Developing, awakening our will body is what I'm talking about in this satsang. It's completely necessary to do it. I have seen people with some experience, some practice, some understanding, completely wither up because they don't have any will body or wobble in one minute, very empathetic and

[01:02]

grasping or understanding exactly what to do and later the same day, you know, thinking about suicide. In fact, you know, some of you are practicing because you already have this wobble. you already have some insight or feeling, which often you can't sustain or make sense of. So we do sashins and we emphasize, as Suzuki Yoshi did, a posture

[02:05]

practicing without much discrimination, without any discrimination. First I'd like to say a few things about a number of points. One is, although I want you to sit without moving At the same time, I want you to take care of your legs. How to take care of your legs? In some ways, how to take care of your legs may be to sit on a chair, and if that's necessary, please sit on a chair, but how to take care of your mind It may not be so good to sit on a chair, especially during a Sashin. Sitting on a chair is okay for short periods of Zazen, but rather difficult for a Sashin. Also Seiza posture, with your legs underneath you, is not so good for Sashin. It's too easy. You don't develop enough strength in that posture.

[03:41]

So I don't care how long it takes you. I prefer that you try to sit cross-legged or some posture moving towards sitting cross-legged. Your knees can be up or one knee up and one knee down or various kinds of jury-rigged postures with minute pillows and props. As long as your posture is moving toward half lotus or full lotus, I think that's the most stable way to practice. But it's still okay if you want to sit on a chair or Seiza, but you should be cautious about the unstable, easy quality of it. And make a special effort to concentrate on your breathing and have your strength in your breathing.

[05:14]

Now also I want to say something about down jackets, if you'll forgive me. I talked about it last period, last practice period, so some of you are acquainted with my feeling. Anyway, I think that, again, if you're used to it, it's okay to wear down jackets In other words, what I'm trying to say is not that right now you should throw out your down jacket because I see some negative effects of them, but you yourself should experiment with them, is what I mean. So I'll tell you what I found out and you please continue with your down jackets and see if you find out the same thing.

[06:26]

heat and contact with your body energy is extremely necessary in zazen practice and when you seal yourself off in a down jacket you lose your own ability to take care of your body heat so it's best to be dressed I think in some way which breathes and which you're a little bit chilly So it's necessary to produce some heat to stay warm. For example, if you dress up very warmly, very warmly, your body, your hands will freeze. Because you can't produce, if there's no need to heat your body, you can't produce enough heat to heat your hands. So your body has to be a little chilly if you're going to keep your hands warm. It's like sleeping in a sleeping bag with many clothes on and your bare feet freeze. I don't know if you've had that experience. But I experimented with down myself to some extent because when I first went to

[08:10]

The monks in Japan have some way to keep warm. They wear two kimonos, sometimes two kimonos sewn together with felt in them, and various little jackets and heaters. If any of you read The Empty Mirror, about that Dutch man who lived in Japan. It's quite interesting. I've only read a little bit but it seems to be quite interesting book. And they gave him one of those heaters to wear and he didn't know how it worked and he put it in his robes and pretty soon he was burning up and he thought it was he was producing heat or something. He was confused and actually it was just burning his skin because he hadn't lit it properly. Anyway, people have these little heaters they put down inside here. Most monks don't use them, though. And there's an interesting poem in, I can't remember now, it's the book The Old Man Who Does As He Pleases, it's a part of a diary, and it's some from the

[09:37]

ninth century or something like that, maybe later. Anyway, he tells about meeting a monk who was putting a down, a kind of down or a cape walk or something, making a special robe many centuries ago, and his teacher criticized him and said, nobody in the monastery did it except two people over 80. Anyway, when I first went to Japan, because they had these various techniques, I thought, and also Japanese people are gifted with an extra layer of fat in their skin, which helps them maintain their body temperature. So I thought, now we have this modern invention of lightweight plastics and goose down, I should try it out. It's rather recent, you know, goose down and lightweight plastic. Since the war, or later, in any popular accessibility. So I went to Sierra Designs and I had them make me a special jacket

[11:09]

fit under robes and special down pants. And we talked about supplying them to Tassajara in large numbers and to monks in Japan. But I got them to Japan and I wore them a few times and it was terrible. I froze to death and I couldn't maintain any body heat. I was clammy inside them after a few hours. If you're just sitting in really cold weather Particularly in Zazen you produce a lot of heat and then sweat inside such a ... if you do that then you sweat inside such a jacket and then you get up and go outside for running in the snow. Anyway, I don't think down is such a good thing to wear for Zazen. In Kinhin, when we were walking, after we finished slow Kinhin and the bell rings, last night anyway, we were moving too slowly back. Shouldn't be running, but some very prompt closing up the space in front of you and moving quite briskly, you know, back to your place.

[12:36]

And with your oyokis, please try to be careful and silent, and not drop your chopsticks, if possible. We're not so strict about it. In heiheiji, if you drop a chopstick, everyone in the zendo must stop eating. and everyone waits and Soku has to come all the way around and pick up the chopstick or whatever it is and then go to the altar and offer it to the altar while everyone's waiting and then come back and give it to you. you'd rather be almost anyplace else. It was so mortifying that when they did, when sometimes there was one old man who did it several times, I almost sort of pushed my balls off just to be sympathetic with him.

[14:07]

But doing your Ayurvedic, I would like you to notice different kinds of concentration, which I've already mentioned. The concentration, first of all, whether you're able to pay attention at all, or you're thinking about what you ate, etc., various things. And then if you can concentrate, and if you concentrate with thinking about what you're doing, what the bowl is, what the next step is, how you're putting it into the bag with some consciousness of not paying attention to other things but paying attention to this and not allowing yourself to pay attention to other things for fear of getting distracted. thinking about it, some applied or discursive thinking. Then note, if you can do it, just noting it without making an effort to think about it or to discount other things, just some easy way, noting it.

[15:39]

mental activity, just blackness, or if your bowl is white, whiteness, or no perception, but doing it with some sureness and not thinking about something else. In other words, I'd like you to notice different kinds of concentration. Yesterday I was speaking about not averaging our senses, not studying X, studying a particular thing in order to understand a particular thing, which is

[16:44]

the idea that we live in a repeatable universe. In Buddhism we don't study X in order to understand X and then study Y in order to understand Y and Z in order to understand Z. we study X in order to understand Y and Z, etc. So there's another kind of assumption in Buddhism which we practice with, not that the universe is repeatable, but that each one thing is everything, each one thing includes everything. So if you study man thoroughly, you will understand woman thoroughly, and vice versa. You don't have to understand first man, and then woman, and then something else. So we practice with that kind of thing. So Sesshin is also

[18:13]

an attempt to settle down with that kind of idea, to insist on it or hold it or live it. To practice, you know, Buddhism requires an enormous confidence. confidence in yourself and your teacher and Buddha nature or some sense that you can do it. Without that confidence there's danger of some deep division in yourself. So we again practice many have-tos By have-to's I mean like a mother or father change their baby's diapers because they have to, not because they want to. You don't say, oh boy, am I dying to change the diapers and you change them because you're enjoying it. You may enjoy it but your motive is not because you want to or don't want to.

[19:42]

Someone must change your baby's diapers, so you change your baby's diapers. That's all. It's not exactly in the realm of what you want to do or what you don't want to do. And we need, actually, such things. We need such have-tos. And people who don't have them have quite a difficulty. If you meet someone who is, say, very rich and can do anything they want, they usually create the most neurotic array of have-tos of some compulsive behavior. And people are always, alcoholics are creating some have-to, always putting themselves in some strictness by drinking or by some behavior that you, some rules you make for yourself. So in Zen we practice with these have-tos also, which are not in the realm of likes or dislikes. We come to service and chant, not because we like to or dislike to, but because it's a have-to that we have set up for ourselves in this practice, from the wisdom of this practice.

[21:11]

And if you're always practicing, geez, when will I get to like this darn practice? When will I get to like chanting? You're missing the point. If you get to like chanting too much, we should add something else that's something of a nuisance to do. Until you can do that kind of thing without any problem, because by that kind of a stricture or have to, we can actually study our desires, actually find, as Suzuki Roshi said, our organic power, our tendencies. Without this kind of have to in your life, there's no way to plumb your desire. There's no way to plumb your strength. There's no way to study one thing. We don't want to study just one thing, just X, until through X we understand every alphabet. It doesn't matter. You can choose baby's diapers, and if you understand them thoroughly, it's enough.

[22:44]

Nanaku said, if you want to practice zazen don't sit zazen. If you want to achieve Buddhahood there's no special type of person who achieves Buddhahood. But this kind of statement means the same thing as what I'm talking about. You know, Nanaku was Baso's teacher and Tsukiyoshi's favorite story about Baso and the tile. Baso doing zazen, studying zazen to attain Buddhahood. not doing zazen just for zazen, but doing zazen to attain Buddhahood. So Nanaku picked up the tile, you know, and rubbed it, till Vassa said, what are you doing? Nanaku said, I'm turning this into a jewel. So Vassa said, how can you make a tile a jewel? And of course Nanaka said, how can you make a jewel?

[24:15]

yourself into a Buddha. And then he said, if you want to make a cart go, do you hit the horse or the cart? It's the same kind of statement. Do you hit the horse or the cart? So what we do, you know, when you practice zazen for the sake of zazen, without any attempt to do anything else, you know, when you are completely engaged in our activity, you know, Zukershi said we may starve to death at Tazara or in Page Street. He might would have added green gilch, but he didn't think so. If we just

[25:21]

practice doesn't. Just in our practice taking care of things completely we need to trust that kind of activity. Not to study X in order to understand X and then study Y etc. but by studying X we'll understand everything So we just have that confidence and practice Buddhism, practice zazen just for the sake of zazen. Many sayings reflect this kind of feeling. when it's nighttime, dawn is here. Before winter is over, spring is here. This kind of confidence, you know, that even if you don't understand it, you know, or accept it completely, if you're practicing you should try to

[26:53]

Can I accept it? Can I just do zazen completely? Can I just do this zazen completely as if nothing else existed, as if I would die on Friday night? That's pretty soon, Friday night. And I think that's most of what I wanted to say to you. Do you have something you'd like to talk about? Yeah?

[28:12]

I find that whenever I try to develop something, I find grasping my without grasping mind. Will body is developed without grasping mind, not with grasping mind, just as you say. So sometimes it's called Buddha's own will.

[29:34]

I tend to understand more about body temperature. After a few days off, and especially days with AIDS, I get very close with my team, and I often try to shake her off. And it seems probably kind of like... It seems probably kind of just temperature, and probably some emotional things, too. This is a very important point. Anyway, practically, if you can find how you can move without losing your heat, without disturbing, is one of the purposes of Kenyan, how to make that transition. But this difference between various states of mind is something

[32:01]

related to what I'm calling will-body, the difference between you doing zazen, the difference between you doing kenyan, or the kind of problem like, if I say, if we say in practicing, just trust your impulse, go from that one thing lead to the next thing, then why when the bell rings do we go to zazen? Why change what you're doing and go to Zazen? Why do we make a decision to stop what we're doing and go to Zazen? Or you may have noticed, you know, I was speaking about I don't think I spoke about desire much here, but in San Francisco, Saturday, I did. We have various desires, of course, and as I may have said here, the kind of desire for food when you don't have it or to be warm when you're cold, to have, shall we say, a warm day when it's a cold day.

[33:29]

is not so difficult to deal with, because the fact is desiring it doesn't help. So you just find out how to accept it. But also, when you are more sensitive, the moment you feel something, I wish it was warmer, or something, usually That's a kind of door, like a trembling. When you start to tremble, trembling is the first uprising of strength. But because you miss it, you are weak and you are trembling. So when there's some danger and you start to tremble, that means your strength is ready, but we mostly interpret it as being afraid. Same, why we emphasize Buddhist conduct so much.

[34:30]

is because not only is conduct very important in various ways, for various reasons, but when we lose our conduct, you know, it is the same meaning as trembling. It's a sign that we had an opportunity to move to a more, a stronger feeling, or another deeper level. In other words, you may notice some afternoons you are completely distracted and you can't get anything done, you know, you feel wishy-washy or you just seem to be off, you know, you hit your thumb with a hammer or bump your head or you mislay your book or whatever, you know, many little things. And you don't seem to have any, at the end of the day you wonder, what did I, I don't seem to have done anything. Various experiences like that, when we lose touch with our conduct. But usually it means we missed a door, missed an opportunity.

[35:58]

because we did not have that will body or that ability to sustain and enter more deeply, to penetrate more deeply. So, usually if you feel something like, I wish it was warmer, or I wish Wouldn't it be nice if this was a spring day or something like that? Before, if you could be present, before it became that kind of thinking, I wish it was something, you know, if you're really practicing Buddhist conduct you don't waste your time wishing anything other than what. You just don't waste your time wishing anything than what is. It's foolishness. And when you have that firmly,

[37:01]

that conviction, and something occurs like that, you notice for a moment you had a spring day. Something, some warmth, or some sound, or some breeze, and for that moment already you possessed the object of your desire. You already hit the horse. There is no need to think about it further. So, actually, we always have the object of our desire. But in practice you can separate. You can separate the desire from the object of desire. and satisfaction. So in Zen we emphasize the pure experience of the desire itself without worrying about the object of the desire. Anyway, in various ways we try to understand these various states of

[38:31]

to practice or to continue what we're doing or to go to zazen. Some calm state of mind or some desirous state of mind. Or the mind full of desire and the mind relieved of desire. Why are those two minds different? In one mind you may, ah, this is what I want, this man or woman or this vase or something. But later you'll say, why did I want that person? Why did I want that face? What is the difference between these two states of mind? If you can penetrate X completely, you don't have that difference anymore. Is this me? that on one desire you have all desires. So we don't in Buddhism repress our desires but rather we penetrate our desires so thoroughly and extend that desire to everything that all our desires are satisfied. We don't have a feeling of satisfying some special desire. So we know the mind before desire and after desire

[39:58]

now in this mind, in our will, what I can say, our will body. So one of the aids to this is to develop that even state of mind. You begin to try to develop an even state of mind toward people, you know. One of the vows, as I said, of Samantabhadra, the ten vows of Samantabhadra, is to, and this vow occurs many places, is the vow to rejoice in the merits of others. But that doesn't mean, as I've said, to wait until you're a bodhisattva or enlightened or something, but right now start rejoicing in the merits of others. If in Buddhism we say, don't bear ill will toward others, it means right now, when you start thinking poorly of someone or very accurately analyzing them, that son of

[41:01]

I know he or she did that and their meaning was and they're just shit, you know. You may be quite convinced that's true, but just stop thinking it. Even if it's true, just stop thinking. You'll always be caught by some special desire and never be free of desire if you can't drop that kind of thinking. Not to repress it, not to get rid of it, but to develop that even mind, that will body, which can understand every state of mind. So our superficial mind, you know, is very distracted and demanding, and it doesn't want to be forced to do this. So, until you have some deeper feeling, it's rather difficult to sit a sesshin, even though there's some joy in finding out what a whole day is like from one point of view. How different the afternoon is in a sesshin than the usual afternoon. Still, we have some resistance to zazen and resistance to

[42:34]

getting rid of ill will or accepting with some confidence, you know, with complete confidence that by one thing we can know everything. But practice is to bring yourself back to this point. By one thing you can, well, all right, I won't do two things, I'll just do this one thing completely So you begin to understand, without questioning cart or horse, you begin to understand immediately what to do, what you are. Did I think this? Do I want to think that? Such decisions are not necessary because eventually you just know. Your body tells you, your eyes tell you, your skin tells you. And this practice is more, you know, characterized as mind-only practice or samantabhadra practice because it's in the realm of gazing or raising one finger or shouting. It's that communication of will-body to will-body, that compassionate practice. And Manjushri is

[44:02]

more infamous practice. But as I've said, you can't separate these two practices any more than you can separate when ... than you can answer a question distinctly. When are you alone or when are you with others? Sometimes when you're alone, you're with others. Sometimes when you're with others, you're alone. In that way, sometimes we practice Sometimes we practice Samantabhadra's Zen. And in this session I'm asking you to awaken more to that vision of, that stream of vision and sensation, we don't discriminate, which is one with our mind and body, and which we accept each thing equally, without analyzing or averaging. Just, you know, what is it? If you are distracted, bring yourself back with just what is it, or calling your name

[45:34]

or doing what Tsukiroshi called frog zazen. You know, something comes, you grab it. A frog, as he said, doesn't think it's going to become a Buddha. He already is a Buddha. So, Nanaku said, if you want to do zazen, don't sit. If you want to achieve Buddhahood, know there's no special type of person who achieves Buddhahood. You had some question?

[46:41]

I don't think it's so easy for a sponsor to invest in you. But certainly, at one point, you look carefully, so much that you don't always recognize him. He's trying to go to session. You don't, sort of, feel him. You know, like, maybe it's sort of like thinking backwards, but by that point, sometimes you can't get out of it, but you don't get out of it. You don't want to get out of it. No, Buddha's great big bare bottom is here in the center. And you have no choice. You have to come here to change his diapers. You can't get out of it. Or the whole world will be.

[47:59]

That was my own experience. Could you hear in the back what she said? No. What? I should be ashamed of myself, saying such a thing. She said, some of you didn't hear, so she said, from my own experience would I say How I became familiar with Zazen and got acquainted with Zazen? Is that right? And accepted Zazen or got willing to do it or something? Yeah. Well, if you practice Buddhism, I think it's almost impossible, in fact, to practice Buddhism hoping to grow to like it. I'm sorry. Her face looks like I just gave her terrible news. Bad news for today.

[49:31]

We may like it, you know, but then eventually we won't like it and we'll stop. And many people, not so many as used to, but it used to be most of the Zen center was people practicing like that, and then when the power of it became apparent and their own irrevocable involvement became frighteningly close, they go away, unless you have some love for your teacher or some psychological problem which is even worse. I think it's necessary to understand the vow and vowing is something that was rather difficult for me in Buddhism. I couldn't make sense of vow, vowing. But now, of course, I understand vowing and will-body are one thing. And vowing just comes from an insight into how everything actually exists. So vowing is something, some wise recognition of how we exist and so it becomes some aid to us.

[51:04]

and it's the way we develop an evened mind, which eventually lets our mind cover everything. So imagine if your parents, you know, I think I said this in San Francisco, imagine if your parents, who led the life they led, and they did various things, maybe they always wanted to go live in the north woods in a cabin, or be a painter, or go to the Caribbean, you know, or have a harem, or some kind of idea that they would consider each time they did something. And this is the problem a priest has, you know, sometimes before ordination a person, man or woman, getting ordained, they suddenly want to go to a long vacation or to some island with warm beaches or to many dirty movies. They think their last chance is coming down the tracks, you know, and they'd better jump on.

[52:34]

or jump out of the way or something. But actually, you know, your parents didn't go to the Caribbean, you know, so often, or whatever. They led a particular life. Say that they were able to know what kind of life they were going to lead, pretty much, and vow to do it, and to cut out all those things they weren't going to do anyway. So they weren't going along thinking, well, geez, maybe I will do this, but I've got to do this right now. They just knew they weren't ever going to do that, so they did what they did completely. In that sense, we vow to become Buddha. In that sense, we recognize finally by our experience that there's no other way. This is how we humans exist. Actually, we can do anything, we can go to the Caribbean if we want, but a kind of thinking which always wants to be somewhere else than we are, or to possess things. Eventually we see that this is fruitless, more than fruitless, completely deadly, and we vow to be rid of it.

[53:57]

By the depth of this vow we create our real body. And by this kind of vow we do Zazen. I'm sorry. You finally. So that's how I did Zazen. I decided I should do it, or I had to do it. And I made that decision and I've never changed. And often I didn't want to go at all, but I remembered, I said, at least one thing I'd do in this life is zazen. So I went, that's all. Yeah, I had to remember. I felt terrible when I forgot. Okay, go ahead. I'll help you remember. I'll put up little notes around your house. I'll paint it in the bottom of your teacups.

[55:31]

Next, I decided that I couldn't remember. I couldn't, you know, I was always distracted so I took some practice, one thing, to see if I could bring myself back to it. I did. I tried various things but the main one I worked with for a year and three months was there's no place to go and there's nothing to do. So every time I thought I will go somewhere I thought there's no place to go. I worked it so when I thought that it would remind me to say and when I thought there's something to do I'd say there's nothing to do. So if I was walking along the street and I thought I should do there's nothing to do. And I did pretty well for a month, and then I forgot, and then I won. But when I thought of a practice to do, and I forgot about this one completely for two or three months, or four months, or five months, I'd say, geez, I should have some practice. And I'd think, what didn't I think of? What was that? And I didn't change practices. I came back to that one. Why can't I do it, I thought. So I kept trying. Why is it so difficult?

[57:00]

And I kept trying. And after a little over a year, I was able to sustain it all the time. And after a few more months, it was quite easy to sustain anything. But it was rather hard, actually. I tried as hard as I could. It seemed so easy, but it always slipped away. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Yeah? I mean, there's no change. I mean, it comes up in concrete ways. And one of the guys in the session, I think it was one of the people I was thinking about, I thought being red-crowned was like a good thing or a bad thing, you know how things end up. And having the whole complex of emotions that go along with this, it would be, you know, I can live with it.

[58:28]

I don't know, that one of the ten vows of Samantabhadra, several of the ten vows of Samantabhadra are, but one of them is, I will try to talk Buddha into staying around And it's very much like we used to try to talk Suzuki Roshi into staying around, not go back to Japan. And then the other vows are, I vow to honor the Buddha, I vow to praise the Buddha, I vow to make moral offerings to the Buddha. So this feeling about the teaching is quite natural. to try to, if I can teach something, to try to encourage or increase the opportunities for teaching. But this means to open your senses now. Just as I was saying before, when you have that feeling, right then, why we make the offerings to

[60:00]

And then you can make the offering to Buddha. When you have that feeling, you offer yourself at that time. When you feel, I want to hear the teaching, what you hear at that time, you say, ah, that is the teaching. Then it doesn't matter if I'm around or not, or Suzuki Roshi's around, because whatever you hear will be the teaching. Well, it's not possible to know what's going to happen. And when you get involved in something, you know, the practice is that if you get involved and you know what's going to happen, it's going to happen.

[61:14]

It seems like we have a number of times in a regular period of time where I get something else to go into the computer. And at that time, the practical matters in my life. I have a job, I don't have to take care of. And I think I could extend the practice while to be really a practical thing. But then, it's not so easy to do that, though. And it isn't an obstacle or a desire to do that. To do that is to think it, like I said, can be a practical desire or a practical thing. It's okay. It's not a question actually. You know, I have no special talent, you know, for deciding to practice asana. I'm rather

[62:47]

Incompetent person and Find things very difficult, but at some point I decided This is pretty desperate situation pretty terrible situation and I'll try something at least without any hope I gave up completely hope of ever doing anything because everything it was so completely easy to fail and and not even come anywhere near success. So I figured failure was enough, you know. But at least I'd not worry about succeeding, but just try as much as I could. And from that feeling of just to try, my practice actually began to take root. I had no idea anything except I just try something at least one thing and I chose zazen I could have chosen something else so anyone can practice zazen and most of you can do it better than me

[64:17]

I'm not so good at zazen. And most any of you can try, at least as hard as I've tried. So we can just understand Buddhism together, realize Buddhism together by our mutual effort. Because my power of zazen is actually from you. Any strength I feel comes from you. It's not my strength. And any strength I have from zazen, I offer it back to you. In this way, the practice continues, actually, without some false ideas.

[65:19]

What is it to be good at sitting Zazen? I just try to do Zazen. As I said yesterday, there's no such thing as Zazen, there's just trying to do it. But you can ask then, why try to do something, anything? If you want to sit Zazen, don't sit. But I think you all find from your experience, no matter how you look at it philosophically, it's necessary to try to do something. And so the question is, what is it that you're going to try to do? And if you're smart, you'll pick the deepest, most profound, difficult thing to do. It's the only thing which will hold your interest.

[66:28]

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