This past week, past seven days, a bunch of us have been sitting together, downstairs in Shakyamuni Buddha's original enlightenment, which is now, we say, 2,500 years ago. If my voice fades, please put your hand up. I'll try to make it. I'll talk to you. 2,500 years ago, and two days ago we had a ceremony celebrating that enlightenment. We circumambulated this room. Shakyamuni Buddha passed over from discriminating consciousness, our ordinary everyday consciousness,

[01:12]

to, what should we say, non-discriminating mind, unconditioned mind. The mind that is one with everything in the world. The mind that doesn't separate through the discrimination of consciousness, through the judgment, and the criticism, and the comparison. So for seven days, about 60 of us made the effort to do this ancient practice.

[02:16]

And the word ancient practice leaped up at me during this week. This is not a modern practice. This is not the take a pill and do this thing really hard and next week everything will be okay. This is not the, let's set ourselves in the microwave and for 30 seconds heat up. None of the modern conveniences and technological developments can help us. Biofeedback doesn't help us. This practice is the ancient road that we inward through this body and mind.

[03:20]

We take everything away. There's no TV downstairs. There's no flashing lights. We're sitting facing hopefully a pretty blank wall. And we're looking at that which is doing the looking. What we are searching for is that which is doing the searching. We are looking for something. What we are looking for is the dharma we are doing. What we are looking for is what we are already doing all the time.

[04:27]

But somehow we don't know it and somehow it's not enough for us. So we add, add to it and everything we add, everything we decorate actually takes something away. What we're studying in this ancient practice of turning the mind inward to look at itself, to look at this body and mind, is not the fantasies and projections and dreams of our romantic consciousness. All of the romances, the mythologies we can create about our lives.

[05:41]

But the actual here and now, moment by moment, breath and sense experience, sound, taste, texture, is quite unrealistic. And it's enormously rewarding because it's a world we don't know. We know the world of our mind. What's becoming my favorite description of this practice is, this is a practice we do with the body. This is not a practice we do with our mind alone. Therefore it's not an idealistic practice.

[06:45]

It's not a practice we can cook up and imagine. A wonderful posture, a wonderful realization, a wonderful story. It's actually something we do with this heart, this knee that's not quite right, this groin that's not open, these hips that are tight, these shoulders that are tight. This is my dharma vehicle. I don't need it to be somebody else's dharma vehicle. Chakyamuni Buddha, he had to work with his body. I study, investigate, hang out with this body. And our faith, our trust is that this body, this limited body, is quite enough.

[07:52]

It's very much enough. And as soon as we take this practice into the body, of course we immediately run into all the limitations of our human condition. Everything that's not quite how we'd like it. And this is the stuff we don't want to see, of course. It's like imagining a painting that you could paint. Imagine a sunset or a landscape or a figurative work. You can put that. But to actually find yourself in a room with a certain kind of light, your collection of brushes, the paints that you could acquire, the palette that you could work on, and the canvas that you could, and what comes up, what's your state of mind,

[08:55]

what's happening? If it just happened an hour ago, to discourage you or to encourage, what's arising the moment that you actually start to paint? And how close does that first brush stroke or the second have to do with what your mind wants to see? So to actually do it is to face, to actually confront. And to accept what we are, what this mind and body actually can do. And if you're nervous, and if you're anxious, and if you're shaking, and you do any of this, that's what can happen. And that's who you are. And you're not the person that's sitting calmly on a throne, surveying all of this and doing an immaculate work of art. So when we come to the Zen Dojo and do this practice, we look at this body and mind that's shaking, that's nervous,

[10:02]

that's doubting, that's hurting. And this is the Dharma gate, the entryway for our liberation, for our deep, deep understanding. Dogen Zenji, who brought the teaching of this school from China to Japan, he lived in the, I guess, 13th century, 1200, 1253. He said in one of his writings, to study the Buddha way, there are two approaches. One is to study with the mind, one is to study with the body. To study with the mind is to study with all the elements of the mind,

[11:05]

consciousness, intellect, feeling. It's to study with bits and pieces of everyday mind. Bits and pieces meaning moment by moment arising of the mind, all the changes, all the conditions and states of mind that arise, every moment. And to study with the body is to study with your own body, is to study with this lump of red flesh, this wonderful lump of red flesh. When we study, oh, and he said, the body comes forth from the study of the way. When we study our body, our body comes forth. In Sashin, during this concentrated seven-day force drill that we voluntarily entered,

[12:19]

we experience this body, we experience this skin, not as an organ that separates us from the environment and that contains our flesh, our blood, our organs, but we experience this skin as an organ of reception and transmission, receptor, cells. You can feel the cells in your skin actually reaching out and receiving the air, the light, the color, the sound, the smell, everything tastes.

[13:23]

Your skin is, you can feel your skin quivering in response to the vibration, to the movement, to the energy around it. You feel the skin so alive. And it is simultaneously transmitting back out to the environment, to the other side, using that dualistic language. What's inside? The movement, the circulation of the blood, the lymph system, and the nerves, the rhythms of our own biological processes. The skin becomes very, very alive. And other organs and other experiences happen,

[14:25]

that happen to be something that arose for me. Everyone has their own experience, their own taste, their own touch of this reality. That's beyond what the conscious mind, what conceptual mind knows. Elsewhere, if we wanted to use this little teaching, I want to bring it in here. Yoganandaji says, if you want to know, here we're quoting the Nirvana Sutra, if you want to know the Buddha nature's meaning, you should watch for the arrival of temporal conditions. When the time arrives, if the time arrives,

[15:27]

the Buddha nature will manifest itself. That's a quote from the Nirvana Sutra. And Dogen reinterprets that in his usual non-dualistic way. Not that there is some point in time when something will happen that's not already here. He says, the time, every hour of the 24 hours is the right time. Every hour, every moment, the Buddha nature is manifesting itself. There is no time that is not the right time. And he says, if you want to know, means if you want to practice, if you want to realize, if you want to preach, if you want to forget. The four aspects of knowing.

[16:29]

For Dogen, practicing, practicing this body, studying this mind, is not different from realizing this body, or realizing this mind. Practicing is simultaneously bringing forth, simultaneously realizing. We are always completely manifesting ourselves, one hundred percent. Even if we think we're holding back, we're not all there. Half of us is still asleep. We're one hundred percent manifesting what we are right now. And it's only that thought, that half of us is someplace else, that creates the discrepancy. If we know, and accept that feeling,

[17:36]

that doubt, that self-criticism, that we're partly elsewhere, if we bring that in too, then we're completely being present. So we're, at every moment, whatever we're doing, we're manifesting ourselves, our Buddha nature. And to practice doesn't mean to practice in a linear sense. That's our traditional feeling about the word practice. But Dogen uses it, that to practice is to bring forth

[18:39]

completely in each moment, each moment we're completely being, doing ourselves, wholeheartedly, whole-mindedly, whole-bodily, whole-spiritedly. And when we practice and realize ourselves completely, we are simultaneously preaching ourselves. Preaching isn't done with words necessarily. That's usually not the most effective preaching. Preaching is what this body is doing, not in words. How we're moving, how we're breathing. When we are doing one thing completely,

[19:49]

when we are doing what we are doing completely, which is all we're ever doing, one thing completely, we are simultaneously realizing ourselves and that activity. There is no separation between self and activity. We are simultaneously preaching, sharing, teaching, expounding, and he says, we are simultaneously forgetting. And the gift of doing something completely is that our body totally digests it. There's nothing left over to be cleaned up the next day.

[20:51]

It's completely digested. Digested. And we say, no trace remains. There's nothing left over because what we have done has become completely a part of us. And that moment, the next moment, we are manifesting that mind and body, which includes what we've just gone through, what we've just experienced, what we've just realized. So to know something is to practice, to realize, to preach, and to forget. So that nothing remains. The new manifestation has no,

[21:54]

there's nothing left over from the past to hinder it or obstruct it or taint it. It's ready. This mind and body is ready to meet whatever arises, whatever is in front of us. When we talk about this practice, it's a practice of stopping and seeing. We say stabilization or samadhi or cessation. And we say insight. I like the word stopping and seeing. We can stop what we're doing for a week or for 40 minutes and we just see. And sometimes we find

[23:00]

we can't stop the mind. Some people can. We have testimonials, people who can actually achieve high states of concentration in this very moment. My mind likes to run around a lot. And it likes to keep busy, even with seven days of sitting in one posture. It's got a lot of stuff to do. And it takes getting completely bored with that mind. It's completely obsessing. And it's so tight. It's the same old thing. Before you finally say, I'm going to put this mind someplace. I'll find someplace where it'll stay so I can pack it there and cover it up. And then you might find that place on the tip of your nose,

[24:02]

in the nostrils. You might find it in the abdomen. You might find it in your mudra, in the palm of your hand. Someplace. Please find some place where the mind will take a break. And through that rest, that well-earned rest, whether that's seven days or never. I think I'm a writer, so I have to watch how I use language. You know when you're a writer, you find yourself saying things that mean? You just find yourself, you know, the force of the language or the vision, or the... I don't know, it's just, if you go, it's not even convenient. It's not even very long to go. I have to be careful. What I want to say is that

[25:05]

whether you can achieve a deep state of concentration or a medium state of concentration or a mid-level state or a beginning state isn't entirely the point. It helps a lot. But the effort to bring the mind back, the effort to cross our legs repeatedly shows us the activity, the rhythm, the habitual energy of our mind. We can see that in the midst of all the confusion and running around trying not to be cornered. The mind doesn't want to be cornered. In the midst of doing all that, we can see the habitual energy of the mind. And that's an enormous insight, enormous help to understanding

[26:12]

what this human life is about, is to see just how this mind and body interact, interface, move together, move apart, move together, when we watch the tendencies of the mind. When we're simultaneously watching the tendencies of the body. And I noticed that when we turned out, we faced out. We faced in, we faced the wall, we say, and other times we faced out. I was facing out because that was my job and my position, position. I was facing out. I noticed in the people that were sitting in front of me, I tended to watch, I tended to come to rest on one person more than another. And I watched. Why did my mind prefer

[27:16]

one person rather than the other? And I wanted to know what discrimination was going on, why I was picking and choosing, why I was having some preference. And I realized that it wasn't that one posture was necessarily better, but that one person was more agitated, and one person seemed less agitated. And a little bit later, when I studied the agitation, just seeing that was really helpful to me, that I was discriminating agitation and stillness, or what appeared to be stillness. And in studying the agitated body, I found my heart broken,

[28:18]

for this person who was making such a strong effort to control a body, some profound, complicated, sincere, wholehearted effort to control a body that wanted to move. So even though we go away from the world for seven days, we actually re-enter the world completely. Through this acquaintance and intimacy, intimacy is a complete intimacy with our own mind and body. We are absolutely identical with. We experience what the minds and bodies of others

[29:21]

are feeling and doing, and are. We feel with more sensitivity the life of the plants in the room, the life of animals, the life of the tatami. So this ancient way, please don't be afraid of it. We are afraid of it. It takes it takes some time to trust this effort, to have confidence in

[30:22]

the mind and body, this mind and body, to do this work, to do this practice. And to trust that we will die on the cushion, we won't die on the cushion, that we want to die on the cushion, that we're terrified of dying on the cushion. And to find some way to work with these tendencies that will bring forth the same unconditioned truth, reality, that Shakyamuni Buddha realized. If we taste it just for a moment,

[31:30]

it will change our life.

[31:32]

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