I have vowed to taste the truth, the love, and the faith. I think most of you are familiar with case number 43 of the Blue Cliff Record, where a monk asks Tozan Ryokai, he said, sometimes it gets very hot and sometimes it gets very cold. Where can we go? to get out of getting hot and getting cold.

[01:02]

And Tozan says, well, you should go to some place where there's no cold and no heat. No heat or no cold. And the monk says, well, where is that place? And Tozan said, well, when it's hot or when it's cold, Let the cold completely kill you. And when it's hot, let the heat completely kill you. In other words, when it's cold, just be cold completely through and through. And when it's hot, just be hot through and through. Kill you sounds like a little too extreme, but pretty good, actually. But this is also a kind of illustration of the five ranks, which I had been talking about during Sushi.

[02:12]

When Tozan says, why don't you go someplace where there's no cold and heat? He's saying, go to that place where form is emptiness. where there's no form, or just enough form. And when he says, when it's cold, let the cold kill you, and when it's hot, let the heat kill you, he's saying, go where emptiness is form. where you're just completely involved in hot or cold. And the koan here is how do you Let the cold completely kill you.

[03:33]

How do you let the heat completely kill you? In other words, where is the gap between, where is the connection between form as emptiness and emptiness as form? We say form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Where is the connection? In our zazen, we have to find that connection. Someone might ask, pain and discomfort descend upon us. How can we get out of it? And I might say, go where there's no pain or discomfort. And someone might say, well, where is that?

[04:37]

And then I might say, when it's painful, just be painful. Let the pain kill you. And when it's discomfort, let the discomfort kill you. Just be what you are through and through. That's Emptiness is form, and form is emptiness. The coming from within, the going to, the going to from within, the coming from. In our session, it takes time to really settle into sitting.

[06:06]

Some of us sit quite regularly, and some of us don't sit as regularly. some of us have more experience than others. And if you lead a very busy life in the karmic realm, like most of us do, then it's in a dualistic world. It takes time. After entering this world of Sashin, to bring yourself together with yourself. So our heads are always spinning with stuff, thinking and emotions. Residue, actually, that is kicking around inside our heads and our hearts.

[07:15]

And as the days go by, little by little, our thinking mind and our emotions get refined somewhat. Sometimes, because we have such a rarefied atmosphere in Seching, and because there's very little to focus on except what's right here. When some small thing comes along, when a fly comes along, it becomes, it can become a kind of animal, you know. Something that your neighbor does can become very irritating to you. Because our minds ordinarily are focused on the objects of our desire. And we have so many things to take our attention and to sort out in our life, our busy life, that when a fly comes, we usually go like this.

[08:30]

But in this atmosphere, when a fly comes, it becomes very important. When a fly lands on your nose, and you're sitting there, it's very important. Here we don't have so many flies, but I remember at Tassajara in the summertime, sitting Zazen and the fly coming on my nose, or my cheek, and how to deal with that. And I would think to myself, well, I'll feel the bottom of his feet. What did the bottom of his feet feel like? So it became rather, you know, enjoyable diversion. Oh yes, that's called tickling. What that foot does, I call tickling.

[09:32]

But when you get right into it, it's no longer tickling. It's only tickling when there's the fly and the foot. When the fly is separate from me, then it's called tickling. But when I know the fly and I feel the fly's foot and I see what it's doing, it's no longer something apart from me. It's some feeling, some sensation, but I don't have to get rid of it. Not necessary to get rid of it, because the idea, irritation, is no longer present. So the same thing happens with our neighbors.

[10:41]

Somebody is eating. Maybe they're washing their bowls in a way that we don't like. Ordinarily, it doesn't make any difference. You wash your bowls, I'll wash my bowls. But in this space, they're not doing it right. Like me. And it becomes a very big thing. Very important. But that's because they're separate from me. But as soon as I realized there's just something happening over there. It's not right or wrong, you know. Somebody's just doing something. It's not right or wrong. There's no judgment in it at all. that it's not a problem. But later, I can say to that person, you know, this is the way we do these things.

[11:51]

And there's a way to do it and a way not to do it. But when that person becomes an object, from my subject, then it's a big problem. So the same with the pain in our legs. When we sit, suddenly, oh, there it is again. There it is. There's that pain in my legs. And then we focus and make it into an object. And as soon as we make it into an object, then we start saying, I don't like it. And as soon as we start not liking it, we get further and further away from it.

[12:58]

I don't want it. Take it away. But it doesn't go away, because it's you. So the only way that we can, without getting up and going away, that's one solution. You just get up and go away. People do that. The only thing you can do is be it. No judgment. What is it? Actually, what is it? You have some idea. about what it is. It's pain. Okay, we can accept that. But actually, it's not pain. It's just a word. Pain, just a word that we use to identify something. So, the first thing we do

[14:10]

when something comes up is make a judgment. I like it or I don't like it. It's this or it's that. But if we don't react, mostly we react to things. stops our process, stops the response process. When you react to something, you immediately cover it over, cover over any kind of response that comes from a deeper understanding. When you respond, it means from a deeper understanding, you can see what a thing actually is.

[15:24]

You give yourself space to see what a thing actually is. But our reaction says, that's pain, I don't like it. And withdraw. And it happens very fast, just like that. It's pain, I don't like it, withdraw. But you can't withdraw because you can't get up. The response is more like, there's a feeling in these legs. Not my legs. There's a feeling in this leg. I don't like it or dislike it. That's in parentheses. And you just experience that feeling. What is it? Oh, I know what it is.

[16:26]

It's pain. But actually, what is it? So our reaction is to withdraw. And we withdraw in various ways. We withdraw in many different ways. And one way of withdrawing is to, since we can't get up, we pin ourself down. If you can't go up, then you go down. So, we nail ourself down. It's like, if you can't really express love, then you express anger, or hate. Because emotion is very strong, and it turns in various ways. And it's like a light, and you shine it out whichever hole that you can. You shine it out through the hole of love or you shine it out through the hole of hate, you know, whatever it takes to form that that hole has.

[17:30]

So if you can't find, you know, freedom within your the feeling that you have, and the tendency is to pin it down. So it feels like the whole universe is sitting on our legs sometimes, because we haven't found the freedom within that feeling to embrace it and be completely one with it. So Tozan says, when it's cold, let the cold kill you. Kill you means leave. It means kill your ego. Don't kill anything.

[18:39]

kill our self-centeredness. We don't know how self-centered we are until we sit zazen. We really don't. It's a real test. It's the proof. We just don't know how self-centered we are. By self-centered, Suzuki Goshi used to say selfish. And I remember thinking, God, what do you mean selfish? What has that got to do with it? But I understand what he means now. That means the idea of a self. And he always used to say, you think you are sitting on the cushion during zazen. but they are just painful legs sitting on a cushion. Painful legs are sitting on a cushion.

[19:51]

If you think this is my zazen, that's just self-centered. So in this activity, we get rid of all ideas of me and mine. My zazen is like this. My zazen is like that. Just painful legs are sitting on a black cushion. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. This is how we study that. We study the heart suture. The heart suture is just a kind of verbalization of what we practice. All forms are empty.

[20:57]

And emptiness is the basis of all forms. So when we sit zazen, we have very strict form for sitting. Zazen is done in very strict form. Every part, every piece of your body and mind has a place and keeps that place. And each piece harmonizes with each other piece. All these hundreds of parts, each one has its place and harmonizes with all the other parts.

[22:28]

Isn't that wonderful? When it doesn't, it's not so nice. So the only thing to do in this activity is to make all your effort to harmonize those parts. How do you do that? And when you have harmonized all these parts with your mind, the mind, the mind is just another part, then we're just in total harmony with everything. form is, this form is empty. This form is nirvana. Just enjoy it. But when it starts getting out of balance, it hurts.

[23:32]

So you're constantly finding yourself, constantly bringing yourself back into balance. finding your way, you know. Thich Nhat Hanh says, just enjoy your breathing. You know, that's very simple, wonderful. Just enjoy your zazen. Just enjoy the harmony of your body and mind with the universe. Why is it so painful? Why is it so difficult? It's difficult because we stand in the way. Who stands in the way? Our idea of ourself. Just take our idea of ourself out of there and let the parts function. The idea of ourself is, oh, I don't like this. That's ourself.

[24:35]

Oh, this hurts. Actually, you can open yourself up very wide so that when there's some pain, it's just part of the whole. It's not the whole thing. It's just something happening. Just another event. you sit down and cross your legs. Immediately, you should open up. You open your legs up. That should be the first thing you do. When you sit down and you cross your legs, you just open up your leg.

[25:39]

Do you know how to open up your leg? You just feel it open up. So it's no longer, there's no compression. This is all openness. I don't know how to explain it. But there's no tension in it, no tenseness. There's no reason for it to have any. It's just sitting there. It's like a stick. But you feel it.

[26:42]

You don't feel a stick. It's like the fly walking on your face. Instead of avoiding it, you just open up to it. And then it's just some sensation of openness. Anyway, we all get caught by the pain, you know. I get caught sometimes by it too, but less and less, actually. We're very much attached to our bodies, you know, and we don't like anything to hurt us.

[27:51]

But we really have to get beyond that discriminating mind in order to sit comfortably. And then when you can do it, it's quite enjoyable. But you have to be alert and really work at it. So sitting in zazen is really a lot of work. It's not just passive. Passive is one side and work is the other side. So you have to work to keep your form and to keep all of those parts in balance.

[28:59]

And at the same time, let go of everything, completely. That's passive self. Just let go, completely. Where you don't need to do much work, don't. Put your effort, find out where the right place to put your effort is. You have to investigate, really investigate, where is the right place to put my effort? Is it in my elbow? No. Is it in my shoulder? Well, my shoulder doesn't hold me up. My elbow doesn't hold me up. What's holding me up? What's really holding me up? Well, what's really holding this body up? Not me. What's holding this body up? Where is that place where it really holds this body up? Where is that place? Then you find that place. Oh, right here. Okay, well, it's not here, so I don't need it there.

[30:05]

I don't need to put a lot of effort there. I don't need to put a lot of effort into my elbows. I just need to put a lot of effort into this place where it's really holding me up, holding this body up. And then you can let go. Once you establish the fundamental point, You can let go of everything else and just enjoy it. But you have to keep it. You have to work at it. You have to keep finding it because everything's changing. So you have to find yourself moment after moment. It's not that you get your posture and that's it. You get your posture every moment. It's a lot of work to keep that. And keep it loose. Keep yourself loose. As soon as you find yourself tensing up, drop it.

[31:06]

So our tendency, when we have a problem, is to tense up. That's holding on, grabbing. And we have to consciously reverse that. You have to make a conscious effort to reverse that. That's your response. Your reaction is to grab on and your response is to reverse that and let go. Do the opposite. When something comes at you, let go. Open up instead of close down. It's very difficult. It's very difficult for to walk through this world without a chip on your shoulder. Just completely open to things. And our reactions are always to close down.

[32:19]

In one way or another. One way or another. So little by little we make some progress and gain some freedom. But the point of this is how can you actually feel free within this form? How can you find your freedom within this form? This is the most confined form, most total freedom. Advice is work hard and hang loose.

[33:40]

Thank you very much.

[33:45]

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