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Controlling Monkey Mind

Lecture by Suzuki Roshi
This lecture is reprinted from the October 2001 Berkeley Zen Center Newsletter.
The purpose of sesshin is to be completely one with our practice. We use two Chinese
characters for "sesshin." "Ses" means to treat something the way one treats a guest or the
way a student treats a teacher. Another meaning of "ses" is to control or arrange things in
order. "Shin" means mind or heart. So sesshin means to have proper functioning of mind.
When we say "control," it is our five senses and our will, or small monkey mind which
should be controlled. We control our monkey mind in order to resume our true Big Mind.
When monkey mind is always taking over the activity of Big Mind, we naturally become a
monkey. So monkey mind must have his boss, which is Big Mind.
However, when we practice zazen, it does not mean that Big Mind is controlling small
mind, but simply that when small mind becomes calm, Big Mind starts its true activity.
Most of the time in our everyday life, we are involved in the activity of small mind. That is
why we should practice zazen and be completely involved in resuming Big Mind.
A good example of our practice is a turtle, which has four legs, a head, and a tail - six parts
of his body which are sometimes outside of the shell and sometimes inside. When you want
to eat or go out, your four legs are out, but if they are always out, you will be caught by
something. In case of danger you should draw in the legs, head, and tail. This is sesshin.
For one week, our head, tail, and legs should be inside the shell. Then no one can touch
you. In the scriptures, it says even demons or devils cannot destroy you if the six parts of
our body are inside the shell. The six parts refer to the five senses and the mind.
In zazen we do not try to stop thinking or try not to hear or see anything. If something
appears in your mind, leave it. If you hear something, hear it, and just accept it. That is all.
No second activity should appear in your zazen. Sound is one activity. The second is
asking, "What is that sound? Is it a motor car or a garbage truck or something?" If you hear
a sound, that is all. You hear it. You don't make any judgment. You do not figure out what
it is. Just open your ears and hear something. Just open your eyes and see something.
Although being concentrated on something useful, calmness of mind is also necessary. So
don't intensify the activity of the five sense organs. When you are sitting for a pretty long
time, watching the same place on the wall, you may see various things. Something looks
like a river or a dragon. This may be a great way to kill time, but it is not sesshin. Just leave
your sense organs alone. That is how you free your true mind, how you open the true mind.
When you can do so in everyday life you will have a soft mind. You won't have any
preconceived ideas, and the bad habits in your way of thinking will not be overpowering.
You will have generous mind and Big Mind, and what you say will help others.
In the Zuimonki, Dogen Zenji tells a story which exemplifies this calmness of mind. He
says there was an influential person, Ichigyo Motoiye, whose sword was stolen. Since no
one else could have broken into his house, some of his men must have stolen it. The sword
was found and taken back to him, but Motoiye said, "This is not my sword, so give it back
to the one who owns it." Most people knew that the man who had the sword was the one
who had stolen it, but because Motoiye didn't accuse him of it, no one could do anything.
So nothing happened. That kind of calmness of mind is the mind we should have in Zen.
Dogen also emphasized a sparse, simple life. Without expecting anything, just practice our
way. Many students asked Dogen how it is possible to support the temple or sangha
without any plan. He said, "If it becomes difficult to support the temple, we will think about
it. But until then, it is not necessary to think about it." So before something happens, it is
not our way to think about it too much. If we have generous Big Mind and if we have a
strong spirit of practice, then there is no need to worry about anything. That is the way to
have complete calmness of your mind. Because you have something, you worry about
losing it, but if you don't have anything, there is no need to worry.
One night Dogen said, "Even if you think a teaching is complete and right, when someone
tells you a better way, you should change your understanding of the teaching." In this way,
we improve our understanding of the teaching forever. That is our way. Because you think
it is right at that time, you follow the history or rules, but you have some space in your
mind to change the idea. That is soft mind.
It is possible to change your ideas because you know what kind of monkey your thinking is.
Sometimes you may follow the monkey's suggestion, and say, "Oh yeah, that's right. If we
go that direction, we may have some food. Okay, let's go!" But when there is something
better, you may say, "Oh, monkey. Maybe it is better to go this way!" If you stick to your
greed or anger or some bad emotional state of mind, if you stick to the thinking mind, your
monkey mind, you cannot change. Your mind is not soft.
So in our practice, we rely on something great, and sit in that great space. The pain you
have in your legs or some other difficulty is happening in that big space. As long as you do
not lose the feeling that you are in the field of Buddha nature, you can sit though you have
some difficulty. When you want to escape from your difficulty, or when you try to improve
your practice in that big field, it means you have created another problem for yourself. But
if you just exist there, then you will have a chance to appreciate your surroundings, and you
can accept your self completely, without changing anything. That is our practice.
To exist in Big Mind is a kind of belief or faith, which is different from the usual faith of
believing in some concrete idea or being. This is to believe that something is supporting us
and supporting all our activities including thinking mind and emotional feelings. All these
things are supported by something big, which has no form or color. It is impossible to know
what it is, but something exists there, something, which is neither material nor spiritual.
Something like that always exists, and that is where we exist. When you feel in that way,
that is the pure feeling of being.
If you practice zazen and if you are brave enough to throw yourself into practice for seven
days, you may have a little bit of understanding that will help your rigidness, your
stubbornness. Almost all the problems we create because of our stubborn mind will vanish.
If you have even the smallest understanding of reality, your way of thinking will
completely change, and the problems you create will not be problems anymore. But it is
also true that as long as we live we will have problems. So you shouldn't practice zazen to
attain some big enlightenment, which will change your whole being. That is not right
understanding. That may be what people call "Zen," but true Zen is not like that.
In this sesshin, we will concentrate on having the real experience of true practice.
Forgetting all about gaining ideas, we will just sit here. If this room is too cold, we will
make it warm, and if your legs become painful, you can stretch them. And if it is too
difficult, you can rest, but we should continue our practice for seven days.
Last revised November 9, 2001. Copyright 2000 Berkeley Zen Center.

True Concentration
Lecture by Suzuki Roshi
This lecture is reprinted from the June 2002 Berkeley Zen Center Newsletter.
True concentration does not mean to be concentrated on only one thing. Although we say,
"Do things one by one," what we mean is difficult to explain. Without trying to concentrate
our mind on anything, we are ready to concentrate on something. For instance, if my eyes
are on one person in the zendo, it will be impossible to give my attention to others. So when
I pactice zazen, I'm not watching anybody. Then if someone moves, I can see them.
Avalokiteshvara is the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Originally portrayed as a man,
Avalokiteshvara also appears in the form of a woman. Sometimes she has one thousand
hands to help others, but if she concentrates on only one hand, the nine hundred and ninety
nine hands will be of no use.
From ancient times the main point of practice has been to have a clear, calm mind,
whatever you do. Even when you eat something good, your mind should be clear enough to
appreciate the labor of preparing the food and the effort of making the dishes, chopsticks,
bowls, and everything we use. With a serene mind we can appreciate the flavor of each
vegetable, one by one. We don't add much seasoning, so we can enjoy the virtue of each
vegetable. That is how we cook and how we eat food.
To know someone is to sense that person's flavor, what you feel from someone. Each
person has his or her own flavor, a particular personality from which many feelings appear.
To fully appreciate this personality or flavor is to have a good relationship. Then we can
really be friendly. To be friendly does not mean to cling to someone or to try to please
them, but to have a full appreciation of them.
To appreciate things and people, our minds should be calm and clear. So we practice zazen
or "just sitting" without a gaining idea. At this time you are you yourself. You settle
yourself on yourself. With this practice we have freedom, but it may be that the freedom
you mean and the freedom a Zen Buddhist means are not the same. To attain freedom we
cross our legs, keep our posture upright, and let our eyes and ears be open to everything.
This readiness or openness is important because by nature we are often apt to go to
extremes. We stick to things and lose our calmness or mirror-like mind.
Zazen practice is how we obtain this calmness and clarity of mind, but we cannot do this by
physically forcing something on ourselves or by creating some special state of mind. You
may think to have a mirror-like mind is Zen practice. It is so, but if you practice zazen in
order to attain that kind of mirror-like mind, that is not the practice we mean. It has
become, instead, the "art of Zen."
The difference between the art of Zen and true Zen is that already you have true Zen
without trying. Because you try to do something, you lose it. You are concentrating on one
hand out of one thousand hands. You lose nine hundred and ninety nine hands. That is why
we say "just sit." It does not mean to stop your mind altogether or to be concentrated
completely on your breathing, although these are a kind of help.
When you count your breath, you don't think much and you have no gaining idea. You may
become bored, because counting the breath does not mean much to you, but then you have
lost your understanding of real practice. We practice concentration or let our mind follow
our breathing so that we are not involved in some complicated practice in which we lose
ourselves attempting to accomplish something.
In the art of Zen, you try to be like a skillful Zen master who has great strength and good
practice. You say, "Oh, I want to be like him. I must try hard." When you do this, you are
learning the art of Zen, not practicing true Zen.
The art of Zen is concerned with how to draw a straight line or how to control your mind.
But Zen is for everyone, even if you cannot draw a straight line. If you can draw a line, just
draw a line, that is Zen. For a child this is natural, and even though the line is not straight, it
is beautiful. So whether or not you like the cross-legged position, or whether or not you
think you can do it, if you know what zazen really is, you can do it.
The most important thing in our practice is just to follow our schedule and to do things with
people. You may say this is group practice, but it is not. Group practice is quite different,
another kind of art. In wartime, some young people, encouraged by the militaristic mood of
Japan, recited to me this line from the Shushogi: "To understand birth and death is the main
point of practice." They said, "Even though I don't know anything about the sutra, I can die
easily at the front." That is group practice. Encouraged by trumpets, guns, and war cries, it
is quite easy to die.
That kind of practice is not our practice either. Although first of all, we practice with
people, our goal is to practice with mountains and rivers, with trees and stones, with
everything in the world, everything in the universe, and to find ourselves in this big
cosmos. When we practice in this big world we know intuitively which way to go. When
your surroundings give you a sign showing which way to go, even though you have no idea
of following a sign, you will go in the right direction. The way to practice with everything
is to have calmness of mind.
To practice our way is good, but you may be practicing with a mistaken idea. Still if you
know, "I am making a mistake, but even so I cannot help continuing practice," then there is
no need to worry. If you open your true eyes and accept the you that is involved in a wrong
idea of practice, that is real practice.
You can accept your thinking because it is already there. You cannot do anything about it.
There is no need to get rid of it. This is not a matter of right and wrong, but how to accept
frankly, with openness of mind, what you are doing. That is the most important point.
When you practice zazen you will accept the you who is thinking about something, without
trying to be free of the images you have. "Oh! Here they come." If someone is moving over
there, "Oh, he is moving." And if he stops moving, your eyes remain the same. That is how
your eyes will see when you are not watching anything special. In that way your practice
includes everything, one thing after another, and you do not lose your calmness of mind.
The extent of this practice is limitless. With this as our base, we have real freedom. When
you evaluate your self as being good or bad, right or wrong, black or white, that is
comparative value, and you lose your absolute value. When you evaluate yourself by a
limitless measure, each one of you will be settled on your real self. That is enough, even
though you think you need a better way to measure. If you understand this point, you will
know what real practice is for human beings and for everything.
Last revised July 9, 2002. Copyright 2000 Berkeley Zen Center.

Practicing Zazen
Lecture Given by Suzuki Roshi, Fall, 1968, Sokoji
This lecture is reprinted from the August and September 2001 Berkeley Zen Center
Newsletter.
Dogen Zenji said, "Don't practice your way as if you were a blind man trying to figure out
what an elephant is." The real elephant is not a plank, a rope, a fan, or a wall. A blind man
feeling an elephant may think an elephant is like a wall, or rope, or plank, but the real
elephant is not any of those.
He also says, "Don't be curious about the true dragon, like Seko." In China there was a man
named Seko, who loved dragons. All his scrolls were dragons, he designed his house like a
dragon-house, and he had many pictures of dragons. So the real dragon thought, "If I
appear in his house, he will be very pleased." So one day the real dragon appeared in his
room and Seko was very scared of it. He almost drew his sword and kill the real dragon.
The dragon cried, "Oh my!" and hurriedly escaped from Seko's room. Dogen Zenji says,
"Don't be like that."
Most of us are practicing our way like the blind man or like Seko. That is why we have to
start our practice over and over. You think you are practicing real zazen, but it may not be
so. So if you notice you haven't been practicing true zazen, you have to start practicing true
zazen again. We have to begin our zazen over and over, because we are always liable to
practice zazen like a blind man or like Seko.
There is another story, which was told by Nangaku (Nan Yueh). Rinzai belongs to
Nangaku's branch. People say there is Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen, but Dogen Zenji always
talked about Nangaku's famous story about polishing a tile. You know that story. When
Baso was practicing zazen, Nangaku, who was passing by, asked him, "What are you
doing?"
"I am practicing zazen," Baso answered.
"Why do you practice zazen?" Nangaku then asked.
"I want to attain Buddhahood."
Nangaku did not say anything, but he picked up a tile and started to polish it. Now Baso
started wondering what Nangaku was doing and asked him, "What are you doing?"
"I am making a tile into a jewel," Nangaku answered." When a cart does not go, which do
you whip, the cart or the horse?"
Dogen Zenji says that usually one would not hit the cart when the cart doesn't go. One
would hit the ox instead of the cart. But in our way, there should be a way to whip the cart
when it doesn't go. Usually when you practice zazen, almost all of you know you should
whip the ox. And to whip the ox, you practice zazen. You're giving your practice the whip
pretty hard without knowing how to whip the cart. That is actually what you are doing. That
is the usual way. But we should know that there is another way of practice: whipping the
cart instead of the ox. This is something, which as a Soto priest, it is necessary to know.
Maybe the best way is to whip the cart instead of the ox.
To whip an ox is like understanding the ox as a symbol of mind, as in the ten ox-herding
pictures. The cart means the body, and it also means the zazen form, the formal practice of
zazen. So the ox means spiritual attainment, and the cart means physical practice. Usually
we understand zazen and shikan-taza as formal practice, and koan practice as spiritual or
more mental practice. But with this kind of understanding, both practices are not complete.
This kind of understanding is the understanding of the blind man or Seko. True practice is
neither formal practice, nor so-called shikan-taza, nor koan practice. It is none of these.
Those practices are just whipping the ox. The true practice is true shikan-taza, not shikan-
taza as opposed to koan practice.
Most of those who talk about shikan-taza understand it as the Soto way and koan practice
as the Rinzai way. This is like Seko loving dragons. These ideas of Soto and Rinzai are
carved dragons not the real one. Each one of us practices zazen in our own way, with our
own understanding, and we continue that kind of practice, thinking that this is right
practice. So even though we are sitting in the zendo, we may be involved in our own
practice. In other words, carefully carving our own dragon, which is not the real one. This
is what most people are doing.
Some people may explain what zazen is philosophically, and some people may try to
express it in literature, or painting, or in a scientific way, without knowing that they are
creating their own dragon rather than seeing the real one. That is not wrong; that is all right.
But we should know that there is a true dragon that has no form or color, which is called
emptiness, and which includes koan practice, so called shikan-taza, various Hinayana ways
of practice, as well as pre-Buddhistic practice. This is the practice transmitted from Buddha
to us.
You come and practice zazen in this zendo where there should be the true dragon. But the
instant you think, "This is the true dragon," that is a mistake. Knowing that, if you come to
this zendo, you should practice zazen with other people, forgetting all about your carving or
painting. You should practice zazen with your friends, completely involved in the
atmosphere we have here. Sometimes I allow people to stick to their old way. But strictly
speaking, those who come and practice zazen here should be completely involved in the
feeling we have in this zendo, and practice our way with other people, according to my
instructions. That is what you should do.
But people who do not know what real emptiness is, what the true dragon is, may think,
"He is forcing his way on us." Or think, "Sokoji is a Soto Zen temple. But I have been
practicing the Rinzai way." But that is not true. We are practicing our way as transmitted
from Buddha to us. We are one of Buddha's disciples, and we practice zazen with Buddha,
and with those who handed the practice down to us.
If you read books by scholars, you will find various opinions about Zen literature, or Zen
thought, or what Bodhidharma's way is, or whether Bodhidharma was a historical person or
not, or what shikan-taza is, or what koan practice is. But most -- I don't say all - but most of
the teachers and scholars are talking about their own dragons. It is easy to analyze or to
compare one dragon with another, because they are carved, they are in some form already.
So you can say this is a Soto dragon or this is a Rinzai dragon. But the Soto way is not so
easy to figure out. "Looks like Rinzai, looks like Soto. Maybe it's Soto." In this way, they
write books about Zen, but what they say is not true. A dragon is very difficult to figure
out. "What is it? Is this a dragon or a snake? Looks like a snake. No good!" some scholar
may say, but true zazen sometimes looks like a snake instead of a dragon. So you cannot
say if true zazen is a great dragon or a miniature dragon. It is not possible to figure it out. If
it is possible, if it always takes the same form, it is not the true dragon.
For people who cannot be satisfied with some form or color, the true dragon is an
imaginary animal which does not exist. For them something which does not take some
particular form or color is not a true being. But for Buddhists, reality can be understood in
two ways: with form and color, and without form and color. That, according to Nangaku, is
whipping the cart instead of the ox. If someone whips a cart, people may say he is crazy.
But there is actually a transmitted way to whip the cart. To practice in a formal way, Rinzai,
Soto, or at Zen Center, is to whip the cart.
There is a phrase, ichigyo zammai, which means "one pure practice." It is usually
understood as "to be completely involved in some kind or practice." This is correct, but at
the same time that we are deeply involved in a kind of practice, we should have complete
freedom from it. Do you understand?
When you become very much attached to something, you have no freedom from it. But
because of complete freedom, it is possible for us to be involved in, or attached to
something completely. That is shikan-taza, true shikan-taza. So shikan-taza is not even a
matter of whether you practice zazen or not. Even if you do not practice our way in a cross-
legged position, if you have this point, you are actually always practicing zazen.
Dogen Zenji said, "Sickness does not destroy a person, but if he does not practice zazen,
that no-practice will destroy a person." Do you understand? You may say, "Today I cannot
practice zazen because I have a headache. If I practice zazen I shall die." But Dogen Zenji
said, "Sickness does not destroy a person, but no practice will destroy him."
Actually when Dogen Zenji was very sick, he left Eiheiji and went to Kyoto and stayed in
his disciple's home. We should know what he meant by "practice" when he said, "If you
don't practice zazen, it will destroy you." It is not easy to talk about this point, what real
practice is, because if we want to figure out what Dogen Zenji meant without having this
kind of experience, talking about this point may be completely wrong. But we can figure
out what he meant when we study the Shobogenzo. His way is something beyond formal
practice, spiritual practice, or even enlightenment. The more you try to figure it out, the
more you feel distant from your practice and from Dogen's practice. And yet, it is a practice
which we cannot escape. Actually we are practicing this way day by day, but for us, there is
no time to figure out completely what Dogen meant. Even though we human beings may
continue this way forever, we will not be able to say, "This is his way." The only thing we
can say is, "This is the way which has no end and no beginning. And from this way we
cannot escape."
Actually, all the various beings survive in this way, and everything is going in this way,
including we human beings. So there is no problem for us. But as human beings who live
this way in this world, the constant effort to keep up the way the whole universe is going,
and to practice our way, is necessary as long as this universe exists. With this feeling, with
this complete calmness of our mind, we should practice our way. Most students who have
sat for one year actually have this quality of practice. But when you try to figure out what
your practice is, you have a problem, or you create problems which do not belong to your
practice. If you just sit, there is no problem for most students. Sometimes you create
problems, and you fight with problems, that's all. You are creating them, actually. In your
zazen there is no problem.
When you practice your own personal practice, you have problems. When you just sit,
being absorbed in the feeling we have in our zendo, there is no problem at all. We should
make our effort in this way more of the time, instead of carving our own dragons. That is
how you have complete freedom from everything, including yourself. To talk about
freedom is quite easy, but to actually have it is not so easy at all. Unless you are able to
have freedom from yourself, you will never have freedom from everything. Or, if you only
have freedom from yourself, you will have complete freedom from everything.
 How we attain this freedom is our practice. You may not listen to the various instructions in
detail. The instructions will help you, of course, but only when you are ready to practice
zazen according to the way of the place where you practice, forgetting all about your old
way of practicing. I am not emphasizing the Soto way instead of the Rinzai way. But as
long as you practice at Zen Center, you should practice Zen Center's way, or else you will
be involved in personal practice. You will always be carving your own dragon, thinking,
"This is the true dragon." That is a silly mistake. You shouldn't create this kind of problem
for your practice.
As some Zen masters say, our way is like walking, step by step. This is our practice. When
you stand on one leg, you should forget the other leg. This step by step is true practice. If
you stick to the right leg or left leg, the left foot or right foot, you cannot walk. This is how
we practice our way. This is complete freedom.
Thank you very much.
Last revised September 13, 2001. Copyright 2000 Berkeley Zen Center.

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