So it's interesting that I have an experience just now of being able to actually sit and recognize that I forgot my reading glasses. And then not to try to be clunky and rush to get on or slow it down, just to get on and sit and take a breath, and all of a sudden, Zach was back. So it was a little test performance. So I did want to say I was quite surprised on, I think it was Saturday maybe, when I got an email from Ross that I would be getting a call. a talk today. And I tried actually to practice with that.

[01:31]

And I remembered that Sojin said, if you're a priest and someone has a Dharma request, you say yes. You say yes actually usually when the person, when Carol comes up to you, you know she wants something, I have to say yes first. Or I have to practice saying yes. So that's another, so I had to practice saying yes. So it's interesting because I had been thinking, well, I might be giving you another talk sometime. I don't know when, what would I like to talk about? And I thought, I would like to talk about Right View. And then when I got this, invitation, people were talking about, well, what about zazen? You know, we're going to be talking about zazen and sashim. And I thought about that, and I thought, isn't zazen, doesn't zazen have a great deal in common, if not as identical, if not is, cultivation of right view?

[02:51]

So I am going to try to talk a little bit about just a quick description of right view and then talk about the interplay with Zazen and with Dogen's fascicle, Zazenshin, and to look at, is that the case? Or maybe the question is, where do we how do we develop right view how do we start to practice where does it come from it probably might not be the same for all of us but how much how much we how how to me um practicing the practice of zazen has had everything to do with my um with my development in terms of my my understanding and the wisdom of

[03:51]

Whatever view I have, I'm not sure. I don't think anybody has right view. Maybe there's no such thing as right view or right anything. But there are a lot of things in practice that we do need to get along with each other, to live a compassionate life, and to practice as bodhisattvas. And to do that, we need to have some wisdom behind those actions and those interactions. So that's kind of how I got here today kind of story. So the first thing I thought was, The Buddha told us to save all beings, including ourselves, and to free ourselves from the three poisons of attachments, divergence, and ignorance.

[04:55]

And in order to do that, we needed to follow the Eightfold Path, which could lead to enlightenment. Dogen told us, to find liberation, we have to practice Zazen, and that in doing this practice, in doing this, practice and enlightenment are one. So the first step, of the Eightfold Path is right view. Thich Nhat Hanh defines right view as first of all, the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. Suffering, suffering comes from delusion, aversions, and attachments. There's a way to end suffering and that is to spell the Eightfold Path. The Buddha said that right view is to have faith and confidence that there are people who have been able to transform their suffering through following the Eightfold Path.

[06:03]

He makes certain key points about the Eightfold Path. He says, and this is repeated by others, which I'll mention, but that right view is to recognize which seeds are wholesome and which unwholesome. The seeds he's talking about are the seeds in our storehouse consciousness that are laid down from the minute we're born, probably before we're born, with our genetic material, that are from all of our experiences, good, bad, and neutral. They leave a trace. And Thich Nhat Hanh calls that trace, which lives in our storehouse consciousness or subconsciousness. Whether we know it or not, they're all there. So we're all ready throughout our lives, even way before we come to practice. We're conditioned. We have a whole set of conditions. And mostly some of us know about it, right?

[07:05]

Whether it's things that trigger us, things that make us laugh, things we like to eat, things we hate to eat. All of these things, we are when we meet practice. So Thich Nhat Hanh talks about the tree, the challenge is, how do we identify wholesome and unwholesome? Vigu Bodhi talks about right view as living according to the precepts. that there's an ethical underpinning to right view. It is not emptiness. There is an ethical moral underpinning. And also that our behavior affects, our actions affect what our life is like.

[08:10]

Basically karma, our karma. And that right view is to understand and live in a way, this is a gaining idea, but Bikin Bodhi said that was the Buddhist teaching. So our goal with Right View is to understand the precepts and also to behave, so there's an action item, to behave in a way that will result in an advantageous future rebirth. And we don't talk about rebirth here. So we're not, that wouldn't be a very useful advice here. But that's what the early polysutists talked about when they talked about right here. So I have some key points from Thich Nhat Hanh. He says,

[09:13]

besides that there are seeds, recognize seeds that are a result of our perceptions. Buddha said, don't be fooled. Where there are perceptions, there are deceptions. It's kind of like, so keep asking as part of your practice, am I sure? He adds that the source of our perceptions, our way of seeing things, lies in our storehouse consciousness. If 10 people, if there are 10 people and they look at a cloud, there'll be 10 different perceptions of how it is, what it is. And so certainly we've all had that. We look at these beautiful clouds and someone sees a lion and someone sees a goddess and someone sees a snake and someone sees whatever. So this is just an everyday kind of experience of how do we talk to each other about things when we all see things in such a different way.

[10:17]

And the importance of understanding that in then our actions with other people, that if we say something, we can't expect a huge model of approval from everyone or agreement. If there's something that's happening now or has happened, that we all know about, we all have our own perceptions and our own mental formations. So we have to understand that that's the case. One of the things that I think we do hear sometimes is we say things like, as we all know. And that kind of annoys me, but I don't say anything about it, I'm saying it now. Because I'm trying not to be annoyed, right? And it's not a big deal, but it's making an assumption that we all know the same thing and we don't.

[11:19]

So he then repeats, it's our own, these perceptions depend on our own mind. our sadness, our memories, and our anger. Thus we carry errors of subjectivity. So to practice is to go beyond ideas. This is part of right view. To practice is to go beyond right view. Beyond ideas. So you can arrive at the suchness of things. So... This means we walk the path of non-conception. As long as there is an idea based on your conditioning, there's no reality and no mindfulness. And of course, he mentions that by understanding and watching our mind through mindfulness, we can inform

[12:39]

we can inform ourselves of the rightness of the wrongness of a seed or of an inaction. And that depends on a lot of subjectivity. So our precepts do inform us in that area. And the other guidance of the Buddha saving all beings, being compassionate with all beings. They guide us so we can ask ourselves, is this compassionate? Is this compassionate action? Is this a harmful action? Do I have a feeling in my gut that I get when I'm really mad? Maybe I shouldn't say anything at all today. So Thich Nhat Hanh says, we cannot be sure if of you, is right or wrong. So this is the not knowing.

[13:42]

We cannot be sure. Is it ethical? Is it not? Is this taking something that's not given? We can ask ourselves those questions or just put a question mark and sit suddenly. Chariputra described right view as the ability to distinguish also to distinguish unwholesome roots. If you're a loyal person, it's because the seed of loyalty is in you. But don't think that the seed of betrayal isn't also in you. If you live in an environment where your seed of loyalty is watered, you will become a loyal person. But if your seed of betrayal is watered, you may betray those you love. You'll feel guilty about it, but the seed of betrayal is in you. That's a kind of a thing that I've always, you know, this idea that we are all capable of anything in the right certain situations.

[14:48]

There are some stories in Thich Nhat Hanh that are so horrible that they're almost funny. a series of stories in his book that he does to illustrate this. A family, a mother and a father, are lost in the desert. And they kill their child and eat it. So, is that, what is that? There are a lot of stories like that. People are on a boat, they have no food. People have decided, people decide which person gets some approved or not. So these are difficult things which our view, our right view, our wisdom eye, is where we look. So it's not some empty thing.

[15:54]

These situations in life that come to us are very real and have very real repercussions and very real effects in the world. Rahula, who is one of his early early people that we used to study, writing about the Buddha, said there are two kinds of understanding. What we call, what we generally call understanding or wisdom is knowledge and accumulated memory and intellectual grasping of a subject according to a certain given data. This is called knowing accordingly. It is not very deep, he says. The second kind of understanding is deep understanding or penetration.

[17:04]

And it's seeing a thing in its true nature without name and label. This penetration is possible only when the mind is free from all impurities and fully developed through meditation. I like this because it raises an idea for me in, again, according to our zazen practice. There is seeing, there is being with, but we're also repeatedly encouraged to penetrate, to penetrate what our experience is. Well, how do you penetrate without thinking? This is the path. And so we're told to not use our conceptions, not use our usual go-to mechanisms that we use when we're out and about. But to just, in that deep concentration, in that sitting with, there are, we do have, there is something going on.

[18:16]

The brain is bubbling its ideas that come and go. There are noises. There are temperatures. There are annoying people who are sitting next to your nizendo. You're like Joel. I said that because he was laughing. Then we had somebody here, I told this story recently. There was a guy here who used to come from a hot soup every year. And he farted and belched. Every year. And we all had a practice, right? So we saw that the belches started and they went, they were there and they weren't. The person was a lovely person. Here's this lovely person, and what do we do? Well, we just sit, and we recognize, and we have an opportunity to see all of the stories we might, all the stories that come up in our minds. But this is another one of those Dalai Lama things.

[19:16]

This could be me. This is me. This could be me for sure. Could be any of us. So all of these ideas that are subjective, We get to be with you because we don't run and tell anybody about it. Not until after us. We don't do that, or even then, we're not supposed to. But we see and we hear and we interact. We bump up against each other in one way or another. Some server spills something on your white cloth when they're serving you. Oh, there's a feeling. And there's no thinking about it here in Zazen. It's killing. So there's a sense that we develop in Zazen, which is definitely developing right view. We can recognize and then we accept.

[20:17]

Accept. that that person has gastrointestinal problems. I accept that the server got nervous and still the stuff. I accept that. And I see that it's just a temporary occurrence. And if I start doing that more, when I go away from the Zendo, I'm gonna become a little, you know, things are gonna be different. And that wisdom, and the feeling I have internally, which also you get when you just can let something go without a story, without any judgments about it. This just happened. Of course, there are times when things happen that we have to move, but this particular thing, penetration, really hits me deeply. because of my own experiences when I first started practicing, which I think that I was a person who had gone around for a very long time with an enormous amount of locked-in emotions and experiences.

[21:34]

I wasn't being a doctor, I was trying to be strong and secure or act confident or whatever it was that through that process, That may be one of the conditioning things for me. That I held onto. I didn't look. A lot of things were there. I had stomach pain. Stomach acid. That was my idea. That was my clue. Something is going on here. And when I started to sit, I had quite interesting, almost, I would almost say, They were visions. I would be sitting and I would get a picture of, I haven't talked about this in years here, a crazy lady locked in the attic. I would actually have a vision of that person behind a door, raging and wanting to get out.

[22:42]

And I did not want her to be around. And it took me a very long time before I could sit and allow the locked door and get to a point where I had a kind of a, began to just feel this lady, me. And gradually, there was less charge to it. And I think it was when Brahatsu, when the door, when I tried to look for the lady and the door was open and the lady was gone. So that was my, let's say my 60s person at her worst was locked up there. She had a lot to atone for, but she was a bodhisattva and she could sit in me and with me.

[23:45]

after that. Category Roshi says the word in Sanskrit for right is sama. It means to go along with, to go together, to turn together. Right is a state of being in which everything can live together, united. a state of human life in which we live in peace and harmony with all other beings. It is beyond the idea of right and wrong. All sentient beings have the right to exist. This isn't radical now. Even harmful and disruptive people have the right to hear Buddhist teaching. So that they may learn to live in harmony with the universal stream of life, regardless of whether you are conscious of this stream or you're not part of it.

[24:47]

You're there with all living beings. This is not a matter of criticism because it is beyond our ideas. So this is a kind of a radical acceptance. A radical accept, so he's really saying right view includes accepting the crazy lady in the attic, whatever other parts of myself that are not, not quite developed, maybe, and also others. So this idea of everyone by sharing the Dharma. And that was, you know, repeated in all sorts of things, like Angulimala, you know, the person that was the killer that the Buddha was able to be loving and kind to and transformed his life.

[25:54]

There are many stories like that of Buddha meeting somebody. Yeah. So that's part of our view, that we meet everyone. And as I said, the Dalai Lama said, his practice is, this is me. I often say, this could be me. I mean, there's just so much guilt I can carry. I was Catholic, so I have a lot of guilt. So, then, Category says, he talks about accepting the four noble truths and accepting the fact that we are attached and averse. But he goes on to say that we understand that there's a process that starts with our consciousness and activity.

[27:01]

Consciousness forms concepts that divide and define the world in an effort to make things clear. Once we have things separated and defined, we analyze everything, philosophically, psychologically, and so forth. And then we use our consciousness to unify everything once more. So how do we do it? He suggests that we recognize that consciousness has two forms. This is self-assertion and self-abandonment. This is what we've studied in Genja Koan, right? Self-assert, the ego coming forth, self-assertion. Leading with the ego, and reading from a non-self perspective. He asserts that Dogen's teaching, study the self is to forget the self, does not mean to destroy the self. It suggests that when you practice self-abandonment and ego-lessness, it means to practice generosity by throwing yourself completely and indisputably into an object, person, or situation without thinking of yourself.

[28:05]

He suggests that if you do this, you'll see everything as clearly as possible. And in doing this, you'll benefit yourself as well as others. So this view of right view, if you think about Andrew Cohen, is all about right view, really. But all of this is happening all the time. So, In talking about, let me see where we are. Okay. I might go to something here. So moving closer to Zazen, this is from

[29:06]

Katiori Roshi's returning to Sajan, which is one of my go-to's. Zazen is the right gate for entering the Buddha Dharma, but the Buddha Dharma is actually human life. So this Zazen is not an exclusive practice. It is the most fundamental practice for all sentient beings. For instance, when you really want to know who you are, what the real significance of human life, human suffering, pleasure, Buddhist teaching, very naturally you come back to silence. Even though you don't want to, you return to an area of no sound. It cannot be explained, but in the silence you can realize, even if only dimly, what the real point is, what kind of question you ask, what you think, Whatever question you want to study, you can study it from your own shallow viewpoint.

[30:10]

But once you bring it into the silence, you can come into the vastness that's like a spring of water coming up from the earth. So I wanted to go more directly then to the unity of right view and zazen. This is from Shahako Akamora's commentary on the zazen chain. He says za means sitting and zen is a transliterate Transliteration of the Sanskrit word jama to meditation. So sitting meditation, we all know that we, I shouldn't say we all know that, right?

[31:13]

Some of us don't. I was gonna say it, see? Right there, you saw it in action, right? I caught myself, and you know, it's funny, and it's so really, I mean, come on. Anyway. I just did the thing. Yeah, oh. I'm the same as the other people who say it. Isn't that a surprise? I did it purposely and I wanted to. Okay. And Shin means acupuncture needle. So that's where this acupuncture needle of Zen comes from. That's where the title of Zazen Shin comes from. So, Shagaho, Shagaho, sorry, that's interesting.

[32:15]

I could say something about that too. Talks about zazen, purpose of zazen. And he says, The purpose of zazen is to heal our sickness with the acupuncture in the middle of Zen. And he says, what is our sickness? I think it's very clear. Shakyamuni Buddha said that we have been shot with an arrow tainted by the three poisonous states of mind. These states are greed, hatred, anger, and ignorance of the reality of our life. That is impermanence, egolessness, and interdependent origination. Because of this ignorance, we think we are independent and separate from other beings. We grasp this I and think it is the most important. To make this person powerful, important, famous, wealthy, and healthy, these become the purpose of our life.

[33:20]

If we're successful, then we're happy, like heavenly beings. If not, we're miserable, and it feels like being in hell. Because no condition stays forever, we transmigrate, from one condition to another. This is the way our lives become transmigration within samsara, the cycle of existence. According to Buddha's teaching, this is how our lives become suffering. This transmigration is actually happening moment by moment in our daily lives in this lifetime. Buddha's teaching is often called the medicine, and the Buddha is sometimes called the medicine master. The idea of the acupuncture needle is the same, to heal the sickness caused by poisonous states of mind. This is the basic meaning of this title. Zazen is the acupuncture needle to heal the sickness caused by the three poisonous states of mind. And because the sickness is illiterate and obstinate, it's very difficult to hear.

[34:25]

So that to me is understanding right view. That is bringing right view into our practice, and that is where he's talking about that. We find that in the silence, in the quiet, with all the other distractions removed. We can see what's real in this moment. We're not blocking it out. We're not having not thinking. We are allowing everything. And in fact, the more spacious your mind, we did an exercise here one day, and I'm not going to do it because we don't have the time, but we did a mindfulness exercise of sitting and then opening your mindfulness to your whole body and then opening your mindfulness to people around you and then opening your mindfulness.

[35:29]

to the whole room than opening it. And it was a conscious kind of exercise that we did to kind of illustrate what mind spaciousness can be. It's not always like that, but it's spacious. It's not caught in our conceptual thinking and it's not caught in our opinions or who we are. We are just an organism in this moment and in this moment. Stuff is always happening, everywhere, all the time. Something used to say, horrible stuff is happening, great stuff is happening, fun stuff is happening, scary stuff is happening. It's all happening right now. And that being able to be with this all happening right now can be really difficult. So when we are faced with that in Zazen, that provides us a container for that.

[36:30]

which we could not face if we are by ourselves. If we wouldn't, we'd leave the lady locked up in the attic. But the interesting thing he also says, I thought, was that there is also a sickness in Zazen. In Zazen. Even though our practice of Zazen, based on the Buddhist teaching, is the treatment of this sickness, Zazen itself can be a poison and cause sickness. If our motivation to practice is influenced by the three poisons, that is if we practice for the sake of making this person more important, more powerful, more enlightened, or for anything else, then it's motivated by greed. I want to get this or that. It may not be well for power that we practice, but for something spiritual. If we practice in order to get something desirable, our Zazen is is generated by greed.

[37:32]

Also, if we practice in order to escape from our condition, then practice is motivated by anger, hatred towards this condition. In my case for the first 10 years, in his case, greed and anger, hatred motivated my practice. I practiced because I didn't like who I was. I wanted to make my life more meaningful. I really practiced earnestly. I devoted my life to it. Without this greed and anger and hatred, I couldn't have practiced so earnestly for such a long time. We often call this way-seeking mind, but our way-seeking mind can be very deeply influenced by the three poisonous states. This is a strange contradiction. In order to practice to be free from the three poisonous states of mind, we need to have the three. Let's do poison mistakes of mine. And I think it's not unusual that we come to escape.

[38:40]

I think most of us come for that reason. And sometimes we have our early practice of Zazen. We feel this bliss, like because we're safe, we suddenly are in a safe container. We have a feeling of the people. We have a feeling of the place as being the place where it's okay for me to be. And I think that's how I felt, and that's how I could see my crazy person. Because it was safe to see. And if I hadn't seen her, I would never have known she was there, except for maybe many years of therapy. I wouldn't have seen that. I wouldn't have seen that in myself. And that's happened to me personally over and over again. You know, I have a story that's causing me great pain. Maybe it's related to somebody else and what I think or they think or whatever it is. And it is there. But if I come and I just say no thinking,

[39:46]

then I can learn how to bury it. I can use spiritual bypass. This is what we call spiritual bypass. We let it go, really let it go rather than truly seeing, truly allowing the feelings to be the feelings, the thoughts to be the thoughts. And that we have to remind us over and over again whenever that comes up. And we all have many opportunities in our lives to see ourselves do this, right? To see ourselves fall into the poisons or self-centeredness or being coming forward. Well, how do I, you know, I'm going out today. How am I going to look? You know, whatever. Or I want to be this way. I want people to watch me when I'm in the Zendo so they can see how great I am. That's very common in young people at Tassahara, it used to be. They did very extreme postures and, you know, kind of strutted around. And we knew that they were new. Because a true Buddhist would be humble, like Suzuki Roshi.

[40:52]

So if you feel really great, it's different, like different priests. I felt terrified in my room, partly because I'm not the most, what shall I say, coordinated person. So it took me a long time for lots of reasons to put it on. But it can be something that, well, you think it's so great, you just kind of get a special one. And so that's another thing to recognize. And Suzuki Roshi, I mean, Sojin Roshi always talked about humility and that actually anything that you do to distinguish yourself is not actually a source of pride. It's more that you are humbled by the fact that you have to inhabit what people might expect from you and that you're on display and it's a scary thing if you get your green macosu or your robe or whatever and then you're actually the anti is up in terms of your behavior and your attitudes.

[42:05]

You have to be really, really aware and for some of us that's... Coordinated, for example. It's conscious. It's an effort. Something that we get reminded of. So anytime we think we're forgetting my glasses, I'm supposed to be mindful. How can I forget my glasses? I can't see. But I did. I forgot my glasses. What can I say? People forget their glasses. That's what I can say. And if somebody else had to go and get their glasses, I would say, ha ha, yeah, right. I have my glasses too. We can join the people who forget their glasses. Or the people who run in late sometimes, discombobulated, right? Oh, when did we ever do that? We could join that club, it'd be a lot of us.

[43:05]

So these are all, this is kind of the wisdom of the non-judging mind, the wisdom of The quiet, the wisdom of the quiet is to get all this stuff. Not to be blank, not to be nothing, but get that. You don't get it in words necessarily. I wouldn't have said anything about the glasses, but I got something. I sat here, took a big breath. Lost glasses. And I was able to be with it and not... And I'm only using it because everybody saw it. And it's very obvious. Anyway, so I think that really this zazen practice that we're doing during seshing, I think we are, yeah. But we have to have, if we want questions, yeah.

[44:07]

Yeah, I'm sorry. So I wish you all luck with the rest of your seshing. and I hope you can all feel okay with whatever comes up for you. Any pain, any awful thought, any greedy thought, longing for ice cream, whatever, it's all part of the whole, and we're all in it together. We're all in this boat. I always think of this place as an ark. you know, that we're all kind of on this arc with the waves and with all of our waves and we're riding it together and we're here to support each other. So any questions?

[45:08]

Ross. With regard to coming in frazzled and late, I remember Sonja Roshi would say, just set your alarm five minutes earlier, which for me that would kind of take care of things, and if people continue to be late, I just had a thought about those kids at Tassajara strutting around, and if there's a relationship between, I'm just gonna be who I am, strutting around, or being late, and if there's some relationship there, is there really any difference between those two? Habitual behavior is one thing. Doing it. Yeah. But there are causes and conditions in people's lives that make things more difficult. So if you have kids at home, for example, you're getting ready to go to Zazen, you really got to do it, and your partner came home late, and so you couldn't leave.

[46:15]

And so you dash there in your car, and you're all frizzled. I mean, those things happen, and that's part of the compassion of it, the acceptance of it. It's not that we don't strive to do things and be respectful. I think that people feel disrespected if you feel like you can just come and go when you want. That's not being respectful or caring of everybody in harmony. So there's a problem with it, but I'm just saying that it could be you. Yeah, I mean, it could be me, it could be you, and so the question is how do you deal with it? And I think so you dealt with it in a good way by coming up with it, not saying you're awful, just saying, you know, you might want to try setting an alarm earlier. Thank you very much. Hi, thank you, Jerry.

[47:16]

I'm glad you're talking about right view because it's always been a problem for me. I never understood what he was talking about. I was sort of annoyed it was the first of the Eightfold Path, you know. I mean, right livelihood was okay. And I was just reading this book, Rebecca Lee, about Shikantaza. And as she defines right view, it's like, the total awareness of all the causes and conditions of the Williams. In other words, sort of like my understanding, perfect shihantasa, which, of course, we don't have. There is nothing like that. There is nothing like that. But she says, as I understood it, that that's right view. And I think, I like to think of it as a circle, you know, all these things. Because right view can never be that, ever. there is right thought, right livelihood, all around practice until the concentration, mindfulness, the whole thing.

[48:22]

Presumably right view, momentary, and then you're back to circle. The circle of samsara. Something like that. Well, I think that it includes everything. but it includes the specific things that I pointed out. From where do our intentions come from? Where do our vows come from? Where do our decisions come from? I think the idea is our sitting has a way of putting us in a place where we can hold a bigger picture so when we're making a decision, and deciding what to do. It's there. It's that place. And Sojourner used to talk about his intuition and he'd hold himself some way. If you are watching yourself and your behavior in your life, you know, you kind of, and it isn't going so well.

[49:36]

So then you're thinking about, You're using that big, big picture of being aware of everything to make it possible to accept what's going on right now. Exactly. Because whatever you do is part of the whole, and it's always been and there always will be. Yes. So that's that. But you also have, there's some ethical part of it. Use all lines. In right view, which also acts as a value post. I think she would include that in all the questions. Yes, absolutely, yeah. I don't want to take too much time, but I have a great story about Sojun being late. I don't know, this is quick. I just arrived, I came a day early because he was going to do Shosan and he said she didn't show up. He just didn't show up and Alan went out and

[50:38]

He said, well, he just oversaw him. And I thought it was so sublime. And then later he was there, I saw him, and it was so great. He was just totally okay. I don't think he'd ever say that that was the right thing for him to do, but he was okay in his body. I oversaw him. And so anyway, a subject story. Can I tell you? Well, we're all okay. We're all okay. And can use some improvement. Yes. Okay.

[51:16]

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