Part of the bodhisattva ceremony that we just did, one of the lines is, delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Good luck. I'd like to talk about delusion this morning because Recently, I had a kind of a realization about my own life, an aspect of my own life, about my own behavior, which I realized just kind of dawned on me that how deluded I had been for years in a particular aspect of my life, which I don't care to go into in detail. It's just too embarrassing. But it doesn't really matter.

[01:01]

The specifics don't really matter. It's the waking up and the seeing that something that I've been doing is wrong. And I think everybody here has had that kind of an experience in one form or another. And it's usually somewhat painful because what you've been doing wrong, what we've been doing wrong, has been causing us some pain. And then somehow something happens and we see where we went wrong. It doesn't mean that it was necessarily a waste of time, and it doesn't mean that there's anything else.

[02:04]

Maybe we just had to go through that. Looking back on what looks like a mistake, you think, gee, if only I had known better. I wouldn't have done all that. But we didn't know better. And sometimes these experiences are very vivid and very clear sense of just how cockeyed we've been in certain ways. And what's a little disturbing is the fact that we're probably doing the same thing in other areas right now as well. But so be it. this process of going awry, or going off the track, or going against what really we know to be true to ourselves, and not being able to see it happening.

[03:22]

Maybe suffering the consequences, but not actually being able to see it happening. And then, at some point, being able to see it happening, and hopefully to make some change. It may happen again. Just because we see something happening doesn't mean we can just put an end to it. But the seeing is really critical if there's any hope for change. So the word delusion becomes kind of interesting. Where are the delusions that we live under and how can we illuminate our delusions? In Buddhism we talk about what we call the three poisons.

[04:29]

Greed, hate and delusion. And greed and hate or greed and anger are a lot easier to relate to personally. Usually they're a little more vivid because they're more emotions. An emotion of anger or an emotion of wanting or intense desire or not being able to get enough. Those kinds of feelings, those are very strong emotions. And Buddhism, and within Buddhism we can see our personalities in a very broad ways in these three divisions. Very generalized and of course they overlap and of course we have all of them. But greed and hate are both very strong emotions. Delusion is not so much of an emotion. It's more of a kind of a condition.

[05:32]

Maybe confusion is more the emotion associated with it, but oftentimes the problem is that confusion isn't so clear. We may be confused and not really know it. We're so used to it. So I think that you could say that another way of looking at delusion is that The illusion is a distortion of reality, of what's real, of what actually is. And if we take within the Buddhist way of looking at the world, which hopefully is just seeing things as they are. The Three Marks of Existence are, again, three very broad categories that we can see reality in terms of ... that help us to articulate what's real.

[06:42]

And these Three Marks of Existence, as you know, are that life is invariably bound up with suffering, that you cannot escape in your life some form of suffering at some point, and that everything is changing, nothing is fixed, and that there is no unique or abiding soul or self that is permanent So, not being in accord with those three slices of reality is delusion. And although intellectually we can accept those three marks fairly easily,

[07:48]

I think most people who are into Zen enough to be willing to come to a Sashin probably can accept the Three Marks of Existence pretty well, intellectually. But really embracing them wholeheartedly and really accepting the implications of them is another matter. And it's very difficult to really fully accept each of those points. And to the extent that we can't accept those tends to be the extent that we are deluded. Even though we might have all the right thoughts, we know the right ideas, still that's not enough. If it were, we could just read a few good books and we'd be fine.

[09:01]

And when we talk about awakening or we talk about enlightenment, well, what's it awakening from, you know? Awakening from what? Or enlightening from what? So maybe that assumes, maybe those words assume that we're going around in a kind of a semi-permanent deluded state, you know? And that, like a dream, and we awaken from our delusion bit by bit, or suddenly. And to understand, you know, this is what, that's why I think we're here, is because we all suffer from our deluded states and we want to do something about it.

[10:15]

And actually sitting still and just paying attention seems to be an extremely good way to become familiar with our delusions. And we have the freedom that there is no panacea, there's nobody going to tell us there's a specific solution to our delusion. Well, if you just do X, Y, and Z, everything will be okay. And even if somebody said something like that, it wouldn't really work. And we probably wouldn't be able to do it anyway just because they said so. But it seems that just paying attention, really paying attention, enables us to begin to taste our delusion, to clarify our delusions, sometimes very, very slowly.

[11:27]

That's why Zen practice isn't something that you do for like a five-year stint, and then you're certified, and then you go on to do something else. thinking that I made up, because Buddhism likes to have divisions of three, of various lists and divisions, I made my own. And I figured that in terms of delusion there are three states or three kind of conditions of delusion. And one is delusion, and I'm sorry I have to keep using this word over and over again, It's like the word practice, you're going to get tired of it, but I don't have a better word for it. You can substitute one in your own mind. Anyway, the delusion that we cannot see, that's the first state.

[12:36]

And then the second state is delusion that we can see, or that we're aware of but we can't do anything about. It's got such a grip on us that even though one part of our awareness or consciousness can understand that we're deluded, it's so powerful that we can't let go of what's promoting it. And the third state is a delusion that we are aware of, that we can see in ourselves, that we actually have some power to do something about, that we can actually make a change. And the first kind, the delusion that we can't see, is just vast, because we don't know what it is. Other people may see it in us, that we don't see it.

[13:39]

And maybe that's what a teacher, a good teacher is able to do, is a good teacher can see how we are deluded in certain ways, even when we can't really see it, and can help us gradually to see that. And I think Dogen in the Genjo Koan said something like, we can only, we only understand what the power of our penetrating vision can reach. Something like that. So we see some things and we just don't see others, according to our situation. And then there's a delusion that we have some inkling that we are aware is working in us, but that it's just got such a grip on us for various reasons that we can't do, it's just too powerful.

[14:51]

Oftentimes childhood, things that come from childhood, fears from childhood are so potent, so powerful, At some point, maybe we can take them on and let go or absorb them. But oftentimes we can't. We're just not to that point yet. So although we may be aware that we're caught in some way, we don't have the wherewithal to be able to really let it go, or to really accept it. It's too painful or too big for us. But still having that, the inkling or just the awareness that something's working there that's causing us a big problem is a good, is an entry. And finally, the third kind of delusion

[15:56]

is the kind that we're aware of and we can see working in an everyday way and that we can actually do something about it. It's within our, let's say, control. It's within our control. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. Just a prosaic example would be when I commute down to San Jose several times a week and I'm in the car for an hour driving down, and I've done this for seven years now, the same routine, the same drive, and going down 880 is completely straight just about. So it's a very repetitive kind of experience. But in this repetitive experience everybody's driving like crazy and driving 65, 70 miles an hour and people are in a hurry to get to work or wherever they're going. In a way it's very boring, in another way it's very stimulating because it's just going straight, but there's a tremendous amount of sensory input.

[17:06]

And I notice that as I'm driving, my mind is just chattering, chattering, chattering, chattering like crazy. And if I really try, I can slow it down and just focus more on my breathing or focus on my body. Just focus on the cars in front of me. And it's fine, it's actually quite a good way to drive. But I can only do it for a few minutes and then I'm lost, I'm just off, chattering away. And I think, you know, seven years of this chattering mind on this hour drive, both directions, isn't that a shame? because it has a very distracted kind of feeling, a very sort of diffused, distracted feeling, not a settled or concentrated feeling.

[18:13]

And the thoughts usually are just fantasies that just go off in all directions. So I'm aware that I do that and I know that it's within my power to do something about it. It's just a matter of exerting some will and some willingness to to deal with the discomfort of that situation. So I can see that my way of running off like this is a diluted way of driving. And sometimes I have the power to handle it, sometimes I don't. But I think that's the ground of what we call, that's practice, is that ability to tune in to a situation and to work with it somehow.

[19:25]

And then the problem comes up that when we start thinking about delusion, it starts being like something impure or something that's sort of contaminating the pure us. We could see it like that, which is a shame because Delusions are us. We are, that's who we are. So to think that we're contaminating ourselves, we can say that, but if you have that emotion that somehow I'm contaminating myself, isn't that bad and I've got to clean up, I've just got to clean up this mess so that I'm really neat. That's just one more problem, one more The problem with that is, who's going to clean up the cleaner? It's really endless.

[20:47]

So it seems like that the art of practice is somehow to be able to work with delusion, to the extent that we're aware, without seeing it, and also be a part of it at the same time. not to see as something separate. And it seems that a part of the energy of this is coming back, we talk about our original face, but to me that's a little bit That's a little bit too poetic, too hard to, a little bit, not too poetic. So I like something like returning to our original course. I like the word course a little better. So returning to our original course or our original path.

[21:58]

is part of working with delusion. Coming back to who we actually are, really are, is important. And that's what we do during Sashin, coming back to our breathing and our posture. As we're sitting here all day, you can just feel the kind of deluded activity Even though we know it's happening, it still happens. And then the question is, well, how do you know your original course? How do you know your true self, your original nature?

[23:07]

How do you know what to come back to? When we're sitting, we just come back to our breathing and our posture. So that's like a good... method. It's a method that we've been given, which is a fantastic method, simple as it is. But more than just the method, it's not just coming back to a breathing and posture, but it's coming back to our open mind, really. Or, as Suzuki Roshi said, our beginner's mind. So I think that this is the best antidote for delusion, is coming back to our open mind, our naked mind. Because it seems like delusion usually involves going off on some kind of a trip, one way or another, we're going off on some trip.

[24:20]

usually to prevent some feeling of pain or discomfort. So I guess coming back to our open mind, which is just ready for whatever happens, that's what sushina is about, and that's what returning to breathing and posture is about. Just as a kind of a fun interlude, I wanted to read from the Visuddhimagga, just a brief passage. In the Visuddhimagga, since Buddhaghosa, well, he articulates a Buddhist way of looking at personality types, the greed type, the hate type, and the deluded type, and has certain ways of identifying how these types behave.

[25:32]

I thought I'd just read you this briefly. This is not, if you're not familiar with this, this is not a Zen book per se. This is more a Theravadan book. School of the elders teaching When one of greedy temperament is walking in his or her usual manner He walks carefully puts his foot down slowly, puts it down evenly, lifts it up evenly, and his step is springy. One of hating temperament walks as though she were digging with the points of her feet, pointing her feet down quickly, lifting it up quickly, and her step is dragged along.

[26:41]

One of deluded temperament walks with a perplexed gait, puts his foot down hesitantly, lifts it up hesitantly, and his step is pressed down suddenly. A little poem. The step of one of greedy nature will be springy. The step of one of hating nature dragged along. Deluded, he will suddenly press down his step. And one without defilement has a step like this. So anyway, as I was sitting on the porch, watching you all, watching you do outdoor kinyin, it was actually interesting, sort of all passed by the porch, you know, and everybody has a little bit different way of walking and a little bit different posture. And hopefully nobody's grading us. One of greedy temperament spreads his bed unhurriedly, lies down slowly, composing his limbs, and he sleeps in a confident manner.

[27:53]

When woken, instead of getting up quickly, he gives his answers slowly, as though doubtful. See, I relate to that. I have to have coffee just when I get up, and it's like this. One of hating temperament spreads her bed hastily anyhow. With her body flung down, she sleeps with a scowl. When woken, she gets up quickly and answers as though annoyed. And one of deluded temperament spreads his bed all awry and sleeps mostly face downward with his body sprawling. When woken, he gets up slowly saying, hmm, And the last one for Soji lovers. Also in the acts of sweeping, one of greedy temperament grasps the broom well and he sweeps cleanly and evenly without hurrying or scattering the sand, as if he were strewing Sindavara flowers.

[29:02]

One of hating temperament grasps the broom tightly and he sweeps uncleanly and unevenly with a harsh noise, hurriedly throwing up the sand on each side, while one of diluted temperament grasps the broom loosely, and she sweeps neither cleanly nor evenly, mixing the sand up and turning it over. And I'll just tell you about the way the diluted person eats. One of diluted temperament has no settled choice in food. When eating, he makes a small, unrounded lump And as he eats, he drops bits into his dish, smearing his face with his mind astray, thinking of this and that. So if you recognize yourself or any of your friends in any of these descriptions, that's the way it is. So I've been reading the Fukanza Zengi, which is Dogen's first work, first written work, Dogen Zenji's first written work, instructions on how to sit, basically.

[31:06]

It's about one page long, very short. He says, one thing he says is going, Forward in practice is a matter of everydayness. It's simply a matter of everydayness. I believe that's something like what he says. So this, you know, this everyday going forward and everyday quality is how we work with delusion, our own delusions too. There may be times of very vivid breakthroughs where we really see something clearly and wake up. But I think most of the time it's not so dramatic and most of the time in small ways we can see where we're going off and pull ourselves back as best we can.

[32:17]

I was going to talk about the fukan zazengi in terms of delusion, but I think it's a little bit too ambitious to launch onto that now, so I think I'll stop. And if you have no questions, I'll go into that. If you want to stop me from doing that, you can ask the questions, or if you just have anything to say, comments is fine. everything else are separate. How would you compare the way you're talking about delusion to that notion, or what's the connection there? Well, I agree. That's certainly true in my experience. That's probably the fundamental delusion, is that we're somehow separate.

[33:33]

Well, we actually are separate, but we're also not separate, and that's the thing. We only usually see the separate side, and we don't really ... we see the separate side very vividly, the connected side we don't see so vividly, so it's out of balance. So whoever said that was kind of, was finding the most, the fundamental character of delusion. And that sounds right to me. I think it does refer back to the three arcs of existence. That nothing has a self. That's really the hardest one. It's okay if you don't have a self, but I want to have my self.

[34:45]

So what do you think? It's a kind of hidden side. It seems hidden. I mean that's the delusion, that's my delusion, you know, it's not apparent to me that we're all connected in some really fundamental way, you know, that we don't have a separate self. I just, I kind of, in a way, I practice but I kind of give up. Like, well, I just can't see it any other way, you know. And just the fact that people tell you that it's like that doesn't help too much, does it? Doesn't help. That's where you really have to figure it out yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like I don't see Indra's net, you know, just sitting here.

[35:49]

I don't see Indra's net connecting me to each other. And that's what I was thinking. Yeah. We keep feeling the tops of our heads and don't feel the pumpkin vine there. Huh? That sounds right, but I don't know what to think of it. It says opening the hand of thought. The pumpkin feels, the farmer comes and all his pumpkins are quarreling. And he asked them to sit zazen, and they settled down, and then he asked each one to feel the top of their head. I see, I see, they're connected with that. I see. See, they have it easy. They really have it easy. Well, you know, I was thinking, did you feel it?

[36:51]

There was this little earthquake last night. Did anybody feel that? It was about, it was very mild, and if you weren't sitting in the right place, you wouldn't feel it, because my wife was sitting in the room, and she didn't feel it. But it came on TV later, it said that there was an earthquake. It was around seven o'clock, something like that. It was up in Opa Mendocino someplace. And so I was thinking later on in the middle of the night, I was thinking as I was lying in bed, Oh, and also I talked to a friend a couple of days earlier who said she was going out and buying a garbage can so that she could put a lot of earthquake preparedness materials in this garbage can, some water, flashlight, radio, and the rest of it. So I've sort of been thinking about, you know, earthquakes and what do you do with earthquakes? So I was thinking last night, I was thinking, If there was a huge, the big one, if there was this huge earthquake that everybody's worried about on the Hayward Fault came, it's last night, in the middle of the night, and you know, houses started falling down and really serious, all of a sudden everybody would feel very, have a lot in common.

[38:10]

People, strangers who didn't usually feel that way would all of a sudden begin to feel like we have something in common. And we would have something in common, this problem. And it would change the character of the neighborhoods in this particular Oakland or Berkeley society. Temporarily, there would all be a sense of somehow people in the same boat, and you would feel more in common with each other than usual because of that disaster. So that's a kind of pumpkin vine. We require disasters in order to feel our commonality, unfortunately. I have some thoughts about this, since I'm fairly new at Zen. I've been trying to examine in my mind the question of connectedness and, well, connection between people. And it's clear that our spheres of influence are not infinite. If I lift a finger here, someone in Japan is not going to feel anything from that. However, it depends on who you are and when you are, and under what conditions things happen.

[39:16]

And for example, in this zendo here, a person may think it has no connection with me, but by my seeing that person walking outside the street, for example, I get an impression about the zendo. I get an impression of what's going on, of what kind of people are here, what are they after. So it influences me. Our spheres of influence sometimes are very strange, you don't know it, but they are there. But certainly they are not infinite, not everybody is influenced by everybody else. But maybe one should not take it literally as saying that But also, even if we don't influence, we're still connected. We still are the same stuff. Okay, maybe so, but it doesn't matter. Right. If you don't influence, it doesn't matter. That's right. In a way it's like being an atheist.

[40:23]

But we're always trying to influence each other so that we can sort of see that we exist, right? Yeah. And it's harder to see that we're all connected because it's very vast. That's right. If we were a small village, it's easier. That's true. That's one of the huge problems of this culture. I've got to give you a good clever answer, though.

[41:41]

The best way to do it would be to take the attitude that you have no delusions and just sit there and tell yourself, I have no delusions. Wow. What do you think? Well, I have another question. Can you be deluded without thinking? Can you be deluded without thinking? Not thinking anything. Probably, but since I'm always thinking, I don't know so much about it. Does anybody have an answer? Can you be deluded without thinking?

[43:12]

Because thinking implies an attitude or a viewpoint, so if you're not thinking, do you have a viewpoint or an attitude? It's built into your neurons and everything. So if temporarily one is not thinking, it's only temporary. I know that, but in that temporary state... All beings have a viewpoint. And since we all have a viewpoint, we have sort of a subjective stance toward the world, even though there's no abiding self. And that may be our delusion. I don't know what you said.

[44:23]

I won't go into it, but in the Fuqua's Zenki, he opens it up with, the way is basically perfect and all-pervading. The way is basically perfect and all-pervading. That's what he says. And my question was going to be, well how, who says? Do we just accept that? That he says that? Is that true because he says it? This is what Dogen says? Or, if he's right, does that mean that we're just really out of it? Well, this is where having little moments of enlightenment or realization are very dangerous, because you have these moments and you think you see the way things are, and then you start reaching for them and thinking, well, the way I live and the way I think is not so good. I need to reach for that state I have. when I saw the way things were. That's just perfect. Perfect, because that's a little bit farther down in the Fookong Tsezengi.

[45:25]

He says, suppose I... I know we're... I have no idea what happened. Good. Suppose one gains pride of understanding and inflates one's own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, et cetera, et cetera. Still, someone is still somewhat deficient in the vital way of total emancipation. And then he mentioned, you know, I mentioned the Buddha, I don't want to read this all, but he mentions Buddha and Bodhidharma who sat and looked at the wall for six and nine years respectively. So even though you have some insight, he says, that's still limited and not enough. And he brings up Buddha, who had the most insight, had to still sit there for years.

[46:27]

So that's a good ending, since that's what we're going to continue doing for the rest of the day. I feel like I should make some profound conclusion, but I won't.

[46:45]

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