In the class before Seshin, I said that I hoped I would be able to work with the verses in Vasubandhu's 30 verses, particularly these ones in the 20s, because I felt they were so helpful. When I study them, I feel they're so helpful to understand Zazen practice. I think I said I hope it would be possible. In one sense, I think in my own mind, and perhaps you would think too, well, if it's so helpful, why don't you just tell us about it? But what occurs to me now is that, well, first of all, that it's quite difficult to

[01:06]

do it because I can't just look at the text, see how it's helpful, and tell you, because this is not a matter of me telling you what I think exactly, but it's a matter of Dharma, and the matter of Dharma has nothing to do with my plans or my wishes. So I could present this material, but it might be of no use. I have to find the right time, given where I am and where you are during this sitting. So I say that to help you understand that I might not be able to talk about the 30 verses in relationship to what's happening with us, even though I just did. Enlightened people of old are exactly like the enlightened people of new.

[02:34]

And before Buddha were enlightened, they were the same as we. Want to know how Buddhas were before they were enlightened? They were the same as we. They used being like we are. They were just like us, and they studied how they were. So if you want to be like Buddha, study the way you are. That's what they all did, and they had no way to do that, and it

[03:49]

wasn't something they did. But the self was studied, the way we are was studied, and this was just how they were. They were studying the way they were. Or for a Buddha, it would be to study the way she is. As I said yesterday, to be completely absorbed in the complexities, troubles, and anxieties of your life. So according to this Shakyamuni Buddha, he continued to practice Zazen in the midst of

[05:04]

his troubles. He had great anxiety, just like some of us, and he continued to sit, and sit in such a way that he didn't intervene or interfere with his anxiety. He didn't meddle with it, he didn't lean into it, he didn't lean back from it. He just sat in the middle of it without moving until he found something out different from anxiety, and he did. He found

[06:11]

world of Dharma is where birth and death and anxiety independently co-arise with nothing to do with the self. And where even the practice that you enter to be with what's happening without interfering, even that practice has nothing to do with self, can't be touched by any human activity. Human activity, however, is on a rampage constantly. That's not interfered with.

[07:13]

Human activity is not interfered with. Human activity is interfering. That's what it is. Human activity is meddling. And this is anxiety, this is misery, this is paranoia, this is imagination of things non-stop and trying to prove that they're real. Well, believing that they're real, first of all, and then trying to prove that they're real. Arguing with people about what you imagine to be real. It's okay that human, it's not really meddling, it's not meddling to imagine things. Even the most elaborate complex scenarios that you imagine, that's not meddling. That's just birth and death. That's just complexity and anxiety. The meddling is when you think it's good and try to get hold of it, or think it's bad and try to

[08:26]

get rid of it, or think it's good and try to prove it, think it's right and try to prove it, or think it's wrong and try to disprove it, that's the meddling. The world of Dharma is just that you're imagining things and that has consequences and it's produced by causes, without any interfering. The world of human misery is imagining things and thinking they're real and once you think they're real you can't help but mess with them. How could you not mess with them? If they were really bad, you shouldn't mess with them. You do. In that way we're very obedient and mechanical. Never miss a beat. Once we believe something's real, we act in accord with that reality that we perceive, that we believe. We need to be completely absorbed in

[09:40]

what comes to be by our imagination, to sit upright, not interfering. And this also, this sitting upright without interfering is not something that you do. And the person who practices this way is not one person who is enlightened. Like it says in the Genjo Koan, the moon doesn't get in trouble when it's reflected in the water. Enlightenment, when it dawns on a person, doesn't limit the enlightenment to that person. The moon doesn't get limited to the puddle of

[10:44]

water when it shines in it. So when a person practices Zazen without having it be something that she does, she realizes fundamental reality in her body and mind, totally culminates enlightenment and it's not a matter of enlightenment being about that person. So I'm looking forward to this session. I didn't say it, but I thought how nice, how lovely that you would be able to sit here this week quietly and quietly explore the farthest

[11:47]

and nearest reaches of causes and conditions of your experience. I didn't say about that because I know that the quiet exploration, which I feel so happy for you all and myself to be able to practice, will be quiet exploration of something that's not quiet. So if I say have a nice quiet week, some of you may say, what do you mean? I'm going to go nuts. So I feel happy that you can quietly explore a seething mind, that you can quietly explore a high-energy jungle of complication, that you can be upright and stable and serene in the midst of this very active living system. When you sit on your cushion, no matter how you do it, you're going to be involved in

[13:06]

conceptions in order to get yourself onto your cushion. You may even get involved in the conceptions of Zazen practice, which is fine because that's what happens. But again, don't miss the opportunity, please, when you sit or walk, don't miss the opportunity to discover a practice which is completely free of your conception of practice. When you think about this schedule, when you think about this meditation hall, when you think about your body and mind, this is

[14:08]

non-stop conception. And you come here into this meditation hall in conjunction with that process of perception and also maybe in conjunction with believing these images. But you can also get in this room in conjunction with this stream of conception without believing one of those conceptions. To get in this room in the midst of the dynamic flow of concepts that is happening without believing those concepts is called Dharma practice. To get in this room by believing in your stream of consciousness, in your stream of images of things you know and believe are real, to get here in that way is called misery. Even though the stream of consciousness, the stream of images, the concepts

[15:09]

there might be dreams of Dharma, of Zazen, of King Him and of enlightenment. And again, it's okay to dream of enlightenment, it's okay to dream of Shakyamuni Buddha and Vasubandhu, it's okay to dream of, you know, Madonna or whoever you want to dream of. And you will. So of course it's ridiculous that I'm giving you permission to do what you will do. I'm just saying the Dharma world is the world where you don't mess with any of that. In other words, it's the realm of the dependently co-arisen, of the other dependent arising free of attribution of self, of attribution of substance. And attribution of substance is called meddling, is called interfering, is called human interference in

[16:11]

the process of human life. Human life uninterfered with is called Buddha's life. Human life unmeddled with is called upright sitting. The world of Dharma is the world of human life, which has nothing to do with yourself. Human life unmeddled with is the realm of Dharma. The realm of Dharma is right now being manifested. Right now. And it is untouched by all human activity and all human intervention. If you want to join the Dharma realm, join non-interference with your life as it's manifesting the causes and conditions moment after moment. Just be stable and just be nothing

[17:21]

but the causes and conditions of your life. Then you are not interfering anymore and you're still whatever you are. And even what I just said, you know, don't meddle with that while you sincerely practice that. We have a story which we chant, we chant, we read, we think about the story of the fan. The teacher's fanning himself in the Tang Dynasty. And the monk says, Hey teacher, how come the wind's constant and there's no place it doesn't reach? Why do you fan yourself? And he says, you understand that the wind is constant, but you don't understand it reaching everywhere. The monk

[18:28]

says, what's the meaning of it reaching everywhere? And the teacher quietly continued to fan herself. But I found another rendition of that story, or maybe it's a story happened on a different date with a different monk to the same guy who I guess fanned himself more than one day. So then another day he was fanning himself and the same monk or another monk came up and said, well, how come you're fanning yourself? The wind is constant. And the teacher said, yeah, you understand that the wind is constant. You understand that the wind exists, but you don't understand the other side. What's the other side? The other side is the wind doesn't exist.

[19:32]

And the monk said, what's the meaning of the wind doesn't exist? And the teacher quietly fanned himself. The wind is constant and reaches everywhere. That's pretty good. So the wind exists. Fine. So why fan yourself? The monk asked. And she says, you understand that it exists,

[21:04]

but you don't understand that it doesn't, and that's not good. Now, if it doesn't exist, it also, there's no place it doesn't reach. Something that doesn't exist, there's no place it doesn't reach. So it's the same thing. No place it doesn't reach is very similar to it doesn't exist. So when you first hear that story, the way we usually hear it, it means Dharma is everywhere, but unless you practice, it doesn't reach everywhere. That's the way some people interpret it, but that is also

[22:05]

not right because Dharma does reach everywhere, not just if you practice or not. It isn't that you're not fanning yourself, the wind won't reach places. It isn't that if you don't practice Zazen, Zazen is not going to reach everywhere. It is constant and it reaches everywhere. As a matter of fact, it reaches you even when you don't do it. So it doesn't mean that you have to practice Zazen, you have to fan yourself for the wind to reach everywhere. It means, in a way, that the practice you do is so that, not so that the wind doesn't exist, but so that you realize that the wind doesn't exist. You know Dharma exists. What

[23:11]

you don't know is Dharma doesn't exist. You have to practice in order to realize that Dharma doesn't exist. You have to practice so that you forget about Dharma, because remembering Dharma is you meddling with Dharma. Remembering practice, remembering the Buddha way, is you meddling with the Buddha way. The Buddha didn't do that. The Buddha was just like you, including you meddling with the Buddha way. The Buddha was just like that. But the Buddha wasn't just just like that, the Buddha was completely just like that. Completely absorbed in nothing but that. Completely wholehearted in messing around, because that's what human beings do. And when you're wholehearted in being a human being, there's no intervention. In other words, you sit

[24:15]

Zazen to show the meaning that there's no such thing as Zazen. You already know there is such a thing as Zazen, and matter of fact, we required of you that you'd know what Zazen is to get here. We don't let people come here that don't already know about it. Now that you're here, you need to be like the people who can't come. You need to free yourself of Zazen. You need to free yourself of this thing that has dependently co-arisen in your life called Zen practice. You need to fan yourself until the Dharma reaches you and sets you free of yourself. Which in your case, since you're Zen students, means set you free of Zen and Zazen. Don't worry, you're never going

[25:19]

to forget. Well, some of you will, the bad ones here. Some of you forget about Zazen. Some of you don't think about Zazen all the time. You people should think about Zazen all the time. Zazen exists. That Zazen is constant. You're always thinking about Zazen. All you care about is Zen, right? That's the way this monk was, and the teacher said, you know about that, that's fine. But what you don't know about is that there isn't any Zazen. So first of all, you people should be totally hung up on Zen, and then this teaching is for you. Now sit in such a way that Zen disappears. Fan yourself. Sit Zazen so that Zazen disappears. In other words, so that your life is uninterfered with. You know, you can go back to the time when you knew a little bit about Zazen, maybe, that's okay,

[26:37]

and you liked it. It'd be better to go even back before that, but when you first liked it, first thought it was cool, but didn't really know what it was. A little bit before that, but around there. But not just go back in your imagination, but sit Zazen so that you go back there. So you dedicate yourself to a practice which is going to free you of making that practice into something. Making practice into something is called meddling with your life. It's not Dharma. Dharma is when you practice or don't practice, doesn't matter what you call it. You can call, I'm going to not practice. Okay, fine. Don't practice, but don't interfere with not practicing. Or you can practice, but don't interfere with practice. You can die, and be born, and be

[27:42]

miserable, and be happy, whatever. Just don't mess with it. Don't mess with it by making it into something. It's already been made into something. Don't mess with it by saying, that's it. And practice in such a way that you become free of that. I hope you can feel that 30 verses are there, but I haven't been able to get into them. I have to get into them this way. So, I don't know whether you want to call your mind intermediate or advanced,

[28:48]

but anyway, intermediate and advanced Zen students have to practice Zazen in order to get beginner's mind. And it's not exactly you have to practice advanced Zazen, you just have to practice wholeheartedly Zazen. And some people actually have kind of like their intermediate, actually what do you call it, their low intermediate, and they confuse low intermediate with beginner's mind, which is fine. Find confusion. Completely exert that confusion. Don't use that as an excuse to say, well, looks like I've got it down. I can barely remember what Zazen is. I almost never think of it. I can really be lazy and be a great Zen student. So, that's the dangerous

[29:55]

thing about this suggestion. It's dangerous. It's dangerous to live in the dangerous world, and that's it. Just be completely absorbed in it. Don't try to get above it or below it. So, I don't know. All this is coming across, but

[31:17]

I really don't know what to do, so I'll just tell a story. All I can stop, I'm going to tell a story. A friend of mine travels around to people's houses, usually people who are, of all things, sick. In other words, people just like us. He was visiting one woman, and she told him, she said, I pray through you. He said, what do you mean? He said, well, I know that after you leave here, you go visit another sick woman, and I pray through you to her. I pray

[33:57]

for her well-being through your visit. He said, oh, that's really great. I'm so happy that you do that. I'm so happy that I'm part of your prayer. He said, would you mind if I told her that? She said, no, I'd like that. That would be great. So then he did go visit the next woman, and he told her. She said, oh, that's wonderful. I think I'll do the same for the next person you visit. She said, I'll pray through you to the next person you visit. He said, well, great. This helped him in his practice of visiting these sick people, to have them praying through him. Then he said that the first lady, the one who first told him she was praying through him to help the second

[34:57]

lady, her symptoms of her illness, mysteriously, for no reason that the doctors could understand, they stopped. Her illness went away. And I thought, yeah, I wonder how old this woman was. Maybe she was young. He didn't tell me how old she was. Maybe she was 28. And her symptoms went away, and she became a rock star. I don't know. Anyway, I said, how old was she? He said, she was 82. And then the thought crossed my mind, well, her symptoms went away, but she's going to die soon anyway, isn't she? And you know what? She did. She became well, and then she died. I thought, oh,

[36:16]

yeah. Even young people can do that. Young sick people can become well, just plain become well, even without dropping your symptoms, become well, and then die. Or you can be sick and then die. That's also another possibility. But that story, anyway, made me realize that, to me, I guess it's a nice idea that you could wake up, become nice and bright and shiny before you die, even though you're sick or old or whatever. Before Buddha was enlightened, Buddha was just like that.

[37:19]

And then the other story is, one day, Medicine Mountain was sitting what they call Zazen. He was sitting still. He was sitting upright, and his teacher, Stonehead, came up and said, what are you doing? And Medicine Mountain said, I'm not doing anything at all. And Stonehead said, well, then are you idly sitting? And Medicine Mountain said, if I were idly sitting, I would be doing something. And Stonehead said, hmm, well, you say you're not doing anything. What is it that you're doing? And Medicine Mountain said, even the 10,000 sages don't know. Even the 10,000 sages

[38:50]

don't know anything about what Dharma is. Nobody can get in there. See, that was funny, Roberto. Well, it is. You got the joke. That's good. And somebody said, officially, nobody can get in, but unofficially, we actually let people in the back door, so don't worry. Stonehead got a little bit excited about this and uttered a poem. We've been going along like this together, just in accord with what dependently co-arises. Though

[40:05]

he's been like this all along, even the 10,000 sages don't know who he is. As long as the consciousness does not terminate in mere concept, so long will the dispositions of the twofold grasping not cease. Until your mind and body terminate in that fan, or that Zazen posture, or that anxiety, which is just a phantom, nothing more,

[41:18]

nothing less, until your mind terminates and is just practiced so thoroughly that you cannot meddle with your experience, until your experience is so utterly just what it is, and it's not reality, it's not unreality, it's just a concept. Until your mind terminates in that, you'll still be able to grasp yourself, other, pain, pleasure, Dharma, Buddha, whatever. Or as we also say, as long as your mind is not like a wall, you'll still be able to grasp. Indeed, one who on account of

[42:33]

grasping were to place a thing before herself and say, this is mere concept, will not stop at mere concept, at mereness. So you hear, make your mind like a wall, don't interfere, practice Zazen to forget about Zazen, practice Zazen to make Zazen disappear. Fan yourself to realize that there's no such thing as Dharma. Dharma is not a thing. Dharma exists, yeah, sure, but Dharma also doesn't exist. You want to realize that? Use this fan. You hear about that, so then you pick up the fan, you pick up practice, and you say, this I'm doing, this is mereness, this is uprightness, this is

[43:34]

Zazen. One who on account of one's grasping does that, because if we want to grasp, when we hear about the practice, the inconceivable practice of the Buddha way, because of our grasping we take it and put it in front of us. Even mereness we put in front of us. That's why it's nice to get down to this real core thing, because even at that core, where you say it's just mere concept, we'll even do it then. We're tenacious, let's give ourselves some credit. Cheer for human tenaciousness, very good. You guys are great. We're not easy to beat. Give us the tiniest shred, tiniest little hair's breadth, and we can grab it and make it into the whole universe. Life is something, human life is something. Anyway,

[44:38]

to make your mind into a wall and put it before yourself and say I made my mind into a wall, that's not a mind like a wall. When consciousness with object is not obtained, then there being no object, one is established in the state of mere concept, for there is no grasping for it. Practice Zazen so wholeheartedly that it cannot be an object and there are no objects, but particularly since you're doing Zazen and there's nothing Zazen is meant for other than to be forgotten, it won't mind. Your spouse or your children might mind if you forget them, but Zazen won't mind. It's saying practice me wholeheartedly so you can forget me. That's what I'm here for. Dharma is saying seek me so you can realize I have no form. Practice until it's not an object, until you terminate in the mere concept.

[45:47]

So, it happened. We got to 30 verses. I hope it was relevant. Relevant means I hope it didn't distract you from your practice, which is most important. I hope it helped you in sitting on Zazen and being upright. So again, sitting upright means sitting upright with no object called sitting upright before you. The upright mind is the mind that terminates in mere concept. It's practicing upright with no idea of upright out there, but again, it's hard to practice to

[47:05]

sit upright because of our grasping tendency. We want to have upright sitting out there and hold on to it so we know we're doing it, but that's not what we mean by uprightness, as far as I can tell. But this is hard because when you put something good up there like uprightness, it's hard not to think that that's true. If you make a good scenario about what happened the day before yesterday to cope with the anxiety and pain you feel about it, it's hard not to sort of say, yeah, that's real. Or when you hear other people's scenarios that you don't like, it's hard not to sort of say, no, that's not what happened. But when you hear those words and you induce the scenario,

[48:13]

it can happen and it can just be left there without interfering. Even when you see other people interfering and jumping up and down saying, this is true, then you disagree. Or disagreeing already, you're not upright anymore. It's just more like a wonder. It's just a wonder that this stuff can happen. A wonder. That's what the Buddha said, isn't it? Wonder. It's a wonder. It's wonderful. It's a miracle. Miracle, miracle, [...] miracle. And I can be that stupid because I forgot what a miracle is.

[49:20]

If I have some idea of what a miracle is, then this might not be a miracle. When I stop interfering, I let go of my ideas of what miracles are, and then everything's a miracle. Letting go of my ideas of miracles, of what a miracle is, is called Zazen. So, and now I'm repeating myself, right? So, I'll stop. You want me to talk again? Let me know. With the true merit of Buddha's way.

[50:36]

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