Good morning. This morning I'm going to comment on one of Suzuki Roshi's talks book of his talks called, Not Always So. It's called Changing, the theme of this talk is changing our karma. And as I have said, many times. Karma means volitional action.

[01:08]

And then there is the result of our volitional action, which is called phala, fallout. Result. Usually when people talk about karma, they talk about the result as karma. but the result is phala, P-H-A-L-A. So karma is our volitional action, action that we do, not necessarily on purpose, but with intention. I guess maybe this is the same, but some kind of intention. and that good karma, which good activity, which so-called, which produces good results, and bad karma, which produces bad results, and neutral karma, which doesn't produce much, but since it doesn't produce bad results, it's pretty good.

[02:25]

So Suzuki Roshi says, you become very serious when you have a big problem without realizing they are always creating problems. With a smaller problem, you think, oh, this is no trouble, so I can manage it quite easily. You may think this without even knowing how you will cope with the problem you have. So in this talk, part of the theme of his talk is not ignoring the small problems that we have, because small problems turn into big problems. And the mindfulness of taking care of things right away when there is a small problem. So he says, the other day, Tatsugami Roshi said, a tiger catches a mouse with his whole strength. A tiger does not ignore or slight any small animal.

[03:38]

The way the tiger catches a mouse and the way he catches and devours a cow are the same. But usually, although you have many problems, you think they are minor, so you don't think it's necessary to exert yourself. Tatsugami Roshi was one of my teachers when I was at Tassajara, when I was head monk at Tassajara in 1970, called Shuso. That was his first time at Tassajara, and he couldn't speak English, and I couldn't speak Japanese. We had a great time because we communicated. He would talk to me, and I would go, And although I didn't understand a word he was saying, I understood what he meant. Our relationship went beyond language. So I liked that a lot. Very good. We understood each other.

[04:39]

So a tiger catches a mouse with his whole strength, you know. This is like, Suzuki Roshi always liked to use this kind of simile as the activity of a Zen student. A Zen student uses their whole body, mind, and attention in every activity, same way. Sometimes I get very kind of critical when I see a lack of mindfulness in our students. The tension wanes. That kind of being in the moment, attention wanes and we just start doing things mechanically.

[05:49]

And sometimes I find myself doing things mechanically, you know, and I catch myself. But we should always be able to catch ourself doing something mechanically and then realize, oh, I'm just doing this out of habit, or I'm just doing this activity because I'm so used to doing it in a certain way. You know, when you get out of your car, get in and out of your car, there's a routine. And you get out of your car and you take the key out of the ignition, hopefully. But you do that in rhythm, without even thinking so much about it. But then if you do another activity, like pick up something from the seat, which is outside of that rhythm, then you forget to take the key out of the ignition and you lock yourself out. So this is all done kind of subconsciously in a way, in between conscious and subconscious.

[07:01]

And then when you pick up the other item, it disrupts the rhythm. So that should help us. Locking yourself out of your car should be a wake-up call to where your attention is. Driving a car should be done with total attention. People drive their cars, and then they have a conversation, and then they get lost in the conversation, and driving the car takes second place to having the conversation, and then driving down the middle of the street, don't know what's going on. So even though you're having a conversation, the conversation should take second place to the driving. Nothing should supersede the attention to the driving. But when you drive down the road, you'll see that people are sleep driving.

[08:09]

So many people are just sleep driving, dream driving, like they're sitting in their living room watching TV or something. Dangerous. Anyway, to have that kind of attentiveness, when we come to the zendo, to have that kind of attentiveness when we're bowing, to have that kind of attentiveness when we're chanting the sutra, when we're cooking the meal, when we're serving. You know, often we don't meet each other. We just simply go through the motions. When we're serving a meal and then the server bows to the person who's being served, there's no meeting. It's simply, we're supposed to bow. But that's not taking care of your life. We should be doing those small,

[09:17]

activities as attentively as we would do something that we felt was very interesting. So that is the way many countries treat their international problems, as we know. This is a minor problem. As long as we don't violate international treaties, it will be okay, or even if we do, As long as we don't use atomic weapons, we can fight. Or if we do. But that kind of small fight eventually will result in a big fight. So even though the problems you have in your everyday life are small, unless you know how to solve them, you will have big difficulties. This is the law of karma. Karma starts from small things, but with neglect, your bad karma will accelerate. So sometimes things get so out of hand that we can't stop them, and a karma result is fairly immediate and too big.

[10:26]

Then we have the big, big problem, which I won't go into. Then he says, recently I read some of Buddha's teaching about the way. This Buddha's teaching he's talking about is are called the Parinirvana Sutra. There are two Parinirvana Sutras in Buddhism. One is the Parinirvana Sutra, the so-called Hinayana or Theravada, which is short and just talks about the Buddha's last words before he dies. And the other one is the Mahayana, which is three volumes and talks, three big volumes and goes into all the, thinking about Mahayana Buddhism. This is from the Theravada. I remember Suzuki Roshi gave each of us a little mimeographed copy of this sutra.

[11:31]

And that's what he's reading from. And so he said, recently I read some of Buddha's teaching about the way. And so there are these admonitions, 10 admonitions, But he says, brethren, restrain your many desires while receiving food and drink and accept it as medicine. Do not accept or reject it based on what you like or dislike. Just support your bodies and avoid starvation and thirst. As a bee in gathering honey tastes the flower but does not harm its color or scent, So brethren, you may accept just enough of people's offerings to avoid distress. So he's talking to monks. Buddha's talking to monks because the monks beg for their food and sometimes people feed them in various ways. So Buddha's admonishing them to not be greedy about what is offered.

[12:33]

So don't have many demands and thereby break their good hearts. In other words, don't break the hearts of the people that are supporting you. Wise people, for example, have judged the capacity of their animal's strength, who have judged the capacity of their animal's strength, do not wear them out by overloading them. So this, you know, can, you, The Buddha is admonishing people, the monks, not to expect too much or take too much of what people are offering, and not to overload the donors. I remember when we first started this Zen Do, I was always very careful not to overload the donors. by asking for lots of money and people go out and get lots of money. I always disliked that idea.

[13:43]

Nickel and diming people went to death, so it's called, because I didn't want to overload people's generosity. I've always been very careful about that. And I think that it's important to have that kind of frugality and balance, because with that kind of understanding, things will prosper. I'm totally convinced of that. So, you know, just enough. The orioke bowl, bowls that we eat with, orioke means just enough. The name of the eating bowl means just enough. So then he quotes again from the sutra, to restrain your desires.

[14:49]

Well, he's not quoting from the sutra, he's commenting. To restrain your desires is not really a matter of big or small, many or few. It is to go beyond the idea of desires. To have few desires means not to divide our concentration among too many things. To do things with oneness of mind, with true-hearted spirit, that is to have few desires. You know, we have many desires, One reason why we have so many desires is because we don't always thoroughly investigate the variety of the things we already have. We don't go thoroughly enough into one thing before we become interested in something else.

[15:58]

If we were to go thoroughly, investigate thoroughly one thing, that one thing can be sustaining forever. This is called zazen. Zazen is the one thing that is always full of variety, even though It doesn't look like it. Suzuki Roshi used to say, unless you can approach each activity with a fresh mind, you can't really understand yourself, or you can't, you won't be able to see or understand the true variety that's in front of you. So he said every day we chant the heart sutra, or every day we bow nine times or more.

[17:11]

If you just think that, oh, I chanted the heart sutra yesterday, or I chant this all the time, you know, and it's just something that you do, then it becomes kind of, Why am I doing this? I did this yesterday. But actually, if you approach it each time as if you had never done it before, then you would be able to bring out the infinite variety that's already there, always there. So it's not that we need so much variety, it's just that the variety is in our own mind. It's like watching a tide pool and you think there's nothing there. But as you look more and more, you begin to see the infinite variety of life that's there.

[18:16]

So, the more we can do one thing over and over, this is the essence of martial arts, it's the essence of Buddha's practice, to be able to do something over and over. And I don't wanna say milk, that's the word that comes to my mind, milk the variety. Milk is nourishment, right? To milk the variety that's there in what seems like the same thing over and over again. So he says, to have few desires means not to divide our concentration among too many things. To do things with oneness of mind, with true-hearted spirit, that is to have few desires. So to find the variety within the limitations, you know, practice has limitation.

[19:27]

within that limitation is where you find your freedom. So he says, while receiving food and drink, accepted as medicine, that's quoting from the scripture, this means to be concentrated, accepting it with our whole body and mind without any dualistic idea of you and food. So we receive or accept food rather than saying that we take food. Taking is more dualistic. Accepting is a more complete activity. You may think that to take is a more complete action than to accept, but according to Buddhist teaching, to grasp or take food does not include complete acceptance. Because it is dualistic, you will create karma. you may wish to grasp it because some other person wants to take it, so you must be very quick. That happens.

[20:32]

But when you receive it, already you have it. And if you accept it with great appreciation, thank you very much. This is what Buddha meant as the true activity of restraining your desires. So to take is kind of like the precept of not taking what is not, offered. I always like to think of when Usilananda, the Burmese monk, was at Tassajara of a Green Gulch. Everybody stands in line at Green Gulch to kind of buffet for the meals. But he didn't get in line. standing off to the side, everybody else is in line. And it occurred to me, as a monk, he can't take food. He can only receive it.

[21:34]

So I said, would you like something to eat? And he said, yeah. So I got his food and gave it to him. So he says, do not accept or reject it based on what you like or dislike. Again, to accept or reject in this way is dualistic. This kind of teaching does not mean to have control over your desires. If you want to control your desires, you will struggle with how much to limit your desires or your food. And in that way, you will make more problems, one after another. You may even find some good excuse to have more food. Then you will lose your way. I think what he's saying here is like, you're not trying to create some control. You're simply being, allowing yourself to let go of grasping. Maybe that's the same thing.

[22:40]

But it's the other side, you know? Instead of trying to control everything, simply let go of grasping. Who is it that's taking? So grasping is like creating self. Grasping, clinging, attachment is creating self, and self is the target for karmic retaliation. He says that here. So the sutra says, just support your bodies and avoid starvation and thirst. If you know how to practice Zazen, then you will know how much food to take, and there is no danger of eating too much or too little. I think that's very idealistic. I wish it were so. It can be so. I think that it can be so.

[23:43]

I mean, ideally, if you know how to do Zazen, you know how to regulate your life. But I think we have to make the effort to regulate our life, even though we sit zazen. But the two go together. So if you sit zazen in a regular way, regularly, that itself is regulating your desires or regulating your activity. And if you know how to limit your activity to what's vital, in combination with zazen, then things start to fall into place. And by paying attention, you will allow yourself to have what we call the natural order of mind, in the meal chant, the natural order of body-mind.

[24:46]

So then the sutra says, as a bee in gathering honey tastes the flower but does not harm its color or scent. This is a very famous line from the Sutra, a very famous parable. When we take honey because the flower is beautiful or the scent is nice, we miss the true taste of the flower. That's interesting. We get caught by the wonderful aroma or the wonderful taste. When you are taking care of yourself and the flower, you can have a direct feeling of the flower and taste its honey. Often we are not so careful. We may ruin a beautiful flower or we may stick to a particular flower. If we stick too much, eventually the flower will die. The purpose of the flower having honey is to help the plant by inviting bees.

[25:55]

So it's necessary to know whether we are like a bee or like something else. When we are aware of the difficulties that we sometimes create, we can extend our practice more carefully throughout our everyday life. You know, this seems to me like he's talking about relationships. When we, you know, are attracted and our desire comes up to someone because of their fragrance or their sweetness. Everyone has a certain flavor. I remember Suzuki Roshi talking about that. Every person has their own flavor. And so we're attracted in some way to some people and some we're not. and then we get over-attracted. This is especially important for teacher and student relationship. For the teacher to be able to sense the fragrance of each student and see into the character and sweetness of each student and to bring out, actually, to help nurture

[27:15]

the aroma and flavor of each student without getting caught or without ruining the flower. A very, very important aspect. And for the students in relationship to each other is the same. How we help bring out that flavor and that aroma without squashing it or without clinging to it or getting caught by it and allowing, getting our satisfaction from seeing something grow independently of ourself. So how do we bring out the best in someone without claiming something for ourself?

[28:25]

As soon as we want something, then we create a problem. So sometimes people say, well, how do I know a teacher is a good teacher? Well, one way to know is if the teacher wants something. If the teacher wants something, maybe not so good. So, So he says, are we like a bee, or are we like something else? So the bee needs the flower, and the flower needs the bee.

[29:28]

But the bee doesn't harm the flower. And the flower freely gives to the bee. And they need each other. And they need each other. As long as there's no attachment, then they can freely move together. So he says, our minds should be more careful, more attentive, and more reflective. You may think our way has too many rules about how to treat things. But before you know what you are doing, you cannot say there are too many rules. So notice whether you are creating problems in your everyday life or creating bad karma for yourself and others. And you should know also why you suffer right now.

[30:31]

There is a reason why you suffer, and it is not possible to escape from suffering unless you change your karma. So there's a lot of stuff right here in this. A lot of the times we complain about rules. Actually, we don't have much rules, but there are rules. I remember one time I was with Suzuki Roshi, and somebody had brought him a cup from Japan, very nice cup. And so he was passing the cup around for us to look at, and when it came to me, held it up and I was looking at it and he said, put the cup down like this when you look at it. Put it on the, keep it in your hand, but put it down on the tatami. This is like, you know, I wasn't gonna drop it. And even if I dropped it, it would drop on the straw mat.

[31:36]

But still, you know, be careful. It was like a teaching, you know, like be careful how you handle something. And be careful how you handle something goes for whatever you encounter. So you should know why you suffer right now, and there's a reason why you suffer and why, you know, so you should investigate. I feel hurt right now because I did this. Often, I just hear all the time, so-and-so did this and that to me, and why did they do this and that? Well, we should always look at how we cause something to happen to us. Everything that happens to us is not because of our karma. It's true that not everything that happens to us is because of our karma.

[32:40]

Things happen. But there are things that happen to us because of the way we set them up. So, so often we set ourselves up and then boom. And we don't realize that we're setting ourself up. We just, we think, that person is always reacting to me in this way, you know. They must not like me or something. What did I do? I didn't do nothing. It's the constant refrain, geez, I didn't do nothing. But you did. You just don't know what it is that you did or what you do that sets that up time after time. So it's good to investigate. And sometimes I'll point out to people why things are happening because of the way they set them up. They say, oh no. They're always thinking it's someone else's fault.

[33:45]

But we should always look to ourself. Even though it may be someone else's fault, still we have a part to play in it. So things don't necessarily have one cause. As a matter of fact, they never have one cause. An action never has just one cause. It's always a combination of causes. So even though so-and-so hit me and the cause was them hitting me, my being hit, there's still a cause, my part or my action that was a contributing cause. So we should know what our part is in whatever happens. So he says, when you follow karma and drive karma in a good direction, you can avoid the destructive nature of karma. Following and driving, this is an allusion to following the wave and driving the wave.

[34:56]

Driving the wave means your volition, and riding the wave means you're going along with things. And the way to drive the wave and follow the wave at the same time is to be right at the crest. So a good surfer drives the wave and follows the wave and stays right on top of the crest in that wonderful space of effortlessness. You can do that by being attentive to the nature of karma and the nature of your desires and activities. So when you go to do something, we should always think, well, so what's gonna be the result of this activity? What will this result in? As Buddha pointed out, to know the cause of suffering is to know how to avoid suffering.

[36:07]

So we don't always know the cause. It's important to investigate. And to investigate the cause means to always ask yourself, what is going to be the result of this action? And the more we do that, the more circumspect we become and more careful. If you study why you suffer, you will understand cause and effect and how bad actions result in bad effects. Because you understand you can avoid the destructive power of karma. So as long as we have an idea of self, karma has an object to work on. So the best way is to make karma work on the voidness of space. If we have no idea of self, karma doesn't know what to do. Oh, where is my partner? Where is my friend? Where are you? Some people try hard to banish karma, but I don't think that's possible.

[37:10]

The best way is to know the strict rules of karma and to work on our karma immediately. There are rules, you know. I remember Tsukiroshi saying, even though there's no self, there's still some rules. So karma operates according to really strict rules. I remember there was this little cafe going up to Sonoma. I used to take, and they served great chili there. I always used to stop and get some of their chili. And the owner apparently liked airplanes. And they had one, I've told you the story before, a photograph of an airplane in a tree, like one of these, light planes, a biplane stuck in a tree. And the caption under the photograph was, the law of aerodynamics does not tolerate any deviations.

[38:23]

The law of karma is exactly the same. even though what happened to me was unfair, it's just the law of karma. You can't argue with it. So every time we create bad karma, we create a self. And a self, it becomes a target for the result. So if there's no self there, then there's no place for the result to go. So this is called being transparent. But then we say, well, if we can't create bad karma, we can't have any fun. It's true, sort of. Not really, not really true.

[39:32]

Kind of true. But even though we have fun, later on it hurts. Or it can hurt. So we have to be careful. Anyway, it's okay. I remember as long as you like it, it's okay. As long as you don't mind the result, it's okay. But when you get tired of the result, then we start to look for, how do we get out of this? So hopefully we do that before it's too late because the longer, it's like someone said, it's like when you put money in the bank, it collects interest. And the longer it stays in the bank, the longer, the more interest there is. So, Karma, if we take care of our karma right away, do something about it right away, then it doesn't collect so much interest, and it's easier to deal with.

[40:46]

But the longer it festers in there, the harder it is to deal with, because it just accumulates interest. So he says, if you know something is wrong with your car, stop your car immediately and work on it. But usually we don't. Oh, this is a minor problem for my car. It's still running, so let's go. That's my way. That is not our way. Even though you can keep driving, we should take care of our car very carefully. If you push your car to the limit, the problems aren't constantly working on your car until finally it stops. Now it may be too late to fix it, and it will require a lot more energy. So our body, mind, is like our car. Sometimes I think of my body and my mind as like my car, because I'm so intimate with my car and the way it runs.

[41:49]

It just keeps going and going, like me, you know? And I think, this is a great car, you know? It just keeps going. 1985, you know? And when something goes wrong, I fix it, you know, but my body's kind of like the same way. When something goes wrong, I fix it, but I don't think about it, you know, much, and little things go wrong. But actually, to take care of it is, would be very important. So, the older you get, the more things can go wrong with you. And in this aging sangha, more things can go wrong with you. And so I want to suggest that you really, everybody really take care of yourself, physically and mentally.

[42:51]

I don't know about how to do that, but physically, you can take care of yourself. And should, and when I see how lazy we are about taking care of ourselves, it really is depressing to me. Because I know that if people really took care of their body, they wouldn't be complaining so much, you know? I got this problem, so now I gotta go see a doctor. You don't have to see a doctor. Just take care of yourself. I'm not saying that you should never see a doctor. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about so much that when you take care of yourself, you don't have to do that so much. Taking care of yourself, You know, the older you get, the more your body collapses.

[43:53]

Aging means collapsing into yourself, and you have to make the effort to keep expanding. Otherwise, you're gonna just keep collapsing, and then you have to go see the doctor. Oh, my knees, you know. Well, I don't wanna go into it, but. I want to admonish everyone to really take care of themselves. And I've suggested ways to do that. Lots of exercise, lots of stretching to keep your body limber and loose and flexible and pliable. That's the main thing. Because we tend to fuse together as we get into a lump as we get older. You have to make a big effort. The older you are, the more effort you have to make.

[44:56]

So you might as well start before you get too old. Because I don't want to have to take care of you. Well, it's okay, I will, but... So he says, everyday care is very important. then you can get rid of your misunderstandings and know what you're actually doing. So, in Buddhism, this is called leaving no trace. How do you leave no trace? Leaving no trace means not creating a lot of karma and collect, Creating karma means creating a self out of grasping and clinging and desire. So we all do it, but to minimize it takes some mindful effort.

[46:07]

So it's something that we're always dealing with, moment by moment. Yeah, a question. which is a little bit confusing because you kind of have to, or I feel like you sort of have to extrapolate, you know, the law itself from the result. Right, so for example in Judaism you have the Ten Commandments, right? So, okay, thou shalt not kill. Okay, well if you kill that means you're bad, you know, you're a bad Jew, you're a bad Christian. Very simple, right? And with karma it seems Well, killing things creates karma. I mean, willful killing creates karma. So you may not know what that result will be, but the result is either immediate or somewhere down the line or somewhere way down the line.

[47:20]

So sometimes something, the result comes back to you, but you don't know, well, why did that happen? because the result is down the line somewhere. There was a guy in Philadelphia who was a professor. And when he was 18, he murdered a bunch of people, three people. But later on, somehow or another, he got paroled and became a professor. Nobody knew this. Nobody knew about it at all until finally somebody pointed it out. So his karma, you know, the result of his karma came back to him many years later. He knew why, but still, you know, so the result is always somehow shows up and causes some problem.

[48:21]

Well, you know that if you steal something, there will be a result. You may not know what the result is, but you know there'll be a result. Thank you for your talk. I really feel that when you talk about the self as the kind of catalyst or the volition of karma, And yet we are filled with self continuously. It's very, you know, it's one of the challenges of practicing this practice is to detach. So when you talk about the self and coming to no self, to be somewhat, I guess, a more appropriate word would be discernment, perhaps, because you don't really escape karma. from it is, but we learn to detach from, or to practice essentially doing nothing to some extent.

[49:38]

Doing nothing, harmful. Harmful, right, to do, to not, you know, I have a tendency in my own emotional makeup to be somewhat dramatic or intense, so I have to remember to step back And that's a practice for me, ongoing. And it's one of the main conditions for my arriving here, is to remember that that's how I best serve myself and others, is to step out of the drama of self. But at the same time, speak to me a bit about what you see as, in this practice, not creating karma, we create karma, karma is, and we're constantly doing this dance, but to not create karma that is harmful, and making the choice, having discernment, because there are times, there are moments when you have to actually be, take that risk, as it were.

[50:46]

Sometimes we do things because we want to have fun, and there'll be a result. We may have an extra drink, or we may, whatever that might be for whoever. But there are other times when it's about consciousness, taking a risk, and there will be a result, and you have to allow for that, and at the same time, not be attached to the result. Well, yeah, you know, the Bodhisattva enters into the karmic realm. Although the bodhisattva can be free from karma, the bodhisattva purposely enters into the karmic realm and maybe creates karma and falls into hell. But willingly. For the sake of all beings, that can happen. We're really finished, but I'll give you a chance.

[51:52]

What kind of karma is generated by the desire for enlightenment? That's not karma. That's called ... that desire is to be free from karma. That's the desire which is ... you know, desire isn't necessarily bad. desire can go in many different ways. So when desire is turned toward something self-centered, then it creates karma. But when desire is turned toward enlightenment, enlightenment is to be free from karma. So if it feels like desire, it's not the desire for enlightenment? Say that again? If it feels like desire, which is to say it has those components yearning, or longing, or absence, or grasping, that's not the desire for enlightenment?

[52:55]

Well, you know, all of our desire is the desire for enlightenment, but we don't know it. So desire is part of Buddha nature. Buddha nature is desire. So it's not that desire is bad, but what we do with our desire creates good or bad results. So does the desire for enlightenment create a bad result? I don't think so. Unless it's, see the desire for enlightenment is kind of selfish. So, but we can use that selfish desire to go in the right direction. When we come to practice, we do it for ourself. You know, everybody comes here for their own self-interest, mostly. But after we have maturity in practice, we realize that we're not doing this just for ourself.

[54:02]

So that desire becomes mature, and it's called way-seeking mind. Okay? Beings are...

[54:33]

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