Morning. First, in case you were curious, the reason that I'm not bowing is because my toe hurts. That little toe is enough. The whole body is bearing down on the toe. So, it reminds me of the koan of the buffalo passes the window, hoofs, head, and body all go through except for the little tail. Why can't the little tail go through? Anyway, that's not what I want to talk about. I do want to say that this group is mostly mature members, and some newer members.

[01:14]

And I just want to say that, especially to the newer members, that when I was beginning to sit, how difficult it was. I would go through these sessions with excruciating pain. But my teacher always encouraged us, and I'm always so thankful that he encouraged us. I remember my first session—I probably told you this before—my first one-day sitting, I think it was. I just couldn't take it. I left around noon. Can you can't hear me? No? No. Around noon, I left. But I wandered all around, and I realized there's nothing I could do, because no matter where I went, I was still in the Sachine.

[02:17]

And no matter what I did, it didn't matter, because it was not related to what I was doing. So I had to go back. But I encourage everyone to. I know it hurts, right? Zen hurts. I remember Kadagiri coming up to me one day and saying, hurts, huh? And I said, yeah. So everybody was very encouraging. But in those days, we didn't have the seasoned Zen students that we have today. you walk into a zendo and everybody's, most people sit really well, even though you can't tell what's going on inside, but people sit very well. But in those days, people did not sit so well, and we all had a hard time. So anyway, I just want to encourage everybody and myself

[03:26]

Well, the other day, the day before yesterday, I talked a little bit about faith and doubt, and about, oh, I don't know if I was talking about once born and twice born, but I think I, no. Well, there was an interesting book by Conrad Heyers, who was a teacher in the college, Canada. And he wrote a book called, something like that, Once Born, Twice Born. And he wrote another book called Zen Humor. But this Once Born, Twice Born is very insightful. And it's based on William James, who kind of used that term to describe two different styles of awakening or religious practice, awakening in religious practice.

[04:39]

And William James himself seems to have been a twice-born person. because he had a lot of anxiety and fear and depression and those qualities which are always looking for some kind of redemption in order to transfigure a person. And so he kind of favored that, he said, if you don't have a big experience, then you don't have, then your understanding is not so great. So, the author has taken this up and the subject, but he actually is encountering as a counterbalance to William James,

[05:44]

He uses Dogen and Suzuki Roshi as a contrast to Rinzai and Hakuin and some other figures. He talks about Dogen's faith practice and Suzuki Roshi's faith practice and Soto Zen's faith practice and Rinzai's great death practice, or high peak experiences. James believed in peak experiences, which kind of goes with Rinzai Zen, style of Zen. nothing is ever exactly categorically, those things don't fit categorically, because within Soto Zen there's also experience, peak experience, and within Rinzai Zen there's also just doing.

[07:09]

So, but these two have these characteristics and they're noted for their characteristics. Rinzai Zen is sometimes characterized as the general moving his troops. And Soto Zen is characterized as the farmer raising his crops. And sometimes, usually, often, the misunderstanding of sudden and gradual enlightenment, the misunderstanding that Rinzai Zen is sudden enlightenment, and Soto Zen is gradual enlightenment. Soto Zen is sudden enlightenment, and Rinzai Zen is sudden enlightenment, but the meaning of sudden may not be exactly the same. In the Platform Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch He says, this whole idea about sudden and gradual, he said, some people attain or have realization more quickly than others.

[08:25]

But as far as sudden and gradual goes, We shouldn't worry about that. There's not something to be, to worry about. But actually, within gradual, there is sudden, and within sudden, there is gradual. Sudden enlightenment is the result of gradual practice. So in Soto school, we say, sudden enlightenment, gradual practice. because we enter, I don't want to get started here, but we enter through, enlightenment is what brings us to practice and what motivates our practice. So we don't practice from enlightenment, from delusion to enlightenment, because we already have intrinsic enlightenment Enlightenment is our nature, we are gradually unfolding it through practice, rather than working real hard from what you believe is a deluded state to an enlightened state.

[09:43]

So there's some interesting things. I have a list of things that I, the characteristics of the two that I wrote, but when I was thinking about this, I was thinking about Sawaki Kodo Roshi's comments. I don't know if you've ever seen this little book, The Teaching of Homeless Kodo. Uchiyama Roshi was Kodo Sawaki's disciple and commented on Kodo Sawaki's comments. Sawaki Roshi was considered by many to be the real thing in the first part of the 20th century as far as a Soto Zen priest. He died in 1965. He was called Homeless Kodo because he never really had his own place.

[11:00]

He did at certain times, but mostly he didn't have his own place. But he was considered by real practitioners to be the leading practitioner of that time. And so he has some wonderful comments. He says, we don't practice zazen in order to get enlightened. We practice zazen being pulled every which way by enlightenment. And Uchi Amuro, she says, to fall in love is ecstasy, but marriage is everyday life. Everyday life has rainy days, windy days, and stormy days, so you can't always be happy. It's the same with zazen. There are two kinds of zazen transmitted in Japan. One understands zazen as ecstasy, and the other understands zazen as everyday life. And then Sawaki Roshi says,

[12:09]

The life in which you are glared at by Zazen, scolded by Zazen, obstructed by Zazen, pulled by Zazen, and get along with tears in your eyes is the happiest life, isn't it? This is the classic. So Aki Roshi says, the Buddha way is to not be distracted. It is to become your role to the bone. This attitude is called samadhi or shikantaza. We don't eat food to take a shit. We don't take a shit in order to make manure. But in recent years, most people think that you go to high school to get into college, and you go to college in order to have a good job. And then he says, people often misunderstand faith as a kind of ecstasy or intoxication.

[13:31]

These are illusions and intoxications which seem holy. True faith is to sober up from such intoxication. So, I kind of gleaned these from these characteristics from this book. So I call this the tension between faith and doubt, once born and twice born. So the way of doubt, which is characteristic of twice born, would be a dynamic awakening. Satori. Kensho. Sudden jolt. Struggle. Extreme highs and lows. Disquiet. Despair.

[14:32]

Doubt. Trashing ego. Seeking. Extreme means. Enlightenment is the goal. The way of faith, the characteristic of faith is waking up from sleep. Enlightenment is at the core of one's being. Not a goal, but an ever-present reality. Not attainable because it is the basis of all attainment. Equanimity and tranquility. Evenness. Enlightenment, not some good feeling or state of mind. Upright posture is itself enlightenment. Zazen is the path as well as the end. Faith in original Buddha nature or emptiness. Nothing special. Harmony and unity of ordinary experience. Enlightenment is the beginning of practice. Now those are very contrasting, but I'm sure when I read The Way of Doubt that we all identified with it, with those characteristics.

[15:40]

And then twice born characteristics, to die the great death. The need for reconstruction or rebirth. Fear. Sense of sin. Judgment. Anxiety. Melancholy. Dread. Doubt. Despair. Quandaries. Antagonism. Dead sitting. Path from delusion to enlightenment. And characteristics of once born is dropping body and mind. healthy-minded, feeling at home, fully present in the moment, faith born of enlightenment, faith as a mark of enlightenment, positive focus, vibrant zazen, just sitting in enlightenment. Everyday life is the way. Satori is not to go to a special place, but just to be natural. And resuming our true nature.

[16:48]

which Buddha calls the norm. Born again. Yeah. Because of these characteristics, one feels the need to be reborn. Born again. Yeah. The second birth comes from an experience, a peak experience. It's connected with a peak experience. There's something called fixed karma. There's something called fixed karma and something called unfixed karma.

[17:50]

Fixed karma is like you were born from Jewish parents in the east coast of the United States, in the west coast of the United States, in Russia. In Russia? In Mexico, okay. In Mexico. Somewhere. As a girl. I mean, you were born as a girl, even though you're now a lady. Thank you. It used to be that fixed karma was equated with your sexual orientation, but that's no longer the case. It's no longer fixed. Anyway, it's those things that you can't change. Fixed karma is those things that you're born with that you can't change. But then there's unfixed karma, which is always possible to change. So when you say, do you have a choice?

[18:54]

Well, maybe, maybe not. If you don't have a choice about your fixed karma, but you have a choice about your unfixed karma, No, it's not, well, you can choose it or not. You can say, this is what I'm going to do, so you choose that path. Or, it may just happen to you. So, it's both. You choose it and it just happens to you. Right? So, it always just happens to you. You don't make it happen. You put yourself in a situation which sets up the conditions for that happening, but you don't make it happen. I don't remember to tell you the truth.

[19:56]

I did this a long time ago. I did it many, many years ago. Well, yes, I haven't got there yet. I haven't got there yet. Yes. Right. But these are characteristics which are not fixed, but they define a certain kind of path. That's all. And they do overlap. And it doesn't mean that doubt types don't have faith, because what happens when a doubt type has a peak experience, then they experience faith. That's what they experience.

[20:58]

Whereas the faith type don't need to have the peak experience to have faith, because they have it already. That's the difference. Like, Hakuin needed to go through all these experiences in order to go through all these trials and tribulations in order to have his peak experiences, which resulted in his faith. But, you know, we don't know about... It's not like Dogen didn't have problems. He did have problems. And he did have peak experiences. But the basis of his generally the basis of his characteristics is based in faith rather than in doubt. That's all. So, I've run into people who say, I just don't even know what faith is.

[22:06]

And I think, how can you not know what faith is? This is something I've had all my life. How can you not know what that is? I don't know. And someone else will have the opposite. I don't know what doubt is, right? I do know what doubt is. I know what all those things are because I've had all the doubt things myself, right? And I'm sure that we all have. But under the basic, although I've had doubt, and all these characteristics. Basically, they've never overshadowed my feeling of faith. So there are people who don't have the feeling of faith. All they have is doubt. And that's why they have to work so hard to find themselves, to find their Satori, so to speak. the peak experiences. And then, when they have that, it can be very strong.

[23:08]

And so, there are people who say, like William James, when you have this peak experience, then it really is very strong and maybe deeper than just someone who has a faith orientation. But that's debatable. Yes. Well, that's right. Yes. So you have to remember that this is not a fixed thing. This is just talking about characteristics, OK? Yeah. I don't know that those are descriptive categories

[24:17]

fit or found any, you know, anything that fit into that. I mean, it just wasn't experienced. Anyway, sure, you know. But these are, you know, that what you say is possible. People will start categorizing themselves according to this list. That's not the purpose of the list. The purpose of the list is simply to discuss these characteristics and how they are characteristic of these two paths, or what seem like two sides of one path. They're just two sides of one path.

[26:11]

One is like the yin and the yang. I think we all struggle. Everybody struggles. As I say, we all have these characteristics. I don't know anybody that is a faith type who doesn't have all the characteristics of the doubt type. I don't know anybody like that. We all have all the characteristics. And we all also have some of the characteristics of the faith type. but not everyone. Not everyone feels that they, despite all of their doubts and all of their whatever, that there's something basically, some basic confidence that somehow they feel connected to things, even when they feel lonely.

[27:17]

They feel connected to the universe. There are people who don't feel connected to the universe. And this leads to despair and all these negative feelings. And then, in order to struggle with that, the struggle with that is what creates the conditions for having that peak experience. That's not bad. That's great, you know? It's not a matter of judgment. It's a matter of these are the two ways things work. call. that I hear the power of now, he was very depressed for many years, and he had an experience, and then that's what made him an enlightened experience.

[28:48]

We'll get back to that. Yeah. Sue? Yeah, I think what Paul said, that this is bringing some bells of remembrance and resonance for me, what you're saying, it's encouraging to the table. Because I'm thinking to myself, I forget. You know, oh yeah, I belong to the universe. But I need reminders a lot. And then it's just a sense of coming home, like walking to the gate here. And it'd be nice if it were around a lot more. But it's really wonderful to have reminders. I think I've always been a faith type.

[30:10]

But it took me a long time of searching to find out how to connect with it. And then coming to practice was a kind of big satori for me, awakening. But you also talk about, oh, I hear that our teachers have said I'm reminded of... Well, people think that Soto Zen, they poo-poo enlightenment, but that's not true at all.

[31:19]

The standpoint of Soto Zen is, if you ignore where you are right now in order to, if you sacrifice the nowness of now in order to try to get something in the future, you're simply wasting your time. Because all this time, you're saying this is important and this is not important. This is more important than this. the thing that I'm going for is more important than the thing I have. And so that just takes us away from our realization. It's like chasing your shadow. And as you chase your shadow, you don't catch up with it. It moves as you move. you know, like Nansen and Joshu, you know, what is the way?

[32:28]

Well, everyday life is the way. If you don't go for it, you ignore it. And if you do go for it, you stumble past it. So what do you do? You just be here. You have to find your enlightenment right here where you are. So that's the standpoint of Soto Zen. Stop looking for something that's right under your feet. So that's the Genjo Koan of Soto Zen. It's like, how do you find the realization to realize enlightenment right here with what you have right now? But the problem that we have is, well, we have an idea about what enlightenment is. And then it doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't match your ideas. This is enlightenment? This place that I have, this thing that I'm doing is enlightenment?

[33:30]

So you just ignore, you know, it's like standing in the middle of the stream and saying, where's the water? We're always looking for something else. So that's why the faith-based practice is, we know it's here. This is it. Even though I don't experience something that I think is it, there's nothing else than this. There's really nothing else. Well... Well, you know, the direction that he offered was, just be where you are.

[34:48]

He didn't say, we're going somewhere. He said, if you do this, something will happen. Never, ever did he say, if you do this, something will happen. Yes, well, you know, doubt is the partner of faith. So it's a marriage of faith and doubt for us.

[36:07]

The faith is what is the momentum for practice. It's the momentum and the trust. And the doubt is the counterbalance. So doubt counterbalances faith. So without the doubt, the faith is just kind of, doesn't have a rudder. So doubt is the rudder. No, a little to the left, go to the right. No, no, don't go that way. So doubt is always making sure that things are right, hopefully. On course, yes, that's right, on course for you. So we don't, you know, all these qualities apply to both once born and twice born, but some are more characteristic of one than the other.

[37:18]

The faith types want to awaken with all beings and the doubt types want to save all beings? No, faith types believe that they are awakened with all beings. Doctypes are wondering if that's possible. Doctypes believe that they're saving all beings? No. No. Doctype would like to be able to save all beings. I doubt if we can do that. This happens. I will not take those vows because I don't think I can save all sentient beings. That happens a lot. Well, how come you don't want to have lay ordination? Well, I don't think I can keep all the precepts. The faith type says, I don't care if I can keep all the precepts or not. I'm just going to practice.

[38:22]

The doubt type says, I can't do that. I can't start to practice because I'm no good. I will not be a good Buddhist because I have all these bad characteristics, and I get depressed, and blah, [...] blah. And we keep, you know. With the faith, I've just said, even though I'm a terrible sinner, I'm going to practice. Well, underneath, yes, of course. Yes. Well, okay, faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin. So if you have doubt, you also have faith, even though you don't recognize it, or you don't, because the characteristic of

[39:32]

putting the weight on the doubt side, is that when you awaken, then the faith is even stronger. Like, look at Paul of Tarsus, right? The doubt type. Suddenly had this peak experience and became, you know, the faith type. Yeah. I just wanted to say, Yeah, they're explicitly impossible. Absolutely impossible to maintain. About faith and doubt. Doubt is about questioning and relentlessness. and ultimately lead to a kind of cynicism or nihilism.

[40:40]

And I think that the faith, the interesting thing about enlightenment is that what the word there is light, and light can come in small bursts or larger doses. And one, I mean, I vote, I just don't. I don't see this dichotomy between these two different kinds Well, yes, it's all about light. I'll talk about light later. I forgot what I was going to say exactly.

[41:52]

You said something early in the beginning. Yeah. About what? Yes, right. So this is why the koan system is good for a lot of people. Because who are questioning, [...] and then you get this koan which gives you some place for your questioning to go so that it puts an end to it in some way. So, the doubt school, you know, in Rinzai's school, doubt is very important, a real important part, to have big doubt. And then the koan absorbs that doubt. and gives it a way to resolve. Yeah? I knew someone who had written on the back of her rock, so great doubt is the womb of great faith.

[43:00]

Yeah, that's right. And I thought it didn't make any sense, because I'm a faith type, and I thought, no, everything comes out of faith. Oh yeah, well that's right. So the difference is some people don't feel that faith without really experiencing too much doubt. Other people need to have some experience to break through to the faith through their doubt, which is fine, you know? It's not like one is better than the other. It's just that these are two characteristics. Paul had his hand up first. I just realized why I haven't had an experience in 10 years, because in the first 10 years I had experiences of turning from a doubt type into a faith type.

[44:04]

Some people have turned to become faith types and become doubt types. It does, of course. Great faith, absolutely. Uh-huh. somehow the surface of

[45:12]

That's really admirable. It's just to say, I think that the complexity that I hear in the discussion is that we can have personal doubts, we can have a great deal of personal self-belief, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have a deep understanding of harmonious interdependence of things and really understand that so that we grapple with that. So I have a great deal of faith in practice, but I sometimes have a lot of personal doubts. It doesn't really get rid of my faith in practice. Right. Well, I think that's right. The practice carries us through all of the stuff that comes up for us. That's the benefit of daily nothing special practice. day by day by day.

[46:42]

And it's like he says, in the marriage, you know, the honeymoon is over and then there's the marriage. It's like day by day and everything comes up. And the thing about practice is all the doubts, all your questioning, all your despair, all your whatever, but the practice continues and carries all that with you. And then things become resolved within the rhythm of practice. That's what it's about. So you can have a big high and you can have a big low. Unless the high is carried by practice, it either becomes egotistical or fades or becomes confusing. Not always, but often. I just want to check what I think I'm hearing.

[47:49]

So this is a question. It sounds like when someone is in a doubt phase, that being in a doubt phase is about the experience of, in that moment, not feeling connected. And that someone who is doubting is saying to themselves, I'm feeling connected, but it doesn't mean I'm not connected. I may feel disconnected, but it doesn't mean I'm not connected. in the absence of the immediate experience? It's like, you know, you don't always count on your experience to be what you're counting on.

[48:55]

What you're counting on is your practice. That's really the crux of the whole thing, because feelings are ephemeral. You may have a feeling for a long time, but it's ephemeral. And to count on feelings, which are ephemeral, will just pull you all over the place. Whereas your practice, it's steady and rhythmic, and carries you in a way that goes beyond your feelings, carries you beyond your feelings. So whether you have a good feeling, or a bad feeling, or a despair feeling, or no matter what it is, the practice is the thread that runs through everything. And that's what gives you your stability, and that's the basis of enlightenment. It's the norm. Buddha says, well, all I teach is the norm. He didn't say anything else. He did say other things, but the norm is like, well, what's the norm?

[49:58]

The norm is enlightenment. Not something special. It's something that's at the core of your very being. But we get carried away emotionally and mentally and in all kinds of ways. And if we don't have something to really keep us steady, then we just go up and down. I know it's getting late. That's why we emphasize daily practice. This is the last question, Mary. I just want to put in a word for growing faith gradually. My experience has been that I came to trust this practice and I came to trust my own process in it.

[51:01]

gradual experiences and smaller, not so much peak experiences, smaller experiences of, I don't know, like being able to stand it. You know, the fear came up, being able to sit with it. You know, and you said years ago, you know, just give it some breath, and my face changed, and you said, I am not telling you to suppress it. Practicing with that, you know, and learning what it meant it sits still with it, and allow it to arise, and lo and behold, it has a way. And having those experiences and finding out that, oh, I can do this, in increments. So it's felt to me that my experience of faith has grown like exercising a muscle. Yeah, the faith muscle. No, it's true. So, you know, there's a basic faith in which enables you to enter something, but then the deeper faith comes through your experience gradually, because it's confidence and so forth.

[52:29]

And then it becomes stronger and more settled. And unshakable, that's called enlightenment, when you have that unshakable, not stubborn, but the feeling of confidence, true confidence. Beings are numberless.

[53:26]

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