I vow to judge the truth of those entitled to words. Good morning. Last night, we had a good lecture by Geshin Sensei, who is one of Joshu Susaki Roshi's disciples. She's a German woman who has actually lived in America for quite a long time. And maybe, I think she's in her 40s. It was very nice to have a teacher from another, a student from another tradition, Rinzai tradition, talk, and also a woman who has some status in the world of Zen.

[01:32]

And interesting to see how she has completely accepted her teacher and her practice. And although it looks like she has adjusted to the mold of practice, It wasn't without difficulty. Especially in a Rinzai practice. Rinzai practice is usually considered more... We use the word macho. I don't like to say so, but... little rougher, more rough than Soto practice, where the tradition is to be kind by being rough.

[02:57]

Soto tradition is more gentle, actually. more of a gentle way, which is more nurturing. Rinzai is more demanding. On the surface, actually, when you get below the surface, they're exactly the same. And we tend to think about the different kinds of Zen practice in terms of what we see on the surface, or according to methods. But if you just scratch the surface, they're exactly the same. That's why we could get along so well because she went just below the surface and found us there just like her. And we went just below the surface and found her there just like we are. So we're both swimming in the same lake. But our approach

[04:04]

Rinzai and Soto is different. The methods in Japanese are called Tenji and Toki. Tenji is a koan study with a master where the teacher gives the student a koan and the student is interviewed over and over on the koan. The master interviews the student over and over. on the Koan for years until the student has some realization of the Koan. The student understands what Mu is, understands Mu as Mu. And in Soto practice, Toki is dealing with The teacher deals with the student according to the circumstances of the student's life and uses the various means of daily life as koan.

[05:24]

Some people think that Rinzai Zen is koan Zen, And Soto Zen is something else. But actually, a koan is the basis of all practice. And I've talked about this before. Some people remember it and some people don't. But our practice is we have one koan and it's expressed in myriad ways. There is only one koan. Even in Rinzai Zen, there's only one koan, but it's expressed in myriad ways. And our true koan is the koan that we have always had. It's not that someone gives you a koan. Because you already have a koan, you can discover what it is.

[06:27]

This is very important. So the koans, koan study, which was developed by Hakuin Zenji in Japan, is the system that most Rinzai Zen teachers use. Not all, not always, but it's the basis. Hakuin revived the Rinzai tradition after it had declined. And he was a very dynamic teacher. And after, what he did was to systematize the koans into a kind of teaching schedule, which made it very, made it possible to continue the teaching and make it very dynamic. But, you know, koans, as Geshen explained last night, originally there was just meeting between the teacher and the student.

[07:44]

And sometimes the people would remember some very significant occurrence that happened between the teacher and the student and hold it up as an example And these examples became stories. And the stories were collected and put into the Blue Cliff Record, and became the Blue Cliff Record, and the Mu Man Khan, and the various collections of stories which became koans. And koan means literally a public case. If you're a lawyer and you want to find precedent or the meaning of certain cases, you go to the law books and you read the public cases. You read the koans. But the case you're dealing with, even though it may have some precedent, is unique.

[08:54]

your client and your situation and problem in a courtroom is all unique, never happened before. So you may use a case, a public case, as an example or as a way of educating yourself. But the case, your case is your real koan. What you're doing is the real koan. And it's the problem that you have, the problem that you always have, and the problem that you always will have. The basic problem of life and death is the koan. And all of the stories illustrate this. So in Rinzai Zen, You study the koans, sometimes in a very systematic way, and the koan is given to you, and you take, accept the koan, and if it's very short, you know, what is the sound of one hand clapping, or mu?

[10:05]

Mu is usually the first koan. But Gishin sensei said that Sasaki Roshi never gives mu. Some student wanted Mu as a koan, but he never gives Mu, so the student left. But in our tradition, we use koans as illustrations, and Suzuki Yoshi always used koans in lectures. And it's wonderful to study the cases and to use them as to illustrate So we should study the koans as examples, and not only examples of something that happened in the past.

[11:09]

If you study the koans as an example of something that happened in the past, you know, it's like studying history. The koan has to become your koan. That's how we can use it to study with. And that's why if your teacher says, gives you mu, then mu is your koan and there's nothing else but mu. That's a wonderful way of study. But what is our koan that we should never forget? What is the koan that we have to keep in front of us all the time and never forget? If you don't have that, you don't have practice. What is the koan whose face is always changing, but it always remains the same? What is the koan that never looks the same, but is always the same?

[12:13]

That's our genjo koan. Dogen's koan. Suzuki Roshi mentioned that Dogen's teaching, what he did for us, was to assimilate the whole of Buddhist practice and the whole koan study, the realm of koans, and to give us, to distill that and to give us a very simple practice, a very simple koan practice. called a genjo koan. The koan that arises moment after moment in our daily life. You can't escape from it. Something that you can't escape from. Something that's always with you, always present.

[13:15]

So... Not... that someone gives you a koan. Someone can't give you a koan. But to help you discover what your koan is. That's the purpose of a teacher and a student. The relationship between a teacher and a student. A teacher, in our practice, a teacher points out what your koan is. You may not get it. You may not understand it. Or you may forget it. Or you may think that it never happened. Or you may think, he just gives me a lot of trouble. Why is he always giving me so much trouble? Why is he always down on me? Which is not so, you know.

[14:18]

Until you discover the koan, which is your basic life problem, you always feel persecuted. Not always, but it's possible to feel persecuted. In Rinzai, uh... koan practice during seshin you see the teacher four times a day whether you want to or not doesn't matter when it's time you see him and if you can say something about your koan you say it if not uh... maybe you don't say anything but you have to present it you have to present yourself you can't escape So, in a way, you know, it's a very... I appreciate that.

[15:22]

It's a lot of work for the teacher. Sometimes... Sometimes... Sometimes, you know, I think, boy, you know, the whole session, four times a day for 50 people, for 100 people, you know, it's a lot of work. And he'll give If you look at Sasaki Roshi's Sesshin schedule, they print in their catalogs maybe ten Sesshins a year. Eight or ten Sesshins a year. That means he's almost always in Sesshin, almost always doing this. Our practice is more subtle, more open, more spacious.

[16:37]

And maybe that's good and maybe it's not, I don't know. But it certainly makes room for more people to practice. and is a little more gentle. But when you actually engage practice, it's the same. You can see that it's not different. Sometimes people say, Soto practice puts more emphasis on zazen, and Rinzai puts more emphasis on action. They're always talking about action. The characteristic of Rinzai Zen is good action, strict participation, just completely put yourself in your activity.

[17:44]

But Soto practice is like that too. And Suzuki Roshi always emphasized activity. And I remember we used to have a little sign in the other zendo that said, cleaning first, zazen second. First do what needs to be done, then sit zazen. And it's very important. And it goes hand in hand with arranging your life so that you can practice. The problem that so many people have is wanting to practice, but wanting to practice and getting all tangled up with other activities.

[18:56]

And how to put your life in order is the first order of practice. How to put your life in some kind of order and keep it there so that you can actually do what you want to do. So the most basic thing is activity. Activity means how you put your life together in an order so that you can be one with your life. So that there's nothing, no loose end, no rag-taggle, tripping over yourself in order to do something. So the two sides of sitting and activity are what we call zazen.

[20:04]

I don't like to say this is zazen and this is activity. The two sides of sitting and engagement or activity in the world is zazen. So we always ask the question, what is zazen? I always ask you the question, what is zazen? What do you understand as zazen? Someone was saying. When I was, you know, the baby cries in the middle of the night, so I get up and walk the baby around the dining room table. And so in the morning, you know, I really find it hard to get up and come to zazen. What is zazen? Zazen has to be walking the baby around the table. What's your koan? Walking the baby around the table is your koan.

[21:08]

Or, what is zazen is your koan. When you're walking the baby around the table, what is zazen is your koan. Or, what is? Or, what? Or, is. Is is good. Or, what is this? Or, this is what? Or, this is what is? So, we have our own go on. Please find your own koan. But main koan is... How.

[22:11]

Not what is okay, but what... The question what, it can be very misleading. It means, you know, if you say what, then you may try to investigate something scientifically. Scientific investigation is okay, but it's a little off the track. So, how is better gone? How can I? Or how to do this? Or how is it? How is this Koan? How is this practice? If Koan is something that's with you, Geshen Sensei said last night, Koan is your friend, your companion.

[23:16]

It's like when you have a lover, you're always thinking of the lover. If you really, when you fall in love, there's nothing else but the lover in your mind. If you've ever done that, you know that that's true. Day and night, you know, you can't get that out of your mind. Well, Koan is like that. That's how we should... If you don't have that as Koan, then you don't have a Koan. And if you don't have that as practice, you don't have really practice. But it doesn't mean that you do some special activities. It means your special activity is whatever you're doing. Walking the baby around the table is very special activity. Going to the bathroom, sitting down on the toilet, very special activity. How is this practice? How is this koan?

[24:18]

How is this helping all sentient beings? Also, last night she was talking about, someone asked a question about koan, practicing koan. How do you do that? She said, well, like a carpenter, if you're planing, using a plane on a piece of wood, the person and the plane, and the wood, even though it looks like three things are one thing. The carpenter, the plane, and the wood, and the ground you're standing on, and the horses that are holding the wood, and the building, and the street, the people are walking by, the neighborhood, the city, the state, the country, the continent, the whole world.

[25:20]

the universe. This is how we study Koan. How is this activity, the universe, the activity of the universe? When you understand, when you experience this activity is the activity of the whole universe, then you understand your Koan. So the koan just leads you to that point. But anything is a koan. Everything you do is a koan. Every step you take, blowing your nose, breathing. So our koan starts in zazen, from sitting up straight and breathing. If you count your breath, one is a koan.

[26:24]

One is not different than mu. Moo. That's what Rinzai people say. Moo. Moo. Be one with moo. Moo is everything. There's nothing but moo. When you breathe, one, two, there's nothing but one or two. What are you? One, two. There's no one practicing. There's just one, two, move, whatever. Then when you get up and move out into activity, same thing. How is this move? How is this one, two, three? How is this

[27:28]

the universe acting. You don't have to sit a lot of zazen. I don't like to say so. Oh boy. But, you know, I want to encourage everybody to sit as much Zazen as possible. But, you know, the other side is, if your practice is sincere, that's the main thing. That's Zazen. If your activity is concentrated like that, sincere activity, as Koan, then it is Zazen. And then when you sit, it's not different. Busy people, some people are so busy that they don't have the time to sit.

[28:40]

But their opportunity is in their activity. So we have people who have opportunity to sit. and some people who don't have opportunity to sit. But some people are on this side, some people are on this side. Some people have lots of activity and a little bit of zazen, a little bit of sitting. Some people have a lot of sitting and not so much activity. And then there are all the gradations in between. But zazen itself is not limited to sitting or activity. So each one of us practices according to our understanding and circumstances. We all practice according to our circumstances. As long as we realize that zazen, that sitting is necessary for zazen, we'll sit.

[29:53]

we may come to some point where we think, well, it's not necessary because activity is zazen. That's too extreme. It's just as extreme as someone who is always sitting zazen. You know, we don't sit zazen all the time. If you want to sit zazen too much, actually, we don't let you. You know, the zendo is only open between 5 and 6.30 in the morning. between 5.30 and 5.40 and 6.20 in the evening. And you don't come and sit at some other time. You should be taking care of your affairs, daily affairs. We think, well, Zazen is when we come to the zendo and sit. I know we think that. No matter how much I tell you that it's not so, you still think that. I don't say everybody.

[30:56]

There are people here who really know how to practice. And we should take their example, follow their example. There are people who do know how to practice. They know that zazen is activity and sitting. Maybe you have some questions. I have one question.

[31:57]

She's talked about taking her koan, and as you said, taking it, having it in her mind always like a lover. getting up in the morning and before some other kinds of thoughts come in, intrusive or distracting thoughts, the koan, you know, just some effort of will to bring the koan in, and keep it while getting ready, brushing your teeth and washing your face, and keep it in the zendo, and keep it all day long. And I think that's really a wonderful way to go about it. I wish that I could manage our particular koan a little better. What I wonder about is if you can, if there's any danger in that, in other words, if you have some problem, some interpersonal problem, for example, that you turn away from and just keep koan, you know what I mean?

[33:06]

if you turn away from something that... Some responsibility. Yeah, or responsibility. Something that perhaps you should think about that you turn from. Well, mostly when we get up in the morning, the first koan is turn off the alarm. And the second one is get up. you know, and then put on your clothes. So those three things are what you do first. But, you know, you could turn off the alarm. We do that anyway, you know. That's easy to do because we don't want to hear that. Unless it's music or something, you know. Mine goes bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Moo is, just get up. No matter what else, you know.

[34:10]

Actually, sometimes I lay in bed a few minutes and wake up and think, it's not considered so good. But I'm very quick, you know. I can get up and put on my clothes. And I have lots of clothes to put on. I wash my face and brush my teeth and offer incense and go out the door in nothing in two, three minutes, five minutes. I can do it all in five minutes. So sometimes I don't want to be Zen or too early. But actually the way to get up, you know, is to just get up without a second thought. When you have it, when you have a second thought, then you're still there, you know. And then you have a third thought, then you start thinking about that.

[35:11]

And pretty soon, you're way back in the third consciousness, reviewing, you know, and then think, well, you know, it's really nice and cozy here, and it's kind of cold outside. Then he said, well, you know, I did go to bed at 10.30 last night instead of 9.30. I went to bed at 11. Yeah, I deserve to... I'm going to be dragging all day long. I won't be alert. This is... So... If you wake up and moo is your koan, moo, then immediately you're into practice. But throwing back the covers is moo. Getting out of bed is moo. Putting on your clothes, just without, you know what to do, just doing what you have to do without mulling it over, without hesitating.

[36:20]

There's a gatha, actually, that we have. That we used to... I never used it, and Suzuki Yoshi never asked us to use it, but we had this little booklet of gathas. And there was a gatha for when you get up in the morning, and a gatha for when you go to bed at night, and when you wash your face, and so forth. I'll have to get those out. You can look at those. But the one I'm getting up was, now I awake, now I'm awake, and I vow with all, I'm trying to remember, I may not remember exactly, with all sentient beings to seek enlightenment or stay within the enlightened mind without leaving the world. something like that, to practice within enlightenment without leaving the world.

[37:29]

So that attitude starts your day. I don't remember what the one is for going to bed, but I'll take that out and we can look at those. Does that answer your question? That was very interesting. But to carry this in the same way, say you wake up and you maybe are sick, but you don't think about that. You don't.

[38:37]

This is a kind of artificial example, but something like that. You're sick, but you get up and don't take care of yourself. That's what you should do. Maybe you should take care of yourself instead. Well, you'll find that out. So it depends. If you know you're sick and should stay in bed, then do that. If you don't know, then you have to find out. And you have to know where the line is. Are you on this side of the line or that side of the line? If you're on this side of the line, stay in bed. If you're on that side of the line, get up and find out. Where am I? If you're right on the line, yeah, big problem. But sometimes, I don't know, it's, you know, in a monastery in Japan, if you're, they make it very difficult for you to be sick.

[39:43]

Because it's so easy to tell ourself that we're sick. And tell ourself in such a way that we become sick. It's very easy to make ourselves sick. And we can also produce all the symptoms of being sick without being sick. And when you're in a situation like zen practice, where you get up every morning, it gets kind of old. You don't want to do that. You want to break the chain. And so it's very easy to convince ourselves that we have some problem. Because the problem is psychological. But that's not acceptable. So we have to make the psychological problem physical so that people will sympathize with us. It's more real, it's tangible when it's physical. So we transmute it into a physical problem.

[40:47]

And that's always happening. So we have to be very careful not to do that. We see what we're doing. And when the alarm goes off, we get up and start. No matter how we're feeling, usually we'll feel better. almost always we feel better. If we don't, then we accept the fact that there's something wrong. And usually something happens, something goes wrong, because we've accepted it and made space for it, and become a host for something. So, when we... we can decide to be sick or not be sick, I don't say always, but there are times when we can decide to be sick or not be sick, whether to be a host or to close the gate.

[41:51]

And our activity itself will cure us. It's like, I don't like to compare people to animals so much, although I do have a lot of, there are good analogies. But I remember when my dog, I had a lot of experience with dogs, and when the dog was, when the dog's nose is warm and dry, it means that they're sick. When the nose is cold and running, it means that they're well. So a healthy dog always has a cold, running nose, and a sick dog always has a warm, dry nose. So when the dog's nose is dry and warm, take the dog for a walk around the block, In their activity, their whole system gets moving. And by the time they get back, their nose is cold and running. And so much of our life is, you know, our attitude toward sickness and health depends on our attitude.

[43:04]

But this is not the law. This is just pointing at attitude. It's not saying that you'll never get sick or something. But most healthy people are active people. I'd like to go back to the other part. The first time Bill asked that question, he asked about the danger of turning away from interpersonal problems. And the analogy with the lover is an interesting one because lovers are jealous often, and practice is a jealous lover. And practice demands our full concentration and our full attention. It seems in the traditional practice, if we have the opportunity to practice, we can learn to make our activity and our zazen come together, if we work at it.

[44:23]

You mean your activity in your sitting? Yeah, your activity in your sitting, or whatever. And we learn to get along with people. But then, there's always some intimate relationship Maybe it's with our parents who will notice that somehow we're not really there with them. We have some private space that it makes the money. And sometimes it's somebody else that you live with who has some intimate relationship with you. And it seems like the practice comes from a place where you don't have that kind of relationship. And as a layman, it almost seems to me sometimes like we're taking practice a place it wasn't meant to go. And yet we say that practice should be everywhere. Well, I understand your point.

[45:24]

It's just that we don't know how to make it go there. But I wouldn't say that it... I can understand, you know. In one sense, you conform to things as they are. And in the other way, things conform to you as you are. And so, our practice, the form that it takes, you know, is you flow with things and things flow with you. But the problem we get into is either they flow with, either you flow with things or things will flow with me. It's an either, we make that into an either or situation. And we don't know how to harmonize so well that you flow with things and things flow with you.

[46:27]

So when you're with your parents, you feel either they flow with me or I flow with them. And partly they set it up that way, you know.

[46:37]

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