Case number 46 of the Lumen Con is called Stepping Forward from the Top of a Pole. And the case goes like this. Master Sekiso said, how will you step forward from the top of a 100-foot pole? Another eminent master of old said, Even though one who is sitting on the top of a hundred-foot pole has entered realization, it is not yet real. He must step forward from the top of the pole and manifest his whole body throughout the world in ten directions." And Munan's commentary, he says, "'If you can step forward and turn your body around, there will be no reason to call you dishonorable. Even so, just tell me. How do you step forward from the top of a 100-foot pole? And then he says, sah.

[01:46]

And the verse goes, making the eye on the forehead blind, we cling to the mark on the scale. Throwing away body and life, one blind person leads many blind people. Or the blind leading the blind. Today is my birthday, my 54th birthday. I feel pretty good. I recently I just ran across a lecture by Suzuki Roshi on his 65th birthday, and he was saying how inadequate he felt.

[02:49]

He said, even though he's 65 and has been practicing all his life, he feels, what he sees is his inadequacy and insincerity. And he said, when you get older, your insincerity of your past life becomes very apparent to you. the inadequacy of your present life. It becomes very apparent to you. And the fact that you don't have as much time ahead of you makes you feel not so good. So it's kind of his way of giving us young people some admonition not to waste our time.

[04:01]

because time goes by, as we say. Time, not in Dogian sense, but time goes by, as we say, and before you know it, you get to be a certain age. And then you realize that, I think up to a certain age, it looks like life is open-ended. And then at some point, instead of looking forward to life, you look forward to extinction. But of course, the creativity of your life can continue all the way to the end, and should. I don't mean that, but at some point, you'd know that it's harder to begin again.

[05:07]

The older you get, the harder it is to make new beginnings. So to really find out what you're doing when you're young and pursue it with all your ability, very important. And another thing that he mentioned was the fact of that laypeople and monks, that there's really no difference between laypeople and monks. And that he felt very good that laypeople could practice in the same way as the monks

[06:11]

had the same opportunity and was hopeful that lay people could take advantage of the practice that we had. But he said that he was very, wanted to be very careful that our practice was simple. And I think he felt some, he always hesitated to make a complicated practice. As you know, there's koan study, and there's what we call shikantaza, which is just sitting. And then there's counting breath. And these three are considered the three types of practice. And although Suzuki Roshi's practice was shikantaza, What he wanted everybody to do was counting breath.

[07:15]

He said counting breath is more kind of primitive, ancient style of practice and very safe, actually, and very difficult to do. If someone can really count their breath very well and have that kind of absorption, then if they did it very well, then that practice would actually be Shikantaza. So he really wanted everybody to practice counting breath as the most important practice, the most important factor in Zazen other than or taking care of your body, because he wanted us to have the most stable foundation.

[08:19]

And that was really all he was interested in, was for our practice to have the most stable kind of foundation, so that we wouldn't get some kind of top-heavy in some kind of koan practice or intellectual study. or some lofty idea about Buddhism, so that we wouldn't be tempted to take all of the various profound philosophical ideas in Buddhism and try to practice with those. So when we studied with Suzuki Roshi, we didn't study very much intellectually. He really insisted on zazen.

[09:22]

He didn't deny study. He encouraged us to study, but the emphasis was always on zazen. sitting zazen with good posture and counting our breath. And she can't does it. And in our chanting practice, you know, and the strength of the beat of our practice. This morning, the chanting felt very good. Malcolm had a very good, strong beat. I was very impressed with it. It carried us all and felt good, you know, when that strong beat is there.

[10:32]

and the bell rings at the right time, and you bow, you feel like bowing. It feels wonderful to bow. It feels wonderful to participate. Why we don't like our chanting service so much is because we don't really participate in it, mostly. We don't know how to participate. But when we're fully there, it's quite joyous. very simple and very joyous. So the heart of Suzuki Roshi's practice was how to be there, how to be here, how to be where you are. And it's the one most fundamental thing in our practice and it's maybe the most difficult thing to just be where we are completely.

[11:49]

So in this very simple practice of sitting zazen in a wholehearted, regular way and practicing with the simple forms that we have is called climbing the pole. When we begin to practice, we arouse the thought of enlightenment. That's like at the bottom of the pole, the 100-foot pole. It's arousing the thought of enlightenment. Very important. At some point in Buddhism, we say enlightenment is what practice is about. So arousing the thought of enlightenment

[13:00]

is like being at the bottom of the pole and realizing that the pole is there. And then we plunge into practice, and that's climbing the pole. And then when we get to the top of the pole, that's called enlightenment. And so we think about practice as climbing the pole to enlightenment, climbing the mountain, so to speak. But in our practice, you know, there's no top to the pole. The pole, there are, maybe the pole isn't straight, you know, the pole goes like this. Something. And there are these places. that are kind of level, you know, and you kind of breathe for a while. You say, oh, this is enlightenment. This is Kensho. This is Satori.

[14:02]

There are these places that kind of reassure us, kind of understanding we get, that reassures us that we're on the right path. And those reassurances are called various things in Japanese. Satori and Kensho. Kensho is when you're at the bottom of the pole, maybe. you realize that there's a path. So when we start to sit, we have that, some realization. I can remember when I started to sit. It was maybe a week or so. I'd sat a few times and then gone home, you know, kind of touched, played with it a little bit. It was a little mysterious to me. I know that the sitting was right. I had no doubt about sitting zazen, but all the bowing, you know, that was strange to me, although I accepted it.

[15:08]

It was kind of exotic. I didn't know about it exactly because it was so different than anything I'd done. But I liked the fact that people could actually do that. You can actually do that. You can actually bow, like that. So I went back home, came back a few more times. Then I sat straight for about a week, every morning, although it was difficult. It was in the afternoon, actually. One time when I was sitting, I had this wonderful feeling about it. all the way home, you know, I had this wonderful feeling and then I realized something about that feeling that I knew that this was the path that I wanted to take. I just knew that. And that was a kind of satori, I mean a kind of kensho or satori or realization that there was a path and that

[16:20]

I really wanted to be on that path. So we have those kinds of realizations, or should have, that kind of realization all along in our practice. It's not so good, you know, if we maybe have that feeling once and then twenty years later, you know, we have another kind of realization. all the time, all along. So it's not such a tremendous kind of realization always, but there should be always some spark in our practice, always some kind of light that shows through, you know, all the time in our practice. And if we know how to really engage, and that illumination will continue to shine out of us.

[17:31]

But it really depends on our effort. Five minutes of effort is five minutes of realization. So when we get to the top of this pole, this hundred foot pole, he asked the question, how do we step off? Stepping off means that even though we're climbing this mountain of realization, we can't stay climbing the mountain of realization. When you get to the top, you have to step off. But actually, we have to step off before we get to the top. Since there is no end to realization, we have to know how to step off all the time.

[18:42]

So climbing the pole, in one sense, climbing the pole is when we come to zazen. And we do our practice in order to cultivate ourself. It's called self-cultivation. Leaving home, coming to zazen, going to the zendo, training within the practice. And then stepping off is, when you leave, Your body fills the 10 directions. You mingle with circumstances. You forget all about realization. Stepping off the pole is leave your enlightenment behind. Forget all about your enlightenment and just engage.

[19:45]

If we don't forget about our enlightenment when we're engaging in the world, then we start to leave a trail behind us and burn like burning rubber or something. It doesn't smell so good. We start smelling like Zin or something. It's really important to just forget it. So when you leave the Zindo, If you come to Zazen in the morning, you leave the zendo, just go to work. Just take care of everything. When you come to the zendo, you completely engage. Nothing left out. This is the secret of practice. And what practice is all about is how to be one with yourself and one with your activity. There's no gap between yourself and your activity. This is called enlightened practice.

[20:54]

And we learn how to do that as we practice over and over again. And of course, Zazen is the key And then when you go out into the world, you become one with your activity. No gap between yourself and your activity. It's very difficult. That's why people go to monasteries first, to learn how to enter into leaving the world. These are the two sides, you know. Leaving the world and then coming back into the world.

[21:58]

Leaving the world and practicing for your own cultivation. And then leaving that place and going back into the world. So back and forth and back and forth. So we're always leaving our pole. Our pole, our hundred foot pole, our enlightenment, can very easily turn into a kind of egocentric practice. If we stay just away from the world, just leaving the world all the time, and cultivating, it's easy to become very proud of ourself, proud of our practice. And to be able to leave that without the slightest hesitation or trace, and just become a humble person in the world, working with people, not necessarily in some high position.

[23:14]

taking on the difficulties of that world. So these two, these are the two legs of practice. Training by leaving the world and coming back to the world and by leaving your training. The training is going on all the time. In the world, you're always training. And you can't forget that. So, you forget your enlightenment, but you don't forget your training. Understand? You don't forget, you forget your realization, but you don't forget that you're always training. And you're creating a space for a field for the dharma in the world.

[24:24]

When you go back into the world from the pole, hundred foot pole, you're creating a field for practice, a field for the dharma. So, in a sense, you know, this is called advanced training. It's to After enlightenment, strictly speaking, after enlightenment, then you step off. But we can't wait till after enlightenment. Enlightenment is endless. So to practice for ourself and to bring others along with us at the same time is what's necessary. So we do it all simultaneously. So, in a sense, you know, in the poem, he says, the blind leading the blind.

[25:40]

We cover up our third eye. Third eye is the eye which transcends our dualistic understanding. It says, making the eye and the forehead blind, we cling to the mark on the scale. The mark on the scale is like the top of a 100-foot pole. We think the scale stops there. But the scale is going up and down according to the weight that's placed on it, according to what We have, according to what's put there, we have to balance the scale. So we always have, within these shifting circumstances, we always have to know what's the right thing to do. What's the right thing to do in any circumstance? Because the scale is always shifting. You can't sit there on your enlightenment. You can't sit on your laurels or on your understanding or depend on your training.

[26:49]

Then he says, ìThrowing away body and life, one blind person leads many blind people.î Blind can mean enlightened. In this kind of poem, blind can refer to the blind leading And if we want to, when we enter practice, even though the bottom of the pole is the desire for enlightenment, the thought of enlightenment, the second part is the way-seeking mind, arousing the way-seeking mind.

[28:03]

Because we have the thought of enlightenment, we arouse the way-seeking mind. And the way-seeking mind is the most important thing that we have. means that we see the path and we stay on it without getting off. And when you can see the path and stay on it without getting off, already enlightenment is present. And within that present enlightenment, we have many different kinds of experiences of But if you don't have that determination to stay on the path, continue on the path, then you can talk about enlightenment until you're blue in the face and it's just an idea you have. So a way-seeking mind is also associated with the four vows.

[29:35]

The vow to save all sentient beings is actually the thought of enlightenment. So you know a person when they have enlightenment, true enlightenment, realization, is not so concerned about a way you can tell, not so concerned about themselves or not concerned about whether or not they have enlightenment, and maybe not even thinking about it, but they have a desire to help others. That's one reason why Suzuki Roshi didn't emphasize enlightenment so much. People are always complaining that Suzuki Roshi didn't emphasize enlightenment very much.

[30:39]

He didn't say there was no enlightenment or that we shouldn't attain enlightenment. He was hoping that we would all attain enlightenment. But he didn't emphasize enlightenment because he didn't want to give us some kind of material, spiritual materialism to detract us from our path. If we're always thinking about when we're going to get enlightenment, it's like as soon as we start thinking that, we're outside of it. Already we're outside. As long as you want something like that, it's just still. in the material world, just another acquisition. So enlightenment is present when there's practice. But if you want to have enlightenment as an object that you can put in your pocket, take home and sit down in your big chair and say, well, I finally got it at last.

[31:51]

There's nothing more to do. That's just some idea you have. in order to maintain an enlightened state of mind, you have to have continuous practice. And if you have continuous practice without any idea of gaining, and this is Suzuki Roshi's most frequent phrase without the idea of gaining anything. It doesn't mean that you don't gain enlightenment, but enlightenment is there when you are not self-centered, when you have no selfish ideas.

[32:56]

As long as you keep wanting to grasp that, that's a selfish idea. So it's a kind of game, you know. As soon as you try to grasp it, it's like Quicksilver or something. You try to get it, but it keeps flipping out of your hand. You can't get it that way. You can only get it by being good. Good boy. Good girl. But enlightenment also includes our bad side. So we should understand that as well. It doesn't have so much to do with whether we're good or bad. It has to do with our understanding and our lack of self-centeredness and our humility and our willingness to see a situation and take care of it.

[34:03]

I remember another realization I had when I was practicing with Suzuki Roshi. I suddenly felt like I really wanted to help everybody. Just that overwhelming feeling that I really wanted to help everybody. when I would see new people, I would always help them. And in the zendo, nobody was taught, showed what to do when they came to the zendo. They had to kind of fumble around and find their way. But I always helped them a little bit. If they were looking around, I would be aware that they were there, and then I would show them what to do, without saying anything. I would just kind of help them. just took on a lot of responsibility that way, without necessarily being asked. I could see that there was something to do and I just did it. It was just a kind of feeling I had that I just kind of knew what to do.

[35:27]

you can also do something that's not appreciated. You can insinuate yourself in some way that's not appreciated by people if you try to do something that you're not asked to do. That's the other side. But we always appreciate it when people, when a student just feels that they should help people. And then wherever they go, they have that same feeling. They're always helping in some way. That's a kind of realization. You don't have to wait to be asked, or you don't run away, you know. from doing something more than the minimum.

[36:44]

If you're just doing the minimum in your practice, just enough to get by, you'll never understand enlightenment. Whatever you do should be wholehearted. I don't mean that we should add a lot of stuff to our activity. Sometimes when I complain about our practice, it sounds like I'm saying that we don't do enough. I don't mean that. What I mean is that what we do is not wholehearted. things that we do do are not in the realm of mindfulness.

[37:48]

In this practice, everybody's very busy, and if you really pay attention to everything in your life, your life is very full. When you're at home and you take care of your home life and your work life with strong concentration, then when you take care of your zendo life, what little zendo life you have, whether it's a lot or a little, how you relate to the sangha and to practice, that should be complete. Each person has some little job to do. Some people do something. In our Sangha, because of the nature of our lay practice, we try to have everybody have some position.

[39:05]

And some people take care of a lot, some people take care of just a little bit. But even if your practice is just to take care of a little bit, that's what you should do. If you forget that, or don't pay attention to it, or don't think much of it, then you're missing something. If you're always forgetting things, you should find out how to make yourself not forget. And if you continue to do that, then you'll create a strong practice. But if you just let it go, If you say, well, you know, it doesn't matter, or something, then it just completely, there's no practice at all. Practice is to always try to do your best. And if you don't, you shouldn't feel good. You should feel kind of bad. But you shouldn't hang on to feeling bad. One of the things we can do is, we like to feel bad sometimes.

[40:12]

It's a kind of substitute for feeling good. So we can allow things to go on and on so we can continue to feel bad and continue to apologize. And that can become a thing in itself. So we don't want to fall into either feeling good or feeling bad. We just want to do what we should do. That's the main thing. Don't try to make yourself feel good. Don't try to make yourself feel bad. We do the practice for the practice. And you don't have to help people in order to make them feel good or to make yourself feel good. You just help them because it's the practice. It's just the thing to do. If you hang on to your feeling of, I did something good, that's not it.

[41:24]

As soon as you do that, you fall way down. So just do something and forget. So one thing that we, what this is about, this story about the 100 foot pole, is to not stand on your laurels, not stand in some static place, not stand back and admire your work. But when you do something, you just give and forget. And so practice is continuous, you know, from the thought of enlightenment to the way-seeking mind, to the path to enlightenment, and then off, back down to the thought of enlightenment again, over and over, starting over and over. That's why we can appreciate everybody where they are. If everybody's practicing, it doesn't matter whether you're

[42:28]

in the beginner's mind or at the top of the pole, it doesn't make any difference. We just appreciate everybody's practice, the same, when everybody's really practicing. So we have this opportunity to practice and to develop our practice. So let's do it. I want to remind you that this afternoon, starting at two o'clock, the Venerable U Silananda, who is a Burmese Dharma master from the Theravada tradition, is going to give us a the Satipatthana Sutta, which is the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.

[43:41]

It's probably the earliest Buddhist meditation manual. And this is his own translation that he'll be using. And I met him a couple of times. Joel introduced me to him. And I had lunch with him one time. And then he came over here one time. And I've seen him at other times. And I would very much like to urge you to attend. It would be two to five, three hours. I didn't want to make just some short thing. Usually if you invite somebody to give a talk, They'll give a talk, an introduction, which you already know about, and then they'll leave and it doesn't make so much difference. So I wanted him to talk about this very specific thing and give him enough time to do it.

[44:49]

But first we'll sit Zazen for a while, I'm not sure how long, maybe not too long, and then get into it. So there'll be time for questions and discussion. And next Saturday we have a one-day sitting. So I want to encourage everybody to come. That's the time when we can all get together and be together, practice together. Sentient beings are numberless.

[46:07]

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