Good morning. During this week, starting with yesterday, members of the Zen community are sitting Sesshin. Seven days of Sesshin. So I want to talk to you a little bit about what Sesshin is. Sesshin means something like embracing mind or gathering the mind. or focusing wholeheartedly inwardly.

[01:08]

Embracing mind or gathering mind could be misleading though, because in zazen, we work not only with the mind but through the body. So in this case, mind means not just our thinking faculty, but mind includes body and actually includes the whole universe. So when we say embracing mind or gathering the mind. It doesn't mean just gathering your thoughts together, but actually to go beyond our thoughts or our thinking mind. In Buddhism, we don't make a separation between body and mind.

[02:17]

So you can say body-mind. And in fact, in Zazen, the point is to reconcile all opposites. So we have body, mind, or spirit and flesh, good and bad, right and wrong, Comfort and discomfort. Like and dislike. Up and down. Back and forth. Difficult and easy. Life and death.

[03:28]

In Zazen, all opposites are reconciled. This is the point of Zazen. During the course of our normal day-to-day life, we sit Zazen as a daily practice. But several times a year, we have Sashin. And during Sashin, we spend one week of just Zazen. So this is the second day of our Sashin. And our Sashin will be over on Friday. I want to explain about the two sides of our practice, which, when they're reconciled, are not two sides.

[04:51]

But everything has two sides, so we have to talk about the two sides of everything. But the thing itself cannot be explained. only experience. So my explanation will not be our experience, but it will help us to understand something about what we're doing. Two sides of our Zen practice include retreating from the world on one hand, and going back into the world on the other hand. Retreating from the world means to cut off all of your affairs, to actually leave the world behind, and practice in seclusion.

[06:06]

And when you enter into seclusion, you should plan well ahead for that event. So that when you actually enter into seclusion, there's nothing pulling at you and there's nothing you feel that you need to do. So that kind of preparation is already entering into seclusion. And the other side is, after seclusion, entering into the world of activity, and coming out from the realm of seclusion into the world of activity.

[07:10]

And the third side is that activity and stillness, or seclusion, are reconciled. So when we enter into seclusion, we enter into great stillness. When we sit for seven days, there's tremendous stillness. When you get a group of people sitting together in sadhana for seven days, the world becomes very still. Your whole world comes to a stop. But that stillness is permeated with tremendous vitality.

[08:20]

We say in Zazen that whole body and mind are in complete, total, dynamic functioning. It's not stillness of laying down in bed or going to sleep. but stillness of body and mind harmonized with great dynamic activity in total stillness. And sometimes an example is like a top. When you spin a top, and the top is spinning totally in balance, then it doesn't look like the top is moving.

[09:30]

It looks like it's just standing still. But if you touch it, it goes skittering across the floor. So that's like Zazen. People sit in Zazen and it looks like statues. But it's just like that top. If you touch one of them, they might want to roar at you. Not really. They're very gentle. And when we return to the world, from Zazen, we take that wonderful stillness into our activity.

[10:34]

So that no matter what kind of activity, or no matter how busy we are, our life is based on that stillness. A kind of example is if you look at a movie. It looks like the movie is continuous. But if you stop the movie and look at the slides, you'll see that each one of those slides is an independent movement. And if you look at each slide, Each one has not only the main subject but the background. So the main subject and the background are all included in that one still. It's like you yourself and the whole world arise in that one slide.

[11:43]

And in the next slide, Maybe it's changed a little bit. Maybe you've taken a half a step and the background has changed. Maybe a bird has entered or a leaf has fallen. But each one of those slides is a moment of total stillness in dynamic activity. one slide, one moment following the next, or one moment appearing to replace the next. Following is a kind of idea we have about time. So stillness in activity is to be completely immersed in each moment, totally at one with each moment, moment by moment.

[13:04]

So even though life is moving, at the same time each moment is its own stillness with its own history. Kind of like the river. The river is flowing, but it's always the same river. So sometimes one old Zen master said, the water is standing still, but the bridge is flowing. Anyway, so in these seven days of Seishin, We start at five o'clock in the morning, not such an early hour, it's our usual Zazen time, and we have a couple of periods of Zazen and regular service, and then we eat breakfast in Zendo.

[14:37]

We eat breakfast sitting in Zazen, and in a very formal way. and some of us serve the others breakfast. And breakfast is a form of practicing zazen. One of the important things that we always have to remember in Sashi is that everything we do is zazen. Strictly speaking, Zazen looks like cross-legged sitting. But this cross-legged sitting is one form of Zazen, one form of meditation. During Sashin, we have to always remember that

[15:38]

Not only is sitting Zazen, but walking is Zazen, standing is Zazen, eating is Zazen, serving and being served is Zazen, bowing is Zazen, making mistakes is Zazen, communicating is Zazen. Going to sleep is Zazen. Someone asked me, how do you practice Zazen when you go to sleep? And I said, now I lay me down to sleep. You know? You put yourself in the hands of the Dharma.

[16:41]

Trust. So Zazen, what is Zazen? Zazen is putting yourself into the hands of Buddha. Or Dharma. Or just trusting. What do we trust? I don't know. Something. You can name it. You can give it various names. You can say God, Buddha, Dharma, Allah, anything you want. But I think in Zen, I don't know. Just trust. qualifying them in some way. So, in a sense, the bottom line of practicing dharma is trust, or faith.

[18:05]

Not in something special. I really can't name it. But in Zazen, it becomes apparent. So, all of our activities become activities of trust and faith. Someone is serving me something to eat, but I don't know what it is. But whatever it is, I accept it and I eat it with that spirit. and also a spirit of gratitude.

[19:11]

Whatever happens, there's always a feeling of gratitude for whatever it is. Sometimes, in Zazen, our legs hurt or we want to escape or we feel trapped or deprived. But in the end, it's always a feeling of gratitude for whatever comes up. And so in sadhana, the two sides of liking and disliking, preference and non-preference, are always something that we're dealing with. Constantly dealing with those two opposites. I don't like this and I do like that and I want this and I don't want that.

[20:20]

Doesn't matter. Doesn't make any difference. What you get is what you got. But what you got is what you get. What would you do with it? This is what you've got. What will you do with it? It's a very creative practice. Something's handed to you, and we have to do something with it. What will you do? And it's like, sitting cross-legged is a very fundamental form of zazen. And why we practice in this way is because it's so easy to understand when you sit. It's more difficult to understand when you're moving around, because when you're moving around, you always think there's some place to escape to.

[21:30]

When we're moving around, we always feel that we have options. Well, if I don't like it here, I'll go over there. Nothing's going to hold me down. But, no matter where we go in this world, we still take ourselves there. So, what we're dealing with is always with ourself. And circumstances just happen to be where we are. Circumstances help us to define ourselves. So in Zazen, the immovable position, the pretzel, there's no place to go, no place you can escape to. No matter what you want to do, you can't do it.

[22:32]

You just hand it yourself. This is you. What will you do with yourself? How can you find freedom without going someplace? This is the final place, this is where the buck stops. When you have that freedom that you find in Zazen, then you can go anywhere. I'm reminded of a story that I read recently. A Russian priest, Russian Catholic priest, who talked about how he wanted to become a priest, but his preceptor kept putting him off.

[23:51]

You know, he had his aging mother to take care of, and his good works to do. And the preceptor would never let him become a priest. So finally, I mean he went through a lot of agony with this, so finally one day he went to the preceptor and he said, look, I want to be a priest and I don't care about my mother, I don't care about All the things I have to do in this world to take care of people that are suffering and all. Please let me just do that. And the priest said, OK. And then I said, now what shall I do?

[24:54]

And he said, well, I think you should go take care of your mother. And just continue doing all the things that you're doing. So this story is a very interesting story. When you actually give up everything, then you can have anything you want. Or you can have what you really need. So Sanzen, you know, and Sashin is like really giving up everything. You leave everything behind. Even though you know that after seven days you'll go back to your job, you'll go back to your family, you know.

[25:55]

Life will resume in somewhat the same way it was before you went. There will always be a difference, but When you enter into Sachine, you really give up everything as if you're not coming back. We need to have that attitude. We don't always have it. But even when you enter into Zazen for 40 minutes, we should still have the attitude of leaving everything behind. So Zazen is a kind of mini, 40 minutes of Zazen is a kind of mini home leaving. You leave everything that you cherish in this world behind. And then when you return, the world is a completely new place.

[27:04]

you have the opportunity to start life all over again, even though we don't always see it that way. But when you step out of the zendo, the world looks different than it did when you entered the zendo. You've died to your old life, and entered a new life, even though you may not recognize that fact. It just looks like, well, here's the door and here's the trees and birds, but it's actually a new life. And in our activity in the world, moment by moment, we also have the opportunity to make each moment a new life, because life and death appear on each moment. So, Zen activity, you know, is to completely enter into each moment of life.

[28:17]

Completely. And then we enter into each moment of death completely. We say, like, the foot before and the foot behind me walking. Sango Tai of Takedoki Sanritsu. The foot before and the foot behind is walking. This is life. And we take a step into life. But the foot behind is already death. And then the next step is into life. And the other step is death. So, life and death. Each moment. moment by moment, entering into life completely and letting go completely. So if we can let go completely, we can enter completely.

[29:23]

The more completely we let go, the more completely we can enter. So in Zazen, Sushim, we enter completely into just this one activity. We make it very simple for ourselves. Instead of doing a lot of things, just enter completely into one activity. Moment after moment, you can see arising of life and the passing away of death, moment by moment. You don't see it as life and death, you just see it as your experience. And then, what is it?

[30:30]

Life continues on and on, no matter what I think about it. It's just that my breath comes and goes, no matter what I think about it. I may be able to control it a little bit, but it goes on without me, or it goes on as me. So watching breath is a kind of wonderful activity. Something is making this pulsation happen. And I say, I am breathing. But which eye is breathing? Who's the eye that's breathing? I'm not making that happen.

[31:42]

But yet, I'm not making it happen. What's happening? So, moment by moment, we are all getting older. We start out young, with babies, and who knows why. We often say, I didn't ask to be born into this world. But we don't know, maybe we did and maybe we didn't. I don't know. Something asked, something brought it forth. What is that thing that brought it forth? What brought us forth? And moment by moment we're getting older. And then at some point, you know, wait a minute, where am I going?

[32:46]

So anyway, during Sashin, we eat in the Zendo, sitting Zazen. It's also Zazen. And then we continue the day sitting Zazen. And we have lunch in the Zendo. And then we continue the afternoon sitting Zazen. We have dinner in the Zendo. And then we sit some more until 9.30. And then we get up again, start sitting again at five, and we do this day after day for seven days. I'm reminded of an old Kuang, Pai Chong, who was a very famous Zen master in the Tang Dynasty in China. was asked a question by a monk.

[33:58]

The monk said, Master, what is the most wonderful thing? And Paichong said, the most wonderful thing is sitting alone on top of Mount Dayuho. Mount Dayuho is a Japanese word for a Chinese mountain, which means something like the blind peak. sitting alone, all alone on this sublime peak. And then Pai Chan hit them up. This is kind of a wonderful koan. I think we have to clarify the word alone. Alone has the connotation of separateness.

[35:00]

How far our language has been perverted during the course of years is that alone now means separate, whereas the original meaning of alone is at one with. It also has the same root as atonement. Atonement. So atonement, also people think of atonement as confessing your sins. But it actually means coming back to oneness with everything. Returning to oneness. And the way you do that is to acknowledge your separateness, which is called sins. So, Pai Chan, Master Pai Chan says, sitting alone on top of this mountain, sitting at one with everything,

[36:16]

on top of this mountain. Mountain is like a peak, you know, but this peak is attached to something else, which is attached to something else, which is attached to something else. And when you view it from a certain standpoint, you can see that everything is attached to everything else. So in one sense, it looks very special. I am sitting on this sublime peak, the most wonderful thing in the world. And when the monk bowed to Pachang, he hit him. So where did he hit him? Well, maybe it's good to hit a monk. If you feel, if you're hit by your teacher, it's actually not always bad. It can be very good. You might be saying, you're wonderful. Bam! He can say, you idiot, bam!

[37:23]

You don't always know what you did. But I think that the way the monk was bowing, was saying, oh, Master, it's so wonderful. And Pai Chan was saying, it's just ordinary. It's just ordinary. It's not something extraordinary. This wonderful thing is just ordinary. Mount Taihu'o is not some special place. Mount Taihu'o is wherever you are. It's Mount Taihu'o. Wherever you are, you're connected with everything. Nothing special, just our ordinary life. But in our ordinary life, we don't feel that way, so it's something special.

[38:29]

It feels like something special. So, the point of our understanding, the point of our practice, how to make something special something very ordinary. When that something special is something very ordinary, when everybody has that ordinary understanding, ordinary experience, of being at one with the universe, then something, I don't know, will all be happy. So, in a sense, you know, we think, well, Sashin is such an unusual activity.

[39:45]

You guys go in there and you sit there for seven days, you know, with your legs hurting, blah, blah, blah. But actually, it's just ordinary activity. Really nothing special. The day after Sashin, We just go back into ordinary activity without blinking an eye. If you can do that, then you have some mastery. So, coming into this machine, going out of this machine, even though they're different experiences, fundamentally, it's the same. So this is a little something of what our effort is, a little something of explanation about what our effort is doing Sushi.

[41:13]

But there's no way I can tell you about it. I invite you all to sit down and sometimes sit Sushi.

[41:24]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ