In the past few weeks, I've been talking about Dogen's last work, which is called The Eight Aspects of Enlightenment, Eight Aspects of an Enlightened Person, which is supposedly based on Shakyamuni's Eight Aspects. of the enlightened person with his last work, last admonition to his monks. And the eight aspects are having few desires, knowing how to be satisfied, cultivating serenity and tranquility, exercising diligent practice, exercising right thought, cultivating samadhi, cultivating wisdom, and not indulging in idle talk.

[01:13]

And I talked already about having few desires, knowing how to be satisfied, serenity and tranquility, and diligence and right thought, and today, going to talk about samadhi. Samadhi literally means concentration and usually associated in a historical way with samatha and vipassana. Samatha is to still the mind and vipassana is insight and let insight arise. So, stilling the mind is a basis for vipassana.

[02:27]

or insight. We use the terms samadhi and prajna. Prajna is our innate wisdom which comes forth when the mind is quiet. or not perturbed, which is a little different than disturbed. In the translation, Dogen says, dwelling in the Dharma undisturbed is what is called Samadhi. But I think a better word than undisturbed would be unperturbed.

[03:34]

Because Samadhi has the quality of imperturbability. Disturbances are happening all the time. There's always something, some kind of problem or... Disturbance means waves. There are always waves. So to sit undisturbed is okay, but to sit in the midst of disturbance, unperturbed, is samadhi. To sit imperturbably, imperturbed, with imperturbability in the midst of disturbances in samadhi. Not to be pushed around by anything.

[04:37]

Not to let the pain in your legs disturb you or perturb you. It may disturb you, but you shouldn't let it perturb you. Dogen says, So I would use the term unperturbed rather than undisturbed. Dwelling in the dharma, unperturbed, is what is called samadhi. And then he quotes the Buddha, and he says, the Buddha says, when you unify your minds, the mind is in samadhi. Since the mind is in samadhi, you know the characteristics of the creation and destruction of the various phenomena in the world. For this reason, you should constantly practice with diligence and cultivate all kinds of samadhi.

[05:43]

When you gain samadhi, the mind is not scattered. Just as those who protect themselves from floods guard the levee, And this is also true for practice. For the sake of the water of wisdom, then, cultivate samadhi well and do not let it leak out. This is called samadhi. Well, to go back, he says, when you unify your minds, the mind is in samadhi. But we unify the mind around a single point. There are various kinds of samadhi. There's samadhi in the three worlds. When we say the three worlds, it means the world of past, present, and future. But it's another set of three worlds.

[06:48]

which is the world of desire, the world of form, and the world of no form. In the world of desire, we can easily concentrate on something that we're interested in. we can concentrate on the football game, or we can concentrate on food, or we can concentrate on the opposite sex, or the same sex, or we can concentrate on aspects in the realm of desire. If you go to a movie, you're very concentrated on the movie. But this is samadhi in the realm of desire. This is samadhi with self. So, strictly speaking, it's not samadhi.

[07:49]

It's concentration, but it's not, strictly speaking, samadhi. Samadhi is concentration or unifying the mind without being self-centered. So, in the realm of form, This is the rudimentary concentration of without-self, which is called samadhi. And in the realm of no-form, it's concentration or unification, total unification of the mind with any object, which means no separation. So, your activity is the activity where self and other are not separate, or mind and its objects are not separate.

[09:03]

Zazen, of course, is the practice of unifying the mind. So we call Zazen practice Samadhi. And Sashin is Deep Samadhi. Continually renewing the present. continually renewing our life in the present moment and being one with the present moment. And then he says, since the mind is in samadhi, you know the characteristics of the creation and destruction of the various phenomena in the world.

[10:09]

This is a very fundamental meditation practice, to know how things arise, how they exist, and how they cease to exist. And if you've ever read any Buddha sutras on meditation, Buddha is always saying this, you know how something arises in the world, you know how it exists, and you know how it ceases to exist, and to concentrate on this aspect of life. So when you sit in Zazen, you notice how a thought arises, you notice how it exists, and you notice how it ceases to exist. And then you become familiar with the arising, existence, and ceasing of all phenomena in order to realize the transiency of life.

[11:24]

In order to have a fundamental feeling for the transiency of life. To have a fundamental realization of the transiency of life. So this is basic Buddhist meditation. So it's important to, when you're doing zazen, to notice how a thought arises, to acknowledge its existence, and to let it go. And this is kind of training in letting go. In accepting and letting go. Accepting and letting go. Accepting and letting go. Without clinging to anything in the world.

[12:30]

For this reason, you should constantly practice with diligence and cultivate all kinds of samadhi. Well, there are various kinds of samadhi. And there's a sutra that lists many, many, many, maybe hundreds of samadhis. Hundreds of samadhis. which we won't go into here, but there are a few samadhis that are relevant. The zamai, o-zamai, or o-zamai, o-zamai, o is king. The samadhi king's samadhi. great Samadhi which includes all of the other Samadhis.

[13:52]

And Dogen uses this as a description of Zazen. Zazen includes all of the other Samadhis. And Nagarjuna describes this Samadhi. Nagarjuna, the Buddhist philosopher around the first century, he says, it is called the king of samadhis, samadhi, because all the various kinds of other samadhis are included in it. It is like all the rivers and myriad rivulets of the human world flowing into the great ocean, or like the fact that all are vassals of the king of the realm. I have hesitated to talk about that because in Dogen's fascicle he talks about monastic practice and never leaving the monastery.

[15:14]

So I kind of hesitate to I've always hesitated to talk about that fascicle, but sometime I will. And then there's, of course, there's Ichigyo Zamai, which is samadhi of one act. And that means that on each moment's activity, there is complete and total concentration. Concentration is often, you know, because we talk about samadhi, people get the feeling that concentration is the most important

[16:20]

aspect of meditation. Concentration is important. There are many other aspects of meditation as well. The eight aspects of the enlightened person are all aspects of meditation, which should be equally practiced. And concentration is a very powerful one. But it's not the only one. Sometimes people, you know, try to increase their samadhi power or concentration powers and make a kind of too big a deal out of it. And they become very fierce looking and penetrating stare and stuff like that.

[17:30]

So we should be careful. But in one act Samadhi, on each moment, the whole universe is present within. each activity. And Jiju-Yu Zamae, Self-Joyous Zamari, is another aspect or another way of describing Shikantaza, which is just doing. And just doing it means without self, without a self arising, without centering on the self.

[18:38]

It means settling on the self without being self-centered. This is maybe a good koan. How do you settle on the self without being self-centered? Settle the self on the self without being self-centered. So there are various samadhis. And they're really just aspects of samadhi. The king's samadhi. various ways of describing it and looking at it and viewing samadhi. When you gain samadhi, the mind is not scattered, just as those who protect themselves from floods guard the levee.

[19:42]

So samadhi is a container, a container for concentration. And zazen, of course, is the great container. And you can see how the mind is always leaking. He says, this is also true for practice. For the sake of the water of wisdom, cultivate samadhi well and do not let it leak out. Don't let it leak out. But, you know, our mind is always distracted. And distraction is normal. So that's why we have to continually keep diligently practicing and keeping our mind concentrated.

[20:52]

Not leaking out. It's like holding a bowl, unifying body, mind, and breath, and keeping that unity, and putting your finger in the dike to keep it from leaking out, not leaking in. But Samadhi is not just in Zazen. There's Samadhi which is Samatha, still in the mind. So, originally

[21:56]

Samatha means stilling the mind so that the waves are no longer disturbing. And then you can see all the way down to the bottom, and that's insight. When there's no more disturbance, then one can see all the way down to the bottom, and insight arises. Later forms of meditation, sadhana, say that samadhi is like a lamp and wisdom or prajna is like its light. So when samadhi, when the mind is unified and calmed in samadhi, then the wisdom naturally illuminates.

[23:07]

And then we have the school which tend toward samadhi and the schools which tend toward prajna. Sometimes, traditionally, the Soto school is characterized as the school of samadhi, and the Rinzai school is characterized as the school of prajna. But prajna and samadhi are not two different things. They're actually two aspects. Although we talk about samadhi, it's samadhi. When we talk about prajna, it's prajna. But samadhi is the basis and prajna is the result. So when samadhi is strong, prajna illuminates because it's always there.

[24:26]

So when we have a good container, then samadhi arises nicely. When it's always leaking, it loses, we lose our samadhi power. So we should be able to carry, if you practice 20 years diligently, your samadhi power should be very strong and well-contained. and become natural to you. But I want to get back to this aspect of imperturbability.

[26:09]

It's pretty difficult to maintain a good, strong zazen which is actually imperturbable. It takes a while. Everyone is different. Everyone has a different capacity. Some people can sit very nicely in a short period of time. Other people it takes a much longer time to actually be able to sit well, to accept the difficulties, and to get to the point where even though you have difficulties,

[27:29]

you can accept them easily. So each person is different, and we shouldn't compare ourselves to someone else. Say, oh, this person sits, you know, they don't seem to have any problem at all, or I'm just always struggling and having a difficult time. But you shouldn't compare yourself with somebody else. Each one of us is in our own place. And the length of time it takes to refine our practice is different with each one. So, the most encouraging thing is when someone has difficulty sitting, they continue even though they have that difficulty.

[28:40]

That is most encouraging to everyone. The most important aspect of practice actually is to just continue. It's not that's not the goal of practice. The goal of practice is to just continue, no matter whether you can sit well or not sit well, no matter whether it's comfortable or not comfortable, no matter whether your mind is leaking or not leaking, no matter whether you have samadhi power or don't have it. The most important aspect is just to continue. So you may get discouraged and think, I'll never be able to do this.

[29:48]

Or, you know, how can we do this? I remember thinking that when I first started to sit. How can we do this? But there's nothing to do but just continue. And if you continue, you'll be able to sit comfortably. But it may take a long time. It may take your whole life. But that's not... So, you know, in some places, some zendos, they don't let you move.

[31:13]

You know, somebody will keep shouting at you, don't move, don't move. And that's good. But it's very good, actually. And at some point, you should be able to tell yourself, don't move. So, I don't force you to not move. No. Make you feel bad. At some point, you yourself will say, don't move. I won't move, no matter what's happening. And then, that will be your decision, not mine. But, if you are uncomfortable, it's okay to move.

[32:24]

But at some point, you will not want to move. And when you reach that point, it's different for everyone. And if you sit long enough, you will reach that point where you say, I just won't move. And then you will experience deep samadhi. to find the unmoving quality within the difficulty.

[33:27]

That's real. That's reality. To find Settledness. Composure. Within the difficulty that you have is real composure. So, I think that I want to encourage you to sit still. To sit still and let go.

[34:38]

The more you can sit still the easier it is to just concentrate on your breathing. Breathing is an entrance to Samadhi. And to count your breath is a good way to enter Samadhi. That's why we always teach breath counting. You can count your breath from 1 to 10 on the exhale. And, you know, it's not necessary to count your breath.

[35:38]

But when you're having difficulty, if you know how to count your breath, if you have practiced this, then it automatically comes back to you. as a help, as a way to stay focused and to keep your attention focused. So when you start having trouble and you don't know what to do, start counting your breath. And if you can just sit through one breath at a time, If you're living within one breath, and then your whole life is within this one breath, this is a good samadhi power. You're having a lot of difficulty.

[36:43]

You don't know what to do with the pain in your legs. You just concentrate on one breath at a time. That's all there is in the whole universe, is that one breath at a time. You made it through this breath. Well, I can make it through this breath. And then I can make it through this breath. Just stay with one breath at a time. This is being present, totally present. Do you have any questions?

[38:05]

Really? I didn't quite catch the distinction and relationship between Samadhi and the realm of form and the realm of no-form. The realm of form is, in this case, Samadhi of no-self within awareness of subject and object. So it's like samadhi in the realm of form is within our activity.

[39:25]

There's no self. And it's like the basic samadhi. And samadhi of no form is where there's no awareness of self and no-self. It's a more rarefied aspect of samadhi. One of the descriptions is someone was concentrating on the koan, the oak tree in the garden. And they were sitting there, concentrating on the oak tree in the garden, and a thief came in the window. And he saw this, whatever it was that he saw, and he ran out and told somebody that when he went in there, all he saw was an oak tree.

[40:31]

He didn't see any person sitting there. I don't know if this is true or not. But this is... one merges, is merged with everything. So this is like when everything falls away. There's not even any sense of difference. So the ox heard in pictures. Yeah. Describe that. Barbara. In some situations you might have, you might be living in muddy water where it is impossible to distinguish what is really true.

[41:34]

It can just be so cloudy and Sometimes I see a circumstance where people are appearing to exist in enormous peace while there seems to be at the same time some phenomenal crime being colluded in behalf of some circumstance or something like that and it seems For me personally, the more that I sit, the more agitated I become in a situation where everybody else is absolutely content and happy and feels very justified if circumstances just happen to have to be like they are, but we can all live with it, but we're not living. I'm trying to understand better.

[42:36]

You know, I hate to say crime because that gets really vague, and I don't want to make a judgment like that. But I feel that, to be frank about the matter, my people are being disserviced. And everybody can justify it and make it be all right that it happens to be like this, and no one is willing to make the kind of statements And even if they do, it's just like shouting in the dark. I wouldn't call those people what people... I don't think there are so many people who are actually selflessly living in Samadhi. I'm not sure what people you're referring to.

[43:55]

Do people seem like they are? Well, they are able to come to work every day and be peaceful and cordial. That's different than Samadhi. Being peaceful and cordial is easy in some circumstances. It's different than Samadhi. When is Samadhi not peaceful and cordial? Well, peace... but Samadhi has those characteristics and not Samadhi also has those characteristics. But Samadhi is more than just being peaceful and cordial. Samadhi is living in reality. Well, you know, everybody's defining reality all the time. You know, and everybody's very, very clear they can make a reality and they can all nod along and say that this is the reality and it can absolutely be some reality that's very, very detrimental.

[44:59]

Can be. Everyone has their own idea about it. But... I think that a lot of people, most people, are concentrated in the world of desire. And I think that in the world of desire, one can be very cordial and very, you know, so forth, but also be very hypocritical and want the best for themselves and not be supportive of others. But I think that what you're talking about, to me, is concentration in the world of desire, which is different than concentration in the realm of form and no form.

[46:07]

You know, so then here comes the Zen student, Into the midst of a world of enormous desire that is Incarcerating All of my people half of my people not educating any of my people But yet I have somebody Do you know? Well, what will you do about it? What will I do about what?

[47:17]

The situation or about the fact that I don't have somebody? What will you do? about you. This is a situation enormous, enormous situation which no one can fix. HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

[48:24]

You know, everyone in this room feels the same way that you do. so

[50:33]

We can't fix everything. Even though we want everything to be fixed, we can't do it. The only thing that we can do is find reality and act out of that. There are many things that you can do. It's a long, long struggle.

[52:50]

And everyone has to play their part. And you can't get discouraged. And you can't let the pain overwhelm you. And you just have to take one step at a time and not get drowned. That's what we're doing here. even though it's overwhelming.

[53:59]

You have to be able to rise above it. You know, if I say, maintain your composure, it may sound like, be complacent.

[55:10]

It's not the same thing. You can't be complacent, but you have to keep your composure. You have to find that stillness within yourself. then you can do something.

[55:33]

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