Good evening, I'm interested tonight in saying a little bit about forms and that aspect of practice. It's very interesting, you know, in some ways we could just say, well pay attention. What else is there to say, you know? One Japanese Zen teacher said, Tenke, Zen master Tenke, he said, see with your eyes, smell with your nose, taste with your tongue, nothing in the universe is hidden. What else do you want me to tell you? And I'll tell you what else you

[01:18]

want to hear. How do I make it come out the way I want it to? Good luck. First noble truth in Buddhism, you're not going to be able to make it come out the way you want it to. Buddha figured that out, people have been noticing that for centuries, and it's not your fault. It's not because you're lacking the skills or the capacity or, you know, it's not like you can have an idea about how you want it to be and make it come out that way. It just doesn't work like that. That's not hidden. That's not, I mean, that's pretty obvious, isn't it? Have you gotten anything to work out yet? Well kind of, I mean you've gotten here, but it's not quite the way you wanted it to. So, okay. So you can see that. Anyway, this is very mysterious. So I'm going to say a little

[02:36]

bit more about this before I talk about, a little bit about form, and I'll continue maybe tomorrow if I'm up for it, if you seem up for it. So what a Buddhist, you know, the suggestion in Buddhism, you know, I said, you know, but another way to say that, which I think is pretty good, is to practice Buddhism is to practice careful observation of what is obvious. Carefully observe what is obvious. Like, you know, it doesn't

[03:37]

come out the way I want it to, does it? Uh-oh. Oh, well. Now what? Another way to say this would be, the present moment has never happened before. So if you have a picture, or a script, how the present moment, how you would like the present moment to be, how are you going to get what has never happened before come out like your script, or your picture? It hasn't happened. But maybe if I'm good enough, or clever enough,

[04:47]

or competent enough, or skillful enough, I can get my life to look the way I want it to look. Zen Master Dogen said, how many years have you been trying to do that? 20, 30, 50, 80? Has it worked so far? His suggestion is, if it hasn't worked so far, when did you think it would? Why don't we try something else? So what is this something else? So we're studying, in other words, how to be with something that has never happened before. Whether it's my thought, my feeling, my sensation,

[05:52]

what I see, what I smell, it hasn't happened before. So what do I do? So what is the next problem then? Okay, we understand this hasn't happened before, and everything I've tried before has kind of worked indifferently, as far as making things come out, or making me happy, or you know, having things work well enough that it reflects well on me, and I guess I'm a pretty good person after all, because at least I could do this, and you know, maybe not that, but okay, I've got something to, you know, be happy about. So here's this moment that has never happened before, and we're trying to do things with this

[07:06]

moment that's never happened before from our repertoire of behavior skills that were designed for who knows what. And most of our behavior skills go back many years in our life. We learned, you know, when we were pretty young mostly, to do what's right, not to do what's wrong. To do what's good, not to do what's bad, according to the local standards. Family, you know, largely, but to some degree, society. So now we have this set of behavior skills, and you know, and then if something happens, we say,

[08:12]

well, let's see now, I can't say that, that's not a good thing to say, and I shouldn't feel this, because that's not the right thing to feel, and let's see now, I should be thinking this, and I should be, maybe I could say that, but I'm not sure about saying that, because, you know, so then we're going through this whole sorting out, like, which of my behavior skills is the correct one to apply for this situation? Uh-oh. And, you know, we're doing the best we can, and something happens, and ironically, or you know, we have all these forms that's in, but it's actually designed for us to have some freedom. I don't know if the Japanese know this. But once in a while, there's a, you know, somebody who seems to have some sensitives.

[09:16]

I was mentioning during, we were practicing hitting the bells. You know, and one possible strategy is, you know, if any of you hit the bells, you might make a mistake. You might not hit a bell that you were supposed to ring, or you might hit a bell that, you know, didn't belong there. So, you might make a mistake. So, the safest thing to do, if you don't want to make any mistakes, safest thing to do is don't hit any bells. So, a lot of our life, rather than saying the wrong thing, you know, the thing that might be a mistake to say, don't say anything. You know, rather than doing something that might be criticized, don't do anything. Then how will you feel? You know, pretty soon you start to feel depressed. This is one of the causes to feel depressed and to feel, you know, like helpless.

[10:48]

But who's, you know, this is, this has to do with the Zen, you know, story. A student, a monk, asks his teacher, how do I attain liberation? And the teacher says, who is binding you? Who? Who's doing the binding here? So, part of what we're studying in Zen is how I bind myself. And when you spot how you bind yourself, then you can unbind yourself, because you know what you're doing to get yourself in the trap. You can stop doing that. You know the way out. At some point, it's just whether or not you will, you know, study this. Who is binding you? How do you do that?

[11:54]

I better not do anything in case it's a mistake. So, this is also known as, I will censor, censure, I will tell myself I'm wrong, before other people have a chance to. Just to be on the safe side, I wouldn't want anybody else to tell me I'm wrong, so I will just make myself wrong right from the get-go, before anybody else has a chance. And then, how will you attain liberation? You're not, you're putting them in a bind too. You're putting, you know, you're already, you know, making sure that they don't have a chance to criticize you, that they can only, kind of like, okay. Not bad.

[13:07]

So, you don't have much chance to, what will you express then? The advice, you know, one of the pieces of advice in Dogen, Dogen suggests, and I'm sorry if I mention Dogen, but you know, I can, I'm a Zen teacher, I call in the local, you know, guys, Dogen Senchi, Suzuki Roshi, like I know what I'm talking about. And it works too, you know. It's funny, but you know, I've done, occasionally I do weddings. You know, people still want to get married. I don't know, but I did it once, and you know, beautiful, lovely daughter, and you know, okay. So, but I kind of decided once was enough,

[14:17]

you know. I mean, something could, you know, kind of extraordinary still could happen. I'm not ruling it out, you know. I'm still willing to make that mistake again. So, you know, I do weddings sometimes, and so then, if I say good afternoon, and welcome to this, you know, beautiful outdoor sanctuary, or whatever, and you know, we're here to celebrate the marriage, and when we get married, you know, we're married body-to-body, mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart, and true nature-to-true nature, something like this, you know. Then I say, okay, now, you know, Mikhail will read us a poem. Then everybody, oh, a poem. It's real. Oh, I'm going to listen to this. It's a poem. Somebody wrote it. Woo. So the whole room sits up. As soon as you say, this is a reading, this is a poem,

[15:19]

sometime I'm going to do a poem. I'm going to have somebody get up and read. Is this a poem, or did I just make it up? Anyway, so excuse me for calling on my guys. You know, I have a few women to call on, too. But Dogen says, so why don't you be sincere? Be sincere. Be wholehearted. Practice sincerely. Practice wholeheartedly. In other words, you know, and he also says, let things come home to your heart. Let your heart go out and abide in things all through the day and night, continuously.

[16:27]

Let things into your heart. Let your heart go out to things. And things are what you see, what you smell, what you taste, sensations, thoughts, feelings. All of your experience are these moments of things, what are called in Buddhism, this is speaking things. And this is a big shift for most of us, because most of us are figuring out, you know, we're thinking about it. How am I going to handle this? How am I going to handle this so that people don't criticize me? And so that it kind of works, but they're not going to be upset with me from the way I handle it. You know, in English it's called, you must have a similar expression in German, you know, if you're in a company, you know, you practice cover your ass, right? So you don't want anybody to criticize you. You want to be able to do something so that you can't be, you're beyond criticism.

[17:30]

You want to be able to do something that's beyond criticism, but that kind of gets the job done, kind of. So we don't have much, you know, example of, how do you do something from your heart, with your heart, receiving things into your heart, responding from your heart? We don't know. How do I do that? So Dogen calls it, you know, sincerity and wholeheartedness. So, you know, if I'm cooking and I try to not be criticized, My, one of my examples is, you know, if I make the oatmeal runny, you know, more water than usual, somebody doesn't like it. The oatmeal this morning is too runny. What are you thinking? We need something substantial because we have a big day ahead. So the oatmeal needs to be

[18:35]

more substantial. If you make the oatmeal more substantial, other people come. The oatmeal is too substantial. When it's that thick, it's too hard to digest. You know, this is breakfast. We need something easy to digest. You know, our digestion is not working that well yet. So no matter what you do, in other words, somebody will complain. So what are you going to do? So my teaching, you know, is offer what you have to offer, and you make a sincere effort. So your attention, you observe, you study, is it cooked? Is it not cooked? How much am I putting in? How much do I make? You know, what's the right amount? And I study, and I observe. I'm doing it with my feeling, with my heart. I'm putting my heart

[19:40]

into it. I'm cooking. I put it in the pot. I clean the pot out. You know, I take care of each little piece of it, you know, with my attention, with my heart, with my care, with my concern, and then I offer it. And somebody might not like it. There's nothing you can do beyond criticism. So if you don't want to be criticized, you will, you know, tend to not do much. So this is, you know, Dougan Sensu's suggestion, do each thing sincerely, wholeheartedly. Give yourself to the moment. Give yourself to the moment. Oh, so there are many different kinds of moments, and this, in the Zendo here, is a very particular kind of moment. You know, it's

[20:46]

practicing in the Zendo moment, which is a kind of simplified moment, compared to, you know, daily life moments, phone rings, you know, and you start to do one thing, and then somebody wants to talk to you, and then, you know, all these different things are happening, and, you know, what do you do? And by the way, I did hear something very interesting about this recently. I was talking with a friend of mine. I finally, I have a computer now that does Skype, and so if any of you have Skype, we can talk. And it's really fun, because then, you know, people take the computer around the house,

[21:48]

you know, because it's got the little camera. So here, let me show you, let me give you a tour of my house, and they turn the camera away from themselves and take you around the house. And they, and then they can, here, let me show you the view out the window. So I was talking to Rob. Rob lives in western Spain, kind of in the mountains. He lives near a retreat center called La Lobera. I think it's La Lobera. There's a big pottery town about 20, 30 minutes from there called Talavera. And Rob is very, you know, I mean, we're all unusual in our way, but Rob is English. And there he is, he's ended up, he's married a woman, a Spanish woman, Bea. They have three sons. And Rob supports himself by teaching theater improvisation to businesses.

[22:49]

So if any of you have a business, you know, FedEx, they do sometimes, they're big businesses. Largely, it started with advertising companies. So Rob and, let's see, well, Rob's main partner originally was Gary. Gary lives in Portland, Oregon. And now they have many partners, and they have, you know, people in San Francisco and London and, you know, and then when they do jobs, different groups of them go off to do these jobs. So, and Rob recently published a book about theater improvisation. This is a lot like, you know, so what's the first thing to do? You know, you don't have a script, you don't have a concept, you don't have a picture. So what are the guidelines here? You know,

[23:59]

and the first thing is show up. Start anywhere. And so forth. You know, there's 10 or 12 basic guidelines for theater improv that, you know, everybody who does it agrees on. Accept, you know, accept all offers. If somebody says something, don't say, don't talk to me like that. You relate to the way they're talking to you. You don't say, no, no, no. Give me something else to work with. You pretty much work with whatever that people bring to you, you know. Once in a while, you, I mean, anyway, you want to practice that 90, 90, 95% of the time. Whatever comes, you'd see if you can work with it. Anyway, so I was talking to Rob and I always learn things when I talk to Rob. It's amazing.

[25:00]

So Rob told me he was watching an interview on TED. I didn't know TED, but anyway, some internet thing, which has these lectures and classes or something. And it was something about creativity. And this man was saying that when his wife goes into the kitchen to cook, she has the radio going and she talks on the cell phone and she's cooking and the phone rings and then, you know, kids come in and out of the kitchen and she's cooking and talking to people. And so when he goes into the kitchen, the husband, he says, well, I turn off the radio. I turn off the phone. I close the doors. I, you know, because I need to focus on what I'm doing. And then he said, sometimes my wife will come into the kitchen, you know, and say, hi. And, and he says, and I get, you know, upset again. And I say, what do you want? Can't you, can't you see I'm busy frying an egg?

[26:05]

And I didn't understand this about guys. I've been thinking I'm defective all these years that I, I want, I need to focus. And then people, I go to do cooking classes and people say, oh, well, what's Tasha Har like in the winter time? Excuse me, but I need to think about this dinner. Sorry. I can't carry on, you know, three or four different conversations and concentrate on the cooking. I can't do that. And then people say, what's your problem? Haven't you practiced Zen? And so it turns out my problem is I'm a guy. Anyway. So that was a relief to know that I'm a guy. That's the way guys are. So I do what I can, but anyway, um, this is very interesting. And, you know, some of you, most of you may be, I don't know, but, you know, seeing the movie where I talk about sincerity and, you know, with sincerity, when you do something with sincerity, the literal meaning of

[27:13]

sincere is without, the S-I-N is like sans in French, S-A-N-S, without, and sere is wax. It's without wax. And the wax is used to cover up the blemishes. So you look perfect. So, um, when you cover up your mistake and no mistakes show, and don't I look good? You have nothing to criticize about me, do you? Then that's not where you're sincere. Where you're sincere is you're who you are and people, and you are doing what you do. And then people can say, that's a mistake. Or they say, you make me mad. You hurt me. You, you know, and they, they will, they will blame you for all of their problems. You know, other people have, most of us have not very good communication skills. So if somebody

[28:19]

does something that upsets me, I say, you really upset me. We don't say, when you said this, this, this, I became upset. You know, that's not, you know, that's Buddhist causation. When A, then B. Never, A never makes B. This is actual causation. When you said that you didn't want to go out with me tonight, I was disappointed. This is A, and then, you know, but sometimes people say, well, you are so selfish. What? You don't want to go out with me? Well, that is so selfish. So you can get criticized. So now in order not to be criticized, you can say, okay, let's see now. I guess, I guess I better say I'll go out so I don't get accused of being selfish. This is very complicated. You know, if you're trying to

[29:22]

actually do all this stuff, you know, so you don't get criticized, because the criticism isn't real. Most of the criticism is not real. It's not about you. So like my next door neighbor, I've lived next door now to Mark and Jennifer since 1996, and I've known them since 1985. So I feel very fortunate to live next door to these amazing people. And I bought the house because they were living there, and they said, the house next door is coming up for sale. Why didn't you buy it? So at the time, I was with my partner, Patricia, and Patricia and I bought the house. And then, you know, a few years later, I had to buy the house again from Patricia for almost as much money. But anyway, I'm sorry if I give you, I kind of tend to give people too much information, but you know,

[30:23]

but you know, I am a great devotee of changing your handwriting to change your life. This is a little bit of a background, but I met Mark and Jennifer because they came to a cooking workshop I did one weekend, about 1985. And at some point, I talked with them about handwriting change. And I told them the story about how I changed my F. I had been making a self-sabotage F. And I changed the way I did F. And then three major changes happened in my life that just had not been happening. So Jennifer said to me, what's a self-sabotage F? So I showed Jennifer, what's a self-sabotage F? Self-sabotage F is the upper, you do a loop up, and then the lower loop, instead of like an F loop to the right, it's like a G loop to the left. So if you make the lower loop of your F like a G, most Germans don't even do loops in their Fs. So you don't need to worry about doing a self-sabotage F. See, this is my point. You don't

[31:28]

need to worry about making a mistake because you're not even going to put loops in your F. But anyway, this is just a little background to say Jennifer changed her F. And what happened? She was a dentist. And she got pregnant. You know, she had gone to school, learned how to be a dentist, was practicing dentistry, and got pregnant. So then she thought, well, I'll take a sabbatical from my dental practice, have my baby, take a little brief pause, and then go back to work. And then she thought about it some more and she thought, no, I'm just going to be a mom. Sell the dental practice. So her life changed. Anyway, since then, now she's studied and she passed some exams and she's become a specialist for people with tight jaws. Get a grip on it. Get a grip. You do that a lot with

[32:35]

your jaw. And your jaw contains all of these right, wrong, good, bad. You hold onto them here. So people who really have that, good, bad, right, wrong, you know, severe more than you guys. Very tight in the jaw. So this is one of the reasons to do this. Like, hey, maybe I don't need to hold on to that good, bad, right, wrong so much. Listen up. Anyway, just as an example. So here's an example. Simple example. What happens? Jennifer's little girl, Ruby, she's seven or eight. The son is very quiet. The daughter is very outgoing. And so before dinner, mom may say, no, Ruby, no, I don't want you to have ice cream

[33:45]

now. We're going to have dinner soon. So then what happens? Ruby says, you mean mother. I hate you. You are so mean. From a seven-year-old, you could understand this. But sometimes adults are, you know, we're not much better. But anyway, so Jennifer, you know, studies, you know, these kind of things. She says, Ruby, when you can't have something you want, that's what we call disappointment. I think you're old enough now to experience disappointment without attacking somebody else like you just did with me. Because when you do that and you attack me when you're disappointed, I feel hurt. She doesn't say you hurt me when you do that. She says, when you talk to me like that and attack me, I feel hurt.

[34:50]

And then, you know, we don't have as good a relationship as I would like to have with you. You know? So I think you're old enough now to learn how to be disappointed and not attack somebody because you're disappointed. And you, you know, this is part of growing up is that you learn how to be disappointed. Most of us didn't get mom and dads like this. You know, mom and dad just said, you know, when you, no, no ice cream. Okay. Shut, don't, don't cry. So far, so good. So we learned, you know, don't complain. Don't cry. And, you know, another big one we learned was don't have any needs. Right? Because if you have needs, I mean,

[36:00]

somebody might think you're needy. And if you're needy, nobody can like people who are needy. So you better not have any needs. Oh, not that you admit to yourself or anyone else. You just kind of keep them secret. Well, I have some secret needs. And then sometimes, of course, people say, I need you to love me. Oh, thanks. And, you know, various things like this. So we're studying all of this stuff, you know, and there's no way to, there's no, there's only studying it and what's going on, you know, you know, how do I, how do I work with all this? Because it's not about just behaving, you know, right. It's like studying how other people behaving, how do I,

[37:01]

how do I work with it? And I can't just say, you know, you've got some bad communication skills, you're going to have to work on that. Some people do. But, you know, it's, this is ongoing, like to study these kind of, to study, like, how do I, what do I do? How am I going to be? What do I, you know, how do I listen to people? How do I talk to people? And, you know, to clarify, what's going on here? I spent last year, I was leading a workshop at Tassara. And the second day of the workshop, a young woman said to me, she's 30 years old. So she's still in that, like, I know everything stage that we talked about. And I'm studying for my PhD in psychology.

[38:09]

Okay. And she said to me, well, Ed, you are just way too critical and judgmental. What do I say? I said, oh, is that right? And she said, yes, and it's not Zen. It is just not Zen. At that point, I was like, uh-oh. At this point, I was a little bit over my head. Yes, and I guess, I guess we know who the expert on what Zen is here, don't we? But, you know, if you say that, if you say, I was trying to say, I guess, and I guess we know who the expert on Zen is here, because, you know, it's obviously not me, it must be you. But I was, you know, so I studied this for, you know, weeks.

[39:17]

And I talked to people, what do I say? You know, because, you know, it's not so easy to say, you know, I think this is your idea of Zen and not my idea, and, you know, and, you know, like, what? What do you think? So I learned several things to say, you know. I learned, I got from other people some new communication skills. Languaging, because I just didn't know, I don't, what's the language for this? So one of the things I learned to say was, help me out here. Help me out here. Just tell me, tell me some more about this. Tell me some more. And, you know, to be actually curious. Tell me, you know, tell me more about what's going on for you and how you think like that, and, you know, just fill me in here. What do I need to know

[40:22]

about all of this? You know, what I said, what you're feeling, what happened, and, you know, we're going to, and so it's going to take time. So mostly we don't want to take this kind of time with people. But if you don't want to take this kind of time with people, then you end up with, you know, then she left. Got a refund for the whole retreat, because she did the same thing with all the people at Tussehara, too. Nobody knew what to do with her. And I learned another great one, which is when she says, you know, you're so critical and judgmental, and that's just not sad. Oh, and I'm wondering what, what's the most difficult thing about that for you? That's, that's bringing it back to her with that saying, you know, I think you're making this up, and that it's actually your problem and not my problem. And maybe there are some things I can work on here. You know, I'm willing to look at this, but I need to know, I need to know what I said, what happened. I can't just, oh, what happened? What did I actually say?

[41:32]

What did I actually do? Because otherwise, I can't just go like, okay, well, from now on, because you've noticed this, I will not be critical or judgmental and, well, let's see how to do that. That just doesn't work like that. There's no way to do that. So anyway, it was quite interesting. And so I, you know, when these things happen, and I got, I got hooked. I said, oh, maybe I am really critical and judgmental. What am I going to do about that? Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. Alert, alert. I've been found out. Uh-oh. And, you know, you may as well just, yep, critical and judgmental, and you, you got me there. Now, did you want to report this to the Zen, do you think we should report this to the Zen authorities so that maybe they need to take away my licensing?

[42:34]

I mean, it's hard to know, like, what's the problem here? What, what's going on? And several people tell me, you know, what she really wants is your attention. Attention is incredibly powerful. And attention is what we give ourselves in meditation. What were you saying? What were you thinking? What were you feeling? Oh, you feel that? Oh, you're thinking that? Oh, curious, huh? Tell me more about that. Meaning you're, so, and, but you don't want to get sucked in and actually believe any of it. But you give yourself attention, your breathing, your sensations, your thoughts, your feelings. And attention is extremely powerful.

[43:43]

It's the biggest gift you have to give, is your attention. I never did get around to forms, did I? Well, tomorrow, tomorrow morning. First period, after breakfast. Forms are, I don't know, you know, people are different, but I just love, I love forms. And, you know, part of the power of forms is to help us. Connect, reconnect. I have a friend, and, you know, Eric Schiffman, who teaches yoga.

[45:02]

You know, we're here to do different things. And Eric, you know, Eric was born to be a yoga teacher. He's never done any other job in his life but teach yoga. He's very tall. He has very long hair. He looks kind of like he could be a lion. Very, you know, robust. And when Eric was in high school, he used to meditate in the closet. He set up an altar in his closet. He had an extra closet. And then, after he graduated from high school, he found out, oh, there's this high school in England that's run by Krishnamurti. I want to go there. And he got accepted. And there was somebody teaching yoga there. And then Mr. Iyengar came to visit,

[46:09]

who's one of the famous Indian yoga teachers. And at some point, Eric just went to India to study yoga. He studied with Mr. Iyengar. He studied with Krishnamurti. He said Krishnamurti, he would go to a class with Krishnamurti. And Krishnamurti would say, how are you, Eric? And, you know, my mom this and my brother that. He'd never talk anything about yoga. But if Eric asked him a question, Krishnamurti would answer. So after that, Eric started coming with all kinds of questions about yoga. And then Krishnamurti would tell him about yoga. But he had to ask. But when Eric studied with Mr. Iyengar, Mr. Iyengar is famous, you know, for

[47:15]

there is the right way you do it. And one of the examples is, in his style of yoga, when you're standing, you lift your kneecaps, pull up your kneecaps. And he will tell you, while you're standing there, just standing, mountain pose, just standing, you know, lift your kneecaps. And then once he's told you once, if your kneecaps aren't up, whack! And then your kneecaps go up. And there's, you know, in standing poses, there's a way you have your arm. And you can't just have your arm out. You know, we don't do, in Mr. Iyengar yoga, you don't do qigong or anything, you know, you've got to get the energy all the way out your fingertips. And then your fingers are,

[48:20]

you know, whether they're together or apart or exactly what, and then there's a certain angle of your hand. So Eric studied all this very carefully. And he said it made a huge difference in his life. Because he didn't know where his hands were until he did that practice. And where the connection is from consciousness from the heart, and the heart energy goes out the hands. And you have the energy that for your hand, the energy is coming from your heart out your arm. It's not just I'm going to put my arm out, it's, I'm extending that energy from my heart out my arm. And so he learned to do all that, studying with Mr. Iyengar. And then he thought, why would I keep doing the same thing over and over again? It's the right way to do it. Mr. Iyengar is not going to criticize you, he's not going to hit

[49:26]

you. Now what? And then Eric found you could let something come from inside, and now his hands go out. And every time his hands go out, it's a different shape in his fingers. And he says, it's just the energy coming from inside comes out a little bit different each time. So I couldn't, if somebody told me, just let the energy come out into your hands however it comes out. But he didn't know where his hands were until he studied. So interesting. So anyway, forms are useful, and then we're also studying how to do forms in Zen with a relaxed feeling. Like we've been talking about in Qigong. Soft, relaxed feeling, even though it's formal practice. Inside, soft feeling. Inside, informal feeling. Relaxed feeling. Inside, and you can still

[50:34]

show up. And you can still do the form. Okay, so we need to stop and call it a night to be continued as we go on studying together and practicing. Thank you. So we're going to be walking for a few minutes first, and then we'll sit.

[51:39]

So for three or four minutes, I'm ready, and then we'll go to sitting. Thank you. One step with each breath. This is a good time to have your energy go down as you shift your weight. Exhale, shift your weight onto the forward foot.

[52:47]

Send your energy down on the floor, and let it come back up in your body so that you can stand so that the energy inside helps you grow tall. The energy inside helps you grow tall when you send the energy down into the floor as you're shifting your weight. So so

[54:12]

so [...]

[55:39]

so [...] okay

[57:01]

okay we're sitting facing the middle of the room for this period hmm so I want to talk about this in more detail tomorrow, but at the beginning of sitting it's very important to find your hips and help your hips find their stability, balance. The more stable and balanced your hips are, the more at ease they will be. The ease comes with stability and balance. So you study, you ask your hips, is there some way you can be more stable? And usually your hips are not really that articulate. They're not going to be just

[58:11]

telling you, do this, do that, and then I'll feel better. So you have to kind of ask, would you feel happy if I was leaning forward like this for the next 10 minutes? No. Okay, would this be here? So where is it? So usually you need to take a little time, and somehow it seems helpful to really kind of go through the possibilities. Leaning forward and back so you find the right place for your hips. And a little leaning from side to side so you find the balance from left to right. And you can rotate a little bit as you turn. As you lean to the side you can also try a little bit of rotation. And gradually your movements get smaller and smaller, concentrating on your hips. And when your hips are really stable and balanced,

[59:15]

naturally there's energy inside that's growing tall and coming right up to the crown of your head. It's not some effort you have to make. The effort was in finding the stability of your hips, the balanced stability of your hips. And your hips are happy and the energy inside naturally grows tall. So

[60:18]

so so You

[61:42]

You You You

[63:12]

You You You

[64:42]

You You You

[66:12]

You [...]

[67:22]

You [...]

[68:33]

You [...]

[69:40]

You [...]

[70:42]

You [...]

[71:54]

You [...] If your voice is big voice, and all together we make a big voice, and the sound resonates and echoes and vibrates at all different levels, and then all those different levels of sound wash through our beings, wash through our body, wash through our mind, wash through our hearts. Okay? So will you hit the bell and we'll see if we can chant with full body, full mind, big voice. Bell. Hit the bell. Whichever. Hit the bell. Yeah, big bell. Big, big, big bell. Ong.

[72:54]

Ong. [...]

[74:02]

Ong. [...] Alright, thank you. So at the end of sitting, as I was at the beginning, you make bigger movements from side to side, gradually smaller movements until you carefully find your balance. After sitting, you can lean a little bit from side to side, lean a little bit, and rotate, get a little twist to the other side, back and forth, little side bending, little

[75:08]

rotation, and so you get a little energy before you to help you come out of, you know, being still, and shift into movement, and getting some energy in your body. And then standing up. This is traditional Zen, I didn't just make it up. Just because it's traditional doesn't mean that people practice it, but I still do. Please fluff your cushions quietly.

[76:17]

So again, I'm going to tell you the passage from Dogen. It's such a pivotal, important passage in Dogen. To study Buddhism is to study yourself. To study yourself is to forget yourself. To forget yourself is to be enlightened by myriad things. To forget yourself is to be enlightened by myriad things. When myriad things realize themselves, your body and mind, and the body and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. Thank you very much for your good practice today. Let's continue.

[77:22]

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