all of the different aspects of our practice. And so, as a text for this year, we're using Suzuki Roshi's book, Not Always So, and I strongly recommend Well, no household should be without a copy, you know, so please get one. We're also going to make the texts available for the classes, and so all of the Saturday and the Monday talks and the Thursday classes will all draw from chapters of this. The chapters are all edited from particular talks that were given by Suzuki Roshi. The Zen Mind Beginner's Mind was drawn from talks that were given down the peninsula, and they were beginning talks.

[01:07]

And these were Suzuki Roshi's more kind of the breadth of his Dharma teaching that were drawn on from lectures at San Francisco Zen Center and at Tassajara. And so they open out in a number of different ways. So I thought I would start at the beginning of the book. with a chapter that's called Calmness of Mind. And I'll read you a little from the beginning of that. And then I want to share a little context with you. So he talks about Shikantaza, which is our core practice of just sitting. He says, shikantaza, our zazen, is just to be ourselves.

[02:09]

When we do not expect anything, we can be ourselves. That is our way, to live fully in each moment of time. And this practice continues forever. We say each moment, but in your actual practice, a moment is too long. because in that moment your mind is already involved in following the breath. So we say even in a snap of your fingers there are millions of instants of time. This way we can emphasize the feeling of existing in each instant of time. Then your mind is very quiet. So that's the introduction. I went digging around, as I like to do, and I found the original text that he drew this talk from.

[03:11]

And I really, I recommend it. It's really interesting to read Suzuki Roshi's original text. They're a little raw, but you see a flavor of his expression that is maybe a little less refined than in the books. These lectures were primarily edited by Ed Brown and then gone over very carefully by Sojan before they were published. But when I found the lecture, which was given on June 7th of 1971, and it was the second day of Sesshin at San Francisco Zen Center. And there's a whole lot of stuff in this lecture that's not

[04:17]

in the book, and it's very interesting to see both what is and what isn't, how skillfully it was edited, and also what else we might want to look at as context. So part of the context was that this was Suzuki Roshi's first session back after having gallbladder surgery in March of that year. He had a very painful experience, a gallbladder attack, when he was traveling in Oregon, and shortly after he got back, he had surgery, and they removed his gallbladder. And at that time they discovered that it was cancerous.

[05:21]

And they said, the doctors, this is all, I looked this up in, it's not in this talk, I went back to Crooked Cucumber, David Chadwick's book, and he documents stuff in such wonderful detail. So the doctors thought that they had got everything, that they had clean margins. But Suzuki Roshi, you know, he should have, if that were so, he should have bounced back. But he wasn't really bouncing back. But he was trying and he gathered his strength and led the Sesshin. And these were his first talks. And then just to skip forward to the end, he died the first week of the first, he died the first period of Rohatsu Sesshin that year in December.

[06:31]

while all of the students were sitting downstairs, gathered for the first period of rahatsusasheen, that's when he passed away. So it wasn't very long. This is about six months before. And you'll see that there's a context. And part of the context, I think, is that on a conscious or on a physiological level, he had some sense perhaps that he was dying. And as you go through this talk, you know, there's a there's a key line in this in this talk. He says, to take care of the exhalation, there's an emphasis on, in this Kama Samaya, on exhaling, on letting go. He said, to take care of this exhalation is very important.

[07:38]

To die is more important than trying to be alive. So I think that his mind just again either consciously or unconsciously was drawn in that direction although it's not so this is this is actually at the heart of our practice our practice is learning to live and learning to die and i must say that that my state of mind is been really shaped the last few months by losses, losses in and around this Sangha, losses in and around my life and people who are very, very seriously ill. And even though I've been trying to exhale for a long time, I feel like

[08:47]

my attention is freshly drawn to that. And some of us in this room are getting older. Oh, maybe all of you are getting older. You know, I mean, we had a wonderful occasion last Saturday to celebrate 50 years of this practice and to have people, including our teacher, who have been in this precise practice from building to building over 50 years, that's a long time. And so there's a richness in our life and it's also balanced by our letting go. I've been reading Dogen lately, a couple of short fascicles that touch on this.

[09:50]

One is called Zinki, which is total dynamic working. And the other, which is often paired with it, is Shoji, which is translated as birth and death or life and death. And, you know, in these fascicles, Dogen says in each of them, he says, life is a moment complete itself, fully functioning, the whole universe is functioning. If you like, as we inhale. And he says, death is a moment complete itself. it's fully functioning. Our dying is an expression of the full functioning of the Buddhaverse.

[11:00]

So, the context that's, he goes on here, he says, so he talks about a moment, we know this as we sit zazen, we're doing this today, it's like, you say moment by moment, but you know, in, in your inhalation or in your exhalation, uh, in that space of time, which you might call a moment, a whole world can unfold. You can go a million miles away. You can go 50 years into the past. and you can come back before the end of that half of a breath. So that's why he says, so even in a snap of your finger, there are a million instants of time. And we can notice, he said we can emphasize the feeling of existing in each instant of time.

[12:11]

So we can quietly look at what is arising and then return to that activity. Return, in this case, he suggests you return to your exhalation. He says, so for a period of time each day, try to sit in Shikantaza without moving, without expecting anything, as if you were in your last moment. without expecting anything, means to be receptive to everything that is coming in through your senses, through your mind. As if you were in your last moment, but you are in every moment. Moment after moment, you feel your last instant.

[13:16]

In each inhalation and each exhalation, there are countless instants of time. Your intention is to live in each instant. So he says, I like to do this, he says, first practice smoothly exhaling, then inhaling. So let's actually adjust your posture, sit up. and take a relatively deep breath in and then exhale as long and as smoothly as you can. Try that. Take a couple of breaths like that. Just a long, smooth exhalation.

[14:32]

And if you can, notice the place where at the end of that exhalation, you turn around and you inhale. And I find when I exhale like that, my mind, what he says is, if you exhale smoothly without even trying to exhale, you're entering into complete perfect calmness of mind. And I find that very true if I'm actually attending to that exhalation, watching it without doing anything to it, my mind is very quiet. And he says, when you exhale this way, naturally your inhalation will start from there.

[15:39]

And all that fresh blood bringing everything from outside will pervade your body. You're completely refreshed as you breathe in. Then you start to exhale to extend that fresh feeling into emptiness. So moment after moment, without trying to do anything, you continue Shikantaza. So one thing I would suggest as we're sitting today is that try starting each period of zazen like that. Just take some breaths, some relatively deep breaths in and just long, slow, natural exhalations. and follow that stream of breath. And it really, what I find, for me, it really, it helps me change my mind.

[16:46]

It helps me shift. And then I just settle into a natural rhythm of breath. Nothing too long, nothing too deep. The context, though, which is interesting, and this is what's missing in this chapter, is like, why is he talking about this? So in the raw text, he says, so this practice is not so easy. Maybe you can continue this practice for even one day or one period. You cannot continue this practice for even one day or one period. To continue it one period, you must make a big effort. Eventually, maybe that is what you can do. Extend the practice to another period of time. Eventually it will extend to everyday life.

[17:50]

And everyday life is to reveal yourself as you are. You shouldn't try to be someone else. You should be honest with yourself and express yourself fully. And you should be brave enough to express yourself, whatever people might say. It's all right, you should just be yourself. And then another shift, at least for your teacher, you should just be yourself. And then he says, your teacher may say, okay, that's how you should continue your practice. In other words, when your teacher sees that you are really expressing yourself. He says, until your teacher says so, you should try hard. After a while, your teacher might say, okay, now you should continue that practice forever, you don't need me anymore. That's actual practice, your actual life. but this is difficult unless you trust your teacher.

[18:52]

But if you find out your teacher's spirit is the same spirit as yours, then you can be brave enough to continue this kind of practice. And then, so these are interesting tangents. Then he says, sometimes you have to argue with your teacher. That's okay, you should do that. But you should be ready to give up your argument when you are wrong. When you find yourself sticking to some viewpoint foolishly, or when you are making some excuse, you should be honest with yourself. I surrender. Okay, I'm sorry. There's laughter interspersed in all of this. For a teacher and for you, what we should try to do is have perfect communication. For a teacher, the important point is always to be ready to surrender to your disciple. If a teacher thinks he or she is wrong, they should say, oh, you are right, I was wrong.

[20:00]

If your teacher has that kind of spirit, you should have the same spirit. That's not so easy. You may think it is easy, But if you continue this kind of practice, some people may think you are crazy. But it doesn't matter. We are not the same. Each one of us is different from the other. So each one of us has our own problem. Anyway, you should be yourself. and then he shifts again. Fortunately, you have Zen Center here. Fortunately, we have Zen Center here. Zen Center is not an umbrella which will protect you. You may have noticed that. But here you can have real practice and express yourself fully. So then another shift, what does it mean to be in Zen Center, in Sangha? He says, you should open your eyes

[21:03]

to appreciate another's practice. You should be able to communicate to each other without words. It does not mean to criticize others, but to appreciate or know others. And that's why we have rules or rituals. If you are practicing zazen, no one understands your practice. But when you are practicing, it's my best chance to understand you. especially if I see you from your back it's very easy to understand what kind of practice you have so that's why I walk around the zendo not to hit you but to see you it's very interesting so there are all these shifts and I can see it it's not so coherent this lecture but it's very rich and to me the context for what eventually got edited down as calmness of mind was calmness of mind, the steadiness of Shikantaza and practice is what we need to be harmonious with ourself.

[22:19]

And that means being harmonious with our whole community, with our Sangha, with the people around us. Zen Center is a community. Those who come are members. When they come for the first time to Zen Center, as some of you perhaps are, it may be difficult for them to know what we are doing, but more and more they will feel what we are doing and join our practice. So those who are practicing our way should give people some feeling of practice. In other words, By doing the practice, by entering into this calmness of mind, we show others who we are and how we can practice. And I know this is true for me, and I'm sure it's true for many of you.

[23:22]

It's like when I came here particularly when I came here in the early 80s, and I looked around at the people who were practicing. Some of you are still here. Denke is still here. Peter is still here. Ross was here shortly after, but it's like these, oh, Megan was here. I just watched these people. you know, and I couldn't say what it was about them, but I also felt, oh, there's something here that I would like to bring forth in myself. I think I'll stay. I don't know if that was a good idea or a bad idea, you know.

[24:24]

And this is what, so, What I saw was, even with all of our humanity and all of our flaws, which all of us have, what I was seeing was selfless practice, unself-centered practice. And this, again, in this text, he says, So those who are practicing our way should give people some feeling of practice. The best way to give a feeling of practice is for each one to have our own feeling fully. Then naturally people who come will feel it. But if our practice is wrong, they will also feel it. He says the wrong feeling is created because we are involved in selfish practice. And he moves to a sort of metaphysical place.

[25:25]

He says, I said, don't have a wrong idea. Don't have an idea of time. If you are involved in an idea of time, selfish practice will start from there. What he means by an idea of time is like. Doing something. For a future outcome. So already, if you're thinking of the future, you have turned your attention away from the present. So that's what he means, don't get caught by that. He says, then he says, it's all right to have an idea of time if it is the extended practice of non-selfish, extended practice of non-selfish practice on this moment. So we don't know what will happen in the next moment. This is last week when Walter was giving the talk, we had an exchange about continuity and discontinuity.

[26:31]

And I think one of the things I've been seeing in Dogen is an emphasis on, there's an emphasis on continuous practice, and there's an emphasis on discontinuous time. Meaning, I think that's what Suzuki Roshi is getting at here. He says, we don't know what will happen in each moment, meaning every moment is new. Every moment is fresh, which means in every moment we have an opportunity to create ourselves. and we all have our own style. He says a strong person expresses himself in a very strong way. A kind person will express herself very kindly. When you pass out the sutra cards, we pass the books or we pass the meal chants from this end to the other end, each person passes it in their own way.

[27:42]

If I look, it is easy to see. because you do it the same way, you do it the same way every day. Because of all of you are doing the same thing from this corner to the other, it's easy to see. And because you repeat the same thing over and over again, everyone can understand your friend's way. Eventually, though, you shut your eyes and then you say, oh, You know, you receive the cards that, oh, that was Catherine, you know, she passed it. I remember, you know, again, from early on, it's like, I still have images of how certain people bow. Their body is within my body. I don't bow necessarily that way, but they bow that way. And that is expressing themselves fully. Most people who visit Zen Center may feel this is a very strange place.

[28:47]

They don't talk so much. They don't even laugh. What are they doing? But actually, without talking so much, we can communicate. We can feel each other's feeling, and our mind is always open. We are expressing ourselves fully. Actually, even though you are not trying to express yourself, you're expressing yourself anyway. If your mind is open, you can see this. We should extend this kind of practice to city life and we must have more friends so that all of us can be good friends to others. It is not a difficult thing when you decide to be honest with yourself and to express yourself fully without expecting anything. Just be yourself, ready to understand others. That's how we extend our practice to everyday life. So then it comes back to the material, the stuff in yellow is like coming back to the material of the edited fascicle.

[29:59]

So my feeling is that this is enrichening, because we see why. Complete Shikantaza may be difficult because of the pain in your legs. We will find this out as the day goes on. But even though you have pain in your legs, you can do that. Even though your practice is not good enough, you can do that. So with your breathing, you will vanish gradually. You will fade into emptiness. And naturally, inhaling brings you back to yourself with some color and form. Exhaling, again, you gradually fade into emptiness.

[31:01]

Empty white paper. When you have this practice in your last moment, you have nothing to be afraid of. You're actually aiming at emptiness. actually yeah you're actually aiming after you become one with everything after you completely exhale with this feeling if you were alive naturally you will inhale again oh i'm alive fortunately or unfortunately then you start to exhale and fade into emptiness maybe you don't know what kind of feeling it is but some of you know it By some chance, you must have felt this kind of feeling. When you do this practice, you cannot easily become angry.

[32:04]

When you are more interested in inhaling than in exhaling, you easily become quite angry. You're always trying to be alive. There's an interesting passage here. The other day, my friend had a heart attack, and all he could do was exhale. He couldn't inhale. That was a terrible feeling, he said. At that moment, if he could have practiced exhaling as we do, aiming for emptiness, then I think he would not have felt so bad. I'm not so convinced about that, but anyway, that's what he's saying. The great joy for us is exhaling rather than inhaling. He gets to this section, to take care of the exhalation is very important. To die is more important than trying to be alive. When we always try to be alive, we have trouble. But Buddha will take care of us.

[33:08]

Because we have lost our mother's bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore. Yet fading away into emptiness can feel like being at our mother's bosom, and we will feel as though she will take care of us. So in this way, we are free, we have enjoyment. We feel free to express ourselves because we are ready to fade into emptiness. If you're always trying to be active and to be special and trying to do something, you cannot express yourself. Your small self will be expressed, but big self calls for experience of emptiness. That is Shikantaza. Okay? Not so difficult if you try.

[34:14]

if you really try. Thank you very much. So, we have little time for your thoughts or questions. I think you can see just the richness of this material. It's about our life. You know, it's not just about how you practice Zazen or how you're a good Zen student. It's really about how we live, how we are with each other, how we create harmony, the simultaneity of harmonizing ourself and harmonizing the world around us. Yeah, Gary. Detail in what? Yeah, I mean there are places where it's very, there are meditation manuals where it's very detailed, both in the Pali Sutras and in the Mahayana.

[35:33]

And there are places where it's not so, I mean he's, He's talking both about the physical dimensions and the mental dimensions. And actually, in the early meditation manuals, there's certainly a very detailed maps of kind of the mental states and sort of the process of meditation. Yeah, Ross. I remember these lines from the Jhulmira Samadhi.

[37:23]

The meaning is not in the words, it responds to the inquiring impulse. And I think he's pointing to that. The meaning is not in the words, the meaning responds to the inquiring impulse. So it's just, Now, Dogen does not, I think we learn with Dogen not to discount words. Words are important. I'm not devaluing them. But what is the inquiring impulse that, say, brought you and Mary together? And so that's the edited version, perhaps. And it's, you know, I think one of the things that that I've felt often here, I've learned over and over again, is that not everything is susceptible to words.

[38:27]

I love words. I love language. But you can't talk everything out. It's more how we move together, how we act together, how we work together. That doesn't itself also negate whatever happens around the words, but there's a weight in that that is beyond our ideas. And that's the thing. I think this is really a big problem in our society is that we're caught in the words and ideas, and also as Suzuki-Oshi is talking about, that contains the implication of time. So differences that we have in our society, real gaps that we feel that are very painful or hurtful to us,

[39:37]

We're probably not going to talk all that stuff out. What it calls for and some of it is some of it really is inequality. That's that's a whole other subject, you know. Very highly unequal access to resources or oppression, violence on one side or other, but even that is based on access. If I have. you know, if I have more than you do of something, and I hold on to it, that's because I'm not seeing that you are Buddha and I am Buddha. And so I want mine, you know, I don't care so much about yours. But if we recognize that fundamental equality, that basic goodness, that we're told belongs to all of us, then we have a ground for harmonization.

[40:49]

Yeah, thank you. Susan. Right. Yeah, I think that's wonderful. It's like we're, the inhalation we're taking in, whatever has been offered to us. and the exhalation we are offering out. And it's not just chemicals, it's also our mind, our intention. And the physical act of exhalation is letting go. And when we die, We will just, you know, the last thing will be an exhalation, following which there will not be an inhalation.

[42:03]

So the last thing is, it comes to mind the expression, giving up the ghost. The ghost is giving up the spirit, giving up something essential and letting go you know, letting go, fading into emptiness. But also as we exhale, and this is why I think Suzuki and Sojin are emphasizing this, is just that point, how we let go of the things that we want to, we think we want to clutch onto, and just to be completely giving and generous. giving and generous. Maybe one or two more. Yeah, Jose. Do calmness of mind and sadness exist together? You know, I actually asked, I asked a version of that question to Bhikkhu Bodhi, who's, yeah, he's a

[43:18]

very well-known Theravada, early Buddhist scholar and translator. So, technically, when you talk about feelings, Vedana, in that kind of analysis, there are three modalities of feeling. Positive, negative, and neutral, or neither positive or negative. And I guess my way of feeling and thinking is that It's hard for me to separate them, and this may be what Suzuki Roshi is talking when he says, in the snap of a finger, there are many instances of time. And what Bhikkhu Bodhi said, well, you can't have, these things are not simultaneous. I'm not so convinced. That's just, you know, a description, and I'm not convinced of what the neurological or psychological expression of that is, you know, but I think that

[44:31]

I can imagine, I can see sadness and calmness of mind coexisting. Some of them are stronger than others. Some of them really take over. You know, sadness is, I mean, there's a whole Japanese aesthetic. What is it? What is it called? Yeah, Wabi Sabi, you know, there's a sort of like an attitude or an atmosphere of a kind of sadness of like, I think. recognizing the essential impermanence of existence. And that's very, you know, that can be very calm. I think that expressions of anxiety tend to be really stronger. I think they tend to displace calmness. But that's just my opinion. You know, I don't know. Hiko?

[45:35]

And so that's the discontinuity that Dogen is talking about, but it exists within a perceptual framework where we see our life like a movie. So, a movie consists of individual frames, right? So, that's that moment, but it has the appearance as it runs through the projector of continuity. So, yeah, I mean, I think there are Buddhist meditations that are looking at each individual arising of a moment in a very minute way, and then there are other You know, it's like, there are other ways where you're actually looking at the flow. So, you know, I don't want to get hung up on that.

[46:52]

One more, Mary. Yeah. Right. Well, I would say that is at the center of Zen practice. The center of Zen practice in particular is not locking down on any one narrative about reality. It's not knowing. Not always so. I was reading in one of the transcripts of Suzuki Roshi, oh, it was in, it was in, it was Dave Chadwick was talking to him in Crooked Cucumber, and they were driving along, he said, he asked Suzuki Roshi, what's the first principle?

[47:55]

And Suzuki Roshi said, I don't know. And Dave looked him weird at least, and Suzuki Roshi said, that's the first principle, I don't know. And that's a really good place to end.

[48:10]

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