Lost Coin Class Notes Salt Lake City Tuesday, August 2, 2011 ================================================================== DS: I heard that everyone has been sitting more...thanks to the Lizzy Revolution. Since you're sitting, I would ask you all about sitting. Any questions? Anything come up? Student: About those brief moments of hallucination I've heard about shamanic trances. Are you familiar with any of that? DS: Tibetan Buddhism and Zen are very similar, but the methods are opposite in certain way. Tibetan Buddhism uses a lot of visualization to get to emptiness. Zen uses emptiness first, then goes from there. ================================================================== Student: I can tell a difference with me in that the more I sit the more calm (I become). Last week, I had to make a deposition, and the lawyer was awful. Right after, I went to sit with the group, and it made a huge difference. It left me peaceful and fine. It was remarkable. Years ago, I had a similar problem with a lawyer and the effects lasted for a week. DS: The more you get distance from the world of constant thought, from adversarialness, the more (calm?) you get. I've said this before about sitting: People think that they will sit and have an idea which they will implement. Sitting is like drinking. If you drink enough, you don't have to think about how to get drunk. The process of sitting does it by itself. ================================================================== Student: The sense of calm carries after sitting. DS: On vacation, Caryn forgot to take a sleeping medication, and she was withdrawn. She was nervous and didn't know it. You don't know when you are nervous, if you are nervous all the time. If you sit a lot, then you'll say "Hey, I'm not nervous." If you don't sit, you notice that you are nervous. Everyone try to sit together. Arlene is organizing a fund-raising committee. Anyone interested in participating is welcome. We're starting to look at land. Student? How do you fundraise for LC? DS: I do it a straightforward way. I write up a document about practice, that we want to create in the Western soil, that we want to establish. If you believe in that, put your money where your mouth is. I say: "Do you want to support this?" If it's in a nice place, then they are creating something for themselves as well. If we could buy some acreage, the people could put up a house or whatever. We will have a Zen institute...a place of learning. Back to sitting....any more? Student: Mostly our "events" are spontaneous. We seem to want to sit longer. DS: Same thing with an institute. You could have weekend where you focus on the arts, Aikido. Daido Roshi would bring in outside folks -- Gary Snyder, Alan Ginsberg -- they would sit, then Alan Ginsberg would talk all Saturday. Sunday, Daido Roshi would give a talk. A lot of people would come. DS about sitting: The bottom of sitting is emptiness. Hard to describe, that that's what it's all about. If I do this and I ask most people what I'm doing, most people use words "waving hand back and forth". But that is words. What is the quality without words? *This* is emptiness. *This* is the real world. When that is beyond doubt, you see that this is reality. Something I said last night -- for folks that are scientifically bent -- much of what science is now exploring cannot be proven. Space and time are interrelated. Space, time and emptiness are intimately related to each other. Some physicists are saying that all realities can occur. This is what we call emptiness. Emptiness is what happens every day. When Joshu was asked, "What is Zen?" (He replied:) "The tree outside the window". On any given day, there are many times when you are not thinking. Particularly for those of you who are physical. Everything is "thus". If you sit enough, the thoughts fall away and you see emptiness. Who you really are is "thus". You can witness "it" but it is ungraspable. ================================================================== Student: So, "thus" and "such"... DS: Are the same. ================================================================== Student: I just noticed lately that if feels like a continuum, that space is everywhere. You get a sense of the temporariness, that everyone is moving through this space, that there's a sense of detachment. DS: That's what happens with a maturing practice. Student: You can see that life is a stage. DS: When you are young, you are a biological machine. That eases off as you get older. If you practice, you get a broader sense of space in your life. ================================================================== Student: I'm a rookie. I haven't touched emptiness. DS: You touch it every day. ================================================================== Student: When I experience emptiness. I can sense my control of reality. I can observe it. DS: Very good. ================================================================== Student: At one point in your speaking, I got lost. But it is hard for me to grasp... DS: One of my students would say that she would get a brain attack... a loss of reality. That's what it's *supposed* to do. That's why I talk about music, because you *experience* it. when I talk about the deeper aspects of practice, I'm not really talking. I[m bringing things up. My last post to the blog was like a Dharma talk. ================================================================== Student: I think that it's mind blowing. It's an awesome thing to be part of this universe. That there's this thing animating the universe...and we're part of it. DS: As it was always said to me, the reason that you cannot grasp it is that we *are* it. When people have relationships -- I think that we're in a bad time about relationships -- the media has replaced love with sex. That's what they are selling. That's very confusing in relationships. When you go into a relationship for the draw of romance, it goes well. When you go into a relationship for the lure of sex, it palls. Practice is the perfect romance. You don't know everything about the person that you are having a relationship with. You'll *never* know, which is good. That's why the practice is great, because there's always a mystery. Just when you think that you've got it figured out, the teacher pulls the rug out from under you. ================================================================== Student: I have an intellectual or cerebral understanding, but I don't get "it". DS: The thing with you is that you experience it all the time, but don't notice. You are stuck in your head. That's the bad side. But there's a good side: you are sensitive. When you are not stuck in your head, you have revelations. It's not a bad way to be. You are not going to get unstuck in your head by saying that you don't have time to sit. Student: This past week has been motivating (sitting-wise). I've never been able to switch off my anger and replace it with gratefulness before. DS: Here's an analogy: You went for a hike up in the mountains. You decided that you would take a swim in a lake, (but) you didn't realize how cold the water is. You just dive in. Can you imagine that? Now you are freezing. *Are* you freezing? What's really happening? Can you show me that? Student: You aren't really thinking. DS: Can you show me? Student; DS: That's the koan practice. Joshu would say, "Show me God in frozen water". Same answer: There's no rush. ================================================================== Student: There's a thing you say about pointing the finger at the moon, and don't focus on the finger. DS: You're going to hear this stuff over and over until you are sick of it. One day, you'll get it. There's no other way...repetition. Gutei would point upwards when asked any question. Rinzai would slap you when asked a question. ================================================================== Student: My practice had faded away, but it came back after we talked about being right. I've been feeling trapped in my job, but I've been working 4 days a week since then. Now when I'm on a bike ride...I'm on a bike ride. But somewhere in the middle of the ride, I'll notice what I'm doing. DS: Now that you have a blooming relationship: Don't be "right". Don't be right. Get what you want. What do you want in a relationship? It's not being "right". How do old folks end up bickering about being right? ================================================================== Student: I think that as I find more time where I have emptiness. When I get outdoors, it feel a whole another depth. Feeling the breeze the smell, it so easily puts me in that frame of mind. I remember when I was at the ranger station. I was carrying a crosscut saw and I felt that emptiness. DS: It happens more often than you think. You are kissing your first boyfriend/girlfriend...you are really attracted to them. How come you don't stop and say "Let me figure this out"? Because biology is on your side. Biology = "the Tao" = "the Way". As you get older, what helps you is transience. That you realize that you are on your way through. So, transience becomes you ally in the same way that biology was your ally when you were young. ================================================================== DS: So, let me just say that I'm very happy with the group. That you're growing, evolving, and getting it. It's very satisfying to me. My friend Libby died recently. We were really close and went back a long time. She was an adventuress. Horses were her whole thing and she travelled the world. About a month ago, she was riding across a river in South America in Medellin, the current took her horse and she drowned. She was a member of the Adventurers Club in NY. One of the nice things about her death was she died doing what she wanted to do. When someone like that dies, it's shocking. I have to realize every week that she's dead. You feel what life is about. We're taught not to feel. Practice can give you "feeling" back. To really practice is to engage your feeling again. Student: We numb ourselves with alcohol, etc. The world does not support super-sensitive people -- unless you are an artist -- you dampen your feelings. How do you be in the world and maintain your sensitivity? DS: As I was taught, according to time, place, position, and degree. There are times when you don't want to be open, but it soon becomes "never". In Daisan, it's not the time to be closed. With your loved ones, it's not the time. You have to be adult and consider time, place, position and degree. In Chinese, when you say "I'm sorry", the literal answer is "No guest energy". That's like saying "You are not a guest here, don't worry about it". In the group, there is no "guest energy". You are all "hosts". When you are at work and there's someone who wants your job, you can't be completely open. That's a good place to end.