a you for good morning everyone
ha we have fought
we have a wonderful turn out for sushi
ah and also wonderful bob
turn out for the practice period ah i think that some of you are new to ah
generally new to a practice period we haven't had
the last factor spirit we had was in the have
i guess it was in the fall hoffa two thousand and nineteen lizard and a shorter practice period asked her to practice that was a year and a half ago
and top now we are we're
trying carefully and thoughtfully to have renew and ah
reinvigorate the traditional practices that we are used to having
so i thought that the the theme for this practice period is
go to begin by speaking about zazen cassettes believe our north star
and said i'll be the classes and lectures most of which but not all of which i'll be doing ah will be on basic
principles basic teachings of the buddha ha and i think that it's it's really important
to be grounded in this
he's to me ah
are continuously for continually inspiring ah
when i came here
ah in the eighties
certain roshi was doing a lot of teaching on basic buddhism ha and so we would learn about the four noble truths the eightfold path the the factors of enlightenment the hindrances the parameters all of these see
systems the precepts
that are ways of the their ways of looking at ourselves
their ways that help us in our relationship to ourself and also in relationship to those around us ah and
ultimately they helped to help us wake up
ah they help us on our path has bodhisattvas and on our path to buddhahood so that's what our subject matter will be for the for the next six weeks
this week lecture and decks weeks but collector i want to focus on zazen ah because that as i said that's the north star of our practice and
it's you know pivotal in
certainly in my training insurgents teaching suzuki roshi is and our lineage as it descends from from dodi century so i'm gonna begin have speaking of a given speaking of duggan's saws and instructor
one
let's say something first about very briefly about sixteen and practice period so sushi
he is
a way to step back from the ordinary activities of our life
it means literally to touch the heart who touched the mind so we stepped back from this ordinary activities we set them aside and
just focus on our practice
our practice including susan walking
eating working
ah resting and so forth ha usually this is something we would do altogether
but we're doing it together in cyber space where we have actually i feel that we've learned
really well how to use this territory over the last year and half and i will pop admit
i was not a big fan of of the idea of it
before it became a necessity
when it became a necessity after the pandemic ipsec oh okay
in order to stay together this is what we will have to do
and i think what's inspiring is that in the course of ah the pandemic our membership is grown
attendances is very good ah
car finances haven't slipped and we i feel that we've with the pandemic and also with how with the loss of so general she's death we have really pulled together as a community so i had greatly
really appreciate that i'm really inspired by hand this also shows in her opportunity to do practice period
our pract usually traditionally practiced create there would be
in early buddhism the practice period would take place during rains retreats ah during the rainy season when it was really not so practical for the monks and nuns to be wandering about from village to village because it was pouring rain if any
the have you ever seen it sake
you know like find me a tree to or a cave to hide in but what the buddha inaugurate it was okay during these this three month period let's come together and practice together
pencils that was the beginning of what we but our japanese ancestors called uncle
ah hunger was a a ninety day period is usually happened twice a year it happened in the didn't really hot season and happened in the really cold season ah and that would be it an opportunity for intensification of practice
so
the interesting thing here
is that we're doing practice period in the world
that our practice and our training is not
monastic
although it has monastic aspects
but
we need as well to look at
how are we been trained by the conditions of our life our family by our work and what are the resources both in terms of zazen and in terms of buddha's teachings that we
that really inform her lives inform our lives as social beings and former lives it's family members has worker says ah has social activists whatever ha
these principles that were studying or not somehow apart from that
they inform everything that we do
so this is the beginning of our spring practice period
and i hope that we will have another practice period in the fall and have her the opportunity once again to have a shoe so add student
can top
also
cloud is a long discussion but we're exploring how to come back together
you know how to open again for ah activities in person and we're going to do that very carefully
but where you're going to do it
so
take a breath

i want to start with to
two points about our practice both our practice in general and
our she controls a are just city
you're both these are both drawn from our ancestors token century help people were biographical background on him
so in one of his important dot physicals are bender war which translates as whole hearted practice
token road
in the buddha dharma practice and enlightenment or one in the same
because it is the practice of enlightenment
a beginner's whole practice of the way is exactly the totality of original enlightenment
what he's saying is in another way of putting it ah as we've heard many times
ha
unlike the usual
proposition that we practice in order to become enlightened
dogan turns that on his head
and says
we practice
because we are enlightened
because we're already enlightened
we express that enlightenment by our practice
and that is what he called practice in light winter practice realization connected the heart of
huh of dobyns teaching
and that is what he meant by zazen
and it's interesting because if you look at the period in which token
studied and taught
ha
he
he was actually presenting a radical perspective
that
ah good first of all most of the buddhist schools in china and japan for most of them meditation was an aspect of their practice
it went along with precept practice and devotional practice in in a whole range of other practices it and you'll still find that if you went to have
if you went up ah
two city of ten thousand buddhas in northern california which is it quite a traditional chan ah chinese zen monastery ah meditation is one part of what they do but it's not necessarily the pivotal part
there's of their study
there's translating there's devotion and so forth ah what domain did what he put he put zazen at the middle of his practice which was and of the middle of what he he offered to remain that was a radical perspective and he all
oh so
emphasized
by emphasizing practice realization
he was deemphasizing certain kinds of concentration practices that were very commonly part of the meditation instruction
so hot in a sense he was he was quite a radical and this is the tradition that we've that we've far
we've inherited we think of it as traditional and i suppose maybe after eight hundred years it's fair to call it traditional
but
at the same time
it's true that we're just one school of buddhism
and we're here because it works for us
i mean surgeon
took to it because it changed his life i'm sure that many of the people for on screen now
i mean i'm just looking that the people that i see right in front of me the top row all of them had been practicing for twenty years
and on
you wouldn't be doing it we wouldn't be doing it if somehow if it can feel alive
if it didn't feel like a fatal practice
the other thing i want to read from dogan before telling you about his life is ah at the heart of the first call for concerts np that we're going to that we're going to examine
is a dialogue that takes place between a monk hand a zen master a yakuza kota
so son was sitting zazen in a monk sm
what are you thinking
your state of stillness
the master said
think about not thinking
the monk says
how can you think about not thinking
in the opposite says non thinking
i just wanted to drop that into the pond there this is not new for many of you but it's it's the question that will have do
how that we really work with
can we have to find the meaning of that for ourselves has we're sitting here today
you know as we've been sitting on morning and we're going to sit all afternoon
so what a little background about jovians life if you don't know what he was born into an aristocratic japanese family ah in the year twelve hundred
ha and when he was two years old his father died
and then when he was seven his mother died
until he was orphaned and as he sat with his mother's body he noticed the rising incense smoke
and he watches curl and disappear into the air
and it brought forth for him
a perception of the impermanence of life
hand as the narrative goes at that point he decided ah
even though he was only seven years old he wanted to become a buddhist monk
when it was thirteen
he had the opportunity to to that and joined at ten die monastery perhaps the main sector to time ha ha where his uncle was a priest
well
and then he came up with a question
and that question was
if as all of the
buddhist texts say
all people are endowed with buddha-nature
why is it that we have to train so strenuously
to realize that buddha-nature the words for already enlightened why do we have to work so hard
yet the monastery
and ah
his uncle
couldn't really answer that question
he said i think i think that's a question for for a zen practitioner
and so he sent them to to see a rinzai master who had recently returned from china and this was our master asi who is usually credited with bringing rinzai zen
did you be
and ah
dogan yes master esi and he said all the buddhas in the three times of past present and future are unaware that they are endowed with buddha-nature
but cats and oxen
are well aware of it indeed
ah so but this is interpreted to mean is that
because buddhists or buddhas
they don't think about having or not having buddha-nature it's just a natural expression of who they are
whereas ah cats and oxen at us
ah cats and oxen are
in our delusion we think about buddha-nature is something we have to acquire
so when he heard this dogan decided okay i'm gonna stay here and study with with a sigh
but it turns out that a site died the following year
and
tobin became very close with a size main disciple
museum ah and he studied with meals and for about nine years and and they both decided they would make the long trip to china
ah and look for an authentic teacher because they weren't finding they both felt like they needed to go another step and they weren't finding that egyptian
so
to make a long story short dogan have practiced in several monasteries and ah with several teachers and finally came across his teacher routine or her tenido jojo
ah
that he that was his central teacher take some of you've been to briefings monastery haha yeah stand was in the and unnatural else ah i wish i've i've never been there to ah so
the story is that one day routine was doing his morning greeting circumambulate in the yeah
the zendo and he came across one of the monks sleeping
ah not so unusual and ah
i he he hit him with his slipper
ah and said oh
the practice of zazen is dropping body and mind ah what do you expect to achieve by this single minded sleeping
ah
now dogan who was sitting next to her this and that woke him up i never woke up the monk you know you we don't hear any we don't hear a follow up a pen about the mount them something to work of duncan
and he went to routing
and he said body and my and the offered bounty offered incense he said body and mind who dropped away
can routine approved and they continue to practice with him for two more years and
then he returned to to him
so this dropping of body and mind is a also an important principle in our in our practice
it means in a sense settling it to zazen
from the and been freed from our
limited thoughts
how slippery minds
the
difficulties of our bodies and just been freed from these things that we usually we hold on to and touching the oneness of
consistence
and you were studying together
token as routine
what is the mind of a bodhisattva
enriching replied it is as soft flexible mind
cooking as what is soft flexible mind moving said it's the willingness to let go of your body in mind
so soft flexible mind is the mark of our school ah
that doesn't mean mushy in means responsive
it means
being aware
and being able to
respond to whatever given it to to
bring forth an appropriate response moment by moment
so when dogan return to japan and seventeen twelve twenty seven ah he wanted to teach what he saw as to buddhism which he understood as zazen and so he wrote the fuck
and says sandy
ah for he began composing be worked on it actually in many ways through his whole life so there several versions on
it's interesting that he wrote he wrote it off of
an earlier
zazen instruction ah
which i can send to you if you wanted this
these chinese zazen instructions called mg in in japanese very common but one in particular was the was the model it's a the so john e
by a mastered sunset and what you can see and are reduced some sections ah dogan
really appropriate it's sections of the text whole
ah but he also he elaborated and personalized it ah to expresses his own deep philosophy
so

the for cancer mg begins with three questions
first is the way is originally perfect an all pervading how could it be contingent on practice and realization
so that right there is the question that he presented to
his tendai teacher
if the way is perfect in all pervading
what's the need for practice and realization
because it's already here

he asks server mrs a an extension of the same question the dharma feet vehicle is utterly free and untrammeled
therefore are concentrated effort
the indeed the whole body is far beyond the world's dust who could believe in a means to brush it clean
so for those of us who have studied this is a ah
this is a reference to
poetry contest that takes place in the platform sutra
ah
between ah
winning who was ah so for country bumpkin working at the monastery been enlightened one and shinshu who was the primary disciple of the of the fifth ancestors in
ah
and you probably know the story that have the fifth ancestor wanted to
transmit his robin bowl to pick a successor
shinshu even though he had doubts about his ah his accomplishments wrote a poem ah basically hub
the world is a mirror stand in the mind is that is a mirror and our practice is to
be wiping it clean of dust
on and on
can't ah
somebody read this poem to rename and he had someone come with him cause he was nominally illiterate and he wrote an answering palm saying there is no mirror stand
there is no mirror
we're could gus delight
so it's this is really the perspective that we might see in the heart sutra the perspective of the via negative
ah and
according to this narrative he won the contest that's that's another
discussion but this is what tokens were referring to her who could believe since the war whole body is far beyond the world's dust who could believe in a means to pressure clean ha how can you brush the body clean when there's no dust
and finally he says it has never apart from it from you right where you are
what is the use of going off here and there to practice
which is which is kind of interesting because
he went to china
two
that's where his awakening happened ah
but i think that what he's saying here is that are awakening is not contingent on place her awakening is contingent on
our practice wherever it is and wherever it is it can be realized
hand
wherever it is we're never apart from me
so he asked these questions is are framing questions at the beginning of the text in any season yet if there's the slightest descript discrepancy the way is as distant from as heaven from earth if the least like or dislike arises the mind is law
lost in confusion so these this is a reference to
ha
famous poem by the ah slither journey ancestor i think is that right are the shin shin mean ha
hundred children mean
says if there's the slightest discrepancy the ways is distant from heaven and earth to realize its manifestation be neither for or against the conflict of likes and dislikes is in itself the disease of the mind
do not dwell in dualities and scrupulously avoid pursuing and scrupulously avoid pursuing the way if there's a slight least like or dislike the mind is lost in russia this is
i think every line that we read here
opens up a big question
ah this opens up a big question at one thing i would say ah
ha
this is really the dharma from the standpoint of
non-discrimination
and
in order to be able to
come to terms
with are discriminating mind which is also a part of our buddha nature
we have to be able to encounter embraced the non-discrimination in mind at the same time
in case to me in the case of these these all teachings her songs
our every suitor every buddha teaching is medicine
the idea of medicine
whether it's allopathic or homeopathic
it's about bringing us back into balance it's about it's a it's a teaching it's a substance that helps us harmonize her being in harmonize our life ah
so this very strong statement ah if the least like or dislike arises the mind is lost in confusion
is a way of correcting
the current dominating power that our likes and dislikes have for us
can i bring us back into balance
i think it's important to recognize and as i've said this is a this many times that
to understand that medicine is not food
we take certain dosage of medicine
to bring us
back into balance
ah but we don't eat it we don't sit down to eat it like a meal
if we
if we take all the medicine at once can we get very sick
so what is our place a balance
the next line say suppose you gain the pride of understanding and inflate your own achievement ha glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things attain the way and clarify your mind raising as aspiration to escalate the
step very sky so
you know
we don't encounter so many people like that in our zen practice but some of us who are practice elsewhere and other traditions ha
have some of that experience in meet
people who are very very proud of their attainments ah and
they think they've got it
it may maybe they do
dogan says
if you gain he sings say you're making an initial partial excursion through the front years the dharma but you are still deficient in the vital way of emancipation

the news it then look at the buddha himself
who was possessed of great inborn knowledge
the influence of his six years of upright sitting is noticeable still
or bodhi dharma who transmitted the buddha's mind seal the fame of his nine years of wall city is celebrated to this day
the of old how can people today disposed with negotiation of the way so in other words so here
he's coming to that first question right ha
he's he's saying
although the way is perfect and all-pervading it is still contingent on practice and realization
the buddha had to do this in order to bring forth what was what was already in him what had been testified to ah by all the wise people and gods and figures at his birth
worse but he still had to do this he had to bring it forth the same thing was bodhidharma
so
this is
if this is what these figures did
how should we are why should we do something different in them
then so this is all this is sort of the preamble
and there's one to a transitional paragraph here
he said that you should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding
pursuing words and following after speech
and learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate yourself
this is what the buddha said
ah
in his last teaching he said
be a lamp unto yourself
the whole of the practice is
watching the way our mind works and how that becomes
our active self in the world
and the ants you know the the response that is like is not oh i should go in a cave and cease to interact with somebody
but in the context of practices you should cease you should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding pursuing words and following after speech ha in the context of your practice
what we understand is beyond words
but it is within us
it is our fundamental nature
the learn the backward step
that turns your light inward to illuminate yourself it's like a dance step right to backward step
actually one of my favorite ah bluegrass tunes is called the clinch mountain backstep
i never thought of that before it's the clinch mountain backstep so that's a is in
ah
body and mind will drop away of themselves
and your original face will manifest itself
so it'll drop away by itself you cannot make that happen
econo she used to say
ah
enlightenment is an accident
in zazen makes us accident prone
so yeah have your accident problems like
ha
after years of doing zazen i mean it
i can trip all over myself
very accident prone not that that enlighten
ah a nice as if wish to attain such miss you should practice searches without delay what he means a practicing such as is what is going to get to right now which is
practicing such as is
teigen layton ah some of you know from ancient dragon ah in chicago
says that
the practice of zazen is buddha mudra
i really liked that a lot so when we think about need the emphasis surgeon really
and suzuki roshi school really emphasize posture
that the pasture
he is
putting our body
in the form of a buddha
that doesn't necessarily mean i'm in the model is
cross they could sitting
but really
it can be manifest in every in any form your i'm thinking of the little statue that i have on my
on my altar here hum
which is
kenny is high it's a model of this forty foot golden buddha had nagaoka in india ah the school that i teach at and that buddha is in the pasture of striding not just peacefully
walking but but half with a little forward lean you know really moving through the world that's also buddha mujer
so
to practice such this without delay is to take up this position of bermuda to when you put your body in this position
then you allow your buddha-nature to express itself
and
there follows now a

oh another couple hundred words which are the formal laws and instruction itself
ah
i read one more paragraph in and will take some questions so this is where he begins to palm
draw from
the traditional text as well he draws her blood is were cianci john johnny ah

so for the practice of zen a quiet room is suitable
eat and drink moderately
cast aside all involvements and cease all fares
quiet move our zendo is quiet room right now hopefully the rooms that were sitting in a quiet
that's not an absolute quiet as a general quiet
ah
quiet room is suitable
eat and drink moderately
cast aside all involvement and see affairs in other words when you walk into the zendo try to put aside
all of that we brought with us that's hard you know i mean my experience ah at the start of my practice is was that are in a forty minute period of zazen
it would take thirty five minutes before those kinds of
busy thought and urgencies would start ebbing you know then i have like five minutes of sort of cruising leno bellerin but but i do see now is
no i'll say more about this next week as i sit down
a
often those involvements and affairs
fall away by themselves
which is a great relief
so do not administer pros and cons and other words don't say oh my zazen thousand is good doesn't is bad i can't do this you know ah what am i here forget about all that just place your
to cease all movements of the conscious mind which doesn't mean that that's a he saw movements and the conscious mind engaging of thoughts and views
ah
what that allows is for the unconscious mind to flourish
to allow the flow
of
just thought that are secreted by mind and yet and not to evaluate them
not to measure or prepare
allow them to rise and allowed them to fall away
finally he says
ah
have no designs on becoming a buddha

don't think about becoming the were just be a buddha
it takes
it's really hard for us to
on the fact
that we are buddha
but
it's kind of the that's the message gets the message of all the teachings so
it's not like you can't try to be a buddha ah
it's a present student who was piling a who was polishing a stone to make a mirror
it's not going to happen
ah
then he says the practice of zen has nothing to do with the for bodily attitudes cats are moving standing sitting or lying down that's what i'm just saying this buddha murderer is
not about some particular
posture that is conducive to concentration ah
the zen the the
the practice of zen is beyond that it's really about settling yourself on yourself
in a harmonious piece way in that
in that soft flexible mind we spoke of earlier
so i think that's why i want to stop from today and the next week we're going to the kind of nuts and bolts of of his as an instruction i think sometimes during the practice paid also will do a a friday afternoons as an instruction but we have some time for
questions and comments and so are of i'll turn it over to my best and to into you thank you
okay so if i would if you have a question that you would like to address to on please raise your digital
you're fine
i'm on the bottom line or in your chat participants box i'm not sure it depends on what program you have or you can still be a mess

on
you can go ahead and a new jersey this question
yeah
thank you for your honor
on you mentioned that ah
we don't take medicine something to the fact we don't take medicine to get a cured we take medicine to find balance and i was wondering
you know what you meant by that because i look at it like ah yeah medicine is like it's like a cast the cast isn't going to
kara's
i get it but it's gonna hold us and place so the rest of us get and balance and in terms of
then had a how do you see that
well it's it easy
one of the the
next that i read read from more objects that a red red from in the beginning car is called jazz chin which is ah
translated as the acupuncture needle of xin ah so
then is
america that my my notion of i didn't say it's not about curie
ha ha it is about army hormone a mean i'm thinking holistically and so that
if your body is functioning in a harmonious way than you are
you're healed your cure
so on
i don't wanna get too literal in this ah but one of the things that's interesting the commentary tunes ascension is that
ha
not only is does acupuncture needle 's acupuncture in a medical
healing approach henderson is it's it the buddha is often known as the great physician ah we have all these metaphors of or of
our suffering as our sickness but in part also ah there's the application here that her
that zazen
as as acupuncture needle of zazen heals us from some of the potential sicknesses of zen
ah handers there's a lot of talk about that in the traditional literature which which usually has to do with overdoing it
you know with with pressing too hard so you know if a little medicine he is a good thing done a lot of medicines gotta be better but that's not the case
thank you so
heather plates on meters asked the question
when it has on
several fire practices ago
settling the body mind
i've been struggling i've been having a particularly painful meditation could have concurred
from my brain was very agitated for the first few sessions and that i switched to a bench which will lead right
and allowed me to think profound much more profoundly into the practice
and i have never fully
developed a relationship between
how much pain is
for and how much does it hinder and when is it time to interfere
yeah that's a really good question i mean assuming when did you to attain your document his physical pain is correct yes yes but but the physical pain big by brain agitated yeah i mean it's interesting because sometimes
for some people the physical pain is ah allows one to focus and if it's not physical pain than your mind is all over the place but ah i think you have to be the judge of how
how much is enough
and know this is something mean i
i had to i had to figure it out ha surgeon struggled with it to it certainly early on he had he had a lot of pain
ah and
i think
the point of view at that point was just tough it out
it was more macho level ha
it for myself was that
i would not go further than ah then i felt i was
like you to be injuring myself and i don't think i ever a matter of injuries and various
artifacts of old age and arthritis but ah
i not a gate were injured myself doing that but ah yeah you don't have to push that hard
and same time
it's really helpful too
try to extend ourselves so that our body can open so that our our hips and knees can open further of just finding that balance and that's the king it's your balance it's not
you know
no it's not like in japan where they will come around and they would shove a ah
you know a stick kiyosaki under your robes and if you weren't sitting full load lotus you can imagine where that would go
ah we don't do that you're really it's you really are you have to figure it out yourself
thank you thank you
he'll say please done it yourself and ask your question
hassan i
can you see me yet again nothing
am
i'm wondering why you continue to practice
clearly maybe and green maybe have a limited imagination and can fake it for it
now that's untrue
what else is that a real question answer your question
hum
almost everything
good that's happened to me in my life
has happened
within the environment the practice
how could i
how could i do anything else
i don't feel myself to be
virtuosic
ah
suddenly have have faults and par human flaws
but

well actually this is gonna be the classroom teaching on thursday i believe in the three treasures
in buddha dharma and sangha
all of those to me they're all the there
very much intertwined
and par
i love living in sanga
and to be
account of to community and said i always wanted that
so
i could
wax rhapsodic but i won't and it's also
not a day at the beach
but
i don't know maybe it's like a data northern california beach ca capital
saturday in the bahamas or in hawaii
thank you thank you
gary did you have your hand up
well maybe have time for one or two more
anything in the chat
no

or perhaps we're done going up
up
thank you rosanne and the and really you answered a lot of my question but if we're already enlightened
they're the first thirty five minutes of your early practice brought you to five minutes of of what
when you say you got there and what i'm really asking is
already enlightened why you continue practice already enlightened
what do you get by practice i mean you know these raleigh have been answered but could you answer to take feedback what
ah why practice if you're already enlightened

my
when i first came here
there were people
can i looked up to
ha
they're not so many of them around ron is rude ah
and what i've felt was there was a way that they moved in the world
in sojourn also in maley
and the number of people that i
considered in consider my elders
i could not define how it is that they move in the world
but
i felt that
i wanted to be more like that
and as i practiced
i came to
really believe that they
they weren't necessary that that literally that way because they were born that way
but because there's something in them
in the manifestation of the three treasures that that brought it out and
even though
character logically i'm a doubt type
ah
i also have faith
and my faith
i must say my faith was has been encouraged by it all my teachers
ha
often in moments when
i'm i really doubt it herself
but com
i don't know what the practice does immediate certain moments i hate
i could say i feel that it is requires
one's brain
but it don't know how that happens actually and i'm not particularly
not all that interested in neuroscience mean i like it okay but i don't i don't study it but i know some happening in a you know ah so hundred of that's an answer to you will so yes thank you and and you would say that guy is embody
read in the what you see without knowing what it is you want to see if you can embody that is that's we as clear as he gets i guess yeah and somebody who really embody it like sometimes you know in my mind or my body
i feel different peoples bow
p o w you know i can see ah sojourn bow and where i can see a or roshi palin i can feel i can feel that in my own way in my body that lets you know in certain respects it's just like this beautiful foster how you learn to play music
you know you
you learn the way a person phrases something
and you really go deeply into that until you come out the other side
in your own
in your own expression
because if it's invitation that's not alive but immigration may be the path by which we reach what is original linux
thank you very much thank you so i think we will and there
the chatbox i don't know if you want to take it why not
okay it's as uchiyama said coping to the effect of johnson is making calming the body an opening that the pod how do you understand that is especially the ladder and then is opening the hand the backwards
it is not a russian
hum
i'm not sure if it's a rational and put i think it can eat too conscious act
you you have to direct ah you have to
you may have to give your mind some direction in the sense of
for me opening the hand of thought is
is something that i try to do in terms my own
way of thinking about it of just has i'm sitting each morning
can i open my mind so one way that the golden comes to be dog and cancer bad g use the my ah which often directed his self fulfilling
somali self-fulfilling concentration on another way to hear it is receptive concentration can i like that that's more useful to me ah and so i i literally as i'm sitting
i try to open critically my ears
and allow whatever sensations are coming to come and see
if i can become aware of them before i name them
that's opening the hand of thought
closing the hand of thought is
putting a name and a story on it so so that that's the way i understand that and let's just say which yamas pajamas approach just to say there's other approaches to meditation this is our approach our approach is this soft flex
or receptive mind on
the or that's one major
type of meditation the other major type of meditation is ah
very tightly focused concentration
with the word of or visualization or light from a candle something where you focus really intensely ah
and that's a different that that's a different different kind of medication i'm not sure in essence stared their different or they they do different things to you but i think what i've seen as a dm they may have different effects on us ah in a broad sense
but that's getting the to fine points and the which probably and
thank you thanks