Tonight, I'm going to talk about a few things. I don't know how much sense it'll make to you, but give it a try. I'm not sure how clear what I have to say will, you know, how clear it'll be. So we'll see what happens. Give it a go. Last year when I was here at this time, I shared with all of you a poem, which has come to have a rather special place in my life, and I thought I'd share it with you, because it relates with what we were talking about last night. Something about finding or having some taste of the infinite, or we used the story last night, the summit of the mystic peak. Right here is the summit of the mystic peak. And isn't it a little too hot, or aren't I a little too tired, or how could this be the summit of the mystic peak? It doesn't seem to be that great. Anyway, as Suzuki used to say something like, you know, just because it's the summit of the mystic peak,

[01:08]

doesn't mean you can't complain. So this poem speaks about this in some very simple language, and it's a poem that's special to me because my first mother died when I was three years old in 1948, and this poem was in a letter that she sent to her sister about a week before she died. And she had cancer, and there was another whole page of the letter that described how the pain wasn't so bad, she just moved every so often, and her neck was bleeding, and she talked about how she discovered that if she put Vaseline on the bandage, she could take it off without ripping anything. And then this poem is like the next to the last page of the letter. And she introduced it to her sister by saying, this is from that Alta Swank magazine, The New Yorker.

[02:15]

And it's a poem called The Little Duck by Donald C. Babcock. And since then, this is actually just a little segment of the poem, which is kind of, you know, sort of the heart of the poem and the best part of the poem. So this is how it goes. Now we're ready to look at something pretty special. It is a duck riding the waves a hundred feet beyond the surf, and she cuddles in the swells. She can rest while the Atlantic heaps, because she rests in the Atlantic. Probably she doesn't know how large the ocean is, and neither do you. But she realizes it. And what does she do, I ask you? She sits down in it. She rests in the immediate as though it were infinity, which it is.

[03:16]

That's religion, and the little duck has it. I like the little duck. He doesn't know much, but he has religion. And then the next sentence says, So, Hattie, let's rest in the immediate as though we're infinity. So last year I did this poem, and somebody gave me another little poem about Little Ducky Donald. And I had lost my copy of Little Ducky Donald, and the same person was back again this year, so I asked him if he would be so kind as to give me another copy of Little Ducky Donald. So, here's the follow-up poem. Little Ducky Donald went wading in a puddle, went wading in a puddle quite small. Said he, it doesn't matter how much I splash and splatter. I'm only a ducky after all. Kind of the same thing.

[04:17]

Kind of resting in the immediate as though we're infinity. Without comparison. I'm only a ducky. It doesn't have to be somebody who's all neat and clean and tidy. So, I don't know exactly how to introduce this subject, but I thought I'd give it... A few weeks ago I was up in the city, and I went to a talk by somebody named B. Griffith, who was a Benedictine monk from England, and he had been a Benedictine monk for 20 years, and in 1955 he went to India. And began living in an ashram there. At one point in the talk, he kind of, after going on and on about how wonderful Hinduism was, and the Upanishads, and how the essence of a person, the Atman, was the whole universe,

[05:28]

the same as the whole universe and all of creation. He said, this is really wonderful, this is really great. At some point he said, you know, we're still Christians. He was a very frail person. His knees were about like that. His legs looked like they must be, I guess he was living in India. But he had quite the beard. And the main thing he talked about, so this is how he talked about this. He said that, you know, one way to look at our life is we can divide it between physical, mental, and spiritual. The physical we know about, and you can work on the physical in various ways, and there's your body, and there's the things, and we can move things around, and we can have sickness, and we can have health physically. And then mentally, we can have various kinds of mental phenomena. And some will be pleasant, and some will be painful, and to some extent we can learn how to cultivate positive mental experiences,

[06:29]

and then we may have some negative mental experiences. And then there's the spiritual, which has nothing to do with anything. It's not exactly nothing to do with anything, but there's no way to measure it. You know, physically you can go, oh, this feels better, this feels worse, this is pleasant, this is painful. Mentally you can go like, oh, I'm frustrated, oh, now I'm not. Oh, I'm angry, oh, now I'm not. And I feel better now. But spiritually, what can we say? How do you measure where you're from, where you're going to, how do you gauge it? How do you gauge whether you're more spiritually advanced? What's the indication? The spiritual realm is just in its own realm. So this is very similar to what Dogen says. In Yudhvichayoputsu, he says that when you attain realization, you don't say, aha,

[07:35]

this is realization, just like I thought it would be. And even if you think that, realization invariably differs from your expectation. Realization is not what you think it is. So, for this reason, you are cautioned to be, you're advised to be cautious about, so then he says, what you think one way or another won't be of help for realization. So this cautions you not to be small-minded. Well, if I could just sit still for 40 minutes, that would be quite the attainment. You know, if I could just do Satsang for a week. If I was at Tassajara, well, if I just followed the schedule impeccably, that would sure be a spiritual advancement. So you see, Dogen says the same thing. And then he says, realization comes forth only by the power of realization. It's not something to do with human agency and human effort. And Christians say something like this, God's praise.

[08:37]

And then they had sort of like, well, if you did good deeds, you might get a little more of it. But then again, that's buying God. You can't buy God, buy your good deeds. You see, so the spiritual world in some way or realization exists by the power of realization. It doesn't have to do with, you do this, this, and this, and then you get that. Or you don't do this, this, and this, and then you get that. And he mentioned something which for me was sort of the highlight of the talk, when he said, he mentioned Sai Baba. He couldn't for a while remember Sai Baba's name, but he finally came up with it. And Sai Baba is this great teacher in India who can apparently materialize oranges and lemons and candies. Here, you want some? And he'll toss things to people and they just appear. And there's even a story that he got some Duke's crown from England to appear there in India. And then it sort of went back and they sort of just played with it for a while and sent it on its way.

[09:44]

And, so even this, and then he said, you know, Sai Baba says, this isn't spiritual, this is just a very subtle realm of the mental and psychological. This is very subtle mental energy. These are just my calling cards. This isn't what spiritual practice is about. To have some kind of power like that, to materialize things or to read people's minds, this is not what spiritual practice is. It's entertaining and it attracts people. Another Indian saint who I read some about, a man named Nityananda, he spent years, he's one of these really kind of strange and very unusual people who sort of from a very young age seem to have unusual powers. And for the people who hang out with him, he'd sometimes say, well, you know, go to such and such a house and, you know, dig in this place behind the wall there, you'll find some money.

[10:50]

And then there'd be money there. And then people would be well off and, you know, he helped them. And then he'd see that people got fed and, you know, the stories are that he did things like Jesus. You know, you get a little bit of food and everybody gets fed. Sometimes it's all very miraculous. So there's all sorts of stories about him like this. At the very end of his life he said, you know, it's really frustrating. They give people something, they just want something more. You do something nice for them and that doesn't satisfy them. And then they want more. They want more material stuff. They want more wealth. They want more sort of, you know, power. They want, you know, more kinds of attainments, more things. And they never turned to, you know, the spiritual life. He said, so before he was dying, one of his disciples was there and he said, and the disciple said, please, stay with us and teach us. He said, do you have devotionless, do you have desireless devotion? And the disciple who would have done anything, he asked,

[11:56]

to be honest, said, no, I don't. I still want something. You know, there are things I still want, that I want to have. It's not like I don't have desireless devotion. And the teacher said, if you find me one person with desireless devotion, I'll hang around. Otherwise, I'd have enough of you. So realization is held only by the power of realization. The spiritual world, in some sense, exists. And sometimes in Zen and Buddhism, we refer to this so-called spiritual world as emptiness.

[13:01]

Or the absolute. The absolute exists in its own dimension. If the absolute was, you know, so we can't even correspond the absolute with the relative. If there's absolute in relationship with relative, then the absolute is just another relative. So the absolute exists completely separately or independently of the relative world that we live in, the dualistic world. And at the same time, it exists simultaneously exactly with the relative world, the dualistic world. But it's not something we can measure or grasp or know anything about or say, I've got more of it today or less of it today. How would you tell? Are the colors brighter? Are they duller? Are, you know, the sounds better? Are people nicer to you? Your mind is clear.

[14:04]

Well, that's a mental phenomenon. It's clear today. Your mind is frustrated. Well, that's a mental phenomenon. What does that have to do with the absolute? Which has no characteristic. No mark. So sometimes in Zen they say, so no attainment is the highest spiritual practice. No sign of anything. No indication. And Dogen also says, so those who are enlightened don't always know that they're enlightened. And those who are realized won't always... How could you tell? How would you know? What would be the indication? What would be the mark? Of understanding, of realizing, of attaining, of enlightenment or so on. Life is pretty hard, isn't it? You know, and it would be nice if we had something like realization or enlightenment or something that kind of just could ease things or help fix things or make it better or something.

[15:12]

So, Dogen also says something which I've always found very interesting. And this is another example of this. He says, you should understand that in the Buddha Dharma, we have these two keys. And other people won't tell you this exactly. Every so often Dogen has these little things like we understand and they don't. But anyway, setting that aside, here's what Dogen has to say. He says, sometimes you turn the Dharma, sometimes the Dharma turns you. And he says, these are both equally the path. These are both equally the way. So sometimes you're on top of things, you manage things, you're frustrated, you find it, you figure out what's been frustrating you, you do something about it, you're no longer frustrated. Other times, things turn you. We get turned by things in our life. We're upset, we're dismayed, we're distraught, we're angry.

[16:21]

We're getting completely turned by things in the world. So, is it the idea of our spiritual practice just to have the state where you turn things? Dogen says, no, this isn't the idea of our spiritual practice just to think. To think that we could always have the state where I turn things. I'm not turned by things. Dogen says, no, that's not right. To be turned by things is also the Buddhadharma. To be turned by things is also the way. Both of these are equally the way, equally our path in life. I think that's pretty important, and to remember that and recognize that. Because we can't always fix things and make them better. Sometimes, you know, like, here I am, a three-year-old, and there's nothing I can do about it. My mother died. What am I going to do? How do you fix that?

[17:26]

You know, we're just turned by something. That's all. And this can be very painful, but it's also the path. It's also how we come to understand what it is to be alive. And we begin to have a little liberation or freedom from the notion that the point is to fix everything. The point is to make everything better. The point is to make it all good or, you know, to perfect ourselves. That we measure up. That the food we're cooking tastes the way it's supposed to taste. That it's really great. And we want it to taste a certain way. So then we look, do I like it or not? Is it the way it should be or not? And pretty soon, then we compare all of our experience to, is it the way I'd like it to be? No. Oh. Well, I guess my practice isn't good enough today to make it the way I'd like it to be. I guess my effort isn't good enough today to make it the way I'd like it to be.

[18:29]

Things aren't coming out the way I'd like them to come out. I'm getting angry. I'm getting frustrated. I guess that's some problem I have, isn't it? Woe is me. Something wrong with me. Then we say to ourselves, gee, you're not this great after all, are you? You kind of thought you had something there, but you're obviously just like everybody else. Too bad, huh? What's wrong with you anyway? You must have been wasting all your time sitting in that kitchen. And then we tell ourselves these things. As though there was some key that we could have where we had this great capacity to only turn things and not be turned by them and not be undone. So it becomes, it behooves us, it becomes quite important that instead of all of our experience saying,

[19:34]

is this a good one or not a good one or what does this indicate about me and how I'm doing? Oh, I'm not doing so well today. Or I'm doing better. Oh, I got sick. Well, I must... What does this say about me? We're looking for all these signs and indications. How am I doing? Am I advancing? Am I doing better than I used to do? And all of this. And instead of just... How about experiencing a moment of our life just very carefully? What is it? Instead of saying, how does it compare with the way I'd like it to be? Well, it's pretty close to the way I'd like it to be. No, it's not. Instead of just taking a moment of experience and always having some thing, some ideal or some way you want it or you'd like it to be or wouldn't it be nice if... And always comparing each moment of experience with some idolized, fantasized image of. Does it measure up? How does it compare? Not so good? Better? Worse? You're improving? You're not?

[20:34]

You're not getting anywhere? And we keep telling ourselves these things. How about just experiencing something? What is it? So this is, as you know, many of you, a kind of call on intent. What is it? What is any moment of experience? Just experiencing something very carefully, very instantly. So I'm going to read you one of the cases, a case from the Blue Cliff Record, which I like, which talks about this a little bit, I think. And it's kind of nice because it's almost like being a tapahara. It's called Sixteen Bodhisattvas Going to Bathe. And when you go down to the baths here in Tassajara and you go across the bridge and there's a little altar there, there's a painting of the sixteen bodhisattvas who were in there bathing. And here's the story about the sixteen bodhisattvas who went in to bathe.

[21:38]

In olden times there were sixteen bodhisattvas. When it was time for months to wash, the bodhisattvas filed in to bathe. Suddenly they awakened to the basis of water. All of you worthy, how will you understand what they said? Subtle feeling reveals illumination and we have achieved the station of Santa Buddha. Subtle feeling reveals illumination and we have achieved the status of children of Buddha. You're all children of the Buddha. To realize this, you too must be extremely piercing and penetrating. What is it that we call water? And what is it to bathe? What is it you call your own body or your own mind? Here's part of the commentary about this.

[22:43]

People these days also go in to bathe. They also wash in the water. They feel the water. Why don't they awaken? They are all confused and obstructed by objects of the senses. Getting involved in, it's hotter, it's colder. Feels good today, doesn't feel so great today. Oh, this feels so wonderful to be in the hot water. They stick to their skin and cling to their bones. That's why they can't wake up immediately then and there. Here, if there's nothing attained in washing or feeling or in the basis of water, then tell me, is this subtle feeling reveals illumination or not? Nothing attained. Is it subtle feeling reveals illumination or not?

[23:50]

If you see directly here, then this is subtle feeling reveals illumination already. And we achieve the station of children of Buddha. People these days feel too, but do they perceive its subtlety? Subtle feeling is not ordinary feeling and feeler where contact is considered feeling and separation is not. So isn't that a little bit like Dogen there? Sometimes you turn to Dharma, sometimes the Dharma turns to you. Both are subtle feeling reveals illumination. Sometimes we're happy, sometimes we're sad. Both are subtle feeling reveals illumination. Equally, each thing is equally subtle feeling reveals illumination. Now this is non-comparison. This is not comparing to do I like it, do I not like it, is it good, is it bad?

[25:04]

Am I getting better? Am I going backsliding? If you can penetrate in one place, one place, have this experiencing things very closely, carefully, subtly. Then you penetrate a thousand places and ten thousand places all at once. Just don't hold on to a single nook or dim. All places are the gates by which Avalokiteshvara enters the truth. Avalokiteshvara is the Bodhisattva of compassion, hearing the cries of human beings and the whispers. And each moment for this heart of compassion is a moment of entering the truth. Regardless of these various qualities of physical manifestations, mental manifestations, each moment is a moment for entering the truth.

[26:07]

And Avalokiteshvara listens and hears and receives the moment. Avalokiteshvara is not grasping the moment or trying to manipulate the moment or trying to make this moment a special moment. Or better than other moments, or an improvement. Avalokiteshvara is just receiving this moment. This is the mind in each of us that just can receive things and deal with that one after another. One summer I was living here, the last summer I was living here at Tassara in 1984, Kharagiri Rishi came to visit. Many of us talked to him, I talked to him, and one of the things that I said, you know, it's hard to give lectures. He said, well, at least you understand the language. But mostly he seems to have just told people over and over again.

[27:18]

And he'd say, well, I'm really frustrated and angry and tired this summer. And he'd say, that's the flower of your life force blooming, don't you think? And then people would go, oh, I hadn't thought of that. I thought I was just tired and angry and frustrated. I didn't realize that was the flower of my life force blooming. And then people would feel much better after that. But that's also like, isn't it like, sometimes you turn the Dharma, sometimes the Dharma turns you. Both are equally the flower of your life force blooming. So a little later that summer I went up to the city to visit him. And we had a wonderful conversation. I told him all the strange things that I happened to be doing in meditation those days. I was concentrating on as I inhaled to let my chest fill with compassion.

[28:18]

And as I exhaled, I was pointed over my head. This was a practice that Thich Nhat Hanh gave us as a gift. And he said, you know, some of you will probably say you can't feel any compassion. But, you know, can't you have a little compassion for somebody who can't feel any compassion? How about that? And you pour it over your head. And if you, you know, if you're from Vietnam like him, then you know the jungle and you imagine like you have a little apple coconut and a little handle on it. And you dip it in the cool water. You can pour it over your head. And it's very cool and refreshing. Of course, here in the wintertime in Taos Thai you pour warm water over your head. And your head kind of lifts up to receive this nice feeling. And you can have it come down in your body. And it kind of softens and melts everything. And fills with this. And it goes down to your body. It's very nice. You know, and then he said, but, you know, if you don't get into this practice, set it aside.

[29:21]

Do something else. That's okay. So I like that kind of philosophy. So I told Kargyur Rishi about this. And he kind of just smiled. He said, you know, for 20 years I tried to do the Zazen of Dogen Zenji. Before I realized there was no such thing. So, you know, we tend to approach things. I want to do it, the real Zazen. Tell me, how do I do the real Zazen? Am I doing the real Zazen yet? Am I doing the Zazen of the Buddhas and Ancestors? Am I doing it the right way? You know, I'm supposed to. So I have, you know, I can get, you know, certified. Approved. Stamp of approval. We have, you know, we have a posture in sitting. And it's not as though you could ever really attain the posture. I talked about this a little bit the last time I was here. But because we have a kind of arbitrary kind of posture, sitting up straight,

[30:25]

now you have some way, it's actually just something to help you become aware of your body. Now you have this kind of guide. And you say, oh, actually I think I'm leaning down a little bit. Otherwise, your body is just your body. How do you decide where it is? You have to have a reference. Otherwise, you're like Einstein. Instead of watching the train go by, you can see it's moving when you're on the train. And you're just on the train and you're not looking out the window. You don't feel like you're moving. You're moving right with the train. So we set up this arbitrary place to view our posture from called, you know, perfect posture. It doesn't mean you attain that. But it helps to develop and cultivate awareness of the body. Anyway, after that, I had another question. I forgot what she asked. You know, you often say we should practice like the ancients practiced.

[31:26]

I was wondering if the ancients had women in bikinis at their monastery. She said, no. They didn't. Well, how is it at Tassajara that we can practice? How can we practice as the ancients practiced when we have, at Tassajara in the summertime, when we have women in bikinis? And he said, well, you should keep their example in mind. That's a little nice. Sidestep there. So I said, well, isn't every moment a moment for Avalokiteshvara to answer the truth? I've been reading the blue clip record, you know. Actually, I left out a little part in this conversation.

[32:26]

I said, you know, sometimes I'm... I said, actually, I have a girlfriend here in the city. But when I'm down at Tassajara, I get attracted to the women at Tassajara. He said, let's just breathe. Really? I didn't, I didn't know. See, how do we know what's what, you know. So then I said, this is when I said, well, isn't every moment a moment to enter the truth? He said, well, if it is, you better get in there right away. I was kind of saying, like, I think you're kind of outside of it right now. So what is this to, this entering? Every moment is a moment to enter the truth. What is the truth that we can enter at this moment?

[33:29]

This subtle feeling reveals illumination. Experiencing something closely, carefully. Not in terms of how it measures up or compares. Or what it says about us. Or what it indicates about our progress in our spiritual path. Or how we're doing in our relationship. Or what people think about me. And is it all right to feel good about myself? And can I be happy? And so on. But just to experience something very closely and carefully and intimately. What is it? Sometimes you turn the Dharma, sometimes the Dharma turns you.

[34:32]

I started this week talking about happiness and being happy. And to me this is a lot of what happiness is about. To have this kind of intention to experience things closely, carefully. To be with something. It was interesting this morning. One of the people in our group said to me the other day she was sitting next to someone who was squirming. It was a squirmer and a breather. She said I wanted to just wring his neck. That may too be subtle feeling reveals illumination. And again, maybe you should get in there. The truth. Enter into the truth. So I thought about once when I was the squirmer and the breather. You know once I was the squirmer and the breather. The person next to me, she had a lot of experience sitting. She had been president of Zen Center.

[35:40]

She had been to AHE monastery in Japan. She reached over and put her hand on my knee. She didn't do anything. She just put her hand there. We can do that for ourselves too. So then gradually my breath calmed down. And I could just be quietly with the sensations. Instead of going, oh this is awful. Oh this really hurts. Oh this is a pain. Compared to what? Compared to somebody's imagined, fantasized body that doesn't have these kind of problems. So I had a chance for a few minutes to experience something closely, carefully. Without comparison to some imagined pain-free body. That I used to have or that I could have. And pretty soon everything got very soft.

[36:41]

And then one. You know the sharp outlines of things disappeared. And then she took her hand away. That kind of touch, just to be with something. Very powerful. Very healing. And we understand something about our lives. And we have some kind of experience of the truth of that moment. You know I thought for a long time there was some other truth beyond this truth of this moment. There was some special truth beyond what we're already experiencing.

[37:43]

Behind or beyond. Like you could just clear away this clutter of experience. You could get to it. And these little experiences kept coming up and getting in the way it seemed like. But if you could clear it away enough you'd get to the truth. So I kept trying to clear stuff away to get to the truth. And there was always something else there. And I could never get to the truth of it, it seemed like. But what about subtle feeling reveals illumination. Sometimes you turn to java, sometimes the java turns to you. This is also the flower of your life worth living. Get a little taste of that. And then we don't have to be, you know, life is hard enough.

[39:00]

Somebody the other day said, you know, the easy way is hard enough. That's pretty good. But you know one of the kind of suffering that Buddhism will help us with is this kind of suffering where we are so hard on ourselves. We tell ourselves, you know, you should be able to, you shouldn't still be having this kind of suffering. And so you weren't still a human being, you know. After all this spiritual practice, now you should be advancing and now you're older, you know. We shouldn't be having the kinds of problems we're having. We tell ourselves all kinds of things. So it's very important, very healing just to be with ourselves. And to taste or touch the truth of the moment. Receive the truth of, to receive experience closely, carefully. Sometimes this is called, in Zen, you know, what's intimate. Intimate, I like that word for instead of realization and enlightenment, you know, just to be intimate.

[40:03]

Intimate with the moment of experience. To experience things closely, carefully. Feeling your way along. We don't exactly, in the spiritual sense, you know, get, we can't say exactly that we get somewhere. You know, and the physical things may get better and worse, mentally better and worse. So the power of our intention or wish to be happy, to be of benefit to others. This is what anchors us and gives us some basis. It's not exactly like that's what's spiritual, but it's also not exactly like that's not spiritual. We have some direction in our life to be happy. And to sort out what is the good way, what is the better way to be happy than how we've been doing it.

[41:07]

This gives us a direction. Over the sea. And in a very simple and direct way. At times of experiences, to experience a moment after moment, to experience things closely, carefully, intimately. This is quite a good way to be happy. Then you don't get confused and go on wild goose chases. Even though sometimes we're turned by things. That we're turned by things is still, we have our intention to be happy. And then to, not to be too hard on ourselves, that would be in turn to have some compassion for somebody who's turned by things. Let me, I was, I told the people in my workshop the first stanza that wrote the sonnet this morning.

[42:12]

So I thought I'd give you the rest of the sonnet tonight, or the whole sonnet. So this is the way it goes. Be ahead of all parting. As though it already were behind you. Like the winter that has just passed by. For among these winters there's one, so endlessly winter, that only by wintering through it, will your heart survive. Let Eurydice be dead, more glad arise into the seamless life proclaimed in your song. Here in the realm of decline among momentary days, be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang. Be and yet know the great void in which all things arise. The infinite source of our inmost vibration, so that this once you may give it your perfect ascent. To all that is used up, to all the muffled and dumb creatures of this world, who will reserve the unsaleable sums.

[43:21]

Joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count. Joyfully add yourself. Are there something very special, as I think you can tell, of being in a room like this, with a group of people, and this wonderful silence there. And you can feel that sincerity, and warmth of attention, and good heartedness in the room.

[44:22]

Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening. ...and gentleness and tenderness, and it also takes a kind of strength of determination, that we put on...

[45:48]

Anyway, I think you can feel all of that in the room tonight. All of the staff is just there. And I wanted to thank you for giving time back. I feel very grateful and appreciate that. Thank you. I have a couple of announcements. One, just a reminder, which is the area outside the dining room here is a quiet area this time of evening. Secondly, I've had a couple of complaints that it seems like our group in the morning when we sit in the meditation hall is moving Christians around and not putting them back where we found them. Which may or may not be true, but I just... Some kind of gremlins may be in there moving stuff around. But I want to remind you that when we use the Christians in meditation, I'll put them back where you found them.

[46:46]

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