I want to talk about my approach to zazen. and clear up any misconceptions that you may have about what we're doing and how we practice zazen. Sometimes I feel that I'm doing something and then somebody thinks I'm doing something else. Or I'm saying one thing and someone's picking up something else. Understand what I mean? So I want to just talk a little bit about it and see what you think. Various teachers emphasize certain things in zazen, and if you read a lot of books about practice,

[01:29]

or visit some other teachers, you'll find that they say certain things or emphasize certain things that are a little different than what I say or what Suzuki Roshi would say. But fundamentally, when I give zazen instruction, I talk about zazen, I'm thinking about the whole body and mind, whole body and mind, and how the whole body and mind is involved in zazen, in one act, one action. So when the whole body and mind is involved in one action, There's no one thing that's emphasized any more than any other thing.

[02:31]

It's like this building. We see the pillars, and the floor, and the door, and the windows, and we can pick out various parts, and we can say, well, the foundation is the most important part. Or we can say the walls are the most important part, or the beams are the most important part, or the door. If you don't have a foundation, you don't have a house. There's nothing to put the house on. And if you don't have a door, there's no way to come in and out. And if you don't have windows, you can't see or breathe. And if you don't have a roof, the rain comes in, and so forth. So when you look at each part, each part becomes very important. And when you're talking about a certain part, you say, this is the most important thing. But it means, for this moment, in this particular circumstance, this is the most important thing.

[03:42]

If I talk about the door, the door becomes the most important thing, because it's important to be able to come in and out of the building. So when we talk about zazen, even though no one part is any more important than another. We talk about certain parts as being very important or more important or lay stress on certain parts as being important because of their function. But when you look at this whole building, there's no one part that's any more important than another because it's all one building, all one piece. But, talk about the most important thing is the foundation. And in Zazen, the most important thing is the foundation of your body. How you sit on the cushion, and what position you take, and how you create a foundation that enables you to sit in a way, for a long period of time, in the most comfortable and strong way.

[04:54]

And then we talk about the various positions, the various ways we hold our body on that foundation, the various details of how we take care of our body in zazen and concentrate. And then we talk about watching the breath. And we talk about what to do with mental phenomena during zazen. How to deal with it. And so when you have zazen instruction, you pretty much have the whole thing in the beginning. The whole... We tell you almost everything right away. how to sit, and all together.

[06:02]

And we don't say, emphasize one part over another. So this whole thing is zazen. It's how you sit zazen. If one part is missing, then you can't sit so well. And so after you learn how to sit, then I walk around and adjust your posture to emphasize what you're not dealing with, what you're neglecting. And from time to time you should come and see me, say, how is my posture? Or what do I do with the metal images? Or this is what I think about zazen. We've discussed that, you know. refine your practice, refine your understanding of zazen. People can go for years and years with bad posture, and after a student gets to a certain point, after they've been sitting for five or ten years, it's pretty hard to correct their posture because, well, you know,

[07:19]

people don't like to do that. They feel that, I've been sitting five years, what do you mean? It's something wrong with my posture. I've been sitting ten years, what do you mean it's something wrong with my posture? So it's good to be very open and in the beginning to find out how to sit. The sooner you learn how to Really, the more instruction you get, the better, frankly, in the beginning. Suzuki Roshi used to give me a lot of instruction, and Kadagiri Roshi also. When I was in the first, I don't know, five years that I was there, always, If I was out of line, at least a little bit, there was something that they saw that was not quite right.

[08:26]

They'd always adjust my posture, always give me some correction and some instruction. And it was constant. So I feel very grateful that I had that much instruction because I really learned, I feel that I learned how to sit and how to express it. There are some people that went to study with Suzuki Roshi, said they never had any instruction. Interesting. So some people learn without instruction, or they pick up, you know. But I really feel the best way is to ask for instruction or to have someone who really goes to you and doesn't let you get by with your bad habits.

[09:33]

Just like learning a musical instrument. If you learn the bad habits, if you learn good habits right away, then you're going to have a lot less trouble playing. If you learn bad habits, then at some point you have to unlearn them. do it all over again. Otherwise, you can only go so far. So it's really important to learn good habits right away. So as I say, I don't emphasize any one thing over another, except when we need to to know something. You know, when it looks like everybody's got their head forward, like this, then I say something. Emphasize that. Or if people aren't holding their back straight, then I emphasize that. Or one of the most controversial things, you know, is what we do with thoughts and not thinking.

[10:44]

is the big koan. If we think that it means that you shouldn't have any thoughts in your head, then it's not a koan. It's just trying to stop up, put your finger in the dike, because our mind is like a faucet, an open faucet. Even though you put your finger in the faucet, you find the water's rising from your feet. And we're always overwhelmed with thoughts that brings us in. So it's a natural function of the mind to think. And very hard to turn off the thinking mind. So when we Our attention in zazen should be one with the zazen.

[11:48]

That's the subject of our attention is sitting. But it's not interesting. It's a lot of work and it's not interesting. And our mind is always seizing on something interesting or bringing up something interesting to work on. So it may not be so hard to sit straight It's very hard to control the mind. It's hard to sit straight, too. But really, controlling the mind is very, very difficult. And we have various devices to help us. One is counting your breath. It's a device to help control our mind. But we don't like counting very much. I don't know anybody that really likes it. I don't think anybody likes counting. Gee, you know, we're in the world of numbers all day long.

[12:51]

Why? Perpetuation's awesome. And maybe so, you know. Maybe not so good. But if you learn how to count from the beginning, then you can always use it when you get into a tough spot. when your legs are hurting so bad and you don't know what to do and have a hard time focusing on your breath. One. Two. It really helps you. So we always ask everybody in the beginning to learn how to count and focus the mind. You can also just watch your breathing after you've established your posture. Just let your mind follow the breath. But it's hard to let your mind follow the breath.

[13:52]

It takes a very subtle kind of mind to flow with the breathing. But that's what we want to do, is develop our mind so it's subtle enough to be able to follow the breath. but we always want to control it. You notice... I notice when people are eating in zendo, that toward the end of the meal, there's always a kind of restlessness, you know, of wanting to do the next thing, or get out of this. It hurts, especially during sashimi. People look around, something, a feeling of wanting to get ahead of where we are. And that becomes very apparent in our breathing.

[14:54]

We want to get ahead of where we are. We want to move. So when your mind is following the breath, it also tends to push it, and you find that you're controlling your breath. because there's some, a little more dynamic, you know, in our psyche that wants to do something. And to be very, to actually remain still. And what? And let our breath be. Very difficult. But if you can do it, it means that your mind is very subtle and very still. And your degree of concentration is very refined. And this is very

[16:07]

I don't want to say good, because if I say good, you'll think that all the other states are bad. So I'm being very careful. I have to be very careful. This is a place where we have to be very careful. And it always leads to some kind of confusion. It's very good to have that kind of refined concentration. It doesn't mean that it's bad if your concentration isn't that refined. Whatever your mind is like in zazen is just what it is. This is the most important thing. Whatever it is is what it is. On the one hand you can have very good zazen and on the other you can have very bad zazen. thoughts, confusion, no concentration. But real zazen is whatever it is, it's what it is.

[17:16]

Nevertheless, we make the effort to have good zazen. We make an effort to refine our attention, refine our concentration. But wherever we fall on the scale is just the zazen that we have, and we just accept that. So in some way you say, well that was good zazen or bad zazen, but actually it's just zazen. And that is the most important thing. that things are just as they are. It doesn't mean we don't make an effort, make big effort, but at the same time, things are just as they are. This is a compassionate mind to accept things just as they are.

[18:32]

To accept ourself just as we are. and make some effort. So we don't emphasize cutting off thoughts. You know, in Fukan Zazenki And many Zazen manuals, it says, cut off the root of thinking, the root of consciousness. But it doesn't mean cut off, actually. It means to allow ourselves to dwell in the mind which is more than just our conscious mind.

[19:37]

More than just the mind that's dwelling in thoughts. But if you try to cut off thoughts, the thought of cutting off thoughts is just another thought. And if you become antagonistic to your thinking mind, then you just get caught up in the bog of grappling. It's like a Medusa's head. You cut off one and it grows five. So we say, let the thoughts come. When a thought appears, you let the thought appear. Most meditation Zen meditation, and I can't speak for other schools, but most Zen meditation emphasizes this point.

[20:48]

Some people will say, cut off all thoughts, but that's rare. Cutting off thoughts does not mean to have a blank mind, but to allow the stream of thoughts to be there if they have to be there, but to not build on them as a foundation. So when a thought appears in your mind, in consciousness, you validate the thought, recognize the thought, allow it to be there without developing the thought. If you don't develop the thought, it's not your thought. In the same way that when you breathe, it's not your breath.

[21:54]

Breath goes in and out. whether you like it or not. If you want to stop it, go ahead, but pretty hard to stop. You can hold your breath for a while, but pretty soon you have to start breathing again. So you can't stop it and you don't start it. Breath just goes on. It's just the activity of the universe. It's wonderful. It's not yours. And the thoughts you have in your mind, you think, those are mine. But if you don't take them up, if you don't develop the thought, then the thought is not yours. The thought is just like the breath.

[22:56]

It's just the activity of the mind to think. When you develop the thought, you say, yes, that's my thought. But if you just let it come, let it go, it's just the mind's activity. So we call that not thinking. Just a flow of thoughts, but it's not thinking. Thinking is when you start to develop or get carried away. So if you let it bother you, then you have a problem Some people think you should cut off all thoughts, really try hard to suppress your thinking mind. But cutting off thoughts is not at that level. Not to have a blank mind. And sometimes we say the mind should be like a sheet of white paper. That doesn't mean that something doesn't appear on the sheet of white paper.

[24:02]

It means that the mind is very clear. When something appears, it appears on the paper. Or your mind is like a mirror. When something appears, it's reflected. And then when there's nothing there, nothing to reflect. So, the thoughts are like a passing show. And at the same time that the thoughts are coming up, you're continually returning there. attention to zazen, to posture and breathing, following breath. So many times I hear people complaining

[25:05]

that all during Zazen their mind was nothing but a jumble of thoughts. Their mind was just racing. And they say, that's bad. That I was so bad. My mind was so bad. Still in the realm of judgment, thinking good and bad about themselves. Your mind was just not your mind. Just somebody's mind was racing. You can even enjoy it. So, some... If you indulge your mind, that's thinking. As soon as you start indulging your mind, that's thinking. You can indulge your mind when you step outside of zazen, when you go out the door.

[26:12]

You can start indulging your mind again. But in zendo, the effort is to not indulge. Not get off the track. Maybe you have some questions about that? Well, I've been following that with a lot of interest. I appreciate you talking about this subject. Up until your last remark about indulgence, I don't think I understand what you mean by that. Indulging your mind. Well, it means to get lost in the thinking, get lost in the thoughts. Following the thoughts instead of returning to zazen, or keeping your attention on zazen. What do you think of using an image instead of coming as kind of preliminary, such as was suggested in the miracle of mindfulness, the stone dropped to the bottom of the pool,

[27:36]

imagining yourself that stone. Or, from my own experience, an image of great stillness is a mountain. But I don't mean it to stay there, but as a substitute. Oh, I see. But sometimes we use the mountain as a metaphor, to sit like a mountain, you know. And I think that that can be helpful to visualize yourself as a mountain. It's helpful. It can be helpful. You are a part of it. Huh? You appear to become a part of the mountain. You are the mountain. You are a mountain. You are a mountain. You are a mountain. Is that thinking? Well, it's a kind of device, you know, device to... You can, you know... Strictly speaking, we're not visualizationists, but to visualize, to think of yourself as a mountain is okay.

[28:47]

Yeah, that kind of visualization is less a visualization than a feeling, kind of feeling, you know, that calm, calmness. Yeah. Then you can be the pebble. The pebble and the pool. If you're both the pebble and the pool, it's okay. Yeah, I think that's all. I hate to say that I wasn't listening to what you said, but I kept coming to my mind with that, that you, in the very beginning, talked about the fact that every Zen teacher emphasizes something. So sometimes people... Or not every, but sometimes people emphasize a small aspect. And thinking that this was your particular thing that you emphasized, I kept wondering how you connected to everything else. And the one thing I heard you say about that in relation to other things is that when we step outside, we can indulge ourselves in thoughts.

[29:58]

And so, I guess... What I was wondering is I want to hear more about how that connects with being outside. I was just being facetious. I wasn't really emphasizing that then you should do that. I was just saying that's what we do. So I was turning that around a little bit, saying you can do that. But what I really meant is that's what we do. But I'm not saying that. You shouldn't do it. It's just a way of speaking, a manner of speaking. But I don't mean you should do it. But that's what we do. If you want to do that, do it outside. Don't do it here. But during Zazen, at least, we should

[30:59]

make the effort not to indulge ourselves in thoughts, in our thinking mind. Can you say a little bit about how that would connect with what happens when we're not doing Zazen? Well, we should always be doing Zazen. If we're really practicing, we're always doing Zazen. And So that's how we carry through our practice. Not by crossing our legs, but our attitude. We have to do more thinking. In other words, in Zazen we think, but the thought is one thought. We only think one thought in Zazen. It has its variations. But it's one thought. And when we leave Zen, though, and enter into activities, then we think many thoughts. We have to cope and respond to the world.

[32:05]

So our mind is more active in that there are many things to think about. So our mind becomes more split, in other words, divides. In Sarasvati our mind unifies. in an activity, it goes out. But this still should be the basis of unification, unifying our mind with what we encounter. That's our field of zazen. It becomes bigger, wider, or divided. So, you know, we're always actively thinking. But we don't have to indulge. When we don't have to think about something, we can let our mind be quiet. Or we can be careful about how we walk, how we move, how we respond to things.

[33:16]

And if we are conscious of greed, anger, and delusion. Those are the three hindrances, biggest hindrances. And if we're always conscious of not indulging in greed, anger, or delusion, then our mind will stay in a pretty calm place. Unified place. But those three tend to disunify. The absence of greed, anger, and delusion is called nirvana. So when we're sitting in zazen, those aren't present.

[34:24]

And our mind is unified. But when we start acting out in the world, they spring up. So it's a rocky road out there. But how you keep your mind in not some special state, but free from those three. You know, we're not always free from them. It's very difficult to be free from them. even when they arise, to be free from them. Just like when our thoughts arise in our mind, to be free from them. It's not that we suppress the thoughts, that when they arise in our mind, we're not attached to them. We have some freedom within the thoughts, within that realm. So even when some desire arises in the form of greed, anger, or delusion, It's one thing for those to arise, and it's another thing to take them up.

[35:28]

When we take them up, then we get carried away and lost. Just like in satsang, when we get carried away by our thoughts, we remember, you know, and then we bring ourselves back. So we're always coming back to this. We're always coming back to samadhi mind. And that's our practice, to keep coming back. If you get discouraged, it doesn't help. That's why practice is forever. Because these things are always coming up. And the way we practice is to keep coming back. Not to get discouraged because you're getting carried off. Because we're always getting carried off. That's life. Always getting carried away by something. And then we remember, when we come back to our meditation. That's how you practice zazen all the time.

[36:35]

It doesn't matter what position your legs are in, you know. Yes, Jack? The farther this goes the more complicated it gets because every time you say something I've got another question. You talk about using the counting as a tool to dissipate, as I see it here, dissipate that dieseling action of the mind. No. Maybe it isn't that. I thought I said to, it's a handle. to allow your mind to focus. Okay, where then in all of this is what we call Shikantaza, just sitting? Is Shikantaza just referring to a physical condition, assuming a posture, or is it referring to the mental process or all of it, and what distinguishes that from this other process of using

[37:56]

accounting process, or others, or koans? Well, sifantasa, you know, means just sitting, just doing something, just sitting. It doesn't mean this is good zazen, that's bad zazen. It means to be able to realize, just sitting, with whole, completely sitting, completely just sitting, or completely just doing something. without an ulterior motive. Wait a minute. And there are different ways to talk about shikantaza. There's a kind of specific shikantaza and a broader shikantaza. Specific shikantaza refers to what you're doing when you're sitting in the cross-legged position. And a bigger shikantaza is how you carry your practice into your daily life.

[39:00]

That's also shikantaza. Okay? So, just sitting without a motive that's more than what you're doing. In other words, an ulterior means another motive. to get something, to make something else happen. Sitting to sit. Art for art's sake. Sort of. Sitting for sitting for the sake of being. Just being. Just existing for its own sake. You're using it in a particular way, because according to your definition, you could be working on koan practice, and if you weren't caught up in attaining something, you could call it shikantala.

[40:14]

Yeah, if you were just, if you had the koan mu, and you were just saying mu, without thinking about it, without doing it in order to get enlightenment, But just to say mu for the sake of saying mu, that would be shikantaza. If you count your breath, one, two, without anything else, that's shikantaza. So shikantaza doesn't exclude counting your breath. If you count your breath with the same spirit that you said shikantaza, then it's shikantaza. have your koan, work with your koan in the same way that in the spirit of Shikantaza, then it's Shikantaza too. Shikantaza is what you end up with, with a koan. You've lost me.

[41:18]

I'm surely bewildered at this point. what you're saying about Shikantaza sounds to me, resonates with me, as if you're just discussing something, right? Okay, so, why, I can see Shikantaza as applied to something outside the soda, all right? Something outside of the action in the soda, or non-action in the soda. I can see that definition, that's another step. But in the Soto, I fail to make a distinction. Is there no distinction between just plain, just sitting and doing Zazen? Well, if you do it completely, in the correct way, it's called Shikantaza. It's called Shikantaza. Soto is a place where the monks sleep. Zendo is a place where you come and sit Zazen and leave.

[42:20]

Just to define the definitions. This is a zendo, isn't it? Sodo is like, at Eheji is a sodo, where the monks come in to do zendo, but they also sleep there. Monks all sleep there. I find Chunkai's difficulty lies in the realm of words and language. But speaking for myself, I could tell the truth or I could lie. If I were telling the truth, I would say that I have had different purposes in being God's animal.

[43:23]

Yeah. That's not unusual. But a question, however, is that is there, is there a purpose to that sense? Yeah, there is. There is a purpose to that sense. If I were to ask that question, I would say there are different purposes at different times for different people. Yeah, that's true. There are different purposes for different people at different times, but not all of them are zazen. But my understanding of this, how do you say that? Shikantaza. Shikantaza, what is the Soto reply to the... I don't think of it as a reply to anybody.

[44:28]

I don't think of it as opposition to anything or in contrast to anything. It's not in opposition to anything. Koan study, what I was saying to Jack, which confused him, was that Koan study, the end of Koan study is Shikantaza. So if you talk to someone who gives koans to students, you see, Shikantaza is actually what you come out with at the end of koan study. You don't have to go through a koan study to do it. But, you know, that's another, it's a device. In our particular practice, We talk more about shikantaza. But if you talk too much about shikantaza, you make too much of an object of it.

[45:32]

So we only talk about it sometimes. Mostly we talk about just zazen. Just do zazen. Otherwise we make some big deal out of shikantaza, which sounds very mysterious. So I just say, just sit. Just sit. For the sake of sitting. And then sometimes we talk about chikantaza and explain that and so forth. But I don't like to get too wrapped up in terms and compare one with another, koan and chikantaza. You know, we're all involved in koans, you know. Koan is what comes up all the time in front of us. And chikantaza too. But we define certain things in order to talk about or make some distinction in some way.

[46:46]

It's best if we keep our practice kind of simple, pretty simple. And people come for various reasons. Nobody comes for the right reasons. You don't know the right reasons until, you know, you start practicing for a while. So you don't expect that people come for the right... knowing what zazen is. Yeah, who would know that, you know? Not very many people. So, little by little, you learn that you just do zazen for zazen. And not everybody can accept it very easily. We always have some motive. You know, we do something for something else. I mean, isn't that logical? Who would want to do something just to do it? But that's what we do. Of course, people all have different motives. Some people, you know, get it. Some people don't. Some people never get it. But everybody's welcome to come.

[47:52]

That's it. Whether they get it or not. It is what? It is what? It, yes. That's your koan. What is it? Okay. Get what you, get what you got.

[48:21]

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