And a very important part of our practice is how to recognize the rhythm of our life, how to adjust ourself so that we find the correct rhythm given our surroundings and our relationships and our work. Last night I was reading Daniel Aesop's Fables. I got him a little book of Aesop's Fables with very nice illustrations, by the way. for Christmas and I didn't realize how really wonderful they are.

[01:14]

Very short and they all have a very good point. There's always a moral to the story. And one of the stories that I read last night was the story of the tortoise and the hare, which is probably the most famous of all Aesop's fables. The tortoise and the hare meet on a path and the hare, I think, challenges the tortoise to a race And they agree that they're going to race to the town. And the tortoise says, I think that I'll win, something like that. And the hare laughs. He says, how can you possibly win this race? You're so slow and your claws

[02:22]

turn in, you can hardly even move. The way you're built doesn't even make sense. But the tortoise says, it's okay, don't worry about me, let's just go. So Off they go, and the hare just bounds down the road out of sight about the snap of a finger, two fingers. And the tortoise is... And the hare gets so far ahead, he says, I need to sit down and take a nap. So he finds himself a nice place in the bushes and sits down and takes a nap. And meanwhile, the tortoise doesn't stop, doesn't eat or drink.

[03:25]

Just steadily keeps moving on. And he sees the hare, but he doesn't stop to say hello or wake him up or anything. Just keeps slowly... going on. Just about the time that the tortoise is at the goal line, at the city gate, the hare wakes up. He says, wow, it's almost sundown. And he bounds down the path again, but too late. There's the tortoise over the line. And the moral of the story is, slow and steady wins the race. So this parable is the Zen student's parable.

[04:30]

How we practice, what kind of pace we have in our practice, if tortoise They both may be going to a goal. Both the tortoise and the hare are going toward a goal. But in the mind of the hare, just getting to the goal is pretty easy. Sometimes we say that if practice is too easy, you don't get it. There are some people who find practice pretty easy, don't have a big problem with it, but the tortoises of our practice always get benefit the most. The people who have the most difficult time with practice, if they practice in the way of the tortoise,

[05:45]

will benefit from the practice. There are three kinds of animals that we compare practice to. One is the elephant, the rabbit, and the horse. The rabbit goes bounding over the ground, barely touching the ground at all. And this is kind of... represents a kind of superficial attitude. Just taking things in a bound, without really being rooted. And the horse runs very quickly

[06:52]

over the ground. Even though he's closer to the ground, still he's running pretty fast. But the elephant takes very steady steps, big feet. And each step is really firmly planted on the ground. Elephants are pretty fast too, but we don't think of them. When we think of elephants, we don't think about them as being fast. Their characteristic is steady, heavy, ponderous, one step at a time. And this is a characteristic of firm practice. Not so much trying to get somewhere, but slowly and steadily planting each foot, each step, paying attention to each step.

[07:57]

And it's very good for us to have something to slow us down. If we're going too fast, it's good to have something to slow us down or to get in our way. What we like to do is have a clear path and just go. All of us like that. And I wish that life was like that. But As soon as we start to move, something falls in our path. Something blocks our path, or we stumble over something, or the road goes this way instead of that way. But we always want to go someplace. And when we enter Zen practice, maybe we want to gain some enlightenment, or to make some steady progress.

[09:32]

Progress is very important. But progress of Zen practice is not the same progress as the progress in our usual life. It's not the progress of going somewhere or getting something. It may be a progress just to be stopped. The best way to practice as a Zen student is not so much to think about ourself or about others, but to be interested in taking care of the dharma. When we first come to Zen practice, of course we're interested in ourself, doing something, naturally.

[10:34]

Our ego brings us to practice. And when we come to practice and really start practicing, then we offer up our ego to the practice. People say sometimes that we need to get rid of ego, but that's a kind of misrepresentation. You can't get rid of ego because there is no ego to get rid of. But as long as we feel that there's ego, we have to do something with it. So ego brings us to the path. It's looking for something. We're looking for something. And when we find a way to practice, when we find a way to engage, at some point,

[11:41]

we can let go of ourself and let go of others and just take care of the Dharma. What a relief. This is the sign of a Zen student. This is when someone who's practicing actually becomes a Zen student. And you can tell. when a person suddenly becomes a Zen student is they're no longer worried about their own problems. Their own problems are not the biggest problem in their life. The focus of Zen Student is on how to take care of the Dharma.

[12:47]

How to take care of truth. How to uphold truth. How to focus on reality. How to help others. When we come to that point, then our life slows down and we can find our true rhythm. Because at that point, we're no longer self-centered. When we're self-centered, we can't find our true rhythm. We're always looking for our true rhythm. Life has many rhythms. When we ignore our surroundings, and when we ignore the rhythms of the people around us, and the activity around us, we find ourselves out of step.

[14:03]

When we're only concentrated on our own rhythm, on our own desire, on our own needs and wants, we become out of step. out of sync with life, and we're always looking for it. We may not realize that we're looking for it, but when we drop our self, drop our self-centeredness, we fall right into sync with life itself. Then we don't have to worry so much. Problems, we have problems, but they're not problems of self-centeredness. Or if they are problems of self-centeredness, we can see that. We can recognize the problem. One important aspect of our practice, of our life, is to be able to recognize

[15:14]

when we are causing a problem. When we stop blaming the world for our problems, when we stop looking outside of ourself for the problem, that means that we're no longer self-centered. But as long as we keep finding the problem outside of ourself, it's a self-centered problem. And that should be a warning to us. Whenever we start finding fault with the people around us, that should be a warning that we're ignoring something. We're putting off getting to the root of the problem of self-centeredness. And when we realize

[16:17]

that self-centeredness is causing our problem, when we see that time after time, that's realization. You know the difference between whether or not a problem is being caused by outside circumstances or whether it's being caused by yourself. But whatever outside circumstances come to us, it's a combination of our circumstances and our self. How we respond. If we respond without self-centeredness, then we can see the situation as it is. If we always respond through self-centeredness, we can't see the situation as it really is.

[17:22]

So taking care of Dharma means to see everything as it really is very hard. And seeing things as it really is means without self-centeredness. means looking at life with a non-attached eye and putting our self in perspective with our surroundings. So as our life keeps changing, if we're in real sync with life, if we're keeping the rhythm of the life around us, being in rhythm with the life around us, then when we have changes, we are aware of changes.

[18:41]

We become aware of how circumstances around us change and that we change with them, with circumstances. And rather than trying to accomplish so much, we can slow down and see where we are. Because our life is so busy and we have so much to take care of, we tend to want to take care of things, which is response, responsibility, the ability to respond to things, which is good, but unless we can step firmly in each moment, we get carried away with the goal. So one of the biggest problems that we have is responding to circumstances but getting caught by circumstances and not taking care of each moment fully.

[20:05]

To be able to unfold each moment and live fully in each moment is to take care of the dharma. So for a Zen student, it's good to be slowed down.

[21:20]

We tend to get into a certain rhythm of taking care of things. And it's easy to ignore how we're doing something. Pretty soon we forget how we're doing something. And the how is the heart of doing. For instance, if you're a priest, when you become a priest, you have to take care of yourself in a different way than you're forced to take care of yourself in a different way because you wear all this cloth. And our tendency is to start to move in the usual way, but when you start to move in the usual way, you find that you get all tangled up in cloth, or you lose it, or you tear it off.

[22:32]

I remember when I was first ordained and I was walking up the dormitory steps at Tassajara, and I was going in my usual way, and my sleeve got caught on the banister, And as I raised my arm to walk up the stairs, I went... Oh! Then I had to not only sew it up, but realize that I had to be careful how I moved my arms. I had to be careful how I walked, and I was constantly pulling my occasion up to keep it in line with my chroma. And there's so much to take care of, just handling your clothes, learning how to handle your clothes, you become very, very aware, very focused on quality of movement. Sometimes we wonder, well, here are these ancient pieces of clothing.

[23:42]

Is it really worthwhile to wear them? I mean, isn't this the 20th century? But wearing the clothes really slows you down, really gives you something to work with that's very close to your body. And it's a whole new way of awareness and taking care of yourself. Sometimes a priest's activity is described as adjusting sleeves. What does a priest do all day long? They adjust their sleeves. And that's true. And it seems silly, but in the realm of awareness and the realm of quality of being,

[24:48]

It's very important. So we always say that our practice starts from our body, starts from where we live on each moment. And learning how to do something all over again, it's like learning how to walk, learning how to put on these clothes is like learning how to walk all over again. It's like if you sat in half lotus for 10 years and then you want to sit in full lotus, you have to change your legs and start all over again. Just like a beginner and your legs hurt in the same way as a beginner. So it's good to have these, some kind of beginning practices, after you've been practicing for a long time, to have some kind of practice that makes you into a beginner again.

[25:56]

But every day, our usual practice can be beginner's practice. This is the whole point. actually, of doing the same kind of practice over and over and over. If you see it as repetition, or as something that you're doing over and over, you miss the point. It becomes just some boring kind of monotonous waste of time. It is a waste of time. It's the most worst waste of time if you don't do every activity as a fresh new thing. So, getting to the goal is important, but it's not the most important thing.

[27:19]

If the goal is the most important thing, then, like the rabbit, if we're good at it, we can take it easy. But for someone who has such a difficult time, like us turtles, just each step, each step with our slow, difficult way, is the goal itself. For the turtle, each step is satisfaction. Because there's so much effort, so difficult, so slow. So the turtle just settles in the activity.

[28:30]

The elephant just settles in each step. Just takes care of each step. This is our way of quality. In each step, when each step is new, fresh, satisfying, then the goal moves to you. This is a very important point that we search or we reach for the goal but when we forget about reaching for the goal and just do what's in front of us over and over

[29:45]

The goal comes right up to where we are. The dharma moves to us. We think that we have to go get something, but when our activity is really sincere, without any grasping or rejecting or self-centeredness, or desire to get ahead, the Dharma moves right up to where we are. It just fills our hands. So, if we worry about ourself too much, or if we worry about others too much, we cause both ourselves and others a big problem.

[31:12]

But if we can just take care of the Dharma, we can forget ourselves, and the Dharma will just move right up to us, to our doorstep. And you know when that happens. We spend a lot of time worrying about ourselves. People who have lots of responsibility seem to be able to take on more and more. And some people who have no responsibility just worry and worry and worry. should look at that. There's no end to worry. There's no end to self-torment.

[32:15]

There's no end to Self-absorption. There's no way to figure it out. There's no way to figure out your problem. But if you just pay attention to the dharma, your problem of self will drop. and life will open itself up to you. Do you have a question?

[33:52]

You've been putting the emphasis on slow photoreceptors, but there's also a light step. Yeah, well, there are different steps. I did put some emphasis on slow and ponderous, but I don't mean slow and ponderous. I mean, that's of course an example, but in our busy life, we can't necessarily slow our life down. But how we take care of our busy life is to take care of each moment as its self. to take care of the circumstances of each moment, to focus on just that. We try to, sometimes we say, doing one thing at a time. One act samadhi.

[35:09]

Each moment's act at one time. Not to do two things at once. But all of our moments are more than one, include more than one thing. we're always doing more than one thing at one time. It's impossible not to, but the one thing includes all of the things that constitute this one thing. So, my experience is not to think about this when I'm doing this, or not to you can't help thinking about something in the future when you're doing something now but to give your attention to just this and then the next moment you can give your attention fully to what's appropriate for the next moment and then you can give your attention fully to what's appropriate in the next moment and that is the whole universe

[36:22]

This moment is the whole world. There's nothing outside of that. Moment after moment. How to enter that samadhi? When we sit tazen, we enter the samadhi which is concentration in a very narrow sense. But in the world, in our activity, our concentration becomes much wider. And not losing our samadhi is the most important thing. for our practice.

[37:26]

That's how we practice in the world, moment to moment, paying attention, realizing that our whole world is within our surroundings, without getting anxious. without allowing ourselves to fall into anxiety about the next moment. This moment, with all of its circumstances, is the most satisfying moment in the universe forever. This is how we are settled. How do we get settled?

[38:26]

How do we settle ourself in this dynamic, moving life, moment by moment? It's constantly changing, constantly falling out of balance. New factors are constantly entering into every moment, and we have to respond. And the world's getting busier and busier. And it's not slowing down. How are you going to do that? How are you going to walk through it with, as you say, a light step? Just one step at a time.

[39:29]

Just like the tortoise, one step at a time. But it's hard to do one step at a time when we have all those feelings, desires, and demands. So, Please sit, Borzazan. Can you tell me the difference between a fast force and a slow force? Fast or slow, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. fast if you look at a rock.

[40:32]

Would a fast tortoise and a slow tortoise have a race? It's okay if they do. But one tortoise may be faster than another. But the slow tortoise doesn't mind because they both win their race. It doesn't matter who gets there first. The slow tortoise is happy that the fast tortoise wins. If the slow tortoise is happy that the fast tortoise wins, then They both won the race.

[41:46]

While you were talking, the same story came to my mind. I'm a very black man. I think there's a story where some monks are seeing off another monk at Monastery Gate and the snow is full. And I don't know fully, I can't remember the full details. They're testing each other, and one of the monks says, where does the snow fall? And the one who is leaving, I think misunderstanding what you mean when you say it's not here, says, nowhere but here. The feeling, to me, is smart-ass.

[42:50]

Nowhere but here. And the comment from the send-off party was too many. What would you say? This here is life. Where is the snow falling? I can hear the airplane passing.

[43:55]

Where is the airplane? Well, in that case, what's a noise? A noise is the same as an airplane. Airplane is an idea. Noise is an idea. Snowflakes is an idea.

[44:56]

Right here is an idea. And too heavy is an idea. But wherever we are, and whatever is happening, it's the only world for us. Someone on the other side of this planet is living out a life, but you don't know anything about it, And sometime you may meet and you realize that you both were in this world.

[46:10]

Your world was your world. That person's world was that person's world. This airplane sound, is it inside my head? Yes. That's what it is. Inside my head.

[46:56]

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