What we're trying to practice here or transmit or communicate is mind itself, not some particular aspect. If you know mind itself, all particulars arise from that mind. So the particulars aren't what we concentrate on, except to see them as mind itself. Everything points directly at mind itself. I've been talking about samadhi and sometimes I call samadhi imperturbability and sometimes I call samadhi a collected state of mind.

[01:27]

But today I want to call it a state of maybe whole control. So whatever occurs in your mind, whether we call it good or evil or something annoying or something pleasant, It's like, you know, toy boats in a bathtub, maybe. They're not dangerous. It means you're behind your activity, you know. If you come after your activity, if you're conscious after your activity, your activity can be good or bad, but if you're conscious before your activity, your activity can't be good or bad.

[02:41]

Do you see what I mean? It means that when something arises you should be present. then it's not, it can't be characterized as good or bad. It's kind of... When that happens you have control over whatever happens. Control because you're completely identified with it. It's not subject-object or something you're at the mercy of. Maybe the contents of your mind are the same, but you're completely identified with it.

[03:48]

Control is alright to use as a word, but because the experience is one of being completely present, so much so that control also presents some difficulties. maybe the closest thing I can say is the experience some of you may have had of being present in your dreams. You have a dream and the dream isn't happening to you, you're the dream and you can change it or let it go or change the ending or, you know, whatever you want to do. After you meditate a while, that's not so difficult.

[05:01]

It just happens. You find yourself quite present throughout sleeping and in whatever mental activity you have. But in dreams, it's the first sign that you will be able to do it in everything. But in that sense, you control the dream. It's so difficult. If I say control, somebody's controlling, but something's arising anyway. So we talk about trusting your trusting this mind I'm talking about, you know. But since you, when you first start practicing anyway, you have no idea of what we're talking about when we say this mind, you know, big mind or something like that.

[06:12]

Zen itself can mean that kind of mind. Sometimes it means meditation, but sometimes it means mind itself, mind which is everything. That's really why we meditate. But we trust, sometimes we call it Buddha nature, but we trust this. You have to come into some kind of trust. This self-moving mind, you don't move it actually, it moves itself, it practices itself, it takes care of your practice. As I said yesterday, you can't arrange the steps of your practice, just this moment what your practice is that you notice you do, and you trust, you give up to.

[07:24]

if you don't know yet, on faith you give up to the possibility of this self-moving mind, you know, which manifests itself in various ways, you know. whole sashin, you know, is a kind of ceremony for us to share the same mind. But all Buddhist ceremonies really are this kind of activity. As the sutras start with Manjushri or some great Bodhisattva, bearing his shoulder and bowing and asking a question for everyone.

[08:54]

This kind of preparation is to enter the state of mind of Buddha, who you ask the question of. Doksan, you know, when you come to Doksan, you bow to me, but actually you're not bowing to me, you're ideally we should circle from right to left, things like that. You're entering, you're returning entering the same state of mind, because that's really what we're talking about or preparing for. So likewise, when we do a service here, we're entering this state of mind. It's not so clear in our services that that's the point. When we chant, Avalokiteshvara, O Shariputra, you're actually speaking to Shariputra, O Shariputra.

[10:02]

So the highest form of teaching is repeating the teaching, not saying something new or some commentary on it, just repeating, to take the stance of Buddha himself or herself. We need some pronoun. Buddha, him or herself? Because when Buddha, you know, The sutras are set up to mean that when Buddha gives a lecture, the hearers enter samadhi with him.

[11:12]

So when that happens, there's no listener or no speaker. There's just the same mind. So then we don't need any sutras or any teaching. So Zen says throw away all the sutras because we enter the mind of our teacher and the mind of our lineage as any Any cup of water can reflect the moon, but still they all reflect one moon. So when your mind is the same with the teachers, you reflect Buddha, you reflect the whole lineage. So we do a service, you know, here, to enter the state of mind of Buddha.

[12:21]

And in order to enter the state of mind of Buddha, we bow and then speak, you know, the sutras as if we were speaking them. And we chant, you know, as if everything that existed was in samadhi. So a sasheen is also a ceremony beginning now five, six days ago for us to enter the same mind together. So every period of zazen is a lecture or is our teaching each other.

[13:25]

When you can have a state of mind which isn't stirred by you or by passions, but is self-moving, you know, then you can hear the teaching, take the stance of the teaching and chant the Sutra from the point of view of the Sutra. So in Sashin we are practicing from the point of view of all the Tathagatas, all the lineage from the point of view of Suzuki Roshi, sitting zazen with us, this state of mind has no form or limit.

[14:44]

and is indescribable, so everything we point, anything that's pointed out, we have to say, no, that's not it. So we practice in this way till we share the same mind without any doubt, without a hair of difference. the point of everything in Buddhism is this mind.

[16:06]

And it doesn't mean always to take, you know, the highest form, the widest form. For example, the other day someone hit the bells a little bit irregularly, so I'm bowing. I just want to share that person's mind so I will follow his bells, whatever he does. As Avalokiteshvara, if he's with a thief, just follows the thief, does what a thief does.

[17:30]

But sometimes you may follow the way it's supposed to be. There's supposed to be a bell, but there's no bell. That's all. And that causes some problem. Do you have any questions?

[18:38]

I find it much easier to just watch my breath as opposed to counting my breaths. It's okay, just watch it if you want. Well, if you haven't had any sleep, it's almost impossible, I find anyway.

[19:53]

If it's an emergency, I maybe ... At Daito-kichi, it was always a state of emergency because they had such a huge stick, and they hit so hard. four times on each shoulder, you know, swinging from the buttocks. So in those days I kept awake for one year or something, no matter how sleepy I was. But that's not always so good, I think, actually. I didn't have any chance to experiment with the in-between stage So anyway, if you don't have enough sleep, it's pretty difficult. But if you've had enough sleep, five hours or so, I don't know, depending on your practice there's a different way, so I don't know exactly.

[21:31]

Right now my way is I put my mind right there and that makes me stay awake, but I didn't used to do it that way, I did it some other way. You have to be pretty determined to stay awake, too. Zazen practice is not entirely wasted if you're asleep all the time, but one period of awake Zazen is worth about one month of asleep Zazen. But we have many lifetimes, so it's not so serious yet. Yeah.

[22:35]

Are you ready to give it up already? Giving up will is a kind of will, isn't it? In the Ten Bhumis I was talking about yesterday, I think the first one is the stage of joyfulness is characterized by dana or giving.

[24:19]

And the second one is characterized by the precepts or strict observance of rules, of details of how you behave. And the third, the shining, is by patient endurance or patience. and the fourth by strenuousness or effort. Of course, effort is needed all the time. What I mean to say is that effort or will takes various forms. Even when you give it up, there's will there. You give up this will and there's that, and you give up that will and there's that will. Will is maybe function itself.

[25:28]

It's again something to become familiar with. Try giving it up. Try following it. I sometimes use willingness rather than will. The willingness to sit, rather than a will to sit. But some people, you know, try to give up will and they then baby themselves trying to follow the nuance of the moment, you know. If my feelings are this, I should be true to my feelings, and if I do that, that will lead to that, and I can tell that by the time I'm 35, You know, I'll be at this, you know, or when I'm ready, you know, you have the experience from your past that when it came time to do something, circumstances made you do it, you know.

[26:44]

Do you know what I mean? That the time came for a decision and somehow it all came together and you did it. So this creates some kind of bad habit of waiting for circumstances to bring us to a certain point. Trusting, oh, I'll follow my feelings. So I used to practice that way. and Suzuki Roshi made me change. Why not decide now? Quit waiting around for this nuance and just do it now. And that takes some recognition or will. You get tired of all this playing around with yourself and waiting for this mood and that thing to change and everything to come together.

[27:47]

to hell with it, you know? That's all. You know Buddhism. I didn't have to follow, I could look at Suzuki Roshi. I could see, so he did it, so I didn't wait around until I was like Suzuki Roshi. Our practice is only obtainable when it's unobtainable. So if you try to keep in touch with the obtainable, this and that, you won't, it's alright, it's a kind of roller coaster. The stick is like that, you know, instead of trying to wait till you're awake, or you can find some way to wake yourself up, just... But still, when we find will getting in our way, you know, interfering with something,

[29:19]

to stay with your practice is important. And often we interfere by will. Do you understand what I mean? You decide something and actually it's a way of putting a dam. So there's no one answer to a question like that. Will is something very wide that covers everything. But you should be acting and giving up simultaneously all the time. If it's necessary to do something, you just do it. And everything should be zero next moment.

[30:21]

To wait till you have the strength doesn't work. That's why Buddhism is based on vows. You vow to save all sentient beings. You vow to practice Buddhism because it cuts through. But that vow isn't even will, it's like being born. You're born, you don't have to will it anymore. And if you've really taken a vow, there's no will involved, it's just complete, that's all. Alternatives don't come up. Alternatives are like strangers you have dinner with, but who don't spend the night, or something.

[32:10]

Sometimes I cross my right leg over, but it's almost impossible for me, pretty difficult for me to cross my right leg over. Sometimes I do, almost always left leg. My legs don't work very well, so... I can't remember. I think Roshi told me to cross this leg over, but also I didn't have any choice. My right leg, for maybe five or six years, I simply couldn't... it wouldn't go. I had some plan when I first started sitting that in three years I'd be able to sit half lotus and in six years or five years I'd be able to sit full lotus and then when I found it took

[33:32]

more than two years before my knees would even touch the cushion in my half-lily position, I began to realize it was going to be longer than five years. Anyway, I'm still trying. It's a habit, I think. I have to do something. you

[34:58]

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