I bow to teach the truth in the light of Thay. Good morning. Today, for the first 10 or so minutes, we have the Kids Zendo, where today, hi kids. Hi. Today we're going to talk about opposites. You know what opposites are. Can you tell me some opposites? Inside and outside. Say it again, loud. Inside and outside. Inside and outside.

[01:01]

Down and up. Down and up. Down and up. Yeah, what else? And red and blue. Red and blue? Red and blue. Maybe. Good and bad. Right and wrong. Yeah, those are all opposites, right? Yeah, but did you know that opposites make each other? Because there's up, there's down, right? If there was no up, there would not be any down. So if I'm on the ladder, I'm up from the ground.

[02:09]

But someone up on the roof will look down at me and say, you're down there. Right? So up is down, and down is up. Because it's all relative. Nothing's fixed. So, back and forth, right? Or opposites. So we say, I'm going to school and then I'm coming back home, right? That's what we do. We go to school in the daytime, in the morning, and then we come back home. When we go to school, that's going forth, right? And then when we come back, we're still going forth.

[03:12]

We just say, I'm coming back. If you were really coming back, you'd have to be walking backwards. So, back and forth, I'm just relative. So, we're always going forth even when we're going back. Do you know what that is? That's called Yes, a quarter, because it's one-fourth part of a dollar. Four of these makes one dollar, so there are four of these in a dollar even though you don't see them, but that's another story.

[04:17]

This quarter has two sides. One side has got the head of George Washington. You know who he is. Yeah, the father of our country. So that's 25, that's a quarter. This side is heads. And the other side has this, it's the first time I've ever seen this. Anyway, this other side is called tails. So, heads and tails are two sides of one coin. So, good and bad are two sides of one thing. Right and wrong are two sides of one thing. Whenever we say opposites. They are opposites of one thing, like this coin.

[05:28]

So what is the coin? That's the big question. So when we eat candy, we say, oh, that's good. But actually, candy is bad. He said it has too much sugar. Too much sugar? Yeah, too much sugar, of course. Of course, yeah. That's right. Better sugar. B-b-better sugar. Which is? Okay. So when we take medicine, bitter medicine, we say, oh, that's bad. But actually medicine is good. So what is good or bad anyway? What is right and wrong anyway?

[06:33]

What is long and short anyway? What is big and small anyway? So I'll give you an example. Opposites are endless. Good and bad, day and night, right and wrong, mine and yours, praising and blaming, all are opposites and all are endless. Opposites produce each other. Day and night, birth and death, the egg becomes the hen and the hen makes the egg. In just this way, good luck and bad luck are an endless cycle. Good, and then bad, and then good, and then bad. So there was once a farmer who lost his mare. Do you know what a mare is? A mare is a lady horse. No, a lady horse, a woman horse, a female horse.

[07:38]

When the mayor disappeared, the people of the village said, bad luck. But when the mayor came home the very next day, followed by a good strong horse, the people of the village said, good luck. Yesterday they said bad luck. Today they think good luck. Yesterday they said loss, but today they said gain, which is true. No, gain and loss are opposites. Maybe loss is good. If you lose something that you don't like, that's good. When the farmer's son rode the beautiful horse, he fell and broke his leg. Then all the people said, bad luck. The war came and all the strong men were drafted. They took all the men in the army and made them go to the war.

[08:42]

But because the farmer's son had broken his leg, he could not go to war. Was this loss a game? Good luck or bad luck? Nobody knows. If you have an elephant, you say, the elephant is big. And the mouse, well the mouse is small, but for an ant, the mouse is huge, right? So are mice big or small? It depends on who's looking at them. Medium. Medium. Well, that's right. They're really medium. I agree with you. It's all medium. Well, I'll leave you to ponder all this. So be careful, right?

[10:02]

The quarter is medium. That's the answer. Got it. Thank you very much. And don't take any wooden nickels. They're so smart, how did they come up with media?"

[11:07]

The great answer. Well, the rest of this talk is about this talk of Suzuki Roshi's, which you pick out a little part and say, this is the title. So the title is, The Teaching is Just for You, a good title. And it's about accepting practice as your own, as Buddha's practice is just for you, for nobody else. Just you. So he says, usually when we practice, because this is all old stuff, you already know all this, but I'm going to talk about it anyway.

[12:20]

Usually when we practice, we expect something if we try hard, and if we try hard, our practice will improve. This is usual when we're doing something. If we aim at a goal in our practice, we will eventually reach it. We have the idea that our practice will improve day by day and will help our health and mental condition. This is true, but it is not a complete understanding. So, we practice for various reasons and There is some improvement in all these things that he mentions, but those are secondary aspects of practice. They're not primary aspects of practice. Improvement is not a primary aspect of practice. But nevertheless, things happen.

[13:24]

Good things happen. We also do zazen with the understanding that the goal is not reached in one or two years, but is right here. Here is the goal of practice. When you practice with this understanding, you take care of many things and you remain concentrated, completely involved in the practice you have right now. That is why we have various instructions so you can practice hard enough to feel the goal of practice right now as you are doing it. So, as we always say, the goal of practice is just to be here right now, doing what you're doing, totally and fully, without expectation or without gaining mind. It's the hardest thing for us to do. is to simply be present with whatever is present with us.

[14:29]

This is how we can practice. This is actually the open secret of how we practice in our daily life. You come to Zazen and you practice Zazen and Zendo and then you go out and just practice your daily life without thinking about practice. You just practice everything you do totally and fully without a gaining idea. Simply address every activity. So he says we have our various instructions, meaning our formal practice. Formal practice gives us the understanding of how to practice in the world by paying attention to everything that we're doing moment by moment, to be fully

[15:44]

involved, fully committed to each moment's activity. That's the goal of practice. He also used to say, usually we think of a goal as something going away, something far away that we're trying to attain, but in our practice the goal is to be here. So he says, you may say, my practice is not good enough to feel the goal or the full meaning right now. I'm not ready to do that right now. But even though you say your practice is not good enough, there is no other practice for you right now. So your practice of evasion is your practice. Good or bad, it is your practice.

[16:50]

To approach perfect practice, there is no other way than to accept yourself. To say your practice is bad does not help your practice. To say your practice is excellent does not help your practice. Your practice is your practice. In other words, people all the time say, oh, I'm not good, and my practice is no good, and blah, [...] blah. This is not helpful. Just accepting your life as it is doesn't mean that everything is good or that everything is bad. Good and bad are relative. Someone's difficult practice can be very, very good.

[17:59]

Someone's good practice cannot be so good. If you think, I can do this very easily, I don't have any problem with it, practice is easy for me, and I'm such a good Zen student. This is not good practice. If you think, you know, it's so difficult but I'm doing it anyway, I'm just really getting in there and putting my whole effort into practice, even though I can't do it well, it's really good practice. So, a bad Zen student is a good Zen student, a good Zen student is a bad Zen student. So he says, your practice is your practice. You are talking about it in various ways, good or bad, that's all. You should know this point first of all, so we say, even though your practice is not so good, that is perfect practice. Just sit. So hearing this, you may understand it objectively and use it as an excuse.

[19:05]

So this is the problem. Anyway, we're sitting here in the Zen dojo, so that's perfect practice. There's no need to encourage ourselves and there's no need to sit all day. If we sit a little bit, that's okay, even one period's enough. So that kind of understanding is very superficial. You have no understanding of your subjective side. So this is kind of lazy practice. People have been practicing many years, you know, 20 years, 25 years, and you kind of coast in your practice. You're not putting effort into your posture. You won't turn slumps. You kind of find a comfortable place and you kind of coast there. And that seems pretty good, but it's not good, not good practice.

[20:15]

There's no vitality in practice. So practice is practice when there's vitality, when you're making effort. So he says you have no understanding of your subjective side. So we have a subjective and objective sides. Objective side is like observing how things are. It's kind of like from outside. You see the structure of things and you have opinions about everything. Subjective side is your side. Subjective side is how you actually feel when you're doing something. So, he says, truth is always there, but just to say so, when you are not actually practicing the truth, is what we call a painted cake, Dogen talks about, painting of a rice cake.

[21:19]

You can't eat the painting of a rice cake. You have to eat the cake itself. So, painting is the objective side. Eating is the subjective side. Eating is practice. Although, subjective side and objective side are both necessary. So, Dogen also says, yes, you can eat the painting of a rice cake. You should eat the painting of a rice cake, as well as the rice cake itself. Anyway. So, he says, a painted cake is a picture of a cake you can't eat. Even though you are sitting, you are eating a painted cake. You're not really doing it. So there is no taste and you will give up because it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't result in anything. This is the person quoting themselves. It doesn't result in anything, so it may be better to go downtown and eat something instead of eating the food Zen Center provides.

[22:26]

So Zen Center food is like the practice, right? So, he says, you may be pleased when people call you a Zen student, something not everybody's pleased with. Then your practice is encouraging your ego, but you are not practicing Zen. So when you sit like that, Zen does not mean anything. True Zazen cannot be like that. If Zen were like that, it would have vanished from this world a long time ago. So Zen is still alive because of the other side of the truth. I think objective is self-conscious. Subjective is un-self-conscious. So to do the practice in an un-self-conscious way is egoless. To do practice in a

[23:29]

self-conscious way is objective, because you see yourself as an object. When you no longer see yourself as an object, then you have your subjective life, which is true to yourself. So he says, Various ancestors and great sages of Buddhism have said, Buddha left this teaching just for me, not for anyone else. Buddha left the Lotus Sutra just for Nichiren. If that side is forgotten, the Buddha's teaching is nothing but waste paper. Just for me is not arrogant. It means you have full appreciation of the teaching as your own. So this is kind of a difficult place to understand. when we say just for me, not for anyone else.

[24:36]

Nichiren, of course, was one of the leading teachers in Dogen's time in the 13th century and Nichiren's teaching was the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren felt that he was the He was a really bombastic guy. He felt that the Lotus Sutra was given to him to expound. And so, you know, when you take on something as your own, that's subjective. That's what Sunishi Roshi is talking about here. When you take the practice on as your own, then it's meant just for you. It's also meant just for everyone else, when each one takes on the practice. It's just like, I am the center of the universe, but so is everyone else, so it's no problem.

[25:43]

If only I was the center of the universe, then it would be a problem, each one of us. But in other words, what he's talking about is actualizing your practice. not just in a superficial way. I'm talking about that practice, something outside of yourself, but you and the practice are not two things. So he says, just for me is not arrogance, because this is true self, just me, not ego self, just me. So there's a difference between ego self and true self. Ego self is self-centered, whereas true self is the center. There's a difference. The ego and self look the same, but ego is a counterfeit for true self.

[26:55]

So we set aside the counterfeit and take up the true self. That's what practice is, setting aside the ego self and allowing the true self to come forth. So sometimes we get confused about self and no-self. Well, Buddhism says there's no self, right? But how can there be no self if there's a self? I mean, what are we talking about, no self? What are all these selves, right? Here I am. but the self is not a self. It's not that there's nothing there, it's that that which is there is not a complete self. If there was nothing there, there would be nothing to talk about.

[28:02]

I'm not done yet. So, True self is big self. Ego self is self-centered in that it's a self that can be let go of. Whatever can be let go of is not true self. True self is that which you can't let go of. You let go of everything, the true self is always there. So it's the fundamental. True personality is fundamental. So Buddha is one who expresses true personality, the true person of no rank. Rank means ego. Rinzai talks about the true person of no self, or the true person of no rank.

[29:16]

No rank means no ego, but true self. The true self is the subjective self. So this is the spirit we need in our Zazen practice. everyone can be Nichiren, everyone can be Dogon or Bodhidharma, because I practice Zazen, there is Buddha and there is Dogon and there is Bodhidharma and there is Buddha's teaching. You realize that you are the only being in this world and that no one can take over your position. That is true. All the teaching is just for you. But when the teaching is Just for you means that you are the teaching. You and the teaching are not two things. So you express teaching in whatever you're doing.

[30:21]

You don't have to talk. That's okay too. When you are young, you have no such feeling. you think you will live 50 or even 100 years more, so today is not so valuable to you. If you become my age, he was only 67 when he died, if you become my age, you'll really feel I am just this one being and no one can take over my position, so I must not fool myself. When you get to a certain age, you start to realize you can't fool yourself. You can, but you don't want to, because you have to figure out, well, let's see now, where is this going? When you're young, there's a long way to go, seems like, but when you get old, there's not so far to go, and then you say, well, wait a minute, where's the door?

[31:22]

So this point is very important for everyone. but especially for those who practice our way. Without this confidence or understanding, you will expose the weakness of your practice. Oh no, I'm not good enough. Look at me, I cannot practice Zazen. Zen is so beautiful and so perfect, but it is impossible for me to do this practice, blah, blah, blah. You will feel the weakness of your character and of your conduct, and being preoccupied in this way, you won't be able to sit. But whatever you may say about yourself, you are the only one. You cannot escape because the whole world is yours. You're talking from a very interesting position. We don't usually talk this way. The whole world is yours. The world is my oyster. is yours as long as you realize that everything belongs to you, so there's nothing you can steal.

[32:29]

So there's no need to create something. This is a big mind. You're talking from the point of view of big mind. We have to realize that. Not talking from the point of view of ego, talking from the point of view of big mind, which is all-inclusive. And when there's no ego, you know, According to the Hawaiian teaching, because everything is totally interconnected and dependent on everything else, if you were really to disappear some particle of the universe, the whole thing would collapse. So every part is the whole being. When we realize who we really are, we realize that we are the whole universe. Each particle reflects every other particle. So, you cannot escape because the whole world is yours.

[33:35]

This is beyond the truth that we can talk about. It's ultimate truth. So, how can you deny the fact that you are the only one? You can criticize yourself, that's easy, but when you accept the fact that you are the only one, you have no time to say good practice or bad practice, because you turn a deaf ear to this truth, you have time to criticize yourself. So we talk about good and bad, and good and bad, there is such a thing as good and bad. but it's the grid and the band of the one coin, they're the two sides of the one coin. What's important is how we understand the oneness of both sides, the medium. So because you turn a deaf ear to this truth, you have time to criticize yourself.

[34:48]

When you realize this point, you can hear or see the truth, and you can practice Azem. You can accept the truth, whatever it is. To practice is to open yourself up to everything, and you see as an embodiment of the truth. This is why we practice Azem, why everyone can join our practice, and why this practice includes every activity in your life. This is not a practice that can be compared to other practices as a means of attaining something. From the experiences of many people, instructions were accumulated for the forms we use and the way we breathe, just as scientific knowledge is accumulated. But Buddhism puts emphasis on the subjective side of the truth. I remember when Tassajara, when Tsukiroshi was there, people complain, you know, somebody complaining about why we do, you know, have this kind of formal practice and so forth.

[35:52]

And the Ziguroshi, you know, said, over 700 years this practice has developed through the effort and sincere practice of so many people who developed over a long period of time to where the way of practice is the way it is now. It's not something that just happened. It's practice which is developed through many people's effort over a long time, a long period of time, and to just throw it out and do your own thing. that idea. But Buddha's wisdom puts emphasis on the subjective side of the truth. That is why we say everyone is Buddha.

[36:53]

So from the subjective side, the subjective side means sameness. Objective side is more the light side, where we have the phenomenal side, whereas subjective side is deeper and doesn't depend so much on good and bad, right and wrong, or opposites. So the subjective side is the whole coin. This is how we transmit Buddha's teaching to everyone. It is not just a paper transmission, the subjective side has always been with us and this point has always been emphasized without losing the objective side of the truth. So we don't lose the objective side, there are two truths in Buddhism which we really should understand, the subjective side and the objective side. The phenomenal side

[37:55]

the super-phenomenal side, which is the dark side. The dark side is the subjective side. All things are one, one piece. The whole universe is one piece. The objective side is there are all these little pieces called phenomena. So we live in the phenomenal world, so we have to live with the phenomenal world. But we practice with the phenomenal world informed by the subjective world, the truly subjective world, where everyone is part of everyone else. So everyone is Buddha, but it's hard to act that out in the world of phenomena. So sometimes people who call themselves spiritual ignore the objective side.

[39:05]

So I remember Suzuki Roshi always saying, this is not a spiritual practice, not a spiritual practice, in the same way that people think of spiritual practice, because our spiritual practice and phenomenal practice are not different. Now there's not something aside from the phenomenal world which we call practice or spiritual, we don't make that division. So we could say, yes, it's a spiritual practice as long as it's also a phenomenal practice, but it's not a spiritual practice retreating from the phenomenal world. whatever we do in our life, that's spiritual practice. Sleeping the floor, washing the dishes, cutting the vegetables, that's spiritual practice.

[40:07]

If you want to call it that, that's the way. So everything that we encounter, we encounter as, or we relate to everything as sacred. It's not some division between the sacred and the profane. We don't make that distinction. So, He says, sometimes people who call themselves spiritual ignore the objective side of the truth. That is also a mistake. But to be caught by the objective side of the truth and rely on it with an attitude, with an idle attitude, will not help. In other words, if we simply get caught up in the materialistic world, we lose it.

[41:15]

So, even though we can go to the moon it doesn't help so much, it really doesn't. As long as we rely on objective scientific truth it doesn't help. He's not saying objective scientific truth is not good, he's just saying if you rely on that it won't help. Only when each one of us feels the truth, appreciates, accepts and is ready to follow the truth will it work. when someone puts themselves outside of the truth in order to study the truth, he won't know what to do when something happens. When something happens to him, it means when he gets ready to die, I think. But science is the investigation of the objective truth. And religion is, I think, Buddhism, is the investigation of the subject of truth. But Buddhism doesn't separate the two.

[42:25]

So in Buddhism we accept everything that science discovers. It's not a problem for us. because we don't have any dogma. We don't have a separation that creates a problem. Scientific truth, fine. It's very helpful and wonderful and terrible. Technology, really good. It's also really bad. All the technological advances are to help us In the end, they don't help us very much. We're working harder than ever. We have labor-saving devices that make us work harder than ever. But we don't have a quarrel with science, because science is science. The discovery of the objective world or the investigation is wonderful.

[43:31]

But if you ignore the other side, which is the subjective understanding, then you get lost. So, and then he talks about the story of the man who loved dragons. You know that story, but I'll read it anyway. In an ancient Chinese story, there was a person who liked dragons very much. He talked about dragons, he painted dragons, and he bought various kinds of dragons. So there was a dragon who thought, if a real dragon like me visited him, he would be very happy. One day, the real dragon sneaked into his room, and the man didn't know what to do. Ah! He could not even run away. He could not even stand up. For a long time, we had been like the man who admired dragons. But we should not just be the dragon's friend or admirer. We should be the dragon itself. That's what he's been talking about. Then we will not be afraid of any dragon.

[44:36]

So we are ready to study our way subjectively as well as objectively. When you practice in this way, Zazen will become your own Zazen. And as you are Buddha, you will express your true nature in various ways. That is freedom from the forms of practice. That's an interesting statement. We should be free from the forms of practice. In other words, we should be able to find our practice wherever we are in any situation, but we should also be free of the forms of practice within the forms of practice. When you're totally engaged in the forms of practice, you're free from the forms of practice. When you're hesitating and you're caught, when I don't like this, you're caught, So there's a big difference between practice with this understanding and lazy practice, with poor superficial understanding of form, instruction, and teaching.

[45:47]

After all, as Buddha said, there's no one you can rely on, so you shouldn't be the boss of everything. Being the boss means responding to every situation appropriately. It doesn't mean bossing people around. You be your boss, a true person, not an ego person. So then you will understand Buddha's teaching and our practice as your own. Looks like we don't have much time, but I have time for one question, if you have one question.

[46:47]

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