Lost Coin – San Francisco
June 6, 2011 (sorry to be so late)


A four-line couplet by master Dogen that describes it all: “Cultivating the Empty Field.”

To study the Buddha way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
And to forget the self,
Is to be enlightened by the 10,000 things.

He is saying that the way to study awakening is to study the self. Good to look at yourself in situations – how can you practice with them? Practice is more important than situations, you'll always have situations.

Study the self – forget the self. All the thinking you can do about the self will get you nowhere. We can't figure our lives out. Or, take thoughts and practice dropping them. The thoughts aren't you. We live in a world of thoughts and have thoughts about our thoughts. The finest thoughts are the ones that take you away from yourself.

You see who you really are. When this happens, everything enlightens you. All returns to the self, the true self.

Question: Are there interior and exterior thoughts?
Answer: No, it's the same. First, let everything return to the self. Second, go back to the world of thoughts from the perspective that everything is one.

“Appreciate your life” said Maezumi Roshi.

Implications: If you return to the state where you forget the self, everything is the meaning of life. Your life is the meaning of life. When you forget the self – it's all enlightenment. Appreciate your life as the enlightened state. This very life is enlightenment.

When we sit, it's Buddha sitting. We will see it's the same thing. What is right in front of you is indescribable wisdom.

Have faith in your sitting, with your koan study. Don't chase after anything else.

We think there is (a) practice, and (b) things that bring us pleasure. If you only pursue pleasure, this will never satisfy you. If you practice and then have fun, you'll enjoy it more.

Question: Do you lose the self in studying it?
Answer: That's the deep study of the self- let it go. When the wave is the everyday self. Give the waves names, give cows n ames, they don't think they have names. Their whole life is the present. We don't see the ocean, we only see that we are the wave. When the wave practices, it sees it is the ocean.

Stop looking for something else, and it will all fall into place.