Good morning, everyone. Good morning. I hope everyone is okay. I haven't heard any really bad news about our sangha members. We all seem to be, you know, practicing. Last time I spoke, I talked about various aspects of practice, given the situation that we're all in. And today, I want to continue doing that. I think that my experience is that when we express something one time, people hear it, but it doesn't, you know, carry over into our life so much. So we have to say something over and over again in order for it to really penetrate our psyche and our practice.

[01:08]

So I'm going to go over some of these points again, I think. Maybe they're different points or at least remind us of how we practice during this particular time. And I also would like to have questions. I won't talk too long. And I would like to hear questions. I would rather not say, are there any questions, and then fall into a deep silence. Because I know everyone has some questions. I mean, I think they do. We do. So anyway, when I think about this, our situation, It reminds me of these two terms, Gyoji and Dokkan.

[02:11]

I talked about these a couple of years ago. Gyoji, Japanese term, Buddhist term actually, meaning continuous practice. Gyoji. Dogen talks about Gyoji a lot. And Suzuki, she talks about it a lot without mentioning the name. And Dokkan is like a ring, the ring of the Wei. And it's sometimes called Wei ring. I mean, the aspects of Piochi, the actual, rhythm of our practice, which is continuous. So to set up the rhythm is so important. I easily lose the rhythm. I always think of everything as practice anyway.

[03:12]

I always keep my attention on my breath. And when my mind gets kind of loose, I come back to breathing. And breathing is always Deep breathing, abdominal breathing, is always in the background of my actions. I really, deeply breathing, meaning full breath, which goes beyond your chest and into your lower abdomen. It feels like your abdomen, but actually it's the bottom of your lung. so that you have a full breath. Always. People say, well, I don't know if I can do that always. I can do it sometimes. But actually, always. That's a basis of continuous practice.

[04:12]

You know, in zazen, we prime our We come in from our busy life and sit down, and in our busy life, we're not so aware of our breathing, where our breath extends to, and where the bottom of the breath is. It's the rising and falling of your lower abdomen. That's why it feels like it's there. it's really wrong but you feel when you inhale your abdomen expands and when you exhale it contracts. And when I say timing, if your mind is very busy and you feel some anxiety and we're caught up in our mental constructions

[05:19]

to stop and prime our breath by taking a big breath like this. When you take the breath, it's like a tire. Your waist is like a tire. There's a tire around your waist. You take the breath and the tire expands. It's more like an inner tube. and it expands and you fill your lungs and then you let all the breath out and your front your tummy and your backbone meet so that all the breath is expressed out and then another bit in and out and do that three times and just probably

[06:20]

through your head. That settled your body, settled your mind, settled your emotions and your feelings. And then you start again. So taking these pauses is really important. But if you, you know, I learned how to do this through the pain of zazen. This is why I always like, I think everybody needs to go through that painful rite of passage of painful legs. Because during Sashin's, back in the 60s and 70s, I had so much pain, you know. I've been through all the difficulties that everybody's been through. It's not like people look at me and say, oh, you never had any problems. jump off the top of the bus.

[07:25]

But that's not true. I went through lots and lots of difficulty and pain. And what saved me was breath. God didn't work. Buddha didn't work. Calling on all the varities doesn't work. It just makes things worse. The only thing that worked, that carried me through and worked, was breathing. one breath at a time you can't you can't stay you get to the point where you can't stay and you can't leave that's that's the koan of dozen you can't stay and you can't leave what do you do so i was forced to one breath at a time my whole body mind was focused on each breath and that each breath covered the whole world and Uh, then, um, eventually I got to the point where, um, I didn't need to, um, be caught by the pain.

[08:36]

Instead of fighting the pain or whatever can simply, uh, merge into it so that it's no longer what you think it is. This is the secret. of our practice is to be one with our activity not to fight it or try to escape from difficulties this is how we learn not to escape from difficulties but how to open to the difficulty so there's no longer a problem and i can't tell you how to do that but each one of us has to find out how to do that ourselves so i can remember My teacher, Suzuki Roshi, saying, just be one. Difficulty, just be one. How do I do that? How do I do that? And then suddenly, it all opened up.

[09:36]

I remember running back to Zendo and bowing down to my teacher. That's what I felt I wanted to do. I didn't actually do that. I did it in my mind. So practice becomes easier and easier. I don't have pain in my legs. I mean, what other people would think of as pain in their legs, I know. But to me, it's not pain or anything. It's just some sensation that I have. I don't hold on to it. I remember Suzuki Roshi talking about when you're up in a tree and you fall from the tree, we should have the presence of mind to be able to find the branch.

[10:46]

So how we maintain our presence of mind through every situation and not get caught is really important. This is called freedom, cohort freedom. So when I sit down for Zazen, you know, a little stiffness in the beginning, and then there's a little tingling in my But I just open up to it. I do not grab onto anything. It has you. Whenever we pick up, I have this cup, but actually this cup has me as well. So how do I, you know, how do i become one with the cup so that there's no there's no space there's no distance even though there is distance you know like 10 inches that's not the distance i'm talking about there's no separation the cup is the cup i'm me but

[12:20]

I am the cup and the cup is me and the cup is telling me how to hold it so that it doesn't drop. So everything is communicating with me. Everything I pick up or touch is saying something to me about how to relate to it. So the pain in the legs is telling you how to relate to it. If you don't listen, it wins. takes you over. So each one of us is teaching each one of us how to act together. When I'm relating to you, you're teaching me how to relate to you. And I have to pick up how to do that. It's not like I just have some idea in my mind about who you are. I just forget about who you are. I just have my mind totally open. When we have dokusan, my mind is totally open.

[13:25]

I'm not thinking, oh, this is so-and-so, and they're like this, and I know what to expect. I think all expectations are out the window. You know, I've been editing Suzuki Roshi's lectures for a new book. and as i go through them they're all saying the same thing all of the talks don't be selfish that's his whole message don't be selfish and to approach each thing as if you have no idea what it is so that you can actually see what it is He talks about wabi and sabi, which means something like various things to various people.

[14:35]

I don't want to explain it because I don't understand it that well. But for him, wabi and sabi means just letting go of all your ideas. And when you see a drop of water, on a branch of a tree. You can see it just as it is. And it contains the whole universe. So we can actually enjoy our difficulty. That's the key. Everything is a challenge. I remember Master Hua back there in the 50s, 60s, a Chinese master who used to visit him once in a while, me and my friends. And his saying was, one of the things that I remember him saying was, everything is a test to see what you will do.

[15:47]

That's practice. Everything is a test to see what you will do. If you see that as practice, then you're not stuck somewhere. How do I deal with this test instead of, oh my God, the sky is falling. Sky is falling. How do we just let it fall? Let it do its thing. And how do we dance with it? And someone, I remember seeing a bumper sticker, it's the ones that said, instead of putting on your raincoat, just take off your clothes and dance in the rain. That's pretty difficult, but you get the picture. Anyway, I wrote a bunch of notes last night, and that was,

[16:53]

the beginning of what I was talking about. Kiyo-ji and Dokkan. Continuous practice. So what Shibuki Yoshi was talking about always, and that this is always one of the main themes of his talks, is practice is simply your life. How do you live your life without being caught by it. You know, we always talk about freedom. The United States is the land of the free. You have to earn it. The whole world is the land of the free. But not by legislation. Legislation won't do it. Actually, our country has been taken over by the fascists again.

[17:58]

Ronald Reagan started it. Ronald Reagan and Aide Rand, as you may remember, when selfishness is virtue. And that whole idea has been building up ever since until we get Mr. Trump. the paragon of Sophis Ritchie and all those people who want to follow in their footsteps. So I'm, again, I also had a thought about, you know, How difficult it is, all the stores are closed. You know, you want a pair of socks, you know, the kind of socks you like.

[19:02]

Where do you go, you know? So there's a kind of deprivation. But when I think of the deprivation, I think of the refugees all over the world. This is unpredictable. There would be, in the 21st century, would be migrations, enormous migrations. And that's what's happening right now. And the heroics, the real heroics are among the refugees. You know, we have a hard time getting toilet paper. There's a big complaint about, you know, where's the toilet paper? But if you're a refugee, Where's toilet paper? You're a refugee, where's the food? Where's the bedding? How do you take care of your kids? And a long march. It's like incredible, totally incredible.

[20:07]

And all the resistance. Everybody protecting their space from invasion of refugees. The real people, the people who benefit the most, of course, are the wealthy. I don't want to go into politics, but life is political, so you can't help it. But those who make the biggest profits are the arms manufacturers. arms manufacturer of people who go in and turn, divide countries and societies against each other and then supply the guns and ammunition that they all use against each other.

[21:15]

It's always been us. During the Civil War, they're all these war profiteers who made munitions so that themselves and others could continue fighting and killing each other. And they all needed their weapons. So, you know, someone in a jungle someplace, was brought up in a jungle someplace, and there's hand to mouth. somehow gets an expensive firearm. Why did that work? Who pays for that? Anyway, so the world is really in a chaotic place today and how we maintain our equilibrium, how we maintain our practice, how we maintain our state of mind in all this

[22:20]

chaos is called our practice how to remain upright how to remain a stable and balanced and not get you know caught by too much by our emotions like i have raging emotions which pass through me constantly constantly raging emotions against the way things are against this one and that one but I'm always grounded in my practice and I know I have what I have to do and I know that I can't um I can influence my surroundings which I do but um uh the world goes on as it goes And you put out a fire over here, and then the fire starts over here.

[23:26]

And then you go over here to put out this fire, and the fire starts over here. So there are always fires. They're always going on. And you can't put them all out. And if you despair, you go crazy. So just taking care of our own world, our own surroundings. as a big effect on the world. If we lose our composure, we fall into a trap. So how to maintain our composure is our practice. You know, we have to let all of this chaos go through us and not let it stop in us. So we're always, you know, dealing with this day and night. So it's time to wash the dishes, time to make your dinner, time to go to sleep, time to leave your job, time to whatever.

[24:36]

And that we have to find our rhythm and not fall into despair. Because the world has always been like this. It's not like just now, This has happened. It's always been happening. If you look back in history, and look at the ancestors, in Dogen's time, it was chaotic in Japan. Villages were being, you know, villages were being burned, and robbers were on the highway, and it's always been like this, in one respect or another. The problem is, we are unaware have been until the 20th century. We didn't know what was going on in other parts of the world, but it's always been going on in other parts of the world. In any case, Khan came and, you know, reordered the world.

[25:44]

So the ancestors have given us this practice. This is the way to negotiate through the world of chaos, through the Saha world, the world of suffering. Shakyamuni Buddha said, my only, the only thing I'm teaching is suffering and how to deal with it. Sometimes called the end of suffering. But the end of suffering doesn't mean that suffering is over. It means you know how to deal with suffering. You know that suffering is not something that well then you will that overtake you. There's pain and then there's suffering. Pain is pain and suffering is when you don't want it or when you don't want it. But suffering, pain is just pain. This is the secret of love then. Pain is just pain.

[26:46]

It's just a sensation. We have these sensations. And when we try to escape from them, we suffer. So, instead of trying to escape, to enter into. Be one with. That's what be one with means. Or one being and be one with. No non-existence. Just let you be. and be with them, whether we like it or don't like it. So, this wabi-sabi, it means beyond emotion, beyond feeling, beyond intellect, just to experience something as it really is.

[27:51]

but things as it is. You think you understand things as it is, but until you know how to drop everything, you don't. So dropping everything means to be one with everything. To separate ourselves through emotion, feeling, and thought is called separation. Unfortunately, that's our life plan. We have to do that. This is the dualistic world, and we have to live it. But we also have to, in order to be free from the suffering of this world, we have to be able to let go of it. At the same time that we are engaged with it. I wrote down all these things, I never followed what I wrote down.

[28:56]

So our present situation is full of pain and suffering for so many people. So in a way, you know, I feel a little bit guilty because I don't have any of that. But somehow, you know, I can go about my business. I can create my own rhythm. I don't have to worry about where the next meal is coming from. We are so blessed here. You know, our little inconvenience called the pandemic is nothing compared to what most people in the world are going through. So anyway, if you have any questions, if you have a question, please feel free to, I mean I don't know if I can hear you to tell the truth.

[30:11]

while we're adjusting the volume. Okay. It was my microphone was a little bit down. So Jen, so maybe other people's microphones will be good too. Please feel free to raise a hand in under participants. You can raise a hand or a glass or something, and I will call on you just like Ellen Webb did. Remember to lower your hand after you've been called on. and also mute and unmute yourself if you can go through that ritual. And again, as Soju would like, and as I would like, please ask a question. Do not be afraid, even though this medium is weird. Or you can type a question, and I will read that question. So first, Ellen, could you lower your hand and unmute yourself and ask a question? Oh. I can't hear you. OK, can you hear me now? Yes, yes. Okay, so when you talk about, kind of relating to pain or emotion, is that, can you say what, dropping body and mind, how that connects to that?

[31:31]

Yeah, that's it. That's my question, you answered it. That's it, you know. Like, my wife is always criticizing me, You know, and then she'll say something, you know, kind of a little jab. And I think, oh, no, [...] no. And then I think, you know, that's just the way she is. You know, I don't want to retaliate. Retaliation creates problems. So I think, well, maybe she's right, you know. And then I think, what am I doing? to create the situation for her to do that, instead of she just doing something, right? But there's something I'm doing that initiates the problem that causes her to say something. So where's my part in all this?

[32:34]

So that neutralizes the situation. I don't have to get caught with my reaction, but I'm trying to understand why that what I'm saying actually goes around and comes back to me. But I don't see how that happens. I just react to the face instead of reacting to the travel of the problem. So if we make an effort to see how what comes to us, how we create the environment for that to happen, it really eases the situation a lot. And instead of blaming somebody, I can look at my own causation, my own actions which create that which comes to me.

[33:38]

Could I ask a follow-up question? When you say dropping body, it sounds so dualistic to me. It sounds so like two things. What are the two things? Me and my body. Yeah, I like that. Well, because we think of ourselves as our body, You know, if we take it literally, then we have a problem. In Zen parlance, you have to not take things literally. You can't take any spoken words literally. So when we say, body my moment, does that really mean body? It doesn't mean, you know, my arms and legs. It means my embodiment. my presence my uh uh it could be my spiritual body it could be my physical body it could be my um uh imaginative body so drop body and mind it's a good koan everything is a you know in dougan's understanding dougan said

[35:09]

our practice is called genjo koan. Genjo means the koan of everyday life. The koan that is presented to us moment by moment as we live our life. So dropping body and mind, it means like letting go of our preoccupation with ourself. That's what it means. Thank you. Next up, Ben, I invite you to, and then we'll go Kurt and Joel. So next, Ben, turn up, yes, lower your hand and unmute yourself. All right, can you hear me okay? Yes. Sojiroshi, thank you for your talk. You were mentioning how much of the work that you're editing of Suzuki Roshi's is about don't be selfish.

[36:12]

And what that made me think of is that how do we not be selfish or how does one not be selfish when you're in some sort of emotional distress? You talked a little bit about despair. I know from working for a psychology publisher, some of the, one or two of the books we've done, there's studies that show when people feel unsafe or unwell mentally, it narrows your ability to feel for others, connect with others, and it actually increases your self-focus, right? And I think I've at times experienced a little bit of that. So I wonder if you can speak of how to, how to deal with that, how to escape that narrowing of self that can happen when you feel like you're in trouble? Well, you know, it would be good to have an example.

[37:27]

Can you think of some example? Because otherwise it's kind of abstractness. I'm trying to land on an example. Maybe this is a minor one, but maybe it will work. Just, hmm. I don't know if this quite lands on it, but I've found since the lockdown, just a little rising of my, a little narrowing of my patience, shortening of my patience, and a little rising of sort of grouchiness with my wife around the house. You know, we're both working from home in a small apartment, and I can observe how I seem to be more strongly self-focused by default. So, and I don't, I try not to stay there, but I can feel the impulse to, or it sort of feels like a narrowing of vision or a narrowing of feeling, um, where I feel more stuck inside my own, uh, preferences and default positions, if that makes sense.

[38:48]

Yes. Well, that's good. You know, just recognizing that it's the beginning and then realizing that, why is that happening? Or, how can I broaden my mind? You know, when we're confined, I don't know if you've ever saw the Japanese movie, Woman in the Dunes, where these two people are trapped in a sand box. and there's no way to get out because as they start to climb out of the sandbox, the sand just keeps sliding back and there's no way to get out. So this is the great koan. So when you have that feeling, just how do I deal with this koan?

[39:52]

This is my koan. Realize that. You're given the koan. It's just a gift koan. Instead of feeling trapped, you should feel that this is a gift koan for me. How do I deal with this? So you have a way to go. How do I actually let go of my self-centeredness? How can I let go of my self-centeredness and allow my mind to broaden to the situation? So actually, we don't like being confined. Confinement is how we actually learn something. Without confinement, you don't learn anything. This is why our practice, you know, zazen is the greatest confinement. You're just totally a pretzel. And how do you find your freedom within this confinement?

[41:01]

We all have this gift of confinement. And if you see it as a trap, you get caught. That's called getting caught by it. So to drop body and mind. It's like to let go of your confinement. Your confinement is simply in your mind. You know, it's not the walls that are keeping you confined, it's your mind that's keeping you confined. And when we let go of the feeling that we're confined, we find our freedom. So, it's good that these things are coming out. You know, when you are training a dog, back to dog, when you're training a dog, you want the dog to make mistakes so that you can train him. If the dog is not making mistakes, you can't train him. If he's not doing something that you don't want him to do, you can't train him.

[42:04]

So you want him to do those things so that you can train him not to do those things. So everything is an opportunity. This is what practice is. Dropping body and mind means that everything is an opportunity. instead of seeing it as a hindrance. Hindrances are opportunities. I know it's hard. You don't like it. Next up, please, Kurt, I invite you to lower your hand and unmute yourself. And there are many questions and our time is closing. So please, let's keep our questions brief. Hello, Sojiroshi, can you hear me? Yes. Oh, okay, great.

[43:05]

Thank you for the talk. As you were talking about being present in your life with your experience, came up for me that when I am present and sort of intimate with my experience, the thing that I noticed that sometimes separates me or pulls me back from the world is my desire for things to be different or to be better or to want or of fear, and you talked about entering into things. Should I try to enter into my desire? Is that also being intimate? Being intimate? Desire is not good or bad, you know. What? Desire is just desire. Uh-huh. Without desire, well, desire is a motivational tool, that desire is fire. Hmm. Yeah, desire is fire.

[44:07]

And so desire can be used in all kinds of ways. It can be used in an altruistic way. It can be used in a selfish way. It can be used. It's up to you how you want to deal with it or how you want to use it instead of it using you. When you are using desire, you are, um, uh, uh, um, It becomes a tool for whatever you want it to be. When you're being used by desire, then you are captivated. So usually when we talk about desire, we talk about it as being captivated by it. It's manipulating you. But of course it's just you manipulating yourself. So how to use desire The way we use desire, for instance, is called putting your effort into practice.

[45:10]

That's desire being used to further your practice of letting go of desire. You know, Buddhist practice is actually suicide. It's not really suicide. But it's like you're not killing your ego, but by controlling your ego. So how we use our ego instead of our ego using us. So who's in control? Who's the master? That's a big koan. That's a regulation koan. Who is the master or the mistress or whatever? Who's in charge? Is your ego in charge? Is your desire in charge? Or what?

[46:13]

Who's in charge? Thank you. Sojin Roshi, we have a question from Kabir that's written down. He says, how can we remember to bring our attention to our breath in the storm of emotions? Well, you know, Breath just goes on whether we like it or not. And so, we have to have some discipline. And the discipline, if you say, I don't think about it. It's just there.

[47:14]

Sometimes it's in the foreground and sometimes it's in the background. When I'm busy doing stuff, it's in the background. And when I'm not busy doing stuff, it's in the foreground. So whether it's in the foreground or the background, it's moment by moment. It's just there. We are being breathed. We're not breathing. and it's not a function of our will. We are being breathed, rather than I am breathing. So if the universe is breathing me, and if I want to touch the universe consciously, just come back to the breath. The breath is the universe which is informing you of itself. and saying, I am you through breath. It's so wonderful.

[48:14]

Why not? I mean, we should be thinking about it all the time. It's the most wonderful thing that we have is our breath. We don't have to think or emote or anything. It's just that this is, and because it's so obvious, we miss it. Truth is so obvious that we miss it. Reality is so obvious that we miss it. So enjoying our breath is life, is universal life. We sometimes don't realize that we are cosmic beings. That sounds like spaceships and stuff. No, we're cosmic beings. The whole cosmos is breathing me. Isn't that wonderful? How do we tap into the universe? Through our breath. One final question.

[49:19]

I invite you, Joel, to lower your hand and unmute yourself and ask the final question. Hi, can you hear me? Yeah, sort of. Hi, Sajan Rishi. You were talking about the rhythm of practice. And right now, with the situation, I find that I've gotten myself into this wonderful thing and I'm working on negotiating the new rhythm because with all the Zoom stuff, whereas before all this, here in Santa Barbara, I go Sunday morning and I do my daily practice. And now I have, I was counting five different Zen Zoom things. all of which are wonderful and, um, trying to do Tai Chi, which is wonderful.

[50:23]

Um, and of course I'm doing my music, which is wonderful, but there's definitely, there's definitely, um, you know, attention, um, that happens because, well, it happens. Well, you'll tell me, uh, because, I want to compose and it's going really well. And then I have a Zen thing. And so I do the Zen thing and the Zen thing is wonderful, but there's the transition is a tense thing. And my mind goes fast during that time. Uh, so any help you can give me, that would be great. Well, Um, don't be greedy. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. That sounds like good advice to me. You're welcome.

[51:26]

Thank you. Good to see you, man. All right. So, um, so Jim, that's it with your final remark. Final remark. What's your name, has a hand up. Yes. Okay. Um, uh, Linda, is that it? Is that we feel free to call on somebody. Carol. Paul has her hand up. Okay. Carol. No. Oh, I thought you were waving. Okay. Okay. My, my, my party, my party word is, um, uh, uh, You know, given our separation and our inability to be in the zendo and all that, when I'm practicing with myself in my space, I am always practicing with you at the same time.

[52:44]

And if we all realize that we're practicing with each other, even though we're separated, That works. I don't, you know, I don't need to tune in when everybody's sitting with Aza and all that. Just realizing that my practice is harmonizing with your practice is enough. Without even knowing what you're doing, exactly. But I know that we're all making a big effort to practice, given our situation, and that our koan is right there in our hermitage. moment by moment. Jinjo koan, practice of everyday life as each moment arises, each situation arises, koan. The koan being, how do we harmonize the cosmos with our daily, with washing the dishes,

[53:51]

Thank you very much. We will do the bodhisattva vows one time through. Please use your eyes and ears to be in harmony with everybody. Gary. Thank you for conducting this. I vow to awaken this man. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.

[55:00]

Buddha's way is so profound, Okay, next time we'll say we'll pick out somebody to follow up. Take care. Thank you. OK, we have before we go, ladies, we haven't. We missed them, but we were off and on. But there are some announcements that you could all mute and I'll mute you all. Mute all. OK. And I have a few announcements before we go. So let me get to those. You can hear me good. So these are the announcements.

[56:04]

First, new announcements and then the regular announcements that we usually make. Vice Abbott, Hozon, Sanaki, and senior students are offering individual practice this discussion. See the website under About VCC for how to make an appointment. Next, the speaker this coming Saturday will be Judy Fleischman, who is on with us now. And next announcement, we continue to offer Zazen weekday mornings at 7.30 and evenings at 5.40. Our next All Sangha meeting will be a week from tomorrow at 7pm. And then the recurring announcements, there's daily Zazen. BZC is supported by our dues and donations to support BZC by making a donation please visit our website or yes, visit our website.

[57:05]

For information and links to our online programs, please visit berkeleyzencenter.org. And now we will unmute everybody and have a minute. Yes. I'm thinking of having a kind of Zoom group Dōkasan. So instead of like a Dōkasan one-on-one to have maybe 10 people or something, and it's an open Dōkasan. People, you know, each one asks some questions, kind of like, a little bit like Shōsan maybe, but informal, right? So I'm thinking about doing that.

[57:52]

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