Today is the seventh day of a practice event we call Sashin. Sashin means a lot of different things. One way you might say what Sashin means in English is embracing and sustaining all beings. Another way you might say it is embracing and sustaining the mind or the body-mind.

[01:07]

Another way you might say it is embracing and sustaining the forms of practice and training. At the beginning of this retreat I asked the people to consider what their motivation for the retreat was and also what is the basic motivation of their life, what's the ultimate concern of their life. What I've heard is that the concern of the practitioners of the Zen tradition is to live a life of service, to live a life of assisting others

[02:29]

to attain freedom, to live a life in service of the welfare of the whole world. So for some people, these sessions, these retreats are set up to help people, to assist people, and in some cases to help people learn how to help people. And not just people, but all beings. So these retreats are in the eyes or in the hearts of some people, they're set up to help the participants become more wholeheartedly willing to put themselves in the service of the entire world for its welfare.

[03:45]

I heard a story about one of the Buddhist students who went on a retreat And I think he was given permission to go on retreat and was a person of some yogic power, a somewhat powerful yogi. And he went on retreat and when he came back and started interacting with the other disciples of the Buddha, they found him to be rather rude and harsh. And they went to the teacher and said, Teacher, this monk who just came back from retreat, he's acting kind of rudely to us and harshly. Is this what we should expect from these retreats?

[04:59]

And the Buddha said, no, this is not the proper way to use retreat. When you come back from retreat, if it's a good retreat, you will be more loving, more devoted, more kind, more patient, more giving, more enthusiastic. more free to help beings than before the retreat, if it's a good retreat. But if on the retreat you personally acquire a great power which you hoard for yourself because it's so blissful, and then you leave the retreat and try to hold on to it, and other people ask you to take out the garbage and, you know, watch TV, and you fight against that, you resist this re-engagement, this is not a good retreat.

[06:11]

Good retreat is one where you come home and the kids say, I like Daddy better after the retreat. I hope he goes to more of them. Yes? Can't hear me? That's too bad. But you like what you heard? What you didn't hear? So the training, one way to see the training that we do in these retreats is to train people, to train humans, if they want, to relinquish everything, to let go of everything, which we sometimes say to realize no mind, but no mind means the mind

[07:27]

of no attachment, of no grasping. Train people to develop a mind which doesn't grasp anything or to develop a mind in which there is no grasping. And then with this mind we have no obstruction to relating to other beings in a helpful way, in an appropriate way. And this training in non-grasping actually involves, for most people, becoming more aware of their grasping than they were before the retreat.

[08:34]

So in some sense you withdraw from your non-retreat life, you go to some place and in the retreat you study, you become aware of how much grasping is going on. So we're trying to develop a mind which doesn't grasp things, but the way to do that is to somehow discover how much grasping is going on. to go to a retreat to sit down and discover a mind which doesn't grasp anything, that would be nice. And you can maybe stay for the rest of the retreat, even though you discovered that mind right away. And even though during the rest of the retreat you then would just be in the service of all beings, because when we let go of attachment, if we want to help all beings, we are unhinderedly doing so.

[09:38]

But most people again start to notice their attachments during the retreat. One person told me that, so he hears about this attempt in meditation to not grasp But what he notices is that something like, I don't know if I remember this correctly, but something like whenever anything comes up, it's like his attention is like a tentacle. Like a tentacle. Can I tell a story from my childhood? No?

[10:41]

Is that right? When I was a kid, I watched this TV show, particularly in the summer because I didn't get to watch it during the school year too much because it was on during school hours. But anyway, it was for mothers mostly at home taking care of the house before there were fathers at home. And so it was called The Art Linkletter Show. Art Linkletter was a popular guy, real sweet fellow. And at the end of the show, he had this section where kids would sit in a row. He had a panel of kids, and they would sit in these little chairs, and he would go ask them questions. And one of the questions he often asked them was, what do you want to be when you grow up? And one of the kids said, this kid was a really interesting kid. He had a real low voice. His name was George. He was a repeat guest.

[11:46]

He was cute. He had big glasses, and he had a low voice. So Art said, what do you want to be when it grows up? And he said, I want to be an octopus. And Arch said, well, how come you want to be an octopus? And he said, so I can grab people with my testicles. And so this meditator was trying to develop this... This Buddha mind, you know, which we call no-mind. Buddha mind is called, nicknamed, no-mind.

[12:48]

And no-mind means no conceptual grasping. So he's training at this, but what he noticed was that he didn't have that Buddha mind. He had a mind, so wherever his attention was, whatever he knew, whatever he was aware of, then in addition to just knowing it, there were like these tentacles. I have to be careful to say there were these tentacles that went out to whatever he was knowing, whatever he was aware of, and zapped onto them with these like suction cups. So there's one aspect of mind is we just know things. But we also have the ability to send these tentacles out, which, like, lock on to things and go... So he was noticing that, and then he was trying to practice this instruction, which, very simple Zen instruction, just don't attach to anything in mind, and you're Buddha.

[13:50]

Simple. So he was, like, you know, trying to be Buddha, but there were these strong... attachments to everything. And he says he tries sometimes to pull them off, but there's a big resistance to pulling these suckers off. So he noticed this in the process of trying to train his mind to have no grasping. He noticed there was heavy duty grasping in his mind. And somebody said to him, well, if you just let that grasping be, if you see that grasping, just letting that grasping be and not trying to pull it off, that is non-grasping.

[14:54]

The non-grasping is right there. To be aware of this grasping if you're trying to have a Buddha mind to be aware of this rather horrific situation of major attachments to everything that comes up and you kind of like don't get involved in that but you see it you're up close You're a meditator. You're trying to become free of attachment, and you come up nice and close to this major attachment, and you do not get involved in that major attachment. You do not try to get rid of it. You do not reject it. You do not try to pull those things away. You just sit there or stand there and observe this attachment, this clinging. such an attitude of not wishing to be a Buddha, even though the possibility is right under your nose that these suckers would just come loose.

[15:57]

It's right there. If you just sit there and look at it and do not try to change the situation, in fact, you have realized the Buddha mind. So that's what people were doing this week here. They were like, some of them, you know, seeing these kinds of scenes and then sometimes trying to pull those suckers off and then other times not. And every time you don't, there's a little moment of training in the no-mind of the Buddha. And this training ground, which can finally realize a real acceptance, a real embracing and sustaining of whatever situation is there.

[17:09]

So if there's heavy-duty attachment, there's embracing and sustaining of heavy-duty attachment. Embracing and sustaining doesn't mean you're trying to make it happen. It just means you're completely intimate with it. You appreciate this sticky, gooey, anxiety promoting situation. You appreciate it. You appreciate it. you accept it. And when you accept it, you accept Buddha's compassion and you enact Buddha's compassion. If the person is you or someone else who is caught up in this attachment and anxiety,

[18:11]

You hope they will be free, but you appreciate them in their unfree condition. You do not distinguish, you do not differentiate in this presence that you're finally learning about. You do not discriminate between the person who is all stuck and attached and the Buddha. You want them to be Buddha and you don't distinguish between them and Buddha. You recognize their suffering without distinguishing between their suffering and freedom. And you prove, you verify that for yourself, you verify that that's so because you really are not involved in messing with the situation. This kind of work is carried on, this kind of study of grasping and training in non-grasping is carried on in sitting meditation, it's carried on sort of intra-psychically within our own mind, and it's also carried out interpersonally.

[20:28]

In one sense, it looks like during these retreats we're emphasizing the intra-psychic study of the mind and attachment. But in some way, to a certain extent in Zen, in a way, the real, the important area of work is the interpersonal. Because that's where we really test, or that's where we can really have our understanding verified. If we think we have, if we think we have some understanding of non-attachment, then we verify that by interacting with other beings to see if in our interpersonal interactions the non-clinging is manifested.

[21:45]

But again, and sometimes we find out by the interactions, we thought we were somewhat free, And then we start interacting and we realize that we're still clinging. And then what some people do is they then go back to the intra-psychic work. But you could also just continue in the interpersonal and try to find a way in the interpersonal to... or find the way in the interpersonal which is free from... free from grasping. So anyway, there's these two aspects, the interpersonal and the intrapsychic, which need to be... woven together to do the whole job.

[22:51]

So inwardly, whatever is happening, we're trying to learn how to not pick and choose. And outwardly, we're trying to learn how to not pick and choose. Inwardly, we're trying to learn how to give up trying to control our experience. And outwardly, we're trying to learn how to give up trying to control our experience. Inwardly, we're trying to learn how to stop, how to give up, trying to engineer our inner experience. And outwardly, we're trying to learn how to give up trying to engineer our environment as a way to control our experience.

[24:04]

Some people come to a retreat, a Zen center or whatever, with the hope that they'll be able to come into the meditation retreat and in fact get better control of their experience. Some feel that as they get into the meditation they have less a less effective control over their experience than before. Others feel that they're getting more in control. There's various stories in the Naked City. For those who feel they're getting better control over their inner experience, We say, the Buddha says, I love you.

[25:12]

And maybe the Buddha, you know, without trying to make any trouble, really means that. But then when the Buddha's love touches this person who thought they had getting better control over their experience, they're having a new experience. which they're not in control of, called feeling Buddha's love. So then they start losing control because Buddha's loving them now. They say, stop that, Buddha. And then Buddha says, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I didn't mean to love you so much. Is that better? And they say, yes. And little by little, they get back in control again. And then they're happy. And they don't go visit Buddha anymore.

[26:17]

No more of these uncontrollable love fests So you're waiting for the other foot to drop, right? Anyway, then somebody who's not a Buddha comes over to them and says, Would you please come and work in the kitchen? And then in the kitchen someone tells them that they're working too slow or too fast. and they start to lose control and then they start to get harsh and angry because their control trip is being challenged.

[27:31]

But you think the situation gets so bad that they're asked to leave the kitchen because they're causing a lot of trouble because they can't get the kitchen under control. And the people in the kitchen said, go see the Buddha. And the Buddha says, this is okay. This is actually more what it's about. To see that trying to control is really, you know, the source of the problem and keeps this bondage, which is the source of our suffering, going. Someone told me just yesterday that, well, this person made it to yesterday in this retreat. And these retreats are, you know, some people who have bodies have a hard time with these retreats.

[28:37]

Because, you know, anyway, THEY HAVE TROUBLE SITTING STILL HOUR AFTER HOUR AND GETTING LESS SLEEP THAN THEY'RE USED TO IN SOME CASES. SO SOME PEOPLE HAVE PHYSICAL DIFFICULTY DOING THESE RETREATS. AND SO VARIOUS PEOPLE IN THESE RETREATS MAKE SOME ATTEMPT TO CONTROL THEIR EXPERIENCE, TO ORDER THINGS SO THAT THEIR EXPERIENCE WILL BE LIKE, YOU KNOW, SOMETHING THAT THEY CAN COPE WITH, SOMETHING THAT THEY CAN ACCEPT. Probably most of us do that to try to somewhat set things up so that the experience won't have some boundary on it. So the pain won't get too bad, or the sleep won't get too little, or the gas won't get too pressured. Various attempts to control our experience.

[29:41]

Right in this retreat, some people have actually tried to do that, to arrange things that way. Some people try to arrange their happiness with the use of cushions. So they make these interesting cushion sculptures. And they find a way in the midst of, you know, these various shapes of cushionings to get the body in a situation where their experience is like, this is okay for now. I can... And then sometimes people come and just take some of their cushions away because they want to make their own cushion sculpture. And then we have interactions there. Try to get this person in control by giving my cushion back. Some people make announcements sometimes. I finally found the perfect cushion.

[30:43]

And someone took it. Perfect cushion means a cushion that I could sit on and have a tolerable experience. Things like that happen right within this temple. So anyway, this person was doing various things to order her life, to arrange things, so that she could stand to be here in this retreat. Because it's like, always like, it's like, can I stand this? But she was organizing it, so she actually was, she got the sixth day. But then at some point she saw that all these arrangements she was making were, I think she said, maybe she said totally useless, but maybe she just said useless. Still, you know, go ahead.

[31:49]

Try to arrange things. Try to control your experience. Go ahead. And it is the job of the rest of us to embrace and sustain you while you're trying to control your experience. not to reject you for your attempt to control what your life is, not to reject you for picking and choosing, not to reject you for checking on your life to see if it's going right, not to reject you for selecting what happens, but to embrace and sustain you and to wish you well and to appreciate you in your present engineering project. to truly appreciate you in your present attempt to arrange things so that you can stand them. or maybe to appreciate you in your attempt to control your experience so that you will be able to appreciate others.

[32:57]

Because you feel like, if my experience gets too horrendous, I won't be able to appreciate it, plus I won't be able to appreciate anybody else. I'll go to like zero appreciation for everything if this gets any worse. So why don't I make it a little bit more acceptable and then I'll be able to relax and accept everybody. So maybe I can like, if I can get things just right, then I would be able to like accept everybody and appreciate everybody and I'd be Buddha. So wouldn't that be good? Well, it would. But the problem is that this arranging to be a Buddha is kind of a problem. It doesn't seem to work. Because arranging to be Buddha is basically saying, I'm not already there, right?

[34:00]

So the whole thing keeps insulting the situation to make any arrangements. Anyway, this person who was fairly successful arranging things so that she survived up until yesterday and then finally saw how useless it all was, said, you know, really where it's at, really where it's at is to have some grace about what is happening. Rather than trying to control what is happening, how about having some grace about what is happening? Grace in the sense of appreciation. Because, as you know, pretty soon something's going to be happening which we have no hope of controlling. Of course, this is San Francisco, so I can say pretty soon, you know, George Bush is going to be president.

[35:08]

Pretty soon, George W. Bush is going to be your leader. So in San Francisco, I would say, you know, to you, now give up control about that. Some other parts of the country would say, you know, Al Gore is going to be your president. And then engineering stuff comes up. How can we engineer that not to happen? But, you know, bigger things than that are coming. Much bigger stuff than that. They're coming. They are coming. So, why don't we get ready? And getting ready means, getting ready means, why don't we try to find out where we're clinging and look at that [...] until we see that it's not there anymore.

[36:25]

And then when we see it's not there anymore, then we can appreciate this situation which is not under our control and is never going to get under our control. then we can be devoted to this uncontrolled, uncontrollable being. Then we can appreciate deeply all life, all life, all life, all of our inner life and the entire environment. So it helps to be in a situation where we can look to see our attempts to control, study them, feel that we're allowed anyway to devote our energies to look and see how we're trying to control and to see how that works.

[37:36]

And the more we see how that works, the closer we're getting to releasing our attempts to control. And even releasing, you know, the tiny little areas where we can control, we seem to be able to. But if we're successful in putting our energies into controlling things, and our suffering is somewhat more tolerable, workable, it just, the suffering goes on forever. But if we let go and stop trying to control our suffering and face it with open hands, there is the possibility of the end of it. One of the first Zen stories I heard, which I think many of you have heard about, is in this book.

[38:48]

It's called Zen and the Art of Archery. And it's about, I think, a German man who went to Japan and studied archery. And as I remember it, the teacher taught him to pull back the bow string and just hold it pulled back until the string is released. Until the string is released. But do not release it yourself. It will be like the string goes through your finger. So this is the equivalent to, you know, look at your attachments. Look where you're holding the string in each moment. Look where you're trying to hold something. Look where you're holding. Look where you're holding. Look where you're holding. And just, you know, look where you're holding.

[39:49]

In many cases, well, like in a sitting situation, the string of the bow in some sense is your body sitting. Your body's sitting there and you start to notice places where you're holding, places where you're holding, and places where there's pain, places where there's holding. And then you notice, you know, you'd like to let go. You'd like to let go. You figure out some way you can let go. or things in your mind that you're holding and you'd like to let go. But the instruction might be, just hold it until it is released, until it's like it goes through your fingers. So you see yourself grasping something in your mind, just look at it until it's released, until it like goes right through your hand. until it like goes right through your grippers.

[40:53]

Sound okay? Well, sounded okay to this guy too until he tried it. I mean, it's okay for five minutes, but it didn't go in five minutes. It didn't go in two hours. I don't know how long it took, but it didn't, it wasn't going. The string was not being released. It didn't go through his fingers. And at a certain point, various things come up, like you start to feel how painful it is to hold something a long time. If you keep moving, you don't notice how painful it is, like pull the bowstring back and hold it for a second. release it, pull it back for a second, this is not so bad, but to hold it and hold it and hold it, you start to get a feeling for what it's like to suffer. And actually we're walking around all day long, holding all day long. But if you set up a certain special situation like this, you get to start to feel how difficult it is.

[42:02]

And the difficulty of holding the bowstring is not as difficult as the difficulty we all have. It's just a little hint about it. But anyway, he couldn't stand it, so he started to figure out a way to let go that wouldn't really be letting go. Figuring out a way to let go that isn't really letting go is gripping on top of gripping. It's a sneaky kind of gripping. How can I, like, engineer things so that, how can I engineer not engineering? So he got this clever way. He was a German, so he thought of this kind of, like, clever philosophical way of holding onto the string half as strong and then halving the half and then halving the half of the half. So he never really let go. He kept holding on half, and then half of the half.

[43:04]

And in this way, it finally got to the point where he was still holding on, but it went. And the teacher, not being a very nice person, said, get out of this practice place and do not come back. You are cheating, you have a cheating heart. You have a heart that's cheating the practice of Buddha. Get out." So he got out and he begged to come back and begged to come back and begged to come back and begged. I don't know, but he was after some, I don't know how long it was. Anybody know how long it was? few years anyway of begging, the teacher finally let him back in and he went back to pulling the string and holding it. And I think the day came when the string went through his fingers.

[44:07]

And the string will go through your fingers if you can face what it's like to hold it. But it's not easy to face the pain of holding it. So we have this kind of controversial thing we do of these retreats where we arrange for people to come and become aware of how they're trying to arrange things. And we all get together and support each other and try to help each other face our clinging issues. to see how stressful, how frightening, how awful it is to hold and also to face how we're afraid, how we're afraid of what it would be like.

[45:14]

Right when we see how terrible it is to hold, we also think, how wonderful it would be to let go and how much we're afraid of how wonderful it would be to be a person who's no longer in control or even trying to control. And we think of all kinds of reasons why we can't live a life of not being in control or at least trying to be in control. And when we hear of the people's reasons for why they can't let go of control, then our practice, we try to practice appreciating this story about why they can't let go and embracing and sustaining the person who says, I can't let go. I would like to, but I can't because of these reasons. You know, it's very hard for parents to contemplate letting go of these creatures called children.

[46:24]

How could a parent dare to shift from fascism? Because after all, these are semi-literate, ignorant, helpless children. creatures and we need to control them because if we don't they will either destroy themselves or the world and certainly each other if they're siblings so we cannot we must keep them we must keep them tightly bound under our control otherwise the social engineers will come and get us So if we're not the social worker, the social worker will come and get us. And the social worker isn't the social worker. The social worker will come get the social worker. Can we switch from fascism, engineering these little creatures?

[47:33]

Can we shift to appreciating them? Can we switch? It's very hard. It's very hard, it's very scary to imagine being this children's servant rather than being their master. Be the servant of an ignorant, greedy child? You must be kidding. But remember, servants have servants' rights. And servants who are really servants not as a control trip, but as a natural response to giving up control, these servants are also not under control. So they also are not trying to control themselves in their servitude.

[48:38]

So they say all kinds of stuff like, Daddy's having a hard time. Daddy doesn't like this. Daddy's scared. When you stand at the edge of that cliff, I get scared. Please come back away from that cliff. Please. Daddy wants this. Daddy wants this. Daddy wants that. This is like service. This is service. You're providing the service of telling the child, telling the spouse, telling the parent what the servant is. And the servant, anyway, is not under control, so the servant keeps being a person who's talking like this. And your hands reach out to touch and to pull and to push uncontrolled, spontaneous activity.

[49:40]

Nobody's in control of these hands, you know? And the children are responding. What a scary world that would be if you think about it. don't think about it if you think about such a world you will get sick but if you live in such a world you and the world will be healed In order to live in that world, most people need to spend quite a bit of time looking at how they're not living in that world, to be more and more convinced that it's horrible not to live in that world, that living in the world of trying to control beings, oneself and others, to try to control your inner and outer environment, that this is sickness.

[50:56]

If I have one appointment today and I think about it, I may not feel sick at all. But if I have 200 appointments and I think about it, how would I possibly be able to have 200 appointments? So if I do think about it, I get sick. I feel bad. I feel bad. I feel bad. So I don't think about it, and then there's 200 meetings, and they're fine. When I'm having the meeting with one, in the meeting I'm thinking about the meeting, but I'm not thinking about the next one, or the fact that I just had three. If I think I just had three and I have 196 to go, I feel sick. So it's good to have 200 appointments.

[52:10]

That's why we have this retreat, because in the retreat you have whatever, you know, several hundred appointments a day with your body and your mind. And if you think about how you're going to be able to meet this body and mind, you get sick. So you gradually learn you can't afford to think about the past and future. It's too painful. So you start working with the present. And then in the present, you start to see your attempt to control, and you see that. So gradually, the string goes through the fingers. And then you have these open hands which reach out and engage with beings in a way that is dictated by the situation, not by your idea about what it's going to be. I heard this person being interviewed on the radio

[53:14]

And he was a bass player, a jazz bassist. And appropriately, I don't know his name. Some of you who may know about jazz might know his name. I don't know his name. I heard his name, but I immediately realized I didn't have to remember this guy's name because nobody should know this guy's name because that's who he is. And his job as a bass player is to make other people sound good. And so he was appreciated by many singers and piano players and so on because he made them sound good. He knew how to help them be good. But in fact, he was so good at it that I don't know who he is. But certain very famous people who I do know, who they are, and I'm not criticizing the fact that I know who Billie Holiday is, but she always made sure he was nearby.

[54:27]

So in one sense I'm implicitly asking you, and now it's become explicit, do you wish to wholeheartedly put yourself in the service of all beings? Or what is your vow? What is your ultimate concern in life? If you wish to practice Zen, then that's, I think, pretty much what Zen is, is to put yourself in the service of all beings, having no agenda. To put yourself in the service of all beings based on no mind, based on a mind of no attachment. And if you want to realize such a life which heals the world, then you may need a little training course where you have some time to look at where you're holding.

[56:12]

Because if you're holding, that will interfere with your work of serving all beings. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in total devotion to uncontrollable creatures? If you do, then this is called the path of Buddha, by this mouth. And if you have any trouble fully devoting yourself to uncontrollable and uncontrolled creatures, if you have any difficulty, then you may need to do some remedial work of Zen practice, of looking inside to see where you're holding. so that your hands and elbows and mouth and eyes and heart will be released to this devotion, to this uncontrollable life.

[57:16]

Most of us need some training where we turn around and look where we're holding in order to be at service like this. I was attracted to Zen not by stories of people's... There are stories, you know, which I saw those stories, stories of somebody like sitting in meditation and having a great enlightenment, a great becoming free by understanding the truth. And I'm trying to appreciate that approach to Buddhism. I'm having a hard time, though. But the thing that I appreciated was stories of people who were devoted to the uncontrollables. That's what attracted me, because I wanted to be like that. Stories of people who, when the thief comes to the house to steal their possessions, that they give them to the thief joyfully, devoted to the uncontrollable thieving element, thieving forces.

[58:50]

Be devoted to the thieving forces of the world. Be devoted to thieves who are stealing from you. Before they steal, make it a gift. I want it to be like that. I still do. Be devoted to people who are insulting you and be devoted to people who are praising you. Equally devoted. equally devoted to those who praise and those who blame. I wanted to be like that. That's what attracted me to Zen. Actually, it didn't even attract me. I just said I wanted to be like that. Then I found out that there was a training course, that all these people in these stories had been trained. They'd been trained to practice meditation where they looked

[59:53]

at the mind that discriminates between those who praise and those who criticize. They trained for some period of time looking at how you feel maybe more able to serve those who praise you than those who attack you. They watched that for some time until they were free of that discrimination. till they let go of holding to that difference, let go of choosing the praisers over the blamers, choosing the donors over the thieves. They trained. They looked at this. They looked at their mind, which has these preferences. They watched the picking and choosing mind until they found the mind which doesn't pick and choose. They studied the picking and choosing, grasping mind in order to become free of it.

[60:55]

But again, it's kind of a little bit of a little bit of a problem here because, you know, in one sense you know, it's kind of a problem to choose to go someplace where you're going to get help getting over picking and choosing. To go to a Zen center, take a course, a special course on becoming free of picking and choosing, why don't you just practice not picking and choosing outside the Zen center? Well, I guess you have to admit I won't do it. I don't do it. I just keep picking and choosing and I don't even notice it. But when I go to the Zen Center, I get help noticing it. So I guess I'm going to pick that until I don't need to anymore. So maybe it's okay that we have these retreats where people become aware of how they're trying to arrange their life. Because usually when you walk around your house, you know, you go from room to room.

[62:14]

Are you sitting in an easy chair and you keep adjusting in the easy chair? You don't notice how you're trying to necessarily, how you're picking and choosing even in the easy chair. Constantly moving to make things a little bit more tolerable in the easy chair. And when you get up and go to the refrigerator to have a little snack, you don't notice how you're trying to like adjust your, fine tune your anxiety. But during the retreat, you do notice it, because the meals are served at a certain time, so you notice that you would like to have something between the meals. So you notice, oh, I would like to adjust my blood sugar level a little bit right now. So how am I going to do that? Because they say don't eat between meals. So maybe you go to the tenzin and say, could I please have some sugar, some fruit, to adjust my circumstances? And they say, okay, but you're aware that you're trying to arrange.

[63:19]

And then you become aware that you're trying to arrange maybe all day long, which is quite normal. But in your house, you may not notice that you're constantly involved in that. So it's a matter not so much, it's basically a matter of becoming aware of this constant adjustment. Fortunately, we can't adjust as easily our body and mind as easily as a television set. Actually, it's not fortunate. If we could, we would soon realize how crazy it is to channel surf our own mind. But technology has shown us how crazy that is. People who are leaving Sashin then, I guess I'm saying, you know, let go of the Sashin now.

[64:39]

It's over in a few hours. Let go of it. Let go of it. Don't try to control your life when you leave here to be like Sashin. Those people who aren't in the Sashin, I don't know what to say to you. What are you holding on to? The people in Zazen are holding on a lot to a great enthusiasm for practicing meditation. They don't want to forget how important it is. They see now how important it is. But they think, in a couple of days I'll forget it. So maybe some of you don't have to forget that, because you don't think meditation is important, so I don't have to tell you to let go of that. So I'll just tell you, I won't tell you anything.

[65:44]

But I will say something, and that is, please let go of everything. Please let go of everything if you want to help people. So I guess the first thing I say again, do you want to help people? Do you want to help this world? Do you want to benefit all beings? And if you do, then please let go of everything. And again, if you can't, then please notice you're picking and choosing. Please notice that you only want to help some people and not others and just try to gently face that. Because there's something in us that feels good about not having preferences among people and feels not good about having preferences

[66:49]

And again, don't try to be a person who doesn't have preferences when you have preferences. Accept that you have preferences and face it kindly. Embrace and sustain the mind that has preferences, and this will be the path for you to become free of them. And the Buddha is our potential. which is to be free of picking and choosing. We have that potential. But many years ago I came to Zen Center but I still haven't really become free of picking and choosing. But I'm more and more convinced that that's my happiness and I'm more and more convinced that I can't control and trying to is not the way I want to go.

[67:58]

How about you? So I asked you, I talked to you, and so I asked myself, for your sake, I asked myself, do you want to put yourself wholeheartedly in the service of the entire world? And then another question is, are you ready to put yourself wholeheartedly in the service of the whole world?

[69:22]

And another question is, do you want to learn how to be ready? And I certainly can say, yes, I want to learn how to be ready. To be ready, to be ready, to be ready, to be ready. I do want to learn how to be ready. That's what I think I saw many years ago that I wanted to be like, like these people who are ready to do the thing which the circumstances dictate, which you don't have to figure out, but is clearly written in the situation. And if you're ready, it'll happen. Are you ready to ask a question?

[70:26]

How is answering the first question of... What's the first question? How is... How is that attachment? If I say, yes, I'm ready, is that attaching? Tell me how it would be attaching. You're becoming attached to an idea. So you're attached to the idea of being ready. Are you? Are you ready to face that attachment to being ready? Huh? So I want to learn to be ready and I want to learn to be able to face my attachment to being ready. I want to learn to be aware

[71:46]

Is it time to conclude this event? Has the time come? May our intention

[72:33]

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