Mr. Max, thank you. It's a stormy morning here in Northern California. I hope you will excuse my unceremonious, ceremonious entrance. It's not out of any disrespect to the Dharma that I didn't use the Abbot store. It's just that there's a big lake out there.

[01:32]

I would have to have a canoe to get across it to use that door. So, today is the day sitting, and the Zendo is pretty full, and there are a good number of you out there in Zoom land. A few things first. Just upcoming events, which is a Zendo holiday officially, and a national holiday. celebrating Martin Luther King Day. We're going to have a program in the morning that begins at 8.30 and goes until, the weather depending, it goes until 1 o'clock. And we'll have zazen. We'll have a, I'm going to give a short talk on an excerpt from a piece by Dr. King called The World House.

[02:35]

And then Jerry and I will take some small group discussion and a large discussion and a little more zazen. So please feel free to join us. I think this is only in person. Is that right, Jerry? Yeah. So we're not going to do this as hybrid. Please come if you can. if weather permitting we'll have some some neighborhood cleanup work after around noon and we're speaking with some of the other neighbors to to pitch in so that's on monday saturday again weather permitting we're hoping to have the sojourn's ashes interment ceremony back at his memorial stone in the garden.

[03:38]

You're all welcome to join that. That will also be in person. I just wanted to say something. So this afternoon, we'll have, during zazen time, there'll be dokasan and practice discussion. This discussion is available with Ellen Webb, and you can use the hut. She'll be meeting people in the Dokusan hut, and there's a sign-up for Ellen on the bulletin board out there. For me, I will be meeting people, some people online, and some people, the bulk of people, in person in the Abbott's office, which is on the ground floor over there, next building over. And... At least for me, these will be short encounters, 15-minute slots, because there were a lot of people that wanted to meet.

[04:45]

And I suspect I'm not going to get through all of, through the whole list. So I'm prioritizing people that are new and that I don't see regularly. And if I don't get to you, I'll touch base with you right after and we will we can figure out another time but um i look forward to to talking with you and what you can do to prepare is um if you can form bring the question a dharma question uh which includes your life of course uh and if no question uh arises to the surface of your mind, take a moment as we meet and say what's going on right now, just at this moment.

[05:51]

Whatever is arising in your body and mind, that's relevant. That's questioning. So, wanted to give that as just an instruction. So, I'm going to talk today on a talk of Sojin Roshis. We have just submitted what we hope is the final edited draft, I've been helping Ron and Esther with the publisher, Jack Shoemaker, of Sojin's forthcoming book, which is called Seeing One Thing Through. The title is drawn from a question that Sojin asked, Suzuki Roshi said, what is Nirvana?

[07:01]

And Suzuki Roshi said, seeing one thing through to the end. So that's the book is in the works and I've been really enjoying many of the talks and this is what I'm going to cite in a talk of his it's called Responding to Conditions and it begins with case in the Mumongkhan, which I will read to you and then come back to. This is case 16. In the Mumongkhan, the gate or the gateless gate, Master Uman says, The world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your seven-piece robe at the sound of the bell? The world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your 7% sound of the bell?

[08:01]

And I went, I was reading the whole koan, and I thought I would do a Google search for it. And I did. And what came up was, sort of high on the list was, I gave a talk, I gave this talk already. I gave this talking in December of 2021. And there it was, right there, towards the top of the list in Google. And I didn't remember that, you know, and I hope that you won't remember and compare this version with that version. But I found... No worries. No worries, right. Yeah, so I found two introductory elements that I thought were interesting.

[09:14]

So one is a quotation from Suzuki Roshi relevant to this quote. Real freedom is to not feel limited when wearing this zen robe, this troublesome formal robe. Similarly, in our busy life we should wear this civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, without being caught by it. Real freedom is to not feel limited while wearing this zen robe, this troublesome formal robe. Similarly, in our busy life, we use our civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, without being caught by it. And then a comment I made.

[10:19]

Wearing this robe is just really inhabiting our own skin. Putting on the robe is paradoxically like taking off our old clothes. And I remembered there's an old gospel song that I really like a lot, which is called Two Coats. And the chorus says, I'll tell you the best thing I ever did do. Put off the old coat and put on the new. That's what it's like when you put on your roe or your rakasu, or simply when we come here to practice. Master Mumon's comment,

[11:23]

his verse I want to read you his verse for this koan and then come to Sojin's commentary and we'll come back to this verse because I think it's it's says with that with realization things make one family without realization Things are separated in a thousand ways. Without realization, things make one family. With realization, things are separated in a thousand ways. So that's really looking at things. And we'll come back to that, because I think that's what I see in this.

[12:29]

So Surgeon's talk, again, he quotes me, and he says, he says, why, when there are so many other things to do in this world, at the sound of the bell, does everyone put on their rope and go to the sindho? In other words, why are we doing this here today? Do you choose what you're doing, Segin, for example, when you have an infinite variety of interesting activities? And Sojin says, the fact that we are here is a proof that we understand something. In Zen practice, we talk about realization, some kind of direct understanding. But why we practice is actually because of our understanding.

[13:37]

I'm sorry, why we practice is because of our realization, even though we may not have a clear picture or even understand it. Still, there is something very deep that corresponds to and wants to meet itself in practice. In the context of what we often talk of as practice realization, we practice because of our realization, as Sojin says, we practice to express our realization. You know, when the music starts, we have to sing or we get up to dance. There has to be an expression of this energy that's in the room.

[14:44]

And that expression is our practice. That's an expression of our realization. So Jin says, I think a sashin or a one-day sitting like this is a very important part of our practice. So I think the context, I don't have the date exactly for this talk, but obviously it was a talk on a day like this. A kind of sitting or sashin The meaning is something like embracing mind. We meet ourselves in a way that we cannot do in any other way. He says, even though all of our activity, of course, is meeting, we don't have or we don't express the same realization.

[15:54]

It's hard in our daily activities to manifest the same kind of realization that we have when we sit. And he says, even though sishin and sitting long has its difficulties, it's very strong. You know, there are people in this room who've been coming to this place, coming to these kinds of peculiar events for years. Now, either they are deeply deluded, or there's something that happens here that can only happen in this context. And we yearn for that. We want to merge with that feeling and also to join with each other.

[17:08]

In fact, the thing about Seishin is that we're doing this together. We're not just going to our own huts or into a cave like Bodhidharma, as we talked about on Thursday, and facing the wall. we are doing this activity together, which I think is really important and very rich. To go back to Sojin, today, if we have sincere effort, then our realization will be pretty deep. But if our effort is half-hearted, our realization will be shallow. Usually our realization is proportionate to the amount of effort and sincerity in our practice.

[18:13]

We don't stress understanding. We don't stress realization. What we stress is actual practice, the practice that you can do with your body and mind according to the conditions of your body and mind, not some abstraction. not some fixed ideal practice, but your actual practice. We don't ignore understanding, but understanding without real effort or real practice is just like a picture book. So how we learn our Zen, how we get true understanding, is through our pores.

[19:14]

Unless we present our body and mind, nothing happens. So there's just some expression, was it sweat equity? I don't think anybody's going to be doing much sweating here, but we are going to be doing a fair amount of aching. And this is what, this is, this is how we build our practice. And so Jin goes on, he says, if we want to learn non-discrimination in its true sense, if we want to be deeply and truly inclusive of everything and everything in the world. The easy way is through this practice. The comfortable way is through this practice, which is, you know, Dogen talks about zazen as just this comfortable way, not learning meditation, but just a comfortable way to enter the door of non-discrimination.

[20:27]

Sochin says, if you think that zazen is uncomfortable, you should look at the rest of your life. So, you know, Dogen talks about zazen as the comfortable way in Fukantza Zengi, as we studied during Rohatsu. He says, the zazen I'm speaking of is not learning meditation. It's beyond meditation. Then he says, it's simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss. And as we said when we were studying it, you know, sometimes we're sitting here, it's like, okay, I'm ready for some of this repose and bliss. When is this happening? You know, but I would say is that many of you have found it does happen. you know, sometimes it takes a really long time.

[21:32]

And you can't immediately... One day sitting, to me, is the hardest. Because by the end of the afternoon, you know, you've gotten to a place of difficulty and pain. And also, at the end of, you know, in the course of one day, Just at this point of entry where, at least I, have been known to think, why am I doing this? Or more, how do I get out of here? If you sit enough, you become very familiar with these various states of mind.

[22:35]

And, you know, I say, oh, yeah, I know this. I know this place. And this place is impermanent. And it's just, it's a gate. It's a gateless gate. And this is the difficult, it's a narrow gate. This is the way I need to go. And when I pass through, there's some wonderful openness and clarity that happens. Sojan says, Dogen's comfortable way is a kind of koan. When we first hear about Dogen's comfortable way, it makes us laugh. That Dogen, he's always joking. Right.

[23:38]

Right. One of the funniest... Dogen. Yeah, he could be a stand-up comic, right? How can you be comfortable in this life? It's pretty hard. How can you be comfortable with all difficulties? If you can be in all these situations, then you're your own master. And Sojin shifts this a little. It's not just comfortable, it's if you have your composure, he really strongly emphasized. I think that's one of his great teachings. And not only did he prescribe it or teach it, but I feel like as much as anybody that I've ever met, he met.

[24:39]

And I think the teaching is it's important to realize that anything that we saw is not beyond our capacity to embody ourselves. So if you have composure, if you don't lose your composure in situations, we'll all bow down to you. We sometimes talk about a lay practice. Sometimes people make a distinction between lay practice and priest practice. I don't like so much to talk about lay practice. I'm tired of that term. People who live at home in practice.

[25:44]

So-called lay practice is not the same as practice that people usually associate with Buddhism. It's just practice. Sojourn really didn't make any sense that any of us can practice wholeheartedly and with sincerity if we really want to. We have people who take the role of priests, which is a particular activity. The heart of practice is has nothing to do with that. It just has to do with how you meet the circumstances of your life, how you meet each other. It's not just this abstract circumstances, it's really like it's a difference between meeting a circumstance like a hard math problem, a hard math problem

[26:52]

which maybe we can do and maybe we can't do, is a bit different from a person who argues back at you. It's like, the math problem is not going to argue back at you, but someone that we encounter, that we're having a difficult relationship with, how do you keep your question from that circumstance? The demands of life are very strong and in order to practice we have to make a special effort to do this instead of something else. So I really admire you. The effort that you show in your practice is a good example to people. But Zen practice takes a long time. Usually in the beginning

[27:56]

we have some immediate result. I was thinking of that on New Year's Eve. Not so long after I began to practice, I think I began to practice in the month of, it was in November or October, and days rolled around. It was interesting that Rohatsu rolled around, and I walked in for evening sasen during Rohatsu, and, you know, I hadn't ever been in that environment, and I walked in, and it was like, something is really happening here. And it's like you felt the lived energy in the zendo of, you know, 20 or 30 people having sat there all day. And I told myself, I'm never going to miss this again.

[29:07]

And I don't think I've missed a single Rohatsu. I think I did a couple Rohatsus elsewhere, one in Japan and one at the city center, I think. I've been doing that for nearly 40 years. And then New Year's Eve rolled around, and that was the first kind of extended sitting that I had done. We had a wonderful sitting here on New Year's Eve. It was really nice because we had four periods of sasana, and that's a lot of sasana that allows you to move into a really deep and open place. And so my first New Year's Eve, I was still living off of Grand Lake Boulevard in Oakland.

[30:10]

I hadn't moved here yet. I was really new. And I remember getting in my car and driving home after New Year's Eve and just thinking, Wow, things are really different. Things look really different. So this is what Sojan is talking about. He says, usually in the beginning we have some immediate result and our life changes somewhat. And you can see some results. But as we go along in practice, the contrast between our old way and our new way gets obscured and we just find ourselves in practice without any obvious change or benefit. Right? So we all come to that. You know, it was really nice when things were bright and shiny. We wonder, is there something to this or not? Maybe I should go on to something else.

[31:15]

Usually, in our speedy life, there are various kinds of highs. And we seized it in practice as another kind of high. That's actually, for some of us of a certain age, that was a very strong, motivating factor. We were getting high, I was getting high, and had a fair number of psychedelic experiences. And I thought, well, there must be a way to sustain this that is not so exhausting. And, you know what? But that's okay, something else happened. So we see Zen practice as another kind of high, and we start looking for something else because we're not getting it. What's the next thing that will get me high? But Zen practice is more like a landslide.

[32:21]

Your whole life of practice moves like a glacier. But if you move with it, your life will have the power of a glacier. If you want to measure your movement, it can be an inch or an inch and a half or three quarters of an inch in a year. But our practice is endless. We shouldn't worry about it. think in the context of our practice we should we should really be in geological time you know just let it move its own at its own pace and recognize that even those small movements are enormous there's enormous The quality of our practice should be in all of our activity.

[33:34]

When you sit, you just sit completely with total freedom. When you wash the dishes, you just wash the dishes with total freedom. When you're driving your car, you're just driving your car with total freedom, total immersion. The way we actually practice is mindfully and carefully. Strictly speaking, when we walk during sesheen, we should have our hands in shashu, not in our pockets or not swinging our arms. If you walk around with your hands in your pockets, then you're thinking about something else. At this time, this time here in the Zendo, you should only be thinking about exactly what your body is doing.

[34:41]

What is my body doing now? It's walking around. So this is the form of the hands. When the bell rings, you put on your rope. That's the form of the moment. to be in a life if you're in this setting. There's no time during seshin that's out of time, that's out of practice. So walking, sitting, even speaking, only talk when there's some necessity, but that talking, that speaking, should also be mindful speaking. And when we sit down to rest, that resting should be mindful resting. And when you go to the bathroom, that activity should be mindful activity. We make the effort to do one thing at a time.

[35:47]

Just this thing, and in the next moment, this thing. Sometimes we have to do two things at a time. But if we are doing two things at once, we should be mindful of two things at once. And when our mind starts wandering, we should bring our attention back to what we were doing, just like when we were sitting. So moving around is the same as sitting down. If we practice this way consciously over, we'll be able to penetrate zazen. But we have to have a strong desire to penetrate zazen. That should be uppermost. I think that's what we're here for today. The desire to penetrate all the way through. And then, Sojourner says, as he always came back home, how we extend

[36:56]

this kind of activity into our daily life. How we manifest or bring some benefit to people is important. When we become totally free, we can give ourselves to people. Before we are totally free, we are holding back, holding something of ourselves back. But real freedom means to be able to give yourself unreservedly. I think that's the freedom that we aspire to through this practice. If someone asks for something, at least what we can, we give. When you really penetrate

[37:58]

through and through, you've realized what a relief it is to be rid of the burden of our self. In the old scriptures, Shakyamuni Buddha is always talking about laying down this burden, has done what has to be done and has laid down the burden, the burden of their self. We have this weight on our shoulders, which is our self that we're carrying around. We carry this big sack of our self around and it's quite heavy. When we let that go, we will feel unburdened and free to do anything. We'll feel light. Benefit of this practice, or the point of this practice, the goal of this practice is to relieve ourselves and others of this burden of self.

[39:24]

So I want to come back to Mumon's verse, if that's okay. How am I doing? Yeah, I have a few minutes. And I'm going to come back to actually a quotation from Suzuki Roshi that I offered at the beginning. Real freedom is not to feel limited when wearing this Zen rope, whether it's an actual rope, or it's the invisible rope that you put on walking in here. this troublesome formal robe. Similarly, similarly in our busy life, we should wear this civilization without being bothered by it. Love that. We should wear this civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, without being caught by it.

[40:24]

So that's freedom. In Ruman's verse, With realization, things make one family. So the true nature of reality is oneness, one flavor, one taste that is the manifestation of Buddha-nature universally. Without realization, they're separated in a thousand ways. means without realization we don't realize the connection of all things. We see them as disconnected, as objects that we can move around instead of as things that are tenuously connected to each other in ways that are

[41:33]

more complex than we can imagine. That's the separation of things. And then there's the other side. Without realization, things make one family. Yamada Colin Roshi talks about this as blind or perverted equality. Aiken Roshi talks about this as a kind of hippie point of view. Everything is one man. I think of it as a sort of mushy oneness, you know. It's not the real experience of it, it's an idea. And then the relating line is, with realizations, things are separated in a thousand ways.

[42:47]

That separation was occurring to me, that line, what I experienced driving home from the zendo on my first new year's eve just everything was shining and distinct and has you know in seshin you have this i just remember often seshin lying out on on the lawn my head on the ground looking into the vast world of grass in front of me and like everything was alive and shining you know was distinct was part of was the expression of a also was completely distinct each person is distinct we don't make all people into one people because we have different conditions different manifestations we have to it's really important to take each person as in their

[43:59]

And at the same time, to recognize that every person is also fundamentally human. There's a fundamental essence that is not, that is, but you can't get stuck there. You have to see the particularity as well. So we have this wonderful dynamic of sameness and difference. So this world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your robe at the sound of the bell? So I'm going to stop here and leave time for some questions or comments. If you are online I can't see you all so please

[45:03]

If you have something you want to say, please raise your digital hand. So the floor is open. Is that Yoni? Yeah. Yeah. At one point, you mentioned freedom. You equated freedom with total immersion. Yeah, that's what Sojin said. It's interesting for me to hear that because there are a lot of activities where when I feel, when I become fully immersed in them, I don't feel free. And you can ask, like, breathe. If I'm doing something and she comes and says, hi, can I ask you this question? I will just not hear her. I'll just breathe. Could you hear what he was saying?

[46:13]

Yes? So-so. Yoni was asking about the question of freedom and total immersion. I mean, I think that one of the... a great model, again, since we're speaking about Sojin Roshi, Sojun Roshi's practice that I saw, many of us saw, it's like he allowed himself to be interrupted. So that's a training. And if you knocked on his door, he would answer at least you know, without saying that he was perfect at it, or any of us are perfect at it, he would turn his attention to the person who was coming in the door.

[47:14]

Instead of kind of sequestering his time, you know, like, don't bother me now, I'm, you know, I'm writing or I'm studying. And I think that's a practice to cultivate. And I think I often go back to the experience of playing music, that when I'm playing music, yes, if all things are going well, I'm completely immersed in that activity. But that activity calls for being completely attuned to all that's going on for me. If someone plays, you know, if you're doing improvisatory music and someone plays a certain sequence of notes, you need to be able to hear that because it may be a surprise and it may lead you in another direction.

[48:18]

How that's actually this wonderful expression of immersion and freedom. That they're in some tension with each other at the same time, I think. Thank you. Ed? Hi. When you put on your robe and when you take off your robe, how do you let go of your robe? Well, in a sense, you never let go of your robe.

[49:29]

You're always wearing your robe. It's just... You know, what... I think Aiken Roshi was looking at the practice that he encountered in Rinzai temples. Here, you know, we put on a robe, we wear a robe all day. In my experience in a Rinzai context, You put on your robe for choka, for service, and you wear your raksu the rest of the day. So it's a ceremonial garb. But in that sense, you're wearing whatever is appropriate. Whatever is appropriate is your robe, which includes your skin.

[50:34]

And you put on, you know, you have to wear the right clothes, right? So if we're going out to work in the rain, maybe we won't wear these robes. Maybe we'll put on our work clothes, et cetera. Get somewhere there? I was just asking, Well, personally, how do I let go of my own robe? I don't wear a saffron robe, but I wear other robes. Yeah, you're wearing sort of saffron colors here today, I think, aren't you? It's difficult sometimes to let go of that robe. It is. I'm just curious about how you do it. I don't think about it a lot.

[51:38]

I just try to wear the right clothes for the right situation, you know, and that speaking metaphorically and actually. the distinction between an argument with a person who will argue back and working on a hard math problem that the math problem won't argue back. And I was kind of laughing because teaching math and working with middle schoolers, I've watched students work with a math problem where based on their behavior, you would think it was arguing back. Right. Where their behavior is involved yelling at the problem, you know, same thing that would happen in a very extreme argument. And so I was thinking to myself, like, obviously the The symbols on the paper aren't arguing back, but what is? And so what I was wondering is, it seems like it might be a part of themselves. Yes. And so I was wondering, what's the difference between a person arguing back or a part of myself arguing back when you can't do this problem?

[52:46]

And then I'm yelling at that. Let me just... Do I have this here? I think... So there's a relevant... In Mumon's comment on this case, he says, granted you are free, just tell me, does the sound come to the ear, or does the ear sound? So, you know, the students are hearing They're thinking, they're hearing the math problem, arguing with them. But it's like they're, we are bringing our problem, we're in something with our mind. And that's where arguments are often, often live.

[53:54]

So, yeah, that's a really, it's an interesting question. Mary, did you have a comment on that? Yeah, because when I was hearing you, I was saying, well, what about instantian beings? You know, if you're weeding a wand and trying to pull out a deep weed, you know, you're engaged with, you know, you're engaged in some kind of dynamic with that and getting angry with that. So the same thing when you're cooking and you're making a mistake, if you are whipping something to it. I mean, there's a lot of ways. So what you're saying is, it's not that these things are actually . They are not arguing. But all of these are living essentially. Yeah, I don't, you know, maybe they're, I mean, I think if you look at the dialogue in Tungshan's record, And going back to his sources, you know, these insentient beings have their own voice.

[55:06]

They may be arguing with us, but we may not be able to hear them, because they have their own language. You know, but we grant everything its selfness. if you will. And that's, I remember hearing something on the radio talking about child rearing, you know, and as an expression of unconditional love. And the interviewer was asking the psychologist, they go, well, is there a limit to this, are there limits to this unconditional love? And the psychologist said, Yeah, when the child learns to say no. That's the end of unconditional love, and it's the beginning of a really, an actual relationship.

[56:13]

So I'm getting the signal here. I want to, let me just take, I'm sorry, let me just take the online, if you could be, Concise, Blake? Not hearing you. Still not hearing you. Are you unmuted? You are muted. No, you're unmuted. Can you hear me? Yes, yes. Yeah, that's completely my mistake. I'm sorry for taking up time. So, we're not supposed to be caught by the things of the world, but we're supposed to stay aware. And I believe you, so I was going to ask about that, but then you told Ed, my Dharma brother, that you should kind of meet everything with the appropriate response, wearing the correct robe.

[57:22]

Well, What's beyond the appropriate response? What's beyond the appropriate response is relationship. You know, is not rejecting, is accepting and including and taking that into yourself and expanding to include it. being as large as you can, recognizing that there might be limits, but the practice is extending our limits, extending from the center. Thank you. Jehne, you have the last question. Thank you, Hossan. So when you were beginning and you said, with realization, There is oneness and without its separation.

[58:24]

And I'm nodding. And then you turned it on its head. And I said... Woman did that. Right, right, right. I'm sorry. Typical Zen doublespeak. And then you went into an explanation using your own example. But it seemed to me that really what was being said there was... particularly with after, you know, sitting New Year's Eve and the kind of experience you had, the clarity and going out, driving home and seeing everything distinctly, that both of those were part of realization, both the experience of oneness and the experience of at the same time everything, the suchness of everything, you know, shining and distinct. I didn't... Without realization, I don't get the flip side.

[59:25]

It didn't come through to me. I don't know if you can say anything more, but thank you. ...without realization. There were two. The second one. The second... My mind. That's when people kill each other. When people without realization, as Laurie just said, For the first verse, without realization, things are separated in a thousand ways. What Laurie just said was, that's when people kill each other. The other one was, without realization, things make one family. That's when, for example, in the work that we're doing, that's when we're saying, aren't we post-racial? You know, aren't we Do we have to look at the differences, you know, and I think that that's how I see that distinction.

[60:29]

Yes, we have to look at the differences in people's experience and simultaneously see that every being is fundamentally to the bottom.

[60:41]

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