I bow to teach the truth about the Tathagata's words. Good morning. I want to read a little something from a book called The Tiger's Cave, which was published in 1965, I think. And it's a commentary on the Heart Sutra by Japanese abbot, Abbot Obora.

[01:11]

It's the commentary that I like the best of all the commentaries on the Heart Sutra because it's about the meaning of our daily life in non-abstract terms. But in the back, there's a little note by Abbot Asahina. Takashina, sorry, Rosen Takashina, who was the primate, I don't like to use that word because it refers to monkey, of the Soto school at the time. He says, stillness in the midst of action is the fundamental principle of zazen. Some people think of Zazen as a sort of monopoly of the Zen sect, but the sect certainly has no monopoly of it.

[02:21]

Zazen is the basis of the universe. Heaven and Earth sit in meditation. Every object sits in meditation. Knowing nothing of the Zen sect, all things are performing their meditation. What is called Zazen means to live at peace in the true basis of the universe, which is stillness. Movement is a secondary attribution. Stillness is the real condition. Out of stillness comes all activity. For instance, the water of the ocean, when disturbance of wind ceases, at once goes back to the state of calm. The grass and trees, when the cause of agitation dies away, becomes, as it were, calm. These things always return to rest in the stillness, which is their true nature. And this is the principle of Zazen. In nature, there are day and night.

[03:24]

When the sun sets gradually, there is a hush, until what is called the dead of night, when all is still, as if a current of water had ceased to flow. This is Zazen of nature. As with everything else, so with people. Working by day, we sleep at night. Falling into deep sleep, we forget the existence of self and are absolutely at rest. This is a state of what is called in Zazen, body and mind loosed and dropped away. In nature, the counterpart of the restless action of day is the absolute stillness of night. and to abide in that is the principle of Zazen. In this sense, everything naturally practices Zazen. I may know nothing of Zazen, yet if I know what it is, to sleep in bodily and mental relaxation, then all unconsciously the benefits of Zazen rain upon me.

[04:28]

The Zazen of the Zen school is to seek this way of stillness in the midst of activity. The method is to bring to stillness the mental activities based on illusion and conform to the stillness, which is the fundamental nature of the mind. When it is attained in Zazen, the result is called Satori, or realization. Zazen is practice of infinity, conforming to the infinity, which is the principle of the universe. He says, he uses sleep, you know, as an example, but be careful. He's not saying that sleep is the best way to do zazen. Although, zazen, if when we sleep, we totally just sleep, that's zazen. Zazen is the practice of infinity.

[05:36]

You know infinity is not a straight line. Sometimes we think of infinity as a straight line going off forever, but the symbol of infinity is a closed circle, figure eight. There's a koan All things return to the one. Where does the one return to? This is a wonderful koan. Where does the one return to? Well, of course, the one returns to all things. But the one has never left all things, and all things have never left the one. Within stillness, there's activity, and within activity, there's stillness.

[06:41]

Sometimes people say, we say, when we sit zazen, zazen, we practice or sit with the whole universe, of course. It's not, we say it's not just my practice. Because when we sit sadhana, we let go of ourself. It's not really my practice. It's Buddha's practice. We say sentient beings and Buddhas are not two. There's no Buddha. as opposed to sentient beings, or as opposed to yourself or myself. But when we shift the center from self-centeredness to Buddha-centeredness, then this is Buddha sitting Zazen.

[07:47]

So sometimes we say, well, am I really sitting Zazen? When am I sitting Zazen, and when am I not sitting Zazen when there's Zazen activity going on? Well, the difference is, when you're thinking of, this is my Zazen, that's not Zazen. But when you let go of, I am sitting Zazen, and simply sit Zazen, then it's Buddhist Zazen. And that's Zazen for and with all beings. It's not just an idea. It's the reality. So there's all this activity going on in the world. And so when we say we're sitting zazen with all beings, does that mean with all those activities?

[08:51]

Yes and no. the fundamental activity of the universe is stillness. So when we return to stillness and let go of self, there's no separation. And this no separation is endless. This is called primal activity. You know, stillness is like horizontal. Things that rest.

[09:53]

And activity is like vertical. So, In Sazen, sitting still and sitting upright are the two horizontal and vertical aspects. We talk about in Buddha Dharma, we talk about the horizontal and the inclined, or the upright, the horizontal and the upright. And this is stillness. But when the upright leans over, then activity begins. And then when that activity is over, upright.

[11:01]

But within zazen, there's dynamic activity and stillness at the same time. And stillness is what holds the activity. If there's only activity without stillness, or without a basis, or without an anchor, then it just flies off like a whirligig. Is that the right word? Sounds right. Like sparks. So Zazen is the anchor for all of our activity. It's the basic place where we actually live. And in order to practice, we stay in that stillness at the heart, at the basis of our being throughout all of our activity.

[12:20]

This is what we call practice. And it's zazen extended to wherever we are. When we leave the Zen Do, if you're a Zen student and you're practicing Zazen, when you leave the Zen Do, the Zen Do is extended to wherever you are. It's a very flexible place. Even though there are four solid walls, it's like a rubber band. It will extend to wherever you are. And then we find our practice in the midst of all this dynamic activity. It's interesting when you go to a fair or someplace where there's a lot of activity. I've never been to a rave, but I can imagine what it's like. And then when everybody's gone, the place is totally still again.

[13:27]

And so it's waiting for the next thing to happen. So this stillness is serene. Serenity is like a, likened to a sunset, a very beautiful sunset where there's no, everything is very calm. and serene. And tranquility is like a lake at sunset time. There's no ripples and everything is reflected perfectly on the surface. All the clouds are reflected perfectly on the surface of the lake. I remember traveling in Japan and going by rice fields that had just been watered.

[14:29]

And it's mystical. It's like, blows your mind. It's the water so calm and the clouds are reflected in the water. And it's like there's no separation between the sky and the water, and the rice, and the land, and the clouds, everything is one piece, at peace. When I was reading this, I found a list I made about points of practice, points to watch and practice. And I thought, well, that's pretty interesting. So I want to go over this. In a situation where the whole universe is practicing Zazen, how do we participate in that?

[15:47]

So the question comes up sometimes, how do I deepen my practice? Well, don't try. Don't try to make some special effort to deepen your practice. We get some idea about goals of practice, satori or perfection. We want to have some kind of perfection. We want to have a mind that's totally clear and in which no thought comes up, like the empty sky. But that only happens for a moment. The mind is always producing thoughts, and that's its function. So to stop the function of the mind is not zazen. What is zazen is to simply keep returning to the fundamental activity.

[16:55]

We allow the mind to be carried off, but then we carry it back. We see the movie, the scenery of our mental activity, which is not contributing to zazen, to the act of zazen. So we simply bring our attention back without judging our straying mind. Sometimes it's characterized as taming the bull or taming the cow. The cow or the bull wants to run off. and smell all the flowers and eat all the vegetables or whatever. And you keep pulling it back. Come on back, come on back. And it's very unruly, but we just keep pulling it back and walking along, pulling it back.

[18:01]

That's Azen. Pulling attention back. This is the way we're going. I do this with my dog all the time. He wants to smell the flowers. That's all he wants to do is sniff under this bush and sniff under that bush. and lag behind, and I have to keep him ahead of me so that I don't have to keep pulling him along. This is the same with Zazen. Let go of that idea. Let go of that fantasy. This is what we're doing. Just go straight. But we don't get angry. We just enjoy. Sometimes we enjoy our thoughts. Okay, you should enjoy your thoughts. It's okay to enjoy your random thoughts, and it's okay to enjoy letting go of them. No discrimination. So don't worry about deepening. If you continue to practice over a period of time, your practice will deepen by itself.

[19:07]

And if you practice continuously, you don't have to worry about it. Things ripen, everything ripens in its own time. You can't force fruit to ripen. It can happen, but it doesn't taste very good. So scheduling and organizing your life. If you're going to practice, you have to schedule and organize your life. you have to decide on a rhythm of practice. Rhythm of practice means when do I sit zazen? When do I come to the zendo? When do I sit at home? Taking into account all of the responsibilities and activities that belong to you,

[20:15]

And in this way, Zazen and daily life merge. Daily life activity and your Zazen practice can only work together if Zazen becomes an integral part of your life, just like going to work. You know, you don't, when you have a job, You have to get up at a certain time and go to work. Otherwise, if you don't do it very often, you get fired, right? Well, in zazen, we don't fire you. We light a fire under you. It takes personal responsibility to practice. And that's personal responsibility for being an adult. is a big part of practice.

[21:27]

And being just like you would get up to go to work. When you decide what the rhythm of your practice is, then you honor that. So then the next part is not to overextend yourself. and to limit your activity. Not overextending yourself means don't do more than, we like to think that we're going to, we make a resolution and then we overextend ourself. Don't do that. Be reasonable. And in order to practice, to give yourself time to practice, you have to let go of something else. You cannot have it all. Whatever you choose to do means that you don't do something else, whatever it is.

[22:30]

If you're going to do something well and thoroughly, you have to limit your activity. So that's definitely part of practice. It means you go to bed early if you're gonna get up early. You can't get up at five o'clock in the morning and go to bed at midnight every night. That doesn't work. So there has to be some limitation. And if practice is worth it to you, you limit your other activities. Or you can come, you know, you can sit sasana once a month, or something like that. But it's not the same as a steady, continuous practice. And then it's important in that same vein to continuously let go of things and not think about gaining something.

[23:42]

In our usual activity, we want to acquire something, but it's very important in practice to know that acquiring something is not the point of practice. The point of practice is how to let go It's the opposite of our usual goals. We let go of greed. We let go of ill will. And we let go of delusion, hopefully. And we let go of acquiring too much, too many material things. We let go of acquiring too many mental objects meaning we have to read every book, we have to go to every movie, we have to study everything that comes along, not necessary. We live in the information age in which we feel that we have to know everything.

[24:45]

But actually, if you know, if you are touching the basic thing, It's surprising how much you will know without having to know every fact. And you can infer many things from knowing one thing. So it's also important to review your practice frequently, because your life is always changing. Our lives are always changing. And when we decide on a rhythm of practice, that will change. And then we have to regroup, pull our life, look at our life, and renew our practice periodically, quite often.

[25:50]

So that's important. And at the same time, to honor our commitments. And another point of practice is to stay with our breath. We tend to, because of the stress of our activity, our breath tends to rise. And then, we're not living our body fully. So to live fully in our body, to have deep breaths, and be aware of breathing, be aware of our breath all the time, deep, deeply. And when it gets up here, sit down, relax, and let your breath go down, or take some deep breaths to prime your breathing. A Zen student should always be here in their breath, and you should know where your breath is.

[26:53]

Always. So you have to practice this kind of awareness of breathing, deep breathing. And this keeps your mind settled, keeps your body settled, and it keeps your disposition settled. And also allows you to have composure. So when you're feeling frazzled, come back to your breathing and regain your composure. If you are always in that state, when something happens suddenly, you respond from that place of composure and you don't get thrown off. And that place of composure is Sazen. It's being in touch with the stillness that permeates all things.

[27:57]

I can't really talk about breath enough, actually. When you're dying, it's the thing that you really want to pay attention to the most. Because it's the thing that's gonna disappear. And it's the hardest thing to do. So enjoy it well and take care of it now so that you don't have to struggle with that. And to be responsive and not reactive. If we are centered and have composure in stillness, then when we encounter adversity instead of reacting it's easier to respond because reacting is when we're off balance.

[29:07]

We react when we're off balance and reaction brings us off balance. When we're centered and in our calm mind and have composure, then we respond from that place, which is very different from being caught in a reaction, in a reactive mode, and we don't get pulled off our place. So this composure actually is the basic place where we live. And to not get pulled around or pulled off that base is practice. That's called deepening practice. If you stay there all the time, then practice will naturally deepen because it's like a taproot. So reacting is egotistical.

[30:23]

And responding is non-egotistical. So when we react, we react from the place of me. When we respond, we respond from the center of Buddha. That's very different. So to, when we sit sadhana, it's Buddha's activity. And throughout all of our daily activity, it's still Buddhist activity until ego comes up, then it's my activity. Or me activity. And although we live our life continuously over a number of years, days, months, and so forth, one life cycle is a day and a night.

[31:30]

You know, the nighttime is stillness, and the daytime is activity. So from this stillness, we wake up and we have our activity, and then we go to sleep and then we wake up and we have our activity and we go to sleep. So each day and a night is one cycle, one life cycle. Complete life cycle, even though there seems to be something held over. But without depending on the past and being attached to the future, to make one complete day and night, lifetime. So when you go to sleep, although we expect to wake up in the morning, you can't count on it. So each day and night as one life cycle should be complete.

[32:40]

If we live in that way, we don't need so much. And we can feel secure in that one day and night. We're always worrying about our future security. And we should, of course. But at the same time, we can't count on anything. So, in order to practice well, we should let go of fault finding and support other people. We should support our friends and the people around us and the best interests of society.

[33:47]

If we do that, We won't fall into small-minded, selfish thinking. And even if someone does piss us off, we don't have to be reactive. And we feel a lot better by being responsive. And always reside in big mind and take responsibility for, not just your practice, but take responsibility for the practice as a whole. You know, often we think, well, there's this practice over there at the Zen Do, and I'm going to go and join that too. But actually, when you take part in the practice, you are actually part of the practice.

[34:52]

You're not somebody outside of the practice. And when you enter the practice, you can take responsibility for the practice. Sometimes people say, well, you know, I don't feel like I'm really part of things. You know, there are all these people who know each other and so forth. But I feel kind of outside of that. Well, if you take responsibility for the practice, you won't be outside of that. Because the practice only exists through everyone's participation and personal responsibility. It's not like there's an inside and an outside. You create the practice. Each person creates the practice. It's not like there's a them and a me.

[35:58]

That's just in your mind. You may feel that, true. So, you may feel shy, but you will find out that if you make an effort some little effort, people accept you very easily. So these are some points to keep in mind about practice. And when we practice in this way, the whole our whole environment is affected. Sometimes we feel, well, how can sitting zazen affect the environment? How can sitting zazen affect society? Well, Dogen called it mutual, imperceptible mutual assistance, or imperceptible mutual support.

[37:10]

The universe supports this activity, and this activity supports the universe. It's not one way, just one way. It's a total cycle, or circle, or everything is interwoven with everything else. So when we do this activity, this activity becomes realized in the world. and the imperceptible mutual support seeps out into the world or illuminates the world. We can't necessarily see it because it's beyond our vision. We're very limited. Our sensory awareness is very limited.

[38:14]

seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, hearing, it's very limited access. So if we only go by our limited access or our limited perceptions, we can't see what's really happening. when we practice for a time, we can experience this, how the practice has an actual tangible effect on our surroundings and in the world. just sitting doing nothing. Does anybody have a question?

[39:39]

You were talking at the beginning about stillness, and then there's this wonderful fascicle by Dogen, Zefi, Total Dynamic Working. Could you say something about that, those in relationship to each other? universe is always working as well. You know, zazen itself is zenki. Zenki means the total dynamic activity of the universe, and each one of us is a microcosm of the universe. Each one of us is a little universe.

[40:54]

We contain the whole universe. Each one of us contains the whole universe. And activity is total. You know, Dogen says, when one person sits in zazen, the whole universe is awakened. Something like that, that's a kind of paraphrase. Sometimes we think, what if everybody just stopped for a moment and sat down, consciously?

[42:17]

everybody in the world sat down and did zazen for one moment. But we can't, that won't happen. But you know, in Asia, one of the prevailing practices is that the lay people support the monks because the monks are doing the practice for everybody. And so the monks are fed and clothed and the people revere the monks in some way. people say, I can't do this because I'm a householder and I'm busy or unable to be a monk.

[43:26]

So we support the monks to do this because, and the monks are doing this for us. That's interesting. And so the monks feel that they are doing this for everyone. whether everyone is doing this or not. So in those countries, Southeast Asia and India and so forth, the whole society is permeated with the dharma, even though there's a lot of corruption, but still the idea is that the whole society is permeated with the dharma So there's this relationship between the monks and the laypeople that we don't have. But that's the way that practice works.

[44:28]

Our practice works a little differently. We don't have a laypeople-monk relationship. Everyone practices. People who have a relationship to the Saga, mostly practice, but there are people, many people, who come to me sometimes and they say, although I can't practice and I'm not in a position to do this, I really appreciate the fact that this place is here. And when people say that, it really allows me to feel that even though I don't see what's happening, there is, It somehow comforts people to know that this is happening, even though they're not involved with it. Maybe people have been at some time, or maybe not. Mark?

[45:34]

Physics says that at the subatomic level, things are moving all the time. stillness is the fundamental. Within stillness, stillness itself is the great dynamic activity. That's what you must understand. It's not like there is stillness and activity. There is. Stillness is stillness, activity is activity, but stillness is activity and activity is Posture, it's a great dynamic activity. Thinking, that's thinking. Being totally present and merged with the dynamic activity of the universe. In balance.

[46:37]

Sometimes when we sit Zazen, especially when you're new, fairly new, you know, for the first five years or something, then you always feel this great pain in your legs and you just feel like all the pressure of the universe is pressing down on your legs. I don't know if you've ever experienced that. If you've sat satsang, you've experienced that. And it is. All the, you know, and if you fight that, or resist it, it just gets worse because you're stopping it. You're not letting it flow. So when you know how to let that energy flow, then it's not a problem. It's only a problem when you resist and allow the weight of the universe to press down on you.

[47:42]

And it will. So, how do you open up so that you harmonize with that dynamic energy of the universe without it destroying you? That's how you let go of self and open up and harmonize. dynamic, even though you're sitting still, that dynamic energy is contained. Susan? Well, I've been learning a little bit about Christianity lately, and it's just a comment, but we usually, it seems like the image of Buddha sitting Zazen and the crucifixion are so opposite, but sometimes it turns out that the cross is actually spoken of analogous to what you were saying as a balance between the horizontal and the vertical and dynamic working and stillness.

[48:50]

And that it's kind of a similar symbol and balance between those two forces. Yeah. Perhaps the simile of a hurricane Not the eye of the hurricane, which is extremely still. It wouldn't have the power of the activity. Exactly. Well, that's the way we often describe it. We use that as an analogy. The cyclone or the eye of the hurricane, you know, very still. Just profound stillness in the eye of the hurricane. And sometimes we use the analogy of the top. The top is spinning. it looks like it's standing still, but that dynamic energy is making it turn. Baika.

[49:53]

Well, sometimes I'm sitting very still, but my mind is spinning. So what about the activity of the mind? Yeah, we always, you know, we tend to put a lot of emphasis on our mind, But even though the mind is spinning, the body is sitting still. Just let the mind spin. That's all. If you are worried about it, or if you make an issue of the mind spinning, then, you have a problem, just let the mind spin. But we let go and bring our attention back over and over again, but even so it springs back and spins. So that's spinning Buddha, spinning Buddha mind.

[50:58]

Don't worry about it. There's this idea that the mind should be totally still and all this and that. But there's no special state of mind that we're trying to achieve in Zazen. We're not trying to achieve a quiet mind or a serene mind or still mind or a blank mind. Just not be attached to any state of mind. And when you have a problem and think, oh, my mind is spinning out, that's just being attached to a certain state of mind, just like you become attached to the pain in your legs. As soon as you say, I don't like this, or I don't want it, that's attachment.

[52:05]

Just don't get attached. The mind is just spinning. It's not good, and it's not bad. And it's not right, and it's not wrong. It's just spinning. And then another state of mind will appear eventually. It always does. And then just be with that state of mind. It's not that you don't direct the mind, you know, but As long as you start getting upset, then you become attached. Then you have a problem. You said it's not good, it's not bad, it's not right, it's not wrong. An old question of mine arose, which is, if it weren't the mind spinning, but it were my hand rising and physically hurting somebody, would you say it's not good, it's not bad, it's not right, it's not wrong? Why do you equate the two?

[53:07]

I just asked you, would you say that? No. No, okay. It's not that there's no right and wrong. In Zazen, we're letting go of discriminative thinking. It's not that discriminating thinking is wrong. You have to discriminate. But in Zazen, you have the opportunity to let go of... Right, we're pretty safe here. You might want to hit the guy next to you. You might want to hit him. Don't do it. Thank you. Names are numbers.

[54:11]

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