Last Thursday I was invited to give a talk at the University at Cal. I'm one of the Buddhist teachers there. And so I was thinking about this and how to address a group of 100 students who don't know anything, not much. in America with his students is because he didn't know anything. That was what he considered the most wonderful thing. We were just empty vessels. He could pour in the Dharma. So I thought, supposing someone asked me, what is Zen? What would I say?

[01:00]

There's no stereotype as to what... There's plenty of stereotypes, but what can you say that actually has meaning for people? So the thing that came to me right away was, it's like eating prunes. And the rest is all commentary. You can all go home now. So, somebody else asked, well, I talked about Zazen, you know, and I talked about various things and asked for questions and I gave a little Zazen.

[02:07]

When I sat on the table, it was a nice table, I said, tables really are not for sitting on. I need to respect the table as a table. And they're not for sitting on. But I'm going to sit on the table anyway. But I'm going to say something to the table and say, excuse me, is it OK if I sit on you? And the table said, OK. So I sat on the table. like this, and I told them, taught them how to sit while sitting in their chairs, which are not good chairs for Siddhis, I was in, but we didn't do it for very long, and everybody was really quiet, and they all, it was great, just like this. And then after 10 minutes or something I said, okay, but they just kept sitting. Why do we have to do something else? So it was very nice, actually.

[03:11]

But there was a question, well, what do you do after you do this? How do you do this in your daily life? So I thought about that a minute, and I thought, well, you know, When you're on the cushion, when you're in the zendo, I describe the zendo as a place that, as I usually do, where the atmosphere is conducive to thinking, this is Zen practice. The cushions, the altar, the formality, and so forth, this is Zen practice. And then when you walk out the door, the cars are zooming by, and you have to enter that world where you have to make up your practice.

[04:20]

And it's all improvisation. This is the tune, and then out there it's improvisation. So you're improvising on a tune all the time, but you can't But you carry the intention. So we say we extend the zendo. When we walk out the door, the zendo is extended. It's like on your computer, you go to the right-hand corner of your image and you extend it and you fill it out. Same thing. The zendo becomes the world. That's your zendo. So how do you practice in that zendo without the formality and without your friends and without your support?

[05:23]

Suzuki Roshi talked about respect for things. Respect for things. How do you actually respect everything? And I talked about bowing. And I bowed, and everybody bowed, and they all were delighted to bow. It was amazing. I talked a little bit about emptiness and form, because I'd been studying a little Prajnaparamita. I said, this is emptiness, and this is form. You want to understand emptiness, form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. It's not very complicated. You don't have to study Nagarjuna. It's all right here. This is emptiness. This is form. And then this is how you express yourself in emptiness as emptiness in form.

[06:27]

The most important thing is how to bow. The most important practice is bowing. We shake hands. Shaking hands is okay, but And when people from Japan come, they say, well, we should shake hands, because that's American style. That's good. But actually, this has meaning beyond just you and me. This is form. This is emptiness. This is delusion. This is enlightenment. This is right. This is wrong. This is good. This is bad. This is oneness. This is it. This is practice. That's what we do all the time. So how do you bow when you're not bowing? How do you meet each thing? This way, in the Zen dojo, we bow all the time.

[07:29]

We do everything in Buddhism. Everything we meet. The kamashiro. The kamashiro is sometimes a big controversy about how come you bow to the kamashiro? We don't bow to the Gamasu. We just bow. We bow because it's fun. That's why I bow. I bow because it's fun. It just feels good. You bring everything into harmony. So there's divisiveness and there's harmony. So for a Zen student, creating harmony is our practice. But divisiveness has its place. So we don't reject anything. Because everything has its place. Anger has its place.

[08:33]

Hate has its place. Love has its place. and then we accept and reject, we like and we don't like. This is it. If we want to have peace, this is it. I remember my first practice period at Tassajara, after I came out, well Tassajara, wherever you are in the monastery, whenever you all the time, and you're bound to each other every time you meet. And you may think, well, God, this gets tiresome. But actually, if you let go, it's not tiresome. It's only tiresome if you think that this is repetition.

[09:40]

But it's not. Nothing is repeated. It keeps your activity, it keeps your mind fresh. This is how you refresh yourself all the time. Because you're continuously letting go. This is the prunes. You're eating the prunes all the time and you're letting go all the time. Continually letting go. So the practice is letting go. Over and over and over again. But we accumulate and accumulate and accumulate And then we get to the point where we're stuffed and we get sick. The secret of well-being is to keep everything moving. Don't let anything get stuck. But we have mental problems because things get stuck in our mind. We need to do this, we want to do that, we have to do this, we have to do that.

[10:45]

emotional problems. Emotion. So sometimes I think about, some time ago I created an image that we're like a steam kettle. Steam kettle, you fill it with water and then you put like the fire underneath. And the fire is like our emotions, our emotions of fire, our feelings of fire. So we light the fire underneath the kettle, but the kettle has a spout which has a hole, fortunately, where it would explode. pressure cooker has that little thing on top that goes... when it gets hot.

[11:50]

If it didn't have that... Soybeans are the worst thing you can put in there. about this relief valve. So we are like a kettle with a fire underneath. But because we are complex beings, one relief valve is not enough. We have a whole circle of relief valves. One is called anger, another one is called But there's a whole list of relief valves that we use.

[13:02]

And we get used to using a certain relief valve. Anger is a really popular one. Very popular. And once we get used to using a certain valve and it works for us, we use it all the time. So it becomes what we call our habit. Our habit is when something don't like happens, or something offends us, we use the anger valve, because it really feels good. And we get addicted to anger, or we get addicted to drinking, or we get addicted to TV, or This is a big addiction right now. It's a universal addiction.

[14:11]

So how do we, what kind of outlets do we want for our feelings and emotions? So we have an ability to just fire. Suzuki Roshi talked about this. He said we're like a kerosene lamp. In Tassajara, we used to use only kerosene lamps. There was no electricity back in the old days. And if you have a little regulator, you light the wick and you put And you adjust it just right and it produces light. But if you have it too high, it smokes up the chimney and makes it all black. So he calls this the smoking kerosene lamp. We're like smoking kerosene lamps because we don't know how to adjust the valve.

[15:16]

The trick is all in the valve. When we turn off the fire, we turn off our feelings. And our feelings get hurt, damaged, or whatever, provoked, and so forth. And we react to outside stimulus. And when we react to outside stimulus, our feelings rise up, whatever they are, reactions, and we call that e-motion, putting our feelings into motion. And then our feelings are heating up the kettle and they need to go somewhere. So when we practice our feelings and emotions, we take care of them we should be very careful with our emotions.

[16:21]

That we don't think that because we have emotions, we're bad. Or because we have emotions that are negative, that that's bad. There are, you know, in Buddha Dharma, there are wholesome dharmas and unwholesome dharmas. So the wholesome dharmas are love, respect, all those things that we feel are beneficial. And the unwholesome dharmas are hate, anger, ill-will, and emotions that lead to violence. So in Buddhadharma, we turn on the goodwill, beneficial action, karuna, bunita, selfless action, supporting others and creating harmony.

[17:27]

You know, we open the harmony valve or we open the love valve in order to create harmony. But when we don't have those, when we're not, if we don't open those valves so that our emotions create beneficial actions, then we create a problem for ourselves and for others. If you want to categorize instead of practice valves. So we want to open the practice valves. Any of them will work. And we want to be careful not to succumb to opening the

[18:29]

Because those valves are easy, and they give you a rush. And when you open those anger valves, you get this wonderful rush, but in the end, you suffer. So, how do we practice? We practice in the world the same way we practice in the Zen hall. It's not two different things, even though it looks different. When you live in a large community where everybody goes to their own homes and you only interact in certain instances, then it's easy to accept people. But when you're practicing together in a small space, were really very close.

[19:49]

And the fourth thing I said to Gene is saying, I wish that guy wouldn't scratch his nose like that. Why does he always cough? I can't stand this person's breathing. So we get into that kind of intimate irritation. So, this is called turning delusion into enlightenment. It's the same force. It's the same energy. It's the same energy that creates anger, creates love. It's just a matter of which way it's directed. So we have this opportunity to direct our practice, our life.

[20:52]

toward liberation, which is called practice, or bondage, which is called ill-will. Ill-will, it binds you. It continues to create ill-will. Ill-will creates ill-will. That's called karma, which is karmic action. to think about what... Somebody said, well, when the thought comes up, when something comes up, what about emotions? What do you do with all that? So we have the opportunity to direct our emotions instead of being victim of our emotions. I just thought of a really good example of what you're saying, and I find this morning in the work circle, I was knocking on your door, and I was knocking again, and I can imagine it being rather irritating.

[22:02]

And you came out and said, thank you for knocking on my door. That could be an example of redirecting an annoyed, angry emotion into gratitude. I thought the same thing. Oh, you were thinking that? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. I believe you. Thank you for that really good example. Because I don't know how to do that. I don't know when to do that kind of thing. Except by way of example. Yeah. The way to always do that is to always do that. In other words, it's not like, it's like, that's your mode of being. It has to be your mode of being. So that's what you do. So people sometimes say, well, how can I not be angry? What can I do? What kind of trick can I have to not be angry when somebody does this?

[23:06]

That doesn't work. You have to practice not being angry, not being reactively angry all the time. Peter? You say not being reactive. Reactively. Reactively. It doesn't mean you don't have anger. No, no. It's just that you don't react to it. Anger, emotions come up. Yeah, and you just have to. And then you have a choice. Or you think you don't, but you do. There's always a choice. Otherwise, you're caught by fate. I have to do this. I have to. You don't have to. When you feel compelled, then you're a victim of your own anger. of your own emotions. So it's possible to turn. And instead of reacting, respond. So that's the difference between reaction and response. Reaction is, I have to do this.

[24:09]

But response is to take a step back and say, well, how can I do this in a way that I'm not caught? I'm not caught by my emotions and I can actually control my emotion to make it into a positive action. How can I make this emotion into a positive action and save myself as well as the other person? So this is Aikido. That's exactly what I was thinking. Yeah, the basis of Aikido is to not be victimized by yourself, and to save the other person as well. And have the other person think that they're doing it. That's even better.

[25:14]

So how do we cultivate the responsive mind? Because without doing that, we'll always be caught. That's practice. You have to practice it all the time. I mean, it has to be serious. How will I deal with this situation without being caught by it? That's a practice. How not to be caught. This is the Ziggurat she's teaching. Don't get caught by anything. Don't get caught by anything means don't get caught by your own mind, by your own reactions, by your own feelings, and by others. Forget others. It's about you. We always are looking out there for the responsibility, but the responsibility is here. It doesn't matter. He made me angry. Maybe. But he did something and I got angry. I didn't have to do that. He made me angry is a victim's response.

[26:16]

I just want to clarify, when you were talking earlier about ego valves, and you were saying that anger is or can be an ego valve, I just want to be sure what we're saying is, let's say I feel hurt. It's not an ego valve yet if I'm not reactive. But if I have a channel of being hurt in this victimly reactive way, then it's an ego valve. Well, what is it that's hurt? An emotional experience. I mean, what in you is hurt? So you're saying it's always an ego vow? Well, what is hurt is our self. My self is hurt. Okay. But what my self is, basically, is our ego. If we don't have ego, nothing's hurt. I mean, that's simplistic, you know. And then you say, well, if I don't have ego, blah, blah, blah. But we all have ego and we all get hurt, right? I don't want to be a victim of my ego. I don't want to be a victim of myself.

[27:26]

So how can I respond in a way that my ego is actually working for myself instead of against myself? How do I stop the motion? How do I stop that cycle? That's what Buddhism is about. How do you stop the cycle? There are the twelve nidanas, which is the cycle of suffering. This causes this, causes this, causes this, causes this. There are twelve steps. There are the twelve steps of dependent origination. which is the 12 steps of, you know, don't drink. Pretty close, actually. So, study the Dharma.

[28:37]

To study the Dharma is to study the Self. To study the Self is to forget the Self. How do you forget the Self? dropping body and mind, right? It doesn't mean that it's not there. It's that you're no longer a victim of something that is a construction. So we have an ego, but the ego should be in the service of our big mind instead of our small mind. When we turn over ego to Buddha and say, you take care of it, then we act like Buddha. Well, I was struggling with the idea of, when you were talking, you're using discourse to talk about this. And you're using some kind of understanding of psychology to talk about this. When we practice, you know, there's two, there's a different process that we go through when we're sitting.

[29:45]

And we can feel a feeling and say anger and let it go. in changing, and sometimes after a while, you actually can have feelings and do that, even when you're not sitting, obviously. But this thing you're talking about in terms of behaving, the activity patterns, when you're not on the cushion, seems to require some thought. Not necessarily. I just put it in terms of thought, because you have to direct your mind to something. We always say, sit more. You have this problem, sit more. That became a kind of stereotype and people don't say that anymore. You have this problem, you should sit more. But it's true. Because you get it through your bones.

[30:46]

That's how you get it through your body. You get it through your pores. And then when you're acting out in the world, it's the same thing as when you're sitting on the cushion. You're not thinking it through necessarily. It's instantaneous. This is how you respond because of your practice. Because it's in your bones to respond in a way that's It's true! Most of our life is spontaneity. When you're in the zendo, you're following certain procedures and so forth that teach you how to be spontaneous, believe it or not. And then when you're out in the world, responding to things is spontaneous. And then you feel, God, this is great! Spontaneous! The answer came out and I didn't think about it.

[31:51]

It wasn't my thought. It's the first thought, right thought. I just wanted to put, I really appreciate what you're saying, and just different words that came to me as I was listening to Christy and Jerry in your explanation, was that in the process of allowing, in this example, anger to arise over and over again when you sit, to arise and to notice when the story starts to kick in around it that fuels it, and just be able to be with the anger and then it diffuses. And we have that experience over and over again in Zazen, then there's more space around it and choice, which is the 12-fold wheel. Feeling arises, but it's the grasping after it that creates something else out of it. That's right. And it's the hook. And so you straighten out the hook when you're sitting.

[32:53]

So you don't get grabbed by what you're thinking. I think one thing that I'm trying to do that sort of helps me straighten out the hook is a lot of times, if I'm thinking about my day, I have to go to the store, I have to get gas, and I have a meeting I have to go to. So to delete the have to part, I'm going to the store, I'm going to get gas, I'm going to meet this person, because the have to It's like a hook that gets a little more edge to it. And it adds something about me where it's just I'm going to the store. It's more like we talk about the linking the subject-object and just doing it. And we have to plan. I just said. And it's hard to think that way. But if I'm able to let go of that, it just kind of facilitates what we're talking about.

[33:55]

Well, yes, they need to do, while we're not doing. Everybody thinks thoughts through Zazen. We all experience all this stuff. I don't worry about any of it. I never worry about anything that I think in Zazen. It's just all this. It's kind of interesting, you know? And it all kind of flows by, and it all flows by, and it all flows by. But at the same time, I'm very conscious when I wake up of coming back to sitting, coming back to posture. Posture is everything. And it's the structure that holds you together. And, you know, it helps to stop, it helps us to stop worrying so much. And on my new show, our brain. We do have to think and be concerned.

[35:03]

But like you said, a lot of space around it. We don't have space around our thinking process and around our feelings and we really get caught. So that space gives us only to settle. When I go out and I deal with other people who are Buddhists, I see some people who are actually pretty well put together. And I wonder, like, huh, what are they talking about? Everybody's a Buddhist. Just bow to them. Just bow. Follow their example. I just wanted to respond to the idea of a plan. Sometimes people need something like a plan, like removing the have.

[36:11]

It's like removing, like Leslie was talking about removing the have in the sentence. And for me, there is something conscious that happens when I'm out in my life. and things are happening pretty fast, kind of having a plan. In the sense that that plan might be, I need to go take a breath or two. That plan might be, I better not respond to this email right now. It would be better for me to go for a walk first. So what I was talking about, there is this room to me for having some kind of that some thought is involved in saying, I know that I respond this way to a certain thing. It's hard for me to sit with this. What is it that I can do while I'm working on this in a deeper level? Yeah.

[37:15]

I don't usually think that way, but the way I think. Sorry. When you're really free, one thing leads to another, and you know exactly what's next. That's kind of the way I like to work. If I'm working in the kitchen, if I'm making the breakfast in the kitchen, I say to myself, it has to be done at a certain time. And then I just forget it. And then I just work. And because I know, my subconscious knows that that has to be done. at a certain time, and then I just do what I have to do. And my body-mind regulates itself to come out at that time without thinking about it. So it's a lot of trust. I kind of trust my subconscious to be working for me when I say this is what I need to do.

[38:17]

And most of the time it works. But there's an intention setting. Well, of course there's intention. Yes, you have to have... Something is happening. There is some conscious intention setting. I'm not going to react this way anymore to this anger. It's not going to push me around anymore. Well, you can say that. That's a good start. That's what I mean. There has to be some starting place. That's right. There has to be an intention. Intention is everything. Yes, intention. This is my intention. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but this is my intention. Yes, absolutely. Practice is an intentional thing. So I appreciate you talking about trust. I'm wondering Because the obvious question is, how did you develop that? And I'm guessing the answer is through years of practice. But was there a shift?

[39:18]

Was there a turning point in your practice when you were like, this is what it is? No. Well, you know what we say. It's like enlightenment or realization is like walking in the fog. Without realizing it, your clothes get wet. It's kind of like that. You realize it. It's just, it's just, oh yeah, oh yeah, or something like that. Well, it could be suddenly, but sudden, you know, it's really gradual. I find it helpful when I get upset and I want to react to bring my attention to the region of the heart or lower. The region of the heart, around the heart, and the stomach. Yes, right.

[40:18]

To shift my attention. Yes. Sometimes it helps. To shift your... To shift it to here. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, when you're getting this to concentrate down here. Yeah, of course. Yes. going place. Yes. Hi. Thank you for this wonderful Dharma talk this morning. Nice to be here. I recently have been doing substitute preschool teaching. And I love children. I truly do. But it's also very challenging. And there's one child that I find fascinating because he's very verbal and emotional.

[41:21]

And he's not even three years old. And he'll say to a teacher, another teacher in the room, I just want to kill you. I just want to kill you. And that teacher reacts with, oh, you don't talk like that. And I'm going to redirect this energy with the child saying, what are you feeling? Tell me what you're feeling. Are you angry, frustrated? And it is such a huge thing. a space that gets created out of just kind of redirecting that. And I just love this experience. It's very challenging, and it's physically very taxing. It's eight hours of working with kids, as you can imagine. But I'm learning so much about myself. And yeah, it's a great experience. Yes. So that's, yeah. Patience. Patience is everything.

[42:26]

Using the energy that would ordinarily be anger, being expressed as anger, to reason. Reason, to accept, you just said that, it's not bad, it's not wrong, where is it coming from? And the child really can respond to that, which is people think they don't know what's going on, but they actually do. They do. Oh, yeah. They read us really well. Yes. Yes. Yeah. We read people, but we don't necessarily read them like animals do. Like dogs read us. And children read us. Yeah. And we say, I'm being so kind to my children, and how come they're so bad? But we just think we're being kind. Yeah, and it's just energy.

[43:27]

And one has to understand it's energy. And the child really wants to know how to be compassionate, really. They actually do. And that's really extraordinary and very ordinary at the same time. Yes. Yeah. We have to lead through who we are. And that means a lot of self-examination, just for the sake of our children. But it doesn't mean we should be too self-examining, otherwise we start coming down on ourselves. So there's a line, you know, where everything I do is bad, or something like that. Or terrible.

[44:10]

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