cold season. And our abbot, amongst others, is suffering from a cold. He's sitting in his very well heated office with a large handkerchief, working on the notes of future lectures, I think. I was asked to give the talk today and hopefully by tomorrow he'll feel better and have very well thought out lectures. So for a while my practice has been one thing at a time. One whole thing at a time. One breath. And so I thought I would talk about that today in the form of talking about Zazen or talking about Jiju Yu Zamai.

[01:22]

Dogen, talks about this kind of zazen, this ji ju yu zamae. And Katagiri Roshi has translated it as, settling the self on the self. I think most of us have heard this expression, settling the self on the self. And you can think of that as settling the small self on the self, second self being with a capital S. I think of it as, also as self coming home.

[02:43]

Homecoming self. There is a new translation of the Bendo'a which our Dharma brother Dan Leighton who lives in Green Gulch helped translate and which Uchiyama Roshi has written a long commentary on. And I've been studying this commentary Bendo-wa means wholehearted negotiation of the way, throwing yourself into the way. So that's what we've come here about, is to throw ourselves into the way.

[03:51]

And some of us are sitting seven days, and some of us are sitting less than that. But anybody who comes to a sasheen has that wholehearted desire. And I'd like to read... I'd like to read the first paragraph of this fascicle by Dogen. It was written in 1232 when Dogen was 32 or 33 and he just returned from China to Japan. He didn't have a place yet. He didn't have a practice place. He described himself as a floating cloud and he was just getting his

[04:58]

teaching together. And this Bendoit is his first statement of his essential teaching. And this paragraph, beginning paragraph, goes, All Buddha Tathagatas together have been simply transmitting wondrous Dharma and actualizing Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi in comparable awareness for which there is an unsurpassed, unfabricated and wondrous method. This wondrous Dharma, which has been transmitted only from Buddha to Buddha, without deviation, has its criterion Jiju-Yu-Samae, or Jiju-Yu-Samadhi, which is Zazen.

[06:03]

And I would like to also read Uchiyama's note. on what G.G.U. Zami means. G.G.U. Zami is literally samadhi of self receiving or accepting its function. Or samadhi of self-enjoyment. Or samadhi of self-fulfillment. G is self. Ju is to receive or accept. And Yu is function. Function of receiving the self. Function of the self receiving, accepting the self. Zama is samadhi or concentration. The important point is that this is not the self that has an object.

[07:12]

There is nothing other than or outside this self. The enjoyment, fulfillment or satisfaction is the samadhi of the self of which there is no other. This is not an experience which is somewhere other than here or now. It is not something to be acquired or gained. GGU Samadhi is Buddhist practice. In the Shobogenzo Genjo Koan, Dogen Zenji says, to study the Buddha Dharma is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by myriad dharmas. To be enlightened by myriad dharmas is to drop off body and mind of self and others. This is Jiju-yu-zamae.

[08:15]

This actually occurs in Sazen. So that's pretty encouraging. The Dogen paragraph. All Buddha, Tathagatas together have been simply transmitting wondrous Dharma and actualizing Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi for which there is an unsurpassable, unfabricated, wondrous method. This wondrous Dharma which has been transmitted only from Buddha to Buddha without deviation has its criterion in G.G. Samyak. A very wonderful grand Mahayana kind of lead-off statement.

[09:21]

Some of us studied the Lotus Sutra, and the Lotus Sutra has this big crowd scene. Many of the Mahayana sutras have the whole worlds and worlds and worlds seem. And the Japanese, Dogen, has a way of just focusing that and paring it down. So that what we're talking about is Zazen. The one vehicle teaching is just Zazen. It's very well focused and it includes all the Buddhas. So that large encouraging seeing is wonderful.

[10:27]

The trouble is we forget it. And we get stationed on our cushions, and with our situation of face to wall, and the various aspects of our experience, and we forget the grand scene. So these Session Days are the days that Breath by breath, we reconcile our situation on the cushion, nose to the wall, with this very grand, unlimited seeing. Settling the self on the self, coming home breath by breath. So we come back, of course, to the fundamental Zazen instruction about body and really paying attention to posture, breath, body sensation.

[11:52]

Mel has repeated many times, What do you do when you sit Zazen? You give yourself Zazen instruction over and over and over. That's this very concrete, focused, one vehicle way. And it's very subtle. How do we bring the body-mind into balance? How are we able to be aware in the present, in the one moment, of all the sensations in our body, of that spot in our forehead, between the eyebrows, feeling that,

[12:57]

and knowing the relationship of that to our belly, to the sensation in the lower belly. Keeping the back very straight and long. Being aware of what the throat feels like and what the chest area feels like. and being very aware of any knots in the body. I think we're fortunate to have such a very yogic teaching. to be taught so frequently to return to the body because we have that teacher that's so accessible to us and so present and so grounding.

[14:18]

And then we have the body, the posture, the breath, the sensation, and we have thoughts. And what do we do with the thoughts? Sometimes they just come. And sometimes we notice them. Uchiyama Roshi has written several books, Approach to Zen, Refining Your Life, and most recently, a kind of somewhat rewritten Approach to Zen, Opening the Hand of Thought, which is a wonderful title.

[15:34]

And it really is the theme of the whole book. So when thoughts come, all we need to do is open their hands. And their little hands tend to be so grasping. And before we know it, it's grasped. So we don't want to pry it open. We don't want to have power struggles. We don't want to do any violence to our thoughts. So we just gently ask them to open their hands. Sometimes people mistakenly say that Zen is not having thoughts. And that, of course, is a violation of who we are, of who the self is.

[16:47]

But Zazen is finding a different relationship to thought. Because our tendency is to think that I am my thought. and settling the self on the self, we can let that tendency go. Opening the hand of thought, we can just let them relax, come and go, come and go, come and go, and they become, as Uchiyama says, the scenery of life, which they are, and that's all they are. and sometimes in a less generous mood, Uchiyama Roshi calls thoughts secretions. So however we think about thoughts or look at them, we are changing our relationship to their grasp.

[17:59]

which is a long and subtle process. The first day of Sesshin, there's usually quite a lot of struggle. Mel just sneezed. Quite a lot of struggle. struggle with body and struggle with thoughts and oppositions, all these things that come to us. And so we need to be persistent in our effort and gentle. And hopefully many of you here can sit for three or more days. Because usually, and I say that because usually the first day is hard, and the second day is hard, or pretty hard.

[19:14]

And then the third day, self begins to settle on self. And it's not so hard. And the relationship to thoughts begins to shift. And you get into a more subtle ground. So that you get used to being in the present. To being just breath, posture, body sensation, sound. And then some energy comes up and you know a thought is coming. Now it's sort of as if you're reading a book and you have an open box of chocolates beside you and you're reading the book. And then maybe your hand is already in the box.

[20:20]

But then maybe just something is beginning to say, it would be good to have one. But your hand doesn't actually move over to the box. So that's second day, third day, kind of. Things getting somewhat easier, somewhat more settled. Uchiyama Roshi has a scheme for how thoughts are. There's a line from A to B that is Zazen. And then there's one offshoot that's sort of vague, uncommitted thinking. You know, a few random thoughts, but that's okay. You can get them and you can come back. And then another offshoot on this line is Sleepy thoughts. You know, the times when you're not thinking, you're just dream associating thoughts.

[21:29]

That's its own situation. And sometimes it helps to open your eyes wider. You know, we can always adjust the amount of light we're letting in. And if minds are racing, you have very little light. And if mind is very sleepy, you can open up wide and ask, what is sleep? Sort of just keep that as a focus. But anyway, sleep is its own line. And then there's another offshoot, which is serious committed thought. And you are just gone. And on the page is a little illustration. It's just a bright star. You're completely engaged. And those are the juicy thoughts.

[22:38]

And underneath all these thoughts, there's always energy. You know, we're always in this situation of body, mind, energy, breath. Breath and energy are just coming through and out and through and out and through and out. And so when we get into these particular offshoot thoughts of Zazen, somehow this energy that's coming in is going getting caught in thought form and our job is of course to recall that and to return to present and to release that energy so if the particular thought form that you're engaged in is the committed thought form and you're seriously thinking and engaged by some thought, then there's a lot of energy in that.

[23:45]

And our opportunity is that turn off the dialogue and get in touch with what the energy of that committed thought is. Can't say just what it is, but you can feel it. You know, if it's a real juicy thought, if it's a lustful thought, if it's a very greedy thought, if it's a very angry thought, the energy is quite palpable. It's a very fearful thought. So, that's our opportunity, is to go underneath it. and find where the energy is. And just be with the energy for as many breath moments, one at a time as we can.

[24:48]

And so, little by little, these days of struggle, this energy being released and released, and as it is released, there is a settling of the whole body-mind. and it's that settling of the body-mind that we come to, say, Sheen's for that is very sweet and is very deeply clarifying and confirms our faith. You know, our faith in this practice is that moment by moment the self does return to the self. That moment by moment there is a homecoming. And that there's always a place. There's always a place of great connection that at any breath we can return to.

[25:59]

And so when we start, when we sit down on our cushions on this first day, there are a lot of disturbances. And various physical problems may arise. And whatever arises tends to take center stage. So that if there's a pain in the knee, it's center stage and it's the worst thing. But what happens with this self settling on self process is that center stage gets emptied. The things move out of it.

[27:18]

that the thoughts that were center stage that the physical problems that were center stage become the scenery and that there is this is kind of equanimity that begins to settle in And we gradually release our desire to have something. That that desire just little by little settles down. Because what we're discovering is that there's nothing, really, there's nothing outside. That inside and outside are not different.

[28:29]

Which is, on the other hand, strange. Strange to imagine there's nothing outside. Strange to realize that there's nothing outside. Chögyam Trungpa has a story about when Padmasambhava brought Buddhism to Tibet. eighth century or something. And Padmasambhava came to Tibet with his thunderbolts and his flaming energies riding on a pregnant tigress. He came in his full energy

[29:36]

He'd been around at the time of Buddha, and then he'd sort of gone underground for all the centuries, and then turned up in Tibet in the 700s. So again, this big story of old energy moving, making its rounds, moving through. So when he came to Tibet, there were 12, it is said, there were 12 mountaintop goddesses that were a protective ring around the country. They were 12 white-capped peaks that protected the jewel of the country. And when one of these protective goddesses saw Padmasambhava coming, with his thunderbolts on his pregnant tiger.

[30:42]

She freaked out. And she started to run away. And she ran into the woods. And there was Padmasambhava. And she ran into the valley. And there was Padmasambhava. And finally she jumped into the deepest lake and it began to boil. And she emerged as a skeleton. There was Padmasambhava. So there's this element of no escape. in this practice, in this session.

[31:44]

And we get into it little by little, not exactly knowing what we're going to get into. But there's no escape. And wherever you go, You're face-to-face with it, nose-to-nose with it. And whatever is extra in your practice has as much effect as little drops of water as they hit a hot grill. They just dissolve. There's no escape. And in a certain way, we cooperate with that. We say, yes, I'll come to Sesshin, and I'll sit so many days, and I'll sit every period.

[32:47]

And then you wish there were escape. And then one breath at a time, one breath at a time, the self settles on the self. and you understand how wonderful it is that there is no escape. So I think that that's all I have thought about today. And we can either sit or have some discussion about zazen. Actually, it's nice to sit and then let a question about our Zazen, about our settling ourselves, about our Zazen coming home, Zazen struggle, whatever it is.

[33:57]

To just let it come up and speak it. I wondered how and if you're absolutely sure there's no escape. In my life, everything else does fizzle. Sooner or later. I don't understand what you mean by that.

[35:10]

There's a way of simplifying life and there's a way of elaborating it and scheming it out. And the simplification is coming back home. And the scheming is going off. And often it's not easy to know which is which. In zazen, you sort of know which is which. When you're off the cushion, it's not so easy to know which is which, usually. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not. So things play themselves out. But if they don't have some kind of fundamental root in your own groundedness, they fizzle out.

[36:22]

Or they get you terribly stuck. they disconnect you. That's my experience of it and it's a good question and maybe other people can put it different ways. I didn't have something to say about that. It's okay. When you talk about settling the self on the self, I don't think you mean this, but it sort of sounds like once you do that, that's it. Ah. Permanently. Yeah. And I don't think that. Yeah. That's what we would all like. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's just for the breath.

[37:29]

It's just the one thing at a time. I didn't talk about the sentence in Dogen's introduction where he says that this practice of settling the self on the self is transmitted from Buddha to Buddha. and that's a reference to another fas... Dogon... Dogon fascicle. It goes back to the Lotus Sutra. Only a Buddha and a Buddha can know what this practice is. So... We can't know. We really have to go on the moment... by moment... faith. Coming... coming home, losing it, coming home, losing it, that's all. That's all we can do. The larger picture, the enlightenment, has to be bigger than our notion of it.

[38:39]

I don't know if that speaks to what you were asking. Yeah. But we're certainly always wanting to have it once and for all. And that desire to have it once and for all again, going underneath, what is the energy of that desire? The energy of that desire is quite wonderful. It is the desire to come home. And just keeping that energy without letting go of the conclusions or the particular desire, but keeping hold of that energy is very beautiful. Is there an intersection of desire and intention?

[40:05]

Desire for the way, or then there's intention? Well, I come back to what Mel said in one of a recent Shosan about vow and intention. There's the vow that's kind of the ground, the impossible ground, vowing to save beings. And then there's the more specific intention

[41:05]

to fulfill that. But the intention can always be misguided. And that's why it's good for it to have its root in the impossible vow. And there's a lot of desire in that, but I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. What do you think the difference is between desire and intention? I don't know. I just somehow see it as something that intersects. Like two planes intersecting and sometimes they're closer together. And sometimes they're more at right angles and then sort of float away from each other.

[42:09]

That's my experience of the way I see it. I don't know whether that's just another... Well, it seems to me if desire and intention are two separated, there's suffering. And when they're together, there's a lot of ease. It's fine for me to am.

[43:25]

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