I haven't given you any chance so far, this Sashim, to have any questions or discuss anything, so maybe we'll have time to discuss some point today. A couple of things about kin-hin and bathing. Kin-hin, I guess everyone's hands are a little different, but, you know, just that. And then, it's not some posture, exactly. You know, it's not some... somebody to hold onto your robe.

[01:02]

just like that, and the other hand just loosely on it. And to have some energy, you tip it up slightly. Uchiyama Roshi's people, they do kin-hin like this. And some like that, and some do it like this. But that's Anyway, you can do it, but that's even more. That requires some effort, more effort. Just a little bit of effort to turn it up slightly. And you're not holding your chest. Maybe your arms are mostly away from your body, except you can touch your chest lightly there. And this should be roughly parallel to the ground. and your feet. It's interesting how difficult it seems for you to keep your feet this distance apart at the ankle.

[02:14]

In the zendo, it's good to have that kind of practice, at least in the zendo. So when you're standing, you do it for a minute, but then when you're receiving the stick or serving or something, you forget immediately in the feet. Some of you walk like that. Most of you walk like this, like this. But just Mazenda, we try to... not too long steps, you know. In Kinyin, it's half, but in just ordinary walking, it's not much more, maybe almost a full foot. It can be more, but not... And you can join the line of kinhin if you go out to the toilet. You can come back and join the line of kinhin. And if we're doing fast kinhin, I don't know, sometimes it green-goats this last sashin.

[03:23]

Rev took everybody out for a nature walk in Kenya. They went out and through the parking lot and around. Here it's not so easy to do it because Zendo and outside is different. First they started in the back barn and then out. But during Fast Kenyan, which we might do for half an hour sometime, except in this small space I'm afraid some of you might fall over or get whizzy or something. I'm like dominoes, you know. But there's another aspect of Fast Kenyan that we've never done. I don't know why.

[04:27]

It's rather like a children's game. But when you're doing fast qing yin, the leader says, stop! And you stop, like freezing when you're a kid, you know? And you just stay. And then you say slow qing yin or fast qing yin again. And everybody starts again. And qing yin, if we had enough space, qing yin can be as fast as running. sometimes for 20 or 30 or 40 minutes. Sometimes it's in nearly complete darkness, in spaces where there are suddenly beams and ditches, drainage things, ice, and you get so you can do it, actually. And there's always some crazy monk behind you and in front of you who's trying to go even faster, so you have to... You have to get some rhythm and just go.

[05:37]

And eventually your feet know when the draining ditches appear and your head knows when the beams are appearing, especially for me when I was there. I had more beams per square yard or quarter than the Japanese monks had. And you peel off if you want to go to the toilet. And then you wait your place and you have to jump in really quickly. And you keep Chashu the whole time. Bathing, I don't know quite what to say. I saw some of you taking baths even the first day.

[06:39]

Traditionally, in a monastery, even in regular times, you only bathe every four or nine days. But that's, I think, mostly because bathing is not just a physical luxury, but a financial luxury in Japan and China, because to heat a tub for this many people with wood is quite expensive. So you only do it every five days. In Mumon Roshi's temple, the tub is really unbelievably teeny. It's about that deep and about that big around, maybe almost as This is six feet, maybe five feet, something like that, for 25 or 30 months.

[07:42]

And first, I think Hiroshi has his own bath connected with his quarters, but he, on four nine days, he comes and bathes first in the water. Same water is used for everybody. Of course, you don't soap in the water, you just soak. And senior monks can stay in the water as long as they want, which means five or six of the 25. And the other 20 have to get in and out fast. I don't know how they work it with five guys sitting in that tub and 20 more trying to get in. But anyway, they do it every four or nine minutes. But in Sashin, it's quite strict that no bathing is allowed throughout the Sashin. You should accumulate the... In Tangaria, they carry that further, where you can't change your clothes or anything.

[08:49]

But in Sashin, you are supposed to accumulate the stench and beard and etc. of seven days. Excuse me, but except for the dojo, it's not supposed to do that. Tsukuroshi especially, I don't shave every day, but Tsukuroshi always shaved every day, but for the dojo, it's supposed to be somewhat different schedule, and sashin and everyday usual schedule are supposed to be nearly the same, so not much difference during sashin. Padocha is the tradition, so he may shave every day. But bathing is such an institution here, and it doesn't cost us anything to heat the water, that I guess because of that we allow bathing during sashimi.

[09:58]

We didn't for several years, and then we changed. I don't know when. 68 or so. We began putting the bath time in, if I remember. Anyway, I'm not suggesting right now that we eliminate bathing from Sashim, but not to change your state too much during Sashim. Bathing may change your state of mind too much, some relaxed feeling. There should be some continuity, continuation of your state of mind.

[11:00]

until the end of session. And also, bathing is rather enervating. I would suggest you don't take, not get in the big tub, but just get in the small tub, not too warm. And Steve tells me some people have swelling knees after bathing. I don't know about that. I mean, it's too hot? Recently, I've gotten some names confused, so I want to straighten them out, if I can remember. It's a little complicated, because every priest in most of the stories has at least four, which means eight names.

[12:07]

No, at least six, and sometimes eight and ten. because you have your birth name and your Buddhist name and your place name and sometimes your posthumous name and sometimes your courtesy name. So there's four, three to five names. Sometimes a teacher is referred to by his birth name and sometimes by his Buddhist name, sometimes by his place such and such a mountain, Tassajara-san. Most common is place name and unless they have a posthumous title like Kokushi, national teacher. And then you have all of those in Japanese too, so you have eight, you double it because

[13:13]

Anyway, the man enlightened by bamboo is Kyogen. And the man who was 18 years, answering yes, is Ryogen. No. Kyo Rin, Kyo Rin, Kyo Rin, and the Kyo Rin, right? And the man who, you can look him up from these names, and the man who was waiting for his Abbott, to come. Now he is born, now he's in the water, buffalo, etc. He's Nyo Bin.

[14:20]

So I said those a little mixed up, I think, a couple of times. There's two words I want to discuss today.

[15:40]

One is me-an, and the other is do-sai, two Japanese words. And me means bright or clear, and an means utter darkness, complete darkness. And do means movement, and sai means calmness or serenity. And these two words, which we have no equivalent for in English, most exemplify our attitude in zazen. There's even an admonition in monasteries, one of the rules of monastic life is mixed in with many statements, do this or don't do that, is don't do anything carelessly, always distinguish movement and stillness.

[16:57]

So in cultivating our way, in developing our practice. Meyon and Dosai are very significant. Do sometimes means the ocean and Sai sometimes means lake. And feeling here is, even in a great ocean storm, movement of the ocean in a storm, you can feel the calmness of the ocean, sense the vast calmness of the ocean. Even in a still lake, which sighed, even in a completely still lake, you can see some movement.

[18:09]

You'll find some movement. The important thing here is not movement or stillness, but your attitude. So do doesn't mean usual movement. It means movement from the point of view of calmness. Calmness under any circumstances. Calmness when your legs are hurting. Calmness when you're forced to move even though you don't want to. Or you find yourself having moved against your will. we find our movement when we're doing zazen.

[19:23]

You may, maybe zazen can be said to be to become aware of your slightest movement or one with your slightest movement. May on brightness and sigh, calmness, also mean the Absolute, but not in the more Western idea of idealistic way of thinking of calmness or stillness, but in the sense you have your calmness right now. It's something, the idea in these words is something very concrete, and realistic for you at this moment, that you, in your movement now, whatever it is, your calmness is there.

[20:24]

So it's not some idealistic state of frozen zazen, but right now, what is your calmness in your particular zazen, in your particularity? Always we're concerned with the absolute in the particularity of this moment. Apart from that, it's, oh, in the future when I've matured, that's idealistic. Just to find it now. That also is like I was talking about yesterday, engagement. And this practice of this hearing of the stream as the voice of Buddha, the voice of your teacher, is quite similar to Shingon or Tantric Buddhism.

[21:45]

The relationships between Shingon, or Tantric Buddhism, and Jodo, Pure Land Buddhism, and Zen are rather interesting. Tantric Buddhism, the emphasis in Tantric Buddhism is on the Adi Buddha, or the Vairocana or Vajrasattva, some cosmic Buddha. in which we are all its manifestations. Everything you see, your seeing is the Adi-Buddha seeing. So ritual becomes very important, mantra becomes very important, because your voice is then Buddha's voice. So Tantric Buddhism, Shingon Buddhism, emphasizes ritual because it's the way you bring yourself in in a line with or awaken or express the cosmic Buddha or various deities.

[22:53]

So in tantric Buddhism they sometimes say your nature is not immutable your nature changes and because your nature changes you can become Buddha, or you can receive the light of Buddha, or you can awaken to the essence of Buddha in everything. This way of practice has much more a sense of progress and of imagination and initiation of stages in which you take some gross substance and enlighten it. Of course, all forms of Buddhism are the same, you know, in the sense that each one says the same thing the others say, but the emphasis is different. And in Tantric Buddhism the emphasis is on the side of cosmic Buddha and of your development toward its realization, until finally the touchstone

[24:12]

is the divine. You are divine. Your acts are Buddha's acts. Even when you are involved in license, eating meat and carousing and et cetera, it's a ritual. It's not just ordinary carousing. It's a ritual to bring yourself closer to Buddha. So we manipulate or participate in the cosmic Buddha by the development of our ritual, by the development of our activity. So tantric Buddhism tends to have quite a separation from experts and initiates or beginners or laymen.

[25:17]

and it tends to express itself always in a rather Buddhist context. And Zen emphasis is not on Adi-Buddhas so much, but on Shakyamuni Buddha and on zero, on emptiness. And its touchstone is ordinary life, ordinary activity, not some divine. So just mountain stream is sound of Buddha. In that, it's almost the same. And Soto particularly has many tantric elements in it, but they're rather implicit than explicit. So Zen emphasizes very ordinary life.

[26:32]

Even though we have this period of retirement from usual activity, still, basic Buddhist life or expression of our life is in ordinary circumstances. And Jodo Shu Jodo Shu emphasizes Adi-Buddha or Amitabha Buddha, infinite light Buddha which is everywhere, and so emphasizes Mantrayana, the mantra, and chanting. Hakuin Zenji used to make fun of, I guess, when Jodo was becoming so powerful, Rinzai Zen particularly made fun of Jodo Shu all the time. Hakuin would say things like, calling Amida's name into a horse's ear. It's like, making it sound useless, you know.

[27:39]

But, anyway, Jodo Shu emphasizes Adi Buddha, cosmic Jodoshu says, you are already Buddha, the same way Zen says. In this, Jodoshu and Zen are the same. You are already Buddha. So much so, almost no practice is needed at all, just a horse's ear, or just saying, Namo Amida Butsu, occasionally. So Jodo Shinshu priests are the ones who most emphasize wearing ordinary clothes, having hair, being married. They were the first priests to openly be married. Anyway, our practice actually involves these three.

[29:10]

Two, at various times you will be practicing as if you are developing, and sometimes you'll be practicing knowing you're already enlightened, or as if you're already enlightened. knowing you have a long ways to go. And we may develop our ceremonies to express this kind of thing. The simplest example of a tantric type ceremony that we do you all do is the dumping of the water into the bucket.

[30:12]

You take the water, which you have washed your bowls out with, and you've washed Buddha's bowls out with it, and then you're going to offer this essence, sweet dew, it's called, to the Adi-Buddha, to various spirits. And you cover it with your hand, and you dump it into the bucket. And then you touch the bucket with the rim of your bowl, which is Huayen-type philosophy of interpenetration. So that kind of taking it and covering the water and reaching down is a kind of ritual expression of Buddhism, of tantric or Huayen-type Buddhism. And there are many ceremonies we can develop, which we can do, which have this feeling of engagement.

[31:15]

No discrimination at all, but doing something and doing it to express the teaching. Samadhi and jhana mean direct confrontation with direct reception of everything without discrimination. So in cultivation of the way, maybe the most important thing I'm emphasizing today is to understand the movement and stillness, not in an idealistic way. Etan.

[32:21]

Do you remember Etan? The teacher. the five ranks of Tosan to Hakuin. I didn't explain exactly what he did. Actually, when Hakuin handed him his paper, he took it with his left hand and just crumpled it and said, this is something you've learned, but what have you seen? Again, This kind of thing can almost be a... It's kind of an intuitive ritual, spontaneous ritual of engagement. And how we teach is very... First we have traditional Buddhism as the basic way we...

[33:24]

find out about ourselves and each other. Within that context, there may be any number of ways to teach that have never been used before. Sekiso, who is one of the last great Zen masters in China, just maybe before or beginning of Sun Dynasty. And after... I think his disciple is Oryo, whose three barriers I've talked about, I think, here several years ago and recently at Greenbelt. I may talk about them in this session. They're rather interesting. After Oryo, Rinzai Zen split up into two lineages, which came down to today, and Sutongpo, the poet I've been mentioning, who also did that wonderful poem about the misty mountains of blue and the rapid river, you know, which you haven't seen yet.

[34:39]

And when you've seen it, it's still just the misty mountain and rapid river. That poem, which Tsukiyoshi liked a lot, was also by Sutong Po. Anyway, Sutong Po is a disciple of, a disciple of Oryo. who's a disciple of Sekiso. Anyway, when Sekiso went to visit his teacher, came for the first time, his teacher... This kind of story is kept not because it's typical, but because it's unusual. Many of the stories you read are quite unusual. That's why they've been kept. Anyway, Sekiso His teacher recognized him as having some potential, and he took a rather unusual way of teaching him. He gave him a great deal of attention, but his way of giving him attention was to never let him come to his room.

[35:43]

So, unlike all the other monks, he could never enter Roshi's room or approach it, and when he did, he was just cursed and beaten. And after two years, he began to complain about it. I think that's quite remarkable. He waited that long. He must have been a very endearing young man or something. I don't know what. Some faithful type of person with no place to go, obviously. Anyway, after two years, He complained about it. I can't come here and you always beat me. And the teacher just started beating him like mad. And he started yelling for help. Help, help. And what's his name? His teacher jumped on him and grabbed him and held his hand over his mouth so he couldn't yell. And he was enlightened.

[36:47]

And became his Dharma heir. I think to actually teach someone, Zen is exactly like ordinary life and yet something mysterious, something intangible. I can't say. unseen, the mind of the patriot has passed. Etan told Hakuin, don't worry about having lots of disciples, just one or two.

[37:57]

It's so difficult to have anybody understand. It's so easy to slip away. So I think some unique opportunity is needed to have full understanding of Buddhism. So in the cultivation of the way, great patience is needed. It may take endless kalpas, endless generations. endless meal-serving monks. And you have to be ready to take any conditions of any being, past, present or future, man or divinity or animal.

[38:57]

Every phase of life. You must be ready to enter, and if you practice you probably will enter. Many that you are avoiding or are practicing to get away from. But when your attitude is like me, an, and dosai, calmness and movement as one, darkness and light as one, on this moment in your very activity now, With that attitude, there's no problem. With that attitude, your practice really begins. You can find your calmness beyond movement or calmness. not in some idealistic way, but on your actuality in every circumstance.

[40:13]

Do you have something you would like to talk about? Can you hear her? Please speak louder. You did it.

[41:30]

How was it the same and different? What's the difference? No difference. Do you find any difference? Practically speaking, do you find any difference between when you go on a town trip now and when you went on a town trip a few years ago? What's the difference?

[42:41]

David, you have a wonderful woman. You've been a good teacher, or she's a good teacher for you, I don't know which. It's exactly the same, it's not exactly the same. Okay? I don't know. Yeah? I'm wondering if all the pain we have in the past, when we refuse to acknowledge, somehow we forget about it. Suffered through during session? That occurs to one occasionally.

[43:55]

It's sort of guilty encouragement. It may make us feel better to think so. But I think that's rather true. And you'll notice yourself in zazen, that not just physically, but mentally, many embarrassing moments come up to you, that you, or things you did or said, which feel quite uneasy about having done, which you've mostly forgotten, something you said to somebody in eighth grade, which devastated them or something, will come up.

[45:07]

That kind of thing comes up. Or some way you have been unkind to your parents. Often what comes up is ways you've been unkind or neglectful of your teacher. That's very painful, particularly if your teacher's not here, but also helpful, gives us some encouragement and sympathy for his… some feeling for his willingness to put up with us and not correct us and not say anything.

[46:12]

that sometimes, no matter what you do, no matter how pure you are, if you sit long enough, it just plain hurts. For most people. Some people, almost not at all, but usually, it just hurts. But if you don't, even if you don't avoid it, it still hurts, but it's not so bad. It's okay. When we have this, if we have a schedule where you sleep five and a half hours or so, it's better not to take naps.

[47:34]

But if you have a schedule with as little sleep as we do, I think it's okay to take naps. I wouldn't plot out in front of the Zen Bell here. Yeah. You want me to say something about it? Well, in our way of doing it, it's true in all of Zen, but in traditional Koan, Rinzai Zen, it's rather structured.

[48:53]

The content is structured for the first years. But in our way of doing it, it's the most formal relationship you will probably ever have with anyone, and the most formless, most unfettered. The form just gives us something to do, and then it can be whatever occurs to us. Hopefully you'd make use of it to find one and one equals three, or to discuss your practice. When we have some urge to reflect on our practice, it's better to do it in doksan than to ourself. It's less cumbersome for us if we reflect on our practice with a teacher than if we reflect on it to ourself, thinking about it. And to treat doksan like an extension of your own mind.

[50:02]

All of our minds are actually one mind. So to practice with this, so you don't feel, oh, he thought of it, or I thought of it, or he suggested it, or that kind of thing. What comes from each of us is our own. Anyway, it can be anything you want. When you have this attitude that I've been describing, meyan and dosai, calmness and stillness, and movement, everyone can be your teacher.

[51:18]

You can make any situation You're not discriminating good or bad, calm or moving, but just finding out what's there, viewing everything as the absolute, just learning from everything. In that spirit, you can travel from teacher to teacher, be in many circumstances, and always you can be learning something. from your own mind possessed by someone else for the moment. You know, a kind of subtle difference is a teacher may say to you, all religions are okay.

[52:20]

Variety of religions are okay. Buddhism is okay, Jodo-shu, Shingon-shu, Zen-shu, Christian-shu, etc. So, student may go and say to someone, some Christian or other Buddhist, all religions are okay. he's wrong. If he says so, he's wrong. If he really understands, he doesn't say anything. He just learns from the person. Do you understand that difference? If all religions are okay, you don't have to point it out in contrast to something. Just He is your teacher. She is your teacher. That's all.

[53:22]

With that spirit, we find calmness in movement, and movement in calmness, and every circumstance is our teacher. So, to practice with this kind of understanding you have some teacher. Okay? At Green Gulch, everyone is so tired from working all day that in the lectures in the evening, people ask questions and fall asleep in the middle of the answer. I was checking up if you were still awake. You mentioned the movement which is against your will. If there's calmness within the movement which is against your will. There's also some other, there's a struggle or something also.

[54:38]

It's such a great one, actually. When the calmness within your will is there, it's so terrible. Did you hear what she said? She moves a lot. And so she says that, against her will, against some part of her will, anyway, she says, there may be calmness in that movement, but it's so tiring, such a wipeout. So is working in the kitchen.

[55:17]

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