shakyamuni, 67 years old. Here I am, and so on. In India, with you, talking to you like this, this is a form, and I'm now... ...to be a Buddha, so you can meet Buddha. Potence has some negative connotations, but one of the meanings of it is to represent fictitiously in play.

[16:18]

Shakyamuni represented fictitiously the Buddha. The form he took is a fiction about the Buddha. He said, this form is not the real Buddha. He said that. And after he passed away, they had no statues of him. They had statues of a chair, which are very powerful. See this chair with the foot pads? Look at it. You can feel the Buddha there. You can imagine a person sitting there. But if you look at the chair, the empty chair of the Buddha, with the little lotus pad down where the feet go, with the little footprints, where he can put his tootsies down on those footprints, But then you imagine the person, that's pretty good. But if you don't imagine the person, you feel the Buddha there without making it a person. It's a bigger Buddha. And the early Buddhists made those statues that don't have a Buddha in them. Statues of empty chairs to tell us the real Buddha, which Shakyamuni Buddha pretended to be.

[17:29]

And he was sincere in his pretense. He was sincere in his storytelling about the Buddha. And he did this so that people could meet the Buddha. And they did meet the Buddha with his help. And they did understand the Dharma. And we have this great history. Shakyamuni Buddha's practice, his practice, I'm suggesting to you, was from the time of his understanding, not just the time of his understanding, because he understood in many lifetimes before he became the Buddha, but at the time of him becoming the Buddha, when he started to perform the Buddhahood, from that time on, ritual performance of the Buddha way and then he did a ritual performance of passing into Nirvana. So I am willing, I had been willing for some time to play at being a Zen student.

[18:51]

I'm amazed that I had the opportunity and that I was... that I would be willing to do that. I look back at my life. What's a young man doing, sitting all those years, getting nothing? It's just amazing. He just sat there day after day, year after year, and getting nothing. It's just surprising that a young guy would do that and then got older and kept doing it. It's surprising. I was a Zen student. And when I first, before I came to Zen Center anymore, I saw the Zen play thing. Like in my mind, I imagined the Zen play of student in kind of like elegant clothing and nice elegant haircut, sitting in an elegant posture on elegant tatami mats with a beautiful little bell near him. And then he hears a bell ring in another room and he rings it and gets up and slides at the door and slips into the room and meets the teacher.

[19:54]

Chat, chat. And bows, leaves, slides the door to the tea garden and screams. So, pretending to be a Zen student. I was happy to come and pretend to be a Zen student. And then at some point, a student said, would you please pretend to be a Zen teacher? Nobody said that to me. Ever. Isn't that weird? Even though no one asked me, I'm confessing that I have pretended to be a Zen teacher. And I never stop pretending to be a Zen student. And I am at being a Zen teacher and I am doing a ceremonial performance of being a Zen teacher. And some of you are doing the ceremonial performance of being a Zen student. And if you make all your actions the ceremony of being a Zen teacher, you will understand the ultimate truth.

[21:03]

If you think your actions are something real, substantial, etc., that will slow you down. That will be a moment of distraction from the path of sitting upright in the midst of self-fulfilling samadhi. The true path of enlightenment is to sit upright, practicing in the midst of playfulness. of ceremonial performance. In ceremonial performance your self is fulfilled and your self fulfills the universe. We do the ceremony of being fulfilled by others and fulfilling others. This is the path of all the ancestors.

[22:06]

And so again I say we pretend to be bodhisattvas and then people get worried about that because the word pretend has some kind of has some deception involved when you use that word. So should we find another word that doesn't have any quality of deception? We could try. Make believe. Play at. mimic. There are some other words, but when you mimic them, somebody could say, well, you're mimicking kind of like a kind of, and your mimic is so good, you're kind of deceiving us. You look so much like a nice person that someone will say. But what everyone likes is that the bodhisattva's way is a painting of a bodhisattva way. And the Buddha way is a painting of the Buddha way.

[23:14]

Enlightenment is a painting of enlightenment. A painting is a performance of reality. That's a Buddha. That's a fish. This is a painting of my mommy." And that's the only way to realize reality. And children do this to explore reality. And we can continue to use storytelling, playing, as a way to explore and realize reality. Zen teacher and Zen student, real Zen teacher and real Zen student, I am a Zen student. No, you're not. But the play Zen Master can say, no, you're not, to the Zen student who really thinks she is a Zen student.

[24:32]

And when she says, I am a Zen student, or even I think I'm a Zen student, The play Zen master can say, no, you're not. But they don't mean that it's really true that no, you're not. They just mean, please realize who you're talking to. I worry that you don't. I'm a kitchen worker. No, you're not. Yes, I am. Yes, you are. Thanks for telling me. Or, I'm a Zen student. You're a Zen student. Oh, now I see I'm not a Zen student. I'm in pain. You're in pain.

[25:33]

Oh, So the play is the way, is the mode in which we realize that others are ourselves. And when we realize others are ourselves, the play, the ceremony, is the way to enact that realization and test that realization. And sometimes we think, oh, I understand that others are ourselves, and then we start playing. The play shows us that we didn't really understand that. I was talking to someone recently who, I don't really remember what he said, but it was something like sometimes he sees old people, you know, people who show signs of aging.

[26:42]

A lot of people laughed at that point. Who are those old people that laughed? The young people didn't get that one. I don't know. It wasn't even intended as a joke, but somehow it touched something among certain people. Anyway, this person who, I don't know how old this person is, but he already finds signs of aging in others disgusting. He doesn't like it. And he pointed out to me that he thinks maybe the reason why he doesn't like it is because he doesn't like signs of aging in himself. And I thought, I have that similar thing myself. And I don't feel too bad about it, I feel somewhat bad, but I feel some consolation in that Shakyamuni Buddha actually felt some signs of aging in others. And he was, like me, embarrassed, or me like him, was embarrassed that he should find signs of aging in others disgusting.

[27:53]

Because I'm going to go through that too. So not everybody finds signs of aging disgusting. It's not. It doesn't have to be that way all the time. Matter of fact, once you start to wake up to what it's about, you can actually start to think that some of these signs of aging are going to be quite lovely, cute, You start gusting for them. You want to chew them. Mmm, yummy. Yummy wrinkled skin. Mmm, yummy sagging memory. Hello, memory. Memory, wake up, wake up. Come on, where are you? When Shakyamuni was looking at those old people and finding them disgusting, at that moment of the disgust, he wasn't practicing the ritual enactment.

[29:16]

He wasn't doing a ceremony. At that time, he didn't see the emptiness of the aging. Long time before he saw it, but now this time in his new life as a human being in India, he didn't see the emptiness. He had to remember it. And he did remember it. And after that, he didn't have any disgust for aging people or his own aging. So I like to practice make believe, to practice storytelling.

[30:26]

Storytelling, we're doing it anyway. It's basically what we're doing. In other words, karma is the way we're in the world and the way we make world stories. And it's good, and the integrity of the story is maintained by mindfulness of its provisional fictitious characteristics. If your stories don't include that they're fictions, your stories do not have integrity. The story that you wish to be a good person, wish to be a bodhisattva, doesn't include that that wish is a fiction.

[31:29]

that wish loses some of its integrity. We need to include that our wish to be a benefit is in a person who wishes something other than being a benefit. You're not whole if you think you're only good. When you're whole, or some contradiction. I really do, I am really trying to be good and not... And that's a fiction. And I'm wholeheartedly pretending to be somebody who really wants to be a fine disciple of Buddha. And since that's a fiction, I'm willing to play with it.

[32:34]

And if you want to tell me I'm a phony, we can play with that. And our play is a ceremony. And our ceremony is a play. And this is how Shakyamuni Buddha played Buddha. He played big, brilliant, and he knew it was a play. And he knew that the form he was using was not the form of Buddha, but he had to use the form of Buddha to realize Buddha. And he did an amazingly good job day after day ritually performing Buddha. And one thing that I didn't mention before so much but I would just like to put out now and maybe go into more discussion later but just put it out there for you now and that is

[33:51]

To act with a sense that what you're doing has a self, or that you do, and what you do does, creates a world. Together with other people who are acting that way. To act from the understanding that all dharmas are empty also creates a world, but a different world. So there is the possibility of when you sit upright in the midst of the understanding that others are yourself, that action creates a world. It creates what we call the serene light pure land. When you take a step, and this step

[35:05]

It's like you're in a play, and the name of the play is, this step unfolds the truth. This step unfolds. This jump, this hand gesture enacts the highest truth. That's a ceremony I'm doing now. This hand gesture is a ceremonial enactment of emptiness in this form. When you act that way, that creates a pure land. And then doing again, it creates another pure land. This is how pure lands are created, by enacting the highest truth, by making your action an enactment of the truth. So we have these two things we're reciting in this sashi, which, by the way, are recited in sotos and monasteries in Japan.

[36:19]

One is written by the ancestor Dogen and the other is the Lotus Sutra. And in these two things we're reciting, there is a description of a realm. In one case, the Buddha is saying, in my land, everybody is living in peace and harmony. In the land which is created by the ceremonial enactment of the highest truth, beings are living in peace and harmony. In that land, everybody is fulfilling everybody. That's how it is in the Buddha's land in chapter sixteen. And Buddha is in that land, and everybody else is in that land too. And Buddha's in that land, everybody in that land, but if the people haven't been taking care of themselves, they don't see the Buddha.

[37:28]

And the Buddha says, although I'm always close, they do not see me. And actually, I don't let them see me. But they are in my land with me and living in peace and harmony. Although this land is close, we do not see it. And even if you're creating it by taking a step by raising your hand as the enactment of the highest truth, even if you're creating it, you still may not be ready to see it. But it's close, according to the Lotus Sutra. And this land is the land of our yourself. It's the land of Buddha. Always close, yet do not see. Then Dogen talks about the realm of self-fulfilling samadhi, the realm of where others fulfill you.

[38:39]

And he describes this realm of where all the... And others doesn't just mean other people, it means the walls, the tiles, the pebbles, the wind, the rain, all the particles of the universe are loving you. And you're loving them. In this realm, everybody... He doesn't call it a pure land in that text, but he shows that in this land all beings, including those who do not know where they are, are helping those who do know where they are. The unenlightened are helping the enlightened, helping the unenlightened, and all this is Buddhist work. To sit as the enactment of that realm to ceremonially perform that realm is the path. And then in Psalm 2, Dogen says, after describing this amazing harmony and interaction and playfulness among all beings, he says, all this, however, does not appear within perception or is not mixed with perception.

[40:00]

we're having perceptions quite frequently. We have a lot of them. And this Buddha land is not mixing with those perceptions. So I just wanted to draw your attention to the parallel between the Buddha's land in chapter 16 and the ancestor Dogen's paintings. painting of the realm of self-fulfilling samadhi. And compare that to the Buddha's painting, the Buddha's story about his land. And he says something which is kind of contradictory. He says, if you're upright, gentle and flexible and harmonious and honest, you know, I honestly think I'm in the Green Gulch Zendo sitting upright.

[41:18]

I honestly think that's what's going on and I wish to make this the ritual performance of the Buddha way. If you're that way, If you're willing to make wherever you are, give it over to and be flexible about it turned into the ceremony of helping others, you'll see the Buddha teaching the Lotus Sutra right now. But that seeing the Buddha teaching the Lotus Sutra right now will not be mixed with the perception of Tom and Charlie and John. It won't be mixed in there. They'll just be Tom, Charlie, and John. a little bit of Simon and Gordon, et cetera. Michael, Tim, Anil, all these men will not be mixed with this realm, and yet they're all living in this realm.

[42:19]

You will see this. And you can tell other people about it if you want to. in a ceremonial way, of course. Because what you're seeing is no less, or as you could say, equally empty to your perceptions. You can't find the perceptions and you can't find this wonderful Buddha land. But you can realize perceptions and that's such an ordinary life. But you can also realize what's beyond perception. How? Making every action the ceremonial performance of others are myself. Make also, you can also make every action the ceremonial performance of you are myself, not myself. Or the ceremonial performance of you are not me, I'm actually you.

[43:26]

You can be playful with this. You don't have to be rigid like, you are me. You can say, you are not me. Just like, you are not a Zen student. You are a Zen student. You are not a Zen student. You're not a Zen student. You're a Zen student. You understand what I mean, don't you? You're not Zen students. You're Zen students. Or, you're not Zen students. You're Zen students. Various ways to say that. you're welcome to play with it. This is for all of you to play in in a ceremonial way according to traditional forms. I've been repairing my robes during Seishin, sewing them up.

[44:29]

Carolyn's been helping me. So all the different patches hold together, make it through the ceremony without ripping off my body. Or with ripping off my body. But please don't rip these robes unless you really think it's going to be beneficial. So I had this imagination that now, on the third day of session, do you have a headache today? Anybody have a headache? Jackie has a headache? In the midst of your headache, are you able to hear me at all? Good. What? What did you say?

[45:30]

I called you rats? Can anybody else hear me call you rats? Really? Wow. Getting pretty far out here. I didn't mean to call you rats, but I just, I was using rats as an example. But I think that it would be good for you to understand that rats are you. So I'm not saying you're rats, I'm just saying you should understand rats are you. And I should understand rats are me, and that not only rats are me, but you are me. You who say I called you a rat are me. The one who's sending me, who's indicting me with slinging is me. I'm suggesting that I cannot avoid Jackie Mohanna being me. I'm saying, I cannot avoid that.

[46:35]

I might want to, but I can't. And so I thought, you know, rather than talk about Jackie, I would talk about rats. And say, you know, I have trouble looking at rats and saying, oh my God, that's me. unless you're really like living in a Zen pure land under a bridge or under a freeway, and you're homeless, and you're not a vegetarian, and you think, oh, that's me. Ah, that's me. I've been waiting for you, sweetheart. Come on over here. The rat goes, come closer, I have something for you. Come on, come on. You or me, come on.

[47:39]

And then you grab the rat and cuddle up with it for the night to keep you warm. Mmm, nice warm rat. No, don't nibble on me. Here, I'll give you here, you nibble on this piece of wood. Yeah, so I just kind of thought, hey, I think it looks like everybody thinks they understand what I'm talking about. And some people think they understand what I'm going to talk about and totally disagree with me. They understand, but they disagree. Other people understand what I'm talking about and they don't understand what I'm talking about. And some other people understand what I'm talking about and think they understand what I'm talking about.

[48:46]

And some people disagree with me and agree with me. There's a lot of possibilities in the Naked City. And we have a low-quality Zobotan here. Just kidding. Just kidding. It's an antique Zabuton. The Zabuton is no longer what you call black. It's a gray Zabuton, actually preserved for dharma playground, dharma sandbox. If anyone wants to perform the Buddha way, there's a place to do it right here. There's a ceremonial spot But no one wants to today, so we end.

[49:50]

May our attention equally extend to every being and place.

[50:03]

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