For those of you who may not be aware, our aspects of practice this year is devoted to studying the Paramitas. There are six Paramitas, and I'll just say their names right now. They're variously translated, but we'll call them patience, morality, or conduct, generosity, effort, concentration or absorption and wisdom. But I think it's worth saying you know sometimes in the Bodhisattva ceremony which is a very profound ceremony and we state the precepts during that ceremony that sometimes they can feel kind of like rules that command us.

[01:03]

And the paramitas can sometimes seem the same way. But following the precepts and cultivating the paramitas is not a question of obeying some taskmaster. It's a practice of how do you cultivate friends. The precepts and the paramitas are our friends. And like any friendship, you cultivate them little by little. And the more you cultivate them, the more you get to know about them, and the more you get to realize that you don't know about them, because there's always more to discover. And like good friends, they support you, and you support them. And the topic in particular of this aspects of practice period is how do we embody the Paramitas?

[02:09]

And once again, body and mind need to befriend each other. Sometimes since then we talk about dropping body and mind, but you can't drop body and mind until they've made friends with each other. Otherwise they'll just be arguing and won't let you drop them. So cultivating a friendship doesn't necessarily mean that you get along easily all the time. Sometimes you have to argue with your friend and it's pretty rare to have a friend that doesn't create some kind of problem for you. Something that you need to stretch a little bit to accept. or learn from, and it's the same thing with Paramitas, and it's certainly the same thing with body and mind. They don't always agree with each other, but that's not anything to worry about.

[03:17]

The question is, how do you get them to communicate with each other, whether they're in agreement or not? So originally when I thought about giving this talk on embodying the paramitas, because I teach Qigong, I said, well, gee, it'd be kind of fun to align the embodiment of each of the paramitas with certain aspects of Qigong practice. And Laurie on the Thursday night class was talking about. you know what part of the body can we associate with each of the paramitas and as it so happens there's Qigong is part of traditional Chinese medicine and it's based in what are called five elements theory well there's five elements but there's 12 meridians so the Chinese kind of added another

[04:20]

set of elements to make it all work out evenly. And I'll get into that, but it's very important, I think, to understand, as Sojin is frequently reminding us, each of the paramitas contains all of the others, and the paramitas all interpenetrate each other. And I thought I'd use a little graphic to illustrate So these are the five elements in traditional Chinese theory. Wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. And if you go around the world, a lot of, almost every traditional culture has some version of this, but the elements are often different. But in traditional Chinese culture and in the way people practice Chinese medicine, these elements have relationships to each other. So wood promotes fire, which promotes earth, which promotes metal and so forth.

[05:26]

So one leads to the other. That's what these black arrows represent. But it gets more complicated because metal interacts and can actually over-promote wood. That's what the blue arrows are. Wood promotes earth. Fire promotes metal. But at the same time, wood is counteracting metal. metals counteracting fire. You could spend a lot of time studying this and this is why people who learn Chinese medicine spend four, five, six years learning it. Because a person, if you go to somebody and they diagnose you and they'll diagnose you on the basis of five element theory, well, you might have a problem with fire, but they'll say, well, the reason you have a problem with fire is because Earth is blocked and it's backing up. Or no, it's because you don't have enough wood to contribute to fire. So Chinese medicine is extremely holistic.

[06:29]

You don't have to worry about the details here, but the whole point is everything's related to everything else, which we know. And sometimes that confuses us, but also it means any one point and any one moment can be a window to all the others, any one element. And this is certainly true of the body. So I don't know how many of you have ever had, say, acupuncture or a massage, but someone will put a needle, say, in your foot, and your shoulders will relax. And there's all kinds of things like that which it's hard for our traditional Western way of thinking. Okay. Well the eyes are here and the foots there and That's a very atomistic way of looking at our our bodies and our minds So Each element is contained in all the others and contains all the others and

[07:40]

And this morning I was thinking of the story of Bodhidharma. And some of you might know that when Bodhidharma was deciding to pass on the robe and the bowl, he had a dialogue with several of his disciples and basically said, okay, you've been studying for a while. What have you got? What's Zen and what's Buddhism all about? And Each disciple gave an answer. I don't want to go into all of the answers, but basically the first disciple said something and Bodhidharma said, okay, you've got my skin. And the second disciple who was a nun, a woman disciple, so one of our ancestors gave another answer and Bodhidharma said, you've got my flesh. The third one got the bones, and the fourth one got the marrow. And very often people take that to mean, well, the fourth one really got it.

[08:51]

But that's not the case. And Dogen, in a fascicle in the Shobo Genzo, points out each of them got it. It's very hard to have marrow without bones. and it's very hard to have flesh without skin you need all of these working together and this is rather lovely dialogue that Dogen quotes where a monk says uh... is asking about the second patriarch patriarch who got the marrow and uh... great master Shinsai Joshu says, in Bodhidharma's words, someone who is outside gets the skin and someone who is inside gets the bones. Well say then, someone who is still further inside gets what?

[09:55]

And a monk asks, well what does it mean to have got the marrow? And the master says, just be aware of the skin. The old monk in here and now does not even broach the subject of marrow. If you want to get the marrow, you have to be aware of the skin. Well, so although my original intention was to line up patients with, say, wood, and morality with one particular part of the body, and the 12 meridians are all organs, meridians, lungs, large intestines, stomachs, spleen, etc. I came to realize you could line up any of the parameters with any of the parts of the body. And so I made this little sixth grade project where I remembered how bad I was at cutting circles and using glue sticks and whatnot.

[11:07]

You wouldn't believe how much time this took. When I should have been sitting Zazen. But I'll put this in the community room for people to play with. That's right. Well, the whole idea is you spin the wheel and you practice with how it comes up. So, for example, right now, I've got lungs and large intestine associated with patients. But you can turn it and it gets associated with morality. Now, and it just keeps turning. The inner circle, which has colors, are the traditional elements of Chinese medicine.

[12:09]

So, for example, the lungs and large intestine are associated with the nose, the skin, the hair. It's the element of metal with the feeling of grief, with a particular taste of pungency, with a particular direction and so forth. And they're actually associated with particular times of day and it all gets very complicated. So these don't spin around because those are fixed by 2,000 years of tradition. But the rest of them do. And the rest of them, frankly, I made up. I said, well, you know, there's a few things which aren't covered here. Things like, well, what about the joints? Or what about the breath? Or we talk about, in the Metta Sutra, Standing or walking sitting or lying down These are all bodily actions. How do we practice the parameters with standing walking sitting and lying down? But then I had to come up with another two things, you know to make six so I think I decided in addition to Standing and walking and sitting and lying down other main activities that we do these days are exercising which

[13:27]

people didn't used to do because they had plenty of exercise just in their regular everyday work and driving. Which didn't quite fit sitting or lying down or any of the others. So you can practice driving with, I have it with concentration, not a bad thing to do. Or effort or wisdom or generosity or morality or patience. All of those can come into play when driving. But I don't want to get into grand theories here. This is meant to play with. And the spirit of play is very important in our practice. I think if you cultivate the Paramitas from a sense of duty, that's fine. But I think maybe they are fertilized better with play.

[14:36]

Our bodies like play and our minds like play. So what I'd like to do in some of the remaining time is have us practice with our bodies, the Paramitas, because essentially the Paramitas are Zazen instruction. And I'll take us through some ways of practicing these. The purpose of all this is it helps your practice or at least it helps my practice, and as a psychologist I can say, as we've looked at the science of what helps people to foster a skill, it helps if you choose a particular skill and you choose a cue which is going to go with it. So if you just say, well, I'm going to practice patience, that's good. But you'll be more likely to practice patience if you say, OK, well, this week I'm going to practice patience in my feet.

[15:47]

And you'll be even more likely to practice patience if you say, well, this week I'm going to practice patience in my feet whenever I walk across a doorway threshold. So if you associate a particular practice with a particular body part, with a particular environmental cue, this kind of moves you along in the practice. It serves to remind us, and our whole practice is one of reminding. But it's easy to get lost during the day. I at least really need these cues. And these cues, you practice it for a week or two or three and then you start forgetting about them and you have to change the cues again. So you can see there's lots of different combinations you can try and you can make up your own circles as well. But to get us started, to help us just get some awareness of our bodies, Well, first disciple of Bodhidharma got the skin, and sometimes Zen practitioners are referred to as skin bags.

[17:02]

So anybody who wants to, obviously all of this is voluntary and you don't need to do any of it, but just rub your skin, rub your arms, both arms. and your chest, and your ribs, and your back, and your shoulders, and your neck, and your face, and your hair, and your legs. And just be aware, okay, this is the body, this is the container that I live in. I think it's kind of amusing in a way that we talk about, well, how do we embody the Paramitas? How do we practice the Paramitas by embodying them? I don't know how you'd practice it without embodying them. I mean, it's a little hard to practice outside of the body. This is where we live. So then, just to get some awareness of our feet, there's an acupuncture point about a third of the way from your toes towards your heels, kind of behind the ball of the foot right in the center.

[18:11]

And, you know, if your foot's easily available, you can try putting your thumb in there. This is actually the origin of the kidney radiance. And basically it's the point in your foot that feels good to massage. But if you massage it, the more you become aware of this, when we practice Qigong, we really practice opening this point to the ground so that we can feel the ground through this. Get some sense of your foot there. And then let's get some sense of our hands. Just the center of the palm is a point called the Lao Gang, which is on what's called the pericardium meridian. It protects the heart. Just massage that point. So sometimes if you're sitting meditation and you focus on your mudra,

[19:14]

This is a good point to keep open and warm and alive. Make sure you do both hands. Now, as a neuropsychologist, I can tell you that if you look at the motor and sensory strips of the brain, approximately three quarters of that space is occupied by your feet and your hands and your face. Some of you have seen that homunculus. So, we pay special attention to the feet, hands, and face. So for the face, there's a point, let's do a couple of points. There's a point about halfway back from the corner of the eye and the temple, you'll feel a little ridge of bone. And just above that ridge, there's an indentation. Just kind of massage that a little bit. Wakes you up a little. We can associate that with our sense of touch.

[20:22]

And then massage the corners of the eyes, another one of the five senses, and the corners of the nose, and the mouth. And the ears, just massage from the top to the bottom of the lobes of the pinna. And actually you can make a V and just brush up on either side of the ear. And then a kind of nice thing to do, which we do in Qigong, is we wash our face and comb our hair using the laogang, this point, to not actually touch your face, but if you spread your fingers and put your fingers below your chin and keep your eyes open, just slowly bring the palms of your hands up and give warmth to your mouth and the nose and the eyes and the forehead and the top of the head and the back of the head.

[21:37]

and the back of the neck, and the side of the neck, and come around back to the center. And do that one more time. One more time. Okay, and then I'll show you something which is kind of fun to do at home. You can't usually do it in the zendo because you'll disturb other people, but just for today, in Qigong, when we meditate, we spread our arms. Don't do this yet, I'll just show you. We spread our arms, and you know how we talk about gathering the self to the self, or settling the self on the self? Well, we do that physically in Qigong. We take our arms, And we gather ourselves to ourselves, like this, and our palms are facing. And then we just let the hands come down.

[22:40]

And we focus our minds inside the body, following the hands, till we reach the hara, the lower dantien, which is where we're meditating, where our center is. And then we start our meditation. So see what you can manage with all the people around you. But just however you can, gather yourself to yourself. And then let the hands come down. And if you'd like, you can let the eyes close as the hands come past the eyes. Or you can keep your eyes open, but follow with your inner eye inside you until pause when the hands come down. at about navel level. And then keeping the mind in that center of the body, let the hands rest wherever is comfortable, either in the mudra or on the knees.

[23:51]

And now let's do a little meditation. And in Zen, we don't usually do guided meditations, but just for today, let's find ways of bringing body and mind, paramitas and body together. Take a few moments to just settle in, just as you would in Zazen. And then just be aware of your feet. And let's practice patience in our feet.

[24:59]

Well, how do we do that? Well, patience is not a matter of waiting. It's just a matter of being completely present this moment, not looking ahead and not looking back. And to do that, you can just let the feet be what they are this moment, but be aware of the whole foot. from that point that you massaged all the way to the heel. The edges of the foot, the soles, each toe, especially the toes. When we're patient, our feet are planted firmly.

[26:07]

And actually the toes spread out a little bit because they're not moving or going anywhere. They're poised and they can go in any direction whatsoever. So patience is a kind of openness. Let the feet feel open. And then, You can become aware of your hands. Let's put the hands together with morality or conduct. Now morality is not a question of rules, but of alignment. Finding the proper alignment to a situation.

[27:14]

So are the hands nicely aligned? Is each finger atop the corresponding finger below it? Are they cooperating with each other, both hands? Morality is just basically pointers towards cooperation. So let your hands cooperate with each other as a road to right conduct. Now be aware of the face. We've massaged some points in the face. Let's put the face together with generosity. What's the expression of generosity?

[28:20]

Calm, relaxed, ready to give or receive. Again, a kind of openness. Do you present a face to the world which is generous? Part of generosity, I think, is non-judging, acceptance. Let your face just drape over the skull supports it. It doesn't need to do anything special to be generous, except to let go of any tightness. And then, let's go inside what in Qigong we'd call the upper dantian,

[29:26]

within the brain. What kind of effort or energy is floating around in there? Don't worry about whether it's good or bad. Just notice the energy. Maybe it's flowing calmly. Maybe it's jumping around. But there's nervous energy up in there, in the positive sense of the word. Just be aware of that energy. And then, as part of our concentration or absorption, let that energy sink down a bit into the chest area. The hearts and lungs are Just let the energy concentrate, fill you.

[30:40]

It can be directed wherever it's needed and then let it sink down to the hara, that space between the navel and the spine where wisdom centers everything, brings it together, sends it out. Having gone through one cycle now of the paramitas, let's come back to the feet. and patience. And for patience, be aware of the lungs, enlarge the lungs and the breath.

[31:57]

Let the breath go in and out just as long as it needs, no more and no less. Working with the internal organs to feel patience. And in traditional Chinese medicine, the lungs and large intestines are paired. And the large intestines are patient in the way they digest things. Patients in the gut as well as in the breath. And then moving on.

[33:09]

to the stomach and spleen, the next set of meridians and organs. Along with the hands, a good place to practice good conduct, morality. When something doesn't quite fit good conduct, we say we can't stomach it. It doesn't feel good in that organ. Let your stomach tell you what right action is. Then the next set of meridians, the heart and small intestine. The heart's a good place to practice generosity, an open heart, a generous face.

[34:21]

You know what that feels like, and it's in sitting in this safe environment, you can just let the heart be generous. The small intestine offers its generosity by letting us absorb the nutrients that we need, that the stomach's provided. Then moving on, the next meridians, the kidneys, the bladder, a good place to practice effort, energy. Kidneys are in the lower back and usually if we're pushing too hard they get tight

[35:31]

And sometimes I know if I'm pushing too hard in Zazen, I'll have to go to the bathroom too often, pushing back in there. If you're not putting in enough effort, it kind of folds over a bit, that area of the back where the kidneys are. So just let the kidneys and the bladder breathe, just the right amount of effort. And then in the meridians, we're talking about the part, the pericardium, which protects the heart, the sheath, which protects it. And something called the triple burner, which distributes energy through the body. A good place to practice absorption. You've been aware of the energy.

[36:35]

Absorb it, let it concentrate. And then the next set of organs is the liver and the gallbladder. If you know where those organs are down in the lower part of the torso, it's right about where the hara is, that those organs Practice wisdom. The liver helps us metabolize everything that comes in. Going through another cycle. back to patience, the lungs, the large intestine, they're associated with the nose and the breath.

[37:44]

Sounds strange, but let your nose be patient. Very often if we're sitting zazen and we have a stuffed nose, somewhere along the way it kind of opens up. It's a product of patience. When we're impatient, our nose closes off, we crinkle the muscles around it, just let it relax. And move on to the mouth. That's a good place to practice morality, right conduct, in speech, in the lips. in five elements, theory of the mouth, association with the stomach, spleen, and with muscles, and with meditation.

[38:55]

Then being aware of the tongue, just barely touching the upper palate. a good place to practice generosity with the tongue, not to praise self at the expense of others, to give other people the benefit of the doubt, to offer help when it's helpful to do so and to refrain when it's not. and then the ears. They're associated with the kidneys, bladder. How about with effort?

[40:01]

When your effort is just balanced, sounds come and go, You hear everything, but are not caught by it. How do you listen? What's the right effort in listening? And the mind concentrating. and then the eye of wisdom, the inner eye. One more round. Patience. Standing.

[41:12]

And interestingly, the lung and large intestine, which we've associated with patience, is associated with the emotion of grief. Grief takes great patience, and patience helps soften grief. conduct, morality, in the muscles, and in the joints. Be aware of the wrist, the ankles, the elbows, really relaxed. The joints are good places to practice morality because they bend in one direction and not another. And they have a good deal of movement. within that direction, but they also know where not to go. Your joints can inform your conduct.

[42:21]

And your muscles can realize it. And generosity is associated with joy. And the heart and the blood vessels feel the circulation through the whole body. circulating all the parameters. And then effort associated with kidneys and the bones. If your effort comes from deep within your bones, It flows more naturally. But the feeling in traditional Chinese medicine associated with the bones is fear.

[43:31]

And often when we face fear, it takes some effort. But facing fear helps reduce it. concentrating and absorbing all of this with our nerves, our nervous system, the peripheral nerves, the nerves in the spine, the neurons of the brain, the feeling of peace that might bring. And then back to the liver and gallbladder and wisdom and the eyes and the tendons tendons which attach the muscles through the joints to the bones. And here the emotion is anger. And there's often wisdom in anger. We talk about Manjushri's sword.

[44:35]

But anger without wisdom can be dangerous. Anger with wisdom can provide a great deal of useful energy and force as long as it's combined with patience and right conduct and generosity and effort and concentration. So having cultivated these various paramitas within various aspects of body and mind. Take a few moments now to absorb whatever is useful. Let go whatever you'd like to let go of. And if you'd like, we can end this meditation in the way we often do in Qigong, which is to slowly bring

[45:44]

the hands together in gassho and rub them up and down seven times. And then close the eyes and bring the heel or the palm of the hand to the eyes and massage the eyes in circles seven times. And keeping the eyes closed, bring the hands down below the chin, fingers spread, And with your palms, bathe the face, the lips, the nose, the eyes, the hair, back of the head, back of the neck, side of the neck, and bring the hands back together. Let's do that again, cultivating patience. And do that again, cultivating conduct and the precepts. And do that again, cultivating generosity.

[46:45]

Once more, cultivating effort. Once more, cultivating concentration. And then finally with the eyes open, cultivating wisdom. And finally gather the self to the self with the eyes open. And keeping the eyes open, just let everything settle. So perhaps you have some questions or comments. Time, I think we have... I thought we go to 1110.

[47:54]

Whoops. I guess we'll talk about this outside. But before you hit the bell, let's practice the Paramitas, the way we bring our hands together in Gassho and the way we chant. So when we bring our hands together, well, let the hands be patient. Not, okay, I want to get out of here. Let them be aligned with each other for morality. Let them be generous, so they're not squeezed together, but there's a little space between them. right effort, just touching the right amount, concentrating, and wisdom, have it be lined up just right with the nose and the body, everything in alignment.

[48:59]

And the same way when we chant, patient, one syllable at a time, moving through the chant, Conduct, say the right words. Generosity, lend your voice to everyone's, but no more so than appropriate. Same thing goes for effort, just the right amount. Concentration, put your whole self in it. And wisdom, let the words blossom as we chant. Beings are numberless.

[49:49]

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