And I said, that's why this is a ceremony. You can't just do this at home on your own. You have to make a ceremony out of it and get together with some other people and create this intention and focus and presence so that you can own the potato chip. But it doesn't own you, you know. And then when people carefully eat a potato chip, and of course at the Zen Center there's always somebody who will say, suppose I don't feel like eating a potato chip. You know, going back to the earliest Buddhism, you eat what they put in your bowl. You know, you don't say, oh, I don't eat dairy, I don't, you know.

[01:03]

I'm not having pig today and, you know, you just, they put it in your bowl, you eat it, you know. You don't, like, decide, but in this case, this is America, you know, we're free, so you can do the ceremony of not eating one potato chip. It's just as good, and then you get to listen to the sounds, you know, in the room, crunch, crunch, crunch. So sometimes when people actually eat a potato chip and you're not watching television or, you know, the cocktail, on the other hand, you know, or the football game, you know, you're actually, your attention, you can devote your entire being, you know, to letting your heart go out and being a potato chip, you know, let a potato chip come into your heart. That's not what we're doing most of the time. And we eat potato chips so that we don't have to do that. That's the point of having a potato chip. You can go unconscious and not relate to anything, and it'll be pretty safe.

[02:07]

It'll have an instant of salt and grease, and then there'll be this tasteless pulp in your mouth, and it's kind of innocuous, and then, you know, there you are, or aren't, as the case might be. Anyway, an instant of salt and grease, and then one person said, and then a tasteless pulp. And if I hadn't been paying attention, I would have thought there was something there was missing, and I would have eaten more in order to get what I didn't get when I had it the first time. So if you're not paying attention, then you can eat a lot of them. If you give it your attention, you say, why, what is interesting about this? Of course, some people who haven't had a potato chip in many years, you know, they have two reactions. Sometimes they say, I can't believe how good it is. It's been so long since I've had one. And then other people say, this is awful.

[03:09]

It's as bad as I always thought. Anyway. So you get to have, of course, whatever experience you have when you let something, let your heart go out to something and let, you know, come into your heart. And one time after we had potato chips, we tasted oranges. And then they were so good when you actually just taste an orange and eat an orange. And people said, oh, it's so juicy and refreshing and sweet and succulent, and this is amazing. And this is sunlight and earth and fresh air. This is incredible. And then we passed out Oreo cookies. And people refused to eat them. Or they just took one bite. And at that point, you know, they were, after a potato chip and an orange, they were so attuned, you know, to what was actually coming into their mouth that they could taste that

[04:12]

it didn't taste good. You know, they could taste the chemicals, the sweetness, the lack of any real flavor. And then they go like, I don't want any more of this. So there were all these cookies with like, either they didn't take them or one bite out of it. And sometimes just a little bite. So this is interesting. I find it interesting. So there's a couple problems. The basic problem about letting your heart go out and abide in things, letting things return and abide in your heart, is that as soon as you're aware of anything, it won't be quite the way you'd like it to be. It won't be flavorful enough. It won't be calm enough or still enough.

[05:13]

And it will bring up questions for you. You know, how am I doing? Am I doing okay? Am I having the kind of experience I ought to be having? I was hoping to have more compassion or calmness in my life by now, or whatever it is. Or somebody will say, why did you do that? My companion Patricia sometimes says when I'm cooking dinner, is there anything I can do to help? And I right away hear, you are really incompetent and you can't handle it, so can I help you? So I get upset. You know, what do you mean, I can't handle it? Of course I can handle it. I don't need any help. But that wasn't what she said, you know. But right away, something occurs to me, you know. So we make life right away, as soon as something comes home to you and you experience something,

[06:16]

we make it personal. Are you good enough? Do you know what you're doing? Can you get it to come out, things to come out the way they should? Can you make things be the experience you want to have? So this is, you know, technically called dukkha or suffering in Buddhism. It's very simple, you know, things just, as soon as you're aware of something, it's not quite what you'd like. So you know, our usual idea of how to go through life is we can control it better and make things come out more the way we'd like them to. And practicing meditation is, instead of making things more acceptable, I'll learn how to accept more. This runs counter to, you know, our culture. You too. And you know, it's like when somebody was, at one point, making a video about me cooking.

[07:18]

And they said, Ed Brown will teach you how to produce vegetarian masterpieces. And I told them that's exactly what I'm not doing, you know, because I just want you to be able to cook and eat. And I don't want you to have to think, it's got to be a masterpiece or why bother? You know, that's setting up some standard for yourself to come up to. And then, can you just taste something and put it in your mouth and eat it? No, because it's not a masterpiece yet. And if you're going to do something, it should be the best in the world or, you know, the champion something or other or, you know, better than somebody somewhere. So when I tell people at a cooking class, taste what you put in your mouth, that's let your heart go out and be in something, let something return to your heart and abide in your heart. And people say, what should I be tasting?

[08:21]

Because we, you know, we worry about is, am I getting it right? Am I having the right experience? Am I having the experience that, you know, is indicates that I'm OK, that I'm good, that I'm doing fine, thank you. My experience is accurate, important, useful. So can you just taste something or do you want to know what should I be tasting? And this is meditation, too. As soon as people start to meditate, what kind of experience should you be having? Oh, calm, peaceful, you know, serene, tranquil, awake. Buoyant, cheerful, and then how can you make that experience happen or can you just taste what you put in your mouth or, you know, can you experience what comes up for you when you sit still and you're not busy and you can let something come into your

[09:34]

heart, let your heart respond. And now you're not in control anymore and you don't know what will happen and what it will taste like, and sometimes it won't taste very good. Will it? I'm sorry. Several years ago here, it's probably been, oh, 12 or 15 years ago now, I did a class, I got people to come, people who had been practicing here at the Zen Center for 10, 12, 15 years or more and then had been away from Zen Center for five years or more. And the class was, what was that practice all about at the Zen Center when you were doing it? What have you done since?

[10:36]

And what is practice about for you now? Or is it of any relevance to your life at all anymore? So, generally, you know, people devote the first eight or 10 or 12 years of practice to getting it right. Oh, one woman said she'd had a lot of problems with alcohol and drugs and she found the Zen Center and people were so together and she felt so wonderful practicing meditation. So she took all of her problems and difficulties and put them in the closet. You know, she had a nice room at Zen Center, so you put all your stuff in the closet. That's stuff that, you know, you're not going to let come into your heart and your heart, you know, abide in those things. No, no. They go in the closet.

[11:38]

Then, she said, then what you do is you put a nice brick wall over the closet and on the brick wall you hang a tanka. And then every day you bow and you say, thank you for staying in the closet. And my practice must be working, you know, because the bricks are holding. So she said that worked for a long time. And then, you know, after whatever was years of practice, you know, she wasn't sitting so much and she started going to AA meetings. And at AA meetings, you could actually talk about the difficulty in your life. And it turned out how, you know, like suddenly her difficulties to have difficulties and problems and emotional issues was OK.

[12:45]

Everybody had them. You could talk about them. And she didn't have to keep it all in the closet. But usually that takes, you know, usually in Robert Bly's, you know, Five Stages of Re-Owning Your Shadow, the first stage is you project or you, you know, you put your stuff in the closet, you have it in the closet and you want to keep it there. The second stage, things start to come out of the closet. The third stage, do some spiritual practice so you have a reason to put it back in. This is spiritual not to relate with these things. This is spiritual to be calm and tranquil and peaceful and not to be distressed or angry or annoyed or petulant or sad or, you know, grief. I'll just put it in the closet and that's spiritual now. So the third stage is reassert your projection and what you wanted to do and how you wanted to be, reassert that and bring in some spiritual authorities to back you up.

[13:47]

Then the fourth stage of practice is you end up having to eat it anyway and own your stuff. You know, the closet one way or another comes open and, you know, the brick wall disappears and the Tanka comes down and it's very real, it's very ordinary and you're actually you and you're a human being and you have all these thoughts and feelings and you can let them come into your heart and you let your heart be with these things. And the fifth stage is you grow, you grow and you're nourished by having acknowledged these things. One of the other people who came said, oh, I remember Zen Center, we practiced looking good. And I thought I looked pretty good. And somehow nobody ever acknowledged me as

[14:54]

looking that good. It was very disappointing. He said, now I I'm married and I have kids and it's really wonderful because we're actually all can talk about things and relate and we have all these problems with one another and issues and things are happening and we get to actually relate with all this stuff. So on one hand, you might think that, oh, well, does practice work and actually practice work. Practice gave us the strength and presence of mind to be with those things. Finally, whether it was in the form of Zen practice or not, and other people kept practicing Zen and actually had to, you know, unlock the closet finally anyway. So one problem will be that as soon as we're aware of something, it's not the way we

[16:04]

want it to be. And another kind of, you know, basic kind of mistake we make is that we have the idea that we could have the calm, tranquil, peaceful when we take after we finish taking care of all those things. You know, when we get the dishes done and the house cleaned and the kids to bed or, you know, whatever it is that you're up to, when you finish your work, then you can relax. So people's idea of like a good time is like you go and lie on the beach and sweat and get sort of sandy. Well, you can see it's not my idea of happiness, but a lot of people seem to have this idea that you could be really happy when you don't have anything that you have to take care of or relate to. That's when you could be happy. That's why I say happiness is not having to relate to anything. Because as

[17:09]

soon as you have to relate to something, it's not quite the way you want it to be. So as soon as you're aware, it's not right. It's not good enough. Is your experience good enough yet? Can you just have your experience, whatever it is, without saying good enough or not good enough. And just be with your experience, with your thought, with your feeling, with the sensations. So, you know, Dogen also says then, don't set up a nest or a den. So this is our tendency certainly to set up a nest or a den where I can be, where I reside in my body and my being apart from things. And then we see if we can set up the proper kinds of surroundings, you know, to exclude certain things so

[18:11]

they, we don't, aren't aware of those. And so we can be aware of other things so we can look just the right way from our nest or den. And we can spot who's coming and let them in or not. But then, you know, people are so contrary, you know, the people you think you like and that like you, and then they'll do something that is very distressing to you. You've let them in and then the next thing you know, they're upset about something or they're disappointed with you or it's frustrating. Maybe they don't love you after all. So you can see that to be with things, to let your heart go out and abide in things, let things return and abide in your heart is a bother. It's a challenge. It can be very distressing. And yet that's also where the satisfaction and fulfillment and intimacy and connection and the true, you know, treasure of our

[19:17]

life is, is in our connection with things. Whether the things are another person, a sound, a sight, a smell, a taste, a touch, a sensation, a thought, a feeling, to actually connect and meet and be with something is where we have real vitality. And you can also see that when that happens, you won't be able to control it. You can't tell what will happen. So it might not come out the way it should or the way you'd like it to. In some ways, I have more trouble cooking now than ever because, you know, things just don't come out the way, and I think I'm experienced. I've had all these years of experience, so certainly by now, things should come out the way I want them to. And they still don't. And I'm an expert, let alone if you're just beginning at this thing. And meditation, it's the same. It doesn't come out the way it

[20:27]

should. And I should be better than this by now. I should, you know, years of experience. Don't you think it would be good for something like controlling things better? And I thought, you know, after 30 or 40 years of Zen practice, and now I'm in my 50s, and it's all just gotten worse. It's amazing. The other day, I mean, it's just one thing after another. The other day, I was walking into my house, and the bag I was carrying, the strap caught on the door handle. I've walked in and out of my house hundreds of times, and the strap has never before caught on the door handle. You'd think I'd be able to walk in my house without the strap catching on the door handle and, you know, throwing me forward and the bag spilling and, you know. But no. The universe will

[21:30]

perpetually come up with these things. Something will surprise you. Something will get to you. I don't know. It does me. You can tell I must not be very good at my practice, or it wouldn't be like this anymore. Or is it the truth of Buddhism? Oh, well. Have I talked long enough yet? Do you know? Ten more minutes? I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. One of the things I've done more recently is I started studying something with some people in Katate called integrated awareness. So we used to do at

[22:48]

workshops a lot of fun things. You know, in Zen, we say, you know, sit down and be present. Show up. And one of the ways you sit down and be present and show up is we have a posture. You can't do the posture of meditation without being present, because otherwise you'd just go back into your usual posture. So in order to be right in the middle and lengthen up through the top of your head and have a top to your head, you know, rather than having your head stop in your neck, the neck is the control center. You know, so if you want to be in control, a good place to have your head is your neck. So that means eliminating, you know, from the top of the neck up. You just eliminate that from your awareness. Leave it out. So in order to do Zazen, you have to kind of like get the top of your head back and like, you know, have it there. Anyway, and you know, in order to have your hands in the posture of Zazen, you know, you

[23:54]

have to like have some awareness there in your hands. Otherwise, your hands will go. So I found out, for instance, that I asked the teacher at integrated awareness, I said, you know, my wrists are really stiff. And he said, well, why don't you see what you can notice the next few days? So I went home and the next day I was meditating and I noticed I didn't have hands. I sit there like this and then after a while, the hands just disappear. They're just, they're not there. So I told my teacher, I don't have hands. He said, oh, you spiritual people, you're like that. Spiritual people often don't have hands because, you know, spiritual people, you've made all these mistakes in your past lives. You don't want to do them again. So you're just going to sit there this life and not make those same mistakes again. And just to be on the safe side, just don't have hands because then they won't do the wrong thing and get you in trouble. You know, you can't make any mistakes if you don't have

[24:58]

hands. If you're not doing stuff in your life, if you don't own your hands and have your hands, then you can't, what can you do wrong? So it's a nice way to disempower yourself is not have your hands. So it's only, you know, after all these years, I started studying like to have hands. So, and this is a nice way to have hands, you know, this posture of Zazen hands. And it seems like the, you know, that if you have your hands like this, then it changes your chest. And if you're willing to let your chest change in accord with the way your hands are, then your chest lifts slightly and your heart opens. Your heart will tend to notice things and feel things. Things will come and abide in your heart. Your heart will return and abide in things. And you're present. If you let your hands be in accord with your chest, then pretty soon your hands go somewhere else.

[26:00]

In integrated awareness, these are your ribs. There's 12 digits. These correspond to each one of the ribs. So if you hold your hands like this, you're opening your chest. And when I notice, when I let the awareness come from my hands in this shape, up my arms and into my shoulders and into my chest, and I feel it come into my heart. Anyway, we get to do all these fun things in integrated awareness. And, you know, we do things like judging. Like, you know, we're all the time judging, but in Zen Center we don't judge. We don't have preferences. You know, no, I'm not judging. I'm just unhappy or, you know, I'm, you know. So we do judgment on purpose. It's fascinating, you know, because if you're touching somebody, this is a hands-on healing among other things, but if you're touching somebody and their energy is, after a while, if you're just receiving the person and when you touch someone, and this is true with yourself too, but if you touch someone and you agree to touch consciousness as well as stuff,

[27:22]

touching consciousness is letting something come and connect with your heart. Let your heart connect with the thing. And the thing is not just a thing. It's also consciousness. Somebody, a body, is not just a body. It's not just material. It's consciousness. And consciousness is throughout the body. So you can touch consciousness wherever you touch someone. And people can tell when you're touching, because when you touch, normally we touch and we say, go over there. We're not talking about consciousness. We're talking about the stuff, you know, getting to the stuff, [...] getting to the stuff. We say, get over there. Or we say, come over here. Or we say, calm down now. Or we say, straighten up. And we don't usually say, can I just be with you? And I'll receive you. And however you are is fine. So if I touch somebody like that, pretty soon they relax. And there's often a kind of heat. And then if I say, boy, are you stupid, just to myself, right away the person freezes. Because you can tell you're being judged. So it's very interesting to do, when you start to do, if you do judgment on purpose, rather than saying, no, I'm not going to judge, I don't judge, I'm just going to follow my breath. If you start to do something on purpose, then you can actually own it.

[28:39]

You can notice what happens when you judge. People freeze, the room freezes, the whole room. If everybody's practicing judgment at the same time, the whole room freezes. Because it's like somebody's watching me, and they're judging me, and they've found something wrong with me, and uh-oh, now what? It's fascinating. You can also do, you can touch somebody, and then you can let go of your judgment, and the energy starts to flow again, and then you can, why didn't I help you with this? Right away, freeze. Because, why didn't I help you with this, is right away, there's something wrong with you. You can't do it. You need help. I'll help you. Why don't I help you with this? I'm really good at this. So then people's energy again freezes. Everything stops. Uh-oh.

[29:41]

One day we did, we purposely, on purpose we did spatial and temporal displacement. This is something many of us are extremely good at, spatially displacing or temporally displacing. Like that has to do with not being here. And actually if you practice letting things come and abide in your heart, letting your heart respond and be in things, now you're here. So an alternative is to displace. I'm sorry I got off on this, but I'll try to finish up. So it was really fascinating because we did spatial displacement on purpose. Do you want to know how to do it? You can try it out later if you want, but you feel your left arm and you feel the consciousness in your left arm and the structure of your left arm and then you take whatever consciousness there is in your left arm and put it somewhere, anywhere else but your left arm.

[30:47]

Somewhere else. And then your right arm, your left leg, your right leg, your torso, just put all the consciousness of it somewhere else. And I did that and I thought, my God, this is familiar. I spent most of my life spatially displacing, not being here, you know, not having consciousness in my body. And then wondering, why do I feel so lost, disconnected? So this is, oh, this is another two or three talks, I'm sorry, that's why I'm sorry I brought this up now, but maybe it's interesting for you in some way. And there are some other things I want to talk about, but some of you might, do you

[31:56]

still have a question and answer here? So some of you might come to that and so then we might talk about a few more things, because I had other things I was going to talk about today and didn't, and then the things I talked about and wasn't going to talk about and did, so, you know, these things happen. I can't control it. I let my heart go out to my, the muse, and let the muse return and abide in my heart. And then I wait and see what happens. And you've been gracious enough to allow it, thank you. And whatever judgments you've had haven't been strong enough to stop me dead in my tracks, because, oh my God, I said the wrong thing. So anyway, when in doubt, as it were, let things come and abide in your heart. Let your heart return and abide in things.

[32:56]

This is our real, you know, happiness and fulfillment and joy in our life. Which is different, you know, which so, it's our willingness to do that, to actually be with the things of our life, thoughts, feelings, sensations, people, things, stuff. And our willingness to let those things be as they are, rather than they need to be a certain way, the right way, my way. So, you can hear it now, you know, just with the sound of the rain, the sound of the traffic,

[34:24]

it comes to your heart, and your heart can feel nourished and be with the experience you're having.

[34:36]

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