I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. So, this is the first day of our seven-day Sashin. And the first day tends to be a little exciting. Everything's new. We're not quite settled yet, especially in the morning.

[01:01]

The schedule seems like it's, oh, we've done that before, we've sat this much before, we can do this. So I'm preparing for this talk, I've thought about what I want to hear, what do I want to hear on the first day of Sashin? What would be helpful? I've been preoccupied for the last several months, and the word preoccupied, to occupy, we think of as meaning to be busy and doing something, and to be preoccupied is to have

[02:10]

something kind of already in mind before we do what we're doing. The word occupy means to seize, like to occupy a country or region or city, to seize something. And it's related to such words as perceive, actually, where you seize upon something with your senses. So to preoccupy is to be seized before you're doing what you're doing, to be seized by something. So it's very hard to bring your full attention and your full awareness to what is right in

[03:14]

front of you when you're preoccupied. I've been preoccupied with the fact that my parents, both of them have been very ill. Now, this theme of illness and death, illness and death, old age, sickness and death, are all part of one event, or can be part of one event. And so to be occupied and seized by these thoughts is very powerful. Now, in the last several months at Zen Center, there's been a number of deaths.

[04:18]

In fact, I've been thinking about Jerry, who was Ino last year for the August Sesshin, who passed away just a little over a hundred days ago. And also Hekizan Tom Jurado, the Ino in San Francisco, passed away less than a hundred days ago. And also Pam Chernoff, who was at Tassajar with many of us, was killed in a car accident a couple months ago. So attending these memorial services and funerals and listening to the wonderful things that people had to say about each of these Dharmic brothers and sisters, was very, well for

[05:20]

me, I felt very ashamed. And I felt ashamed because I knew these people very well, and I listened to what everyone was saying about their wonderful qualities and their virtues and their strengths, and I reflected on how often I had not seen that, how often I had seen their faults and criticized them either internally, maybe mostly, but not engaged, averted from getting into it with them about what I saw, which actually shows respect, often to engage with someone about what comes up for you. So, a Zen master, Mumon, said, if you hesitate, it's like someone watching a galloping horse

[06:34]

through a window. If you blink, it's gone before you know it. So, it feels like that, like watching a galloping horse through a window, it's gone. If you hesitate, it's gone. The word hesitate means to hold back, and it comes from the, etymologically it means to cling or to grasp, so we hold back from engaging with each other or engaging with our life because we're clinging, clinging to something, clinging to the known, and it's over before you know it, and you can't ever let them know how it was you felt.

[07:39]

And so it is with Sashin. This is the first day, and it looks like there's some interminable period of time in front of us, but before we know it, we'll be leaving, it'll be over, and if we hesitate, if we hold back, it'll be like that galloping horse, and we'll feel, gee, I missed it, I didn't put everything into it, I hesitated, I clung, I held back. So Sashin to me is a little like a descent into the netherworld, the netherworld is the world beneath, underneath is the netherworld, it's down into the dark, and we do face our own deaths during Sashin.

[08:51]

So what is it that we offer, what can we offer each other? There's no way to do Sashin if you have in mind some idea of how you're going to get through it, what you're going to rely on, what worked last time, any of those things will not hold up and there'll be problems. So to unhesitatingly throw yourself into the Sashin, doing and in this limiting yourself to exactly the Sashin, meaning just like the admonitions, follow the schedule completely. What I mean, I feel like I want to not hold back with you today, you know, often we hold back saying certain things because it may offend someone, they may not come back to the

[09:58]

Zendo if we tell them, you know, traditionally we don't wear jewelry in the Zendo or shorts or something, we don't really, there's some problem around maybe saying that to the Sunday crowd or a visitor, they may feel unwelcome or that they have to do something particular in order to study Zen or look a certain way. So for the most part we just allow people to on their own notice things or when it occurs to them to ask to talk about it, for the most part. But for you all who have come to the Sashin, I don't want to hold back. I feel like you've put your life on the line here by saying you're going to be here for these seven days in a Sashin, so I don't feel like I have to be careful in a certain

[11:05]

way that I'm going to offend you. But if you're offended, that's okay, you can tell. So when we have these admonitions, you know, follow the schedule completely. And what I feel about that is, you know, when the wake-up bell rings, you get up, you get washed, you get on your robes and you come to the Zendo without any kind of stringy holding back. This is the only way to, and it's not a strategy, this is Sashin. And if you have a strategy around it of how are you, you know, just five more minutes, you know, I'll just stand in the covers five more minutes, I can make it, I'll skip washing my feet or whatever, this will be problematic. There will be, you will feel the difficulties of Sashin arising stronger and stronger.

[12:08]

So, Norman said this morning during the first period of Zazen to follow the practices meticulously. Meticulously means, I looked it up, it has to do with, well, following the details exactly to the letter. And it's interesting, but it comes from the word fear, like periculoso in Italian or Latin, periculo, there's fear involved, there's a danger. So you have to be meticulous, because if you make one false step, you know, you fall off the cliff, or if you go over the yellow line, the double yellow, so it's dangerous to not follow things meticulously. And not only are there less problems, is it less problematical for you emotionally, physically

[13:23]

and mentally, but it expresses fully the understanding that you are already Buddha. And this is the first principle, that you already are Buddha. So if you can sit Zazen with this understanding that you already are Buddha, so why hesitate? Why cling? What is it all about to cling and hold on? And you'll miss your life like a galloping horse through the window, seen through a window. I remember one of the first sessions I sat, my roommate, I think we were both having a lot of physical pain, and she would come up during the breaks and spend a lot of time fixing her hair in different styles.

[14:23]

She wore it up, excuse me, you know, wrapped around, she braided it and tacked it up, she did it, ponytails, all these different ways. And I remember thinking, this is not going to help. This time, it's not going to help. Now sometimes to wear a new hairstyle is very refreshing, very renewing. You can get your hair cut, shave your beard, let your hair grow, wear it in braids or whatever. That can be very refreshing. But when it comes down to sitting hour after hour on your cushion, it will not help. That kind of strategy will cause problems, because you will rely on it. You know, you will think, you know, it's always helped me in the past, I've always felt really kind of ready to go when I wear my hair up or down or around. But it won't help. And it will be one more problem, you know, if you rely on something like that.

[15:28]

So it's just, it's just you and your body-mind, and this limited activity, how grateful we are for it. No cooking, no paying the bills, no talking on the telephone, no reading, no writing. It's just, you know, taking your steps, taking your place, finding your posture. And your eyes cast down, you know, we mentioned eyes cast down. Now this is not a punishment, you know, to walk around with your eyes cast down. But it expresses your understanding that there is nowhere else to look for anything, for anybody who's going to make it all right or be more interesting than your boring life. You just allow your eyes to gently stay cast down, very quiet eyes. This is very close to not adding anything to your life, limiting your activity.

[16:46]

And within the limits of that activity, you feel you have enormous space and time to take care of yourself. So with my parents, as they get sick, they have both had strokes and have lost their capacities to do what they've always done for their 80 years, you know, for the last 60, 70 years, driving and washing clothes and just the regular daily activities. But these are now very curtailed. It's down to eating and then being helped to do all the regular grooming and dressing and thinking through things like, you know, bill paying and they need lots and lots of help. So they're like little toddlers.

[17:49]

And you know, in the Tibetan teachings about death, they say there's a meditation on death. And the meditation is, this is not only Tibetan, this is in the wider Buddhist world, the meditation on death is said to be appropriate for everyone. Certain meditations don't work for certain psychological types, you know. They're really more geared or tailored for a certain kind of person, but the meditation on death is suitable for everyone. It's beneficial for everyone. And there's three parts to it. The first is that death will definitely come. And you can say to yourself, death will come, death, death, death will come. The life force will be cut off. This is bringing that right to the fore.

[18:56]

So death will definitely come. And the second part is that it is indefinite when and where and how. So we never know. We never know whether this is the last time we're going to see someone. We never know whether this is the last time we'll sit sashimi. This may be it, folks. We never know. Pam Chernoff was killed in a car accident in Colorado. No one quite knows what happened. She went off the road. Was there another car? And the third is that at the end, at your death, nothing will help you except your state of mind, your mental state. Your friends, your family, your wealth, your power, your position, even your physical body

[20:07]

will not help you at the end. It's only, the only thing that will help is your mental state. So I remember Jerry, at the end, Jerry, as you, those of you who knew him, was extremely physically confident and strong. And he was in his 60s and he still worked out, you know, regularly climbed mountains, practiced climbing mountains at various health centers that had those climbing walls. And he was very physically, his physical prowess was one of his main attributes. And at the end, we watched as that gave way, where he, you know, needed help for everything, couldn't get out of bed, and it was, you know, narrowed down to breath and his state of mind.

[21:18]

And I would say that those were thoroughly interdependent. So with my parents, you know, I see their, what they identified with all their life, who they thought they were, people of good taste, people who had traveled, people who had, you know, made it, you know, from very humble beginnings, was able to buy my mother jewelry, you know. And we were in the airport, both of them in wheelchairs, and the jewelry that had been in the safe at the bank, the bank vault, was in a carry-on piece of luggage that my sister was going to take on the plane. And my dad looked over at me and pointed to that carry-on bag and said, that's a very

[22:25]

important bag. And I nodded, mm-hmm, it's a very important bag with, and nothing in that bag can help him walk or speak clearly or, you know, help him to not pee every hour on the hour, whether there's a place to or not. But when I listened to him say, that's a very important bag, I realized how much it is that I rely on certain things to create my identity, to uphold an image or a persona, and all of it is going to be over in the blink of an eye, and will not be able to help me, doesn't

[23:31]

actually help me now, even though I think I'm under the delusion that it does. So in the Sashin, we have this unique and rare chance. I want to say this as strongly as I can. I want everyone to thoroughly, thoroughly do the Sashin. And when I say do, I don't know. There's no strategy just to take care of what you have to do. If you're a server, you completely serve. You completely offer the food with all sincerity. You know, Ed Brown gave a talk recently and said about the word sincere. It means without wax, sin, S-I-N, without, and the sere is wax.

[24:38]

And it comes from, I believe, the way he described it was making a bronze statue. And often there's little nicks in the statue, and they use wax to kind of smooth all over it and fill in all those little nicks, and then it looks really perfect, flawless. So sincere is without wax, without covering up all the little flaws and little nicks with a substance that will look spiffy. To do something with all your flaws, with your imperfections, that's sincerity. That's, to me, flawless practice, is when you include your difficulties and clumsiness, and you let it be out there, and allow someone to say something to you, be willing to drop

[25:48]

your understanding sincerely. So we have so many practices. We have just myriads, myriads of practices this week, and the orioke practice is one wonderful place where we can practice very hard and very sincerely. A lot comes up during orioke, a lot of emotional content, I guess I'd say, around food. And the seshin limits us so that we can see ourselves so much more clearly. We don't have the snack area out. We can't discharge our emotional difficulties through snacking or doing whatever it is we want when we want it. The schedule is asking us to be here during these times and to not eat in between meals.

[26:53]

So we have a chance to see this material, this unsettled material, emotional, mental material, and physical, too. We may feel kind of hungry if we're used to eating a lot or small amounts all during the day. So our orioke meals, the practice of orioke is a wonderful mirror for what's going on with us, and I wanted to read a little from Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community, which is a very, very thorough description and discussion of meal practice and receiving food and serving food. Also, you know, in the morning we say that we eat this food for the ten strengths for complete practice, this food. So I wanted to read what those ten strengths are. They're also called ten benefits.

[27:57]

So these are the ten strengths or benefits from eating the food that's offered to us. The first is healthy color, to have a healthy color in our face, usually I think of that. The second is strength. The third is longevity. The fourth is comfort. The fifth is wholesome speech. The sixth, good digestion. The seventh, preventing colds. The eighth, relieving hunger. Ninth, relieving thirst. And the tenth is suitable excretions, which, you know, you may not have thought about whether yours are suitable or not. So those are the ten strengths of the ten benefits that are in the morning meal. Okay, now, you know, we have these, we give these orioke instructions, and I think we

[29:04]

forget how old these instructions are. These rules were written in 1200s, 1246, the particular, if you think about it, we are following and being guided by these admonitions from the 1200s, and they also, these rules come from an earlier set of rules. So I just wanted to read a few things that might remind you of things you might work on during your orioke practice. Do not support your elbows on your knees when you eat. Now, I don't know if you can, all these rules come from the fact that some of this, always the admonitions come from something someone was doing or practicing and someone decided they better say something. So do not support your elbows on your knees when you eat. While eating, do not scatter your bread or rice like a chicken.

[30:05]

Now this one I think we often, I don't recall ever asking people not to scatter their food like a chicken, but this one we do say almost all the time. Do not make noise while eating with utensils or by stirring up or sipping your food. Sometimes you get your cereal with the gomasho on top and you stir, stir, stir, round and [...] get it just the consistency that you like and the color, you know, with the gomasho very nicely, evenly distributed. So, Dogen is actually saying not to make noise by stirring up. Often we don't even realize that we're making noise. The other thing about stirring is that the state of mind that one has when you're trying to get your food kind of just how you like it, to watch that and see can you receive

[31:08]

the food just how it is, how it is put in the bowl and put gomasho on top and eat it just like that without, and this has to do with meticulousness, without kind of adding anything, making it a little bit better, making it a little bit more how it used to be when you would do it yourself. Those are all to me, and I know this from personal experience, those will cause problems. That state of mind that arises when you want it just exactly perfect for you, there's problems there. So if you can practice with receiving the food as it comes and just eating it very plainly, very simply, simplify, just simplify things. To me that's actually closer to the spirit of you already are Buddha, you don't have

[32:10]

to make the gomasho spread throughout your cereal. You already have everything you need. Now this might seem like a strange point for me to be emphasizing, but I can't help it. Okay, then I wanted to read if I can find my place card. Do not take food by putting your utensils into the community food container or giving them to the server to do so. Receive food with right intention, accepting soup and rice with level bowls. So when you receive your food, you hold the bowl out level, don't have to tip it to kind of help the server. It actually doesn't help the server. It makes the opening actually, in terms of the angle of the scoop going in, it makes the opening a little smaller. So you want to hold your bowl out just level, completely level, and your level too.

[33:15]

You just sitting upright, extend and lower your bowl, keeping the bowl level. This is just a tiny detail, but this state of mind of holding the bowl level and not leaning in to help the server get it in will allow you to just remain Buddha. Let's see, well, there's lots of funny things in here, which I don't really have to go into. So I won't, but there's lots of things that you never would have thought anyone would do, but the fact that they're in here leads me to believe that somebody was doing that.

[34:18]

For example, pointing out, actually this does sometimes happen, pointing out certain things that you want that are in the serving bowl, you know, give me a little bit more, I'd like a tofu over there. They ask you not to do that, and then this, the Buddha said, do not be arrogant while eating, but eat with reverence. So this state of mind, or I'll call it a state of mind where you receive this as an offering, this is an offering to the Buddha, and the kitchen makes the pure food, they turn towards the Zen where we're all sitting and they do bows, and then the food comes out to us, and it's offered to you. So to receive that with reverence, rather than arrogance, is very important. So Dogen Zenji's disciple, Ejo, you know we say, Ehe Dogen Daisho Kogon Ejo Daisho, that

[35:37]

was his Dharma heir, and he was talking about these rules and deportment and all these details, and he said, when I heard our late Master Dogen espouse the teaching that the manners and conduct we follow now in this monastery are nothing other than the affair of Buddhas and the Buddha Dharma itself, he heard this, but nevertheless in my private thoughts I still believe that there was a true Buddha Dharma other than that. So I think that this may be common where we say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, quiet with the eating utensils, sure, sure, don't stir up your gomasyo, but I really want to hear about Buddha Dharma, I'll eat the meal and let's get on to Zazen or something like that. He says, in my private thoughts I still believe that there was a true Buddha Dharma other than that. Then he says, however recently I revised my view and now he understands that

[36:42]

the manners and dignified actions in the monastery are exactly the true Buddha Dharma. So this is why, you know, you can imagine why one would hesitate to talk with an uninitiated group about their manners and deportment. It would be too much, they may never come back, it may be too embarrassing. But to this group, which I think of as an initiated group, I want to stress that these details, the following of these details, the meticulous following of these practices is the expression of Buddha Dharma. And if you think that the Buddha Dharma you know, the real stuff is somewhere else, it will be very hard to understand the supposed real stuff, because this is a, the kitchen is leaving I think, thank you, this practice

[37:47]

is understood not intellectually alone, although intellectual understanding is important too, but it's a body understanding. And your capacities, your intellectual capacities will not, you can't rely on those for understanding Buddha Dharma. It has to be a thorough understanding through your body. The Master Muman also said, to think that you can understand Buddha Dharma intellectually only is like trying to scratch, is like having an itching foot and trying to scratch it through your shoe. Imagine that. So to thoroughly throw yourself in, I can't put it any other way, these practices, eyes cast down, bowing when passing, orioke practice,

[38:48]

coming to the Zen Do and taking your place, this is intimate practice, intimate body-mind practice, and very intimate with each other. And the word realization and intimate in Japanese is, those are synonyms in Zen Buddhist literature. Intimate and realization, the word is shinsetsu. Intimate and realization, those are together, those are synonyms. So to be most intimate with your body and mind, and when I say mind I mean your emotions, to be very intimate, to practice these practices meticulously, you become more and more and more intimate, until you see where you hesitate, where you cling, where you continue, where I continue to see the faults of others and not see virtues. So I came across this, I feel like I have a lot of questions, but I'm going to start

[40:06]

with this. I have a lot of lists here that I'm bringing up, but I saw this in a book called Buddhism Through American Women's Eyes, which is edited by Karma Lekshay Tsomo, many of you know her, and Fu has a, I found Fu's contribution to the book, which was fun to find this morning. She offered, she didn't actually mention what Zen master this was, but a Zen master said that there were five things that a Zen master should be mindful of, that can be done, or five ways to practice so you can live in the world without being in misery, and I thought this might be helpful for Sashin. Five things to understand. The first is, what has been long neglected cannot be restored immediately. So don't be in a hurry. Just allow your patient practice, be very patient with yourself during the Sashin

[41:12]

and your difficulties. What has been long neglected cannot be restored immediately. Number two, ills, ills that have been accumulating for a long time cannot be cleared away immediately. So this also points to patience and pain that will be arising or is arising right this very moment. Places where you hold tension that are habitual ways that you hold back from your experience or that you brace yourself from mental and emotional pain, holding it in your body, these things cannot be cleared away immediately. So it takes time and during these seven days you have a lot of time to work with these difficulties. Number three is one cannot enjoy oneself forever. So even if we do have some wonderful enjoyable bliss

[42:22]

state arise, or feeling like, hey, this is great, this Sashin, you can't rely on that. One cannot enjoy oneself forever. This too will fade. This is to bring up impermanence, the truth of impermanence. It doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself, but to know that it too will go away is important. Number four is human emotions cannot be just right. I think I want to ponder that one a little longer, but to me it just brings up being with other people and emotional difficulties and states where you can't calibrate it just perfectly. It's an ongoing practice. It's not going to be just right. You're never going to get it just right. So we practice. It's only practicing forever that's the just rightness

[43:28]

about it. And the last one is calamity cannot be avoided by trying to run away from it. So we never know what's going to happen. And bringing this to mind, we cannot avoid it. We cannot avoid the pain of our life. We don't seek after it or seek to run away from it, but we can't, trying to avert from it or hold back from it will not help. Calamity or pain cannot be avoided by trying to get away from it. It actually just produces more and more pain. So anyone, this is what the Zen Master says, anyone who has realized these five things can be in the world without misery. So thank you very much for your attention.

[44:39]

May our intention equally penetrate.

[44:57]

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