Good morning. This morning, I promised that I would talk about thinking. Today, I said I would give two talks today, but I'm only going to give one. Two is too much. So, we said that it would talk about body, breath, and mind, and today it's mind, or thinking, thinking mind, or thinking. In Fukan Zazengi, Dogen talks about thinking.

[01:13]

He poses the question, what is thinking? How do we think in zazen? And then he says, think not thinking. And then, how do we think not thinking? He says, non-thinking. This is the essential art of zazen. That's the way it's translated. This is the essential something. Art may not be quite the right word, but this is the essential of zazen. This is what is essential in Zazen, non-thinking. Then, in his fascicle called Zazen Shin, or the needle of Zazen, the needle point of Zazen, or the entry point of Zazen, he talks about this, not thinking,

[02:30]

more explicitly. So he says, after sitting, a monk asked great teacher, Yakusan Igen, what are you thinking in the immobile state of sitting. The master replied, I think of not thinking. The monk asked, how can one think of not thinking? And the master replied, by non-thinking. Then Dogen says, this having been confirmed as the great teacher's saying, we should study immobile sitting and transmit it correctly.

[03:36]

Herein lies a thorough investigation of immobile sitting handed down in the Buddha way. Although thoughts on the immobile state of sitting are not limited to a single person, Yakasan's saying is the very best, namely, thinking is not thinking. Sometimes thinking is the skin, flesh, bones, marrow of zazen. Sometimes not thinking is the skin, flesh, bones, marrow of zazen. The monk said, not thinking is the how's thinking. Not thinking, though indeed time honored, is newly restated as the how's thinking. Isn't there thinking in the immobile state of sitting? when we advance in the immobile state of sitting, how can this fail to be known? Unless one is a short-sighted fool, one should have the capacity to inquire about and reflect on the immobile state of sitting.

[04:43]

The great teacher said, by non-thinking. Although it is quite evident that we employ this non-thinking in zazen, we always use non-thinking in order to think of non-thinking. In non-thinking, there is the who, and this who upholds the self, who thinks of not thinking. Even though it is the self which sits in an immobile state, the self has to do not only with thinking, in addition, it takes up the immobile state of sitting itself. If this immobile state of sitting is nothing but the immobile state of sitting, how can it think of itself as its object? For this reason, the immobile state of sitting is neither the Buddha measure nor the Dharma measure, neither the measure of enlightenment nor the measure of understanding." Sounds a little complicated.

[05:46]

Sounds like one of our question-answer exchanges. Well, I hope so. So here we have the duality of thinking and not thinking. Thinking is one side and not thinking is the other side. So this is the mind split into doing or not doing something. It's either thinking or not thinking. So, Master Yaksan says, I think of not thinking. And the monk says, how do you think of not thinking? So, how do you think of not thinking?

[06:50]

How do you not think of thinking? You can easily, just as easily say. And Master Jackson says, non-thinking. So non-thinking is the non-dualistic thinking. Non-thinking is non-dual thinking. Non-dual thinking is completely thinking. When there's nothing outside of thinking, nothing outside of this thought, then it's non-thinking. Thinking is thinking as long as it's thinking about something. But when thinking is no longer thinking about something, then it's no longer thinking about something.

[08:03]

But it's the thought and the object itself are one undivided whole. So in Zazen, We don't think about something. That's thinking. When thinking and doing are exactly the same, then the thought is the deed, and the deed is the thought. So if you try to stop thinking, then you fall into the duality of not thinking. And if you're always thinking about something,

[09:13]

something else, then you fall into the duality of thinking. So if we try to stop our thought during zazen, then we fall into duality. So what do we do with our thought in zazen? Our thought in zazen becomes the body. So thought is body, body is thought. There's no difference between body and mind. When you want to make the cart go, do you hit the horse or the cart? So this non-thinking is the non's thinking.

[10:15]

Who's thinking is the who's thinking. How do we think is the how's thinking. So who, how, and none are the subjects. who, how, and non, which are to us usually passing. Who, how, and non usually pass from one, are little gates to pass from one moment to the next. They don't belong to anybody. But here,

[11:21]

thinking. The non is complete thinking. It's the non's thinking. If we say, I am thinking, then we fall into duality of me and mine. So if we ask the question, who is thinking? We can say, yes, Who is thinking? Yes. This is before falling into one side or the other. We should always stay in the realm of who. Or we should always stay in the realm of how. This is before falling into me and mine.

[12:27]

When you cut a carrot, when you chop a celery, who is chopping the celery? celery is chopping who? If you don't realize that celery is chopping who, then you can't possibly know who is chopping celery. Who is walking on the road? means the road is walking who? Dogen says there's the boat and the person, and when the person steps into the boat, hoists the sail and takes the tiller

[13:56]

Then the boat is the time of the person, and the person is the time of the boat. The boat makes the person, the person makes the boat. Without the person there is no boat, and without the boat there is no person. Only with total engagement does the person come to life and the boat come to life. If we want to know who we are, if we want to know who we are completely, thoroughly, through and through, then we must totally engage through and through.

[15:09]

We say, why do I come to Tassajara? What's the purpose of coming to Tassajara? What will I get from this experience? The only answer is that I will make this experience happen. I will totally engage Tassajara. That's all there is. As totally engaged as I am is what will happen. You can say, I went to Tathpahara for three months and nothing happened. I don't say that that's happening to us.

[16:22]

Actually, I'm quite ... what's the word ... gratified by our practice, by our effort. We should know that this is our effort. That's all there is. Our effort is to merge. Let the self be the self. Suzuki Roshi used to say, when you are you, completely through and through, then Zen is Zen. So the one thing that we have to learn, if there is anything to learn, is how to let the self be the self.

[17:53]

How to Let the road walk who? How to become actualized by a carrot? How to be enlightened by a piece of celery? How to let a piece of advice be a treasure. How to let the mind be the body, and how to let the body be the mind.

[18:59]

We say, though, when I'm sitting, there are all these thoughts. But when thinking is one with body, one with its object, even though there is so-called thinking, or the mind is excreting its thought bubbles, thought juices. The thought juices don't interfere with thinking, which is the body and the breath. If the way to the most problem about thinking or extraneous, so-called extraneous thoughts is called worry or judgment.

[20:35]

Worry and judgment are the biggest obstacles. I really had good zazen because I hardly had any thoughts at all. That's the judgment in which we say we think we had good zazen. And then we say, For three months, there was nothing but this jumble of thoughts in my mind every time I sat down to sit. The loops, the tapes, my girlfriend, my boyfriend, my cold toes filled my mind completely during zazen. And every once in a while, I realized that there was some sitting, something sitting here on this cushion.

[21:37]

And we say, that's really bad, Zazen. So we have these two sides of judgment falling into good and bad, falling into the duality of good and bad. Actually, there's no way to know what happened. When you make these judgments, it was good zazen. That was really good zazen. That was really terrible zazen. You're creating an obstacle to zazen. Just dividing the mind into this and that. if you sit a period of Zazen, and it's nothing but a jumble of thoughts, even though there's some effort to come back, some effort to sit.

[22:49]

The effort to sit is itself Zazen, even though it's a failure. Failure is also success. Even though every time I sit zazen, it's nothing but a jumble of thoughts, I still do it. Pretty soon, without being bothered by Whether there is a jumble of thoughts or a clear, luminous mind, it doesn't make any difference.

[23:55]

If you crave or desire luminous mind, your mind will be a jumble of thoughts. When there's clear, luminous mind, it's just clear, luminous mind. That's all. And it may be wonderful. That's all. It may be enlightenment. That's all. If you reach out to grasp it, you've divided the mind and fallen into thinking. If you just have a jumble of thoughts in the mind coming up, and don't worry about it, it's just a jumble of thoughts.

[25:11]

Oh, this is a jumble of thoughts. One thought following on the heels of the other. But if this is just this, then no problem. If you say, this is awful, then you've divided the mind. You try to push your way out of it, you've just divided the mind, fallen into thinking. But even if the mind is full of thoughts, one following on the heels of another, and you just continue to sit, tsa-zin, making effort, then that is enlightened mind.

[26:16]

No discrimination. But it's very hard to have non-divided, non-discriminating mind. It's like trying to hold a piece of Quicksilver in your hand, a little ball of Quicksilver in your hand. in between your thumb and finger. And when you try to hold it, it squeezes out either one side or the other. And you can't really hold it there. But the art of zazen is to be able to hold it there without falling into aversion or grasping. Grasping and aversion are the two sides of duality. We either want something or we don't want something.

[27:23]

pretty hard to stay right in the center of life. But if we don't make effort, Effort is when our effort is complete and total. Then it's no longer effort, even though there's effort. So until we reach the point of effortless effort, we have effortful effort. And the effortful effort is necessary to reach the point where there's effortless effort.

[28:46]

So even though our practice is not perfect, it's still complete. But we really get lost. by our judgment. So think not thinking. The art of satsang is non-thinking, the self's thinking, Buddha nature's thinking, which is not divided. How do we listen to someone without dividing our mind and making some judgment?

[30:00]

When we listen, our mind is always grinding away, making some judgment. How can our mind just be open? It's what I call no self-defense. When we have self-defense, we fall again into duality. No self, nothing to defend, is to stay right in the midst of Buddha nature. Otherwise, we can never have faith in our nature. Faith in our nature means that no matter what happens to us, it's the right thing.

[31:06]

If we don't have faith in our nature, that whatever happens to us is the right thing, what can we ever possibly have faith in? Then we're always looking for something to sustain us or to hang on to. We're always looking for the branch Or the little board floating by in the ocean to hop onto. Do we prefer life? Or do we prefer death? If we are grasping for life, we can't really have life.

[32:31]

As long as we're grasping for it, it eludes us. And as long as we have an aversion to death, We can't really grasp death. We can't understand it. Faith is the ability to go with things as they go. And as they go, everything is coming apart and reforming.

[33:34]

It's another way. We're always, moment by moment, we're coming apart and reforming. It's another way. If we hang on to something, it's called suffering. And if we don't allow the reformation, it's called suffering. So this Saha world, Samsara world, the undulation of life, is either the realm of suffering or the realm of nirvana, depending on how we deal with it.

[34:36]

Nirvana is to let it come as it comes and let it go as it goes, and to always stand in the midst of the self, which is no self. hard, hard. But if we don't practice it, it's even harder. And you can look around you at how we try people in society try to make themselves at home in the world, and how we fool ourselves without really looking, without making the effort.

[35:48]

This and our compassion must be very big. And sometimes we look at the world and we say, well, geez, you know, look how comfortable people are with their things. If I had just these other things, I could divert myself even more and think that I'm happy. Be happy for a little while with our toys. I enjoy toys, too. We all enjoy our toys. But we have to be able to live our life beyond our toys.

[36:54]

Toys are all right, but If we find our security in our toys, we just go from one toy to the next, because the realm of toys is that we get tired of them and we need new ones. They don't last so long. So when we get tired of toys, and the toys are the endless flow of toys is no longer satisfying, then we have to look at our reality. Everything's coming apart and everything is reforming. How do we allow that to happen? How do we go with it? As a matter of fact, the same Yakasan, when he was, he's very famous for his great shout when he was about to die.

[38:22]

He was in a temple in the mountains in China, and robbers came. And they must have killed all the monks in the temple and robbed them. I don't know if they had to rob, When he was about to die, he gave this great shout. And it was like resistance. And Hakun Zenji, this was his koan for many, many years. Why did Yaksan give this shout? Ganto? Is it Ganto? Seppo and Ganto? Maybe it was Ganto. Maybe it's Ganto. If so, thank you. It was Ganto, matter of fact.

[39:26]

You're right. Ganto is great. Great job. Yeah, that's right. Thank you. And there was another monk, another famous Zen master, whose name I don't know, who said, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. Maybe a more human side. Yes. Say, I don't want to die. Or what? Something up there? No. Somebody told me a story. Like what? I don't know, but he said, I'm afraid to die. It was an incident in Zendo, in the basement. He said, I'm afraid to die? No. Something on the order of, is this all there is?

[40:28]

This is all there is? Something like that. I just heard a story that Suzuki Roshi said as he was dying, that he said something like, I'm afraid to die. Probably so. No. I didn't remember that. So, but I wouldn't. Maybe so. Anyway, it's another thought, right? Just another thought, whether you are or not. The one thing about Suzuki Roshi was that he was always very honest with his thoughts.

[41:49]

And I could understand him saying that. Do you have any questions about thinking? I have one about breathing, so I'll wait and see. Breathing? Okay. What is the question? Since your last lecture on breathing, I've just noticed that I tend to get tension like right kind of on the diaphragm here and I feel like it's probably just an adjustment that I'm going through with changing my breathing and So my question is, is the goal to have this area totally, totally relaxed?

[42:52]

And also, is the goal to send the breath to the deepest part of the abdomen or to the middle part? Well, this area, in order to let breathing breathe, you know, breathing breathes. then it should just be totally open, totally relaxed. But sometimes, if you put some pressure on your breathing in the exhale, push down on the exhale, then there'll be some tension. But that should be released when you exhale. And so it's a conscious tension. It's not some tenseness. But ordinarily our breathing is just relaxed. So our personal part that we play in breathing is to just let it happen.

[43:59]

Just create the condition where we don't interfere with it. Because ordinarily we just walk around and do whatever we do. without interfering with our breath, right? Consciously, don't interfere with our breath. So why should we interfere with our breath when we sit zazen? Some yogis do breath control to obtain certain effects, bodily and mental effects, but not in zazen. So when we breathe, we allow the breath to go to its deepest place. And in so doing, there's nothing that we have to do, really. And if we say, well, get the breath down, but that means allow the breath to do its thing.

[45:01]

And when we allow the breath, it's total freedom. then it's just non-interference. And when the attention is here, and the focus of our mind is here, then we're not aware of breathing up here. We're only aware of this as the bottom of the breath. Is there a way of telling when you're thinking, not thinking? Peaking? Thinking? Can you peek at not thinking? Or non-thinking? Well, it's best to just make the effort to be one with posture. You can tell when it's non-thinking when the mind is not in the posture. That's why I'm always saying,

[46:07]

to find your posture moment by moment. That's sazan, is to find posture moment by moment. The only way you can do that is to put the mind on the body, in the body. So the mind is focused on the body. What did he say? He asked. I think the answer was, no knowing, no not knowing. How do we know that everyday mind is the way? Everyday mind is the way. Right? I'm listening to you. I mean, is this the... Not the name of the case, I think. It's neither knowing nor non-knowing.

[47:15]

Neither knowing nor non-knowing. What is neither knowing nor non-knowing? Or not knowing, it's non-knowing. It's non-knowing. The non-knowers. I always wanted to call you Kukai, but that's a very famous Zen priest in Japan. That's why my tendency is to do that. I wanted to check this out with you. It seems pretty simple. It seems to me like how is without object. Because it is every day. Carrots just walking.

[48:20]

Just this. So why is subject object? Why is what? Why is object? Why is subject? It's how. There can't be otherwise. Right. body is subject. You could even just ask how. Obviously the same with who and what. How is so good. Yeah, how is good. Because it eliminates even the personal All together. Maybe Abbott and Costello were a great team of teaching Bodhisattvas. Who's on first? Who's on first?

[49:21]

Who's on first? Who's on first? Who's on first? What's on second? I don't know who's on third base. Now it's the children. How does that feel? Or maybe this is a good place to...

[49:50]

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