Good afternoon. Today has been scheduled for a Zazen refresher. This is not beginner's Zazen instruction, but if you're a beginner, you don't have to leave. This is to catch up on remembering what it is that we're supposed to be doing all the things you forgot So or maybe never quite got We all need refresher every once in a while so I'm going to talk about Zazen, three aspects of Zazen. One is body, breath, number two, and the third is awareness or consciousness or we call it mind.

[01:06]

But I Mind is very complex, and in this complexity we call it consciousness. There are various levels of consciousness, which is awareness. So, body, breath, and awareness. Concentration is part of awareness. There are various levels of concentration. But I'm going to start by talking about posture. Posture is the most, is the basic aspect of Zazen. Many of us are fortunate enough to be able to sit on a cushion with our legs crossed. Not everybody can do that. So when we talk about

[02:08]

the ideal of posture, each one of us has to adjust ourself to what's possible, given our own physical limitations. So, if you have to sit in a chair, you have to figure out how to adjust the instruction to sitting in a chair. If you're lying down, you have to adjust the instruction to fit your position. But you should understand what the basic structure is, the posture. So basically, Zazen posture is the stable position. So whatever your capability is, you should find the most stable position for whatever activity you're doing. Whether you're sitting on a cushion, on a chair, or walking down the street, sitting at your desk, talking on the telephone, what kind of posture, what kind of stability are you exhibiting

[03:25]

so that you can actually do this activity, whatever it is you're doing, in the most stable way. That's Zen practice. So Zazen, when we sit in the cross-legged position, our knees are down, ideally, and so we have a triangle, our knees and our butt. basically, or on the cushion. And this is the most stable position. This is one reason why we sit this way. And it also allows us to stay awake. So stability and awakeness or awareness are the two fundamental factors. So in order to sit up straight, and balance ourselves.

[04:32]

There are various ways of crossing our legs, which I'm not going to go into. There's the lotus position, where both of our legs are crossed. There's the half lotus, where one leg is crossed. There's the quarter lotus, where you put one foot on your calf. Then there's the Burmese position, where you don't cross your legs at all, but simply overlap. Then there's the cowboy position, campfire position, where you sing songs. So I will talk a bit about that, actually. I will talk about that. Starting with that position, you should choose a position, when you begin to sit, you should choose a position which, although you may be able to get into a more extreme position, you should choose a position which is easiest for you to maintain over a long period of time. So it's not a good idea to push yourself too hard to maintain some full lotus position or half lotus position right away.

[05:41]

But simply take a position which accommodates you and make progress little by little. It may take a long time. so that you can actually sit for a long time without being too disturbed, too uncomfortable. Often, when someone assumes the position in the beginning, they see people around them. We see people around us who are sitting in more extreme positions, and we think we're supposed to do that. But we should not compare ourselves with somebody else. Your practice is your practice, given your capabilities. So when we first begin to sit, the position of the body is a yogic pose, and it's the most extreme pose. I mean, you can do other yogic poses which may be more extreme, like putting your feet behind your ears and stuff like that, but zazen is the most extreme immobile position.

[06:49]

So we're not used to doing that. The body's not used to that. So you should start out little by little, so that in order to actually be able to sit well, you have to sit pretty regularly. You can't just do it sporadically. It has to be, in order to really, I don't wanna say benefit, But in order to be able to sit well, it has to be a practice. So it's fine to sit sporadically. Sometimes we sit sporadically for a long time and then we realize, well, maybe I should just keep doing this regularly. So I usually tell people to, if you really want to sit as a practice, you put the times when you are able to do that on your calendar. And then when The time comes around, March 15th, you do that at that time.

[07:56]

You don't do something else. Because practice depends on your intention and not on your feelings. Because feelings are very fickle and they will not stand up. So intention is what allows you to have a practice. Intention means, I will do this at these times, and then I have a rhythm of practice. And without the rhythm of practice, it's pretty hard to actually have a practice. When you go to work, you have a rhythm of work. And when you get up in the morning, you drive to work or whatever it is, and you do that every day because you get paid. So if you're going to have a practice, the payoff is you have to get up and do it when it's time.

[09:01]

So that way it becomes part of your life. Otherwise, it's just some arbitrary thing that depends on your feelings. And as I say, feelings are usually swayed. So intention is important. And intention is an important part of practicing Zazen not just coming to Zazen, but maintaining a 40-minute period of practice. So the intention is, I'm going to do this for 40 minutes. I'm going to take the position and sit for 40 minutes. And no matter what happens, you do that. That's called practice. So you should take a position which is easy for you, that you can maintain for 40 minutes or if you're going to sit longer. So, it's important to sit up straight.

[10:04]

Now, we all have different problems with our back. As I said, it's a yogic position. So when you start out doing something extreme with your body that you're not used to doing, there's some discomfort. So we have to accept the discomfort. There's no way around the discomfort except to accept it. So the way to sit up straight is with our lower back pushed forward and our sternum lifted up. So when we lift our sternum, it doesn't mean pushing your chest out. It simply means sitting, lifting. Sternum is right here. And when you do that, it pulls your lower back forward. And this is where your strength is. If you don't sit like this, you lose your strength. Sit up, and you can feel the lower back push forward.

[11:06]

Your stomach is, not everybody's stomach is like this, but it is like a rubber ball. And you can feel that elasticity, which is very comfortable. Comfortable elasticity. And so you're sitting up straight, and your head is on top of your spine. Your breathing comes all the way down to your lower abdomen, what feels like your lower abdomen. Actually, it's your lungs. And when you inhale, your lower abdomen expands. When you exhale, it contracts. This is called natural breathing. Breathing which is not conditioned. So most of our activities are conditioned. We're subject to the conditions around us.

[12:11]

And our postures take their position according to the conditions that we meet. This is called conditioned activity. Zazen is letting go of all those conditions. We're no longer subject to all the conditions, even though we carry them around with us. So our postures are formed by our habits. So when we come to the zendo and sit down in the cushion, our habits are still there and our conditioning is still there. And sometimes we feel if we let go of our habitual conditioning, we're scared because we hang on to our conditioning and our habits for dear life. So to actually be able to let go is very important.

[13:18]

Then we resume our natural posture. So to sit up straight, some people say, well, this is really too extreme. This is kind of an extreme thing to do. But actually, it's just natural. It's just our natural posture. Sitting up straight is the natural posture of people. But because we're conditioned and our postures follow our thinking and our feeling, we're always doing this. Or we're very stiff. So it takes time to actually be able to find your way or your posture in Zazen. because of our usual conditioning and because when we sit, our physical body is not necessarily attuned to this particular posture. And it takes time to get used to it. And then your legs will feel like they're stretching out, your thighs and your knees will feel uncomfortable.

[14:28]

So in the process of learning how to sit, we have to be able to learn how to come apart. Come apart and still stay the same. Come apart means how to let go and not fall apart, actually. So letting go is very difficult because it's our conditioning that holds us together, usually. our way of thinking and our attachment to our feelings. So we put our hands together like this. This is called cosmic mudra. We put our left palm inside of our right palm and our thumbs making a circle and barely touching, facing each

[15:33]

and then keep our hands up against our body, not necessarily leaning on anything, and very lightly held. Our mudra is kind of like a barometer. When our thumbs start pressing against each other, we know that there's too much tension in our body. And when they start coming apart, we know that we're losing our concentration. So this tells us a lot about, this is, This tells us what's going on in our body. So we're letting the breath come and go easily through our nose. This is simplification. And our teeth are together. The tongue is against the roof of the mouth. And we simply let the breath come and go without trying to control it. If it's fast, let the rhythm be fast.

[16:36]

If it's slow, let the rhythm be slow. Just let the mind follow the breath. And when you feel tensions in your body, The tension is what holds everything together. Tenseness is what's extra. So the tension keeps everything together, but it's lightly held. The point of sitting, when we sit, is to balance body, mind, and breath. so that it's all working together harmoniously. So once we establish our posture, we can let go of all the tenseness in our upper body.

[17:39]

There doesn't need to be any tenseness at all in your upper body. The only thing that's happening is your thumbs very lightly touching each other and your move drop. your head on top of your spine, sitting up straight, lifting your sternum, and all the tenseness in your body can just fly off. So that even though the posture looks tense, it's very loose. It's like this inside. But outside, it looks like this. All the parts of our body are held together in some way, and they're all cooperating in this one act. All the bones and fingers, hairs, pores, are all cooperating to do this one act in harmony with breath and attention. So the mind wanders,

[18:45]

We want to keep our attention on simply posture and breath. But thoughts continuously bubble up. So, people think, my mind should be blank, but all this time I have nothing but thoughts. The mind is not, it says that we don't keep the mind blank. We simply let thoughts come up. We let them be there. My attention illuminates the thoughts. Satsang is called silent illumination. When a thought appears, it's illuminated. by the light of the mind, the light of concentration.

[19:51]

And then it goes away, and then another thought comes up, and it's illuminated by the mind of concentration. And then it goes away, and then another thought comes up. That's all. But we think. We're thinking. Thinking is just thinking. Thoughts are just bubbling up. The mind, or the discursive mind, the discriminating mind, needs something to attach to. Otherwise, it feels lonely. That's true. That's what loneliness is. Loneliness means that the mind has nothing to attach to. That's satisfying. So, if we were sitting Zazen totally, there's no loneliness, even though we're independent.

[21:01]

But even though we feel independent, we're totally one with the whole universe. This is what Zazen is. And so we let go, we release ourselves from the burden of discriminating mind. So even if the thoughts come up, which they will, it's the nature of the mind to produce thoughts, we simply let the thoughts come up and go. And we get carried away by a thought, so to speak, And when we realize, oh yeah, Zazen, then we let go of the thought and just come back to Zazen. So we do this 1,000 times during 40 minutes. We realize, oh yeah, Zazen, and then we let go of the thought and come back to Zazen. So this is called waking up. We dream, and then we wake up.

[22:06]

And then we dream, and then we wake up. and we realize the dream quality of our mind, and then we realize that most of the time we're dreaming, and very little of the time are we awake. So when we sit Satsang, we have the opportunity to truly be awake, which means not attached to the dreams. But then we think our life is dependent on the dreams, even though we're not really aware that they're the dreams. So a pure mind is the mind is our true mind, pure mind, which is non-discriminating.

[23:12]

We say in Buddhism, middle way. That's a kind of buzzword for Buddhism, the middle way. Well, middle way means the oneness of pure mind and deluded mind. So pure mind illuminates diluted mind. That's middle way. And within the diluted mind, diluted mind is simply an aspect of pure mind. But pure mind doesn't need diluted mind. So pure mind non-discriminating mind is the mind of awakeness, called sometimes enlightenment.

[24:18]

So I can just keep going on and on, but I would like to see what kind of questions you might have. Yes. If you could speak a little bit about the position of the head. Yes. Yeah, the position of the head, you know, when you read the manuals, it says you should hold your neck, push your chin back and stretch your neck. But that's a little extreme way of description. I would say to simply, yes, the back of your neck. And the back of your head should be in a line with your back. But don't try to pull your chin back. All you have to do is rotate your head without letting it fall forward.

[25:26]

So like, some people sit like this, looking up. Don't sit looking up. My old teacher said this is called the ego position. So you keep your head on top of your spine so that it, your head weighs, you know, 20 pounds or something. Imagine carrying a weight like that around and it's not balanced. So you keep your head on top of your spine so that the weight is not going down. And then just rotate it forward like that. And then you look down from straight ahead. Sometimes the manuals say look three feet ahead, but it's just talk, right? It's just a way of saying something. But each one of us has to adjust it to our physical disposition. But the gaze should be at least down from straight ahead.

[26:28]

Like that. And during Zazen, you keep adjusting your posture all the time. because it's always changing. There's no special, you know, you may think, well now this is the right posture, I've got it perfect. As soon as you say that, it's changing. So we have to micromanage our posture all the time. That's what you do in Zazen. That's all there is to do, is take care of your posture, keep stretching your back, take care of your posture, make sure that you're balanced, And let your mind follow your breath. Sometimes people think that Zazen is just passive. It's just passivity. There is a passive aspect and there is an active aspect. Anything we do has a passive aspect and an active aspect, if you think about it.

[27:38]

Passive aspect is to let things come. Active aspect is to do something. So sometimes we say Zazen is non-doing. But non-doing doesn't mean that you're not doing something. You can't not do, even though not doing is doing something. So we put effort into sitting up straight. When you put effort into sitting up straight, this is the active aspect. And at the same time, you're letting go. I don't want to say relax, because when I say relax, you go, oh yeah. It's like within the effort is the ease. You find the ease within the effort. When you do that in all of your activity, you don't get worn out. People usually work hard and then we rest.

[28:41]

So you have to be able to rest within the work itself. So as you're sitting up straight and putting effort into posture, at the same time, you're letting go of all the tenseness in your body. And balancing, you're balancing the effort with the ease. And so sitting up straight, you're not leaning forward, you're not leaning backward, you're not leaning to this way, and you're not leaning that way. And so this is the way, you know, in India, King Ashoka was, back in the third century or something, B.C., he was the emperor who introduced Buddhism, who accepted Buddhism. And he has a pillar, a couple of pillars that he put up.

[29:43]

And those pillars are still there because those pillars were very well balanced, very straight, and they never fell over. They're still there. Yeah, you had a question? About letting go and not falling apart. Why can you gather? And so, I guess talking about the fear and letting go, does that make sense? Yeah. Well, you know, falling apart, this is a kind of exaggeration. Sorry. Falling apart is just a kind of an exaggerated phrase that I used.

[30:45]

What it means is, what I meant by that is not clinging to anything. falling apart means not clinging to anything. See what happens. I mean, you're only sitting down, you know, you can't go very far. The Sierra is different. Being up in the mountains is... But still, when you do something with ease, it always works better. So we say to have a soft mind. Soft mind means ease in your body. It's pretty hard to have ease in your body unless you have a soft mind. So soft doesn't mean stupid. It means flexible. Flexibility is the most important thing. So with good effort and flexibility to balance those two factors, that's it. So we do that in whatever activity that we're doing.

[31:53]

Zazen teaches us. Zazen is the teacher. It teaches us everything we need to know. Fundamentally. It teaches us fundamentally everything that we need to know if we really do it over a lifetime. It teaches us what causes suffering. In Zazen, as an example of suffering. In Zazen, there's usually discomfort. In life, there's usually discomfort. So Zazen is just life. It's not something outside of our ordinary life, although it looks like it. Zazen is just ordinary life. So, what happens? When we have discomfort, we want to change it and get comfortable. That's human nature. It's the nature of everything.

[32:57]

All animals are like that too, you know. Well, we are animals. So, when we have discomfort, we change our equipment, but then we get uncomfortable again. So we're always getting comfortable, uncomfortable, comfortable, uncomfortable. In Zazen, you can't change your position. When you get uncomfortable, what do you do? So it faces us with pain is just pain. Suffering is not the same. Suffering is suffering, pain is pain. Happiness is happiness. Sometimes suffering is happiness. Sometimes pain is happiness. Sometimes happiness is pain. Sometimes. But when it comes to pain, it's only suffering when you don't like it.

[34:05]

If you think about it, as long as you don't like it, it causes you suffering. If you forget about liking and disliking, it doesn't bring up suffering. It reminds me of the relaxed mind that you were talking about earlier. Yeah. Soft mind means not falling into clinging or, you know, how to be flexible without having to move. So we adjust on the inside rather than adjusting on the outside. That's how we actually manage to sit in Zazen. And then, when that balance is just perfect, that's called enjoyment. True enjoyment.

[35:11]

We're not falling into one side or the other. Would you say something about sitting alone at home or sitting with a group of Sangha? Yes. So the question is about sitting alone and sitting with people. We're sitting all the time. If you're a Zazen student, no matter what you're doing, you're sitting Zazen. But there's something called Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Sangha means those people who support each other in practice. The way we learn something about the Dharma, the way we learn something about the Buddha, the way we learn something about the Sangha, is to sit together. So I don't care what you do outside.

[36:15]

But if you want to practice, real practice is practicing with the Sangha. Because you support other people, and people support you. This is not something you do for yourself. You can do this by yourself, it's fine. But basically, essentially, it's something that you do with other people. Because this is how we support each other, this is how we allow the Dharma to spread to other people, and invite other people to practice. So the Dharma doesn't get anywhere, it doesn't spread, unless if we're all sitting in our closet. It's not for me. I don't come here because for myself. My joy is helping other people to practice. This is called maturity in practice. So we come to the practice for various reasons, you know, whatever they are. But after we actually start practicing for a while and become mature, we realize that it's not just for me.

[37:22]

We sit and we practice to help other people. And the way we, our encouragement helps people, helps us. That's how we learn. We learn through interaction with each other. We can listen to a lecture, but through our interactions with each other is where the true dharma actually is passed on. So we can sit anywhere we want all the time, but as far as encouraging each other, we should take time to sit with each other and practice with each other. But that's how we learn. We may think we know what Zazen is, but, you know, I don't even know what Zazen is. I'm still learning what it is. We're always beginners.

[38:25]

So, Taroshi, it feels like it's easy or it's more available to us to assess our upright posture when we're sitting. cross-legged like so. Can you say a little bit about doing zazen all the time as Zen students when we're not cross-legged? So in activity, how do we assess our zazen at the risk of judging it that we're kind of aligned with the teaching when our legs are not crossed and we're not on a cushion in activity? Yeah, you used the word judging. In Zazen, we withhold judgment. We're not judging whether our practice is good or bad or whatever. It's just what we're doing. This is called shikantaza. Our practice has this nomenclature.

[39:30]

Shikantaza means just doing. Just doing. Zazen, we don't do it for some special reason. We don't do it for ourself. We don't even do it for others. We just do it for the sake of itself. That's pure activity, pure non-dualistic activity. But that pure just doing is far-reaching. We bring that into the world. Then we just stop killing each other. So we don't... analyze our practice, whether we're doing, is this Shikantaza or is this Nachika? That's just do. When you're doing something, there are two reasons for doing something. One is you want to get something done, and the other is you're just doing. So those are the two things, two aspects of any activity. We want to get something done, but at the same time, we're just doing.

[40:34]

Like, I'm going to the store to get a cube of butter. And so I'm thinking I'm going to the store, you know, and the body's moving and it's walking and so forth, but the mind is at the store. So when you're walking to the store, your body, your mind, your attention is in the walking. The store will get there. The store will come to you. Well, we think we're going to the store, but actually the store is coming to me. The sidewalk is walking me. But we think I'm walking on the sidewalk, but the sidewalk is at the same time walking me. I'm going to the store, but at the same time the store is coming to me. So all I have to do is take one step at a time. So when we take one step at a time, at the same time we're going someplace, it's where we are right now that's the most important thing. But we think going to the store and getting the butter is the most important thing. You understand? Somewhat.

[41:37]

So earlier you said, when you're sitting like this, that's not right. Come like so. So on the cushion, we have all these points that we can remind ourselves. So going to the store to get the butter, like this, like this, that's where I'm kind of curious about this off the cushion Yes, yes. So, when walking, just walk. You know, when walking, how's your posture? Pay attention to your posture all the time. Pay attention to your breath all the time. But we're busy, and so it's hard to do that. So, the more we do this, the more it becomes part of our nature. That's all. The more you practice, The more you think about practice, the less you think about desires. The more you think about practice, the more your attention goes into it.

[42:38]

And so you're, you know, oh yeah, I'm sitting. Instead of, you know, you're at the computer, da-da-da, oh yeah, sit up, you know. Just take five minutes to sit up straight. And adjust your posture. So we're adjusting our posture all the time in all of our activities. And so, you can put a phylactery on your forehead that says, mindfulness. Strap it up. Mindfulness. Yeah. So I think I just got this little thing from what you just said to Ross's question is that when I'm sitting and I've got these just riveting thoughts in my head that just keep grabbing me, and I'm just staying with them and going with them, and that the way to is sort of an interruption of that by coming back to just that little interruption of my posture or my breathing.

[43:50]

Yes, come back to your posture, because while your, while your rrrr is going on, Your posture's changing. It's very hard to get caught by something when you're really holding your posture straight, even though there's something coming up in your mind. But still, because you're holding your posture straight, there's a little space there. There's space. But if there's no space, then your posture is following the gravity. So coming back to your posture, it's coming back to zero all the time. So there's zero, and then there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. So we keep coming back to zero, and then da, [...] da. Oh yeah, zero, da, [...] oh zero. So coming back to zero is pure activity. We're just not used to it. This is the problem. There's nothing wrong with discrimination. It's just that that's all we've got, we think. in fulfilling my intention to sit is being self-conscious that I haven't had enough sleep.

[45:05]

That's the number one challenge. Number two challenge is, when I make it to my intention to start sitting, is to stay awake because I've once again caught myself in a pattern where I haven't had enough sleep. Can you say something about that? Drink a cup of coffee. I can't tell you. You know, get more sleep. So there's some things that are impossible, but making the effort is Zazen. Just making the effort. Even though you're sleeping, even though you, you know, my Zazen is no good, you know, fuck. It's okay. As long as you're doing it. As long as you're making the effort, The effort is the most important thing. It's not the result. There's no special state of mind.

[46:08]

There's no special state of mind that's the right state of mind. The right state of mind is no special state of mind. So it's every state of mind is it, like it or not. So discrimination is, I like it, I don't like it. I want it, I don't want it. So you stop discriminating and just fall asleep. It's OK. But don't judge it. Oh, shit, I slept when I should have been sitting Zazen. No. That's all. Wake up. Go home. It's OK. That was your Zazen. It's time to go, huh? And we're overflowing. Yeah, we're over. I told you I could just keep going on forever.

[46:55]

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