Well, we've reached the midpoint of our spring practice period, and I think our energy is still pretty good. Usually, we start out the practice period with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. By the time we get to the middle, it starts to sink a little bit. We tend to get into our usual, habitual way of doing things. And so sometimes we need a encouragement. to re-consolidate our effort. But I have to say that I think this practice period has been very good. The energy is good, and most people seem to be honoring their commitments. And so I'm very pleased with the way things are going. Today, I'm going to talk about, to comment on a lecture of Suzuki Roshi, which is entitled Changing Our Karma.

[01:39]

I was wondering what to talk about today. I went through the whole Rumon Kahn and Blue Cliff record, nothing. Everything felt flat. No, not that, no, not that. And then I went through everything I could think of. Nothing was appealing. Of course, it was my own mind that was the problem. But the last minute I settled on this talk of Suzuki Roshi about changing our karma, where he talks about, you know, there's a sutra, Shakyamuni's Parinirvana Sutra, he gives 10 admonitions of how to practice, how we should practice.

[02:54]

So, for some reason, I think this is appropriate. You know, There's a, we say, and Buddha, Shakyamuni says very fundamentally that this, he says life is suffering. That's the first noble truth. Suffering or not quite satisfactory or we always have a problem in our life that causes us pain. And then we have a very fundamental problem, which causes us a lot of pain. And the biggest reason for that is our clinging to our desires.

[04:01]

Desire, which, you know, We want something good, but we can't cling to it. And we don't want something that's not good, but we can't get rid of it. This is the cause of our suffering, basically. We can't keep what we want, and we can't get rid of what we don't want. So right in the middle there is where we have a big problem. This is our big life's koan. How do I deal with not being able to keep what I want and not let go of what I don't want? So when we get caught by this desire, we suffer.

[05:09]

When we can let go of it, we can be happy. So the same thing is called evanescence. Evanescence means everything is continually changing. Life is evanescent. And within this evanescent, we get caught. Evanescence, we get caught. So, you know, there's this koan that the shuso has called, sickness and medicine cure each other. So the evanescence of life can either kill us or cure us. This continual change can either be a trap or a release.

[06:15]

So the change, the evanescence, is not the problem. We see that as a problem, but it's not the problem. The problem is our attitude. And the problem with our attitude is clinging to a self. And the problem with clinging to a self is that it's something we make up. So Suzuki Roshi begins his talk with, you become very serious when you have a big problem. Can you hear me? Is this working? Yes. OK. You become very serious when you have a big problem without realizing that you're always creating problems. With a smaller problem, you think, oh, this is no trouble.

[07:23]

So I can manage it quite easily. you may think this without even knowing how you will cope with the problem that you have. So in other words, we always have a problem. There's always something. But small problems we tend to, because we feel we can manage, we often tend to not take care of them. So the other day, Tatsugami Roshi said, a tiger catches a mouse with his whole strength. A tiger does not ignore or slight any small animal. The way he catches a mouse and the way he devours the cow are the same. But usually, although you have many problems, you think they are minor, so you don't think it's necessary to exert yourself.

[08:25]

So a little problem, when we don't take care of it, grows into a bigger problem. Tatsugami Roshi was my, when I was shuso at Tassajara, it was under the guidance of Tatsugami Roshi, his first experience at Tassajara, 1970. Tiger, you know, attacks everything in the same way. In other words, the full body and mind attentively acting totally. This is the characteristic of a tiger. Tiger is really a good Zen student, perfect Zen student model in many ways.

[09:30]

My dog is like that. He'll attack a fly. Watching him attack flies is marvel to behold. whole body and mind jumping as far as five feet off the ground. So, sometimes I think that my dog is a reincarnation of Suzuki Roshi. Well, I also think that there have been times when I've seen frogs at different places During Sashin, every once in a while a frog will appear under the step or something, and I think, Hi Suzuki Roshi.

[10:37]

Sometimes I think my son is the reincarnation of my father. Well, in some way, this is also, you know, but I don't take that too seriously, but it's an interesting way to think. So this is the way many countries treat their international problems. Oh, this is just a minor problem. As long as we don't violate international treaties, it will be okay. This is a wonderful prediction. Countries are always violating. Treaties don't mean anything. How can anybody believe politicians? Anyway, so, but that kind of small fight, oh no, they say as long as we don't use atomic weapons, we can fight. There was an article in the paper quoting a soldier who was saying,

[11:39]

Well, the Bible says it's okay to kill as long as we don't murder. What kind of a statement is that? What can people be thinking? One person gets killed. volitionally by someone else, and it's called murder. Thousands and thousands of people get killed intentionally or unintentionally, and it's called collateral damage. But this kind of small fight eventually will result in a big fight. So even though the problems you have in your everyday life are small, unless you know how to solve them, you will have big difficulties. Unless you know how to deal with them, unless you pay attention.

[12:42]

I don't know if you can solve them. Maybe solve is not such a good word, but pay attention to taking care of them. This is the law of karma. Unless you know how to take care of them, you'll have big problems, big difficulties. This is the law of karma, which starts from small things, but with neglect, your bad karma will accelerate. So, you know, karma means basically volitional action. and then our action has a result. When our action meets various causes and conditions, it creates a seed which grows into some kind of plant, and then we have to deal with this plant.

[13:45]

And sometimes the plants are so invasive that we don't know how to deal with it. It makes it very difficult to deal with them. Like a canthus. Do you know that plant? It was the Roman symbol. And when you plant it, it looks rather beautiful, but there's no way to get rid of it because it just spreads in the ground. And any little teeny piece we'll grow another plant. So recently, he says, I read some of Buddha's teaching about the way. Now this teaching was, as I said before, from Buddha's Parinirvana Sutra, listing 10 ways to, for the monks to practice after he was deceased.

[14:57]

And this is, Suzuki Roshi talks about the first one. He says, recently I read some of Buddha's teaching about the way. So Shakyamuni says, brethren, talking to the monks, restrain your many desires while receiving food and drink and accept it as medicine. Do not accept or reject it based on what you like or dislike. Just support your bodies and avoid starvation and thirst. As a bee in gathering honey tastes the flower but does not harm its color or scent, so brethren, you may accept just enough of people's offerings to avoid distress. Don't have many demands and thereby break their good hearts. So, wise people, for example, having judged the capacity of their animals' strengths, did not wear them out by overloading them. So, Suzuki Roshi talks about the first sentence.

[16:08]

He says, to restrain your many desires. He says, restraining your many desires is not really a matter of big or small, many or few. It is to go beyond the idea of desires. To have few desires means not to divide our concentration among too many things. To do things with oneness of mind, with true-hearted spirit, that is to have few desires. So it's an interesting way. It brings to mind how we eat with orioke. Oryoki is the way the monks eat in the Zen dojo, as we know. We just finished having our oryoki meal. And the oryoki meal expresses this kind of understanding. The first bowl is the begging bowl.

[17:15]

So in various countries, monks have different kinds of bowls. Thank you. The first bowl is the begging bowl, and it's called Buddha's head. In Korea, they have a great big bowl. Or maybe that's in Thailand. Thailand, they were Greek people, maybe Korea too. But they're different styles. But our bowls are nested bowls that are wrapped in a cloth. And before we eat, we chant. So, and when we chant, the chanting we remind ourselves that this food, how this food comes to us, how it's prepared, how it's an offering, and how we should receive it, and expressing our gratitude for it.

[18:30]

And then we open our bowls, set out the cloths in a very stylized way. But it's the way that the bowls are set out is done in a way that where one movement moves effortlessly and logically into the next movement. So it's kind of like a dance in a way. It's like when you do something dance-like with your hands to make something appear in a very wonderful way, the conservation of energy. And so all of the bowls and utensils are laid out as an invitation, as a request, a silent request.

[19:34]

And then the meal is served as a offering. So Suzuki Hiroshi says, we don't take the food, we receive the food. Taking and receiving are not exactly the same. receiving the food is, we say, the three wheels, meaning giver, receiver, and gift are all working in a harmonious way so that when this is all happening there's no giver, no receiver, and nothing given. It's all one total and then the food is eaten. We say medicine, but medicine in the sense of nourishment. It's simply nourishment. But it tastes so wonderful.

[20:38]

That's too bad. Too bad, Jocky Money, if you don't like it. I like it. Okay. And to find variety, how do you find variety within a small, confined offering? Actually, in every bite that we take, when it's really mindfully received, it has infinite variety. I remember Suzuki Roshi talking about brown rice. In Japan, people never ate, now people do. There's more brown rice being eaten, but mostly people have never eaten brown rice in Japan. But in America, we do. And he accepted that.

[21:40]

He said, when you chew brown rice, you should chew it and chew it and chew it. He's talking about our practice, actually. is using brown rice as a metaphor for practice. You should just keep chewing the practice. Keep chewing brown rice. And as you chew it, it seems like it's very plain. But as the nourishment comes forth and the juices mix with your own juices, you have this infinite variety of taste which is totally nourishing. So, It's not a matter of big or small, many or few. It goes beyond desire. To have few desires does not mean to divide our concentration among too many things. So when you think about our life, our desire, our mind is constantly concerned with so many things to concentrate on.

[22:58]

Just to stop for a moment and look at how many things are in your mind at any one moment, and how much we have to do, and how much our thinking obscures where we are. how hard it is to be where we are because we're always thinking about what's next and what's beyond what's next. The hardest thing to do is just to be where we are and to experience and savor our position. So the next sentence is, while receiving food and drink to accept it as medicine.

[24:04]

We say the third meal in the monastery is called medicine meal. In India and China, the monks only ate one meal a day, the noon meal. They would go out and beg receive the offering and eat the noon meal, but they would also have juice or some little thing to tide them over in the evening that's called the medicine meal. So, of course, when monks in Japan, they have two meals, breakfast and lunch, but the third meal is also there and it's called medicine meal, medicinal. But actually, it's to satisfy your craving for something to eat.

[25:12]

So you don't think about it all the time. I remember 1969 at Dasahara, when we didn't have any food, we were snowed in, and we had to scrounge for food, wild vegetables and stuff. The only thing anybody ever talked about was food. It was a great practice period. So, while receiving food and drink accepted as medicine, this means to be concentrated, accepting it with your whole body and mind, without any dualistic idea of you or food. So we receive or accept food rather than saying we take food. Taking is more dualistic. Accepting is a more complete activity, as I said.

[26:18]

You may think that to take is a more complete action than to accept, but according to Buddha's teaching, to grasp or take food does not include complete acceptance. Because it is dualistic, you will create karma. So karma comes from wanting, creating. It's really hard. This is the hardest thing we have in our lives for most people. When we promote the idea of taking, then taking creates karma, which creates desire, which becomes insatiable. But being open and receiving does not create karma, because there's no volition in it. I remember Usilananda, who was a Burmese monk, and we used to let him use the zendo for his class.

[27:27]

And I remember one time at Green Gulch, he was there, and everybody was standing in line for the noon meal and serving themselves, but he was just standing off to the side, and I realized he's not allowed to take food. He can only receive it. So he was just waiting, standing there, not saying anything, and he probably wouldn't have eaten if I hadn't realized that he wasn't gonna serve himself. So I went and got him some food, and thank you. You know, when monks beg and do takahatsu in Japan, they wear a hat, one of these straw hats, and they don't look at the person who's doing the offering. They recite a mantra, and people put either money or food or whatever, and

[28:30]

There's an acknowledgement, but you don't look at the person. It's like simply something is being offered and something's being accepted, and there's no offerer and no receiver, no special offerer, no special receiver. This is just the universe attending to itself. So, but according to Buddha's teaching, to grasp or take food does not include complete acceptance. Because it is dualistic, you will create karma. You may wish to grasp it because some other person wants to take it. So you must be very quick. That does happen. And it's interesting, sometimes when I'm serving,

[29:39]

my wife, and she'll cook dinner or something, or I'll cook dinner, and then which one, and then we'll serve it into the bowls. Which one should you take, and which one should I take? That thought occurs to me. Now let's see, should I take the big one or the small one? They're the same, really. There may be that much difference. But the thought always occurs to me. Don't ask me what I do. Sometimes I take the small one and sometimes I take the big one. But when you receive it, Already you have it and you accept it with great appreciation.

[30:43]

Thank you very much. That is what Buddha meant as the true activity of restraining your desire. So the third sentence is, do not accept or reject it based on what you like or dislike. This is the hard part. Again, to accept or reject in this way is dualistic. This kind of teaching does not mean to have control over your desires. That's an interesting point. It's not control over your desires. If you want to control your desires, you will struggle with how much to limit your desires or your food. And in that way, you will make more problems one after another. So what do you do? How do you, exerting control, talking about external control, that usually doesn't work.

[31:47]

You wanna stop smoking, so you try to control, put control on you, and then you may stop for a little while, but then you start again. Or you may wanna stop doing something, And it works for a little while, but it doesn't work because you can't control those desires in that way. There has to be another way of dealing with that control, that moderation. You may even find some good excuse to have more food if you do that, and then you will lose your way. Just support your bodies and avoid starvation and thirst. That's the next line. If you know how to practice zazen, then you will know how much food to take, and there is no danger of eating too much or too little. But I think that's ideal. I don't think that really works.

[32:51]

It does to a certain extent. I think that when you realize that what you're doing is harmful, then it's easier to simply let go, rather than trying to control to let go, instead of saying, I want, it's just as easy to say, it's not necessary. That's how I stopped smoking in 1973. Doing this is terrible for me. It makes me sick.

[33:56]

So I just stopped, but that's because everything came together to allow me to do that. The timing, the desire, the circumstances, and I walked away. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying that it was amazing that I could do that. Because instead of trying to push everything away, I just let go. This made me like falling. you know, hang by your teeth and falling, just letting go. And behold, there was no need to ever do it again. So then he says, as a bee in gathering honey tastes the flower, but does not harm its color or scent. This is a very famous parable. When we take honey because the flower is beautiful or the scent is nice, we miss the true taste of the flower.

[35:02]

When you are taking care of yourself and the flower, you can have a direct feeling of the flower and taste its honey. Often we are not so careful. We may ruin a beautiful flower or we may stick to a particular flower. If we stick too much, eventually the flower will die The purpose of the flower having honey is to help the plant by inviting bees. So it is necessary to know whether we are like a bee or like something else. When we are aware of the difficulties that we sometimes create, we can extend our practice more carefully throughout our everyday life. So, you know, relationships are like this. We all have some kind of honey, something that attracts each other. If our scent is poison, then we repel everybody, right?

[36:07]

So we, and plants have this, ability to sustain themselves by attracting other animals or other plants or insects or whatever to help them survive. And we all, all of us have that too. We wanna be nice. When we're nice, people like us, right? And when we, and we all are attracted by various scents and sights. and fantasies. So to be able to taste the flavor of each person without clinging to that or without clinging to the person, we can easily choke off the person by too much attention or obsessed over somebody or become attached to favorites.

[37:23]

If you are a teacher, you can't allow yourself to have favorites. You have to treat everyone the same way, even though you may have a lot of trouble with one person and no trouble with somebody else, and though you may want to be around somebody and not be so attracted to somebody else, you still have to treat everyone the same. So this is very important. we tend to pay attention to the people that are around us and who kind of favor us or dote on us or like us or whatever. But we have to relate to everyone and relate to everyone as Buddha. This is the most important aspect to cut through

[38:32]

the surface of personality to addressing the essence of this person's being. So this is actually the most satisfying way. Ever since I've practiced, I've never had any favorite people. Even though it looks like I have some favorite people, I don't. I don't choose my friends. It just happened. Sometimes people say, well, who are your real friends? I don't know. Everyone is kind of my friend, but I don't have any particular friend. I won't say that I never get caught by that.

[39:44]

I sometimes get caught by attraction, but that's very dangerous. And so, when I get caught by attraction, I make an effort to turn that, relationship into something, to turn it into a dharma relationship that always comes first, rather than a personal relationship that always has to be based on dharmic activity. So he says, when we take honey, because the flower is beautiful, or the scent is nice, we miss the true taste of the flower. We get caught by the surface, or by what we like, or by what tastes good.

[40:48]

As Sukriya Rishi used to say, everyone has their own scent. And so we, it's just a metaphor for, you know, their attractiveness or distractiveness or unattractiveness. I think, I like to say we all have our own vibration, our own hum. I like to think of it as a hum, like a refrigerator has a hum. Oh, that's the refrigerator. Oh, this is Joe, or this is Susan or something, by the hum. Ah. So when you're taking care of yourself and the flower, you can have a direct feeling for the flower and taste the honey as well. In other words, you can enjoy this person's personality without being caught by it, without being caught by yourself.

[41:49]

Often we are not so careful. We may ruin a beautiful flower or we may stick to a particular flower. If we stick too much, eventually the flower will die. Sometimes we have a relationship in the Sangha. This is why I always say we should be so careful about how we create a relationship in the Sangha because we can kill that person's practice or we can create a disturbing situation of attachments which are hard to break. So the purpose of the flower having honey is to help the plant to invite bees, you know? I'm a nice guy, so I attract certain bees, and you attract certain bees. So it's necessary to know whether we are like a bee or like something else. I don't know what that something else is, but... When we are aware of the difficulties that we sometimes create, we can extend our practice more carefully throughout our daily life.

[43:06]

So our minds should be more careful, more attentive, and more reflective. You may think that our way has too many rules about how to treat things. And we often hear that, you guys have too many rules. But before you know what you are doing, you cannot say there are too many rules. When you totally know what you're doing. then maybe there are too many rules. You don't have to worry about the rules. So notice whether you are creating problems in your everyday life or creating bad karma for yourself and for others. And you should also know why you suffer right now. There's a reason why you suffer and it's not possible to escape from suffering unless you change your karma. When you follow karma and drive karma in a good direction, you can avoid the destructive nature of karma. You can do that by being attentive to the nature of karma and the nature of your desires and activities. As Buddha pointed out, to know the cause of suffering is to know how to avoid suffering.

[44:10]

If you study why you suffer, you'll understand cause and effect and how bad action results in bad effects. Because you understand you can avoid the destructive power of karma. Even though we know that, we still create it, unfortunately. As long as we have an idea of self, karma has an object to work on. So the best way is to make karma work on the voidness of space. If we have no idea of self, karma doesn't know what to do. Oh, where's my partner? Where's my friend? Some people try hard to banish karma, but I don't think that's possible. The best way is to know the strict rules of karma and to work on our karma immediately. So when you see, to really know what we're doing, be aware of what, that's called mindfulness practice.

[45:16]

And sometimes it's easier to say no than to say yes. Sometimes it's easier to say yes than to say no. Sometimes it's harder. But I think that if we think about that, you know, there's a line. We can go this way or that way over the line. And it's simply a choice that we have. Sometimes we think, well, I have no choice. The stronger our habit patterns, the harder the choices. But we still always have a choice. That's why karma is possible to be turned around. And this is what differentiates Buddhism from most of the religions that Buddha encountered in India at his time, was that karma is not fixed.

[46:21]

even though it seems fixed, it's not fixed. It's simply a result of causes and conditions and volition. So karma can always be turned or changed, and our direction can always be changed, because we are self-creating and continually creating our lives. There's nothing determined, even though it seems like our lives may be determined. That's called fate. But karma is not fate. It's more like destiny, destination, because then it's not the same thing. We can see how something goes. We can say, oh, I can see how that's going, and this is the way it's going to end up. That's called destiny because your karma, unless you change your karma, you keep reinventing it all the time.

[47:25]

And so our lives take shape depending on what we do. We plant the seeds and the seeds grow and then there's a result. But it can change. If we know something is wrong, if you know something's wrong with your car, stop your car immediately and work on it. I don't know how you do that. But usually we don't. Oh, this is a minor problem for my car. It's still running. Let's go. That's not our way. Even though we can keep driving, we should take care of our car very carefully. If you push your car to the limit, the problems are constantly working on your car until finally it stops. This is also true of your body. Now it may be too late to fix it, and it will require a lot more energy. So I think that we should also be careful with our body in exactly that way. So everyday care is very important.

[48:29]

Then you can get rid of your misunderstandings and know what you're actually doing. So through our grasping and clinging and karma, we create a self. So he's saying, as long as we have no idea of self, karma has no object to work on. Well, that's nice, but the way that that happens is we stop creating a self through our grasping and clinging. Oh, it's pretty late, but if you have one question. Oh, way back there. Yeah, what he means, I think, is that while swimming in the waves, riding the waves, at the same time your feet are walking on the bottom.

[50:02]

So, you know, this is the karmic activity, right? in the waves, but as you go down to the bottom, this is the absolute realm, and that's where your feet are firmly planted. So you're walking on the bottom as well as swimming on the top. If you're only swimming on the top, then you get caught by your karma. But if your feet are on the bottom walking, then even though you have volitional activity, you're not creating karmic consequences. So that's a very wonderful statement. So walking on the bottom means fazen.

[51:06]

And so we should have the attitude of zazen in our swimming.

[51:20]

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