Lost Coin Meeting Notes December 9, 2008 Salt Lake City, Utah



I.       Doen begins:

One of the reasons we think about Zen the way we do in the West is because the aspect of Zen that landed here was the Soto sect, a priestly sect. Doen's background is Soto and Rinzai.

This time of the year, it's time do the strongest retreat of the year - Rohatsu. It' s not like it is in the monastery - when I did it, it was the ultimate torture. We worried about it 3 months in advance, so much sitting, so little sleep, so cold. That's the traditional way of doing it. It's supposed to break you. You don't talk or bathe or shower for the full seven days. It hearkens back to the warrior spirit of Zen, which you don't see so much. It's very useful and shouldn't be lost. In American Zen, we've made it a bit more peaceful. As little as a few years ago, Rohatsu ends traditionally on December 8th because that's the Buddha's birthday. Pearl Harbor happened on December 7th in the United States, December 8th in Japan. All the Zen priests were doing blessings and services, including blessings for kamikaze pilots. It's just different than you think. There's a Durkheim book called the Japanese cult of tranquility talking about Zen. Because there's a New Age context, people think of Zen as peaceful. From the Durkheim book, in speaking of the cult, there's a notion that you get to a point where you can kill yourself and/or others without a thought. In Japan, we here who practice Zen are liberal. In Japan, it's the right wing who practices Zen - those who want to keep traditional practices, old families who come out of the Samurai culture. It is a discipline that was founded on effort and discipline and that kind of energy, not what I think of as the spacey energy that comes out of Hindu or New Age. The Zen people were no flower children. Be aware of your heritage.

"I remember a couple years before I went to the monastery, I was out on the street, police came by, and I was arrested for loitering. They put us in jail in New York. I spent the night in jail. Interesting night, kind of like Rohatsu. They passed the Rockefeller law in New York, where the penalty was 10 years for possession. So I spent the night thinking about 10 years in jail. They gave us a cup of coffee that they got from across the street and said, "It was a pleasure to serve you", and James Taylor was on the radio singing  "You've Got a Friend." Nothing happened. I grew up in a tough neighborhood, we fought a lot. I had a gentle disposition in my own way. When I started to study martial arts and the continuation in the monastery, it was very balancing. Some of you need the balancing, in different ways, that you can apply to your practice. You have to find your way with that. Some need toughening up, some need something else. Next year, we'll do Rohatsu ourselves.

Understand that the way I've been trying to get you to Zen is through effort. If there are things you're afraid to do - Zen was always about doing. It was about action, not thinking, not theory. Do you sit on Thursdays? What are your priorities? Not what you think, what you do. Those of you that are entrepreneurs or business people, this training is very good for that - it teaches you to get things done. The history of Zen favors action over contemplation. Contemplation is only good when it's useful - when you're figuring something out in order to implement an action. Also, your life needs a strategy. We don't realize how much we're at the mercy of culture and the things we believe. Please be independent minded and really try to do things and make efforts.

When you sit - I thought of a way to explain something. I saw something visually that's hard to explain. Your focus should be "tight" (I don't say "narrow", because it can be "wide".) You should see when it's relaxing and bring it back. It should be effort, something you are holding tightly in place, yet - just like the martial arts - in a relaxed way. Let's say - the body should be relaxed, but the effort should be not relaxed. When Zen priests were training swordsmen - "Mind of No Abode" is a great book reference - what they were teaching them was to keep a sharp but unfixed/broad focus so you could see everything the opponent was doing, but not plan. That should've happened before the encounter. Keep a sharp focus in which you can see everything. If you see it that way, it will work. That focus is done without mind or without thought - it's nice if it centers from the abdomen out, radiating into the whole field.


Zazen is now a spacey kind of meditation. There's an effort to push through to another kind of consciousness. If you focus, you'll sit and won't be bored. If you don't sit like that, you'll be bored and you'll be tired. People doing duels with swords don't report being bored - that kind of energy to it.

One more thing on that - courage. The adepts of old were willing to throw aside everything to realize this life. They had great courage, and belief in what they were doing. They were not people who made a whole lot of compromises. Anything that does anything and does it really well is like that. You develop a sense of what's important to you. As you go along, and you don't develop (and this is arguable, but not right now) - if you don't fix firmly on something you believe in, life will get really icky. You'll be waiting to get sick and die, you'll be tired. Life is an exploration for a certain amount of time. If you develop that core where you understand what your life is about, you will wake up probably until you die okay. You'll have a sense of self, a sense of core, a sense of your spirit.

It really makes a difference. I watch people turn 50. It gets more intense. 60 gets more intense. Your eyesight isn't as good, things that were exciting is boring. But if you find your core, spirit, what your life is about and put yourself into that thoroughly, your life will be meaningful. That's what the Japanese warrior thing is really about - putting yourself fully into your life. That's what they trained people for - not just war, but painting, or anything else. Training was to put people fully into.

I remember when we started this, Gurdjieff called this kind of group the "liar's club". The world teaches you to lie so much, and after awhile, you can't remember truth from lies. As your teacher, I want to tell you something - don't lie. It's very bad for you - it rots your spirit. Don't lie. It's one of the precepts.

II.     I'd like to hear about the retreat. Question: What's it like to do retreat? What's it like to take a day to just practice?

	-         It makes a difference to get back into routine, to sit, and then to practice. I thought the retreat was wonderful. Sometimes with retreats, you don't realize the impact until you leave and go into the world. I went from the retreat home and then to a Christmas party with people I don't really know. Every person I talked to was so beautiful, it's almost that that experience for me is that it's touching that inner spirit in everyone. It just shows, people shone, I shine. For the last couple of days, people have been saying hello out of the blue or engage me in a fun way. Something happens that you're noticed - people  see you and you see others.

	-         I had a hard time getting into the retreat mode this time - normally I'm just there. This is the busiest time for work and it was hard to shift gears. I didn't feel like I was super focused, but it felt like going to the gym when you have the flu - you just go anyway, demonstrating commitment, being close to everyone. It was good to see everyone.

		o        Doen adds - "This goes back to the original spirit of Zen. Be honorable. Do things that you'll respect yourself for. Going when you don't feel like it is honorable."

	-         "I felt like sitting there really opens me up. When you played that music, it was incredibly different than if I'd heard it any other time. The music just went through me, it was amazing how I felt the emotion you were playing, and the way that affected me. That was wonderful. At work, sometimes I'm resentful when I have to see a patient and I have a full day. I went early this morning to see a patient. A lot of times, that would make me rush and get it done and not want to be there. Today, I felt fresh and clear and my thinking and my mode and paying attention to the patient was crisp and clear and good. It didn't feel like, "Oh god, I'm going to be late." It didn't make me feel that. It makes me feel like I'm more on, able to focus on everything I do, and be more there and open with each patient."

	-         "I loved the retreat - I felt a sense of ease during and after, and a sense of doing what I wanted to be doing when I wanted to be doing it. Yesterday, I felt a little sad for a variety of reasons - it didn't stress me out or make me upset. It was okay, and easy to identify some of the stuff that I was doing that were causing me suffering and sadness. It was there, and then went away, and it was a great experience. "

		o        Doen adds, "You're doing it because your life is also important. I was told that retreats raise the level of practice. In retreat, you're seeing what your practice will be like in the future. It's like seeing into the future, and I've found that to be true. There's a nice book called, "Being Upright" by Rob Anderson. "Red Belt" is about honor, not about fighting, which makes it a beautiful movie. There's a connection - if you sit...Well, no one gets up and says they're going to be evil. They're just asleep. The practice itself will make you more upright. Just because you're putting that kind of energy in."

	-         [timer goes off, Doen goes to check on the lamb he's baking. ;) ]

	-         "I felt very invigorated and energetic. Part of it is that every retreat (this was my third), I'm very reluctant. The retreats are almost fun. It just feels group, the feel of the group at lunch, I felt invigorated and refreshed. It was interesting on Monday that when I had a minor irritation, I got angry and irritated, and it was so obvious to me so I could tell myself to slow down. I'm always surprised how good I feel after the retreat."

		o        Doen adds, "There seems to be this thing that when you do a retreat, you gain energy."

	-         "I didn't have the same experiences as everything else. Being Jisha is different.  It's harder to sit deeply in those kind of increments. You get something else out of the experience entirely. It does a couple things - I've been under a bit of stress and it helps lighted up the emotions of that - it doesn't seem as serious after a day of sitting. I also get out of it a general realization how "escapist" a fantasy of sitting is - sometimes I just want to be sitting to escape the other parts of life. When you're sitting, you realize how hard it is."

		o        Doen adds, "When you're Jisha, it means you have teacher aspirations. It becomes a more difficult training to learn to focus in less than ideal conditions. You're learning what it's like to do what the teacher does. The function of Jisha is to learn how teacher's do it. It's about learning to so closely do something you can do it in their absence. When we have a more formal retreat place, Jisha's were always the only people that didn't walk at retreats - they ran. My teachers were maniacs with their Jisha's, I'm good.

		o        "My daily practice was better than my concentration at retreat, so my experience was the inverse of what everyone else's was."

		o        Doen, "You need to find that space for practice. My teacher said to me, "You're the worst Jisha ever." And he was right. I had no idea what I was trying to do. I'd go up to his cabin and he'd be smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee, and so I went up and drank coffee and smoked a cigarette too. I was just too asleep."

	-         I really like the camaraderie of what's been built up when we do these things. I feel a cohesiveness with everyone. I had a really hard time letting go of the stress. Each time we sat, it was better than increments. It was hard for me to let go. I thought about it the next day, and I was 20 minutes late for work, and I went into this panic - and then I thought, "wait a minute" and I calmed myself down and was better able to just deal with the situation. I think of what we learn here a lot when my previous gut instinct was anger if something went wrong or I didn't do something right, I started to let go of the anger. I'm starting to let myself be unangry and let myself be okay. I loved it because twice a year isn't enough to get away and be with it.

		o        Doen adds, "We'll do it more. I want you to focus as a group on what you learn."

	-         I loved Daisan, and I loved you playing the piano for us in Kim's house. You could imagine yourself in Russia in the 1800s with someone playing. It was hard for me in the afternoon, I was sleepy, my foot hurt. You think you're beyond stuff like that, and there you are again. I had a nice conversation with Wes, and he's struggling with thinking he has a spiritual life and the rest of life, and they're very different - and I said, "I can really appreciate that. You have your retreat. And your life. Now it's more seamless. I have retreat, and life. It's not dramatic, it's more even. It's not big ups and not big downs either."

		o        Doen adds, That's the word Maezumi Roshi used, "equanimity." The practice develops equanimity. For those not at the retreat, music is a way of developing the emotional center. I never had a piano I liked enough to do it on - it was nice to. I'll continue doing it.

	-         Doen asks, "Now, try to synthesize in your mind something that you learned that you shared with everyone that you can reduce to a sentence."

		o        This life and this commitment to it is worth doing anything for.

		o        Sitting nourishes me and it grounds me, and that enables me to carry through with my life and be more authentic.

		o        I learned that we're incredibly supported by our teacher. It felt like in Daisan you told me exactly what I needed to here - and also supported by everyone there.

		o        It gives me energy and clarity

		o        I really want to be here and doing this practice.
		
		o        That sitting is important, this group is important, and you are important.

		o        Part of what I'm practicing is flexibility of mind to be able to go deep into my sitting and also be aware of my responsibilities, and move between conscious life and sitting smoothly.

		o        Doen adds, You have to learn to have equanimity even when things are going completely nuts. The worse things get, the calmer you should get. When things get bad, it doesn't help to freak out. When I had Guillame-Barett, I got really calm because I got really scared. You have two choices - get calm and figure out how to get through this, or to get hysterical.

		o        I learned that it's okay to express really deep emotions though I'm scared and shy about it.

		o        I'm learning to appreciate my life - no thing is better than any other thing, and this practice is helping me understand it. Without it, I wouldn't know that.

Doen says, "It really is very important to practice. Even when you become a teacher, you have your days and even weeks where you say, 'this isn't that important'. After all the struggle with it, I always come back to it. It's not that I'm losing the struggle, the practice is beating me. When I have a moment and clarity, whatever nonsense I've been up to, practice beats me up. It's kind of amazing."

III.   Three Things about Negativity - The Three Poisons

	a.     Greed
		
		i. Defined as always wanting things to be different. It's not about wanting a Mercedes. If all you want is a Mercedes, you'll be one of the least greedy people on the planet. We forget that life is just fine right now, in wanting things to be other than as they are. We can reach for goals but if all you do is think that life'll be better when this happens or that happens, life'll be crap.

	b.     Anger
		
		i. Anger is a very simple thing. One time I had gone into the liquor store to get some wine and someone came in and said something about being an alcoholic. The guy next to me, who was kind of a wise man, said, "Being an alcoholic is giving magical powers to alcohol." It struck me as a beautiful phrase. There's also a phsycial thing, but people who choose an addiction gives it magical qualitites. They think that drinking will make things better, when it makes things worth.

    ii.      Anger is the magical belief that whatever happens to you in your life is someone else's fault. There's also the magical belief that there is conscious evil. You're entitled to your opinion, but I say there's no such thing as conscious evil. People who commit evil do it because they're unconscious, mechanical, etc. People of sound mind and body don't get up and say, "I'm going to rape and kill today."

    iii.      The enemy is not death - the enemy is sleep, unconscious. We are all here to wake up together. We're waking up because we're asleep, not because we're bad - and neither is anyone else. The news will try to convince you some guy in Afghanistan who blows up 20 people does it because he's nasty. He's not nasty. He grew up in a country with certain beliefs, no money, starving, no future, and everyone around him saying, "The Americans did this." The only people who give him anything give him weapons and drugs. He's a victim. What makes him able to do that is the information that Americans did this to him. It's a fault placed on someone else.

						Short of killing, it's usually your husband or wife's fault. If you can't find your socks, whose fault is it?

		iv.      Would you consider this? Imagine that you're going to go through your life - if I could turn the screw in everyone's heads to do this, I would. Imagine believing that anything that happens to you is not anyone else's fault other than our own. Anything that happened to your life would be a challenge, because there would be no one to blame, it would not be anyone else's fault. There would be no cause to be irritated with anyone. You could be creative with your solutions.

    v. Don't be angry. There's no reason to be angry with anyone else. Question was asked about being angry about a car rearending, and Doen does a metaphor to combat. If you freeze in combat because you get angry over being hit, you get stuck. As soon as you get hit, respond - move away, anything, but if you stand there shocked, you'll get hit again. Someone rearends you with a car - what do you really want there?  You were probably hit because the person has a short attention span - or they were checking out a hot woman wearing a short skirt. (Women cause accidents, they shouldn't wear short skirts!)  This lady hits me in her car, I get out. And she said, "I didn't touch you."  I was baffled. I didn't know someone could lie like that. Someone behind her saw her, and saw the whole thing, and got furious at her. It was a worse accident for them than it was for me.

    vi.      The warrior ethic is highly related to Zen. Your level of equilibrium should be magnificent. This'll take awhile.  The worse it gets, the better you get. The worse circumstances are, the worse circumstances are, the cooler you get. Your temperature goes down. You can be calm, and you can be constructive - and just your very calmness is constructive. The worse it gets, the better you get, the calmer you get, the more objective you get. That's where your practice will really be tested.

    vii.      I will create circumstances where you can learn to do that.

    viii.      Group Member says, "Over Thanksgiving, there was this moment - you've said in the past that when you realize what your anger does to other people, you'll possibly stop doing it. When my husband and I were back east, I got really angry at him. It was amazing pulling it down a notch because I could see in his face what I was doing to him. When I yelled, I couldn't notice it. Taking anger a level down, I could see the effect on him. And it wasn't his fault - it was me being a bitch, taking my stress out on someone else. "

						Doen says, "You're not a bitch. That thing that you do, that you call being a bitch is called being angry, being powerless, being scared, wishing there was something you could do about things that you can't. When we do a retreat, feeling closer, etc. - you're looking at your future, how you'll feel more towards people. Your feelings will soften up, you'll see when you're upsetting people."

		ix.      Group Member says, "Awareness helps me diffuse anger."

						Doen adds, "You're in a leadership position. The more people don't feel upset with you, the more they'll support you. I'm sure that's something you see tooIII,

	c.      Ignorance

   	i. Ignorance is the most complicated one. It's defined in the old texts as, "not seeing that everything is one thing." Ignorance is the belief that you're a separate entity going through this world - that you're in a hotel, passing through, you have no place in it. It takes realization to understand that you are the whole thing.

    ii.      The way it got expressed when Zen first came over is, "Everything is one thing" which is unhelpful. The point of the practice is that YOU are the everything, your mind is in everything, and therefore, you are tied to reality in a way that is closer than you could ever imagine. You are always at home, alive or dead. This is your place. This is you. Something that Daido Roshi, my teacher, used to say, "You can think of your skin as the separation between you and the environment or you can think of it as the connection." He always used to refer to this body as "the skinbag". You're not a skinbag, you're more than that. Seeing that, seeing the way you're intimately connected to the universe and to each other. Not seeing that is ignorance. When we're ignorant, we're able to do all kinds of things we're not able to do when we're enlightened.

    iii.      In the Fourth Way, the Work is bringing humanity to that understanding - it's the end of ignorance, so that people really see. I was listening to John Lennon sing, "Imagine" and it's a beautiful description of a world without ignorance.

	d.     Think about those three - greed, anger, and ignorance. The way the chanting goes, "all evil karma - everything I've caused because I was greedy, angry or ignorant - everything I created with that with my body, by doing, by my mouth, by saying, or by my thoughts - now I atone for it all." Everything that I did because of those three poisons, because I'm conscious of it, we don't want to continue. That's why I play piano - these have to be practiced with the heart. Supporting the energy, how one feels in the heart, is what will make the energy strong. Can't think your way through practice. That gut understanding of the practice - because you have to fly to practice not to plod - will guide you.



