the taste the truth of the photographer's words i feel like it's a little warm in here so maybe open that window over your head soon okay sure that's fine yeah you can open the door and if it gets chilly for anyone back there then we'll close it Welcome to the first class of our 2023 practice period. It's wonderful to see all of you here in Nazindo, and also to see all of you out there in Zoom land. There's a lot of people. Hi. This is wonderful. This is the first class of this practice period, and I will be teaching or we will be teaching during the practice period from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

[01:07]

And I would encourage you all to either get a copy or if you have a copy or I think we sent it out in the sign up. The whole book is available as a PDF online. We'll send that link out again after this class, and I'll list to you what we're going to be working from over the next five or six weeks. So next week, I will be away at Soto Zen Ceremony celebrating 100 years of Soto Zen practice in the United States. And it's a big gathering of Santos and priests in the United States. And also there's about from Japan.

[02:09]

And it's quite an elaborate ceremony. So it's going to take a couple of days of rehearsal. And this will be at Zen Shuji, which is the headquarter temple in the U.S. in Los Angeles. So I'll be away. And Jerry Oliva is going to be leading the class. And I think that her subject, at least as far as this afternoon, as far as she had zeroed in on it this afternoon, is going to be mind waves chapter. And reads chapter, and then all informed by right, right effort. Is that correct? Yes. Good. Okay. And we'll send this all out to you so you have it. I'd like to welcome, there's a bunch of people whose faces are new to me. Thank you for coming, and I hope you'll find the class interesting.

[03:13]

And feel free here and as we go about in the course of next weeks to stop and talk to me, tell me who you are, and please share. I want to do a fair amount of back and forth discussion in this class. And there are questions that came up to me as I was reading the chapter which we're going to study. But just to say, the next ones that I blocked out, Jerry's will be next week and on June 1st. I would like to address the chapter that says, study yourself. And on June 8th, chapter title, mindfulness. And on June 15th, believing in nothing.

[04:14]

So you could really plunge in anywhere in this book and it's very rich. So I'm sure you'll find that. So a little background to the chapter called Control. Zenmai Magir's Mind was published in 1970 by Weather Hill. And it's a compilation of talks given by Shenmue Yusufi, mostly for beginning students at the Los Altos Zen group, which was one of the satellites of San Francisco Zen Center. And at the time, there was the first, those are the first talks that were recorded. And they were recorded by Marian Derby. And then she transcribed them.

[05:20]

And then that collection, she made a collection of them. And those were Those were passed to and to Richard Baker. And they worked on them off and on for about two years. Judy Dixon was a young woman. And poignantly, she did this work as she was dying. And she died before she was 30. But a lot of the shaping of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind is really her work. And unfortunately, she didn't get to see the book published. So to date, more than a million copies of this book have been sold, which makes it one of the most, one of the best selling spiritual books of our time, certainly the best-selling Zen book.

[06:24]

And, you know, it has a kind of, there's a kind of warmth and invitation. Just the picture of Suzuki Roshi with that kind of, sort of an enigmatic Mona Lisa-ish expression on his face that draws you in. and uh it's just a beautiful warm inviting tone and then you get to to read it the first time and it draws you in and you when many people read it they understand at last that Zen is not a philosophy it's not some idea it's not an aesthetic it's actually something that you can do with your body. And that was the emphasis of the whole book was how to do Zen with your body, with your breath and with your mind and with your life.

[07:34]

So tomorrow, tomorrow afternoon at 530, I'm going to do a Zazen refresher here and also online and just that is going to be Looking at how we sit with our body, how we sit with our breath and how we carry our mind in Zazen And how we carry our body, breath and mind in our daily life So it's very inviting And then when you look at it, it's like, what did he say? It's really kind of It's warm and inviting, encouraging. And beneath the surface, as you read, again, I never tire of reading this book. Sonia Roshi, our teacher, never tired of reading this book, of teaching us from it. There's a rigor and a challenge that expresses Suzuki Roshi's, the full embodiment of his Soto Zen teaching that reaches from the, through,

[08:50]

our ancestor Dogen Zenji, and then through his own teaching. And we were fortunate to have his teachings carried to us by Sojin Roshi for so many years, years here. And I feel as I know others feel, particularly those who knew Suzuki Roshi that So he didn't get very close to the core of Suzuki Roshi's teachings. People felt that he particularly had that voice, had that kind of understanding in his own language and in his own way. But he always honored, even though he was only, he only had He had about five years with his teacher.

[09:51]

But it's clear that Suzuki Roshi was a very strong teacher and left an enormous impression on all of his students and on the shape of Zen in America until today. So in the summer of 1970, the book was published and there were a few students when standing around boxes of the, of the book when it was delivered, San Francisco Zen Center, and when Shanyu Suzuki first saw a copy, he kind of, he kind of thumbed through it and said, good book. I didn't write it, but it looks like a good book. But it's, it's his words, it's his voice.

[10:53]

So as we're on this adventure for the next number of weeks, one of the things that I inherited as I became an abbot, was Sylvan Roshi's library. And it's in his office and I haven't, to me, it's just, it just stays there, it lives there. but I have his heavily penciled edition, his first edition, and it contains all these marginal notes that he took over the years. And so I looked through them to see if I can get any clues, mostly they're kind of enigmatic. So the chapter we're going to address today is called, it's chapter three, in the right practice section that begins the book. And in Sgt's edition of the book, next to the chapter title in the table of contents, he just wrote Blue Mountain.

[12:07]

And that references a poem by Master Dumshawn. The Blue Mountain is father of the white cloud. The white cloud is sun of the blue mountain. All day long, each other without being dependent on each other. The white cloud is always the white cloud. The blue mountain is always the blue mountain. So that's, that's his, I think on something that's at the, right at the start of this chapter. So there's an epigram for each chapter, which is drawn from the chapter itself. So the epigram for the control chapter is epigraph. Is to give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him or her.

[13:16]

So it begins He says, to live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being. When we lose our balance, we die. But at the same time, we also develop ourselves, we grow. Whatever we see is changing, losing its balance. It's beautiful. is because it is out of balance, but its background is always in perfect harmony. This is how everything exists in the realm of Buddha nature, losing its balance against the background of perfect balance. So this, if you're familiar with the teachings of Dogen Tseji, to me, this is very Dogen-esque and it certainly refers to the relationship of the white cloud and the blue mountain.

[14:22]

The mountain is always there. It's standing there. Someone recently, oh, I know what it was. I was talking to Gampo's friend, Dalia, and he went, he drove up to Portland with my wife, Lori. She drove up to Portland with my wife, Lori. stopped in Mount Shasta. And there is the, there is the Blue Mountain par excellence, just rising enormously from the plain and the clouds, the white clouds play along around the, around the peak, just stays there. In geological time, it moves. In our own human time, pretty solid, but the clouds are always changing. So to me, this paragraph is, as you read again, very often, his proposition is stated in the very first paragraph, the very first section.

[15:39]

And I think that's what Suzuki Roshi is doing here. He's giving you the background for this. So it's interesting. It's to consider this principle that everything looks beautiful because it is out of balance, but its background is always in perfect harmony. And I was thinking about this, thinking about this room that we're in and thinking about the altar. Those of you who experienced him know that whenever he approached the altar, he was looking at it to determine whether it was in balance, whether everything was in the right place. And how many times we just watched him make these tiny adjustments.

[16:44]

Certainly I learned that, other people have learned that. Incense bowls in exactly the right place. The Prashamparamita at the foot of Buddha in the middle. All the things in this, in what he considered proper balance. And nothing out of balance. The same thing with this room. You know, I've been coming into this room for nearly 40 years. And every time I walk into this room, everything is in order. Everything is in balance. Everything is clean. The cushions are arranged properly and we take care of it every morning. So what about imbalance? If everything looks beautiful because it is out of it, and yet we make so much effort to create balance, what are we doing here?

[17:57]

And it occurs to me, well, we're creating that background of balance because we bring our out of balance-ness too into Zendo. each one of us is constantly falling out of balance and trying to regain our balance, but we have this circumstance to sit in that is balanced. And this is what Suzuki Roshi, he said, when I see you facing the wall in Zazen, then I can see each one of you as an individual. And that's, it's true. Whether you're facing the wall or not, each person here right now is sitting differently. Each of you is sitting, not in some perfect way, but you're sitting in your way.

[19:05]

And after a while, your legs may hurt. And so you move them. you fall out of balance and you fall back into balance. So that's the way that I came to think about this first paragraph. He says, so if you see things without realizing the background of Buddha nature, Everything appears to be in the form of suffering. When you understand the background of existence, you realize that suffering itself is how we live and how we extend our life. So in Zen, sometimes we emphasize the imbalance or the disorder of life. So, Zen, any thoughts or any questions for you?

[20:12]

Please feel free to speak. Joe, let's see if the microphone works, right? Let's see what happens. Go ahead. One, two. Oh, okay. We'll trade off. Okay. I was wondering, what are some examples of how Zen emphasizes the out of balance? Because as you described, we're always Sojourn was putting things in a sort of order on the altar. How does Zen emphasize the out of balance? I don't think it needs to emphasize the out of balance. It's just the fact of life. That we fall out of balance. As we age, we have infirmities, we get ill.

[21:18]

And that's not other than our life, that's actually our life. And things happen to us, things happen to those around us. And what we're trying to do is to settle into, settle ourselves, to throw ourselves into the house of Buddha, which means to throw ourselves into the location where we can restore ourselves. I was also thinking about Sojin, you know, before he came to Zen, he was an abstract expressionist painter. And that goes here, but there's a large painting of his in the community room, which is kind of amorphous and kind of cloudy shapes of color. It's not symmetrical.

[22:20]

It's not balanced in some abstract way. And yet, I think to his painterly eye, it was manifesting the imbalance in the field of balance itself. And this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to see how dynamic tension between balance and imbalance. We're always falling out of balance. So for example, in Zazam, even though our intention and our method is to follow our breath, you know, maybe we can do that for a minute. Maybe we can do that for five minutes. And then rather than following our breath we're thinking about lunch and okay that's there's nothing wrong with that but we bring ourselves back to this place of balance which is the place of our intention our intention to wake up other talk to question yes i'm going to pass this

[23:43]

If we have the microphone, then it gets on the recording. Oh, okay. And people online can raise their digital hand, and then Hosan can see it. I just wanted to... What's your name, by the way? Oh, my name is Alex. Alex, okay. I was hoping you could clarify the suffering and how we live. To me, it sounds like he's kind of giving up. The point of Zen practice is to... I think he's saying suffering is unavoidable. You're not going to get rid of it. The challenge, I think, is to find a way to rest in it. and to not let it define you. And it becomes something other than suffering, which doesn't mean pain goes away.

[24:54]

It just means we don't put necessarily something, we don't put ourself on top of the pain. And I think that's a, that's an element of Mahayana Buddhism that's perhaps different from, say, the early sutras. But even in the early sutras, the object is to attain nirvana, which means to let go or cut through all suffering. But if you look at even the life of the Buddha in his last moments his last days he had intestinal distress and it wasn't necessarily suffering but it was pain and so the suffering is is is what happens when we define ourselves by our mind

[26:10]

And this is a hard place. This is kind of a hard place to get to in our understanding. But it can be done in this life. Someone, are there raised hands out there? I'm not seeing anyone. Anyone else in here? Yeah, Joe. I mean... Jonathan. You guys have the same haircut. I often confuse you in the Zendo in the morning. One second. You're on that. I had to turn this off. Okay. You often tell a story where he told you to let things fall apart. Yeah. How does that fit with putting things in balance.

[27:14]

Is it... I mean, the way I take that is that sometimes balance means letting things go out of balance, but I don't know. Let me read on, okay? Nowadays, sorry, it's just, it's erratic. Oh, that's off now, right? That's what happened. When that's off, this goes on. I think these microphones are somehow hooked up in series. Nowadays traditional Japanese painting has become pretty formal and lifeless. That is why modern art has developed. Ancient painters used to practice putting dots on paper in artistic disorder. This is rather difficult. Usually what you do is arranged in some order. You think you can control it, but you cannot.

[28:17]

It's almost impossible to arrange your dots out of order. It's the same with taking care of your everyday life. Even though you try to put people under some control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. So, they fall into some order. They fall into an order of cause and effect of circumstances that we are in. And as much as, even if we're a musician or a dancer, improvising, say, or a painter, trying to place those dots. Every dot that we place, every note that we play, every movement that we make is dependent upon body and mind and mysteriously on all of the painting and music and art that came before.

[29:41]

in whatever way is sometimes very subtle, we are the entire history. So it's going to be in some order, which we may or may not perceive. So how do we practice? That's the question. The question of this chapter is, do you practice and he begins here by talking about uh try you try to put people under some control it's impossible so we do this surgeon's message to me to let things fall apart was twofold first of all what was problematic was that I was trying to control other people and control other people because internally, I feared loss of control.

[30:58]

Does that make sense? So we externalize our suffering. We think if I can fix what's going on. then everything will be okay in here. It doesn't work. So, you know, also it pisses people off. So, it's a challenge, it's a tension in this, in our, in our practice, in the Zendog. It's, we have Zen, we have forms. the things that we're taught not to do, the things that we're taught to do. We try not to put our foot on the meal board that runs there, and we try to step over it, or we don't. In order to get from one side of the Zendo or the other, we go all the way around instead of cutting across the altar.

[32:02]

These are all forms, and they're not intuitively opposite. If you understand the reason for them, well, the meal board is the dinner table. Would you step on the dinner table? There are reasons for the forms to some extent. And other elements of the form, what we have inherited from our teacher and from teachers and from the tradition. And so we do it for that reason, not because it's necessarily logical or efficient. So attention when people, new people come into the Zendo, what do we tell them? How do we help them see what the shape of our practice is? And we, but we have to figure out a way to do it.

[33:07]

not because I'm uncomfortable with the fact that they don't know this form, but because if they know this form, they're going to be more comfortable because they'll be doing everything in a harmonious way with other people. Partly, there was that dimension. It was the external dimension of let things fall apart. telling me not to try to control others. And the other side of that was an interesting dynamic on the one hand of accepting my feelings, accepting what discomfort I may have. And on the other hand, watching it and trying to control it.

[34:10]

Does that make sense? Do you have any questions about that? Any questions about why we have these forms? John Reiter has his hand up. Can you speak to the background in the first paragraph? Yeah. And there seems like that Suzuki Roshi is trying to force a recollection of a relationship larger than our small minds.

[35:19]

And it has something to do with suffering and something to do with how we learn to suffer less. I think the background in perhaps an abstract way, you can look at it from, we're always looking at things at different angles. And this is one of the things that we learned from Suzuki Roshi and from Sojin Roshi is, if you see one side, please look and see what the other side is. So on the one side, in the cosmic background, one side is stillness. is just an all-inclusive universe that is still, that includes us.

[36:24]

We are not outside that, we're within this deep stillness. And then we look at it from another angle, and Dogen spoke of it as zenki, as total dynamic working. So, Within this stillness, there is always activity. And this is manifest Zazen itself. In Zazen, we take this position, this physical position and, you know, some places, some places, if you move, they yell at you. It's really, it's like, that's not our way. There's a harshness there. But irrespective of whatever message we get, we're always moving.

[37:26]

Minutely adjusting our posture. We're always minutely adjusting our mind. And so we have this stillness when we take the posture of Zazen, which I'll talk about tomorrow, you can consider it Buddha Mudra. It's putting your body into the position of a Buddha. If you can do it, which I can't anymore, you sit cross-legged in full or half lotus. Nonetheless, even if you're sitting in a chair, Even if you're lying down, internally, you're taking the position of a Buddha, of an awakened being. And that appears to be still, that Buddha up there, beautiful, appears not to be moving.

[38:31]

But we have human bodies. And so we're always, something's always moving within us. There's total dynamic working within. within this body. I mean, it's like, what's going on in my belly coursing through the veins of my body. All these things are going on, there's a movement, which is also our life. So there's stillness and there's movement. These are happening together. And so that's at least the beginning addressing your question. So I want to go on. Yes. Oh, sure. So when you were talking about your interaction with Sodom, which you've talked about before, and he said let things fall apart, you talked

[39:42]

Some likes about not controlling other people and then you talk sort of briefly. Emotions and I just didn't understand what you were saying. I'm getting to that. That's the next paragraph. So. Let's go to this mechanism of control because it's really interesting. So even though you try to put people under control, it's impossible. You cannot do it. Then this great sense, which is completely. Mysterious. The best way to control people is to. That's pretty good. Is to encourage them to play. And it's surprising. And I think we'll come back to that.

[40:45]

The best way people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in the wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him or her. So it is with people. First, let them do what they want. That's to encourage them to be mischievous, to encourage them to be free. And to basically, I think what that means for us outside, but also means internally. Allow them to be themselves without trying to force them into some kind of mold. but to include whatever they do, truly human, and to find a way to accept it, which is of course really hard.

[41:57]

Some things we want to accept and some things we don't want to accept. So we just, we let them do what they want and we watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good. That is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them without trying to control them. So what do you think he means by control? How does that work? I've got a thought about, let's see. As a parent, you and Laurie had the opportunity to let your children play, to kind of control them in a way or balance how to raise children.

[43:11]

And I'm curious as a teacher, how do you work with your students in allowing them the space to play or be mischievous, and then also rein it in and bring up the other side? Well, I think that's a realm in which perhaps ethical discernment comes into play. our children playing. It was just our children playing. And some people might think, oh, you're too loose, you're too permissive. And some people might think you're too strict and too controlling. And it's like, whatever they think. But meanwhile, our kids are playing.

[44:15]

And We never stopped watching them. We never stopped paying attention to them. And, you know, it doesn't always work out, but it's worked out pretty good. Uh, and that was our policy. And we, I think that was part of what we learned and learned from our practice as far as students, um, I watch them. I often, I'll watch until they actually ask me what I think. If they ask me what I think, then, you know, in a kind, as helpful way as I can, what I think or what I observe. But if they don't ask me, I just watch.

[45:17]

I see. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's what I do. That's not every teacher's way. Largely, that was Sojourn's way, I think. Well, it reminds me of the teaching of a closed fist and an open hand. Right. Right? So you let them play and playtime's over. Right. So the fist has a kind of a connotation in our culture that is, you know, But in fact, it's just a closed fist. Time to be upright. Well, if we actually get to the end of this chapter, which I have my doubts about, at the end, he says there have to be some rules. Yeah. Ethical, ethical component. Dan Jackson has his hand up. I'd like to, if I may. Spotlight you and Dan and ask your question.

[46:23]

Hold on. I've always thought, particularly when you get to the cow and pasture, that while he's talking about other people, there's really an application to your inner people that trying to control yourself and that the best way to control your thoughts is It's to give them a broad pasture. Right. Yeah, we're getting to that. We have to deal with the lung people and the liver people and the pancreas people and all the sentient beings of your mind. But that's where we're headed next. So we'll talk to that. Yes, I've been very interested in this chapter for a while and recently more so. I kept thinking as I was reading it again and again that this is kind of a metaphor or Suzuki Roshi's text teaching us something which is to ignore things, which obviously doesn't work, to try and stay on top of things in such a way that you can exercise agency and power over whatever it is you want.

[47:43]

That doesn't work very well either. But watching, what is this watching? And one of the things that occurs to me as you're speaking is that in watching, you know what to do, either to intervene or not, or somehow taking that position of observing, not trying to control things, something comes up which allows you to interact. Right, interact. Well, the thing is that watching is interacting. Yes. The wide field of, that we're all, if we're in a field with other people. Yeah, I think that's the heart of it. We're actually, we're actually bringing forth an energy within that field that affects the whole field, right? Yes. And I think that's what we're doing.

[48:49]

And it's interesting because the shadow side of that in our world is we carry these cell phones, there's CCTV everywhere. Someone is always watching us and that's pernicious. That's also injecting energy into the field of being. that if you, you know, realize when we went to, Lori and I went to Tassajara for the day, it's like, oh, nobody's watching. What a relief. You know, it's great. I just thought you might give people a minute to stand up and speak. Yeah, why don't you, good idea. Take a stretch for a minute or two. Use the bathroom.

[50:17]

Do you remember where the bathroom is? It's right across the courtyard. Diagnose cross there. Thank you.

[51:36]

If my sound got weird, someone commented on that. I'm checking everything seems to be. On my end, it might have been just. Your cheek on line is kind of okay. How's that? That sounds a lot better. Okay, good. Okay, Gary has his hand up so and then I want to move on. So Gary, go ahead. Yeah, I just. I wanted to say one thing that I is that when you were saying the watcher or the person watching interjects energy, I also thought that I think of the watcher, at least in my own mind, is is not creating karma. But I wonder what you thought about that, like, you know, if you're just observing. You're not creating any karma where if you would say something to someone.

[53:19]

Well, some watchers create a lot of karma. Complete karma. You know, an expression on your face. Well, you know, that's kind of true, too, because Sojin used to do that to me for a while until I stopped watching the watcher. Yeah, well. It's like. There are non-karmic moments. Karma is a function, and that's a whole, this is a whole rabbit hole to go through, go down, but karma is a function of body, speech and mind. So your thoughts or your mental energy can be karmic activity. I wanna move on because this gets to a question that was asked. The next point is, and I think this is really kind of the pivotal point of this talk, he gets, you know, talking about painting, talking about controlling people, he says, the same way works for you yourself as well.

[54:37]

If you want to obtain perfect calmness in your zazen, you should not be bothered by the various images you find. So your mind is the background. The big mind is the background. And the images that, thoughts that come and go are, what I was saying, the imbalance. You should not be bothered by the images you find in your mind. Let them come and let them go. Then they will be under control. So when you think about the horse or cow, it says give your horse or cow pasture. So pasture has a fence around it, right? Even there, there's a boundary, there's a limit, but it's very wide and teachers have

[55:43]

There are different kinds of teachers that Ross was saying, close fist. They're teachers who keep their students, their method is to keep their students in very close, to keep a tight control of their students because, and that's, there's an effectiveness to that, particularly for some people because they need that, they need that degree of, tightness or control in order to encounter themselves really deeply, in order to come up to the edge of their suffering. And that's an archetypal form of Zen practice. There are other teachers who give their students a wide field. and uh like that you know he let me explore a lot of things uh some teachers sometimes you go to places that you don't read you don't write you don't talk you don't talk about your practice to anybody else disappointed in your relationship to your teacher

[57:11]

And that's a very narrow focus. And when you're, even in your meditation, the methodology of your meditation is a very tight concentration and you get in the next paragraph, you know, you will focus on a particular expression or a particular place that your body is, that your breath is coming in out of your body. You, some medication, you would focus on the light of a candle or an image or a koan. So that's a concentration practice. And that kind of relationship with the teacher in practice is a concentration, is a kind of intensity of concentration. The other field, and we're always navigating someplace between. The other approach is an open awareness, a broad receptivity.

[58:19]

And I think that's what he's talking about here when he says, should not be bothered by the various you find in your mind. So not you should get rid of them or work them down to zero. But you should not be bothered by them because they're going to come and go. Let them come and let them go. Then they will be under control. And as a teaching, I was allowed to meet with other teachers. I was allowed to explore. And, you know, I would say that in that relationship, And I think this is something that we fostered. There was great faith in the student, that the student, the teacher had faith that the student was going to find their own way.

[59:20]

And if that meant going away and finding another teacher, let them go. That person is just, that student is just like your thoughts. you let them go and you let them come. And so often I've seen here, people come, they practice for a while, they go away and they do other things. And they come back 10 years later. And it's like, oh, hi, here you are again. You know, it's like, you just start as if the conversation was continuous for that whole time. And you just accepted back. It's not like, Where were you? What were you doing? It's just this complete acceptance of coming and going. But this policy is not so easy. It sounds easy, but it requires some special effort.

[60:22]

How to make this effort is the secret of practice. Suppose you are sitting under some extraordinary circumstances. If you try to calm your mind, you'll be unable to sit. And if you try not to be disturbed, your effort will not be the right effort. The only effort is to count your breathing or to concentrate on your inhaling and exhaling. So this is what he's teaching as a methodology. It works. Doesn't work always. Doesn't work for everybody. But in a general sense, it works. And I find it's worked for me in really stressful situations. I will try to breathe. I mean, what you're doing.

[61:24]

The people I work with is Roshi Joan Halifax. And what she talks about is up regulation and down regulation. So when you're up regulated, that means you're stimulated, you're anxious, you know, you're in a mode and to focus on your breathing, to settle yourself in your body is a way of actively down regulating yourself and it's helping go away as we talked about doesn't necessarily make your pain go away but it gives you something to do and if you're putting your mind on that activity then your mind is going to be less fixated on the difficulty that you're having

[62:27]

We say concentration, let's get back what I was saying about concentration practice, but to concentrate your mind on something is not the true purpose of Zen. The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let as it goes. So to see things as they are is not to see things in some fixed fashion. It's to see that they're always moving. This is part of the total dynamic action, activity, that to see, when you see things at, is the nature, the nature of reality is impermanence. Some, a teacher, I wrote about this in my book, which we just published. offhandedly wrote in a column in a magazine some years ago, something about staying in the present.

[63:40]

You know, it's kind of like cliche, right? We're always talking about staying in the present. That's supposedly how we're supposed to live. And this Zen teacher, A friend called me up really heatedly and said, you can't anywhere. That's pretty good. I never forgot that. You know, the present is constantly unfolding and that gets to the next section of this piece. So. Zen practice is to open up our small mind. So concentrating is just an aid to help you realize big mind, or the mind that is everything that that vast field of the universe that I was talking about earlier.

[64:45]

And if you want to discover the true meaning of Zen in your everyday life, you have to understand the meaning of keeping your mind on your breathing and your body in the right posture of sasen. And you can't do it. That's my words. You can do it in a moment and you'll drift off. But what I've learned at some point, what Sojan said was that really the heart of Zen practice is returning. is just so your mind drifts off, you're, you know, you're trying to count your breaths or stay with your breath, and you drift away. That moment of noticing and returning is the moment of awakening, returning to your to your and then you do that, and then you fall off.

[65:52]

And then you do it again, you constantly it's the eternal return. That is the act of Zazen. Only in this way can you experience the vital freedom. So then completely changes, completely changes direction in this chapter. And we have time. Dogen Zenji said, time goes This is absurd, but in our practice, sometimes it is true. Instead of time progressing from past to present, it goes backward from present to past. Yoshitsune was a famous war in medieval Japan. Because of the situation of the country at that time, he was sent to the Northern provinces where he was killed.

[66:59]

Before he left, he bade farewell to his wife. And soon after, just as you want real the thread from a spool, I want the past to become present. When she said this, actually, she made past time present. In her mind, the past became alive and was the present. So Dogen said, time goes from present to past. This is not true in our logical mind, but it is the actual experience of making past time present. We have poetry, there we have human life. And I think we've all experienced this of the past becoming so vivid, so alive in a moment of the present.

[68:04]

And sometimes the future becomes the present. We move. When we experience this kind of, this is here, when we experience this kind of truth, it means we have found the true meaning of time. So we've gone from control to time. This is... It seems like a big leap, and maybe it is. The true meaning of time is to recognize that we have complete fluidity of mind. That what's present, what's past, what's future, in any given moment, we are alive right there. went out to dinner with my sister family last night, and she pulled out of her bag.

[69:12]

Somebody had given her a magazine that I had a poem in from 1967. And I was a sophomore. I had a poem by me, a poem by a couple of friends. I looked through it, and that moment came alive for me. And my friends who I haven't thought of came alive. And it was right there. You know, we were right there in the restaurant on Fifth Street. And all of a sudden, it was simultaneously May of 2023. Spring of 1967. That's what, 56 years ago?

[70:16]

Is that right? Unbelievable. And yet, it was alive. I'm happy to say, you know, I read this poem. Oh, this is pretty good. pretty good for a sophomore college you know but it was like it's like oh it kind of this guy thinks like i do you know uh very interesting so certainly goes from past to present and from present to future this is true but it is also true that time goes from future to present and from present to past a zen master once said To go eastward one mile is to go westward one mile. I tried to think, that's hard to get my head around. I have to still think about that.

[71:18]

To go eastward one mile is to go westward one mile. It's like, yeah, I guess a Zen master would say something like that. This is vital freedom. Vital freedom, we should acquire this kind of perfect freedom. So the perfect freedom we're talking about is this fluidity of mind, which Suzuki Roshi often talked about is don't be caught on anything. And we understand it as include everything in your zazen. So I'm going to stop. There's a couple of questions, a question from Joel and a question from John Ryder was first up. Okay. Yeah, for me, this chapter could also be attachment and also how we cultivate detachment and mindfulness and the witness, I think, are very important here.

[72:21]

But in terms of what you think is a massive shift, I see it a different way. I see that he's trying to... Time and space are what we're most attached to in terms of the concepts of time and space. And he's just trying to loosen it up there. He's trying to loosen up our concept of time, trying to... These are labels that we put on. We think we can control... So that's my sense. I see it as very much within the context of how we learn to let go of our ego enforcements. I think that's right. And just to say, there is another chapter.

[73:24]

called attachment, non-attachment, but they're not so easy to draw the lines between. I think you're right. So Joel? Yeah, hi. I wanna talk about surgeon going to the altar and adjusting things, which I always, and I have the thought that when he left after having adjusted and going back and bowing, it wasn't like he felt he had brought it necessarily to a perfect play. Also, the other thing is that when he went up there and looked at the altar, maybe he didn't think there was anything, you know, probably wrong necessarily with the, I knew a really fine, got very upset when they had set up the altar and the teacher went up and adjusted it.

[74:36]

And it just seems like, I don't know where this goes, but it just seems to me a very, you know, a big deal for me. Like, it's never perfect. It's you do your best and maybe you improve it, but there's one point where you have to leave the altar, go back and bow to the altar. Each person has their own eye, has their own sense of what's in balance. You know, we used to talk... surgeon used to be uh even when we were on zoom it's like if you were off here like i am right now it's like that really bothered him he wanted you to center when i take photographs um my aesthetic or my eye is such that if i'm taking a photograph of a person i actually like to have them all that's just my aesthetic

[75:50]

And people have different aesthetics. This is his eye. It's not the eye. It's his eye. And he knew that. He wouldn't make any bones about that. Yeah. Gary? Yeah, sorry. I was thinking, you know, to go eastward one mile is to go westward one mile. Is it something like that he said? Yeah. It's a globe. It's a circle. If you go one way, you're actually going backwards the other way. Right. And that's how I sense how I think of that expression. Yeah, I think that's right. I don't want to get too far into that. I know. Okay. I want to move on, actually, if that's okay. Because we're actually doing great. We have 10 minutes and we're on the last paragraph. Huh. and this is an important point. Perfect freedom is not found without some rules.

[76:56]

People, especially young people, and this was, he was speaking particularly to his moment in time. When the idea of, I'm just reading another piece by another teacher, coming out of the fifties and sixties, the idea of beat Zen was Zen is doing whatever you want to do. It's perfect freedom. And that's not the Zen that Suzuki Roshi was offering us. It's freedom within a form. Freedom within set of rules or a set of practices. So people, especially young people think that freedom is to do just what they want. That in Zen, there is no need for rules.

[78:01]

But it was absolutely necessary for us to have some rules. This always to be under control. As long as you have rules, you have a chance for freedom. So that's just like any kind of improvisation. Any improvisation in any medium. Never, as I said before, it's never without the entire history of that medium, whether we know it or not. So it's never without a form. The problem as a musician, one of the things I see is the way I was raised, and I played traditional music, traditional American, mostly American music, in vernacular forms, blues, bluegrass, old time music, Cajun music, and languages with forms.

[79:09]

And within those forms, you learn the forms really carefully, and then you improvise. within that form. And I think the same thing is true with Sam. We were so just 50 years of a really powerful grounded teacher who would teach us the forms. And so we learned that. And that's what we can pass on. At a certain point, you actually have to be mischievous. freedom and express yourself within that form. Otherwise, if you're just repeating the form, it's dead. And the improvisation comes from the meaning of the form and your true self coming forward and being free, being mischievous.

[80:17]

And to regulate your life means what is the proper balance? It means to see the background. So when I play, if I play a certain kind of music, I'm aware of the background of all the people who played this before, of all the people that I learned from, all the Zen teachers that I've learned from. And then to manifest freely. As long as you have some rules, you have a chance for freedom. To obtain freedom without being aware of the rules means nothing. It is to try to acquire this perfect freedom that we practice Zazen. So we have a few minutes. I'd like to just encourage, is there anyone who hasn't spoken or hasn't

[81:20]

ask the question that would like to share something or ask something. Anyone out there in Zoom land who hasn't spoken who would like to ask something? Tim. Yes, thank you. For me, what kept coming back with control was just the word expectation is that, you know, we all have different expectations, whether we know it or not. And it just kind of continually flows throughout the day. I expect someone to act like think a certain way. And so as I was reading the chapter and in our discussions, I just kept thinking about that. You know, I expect someone to. please park the right way in front of our building, or I expect someone to, you know, be courteous and that sort of thing.

[82:25]

And I want to control that and I can't. And so for me to realize. So that is, to me, can be expressed in a couple of different ways. And it goes to the art of things, beginner's mind. You know, in Suzuki Roshi famously said, in a beginner's mind, There are many possibilities. In an expert's mind, there are few. Another way of expressing that same thing is in what one of our teachers, Bernie Glassman, where she expressed three tenets. Not tenets, it's tenets. three tenants is who you have living in your apartment that you want to move out. The three tenants are not knowing is the first, which is beginner's mind.

[83:25]

It's so not patient. It's like not knowing. And the second tenant is bearing witness. It's like not knowing that, okay, what's going on here? Just looking, that's watching, right? And then is, in my way of expressing it, an appropriate response. Some way of meeting a situation that is suitable to create connection with others. And to create connection with ourself. I think that's the point. The point is to take care of the world, which is also our self. But we take care of all sentient beings.

[84:27]

All the sentient beings in the wide world and all the sentient beings in this universe. That's what we're doing. And sometimes they want to run amok. and we let them run and play. Sometimes we say, wait a minute, we need to focus here. So that's where I'm going to end. And I'm sorry I'm going to miss Jerry's talk, but I'll try to listen to it next week. And please, if you can, come to the Zazen Refresher afternoon at 540 in Zendo and online. So take care of yourselves, and I will see you tomorrow.

[85:36]

Right again. Well, when you said surgeon told you to let things fall apart.

[88:38]

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