Can you hear me all right, do I need to talk louder, or does this take care of it, or ...? I feel a little overwhelmed, there's so many of you, and so few of me. And I guess I reassure myself by thinking that whatever I say is something that you already know, or at least collectively, you know, coming from all of us. So it's not as though I have anything particularly special to say, in that sense. I mean, I'm just, you know, a layperson who lives in Fairfax. I don't practice then anymore. I mean, once in a while I come here and I put on my robes and, you know, it looks pretty good.

[01:07]

But nonetheless, I've been invited to talk. So, I will. I've actually spent a good deal of my life thinking nobody wants to hear what I have to say, but, you know, I'm going to talk anyway. I decided that, you know, I've gotten over that. You're all here, I'll assume that you want to hear what I have to say. And when Phu invited me, she said, why don't I talk about work practice, so this is my subject. And I understand that this is work week, so it's a good time to talk about work and practice. I made up a little list. So let me get out my list now. This was just for the fun of this afternoon. Work means you struggle to do something which can't be done.

[02:13]

More, better, faster. And you keep at it. Practice is to do it anyway, with devotion. Work is to remember what needs to be done. Practice is to forget all about practice. Work means you wouldn't do it if you didn't have to. Practice is to go ahead and express your love. Work is to engage with the things of today. Practice is to empty your mind. So then I thought it might be fun to just turn them all around. Practice means you struggle to do something which can't be done. Calmer, quieter, stiller, more blissful. And you keep at it. Work is to do it anyway, willingly.

[03:16]

Practice is to remember what needs to be done. Work is to forget all about working. Practice means you wouldn't do it if you didn't want to. You didn't have to. Work is to go ahead and express your love in your activity. Rumi's poem says, When you do something from your soul, a river runs through you, a joy. When you do it from another place, the feeling disappears. So is that work or is that practice? Practice is to engage with the things of today. Work is to empty your mind. So there you have it, which is which. I was reminded of...

[04:25]

A friend of mine came here to Greenbelt for about, I don't know, two or three months. This was years ago. So she followed the schedule and was practicing. And then finally she thought, I really ought to go. I've been here long enough. I ought to go see one of the practice leaders. So she had a practice instruction and she asked the teacher that she saw, Do you have any advice for me? And the teacher said, Don't get stuck on your cushion. So she left. And she's a very interesting person and very skilled at what she does. She does the kind of now hands-on sort of healing work. And now she's interested in practice again.

[05:29]

Well, over the years, I've thought of various things about work and practice. So I'll tell you about some of them. And then you can, you know, use them, what I say, as you will. When I became a cook at Tessahara, I asked Suzuki Roshi for some advice. And he said, as many of you have heard me say, When you wash the rice, wash the rice. When you stir the soup, stir the soup. When you cut the carrots, cut the carrots. So that's pretty simple. Today, apparently, on Terry Gross' show, there was... Somebody was on Terry Gross' show today talking about marijuana.

[06:36]

And how, you know, it used to be 3% TCP or THC or whatever it is, you know, the active ingredient. Now it's 20%. After the big crackdown, you know, and the big drug raids and everything, then the growers decided they need to do something about this. So they developed marijuana that was 8 or 10 times as strong. And it grows 8 or 10 times faster. And it grows smaller and thicker and quicker. So now marijuana is way more potent. And it also grows indoors and, you know, with light. And, you know, instead of having to grow it outdoors, you know. So, that's part of what's interesting, you know, like, Gregory Bateson used to say, Now, are we cultivating the marijuana or is the marijuana cultivating us? You know, it's training us to cultivate it. You see, this is a survival skill that marijuana has learned. But I just heard about all this secondhand today from a friend of mine who was listening to the show.

[07:48]

He said, Are you listening? And I said, No, I'm not. Maybe it's very aggressive, I'm sorry. But it turns out that there's the, whatever that, is it THC? THC. THC, which is the, it turns out that there's a natural analog or, you know, similar thing that is naturally produced in the body, the THC. Your body, our bodies produce this. And one of the main things that it does naturally is it allows you to forget. This seems pretty nice. And the main way apparently that it's produced by the body is when you focus very directly and immediately and continuously on being present. So remember this, when you wash the rice, wash the rice, when you cut the carrots, cut the carrots,

[08:50]

when you stir the soup, stir the soup, and you will be you will be stoned and then you just forget. And it also has, you know, pain-relieving qualities. Pain relief, you know. So this is very interesting. I mean, I don't know, I didn't realize this is what we're doing. Some people do say that there are shortcuts to Zen practice. But sometimes the shortcuts, of course, lead to the long way around. People get stuck sometimes in shortcuts. Oh well, they get stuck sometimes in Zen practice. You know, it's not so clear. Anyway, I've come to have certain ideas. I really appreciate Dogen's simple advice. It's not so simple, but Dogen, you know, in the instructions to the head cook says,

[09:55]

let your heart go out and abide in things. Let things return and abide in your heart. So this says something to me about practice and something about work. And part of, of course, what's interesting to me about when people say things is, why would they say that? And so it's pretty clear that even in Dogen's days, that was not what people were generally doing. Let your heart go out and abide in things. Let things return and abide in your heart. So the alternative I tend to think of as the American, the American idea of happiness, for instance, is happiness is never having to actually relate with anything. You can be happy when you're on the beach and you don't have anything to do, things are taken care of, and now you can just space out and bliss out and you can be happy because there's nothing that you have to relate to.

[10:58]

If there's something you have to relate to, then generally that means there's some problem. It's not doing what you want it to do. It's not behaving the way you would like it to. Whether it's your mind, your thoughts, your feelings, your sensations, they're not pleasant enough. Your thinking isn't quiet enough or disappearing enough. Your feelings are painful and afflictive. The sensations, you're tired, you're aching, you're in pain. So why would you want to relate to any of that stuff when you could have happiness by not relating to anything? And sometimes, of course, that's called sadhan. Empty your mind and see if you can park your body in something resembling the posture of sadhan and hope that it doesn't complain. And then you can let your mind empty and not relate to your thoughts or your feelings. You can get pretty good at this. So this is where work comes in as far as I can tell

[12:02]

because work won't let you get away with that. If you don't pay attention to something when you're working, it will definitely have problems and they will come up and say hello to you. The food that you forget about burns and whether you're hammering, if you're not paying attention, you hit your hand. Whatever you're doing, there will be... And if you're not there, there will be a problem. Anyway, I do think about this as the American way, not relating to things. And one of my favorite stories about this is the... After many years at Tassajara, I started going to grocery stores again. And it was pretty overwhelming at first. Actually, it was... You know, for 18 or 20 years, I barely went to any grocery stores all the years at Zen Center. And you go... If you haven't been at a grocery store for a while, you know, it's pretty overwhelming that there's...

[13:05]

You know, it's 6 by 10 feet or something of toilet tissues. And there's a lot of packages and it's very bright and colorful. And the food is saying, you know, buy me, buy me, buy me, buy me. And I used to think, well, why? And then, you know, the answer to why would I buy you is I'm quick, I'm easy. I'm quick, I'm easy. You won't have to relate to me at all. You can just put me in the oven and you won't have to taste me, smell me, touch me, look at me, think about me. I'll be there for you without your having to sense or experience anything. And, you know, comfort food, for that matter, is never having to taste something that you haven't tasted before. Comfort food means you won't actually have to taste what's in your mouth. It's not going to cause any sensation that will be outstanding. New, different, nothing to discover there.

[14:12]

Nothing to afflict your capacity, you know, to taste. Your taste will not have to endure, you know, anything it's not completely accustomed to. In other words, your taste won't have to experience anything. And this will be a big relief. So this is the question, you know, some of us have kind of embarked on the idea that maybe life is, maybe that's not so, maybe that's not such happiness after all. Maybe that's just depression, or, you know, maybe that's sorrow or sadness, or maybe that's being scared, or, you know, something. But, you know, in a certain sense, of course, this has to do with the fact that as soon as we're aware of something, you know, one way of saying the First Noble Truth, as soon as we're aware of something, it's not what we want it to be. Now what do you do?

[15:13]

How will you, and then is the word practice or is the word work? How will you practice with that? How will you work with that? So I see a couple, you know, key points here. One is that, you know, willingness or interest to experience things, to let things come and abide in your mind, to let your mind, your heart go out and abide in things. Some interest or willingness for that happiness is pivotal. You know, there's a decision there, or there's a decision or a willingness or an interest or what's out there? What are these things? And it hasn't, you know, I'm not actually happy following up here, being out of touch with things, and I'm not actually that happy.

[16:20]

There are various versions of this kind of sensibility, you know, so part of this is redefining them in a certain sense, you know, what happiness is. What is our true happiness? When you do something with your soul, a river flows of joy. So to do something with your soul is to actually meet something, and willing to meet something, you know, is life up there, and it's a kind of, you know, so to speak, realization, and it's liberation. Liberating me from the little prison that is so safe and secure. Peaceful, quiet, nothing to have to relate to. Oh darn, the phone is ringing. Or whatever it is, you know. Oh, my knee is hurting. If only my knee wasn't hurting, I could meditate. This used to happen at Greens, you know, people would say,

[17:27]

Oh, if it wasn't so busy, I could really take care of the customers. Oh, sure. And when it wasn't so busy, what happened? People competed to see who could stand around the most. Because, you know, as soon as one person is standing around a little bit, well, why did they get to stand around? I should be able to stand around too. And then everybody starts to stand around, and pretty soon, actually, when it's less busy, the customers are taken care of less well. This is the principle at work that I'm discussing. So, willingness to let your heart engage with things. And things, you know, in Dogen, seems to be, you, thoughts, this is all things, you know, sensations, feelings, thoughts, things outside, people, things, objects, the world, you know, you let things, let things come. Let your heart go out to things, let things come into your heart.

[18:32]

And we have a strong tendency to not let something into our heart, not let anything touch your heart, because it often hurts. And we're all little pussies about being hurt. So the safe thing to do would be not to let it actually touch your heart. See if you could, like people say, well, what do I do with anger? So I don't actually have to relate to it, so I could just get rid of it, so, you know, I could be a good Buddhist, so I wouldn't have to have something method like that in my life. What do I do with it? To, like, keep it at a pleasant distance. And pacify it or calm it. So that's where the difference in the sensibility of, well, honor your anger. Respect your anger, let your anger into your heart. One of the things that anger is angry about is it's closed out of your heart. I mean, it's a no-brainer, right?

[19:35]

One of the things that, you know, thinking, as soon as you have the idea, I'm going to get rid of my thinking once and for all. Do you think your thinking hasn't heard that? If I was your thinking, you know, at that point, I would be, you know, like, I would not want to disappear even for a moment, or I'd feel like, boy, if I disappear even for a moment, he's going to off me. I'll never have a chance to come back. I better just stick to him for all I'm worth. So that's a different kind of strategy from, could you let me meditate? I'm going to meditate for a while, and after I'm done, I'll check back with you, and you can tell me everything you thought about it. That's a little more reassuring. It's honoring your thinking. It's liberating your thinking, and having a little more flexibility with your thinking, rather than, I'm just going to get rid of it. Anyway, let something come and be in your heart. And then, you know, so willing to be with things is a shift for most of us.

[20:42]

And then the second part of that is, things aren't the way we'd like, which is pretty distressing from time to time. Sometimes it's okay, but... It depends, of course, on your sensibility about what you might like, and what you would be willing to put up with. But mostly we can have... It would be nice to... And then we set up certain goals, as far as what would be acceptable and what wouldn't. And we have a certain idea about what practice is, because if you didn't have an idea about what practice was, how would you know whether you were doing it or not? And mostly we would like to be able to know whether we're doing it or not, because we have the idea that if I could assess that, then I could tell if I'm not doing it what I needed to do in order to do it. And we think that way I could advance in practice by assessing whether I'm doing it or not.

[21:50]

So, is practice to calm, to be calm? Is it practice to empty your mind? Is it practice to still your...quiet your thinking? Is it practice to, you know, not to be...to have any emotion? One of the sort of most obvious models of practice is the Zen teacher. So, wow, I'd like to be really impassive like that. And I don't know how the Japanese do it, to be that impassive. And, you know, you don't have any...I mean, you wouldn't want to have feelings in that case. Probably not too many thoughts. And you need to do a lot of cleaning, too. But, you know, somebody I talked to a while ago said that...

[22:57]

I said, I don't know how the Japanese do it. Maybe it works for the Japanese. Because if you tell Americans, quiet your mind, empty your mind, you know, be impassive, let go of your feelings, you know, that's just, for Americans, called repression or denial. You just don't have them. In other words, you look someplace else rather than noticing the feelings there. You experience things in terms of your physical body. You just...you know where not to look. So, you can develop this kind of practice. Very...you know, it's a good...Zazen is a good place to develop habits of awareness where you learn where not to look. And then, the nice thing about work is, those habits don't work in the realm of work. And then you feel like you're not practicing. Because work can be so distressing and upsetting and annoying. And there's all this stuff to put up with. And there's these people who don't do what they should. And then stuff isn't happening. And then the food isn't getting cooked. And then things aren't getting cleaned. And then the roof is falling apart. And, you know, all these things are happening.

[23:59]

And so you can't overlook the things you could while you're in the Zen Do. And then people say, oh, this is so upsetting. I need to go back to my practice. I don't want to have to work and actually notice that I'm still thinking or feeling or having sensations or thoughts. Or, you know, I don't...I wouldn't want to notice that. This is terrible. I need to go back in...back to the Zen Do. That was really nice because I could... I had it all down there. Where I didn't have to notice my feelings or my thinking. And I could...I could... You know, I don't know. I'm talking from my own experience, okay? I mean, maybe you all are really wonderfully enlightened people. But, you know, I did Zen practice for... I've done Zen practice now for, you know, 35 years or something. And after I've been practicing for, you know, about 28 years or 30 years, one day I was at this workshop. I do...I like...I get interested in all kinds of, you know, esoteric kind of California New Age-y things, you know.

[25:02]

I'm sorry. You know, Zen centers loosened up a little bit so they let people like me in the door. It used to be you had to just do Zen. And if you didn't just do Zen, you know, you were a crummy student. You know, like if you had to do, like, yoga. Are you kidding? Like you do yoga? Oh, you need to do yoga? You don't just do Zen? And so forth, you know. But anyway, I was at a workshop. So... And I forget what the subject of the workshop was, but... No, it's...well, it's something that they call integrated awareness. It's where my friend, you know, got into after she dropped out of Pringles, after she was told don't get stuck in the kitchen. So...but anyway, we were doing this little exercise. This is a room full of 70 people, you know. So the instruction is...we were all standing. And the instruction was, we're going to practice now displacement.

[26:04]

We're going to actually practice, you know, physically... Spatial displacement. Spatially displacement. So if you want, you can try it now. I practiced for 30 years being completely, you know, thinking that I was present. I'm going to sit here. I'm going to be with my body. I'm going to be right here, right now. You know, I'm going to be alive. I'm going to breathe. I'm inhaling. I'm exhaling in, out, you know. This whole deal, right? So, I go to this workshop. Okay, you take the conscience of your left arm. You feel your left arm as best you can. Your fingers, your thumb. You know, all the sensations of your left arm. And you take that consciousness, which otherwise is known as a left arm, and put it somewhere other than your left arm. Now, apparently this is easier for men than for women. This is a clue, okay? So some of you may have more trouble with it than others.

[27:06]

Now, okay, so I did that. Okay, I can do that. Cool. And then now take your right arm and all the sensations and, you know, possibilities of your right arm and put the conscience of your right arm anyplace but the structure of your right arm. Oh, great, okay. I got it. You know, the room, the corner over there, or, you know, it doesn't matter. Some other part in your body. Just don't have the conscience in that particular place. And I did that with my left leg and my right leg and my torso and my neck and my head. And then, my God, this is how I feel most of the time. I had mastered the art of physically, spatially displacing myself and I thought it was Zen practice. This is, you know, I don't know. I mean, we don't always know what we're doing, you know. But that's also something about me. It's something that I've been very good at since a very young age. It's a way, it's a psychological defense, you know, against what would...

[28:16]

And then, of course, once I noticed that I was physically, spatially displacing like that, I started showing up and then, my God, the stuff that was going on. It's called temporal displacement. It's also known as feeling. I started to feel a lot more in my feelings. So, when you aren't physically displacing and then, you know... So, this is an example, I'm using this tonight as an example of... It's possible to create a context and, you know, to create your body and mind and being in such a way that you cannot look at what you don't want to see. And you can base that, not look at what you don't want to see and you can get spiritual backing for that, like it's not good to think, it's not good to feel, it's not good to, you know, this. You should be calm, you should be peaceful. You know, avoid conflict. And then, the nice thing about work is, you know, it's hard to do this in work.

[29:22]

That's what I've found over the years. Work in that sense is a lot like having a three-year-old. You know, things just don't behave... If I try to work all the time just around my house, I try to wash the dishes and then, you know, my hands are slippery and the cup falls out of my hands and it breaks. And it's like, wait a minute, you don't have to do that. I'm a nice person, you know, like, just stay in my hands. I mean, like... But when you go to work, it's real hard to do the same stuff. You know, work, by its nature of actually relating to the things of the world, they're not going to fit in with your plan and they're going to present you... Work is going to present you with things that don't fit, that aren't your idea. And you will be having to be with experiences that you didn't choose to. And this can happen in meditation too, you know, I'm just... we're just talking. This is one that I think a lot of the time meditation is having to spend a lot of time with somebody you don't like very much. It's really kind of sad.

[30:30]

Because you could like somebody who is peaceful and calm, but somebody who is annoyed or upset or in pain, I mean, who could like somebody like that? Little wimp. So, in sitting you can, you know, sitting is actually not so different than work, so I'm kind of setting these things up a little, you know, superficially, just for the sake of talk. So, what this means is when you go, let your heart go out and abide in things, that things return and abide in your heart anyway. That's willingness and that's also learning and developing your capacity to let things be as they are and not try to control everything. So you're shifting from control to compassion. Compassion is to be with things the way they are. Control is you have to improve them, fix them, make them better. Now, this brings up the idea of, you know, Zen is...

[31:37]

One of the things is, you know, and especially Japanese Zen, as it was presented to us by, you know, Suzuki Roshi and Tadegura Roshi and Koguchino and various teachers, you know, it's very clear in Zen practice that the way you take care of anything is something to do with how you take care of yourself. So, in the kitchen, you know, do you take care of leftovers? Do you clean out the bowls? At Tassajara, I go down to Tassajara and I get kind of discouraged because I go in the kitchen in the summer. I used to, when I was the resident teacher there for a couple of summers, I'd go in the kitchen and there'd be the cookie bowl and there'd be this batter, cookie batter in the bottom of the bowl and I'd scrape it out and make two more cookies and I'd put them in the oven, which are going most of the time, and then I'd come back in a few minutes and have a couple of cookies. But Tassajara is so convenient, there's that spritzer there and you can just spritz any food that's in the stuff and pour it in the sink there and it's, well, it's not wasting, you're putting it in the compost, nothing can actually be wasted.

[32:41]

But, now, what's worth taking care of? You know, what's worth actually relating to? What's worth letting your heart go out to and letting it come and be in your heart? What's worth doing that for? And when is it safe enough to do that? Are two cookies worth doing that for? Is one grain of rice worth doing that for? Who did you think you are? And now, are you worth taking care of? Or do you sometimes feel like you're a little piece of a piece of a leftover and you aren't really worth it? Are you worth taking care of? Are you worth relating to? Are you worth sensing and experiencing? Or are you just some cookie dough that can be left in the bottom of the bowl? Because, who cares? And if you don't relate to you, who, you know, are you going to wait for somebody else to come along who's really interested and falls in love with you and they're just so dying to find out about you and then maybe, you know, that'll be so nice when that happens?

[33:48]

And maybe your Zen teacher will take an interest? So, who's going to be interested in you? So, Zen practice is, you know, not waiting to see who's interested in you, but going ahead and relating to things. And that means, you know, floors, and tiles, and sinks, and toilets, and dishes, and pots, and pans, and ceilings, and roofs, and pipes, and plants, and dirt, and tools. Because they're all you. And you would relate, your heart goes out to them, and it's not any different than you go out to yourself. So, this kind of idea is embedded, you know, in Japanese Zen.

[34:51]

When you wash the rice, wash the rice is. You know, also, when you are you, Zen is Zen. That you could actually feel what you're feeling, think what you're thinking. I was reminded today of the see with your eyes, smell with your nose, taste with your tongue, nothing in the universe is hidden. This Zen teacher, Japanese Zen teacher said this. What else would you have him say? And, what else you'd have him say is, how to get those things to behave the way they should. And he said, just see with your eyes, smell with your nose, taste with your tongue, you know, think your thoughts, feel your feelings. What's the problem? Well, it might not be right. So, Suzuki Roshi and, you know, again, other Japanese teachers emphasized, we don't clean in order to clean, we clean, you know, to relate to something.

[36:03]

I visited AHE, I don't know, it was 1978. A few of us from Sensen over there. And the most impressive thing to me was, the most impressive thing to me was the floors. They have wooden floors and wooden hallways, you know, about six feet wide. And they go all the way up the hill and down the hill and across. It's covered walkways, just in the wintertime. And those floors, those wooden floors are like glass. And they're like glass because they've been wiped with a damp towel every day for 800 or 1000 years. You know, 800 years. That's, you know, the spirit of Japanese Zen. And, but the idea, you know, at least intellectually, and I don't know, obviously when you do things, you have various, you will have various experiences.

[37:12]

But do you take the floor for granted? I'd like to never have to relate to the floor. Just like, I don't want to have to look at a, you know, a carrot, a potato and figure out what to do with it. I'd like it just to be there for me. People will pay three, five, ten times more for a potato if it's already been prepared for them. This is the American way. Have enough money so that you don't have to do anything or relate to anything. And rather than actually having feelings, you could watch a movie. I mean, life is for the servants. As for life, the servants can do that for us. But do you take it for granted? And again, is it you? How do you feel about yourself? Do you take yourself for granted? Are you someone you care about? And in Japanese Zen, the idea is to practice touching, you know, caressing.

[38:19]

Touching something relating to it, that's a thing, you know. And that's you. You're also touching yourself. You know, you're cleaning yourself, you're polishing yourself. And because mostly we don't have much feeling for ourselves. We don't have much self-esteem or self-respect or we don't honor our feelings or thoughts so much. We feel like I don't really measure up. I feel like I need to acquire some experience. I should have some attainment or something to show, some accomplishment. You know, otherwise I don't amount to anything. What have I done? So Zen is just to practice this. Go out to things, take care of things, take care of let the things come and be in your heart and actually relate to them and do something with them. Now...

[39:26]

This is all taking longer than I thought, but I have... So, in a certain sense, you could understand this in short as... To me, practice and work has something to do with relationship. This is to alter, to fundamentally work on how to have a wholesome relationship with things, with yourself, with somebody, with a person. How is that? Where you don't boss them around, they don't boss you around, but you can interact and work to bring out the best in one another. And certainly part of this is that you honor and respect your own deep wish, your fundamental wish in your life. Whether it's for happiness or intimacy or connection or belonging or to be supported. That you honor your own wish and that you can also then... One of the things you're letting come into your heart is your wish for your life.

[40:28]

So we're not saying just relate to stuff and just clean things and forget about your own wish. So... But I want to tie this in anyway with one other sensibility to me about practice. And it relates somewhat with the idea of spatial displacement, but it's a little different. There's this wonderful expression I've come across every so often. I think it's in the booklet record. Which is, you know, don't set up a nest or a den. So mostly this is what we do with our consciousness. It says don't set up, but mostly we've already set up a nice nest or den for our consciousness. And the nest or den, you know, has a physical location. Right? You can check out where the physical location is if you let your awareness go out to your hand and through your hand. And you let go of that and you let your awareness go out to another hand and you let go of that.

[41:32]

Where does it go back to when you are not focusing on your hand or on a foot? Where does your awareness go back to? Well, most of us have a little nest or den. It's often at the top of the neck, just below the occiput. It's a nice spot to try to maintain control. The neck is the basis for a lot of control issues. This is how to control others. How to control others is not my usual posture. I have more the posture of, I think I'll control myself first, thank you, before you have a chance to. Shorten the back of your neck. And you can arrange yourself to duck or dodge various things with, you know, side bending and rotating. I was at Redwood High School a couple of years ago and, you know, 200 kids.

[42:36]

I said, so, they're all sitting there watching me. And I suggested, like, we're going to meditate now. You might want to see if you can just be right in the middle of your life. Not leaning forward or to the back, to the right or left. Forward is, you know, that's the future. Back is the past. Thinking likes to go forward, you know, have the chin go forward and the skin. Thinking likes to check out what's out there and which way to go, what to do about it. So, that's classic, you know, meditation postures. Pull your chin in, you won't be thinking so much. Lengthen the back of your neck. Except, you know, you don't have to ever do it. That would be how you control others. I'm not going to let them control me. Anyway, the whole room at Redwood High School went, I don't think so. Sorry.

[43:38]

So, what I want to suggest about, both about practice and about work, it's about actually willing to come out of your nest or den. And the way you come out of your nest or den is, if you're doing zazen, you come out of your nest or den by actually having your consciousness come out of its little place. And, you know, in order to have your head up like that and not shirting the back of your neck and not having your chin forward, one way to do it is like, well, you'd have to have some consciousness up here. Not just in the back, no, not just hang out in the back of your neck, in your little nest or den, you'd have to have some up here. And in order to have your hands like this, well, you'd actually have to have your hands here. You'd have to have hands. And to have hands means you're not, you're no longer up in your nest or den. And you can't do this posture while you're just by, if you go back to your, you can put your hands in this posture, but then if you go back to your nest or den, the hands are like, they don't stay there. So, this is one, and then work is obvious for this too.

[44:49]

You know, in work, you can't just hang out in your nest or den. Your consciousness has to go out into your hands and legs and arms and feet and, and, you know, do stuff. Wow, what a concept, that's liberation. Work in, you know, in certain senses, you know, immediately liberating that way. You're not hanging out in your nest or den. Now, it all gets so mixed up, you know, because in our society so much work is, you know, like the Dilbert cartoon. The American Dream is, it was something like, you too can work hard to make me rich. Or something like that, you know. But so much in America is, you know, that work gets associated with being ripped off. Somebody else is profiting from your work. It takes out the spiritual value of, you know, or the possibility of pleasure and the possibility of liberation and joy and doing something from your soul in work

[45:52]

and coming out of your nest or den into the activity of your body and the world. And you've now, you know, so liberation to me as much as anything is, you know, is getting out of your nest or den, the place where your consciousness usually hangs out. And when it hangs out there, it's usually fairly paranoid. What are they thinking? What are they doing out there? You know, am I okay in here? And how do I keep them out there? And, you know, generally speaking, then we have a consciousness which is associated then with, you know, how can, what do I do about that? And how can I have this just nice, quiet place where I don't have to relate to anything? That would be perfect. So mostly we're involved with this sort of idea that I would have a nice, quiet, peaceful nest or den if I could just get those things to keep their distance. And if I could just abandon my body and leave it there in space,

[46:53]

then I didn't actually have to do anything with it. So, of course, the basic sensibility of Zen is we have our true liberation in coming out of our nest or den, filling our body in space, you know, in our whole being, in the being of the world, and filling that with our consciousness and then relating to all these things, letting things in and responding to things, and letting things touch our heart and our heart responds to things. Okay. And if that would be truly liberating, and then that would be some true happiness and joy and vitality as opposed to the kind of pseudo calm and quiet of a little nest or den which then keeps getting disturbed. No. Some true freedom is not that you have the capacity to stay in your nest or den, but that you have the capacity to respond to things and to let things touch you. So, to me, these are both fundamentally related,

[47:55]

the notion of practice or work as working on relationship, actually willing to relate, and then working on how to relate and how to be with things, things which are you, other people, things of the world, objects, food, plants, buildings. And then the notion of practice or work as how do you extend or expand or can you go ahead and let your consciousness come out of this nest again and you actually have hands. You can do stuff. Hands love to do things. Why would you want to not have them do anything? These are happiness, you know, and actually it's not very happy to not have your hands do much. Personally, I'm not happy when I lie around on the beach. I don't know, some people seem to think it's like they're sitting on top of me. Go and hang out on some beach, get hot and sweaty and cover your skin. And sunscreen. Bake and cook and feel loady.

[48:56]

I don't know, it doesn't do much for me. I try to find a nice place to shave. Anyways. So I've probably talked about enough. I have other things to talk to you about but, you know, it kind of goes on but, you know, that's enough probably for tonight. So, thank you. Thank you. So, I don't know, and then, I don't, you know, sometimes I don't have my robes on too, so I mean. I had an interesting experience, you know, one of the pivotal experiences of Zen practice for me was after I'd been sitting for 19 years. Some of you have probably heard this story, but I was down at Tassajara and I was the head resident teacher. So, theoretically I knew something or, you know, who knows.

[50:04]

But people asked me to do this. It was 1984. So I'd been practicing for 19 years, so. There I was sitting in the Zen dojo at Tassajara and I thought, what am I going to do today? Do meditation. Because, you know, if you're going to sit in Tassajara, shouldn't you have a little project? Like, oh, I'll quiet my mind or, you know, I'll sit here peacefully. I'm just going to get, I'm going to breeze through here, I'm going to, you know. So you have various agendas, you know. So, you know, it's fairly standard to have a little project. Like, what you're going to do, like, because our usual idea is I should conceive of what to do and then I'll see if I can do what I just conceived. Which is not necessarily such a great way, but that's sort of the way we do things, you know. It's better just to go ahead and do the inconceivable.

[51:06]

Or it's more free or spontaneous or liberating, you know. Go ahead and do what's inconceivable rather than trying to conceive it. And then why would you limit what's going to happen to what you can conceive? Why would you limit you to what you can conceive? You know, why wouldn't you be beyond what you can conceive? Or, you know, your experience or what you're up to. You know, why not let it be beyond what you can conceive? Why limit it to try to fit into your conception? That's, you know, making your, you know, that's putting yourself into a little nest or den or a box or. There's various expressions for that. But anyway, I was thinking like, well, what do I do today? And then I thought, I had this sort of brainstorm and I thought, speaking of, you know, little attendees and things. I thought, oh, well, why don't I just touch what's inside with some tenderness and warmth? And right away the tears just started falling down my face. And there was a little voice that said, well, it's about time. You've been sitting for 19 years.

[52:10]

Wow. Well, I got sort of interested in just touching what's inside rather than having a Zen experience. You know, doing Zazen. And so, a couple of weeks later I went to see Karagiri Roshi because he was the abbot, the temporary abbot of Zen Center, the interim abbot of Zen Center. So, Karagiri Roshi, I, you know, the day of meditation I thought I'd just touch what's inside. And, you know, the tears started coming down my face. And, you know, is this Zen? Is this Zazen? Is this okay? Shouldn't I be trying to quiet my mind or empty my thought or, you know, not to think or, you know, whatever. You know, all this stuff you hear. And he said, Ed, for 20 years I tried to do the Zazen of Dogen before I realized there was no such thing. So, I didn't think so at the time, but now I think, oh, well, right on schedule.

[53:16]

Took me 19 years to get around to that. It's fascinating, you know, so I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I try to sit and I put my hands like this. I've been working a lot on this and then lately I'm seeing if I can have a head above my neck. That seems to be helpful. And, you know, various things happen. But I don't know who we could talk to to say whether or not it's Zazen. I don't know. So, yes, I do something resembling superficially amazed. Anything else?

[54:29]

Something else? Yes. Oh, well, about six months later I left Sensen too. And in retrospect it seems like I probably left Sensen so I could have a mid-life crisis and do a lot more crying. Because I had spent a lot of years, you know, as another student of Sensen back in the 70s said, you know, looking good. And I practiced looking good. And being tense, you know, but it's all just an idea. So, what changed in my life was, you know, so I spent, I don't know, I had, you know, and it's still sort of happening.

[55:44]

Because I went through mid-life crisis which was a lot of sort of falling apart and a lot of crying and, you know, various emotional issues and difficulties. And then I kind of came out of that for a couple of years. And then I went into male menopause. Which I can tell you a lot about. But I did have an interesting, for instance, experience about this recently. I was, a woman came to see me, you know, for a practice discussion. I'm going down to Carmel once a month to visit the Zen group there, Monterey Basin Zen. So a woman came to talk to me and said, my husband is, you know, terribly depressed. He's really a wonderful person. He's been a healer for many years. People just love him and they respect him. But he's been terribly depressed. He's having trouble sleeping. He's having panic attacks. He's getting terribly anxious.

[56:49]

For no reason, he cries for no reason. And I said, so, I'll bet, you know, tell me something now, he's probably in his mid-fifties, right? Uh-huh. And probably something really traumatic happened to him when he was a little boy, is that right? Yeah, his father died when he was two. Well, anyway, I know the story. And for any of us, it takes a long time to actually get through, you know. But then another night I was down there in, so I could relate to that. That's male menopause. That's when it happens. You don't look at this stuff when you're in your twenties and thirties. You have way more energy and you don't, you know, like, what's the point? Get on with your life, you know, do something.

[57:54]

And so it's as you get older, you know, you have less capacity to keep what's underneath under there. It sucks you down if you don't acknowledge it. When you're in your twenties and thirties, you have enough energy and vitality, you know, to not get sucked down and to just go forward with your life. For the most part. But then, you know, I had, but, you know, another night there, and it may be true, you know, for most people who come to Zen practice, but... I just found out recently that I was born premature. So I spent the first three weeks of my life in the hospital by myself. I didn't know that. So I probably learned physically this place right then. That's a, so that's a very familiar feeling that I go back to and I do, and it's like, we don't make this stuff up. We do this stuff for, we do what we do as a basis for why we do what we do.

[59:01]

Well, I mentioned something like this at the table. Well, the woman next to me said, oh, well, you know, my mother went into the hospital the day after I was born, first took this, she was in there for six weeks. Another woman at the table, oh, I was born premature, I was three pounds. I almost died. I've been in and out of agno, and I've had 18 shock treatments. And she was, she was saying, oh, you don't have to worry about depression, you'll come out of it. And somebody just said, well, wait a minute, what do you know about it? Turned out she was an expert. And then another woman at the table said, oh, my mother always told me you were a mistake. Your father went to have a vasectomy, it turned out a week too late. And then another woman at the table said, we asked her, what about you? And she said, I'm not talking about it. It was that painful.

[60:05]

You know, I, you know, I'm not going there. So it's all, it's all pretty interesting, but I feel like I've been outside of Zen Center because, I don't know, it's hard for me to understand where is the place for, where is the place to, you know, sob in Zen practice. You know, the only place, the place that it turned out for me where I could sob was, well, I remember one time, especially, you know, Cove and Chino, I pulled my knees up and I've been getting hit all day long, you know, in the old days we used to walk each other with sticks. And that'll teach you, you know, that'll straighten you out. And I got hit for falling asleep. No, I certainly did not. And then in order to wake up, I'd be, they'd come by and hit me for moving. So then I'd try to relax and then I'd fall asleep and they'd come by and hit me.

[61:07]

So no matter what, I'd get hit. And so finally, I pulled my knees up and then put my head down and then put my hands around, my arms around my knees. And Cove and Chino was, was at my seat, you know, he was sitting there and he was at my seat within a minute. I couldn't believe it, you know, and he said, outside, let's go outside. And we went outside and I was sitting right at the seat next to the door there, the old tender pepper harvest was now the student eating hall. And as soon as I got outside, the tears just started flowing down my face and he took me by the hand and led me back to my cabin. I couldn't see, I was sobbing so much. The tears were just pouring down my face and I got back to my cabin and he laid me down on my bed and he started kind of rubbing me and I was sobbing and my, my arms and legs were just, they were just shaking uncontrollably, both, all, all limbs. And I was just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and then that went on for 15 or 20 minutes and he was kind of caressing me and, you know, rubbing me and, you know, it's okay and, you know, go for it and whatever, you know.

[62:11]

And then I quieted down and then after dinner, my roommate came back and he said, I was just at this Rolfing workshop and, you know, I could help you out here. So he started Rolfing my chest in order to help release the feelings, you know, so that was a lot of fun. So, anyway, it's, it's been, you know, it's all been interesting and quite remarkable. But, so, but it, for me it's been useful, it seems to be, you know, in a different context from the, the context of the Zen community. But, you know, these things are so fascinating because, you know, it may, it may be that for somebody like me and it may be that for most of us, it takes 20 years of Zen practice to get to a place where you're finally strong enough

[63:16]

and willing enough to actually feel your, feel what's going on in yourself rather than trying to get it right. And that also just may be, you know, who I am, you know. A lot of us are, somebody suggested to me recently, I hadn't thought about myself in, in, I had been, well, anyway, I don't know if you know the Enneagram, but the one is the perfectionist. We're trying to get it right. Somebody suggested to me recently, I was the one, I hadn't been thinking of myself as the one, but that makes a lot of sense. A lot of Zen people are trying to get it right. And it's more important to get it right than to be, to feel what's going on in you. You would want to have the right feeling. Not just what you feel, but it should be the right feeling. It should be the Buddhist one. You should be feeling compassion or generosity or patience, you know, and you shouldn't have these other things. So you want to get it right. And that fits perfectly with Zen practice. Zen practice will then support you to do what you thought was right in the first place.

[64:18]

And you have spiritual authority, you know, for getting it right. But we're up to a lot of things, you know, as human beings. So, I don't worry about it too much. It seems like, you know, it was important for me to do this for 19 or 20 years. And it's been useful what I've been doing since, you know, in some way. And I don't know what I'm going to be doing. You know, I haven't, I can't tell. You know, do I, do I try to teach Zen or do I do? I don't know. So, I sometimes, you know, do work in the context of robes and sit-ins and that sort of thing. And I do other things now, too. I'm doing, well anyway, other things. I'm doing some, what I call it, what I'm calling mindfulness touch. I do, you know, kind of healing sessions with people. I work with different groups.

[65:21]

Things have all been kind of interesting. All right. Well, thank you very much. It's a pleasure being with all of you. And thank you all for being here. And may you be well in your heart. Let things come and abide in your heart. And let your heart return to abiding in. Okay? Pretty sweet. Thank you.

[65:55]

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