Having him to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. The other day a guest asked me, she said, are you in charge here? And now that I think about it, I think heaven forbid, what a horrible fate to be responsible

[01:12]

for everything that happens here at Tassajara, I mean, since I'm in charge. Anyway, I'm not in charge here. I don't know that there is anyone in charge here. If there's anyone who can make everything okay, or answer to all the complaints, or take credit for how well things are going. Things seem to be going pretty well.

[02:13]

The summer is almost half over, and if it wasn't for events of the last week, we had some, among the staff here, some surfacing of some problems that have been going on. And if it wasn't for that, we could hardly tell that the season was half over. But today I was thinking about how difficult it must be to be a guest here at Tassajara. I mean, the students, we have to work hard and everything, but the guests have such a difficult job, the difficult job of being happy and really enjoying themselves, since they're spending lots of money to be here. And especially if the guest is only here for a few days or a night or two, how is it possible to maximize and get the most out of just a night or two at Tassajara?

[03:17]

Do you go to the baths or to the narrows? And just the few days that you happen to be here, you know, it's 110 degrees. What a horrible fate. Oh well. And I really should be enjoying myself more, and this is, I only get a vacation once in a while, and it's not really that much fun. What a shame. I know when I go as a guest sometimes, I have those kind of thoughts. The last time I talked a few days ago, oh, I don't know if it's a few or, anyway, the last time I talked, I talked about being happy. And after that I thought, well, maybe to talk about being happy like that is too advanced

[04:21]

a teaching. I mean, it's a pretty simple notion just to practice being happy, but it seems very difficult for us. So tonight I thought I would give a more elementary teaching, more of a beginning teaching. Sometimes if people ask me what I do, and I'm not, since I'm not in charge, what is it I do? And I sometimes tell people that my job here is to be happy. And some people are naturally happy, but I've always had to work at being happy. And I think I may have mentioned this in my talk about being happy. So tonight I have to talk about some of the work that goes into being happy. And some of the work that goes into being happy is to be sad.

[05:22]

So I wanted to tell you some poems. The first is a poem by Robert Bly. Some of you may know him. He often does readings. But he doesn't actually read his poems. He knows them by heart. So it's not really a reading in the usual sense. So the first one goes like this. What choice do we have but to go down? How can I be close to you if I'm not sad?

[06:27]

The clam tumbles in the surf, and amber holds the secret desires that the bee felt before his room grew silent. The lonely man reads by his lamp at night. What is it that we want? Some ancient man, half bear, half human, knows what we want. And the more he talks to us, the more swiftly we tumble down. The second is one similar to this about sorrow.

[07:55]

Also by Robert Bly. Sometimes when he does poems like this, he says, you know, everybody wants enlightenment, but nobody wants endarkment. You all want to be professionally cheerful, he says. The second one, anyway, is about sorrow. What is sorrow for? It is a storehouse of wheat, barley, corn, and tears. One steps to the door on a round stone, and the storehouse feeds all the birds of sorrow. And I, I say to myself, will you, will you have sorrow at last?

[09:07]

Will you have sorrow at last? Oh, go ahead. Be cheerful in the autumn. Be stoic, yes. Be tranquil, calm. Blame others. Or, in the valley of sorrow, spread your wings. So some of the work of being happy has to do with this going down. What is it we want? How can I be close to you if I'm not sad?

[10:22]

You know, when it's possible to be, how easy it is to be happy and, you know, blissfully, ignorantly happy, overlooking the difficulties. So sometimes we notice. And how, how much we'd rather do anything but change the way we live or the way we think to avoid being sad. So this is work, to find out, to go down.

[11:41]

To find out what we want and how to be close with ourself, with others, with our own breath and body and hands and feet. And we're so, it's possible to be so out of touch that when you become, when you become in touch again, you find out how lonely you were for your own touch. Or just for your own breath, to be at home with your breathing.

[12:54]

How easy it is to say to myself, well, you know, you haven't done very well lately and, you know, and you're kind of depressed and sad and I don't think I want to hang out with you anymore. I think the thing for me to do is to not pay any attention to you and to be happy as best I can. How long do you think that will work? So this is known as the first noble truth in Buddhism. How much we suffer trying to avoid our own sorrow and sadness and how much we hurt inside

[14:24]

because we keep our distance from someone who is sad and sorrowing. Now that we don't want to hang out with or spend time with or go down with, how much that person hurts. So there's work to it. And, you know, that's the work of giving yourself to yourself.

[15:26]

Yes. Giving yourself to others or giving yourself to your sadness or giving yourself to someone who hasn't had a companion for so long. And how much it's like spreading your wings at last. Or you can do all those other things.

[16:31]

Be cheerful, be stoic, be tranquil, be calm, blame others, enjoy yourself, find fault. But when at last you give yourself to yourself, how liberating to spread your wings and fly. I still have another poem. I don't know the name of this poet. She's a Russian woman. I learned the poem from a tape of Robert Bly's reading.

[17:35]

And I can't understand how he pronounces her name. If anybody knows who it is, please tell me sometime. A land, a land not mine, a still forever memorable. A land not mine, still forever memorable. The waters of its ocean chill and fresh. The sand on the bottom whiter than chalk.

[18:42]

Late sun lays bare the rosy limbs of the pine tree. Sunset on the ethereal waves. I can't tell if the day is ending or the world. Or if the secret of secrets is inside me again. Do you understand? It's like that with sorrow, with sadness, with grief.

[19:44]

I can't tell if the day is ending or the world. Or if the secret of secrets is inside me again. So we reach out and touch. How to do. How to be. How to be. How to see. How to breathe. How to walk and stand. How to clean cabins and cook and wash dishes and enjoy ourselves as a guest. And we have that work of not knowing whether the day is ending or the world.

[21:20]

Or maybe the secret of secrets. So this last practice period, that was some work I did to be happy. And the work I did, I worked on my breathing. And I decided to practice breathing a breath.

[22:32]

Breathing a breath which has nothing better to do than to touch the saddest most painful place. With warmth. When that happens, then you start, I think you start hearing some ancient man half bear, half human, knows what we want. And we go down. And we touch. And then that energy or aspect or a person who is felt so abandoned and sad and pained and hurt, pretty soon is so happy and joyful to at last be able to touch.

[23:56]

And be appreciated. And touched with warmth. So it's not just sadness and sorrow. And that's the kind of work we have to do. So being here I feel very touched.

[25:29]

By everyone's effort. By everyone's deep intention. To find. To find out what we want. And how to live. I feel that. By not just with the students, but also with guests.

[26:51]

So aside from whether things are going well or not so well. Or whether Tassajar is as enjoyable as a vacation should be. I wish that we can all enjoy this kind of pure intention. Pure taste. This kind mind, a joyful mind, a big mind that goes down and touches what we really want.

[28:18]

Anything? Ask about something? Want me to do any of the poems over? Yes. It doesn't mean you... Could you hear? She asked what it meant about to go down and experience your sorrow. Was that like to totally experience your sorrow? Is that right? Yes. And I said yes.

[29:55]

But... You know it doesn't mean to be a victim of your sorrow. When you go down to your sorrow, also keep in mind spreading your wings. So you go down with mindfulness. You don't have to tell yourself this is really so miserable to be miserable. It's enough to be miserable. You know it's enough to fully experience your sorrow without telling yourself how awful it is to be doing that. So that's mindfulness doesn't... Just fully experiencing that's enough. So you take along mindfulness. And you take along energy or steadfastness.

[31:05]

And you take along maybe your humor. So experiencing it fully doesn't mean you have to leave, abandon any other possible, you know, everything else. Does that make sense? I think sometimes we think that to experience something fully or to accept the way things are, we think that means, you know, I have to be a victim of it. And I can't be mindful or steadfast or energetic or make jokes or spread my wings. How do you cope with sorrow?

[32:20]

When it's beyond sorrow, maybe for those that you lose. And you sorrow for the whole world that is changing. And that the children of the next generation will not have to be there. They will be in water and a beautiful place to live. They are not free. Pretty terrible, isn't it? Could you hear? Not really. How do you cope with the sorrow, not just of losing someone or losing an animal. But what about sorrow for the world? And for the children of the next generation who may not have clean air, may not have clean water. Pretty big task, isn't it?

[33:36]

I think that's why it's such a big task. It's so formidable. How is it even conceivable we could take it on? And yet we have to. I think from this kind of circumstance, this is the ground for compassion. Compassion, too. Come up. Compassion and kindness.

[35:07]

It doesn't seem like much, I know. But each little bit of compassion is very important. Somebody said to me today, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly. Do you understand? If it's worth, you know, if we have sorrow, and if it's worth arousing our compassion, it's worth arousing, you know, even not being able to be that compassionate,

[36:30]

but even a little bit of poor compassion, arousing compassion poorly. If it's worth being compassionate, then it's worth doing it even in the most awkward way that I know. Not that we have to be awkward about it, but it's a place to start. I don't know, does that make sense? Yes. Yes. In the Bible it says it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of the vine or jug. Does that mean that we get more meaning of what life has been in the house of mourning?

[37:36]

Or we go down? Yes, I think that's what I've been talking about. But we may also find out that those two aren't so different. And we don't need to struggle quite so hard, or anywhere near so hard. We don't need to struggle to be careful which house we go into. Because that kind of struggle is a great source of sorrow. And we go to both. And sometimes you find out that the house of mourning is a house of joy and frivolity,

[38:45]

and the house of joy and frivolity is there's some mourning going on. But things aren't always what they appear. Well, I don't really have... I hope it didn't sound like I had some answers. I wanted to suggest that we have this kind of work to do. And when we see the vastness of suffering for the children in the future,

[39:54]

we have a big job. And it's not so easy. Yes. But as I said, I think we can... this is the ground of compassion. And also the ground of appreciating. Even the smallest effort that I myself or someone else is making. And it doesn't mean not to. I'll start another lecture if I'm not careful. Anyway, I think we can appreciate. Our intention, even if...

[41:03]

somebody does poorly. Thank you. And as I said, I feel, anyway... I feel a lot of support and I appreciate that we can all work on this together.

[42:11]

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

[43:18]

Thank you very much. I guess the kind of awareness that I mean is awareness that allows flexibility. That promotes flexibility of our mind. Robert? Anyone who's trying to help anyone.

[44:49]

He says that maybe there's some kind of meditation. He doesn't know about that stuff. But the only thing he knows that can help is genuine friendship. And the kind of challenges that friendship brings between people. So it's not only... when we speak of awareness, it's not like it's an isolated awareness or something just inside of you. And it has no connection to anything else. It's the awareness. It's not only your awareness of yourself, but it's your awareness of your friends. The willingness to speak to you if you want to say, you know, you're having some kind of shit. Or you step on their butt. Or you do this. Or whatever. But the awareness isn't something that's just isolated. It's actually active. And... I don't know how to... Well, that's the light.

[45:51]

Yeah. Sharing the light with your friend. Yeah. I guess my feeling about that is sometimes that happens. You know? I always am selfless. I want to be like Joshin-san. But as David said, what do you do until then? How do you practice at home? Where you already are. Where I already am. Before I get to this exalted state of consciousness where I have no ego. But, see, this is the part I'm not so clear about.

[46:54]

In fact, the way to do it may be... I lost it. May be this thing, okay, of... Can somebody help me? I don't know if you know what I'm reaching for. Maybe I do. But... Partially I think it's sort of act as you would be. You know? I mean, if you want to become kind-hearted, then act kind-heartedly. But the whole question that we've been discussing reminds me... Maybe it doesn't fit at all in there, it's just because I've been studying it, but... The lines in the Sankalpa, light and dark relative to one another, like all living, dark, good, steps, all things have their function as a matter of use in the appropriate situation. So I saw a lot about the question that Dave brought up too. And it seems to me that the working resolution that I've come up with is,

[48:00]

you know, if light and dark, relative and absolute, are relative to one another, then I can't say, well, there's some absolute thing out there that I want to become, or that I can hold myself up to, but it's all a process of me creating it, like forward and backward steps, like dancing, like dancing in mid-air, because there's no place to step, and you can't say, well, okay, this is a Buddha, and this is what I'm going to become, and now I'm doing it, and I'm really doing it. And to say, well, I'm just acting this way, but what am I really like? I mean, that's supposing that there's a reality behind a reality behind a reality, and you can drive yourself quite crazy looking for the final reality, which I don't think is really there. And so, you know, all things have their function. It seems to me the whole question is not a matter of final reality, but a question of function. Somebody once defined in the psychology class, I think, normal as effective functioning.

[49:04]

Maybe, you know, effective functioning means, if we're effectively functioning, do we have to worry about some absolute platonic ideal, like the ultimate flatness, or the ultimate, you know, I mean, the shadow's there, but that's the light and dark relative to one another. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes. If you're trying to catch this ultimate person, or there's some absolute reality out there that you measure yourself against, then obviously you're never going to do it, and everything's a little bit cheap next to it. And what I was saying was, is that, what did you say, the working solution is turning the light, recognizing, which is the same as accepting, accepting where you are,

[50:07]

including the shadow, including the possibility of the shadow, which is kind of like dancing in mid-air. It's the same thing. Dan? Maybe another way of looking at it. I'm not sure. Okay, to see that your motivation has a shadow to it. Maybe you want people to think they're good or something. Still, if you see a door that needs to be opened, do you not do what's good just because you have some mixed motivation? Can you end up doing that? Yeah. No. No, you don't get involved in that problem.

[51:08]

Richard? It seems a lot of times when we talk about acceptance, we talk about it in the way that when we accept things, they'll be different. Turn the light on that one, baby. That's the shadow. Go ahead. These things all mean stuff to me. I don't know if they mean anything to you. I keep seeing this stuff, you know. It keeps coming up in these terms. Please continue. The next line is, but you can't do this so that you'll miss someone else.

[52:14]

If your motivation of accepting yourself is to, then everything will be okay, but if I'm going to accept myself... Yeah. ...and you accept yourself, it's as rotten as you are. All right. That's the shadow side. Or that's objectification of it. So Dogen said, you know, in the earlier Fukanza Zengi, instead of saying, think not thinking, that passage, which is a very central passage, in the earlier version, it's a totally different thing. It says, when a thought arises, be aware of it. When you are aware of it, it will vanish. Long time remaining forgetful of objects, like that kind of an object. Long time remaining forgetful of objects, naturally you become unified. See, I'm hoping that all of this has some relevance to Sazen and Zen practice.

[53:20]

It's very important to me, this stuff, this kind of... Anyway, in the last month and a half, I've been bombarded with extremely strong emotional issues that have to do with this. But I actually think it has some foundation in our practice. But it turns on just that kind of thing. So it's a very tricky business. That shadow is a tricky guy. One of the shadow's favorite techniques is to attack the shadow. Like when I worked in the psychiatric halfway house, my boss, after a while, after a couple of months, she said to me, she said, you always agree with my criticisms of you. She said, you do this and this and this. I'd say, yeah, you're right. She said, you're very well defended. You agree with all of my criticisms.

[54:22]

That's the shadow. Fooling around. That's the ego protecting itself. By attacking the ego. Sure, let's attack the ego. Ha, ha, ha, ha. You know, like that. That's why when you turn around to see your shadow, it spooks away. See now. Okay, what am I doing now, okay? Is this the real thing or is this the shadow? Okay? Or like Reb in the meeting we had in cabin seven, right? He was talking about how not to be a shining statue of liberty. Remember? Then I said, isn't that wonderful how you're speaking about it. Just like a shining statue of liberty. And he turned around to me and said, shut up. Most of us were there at that time.

[55:28]

That's it. Right in there. Kind of the area that I'm interested in investigating. Maybe just a little bit more. At some point in the field, in all of our discussions, we'll beg the question, some question along the lines of, well, did Suzuki really have a shadow? What does beg the question mean? It means it related to some question like, is there someone around who doesn't have a shadow? Yeah. And more and more I have the feeling that there is no one who doesn't have a shadow. And maybe more or less effective ways of dealing with it like the idea of someone whose shadow is banished is a challenge that's not very good. At least it doesn't do any good.

[56:30]

That's what I was trying to say. I think some of us would run into some troubles if we didn't ask people for that reason. Well, when I said that these things have become strong emotional issues, this is one area that I was talking about. For me, anyway. One more. Two more. Just a short remark, but there is shadowless activity. I want to be that. See, this is... I'm not so clear about this. I don't know if there isn't shadowless activity, but the main thing I was agreeing with what Dennis said was, well, it doesn't do me any good anyway. That part of it. That is, for practical purposes, if I have shadowless activity, great. But, while it's not shadowless, let's live there. Let's see what we do there.

[57:33]

Paul? I was just thinking that there are many, many virgin sons in this world. There's many people, I think, that don't have a shadow in the sense we're talking about. But, just not having a shadow is not enough. I mean, you get another trouble, too. It's just a particular problem that this culture and art, you know, this group of people have. There's many, many people in Jordan who don't have any shadows. They have other problems. I mean, just think about that. There's the other history of all these things. I don't think just getting rid of the shadow doesn't help. In the first place, it doesn't help. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. I think it's... I think it's an example, or it's of wider relevance than just that particular thing, but I agree. I mean, I'm willing to accept what you say.

[58:35]

Thank you. Thank you.

[58:43]

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