I don't know how you're all feeling, but it seems to me that the last two days have been very steady and quiet and still, a nice strong sashi. And I want to express on behalf of, I'm sure, the many people here that we're happy to see our friends return, Rev. Ninan and Rev. Ambo, thank you for taking care of yourselves and your daughter. Welcome back. I also want to mention that when I was given my Buddhist name by Suzuki Roshi,

[01:06]

he always called me Tenshin-san, he never called me Tenshin, and so, I'm sorry to say, I mean I'm sorry to say, because I know you don't mean it, but it hurts me when people call me Tenshin, because of being treated respectfully, I kind of got in the habit of being treated respectfully, and when I hear it used without that term of respect, the san, it kind of feels disrespectful. And also, I don't know how other people feel, but it also hurts me when people say Daigon or Ambo or Ninan. It seems to me that if you're going to use a formal term of address, that you do well to understand that it is usually done with a Mr. or Mrs. or a Rev. or whatever,

[02:15]

and the Japanese way of doing that is San or Sama and so on. I feel perfectly fine about being called Stuart or Rev or Leslie, I don't mind that, it doesn't seem disrespectful. We usually do that, right? We usually say like that, so it's not disrespectful, but when you use a Buddhist name all over Asia, they don't just say the Buddhist name, they always say something with it. So I would just say that I ask you not to do it, not to use Buddhist names in this unusual way. If you'd like to innovate, I would say innovate in English, so I don't mind being called the whole works or naturally real or whatever, or actually Tenshin means naturally real,

[03:16]

one way it's translated in the Juhlmira Samadhi, another way you could translate it would be childlike or endearingly naive, simple-minded, these kinds of things. That would be fine, but if you're going to use the traditional format, please say, you know, Reverend Ambo or Daigong San or Daigong Sama or something like that, I appreciate that because, like I said, once you know that it hurts someone to do something, then take it into account, it hurts me for you to do that. And so the entire Western Buddhist world is hurting me by misusing these Asian terms. I don't see the problem in saying Reverend so-and-so, I don't see the problem in using

[04:22]

a term of respect, if you're going to like enter into the Buddhist world and use Buddhist language, then why not do it respectfully, otherwise just call him by a regular Western name, that's no problem, you don't have to put anything on it and it won't be a problem. Yesterday after the, well actually before the talk ended yesterday, I looked at my notes and I thought, there's so much I want to say, I don't have time, the kitchen had already left, there was so much I wanted to say, well I did say a little bit more and I felt okay, somehow I worked it out with myself that it was okay not to tell you these many other things that I wanted to say, but then after I finished not being able to say all the things I wanted to say, I felt like, well do I ever have to give a talk again at this place? It really seemed like I was done talking, pretty much, if a new group of people came

[05:29]

in I'd have to start over again, but it seems like I've already told you pretty much everything I need to say about practice. So anyway, then I start doksan and I realized that although I pretty much said what I had to say, people forget right away. This is called job security. And many people do come to doksan and they say, da-da-da-da-da-da, and then I say beep-beep-beep and they say, oh yeah, that's right, thanks. Why do I always forget? Well, take a guess why you forget. Where do you live, you know? You live in the middle of this torrential turmoil of negative judgments and attachments

[06:30]

and fears and anxieties. It's hard to remember these simple instructions in the middle of such a complex and hair-raising situation. I mean, where you think things and you like think things and then you like have a habit of taking them seriously and getting really upset about what you're thinking. Upset with, I mean, like thinking things about other people, thinking things about other people like this person has really got such and such a problem. This person is really doing a bad job here in this world. And then thinking, oh, but they're so nice, why am I thinking such bad thoughts about them? And then feeling really ashamed of yourself for thinking badly of somebody who you know is really doing a great job and trying their best, but you know, one little thing they did wrong and you get them for it. This is the world we live in, most of us, or I don't know most anyway, I haven't done

[07:34]

the census, looks like almost everybody, but maybe a few people aren't. So it's hard to remember stuff like, just, you know, be upright and serene and, you know, don't lean into believing what you're thinking. You know, just let go of all thought in the midst of all these thoughts. Let go of all preferences in the midst of heavy-duty preferences and shame about the preferences and so on. Let go, renounce all this. Right while you're, like, saying it, I want this, right in the middle of saying that, just be upright and not fall for that. This is called right thought.

[08:39]

To selflessly renounce what you're thinking of. To not take your thoughts seriously. To sit upright without any preference, even for delusion or enlightenment. Of course you have preferences for enlightenment, that's just a preference for enlightenment, to sit up and just let go of that preference for enlightenment. Just let go of it. So the great master Yaoshan said, what's it like when you're, somebody said to him,

[10:16]

what's it like when you're sitting upright in the midst of delusion, not moving, not leaning this way or that way, what's it like? He says, think of not thinking. If you want to know what it's like, think of not thinking. Right in the middle of all that activity, what isn't thinking? Think of what isn't thinking. Think of what doesn't think about all this. Actually the question was, when you're sitting upright like that, in the middle of all thinking, what kind of thinking is it? It's thinking about what isn't thinking. How do you think of it? Non-thinking. This is called right thought. This upright sitting is right thought in that sense.

[11:26]

And this upright thinking, this upright sitting, although it's balanced and unbiased, and free of all prejudice, it has a definite direction. Sometimes somebody might say it has a decisive aim, but it's not an aim like wanting something. It's an aim like aiming an arrow. It's a direction. What is the direction? The direction is being directed in a wishless direction. It is decisively directing yourself towards wishlessness. In the midst of all preferences and all wishes, you direct yourself towards wishlessness. You don't wish that the wishes would go away. You don't wish that those wishes would be traded in for something else. You don't wish that the wishes would come true.

[12:32]

You got the wishes. You got enough wishes. Most people do. If you don't, well, we need to find some. But most people have enough wishes, especially in Sesshin. People usually have enough wishes. And even in the kitchen during Sesshin, people have wishes. Most people who are awake have enough wishes. But wishlessness in the midst of the wishes, to direct yourself by sitting upright, have your upright sitting be an insignia, an emblem of being directed towards wishlessness. And also this direction is being directed towards a way of being which has no characteristics. You're directing yourself towards a characterless way of being. Not really leaning forward, backwards, right or left.

[13:36]

Not having this preference or the opposite of it. There's no way to characterize and you're directed towards this signless, signless intention. And all this is practiced in the middle of vast emptiness. And you direct yourself to practice in the middle of emptiness. In the midst of the interconnectedness of everything. The insubstantiality of everything. That's where you direct yourself in your upright sitting. And then you settle into this wishlessness, this signlessness and this emptiness. These are the four doors to liberation, the three doors to liberation. And you absorb yourself in these three doors and you direct yourself to sit in the middle of them.

[14:40]

And all around them are signs and characteristics and wishes and substances. The appearances of signs, wishes and substances. They're all around interrelating and that's part of what gives the full bodiedness to emptiness. And sitting upright in this way, in this kind of samadhi, is to work constantly for the benefit of all beings in each moment of their lives. It's completely beyond your idea of working for the benefit of all beings.

[15:44]

You have renounced your thoughts of working for the benefits of all beings and you actually have become what is working for the benefit of all beings. You've renounced doing what you think is to the benefit and you have become what actually is the benefit. Letting go of all thought and being absorbed in the one who's not thinking, you naturally become what is working constantly for the welfare of all beings. So, in this situation you don't go after delusion, you don't go after enlightenment, you don't run away from enlightenment, you don't run away from delusion, you just sit there and you're totally at the mercy of enlightenment and delusion.

[16:48]

Letting delusion affect you whatever way it does, when you open to letting delusion affect you whatever way it does, you also open to enlightenment using you and molding you and making you into what enlightenment wants you to be. But if we hold any idea that blocks us being available to enlightenment to use us, that one little shred of holding on to our idea, like get rid of certain delusions or practice enlightenment this way, that one little bit of holding on is sufficient to block our availability. Dogen Zenji says that sitting until your cushion wears away, that's right thought.

[18:10]

Don't start wiggling around and just make it wear out faster, just normal sitting use, until your cushion wears away. That sitting that's wearing the cushion away, that's right thought, that's non-thinking. The sitting that's wearing the cushion away, while we're doing whatever we're doing in our head, that is what's available to work for the benefit of all beings. And so no matter what I'm thinking, no matter what you're thinking while you're wearing your cushion away, it doesn't matter. What really saves the world is the actual wearing of the cushion. So it probably would speed up the process of liberation if we had very, very fragile cushions. So

[19:33]

you know, a few other things come up to my mind in this regard and I think, well I could not mention them and then just wait until people come and talk to me about it and then I'll tell them about that at that time. But then I think, well why not just make it a little easier on people between now and then so they can enjoy the rest of the session. So I would mention one other thing and I said it already, I'll say it again, it does not matter in a way what you're thinking. So and when I say in a way, I mean ultimately it doesn't matter whether you have, you know, whether you're sitting in a real nice thought environment or whether you're sitting in a really

[21:39]

trashy thought environment. The important thing is that you just sit there and renounce everything that's going on and some part of you anyway is not at all concerned with it. That's the realm beyond the thought, that's the realm where you're liberated, where you really let yourself go right ahead and think those nasty thoughts, those petty thoughts, those selfish thoughts, those kind thoughts, those enlightened thoughts,

[22:45]

those whatever, grateful thoughts, those ungrateful thoughts, whatever they are, it doesn't matter. If you take them seriously of course it makes it matters a lot and that's what drives the world. But if you really want to free the world then then don't put your energy into controlling the environment of your thought, put your energy in the direction of wishlessness, of being a way that nobody can say what it is. Including you. That's the door to liberation and that's how to make yourself into

[23:48]

exactly what the world needs you to be. I could say it's a great Bodhisattva but then you think oh it's a great Bodhisattva. It is a great Bodhisattva but it's really the primary characteristic of what you'll become is that you'll be signless. You'll still be signed, you know, you'll still have signs but what you become will be signless. The beneficent being that you will become has no characteristics and just is the appropriate response to other beings, to all other beings. So if possible try to be patient with the environment that you live in and renounce your thoughts about it.

[24:58]

Be patient with your impatience with it and so on. So it takes a great deal of compassion to take your seat in the environment of your experience moment after moment so that you can practice upright sitting there. It takes a great deal of gentleness and kindness to encourage yourself to be present in what's happening to you. So is that clear then? Is everybody clear about what I've been saying? Yes? Could you speak up please?

[26:10]

You're not sure how to make the leap from sitting to saving all sentient beings? You make the leap from sitting to saving all sentient beings by just sitting and giving up everything but just sitting. As soon as you do that you start saving all sentient beings. And you may not understand but the thought in your mind that doesn't understand is not the understanding. The understanding is that you actually just sit. That is the understanding of saving all sentient beings. Anything else? Yes? Emotional stuff comes up? You mean if you're, did you say cold? Cool? You mean when you're hot

[27:31]

and very concerned, how can you be cool and unconcerned? Is that what you said? If you, when you're hot and concerned, if you allow your hotness and concern to be hot and concerned, okay, if you just allow it to be that way, all right, that is cool and unconcerned. Just like somebody who, maybe like me watching you, I'm watching you be hot and concerned and I let you be that way, then I'm being cool about you and I'm concerned that you're feeling that way. I'm letting you be that way. I know you're that way, I listen to you, I listen to you, I take in that you're that way and I let you be that way. You can be, if when you're that way then you let

[28:37]

go of your heat and your concern and that letting go, that allowing it to be, that is cool and unconcerned. In other words, you have no wish to be other than the person you are. You have no wish to be other than the way you are. Especially when you're in the present with what's actually happening. That's when it really counts. Also, you allow yourself to be cool and unconcerned. You allow yourself to have no heat. You allow yourself to be cold and not caring. Whatever it is, you allow it. Okay, it's hard, but that's it. Anything else? Yes? When you talk about being cool and unconcerned,

[29:41]

is that the same as compassion? Well, he brought up cool and unconcerned, okay, not me. Okay, so what's the difference? He said, how can you be cool and unconcerned? He asked how to be that way, so I told him how to do it. I didn't bring it up. I didn't tell you to be cool and unconcerned. I just want to clarify the difference between that and compassion. The difference between that and compassion? Yes. Compassion is not different from anything. That's the thing about compassion. You tell me something, okay? What? Tell me anything. And compassion is not different from that. So, if you want me to tell you what compassion is different from, I'm going to have a hard time telling you compassion is different from anything. Is compassion not caring? Okay, let's say you got a case of not caring here, okay? Somebody doesn't care.

[30:51]

Is that compassion? No. Is compassion different from that? No. Compassion isn't not caring. Compassion isn't caring. Compassion isn't a hamburger. Compassion isn't a vegetarian. Compassion isn't anything. Compassion is being completely embraced with what's happening, with no reservation. Compassion is being with suffering beings. It's not the type of suffering, this kind of suffering, that kind of suffering, that kind of... It's not that. It's the being with it, with no sense of duality, with no sense of separation or difference. But it's not the thing that it's completely embraced with. It is the embracing. It is the selfless embracing. But selfless embracing can't be different from anything. It has no self by which it can separate it from another self.

[31:55]

If you want to know how this self is different from that self, I can tell you. I can tell you how unconcern is different from concern, but compassion embraces concern and lack of concern, coolness and heat. It has no way to separate itself from anything. It embraces all things. It's not different. It embraces all difference. And when you can be compassionate and embrace your situation, then you have the ground of wisdom. Compassion then puts you on your seat, and then being on your seat, without adding or subtracting anything to that, that's the way things are. And things being the way they are, under the auspices of compassion, is upright sitting. And

[32:57]

things being the way they are is what the universe uses to save beings. The universe uses the way things are to help people. Right? Doesn't that make sense? Anything else? Yes? Do you direct yourself towards wishlessness by recognizing wishes when wishes are appearing? That will direct you very nicely towards wishlessness. Exactly. Yep. So if a wish appears, just letting the wish be a wish is the way to direct yourself towards wishlessness. Letting a wish be a wish is wishless. And directing yourself towards letting the wish be the wish is directing yourself towards wishlessness. And the fact that you can use

[34:00]

anything to practice wishlessness with manifests the signlessness. The fact that you don't just practice wishlessness with wishes and wishlessness, you practice wishlessness with anything, that's the signless. Anything else? See, now I really can't think of anything to talk about. Now I can. Yes? Yesterday you talked about gripping and yanking your ox, your white bull,

[35:04]

and today you seem to be talking more about being gentle. I thought someone might not like to say yanking the ox or whipping the ox, but anyway. This training of the ox is in the context of radical gentleness. Gentleness is definitely the highest priority in this training process. All right? In that context, there is yanking and whipping.

[36:05]

Yanking and whipping that is truly gentle. Now you could say, I could say, I might say right now, you pull on that, you pull on that ox, you know, don't yank it, just pull on it gently. Okay? And what will happen? Okay? Now, the gentleness can be a yank. A yank can be gentle. And sometimes what's needed is a yank, and it has to be gentle. And the gentleness comes from giving the beast exactly what it needs to save it. If it's a 400 pounder, it needs 400 pounds of pull. If it's a two-tonner, it needs two tons of pull. And for a little guy, to pull two tons means to yank. Now, if you weighed seven or eight tons, you could gently, you know, gently tap a two-tonner,

[37:20]

and they would come right back in line. But since I'm so little and it's so big, I have to really like yank. But this is in the context of like, from its point of view, nothing at all. It's just gentle. It's definitely gentle, but you should be able to use the word yank when the word yank is appropriate. And when it comes to something that's a lot bigger than you, when it's a lot bigger than you, yanking may be appropriate. When it's littler than you, you don't need, when it's littler than you, then you don't, you just use a tiny bit of energy, right? When it's, I sometimes talk to people about giving people feedback, you know, and seeing who wants to give you feedback, but you should choose someone in your weight class. You can't give feedback to, you can't give feedback to children. You can't talk to children about certain things. You can't.

[38:21]

It wouldn't be appropriate. I mean, you can, but it's not appropriate. They won't understand. They'll be shocked and confused. Other people, you can talk about that very same topic, which would be a total shock to a child. And to some people, you can talk about certain things, which you don't think you can talk to anybody about, and they won't be shocked. These people are called, you know, they're very, rather rare. They call them Buddhas. You go up to a fish and you tell a fish that lives in water, be totally freaked. You know, they think they live in palaces and that they're in shopping malls. You tell hungry ghosts that they live in a polluted stream of blood and pus and that they're insatiated, that, you know, they get very upset, you know, you don't talk to them that way. If they look at us, they think we're doing really well as human beings. If Buddhists look at us, Buddhists think we're really having a hard time.

[39:25]

It depends on the perspective. Anyway, gentleness is definitely, you know, an essential ingredient in relating. But it can be a yank. It can definitely be a yank. A yank can be really gentle. A whip can be really gentle. Well, ladies and gentlemen, there are whips in this world. What are you going to do with them? What are you going to do with the whips in the world? Are you going to go and rip them into shreds? Maybe that'll be gentle to rip them into shreds. Are you going to throw them in the furnace? Maybe that'll be gentle. Are you going to pick them up and snap them in the air? How are you going to use the whips that live in the world? Are you going to leave them to somebody else to take care of,

[40:25]

and try to keep clear of those people? We have sticks in the world. I asked, you know, I asked, you know, if people felt okay about using a stick during sashi, and somebody said that they didn't. So I'm not using the stick. But it doesn't mean that I wouldn't every time anybody said not to use it, but it's not that big a deal to me not to use it once I find out somebody doesn't want it. That's using the stick. Besides, I forgot my stick anyways. I don't even know where it is. But when I pick up a green gauze, I'm going to look for it. I have this stick, you know, which I made out of maple myself, and I made it, I modeled it on Suzuki Roshi's stick. One time he was standing in the lobby at Zen Center with his stick,

[41:32]

and I said, it's a beautiful stick. And he said, yeah, it's made out of bell mountain and maple. You know where Belmont is? Vermont. Belmont. Anyway, it is beautiful, beautiful Vermont maple stick that he carried. So I wanted one like it, so I made one like it to carry. It's really a nice stick, really nice. But I'm not using it for two reasons during the session. Maybe somebody hid it. Well, I hid it. I just can't remember where I hid it. Anything else?

[42:38]

Well, I guess I got the dog sound then.

[42:49]

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