I want to taste the truth and not try to tell it to birds. Today is our sixth day of our Seshing and tomorrow will be the last day. So I want to finish up my talk on the seven factors of enlightenment today, and tomorrow we can have some discussion. The seven factors of enlightenment, so-called, mindfulness, investigation of mental dharmas, mental states, energy or effort, joy, calmness, concentration, and equanimity.

[01:24]

And today I'm going to talk about calmness, concentration, and equanimity. Calmness or composure, sometimes we say composure. And if you look at the word composure, to be composed, to be put together. How you put together, how you keep yourself together. And it's something like integrity is the same feeling. Integrity means everything is integrally together. How you integrate your body and mind with the body and mind of the universe. Maybe not so easy to integrate your body and mind with the body and mind of the universe, but so you start with integrating your body and mind.

[02:44]

You have somewhere to start. If you say, how will I ever bring peace to the world? The world is your world, our world. Right now, our world is within these four walls. This is our whole world, right now. And wherever you are, there's some limitation. Even though there's a big world, your world is the limitation of where you are. There's some boundary, even though you can't see it, always. not always aware of your boundary. And at the same time, your boundary is unlimited. So it has these two aspects, limited and unlimited. So there's no boundary to our unlimited mind and body, but

[03:57]

In order to understand ourself and to act and be at home, we have to set some boundary, some limitation to our activity. So if we want to see our boundless, unlimited nature, we limit our activity as much as we can. That's called zazen. the most limited kind of activity in order to have the widest view. But you say, well, in Zazen, we don't see it much. Just breathing and nothing's there. But no thing is everything. No thing is the nature of everything.

[05:02]

When you can appreciate that in zazen, then you can appreciate it everywhere. But in order to have some, to come to some understanding of that kind of freedom, we limit ourself, limit ourself to a very narrow perspective. And that when our mind opens in that narrow perspective, then we can understand our nature as the nature of all things. So when we act in the world, And when we sit zazen, especially sitting zazen, not especially, but because we're focusing on zazen, composure or calmness of mind is very important.

[06:18]

Calmness is like the ocean with no wind. I remember once I went to Oregon and went to some lake, I think it was called Clear, the million lakes in Oregon, it's called Clear Lake. There's probably a thousand lakes in Oregon called Clear Lake. It was a small lake. And I went out, we went out into the middle of the lake, and it was really calm, really clear. And you could see all the way down to the bottom. It was really amazing, it was deep, deep lake, but it was so calm, and so clear that you can just see all the way down to the bottom. That's the nature of calmness. Real calmness is being able to see all the way down to the bottom or act out of that bottomless calmness.

[07:23]

And in Zazen many things come up, all kinds of agitation and doubt and pain and confusion. And you don't move. No matter what happens, you don't move. If you move, then you break the connection. But if you don't move, it gets more and more difficult and you have to become more and more calm. More and more calm. Very still. And then pretty soon you can see all the way down to the bottom. You get more and more clear. Your mind becomes very simple. When you just stop everything. Everything stops. And there's just wonderful clarity.

[08:28]

No thinking. No wishing. No desire. Just complete oneness with everything in perfect stillness. But it's necessary in practice to train ourself to carry that stillness into all of our activities, that depth of stillness into your life. So that no matter what happens, you don't get pushed off. You don't get pushed off your seat, so to speak. As Suzuki Roshi used to say, you're always the boss. You should be always the boss.

[09:34]

It doesn't mean you boss everybody around. Not that kind of boss. But no matter what happens to you, you're always in control of yourself. You never lose yourself. If somebody comes up and insults you, you don't spit back at them. You don't lose your composure, your togetherness. So training, actually, training is how we keep our composure. Composure, sometimes we think of composure as a kind of front. You know, someone has a lot of composure until suddenly they're stuck with a pin in their butt, you know, and they jump.

[10:45]

Sometimes we resent people that have composure because they look too, too together, you know, there's something wrong. But that's not the kind of composure I mean. It's not like, like a plaster mask. Composure is soft mind. Real, soft, pliable mind. And loose, soft, pliable mind, which accepts things, accepts everything. And as it swallows the universe, it gets bigger and bigger. without choking. Just the opposite of what we usually think of as composure sometimes.

[11:49]

Not stiffness or a front or a mask, but the ability to go with things, to bend. Grass has wonderful composure. When the wind blows, the grass very beautifully bends over. And then when the wind's over, grass comes back up. I notice when you serve food in the zendo, that's where you train in composure. Someone was telling me that their daughter trained as a nurse, but is not working as a nurse. She's going down to Los Angeles and posing as a model. And he said, but you know what?

[12:56]

She comes back into the room, and when she walks into the room now, she has a real presence. you really have some feeling that she has a sense of herself, which she never had before. It's very interesting. If you become a model, you have to have some kind of poise. Sometimes we look through the Vogue magazine, you know, and you look at the models, and they all have a certain kind of poise. But a good model has some well-trained natural poise. Even though we may have some natural poise, some natural togetherness, that doesn't mean that we don't need some training. We need to develop ourselves so that our naturalness comes out.

[14:01]

Usually what happens in training is that we have some ability. And then when we train in some way, we take on a certain kind of form, formality, formal way of doing things. And then we give up kind of our usual way to take on the formal way. And then when we step out of the formal way, we have our natural way again. But there's something about our natural way that has developed because we've been able to train in a formal way. So a good Zen student, I say good, but a well-trained Zen student is someone who feels very natural, who does things with a feeling that's very natural, but also

[15:05]

with some mindfulness. And you can feel some training and that's very much appreciated. People appreciate that. What is not so good is when we just get stuck in the formality. So formality is one side, and being able to be natural within the formality is the other side. So when formality is no longer formality for you, and it feels natural, then there's no problem. Then you have some development. But as long as we are stuck in just feeling, formal feeling, then your practice kind of smells a little bit.

[16:11]

Oh, that's a little arrogant. Or, he looks like a Zen student. I notice that sometimes when we serve in Zendo, we lose our composure. If we're late sometimes, we lose our calm mind. I notice people late and they run up the stairs and open the door without thinking and run to their seat. That's losing it, losing your composure. If you are late, you can walk calmly up the stairs, open the door mindfully and close it, carefully, and very slowly, walk to your seat. You shouldn't lose your composure, especially in the zendo.

[17:15]

Just calmly walk to your seat. The other day, the meal was late, and the servers were all agitated. When there's nothing happening there, and everybody's sitting waiting for the meal, There's this big silence, big expectation. Where are they? So it just sits on them. But your mind says, well maybe they'll come now. Or maybe they'll come in a... maybe they're on their way. So wonder what they're doing. This is losing your calmness of mind. Just sit sadhana. It's okay. Things will work out the way they work out. And then the servers come into the zendo.

[18:21]

As soon as they get the pods, they start running up to save time. But no need. It doesn't help. The main thing is to be the boss, be composed. Sometimes we think that composure is to do everything very slowly. Mindfulness is to, you know, you walk up the aisle, very slowly, everybody's waiting. And dish out a little bit of food. Real composure is when you're moving fairly quickly to have composure.

[19:29]

It's not a matter of speed, not a matter of how fast or how slow you're going. in whatever you're doing. You're doing it and you know what you're doing and you keep your rhythm. Don't lose your rhythm. Everything that we do has a rhythm to it. Keep your rhythm. Don't lose your rhythm. So concentration is the next one. And concentration also is a result of, or goes with, calmness. Calmness and concentration. Well-concentrated and calm.

[20:32]

But concentration in This sense is like samadhi. Samadhi is our state of mind in zazen. There are many kinds of samadhi, but the kind of concentration or samadhi that we're talking about in zazen means direct intuition. It means samadhi of just one act, one thought. So zazen is this one action, sometimes called shikantaza, just doing. Just doing something is shikantaza, without any expectation.

[21:37]

or without any purpose beyond the purpose of sitting. That's really hard for people to swallow. So when we can have that kind of concentration in which there is no next moment, no previous moment, just this moment, just this time, just this act, and completely, totally concentrated on this one act, then our samadhi arises in a very strong way. That element of concentration called samadhi, it's not a mysterious thing. Not mysterious in the sense of something that you're adding to your self.

[22:41]

It's actually losing yourself. Losing yourself and finding yourself. Body and mind dropped off, what Dogen calls body and mind dropped off. And we can feel samadhi. There's a kind of feeling to it, you know, which is like a kind of glow, glowingness. Samadhi, we feel kind of like shining. If you sit well in zazen, you have that feeling of shining or glowing.

[23:49]

which is a result of samadhi, which is not some special state of mind. It's just our natural state of mind. When there's no greed, no anger, no ill will, no delusion. That's why we like to sit in zazen. But zazen is not just sitting. And zazen is serving food, and it's receiving food, and it's bowing, and it's walking out of the zendo, and it's stepping into your car, walking down the street, talking to people, selling insurance. Zazen is many things. but difficult to have that kind of concentration.

[25:06]

Just doing, no greed, no ill will, no delusion in it, in your actions. But it's hard to know what that is, unless you have some good experience of zazen. Even then, it's hard. Sometimes people have it without sitting zazen. And equanimity is the last one. And equanimity is the ability to not be partial. Means no partiality. Not partial to yourself, not partial to others.

[26:14]

And always well balanced. So that nothing, it's very much like calmness. Calmness is one of the, and equanimity go together. And it means non-attachment. Now, non-attachment can be very confusing. Non-attachment doesn't mean not to have responsibility. It's very important in our life to have responsibility, the ability to respond and to take care of things, take care of ourself, and be accountable for what people trust us with. to be accountable to ourself and to be accountable to others.

[27:22]

But non-attachment does not mean not to pick up anything or not to have anything. It means that even though you have something, you treat it selflessly. You treat everything selflessly. It doesn't matter if you have a lot of money or no money. If you have millions of dollars in the bank, it may be difficult to be selfless, but it's not impossible. It doesn't depend on what you have or don't have. It's a matter of how you your state of selflessness. So someone will say, well, you have friends or children or family or aren't you attached to your children?

[28:38]

Yes. So attachment is part of non-attachment. It's easy maybe to have non-attachment to no things. A little more difficult to have non-attachment to attachments, but it's necessary to have non-attachment to attachments. So we call it the non-attachment of attachment. It means giving everything its freedom, and still being able to love. We feel that if we love something, maybe we have to have it. But that's not really love in its deepest sense. Deepest sense of love is to be able to

[29:43]

give life with no sense of attachment to it. So sometimes we have to get very involved with things, get very involved. But our sense of love has to go beyond our sense of desire and ownership even though we may own and even though we may desire. So equanimity is a form of love, a very high form of love. It means to always do the right thing without any sense of possessiveness. Maybe possessiveness is better than attachment, but anyway, without a sense of possessiveness to be involved with life.

[31:00]

Hinayana way is to do away with all the obstacles so that you don't have to get attached to anything. and be a kind of solitary person. Mahayana way is in the midst of attachments and in the midst of turmoil and things and passion to be selfless. Hinayana way is more analytical. When you study Buddhism from a Hinayana point of view, it's very analytical. You have big long lists of dharmas and everything is analyzed.

[32:04]

All of the constituents of the human being are analyzed down to the minutest forms. And my Hinayana way is Synthesis. The whole universe is my body. That's Mahayana way. Hinayana way is it's not this, it's not this, it's not this, it's not this. Mahayana way is everything is myself. Both ways are good. They both need each other. Marriage of Hinayana and Mahayana is very important. To know ourself in the minutest ways and to realize that our whole body is the Dharmakaya. Okay.

[33:21]

So these seven factors of enlightenment, we should practice them. The seven factors of enlightenment are Hinayana, come from the Hinayana practice. But we have to be able to understand them from the Mahayana point of view. And that's what I've been talking about. So tomorrow we can have some discussion. Thank you.

[34:41]

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