a tile into a jewel." And Vasa said, Don't you know you can't make a tile into a jewel?" And the teacher said, Yes, and you can't make yourself into a Buddha by doing Sazen. Yes, and you can't make yourself into a Buddha by doing Sazen. So do you understand how this is what I've been talking about today?

[01:03]

I hope so. This week I tell you the story at the end instead of the beginning. So how will you realize how things are? See if you can, you know, let the air, let the air refresh you and fill you with warmth. Let the light come into your heart. And I say all this, you know, but you know, don't tell yourself what to do. You know, don't tell yourself what to do, you know, don't tell yourself what to do.

[02:47]

So this is a little bit like, you know, to do this is a little bit like touching yourself very intimately from inside your own body and mind. Touching yourself from inside with tenderness and warmth. Making yourself at home right where you are. And when you do this, chances are you find tremendous joy, such a relief. It's such a relief finally that you're not, no longer pushing away some part of your body or mind or breath. Because it doesn't, it's not acceptable.

[04:03]

So when you do this, you can just touch it and be with it. And then you come up with what you want to do. Nobody has to tell you. Okay? Thank you. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

[05:20]

I have vowed to minister them, in the love of whom the Lord has made something so possible. I have vowed to attend and to be beside my brothers. I have vowed to save them, to be silent in sorrow and in exhaustion. I have vowed to minister them, in the love of whom the Lord has made something so possible. I have vowed to minister them, in the love of whom the Lord has made something so possible. I have vowed to attain. Amen. Does anyone have something that you'd like me to talk about?

[06:51]

More, or something you'd like to talk about? Okay, well, let me read you this poem. This is a poem by Walt Whitman. That's what I was telling you about. It's called, To You. To You. Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams. I read something like this this morning, and said, I won't keep interrupting, but there's a poem by Ryokan, and he says, Is Gil here?

[07:53]

Yeah. Gil, what did Ryokan say about dreaming? Dreaming? Something about dreaming, and dreaming about dreaming, and... Sleep. [...] In a dreaming world, dreaming, talking about dreams, thus seldom do we know what is or is not. Dreaming. Let us then dream as we must. All right. Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams. I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands. Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you.

[08:58]

Your true body and soul appear before me. They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, drinking, suffering, dying. Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my home. I whisper with my lips close to your ear, I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you. Oh, I have been dilatory and dumb. I should have made my way straight to you long ago. I should have laughed nothing but you. I should have chanted nothing but you. I'll leave all and come and make the hymns of you. None has understood you, but I understand you. None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself. None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you.

[10:00]

None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you. I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself. Painters have painted their swarming groups and the center figure of all, from the head of the center figure spreading a nimbus of gold-colored light. But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-colored light. From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman that streams, effulgently flowing forever. Oh, I could sing such glories and grandeurs about you. You have not known what you are, you have slumbered upon yourself all your life. Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time. What you have done returns already in mockeries, your thrift, knowledge, prayers.

[11:02]

If they do not return in mockeries, what is their return? The mockeries are not you, underneath them and within them I see you lurk. I pursue you where none else has pursued you. Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustomed routine. If these conceal you from others and from yourself, they do not conceal you from me. The shaved face, the unsteady eyes, the impure complexion. If these balk others, they do not balk me. The pert apparel, the deformed attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death. All these I part aside. There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you. There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you. No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you.

[12:04]

No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you. As for me, I give nothing to anyone except I give the light carefully to you. I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you. Whoever you are, claim your own at any hazard. These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you. These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are as immense and interminable as they. These furies, elements, storms, motions of nature, throws of apparent dissolution. You are he or she who is master or mistress over them. Master or mistress in your own right over nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution. The hopples fall from your ankles. You find an unfailing sufficiency. Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,

[13:09]

whatever you are, promulges itself through birth, life, death, burial. The means are provided. Nothing is scanted through angers, losses, ambitions, ignorance, ennui. What you are picks its way. You first. So, anyway, there's another little poem about what, you know, Sam Sutchik discussed in the lecture.

[14:11]

I think it's a pretty nice poem. It's called To You. It's from Birds of Passage by Walt Whitman. Birds of Passage. There's another little poem here. Do you know this one by Rumi? The clear bead at the center changes everything. There are no edges to my loving now. I've heard it said there's a window that opens from one mind to another. But if there's no wall, there's no need for fitting the window or the latch. Yes. This morning you kind of glossed over saying the effect of karma on what it is that you want to do. Could you talk about that later? I do? Well, what do you want to know?

[15:16]

Well, if you want to do what you want to do, but you're restrained by karma or... You said you'd talk about it later. I don't remember saying I'd talk about it later, but I'm happy to talk about it now. Well, you know, this is the big thing. Somebody yesterday, I was in a store in Inverness, and I said, how are you? And she said, fine, except that I'm working in here instead of outdoors today. And I said, well, but, you know, the interesting or fun thing to do is to apply your imagination. To the circumstances at hand, rather than the circumstances, the non-existent circumstances. Anybody can apply their imagination to the non-existent circumstances.

[16:19]

And imagine how wonderful it would be to be outdoors when they're indoors doing, you know, something that they might rather not choose to be doing if they had their choice of whatever universe they wanted, you know, to exist in. So this business of applying the imagination and your creativity and everything to the circumstances, this is very useful. I mean, important thing to do, you know, and then you do the best you can. And if one thing doesn't work, then you try something else. But you keep, I'm trying to imagine and imply that you're dreaming. You're dreaming, imagination, to the circumstances. Just like, you know, we talked this morning about the air. What kind of air is it that you inhale? So that has to do with, now you might think it's a particular kind of air, you know, and this society, I mean, we're all so accustomed to thinking about the air as just the air,

[17:23]

and it's just science, and it's just oxygen, and this and that, and it's got impurities now, and various things. But you know, that's not all the air is. And the air is our heart, and our body, and mind, and spirit. And the air is, you know, medicine for whatever disease you have. And that's opening your own, you know, that's having your own, your imagination, and dreaming, and finding out about things, you know, having some openness to what things can be. And what you can do in the circumstances. Does that make sense? Last week we were talking in the Page Street Center

[18:34]

about recognizing the Buddha nature in every person, and about the similarity of that sort of attitude to the attitude of the Quakers, who call one another by the name friend. And if you know how Ananda can speak, he demonstrated by saying, Hello, friend, as he does. And he practices this up pillows all the time, to make them fresh every time. And he was talking about the fact that there are many Buddhist refugees entering this country, and it's ironic that it's the ecumenical and Christian service agencies that have given much of the help to those Buddhists,

[19:46]

who in some way are our brother and sister. Well, to everyone alike, of course. But perhaps could teach us, as well as benefit from our gifts. Or he talked about serving those in prison, and walking into the prison. And in that sort of setting, at least internally gassho and say, which is the recognition of the Buddha nature. And it seemed to me to be a strong call to action. And as I reflected on it and chatted later, I added a strain of my own thinking, which goes something like this. None of us are individuals, though we seem to be to ourselves particularly.

[20:48]

But no single human being can live alone for long. Like an ant away from the hill, the means of livelihood are just not at one single person's disposal. And so we live in communities. So perhaps the organizing unit of humanity is not a single person, but a unit of persons or families that perhaps we call the primary community. And if that's so, then there is possible action. As we look for ways to recreate the primary community in our time. So my question is, aside from political action,

[21:56]

is there action that we as a community are called upon to think together and formulate and carry out? Well, this is what I was trying to address somewhere today, you know, at the top. And I think each of us is called upon to think together. But I think about it, you know, not so much about what, you know, for myself anyway, how I think about it is,

[23:07]

not so much about what the community is called upon, but what am I called upon to do. And so if you feel in your heart, you know, some called upon to bring this up in front of the community, then, you know, then I would support you to do that. And I think a lot of people, especially here at Green Gulch who come, would like to join in some movement like that. And since I've been coming here to Green Gulch and meeting people who come here, this does seem to be a real issue and concern. And somehow that those concerns and the issues of those concerns, it hasn't gotten, you know, organized. And you see, for myself, I don't see, you know, I don't feel called upon to organize all of that, you know.

[24:09]

So if there are those of you who do feel, you know, that you'd like to organize that kind of effort within this community, and this community, you know, is both people who live at Center and the people who visit. And so in some ways it's a small community and in some ways it's a very big community. And I would, so I would encourage anyone with those kind of interests to, you know, to find out those like-minded and sort out what you'd like to do and where to, where you'd like to make your effort. I think it's true that, you know, we are all the time asked to respond and to open our hearts. And then we do what we can. Sometimes it's fairly awkward and doesn't look like much.

[25:17]

I don't feel, you know, particularly exemplary in this area, you know. So I can't, I don't feel like I can give you a whole lot of, you know, particular advice or something about how to proceed. But I appreciate, you know, everyone's compassion and concern. And it's one of the unfortunate parts of, you know, being alive today that it's also, in a certain way, it's also overwhelming at such a distance. And yet, as you say, you know, refugees are coming here. Yeah. Yes. Consistent with what you're talking about there, there's a book that's out in the school now, and it's called How to Connect. Jerry Snyder and a lot of people have come in.

[26:19]

Several other people have addressed this in a very profound way. And I think there's a little more time to offer many other ways of dealing with these very social problems. There's also that book, How Can I Help? Yeah, that's fine, but it's not here. It's just one individual. This is for a broader aspect of the problem. Last week and the week before, there was a two-day sitting with Andrea and Stephen Levine, and they were talking about service as the way of opening up your heart.

[27:27]

And some people feel, how can I perform service with other people like going to hospice or helping prisoners or refugees if I myself am not completely in my heart? And Andrea said during her path to open up her own heart, she found herself drawn to service helping because the feeling of warmth and gratitude that came from the people she was serving helped her feel more compassionate to herself that she could give compassion to other people. In turn, they gave compassion back to her. And it was such an opening experience for her that she and Stephen really believe very strongly that service is important and that you don't go about it as you were saying, I'm going to do service today to open my heart. It's something that comes from within and it feeds upon yourself. As I said during the lecture, I don't try to tell you what you should do. We each have to find our own way.

[28:44]

And sometimes I feel for myself, it's enough for me to try to open my heart to the person in front of me and my own child, friends in my life. And I feel sometimes like, well, that's about all I can do. I don't feel particularly capable. Well, he's a Buddhist priest, he should really have a lot of compassion. And I'm not doing that much. I'm sorry. And I don't feel like I've performed much in the way of great services in my life. And I don't want to say to myself, well, if you really wanted to call yourself a Buddhist, then you would be doing these other things. I'm sorry, but that's again what I was talking about today. I don't think it helps to lay those kind of trips on yourself.

[29:49]

And I certainly don't want to lay those kind of things on myself. And at the same time, I don't want to say that, well, we're all doing enough and obviously we don't need to look any further. So this is, as I said during the talk, just to find at least now and again a moment of quiet in your own heart and to respond to things and to let things in. Whether it's your own body, breath, a person, the suffering of the world, and to let it in and then you respond to it. We do respond then. We let it in. And so the Buddhist teaching is not to ignore things. Thinking that I'll be happier if I just don't pay any attention to it.

[30:51]

And that's to close your heart and to close your body and mind. And it doesn't feel good. And it's not the way to heal either my own suffering or the suffering of the world, to keep things at that kind of distance. Thank you. We met with, even in a hundred thousand million helpless, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept.

[32:06]

I have to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. It's a very beautiful day today. So I hope you all enjoy sitting inside in this dimly lit room, rather than being outdoors. We have a few minutes now to sit quietly.

[33:18]

And to make ourselves at home. Now please, while I talk, make yourself at home. Not just here in the Zen Dojo, but in your own body. Make yourself at home with your breath. It's surprisingly how difficult, you know, this is to do. So nonetheless I mention it, you know, each week or each time I talk. I was going to say before, you know, the last time I talked it was kind of a gray day and there was lots of empty seats. So this looks, you know, like maybe fair weather Buddhists. But, you know, on the other hand, people say September, you know, and January is the time when people start something new in their life.

[34:36]

So this is the fall, it's a good time. I mentioned making yourself at home. Not just in the room, but in your own body and mind. In your own breath. In your own heart. You know, we have oftentimes such a strong habit of telling ourselves what to do, what to think, what to feel, how to be, how to talk, what's good, what's not good.

[35:39]

And we can be very busy telling ourselves how to do it, what to do, so that it's right, so that other people will approve, so that I'll approve. So I mention again and again when I talk about this, that the point of Buddhist practice is not to be able to do just what's right, moment after moment. To improve, you know, your batting average, so you get more rights and fewer wrongs. And you get more approval from yourself and others. You shape up, you know, you measure up. So that's, you know, Buddhist practice won't help you do that. And just to be at home with who you are means that we don't have to.

[36:48]

We realize how impossible it is to shape up, and we just make ourselves at home where we are. So again, while I talk, please see if you can do this. Not be telling yourself what to do, moment after moment. You know, what's the appropriate attitude for listening to a talk? No, I don't know. What is he talking about anyway? Oh, that's interesting. Anyway, you might have any number of responses, you know.

[37:52]

That's all right. Can you hear the little bird? Where does it touch you? It's a tender place when you can sit quietly and hear a bird.

[38:54]

And the air today is, the air today is warm and sweet. And see, so see if you can let it, you know, relax your breath as you breathe. And help you let go of your shoulders and face. And your accustomed, your accustomed posture or attitude and stance towards the world. What kind of world is it, do you suppose? Is the breath, is the air something alien, foreign? Or is it something nourishing, refreshing, vitalizing?

[40:12]

Just the air. And the light as it meets your face, your eyes. Is it reassuring? Can you let the light as it meets your face be reassuring, comforting? How much of the world do you suppose is of your making? You know, whether the sound of a tiny bird is just another sound. Or whether it's something that touches your heart. Whether the light is something threatening or something reassuring. Whether your own body is something foreign to you and threatening or not.

[41:18]

You know your body can get sick, many of you know. We all know the body can get sick, it can betray us. And then when your body betrays you, what will you do? I have a friend now, she has swollen thyroid, hyperthyroid. So she's planning to go next week to take radioactive iodine and kill it. And get back to her life. Resume, you know, put it behind her, she said, she wants to put it behind her. She doesn't want to find out how to live with it day in and day out. Or think about, I encouraged her, why don't you think about the kind of life you really want to live. And this is true for any of us, whether we have hyperthyroid or not.

[42:21]

But sometimes when we get sick, you know, it's especially an occasion to think about how short life is and what do I really want to do, how do I really want to be. How will I spend my days, my mornings, my evenings. What about my children? The people I live with. How will I spend my days? And nowadays for many things, there's so many alternatives. You know, there's a health resource center in San Francisco, Flame Tree. And you can say, we'll call them up. And they'll send you information about anything, any disease. They'll get it all together for you. And they have alternative hospitals there. And there's acupuncture, there's doing yoga, there's meditation.

[43:29]

There's getting up in the morning and going for a walk. But really, you know, to change your life is not, you don't have to do anything special to change your life. You know, we think sometimes, well, if I only could go to that Zen center and meditate every day, that would really make a difference in my life. And then people who get here, you know, and then they live here and they do meditation every day. After a while, they notice it hasn't changed a lot. Disappointing. Well, what am I doing here then if it's not changing my life for me? But I think too, even though I say you don't have to do anything special, I think it helps to be quiet sometimes.

[45:02]

And I mean by quiet, to stop telling yourself how you ought to feel, what you ought to think, what you should do. The last time I talked afterwards, you know, we have a question and answer in the dining room, not the dining room, but the Wheelwright Center, after tea. So I gave a talk here, and then when we got over there, then people asked me about abortion. What did I think about abortion? And what about abused children? And I forget, you know, political activism, terrorists. By the end of all that, I sort of thought, what do people think I am, a politician? Running for office. And it's very interesting, you know, when I talked about abortion, I told a story I heard recently.

[46:10]

A friend of mine is a midwife, and she said someone she knows was hypnotized. And the hypnotist asked her, well, what's the earliest you can remember? And she talked about how her mother had on a particular dress that had some kind of, it was kind of pink or blue with flowers on it. And she heard her voice saying to her mother, well, why are you knitting a pink sweater? And her mother said, because I'm sure it's going to be a girl. And her mother was there, and her mother said that was when she was five months pregnant. And that dress was a dress that she only wore while she was pregnant.

[47:14]

And she had forgotten all about that incident and never talked about it. Just something had happened. So I said, I can't really, I don't really, I can't recommend abortion. But at the same time, I don't, I said, when I talked then, I said, but if somebody has an abortion, I think, you know, this person, you know, I would feel compassion. I would have compassion anyway and forgiveness, even if I didn't recommend it. And that everybody in the situation, the mother and the embryo, the father, are worthy of compassion and forgiveness. Now, somehow later, I got the impression that she thought I was against abortion, or, you know, I was taking a stand.

[48:19]

Or I didn't, you know, I don't know exactly. And I was trying to say, I don't recommend it, but I also don't condemn people. But there again, it's, you know, like hyperthyroid. Is it something we live with, or is it something, you know, we want to put behind us? And of course, there's so many different circumstances. And I don't consider it up to me to tell you what to do with your life. As though I knew better than your own voice who was telling you what to do and what you should do. And as though I could be a better voice telling you what to do, you know. And then you sit here and listen to me, and you say, well, maybe he has some better idea, and I could tell myself what he's telling me. That's not what I want to be doing. Sometimes I wonder, you know, I read recently this Zen teacher, Bankei. He said, you know, so many of you chase after words, and you look for a particular phrase that's going to help you and save you.

[49:30]

And it'll help you manage your life. And then you'll know what to do. You won't have confusion, you know, conflict, struggle. You just have the answer. Well, just follow your breath. Just recite after me, you know, Namu Kiya Butsu, or whatever, you know. I mean, do a mantra. Or, you know, open your heart. Well, easy to do, right? Just tell yourself, when the time comes, open your heart. Open your heart! Do you know how hard it is? You know, when you start telling yourself like that? And then, how does the person inside, you know, feel when you keep telling that person what to do, you know? They don't feel very good. They're kind of crummy, like, gee, don't I have a mind of my own, or a body of my own, and any wisdom of my own, and understanding?

[50:30]

Inherently, Buddhism says, yes, you do. You can trust it. So, Banke said, you know, when you chase after words and phrases like this, and you want to find something, some word, or expression, or teaching, that'll help you. He says, this is like, this is as if a man drops his sword over the boat, and then he knots the side of the boat to mark where it went into the water. Laughter Banke is really wonderful, you know. He spent years and years severe, you know, practicing severities and austerities, and sitting for long hours until his bottom got, you know, all kinds of sores and scabs and pus.

[51:34]

And then he was in this little hut, and, you know, he goes through all these stories about how miserable it was, and he was coughing blood, and, you know, and just about died. Anyway, and then he said, and then I realized the unborn. What he calls the unborn. And he says, you know, you might think that because I went through all this stuff to realize this, you have to too. And he says, no you don't, actually, you see. You don't have to do all the stupid things that I did. Isn't that nice? Laughter And I'm not going to tell you, he says, and I'm not going to tell you what you have to do. You know, I'm not going to, he says, I'm not going to tell you that. But, you know, people ask me about this, and I say, suppose we were all up in one of these little side canyons, and then, and we didn't have any water. And one of us went through a whole lot of struggle and toil, and threw all the brush down into the valley bottom to the river, and got some water, and brought it back.

[52:43]

Then when you drank that water, would you be refreshed or not? Hmm? So, and then he said, now if you refuse to drink it, that's your business. Laughter But you may as well drink it anyway, you know, even though you didn't struggle down to the valley to get it. Laughter I came across a poem recently by Walt Whitman, and I think I'll bring it to the question and answer. It's a poem called To You. But I want to tell you during the talk now about a couple of my favorite lines from that poem. One of them is very similar to what Banke is saying. And that line is, I, I only am he who puts above you no, no master, owner, better, God, other than what waits intrinsically within you.

[53:54]

Isn't that nice? So I gave a talk a while back, you know, there's a Zen saying like this, don't put another head above your own. Don't tell yourself, you know, all the time what to feel, what to think. And then when you do, don't tell yourself, you shouldn't be doing that. Remember, that's what he said. Laughter Even then, don't tell yourself not to. Laughter

[55:09]

So that you know the sound of the little bird, Banke says, if you listen to the sound of the little bird, you hear the, you hear the sound of the bird, even though you didn't have any thought about, now I'm going to hear that sound of the little bird. Laughter And I'm going to make that sound happen. You don't have to tell yourself to make that sound happen. It just goes. And you hear it. So he says the unborn is this mind that arises when you stop telling yourself what to do, how to be. Laughter Laughter And Banke said, when you realize this mind, it doesn't matter what you do.

[56:25]

And I don't mean, you know, that there's not laws and karma and, you know, you can go out and do anything. I'll explain to you what I mean. Laughter He said, when you realize this mind, then wherever you are is the unborn. Right where you stand, right where you sit. Laughter And all of your experience is happening in the Buddha mind. Laughter At this time, he said, if you want to do satsang, meditation, if you want to read sutras, if you want to chant nimbutsu or daimoku, some mantra, he says, go ahead and do it.

[57:35]

Whatever you want to do, you can do it. And he said, if you want to, if you're a farmer or a tradesman and you want to be a farmer or a tradesman, then work at being a farmer or a tradesman. And let that be your samadhi, your great activity, your concentration, your absorption. Laughter And he might have said, you know, nowadays, with people asking me, well, what about political activism? If you want to do it, I wouldn't stop you. You know, I don't say, well, that's not what Buddhists do or something. If you want to, please. Laughter If you want to feed people, then feed people. So this is, you know, not up to me to tell you what to do, but finding in your heart, in the quiet of being at home with yourself, what you want, what you want to do, how you want to live.

[59:00]

And people say, oh, is it enough? Oh, is it enough? Am I doing enough? Enough to what? Enough to please yourself? Enough to get approval from who? Enough to have forgiveness in your heart and compassion? Do you need to do a lot to have forgiveness in your heart and compassion and warmth? It's really a shame sometimes because, you know, if you're a parent and you just take care of your child and you cook, and you take care of your family and you feed people, and you take care of your house, and then people say, oh, that's not really enough, you know, you probably ought to be out doing something.

[60:17]

Well, what is this all about? Is this enough? After last time, when I talked and people were asking about all this, later on I remembered Suzuki Roshi, the story I heard about Suzuki Roshi, you know, during the Vietnam War. And one of the students said, well, what should we do about the Vietnam War? I don't remember, he asked apparently on and on about the Vietnam War, and shouldn't we do something, and what was the Buddhist thing to do, and Suzuki Roshi got up with his little stick and went over and started beating him. Damn, damn, damn, where do you think the war is? The war is right here.

[61:22]

Do you feel it? Can you bring peace to your own body, peace to your own mind, and to your own heart? By the way, I'd be real peaceful if my body and mind just did what I told them to all the time. So, each of us has this kind of tremendous integrity, and sincerity, and depth of being, which we call Buddha Mind. It's not something, you know, I tell you this, I was going to tell you this other story, and many of you have heard it, of course, about the Baso.

[62:59]

The Zen teacher Baso was...

[63:01]

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