I hope you can hear me in the back. It's quite a ways from where I am to people in the back row. So as I get involved in my talk, my voice will get lower and lower, fainter and fainter, but I'll try to reach you. A friend of mine told me that sometimes when people want to come to Gringotts for this Sunday lecture, that they call up and they say, who's talking and what are they going to talk about? And I thought, well, that's okay, that's legitimate. So, I'd like to tell you that when I'm here and talking, my talk is just to encourage your practice.

[01:21]

So if I talk about Buddhism, it's just to encourage your practice. It's not to talk about Buddhism. talking about Buddhism is just a way of encouraging your practice. If it doesn't encourage your practice, then it doesn't mean much. If there's some Buddhism or some Dharma that's outside of ourself, it's just a waste of time. So Buddhism is yourself and myself. and how we conduct our life within the realm of reality. So what we need to look at is the realm of reality. And that means that each one of us has to look inside of ourself.

[02:27]

That's called practice. Everything else is just commentary. or a way to get us to look at ourselves. We can talk about Christianity or Judaism or Islam. It doesn't matter. The main thing is that we look for reality within ourselves and within our surroundings. Within Buddhism there are three ways of practice, three generalities or general ways to look at practice. One is through discipline, the other is through meditation, and the third is through wisdom.

[03:38]

Discipline is how we act, the form of our life, what form our life takes and how we adhere to that form and how reality is communicated or lived out through the forms of our life. And meditation is returning to the source or being immersed in the source. And wisdom has several meanings, but our understanding, it's how we understand things. And each one of the three contains the other two. So if you're concentrating on conduct, then there has to be wisdom and immersion in the source.

[05:03]

And if you're concentrating on meditation, The other two are also contained, and so forth. So, all three are necessary within practice. And you can't have one without including the others. Otherwise, our practice becomes lopsided or unbalanced. Sometimes in Zen practice, Maybe we concentrate too much on meditation. And a scholar will maybe concentrate too much on wisdom side. But conduct is always ... maybe we get too ... in conduct maybe we get too attached to forms.

[06:06]

don't know how to be skillful. If we're too attached to forms, we lose our skill in being able to enter forms as we meet them and get too bound up with how to do something. it's really necessary to balance and study all three at the same time. But today I want to ask us to all sit zazen together for a few minutes. The unifying factor in our life of practice is zazen. or meditation.

[07:09]

We say meditation, but strictly speaking, zazen is more than just meditation. Meditation has the connotation of being some means to achieve some certain state of mind. Most meditation practices are a means to attain a certain state of mind. But zazen as our practice is called, is not meditation to attain a special state of mind, although all states of mind are included in zazen. Our states of mind are constantly changing, moment by moment, second by second, faster than we can even notice. And rather than to try and achieve a special state of mind in zazen, we just accept every state of mind as it appears, as the state of reality.

[08:20]

The reality of this moment. Just to wake up to the reality of this moment. That's our zazen. Buddhism, or Buddha, the word Buddha means to be awake. And the purpose of Buddhism is to wake up to the reality of this moment. And the purpose of zazen is to actualize Buddha. So it means to be awake to this moment. Not to try to achieve a special state of mind, but just to be awake to this moment, just as it is. And to continue to keep waking up. Because as soon as we wake up, we fall asleep.

[09:31]

And then we have to continue continually wake ourselves up. So if you really can look at your own mind, you'll find that quite a bit of the time your mind is, or your consciousness, is moving somewhere, drifting somewhere. Pretty hard to stay present. So I would like to ask all of us to just spend a few minutes sitting zazen. You can sit zazen very well sitting in a chair. People who are sitting on the floor or on a cushion are already in a certain kind of position to sit, but a chair is a very good place to sit zazen. Just think of how much time we spend in chairs. You don't have to do this.

[10:42]

You can just sit any way you like. But anyway, I'm inviting you to sit sazen, in a chair or on a cushion. One way to sit well is, if you're sitting in a chair, to not lean against the back. with a chair. But if you want to lean against the back of the chair, that's fine. Sit up straight. And you can just put your hands in your lap. And just breathe through your nose, unless you have a cold, and breathe through your mouth. Just sit up straight and let your breathing be very deep.

[11:48]

See if you can let your breath go beyond your chest into what feels like your stomach or your lower abdomen. And just watch your breath. as it comes and goes in your lower abdomen. And when your mind starts drifting, just bring your attention back. Keep waking up to this. Now if your body is too tense, you can't sit well.

[14:03]

You wear yourself out. And if your body is too loose, if your effort is too flaccid, you can't sit up well. So let go of the tenseness in your shoulders. Just feel the tenseness in your shoulders draining out. or feel the tenseness in your upper back draining away. Just let it fall to the floor. In zazen we always keep our eyes open so that we don't fall asleep or fantasize.

[15:09]

Our life has two aspects. One aspect is doing. We're always doing something. Life is movement. So since life is movement, since everything is constantly moving and shifting, we have to find something to do. So we're always looking for something to do. And in our busy life, actually, we don't always need to look for something to do. We're quite often pushed along by life itself, maybe doing more than we really want to do. And the other side of life is just being. Doing and being are two sides of our life. The being side is just life itself as its own justification.

[19:18]

The doing side, we're trying to accomplish something, always trying to accomplish something. And within that realm of trying to accomplish something, we try to make an effort to justify our being, or our existence. So we want to do good works, or we want to do something that people will admire us for, or commend us for, or do something that we feel is commendable. And that our doing takes many forms and shapes. And we have a lot of conflict in our doing. We're always coming up against one ideology against the other, and one form against the other.

[20:21]

But in being, just to establish ourself on ourself, on our true self, without any justification, or without any reason, just being for the sake of being, is the other side. And that side is easy to neglect or disregard because of our effort to do. So in our effort to do, we easily neglect the allowing ourself just to be, because it's hard to imagine that just being is okay.

[21:24]

So zazen, or sitting, is based on just being, just pure being, pure existence. when we were sitting together a few minutes ago, that was just pure existence, expression. We were all expressing pure existence without any motive. No anger, no love, no desire, no rejection, just pure existence. of taking away all the coverings of our mind and our heart and allowing life to just flow freely without any partiality. So when we sit zazen, zazen is not to add something to ourself.

[22:39]

But it's just taking off the coverings, taking off the partiality or the biased ways of looking at our life and allowing life to just come forth in its purity. And when being becomes the basis of our life, then doing is based on being. When doing is based on being, then we have pure activity. When doing is just based on undoing, then it has no real foundation. And we can do all kinds of inhuman things. and justify our behavior through a rationalization.

[23:49]

So these two, doing and being, always go together. Even if we don't realize that our life is based on just being, it still is. But we don't allow being to come forth in its fullness, usually. So if I drink my glass of water, or this glass of water, this is doing. But the fact that this glass of water is being consumed consciously with awareness is just being. With appreciation and mindfulness, care, just wonderful being.

[25:04]

That was really good. So, the daily life of practice is doing based on being, based on pure existence. So we can appreciate everything we do in the realm of just being, just being alive. No need to acquire anything. Everything already belongs to us. And anything we meet on the way becomes part of our life without having to take it.

[26:10]

Everything is offered. When our life is based on pure being or pure existence, everything that comes our way is offered to us. I don't know that there's somebody offering it, It's just meeting ourself. We're always just meeting ourself. Life of just doing, without being based on being, is everything we meet is an object, or outside of ourself. But when our life is based on pure existence or just being, everything we meet is ourself. So we know how to take care of ourself. If we know how to take care of ourself, we know how to take care of everything. This is our basis of practice and basis of Buddhadharma.

[27:20]

So our practice has two aspects. One is we take care of this person, and the other is we take care of everything we meet as ourself. Sometimes people say, well, you Buddhists are always paying a lot of attention to yourself. You know, you sit in zazen a lot and kind of abstract yourself from current events. But maybe that's true. But when we take care of ourself, then we know how to take care of others. But as much as we know how to or can learn or study how to take care of ourselves, we can actually take care of others in a correct way, based on pure existence, not based on just some idea we have of partiality.

[28:49]

So for Zen students, it's necessary to study ourselves and really pay attention to what are we really doing? That's a big question, big koan. What are we really doing? And we need to be asking ourselves that all the time. What is this? What are we doing? Sometimes we say, who am I? That's also a basic koan. Who am I? Who am I is the koan of pure existence. What am I doing?

[29:55]

is the koan of activity. So there are two sides of the same koan. Who am I is, what is the limit of this person? What is this self? That's the koan of understanding what everything is. What am I doing is the koan of how we live in this world in a fundamental way. And there are two sides of the same problem. Who am I and what am I doing? Moment by moment, there's not some formula about

[30:57]

Who am I and what am I doing? It's moment by moment to understand and to act. So there's not some place that we come to where we have perfect understanding and know exactly what to do. It's endless, constant process. Like life itself, there's no beginning and no end. And our practice is this life process of no beginning and no end, but constant development within pure being. Sometimes we can call pure existence stillness. Stillness and activity are the two sides.

[32:01]

Within our activity, we have the stillness of pure existence. And we always come back to this stillness. And even in our most manic activity, there's always stillness in every action. And when we sit in zazen, there's great dynamic activity within the stillness. This is what sitting practice is. Sitting practice is tremendous dynamic activity, total activity within stillness. So you're pulling it inside out when you are active in the world, then activity is obvious, but completely immersed in stillness.

[33:08]

And when you pull it the other way, it's tremendous activity within stillness. So there are two sides. But both stillness and activity are included in both sides. And when we're just active in the world, just active. That's all. Just do what you need to do. And when sitting in zazen, just completely still. No desire to do anything else. And when these two are well balanced and in complete accord, that's called enlightened practice. Practice within enlightenment and enlightenment within practice. But no need to dwell on it or to say, I'm enlightened.

[34:21]

Just do. And when practice is completely present, with no thought of, this is enlightenment. So anyway, my talk, as I said, is to encourage us to practice Everyone can practice. It's not necessary to sit cross-legged on a cushion. You can practice zazen sitting in a chair. You can practice walking. In all of your affairs, you can practice zazen lying down. If you can't sit up, you can lie down.

[35:26]

It's easier to fall asleep that way, but possible. People do it. Anyway, Zazen is for everyone, not just some athletic Zen student. It's not a technique. It's not an athletic exercise. It's how to be totally immersed in your life based on pure existence. We don't do it for ourself only, and we don't do it for others only.

[36:28]

Our self is included and everyone else is included in our zazen. If we just do it for our self, it's not zazen. If we just do it, practice to improve our self, that's not zazen. Zazen, purpose of zazen is to realize, actualize our true self. which leaves no one else out. Just open up our mind. Thank you very much.

[37:28]

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