Good morning. Thank you for being here, those who are here all week for the session or part of the week the last few months or who arrived here today. Welcome and thank you for choosing to uh share your your Sunday in this way. Joining in the uh the practice of Zen. The practice of Zen or how how that is uh how that is practiced here. So we have different lineages, different uh styles, different approaches, different focuses of meditation, uh different methods, no methods. But whichever way we uh follow or isn't very important is to do so uh wholeheartedly, in that um at least my experience of this particular lens or practice is uh you don't get a lot by walking around the perimeter. Um you have to either jump over a fence or cut a hole in it or dig a under it and then um get right into the heart of it. And um of course Yokoji is a Soto lineage temple, so the two major schools of Zen, here at least in the United States, that continue to prosper. The Soto School and Rinzai School, uh Mizumi Roshi, uh founder here, and Tenshin Roshi's teacher, so my teacher's teacher and the teacher of several people here uh received transmission in that Soto school, uh actually in a couple of different lineages, but then also from the Rinzai school, the other principal lineage, uh a Rinzai Lei lineage through Koryoroshi. So I bring this up uh because here we have somewhat of a hybrid of approaches, a hybrid of forms, actually, very much a hybrid for elements of traditional Soto practice. For instance, you know, the uh slow walking meditation, kinhin. There's a passage in uh Master Dogen's writings where he talks, um he shares the recollection of when his teacher, who's I think Memorial Day Today, Nintendo Niotyo, right, he he showed Dogen how to slow walk in his room. This is how we do kinhin. So that's continued down to how we do that. So that five minutes of slow walking in between the zarzen periods is uh is uh come down to us from those words 800 years ago, which is a remarkable thing. And then we move to the faster walking, which is uh a Rinzai, uh typically a Rinzai method. So we we do both, the hybrid in that way, and also with the focus of uh practices too, typically in the Zen school, those who come into it for the first time, beginning, uh then the attention is aimed at uh sitting in the posture, you know, having the um learning the posture of Zazen and then breath concentration practice. But breath concentration practice can be counting breaths or following breaths, people have affinity with with either, but emphasis is put into the sitting posture and a concentration method of breathing. I had a friend back in Liverpool when I started sitting in the UK with Dave Scott, he would go to uh Kazan Roshi now, he'd go along to his group, and he told me that when he did a a year practicing in Japan, he was very keen to you know dive into uh Koan study or something like that. And uh the Roshi there asked him, How long are you staying? He said, A year. He said, Oh, okay, then you know, for um you can um show me your breathing. And that was basically the koan that he worked on, that he would show up each day to see the teacher. The teacher would look at his posture and listen to him breathing, and then he'd um ring him out. So he worked on that, getting that those fundamentals straight. So, you know, uh it's important not to skip over those fundamentals and then to try and get to the to the good stuff or the uh the imagined, more advanced stuff, you know. So always breathing is occurring and sitting is occurring, so having um having some focus there. And then, but you know, we also have the practice of just sitting meditation or shikantaza in Japanese. A Japanese translation would be um apparently just sit, mind hit, or in contact with. So just sitting, in contact with mind, as is. Just sitting. Or another translation I read, an older translation from the Chinese, was being sitting um completely and only involved in sitting. Interesting. Not sitting and being completely and only involved in thinking about next Tuesday, right? Or sitting and thinking, only involved in the present, you know, circumstance which is causing us some issues. No, but rather sitting and being completely and only involved in sitting. The body is arranged, that's it. And that's a more traditionally, that is um more of a soto-based approach. It's just sitting practice. Each one of these approaches, as soon as you raise the uh raise a method, then something else is pushed into shadow. That's a problem with method. You know, you you you practice a concentration method, you develop concentration. That's that can be a real positive. But then you're cultivating something and obscuring something else to whatever degree. You know, so it's like you take on as much method as is really helpful or necessary. But then we can unwind method. For instance, we're we're just sitting, but as we unwind or step away from method, then the more responsibility is based upon our own insight and understanding, and the more responsibility is placed on us. There's nothing to follow. In the Rinzai School, of course, and here we also have the practice of uh Koan, right? So the uh the collected dialogues, points, uh, principles of the way, which have been maintained these years and handed down as a system of study. I read some time ago in some of the early Chinese uh record of the uh the era of Bodhidharma, which is uh a difficult era to write about, in that you you're getting into the legendary era almost. So there's things which are not quite sure of historical exactitude there, right? But some um writings around Bodhidharma. And in his writing I read there, he said, um, and I'm paraphrasing, but he said that uh often you can enter through principle and or you can enter through practice. So this is interesting to me. You enter through principle and then enter through practice. So if we look at say uh Koan, um perhaps you could set up uh at least with and with Barriacon particularly, that's to enter through principle. There's a point of a way where you need to break into, you need to break through something. It's like an approach of principle. In that era, in the China, the Chinese school settled into two main approaches. The school of uh there's a school of the northern school, but became the school of gradual enlightenment, the southern school, which became the more popular with some good time, the school of sudden enlightenment. And that school of sudden enlightenment is what where we look back a lot of a record of um shouts and sticks and uh different methods being used to provoke or catalyze awakening, not dependent on not cherishing even meditation or Zha Zen as much. An approach of principle. Now, for many people or many of us that proves an elusive approach. Some people spontaneously and and other, you know, sometimes there are glimpses, sometimes there are deep enlightenments. So if one method or one school becomes very will become popular and that becomes the only way in town, it becomes uh exclusionary too to different ways of practice. So if we have the practice of principle, and we might have difficulty with that, but then there's the approach of practice, where everything that we do is practiced, and we don't wait or look for some opening or some kind of understanding. Maybe you could say the practice of principle or to look into things or to try to wake up is like a practice of doubt. And then the practice the practice or the the way of um the approach of practice is a more of a way of faith. We are already awake. This is our life as it is. Why not get on with practicing our life? Practicing who or bringing to life and realizing who we already are. This principle or practice, sudden and gradual, koan, she can taza, breath, all of these things, it's the same life. Just different lenses, different ways, different pointers, which have proven effective at helping to catalyze people returning home to their intrinsic freedom and peace that is everyone's birthright, but has been obscured by our conditioned way of understanding. And you can use all of the above much better to enter through principle and enter through practice. You know, if you look back through the tradition, often you see, like to for those who have just woken up or people who have enormous insight, something occurs, bing, all the lights go off. Okay, you know, but often, unfortunately, you know, a great enlightenment or a great depth of wisdom does not translate into uh compassionate behavior or an upright life. It's not enough. Often the way of principle is more of a um, go out on the limb here. I'll say it's more of a uh uh a mental awakening. Okay, guess what? You see through duality, you understand form and emptiness, you see that principle now. Great, good, good, good for you, but it's the beginning of the way, it's not the end of a way, like it says in the identity of relative and absolute. To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment. So you may awaken, but if the heart doesn't awaken as well, then it's lacking. You might be able to shave uh you know the meat off a heron's leg, to use a nice expression, with one's wisdom, but if your heart isn't open, if that isn't awakened, then there's room to grow. There's room to uh stretch out. Now, there's also the awakening, of course, of you know, the awakening, like I say, of the heart. Some people, you know, are naturally in accord with living an upright, responsive, compassionate life. I mean people every day, who've never, well maybe not every day, because I live up here, but when I'm off the hill, I meet people all the time who are like beautifully awake, enlightened people. They never heard a Zen. But they're engaged, then they're living that heart opening. You know, but we can be then really greedy in this hybrid practice that we are here, this life that we have, where we can pull teachings from everywhere, you know, where we can they can use words from all the records, we don't have to like defend one lineage against another. You can use it all and use everything as as as food to continue to refine and awaken awaken this life. I bring up a few words from uh Master Renzai, who um doesn't mess around. Okay, so here's some instruction for from Master Rinzai. Okay, wrong one. Okay, followers of the way. If you wish to be Dharma as is, that's an interesting line out of the gay. If you wish to be Dharma as is, just have no doubts. Spread out, it fills the entire Dharma realm. Gathered in, the smallest hair cannot stand upon it. Distinctly and radiantly, shining alone, it has never lacked anything. No eye can see it, no ear can hear it. Then by what name can it be called? A person of old said, To speak about a thing is to miss the mark. Just see for yourselves what is there. I can keep talking forever. Each one of you must strive individually. Take care of yourselves. Some words from Esther Rinzai about being about teaching too, you know. He says, I can keep on talking forever. We've had this weaker rohatsu and different Dharma talks, and now you're kind of forced to listen to me, you know. Well, you're not forced to, I mean you can take off if you like, but thank you for staying. Um but he says that I can keep talking forever. You find that in this practice, no matter what the method or or whatever approach is taken, it doesn't come from another. We realise that it cannot be explained. Says here, distinctly and radiantly shining along this life. In another place, and I was looking for the quote and I couldn't find it, so I'm gonna go from memory. He says, uh uh, behold the puppets on the stage. Right? They dance and around see the one who holds the strings. Right? So we're like that in our life, like puppets dancing on a stage. Every one of us. You know, we were born, don't remember asking, I don't remember putting in a request, but rather we appear in this human life, and it's like you're handed a script. You know, my son goes to the study in theatre, and he they have the the production's coming up, and you get your script. They go to a board to find out what did you get? Some people don't get anything, you know, because like a way for the next one. But so those people don't get born. But the rest of us, you get your role, you get your script. It's not the one you wanted, probably. But for most people, maybe you're you know, you're just like, oh wow, I'm a I'm a drunk and I die in the second act. Maybe it's that. Or maybe it's a wonderful, you know, etc. etc. And everything in between, but each of us has a life which is flawed, with shadows and you know, good qualities and weaknesses, and uh the whole the whole gamma of the human condition. Now, are you content with your role? That's a question. Can you live? Can we live your part? In that sense, we're all the method actors of our own life. But really, you know, we spend so much time in our life trying to be the other part, looking for another role, a better role, the one with a better script. Unless this is not you, and it's just me who has had this experience, right? But everything in our practice and our instruction returns us to look at the one you already are, the part you have to play in this great drama, in this great act. Isn't it not a curious thing to be alive in a human form? What does it mean? Where did it come from? Where does it go? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. And if yeah, if and if we stay on the surface of always arranging the furniture of our conditioned life, of our pattern, where we're gonna go next, who we're gonna do this with and that with, and just live our lives through that lens. You know, you never see the one that holds the strings. You just, you know, you we're all still puppets on the stage, it doesn't matter in one sense, a great act goes on. But this in this way, this way of Zazen, this way of uh awakening or way of enlightenment, I dare say the word, right? Then you look at the one that holds the strings. Master Rinzai talks about that one here. If you wish to be Dharma as is, so he he puts that out there of like, well, if you're here, I mean some of you just popped up for Sunday, you might be like, I'm not sure I want to I'm signing up for that, you know. You don't you don't worry, you don't have to, right? But for those who are kind of committed, um wearing the cloth of the Keser, the Rakasu, and such, then that's a given. You wish to be Dhamma as is, with no more doubt. You wish to be done on that level, you used to be free. You wish to like sharing the experience that is in the books, for God's sake, right? Then he says, just have no doubts, spread out. Isn't that interesting? Spread out. Live live live the live the big life. Live the small life. The life that's just in the head that's always that's just kind of oh this is now this is wrong. There's always something wrong. It's always broken. It was always broken, it always will be broken. That's human life. It's always broken. Where where's it? When's it been different? Same for our own way. It's never quite right. Or if it is, look up because there's a plane coming down, right? And it's like if it's just perfect, be suspicious. So he encourages you, spread out. What does that how do you spread out? Imagine that in Zhao Zen. Like this practice that you do. I mean, obviously not, you know, just like a lie on the ground, I mean, but rather spread out as oneself when sitting. You know, shift away from the lens that is always looking at the changing condition and being hooked on that and just watching it up and down a go. You know, just keep riding the ferris wheel of thought, but rather spread out, allow and see the awareness that each one of us is, and see that revealed as this whole life that includes everybody else, all things up and down, backwards and forwards. You know, if we're enamored of the interior life of just cause and conditions of me, then that that doesn't you miss the one holding the strings. You just get on with being a puppet. And you can do, we do that, yeah. Everyone does that for a period of time, but we sit so much in to wear that out. And then to spread out and be involved in the self that is in that that covers all the ground. So it says here, you know, um spread out, it fills the entire Dharma realm. What does? Good question. That's what you look at. That's what a teacher can't help you with. That's that's what all of the pointers point back at. Look. Or gathered in says, gathered in, the smallest hair cannot stand upon it. You know, in these long periods of sitting in this row, had to gathered in. When you really stop, the extraneous thought, the things that are pain in the knees, everything fades into the background. You have that time where where you taste what it is to just sit, to just be as is. Then you start to see, or you see all at once, the truth of there's not a place where a hair can stand. What is there? What can you grasp? What can you hold? What can be identified? Distinctly and radiantly shining alone, it has never lacked anything. I'm sure just you can agree with this reality, it has never lacked anything. It doesn't lack anything, it's just as is. No one can see it, no ear can hear it. What name can it be called? So Master Rinzai really points at something. Who are you before the name, before the condition, before the history? Who is each one of us? Who is that one? When you have that, you know, that experience when when you do session, that harmonizing that occurs where you know the people in the room, although you have not spoken to them. That connection becomes apparent. When the self is seen through enough that you look at another person's eyes and you see yourself. Because if it's always me looking at you, then that's still look beyond that. And see the one who is indistinguishable. Of course, now he comes in and says, a man of old or a person of old said, to speak about a thing is to miss the mark. And so I I apologize for being for missing the mark. I mean that. You know, because it's it's it's just throwing up pointers. You point back at what each one already, each one of us already is. You talk about, you set it up as something, then we seek after that something. Everyone who's practiced Zen for a period of time is well familiar with that seeking function. It's an ironic or thing that although we know we cannot, that doesn't really do it, we have to do it. Because that has to be exhausted, that has to be, you know, like Rose, you'll say, sometimes a hunting dog's gotta hunt. We come at it in that way. There is a striving, there is a seeking. But to speak about a thing is to miss the mark. If you take these words, absolute, relative, enlightened, deluded, form, emptiness, and imagine there are there is such a thing, then there's still further to go. All these words, these ways, these pointers are temporary expedients on the way. But sooner or later we have to kick our crutches away. Just see for yourselves, he says. You can imagine in whenever this is sixth century China or something, talking to a group of monks. Maybe even the third or fourth talk that week or something. And he says, maps this out and then just says, ah, you know, just look, be it, just look for yourselves. Each one of you must strive individually. Buddha's last teaching, one of his last teachings that's ascribed to him. Right? It's like uh each one is uh what does it say, each one is an authority to yourselves, um, strive on with uh diligence. You're like, be a lamp unto thyself, strive on with diligence. Sounds nice in that language. You could boil that down and be like, you're on your own, do your best. Right? Be a lamp unto yourself. I know I put together a heck of a scheme here on all these teachings, it's all great and everything, but ultimately, and here I am about to go, it's on you. Yourself. Be a lamp unto yourself. A lamp that shines in every direction now. A lamp that spreads out but illuminates it for everybody else too. Be that lamp, strive on with diligence, get it done, do it, don't be stopped. Use principle, use practice. Please, and he says, take care of yourselves. You know, for somebody who was celebrated as the uh, you know, uh just the ultimate in direct teaching and and unsparing in terms of instruction and dire just so direct, Master Rinzai. And yet his heart comes through the whole record. He ends this where he says, take care of yourselves, take care of one another. That's the heart. You know, not just like kind of awaken through through the head and then riding on that wave of instill with enlightened and deluded in the world, but also enlightened through the heart, too. Those two things. Yeah, the whole thing. And then what's left? You know, each person's character as it is. Master Rinzai was Master Rinzai, the great Master Rinzai, through and through. Like a big flame. You know, like Master Dogen in that way, but history is replete of teachers that lived, you know, into their 80s and 90s, even in this era. Something in the rice, I guess. Right? Living these amazing lives, and yet, you know, Master Rinzai lived to about 55. He was young when he passed. Master Dogen the same, 54, 55. Masumi Roshi, or least mid-60s. Yeah. Bright flames. So whatever for each of us, you know, going out of session. Session is over. Of course, not where I need to stress this, I don't think, right? But this practice continues endlessly. But don't confuse practice for something that we do in here. Don't confuse practice for Zen or the forms of that. You know, but rather like a like a good actor that's always ready. Or a musician that's always ready, knows the role through and through. If they forget the lines, they can add lib and make it better. That's a great, you know, like a great actor. You know, have that faith. Masterinsai talks about, have faith in yourself. But you already are. As the Buddha said, the I all beings of great earth are the wisdom and virtue of the awakened one to thus. Somewhere else, Master Rinzai says, all that's required for enlightenment is the courage to step into it. Hmm. Wow, right. So I I hope that everyone has that faith that just as you are, through and through. You know, see through that one that is hindered by changing circumstances, and illumine the one that is unstained and unaffected by circumstances. You understand something of this ancient way. Anyway, I'd like to um we have a little time, right? So uh I'd like to open it up for um either question or comment. Um anyone would like to share or raise. And if not, we can finish it early. That's cool too.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean it's a very five year since I've been coming here for almost five years, and I heard your normal speeches. Uh it's amazing to watch your profession, you know, how how amazing you have become. No, I didn't know English was my main language, my first language, so bear with me. What I mean is.
SPEAKER_00No, you're doing fine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. We grow, right? Hopefully. And uh I'm so impactful, it's so beautiful and so eloquent and so perfect.
SPEAKER_05Amen.
SPEAKER_01I think I think everyone agrees with you.
unknownEveryone does agree with it.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, and it's yeah. I really think it's happening. Of course, don't take any credit.
SPEAKER_05Not for that claim.
SPEAKER_00What's that? I know, right?
SPEAKER_05Oh no.
SPEAKER_00Sorry if an A shoot hit me over the head with a stick and anyone else would like to share, Marise up.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So just don't doubt. Doubt and doubt is a massively intrinsic part of realization for me.
SPEAKER_00Well, certainly, you know, like the three pillars of them, right? Great doubt, great faith, great determination. Sometimes you're in the place of doubt. Use the doubt. Great wonderful doubt, use that. In a place of faith, use faith. So whatever, right? However it is, use that. But you know, we raise up these different ways because sometimes we get stuff stuck in an approach, stuck in a stuck in a way. So good to just keep pushing the apple cart over and over. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04I think it's also uh very uh possible and relevant that we may not have a great gap in the way, but we may have a great gap in ourselves. So you know when we think of those three colors, it may not be in relationship to the teaching, more in a relationship to ourselves as well. And I think when uh talk, he was talking to all of us in his cannon. I thought it was about talking about yourself.
SPEAKER_00Well, how how about when um the the way and the and yourself are indistinguishable?
SPEAKER_04Well that would be a good thing. I would agree. If it's not after four years, maybe we should give up.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm not sure. I I think if you decided to give up, you'd still find yourself sitting right there. So I don't know how you give up.
SPEAKER_04You can't. I mean, aside once your foot is on the path of the day, there's no way that you can get off that path. Whether you have a teacher or a teacher.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's important that you uh enjoy the journey. Wherever it leads. All right. I think we're we're good. Thank you. I appreciate you listening. We'll finish.