I don't know if you noticed, but I offered a kind of like a theme for this retreat, a title, Being Authentic, Being Awake. Does this sound good? And I thought, this morning I thought, How simple and, for me, how true that being authentic is being awake. And by awake I mean being wise and compassionate. By being awake I mean being in a state that benefits in this very difficult world of suffering, a way of being that's a light and an encouragement to suffering beings.

[01:23]

So in order to do our part to realize enlightenment, we have to do our part To be authentic. Someone told me a story about . And she had the opportunity to go to a Zen monastery or Zen temple and practice in meditation retreat. And it was very cold. And not like that, but they had windows open at the meditation hall. And she went to see the teacher of the retreat. And she said, does Zen have to be this hard all the time? And the teacher said, yes. But when he said that, she said, I've had it.

[02:24]

And then she went and met some other Buddhist teachers who somehow encouraged her to keep practicing. And what does freezing have to do with being authentic? Like when you're in a very cold place, what has that difficulty got to do with being authentic? So now I just come from Tassajara in the Zen Mountain Center, and it's cold there. And when it gets cold, people are kind of concerned with survival. So sometimes the cold helps us. When we feel cold sometimes, how to deal with it helps us find what it means to be authentic.

[03:27]

But it can also be really hot. Like when I first got to Tassajara just now, the first day I was there was 98, the next day it was 99, the next day it was 98, the next day it was 98. Now it's cold. I had trouble with the cold, with the heat. I wasn't used to it. But it really put me up against myself. It put me in touch with myself. I was very aware of myself. It helped me. But it was hard. It's kind of hard to be authentic unless you have completely... Unless you become completely authentic, it's kind of hard to be authentic. There is something authentic about us, but somehow to settle with that is actually, for most people, hard.

[04:30]

Most people are distracted from it. Authentic, one of the first definitions you might find in the dictionary is worthy of trust or reliance or belief. Second definition is having undisputed origin. Authentic. But as is often the case, the etymology is helpful too. The etymology of authentic is from Greek, authenticos, genuine, authoritative, from authentos, authentes, perpetrator, or author. And author has the root of beginner, initiator,

[05:34]

Creator, from auktor. So, authenticity, authority, authentic, genuine, something about the way we are created, our true origin. And again, the teaching which I offer here is that being authentic is what is meant by awakening in, I would say, this tradition. What I mean by this tradition is the tradition of me being authentic, which I was encouraged by previous generations of people who worked at being authentic.

[06:56]

So I would say to you, when When you're authentic, you're in this tradition. And if I see somebody being authentic, I would say, I'm in that tradition. I'm in your tradition when you're authentic. You're in my tradition when you're authentic. And we're in our tradition when we're authentic. And another thing about this Tradition is that it's a tradition of not being attached to tradition. It's a transmission of not being attached to the transmission. So this being authentic does not mean holding on to your authenticity. Matter of fact, when you are, you don't hold on to your authenticity, and you don't hold on to your inauthenticity.

[08:05]

You don't hold on to genuineness, and you don't hold on to falseness. You don't hold on to anything. You're just completely who you are. But it's hard to be who you are, especially when you're cold or hot or confused. arrogant or self-righteous or impatient. It's hard to not hold on. But in order to not hold on, you have to be authentically confused, etc. Which is hard. For the next couple of days, I will discuss with you and hope you'll discuss with me how to be authentic, how to do the hard thing of being genuine, being a genuine whatever you want to call yourself, a genuine you, a genuine self,

[09:27]

And again, I'm talking about being genuine, I'm talking about being authentic, when you're genuinely yourself, a person who's not attached to themselves. In other words, you're enlightened. I'm led to offer this kind of teaching because I've received this kind of teaching. And when I received it, I was very happy to receive it. When I first received it, I didn't think, oh, it's so hard. When I tried to practice it, it's hard. But when I perceived it, I thought, how cool, how wonderful. I hope you feel that way. So one of the teachings of this teaching is from a Chinese Sutra, but I think it's supposed to be a translation from Sanskrit.

[10:31]

So it's supposed to be actually originally an Indian Sutra. And I haven't done research. Scholars agree that it is a Sanskrit original. But anyway, it's a Mahayana scripture. It's a great vehicle scripture. And the name of the scripture is something like translated into English. the inaction of all things, or you could say the immovable nature of all things. And in one part of the scripture, between the enlightening being the Bodhisattva. Anybody not familiar with the term Bodhisattva?

[11:32]

Please raise your hand. So Bodhisattva could be translated enlightening being, who is becoming enlightened, a being who works for the enlightenment of all beings. So the Bodhisattva Manjushri, Manjushri is the Bodhisattva often associated with perfect wisdom. Sometimes we call Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Great Western, he's giving the Buddha this teaching. He actually asked the Buddha, Master, can I give you a teaching? Buddha says, fine. Here's the teaching that he gave. This part of the teaching he gave the Buddha. He gave the Buddha the teaching. to be a living being is what is called enlightenment.

[12:41]

would be the nature of a living being is itself enlightenment. or Bodhi. The characters on the board here for you. And I also calligraphed it for you, and I have copies of it if you'd like to have. You may. I offer it to you. You can come up and when you leave today, you can bring one home and put it on your refrigerator. It reminds you to be authentic when you open that door. So this character means assembly.

[13:45]

This character means life. together they mean living being or living beings. This character means nature. So the nature of living beings is immediately enlightened. Again, another way to translate it is the nature of living beings is for a living being to be a living being. for somebody to be in accord with their nature. That's what bodhi, that's what enlightenment is. And that's, of course, we can't get away from it, but we try. We can get distracted, so we can become undistracted and to be authentic. So this is from a very ancient text.

[15:01]

And then another image of this is the image of this Indian monk who traveled to China with the intention of transmitting this tradition of being authentic, of being awake. And he supposedly met the emperor of China His name, we say, is Bodhidharma. So he's considered the founder of the Zen school in China.

[16:12]

He's from India, but from his example, from the example that he is set to be, the Zen school traces back to that. origin. He's the authentic origin. He's the genuine thing in the tradition. The emperor himself and the emperor was a great supporter of Buddhism. Buddhism was already well established in certain ways in China. The teacher arrived, and the emperor was very supportive of Buddhism. And he asked this person, Bodhidharma, what's the merit of all I've done for Buddhism?

[17:14]

And Bodhidharma said, no merit. There's no merit to what you did. It's just that there's no such thing as merit. Thank you very much. And then the emperor said, well, what's the highest meaning of the holy truths? Bodhidharma said, no holy. Vast emptiness or vast emptiness. No holy. And the emperor says, who is this that stands before me? He said, don't know. And they say that the emperor didn't understand at that time.

[18:14]

But I think also it's good to say that the emperor questioned. But he didn't quite understand what he'd done at that time. So Bodhidharma left and went north. He was told before he got to China, when you go to China, don't go to the south. Don't go to the south. Don't stay. And the Liang dynasty was in the south. So he left the emperor and went north to what's called the little forest, Shaolin. And he went there facing the wall for nine years, very quiet and still. He provides the image of a person transmitting the truth of awakening by just being himself.

[19:19]

He was not even saying anything. showing himself being himself. He didn't say, I'm being myself, look. He didn't even say that. He just sat there and in silence he transmitted that enlightenment. Be yourself. That's basically it. And maybe some people asked him what he was doing, but he didn't say much. He just kept being a... Another story comes to my mind of another famous teacher in his tradition. His name was Nan Juan, another Chinese teacher. In China, a lot of the Zen teachers were named after the place they lived.

[20:29]

So if they lived... Are there some mountains around here? What's the name of one of the mountains? What? Maybe if there was a teacher living up in the Santa Ina Mountains, they would call the teacher Santa Ina. So he lived in Nanchuan, which means South Spring. So he lived there, so his name was South Spring. So he was out working one day around the monastery, doing some manual labor, cutting some grass or something, or maybe cutting some rice plants. And a monk walked by on his way to the temple, and he asked Nanchuan, And Nanchuan said, raised his sickle and said, this sickle is sharp. And the monk said, I'm not asking about the sickle, I'm asking, where's Nanchuan?

[21:36]

And Nanchuan said, it comes from the sickle. So he was showing him nonchalant. He was being himself. But the monk didn't get it. We actually sometimes do think that being ourself is something else. And I think when people are sitting still upright facing the wall, sometimes they wonder, with helping all the suffering beings around the world, how does this help beings who aren't sitting still up in the mountains? You can make up stories about how it helps people, which can be quite encouraging, but actually I don't know how it helps people all over the world.

[22:45]

I think the completely realized Buddha doesn't see how it actually helps everybody. And the perfectly realized Buddha says, although you may not see how being yourself helps everybody, that is how to help everybody. Unity is the origin, the genuine place from which beings are helped. And turn it the other way, the place where suffering comes from is not being genuine. So you could say logically, if we realize our authentic self, there is an example in the world of the way to be that relieves suffering.

[23:55]

And that example, like Bodhidharma's example, has spread all over China for decades. 1500 years and spread now to other parts of the world of this example of being authentic. Somehow people practiced it and were encouraged to practice it and transmit it. How it works, how the practice is transmitted is not necessarily so clear, but the other way around, to me, is clear. In other words, when I see people who are suffering, it's usually because they're not being authentic. Like somebody with a broken leg who's authentic, I'm saying, who realizes with the pain of a broken leg.

[25:02]

They're in pain, but that's their only pain. Otherwise, they have no pain. Their only problem is being themselves. They have nothing else. They're devoted to all beings because they're authentic. And they just have this problem of being a person with a broken leg and a lot of pain with the pain of the broken leg. But they also have the extreme joy of being authentic and knowing that they have a great gift to give to people even when they have a broken leg. maybe even all the more when they have a broken leg, that people can see, this person has a broken leg and they're just like exuding compassion for me. They're being patient and generous with me while they have a pain in their leg.

[26:05]

And you might wonder, where does this come from, this compassion, in the midst of this stressful situation? Well, they've been training a long time, being themselves. So the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, our teacher, Suzuki Roshi, said, our practice is just to be ourselves. But again, it's hard. But with the aid of fellow practitioners and the example of the ancestors, it's possible that we can do this practice of being ourselves more and more, and we can become more familiar with the things that distract us and obstruct us from being ourselves, and we can have more confidence that we can let go of the distraction and that'll be fine.

[27:16]

Because sometimes we think being ourselves is necessary or helpful to people. People sometimes even say to us, please don't be so concentrated. Or they say to us, you know, you're just being selfish, or you're being self-absorbed, or you're not paying attention to anybody else. They may say that to us, and then we have a chance to be authentic when they say that to us. Like, for example, this sickle is sharp. Now, they may think we're weird, but anyway, we're not distracted. Who are you anyway? I don't know. You can't talk like that. You're not a Zen master. You have to tell me who you are. I'm scared. I'm scared you're going to eat me up. I have the answer.

[28:21]

Yeah, because I don't have an answer. You don't like that. I'm scared. I'm a scared little boy. That's who I am. But now anyway, now I'm a Zen master. Now I can't remember what a Zen Master is. Would somebody please remind me? One who doesn't know, thank you. I guess maybe I'm okay then. So this is kind of a faith thing. This is the faith, in a sense, of this tradition. To transform this world of suffering the way to do it is to be authentic. That that transformed the world in the direction of peace that helps beings who are suffering be at peace. And then when you're at peace with suffering, then a certain kind of suffering isn't there anymore.

[29:28]

And you're at peace with the suffering of a broken leg, disease, and old age. And that are difficult. Heat and cold. It still kind of cuts when it's cold. But you can be at peace with it if you can be authentically, genuinely a cold person, a freezing person. So you're still cold. But you're at peace being cold. And you're not afraid of being cold. And you're not afraid of what will happen to you. You're just freezing. And then you can start doing jumping jacks or something if you want to. Or you can look for some more clothes. But you're doing it from peace. And sometimes... When you stop being afraid of the cold, you realize, well, I am cold, but it's actually not a problem.

[30:30]

I mean, I'm not going to die right now, actually. I'm alive. And I'm happy. And I'm going to get a coat. But there is . I'm OK with not having a coat. Oh, and then somebody gives me a coat. Thank you. In other words, when I accept my being cold and relax with it and accept it, I can do the best thing to take care of a situation that's . But there's not much I can do. I'm still at peace. And the other people around me can see that. And they can learn how to be at peace with their difficulties. In this way, this is a story about how the world could be transformed. But still it's a matter of faith that some people believe in sitting facing the wall for nine years.

[31:35]

That example of the founder of Zen, they want to dig back on that. They bet part of a life or the rest of their life, they bet on that practice of being themselves as their contribution, as the original, the origin, the root of their contribution comes from that. You can do lots of things coming from that genuineness, like you can... Arrange for a meeting space like Alan's did. You can register people for retreats. You can invite people over to sit with you. Or dinner. You can dress wounds. You can pick people up and carry them across rivers. You can do lots of stuff. But this is a tradition of why you're doing those things. The fundamental thing you're transmitting

[32:39]

is your genuineness. Because if you take people across rivers, and they don't know how to be genuine when they get to the other side, they're just going to be not genuine. And if they're not genuine, they're just going to be miserable. But if while you're cooking a dinner, you're being genuinely a cook, or genuinely a porter, with your your way of being, then you're subtly, silently transmitting authenticity, genuineness to them. Then you're transmitting enlightenment. Or not so much you're transmitting it, your genuineness is being transmitted by your willingness to be who you are. For a sentient being to be a sentient being is itself immediately awakening.

[34:04]

So we can practice that right now. We can practice it now. We can practice it now. There's no time you can't practice in yourself. There's no condition in life and death where we can't practice in dying persons. Now I invite you to meditation.

[36:21]

You can do it out here. You can do it out in the walkway. You can do it wherever you want. Don't go too far away so you can't hear the bell when I ring it. So I'll ring the bell to call you back. I'll ring the bell now to suggest walking meditation. I'll ring the bell again to invite you back into the room.

[36:47]

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