the fourth day of our Sashin. Hard to believe already, maybe for some of you. But, so, about this time there are a lot of difficulties that come up. And one thing that I want to, I think that we've been holding Sashin together very well. So that makes me feel very good that we're all here sitting Zazen. Sometimes around this time, Sashin starts to get scattered. Sometimes we feel that we want to escape, but I think we're doing very well in holding things together.

[01:25]

And I don't know if you may be having some problems, which we can discuss, but I wanted to encourage us to keep satchin together and help each other to encourage each other to continue to the end without getting anxious. Usually when we come after we cross the middle point, midpoint, it's easy to start becoming anxious, thinking that things will soon be over. So we have to watch that tendency. When you get to be 50, then you maybe reach midpoint.

[02:34]

Before that, you think that your life is going on and on forever, There's a certain point in which you feel your life is going on and on forever. And then at some point, I don't know, it's different with each person. You feel, uh-oh, now it's going the other way. And then you're not in such a hurry to get it over with. You kind of want to slow it down a little bit. So our life in this machine has reached the midpoint and if we really understand what we're doing, we'll just settle in and enjoy our difficulties or whatever it is that's going on. When it's over, it will be over. But let's not give way to anxiety. The same thing happens toward the end of practice period.

[03:52]

Soon it will be over, but we should live it completely up to the end, all the way to the end, to be immersed in it completely. You know, if you're an observer, you can't really live your life completely. If you're an anthropologist coming to Tassajara, you may have some interesting observations, but you can't, you miss your life. And maybe you look around and see what's right and what's wrong. and what could be improved, but you're missing your own life. There are three aspects to Zazen.

[05:12]

body, breath, and mind. These three aspects are what we really pay a lot of attention to in Zazen, body, breath, and mind. Today, I want to talk a little bit about breath. Sometimes I'm surprised that a lot of students who have been practicing for quite a long time either have not much concept of breath in zazen or breathe in a shallow way. Sometimes I'll say, well, where is your breath in zazen? And some will say, well, sometimes, I'm not sure. Maybe here or there or something. But you should know exactly where your breath is.

[06:20]

There should be no doubt as to where the bottom of your breath is, not only during zazen, but any time, day or night. You should know exactly where your breathing is coming from, or where the bottom of your breathing is. This is really essential. There are many ways to breathe. There's only one way to breathe, but there are many ways to observe our breath. And if you read the scriptures on breathing, sometimes Buddha says you should look at the tip of your nose and sometimes look at the observed your breath at the tip of your nose or sometimes coming and going and so forth.

[07:22]

But the development of observation of breath in the Zen school has come to the conclusion that we watch our breath as the rising and falling of our abdomen. And breath must always be deep. And again, it's bringing our attention down to our hara. the center of our body. I'm sure everyone has heard about Hara, but Hara is this place just below our navel, which we point out as the center of our body, where

[08:38]

everything, all of our body meets, all of the parts of our body meet at that point, at that place, from which the energy or light radiates. This area is also called solar plexus. We think of the sun as the center of our universe, And all of the satellites, all of the planets in our system, in our solar system, revolve around the sun. And they also interplay with each other. So this is the sun of our body. Same model. So every time we breathe, our breath reaches to this spot.

[09:50]

Our breath always touches this spot. And then we exhale. But actually, we don't have to do anything. All we have to do is allow breathing to breathe. You don't have to do anything. If you want to stop your breath, you have a hard time, pretty hard time. So really, all we can do is let our breath be. So if breathing is not deep, there's something standing in the way. So we say, make an effort to breathe deeply. But the effort is not to breathe deeply. The effort is to find out what is stopping the breath.

[10:56]

Why aren't we naturally breathing deeply? Because deep breathing is just correct, natural breathing. If you watch little kids, and you watch them breathe, their tummies are going like this. You don't see the chest going like this. You see their tummies going like this. Or like this. However, whatever the rhythm is, because nature is just doing its thing. So when we say breathe deeply, It means just let nature do its thing. We don't talk about breath control. We're not trying to control our breath. We're just trying to let nature do its thing. So we say, just breathe deeply and naturally.

[12:06]

And the posture is the same. When you watch little children stand, they stand with zazen posture. When they're just standing still without any particular thing to do, they stand with zazen posture. And you can take, you can use Their natural posture is a model for your zazen because usually they don't have any acquired posture. Posture is not yet acquired like it is when we start to grow up. And their breathing habits are not acquired like our breathing habits. So sometimes we don't quite know how to breathe.

[13:18]

We don't know how to let ourself breathe. When we have anxiety or pain or fear, then the breath starts to rise and resides up here in our chest. And if we are not careful, if we don't have awareness, it stays there. So, if you don't know where your breath is, or if you realize that it's up here, then You have to make some effort to let yourself, let your whole body relax and let your breath fall down to where it's in your lower abdomen.

[14:28]

I always tell people to, if you have any doubts about your breath, or if you want to establish your breath during zazen, as soon as you sit down, to take at least three deep breaths through your mouth. Of course, during zazen, we breathe through our nose. But to take three deep breaths through your mouth and fill your lower abdomen with breath, So, and when you do that, you expand all the way around. This, this, and you kind of puff out your lower abdomen. And then to exhale. And when you exhale, you push it all out from here and you can feel your front and your back coming together like this. And there's nothing left.

[15:43]

Then you fill it up again. That way you know where your breath is. You know how breathing takes place. And then you just resume ordinary breathing. But what you've done is you've primed the pump. So it's always good to prime the pump whenever you sit down and establish your breathing in a deep place in your heart. then you have some strength in your hara. And if you, when you, throughout your whole day, you always have some, in the back of your awareness, or in the foreground, there's always the awareness of breath here.

[17:08]

And when something unusual happens, or if you get frightened or anxious, you come back to that place. Rather than coming up here, you go here. And it's very different. Very different kind of awareness. And a very different place to go. If you clutch your breast, then you're off center. But when something difficult happens, instead of clutching your breast, you go to the center of your body and find your balance. So sometimes, some incident will leave us breathing hard. At that point, you should Find your breath here. Then you have some stability.

[18:12]

So, continuous practice, mindful, continuous mindful practice is always to keep our attention in that stable place at the center of our little human universe. It's the center of our little solar system. And when our attention, when our breath and our attention is at the center of our little solar system, our personal solar system, then we always feel the warmth. If you know how to breathe, let yourself breathe. Or if you know how to let breathing breathe correctly, then you can always feel pretty warm.

[19:18]

And you can also radiate light. So this is the opening, the opening to the source of buddha nature. So during Zazen, we just let our breath come and go naturally. We don't have to watch it come all the way up and go out the nose, and then come back through the nose and go all the way down.

[20:29]

All we need to do is watch the rising and falling of the abdomen. It's like sawing a piece of wood. When you saw the piece of wood, you don't watch the end of the saw. You just watch where the saw and the wood come together. And in the same way, you just watch where the breath comes. You watch the breath as the rising and falling of your lower abdomen. Sometimes people say if your mind is distracted, then you can watch your breath as it comes at the tip of your nose, but your mind is always distracted. So there's no special thing. You're very fortunate if your mind is not distracted.

[21:32]

So I highly recommend that when you, one way you can do this breathing is to put your hands on your knees and then you lift your head and go. And then at least three times to establish your breathing when you begin zazen. Breath is breathing. I think at some point people stopped teaching how to breathe in Zazen. It's in center for some reason. I don't know why, but it was always a very important part of my training, how we breathe in Zazen and how we breathe in our life, how we allow breathing to come and go.

[22:46]

There's also a way of using the breath as a kind of cushion for our difficulty. Sometimes, if we have, say, a lot of pain in our legs or it's difficult to sit, You know, when it becomes really difficult to sit, all you can do is, what's the word? Not retreat, but concentrate. Suzanne, that lamp behind you is too high. All we can do is reconnoiter, is that the word?

[24:10]

Concentrate on our breathing. One breath at a time. You know that place where there's nothing left to do but just one breath and maybe you'll make it to the next breath. You hope you make it through this breath. And when you get to that point, that's a very wonderful kind of concentrated place to be, even though we may not like it. And when you get to that point, you can use, push your breath on the exhale, like silently. It's like a silent sigh. are humming. And on the exhale, you push down to help the breath go out.

[25:16]

And it gives some strength. I think a little aerobics to your blood. And you feel a bit lighter. Anyway, it's some kind of cushion, you know, a little resistance, a little cushion of breath resistance that you create, breath pressure, and it helps to carry you through some difficult place. That's called a unshu. It's a kind of help, a little device, but it's helpful. And you can try that when you have real difficulty. But breath, you can also observe birth and death on each moment through breathing.

[26:29]

Inhaling is coming to life, and exhaling is dying. So on each breath, there's an up and a down, an up beat and a down beat. This is like the music of our life, the rhythm of our life. On each beat or each breath, there's an up beat and a down beat, and the up is coming to life and the down is leaving. One stroke or one count of life, one moment of birth and death on each moment. If you didn't take another breath after you exhale, just keep going that way. There's always another breath, always another inhale.

[27:35]

And then we let go of everything. And then we take it all up again. And then we let go of everything. And then we take it up again. And then we let go of everything. So a real non-attachment is to let the breath come and take it up, take up everything. Let it go. Let go of everything. And then we're surprised that there's another breath. If you really let go of everything, then life comes as a nice surprise. How wonderful. But we're always willing to let it go. So we let it go, and it feels quite wonderful. to let it go. And it feels quite wonderful to let it come.

[28:38]

And it feels quite wonderful to let it go. This is non-discriminating, non-attachment to birth and death. Our effort should be to just breathe easily and appreciate our birth and death. Dogen says, is there a Buddha within birth and death? There is no Buddha within birth and death, and there is a Buddha within birth and death, So the fundamental thing that we should be studying is birth and death.

[30:01]

That's what it comes down to. So we should pay attention to breath because it comes and goes and we have very little to do with it. This is universal activity. just like the blood runs through the veins, but you have nothing to say about it. Do you have some questions?

[31:04]

Could you say something more about light emanating from the hara as a result of correct breath? Well, light emanating from the hara is what is it that we really see when we see each other? When we look at something, we see its surface. And if we look a little, you know, think about what's under the surface, we uncover various mechanisms.

[32:14]

But when we address each other, What is it that we're addressing? When we see each other and meet each other, what do we see, and what do we meet, and what do we address? Some people, when they see, meet, and address each other, see a lump of flesh, or some kind of face, or somebody's idea, or some words, sounds. And what is it that we present when someone meets us?

[33:27]

Some people see light or buddha nature or unobstructed vision. When we talk about light, it doesn't mean like the lamp. It's this black sabaton is light. even though we call it dark. So light doesn't depend on some color or shape or form or idea. So when I say light, through the hara, just an obstruction to let life force freely come forth.

[34:47]

Someone, if they look at you, will see a lump of flesh. Someone else, when they look at you, will see Buddha. I think that we should, even though we see each other as lumps of flesh, we should make some effort to see each other as Buddha. At bottom, if we don't see each other as Buddha, we don't know how to really address each other.

[36:23]

When you come to doksan, and I'm sitting in my seat, and you come and make a prostration, you're not bowing to this lump of flesh. You're bowing to Buddha nature. When you bow to me, in that way. I don't bow back at you. I just hold my hands and gassho. I don't respond because I don't believe that you're bowing to me, this lump of flesh. You're bowing to Buddha. So when we're talking to each other, Buddha is talking to Buddha.

[37:27]

Otherwise it would be very egotistical of me to think that all of you people are bowing to me. in some superior way. This is when the seventh consciousness usurps the throne and takes the place of the king. This is when our ego assumes authority. Very easy to do. So, you know, maybe this practice isn't so good because a slight little shift and the ego has usurped the authority of the king.

[39:00]

So in this position, teacher must be very, very careful. Kokkai had a question. You can do that.

[40:11]

During Zazen, what we do is investigate And this investigation is all the points of our posture. Posture of the back, how we hold the mudra, our elbows, the way we hold our teeth, and our tongue, and our head. All the points of posture go over and over, checking, checking, checking, because posture is always changing. and keep subtly readjusting our posture over and over and over again. This is actually your work in zazen.

[41:14]

And then there's the breath, to follow the breath as the rising and falling of the abdomen. So, sometimes we're watching the mudra, and when our attention is on the mudra, everything else is in the background, and the mudra is in the foreground. And when we're paying attention to our spine, then the spine is in the foreground, and the rest is in the background. It's not disappeared, but it's in the background. Then when you put attention on the breath, the breath is in the foreground and posture is in the background. But then there's also a time when everything is in the foreground together.

[42:18]

The whole body, all the elements of posture and breath are all in the foreground as one pulsating organism with nothing special as a focus. This is a very wonderful way to sit with total awareness of the whole pulsating organism. And then at some point your mind loses consciousness and falls off into something else, gets carried away. Then you bring it back and then you kind of have to start all over again. Posture, mudra, and just go over and over. So this is actually how it sits us in. Sometimes you're very concentrated

[43:21]

mind or attention is very concentrated on just the breath. And you can do that. But don't think that you should only be concentrated on breathing. Actually, posture is first. To establish posture is first. And when posture is established and comfortable, so to speak, then you can turn your attention to the breath. And you can watch your breath as long as it feels right. Sometimes, you know, if you watch your breath too much, you don't know whether you're controlling your breath or not. So it's very subtle. Watching breath is very subtle because you let your mind follow your breath without controlling it.

[44:24]

That means that in each breath, it has an effect on the breathing. So you don't know whether, you can't tell always whether or not your breath is just coming and going or whether you're controlling it a little bit, but it's okay. To that extent, you can control your breath because you're not making an effort to control your breath. It's just that attention plays a factor. Or is a factor, plays a part. Yes? Doc, you said that breathing will just occur naturally and what we need to do is get rid of the hindrances. I was wondering if you could talk about what they are and how we do that. Well, hindrances are anxiety, fear, which are not so easy to get rid of, right?

[45:37]

But every time we say get rid of, you know, it looks like, well, I should just drop, you know, but that's just a manner of speaking. Actually, main thing is to make the effort to be aware. without interfering. That's the main thing. Actually, it works in reverse. If you make the effort to pay attention to breath and to keep it centered, then that effort will itself relieve anxiety and fear. So if you try to get rid of the anxiety or the fear, you just create more anxiety and more fear, more problem. But if you just pay attention to the job, then that itself will help to relieve the anxiety and the fear or whatever the problem is that's causing the blocking.

[46:50]

That's why Zazen is through the body rather than through the mind, because you can train the mind through the body. You hit the cart to make it go. Yes? It seems to me that breathing would be a very helpful thing in what you were saying to me before about in each moment that as feelings and thoughts and difficulties come, choosing instead of closing down, that moment to open up. That's right, there's a way to go. You choose the way to go. Just leave everything to the breath. Just turn everything over to the breath. Great.

[47:58]

Well, we have lots of tools, you know. And so if we have a repertory of tools, then we use them when we need them. And in Zazen, sometimes you use anything at hand. I'm sure we all have our repertory. of tools that we use to get us through some difficult situation. So to each his own. And I can remember when I was first sitting Zazen, how I'd go through the whole book of encouragements, my book of encouraging thoughts, to keep me tethered. And it's actually quite wonderful because it helps you to express your deepest feelings.

[49:49]

So if you have some words of encouragement that you use for yourself. See how they hold up in the most trying situation. What really works in the most trying situation? That's good. You really can see if anything works. Sometimes nothing works. Sometimes your most dependable saying will not work. But sometimes it can be very helpful. But we should get to the point where our most dependable phrase won't work. And then what will work? So we have to keep getting deeper and deeper and deeper. Letting go, you know,

[50:54]

Sometimes a really good craftsman will only have one tool. Maybe a little knife, handmade knife or hammer. As George, who is one of the best instrument repairmen in the country, I've probably told you this story once before. All the best musicians come to him to fix their instruments. And he used to tell me that, lift up his hammer, and he'd say, this is my real tool for these delicate, precise instruments. He said, this hammer is what I use more than anything else. even though he had other tools, places full of tools, but this is what he always used, really, just this hammer. Do all things breathe?

[52:05]

All things are breathed. Yeah, no thing is breath. I was interested in what Koun Ejo said to us. Koun. Koun. Please. Ejo. Koun Ejo. Not Koun Ejo. K-O-U-N. He advised us to be like a dead person in all we do. Yeah. Is there a way to breathe like a dead person? Yeah, there is. Just let breathing breathe the dead person. We say, I breathe, which is a lie. You are not breathing. You are a dead person.

[53:09]

You are being breathed. But we say, I breathe. We say, I am alive. But you are not alive. You are being lived. So our problems all come from this misunderstanding. I don't know why life is like this. Somebody once asked me, how come we don't know all this? Why don't we know all this to begin with? I don't know.

[54:19]

It's really a problem. A problem. But once we feel like us, then we have to do something, because we do feel like somebody. Even though we're not somebody, we feel like somebody. And even though we feel, I am alive. I mean, even though I am not alive, I feel like I am alive. So I have to do something from that feeling. So, what can I do? I can cooperate with life. Co-operate means you form a partnership and you operate together.

[55:27]

But turning everything back, you know, to life. So, life is the boss. or whatever we call it, or whatever it is that we call that, life is the boss. So there's this particular form that we call our form. This is some form of life, which is living itself out through this form. And that life is what we call light or Buddha nature. Buddha is living his life out through this form, through these forms. But we get very isolated.

[56:40]

And when we say, me and mine, we start to believe it. That's the problem. It's okay to say, me and mine, but we should be careful not to get too attached to our ideas. So when we sit Zazen, we just let this life force express itself in this particular way. So I'll talk about this more tomorrow.

[57:48]

I think our legs are all getting a little stiff.

[57:53]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ