Good morning. So I don't know if you thought I was joking when I mentioned about being a cartoon character. But a cartoon character is someone who, you know, is a character that is created. It's just a made-up character, right? So then you say, oh, thank God I'm just a cartoon character because, you know, unlike the rest of us. But anyway, basically, in some sense, of course, we're all cartoon characters because we just made up. We just made it up who we are, where we've been, what's going on, what kind of person we are, where we're going. We made it all up. And then, are we hearing okay? And then, so then we have a, and then that's called drama.

[01:04]

And then, and then, and then there's this character that's been made up and then you have to worry about, well, what's going to happen to this character? And, of course, in Zen, we're interested in who is doing the creating, who made up the story. That's the person we're interested in. That's the person who's not the cartoon character. So there's someone who we think we are, and then there's someone we actually are who's not a cartoon character. So actually, we don't have to worry so much about the cartoon character, just like Gene in the story this morning. Well, many years ago at Tassajara, when I was a student, we used to have tea sometimes

[02:12]

with our teacher, Suzuki Rishi, and then we'd have tea and then you could, you know, it's an informal choson, so there's tea and then you can ask questions and so on. So someone said, um, why haven't you enlightened me yet? Speaking of, you know, cartoon characters, he said, I'm making my best effort. It's an interesting story, I think, quite fascinating, partly what this story is about,

[03:15]

you know, is respect. When Suzuki Rishi's son, a few summers ago, came to visit us at Tassajara, his son is now the head of the family temple in Japan, abbot, and it happens that this temple is the head temple for 15 sub-temples. So Hoitsu Suzuki came to Tassajara with the 15 abbots of the 15 sub-temples. Most of the 15 abbots of the sub-temples were men in their 60s and 70s. Hoitsu is maybe 55 or 60, so anyway, all the abbots of the sub-temples were older than he was, as far as we could tell, and yet they were, since he was the head temple, then they were paying respect, they were respecting him.

[04:16]

So we set aside 15 seats, 16 seats in the zenda for them, and then there was one, there was one seat short, and it turned out that no one would sit next to him, because that was one way that you show your respect, is you don't sit right next to him. And then in the dining room, it's very convenient because we have tables of eight, so we gave them two tables, then we were one seat short, or two seats short, I don't know, because no one would sit next to him. Seems like, in a certain way, kind of a lonely life. But then nobody was saying to him, why haven't you enlightened me yet? But, you know, Americans, we don't understand about respect, so we just went ahead and sat next to Suzuki Roshi and even asked him these questions. This question, you know, why haven't you enlightened me yet?

[05:29]

It has this kind of, perhaps, many connotations, I mean, and you might think yourself of many answers you might give, like, you know, I mean, even if you said I'm making my best effort, what about you? I'm doing my part. But the question has that kind of implication of, you're holding out on me, like, why are you holding out on me? Why aren't you doing more for me? Why are you picking on me? Why are you making me into this person who's not enlightened? Why are you doing this to me, and why aren't you doing other things for me?

[06:33]

Don't you understand how important I am, or special I am? And so there's a little bit that sort of feeling of, you know, someone's holding out on you. Why are you holding out on me? And there's also, of course, a little bit that feeling of, are you really a Zen teacher? Aren't you supposed to be enlightening me? I don't feel enlightened yet. I guess you're not very much of a Zen teacher, are you? You know, there's a wonderful story about Zhoushu, or in Chinese, Zhaozhou, he's known as. Zhaozhou was a very famous Zen teacher, and he's said to have had a way with words.

[07:39]

He practiced Zen for many years, they say, and then at the age of 60 he started getting more serious. I don't know, he's said to have, I think he was practicing even before the age of 60, but they say at the age of 60 he started practicing. But I think they mean that's when as a teacher he started practicing, but then he traveled around for 20 years going to different, visiting different teachers until he was 80, and then he lived and taught until he was 120. And they say he had a way with words such that some people saw golden light coming out of his mouth when he talked. We don't know if you had to be like a special kind of person to see the golden light, or if he only revealed the golden light coming out of his mouth to some people and not to others, and you know why he might have done that. But one day a monk asked Zhaozhou, how do I get to the summit of the mystic peak?

[08:43]

That's sort of like, how can I attain enlightenment? And Zhaozhou said, I won't tell you. That kind of sounds like holding out, doesn't it? And then the student said, but I thought you were a Zen teacher. Why won't you answer my question? Isn't that your job? Help me like this? And Zhaozhou said, if I answered your question, you would still think that you were on level ground. That's a very subtle answer, but if I answered your question, you would go right on thinking that you were on level ground, thinking that there was an enlightenment to get to, a mystic peak to arrive at. So, where did you think you are, and why did you think, how did you come to think that

[09:49]

you were someone who wasn't enlightened yet? What kind of a cartoon character is that? But I really appreciated Suzuki Roshi's answer, and he didn't respond to any of those hooks. Why are you holding out on me, or what kind of a teacher are you? And he just said, I'm making my best effort. And he didn't say, what about you? Are you making your best effort? It was very subtle, and quite simple. And in Zen, of course, we say everyone is already making their best effort, whether

[10:58]

it looks like it or not. And if you think about it, for instance, we tend to have some relationship with our experience. We have an identity that likes to think it's in charge. And then we can say to our life, how come you're so boring? What's wrong with you anyway? Why are you so depressed all the time? What's your problem anyway? Don't you think you could do better than this? Or sometimes, maybe, if you come to a one-day retreat like this, you might say, you know, I'd like some enlightening experience today. Thank you very much. Please provide it for me.

[12:00]

But your body, and your mind, and your thoughts, and you know, so to speak, you know your body, your mind, will be saying to you, but I'm making my best effort. I'm giving you physical sensations. I'm giving you sights and sounds. I'm giving you feelings and thoughts. I'm making my best effort. And then there's some little voice that says, well, it's not good enough. I'd like it to be a little more brilliant, please. I'd like it to really be dazzling. There's a saying, traditionally, and there's a saying that

[13:10]

unsurpassed awakening is like being unstained, a mind that is unstained. To be unstained is like meeting someone for the first time and not thinking about whether you like them or not. To be unstained is to view the moon or flowers without wishing for more color or brightness. This meeting someone for the first time without thinking about whether you like them or not is also, of course, meeting yourself, like meeting yourself each moment for the first time without thinking about whether you like them or not. Without thinking about whether or not your body or mind is giving you

[14:21]

the proper kind of enlightening experience. And why is it holding out on you and not giving you something more to your liking? I'm not wishing for more color or brightness. But the interesting thing, of course, is unstained mind cannot be created or established or produced or made or manufactured. It's not something that there's anything for you to do in order to produce it, in order to demonstrate it, in order to establish it. This unstained mind is already there before you do anything. Thank goodness.

[15:23]

Dogen says, if it was any other way, it wouldn't be trustworthy. If it depended on your endeavor, you would be out of luck. You know, in the same way that if your heart's beating depended on your thinking about it beating and remembering to thump, thump, thump, you would be out of luck. Thank goodness. Thank you.

[16:37]

This unstained mind, unstained mind is also then another expression for you yourself. Before any cartoon character emerges or is identified. Good. I'm going to tell you a story about, you know, making biscuits. Some of you may know this story, but many years ago, when I was cooking at Tassar, I started making biscuits. And every time when I made biscuits, they didn't come out right. And I wondered, what's wrong with my biscuits? I tried making the biscuits with eggs and without eggs,

[17:45]

with butter, with Crisco, with milk or with water. I tried different proportions. The biscuits never came out right. Then one day I thought, right compared to what? What was I measuring? How do you know that the biscuits aren't right? How do you know? What's the standard? And I realized that when I grew up, we made, I made biscuit biscuits and Pillsbury canned biscuits. My biscuits didn't taste like either of those biscuits. I thought especially my biscuits should taste like Pillsbury canned biscuits. The biscuit, once you take the powder biscuit,

[18:50]

you mix in milk and then you just take a fork and you blop it onto the pan. So you didn't even roll it out and make it into rounds. You just blop it onto the pans. The Pillsbury canned biscuits, of course, you wrap the can on the counter, on the corner of the counter, and then you open up the can and take out the biscuits and you bake them. And then there were the Pillsbury canned biscuits that came with a little powdered sugar frosting at the end of the can and you opened that up and you could put that on there or whatever. You'd be surprised if you start to look, you know, like just what are you trying to make of your life? What are you trying to make it taste like or look like? And where did you get that idea? You know, the Zen tradition is Japanese, you know,

[19:52]

so if you want to be a good Zen student, then you shouldn't have much in the way of emotion. Because a good Japanese person, you go about your life and then you don't have feelings. Or if you do, you certainly don't express them. So you can just sit very still and nothing happens. Or if it does, like, well, watch out. Anyway, if you have some problem with the way your life looks, you might want to think about what idea you had about how it was supposed to look. Where did that idea come from? Is it appropriate? Does it make sense? So one day I thought, this is pretty silly.

[20:54]

Why don't I just taste these biscuits without comparison, without comparing them to anything and see what they taste like. And they were the best biscuits I ever had. They were really good. They were buttery and flaky and wheaty, hearty, melt-in-your-mouth, toasty, nutty, fragrant. Anyway, this is like what I mentioned earlier today of let things abide in your mind. Let your mind return and abide in things. Let your experience come home to your heart. Really taste something thoroughly without holding it up to some standard. Some idea or thought you have in your mind, what do you compare this to?

[21:57]

How could it have more color or brightness? How could it be even better? This is a human tendency, but it's also especially a Western tendency as far as people who study these things can tell. One of the ways as Westerners we go about things is to say to ourself or somebody else, you're not good enough yet. You need to do better. Actually, they have this saying in Chinese too. In China, they say, before the food comes, tell the cook it has to be better tomorrow. This isn't just a Western standard, but we're particularly this is particularly our way we do. Vince Lombardi, the football coach, was famous for this. His team had just won the championship and they're starting to celebrate. He could just look at somebody like, you're still not

[23:00]

there yet. Vincent Van Gogh is the most famous example of this. It's our way to motivate ourselves often to demean ourself. You're no good yet. You're really nothing. You're really worthless. You haven't done anything yet. That produces this big upheaval of creativity in some instances. 89 paintings in 30 days or whatever. At some point, he had this tremendous outpouring. Was it good enough? No, then you still say, that was pretty good, but it's still not that great. No matter what, you have some higher standard. This is Zen practice. To say you don't measure up yet. Zen is to taste

[24:03]

the experience of the present moment without this kind of comparison. ... I think it was Gina Davis on Is that a famous name to you? Is that a good cartoon character to talk about? She was on a television talk show and she said that her sister or aunt had gone to the grocery store in Alabama and it was a hot summer day and she was driving home in her car and she heard a kind of an explosion, a little popping, a popping noise and she felt something sticky on the back of her neck and she thought, oh my God, I've been shot. And she didn't dare touch the back of her neck, fearing that she was wounded and she

[25:07]

drove straight to the hospital and went into the emergency room and they said, what can we do for you? And she said, I think I've been shot. And they said, well where? And she said, well on the back of my neck. And then somebody reached up and took off the biscuit and said, what do you mean by this? By this biscuit. So apparently the Pillsbury biscuit's in her. Grocery basket had exploded and shot out in the heat, hit her in the back of the neck. So I'd watch out for these seven. You never know when your standard will catch you, will pop out. But we do tend to have these, one of the biscuits that I've, another kind of biscuit, a recipe

[26:22]

I've had is, you know, speaking of biscuits and Zen and I've always wanted to prove how grown up I was, how masterly and competent. So if you want to be competent, this also means like I don't need any help because I'm capable and competent. So then if someone asks, may I help you? It's like they're saying, I don't think that you can handle this. You look like you need some help. But actually they're just saying, you know, can I, you know, can I help? But to me it's, it's like they're saying, you can't handle it. You're not capable, you're not competent. So somebody asking if they can help me, I might get very angry. What you don't think I can handle it? It's very curious, you know.

[27:29]

So there's also a saying, I like a line in a poem by Rumi, the Sufi poet. He says, you, he says, don't go where you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring. Don't go where you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring. We have lots of ideas about where we'd like to go, the kind of person we'd like to be and what would indicate that. We spend a lot of time looking for signs or indications, the kind of person I am, how I'm doing. I'm doing better, I'm doing worse.

[28:37]

I'm still this, I haven't gotten over that. And it's all just a tentative description in a particular world with particular standards. It's all a cartoon in a certain sense. It's very real and it's a cartoon. Ask the way to the spring. You know, eat the biscuits of today. Taste the present moment without comparison. So we might also say, from the Zen point of view, as it were, since you're already in the spring, at the spring, splashing about, why not, you know, since you're already in

[29:41]

the spring, why not sport about? Do you understand? Why not sport about? Since this is the spring, since you're, you know, if you're not careful you might even drown in it. Not even realizing that you're in it. Why not sport about is like, for me, like the saying in the Dogen's Instructions for Meditation, the Bhukan Dzogchen, he says, meditation is like the tiger returning to the forest, like the dragon that comes home to the water. This isn't making your mind clear or calm or some picture you have of the way your mind should be and hasn't become yet, what enlightenment would look like, and trying to produce something

[30:44]

that you could call enlightenment or awakening or anything. When the tiger returns to the forest, you know, it's very at home there in the forest. Your spirit, your awareness returning is very at home with all the thoughts and feelings, sensations, impulses, emotions. You're not trying to turn your mind into a parking lot, pave it over. You're not trying to go somewhere else. You can sport about in this wildness. It's pretty wild, isn't it? Rather untamable. When the dragon comes home to the water, there's all kinds of creatures there in the water. There's many things beneath the surface swimming this way and that.

[31:45]

You don't know what you'll encounter. This dragon is at home there. The dragon that is your awareness, your true nature is at home. So you make yourself at home in this water. You sport about in this forest. If you have any, you know, doubt about it, if you start to tell yourself, why aren't

[32:48]

you doing any better? Don't you think you could have some different experience? If this doesn't seem very good to me, then, you know, wait and see if you can hear your body, your being, life itself, the universe, the world saying, I'm making my best effort. So you especially don't have to be hard on yourself, you know, but more simply, you know, to come home to yourself, to allow your experience to come home to you. Eating, tasting the biscuits of the present moment without comparison.

[33:48]

Sporting about in the spring. Coming home to the water, entering the forest. Gary Snyder had a poem about visiting Wendell Berry in Kentucky, and he went to Kentucky and went for a walk with Wendell Berry and Wendell's wife, Tanya. And at one point, Wendell said, look, a fox burrow. And Gary said in the poem, I went down on my knees, put the hole to my head like a mask,

[35:01]

warm air, feathers, bones, scat, some home. Our home isn't exactly, you know, the most pristine place. It's very much alive with everything, you know, that is human. And sitting, especially a day like this, you get to come out and in this wild place. All right. Thank you.

[35:54]

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