Today I'd like to say something, some things, and these things I may have said before. I wonder if you would allow me to say something that I said before. Will you allow me to repeat myself? Good. I don't have to worry about that. There is a rumor going around the world that the Buddha said that light is suffering. Have you heard that rumor? This is a rumor. Have you heard this rumor? Yeah. Yeah. This is a rumor. It's not the truth about what Buddha said. The first truth of Buddha's teaching is the truth of suffering, the truth of stress, the truth of frustration and dissatisfaction.

[01:13]

That's the first truth. That is not the same as saying life is suffering. Hear the difference? Truth of suffering. is just the truth of suffering. It's not saying that life is suffering. What the Buddha actually said, I believe, is something like, when you sleep, when you hold on to your life processes, That is stress. That is suffering. That is misery. That is unhappiness. If you can let your life processes alone, let them bubble up and let your life function as it naturally functions without trying to get a hold of it or control it,

[02:17]

Buddha did not say that that was suffering. As a matter of fact, he said that is happiness. So misery and suffering of life is due to clean, due to self-cleaning. It's due to trying to control the dynamic uprising of light moment by moment, to grab onto it as though it were a thing that you could hold onto, that causes the suffering. So now we know. So when you hear that rumor, please educate people to the Buddhist teaching and help them understand that light isn't suffering, just suffering is suffering. The great ancestor of ours, Heihei Dogen, a Japanese Zen master, he said that he taught that the practice we do in Zen and enlightenment

[03:57]

or awakening, they're not two different things. In other words, enlightenment naturally practices, and practice is naturally enlightenment. This kind of teaching is called non-dual teaching, not two teachings. a teaching which says that this life of suffering, as it is, is awakening, that Buddhas and ordinary living beings are not two, are not separate, and are not different. Such a teaching is hard for our mind to understand, because if we hear about what Buddha is like,

[05:03]

and we look at our life, we can see, we can think of a difference. For example, this is the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha. Buddha is a being that has absolutely no hindrance and no instruction to helping people. Enlightenment is when you have absolutely no hang-ups and no interference, and also have no interference due to lack of knowledge and lack of skill of how to help people. If someone's suffering, you immediately understand what would be helpful to them, and also you can do it. You can do what's helpful. Like, sometimes we may see someone who is suffering, and we may understand something we could do to help them.

[06:12]

We might see something that would be helpful, but we can't do it because, sometimes we can't do it because, for example, we may be angry at them. Say, well, I'm not going to help them because they're creeps. Or I'm not going to help them because they might not help me. Or I'm not going to help them because I'd rather help somebody else. These are examples of hindrances to helping a person. Even when you know it might be helpful, you realize you can't help them because of these hindrances. Have you ever had an experience like that? Where you saw something you could do for someone, but you wouldn't let yourself do it, there's some kind of block like that that ever happened to you? For some of us, that happens most of the time. The other case is where you're perfectly willing to help the person, you love them, you respect them, they're on your team, so to speak, but you can't figure out how.

[07:23]

You don't have enough insight to see what would be helpful. So if you're being enlightened, you not only see what's helpful, but you have no kind of personal hindrance to fulfilling that. Plus also, even when you have no hindrance to doing it, you don't really know what to do. That's like Buddha. So if you think of a Buddha like that, and you think of yourself, and you think, well, how could I be a Buddha, right? Does that make sense? Well, that's kind of our thinking mind that's making these calculations and therefore coming up with this difference between me and Buddha. Buddha is Buddha, and ignorant people are ignorant people, but they're not true. What makes the difference between the two? Our thinking mind. And our thinking mind really does make them separate. So in the Zen of Dogi Zenji, the Zen teaching of Dogi Zenji, it starts from the point of making the point that the practice that we do and the enlightenment, this unbelievable enlightenment, this wonderful enlightenment, they're the same thing.

[08:34]

And then because of this kind of presentation, from then on we have a little bit of a problem trying to understand this in our life. One approach is, we could talk about two approaches to Buddha's life, or the awakened life. One approach is, I'm an ordinary person, and I'm going to practice hard and become more and more pure and unobstructed and compassionate, and eventually I'm going to become a Buddha. I'm going to go from an ordinary person to a Buddha. Another approach is to start from the position of Buddha and then become ordinary. These are two approaches. So one approach, someone used the example of one approach is like swimming in a very big swimming pool, like a swimming pool the same size as the universe.

[09:50]

And this swimming pool, although it's very big, it has a shallow end and a deep end. You can get in the shallow end and stand out in the bottom of the swimming pool and your head's above the water. And you can actually just stand there and then gradually go into deeper water. And as you get deeper water, start moving your arms and stuff until you can handle deeper and deeper water. And finally, you can go up into the very deepest part of the pool. This is starting from ordinary. limited abilities and going into more and more challenging spheres of wisdom and compassion. Other approach is to start at the deep end and jump right in, not even knowing how to swim. So starting from an ordinary point of view and working towards awakening is like starting in a shallow end of the pool. And starting from an awakening and going towards ordinariness is to jump into the deep pool. You see? Immediately, you jump into the full-scale challenge of the water.

[10:58]

And immediately, you have a problem because you don't know how to swim. So you start having real ordinary experiences like fear, churning a bug, thinking you're going to drown, can't really understand how you're going to help anybody else either. Dogen Zenji's practice is a little bit like jumping into the deep end. Because he says, as soon as you sit, you enter the world of Buddha. You join the sphere of Buddha. As soon as you jump in. The catch, however, is that in order to practice there, you have to be free of self-plead. So we're left with the problem of how to be free of self-pity. Any idea?

[12:08]

Anybody have self-pity? Sorry. Yeah. She says, it sounds like if you jump into the deep end, you have to not care whether you live or die. No, not true, because you can jump, caring whether you live or die, and be scared that you're going to drown and still jump, because stupidity is sometimes possible to get you started. In other words, you can actually be afraid you still don't. Or something can push you. Or circumstances can push you. And you can still be afraid of whether you live and die, even though you don't. And actually, a lot of people start practicing Zen while still being afraid of dying. Have you seen anybody that's afraid of dying that started practicing Zen? Have you ever seen anybody like that?

[13:16]

I was afraid of dying when I started practicing Zen. And little by little, I found out what a mistake that was for the sake of my own safety. Safety of the self-cleaning, that is. If you're already free of self-cleaning, then you jump into deep water and you would be free of fear of death. No, I'm saying that in order for me to be able to function in the deep end of the pool without an intelligence, you must be free of self-punishment. But it is what we call, it is our fate, many of us here at the Zen Center, it is our fate to come to a place that teaches the deep-ended type of practice.

[14:24]

And if we have a self-cleaning, then when we jump into the deep end, we experience quite rapidly fear, or a sense of, what am I doing in this deep water? If you start at the other end of the pool, which some people do, that's their destiny to meet Buddhism through the shallow end, then when you start practicing in the shallow end, you feel like, well, this is reasonable. This is quite intelligible. This is a nice program we have here. I understand. It just goes right along quite naturally. First you learn this, then you learn that, then you learn this, then you learn that. And this is a nice system. And I feel quite secure. And little by little, as you get out deeper and deeper, gradually, you get into the deep end. And then in the deep end, if there's any soft feeling there, you start to get scared. And you say, what's going to happen to me? But then you're in the deep end. But you have all that background that built up gradually to get ready so you can handle deep water. Don't even practice this.

[15:28]

Before you have that confidence, immediately you get frightened. Or very soon, like actually in the beginning of Zazen instruction, we don't tell people. Should we just say, just sit and sit still and follow your breathing and posture? And I don't know what else people say. Maybe they even say, you know, it's good for your health. And you might run into some distractions, but just keep at it and it'll get better. And is that people say things like that? They don't say immediately. If you sit and say, we don't know what happened to you. In fact, we don't know what will happen to us. And if we say that, some people won't jump in the deep end, but they will come in the shallow end. The shallow end will say, we do know what happened to you here. We have lifeguards up at this end, and it's very unlikely that you're going to drown in two feet of water if you're fairly good health and so on.

[16:32]

Pretty safe. So try that in if you don't like this other end. But there are some places like this where they have this kind of practice where it jump right into the V band right away. Now, if a person refuses to jump in, then we say, OK, go to the shell end. Both approaches are perfectly fine. I'm just saying that part of the Part of the difficulty of the Zen, of Dogen Zen, and the Zen of Zen Center, part of the problem is it's a deep-in practice. In other words, you're immediately doing the most advanced practice possible. Namely, you're doing the practice you're doing. And not only are you doing the practice you're doing, which is actually wherever you are and whatever you're doing, but we're also telling you it isn't going to get any better than this. You are done. You are finished. This is the complete practice. You are doing the culmination of enlightenment.

[17:35]

And then the mind starts turning and saying, how could that be? Now, if you don't really believe that, then your mind won't turn and you'll say, well, that's an interesting statement. They're telling me that I'm now practicing complete, perfect enlightenment. Well, that's cute. But if you actually take it on, then you say, well, how could that be? You have an actual... You have an actual question? This kind of deep end practice is what you might call a complete affirmation of human suffering. And in that complete affirmation of human suffering, in other words, affirming suffering also lets you actually recognize what it is and see its cause. So affirming, complete affirmation of suffering doesn't mean we don't want to also be free of suffering. But in other words, the deep end practice lets you immediately, if you want to anyway, lets you immediately completely affirm your suffering and immediately get you into looking for how to be free of it.

[18:51]

And how to get rid of it? Stop cleaning yourself. So anyway, do you know how to do that? You good? Yeah. Yes, all right. Go ahead. Yes. How do you think that you can protect the city? And I know a lot of people do that. Yeah, that's the first thing it takes is faith. Faith, and what does faith mean? Faith doesn't mean you believe what Buddha said or what I say or anything. It doesn't mean, like if I say suffering is due to self-cleaning, it doesn't mean you say, OK, I believe that. I think that's true. You might say that, but that's not necessarily fake. For example, if you already think That suffering you do to self-cleaning, and I say suffering you do to self-cleaning, you agree with me.

[19:55]

That's not necessarily faith. I happen to agree with you. So you say, you must be right. Sometimes after lectures, people come up to me and say, that was really a good lecture. I agree completely with you. I've been looking all over for something that I could agree with. I think it's the same thing I do. This is OK, but it's not faith. Faith is also not necessarily to disagree with what the person is saying either. What faith? What? OK. Yes? Inner knowingness. Inner knowingness. OK. And it's also, if Buddha says that misery is due to self-clinging, You, if you have faith, you would say, okay, I trust Buddha, therefore I'm going to study and find out if that's true or what that means.

[20:56]

Because the way you understand it the first time is not necessarily whether you understand it a week from now or two weeks from now or 10 years from now. If you start studying it, each day you'll understand it a different way. But to actually try to investigate what's meant by self-cleaning, to actually say, okay, I'm going to study it, that's safe. I'm going to dive in there and find out what he's talking about. So that's necessary. I heard a lecture by a linguist named Noam Chomsky. He said a lot of things, but one of the things he said was that language is not primarily built for communicating.

[22:03]

If you use language to communicate, you just take a grab at it and pull a second of it out. and try to use it to communicate, it might not work. There's certain subsections of our language that work for communication, and we learn where those subsections are, eventually, most of the time, and use those sections to communicate. But what language is really good for, and particularly in terms of Buddhist teaching, what language is really good for, language is good to get people interested in something. So if I want to explain to you what self-cleaning is, and I want to communicate to you how to be free of it, language is not necessarily the way to do it. So what I'm primarily doing, what I want to put my emphasis on, is not to tell you how to become free of self-cleaning, not to communicate to you information about how you are self-attached, but rather

[23:16]

to get you interested in studying yourself, which relates to both of what you're saying, in that if you have faith, if you really believe that actually studying yourself will be helpful, and then you do it. Some people theoretically think that studying themselves would be helpful, but they don't do it. They say, yeah, that makes sense, but they don't do it. Other people don't really believe that serving themselves is really going to be of much help, but they do it. They can't help it. They walk around all day long aware of what they're doing, aware of what they're thinking, aware of what they're feeling, aware of how they hold on to things, aware of how that causes them suffering, aware of how that causes other people suffering. They just naturally are aware of it, and they don't even believe that that would be helpful. And it is helpful, even though they don't believe it. And some of them wake up very completely even without believing that word. But really, they have faith. See, that's real faith.

[24:17]

Real faith is to actually look at yourself, to look at your clinging, to find your clinging, to find out where you're not moving, to find out where you're holding on, and to see that that's misery and stress. That's faith. But some other people say, yes, I think that's really a good idea. Don't do it. That's not great. That is, I don't know what to call that. What do you call that? Anyway, we have a whole list of bad names for that. Repachment, anger, confusion, fear. Fear is not on the list, but it's another one. Resistance, stickiness. various things stop us from actually turning around and looking at what we're doing. So part of me wants to give you some information about how to do this study of the cell, but another part of me wants just to get you interested for you to do it.

[25:24]

Are you interested? Who is... Sometimes I talk to people and they really don't want to do it. This is called resistance. Some other people are too willing to do it. This is also resistance. Say, oh, yeah, I'll do it. See you later. Wait a minute. They're too willing. And they run off and then they don't do it. So... Who here is not interested in studying self-training? Please raise your hands. Okay. Is there anything I can do to get your attention? What? Keep talking. You think Buddha's stupid?

[26:25]

You think Buddha's smart? Buddha said, please study yourself. Can you believe that? If I gave you some money, would you give it to me? You have study grants. What? You want to go swimming? In a bay? Huh? Aren't you not interested? This needs to be, not everybody else has to know. You're interested, right? Those of you who are interested, do you have any ideas about how you're going to begin your study? Or continue it?

[27:28]

Yeah. Well, I thought, uh, you do. I asked you a question. Okay. Would you, um, you know, you said that it was just a record of, uh, you said about the temper. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to talk about things like that. You know, I talk about my own experience. You don't want to talk. So I thought of that. Then I thought, well, it's actually so cleanly. Yes. And then what would you do? What would you do? What would you do? What would you do? Yes, but the suffering of the other people is due to self-cleaning.

[28:36]

You see, that's what you find out. That their suffering is also due to self-cleaning. Well, you know, I used to think that trees suffered, but lately I've been thinking that they don't. What people don't? No, I think that's more than just a thought. It's actually Buddha said that. I think so too. I already told you I thought that. I also feel that, and I also reasoned it out, which I could go through. But I do think that animals suffer the way we do. For example, when you have your hair cut, it doesn't necessarily hurt. Your hair is built for being trimmed. But if you have your finger cut, it does hurt, right? And if you try to go from here to there, and then you get blocked, it hurts in a way.

[29:42]

You feel frustrated. But if you don't try to move, you don't have that problem. But animals have a similarity to us. I think that they have, not only do they have positive and negative and neutral sensations, but they have psychological problems about it. They have misery about it, like we do. So in fact, if you would possibly clear up your own self-clinging, you would still be susceptible to other people's self-clinging, and that would still hurt you. But still the cause of your pain would not be their suffering exactly, but really the root of the suffering that you're feeling is coming from their self-clinging. So it's still the root. of your own and other people's suffering and self-cleaning. So even if you clear up your own root, you still have to clear up other people's root, because you won't really be happy. Because once you clear up your own root, you don't have the protection anymore against other people's suffering that you used to have.

[30:43]

So in fact, that's what forces the Buddha forward into helping other people clear up their self-cleaning too, helping them too, and other animals too. In other words, you won't be completely happy until all beings are creating self-cleaning. That's what we call deep end. Okay? You'll be a little happier when you stop your own self-cleaning. That will be for yourself. There's two things we want to be really happy. Okay? Two things. One of the people's good things are, I just told you, what I think. Two things we want to be happy. What are they? Happiness for yourself and happiness for others. Those are the two things that make us happy, really happy. Buddha is when you have both of those. To make yourself happy, all you have to do is become free of your own self-pity. To make others happy, you have to develop universal compassion.

[31:49]

Isn't that what you're talking about? Pardon? The difference? Sense organs. Yep, we're all one together. That's why, even if you're pretty free, other than not free, that's why you're not happy. And the difference between you and other people is basically the difference is the sense organs. But over here, we're looking out from here. And over there, you're looking out from there. That's why we have to create this sense of difference. But our happiness is interdependent. Good. Yes. I have an idea about which is through a kind of understanding of reality, that reality is both subjective and object.

[32:52]

Subject-reality is a way the person, or to myself, sees life through the filter of a particular experience, whereas object-reality is a way life-giving is without subject, but without work. Yes, and however, How do I put this? I would say it differently, because I don't think that there is an objective reality that's really true and a subjective reality which is not true.

[33:55]

I think that there is a subjective reality over here and a subjective reality all of other places, and that the liberating truth, the reality which we want to be able to experience, is not the one over there. out there, because from my point of view, your reality is an objective reality. But what I want to do is somehow, I want to say, rather than dump this one and take yours, I want to realize that yours and mine are really interdependent and not separate. That will, I believe, release me from suffering. Because you see, I can't get out of this and get a perspective on this except through you and the other people. So it's through all of the living beings, including myself, that I will be relieved of self-being. If I can realize that the separation between us, the current separation between us, I can see that that doesn't really hold up.

[35:06]

And if I stop thinking of the self, I'll realize that, or if I realize that, I'll stop thinking of the self. But the objective reality is just a sum total of a whole bunch of other subjective reality. Yeah? I was thinking of objective reality as like a . Yeah, a Buddha doesn't teach us anything that just is there, aside from us. If there's something there that's aside from us, that's just there, then it doesn't interact with us. And if it interacts with us, it's not just there. If it doesn't interact with us and it's just there, it has no relevance to us. We can't, such a reality is not something we can work into our life. As soon as we work into our life, it's not just there anymore. It's in your eye.

[36:12]

It's still there. It's still there. How we made it to that bad country, it's still there. It may affect life. It may fall down. How could it be? If it affects your life, it's not just there. It's affecting your life. If it's affecting your life, how don't you know? Well, anyway, let's make sure that you wouldn't agree with me that this isn't so. And we could talk about this more, maybe. But I think maybe everybody joined in on this discussion. But I don't agree with you, OK, for now? Yes.

[37:17]

Can you speak up, please? Talk about what? You can put words on the self? Could you say something about inherently real? I can't hear you. If we think that we can talk about something, and we think that something we're talking about is separate from us, Over there, we can talk about it. If we think that way, we still have self-pity. Yes.

[38:28]

If you talk about things but don't really think you're talking about something. For example, if I go, hey, let's go have some fun. When I say that, I'm not really talking about anything necessarily. If I think there's some fun someplace over there that we're going to go, fine, then I have self-pity. But if I just say, hey, let's go, that's not necessarily self-cleaning. Because I don't think I'm referring to anything other than I'm just sort of interested and excited. Yes? Very well. In order to study yourself, you need to be generous to yourself and to others.

[39:51]

You need to be careful about your relationship with people. You need to be careful not to take things that aren't given, not to kill, not to lie, not to say things that make other people seem not so good, not to harbor anger, not to try to fold onto things. And so you need to do those things. And you need to have patience. So when you're irritated, you don't get angry. And you need also, what do you call it, courage. And you also need concentration. You need all those things in order to, you need to develop all those things in order to look at a careful and stable way to look at where you're holding on. Because looking at where you're going on or what's happening, you can't look at it if you have a disturbed relationship with other people, like you feel something or you're keeping angry at someone.

[40:58]

You can't really look at what's going on. If you're impatient, you can't stand the irritation of looking at the irritation. And also, if you don't have courage, you're afraid, you know, you don't have, you have, you're sometimes afraid you're going to lose yourself if you look at yourself. So you have to have courage. So you need all those things, and you also have to be fairly concentrated on the task. So you need all these things in order to look at yourself, I mean, to look for it. Yes? I think it's impossible to let go of yourself. You feel it's impossible? Impossible. It's only possible when you get support. And before that, it's impossible. So the only way to do it is clean it yourself. Don't just go around there. I think I still go around there, new building, and real color, not color.

[42:01]

But it's entertaining. But willpower is, I think, the only way to get to this, is authority. Willpower was a great spirit for people, including her. But without willpower, I think it would be impossible to do that. People was authority. No matter how hard they try, probably it's self-cleaning that's bad. The more you try, the more you come back. Well, it's probably just another word for being free of self-cleaning. Same thing. Right. So you're right by definition. Right? That's right. You think you're not free. You actually are free before you get there. But because it's self-cleaning, you don't believe it. So satori is the moment when you actually see through the clinging.

[43:08]

That's the same thing. Another word for it. Satori means you wake up. You have awakening to, actually, it's a character, you know, the character satori, half of the character means mind or heart, and the other part means me or self. The two together, you see, you awaken to what the self really is. What the self really is, is something that's not actually a little package. So you're free of that clinging. That's satori. And before you're free of that clinging, you're not free. You can't experience your freedom. Okay? But willpower, I don't know what you mean by willpower, but... I think that probably what you need by willpower is has an aspect of courage and has an aspect of patience and has an aspect of generosity and has an aspect of ethical conduct. I think willpower to be effective in aiding you to this freedom has to have these aspects.

[44:14]

But you could call them all together as a packet willpower if you want to. Anyway, you need some support. for this insight work. One of the things you said was that spirit inquiring, you need that too. And now I have to help everybody out. But hopefully that discouragement can be tolerated or you can stand that discouragement with the aid of your freedom of self-being. But let's end now and have a discussion. You already are helping people. That's right. You already are helping people, but you haven't finished yet. And even after you yourself experience a great release, you're still not finished. As a matter of fact, the great release

[45:16]

encourages you to take on this big job. It's a new beginning. It's a new beginning. You feel sort of less obstructive due to yourself to this incredibly difficult job. And that's not difficult, but big, really big, very big job. Endless. Not really an end to it, because new babies keep coming. when they grow up and become teenagers. But if you could free yourself from something, you have enough happiness for yourself to keep trying to help these new waves of suffering babies. Yeah. Is the real key to become sensitive to the sense of self? The real key, yeah, is to become sensitive to the sense of self.

[46:22]

And then, well, not only the sense of self, the sense of self is fine. We do have a kind of self. The problem is this. clinging around it, it's kind of like you've got to protect the self. That's the part that's causing the misery. The self is this completely wonderful, free, constantly changing, miraculous thing. But it's the jaws of clinging around the self that we have to identify. So the sense of self, and then find the clinging around it, zeroing in on that, that's the key. That clinging there, that holding onto this wonderful necessary personality that we have, that's the thing you've got to find. Once you find it, then all you've got to do is say, well, what is it holding on to? And you'll find you can never find out what it's holding on to. When you can't hold on to it anymore, nobody will be able to hold on to it anymore, eventually. So that's where to zero in. That's where to put your attention. That's the key of Buddhism right there.

[47:25]

And then when you find that and understand that, then you see that practice and enlightenment are the same thing, and that Buddhas and sentient beings are the same thing. I say this, but you've got to really build up a lot of support through generosity, ethical conduct, patience, energy, courage, concentration, and inquiry. You've got to do all that to actually get in there and really see it clearly and be happy. So don't worry. Be happy. Thank you.

[48:16]

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