This is a somewhat unusual Saturday morning in that we're having a seven-day Sashin this week, a meditation retreat, and so some people who are here in attendance have been sitting pretty much all day, every day for the last six days, or this is the sixth day. The ones who've been sitting longest tend to be the scruffiest looking. Well, there's some exceptions. There's some people who haven't been here who look scruffy too. So after the talk, those of you who are not involved with the Sushi, we won't be having tea the way we usually do, but we will next week.

[01:08]

Is that right? It's our last week, next Saturday. It's our last before the break. This morning I want to talk with you about the case called hard practice, Sojin's hard practice. The case itself is very brief, and then there are some comments by Kankai, Sojin's student. So this is the case that's been posted out on the bulletin board for the last six months or so. Six weeks, I mean. Six months. Still haven't figured it out yet. So I'll read the case quickly. A monk asked Sojin, what is hard practice? Sojin replied, not moving.

[02:12]

That's the case. And then Kankai comments, what is this not moving? In Zazen it means don't move. When your leg hurts, let the leg practice with its pain. If an impulse to get rid of the intensity occurs, notice this impulse, but don't react. However, if a sharp pain in the knee alerts you to danger, you may decide to adjust your posture. If so, simply mobilize awareness. Adjust your posture carefully. Do not indulge in justification or recrimination. This is not moving. In everyday life, meet each situation on its own terms, freshly, wholeheartedly. Refrain from judging, rejecting, demanding, or reacting.

[03:18]

For example, when a powerful emotion such as fear presents itself, Do not deflect it, analyze it, excuse it, amplify it, suppress it, dismiss it, or identify with it. Do not still yourself. If necessary, take a deep breath, relax your abdomen, and smooth your brow. But don't bother to congratulate yourself or console yourself. This is not moving. everyday life. Thus, the not moving of Zazen is continuous with the not moving of everyday life. A river flows, a mountain is still. The mountain's stillness is its not moving. The river's flowing is its stillness.

[04:20]

A verse says, encountering spring for many years, the heart does not change. Master Bokasan says, to sprout in spring is the heart that does not change. To bloom in spring is to abide at ease immovably. The heart is originally open. Also, mountains are continuously flowing and the oceans reach up to the sky. What possibility is there for disturbance or constraint? Zazen is the ceremony of everyday life, of being as is. Performing this ceremony, how could you move? How could you bind yourself? So this is the case.

[05:31]

Well, the case itself is very short. It says, a monk asked Sojin, what is hard practice? And Sojin replied, not moving. Actually, this question and answer occurred not long ago on a Saturday morning in this temple. Prior to this, the monk had said to Sojin something like, I have many desires and a lot of pain. My life seems really hard. How should I practice? Sojin replied, practice hard. Then the monk asked, naturally, what is hard practice? Sojin said, not moving. Sojin, as you know, is a disciple of Suzuki Roshi's and is abbot of this temple, so this is a contemporary case.

[06:35]

It's not a conversation between two gnarled old monks in the 9th century in China. In fact, one of the interlocutors is a woman with no gnarles at all. Sojin is himself somewhat similar to the old Zen masters you read about in these traditional cases. For one thing, he's old. All Zen masters are old. He's somewhat taciturn. He's simultaneously strict and avuncular. In this case, he's playing his own role. The balance of strictness and nurturance is intentional, and it has many layers.

[07:39]

The monkey in the case is quite well known to Sojin. She's an experienced practitioner. She knows how to sit. In fact, she has a reputation for diligent practice. So when Sojin says, practice hard, we have to understand this at many levels simultaneously, not get caught in one kind of understanding. Sojin is well known for saying, don't take everything I say literally. One way to understand Sogen's admonition is, if your problems are hard, practice hard. The more you practice, the more trouble you have, the more you practice, the more you need to practice. Zazen actually helps, so do Zazen. No doubt he does mean to say something like this. In the case.

[08:51]

It's pretty straightforward. It's pretty dualistic. Of course, life is more or less hard for everyone, not just this monk in point here. So more fundamentally, practice hard means to throw your troubles, whatever they are, large or small, into Zazen. into the house of Buddha. In fact, also throw your joys and your attainments as well, throw everything into Buddha's house. Still there's a further strictness here, more rigorous than Dumur Zazen. Sojin's explanation of hard practices, loquacious, isn't he? At first glance, not moving seems very much like hard practice.

[09:53]

It's strict for sure. It's not sentimental. Don't move is not exactly a palliative for physical or mental pain. It's not a band-aid. It's not an affirmation of your troubled self. That's what I mean by strict. What self is affirmed by don't move? Anyway, on our behalf, Kankai asks, what is this not moving? And then he graciously answers his own question with a lot of help from his ancestors. Not moving in Zazen means don't move. When your leg hurts, let the leg practice with its pain. This is a vintage Suzuki Roshi. Don't interfere with the leg's practice.

[10:54]

If an impulse to move, to get rid of the intensity occurs, notice the impulse. It's present already, but don't react. Here, reacting means automatically moving without intention or apart from your intention. So conversely, moving means reacting automatically, automatic behavior which occurs despite or separate from intention. But he says, if a sharp pain in the knee alerts you to danger, you may decide to adjust your posture. Really? If so, simply mobilize awareness, adjust your posture carefully, do not indulge in justification or recrimination. This is not moving. In other words, your intention to practice Zazen, to follow the breath, to let go of mental events and so on, need not interfere with your own ongoing responsibility to take care of yourself, to take care of the

[12:07]

body that you happen to occupy at this time. Zazen does not require you to be stupid. Conversely, taking care of your body need not interfere with Zazen. We're advised here that mobilizing awareness as such does not interfere, nor does the physical movement of adjusting posture necessarily interfere. But justification and recrimination do interfere. These are self-conscious, ego-centered activities. They interfere. That's movement. The commentary says, in everyday life, meet each situation on its own terms, freshly, wholeheartedly. Refrain from judging, rejecting, demanding, or reacting.

[13:10]

For example, when a powerful emotion such as fear presents itself, do not deflect it, analyze it, excuse it, amplify it, or suppress it. All the possibilities we can think of. Don't dismiss it. Don't identify with it. Do not still yourself. If necessary, take a deep breath, relax your abdomen, smooth your brow, but don't bother to congratulate yourself or console yourself. This is not moving in everyday life. So, the not moving in Zazen and the not moving in everyday life are continuous. So, The commentator, Kankai, following the spirit of Dogen, points out that the attitude of non-interference in zazen can and should be extended into everyday life, everyday garden variety living.

[14:17]

And he calls this not moving, suggesting that ordinary life as zazen is transformed. It is, it is stillness. Meeting each situation on its own terms, wholeheartedly, means meeting each situation from its own side, from numerous sides, with an open mind, unburdened by self-interest, unburdened by defensiveness or timidity. There's nothing to be defended. Aggression isn't needed in this situation. The other day, late last week, a friend of mine and I were having tea here together and we had the opportunity to

[15:18]

meet a situation together and to watch selves arise almost instantaneously. I think we both entered this situation with an expectation that we would have a nice cup of tea, two brother practitioners, and instead you know given our respective configurations and I don't know what we had for So on, I said something, he said something, and with electrical speed, two selves emerged, quite partial and defensive. And it was just wonderful how they perfectly dovetailed the defensiveness of the one and the defensiveness of the other.

[16:26]

Anyway, a couple of days later we were able to talk about this and see it quite clearly, but in the moment it was just amazing. So it's obvious that judging and rejecting and demanding and suppressing and dismissing and so on are meddling. This is Bodhidharma's kind of term or so we're told. He says, just don't meddle. Identifying with emotions, with mental events is making a self. The admonition not to still yourself is a little subtler. It means don't squeeze down on yourself. Don't rigidify in Zazen or your life.

[17:29]

Don't try to make yourself small and inconsequential. That too is egotistical meddling. Rather just refrain from moving. So in a practice community like this one and in many other practice communities, you see there's a way in which one can adopt a sort of quietude, a sort of subdued manner, which is you learn it by seeing it. You see that's the way you're not pushed around by your emotions, and so one can adopt that as a way of being. Oh, that must be the way to be here, to be accepted and so on. And so irrespective of what's going on inside, we kind of squish down, make ourselves calm.

[18:32]

Then we go home and beat the kids or whatever we need to do. So anyway, this is stilling yourself and is a subtler but nevertheless very real and common way of manipulating ourselves, of moving in everyday life. He says, if necessary, stop holding your breath, relax your abdomen, don't frown. In other words, let go of your attachments. But congratulating yourself or consoling yourself are extra. That's kind of tough. Actually, if you're able in an everyday difficult situation to see what's going on, to let go of the squeezing, the reactivity, you can congratulate yourself.

[19:33]

Nicely done. But then you have to let that go. So this scheme, this set of recommendations is based on a kind of traditional understanding of the typical sequence of physical and mental processes that happen in human beings. You can find this in texts on mindfulness and it goes something like this. What happens in a person? You're sitting there in Zazen and there's Trip hammer going off outside a pile driver. And so there's a sensation right and then and then there's a feeling about it like it And then a perception of some kind like that's a trip and that's a pile driver what's that got to do with my retreat that I paid good money for and And then various kinds of higher order mental formations, thoughts, various thoughts and emotional responses.

[20:42]

And then finally, in the sequence, there's overt behavior. Damn, or something. Maybe an action, words. maybe just more mental activity. So sensation, feeling, perception, mental formations, higher order mental stuff, and then overt behavior. And the point about this scheme is that in practice, formal practice or everyday practice, in a sense, the earlier in the scheme you can intervene, you can notice what's going on, the easier it is to disentangle yourself. Now that doesn't mean it's easy at any stage. Some sensations are pretty powerful, can be overwhelming, but if we can see it as a sensation, just appreciate this is sensation and not something like, this is killing me.

[21:46]

That's a thought about a sensation, and in between there was a feeling and a perception and who knows what else. And it just happens with electrical speed. So this is what we get the chance to watch all day long, day in, day out, in a meditation retreat. And if we're alert, we get to watch it day in, day out, every day in our ordinary life outside the zendo. A river flows, a mountain is still. The mountain's stillness is its not moving. The river's flowing is its stillness. So this expresses the sort of conventional aspect of mountains and rivers. Rivers ordinarily flow and mountains are high and that's their stillness.

[22:52]

So we have to be alert to not confuse literal stillness with profound stillness. Then the question is asked, what is your stillness? Who are you? What are you now? Don't move. In other words, don't begin to think about the question as though it were a question you could answer by thinking about it. So don't move. A verse says, this is Master Bokkasan gives us this, he says, a verse says, an old verse, encountering spring for many years, the heart does not change. To sprout in spring is the heart that does not change.

[23:56]

To bloom in spring is to abide at ease immovably. The heart is originally open, So encountering spring, the heart receives spring's liveliness and itself is, it blooms, is enlivened. It accepts the joy and the pain. It doesn't get distracted or bored by repeated springs because it's self-involved. You know, it needs things to be entertaining. It takes spring on its own terms. Openness is the heart's stillness. It's abiding at ease immovably. Also, mountains are continuously flowing.

[25:03]

and oceans reach up to the sky. What possibility is there for disturbance or constraint?" So we're back to rocks and water. The other side of stillness is expressed here. Mountains flow and oceans are high. So the whole story of mountains and water has to reflect both sides of their the appearance of things, and also what is unseen, but known, in some sense felt. Moreover, in this wholeness, how do disturbance and constraint or obstruction arise? Well, only through some version of one-sidedness. or partiality or some idea of gain.

[26:06]

In other words, some interference. Some attachment to something creates a ripple and sometimes a logjam. Finally, Kankai says, leaning heavily on his ancestors, Zazen is the ceremony of everyday life, of being as is. performing the ceremony, how could you move? How could you bind yourself? So Zazen is the ceremony of things as it is in Suzuki Hiroshi's language. A ceremony is performed. You either do a ceremony or you don't. It doesn't particularly matter how you feel about it. you can't particularly succeed or fail, you just do the ceremony.

[27:09]

I mean, people can criticize it around here, they do occasionally, but the main issue is, did you do the ceremony or not? So, if Zazen is the ceremony of everyday life, how can it be evaluated in ordinary terms? How can we, hour after hour, evaluate ourselves? What's happening here? So in this context of wholeness, what is the self? You know, I think as a practical matter, we know that selves emerge by the thousands. They just appear, they pop up like bubbles. There are a lot of selves and some of them last a few seconds and they're gone and some of them hang around.

[28:11]

That is, we feed and nurture them and they're with us for a while and they tend to bug us for a long time. But in this context of wholeness, there's a kind of primary self, one that's fundamental. This is the self that encounters itself wherever it goes. Wherever Dung-Shan goes, he meets Yung-Yen, his teacher, who is no other than himself. There's nothing to be done for or about this self. It's complete even in its paucity. So in Sashin, the appropriate thing to do, really the only thing to do, is to celebrate. If you're enthralled by a limited idea of yourself, you're bound to it.

[29:17]

But if you're centered on unlimited self, the whole works. That's liberation. you're free to go and come in stillness. So here we are on the sixth day of Sishin, one more to go, but who's counting? Occasionally I move and squirm, well more than occasionally I squirm and move. You know, I think what made this seem like a good idea in the first place, this is killing me. Hopefully it is. Fantasies, fantasies arise of all kinds, all kinds. And for me in particular, what about the shuso ceremony coming on Monday night?

[30:23]

What is Ross going to ask me? This is a lot of moving around. This is moving. Again, Master Bokasan tells us about a teacher of old, he says, who said, as I have a great power, I fall down when the wind blows." You may think, he says, that having great power means not to fall down, but it is not so. A great power is to fall down all the way at the time of falling. So this is not to say that moving or falling down is okay. It's okay to move in Zazen.

[31:26]

We're tempted to go that direction. It's not okay. Falling is just falling down. The okay is extra, unnecessary. It's like saying, I give myself permission to move. Who is giving whom permission to move, you know? We just don't need that part. Really, this is kind of one limited self propping up another one. So when it's time to move, you move. That's stillness. The other day Sojin Roshi mentioned that Suzuki Roshi said about Zazen, don't move.

[32:28]

He said just die over and over. Aldous Huxley said something like that as well, perhaps even a little earlier. He said, if you want to be alive to each moment as it presents itself, you have to die to every other moment. Let the dead bury the dead. So please don't move. Do not regret moving. Just let go and enjoy yourself. Sishing is really a marathon party. It's a wake. Do you have any comments or questions?

[33:36]

Yes. Where is the whiskey? I don't know where yours is. Alan. I wouldn't mind dying. I've got to go by myself. I wouldn't mind dying if dying was all. born in hell.

[35:04]

That's what's really the problem, the living versus the dying in a way. Yeah, I mean I don't know if it's a problem, but it's what our life is. I mean there's just, as you say, there's birthing going on But in between is hanging on. I mean, maybe hanging on. And that's the rub. The dying is maybe not so bad, although there aren't so many people to tell us about it, but it seems that way. But in between the clutching to these other kinds of matters, thoughts, and fears, and stories, and regrets, You know, and then we come up with the ideas, oh, I should just be immovable. You know, if we're a Zen student, I should just stop all that.

[36:12]

Stop it. You know, this is stilling yourself. This is moving. So how do we actually enter into this flow of sensation, feeling, thought, emotional response, and the various feedback loops and so on that occur, all this reactivity. Some of it we're conscious of, some of it we're not conscious of. How do we enter into that in such a way that we can see our clinging? And then what? What do you do about clinging? First thing you do is you, you know, if you see it, it's already different. There's something about clinging that we don't know about it. This happens in your body all the time. You know, you're sitting there and zazen, you realize your teeth are aching because your jaw has gotten tight because maybe there's fear, you know, some tension.

[37:18]

And all this happened, we don't know what this is going on. And then finally you discover something, a sensation that's resulted from a whole chain of events. Well, that's where we are. Nevermind the original sensation. We're right there in the midst of the fear, the pain in the jaw, the tension. What can we do? Yes. And that's our love and our death. And when I thought about death, I said, well, does that mean I have to die to give this great gift? But of course, what I believe he was talking about is what you're talking about, which is we have to die at every moment.

[38:21]

We give that gift to one another, to ourselves. Yeah. It's interesting that this dying is another way of saying this letting go, which is another way of giving. Right? I mean, we just turn it over. It doesn't usually seem like a gift to give over fear, but actually it is. You know, after all, it's energy. So give it up. Yeah. Kadagiri used to say that what a monk gives is fearlessness. Yeah. Yeah. James. You know.

[39:43]

Yeah, it's discouraging if we quantify it, isn't it? But you know, we live in moments. You heard this expression, you only have moments to live. And that's true for all of us. We're alive in moments. in time, thought of, cut up into pieces, most of it were dead or imaginary. We're just alive right now. And that lively moment is itself not quantifiable. So, I don't know, about seven days or seven minutes or seven seconds or seven milliseconds or seven years or the rest of your life. I don't know that that's so relevant, really, because each moment is a chance to make a donation, to give the gift of fearlessness, to give up your fear.

[41:27]

That's what the gift of fearlessness is. It's not like monks have little, you know, bags of fearlessness, gold dust, and they sprinkle it around. They give up their own fear. And monks can do that. The seven days, we're all monks. You know, we can do that, and we can do it in our everyday monastic life. Yes, Malcolm. If Khang Khai were to ask a question to Vishu Tso on Monday, what would he say? What's the most important thing? What would the shoe sole respond to? Spaghetti with meat sauce. Andrea. I just wanted to say thank you.

[42:28]

You're welcome. Beings are numberless.

[42:44]

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