I wonder how our life can be the middle way. How our life can be the intimacy of this moment of experience. How can our life be perceiving with the right wisdom the arising of the world as it has come to be?

[01:30]

How can our life be the perceiving with right wisdom the ceasing of the world as it comes to be? Sometimes people say, to perceive and observe with right wisdom the arising of the world as it is.

[02:47]

But the original expression is, observing the arising of the world Yathabhutam, which doesn't mean as it is, it means as it has come to be. As it is, it goes along with the idea that there's a world there already existent. which goes with there is a self already there, existent. But really the self and the world come up together. That's how the world comes to be and how the self comes to be.

[03:52]

To perceive the arising of the world to perceive with right wisdom the arising of the world. Yatabhutam. perceive how the mind and the world are intimate. In the path, in the walking the way, the middle way, the student of the way needs to learn how to practice

[05:32]

non-attachment and non-seeking. To walk the middle path without attaching to anything in the mind. without seeking anything. We work with whatever happens with the arising of the world as it has come to be. But as we approach this intimacy, we discover that we're separate and alone.

[06:52]

We discover not that we feel separate and alone. Because of the way we understand we feel separate and alone. And the road to intimacy, the road to realizing the middle road, means we have to face a loneliness which arises because of the way we see. All the Buddhas are practicing together with each person, whether they signed up for the training course or not.

[07:55]

But the person may feel alone. that feeling of aloneness and loneliness may be arising. A monk asked Dungsan, among the three bodies of Buddha, which one doesn't fall into any category? Which one doesn't fall into any kind of calculation?" And Dung Shan said, "'I'm always intimate with this. Among the bodies of Buddha, which one doesn't fall into any abstraction?'

[09:02]

I'm always close to this," Dungsan said. And celebrating this case, a monk said, this closeness is heart-rending. If one seeks outside, why is it that the ultimate closeness seems almost like enmity? Intimacy.

[11:01]

In intimacy, there's no other and no self. But on the way to intimacy, the sense of self being separate from other The otherness of other. The complete otherness of other. The unbridgeable gap has to be faced. Well, it will appear. It will come forth. It must be crossed over.

[12:10]

a poem came to my attention. And somehow I wanted to... And when this poem came to my attention, reading the poem, listening to the poem, I had an experience. I had experiences. And I wanted to share the poem with you But I thought, well, I think people in Seishin have enough pain and sorrow and feeling of loneliness. They don't need a poem to remind them of it. So why should I introduce a poem about loneliness and But then I thought, I think this poem's about learning to walk the middle way.

[14:23]

And then I thought, it's not an accident that this poem came to me this week. So I now, I bring this poem to you. It's a nice poem for as we get closer and closer to winter. It's written by Robert Frost. And it was written in a difficult time in his life, when his wife was very sick, when he and his family were exhausted from moving a lot, and he had just lost one of his children not long before. It's a poem which I read before, heard before.

[15:33]

I'm glad to meet it again. It's called, I Am One, I Have Been One. I have been one acquainted with the night. I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain and back in rain. I have out walked the farthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane.

[16:39]

I have passed by the watchman on his beat. and have dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped. The sound of feet when far away an interrupted cry came over the houses from another street, but not to call me back or say goodbye.

[17:40]

And further still, at an unearthly height, one luminary clock against the sky, proclaimed the time was neither right or wrong. I have been one acquainted with the night. The I at the beginning of the poem is not the same I at the end of the poem.

[19:19]

Something happened between the I at the beginning and the I at the end. There was some walking and walking alone. In the night there was some listening and some breathing and some thinking and some looking, some facing of the night. I have been one acquainted with the Middle Way. But in my becoming acquainted with the Middle Way, I had to face a great deal of experiences.

[20:51]

I had to face how difficult it is to see how lonely I am, to see my constant grasping, to see how disconnected I am from my experience, to see the body of Buddha fall into categories of abstraction, to see myself reaching out and trying to grasp beauty and be frustrated and not be able to resist reaching again and again and be frustrated again and again and be ashamed of myself for reaching and killing beauty and feel remorse and be surprised and be interested and not be able to explain and to go on and to become more acquainted

[22:29]

with the intimacy and the loneliness of this work, the facing the loneliness of this work until I can wake up from the dream that I'm alone. This closeness of the Buddhas is heart-rending if we seek it outside.

[23:41]

This middle way is heart-rending if we seek it outside. I have been one acquainted with the night. My wife is sick.

[24:47]

I go out for a walk by myself. I lost my baby. I have out walked the farthest city lights. A monk asked Dung Shan, when heat or cold comes, how can we avoid it?

[26:14]

And in China, China, it gets very hot and gets very cold there. In the summer, it gets very hot in China. And in the winter, it gets very cold. Even in the northern part of China, it gets very hot in the summer, and of course very cold in the winter. In the southern part of China, in the middle part of China, It doesn't get extremely cold in the winter. It just gets cold. But it gets incredibly hot in the summer. Living in California and even living in other parts of the United States now, most of us can shelter ourselves from the hot and the cold. We don't know what hot and cold mean anymore too much, unless we

[27:28]

Well, go someplace where there's not some way to protect ourself. Tassajara's pretty good. But anyway, in the old days, cold was a problem. It was painful, and heat was painful too. So when different kinds of pain come, how can we avoid it? And Dung Shan said something like, when the cold comes, it kills you. When the heat comes, it wipes you out. Oh, I skipped a line.

[28:31]

Dungsan said, the monk said, how can you avoid it? And Dungsan said, go to the place where there's no heat and no cold. And the monk said, where's the place where there's no heat and no cold? And Deng Xiaon said, when the cold comes, it kills you. When the heat comes, it portals you. This is the study. This is to perceive with right wisdom the arising of the world of cold as it comes to be.

[29:38]

This is to perceive with right wisdom the arising of the world of heat as it comes to be. This is to study the coming of heat and cold. The moment when cold comes to be, the moment when heat comes this cold, this heat, complete cold and complete heat.

[30:56]

And Dogen says, When cold comes or heat comes, it comes from the summit of cold or heat. When heat comes or cold comes, it manifests from the eye of cold or heat. This summit is where there is no cold or heat. This I is where there is no cold or heat. Walk to the summit of the cold.

[32:07]

Walk to the I of the cold. at the summit of the cold, there's no more grasping of the cold. You walk up the mountain of the cold, grasping all the way.

[33:16]

Every moment of grasping, you feel lonely. You can't help yourself. You have to grasp in order to climb to the summit of the cold, in order to complete the path of dualistic grasping. When you've grasped the other, when you've grasped after the other and grasped after the other when you painfully felt separate from the cold. When you've done all the grasping that you can do, you have reached the summit of the cold. If there's the slightest bit of the mountain of cold left, you must grasp it.

[34:20]

You must experience another step of lonely, seeking an attachment. But when you have completely expressed this walking and grasping, you reach the place where there's no more cold and the cold has done you in. But it's a long walk up the mountain. And it's a long walk to the eye of the cold. It's a long walk to the summit of the night and the eye of the night.

[35:27]

There is life which fuels our suffering, which provides the opportunity to not feel intimate. The same life is the opportunity to realize intimacy. Life is an opportunity for grasping and seeking, and life is an opportunity for non-attachment and non-seeking.

[37:14]

Some of us know a little bit about the world of suffering that arises with grasping and seeking. Those who know a little bit about it need to know more about it. They need to know the summit of the world of grasping and seeking. Those who don't know anything about the world of grasping and seeking need to start by learning a little bit about the world of grasping and seeking. And then they need to learn more. those who have learned all about the world of grasping, the way of grasping and seeking, find the place where there's no grasping and seeking.

[38:43]

They have become acquainted with the night. They have done their work. The Buddha said, I am one who has done my work. The Buddha went for a walk on the mountain of cold and heat and found the middle way and continues to walk the middle way and invites us to join her.

[42:54]

Thus I have heard. Siddhikarashi said, come, walk with me. If I walk too slowly, please go ahead. So I came to walk with him. And in my first or second experience of Sashin with him, I was sitting, and while I was sitting I experienced some discomfort.

[44:15]

in my legs and my back and hips. That's all I can remember. And I went to Doksan and I sat down with him and crossed my legs and we talked for a little while. And he said something like, oh, excuse me, I have to go do something.

[45:20]

So he left the Doksana room and I stayed in the room sitting cross-legged. And I don't remember exactly when I noticed it, but after a while, I'd been sitting there for a while and I noticed that I wasn't feeling the discomfort that I had been feeling. when I had been sitting before. By the time I would usually start feeling the discomfort, it hadn't kicked in yet. I was surprised. And then I was, and then I heard up above me, because the doksan room was below the zendo, I heard the sounds of noon service starting, chanting.

[46:36]

In those days, all our chanting was in Japanese, so I heard the Japanese Heart Sutra, kanji, zai, bo, zatsu, gyu. So I heard noon service, and then I heard noon service end, and then I heard the sounds of lunch. The chanting for lunch, and... And I sat there, cross-legged, through lunch. And I noticed again that the pain wasn't there. I couldn't understand where it went. And then I heard the end of lunch. Still no pain. And then I heard the sounds of the people leaving the zendo, going off on their breaks, walking down the stairs and out into the street.

[47:52]

And then I heard the sound of one person coming down the stairway. I thought maybe it was Suzuki Roshi. I wondered, did he do something to take my pain away? was this a set-up?" And then I heard him come up to the door of the doksan room and he opened it and he came in and he looked at me and he said, And then he sat down, and we finished the doksan. And then I left, and I wondered, what happened?

[49:01]

And then I wondered about what happened when I went back after lunch to sit again. And I sat down, crossed my legs, and it was just as painful as before. Somebody said to me today, does it get better? Does it get different? Now, more than 32 years of cross-legged sitting in this temple, do I deserve to say I have been one acquainted with the night?

[50:30]

I have walked out in rain and back in rain. I have out walked the furthest city lights. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat and dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped, the sound of feet when far away an interrupted cry came over the houses from another street, but not to call me back or say goodbye.

[51:54]

And further still, at an unearthly height, one luminary clock against the sky proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. Now do I dare to say I have been one acquainted with the night? dare I speak for my teacher and say, we're going for a walk now. Please join us. If we walk too slowly, go right ahead.

[53:09]

Thank you, Shakyamuni Buddha. Thank you, Master Dungshan. Thank you, Robert Frost. Thank you, Suzuki Roshi. Thank you, each one of you, for becoming acquainted with the night.

[54:39]

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