Happy New Year. I talk like this, you can't hear me with that, can you? Today I'd like to talk about the teaching of thusness. Is that about the right volume? Today I'd like to talk about the teaching of thusness or the teaching of suchness. Is that about the right volume? Is it too loud in the front? No?

[01:01]

Well, the teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated by Buddhism ancestors. Now you have it. So keep it well. That's it. Or this is it. So please take care of this all the time, OK? This is the main teaching of the practice lineage of this temple, this one that you have right now. So we say, you already have it.

[02:16]

And this is the conclusion of Buddhism. So Buddhism actually starts at its own conclusion. And then you keep working from there forever. But actually, from the conclusion, you go forward. We are not operating, we are not working, we are not practicing based on some kind of deficiency. Our practice is not based on what's wrong with us. We're actually practicing from the conclusion, from our already having it. And we have practices or a practice which we do, which is this practice of suchness. For example, this morning, I think it's cold.

[03:26]

It seems to be quite cold here in California anyway. This is cold. And so I'm surprised to see so many people here on such a cold morning. Is it cold in other places too? So it's cold. And because it's cold, I think not very many people will come. And because I think not very many people will come when a lot of people come, I'm surprised. This is the way it is for me. That's my situation as such. And I might wish for something else, but then that's my suchness too. Sometimes I call this school that we have here the body-only school.

[04:37]

The body-only school. There's another school of Buddhism, which is a close relative of ours, called the mind-only school, which is really the same thing. As the founder of this temple said, the most important thing is to own your own body. Own your own body. And own means, have a couple meanings. One meaning of own is, in the usual world, to possess. Another meaning of own is to confess or to avow, like own up to doing that. So, the most important thing is to confess the body that you have

[05:40]

Completely accept the body you have. And also possess the body you have. But of course you can't possess the body you have. You just are the body you have. So it's a kind of non-dualistic possession. A possession where you don't have to reach out and grasp it. So it's an ungrasping possession. And you're not talking about anything when you own up to your own body. own your own physical body. This is a verbal expression which is indicating a practice. A practice of, in a moment, owning your own body. The best way to live is for the sake of others.

[06:43]

However, at the same time, we only exist for our own sakes. We exist for the sake of ourselves. Why don't we own up to that fact? We don't exist for something else. We may think we do, but if we think we're existing for something else, we're not being honest about our biology. The funny thing is that by thinking that we exist for something else, we're of no use to anybody else. But if we can admit completely with our whole body and mind that we only exist for ourselves, we actually can help everybody else.

[07:48]

In the same way, in a sense you could say that Buddhist practice is about changing, about becoming Buddha. But if you try to change yourself into a Buddha, you don't change into a Buddha, you just change into yourself probably a little bit more miserable than before. The way to change into a Buddha is to accept your own body as it is. The medium of transformation is owning your own. Owning your own is the medium by which we are transformed. Not trying to change things, but to own them. To be boss of your own life is the medium in which you do change into your true nature.

[09:01]

But of course you don't change into your true nature, you just wake up to it. And that's a change. Usually we try to order things around us. We try to get other people straightened out. Other situations outside of ourselves in order. But this is simply impossible unless we ourselves are first in order. And if we ourselves are in order, If we ourselves are in the right place, in the right way, then everything else is in its right place. But if we don't order ourselves and we try to put everything else in its right place, we do not succeed. However, to put a cup back where you got it

[10:09]

is not necessarily trying to order outside things. If you understand that putting a cup back where you got it is actually ordering your own mind, that's all right. In other words, you put the cup back on the shelf in order to be yourself, not in order to organize the cups. If you try to organize the cups, not understanding that really the motivation for this is to put your mind and body in order, then if somebody moves the cups, you maybe get quite angry at them. Or if other people don't put the cups back, you become discouraged. But the wonderful thing I'm proposing is that if you understand that when you put the cups back where they usually go, if you understand that you're ordering your own mind, and if you feel ordered by that, and you feel that you are really in the place you are as such, then somebody else can move the cup and you understand that that's in order too.

[11:33]

This way I'm proposing is not criticizing any other way. So, for example, my wife went to a workshop on drug addiction yesterday and the day before. And in the treatment of alcoholics, there's different philosophies. and treatment of alcoholics and drug addicts, there's different philosophies. But the one I heard about yesterday, I feel accords with this practice that I'm talking about. Namely, it's very, unless the alcoholic has the proper motivation to quit, it's almost impossible. And the motivation that was proposed as the effective motivation is that they themselves have found the inner no. I don't want to drink. They have found that. But if they're quitting for some other reason, if they say, I want to quit drinking because my wife is going to leave me, or I want to quit drinking because they'll take away my driver's license, or I want to quit drinking for... and so on.

[13:12]

Some reason outside themselves. this is not considered the best motivation. And they sometimes are not accepted into treatment programs because their motivation is not the right kind. Not only that, but, well, I shouldn't say not only that, but, We sometimes even try to get people who don't want to quit to quit. Not to mention leaving people alone who have not even found their own motivation to quit. We try to, we look at someone who's suffering so much by alcoholism, destroying their bodily tissue, destroying their bones and their brains by pickling them with this alcohol. And of course we want to stop them.

[14:17]

Natural human reaction. But in fact, I'm suggesting that you first of all should address yourself. The person who feels they're suffering and who wants to help them and who wants to change them. First of all, put that person in order. And you may find that this person who's so clearly, from your point of view, doing certain things which hurt them, that this person actually is perfect. That they're right exactly where they should be. And they don't yet have the motivation to quit. Therefore, it's not time to quit. This is not easy to face, especially if you love the person, to see someone who's not yet ready to stop doing something and hurting themselves. And if I don't yet see that they're not ready to do it, then I'm out of order.

[15:28]

If I'm in order, I can see that this person is not yet ready to do something which would be very good for them if they were ready. But since they're not ready, it won't work. This is a difficult thing. And in fact, again, it's almost impossible to see it unless I myself am in order. Because we do the same things to ourselves even for not alcoholics. We push ourselves ahead to do things before we're actually doing this. We sit in this room, right now you're sitting in this room, and we spend many hours, some of us, sitting in this room.

[16:42]

And sometimes we say, you know, sit straight. And again, today what I mean by sitting straight is that you own your own spine. You own every inch of it. You own every vertebra in your spine. the whole thing, you own each little part. And sometimes you may hear someone say, if you slouch, this is not the correct posture. But the way I understand that is that slouching means that you slouch away from or shrink away from owning to your own back, owning to your own body. If I go like this, You know, some of you can't even see me. I'm slouching down here. But anyway, if I slouch down, you could say that's not the right posture.

[17:48]

When I slouched, a lot of people moved. But it is possible to be in any posture and own that posture and have that posture not be a slouch. You can be totally such in any posture. But, strangely enough, if you were to slouch and if you could be totally that slouch, quite often what would happen due to being totally that slouch is you would find something would happen to you and you start lengthening your spine. this suchness would pump you up like pumping up a tire. Because really there is no slouching from where we are. We are always totally erect in every moment.

[18:54]

No matter what posture we're in, we always totally, 100% do that. just like you have the rheostat, you know, and you can adjust the light. A 25-watt bulb can be completely turned on. And a 150-watt bulb can be half turned on. Which is brighter? Which is more totally there? Well, it's hard to say. That little 25-watt bulb is just working right up to its capacity. But the 150-watt bulb is not working up to its capacity, but it doesn't have as much coming through it. So actually, it's working right to its suchness. And in its own way, it is just as it should be.

[20:00]

So, since nothing slouches, we say, don't slouch. In other words, realize the suchness of your situation each moment. Always have the right posture. The right posture is the posture you have now. Work to have this posture. Always work to have the right posture. And if you work to try to have the right posture, you realize how important the right posture is. In some sense, the practice which, again, in some sense, our practice is just to all the time, day after day, hour after hour, just to always have the right posture. That's it. Wherever you are, all day long, even while sleeping, have that posture completely as such.

[21:05]

Without seeking anything more than that. But also not shrinking the slightest bit back from that. Really meeting it as such. Really meeting the circumstances of your life. All these different bodies existing for themselves. And again, there is in us, especially those of us who want to help people, a feeling like, oh, I don't exist for myself. I want to help others. But I would say again to you, if you can admit that this body is existing for itself, not for anything else, then you can help people. Because if you can let yourself be who you are, maybe somebody else who is not letting themselves be themselves and therefore is in misery, they might get the hint.

[22:15]

They might be encouraged to be willing, to be willing fully to be who they are. But if I am afraid to be who I am because I think I'm supposed to be helping other people rather than what I'm doing, strangely enough, they also, the people who I want to help, won't be willing to be who they are. Because I'm teaching them, I can't be myself, and I want to help you so you can't be yourself. So we spread everybody being ashamed of being who they are. Rather than spreading the feeling not of necessarily being proud of who I am, but being willing to be the person, the body that I am. And with the faith, and not the faith like believing, but the demonstration by actually being willing to be in this posture, to never slouch from this posture, whatever it is,

[23:25]

And seeing, does that help other people? Try it, and you may realize how important it is to own your own body. And the nice thing about this practice is you can do it. It is possible to do it as the body gets older and starts to bend and twist and get sick. You can still be that body as such. It's hard for children to do this practice. It's hard for middle-aged people to do this practice. And it's hard for old people to do this practice. Because our mind is built on doing things for something else other than this. So we have a strong tendency to seek something more than this, to not be willing to own up to this.

[24:38]

And so we stay stuck. So again, anyway, the willingness for this to settle on this is the medium in which we transform ourselves. And the feeling of this changing into that is the medium in which we stay stuck in the same process of seeking and shrinking from our present suchness. And so a lot of our practices are just kind of like toys to work out on being what we are. So we try to have a straight back. Or another one we do is when we're sitting, we make this cosmic mudra with our hand.

[25:38]

We take our right hand and place it against our abdomen. We touch our abdomen. We put these little baby fingers up against our tummy. We touch it. Now we could not touch it too. That'd be all right. But we want to have a kind of suchness. We want to have something to work with. We want to have something to happen with. So we touch it. And then it's touching or not touching. If it's touching, it's touching. And if it's not touching, it's not touching. Very simple. But if we don't say it's touching or not touching, if we don't say touch it, then it's a little bit harder for us to tell whether it's touching or not. Because we don't care. if we haven't decided to pay attention to where that little finger is. So we say, touch the finger against the abdomen and place the left hand on top of the right hand and touch the baby finger of the left hand against the abdomen too.

[26:42]

And then bring the thumb tips together and touch them. And don't touch them too hard or too soft. Touch them so that if you put a piece of paper between a small piece of paper or perhaps a dollar bill between your fingers, your fingers could hold the dollar bill up. But if you put an ant between your finger, the ant would not be severely damaged. Touchy, but very soft, very gently touching. And feel yourself present in the palms of your hands, particularly the palm of your left hand. Be present there in the palm of your left hand. This is an exercise in suchness.

[27:53]

It's a meditation on your body. It's being your hands. And we don't do this to make a nice state of mind. This is a nice state of mind. That's it. And although it's easy for us to think, gee, I wonder what this is going to do for me, and many other things you might wonder about, actually just to make this mudra, to make this hand mudra, as such, is the enlightened state of mind. Just that. And then if you think, I wonder if this is an enlightened state of mind, well, that's a thought about that hand mudra. That's not making the hand mudra.

[28:58]

Just this hand mudra is enlightenment. Do you understand? One Zen teacher, whenever anybody asked him what Buddhism was, he all went like this. Actually, we don't know which finger he raised. It said, whenever they asked Master, his name was Judy, Master Judy. Whenever they asked Judy what Buddhism was, he raised one finger. I always thought it was this one, but today when I raised it, I realized it could have been a different one. There's other possibilities. He could have gone like this. Or like this. Or like this. Anyway, he put one finger up, whatever one it was. This is enlightenment. This is the enlightened mind of Buddha.

[30:02]

So is the smile on some of your faces right now. Just as such, those muscles in your cheeks, as such, That's enlightenment. Now, please continue. You have the teaching of thusness. You've got it. You already have it. That's the conclusion. Is this teaching too simple? Do you believe that certain Zen masters spend almost all their time just trying to have the right posture? I think they do.

[31:04]

Walk around. A lot of the ones I've seen, they look like they're just like beginners, like beginner little students. Just after they receive Zazan instruction, you know? About keeping your back straight when you're sitting or walking. They walk around like a little beginning student trying to stand up straight. This right, teacher? Now when they get old, again, they somehow can't stand up quite so straight, but you can see they're still trying. Like the first day, they're still trying to stand up straight. They're still trying to be their body. Now again, I grew up in this complex advanced civilization and it's hard for me to believe that a great Zen teacher would be doing such a simple practice. If it weren't for the fact that they keep saying that's what they're doing.

[32:07]

And they look like it. Just trying to do something like that. Like stand up straight and be where you are. Order your own body. mind and simply order your own body if you order your body your mind will be ordered and then if you work at that you'll notice everything else will be ordered and maybe even people who are alcoholics if you're willing to be a non-alcoholic or whatever you are maybe they'll be willing to be an alcoholic and maybe they'll be able to realize how terrible that is for them and maybe they'll be able to say no I don't know what they'll do. But anyway, I can't realize that everything's in order until I order myself. I'm trying that kind of practice.

[33:15]

And when I tried, I always feel encouraged, but I'm afraid I don't try all the time. Because there's so many interesting places to wander. I can pretend I'm so many other places other than just being this body. But my experience is that that is the source of my suffering. And that is when I can't help other people. But sometimes when I'm wandering, other people who are where they are remind me to come back home. Often, beginning students remind me. When they say, oh, what does it mean to sit straight?

[34:22]

Something like that. And I said, oh yeah, that's right. Thank you. Although this is an easy teaching, we have very... brilliant minds, so we have inexhaustible ways of misunderstanding it. So now we can have question and answer.

[35:08]

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