i today is the design
good afternoon

after giving this some thought
i'm gonna decided that i would go talk yeah give you my understanding
oh my teacher suzuki roche's
understanding
of his teaching so i'm going to present something from a
of our publications not always so
and am
talk about it

this particular talk
we called brown rice is just right
in
he's going the sixties
ah when we were beginning cancer horror
everyone was eating brown rice
the i talked about this before but i'll talk about it again dead
and
ah sahara came into existence as am ah zen center as a monastery about the same time as the food reformation movement in california
and
there were a people were were interested in macrobiotics which featured brown rice as the main dish
and many other things and then there were people who had other ideas pruett arians
mucus diet people
he has catered exposed to be am
we reopened
how's that for better
more
there are so did you hear anything about what i said
that's nice
huh

yeah
okay should i repeat all of the what i said no
but anyway so suzuki roshi
ah
arrived in the midst of all this and of course in japan he was eating japanese diet for white rice and brown rice of course is considered the lowest kind of castle truth
and unrefined
but suzuki roshi took up or
i understand our our way of thinking and ah
i used although he
brown rice was not his
diet ah he used that to illustrate
our practice
because people who ate brown rice
the was all of us but to people who are really pushing for brown eyes i said you should chew each bite one hundred times
so an aesthetic emotion do you choose your brown rice each each bite one hundred times you said know if i did that i couldn't enjoy my meal
but he did talk about chewing brown rice and he used everything that came to him as a teaching
i'm too
so here he talks about brown rice and as or the practice of emptiness
practice if we want to understand the meaning of emptiness
we have to
q arise thoroughly
until that ladyship come in
so he says how do you like zazi him
i think it maybe it it may be better to ask how do you like brown rice
zazen is too big a topic
brown rice is just right
actually there's not much difference
we eat brown rice you have to chew it and unless you sure it is difficult to swallow
so when you chew it very well your mouth becomes part of the kitchen
and actually the brown rice becomes more and more tasty
when you eat white rice we don't choose so much but that little bit of chewing feels so good that naturally the race goes down
when it comes right down our throat so you don't have to chew white race so much because it's actually pre digested for you
all the elder the nutrients are taken out of rice and then you have what's left called white rice
so
i don't want to go into the in a various levels of
a grain of rice but it actually
a grain of rice originally as brown and then many of the holes are taken off and various other leaders are taken off until we get something that's called pure white rice which is
so all the nutrients are gonna most of them are
so this is why people want to eat one reason why people want to eat brown rice the other thing about it is that brown rice is much more chewy
so brown right chewing
and and you have to do something and if you have to chew and more you to the more the flavor comes out
and so this is the same resides in the more you practice the more the flavor of practice appears to more
a deeper you go into zijin the more the flavor of zazen in comes forth so brown rice thousand not two different things it's the chewing it's important
so you can practice doesn't in a pre digested way
you have to really chew on it but when you do that it becomes very tasty
when he says your mouth becomes part of the kitchen
that's a interesting canada
seem to say but there is a saying that amongst mouth is like the an oven
so whatever comes in is that is cooked and digested
this is bugs practice
we are open to everything than whatever comes in
you
jewett it and digested you may or may not like it
but you don't reject anything and you don't cover anything
if you let things come and you let things go
so he says when we when way when we digest food completely what will become of it
where will it go
it will be transformed changing its chemical nature and will permeate our whole body
in the process it dies within our body
to eat and digest food is natural to us as we are always changing this organic process is called emptiness
the reason we call an emptiness is that it has no special form
it has some form but that form is not permanent well it is changing it carries on our life energy
so
as we eat
as we to with as they destroy the chemical nature of the rice or whatever it is that we're chewing on
and then
that ah
morsel dies within our body but as energy is absorbed by our buddy
so in some sense brown rice and myself are not too different things
we say brown rice as
colonel's little seeds and and so forth and i'm
the body with arms and legs and sober and but actually brown rice and myself
i'm not too different things even though we look different
brown rice like saying brown rice and i looked like me
but we're actually it's exchanging entered the same energy
actually we eat our way through life sometimes i describe our life as like an earthworm
in a big mouth they're just moving through the earth and what
and the sucking in whatever meets our mouth
yeah see
slow red hot iron saw
oh
don't scream
where's yours

yeah
it's good though good place to keep it
i know let it go all way down
so when we eat our way through don't let anything get stuck there
so ah it comes in and it goes out
elimination is just as important as intake
this is a problem we have with atomic energy am afraid
we ah
we we know how to take it in but we don't know how to eliminate it
so
this is how we stay healthy
so earthworms are quite healthy they either they just eat through the earth and what comes out becomes very beneficial for the earth
so when we transform energy we transform energy
in a good way that enhances the earth and replenishes the earth so we're not only are we taking but we're giving
so we honor the earth for taking in and giving
so when we know how to give as well as take
in the right way without even trying
i'm from i don't want to talk about this too much but
we're actually take care of to take care of years and recycling life
laser energy needs to be recycled all the time if
if it gets stuck then we get sick
so the secret of how to stay healthy is to not get stuck anywhere not let anything get stuck either in thinking emotionally or physically
it continually keep letting this is called actually renunciation
pronunciation means letting go moment by moment and whatever it is that we're stuck with
oh hi
something stuff
process or has on
lasers yes okay so how do you are you get unstuck when you're stuck well we're talking in generalities
so in the realm generalities our practice is to always come back to our center
when we when we get stuck it usually it means they were off center
we're not allowing ourselves to be centered again so emotionally or otherwise are mentally and emotionally our life is like a teeter-totter
and at the center is the fulcrum and other as a wait here and wait here and when the weight gets too big here it goes down and this weight can't bring it back up to equilibrium so the process is how do you find your equilibrium when you gets stuck
if the way it is too much down here and you can't bring it that they go up them
what we have we get we it's called being hung up
but if we just keep coming back to our center than we have a way to go you don't come back to your center you're always trying to figure it out with your head and then began at a problem because we're trying to figure everything out with our head with our thoughts which are abstract
so when you keep coming back to your center then you can find a way to go
can you can find your balance and when you find your balance it's easier to find a way to go
i'm not a boy
more knowing that certain
things are usually gets dark
you can't avoid things i mean you can't but that just makes it worse
avoidance makes things worse not to directly engage
let's practice
so whatever it is you're stuck with is your
avenue to open up your practice
say that there are obstacles
we we can do whatever it is that we're stuck with we can say that it's an obstacle or we can it as an opportunity
just depends on your attitude
attitude is everything
because you know i know people that are always stuck always tagged because
they see everything is
an obstacle and other people
used what the up what seems like an obstacle as an opportunity
there's a way to go we have to have a problem
our life is based on having a problem you don't have a problem then you will have a real problem
so we don't try to get rid of our problems smart put our practice not to try to get around my problem but to engage our problems and to see why is this a problem
yeah we also have a habit energy which drives and problems
and we also have compulsive you know and these are not easy to just drop we have a compulsive problem he can't just drop it right but you can use it to work with
this is a tool to use it as a tool then you're engaging it and you're not denying it and you're not avoiding it and instead of using you you can use it
that's a cheeto
jesse
especially
that can

yes have compassion for yourself
but one of the problems that we run into when we have compulsive behavior is that we start blaming ourselves and then we can be done and ourselves and no more we democrats have a compound bramham which is worse than the original problem
and then we get stuck because ah
we don't like ourself and we punish ourselves in several so we have to see how we investigate how things arise investigate how does this arise and how do i perpetuated and what can i how can i avoid it
but it's means
be aware at the moment something arises
so it before you get stuck
you can see if it's possible to avoid it but i will say again
that when you have this behavior and it comes up to come back to your center
this is zazen
this is the principal observes him for always practice exam then whatever is coming up for us
we come back to is awesome and other things as and will dissolve everything
let it gives us a a neutral place to go to so that we're not just stuck in our emotions are stuck in our thoughts are stuck in a compulsion
if we come back to the as in zazen is the neutral place it's it's a place where
nothing special takes place
so you can't it's not avoidance is simply
being in control
the immovable place
i can remember times when i had very compulsive behavior
then i'd like to do with this sit down and cross my legs until i said i'm just going to sit here until
something happens or doesn't happen
and
after while i'm fine
so we have this wonderful
thing cause as in and
we should use it to the fall
compassion for yourself overcomes the advice cry know
finally has the capacity to sound like
after something so much spinal the now
as a thread so having compassion for yourself is really important
i know that i do these things i know their head to toe but i also know that i feel i like myself anyway

and i don't want hurt anybody else
so
ah so the reason we call it emptiness is that it has no special form so everything is is emptiness is is that place where everything has the opportunity to change
so you can say change itself as emptiness and the most fundamental thing about our existences change
and this was suzuki roshi is kind of a mantra everything changes
what is the fundamental thing everything changes
it's the only thing that you can rely on
is that everything changes
so to be able to go with change and to be able to accept change and use change rather than being crushed by it is our practice
we can be crushed by change but if we know how to use change than it becomes creative life becomes creative
but the fact that matter is everything is constantly changing and there has to be some space for everything to change otherwise without emptiness everything would be exactly the same as it is forever
which would be very tiresome
boring
it was him
so
we know that we are empty and also that this earth is empty the forms are not permanent you may wonder why is this universe what is this universe that comes up as a question what is this universe but this universe has no limit emptiness is not something you can understand through a space trip
should we think maybe the
the sky is empty that's a metaphor but it's not a reality
the skies i was used as a metaphor for emptiness but the sky is also on this side this camera and then phenomenal side but no matter how high you go it's all phenomena three nominal side but emptiness is not
the emptiness is this phenomenal side but it's also the non-free nominal side as well
so emptiness there's so many names
you know people say was emptiness the same as buddha nature or the same as doesn't this and so forth yes and no
yes in that these are all names for the same thing but since you can't define the thing we use various nomenclature to describe
aspects of it
so sometimes we say is buddha nature sometimes we say is emptiness sometimes we say it's such as depending on how you're talking about it
so such this is also a name for emptiness emptiness is korea's like the negative side such this is kind of like the positive side
everything is such as it is which is phenomenal
hook things only last momentarily in there such this but the recession has is also their emptiness
so emptiness can be understood when you are perfectly involved in chewing rice this is actual emptiness
so each moment
something arises and on each moment something disappears even though it looks like
where are the same people that came into this room in some way we are been some way we're all different we've changed we've already changed and when i say this moment this moment is already history
the small minutes history but where's this moment
it's a moment of birth and death simultaneously
so as something dies it on something new arises that emptiness something disappears something new appears
simultaneously
so you don't we don't see that
because we are conditioned
to see everything as flowing in a kind of logical pattern according to our ability just to see how things happen
i'm sure it's just that most important point is to establish yourself in a true sense without establishing yourself on delusion
and yet we cannot practise or live without delusion
siri but delusion is not something and wish you can establish yourself it's like a step ladder
so what is delusion and what is
enlightenment
delusion is
this side this that the phenomenal scientists called the realm of delusion because we act in the realm of delusion without understanding what it really is
our daily life we don't really understand it did we think we understand what it is and we have some kind of understanding according to our
perceptions and likes and dislikes and conditioning we all see the world differently every one of us sees the world differently even though there are things we agree on
but the actual reality
is hard to see
because what we want
what we want is for everything to be nice and comfortable and perfect and can we don't want to die we don't want to get old and all these things right but the reality is different than what the some real underlying reality which is not the same as interceptions
and we do have some
a free will to
i'm actually create our life out of the raw material around us and our relationships and our desires we do create our lunch was called karma so the life of karma which is volitional action which had a
results in either good or bad pants of existence is the realm of delusion
so we all live in the realm of delusion and as necessary so we don't think delusion is bad
we're not talking about good and bad
delusion is just the where we live and we have to accept the fact that we don't understand everything
and we lived in the best way we can given what we understand
that's why we have to be compassionate with each other
because we have to understand that everyone is living in this realm of delusion without being able to really figure it out
completely but at some point if we sit long enough to get beyond that know if we sit long enough will realize it
and that delusional you will realize what is delusion and what is not hopefully not under the underlying
seems like you said like two worlds willing to sign well it's not to so it will speak of it is two sides there's not too thanks so
the realm of
ah enlightenment is to see everything just as it is without
interference has called in the mirror mind the mirror mind just reflects everything clearly as it is without bias without naming without
conditions conditioning
when i simply called bear perception
their perception babies have their perception as a baby you have bear perception probably
and then you start learning
and then as you start learning used the ego starts to develop and then his ego starts to development
like and dislike wanting and not wanting and the whole realm of dualistic
a dualistic life
it appears we create that that's the realm of delusion
so the relevant like a zazen is called enlightened practice because it's
ah it's non dualistic life
you're not creating good bad right wrong like dislike any of those do out all those dualities are subsumed in zazen
there's no craving there's no desire to simply living one moment at a time completely without 'em
ah duality without being under the thumb of duality
have you drink water

but you reached out for a cop
i just hit what you asked so i'm just going along with and i forgot how
we're talking a lot to talk about no i don't want to talk about how i'm showing you how
that's back
better than a thousand words

what i've seen that living in around with lose a day
the
get like incessant in a play or the drama is joining our hearts grow it's just that
could play but we take it off the states to right and he did that like in a way doing a little drama is that was dropped dramatizing the than for so there's no way we can get out of this play that were in so how do we play it so we play if we we'd play the play
on
the foundation of
enlightenment so that's exactly what he says he says delusion is necessary but delusion is not something on which you can establish yourself you don't establish yourself on delusion he just delusion is the play you just play and you act out
you act within the play in an enlightened away
so
huh
improv and absolutely is improv this there's no there are no rules
that's good is
we make roles but actually there are no rules where the precepts are guidelines
guidelines for behavior so i got and the precepts which are guidelines that from a behavior our own request
they're not something that's imposed on us you may feel that they are imposed on you but actually precepts are alone in a request for order for compassion to
live in the world in a in a ordered compassionate way that
and in light grey
but they're not rules of behavior
the generalities
what we do have rules of behavior be a minor precepts
yeah for monks in the
in the old tradition the two hundred and fifty precept for mugs to three hundred and four nuns and ways of conduct but
ah so if you want to practice in a way where every move is as a a law about it are present you can do that but for most of us we we'd like to have the freedom of meeting each situation given a guidelines
with a in an in a compassionate and understanding way so live precepts or how you do something and they improvised way so to speak like is improvised you don't know what how situation is going to turn
out you'd have to act in a way that you create as create the opportunity to have an enlightened encounter
so when we practice in there
the in practice place we have the atmosphere practice
we have the zendo and we bow and yeah we have all the form of practice which informs us of what practices
and they were we leave nobody else out there knows what that you're doing that so how do you create the situation for practice in every event that you encounter when you're not tassajara or whether you're into zahara same thing but we do have an atmosphere in practice here so that hell
op's us but when you go out you have to be this and mistress
master you have to create a practice place wherever you are
so you take the xander with you
wherever you are that's where the zendo extends to snatch just this little place
someplace place helps you to understand that
the teachers and so forth their presents and but when you go out
he you just meet the wild west
hence how do you tame it how do you take yourself
with living precept not just not just expecting everything to fall into order the way you'd like it to be
so he says the most important point is to establish yourself in a true sense without establishing yourself on delusion each step you live within delusion but you established but he does establishes of that you establish yourself on enlightenment and yet we cannot live in a or practice with
our division division is necessary but delusion is not something which you can establish yourself if you do then that's i get lost
it's like a stepladder without it you cannot claim up but you don't stay on the stepladder with this confidence you can
continue to study the way that's why i say don't run away stick with me i don't mean to stick to me i mean stick with yourself that were destruction they live language a little mixed up there but
is stay with my way stay with the way stay with me and don't run away when you get a problem or if you think i'm being too hard on you or something
ah stay with yourself stay with the practice
sometimes i may be a division
you may overestimate me oh here's a good teacher that has already a kind of delusion
that pretty good
i am your friend i'm just practicing with you as your friend to as many step ladders
we shouldn't be disappointed with a bad teacher or with a bad student you know if a bad student in a bad teacher strive for the truth something real will be established
that is as as him and we must continue to practice and and continue to to brown rice eventually we will accomplish something
so ah that's very true about how we should be very careful not to idolize a teacher or
discourage a student
sometimes everyone times you're going to sing sometimes we say to the student get out
but that doesn't mean that the students should leave
you have to understand you know the relationship between the students and teachers sometimes it's very nice compatible sometimes really rocking
sometimes the teacher will chastise that the student and the student will want to leave but doesn't mean that they should live or even if they leave and doesn't mean that they should stay away
so relationship between teacher and student if it's a real relationship cannot be just cannot be broken
just like your practice if if you and engage in practice for any length of time you always practicing no matter where do you think you are not
cause there's no way you can't not practice
even though you may think
it maybe is no where you can bad practice
yeah
devaney questions more

okay

for me

well it's yeah i think i've told most of my security stories already but i'll tell you when
one time when i was starting to practice with him
i had gone to says shane
and i remember i was just beginning to sit in full lotus and i sent you this whole issue seen and full load is except for the last five minutes before the bell rang
and cross by linux and then the bell rang and oh my god know i didn't see us doing dave up to seven on so when a rhys to file out sticky yoshi's door and and hear about everybody as they lived and i was the last person to leave and i said do you think i should continue but practicing this weekend
probing him in a way you know but i felt so bad i needed some any him to tell me something
so he said all what's the matter isn't it difficult enough for you
so that was a i got turning point for me
she
here
yeah
the i was she saw that his head monk for the practice period nineteen seventy winter
they was when nineteen seventy
and that's a gummy roshi was from iag was invited to be lead the practice period he had been the
the know it a t monastery in japan for about ten years and when he was asked by suzuki roshi to come and
develop tassajara as a monastery will women in sixty six sixty seven when we started
it was kind of monastic but you know we haven't really established the monastic practice in a traditional way
so
that's got me he hershey established little by little the form forms that we now practice
in in the way that we practice a pretty much of course little will things change but basically we're still doing the same practice that touching i'm roshi introduced and and seventy
the we didn't have the dolan rio we didn't have a kitchen rio and things are very different than me and
he introduced as chanting style which we don't break this anymore
and
various other things but basically he he created the term
a formal drag to silly to
kind of solidified it

okay oh okay
at work independent this but he also many countries different independent she was there did various whereas one where it is independent and other word is dependent on other word is interdependent and he coined the word in dependency independency independent means
independent read not dependent dependent means dependent
interdependent means everything depends on everything else independency means things have a tendency to be independent but not quite and things have a tendency to be dependent but not quite
so our lifestyles in the middle
so because it's hard to define reality
it's called the middle way where it's not quite this that quite that
the fuzzy when i heard about fuzzy logic i thought that's i understand that beverly
life is fuzzy got we want to define it so we fall into a definitions because that's the way it's easier to to live within delusion when we have definitions for everything
then we have definitions for everything we say oh i know now i know
but we don't know we only know our definitions we only know as far as or definitions reach
so suzuki or she's very careful not to define anything
and that's why soto's in is so difficult or at least his understanding because nothing's defined
and i'll talk about that tomorrow

and