Someone asked me, someone told me that they're getting some conflicting descriptions of the practice of Zazen. I mentioned to somebody today that whenever anything good happens around the house where I live, my wife says, Is that because of Zazen?" And I say, Yes. And then she says, That is the ceremony of Zazen. And I say, Yes. The ceremony of Zazen is what we see.

[01:03]

It's the practice of Zazen in our realm of consciousness. It's the Zazen that appears, you know, like I do it and you do it, or I don't do it or you don't do it. It's the ceremony of Zazen that we can see and we can perform that ceremony. You can perform that ceremony. I can perform that ceremony. And performing this ceremony is necessary in order to realize the zazen which is not just the ceremony of zazen which is the reality of the universe where we practice the ceremony of zazen and we set up this spiritual resonance where we do the ceremony which says Buddhas come to meet us. Buddhas realize enlightenment in this world, free all beings from karmic consciousness.

[02:05]

The ceremony is inviting the Buddhas to join us and asking the Buddhas if we can join their practice, which is not enclosed in our realm of perception. They join their practice, which is the practice of enlightenment of all things. But for us, we must do our part. And our part is the ceremony of Zazen, which we have been practicing today. So someone says to me about this Zazen practice, she said, Well, I've heard that zazen is a very common expression, which is, I think you hear a lot of meditation discussions in the West, that meditation is to empty your mind. Or this person said to me, zazen is to empty the mind of thoughts. Okay?

[03:06]

So, I say, zazen is not the mind which has no thoughts. That's not zazen. we do have a mind which doesn't have thoughts. Our unconscious mind doesn't think. It is cognitively vibrant and alive, taking care of a lot of business really well, keeping us alive, basically. And part of the way it keeps us alive is it conjures up a conscious mind which thinks. And the place we learn to practice zazen is in the conscious mind, which thinks. So to eliminate the conscious mind, which thinks, to have a mind which doesn't have any thoughts, like in dreamless sleep, dreamless sleep is not zazen. So a mind that doesn't have any thinking, that's not zazen. But a mind that does have thinking is also not zazen.

[04:09]

Not thinking anything at all is not zazen. And thinking anything is not zazen. What is zazen is not abiding in thinking. When karmic consciousness is doing its wonderful, wonderful, magnificent thing of imagining universes and imagining living beings and thinking of the teaching and also thinking of birth and death, This is karmic consciousness. To learn to not dwell there is to learn zazen. And if you happen to be in dreamless sleep or in a coma where there's no thinking, not dwelling there is also zazen. Zazen doesn't dwell in coma, in brain damage, in dreamless sleep, in deep trances where thinking is turned off, it doesn't dwell anyplace.

[05:10]

That's the mind of perfect wisdom that doesn't dwell. Not dwelling in thinking of the karmic consciousness, not dwelling in no thinking of dreamless sleep, not dwelling in anything at all is perfect wisdom. Perfect wisdom is the fact that there's no basis to dwell in anything. However, in order to learn how not to dwell, most people that I have heard about, including the great masters and mistresses of the tradition, the way they learn to not dwell is to find dwelling. and notice that they're dwelling because dwelling is what helps you grow up to be a Zen student. You have to dwell your way through preschool and elementary school and high school and then in college you can start practicing Zen.

[06:11]

You can start learning non-dwelling but in order to learn non-dwelling you have to calm down and notice that there's some dwelling which you can discover A lot of you have been able to see, oh, there's some dwelling in my approval rating. And there's some dwelling in lowering some other people's approval rating. There's a dwelling, you find the dwelling, and then you practice the bodhisattva training methods with any dwelling you notice, and you practice those. methods with it. And this is warming up to actual zazen. This is a ritual of zazen where you practice compassion towards any dwelling you discover. And if you can't see any dwelling, you practice compassion towards the fact that you're not yet able to see it. And if you practice compassion with not being able to see dwelling, you will discover dwelling. And then you practice compassion with the dwelling, with the clinging to the thinking.

[07:19]

And that practice will lead you to not dwelling in the thinking. The thinking just goes on, and sometimes it goes off, and then it goes back on, but you learn to not abide in the process. Which, you know, not dwelling in thinking, not dwelling in dreamless sleep, not dwelling in dreaming sleep, not dwelling in coma, not dwelling in deep concentration, going through all these states, not dwelling. This is the bodhisattva's mind. This is the mind of perfect wisdom. So that's like perfectly clear now, right? Perfectly clear. But it's hard to take good care of yourself so you can notice, oh, there's the self, there's the clinging, there's the fear. And to be kind to that until you see, oh my, oh my, oh my, This is just a thought construction.

[08:23]

Wow! And you enter that reality and you wake up and you enter into freedom and then from that place you re-enter thinking to demonstrate the understanding that thinking is just thinking and actually thinking is not thinking and not thinking is thinking and so on. You exercise that realization and this way you realize the Buddha work of all things which has been going on all along But if there's any dwelling, we're not in complete accord with that Buddha work because we think that our idea of whatever's going on is what's going on rather than just the idea. So we will continue, perhaps, to practice this ceremony of zazen where we take care of our posture and breathing

[09:27]

And we calm down and notice, because our mind calms down, we notice the self and the clinging and the fear. And we continue to practice compassion with that and continue to be aware of our posture, doing the ceremony of zazen over and over, and then realizing non-dwelling. And then from non-dwelling, we come back not into dwelling, but back into the thinking to demonstrate what is thinking like when non-dwelling has been realized. Which means we continue to do the ritual of a body and breathing. So there are states of concentration where there is no thinking. There are states and they are very profound. The Buddha practiced those states but realize that they were not enlightenment. Some people practice those states and they think they're enlightenment.

[10:30]

Because in fact, when there's no thinking, there's no birth and death. There's no self. Because no self is being conjured up by the thinking. So it's a kind of a... It's a really, really, really high quality rest stop. among the various resorts or great escapes in the world, it's the highest kind of worldly rest you can get. But you could become addicted to that. So the bodhisattva is not addicted to the highest form of rest or the lowest form of rest. The bodhisattva is not addicted to hanging out with rich people or poor people. They're free of addiction, which is another word for free of dwelling. So we always, at the end of the day here, remember what a good name this temple has.

[11:36]

No abode. Sometimes we say the mind of no abode, but another way to say it is not dwelling in the mind. Okay? And we don't get to this place alone. We have to practice with Sangha and Buddha and Dharma to be able to discover the abiding and be kind to it and keep working at it until we realize non-abiding. If we think, oh, I can realize non-abiding all by myself, that will be a something to be kind to, but will be a hindrance to wholehearted practice. As I said a while ago, which Karen thought was helpful, we must sit wholeheartedly and you cannot sit wholeheartedly by yourself.

[12:38]

If you try to sit wholeheartedly by yourself, that would just make it more difficult. But you can sit wholeheartedly together with everybody and in communion with those who have realized it, those who have realized it in communion with those who have realized it. The Buddhas realized wholehearted sitting in communion with Buddhas who have realized wholehearted sitting, and we can realize wholehearted sitting in communion with Buddhas who have realized it. We're not going to do it by ourselves, and we can realize it because this communion is available. But it helps to remember but you can't do it by yourself and nobody's going to do it for you. And we can do it together. And we can together, each of us, exercise our individual unique responsibility, which is to be kind to our own karmic consciousness

[13:55]

and to be kind to everybody that appears in our common consciousness, to be kind to our version of everybody. Sometimes our version is wonderful person, sometimes our version is unskillful person, sometimes our version is unhelpful person. But we practice compassion towards all the beings who appear in our mind. This also gets us ready to not abide So I feel like I have this idea that this is a really simple teaching, astounding perhaps, but simple. But I didn't say easy to practice. I just said pretty simple. Looks like you understand really well. And it looks like you also understand that it will be difficult to practice this nonstop. So if you do notice some lapses in this magnificent ritual of Zazen, be kind to that, any lapses.

[15:03]

And be kind doesn't mean ignore them, it means say, I'm sorry, I forgot, I want to go back to work. Going back to work at what you want to do is a kindness. You're not forcing yourself to go back to work. You want to go back to work because you saw that you forgot and that's not what you want. We didn't change our mind. We just got distracted by the powerful force of karmic consciousness, the powerful force of our habitual thinking patterns. Somebody said, it might have been a physicist, but it might have been a physicist who had become free of being a physicist. But anyway, in physics they teach four forces. It's a gravitation, right? Electromagnetic radiation. The strong force and the weak force. Are those the four? Is that what we call them?

[16:11]

And the physicist said, actually there's a fifth. a fifth force of the universe, habit. And I would, you know, go further and say the habit, the habit of mind is the habit of the universe. It's that we have the habit of imagining a universe that has these four forces. And we can become free of the habit of the universe if we understand how We depend on the universe and the universe depends on us. There's no universe out there that's not dependent on our karmic consciousness. And of course our karmic consciousness depends on the universe. So thank you again for another lovely day at No Abode. Yes, Linda? being recorded.

[17:13]

That just slipped out. But I wanted to thank you for sharing your dream. Yeah. I'm happy to share it. Boy, that was a great dream. I was like crying. This is not going to work. Please, let's do this together. And then I woke up and Boy, that's a great dream. And I thought, I'm not going to forget this one. And I didn't. Boy, was that a great dream. It was so alive. I wasn't a crybaby. I was just a baby crying. I was just crying. I was happy to cry like that. I was crying for all of us, you know. It's not going to work to hold back and get distracted.

[18:14]

It's not going to work. But I didn't feel like I was impatient with the situation. I was just crying for what I had to say. And I woke up before they got distracted. And they, of course, is me. You know, it's my own mind that's like not being present for my mind. My own mind that doesn't want to listen to my, what I have to say. Rushing off to get a snack. Yes? I did not, I did, I felt like I had their attention. You know, they didn't really say anything. I was doing the talk and I was doing the crying.

[19:14]

But I think, it seemed like they might have been on the, almost, I could almost imagine, in retrospect, I didn't really think, boy, they look surprised. Or boy, they look shocked. But I really felt like they were like, they weren't arguing and they weren't wandering off anymore. They were like right there and I was right there. We were together. And they weren't saying anything, but I felt like we're on the verge of them saying, okay, you know, let's do this. But it ended and I came to know Bo and tell you, I didn't, if I hadn't woken up there, I might've forgot to dream because they might've distracted me again and said, well, that was really good comments you made. Let's go bowling. Yes, Miriam. I was just so struck by the intensity of the happiness that you experienced as a result of your own efforts for engagement.

[20:15]

What are your values on that? Yeah, yeah. I think if they had wandered away while I was talking, I think it might have been okay, but they didn't have a chance. But I really was happy to... I really felt I was engaging. I was really engaging them. I was pretty much close to being there totally for them and totally for myself. Yeah, it was good. It was good to be that open and raw with these snackers. Yes? I'd like to go back to your comment about there is no universe that exists without our karmic consciousness. Right. Yeah. Maybe I'm being too physically literal.

[21:19]

Maybe. It seems very human-centered. It's consciousness-centered. Other living beings, you know, like I mentioned that little doggy, Rozzy, that lived with us for 17 years. I think she sure had karmic consciousness. She thought there was a world. And she was quite concerned about having things go a certain way. I think she had karmic consciousness, not just human. What I'm suggesting to you is that Our unconscious cognitive life does not really have a world. It has the predisposition to support the imagination of a world. But in karmic consciousness is the only place where the universe exists. And so I think some physicists might say, yeah, right. The universe is a probability distribution. And only when a human consciousness runs into that probability distribution does a particular

[22:26]

one of those possible outcomes manifest. So the actual universe that appears only appears in consciousness. But also people, people only appear in consciousness too. People aren't appearances. The universe isn't an appearance. But the universe that we, the apparent, the visible universe, the visible universe is karmic consciousness. I am saying that. But the universe is not visible. Reality isn't visible. It's just that living beings, the visible universe living beings make out of the universe is the consciousness. That's what I'm saying. What the universe is, is like, you know, like that lady wanted to write in her kid's book. It's like, it's the realm of possible or realm of possibilities.

[23:28]

And she would like her daughter to explore the possibilities of life, of the universe. But that means explore the possibilities of diabetes with owls. And if you do that, you will become free of the universe. The universe that's appearing. The universe that's appearing. I'm saying, I say, reality is not an appearance. People are not appearances. Appearances are only appearances to consciousnesses. Our unconscious does not make other living beings into appearances. Our unconscious is... the physical world. But it's not the appearance of the physical world. It is the physical world. Our unconscious activity is in this intimate relationship with the physical world as the physical world, and that conjures up a consciousness which makes an appearance of a physical world.

[24:42]

makes the physical world into something that can appear to consciousness. And in that realm, living beings like humans learn about the universe. We work with appearances of the universe and we learn about the universe beyond the appearances of the universe by working with the appearances. We discover laws of the universe within our own cognitive construction of it. That's what I have to say. It's just talk, though, right? This is just talk. I'm not talking about anything. Yeah? Just to add to the just talk, I'd like to put forward that maybe the current vogue in science is to model the universe as a probability distribution. Yeah, and to model the universe as a probability distribution. That's the current vogue. Yeah, that's actually that, what I just said, a probability distribution is more talk.

[25:47]

That model is talk. Is that what you said? That model is talk? Talk. Talk? The model is talk. That's what you're saying, right? Yeah. So I did some talking, which is a popular model now about the universe. But also that's just talk. I'm saying that. Right. And the appearance of it, too, is talk. And the appearance of it is talk also. Talk about the appearance of it and what it is. I mean, we don't really know what it is, right? We don't really know what it is. But there's a possibility we can realize it beyond our perception. That's the theory. But then wouldn't that be knowing once it's realized? It would be knowing but not in the sense of perception. Like, it's possible that you could perform a task and not perceive that you're performing it, but still successfully perform it.

[27:00]

It would be like that. And would you have that... Are you realized at the moment of it that you are performing without not performing? You would be realizing being the performer. You will be realizing. Yeah, but you wouldn't necessarily know it. Perhaps you would like to help someone, and you perform the activity of helping, but you might not know it. But in fact, you did realize the performance. The very one you wanted to perform, you did perform, but you didn't know it. That can happen. For example, you could want to help someone in a particular karmic consciousness way. and you could perform that service and not know that you performed it. But in fact, you did perform it and you actually actualized, realized that performance just the way you wanted to and did not know it.

[28:02]

I have a hard time seeing it because Well, let's just take a simple example. You could wish to pay off somebody's debt so that they could, you know, go to high school or whatever. Or you could want to pay somebody's tuition to school. And you could accidentally do so without even knowing that you did it. And you would accomplish what you wanted to do and not know you did it. But in fact, you did. You actualized the very thing that you wanted to have happen, but you didn't know it. In Karmic Consciousness that can happen. And the same can happen beyond Karmic Consciousness. But if you don't practice with Karmic Consciousness properly, you don't realize the way you're performing Buddha's work beyond Karmic Consciousness. you could be doing it without knowing it.

[29:03]

In fact, you are doing it now without knowing it, and so am I, and we all are, and we don't know it in perception. We only know it the way we're actually performing it. But we don't get to know it necessarily. I'd like to have the experience. I know, I know. It's okay. We're all like that. Welcome to the club called Normal Human Consciousness. Yes, person who appears, but I don't believe it. Okay, so when we talk about modeling, I imagine... You know, some models are a closer approximation of reality than others. Yeah. But I wonder if that's just another way of trying to say that there's a substantial reality, or if that's, you know, on the side of saying reality is kind of unknowable.

[30:12]

So she says she imagines that some models are closer to reality than others, and one of my responses to that would be, For me, the models that are closer to reality, for me, are the models that provoke people to examine the model more. The ones that are closer to reality would be the ones that would encourage people to realize that no models ever touch reality at all. But some models stimulate people to study. And that's one of the things I like about science is theories that stimulate people to do research are often considered to be good models. Theories which stimulate people to test them are considered to be good theories. But part of the reason why some models stimulate study is that when people study them and do experiments with them, they don't refute them. But not refuting them doesn't mean they're reality. It just means that you should try again and again.

[31:15]

So for me, a good model is a model that makes people study the mind which is looking at the theory. So closer to reality means closer to studying the mind. And if they're far from reality, that means it's easier for people to disprove them and then give up. And then now what are we going to study? We disprove that one. But no theories, actually no circles of water are ever going to encompass the ocean. But some circles of water make everybody want to examine that circle of water. How could that whale appear in that circle of water? Or whatever. You're welcome. I like that look on your face. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way.

[32:24]

Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. So my capping verse, stimulated by this young man's face as it appeared in my mind, is a good theory, a good model, is not one that we believe and say, oh, I believe that. It's one that you kind of look at and you say, I have questions about that one. I want to test that one. So when I put a model out and people go, oh, wait a minute, that's a good one.

[33:26]

And when people all believe it, basically, I think, they're just believing what they already think. That's not so good. So, that's my capping verse. Thank you very much.

[33:37]

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