Can you give me a glass of water? This morning I want to talk about effort, what is effort, which is virya, fourth paramita.

[01:27]

Although I haven't talked about kshanti yet, which is patience, I want to talk about virya. And I want to use one of the cases in the Blue Cliff record to illustrate virya. This is case 44. This is Nyogen Sensake Sensei's translation of this case.

[02:34]

And text number, case number 44 is called Beating the Drum, How to Beat the Drum, or Learning to Beat the Drum. Ga-san or Kwa-san, Kwa-san I guess is Chinese, Ga-san is more Japanese, gave a talk to his monks. And he said, by what you hear from others, you can learn a great deal of Dharma. But when you forget what you have learned, you can enter the neighborhood of Zen. When you pass those two stages, you really reach attainment. And the monk, whose duty it was to beat the drum, then asked Ghason, what is real attainment? Ghason replied, learn to beat the drum.

[03:45]

The monk, however, asked again, what is the real teaching of Buddha? Krasan said, learn to beat the drum. The monk persisted. I'm not asking, as the old masters say, that this mind is Buddha, but if there is no mind, no Buddha, what is that? Krasan said, learn to beat the drum. The desperate monk still queried. But if a real student of Zen comes to you and asks a question, what will you say? Ka-san said, Ka-san only has one answer for this month. Whatever he asks, he only has one answer. This case is very close to our own situation.

[04:54]

I think we all feel very much at home with this case. We're always looking for the right thing to do. And we never see what's right under our nose. We're always avoiding what's right under our nose. We're always looking for someone else's task or someone else's enlightenment or someone else's understanding or someone else's effort. So I'll read this again, and we'll go over it slowly. Ga-san gave a talk to his monks. He was giving a lecture, and so he said, By what you hear from others, you can learn a great deal of Dharma.

[05:58]

Actually, He's saying, if you listen to others, you can learn a great deal of Dharma. And actually, you should learn a great deal of Dharma. It's good to learn a great deal of Dharma. Every Zen student should study Dharma. We should all study academically something so that we have a background of Buddhism and a background of Zen. we should know what the old masters were talking about, and we should know what Shakyamuni was talking about, even if it's just words. Even if we don't understand, we should know the words. If you just know the words, you have something to chew. It's like, if you don't know the words, You can't bite into it.

[07:06]

You have no way to enter. There is a way to enter. Zazen is a way to enter. That's, of course, number one. Zazen is the way to enter. But when it comes to discussing and understanding intellectually, if we don't know the words and the background, we don't have any way to think about it. So it's necessary to do that. And at some point, when your understanding matures, the words all fall into place, and you can use the words freely. You know how to use the words. So you have a wonderful language to express with. But it's like a baby. First you learn the alphabet. You learn a few words, but you don't know what you're saying exactly. But as your understanding matures, you begin to be able to use the words according to your understanding.

[08:20]

And then he says, but when you forget what you have learned, then you enter the neighborhood of Zen. So learning helps us, but it's not your own true understanding. when you forget what you learned. This is reminiscent of Bodhidharma's coming to China. In China, before Bodhidharma, people thought that Buddhism was learning Buddhism. They thought the essence of practice was learning Buddhism. But when Bodhidharma came to China after 500 years of Buddhism in China, He said, forget Buddhism. Sit zazen. Sit zazen and forget Buddhism. Then he says, when you pass those two stages, you really reach attainment.

[09:29]

When you pass those two stages, Some people feel that in Zen, in China, people went to extremes. And because of a kind of misunderstanding of Bodhidharma's teaching, they discarded learning altogether. This is the kind of extreme in the other way. not bothering to learn anything. It's the opposite extreme from learning, from just depending on learning. So when you can go beyond learning and not learning, then you can have some real freedom within practice. You enjoy learning and you enjoy just sitting, just practice, just activity itself.

[10:32]

So just activity itself takes on real meaning. So the monk whose duty it was to beat the drum then asked Gassan, well, what is the real attainment? Gassan replied, just learn to beat the drum. What's your job? Beating the drum. Just beat the drum. Just penetrate beating the drum. But the monk didn't understand. There's got to be something beyond just learning to beat the drum. There's got to be something beyond just washing the dishes.

[11:36]

So the monk, they asked him again. He said, look, what is the real teaching of Buddha? And Ka-sit said, just learn to beat the drum. So the monk persisted. He said, look, I'm not asking, as the old masters say, that this mind is Buddha, but if there is no mind, no Buddha, what is that? Now he's beginning to show that he's got some interest in... Buddhism, in the old cases, in the Mumonkan, there are two cases about Joshu, where Joshu says, mind is Buddha. And the next time he turns around, he says, mind is not Buddha.

[12:47]

There's no mind, no Buddha. And then someone asked Joshu one day, he said, look, before you said mind is Buddha, now you say, no mind, no Buddha, when somebody asks you. What are you talking about? He says, well, when someone asks about mind, about Buddha, about mind and Buddha, we say, mind is Buddha. In order to pacify people, in order to pacify children, when they ask, you say, mind is Buddha. Buddha is mind. But when they grow up, we say, no mind, no Buddha. Same thing. mind is Buddha, no mind, no Buddha, is the same thing.

[13:50]

But there are different ways to see and express. So this monk is trying to show some understanding. Look, you know, maybe this is the essence of Buddha, is to understand this. The essence of practice is maybe to understand this kind of stuff. Isn't that so? God then said, just learn to beat the drum. So the monk is desperate by this time. You think, but okay, never mind me. What if a real student of Zen comes and asks you that question? What will you say then? Gasson said, just learn to beat the drum.

[14:52]

Sometimes we fail to see our field of practice. We think, well, in a monastery everything's very well defined and clarified. You do this, and you do this, and you do that, and we all do it together, and we know what we're doing, and we call that practice. And so it makes some distinction between monastic practice and worldly practice. You see, these things are real practice over here, but this is practice in the world. You know, it's all jumbled up and there's things coming at you from all sides and pretty soon, you know, you don't know what you're doing. How can you practice in such a situation, such a confused situation? actually, you know, this is the monastery.

[16:23]

The world out there is the monastery. There is no out there. If you make such distinctions, you know, for convenience we say, this is the monastery and this is the world out there. But there is no world out there. There's just one place and we're always in it, no matter where we are. It's like time time and place. Time creates place and place creates time. And if we say, let's one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, we say those are different times. And if we say there's Tassajara and Berkeley and San Francisco and various places, it looks like there are different places. There are different places and there are different times. But at the same time, there's just time that's always present.

[17:30]

And there's just a place that's always present. And there's just something that we do on each moment in time and space. Every moment we're doing, we have to do something. in time and in space, someplace, sometime. There's no way you can get out of practice. No way you can stop practicing. But you can't stop. You can get far away from it, maybe, but you can't stop. You can get far away. You can't stop practicing. As long as you're alive, you have to pay attention to something. So Zen practice simplifies Buddhism, really simplifies Buddhism, down to what are you doing right now?

[18:44]

Penetrate what you're doing right now. Be completely the thing that you're doing right now. It just makes practice so simple but difficult at the same time. this particular schema, I don't know what you call it, sphere of activity that we call the zendo. Each one of us has some position, something to do.

[19:48]

What we try to do is to give everybody, all the members, something to do. If you don't have very much time, then you can do some small thing. If you have more time, you can do something that maybe seems bigger. You can be a dawn. You can do the bells and... chanting, lead the chanting, or be the coordinator, or the tenzo. But if you don't have so much time, you can be the qi den, or mow the lawn once in a while. Just do something small. Everybody should do something small. At least something to be part of the practice together. Even if it's just something you do once every two weeks, you should do something, participate in some way with everybody in making the practice work.

[20:50]

And one side of that is that it makes the practice work. And the other side is it's a way for you to penetrate one thing well. It's a way for you to do something, some one thing well, that maybe doesn't even have a big purpose to it. When I first started to practice, I remember we used to, on our work periods at Sokoji, we used to go over the same business, the same cleaning, over and over again. Even if the windows were clean, we'd wash them. Even if the floor was clean, we'd clean it. And people would say, why are we cleaning the windows when they're already clean? This is a big co-op for everybody.

[21:54]

Why are we going over this stuff? Usually we have this idea, a utilitarian idea about everything. The purpose of doing something is for the thing, but we don't usually think of the purpose of doing something is to do something. So if we go to work, we think that the purpose of working is to make money. If you say, well, I like to work and make money too, But when push comes to shove, mostly we go for the money. So we always have some other reason for working other than work itself. So we get further and further away from actually fulfilling ourself through activity or to understanding ourself through activity.

[23:02]

Maybe fulfilling is better. We don't need to understand, but we need to fulfill. All the farmers, all the small farmers lost their way in America because they were duped into thinking that money was the purpose of farming. They sold out, actually, by tearing their hair out because agribusiness has taken over the farms. So the ethic of work for the sake of fulfillment has become completely lost.

[24:04]

So the whole ground of the reason of our activity is confused. So what we try to emphasize in our practice is when we work, the activity is for fulfillment

[25:10]

activity for the sake of activity, not for some other reason. If we have that kind of activity, we'll always be supported. We may not make a lot of money, but we'll always be supported. Because what we'll be looking for is fulfillment, not something else. So I remember we used to wash the windows over and over again.

[26:13]

And when you do something over and over again, like washing the windows, or sitting zazen, or chanting the citra, or beating the drum, the purpose of your life begins to take on some deep meaning. you stop living on the surface of life and start penetrating into the depths of life. And instead of creating everything as an object and you as the subject, the subject and the object begin to merge so that you don't find yourself outside of things. The more we objectify things, the more we find ourselves outside of life.

[27:15]

Pretty soon we've boxed ourselves into a little corner. The most lonely people in the world are usually the greediest. Greedy people are the most lonely because of such a tremendous need. We begin to objectify more and more and find that we're completely isolated. The more we need, the more isolated we are. The other side of this effort, you know, is patience. In the Paramitas, patience and effort are two sides. Patience is maybe like the passive side, and effort is like the active side.

[28:19]

To penetrate one thing, Dogen says this, and Suzuki Roshi used to say it over and over, just to penetrate one thing. In Genjo Koan, Dogen says something like, to penetrate one Dharma, completely penetrate just one Dharma, one thing at a time, one Dharma completely. So the practice that Suzuki Roshi gave us was to Simplify and cut through all the practice that had been built up from the past. And to say, if you just penetrate this, that's enough.

[29:28]

Just sit zazen. If you can penetrate this, that's enough. Everything will... You can penetrate everything through this one thing. This is our beating the drum. At Tassajara, you know, we have a big drum. And during mealtime, when the head server is taking the tray, the meal tray, up to the altar, here, you know, we just bring the meal tray around and put it on the altar. head server brings the meal tray to the altar, and someone beats the drum at the same time, and the drum starts out slow. Boom, boom, boom, and then gets faster. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's very dramatic, actually. And you have to practice the drum, you know, over and over to be able to do it well.

[30:41]

It's very difficult to play the drum well. It's a simple thing. It's just two sticks on a skin. But to play it well takes a lot of concentration. To carry the Buddha tray takes a lot of concentration. To really carry the Buddha tray well takes a lot of concentration. Just to eat your meal with Oryoke takes a tremendous amount of concentration. When you're eating your meal with your oreokies, which we'll soon be doing, you should just pay attention to that. This is beating the drum, you know. The whole practice of enlightenment is right there. So how we extend that beating the drum into walking down the street, going to work, meeting your friends, day-by-day activity, using a shovel or a pick, how do you beat the drum using a shovel and a pick?

[32:17]

How do you beat the drum if you're an accountant, if you're writing down figures all day long, taking care of children? How do you penetrate the one thing that you're doing right now? But we always have this problem. What I always say is that the form of practice is with you wherever you are. There's no special form. You have to see the forms as practice.

[33:23]

Penetrate the form that you have right now. Penetrate the form that's in front of you. Just give yourself to whatever you're doing is really what he's saying. You have something difficult to do, do something difficult. You have something easy to do, do something easy. We make choices. Our life is full of choices. But when we make a choice, we have to do something. When we make a choice, you know, we have to discriminate. But once we make the choice, we have to face our decision that's non-discriminating or not discriminating.

[34:39]

And to be able to do that, when we do that thoroughly, when we really are collected, when our whole body and mind is collected on our activity and settled on our activity without trying to escape, that's called samadhi. And that samadhi is called patience. We usually think of patience as waiting for something and very patiently waiting for something. But actually, patience is the ability to settle, the ability to be where you are, do what you do. So the epitome of patience is, of course, in zazen.

[35:53]

Tashin is great patience. Not the patience to wait for the bell. It's not patience. That's anxiety. We usually think of anxiety as patience, but... To hold our anxiety, maybe so, you know, that's a kind of patience, to hold our anxiety. But, you know, when our legs start to hurt, I can feel a lot of anxiety already, you know. People are anxious. But just settle down. When you know there's no escape, then there's nothing to do but settle. They say that, someone says, everyone says, that patience is genius.

[36:59]

The essence of genius is patience. And Suzuki Roshi says, the most important thing is patience. The ability to just settle, just to be completely present. It's hard, moment after moment. There's a case in the Dulcet record, Uman's moment after moment samadhi. How do you stay in samadhi moment after moment after moment? How do you stay in the present moment after moment after moment? It's hard, very hard.

[38:02]

You have to work at it. But that's Zen work. If you want to be a Zen student, you have to work at it. And that's what then we're give. So, you know, within this situation, If you have one job, some position that you fulfill, it's good for everyone to change their positions so that you get a perspective of practice from many different points of activity.

[39:13]

We can't do that so well. We change very slowly. Whichever place you are, you know, whatever your place is, just try to penetrate practice from that place in your daily life. Whatever your work or your study or whatever your activity is in this monastery, which we call our world, just try to penetrate your activity without being self-centered or without trying to get something. How to have pure activity. How to have pure activity doesn't mean to go to some special place and do some special activity.

[40:21]

But how to have pure activity in this impure world how to have pure activity in how to grow the lotus in the mud. Andrea had a question from last Monday, which I said I would talk about today, but I got overwhelmed. Do you remember your question? I'm putting in effort to penetrate the activity, but yet one cannot quite penetrate the activity because I'm putting in effort.

[41:32]

That's maybe one type of sin. Sin? Yeah, to be not quite naked. It's not quite getting the center of the world. don't forget the Christian definition. But it seems like you kind of caught in a trance, kind of tried, and yet because you kept trying, you can't quite do it. We're trying to keep the question. Yeah. But generally, what would sin be in practice? What would be the types of abstinence? That's a good question, yeah. The sin would be, although we don't think in terms of that, of sin, you know, but the delusion would be in trying to make your activity perfect.

[42:37]

You know, the effort is, it looks like the goal is the main thing, you know, but actually your effort is the main thing. It's not whether or not you do everything perfect. We have this idea of perfection, but that's just an idea. Doing something imperfectly If you do something too perfectly, you know, it's, there's an illustration that everybody knows about, about this teacher who asked somebody to sweep, and maybe it was his son. The leaves were falling in the fall, you know, and they were all over the ground. And so he said, please sweep the walk. So this, I think it was his son swept the walk. And he didn't need anything.

[43:44]

It's so pristinely perfect. And then the teacher went over and shook the tree. He said, no, this is a little bit better. So we have to be careful about our idea of perfection. The effort is the main thing. We always feel good about someone who's making an effort. And this is, if you look at what's happened in America, you know, and is happening all over the world, we've taken the effort out and tried to replace it with the perfection. We've taken the effort out, or the work out, and tried to replace it with the end result. As long as the end result is good, who needs the work? Which is false. We're beginning to see that it's the work that's important, not how much you produce.

[44:48]

So all these people are standing on the sidelines watching the machines make the production and just smoking cigarettes and starving to death. We're not doing it. We're not in there working with each other, for each other. or letting machines produce goods for us and losing ourselves. So, it's important, you know, when we do something, We don't always put the perfect person in the perfect position, you know. Sometimes we put the person who has most difficulty in some position that gives them more difficulty in order to see something, you know, or to help in some way.

[46:04]

In a sense, it doesn't matter if things get done right or not. It's true. And it's easy to get off on getting something right, get off on right and wrong. You can't ignore right and wrong. But... We trade in We kind of trade off our real fulfillment for goods, for the goods. And when we get the goods, it doesn't even amount to anything. So we have to learn how to do something useless.

[47:13]

We have to learn the efficacy of useless activity just about 12 o'clock. But I'm going to give us one more minute if someone has a question. I've been thinking, actually, all week I had the feeling that there's something that I want to be doing all the time in a practice way. But there's such a large division. Certain activities, it's like this ball of energy person. Certain activities absolutely, totally absorb me. There's no question. Working children today. But how about walking to school? There is many choices there. If I just concern myself with walking, I may be planning something or I need to think about something that's going to come up.

[48:24]

So if I just walk, then I don't think about the plan. Or perhaps something has happened this morning, and they've changed my roommate, so I really need to consider that. Well, then I don't plan for school, then I'm not walking. So transitions are the things that really confuse me. I don't know. Or if somebody tells you what to do, it's also very easy. They just say, do this. Then you can just do this. When I made ravioli, wonderful. Just forget it. Just do the ravioli. So those two kinds of things, choice activities, which totally involve you, and somebody telling you to do something. But what about the rest, which is most of your life, actually? Well, it looks like when you're doing one thing, you're only doing one thing. But there is no such thing as doing one thing. Yes, but it's an overall focus where you don't feel you have that confusion. So everything you're doing, you know, is a composite of many factors.

[49:28]

Sitting, just sitting here is a composite of many, many factors. But what you're doing, you know, it's a composite of many factors, keeps changing all the time, always changing. And so we can't hang on to some, if you walk down the street rigidly, this is Zazen, you know, you can't do that. At that point, Zazen is having a kind of confused mind, having lots of ideas and thoughts and walking to work and trying to go across the street when the signal is right and so forth. And still doing that. But the quality of, you're not losing your focus. You're not losing the quality of your focus. Anything's coming through your mind all the time, but you're not losing your direction. It feels as though you don't know what you're doing at all. But that, you're saying that's... It's still focused activity.

[50:33]

It's still focused activity. Well, that'd be fantastic. Perhaps you can focus on not knowing what you're doing. That's right. Realizing fully that you aren't in things. That's right. That's the first step. That's right. There's no way you can get out of it. Thank you. Satsang with Mooji

[50:56]

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