Good morning. Today is the first day of spring. So it's nice that we can sit sashimi and commemorate the first day of spring, bring it in by sitting. In Japan, they have a celebration or festival something I'm not familiar with, but it's called Higan. Higan is the equinox.

[01:13]

When it turns from winter to spring or summer to fall, it's called Higan. And Higan means other shore. And so there's higan and shigan, he and she. Higan means other shore and shigan means this shore. And I'm not familiar with the ceremony. I wish I knew more about it, but it's one thing I missed somehow. but uh... this uh... egon or other shore is uh... indicative of uh... the way our life is moving our life moves uh... toward uh... the other shore if you have a static life that doesn't move anywhere uh... and uh...

[02:33]

That's maybe death or something. So as long as we're alive, our life moves someplace. And ultimately, we say our life moves toward enlightenment. We say everyone is practicing enlightenment. In a big sense, we say that there's no one that's not practicing Buddhism. Everyone is practicing Buddhism, without exception. and that everyone has the capacity to look into their own enlightened nature. And everyone is actually on that path, whether they realize it or not. So, if you want to know what Buddhism is, I just look around you.

[03:39]

But from the olden times, the other shore has meant something like pure land, Amida's pure land, pure land of Amitabha Buddha. And there are many people who believe literally that there is a pure land, 84,000 yojanas distant, or 840 million yojanas, some tremendous number. And if you recite Buddha's name, by Buddha's mercy, you'll be reborn in pure land. Buddha's pure land in the West.

[04:49]

But most people don't believe that literally. It's a kind of way of talking about something. in the Platform Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch, talks about the pure land and how pure land is your own nature, the purity of your own nature. So there's no need to go 84,000 yojanas to the West. That's just a kind of way of speaking. Actually, the pure land is right here. So, how we find the pure land right here is what our practice is about, actually. How do you find the pure land or realm of purity?

[05:57]

In the Heart Sutra, at the end of the Heart Sutra, we say, Gatte, Gatte, Par Gatte, Par Sam Gatte, and that's gone, gone, gone to the other shore. Same thing, actually. Other shore means he got, or the other side of, It means nirvana, actually. And Shigan means samsara. But the Sixth Patriarch says, when you stop looking for nirvana and just be completely in samsara, that's where you'll find nirvana.

[07:04]

And Suzuki Roshi always used to say, when you know how to live on this shore, that's already the other shore. So the point, you know, is that there's really no place to go. No place to go and no place to hide. and everything is completely revealed as it is. That's our understanding. When we learn how to live on this shore, sometimes we feel that if we go someplace that we'll find it. what we're looking for. If we go to Nepal, or to some holy place, that we'll find something holy.

[08:10]

If we go to Jerusalem, maybe we'll find something holy. Or if we go to Mecca, or Japan, or India, Tibet. But the further away, the more exotic, the more interesting it becomes. If only I could live in Kathmandu for a while. A spiritual place. It's got spiritual vibes. I'll catch on. This is looking for the pure land, 85,000 yojanas to the west, over there someplace. I'm reminded of Dogen when he says, don't leave your own sitting place and beat the dusty roads.

[09:11]

Travel the dusty roads, leaving your own place. So, agate, agate, paragate, go on to the other shore. It's finding your imperturbable nature right here. So spring has a feeling of renewal. And that kind of hope or pure feeling we associate with spring, it really holds out all kinds of possibilities for us.

[10:21]

So it's really a wonderful time. everything seems to come alive and be recreated or created and really makes us feel alive. And winter, you know, precedes spring. Winter is like a kind of blanket, you know. Because we don't have snow, we don't think so much about winter. I remember when I was a kid, living in Los Angeles, winter didn't really mean anything to me, particularly, it rained more, that's about it. Once every 10 years it snowed someplace close. But I didn't really get into snow until I was in my 20s.

[11:30]

So I grew up without winter. But now I've experienced winter. And for all of us who have experienced winter and snow, it seems like when it's like that, It's very bleak and very kind of singular and simple. Life is very singular and simple and dormant. But underneath, When you're in the mountains, there are these holes and we see the green trees all bent over, small saplings bent over, and lots of life underneath the snow already waiting for something. And Egon has this feeling.

[12:41]

of something, life, really fresh and vital underneath the blanket of snow, just ready to pop up and bloom. I remember Suzuki Roshi used to write little invitations when they had those ceremonies at Sokoji Temple, the Japanese temple. And I took one in 1966 off the wall after the ceremony was over. Although I don't remember the ceremony. But I want to read what he says in English. He had it in Japanese and then in English. He says, this is his invitation to the service. He says, real human happiness is not at all obtained by the removal of every difficulty.

[13:47]

If it were, it would be a bloodless, dull, and wintry sort of thing. And then he quotes a poem. This poem is a very old poem that is very highly thought of by tea masters. The poem says, to the person who is just waiting for blossoms, I want to show spring in the grasses among the snow." And then he comments on the poem. He says, the grass among the snow holds the quickening of spring within itself. This is not the dreary cold stillness of winter, but the stillness of light and warmth held within the wintry world. With this in mind, we would like to observe the spring equinox in the traditional Buddhist way at Higan-e.

[14:49]

This poem is like our nature, speaks about our nature. Within ourself is everything. Everything we need is within ourself. Even though we may have a thick blanket around our mind, still, when we take it off, our nature emerges. So with this kind of spirit, we should practice, and we should sit sashi.

[16:02]

I remember a wonderful thing about Sesshin. I think most people experience this when we sit all day and somewhere in the middle of the day, especially your first Sesshin, which is so difficult, so hard. And at some point in the day, We sit down and have a cup of tea and maybe a very small cookie together. And the experience of just having that small cup of tea and a little treat is like a huge reward. It feels like a tremendous reward for so much effort.

[17:06]

Just this little thing. But since your life is so bare, so completely bare, this thing becomes absolutely wonderful. Like spring among the snow. That's our first enlightenment experience in such a way. Okay. Okay. So with that kind of experience, we can really appreciate our life.

[18:14]

Even though we have one enlightenment experience after another, we don't realize our enlightenment, and we don't necessarily recognize it, what we have, and we still keep And our practice continues over and over, over and over, until finally we can stop looking for something. When you stop looking for something, you can sit very easily. There may be some difficulty, you can accept the difficulty and appreciate everything that happens to you.

[19:23]

You know, it's easy to bow when there's something nice happening. If something good happens to us, we can say, oh, thank you very much. But if something bad happens, thank you very much. We should have the same spirit, same spirit, whatever happens to us. This is bridging, you know, no gap between this shore and the other shore. Until we know how to do that sincerely, we become victims of suffering. And when we learn how to accept our life completely,

[20:44]

where we are, that's already pure land. Just accepting our life completely where we are. Sometimes good and sometimes bad. Sometimes up and sometimes down. This is actually the point of Zazen and the point of our Sesshin, is to be able to find our true self right here. in every single situation.

[21:45]

And little by little we begin to appreciate everything that happens. And if we can do that, then we can also begin to stop creating situations which are harmful to us and to others. We don't have so much time. Maybe you'd like to say something or ask a question. The only thing I can remember about Duncan's advice is,

[23:11]

I think it's Fukan Zazengi. Don't leave your sitting place. Follow dusty roads. Don't leave your own place. You know, the hardest thing to do is to stay in your own place. Really hard. As soon as things start to get difficult, we want to move. We want to get comfortable in some other way. or we want to find, you know, some comfort. And we feel that if we keep shifting around, we'll find it. And when we first begin to sit, Sazen, you know, we shift around thinking that we'll find something more comfortable. But then we find out that no matter how much you shift around, it's never going to be comfortable. Wherever you move to, it's never going to be more comfortable than the way it is now.

[24:25]

This is lesson number one for our life. We keep going around and around until finally we just have to settle down and face our situation. Be with our situation. I don't mean, you know, that we can never move. Don't take me too literally. But sometimes we have to move. But until we can really stay on our position, not get pushed off our position, unless we can do that, we can never penetrate ourself. No way we can penetrate ourself. Because our desire only goes as far as first barrier.

[25:29]

Our ability only goes as far as certain barriers that we have. That's why, you know, it's very hard to sit Sashin alone. You can sit Zazen by yourself, not understanding what it is, but to sit Sashin by yourself is very hard because If you just sit sitting by yourself, deciding what you're going to do, you never can get through the barriers that you need to get through. Because as soon as you come to the most difficult place, you go some other way. That's human nature. It's kind of like when you, as long as you have an alternative, you take it. It takes a tremendous amount of will to not take easy alternatives and to stay with something difficult all the way through.

[26:36]

So, our life, you know, is up to the point where we start to practice Zazen. It's built on taking easy alternatives. And when we come to practice, we don't take any alternatives. And it becomes very difficult to continue. So that's why we're so fortunate to be able to practice together and to encourage each other and to do something difficult together. which alone we could never do. And to actually be able to penetrate ourself, to go deeper than we ever thought about.

[27:55]

So it's so fortunate to know that we don't have to go someplace. We don't have to go anyplace. Just be completely where we are. But it's hard to be completely where we are. As soon as we start to get more and more completely where we are, we want to get up and move off. So we need some discipline, some good discipline and encouragement. When you can penetrate completely where you are, then you can have some freedom to move any place. That's fine. But first, we have to know how to be where we are.

[29:06]

We have to be able to find the other shore on this shore. We have to be able to find complete freedom in this spot. So let's celebrate our first day of spring on this spot and penetrate this spot and appreciate ourselves and each other. And I think that if we can practice that way, without trying to do anything, we can encourage other people.

[31:06]

We can actually help people. without trying to do something special. Your own sincerity will help people. Thank you.

[31:31]

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