Recently, I've had the opportunity several times to speak with a friend of mine, Daniel Barnes. Daniel's been organizing a benefit for Spirit Rock Scholarship Fund, and I agreed to organize the cooking for the dinner. So since he's organizing it, and since I'm doing the cooking, we talk on the phone now and again about the menu, and who's working with who, and so on, all the plans. And whenever I call him or he calls me, I say, how are you? And he says, I'm fine. I'm quite well. The body is not so good. Daniel is paralyzed and rides around in a little chair, and he has a special van.

[01:02]

So he gets around pretty well, but he has certain physical problems that nothing can be done about, really. Anyway, he's had various sores lately, and he has to stay home more than usual. But it's always striking to me the way he says, the body's not so good, I'm fine. It's pretty easy to identify with the body as being me, and to think, oh, I'm not so good now. My feet. And he always says, the body. He doesn't say, my body. He says, the body is not so good. His feet have sores that keep coming open, and they never seem to heal. And so on. Anyway. I'll spare you the details. And in the same way that we mostly identify with our body, someone asks, how are you?

[02:19]

And I'm usually tempted to say then, oh, not so good. I'm feeling fragile lately, and irritable, or what have you. And instead of saying, well, my emotional life, the emotional life, the emotional life seems to have its ups and downs, and I'm fine, thank you. It's pretty easy to identify me, or how I'm doing with how my emotions, what the current emotions are. Or what I've just accomplished, or haven't accomplished, we can say, well, I'm doing well. I just accomplished this, or I'm not doing so well. I haven't gotten this other thing done. And Daniel's always so cheerful about it somehow.

[03:22]

I don't understand. Maybe there's something to be said for being handicapped, like we all are. And then he says, you know, I would really like it if my body would heal, and I'd have at least the illusion of a little more continuity, and the illusion of togetherness and wholesomeness. I'd like that illusion a little more often. That would be nice, huh? But he's pretty accepting of how it is. He said it was a very important experience for him when, after he'd gotten out of the hospital, he'd been in the hospital after he was paralyzed for a year or so, and he finally came home, and his friends were helping to take care of him, and then at one point

[04:23]

they all went outside swimming, and he was taking a nap or something, and he woke up, and there were ants all over his body, and he couldn't do anything. And he had to, you know, that not being able to do anything, and yet surviving that, and having to experience that, letting go of me, I, my body, my experience, this is me, this is happening to me, it was very powerful for him. We never quite know what will be that powerful in our life. We keep looking for the wonderful things to happen that will make all the difference in our life, and often it's actually these times of complete vulnerability and fragility and not being able to do anything when we realize something about the truth, and that I am not

[05:24]

my body, my body is not me, I am not my emotions, my emotions are not me, I'm not my thinking, my thinking is not me, and my body is not mine, my thoughts are not mine. Oh, there's no way that I could actually own them and boss them around. And this is, you know, can be very humiliating or it can be very liberating, we never quite know, or both, yeah. Years ago at Tassajara, when I first became a cook, I asked Suzuki Roshi for advice, what shall I do? And he said, when you wash the rice, wash the rice.

[06:25]

When you cut the carrots, cut the carrots. When you stir the soup, stir the soup. I thought that was interesting, I was kind of looking for some kind of advice like, you know, be patient, or something like that. It was so poetic, and it was nice, poetic, Zen is like that sometimes. So I appreciated that, and I worked pretty hard on that, but it was also interesting to me, like he didn't say anything about what to cook or what not to cook. When I got to Tassajara, this was in 1967, and people who had been living there all winter, they said, but we don't use salt. I thought, uh-oh, what am I going to do, not being able to use salt? So I had also, when I asked Suzuki Roshi for advice, I said, you know, they told me that they don't use salt here, what am I supposed to do anyway?

[07:26]

And he said, you're the cook. There's something to be said sometimes, you see, for hierarchical structures. You're the cook, if you want to use salt, use some salt. But nowadays, you know, the people come to the cook, and over the years it's been various things, you know. In those days, it was also like, we don't want sugar, we don't want anything sweet, and now it's, you know, and then we want more protein, we want less protein, we want more dairy products, we want less dairy products, now it's, you know, no fat. And in the Buddhist sutras, it says, no onions, don't use any onions or garlic, like, uh-oh. And so I asked Suzuki Roshi about that, too, I wanted to check on that one, too.

[08:33]

Because, you know, there are all these theories, like, why does it say that in the Buddhist sutras, and some people say onions and garlic are sexually stimulating. I mean, how would I know? But you know, some people say this, and now I know in Chinese medicine, onions and garlic are connected to liver function, which has something to do with sexual function, but anyway, set that aside. But he said, oh, that's just because of the smell. And in the old days, you know, people didn't bathe as much, and then there are all these smells and odors around, and then onions and garlic offend, the smell offends some people, so historically, people tried not to have the smell of onions and garlic lingering in the meditation hall. So, he said, go ahead and use them, so I checked that out. But I worked very hard on, you know, trying to do what I was doing, washing the rice when

[09:45]

I washed the rice, and of course, after a while, I noticed that other people weren't doing it as well as I was. You know, you get involved in spiritual practice, and some of these old habits kind of come along with you, you know, like I'm more spiritual than you are, which is a really spiritual attitude, you know, to have. Over the years, though, I've come to appreciate this kind of advice, and more recently I came across a story, Taigen, Dan Layton, has translated some pieces by Dogen, which will be coming out in a book sometime, he's sending it to the final copy to the publisher very soon.

[10:51]

And there was a story in there that struck me. The director of a monastery, Yang Chu, studied with this teacher, Shi Shuang, and he went to his abbot for advice, and he said, you know, please give me some teaching. And the abbot said, please attend to the profusion of your affairs. And the director went away, and he used to go back every now and again and say, would you give me some teaching now? And the abbot, whenever he asked for some teaching, he would say, please take care of your affairs, the affairs of being the director. And one time he said, when the director didn't seem to be too satisfied with this, he said, you know, in the future your descendants will spread far and wide. Why be in such a hurry? Finally, after, I don't know, two or three years of this, the director, his abbot used

[12:00]

to go, listen to that, where did I go? His abbot used to leave the temple sometimes and visit a woman who lived nearby, one of those old wise women that appear every so often in Zen stories. So one day it was raining, and the abbot came out of his quarters to go, to walk over to visit. And the director met him on the muddy path, said, you know, I've been asking you for teaching now for a couple of years, and you've never told me anything. Now if you don't tell me something, I'm going to beat you. That's the Zen spirit, right? Getting to the truth at any cost. Try it.

[13:07]

Okay, hey, Jerry will just sit there and hold on to the connections together. So the abbot of the temple at that time said to the director, you already know this, you already know this affair. And even before he finished the words, the director had a great awakening, and right there on the muddy path knelt down to his abbot, you already understand this. And he bowed in the muddy path, and he stood up and then he said, when we meet like this on the muddy path, how is it? And the abbot said, could you step aside so I could get on with my visit? Speaking of, you know, taking care of one's affairs. But I've thought about these stories.

[14:13]

It's interesting to me, that kind of story. I think basic, you know, often as human beings we have two tendencies. One is, because we think that the object, our body, our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, our accomplishments or lack of them, because we think that's me, and because we think those objects are what give me happiness or unhappiness, then we think the thing to do is to control or to try to boss around the objects that appear. And we can see this, of course, in relationships. Somebody who has given us pleasure or we think is going to relieve our suffering or give us some pleasure or we enjoy someone's company, then we have a problem, of course, when they're causing us pain. We say, well, wait a minute, but you're supposed to be relieving my suffering, not causing it. What's wrong with you? And do you not like me anymore?

[15:15]

And so on, you know, we think these kind of things. And because we think there's some actual object there, and then we could actually control that object and get it to give us the good experiences and not the bad ones, or the happy ones and pleasant ones. And we think somehow the object of our life is to produce pleasant experiences and avoid unpleasant ones, and if we could do that, if we could only do that better, you know, we'd be happier. And then we think sometimes that spiritual practice will help us do that better. There'll be a spiritual way to actually get people to be nice to us. You know, after I get enlightened, then people will bow to me and they'll venerate me and they'll speak pleasantly to me and they won't be nasty like that anymore and, you know, this sort of thing. The problem is, of course, that a lot of people don't recognize your spiritual attainments

[16:19]

and so they go on treating you just the way they always did. So this is one tendency we have, and then when we notice how difficult this is, that actually objects can't be controlled and that our thoughts can't be controlled and our feelings can't be controlled and the emotions can't and the people can't and we can't always accomplish what we'd like to accomplish and we can't always avoid what we want to avoid and we can't do that very well. Sometimes we think the thing to do is to get away from it all. And then one of the ways to do that is you come to the meditation hall. That's pretty good. So you can get away from it. And of course you get here and it turns out you haven't gotten away from anything because it all just keeps coming up, all those thoughts and feelings. And then it turns out, not only that, your legs hurt and various things. But we do have this other tendency, too, then to try to get away from objects.

[17:21]

And I think of this sometimes as kind of actually the American dream, you know, is happiness is never having to really relate to anything. You know, if you want to eat, you take the package out of the freezer and all you have to do is open it up and put it in the microwave and then you can eat. Push a couple of buttons and you don't have to think about like, I mean, you just have to read. It says one minute and you push the one minute button and that's that. And you don't have to think like, do I wash it, do I not wash it and what am I going to do or what should I have? And it's all done for you. So you don't have to actually relate to something. And television, television is sort of the same way. Our lives are full of these things like you don't really have to relate to them. And then it's always a surprise when somebody across the table says, could we talk? I don't know. Maybe, you know, it's just us guys, you know, we have this sort of problem.

[18:24]

But I think this is a general human tendency to see if I could just get away from all those objects and, you know, things that are going on and not have to actually do anything about any of it. And then I'd have some peace and quiet and calm and, you know, good state of mind because there's nothing there that's disturbing me. So the thing to do is to get rid of those objects and set up a kind of what in Zen is called a nest or a den, a kind of area of mind where I seal it off and then I don't have to relate to that other stuff. And then within that little area, I can, it can kind of be nice and quiet. And then you can tell the rest of the world to just go away. And so as opposed to this, you see, either of those kind of strategies, you know, wash the rice when you wash the rice, take care of the profusion of affairs, try actually

[19:30]

relating to things, actually doing things, responding to things, you know, with some fullness. When you wash the rice, wash the rice with some sincerity, with some warmheartedness. And Buddhism says this is actually, you know, a better way to be happy instead of trying to get away from everything and avoid things and making everything be quiet. Actually try relating to things. So I'd like to give you now, if I may, some, a little more sort of philosophical background about this. I'd like to tell you about, just briefly about this, about the skandhas. The skandhas are a categorization for our experiences.

[20:35]

There are five skandhas, and the skandha means heap or heaps or piles. And, but anyway, there's the five skandhas. And what this is, is a way to like take each moment of experience and say, what are actually the actual elements here? And according to the teaching of Buddhism, then any of our experiences can be grouped or put into one of these five categories. And the five categories are, the first is called form or sensory experiences. The second is feelings, pleasant or unpleasant feelings, sometimes neutral feelings. The third is perception. Perception is a function of mind that puts labels on things. It says, this grouping of sensory experiences is I, and that other grouping over there is you. And that over there is the wall, and then, oh, that brown stuff down there, that's the

[21:39]

floor. And then there's lights and, you know, and points at various things and puts labels on it. You hear a sound, and then you say, that's a bird, that's a plane. That's called perception, that identifies what's what. This is pretty important, you know, and we usually kind of take it for granted that we see people, but we don't actually see people. What our eyes do is see colors. There was a wonderful article last year in the New Yorker magazine about someone who was blind for 30 or 40 years, and then he had this, his new wife said, well, why don't you try this operation? And he had this operation, and he could see again, but actually he couldn't. There were all these just blobs, and it was like, you know, colors. The doctor said to him, well, what do you think? And he figured out that that blob of color there must be the doctor's face, because that seemed to be where the voice was coming from, and he knew that much. But even after months of this, he couldn't identify and tell the difference between his

[22:45]

cat and his dog. Because if you think about it, you know, moment after moment, the cat and the dog are all sorts of different shapes. There's thousands of different shapes that a cat or a dog takes, and your eyes, what your eyes do is see those different shapes. And then it's another function of mind that says, gee, all those different shapes are actually the same thing. All those different shapes are my cat. And his eyes would tend to see, like, the tail. And then perceptually, you know, with his perception, he would identify a certain group in there as, that's the tail, that's the nose, that's the ear. And he couldn't, his function of perception of not having had the opportunity for many years to put together colors into what we understand as objects and things, he couldn't do it anymore.

[23:45]

So he would just actually see, his eyes did what eyes do, they see colors. But his mind couldn't, didn't have the perceptual capacity to identify the various groupings of colors. So perception identifies the various groupings and says, well, that's that. Oh, and this tightness and pressure I feel, that's anger. And this heaviness I feel, oh, that's sorrow. And you know, this idea I have that I'm a worthless person, oh, that's a thought. So that's what perception does, it puts all these labels on things, which otherwise, experiences which otherwise are much more, you know, harder to pin down. But perception identifies what's what. The fourth category of aniskandhas is the category of mental factors, sometimes known as impulses

[24:47]

or the factors of mind that actually shape our experience and our reality. Concentration, lack of concentration, energy, mental energy, lack of mental energy, greed, hate, delusion, love, generosity, patience, mindfulness, faith, lack of faith, distraction. We can identify various, the various ways or characteristics of mind, mental factors. And the fifth category is consciousness or awareness. Nothing can arise without, there's some awareness. We like to identify that awareness and we say, well, that awareness, that's me. But one of the ideas of the skandhas is to actually look at experience moment after moment and then what is it? And actually, when we look closely, we can find seeing, but we can't find an eye that's

[25:51]

doing the seeing. Here's all this visual stuff. Now, where is the eye that's doing that visual stuff? Well, it must be me. It's not you doing it. I must be doing it. But can you actually find the eye that's actually doing it? It's easy enough to say that, but that was a thought. When you said, I'm seeing, you know, I'm seeing you, you're seeing me. No, you're not seeing what I'm seeing, but that's all thinking, isn't it? Is there actual, is there actual reality that corresponds to that, that we can grab hold of and get hold of? Can we actually find the eye that's doing that? And we say, I'm thinking. And because we have this wonderful habit of thought, which is very convenient and, you know, has its usefulness and conventionally is quite functional and apt, but when we look, if we look carefully, which Buddhism suggests and encourages us to do, we can't find the eye that's seeing, the eye that's thinking, the eye that's failing, the eye that's succeeding.

[26:51]

We can't find any of those. Sometimes people, I remember when I was a teenager, maybe you did too, like, I'm going to find my true self. You try to do that? Which one is it? You know, the one that thinks this or the one that thinks that? You know, the one that wants to get married, the one that doesn't. The one that wants to go here or the one that, which one is the true one? There's this thought and that thought and this feeling and that feeling. Which one is the real one? You know, how would you ever figure that out? And then usually what we do is we side with one against the other. This one's me, that one's not. This is how you have unhappiness, you know, and suffering. Because we side with one factor of experience versus another factor of experience when it's all just stuff that's happening. You know, it's gone to one, it's gone to two, it's gone to three. And you can put all of the, you know, all of the possible sensory, you said that when

[27:56]

you take all the sensory experiences, past, present, and future, you know, gross, subtle, pleasant, unpleasant, you know, lofty, low, within, without, you take all that pile of possible sensory experiences, mine, yours, anybody's, you put those all in a pile, now you have a pile called, you know, sensory experiences. There's this huge pile of these possible things, you know, and so on. So this is why they're called piles or heaps. Of course the interesting thing for us is, oh no, those piles and heaps are happening to me. Which pile or heap do I have today? This is important. But, so when we look at these five categories and you can take any element or moment of our experience and it can go into these categories. Now another interesting thing of course is that consciousness, the fifth one, never arises by itself. It always arises with some object.

[28:58]

This is interesting, for instance, I can see, and we can't actually find the consciousness that's doing the seeing. We know that there must be, in seeing, we know there must be consciousness, there must be an eye that's working, there must be some sensory objects out there, and now there's seeing taking place, but we can't actually separate those three. We know the three must be there, but they appear like one, right? How do you find the eye that's doing the seeing and separate that from, seeing is arising now. How can you do that? The consciousness can't be separated from its object, okay? So we can't get hold of that consciousness apart from our experience. So this is one of the interesting things, and also this teaching about this context is to help us notice, I am not those sensory experiences.

[30:02]

I am not my seeing, I am not my hearing, my hearing is not me, feelings, pleasant, unpleasant, that's not me, I am not that, perception, that's not me, I am not that, all those mental factors, you know, anger, jealousy, sorrow, grief, you know, desire, love, balance, equanimity, that's not me, I'm not that, consciousness, that's not me, I'm not, I'm not that, I can't be identified with that. So there's no, and Buddhism is saying there's no self that could be those things, okay? And now is there a self apart from those things? Well if there is, no one's found it yet. Just like in seeing, you can't find the self that's apart from it, you can't find actually a self apart from seeing. Anger arises and you can't find the self that's doing the anger, sure, conveniently it's I'm

[31:04]

angry, you're not angry, I'm angry, I'm the one, you know, that's happening here, not there, and so we create these designations here and there and so on, okay? So the idea is like, well can we have, this is to give us a little sort of space around our experience, yes? A little kind of freedom or liberation from being enslaved by or caught up in the notion that if something pleasant happens, I'm happy, if something unpleasant happens, I'm mad, I'm going to hurt that person, or you know, whatever it is, I'll teach them a lesson for giving me that kind of experience, you know, we have all these great ideas, right? To try to work out a better kind of experience for ourself. One of the classic descriptions of the skanda is that this first category, the sensory experiences, is like a massive foam, there's the appearance of something there that looks very substantial,

[32:11]

but actually you can never, when you actually try to get at it, you don't get it. A massive foam, the second feelings are like a bubble, they soon burst. Perception is like a mirage, gives the appearance or identifies something as being there that's not really there. The fourth skanda, all these emotion or mental factors, this is like the stem of a plantain tree, or in our language, like an onion. No matter how many layers you peel off, there's no core, there's nothing that you actually find that's really the real one, any more real than any others. And consciousness itself is said to be like a magic show. Pretty amazing, isn't it? So another way to look at this also, if actually this is the case, is this any place to put

[33:21]

our effort, right? Is this any place to settle down? Should you settle down then in these skandas, in these sensory experiences of sights, sounds? Should you settle down in the feelings, should you settle down in the perceptions, want to make your home there? This is not a dependable place to make your home, okay, to set up your home. And yet if you try to set up your home apart from all these things, what kind of home is that going to be? Now all those things will still be pestering you while you try to set up your home apart from them, okay? So it's said in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, oftentimes an unskilled bodhisattva settles down in the skandas, abides in the skandas, abides in the stopping and starting of skandas. Could I have more blue now, please?

[34:23]

Thank you. Could I have, you know, could I have this, could I have that, and then we try to manipulate the stopping and starting of feelings, emotions, and this is said to be unskilled, okay? Because we can't, we have very little capacity to do that with anywhere near the degree possible to give us real happiness, okay? So if we're settled down and our self-esteem and our self-worth is dependent on which of these things are appearing and which of them are disappearing, you know, which feelings are present, which body is present, which thoughts are present, which emotions are present, which are absent, and now my success in manipulating all of that is how happy I am or what my worth is or what my self-esteem is, it's all pretty, and that's undependable, okay? That's not a reliable way to go about your life. This is what the sutra says, okay? And then a skilled bodhisattva doesn't settle down there.

[35:24]

The skilled bodhisattva is actually relating to all these things but isn't saying, is more like saying, you know, that's not me, this is not I, and yet I'm going to relate to these things and take care of these things and respond to these things and be with these things, okay? But also then that skilled bodhisattva doesn't say, I'm doing this really well today, oh, I'm not doing so well at this, oh, shucks, I got some anger again, oh, congratulations, today I feel happy, today I feel calm, oh, I'm doing so good now. This is an unskilled bodhisattva, you see, because all these things are going to keep arising and disappearing and coming and going, so if you want to base your self-esteem and your self-worth on all this stuff, you know, then you have what's called in Buddhism, suffering, because it doesn't work, does it, okay? And Buddhism doesn't, you know, practicing meditation doesn't help you to make it work any better, as far as I can tell, okay?

[36:32]

After all these years of, you know, hours of cushion time, sacrificing my body and mind to the, to the Zappu, there's been no quantitative increase in the moments of compassion or calmness, but once in a while now, you see, I can smile at someone who's so unsuccessful at manipulating all these things. That's kind of nice. I hesitate to cough when there's this microphone here, but I don't like to be able to clear my throat. Well, anyway, I love these sort of things like the skandhas. I don't know if it's useful or interesting for you, but I like to, you know, once in a

[37:36]

while I like to give these real Buddhist talks. Usually I just sit up here and tell you stories, but sometimes I like to kind of share this actual Buddhist things with you and see what you make of it. And then if it's useful, fine, and you can study it more, and then if it's not, just forget about it, you know, get on with your life, you know, it's okay. I don't care, you know. But once in a while, you know, you might find it useful or appropriate or helpful if you remember, this is not me, I am not this. And if you think about it, consciousness itself, you know, consciousness itself is not

[38:40]

blue or green or hard or soft. Consciousness itself is not angry, not sad. Consciousness itself doesn't come and go the way these objects do. Consciousness doesn't appear or disappear. Objects appear and disappear. You know, phenomena appears and disappears. Consciousness does not appear and disappear. So this is interesting too. And I also want to emphasize the point that this is not just a philosophical teaching, this is something that any one of us can actually study in our own experience. What is the nature of my experience? I often use the example of seeing, you know, where does seeing take place? Say, all those things I see are outside of me. Well, if they are, how do you have any experience of it?

[39:42]

The things that are outside must also be inside. You know, they're in consciousness. And then whose consciousness was that? Don't you remember? It's mine, not yours. You know, we all say, oh, it's ... Till we sort of, you know, actually when you get down to this, you say, well, I'm seeing. Now where is that seeing taking place? The things I see are outside of me, but you just said it was my consciousness doing the seeing. You know, I'm seeing. Seeing must be inside of you. All the things that you see must be in your consciousness. And to the extent that they're outside of your consciousness, how can you have any idea, any conception, any experience of them at all, to the extent that they're just outside of your consciousness? Okay, so all we have is, you know, what goes on, you know, what occurs in our consciousness. And we're studying, then, moment after moment, how to actually be with the phenomena or with

[40:51]

the experience of our consciousness. What's some good way to do that? Okay. So we're working with things, even though we're not keeping track of how well I'm doing that. We take care of all the affairs, even though we can't say, I'm doing this, you know, those affairs are me, and my success or failure is my self-esteem, is my self-worth. And to the extent that I handle things well, I'm happy and calm, and to the extent that I don't, I'm miserable. We can't say that. When we study carefully our experience, things will appear and disappear moment after moment. And the I that we attach to, how that is all happening will cause us, you know, suffering. So wash the rice when you wash the rice, right? Plunge into the experience, forget about how well or, you know, poorly you're doing it, and just do it. Respond to things.

[41:52]

Take care of the numerous affairs. And when everything is falling apart, the body's not doing so well, I'm doing fine. Okay? I'd like to end today with a chant. This is a chant, I think, originally taught by Soen Roshi, Maureen Stewart Roshi, used to do this with her group. Some of her disciples still do it, and I got it from them. And this is a very simple chant. We chant together the one syllable ho. Ho happens to be the Japanese word for dharma, teaching, truth. As you know, it's also something that Santa Claus says, ho, ho, ho. Okay? So I like to think of this ho, the sound ho, as including everything.

[43:01]

Everything is included in this ho. So when you chant the ho, you don't have to leave anything out, okay? You can put everything, as it were, everything inside you, as it were, into this ho. And we'll make the ho together, and you let the sound, you know, completely wash through your body and being, resonating, you know, allowing your being to resonate, your body to resonate, your mind to resonate, your vocal chords to resonate, creating the sound of ho that you hear, making the sound, creating the sound, allowing the sound, okay? And the way we do this is to do a continuous sound over three or four minutes. So when you run out of breath, you just inhale and go back into the sound, enter back into the sound, okay? And at the end, Jerry's going to hit a bell to start, and then at the end, there'll be

[44:05]

another bell to finish. Maybe we won't be able to hear it, and we can just keep creating the sound. But if you hear the bell, or maybe I need to go, like, back to high school, orchestra, band. Anyway, when you hear the sound or the signal to end, then you finish the breath you're on. You don't just stop, but you finish the breath you're on, so the sound gradually dies out, okay? So does this make sense? You got the idea? So would you turn off the microphone now for this? I know. It is still possible. Still possible. To be premature. To be premature. I have two questions. Yes, you may.

[45:06]

Someone should give you your tea. I have two questions. Your lecture today was very, very, sort of touched on some things that I'm really working on. The first one is that the whole issue of skandhas and our experiences is, there's no self attached to it, you know, that kind of thing. I recently went to, I heard this teacher, another Zen teacher, and she was talking about how she was, she did a lot of Vipassana meditation, which sort of emphasizes, you know, the skandhas and the no-self and that kind of thing. And so she went to this, which of course is meditation on loving-kindness, and you're really developing this mind of loving-kindness and developing these feelings and so on, and she was feeling wonderful, and then she'd go to the teacher and she'd say, okay, well I've got this feeling, so I guess I should just let that go now.

[46:07]

And he'd say, no, no, no, you know, really develop that. And so her conclusion was that, even though it's true that there's no self in the skandhas and all this other stuff that you talked about, that she found that cultivating this mind of loving-kindness actually allowed her to open up so that she could have a better experience of that aspect which you so well described. So that's the first question in the comment. And the second one, which I think is maybe a little bit less sensitive, and I'm going to ask it anyway, I recently met a guy who was a psychiatrist, and I was, this is not my clinical situation, although maybe I should be there, I don't know. But we were talking, oh, I mentioned that I was interested in spirituality, and he says, I actually have a number of spiritual teachers who are patients of mine who use Prozac, and they found that Prozac really helped their practice. So I said, I said, that's very interesting, because in my classical study of Buddhism,

[47:19]

people who have realized a certain degree, a very high degree of spirituality, these kinds of negative mental states, they don't arise. The mind of the arhat is either neutral or joyous. There's just as many of this other messy stuff. So, anyway. Yeah, there's also a, who are those little guys? I think it's Matt Groening, doesn't he do those two little, the two little Akbar and Ali and Akbar, with their little hats? Akbar and Jeff. Huh? Akbar and Jeff. And Jeff, yeah, Akbar and Jeff. They're talking to each other, and one of them is saying, you know, I tried everything spiritual practice, and it hasn't done me that good, and I tried, you know, therapy, but it didn't seem that complete, and I tried indulging in sexual escapades, and that seemed

[48:21]

to fade away, and then he said, just recently, you know, I found life so complete, and you know, just even a pebble in my hand was such a joyous experience, and the other one finally says, I put Prozac in your cornflakes this morning. Well, I think there is something to be said for, whether it's loving-kindness, or, I think of it personally, just more in terms of warm-heartedness, something that, when we allow ourself to be somewhat warm-hearted, or kind-minded, then we can actually observe and be with things more carefully and completely. Because that, because part of what keeps us from being with things is also our habitual attitude of defensiveness or hard-mindedness.

[49:23]

It was a very important experience to me. For me, Suzuki Roshi talked a lot about that kind of thing, and for us in Zen, it was more like, we didn't talk about loving-kindness, but he talked a lot about soft-mind, being soft-minded. And one day, when he was talking about being soft-minded, actually my mind went soft. And I thought, you know, because before that, I mean, literally, you know, our mind can be, you know, like hard. I mean, literally, our head is sort of hard, and, you know, our body gets hard. And so that was an important sort of sense for me, to actually, there was a, like, experientially soft-minded, and then when you're more soft-minded, or whether you call it soft-minded, or loving-kindness, or kind-minded, then you can be actually more receptive, and be more with your experience. It's also considered that the quality of joy, which in Buddhism is the quality of, you know,

[50:29]

just, in a sense, allowing yourself to resonate with things, there's a kind of joy to that. And I think of joy in that kind of, as being that kind of quality of resonating with something. And when we resonate with something, then we actually can experience it. When we hold ourself apart and don't resonate with something, you know, then we have a situation without the joy, and then also we, you know, then we have a sort of stuckness. So, any number of sort of qualities like that, I think, do in fact help us see more clearly, or be with our experience in some more complete way, or as that goes. I don't know what to say, as far as, you know, the use of Prozac, or what have you, and whether it really helps somebody's spiritual practice, or what. I mean, it's, you know, I'm sort of more in the school of, you know, figure it out for yourself, folks.

[51:33]

I'm not going to tell you. How would I know? Because, you know, you hear various things about Prozac. And then, but the thing that struck me somehow when you raised the question is, you know, is somebody saying, and their practice improved. And then, you see, then that comes back to my talk today, which is, what's the indication of that? Of this so-called improvement? And is it actually the practice that improved then? Or, you know, they feel better about their, they have better states of mind more often, and so this is an improvement. Because, you know, I think those are little different things. One's practice, and then whether one is getting more positive states rather than negative states, or one is feeling more energetic instead of less energetic. I'm not so sure that, in some sense, I like to, I mean, I sometimes think that as far as practice goes,

[52:34]

I mean, let's not worry about it one way or another. Let's stop, as far as practice goes, let's stop assessing, oh, my practice is getting better. My practice is getting worse, because actually all we're talking about is, you know, gee, my legs hurt more, my legs hurt less. I had more of these feelings, less of those. And I don't know that that's an indication of one's spiritual practice. I mean, I feel more like the quality of, some kind of quality of surrender or letting go of all of that, and just saying, you know, let your practice take care of itself, and be what it is, and have its own life, and don't get involved to, involved in sort of, like, whether it's better or worse. I don't know. It's more like, I actually believe more and more strongly, or so to speak, more strongly in the basic Zen, Soto Zen approach of just sitting. And you don't worry about whether you're getting somewhere or not getting somewhere, but, you know, let's go on and look into our life, and see what happens when we do that. And trust.

[53:37]

So I don't know, that's my sort of feeling about it. But at the same time, I don't have a problem about, you know, it seems like life is so difficult, and people want to, you know, think Prozac might help them, and if they have some experience of it helping them, I don't know. I can't, you know, I'm not going to worry about it one way or another, that that's not real practice, or that's not true, or whatever. But anyway, you know, go ahead. Figure it out. Yes? This morning you talked, you said the fact of using the word the, rather than I. Or my. Excuse me? Or my. Or my. Yeah. Is that, that sounds like a real good thing for me, to remind me of that. Would you recommend to try and incorporate that? Yeah. To replace those words with the, or the. Yeah, yeah, it's very interesting and useful to do that. Just to make that kind of switch, because a lot of what this, what this is about is, in fact, language and what label we put on things.

[54:40]

And it's because we label those things a certain way, and because of all those, the thought constructs that then get involved with that, that then there's, then there's a suffering associated with the fact that those thought constructs are difficult to maintain. Yeah, very good. The thought constructs that we tend to have are difficult to maintain, and then we wonder what's wrong. And if we change our thought constructs so they're more in accord with the way things are, then we don't have so much difficulty maintaining them. And it's not then, because what happens to me is not what happens to me, but, you know, oh, you know, my thought construct. I'd have to let go of a thought construct. No, I thank you for that. So that's a very, that's a, you know, it is, it actually can be used that way. And if you're interested in using it that way, that's great. Yeah. Well, here's what I figured out so far. I like these piles, these skandhas stuff, and I think dreams are a sixth skandha. I think you missed dreams.

[55:41]

Uh-huh. I think they're real different. Yeah. And the other thing about the unskillful bodhisattva identifying with the skandhas and the skillful bodhisattva washing rice when they wash rice. Uh-huh. Now on that one, that's a little thin. There's not enough to worry about, really. I spend a lot of time worrying about things and planning, which is sort of an organized way of worrying. So is really washing rice when you wash rice all you're going to have to offer? Uh-huh. Well, you might want to add, you know, when you plan, plan. And when you worry, worry. But then again, that's just washing rice. Uh-huh.

[56:47]

We need to be able to... But there's, again, an example of planning, worrying. You know, do you... It's the important thing. I mean, we do need to make plans, and we act on them, but it's the important thing whether they come out successfully according to our plan. Is that what's important? And then should we attach our self-worth and our self-esteem to the fact of our plan coming out successfully? And if it doesn't come out successfully, then, you know, shucks, what's wrong with me? Can't I make a better plan? Or, you know, why is the universe so uncooperative? You know, how come things are victimizing me? I mean, I make very simple plans. You know, the other day, I planned to close my car door. And in fact, I started closing it, and then I made the plan to look in the car. And so the corner of the car door impacted on the corner of my mouth, right below the corner of my mouth.

[57:52]

And there was a tremendous aching, kind of burning, aching sensation. And then there was a kind of sensation of liquid, you know, coming down the side of the mouth, you know, right here. I had gone out to the car to get my frequent flyer certificates for, no, my driver's license to turn in my frequent flyer certificates. And so I went back into United Airlines, and, you know, she only said, you know, can you show me ID? And I said, well, it's out in my car. And then when I came back, I was bleeding. So that was a pretty simple plan. I had made this plan, and then, you know, it didn't work. My original plan, because then I interrupted it with a second plan. But that happens to me a lot, even with simple plans. And I find that, so my tendency is to, you know, to be aggrieved, you know, that the universe is not cooperating better with my plans. Sometimes I go to pick up one of my bags.

[58:54]

I have these shoulder bags, and they have a strap. And I don't understand how this can so often happen, but you put down the bag. And when I put down those bags, I don't put the strap underneath the bag. And yet often when I go to pick up the bag, I think, and I make a plan, I will lift up this strap, the bag will follow. And in fact, when I pick up the strap, the bag falls upside down and spills. And I wonder, like, what is wrong with the universe? You know, can't it cooperate more with my plans? What is wrong with it? So, you know, so those things happen. And in fact, so it's the important thing whether your plan works, or then, you know, are we capable of then making another plan to deal with the fact that this stuff emptied out onto the floor? And well then, yeah, let's make another plan and go on and, you know, act on that plan. And sure, let's make all kinds of plans and act on them. But if we worry too much about their coming out,

[59:57]

and that's the basis of our self-esteem and our well-being, then we're going to have problems. So sure, keep on making them, and keep on letting go of them. You know, and some of them work and some of them don't, and you keep on doing that. That's life. I mean, that's the way it works, you know. And somehow we think we'll make a plan, and we'll be able to make the plans well enough so that this one really will work. And there'll be no problems about the bag spilling out or the door hitting your mouth or whatever it is, you know. And I don't think that's possible, so it won't be good, it won't be helpful or appropriate to think that way, you know, when it comes to making the plans. Yes? Instead of worrying, would you think it would be a good idea to substitute that behavior with something else? Worrying? Yeah, instead of just really getting into the worrying, whatever that's going to bring, substitute the thoughts before they turn into negative emotions

[60:59]

with doing something else. Well, I don't, you know, I don't know. Sure, it would be great. You know, I mean, basically Buddhism says, you know, why worry about the things that you can't do anything about? And why worry about the things that you can do something about? If there's something you can do about it, go ahead and do it. And if you can't do anything about it, then don't worry about it. And yet, I don't seem to be able to follow that teaching. That's the appropriate and correct teaching, yes. But there are certainly instances where, in spite of that, I worry. And then, you know, we can say what we want, so now I'm in the position of, like, it's not so good for you to worry like that, and why don't you do something else? And if somebody says that to me while I'm worrying, you know, now I tend to get angry. And I mean, I'm a little bit like, I love that story that, you know, Frank set out in the letter from the Zen hospice about the, you know, the old Russian woman who was in her late 80s,

[62:02]

and she's dying, and he goes over to see her, and he hears she's having trouble breathing, and the caretaker is there, and the caretaker says to her, you don't have to be afraid. And she's going, honey, I'm dying, you'd be afraid too. And then the person sort of feels her feet and says, you know, your feet are really cold. And she says, well, I'm almost dead. It's like, excuse me, but don't, you know, go telling me what would be, you know, the way I'm supposed to be right now, you know. I happen to be in the middle of this, you know, whole event. I'm the one who's in the middle of this whole event, not you, so don't, you know, don't go telling me how I'm supposed to be feeling now, or what would be the thing for me to do. And Frank came into this, and somehow he was able to kind of be with her in a way,

[63:04]

and kind of just, you know, and he didn't say to stop being angry. He said he noticed that there was a place in her breath that was calm. You know, there was a struggle in her breath. There was a place also where it was calm, in the middle of all this struggle. And he said to her, there's a place in your breath that's calm. Can you find it? Are you aware of it? And she got it. And then her breathing calmed out and smoothed out, and she breathed four or five times, and she died. And so it's one thing to know, like, what is the right teaching, and it's another thing just to be with your experience closely enough, so you find within that the calm, or, you know, something like that. And as much as anything, what Zen is saying at some point is, you know, please don't think that there's, um, that there's an answer for everything and a remedy for everything, and that you're going to be able to fix everything. Whether it's your worry or your anger, at some point, it's more like,

[64:06]

when you're worried, don't worry about it. Just be worried. Be worried when you're worried, and don't add on to that, gosh, this being worried is really worrisome. Don't add that on top of it. You see? And that tends to be what we do. It's like we get angry, and then we're angry about being angry. If we're worried, we're worried about being worried. If we're sad, we're sad about being sad. And we add something on top of it, so that it becomes more and bigger than it is, and it's connected with some image we have of ourself. Oh, I didn't think I was such a sad person. Boy, and then now to find out that I'm sad, this really makes me sad. And that's on top of just the sadnesses arising. So when we separate it out like that, we can be sad without being so sad about it. We can have a body that's falling apart without,

[65:08]

and we can say like Daniel, the body is not very well. The body is falling apart. I'm fine. And worry is the same way. And if you can substitute something for it, fine. I have no problem with that again. I'm just saying personally, I'm not very successful at those things. So I end up more in the school of finally having to be not so worried about being worried, having to be not so angry about being angry, and kind of not having my self-esteem be too battered about and not identifying myself so much with the phenomenal world, what's happening. Yes? Yeah, go ahead. Self-esteem has come up several times. I can grasp the concept of it's not our body, it's not our accomplishments, it's not our emotions. So if I eliminate all those, then the question is, what is self-identity and self-esteem?

[66:10]

Where is, what is? I'm not very good at the board, so if I eliminate all that, what do I have? Yeah, what do you have? You have inherent virtue. It's called what's inherent virtue. Inherent, already enlightened. All I have to do is learn how to eliminate everything else and I'm there. Well, I've used the metaphor of, in Dogen, I like his metaphor of if you go out in a boat in the ocean, it looks like the ocean is circular, you see the line of horizon and it's round. And he says, but the ocean isn't circular, it's not square. In addition, in addition to what the appearances are, there are infinite characteristics and boundless virtue which you just don't happen to be aware of right now. So remember that. That's a little reminder. In addition to the apparent circularity or angularity, in addition to the apparent anger or hatred or love, in addition to that, there's infinite characteristics,

[67:11]

you know, and there's no fixed thing that we are. There's infinite characteristics and there's boundless virtue which maybe we're not aware of now, but that's actually the fundamental, the nature of things. And sometimes that's called emptiness, but if you'd like to call it something, let's call it infinite characteristics and boundless virtue. I'll give you, yeah, potential. Yeah, you can have that for your Buddhist name. Boundless virtue. Yes? I was confused about the difference between feelings in the second skanda and the fourth skanda, which was impulses. Yeah, impulses. What's the difference? Well, the feeling is specifically pleasant-unpleasant. Feels pleasant, feels good, feels bad. Feels pleasant, feels unpleasant. There's a kind of basic take, you know, or tone. And it's specifically... And that's usually translated as feeling. It could also just be, you know, taste or smell.

[68:14]

We have a basic take on it. Pleasant-unpleasant. I like it, I don't like it. Pleasant-unpleasant neutral. And it can be associated with mentally unpleasant-pleasant and physically pleasant-unpleasant. So what Eric was saying a while ago is, you see, for the well-developed Buddhist, you know, who's gone on to some plateau or another, they can still have physical pleasant and unpleasant, but they don't have any mental unpleasant. They only have mental pleasant. Or mental neutral. So even if they're afflicted physically, it doesn't afflict them mentally, to be afflicted physically. Okay? Anyway, that's, you know, to me that's just theory. Laughter I'm not a very advanced Buddhist, you know. I keep working at it, but, you know, I haven't gotten very far.

[69:16]

At some point, you know, this is about, like, how do you have, I mean, like, how do we have any equanimity? Right? And at some point, equanimity means there's happiness and unhappiness, pleasant and unpleasant, and can you actually find out what difference it makes? And what differences it makes is some, there's some, you know, thought that comes up in your mind. Yes, it makes a difference. Laughter Makes a difference to me. And there's the thought. And then does it really make a difference? Is it really sensible, you know, to attach that much difference to it? But that is part of our effort of, you know, to notice the differences, and then which differences make a difference? And do we act on it and not? And, you know, what's appropriate? We have to sort all that. That's called wisdom, to be able to do that, you know, with some skillfulness. But anyway, that's the difference. The feeling category is just this basic pleasant-unpleasant. And that's a very important category, of course, because classically, that's what impels us to then, you know, grasp or avert.

[70:24]

When something's pleasant, we want to keep it. And when something's unpleasant, we're trying to distance ourself from it. And if you think about it, how can you either grasp your experience or distance yourself from it? And yet that grasping, averting, is actually then a kind of pain, a kind of suffering that we have, because it's not possible to do in either case. The things we grasp disappear. The things we avert from, we're, you know, we're actually stealing ourself. We're making ourself hard to try to get away from it. And then that tends to accentuate it. And you see it also just in terms of like, you know, relationship. If you try to possess somebody, they go away. You know, if you try to distance yourself from someone, they feel hurt. You know, this big surprise. But this also happens within our own body and mind. You know, that we're trying to grasp some part of our, you know, mind and feelings and thoughts,

[71:25]

and then they don't like that. You know, they don't stay around when you try to grasp them. And then when you try to distance yourself from your own experience, then, you know, you feel unhappy. You'll feel bad. So we're all the time sort of trying to possess our body and mind, and we say to our body and mind, can't you come up with something better than that? You know. This is a crummy experience to be giving me, and so on, you know. This is not a good relationship, you know, to be having with our own experience. And this comes out of this basic feeling, and so this is an important, you know, meditation kind of device, you know, classically speaking, to notice the feeling. And if you notice pleasant, unpleasant, and you can actually notice that, then you can actually, you can also notice grasping and averting. And you actually catch yourself doing it. You catch yourself doing the grasping, catch yourself doing the averting. And then when you catch yourself, and you see the way that you're, you know, reacting or acting with things,

[72:28]

and how you actually do the grasping and the averting, then you can stop doing it. When you don't actually see it and experience it clearly, then you can blame it on, you know, the object. And you can try to manipulate the object more, and you don't see how you're participating in making something the way it is. So this is considered to be an important feeling. In another description of the skandhas, the form is like the pot, feeling is like the food. That feeling of pleasant or unpleasant is the food, and then perception is like the salt, and the impulses are like the seasoning, and the consciousness is like the eating. So that's the food. That's a really important, you know, thing to be aware of, is to notice, you know, to start to notice that pleasant, unpleasant, and then how we react to it. And then we can begin to not be so reactive and so caught by all of that.

[73:28]

We have a little equanimity and freedom and liberation from, you know, just being impelled along in all of it. That's what they say anyway. Yes? I was a little surprised by your comment that meditation hasn't... I'll paraphrase you. Meditation hasn't cleared any of this up for you. Yeah. I come here for a refresher course in being with things as they are, and I've held out this hope that if I meditate, I'm going to like things the way they are more. I see. Now you're telling me that that's a futile effort. Yeah, I don't know that there's any, you know...

[74:34]

I don't know that I've ever heard that in Buddhism, that you're going to like the way things are more. You may experience the way things are more, and you may end up, like, you know, eating that more and digesting that more and being nourished by that. And that means, you know, eating and digesting the unpleasant as well as the pleasant. But that doesn't say you're going to like the unpleasant any better. Because things actually are pleasant and unpleasant. You know, we're not saying like this is... You know, things actually are pleasant and unpleasant, and the unpleasant is really unpleasant. So you don't have to then, you know, like that. That's part of the way things are, is that there's pleasant and there's unpleasant, and there's anger and sorrow and joy and all these things. And some peace or equanimity is not so much liking it,

[75:37]

but, you know, allowing it in some sense, not being so caught up with some notion of fixing it or adjusting it. I appreciate, you know, like Kata Girirajji used to say... And again, he, at one point, you know, was talking before, a year or so before he died, he gave a lecture about death. And he said, you know, say what you want about, you know, accepting things. But actually here's this Zen teacher who apparently was Suzuki Roshi, a student said, how do you feel about dying? And he said, I don't want to die. So, you know, if you're going to die, he didn't say, oh, I like that. He said, I don't want to die. Now somehow then there's not wanting to die, but there's also accepting, in some way, I don't want to die. And his students don't understand that.

[76:41]

You know, aren't you a great Buddhist teacher? Aren't you supposed to have some equanimity about dying? Oh, I don't care whether I die or not. See, we make up and we project these sort of things, like, wouldn't that be the Buddhist way to say things? We like, you know, we like to think, well, I'll be completely detached. You know, isn't he completely detached? But I don't want to die has this real sort of truth to it, actually. Human, and Kagira, she said, you know, this is human suffering. And there's something about, you know, our life, that human suffering is there, and it's not something we do anything about. It's not something we fix. You know, human suffering is there. It's not something we fix, but we can actually learn, in some sense, to tolerate it more, so that we then don't go and cause more suffering, and are trying to fix it, or, you know, trying to bandage it, or trying to, you know, alleviate it, where we go and hurt other people, you know, because we think it's to our benefit and we think we'll suffer less.

[77:41]

And, you know, doing all these things, impelled, you know, to try to fix or cover or mask our suffering. At some point, actually, there is human suffering. And then he said, you know those wonderful, exquisite poems, the Zen masters write before they die? He said, that's nothing but an exquisite scream. And he said, strictly speaking, however you die is okay. Some people will be calm, other people will be angry. Don't worry about it. You know, don't be attached to like, oh, I want to feel this way, I don't want to feel that way. I mean, don't worry about it. And that not worrying about it, you know, is a tremendous relief. You know, it's like that woman who, in her own way, is trying to tell somebody else, don't tell me how to feel. You know, I'm in the middle of this experience. And somehow, though, in the middle of the experience, in the middle of the suffering, in the middle of not accepting things, we actually can find some, you know,

[78:45]

sometimes we can find some composure and some calm in our tremendous capacity to be with things. And being with the way they are is also being with what's painful and unpleasant, as well as being with what's pleasant and so on. And if we side on one side and not the other, I want to be able to like things, I don't want to have to not like. You know, we're setting up one part of our mind against another part. There's inherently a battle then, and a struggle for us, and a kind of pain that we're divided against ourself and our experience. How about a palm? We can stop. I have some announcements, too, though. Patty and I are doing a Zen Yoga weekend next weekend, if any of you, you know, still, you know, if it's not too late. And we actually have one or two scholarship positions available,

[79:45]

so if you're interested, you can come and get one of these flyers. Also, if you're interested in the 108 Benefits Dinner, this can tell you a little bit more about it. As I mentioned during my talk, I'm doing a cooking for this dinner, which is a benefit for the Spirit Rock Scholarship Fund. Zen Center has its own benefit dinner. You want to sign up for that one in November? I'm not cooking at that one. But David Chadwick is going to come and be the keynote speaker. Don't miss it. Now, he did this book, you know, Thank You, No K, and it's in the bookstore. A Zen Failure in Japan. David turns out to be quite a good author. I was very impressed. Anyway, okay, there's that. And then I'll tell you this poem. This is a poem. I don't remember if I told you this poem before. You know, I couldn't remember what I told you last time I was here, and I got worried. Maybe I'll just give the same talk I gave last time. But anyway, I decided to go ahead and wing it. But I'll tell you this poem. This is a poem by a man named Derek Walcott.

[80:46]

Is it Derek? Yeah, Derek Walcott. I got this off the tape. Somebody else is reading it. So I'm not sure it's exactly the poem as he wrote it. Anyway, it's quite a nice poem. I like the feeling of it. So I'll tell it to you, and we can end the morning with that. This poem has something of that quality of meeting yourself and meeting what is there to be met. And having some of that quality that Eric was mentioning of, you know, some warm-heartedness or loving-kindness, you'll see in the poem. One day you will with elation treat yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror. Each will smile at the other's greeting, saying, Sit here, eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine, give bread,

[81:48]

give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who's loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, desperate notes. Peel your own image back from the mirror. Sit, feast. Feast on your life. Okay? Thanks.

[82:15]

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