The last couple of days I've been commenting on Dogyeom Zenji's Fukanza Zengi. And I thought we could discuss that today, if you like. But first, someone asked if we could, say, talk for a few minutes about what we think of our new schedule. Of course, new people wouldn't have anything to compare it with. You can't hear? Yeah, new people wouldn't have anything to compare it with, so... But... What do you think about our schedule, the change in our Sashin schedule? Anybody have any opinions? I like it. You like it? Yes, I do. It's a cube scale.

[01:33]

What kind of scale? Human scale. As opposed to a... Superhuman. Dinosaur? I mean we've been doing this superhuman practice all along, we didn't know it. Maybe, maybe so. I'm not sure if it's new, but I like the exercise period. Uh-huh. That's new. And, um, we don't do a couple of zazens. There's a couple of less zazens. Yeah, there's less zazens. I like that too. I like to schedule a lot of I wish the exercise period was a little longer.

[02:33]

I like the exercise period too, although it seems like the energy is petered off. Yesterday it seemed like there was less people really active, as much as previous days, and actually I'd like to see it longer. It seems to, in some ways, I kind of like, like I'm so didn't seem to put all my energy into planning to work here, at least in the morning break. But I did get more sleep. But there was something about the whole schedule that was very, I did like the intensity of the whole schedule a little bit. I like it both, but I like the intensity of the whole schedule. Because it really puts you enthusiastic. And the period when I did the whole schedule, I didn't have any choice but to do period after period.

[03:38]

And there's something about the periods became more like five minutes or something like that. The period became very short because there was so much intensity. And I don't know, there's something I like about it. But it's a serious event. Well, regarding the exercise period, some place they have optional exercise. It's a break and optional exercise. So you don't expect that everybody's going to exercise. You expect everybody to exercise, that may be too much. But if you have a break in which people can do the exercises, then I think you don't worry so much about whether they do or not. Actually, I like The most important thing to me is, I think, is being able to take a nap. Then, I guess I'd like to see, maybe myself, I still like to do four zazens all in a row.

[04:48]

I don't want to get into scheduling here. Yeah, I know. Okay. Kurt, did you have something else to say? It seems like one possible danger of a new schedule is that because there's a shorter work period and there are these long rest periods, the rest periods are going to end up getting used to take up the slack for the work period. It would seem important to be clear about how to use it, because it's a rest period, a really rest period for me. Or for people who really want to use a rest period, it's a rest period not to feel like it.

[05:48]

That's what I'll tell you. I liked having the rest period in the morning. The tea treat doesn't work for me. It's too early to have a treat. And the tea after exercise period, it seems like the exercise period gets cut short and the clapper is down for tea. And then we have tea, which doesn't take as long as it should because we've not only got 15 minutes, but we've got the extra from the exercise period. So then we have this, either a long keen hand or something happens that doesn't quite work. So those two teas seem to work. Something's wrong.

[07:04]

It's not in the schedule, at least. No, no. That's why I never count the time. Well, as you know, I haven't been sitting as a machine, but... It's interesting because I've had other, there have been other sushis when I've had to work and have been unable to sit and yet returning to, returning home at night there's a sort of feeling about the sushi that I immediately pick up on. And this one is wonderful, it's marvelous. there's a feeling of calm and silence at this Sashi that made me feel as though I was participating in a Sashi even when I was alone in my apartment after work while the Sashi was going on. And I really noticed it. It really felt when I was walking around the grounds that the silence was deeper and that the pace seemed sort of less frantic

[08:17]

very calm feeling about it. So I really appreciate that a lot. I find that because there's no signs of upsetting, more time after the Christian really wanted to do their love and really not wanted to do it. And that's the intention when I say this change. Okay, anything else? Thank you for your comments. Do you have any questions about Fukanza Zengi that we've done? Okay. Well, the paragraph when you talk about, well, don't even talk about that, cease all involvements, cast aside all affairs.

[09:31]

I thought that was interesting. I think that's a very interesting sentence. And you related it to the atmosphere of Sashim. In Sashim, you had this opportunity. And then you mentioned the difficulty that we have doing that during Jigme Zazen during the year. And I think that's probably true, but isn't it strange I don't really think you can answer this, but it's kind of an air of futility about the whole thing. I mean, here we have, we're fortunate enough, a few of us, 30 people, to attend one five-day session in a year. And then all the rest of the time, we're just stuck with all these involvements and affairs. I just wonder maybe if there's a better way of looking at it or a way of thinking that we can extend this notion of casting aside all involvements and ceasing all affairs to make it a larger, it's a very central pillar of practice.

[10:33]

And you can say something about that. Okay. Well, you know, setting aside all involvements and casting aside all is speaking about just when you sit. Of course, in your daily life you don't do that. You take all those things on. So, there are two sides to practice. One side is where you cast off all involvements, put everything away, and retreat from the world. The other side is where you turn around, turn back out into the world, and take up all involvements and affairs. So there's two sides. both sides, one side is just as important as the other. So when we do the side where we leave the world, we do that completely. And when you turn around and practice the side where you enter the world, you do that completely.

[11:39]

And you go back and forth. And our practice is going back and forth. When Dogen says that, you have to realize that's what he's talking about, that he's emphasizing one side. We do have this opportunity, you know, to sit for five days. We have two long sessions a year, one five day, one seven day. And the rest of the time we have short, you know, one day, two day, three day, through the year. every day we have zazen. So if we can practice, it has to be continuous in order to really feel the effect of practice or to feel the involvement of practice. It's best if it's continuous.

[12:46]

So we talk about continuous practice. That means that that's your life. Your life is continuous practice. In order to make our life continuous practice, we have to do something. Give up something and do something. You can't do everything. So many things to do. So much stuff to do. Our lives are so very full. Each thing that we do can be a whole way of life. And if you take on something else, you think, well, I'll just try this. But you get stuck in trying this, because that becomes a whole way of life. Then you have two ways of life going. Then you think, well, this looks interesting over here, and you try that. First thing, you have three waves of life going. Our life, you know, we have too much opportunity is one of the problems.

[13:52]

We don't know how to make choices. If you're going to practice, you have to make a choice to do that. You have to make a real conscious choice that you spend time practicing so that practice is extended to your activities. If you have too many, you have too much going on, You can't do it. It's a little different path than you're taking, but I heard a story about Suzuki Roshi, and maybe you said it, I don't know, maybe somebody else, that when he was working in the garden, well, the garden of Tasselhorn, big stones, and he was older, and the people he was working with for quite a few years, that other people tend to get tired much sooner than he did. And somebody said that he was always, when he watched Sugiroshi, to see what it was that enabled him to be so strong in his work, it was that he was always resting at the right time.

[15:05]

He never was putting out excess of what he needed to do, yet he was always ready to to do what needed to be done, but he knew how to rest in just very small ways. So when I think about involvements and affairs, I partly get exhausted by just not being able to let go of being stirred up all the time in the midst of them. That's a good point. I'm glad you brought that up, because as an example, of course I was, probably it was me, because I was the one that was working with him, moving the rocks. But, you know, he always knew when he wasn't doing something, he was resting. And even when he was doing something, it always had that feeling of stillness, calmness within the activity.

[16:09]

Like I said, I never did see Suzuki Roshi in a hurry. You know he had uncountable things to do. Never in a hurry. Never walked in a hurry. Even if he ran, it wasn't in a hurry. There was always that feeling of calmness, you know, in all the activity. So when he would do something, even though he was sick too, he was also sick, as well as being old, fairly old, and hot summer, Tassajara, moving rocks. He would, he could always do as much as anybody, and very often more. But he had a way of moving and moving things that was very fundamental. So you could learn a lot by just being with him and watching him.

[17:14]

Kate? It seems to me that if, as you say it, that Suzuki Roshi, even though he had uncountable things to do, could still have that quality of calmness. that... My own feeling about that sentence in Bhukan Dzogchenji is, you know, cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs, is that that's what you do at the moment that you bow to your Christian, to sit on it. And that if you do that, if you try to do that, it's not always possible to do it. Sometimes you wind up sitting with your affairs, sitting with your involvements, but if you try to do that, more and more it happens that you can really leave those things outside. And it seems to me that that's what, at least when I'm able to do that the most, when I'm able to sit without my affairs, that's when I feel like I have that kind of quality that you described.

[18:28]

I probably I know I'm not as good at it as Suzuki Roshi was, but it's for me something to try to do. And so for that reason, I think that when you say you have to make a commitment to practice, you have to give up something, there's a certain sort of amount of things that we can't give up. even though it may seem like too much, like we have uncountable things to do. So, I think it's very important not to give up practice. Yeah, I agree with you. For me, I think the hardest thing to give up... I do more things every year. I've been practicing for a lot of years, and every year I do more things. But it gets easier to do more things, and I don't think it's because my Zazen is so terrific.

[19:33]

What I found that I had to give up was feeling sorry for myself that I had all these things to do and all these competing demands on my life, and the phone was ringing, the kids were calling, the house was dirty, and I was in the middle of something that I really wanted to write. And when I was able to just begin to get some space where I didn't feel sorry for myself, I began to have tremendous amount of energy. And I noticed very often if I'll call somebody, very often I have to call somebody say to check on the carpool for my kids or something like that. And they'll answer the phone and the only time you can reach people is at dinner time, right? And how people answer the phone when they're in the middle of dinner is very indicative of their state of mind. And most people will be very short with you. and very harassed, particularly if they have small children at dinner time. And they'll, instead of just giving you the space to say what you have to say in 10 seconds, they'll give you 30 seconds of what an awful time they're having right now.

[20:43]

And I've learned a lot just from kind of listening to that and just trying not to do it, no matter how bad I feel. just trying not to do that to myself and other people, and eventually, just through lack of encouragement, it goes away. That's a really good practice, to remember to give yourself that space to not throw your hassle at somebody, but open up to what's happening. Open up to that. Very good practice. I have a somewhat similar situation, but Because I established my practice when I wasn't so busy, I already had it established so I could take on more and more and not complain that things are getting too busy.

[21:44]

You're the one that everybody calls the leader tonight. How do I sound? Pretty good. Pretty good? But I don't like to talk on the telephone for very long. So I usually just get the message and just, you know, end the message without extending it. Like, oh, that's my style. James? I've had an experience sort of similar to Fran's while I was working on my rock school. I'd never really sewed anything before. And I kept making all kinds I kept getting angry at myself for making mistakes. But recently, I realized I just had to finish my rocks. And it didn't matter how many mistakes I made, it's just the thing to do is to finish.

[22:48]

And so I found if I didn't get angry at myself for making mistakes, which is my head and fix the mistakes, I got so much more to accomplish. Big point. Really important point. Most of the people who, many of the people who I talk to, eventually bring up the point about how they get angry at themselves. Either advertently or inadvertently. For making mistakes or, you know, and not being able to handle it, not knowing what to do about it. and having a lot of self-flagellation and it's too big, you know. It becomes too big a thing. We have to, I think, we have to know how to let go of that. How to apologize to ourself or to whatever it is we make a mistake with and go on.

[23:50]

We waste a lot of time with that. I'd like to ask you about the line between, when, let's see, I don't know how to quote it exactly, but it has to do with not having preferences and accepting them as they come. But where is, there are things that when they go wrong you should fix them. Where is that part? No, that's what I'm saying. Just accepting everything, isn't there a place where that becomes too passive, if there's something that needs to be fixed? So, you know, what he's talking about in Fuka Zazen, when you're sitting Zazen,

[24:53]

You manifest non-discriminating mind. But if you only had non-discriminating mind during your daily affairs, you should have non-discriminating mind during your daily affairs, but you also have to have discriminating mind. You have to be able to pick and choose. big subject. Usually we're making choices based only on our discriminating mind. There's a phrase called the discrimination of non-discrimination. And discrimination of non-discrimination means that to be able to base your choices on non-discriminating discrimination, non-discriminating mind.

[26:02]

In other words, with non-discriminating mind, no ego. But yet we still have to make choices even if there is no, when I say no ego, I mean no self-centeredness. So to be able to make choice based on non-self-centeredness is called discrimination of non-discrimination. So non-duality means non-self-centeredness. Let go of pros and cons, let go of good and bad. It's not being self-centered, which is the important ingredient in Zazen. You're centered on yourself, but to the point where you are no longer self-centered. And then choice and discrimination is based on non-self-centeredness.

[27:13]

but on wholly centered beliefs. Not that there's no picking and choosing, it's that, where does it come from? What do you base your choices on? Who chooses? What does that mean to be non-self-centered or to make choices from some larger place? What do you think about that? Well, to be able to see the total picture, more total picture.

[28:17]

If you want to, settle an argument. You can do it, you know, if you want to settle an argument, you can do it by getting bigger guns. You know, that's self-centeredness, self-centered activity of getting a bigger gun so that you can protect yourself and shoot the enemy. You create an enemy out of of what's around you by making yourself the center and making everything else an object. Or you can see yourself as your enemy. You know, we keep... I'm going to talk about politics a little bit that the government keeps They say, well, since salt 2, since the Russians are not abiding by salt 2, we should eliminate it.

[29:26]

See, that's self-centered response, because it doesn't, this isn't working, it's just crazy. Because we objectify, America objectifies the Russians, you know. They're over there, that evil over there. And we shouldn't touch them. That's self-centered activity. That's dualistic activity, us and them. Non-dualistic activity is to see them as us. To see you as me. Then, you know, but you're you and I'm me. But if I see you as me, It makes a great deal of more difference how I respond to you than if I see just you as you and just me as me. But if I don't see you as me and me as you, then I don't know how to deal with it.

[30:31]

I only have to get my gun and protect myself. So what do you do when the person that you're trying to see as you is appalling? Well, you know, how do you see the pain in your legs? Well, I just live with it as best as I can. Aren't there times when you see it's hostile to you? But you see, if you think that way, then you create the situation. You feel that things are set up in a certain way. But you're creating the situation the way they're set up. We're creating the situation.

[31:35]

It doesn't have to be that way. You say, well, the Russians are this way and we're this way. That's just an idea, just some idea. Is it like taking it personally? You know, you take it personally when your legs hurt? My legs are doing this to me. Right, you take it personally. Or this person is doing this to me. Something's happening to me. Right? No. If there are enough people, though, that feel a certain way about a situation, And you're living in the group, you're living around all those people, you may decide, well, they've got their reasons, there's all these paranoid people out there that are going to try and blow them up, I'd be paranoid too.

[32:43]

Well, when I say you create situations, they create that situation. Okay? People create the situation that they're in. And even though we're born into a certain situation, you know, we still help to create it. You have some choice in your life. And we do create that situation and we perpetuate it. You know, in a sense we all share a certain situation, but you have your freedom to respond to that situation any way you want. Is it a case that, you know, these situations exist because of ideas that we have in our mind?

[34:09]

Well, there are differences. See, the problem is that there are, of course, everything is separate in itself. But, everything is also the same. And what we fail to see is that everything is the same. Because, and we only see the differences, that's called, we say, dualistic. subjects and objects. But underneath, or not underneath, but as I believe you're speaking, we all belong together. So we're all the same, one person with many faces. Sometimes it seems to me it's very difficult to decide in a situation if it's really good or really bad. You know, like a good situation has something bad in it. A sad situation has something good in it. Like everything has its shadow. Right. You know, everything has its dark side. Yes. So something bad seems to be happening, but how do you know that that's, I mean, the good is also in that?

[35:13]

That's right. That's right, just like Zazen. So where are you, you know, in that? Where do you find yourself in that good, bad? Where are you? Just there. We've talked about this a lot. I understand what you're saying. I agree with it in my zazen. Sometimes I'm able to feel that in my real life or in my outside life, everyday situations. I'm able to kind of carry that kind of mind. But just, you know, last week, well this has been happening the last couple of months, but it really came down to somebody said something to me and I responded with, well,

[36:23]

It's okay, everything is just the way it should be. And for some reason, it just went off in my head, like, how do I tell that to the African woman whose baby is dying in her arms from starvation? Why do we get so excited over poems like Thich Nhat Hanh's poem, Call Me By My True Names, which asks us to have compassion for the killer as well as the giver of life. And that's where, you know, it's easy for us to talk about, on a nice comfortable level, and it hits us right in the gut. I feel, God, if I can't deal with it there, then, you know, really I'm not dealing with it at any level. Yeah. You have to be able to deal with it on all levels. How do you... I don't know, I guess it's just... You know, in Alcoholics Anonymous they have a prayer that says, God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

[37:46]

Yeah, I've seen that a lot, you know, and I agree with that up here. And I can incorporate that in my life, but really, I don't have the answer. How are you going to say that to the African woman whose baby is dying? What do you say to her? I just don't know. I just feel like, you know, these missionaries are going, and it's okay, God will provide. It's okay, the world is fine just the way it is. Is that what we've been saying? No, no, I'm not saying you've been saying that, but I, you know, it kind of feels that way to me in some ways. I'm just amazed at the, that, that, um... Maybe it's just my own personal experience. Somebody say something. What's on the program with Ethiopia last week? And I can so, um... I mean, it was terrible.

[38:48]

These people were dying. Their babies were dying. But there was so much actually being done, not being said. You can't say anything to somebody in that situation, really. You can hold their baby or you can give them, you know, whatever you can give them in service of them. You can contact the folks. But so much was actually being done that I don't think 30 years ago we would have even thought about being done. And I found that so hopeful. People, you know, are responding all over the world to this country where most of them don't even know where the hell it is. And this wouldn't have happened 30 years ago. You wouldn't have heard about it in the news, maybe talked about it, but it wouldn't have been that feeling that they are not separate from us. I mean, here are some people that we really have very little in common with except that we're both human beings. And yet there's really an outpouring of compassion for these people from all over the world. I found that very hopeful. We don't have too much time, but maybe one more. Maybe you haven't been able to say anything else.

[39:50]

Well, I really feel what Diane was saying, and all these things can be said. I felt it very much too. And it's just how much, I think, how much personally you get grabbed by it. And when you do, the effect it's had on me is to just really very much decrease my interest in living my own life. and increase my interest in doing everything I can to reach out. That's all you can do. But the amount of time and the energy that it takes can change. I guess that's what I'm getting at is the difference between the word and the action. Yeah. Well, we like to have action, not words, you know. or put our words where our mouth is. But sometimes you can do something, and sometimes all you can do is cry. Ken?

[41:00]

Yeah, well, I just like putting it right here, as well as in Ethiopia, I saw a movie one time And we're doing the same stuff in the United States. We've got the same human karma as they did in Ethiopia. We've got better technology to do it with, too. Better pesticides and bigger machines and less soil conservation stuff. So right here, eventually, basic substances of what people do with their lives is the same as Africa's. And here it's the same thing. So I just want to bring it home, too, that basically the United States is going, or America and South America, everywhere is going down that same

[42:03]

Well, okay, to conclude, this non-discriminating mind, you know, is sometimes in Buddhism we call it big mind. Big mind that can accept everything doesn't mean that you don't do something to accept and to do something. So, not just be passive. Passive is one side and active is the other. But to have a big, big basis, not just some narrow view, will always help us. And people fight because of their narrow views.

[43:15]

So, if we want to make peace in this world, we have to really make true peace in ourselves. That's not something that I said, that's just the way it is. That's why we sit sasheen. to find your big, big mind and find true peace. Then maybe we can help people in a real way. But don't wait.

[44:03]

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