It's a Japanese text religion translated into English. I mean, it's still up there in Japanese. And the way I would translate it is means universal. means admonition. It's a text on the ceremony for the universal encouragement of . If you practice in such a way, you are assured of being a person such as they. In other words, if you could practice this, it's Zazen practice.

[01:04]

So if you practice Zazen, or Zazen is practice, you are sure to be a person such as they, they being these. these beings who practiced the samadhi of the ancestors. I think you also remember it said in the Zazen, it has nothing whatever to do with sitting and lying down. So za means sitting. Nice character. Nice character like a blackboard.

[02:05]

This is a character for a person. Yeah, another character for a person. Then you put a character for a verb. Za and then write zen down. So it literally says sitting then, or zen sitting. You could also look at the picture and say, well, what it is is it's Zen. And then it's kind of like a Zen in the terms of people on Earth. It's Zen for people on Earth. That's what Zazen is, as opposed to Zen for people. So Zazen is the practice of us people, the people. It's people practice. Zazen is the samadhi of the ancestors.

[03:12]

It's the state of awareness of the ancestors of the tradition of the Buddha. But that doesn't mean that when he's sitting, he isn't there. All people, all people, there is a zazen of each person. Some of you heard the expression. If all the Buddhists in ten directions gathered together all their wisdom and tried to measure could say one person's zazen, or the zazen of one person, they would be unable to do so. So, you know, zazen is not something that I can do. And yet there is a zazen of one person.

[04:13]

There is a zazen of me, which you could call the reb zazen. And this zazen, based on this zazen, the person can use the treasure store, which is his zazen, at will. But I can't do my zazen. Of course, you can't do my zazen either. You also, each of you, There's a zazen in each of you. And none of you can do that. Zazen is not karma. It's not something you can do. Karma is the name, it's the word for your action, the action that you can do. Or it's the name for what you think you can do.

[05:15]

Or it's the name for the thought that you can use. Time is based on the illusion of personal power. In terms of your own personal power, then, of course, we teach and encourage all people who are practicing according to personal power to use your personal power in a wholesome way. If you use your personal power in a wholesome way, it will lead to good results. If you use your personal power in an unwholesome way, it will lead to bad results. Using your own personal power to do this or to do that is not Zazen. The Zazen of a person is equally present while you're doing an unwholesome act and you're doing a wholesome act. The Zazen of you as you do an unwholesome act goes right along with you when you do an unwholesome act and you get in trouble.

[06:16]

Zazen doesn't like, you know, run away when you're doing an unwholesome thing. Or stay with him when you're doing an unwholesome thing and run away when you get in trouble. But Zazen of you is the Dharma of you. It's the truth of you. Which is never apart from you. Right where you are. And you cannot do that. You cannot do what it is that goes with you every day. That's how it is. So if that's the case, if everybody is fully endowed with this wondrous practice, which realizes the dharma moment by moment, and also this practice, which is the practice of all Buddhas, and realizes the dharma moment by moment, then what's the need of practicing if you can't do it? And you can do it thinking that you're doing it, or you can do it not thinking you're doing it.

[07:23]

But still, it can be done. It can happen. You can do that, or you can just let it happen by the kindness of all beings. And you don't have to think of it as karma. But you can also think of it as karma. And right now, this wonderful challenge character I like it. Say something like that. With your kindness, we can have this beautiful stone for 100 years. Is that what you said? Something like that? Mm-hmm. With your kindness, we can have a new blackboard. In 100 years. This character, which you may or may not be able to see, because it's written in such a .

[08:31]

It's pronounced . It means meaning. Also, it means justice. It means loyalty. Clarified butter. And it means something else. Now you see a relationship between those two cherries. Look carefully. You see some relationship between them? OK.

[09:31]

You see that this character here is the right-hand side of the character. See it? Can you see it? Can some people see it? Can you see it over there? Can you see it? Can you see it? Who can't see it? It means meaning and justice and loyalty and righteousness. See it up here? This part over here, that part over there, on the left side, that character, that's a character also. It could mean person. It's like the person that was sitting on the Lord. So the character for This character means ceremony or ritual. It's also pronounced gi. And that's the character that's in the Bukhan Zazen gi.

[10:33]

Ceremony is the intersection of the person in the meeting or the person in justice or the person in loyalty or honesty, things like that. Now, along with this ,, the meaning is not in the word. It responds to the inquiring impulse. We also say the meaning is not in the ceremony, but the meaning responds to the inquiring impulse. Inquiring impulse could also be translated as, instead of inquiring impulse, it could be translated as the arrival. You go up and sit in the meditation hall.

[11:40]

The meaning is not in you going up there and sitting in the meditation hall. You leave the meditation hall and go to the toilet. The meaning is not in you going to the toilet. But when you bring yourself to this room and sit down, If you bring yourself, if you bring forth this energy, if you bring forth the opportunity of your life and put it down in the seat there, the meeting responds to the arrival of your life. When you come here and sit here, the meeting responds. When you go up in the Zen room and you sit down and you follow the procedures of the manual, read the manual, check it out, go do it, sit there and do what it says in the manual. It's not in your following the manual, the rules, that is the meaning of the practice. But the manual provides a way for you to bring yourself forward and follow those instructions.

[12:42]

And by following those instructions and giving your energy to those instructions, and giving your energy fully to those instructions, 100% even, you bring yourself and make an opportunity. An opportunity arrives. that place by the ritual. But the meaning of zazen is not in you doing that ritual. You're doing that ritual with the arrival of your energy, your life, in that time. The meaning responds to that action. So you don't do zazen by going up there and sitting there. Even if you do it wholeheartedly, 100%, you go to sit there. It's not in your wholehearted effort .. But without your wholehearted effort, there's no opportunity to be responded to. The response and the energy together is the meeting. .

[13:49]

It's the meaning of this practice, which is, you know, he said all those wonderful things about it. It's a practice that you can't do, that I can't do, even that we can't do all by ourselves. But we do what we can do, and everything in the universe comes and meets us. Control, people make it happen, but it turns out You don't have to because you're so lovely to make the effort. The whole universe says, we're here. We thank you. And in that meeting, it's the meaning of Zazen. Fabulous practice of liberation for all beings. Where it says, the meaning is not in the words. It's not in the forms of practice. It's not in the forms of practice, but in the meaning. When the forms of the practice are a vehicle for you bringing forth your energy, you're needing a rider to respond to that.

[15:03]

It also says that the arrival, the coming forth of your life effort, the arrival of the inquiry and the response happen simultaneously. It isn't that you go up and sit there, and then the Buddhas come down and pat you on the shoulder. It isn't that you bow to Buddha and Buddha says, thank you. The response is simultaneous with the bow. The response is simultaneously with the sitting. It's at the same time. When you say Buddha, it's not Buddha doesn't say yes. It's Buddha, that's the response. You see it? Buddha. So you cannot see the response. And this response is completely non-dual, completely inseparable from your activity. And your activity is not the practice.

[16:07]

The practice is the simultaneity of your effort and the entire universe. If not, it's nothing to do with sitting, lying down, anything. It's completely free. Always have it. And yet, If you don't bring your mind forward, you have no opportunity to realize it. And also, the realization is not the slightest bit different from your coming forward and your effort, and yet it's not an effort. It's a practice of freedom, and it's also a practice which is also free of us. Traps and snares can never get it. You can't take it home. You can't get rid of it. But you can realize it. Rather, it can be realized. And it can be realized anytime, anyplace. And it's okay. It says, Zazen is not learning meditation. In other words, Zazen is not the practice of concentration. People, you can think, I can think, okay, I'm going to do practice now to get concentrated.

[17:12]

Some people do that, and they sometimes are successful. Fine. Sometimes they try to do it, and they say, oops, I'm unsuccessful. I'm not getting concentrated. This is bad. Sad. I'm a lousy Zen student. It's not so much that you're a lousy Zen student, it's that you're a lousy concentrator. There are such things as lousy concentrators. There are quite a few of them. They're unhappy people. Retired concentrators, or something like that. But anyway, it's OK to concentrate. It's really all right. Just don't think that that's zazen. Don't think that zazen is this thing you can do called getting concentrated. And also, don't think that zazen has not been lost, because you couldn't coerce yourself into concentration if you didn't want to pay attention to it in the first place.

[18:18]

If you try to concentrate on your breath or something, and you're successful, that doesn't make Zazen happen. If you try to concentrate on your success, that doesn't make Zazen go away. What makes Zazen happen? What makes Zazen happen? Just being? What else did I hear? Zazen makes Zazen happen. What's happening makes Zazen happen. The way you are makes Zazen happen. You being you makes Zazen happen. And you being you is not something you can do. Each of us is supported by everybody but ourselves to be ourselves. And that makes Zazen happen. Okay, so you can practice concentration. You can play golf. You can do a lot of things. That's fine. Just don't think that that's Zazen. Don't think that that's something which is something which all beings are doing together.

[19:23]

unless you can get all of them to agree that they are in a golf game with you. And in fact, they are. So if you think of golf as something that you don't do by yourself, if you think of concentration practice as a concerted activity of all beings, then concentration practice is . But then you don't think you could do it anymore. And also, you won't be depressed if you can't, because all beings are supporting you . That's . But anyway, it is OK to be concentrated. It is OK to practice those practices. And while you're doing them, you can also practice zazen. Zazen can also be practiced in exactly the suchness of the way you're practicing concentration. Zazen is equally present in a successful concentrator and an unsuccessful concentrator. And the unsuccessful one might But of course, you know, Zazen is not totally distracted. Zazen is totally imperturbable.

[20:26]

Nothing can distract it, ever. The other kind of constant here is Zazen practice, but it never, ever disturbed. It never moves. It never comes. It never goes. And these ceremonies here, which celebrate that, and give us an opportunity to remember Zazen and bring our energy forth so that Zazen is to be realized. Do we have conditions to realize Zazen? Is that a necessary part of realizing Zazen? Yeah. If you're not here, then the realization of Zazen is meaningless to you. You have no meaning because you're not here. But Zazen's here waiting for you to come back. So you have to be, you know, you have to be like over there with this person in order for the zazen of this person to mean anything to you. The zazen of this person is always there and it never goes away, the zazen of this person.

[21:30]

When this person is like distracted, the zazen of this person is just exactly the zazen of this person who is distracted and not here. When this person is present with his experience, the zazen is the zazen of that person who is present with his experience. The zazen is always there. But if you're not present with your experience, then you're not going to be able to realize, you're not going to get to share in the realization of your zazen, the zazen of you. So then you're going to be trapped in the suburbs of your zazen, suffering out there somewhere at some distance from your zazen. Your dragon-like, tiger-like, totally liberated nature You're going to be talked to off-center. You're not going to be there because you don't want to be here. Of course, the reason why we don't want to be here is because it's painful. We'd rather be some other place, a little bit better place, or a lot better place, even perhaps in a state of great concentration.

[22:34]

What can be done off-center, you can concentrate But you can also be present in the middle of your suffering and concentrate there and be totally with yourself and not be a bit distracted. It just happens to be a concentration practice, a concentration practice. But you don't have to be distracted from other things that are going on with you at that time. So then you get to enjoy the realization that God's in and experience this person being liberated, which is important. That's why we do this ceremony, so that the zazen gets connected to the persons. because we care about them. So we've got this kind of like facility, this opportunity, this treasure called zazen. It's there all the time with us. It's just a question of connecting with the person so that the person can enjoy his wealth, so she can enjoy her family blood. That's all. But it's not that you have to have a transfusion to be happy.

[23:37]

You have to take residence in your body to feel your blood. But it's painful to be a person, so we'd rather be able to be an angel than to be a person. Although it's hard to be an angel, it's easier than to be a person. Our angels are the students of the person's world. They're willing to be persons. Yes? . Another word, Rizal, then? Self-fulfilling samadhi. Sitting upright in self-fulfilling samadhi. Sitting upright gives an awareness that fulfills yourself. Sitting upright in the samadhi of the self, receiving its functions. sit upright in yourself as yourself receives its function in the moment?

[24:48]

Well, it's unique to you, but it's like the way you're you, the way that you're you is exactly the same way that You know, I cannot, there's no way for me to tell the difference between the way he is and the way you're you. They're identical. You're exact, everybody's exactly the same in the way that each person is himself or herself. That's not the slightest bit different. And so another way to enter into this, is to enter the way that we're the same in being ourselves. But your Dazin is connected to you being you, precisely you in this moment. And that Dazin arises out of your uniqueness, but it's exactly the same as the end of uniqueness being his uniqueness. That's why, in that way, Dazin is all pervasive.

[25:59]

We all share equally, completely equal. But unless we're willing to be this person, we don't get to the function of it. It doesn't circulate fully. And so we experience relative degrees of liberation in direct proportion to how much we're willing to be this person. When Dogen says concentrate your efforts single-mindedly, he means concentrate your efforts single-mindedly. Only have one thing in mind. What is the one thing you have in mind? What? What did he say about that? Self. Everybody always has only one thing on their mind anyway. So we like to say, well, actually, I think we publish all the time. Fine. Except for you. Always concentrating on yourself as it receives its function.

[27:09]

That's single-minded practice. And you can't do that. That kind of single-minded absorption is . You can't do that, though. You can do a ceremony about it if you want. But you can run away from it. You can run away from being yourself. You can run away from the samadhi of the self. It turns out that it is selfless to be absorbed in yourself. That's selfless. But again, studying the self, one way to say it, which is fine, but another way to say it is marveling yourself on yourself. Learn how to imitate yourself.

[28:13]

Yes. I'm having problems physically . Did you say physically raised Catholic? Yeah, I thought physically. And the thing is, when you die and become Catholic, Religion is the soul goes one place or the other. I think I'm not sure what the soul is. I'm not an expert. Let's just say I am. Let's say now I'm the what? I would say the soul is the way an individual person appears in concert with the entire universe. It's a definition of sleep. That doesn't go with you.

[29:16]

But you never can be apart because it's always the way you are appearing. You appear in this. But in your appearance, It's the same. Your appearance is by this concerted activity and conditions. Your disappear is by the concerted activity and conditions. Your growth, your deterioration, your life, your death, all by that same process, which would be called soul. That never dies. That is immortal. That process is immortal. So you pop up there. You pop there. You pop there. No, not pop goes away. Pop, pop, pop, pop, that's your life. Then you have this thing called pop death. But that life and death are, in a sense, soul processes. They're processes of the soul. There's no end to those processes.

[30:17]

Now, if the conditions of your life are such that the way things come together for you is then you do all kinds of wholesome things, and there is a process, a continuous process of that. If you do wholesome things, there's a continuous process of that. If you celebrate the soul, if you celebrate the way things come together in that way, and there's an appreciation of that, then there's an appreciation of the immortality of the process of soul-making. Then there is a practice of appreciating concerted activity of your life and all beings, which will never end. There's no way for it to end. That harmonization between you and the entire universe keeps happening forever, deep in your life, in your death, when you're growing old, when you're growing young, all this stuff is the same. So it's a matter of tuning into a process which is the way things are rather than just what we can do, what we can imagine we can do.

[31:19]

In that way, if that's what they mean by soul, in the Christian church, then I could map that to the way we actually happen in Buddhism. And I think that's what the enlightened Christian is. Thanks. I don't know much, but I think I can tell you who the enlightened ones are. I think Jesus was one of them. He demonstrated you can act like him if you understand the practice of zazen. I think he had a nice little trivia story with you as well. Zazen is to be absorbed in dependent colorizing. Zazen is to be absorbed in interconnectedness of all beings. And when you're absorbed in that, there's nothing you can do. You can no longer. That awareness, even though you still walk around Go to zazen, leave zazen, be on time for zazen, be late for zazen, be in this position, cook dinner.

[32:26]

No matter what you do, there's a possibility there to realize that this is the concerted activity of all beings. This is your dependence. This is not something you do by yourself. It's always possible to be aware of that, to join that view of the world. And that has no beginning or end. I'm sorry. I may have missed something. I was thinking . It sounds kind of like a solution in search of a problem. Can you state? Could you tell me what you mean by that? Well, not being what I do, but being what I be without what fulfills me as I .

[33:33]

Zazen is not what fulfills you. Zazen is your complete fulfillment and liberation and happiness, and saving all such a thing that Zazen is. Zazen is . You want to know what the problem is? The problem is misery. If you practice concentration, if you practice concentration and you're successful, well, that's nice. You're still scared to death. If you practice concentration and you're unsuccessful, you're unhappy about that. And sometimes it's nice because you distract it from the anxiety you would have if you were successful. Basically, people are scared and anxious all the time. If you do a practice that you can do, you're still scared because you're still operating in the world with what you can do. And as long as you're living in the world of what you can do, you're under threat, global nonstop threat.

[34:39]

You're in threat of guilt, of thinking that you personally can do things aside from everybody else helping you. You are like totally arrogant, and any minute you're going to be called on it and condemned. You're also, this self is going to end. This is not permanent. This is going to be killed any minute. All the time you're worried about that. When are they going to get me? Also, you know that this is totally meaningless, this whole thing. It doesn't make any sense. It's totally nonsense. It's not even common sense to think that you're independent. that you can complete by yourself. As long as you practice Zazen, for example, or anything, you doing it, you feel terrible. And again, when you're successful, you can more easily tell how terrible. If you try a practice and you're a failure, then you think, oh, jeez, I guess the reason why I'm so unhappy is because I'm no good at this and no good at that practice, and I can't do this practice, and I'm late for Zabin, and I can't compete. All that stuff, you know, my choreography isn't good.

[35:43]

I cut my finger yesterday. This stuff distracts you from what it'd be like. If you were successful, you'd realize you're still scared, scared big time, anxious, threatening creature. Zazen, the antidote is the cure, the medicine for that, because it's dropping that whole personal power trip. But it isn't that we don't do anything. It isn't that we don't act on personal power. We drop it. We don't try to choke at death and kick it out of the house of Arah. You still go to the zen door. You go to the zen door. You do the ritual. You do the ceremonies. And you still do this personal power stuff. But you know it's just personal power. Anytime you know it's personal power and you say, personal power? Yeah, well, fine. I let go of it. And the way I prove I let go of it is by doing it. I go do these rituals just to show people that I can do them with no attachment. Anybody can not be attached to them by not doing it. Millions of people are walking around unattached to Zazen, they think, by not even trying it.

[36:45]

But as soon as they try it, they become attached. Zazen, wisdom beyond wisdom, is deluding being deluded. Wisdom beyond wisdom is not that deluding is unlikable. It's that . We all have perfectly because not all of you . In order to appreciate that, you need to give it out. You need to .

[37:05]

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