This morning I want to talk about just our fundamental practice. What is our fundamental practice and how do we do it? We say that Zen practice is nothing special and it's lived in our everyday life.

[01:03]

Everyday life is the way, he said. But what does that mean? So, this everyday life is the way is our big koan fundamental koan and if we don't understand this that that is our problem and the point of understanding lies there then no matter how hard we practice It doesn't mean anything. So we should really be careful on this point. But what does it mean, everyday life?

[02:11]

What is practice in everyday life? Practice in everyday life is not different than practice sitting with your legs crossed in the zendo. We say this all the time. But what does it really mean? Who can say what it really means? Sometimes we say that zazen is to go beyond consciousness to reality.

[03:23]

But beyond consciousness is not really correct. But to go beyond thinking and feeling mind. But what does it mean to go beyond thinking mind and feeling? thoughts and feelings, the realm of thought and feeling. It doesn't mean that there's no thought or no feeling, but that we just go beyond them. What's important here is the decisiveness of our life.

[04:36]

Practice is not based on thought or feeling. It's based on decision. So decision means intention or direction. And Faith in living your life. Sometimes we talk about faith and we can speak about faith in various ways. Sometimes it means confidence. Having confidence in something. That's an aspect of faith.

[05:42]

But here it means having faith in your life. and faith in settling on your life in reality, beyond thinking about it and beyond your feelings about it. Not that our thoughts and feelings aren't included in reality, but our thinking mind and feeling mind, thinking mind and feeling, is not a basis. These are attributes. So what is our fundamental self? How do we settle on our fundamental self? Practice, Zen practice, is to find your fundamental self in each moment.

[06:48]

It's not some special activity. You can find yourself in each moment on any activity. So it's not a special activity. Although we have a certain way of practicing which brings to life and makes us aware of that fact. So in order to have a practice, a Zen practice, in which we live the life of reality from moment to moment, that kind of life comes from your decision. And when we have that kind of decision about how to live our life,

[07:54]

then our thoughts and feelings may or may not accord with that as our life progresses. We may say, well, I don't feel like sitting Zazen, or I don't feel like keeping my commitments, or taking responsibility for my life. That's the kind of thought or feeling you may have. But if you have a practice through your decision, your decision cuts through negativity and positivity. As a matter of fact, your decision cuts through all dualistic understanding. Sometimes Zen practice is associated with willpower. People sometimes say, well, Zen takes a lot of willpower. and is associated with that strength of willpower.

[09:00]

Yes and no. I mean, of course, will plays a big part in our life, but our decision and commitment is maybe mistaken as willpower. It's not that you drag yourself around, you know, with willpower, but when your mind is made up and you have made a decision as to your direction, even though that's so, there are many obstacles in our life, many problems and many obstacles in our life. So every day, no matter what kind of decision we've made to live our life, many obstacles and problems come up naturally.

[10:09]

So as you notice, when we sit in zazen, Even though thoughts come into your mind and feelings, even though you may have various feelings in zazen, because of our decision as to what we're doing, we can go beyond our thoughts and feelings and abide in our fundamental nature. which is not dependent on thoughts and feelings. But thoughts and feelings arise out of that nature. So we have some control of ourself. Not that we control everything, but we can go with things and we can go through things.

[11:15]

And we're not controlled by everything. Most of us in our life, in our life most of us are controlled by various thoughts and feelings that we have. And that's called discrimination, discriminating mind. Sometimes we're pleased by something and so we're naturally drawn to that and have a very pleasurable time until the karma of that situation works itself out and we find ourselves in a miserable situation. And then we try to get out of the miserable situation and make ourselves feel good again. So always trying to make ourselves feel good and eliminate the bad feelings that we have. And even within Zen practice this happens.

[12:21]

We want to be enlightened so that we will no longer be miserable. If we study Zen, we'll become enlightened and we can eliminate the delusive side of our self. But this, you know, is just another case of looking at right and wrong and good and bad through the eyes of thinking and feeling. the looking at our life through the eyes of desire and we all get caught by that and looking at life through the eyes of desire is what creates our problems in life biggest problems so Buddha discovered that if you don't look at your life through the eyes of desire, then even though you may have problems, they're not the same kind of problems.

[13:37]

Problems arise, but they're not problems in the same sense. So sometimes our life is viewed, when our life is viewed from the point of view of settling on our fundamental self, which is beyond, or cuts through feeling mind and thinking mind, The thinking and feeling that comes up is called scenery of our life. Like riding in a train and you watch the scenery go by.

[14:43]

But of course, the scenery of our life is closer than that. The scenery of our life is very close. And so because the scenery of our life is so close, we easily become attached to it. And we say, this is me. But if you sit in zazen and penetrate zazen, you realize what is me and what is not me. Our purpose of sitting in zazen is to just settle on our fundamental self, just abide in our fundamental self. And even though our dualistic life is still, even though we still live in the dualistic realm of life, we're not

[15:54]

enslaved by it. So, how we practice our life in daily life, how we practice our life of practice in daily life is to not be enslaved by our idea of things and our thoughts and feelings. It's very simple, but very hard. It's so simple that it's really difficult. But it's hard to understand it. Hard to understand and hard to put into practice. It's hard to understand because all of our training, since we were very young, has been to see the world in dualistic concepts.

[17:17]

And hard to put into practice because of our karma, because of the way we've lived our life. But when we sit in sazin, We understand something even though we don't understand. When we sit in zazen we actually enter the realm of enlightenment even though we don't know it or don't understand it. So we have the opportunity to live our life in reality and some of us take it and some of us don't and some of us can't. Even though we may want to, we can't because of our karma and because of the way our lives are driven. So if your life is, if you feel that your life is driven, then there's some problem.

[18:31]

you're not really in control of yourself. If you have some obsession or your life is driven in some way, you may not be in control of yourself. So, it's important to find yourself in control of yourself. Very important. And the way that our society drives us, and it does, if we let it, is to accomplish various goals. And we just keep being driven more and more to accomplish those goals. And we never allow ourselves to just settle on ourself as the goal of our life.

[19:41]

We think that we have to have some materialistic goal in our life or our life is not worthwhile. I think for most of us that's true. We have to make a certain amount of money, have a certain kind of status in society, so forth, those are all materialistic goals. And when that becomes our goal and we don't pay attention to the fundamental meaning of our life, then we miss our life. So practice means to not be fooled by materialistic goals as the purpose of our life. It doesn't mean not to be involved in the materialistic life.

[20:48]

Of course, we're all involved in the materialistic life, but when the goal of materialistic life overshadows the true purpose of our life, then we're in trouble. So when we begin to practice, little by little, you know, we begin to see what our life is about, in its true sense. And little by little, through some determination, our life can turn to where we're not so obsessed with false goals. turn our attention toward finding our self, on our self, moment to moment.

[21:51]

That's our daily practice and it hasn't got anything to do with what you're doing. It has everything to do with what you're doing, but it's not some particular activity. So we do have, of course, Zendo practice, which is some particular activity. But that's our training. And also, not only our training, but it's when the formal life of Zendo practice no longer feels formal to you, then you can just enjoy it. And when you no longer have to make excuses for living your true life, find some excuse for living your true life in the present, then you can enjoy your life as well.

[23:03]

But it depends on each one of our commitments. It means we have to be committed to that. It's not something that you can just do casually. So our meaning of practice is to wake up. Wake up to ourself. And there are various ways that we do that. When we sit in zazen, even though zazen is to maintain awake awareness, when we fall asleep, or we start thinking about something, or we start feeling about something, and then we wake up. And it all drops away.

[24:11]

Isn't it interesting how it all drops away? And then we're right in the moment of reality for a few moments. And then we start thinking again, feeling something again, drifting off, sleeping. And we wake up to the moment again, present moment. And our life is like that. Constantly waking up to reality, to the present moment. And that's how we live our life, practice in our daily life. Constantly waking up to the moment of reality. So a career of a monk, you know, that's the career of a monk. The career of a monk is to not have any materialistic goal in life and to practice just waking up. practicing the practice of waking up.

[25:14]

But lay people and monks should be able to practice, both be able to practice. So lay practice is in the midst of your busy life of attachments and goals to keep waking up. without renouncing the world to keep waking up within the world and that's also a monk's practice so everybody's practice is to keep waking up moment by moment in the midst of the world but it's not easy not at all easy but we should know what it is that we're doing if you know what you're doing then even though it's not easy at least you know what you're doing and that's knowing what you're doing is the most important thing I know I'm awake I know I'm asleep so you could say

[26:41]

To always know where you are in each moment is our practice. You can simplify it to that. To always know where I am on each moment. And how we practice that is to bring each moment to life in a positive way. How do you bring each moment to life in a positive way? by entering each moment completely through your activity. We have to enter life through our activity. That's why in Zen practice sometimes we wash the windows even though they're clean or sweep the floor even though there's no dust. or brush our teeth, even though they're not necessarily duty.

[27:49]

It's just a practice. That's what practice is. Practice is always doing some activity, whatever activity you do, for your own awareness, for your own sake. and for the sake of the activity itself. Saraki Kodoroshi, who is one of the very famous Zen masters, about 50 years ago, less than 50 years ago, said, when you when you prepare your meal, you don't think about eating the meal, you just prepare the meal.

[28:52]

And when you eat the meal, you don't think about going to the toilet and shitting, you just eat the meal. But all these things happen in succession. But when you're doing your activity, You don't think about all those things. You may think about them, but the main thing is, what am I doing now? So much of our trouble, you know, comes from thinking ahead too much. We have to know where we're going, have some direction. But if we think too far ahead, we can't really enjoy or live our life in the present. And then we may think ahead, you know, and create some wonderful life in the future and then something will come along just about the time we're ready to cash in on it and cut it off.

[30:07]

People think about their retirement, you know. When I retire, I'm going to do this and that. So they work very hard for their retirement. And then when their retirement comes, they don't know what to do. And their life is over. They didn't know it. So I don't intend to retire. The worst thing I can think of is retiring from my life. Somehow I'll always find a way to practice, even though I may not be able to sit here. There's always a way to practice, no matter what situation you're in. This is the fruit of practice. is no matter what happens, no matter what situation you're in, you always know how to practice being in reality.

[31:16]

Sometimes people sit here for a long time and they say, well when I go back to the real world, meaning the world of delusion, and People say that kind of half-jokingly, you know. They'll sit here all day eating zazen and then say, well, now to go back to the real world, meaning the world of all of our problems and delusions and ideals and material stuff. It's not that one world is real and the other is not real, no matter which side you're standing on. It's either all real or it's all not real. If this is real, that's real. If this is not real, that's not real.

[32:22]

So, the purpose of practice is to find the reality within your materialistic activity. What is the reality within your materialistic life? Not to avoid materialistic life, but not to be deluded by it either. So, how we practice our practice in our daily life is through awareness to be in the realm of reality on each moment and not caught by our desire which changes reality.

[33:44]

A desire changes reality into delusion. Everything is just as it is, but it's hard to see it as it is. A desire changes as it is into our idea, ideal, idea of it. So just let go of your idea, let go of your feeling about it, and just see it. Be it. Do you have some questions? Another thing about making plans obsessionally ahead or worry is that an awful lot of the time you build this arch of your plans and the keystone falls out because circumstances change and you don't have any of that being as you thought it would be

[35:12]

And our life is a kind of balance between the ideal and the actual. And it's necessary to keep the balance always, but our ideal will sometimes fool us because it's so much what we want that we can't see what we have. But anyway, you know, supposing we build up an arch, like you say, and the keystone falls out, and the bottom falls out of things. That can happen to any one of us. But our practice is to find ourselves in that situation. You know? It's not that that situation won't happen to a Zen master.

[36:25]

But Zen Master must find himself upright in that situation when it happens. To find yourself in the midst of that reality, of the reality of that situation and still come upright. Maybe we can learn from our mistakes and maybe we can't. You know, sometimes we do, mostly we don't. But even though we keep making the same mistakes over and over, we can find ourself. I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, Zen Master's life might be one mistake after another. One big mistake after another. But, Mistake, you know, has two sides to it.

[37:26]

One side is bad side, the other side is the good side. And the other side is just the side of reality that includes them both. So, in all of our situations, you know, it's not whether we're good or bad, or right or wrong. It's just that reality doesn't care. Reality doesn't care whether we're good or bad or right or wrong. I don't know if I can state the question, but if one has a desire for harmony in a relationship, in a family relationship, does one just be it for what it is and let go and just accept that it will change just to be accepted for being what it is?

[38:40]

Or do you just try to work What if it's true with the other person? Harmony, you know, that's an ideal, right? If you have a desire for harmony, that's an ideal, right? It comes from the head. Is it unrealistic? No, it doesn't mean it's unrealistic. But your effort has to make it real, right? And so, Even though you have this desire for harmony, it's a wholesome desire, right? And it's an ideal. And even though you may want, say, a family life to be harmonious, and you put your effort into doing that, someone else may not, from the other side, in that configuration. supposing they don't, and supposing they are antagonistic to your desire for harmony, that's a big teaching for you, how to create that harmony even though everyone else is hostile.

[39:55]

So, ideal, you may have some ideal about how to go about doing that, but you may have to change the ideal And still keep the harmony within yourself. What it boils down to, actually, is how do we make peace. First we have to make it in ourself, you know. And it always keeps coming back to ourself. Your ideal is very good. It's good practice, real good practice. Because it means that when somebody doesn't conform to our harmonious idea, we may get angry. you know, or something. So maintaining that ideal is very good because that's a wedge, you know, to train yourself. You know, we want the world to be peaceful.

[40:59]

Let's bring peace to the world, harmony. But the more we try to make the world harmonious, the worse it gets. in some way. So we have our ideal and then there's the actuality of what's really going on. Something is always going on that is not harmonious in our harmonious mind. But sometimes Letting go of our idea will help something happen. That sometimes happens if we try too hard to do something. Sometimes letting go of that mysteriously makes space for the harmony that we wanted to have happen, but couldn't have happened because we were trying to make it happen.

[42:06]

So if the other person is in the process of sort of damaging, destroying themselves and destroying others, and you just stay detached from it, removed from it and observe and just let it be? Well... Do you intervene at any point? The thing is that each moment has... Harmony has to be created on each moment in every situation. You can't just stick a mold on it. and say, this is the harmony mold. It has to be created on each situation, and you have to take into account each moment's... the factors in each moment. And sometimes you step back, sometimes you step forward, sometimes you step to the side, you know? And with awareness. Because harmony is a kind of balance of things. If you have some certain objects, and they all weigh different, have different weights and sizes, you know, sometimes one of them is over here, and two or three of them are over here.

[43:23]

And when everything changes, you have to find the balance between all of them. And it's up to you to do it. You can't expect them to do it. Because you can balance any situation if you know where all the other factors are, where all the other weights are. You may have to go way out here, you know, in order to balance these factors and they get too heavy on one side, or come way in. So, it's really, we talk about doing something to create peace in the world, but the main thing is to work on ourself. And if we keep that in mind, then you don't blame others. And you know that you are the factor that has to keep adjusting. And then you can... others will maybe appreciate that, you know, and find their way.

[44:27]

Thank you. The process you talked about, going past thoughts and feelings. Does that involve anything more than watching and letting go? Well, observing, I would say. Are you talking in some specific situation? No. You let the thoughts come up and you observe them and let them go. And feelings come up and you follow feelings, but not attaching to them. Same thing. In other words, you let things arise, but you don't attach to them. And everything goes. And you're always in a state of equilibrium. That's what we call ourselves.

[45:32]

We are always in a state of equilibrium so that the thoughts and the feelings, even though they come and they go, they don't upset us, turn us over. We don't attach to them. And that way you can settle on your fundamental self, which is not the various knots that we call thoughts and feelings. It doesn't have any special knot or configuration. It's just empty. But then we can tie it into various knots and make various things out of it. I meditated in Japan regularly with a Japanese monk who didn't speak any English and I didn't speak much Japanese and I had a woman come sometimes with me who spoke Japanese and she would ask me questions for me and the answer was always she doesn't need to talk about it just have her keep sitting and I became so distraught

[47:03]

that I finally went to Kyoto where I didn't know anyone who would speak to me in English. But I still didn't get any, you know, I still wasn't able to really talk to them. And I've never really come to terms with that. I mean, here we are sitting, talking about ideas and ideals and how things should be and realities and things. And how does that separate from the reality itself and the word? Yeah, our talking. How do we combine what we're talking about now with our practice? Because I just did what the priest said in Japan. I just sat and didn't know anything. I just sat. So that's good. If you want to discuss it, you know, or have some question about what you were doing, My talk is to kind of encourage your sitting practice.

[48:11]

And so I thought I was doing what you asked. What you didn't get in Japan, I was supplying. So what's the problem? It almost doesn't feel right. Oh, that's OK. You can feel okay about it. You have permission to feel okay about it. Lecture is always part of something. Sometimes, you know, people think Japanese priests will be very strict, you know, and make you just sit a lot and don't think and don't bring style sometimes. But I think that's rather unfair to you, you know, because they do talk to each other.

[49:23]

Bill? to your comments and yours too. One thing that we also do is talk a lot with each other. And I think that we can, I'll just say that people should approach you about things that come up, you know, more specifically and more personally. Because it's part of the fabric of this practice, it seems to me. And it's essential, you know, we talk in some You have to talk in a slightly more general way. If you have some specific thing you can come and talk to me. As well as other signifiers. Thank you for watching.

[50:31]

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