the streams getting louder and louder so I don't know can you hear me alright okay here we're starting a new practice and I think some of you may have left your good friends in the city, and be somewhat disappointed a new practice period isn't like the end of the previous practice period. And I always wonder what to say.

[01:25]

I have to keep repeating myself. Suzuki Roshi used to say that his teacher used to say the same thing about repeating himself, but he said, your skin will finally understand. Buddhist philosophy is pretty simple, but practice is not so simple, because practice means always to enter the new until finally you've left completely behind any old. So it requires some effort to trust what occurs to you and to give up any kind of program.

[02:34]

For us, coming back here, Again, a practice period gives you a chance to leave much behind, to bear down or pare down. And in Buddhism they make so many divisions, but those divisions that Buddhism makes are always a suggestion of how to bring them together. When Buddhism makes divisions that stand as types or something, that usually is some kind of not-so-good Buddhism, false Buddhism.

[03:46]

But such divisions as body, speech, and mind give you some suggestion of how body, speech, and mind are one. Body, breathing, and mind. So I think it's good in the beginning of a practice period or a session to again come back to that a very fundamental practice in Buddhism of bringing your body and your breathing and your mind together. If they're one, you can begin to see things differently. even in sitting zazen, actually your posture is held by your breathing.

[05:03]

It's your breathing which makes your posture straight, not your muscles. And so a good way to straighten your posture is to take a very deep breath, filling your whole chest stomach. And subtly finding your posture through your breathing in the beginning of zazen. This brings your body and breathing together. And then you can count your breaths or follow your breaths or touch your breath so you feel your

[06:26]

You know the touching of your breath and you can see your breath. If your mind is calm enough, you can see your breath. A kind of image that will move with your breathing. Any one of these can be a beginning concentration, bringing your mind and body and breath together. And if you can do this, you can begin to be there in each new mind.

[07:46]

Every moment you have a new mind, a new arising. Without any old, you can be right there in each, whether you are winking or breathing or thinking. It happens with you easily, slowly, seems slowly. And practice shouldn't be some kind of program, like, you know, Bodhidharma said, you know, he himself was the scriptures, is the scripture.

[09:02]

He meant this by transmission outside the scriptures. He meant don't use some program of practice. And I think it's almost impossible not to. You have some insight and so it occurs to you, I shouldn't eat so much or When I eat so much, such and such happens. Or if I come to zazen with a prepared, with some preparation, dropping things with the first sound of a han, my zazen is much better.

[10:12]

Or if I start to fall asleep, I can refresh my mind by doing such and such. To have some program like this is to follow the scriptures, actually. It may be useful, you know, But it's really useful only the first time you do it, the first time you think of it. And your real practice means you're so fresh that each moment you're completely flexible and don't know what you'll do next. So maybe the first is confidence in our buddha nature.

[11:32]

Without that confidence you can't practice. So first is buddha nature, second is practice, and third is teaching. And Buddha nature is not… it's impossible to describe what we mean, but you may have some confidence or feeling of your own. But maybe we could say, you know, Newton said that because of the law of gravity, the apple fell. The apple follows some law. Buddha-nature would mean Apple itself is gravity. There isn't some law which things are following. Apple itself is gravity.

[12:38]

You yourself are Buddha. If you have this kind of confidence, if you can have this kind of confidence, you can begin to practice trusting what occurs to you. Just at this moment, without any idea, something occurs to do something, to try something. Our practice is one constant experiment. that our state of mind is detached but yet interested in everything. Tsukiroshi once told, said that as a kid he

[13:58]

was quite interested in flying kites. In Japan they have very complicated kites. And he said you had to always adjust the string before you flew it over and over again until you thought you had it just right for a particular wind. And then the idea was to fly the kite and keep it still. And he compared zazen, calm zazen, to that. Not the zazen which you practice. The kite won't fly if you practice zazen. But if you allow yourself to be adjusted by others, be adjusted by circumstances, you can fly a kite like that, have quite still zazen.

[15:07]

This calm state of mind, more like spinning a top, is, he also made that comparison. It is necessary, I think. But detached state of mind means not just calm state of mind, but detached state of mind means your kite will fly in any wind, or your top will spin on any kind of rough surface. So if you can have this kind of confidence, we say in your Buddha nature, and be quite flexible, not have many rules you're following that you call practice, you can begin to trust what occurs to you.

[17:07]

To not fill the space. turn the radio on, or turn your mind on, or turn some thought on, or to continue some thought because it was something good, some insight. So for a practice period, you should be nowhere else but here.

[18:55]

And here, give yourself up to the circumstances, to others. The present, most of you know, is nothing but a scrapbook of old photographs and memories, old brown photographs. Any idea of attainment is already the past. The only thing that will mean anything ten years from now is if you can give yourself up to what occurs to you.

[20:10]

Ten years from now, you will be thankful you forgot everything. So this practice period should be to find out minutely how to practice.

[22:25]

How to let practice practice you. There's no other reason to be here. Hakuin Zenji says to be like you are in an open field 10,000 miles round even when you're in a crowd.

[24:28]

If so, you can be quite intimate, rubbing shoulders with each other. That state of mind which invites others in is the state of mind which frees you, which is realization. Don't be attached to pure form or no form. or some delectable state of mind.

[25:43]

It will corrupt you. I want to practice here with you because you give me something new all the time. It's not so difficult if we can catch our mind before it makes a program.

[26:52]

and they're going to have a new fuselage. How long since you've been down here? Two years. Two years. How many years did you live here? Four out of seven. You were here the first practice period?

[28:17]

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