I would invite you to relax, since I have the responsibility for giving the talk, and you don't. And you don't even have to like it, so you may as well relax and enjoy yourself. So, anyway, welcome to Zen Improvisational Theater. I'm taking responsibility for the talk, but that doesn't mean I know what it's going to be. I have various ideas, but we'll see. When it actually comes time for my mouth to move, what words come out. Have you ever been in this situation in your life?

[01:02]

It's, you know, most of the time, you know, we don't really have a script, so this is how it goes. Anyway, it's been nice to come back to Tassara. I was here more last summer than the summer before, for about three months of the summer. So, this year I'm not here so much. Tassara seems, you know, about the same, so, you know, the bell rings at a certain time and there's food. And a lot of the time I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to go shopping or, you know, go to the kitchen.

[02:10]

I just have to walk over and bow and serve myself. It's awfully sweet, I can tell you. And the grounds are being raked and the lights, the lanterns are lit. And so things are pretty well taken care of. And then there's a few frayed edges, which most of you have probably noticed. Some of the frayed edges are people and then some of them are stuff out there. Right after I got here, I went over to the Kaisandu and Suzuki Rishi's garden and one of the rocks I carefully placed was about two feet away from where I had planted it upside down and backwards. I'm kind of just sitting there, so I don't know what happened. And over the first couple of mornings we've been doing our yoga thing.

[03:18]

I understand that, you know, we're messing up your life, you know, here by having our yoga, Zen yoga here in the Zendo here at Tassajaran. But it's been curious the last couple of mornings, there's been this little dust broom in here, a different dust broom each morning. And the Zendo's nice and clean and then the dust broom is still here. So that's been interesting. So there's just these little loose things. And so we say, you know, everything is perfect just as it is, but there's room for improvement. So this perfect just as it is, you know, usually requires some explanation because obviously things are not perfect.

[04:19]

I gave a talk one time at Unitarian Church in Marin County and afterwards one of the, and I talked only about how everything is perfect and then afterwards one of the members of the congregation, there's a talk back and he started ranting that everything is not perfect and I have no right to be telling people that it is because there's a lot of social action that needs to be undertaken and so on and so on and so on. So anyway, I'll give you a couple of suggestions about everything is perfect. First of all, maybe perfect isn't such a good word, but you know, as far as theater goes, right? It's the good word, right? Everything is perfect just as it is, oh, okay. Because it's more like just saying, because if I said things are the way they are, right? What are you going to do about it? And then that's not as poetic as everything is perfect just as it is because, you know,

[05:25]

what happens happens and then that's happened. So let's just say that that's perfect and we don't have to blame you or someone else and we don't have to say why me and we don't have to say it's all your fault, you know, when it's something other than what we think of as perfect. So let's just say everything is perfect and then not worry about whose fault it is or why it's happening and what did I do wrong happening. But another kind of meaning of perfect is that, you know, it's possible at any moment to taste the absolute, to touch with your awareness the sacred, right in the midst of innumerable conditions, hot and cold, good and bad, pleasant, unpleasant, tired, awake,

[06:36]

whatever the conditions are, it's possible to touch the unconditioned and to know that the nature of mind and the nature of you yourself is unstained, is unconditioned, is already completely liberated. And knowing this, you can relax or have some quiet or calm once in a while in your life. To touch the unconditioned is to take something into your heart, take your experience of any particular moment into your heart and savor it, relish it, without any particular thinking

[07:44]

or assessing of how good or bad it is, how pleasant or unpleasant it is. But just to take something into your heart as it is and savor it. And then you touch something that is not about the conditions or the circumstances. Often at this time, you know, we feel some gratitude, some appreciation, some warmth, when we let our heart be touched by our experience, you know, our heart responds. So maybe the room for improvement is to be more warm-hearted and to take more of our

[08:46]

experience into our heart and let ourself be touched by things. But also it's to not to neglect causes and conditions or the way things work in this world. So it's also to, in that sense, put some energy and vitality into your hands and your feet and give them, you know, the power and permission to do what hands and feet can do. Hands and feet is a word, you know, in some sense it's literally your hands and your feet. It's the ground you stand on and the activity you engage in. And people who practice spiritual practice, because they're so busy touching the sacred,

[09:52]

they sometimes forget to put energy and vitality into their hands and into their feet. So this is something we can remind ourselves. Not so long ago, I asked someone, you know, my wrists are very stiff. No, they don't. I can't bend my hand backwards. It's hard to do downward dog and all kinds of things in yoga. I can bend my hand this way, right? But this way doesn't go that way. I mean, if I bend my arm, right? Just the hand. A lot of people can bend their hand, you know, completely back 90 degrees. So I asked someone, what do you think that is? And he suggested, well, why don't you put some awareness into your wrist and see what you can find out. Simple advice, huh? So the next morning I was meditating and I noticed my awareness only went down to here.

[10:59]

There was a big, you know, that's just where it ended. There were no hands. There was just a wrist. And then it stopped here. And so I went back and I said to this person, well, I noticed in meditation I don't have any hands. Anyway, his comment was, spiritual people often cut off their hands. Why? Because they want to be real careful not to cause harm. So just in case, just forget about having hands. Just abandon your hands and your feet. Just in case they get you into trouble. Just to be on the safe side. So, you know, a lot of yoga poses emphasize awareness in your hands. Particularly things to do with your hands or your feet. Sending your energy out to the extremities. And in zazen we have a particular posture.

[12:04]

And it's interesting because if you put your hands like this, the fingers right on top of the fingers. And coming, you know, just to the edge of your palm. And your thumb tips touch. And you actually have awareness in your hands. And you actually do this. And your hands are against your lower belly. And pretty soon your collarbones have to adjust. And your shoulder blades, your shoulders, your arms. Everything has to adjust. So I just realized for years I've been sitting and I don't pay much attention to my hands. So they go like this. They go this way instead of going this way. They go this way. So in body language, moving your hand towards your thumb, this is I can. Moving your hand towards your little finger, that's I can't. So I've been sitting for years going I can't.

[13:09]

Then I noticed if I put the hands, the fingers right on top of the fingers. And then, you know, something has to shift up here. In the collarbones and in the shoulders. And then my hand is right in the middle. That's right in the middle. Your hand, you know, has a great freedom right in the middle. Where it's not yes or no, I can or I can't. It's neutral. And you can have your hand. And it's ready, you know, we say ready for anything. Anyway, so there's room for improvement. But improvement is a funny word too, don't you think? How would you know what the improvement is? And if you, of course, obviously, if you worry about improvement all the time.

[14:18]

And whether or not there's been any improvement. You won't be doing much of that touching the same thing. It's sacred. Because you'll be so worried. You'll be so busy. Oh, this isn't as good as it could be. This could be better. When you're busy saying that and thinking that. You won't be actually savoring and touching and intimately meeting your experience. You won't be letting anything touch your heart. So anyway, this improvement business is generally speaking a big problem. So to say there's room for improvement is... Maybe there's room for improvement, but let it take care of itself. Don't get too busy about it or you'll miss the first part. So this, what I've been talking about, is also very similar to what Dogen says.

[15:22]

Let your mind go out and abide in things. Let things return and abide in your mind. This is to say how useful it is not to try to keep your mind, you, yourself, apart from everything. As though if you could keep yourself apart successfully, you could be unaffected and unstained. The word is immune. If you're careful enough, you could be immune and nothing would get to you. Sometimes we practice things like that. Instead of it being a practice to have the mind go out and abide in things, things return and abide in your mind. So Zen generally is considered to be a steep path.

[16:33]

Do you know why it's steep? It's because nobody really tells you what to do. This is actually the opposite of the same... If this life is a test, if this was a real life, you would have been given instructions of what to do and where to go. Actually, this is the real life. That's why you didn't get instructions of where to do and where to go and what to do. Because this is the real life, and so Zen doesn't give you instructions of where to go or what to do, because this is the real life. And there's no knowing where to go or what to do. And you'll just have to go along anyway. Like it's dark. So, in Suzuki Roshi you would say, Zen is like feeling your way along in the dark. And after a while you can trust yourself,

[17:35]

and you can trust this effort to feel your way along in the dark, not knowing what you're doing or where you're going. Many years ago I called up my friend, an acquaintance of mine named Psychic Bob. Psychic Bob started out with pendulums. And then he graduated to... He just used his finger, and he had a little chart. One to twelve. And each number had a little area. One, and there's a little area like a... And then two. They each have their little... So then, after a while, his finger would just go to a number. So one time I was worried about taking a trip to the East Coast, and I was feeling a lot of trepidation. That's not particularly hard for me to do when it comes to taking trips.

[18:37]

So it wasn't especially unusual, but for some reason I decided to call up Psychic Bob. It's not so expensive. So I called up Psychic Bob, and I said, Bob, what about this trip to the East Coast? Twelve out of twelve, he said. I thought, great. And then right away I thought, Bob, what about if I don't go? He said, twelve out of twelve. So then how am I supposed to decide, I asked him. He said, you know, this isn't a question of cosmic significance. You just decide. Go ahead. You know, you'll probably do one or the other. But those of us in spiritual practice, you know, we would like to know

[19:38]

which is the really good thing to be doing, and the right thing. So that's one of, generally speaking, another kind of obsession with people with spiritual practice. It's not such a bad obsession, you know. It just sometimes makes it hard to make decisions. Because how could you know? And then we'd rather, you know, often be right than follow our heart. We want, you know, we'd rather have that kind of assurance of being right than, in my heart, this is what I want. Or in your hand. Or, you know, in your foot. I teach people all the time, you know. Not all the time. I teach less than I used to, cutting vegetables.

[20:40]

Maybe sometime while I'm here I will do that a little bit. But I tell people, you know, the best way to learn how to cut or do anything with your hands is give your hands permission. And let your hands find out how to be hands. And do what hands love to do. And letting your hands do what hands love to do is different than you decide, hands, I want you to cut vegetables. Here's how you should do it. Move this way. Now move that way. Now do this. Now do that. And if you're busy telling your hands what to do like that, is that very enjoyable for your hands? It makes them very anxious and nervous. I don't know if you've noticed this, but after a while they can hardly move. It's very awkward. And then pretty soon there's this jerkiness, because the hand has no permission to just be a hand

[21:46]

and find out how to be a hand and what to do for itself. Because the thinking mind is telling it, do it like this, do it like that. So when you're busy telling yourself, and not just your hands, but your body, and your mind, and your thinking mind, and your feeling mind, how it should behave, then after a while you won't feel very good. We don't feel very good, then we feel unhappy and discouraged and depressed, because we can never do it according to the idea we have. And to liberate your own body and mind is just to invite your hands to be hands, and to do what hands love to do, and to find out how to do something, and to let them find out how to do something. And your body, let your body find out how to do something, and your mind, your legs. Your whole body is this great,

[22:47]

you know, Sogen says, treasure house. So, to be a treasure house we let it, you know, we let it, you know, enter into the activity that it loves. We let it find itself. And not have, you know, real strong ideas about how, what our hands should be doing, how they should cut vegetables, or how they should wash dishes. And it's difficult sometimes, because we're rather, you know, for the most part attached to, you know, we have some standard of performance, accomplishment. And so, it doesn't seem like it makes so much sense

[23:58]

just to fiddle, or to give yourself a chance to find your way. And the same is true for Zazen. And, you know, you know, it's tempting to, to decide how to do Zazen. This is why, you know, Zen is so steep, because actually there's no way to tell yourself how to do it. And Zazen is to be giving yourself permission to find out how to do it. And Yoga is to be giving yourself permission to find out how to do any particular pose. Because there's not some way that's separate from any of us.

[24:58]

The story I tell, you know, my first big experience of this, I was sitting Zazen one day, and I was tending to sit very straight, because that's the way you do Zazen, right? Sit up straight. And I was just sitting there, minding my own business, so to speak. And then the next thing I knew, I was sitting like this. And I thought, that's not the way to sit, this is. And then something went, no. And I said, yes, it's like this, this is Zen. I said, I don't care. And then, yes it is, no it's not. And pretty soon I was sitting there going like this. And as quickly as I could pull my back forward, it went back. And then after a while I said, all right, have it your way. Because after all, how long can you argue with your own body? And I sat there, slumped. And I waited. And after a while, my back said, you know, this is a little uncomfortable,

[26:03]

can we sit up just a little bit, please? Maybe not so far as you were before, but could we sit up just a little bit? And I thought, this is interesting, you know, I could actually just kind of see where my back is comfortable, where my back likes to be. I could let my back figure out how to do Zazen instead of thinking that I'd just tell it, and that I knew. So this is, you know, liberation. This is to practice, everything is perfect. This is to liberate your body and mind. To let your own being find its way. You know, so finally, this steep path, Dogen says, after all the talk about posture, and the details of posture, and how to sit, and he says, think not thinking.

[27:03]

This in itself is the essential art of Zazen. And then, uh-oh, how are you going to do that? And then will you just start telling yourself, no, don't think. Oh, that's a thought. And then you could, or you could, you know, it's considered to be a Zen sickness to not, after a while, not notice your thinking. You just ignore your thinking. That would be another possibility. No, I'm not thinking. Thinking? And then you do have trouble making decisions. Because how would you know what to decide? Because you're not thinking. You have to think in order to make decisions. Or maybe you don't. You could just follow your body. And then, as far as, you know,

[28:04]

how would you know when you're not thinking? Because, I mean, in the absence of thought, that is, how would you know that you're not thinking? Because it's thinking that decides, oh, this is thinking, and this isn't thinking. That's thinking that does that. That's what thinking does. It distinguishes between one thing and another. This is this, that's that. So how would you know that you're not thinking? Uh-oh. So how will you do this? This is the wonderful mystery, you know, of finding your own way. Suzuki Roshi said, own your own body and mind. You know, any moment, we don't have to keep recreating ourselves the same way. And part of the practice of zazen is, you know, because we take a posture,

[29:05]

it's not to attain the posture of zazen that we use the posture of zazen. But forms like the posture of zazen are to give us information and help us, you know, help us notice more. So if you try taking the posture of zazen, you'll notice something about how difficult it is and how it doesn't work and how uncomfortable something is or how you're slumped after a while. You notice that no matter how much you take the posture of zazen, you end up somewhere else. You can end up with your hands like this. I can't. How would you know that your hands are like that except that this is the posture? And you can notice that your hands aren't doing that. You can notice that your hands go like this instead of like this. So,

[30:13]

form is to help us study and become intimate. And, you know, of course, Zen understands the way yoga does, that posture, attitude, our energy body, you know, it's all the same thing. And each of us is put together in a very unique way, a very particular way. You know, I say it's put together, but we've put ourselves together in the circumstance of our life and our response to the circumstance of our life. We've put ourselves together in a particular pattern, a particular posture, and the posture is a particular attitude which is expressed in that posture. And if you change your posture, you change your attitude. And the way you change your attitude, you know,

[31:19]

on one hand, you know, you immediately change, but on the other hand, you change because trying to take the form and express the form and manifest the form reveals something about your habitual body and mind and posture and attitude. And when that's revealed, then the question is how do you release your habitual posture or attitude. It's well known, you know, if you practice Azen, you know, after a while, if not, you know, one of the first things people notice is I'm thinking a lot. Boy, how do I turn this off? I never knew. Notice, I was thinking so much. And then, you know, usually at some point people are angry a lot. And, you know, it doesn't take much. And, you know, and then you can have fear. And then after, you know, anger and fear, you can have rage, violence, terror.

[32:22]

And it's stuff. It's just stuff. You know, it's old, right? But what happens when you take the posture of Azen, which is neutral, and your body starts to relax, and the places that you've had everything held in place, they start releasing. They start letting go. And then how will you let go of what it is that comes up? And the key always in Buddhism, this isn't just Zen, but Buddhism generally, you know, is mindfulness. You know, so that when anger comes up, if you can receive anger and touch anger with mindfulness, you let go of it. And touching anger with mindfulness is different than touching anger with anger. Oh, being angry like this makes me so mad. I don't want to have anything to do with you, anger. Get out of here. It really makes me mad, the way that you get mad like that. And that's what we do with other people, too.

[33:26]

You get mad at me, I'm going to get mad at you. Or if you have fear, you can get angry. If you notice just for an instant some fear, then you can attack the person who touched you like that, cause some fear. And it's not even about them. But we start assessing, you know, like, where is it coming from? And it's just us. It's just our mind and our being. So, to really touch something with mindfulness is, mindfulness is to touch and receive something and let it into your heart and know it and taste it. Mm-hmm. And it's without judgment, without blame, without criticism. And because we touch things so,

[34:31]

that are so difficult to touch, and we can spend years not touching something that's difficult to touch, this is why, you know, Zen is also said to be, you know, a path that involves some courage or steadfastness. And the courage or steadfastness is to touch what seems like it would be so completely impossible to touch, something so awful or painful. And the things that are like that, you know, death, sickness, emotions, but the capacity to touch something, you know, is something we all have. by touching something, it's also, you know, how we grow larger hearted. I want to offer you

[35:43]

a few little suggestions about Zazen, about posture. We talked about this in our yoga class this morning, too. But we often say in Zen, pull the chin in, or we say lift up through the top of your head, or lengthen the back of your neck. So that's pretty good, but you know, at some point your head can be kind of stiff. We also have an expression, you know, get a grip on yourself. And, you know, when we sit Zazen, it's very easy to think that the thing to do is get a grip on yourself. That way, you'll be nice and still. And one of the places that grip comes is the back of the neck. I mean, that used to be in the second grade, my teacher used to walk around, Mrs. Lehman. And boy, if you were misbehaving,

[36:44]

she'd grab you by the back of the neck. Like that. And it hurt like heck. So anyway, that's one of the places, like you, I don't know about you, I mean, obviously, I know about that, right? Good old Mrs. Lehman. But, but the back of the neck is a place, it's very easy to, like, grab on there. And then, and then maybe everything will be okay. You could just hold there. And, so, you know, another way to do this, this is actually from Tai Chi. So when you sit, and you can do this in your chair too if you want to try this out. But you let, you imagine, you let there be a slight breeze coming right towards your face, and it pushes against your nose, very slightly, you know, about a pound of pressure.

[37:45]

So it pushes your head gently back. And then as your head is being pushed gently back, you know, there's a place where it starts to float up. And then your head can kind of float up, and it's not so busy keeping a grip on everything. And your head can be a head. And not try to run the whole show, you know, with its neck, gripping the neck. And so try it out, you know, if you'd like. And, the breeze blows your head back, and then there's a place where it starts to float up. So this is a different kind of, you know, vision or conception, or way to work with, you know, posture. This isn't about effort, this is about, well, how would your head like to do it? How would your neck like to do it? This is what somebody's found

[38:48]

as a nice way to have the head be in the position that we always talk about in Zazen, but it's not effort. And another place is the side of the body. The side of the body is what connects us with others. So you know what that means. It's also the part of the body. You protect yourself from others, protect your planks. Wow. I mean, if that's where you connect with others, then, do you want to be connected with others? Well, that could be scary, right? But, on the other hand, if you decided, I'm going to open my side body, I'll connect, I'll allow myself to be connected with everyone else in the room. I'll allow myself to

[39:51]

receive the support of everyone through the sides of my body. It's a really nice feeling when you sit and you have support and connection. And your hands can be in the same place, you know. It's just your mind. We put ourselves together in particular ways. And you can decide, oh, I'll let others in my side body, and the feeling in your body can change right away. Usually, we think

[40:56]

we have to do this practice on our own, and we have to try really hard. But it's a lot easier if we are sitting with everyone else and letting the sides of our body receive that energy and support. And another place that's important is the back of the heart. The back of the heart is right between the shoulder blades, the bottom of the shoulder blades, maybe, lower to middle part, mid to lower part of the shoulder blade. You know, many people sit a little bit, there's a place in the back where it bends forward. It's the back of the heart

[41:57]

where it bends forward. So, that's one of the places I touch when I come around. Sometimes I touch that place. Because if you move the back of your heart into your body, you know, instead of having the back of your heart pulled away, you exaggerate it, you know. It's hard to be that suspicious. If you move the back of your heart into your body, but also, you know, you don't necessarily, and if you move the back of your heart into your body, you know, it helps you to sit up and for your heart to be present and to receive your experience. But also, the back of the heart is a good place to think about, you know, to have your awareness and let your awareness be soft in that area. Let the back of your heart soften. Now,

[43:39]

I'm going to move into my body. I'm going to move the back of my heart into my body. Now, in the book on Zazen, the encouragement for meditation for Zazen that Dogen Zenji wrote, it begins, the great way is everywhere. The great way is everywhere. How could it require practice for enlightenment? The essential teaching is fully available. What effort could be necessary? Furthermore,

[44:48]

the the The great mirror is entirely free of dust. Why take steps to polish it? Nothing is apart from this very place. Why journey away? You know, each of us is the great way. The great way is everywhere. Each of us is already the great way. So it's just coming into our own experience, receiving our own body and being. And to receive something is to, you know, practice opening the heart, your heart, to receive

[45:49]

your experience. If it helps to soften the back of your heart to receive your experience, then you can do that. The essential teaching is fully available. The

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