Lost Coin notes March 3, 2010
 
Students must LOVE the practice.  Be brave.  Take Leaps.  Fly!
 
OOOPS, that was from the week before, but it is worth repeating!
 
Please come to March Retreat.  Please sign up on Meet Up or send Rebecca an email.
 
Doen will also be on the radio on March 17th.  Please look at Facebook for more information.
 
Doen stumbled on a Koan while reading in bed.  He is going to talk about it today.
 
Koan is from the Blue Cliff record.  The Blue Cliff record seemed obtuse.  How could one ever answer the Koans esp when some require 4 to 5 answers.  The Koans were said thousands of years ago and they were said in Chinese.  Now they Koans are clear of day.  Everything is strange at first and then it becomes familiar.  For example, when Doen first took the BART (SF subway system) it was very confusing but after ten times it became easy. 
 
In the Koan Sepo and Sancho were both teachers.  Sepo was an abbot at big monastery.  They were both advanced students.  They were bantering and it sounds like they don’t know but they do.
 
Sancho says to Sepo :  When the Golden Carp comes out of the net, I wonder what it will eat?
 
Doen tells us that the Golden Carp is always the Realized one, Buddha.  What Sancho is asking is : When one is really free/enlightened what do you do?  How do you express life, your enlightenment?  What is your practice?  The net is delusion or whatever it is that binds you.  A realized one is free of what binds you.  Thus you are free and unafraid. 
 
Sepo said to Sancho :  When you come out of the net I will tell you.
 
Doen tells us that this means in jest/ a cute joke – you are not enlightened.  When are are, I will tell you. 
 
Sanch replies to Sepo : A teacher of a 1,000 monks (such a big shot) and you can’t answer a basic question.
 
Sepo responds:  The duties as an Abbot are many and varied.  And Sepo walks away from the conversation.
 
Doen tells us that – when act out of water nothing is special.  Duties are many and they are varied.  There is always lots to do.  When you come out of the net, what you do will not be different – what will be different is how you do it.  It is a different way of seeing.  Coming out of the net allows you to experience enlightenment now matter what you are doing.
 
It doesn’t mean you can’t look for the next relationship.  But if you look, do it 100%.  But if agenda is to change others then deluded. 
 
What does practice mean?  If you are becoming a monk does it mean that practice is more important than job or children?  NO.  It means you fulfill all your duties with full participation.  This includes Lost Coin.  Basically, you have your work cut out for you – you can do it. 
 
When first practiced at the Zen Mountain Monastery Doen was not allowed to work nor was he supported by the Monastery.  Therefore, he worked one day a week and saw 12-14 people in this therapy practice.  He had to stretch.  He wants the practice to be hard.  He wants us to stretch.  Want it to be challenging.  We do not know our potential til we do what we think we cannot do.  Stop talking about it and theorizing about it just do it.  Use your body and your spirit.  Don’t try to figure it out. 
 
Later at the ZMM, Doen got a house.  He was still at the Monastery full time.   He got up at 4:30am, then went to work as a therapist, was in a new relationship and had two kids.  He asked Daido if he could have some firewood since he was working all the time etc. etc.  Daido said NO.  Daido said he was not going to make it easier for him. 
 
When Daido went away Doen would give the Sunday talks.  These talks were a big deal, there were 200 people attending and ZMM asked for donations.  After the talk there was a spaghetti dinner. Doen gave the talk but did not make a donation. Daido asked him why?  Doen said he had given the talk why should he give a donation.  Daido said it doesn’t matter you have to give a donation.  Daido said you are here to be trained not to be a teacher so you have to pay.  It was also a lesson for Doen’s ego.
 
Doen had three offices all very far away from each other.  Sometimes he would be so tired he would drive off the road.  Daido did not care. 
 
Think of yourselves as Navy Seals.  Participate in a training that stretches you.  Don’t talk about it.  Do it.  Want you to be good students but Doen doesn’t want us to give up our life.  Daido did not care if Doen had ten minutes with Caryn.  He was training Doen so time with Caryn did not matter.
 
Daido did not talk to him.  They would smoke in the daisan room.  Daido did not care if Doen went over the wall to have  drink as long as he was up at 4:30am.  If Doen was not there Daido would call him.  When Doen said he thought he was supposed to do this himself Daido would say we all have to be dragged sometimes. 
 
By training we are asking to be stretched, we will never regret it.  But you also have to be a little careful.  There is a limit to what you can do.  You can do too much and have it be shakey.  The practice is an adventure and having an adventure is fun.  That is what Sepo was saying.  The thing you run away from is what you run toward – your life.
 
Part of Doen’s routine as a musician was to shop for clothes/ shirts.  He liked shopping at a department store called Bloomingdales (not now though).  He would take Alex there.  Bloomingdale’s had a revolving door.  It was always decorated nicely at Christmas.  Our practice is to go to Bloomingdale’s and look for something but to later come out of the same revolving door.  Went in for many years and the only thing that changed is that you do not want to go through the door again, you want to be where you are. In the same place but see it differently.  Knowledge is what you know.  Being is your life.
 
Make a commitment to the practice.  You are not looking for life but finding your life. 
 
Doen tells a joke:
 
A person travels many days/months to the high hills to find the person who knows the meaning of life.  Finally find the person who knows the meaning of life.  The traveler asks “Do you know the meaning of life?”  The wise man replies “yes”.  The travels asks “will you tell me?”  The wise man says “yes”.  “Never eat any food you don’t like; do not do anything you don’t want to; and don’t spend time with people you do not like.”  The traveler asks “If I do this will I live forever?”  the wise man replies “No, but it will seem like it.”
 
Remember you are just passing through.  If you remember this your choices are obvious, if you forget it, they are not so obvious. 
 
Student asks about Octaves mentioned In Search of the Miraculous.  Understanding this will become easier in time.  in the beginning we think we can do things but we cannot because we are mechanical.  One can study for one year and make more progress than someone who studies for ten years is continues to be mechanical.  When you study and you are mechanical you will get the same results.  Ospenski called this octaves.  He studied all the world religions.  He noted that they all start with love and usually about a century later the religion is killing people in its name.  True for Marxism too – Doen’s parents thought is was great because it offered commonality but then it became Leninism and people were killed.   
 
If mechanical we go in circles and end up the opposite of what we want.  An Octave is to accomplish something so that one cannot be mechanical.  Each octave is broken down into steps.  There are three shocks within each one. 
1.       Development/handling of negative emotions.  If you start something and stop because you are discouraged and then you think you are lazy then it is negative.  Must get past the first step which was called a Gap.  In music with the old scale all notes were evenly distant from each other in terms of frequencies.  Now we use a tempered scale.  When there were aberrations musicians would adjust – there were gaps between some notes that needed to be filled. 
2.      Consciousness is gained through self observation and if do these two thing then you can complete an Octave. 
 
The teaching gives shocks along the way.  For example a teacher rejecting a student can be a shock.  If a student receives a shock and then leaves, the student is not ready.  Teachers just laugh at pettiness of students can also be a shock. Doen wants to be nice and supportive.  He thinks this can be a shock over time. It is part of what was lacking in Zen Centers.  We need to learn not to be nasty.  Doen is an idealist who does not practice religion but he believes in the ideals of Christianity.  People should evolve to be nice loving human beings.  This is shocking.
 
Another shock it to make one stronger.  Mizumi was nice but made Doen stretch.  Daido was nice  but also made Doen stretch.  Genpo  was not alwas nice, was shocking.  But it was hard because Doen was a product of two other teachers and he needed a shock.  All three teachers plus Gerdjeff made Doen stretch.  In the 4th way you were given tasks that stretched you.  You did things you did not analyze things. 
 
Doen encourages us to go to retreats.  To trust him.  To stop trying to figure it out and to just do it.  Let go as a student and you will find space.  Doen asks us to let go of our patterns, to go against your patterns.  Tawni looked into moving to SF.  She decided not to.  Doen respects and understands the decision but he disagrees. 
 
Doen and had left ZMM three times and was back.  He went to the dining hall and looked at the Ox Herding pictures.  He decided if he was going to do it, he should do it.  He said this is our adventure (he was with caryn).  He stayed while and then moved to Utah.  If this is your adventure then do it – don’t be a wus.
 
Student asked about mechanical self verses essence.  Essence is fate, it is what you are born with. Kids are not born as a blank slate.  They have some natural temperament.  When born you are not mechanical but biological.  Some religions believe this biology is a product of a previous life. 
 
In Soto School of Zen when one is one with karma they are enlightened.  “My duties as abbot are many and varied.” 
 
Your life is enlightenment.  We are all in a magical unknown.  We all have conditioning not understanding.  Essence controls fate.  Personality is controlled by conditioning. 
 
Student asks about the mechanical behavior and preferences.  Doen said he saw an entry on facebook by a man he knows from the Kanzeon Zen Center.  This man said if a person does not love you for who you are then they do not really love you.  He used this to explain why his last relationship did not work.  Doen says as soon as you start being who you are then it will really happen, love that is.  It is hard to distinguish fiction from who we are.  Whose preferences are they really?  Ask Tiger Woods – Doen cannot help but believe Tiger will have different preferences once he realizes all the hurt he has brought to people.  Once he realizes this is not what he really wants. 
 
There are few bestselling books about people who do not inconvenience themselves.  Better to do it than watch it.  WOW, I did it.  Maybe I am that person.  Maybe I am more than I thought.  It was hard to move to SF, but now that Doen is there is it not so hard. 
 
NLP is not a good model for therapy but it is good for achievement.  If you want to do something find someone who does it well and model after them.  Modeling is a better way of understanding.  If you want to be a great artist read about Picasso! If you want to be an adventurer, read about adventurers.  Marco Polo was amazing – he befriended mean men who could have killed him.  But instead they protected him.  Doen modeled without thinking about it.  Herman Hesse had a character named Pablo who was a musician.  Doen’s favorite.  Don Juan too.
 
Theme in class – be in your life.  Stretch, model.  Stretch in a harmonious way.  Practice brings it all together.  At Zen Center some were pissed all the time – so why not do something else? 
 
Student said health concerns forced her to stretch to be an athlete.  Not natural but doing it and it is great. 
 
Doen: Harness your spirit. If it is not scary, it is not fun.  Before the warrior gets the maiden in the tower he must slay the dragon.  Why?  So can feel good about self.  This is the theme in so many stories from Sufi stories to fairy tales.  What do you do when you see the dragon.  If you really want the maiden you slay it.  The person is transformed from being tentative to being a dragon slayer.  Now that done, can have the girl.  Confront your fears, transform yourself into something.  If you try to possess maiden then not feel like a dragon slayer.  Fear is a shock that can take you to the next octave. 
 
Walk though your fears to be enlightened.  Put one step in front of the other.