Norman asked me yesterday something about what I felt the difference between our daily practice and intensive practice. And I think there's a number of differences, but what occurred to me was that it seems to me that during Sashin we emphasize the last three paramitas. Heroic effort is the fourth one. Concentration, fifth, and wisdom or insight. And the generosity and ethical conduct and patience are very much there too, but they're sort of built in. You give yourself to the schedule for a week.

[01:04]

If you follow it, your practical conduct is pretty good. You're actually doing that. And you have a lot of patience. Or sometimes patience is called endurance. So these three are very much present, but it's like if you just stay here for a week and do this schedule, you already take care of those first three pretty well. So they're kind of built in. The next three you kind of have to work at, in a sense. Even though I said working at it's not required, in fact, that's the area you work. And when I read that story about Gautama on the night of his enlightenment sitting under the bow tree, that's an example of heroic, heroic, a heroic thrust.

[02:18]

He went and he sat down under the bow tree and he really did stay there until he woke up and didn't let anybody dissuade him from his work. And it was a real struggle to stay there. So for you two to stay on your cushion and to keep going in the direction of whatever you're concentrating on, that requires heroic effort. And of course, that's necessary for the concentration. This point I've been emphasizing of keeping your mudra against your abdomen and below the navel, concentrating on that and doing that is heroic.

[03:20]

I feel it's heroic in varying degrees depending on your physical situation. Concentrating on that one point takes you to the base of the boat tree. And there you will be assailed by a great deal of stuff will come swirling in around you. And you may wish, as I mentioned yesterday, you may long for a respite, for a pause to muse, for a gentler flame. I think we all feel that as we approach the bow tree to sit. But there, right in the middle of the heat, right in the middle of the great wind and whirlpool of the forces of our light, it's there that our heroic work is to be done.

[04:32]

and various delusions will arise and tell us that we should do something else. And to keep your hand against your abdomen and to stay concentrated on one physical point takes you into the place where you are. and puts you on the place where Buddha woke up. This is the, in a sense, this is the mask of a parmita, this heroic one. It means, in Sanskrit, virya, which means bull. So whether we're a man or a woman, we have to make this virile thrust into the place where we are and jump over our resistance to being where we are fully and be there.

[05:50]

Concentration, the concentration, paramita, I don't feel it's masculine or feminine. It's more neutral, I think. But the wisdom, the wisdom paramita, the prajnaparamita is feminine. It's a female force. We put ourselves in the situation of our body and mind by concentrating on some bodily place. And once we can settle there and not pinch from that very dynamic situation, this subtle wisdom is right there. All we need to do then is just basically receive the information.

[06:56]

Just receive things as they are. But not, again, receive things as they are when you're out in the bleachers watching somebody else's life. But receive things as they are when you are where you are. And when you are where you are, tremendous forces of the universe come to move through you. At that place where you are, I'm sorry to say, there is no respite. There is no pause to muse. You are the muse. what you find when you enter the center of your life when you enter the true intent of your body and stay there what you find is what the sutras are talking about all you have to do is look at it you don't have to uh try to have another self or anything you just won't be able to find one there

[08:33]

Up in the bleachers, you can find a cell. But there in the center, in the heat, you'll see the cell swirling all over the place. And again, as I mentioned yesterday, I don't know if this is important enough to say again, but it's funny that, for me, that during daylight, because we don't have much concentration, we can get by with being sloppy about our posture. But during sashi, you really can't afford to be sloppy because the price is too high. Therefore, We are pushed in the most comfortable place is where we make the biggest effort.

[09:40]

But although I say this, I know that still we want to hold back a little bit. In the morning, we're chanting the merging of difference and unity and the song of the jewel mirror awareness.

[11:07]

And you hear in those poems, Statements like, right in light there is darkness, but don't confront it as darkness. Right in darkness there is light, but don't see it as light. Light and dark are relative to one another by forward and backward steps. All things have their use. It is a matter of using them in an appropriate way. These teachings may be of some use to us under ordinary circumstances, but if we talk about them under usual circumstances, you may feel that they're a little intellectual.

[12:24]

But during sashi, when you're concentrated, and when you really enter into the true intent of your body, and you don't turn away from that place, what you see there What your body is like is exactly those kinds of things. You can see those teachings as your body. It's no longer hearing about it. What you're actually experiencing is like that. your body becomes a example. Your body expounds that very teaching.

[13:38]

You are exactly that teaching at that time. The teaching of dustness has been intimately communicated by Buddhism ancestors. Now you have it. Keep it well. You have it. What is it that you have? Ordinarily you may say, oh, I have it now. Well, what is it that I have? What I'm saying is, When you are willing to concentrate like that and be there in that place, that place which is most not turning away from the wall, then you have the teaching of goodness. It is actually what you are experiencing then. Then the dynamics.

[14:50]

is there. Then the darkness and the light is there. Then the light and the darkness is there. But you have to dive into that world of where you are in order to see this actually happening right in front of me. And wisdom is not like, you know, something you have to do. You just have to be in that situation and live with it. Living with the reality is wisdom. Or your life as that reality is wisdom. It's not something that you see over there. It's something that you are. But ordinarily we live out in the bleachers, and out in the bleachers you can go to the toilet whenever you want. and you can order popcorn, or close your eyes and not watch the game for a while. But when you're out in the middle of the game, you cannot go to the toilet when you want to, or take a break.

[15:59]

You cannot control what's going on. There's a reality out there, or in there, which you just have to deal with. and it's teaching you all the time. Again, it's not teaching you the dustness of the situation. You, as you are, is all you have to do. But you have to make sure that you're not manipulating the show. You can manipulate it in a bleacher, but you can't manipulate it in a center. And a little thing like keeping your hand against your abdomen keeps you in the center. If you keep your hand here, you make your body, you make your posture, you make your awareness impermanent, and fragile, and ill, and not self, and empty.

[17:12]

If you put your hand against your abdomen, that only lasts that long. You have to put it there again. And again. You have to keep putting it there, moment after moment. Otherwise, it won't be there. You have to keep making contact of the hand to the abdomen. Otherwise, it will not be there. It won't accidentally be there. That effort to touch this part of your hand to the abdomen has to be made again and again and again. And if you don't make it, it goes away. That's just like a teaching. It says your body is fleeting. It isn't something that you can sit over there and come back in a few minutes and it'll still be there. It's something you have to keep making. You have to keep making it. And you do keep making it. And everybody does that all day long for their whole life, but they don't notice.

[18:20]

They don't notice that moment after moment you make bodily action. And that the action you make is a fleeting action and has to be made again. That you have a body which is constantly changing. Simply by that one little point, you can realize the constantly swirling, fleeting body that we really have. But again, it's difficult to live with the body as it is. We think it would be easier to live with the body, well, as it is. A phantom of the body. A little story about the body. A story which you can make and hold on to for a minute, or an hour, or a lifetime. With some alterations when you go in and out of the hospital or have babies.

[19:25]

But basically, it's a dream, it's a phantom. The actual body is reality itself. Pulsing, fleeting heat, water, paper, paper. As I said yesterday also, the unity of our practice and the realization of enlightenment is found in practices as manifestations of selflessness, which are the characteristic of ultimate truth. Ultimate truth is not a thing over here on the altar. There is this thing called the absolute, which is over there someplace, or down there someplace.

[20:30]

But the truth is the unity, the merging of absolute and relative existence, of your existence and emptiness. And the way that the absolute truth manifests, which is form as emptiness, emptiness as form, the way it manifests is as your practice of selflessness. Then your practice is the same as ultimate truth. Then your practice is complete enlightenment. So foremost is to let go, to not hold on to some idea of self. And the way to detach from the idea of self is to not cling to the body. And the way to not cling to the body is to simply concentrate on something about your body. Here.

[21:33]

And keep doing that. That will throw you into the experience of what your body actually is, which is beyond anything I or you can say, but is simply this tremendous vital pulse this hot flux of vitality. If you enter that, you will hear the teachings. The treasure store will open on itself right as you are, and you can use it at will. And I apologize for being so fierce about this, because you're doing really well, really well, but you can only do better, you can only get more of it.

[22:48]

And you have the rest of the day and three more when you really have a chance to enter what your body is and experience what the body is. If you experience what the body is, you will drop the body. You will see what the body is is something you cannot get a hold of. It's a swirl of heat, water, movement of air, and solidity. With our ancestor Dogen, I only ask that students of the way sit quietly and inquire into the beginning and end of the body. Look into that bright heat that comes when you don't move.

[23:56]

Look in there. be there and see if you can find the beginning or end of the body inquire that inquiry drops body and mind and is a selfless practice and there your practice is enlightened There, your experience will be like reading a sutra. And the poems we chant in the morning will be poems about your experience. This is where the Buddhas turn the wheel of truth. all the buddhas turn the wheel of the truth in the midst of these fierce flames of impermanence in the midst of these fierce flames of pain in the midst of these fierce flames of not self that's where they turn the wheel now they have finished a cool breeze rises on the forehead

[25:26]

This morning when we chanted the song that was Jomir Samadhi and the merging of difference and unity, for me it was a real experience of not-self. I was in great pain. It was such a terrible chant. It was so unharmonious. I don't know, various people were doing, had various things that they were trying to do. I was trying, I was trying to get to be this way. Somebody else was trying to get to be this way. Someone else was trying to get to be this way. It was, you know, much worse in the first few days. So I really, I really, of course, appreciate that opportunity. It was like being in the middle of a, of reality. I couldn't, you know, myself was not satisfied.

[26:56]

The pain of having a self was accentuated by that change. So what can I say? It's really great. On the other hand, If we would cooperate with each other and make beautiful harmonious chanting, even there the self could be dropped. So let's not give up on cooperation and harmony just because it's so wonderful, especially for me. I had such a good seat. Don't chant better than the other people. Don't chant worse than the other people. Join a huge assembly. Join it. It may be hard to find it, but look for that place.

[28:00]

Again, selflessness is not necessarily what you think selflessness is. Or what I think it is. So I don't know what selflessness is, and nobody else does either, because it really isn't anything at all. It's just that when you practice with that way, that is the manifestation of alternate reality. And if you put yourself in certain circumstances, the likelihood of being able to practice selflessness are much greater. And I think it's clear the situation I'm suggesting. And I think it's also clear that I understand if you don't want to go there, because again, it's like entering a wind tunnel or fierce flames or a cold ocean or an avalanche.

[29:09]

I understand the hesitation, but you'll be all right. That's the one place, ironically, where you'll be all right. And I want you to take care of your bodies so you don't get hurt. But if you jump into there, your body won't get hurt. You'll finally, your body will finally be healthy. your buddha nature will take care of it so basically I'm just saying keep up the good work you're already doing it just keep it up and keep going back to that place of concentration and when you're there in that place Then inquire into what is the body?

[30:16]

See if you can find one. And that's why we don't wanna go there because we know you have to give up your idea of body, you have to let go of the body to be there. And when you get there, then what is the body? What is the self? I feel, if you use the expression, like this says she were really practicing Zen. And somebody gave me this article, which they thought I would find entertaining, and I did.

[31:21]

So I thought I'd read it to you. The headline says, what does it say? Gaining the competitive edge. This is an advertisement in Sun magazine. And it says, today You're up against the greatest challenge of your life. That's true, isn't it? Yeah, it's true. I feel that. Today, you've got to win on the job. At school, in gym, and everything you do.

[32:23]

Your success is dependent on your strength and clarity of mind. If your mind is sharp, alert, focused, and relaxed, then you will gain a competitive edge in daily living. Isn't it funny? that no one ever taught you how to use your mind. In school, they taught you English, math, history, biology, and sports. But no one ever showed you the science in mind that can give you the competitive edge in English, math, history, biology, and sports, and everything else in your life. Zen. In ancient science... Then there's an ancient science of mine that was developed thousands of years ago in the Far East.

[33:37]

And then you can learn how to concentrate. how to use sophisticated methods of analysis and perception, how to overcome stress, and how to gain control of your time, mind, and life. Zen is not a religion or a philosophy. In Zen, there are no gurus. There are only masters of the art of mind. who can teach you how to be independent, strong, competitive, and successful. Whether you're interested in enlightenment, success, in business, winning in sports or martial arts, developing your artistic abilities, improving your relationships, or simply being happy.

[34:47]

Zen can give you a competitive edge. My name is Zen Master Blank. I have, well, I'll just say, my name is Zen Master Rahm. I have been teaching self-discovery for over 17 years. I would like to send you one of my free Zen seminar brochures and tell you more about Zen and the wonders of your own mind. Call or write today. Gain the competitive edge. Practice Zen. Signed, Zen Master Rahm. What about money? Well, this particular seminar, the New Year's Eve intensive in Zen meditation with Zen Master Rama, live music by Zazen.

[35:50]

That's a group, right? Wednesday, December 31st, 7.30 p.m. to 1987. And it's in L.A. and it costs $10. I mean, it is in. You gain money, it's in. Oh, yeah. You can be successful in business. And I have a picture of him here. He's a nice-looking fellow. He has long hair, and they light it from the back, you see? They light it from the back, so it goes through the hair and makes a halo. If you light it from the front, it doesn't do it that way. You should do that. It's all good. So we'll consider getting a charter bus sign up.

[37:16]

What he's talking about there, there's something real to that. It's just not balanced with some other thing, that's all. What he's referring to is what's called all accomplishing wisdom. There's four wisdoms. The bright mirror wisdom, the wisdom of sameness, all discriminating wisdom, and all accomplishing wisdom. These are the four wisdoms. And he just mentioned the fourth one, which without the other three sounds a little funny. But, you know, there's some reality to it. Please continue your good work and finding that place, that unflinching place of complete concentration on one thing.

[38:29]

And the treasure store will open up itself. and your life will be using it at will.

[38:41]

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