This is going to be very loud. Well, good morning. Good morning. Here we are on the first day of sashimi with a very conspicuous absence. It wasn't clear just what time Mel would have his procedure. I'm sure we'll find out the news as soon as anybody does. I want to talk today about continuous practice. And when I visited Mel yesterday, he was tired, but he said that he was not anxious. and one can simply often appreciate that, that he was not anticipating anything or looking ahead in any way, but just taking each thing as it came.

[01:14]

And rather enjoying the comfort of the home, And so I think that that is a very good instruction for us on our first day of our sitting. We come with usually a lot of ideas about Zazen and some tenseness about what it's going to be like. And then we arrive and we begin to sit. And the more that we can let go of our ideas about it, the more free we are to meet what comes up. And I think that we are all, I know, we are all deeply connected with our Abbot.

[02:25]

And that this Seshin is the best offering that we can give him. And as we said, remembering that can strengthen our purpose, again and again and again, offering our small minds. I wasn't sure. So Alan and I figured out that what we would do would be to just have a schedule of talks that was ready.

[03:30]

And the subject is hoping, of course, to come back and join us. And we made that happen. And in case he doesn't feel like that, we do have talks set up. Tomorrow, Dolly will speak, and Wednesday, Alan, and Thursday, I didn't exact this friendship with Grace, but she said she'd be ready, and Friday with Raul, and Saturday with Ross. And now ask that all the talks essentially be talks of encouragement. So I didn't exactly know what to do, to talk about, and when I opened a kind of aimless, but seeking, laying wound in a dewdrop, a sheet came out called Continuous Practice, and it was something that Mel had given to a group of us.

[04:34]

It's a Dogan fascicle, and it's in the process of being translated, and when I read the first paragraph, I realized that that would be a good thing to talk about. because we have signed up pretty formally for a week of continuous practice. So I just want, I'm just going to talk about the first paragraph. On the great road of Buddha ancestors, there is always unsurpassable practice continued and sustained. It forms the way ring and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moment's gap. Continuous practice is the circle of the way. This being so, continuous practice is unstained, not forced by you or others. The power of this continuous practice confirms you as well as others.

[05:40]

It means your practice affects the entire earth and the entire sky in the ten directions. I will not notice by others or by yourself. It is so." So this is indeed an encouraging paragraph. This unsurpassable practice continued continuous and sustained. It forms the way ring and is never cut off. And then further down it says the circle of the way. So it is this great circle of practice and enlightenment that we are caught up in. And there are two aspects of the good news. The first is that this continuous practice is always available and what we fall back on is actually our true nature.

[06:52]

Koan, what was your face before your grandmother was born? What was your face before you were separated? So we have some sense of this whole self that we can't express in a particular way, but we experience it all the time because it is always available when we just let go. Somebody asked Mel, what should I do to be happy? And he said, put down your burden. It's pretty simple, just put down all the stuff we carry and there we are in this current, in this totally connected current.

[08:00]

And it's said over and over in different ways in the sutra, all beings are the Tathagata only their delusions and preoccupations keep them from testifying to this fact. Now that is hard to believe when you hear it, and we make some kind of mental assent, and then quite quickly we forget it. But as we keep remembering and remembering it, the experience of it becomes more and more assuring. So the second piece of good news in this circle wave ring of continuous enlightenment is that our effort, our practice, and our enlightenment are not separate.

[09:06]

And this is also difficult to believe. in that situation, and it seems fairly paltry, it's hard to connect with the grand statement that practice and enlightenment are not different. But, one reason that we come to Seshin, I think, is to study this karma. the practice and enlightenment are not different. And as the days go on, we settle more and more, and give up more and more, because the different variations and escape routes are less and less possible.

[10:13]

I think in this session it was a minimum of three days, and actually maybe the next session will be a minimum of four days. Because in four days, maybe in three, and maybe a little bit more in four, you do get an opportunity to settle down and to let go and to experience the space that arises. Wisdom and compassion being twined roots of our practice. The wisdom piece, the letting go. And when we let go, to the degree that we let go, we make ourselves more and more available to whatever arises.

[11:20]

to the degree that we are open, we are compassionate. In the last shosan, somebody asked Sojong, why do you practice? Why do you sit sasang, they asked. And he said, I sit sasang to open. So that is the aspect, that opening is the aspect a place where we discovered the non-difference between practice and enlightenment. There are some lines from Rumi, a pearl went up for auction and nobody could afford the extremely high price of the pearl, so the pearl bought itself. And that is our good fortune.

[12:27]

And that is how we step into this circle of continuous. That is how we are in this circle of continuous practice. We make ourselves available to the Therabind itself, to the continuous rescuing activities to the Buddhism ancestors. We're ready to give when we let them. On the Great Road of Buddha Ancestors, there was always unpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It forms the way ring and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment and nearby. There is not a moment's gap. Continuous practice is the circle of the way.

[13:31]

So, aspiration has different kind of layers. our deep, early, and sustained vow that just rises up from our experience, the vow of generosity. Our aspiration is the voice of that vow. Aspiration is the deep desire to be complete, to be whole.

[14:40]

And it's like Ariadne's thread. It takes us along our path if we keep our hearts and our fingertips, sensitive. The sense of the completeness and still, something missing. You know, the Gengo Koan says that the Dharma does not completely fill body and mind. One thinks that there is nothing missing. But if a Dharma does completely fill the body and mind, then one knows that there is something missing. I was in Arcata a little while ago, and we were having a retreat. And a young woman came for the first time. And she said she almost had turned around and hadn't come because her life was going so well.

[15:50]

And her kids had left home and she was very happy with her husband and everything was just going well. So she said as she came, she asked herself, well, what are you doing this for? And I said, because something was missing. And right away, tears came to her eyes because she knew that that was why she came. Because something was missing. That's the voice of aspiration. And as we sit here for this fairly ample time, I hope that we can keep close to that voice of aspiration that speaks to us about our vow. to use it to watch ourselves in carefully.

[16:58]

And to ask ourselves, without using too many words, to just ask, what is my body? What is it? When one is in touch with that kind of aspiration and that kind of question, Even though one is tired and subject always to the hindrances, even so, it keeps a kind of appetite going. And zazen isn't boring. It's not flat. Because It's studying what it is that you most want to know. So I invite you to keep the light of aspiration burning.

[18:10]

Practice. Between aspiration and practice, enlightenment and Nirvana, there is not a moment's gap. As you know, our practice is wonderfully rooted in the posture. Returning again and again to the posture is very sufficient. Knowing that when there is space in the body, there is space in the body-mind. And remembering this open chest.

[19:19]

So easy to sink into the posture of suffering. And so returning to that open for self, where it is difficult to really get into hardcore sattva. So the rootedness in the body. As a young, there are two main themes in meditation. One is the way of samadhi or concentration. putting a lot of effort into the body so that the body becomes kind of bright and the body energy rises and then that stability of that body energy contains the mind and the mind can become very still.

[20:31]

That's probably something that tends to happen after a while, or maybe right away. So just the one pointedness, the concentration, that gives us some space, gives us freedom and space from the daily chatter. And then the other way of meditation is the vipassana. the watching, the mindfulness watching of whatever arises, of all the experience, and what the experience is. Mindfulness is the principal balancing factor. And one can have too much of any other quality so that one gets unbalanced, but never too much of mindfulness. So, in my experience, I go back and forth, making some effort, especially at first, to really get concentrated in the body, keeping the belly relaxed, being aware of energy, wherever it is, forehead, lower belly, breath.

[21:57]

In my experience, if my attention is really on the body energy in that way, there's just no way to think for a while. And then thinking begins to come in, but already there's some more space. And so when thinking begins to come in, how we are very tolerant of it, And accept what comes. And work very kindly with what comes. Not encouraging thinking. I mean, not, you know, it's the line of finding you're in a pleasant daydream, or a vital argument, or whatever it is. That is, that's indulgence. And, in fact, let go, but the thinking that just arises because that's our nature.

[23:06]

The thinking large and small. There's a story about Milarepa, the Tibetan saint, who came back to this cave one day and found it filled with demons and was surprised, as we are again and again surprised by what our mind can do, surprised by the smallnesses, by the mess, by the consistencies, all of them. And he was surprised, but he was also humble. Being a saint, he was humble. And After all, there's really nothing to protect. There's a teacher, Ajahn Chah, who used to hold up a cup and say, this cup is broken.

[24:14]

This perfect pre-group cup is broken. Because if I drop it, if I knock it, it's gone. So we, that, that memory, that realization keeps us humble, that there's nothing to protect because it's all going to go anyway. So the cave of demons, he went in and he bowed, and he did the first thing that a saint would do, he gave him a Dharma talk. and kind of put himself into it. And one of the demons left. So it's helpful to give ourselves dharma talks and to clarify our purposes and intentions.

[25:16]

And maybe more than one demon leaves. But not too many. And then when he saw that, He was so humble, and he said, okay, if you're here, you're here, and let's just live together. So living together with all of our hindrances and demons and obstructions. Suzuki Hiroshi talks about the mind weeds. Noticing the weeds of the mind. and just letting them fall, just gently and kindly letting them fall, letting them open. And then, in fact, the weeds nourish the ground. So when Milarepa said, well, let's just hang out together, they all left except the worst one.

[26:20]

because that kind of acceptance is pretty discouraging to Mara or to any of our delusions and fixes. So Milarepa sat there staring at the worst one for a few moments and then realized that the only thing to do is to put his head into the worst one's mouth. And he did. And whether the worst one ate him or whether he ate the worst one, who knows? But it was done. He was alone in silence and peace in his cave. In silence. Krishnamurti says that in true silence there is always love.

[27:29]

There's nothing anymore extra to get in the way. So, the moral of the story is one that we know well, but still have to practice continuously, which is that the trouble is not in the mind contents, but in our resistance to the mind contents. And as we really understand that there's nothing to lose, we can more and more bear to be with the mind contents and let the resistances ease. So this practice of mindfulness and then the ally of mindfulness, bare attention, just noticing, nothing extra.

[28:50]

Bare attention, repeated again and again, becomes, is actually a process. It's not thinking. It's a process that takes us down, deeper and deeper, and opens up space. It opens up the mind-habit space, just the way. Just the knees. Just the breath. More and more space. And it's in this space that our healing happens. And it's in this space that our wholeness, our aspiration, can develop itself. And it's in this space

[29:57]

that we realize our connectedness. So this space, bare attention, space that is cultivated by bare attention, very significant, important space. So, continuous practice is unstained, not forced on you by others. This power of continuous practice confirms you as well as others. That's what happens in this space. Somebody was sitting in a retreat with Bhajan Paro and his aspiration He was perching up. And he got this idea that he really wanted to get money.

[31:06]

He wanted to have some confirming experience. And we all have that kind of energetic greed from time to time. And it doesn't hurt. So he asked Ajahn Amaral, What is enlightenment? And Jagannath said, well, it's like going into a room and not knowing why you come and not knowing what you're going to do. And that was kind of a disappointing answer. No, because you're just ready for whatever happens. So, there's often a time in our lives, as well as in our sessions sometimes,

[32:25]

when a certain amount of simplicity, of just being willing to be there, without much history or without much future, when this kind of simplicity descends and it's disorienting, it's confusing, and the various juices that made us want to do things aren't there anymore. It's kind of, I don't know if you've ever walked out to the tip of a windmill or a spit, but it's a very mixed tide. The water from Chimalis Bay is coming out, and the ocean tide is coming in, and this amazing churning of the two great tides. And so sometimes we feel that.

[33:30]

And it's confusing. And it's also heartening. Because it does mean that qi bao is working. But we don't know how the bao is going to work. We don't know the direction. confusion. You know that something big is going on. A shift. I have enjoyed lately reading this book by Mark Epstein called Thoughts Without a Thinker. It's a very nice title. How can we enjoy ourselves and sashimi without taking up, how can we enjoy our thoughts without taking up the burden of being a thinker?

[34:35]

I'll make you quotes. It talks about the way in which we use space to define ourselves. assume that each of us has a turf, a center. We have boundaries. We have a core. If we could only get to the bottom of it. But those spatial metaphors that we use But as our practice, as we begin to turn in this wheel of continuous practice, we discover the metaphors of flow and time. The sense of self based on a normal experience of breathing is an unpressured sense of self which is not easily stampeded.

[36:07]

But the sense of self structured by appetite, time is an irritant. The self structured by an awareness of breathing can take its time going from moment to moment, just as breathing usually does. It does not run after or get ahead of time, but instead seems simply to move with it. So, session is a good teacher of that. It's a good teacher of moving out of our space. and just accepting the irrevocable flow of time and of breath. And the gift that comes of that is that when we accept the flow, and when we are willing to be completely with our breaths, we come home.

[37:25]

that there's nothing alien and nothing that is foreign, that we don't want, or nothing that is lacking. So we come home. And I'd like to finish by reading a poem by Derek Walcott called Love After Love. The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror. And each will smile at the other's welcome and say, sit here, eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine, give bread, give back your heart to itself. to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for a moment, who knows you by heart.

[38:36]

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes. Peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life. This is continuous practice. This flower and this continuous homecoming. The power of this continuous practice confirms you as well as others. It means your practice affects the entire earth and the entire sky in the ten directions. Although not noticed by others or by yourself, it is May we all have a good session.

[39:43]

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