Whenever we, almost every time we chant this He He Ko So Kotsugamon, I always think, oh I should talk about this, or this is what I'm going to talk about, something like that. This is hard to pass up, this thing. So now we're at the end of the practice period, and I'd like to go back to the beginning, remember the beginning again, and that is our ultimate concern. And I listened to various of you expressing your ultimate concern, and there was variety, but still pretty much there was overlap too, and I think our

[01:13]

ultimate concern is something in the area of wanting to be happy, and wanting everybody else to be happy, and wanting to be enlightened, because we understand that that goes along with being happy, and wanting other people to be enlightened, because understanding that that also goes along with it. And I feel that we have, all of us, given our level of enlightenment, or our kind of understanding, we've done our best to conscientiously cultivate our feelings for this concern during this practice period, so that these compassionate

[02:17]

aspirations will gradually fill our body and mind, and command our whole being. And as part of this ultimate concern, we're always thinking of the welfare of others. However, we sometimes forget our ultimate concern, and we also sometimes forget to think of the welfare of others. And so a great deal of what we do with each other is to encourage each other and remind each other of what we already

[03:23]

know. Many people say, when they come and talk to me, after talking for a while, they say, why can't I remember that? Or why don't I remember that? Of course, I don't answer that question. And then they say, well, how does it come to be that I don't remember what's most important to me, what I believe in most deeply, what's my ultimate concern? And they often can remember right away the answer to that too, and the reason why we forget is because we get confused. We walk out, we sit quietly, and we realize that we're hearing the Dharma, and that upon hearing it, no

[04:28]

doubt arises in us, and we don't lack in faith, and we renounce worldly affairs, and we maintain the Buddha Dharma, and that in doing so, the great earth and all living beings together attain the way. And then somebody spits in our face, and we forget that, and our faith gets broken for a moment, and we don't hear the Dharma, we don't feel the Dharma is this insult, and then we pick up worldly affairs again, and put down the Buddha Dharma, and then in doing so, the great earth and all living beings together put down the Buddha Dharma with us, and forget with us. People are cooperating with each other very intimately, so we need to train ourselves thoroughly, so that all the outrageous things that happen to us

[05:32]

can be understood as the Dharma. When we don't understand things as Dharma, then we feel like we're in a prison, but as Ed Robinson says, the world is not a prison, but it's a kind of spiritual kindergarten, where we're all bewildered infants who are trying to dispel God with the wrong blocks. So we need to put aside worldly affairs and maintain the Buddha Dharma.

[06:46]

So I'd like to begin this session by putting aside worldly affairs myself, and to ask you to do the same, and if you do the same, I'll try to join you in giving up worldly affairs. And as I said the other night, I don't know if you really did ever bond with your mom. I hope you were able to do that. I see you didn't bring her with you to the practice period, so in some sense you've separated from her, which I think is good. And now it's time to separate from yourself and all your worldly concerns,

[07:56]

in other words, all your self-centered concerns. Now it's time to let go of those. Put them aside. Since we have some self-centered habit, basically putting aside self-centered things means put aside everything. If you try to select, or if I try to select what things I'm going to put aside, then I won't put aside what I need to put aside. So basically we need to put aside everything, or relinquish and renounce everything we know. This isn't all of practice. This is just one kind of initiation, which I've spoken

[08:59]

of in the past as a fiery initiation. Initiation by fire. Initiation of renouncing worldly affairs. After we renounce worldly affairs, then we go on to the next initiation, which is called maintaining the Buddhadharma. But first, let's start with the fiery initiation. Okay? Are you ready? No? So this is about ... this is not just about leaving home, getting away from your mom, this is about growing up, as someone said to me. And she also said that considering about growing up, she feels some kind of sadness. There was an adjective before the sadness. What was the adjective before the sadness?

[10:00]

She can't remember. Blah-de-blah kind of sadness at the contemplation of growing up. This kind of sadness is not depression. I've said to you before, it's not depression. It's good. It's good sadness. It's a sadness about ... that's helping you let go of what's already gone. It's helping you catch up to the present. Sadness is good that way. And when you've gone to the bottom of the sadness, you're ready for the present. This is about going from childhood to adulthood. This is about going from fantasy to reality. This is about going from insanity to sanity. This is about studying the self so thoroughly that you forget it and let it

[11:13]

drop. This is about following the schedule so thoroughly that you forget yourself. One time I was on a trip to Europe with my wife. It was springtime. We went to southern France to the Dardogne. There's a lot of old English castles down there. The English kings used to come down and conquer southern France so they could have vacation. Anyway, it's a beautiful part of France, but watch out because the food has a lot of duck liver in it and they're cruel to these ducks. They force them to eat a lot of food more than they want to so their livers will get real big. So I pretty much stopped eating duck liver at

[12:16]

that time and fled France for Italy. I went to Venice and bought some loafers. Then I went to Austria and visited a friend there, two friends, one named Vanya and the other one named Jerry. And one day we went mountain climbing. So it was springtime, but you didn't have to climb very far before you got in the snow. And being old friends, they considered me a peer of theirs, although I'm not much of a mountain climber like they are, and gave me no instruction before we started. And being springtime, it wasn't too cold, but we were up in the

[13:27]

snow as I say. And as we got higher and higher, they started to give me some instruction. I forgot what the first instruction was. There was basically two instructions. I don't remember which came first, so I might have them reversed. But I had a pick in my hand. They gave me a pick and then they had a certain altitude and a certain snow level. They gave me some instructions about how to use the pick. And the way you use the pick is you stick it in the ice. And then when it's in the ice and you're holding on to it, then you take a step. And then before you take another step, you pull the pick out and put it in the ice again, and then take a step. So the idea is pick, step, pick, step, pick,

[14:31]

step, as opposed to step without the pick in the ground, and then try to put the pick in. Use the pick to stabilize yourself as you take a step. That worked pretty well. Pick, step, and then you're on the ground. And then before you take another step, move this pick forward and then step. Very simple. And you can climb a mountain that way. Then as we got higher and we were on a kind of like a the blade of a of a ridge with the earth sort of going away on both sides there, maybe I was, I don't know what I was doing, but I think somebody from behind me, I was the first person there behind me, somebody said, don't look around. And that was really good instruction, because if you look around it doesn't really help and it just makes, it can make you dizzy to look around when there's, you know, big

[15:37]

drops on both sides of you. So with those two instructions I proceeded to walk up pick, step, and not looking around. I didn't completely give up all worldly affairs at that time because I was still involved with this pick, step thing, but I didn't, I wasn't concerned with much else besides that. A friend of mine likes to go mountain climbing in the dentist's office and

[16:44]

the way he does that is by not using, not use, not accepting novocaine. And he concentrates on the experience of his nerves and doesn't let his mind go off at all from just that direct experience of the nerves expressing information and is able to, in that way, stay with the experience and not get too anxious. But one time there was some noise in an adjoining office or something and the person, the people who were around him in the chair were distracted by that and then he got distracted and he realized that what

[17:47]

would happen if his mind deviated at all from just staying with that experience. When I was up in the mountains, I can't remember at what point I thought of it, maybe when I finished climbing, but maybe also before I really started climbing or maybe while I was climbing, but in my mind I realized that while I was up in the mountain climbing like that and being so concentrated and so simple, my wife was down below buying train tickets and changing money and making arrangements for travel and washing clothes so that I could be doing this

[18:53]

thing where it was very clear what I should do. And the person in the dentist office also, because the dentist was there and the dental hygienist was there assisting him and they weren't distracted and answering telephones and so on, by their concentration on him and their doing various things he could also concentrate on what he was doing. So we can realize that although, well, in this way we can realize that we're concentrating on something and putting everything aside, at the same time everyone's helping us do that when we're able to do so. Also when we're not able to do so everyone's helping us with that too. I myself feel though that the difference is that when I'm able to put

[19:59]

everything aside and not look around then I can understand that everyone's helping me, whereas if I don't put everything aside and I do look around, it's true that everyone's helping me also with that, but instead of appreciating that they're helping me do that I think they're harming me or they're not being helpful. But in both cases no matter what you're doing everyone's helping you actually. But without putting aside worldly affairs you don't see it as help. You actually think people are harming you. So the key thing is to renounce worldly affairs. Then you realize when you renounce worldly affairs you realize everyone's helping you.

[21:02]

I don't know how many examples like this to give, but I've seen a lot of them, examples of... I'll give another one. I saw this great Zen teacher, a tea teacher one time. He was a wonderful tea teacher. He was 78 years old and our local tea teacher Nakamura Sensei was there with me watching him teach tea. And actually he did tea too, he made tea, and he did the simplest tea style too so we could see something we knew very well. And she said afterwards, which I think was true, that he was actually just tea himself. He was just a tea ceremony. And again I don't know where or how I noticed this, but I noticed the activity

[22:28]

of his wife somehow in the process. I noticed what she did in order for him to be like that. She was very active, you know, changing money, buying train tickets, washing clothes. So one side is very running around crazy so that the other side can be totally concentrated. They actually have to have the two together. And in some ways it sounds like the being concentrated is, I don't know, maybe hypocritical in a sense, but it's not really hypocritical. It's actually necessary, I think. And again, when that side's realized, hopefully the other side... well not hopefully, then the other side's in the dark. And I don't know if this man, when he was doing tea, was aware of

[23:36]

everyone helping him, but... well I just don't know if he was. But I guess my proposal is that one does become aware of how everything is helping one when one is able to do this because everyone's helping you do it. So now we're in a situation here where everyone is actually, I think, well I don't know if they are, just be ready for the possibility that everyone is helping you now renounce worldly affairs. It might be the case that that's happening right now and for the rest of the week. The kitchen, for example, is helping us by cooking for us. They're providing food for us so we don't have to think about providing food for ourselves. We don't have to think about before the meals or during the meals. At

[24:43]

one point we considered not having a kitchen staff to sashay in and just letting everybody go make sandwiches for themselves, but then people would have to think during the sandwich preparation what would be the best thing to make for yourself. Should I put more mayonnaise on or should I have non-dairy or what? So you don't have to worry about that because the kitchen's serving you. And many other sentient beings all over the planet are serving us and supporting us to be here this week so that we can drop everything as it comes up. So the main thing, the main thing, a main thing to drop is movement, drop movement. And I would and I really would suggest the kitchen do this too, drop

[25:50]

movement, don't move. Doesn't mean you can't move, it means you renounce movement. You give up movement as a worldly affair. By not moving you say no to the impulse to move. No, not like you're fighting it, no like I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go with the impulse. It is possible to raise your fist in the spirit of not moving and bring it down in the spirit of not moving. It is possible to raise your hand as a direct expression of not moving. And it is possible to speak as an expression of uprightness. And it is possible to think

[27:01]

as an expression of uprightness, as an expression of putting everything aside, of not looking around. So I I want to prepare myself and I want to help all of you as much as I can get ready for the end of the practice period and for some of you leaving Tassajara. So I I feel that we need to disentangle ourselves from Tassajara. Whether we're

[28:34]

leaving or staying we need to disentangle ourselves from this place. We can be we can become entangled with this place and in fact we do get confused and get entangled with this place. In this place we make meals, we we create schedules, we make times for sitting and bathing and eating and then we and then we forget that we made all this stuff just in order to promote happiness and freedom. We create something and then we forget to put it aside, to let go of it, to not

[29:54]

look around. We look down the mountainside and see a deep valley. We create it and then we forget that we created it and get scared. So now putting aside worldly affairs disentangle ourselves from worldly affairs. Now pick step could be inhale, exhale. Pick step, pick step, don't look around. Inhale without looking around. Exhale without looking around. While

[30:56]

inhaling and exhaling all these thoughts that come up that are going to come up for seven days in this room and in the kitchen so many thoughts are going to come up while you're inhaling and exhaling. What do you do with those thoughts? Don't look around. Don't get entangled in them. Don't dwell in them. See if you can just stay with pick, don't look around. Step, don't look around. All the time concepts are going to be flying up around you. Concepts which say I'm an

[32:08]

exception to the rule, give me some attention, look at me. You have to think about this. You have to think about what you're going to do on your vacation. You have to think about presents you're going to buy for people. This is thinking about others welfare. This is being concerned with others happiness. Think about this. Okay, you're making a really good case for me giving you some attention and me getting involved with you. But just how about please for seven days just let me say bye-bye. I'll take care of you after session's over if you still want me to think about you. But will you remember me? I might forget that it's Christmas. It's true.

[33:17]

I might forget that I have to plan the rest of my life. It's true. It's possible I might. And if so I'm really sorry but I don't think I will. The funny thing about this practice period is that I think that if we don't let go of it now then we won't be able to extend it beyond and particularly for me who is leaving Tassajara I want as much as possible to carry forth practice here in my life. So I have to start acting as though I really could practice here now. I can't wait till later to do Tassajara practice which I'm afraid I won't be able to do later. You see how confused such thinking is?

[34:29]

It's also beautiful and creative but anyway the point is I want to put it aside. So I'm talking about getting to my seat and the kitchen's complicated so I would suggest to the kitchen that until further notice you just try to get to your seats there. The first step get to your seat. Find your place in the kitchen and let each other look for that place even if you're not sure that the other people are looking for it. Let the other person look for that place if they want to. And you look for it yourself.

[35:38]

This place where you're renouncing worldly affairs. Don't worry about the maintaining Buddhadharma part yet. The poet Charles Olson said you have four legs to stand on. First one is be

[37:51]

romantic. Second one is be passionate. Third one is be imaginative. And the fourth one is never be rushed. Coming to this place is pretty romantic. Doing a session is a pretty romantic thing. And it's pretty passionate to do a practice period too.

[38:56]

And I think all of us as far as I can tell talking to you people from what I hear on the grapevine you're pretty imaginative group. Imagine all kinds of things about yourself and about others. The funny thing is the part the key part that this place is set up for is never be rushed. All over the world people are actually pretty romantic at least all over America people are often pretty romantic passionate and imaginative and I think you people are more romantic and more passionate and more imaginative than most people I know. Certainly more romantic and passionate. I don't know about imaginative. This place and particularly now today the issue is

[40:06]

don't be rushed. Don't let what's happening rush you. Don't let what's happening trick you into thinking you have to move or you have to take care of it. Or I should say that you have to hold on to it or remember it. Including all the things that have been told you by any Buddhist text. Also those don't be rushed by those. And don't be rushed by being still. Don't get pushed around by that either. Don't be rushed by anything. Never be rushed. Don't be in a rush to sit down to meditate. Don't be in a rush to get concentrated. Just get concentrated. What a romantic thing to do to get completely concentrated. How passionate

[41:09]

of you and how imaginative of you to think that you could practice such a way. But don't be rushed. Don't make this practice into another worldly thing. Oscar Wilde said there's only one thing I can't resist. Temptation. I don't want to tempt you and ask you to ask you to think of now what is it that you that you cannot resist? What is it that you know you can't put aside? What is it that you really think you have to think about and come back to and obsess about during this session? I don't exactly want to ask you but I I

[42:13]

just want to say that whatever that is that too I'm talking about. I'm talking about saying no thank you to that. I'm not talking about pushing it away. I'm talking about not looking around. When you get to your seat then we can talk about what you have to say and what you have to think. But until you get to your seat until you actually have given up the world until I've actually given up the world there's not much to talk about really. Because all we're talking about is entanglement and attachment and being fooled. This is a fiery initiation which says no. There's no exceptions. Try that try

[43:18]

that out no exceptions. Also if you do if you do this path since it is a separation from yourself it's a separation from everything you know you do will not understand what you're doing. If you bring along with you an understanding of what you're doing you haven't let go of that. Now you can have something. You can have a pick and feet. You can have a knife and a spoon and a pot and water. You can have that. You can have a body. You can have teeth and lips and tongue. You have to give that stuff up too but you have something to work with but you don't know what to do if you're going towards your seat and at your seat you do not know what to do. You do not know what to do. You've given up knowing what to do. You're literally literally renouncing everything. You're renouncing your life.

[44:39]

You're renouncing the life that you know as life. What you know of as life you are renouncing. I'm just trying to sort of like scout the landscape and see if there's any exceptions to this that you might come up with of something that you think you don't renounce or that I think no no that I have to take care of that I have to take care of. But again we turn take care of into hold on to, get entangled with, take as real. And that is what derails our fundamentally excellent aspirations. That's the source of our forgetting and confusion and losing our way, our

[45:49]

perfectly good way. So again I said I wasn't gonna push you and but if I do I'm really sorry that I told you a lie before. I really am I and I'm really sorry if I push somebody and they go crazy. And be quiet means that in the midst of all the noise that comes up all the impulses that come up you just say no not not move not think. You're thinking all the time what you think is you think not move and not think.

[46:54]

And then listen to Mara try to talk you out of this. Listen to the good exceptions. And then sometimes as I'm talking to you my mind projects out of myself onto others my own incredible unwillingness to do this. And of course then I see these amazing examples of people who aren't willing to do this. Which is just a projection of my own unwillingness to do this. I am you know big-time unwilling to do this otherwise I wouldn't be able to see some of the things I've been able to see. You know of somebody who organizes their whole life to be in a

[48:20]

Zen monastery and then blah blah. Like yesterday I went up to get my union suit off the line and I looked over to where I thought I hung it and it wasn't there. And I thought finally I too am a victim of what I've heard about at work. I've heard the cries of pain at the work meetings of people who in all good faith have hung their things on the line and then found them not there. Or even you know found them in some other place and cried out in pain at how discouraging it is to come to a place jam-packed full of compassionate people. People who are dedicated to welfare of others who do things like this with my clothes. So

[49:28]

anyway I looked over there and it wasn't there. I thought these thoughts will this will this turn out to be that kind of a story. Or perhaps someone actually has taken my union suit off neatly folded it and put it in some lovely place. That's a possibility still. Anyway I went and looked more carefully and actually I just hung it a different place. Now I compliment myself to some extent because during this whole scenario I went through I was actually playing. I actually was playing with the idea you know like I just did with you. Will I now be such a sad person as to have this terrible thing happen to me? I even thought how wonderful it will be actually if it's down in the mud and that I can know what that feels like and I can feel outraged you know that here in the land of kindness people can do things

[50:33]

like that. But is it people that do things like that or was it the wind? Even if it was a person was it a person that did that or did the wind just blow in that person and make their arms and legs do certain things like walk over and take it and throw it high into the air and watch it fly and then it came down jump up and down on it. Was that is that a person or is that a wind or is that a storm or is that a falcon or is it a song? What is that? I actually use my imagination to dream like that about this little story which never happened. And after that story was over I went and got my Union suit off the line and took it back to the cabin. These stories happen or don't happen but whatever the happening or don't happening

[51:38]

it's possible to not look around when they're happening just to just to have them happen and not take them not grab them not know whether they're true or false or whether there's a better story or a worse story to tell about life right now. Many stories will be told every second for the next approximately 160 hours. Find your seat in the middle of those stories. Find the unmoving, unthinking, unthinkable body of release in the middle of these stories. Find no movement and no thinking in the middle of these stories. Find your sense of humor in the

[52:46]

middle of these stories. If we find that place we can do what we came here for what we came to this temple for we came to this life for then we will be able to work for the enlightenment of all beings. If we don't give up this stuff and go to this place we just really haven't got our seat yet. We haven't got our feet on the ground yet. So let's enter the fire and sit there where all Buddhas are turning the Dharma wheel.

[54:19]

Please lead and treat every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way.

[54:48]

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