This is really quite a nice winter, sunny winter day. It's the kind of day that when I was I'm younger, a lot younger. I used to go to Mount Talapayas and look for mushrooms, because, especially after it rained, it hasn't rained much this year, but this is the season, you know, when you can go to the woods and collect mushrooms. But I didn't know very much about them, so even though I bring home wonderful variety. I would only eat a few. And also it's wonderful weather for going to the beach or driving up the coast.

[01:14]

And that feeling comes to us. At least it's always come to me this time of year. It's great to be outdoors. So I really appreciate all of you being here today. When we have this kind of opportunity or nice weather or something, it's hard to resist. Today I want to, what I'm thinking about, and especially this time of year I always think about this, I think about how difficult it is to continue our practice because it's not so difficult to sit zazen

[02:22]

But because our life is so busy, and there's so many challenges and opportunities, that it's hard to continue something that you practice over and over again. Our practice is not based on Sunday or Saturday lecture. But it's based on sitting zazen. and practicing day by day. So to actually enter into practice on a day-by-day level takes a considerable amount of willpower, perseverance, energy. remembrance.

[03:25]

But above all, it takes the certain quality of selectivity. By selectivity, I mean being able to be somewhat single-minded, to not be tempted or bothered by all of the tempting things from outside, so-called outside. In the realm of what we call practice, daily life is like an obstacle course, or like a field full of holes.

[04:34]

You know, you'd be running along, and you're passing, and suddenly you fall into a hole. And you forget all about where you were or what you were doing. And it's kind of like, maybe like Alice in Wonderland, falling into a hole, and here's this whole other world. And our life has this opportunity to fall into many different worlds. And these worlds are held out to us on a tray. What do you think of this wonderful world? Well, how about this wonderful world? And each one is very tempting. We say, oh, why not? I'll just, let's do it. It shouldn't take much time. But once we stick our foot in the door of one of these worlds, pretty soon we're carried along. And before long, we forgot what it was we were doing.

[05:37]

Oh yeah, I remember that. When I used to sit Zaz in. So in order to really maintain practice, we have to be somewhat single-minded and not allow ourselves to be carried off by the many things. Someone keeps telling me, there's one of our members who keeps telling me that Berkeley is a particularly difficult place to practice because there's so many opportunities. If you are living in a country somewhere, Well, life is a little dull, you know. But someplace like Berkeley or San Francisco, a lot of stuff going on, you know, a lot of things that you can do and a lot of opportunities. Every once in a while I get this newspaper that advertises classes.

[06:40]

There's a class, you know, for everything these days. And they all look very interesting. Geez, it would be great to do that. So, you know, if you open up your eyes to the world around you, there are unlimited opportunities for fun and games and interesting things to do. And if you do them, I don't blame you. They are interesting. And I'm often tempted myself to do many interesting things. But I always have to remember what it is that my life is really about. That's the important thing for me, to remember what my life is really about. And it becomes more and more difficult

[07:45]

Of course, I do remember what my life is about, but life becomes more complicated all the time. And most of us, for me, being a priest and being very devoted to practice and having to do, having to come up with something all the time, you know. Every day I have to come up with Zazen. And every week I have to come up with a talk, you know. And having to come up with a talk, means that every week I have to figure out what my practice is, and what our practice is, over and over again. I can't have something in my sleeve and bring it out. I can't even give the same lecture twice, because sometimes I do give the same lecture, but it's always different. because it comes from my fresh mind, because I have to figure out the same thing over and over again.

[08:53]

Oh yeah. I have to keep coming back to what I'm actually doing. And all of us have to keep coming back to what we're actually doing over and over again, because it's so easy to just drift off and get lost. It's easy if you have an idea about attaining enlightenment. If you work hard, you'll attain enlightenment. That kind of goal will make people interested. It's like anything else. If you see something interesting going by, then you'll go after it. But in our practice, we say attainment is like walking in a fog.

[10:04]

And after some time, you feel that your clothes are wet. It's not like you walk out the door and there's a pouring rain. But walking in the fog, at some point, you feel that your clothes are damp or wet. And our practice is more like that. It's the walking in the fog. That's the practice. Not looking to get wet. I was talking with somebody recently, and he brought up the point of grace. He said, in Christianity, we have the idea of grace, You can't go out and get it. Grace is not something you can go out and get. But for no reason, it appears.

[11:06]

And you may practice all your life and never receive it. Or you may Devote yourself for some period of time and suddenly there it is, but you don't know why it happened or how it happened or you can't do anything to make it happen. Enlightenment is like that, very much like that. You can't run after it or try to grab it or do something to induce it. But by putting yourself in the circumstances, putting yourself into, entering the practice, or entering the realm of possibility, without seeking after it or rejecting it, it just comes.

[12:17]

that Chinese monk who was enlightened when the peach blossoms opened, or the one who was sweeping, Kyogen was sweeping. When Kyogen was a disciple of Isang, and no matter how hard he worked at practice, he could never get enlightened. He was always looking for enlightenment. And he was practicing real hard, looking for enlightenment, but he could never get it. And one day he became very discouraged and left his teacher, Isang. He decided that he really couldn't, it was not really something that he could do. He was very discouraged. He went to another place and just was taking care of an old cemetery.

[13:25]

And he just sweeped the grounds every day. Completely gave up all ideas of enlightenment. And one day when he was sweeping the ground, this pebble hit a piece of bamboo. And just that sound opened his mind. But it was after he'd given everything up. In the first place, his effort had set the stage. And in the second place, he had completely let go of everything. And letting go of everything was already realization. But it was the second stage. stone hitting the bamboo just awakened him to his real state, his true nature.

[14:28]

So the effort is good, but effort is good when it's placed well, well-placed effort. So the effort that we have in our practice is Not the effort to seek enlightenment as an object, but just to practice, just to put yourself into the mode of practice. And at some point, without expecting anything, or without seeking anything, as you walk, you feel that your clothes are damp. Walking in the fog. And fog has some nice meaning too. Not knowing. Fog is kind of not knowing. Things are a little bit obscure.

[15:32]

So how to continue, how to make a continuous practice without having the goal of seeking enlightenment as an object and how to maintain that practice in the face of many, many exciting, interesting activities. It takes lots of determination and remembering what it is that you're actually doing. Sometimes I think of the image of an innocent fish in the ocean swimming along and just being attacked by the bigger fish and kind of pulled to pieces.

[16:47]

How can you actually maintain your ground? The purpose of zazen and daily practice and zazen is to establish yourself on your life, moment after moment, without being pushed or controlled by life. Life is by our life. There's life outside of us and life inside of us. And if our own life inside of us isn't strong enough, then the life outside of us just pushes us around. We just get pushed around if we don't know what we're doing.

[17:53]

If we know what we're doing, then we can meet life, the life outside of us, and then the life outside of us is not different than the life inside of us. Inside life, inner life, and outer life is the same. There is no inside and outside. But when we're not established on ourself, then there's inner life and outer life, inside and outside. then either we're pushing things around or things are pushing us around. Circumstances are either moving us too much or we're moving circumstances too much. And then life becomes a battle, a struggle. Zazen establishes ourself on ourself.

[18:58]

That's the purpose. Every day we establish ourself on ourself. To where our mind, body and mind are not moved, not pushed around by things, but move, we move with things. And no matter what we're doing, we always find ourself and we're always settled on ourself. And there's no inside or outside. This is the purpose of zazen. I say this is the purpose. Next time I'll talk about the purpose of zazen and something else, maybe. But this is the purpose of zazen. This is why we sit. In order to establish ourself on reality, the reality of ourself, which includes outside and inside. we can move with life, as life.

[20:08]

But no matter what happens, we're not pushed around by life. If life becomes too interesting, the events of life become very exciting and interesting, then it's very easy to get moved off of ourself. And this is what becomes unseated. And this is what happens to us most of the time. And this is one of our biggest problems, is that we become easily unseated. Sometimes think of life as each one of us is the center of the universe.

[21:10]

If I say, I'm the center of the universe, you may say, well, that's pretty egotistical, don't you think? These people in the Western world used to think that the Earth was the center of the universe. And then someone discovered that the sun was the center. But that doesn't mean that the earth is not the center. Yes, the sun is the center. The earth is the center. Every tree is the center. You and I are the center. I'm the center. You're the center of the universe. Each one is the center of our universe. And the whole universe revolves around us. But if I think that I'm the center of the universe and you're not, that's egotistical. That's being self-centered. But I'm the center of the universe, and you're also the center of the universe. The center of the universe is everywhere and nowhere.

[22:14]

So where do I find myself? How can I settle myself on myself? in every moment's situation. Who am I and where am I in every moment? So we have these, each one of us has is a center for our universe. And we create our surroundings. Taking our surroundings and our center, we create a world for ourself. Each one of us creates a world for ourself. And these worlds overlap. They're constantly concentric circles overlapping.

[23:24]

Sometimes your circle meets my circle. And in a sense, this is our aura. People talk about auras as some kind of light. And light does permeate from our being. Each one of us has light. We don't see it as some special color or some special mystic thing. Nevertheless, it's light emanating from each one of us, and our lights ... I don't like to try to rationalize this, but we meet and connect, and our lights meet and connect in various ways. our light is not so strong when we meet another vortex.

[24:36]

When we don't have our own strong light, then we get pulled off because each vortex is very strong. Some vortexes are extremely strong. If you have a very charismatic leader, that person's vortex is very strong. And if we don't have our own settledness, If we're not settled on ourself, then we inevitably are pulled by a stronger vortex than our own. And if you look at the forces in the world, they're all very strong. There are many very strong vortexes in the world, and we're pulled by them, constantly being pulled by them. So the world's going like this all the time. And when we go out into life, something pulls us this way and then something pulls us that And the strong vortexes will pull people to them. And if you don't have your own ground, you don't know where your own ground is moment after moment, you just get pulled into some other vortex.

[25:51]

Or else, you just stay lonely, because you refuse to be in any vortex. That's the other side. You're feeling very lonely. because you're not connected either to yourself or to any other light. So the main thing is to establish our own light, which is not something that we put onto ourself, but something that we bring out or allow to manifest. So sitting zazen is connecting, or not connecting because we're already connected, but getting rid of the haziness or the obstructions that keep our light covered.

[26:56]

So in Zazen, we just get rid of everything. That's what Zazen's about. Every day we just unburden ourselves, just unload and stop putting anything else in there. Most outward knowledge about the world is to put knowledge in, you know. The way of the world is to put knowledge into your mind. And the way of Zazen is to unload everything. It's not that we shouldn't have knowledge. We can have both. But if you're only putting knowledge in and not unburdening yourself, then light becomes dimmer and dimmer. Electric light maybe burns brighter, but natural light gets dimmer. As electric lights get brighter and brighter, natural lights get dimmer and dimmer. And how often do we see the stars? When I pick up Daniel, who's five, from his daycare, and we're driving down that way, he says, there's the bay, daddy.

[28:17]

There's the Golden Gate Bridge. There's the water. And I never look at it. I rarely see the water. Or in the daytime, there's the moon. He just doesn't have anything on his mind. I mean, he has something on his mind. But he just comes right in. So I'm very fortunate to be around somebody like that. Because it always keeps me, you know, posted. And in order to get with him, I have to really unload my mind. So it's another form of zazen. I'm really very grateful to have that opportunity.

[29:24]

But it's difficult because unloading our mind is not what we're supposed to be doing in our society. What we're supposed to be doing is knowing something about everything. A well-informed person is a kind of model for today. As the world opens up, there's more and more information. The world's getting smaller and smaller, and we need more and more information in order to deal with it. And if you think about how connected and plugged in to society we have to be just in order to live, it gets more and more complex. We need an alarm clock to get up in the morning. We need to go to the four or five different stores to buy the food that we want, sometimes.

[30:33]

Maybe two. But sometimes more, right? Then we have to go to the gas station, buy gas. We have to deal with... We have to be plugged in. We have to be plugged into the television, the phonograph, the radio sometimes, our automobiles, our bridges. stores, clothing, you know, it's... plus information. The information is about millions of things. And you're just hanging there, suspended by all these skewers of information that keep you connected to this big wheel. And so, what's Azad, you know? It's giving all that up. Nothing. Just this.

[31:35]

And to maintain just this in that complex life is pretty difficult. But that's what our practice is about. To just maintain just this moment. To be settled in each moment, no matter what's happening. No matter how complex our life gets. But in order to actually maintain conscious practice, we have to limit ourself. Because whatever you do, you have to limit yourself. If you're going to be a baseball player, you have to limit yourself so that you can do that. If you're going to fly an airplane, You have to limit yourself. You can't do a lot of other things. And if you're going to be a Zen student, your life has to have some limitation.

[32:39]

Otherwise you can't really focus properly. You can't fulfill your intentions. I don't say that you have to impose limitations on yourself in order to sit zazen, but in order to continue in a way that makes sense, or where you can touch the practice as a practice, you have to make some limitations in your life. The whole point of my talk today is to bring to mind that we do have to make some limitations. If we're going to practice, you have to decide how you're going to do it, how you're going to make space for it.

[33:47]

Not make space, but because if I say make space, it makes it sound like Zazen is just another thing. In order for zazen to be zazen, it has to be the center of your life. Because what are you doing? In zazen, you're centering on your life. You're finding the center of your life. Center of life in zazen. So it has to be the center of your life. What else can be the center of your life? Then everything you do revolves around that center. No problem. But when zazen is present in all aspects of your life, then you can call it what you have practiced.

[34:57]

And how you do that is called genjo koan, or big life koan. Because zazen is an unconditioned, absolute activity. And the events in our life are conditioned events. And how the absolute and the relative, the absolute quality of our life meets The relative conditioned events of our life and how they meet, like two arrows in mid-air, is the koan that we practice. How to make that connection, keep that oneness of duality all the time. That's called settledness, being settled on ourself.

[36:16]

The many events in our life, many activities in our life, are settled on the absolute side of our nature. And everything we do is firmly permeated with radiant light. Komyōzō zamae, it's called. Komyōzō is radiant light, and zamae is samadhi. So when we sit zazen, of course samadhi or intimate touching is right there.

[37:27]

And in our daily life, same samadhi. That's how it extends. how zazen is extended into our life. So when we're not attached to things, even though we enter into them, we enter into life, into activity, without attachment, so that at any moment we're ready to give up, There's no place that we are lost. No matter what happens to us, we always find ourselves because we're always there. So even if everything's taken away, nothing's lost.

[38:31]

This may not happen. Even though we may seem very enlightened, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't cry. If tragic happens or something difficult happens, you shouldn't feel sad or stressed. But even though you go down, come back up. It doesn't mean that the wind won't blow you over. Because your nature is to come back up. If you block your nature, then you stay down. So, when we take on a lot of responsibilities and a lot of problems,

[39:42]

Those are our responsibilities. And when we do take something on, if we're smart, we'll realize that at some point, the thing that we take on will be a problem for us. And we should be willing to accept the problem with whatever we take on. If we take on a partner, that's a very joyous contract, but we should know that it's also a big problem and be willing to deal with that as a problem. That's an example. So whatever we take on, if you buy an automobile, you should be willing to realize that at some point you're going to have to take it to the garage and it's going to cost you a lot of money and maybe grief and so forth. We always have to weigh both sides and take responsibility.

[40:47]

If you don't want something, you know, good. If you don't want to take responsibility for certain things, good. Don't do it. But you're always responsible for yourself. You can't evade that one. You have to take that one on. That's the one responsibility that we have to take on. And if you limit yourself to just that, it's not bad. if you actually do it. And so some people limit themselves to just being responsible for themselves and not taking anything on. And they do it very responsibly. It's a good example. And then some people do a little, you know, add some things to it. At some point, you know, we should be able to just give up everything and start from zero. and then you decide what to take on. But in our Zazen practice, we do that every day, even though we have our old responsibilities, right?

[41:53]

But we have to renew those every day. It looks like they keep going on and on. It looks like you have some responsibility, it just keeps going on and on, day after day, but every time you wake up, you renew that responsibility, because it's different, it's not the same. And in our practice, every day we get up and sit zazen and start life all over again. As soon as you walk out the door of the zendo in the morning, there's a whole realm of possibilities because you have nothing on your mind. And then you decide how you do this, even though it's all there for you, meeting you, waiting for you, You still have to make the decision. Every day we have to make a decision about our life, even though it looks like it's all set up. And then we accept it.

[42:59]

And if we can accept, you know, in a new way every day, then it's easier to know what to do. So how to keep our practice fresh and really pure in that way is another problem for us. Because at some point, if you've been practicing for a long time, you know, you get into a kind of pattern or rut where that seems very usual and you're not really being empty. So every once in a while we have to shake ourselves up and realize what we're really doing. not just take it for granted. Do you have a question, Darlene? I understand the value of community and practicing together.

[44:07]

But I'm hearing that it really is our individual responsibility to build our own lives. To build, well, it's already there, but to kindle it. By practicing together, it helps build it. Now, how much does one look to the outside at all for kindling wood or something, you know, to keep firing? Or should we only look to ourselves? I know ultimately that's where it's going to come from, but it can't really come from the outside. When I see some people, and I follow that too, where my self-esteem might be down, and my life seems to be very flickering, I look to the outside for reinforcement. And I can be disappointed in that way. How much does outside reinforcement play a part?

[45:19]

Well, I would say that the sangha is a big help, because if we go to the sangha for some kind of assistance, we will always find it. So that's from the outside, so-called. From the inside, my, I have always, whenever I've had a flickering light, I've always set zazen, which brought it to a steady light. So I highly recommend zazen. when you're having a problem of, you know, this. Sometimes even zazen won't help in certain circumstances. And you just have to kind of rough it through.

[46:23]

But that's also zazen. The ability to rough it through, you know, is zazen. Even though you may not be able to sit still, you know, you have to do something. And that something that you do is a kind of rough form of zazen. even though you're not sitting. But if you have a practice of sitting, you can always rely on that, most of the time. And I can remember times when I've had, you know, been almost out of my mind. And I just said, I'm just going to sit here until something happens. And I did. And it worked. But one isn't used to that. If one isn't used to that, then it's more difficult. So you can't prescribe something. Well, sometimes you can. Sometimes somebody can prescribe it. But that's why it's important to have the practice.

[47:24]

Because you can tell somebody, don't get angry. But what do they have to work with? No tools. So if you practice not being angry, if you have a practice of dealing with anger, then when the circumstances comes up, don't be angry, well then the person has at least some tools to work with, some place to step back to. But just to say something, to start your practice when in the middle of the worst kind of problem, that's not the place to start your practice. The place to start it is before you have, when your mind is calm and you can enter into something, consciously. And that's the advantage of practice, is that you have some, you know, you practice. I don't like to say pay off, but, you know, you can step into your practice. Then you develop faith in it.

[48:29]

And it's very important. Faith is really the most important thing. I think that that's time to stop. I wish we'd had a little more time for questions, but I want to keep this. Thank you.

[48:53]

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