Just Me

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morning
for lovely cool mid summer morning here
ah into
i was wednesday and thursday i was in las vegas
visiting my brother who lives there and it was a hundred eighteen degrees
i was really it was just
incredibly hot and
i've ever experienced raising their heart a place that actor and squared to get back to the natural air conditioning
still the heat was what would i want to talk about today is
just this
and
my gratitude for
just this
this place this practice
this moment
and even
for the blast of the heat as he walked out of the air conditioned hotel lobby
it was
i felt vividly alive in that moment
was just this
so
what i wanna do is only give you a little context tendon ah
talk about the word just
and then talk about ah an aspect of the practice that i've been doing with ha
with that notion itself
our ancestor the one of the founding
the ancestors of soto's in a dungeon
ha
or toes on ah when he
he had practiced for quite a while with his teacher union
and it came time for him to go his own way and make his way into the world and ah union was also getting on years
ah
and union noted as they were as as don't shun was getting ready to leave if you leave it will be difficult to see one another again
don't shine said it'll be difficult not to see one another
get a full line of be difficult not to see one another
and then just when gunshot was about to depart
he said he asked
he's in the future
someone happens to ask me whether i can describe
you are truth or not
how should i answer them
after a long pause
don't shine say a union said
just this is it
just this is it
such as finish off the subtleties don't show inside
he tried to take these words in but it it seems that he didn't ah
he heard it but he didn't fully grasp
and union said where's the the on that was as other name the young share now that you have taken on his great affair
the great affair of of our practice and carrying it forward
you must consider it carefully
gunshot didn't say anything he continued to have some doubt he doubted
he's understanding which
we can all empathise with i think
ah later as he crossed the stream he saw his own reflection in the water and he was awakened to unions meaning and he composed a verse
this is the verse avoid seeking elsewhere
for that's far from the self
now i travel alone
everywhere i mean it
now it's exactly me
now i'm not get
it must be understood this way he noted to merge with such this
going to read it again and i'm not going to explain it
avoid seeking anywhere else for that is far from the self
now
as i travel alone everywhere i mean it
now it is exactly me
and now i'm not yet
it must be understood it must be understood in this way to merge with sexiness
so i was thinking about
just this
and i remembered one of my favorite poems
which has the were just in it
as five william carlos williams ah probably you know if ah title is
this is just to say
and actually the title is part of the phone
this is just to say i have eaten the plums that were in the icebox
and which you were probably saving for breakfast
forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold
i'm right here that poem
this is the wonders of poetry that moment
just comes alive you can imagine
ah the poets mind in that moment even though what he's writing is or
a note to put up on the refrigerator
but it's not it's a palm and the more you think about it like the taste of a piece of fruit flavor kind of explodes and expands in your mind
just this moment

this very mundane
i was also thinking says i was flying out of las vegas on on thursday the plane was late and so it was ah
late twilight fading into the evening as we we flow from the airport in las vegas is kind of runs parallel to the to the the strip which is just one of the most unusual spaces
on the planet
ah is it's
it's it's quite incredible and you could think of it as alien you could certainly think of las vegas as a place that
for all the resources it uses should not really exist where it does ah
but
we took off in and week we circled around
over the strip and and sort of flying parallel to it and a relatively low altitude and it was just astonishing and that was
i just this moment as i as i watched from the window and i felt
the desire to because it and las vegas is the capital of desire i felt the desire to capture that that image ah
but yet like all moments it passed we just we just flew by but was quite and it was literally electric
so we don't have to make something wholly that's the the great things in just one of the things that are most great grateful for and his practices it's not about holiness
it's about how we meet the moment
seven looking at the word just ah
and i'm thinking about it ha
seems that the route perhaps is ah

is about ah
up a properly conducted ritual the route used to r u s in inland
but it's a wonderfully ha
it's a word that has a wonderful umbrella of meaning ah
means morally upright
ah
conforming to the rules
ah
marked by precision or is that exactness ah
righteous sincere
oh and as a that as an gives us an adverb ah sometimes it means it can mean barely or merely
but across a mean exactly
exactly this moment just now
ah and i was thinking and i looked this up and realized well it's nice to think foot i don't like making stuff up but i was thinking of
just this could just be a verb
another words to just this to put this into uprightness or for her of correct his or exactness it
that that meeting was not there and i am not proselytizing for that use of the word
adjust right thank you
that's right
hi
i appreciate kids adjustment to my expression you
right so on

we have going back to dump shown story just this is it
and it's moment after moment awareness
since just this moment and just this moment just moment and that is the process
have
that's it the heart of our meditation
hum
so i wanted to talk about
meditation and and come back around
to this this notion of just this
ah over the last few years off and on i've been looking at a book
irritating selflessly
practical neural zen by ah kim austin
this everyone knows book
it's really good he wrote his disbelief like telephone book was called zen brain is l sorry yeah i don't find it too easy to read ah but he's a neuroscientist who also is a very seasoned zen practitioner ah he
practice rinzai zen with with cabaret roshi was one of the great rinzai teachers of ha
the last
generation
i think lawyer and i met him on our honeymoon is that right
yeah yeah
we we got taken around to places in japan and right and he invite that was today's the table hearing all their all their hawkwind scrolls at his temple and with for he had us into t
i don't feel like any great wisdom was important but ah
it was not receive
yes
okay
i have a that shifted as usual she's right
ah
the gym is a very gym austin is a very seasoned practitioner and also his selling my zojirushi unique and roshi and ah ah really and also easily is an accomplished scientist so what he does he designates and this is very useful for me to approach
choose to meditation has two fundamental ah
approaches that are not mutually contradictory they're just emphases
so on
one
he calls a concentrate of meditation
which is a sustained attention that's focused and exclusive ah more one pointed so if you were doing the meditation say on the flame of that candle
if you really focusing on that
you develop a very strong single pointed concentration
the same thing if you're if you're using a a call on or a short mantra or a visualization these are all examples of
a kind of turning in of the mind you know in a concentrated way and there it's it's turning inward
and this is what tends to evolve into ah what the buddha spoke of as the john has the concentrations and you described if you read the story of his awakening
it describes him moving step by step through these respective concentrations ah
and
yes
using your mind in i dove in and directed way
so paying attention
by really turning your mind towards one thing with and ah gently or even resolutely putting other things to decide
ah so that's one approach to meditation
the other approach that he describes he is
receptivity
and i think that that is the basic instruction that we are receiving
ah in
in our practice here ah it's more effortless
ah it's less focused
and it's really the approach as suzuki roshi and social roshi say about including everything in your meditation so in this sense ah the way i describe it is all of your senses are
operating
your eyes are slightly open
your ears are open all the senses
including your mind
as one of the sense organs his open and receptive
but not so much active and i would distinguish that has the distinction between
seeing and looking
or hearing and listening
often when we ceased but it's also true that when we see something the hook of seeing something is that we get drawn into looking
that's the way or that's the way our senses work
so we're training ourselves ah to maintain this often receptivity is open awareness and that's another that's another major school of meditation ah and
as we do that
other things happen in our mind ha ha he describes er
he quotes
my zoomy roshi as
ah saying
this kind of meditation look we call she can taza ah is
a physically is physically relaxed it it'd be as being physically relaxed and yet in a state of greatly heightened alertness
so i think this is can win suzuki roshi talks about ah the frog and it gets one of the
this sections in is not always so the frog just sitting on the rock
ah the frog isn't
looking around for a fly to appear is just sitting but it's it's awareness is very open so that when when the flag comes close it can just call them
and i have lunch
ah but it's not it's not looking around it's just keeping an open awareness that is that is a tune to everything that's happening around it this is the way i would describe our meditation process so as we're sitting and facing the wall
lol there's not a lot of sensory stimulation
ha sometimes we can see
patterns of light shifting on the wall ah
sometimes a bug cross cross ah
sometimes we hear a car going by outside or plane overhead
hum but mostly as we sit there
we're sitting with ourselves
and perhaps the main organ that is a engaged is the mind
and
as distinct from a concentrated practice
we don't push things away we let them fall away
that's the process of she contessa ah we may meet them
and we'd like them fall and we were alert for the next thought that is coming along
in this way we become
deeply intimate with ourselves

there's no
his nose
directed course of our activity or of are awakening for of our practice it's just this just meeting ourselves moment after moment
so sometimes when we describe
and taza
we sort of translated or describe it as just sitting
this
interesting in all the uses of the word just you could think of it is sincere sitting as upright sitting has exactly sitting as merely sitting all of those things
ah
so this is the challenge because it's very easy for that sitting to slide into for that receptivity to slide into just dreaming
and because like things that we see or hear
ah over all of our sensations in all of our thoughts it's they come with
a
like one side of a piece of velcro with with all those little hooks ah so i thought arises and we can to match it up with another thought and then are stuck together and they want to make a story
which is there's nothing wrong with it that's wonderful but it's not what we've decided that we intend to do when we sit down

so got this from
i gotta practice that
lol to marsden talks about
and the more i read it the more it made sense to me
and i've been more or less doing this for the last ten years and i am to
tell you about in in we can try together for a few minutes
so often when we were given jobs and instruction
the first part of it is really settle into our breathing adjust our pasture
get all of the physical elements properly aligned adjusted
and then one of the instructions
might be to count your breath
has a way of letting your breath lightly
being a focus of concentration so it's not that there's no concentration concentration is extremely important in our practice since one of the factors of enlightenment ah it's just that
the way i would describe it is
we're being taught this impossible task of concentrate on everything
hum
so to have this really open mind which is very clear and receptive and settled like ah
like a pond on a very still evening
with you know rip gradually the ripples die away and you just have clear water
so our minds can become like that
sometimes
but that's not that's not a goal
so anyway
we are given instruction and counting our breath
basically to let that count rest on the exhalation
and count silently to yourselves
ah and then
develop your account from one to ten and start over
mrs very was pretty simple
can i
for some time for some people including me i actually find it really hard
to get to like to
am
smelling them frying chicken down the downing street ah or thinking about ah a letter that the email that somebody sent me resolve something like that you get distracted and interest return without any judgment in start over again at one
and a certain time also as your as your practicing you can you can let the counting fall away
and just be with your breath and thoughts
so ah

when he suggests is ah
briefing on these two words
just
this
so you can breathe in on the word just
and breeze out
on the word this

i redo his instruction actually

have you do part of it essentially pretty elaborate ah

let just returned to the silent beginning word that fully occupies each in breath
let this
become the word for each out breath and the closing of each breathing cycle
you may find it useful to reserve a particular meaning for justice
ah that it signify that only this particular moment exists right now within a vast expanding awareness

what i'd say is you also don't need to attach a particular meaning to the words because the words rest really nicely on your breath
ah
it
for me
because it's the same words and the same feeling with each breath ah if i don't get lost and in the way that sometimes i do when i'm counting
he brings me into this moment and then gradually as you're sitting sometimes that just he fades away
and that's okay you fade into this this is what i think you you fade into emptiness is an expression and suzuki roshi uses
ah and you just allow yourself to be aligned with we just the openness of the vast universe
and then if you feel like you when you notice when you feel like you're drifting away and you need something to tether your practice you're sitting in that moment return to just this
so let's try it for a minute
please sit upright

and ally your body

sign your in breads
silently say that we're just to yourself
he not your exhalation
this

the little hard for me to tear myself away from it
ah but what i noticed as i was just doing this is that
my mind is still this still like this transparency there
and even as i'm holding those sounds in mind
i could hear
an airplane fading into the distance
i could hear a dog barking
all of those happened all those activities or mind of ordinary mind are going
and you can't say which is the background and which is the foreground is very interesting but just this was sustained
and i i like something that
jim lawson also he writes ah
awesome this book about
this expression that we have in cent of no mind
about which we have
many misunderstandings ah he says it doesn't mean of vacuity a mental blank a state of unconsciousness
instead
it refers to the basic clarity and receptive nature of our mind once we liberated from discursive thoughts driven by unskillful emotional
reverberations
so

the korean teacher jingle
carefully explained he wrote up a book which i had like the i'm gonna get straightforward explanation of the true mind ah he carefully explain what is no mind was it was a mind not you not deluded by aaron thinking this mind could still access is full range of subtle disk
ruminative mental functions thus no mind refers not only to are being keenly aware of each moment in a calm clear manner
it also can include on normal allied capacities for calm clear objective thought
have i think that's and in clear non emotive
perception so i think that's what's kind of we can see this running parallel we can see through just this and sees other perceptions without having ah and strong emotional response to it
and maybe it is this is a whole open question but
can we see our emotional responses that way can we see the responses as has also part of what we are taking in or what we're perceiving without
letting those hooks that that i spoke of ah
find their ground and posts along into some reaction
so i think that i'm going to stop there and leave a film leaves a minutes for for talking and and your questions and
you know if you find this are a useful practice
try it out and let me know
when you think ah
but i think that
at the heart of it
he's just an ex is just
my wish to express my gratitude and appreciation for what has
been offered to us by our teachers then make make my life available to me
and the same thing the forces available to
everybody in this room and actually the same thing is available to everybody in the world
but they have to have a way of meeting it they have to have a way of bringing of touching the wellsprings of their own being
so i'll stop there and ah
your comments and questions are welcome

linda

i'm
now it's exactly
me now i'm not it
ah for me
the implication is
that i am the entire universe and i am a part of the universe

i'm not all of it
ah we're having a dialogue and so in this dialogue you and i are are really connected right now
and you are part of me and i am part of you and yet is there are of territories of our direct experience ah
that are also
not accessible to each other
have i honor that
that doesn't make me feel incomplete
yeah it makes me feel or there's somebody my universe include somebody who's holding the linda has section together

so make sense since the start
yeah it's just a yeah that's a first
a first attempt at ah thinking that it

yes

yeah
yes i think it's right
it's ah
it's a big mind which includes everything
it it includes
all the particularity ease of one's own life
you i thank you
yeah it

yeah

right

well i think the you know the ah
the image that the the archetypal image is that in and out of roman times i guess is as blindfolded woman holding a scale
and ah
so it's about finding balance without preferences i suppose
ah and that's that's the attempt
that may be strictly speaking a i think that maybe impossible or an idealization but that's but that's the idea and so order to do that
ah i think in order to contemplate
justice in the world which is an important principle to me
i have to have some ground of balance some feeling a balancing within myself
ah because otherwise ah i'm gonna be
i'm gonna be certainly pulling down the blindfold ah and all of these the title is book is meditating selflessly all of these all of these efforts are
not to negate the self
but to
be able to
work with the self in a in a way that recognizes that everyone has a self
and those selves are all
they're are of equal value an important
and mind is not the be all and end all even though
in most ways one acts as if it is that's kind of organically wired into us so ah justice the notion of justice in those notion of equality or not the same thing but their they're intricately involved
charles

yes
i'm i better
the aware that you can feel your breath you can you can place just this right there
in the rising and falling of your horror
and that's the there are countless ways to
ha
in a fine points of meditation or horror is really that's where our energy and the seat of our practice is in many ways you could have a very and this is where you could have a very concentrated
meditation practice that quite my newly focuses and zeroes in on your horror or you can have a broad
you can think of yourself i like ah that the instruction that we give at you pyre which really makes a lot of sense to me is a
our practice is having a strong back in a soft front
and the essence of that soft front is to have an open horror so that the front of your body his open
exposed
and receptive to the world and that so you think about when i think about the horror and think about how and i think of an openness i think about the way an infant walks when they learned to walk before they've learned to be afraid of certain things fell walks her belly out and the
the kind of ah
movie example of that to me is a think about
to share on the fully in those samurai movies how he walks it it's it's sort of like a swagger but it's not it's really like belly forward to the world and really open and if you see if if you have quite a few v with met who we to suzuki roshi he walks
like that it's not a swagger it's just open and that's ah that's a physical manifestation of
being ready to meet each moment
so i think that's a good place to end for the end we can talk over t ah and
i hope you will enjoy the rest of the day the rest of the weekend