Good morning. Good morning. So today, the first talk is kids talk. Hi kids. My name is Sojin. What's your name? Carson. Carson. Carson. And? Connor. Mira. Of course. What's your name? Leo. Okay. Well, today our subject is Zazen. Do you know why we have this room? No. This room is called the Zen Do. Do means room, space. Zen means, ugh, I'll explain that later.

[01:05]

The cushion that you're sitting on is called a za fu. Za means sit. Fu means cushion. It's a sitting cushion. Are you sitting on the cushion or is the cushion holding you up? That's a good question. The cushion is sitting on the za butan. Butan means that thing that you're sitting on. That the cushion is sitting on. So that's a za butan. And then we do za-zen on the za-fu, which is sitting on the za-butan. So it's all sitting.

[02:12]

Everything is sitting on everything else. One thing is sitting on another thing. And one thing is holding up another thing. So if you only see it from the point of view of sitting on, that's only half. And if you only see it from the point of view of holding up, that's also half. So, the two things that are one thing. So, the Zabuton is sitting on the floor, and the floor is holding all those three other things up, including you. And the floor is sitting on the foundation of the building. Then the foundation is holding up the building. And the foundation is sitting on the ground. And the ground is holding up the building. And what's the ground sitting on? It's going up. That earth.

[03:14]

That earth. The earth. So yeah, the ground, the earth, that's right. So earth is this big ball, right? And the earth is a big ball 25,000 miles through. That's what I learned in grammar school. But I could be wrong. Oh, it's around 25,000 miles. 8,000 miles through. That's not as far. So the world is out there. What's holding up this world? Isn't that interesting? The world is whirling in space. That's not why they call it the world, but... Visualize world peace. So the world is sitting out in space and it's held in space somehow with all the other planets and stars and so forth that are also whirling around in space.

[04:23]

So everything is supporting everything else in space. Now, if you were to go 8,000 miles through to the Earth, what would you find at the other side? Rocks. Rocks. Rocks. Rocks, yes, but you'd also find China. China is underneath. So when you're sitting on your zabutan, on your zafu, someone else in China is also doing that, and you're sitting bottom to bottom. It's kind of like a mirror, in a way. So, you're supporting the people that are sitting in China, who are sitting, and the people in China are supporting you, who are sitting. So, Zazen is to understand this.

[05:27]

So when we sit zazen, zazen means to sit in zen. So za is sitting on the cushion, and zen is, for this purpose, straight, sitting up straight. And we will do a little zazen. Alex, would you, I would like you to be the monitor here. You come up and take this bell. And when we start Zazen, you gently ring the bell three times. So we're going to sit Zazen for a few minutes with the world, the whole world. We're sitting on top of the world, and we're going to do Zazen with the whole world. Just follow your breath and open your ears.

[06:32]

See if you can hear everything as far as your ears can reach. and sit as still as you can. Okay, kids, that's it for today.

[08:38]

Bye. Well, that's it. The rest is elaboration. So, today I'm going to talk about, present case number two in the Beaucliffe record.

[10:33]

which is called Zhou Xu's The Real Way is Not Difficult. Just avoid picking and choosing. I'm going to introduce Zhou with the first paragraph of the Xin Xin Ming. of the third ancestor, Sosan. Xinqin Ming, that's the title, something like trust, faith, heart, mind. You can put it all together any way you want to. Trust, faith, heart, mind. So he starts out by saying, the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When freed from love and hate, it reveals itself clearly and undisguised.

[11:38]

A hair's breadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart. If you want it to appear, have no opinions for or against it. The duality of like and dislike is the dis-ease of the mind. When the deep meaning is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed. So that's my introduction. Even though there's an introduction, I'm not going to read it. The main subject. Master Joshu spoke to the assembly and said, the real way is not difficult. It only abhors choice and attachment. With but a single word, there may arise choice and attachment, or there may arise clarity.

[12:41]

This old monk does not abide in clarity. Do you appreciate the meaning of this or not? Then a monk asked, if you do not have that clarity, teacher, what do you appreciate? Joshu said, I don't know. The monk said, if you don't know, how can you say you do not have that clarity? Smart guy. Joshu said, asking the question is good enough. Now you can go and take your rest. Actually, there was another translation that I like, which is Nyogen Senzaki's translation. Joshu said to his monks, the final road is not difficult to reach,

[13:46]

The final road is like the Tao, right? The way. There are many different kinds of roads that lead various places. He says, the final road. In other words, the final, that most vital way that leads to reality, leads to truth. So he said, the final road is not difficult to reach. One who walks on it must not make any preferences. So he's quoting Zhou Xu. I mean, he's quoting Xin Xinming, but he does it in his own way, which is characteristic of Zhou Xu or anybody else. Anyone who translates quotes in their own way, and Zhou Xu is no exception. So he says, the final road is not difficult to reach. One who walks on it must not make any preferences. If he says a word, it stops him, either at preference or non-preference.

[14:53]

I do not linger even at non-preference. Can you follow me? So non-preference is usually translated as clarity. And preference is usually translated as discrimination. So we have different dualities here, but they're really the same. Different ways of expressing duality, preference and non-preference, or discrimination and clarity. So discrimination means compartmentalizing things. It means cutting something in two. Nansen held up the cat and he said, if you give me a word, I'll let the cat go, but if you can't, I'll cut it in two. So what he's talking about is the monks letting go of their discriminating mind so they could say something real, something that's not just discrimination.

[16:08]

Dogen says, if I had been there, I would have said, well, why don't you cut the cat in one? So preference or non-preference? So he says, I do not linger even at clarity or non-preference. I can use preference, I can use non-preference. This is Joshu's freedom. Joshu has this kind of freedom. He's not stopped at preference and he's not stopped at non-preference. This is the problem that we get into all the time. How do we deal with attachment and non-attachment? We say non-attachment is very fundamental to our practice. But what does non-attachment really mean? And how do we really understand non-attachment? So the monk stood up and said, if one has no preference, what does he follow after?

[17:14]

In other words, what do you do? How do you, if you don't have any preference, How do you deal with things? And Joshu said, I don't know that either. So, Joshu's I don't know is not the same as usual I don't know. When Bodhidharma was talking to Emperor Wu, Emperor Wu asked him, well, who are you? Bodhidharma said, I don't know. But Bodhidharma's I don't know is not the same as the emperor's I don't know. I don't know is the highest knowledge. In Buddhist Dharma, not knowing is the highest knowledge. It's the highest understanding.

[18:15]

When a teacher teaches a student, we think that that student is supposed to get some information. Zen teaching has information, but it's not based on information. And this is where we run into a lot of trouble. Some will say, well, he never taught me that, or they don't teach me much. Yes, that's true. So, This I don't know is actually the basis of practice. It's like the old koan, reaching for your pillow in the night, not knowing where it is. Where's your pillow? I don't know, it's back there somewhere. This is how we practice. So not knowing is the great motivator. Sometimes we think, well, I don't know, that's discouraging.

[19:21]

But for us, not knowing is encouraging. So we have to find our way into practice, and we have to find our way through practice. And we have to do that continuously all the time. There's really no place to settle. And it's really the basis of everything that we do. So there's really no place to land. But given a situation, we have to have some order in order to practice, in order to do something. So we set up all these orderly schemes. And then one of these orderly schemes is called visible practice. The zendo is an orderly scheme. In order for us to practice, we create this way of doing things.

[20:28]

And so we all understand it. But really, there's nothing fixed. So, Joshu's I don't know is very simple. And it looks like something else. But actually, he's expressing himself perfectly. So then the monk argued back, well, if you don't know, this is the monk's I don't know, which is different from Choshu's I don't know. Well, if you don't know, why do you say that you don't even linger at non-preference? So this monk is very smart and he's rational and logical, but he's in a different world than Joshu. Joshu says, well, your business of asking questions is finished. You had better take a bow and retire. Different people have different ways of translating that.

[21:33]

One is, now you can scram or something like that. Get out of here. So, Nyogen has a nice comment. I like his comment. He says, usually a Zen teacher does not answer a student's question intellectually, but only shows the way to live Zen. Here in America, many so-called spiritual teachers gather around them the students who carry many questions, then patiently try to entertain them with favorable answers. They should follow Joshu's way every once in a while and say, your business of asking questions is finished. Why don't you go home and take a rest? Well, that's partially true. He wrote this, you know, in the 40s. when there weren't any Zen teachers in America. I'm not sure exactly when you wrote it, but it was a long time ago.

[22:41]

Your teacher will never tell you everything. And this is part of the meaning of this koan. Preference or non-preference? How do I do that? How do I deal with preference? How do I deal with non-preference? How do I deal with getting attached? Attachment and non-attachment. Everything we do, every time we have some kind of interaction or acquire something, isn't there attachment? Does that mean I should never pick up anything or never take hold of anything? What does that mean? Non-attachment. So, which is it? Attachment or non-attachment? Which is right? Clarity or picking and choosing? Picking and choosing is preference, right? So when we have preference, then we get caught. We get caught by our preference.

[23:52]

So does that mean we shouldn't have preference? We do have preference. I'd rather do this than that. So would you. We all would. So what does that mean, not having preference? So that's a good koan. I'm tempted to answer it. So here's Ngo's poem. Ngo is the one who made original commentary on this, on the booklet record, according to Nyogen's translation. He says, final road is not difficult to reach. Word or no word never disturbs the walking. In other words, preference or non-preference doesn't disturb the walking.

[24:53]

One is many, and many are one. Sun rises and moon sets. Water is icy cold in the remote mountains. Dried skull is not separate from living head. Decayed trees rustle in the wind. Their life has not ceased as yet. Hard, hard, preference or non-preference. To experience this, one must work it out for oneself. This poem has many references, and the reference to the skull and the tree is very famous, well-known. I don't know, I wouldn't say Koan, zen thing, which is a koan. But that's a whole other thing that I want to talk about at another time. But it's like, is there still life in a skull?

[26:04]

And there's a dragon singing in a withered tree. What is the dragon's song? The dragon singing in a withered tree. So I'll talk about that another time. So Nyogyen's comment, he says, equality without discrimination is wrongly conceived equality. Discrimination without equality is wrongly conceived discrimination. We see the rising sun and the falling moon in this half. He's commenting on the poem. We see the rising sun and the falling moon in this half of the earth, but people who live in the other half see the moon rise and the sun fall. Just the opposite. Hey, people in China are just the opposite, but it's all the same thing.

[27:15]

So people who live in the other half see the moon rise and the sun fall. Is the water icy cold in the remote part of the mountains or are we entering the remote part of the mountains and therefore feel icy cold? Which is it? Are we sitting down on the cushion or is the cushion supporting us, holding us up? Which is it? A skull could never be a skull without a living person. Decayed tree is another name of living tree. You put out your hand, but it's a combination of palm and back of hand. I call it for convenience, hand. But if I call it foot, no one can blame me. In other words, these are just different ways of talking about the same thing. Discrimination, non-discrimination.

[28:27]

Attachment, non-attachment. Within attachment, there's non-attachment. Within non-attachment is attachment. If you understand this, then whatever you do is the right thing to do. If you realize the non-attachment within attachment, then you have freedom. If you realize the attachment within non-attachment, you have freedom. If you only think that attachment and non-attachment are two different things, then you're caught. You abide either in clarity or you abide in attachment. So Joshu has the space to always turn around. One of the characteristics of Joshu, who was probably the most famous Zen master because he lived to be 120, but no, for other reasons, because he always had the space to turn around.

[29:32]

No one could pin him down. In these stories, there's always a monk trying to pin him down. And he always turns around easily because there's no way to pin him down because his attachment is within clarity and his clarity is within attachment. He's not divided. So you have to figure this out for yourself. That's the point here. How do you figure this out for yourself? Well, it's not a matter of figuring it out. It's a matter of acting out according to enlightenment. Clarity is enlightenment. Clarity is another name for enlightenment. So we have to be able to let go of clinging to enlightenment. We have to be able to let go of clinging to clinging.

[30:32]

If we can let go of clinging to clinging, clinging to clinging, then that's enlightenment. If we let go of clinging to enlightenment, that's enlightenment. You let it go and it bounces back. You can't shake it off. It's like that wrapping paper that clings to your hands. So preference, clinging, attachment, it all boils down to wanting, of course. What do we really want? If we know what it is that we really want, then it's not so much of a problem. We should avoid the things that are not good for us and take up those things that are good for us.

[31:38]

But if we think that everything is an attachment, or if we think that everything that we take up is clinging, then that's a problem. So there's good attachment and bad attachment. Some attachment is very good. Sometimes people say, well, should I be attached to Zazen? Should I be attached to practice? That's a very radical way to think. Yes, that's okay. But you shouldn't. If you're going to be attached to something, it's better to be attached to practice. If you're going to be attached to something, be attached to zazen, because zazen is how you practice non-attachment. That's good. As a matter of fact, that's practice.

[32:44]

Practice is to be attached, to know how to be attached as practice. Because if you are attached as practice, you have freedom within your attachment. People say, should I be attached to my wife? Should I be attached to my children? Yes, you should be attached to them. But at the same time, you should have freedom from your spouse or your children. If you have freedom from your spouse or your children, then you are liberating your spouse and your child. And when they're liberated, they can respond. You have to have some distance in order to play ball. And each one of us, no matter how much we love and appreciate each other, will leave this world.

[33:51]

So while we're here, what do we do? While we're here, we form attachments. It's easy in some way to get through the world without any attachments. It's not easy, no. It's possible, but it's very dry. It's very, very dry. So there's a middle way. When we say, this poem says, just don't get caught by love and hate, right? The duality of love and hate. So love means grasping, and hate means aversion. Basically, that's what he's saying. Don't be caught by grasping and aversion. And he's using love and hate as examples.

[34:57]

But basically it means don't be caught by grasping and aversion. And when we practice Zazen, you realize that grasping and aversion are what cause us suffering. Excuse me, if you let go of grasping and aversion in Zazen, you don't have suffering. Only when you have grasping and aversion do you have suffering. grasping and aversion are what create a self. And what is it that suffers is the self. When there's no self, there's very little suffering. I won't say there's no suffering, but very little suffering. So we have the choice of suffering the suffering of others. sympathetic suffering. We know that the whole world is suffering terribly, and it keeps getting more severe.

[36:06]

It's almost impossible to encompass all of the suffering that's going on in the world. It keeps mounting and mounting. So, we have to be able to let in that suffering. At the same time, we have to have some freedom from that suffering. If we don't have some freedom from that suffering, then we just get drowned in all the suffering. And when we have some freedom within that suffering of the world, we can actually do something. So, you know, there's an old saying that you reach down and help somebody that's in the pit, but you also have one hand up here, so that you are not drawn into the pit. Because it doesn't help to have two people in the pit.

[37:13]

So we have to have some... Non-attachment, I don't want to say detachment, because detachment means to disengage, whereas non-attachment means, to me, while engaged, to have freedom within that engagement, the freedom to move within that engagement, which is called responsibility. The ability to respond to whatever is happening, that's responsibility. without detachment and without being caught at the same time. But every situation calls for its own special determination. And you cannot, you can, but it's not helpful to predetermine how to do everything.

[38:21]

If you predetermine how to do everything, then you become attached to that predetermination. And it makes it difficult to actually assess the situation and move within it spontaneously. So preference, non-preference, attachment, non-attachment. Hmm. Difficult. Easy, but difficult. Do you have any questions? Okay. That's all right. Malcolm?

[39:24]

Yeah, did Shakyamuni Buddha transcend all his attachments? Well, it looks like it, doesn't it? Yeah, it kind of does, but that's not the way you were describing it today. How was I describing it today? That we maintain attachments. Oh no, I didn't say maintain attachments. I said, we don't avoid attachments. What do you maintain? That's another translation of this koan. When Joshu says, when he says, I don't stay in, I don't linger in attachment or non-attachment.

[40:34]

What do I preserve? What is there to preserve? What is there to hold on to? That's the question. That's the koan. What is there to? That's your koan. Thanks. You're welcome. This is a question about the language that we use to talk about these sort of subtle and difficult things. And you used love and hate recently a few times. as a satisfactory substitute for grasping and aversion. Grasping and aversion makes sense that most people can understand.

[41:38]

But when you say love and hate, using love can raise a problem. Yes, I know. I talk about it a lot. It's a different thing. But go ahead. So, yeah, I have a certain interest in preserving the word love as meaning something other than grasping. And if you want to use love and hate to be equivalent to grasping and aversion, then what word is there for us? or something that is, should I leave it dot, dot, dot, or should I? No, no. First place, I'm reading the text, which says that. Oh, but forget the text. No, no, no. I'm not, I don't say, I don't use love as attachment. You used it a couple of weeks ago.

[42:40]

Because love, in Buddhism, Buddhadharma, love is loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. That's the kind of definition for love in Buddhism, those four aspects. But when we think about love, it's like saying, you can use that word to mean almost anything you want, right? So you can use it in that way. You can use it to mean attachment or grasping. You can use it that way. It means all those different things. So it just depends on how you use it. Say that four again. Just remind me. Loving kindness, karuna, your daughter, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Those four. The four Brahma viharas. That's good.

[43:44]

Yeah. Because the reason why those four are used is because they're all non-attachments. In other words, you don't expect something back. You only give without expecting something. But of course, when you do give, everything comes back to you. But you do it without expectation. So that's the highest kind of love. And then there's the lowest kind of love, where someone passes for love, which is self-interest. Right? Yeah. I notice the suffering from getting stuck in attachment and aversion. And I just don't know where to go when that happens, which is a whole lot. Often I feel like I'm on a balancing point with it. where I notice it and then it shifts, and I feel like I can give without self-interest, but I'll tell you, lately, it's not been that great.

[44:50]

Help. Well, I sympathize with you. So we all get caught by it, right? So the more we get caught, the more it impresses on us the fact that we should be careful. So I think that basically, if we're always practicing, if we're really thinking about practicing, and what we do is two things. One is unselfish acts, and the other one is compassion. So unselfish acts and compassion. If we keep those two in mind all the time, then we're not as likely to get caught by stuff. Yeah. Oh yeah, hi. You're the only one that has your hand up.

[45:52]

Julie. This is kind of not a question but a remembrance When I used to study with Sun Tzu-Ning, he used to say, don't know, as not I don't know, but don't know. He used to say, don't know, primary point, don't know, all the same. Anyway, one time I remember, one time I was at MTA and he was there and I was feeling very kind of down. And he said something to me, he asked me some question and I said, I don't know. And he said, no, not I. Just don't know. That's right. That was his mantra. Just don't know. Just go straight. Don't know. There's this body school and mind school I've heard mentioned in China and whatnot.

[47:02]

That's interesting. Yeah, and I'm translating some of this non-duality of Joshu as sort of like encouragement, I don't know, to be in the body school. It's like the body, well I'm not sure what that means, but like the body there's always this body-mind, you know, vipassana and samatha, you know, and this kind of splits. Body is mind and mind is body. We only talk about them in order to identify certain characteristics, but they're not, but body is mind and mind is body. They're not separate. So, but when we talk about body, mind is included, but it's in the shadow. And when we talk about mind, body is included, but it's hidden.

[48:05]

So, but it's all one piece. Dogen has a fascicle called body-mind. And there's always this question, are you a monk of body or a monk of mind? It's kind of co-op. No, it's all the same stroke for everyone. But there is this, each one finds it in their own way. Oh, it, what do you mean by it? What you work it out. What I was talking about, yeah, okay, yeah, not the body-mind, but everyone finds. Right, right. on the mind being in the shadow of what the body indicates?

[49:12]

Well, you know, there's this koan, the end of which, the question is, do you whip the cart? If you want to make the cart move, do you whip the cart or do you whip the horse? Everyone would say you whip the horse. But actually, in our practice, we whip the cart. That's as much as I'm going to say. But the fact of the matter is, you can whip either end, and the cart will move. The body influences the mind, and the mind influences the body. We learn through the body. The mind learns through the body, and the body learns through the mind. But if you have an intellectual practice and you leave out the body, then it's only an idea.

[50:22]

So we practice through the body because the body is not just an idea. And it brings the mind under control, so to speak. So that's why Zazen is a body practice, but it doesn't ignore the mind. The mind expands when the body is practicing Zazen. It doesn't get confined to intellectuality. Intellectuality is confining, whereas letting go is expanding the mind. Without the intermediary of thinking Because thinking is wonderful, and we all have to do it, but it's limiting. Because it's discriminating. I need a drink of water. The mind discriminates, that's its purpose.

[51:24]

The thinking mind. Its purpose is to discriminate. And when you let go of the discrimination, discriminating mind, big mind becomes apparent. in two ways. It becomes your parent and it becomes a parent.

[51:46]

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