One of our themes is you can force yourself to do Zen practice. You can oppress yourself into practicing Zen by not checking out to see how you feel yourself about it. It might be that if you look inside, you might find out you actually did want to practice Zen, and then you could practice without oppression. But if you do good things without denying yourself, then you turn it into oppression, even if it's good. So I think that goes very well with our experiment here. So when I erase it, I'm trying to deny it. I want to draw that circle again.

[01:10]

So I'm going, oh no. Going up and gaining nirvana or release, and coming down and transforming living beings. And also, if I wanted to write this, you know the origins of the swastika? India, right. And it actually starts from a cross. And I think one pole of the cross is animal, and the other is human.

[02:10]

Or maybe not. Maybe human, an animal, and heaven, perhaps. And the other one is what? where it can definitely unfold like that. And then this thing turns. It's a cycle. And it turns into a little trail behind itself. I thought that's what the swastika means originally. It's a symbol of cycle of existence. This is what's called, I believe, a right-handed swastika. What is it? A clockwise swastika. What? Doesn't it turn red? This is a clockwise swastika. [...]

[03:13]

This swastika goes here on this side. And then the counterclockwise swastika would go the other direction. Not quite. That's a long habit. He sits down easy. Back to the hell. That's the one. This is the one we know so well? That wasn't the only one, sorry. No. Okay, sorry, sorry. But in Buddhism, this is the one we're supposed to do. This is the one the Nazis chose, right?

[04:16]

The Nazis chose this one? The Nazis chose the one we're supposed to do in practice. This swastika goes this way. The world goes in this way. This is a clockwise way the world goes. And practice is supposed to reverse this box and go in this direction. This is the opposite direction, the left-handed counterclockwise. Both of them are traced, but this is going in the opposite direction of the world. This is the way the world goes. Yes? The one you have on the left hand side, they said it was the going into the mountain to practice.

[05:21]

The other one was, which I guess corresponds to going up and attaining, you know, it was coming down from the mountain and rejoining the world. Right. Right. Going up in the mountains, I mean, Shakyamuni Buddha renouncing the world and going to the mountains. and attaining nirvana, and coming down from the mountain to teach and transform it. So this is the direction of detachment. This is the direction of renunciation. And Matt was talking about why it's the same. And this circle could collapse onto a point. In actual practice, the whole process is converged onto a point, which is between before and after. As you pull this point out into before and after, it becomes a circle, and there's a process here.

[06:25]

But this part of the process, it's clockwise swastika. In fact, really, it does include in what it really is, it does include the other one. Really. But unless you realize the other one, you're just tormented by psychic existence. Unless you have realized renunciation, then if you haven't practiced renunciation, if you haven't experienced that this clockwise psychic existence actually includes counterclockwise, the contradiction of the cycle exists. Liberation, for example, exists. If you haven't experienced that, then you're tormented by this process. So some of Zen teaching, this fascicle here that I've been bringing to your attention, the eight awarenesses of a great person,

[07:36]

That's about going up. And the way Cleary's got this book set up, the next classical about the four integrative methods of avoiding safa is about coming down. It's how to integrate this detachment in the world. And then the third classical, the last classical in the book, is called Earth and Death, which is more speaking from the point of view of the non-duality between the two processes. And so she and I said that. The way of meditation does not require cultivation. It only must not be defiled. So you don't have to go up and attain even. You don't have to cultivate having few desires and being contented and mindful. You don't have to do those cultivations in order to practice the way of meditation. You just have to not defile yourself. But in order not to defile yourself, you have to practice this, renunciation.

[08:45]

And practicing renunciation, for some people, may seem like something you cultivate. But you don't have to do it that way. But you must be pure, or in other words, egoless in your practice. But if you're egoless in your practice, you don't have to cultivate it. So these eight practices are practices in helping one to approach the way of meditation in an undefiled way. So again, we already read about having few desires. And so in that one, just to review, I would say that one way to think about that is that you consider in what you're doing

[10:02]

moment by moment, you consider whether you're being excessive. Everything you do, in some sense, you desire some object in every action, in every experience. You have some desire there, probably. But is it excessive? And so this aspect of a great person is that great people consider that, consider whether we're being excessive here. And great people also tend to be contented with what's happening to them. Like that, what's it, that water ouzel. The water ouzel is contented with what's happening to her as she's breathing in this world.

[11:10]

She's contented. Contentment can actually lead to tranquility and happiness. So we talked a little bit about what excessiveness is and how to look for that and watch out for it. But again, the main thing, I feel, is that you consider it. I think it's even excessive to sort of like be sure of what excessiveness is. I think that few desires has a lot to do with just being willing to consider all the time whether it's excessive. Like I was talking to Charlie today about the precepts. And I mentioned before about the Buddhist priest Myo-e, who over the regulations for his training place, they had the regulations, you know, like, you know, walk in shashu and follow schedule completely, that kind of stuff.

[12:17]

But still, over the regulations it said, basically, you know, consider the way things really ought to be. Always consider that. So today when I was talking to Charlie, I used the example of Buddhist monks, for example, aren't supposed to be alone with a woman, alone in a room with women, right? They're supposed to have a chaperone at all times. But I don't think Shakyamuni Buddha, he said that didn't apply to him. He could go into a room with a woman alone. And if one really does not have attachments and there's a woman in a room and you're a male monk and she needs your help, really, and it would be beneficial to do so, you should do that.

[13:23]

Buddha would do that. I can certainly make up examples where you would see that Buddha would do that. For example, if the house was burning and she had a broken leg, Buddha would go in there or at least send one of his assistants in there to get the woman out. He wouldn't leave her to burn in there. But if he didn't have an assistant, even if he was a monk and Buddha was not a monk, He said the precepts did not apply to him. But even if he was, I think he would recommend that he go in there and help the person at the maybe get himself in some trouble. And then maybe he would have to confess at the next meeting and say, I broke a precept. I went into that room without a chaperone to get that woman out of that burning house. And the other monks might say, well, okay, try to watch that more carefully in the future. Or they might even say, well, it's okay under those circumstances.

[14:24]

Don't worry about it too much. But I think from Buddha's point of view, it would be a mistake not to go in there. And from the Bodhisattva point of view, it would have been a severe infraction of the principle of compassion to protect your own monastic record to not go in there to help her. That would be excessive, I think. That's my feeling. What about contentment? To take what one has got within bounds is called O monks, if you want to shed affliction, you should observe contentment. The state of contentment is the abode of prosperity and happiness, peace and tranquility. Those who are content may sleep on the ground and still consider it comfortable. Those who are not content would be dissatisfied even in heaven. Those who are not content are always caught up in sensual desires.

[15:29]

They are pitied by those who are content. Any comments on this, the practice of contentment? What's the phrase, within bounds? I'll get their translation. That might help. I don't have that. I don't know what the Chinese . The second is satisfaction.

[16:33]

This means to be satisfied with whatever one has. So, any questions about this one? No? Okay. How did he say to practice it? Huh? How did he say to practice it? It sounds... to just... What was the practice of being content? This was a way... Just to be satisfied with what you've got. And if you sort of say, geez, I don't feel satisfied, what do I do? To practice contentment, to find satisfaction. What's the... You mean if you're feeling discontent? Yeah. What would you do in that case? What would one do to practice bringing about contentment?

[17:35]

Well, what often is the case when you have lists of characteristics is oftentimes that you can't figure out what to do with that one. That isn't obvious. Look at the other things on the list. So again, look back at a few desires. Maybe the reason why you're not contented is because you have too many desires. What's the next one? Enjoying quietude. Maybe if you enjoyed a little quietude, that would help. Or diligence, maybe you practiced a little diligence. Or a little mindfulness. Or unified your mind. Or cultivated wisdom. Or perhaps stopped engaging in vain talk. Those might help you with that one. Yeah. How do you deal with the discontentment of wanting spiritual attainment?

[18:46]

Or the idea that you need to arouse what you seek in mind or achieve it? Yeah. that there is discontentment there, is that then taught as an appropriate discontentment? Is it discontentment in arousing body-mind? Or is it discontentment with yourself in wanting to obtain something other than you are? Let's see. What does the dogma say? When you first approach the way or when you first seek to practice, you remove yourself from it and you go backwards. So it may be that your first move towards practice is like not wanting to be where you are. That may be sort of like, I understand that, we understand that's the case. But that doesn't arouse bodhicitta. That moves you away from it. Being dissatisfied with your situation doesn't move you closer to the practice.

[19:52]

Being suffering, recognizing suffering, recognizing suffering, that moves you closer to the practice. But that isn't quite yet arousing body-mind, spirit of enlightenment. So the discontentment would be something extra. In a situation, in other words, if you simply observed your suffering, that would be enough. If you add to it, I have to get out of this, I have to be different, I'm not content the way I am, then you're adding something extra to the thing, to the problem. Yes. Remember also that when Buddha presented these eight practices, before he presented these, he presented the precepts. Remember? Remember that? First he said you have to work with the precepts.

[20:54]

And then he talked about patience. He presented the precepts and patience before he presented these eight practices. And Mary brought that up too. So the basis of these practices is patience. So already you would be working with your pain. hopefully, practicing patience and also working with the precepts in order to enter into these awarenesses. So if one practices patience and if you're fairly successful at practicing patience, that means that you have identified your pain. that you have gone to the center of the pain, that you're there in the middle of it, calmly resting in the middle of your pain. And there you can see the pain calmly.

[21:56]

And there you can see the cause of the pain. And there you can see that without the cause, there would not be the pain. And there you can actually wish that the cause wasn't there. the cause is craving, which is related to this one of seeking objects of desire excessively. It's related, but it's slightly different. It's more basic, I would say. And then the will, the wish to renounce, the wish to drop body and mind arises. out of that, and then the real sincere wish to realize awakening arises out of that. And these practices facilitate that process. Are there any other comments on this kind of very simple practice of being content?

[23:24]

Yeah. Pardon? Tolerance? Well, the way I usually understand tolerance is similar to patience. Did you have a different meaning of it? Well, I don't know of a... The way I understand patience and the way it's used in Buddhism, the word kshanti means to have tolerance or capacity for your experience, to make yourself able to have the experience that you're having. Tolerance does not mean in that case I think that you're kind of like having experience and you're kind of like tolerating it like putting up with it But you're over here kind of like you have to make yourself able to in some sense be comfortable with pain That sense of tolerance if there is such a sense of tolerance, I guess there is a sense of tolerance that That you actually do feel okay.

[24:35]

For example about people being different than you you really do It's not just lip service. You really think it's okay that there's a you know, members of the opposite sex, that there's people of different color and intelligence and wealth, you tolerate that. Even if you think things are wrong, you still may in some sense tolerate it and work to eliminate it, to reverse it. In other words, you don't feel that anger is necessarily going to be helpful. These two people. Mark and Matt. You don't think so. You realize actually it might be, what do you call it, just blow your fuses and set you back in your work. What? What is the cause that, what is the cause that one sees when you're sitting in, calmly, in other words, that we're still in?

[25:46]

Craving. Craving. Craving for something other than life. Helping our dispensary. Is that what you mean by craving? which is quite similar to this one of wanting a lot. In a case like that, I don't think the wanting it to change is what's causing the problem. I think it's the cruelty that's happening. Wanting to change doesn't necessarily make it worse. Wanting to change also doesn't necessarily immediately make it better either.

[26:48]

Wanting to change might lead you to figure out how to change it. But if you want it to change excessively, then that may undermine your ability to change it. You might interfere with the processes which could cause it to change if you want it too much. It's possible to want evil to go away too strongly to the extent that you incapacitate yourself. Like if you see a fire that's endangering your house, if you want to put the fire out too much, you might break the handle of the fire hydrant as you're trying to turn it on, rather than just concentrate on what's the right way to turn it and turn it just right, not too hard, not too soft. Does that make sense?

[27:50]

Could you give a more specific example of where you have a problem? Like are you saying you're the daughter of a mother who's taking a crack? Right. So your mother's taking crack. Can you think that you have a problem? Well, it's always that balance of being patient and making the right effort and not being angry, not becoming incompetent because of your anger or your desire to work. we have a more rapid pace of change than is ever possible. I don't know, just sometimes I read these words and just don't see how they, how somebody who maybe, you know, just an example, could actually, you know, have people die or even fall into inequality.

[28:56]

Um, I guess the first thing that comes up to me in my mind is that if you're in some difficult situation, what these practices are talking about is how you can become free of attachment. That's what these practices are about. You or somebody who's in a situation, no matter how difficult it is, the idea here is that Part of what will help the situation, part of what will help suffering beings in any situation would be if I would free myself from attachment. And that this doesn't contradict, as a matter of fact, implements me doing certain things, practical things, to benefit beings in this difficult situation.

[30:02]

including perhaps enacting rage selflessly. It's possible that that would be helpful. I've had people who have been angry at me, who have expressed rage towards me, and when I saw it, I felt like I was seeing some kind of a wrathful deity. The person was transformed. It wasn't really the person anymore. It was, you know, it was... In the Buddhist precept of not being angry, one of the commentators says, to not be angry at what you should be angry at is to violate this precept. It violates the precept of not being angry when you're not angry at what you should be angry at. And it violates the precept of not being angry when you're angry at what you shouldn't be angry at. You should be angry when anger will help. And you shouldn't be angry when anger will not help.

[31:08]

When Buddha says that hate destroys all virtue, he means the hate which is just hate for like being intolerant. He doesn't mean that you shouldn't get angry at bad things. So the commentator says that when you do the great shout for the assembly, that's called not being angry. When you shout at the time that everyone in the world would shout, that's called not being angry. But in a practical situation like being in a situation where you have a drug addict, does it actually do any good to scream at them? If it does, scream. If it doesn't, what would be helpful? Do what's helpful. It doesn't mean you should sit back and say, this is fine. This person's suffering, and they're taking these drugs to get rid of their suffering.

[32:13]

It doesn't mean you say that. It means you figure out what's helpful. And this practice here is supposed to help you detach from your own problems, your own attachments, so that you could have the vision to see what might help another person. It doesn't mean that you can never do anything helpful to someone if you have the slightest bit of attachment. You could help someone even if you have not done this going up and attaining. You can still help people. Sometimes by demonstrating your attachment, it helps people. But if you want to be helpful in some other way than showing a bad example that people can learn from by seeing that your mistakes they don't want to do, if you want to be helpful in other ways, then you have to develop detachment. And eventually, we need to develop detachment in the most horrendous situations. We work toward those. But we don't necessarily have to go look for them because we have trouble with detachment right here in this Pleasant Valley.

[33:14]

If we can develop detachment here, we have a chance of leaving here and going back to the city and continuing working on our detachment and becoming effective in these horrible, in these horrific and incredibly challenging situations. So in the next fascicle after this, they have examples of where you can go in and give and be kind and try to integrate yourself effectively with people's situations. And it talks about how you can work with drug addicts. It doesn't say drug addicts, but how you can work with people who are in various stages and various transformations of being. It talks about that. But that integrative phase is most effective if it follows this dropping-off phase. If you do first renunciation, then enter the world, first the clockwise, then go back, first the counterclockwise, then the clockwise. Buddhist practice, strictly speaking, starts with renunciation, with this reversal.

[34:18]

If you try to practice Buddhism before that, it's nice to try, but you're actually just getting ready to do it. Before you drop this stuff off, you're still accumulating more karma. Once you drop this stuff, you start dismantling the thing. Is it possible for renunciation to feel natural rather than... When I think of renouncing something, I think of laying something on top of myself. Yeah, right. That's a common association with it. And that is not renunciation. What is that? That's oppression. What most people think of as renunciation is actually oppression. It means you force yourself to give something up before you want to give it up. Renunciation is only effective and only what we mean by renunciation when it's based on that you want to give it up.

[35:26]

Renunciation is not something you do, actually. It's something you want to do. And if you want to do it bad enough, it happens. But actually, renunciation is actually what is actually happening. You are constantly giving up everything in reality. But since we don't want to, we don't appreciate that. We don't recognize that. So you must want to practice renunciation in order for it to happen. It cannot happen the slightest bit ahead of when you want it. When you want it, it happens spontaneously with no effort. In the meantime, it's happening spontaneously with no effort also. Renunciation is reality. But rather than jump onto what you think reality is supposed to be before you actually want it, you have to first work on wanting it. And you want it when you see what's going on. But thank you for bringing it up, because a lot of people think, well, I should practice renunciation, I know, but it is so hard.

[36:34]

Well, it's impossible before you want to, and after you want to, it's effortless. And the wanting to comes from practicing patience. The mind of renunciation is born out of patience. And also awareness of suffering. Patience is born out of awareness of suffering. You can't practice patience without awareness of suffering. And you actually can't be successful at practicing patience unless you're fully aware of suffering that you have. You can't be a little bit aware of it and then over here sort of be denying it and then you know, be aware of this part and be holding this part off.

[37:36]

This holding this suffering away is antithetical to patience. So you have to make yourself capable of having the experience you're having. And when you do, then eventually you'll see in that space, you'll see that there's a problem and what the problem is. And you'll realize that if you would just let go of your attachments and your cravings, that that would take care of it, so then you want to. Your mind, Dogen's teacher calls this mind a new shin, the supple or meek or soft mind. This mind, this soft mind is developed by sitting in the middle of suffering. How does patience work?

[38:42]

Anger is what happens when you don't practice patience. If you get irritated and push it away, that pushing it away is anger. Trying to avoid it, that's anger. It's a natural animal response to negative stimulation. The pain, which is slightly different from denying it. You can also try to find somebody to blame for it and then get them or eliminate them. I can't decide whether I should patiently accept your sleepiness or whether I should do something to entertain you or whether or whether it's not really sleepiness, but something more profound.

[39:45]

I couldn't hear you. Oh, you partied too hard. Is there something that some or all of us are not facing that's causing us to be sleepy? Those two, you guys aren't sleeping? What questions? No, I don't necessarily want any divvies. I'm just wondering if it would be good for me to be more entertaining. I kind of feel like I should leave the beaver, but I could do something outrageous and entertain you. Do it? Sonia. Sonia. Okay, that helps. She said, I heard her say, before you can decide if it's excessive,

[40:55]

Did you hear that? Before you can decide, it's excessive. Before you can decide, it's decessive. And I think you probably would say, then you'd need to know what suchness was, right? Is that what you're going to say? No. No, go ahead. I got you on we'll decide. That's what I want to remember. Decide. Decide. That's the key word. But what were you going to say before I interrupted you so brutally? Well, not that. You need, so you can decide if it's excessive. In order to decide if it's excessive. Well, I'm, I'm jumping ahead in this list of what it would look like if, after, whatever, before or after. Yeah, so that's good that you sensed that and you felt that in yourself.

[42:31]

That would be a good thing to notice in yourself. That would be a good awareness. That's one of the awarenesses of a great person, is to notice that they're jumping ahead someplace. Okay? That applies to unifying your mind to be able to notice when you're jumping ahead. So if you're already where you are, then these practices would naturally emanate from that. But part of what THIS WORD, DECIDE, WHETHER IT WAS EXCESSIVE, I DON'T THINK THAT... I THINK IT'S EXCESSIVE TO DECIDE THAT IT'S EXCESSIVE. THAT'S EXCESSIVE. THE PRACTICE OF BEING... THE PRACTICE OF HAVING FEW DESIRES WOULD, I THINK, NOT... WOULD BE TO GIVE UP THE UNREASONABLE DESIRE OF BEING ABLE TO DECIDE WHAT IS EXCESSIVE. I think that being where you are is more like wondering and considering whether this is excessive.

[43:37]

To wish to decide is going too far, and actually to decide is okay, but it's also not really the point of having few desires. If you have few desires, you might never need to decide that such and such was excessive. because you might never be excessive. On the other hand, we can discuss it. We can say, OK, I hear about that. That sounds excessive. I agree that sounds excessive. I would be willing to decide that that's excessive. But you don't have to decide it's excessive just to say, well, that sounds excessive. You don't need to decide. You can just say, like, that sounds excessive. But maybe it's not. Maybe it's just right. I think it's the considering. like I was talking about before, to sit in the middle of all these doors and not enter them, to have the door, the possibility that what we're doing right now is excessive or that what we're hoping for is excessive, to consider that and be open to that, I think, is appropriate.

[44:43]

I don't think you have to decide. And part of this is being mindful. And one of the practices is to be mindful. And another practice is to have a unified mind. So part of what we need to be mindful of, according to this, is to be mindful about whether our mind is fragmented into past and future, whether we're partly leaning into the next action or living in the past. So we human beings have wonderful imaginations, so we can imagine that we're slightly behind ourselves, that we're slightly lagging behind ourselves. We can imagine that. We can do this. This is wonderful. We can also imagine that we're slightly ahead of ourselves, or way ahead of ourselves. And we can even take on postures to signal to ourselves and others that we're actually leaning ahead of ourselves. And sometimes we may see our friends and they may start to straighten up and come back here as though they weren't.

[45:52]

Well, of course they were. They were right here. But somehow they didn't feel like they were. And then when they were like this, they felt more here. Of course they always were. But, you know, mindfulness points these kinds of things out to us. There's something about the upright posture that's kind of like, has something to do with that. Are there any other of these eight awarenesses that you'd like to discuss? The next one. Leaving the clamor and staying alone in deserted places is called enjoying quietude. The Buddha said, O monks, if you wish to seek the peace and happiness of quietude and non-striving, you should leave the clamor and live without clutter in a solitary place.

[47:04]

People in quiet places are honored by the gods. Therefore, you should leave your own group as well as other groups, stay alone in a deserted place and think about extirpation of the roots of suffering. What? Extirpating, excuse me, extirpating the roots of suffering. Those who like crowds suffer the vexations of crowds, just as a big tree will suffer withering and breakage when flocks of birds gather on it. Worldly ties and clinging sink you into a multitude of pains, like an old elephant sunk in the mud, unable to get itself out. You have some question about that? Is that advocation of a hermit's life? No, it's advocation like atasahara in the summer, for example, or even during practice period.

[48:08]

Don't you sometimes feel like a tree covered in birds? Don't you sometimes feel like an elephant sunk in the mud? Don't you some sort of feel like you're in a group event and you're suffering the vexations of the group? So he's saying, drop that stuff. Is he saying, leave Tassajara? One interpretation would be to say, yes, leave Tassajara or get Charlie's house and stay there. Charlie, of course, would give it up and come down the mountain to work in the office with his armadillos. So in the time of Buddha, they actually were living out in the forest, those guys.

[49:12]

Later, people had a different interpretation. That's what Buddha did for a while. He was out there. But he traveled in a big horde, actually, a lot of the time. But he recommended that a lot of these other people go practice out on their own. That's what he seems to be saying here. And in some other beginner's manuals it says, you know, that you should practice and give some distance from the nearest town. So that's one interpretation that you actually shouldn't go into a quiet place. Now, Tassajara is somewhat a distance from the nearest town. However, there are some other people here besides us, besides me and you. There's other people. So it does get a bit busy here sometimes. Some people get busy. Sometimes, well, you know, I was going to give some examples, but I don't want to embarrass anybody, about how busy we sometimes get here and forget, you know, various things, like where we are.

[50:14]

Doesn't that happen, sir, even during practice periods, right? He's recommending that you don't get that involved with the clamor of life here. Now, at what point do you actually, like, say, well, I think I better leave Tassajara and go off by myself? Maybe you'll finally do that. If you actually cannot calm down here, maybe you should go off and, you know, to the Insight Meditation Center or something where they actually are silent and they do stay away from each other. Or maybe you should go... Some of our students have gone to Theravadan monasteries and practiced that way for a while. But it's also possible, I think, just to drop the clamor and the hubbub in the midst of still having contact with people. Again, one of the ways we do that is by certain forms of practice, like up in the zendo and stuff, and being silent during certain periods of time, so that everyone agrees to those periods of silence, so we don't have to all have our individual huts and figure out how to get food to us.

[51:31]

So this particular style of practice in some ways is rather efficient, especially in a country where we can't beg. But if, in fact, in the process of running this place, we get too caught up in the hubbub, maybe we should consider that we're missing an important ingredient. And we should consider, is there some way to simplify things or calm down here some? To tell you the truth... Pardon? Yeah, preparing for what I imagine it was. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But the skit night itself may not have... I experienced the skit night as an expression of insight. That's how I saw it. I felt most people were, almost all the skits were about practice and trying to express practice in that form.

[52:40]

I think the nice thing about expressing practice in the form of skits is they don't tend to be so self-righteous. It's very hard to talk about practice under other circumstances without getting up on a high horse and stuff like that. So the skits are very nice that way that people can actually imply some of the deepest values of practice just sort of as a joke. That's why he's nice about writing novels and stuff. You can say the most outrageous things and say, well, it's just a novel. Say whatever you want. But if you say it in church, it's like... So I felt that way about... I didn't feel hubbub last night. But maybe the preparations were hubbub. Maybe some people were, you know, really... got hysterical and way ahead of themselves during the day, thinking about... thinking ahead to that night, you know, and got afraid that they weren't going to be ready or something like that. I don't know. I actually must confess, I got a little bit scared myself for my skit.

[53:41]

I thought, well, do I have to... Do I have to tell somebody about this or prepare for this? Should I get certain people tipped off that this is happening? So I didn't actually make any preparations, but I was a little worried it wasn't going to work. I was worried. I thought, well, is it going to be too serious? Because I didn't think it was going to be very funny. I thought about a few jokes, but like Mark told me a joke beforehand when they were passing the bananas out. And I think I said to Mark, oh, no. They were passing the bananas out. At the same time, the little armadillo was being passed, and I had it. So I said to Mark, do you have that little armadillo? And he says, I have it, but I can't pass it on. So I was going to do the same thing with the banana during my skit, but I didn't.

[54:45]

I just let it be kind of the way it was. But I did get a little bit hubbubby about it, worrying whether it was going to work. And that happens around here sometimes. People are sometimes worried whether certain things are going to work out, like are people going to get over the road, right, in the snow or in the rain or what, boulders falling down? We worry about that. so how can you think about these trips over the road or like you know walls falling down into the creek and cabins following it how can you think about this stuff without kind of like not get all kind of excited and distressed this is our this is our question yeah just sometimes i think like the person was to be naturally practicing those eight practices, then could such a person be actually quiet and even realistically above and explain?

[55:53]

Yes, definitely. Well, we have, again, we have monastic forms here so that even though we're together in a group, you can experience great quietness sometimes. Even though we're sitting in a group, in a room maybe filled with people, sometimes you can experience great quietness. Sometimes the people can get up and move around in a group, and while you're moving in a group you can experience great quietness. For myself, one of the first times I actually felt that I realized what stillness was, was when I was offering incense. That was like one of the strongest senses of quietude I ever experienced. because I was moving. I was actually going like this. And it was, there was, you know, I could see then that I was quiet by that motion. Whereas before that, I couldn't tell.

[56:53]

I didn't feel that quiet. It's hard to tell that you're quiet unless, sometimes unless you move and realize that you didn't move, even though you seem to move. So part of the bodhisattva thing, and part of this too, is that by studying this clockwise fastika, the world is fastika, if you study it thoroughly, you realize it's actually not going clockwise, it's going counterclockwise. If you study yourself thoroughly, you find out that you're really not yourself. But to study yourself thoroughly, you have to give up yourself because you have to just put your energy into studying yourself rather than maintaining yourself. Rather than entertaining yourself, you have to study yourself. That's renunciation. But also you realize through that study the same thing as is implied by the fact that you're willing to do it.

[57:58]

Yes? I would just say, no. I think there's a... I think there's a... I'll just go on. Thank you. I'm not a good job, but it's like, well, I must have been a very good job. Okay. Have you ever gone to the lab? No. To study yourself thoroughly, study yourself thoroughly, you realize you're not yourself.

[59:16]

Yes, to study yourself is to forget yourself. When you study yourself thoroughly, at the extreme of that study, you realize what you really are, namely, the part that you thought was not you before you realize actually is you. Before you study thoroughly, you think you're something, and you think you exclude what's not you. For example, you think you exclude maybe me. But as you study more thoroughly, you realize you don't exclude me or other things which are not you. As a matter of fact, you realize that all these things that are not you are contradictorily identical to you. You reach that realization at the extreme of studying yourself, at the exhaustion of studying yourself, you realize that.

[60:26]

And being willing to exhaustively study myself means that I give up everything but studying myself. It takes total dedication to study of myself to realize that I'm not myself. And being willing to totally devote my energies to study myself itself is forgetting the self. If you remember yourself, you'll hold back in your study. Just a little bit. Like Dogen says, at the tiptoe of the mountain, the water splashes up. You have to go all the way to the bottom of the mountain. And there, at the tiptoes of the mountains, at the tiptoe of yourself, when you follow yourself all the way to the bottom of the mountain that is you, the water splashes up and says, guess what?

[61:41]

Hello. They're all wet. They're all wet. And this wetness, this wet mountain, is where Buddhas are going. But you can't walk halfway down the mountain. Walking halfway down the mountain is half studying the mountain, and that doesn't take you to the end of the mountain, and it doesn't help you forget the mountain in the water. So these eight studies, these eight awarenesses, are eight ways to study yourself exhaustively. But what if you hate everything else? You hate everything else. Study that hate. All the way to the bottom of the hate. And that hate will be the door through which you realize that all the things you hate are you.

[62:50]

Some people love everything that's not done. Same thing. Study love. Yes? I understand you saying that, but that's the only way you can get into it is, you know, at the high-speed thing of the way they're happening, because this isn't a kind of like cumulative statistical study. It's an on-the-spot study, and you don't have much time to do it. So... What you're aware of in that flash of experience is all that you can be aware of, and you don't have any more time than that to do it. The trick is, the miraculous trick, by which you can do this impossible feat of studying something completely with only a flash of a second to do it, is that in fact it all does happen in that moment.

[64:03]

And the trick that makes you able to culminate your realization and culminate your awareness is wholeheartedness. Total devotion to a mobile city. If you're totally devoted, you can go all the way to the bottom of the mountain in a flash. It may seem like it takes a long time to get into things, but I think that that's because it takes a long time to become wholehearted. If you sit and suffer a little bit for a short time, then you won't be able to thoroughly study anything at that time. If you sit and study, if you sit and suffer a little bit for a long time, your willingness will deepen. And then you'll be able to sit and study or suffer more completely for a longer time, until finally you just suffer completely whatever you're suffering in a moment.

[65:17]

And I've seen people who, in a relatively short period of time, like a week or so, have gotten all the way into their experience and been greatly rewarded for giving up their resistance to what they're experiencing. And then you can surprise yourself by what you can do in a moment. Or rather, you are doing a lot in a moment. Matter of fact, you're doing everything you are doing, you're doing in a moment, and you can be there with it. It's only this illusion that you could be someplace else that's cutting down your capability of study. When you say that you could be someplace else, you mean that there's an alternative to what you're doing? Yeah, you think you have an alternative to this. We have, that's our imagination. And again, we do not criticize that imagination. We do not criticize it.

[66:19]

That's part of what we study, is that very thing that we imagine it could be somewhere else. That's part of what we wholeheartedly acknowledge. If that's what's happening. That's an aspect of the wonder of the human mind. What's the next one?

[67:31]

Next one is diligence or right effort. And Dogen says, diligently cultivating virtues without interruption is called diligence, pure and unallied, advancing without regression. Did you say unallied? Unalloyed. How do you say it? Buddha said, for monks, if you make diligent efforts, nothing is hard. That relates to what Sandra just brought up. Buddha said that. Therefore, you should be diligent. It is like even a small stream being able to pierce a rock. It continuously flows.

[68:32]

If the practitioner's mind flags and gives up time and again, it is like drilling for fire but stopping before the heat is produced. Though you want to get fire, fire can hardly be gotten this way. It's like, you know, also it's like, you know, practicing patience real close to almost accepting what's happening, but not quite. And then sort of saying, oh, I'm not going to make it. The flames are still... It's hard to go all the way until it happens, until you... Tell your patient. Can I do the next one?

[69:51]

Unfailing recollection or mindfulness This is also called keeping right mindfulness. Keeping the teachings without loss is called right mindfulness and also called unfailing recollection. O monks, the Buddha said, if you seek a good companion and seek a good protector and helper, nothing compares to unfailing recollection. This one says, if you wish to find a true teacher who can give you good advice, you should preserve correct mindfulness, or those who do so remain free from the various delusions.

[70:53]

Those who have unfailing recollection cannot be invaded by thieving afflictions. Therefore, you should concentrate your thoughts and keep mindful. One who loses mindfulness loses virtue. If one's power of mindfulness is strong, even if one enters among thieving desires, one will not be harmed by them. It is like going to the front lines wearing armor when one has nothing to fear, then one has nothing to fear. So with mindfulness, theoretically, you could practice at Asahara even in the summer. You could practice among other people without getting invaded by the hubbub if you're mindful. But out of compassion, some Buddhists has set up the opportunity to practice mindfulness in not such a difficult challenge until people get the hang of it.

[72:07]

And then later maybe try to extend that into the marketplace, into the hub of... One Zen teacher used to take his monks on horseback into the... marketplace in Tokyo riding fast to see if they could stay mindful and not get distracted by the hub. Rinzai Zen, they tend to jump up from and run to sort of like test that. Soto Zen, we get up and walk slowly. It's a little bit different. But eventually, I think we all want to see if we can take it into into the hubbub, into the painful contradictions of family life and business and so on, politics, to see if it can be extended there eventually.

[73:11]

Mindfulness is part of the armory that can take you into that situation. These practices, again, are ways to study yourself, enter into the hubbub of your own mind when you're sitting in zazen. Even though you're in a quiet monastery, there's a hubbub inside, and mindfulness can make it possible to stay unattacked by the internal thieving hubbubs. And if you can do that, then you can, again, deeply study yourself. So you can see what these things are as they come. You can see them clearly, more and more clearly. Can you do the next one?

[74:13]

When I hear the word mindfulness, I think of mindful of something. And I know there's a lot of different practices of what a person could be mindful of. They could be mindful of where their hands and feet are, or mindful of their breath, or mindful of a lot of things. So is there anything in particular that we should be mindful of, or that one can be mindful of? Well, you just said it. You can be in particular mindful of certain things. For example, you can... You can be mindful of your breath and put all your mindfulness into your breath all the time. That's one thing you could do. Or posture. Or posture. And matter of fact, if you try to do the practice of putting your total mindfulness onto your breath, I would suggest to you that you finally will find out the culmination of that practice will be that everything is breath. If you choose any object and you study it completely, you will find out that you're studying everything through that object, if you do it completely.

[75:22]

In fact, everything is breath. There's nothing but breath. Everything in the world is just transformation of breath. What about posture? Posture is breath. If you study your posture, you'll discover breath. If you study breath, you'll find out your posture. But you'll find out everything through studying breath. So you can take your posture or your breath and concentrate on either one of them, and then you do it completely. If you study one thing completely, you study, you will realize study of everything completely. But you can also, instead of choosing breath or posture, you can just simply just be aware of whatever's happening. Different type of people are successful at different methods. Most people will be successful at concentration on breath. Some people will be constant. That's one of the universal things. All different types of people will usually be successful.

[76:25]

They can totally, wholeheartedly be aware of breathing. Until they finally learn that there's no gaps in awareness of breath. When you first start becoming aware of breath, you usually will be aware of breath as an object. That's how you start, mostly. But the more you study the breath, the more you find out that breath is not an object. It's also not a subject. But when you first start following it or counting it, you may see it as an object. In one of the presentations of mindfulness of breath, it's called the Six Subtle Dharma Gates, where you first take the breath as an object. And when you can really stay with it, then you finally the mind, you realize the mind is stopped. And then you start looking at the, you analyze the breath as an object, then you analyze the breath as a subject, then you realize the breath is subject and object unified.

[77:30]

So you can realize all of Buddhist teaching through meditation on breath, but you can also do it through posture or through mental states. or through studying mountains and rivers. So part of what we have to do is figure out what I guess the most important thing is what will we be willing to study wholeheartedly. So if you hear that such and such is a good practice and you don't notice the fact that you don't want to do it and then try to get yourself to do it, you will be successful at oppression. but unsuccessful at studying yourself. What you need to find out is what you actually are interested in studying. Is there something you're interested in? And study that wholeheartedly. And I don't know what that will be for each of you, but we need to find that out as soon as possible.

[78:32]

Then you don't have to deny. You can allow yourself to study what you want, and it'll be just fine. There may be some social problems, but if that's really what you found, we can work it out. We can support you. When you find something you really want to study, we'll support you. We'll even support you floundering, looking for it. Well, it's about 9 o'clock, isn't it? So we didn't get to the next one. But you're welcome to study these books, which have these eight awarenesses in them. Which book are you going to be looking at there? This is Thomas Cleary's translation. There's three other translations.

[79:36]

It's called Shobo Genzo's Zen Essays by Dogen. Pardon? It's one of the fascicles of Shovu Genva. Yes. Right. Right. Right. But the books that we have in this pile here all include that particular... Yes. So this particular books have been preselected for you by Tassajara staff. So all you gotta do is, you know, avoid evil, do good, and save all beings.

[80:58]

Every moment of your life. You don't have to decide what's evil. You don't have to decide what's good. You don't even have to decide what a sentient being is. You just gotta avoid the evil, do the good, and save the sentient beings. So even though you don't know what ascension being is, look around for some, see if you can find any, and save them. And even though you don't know what good is, even though you haven't decided what good is, practice it. And even though you don't know ever, decide what evil is, avoid it as best you can without sort of coming down heavily on good and evil. Just kind of like try to find out how to avoid it. You have an intuitive understanding already. And even though you don't decide or know what good is, on some level you kind of have a feel for it.

[82:03]

And you can ask inside, is it good? And see if you get a yes or a no. If you get a no, it's probably not. And don't do it. If you get a yes, maybe it is. Try it. Yes does not mean you decided it's good. You just got a yes. You felt like, yeah, I think so. Try it. If you're not sure, ask a few friends. Ask a conservative and a liberal friend. And if they both say yes, and you think yes, well, then do it. And then see how it works. Ask for feedback. That's all you got to do. It's extremely difficult though because you have to put aside anything else besides basically those three things. That's right.

[83:07]

You don't have to put aside anything. She said it doesn't seem like you have to put aside anything to do those practices. You just have to put aside attachment. You do have to put aside attachment to do those. But that's nothing at all. What I'm thinking about is going back to renunciation, where I might know that there's this line between good and evil, and it can cause a central conflict for me. Or I might have a sense of it. I don't know it yet. I think that maybe going through it, and it's painful, and I know it's going to be painful if I decide, if I don't lay down, put myself in shackles, so to speak,

[84:14]

And I end up doing this in the evil frame, knowing full well that it's the evil frame, but not ready to choose the good. I mean, it seems like I can't do it any other way. I can't discover the good yet, unless, until I've spun it out. It seems that way. It does seem that way sometimes. However, it is slightly good to be aware that you're doing an evil thing than to not be aware. And you don't have to decide that. You can just listen to that and check it out. It's kind of an improvement because awareness is really all that we've got working for us. So awareness of evil is good. So there you can see a little bit of good there.

[85:17]

And when the awareness becomes big enough, without doing anything about the evil, you're free of it. I was moved by what I just heard.

[85:45]

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