Tonight, I've been thinking about soft mind for the last few days. The way I organize my talks is to talk about what I've been thinking about, so I'm going to talk to you about soft mind. Suzuki Roshi used various concepts or expressions. Soft mind is one of them. Big mind, he used to say, big mind is always on your side. Suzuki Roshi used to say, big mind is always on your side, and it doesn't come or go. And in your small-minded passion, you will try to appropriate it and make it yours, but it's already there. But you know what, that small mind is, the small-mindedness with which you go about things, that's already big mind.

[01:00]

So don't worry about it. Isn't that nice? Anyway, maybe soft mind is a little bit like that, but soft mind in this case is used as the opposite of hard mind. Partly I've been thinking about this because I see, since I've been here off and on, since the middle of April, I see a lot of change in people, the people who have been living here for the summer. I see, actually, people becoming softer. You can tell, I walk around the Zenda sometimes to kind of adjust or correct posture or see what's going on. Laughter Not everybody gets to do that, but it's my job, so I have to disturb myself and walk around.

[02:03]

So I notice how people's postures change. People who have been here for a while, their bodies look softer and more supple. People look more at home in their body, more settled in their being. It's really wonderful to see. In that sense, people look more ready or willing to, more tolerant of the various emotional and physical upheavals that life brings, which it's bound to, as you know. But hard-mindedness, hard-minded likes to think that the approach, given that there are all these physical and emotional upheavals coming one's way, wouldn't it be a good approach to kind of steel yourself against them? See if you can hold on to something, even though all these things are about to befall you or have befallen you.

[03:14]

And then, shouldn't you have a grip on yourself? And shouldn't you be trying to keep it together? This requires a bit of hard-mindedness. I mean, if you didn't have a grip on yourself, who knows what might happen? If you're not in control, I mean, who is? It's usually one tends to think that I better keep a grip on things. I better try to keep it together, because a lot of things could happen if I didn't. And hard-mindedness also has the aspect of you want to get somewhere. Like, I mean, this isn't good enough, right?

[04:16]

You kind of decided that already, right? How did you decide that? You know, that this isn't good enough here in the present. And then where would you get to? And how would you know that you'd arrive? And the way that, you know, this is the Western approach. Various people have pointed this out about Western culture, that we like to put each other down. We put ourselves down, and then we put other people down. Vince Lombardi, the football coach, was famous for that. As the football coach, he told his players, you're still shit. So then, or whatever he told them, you know, you're still, you are lousy football players. You are still such blah, [...] blah. It was probably rather profane. And then they had to try to show him that they weren't. This requires hard-mindedness.

[05:20]

And one of the, of course, classic examples in Western culture is Van Gogh, who seems to have had tremendous self-loathing. And he was going to produce masterpieces, you know, against all odds. And he did. Tremendous. And he did dozens of them. And he still never measured up. Didn't do anything about his hard-mindedness. He transcended, I mean, at times he transcended that, or, you know, he proved something. But then you're only as good as your last thing, right? And anyway, eventually, he still was no good. He had to kill himself. This is the great, you know, some people feel the great tragedy of the way our Western culture has been epitomized by this metaphor. A hard-minded, you know, I'm going to get somewhere, I'm going to prove something. And it goes along with the tremendous self-loathing. Self-loathing and, you know, self-condemnation.

[06:27]

Or else you can turn it, of course, and do it to other people. Some people do it that way. But it doesn't, but then how will you ever love yourself, or like yourself, or be tolerant, or be happy? How will you ever be happy? When will you ever have, you know, when will you ever have enough of an accomplishment, or enough money, or whatever it is? When will happiness come? When will this hard-mindedness, you know, pay off? So Buddhism, of course, is this hard-minded approach, and trying to get someplace, and prove something, and attain something, and become somebody. So what? So you can like yourself? Why don't you just like somebody who's less than perfect? Why don't you just learn to like somebody who's got problems, like you? Putting that picture is simpler, and more to the point. Instead of going on these, you know, putting on the, there's an expression in Zen,

[07:33]

take off the blinders, unpack the saddlebags. Where did you think you were going to get to? And that's called samsara, because it's endless, because you never arrive. And you're always, you push, and push, and push, and you keep telling yourself this still isn't good enough, and you still don't measure up, and you still haven't arrived. So we're trying to find out how to just be where we are, and practice, so we practice arriving. Actually taking off the blinders and being here. And then the saddlebags. Usually, you know, what's in the saddlebags, there's been a, we've been accumulating a lot of stuff these years in our saddlebags, so. This is, some of this in the saddlebags is like provisions. Certain amount of skills, capacities that we have, and then some of it is just kind of stuff we've been carting around for a long time. And it suggested that we could actually unpack it and not have to keep carrying it, and not have to keep, you know, hard-mindedly holding it all together and carrying all that stuff around.

[08:44]

Such as old emotional baggage, and various sorts of debris that we've been wanting to keep, in case we had some use for it. And not only because we might have some use for it, but because it's really not very pleasant to look at. And I'd rather not. Thank you very much, and I'll be on my way now. And if, you know, we can try then, with this hard-minded approach, to out-distance ourself. Also, try to get, keep a little distance. Yeah, which usually doesn't work, but, or anyway, not for long, of course. So, there are various ways to approach, or to kind of, in a sense, practice self-mindedness.

[09:58]

And, you know, Bhakta Prabhupada, when he was in prison in Czechoslovakia, said that one of the few things that they could do in prison would be to make themselves a cup of tea. And he said he experienced a tremendous sense of freedom and well-being, sitting in prison with his cup of tea. And having a few minutes with a cup of tea. And he said it saved him. And there was a cult of tea drinkers, he said, in the prison. Thich Nhat Hanh says, suggests to people, why don't you practice smiling? A slight smile, you know, because we wouldn't want to overdo it. And we wouldn't want to get hard-minded about smiling. You know.

[11:05]

But just a slight smile is a twist. The slight smile is, you know, it's just, it's an immediate kind of self-mindedness. There's always going to be something that is disturbing, or potentially disturbing, or upsetting. And what about just having a slight smile? This is to soften, you know, as a response to whatever is occurring. To soften rather than to harden. In this sense, there are these, you know, one of the metaphors, of course, for the mind. Or our being, in Buddhism, is like an ocean, or in a sort of simpler way, just a pond. Even a small pond. And when a rock drops in, the ripples go out. And then, the stillness returns. Something drops in, the ripples go out.

[12:07]

So all the time, something is dropping into our mind. Thoughts, and feelings, and sights, and sounds. And these ripples are happening. And then, how would you ever keep your mind still? You know, why would you think? Why would any of us think? The point is to keep the mind still. So that it didn't ripple. When it's the nature of mind to have ripples. The 6th Patriarch in Zen taught no thought. He said, don't think. Zen teachers often say, don't think. And then he would notice that his students actually were attempting not to think. He said, you're trying to hold your mind still. And not think. And that's not what I mean by don't think. When you make your mind really hard and still like that, this is an obstruction. The nature of the mind is to have ripples.

[13:07]

And to reflect on things. To have all this phenomena occur. This is the nature of mind. And so you're making, this is an obstruction. And this is a hindrance in the way. And when I say, don't think, I mean. When you have a thought, think nothing of it. Laughter. But that, you know, one of the other things about hard-minded, of course, is that with a hard mind you can't be very intimate with anything. You can't really touch something or feel something or sense much of anything because it would cause a ripple. And your mind is too hard to allow that.

[14:08]

So how can you be with anything? And this is a big, you know, this is a suffering for us. This is a pain in our life. And we often then look around for something that would, you know, actually help to break that. Then we have shattering experiences. Then we couldn't just stop them. We look for something to overwhelm us sometimes. We want to be swept away. Again, we could have a more practical just stop it. Anyway, I also want to tell you tonight about what are traditionally some of the factors that could be associated with soft-mindedness. There are six factors, classically in Buddhism, that have this, are related to this quality of soft-mindedness. And the six factors... Do you like this? Anyway, the six factors are tranquility,

[15:13]

buoyancy, that's the second, buoyancy or lightness. The third is flexibility, or it's sometimes called plasticity, adaptability. The fourth is readiness or willingness. The fifth is fitness or vigor. And the sixth is uprightness, or straightforward, straightforward mind. I was very curious about tranquility because we'd all like tranquility, but, you know, the opposite of tranquility is what tranquility calms is restlessness. And the thing about that is that, you know, lots of the time we're right on the edge of tranquility, but instead of finding it tranquil, we think nothing's happening. I'd better make something happen.

[16:19]

I'm not getting anywhere. I'm not hurting anything. I'm not attaining anything. I'm not accomplishing anything. We tell ourselves that you'd better get a move on. So, this is how we avoid tranquility. When will you get to it then? If you keep avoiding it, when do we get there? Actually have the tranquility. Actually be where we are with not much happening. And actually find that repose where not much is happening. But this not much happening is also that, you know, could be lots of things happening. You know, we can have that kind of repose in the midst of work or in the midst of meditation. Meditation, by the way, and work are both very good ways to soften your mind. This is why I mentioned, you know, earlier, seeing people over the course of the summer and how much people have softened.

[17:28]

And work, it's very clear that people soften in work. Because just the physical movement, you can't hold on to, you can't hold yourself as rigid anymore. Or stiff, because you're making all these movements. And then things come loose and you get frustrated or annoyed or sad or upset. Because it's just what's coming loose when you move. And what happens when you're not hard anymore? So anyway, the tranquility has to do with this repose. Some repose in the midst of the activity, in the midst of the moment or with the moment, in the moment. I tell people sometimes a poem about a little duck. Do I get to tell you the poem tonight or have you all heard it? No. Now we're ready to look at something pretty special. It's a duck.

[18:34]

Riding on the waves a hundred feet beyond the surf and it cuddles in the swell. It can rest while the Atlantic heaves because it rests in the Atlantic. Probably it doesn't know how large the ocean is and neither do you. But what does it do, I ask you? It sits down in it. It rests in the immediate and there were infinity, which it is. That's religion. And the little duck has it. I like the little duck. He doesn't know much, but he has religion. I like the little duck. Anyway, we could all be like little ducks too, but mostly we'd rather be eagles or bears. I don't know. Anyway, the tranquility is also, in another list, one of the seven factors of enlightenment.

[19:43]

It helps a lot. When one is able to repose in the activity, in the moment of activity, in the moment of stillness, in the moment of whatever it is, and there's some repose there, then we actually start to wake up and we can actually be with things because we find repose. Not when everything is, when we hold hard-mindedly everything at some distance away from us. Now I'll have some peace and quiet. Thank you very much. That's real hard. You don't get any real repose there. Because you're busy holding everything fiercely at a distance. This is hard-mind. You won't have any tranquility there. Soft-mindedness allows things to come and there's some repose visibly. And this is something we cultivate. This is part of what meditation does. There's no help for it. Things keep coming. After a while, I give up.

[20:47]

I better find some repose with all this instinct of trying to make it stop. The second factor is buoyancy. Buoyancy or lightness. This is said to overcome heaviness. This is the heaviness that is like hard-mindedness. It's the heaviness of holding, you know, trying to make things happen. Being tired of trying to make things happen. You know, having fatigue from trying to get somewhere. And buoyancy is just to have some buoyancy or lightness with whatever is happening. So this means to not be burdened. So very difficult things can happen. Very painful emotions can be coming up. Very difficult. And one can be having many difficulties. And part of the capacity to be buoyant is some understanding of the nature of mind.

[21:53]

The nature of one's life. That fundamentally, the lake is still the lake, the pond is still the pond, the ocean is still the ocean. Big mind is already there. Big mind can't be stained. Your identity, your mind can't be stained or discolored or disfigured by anything that happens. It's ripples and waves that are coming and going. And nothing fundamentally is happening to you. Anyway, there are times when we have the capacity to be buoyant with things even though they're actually rather heavy. So this kind of buoyancy, again, is not a sort of blipness or disregard of taking things, not taking things seriously in a sense. Disregarding or ignoring things, being stupidly buoyant or something. But this is a buoyancy that is just that whatever is happening, okay, it's another ripple, it's another wave.

[22:57]

And it's not the end of my life. And just because I had it in mind that this isn't where I was going to end up and I was really going to get somewhere else and, you know, okay, so what? There's some buoyancy here because I'm just right, is it? So many, many things are heavy in our life. We've all had heavy, you know, we have heavy things that have happened to us. And Zen practice teaches this kind of thing, just to be buoyant, to be light, to carry on. Zen practice gets us through the day. We have a wake up bell. We have a signal to come to meditation. Anyway, these two of overcoming restlessness and tranquility that overcomes or subdues restlessness allows us to be with, repose actually with things instead of trying to make something happen, improve something or accomplish something.

[24:07]

And this buoyancy which overcomes sluggishness, sloth and torpor. Heaviness. Now this is said to give rise to flexibility. Non-rigidity, this has the function of overcoming or counteracting rigidity. Rigidity has often to do with if I just do it like this or if they would just behave like that, then it would all work. And then I'm going to, and this is again, this is a hard-minded approach, right, this rigidity. And then I'm going to, I'm going to follow the schedule perfectly. And then pretty soon I'm going to, or I'm going to do my, this, you know, really this way or that way. And then why are you talking to me like that? Wait a minute. And why is somebody not behaving the way they're supposed to?

[25:09]

Why don't all of you follow the rules and put yourself under the same kind of restraint that I'm putting myself under? So non-rigidity, this is to be flexible, to be, you know, to have some adaptability, to shift and adapt to circumstances. Maybe you need to take a nap sometimes, right? Well, maybe a bath would help. I used to, when I was, years ago when I was living here and I noticed, you know, finally I thought it's a really classic expression, well, if you can't beat him, join him. So I became more of a slaggard. You know, I thought, why don't I just practice the way everybody else is practicing? They don't come to every period of meditation. Well, I guess I could do that too. And so I started skipping meals and things sometimes.

[26:11]

I had a big package of rye crisp. We were talking about this last night. And in a small group. And then I got on the tantra of rye crisp and peanut butter and honey. And so then I had big rye crisps. And then I could go out, you know, on the hillside above the lorry garden while everybody else was in the meditation hall. And that seemed to be, you know, actually rather nice. It helped me not be so rigid. I don't know the way I look now, but I'm actually a rather rigid person. And what you see now is just a slight, you know, bit less rigid than I used to be. Because when I started doing Zen practice, I thought, I hear these stories about people who have practiced 20, 30 years before they got enlightened. And I thought, well, they just didn't try hard enough.

[27:14]

This is a really good approach to get yourself in a hard mind to be rigid. Kind of like, well, I'll do it in a year. And then once I get enlightened, well, then I can just go and do what I want. If anybody has a problem with it, I'm enlightened, you're not. So now, 30 years sure enough have gone by, and I still haven't gotten enlightened. I have nothing to show for it. I haven't proved a thing. I haven't. The big mind is already there. What would you do one way or another about this big mind? How could you have it or not?

[28:22]

What difference would it make? So anyway, the fourth quality is this quality of readiness, what is sometimes called wieldingness. The third quality, by the way, that flexibility or plasticity, this is said to be like well-pounded leather. It's nice and soft. That's what I think of as supple. It's a mind that, you know, if you're in meditation and you follow your breath, you let your mind take whatever shape your breath takes. Your mind is so soft and supple, it will just go however your breath is going. And it doesn't say to the breath, wait a minute, don't go that way. I'd like you to do a little more, I'd like a little longer breath, thank you. That's a little short, don't you think? Maybe you could have a little deeper inhale there? How about a little more on the exhale? I'm tired of the shallowness here.

[29:27]

This kind of mind is not very flexible, it's not very supple. It doesn't just go with the breath, however the breath is going. This is to be flexible and allow your mind to take the shape of your breath. This is also conducive to wonderful tranquility and buoyancy. Because there's no one very heavy-handed saying how everything is supposed to go. There's no, already there's none of that hard-mindedness saying, we've got to get somewhere. I want it more like this, not like that. That's hard-minded. So this readiness or workability is said to be like polished gold, you can spend it on anything. You can go and meditate with it, you're ready to meditate. You're ready to walk down the path. You're ready to have a cup of tea. You're ready for the next thing on the schedule. You're ready for the person to come up to you and insult you.

[30:30]

You're ready. Your mind is ready, your being is ready. This goes with the tranquility, the buoyancy and the flexibility. And you're ready. And meditation is said to be, we're practicing meditating to be ready for whatever comes. Letting go of all those ideas about what we'd like to have happen next, and the kind of wave that we'd like to see in our little pond. Which is just going to be gone in another moment anyway, right? So who cares? I do. So then they, so sometimes the first three are said to be conducive to this readiness or willingness, and then sometimes the readiness or willingness is said to be contained in the fifth and sixth. Fitness or vigor, which overcomes weakness for especially things like, weaknesses like lack of confidence, lack of trust, doubt.

[31:37]

I don't think I can do this. And the sixth is uprightness or straightforward. This is said to counteract craftiness and crookedness. Oh, I didn't do that. If you do something that somebody criticizes, Oh, no, no, no, I didn't do that. No, well, I didn't mean that. No. And it's slithering around, you know what I mean? Not admitting how you are. It's being deceitful. So uprightness is upright, and it's in the open, and it's in the light, and you go forward. And there's nothing to hide. So all these things are actually, all these qualities are actually possible.

[33:05]

They're all actually doable. They're considered to be wholesome dharmas, wholesome factors of mind. They're not in and of themselves awakening or enlightenment or realization, but they're awfully nice. They have a soft mind. And then actually things touch you, and you can actually be with things, and actually be with your thoughts and your feelings, and you don't have to tell yourself how you need to be and where you need to get to and what you need to do, and how you can measure up accordingly. And then, you know, getting mad at other people who are in your way, and so on. I forgot, but I wanted to caution you, you know, not to try to attain these soft-minded factors with a hard line.

[34:10]

I'll get it. Oh, this sounds really good. I'll work really hard. I'm going to be buoyant. I'll show them I'm going to be flexible. This, of course, all of this brings up this kind of question of what's a sign of what. So how are you doing? We'd all like to be doing better, get somewhere. But then what would indicate this? You know, are there going to stop being ripples in your pond? No. If somebody comes up to you and smiles, there's a ripple. If somebody comes up to you and frowns, there's a ripple. If you have a thought, there's a ripple. Your mind will always be having ripples, waves. You know, if you see your mind as clouds, as sky, there's always these clouds.

[35:15]

And then they say it's as good as practice. Well, but don't forget the sky. Don't forget the water. Don't forget the ocean. Even though it's very appealing, like the objects and the waves really get a lot of attention. What am I going to do about them? How can I stop them? But they're going to keep happening. So... It's interesting that this soft mind, to have some soft mind, it does take some confidence and trust. You know, that you can repose, that you can actually release some of the tension in your body, in your being. You can release or let go of some of the ideas you have about where you need to get to or what you need to accomplish, what you want to prove. You could actually just allow your breath to move your body. Give your body and mind over to your breath, over to your being. You could actually then...

[36:25]

You know, this is how we are actually in touch with what's going on. So in that sense, it's called awakening. Awakening to what's happening. I have a poem for you. This is a poem by Rumi. It's in his book called We Are Three. Sorry, I haven't gotten around to memorizing this poem yet. Oh, here's a cute one. I don't remember this one, but it's a short one, so I'll give you the short one first. Yesterday was glory and joy. Today, a blackened burn everywhere. That's what we were talking about, isn't it? Oh, waves keep on happening.

[37:29]

Then he says, On the record of my life, these two days will be put down as one. The mind is already there. Borrow the beloved's eyes. Look through them and you'll see the beloved's face everywhere. No tiredness, no jaded boredom. I shall be your eyes and your hand and your loving. Let that happen and things that you have hated will become helpers. A certain creature always prays long and with enthusiasm for thieves and muggers who attack people. Let your mercy, O Lord, cover their insolence. He doesn't pray for the good, but only for the blatantly cruel. Why is this his congregation demands? Because they've done me such generous favors. Every time I turn back towards the things they want, I run into them.

[38:30]

They beat me and leave me near the dead, in the road. And I understand again that what they want is not what I want. They keep me on the spiritual path. That's why I honor them and pray for them. Those who make you return for whatever reason to God's solitude, be grateful to them. Don't worry about the others. Who give you delicious comforts, they keep you in prayer. Friends are enemies sometimes. And enemies friends. There is an animal called an Ushgur, a porcupine. If you hit it with a stick, it extends its quills and gets bigger. The soul is a porcupine made strong by stick beating. We don't do that here anymore. So a prophet's soul is especially afflicted because it has to become so powerful.

[39:32]

A hide is soaked in tannin liquor and becomes leather. And if the tanner didn't rub in the acid, the hide would get foul smelling and rotten. The soul is a newly skinned hide, bloody and gross. Work on it with manual discipline and a bitter tannin acid would breathe. And you'll become lovely and very strong. If you can't do this, work yourself. Don't worry. You don't even have to make a decision on life or death. The friend who knows a lot more than you do will bring difficulties and grief and sickness as medicine. As happiness as the essence of the moment you're beaten when you hear checkmate. And you can finally say about meditation, about cooking, about singing, I trust you to kill me.

[40:34]

But, you know, that kind of... And sometimes they say in Zen, you should slay your consciousness at least once. It's that hard-mindedness, you know, that needs to be slain. This is not what I'm talking about when I say something like that. This is not talking about, you know, killing self-mindedness. This is talking about what needs to be killed. It's the hard-mindedness. Maybe that's wrong to say killed. You know, we can just soften and control the hardness. Well, good luck with all this. And don't worry about it one way or another. The big mind is already there. Always on your side. Thank you.

[41:42]

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