I vow to chase the truth until I find it's source. Good morning. Good morning. It's really nice to be here at Berkeley again. I always feel like I'm coming home when I come to Berkeley. Because this is where I began to sit. Well, actually, not this Zendo. The Dwight Way Zendo. It's where I first began to sit. And I see that I have to build balconies or something. This zendo seems so spacious when it's built. It's amazing. Isn't it nice to see all of your old friends and people like that? Have I spoken here since we went to Japan?

[01:02]

I don't think so. No. A group of us went to Japan to practice at Rinzō-in, Suzuki Roshi's home temple, where his son, Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi, is now the abbot, including some people from Berkeley's endo. I hope we'll do it again sometime. It's lots of fun. One of the things that happened, Hoichiro Ishii is an artist, he's a potter. He has lots of artist friends. And one of the things he did while we were there was on one of our days off, 4-9 day when we weren't doing zazen, he took us to a museum in the nearby city of Shizuoka, where a national treasure textile dyer where there was a museum dedicated to his work and his collection of folk art.

[02:03]

And one of the pieces I saw there that caught my attention was All in Shades of Blue. And it had these very graceful, it was five or six panels, and it had these very graceful figures. And I began to realize, oh, these were hiragana. You know, the The way that Japanese write the sounds of their language, they don't have an alphabet, they have a syllabary. Each character is a sound, is a syllable rather than consonants and vowels. And so I realized that there was something right in there. And I saw again what looked much like the same thing, multicolored. And I said to Oichi Roshi, what is that? He said, oh, that's Kobo Daishi's poem. I said, oh, what's it about? It's about transiency. And that's about, I mean, he rattled it off from memory in Japanese.

[03:09]

But I didn't find out so much more about it until I got back. When I selected, there were several different catalogs at the gift counter, so when I selected the catalog, I looked carefully to be sure that was one of the things in the one that I selected, because I really liked it. There was something about it that kind of caught me. And I came home. And I took this to Suzuki Okusan at Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi's widow who lives with us there in the city. And I said, can you translate this poem for me? She said, oh, that's Kobo Daishi's poem. Every kindergarten student in Japan learns this. Kobo Daishi was a great teacher of... I think 17th century. I'm not sure. No, earlier. He was very early. Yeah, he was... Maybe 6th century.

[04:14]

Anyhow, he invented hiragana. He invented this way of writing the sounds of the Japanese language. And this poem is used in kindergarten to teach, to begin to teach children how to use this writing system. And again, she quoted it from memory. And I said, well, can you translate it for me? And she did. And it's... I could probably do it from memory, but maybe I'll look at my notes to be sure. It means, today fragrant, but fall down rose. I'm not putting it into... Today the rose is fragrant, but it will fall down.

[05:19]

Everything like this. Today, shining girl, but little by little, white hair, growing old. Everything changing every day. So study, practice hard. Moment by moment, change. So this is the fundamental teaching of Buddhism. And this is simultaneously good news and bad news for us. You know, it's wonderful. You wouldn't want to freeze everything and stop it. You wouldn't want the child to never grow up. You know, I see my grandson now. He's so much fun. He's just about two. You've got his twin running around here.

[06:24]

They were born very close together. But I take joy in this. Every time I see him, he's different. Every time I see him, he's learned something new. He's saying something more. He's found out how to climb out of his crib. That's not all great. He's, you know, so this moment by moment changing is wonderful. And then I look in the mirror and I see growing old, gray hair, growing old, and that's the other side of his cheek. So, this everything changing, this transiency. Dogen Zenji said, seeing transiency, is Bodhicitta, is the mind of awakening. Really seeing transiency is the mind of awakening.

[07:28]

But it's very hard for us, even though it has its wonderful sign, It's also very hard for us. This morning, as we were getting up, Lou said, oh, look at the sunrise. And I looked out the window, and the sky was beautiful orange. You know, it was the time of day when there were these sort of black silhouettes against this brilliant orange sky. And I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth, and I looked back, and it was gone. It was already now light, and the orange was gone. And it was just morning. And I commented on how quickly this brilliant sunrise had changed. So everything changes every day, and that's fine. That really is not a problem. But if there's something that we really like and we don't want it to change, then that becomes a problem for us.

[08:35]

It's not so much the changing that's a problem, but it's our stickiness, it's our preference. Let it not change that becomes a problem for us. But preferences arise, right? I said that to someone and she says, you mean more than every moment? we are human, preferences arise every moment. You know, the third ancestor said something about the great way is not difficult, only give up picking and choosing. But that's the most difficult thing of all. So really, giving up picking and choosing is not something that I can actually imagine. Noticing that I'm picking and choosing, and not getting caught by it all the time, is something that I can imagine.

[09:40]

We had a session recently at Sun Center, and I was having rather some struggle with some pain in the middle of my back, between my shoulder blades. It was, and I was, it was really hard to sit still. position where it would go away and suddenly at some point I had this great enlightenment experience which was sometimes my back hurts and sometimes my back doesn't hurt and I get in a problem with it when it's hurting and I don't want it to hurt that's the only problem about it is I have some aversion to it hurting If I can just kind of tease apart the pain in my back and my aversion to it, and just be present with the pain as it is, and just be one with it, then it will come and it will go, and it's really not a problem.

[10:56]

It's not, you know, It's not like it's breaking my back. As soon as I get up, it goes away. If I sit full lotus, my back doesn't hurt actually, but I can't sit full lotus all the time because then my knees hurt. We have this human body, and it has its limitations. We have this human mind, and it has its limitations. Preferences do arise. One day, I have to be on a low-fat diet. I had a heart attack a few years ago. And generally, during tea time, the kitchen will offer cookies, which are full of butter. They'll also offer some dried fruit or a few grapes or something for those of us who maybe don't, shouldn't eat cookies. And that was fine. But one day, the service came around, there were only cookies. And all of a sudden, it's just like my back.

[12:04]

Sometimes the kitchen offers treats I can eat. Sometimes the kitchen doesn't offer treats I can eat. And there really isn't any problem about it unless I want a treat. It's not fair. I can do all kinds of... I can get into a whole story. And then I'm kind of miserable. But if I say, Well, there's only cookies today. I'll just have some tea. Big deal. I don't usually have a cookie every afternoon at four. It's just that it's Sashim. We get this little extra treat and we get a cookie every afternoon at four because we'd make good girls and boys, I suppose. So it's the same thing. But the problem comes when I want it and it's not there. The problem comes when it's there and I don't want it. And if I can see that, I can maybe take some of the steam out of the I want it and the I don't want it.

[13:12]

I can just see that's just my mind doing that. And I don't have to make it into a big federal case. which makes me pretty miserable. Sometimes I don't have to. Sometimes I do. When I do, I'm miserable. Sometimes I seem to be right in the middle of it before I notice it. I've already made a federal case out of it. And then I have to just kind of laugh at myself and say, well, I did it again. I mean, I can be sure that whatever it is that's happening, whether I like it or don't like it, it's going to be different in a moment anyhow. This transiency thing is, if I like it, it's going to be different, if I don't like it, it's going to be different.

[14:14]

We were having a Dharma discussion the other night and one of the people who's a psychiatric social worker at a mental health clinic in San Francisco was telling us about one of her clients who was a very devout Baptist black woman who was very sincere about her religion and studied scripture and prayed regularly. She saw my friend's beads on her desk and she says, what's that? Well, those are my beads. I'm a Buddhist. She says, well, what's that? And my friend said, between not immediately knowing how to answer, what's that about Buddhism, plus her reticence to discuss her personal life with her clients, which comes from her training, she sort of stumbled around, didn't know.

[15:41]

So she started to say this and that, and finally one said, well, what do you do? And again, she had a little trouble thinking about what to say. So we talked about some that night, and I've sort of been thinking, What would I do? I think about a lot of things. I remember somebody asked the Dalai Lama, what's your religion? He said, my religion is kindness. And I really liked that a lot. And I realized that I really want to be kind. And it's been true all my life. I've always wanted to be kind. And I've, at some point, you know, had this notion of myself as a kind person. And then that gets kind of upended sometime when I notice that I, you know, as I become more aware of myself through practice, I notice, well, sometimes I'm kind and sometimes I'm not.

[16:48]

And I'm always kind of disappointed in myself when I'm not kind. And I was talking about this with this friend who told me about this, well, what do you do? And I said, you know, in practice and trying to develop some awareness moment by moment about what's happening right now with this body and mind, I notice that sometimes I'm kind and sometimes I'm not, and I really want to be kind. But the more I practice, the more I can notice when I'm not. She says, that's not fair. You have to notice when you are and when you're not. You can't just notice when you're not, which is kind of interesting. If you're going to be noticing that, you have to notice both sometimes you are, And this is how it is with us. We have this, you know, we have this human body and mind.

[17:54]

We have the limitations of whoever we are and whatever our accumulated causes and conditions of our life are. And we hear in Buddhism, from the beginning you're perfect, just as you are. You are Buddha nature from the beginning, whether you know it or not. But still, we notice. Sometimes I'm kind and sometimes I'm not. Even though I really want to be kind, and I try very hard to be kind, there seems to be some times when I don't seem to be able to do that. some self-clinging that makes me defensive or angry or mean. And not long ago, Mel was doing a ceremony which we call Shosan Ceremony.

[19:09]

at the San Francisco City Center. It's a ceremony where the abbot or some other teacher, Shosan Shi, the Shosan teacher, sits in front of the assembly and each one comes up and asks a question about practice. The abbot or the Shosan Shi generally begins by making some some Dharma statement. And people come up and ask questions and their responses. And they're very quick. They're not sort of discursive. They're just person-to-person question and response. And in his Dharma remarks, introducing the Shosan ceremony, Mel talked about genjo koan.

[20:12]

Genjo means manifesting in the present moment. And koan, ko means maybe absolute and on is relative, or ko is dark and on is light, or ko is unity and on is individuality, or ko is one or on is many, anyhow these, the way, this ko, this ko is absolute, the absolute that that is beyond a duality between relative and absolute. Now, Genjo Koan, or the Koan of our life, is, in this present moment, to manifest the non-separateness, the non-duality of this Ko and this On.

[21:30]

In this moment, right here, to see where absolute and relative come together and manifest as our life. And somehow in that shosan ceremony, it suddenly occurred to me that all my life, ever since I first heard of Zen Buddhism and began to practice more than 20 years ago, I think I've had the idea that what I was trying to do you know, in the terms of big mind, small mind that Suzuki Roshi often talked about. What I've been trying to do or what I thought I needed to do was to eliminate small mind so that big mind could manifest. And in that ceremony I suddenly realized big mind will manifest in the midst of or through or by or as small mind or it won't manifest at all.

[22:36]

It has no sort of separate existence. And in the same way this with this limited human body mind that we keep discovering over and over again and that we become more and more acutely and rather precisely aware of as we practice and as we really cultivate awareness and cultivate attention to the details of this body-mind. We become acutely aware of the limitations or of the humanness of it. But with this, with, as, in, by, what preposition to use, I don't know.

[23:42]

But this body-mind, as it is, with all its limitations, is our very opportunity to manifest the unlimited Buddha-mind. It's the only opportunity that the unlimited Buddha-mind has to be manifest in our life is with this limited, imperfect body-mind, we manifest this perfection of Buddha-mind. Covacino says, when we realize that it's completely our responsibility to manifest Buddha-mind in the world, such a big responsibility, naturally, such a person sits down for a while.

[24:45]

It's not an intended action, it's a natural action. So we sit down for a while, and we try to be quiet. to become very intimate, very familiar with this very one as it is. This very one, as it is, without judgment, without trying to fix it, just to become intimate with it as it is. to little by little come to touch that place where it is completely quiet. The closer we get to it, the more kind of noise we may hear around it.

[25:54]

To touch that quiet place, we have to face a lot of distractions. a lot of confusions, a lot of mental fuss and carrying on. And so we notice when we first sit down and when we try to sit still, we move a lot. It's very hard to sit still. We move when we're uncomfortable. And our discomfort may just be and seeing some aspect of ourself that doesn't fit the picture we have of ourself. Like me seeing, I have this picture of myself as a kind person. It's hard to see when I'm not kind. I don't want to see it. It doesn't fit my mental image of myself.

[26:57]

But we have to be willing. to see all of who we are. We have to be willing to be all of who we are. We have to, I mean, if we want to be kind, we have to be kind to this being as it is. All of it. If we want to practice loving kindness and love all beings, we certainly have to find out how to love this one. all of it as it is. And it's only by being willing to be this one completely that we can really settle down and be perfectly still right here where we are. And from this place, being settled on ourself, find out how to live our lives.

[28:01]

We can only live our life in this moment. So, in each moment, being settled on ourself, to live our life moment by moment. This is our childhood practice. So what do you say to someone who says, what do you do? I can say, I try to be kind. And sometimes I can, and sometimes I can't. I try to be honest, and sometimes I can, and sometimes I can't. But I try to be honest about that. I try to see things as it is, moment by moment. And sometimes I can, and sometimes I can't.

[29:09]

And it's okay. In the essay called Genjo Koan, Dogen Sanji says, When you find your place, where you are, practice occurs, manifesting reality. When you find your way in this moment, practice occurs, manifesting reality. For the place, the way is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others.

[30:12]

The place, the way has not carried over from the past and it is not merely arising now. Accordingly, in the practice enlightenment of the Buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it. Doing one practice is practicing completely. Well, I have all kinds of notes, but I'd rather have a chance for us to talk together a little bit. So I think I better stop and give us a chance to talk together a little bit. Is there anything you'd like to talk about? Well, I flash back to first grade. Yeah, I was pretty impressed when I found out every kindergarten student learns their alphabet, so to speak, by learning about impermanence.

[31:45]

That's pretty terrific. Still, impermanence is right in front of us wherever we look. It's just hard to look at something. Why it is that small mind must be quiet before it recognizes its own? Well, why is not maybe such a... Why is always a difficult question to answer, but what you notice is that small mind is usually quite busy, quite discursive. And in particular, quite, I mean, if as you notice it, you just notice, it tends to flit around picking and choosing a lot.

[32:53]

That's kind of the nature of it. I remember once I read somewhere, Dogen Sanji said something like, a Zen master's life is one continuous mistake. I wonder why he would say that about his Zen master? Why would he particularly say that about his Zen master? And I think, you know, as I thought about it, what occurred to me was, he's talking about someone who has now kind of honed their awareness so they really can see how their mind works. And so they're just aware of the one continuous mistake that keeps going on in their mind of of setting up this experience as a separate subject, setting up this subject-object, which our mind does all the time, because that's what language does. So we're always setting up subject-object, and this big mind is in a different realm than the subject-object kind of thing that language does.

[34:05]

But, I mean, that's what our thinking mind does. Sometimes teachers will say, or you'll read in the old stories of teachers, they'll say, so there is the mind which thinks, and there is that which is thought of. And that's all your mind. But turn your attention back to that which thinks and see what you can find. So we have to kind of slow down this thinking process because the thinking process is is always in terms of language, and language is always in terms of the subject-object separation.

[35:10]

So it's really hard to see non-duality until you can quiet the thinking process, which is, language is dualistic, and so we just have to let it quiet down, and not grasp each thought as it comes along, but just let them come and go, and see what's happening, you know, in the great ocean underneath all the waves. I'm smiling because I was remembering a Jewish woman. When I returned to Nigeria, I had a dream that had something important to me about it. And once I found a place, all I had to do In my house, you know, ever since then, I just don't know if somebody's feelings are like us.

[36:23]

But then you said the thing about place. I think that that's a theme for some of us. How to find a place within ourselves as well as how to place our thoughts towards others and so forth. And I feel close to that. Finding our place, where we are, is very much like this thought of settling the self on the self, and letting the flower of your life force bloom, which I hear you use to talk about a lot, which I love. To settle yourself right here. Find your place where you are. And let the life force bloom as you. this life force which we all share. Yes?

[37:30]

Would you say something about how this relates to individuation? It seems there's almost a paradox that the mimic can settle down and just quit trying to be special, but you do become. something and the minute you try to hang on to it and express it What more can I say? It's interesting. We will have an insight. And the insight may be that we're all one, let's say. But then we say, I had an insight, and immediately we separate ourselves.

[38:45]

So this thought of self is always coming up. And so throughout Buddhist teaching, we are reminded not to grasp this thought of self. Or that suffering arises from grasping this thought of self. Not to, but just to notice that suffering arises from grasping this thought of self. this separating the self. But of course we do each manifest as this particular one. So there is this paradox that is over and over taught in Buddhism, like in Sando Kai, which we chant often, sometimes in Japanese and sometimes as merging of difference and unity. Is that what you call it at the Berkley Center? But the sun is the means many, you know, means literally, I don't know, anyhow.

[39:52]

The sun is the many and Do is unity or oneness and Chi is merging. And so this teaching, this is a poem written by one of our ancestors, Shakyamuni, to express his understanding. But throughout Buddhism, there is this teaching that this oneness and that the phenomenal world and the absolute world are not separate. They're not two. They are simultaneous. The expression of this one, of this unique one, as it is in its own unique way, is an expression of the whole.

[40:54]

And that the whole only can express through all of the many unique individual phenomena. That that's how the whole is manifest, is as all of these unique beings. why I like, what Kadagiri Roshi is saying was to settle the self on the self and let the flower of your life force bloom and more recently I've been thinking of it to settle the self on the self and let the flower of the life force which we all share bloom as you bloom in the unique way that you can bloom. But it's this one life force that's blooming with all this, and it goes like this.

[42:06]

Could you try to speak loudly enough to include everyone? Yeah. I said that I have a struggle trying to learn to live this way, allowing the flower, allowing my life force to live. through me. And there is a fear, the personality has a real fear of not being able to control. Because, and I realize that my personality has a good reason, generally what happens is that I act out of blind reaction, which is no not helpful to me or to others.

[43:07]

Generally, I'm emotional and I have a blind reaction either a lot of love or a lot of fear or a lot of something, a lot of resistance. Generally, it's fear. And so, it's difficult to allow this life force to freely come through me and take over my life, because there is a personality immediately saying, no, no, that's not safe, and so I have to monitor. And of course, There is some truth to that. I've seen that I've acted like an ass in a situation that required a delicate understanding, a sensitivity, and a feeling for harmony.

[44:17]

And there was nothing like that. It was like a rhinoceros stomping, either with crazy love, too much emotional love or too much whatever. And so, how do I allow my life to, how can I be present enough all the time so that there isn't this control? And there's less danger of just blindly going around reacting. I think that's what practice is about. It's just little... Suzuki, as you know, always would say things like, this practice is little by little, you know. or one step at a time, or moment by moment, or talk about walking in the fog.

[45:20]

You never know when you get wet, but eventually you get completely wet. So a lot of what this practice has to do with this again and again returning to becoming intimate with yourself is developing some trust in yourself. I think, you know, as we become more aware of the kinds of hidden preferences and self-cleaning that are our habit, they are less likely to be the main energy behind our actions. What I find myself doing in practice nowadays is when I get excited, I generally say, oh, who do I think I am right now?

[46:33]

Meaning, to me, what idea of self Am I defending or protecting or expressing right now? What self-clinging has got into this situation and is expressing itself as fear or love or anger or whatever comes out, all of a sudden big excitement? Generally, I find that there's some notion of self that's gotten disturbed, you know, or that I'm clinging to when I get excited like that. And if I just take that as a kind of an indication for me to look, I may see something about myself that I wasn't aware of. Oh, I see. Like, my daughter, one of my daughters, chose a lifestyle that I find very difficult to approve of.

[47:42]

But when I first found out about it, I was furious! I was just... And then I heard myself saying, I'm not the kind of person whose daughter would do a thing like that! So the first thing I had to say was, well, guess what? In fact, you are the kind of person whose daughter would do a thing like that, because that's what she's doing. So that's the first thing I had to say. And then, you know, the second thing I realized was I was really disappointed. And I thought, oh, disappointment. Well, that indicates expectation. And I really can't hold her responsible for my expectation. I mean, it's not fair to be angry at her because she didn't meet my expectation.

[48:44]

That's not her job, her job, you know. So anyhow, I was able to kind of, I'm able now to have a very friendly relationship with this daughter who continues to do what she's doing. She's very happy with it, and I'm not so happy with it. But at any rate, I went through a lot of struggle around this thing. Because I identify very much with my kids. And I want them to be... I want my kids to be such that people will think I'm great. Well spoken. I mean, that's just the way it turns out. That's how my mind works, right? So that's my problem. That's not their problem. They are who they are. So knowing that, I can kind of try to respect them for who they are and how they live their life the way they want to live their life and do the best I can with my disappointments.

[49:45]

But it's around my kids that I can get the most excited. I understand it to be where you exist, you see life as it's going on, you notice things, you're present for it, you participate in it, but you just let it happen. And the other, the responsibility, is the concept where you see things which are going on and you feel inside a need and a response.

[50:48]

As it affects the issue of the children, when I see my son doing something which I know is going to hurt him, based on past experience, I feel an obligation to say something and to do something so that And I think some of it has to do with the age of the child. Some of it has to do with the age of the child. At some point, you have to offer him or her your experience and you still have to say it's your life.

[52:07]

I mean responsibility to me means ability to respond. But if we have a fixed idea of how it ought to be, it's very hard to actually respond appropriately to what's in front of us. I think it's really important as parents that we let our children know that actions have consequences.

[53:11]

And that if a particular action is something you're concerned about, that in your experience, this sort of action has this sort of consequence. Therefore, because you love him, you would like to protect him from the pain of that consequence. But you may not be able to. That's very, very hard for a parent to realize that we actually cannot protect our children from the suffering that's caused by choosing actions with painful consequences. We can give them the benefit of our experience.

[54:16]

We can offer them the benefit of our experience. But we can't control it. That's my experience. At 20, they're pretty sure they know better. And unless you can give them your advice with a lot of love and acceptance, they can't even hear. If it comes with anger and condemnation, they can't even hear. There's some other parents here of kids that age. Would you have any advice? Yeah. I would say my children taught me.

[55:24]

you are, and speaking from that with no attachment to what the person does about it, that they can hear you then, and that that is loving. That is loving. You are actually giving them something instead of trying to manipulate them into being what you need them to be. We have way past time. Is there anyone that has something really urgent? It sucks.

[57:02]

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