I vow to face the truth and not to doubt its words. This morning I'd like to talk about case number 19 of the Ruman Khan. It's called Nansen's Ordinary Mind is the Way. It goes as follows. Joshua asked Nansen, what is the way? Ordinary mind is the way, Nansen replied. Well, shall I try to seek after it? Joshua asked. If you try for it, you will become separated from it, responded Nansen.

[01:03]

How can I know the way unless I try for it, persisted Joshu. Nansen said, the way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion. Not knowing is confusion. When you have really reached the true way beyond doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can it be talked about on the level of right and wrong? With these words, Joshua came to a sudden realization. Muwan's comment goes as follows. Nonsense dissolved and melted away before Joshua's questions and could not offer a plausible explanation. Even though Joshua came to a realization, he must delve into it for another 30 years before he can fully understand it. And then there's Mumon's verse.

[02:06]

The spring flowers, the autumn moon, summer breezes, winter snow. If useless things do not clutter your mind, you have the best days of your life. Mungon says that Nansen melted away before Joshu's question and he couldn't offer a plausible explanation to what is the way. This means that that question cannot be given a conceptual response, a direct conceptual response. You have to go around it. So it's a little bit like the koan, what is it?

[03:13]

If you try to give a definite answer to it, you miss it. So you go away from it. So if you turn towards it, you get away from it. That's how Y-Nonsense says, knowing is delusion. So trying to know the koan conceptually is delusion. You get into deluded ways. We notice that sometimes when we try to explain what Zen is or what Zazen is or what Buddhism is to people who haven't experienced it directly. And it's very hard to say exactly what is it. So again, we're faced with that con. And even if you try to describe it in terms of positive personality attributes, such as saying, well, it's about cultivating peace or happiness or this or that, it's very easy to become dualistic.

[04:28]

And it doesn't sound quite right. because it's not a matter of right or wrong. And even the structure of thought itself is goal-oriented. So to make sense when you speak, you have to have some goal orientation. And from the Zen point of view, that's delusion. or not delusion, but it's very easy for gaining ideas to creep up into our speech because just the way thought is. So it's very hard to describe it. So you turn towards it and you get away from it. So that's why nonsense says knowing is delusion. And not knowing is confusion, because not knowing exactly what is it, or what the koan is, or how to describe it, is being confused.

[05:33]

So, if you know it, then that's delusion. If you don't know it, then that's confusion. So, neither deluded nor confused, neither knowing or not knowing. Then Nansen continues to say that when we reach the way beyond confusion, we'll find as vast and boundless as space. So, since the way is really empty, there's nothing you can really point to and say, you know, this is it. So it's really boundless. The way doesn't even occupy the space of a breath of air, not even that small. Or under our feet, there's not even a speck of earth under our feet.

[06:45]

So, since the weight doesn't cover any space, and doesn't have a time either, it's boundless, the only thing left to say for nonsense is, ordinary mind is the weight. So, short of disappearing altogether, the only thing left to do is cooking meals and chopping wood and carrying water, which were the ordinary activities of monks in monasteries where all these koans were established. But actually many activities of our modern world of form, the activities that we're all involved in, would qualify just as well, would be the same thing. So that's all you can say. So, to express that, Mumon gives us an example from the natural world.

[08:08]

So it's the same thing as saying spring flowers, autumn moon, summer breezes, winter snow, it could be anything. Those are just descriptions of the forms of nature, the cycles of nature. You know, the use of the word ordinary It's a little tricky because it doesn't mean, I mean it means ordinary activities, but it doesn't necessarily mean ordinary mind in the mundane sense of the word. Our mundane state of mind is more like what Nansen says below as useless things cluttering our mind. That's what we experience a lot of the time during our everyday life. All these useless things cluttering our mind and confusing us and creating some problems for us.

[09:16]

So we feel scattered or we feel, you know, reactive or we feel pressured with the tension of the moment or the situation at hand. So to really return to this, what Nantz is talking about, ordinary mind, to the true ordinary mind, we really have to make a big effort. And that's why we practice Zazen. That's the big effort that we make in Zazen, to return to our true ordinary mind. And You know, sometimes people get confused and say, well, you know, practice in everyday life, you know, that just means just living your life, you know, and that's it. There's no need for formal zazen practice. It's true, somewhat, but if you don't practice zazen, then your ordinary mind is, our ordinary mind is like useless things cluttering our mind.

[10:25]

And even when we practice zazen, you know, you still have to make a strong effort to extend that awareness and to keep our mind pure and cultivate samadhi in everyday life. So we leave the zendo, you know, come in the morning, we leave and we have to take the gate with us. And then you traverse all through all these activities during the day and you get into all these situations with people that would be maybe easy or hard But then how do we evoke a beginner's mind moment to moment in the ordinary situations? So even when we practice formal Zazen, it's still hard to understand ordinary mind's way or to be that. You know, and then for for lay people and lay practice, we have to make an additional effort to integrate the life of formal practice with the life that everybody else lives.

[11:39]

You know, because there does seem to be a natural tendency for the mundane and the supramundane or nirvana asamsara to get polarized in both directions. So for example, on the side of the mundane, it's pretty hard to organize your life to practice Zazen. And you have to really make a point of it and organize your life to be able to do it. And that means letting go of other things that you might do instead. It means you have to develop a sleep pattern that's somewhat stable. If you're going to get up early in the morning, you have to go to bed early or you become sleepy earlier. For some people who are morning people, it's easier to do that.

[12:42]

fall asleep anyway at 9 or 10 o'clock. But for other people, it's very hard. And actually, Mel has talked about that, that he used to be a night person. And maybe he still is, that's why he's always falling asleep, you know. He stays up until midnight or 1 o'clock in the morning and then gets up at 4.30. So then he's sleepy in zazen. But that's just sleepy zazen. It's not dreaming. It's just sleeping. That's all there is. So from the side of the mundane, it's hard to do it. So there's a tendency not to do it. It's a little bit like when the alarm goes off and you feel yucky.

[13:50]

You don't really want to get up. And the tendency is to want to stay in bed. And you have to go against that tendency to get up. So that's a little bit the pull of the mundane. But then, there's also the pull from the Supra-Mandala, or from the side of nirvana, and what we could say is kind of the character of the Arhat, which, once you develop this kind of very structured practice in life, I think there's also a natural tendency to develop a kind of avoidance to anything that's of the world. And a little bit like the character of a cranky old man, you know, that's very sort of attached to certain routines and anything that throws you off a little bit or something noisy or different or

[14:59]

not quite the way you would want it to be, it's upsetting. And there's also a natural tendency to, you know, not want to do anything that a lot of things that other people do, ordinary people do. For example, go to a party, or dance, or be around children a lot, you know, who are noisy and you have to set limits with them and they throw things around and it's messy, you know. And so there, I think it's a natural tendency to kind of be, develop kind of avoidance and be bothered by those things. So then you develop a kind of, there opens a kind of gap or chasm between the sacred and the profane, the nirvana and samsara. In terms of some personal experience of that, you know, my wife and I had to develop some compromises on these matters.

[16:15]

And at first, you know, she had a hard time with when we started our relationship, me getting up and leaving the home so early, you know, every morning, and felt a little threatened by my commitment to Zen practice. Not only because of the schedule and sort of the leaving home early, but we developed a kind of emotional commitment, you know, that can be threatening to a partner. So, I think other people here have talked about how Suzuki Roshi used to say that, you know, your wife or husband, the zazen becomes like the other person, you know, the other woman or the other man, whatever. You know, and so we reached a point where we developed a compromise where, and this only fits for me and my situation, but that I would come to the zendo three times a week in the morning and then the other days I would sit at home.

[17:32]

And that's something that she could live with. And then I also did try to do most sesshins. That also means you have to leave other things aside, you know? I mean, you could do something else those days. Or that evening, you know, you can't go out, etc. And you have to arrange for child care and things like that. So, it requires some compromise. So, this is kind of the interaction between nirvana and samsara. and the conflict between the two. And then how do we try to reconcile it? But then other times, you know, when we're not sitting sashin, then I try to make an effort to do things that she would like to do that maybe I wouldn't be naturally inclined to.

[18:34]

You know, like going out and socializing, being a friendly fellow, you know. behave, you know. So, and then I also, you know, hate shopping, you know. I really hate it. My wife is really a shopping bug, you know, or a consumer bug. I mean, there's times when it's appropriate to shop, and I hate it anyway. You know, I get really dizzy at supermarkets. department stores, there's so many things that your eyes don't know where to focus, because there's so many things to look at.

[19:44]

So I'd rather avoid it. But I think, well, I should do this. So I go and I try to stay focused. So that's a very concrete example of how to practice in the midst of the marketplace. It's a real market, lots of things. I'd like to read you a few lines from the Tse Tse Ming, it's a Chan poem, a poem of Chan Buddhism. I hope I pronounced it correctly. It says, pursue not the outer entanglements, dwelt not in the inner void, move among and intermingle but without distinction or discrimination. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection." So I think it's a little bit the clone of this Berkeley Zendel, the dharma that we are practicing.

[20:56]

We have lay people, you could say ordinary people, practicing like monks, zazen like monks, and then you have priests living the life of lay people, or living a life that looks more like a life of lay people. So that's like, pursue not the outer entanglements, It's like practice zazen and free your mind or your heart from entanglements. So practice like a monk and dwell not in the inner void. Don't be attached to nirvana or priest practice or zazen and move along in the world and intermingle. or make an effort to practice and turn away from the world to the extent that you need to in order to practice but then don't develop an aversion to the world or to ordinary things or ordinary people.

[22:09]

And to support that I'd like to read you a passage from Dogen This is the translation of Shogogenzo Suimonke. He says, You do not deserve the respect of others unless you have true virtue within yourself. Because the people of Japan respect others for their outward appearance, without knowing the true inner virtue, Students without the mind that seeks the way fall into evil paths and become the followers of demons. It is easy to be respected by others. One need merely give the impression of having forsaken the body and of being separated from the world by the external appearance one adopts. The true seeker of the way harmonizes his mind and yet lives humbly like any other ordinary person in the world.

[23:18]

Therefore, an ancient sage has said, inwardly empty yourself and outwardly follow the world. This means that you must rid yourself of inner attachments, yet outwardly conform to the ways of the world. Because of some of the things that Dogen says in that statement, I found that it echoes some of the reasons why I've chosen to stay a layperson and not become a priest or shave my head and wear robes. Not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that, but that it can have the meaning of sort of rejecting the world and or leaving it aside and being a little bit too different from other people to be able to help them.

[24:48]

Suzuki Roshi said that Avalokiteśvara practice is to just be with people and take their form, whatever that might be. So to appear ordinary and not to stand out in any way. And if you're a priest or a monk, it's easier to stand out and to create a kind of a line of distinction. It's kind of drawing a line. Sometimes they describe, remember, what's his name? This Zen master was in Paris. What was his name? Dishmar. Right. He described Kesa, the priest ordination, is drawing a line between the sacred and the profane, or the mundane and the supramundane.

[25:53]

So that has two sides. And I guess the problem side could be that then you create a kind of separation, and it's easier to stand separate from people that way. And especially, you know, In my case, that I work as a therapist with people, and if, you know, you wear robes or you have a shaved head, you draw attention to yourself as opposed to just focusing on what people's concerns are. And then also, you know, I move within the Jewish world and it's a little bit easier to pass unnoticed. With some hair in my head and, you know, clothes that appear like everybody else's.

[27:03]

And although if you practice with priests like we do here, the lay people do here, and we have several priests now, you know, we always also practice together without discrimination, whether priest or lay person. And I guess you assume also to some extent that priests already know how to take care of themselves. There's a Hasidic parable I'd like to mention. It's a story of a king or a queen and a son or a daughter. It could go either way.

[28:10]

It would be applicable in both instances. That sense Well, let's say it's a queen sending her daughter to the world to become acquainted with the ordinary world as opposed to the world of the court and the kingdom and the castle and etc. And so she wants her daughter to know the ways of ordinary people. But then pretty soon the daughter forgets all about the queen and the kingdom, or the, how would you say, queen, kingdom? How do you say that? The realm, of course. The realm? The realm. The royal realm. The royal realm. Okay. So then the queen has to start thinking, you know, how is she going to do to bring this daughter back?

[29:14]

So, you know, this is a skillful means. So, she thinks of sending some messengers, some royal messengers, right? So she sends away these royal messengers to try to bring the daughter back, but to no avail, and they try one or two, three times. And, so finally she thinks, well, maybe what they need to do is to change their appearance or their clothing. So instead of wearing the royal robes, tells the messengers to dress like ordinary people in order to approach the daughter. So they do that and they're able to win the heart's daughter back and the daughter comes back to the kingdom, to the realm. royal realm.

[30:22]

So this parable sort of teaching the same teaching of of the need to be able to help people, you have to have something similar with them and you can't be too different so that they can relate to you in some way that it seems that you're relating to their same concerns or that you're struggling with the same concerns that they have. And it's interesting, because I guess you can understand it in two levels. On one level, the line between the sacred and the mundane, or the profane, whatever. So you have robes symbolizing the clothing of non-attachment. And then you have ordinary clothing symbolizing the attachment.

[31:32]

So if you give up attachments, then you wear clothing that symbolizes non-attachment, and that's the meaning of the robe. But on another level, Robes can also represent attachment. Attachment to wearing robes, or attachment to the void, or attachment to the role of being a priest, etc. And on another level, the same level, ordinary clothing can represent non-attachment. There's nothing to it, it's just plain clothing. And something that both lay people and priests have here in this practice is that we all have, I mean even though we have priests, priests are married or have homes and some of you work also, so you have

[32:49]

and, you know, the questions that people are struggling with, you know, how do you keep run a household, you know, how do you relate to your spouse, you know, how do you raise children, how do you clean your dishes, you know, how do you go shopping. So all these are relevant concerns that everybody could benefit from if they can be placed in the context of the Dharma. You know, and one thing that is characteristic of Buddhism and of the Buddha was that, you know, that The things that we're all struggling with and the things that we're all struggling with in Zazen and all our inner and outer entanglements are very similar.

[34:09]

So we're kind of all working, grinding the same mill. So we're all in this together, that's how we're able to help each other too. So when something in me changes, something in you changes too. Especially if we are in some kind of intimate relationship, and when something in you changes, something in me changes at the same time. And... And the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, we say that he went through a hedonistic phase. He was very attached to the things of the world. I guess we assume that.

[35:11]

So he struggled with the same things that everybody else struggles. And that's how he found the way. And that's how he is able to be helpful, the way can be helpful to everybody. So, as opposed to, for example, in Christianity, where at least traditional Christianity, where Christ was born without sin. So, in a way, he didn't have to struggle with anything internally with himself like everybody else because he was born with a soul that wasn't tainted, was pure, let's say. And there was this big concern, you know, with this movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, because that movie portrays Christ as having struggled with all these demons and temptations and so on like anybody else would. uh

[36:44]

OK. I think I've said everything that I wanted to say. It didn't all come out in the order and as smoothly as I would have wanted to, but I think it's all out there. So I think I'll open it up for questions now. Yes? I have a question. Just the other day at work, a coworker came up to me, knowing that I have a little bit of involvement in Buddhism. And she has a rental house. employs a handyman. And she says, I think he's a Buddhist. His head's shaven. And he's mentioned something about having a spiritual director. And she was consulting the person who was living in her rental unit, who would be all right to have this man come in and do some work without my co-worker being there. She feels like she could trust him because he's a Buddhist, she thinks. And because his head's just shaven. And so her question to me was, are all Buddhists good people?

[38:18]

And I said, well, they're human beings. And then my next response was that lay person or whatever, we all take precepts. And for me, somehow, that the precepts are a guide. So when I enter somebody's house, I do not take what is not given to me and things like that. But that's what came to me as a precept. And somehow I think that's what binds us. But it was funny that right away she had this impression. about how appearances sometimes can either be misleading or whatever. Yes. I was just going to comment on the clothing part of the priest because I think there's my experience because of having been in Zen center is that there are really two ways of being a priest that I know.

[39:30]

There's one which is one that sort of does stand out and is very available as the I don't think they have, I don't think, I think it sort of depends on what our field of activity is and what our practice is and what we need to do. I personally don't want to stand out. That's exactly, there are two months though while my head's fuzzy that I don't get much of a choice. But I don't think we have to stand out. My, the robes to me are my vow in a physical form that I look at every day.

[40:36]

And it's very interesting, I never thought to really, I never focused much on what it meant outside. Because often times when I'm, like at the hospital, secretly in my sitting, in my heart, and putting it into form. So I might just put it off, but it's just a really different churn. Yeah, I mean, definitely, the ropes are an expression of Well, I guess I said it already, a certain spirit.

[41:36]

But we don't have to get locked in into that. That's the only form in which that spirit can be expressed or manifested. Could you elaborate on that? Well, I think what it means, and I'm not a great student of fashion, but I've looked at fashion for a long time, is that people who merely put on clothes that don't relate to them

[42:46]

or you can wear the clothes without being attached to them, or you can be very attached to your clothes. I mean, that's why the ordinary clothing can have those two meanings. It can mean to be very attached to a certain kind of clothing. It's a symbol for a life of entanglement, you know. But if you get fixed that that's the only meaning of ordinary clothing, then that's also dualistic. Because ordinary clothing can also mean just wearing the clothing. That's all. You know, there's no attachment or entanglement. You can still find, you know, a true ordinary mind in that within those flows. I think what Kathleen was talking about is also real important in terms of inside and outside matching, that somehow congruence in our life is real important, part of ordinary mind and practice. And I know one, before I was ordained, Mel said to me, after you're ordained, I don't want you to wear earrings or makeup.

[44:27]

except, and then he said, and I looked at him kind of funny, and he said, well, if you're going out to some special occasion with your husband, then it's okay. And so I work in an office where the people dress very professionally, women wear makeup and earrings and suits and heels. And I took it to mean don't be seductive in that context where he has said you can do it, you know, when you go out with your husband. Don't. And so in terms of being appropriate, you know, when I go to work I look like the people that I work with and I try When I shaved my head, I wore a wig, I didn't want to alarm patients.

[45:31]

I think you brought up a very juicy topic. I think that for me there is the invisible and the visible aspect of being a priest, that when you come to that point, you are making some commitment to making your practice visible. And that's kind of an extra commitment from a lay commitment. And after I shaved my head, I was still doing some therapy and it really didn't work and I wouldn't wear a wig. You know, we all just have our ways of what we have to deal with the situation we're in. And I was glad that my hair grew in quite quickly.

[46:42]

A lot of nuns these days, Catholic nuns, have stopped wearing their habits. And for many years I enjoyed so much seeing Catholic nuns in their habits. It just gave me a kind of little lift. And now very few of them wear habits and all of them want, most of them seem to want to be just invisible. And often I will meet a sister and I will know that she is a sister and she will look very ordinary and I'll have to say, remember, remember. And it did seem to me when my head was shaved that someday I might be at the point where, like it's the woman wearing that I might be able really to enjoy having a shaved head and just enjoy that feeling of showing heart's desire.

[47:52]

And I didn't feel at the time my head was shaved. I knew I wasn't there. But how to, you know, for me the practice is when to be visible and when not to be. But it's also in how, you know, how you're visible. Because, I mean, the essential thing is the kind of attitude we carry ourselves with and how we interact with people and the kind of bodhisattva attitude or spirit that we convey. We wear robes and we don't convey the attitude of bodhisattva spirits. opens your heart, people's hearts, then what's the point? That's really awful. That is really bad. That leaves a fester smell far worse than weeds. Yes.

[49:02]

a dilemma which is trying to distinguish that nirvana is samsara or are you in samsara? Do you have to change your circumstances or do you have to change yourself? And if you're a lay person intensely involved in the world, of what point is that those circumstances, do they need to be changed? Where you have work, family obligations that are extremely demanding. And is it really that you need to stay in the fire? Well, you know, everybody's, and Mel always says this, everybody's different. But I think you have to, to be able to practice, you have to create a situation in your life, in your circumstances, that you can do that.

[50:13]

So if you have a situation that makes it impossible for you to practice, and it's really, you know, that situation or a practice, then you might be forced to have to make a choice. And I was actually not so much talking about sitting practice as just the part you were talking about cluttering, distinguishing between ordinary life and a life that's too cluttered. Right. Well, but in order to, if in our circumstances in our ordinary life we find ourselves entangled and cluttered, or a mind being cluttered, right? Then how do we unclutter ourselves? Or what's the way to unclutter ourselves? How to disentangle ourselves? And what we do here is that we sit sazin. That seems to be the way that has been transmitted in this lineage, you know, from the old ancestors, from Shakyamuni Buddha. That's the practice.

[51:17]

that we do, and it's the practice that Dogen advocated, brought to Japan, just zetsazen, that's the front gate. So, I mean, there might be, there are other ways, I mean, there are many gates, you know, to practice with your circumstances, even if you don't zetsazen. That's sort of the main practice that we have here that's been transmitted to us, whether layperson or priest. Yes? I just want to share my experience in response to your question. Through my own experience, when I find a difficult situation arise, at this point in my practice I would ask myself that, Can I sit through this without having to do anything?"

[52:20]

And I said that, yes, I have sat through many sushis, too many meals that I think I could not bear, but I did. And that is the real assurance. And. years and so it's not an easy one.

[54:04]

When Walla's work involves extreme anxiety because she has a great need within her to really do the right thing and to chopping wood and curing water can be today, especially in some professions. Right. Well, you know, there's also the question of right livelihood, which is part of the Eightfold Noble Path. So you also have to decide whether what you're doing is right livelihood, and whether it can be reconciled with having a pure intention in your activity or what you're doing.

[55:06]

You can be honest and sincere in that situation, and whether that situation is going to be of any benefit to sentient beings at whatever level. Sometimes things in the immediate level don't look like beneficial, but they might be. So I don't know exactly what kind of law you practice, but those are some of the questions that I would consider. Of course, being a lawyer and administering justice for all sounds like a right likelihood. That's really lotus and muddy water pressure. Well, see, that's why the teachers push Zazen on us so much, because Zazen has the power of being able to help you develop the resilience and freedom to be able to find your place and your freedom in any circumstance that you might be in.

[56:36]

that otherwise you would be able to see, well, what's the right way of handling the situation? How can I stay clean and clear in this situation? Shall we end here?

[56:53]

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