This is the seventh day of the seven-day Sashin. And during the Sashin, at the beginning of the talks, we have been chanting a vow, which was written by the Zen teacher Heihei Dogen. This vow is called EHE KOSO HOTSU GAMON, which means the vow to give rise to the aspiration for enlightenment of all beings, written by the teacher, the high priest, Dogen. So for continuity's sake, the meditation hall master suggested that we chant this this morning.

[01:05]

And so it may be a little unfamiliar for you to read or see such a vow, but if you'd like to join in, do you have copies? You may do so if you wish. The true Dharma, that upon hearing it, will arise in us, nor will we be in faith. It will be known to where it occurs, Right. You're wrong. [...] As the Buddha would all be graced, he preached here on the last day of the nation.

[02:28]

He filled the entire universe with love, affection, and unity. He will give the same ancestors of all the world as we. [...] But our own body mind has a different direction to us. Without them, it would be hard to be able to achieve whatever attainment. John Mastodonius said, Those who in past lives were not awakened, be enlightened by this Christ living body, which is the fruit of many lives. The same as we, we, we belong to data. They are those of all. But we don't know the causes and conditions. You see the exact position over there by Buddha, sweating one of the nails to see it, and the clippings of the lips.

[03:38]

The feeling was closing on lack of faith and practice. The way the word of transgressions intends, this is to do every simple cognitive true practice in the faith of the true bodied faith. This morning a beautiful young man came and told me that, can you hear me?

[06:06]

He came and told me how beautiful he thought the world was. and how grateful he felt for all the love he had received in his life, for his good fortune to have been loved, so that to help him be able to see how beautiful this world is. And it is a beautiful world, and yet sometimes we can't see that. And sometimes we seem to go against that.

[07:06]

There is among us human beings a fundamental delusion which crops up almost every moment for most of us. And this fundamental delusion of humanity is that I'm over here and you're over there. Or I'm here and others are out there. This delusion is well established and because of this delusion beauty somehow almost seems to be killed.

[08:57]

So right off the work of human beings might be to reverse this delusion. Not exactly to get rid of it because it's pretty well built in, but to find some way to turn it around, to be liberated from this delusion. so that it doesn't become too influential, so that we don't act from it. So we start, in a sense, in the Buddha way

[10:23]

by a dedication to all the beings that we feel separated from, particularly those that we feel separated from. Those that we feel are us, of course we are dedicated to them, but those who we don't think are us, we offer our total devotion And this devotion to all beings is the aspiration which will eventually, through various meditation practices, reverse and release us from this delusion that our lives are different from each other. But I start with this serious note.

[11:32]

I didn't intend to, but I did. And I even will recite you a poem about this. This is called A Father's Poem. written by a man named Peter, Mickey. This is a poem for my son, Peter, who I have hurt a thousand times. whose large and vulnerable eyes have gazed in pain at my ragings.

[12:45]

Thin wrists and fingers hung in boneless despair. pale and freckled back, bent in defeat, pillows soaked by my failure to understand. I have scarred through weakness, laziness and impatience, your frail confidence forever. Because when I needed to be strict, you were there to be hurt. And because I thought you knew that you were beautiful,

[13:57]

But now I see that no one knows that about himself, but must be told and retold until it takes hold. Because I think that anything can be killed after a while, especially beauty. So I write this for life, for love, and for my son Peter, age 10, going on 11. This delusion of separation is the fundamental problem.

[15:07]

I have hurt him and her a thousand times through my delusion. Now it's still not too late to change, to dedicate my life to life and love, to overcome this delusion and to stop being cruel. most of all to beauty, which is simply the way things are. Not to kill beauty, just not to kill. Life is just not killing. Life is not killed.

[16:23]

From the beginning, through the middle, to the end, then comrades, make this commitment to stop killing, to reverse this delusion, and to take this mind which has been reversed and liberated from delusion into the world to share this light of beauty with all beings. Make the commitment establish the intention, resolve to do it, and be determined not to give it up. Zen comrades. Joy to the world.

[17:43]

Bring joy to the world. peace and goodwill to all living beings. And the Zen, or not just the Zen, but the the enlightenment worker's way of bringing this, of reversing this delusion, is said to be the birth and nurturance of an unsupported thought. This unsupported thought is a name

[18:49]

for this mind which is turning around and releasing itself from this delusion of the separation among beings. The unsupported thought is a thought which is the thought of all beings. And this week we've been studying and meditating on how to let this unsupported thought, this thought of light and freedom be born. A thought which has no abode, a thought which is not supported by anything. And before I forget, I want to tell you that all thoughts are really unsupported thoughts. This is not some special thought that you have to find. It's actually the way your thoughts are right now.

[19:51]

But it's your thoughts which have somehow, right on their spot where they're sitting, have turned around and released themselves from themselves without messing around at all. Without sweeping delusion away, we are liberated from it on the spot. Before delusion goes away, the released mind has already arrived. This unsupported thought is a meditation of immediate awakening. Immediate means there's no mediation.

[21:20]

It means right exactly in this fundamental delusion of separation, right there, immediately with no mediation, awakening is born. So the bodhisattva does not mess around with the mind to try to fix it. but simply staying close and doing nothing to your experience, it can subtly slip the noose. But we must be close, not a little bit away from where we are, We must practice patience and be right where we are without flinching from our life. And we must completely be filled with the joy of being where we are and not be disturbed so that we can be there when it reveals itself to us.

[22:31]

The basic logic here is A equals A, therefore A is not A. A logic which you may be more familiar with is A equals A, therefore A does not equal B. Pain equals pain, therefore pain does not equal pleasure. This is true. Pain does not equal pleasure. Bondage is bondage, and bondage is not liberation. This is not a violation of the usual logic.

[23:37]

Slightly different. Listen. Pain equals pain. Therefore, pain is not pain. First, you completely admit pain. Completely, patiently, you're there with your pain. And when you get to the place where your pain is exactly your pain, your pain will not be your pain. When bondage is just bondage and nothing more, bondage is not bondage. The practice of Zen is to let pain be pain and pleasure be pleasure. When pain is just pain, pain is not pain. When pleasure is just pleasure, pleasure is not pleasure.

[24:41]

When beauty is just beauty, beauty is not beauty. By letting things be themselves completely, we are released from everything, from pain, from pleasure, from bondage, and we are also released from beauty. If you don't let beauty be beauty, you kill it. If you're too strict with beauty, you kill it. But it takes complete patience and absolutely no laziness and complete courage and stability to let yourself be yourself. We don't withhold the slightest bit of energy. If you want to be released from attachment, you have to be completely attached.

[25:49]

But most of us are, we think we're attached, but we don't want to admit it. You've got to go all the way with what's happening in order to be released from it. You can't be released by absentee ballot. That's the basic logic. of liberation. So first, Hermon here is Hermon. That's fine. And when Hermon is completely Hermon, Hermon is not Hermon. And therefore, Hermon's really Hermon.

[26:55]

He's not under control, this guy. This is the logic of unsupported thought. So the practice of this temple is sometimes called just sitting, and just sitting means to completely settle into the human condition without hoping for the slightest advantage

[28:26]

or the slightest displacement or leverage on the human situation. And the human situation is sometimes, again, not only separation from others, but wishing that it was different from this. To completely settle into feeling that you wished it was different from this. So on some level, not wishing that it was different. Surrendering to the fact that we are beings who want something different. And we're not satisfied with this, but on some other level, completely being there. And I would say again that this unsupported thought is always there. There is always somebody there who is already accepting the human condition. This reality is already happening. You don't have to make it happen. You simply have to notice that there's somebody who's already sitting there, not moving in the slightest bit from the human condition.

[29:36]

Just open your eyes and you'll see her there. A bodhisattva should produce an unsupported thought, a thought supported nowhere, a thought not supported by colors, sounds, smells, tastes, or touchables. A poem which Dogen Zenji wrote about this instruction goes, coming, going, waterfowl leave no trace. Nor do they need a guide. When I first, not first, but for years, I thought this, I pictured this poem as about migrating geese or migrating ducks.

[30:51]

And I pictured them Flying north in the summer, in the spring, and south in the winter. Flying hundreds, thousands of miles, knowing how to get there without a guide and leaving no trace in the sky. But then recently someone told me that there's a phenomenon among waterfowl, that when they're in the water, They can swim along in the water from one end of a lake to the other. And of course, after a while, they leave no trace. And they can swim back in exactly the same swimming pattern with no guide. there is a thought which knows the lines of compassion and knows how to migrate and doesn't need a guide, which is already there.

[32:02]

Moment by moment, demonstrating exactly the correct path, which is simply not moving from your human condition. which is simply A equals A. Somebody's already doing that perfectly. Can you join with this person who doesn't know any better than to be herself and who is therefore released from herself through completely being herself? So we have a meditation technique, many, many meditation techniques to help us lull ourselves gently into intimacy with what's already going on. One that we've been working on this week is

[33:10]

While breathing in, not dwelling in body-mind. While breathing out, not getting involved in myriad circumstances. Now, When you first hear that, you might think, okay, breathing out, I'm not going to get entangled in all these circumstances. That's already being entangled. To try not to get entangled is entanglement. Breathing out and not being entangled in myriad circumstances means that there is just... myriad circumstances.

[34:24]

And if there's any entanglement in myriad circumstances, the entanglement is just myriad circumstances. If you try to stop yourself in the slightest bit, if you resist the slightest bit of entanglement in myriad circumstances, you are entangled in myriad circumstances. But if you are entangled in myriad circumstances, that's just another circumstance. And if you just let your entanglement in myriad circumstances be entanglement in myriad circumstances, that's called not being entangled in myriad circumstances. In other words, A is precisely A, and therefore it's not A. Can you not only notice myriad circumstances, but can you notice any attachment there and just let that attachment be that attachment completely?

[35:31]

Yes, you can. You're already doing it. Just gently open your eyes. Just breathing out, notice this. Breathing in, notice it. It's not a big deal. As a matter of fact, it's such a small deal that it's very subtle. So... In the subtle round mouth of the pivot, the spiritual works turn.

[36:38]

The pivot is where every experience you have right now, in that subtle round mouth of your experience, in the openness of your experience, to be with your experience, to be present there in all the subtle, minute details of this experience. There is a pivot there. There is an opportunity. So subtle. Just a few minutes ago, my daughter was in a lecture in the audience and I think she left.

[38:05]

Did she leave? I didn't mean to drive her out, but I was going to mention earlier that I felt somewhat constrained. She was kind of watching over me to make sure I didn't say anything to embarrass her. Because some people from her school are here today. I hope that didn't embarrass her. I don't want to embarrass her, so please let her not be embarrassed. Anybody, don't say anything to her about this lecture. But still, she often demonstrates to me unsupported thought. She often moves through the water and leaves no trace and doesn't need a guide.

[39:15]

This is not a story about her, but one time I was at the beach with a little girl and a little boy. They were three years old and they were both naked eating strawberries. And the little girl was talking to the mother of the little boy. And she pointed to the little boy's body and she said, what's that? And the little boy's mother said, it's a penis. And then the little boy's mother pointed to the little girl and said, and what's that? And she said, it's a strawberry. Unsupported thoughts are like that. And all thoughts are like that. No thoughts are supported.

[40:27]

Every moment of our life is completely supported by everything. But everything that supports it is nothing. We are completely supported in empty space. We can do anything, anytime. because we're supported by everything. We're completely free because we're who we are. All these stories, these Zen stories, they're about these guys who are like kids. For us to be like kids is liberation. For kids to be like kids is bondage. Kids have to be like adults. in order to be free. And then they have to be like kids after they're adults.

[41:31]

My wife also, I think, might be at the lecture and she made me promise that there would be some jokes, so now I'm going to tell some jokes. She wanted it to be a barrel of monkeys and I said, how about a barrel of gorillas? So I'm going to tell you a story about a gorilla who I think also demonstrates very nicely unsupported thought. I'm sorry to the people who have already heard this story if it's boring. But please, while I'm telling the story, just don't dwell on body and mind, okay? Which means, if you're bored, just notice how exactly bored you are. And you can be released through your boredom. The other people who haven't heard the story will be released through their delight. So this is a story about a gorilla. It's an interview, actually, between a gorilla named Coco Anderson and

[42:43]

A guerrilla trainer named Penny Patterson and an interviewer named Anne Fadiman. So Anne... Penny's interpreting through American Sign Language between Anne and Coco. So Anne says to Coco, Hello, Coco. Coco. And Coco says to Anne, gold teeth. And Anne opens her mouth, no, gold teeth. And Coco says, earrings. And Anne pulls her hair back and shows there's no earrings. And then Coco says, pointing to Anne's pocket, candy. And... Anne says, sorry, no candy. And then Coco says, barrette?

[43:47]

Have do there? Anne had a red plastic headband on, or maroon. And Anne said, OK, and took the headband off and gave it to Coco. And Coco took it and put it on her head and on her neck and then tried to put it on her abdomen, but it broke. And she took the two halves and kissed them. Then Coco said... Oh, when she put the... headband around her neck. She called it a necklace. And she said, read, read that. Then she pointed to Anne's notebook and said, need that. And Anne said, Coco, I never show my subjects my notes, but you can have a page.

[44:53]

So she tore off a page and drew a picture of a cat. But when the trainer saw the picture of the cat, she realized that the picture of the cat didn't look like a cat, but looked like an amoeba. So she wrote C-A-T under the under the picture so that Coco could see what it was. Well, then Coco said, after seeing the picture of the cat, Coco said, goodbye. No, she said good, goodbye. And then Patterson, the trainer, said, it's bedtime. Coco's tired. And Anne said, just a little longer. And Coco said, look, goodbye. The next day they had another interview and Anne said to Coco, hi.

[46:09]

And Coco said, Coco, love, visit. And Anne said, would you like a nut? And Coco grabbed the bag of nuts and said, nut, give me. And then Coco said, Coco there, good, nice, good nut. Coco, love, love, visit. Anne said, thank you. And Fatima had a new, I mean, Anne had a new headband on. She took it off and gave it to Coco. And Coco put it around her thigh and said, red do there. And then Anne said, that's very pretty, Coco. And then Coco pointed to Anne's handbag, her purse, and said, need that. And Anne said, I need that too, but I'll show you what's in it.

[47:12]

And so she gave Coco some Kleenex and Coco took the Kleenex and put it on her head and then blew her nose and wiped each nostril delicately and gave the Kleenex back. Anne said, thank you. And Coco said, hurry, do there. Anne said, OK. And here's some dental floss. I'll tear out your piece. And Coco said, teeth, and took the dental floss and put it between her molars and said, there, do there. And then she took Anne's hand and rubbed her palm and kissed her fingers. And then Anne said, goodbye, Coco. That was a lovely interview. Would you like my business card?

[48:16]

So Coco, examining the card carefully, eats it. This is someone I was talking with this morning, and she said we decided that her practice should be to remember the gorilla and try to be like Coco, but it would be different because she has a much more developed vocabulary. It won't be the same. So you can't copy Coco. But you can have the same mind as Coco, a mind that doesn't think that there can be anything but this, and is totally devoted to being what it is, and therefore can do amazing things.

[49:35]

breathing in, not dwelling in body-mind. In other words, completely being every moment of the breath, being with every minute detail of the breath, just as it is. A cloud rhinoceros gazing at the moon. It's engulfing radiance. Breathing out completely uninvolved in myriad circumstances. Just completely myriad circumstances. A wood horse romps in the springtime, swift and unbridled.

[50:53]

In the subtle round mouth of the pivot, the spiritual works turn. Even immensely great people can be caught and turned by words, can be caught by words, can be trapped by words, but also sometimes

[52:16]

Just people like us can hear a word and be right there and be released. It's all a matter of complete dedication, being present and alert. If you're caught the slightest bit, you're caught. If you're the slightest bit not willing to be here, you're caught. But if no matter what happens, you're willing to be there with what it happens, to die of everything but what's happening,

[53:20]

then you're released through that total absorption in this human condition. And that's why we have such intense dedication to all beings because we can't do this just for ourself and we can't do this by ourselves. We need to want to do it for all beings in order to do it, and we need all beings to help us.

[53:58]

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