Well, this is the fifth day of our session, and this afternoon we have our shuso ceremony. I want to talk a little bit about our attitude in the shuso ceremony, toward the shuso ceremony. We each ask a question, and the shuso response. So in the history of our HUSO ceremonies for the past 50 years or so, or however long it's been, we've come to where we are asking good questions. And so I would like us to continue developing our way of expressing ourselves in a fundamental way.

[01:14]

You know, I remember in the past, people would ask questions like, what are we having for dinner? Or something like that. Which, if you really are a good Shuso, you will be able to say something that will startle the person who asks the question. But basically, that's not the kind of question we ask. We ask a serious question. If you ask a flippant question, it would be great if the shoe sole hits you over the head with it. Yeah, a little more volume. I can't. I can do it. So we'll see how this goes. Yeah. Is that better? I'm speaking very... I keep turning it up. We have to hear it. Yeah, that's better. I can hear it. And then the shuso has to respond to the question.

[02:23]

I don't say that the shuso has to answer the question. I don't use that word. Shuso should respond to the question in one way or another to bring the question down to its essence. The meaning of the question, down to its essence. As soon as the shusa, you know, we tend to, the shusa can, you can ask a question and then the shusa will respond. Then you can develop another, not another question, but say something again about that response. So you have two choices, two chances. One is you ask the question, you get a response, and then you can further develop your question if you need to. Does your question have to be in the form of a question? I don't know what a question is.

[03:26]

Well, you call it a question, but you didn't have to answer it. No, I didn't say that. Can I say something which is not a question for her to respond to? Has a question mark at the end. No. OK. You can give her the answer before she asks the question. But there's a tendency, you know, to ask to seek a third response. or a fourth response, and the shuso should not get caught by that. As soon as the shuso starts explaining, you know, please explain my question. You should just eat what she gives you to feed. When she'll feed you something, you should eat it.

[04:30]

But, sorry, it may be a good response, It may be way off the track. I'm going to say we have to stick to that. But that is the attitude. And she doesn't have to answer right away. She can think about it. It has flexibility. It's not like you're doing a lot of thinking. It's got to be hopefully beyond this thinking process. Because the shusho should respond from here. Of course it goes through this mental construction as well, but not necessarily. It's good.

[05:30]

It doesn't have to go through this thinking process. And the answer, the response, that's why it's not necessarily an answer, it's like you're responding to the question from a very strong place, which is not necessarily discursive. So it's a very fundamental kind of question and response. Very fundamental. And so the response may not match what you think is the question. It may not match what you think should be the answer. So that gives it a lot of vitality. And the vitality is really what carries the whole thing.

[06:43]

Your question should have vitality. And so the vitality that you express in the question brings out the vitality of the response. That's important. Yeah. Like a verbal Rorschach test? Yeah. Whatever that means. If you say so. It brings out the response. So don't be timid. Sure, sir. So you can't say, shizzle! Bah! And she'll say, rah! As she always does. So I'm putting everybody on the spot here. But this should be vitality. And that's...

[07:43]

When I had my shuso ceremony in 1970 at Tassahara with Tatsugami Roshi, I didn't face the students. He said, you have to face away from the students and you just hear the question. So you don't know who's asking a question. Oh, I did. But it's like, he said, it's questions coming from all directions. You have to respond to questions from all directions. It's not like you're being nice to somebody. It's like a vital question and a vital response. And why don't we do that anymore? Well, I'm asking you to do that anymore. Turn around. I mean, turn around. Oh, it's not necessarily a good idea. It's just the way he did it. That's OK.

[09:04]

Set it up so that the questions will pop from all over the place. Yeah. There'll be some surprises. It'll be fine. The way we do it. OK. So anyway, that's what I would like us to keep that in mind when we do this ceremony. And what happens about halfway through the ceremony is that somebody asks the shuso a question, and then the shuso answers, and then the person asks again, you know, and I don't understand, and then the shuso feels sorry for them. That's a big mistake. Oh, I feel sorry for you, so don't you understand? It's da-da-da. But pretty soon you get it all drawn out and then the next person asks the question and you get into the mode and pretty soon it's taking forever and the energy is gone.

[10:11]

So explaining is not what's going on. You're not explaining anything. You're simply responding to the question. And the user may not be used to doing that and probably not. do that. But I think that she was perfectly capable of doing this. I have total trust, total confidence that the shusa was able to kindly respond. I'm not saying that she should be unkind. She can't help but be kind. It's her nature just to be kind. But how to be kind is the question. How to be kind and at the same time be successful. Right? Right.

[11:13]

So, you know, she was up there with the fan and the stick, you know, and I've never done this before. I don't want to run away. So it's always missed out, you know, when you're on the spot and somebody asks you a question and then... but, um, these dragons and elephants give me your question. Don't travel me to death. But I'm standing up here in front of you and doing my best. and to not get turned over. So it should be something that is usually called dharma combat, but we don't call it combat. But it's inquiry, called dharma inquiry, to soften it up a bit.

[12:21]

But it's a kind of confrontation. Not confrontation in in a bad way, but confrontation in this, we're face to face. That's con-front, right? But con-front, the con, I'm not sure what the con means. With. Yeah, with. Front to front. Front to front. So front to front in a really real way. This is the real thing, you know. We're not pussyfooting around. I will do my best. You give me something, and I'll do my best to respond to what you give me. That's all. Yeah. I'm not suggesting this, but I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to explain something in a response, to explain to a questioner with vitality.

[13:26]

Yes. This is not the rule, it's just the attitude. So, and inevitably that happens, that will happen. It's not to put their, just use them in a box and say this is the only thing you can do. It's not the rules, a rule, it's an attitude. So that it stays on a level that doesn't get drawn out. The questioner often will try to draw more explanation out. And the thing for the shuso is to bring the questioner up to the level of the shuso, rather than for the shuso to come down to the level of the questioner. Or to meet in the middle. So you want to bring the person up to your level. But sometimes you want to walk down to their level.

[14:29]

That's okay too. I mean, you know, it's just... You want everything to be on a fundamental level. That's all. So Jim, I once heard that Some of the questions that are asked, particularly by those who know the shuso well or former shusos will ask questions to bring out parts of the shuso's personality that haven't been expressed or designed. Yes, well the former shusos usually ask the tougher questions. They feel that they have the authority to do that. And I think that people, students who haven't pinched youself, are a little more reserved to probe.

[15:35]

Which is not, it's just the way it is. Not that it should be that way, but it's nice when, you know, students are not so reserved and probe. But when it comes to the former Shusos, because they've done that, they feel they have the authority to, you know, be more persistent or more... see if they get more out of the Shusos. It's just the way it happens. But even if they're fierce, the Shusos have been very kind in the congratulations. Well, we've been talking about, we've been doing chanting practice and talking about the echoes in our chanting practice, in our chants.

[16:47]

And one of the chants that we haven't, the echoes that we haven't talked about is the echo for the arhats. The second chant was not just for the ancestors, but for the arhats. The six supernatural powers of the arhats may be always with us in our unceasing effort to renew Buddha's life. And he talked about it. People often say, well, she, you know, like Dharahas, that's Hinayana practice. Why are we saying, why are we honoring the Dharahas? But in our practice, in our... Sri Yukteswarji used to say, this practice is Mahayana practice.

[17:55]

It's the Hinayana practice of the Mahayana mind. So, we actually, the Hinayana, or narrow practice, is also something that we honor in our practice. And so, the sixteen arhats were direct disciples of Shakyamuni, and each one had a special power. One was very erudite and the other was very mystical and so forth. And each one had a quality that was kind of their specialty. And that's very interesting. And then the 500 arhats, their followers. We say the 16 arhats and their followers. The followers of 500 arhats.

[18:55]

which I think appeared in the Lotus Sutra. In the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni is having a gathering of the Arhats. The Arhats are Shakyamuni's students. And they're called arhats because they're worthy of having an offering. They're worthy of offerings. And in our Yemen chant, we say, may our ritual and practice deserve this offering. And that's what that means. It's like we're the arhats. We're taking place of the arhats. And does our ritual and practice deserve it? Because there's no other reason for people to give the arhats food. except through their virtual practice. So because of their practice, they're fed by people.

[19:58]

That's the custom in the country, in India. So that's their work. Their work is their practice. So the 500 Arhats were there with Shakyamuni, and he was He said, you know, you've come this far, but you haven't come far enough. And the Arhats looked at each other, and they got up and left. They thought that the nirvana that they had accomplished was the end of practice. And they got up and walked out. So even Shakyamuni had problems with his students.

[20:59]

Of course, this is all legend, you know. But we pay homage to the Arhats because of their hard practice, even though we don't practice in the same way. But there are elements of Hinayana practice that are in our practice. The criticism of the Arhats by the Mahayana was that their practice was self-centered, that they practiced for their own benefit to reach various stages of attainment. And this is what makes Dogen's practice very different. than attainment practice. He said, this is not... Dogen said, this is... Zazen, Shikantaza, is not one of the meditation practices.

[22:03]

What he means is, I believe, that Shikantaza, our Zazen, the way we practice our Zazen, is not an attainment practice in the same way that the jhanic practices were attainment practices. So he explains about the eight jhanas, which were very popular in certain periods of time in the practice of many of the arhats. Four practices in the form world and four practices in the formless world. And our Shikantaza is a no-gaining practice. Very difficult. The most difficult practice.

[23:04]

Some teachers did koan practice, and shikantaza, and so-called breathing practice. The way Suzuki Roshi presented shikantaza to us was, we don't separate various practices. Whatever we practice, we practice as shikantaza. But there are some Japanese priests who say, well, Shikantaza is a very special kind of practice. But actually, it's not a special kind of practice. Other practices are very special, but Shikantaza is not something special. Suzuki Roshi continually saying, it's nothing special, it's nothing special. People don't really understand that, necessarily. Nothing special. It's just our life, just settling down on our life, the way it is, moment by moment, within birth and death.

[24:18]

Shikantaza is how we experience birth and death on each moment. This is why breathing practice is not a special But at the same time, it's nothing special. It's ordinary mind. Ordinary mind. Very special. And at the same time, nothing special. It's very ordinary. But ordinary, very special. I'm going to read you a little bit about what In these echo lectures that I've been reading from, a little bit of what Suzuki Roshi says about the jhanic practices, so that you know what I'm talking about.

[25:26]

One thing he says about the arhats, he says, you may think that our practice is quite different from Hinayana practice, but Hinayana practice is very important, especially for the Soto school. We do not discriminate against the Hinayana practice at all. We respect the arhats, and we respect their effort, and we ask the arhats to join our practice, and our wish is to practice as hard as the arhats practice, That's why we recite a sutra for the Arhats in the morning. That's what we used to do, but we don't do that anymore. So then he talks about the jhanic practices. He talks about, in Japanese we say, Tamare, Jorai, Makana, and so forth. And then he sang the Samyo Rokutsu.

[26:54]

Samyo is the power of clairvoyance. This is one of the jhanic practices, to gain the power of clairvoyance. To see things through various obstacles. The Arhat can see even his past life. And the next power is to hear... These are the four... I was talking about the jhanas, but I was talking about the power of the jhanas, the first four. The next power is to hear from a distance, and that is the arhat's power, to hear very far from a distance. I took a Korean teacher, I told you this, Dr. Seo, to Tassajara back in the 60s, and he gave a lecture, talking, standing up. He was a Korean teacher, or more of a scholar.

[27:58]

And he was standing there, and he was saying, you should be able to hear ants walking a mile away, if you really have the power of the jhanas. And then there was an earthquake. Okay. So the next power is to hear everything, hear things from a great distance. That is the Arahant's power. And the last one is the power to put an end to the karmic life. So for Arhats there is no karma because he extinguished all the desires and he doesn't cause any karma. So this is the third power. The six powers, the three powers are included in Rokutsu.

[28:59]

The first power in Rokutsu is to see everything, to have clairvoyance and to have ears capable of hearing everything and to have the power to read someone's mind, and to have insight into others' minds, and is able to observe the causes of various sufferings, and the power to see people's past lives, including... past lives, he's kind of mixing it up here, and a kind of supernatural power to fly across the river without a boat, and a kind of supernatural power, perfect freedom from everything, And this last one is more subjective power. You cannot say this kind of power is some objective power. It is more subjective. But the Arhat has that kind of power, and he thinks he has some conviction like this. The way he attained this kind of power is from the power of practice. And this kind of practice is the practice to attain some supernatural power.

[30:03]

So this was where originally the attainment practices of the Jhanas. People are kind of resurrecting the Jhanas practices in the Apasana community. People are trying to see what the Jhana practices are and see if they can practice them. They've been dormant for many, many years. When the first Indian priests came to China, monks, they dazzled the Chinese with their supernatural powers. And that's how they gained a foothold in China. So if you're in India, this is the norm. The Jhanas came from old Indian practices.

[31:05]

And then when Buddhism became, people started to practice Buddhism, they included the jhanic practices in Buddhist meditation. I've heard of these supernatural powers monks, not practitioners, but lay people who are getting all excited. But I also read an ayat-kema describing the jhanic practices, and not in terms of any kind of supernatural power, but more as kind of mental states to try to cultivate on purpose, because they're wholesome. First one's like very pleasurable, and then they get more subtle, but there's still kind of like a pleasure thing going on. But there's no talk of we don't talk about, they don't talk about supernatural powers, but that was one of the goals in that early time, was the supernatural part of the powers.

[32:10]

But Suzuki Hiroshi talks about the one power that we That's the most important one, is not a supernatural power. It's the power that everyone has, is to... The power to stop creating bad karma. That's the most important one, is the power to stop creating karma. That's the power that is not a power. It's just ordinary. And everyone can do this without being in a rut. I was thinking about our practice of intuition that comes from quiet sitting or comes from paying attention.

[33:17]

That's a kind of seeing that's not a typical kind of seeing. So that sometimes that use of intuition is a way of the kind of stuff that comes up out of nowhere, the knowing that comes up is kind of like one of those practices without actually focusing on having it happen but noticing. Intuition is always with us. That's what I mean, but we cultivate that in a way, like our Siddhi practice. You can say cultivate, that's not one of our words, but we allow it to be, because our intuition is actually our natural oneness with things.

[34:31]

And a discriminating mind covers intuition, because intuition comes from non-discrimination. But as soon as we start discriminating, then the thinking mind takes over. So it's a kind of... not that thinking mind is bad, but because it's always working, it easily covers just intuition. So that's why we stop the thinking mind, so the intuition can come up. We don't stop it, but we put it aside. Thinking is over here now, instead of in the middle. So intuition can arise. Is that a kind of seeing it in advance? Some of those practices that you were talking about seem to leave a comment. Well, yeah, sure, of course. Yeah. Well, that's why the jhani practices are there in zazen.

[35:34]

But the thing about the jhani practices is that there's step-by-step practices. First jhana, second jhana, third jhana. So eight steps. Whereas shikantaza is no step. It's just one step. throw yourself into the ocean, you start swimming. There are no steps. And this is the hardest thing, is to get over the fact that there are no steps, you know, because we want steps. We look at other practices and, well, there's this step and this step and then, you know, concentration, right? Until you get to Nirvana. But we start from Nirvana. And there's no place. We go from zero to zero.

[36:38]

We don't get to one. We get to one, but we don't get to two. Linda? This is a question about no attainment practice in karma. Well, the tile polishing. So you're not really trying to improve yourself. You're not trying to become anything. I'm not trying to improve myself. I've been... It depends on what you mean by improve. Yeah, I'm not trying to become something better than I am. Something different than you are. Different, which I might think of as better. So you know, it'd be better. But I understand what you're saying. Excuse me. I'm trying to get over that. Here's the question. So if we make a mistake, like knock our chopsticks off on the list, Then we just return to the bread, and somehow the chopsticks get back, and that's it.

[38:08]

Don't they? What do I need to do to become a person who doesn't knock chopsticks down? No. Well, first of all, the chopsticks fall over. And if you're limber enough, you can pick them up. Or a waiter. Sorry it's long, but I wanted to go from there to a more serious mistake. So, let's say that, you know, I'm an addict. So, I shoot a drug into my vein, though I know I shouldn't have. Or I beat up a child. I'm just making it dramatic. Now, is it the same thing? thinking about is just come back to my breath and say, oh, I beat up the child. Let's go to the next woman. And not worry about becoming something else. I think you should worry about it just enough.

[39:10]

You should be concerned about whatever you do. The punishment should fit the crime. Well, the punishment for dropping a chopstick is that you have to pick them up. You get the word punishment, you know. The punishment for beating up a child is different because that's a crime. It's a different kind of a crime. It's a different kind of, you know, this is a mistake. So, when I say punishment fits the crime, you should understand what I'm talking about. The consequence. Right? So there are different consequences for different acts. What is my attitude when I say, oh, I did that thing which was harmful? Yeah, then there's repentance, of course. Repentance is how you save yourself. Without repentance there's no salvation.

[40:14]

So right there, I'm about to do it? And I say, I shouldn't do this. And then I do it. Yeah, well, you know, compulsion. Even though you do a compulsive act, you still have to repent for it. You still have to make some recompense to free yourself. Otherwise you're a captive of yourself. And this is what compulsion is. You're your own captive. You can't free yourself from yourself. forgiveness is to free yourself from yourself. That's called dropping body and mind. I'm appreciating what you're saying and I'm also hearing a little ... there's another perspective that comes to me which is

[41:20]

When my intention is just to do it for myself, I shouldn't use this drug, I shouldn't beat this child, I shouldn't do this because of myself, it's not very strong. But when I actually hold the intention of not wanting to create harm, what the impact is in a wider field, the karmic effects in a wider field, it's much stronger. Sure, why not? It's where that intention originates from. Yeah. But it also can just originate from, you know, sorrow. That's where it originates from. Sorrow. If you don't have some sorrow when you're harming others. One thing is you're harming yourself. Another thing is you're harming others. So if you're simply harming yourself, of course that has an effect on everybody, but you have to take care of You have to take care of yourself.

[42:22]

But you have to realize that harming yourself is also harming somebody. So if you harm somebody, you have to be contrite for doing that. And if you are harming yourself, you have to be contrite for doing that. It's just to get beyond the purely self-centered way. It's not self-centered. I don't see that as self-centered. It's about you, but it's not self-centered. It's self-centered. I'm not sure if we should take this off the air or not. The sorrow, the truce, the remorse or shame, that wholesome quality in the Abhidharma, Yes, I hear that. There's also a way, when I hear the way Linda constructs the story, where the motivation of wanting to avoid the compulsive habit or whatever is more my personal struggle with it.

[43:29]

And when I take it out of the personal struggle and put it into the larger container, it has more possibility. Sure. So there's a koan about this power. A sage, a hermit, called on Buddha and said, we have five supernatural powers. This is sage, but he's not necessarily a Buddha sage. And he said, we have five supernatural powers, but I heard that you had six supernatural powers.

[44:33]

What is the last one? What is the power which we do not have, which we do not have? And Buddha didn't say anything. Without answering his question, Buddha asked the hermit sage, this is answering a question with a question, right? Which you don't like. What do you think the last power is? And Buddha knew that even though he explained it, the hermit sage would not know the last one. The power to be completely free from karma. Usually people, even Buddhists, think that after attaining arhatsha, they will have the sixth power, including the power to be free from karma. But that last power, the power to be free from karma, is not any special power. It is a quite ordinary power. But we do not care for that power so much, and we ignore that power. Although we have it, we ignore it, and we think we have no such power. Buddha must have some special power.

[45:41]

The five powers he has are already supernatural special powers. And he thought Buddha had one more special power. But Buddha didn't have any special power. Buddha knew what kind of power he himself had. So usually because we don't know what that power is, we are involved in karmic practice. If we know that we originally had that kind of power, we will not create any karma. But just because we are ignorant, of it, we create karma for ourselves. So practicing to attain some special power is actually to create karma. So even though, because of those practices, the Arhat can fly to the heavens or go to the heavenly realms without any trouble, still if he goes to some heavenly body, realm, he has to come back to this world. If he takes a bath in the heavenly realm, he should die in the heavenly realm. I said, well, what does that mean? Then I realized it means that the heavenly realm that the Arhat may go to, he has to come out of because he can't stay there.

[46:52]

Because you can't stay anyplace. There's no place that you can stay. So if he's going to take a bath there and say, this is it, he should die there. So even if he goes to all these places, he has to come back to this world. So that kind of supernatural power does not possess the power to be free from karma. But the last power, which the Buddhist has, is the power to be free from karma. And for that purpose we practice our way. So that's, I'm sorry, that may not be right, but that's our way. So, Dogen Zenji and his Shobo Genzo, the classical supernatural power called Jintsu, wrote about the last power. As I've told you this story many times, this is the story of I-san, who is a teacher, Master I-san from China, Kyogen and Kyozan, his two disciples.

[48:01]

I remember yesterday or the day before, I talked about the story of the White Ox. I was on Isan. I practiced on Mount Isan. This is the same Isan. Very famous. Isan Kyozan. Kyozan was his disciple and together they had the Igyo school in China. One of the five schools in China. So Master Issan is taking a nap in his room. And Kyogen, his disciple, comes by and looks in. And then he starts to walk away because he doesn't want to disturb his teacher. And Issan says, wait a minute, wait a minute. He said, it's okay. You don't have to go away. If you want to be with me, it's fine. He said, but I have a question for you.

[49:04]

He says, I just had a dream. What do you think my dream was? And Kyogen says, wait a minute. And he goes downstairs, and he gets some hot water and a towel. And he brings them up to Isan, and he puts a towel And he wipes his teacher's head with it. Washes his teacher's head with it. A very nice feeling of doing something very simple to please his teacher. Nothing special. There's nothing special at all. And then while they do that, Kyotan comes by, his other disciple, and he says, he peeks in, Nissan says, don't go away. I had a dream. What do you think my dream was? And Kyozan goes downstairs and he makes some tea.

[50:09]

And brings three cups. And comes up and offers it. And the three of them sit down and have tea. This is called magic powers. This is the magic power of being ordinary, of reading each other's minds. We can all read each other's minds if we really let go. We do it all the time. We read each other's minds all the time. But how we act toward each other when we read each other's minds is the important part. Reading each other's minds is good. But how do we act toward each other? The way is, you know, when the teacher has a jishya, the teacher can do all the stuff that the jishya does for him. The Abbot can make his bed, he can make his own tea, he can do all these things.

[51:17]

But the purpose of having a jishya is to have that relationship. of how you should take care of the abbot. Not because the abbot needs to be taken care of, but to teach the students how to relate in a way that doesn't take much words. It's like, how do you know what the need is for somebody? How do you know what somebody needs? That's mind reading. And there's the other, Sandava. Sandava. Sandava is, there was a king and he had a retainer. I told you this story before too. The king, when the king would say, Sandava, the retainer, his conservant would know, either to bring salt, a chalice, or a horse, I think.

[52:22]

A white horse. So the teacher would say, the king would say, Siddhartha, and the retainer would know which one to bring. I do that with my dog all the time. It's true. We're walking, I never take him on a leash, so he's up there, and I say, and he knows, overturning right. Or I say, overturning left. Or I say, he wants me to come back. That's true. I don't say, go left, go right, I just say, and he hears it all the way at the end of the block and he turns in the right direction. It's amazing. So he reads my mind, definitely, and I read his mind. But he can read my mind through. Yeah. To me this sounds like intuition. Well, of course. It's all intuition. Yes.

[53:23]

Totally. It's like directly knowing. That's intuition, to know directly. And so you create that kind of practice, you allow that kind of practice, that this is what Sachine is about. Sachine is about intuition. We do have directions, we say things, and we set things up in a certain way so they don't bump into each other and we know how to do stuff. But it's all intuition. And that's why we don't talk much. Unfortunately, during work period we do talk a lot. But if we didn't do that, our intuition level would be much higher. And this is also what we get through intimate practice. that is direct and doesn't depend on a lot of... It's not that thinking is not there, but intuition is directing thinking.

[54:34]

That's why you say big mind is intuition. Big mind. But small mind, which is wonderful. Small mind is how big mind expresses itself. But when small mind takes over, It's not allowing the big mind to express itself. Small mind is called ego, but it's not necessarily ego. Small mind is not necessarily ego. Small mind has two branches. There's dharmakaya, which is the source, and sambhogakaya, which is the wisdom, which is from the source, and nirmanakaya, which is small mind. But small mind has two branches. One branch of small mind is being directed by big mind, and the other one is being directed by ego.

[55:38]

So we want ego. We want to get into one thing, so that ego is not taking over. and obscuring the intuition of a big mind. So yeah, big mind is intuition. Directly knowing. As soon as we say, I don't know, something comes up. Because we've cleared the deck. The most valuable thing that we can say is, I don't know. And something comes So, I remember Tseng Tsang used to say this all the time, just don't know, just don't know, quit. Go straight, just don't know. Walking straight, not knowing. But you know. When you don't know, you know. You leave the door open for knowing.

[56:41]

Anyway. So, this is Shikantaza. intuition, just leaving the door open. That's why, if we have some purpose, that covers knowing. So when we sit in Vajrayana, we take one breath at a time, inhaling and exhaling, and this is how we learn about birth and death, which is the most important thing. We learn how to let go, and we learn how to take up. The problem that we have, although we all have pain in our legs, and you're sitting there with painful legs right now. And so, how do we do that?

[57:43]

How do we allow that to be there? By letting go, by exhaling. So when we exhale, we open ourselves up completely. When you open yourself up completely, then you let go of restriction. And when we inhale, we become restricted. Even though it would seem like the other way around, maybe. By restriction I mean, as soon as we're born again, we have restrictions. But when we let go, there's no restrictions. And so we can let go of the pain. And then we take it up again. And we let go. You notice how it kind of goes in waves? So just opening it up. Letting go. It's a restriction. So there's ease in letting go. And there's less ease in taking up. But if you allow the rhythm of the breathing to be free and follow the rhythm of the breathing, that's letting the whole body

[58:49]

come to a state of whatever problem you have. So even though we're sitting there in what we call pain, it's not pain. We just call it pain. It's a sensation. You don't have to call it that. It's just... there's a sensation. And if we... bring it open up, Open it up. And then we can let it be. All things can equal. That's called calm closure. So we resume our composure. So, that's shikhatasa. Shikantaza is not restricted to this posture.

[59:52]

Shikantaza is how we settle ourselves on ourself totally, moment by moment, in all our activity. And it includes koan study. Koan study is also shikantaza. Shikantaza is the end of koan study. difficult. Because the hardest thing is not to want something. That's pretty simple. But the simplest thing is the hardest thing. Always. So we learn how to die, and when we learn how to die, we learn how to live. If we don't learn how to die, then we don't completely know how to live. But you might say, well, are you fearless about dying?

[60:56]

If I say, I'm fearless about dying, that's not quite right. If I say, I'm fearful about dying, that's not quite right either. I don't know how I feel when I'm going to die. All I know is that on each exhale, I die. And on every inhale, I come back to life. And both of them are life. As my teacher used to say, birth and death is the same thing.

[61:29]

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