I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagatas' words. Good evening. Well, first of all, I want to express my gratitude to all the students and to the staff of Tassajara for doing such a wonderful job of keeping the guest season going. Right now, we're just about in the middle, almost the middle of the guest season. And it's been rather cool up until now, so the weather's starting to change. And we're beginning to have our usual hot summer. And usually in the middle of practice period, there's a kind of, well, this is a practice period, summer practice period.

[01:10]

There's a kind of letdown. In the beginning, everybody's very eager, and there's a lot of inspiration. But as we get into our practice at some point things start coming apart a little bit and our enthusiasm wanes and our inspiration wanes and sometimes we're just going on routine. So every once in a while we have to renew our practice and we have to be reminded about what it is we're doing. Sometimes I'll talk to a student and the student will say, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. And if one student says this or two students say it, it's no doubt true of more students. So everyone gets into these highs and lows.

[02:21]

So tonight, I want to talk about, remind us of what our practice is and how we practice and what it is that we're doing, and hopefully give you some encouragement. Not that things are going badly. Actually, they're going quite well. There are, well, Students sometimes are interested in various things, various parts of practice. We say the three gems of Buddhism are Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

[03:26]

Buddha is enlightenment, enlightened practice, a personal practice. Dharma is study or the law of how things are. And Sangha is the community that practices, a community that practices in a narrow sense. Some people are interested in Buddha. But they're not necessarily interested in Dharma or Sangha. They're interested in their own personal enlightenment. But they're not interested in how to get there. And they're not particularly interested in the community.

[04:30]

But they'll practice one aspect. And some people are interested in Dharma. They're interested in study and intellectual aspect of Buddhism, which is quite vast and very interesting. But they have no particular desire for realization, and they're not particularly interested in community. They like to study a lot. And some people are interested in community. gregarious type of person who is interested in socializing. But they're not necessarily interested in studying or have no particular aspiration for realization. So we have a kind of mixture of people. Some have one tendency and others have another tendency.

[05:33]

For good practice, real practice, we should be interested in all three. We should be interested in realization, which is Buddha. We should be interested in understanding, which is Dharma. And we should be interested in the Sangha, which is our selfless practice. to have a well-rounded practice and as a sign or example of our realization, we should be interested in helping all other people to have realization. This is called maturity. Bodhisattva is one who is practicing in this way. And bodhisattva, meaning of bodhisattva is the mature person, person who has reached maturity, which means that their activity is not just self-centered, not just picking out the pieces that they prefer, but has given up the self-centered practice of finding their own realization simply

[07:01]

and has given herself or himself over to helping others to practice. So as students become more mature they help others to practice and this is what sustains Tassajara. factor of Tathagatagarbha is the students, the older members, whose main interest is in helping others to practice. So, there are five aspects of practice. that a student should be taking up and concentrated on in order to have a well-rounded practice.

[08:14]

And the first one is zazen. We all know about zazen. That's like the focal point of practice. But it's just one focal point of practice. Another focal point of practice is work practice. Work is not just work, it's practice. When we say, we might say to someone, you work in the kitchen? But you can also say, you practice in the kitchen? So work and practice are not two things. You can say it either way. Sometimes I think it's better to say, would you please go practice in the kitchen? rather than to say, please go work in the kitchen. Work is not just work. It's just work, but it's just practice.

[09:15]

And the third aspect is study. The fourth aspect is listening to the teacher's tesho. Tesho is like lecture. Lecture and tesho are somewhat similar, but a lecture is more like talking about a certain subject, whereas tesho is like expressing the teacher's understanding to the students. Either way, sometimes it's mixed. That is an aspect that one should be interested in. And another is having an interview with a teacher, a personal interview with a teacher.

[10:24]

So these are the five aspects. Having an interview with a teacher, listening to Tehsho, Study, work practice, and zazen. Those five. That's backwards. So, zazen is coming home. It's the harmonization of body, breath, and mind with the universe. It's beyond thinking and beyond gaining. It's just completely being yourself, true self, which is beyond our ego, getting beyond self-centeredness.

[11:32]

Instead of being self-centered, one becomes Buddha-centered. One is centered on Buddha, which is reality beyond self-centeredness. So this is what we do in Zazen. And we pay attention to our posture, pay attention to following breath, and we pay attention to not grasping what we prefer and not rejecting what we don't like. The two things that are always with us and that we are always making a choice about is what to hold on to and what to push away. In Zazen, we don't hold on to anything and we don't reject anything, but we allow everything to come and go as it comes, to come as it comes and go as it goes, and to sit right in the middle of

[12:44]

this non-dual aspect of our life. So this is called sitting in the midst of reality. Sometimes people say, my zazen is, I'm not getting anything out of zazen anymore. you know, I've lost something. I sit there but nothing happens. In the first place, Zazen is not my Zazen. If we think this is my Zazen, then our practice is off. This is Buddha's Zazen. This is Buddha's practice, not my practice. As long as we have this idea of my practice, then we want something.

[13:47]

This is in the realm of desire. Buddha says suffering is common to everyone and the biggest reason for suffering is desire. and that there is a way to get beyond it or to deal with it. And the way to deal with it is the Buddhist path. And sometimes in Buddhism we read we should get rid of desire because then we will be free of suffering. But the desire to get rid of desire is also a desire. But the desire to deal with desire is not called desire.

[14:58]

So in Buddhism, desire means the need for something outside of yourself. The need for something more than what you really need. That's being called being stuck in desire. But desire is an expression of our vitality, and to get rid of desire would be to lose our vitality. So it doesn't mean to get rid of something, but it means to shift desire. So that instead of desire being caught by objects, it's turned toward finding your way toward freedom. So when we turn desire toward finding the way to freedom or liberation, it's called way-seeking mind.

[16:06]

So a student of Dharma, Buddhism, develops way-seeking mind instead of seeking after objects of desire which put us into bondage. We become slaves of our desire. So we turn desire toward way-seeking mind, which is in the direction of liberating us from being caught by objects of desire. So in zazen, we have this strong desire for way-seeking mind, which in zazen becomes just sitting, totally sitting, whole body and mind as an offering to the universe. That's what zazen is. If you want something from it, your zazen will peter out.

[17:18]

you won't work. It's not a matter of getting something, it's a matter of how you offer yourself. So in order to revitalize your zazen practice, just give yourself up to zazen. Totally give yourself up. Which means, hold your back straight, pay attention to your posture, Let go of the tenseness in your body. Let your breath come down to this vital place and let your mind follow the breath and harmonize body, breath and mind with the universe as an offering. So this is the keystone of practice is that Practice is an offering.

[18:20]

Your life is an offering. It's not a gaining something. If you know how to offer, then everything will come to you. Everything you need will be supplied. As the man on TV says, I guarantee it. So this is the best way to revitalize your Zazen practice or to revitalize Buddha's Zazen practice. Thank you. It's very easy to let down your energy, let down your effort.

[19:22]

So we have to keep reminding each other of how to do zazen and how to keep up our effort and our energy and our inspiration over and over again. The second aspect is work practice. Work practice is an extension of zazen. As we extend our practice of zazen into the world, we pay attention to our breath, and of course we're always in different postures. You know, you're not walking cross-legged when you're outside of zendo, but all of our movements when our practice is concentrated and selfless is an aspect of zazen.

[20:28]

So there's sitting zazen, and there's walking zazen, and there's working zazen, and there's relating zazen, and there's idle chatter zazen. I always say to students when they ask, well, how do I practice in the world? Well, there are many ways to practice in the world, but one way to practice in the world is when you move, that you move with your breath. You should always be aware of breath. When we sit zazen, our breathing, I say should be, sometimes should means in the best circumstances, our breath should be low and deep.

[21:44]

Deep breathing rejuvenates our whole body and mind with oxygen. and depth. And it keeps our mind, keeps our attention very low so that we don't get pushed over by things. So at all times, whether we're sitting zazen or walking or working or whatever, we should be aware of our breath down here. And when we move, we should move in rhythm with our breathing. This is working zazen, the basis of working zazen, so that the body, breath, and mind are all in harmony with each other, within our activity. So if you're chopping carrots in the kitchen, it's not just the body, but the mind is focused, and the breath

[22:50]

You're working in harmony with the breathing. Breathing into the stroke. When you swim, you're doing the same thing. When you play a musical instrument, you're doing the same thing. You're always aware of breathing. So the same thing goes for working, walking, whatever you're doing. To be always centered and coming back to it. And when you lose the sense of that, to stop and come back to it. So often in our work we just keep going and we don't stop. But sometimes we should stop and just, where am I? Where am I is a great question. Where am I is a koan for everyone. You may think you know where you are, but where am I goes beyond where you think you know where you are. Oh, I'm in Tassajara.

[23:53]

Yes, but where really are you? Stop and breathe. Allow yourself to breathe and then go back to work again. Go back to your activity. So also in working, we are aware of everyone around us. who is working. We're aware of all of the objects around us when we're working so that we work in harmony with each other and with things. And we know how to put something down in relation to other things. When you put something down on the table, do you just put it down or do you see the arrangement of things on the table and place it so that it's in harmony with all the other things on the table.

[24:55]

This is what you should be thinking about when you put something down. Where am I putting this down in relation to everything else around me? That way you always are orienting yourself with your surroundings. And if you work with objects in that way, you can also work with people in that way. Where am I in relation to these people? And what's my role in relation to these people? Do I want to boss everybody around? Do I feel insecure? Do I feel, how do I feel? If you allow yourself to not have any, too much thought about it, and allow your intuition to work, you will find your place. And your place will be just right. you won't be standing out too much, and you won't be retreating too far back. So always, where is my place in relation to everyone else?

[26:00]

Without trying to be somewhere. The third aspect is study. study. In the old days at Tassajara we didn't do so much study and we would invite students to come and it was just work all day long. And in the last few years we've been making a real big effort to educate the students. and to give them some classes and talks and discussion groups and really make the summer practice more interesting, to use that word, for the students.

[27:03]

And I think it's really been a big help for everyone. But study has two aspects. study on the one hand means to study Buddhist texts and sutras and commentaries which help to focus you on practice, to study the ancestors of the past and how they thought about practice and dharma, Buddhism, life, that's necessary for us. But the other aspect of study is not study in an academic sense. Dogen Zenji says, to study Buddha Dharma is to study the self, and to study the self is to forget the self. So this aspect of study is studying the self, which means to do something over and over again.

[28:08]

This word study means do something over and over again. until understanding comes out from you. This is the true meaning of the word education, to bring forth something from you. But we think of education as stuffing something down your throat, to actually bring forth what's in you out of you. So this aspect of doing something over and over again, like sitting zazen every day, over and over, regardless of how you feel about it. It doesn't matter how you feel about it. If zazen depended on how you felt about it, no one would be sitting zazen. It has to, this kind of practice has to depend on, not on your feelings about it, but on your decision about doing something.

[29:10]

your intention you intend something and then you make a decision and then you carry out your decision no matter whether it's easy or hard or you like it or you don't like it this way you begin to understand who you are so in everyday practice either in zazen, work, study we always run up against something we don't like or something that's difficult. And this is the point where practice actually becomes very vital. And what seems like an obstacle becomes an opportunity. Every obstacle, so-called, is actually an opportunity. And if you don't see that, you miss practice. So there are many people who are still on the periphery, they don't understand what they're doing because they haven't addressed the difficulty. They haven't really gone into the difficulty, into the barrier.

[30:16]

And when you do that, then your practice becomes vital. You may have a hard time, but you engage it. You engage the problem you have. And then that's called vital practice. And if you really engage it, then you begin to understand yourself. This is called studying the self. You study anger, greed, delusion in all of its forms as they come up. You don't just let them go, but you engage them. And when it comes up, you see it as it is. Just being able to see it as it is. When anger comes up, as an example, to just allow it to come and observe it and take a step back.

[31:20]

Taking a step back, you can illuminate what's come up. So, we say observe, but observe, rather than say observe, it's better to say illuminate. you throw light on it. Observing is like a little too distant. In Buddhist practice, you know, to observe the feelings in the feelings, not to stand back too far, but within that feeling to throw light on it and illuminate it so that you're not avoiding anything. the less you avoid what comes up, the more quickly you will have some kind of realization. So this is another aspect of study.

[32:22]

So academic study is one way, but we'd say the first principle and the second principle. The first principle is actual engagement with these aspects of self. And the second principle is studying academically. So we're always in the first principle. Our practice is always within the first principle, or should be. And then the fourth aspect of practice is listening to talk, like this. I'm sorry, but and listening to what the teachers have to say, and then coming back and saying something, discussing that with the teacher. You know, if you sit in the lecture and the teacher is talking, and you say, well, I wonder about that, you know, but you don't do anything, then you just miss some opportunity.

[33:26]

So this is stimulating the student to ask questions and to dig further into the dharma. And then the next aspect is seeing the teacher privately in practice discussion or dhokasan or whatever. And one should be doing that regularly. Sometimes people say, well, who is the teacher? And I'm surprised at that because we know who our teachers are. We have lots of good teachers here. And it's good to keep engaging them in asking Dharma questions and questions about your practice. You should not avoid saying somebody because you don't know whether your practice is going straight or veering off somewhere.

[34:27]

It's very easy for practice to veer off somewhere, to take a wrong turn, and you think that you're doing it right, but you're not. So you should keep checking. Am I doing my practice right? I'm doing this. Is that right practice? You should keep checking. I've seen students who don't come to see a teacher and their practice eventually deteriorates. Because maybe they say, well, I don't think they know any more than I do. Maybe so. But if so, then you should go somewhere else. Why stick around? But it's good to check. Well, maybe they do know more than I do. There are very famous stories about this, about the student thinking that they know more than the teacher.

[35:32]

Sometimes they do. The teacher, you know, is the designated teacher. And when a student and a teacher have a relationship, sometimes the student is the teacher. And then the teacher is the teacher. And they go back and forth. But the teacher is always the teacher, and the student is always the student. But they allow that kind of interaction. That should always be happening. Otherwise, it's very hard to bring somebody up into maturity. So we shouldn't miss any of these five aspects. There are a lot of new people. And we really appreciate having people who come down for the summer, but who don't understand the five aspects of practice.

[36:46]

So I'm appealing to you, mostly, and to a lot of the regular students who favor one aspect of practice over another. If you favor one aspect of practice over another, it's good to make an effort to do the thing that you don't favor so much, just for your own benefit. All aspects of practice are interesting if you put yourself into them. This is the most important aspect, I think, thing about whether practice works or doesn't There's nothing here to get. There's really nothing here to get. This is just a place in the forest. There's some buildings and some people. There's nothing here.

[37:49]

Food. But there's really nothing here to get. The only thing there is here is a place where you can put yourself totally into it. That's the whole secret of practice. If you put yourself totally into it, everything will be interesting. Nothing will be uninteresting. If you don't put yourself into it, well, this is interesting, that's not so interesting, this is pretty good, that's not so good. This is called picking and choosing on the basis of dualistic mind. And so sometimes you're happy and sometimes you're sad. But if you totally put yourself into every aspect of your life, without reservation, everything will be interesting. And you'll be totally happy, even when you're unhappy, even when things are not going your way.

[38:52]

You'll have deep happiness, which is beyond the superficial happiness of liking and disliking. I want to read you Dogen Zenji's statement in his Genjo Koan. He says, to study the Buddha way is to study the self, and to study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the 10,000 things, dharmas. To be enlightened by the 10,000 things is to free one's body and mind and those of others. No trace of enlightenment remains and this traceless enlightenment is continued forever. This is the basis of our practice. This is the touchstone of our practice.

[39:56]

To basically let go of self-centeredness and to forget the self means to let go of self-centeredness. selfishness, body and mind dropped and realized that what our self is, is the whole universe. To act on the basis of big self rather than our small mind. So, Our attitude actually is to treat everyone as Buddha. When you meet someone, just treat them as Buddha. When you work with people, these are all Buddhas that you're working with.

[41:03]

When you're serving people, these are all Buddhas that you're serving. If you keep that in mind, then you realize who you are. You have self-realization. Buddha is serving Buddha. Buddha is taking care of Buddha. Buddha is meeting Buddha. You meet yourself wherever you turn. So even though you may get angry at somebody or feel various emotions and feelings, they're not controlling you.

[42:09]

You're always in control of things. You are the boss. Not that you boss everybody around, but Because you take responsibility, you're never lost. When you take responsibility, you are turning things, and things are turning you in a harmonious way. Do you have any questions?

[43:13]

Yes. balance? Yes. That seems like a beneficial form of syndrome. You think we shouldn't be beneficial because we're... Well I'm just wondering, you were talking about it in terms of being self-centric. Yes. be centered without being self-centered? Well, that's a good question. We should be centered. When you become centered, you know, we say, to settle the self on the self, right? So, you should be centered on Buddha. In order to find equanimity, you should be centered on Buddha.

[44:35]

Then that's not being self-centered. Does that make sense? Yeah, except the term Buddha is so expansive that it's hard for me to even imagine where that center is. Right. So, that's right. So it's so expansive. So don't think of it as expansive. Think of it as right here. Here's Buddha, right there. So center yourself on Buddha, right here. Buddha is not something different than you. Right here in Buddha, this is called the Sea of Ki. Something like the Key of C, but backwards. The ocean of rice paddies, as they say. The place where you find your true comfort.

[45:41]

So there's no need to be proud of it. Just center yourself there. What does it mean, fully express yourself? Fully express yourself. Full means without being partial. Fully express means without partiality. And without partiality means without self-centeredness. Thank you.

[46:43]

Thank you very much.

[46:46]

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