this morning, I want to... I would like you to... I want to discuss the various problems that we have in our practice. But first I want to talk a little bit about our practice. I want to talk about how important it is to understand the background of Buddhist practice. Basically, our practice is pretty simple. And our practice is presented to us in almost as simple a way as possible.

[01:15]

And that's very good. I think that's very good. But why it's good, you know, is because In one sense, our practice originates from our own activity. Buddhism originates with us, with each one of us. But on the other hand, there's a whole background of Buddhism which didn't originate with us, but which is the reason why we can practice. So we have these two sides. One is our own practice and the other is how practice came about for us and what it means and what it's meant for over 2,000 years.

[02:27]

If we only have our own personal understanding, and if we seem to kind of invent our practice, I think this is what you might call a cult. Cult is... I don't want to make definitions, but I just want to talk about... make a little comparison. Cult is a kind of practice which doesn't have a historical background, kind of like a mushroom. Mushrooms have a historical background, but... They come from the spores of other mushrooms. But, you know, that appearance is like it pops up quickly and is there. Something that's visible, something you can see and work with.

[03:41]

But religion is a practice which has a history and a background. and has been tried through that history so that even though it may expand and contract and have a false side and get laden down with vines and entanglements, still it has a core of truth which over the centuries has been tried and continues. Whereas a cult is more somebody's idea and doesn't really have the same kind of foundation, it doesn't have the trial, it isn't proven by trial over

[04:45]

hundreds and hundreds of years. So you might say, well, Buddhism was once, had a beginning. That's true. But Buddhism has seems to have some real foundation. And we should understand the meaning of that. If we don't know the meaning of why Buddhism was established and how it was established, and how it continues to be established, and how we continue to establish it, then our understanding is just concerned with our own small view.

[05:56]

So within practice, within our practice, we should have a small view and a large view. If we only have a large view, then it means that we're not really including ourself. You know, a historian can have a large view, you know, or a philosopher can have a big view, but they don't include themselves. The problem with Western philosophy, you know, is that the philosopher doesn't include himself in the philosophy. That's always the problem with Western philosophy. But Eastern philosophy is not philosophy. as such. Eastern philosophy is called religion, because the philosopher is one with the philosophy. And so when the philosopher is one with the philosophy, it's beginning to sound like falafel, isn't it?

[07:11]

Then it becomes religion. Or it's more like religion because it's practice, as well as just idea. So, Buddhism has always been that way. Buddhism has great philosophical foundations and ideas, but they're always secondary to practice, or they're equal with practice, or one with it. Philosophy in Buddhism can stand outside, but only through the eyes of philosophers. So sometimes Dogen Zenji is considered a great Japanese Buddhist philosopher by people outside of Buddhism. But within Buddhism, he's just a man practicing the way.

[08:15]

So, the most important thing for us is just to practice our own practice. That's the most important thing, how we do that. But at some point in our practice, we need to understand the background of Buddhism and Zen. We don't need to become scholars. That's not necessary. You can easily do that. It's easy to become a Buddhist scholar. Once you start studying and get hooked by studying, there's an endless amount of... there's more than you could ever study in your lifetime within Buddhism. Once you start opening up turning the pages of Buddhist philosophy, you suddenly expand in all directions, and it's very easy to get lost. So we don't try to become scholars.

[09:30]

But just to understand the foundations, the main ideas within Buddhism, the main philosophy and the fundamental tenets that are the framework of Buddhism, is necessary. It's not something that you should ignore. Even though someone, maybe very good Zen student, maybe even better Zen student, through their ignorance, that's possible. Because they don't study and just practice, they become very good students. And their understanding is more original. The problem with studying, you know, is that your understanding is mixed. And it's easy to, what we call, put another head on top of your own head.

[10:33]

You know. Yoga and Senzaki always warns us, don't put another head on top of your own head. means don't take a teaching and stick it on top of your head and start mouthing off as if it were your own. But in order to talk about Buddhism, you have to study it. And that's why most of us can't explain it. How do you explain practice? How do you explain Buddhism? How do you explain what you're doing? Unless you have the language and the skill, some kind of skill, some kind of background with which to, as a vehicle for your explanation. You know, if you just explain something by rote, it doesn't mean anything.

[11:38]

You can read a book, and if someone asks you a question, you can kind of explain from the book. That's not a real explanation either to someone else or to yourself. First you have to be able to explain it to yourself. Then you can explain it to someone else. But it's like music, you know. If you read music, it's just black dots on a piece of paper. And if you read a book, it's the same way. It's just black ink on a piece of paper. And the black ink forms words and sentences. But you have to be able to transform that. In other words, what you see written has to come in through your mind and be transformed in your heart. And then you can say something about it which is original with you. So a good musician can look at the notes on a piece of paper and create the music.

[12:41]

But the music is not being created from the paper. and the ink is being created from the musician's own heart. So in order to express or explain Buddhism, you can study, you should study, but that study should be transformed within yourself so that when it comes out, it's you speaking the Dharma. That's how we need to study, so that what we study becomes really digested, really understood by us. That's why, you know, in Zen, the main kind of study, other than the background of Buddhism, is the koan study.

[13:44]

And a koan study means that you have to be able to express yourself. You can't just talk about the koan. It doesn't mean anything. What means something is your own understanding of Buddhism, which means your own thorough understanding of yourself. So how we understand Buddhism is through Buddhist literature. And Zen understanding is kind of a transformation of Buddhist literature, so to speak, or Buddhist understanding, into a certain kind of way that you have to be truthful about it. But you have to understand those ideas. You have to have some background. All of the famous Zen masters understood Buddhism very thoroughly.

[14:50]

They had read the sutras and the commentaries. So a Zen student, you know, should read the Lotus Sutra, should read the Prajnaparamita Sutra, should read the Vimalakirti Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, should know something about Abhidhamma, should know the history of Buddhism, a little bit about the history of Buddhism in India, and in China, and in Japan, and in Asia, and in America, actually. We should know something about what's going on in Buddhism in America. Anyway, you don't have to know all that, you know. But as you continue to practice, you should also continue to study, so that your study and your practice go side by side.

[15:56]

Then as you practice, your study and your study and practice mature together and reinforce each other and form foundation together. If you read the Blue Cliff Record, You know, you shouldn't read it like a book. You can't read it like a book, like a novel. You should read one case and think about it. And you could read one case every day. That would be one way of studying the Book of Recordings, to read one case every day. And without trying to understand it,

[17:02]

If you try to understand it, you get very discouraged and you put it down and start reading the Saturday Evening Post. But just to read it as a discipline, just to read it, one case, and not try to understand it. Then read the next case. Don't try to understand it. You can read the whole thing without trying to understand it. But by the time you get to the end, you'll understand something. That's, it's kind of necessary to study that way. And then, as you read the whole thing, it begins to make, you begin to see parallels and you begin to see how one thing relates to another. Pretty soon, though, it starts to open up to you. Or you start to open up to it. But you have to have that kind of persistence. It's just like Zazen. Without trying to figure out why or how, or what is the meaning of this, you just sip time after time.

[18:16]

And the meaning, through your persistence, through your way-seeking mind, the meaning begins to reveal itself to you. It's the same thing. So, way-seeking mind. Suzuki Roshi talked about way-seeking mind a lot. It means awakening our mind to follow the way. How do you wake your mind up to follow the way? Once your mind is awake, then practice becomes very interesting. Study becomes very interesting. Matter of fact, you find that you don't really want to read anything else. Once you get a hold on it, once it starts to speak to you, or once you begin to get something, then you really don't want to study anything else.

[19:24]

But you have to persist. You have to really persist in studying. Reading Buddhist books is not interesting like some other kind of reading, you know. It's not reading for relaxation, you know, which is kind of continuous. It's wonderful to read something that just flows along and is very continuous. unravels itself and has a point. But Buddhist literature, you know, you have to really study it. It's very hard. And it's also written in various languages, and all the technical terms are in Sanskrit or Chinese or Japanese. You have to learn three or four languages to really study well. But, you know, literature is becoming more and more available to us. So, in English.

[20:32]

So we should take advantage of it, actually. Anyway, you know, it's not necessary to be a scholar, but it is necessary to have some background of Buddhism and Zen. You know, if someone comes up to you, here, and says, some new person says, asks you some question about Buddhism, you say, I don't know, ask Mel. Well, you should know. You should be able to say something. You should be able to give a person an answer intelligently from your own understanding. You know, there are classes in Buddhism But everything that we really know, we learn through our own study.

[21:38]

If you really want to know something, you learn it through your own study. If you have a class, the class just helps you to study, maybe gives you some incentive or gives you some steadiness or information. 99%. It's your own motivation to study that gives you the understanding. I noticed in our library that most of the books that people take out are the books that are very easy to read. And there's a section that has some Japanese novels. And people are constantly checking those out. But the books that are difficult, you know, Buddhist philosophy, Buddhist Abhidharma, history of Buddhism, and Buddhist thought, and so forth, those stay there.

[22:44]

So, you know, When you read Buddhist books, it's easy to fall asleep. I remember at Tassajara, we had a study period every morning after zazen. And, you know, falling asleep, everybody falling asleep. When you come to something that's really too hard to think about, you know, you fall asleep. But to keep waking up and continuing to read is what we have to do. And it becomes easier. Once you begin to get some foundation, then it becomes easier. So it's not necessary to have a class. Just read. Just study something. Study the background of Buddhism in a way that you can discuss it with somebody. If your parents ask you, what are you doing, you know?

[23:56]

Well, I study Zen. Well, what's that? Well, you know, you don't have anything to relate it to. I sit and saw Zen. What's that? Where does it come from? What's it about? Well, if you have some background in Buddhism, you know how to talk about it a little bit. At least you have some way of getting to it. You don't have to spout off Buddhism, but, you know, and it gives you a way to think about it. It gives you some terms and some structure as a way to think about what you're doing. But I think most of us are concerned about just our daily life, you know.

[25:13]

I think that when we stop being concerned so much about ourself, then it's easier to be more interested in something that's not just about ourself. I think most of us are really interested basically interested in ourself. And if you try to study something that's difficult and is not just about yourself, then it's not so interesting. Actually, Buddhist literature is all about ourself, but you can't see that until you understand it. Anyway, you know, our individual practice, our practice is something that's always being developed.

[26:28]

It's not something that's set. It's far from being set. We're in a unique position of developing a practice which has no precedent in this country. In a Japanese monastery, I'm saying a Rinzai monastery in Japan, the monks are not allowed to read anything. They're not allowed to pick up a book and read it, or study anything. But their whole life is concentrated on practice. There's nothing outside of it. But for us, we don't have that kind of situation. The kind of situation where practice is so established that you can practice without having to study anything. We have to.

[27:32]

So, our practice has to have a different mechanism or way. We have to understand something. It's necessary. And, you know, in America, even though our practice comes from Japan, our particular practice, we should understand something about India, China, Asia. Because nothing like this has happened here before. We have to have a background. We should know the background of things. So, in one sense, you know, we should be like a little baby bird.

[28:37]

His mother's feeding it little worms. That kind of innocence. That's great. But on the other hand, we also have to be the mother. We have to build the nest, you know, hatch the babies. We have to do both. So we have to have the materials, you know, to build the nest and some foundation, you know, we have to find the tree, know what we're doing and how it all came about. It's very easy to just wander off in some way. Very easy to just kind of get some idea about what you're doing and to find something that we're doing that looks very interesting, very nice.

[29:48]

And pretty soon that becomes the focus. And before you know it, you're off in the woods someplace. And then before you know it, you fall over a cliff. So, you know, we always have to keep our practice in the right place, according to the right understanding. We talk about original Buddhism, you know, when a religion in historical time gets into a certain place where nobody knows what it means anymore. then people start going back to original. What's original Buddhism? What's original Christianity? What's original Judaism? They're always trying to find the root, which is very good. But you can't go back to what's original.

[30:51]

When you really go back to what's original, you go back to yourself. Scholars always say, well, what was original Buddhism in India? What was it really like? And nobody can find out. It's pretty hard to find out what was original Buddhism. They just throw up their hands and say, well, I don't know. We have all these records and those records, but it keeps going back. It keeps going back to what did Buddha actually do? That's what everybody wants to know. What did Buddha actually do? And what did his disciples actually do? And what was their relationship? This is a big question. What did Jesus really do? So when you go back, the trail ends somewhere that's all

[31:56]

The trail just stops, and there's this big forest, and you find there you are, right at the end of the trail. So, the origin is always right where you are. So, practice always originates with us, not with Shakyamuni Buddha. But there's this long background of practice, people's practice, Buddha's practice, which all the Buddhas have practiced. So we practice with them together, always trying to keep our practice original, our original practice. And that's why it's very good to be simple.

[32:57]

No, we shouldn't get caught by history. We shouldn't get caught by the rules of history. You know, as time goes on, there's more and more literature, then more and more rules, then more and more Buddhism. The early Buddhists didn't have such a hard time, you know. And even when Zen, you know, in the Tang Dynasty, in the 9th century in China, By that time, there was tons of stuff to study. That's why they stopped studying. But they understood it. You see, in the Tang Dynasty, by the time of the Tang Dynasty in China, there was so much literature, so much study, that they said, stop it, you know. Just practice begins with us. But they already knew that stuff. They knew it all. That's why they could stop it.

[33:58]

But if you don't know it, you can't stop it. So our practice is coming from, we don't know anything to begin with. So you should know something and practice at the same time. You should know something about Buddhism. When you know too much, then you should stop. There are already, here in America, people who know too much about it and should stop. But most of us don't really know anything. I must say, most of us don't know enough. So you should know something. But don't get attached to what you know. It should just be support or foundation. Something that you can relate to.

[35:05]

Anyway, I said that I wasn't going to talk very much. But if you have anything that you'd like to discuss, either about this or just about your practice, yeah. First, I want to mention in the library, there are back issues of windmill. And they're in a real obscure place. And they're bound without the name on the back. But they're a treasure if you want you know, from our own personal perspective, go backward to look at the history of Buddhism, at least through San Francisco Zen Center. They're just fascinating to look through. Very rich and poignant things to look at.

[36:05]

That's what you've been doing? There's old pictures of Mel in there. Unfortunately, he looks just the same. I have one other thing I want to discuss, maybe discuss a little bit. I get I noticed this morning during the meal, during the meal, new people have this real sharp attentiveness generally. And older people like myself, older people in practice is what I mean, can go through the form with this by habit.

[37:09]

you know, like walking and thinking of something else. And when you talked about music, I think that an older student can go through in the form of just a print on the page. In other words, just very superficially. And I see somebody who's never eaten before in the Zando is such a feeling of presence you know, as if it were, you know, the end result of years of sitting, that kind of fresh, present feeling. So, I don't have anything more to say about it, but it just seems like, you know, you can always get, you have to always be watching out, essentially, because you can You can go through the form of practice.

[38:10]

This is myself I'm looking at. I can go through the form of this practice as if I'm memorizing something that actually is what it is, without any resonant sense of what it is, what it's supposed to be going into. It's easy to think about something, once you learn how to do something, to think about something else and coast along through the form. So beginner's mind, you know, is what we are always trying to stimulate, you know, so that it's always, whatever you do is always very fresh and new. We have to know how to keep a beginner's mind present all the time.

[39:13]

This morning when we were eating, at the end of the meal, I had my spoon and my chopsticks here, and the chopsticks fell down, and I heard some chopsticks fall, but it didn't occur to me that they were mine. And then Bill had the server come in and pick up my chopsticks and give them to me. And I was quite surprised, because they were under the table and I couldn't see them. I was quite surprised that they were my chopsticks. And at the same time, I was thinking about someone else's problem. Some problem that someone else was having. And I was thinking about whether I should say something to them or not about it. Pretty interesting. What do you think about your coasting?

[40:19]

Of course I don't really think it's me. But I think... I'm glad that I feel at least some hint of awareness about it. The way that it happened, first this morning, I noticed some other older person. And I thought, boy, that person is just moving on the surface of it, you know, just with habit. And then I wonder, you know, am I doing that? And I have to say that sometimes I am doing that, too. Just ongoing, you know, they say that Shakyamuni Buddha is still sitting, still practicing, and it doesn't end. So I think if, you know, practice doesn't get easier in a way, it gets more difficult because we come to know these things, at least the superficial, the form of it so well.

[41:32]

Well, actually, you know, once we learn the form of practice, the formality, formality becomes very informal, you know, because it's, the formality is already a part of, you know, how to do it so well that it's quite comfortable and easy. And you feel that you can flow very well within it. When a person comes to practice for the first time, you know, they sit down and start to eat a meal, you know, they're very attentive because they don't want to do anything wrong and it's all so new and strange and, you know, you become very wakeful. But, you know, does that mean that we always have to put ourselves in a strange position in order to be awake? It's interesting. It's like there was this movie, My Dinner with Andre.

[42:36]

You see that movie, anybody? You know, Andre is telling this story about his adventures, you know, about how going from one extreme place to another, going to the Himalayas, and I can't remember the stories so well, individually, because there's so many of them, but the gist of it is that he constantly has to do extreme practices in order to keep himself awake and feel alive. He's constantly doing these extreme practices just in order to feel alive. In Zen practice, we do very ordinary kind of practices, and very repetitious kind of practices, and very dull kind of practices in order to feel alive.

[43:44]

How do we feel alive within the most ordinary kind of activity? In that movie, the person he was talking to at one point asked Andre if it was necessary, that he thought it was necessary to take people to Tapo and Everest to wake them up. And Andre said, it was now in our culture because people have forgotten. Everyone's gotten so jaded, it's really hard to look at things in a fresh way. And while he was saying, well, the cigar store next door, It's just like opening people's mind to that ability to see everything on an everyday level. Yeah. I was thinking about the background of Buddhism and so on.

[45:06]

I feel a certain gap. There's a lot of material on historical Buddhism. Even history of the US. Sometimes I feel I need to know what other, not even Buddhist groups. I have a friend who's a member of the Sufi Order. publications in the literature, I find very fresh because they speak in Western terms and yet it's original Buddhism. It's a very Buddhist perspective in some sense. Yeah, it's a very difficult question, you know, reincarnation, rebirth, actually.

[46:09]

In the first place, reincarnation is not really Buddhist rebirth is a different problem, you know, different. I don't want to get into talking about rebirth now, but... Good question. Yeah. But, you know, if you have a little background, you can begin to see the difference between rebirth and reincarnation. So if you're puzzled by that, try and find out. What do the Buddhists really say about it? What do they say about that? If you're just guessing, then you have a good question to research. Something to find out about.

[47:11]

So you shouldn't let your question go and say, well, since I can't talk about it, how can I answer them? And, you know, it's too big for that. When a question comes up, this is your opportunity to study something. It's your way in. So question is very valuable to us. Very valuable. It's your way to, you know, what's the road into Buddhism? There is no way in. There's no special way in. Even if you start studying from the beginning, that's not a special way in. You start anywhere. You know, if you walk into the library, there's this vast array of books. And you go, where will I start? And then you turn around and walk out, because there's no place to start, really. But if you have a good question, then the question leads you to where to go. So, don't dismiss the problem you have, or the question you have, but use that as a way in.

[48:17]

And that's always the way in Buddhism, you know. Your question is very valuable, more valuable than the answer. Because your question will lead you on your quest. Will it buffer your concentration? as something to concentrate on? Buffer? Yes, a question you might have. I don't know what you mean by buffer. Well, your concentrated state of mind to let you persist in it. Recapture it. I don't know what you mean. Well, your question Well, interrupt or something? Interrupt. Buffer.

[49:22]

Well, to bring it back. I don't know, I'm lost. You mean if you have a question that'll bring back your concentrated state of mind or some state of mind which is not concentrated? If you have a question, yeah. Bring it back from being lost? Wandering? I still don't understand your question, even though Ron explained it very well. He's saying that the process of having a question helps your mind to be more concentrated.

[50:24]

Yeah, definitely so. It gives your mind a focus for concentration. I have a general problem with the idea of acquiring more background. For me, there's often a conflict between acquiring more background or more information or data and keeping the stuff coming out in the original and in practice. I find this in other aspects of my life besides just bed practice, but it's a good metaphor for other things too.

[51:31]

That I get hung up when I get involved in wanting to acquire more background. It's as if I have to get more background before I can and be good enough or skilled enough or knowledgeable enough. And it also, that sort of sometimes tends to lead to a feeling of kind of self-indulgence because it's very interesting to study and to get more. It's like getting more coming in, but there's not so much going out. And I feel like I get kind of caught on that. It's almost like the more you know, the more you know that you don't know. So you feel like you need to have more coming in and then... It's a vicious circle. ...wanting to be more knowledgeable before you can really be real and just live fully. That's very good, very well stated, actually.

[52:33]

So that's something we should be careful of, I think. All of us have to be careful of that. That's why the most important thing is our sitting and how we act in the world, to just do something. That's really most important, what we actually do. And study should be secondary to that. And it's true, the more we study, the more we realize we don't know, and the more there is to study, And it gets to be overwhelming. And we get really caught in that. And we feel if we don't know something that we're really lagging behind. So we have to be careful of that. But we should know just enough to have some background. We shouldn't get caught in needing to know more and more. But we should at least know something basic

[53:37]

I really appreciate what you said there.

[53:42]

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