I just recently returned from leading a practice period at Tassajara. At Tassajara, we have... Tassajara is our monastery where we have three-month practice periods in the fall and the winter. In Zen Center, there are three major practice places. One is at Page Street in San Francisco, and Green Gulch is the second, and Tassajara. So Page Street is available to people in the city, and Green Gulch is more like a place of many practices. Many different kinds of practices are introduced into Green Gulch. But Tassajara, during practice period, is a very strict monastic life, no coming and going.

[01:13]

When the students come to go to Tassajara for the practice period, they just stay there, and their life is very limited no art, no music, no outside influence, no radios, no TV, and just doing the same practice over and over every day. And in this situation, After a little while, everyone's life becomes exposed. There's no hiding, although it's possible to hide if you try, but generally everyone is exposed. And then we find out who each other is and who we are.

[02:22]

And we practice together. with an effort to make a harmonious life together for that time. But even when people go to Tansahara, they carry themselves there. So people have the same problems in a restricted monastic life as they do in a very free life without seeming boundaries. But the difference is that when you put yourself under this kind of restriction, then you have to take care of something. And it's easy in our life where we create our own boundaries or when we have so much freedom to come and go, to ignore or pass by the various problems of our life, intrinsic problems.

[03:47]

So what I realize, both in the city, in the country, and at Tassajara, is that we all have the same problems. And the problems, we have the same problem of relating. to relating to ourself, relating to each other, and relating to our surroundings. And it's the problem of knowing who we are. In Zen practice, Dogen Zenji says, the essence of Buddhism is revealed in Zazen.

[04:54]

And it's only necessary to do Zazen in order to understand or experience awakening. So there's a term, only Zazen, This only za-zen can be very misleading. Za means sitting, and zen means zen, but what does that mean? Zen means non-duality. So zazen means sitting in non-duality or sitting in the center of the universe where this and that are the same.

[06:09]

sitting in the center of difference is sameness, or sameness is difference. But in order to understand this, we have to actually practice. But my point is, Just sitting, just zazen, does not mean just doing some cross-legged practice. Sitting in non-duality means all of our life activity takes place in non-duality. Our whole life is a life of non-duality.

[07:15]

So, non-duality means various things, but it means to identify with all of life as yourself. And this practice of non-duality or practice of sitting in non-duality is characterized by what we call metta. Buddhism is a term metta, which means love. but it doesn't mean love in the usual sense of love and hate. It's not the opposite of... It doesn't belong to the duality of love and hate, although love and hate are included in it.

[08:27]

Metta means love without self-interest or without... egotism, but it includes self, but is not centered on self. This is an important distinction. Sometimes we think about selflessness and we say forget the self or drop the self, but in dropping the self or forgetting the self, we still have to take care of the self, our self. Before we can extend pure love to others, we have to experience it ourself, for ourself.

[09:40]

So when we love, appreciate, and forgive ourself, then we understand what that is, and we can extend it to the whole universe. So netta is the extension of love throughout the universe. which includes our self and includes what we call our ego. In Buddhism, ego, there's no such thing as ego. Ego is not a reality, but at the same time, ego exists. Ego is our sense of self. And sometimes we even think of soul.

[10:46]

We say ego or soul. In Buddhism, soul is not something that we believe in. Although you can say soul, and we understand what that means. But if we draw a concept of soul and single it out, then we start to believe in something. as if it really exists. We use the term soul food. Soul food is something that really satisfies us in our depths. But it's just a feeling. It reaches all the way down to the bottom of our life. something satisfies our soul, it satisfies us down to the bottom of our life. But to give real identity to that soul and make it into an entity is a mistake.

[11:56]

in Buddhism, this ego or soul or entity doesn't exist by itself. It only exists as an expression of universal life. So, In the extension, extending love throughout the universe is to be connected to the universe, to be connected to Buddha nature, or to find our true place in life, within life. you a little short sutra, a Buddhist sutra, a very old sutra, which is called the Metta Sutra.

[13:08]

I want to say before I read this sutra that today is the opening Today we begin our winter practice period at Green Gulch. And we've chosen as the theme for this winter practice period this Metta Sutra. It's a very short sutra, actually. It goes like this. It says, this is what should be accomplished by one who is wise, who seeks the good and has obtained peace. Let one be strenuous, upright and sincere without pride, easily contented and joyous.

[14:27]

Let one not be submerged by the things of the world. Let one not take upon oneself the burden of riches. Let one's senses be controlled. Let one be wise, but not puffed up. And let one not desire great possessions, even for one's family. Let one do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove. May all beings be happy, May they be joyous and live in safety. All living beings, whether weak or strong, in high or middle or low realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far, born or to be born, may all beings be happy. Let no one deceive another nor despise any being in any state.

[15:28]

Let none, by anger or hatred, wish harm to another. Even as a mother, at the risk of her life, watches over and protects one's only child, or parent rather, so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things, suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around, without limit. So let one cultivate an infinite goodwill toward the whole world. Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all one's waking hours, let one cherish the thought that this way of living is the best in the world. Abandoning vain discussions, having a clear vision, freed from sense appetites, one who is made perfect will never again know rebirth in the cycle of creating suffering for oneself or others. This sutra begins by explaining, not explaining, but it gives a teaching.

[16:41]

I see it as three parts. The first part is a teaching, and in the middle there's a little prayer. And then the third part is a teaching again. The prayer is like, may all beings be happy, may they be joyous and live in safety, all living beings, whether weak or strong, in high or middle or low realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible, near or far, born or to be born, may all beings be happy. This is to offer something, offer our wish. for to offer love to the world. And I used to wonder about prayer in Buddhism.

[17:46]

Sometimes people say that Zazen is to Zazen is like the Buddhist form of prayer or sitting in meditation, but actually to consciously offer this wish for the well-being of the world is Buddhist prayer. Usually, prayer is, maybe, some form of prayer is to supplicate or ask for something.

[18:52]

But in Buddhism, there is no deity. So prayer is usually associated with deity. But in Buddhism, we talk about Buddha nature or universal mind. There are various terms that we use. Emptiness. But there's no concept of creator. In Buddhism, we say everything is self-creating, life is self-creating, with no beginning and no end. And for human beings, we create our own destiny and our own life, moment by moment.

[19:53]

Every act leads to the next act. And so the direction of our life is very important, and we have the ability to either create life or destroy it, or to change it. So for Buddhists, it's very important to bring forth this kind of feeling into the world. This comes forth from our deepest self. We don't ask for it, we produce it. But at the same time, when we produce this kind of feeling without any thought of result

[20:55]

then we say that effort is met by our Buddha nature. There's a term in Mahayana Buddhism called Adhistana, which means when a bodhisattva is practicing without self-interest for the well-being of the universe, then the universe supports the bodhisattva. It's like connection, it's like absorption, or everything comes together perfectly. The universe meets our request.

[22:05]

So, in Buddha Dharma, we say the whole universe, or universe is just a word, right, that means everything, is myself. This is called identity. identifying with birth and death, being completely one with the universe. So Bodhisattva lives with this, this is the Bodhisattva's life, this metta is the basis or action of a Bodhisattva's life.

[23:30]

It means bringing up the thought of without the thought of result. When we think of love, we have various ways of thinking about it. But this particular word, It means, without thinking about result, no... In other words, even if the whole world goes crashing down, it doesn't stop the bodhisattva from producing metta.

[24:35]

It's just a way of life. If the universe comes crashing down, the Bodhisattva is not disappointed. So this is called non-dualistic love, love which doesn't depend on anything. It doesn't depend on whether things are going well or poorly.

[25:44]

It doesn't depend on love and hate. It has no opposite. There are two aspects to this Metta. One is that in Metta everything is seen as exactly equal. Every person is seen as exactly equal. no matter who they are. So there's just great equality of everything. Everything is the same. And this is horizontal. And at the same time, everything is seen as different.

[26:52]

This is vertical. In horizontal, everything... this is like gravity. The law of gravity is that everything comes to this point. Everybody, when they stand on the earth, their shoes or their feet are all on the same plane. No one is any lower than anyone else. And this is complete equality. And this is where everybody is independent and different. Everything in the world has its own reason for existence and is independent and different.

[27:54]

This is sometimes called, this is very weighty. In music there are terms like, Italian or Latin terms, grave and allegro. Grave is weighty, the grave, right? Death or equality. gravity can get very slow. There's hardly anything happening. It's dark, and you don't see the outlines of things. But allegro, vivace, life, defying gravity, springing, spirito, spiritoso, life springing up from this dark place.

[29:05]

So this dark place is the source, this horizontal place. Everything is equal. Love is universal without any question. Here is Joe. Here is Susan. Here is people we love and here are people we hate. And we have to make decisions, moment by moment, depending on how we feel about things. These are two... This is the two aspects, the duality of life. The duality of life is that there's this, and there's this. Mostly, we're up here, looking at, like a cat, you know?

[30:13]

When you get a cat's attention, and then you wave something, it doesn't matter what it is, but the cat is always going like this. And we are always going like this. But we seldom see this. Zazen is to be immersed in the horizontal, in the grave, the stillness of life where everything is the same, and yet to be able to make distinctions. But unless we know this, unless we understand this direction, we have a very difficult time with this direction because this direction is based on this direction and where the two meet is where our life takes place and if we miss the universal and only understand the particulars of life then we just bounce back and forth between love and hate and like and dislike and we get lost

[31:34]

because we don't have any place else to go. And if you look at the newspaper, you can see the world is bouncing back and forth between love and hate, and has no place to go. So, it's important to understand this horizontal aspect of our life, which is the bottom line of our life. When we know that, when we experience true being, then we always have a place to go. And we can stand in the middle between love and hate without being turned around by our delusion.

[32:38]

Even though you have an argument with your husband or your wife, you know that you have non-discriminating love So you don't get turned around by it. You don't get caught by your feelings, which just go back and forth. Love and hate are the same. It just depends on where you put your marbles. And it's like one of these little games you play, you know, where the ball tips this way or the ball tips that way. Love and hate are like that, you know? You turn a little bit this way and you're loving and then you turn this way and you're hating. Then you turn it this way and you're loving again. It goes back and forth. Those are just feelings.

[33:49]

It's not really love. Love is really beyond our feelings. Although, when we have universal love, which is non-discriminating, That's called ecstasy. But we should be careful. Suzuki Roshi always warned us to be careful of ecstatic states. They're very seductive. But to understand where everything becomes one, and to understand how everything becomes different, and to always be right in the middle where the two meet, is to stay within non-duality.

[35:03]

This is called zazen. And it means to always be in the center of your life, or the center of life, or in the center of life and death. And it's movement based on non-movement. And for Bodhisattva, it's the abiding place.

[36:10]

And it's also called eternal life. It's not dependent on the ups and downs of life, although it includes the ups and downs of life. So, day after day, the Zen student sits Zazen and practices Zazen and sometimes wonders, gee, what is this doing for me? What do I get out of this? Nothing. But the nothing doesn't mean nothing.

[37:14]

It means you can't add something to what you already have, and you can't take something away. from what you already have. If you can add it or take it away, it's not yours. So really, all we have is just this. And if we seek for something else, Good luck. Thank you very much.

[38:17]

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