Lost Coin Class Notes Salt Lake City Tuesday, July 12, 2011 ================================================================= DS: Before I start, I was going to do something different today. I did this whole thing in San Francisco about the different forms we use in teaching, particularly Teisho. Teisho is not really what we do here, but would be done at a formal retreat and is usually on a koan. That's what we'll do today. Sometimes I wish I could ask my father a question, or Maezumi Roshi, but I can't because they are not around anymore. So, maybe *you* should use the mode for Daisan in that you should ask questions as if you can't talk to me anymore. Ask deep stuff. Teisho is not didactic. It's a song intended stimulate a deep area, take you into that area, see it in some new way. OK, has anything come up since last week? ================================================================= Student: "Deep" sounds intimidating to me. DS: Do you have a better word? (laughs). Maybe "serious"? I had three different teachers and they all taught differently. One thing in common was that they had a lot of students. That's not what I want, because I want to have a real relationship with you. So, don't be shy. I want to hear what you're thinking. Don't feel that I won't be interested. Don't think that you'll be perceived as stupid or smart -- I know what you are. Don't talk in platitudes. I have all of my students that are non-Americans. That's an interesting challenge. A lot of them, their culture is not to be as open as Westerners. It's a hard barrier for them to cross, but it's hard for us, too. You're taking "deep" as profound. How about "from the heart"? So, the Teisho is another vehicle intended to penetrate deeply. Student: So, when you say to be who you are. Does that mean small talk like at parties? DS: When your kids are in the bathroom, you don't talk about lasagna. In that context, you're meeting with your teacher, so talk about that sort of stuff. ================================================================= DS (Teisho): I'm going to read from the Zen Comments on the Mumonkan collection of koans. All of these koans -- all of you doing koan study -- after you do the first 150 koans, which are really elaborations of Mu -- then you do this collection, then some more. They are re-expositions of the same thing. This koan is called "Ordinary Mind is the Way". It makes an interesting entry to the Dharma. The two characters are Joshua and Nansen. Nansen was one of the great teachers, and Joshua was his greatest student who studied with him for 40 years. I used to think that to study with a teacher for 40 years was absurd. Now, not so much. So, Nansen the teacher was walking with Joshu. DS (reading): Joshu: "What is Tao?" [Tao = truth, enlightenment, path to reality] I would say, when we explore the universe and see the black holes and the galaxies swirling and that never stops, with multiple universes. All of that -- that thing - is the Tao. Nansen: "Ordinary Mind" Joshu: "Should we direct ourselves toward it or not?" Nansen: "When we try to grasp it, it moves away." Joshu: "If we don't try, how to we know it is Tao" Nansen: "Tao does not belong to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is illusion. Non-knowing is blindness. It is like the great void: How can there be right and wrong?" DS (Teisho): We fall into the trap of seeing enlightenment as something to grasp. That's why the old teachers would say, "When you say Buddha you should wash your mouth out with soap." "Don't spread shit on the snow." "Don't sell water by the river." In this koan, it is Ordinary Mind. Joshu has to hear what is. There is nothing ordinary about Ordinary Mind. Nansen is saying: "See the truth. What is right there?" Joshu: "Says should I try to comprehend it?", which is like stirring muddy water. Nansen: "No, just see it as it is." Joshu: "If I don't try to how will know what it is?" Nansen: "It is not about knowing or not-knowing." DS: DS smacks student on leg. "Is *that* about knowing?" When you see the mountains, is that about knowing? Every moment of your life is the Tao. What is this very different way of looking at things? It is that it is here. In the koan: Hundreds of flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, A cool breeze in summer, and snow in winter; If there is no vain cloud in your mind For you it is a good season. He's using "vain" as not a thought about yourself, not as vanity. This thing which is right in front of you is what you've been looking for all along. It is your life and death. Maezumi Roshi said "Appreciate your life" Not be grateful, but more like looking at a painting. Way back when, when folks looked at a Picasso, they couldn't appreciate it. Basically, Picasso would say "It is what it is. Can you be one with it? Can you get your mind out of the way?" Can you get yourself out of the way, so that every moment of every day you are seeing yourself. What is deep conversation? Appreciate Daisan as if you are talking with yourself. Appreciate your teacher as if you are talking to yourself. There should not be a separation. That's where we talk about Ordinary Mind, which is life without you having to alter it. Part of Ordinary Mind is emotion. Emotions scare us. Intimacy scares us. We say clever things, and hide out. Did you connect with the leaves, trees, the Sangha, or the teacher? Were you saying silly polite things? Were you being a know it all? What is Ordinary Mind in Daisan? It just being one with your life, your life and death. I was talking with Student X about aging. The beauty of aging is that it is fair: we are all aging at the same rate. Some of you have a head start , but we're all going at the same rate. What can we do about this? It's a problem. What can you do? We can call it Ordinary Life. The Tao is that you are aging. Dying is the Tao. Living is the Tao. Our practice is to be one with the Way (Tao). Maezumi Roshi used to say: To be one wit our life and death is the Way. Our ability to do that at any point is the practice. The practice is to close the gap between what *is* and what we feel about it. ================================================================= Student: That's a new interpretation for me -- "appreciate your life". I was working on the gratitude part. DS: That's great, but if you appreciate your life there will be gratitude. Student: "Appreciating" is like admiring a painting, but not separating yourself from it. To appreciate it you really have to be one with it. DS: That's an excellent observation. Tomorrow is Caryn and my 29th anniversary. To appreciate that, sometimes you have rituals. So I thought that we'd go to a nice restaurant. When my Jisha and I talked about his, she asked if she could call up and make the reservations. That was a considerate thought. But I thought that maybe Caryn would not appreciate that my Jisha did it and not *me*. Sometimes you can go out on the town and not be there. That's vain thoughts. To appreciate is to *be* there. Lost Coin is our study group. What do we have to do to appreciate? Just to be here. To be here in a very particular sense, to life through this moment of enlightenment. ================================================================= Student: It seems that stirring the water is part of it too. DS: That's a good thing to bring up, because it allows me to make a good point. So, suppose you went to China and to Nansen's temple, which is still there. It is beautiful. You have two realities: in one, you walked up to the statue and were quiet and were with it. In the other, you were preoccupied with something else, and you wanted it to be different. Is wanting it to be different the same as being one with it? Not really. One way is a choice that will bring you closer to the Way. The other brings you sideways. Another illustration: The great Tao is everywhere. Story: Hundreds of turtles are dying on the beach, and two guys are standing there. One guy tosses one turtle back in the water. The other guy says, "That doesn't make a difference." The first guy says, "It did to *that* turtle." ================================================================= Student: What's the distinction between accepting your lot in life and actively pursuing your career, your family, and improving yourself or your community. DS: Cause and effect. One our our practices is to create a cause-and-effect that is beneficial. So, aside from the interior aspect of the practice, a very important part is like...when you take the precepts you are taking a vow to do good. That should not be under-emphasized. Otherwise, your practice gets unbalanced. I'm more interested in *that* than in the depth of your enlightenment. Having integrity is important. ================================================================= DS: Maezumi Roshi was a very emotional guy. You wouldn't think it. He was very relaxed in his way. His way of getting you to do the practice was to [bug?] you. He would just ask over and over again. I remember him saying to me that I had wasted 10 years of my life. I literally felt, with him, that he had grabbed me by my heart and made me do the practice for him. Daido Roshi insisted that it come forth with integrity. This practice should shake your emotions to their depths. In trying to have great integrity, you will fail. No one is perfect. What makes you perfect is that you fall and get up. What if you had 10 minutes to live? Wouldn't it be great to say that you had integrity with your life, that you helped some people, etc.? I can tell you that, when I was in the hospital with Guillain-Barre, and it was taking my breath and it was not looking good. I was contemplating death. The only thing that was good was that I was OK with my life. The happiest people that I've ever seen are those who are involved with something greater than their own emotional needs. ================================================================= Student: What is integrity? DS: If you have to ask, you don't know. I don't mean that *you* don't have integrity. I'm sure you do. When you have it, you know. It's easy to construct things in your mind. We have a better mechanism. How do you know when you love something? You just know. Caryn is a great fan of vegetables. I (merely) *like* vegetables. She was making something and said, "Isn't this wonderful?" DS: "As much as I'd like to think so, something else tells me different." Support each other, be kind to to each other. Everybody knows where you are at. ================================================================= Student: You talked a lot abut Maezumi Roshi. Did Maezumi Roshi talk about his teachers? DS: Yes, the White Plum lineage was named after his father, who studied with Yasutani. Daido Roshi talked about his teachers, but not as anecdotally as I do. Maezumi Roshi's main influence was his father. He came from a Soto family. With Soto and Rinzai traditions, you don't cross over from side to side, but he did. Maezumi Roshi talked about how wonderful his teachers were. The depth of the Dharma, the depths of the teaching...when I teach, I try to be original. I am a different person from Daido Roshi and Maezumi Roshi and Genpo Roshi. I'm relating to you what was poured into me. That's good for you to understand, that it's not "what Doen knows", that it's a 1500 year tradition from teacher to teacher. Now the same words and ideas come out of me that came out of my teachers. When you first teach, you are a little more rebellious. I have my own ideas, too. When I transmit, I'll say: I don't want to see you for 3 years. Teach your own way. After that, if you want to teach my way, come back. How we are teaching the Dharma now, with all the technology, is the essence of teaching the Dharma.