Well, I've been away quite a bit lately. I was at Tassajara for 10 days giving dharma transmission to two people, Pat Phelan and Gil Fransdal, and entrusting them with dharma as independent teachers. So, Then I was back for a week and I'm unscheduling myself for the month of October, which doesn't mean I'm not doing anything. It's not a vacation. I'm doing all the things that I need to do that I can't do when I'm scheduled. But it's been nice. I like it. But I do miss coming to Zazen.

[01:02]

So I think I'll be showing up for Zazen more often this month. So I miss everybody. And so I'd like to keep contact with people. So Today we have a short one-day sitting and because of the bodhisattva ceremony we don't have so much zazen. So I want us to really concentrate on the zazen that we have and to make the most of our day. So I want to talk about four things. I want to talk about body, breath, and mind, which are the three essential aspects that we harmonize in zazen.

[02:07]

And I also want to talk a little bit about the stick, the kiyosaku. So when we When we come to Sesshin, it's the first day, it's really hard to leave behind your busy mind and usual postures and problems. It takes maybe, in a seven day Sesshin, it becomes a way of life. Sesshin becomes a way of life and it's easier to do that. But for a one-day sitting, we have to make a special effort. And of course, the more you say, make an effort to forget, the harder it is to forget. So we can't do it that way.

[03:10]

But as soon as we enter the gate, we're entering a different space. to just leave behind, as much as possible, our old life and enter into the present life of the zendo. I guess what we should be thinking about If you have trouble seeing in the back, you can always sit in one of the other seats or come up close. It bothers me to see, so you're peeking out, you know. So the atmosphere of the zendo helps

[04:14]

It really helps us if we can just enter into when we come into the zendo and make that first bow at the door and enter into the atmosphere of the zendo and take our seat and adjust our posture and maintain attention on our posture. because it's an unusual posture. We don't usually hold ourselves in this way in our daily life. So we have this opportunity to let go of our conditioned postures and take this posture which is not conditioned. It's a fundamental posture which is not moved by things.

[05:17]

When we worry and think, we tend to bend over like this. Rodin's Thinker is a great piece of sculpture, but it's not Zazen. It's the condition, its posture is conditioned by the world, by the problems of the world. And you may feel guilty letting go of the problems of the world. And, you know, it's true. We may feel... Often, you know, we hang on to things because we feel Sometimes we hold on to resentments this way, because if I don't resent, then the other person will get off free. But we're actually holding ourselves in bondage.

[06:28]

And there will always be tremendous problems in the world, more than any of us can ever handle or fix. So zazen, in our practice, is a positive way to present positive energy in the world. And we have this opportunity to let go of our conditioned postures and just resume our natural, normal, upright posture in which body and mind can become harmonized with everything. Even though it's withdrawing from worldly activity, it's not stepping outside of the world. activity and allowing pure activity to arise, which is actually quite rare.

[07:59]

The more pure activity there is in the world, the more people will be aware that there is such a thing. By pure activity, I don't mean the activity that's opposite to impure activity. Pure means, in Buddhist terms, means non-dual activity. Purity means non-duality. So to allow this pure non-dual activity to come forth is a great service for the world. Great contribution to humanity and the world. So it's important to really pay attention to posture.

[09:15]

Sometimes we get discouraged, you know, the back hurts or we can't really sit up straight or we're tired and so forth. But whatever effort you can make is right effort. And So I want to encourage everyone to really make the effort to sit up straight. Sometimes over a long period of time, you know, we get kind of set in a little bit of a slump. But I want to encourage you to let go of that. That's a kind of Zazen conditioning, which you bring on yourself at times. So I don't want you to get used to that so much. There are older students who do sit with a kind of slump and nothing that I can do will help. But I don't want you to get into that habit.

[10:20]

I want you to develop good habits of posture. And so if you learn from the very beginning to sit with really upright posture, putting a lot of energy into posture, then the more you sit, the easier it gets and the better you feel. And the easier it is to sit, especially for long periods of time. To keep looking for the balance, forward and backward and from side to side and to just keep working on that throughout Zazen. The balance of your body, pushing your lower back forward if you can and keeping your head on top of your spine and of course you may fall asleep and then your body slumps but then you wake up

[11:24]

And when you wake up, you reestablish your posture. So you're constantly reestablishing your posture. We say, don't move. I think it's good if you don't move. But during Zazen, you readjust your posture subtly. And to somebody looking at you, it doesn't look like you're moving. But inside, You're actually adjusting all the time, adjusting your mudra, adjusting the position of your head, reasserting the posture of your back, because it's always changing. Your back is not like a stick, although the stick has good posture. It's very good posture. But you're not a stick. So your posture is changing and you have to keep adjusting it all the time as you sit. But you should make a big effort to not uncross your legs.

[12:32]

Stick it out. No pun intended. But if you have to move, move. And it's important to pay really good attention to breathing down here. I say this all the time. And sometimes I'll ask a person, where is your breath at this moment? I say, well, I don't know. You should always know where your breath is at any one moment. So make the effort to breathe here, inhaling, your abdomen expands, exhaling it contracts. This is inhaling. Exhaling. And when you, when your breath becomes rough or you can't find it, take a big deep breath and expand your lower abdomen and then exhale like, and let all the breath out.

[13:51]

and do that a couple of times to establish your breathing and then just resume normal breathing so you can do that as much as you need to and uh... if you whether consciously or underneath just below the surface of consciousness you come in and out of awareness at some point you'll be very aware of breath and then awareness will go disappear but somewhere underneath there still should be awareness so that breathing is always taking place down here when we get nervous or when we get anxious or when we get too painful the breath tends to come up you know and as we get tight. So the point is to always stay loose in Zazen, no matter what's happening, no matter how painful or no matter what your thoughts are, whether you have a painful body or painful thoughts, to continually let go of tenseness and stay loose.

[15:10]

That's absolutely essential for Zazen. to just think of looseness. Let looseness be a dominant foundation of thought. And because our natural tendency is to seize up when we have difficulty, to withdraw. So you have to go the opposite direction. As soon as you start having difficulty, painfulness or anxiety to open up. It's really the opposite of our natural reaction. But you have to do it that way. And just keep opening up. If you just keep opening up to begin with and never close down, that's best. So from the very beginning, open up to whatever's there.

[16:17]

And just stay open. Don't close down. As soon as you feel yourself closing down, or the breath rising up, or your shoulders going up, that's a very good indication. Shoulders going up. Or the thumbs pushing together. The mudra, you know, very lightly touching. Thumbs very lightly. In intense pain, the thumbs are very lightly touching. This is the barometer for the body-mind. Just always lightly touching, no matter what's happening. And you're always at ease. And no matter how much difficulty you have, there's always ease within the difficulty. and concentration, good concentration.

[17:19]

And then the mind is always producing thoughts, which is okay. As we know, that's okay. So the thought of Zazen is what we should be thinking. The mind is just harmonizing body and breath. That's all. and the thoughts are coming in and going out. Both doors, the front door is open and the back door is open. And whatever comes in has easy access out. So you can sit by your fireplace and just watch the visitors come and go. Easy in and easy out. Don't close the back door. Don't get caught up in conversations. So this is I really want us to concentrate on this today, on taking care of a busy mind. Taking care of a busy mind doesn't mean to stop your thoughts.

[18:27]

Don't try to stop the thoughts. Just let go and pay attention to what you're supposed to be doing. That's all. Don't get caught up in negative feelings or negative actions. Let the winds blow, but just pay attention to posture and breathing, and harmonizing posture and breathing. And you may think, well, there's nothing to do now, but there's always something to do. Always something to do. So the point is to stay awake, to be awake on each moment. Which brings me to the subject of the stick. The stick is a device that's been used for a long time.

[19:30]

I know that they used it in the Chinese monasteries. And in Japanese monasteries they use it all the time. And we always used stick for years until maybe 8 or 10 years ago when people started getting a reaction to it. So we don't use it so much. But I just want to say something about what it means to use the stick. Whether we use it or not is okay with me. But I just want to say something about what it is. When we're sitting zazen, we get into stodgy states of mind.

[20:31]

a lot of thoughts accumulate and certain attitude accumulates or I don't know if attitude accumulates but a certain kind of stodgy attitude appears and we get kind of stuck in an old place so when we get hit with a stick It transforms our body-mind immediately. It's like, boom, you're in a completely new place without anything. You're reborn into this moment. This is the purpose of the stick, is to help us to be reborn into this moment. Complete emptiness.

[21:37]

Form is emptiness at that moment. And then, of course, you go back to starting state of mind. But for that moment, you have the opportunity to wake up. And I say transformation. You still look the same, but there's a difference and you may or may not like it. But there is a change, a sudden change. And when one person is hit, if the sound is good, everybody wakes up. So it keeps the energy and the mindfulness and awareness very fresh. So one of the problems that we have in Soto Zen is the problem of quietism. You know, because we don't speak during Zazen.

[22:41]

We don't have a koan. We do have a koan, but it's not the koan of Mu or something. I'll talk about that too. It's easy to just let the mind get drenched with thoughts and the body start to collapse and, you know, to drift off and be either get in a comfortable state or get in a kind of musing or dreamy state. There's a problem. So the stick helps to keep the air fresh and helps to keep our presence of mind and awareness right here. So that's why we've always used it in the past and why I like to use it.

[23:42]

The koan of Zazen, you know, Dogen's koan of Zazen is, think, not thinking. How does one think, not thinking? Non-thinking. Non-thinking actually means for our thought and our activity to have no gap. No gap between our thought and our activity. We're not thinking about something. As soon as you start thinking about something, you're dreaming. So that's why I say, think the thought of Zazen.

[24:43]

Think the thought of Zazen is your koan. Also, if you count your breath, say one, two, with each breath, one, two, and the number is the sound of your breath, the silent sound of one, the silent sound of two. It's not just counting off breaths, but the count being completely with the breath, so that there's no gap between the counting and the breath. This way, this is a kind of, you get a handle on the breathing this way. A handle on awareness of breath.

[25:47]

It's helpful. So if you say one, two, it's just like saying moo. Counting can be like a koan. You only need to say one over and over again, actually. One, one, with each breath. It's not necessary to count to 10, but that's what we do. We count to 10 and then we start again with one. And when you get to 25, you know that you haven't been aware. So it helps you to monitor awareness. So, I've been sitting for over 30 years, around 30 years, and I often count my breath. Especially when I know that I need something to help me concentrate, then I count my breath.

[26:49]

It just comes up automatically. If you learn to do it when you start sitting, if you do it all the time when you start sitting, and then you do it through Sashin, it will just come to your aid when you need it. So, one important, talking about coming to your aid, when we sit, certain parts of our body, our anatomy, become uncomfortable. Have you experienced that? Certain parts of our body become uncomfortable. And then we start focusing on that part of the body. We start, we become attached, so to speak, to that part of the body. Oh my knee, or oh my back, or oh my leg. You know, immediately our mind focuses on there. And we forget all about the rest, you know?

[27:49]

as if there was nothing else going on but this little problem. So, when there is a problem, to not focus on that problem to the exclusion of everything else. This shouldn't stop. This little problem shouldn't make us stop what we're doing. When we have a problem, we should let the whole body participate with the problem. So when you have this little problem, you should put your attention on the rest of your body. And then the problem will be eased by the burden of the problem will be taken up by the whole body. instead of by your concern.

[28:52]

You know, we feel very concerned about it. And so we don't want to abandon this little problem because, you know, that's me. I don't want to let go of that, you know. It hurts too much. So we have to allow ourselves to draw ourselves away from that. and concentrate on the rest of our posture. And then the whole body will be drawn into the problem and will absorb the problem. It will become distributed in a wider, bigger way. than just concentrating on this little thing. If you concentrate on this little thing, then it becomes very big. It's like holding a magnifying glass up to something very small, and it becomes very big. So if you allow it, your whole body, mind, will come to the aid of this problem.

[30:04]

You should let that happen. And then this will just be something that's happening. And as long as you think this is my pain, this is my something, then that will contribute to the problem. So just let the problem be the problem and take care of the rest. There's nothing you can do about this problem except let go of it. Let it be absorbed by the whole body. The body will come to the aid of Rome if you let it. So this is an exercise in letting go.

[31:17]

And being such a short Sachine, I'm going to sit Zazen and not do doksan. And I will walk around with a stick from time to time. And if you want a stick, if you want to see what it's like, just bow like this and lean over. Then I'll push you over a little bit. Best if you just turn like this. Bam, bam. Bam, bam. And then bow. But we never hit anybody unless they want it. And there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm very accurate. I've never caught off anybody's ear. And you may be startled, but that's good.

[32:36]

It's good to be startled, which means that you were dreaming. If you're not dreaming, you won't be startled. So, do you have any questions? Yes. It seems to me there's awareness and there's concentration. And one is sort of passive, just letting things be, sort of passively watching. And the other concentration seems more active, more intention-oriented. Yes. if there's something you could say about the balance between the two.

[33:43]

If I get passive, I go off, you know, quite often. And yet, too much, you know, it's like one, two, you know, sort of hanging on the breath. Right, good question. The passive side and the active side should both be there and be balanced. So passive means to just accept whatever comes. without grasping anything, and without rejecting anything. No grasping, no rejecting. The active side is posture, and bringing attention back, and making an effort to stay awake, and putting energy actually into the posture. Counting is very subtle, because when we count, you want to not set up a rhythm out of your counting.

[34:55]

You'd be able to let the mind follow the breath. That's passive. just to let the mind follow the breath. But what happens is at some point we start setting up a rhythm of counting. And instead of following, we start leading the breath. And so you have to let go of that. It's okay, but you have to try and let go of that when you realize that you're just creating a breathing pattern through your mind. let go of that and just see if you can let the mind follow the rhythm of the breath. That's very subtle, if you can do that. And if you can do that, then concentration will become very refined. So the counting is with the rhythm of the breath as it goes.

[36:03]

We don't try to create a rhythm for breathing. We just follow the natural rhythm of the breath, whatever it is. If it's fast, it's fast. If it's slow, it's slow. But sometimes when you become aware of the breath, then you don't know whether you're interfering or not. That's also there. You don't know whether you're interfering or not. So if you get If you're counting and you realize that you just can't count and follow the breath, that you're actually moving it or setting up a separate rhythm, let go of counting and just follow the breath. As long as you can keep your attention on the breath without counting, it's okay. But you find that it doesn't take long before the thoughts are consuming your attention.

[37:07]

So, anyway, whether you're counting the breath or not counting the breath, to let the mind follow the breath. It's active and passive at the same time. It's actively aware and passively following. But following isn't always necessarily passive. It takes some attention to actually do that, some positive attention to do that. So whatever we do has active and passive sides at the same time. It's like the bukuyo. When you're doing the bukuyo, you're following the chant and you're also leading it. So this is a perfect example of zazen. What we should be doing is following and leading at the same time. perfect balance of the active and the passive. So really keep that in your mind all the time.

[38:13]

They're not necessarily talking about stooping. It's more like composure. How do you wake up to composure? How do you wake up to maybe mind states? How do you wake up to chaos or misogynist? Well, life is waking you up to it. You know, somebody gets angry at you or things happen. You say, why is this happening to me? How come you're getting angry at me? Or how come you're acting this way? So the world is your mirror. And when things happen, you should realize it's happening because you're unaware or you're following all those things you mentioned. So just pay attention to the response you get from the world. It's telling you something all the time. Yes.

[39:36]

We talked about dealing with pain in Sangha, and this time we talked about how you should not focus so much on a particular area that it's coming from, or appears to be coming from, but kind of be aware of it What I've heard before is that, because it's my natural tendency not to want to think about or feel what I'm feeling. So my natural tendency is to try not to feel what I'm feeling. But I believe I've been instructed in the past not to avert myself from experience the pain.

[40:43]

Yeah, you will anyway. That's not what I'm talking about. You will wholeheartedly experience it anyway. But in order to let go of it, you have to be it. You have to be one with it. When you become one with it, then the whole body will... It's just another way of saying be one with it. Rather than, if you're just focusing on that thing, then you're making an object of it. You're magnifying it, you know, creating a whole scenario around it. I have pain too, you know. What's that? I also have pain, you know. But, you know, there are other things going on besides that. It's not the only thing there is. So, I just, I find that.

[41:46]

But to say that, you know, I, to say I try to, you know, not feel what I'm feeling, right? I think you should feel what you're feeling, you know? And the problem you have with Zazen is that you are feeling what you're feeling, right? Yeah, I actually, recently, I mean, Since I've been instructed, my previous instruction, I have intentionally been trying to feel, feel like the pain, like in my knees or my hip or something, as fully as possible, you know? And that's... That's different than being one with it, or completely accepting it. to do it, feel it as fully as possible, you can make something hurt as badly as you want to. That's not what we're talking about. We're not saying you should make whatever hurts, hurt as much as possible.

[42:51]

You can do that if you want, but that's not it. It's just you're open to it, that's all. As long as you're fighting it, it wins. It'll always win. When I open to it, it seems to fill every corner of my being. It's like it's all I am. It's just pain. That's okay. It's just that you don't like it. The problem is that you don't want it. That's why you have to let go of... It's either wanting it or not wanting it. You just have to let go of wanting or not wanting. Then, it's okay. Do you have any tips on how to do that? That's what my lecture has been about.

[43:53]

It's one big tip. It's a tip-off. Okay. Anyway, it's three o'clock.

[44:08]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ