I wanted to begin tonight by telling you again the saying that I did on Monday night. I could just sit here and do the whole talk and you wouldn't hear. I did think the best part of my talk the other night was when I was not talking for a few minutes. And we could hear the creek. I wanted to tell you again the saying I used on Monday by 11th century Chinese Zen teacher, Tzu-Shin

[01:00]

This very mind, this very mind, this mind, part of hearts is Buddha. The most spiritual being in the whole universe. Wondrous function, free in all ways, may be charming. But still the whole lot of it is not as good as authentic truth of mind. Do not have the arrogance to think you are seeking, to pretend you are seeking for enlightenment. Enlightenment cannot be seen. Do not have the arrogance to pretend you are getting rid of afflictions. Afflictions have no front or back. Before the appearance of any sign, fundamentally there is no change.

[02:16]

If you still talk about understanding or not understanding, this is all three necks and two heads. And now if you ask, how? Huh? What? What a pain, this Buddha. So being in Tassajara is rather sweet, you know, to be in a room of Buddha. It is rather palpable. And we can feel our own sincerity and good-heartedness.

[03:32]

You know, the gift of our being. Before we say anything, you know, to describe ourselves, how am I doing, good or bad, better or worse, what my problems are, what I am doing to work on them, how I am improving or not. After all these years of practice. Suzuki Roshi said, I love it, you know, somebody asked him, it is in the little book, Just Shine One Corner. Someone asked, well, what do you think about all these hippies coming to meditate with you? And he said, I think you are all enlightened until you open your mouth. So while we sit here, you know, silently, we can appreciate our good hearts and our sincerity.

[04:50]

He also would say, you know, you have dropped out of materialistic society. In the 60s, many of us had dropped out. You could rent a, you know, a whole flat in San Francisco for $150 a month for 5 bedrooms. It was $30 a person per month. So you did not have to work much to pay the rent. And food was a lot cheaper. Anyway, he said, so you have dropped out, but you still want to improve. Don't you think that is rather materialistic? And some of you would like to become selfless. Isn't that a rather selfish idea?

[05:53]

So before any change, any sign of change, you know, fundamentally there is no change. There is nothing we can do fundamentally to prove I am a Buddha or not, or I am not a Buddha. There is no evidence you can accumulate or gather. Perhaps initially you can take this on faith or confidence, but this mind, this body, this place, this time, this is Buddha. An awesome, wonderful, good-hearted, spiritual being. Nice to know. Nice to meet you. I thought tonight I would read you what someone else said in a similar vein to this thing.

[07:15]

This is from a 20th century Tibetan Rinpoche. Togu Ergyen. First he quotes Shantideva who said, Unless you know the secret key point, whatever you do will miss the mark. The secret key point of mind is that its nature is self-existing, original wakefulness. To identify the key point, we need to receive the pointing out instruction in which the Master tells and shows us that the nature of your mind is Buddha mind itself. The nature of your mind is Buddha mind itself.

[08:16]

Right now we are like the dim-witted person who lost himself in downtown Kathmandu, who runs around wailing, I've lost myself, where am I? The pointing out instruction is just like telling him, you are you. To your beginningless samsara, sentient beings have never found themselves until somebody says, you are right here. So, this is a metaphor for introducing the secret key point of mind. On a slightly different note, years ago at Green's, when David Chadwick was the host,

[09:21]

and we were so busy, many, many people waiting for a table, and one of the customers was saying to David, the host, Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? I want a table now, do you know who I am? Do you know who you are talking to? And David kept putting him off, seating other people, just as a kind of punishment. And then finally, when one of the waiters was near enough, he said to one of the waiters, when that guy figures out who he is, tell him he can have a seat.

[10:27]

So, I also want to tell you a poem, a Rumi poem. For various reasons, but for nothing else to remind you that you aren't the only Buddhist, we aren't the only Buddhists. This is a poem about the cup. There's one right here. The cup, the cup wants to be lifted and used, not broken, but carried carefully to the next.

[11:47]

The cup knows there's a state for you beyond this, one that comes with more vast awareness. The cup looks still, but acts in secret to help. Sometimes you pour cup to cup, nothing happens. Pour instead into your deep ocean self, without calculation. If eyesight blurs, find a railing to follow. The cup wants to be lifted and used, not broken, but carried to the next.

[13:04]

The cup knows there's a state for you beyond this, one with even more vast awareness. The cup looks still, but acts in secret to help. Sometimes you pour cup to cup, nothing happens. Pour instead into your deep ocean self, without calculation. If eyesight blurs, find a railing to follow. So now, with this introduction, getting you properly in the mood, initiating you on the spot into Buddhahood, into the secret key point of mind,

[14:18]

I want to talk a bit about practice and about forms, because I don't know that we understand so well how it works. This is a few words about it, and maybe it will be of use, and maybe not. It wants to be of use, not broken, but we'll see. You know, mostly, of course, we believe we are not Buddha. We think, I'm not Buddha, and I have these problems and difficulties, and I need to do something to change my life, to have it work better, to realize liberation.

[15:29]

So tonight, I want to suggest that one way to characterize this would be to say that we have a habit body. A habit consciousness, body, mind, a way we put ourselves together. We eat the things that we eat in order to go on being who we are. If we're, you know, whatever it is, Vata, Pitta, whatever, the more airy type, we eat the more airy food. You wouldn't want to eat that heavy, oily, greasy stuff and become stodgy. And then if you're the stodgy, slow type, you'd want to eat the stuff that keeps you that way. Doesn't it make sense? Anyway, we know how to do it, to go on being me. And then we wonder, like, why is this so painful? So, anyway, it may occur to you at some point, why don't I do some practice, spiritual practice, or yoga.

[16:38]

So, one of the ways in which practice works is that by doing a practice, of course, you do something other than your habit body and your habit being. The other night I talked about how to do Gassho. So, you know, our habit body does, if we say, you know, have your hands like this, then, you know, we get somewhere there because that's about as where we're comfortable. It's not comfortable. It takes more effort. Move your hands up by your nose, and one hand moved away, and your elbows come up from your sides. And you're way forthright, and you're out there. And you might, somebody might mistake you for like a spiritual person. I wasn't serious about that, excuse me. I wouldn't want to stand out. I'm, excuse me, but I'm kind of used to staying below the radar screen and, you know, being invisible,

[17:48]

and seeing if I can sneak by without anybody noticing me because I'm, because if they notice me, they might notice the stuff that I notice that I don't like about myself, and they might notice it, so I better, you know, stay hidden. Anyway, one way or another, you know, there's these various forms. So, if you sit in the posture of sassan, there's various things about the posture of sassan that, it's not you. You know, I don't, if I'm just sitting around, I don't sit in the posture of sassan. And then, depending on how you do it, I mean, I think I've told some of you, you know, how I went to Redwood High School, and it's a room full of teenagers. Apparently, that's the time for posturing. And, you know, copying, having the right attitude, looking way right, you know, cool, or whatever the disinterest is, whatever it is, you know.

[18:56]

And I suggested, well, you could, you know, we're going to meditate, and after I give them a little talk, and you could just try seeing if you could be in the middle of your life, right in the middle. Not to the left, not to the right, not forward, not backward. And you could link them. In the whole room, you know, briefly. I don't think so. It's a simple example, but it shows you, you know, how powerful posture of sassan is. I don't think so. I'm rather attached to the person that I believe I am, or would like to pretend to be. I'd like to go on doing that, thank you anyway. I'm not interested in being in the middle of my life, and being free.

[19:57]

You know, in the middle, you have the possibility of moving in any direction. If you're already over here, you can't go over there anymore. You only can go there. And, you know, if you sit in meditation, and you lengthen, you know, thinking is, of course, your chin goes forward, and it's associated with the eyes, and you look across the way, and scan the horizon, and you check out who's coming, who's going, what to go after, what to get away from, and your strategy. So in meditation, that means you're having your chin forward. So if you pull your chin back, and move your eyes downward, you're shifting out of that kind of fight, flight, or fight, flight, or fight. You know, what to go after, what to chase, what to get away from. You're shifting out of that, and you're shifting more inward, and right here in the middle of your life. And you're lengthening the back of your neck. So you're shifting out of that kind of survival thoughts, mentality, mode, strategy, planning, what am I going to do, to get what I want.

[21:09]

And you're letting go of that. And your chest is lifting slightly, so you're not doing this like, I don't think I'm going to open my heart, it might hurt. It might happen. I've been hurt before. It's dangerous, I know. You can get really close. Most of us are way more subtle than that. So you can, you know, more or less immediately, by the practice of meditation, even though it's not necessarily real noticeable, like, what did you get out of it? You don't necessarily have something to report about what you got out of it. That made it all worthwhile, but actually right away you shifted, for a few minutes, you know, into a rather different mode of being than your habit, visual, body, mind, attitude, posture, mode of being.

[22:20]

The way we do it is to constrict ourselves in various places. So, obviously, you know, yoga, which we're doing this week, and partly I'm talking about this because we have our Zen and Yoga workshop. You do yoga, you right away are shifting. Your consciousness is coming, you know, where it likes to hide out, generally the top of the neck, right below the skull. And you can send your consciousness out into your hands. Sometimes people do this. Like, when I just have the consciousness get as far as my wrist, it's kind of complicated to figure out how to do that. But you can send your energy out through your fingers. And, of course, you can do this while you serve food in the dining room or work in the kitchen. It saved me, for years, being able to work.

[23:28]

So, anyway, at the first level or, you know, the initial stage of practice, you're immediately entering into another being. You're generating another being, a different being than your habit being, than who you've always been. Partly, this is, you know, just the posture, but also, you know, implicitly in this is, you know, now your energy starts to move. You know, rather than how you did it before, your energy starts to move. Rather than the back of your neck shortening. Rather than your chest that you do. Today, in yoga, we did a lot of, you bend your arms and you rotate your elbows forward and you chest lift. And then you can bring the base of your skull back and finally tilt your head back. And we don't do this much.

[24:30]

You know, isn't that awesome? Speaking of, you know, spiritual presence. And your chest lifts. The shoulder blades support your lift. So, right away, there is this shifting. Well, you know, it's not possible to just let go of yourself. Right? You don't have the arrogance to pretend you're going to get rid of your habit body. But this is a kind of simple, you know, whether you call it energetic or, you know, mind, body. We're practicing entering into, you know, an altered state.

[25:33]

Another state of being. Now, of course, what happens after a while, you might begin to think that that is better. That that's just the way to be. And you might attach to it. And you might decide, I can do this better than anyone else in the room. And if I can't today, I will tomorrow. Because for the way I sit, I can master this. I can attain it. I can have it. And, of course, as the years go by, at some point, for most people, what you've abandoned or attempted to abandon.

[26:35]

One of my friends said that when she came to Zen Center, she had had difficulties with alcohol and drugs. But here was a group of spiritual people. And it was so wonderful to be with them and then to be a spiritual person. And then to wear the clothes of a spiritual person. And to wear them just right. And that who she used to be, she put it in a closet. She closed the door. She put some bricks up. On the bricks, she hung a beautiful tanka. This is good for about 10 years, you know. 10 or 12 years. You can be a spiritual person.

[27:37]

10 or 12 years is just, you know, roughly speaking. Maybe it's 5. Maybe it's 20. Maybe it's the rest of your life. I love a story I heard. Someone said about the jealous Pablo Casals who worked for many weeks with a young student who was quite talented. And taught the young student how to play a piece on the cello exactly the way he played it. Day after day, week after week, or however many days a week it was, they practiced. Finally one day Casals said, at last, finally, now, you can play this piece exactly the way I did. Now play it the way you would. So this is, you know, to practice initially, you have to let go of who you are, who you've been.

[28:54]

Who you don't even realize you are. You don't know how you've been limiting yourself or restricting yourself. And you go outside of that, beyond that. You practice playing the piece exactly the way somebody else does it. We practice doing it forms the way somebody teaches us. I get into yoga class and I have a very hard time with that, frankly. And then there comes a time when it's not the idea to just always play your cello piece the way Pablo Casals would. But how would you do it? How would you do the posture exertion? How would you do the finisher? And you're not just taking a conception of how to do it and then trying to get it right. According to the idea that you have, that you think is the right idea, that's where you start.

[30:03]

To shift away from your habit body, your habit being. And then at some point you've shifted away from that enough that you can let go of the idea of how to get it right. And have some true expression of yourself in that activity. So one of Suzuki Roshi's quite well known expressions is, this is formal practice with informal mind. You don't have to make your mind stiff and rigid in order to do something very precisely. And you don't have to worry about getting it right, but can you let your consciousness flow into, can you take this form with some ease and some feeling of graciousness and ease and generosity.

[31:13]

You know, with you, how would you do it? How do your hands come together? So Suzuki Roshi said that, you know, my idea and your idea of how to express yourself are different. You may think that to express yourself fully you need to make, you know, dance around or make some big movement or a loud noise. You know, you need some expression that's different than anybody else's. This is, you know, western art. You have to do something unusual or, you know, at some point, you know, if you write a cookbook now, you know, people who are into cookbooks, they can say, oh, that's so 90.

[32:20]

Oh, that's so 92. I'm not interested. I'm sorry. It doesn't matter, you know, if it's sincere or wholehearted or goodhearted or kind or warm. It's not on the cutting edge. And unless it's on the cutting edge, well, who cares? So, you know, Suzuki Roshi's idea of how to express yourself fully is you do something exactly the way it's done. And within that, you express yourself fully. So this posture that I was talking about on Monday, you know, you can do this with a lot of strength. Or determination. You can do this with kindness. Or with generosity.

[33:27]

You can do this with ease. Or poignancy. Or frustration. You will express yourself fully. And right away, you know, we see when we're doing something like that, we meet somebody truly. We all reveal ourselves fully. If you're just walking along, and then we don't see you. And you can be walking along being interested in our head or, you know, depressed. We may not notice. But when you stop, and right away, you show up. And it's the same in the yoga poses and in the meditation. Suzuki Roshi said, you might think that in meditation no one can know you, but I see you more clearly than ever. Because there's not a confusion.

[34:32]

Now, the interesting thing, of course, is we get confused between formal forms, the forms that are mentioned. You know, the explicit forms, and then the forms that aren't mentioned. Right? Because all the time there's forms. There's a floor. That you could walk on. There's the ground. We're meeting people. And there's the form of our body. There's no way to be outside of form. So, to study a form, a formal form, an explicit form, is only a way actually to realize that there's all the time forms that we can participate in, and at the same time not be caught or trapped or limited by. So Suzuki Roshi said, I wear these formal, cumbersome, awkward, Japanese robes with ease.

[35:39]

You should wear your civilization with as much ease. This is, you can see the big change. So, some of us anyway find, you know, the practice of forms, of explicit forms, useful. Stepping outside of who we've always considered ourselves to be and actually manifesting a different body, a different being. A more awake, alive being. And then finding some way to, you know, it's not an easy process to integrate who we are in a more basic and fundamental way. And find out how to express who we are within our lives.

[36:42]

This is a tremendous challenge. It never ends. You know, to express it, you know, marriage is a form, being a parent is a form, having a job is a form. And then we think, oh, I'm caught by this form. Are you caught or is there some way to participate in that form that is clear? We usually have the tendency to think, I will change forms. I will marry somebody else. I'll get a different job. With kids, of course, it's harder. Mom and dad, it's harder. And this is, you know, just a final thought or two, but, you know, this is also, of course, to say, you know, basic Buddhist ideas that nothing, you know, it's not the form that is making you happy or unhappy.

[37:52]

Nobody makes you happy or unhappy or, you know, makes you mad, makes you sad. Once you, you know, sit up and then, you know, actually as you start to relax and as you start to open up, what's going to happen? You'll start to feel all the things you were trying not to feel so that people would like you, so that you would like yourself. If you weren't angry, if you weren't sad, if you weren't discouraged, if you weren't disappointed, if you didn't feel hurt, if you weren't frustrated, if you didn't feel resentful, you could like yourself. Everybody could, too. So why don't you control all those feelings? And you could do it by structuring yourself and having the personality you have and then you could get really mad at somebody who noticed, like, that you were sad or disappointed or angry.

[39:03]

You could get mad at them for noticing, that was supposed to be a secret. I was hiding that from myself and you're just pointing it out to me. Why would you do that? So nobody does that. Zazen doesn't do that. Meditation doesn't do that. The scriptures doesn't do that. Your marriage doesn't do that, you know. It's just stuff that's there. It's kind of, once you're in a form, it's all the more likely that all the things you've been feeling that you didn't want to feel will be there, will appear. And then how will practice and how will you contain that in your life? How will you hold that and absorb that so that you transform? And this isn't about, you know, getting rid of afflictions. It's about owning your life and having it. You know, having your feelings, having your thoughts, having your sensations. You own your life.

[40:06]

So, I want to now give you the Rumi poem again. And rather than the cup, we'll try a couple other ways. Your body. The body wants to be lifted and used, not broken, but carried on the neck. The body knows there's a state for you beyond this. One that comes with even more vast awareness. The body looks still, but acts in secret to help. Sometimes you enter body after body, nothing happens.

[41:13]

Pour instead into your deep ocean self without reservation. If eyesight blurs, find a wheel for support. The breath wants to be lifted and used, not broken, but carried on to the neck. The breath knows there's a state for you beyond this, one that comes with more vast awareness. The breath seems still, but acts in secret to help.

[42:17]

Sometimes you follow breath after breath, nothing happens. Flow instead into your deep ocean self without reservation. If eyesight blurs, find a railing to follow. This kind of, you know, help, the cup, your body, your breath, is everywhere. Usually we're too busy trying to get enlightenment or get rid of afflictions, to clean up our act, to notice or appreciate a scent, to know our heart of hearts with Buddha. Thank you again. I feel honored to be in your presence.

[43:57]

Is it helpful for some people this day? Yeah, maybe for people this day. I see.

[44:16]

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