I promise it's the truth that does not deserve this. Good morning. Good morning. This morning I wanted to talk about naturalness, what is being natural, and unconsciousness, and right effort. Sometimes it's not so clear what we mean by natural or nature. People contrast Western views of nature and Eastern views of nature patriarchal views of nature, matriarchal views of nature.

[01:03]

The western or patriarchal view of nature is that nature is something to be tamed or mastered. by reason or morality. And this is they call religion or civilization. And then people say the Eastern view, or maybe also the matriarchal view, is that nature is not something to be struggled against, but to harmonize with So how do we harmonize with nature's harmony? But that's the point.

[02:12]

How do we harmonize with nature's harmony? And that can be interpreted in many different ways. And sometimes that's interpreted as kind of flowing with our natural inclinations or our natural instincts, doing what we feel like doing or pursuing our different wants or likes. the objects of our wishes are always changing. And so we can interpret naturalness as going after those different objects as they change. Sometimes interpreted as sort of living in the moment without making any commitments to the future or making any plans.

[03:22]

Sort of a laissez-faire or let it be. Sometimes people call that beat scent. The way that that fits with the a matriarchal religion, according to some sources, and I'm not going to stick to what I'm going to say now, so don't try to pin me down to it, is that, you know, matriarchal religion was associated to fertility rites, and so that there was practices like, you know, group sex as part of the temple ritual. You know, Suzuki Roshi, when he...

[04:37]

when he, in the 60s, 50s and 60s, he was always dealing with this question, because people were very much into sort of, you know, experimenting and drugs and sex and free love and all of that. And in a way, you know, people were probably coming up with the same problems that, you know, maybe we're still dealing with. And new people that come into Zen deal with in terms of, you know, all the form, you know, and strictness of Zen. And feeling, oh, this is not so natural, you know, it's kind of formal, and I'm tight, and so on. even to patriarchal, you know, this is kind of men's stuff, you know, they practice rigidly or formally. But, you know, what we mean by naturalness in Zen is not so easy.

[05:45]

Or it's not, you know, sometimes you confuse what's the ordinary mind and the ordinary mind in Zen. Because for a plant or for a stone, you know, to be natural, it's very easy to be natural for a plant or a stone. But for us, it's not so easy. And it's not so easy to be clear about what it is. What being natural is. What is it? So the way Suzuki Roshi defined naturalness is as an activity based on nothingness. So to be natural is to live freely within that interface between form and no-form, or neither form nor formlessness.

[06:47]

or living within form but remaining rooted in emptiness so that we're not attached to form. You know, this is not so easy because our ordinary mind tends to get stuck in form or in desire. We want things a certain way. or we want to get rid of, you know, not having any form. So we want certain forms a certain way or we don't want any forms at all. So at this point nothingness doesn't appear to exist or be an aspect of nature any longer. So at that point nature is just human nature. and not Buddha nature.

[07:49]

So if we're able to remain rooted in emptiness within our activity, then we feel natural. And that's not so easy to do. So it's like, right now, do I feel natural giving this talk? So, so. A little bit. So it's not so easy. So, so ... Buddhism or Zen, you know, is based on Zazen, and Zazen is based on establishing ourselves in emptiness. So that's really the focus of the practice. And not so much the worship of nature, although then we can have great joy in celebrating all the different forms, natural forms as they arise and fall.

[09:08]

Another way in which we can think of naturalness is as that which is unconscious or beyond consciousness. We say the seventh consciousness or the ninth consciousness is consciousness beyond consciousness or the Heart Sutra now we announce it as wisdom beyond wisdom. So, you know, like in Zazen, we're not sure whether we are asleep or whether we are awake. Or if we look at somebody doing Zazen, what are you doing? It's not clear if they're asleep or they're awake. Just like taking a nap, you know, when you're... you feel sleepy, or you haven't slept that much, or you're just plain tired, it's not different than zazen.

[10:23]

You know, and scientists, when they have connected people meditating to the electrode, but they saw that the brain wave in Zazen is the alpha wave and that's the same wave then right before sleep. So you know sometimes you know we get up early to do Zazen and then I go to work and if the night before I stayed up late because of forth then I'm gonna be sleeping during the day and sometimes I have to struggle to stay awake especially when I'm sometimes I've seen clients and so people may look at that and say oh you know what's the use you know

[11:32]

What's the use of getting up early to do a practice which is a practice of waking up if then you're going to be falling asleep? And that's because it's not so easy to see the underlying emptiness that's the background of the duality of being asleep or being awake. So strictly speaking, you know, it's not about being awake or being asleep. So the wakefulness that we talk about is a wakefulness that includes sleep. You know, there's this story of Rinzai and his teacher. And one time, I forget Rinzai's teacher's name, but he was coming into the zendo, and it was in Sashin. And Rinzai was just laying across the mat, sleeping. And the head student was sitting,

[12:37]

the front seat, you know, very upright. And so he went up to the head student and hit him. Instead of hitting Rinzai, he went and hit the head student. So, you would have thought normally, right, that he would have hit Rinzai, what are you doing, you're sleeping, you're supposed to be sitting zazen, and that the head student, you know, would be a model of sitting upright and sitting zazen. So it's not so clear. One time I remember there was somebody from Sensen who came to give a lecture and I was dosing off in Zazen during the lecture and he was very upset.

[13:43]

He was about to yell at me. So I thought, well, if Rinzai's teacher would have seen him, he would have hit him and not me. Sometimes, it used to be not so much anymore, but sometimes people from Zen center would come here as if kind of coming down the mountain to a lay, just a lay center, you know, people here practice, you know. And then people going from here to Zen Zen is like, well, now we're going to the real practice, you know, going up the mountain, you know, from this village down below. That may be so, but it's also true that going down the mountain is also going up the mountain, and going up the mountain is also coming down, or going down.

[14:56]

So Sufi Rosha used to say also that we should establish a practice where there's no practice and no enlightenment. So sasana is kind of that place beyond thinking and beyond consciousness. And so the beginner's mind or original mind is beyond thinking and non-thinking, beyond practice and no practice, beyond delusion and enlightenment and beyond being asleep and being awake. And he says, even to have a good thing in your mind is not so good. Buddha sometimes said, you should be like this. You ought not to be like that. But to have what he says in your mind is not so good.

[16:08]

It is a kind of burden for you. And you may not actually feel so good. In fact, to harbor some ill will may even be better than to have some idea in your mind of what is good or what you ought to do. That's pretty striking. having ill will is better than having an idea of what's good. So it's hard to think what he's talking about, that it's hard to have composure if we have some idea of what we ought to be doing or what other people ought to be doing. or we have some grind about some cause, even if maybe a just cause. But if we have some axe to grind about it, then it's not so easy to retain our composure.

[17:10]

So it's a kind of caution to be careful about developing a spiritual ego about how things should be or what the true dharma is and so forth. You know, even to describe the practice as one of becoming a better person or wanting to be a better person, or even to say that we're practicing to transform delusion into enlightenment or greed into kindness or hate into love and so on, from this point of view sort of falls short of the mark. And Taisen Deshimaru says that the way transforms us. So we don't transform the way or we don't transform our delusion into enlightenment. It's just that the way transforms us naturally or unconsciously without us having to really have some idea of what it is that we're doing.

[18:21]

So we're just doing it. So that's just like, you know, in Zazen if we try to repress our thoughts and we're bothered by our thoughts and want to have some clear mind and we do that by trying to, you know, concentrate too rigidly by repressing, you know, everything, all our thoughts that are coming up so we can have an empty mind. It doesn't work that way and we just get tense and rigid and it hurts more. So gradually the mind becomes clear, but not so much by us making a direct attempt to make that happen. Just like in Sesshin. In Sesshin, day after day, gradually, as we go on sitting, we sort of settle down and become clearer.

[19:28]

But we don't have to try so hard for that to happen. We just sit. So concentration is not based so much on willpower. you know, forget who it was, somebody used to say, a Zen teacher, that our effort is, the place where we are is completely beyond our effort. So there's this kind of trust that we need to have, kind of letting go and just trusting the practice, trusting the emptiness of our mind. So, and being rooted in emptiness then is what gives our effort a natural quality to it.

[20:29]

So, say effortless effort. Otherwise, you know, our effort becomes kind of rigid or obsessive and we don't have so much freedom in it. And then people look at us and think, oh, you're so formal. Relax, loosen up. So, with that kind of effort, there's not much need to attain anything or achieve anything. And so we just sit, just for the sake of it. And then if we translate that into our ordinary lives, then that's like burdening ourselves completely in our activity, whatever it is that we're doing.

[21:38]

And that's not so easy to do. I struggle sometimes with you know, coming back home after work. And so I've, you know, I've come back at rush hour and have to be in that traffic, you know, after working all day. And then you feel, well, I have a right to feel tired and, you know, upset or frustrated by the traffic. And then you get home, and then you feel like, well, I'd like to relax now, or be able to have some recreation, or be able to watch the news. And then my three-year-old wants to play with me, or there's some dishes to wash, or there's some laundry to do, or there's just more work waiting. And so for a while I used to fight that.

[22:42]

And I sort of want to avoid it or not deal with it or have some time for myself or something like that. And gradually I've been realizing that I have to just plunge into it. So in a way it's like sashimi. just this period, and then there's the next period, and then there's the next period. And if you look at it, if you think of it, you count all the different periods, all the different hours, and you count all the different days, you can't get through it. But if you do one thing at a time, then actually it's not so easy, and you find that you have sort of this renewable source of energy. So, the daily life is the same thing, just not resisting the next thing that's in front of you.

[23:43]

So, that's what I've been trying to practice these days. So that's all I have to say. If you have something to say or if you have any questions, let's open it up now. or what is it that sort of carried you through to the way you're approaching that time of day now?

[25:13]

Well, you see, that's the question, you know, what is natural? What looks natural from one perspective doesn't look natural from another perspective. So that, yes, it is natural, but That may be, at least in myself, I've noticed that. It's the difference between burning yourself out and burning out, being burned out, right? Which we use the same, the American expression, being burned out, right? So it's close, but it's not the same. So you're burned out, It's because, you know, we, yes, the body may be tired, that's true, but that's also a function of our minds, right? So, in myself, I noticed that, you know, that there's a certain kind of a habit of getting into thinking about things in a certain way, like the traffic.

[26:29]

Or like getting home and doing this or doing that So it may be natural, but it's then it's it may be natural, but it's it's a problem You know because if I start resisting doing that and what else am I going to do? So I guess the point okay, you watch the news and then what? So if I found if I don't resist that, and I just plunge myself into the next thing, that then I feel more natural, or freer, or there's more harmony that gets created. Yes? I wanted to ask you, I guess about on the other side of the coin, being in the zendo, say like in a sashim, and learning a new form.

[27:37]

And what I want to ask you is how do you help yourself at that place? Do you understand what I'm saying? How do you help yourself be in the moment? Is there something concrete that you do to help yourself be in the moment where you don't quite and you're taking in a lot of information. Yeah. Well, so my natural tendency is either to sometimes to get distracted, you know, or to get obsessive, you know, about, you know, wiping out every little detail, you know, so that you don't miss anything and you don't do anything wrong. So it's kind of that, again, it's that sort of that racer's edge of being right there in the middle between, you know, concentrating and asserting yourself to be in the moment and yet at the same time letting go and being able to improvise.

[28:55]

And I'm wondering, I guess what I'm wondering is, I don't quite know how to ask this, is do you, is there anything that if you like, do you, Well, I think you just try to concentrate and you can focus on your breath or concentrate in the activity, whatever it is that you're doing. But gradually, I think, through the practice, your concentration becomes more natural. you know, it doesn't have to be so forced. So that's what I was saying, that it's not totally a function of willpower. It looks that way, but it's not totally that, because we're also harmonizing with the waves of being able to let go, to give yourself to the circumstances, and have the circumstances also help you be concentrated.

[29:58]

And then sometimes you won't be concentrated. You will be distracted. You will be unconscious. You're not dreaming about something else or somewhere else. And that's okay too. Yes. The problem is identifying with the objective of the effort. The problem is not the obsession of detail. The problem is presuming that the effort that one is obsessively engaged in is going to produce the result that one already predestines or foresees. long and hard enough, the universe will open.

[31:13]

But that doesn't mean it's going to open up where you were knocking. And the naturalness is understanding that the door isn't exactly where you're banging. And I think that surprised to realize that the result you get is much better than the one you sought. Yeah, I think it's true what you're saying, and there's also a way in which you get, and it is tied to the result, to want to be, like what you're saying, of wanting to do it right, or be good.

[32:26]

be a good boy or a good girl in relation to the teacher or in relationship to other students and so on. I want to do what everybody else is doing and there's a kind of emotional drive there that I think does lead you to become obsessed with the effort in trying to doing it just right, or getting all the details involved, like in a ceremony, for example, or trying to get every little thing or piece of instruction that the teacher may be saying about, well, how to do this or how to do that. Right, but I think what Suzuki was saying is that, and I think he may be, and I may be talking about the same thing, I'm just getting trampled on the words, but that the good is manifested not by having this idea of what the good is.

[34:02]

Right. Yes? I have a little problem with one of the things that you said, and that's about the alpha waves in sleep, because my memory, I don't know if Valerie's here, but she probably remembers more about that than what I've read, that that is true about the alpha wave, or you know, there's been evidence of that, but that when they measured brain waves, they've only measured very, very few out of, you know, I don't know what complexity or numbers that they expect are there, And to pick and say, well, because there's A here and A here, it's the same thing or the same experience. I don't, you know, just from the base of simple physiology, think that that makes it the same thing. And I remember reading that, you know, years and years ago.

[35:05]

It bothered me then, and it still bothers me. that I have to share. Sure. Well, I mean, even, I think, I would still say what I said, even without that piece of evidence from science, you know, I still feel that there's a similarity between, you know, it's the kind of, when you just, and I'm talking about just sleeping, you know, not to sort of sleep as a kind of, you know, escape or a laziness or something like that. That when you plunge, when you sleep, you kind of plunge into this unconsciousness also, into this it, you know, which is it. And then when you wake up, you know, you're refreshed. similar feeling to getting up from Zazen.

[36:06]

I'm still struggling with the experience of having fallen asleep during Zazen and dreaming I was doing Zazen and then waking up and trying to figure out where the edge of reality is when you realize, yes, I'm sitting here doing Zazen and I've been dreaming I've been doing Zazen sound asleep. Well, you know, dreaming and sleeping are not the same. Right? So, dreaming is something else. And, you know, male often dozes off also in Zazen. I don't know if you noticed that. I think this business about focusing on the effort rather than on the end is really key. And even on treating Zazen as refreshing. Because one time when I sat in all day session, I felt absolutely wonderful at the end.

[37:10]

And I had this entire construction about what happened in sessions. And the next time I sat, I was extremely cranky at the end. And then the next day, I thought, well, it's just the first day. And I was even crankier the second day. And then I started getting obsessive about, well, would you do this or that or the other? And I just realized it's kind of like life, you know, I might be cranky, I might be this, I might be that. And it's this business about where you're knocking, and thinking that door's going to open. Who knows? You know, it's much more subtle and pervasive in your life, rather than, you know, a sensation from X to Y, and Z time, and I'm wonderful, you know, it's more like that. Right. I think some time later I was less cranky, but three days later.

[38:12]

But, you know, then there's that faith in the emptiness of our mind, that it's deeper than the crankiness, or does this feel good, does this feel bad, and that's there when we're both in pain, I just got off an airplane from living with the Amish and I've done that for about seven years now. Though I think the Amish culture is very different, maybe more dramatically different than the Amish culture in some ways, what I see they do is that they are very present in whatever they're doing, in their honor, in every step, in the stories they're doing, in the stuff, in the field, whatever.

[39:19]

And what I notice is that then that spirit of pain of effort in the moment. Whatever they do is imbued with that. So that if you see Amish land, that's not just hard work or effort in the willful, real way that I know how to effort. So I'm always struck that the two cultures seem so different, but I can learn the same lessons. I'm not familiar with that group. The Amish? No. They still live the 19th century life. They don't require this electricity. the amount of leisure time has increased significantly rather than decreased.

[40:49]

And it might have something to do with that attitude that you were mentioning, that you were saying about going into the dictionary. Something that we have to learn how we approach our lives. So you're saying, even though people are, you would think they're more busy, they actually have more leisure time?

[41:13]

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