I don't see. know from many days and many sittings. So I thought that what I could do, a couple of things, is try to convey something about the spirit of practice and the spirit of Cixin. over some of the, in the course of today I think we'll have an opportunity to talk about some of the forms and some of the ways that we do things.

[01:13]

And Karen was scared to so that we'll have an opportunity to ask questions and talk. This is not so formal a day. It's a day when we'll have a chance to exchange and hopefully learn some about the style of Zen practice. And I think in the afternoon, at about four o'clock, the last hour, we'll have tea together and also discussion about

[02:15]

So this practice, from the American side, it looks pretty formal. and homes, families, maybe.

[03:41]

for us. And I think there's some things about it that go back to the feeling that Suzuki Roshi conveyed when he first came here to teach. When he came here he was sent to minister to the Japanese Soto Zen Buddhist community. And Soto Zen They come, they do ceremony. who were initially beginners.

[05:37]

And he recognized that. And so he taught them about beginner's mind, Shoshin. And what he said was, in beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there are few. So that means that if you're new to Sesshin or new to the practice, Also to encourage you that even though we have this some aspects of our lives in which we really think we know what we do.

[06:53]

It gives you a tool. He said shortly after, the beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. And then he says, so the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. It's again and again to begin. And this applies very about this in Zazen instruction, if you're counting your breaths, counting the exhalations, you find instead of getting from very precisely, and you did from one to ten, and starting over, often you get to a three, and then you're off someplace.

[09:44]

You're off thinking about The trick there, or the practice there, is just to return to one, without any judging, to remember what your intention is, and to begin again, to become a beginner once more, without judging success or failure. So that's the attitude that we carry, that's an attitude that we carry into practice. those few here. At Sukhoji, when we were in the middle of a session, maybe my first or second one, for some reason or another he said, you people don't know how selfish you are.

[11:52]

And I thought, is that the right word? Maybe he means selfless. So that was a turning word for me too, because I really understood that the central teaching of Suzuki Roshi was not to be selfish. It's a very simple phrase. on his sandals, this was his expression of doing shikantaza. Shikantaza, everyday activity with no selfishness. Just doing the thing for the thing.

[12:56]

That was his shikantaza. We usually say that shikantaza means just sitting. And that's true. Just putting on your shoes too. adding anything extra. So that's the spirit of being unselfish. That's the spirit with which we do everything in our practice, in our lives, and in which Seshin is kind of a cauldron and a training place to really practice doing each thing completely has a lot to do with the fact that we are doing this for each other.

[14:03]

The kind of practice that we do here is sitting together. When I described Pinyin before, I talked about it as creating one organism, kind of like a centipede, where each leg has its independence and yet is linked to all the others and that they move in harmony. So in this way we're practicing for each other as we practice with each other. Our sitting next to each other, physically sitting next It's really hard for me to set up my zafu in my room and just sit. But when the bell rings, I come down to the zendo, and I'm happy to sit in this room full of people.

[15:12]

And some of them I know really well, and I'm happy to see them, and some people I don't know at all. And I think, where have they come from? And I'm happy to see them. How did each one of us get here? Each of us had a very long and winding road to get to this Zen Do. So when we sit down, we're practicing for each other. And also in Sishin, what's really wonderful as well is that basically we're taken care of.

[16:19]

That the schedule takes care of us. We don't have to working, Dolly, not just somebody, it's not Hashtag, it's us.

[17:23]

Dolly and I think I saw Ann in there and I saw Claire, I don't know if there was anyone else. They were in there cooking and Dolly's still in there cooking. And cooking with love and intention. And then the servers are gonna come and they're gonna come and they're gonna Later on in the day, Peter will ask you to do some work and you'll be given an activity. And then late in the day, people will bring you a cookie or a tea treat and some tea. And so it's just as the day unfolds and as the days unfold, as you are offering yourself to all of us,

[18:28]

in here offering your practice, people are offering you the things you need. And so you're all taken care of in a way that's... it's unique. It's really special in our lives. And it's nice to be taken care of because I don't want to minimize the fact that we are also, each of us, individuals, sometimes painful and challenging, could be physically painful, could be mentally painful, I guarantee that if you sit for several days, there will be some kind of pain arising, and it may be very deep. And we're asked to contain that, to practice with it, to just remember that we're not here

[19:41]

for the sake of the pain. We're just here to sit. But when the pain arises, we're present with it. each exploring their present state of mind. It's just a tremendous idea. It's very powerful and it's very rare. So I'm always this and take responsibility.

[20:56]

some of all these dynamics. Since it may be inside.

[22:36]

glance, and the whole matter of what you're doing can just kind of leak out like a hole in a balloon. You can give it away. And it's very interesting to watch. There's the desire to give it away. It's our habit. Our habit usually is to leaking, letting your feelings leak, and it's a way of imposing them on others, so that if you see, when you see that others are also going through something that is deep, period of silence in our lives that are so generally filled with noise.

[24:25]

slam and shut, which then actually shakes both buildings that it's attached to. So how you close the gate, how you handle things has to do with the respect that you have for them and the respect that you have for yourself. When we're chanting, chant briskly and with intensity. here. Use your orioke bowls mindfully. Try not to make noise with your utensils. That's a challenge. No unnecessary reading or writing.

[26:34]

That's, again, containing oneself. Every one of those retreats for three months, they're better at keeping silence than we are. And they don't read or write for three months. And that is a tremendous challenge. That means you have to stay with what's in your body and mind. And so we ask that if we're here for a day or here for three or five days. participate in kin-hin unless you need to use the bathroom. Use your rest periods for stretching and drinking tea.

[27:36]

We used to have a joke. It wasn't a joke, it was actually serious. We used to say, kin-hin is not a break. And it used to get repeated so many times. Zen in jokes that isn't only funny to any other human being. Hin hin is not a rake and everybody I may be sitting here and the person next to me is fidgeting or doing one of the worst things that a human being could possibly do, which is breathing loudly.

[28:52]

How could she be breathing that loudly? What is wrong with her? why are we why is it so disturbing and so we asked you There are keys to the residents' homes hanging by the door.

[29:59]

These areas are available for bathroom use and for vesting. That's generally true. I don't know what's hanging up there now. It isn't today because it's a little small. All I can say is I think the key to my house is usually myself, when my family is right there, it's very tricky. This is the kind of problem a monk in a monastery does not have to deal with. And sometimes it's a wonderful problem, sometimes I just can't do it. Keeping the residence home secure

[31:04]

and we have to be aware of what's around us. So, thanks. or just...

[32:51]

I'll speak to some other questions and comments. This might not be the time for it, but if you could say a little bit more about Buddha-Yogi practice. Not so much the forms and how to do it, because I think it just takes a lot of practice, just doing it over and over. But I know, I mean, I've seen advertised 12 videos on it, books on it, but I don't really... I've grown to appreciate it more than the first few times I did it, but I'm sure there's a lot to understand about it that I don't know anything about. And if you could just say a little bit about that. Well, what I'd like to say is that this is If you read the old texts, you'll find it described as an eating practice that was passed down from the Buddha, which is not true.

[35:05]

The Buddha almost certainly ate with his fingers, and probably ate out of one bowl, and I'm sure there were other bowls. It wasn't formal. This is a very Sino-Japanese So, as I think I said earlier, the point is to just enjoy your food and to do something together. It's the same as our bowing, or the form of dasa, or the way we do walking meditation, that on the one hand we have this form, And on the other hand, it's not about a rigidity. It's not trying to mold everybody into doing it. It's recognizing that within this form, each person expresses herself or himself in a thoroughly individual way, even though we may be doing things much the same.

[36:17]

There's no way where we're not machines or automatons. And that's not the idea here. So the spirit of it is to enjoy your food. It's a relatively efficient way of eating. It's a very neat way of eating. You have your food in these bowls. You eat them. You wash the bowls. You put it away. It's very simple. And if you're not caught by the form, then you have the freedom to do the form completely in the spirit of freedom and joyousness. And as you begin, enjoy the feeling

[37:22]

because this is one place where there's no sin in this tradition. And nobody's going to get kicked out of the zendo for putting their chopsticks on the wrong side of the bowl, even if they do it like three times. So it gives you an opportunity when you, because there is How do you respond? How do you stay present? And the other interesting thing I find is that foods in the zendo are, it really tastes good. And the same thing outside the zendo is like oatmeal, you know, like really? This is not, in any sense, the ultimate way.

[40:00]

go to another place to find we have a wheel in our tradition and this doesn't come so much from But all we need is like some rice and some vegetables, you know, and they could be prepared with great care and attention and be not so tasty. You're eating with your mouth, you're eating with your eyes, you're eating with your nose, you're eating with your ears, you're eating with your fingers, you're eating with your mind.

[42:03]

We're always eating and we can't stop. So, in that sense, whatever we do as a formal practice is an expression of mindfully paying attention to a very, a completely fundamental Sometimes, towards the end of the day, people get very tired. I thought maybe you might want to comment about the importance of the all-day commitment to this issue, and why people don't come to part of this issue in the city, and why it's important to Well, I think it goes back to what I was saying and what Amy brought up. Well, it's just really helps, it's very encouraging to begin together and end together.

[43:12]

To keep an intention and do that intention completely. And if you get tired, that's okay. Then you do tired Satsang. Or you do painful leg Satsang. Or if you get tired, you go wash your face. But try to stay. Try to keep your intention. To the extent that you can keep your intention here, again, I think that it's a laboratory for how you keep your intention in your life, which is extremely important. One is not any more important than the other. And if you keep that intention, that means you can trust yourself And other people can trust you. It's a very unselfish way of living. So we really try to do the day together. And if you're tired, you're tired. I do feel like one's body really knows when one is putting oneself at risk.

[44:56]

And usually that's not going to happen here. But sometimes it does. But try to stay in the tendos. Try to stay with your friends. or to feel the temptation to deviate from your original intention? Focus on you and trying to stay instead of moving? No, just focus on your... Remember what your original intention was. You remember that by That's my way of keeping my intention.

[46:30]

and how our ego, we make this intention to keep Ramadan, and how, I don't, but one makes an intention to keep Ramadan, and then how you want to slip out of it. You want to cut corners, or you want to say, okay, well, I'll get up, and I'll have my meal, and I'll go back to sleep. You do all kinds of things, thinking that you're keeping the, well, keeping the letter of Ramadan, but not keeping the spirit. This is really good. When you're in Sashin, do you always keep the same seat? No. You always keep the seat you're assigned to. And that's the only time. Usually, daily Zazen, we're not assigned to a seat. But for Sashin, usually the director assigns seats. And that's kind of necessary.

[48:12]

She's trying to keep a certain balance and order and so she knows where to find somebody to give them a note or leave a job card or sometimes the servers will sit in the back or something so that when they're gone or the cooks so that when they're gone there's not like this big hole so that's that answer the question and sometimes they'll get moved around and as again other styles other places is they move you every day He's Star Atlas.

[49:27]

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