I want to apologize to Mary for giving you the wrong cue. First of all, before breakfast, somebody's shoes were taken from his shoes, which has happened before in the past. Often he took them with flea marking and see where they are. I want to not just suggest, but command you to wear your old shoes. Because there's no way we can monitor the shoes after. So just wear some old pair of shoes. Wear some old Zoris or something. So that if they're missing, it's not a big deal. I'm wearing the shoes that you were planning to give away.

[01:06]

So this morning, you know, everybody knows what a ghost is. A ghost. G-H-O-S-T. But in Zen practice, according to our Zen understanding and Buddhist understanding, a ghost is a disembodied spirit. So a disembodied spirit is like someone who doesn't have the reference point so that they can land somewhere. So they're always wandering around. disembodied. They can't find their true body. So you may feel like that sometimes.

[02:08]

So finding the right reference point is really important. And we're always looking for reference points. At every moment of our life, actually, we're involved in looking for the reference points. When we walk down the street, we look for the reference points. Otherwise, we just kind of wander around. So to keep from wandering, we look for reference points. If we sometimes if we can't find the right reference points, we have to choose something because to keep us from wondering. So we choose various things. Of course, these are not true reference points.

[03:13]

They're expedient reference points. But you form habits over these reference points are not true reference points. Drinking and smoking. I remember when I was a smoker 30 years ago. So every time you smoke a cigarette, that's a reference point. And it's you think that it's just something. part of your life, so important that you cannot give it up. So, I think we need to examine the reference points that we're always using, whether these are true reference points, reference points that bring release, or reference points that bring confinement. And so many of our reference points are reference points within the drama of our life.

[04:27]

You know, we're born into this world, so to speak, which means the fact that we have that concept. We're born into this world. And then, little by little, we find our reference points. And we begin to build a scenario of this stage of whatever furniture is around us. So by furniture, everything around us is the furniture for our drama. And we use this furniture. And we build our life around it. Our house, our parents, our friends, our work, our interests, and so forth.

[05:29]

We build our life on this, and we create a drama. And responding to other dramas, others' drama, we co-create drama. And we call it my life. So, how do we find the true reference point that is the most satisfying reference point? that makes all the other reference points work. Shakti Moody said, life is somewhat unsatisfactory when we don't find the true reference point for our life. No matter what we do, there's something unsatisfactory about it. No matter how wealthy we are, no matter how much material goods we have, no matter how successful our business is, and our children, and all these men, there's still something that isn't completely satisfactory.

[06:47]

I think about the dharmas that are in our mind, like greed, ill will, delusion, those categories, and all of the subcategories that are part of those categories, that revolve around in our minds all the time. They take up space. someone described it as an airplane. Like if I'm holding some kind of anger about somebody as a reference point, and that anger is looping around in my mind. Even though I'm thinking about other things, it's still looping around in my mind like an airplane that can't land. So it's taking up space and rentates space, rentates space in our minds.

[07:57]

So our mind is captivated by this emotion, this feeling, or this thought. So we become prisoners of our own thoughts. And this is a ghost, because Until it can land, it's disembodied, and actually leading us around. It has us. So how do we find the right basis as a reference point for our life that is the most meaningful? So this is my preamble. My amblees. Pretty far. For me, it was a little while to figure out his talk. He talks about, you know, funding.

[09:02]

And I said he's talking about setting your alarm clock. So you have a reference point. Your reference point for practice is setting your alarm clock in the morning. This is an ideal reference point, setting your alarm clock in the morning. And then that's the beginning of your practice. The true reference point, because what you're going to do is a dozen. A dozen is the true reference point, because a dozen is not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. It's zero. The reference point is zero. The true reference point. But unless we have zero as a reference point, we're simply banging back and forth with all the numbers, between all the numbers, between the reference points of existence.

[10:18]

So he says, our everyday life is like a movie played on a white screen. Most people are interested in the picture on the screen without realizing that there is a screen. The screen is an empty white screen with nothing on it. A blank screen with nothing on it. And the movie is played on the screen. When the movie stops, you don't see anything anymore. And you think, oh, I must come again tomorrow evening. I'll come back and see another movie. So, you know, when we see the blank screen, it's like, well, nothing's there. And our life is held together by these events. You know, if we have a space in our lives between events, when nothing's happening, Some people feel that's really wonderful, but other people get very frightened.

[11:31]

Because unless we fill that space with activity, the continuity of our life stops. So we have to keep going and going and going in order to keep the continuity of our life moving. Otherwise we fall into a hole. fundamental thing, and that we understand, or base our life on this whole, H-O-L-E, W-H-O-L-E, we're kind of ghost-like. So, when you are just interested in the movie on the screen, and it ends, then you expect another show tomorrow, or maybe you're discouraged because there's nothing good on right now.

[12:36]

You don't realize that the screen is always there. So, when you are practicing, you realize that your mind is like a screen. In other words, when you sit in jazz hands, hopefully, you realize that your mind is like a screen. And the scenery of your life is going by. Like riding in a train, the thoughts, you realize how your mind is continually creating thoughts to keep it interested. So when you practice it, you realize that your mind is like a screen. If the screen is colorful, colorful enough to attract people, then it will not serve its purpose. So the screen has to be totally black. It can't have any thing of its own.

[13:42]

There's nothing behind it. I wrote down there once, I don't know why I'm sitting God's hand when I could be doing something interesting. But it's hindering my life. People talk like that. Especially when you're on a machine. So people are not so interested in the Kripke. Where actually, you know, unless you realize the screen is there, it's like living in a dream. This is called the dream world, actually. We think about something, and then we act it out. And we make a plan and then we act out the plan.

[14:49]

So we have a dream, we call it a thought. But it's a dream. And we're always dreaming about what we're going to do next and what we would like to do and what we shouldn't do and what other people are doing that we like and don't like. This is our dream world and we can change it any way we want. Unless we get stuck somewhere. So it's very arbitrageous. When my son was one or two, I wondered how he made decisions. But how does he make decisions? And I watched him closely to see how he made the decision. And it just seemed somewhat arbitrary. And so you make this. What I felt was an arbitrary decision. But then his surroundings supported his arbitrary decision. And then everything worked together with that decision.

[15:50]

If he had made another decision, his surroundings would have worked together with that other decision. Maybe we would have gone a different way. So it's. They don't seem arbitrary to me, but everything seems to work because he is a decision to do something. Doesn't matter what good or bad, right or wrong. It was a decision. And so it's making the decision created the reference points. And then you work with them to do things. So our reference point is zero. For instance, you always refer to zero. always coming back to zero. So I think it's good. It's good to be excited by seeing a movie. To some extent, you can enjoy the movie because you know that it's a movie. You know, you have no idea of the screen. Still, your interest is based on an understanding that this is a movie with a screen.

[16:52]

and there is a projector or something artificial, so you can enjoy it. That's how we enjoy our life. If you have no idea of the screen and the projector, perhaps you cannot see it as a movie. So, he's saying, if you have zero as a reference, then you can see the movie as a movie. We get caught in buying into the movie too much. So our desires are aroused by stimulus. And then we become carried off and take things too seriously. And of course, you know, it's easy to say that. And then when we look at our life, you see, I built my life on this edifice that I've concocted.

[17:56]

And I have to see it through. Which is true. You have to see it through. Unless you... Some people just walk away from it. It's very interesting. In hard times, in good times, people build their edifice. In hard times, they lose it. We lose it. But you see people walking away from their edifice that they built and realizing this is just an edifice that we're building in the sky. But, you know, that will destroy society if everybody does that, which may or may not be good. Everything has two sides. So, this Vajrasattva practice is necessary to know the kind of screening you have and to enjoy your life as you enjoy movies in the theater.

[19:03]

So, yes, you can enjoy your life if you have some distance. By distance, it means you know that the drama is not everything. You have to be sincere in what you're doing, but the drama is not everything. There's another side. You can actually enjoy life. You do not have any particular feeling for the screen, which is just a blank white screen. So you're not afraid of your life at all. You enjoy something and you are afraid You enjoy something that you are afraid of, like a horror movie. People like to see these horror movies. When you turn on the television to most ordinary stations, it's all horror movies. People enjoy that more than anything.

[20:06]

So you enjoy something that makes you angry, it makes you cry, and you enjoy the crying, and the anger too. If you have no idea of the screen, then you will even feel afraid of enlightenment. What is that? If you have no idea of the screen, the blind screen, then you will even be afraid of enlightenment. I remember the famous phrase that Suzuki Roshi coined. He says, you should be careful about wanting enlightenment, because if you get it, you may not like it. Oh, my. If someone attains enlightenment, you may ask him about the experience that he had.

[21:13]

And when you hear about the experience, you may say, oh no, that's not for me. But it's just a movie, you know? Something for you to enjoy. And if you want to enjoy the movie, you should know that it is the combination of film, light, and screen, and that the most important thing is the plain white screen. Because everything has a background of a screen. If we understand the background, It makes our life much lighter when we can enjoy our life much more because we're not afraid of losing anything. If you attain enlightenment, you realize that there's nothing to lose. You're not afraid of losing anything. Everything's just flashing momentarily into existence, into form.

[22:25]

That's the bird. He's enjoying his life. He doesn't have to lose it. He doesn't have to worry. Who I didn't pay much attention to. But I have a feeling for Michael Jackson and his exuberance for life and whose reference points were mixed. And he was always changing, finding new hats, and new clothes, and new face, and new everything, so he could identify himself. And his reference points were always shifting, which was part of the drama.

[23:35]

Real dramatic life. But he, I think, he couldn't find the ground, the true ground, which is kind of tragic. You look at his life, it's kind of incredible, and at the same time tragic. Not having your usual childhood and being given permission to do what it was to completely express himself, which he did with birth. When you come down from that. Unless you have a strong safety net or parameter behavior, you don't know what to do.

[24:40]

So the white screen is not something that you can actually attain. It is something you always have. So it's your fundamental nature, which is... You can't attain this. You can't. There's nothing to attain, you know. It's like Master Nansen and Joshu. Joshu says, what is the way? Nansen says, if ordinary mind is the way, Ordinary mind is a white stream. Well, can I, how do I, can I go after it? Nonsense is, if you go after it, you stumble past. And if you don't go after it, The reason you don't feel you have it is because your mind is too busy.

[25:55]

Once in a while you should stop all your activities and make your screen blank. Actually like open skies. That is the foundation of our everyday life and our meditation practice. Without this kind of foundation your practice will not work. All the instructions you receive are about how to have a clean, clear screen, even though it is never pure white because of various attachments and previous stains. So, even though you may have realization, and act in accordance with that realization, still you have your old karma. You know, it says that even Shakyamuni, had his karma from the past so everyone has their karma and it doesn't mean that your karma is suddenly all eradicated but there are aspects of karma that are still having to be worked out in your life and staining is an interesting term because you're talking about precepts breaking precepts or transgressing precepts

[27:14]

Actually, if you are mindful of precepts and you transgress the precepts, it's called staining rather than ignoring the precepts. Our life has these, is not perfect, and we still have our residual karma that is always being worked out, but at some point, if we're not feeding it, it withers. So this is another aspect, how do we deal with anger and delusions.

[28:26]

Although they're there, by not feeding them, they wither up. They can't last. But our tendency to keep feeding them, the way to stop feeding them is through repentance and through Many people know that we're suffering from what we did so that we can't relieve ourselves and stop feeling forgiveness. Forgiveness is for ourselves because it helps us to let go of the resentment in your mind and have a clear mind. So practice means always clearing your mind.

[29:32]

If we realize that the main thing about practice is always clearing our mind, all the time, then we have a point of reference. And so if you're a practitioner, you'd rather clear your mind than hold on to something. Our human nature wants to hold on to something. Anger, resentment, this and that. But if our intention is to have a clear mind, a free mind, then that's more important than all the other. We just have to know what our priorities are. So, when we just practice zazen with no idea of anything, we're quite at ease. He says relax, but I don't like to use the word relax.

[30:36]

Because then we think, well... But at ease. We're at ease. Because it is difficult to have complete ease in our usual posture. We take the posture of zazen. To do this, we follow the instructions that have been accumulated from the experience of many people in the past. They discovered that the posture of Zazen is much better than other postures, better than standing up or lying down for us. Practice. If you practice Zazen following the instructions, it will work. But if you do not trust your own pure We have to, as Dogen says, as any teachers have, we have to have faith in our own true nature, which is the white screen. So I used to go to the movies a lot more than I do now.

[31:54]

But I guess when I was a freshman in college, a friend of mine was a projectionist. And I had the opportunity to walk back backstage at a movie house. And I was amazed to find out that the screen was composed of a bunch of dots, really. And so there's really two sides to a movie screen. And I guess the reason they have all the perforation is to keep it steady when a breeze comes up, keep it in focus. But you can see the movie projected on both sides. You see the other side of the structure. Right. Yes. When you expand something like that, you see how it's all composed of dots.

[32:57]

Dots all working together. And there's really no center to anything. No real center. There's just a referential center. You say that this reference point, or zero, is being suggested as the black screen. And you said your sons seem to use the decisions as his reference points. The decision is not a blank screen. It's something concrete. It's something that I think mostly what I reflexively search for. often self-concepts, and that's what I'm always grasping for every moment. The blank screen is an interesting idea to try to play with as a reference point, but it's like nothingness, and it's very difficult

[34:05]

will be sort of supposed to do, like give rise to the mind that dwells nowhere. It's not supported. It's not a reference point. Well, like a ghost, which is just like the ghost. That's our concept of the ghost. You know, the white, the white sheep. Well, that's. Yeah, that's why it's a ghost. So, nothing that was being suggested is that this absence is a reference point, which is actually the work. But this white sheet also includes the movie. The white sheet of the ghost? Yeah, you know, form is emptiness. This is all about the heart sutra. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. This is the sign of form is emptiness.

[35:19]

Reference point of emptiness. One form is emptiness is that the movie is projected on the screen. Emptiness is form is that because of the screens, you can see the movies. So it's really not two things, it's just dividing the two in order to talk about it, to give us some, because of the way our mind works. I don't know if the part of my mind that seeks reference will be satisfied by that. That's OK. Actually, it becomes a concept. You know, the emptiness becomes a concept, and I can have this, I'm a Zen guy, and that means I'm Emptiness. And I'm comfortable with emptiness. And that's my reference. That's what we're talking about. You've got a whole new concept. That's what we're talking about. The screen instead of emptiness. There's a positive aspect of it. It's a way of talking about something you can confuse with something else.

[36:24]

So I was also interested in the same metaphor of your son's decision making. And it being the universe supporting the decision in any case, regardless of if it's this or that. And so it is. So my mind went in two different directions. I want to see if I don't want to check my work here. One is that kind of geared saying you have to say something that is the expression of it is the thing that causes the universe to dance around it. So that was one. The other direction I went with is if it if it could have been this decision or that decision, then it is that the same as Dogen's one continuous mistake. I think what Dogen is saying when he says one can one continuous mistake means everything's perfect. People misconstrue that. In fact, if he was saying one continuous mistake means a mistake. Yeah.

[37:32]

You know, what was that? If any decision will be supported. Yes. And that's right. Yeah. Then then the evaluation of the state becomes relevant. Yes. That's right. Yeah. Value. Yes. How about this entity? This is not nothing. And if you pay for that, that's also. Judy, with regard to the observations and questions I was thinking about what you read maybe a week ago from, I guess it was from speaking about the brown rice. Yes. I don't know if you were here when he did that. But he read this thing about brown rice being smoothiness and chewing the brown rice.

[38:36]

And as I understood it, believe me, I don't pretend to just, you know, caution or anything. But it's not really such a thing. But my understanding or my interest in it was this. The brown rice is complicated. It's more rich than white rice. And you chew it, and it becomes more things. But it has no fixed character. It keeps changing. And then after you swallow it, it continues to change. And in that sense, it's empty. But the emptiness isn't blank. You see what I mean? Emptiness isn't zero. It's zero in the sense that it's no fixed character. But it doesn't mean blah, blah, blah. So what's the reference point? What? Nothing is fixed. That's right. That's the reference point. Yes. Because if it was fixed and you couldn't see the movies, there would be nothing for the movie to be projected on. Then you'd have confusion between two fixed things.

[39:39]

Along the same lines, for me it's helpful geometry, and where lines intersect, they're dimensionless. Mathematically, a point has zero dimensions. The blank screen is actually one form meeting another, the rays of light from the projector, and because form meets form, the movie appears. It's like when you sit up and watch That's the intersection of many different forces that are happening within body, mind, gravity. It doesn't mean it doesn't change. It doesn't mean it's nothing. It's where things come together to move.

[40:48]

Well, yeah. It's a still point. Yeah. So I was looking for this No, you can't find it. Oh, but still, I'm going to try. I felt that there's no screen. I was listening to the birds, whatever, and I just felt there's really no screen. What Bob just said was nice because he said form meets form. And you don't really think there's a screen here and you don't. OK, good. I want to just switch to another question that will be brief if you let me. The question may be brief, but I don't know about the rest of this.

[41:50]

All of this is images about projecting a movie or it's a drama and you just. So take it more lightly, you know, we could be at ease, and it's not really anything, and it's perfect and so on. Well, you know, then you can, um, sort of visualize all this. That works for me when I'm thinking about my problems, which are like, I don't go to Zazen, and I look at the computer screen too much, But then when I have an image of some catastrophe, and you know I could mention several, it doesn't seem adequate to speak that way about it. But we're talking about two different things. One is tragedy, and one is how you view reality.

[42:55]

how you view reality, how you understand what we call reality. So even though people, you know, every single one of those people, you know, this is an interesting thing. I told you I was going to do it. It may be a short question, but I think, you know, every day about all these people who are, whose points of reference are totally destroyed. A whole culture whose points of reference are totally destroyed. And they're running around like, boom, boom, boom. For some people, the point of reference is to blow other people up. Because they're running around with their heads cut off. They don't really have their society. All the structures of society are gone. And I mean, look at Africa. So the reference points, they don't have fundamental reference points yet, no matter how religious they are. And that's tragic.

[43:59]

It's awful. And it's suffering. We suffer, they're suffering. And that doesn't mean that we can't talk about this. It doesn't dehate what we're talking about, for me. It actually makes it stronger. Too bad everyone doesn't have that insight. So that's what I'm trying to do, is help people fundamentally. This is the last question. Oh, make it a short question, please. I can't hear you at all. Oh, but it's our point. Our secret chance is we refer to a scheme or beyond.

[45:02]

Yes, that's right. That means beyond the duality of form and form. It is our concept. So the screen and the movie are really one piece, but beyond the one piece. So it's not two. It's not one. And both two and one. And it's difficult to put your mind around. So instead of putting your mind around it, you put your behind on it.

[45:36]

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