Lost Coin Class Notes Salt Lake City Tuesday, August 16, 2011 ================================================================== DS: A couple of things that I wanted to talk about: I wanted to tell you an idea that we're throwing around in San Francisco. What came up in San Francisco was getting a building and having a Zen center and I've decided that I don't want to do that. I'd rather have a center of learning, maybe in the country. An idea came up: Some of the people are not excited about getting older and being taken care of by people who don't care. So, what if we acquire some land and folks could build a house. Folks could live there and the services would be provided by the community, doctors, etc. There'd be 3 buildings: a Zendo, a place of learning (technology, arts, music), a physical place like a gym or dance floor. Lost Coin would own the land and buildings. Lost Coin would lease the land. The stipulation would be that, if you built a house and wanted to leave it, you'd have to sell it to a Lost Coin member. So, we'd have an institute of learning and a place for children. The buildings was can fund-raise for. So, that's the idea. My friend Whitney wanted to do this. She was a multi-, multi-millionaire. Still, what you can't buy as a millionaire is to have people around you who care. So that is my idea of how we'd progress, rather than being a Zen center. Some of you are not community-oriented and you would not have to be. It would be up to the individual. So think about it. We'll probably send out an email to gauge the response. Any comments? ================================================================== Student: When you had brought up this idea years back, you mentioned Costa Rica. Is that still an option? DS: Not any more. Costa Rica, once you're there, you're there. I had a friend who moved to Costa Rica and found that you are really living in a different culture. A ranch in west Marin, a 20-acre horse farm, two barns, is a million and a half. So, before I start something new, anything that's come up? ================================================================== DS: So, what's been happening lately is talk about Shoken. I wanted to talk about the things that we do. I wanted to clarify. In Daisan, although we book you on a schedule, Daisan ends when it ends. I try and end it when there's a message or teaching that's enough. Let *me* time the Daisan. The 15 minute thing is so you can schedule your time and not have to wait for hours. A couple of times today, I ended Daisan early because it was a good stopping point. Shoken: We (generally) do everything in a pretty half-hearted way. If you do Shoken, which is the formal teacher-student relationship, it should be a lifetime commitment. In marriage, it's a lifetime commitment. You go into it that way. Shoken should be the same way. When *I* did it, I didn't really feel the seriousness of that. I want to make sure that those things are really serious. Those are the emotional aspects of practice. Practice needs to go into the emotional level and beyond. If you do Shoken or Jukai, those are really deep commitments. When you do Shoken, like in a marriage, you keep your eyes open and see what's going on. You should not be judging the relationship. Assume that if I do Shoken with you, or any of those things, that I'll be there for you. When I don't feel that, I tell the person no. What I say is that I don't feel like the connection is close enough to be meaningful. That's a model for practice. Most of our lives we keep distant from people. Most of the time there's an emotional meaning that doesn't happen. This is a different kind of practice. We call it forgetting the self. Letting go of the self and flow into others. So, that requires a little more muscle (or less) than you're usually asked (to do). The thing is that, everything thing we do, starting from Shoken, should be real. When you sit, put everything into it. Put your heart into it. Let go of the relationships that you can't put our heart into and have the relationships that you *can* put your heart into. The things that you take on in practice -- Shoken -- are looked at differently, but are close to a Christian practice. When we give Jukai, we give the Three Pure Precepts: do good, don't' do evil, etc. Don't *pretend* to do good. Don't *pretend* to not do evil. REALLY do it. Two phrases in Buddhism: "Anuttara Samyak Sambhodi" ("Complete Unexcelled Enlightenment") and "Complete Compassion". You are not going to get to "Complete Unexcelled Enlightenment". Complete compassion is practicing compassion for people. You have to start with *tolerating* people. Jeff is weird, we like weird, Joan is weird, we appreciate that. Not every flower has to be a daffodil. Jeff and Debra are different from each other. It doesn't mean that Debra has to play banjo or that Jeff has to become a Mormon. Let me talk about awakening and compassion: After I was practicing for a while, we say that there are stages of realization. The first is Kensho, that you are not the contents of mind. When you are not the contents, there is no separation of mind from everything. It's your true nature. Later, most people will have a real experience: the death of the ego. It doesn't last forever. We call it Daikensho. After I practiced for years, I had such an experience. It lasted about a week and drove me crazy. I saw mind clearly without the contents of mind. What I saw was that I was dreaming all of the time. When that happened, I saw that the person next to me was dreaming -- bad dreams. My dog Yoen -- sometimes at night she'll have bad dream. I want to wake her up -- that's compassion. When you see people suffering and want to help them, that's compassion. I'm reading a book: "How the Hippies Saved Physics". So this is a theme that you'll hear me talk about -- everything must be real. When you hear someone say that their heart fills the universe, look at that. When they feel that, it stops their practice. By making things unrealistic, it makes the *real* thing "covered". When you're doing a real practice -- *really* trying to do things -- then we could use a new word for "real": Integrity. You could say that you have integrity. We don't like it when our politicians don't have integrity, but we can insist on integrity in our own lives. When you develop integrity, in a way, nothing bad can happen to you. When you feel one with who you are, then misfortunes beyond your control can be lived with. I had an interesting experience with this: Gertje got a Wikipedia page for me and we're looking at one for Lost Coin. I asked Zen Mountain Monastery for supporting material. They sent me ten years of stuff. I looked through it and remembered some old stuff. I started teaching right away. It brought a lot back to me. (Reading it) I said to myself, this is what I've been doing. I did what I thought I should do and what was good. I put my heart into it. So I went to sleep that night, and woke up saying "I'm a Zen teacher" and I was happy with that. It wouldn't have had to be a teacher. It could be anything. So, I had an intimate understanding of integrity. I really did what I believe in. So, please do that. No one ever says, "I put my heart into that and I regret it." When I grew up in the Bronx -- I was just thinking about this -- this is a political thought -- I taught in a school where everyone was black or Hispanic. We tried to do what we could for the schools. They sent us liberals in and hired a black principal. I felt that some of the persons at that time had integrity. In my neighborhood, the greatest thing we could say about a guy was that he had "heart". We'd say "spirit" about girls. That's what it take to do this practice. A friend of mine said (this story about me): We all went down to Chinatown. They did not like the long-haired folks. We hated that and did not leave a tip. We left and they screamed at us. I had enough. I asked for change for a $20 bill, then walked out. My friend said, "You had heart". We get intimidated by life. Make up your mind. Have heart. It's much better that way. And have integrity. You can look in the mirror and say that you like what you see.