I started thinking about what to talk about today and at some point I realized that this week is Thanksgiving, so it seemed like a ready topic. So I'd like to talk about Thanksgiving

[01:03]

and gratitude in the context of Buddhist practice or Buddhist understanding. I'm a little bit like, I think generally I'm kind of like the kind of person that you know there's a lot, there's innumerable things to be thankful or grateful for and on the

[02:04]

other hand, things could be better and maybe we ought to hold out for a little more and withhold our gratitude or our thanksgiving until we get a little more out of the deal and then we can say thank you. So of course one of the basic elements of Buddhist practice or understanding is to practice or to be grateful for small, smaller and smaller things. I want to tell you a story. A number of years ago at Tassajara, a student, we were having a, we'd had

[03:10]

a talk, Suzuki Rishi had given a talk and then we had a question and answer period and one of the students said to him, a little belligerently, why haven't you enlightened me yet? And you know this is not a very kind of in a sense respectful kind of question to ask your teacher, but on the other hand you know it's a little bit like sometimes parents do with their kids or you know we do for one, you know what have you done for me lately or couldn't you, you know like why can't you get it together? We often sort of accuse one another of various things in this way. Last summer I was at Tassajara and Suzuki Rishi's son was there and he's now taken over Suzuki Rishi's temple in Japan which is the, it's not as though it's a really large temple but still it's the head temple for

[04:13]

16 sub temples. So Suzuki Rishi's son Hawitsu came to Tassajara with the 16 abbots from the sub temples. So even though some of them are 20 years older than he is, they practice respecting him because he's the head of the big temple. So we were a little surprised but nobody would sit next to him in the meditation hall. You have to leave a little space there, you know this is a way to honor him and at dinner nobody would sit next to him either, which we thought was a little strange because who does he get to talk to then and doesn't he, isn't it kind of lonely after a while? But this is the way they do it, to practice honoring this person and of course we didn't understand that when Suzuki Rishi was alive so we sat right next to him and we in the meditation hall we sat right next to him at dinner and we even said to him things like, why haven't you enlightened me yet?

[05:15]

He was rather polite and kind in his response he said, I'm making my best effort. And he didn't say, and how about you? Are you sure you are? Or maybe you need to try harder or you know, I'm doing everything I can and maybe you're not. He was very careful about his answer I think and he said, I'm making my best effort. And I don't think, I think on the whole we don't acknowledge and notice how much each person is making their best effort. And whether it's the teacher or the student. Sometimes you know the student is trying pretty hard and the teacher doesn't appreciate it.

[06:33]

And sometimes the teacher is trying pretty hard and the student doesn't appreciate it or the parent and the child, whoever. And this is where you know we don't have any gratitude just for someone's being there and the way they're there. And Suzuki Roshi sometimes also would say if I said something to him. He would say, if I said you know, I got confused when you said that or I was upset or and he would say, thank you for telling me. When there's a feeling of, this kind of feeling of appreciation or gratitude and you can see

[07:40]

someone making their best effort and when someone says thank you for telling me, you understand then how there's a little more, you know, intimacy, a little more connectedness. If we put this kind of dialogue, you know, in intra, in you yourself and in me, myself. You know, sometimes I will say to my thoughts or my feelings or my body, if my body's hurting, I tell it to shut up. I don't say thank you for telling me you're tired. Oh, you're scared. I don't think I want to hear about that. You have nothing to be scared about. You know, on the other hand, if when I get angry or I'm upset or confused and

[08:43]

you know, my body and mind, my thoughts, my feelings, if I say to the, you know, if I hear them, if I can hear, if I'm listening carefully, I can hear, I'm making my best effort. I'm making my best effort. And we say, you've got to do something better. It's not good enough, you know. Why haven't you enlightened me yet? Why don't you give me some more powerful, stunning kind of experience that would make me feel really good? What's wrong with you? In this way, you know, we tend to demean ourselves because we don't hear our own body and mind. We don't notice I'm making my best effort. I'm making my best effort. I wanted to let you know that I'm tired. I wanted to let you know I feel scared. And then we can say sometimes, thank you for telling me.

[09:50]

Thank you for telling me. Thank you for letting me know. You know, this is very different. I also had a teacher at one point, and I said to him one time, I have a difficult time talking with you. I get kind of afraid when I talk with you and I feel intimidated. And he didn't say, well, you know, I don't want to talk to you. He said, thank you for telling me. Or I'm making my best effort. You know, we'd have to say, if we look at it, if I look at it now, I'd have to say, well, he was making, I was making my best effort. He was making his best effort. But what he said to me was, well, Ed, you're the only one at Zen Center who has that. Nobody else has that problem.

[10:54]

You're the only one, so it must be your problem and not mine. And I thought, oh, I have a problem. And it took me four years, four years later, I finally got up the nerve to say to him, you know, I've noticed other people at Zen Center have this problem too. And he said, well, I meant you're the only one of the senior people at Zen Center who has this problem. This sets up a different kind of relationship, and we're all in a certain kind of relationship or dynamic with each other, with our own body and mind, with the world. What are we telling? What are we saying? What have you done for me lately? You could do better. I don't like it when you get angry. You know, we say to her, it makes me mad, or when you're afraid.

[12:00]

How come you're so confused all the time? What's wrong with you anyway? There's also an expression in Zen, if you want to attain intimacy, don't ask for the question. And this is true, you know, we have to be a little bit careful about this kind of statement because there's a difference between how's it going, which is a kind of question, and why are you like that? What's wrong with you? So sometimes we have to listen then to what is it we're saying to ourself? How do we receive the world, and how do we appear in the world? And when we have a thankfulness, thank you for telling me, and we have a gratitude,

[13:08]

I'm making, and we can hear and see and appreciate the way that other people and things are making their best effort. Then we have some resonance with the world. And not only resonance, interestingly enough, but this becomes the basis for imperturbability. Because we can see and appreciate what's happening as part of big mind. And we know that there's no way to control big mind. We can have some gratitude and thankfulness for receiving the experience of this moment.

[14:09]

So, one time a monk asked the Zen master, Zao Zao, to whom does Buddha give passion? Passion in this sense is a word to cover afflictive emotions, greed, hate, lust, intense emotions that afflict perhaps us and then other people as well at times. To whom does Buddha give passion? And Zao Zao said, Buddha gives passion to everyone. And the monk said, how do we get rid of it? And Zao Zao said, why should we get rid of it? In this way, when we start to try to control our own mind and body or someone else,

[15:44]

we say, you know, you have to do something about that. You have to get rid of that. I don't want that around here. It doesn't mean we have to, but when we can appreciate them a little bit or have some gratitude or we're not immediately trying to get rid of something, this already sets up a tension in the situation. Suzuki Roshi used to call this kind of passion, mind waves. There are many waves or mind weeds. There are many waves and there are many weeds. And when you don't understand how to use them, how to make use of them, how to turn the weeds into compost, how the weeds will nourish your garden in the long run, if you can find out how to use it that way, you know, then pretty soon we're destroying our whole garden. Everything starts to look like a weed. There's no beauty left.

[16:55]

You know, so the third patriarch said to the fourth patriarch, how do I attain liberation? And the other way around, you know, young person asked the senior person, how do I attain liberation? And the senior person said, who is it who's binding you? All the time thoughts and feelings and sensations and experiences are coming up and then there's somebody who's going like, excuse me, but get it together. That's not good enough. I don't like that. You have to get rid of that. Don't tell me about that. Get out of here. And in this way, then our body and our being, we feel alienated and estranged from ourself because we've pushed ourself away and we've put ourself in a bind. I'd like to tell you what's going on, but I feel like when I do, you get mad at me. I want to let you know how I'm tired and how I ache. But all you tell me is like,

[18:05]

I need to have more energy. You know, so this way we put ourselves in binds. And then we wonder, how do I get liberated? And really we want to know, how do I have, you know, like limitless energy and how can I have a body and mind that doesn't experience anger or fear because I don't want those around? So then we ask the wrong question. You know, how do I get rid of this? Rather than, and you know, really the question could be, how can I appreciate this experience I'm having or how could I be grateful or thankful? And there's no answer to that. You know, how? The answer is just be grateful, just be thankful, just appreciate. And in this sense, you know, this is why we say practice, practice appreciating, practice being grateful, practice being thankful.

[19:07]

One of the ways, you know, of course, in particular that we, that we practice gratitude is by bowing. Bowing in some ways, it looks or seems from the outside kind of strange perhaps, but there's something about bringing your hands together and tilting your head to the side, your body, that elicits gratitude. It's very mysterious. And then you can say, well, what is there to be grateful for? But already it's there. So Suzuki Roshi would say that bowing is to receive and respect each thing as it is. Then Buddha bows to Buddha and you bow to yourself.

[20:19]

Each of us has experiences, you know, and then we wonder, sometimes other people say, well, that's not, that's not worthwhile enough. And sometimes we say about our own experience, it's not worth much. And so if we say it's not worth much, we're not bowing to our experience when we say it's not worth much. You know, so even the heartache and the grief and the sorrow is something to bow to. And when we bow to it, this is how we heal and how we become intimate with ourself and how we become imperturbable. Even though at the same time, it may seem we're quite upset. In this sense, you know, we don't have to be upset about being upset.

[21:23]

Right? So in some ways, you know, so in some ways, gratitude is a kind of doorway, entryway into our experience, into the depths of our life, into our inner being. It's also a kind of doorway into connectedness with others, connectedness with the world.

[22:27]

We stop holding out for more and holding out for better. Our heart and our being softens so we can receive, appear and receive, give and receive. And we're connected then. All the time, of course, we're connected, but when we don't have gratitude or thankfulness, we feel disconnected oftentimes. Dogen Zenji in the Vendawa says the following. Grasses, trees and the land all emit a bright and shining light and preach the profound and incomprehensible Dharma. And it is endless.

[23:31]

Trees and grasses, wall and fence, all expound and exalt the Dharma for ordinary people, sages and living beings. Ordinary people, sages and living beings in turn exalt and expound the Dharma for trees and grasses, wall and fence. This principle of realization functions ceaselessly. There's implicitly a kind of gratitude in that, I would say, a kind of thankfulness, which is the connective kind of tissue for all of this.

[24:41]

Sometimes, probably, there's some element of forgiveness involved in order to have gratitude, to connect with something, to receive something, the trees and grasses, the wall and fence, the fear or anger, the thoughts, the feelings, sensations. Sometimes, there's an element of forgiveness that's necessary. Traditionally, one might say, however others have harmed me or hurt me, intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously, I forgive them. And whatever I have done to harm or hurt others, consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally, may I be forgiven.

[25:51]

As much as anything, you know, mostly it's to forgive ourself. You know, many times we couldn't. You know, we were small or we were stupid. You know, we were making our best effort. It wasn't good enough in some ways. Even though we were making a sincere, careful, a sincere effort, something went wrong. We were hurt or we hurt someone. So, to forgive is to allow ourselves to feel some gratitude and thankfulness for having made our best effort, that others are making their best effort to be able to hear and receive again and to be able to give again.

[27:04]

So, Buddhism teaches that right now already we live in the midst of realization, where there is this connectedness. There's a bright, the grasses and trees, the land are emitting a bright and shining light. Each of us is emitting a bright and shining light. And oftentimes it's kind of obscured, wouldn't you say? But when we touch things carefully with our awareness, we can receive and know the bright and shining light. I was at, for a while yesterday I went to a workshop on, the Zen Center Hospice had a workshop given by Marian Rosen, who does this Rosen work. It's kind of so-called body work.

[28:27]

It was a benefit for the Zen Center Hospice. And it's very simple. They described their work as being low tech. So, we did a little exercise in the morning where we were in partners. We had to find a partner. And then one person would sit down and the other person would either stand or sit behind them and then we'd put our hands on the other person's shoulder. And you don't exactly, you're not supposed to do anything. You practice receiving with your hands. You don't practice like, here, let me straighten this out for you. Let me make this better. Let me fix this. You know, let me get rid of this ache for you. Just have your hands there receiving. And interestingly enough, people, you know, most of the time notice, they get,

[29:34]

they start to relax and feel warm and ease. And it's because somebody sees you. Somebody receives you. And when you're seen and received and met, then you feel, oh, thank God, what a relief. And then your body relaxes and then people's shoulders go down, you know, one, two inches. And then pretty soon the hands are not at the surface anymore, but the hands somehow are connecting and sometimes feeling then the bright and shining light. And so you notice that when you can be with something and receive something that carefully, not trying to fix it, not trying to make it better. And if you feel fear, you just feel fear. You can feel someone's guardedness or someone's tightness, someone's edginess.

[30:44]

You can feel that. And then when you feel it and receive it, then somebody else relaxes. The other person relaxes. Because why one is guarded is because someone's going to say, oh, God, you're afraid. Then, of course, you're afraid. All the more so. But that's the way we are with ourself too. In meditation, we're trying to learn how to receive ourselves, touch ourself so we don't put ourself off. The woman, I had my hands on a woman and then at one point we were invited to say something, either the person sitting or the person with their hands on the other person. And she said, I'm really surprised because I feel so comfortable and so relaxed and peaceful being touched by a stranger. And not only that, a man.

[31:48]

And I said, I only look like a man. Because when you feel somebody's shoulders like that, you don't feel a man or a woman. You feel living, breathing sensations. You don't feel that. When somebody's hands are on your shoulders, that's the point. She felt so comfortable because it wasn't a man touching her. She had to think and remember, oh, it's a man touching me, but I feel this other way. That's because she doesn't feel as though a man is touching her. She feels some warmth, something receiving her, something being grateful to be with her.

[32:54]

Something, someone, awareness, giving her attention. So we can do this for ourselves and we can do this for one another to touch something, receive something, and appreciate and be grateful for our experience and for other people in our life. For the grasses and the trees, the wall and the fences. As Suzuki Roshi said, and this is not just Suzuki Roshi, but Buddhism, there's no nirvana outside of our practice. He said our practice, but we could also say there's no nirvana outside of the experience,

[33:59]

the everyday experience we're having. And nirvana is in this touching something and receiving something, connecting with something, with the gratitude or thankfulness with some warm heartedness, hearing, receiving this sense of, I'm making my best effort. Thank you for telling me. One has to set aside the standards, the high standards one has for oneself and for someone else. And be able to receive in the moment, the experience of the moment. To bow to the experience of the moment. I'd like to close with a brief meditation.

[35:07]

I'm sorry. I want to close with a brief meditation, which to me has a little bit of this quality of gratitude or thankfulness in it. It's based on a meditation taught by Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen teacher who was visiting here recently. Sometimes at the retreats I've been to with him, sometime in the afternoon, we will do a meditation like this. Silence. Inhaling.

[36:28]

I am aware of my eyes. Exhaling, I smile at my eyes. My eyes see pleasant and unpleasant things. I smile at my capacity to see. Inhaling, I am aware of my eyes. Exhaling, I soften and relax my eyes.

[37:31]

Inhaling, I am aware of my nose. Exhaling, I smile at my nose. My nose smells pleasant and unpleasant smells. I smile at my capacity to smell. Inhaling, I am aware of my ears. Exhaling, I smile at my ears. My ears bring me good news and bad. I smile at my capacity to hear.

[38:39]

Inhaling, I am aware of my mouth. Exhaling, I smile at my mouth. My mouth lets me taste good things, pleasant and unpleasant. I smile at my ability to taste. Inhaling, I am aware of my sense of touch. Exhaling, I smile at my sense of touch. All of my senses, my body, are making their best effort.

[40:07]

I smile at my mind, at my body, making its best effort. Inhaling, I am aware of my thinking. Exhaling, I smile at my thinking. I think positive things, negative things. There are thoughts of praise, thoughts of blame. I smile at my thinking, my capacity to think. Inhaling, I may be aware of a feeling, anger, boredom, sorrow, sadness, fear.

[41:21]

Exhaling, I smile at my feeling. My feeling smiles back at me, appreciating that I can know it, receive it, allow it to be. Inhaling, I am aware of my heart. Exhaling, I smile at my heart. My heart, which carries the whole world, all the joys and sorrows.

[42:27]

I smile at my heart, doing its best, making its best effort. Inhaling, I'm aware of my heart. Exhaling, I'm grateful for my heart. Even though sometimes things are difficult and painful and don't work out, I can appreciate my basic good-heartedness. I smile at my good-heartedness.

[43:31]

Inhaling, I'm aware of my stomach. Exhaling, I smile at my stomach. My stomach digests things, good things and bad things, receiving the world, digesting the world, providing nourishment. I smile at my stomach that works so hard for my well-being. Inhaling, I'm aware of my liver. Exhaling, I smile at my liver,

[44:52]

purifying the blood, supporting me, carrying me, sustaining me. I feel grateful for my liver. Inhaling, I'm aware of my body. Exhaling, I smile at my body. My body which can ache and hurt, feel joys and sorrows, pains and pleasures.

[45:55]

I'm grateful and appreciative for my body, making its best effort. I'd like to wish you all happiness and thankfulness. May all beings be happy and healthy on Thanksgiving. By the way, you might have heard it on NPR the other day.

[47:16]

There was someone on explaining now they've done scientific studies that show that prayer is effective. And that prayer works. And that they also studied, they found out it doesn't depend, prayer works independent of the denominational, the religious framework. So you can be a Buddhist and pray, and it's as effective as being a Christian and praying. You don't need to be praying to God. It doesn't matter who or what you pray to. If you pray, it works. And they've done not only tests with people, sometimes who knew they were being prayed for, and then sometimes they didn't know they were being prayed for. And then they've tested like white blood counts or whatever. They test these various things that are supposed to be signs of health. And the people who are prayed for do better than the people who aren't prayed for.

[48:18]

Isn't it wonderful? And they also did like trays of bacteria. Then they have the control group, and then somebody praying for the bacteria, and then somebody praying against the bacteria. And the bacteria that's prayed for does better than the bacteria that's not prayed for. And the bacteria that's prayed against does the worst. And so they said this doesn't depend on your religious orientation. It depends on the power of your prayer. And they also found then that people who have developed the capacity to pray, their prayers are more effective. You know, the people who have actually devoted themselves to prayer over time, their prayers are more powerful and have a bigger effect than someone who is just, who is unpracticed at prayer.

[49:26]

So even scientifically now, I think, you know, maybe most of you or some of you at least probably had some sense of the meditation we just did of a kind of thankfulness or this capacity of a kind of prayer to affect how you feel and your sense of well-being. But this is not just something we make up. I mean, anyway, maybe it is just something we make up, but the fact that we can make it up actually works. All right, well, thank you. Intention. That helped, didn't it? I don't know why I feel a bit of dizziness.

[50:30]

All right. Good morning. Once again. Linda told me, she said, I like smiling at my liver.

[52:19]

I sort of shortened it. I mean, there's innumerable things, you know, to be smiled at. I was kind of leaving something to your own imagination. Praying for something. Did you hear that? She said she liked the idea of praying for and against something, and she was praying that she could make it to the bathroom in time. And it worked. It did work. Yes? Yeah. You mean the one that's prayed for, the one that's not prayed for,

[53:34]

and the one that's prayed against. Being prayed for. Well, scientifically, I don't know that that's been determined, but that seems to be an effect of what happened, yeah. They felt the kind of buoyancy or well-being from that, and manifested. Yeah. And I don't get that, because if you're praying for someone who's sick, wouldn't their disease kind of prosper? And also, why would you pray against something? I think that's just something they do in scientific things. Oh, I see. Yeah? You have your hand on the wall there.

[54:37]

That's not because you want to say something, right? Yes? Other than metta, is there other forms of Buddhist prayer? Or what is the Buddhist approach to prayer other than metta? Are you all familiar with metta? Metta is loving-kindness meditation. So you start by, traditionally, traditionally you start with wishing happiness and well-being for yourself. And then, but, you know, for some of us that's kind of hard, so we might have to start with someone else. Or the bacteria. My understanding in Zen is that the prayer is very much connected with one's deep wish or pure intention.

[55:39]

So that very much is like metta. May I be happy. May I not cause suffering to others needlessly. May I realize my own true nature. And it made a difference for me, certainly, when I thought about really acknowledging my own wish to be happy, which is different than, which is different than whether things go your way or not. Because I think, actually, for a long time in practicing, I thought I would get more things to go my way, which didn't seem to be working, and then consequently I was unhappy. And when I decided that I wanted to be happy, and that that was more important than getting my way, then I became a little happier. So anyway, I think, I don't know specifically,

[56:58]

but to me loving-kindness, the practice of a loving-kindness meditation, all these things, like I was trying to say today, the gratitude or loving-kindness is something that can be a kind of a doorway or a gate into something, but it's also something that should be, you know, come out of or be a result of doing practice. But sometimes we forget. We get involved in other aspects of practice, and then the gratitude or the well-being or the happiness doesn't come because we think it's important to sit still for 40 minutes. And that would be a great accomplishment. And then I could be proud of that. Or I could do a week's meditation. Or I could do this, or I could do that. And so sometimes we're practicing and we forget about the being happy or grateful or that sort of thing. So that's why I say I think it's important to acknowledge that kind of wish or intention. But then I feel then, from that point of view, any number of expressions could come, any number of prayers can come out of that.

[58:01]

At some point, whether it's Tibetan or to some extent here, when we chant in the morning, we have a dedication after we chant, and we wish for peace and harmony of all beings and for the world. And we would like to think or pray or wish that what we're doing here in our life is affecting positively or beneficially beings everywhere, and the whole world and so on. So we express that now and again in an actual verbal kind of expression. And in a way, the Zen tradition probably... Well, I don't know, really, because I'm not that familiar with what Zen is traditionally. I've ended up being this sort of American Zen person. We may have gotten, you know, part of the package, all of the package.

[59:03]

But I was going to say that, on one hand, we have this certain kind of expression of kind of a prayer or wish for peace in the world, for our own harmony and well-being. And then at the same time, a certain amount of our prayer is a kind of wordless kind of prayer, just in the fact of relating to our experience the way I was talking about today, of meeting things or having a cup of tea, and being aware and mindful and appreciative, grateful. And then that in itself is a kind of prayer. We also tend to... It's interesting, I had heard that before, you know, like about food. It does seem useful to say something before you eat. Water, apparently, is quite sensitive to what people are thinking. So if you...

[60:06]

The simple verse that I say now, which is one that we sort of made up, is we venerate all the great teachers and give thanks for this food, the work of many people, the offering of other forms of life. And it... You know, this actually seems to, or can... We don't know exactly, but it seems to... Water is said to be very sensitive, just in the way that prayers are sensitive. I mean, the prayers affect and manifest. So we can also do that. It's a kind of prayer. We don't usually speak of things being prayers, but I use that. So in that sense, the Zen tradition that I'm familiar with, we're more likely to see it as acknowledging our most deep or most intimate wish. And then verbalizing that, expressing that.

[61:10]

May I be happy, may I be healthy. Sometimes for me that's... And then that can take various kinds of expressions. May I... I'd like to feel safe and secure, or I'd like it to be okay for me to be me. So, to me that's very... That's a kind of a wish, that's a kind of a prayer. And then something comes out of that that's very mysterious. We don't know exactly how these things work. But it seems important to acknowledge one's inmost request. Yes. Would you say that Zazen is for... ... Well, I... Yes, I would say so. And yet, at the same time, obviously it's not prayer in as specific a sense as a particular verbalization.

[62:21]

But one is... One is by sitting and receiving one's experience, allowing one's deep wish to come forward, and allowing one's being to manifest fully. And so it is... It can certainly be seen as an expression of prayer, a way to pray. If you were talking to a Christian person, then they... That's sometimes... It's interesting because a lot of people... Well, not a lot... Well, a number of Christian traditions now do Zazen, and they like that very much. There's Catholics who have monasteries in Japan doing Zen, and they have mass and so on. Other Christians don't like that. I talked to the mother of a Zen student one time in Georgia, and she was worried about her son and his wayward ways. And I said, well, there are these Catholics doing Zen in Japan. And she said, Mr. Brown, we're not that kind of Catholic. And recently, you know, in the Oroville School District, somewhere up by Yuba City or Oroville,

[63:32]

there was a woman who was quite upset about the students being taught yoga in one of the classes. And so they had to stop doing yoga in the school because she thought it was a religious activity. And then I heard after I was telling that to somebody else, they said that even to... that another school district, even to tell the students to, let's take a minute to stabilize ourselves, to sit still and calmly and, you know, come into the present moment or something like this, they had to stop doing that because that was considered like... Well, if you don't let in the Christian prayers, you certainly can't let that in. So it... for those people, I wouldn't want to say that Zazen is a kind of prayer. But obviously it is, or, you know, we wouldn't... people wouldn't get so sensitive to it. I don't know. Who knows? Anyway, I feel that way, certainly.

[64:33]

Yes. Can you pray for things in heaven? If that was prayer for things or a thing, something that you know, or something that you know? Well, in a... in a wide sense, I would say yes. Because in the sense that... that all of our practice, in a certain way, is coming out of our deep wish, our deep intention, or coming out of our best effort. So to... and in a way, we are... again, you know, partly it's just linguistic, right? Maybe prayer is not the right word for this, right? But in the sense that our capacity to receive things and be with things allows things to,

[65:43]

we would say, to come to their own fruition and their own fullness. Then this is something that comes out of our effort to be with things in a way that they can express themselves fully. As opposed to our thinking that... always this is in some kind of interactive dynamic, but... as opposed to the sort of sense of, I'm going to decide what happens to everything. And I want this to... you know, there is that expression in the Genjo Koan, I'm sorry if I'm being inarticulate, there is that expression in the Genjo Koan, weeds flourish with our... flowers fall with our attachment, weeds flourish with our detachment. You know, in spite of our loving certain things, they wilt. And in spite of our hating other things, they flourish. So... so much... so that's not what I'm talking about when I say prayer.

[66:47]

It doesn't mean the flowers last longer and the weeds don't come up. So... But I do feel that in some sense that we have a fundamental wish to be able to appreciate both the weeds and the flowers. I think we have that kind of fundamental wish. To be able to somehow meet each of the kinds of experiences that come up in our life. And then our capacity to do that brings forth gratitude and thankfulness and respect and a kind of well-being in our life and in other people's life. And, you know, I'll give you another kind of example of this. The first time I met Suzuki Roshi, I had gone to Zazen and then afterwards, after Zazen and service, we would walk out through his office. And each of us would bow to him. And he would bow to each of us in turn.

[67:48]

And at that time I was 20 years old and I wondered, what's he going to think of me? Will he like me? And I bowed and then I looked up and he didn't seem to be thinking a thing. There wasn't a sign of liking or disliking or approval or disapproval. And, you know, years later, I read in Dogen, he says, to be unstained is to meet somebody for the first time and not think about whether you like them or not. And he seemed to have that quality and that sense of this kind of unstained mind. It could receive me or anybody else without approving or disapproving. And there's a kind of a relief there for me to be received like that.

[68:52]

And at the same time, I didn't feel, sometimes when somebody is sort of impassive, you feel like they're withholding something. They're withholding their judgment or they're holding you at a distance. And I didn't feel that with him, though. I felt like I could be however I was. It was okay. And many people said that about him, that it was as though he could see right through you. And it was okay. And most days we worry about, like, maybe I better conceal something. And that kind of concealing something means that we end up hiding. And physically, you know, I was at this massage thing yesterday and they said, you seem to be hiding something. They were commenting on the fact, you know, that my chest is a little bit this way. My shoulder is a little bit rounded forward. The chest is a little collapsed. I concentrate all the time in sitting, you know, lift the chest a little bit.

[69:56]

So they say, you seem to be hiding something. Well, yeah, I'm sorry. And for that to be, to stop hiding, something has to receive us. Something has to meet us, be able to meet us. And we have to feel safe enough to be met. And that's something, you know, if we're fortunate, we meet somebody who helps us do that. But we're also working on developing our own awareness so that we can receive our own experience. In that kind of way. And when we can receive ourself that way, then we can stop hiding. And our well-being, our, you know, what Kadagiris used to call the flower of the life force. Let the flower of your life force bloom. And then the flower of our life force can bloom. So in that sense, we're not praying for a specific kind of blossoming. But we are trying to receive and experience things in a way that allows things to become our own mind and body.

[71:00]

And being to express itself and to come to a kind of fruition in the world. And in the context and circumstances of our life. To flower forth in some way. And if it's appropriate or it's useful to call that prayer. Then okay, if that's not exactly what prayer is, fine. You know, then set aside the designation prayer. But that's what I'm trying to get at. Not specifically in that sense. Well, yes and no. Because on one hand, there's the aspect of not doing and allowing and receiving. And then on the other hand, it's... So we say in that sense, there's this expression, form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

[72:02]

So on one hand, we're just receiving form. Receiving experiences and allowing them to touch us. And because we receive things, things can... We have a kind of imperturbability or well-being because of our capacity to receive. At the same time, it's very clear that we have to do something in our life. We can't sit around and we don't just sit around all the time just receiving experience. Sometimes we get up and we do this and we do that. And we say things and we do things. So that's all manifestations of mind. And so, yes, we are manifesting and using mind to manifest and to express and to act and to do. And that's perfectly appropriate. Now, one of the stories I like about that is at the end of the Genjo Koan,

[73:05]

the monk says to the teacher, Master, the nature of the wind is permanent and there's no place it doesn't reach. Why are you fanning yourself? And the master says, well, you understand about the nature of wind reaching everywhere, about the nature of the wind being permanent, but you don't understand about its reaching everywhere. And the monk says, what is the meaning of its reaching everywhere? And the master fans himself. And the monk bowed, which is also the wind reaching everywhere. So if you say, and sometimes we say, like Zen Master Tosan was asked, what about the extremes of hot and cold? How do we avoid them? And he said, when it's hot, be hot. Or literally, when it's hot, kill the heat. What's wrong with hot? Isn't that already the Buddha Dharma? Shouldn't you be grateful for that?

[74:07]

What about having some thankfulness for the heat? Zen Master said, the benefits of living in the monastery are heat in the summer and cold in the winter. Learn to appreciate that. And we sometimes often have to practice in order to appreciate heat and cold, heat in the summer and cold in the winter. And what about Jaojo saying, why should we get rid of the passions? And here's a master and he's sort of like, to heck with that, I'm fanning myself. So is there some problem about that? He says, no, that's also the nature of the wind, the Dharma, the spirit, the fundamental Buddha nature reaching everywhere. My activity is also an expression of Dharma. My intention is also an expression of Dharma. My wish is also an expression of Dharma. So if we just, when we just take the other side of it,

[75:08]

then we put ourselves into a kind of bind of not acting, not doing, so on. In the world, the lack, the limitation, the sickness, the conflict, the war, the crime, this is all an expression of Dharma. Yes. And it doesn't mean we shouldn't do something about it or, you know, work on it. I mean, somehow what that means is, you know, to say an expression of Dharma is to say that, in a certain sense, you know, all of the language is language for a particular sickness. And so we're trying to use language to address particular sicknesses. So one of our sicknesses is, for instance, one of our sicknesses is, well, I'll go to the monastery and I'm going to meditate,

[76:15]

and I'm going to be spiritual and I won't deal with that other stuff. So sometimes you have to say to someone, that other stuff is equally Dharma, that other stuff is equally your work, is equally our place of practice, our meditation hall. All those things in the world. Is the world out there? I don't, I... Hmm, wonderful, well... Um, you know, I like to think so. But I'm afraid it's not the case. I think that means... I think so. That means separation.

[77:19]

Yeah, yeah, then that's separation. Cognate. Yes. I want to go back to, um, you were talking about being able to use, for the first time, to have a formula like or just like. That's really, that's such a powerful thing to be able to do. I don't know how to explain that. But I wonder... But I wonder how you could extend that. Say you have a person who is in that state, how do you extend how he or she, what's the nature of their relationship to the people that they do love? I'm not sure that I think of this very well, but how you can move to a world without saying, I like this person, I don't like this person.

[78:21]

How does that translate to a relationship, where you do love a person? Well, yeah, you do love a person and yet there's some things they're doing which you like and some things they do which you don't like. And somehow we're working on how to receive all those experiences, so that we can actually be with somebody and to actually love somebody is actually to receive the experiences that we don't like as well as the ones that we like. That's part of our loving them, is that we're willing to endure that and be with the person, you know, for better or worse, as it were. That's good, I like that. Why would you love one person more than another? Well, usually it's just the nature of, there's no explaining that.

[79:25]

It's just mysterious, that's the way it is. In fact, we like things, you know, one person more than another. So, in effect, both dynamics are going on. And the fact that we like somebody more than somebody else means that with that person we are, you know, we are, in this kind of context anyway, because we like somebody, then we learn how to, with that person we're willing to learn how to receive, you know, learn how to be with somebody over time and have good experiences and bad and then learn, you know, to reveal ourselves, to be revealed, you know, to allow the other person to reveal themselves. And we do that with somebody, we tend to do that with somebody we like and the more we can do that with somebody we like or have some feeling of wanting to do that with, then we can do that with other people too. I'm going to try and catch you in some kind of semantic contradiction.

[80:32]

I'm just trying to understand how you can take a speech of non-judgmental qualities and how that would be like as far as relationships with people that are close to you. Well, it comes and goes, you know, because sometimes the person who is close to you then is exactly the person that you can't do that with. You know, if somebody else criticizes you, you can, you know, say, you can say, like, they're making their best effort and thank you very much. But then the person who loves you or you love, then if they are critical, then you're sort of like, excuse me, but you're too close to be that critical. You know, and it's because of the closeness we feel even then more sensitive to the negativity that might be there. If it's somebody further away, so it works both ways. Sometimes we learn to receive negativity or criticism

[81:34]

or volatile emotions with people we aren't so close with, and people we are close with, we don't do that with, and then it can also be the other way around. We reveal ourselves to the person that we're intimate with. That's the direction of intimacy, is to be more revealing. And so sometimes we are worse with the person we love. And they're at their worst, but that's because we want to be revealed. We don't want to keep hiding. We digest what has been unrevealed, and we digest that and absorb that into our life, and over time anyway, hopefully, so to speak, we become a bigger person for it. But it happens because we can reveal ourselves in a sometimes awkward or clumsy way. I don't know if this is addressing any more your question than it was before, but I'm trying. Yeah. My favorite story about this

[82:41]

was a very important experience to me. And I've talked about this in a lecture here some time ago, but when I was at Tassajara, we used to serve in the meditation hall, and I would serve Suzuki Roshi, and I'd be very careful and try not to spill anything. And then once I was done with him, I'd try to get down the row as fast as possible, because Zen, I had heard, was being energetic and quick. And so then every person after that, I wondered, like, well, can't you get your bowl out here faster? You're slowing me down. And I didn't care much about... And then some people are going, like, well, could I have a little bit more? And I'd say, like, well, I've got to get to the next person. But I had a particular agenda of getting down the row, and everybody was getting in my way. And I wasn't receiving anybody there.

[83:44]

I just wanted them to help me get down the row. And one day it occurred to me, like, well, what's the difference between Suzuki Roshi? Which is exactly your question. Is there any real difference between Suzuki Roshi and anybody else? And I decided, no. So how do you treat anybody in the world? So why don't I treat everybody like Suzuki Roshi? Why don't I try to serve everybody that carefully? Because at some level in their being, there is somebody worthy of respect, worthy of appreciation, worthy of careful attention. And each person at some level in their being is worthy of being served. Oh, well, sure, you can overdo anything. And, you know, partly it's a question of, like, what is actually serving somebody, and what is being a slave, and so on.

[84:44]

So, sure, we can overdo any number of things. That's why I say, you know, you have to take the teaching in a particular context. This doesn't mean to abandon common sense, or abandon your own feeling, or, you know, abandon your own understanding. You're trying to practice the teaching, and without, it doesn't mean you abandon your sensibility. Yes? Is there a reference somewhere in the Buddhist writings that would differentiate between love and addiction? Hmm. Well, the love and addiction is not, you know, it's not the language of Buddhism. So you kind of have to read into it. I do want to say that,

[85:49]

you know, I don't have the feeling that there's any I want to say something about attaining a particular state, or capacity, or something. I don't know that we ever, you know, attain something like that, you know. I was just talking to David Chadwick recently, and David has been started, you know, he wants to do a book about Suzuki Roshi, and so he was interviewing, like, Suzuki Roshi's wife, who moved back to Japan this last few weeks ago. And before she left, David talked to her for some time, and she said, well, Suzuki Roshi never talked to me. And she said, so she asked him sometime, well, why don't you talk to me? And, because she was just being a Japanese wife. She would describe sometimes how being a Japanese wife is

[86:55]

all the time you just think about him. Should I open the window? Should I close it? Is he warm? Is he cold? Does he need slippers? Would he like some tea? Now that he's had tea, should he have some food? And so forth. I don't know, which hair is that? I don't know. Anyway, I just, you know, these kind of questions, I mean, there's always some question, you know, which is love, which is addiction? Which is treating everybody as Suzuki Roshi, and which is being taken? Taken advantage of? Which is honoring people, and which is being stepped on?

[88:00]

And, yeah, we have to keep figuring that out. And, at the same time, if we say, well, I'm not going to forgive, because, you know, that would be admitting, that would be saying that it was okay, that would be condoning. So, I'm not going to forgive, because that would be condoning. Well, that's the kind of study we're doing all the time. What would it be? Which is which? If you're all the time going to hold out your forgiveness, because that would be condoning, and that would be, I need to hold it against them, then your body is always tight. And even if you forgive only for a moment, but there, you know, at some point in our life, even for a few moments, we forgive, or we relax, or we soften. That's important.

[89:03]

And it doesn't mean, like, the next time I'm in that situation, I'm going to allow myself to be stepped on the same way I was. I also have to forgive myself for having allowed somebody to step on me. For not knowing any better, I have to forgive myself for that. That's important to me. But all the time, so we're struggling with these, you know, which is which sort of things. And so at some point, there is this real question of what's the appropriate teaching for this situation? And the idea, in a certain sense, the idea in practice is that one should have a variety of repertoires of what is the appropriate activity, appropriate response, appropriate teaching for the situation, rather than thinking, my way is the right way, the way I've always done it. So in that sense, we describe Buddhism as, you know, we can't know.

[90:05]

We're just, we feel our way along in the dark, and we're forgiving, we have gratitude, we hold something against somebody, we get mad at somebody, and all the time we're trying to find our way. We don't know which is the right way exactly, and we're still trying to find it. And then we find out that this worked, and this didn't work, and this works under this circumstance, and this seemed to be, you know, under this circumstance, wasn't so good. So in that sense, we find our way along. And one of my favorite expressions, then, is the Zen teacher who said, awkward in a hundred ways, clumsy in a thousand, still I go on. And we like to think that there's some, you know, Zen teaching, Zen great, you know, like, we would know what to do. We would know when to forgive. You know, we would know when to hold them, and when to fold them. When to walk away,

[91:09]

and as David Letterman said the other night, you know, and somehow, what we're trying to find is, in all of this, is, you know, what in our own heart, what in our own heart is love? What in our own heart is attachment? You know, what's what? We're trying to find out what's what, and to be able to know our heart, and to do that, we have to be able to listen, and receive ourselves. We have to be able to touch things and experience things. You know, even though it might be an ache, it's a pain, it's still like something saying, I'm making my best effort. And if we just say, I don't want tiredness, I don't want fatigue, I don't want tension, I don't want anger, go away, then we're not receiving something. We're not experiencing intimacy with ourself,

[92:13]

and we won't, you know, over time, be finding out our own heart. As we receive things, then we find out our own heart, and we know what the messages are. We understand what the message is, which is love, and which is, you know, stupidity. And we know that because we've made these various mistakes along the way. And then we can make more of them. But we're finding out in that sense, and we know, and we don't know, and we're feeling our way along, and sometimes it works pretty well, and sometimes it doesn't. And that's all, then all of that needs to be in some context of a kind of gratitude or thankfulness. Otherwise, you know, where do we start? Let's start without the gratitude or thankfulness otherwise. Yes? This is a book called Shantideva, and it's called The Guide to the Bodhisattva's Great Life.

[93:16]

And the first time I read that book, I thought, this is wonderful. I actually read it in Asia, in an environment where I think that there were less human rights, like, less individual rights, and there was more of a sense of community of giving in the first place. So it felt like very natural to me. It was very appropriate. I came to California, and...

[93:41]

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