I vow to teach the truth of the Tathagata's words. Morning. The sasheen is almost over. but it's not over yet. So we always practice up to the last moment thoroughly. So I want to remind you that hopefully our life is like Sashin. I think our life is like sashin. If we live our life in a true sense, non-dualistic-ly, and paying attention to form and emptiness, we can live our life thoroughly

[01:20]

which is what Shikantaza is. We talk about our practice of Shikantaza. Shikantaza is to live our life thoroughly, moment by moment, without being caught by past and future. We must include past and future, which actually are non-existent, but we include them anyway. You know, there is no such thing as past and future. As a matter of fact, we cannot grasp the present either. is the wonderful story of Dashan, Master Dashan in China, Tokusan, who was a scholar of the Diamond Sutra.

[02:36]

And he had all the commentaries of the Diamond Sutra, which he carried on his back when he traveled. And he went looking for a Zen master because he heard about the Zen teachers and he was going to challenge them because he thought that because of his superior understanding of the Diamond Sutra, that he could show them where their mistakes lay. So in his travels, he got to the bottom of a mountain and there was an old woman who was selling tea cakes called Mind Refreshers. And so when he got to her, she said, what are you carrying in that on your back there?

[03:50]

And he said, I'm carrying the diamond, all the commentaries of the Diamond Sutra because I am a great scholar of the Diamond Sutra, something like that. And she said, oh, is that so? She says, well, you know what? She said, if you can answer my question, About the Diamond Sutra, I'll let you have a gratis mind refresher. And he says, okay. And she says, it says in the Diamond Sutra, past mind, future mind, and present mind cannot be grasped With what mind will you eat this mind refresher? So he was totally stumped. Couldn't answer her.

[04:52]

And he says, do you know where there's a Zen master around here? He missed the first one, so he had to... She said, well, if you go up the mountain there, there's a man named Lungtan, a monk named Lungtan, which means dragon pond. So he said, thank you very much. And so he went up the mountain and he saw this little old guy, this little nondescript looking Zen master monk. And he said, I'm looking for Lungtan. And the little monk said, well, this is what you get. What you see is what you get. So Lungton invited him in, and they talked, and they talked all night, all day and all night.

[06:00]

And they had a really good meeting. And it was time to go to bed. It got dark outside. So Lungton said, well, you're You can sleep in the hut over there, but you'll need a light, a lamp, to find your way. So he lit a lantern, a paper lantern, and handed it to Dushan. And as soon as Dushan reached for the lantern, long time, lot of light, and everything was in total darkness. And Dashaan had a great awakening. And later he went out in the backyard and burned all of his commentaries on the Diamond Sutra and became a fierce Zen master, very famous. Zen master who was known for his 30 blows if you say the right thing and 30 blows if you say the wrong thing.

[07:07]

So everybody wanted those 30 blows. As a matter of fact, I don't know why I started talking about this. It's not what I intended to talk about at all, but it all works. together with what I was going to say, which I can't remember. Well, it just so happens that it's really Buddha nature at work. I'm not doing anything. I was looking at a lecture of Suzuki Roshi's, some of his unpublished lectures. It's not very long. When I read this, I have to edit it as I go along, so I might stumble a little bit, but I'm pretty good at editing his lectures as I go along, though.

[08:23]

He's, it's very interesting. It's a Sesshin lecture from 1970. He says, Sesshin is almost over. In this Sesshin, we've been, we have learned many, many things. I want to say something about what I noticed. Here, we are each one of us cooking in turn. We work in the kitchen. And here in the zendo, we take care of this zendo by ourselves, mostly. I don't know what that means, mostly. Right now, we are carrying our stick in turn, the kiyosaku. And I want to explain how to eat brown rice. The more you chew it, you will have the taste of the brown rice. And in the zendo, you are food. You are rice and vegetables from various places. and we must cook ourselves some way.

[09:26]

That is what we actually are doing. I haven't realized how important to carry the stick is. I think that it's actually not only carrying the stick, but carrying the stick is how to cook ourselves. So you're putting all these elements together and putting it in the soup for this talk. We're talking about carrying the stick and cooking and eating brown rice and cooking ourselves in one paragraph. and then he talks about these things. At Tassajara at that time, well, at Zen Center at that time in the 70s, we were eating brown, we never ate white rice, we were always eating brown rice and dark bread, you know, healthy food, you know, it was wonderful. Now, they eat white rice, white bread, you know, we degenerated. I mean, Did you ever eat gruel bread?

[10:29]

Oh yeah, gruel bread. Sour gruel bread. We used to take the gruel and make it sour. That's how you get sourdough. And then we'd make wonderful sour gruel bread. You remember that, don't you? Naomi was at Tassajar for quite a while in the 70s. And we used to also make Tibetan barley bread, which was really heavy. I don't think it was Tibetan, they just called it Tibetan. Maybe it was, but we had these wonderful things in those days. One Thanksgiving, somebody went out and collected acorns and made acorn bread, which is really hard to make. You have to soak the acorns leach out all the poison and, you know, wonderful. We had good times in those days. Not like now.

[11:37]

We're all becoming really soft and, you know. We got the carrots soaked with kerosene that we had. Soaked with kerosene? Kerosene that spilled on the back of the van. So he says, it is actually to chew ourselves, but the effect is stronger than just chewing. At the present, oh boy, he's talking about chewing, he's talking about the kiyosaku all at the same time. So I have to be careful how I edit this. It is actually to chew ourselves, but the effect is stronger than just chewing. At the moment you get a slap from the kiyosaku, you die in the past life and appear in a new world. So this is very interesting.

[12:37]

The kiyosaku, we say, what's the point of getting hit with a kiyosaku, just a stick? My father used to hit me all the time and so I don't wanna hear the stick But actually, if this stick is used in the right way, you disappear, the person with the stick disappears, and there's only emptiness. That's the real purpose of kiyosaku. You disappear in this moment and reappear in the next as a new person. This is like kyogen. when he was sweeping the monument and this little stone hit the piece of bamboo and there was a little crack and he woke up. This is a very famous, very well-known wake-up story.

[13:43]

The stone hit a piece of bamboo and went crack and his mind opened up. He entered a new he was totally reborn. His old life dropped away and he was totally reborn. So the stick has that feeling. You're sitting there and you're drowsy or you know your legs hurt and you need something because you're stuck in present mind and then BAM! old life drops away and you arise as a new person in this moment, in emptiness. That's the purpose of the Kiyosaku. I call it the wake-up stick. We didn't used to call it anything, we just go around hitting everybody. But people, we don't do that much anymore because, this is America, because you might get sued if you hit somebody in the wrong place.

[14:45]

or people don't like it, or for various reasons. People don't sleep as much as they used to, actually. I mean, at least not obviously. Probably the food. Probably the food, yeah. Lighter food. So he's talking about this. He says, when you get a slap, It's totally to chew ourselves, but the effect is stronger than just chewing. And then I think the way this is, the paragraphs are not true. I think that belongs to the other paragraph. At the moment you get a slap, you die in the past life and appear in the new world. We say form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Yoshimura sensei, who was one of our teachers at that time, explained the other day about sokuze kusokuze shiki.

[15:50]

That means form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Sokuze means the experience that is conversion. Conversion without changing anything. To convert one thing to another is sokuze. So form is converted to emptiness, emptiness is form. When you get a slap with the kyusaku, at that moment, a big conversion takes place in your practice. Your experience, your practice will change at that moment. Anyway, you have that kind of feeling when you get a slap from the stick. When you're sleepy, you wake up. That is conversion. By repeating this kind of conversion, many times we can practice our way. That is to realize our teaching of form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Zeke Roshi is always talking about this Heart Sutra.

[16:51]

I think that almost all of his lectures are based on understanding of the Heart Sutra, commentaries on it, without saying so, as much. So, this is, tokusan, blowing out the light, is the same as getting the slap with the kiyosaku. It's the same as kyogens. pebble hitting the bamboo and waking up. Something suddenly happens and an old person drops off, a new person appears. This is practice of Shikantaza. This is what we mean by Shikantaza. An old moment drops off, a new person appears. Enlightenment is entering a new moment, being born in a new moment in emptiness.

[17:57]

The whole world, the whole universe is empty. And then you begin your fantasy again. But the fantasy drops off. and you're just naked in reality at that moment. Dogen Zenji talks about sneezing. He says a good hearty sneeze is like waking up in reality because when you go, then there's just nothing followed by nothing. And then the fantasy starts again. Our dream, we enter the dream. But for that moment, it's a moment of enlightenment. That's why they used to use snuff in the olden days. No, I'm only kidding.

[19:01]

So form is emptiness is when you get a slap and awaken in nothing, nothingness, where there is no you, no zendo, no black cushion. Whack. That is emptiness. And from that emptiness, you will start a new practice. Your practice will be renewed by that. Our life should be like this. Whatever happens to us, on that occasion, you must stand and live a quite refreshed life. Even though, this is a strange kind of sentence. I have to reinterpret it. Even though the cook is good, Firewood cannot be a good dish. Even though you have a good cook, you can't make firewood into a good dish. So if you stick to too much idea of yourself, that is like firewood, a log or a pencil or a stone in miso soup. In other words, it's something that can't be digested.

[20:13]

something sticking. There has to be something malleable, but this is interesting though. Well, So it's like when you stick too much to yourself, whatever you do is tainted in some way. It's tainted and useless. So when you forget about yourself, or when you are ready to cook, then real practice will take place.

[21:18]

So the moment you enter the zendo, you should forget everything you have and be ready to begin or ready to start a new life. This is how various teachers in China or in Japan explain emptiness is form and form is emptiness. You are you, even though you wake up. Without changing yourself to have a new meaning of life, and to be involved in new life completely is how form becomes emptiness. So by forgetting yourself, you enter into new life, moment by moment. Forgetting the old self, entering the new self. This firewood actually looks like, you know, firewood becomes ash, but ash does not return to firewood again. I think Dogen is saying, in one sense, firewood is exactly what it is on this moment.

[22:30]

Ash is exactly what it is on this moment. Ash is not carrying firewood around on its back. It's just being what it is on this moment, without any baggage. I remember reading one time Edward Kanze's translation of something in Buddhism. He said, a monk delights in letting go. And that's always stuck with me. A monk delights in letting go. It means that on each moment, you let go. You don't hold on to anything. Most of our problems come from hanging on to something. We hang on, we get resentments, we have caught, we attach to things, and we fantasize, and we get caught by all these things.

[23:38]

And the more we hold on to them, the more they hold on to us. So whenever I grab something, it also has us. And whatever I take hold of shapes me. Whenever I take hold of it, it shapes me. If I take hold of this glass of water, this glass of water is telling me what to do in some way. It's influencing me. I go like this, and I think, I am drinking a glass of water, but the glass, the cup, and the water are influencing me to do something. So I have this, but it also has me, because if I let go of it, so It tells me what to do. It says, put me down carefully or you're going to get wet. So, letting go on each moment. This is Shikhandaza. Letting go on each moment and arising fresh and unencumbered on each moment.

[24:42]

And this is also Zazen. Letting go. If we hang on to any state of mind in Zazen, we're caught by it. So that's why we say, let everything come up. If you impress something, we're caught by it. If you don't want it, you're caught by it. And if you do want it, you're caught by it. We just let everything come up as it comes and let it go as it goes. Emptiness and there's no self. So being reborn as a no-self on each moment by letting go of past self on each moment. Shikantaza. It's all there is to practice, a non-gaining practice. As soon as you want to gain something, you're caught by what you want to gain. And whatever it is that you want to gain is far less or far less valuable than nothing.

[25:45]

So without changing yourself, nothing changes, right? Everything changes by itself. Without changing yourself to have a new meaning in life and be involved in a new life completely is how form becomes emptiness. And when we become very grateful for the emptiness, which happens to us, not because of someone who carries a stick, but because of your sincerity, We don't know why, but anyway, sometimes that kind of great experience will happen to us. You will say, this is because of this or because of that. That understanding is already dead understanding instead of vivid, real understanding of emptiness. In this way, the old teachers explained emptiness. Emptiness is something that, from that emptiness, like a flash of Like a flash, everything is quite new will appear.

[26:58]

A flash of emptiness is you or I or grain or vegetables from various places. That is just a flash of emptiness. This kind of clear, vivid understanding will happen under the slap, whoosh. It is something which happens to you even though you don't expect it. When you put your hands together, like when you put your hands together, When you want to get the stick, you put your hands in gassho. When you put your hands together, you're like this. And so we don't know, but it means like this. And when you get it, crack. All of a sudden you become refreshed and you become a new person. Maybe in that way, I think it may be a very good idea if we carry the stick in turn and give ourself a chance to make conversion. By conversion, I don't mean from Christianity to Buddhism, or from Buddhism to Christianity. That is, especially this period, when I listened to the slap and I saw you quite refreshed.

[28:03]

Oh, this is form is emptiness. And at the same time, emptiness is form. And a new form appears under the slap. So we're doing a very good job. The kitchen is extended to the zendo, and we eat brown rice from our kitchen. and Zendo practice is extended to the kitchen and I think our practice is almost complete. I'm so happy to find out this point in our practice. I hope you will continue our practice without being caught by some elusive idea about what practice is. So, I just happened to run across this and it seemed to be pertinent for our present situation. I also want to say something about, you know, this afternoon we'll go back to our

[29:17]

I don't want to say go back. I take that back. We will go forward to a new life from our Sashin. We will not go back to our old life. And so I think we should look forward. I hope we can look forward to entering a new life from Sashin. Sashin is kind of like purifying our life and going through a narrow, a totally wide entry, kind of, and then we enter a new world. We leave behind the old world, enter the new world, purified in some way. So, and also, toward the end of the year, New Year is, Suzuki Roshi talked about what they do in New Years, which is far more radical than what we ever even dream of doing.

[30:42]

They get new furniture, new tatamis, new everything. Everything is cleaned thoroughly and rehabilitated. All your debts are paid off. And those debts that are not paid off are forgiven. And it creates certain kinds of relationships with people. But New Year's a big deal. What I like, the idea I like is that when we enter the new year, we like to enter it as a feeling of renewal, leaving the old stuff behind. And how do we enter the new year with a feeling of renewal? I think it's one way that would really make me feel good is if people who have

[31:47]

old stuff with each other would realize, what is it that's in me that is causing people to react to me in the way they do? What is it that I am causing? What is it that I am setting up that is causing people to react to me the way they do? And meditate on that and then come to some understanding with people. And I think it's also very good to forgive people for what problems that have come up for you that involve other people. You know, forgiveness is like letting go of that which captivates us.

[32:58]

Because when we have contentious relationships, we're caught by that. We're caught by our anger or our resentments or whatever. So to forgive is to release ourself. as well as the other person. So I suggest thinking about that. To carry old stuff into the new year, I feel this kind of tainted So I wanted to also say that, as you know, I'm going to go to Tassajara in January to lead the practice period, which will end on April 3rd.

[34:12]

I'll be back for a week or so. at the end of January and a week or so at the end of February. But since we haven't worked out the schedule, I can't say exactly what that is, that will be. But I haven't led a practice period, I don't think, since 95. I think that was the last one when I was abbot at Zen Center. In a way, I said that I would do this some time ago, and then the opportunity came, and I said, okay, and I'm looking forward to doing that, but I'm also feeling some regret about not being here. So, it's a little bit mixed. But I would really, I know that

[35:16]

everyone will take care of the practice in the way we've been used to doing it. So I don't really have any problem with that. I have total confidence that things will run fine whether I'm here or not. Sometimes things work better when I'm not. I used to do practice periods every year from 97, 87, 88 to 97 when I was Abbott. So I did practice period every year. And everything ran very well. Practice leaders took care of things. It wasn't as well, we didn't have as many practice leaders in those days. So, but things worked very well. And I never worried about what was going on. But there were a lot of, I think things went very well.

[36:23]

And I was very happy that the way all the members took care of the place and kept the practice going. And sometimes I felt, well, fine, I don't even need to be around. I felt that confident. And I certainly do feel that confident now. We have even more experienced practice leaders. And the Sangha, when I, We have designated practice leaders, but actually we have many more practice leaders than what's designated. We have such a mature Sangha in so many ways, and many, many people who are members who are very mature and lead the practice without being called practice leaders. So I feel very confident in our practice.

[37:25]

One of the things I wanted to do was have a little, was open it up so people could talk about Sashane or talk about, you know, but we don't have time. I spoke too much, too long. Sorry about that. But if you have a question or two, I'd be happy to address that. James. Somehow to me, consciousness seems really different from everything else. It seems kind of the fundamental ground. Yes, it's the fundamental ground. That's exactly what it is. And I'm, but it's lumped in with the other, you know, skandhas.

[38:49]

But it seems different to me. Different than what? Than like thought. Well, the Heart Sutra includes everything. So whatever you want to say about it, it's included in one way or another. Everything's included. And it's a view of everything. What is that thing in science? A theory of everything. A view of everything. from the point of view of emptiness and form.

[39:55]

But it's not a theory. We don't call it a theory. There is something that you read about that he said When you're thinking that this happened because of that and that because of this, that's a dead understanding, that's old and stale and it's not present. So I was thinking psychology, you know, a lot of times people go to therapy for example, they want to figure out why they are the way they are now, did it happen because of this or that in the past. So, is he saying that that's not useful or is he saying that we overanalyze it about analyzing something? He's saying this is different than that. He's not saying that's wrong. He's saying this is different than that. See, this is like without the burden of history, boom, just

[41:02]

this is just. You know, we talk about thusness. Things exist as thusness, even though there is such a thing as history. And so things just as they are, just as they are right now. That's the point. But it arises just as it is right now, with everything else. So this universe, Everything in the universe is arising right now, as it is. And then the next moment, it's all arising right now. Well, there's history and so forth, but if you, it's like putting that aside, right? Just this. Things are humble.

[42:23]

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