Last night, Les talked about our zazen posture and our preparation for zazen, getting ready for zazen, beginning zazen even before we reach the zendo. He talked about our practice with many interesting observations from his own practice. And I want to continue talking about preparation. In some schools of Buddhism, you don't start doing zazen until you've gone through many stages of preparation. In Zen, we start zazen right away, but still

[01:04]

the stages of preparation have to be gone through. Maybe most fundamentally, the six paramitas have a particular order, which are giving and morality and energy. Now, giving, morality, patience and energy and jhana or samadhi or zazen and prajna or wisdom. First, you practice giving and treating everyone as if they were yourself. And if you can do that, then you can practice morality, counteracting your entangling desires. And

[02:24]

you can practice patience. And from this, you'll get the kind of energy, not the usual energy you need, but the kind of energy we need for Zen practice, an energy that has to be accessible to us and useful when we want it. As Mumon Roshi could be here and be quite awake until he left and he was able to sleep. You should be able to sleep when you want to sleep and be awake when you want to be awake. That kind of energy is necessary for samadhi or jhana, real zazen practice. And the fruit of that is wisdom and altogether,

[03:25]

all of those are compassion. When we speak about preparation in Buddhism, often included are you have to have fresh air. I think when they wrote that years ago, they didn't know how true it would be today. So I think to establish our practice, we maybe need to have fresh air. Actually, you should be willing to breathe the air everyone else breathes, but it's nice to have fresh air and clean water. And you are supposed to have an auspicious

[04:26]

place to practice, a recognized good place for practice, and the Tassajara is quite well often recognized as an auspicious place to practice. And it's good to have a good example of preparation, a good example of practice. And we had Muhammad Yamada Roshi come here as a good example of practice. We've been extremely lucky this practice period because we had both Dr. Abe and Muhammad Roshi come and practice with us. We weren't together

[05:41]

as consistently as I would have liked to have been, but having Muhammad Roshi and Dr. Abe here more than makes up for that. Dr. Abe is probably the best Zen scholar who also practices completely, that exists. And Muhammad Roshi, as you know, is a wonderful teacher. It's wonderful they think our practice is worth coming to join, and both of them wanting to come back to practice with us. I hope when they come back we're ready for them. So, you can divide practice. You know, you're trying to develop the ability to practice,

[07:01]

and at first you don't know how to practice or what practice is. So naturally enough you can only start with what you know. So it's important to know, you know. We know certain things for sure. One is we should know our own death will find us, and we have this lifetime. And you should know your own nature, and you should try to balance your nature. So if you're an angry person you should try to find some way to counteract your anger. If you tend to be lonely

[08:11]

or separatist you should try to move with other people more. And if you can't seem to stop your tongue and lips from moving you should try to talk, be silent more, talk less. If you're caught by every small desire you should practice detachment. Anyway, it's essential to balance your nature. And balancing your nature, it's then necessary to establish some habits or

[09:13]

continuity in your life, the ability to stay with things. Even if you don't know what practice is, you can establish some good habits of staying with one place, staying with one group of people, staying with one situation in your life, staying with one practice, and mining that situation. We don't get anywhere by sightseeing. Sightseeing practice is useless. And although we should develop continuity, we shouldn't linger with things. We should be able to make decisions.

[10:15]

We should be able to know, this is enough, just enough. So although you should be able to stay with things, it means also you should be able to let go of what's not necessary. Drop useless conversations or arguments. Eat, you know, not too much. It comes to mind, my daughter, when she was quite young, would discover something was

[11:23]

funny that she'd say. It took her a long time to realize that it wouldn't be funny the second time. And she'd repeat some situation, she'd set up a situation, try to say the same thing again. It was interesting how long it took her to realize that once is enough. She didn't have to linger on it, forcing her into something new. It's so easy to stay with what we know and we should not practice in some topsy-turvy way, practice our own views, too dependent on our own experience as the source of the teaching. There should be more doubt than

[12:25]

that. And so it means you should practice according to sutras and according to a teacher. So in these stages, when you don't know how to practice, you develop habits and the ability to let go. In small things, the ability to let go will develop finally, the ability to let go of everything. But if you don't develop it at the stages of preparation, it's silly. There's no big miracle going to happen. Once you have a teacher and have some habits and can let go of things and can take care of yourself. Treating everything as yourself

[13:41]

is really important. At the Green Ghats, we're making the new zendo as if it were our own body. And that's the meaning of the Sampachi ceremony, not just to make things clean, but to treat everything as if it were our own body. And we should take care of our own body. So after you know more what to do in your practice, you should know when the time is right to do something. Not too late or too soon, but you should develop the ability to just write as we say, you know, write on. You should begin to be sensitive to situations you're

[14:44]

in, so you know how to be right on them. Your pace, your own existence should be moved completely with the pace of situations. Without much effort, not thinking afterwards, I should have done that. Right at the time, doing it. And you should also be able to recognize what to do. In this way, you'll begin to make some progress in your practice, but at the same time, it's important, as part of your preparation, not to be satisfied with progress. Okay, but is maybe the best way. Okay, but. And we shouldn't be too quick to cast off

[15:52]

the yoke of our practice and wander about in the sense world, deluding ourselves that this is practice. When everything is, when you can practice real equanimity, then it doesn't make any difference. All this leads up, you know, to one thing, which is to make the real resolve to practice. Everything turns around your resolve to practice. Bhuman Roshi gave me a fan the other day, and he had written on it,

[17:19]

the clear wind is in your own hand. And you have to make up your own resolve to practice. Out of this resolve, your meditation practice comes most deeply. So, we try to sit in Zazen posture as the most comfortable, stable posture. And it's

[18:24]

less said, some kinds of exercises are useful. I think, without having some idea of specific yoga exercises, it's important just to move all your parts. You have fingers and arms and legs, and if you just shake them, move them in ways they don't usually move. You get in the habit of moving certain ways throughout the day. You should move in ways that counteract your habits, helps your energy flow in your practice. Anyway, you should be able to sit with some fresh, clear feeling, even though we do the same thing over and over again, or Zazen. You shouldn't be bowing or practicing through a kind of haze of mild resistance,

[19:25]

going along with it. It should be each time completely fresh and easy, as if you had nothing else in the whole world to do. Anyway, beginning to practice Zazen, you turn your thoughts inward, and you begin to be able to hold your thoughts inward. And finally, you experience outward phenomena as inward. What you see is in your own mind. What you

[20:36]

feel is in your own mind, body. Subjectivity and objectivity are not experienced in the same way. Then you begin to practice what seems, the only way to translate it, is silence, but some big silence. Your experience rests in silence, not in forms. And that silence becomes deeper and deeper and very clear. At first, that silence is maybe sleepy. Without

[21:44]

form to distract us, we tend to fall asleep. Finally, there is some clearness or consciousness, even when we're sleeping. And out of this comes equanimity, the ability to be responsive, and yet the same in every situation. Not exactly the same, I don't know. Not exactly different.

[22:45]

You've all noticed that the word spiritual means breathing. I think, right? Inspiration and expiration. Anyway, spirit and breath are the same. And in this Sashin, what I'd like us to do is to notice carefully how our consciousness arises. When you have that you consciousness that remembers just what you just did, and

[24:13]

when you have that, some thinking activity is going on but you don't remember when it started. How do you get caught in that? I'd like you to become more able to see it when it arises, go back over it. How did that come about? So that you can be there when your mind gets involved. And just notice when your breathing is fuel and when it's consciousness itself. You know, as he said last night, a monk who practices Zazen for a long time maybe breathes only a few breaths per minute. But most of you, I think, will find that your

[25:20]

breathing is probably slower when you do Kinhin. So when you're walking your breathing may be quite slow, the pace with your stepping. And when you're running, of course, your breathing is immediately connected with your running. But when you sit down to do Zazen, what is your breathing connected with? Your breathing is your getting fuel, you know, you get oxygen from this clean fresh air and you turn it into all kinds of thoughts. So when you sit down, you can see, as your breathing becomes more rapid even than when you're walking, that your thinking and your emotions take so much more energy than walking. So you should be able to notice just when this thing which needs all that energy arises,

[26:31]

various emotions and thinking, which you then breathe back out that air, all the clouds of these thoughts for the next person to use. And so spiritual means that your breathing is your breath of life or is your consciousness and it's not fuel for thoughts and emotions. So when you sit back down, your breathing you're actually doing much less than walking, so your breathing should slow way down. And you can tell something about your practice, if instead of your breathing slowing way down, it goes faster than when you were doing Kinhin. And of course, sitting still and your breathing are one. If your mental and emotional activity

[28:04]

is also accompanied or causes physical activity, your heart must keep going and your breathing must keep going to supply the fuel for all that. I guess your brain actually, I don't know exactly, but it consumes some enormous percentage of your actual energy, food, and I think if you diet, for instance, your brain is a tyrant and it will take all of the energy for itself and deplete the rest of the body before it will start giving up its own energy supply. So in this session, you know, it's possible to be like Mumon Roshi.

[29:17]

It's possible in this session to deepen your practice immensely, at each moment. Maybe I should give you the next to last report on Mumon Roshi's progress through Zen Center. I think I left off with his arrival to the city, didn't I? He didn't go to the 5th Kuru Jagan. They went to get him, the 2nd Kuru Jagan, which he said he wanted to go to.

[30:31]

And he was waiting at the door for him. They went out to get him to the end of the 5th Kuru. He started in the jungle, and then he ate in the jungle. He played money, money, money, money. I can't remember where I left off from here. He gave the Saturday lecture, and about 300 or 250 people came. It was quite diffuse, you know, obviously not as concentrated as here. And everyone just stood around, not knowing what to say.

[31:34]

And in the lecture hall, where everyone had to sit and say something, it was small, but it was possible. We talked for an hour, and we answered questions for 45 minutes. Or an hour. About 3 hours. And all of the questions except for the first one were asked by people who just came. And then we spent a lot of time with Otsan and Matamorosan. Otsan kept coming back, we were talking with them. He refused to have money with Matamorosan, and I guess, luckily in the bottom, there were two for him. And...

[32:37]

I think it was 8 months of the season, between this one year, when he went out to the green grove. So they wanted to get him down, and clearly he went by road. And there were two men trying to get him. So one man came, and they were going to have to relocate him. So they took him to the green grove. So they went down that road. And they went back to the green grove. And then there was a man coming to send him out, and he was... As he was in the city, he was very pleased by that. And there he was in the city, spending a long time looking at it. And he was very pleased by the fact that he spent a long time in the city, looking at it very much. And then he spent a long time in the city, traveling all over the country. He had to leave. He kept a lot of roads, but some were left intact.

[33:40]

He doesn't want to leave. He doesn't want to come back again. Not to leave. He doesn't want to come back again. Bluebirds used to have a lot of them. You couldn't see them anymore. Bluebirds were everywhere. You could stay in that little town. I'm not surprised they don't have them anymore. The land where he was helping out on the pipeline, he stayed there for a little while, because he had a meticulous truck, and his little shoes, you know. He would stop in the middle of the country, and walk a lot there. He would stop there. You don't want to let him there again. Then he went and saw the chickens in the garden. He would spend a lot of time in my house, and I wouldn't let him.

[34:42]

He would spend a lot of time there, and he would talk to Nakimura-san a lot. Nakimura-san did a whole clip on it, and of course, I have a whole clip of it. Probably you can see through that. He got some of it. He knows it himself, but he probably got the story. Nakimura-san was killed. Then there's the picture, at five o'clock. The last question was Peter asked, have you heard the name of Kanagawa in your mind? Nakimura-san said, what does the bird say? And Nakimura-san said, Sir, I just heard one little bird say it. And then he went back to the city.

[35:54]

And then they went and had dinner with the students. They had oil, and they were doing the figures, and stuff like that, and they were doing the figures, and they were doing the time notes. And then they took the figures together, and they had tea together. And then they went back to my room, and sat there a long time. And the first time they were in my room, and they were in the city, they were in the garden, in the garden for about 15 minutes. And that's how it was. And I guess I've heard it's been a long time with 15 students, isn't it? And we'd go, again went to my room, and spent quite a lot of time again with Nakimura-san at Oakmont. We went back to the city, and people felt like, come with me, and that's the picture of the homeless lady. So I guess the students decided that we can actually have a cup of chocolate together. And they asked him if he would like a cup of warm chocolate. And Nakimura-san said he would if he asked.

[36:58]

And he said, I'll go back to my room, and I'll sit down with you. And we were sitting at the bed, and Nakimura-san and I were sitting at the bed. And... I don't know what happened since then, but we were going to get up at 5 o'clock, and we were going to go to the airport. Good morning. Good morning, Nakimura-san. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

[38:00]

I don't think real resolve can resolve. It can save. But what we base it on resolves. And what we base it on is often not adequate. We have some resolve that's harmless. And we say we can practice with this, or this is better. But as your practice matures, there are reasons for your ability to sustain it, and that's the return, the future. But it's the return itself, not the resolve. That's not the meaning. And so when that happens, you can be confident that some new way of resolve will express itself and the practice will come. So the resolve is just one more point to make. That's our point. Even though you don't know how to express it.

[39:12]

You know, my method, and if you're wondering what my method actually is, my method is what I was trying to talk about at the start of my talk. And when I was very young, I went to the 6th Plakia, and the 6th Plakia said to him, do it with the tongue. And my method was too young to know how to answer. And he stayed with the 6th Plakia for a long time. I don't know how long altogether, but after 8 years, he was able to,

[40:17]

when the question was asked again, he was able to respond. My method, the 6th Plakia said again in some way. Do it with the tongue. Do it with the tongue. And at this time, 8 years later, my method said, even if I put it into words, it will not be right. Even if I put it into words, it will not be enough. What I don't mean, even if I put it into words, it is right. Even if I put it into words, it is not right. And the 6th Plakia said, It is that which cannot be put into words

[41:19]

that one should practice. It is that which cannot be put into words that one might practice. And then that was said. But that practice or enlightenment must not be relative or absolute. It must not be realistic. It must be beyond relative and absolute. That which... It is that which cannot be put into words that one should practice. If you think you understand what I mean,

[42:22]

you are probably not right. But if you think, if you don't know what I mean exactly, you may be quite right. You understand? No. We have to practice in this way. The only way our resolve can be deepened. . . It's no point to practice in the realm of comparison, comparing this and that, anyway

[44:39]

that excuse is used by Soto monks, and even more than Inzai monks, because there are more Soto monks than Inzai monks. It's a very common excuse for doing what you want. As I said, you know, the 8th preparation I mentioned, where you don't throw off the yoke too quickly. Maybe that Inzai monk threw off the yoke of practice too quickly. It's very clear. When a person is doing this and that, which maybe doesn't look like practice, if he's actually practicing, he doesn't have to explain it by saying, well, I'm quite clear. Numbon also did an interesting thing in that talk. He took all the popular versions of

[45:51]

what people say about Soto and Inzai, and he took them all and he balanced them back and forth against each other, contradicting himself about Inzai and Soto. And then he said, if you want to really practice, you have to be your own program, not the background of your practice. You have to be your own situation now. And maybe you should have been the original director. Well, he didn't have to compare Soto and Inzai. He just mixed them up. I think I should be doing something different about that talk.

[47:11]

I think you know what I mean. Anyway, I don't have any doubt about what I said, even though I don't understand it at all. Not much, I mean. I'm worried about you. I'm worried about you. I'm worried about you.

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I'm worried about you. [...]

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I'm worried about you. [...]

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I'm worried about you. [...]

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