It's a beautiful day at Green Gulf today. So many people are in shorts and ready for fun. And I've been absent from here quite a bit the last few weeks. So I feel like I'm visiting, too, for the day, because I'm going away again tomorrow. So for all the Green Gulch residents who happen to be in the room this morning, hello and good-bye. I guess it's always like that. But I was at Tassajara for a while, and things are marvelous down there.

[01:01]

I had a good time. And then last week I was teaching poetry at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and I had a nice week there. And in the summer they have lots of visiting poets show up, so many students come and they erect a tent, just like the one that we used to have on the lawn here when we were renovating the Zendo. And in the tent they have big colloquiums and lectures and so on. And Sam Hamill, who's a poet, lives in, I think, Washington State, and translates quite a bit of Chinese and Japanese poetry.

[02:06]

He was speaking, and he was talking about the process of writing poetry. And he said something that I thought was really wonderful that I would like to share with you this morning. He said that he thought that poetry was a process of first emptying yourself in order to receive the gift, then receiving the gift, then giving the gift away, the gift of the poem, receiving the poem and giving it away, and then having given it away, emptying yourself again to receive the gift, to give away the gift, to empty yourself, to receive the gift, to give away the gift, and so on.

[03:11]

And he said it was to engage in this process that was important to him. Even though the word poet means maker, he said it wasn't what he made that was important, but that for him that he was engaged in this process of emptying and receiving and giving. I thought that was a wonderful way to look at it. I was on a tight schedule, arrived there about midnight, and they put you up in an apartment, and there's two bedrooms in the apartment, and you have a roommate. And I found out that my roommate was going to be Hubert Selby, Jr. I don't know if you remember or heard of Hubert Selby, Jr., but he wrote this great book that

[04:24]

I read many years ago. It was published in 1963. It was called Last Exit to Brooklyn. It recently was made into a movie, and I read it in the 60s, and I can't really remember it, but the impression that I have of it was that it was this very raw and powerful book about people in Brooklyn who were in a haze of alcoholic confusion and violence. Is that how you remember it? I remember there was a bar, and there was a whole transvestite scene at the bar. Anyway, I was pretty tired and out of it, and I was thinking, wow, what's this going to be like to be Hubert Selby, Jr.'s roommate?

[05:26]

So I arrived at midnight, and there were two bedrooms, and both the doors were closed, and I didn't know which door was the one where Hubert Selby, Jr. was sleeping in or doing who knows what in, and which was the one that I was supposed to be sleeping in. So I kind of knocked on one door, and it turned out to be that there was nobody in there. So I went to sleep and woke up the next morning, and I was thinking, kind of interested to finally meet my roommate, Hubert Selby, Jr. I didn't know what to expect. Well it turned out that he was a saint. That's the only word I can use to describe him. He was a really wonderful person, and some people have a smile.

[06:36]

When they smile, it's like the whole sky and the whole universe lights up. And that's how Cubby was, because he calls himself Cubby, that's his nickname, Cubby. And he has crooked teeth, so when he smiles and you see his crooked teeth, it's really wonderful. He's from Brooklyn, and he's in his late 60s, so from a generation previous to many of us from Brooklyn. So it was astonishing and very surprising to find out how he was. And he had been an alcoholic, involved in lots of violence, and maybe a drug addict too, and he nearly died a number of times in his earlier years.

[07:37]

But he wanted to tell me about what happened to him. Somehow, just at the edge of the abyss, something happened to him. He had an amazing experience, and he said, I can't explain it. I can't explain it. But it went on for a long time, he said, some experience of transcendence. And he stopped drinking, and he stopped using drugs, and he stopped his life of violence. And he just gave himself up completely to this experience of transcendence, whatever it was. He just gave himself up completely in his darkest hour. And he said he felt met by the whole universe in that giving up.

[08:40]

So he was really glad that I was his roommate because he said, I really want to talk to you about Zen. I don't know anything about Zen, but I must be Zen, he said. I feel like I must be Zen. I wish I could imitate the way that he speaks so wonderfully. And he said that he practices sitting. He just invented it on his own. He described to me how he sits. He said, it must be something like this thing I heard about called vipassana or something. It must be like that. He said, I just sit there quietly, and I let go of any thinking, and I just stay there for a long time. And sometimes I don't even know where I am, and something else happens. And that he does this every day. He's done it for 26 years, every day, ever since he stopped drinking and so on. And he was so enthusiastic about it.

[09:45]

At Naropa, various people who come give workshops. And then the students, you're there for a week, and you give three two-hour workshops, and the students sign up for the workshops. And he was by far the most popular teacher. All the students wanted to be in his workshop. He had been there before, and I guess his reputation preceded him. And because he was so kind, they all knew, and so giving of his time, and so personable. He's, like I say, in his late 60s, and he's pretty frail. Among all the other things that happened to him, he had several times collapsed lungs, and he had many of his ribs removed, so he looks quite frail and thin. And he boulders, I don't know how many feet above sea level, but the air is a little thin,

[10:49]

and just walking up steps is hard for him, because it's hard to breathe. So he would have to take rests. But he spent more time than anybody meeting with students. There were always students coming over, and he was always going to Naropa early to have coffee and hang out with the students. And he said, you know, what I'm really trying to do is just give them the spirit of what I'm living, so they can feel that they have something to offer in their writing. And then we did a poetry reading. There were four of us, and he and I were two of the four. And we had a person introducing us who gave great introductions, and she said that Cubby was noteworthy because of his humility.

[11:53]

She'd never met anyone who had so much humility. And when she said that, he burst out laughing. He has a very high-pitched laugh. He burst out laughing when she said that, and stood up and took a bow. And when he got up to read, he said that he prided himself on his humility. And I gave one Dharma talk, you know, when I was there. There's a Zen group there. I gave one Dharma talk, and he was really very excited about it. He wanted to come to go to the Dharma talk to hear about Zen. And it was really great. I gave the talk, and there he was sitting in the back, and he was just beaming the whole time. And I felt like I was giving the talk to him.

[12:55]

You know, he just was drinking in all of it. He just thought it was the greatest thing he ever heard. He was so excited about it. So that was one of the features for me of being in Naropa. I hope he lives now in West Hollywood. He said he really likes it because he has a wonderful group of friends, all ex-New Yorkers. And he really likes it there. Anyway, I hope sometime he'll come up and visit us because he's an extraordinary person. So when I was at Naropa, I didn't sit every day. I took the time off from sitting. And I always say, you know, there's only one thing better than not sitting every day.

[14:06]

There's only one thing better than sitting every day, and that's not sitting every day. Like here at Green Gulch, when you hear the bell and the ceremony is happening, the service or whatever, it's a great thing because if you go to the service, then that's good, and if you don't go to the service, then that's bad. And if you don't go to the service, that's good too. But it's happening, you know, you're aware that it's happening. When you've sat for many years, you know that every day is a day of sitting, even if you're not sitting. So the way things went, I took the opportunity not to sit, and it's good because if you sit all the time, maybe you get a little used to it, too much used to it. So it was an opportunity to refresh my sitting by not sitting. And then I sat after about three or four days of coming back, you know, I sat,

[15:12]

and then you could really remember what a great thing it is to sit. If you sit a lot over a number of years, as I have done, just sitting down in the posture of zazen, even before you begin practicing zazen, just to sit down in the posture of zazen is a wonderful thing, and I remembered that, you know, after not sitting for a little while, being in Boulder. Just sitting down in the posture of zazen, you already feel so wonderfully and gently held by the universe. You already feel that yourself is emptied.

[16:19]

And just gently given to you as you sit. And it is such a wonderful relief to sit there and allow the self to empty. Not to have to do anything. Not to have to be anyone. Not to have to keep track of anything. Not to have to produce anything. Just to let everything go and just be there. To open up the hands of thought and let everything gently fall all around you like snowflakes. And I remembered how nice that is.

[17:23]

You might have very good concentration, you might have not so good concentration, but it's obvious that it really doesn't matter. Just to sit there is enough. And just to sit in the middle of your life with your hands open is enough. And then when you get up, you really feel as if you have received a marvelous gift of this life. And your impulse is to want to give it away. And then whatever you see in front of you to do, you give away your gift. And so I feel it's a natural outgrowth of our practice

[18:30]

to want to do things for others, to want to express ourselves, and we see from our ancestors in Japan that so many ways that they devised to express their practice and to give gifts to the world in the different Zen arts. And I think one naturally wants to do something to help others in the world. Not for some fancy, important, reason, but simply because we want to give so that we can empty ourself, so that we can receive the gift, so that we can give the gift, so that we can empty ourselves round and round. And I think Sam Hamill is right,

[19:31]

that this is the process of all art, not only poetry. And it's also the process of life. If we live authentically and truly, this is our process. The practice of giving is the first of six practices that describe the lifetime after lifetime path of the Bodhisattva. Giving, morality, patience, energy, concentration and wisdom, these six paramitas describe the lifetime path of Dharma. And it all begins with the practice of giving. Lately I realized that when we sit down in the cushion,

[20:38]

we are like the monks and nuns in the time of Buddha who possessed absolutely nothing. When we sit down, we give everything up. We actually give up all our possessions. It's so troublesome to have a lot of stuff. Did you ever notice? We feel we have to have it and it's just reasonable, but it's so troublesome. Everything needs painting and fixing and paying for, hauling around and so on. It's so troublesome. But when we sit down, we just give it up. It's great. We're free of it. Our relationships, which are so wonderful

[21:41]

and also so troublesome sometimes, just give them up. When we sit down, we give them up. All our thoughts and our emotions and our neuroses and our karmas and our dharmas, just give it up. Sit down. And that's what we really do. We do give them up. Whether we notice it or not, we do give them up when we sit. And we empty ourselves until there's nothing left of us, but just the very quiet flow of reality in and out, round and round. And then we get up and continue

[22:42]

the practice of giving. As things come to us in our lives, thoughts, inspirations, relationships, possessions, emotions, as these things come to us, we want to give them away. And we give them away with great joy. We know what it feels like to flow in this way with reality, to open up, to receive what comes to us and to turn around and give it away. We can feel what that's like. And so we can feel what it's like when that flow is blocked. We know what that feels like, too. And we practice patience

[23:42]

when we feel blocked in that way. And by practicing patience, eventually we discover where the occlusion is and we just relax right there and let the flow continue. Oh, I'm holding on here, we see. Look how afraid I am. What am I really afraid of? What do I really have to lose? Look how unhappy and confused this holding on is making me. Can't I just let go of it? Maybe at first we might have some justification

[24:49]

for our holding on. We might have some affirmation of our holding on and not at first realize how unhappy it's making us. But if we are patient and we are honest with ourselves, not fooled by our habitual thinking, we will see that all our experiences of holding on are painful and produce unhappiness and inaccuracy in our life. And eventually when we see this, we will let go. We will flow on with our life and we will find some ease and joyfulness in our living. And we will appreciate this bright and marvelous world

[25:53]

and take delight in what comes to us So this practice of giving is basic to our way of life in Zen. Dogen Zenji writes about it and says, once you understand it, giving that is, once you understand giving, you see that being born and dying are both giving. All productive labor is fundamentally giving. Leaving flowers to the wind, birds to the seasons are also acts of giving. Dogen says. And I've always loved this particular saying of Zen Master Dogen about giving.

[26:55]

To think of just being alive as an act of giving and receiving is a beautiful way to look at it, don't you think? Now we have all received this life, these bodies and minds which are so absolutely unbelievable. They're writing huge amounts of stuff about the different computers that they've developed and might develop and how they will change our life. But think of this body and mind as so far surpasses even anything that any computer freak has dreamed of. Let alone produced. And it's free. So we have received something truly astonishing.

[27:59]

And we have no idea how it came to us. No one really knows. Of course, you know, we can explain scientifically the process of birth and conception and so on and so forth. But anybody who has seen a birth participated in a birth intimately knows that this explanation explains very little. It simply begs the question, how did this happen? Also, when I was in Colorado I had a very wonderful evening with some old friends, several people actually who have been students here and are living now in Colorado and had dinner one night with a wonderful couple who just had a child.

[29:02]

They have a one-year-old child now. And they live in a place where you can see the mountains from their window. And I guess it's common there in the summer to have tremendous lightning storms. So we were sitting watching the lightning on the mountain. Really spectacular lightning. And they were saying, we don't understand, you know, how this child came to us. It's such a miracle. You know, they said they thought about it and they had many ideas and this and that. When Will was born, they were astonished. Nothing that they had thought or felt

[30:04]

had prepared them for this. And I know I have sons and I remember I was there. I was probably the only one who really saw them being born. And it was astonishing. And this is true all our lives, every moment. We receive this unexplainable gift to be alive. And every moment we have the chance to turn that gift back to receive it again. And for me it's one of the saddest things that we are, most of us, so often mad at ourselves

[31:07]

or disappointed in ourselves or resistant to ourself. And so we forget. We actually forget what this gift is. We forget that each one of us is a gift and that it would be impossible for the world to continue without us. Just to take part in this endless transformation, this endless gift-giving that is our world, it's great. And whatever we do with our lives

[32:09]

is a gift. Work is such an important thing. And again, it's so sad to see the way that we view work and that we've created a world in which we forget almost completely how work is always a gift. And I often say that learning the virtue and dignity of true work is, I think, the most valuable lesson that we learn in Zen training. Certainly this was true for me. Of all the things that I've learned, you know, about life in practicing Zen, this, I think, has been the most important and the most liberating. To live is to work and to work is to give. Whatever we do we should do it as carefully

[33:11]

and as mindfully as we can. But more important than this even, we should see whatever we do as an offering, as a gift. And I've always felt that this is one of the best aspects of our traditional practice in Zen is that we have a tradition of work as giving. And here at Zen Center we have always worked not as something that we had to do to support our practice, but as something that is our practice. And we've always had such wonderful modes of work. Cooking, taking care of our guests, fixing things that fall apart and building things that weren't there before, growing flowers, growing food. Each and every one of these things

[34:15]

are the most profound acts of giving. Stogan says, all productive labor is fundamentally giving. And the part about leaving flowers to the wind and birds to the seasons are also acts of giving. This has always struck me too. Because when you leave flowers to the wind, the wind might come and blow them down. And when you leave birds to the seasons, the wintertime might come and kill birds. To leave things profoundly alone and trusting in the powers of the universe without trying to control things and make them be the way we would like them.

[35:15]

This too, Stogan says, is a wonderful act of giving. He says also later on in this same chapter, this same piece of writing, you should give to the Buddha flowers on a distant hillside. I don't think he means that we should climb a distant hillside and get the precious flowers and bring them back to the altar and offer them to the Buddha. I think he means that to leave the flowers on the distant hillside and just appreciate them there is to make a wonderful gift to the Buddha. So even though in some countries in the past they have made gigantic golden Buddhas

[36:18]

and huge Buddhist temples, which I appreciate, which are quite wonderful. I don't think that we need to do this. I don't think it's necessary that we erect massive Buddha halls and giant images if we will allow ourselves and our world to be as it is, to protect and appreciate things as they are. This will be a tremendous gift to the triple jewel. You know, as I was thinking about this morning's talk

[37:19]

and turning my mind to this wonderful theme of giving, I was very, you know, eager and happy to come and speak with you because I've always felt that this program that we have on Sundays is one of the great examples of Buddhist and universal practice of giving. You may not think of it this way, but the truth is that you're coming here on Sunday with your practice and your enthusiasm is a great gift to us who live here. It really helps us. And then when you make donations in the basket, it really helps us.

[38:21]

And when you buy vegetables and whatever you do, it really helps us. It's a real gift. And then the people who come in the mornings to make muffins as a gift to give to you so that you give a gift back. And then the students who begin early in the morning preparing the place, setting up the chairs, getting ready for everyone coming. It's their gift which they give because they want to give. And then the speaker comes in, you know, wanting to give a gift in what he or she says and receives a gift back from the audience, far exceeding the gift given. And I am very aware

[39:28]

that when you come here and receive a gift and give a gift, you go back to your families and your lives and your jobs and whatever it is you do and you give that gift to others. So if there are 300 people in this room or 200 people, the gift is received by 1,000 people or 2,000 people. So the gift travels around sometimes very unexpectedly. Well, I thought since

[40:29]

I was talking about poetry, I'd read a few poems for you just to conclude. I usually read poems by really good poets, but today I thought I'd read a poem by my own in my own poetry. So I want to read you some short poems. They may have nothing to do with what I've been talking about, but just for the fun of it. I say may because I don't always know what they have to do with. This poem is, this is my political poem. It's called Work With It. Work With It. An anatomically correct yet cryptically encoded diagram in color

[41:32]

of the direction the world's heading in in the shape of a frog or newt. I tickle him with my stick. He wiggles, waddles in the opposite direction, unconcerned. This is not necessarily a comfortable place to be, not necessarily a place one to choose or even be willing to tolerate. Yet, though one can't plant corn and grow beans or boil nails to make soup, there are certain advantages to six or eight cubic yards of very heavy sand if that's what you've got.

[42:35]

That's my political poem. I hope you're all encouraged by that. So I'll read one more, just a short poem. This one comes from the idea for it comes from a friend of mine who's a rabbi who told me the most astonishing thing, which I can't believe it's really true, but whether it is or not, it's still astonishing. He said that and he's really smart and he knows the Bible very well, he said that in the Bible every time God appears as a character in the Bible, it's always when people are leaving or some moment like that,

[43:39]

an in-between moment, when people are leaving or coming or something has happened like that. So that really amazed me. So I wrote this short poem called How God Gets Into It. God comes in the little transitions, the times between before and after, the shatterings, bendings, breakings, the times of devilment and blasted pose. The feeling then arises, a draft in the system, a tiny shaft of light in the visual field, which, when noticed and affirmed,

[44:41]

opens out to an aura on the screen of eclectic ineffability. One's arms open in quietude and perplexity. There's nothing to say, do, or think. Well, it's nice to be here at Green Gulch with all of you. See you next time. So this part, there's always some new people, so I always say that this part is the discussion part, sometimes referred to as question and answer. But I think of it as discussion and so please

[45:42]

feel free to raise whatever is on your mind, whether it has to do directly with the lecture or not, and I will try to respond and others also will respond to what you bring up, because everybody has a lot to share and everybody's working on it all the time, so we'll see. Yes, sir? I came specifically to ask you a question about koans, but I don't want to be pushy on it. I realize that after 20 years of coming here that part of my problem to get a deep practice was I had started with koans then and I came here and I didn't have the same system and I didn't realize how important it was until I met a koan master who had books on it. It brought me back to my practice like 20 years ago. So I was wondering if you could share some

[46:43]

actual understanding for the idea of koan practice and what it is. Well, I think that this same thing happened to me. Really? And what I did is I found the best koan teacher that I could and studied with him. So I think that's what you should do. That's the best thing. That's what I want to do. I was going to keep coming here for six months until I moved. Well, please keep coming and hopefully it will be of some benefit. But, you know, like the koan system in Zen practice is a very particular thing. You know what I mean? And it's not the same as understanding the Dharma. It's not different from it, but it's a particular mode of doing that. And so somebody who I certainly wouldn't presume to discuss a system in which I'm not very, very well grounded.

[47:47]

And there are people, I know people myself who are. And people that I recommend as wonderful koan teachers. And if you have a good one then at least do that. That's very true. If you start out in that way with that system I think for some people it's like you're never quite happy until you go back to it and really kind of settle your heart in that system. And I had the same thing. Literally, yeah. I went and studied for some time with Robert Akinroshi and actually still do keep up my relationship with him. Although my koan study is not active. Which I regret. And I still haven't given up the idea of going back and studying more. Because in koan training there are many koans, right? What a koan is? Koans are those old stories that everybody knows about. What is Buddha? Shit stick. Or something. What is Buddha? Three pounds of flax. Different kind of

[48:48]

these kind of answers that are often discussed as being irrational or something. Anyway, it's little stories that are records of exchanges between ancient Zen teachers. And it's actually one of the most wonderful and fascinating religious literatures that I know of. I don't know of any religious literature that is quite like it. Because in these little stories which are very quirky and weird is contained many of the crucial points of dharma that we need to know about. And the stories require you can't understand them intellectually in the ordinary way. You really have to meditate on them and you really have to make them personally your own. This is the thing. You can't understand them as external ideas. You really have to make them personal. And the only way you can do that is by meditating with them and then sharing and then coming to some real insight about them and then sharing that insight with a teacher who is a master of that system. And there are various systems of koans but most of them

[49:49]

were put together by Hakuen Zenji, a Rinzai teacher in the 18th century. So there are lots of systems of koan studies that have been transmitted to America and it's really a wonderful thing. It's actually quite a bit of fun also. So there's usually one important koan in the beginning that you have that's very hard to solve and then you break through that koan but then after that there's several hundred more that you have to go through after that that are a little easier once you get through it. Now in our lineage we don't have that system. We also study the koans but we don't study them in that way. We don't have a systematic way of producing and checking out insight into the koans. In our way, and the reason why we don't have it, it all depends on interview system. If you have to have, in those systems you have, the idea is that you are studying Zen full time and that you are going to interview with the teacher

[50:50]

three times a day. So in the interview you go and you present your koan, you go for this long, one minute or two minutes. You present your understanding, you get some feedback, you go back, you present your understanding, you get some feedback, you go back and back and back and this way the teacher helps you little by little and you can understand. In our system we have far less frequent interviews and we read the koans not with an idea of a kind of penetrating insight but a kind of, what can I say, gradually getting soaked in the meaning of the koan. So rather than a kind of quick penetration, it's a kind of gradual soaking in them. And so it's somewhat different. But if you start out in that way and you have that spirit as I did, the same, just like you, then I think it's really good if you can, to go back and take it up again. To me I think it's

[51:52]

a great system. I love that koan system myself. I have had some of my most fun times studying Zen, studying those koans and trying to beat your head against the wall with it and finally let go of it altogether and then see it. That's the great thing. You let go of it altogether and then you see it. It's not so different, I believe, and people differ on this, but my own feeling is that deep Zazen, in our way, which is not holding any object, and deep koan study are almost the same thing. As long as you have the koan in your mind as an object that you're trying to do something with, you can't get anywhere with it. You have to let go. When you let it go, then heaven and earth breaks through and you understand and you go to the teacher and they say it's not right and you say I don't care what you say. Many of the koans have just this kind of dialogue where somebody goes and says it's this and the teacher says absolutely wrong and they go away in despair and many things happen to them and they go back to the teacher years later and they say it's this, the same thing that they said before

[52:54]

and the teacher says exactly. Because it's not in the words. Otherwise we could look up the answers and go in and say, and there have been manuals of answers to koans. You're laughing, but answers that are correct answers and manuals that work for students that actually when the teachers were not so good they could do this, present the right answers. But it isn't in the words. It has to be authentic and it's absolutely clear whether it's authentic or not in the room. So it's a wonderful system. I really love it and I have some regret that I haven't been able to follow up with it more than I have because it's the greatest fun. I'm looking forward to retiring as Abbot already so that I can at that point maybe get into it more. I haven't given up. So please continue and come tell me how it is. Thanks very much. Go for it.

[53:55]

There's a lot of good koan teachers in California. I'm curious to know if part of the whole process of giving up before the answer comes is also the struggle before the giving up. Yeah, of course. You can't just give up when it doesn't cost anything. You have to have something to give up that you struggle. It's a struggle. Absolutely. A friend of mine observed that Koan is kind of like being told that you're going to be executed tomorrow. How does that go? It wonderfully concentrates the mind. Yeah. Well, that's it. If you know you're going to interview three times a day, you had better have something to present because it's a very charged and heavy going encounter and you want to really have something to present out of respect for the Dharma and the teacher and yourself so you work very hard at it. That's a good analogy. Yes. I wonder whether

[54:58]

the problems people have come out in therapy and so forth are dilemmas. They see only a few possibilities and solving this is isn't it like a koan? You mean these kind of life situations? You have to drop it and go out into a different space or something? I think so. Dogen Zenji emphasizes what he calls Genjo Koan which translates as the koan arising in the moment which is similar to what you're talking about. Although a koan is not pointing to a psychological situation or psychological solution. It's pointing to a spiritual solution a letting go of our mind and our emotions usually and getting to some area not separate from

[56:00]

but maybe below that level. But certainly I often work with students in this way where an issue is arising in their life and we use that as koan. And that becomes interesting because the downside of koan study is that it can become a little bit abstract and a little bit like a game. This is interesting and I like it and it's fun. It has nothing to do with my life of course but isn't it interesting? And spiritual practice that doesn't have to do with your life is not so significant. So the Genjo Koan has its advantage there that this is really brings up my whole life this issue. And it's desperately important that I go beyond it and not try to solve it. I've tried to solve it with my thinking and my emotions and I'm tied up in knots. I just have to go beyond that and just sit with it absolutely in front of me until I come through it. And so this is exactly how Dogen talks about koans. Although he also used classical koans too in his practice.

[57:01]

But later on in Soto Zen it became I fell out of use the use of classical koans and we actually don't have that system in our tradition. The way we do it is we have classes where we study the koans and we read them and we have dialogues about them in class that are I hope and believe deep dialogues and we do get this soaking understanding of the koans through that process. But it just isn't the same not better or worse but it's not the same thing. Yes. I thank you very much for your talk today. It made me feel like it's a wonder to be in this planet to be alive. I also appreciate very much your talk in the sense that for 20 years I was smoking grass to find out something that I found out just sitting still. It was it's been a beautiful experience for me

[58:04]

and beyond that I've been trying to further my practice and I've been one day sitting and I've been staying over the week over here and there's something that I found out during the week that is Monday when there's no guest and everything that the system is more rigid. That's what I have found for me. At one point I was getting close to the altar where the Buddha is and I was about to cross and somebody you know said stop don't cross the altar. And I got scared. And it brought me some memories of my days when I was raised as a Catholic in a in a school where there were priests and where everything was a little bit on the scary side. Yeah, yeah. And it kind of put a little bit of a hole into my furthering

[59:04]

into the practice. I still do my meditation and everything but you know this lead to go further I don't know. You can imagine I've heard this story before. Yeah. Well this is a great example of what Anne was talking about. What is scary? What is scary? And don't you think we have to have a little scary. I think we do. Because if everything life is just not entirely comfortable all the time. Actually where does that fear come from? Does it come from the altar? Does it come from the person saying no don't walk in front of the altar? Because another person they say no don't walk in front of the altar and they say doesn't make any difference. Where does the fear come from? To me the fear comes from those days when I was young. Inside you is what I'm saying. Not outside you. Correct. It's inside me. So what is it? So I'm saying don't answer. Ah.

[60:05]

Find out. Find out what is this fear and then you'll see that it's very useful that there be something that raises that up in you. So that you can find out in yourself what is that fear? Absolutely find it out and make yourself bigger than it. Why we are afraid is because we are only as big as what is making us afraid. If we're bigger than that and we contain it then there's no fear anymore. But how do we understand that? Well we sit. So sit with this question. This is Genjo Koan. What am I afraid of? What is fearful? So this is good. This brings up for you then something that makes you go farther. And only you can make this jump. No one can give you an answer to this. Ok? Please. Tell me how it goes. Yes. Today you mentioned that one of the points to become Bodhisattva is morality.

[61:09]

Yes. This is the first time that I hear that word spoken here in this place. I have a little trouble with the concept of morality. Oh. I don't see that applied to Zen Buddhism. I always thought, you know, morality was a set of things that if you achieve them or if you did it that way it was good if you did it that way it was bad. And it seems to me that in Zen Buddhism it doesn't quite work that way. Yes. Well you're bringing up something wonderful and very important to bring up. And I'm going to try to think of a way to respond to you without going into a lengthy, you know, discourse that would take a long time. You know, in Buddhism, in Zen Buddhism morality doesn't have... See, why morality is trouble for you probably, because I know also when I began studying Zen Buddhism I had the same problem. It's because it sounds

[62:10]

like something outside of us somebody somewhere else is saying, this is good and this is bad. Somebody over there and then you are over here and thinking, but what if... that doesn't make sense to me. Well, then you're bad. So this is a big problem. How can you practice with this? In Dharma, you know, there is nobody else over there making rules. There are no external rules. As we sit and observe our mind and heart, just like I was saying this morning, we get to understand how it is that our life flows and we give and receive and how that works and what it is in us that prevents that flow. When we see those impulses and thoughts and ways of behaving that in us separate us and prevent us from flowing and living completely in reality, then we understand those are the things that we want to work on and not encourage.

[63:11]

What we want to do is encourage a mind that is present and open. And that is the story of mythical conduct in Buddha Dharma. That's what it's about. Now, it so happens later on, so then that's all you need to know about. The rest of it right now for you is really irrelevant. But later on, if you practice with this idea, later on you are surprised to discover, as I was surprised after many years to discover, that just those very things that in other traditions are called immoral, turns out that those are the things, usually, that when you do them and you perpetually do them, they remove you and separate you. It's a funny thing to find that out. But you come to it not because you read it in a book that somebody told you you're not supposed to do this and do that, but because you, for yourself, authentically have come to understand that by looking at your own mind and practicing in your own life. So I would say that the most important answer to your question for you now is simply don't worry about any external morality. Just

[64:13]

study your mind and heart and what is it? Find out for yourself what is it that makes you feel I'm alive and I'm flowing with reality in terms of today's talk. I'm receiving the gift and I'm giving the gift and that's an open and joyous process. What is it that encourages that and what is it that all of a sudden makes you stop and hold on and find yourself diminished? And that's morality. So in that way, you practice and you discover, you make up your own morality and you'll probably find out that it's not so different from what other people have taught in the past about morality. But it has to be your own. You know, in this system of koans, where there's hundreds and hundreds of koans, the last koans, the kind of graduate school koans are the Buddhist precepts because they're not just simple do's and don'ts. It's a very deep thing. What does it mean not to kill? It's a very deep thing. We don't know what it means. It's not a little rule

[65:14]

that somebody gave us from on high. It has to do with our understanding of life. What is this? So we go and we sit with these koans and we present what is it? So I'm glad you brought that up. It's a very, very important issue. Very important. Because if there's no morality and anybody does anything and everything flows, there's big problems. If there's external morality only, a bunch of rules that nobody really feels in their heart, but they're just acting out what it says in the book, also a problem. Right? So we have to have, to me this is the most important thing. How are we going to live together in this world? Authentically and honestly and lovingly without hurting each other. That's the problem. This is the problem. If I'm authentic and for me to be authentic and me to be true and me to be real, I have to beat up on you,

[66:15]

then I think there's a limitation there to how authentic I really am. Maybe I don't know that. If you sit down and sit down again and again and again and again, this will become very clear to you and you will stop those behaviors. So we have to, morality has to be real. It can't be from the book. So thank you for that question. It's a very deep question. It's all of our questions. That's why I spent time because it's all of our questions, you know. This is the question about living together in the world in which there are other beings and other people together, yes. So thank you. That raises a question for me and I wondered just if maybe the Ten Commandments weren't meant to be programs. Well, I think so. Sure. I think so. Well, now that we're on the Ten Commandments, I'll say a question

[67:18]

that came up for me during your talk. At the end when you were doing your poem about God and something had to do with me, the Bible made God seem pretty okay. But I wonder if you think that that mean, jealous, angry, wrathful, imperialist God that we sometimes find in the Bible is meant to be a corner. What the heck? Well, that's another good question. And an important one too. It seems to me, and again, I hasten to say that I don't really know the Bible and I don't know much about Judeo-Christianity. I mean, I don't know much about Buddhism either, but I know more about Buddhism and I'm more experienced in it than I am in Judeo-Christianity. But my impression is that this God is in desperate need of reinterpretation and re-understanding. We really need to look at all that and see.

[68:20]

I actually went to a Bat Mitzvah yesterday and I heard a great sermon. And it was really interesting because in Judaism they have a wonderful system where maybe they have it in Christianity too, I don't know. Judaism where they divide the year up and they read the Bible so much through the whole year. So then if you're a rabbi you don't have to worry about what you're supposed to talk about. Because they read a certain part of the Bible so you have to talk about that part. So it's very good. I wish we had a thing like that. Because for us when we have to give a talk it's like, now what am I going to talk about? So I guess we could make up our own. I've often thought of that. Take up a project of speaking on each koan and just go one after the other then you don't have to think so much. Anyway, that aside. The rabbi gave a beautiful sermon. It literally moved me to tears. It was great. And the sermon was on a part of the Bible that was particularly evidenced this imperialistic

[69:21]

war-like kind of situation. And the way that he did it is he simply did not talk about that at all. He talked about one essential point which was really there and then he expanded on it. Completely leaving out the rest of it. And I thought to myself, I'd like to ask him, what about the rest of it? Because it's a very wise rabbi. The person I was referring to in my talk was my friend. And he probably would have had a good way of explaining it. So, you know, it's like it reminded me of the time when, you know, I used to be this is, I'm telling you about my checkered past, but years ago when I was introduced at Naropa Institute, you know, they introduced me as the person who because one of the poets there, you know, knew me 25 years ago. And so the introducer said, what could you say about this person? And so she introduced me as the person who was most frequently beaten up by the police you know, in the 70s, in the

[70:22]

late 60s, because I was very active politically. And I was in jail, you know, and so on, beaten up. And because I had this unfortunate habit of not being able to stand having other people being beaten up. So I would get in the middle, you know, and then get beaten up. So when I gave that up, I, believe me, it's going to be relevant eventually. I gave that up. I said, no more of this. You know, I can't, this is not a way to solve anything. I can't do this anymore to be so oppositional and so on and so forth. It's not going to be a way. I really have to turn my life in a different direction. And so I really I actually went to the woods and I didn't hang around anybody and I meditated a lot, stayed by myself. And I remember I would throw the I Ching. And I threw the I Ching, right at this time, you know, and it came out revolution. Well, I was really pissed off.

[71:22]

Revolution? Give me a break, you know, I'm trying to get away from that. Don't give me that again. And I actually did it with great ceremony, three different times. And three different times I got the same one. And so I said to myself, I better, you know, think about this more deeply. And then I realized, finally, the obvious, which is inner revolution, revolution in me, not taking it literally. So I just wonder how that kind of idea can be applied to the Hebrew Bible. And whether there's a way of looking at it in that way. Not as a story of imperialism and war and fighting, but a story about destiny and a story about ourself and how we fight with ourself and how we have to come to the land and how we have many things that we have to conquer on the way to the land and so on and so on. Now I'm not saying that this is a way we can interpret the Bible. I don't know enough about it. But I wonder whether there's a way of

[72:24]

talking about it like that. Because of course you can't ignore those things. I mean, the rabbi got away with it in this particular sermon. But in the end you can't ignore those things. You really have to answer to it. And so, maybe something like that. But we're going to, he and I have been doing a series of retreats together and we were talking about this stuff and we're going to go down next month to Tassajara and I'm hoping that we'll get into this. And I'm going to ask him that question and I'll tell you what he says. Go to Deuteronomy where God keeps, that's one of the places where God comes into the picture when he's talking, where he says over and over again, when you go to this land and you meet the Jebusites and the Hittites and the Hittites, he says kill them all, burn down their houses, don't spare anybody, don't spare the children, it's okay if you spare the virgins, you can take them and do what you want with them. Get specific with him. Yeah, yeah. Talking about your question before,

[73:25]

I forget your name. Salvi. Salvi's question. In the Bible there's several, the things that always impress me, as somebody who goes to altars and offers incense and all that, there's several times when the guy messes up, right, and is instantly struck dead, right. There's a couple of spectacular ones like that. In this particular one, there was a couple of things like that where people were struck dead for walking in the wrong way, walking in front of the altar. So those are the ones that have impressed me, but you're right, I know about that. So, right, I mean, so of course, yeah. What do you think that means? I don't know. It's my Vajra shovel. Your what shovel? Vajra. Vajra, you know, Vajra, the thunderbolt. You know, it is interesting, Norman, in terms of relating to forms. Yeah. And your remark about the student who came forth and said, it's this, and then went away for a while

[74:26]

and came back and said, it's this again, and it was okay. Yeah. There's a stage in relating, you know, in relating to the forms. I mean, I remember at Tassajara meeting a mirror because I was wearing contact lenses and the person I asked said, I don't know if there's a mirror here. And another person said, you know, a story that Dekaroshi had told her that she was not a serious sex student because she had toenail polish on. You know, there is questions about adorning oneself and you know, how the forms bring up investigating things that you haven't investigated before. Right, the forms are really useful. On one level, it's inappropriate for you to have that on your office. On another level, it's great. Gee, I never thought of that. I was wondering what I'll consult with. Some people, that could be a two-hour conversation with themselves. Gee, I never thought of it.

[75:29]

I better consult with a Vinaya master about this. No, somebody made this for me. It's a Vajra. The Vajra is a like a diamond thunderbolt of emptiness, which cuts through all delusions and shows us the empty nature of all phenomena, moment after moment. That's symbolized by a Vajra thunderbolt. So, the bowl of the shovel, what do you call it? Yeah, the bowl, I guess, is a shape of a Vajra. And then it's a shovel at the top. So, I guess it's for digging holes or something. Somebody made it for me. Yeah. In bringing up children, certainly in a family, there are social norms which have a, again, not necessarily harsh ones, just certain things which are generalizations of what might be better ways to do things with hands. So, when we talk about what we're talking about today, in a sense,

[76:33]

is this a counter game, is this something to balance things off so that people are not too obsessed by the norms, so that they do recognize, get beyond the norms, and so on. How would you pair off the fact that the norms have a place and a part with the other things which we're saying today coming from within? Well, I always think of social norms as being conveyances of kindness, right? So, it's customary to when somebody has a birthday, you send them a card, right? This is a social custom. It's a chance to express our appreciation for the person. Forms of address are ways of expressing appreciation and respect for people. Saying, excuse me,

[77:36]

is a way of acknowledging another person's presence and showing that you care about them and you're not into just stomping on them as you walk by, but you've noticed that they're there. So, all little things like this we're all... Imagine the first person who thought of this thing, excuse me. I mean, it must have been a wonderful invention, you know, of human technology, to be able to say to someone, to bump into someone and say, oh, excuse me. So, I think most social conventions are like that. I don't know if that's what you're referring to. Well, something like that. You can't bring any four or five people together, or just two people even. And there's certain things that happen within that group. Perhaps the word group norms is a better word for it rather than social norms. Because they may even be invented right there creatively on the spot. they may even have

[78:38]

mindful norms. They may be very mindful rather than just doing out of habit or because one was taught it without thinking about it. So, you seem to be suggesting that what I was saying this morning was somehow the opposite of that, or not the same as that. Well, I was wondering whether maybe it's a counter game so that people don't go too far into their group norms or social norms and therefore do things outwardly rather than inwardly. I don't know. I was just curious to see maybe it could be elaborated on. Do you see any difference in that? Yes, well, certainly, I hope that this is what we're trying to do in our practice is to do things inwardly and authentically and honestly from the person that we actually are. The impermanent fleeting gift that each one of us is to act from there. So doing that, everything that we do is this kind of gift.

[79:40]

Even if it looks externally like we're following a group norm or a social norm, it's very real. So in that sense, yes, I would say so. That's what Zen practice is all about, is making our life, not living externally. If you sit on a cushion for a long, long time, it's impossible not to meet yourself, really. But it is possible to live very much without meeting yourself by doing things according to the external meaning and by defining oneself according to other people's expectations and rules and norms and so on and so forth. We all know what it feels like to live in a way that we're not really living our life. We're living some exterior identity. And we can't really sit and do practice without coming into contact with ourself. It seems a little bit like something different. I'm looking at it as a balance. There's this and there's that, and there's kind of a... Yeah.

[80:41]

Well, that's okay. Is that different? I don't know. I'm not following you. I'm a little lost too. But that's okay. We can be lost. Let's be lost. It's all right. We can be lost and go on. We're not lost. We're saying similar things in different ways and that's all. I see your hand, but I want to first ask somebody who hasn't maybe spoken if they want to say something. Yes. I'm not sure I'll be able to phrase this perfectly, but I'm struggling with the conflict in received messages about the concept of no-self or non-self. And I would appreciate if you would talk about that a little bit and I'll save the context that I'm talking about. I listened to Deepak Chopra talk about the physiological ill that comes of negative internal monologues

[81:44]

when we tell ourselves how awful we are and how much we fucked up. And then the other night in class I heard Red talking about the importance of confession and the importance of knowing that we are worthless. And I'm not sure how to proceed. Well some medicines, you know, when you're sick and you take them they make you better, right? But if you're well and you take the same medicine it can be poison, right? So it clearly has to do with what is your condition. So what is it that you take now that will help? My understanding of how the Buddha talked about self

[82:45]

was that he didn't hold up the banner of no-self. He just said the way that we usually hold ourself is harmful and we should let go of that. So we all have a self, right? But let's not overestimate it and let's not underestimate it. If you overestimate self I'll tell you about no-self. If you underestimate self I'll tell you about self because that'll be good medicine, see? So this is the thing. What is our life? Where are we going? Where are you standing now? And what is the best way for you? So if you are troubled by toxic internal monologue and someone tells you you should know how bad you really are and completely get into it, then just ignore that for them.

[83:46]

If you receive a teaching that makes you wild, you know, just ignore that for them. Maybe it's not the time for that teaching. Then you need to hear, you know, please be gentle with yourself as you tell yourself these bad stories about yourself. Please be patient with yourself and gentle with yourself and try to let go of those stories. And so it depends on the situation. We have to be extremely confident in ourself on the deepest and widest possible level to really own up to all our shortcomings, which we all have. And we do have to do that sometime. But when is the time to do that in a skillful way? that's the thing. And if this is an occupational hazard always of any kind of public teaching because as you and I just demonstrated, we have the same words and sometimes we have a hard time putting them together. So I'm very well aware that I say something

[84:48]

and, you know, somebody hears it one way and another person hears it absolutely, totally different way. Yeah. Good. Good. It happens. So, so, if we're just together, even then, words, only two of us, even then, words are very inexact means of communication. But at least if I say something and I see your reaction on your face, I can see, oh, she understood, I was saying this and she understood that. So then I'll say it another way. And maybe with some luck, after adjusting several times, we can see how we can understand each other. But in a public teaching, this is not possible with so many different, and in the sutras it often speaks about how the Buddha would say something and everyone would hear it in a completely different universe. And I often, people will often come up to me and say, gee, your talk today was exactly what I was thinking, exactly where I was. And I remember

[85:48]

going to Dharma talks and having that same experience. That was exactly what I was thinking. And it isn't because, you know, oh, the person read your mind or something like that, or it's mystical. I mean, I suppose, you know, breathing is mystical anyway, but it was just because we hear it this way. Our life gives us what we need, right? So, but then somebody else hears it very differently. I gave a, when I was at Tassajara, I gave an evening where I gave a little talk and dialogue with people and we had a nice time. I thought it was a good thing to do. And many people afterward said they appreciated it and seemed to get the intention of what I was trying to bring across. And then I got a letter from someone who was there who was complaining bitterly about the whole thing. And, but what she said was really true. I could see it from her point of view, which was very different from the point of view of the other people. And this was very instructive for me to understand. I mean, I know it already, but to get somebody's particular

[86:50]

thing about, well, you said this and this and this and it looked like this, this and this. I said, yeah, I could really see how from her perspective, I was trying to do this, but she received that. So this happens. And it's difficult to take responsibility for everything in this way, but we have to do that and keep trying our best and try to be as accurate as we can and as careful as we can, knowing that it's not perfect. And yet, and yet, even this woman's complaints, I'm sure, for her to feel those things and write me this letter of complaints was exactly what she needed to do. So even one's mistakes, one has to own and affirm, too. So you're careful and you don't know. So anyway, how in the world did I get tangled up in this? I can't remember where we started, but it doesn't matter anyway. So, any other? Yes, yes. I was really moved by what's happening this morning, which I didn't

[87:52]

expect it. One of the things that's happening for me in my life, I'm really grateful for midlife. I just think what midlife crisis is such a pity because it's such a chance for a total renewal and regeneration. I'm just awed by it. I turned 40 last October. 40? That's so young, though. And for me, what's opening is my ability to take good encouragement. I think that's something that's drawn me so strongly to here, is that when I came here the first time, I just, this compassion, the gentleness, and going to Zazen instructions saying this is a really slow, slow, slow study. And I've taken it very slowly and growing my practice very slowly. It has been unbelievable for me what's happened in a year of doing it far more slowly than I sometimes want to. And that for me, the thing that has stopped me so much in my life is praise. Praise has stopped me dead

[88:52]

in my tracks. So that that's how difficult it is to navigate. And now I'm beginning to receive that encouragement, but it's still a little nervous-making that it's an expectation all of a sudden. It's praise. So that that's really for me that I now can hear how much I am encouraged by other people rather than, uh-oh, now I'm going to disappoint them. What a different way to live. And I can emerge with my gifts, whereas before I could pop out once in a while and had to go straight back down. Yeah, each one of us is a completely different you know, individual with a totally different karmic tendency. And so we hear things differently and our life, what we each need is different. And it's wonderful to study the Buddha's teaching and see how he would give different teachings to people as they needed them. Almost everything that he developed

[89:54]

was in response to conditions like that. And a lot of the koans are on this point that you want to think that Zen is this or Zen is that. You know, but actually it's meeting conditions accurately. Yeah. Thank you. Yes? You've spoken several times today about the verbal word you use. Basically it's being honest where doing something comes from you rather than, when you were talking about morals, where it comes from you rather than from somewhere else. And I'm in a group where I hear that oftentimes self-esteem comes from performing esteemable acts. And that makes sense to me because I've noticed a lot of times when I do things that are not necessarily esteemable,

[90:55]

I walk away feeling really bad. That's right. Maybe I don't feel bad then, but I feel bad the next year, next month. And a lot of times I feel like punching someone or something and instead of doing that I try to relax or walk away or whatever I can do to keep from striking out. And that's not an honest feeling at the time, no. And it's just, I don't know. I'm glad that you brought that up because that's an important point. If what I said gave the impression that one should only do things that feel authentic, so if you really feel like punching somebody, go do it. And don't do something unless you feel authentic about it. I think this feeling of really landing in our lives is the horizon. It's enlightenment itself.

[91:56]

It's what we're moving toward. And very often the best way to get there is to practice just like you're saying. I'll just smile at everyone because this is a practice that I'm undertaking, even though I don't feel like it. Because if I smile at people, even though I don't feel like it and try to put my heart into that, this will encourage me to actually be kind to people and actually be concerned for people. So I have many ... ... ...

[92:25]

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