Love to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening. In 1966 I first came here to Tassajara as the dishwasher. It was the last summer that Tassajara was a resort. Although some people still think it's a resort. So every so often it strikes me rather ironically that I might be sitting up here doing a Dharma talk and it's a little bit like the story of the

[01:02]

famous Chinese sand master who went back to his hometown and there was a big crowd gathered to welcome him and then one woman came up and said what's the big fuss about the garbage collector's son? So I washed dishes for a few months and suddenly one of the cooks quit and then I had a job cooking. Anyway, one thing has led to another. I spent the Vietnam War here at Tassajara. I lived here most of the time from 1966 through 1973.

[02:07]

Later I found out that Jack Kornfield was practicing in a monastery in Thailand where they could hear the bombs dropping. It was a pretty, you know, powerful time in a lot of our lives. And later I found out that I'd been investigated by the FBI because I had applied to be a conscience objector. And it turned out that the FBI had interviewed Suzuki Roshi and it said on my FBI report that Suzuki Roshi told them I was a sincere practitioner, a student of Zen based on my regular early morning zazen at night.

[03:16]

That was my attendance. That was when I was, you know, still living in San Francisco and we had zazen on Bush Street. It's hard to believe, you know, that more than 30 years have passed. It's like a dream. Life goes by very quickly. When I was Shuso in 1973,

[04:18]

you know, the head student here, my daughter slept in a little basket outside of the meditation hall which was down where the student itinerary is now. Now she's 25. You know, pretty soon none of us will be here. It's pretty remarkable. And yet, you know, Tassajara carries on because we actually are here now, and we you know, we do this life together, those of us who are here, and people come to visit largely because we're living the life we live here. Doing the meditation practice we do and working as hard as we do. And from outside,

[05:19]

you know, people when they come feel appreciated and valued because we work so hard taking care of things. So, anyway, tonight it raises the question for me, you know, what you know, how do we become the person we are? You know, who are any of us? What are we doing here? Who am I and who are you? And what kind of, you know, person were what kind of people were those who practiced you know, Zen in the past? You know, what brought, what brings us to Zen? What brings others? What brought people?

[06:21]

I guess partly I've been thinking about it because I've we'll see what happens, but I've agreed to make a new book of lectures by Suzuki Roshi. So I've been reading many old lectures and I don't remember hearing very many of them probably I slept through a lot of them. But he used to say it's all right to sleep through my lectures. You don't need to hear what I say with your mind. One of the things he said was, you know, to practice Zen is to make a habit of being free. It's the same with practicing yoga or doing any kind of regular practice in some ways it's almost the same as being a parent or a spouse.

[07:35]

But the habit of being free is that you know, nothing keeps you from your practice. Nothing keeps you from meditation, nothing keeps you from work except, you know, sometimes it does but it's a habit you're making. I think many of you, you know, most of you have no idea how difficult it was for me to practice Zen except that you know how difficult it is for you. But people were scared of me. If that tells you anything.

[08:42]

And so I, in many ways I wasn't a very good student but, you know, I kept coming back anyway and I continued. I don't know, you know, maybe it... I don't know, you know, how we find our way in our life exactly. But I decided you know, and again, Suzuki Roshi said if you're going to practice you'll have to have a strong commitment a strong conviction to practice. Without a strong conviction, you know, you will do something else. You will go away. If you don't have a strong conviction I will do this. I will do this study. Even though I don't know what to do even though I have this difficulty I'll find my way. If you don't have that kind of feeling you know, then you will do something else

[09:55]

when something else comes along to do. Because in a kind of way it's easier. Maybe not in the long run but it feels easier at the time. And so, partly this is about freedom. You know, our usual idea of freedom is to... we conceive of something to do. I'd like to have dinner now. Then we think freedom is being able to do what we just conceived. Oh, I get to do that now. And we can dream up you know, any number of things. Love affairs and you know, sleep, chocolate, many things.

[10:57]

We can dream up many things to do and then we think freedom is being able to actually do the things we conceive. In Zen this is known as being, you know, a slave to your impulses. Why would you want to be a slave to the last conception that occurred to you? And feel compelled to do that. Freedom is you can do that or not. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. Your life is bigger than what you conceive. And freedom in that sense is also you know, not knowing what to do. Not knowing what you will do and finding your way and meeting and encountering what you meet and encounter and dreaming up what to do. And what to do occurs to you. And you let things occur to you to do and you respond to your life as it arises. And you know, this is rather scary

[12:01]

because you're you might not know what to do. Right before I came over here I thought I should have some notes. Then I could do what I thought. Since I don't have any notes I have to hope that something occurs to me to say. And I have to trust that I will find my way. And I've had some practice at it so I have a pretty strong feeling I'll be able to do that but still I get anxious. Anyway, to to not know what to do and then you know, to go about your life meeting what you meet. Meeting onions and carrots and people and toilets, you know, we had a you know, pipes, plumbing. Many things happen that we meet.

[13:03]

What will we do? How will we handle it? And will you you know, will you take care of those things as they come up or will you be busy you know, complaining you can't do what you conceived? The more you attach to your conception and wanting to do what you dreamed up you know, how will you be able to do what's right in front of you? And some spiritual centers are like this. I've been to spiritual centers where they're busy. The cook was busy complaining to me that no one would help her and there are tens of people there building 16 foot tall Buddhas with and writing out hundreds of thousands of mantras to drop inside of it and sewing robes for dances and you know and then in the bathroom the toilets are overflowing and no one is fixing them because everybody is doing

[14:03]

busy doing spiritual practice. That they, you know think is you know, a good thing what they want. So in Zen we have the idea to meet your life as it arises and respond to what you know, is there in front of you to do and to respond to. And then you know when we decide to do that of course we'll notice all the things that get in our way that keep us from that kind of freedom and capacity to be able to respond to next thing this moment right now. And so we'll notice you know, feelings get in our way and thoughts and you know, judgments many things. Hmm.

[15:07]

And it turns out you know that Zen teachers don't tell you really much about what to do. Have you noticed that? Sometimes there's not even a Zen teacher around. And then when some Zen teacher is around you know they won't tell you anything they won't especially tell you anything in any detail. And even if you know there's only a few students and the Zen teacher is right there every day the Zen teacher won't tell the students you know, what to do. Because the student you know, right away you know, if you if you depend on somebody to tell you what to do you're making your life kind of small, aren't you? Tell me what to do otherwise I don't know. No. You lose your capacity to go your way to find your way to respond to things because you're waiting to hear well, how do I do this? What should I do now?

[16:13]

So to wait for somebody to say something or explain something is to limit yourself you know to make yourself smaller. Rather than having the strong conviction I will find my way I will figure it out. I don't know what to do but I'm going to find out. Some Zen masters even to this day are famous you know, for this. One story of you know, the there's the one koan actually that Hyakujo said you know, in all of China there are no Zen teachers. All of you gobblers of dregs all of you you know waiting for the Zen masters dropping. Don't you realize there are no Zen teachers in all of China. And somebody got up and said but there's all these monasteries and people following and doing all these practices

[17:14]

and all these things how can you say there's no teachers? And he said I didn't say there wasn't any Zen I just said there are no teachers of Zen. But another way to look at it of course is everyone you know, each of us is the teacher. So you'll have to teach yourself the way and be a good student. To be a teacher is to you know, study how your way how to do it. To be a student is to be a teacher. And all of us each of us you know, our life all the time day after day moment after moment is impacting everybody and teaching something to everybody and we're revealing ourselves you know, all the time who we are. It's right there for everybody to see who we are who are you. And everybody sees even if you're trying like I'm not going to have any impact I'm just going to do my little practice here I'm not going to get in anybody's way everybody will see

[18:15]

that that's what you're doing. It's unavoidable you know, you impact the world. We're actually all like that you know, we're all beings impacting the world and it's you know, we all have that much responsibility and that's what's you know, scary this is scary and a challenge. Rather than doing what you conceive to find your way and take responsibility for your own life you know and finding your way in your life. This is a lot like following your own bliss of course and the strange thing about that is of course that people forget is shouldn't it be easier? Why is it so hard to follow you know to follow my bliss? So this is very

[19:19]

you know this is a challenge and also it ends up being you know, for me it's ended up being quite interesting because in one of the interesting things and it's also you know, one of the painful things is to discover you know, over and over again we discover our weak point whether it's our back or some emotion or some way we think about things some way that we connect or don't connect with others some way that we isolate ourselves or you know some way that we're not we feel like we're not really there for others or others aren't really there for me and we notice how you know, we find ourselves doing these various things that we didn't realize were underneath somewhere in our life and as long as it's not revealed you know, so much of what's underneath in your life will push you this way and that why don't you this?

[20:21]

why don't you that? I should go here I should go there and you have no idea what's pushing you and also you know if you don't know your weak point you try to cover up your whole body you cover up more than your weak point when you try to cover your weak point and you don't know what it is so again in this way you know we limit ourselves so also to and we could say then in that sense you know to practice Zen is to reveal yourself and actually whether or not you're practicing Zen you reveal yourself so thinking about it like this is to think about or study for yourself what do you want to reveal to others who do you want to be what kind of person you know would you like to be and then

[21:21]

how can you start practicing that way being that kind of person I decided a long time ago you know because I wasn't people say how did you get to be so humorous and tonight I'm giving you a little bit of a serious talk I guess but people say how did you get to be so humorous and I say well because I decided I wanted to be humorous it was too painful to be so serious all the time you know I wanted to be so tormented by everything and I thought I better I want to work on having some humor because this is too difficult like this I should have some you know lightness and people would smile at me and I'd glower back at them because because I would think what do you have to smile about so now I hazard a smile now and again you know and I remember the first time one of our teachers said

[22:22]

when you bow to somebody and when you meet them and we bow to one another you could also smile and then you know the students here said well suppose we don't feel like smiling and and suppose we don't really like that person and you know people here didn't want to smile and I thought I could try that out I'll I'll take a chance you know and practice smiling now and again and it's very interesting you know to this is another example actually of a habit of being free you know to have a smile and I'm not really that good at it but now and again I am able to smile and it's and so I'm still practicing to have a habit of being free you know so I practice now and again smiling and

[23:24]

to smile like that is to let go of all the things that were on your mind about what you needed to do next and who that person is and who you are and what kind of treatment they deserve and how they should be treating you and why did and they should smile at you first before you smile you know all this stuff that we go through and instead of that you just you can forget all that and just smile and that's that and it's so actually that smile is to let go it's to be free it's not about you know and then who am I who are you we don't know I don't know maybe you know I don't know so we just bow and smile it's being free it's letting go whatever whatever was stopping you from that you know that a smile had to have some basis or you had to really feel like it or you'd be insincere but the basis is you know

[24:24]

your wish or your intention or I want to I want to be free that's why I decided it I just want to be able to smile and let go of everything it doesn't just happen all of a sudden after you do all the right good practice for many years it doesn't just happen all of a sudden that now you feel like smiling the day dawns you're sitting here and you know suddenly whoa a big smile and then you know you might end up stuck with it if that was the case who knows who knows so it will be useful anyway to you know know your weak points so it doesn't push you around without your

[25:25]

knowing it and so you don't spend your whole life you know covering up so that it's never exposed so we end up you know when we practice and we end up doing this in relationship too and with our kids and with our parents you know we end up revealing ourselves so I don't mean to say you know that Zen is the only way to do this obviously we're all the time engaged in this life but again in families and with parents and children we often have the same difficulty when one person doesn't want to reveal their weak point and instead of revealing their weak point you know they will they would rather belittle the other person because something the other person is reminding them of their weak point but rather than acknowledge their weak point you know we will sometimes attack back you know we become angry or defensive or belittling

[26:25]

or you know rather than acknowledging our weak point that's it the kind of thing that happens and you know anytime we're in relationship or and we're in relationship all the time we're practicing Zen you know we have some chance to acknowledge or notice what is underneath or what is our weak point what do we try to avoid experiencing you know what do we get you know what happened right before we got angry what happened you know right before we got discouraged or depressed what is it we didn't want to notice and we're trying to notice that realize our weak point and then we we don't need to hide everything quite the same way so all the time

[27:27]

you know our life is you know we're revealing ourselves and we're studying you know what kind of person to be how to live our life you know how to be how we want to be present and you know take in and experience our life and respond to things how are we going to do that and so of course in Zen we understand it doesn't matter so much what it is any moment you practice meeting that moment you know and that's our way we don't have to wait for some special moment or some special person in order to practice meeting something meeting our life and in this sense

[28:28]

you know whether we understand you know in Zen you know whether you feel or believe you know you're enlightened or you're not enlightened we don't worry about it so much when you're happy just to practice whether you have difficulty or don't and you have the determination you know the conviction to go ahead I'll do it I'll find my way I have problems I you know I have some problems I don't have others and when you're happy just to go ahead we say that's enlightenment you know that's some realization that's some recognition that you aren't ever going to attain that kind of perfection that you thought enlightenment was about and then you can relax with the imperfections you have and live your life you know check them out the imperfections

[29:34]

I think I'm going to stop now stop talking anyway thank you very much for being here and for you know I don't think it's easy to be a human being it takes a lot of courage for all of us and especially you know when we're you know having difficulty and in our life or you know in our Zen practice you know so many things happen to us whether it's growing up or you know I talked to someone a day or two ago and she said my son hasn't talked to me for six years he won't answer any of my messages he he got in an argument with my new husband six years ago and

[30:44]

now he's mad at me and he hasn't talked to me since my brother and I were rather estranged for many years and I didn't even realize it until he called me up and said he'd like to come and see me partly we're estranged because my brother found God he's the black sheep in my family my parents are Unitarian you know and they say my mom still says we raised you boys to think for yourselves and now he's raising his boys not to anyway it's not so easy you know having a life and and finding our way so you know we actually all have a lot of you know courage and

[31:44]

you know to go ahead and find our way and to to live this life so thank you thank you may our intention equally penetrate every being and place with the true nature of the blessed way

[32:15]

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