It's sort of funny seeing a glass of water here, you know, when I arrive. Maybe there could be some ice in it. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? I mean, we keep on doing this. Getting up early in the morning, coming in sitting, and eating out of those funny little bowls with chopsticks and spoons. I don't know about you, but I just do it because all of you are doing it. George Lane told this funny story one time. He was actually talking about how it's okay to have a small preference or a slight preference. You know, sometimes, as Lee was mentioning the other day, we have a hard time having a preference because, after all, the Great

[01:08]

Way is not difficult for those who don't have preferences, right? So we do our best not to have preferences sometimes. And we've gotten a little better at Sun Center. We used to really not want to have any preference. Well, it's okay. But, of course, we have our preference hidden somewhere. Anyway, George told this story about how he was with some friends, and they were trying to decide, after a day of doing something, they were trying to decide what to do for dinner. And finally, they ended up driving. They were in Colorado somewhere, and they ended up driving about an hour, over an hour, to some restaurant. And they had a terrible meal. It was kind of greasy. Anyway, it was pretty unappetizing. At the end of the meal, they were all kind of wondering, like, whose idea was this? And it turned out that nobody had wanted to go there. They had all just gone because they thought everybody else wanted to go. So here we are. Whose idea was this?

[02:18]

Whose idea was this? I'm thinking it was Maya's, right? Anyway, somehow, this is reminding me. Lately, I've been thinking about the differences. One of the differences I've experienced between Zen practice and Vipassana practice. In Vipassana practice, I went to this three-month retreat, and if you look at the schedule, the schedule looks very difficult, so to speak, because every day you get up, well, not so early, around 5.30, and then there's an hour of meditation from 6 to 7, and then breakfast. There's no service. There's no bowing or chanting. Because some people might not like to bow

[03:23]

and chant, and we wouldn't want to have anybody do something that they didn't want to do. And, you know, some people, like, have problems with religion and Buddhas and bowing and, you know, that kind of thing, so let's be careful and not have any of that. So then there's breakfast, and there's a whole schedule of sitting and walking. There's about five one-hour periods each day and two 45-minute periods, and then there's also several hours of walking meditation, 45-minute periods of walking in between the sittings. There's a period of instruction every morning after breakfast, and every other evening there's a talk, and on the alternate evenings there's sort of a reading. And the meals are in the dining room, and it's all completely quiet, silence, no talking. Now and again, there

[04:28]

is a little note-writing going on. Do you remember that from school? And, you know, things happen, like, you know, sometimes you can come back to the meditation hall, and there'll be, like, a chocolate on your sofa or something, you know, a little mysterious note. Whoa, pretty dramatic, you know. Anyway, so, and there's no days off. It's just the same scheduled day in and day out. So there's no, there's a little break after the meal, but then there's walking meditation. So you could extend your break if you sort of skipped a little of the walking meditation, I found out. And I had heard from other people who had been that after, you know, after a while, boy, you really didn't need to sleep very

[05:29]

much because you got so full of energy. You know, like, well, by the end of the retreat, I was just sleeping, you know, three hours a night, this sort of thing. I'd heard that. I found that the longer the retreat went on, the more sleep I needed. I started out with about five hours, and then I went to five and a half, and then I went to six, and then six and a half, and then seven. By the end of the retreat, I was up to about seven hours a night, a little over. So that didn't happen to me, you know. I know who all these people are, you know. But I also noticed, you know, the schedule looks rather difficult and seems rather difficult, but then out of about a hundred, ninety or a hundred people who were there, there was about fifteen people who were following the schedule. There was, you know, the instruction after breakfast. The first period in the morning, there would be a fair number of people there. And the meals, it seemed like a lot of people seemed to be coming to meals. And the instruction period after breakfast, there seemed to be

[06:34]

a lot of people. And the lectures, there seemed to be a lot of people. But any time, except for those times, there seemed to be about twenty people around. And, of course, it's okay if you want to sit in your room and you find that, you know, you feel a little awkward about sitting with everybody else or somehow you're feeling a little paranoid about, you know, like being with other people and sort of like, either because, you know, like I am so, I have such, how do you say, you know, I feel so crummy, I'm sure that nobody could stand to be around me, you know, that sort of thing. So you want to sit in your room, that's okay, you can sit in your room. And if you want to sit in the library in these big cushy chairs, you know, you can sit in the library in big cushy chairs. One day I happened to go into the library, I didn't realize, you know. But I had been to, every other day you have an interview with the teacher for about ten minutes. And you have two teachers, so you see each of your teachers about every four days or about ten minutes. And so one

[07:35]

time I was coming back from, I think, from an interview, and so it was the middle of the period and it's kind of okay if you go in the middle of the period, but then again, it's sort of like, a little bit like here, but not as much. Anyway, I went into the library and my goodness, there was about eight people sitting in these nice big easy chairs, doing their meditation. I guess they were doing their meditation. And apparently there's some little rooms someplace, which are like meditation cells, so in case that you have trouble sitting with other people and you don't want to do that, and the library and the cushy chairs is not what you want to do. And your room is not good because your roommate might come back now and again. There are these other rooms that are available for a few people to sit in. So you can do your practice just by yourself and not worry, like if you're sitting and you start to cry. So then you can have a little room where you get to sit

[08:36]

and meditate and cry or whatever you want to do during your meditation, I guess. I'm not sure how soundproof they are or what kind of meditation goes on in those rooms. I didn't have access to them, you know. So that's all pretty interesting. So they make it possible like, you know, they try to be very accommodating, so that in case there's some problem, you have some problem with the schedule, we'll make some adjustments and allowances for you. So I think in Zen, the idea is, let's all hold hands and jump off the cliff together. And let's not worry about having problems. Let's just hold hands and we'll all go together forward. And we'll just keep doing it, you know. It's interesting, I mean, there is

[09:37]

some difference there and in certain ways, you know, when one is in a group practice like this, one will feel a little kind of coerced at times, you know, a little kind of coercion. I guess I have to do this, you know, I'm part of this thing. But on the other hand, you know, if you're at a Vipassana retreat and you don't show up for meditation, somebody, nobody might come looking for you for a day or two. You know, it could be a while before anybody noticed that, you know, you weren't there. You could feel pretty like, does anybody know I exist? You know what I mean? Do you understand that kind of difference? I mean, along with the fact that there is coercion, you know, if you're doing a group practice, there's also the fact that actually people notice whether you're there or not and they'll come and check in on you when you're not there. In the Vipassana practice, nobody, you're on your own. You know, and if you do it, fine, and if you

[10:39]

don't, okay. And after a while, you know, eventually I guess somebody comes to look for you. I was holed up in my room once for a couple of days and I think eventually somebody came. But you could be gone a long time, you know, before, you know, nobody's particularly making a point to notice who's there and who's not there and what they're up to. I think if you miss your teacher interview, the little interviews with the teacher are posted on the, there's a message board. And I think it's probably if you miss your interview with your teacher, you know, somebody might eventually come looking for you. Like, I guess you missed that one. Maybe you'd have to miss a couple. So it's, I find it, for me, that's kind of

[11:44]

interesting or, you know, to try to see, in a sense, you know, like, what is the whole context of something? And so you can see that kind of difference in the Zen retreat and the Vipassana retreat. And it's, you know, that kind of sense where, on one hand, feeling coerced, but on the other hand, you feel very much a part of things and very connected to other people, in a sense, in a practice. And in the Vipassana practice, you have, in a certain sense, a lot more freedom. You have a lot less kind of so-called coercion or expectation. There's not much expectation. There's no particular coercion. All the instruction is presented like, you know, a suggestion. It was wonderful one day, Joseph Goldstein gave this talk. This was after about a month of the retreat. And he said, you know, there is a practice that some of you may want to try out. We've been sitting here now for about a month, and some of you may want to try this practice. This is the

[12:48]

practice of not moving. And then he gave this long talk about how it might really be a useful practice to try. And not that all of you want to do it, necessarily. Some of you may not feel like making this kind of commitment to this particular practice. But for some of you, you might find it, you know, very beneficial and find that it really deepens your practice to actually make a point or a commitment to not moving. That's pretty gentle, isn't it? So-called non-coercive, non-hierarchical, so to speak. You know, here people say, oh, that was so hierarchical. Or, you know, you get bossed around. Or it's a kind of, you know, so if somebody here says, and it's not as bad as it used to be, you

[13:50]

know. It used to be Japanese teachers, including Suzuki Roshi, would, you know, sometimes during satsang, would say, don't move. I told you that, right? Suzuki Roshi, at the time I remember, he said, don't move. Just die. Moment after moment, just die. Nothing will help you now because this is your last moment. Not even enlightenment will help you now because you have no more moments. So, be true to yourself. So now if, you know,

[14:51]

somebody says something like that, you know, people say, oh, well, you're bossing us around and you're, you know, you're on a trip and you're this and you're that. But again, you know, we're talking about a different kind of relationship. You know, it's a relationship, if somebody talks to you like that, it should be coming out of a much, you know, closer relationship, much kind of deeper relationship than relationship where somebody makes a suggestion to you. You know, it implies a relationship where there's some, you know, somebody is, at least, you know, theoretically are making the effort to, in a certain sense, express your deep aspiration. They may not hit the mark. But anyway, there is that kind of, I mean,

[15:51]

one time Suzuki Roshi gave a little talk during satsang in the morning, then went around the room and hit everybody. I was there about three times when he did that. One time he said, you know, you people all have the wrong idea about practice. And you think that I'm supposed to enlighten you, but that's a mistake. You think you're going to get somewhere in your practice, that's a mistake. He would go on and on, you know. And then he'd jump up and start hitting everybody. Once, you know, on the right shoulder, or twice on the right shoulder, then he'd change the style of talk. And he talked one time about teacher and student. You think I'm the teacher and you're the student, but no, that's not right. You're also the teacher and I'm the student. And teacher bows to the

[16:56]

student, student bows to the teacher. Then he'd go around, who's the student? Bam! Who's the teacher? Bam! But after one of those times, satsang ended. This was at a Zen temple on Bush Street, and service was just beginning, and one person just went running out of the Zen temple. Because that, you know, something that was said, or, you know, the kind of nature of things, that's, you know, getting hit like that without asking, or whatever. So that can happen, because in this kind of a situation, where something doesn't kind of hit you right, or strike you right, you feel, you know, it's too intimate in a way, it's too close. So you feel

[17:57]

too vulnerable, too exposed. So it seems like clearly there's, you know, advantages or disadvantages to each kind of style or way. We happen to have a particular style or way here. And partly I talk about this because I want you to, you know, understand, and if you can, and appreciate the kind of benefit or virtue to the way we do, even though it has its, you know, limitations, or it feels overbearing at times, or something like that, it's also at the same time, as you can see, quite caring. And people do come when you're sick, and people are aware when you're not there. And we are actually there for each other,

[19:09]

and practicing very much with each other, and for each other, as well as for ourselves. And that seems appropriate. That's a, you know, it's a very well-knit kind of fabric. And in a certain way then, we know each other deeply, and we're very, you know, we're rather exposed to one another. So people know us, you know, sometimes, often better than we know ourself. When, lots of times, other people, even though you may feel discouraged, or in some way depressed, or upset, or like, I'm not a very good Zen student, or what's wrong with me, I can't sit still, or I'm angry, or I'm sad, or whatever it is,

[20:13]

and then other people seem to be able to see your virtue, or your sincerity, or your good intention. And just the purity of, in a certain sense we say purity, of your practice. Or other people in a certain sense say, you know, I have faith in you, or I believe in you. And they're not just making it up, you know. We think, well, if they really knew who I was, they wouldn't be saying these things. But then it turns out that when you finally understand what they know about yourself sometimes, it turns out that other people already knew that, and you were just hiding it from yourself, thinking you were hiding it from everybody else. Do you know that? It's very curious. It's kind of embarrassing, you know, to try to hide from other people something about you.

[21:22]

Whether it's your anger, or your unhappiness, or whatever it is. And then it turns out, once you realize it's there, you realize that other people knew that about you already. Actually, it was just a secret to you. But that's the way we are with each other here. And again, there's something, you know, rather threatening about that, that others know us so well. But actually, it turns out that others are a tremendous support, and also have a tremendous kind of wisdom and wonderful sense of compassion about us. And we worry that if others find out about who I am, they won't like me the way that I don't like me. But it turns out, you know, usually other people like us just fine. And it's not because they're not seeing the problems.

[22:31]

But it's, they don't have the, you know, the self viewpoint. Right? They don't have the self bias that we have when we look at ourselves, and are critical. At a Vipassana retreat, nobody particularly knows anybody, or most people don't know each other, because you're not talking to each other. So it's well known at Vipassana retreats, they even have these technical terms for the fact that you can either fall in love with somebody, that's a Vipassana romance, or you can hate somebody, that's a Vipassana vendetta. And the reason why you can project all this stuff towards somebody else at the retreat is because they never open their mouth. And it's much easier to project, you know, somebody as being, you know, the great love of your life, or the great hate of your life, when they don't open their mouth, you know, when they're blank.

[23:39]

You don't, you don't know them that well. You only know the way they walk, and once in a while the way they sit, and, you know, you might happen to see them across the way. And the person next to me seemed to fart now and again. It turned out to be, you know, so I had certain thoughts about him, but he turned out to be actually a rather nice person, you know, when he opened his mouth at the end of the retreat. So, again, you see, it's, you know, there are these kind of advantages and disadvantages to each way. In a certain sense, you know, this is advantageous that we know each other so well, and we're, you know, so well knit into the fabric of things, and we're so well, in a sense, accepted, or we're known to one another, and we're still included and appreciated and respected, and we try to support each other's practice.

[24:44]

And it's very real. It's not something we make up for one another. We're all going through this event together, and so there's a real kind of camaraderie that develops. It's very genuine. On the other hand, you know, at the Vipassana retreat, it's rather interesting to be able to project stuff so well, and to see how your mind works like that, and how easily you can project onto other people, and create whole ideas of who somebody is. And so that's quite interesting. We can't do that here. We don't do so much of that here. We do, to some extent, but nothing like it's possible when people keep their mouths shut. I found, after the retreat, that I had been the object of several people's projections. Later on, I was in Vermont at Karmachulian, and a woman came, and I heard that she had had a Vipassana romance with me for quite some weeks, and the teachers had actually gotten rather annoyed with her, because it continued so long.

[25:56]

And when I was here in Marin County, I met a woman one time at a benefit for the Vipassana center there, who said, did I remember who she was from the retreat? And I said, no. And she said, oh, thank God, because I was projecting such incredibly strong anger and hate vibes towards you. I was really worried that you would be harmed. No, I had no idea. I don't know. It's quite about my business. So each in its own way, you know, is rather interesting. Again, I hope you can appreciate the virtue of our situation here, and the way we practice here. Thank you. Thank you.

[27:56]

Thank you. Thank you. It seems appropriate to do something perhaps in a somewhat different kind of dynamic.

[29:34]

And so I don't, I hope I, you know, I'm not trying to say that one way is better than the other way. It seems as though each way has its appropriateness, but I do hope that while you're here, at least, you can appreciate this way, and make good use of it, of this way. And not get, in that sense, too involved with kind of complaining about the fact that it's the way it is here. Not, of course, that there's any problem about complaining. I mean, good grief. I mean, every day is a good day. It doesn't mean you can't complain. We knew that, right? It's one of my favorite Suzuki Rishi-isms. Every day is a good day. It doesn't mean you can't complain. It's a good day, you know, compared to what?

[30:42]

Every day is a good day, compared to all those other good days. You know, all these years that I've been practicing, I have a confession to make, you know, which is that, you know, I've never managed to attain anything. And, as a matter of fact, you know, I don't really have anything particularly great to talk about today, in that sense, about attainments and so on. So that means that you can relax and, you know, laugh, or whatever you want to do. Anyway, I've been doing this practice, and the way it's worked out, for one reason or another, I haven't managed to attain anything. For a long time, I felt kind of badly about this, you know. It seemed rather discouraging, you know.

[31:51]

What was me? I've been practicing for 2 years, or 4 years, or 8 years, or 10 years, or 16 years, or 20 years, and I haven't attained anything. What's wrong with me? And it seemed like other people had, or at least that the literature suggested that one could, and ought to, you know. But, you know, somehow over the last few years, I've gotten a little more accustomed to the fact that I haven't attained anything. And it actually seems, you know, rather pleasant. I don't know if pleasant is the right word, but agreeable, you know, agreeable. Or, you know, I think I'm happier now, in a certain sense, because I think before I made myself unhappy by thinking that I should be attaining something, and I wasn't.

[32:54]

And so, there was a little aspect of, you know, a little inner sort of ball and chain, a little whip, a little castigation. I mean, these days, of course, we don't use whips and things, but, you know, we tend to like verbal abuse. That's what we go for, so. You know, one can have a little verbal abuse as far as, you know, lack of attainment or whatever, you know. After all, you know, we're putting in all this good time on the cushions, and what's the point if we're not attaining something? And when you get down to it, I mean, isn't this pretty meaningless, what we're doing here? I mean, have you noticed any great meaning to the sitting and following the schedule and all that? Now, maybe, you know, maybe there is some meaning to it, but on the other hand, I say maybe in the sense that, you know, what is meaning after all?

[34:03]

You know, what would make something meaningful or not? Where is the meaning? Well, and certainly if one was to think, then, the meaning is in the attainment. Well, you can see how for somebody like me, there wouldn't be a whole lot of meaning going on because there's not a whole lot of attainment going on. So then, where is the meaning? What is the meaning? And I love it. So, you know, Kata Giriraj used to say, it's so nice sometimes, you know? She used to say, all you have to do, you know, whatever it was, all you have to do is, you know, gassho, or whatever. All you have to do is just sit, get up in the morning, put on your clothes, eat your breakfast, go through the day.

[35:10]

What would be the meaning, you know? So, certainly the, you know, for us doing Zen practice, then the meaning is in the doing of things, just doing the next thing. And it's not then a meaning that has to do with, you know, most of the other kind. There are, it seems like there are these different sort of sense of what meaning is. Because there's one kind of meaning which is that you actually, the meaning would be if you can notice the result or the change that you produced.

[36:17]

You know, that you could measure it and evaluate it, and now you know that actually you had this effect. You accomplished something, you did something, you attained something, and there's some meaning to that. So, I think sometimes meaning can be like that some way. It's a sort of substitute to way of thinking about attaining something or producing something, changing something. And curiously enough, of course, you know, we don't really change that much, in a certain sense. We kind of tend to look for sort of changes in our life.

[37:18]

You know, if I practice, then I'll become more compassionate or I'll become more wise. I'll be more accepting, maybe I'll get to be more generous. And this all assumes, of course, an inherently existing self. You know, that there is actually someone there that we could change and shape up. And kind of, you know, smooth out the flaws and pretty things up a little bit. You know, this actually existing person. So that kind of, you know, to be embarked on that kind of a program or an agenda is, you know, a way to describe samsara.

[38:23]

It's inherently suffering. If you start looking at yourself and seeing whether you're improving or not. Because the person who does that kind of evaluation or the mind that does that kind of evaluation is rather slippery. And likes to, unbeknownst to you, who are doing your best to measure up in some way, the person doing the evaluating and checking up on you to see if you're improving or not changes the standards. You know, I used to think, well, it'll be really something when I can sit through a whole period of satsang without moving. That'll really be something. I'll have, you know, that'll be, you know, a real accomplishment. And that will show that, you know, I'm really progressing in my practice. Of course, when you attain that, then there's doing a one-day sitting.

[39:28]

Boy, that would really be something. That would really show some real advancement here. It's a big thing from one period to a whole day. Then, of course, once you get a whole day down and now you've had this great attainment, so to speak, now you might have to do it for a whole week. Probably so, you know. And then there's full lotus or half lotus. So, you know, this is all very slippery. And you can always, you know, you can perpetually not measure up. You always have this kind of distant goal. I haven't arrived yet to the real attainment. Yes, I know I finally got to sit through one period, through a whole day, but I haven't done the whole session. Then I haven't done the whole session full lotus or, you know, whatever it is. So, when do you ever get to arrive? This is the nature of samsara and evaluating things and looking for meaning

[40:30]

and trying to assess our accomplishment or how well we're doing. You know, is that we can never do well enough because new standards apply. And it's called samsara because you never arrive and because it's perpetually being kind of driven by this distant goal or possible attainment in the future and some dissatisfaction or unhappiness with me in the present, my practice now. And then having this place where one should be or could be, which one can imagine and dream up. And I'm not there. So, this is samsara. Endless. And the sense then of, you know, so-called end of suffering or so-called nirvana

[41:41]

is to be in the present and not worry about those kind of measurements or meaning or what one could have or should be or might be. And what would indicate that? What would be the indication? What would be the sign? You know, how would one know? Yes, now I've arrived. You know, how could you ever get that voice to shut up? That one that says, no, I'm sorry, but I know you just managed to sit still for a whole day, but now you've got a week. And, you know, I know you thought you were doing pretty good, but did you see the way you got mad just then? Good. And now you're unhappy again. You see, you're still getting sad, so you've got a ways to go.

[42:43]

So, who's that, you know, who's that doing that talking, right? And then, are we going to just, do we just sort of say, endlessly sort of go on with that agenda of that voice? Are we ever going to get that voice to agree, oh yes, you've arrived, congratulations, good going. Anyway, I don't know that, if you set out with that kind of goal in mind, you know, and if you think you can get that voice to shut up or congratulate you finally for your attainment, by actually attaining something, in the kind of terms that that voice, or that kind of our gaining mind, so to speak, lays out for us, then you can never, you will never get that voice to calm down or quiet down or congratulate you on the basis of your attainment. I think there is a way to get the voice to quiet down,

[43:50]

but it has more to do with, I think it has more to do with, you know, introducing that voice to Zen practice. Explaining the Dharma to that voice, that's one way, but also it's, you know, not worrying about it one way or another. You know, while that voice goes on, you have confidence and trust in yourself, in your practice. That you're already, as we say, already inherently within the way. Dogen quotes an old master, or old Buddha, he says, who said, all the universe, the entire universe is the Dharma gate of liberation. He also says, the entire universe is the true self. The true self is the entire universe. Everything that happens is the true self.

[44:52]

The entire universe is the gate of liberation. So, Dogen says, are you thinking about whether you've gone through or not? Wouldn't that be inappropriate? Think about the question, if the entire universe is the Dharma gate of liberation, there's nowhere we can go through to. We're already the entire universe. This is already the gate of liberation. Thank you. So, it seems useful then to, just to trust in one's being,

[46:16]

in one's practice in life itself, so to speak. And not worry about, so much about pleasing that voice, or that mind, which sets out possible attainments and accomplishments and criterions to what would make what we're doing meaningful. Otherwise, we're endlessly driven by that voice and pushed around, so to speak. We never, you know, the Buddha finally touched the ground. We never will find our ground if we, when we are continually pushed around by that voice and we don't just ground ourselves, have competence in our being, in our practice. Our being which is, which is not any particular shape or form or color or sound

[47:20]

or smell or taste or touch or thought or feeling or wish, and so on. And this is something we do, you see, then, without, you know, I've always appreciated, it's a wonderful line in the Diamond Sutra. I happened to, the other morning when we chanted it, when we were reading the Diamond Sutra, I happened to come across that line again. And it says, a bodhisattva should produce a thought unsupported by sight, sound, smells, taste, touch, or mind objects. Produce a thought unsupported, an unsupported thought. So this is to, you know, to trust or to have meaning in your life, without any basis. It's not because you have any reason to trust or any reason to believe in yourself

[48:22]

or any reason to believe in life or there's any evidence. You know, there's no evidence that says, oh yes, you really are a good person, underneath it all. What would the evidence be? You know, how many days do you have to go with impeccable behavior and then you finally convince that part of you that doesn't like to acknowledge that you're a good person. That likes to remind you what a crummy person you are. How many days would you have to go with perfect behavior before you could convince that voice, that mind. You know, on the basis of the evidence, the evidence, you know. Well, look at all these things I've done. I did this and this and this and this. Isn't that pretty good? Sorry, but it's not good enough. You may have followed the schedule impeccably for three months, now you have to do it for three years. I'm sorry. So if you're, you know, if you're looking for evidence, you know, of now I'm okay.

[49:26]

Now I can feel good. Now I could be, you know, I could actually be happy about myself. I could be happy to be alive or, you know, I could be grateful. And if you start looking for reasons, oh, the reasons are always debatable, you know. And we can argue them. Here we have a little court case. Mary's sitting there smiling. She knows about these court cases. They're both kinds. Yeah, both kinds. So the bodhisattva should produce a thought unsupported by sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, mind, object. This is also to, you know, to be on the path. Where you say, I am going to figure out how to live my life. In a way that's beneficial to myself and others. And, you know, what reason do you have to think that you could do that?

[50:30]

What evidence there is to suggest that after all these years of you've been trying to do that and it hasn't worked, now what makes you think you could do that? So again, this is a thought. There's no evidence to support the thought that you could figure out what to do, how to live your life. But to enter the path is to recognize suffering. To recognize the samsaric nature of our life at times. You know, this samsaric kind of cycle or habit pattern that we're in or can get into. And to have this kind of thought. I will get to the bottom of this. So as someone said in this wonderful little book I have, which is written by a salesman. The name of the book, of course, is You're Going to Love It. But he has his own little rules and when he gets to the part about trusting yourself, he says,

[51:34]

So you should trust yourself, but don't tell anybody that you trust yourself. Because then you might remember that you have no reason to trust yourself. So just trust yourself, but keep quiet about it. Anyway, that is recognizing again that we don't really have any reason to trust ourselves. We don't have any reason to believe in our life. To believe in what we're doing. There's no evidence. You know that sitting in Zazen like this is the best thing to be doing. And it's saving more beings than some other way of life. Or all beings rather than some beings. There's no evidence for it. It's just something we say. We trust. But, you know, doing anything you should have that kind of belief or trust. And we produce that thought or that belief without any evidence.

[52:41]

Without any sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and object. Thank you. So to trust in yourself or to trust in practice, to trust in your own inherent nature, to trust in Buddha nature. None of these things, there's no evidence for any of this. And we do that anyway. We produce those thoughts. And we have some confidence in our life, in ourselves, in our life together. I have a...

[53:50]

It's wonderful sometimes when you... I mean, I think we've all had this kind of experience. But again, when one encounters it, it's so moving sometimes. A friend of mine used to have trouble overeating. I think I may have told you, you know. But the thing that finally helped her was to make this decision. I'm going to find out what's going on here and do something about it. And she said, of course, given her history, she had absolutely no reason to believe that. Because in her history, she'd always overeaten. She'd never been able to do anything about it. So to make a decision like that, it's not supported by the evidence of your life. Anything you've done or said or... But we have that kind of vow or commitment.

[54:54]

And, you know, I suppose, in that particular instance, one has to be a little careful about how one says it. Because her commitment was not just to not overeating, but the commitment was to finding out what's going on. Finding out what happens, what's going on. And she decided in that sense then to find out what's going on under all circumstances. This is different than just not overeating, because it means that when you're overeating, you're also trying to be mindful and aware. You know, when you're doing the things that you thought you weren't supposed to be doing anymore, this is also a time for awareness, for mindfulness, for looking into, for investigation. For discernment. To understand it's not just about controlling our life.

[56:13]

The decision, this kind of thought, is to be finding out. Investigating, examining under each circumstance. So this is very powerful because, you know, the difference is not that we're attaining something or accomplishing the right behavior, you know, not overeating, but we are developing this continuity of mindfulness, awareness, discernment, investigation that continues under all circumstances. See, this is why it's called the path. Now there's actually this path. Which is to be practicing discernment, investigation, examination, mindfulness, awareness. And the object there, it's not so important that we control that object or produce, you know, various accomplishments or attainments or, you know, things that look good to us or to other people, etc. Otherwise, we get into, you know, too much of cycles of, you know,

[57:38]

it's more classic for people who overeat to go on big diets and then overeat and go on big diets. And pretty soon their digestive systems are so weakened from all that dieting and bingeing that it's very hard to stabilize. See, it's better just to try to develop this stability of mind. Hmm. Well, see, I have one other thing. I had several things I was going to maybe talk about today, but, you know. But one other thing I was going to mention to you, you know, I was sort of curious about, you know,

[58:40]

about that vow we make, I vowed to save all beings. Isn't that kind of a funny expression, you know, to save beings? So I was kind of curious about that at one point. And, you know, save is in this case related to salvation, actually. It's a similar kind of root. And salvation, of course, usually applies to kind of Christianity. But there are some other words. It's interesting. Like salve. You know, which is to ease and comfort. Maybe we should say, I went to salve all beings. It's also related to solve, which is to answer. And solve is, you know, like solvent, is to loosen things. To loosen. So maybe we should be solving all beings.

[59:45]

In the Buddhist sense, you know, we loosen, we loosen ourselves or others from the grip we have on the evidence as the basis for, you know, life, as the basis for our motivation. I'm motivated, you know, usually we try to motivate ourselves to produce the new and better evidence, you know, to support the belief or whatever, you know, how we want to think about ourselves in the future or whatever. So to salve or to have some solvent there is to release or loosen from this kind of hold or the grip we're in of the voice that demands, or mind that demands some evidence or that we produce or shape up. In another sense, of course, it has to do with making whole.

[60:56]

To make whole is not to be, you know, have one part of our being attacking other parts of our being. Or unduly, you know, criticizing or setting, you know, standards or expectations for some other part of our being. Well, I think I'm going to stop. I don't have a place to close today. So without having a place to close, we'll just close. Do you want to talk now? Do you want to end this thing and get on with it? You know, get out into the cold? Is it, I don't know, sometimes it seems like that, you know,

[62:23]

usually when I give the lectures here, I just stop and hit the bell, but other people, when they give lectures, they kind of say, well, you know, want to talk, folks, or got any questions? Yes? Evenness? Did I say evenness of mind? Stability. The mind seems to have a weather pattern? Yeah. So when you don't try to control the weather, then you have some stability. Yeah. There's that wonderful little, I like, Dogen quotes another, some old master, he says, the monk asked him, when the hundred thousand million things come, what should we do? And the master says, don't try to control them. And Dogen says, you know, you shouldn't just think this is some kind of advice.

[63:26]

When things come, it's not really things, it's the Dharma that's coming. And even if you want to control things, you can't. So this is actually a statement of the way things are, it's not just some advice. And the, you know, the opposite, we lose our stability because we are going to these great lengths to try to make something a particular way, which would, you know, indicate that we're getting somewhere. You know, would give us some evidence or indication that I'm doing better now. Oh, good. I'm not, you know, I'm doing worse now. Oh, darn. I guess I need to try harder or whatever. So we have stability when we're not so involved in that kind of effort to control things in order to produce the appropriate evidence that we're looking for. It's also in a sense, you know, evenness of mind is usually associated with the fact that

[64:37]

happiness, sadness are not so different. You know, that disturbance and calmness are not so different. And that's considered to be evenness because otherwise when there's disturbance, one goes, uh-oh, there's disturbance, this is bad. And then one creates this additional kind of disturbance about the disturbance. And then when there's calmness, one goes, oh, this is very good. This is one, which is another kind of disturbance actually. Now I'm doing, now you're doing better. Now I'm doing better. Oh, yes, I'm really, this is quite good now. Then what kind of calmness is that? So the evenness of mind is said to come from, in that similar sense, evenness of mind is said to come when one doesn't make such a big deal out of the ups and downs and the fact that the weather is all over the map and so on. So it's related in that same sense that one is not, you know,

[65:44]

trying to control the weather or produce a certain kind of weather of mind. I was just thinking that that's the essence of humor and comedy. Trying to get somewhere and then you think of Royal Harry, for example. Two great bodhisattvas. His favorite saying was, now we're finally getting there. Before he would say things like, we'll put our shoulder to the wheel, our nose to the grindstone and our best foot forward. Whereupon, of course, he'd hit a motorcycle. And I think that's what we respond to. Yeah. Well folks, let's put our shoulder to the wheel, our nose to the grindstone and our best foot forward.

[66:46]

Ow. So... That's why I guess, you know, sometimes you just say, oh, go break a leg, right? Oh, and Ollie would... It was Stanley and Ollie, right? Stanley would always say, he's the one who would say, okay, you know, now we're going to do it. Something untoward would happen and he'd look at Stanley and say, now you've gone and done it. That's another funny bit. It was good to have that as a guy. LAUGHTER Well, I can see for our next skit night, we have to have a movie night. Good, I'm glad we had a chance for questions. Wasn't that wonderful?

[67:55]

All right, thank you. Ahem. May our intention equally penetrate every being.

[68:07]

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