while I was wondering what would be a good talk, basic, fundamental talk for the new year, beginning of the new year. And I opened not always so, this new book of Suzuki Roshi's talks, and I opened it to a talk that we call Let's see what it's called.

[01:01]

It's called, oh yeah, The Zen of Going to the Restroom. I don't know why I couldn't think of that. I can't, but... How's that? That? No? Yeah? Yes. OK? OK. So of course, this has always been one of my favorite talks of Suzuki Roshi. It's so kind of graphic. But he's also very careful, you know, to be delicate when he talks about this subject. But what he's talking about is letting go. He says, how do you feel right now?

[02:23]

He talks to everybody, how do you feel right now? He says, I don't know how you feel, but I feel as if I just come out of the restroom. I'm pretty old, so I go to the restroom pretty often. This is one of the characteristics of old people. Even when I was young, of course, I went to the restroom more often than others, anyway. And sometimes I had an advantage because of that. And when I went, he said, when I went to Eheji Monastery, you know, we sit Tangario for I don't know how long they sit there, maybe five days or It may be indeterminate. At Tassajara, we sit five days of tangaryo. Tangaryo is the entrance exam to the monastery. It's the small door of entrance, so you sit continuously from about 4.30 in the morning till 9 at night.

[03:28]

And, but there's no walking meditation. But you can get up and go to the restroom if you have to. You know, that's permissible. It's not like EST. I don't know if you've ever done EST training. But in EST training, you're not allowed to go to the restroom. I was invited, this is a digression, I was, many years ago, I was invited to an S training. This is when S was big. And there were religious leaders and psychiatrists and people like that that were invited. So I went and they said, well, you can't go to the bathroom. And there was this one guy He kept talking about it. But I have to go to the bathroom. But I have to go to the bathroom. You can't go to the bathroom.

[04:33]

If I can't go to the bathroom, I'm just going to do it here. And he finally did. Anyway. So he says, when I went to Eheji Monastery in Santangario, I could go to the restroom without feeling guilty, without a guilty conscience. Because I had to. I was so happy to go to the restroom. I think that going to the restroom is a good way to look at our practice. So then he talks about Zen Master Unmon. Zen Master Unmon may have been the first to make a connection between our practice and the restroom. What is your practice? What is a Buddha, someone asked him. What is Buddha, someone asked him. And Uman said, a dried shit stick.

[05:36]

Now in those days, this is in the 10th century, China, 9th century. This is a very famous koan. because of his dramatic impact. People used various implements to wipe themselves after they went to the toilet. And Akinroshi talks about his uncle living up north. He had an outhouse that had corn cobs in it. And Sears wrote about catalogs. But they used some kind of stick, you know, and I don't know exactly what it was like.

[06:38]

So this is Uman's response. What is Buddha? A dried shit stick. And that's the end of the, koan, the end of their conversation. So Suzuki Roshi is very kind, he says he answered toilet paper, but you know that's not true, shistik. Actually, nowadays it's toilet paper, but he said, something to wipe yourself with in the restroom. That's pretty good. That's what he said. And since then, many Zen masters are thinking about it, practicing with that koan. What is the shit stick? What do you mean by that? Well, Master Uman is well known for his abrupt answers, like using one word or one phrase to cover three different areas.

[07:46]

So whatever he said in a response, in the first place, it was like a box and a lid fitting perfectly. perfect fit. The answer was a perfect fit to the question. And the second was cutting off all roads of discursive thinking. And the third was riding with the wave. In other words, being able to harmonize with whoever he was responding to very well. So all three of those elements are present in Uman's koan, in his response.

[08:53]

If you ever read any commentaries on this koan, there's never any explanation. This is one of the koans that has the shortest list of commentaries. Nobody will comment on it. And rightfully so, you know. It either penetrates or it doesn't. But I think everybody gets it, whether we get it or not. We get it. But then it may take a long time for us to unravel it, what it is that we got. The box and its lid, you know, this is a perfect fit. It's like heaven and earth coming together with a perfect fit. What is Buddha? Dried shit stick. And then one of the comments is, and he used the stick to hold the gate open.

[09:58]

He used the stick to open the gate, to keep the gate from flapping. And then it cuts off all roads of thinking, discursive thinking. And whoever it is that he was responding to, we presume that And he harmonized perfectly with that person. So Suzuki Roshi says, in our everyday life, we eat many things, good and bad, fancy and simple, tasty and not so tasty. Later, we need to go to the restroom. Similarly, after filling our mind, we practice zazen.

[11:07]

Otherwise, our thinking will eventually become very unhealthy. It is necessary for us to make our mind clear before we study something. It's like drawing something on white paper. If you don't use clean white paper, you can't draw what you want. So it's necessary to go back to your original state where you have nothing to see and nothing to think about. Then you will understand what you're doing. So going back to our original state, you know, Suzuki Goshi always talked about zazen as resuming our original state. When we do zazen, we resume our original state of mind, which is Deep stillness. Deep stillness, according to our understanding, deep stillness is the fundamental practice of the universe.

[12:16]

The fundamental state of the universe. When we look around, you know, we see nothing but activity. When we look at the stars, we see all the twinkles and spirals and explosions, but it all is based on stillness. The activity is secondary and stillness is primary. It's like all of our daily activity we call our life. And then at night, we go to sleep. And sleeping is the fundamental activity, the basic activity. And then we wake up and start all over again and put our life into motion.

[13:21]

But within that, Activity is deep stillness. Stillness doesn't go away just because we have activity. To recognize this stillness, to realize that stillness is the basis of activity and is the basic activity within all of our movement is called enlightenment. So this is the fundamental activity of the universe. And when we practice zazen, we resume that fundamental activity with the universe.

[14:26]

Of course, even when we're moving, that's still zazen, if we understand what our practice is. So everything is practicing zazen. The basic activity of everything in the world, in the universe, is Zazen. Zazen is not some special activity that we do aside from other activities. But we don't realize it so easily. So that's why we say when we do Zazen, we don't do something special. And this is Suzuki Roshi's, one of his characteristic phrases was, nothing special. What is Zen practice? Nothing special. What is Zazen? Nothing special. So at night, the day,

[15:41]

under normal circumstances, the daily activity stops and darkness descends and the earth becomes quiet. So Suzuki Goshi says the more you practice Zazen, the more you will be interested in your daily life and you will discover what is necessary and what is not, what part to correct and what part to emphasize more. So by practice, you will know how to organize your life. This is to observe your situation accurately, to clear your mind and begin from your original starting point. So where is our original starting point? When did I begin?

[16:46]

When did the world begin? When does anything begin? It begins now. Our original starting point is always right now. There's no other starting point. There's the right now of momentariness, And there's the right now, which is constant. Constantly now. There is no moment that you cannot say, this is now. And this is the starting point for everything. This particular moment is the starting point of the rest of your life. So when we come back, coming back to our original starting point means to just be present.

[17:49]

You know, we carry so much around with us. And our life is full of pollution. mental pollution, emotional pollution, physical pollution, and it's expressed in our environment. The mental, emotional, and physical pollution that we have is expressed as our environment. What do we do with atomic waste? Nada, nothing. They can't do anything with it. And we keep producing it more and more, and there's no place to put it. There's a saying, the universe is an eye of a monk.

[19:07]

Where will you defecate? nothing is ever really lost, you know. I get a little uptight, I have to say, when I see people with leaf blowers. Not only is it sound pollution, but you're just blowing something from one place to another. So you blow up from your house to the house next door. Big deal. Things don't get lost. People throw things in the ocean and then we eat it as fish and then we get sick. Mercury, all kinds of stuff. The world is just one piece of interdependent stuff. There's no, things don't disappear, they just transform.

[20:12]

But lack of understanding, even though we may understand, it's hard to break our habits. So here's our culture is based on the idea of gaining or accumulating something. Science, for instance, is the accumulation of knowledge. I don't know that a modern scientist is greater than a scientist in the 16th century. The difference is that we have accumulated our scientific knowledge. That's a good point, and at the same time, dangerous. We are in danger of being buried under all of our accumulated knowledge. It's like trying to survive without going to the restroom. We are already swimming in the pond of polluted water and air, and we talk about this pollution. At the same time, we can hardly survive the pollution of our knowledge. We know too much, or we know too much without having it being accompanied by wisdom.

[21:28]

This is the problem of knowledge, that without wisdom, knowledge goes berserk. Each one of us knows how to go to the restroom without attaching to whatever it is we have in our bodies. We just do it, you know. When we realize that we already have everything, we will not be attached to anything, and we can let go of stuff. Actually, we have everything. Even without going to the moon, we have the moon. When we try to go to the moon, it means that we think the moon is not ours. Well, there are various reasons to go to the moon, but now we want to go to Mars. Okay, why do we want to go to Mars? Do you know why? So we can put a gun up there, pointed at the Earth. That's the reason.

[22:33]

That's the reason. Otherwise, why spend all that money? There are excuses to go to Mars that sound like reasons, but the real reason is to put a military station on Mars in order to dominate the world. We only have to go to the moon, we don't have to go to Mars to do that. It's a way of getting, arming outer space. That's the plan, in case you didn't know. Our mind, as Buddha told us, is one with everything. Within our mind, everything exists. If we understand things in this way, then we will understand our activity. To study something is to appreciate something. To appreciate something is to be detached from things, or have some separation.

[23:41]

When we become detached from things, then everything will be ours. Our practice is to realize this kind of big mind, in other words, to go beyond each thing, each being, including ourselves, and let ourself work as it works. That is Zazen practice. When we practice zazen, we actually clean up our various attachments, little by little. And then he talks about dying, about death. He says, we're very much afraid of death, but when we are mature enough, we understand that death is something that should happen to us. That's a very interesting statement, because we usually think, often think, of death is something that shouldn't happen to us. But if you think about it, it's something that should happen to us. Just like apples fall from the tree and disintegrate into the ground in order to fertilize the tree.

[24:49]

It should happen. If apples hang on the tree, it's not good for the tree or the apple or the roots or the ground. If you die when you are young, that's a terrible thing. If I die, he was only 67. I don't know when he gave this lecture, but he was 60, somewhere in the 60s. If I die, it's not such a terrible thing, either for me or for you, because I am mature enough to die. I understand my life pretty well, what it is to live one day and what it is to live one year and what it is to live 60 or 100 years. This is like, you know, I can see Suzuki Yoshi's, one of his favorite koans is really kind of behind this. Sun-Face Buddha, Moon-Face Buddha.

[26:03]

Sun-Face Buddha lives 1,000 years. Moon-Face Buddha lives a day and a half, something like that. Either way is okay. If you live your life fully, for one complete day, that's enough. If you live your life for 100 years, Fully, that's enough. Whatever it is, it's just right. So anyway, when you become mature and experienced, having eaten many things in this life, I think you will be happy to die just as you are happy to go to the restroom. That's very interesting little analogy. You let go of your life just like you would let go of the waste in your body. Just kind of let it slip away.

[27:08]

Enjoy it as it slips away. Isn't that kind of a nice way to die? To just let it slip away and enjoy that as it slips away. The feeling of letting go and freedom. Why not? So he says, that's the way it happens. An old person, 80 or 90, doesn't have many problems, mostly. Physically, old people may suffer. But that suffering is not always as big a thing as you may think. When people are young, they think about death as something terrible. So when they are dying, they continue to think that. But actually, it isn't. There is some limit to our capacity to endure physical suffering. And mentally, there's a limit to our capacity, but we think it is limitless. We have limitless suffering because we have limitless desire.

[28:09]

So our suffering is connected to our desire. And the more we want and the more we hang on to things, the more we suffer when that's taken away. So this just goes back to the Four Noble Truths. That kind of desire, as Buddha says, creates our problems. We are accumulating our problems one after another with limitless desire, so we have bottomless fear. Actually, when we know how to clear up our mind, we will not have as many problems. Just as we go to the restroom every day, we practice zazen every day. So in monastic life, the best practice is to clean the restroom. Wherever you go, whichever monastery you go to, you will always find a special person cleaning the restroom.

[29:17]

We do not clean our restroom just because it is dirty. This is one of the things that Sugiyoshi used to impress upon us. We don't wash the windows because they're dirty. We don't sweep the floor because it's dirty. We just sweep the floor. We just wash the windows. We just clean the toilet. There was a famous Theravada teacher He said, don't say, I am cleaning the toilet for your sake. So whether it is clean or not, we clean the restroom. And we can do it without any idea of clean or dirty. Problem is, we think, well, the restroom is dirty, so we better clean it. It's not clean or dirty. Clean and dirty are just ideas that we have.

[30:19]

When we get up in the morning, we brush our teeth and wash our face. We don't wash our face because it's dirty and we don't clean our teeth because they're dirty. We just clean our, wash our face and brush our teeth, that's all. This is like pure activity. When that is so, it is actually our Zazen practice. Because why is it Zazen practice? Because there's no purpose in it. It's simply to express our nature. To extend this practice to everyday life may seem difficult, but actually it's quite simple. Our laziness makes it difficult, that's all. That's why we put emphasis on endurance to continue our practice.

[31:26]

I remember somebody once saying, this Sashin is just an endurance contest. Yes, that's right. I agree. It's not a contest though. It's simply an endurance practice. Endurance means you put all your effort into doing something totally. And even though you think you can't do it, you still do it. And even though you think you've come to the end of your endurance, you endure. And then when you endure past what you think is the end of your endurance, then you come to life. There should not be any cessation of practice. That's what he's talking about. Continuous practice is endurance.

[32:29]

Practice should go on one moment after another. We talk about continuous practice, moment after moment, without ceasing. Then what about sleep? Some teachers say you should practice while you sleep. How do you practice zazen when you sleep? I'll tell you. I figured that out. In order to practice zazen when you sleep, just sleep. Some students who practice zazen very hard are liable to ignore everyday life. If someone attains enlightenment, they may say, I have attained enlightenment under a great Zen master, so whatever I do is OK. I have complete freedom from good and bad.

[33:32]

Only those who did not have an enlightenment experience stick to the idea of good and bad. Speaking in that way is to ignore everyday life. They do not take care of their life. They do not know how to organize their life or know what kind of rhythm they should have. To know the rhythm of our lives is to understand what we're doing. So, Zazen practice, as a practice, is to establish the rhythm of your life, as practice. If you don't establish a rhythm for practice, then you can't really feel the full impact of practice. There has to be some rhythm in order for realization to manifest.

[34:34]

It is necessary to see our activity with a clear mind through the Zazen experience. know the monastic life is the schedule of a monastic life determines the rhythm of your life so when you enter into the monastic life this rhythm keeps The rhythm is like a wheel that produces realization energy. I don't know how else to say that. Because it keeps practice continuous.

[35:43]

And in city life, we have to establish our own rhythm of practice. Everyone has to establish their own rhythm of practice to make practice real, or to realize it. So it's okay to come to this endo once in a while. That's fine. But to have an actual practice, there has to be a rhythm, and that rhythm has to be established. So he says, I came to America because in Japan I had too many problems. I'm not sure, but perhaps that's why I came. When I was in Japan, I didn't practice zazen in the same way I do here. Now I have a very different problem. Now I have different problems than I had in Japan. Even though I am practicing zazen with you, my mind is like a garbage can.

[36:46]

He doesn't exclude himself. Even though I'm in America, which is called a free country, my mind is like a garbage can. I am a Japanese, and I have many Japanese friends here, so I have the problems most Japanese have, in addition to other problems. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing here. But when I know what I'm doing, clearly, without any overestimation or underestimation, very honestly and truly, I do not have much burden on my mind. Zazen practice especially has been a great help. If I hadn't been practicing Zazen, I wouldn't have survived in the way I did. I started my practice when I was very young, but even more, I started my practice in a true sense after I came to San Francisco. You may have a pretty difficult time with me. I know that what I'm doing is challenging for you, but this effort to understand things from another angle, from another angle, in other words, from the angle of being in America,

[37:49]

in being with these people in America, is not possible without communicating with people who are brought up in a different cultural background. By seeing the contrast, he could see where he was. To understand things just from a self-centered personal or national viewpoint is our weakness, meaning Japan. Japan, they see things from a nationalistic standpoint. You can't get away from it hard. And when we do that, we can't develop our culture in its true sense. So when our culture comes to this point, the only way to make it healthy is to participate in the cultural activities of various human beings. Then you will understand yourself better, as I understand myself and Zazen better, since I came to San Francisco. You know, when you participate in the practice of another culture, you really see yourself and you get a better perspective.

[38:59]

We like to practice, think that, well, we should practice Zen just like as Americans. You know, what's all this Japanese stuff? Well, that's just like, you know, the Japanese saying, or you Americans can't practice Zazen, you're not Japanese. They do say that, some people. You can't practice Zen, you're not Japanese. So, you know, it goes both ways. It's very helpful to practice from the point of view of another culture and to see yourself from a different point of view. He says, when our culture comes to this point, the only way to make it healthy is to participate in the cultural activities of various human beings. When you understand yourself better and others better, you can just be yourself. Just to be a good American is to be a good Japanese.

[40:05]

And just to be a good Japanese is to be a good American. In other words, Just be yourself. You don't have to worry about whether you're Japanese or American or whether our practice comes from Japan or Asia someplace or what we're doing is American or not American. Because we stick to Japanese way or American way, our mind becomes like a wastebasket. If you notice this point, you will understand how important it is to practice zazen. Fortunately or unfortunately, even though you don't like it, we need to go to the restroom, the stinky restroom. I'm sorry, but I think we have to go to the restroom as long as we live. Matter of fact, constantly. Constantly emptying out. This is our practice. This is actual practice of zazen. Continuous practice means to continuously empty out.

[41:07]

to not stick to anything, not to accumulate too much. Not to have emotional baggage, mental baggage, physical baggage. That's how we find our freedom. The problem with our free society is that we feel that we have the freedom to have as much as we want, which makes it a big problem. But from the Zazen point of view, real freedom is to let go of everything. Because whatever we have has us.

[42:12]

We don't realize, you know, when you stick your foot into another country and try to claim it, it has you. So, hands off. He says, if I were younger, I'd sing a Japanese folk song right now about the restroom, but... I think that's enough. We have Sashin today, so I don't want to take any more time.

[43:17]

I have to pretty much maintain our schedule. Thank you.

[43:26]

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