Good afternoon. It's nice to see all of you here. It's like two railroad cars. Maybe tomorrow we could try a third row on the side in the upper front. I don't know what's best, but anyway, this is... But you look way... There's the caboose back there. Well, maybe this is the caboose, I don't know. Some people don't even know the word caboose, I think. They're too young. Trains don't have cabooses anymore. Well, some of you I don't know, and some of you I know, but I don't know you in Sashin.

[01:01]

I haven't done Sashin with you. I'm looking forward to getting to know you. But at first, my feeling in Sashin is you're pretty much on your own. I mean, the schedule's here and this building. But in the end... You know, of course, I'm very glad we're all here because you've come here because it really helps to practice with others. Sometimes, I mean even though we're not speaking, at least not much, we feel other people's voices and I think it helps us hear our own voices. identify our own voices.

[02:03]

But although we, you know, it does help to practice with others still, practice is really completely, this is your Sashin, and you're very much, given the schedule and the building and so forth, still very much on your own. And as all of you probably know, sasin means gathering, something like gathering the mind. But this mind that we gather in sasin is not our usual mind. Well, I mean, it includes our usual mind. But we have to leave our And it helps to be reminded to leave our everyday mind, our everyday concerns elsewhere when you do sesshin.

[03:10]

And there's some reason, ancient reason or experience for being seven days. Some friends of mine showed me an article recently, which maybe some of you know, in the American Psychologist on expert performance. And we generally think of people who are exceptionally talented in music or art or science or sports or something to be, have some innate ability or gift The idea goes way back actually, some sort of gift from the gods and so forth. But what this study points out is what Buddhism practice is based on really is that given, you know, that you're alive and well and have some ability, the real difference is how much you practice.

[04:30]

And in our day and age and also in Europe there's so many of these weekend programs or week programs which they even have enlightenment intensives and things like that. Maybe in the United States too, I don't know, probably. But there's a general feeling of that somehow Everything is a matter of understanding or changing your mind or seeing things differently and of course that's there's truth to that too. But one thing that they quote Maslow in this article where he says if you want to understand how people how fast people can run, don't look at average people, look at Olympic experts, runners.

[05:38]

And it's true that nowadays the thousands of people that qualify for the New York Marathon and thousands more who could, Olympic marathoners at the early part of the century couldn't even qualify. So I'm mentioning this because, one, I'm emphasizing practice, and I'm also emphasizing that we're here on the cutting edge of practice. I mean, we're gathering, and I want us to gather also the ancient mind of the Buddhas and ancestors and the lineage. And we can do that. But also, and not just because we're Westerners practicing Buddhism in a new land, but because practice always starts here for everyone.

[06:42]

The sutras arise in everyday situations. The teachings arise in everyday situations. And although this is not an everyday situation, and definitely not meant to be an everyday situation, The mind that can function in this, that you can discover in Sushin, is the same mind that makes your everyday situations practice. Now again, one of the things this article points out is that they've looked at top violinists and I don't know how true all this is, but it makes sense in Buddhist terms anyway. They divided them to the very best in the middle group and the more average good violinists.

[07:46]

Then they asked how much they practiced. The very best ones had practiced 10,000 hours on the average. The middle group had practiced 7,500 hours. And the average group of good violinists had practiced only 5,000 hours. And I'm saying this again because, you know, I'm trying to encourage you in the present climate, which doesn't understand practice really, that how much you practice makes a big difference. I mean, in some ways, Zazen is looking, as I said the other day here, is looking in a window, out a window, in a window, that you can't see what's going on. I mean, you can feel what's going, I mean, you can feel something, and I don't think you're, if practice is just an ordeal for you, or you have some feeling you should do it,

[08:56]

as the primary motive, you won't continue. You know, you have to find some, you have to discover as you sit, and as you discover how to sit during the day or to practice mindfulness, ways in which this, you enjoy this, it gives you some satisfaction. So even though you can't see exactly what's out the window, or in the window, because you're looking, I don't know, in, out, those directions are not important. Even though you can't see exactly what's in the window, it's okay, you don't get bored. Or if you get bored, you still let this feeling of something not clear, it's out the window.

[09:59]

And I would say it takes about 10 years before really what you're seeing in zazen or feeling in zazen starts really being clear. Now, Suzuki Rishi used to say the main secret of practice is no gaining idea. He used to say that if you've been successful at practice with various kinds of techniques and or gaining ideas, then it's going to be difficult because you will believe in the success of your practice and it will be difficult for you to actually sit with no gaining idea. This was his English, no gaining idea. It became a little mantra for all of us, no gaining idea.

[11:04]

We just... would hear it repetitiously all the time, no gaining idea. It's pretty descriptive. But if you practice with, if you can discover, explore as you're sitting, not having a gaining idea, then you're really leaving your everyday concerns out. Now, you may gain something from this gaining idea. And your practice, if you do practice over some years with some deep intentionality, yes, something happens. That's true. But still, there is this mind in which you're not comparing, not measuring. So after we look at the various zazen instructions, Dogen ends his zazen instructions.

[12:05]

He talks about the posture, how you put your hands and so forth. In the end he says, think non-thinking. Now think non-thinking is this same window. A window where you see non-looking. There's non-seeing, but you feel something. So non-thinking is the beginning of a whole range of, we could say, zazen instruction that you can't really instruct anybody about. Gute, or Shuddhi, always, you know, his teacher, the man who introduced it to him, Tenryu, or Tianmeng, always held up one finger. And Sukhirashi had this gone and liked it. And the one finger, there's no explanation.

[13:09]

I mean, it's, you know. So there's a lot of this practice which has no explanation. We do the service, we follow the schedule. And you should know, if you're doing Sashin with me for the first time, with us, the most important thing to me is that you follow the schedule. If you don't sit quite right or your legs are up, that's up to you. But I'd like you to follow the schedule very exactly. And the rest is up to you. So Dogen, by emphasizing think non-thinking, is bringing you to the point where, well, you know what you do. I mean, these words barely help, but you sit and you discover a mind which doesn't think.

[14:15]

This is also no gaining idea. And yet it's not a mind, you're not dead, you know. It's almost like many body-mind pages of the body-mind pages. I don't know what to say. It's like there's different pages of this book you're studying. You're the book. And yet, if you think there's only one page or not much, But if you discover a way to just be, and the easiest way to do that is on your cushion and in sashim, to just be present, to peer into a present which you can't discern. And over and over again you do that.

[15:22]

There's other things and you... And one of the minds that gathers is many, particularly for Westerners, there's many psychological things, historical things, personal things. So you're sitting and letting this mind gather. And this sitting is also one thing. Each situation, there's this gathered mind. Each situation, there's this one. Everything's changing, but there's this one finger. And the finger isn't exactly the same. Your whole body, this senda, it's one finger. So again, this book, book, I don't know, you're a book or a window, you find, you begin to find various voices or body-mind voices or almost like a kind of

[16:48]

at the level of feeling but not comparing. It's almost like sitting... I mean when you have no gaining idea what you're doing is you're creating the mind of realization. You're creating the mind of just now is enough. I mean clearly in many ways just now is not enough. need a break or need lunch or dinner or something but at the same time just now is also enough this mind we should know just now is enough is also no gaining idea which is also the mind of realization or the mind of unpacking yourself or the mind in which many things gather or the mind in which realization occurs.

[17:51]

And if enlightenment comes, it's good. But also if it doesn't come, it's good. Really, it's no gaining idea. What comes, okay. What doesn't come, okay. You won't be able to look deeply into the present without this mind of no gaining idea. And it appears, you know, we say it appears as painful zazen. Various kinds of painful zazen are the first surface of this mind of no gaining idea. Whatever it is, you just let yourself be absorbed by it. discovering the big space that you are, we are, you are, I am.

[19:06]

Your breath is very big space. Inside of your mouth, very big space. Inside and outside your body, And you can't even say inside, outside. You feel a very big space. Particularly as your thinking gets less. So Dogen and Rukiyoshi, with these phrases, no gaining idea, and think non-thinking. This is Zazen instruction or Sashin instruction bringing you to the point where you, I don't know, where you become one finger held up in each situation. So practice is discovering how to be, how to do this.

[20:36]

And to be able to just do it without any special idea. And at the same time with the deep conviction that I don't know what kind of words to put. The deep conviction in entering an incubating stream of mind. Then a deep intentionality, deep conviction to enter an incubating stream of mind. There are many dimensions of ourselves which are looking for an anchor in us or looking for a harbor or a home in us.

[21:47]

And when you sit, you can, as your sitting becomes more subtle, you can, more relaxed, you can feel something in you seeking a home. But you don't know how to give it a home yet. Your usual state of mind is not a home for it. So hopefully, Sushin, I mean, I think we come here because of some intuition that something in us is seeking a home and yet we don't know how to make, give it, what's this way-seeking mind and various voices or elements of ourselves a home in us. So it's, you know, more than we know how to do.

[22:57]

So the Buddhist technique is just to sit down. We don't know what to do, so just sit down. And of course there's some teaching and tradition about how to do it. To let this mind-being, mind-body gather and many parts of us which are seeking us, letting them find us. So, we don't have anything else to do this week, so please, good luck. May our intention neatly penetrate every being and place.

[24:01]

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