Good morning, everyone, and welcome. So yesterday afternoon, I did a seminar on Dogen's extensive record, three and a half hours. I want to just give a couple of highlights this morning. So Dogen's extensive record is the translation, I think, of Ehe Koroku, which is Dogen's major work, aside from Shobo Genzo, which is how most people know Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan. So I'm just going to give a few excerpts. This is Dharma Hall Discourse number 124 out of 531. This is from 1243, shortly before Dogen and his entire assembly left Kyoto, the capital, and went up to the northern Echizen area, now called Fukui, and where he founded Eheiji, still one of the headquarter temples of Soto-zen.

[01:12]

So these are mostly very short. Some of them are a little bit longer, but this one goes, these days are a good time for Zazen. And maybe you could say that anytime. If you pass this time vainly, how can you have full strength? If you have no strength, how can you fully engage and affirm the way? Borrowing energy from this time, we can easily cultivate the way. Can you hear me at Ebenezer as well as on Zoom? Yeah, okay. So borrowing, excuse me. People are going to move a little bit closer in so that they can. Okay, tell me, tell me when I should start David. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[02:26]

Thank you. I think we're ready to resume when you are, Taigan. Okay, I'm gonna start all over again. So I'm gonna give excerpts from Ehe Koroku, Dogen's extensive record. I did a seminar on this for three and a half hours yesterday, so these are just a few little excerpts. And these are gonna be focusing on Zazen. So this one is from 1243, just shortly before Dogen and his whole community left Kyoto, the capital, and went to the northern mountains of Echizen. where he founded Eheji Temple. So he says, these days are a good time for zazen. If you pass this time vainly, how can you have full strength? If you have no strength, how can you fully engage and affirm the way? Borrowing energy from this time, we can easily cultivate the way. Now the spring winds are a whirlwind, and the spring rains have continued for many days.

[03:27]

Even this smelly skin bag born from our father and mother cherishes this time. How could the bones, flesh, and marrow correctly transmitted by Buddha ancestors despise it? Those who despise it truly are beasts. After a pause, Doken said, in spring, beyond our own efforts, a withered tree returns to life and flowers. For nine years, unknown by people, How many times did he cross the desert? So this was given in spring, as he says. And so we're sort of in spring here in Chicago, vacillating between winter and summer. And he's talking about fully engaging the way. Excuse me. our efforts to practice the way. And he says that often in these short talks, there's a pause and then Dogen continues.

[04:32]

And he says then, beyond your own efforts, a withered tree returns to life in flowers. So spring is an image that is often used by Dogen and others in context for the returning to vitality. After, stillness after our just sitting in zazen, after turning within. And then he references Bodhidharma for nine years unknown by people. How many times did he cross the desert? So our practice is about renewal. And Dogen felt that he needed to go to the high mountains in northern Japan to renew his community. So again, he says these days are a good time for Zazen.

[05:35]

I think that's true not only in spring. How do we appreciate our days? How do we appreciate the time we're in and the situation we're in? So I'm gonna go through several of these talks, and then we can have some discussion. The next one is from 1251, near the end of his teaching career. He died in 1253, and 1252 were the last talks he gave. And the titles in Dogen's extensive record were given by myself and Shohoff. We call this one, The Endless Shoots of Zazen. So there it goes. Dogen said, what is called zazen is to sit, cutting through the smoke and clouds without seeking merit. Just become unified, never reaching the end. In dropping off body and mind, what are the body and limbs? How can it be transmitted from within the bones and marrow?

[06:40]

Already such, how can we penetrate it? Then he says, snatching Gautama's hands and legs, one punch knocks over empty space. Karmic consciousness is boundless without roots. The grasses shoot up and brings forth the wind of the Buddha way. So there's a lot in this short talk. He says, Zazen is cutting through the smoke and clouds without seeking merit. So it's an important part of the family style of Soto Zen. This non-gaining attitude, Tsukiyoshi called it, not practicing to reach some particular state of mind or being, not practicing in order to get anything, just sitting just being in our life so most of us first come to spiritual practice thinking we want something and actually it's just about seeing the buddha that is each one of us has our own way of being buddha and um

[07:53]

never reaching the end. So it's not about reaching some particular state and then we're finished with practice. He says, in dropping off body and mind, what are the body and limbs? So dropping off body and mind, Shinjin Datsuraku is one of the key phrases that Dogen uses. And he uses it as a synonym for complete awakening and also just for zazen. dropping off body and mind. That does not mean getting rid of body or mind or ignoring body and ignoring our thoughts, but just not being caught, let go, let go, let go of our attachment to this body and this mind while still taking care of them as he says in other places. Then he also says, already such, how can we penetrate it?

[08:56]

So again, the point of Zazen is not to get somewhere else other than right here. But Dogen often talks about, please study this thoroughly. How can we penetrate it? How can we? endlessly dive into how it is that we are here in this experience, in this situation, in this body and mind, in our own particular dharma position, as Dogen calls it. So it's not that we get something new, it's that we deepen it, develop it, learn more fully to express it just in our everyday activity. So he ends, well, he talks about snatching Gautama's hands and legs, going beyond Buddha, another phrase he uses often. And he says, one punch knocks over empty space. So of course, we have to see emptiness, feel emptiness, realize emptiness in our practice, which is to say, realize that we're connected to everything, that there is no separate thing to hold on to.

[10:12]

including our own bodies and minds. And yet we realize it. And here he says, one punch knocks over empty space. We come back from realization of wholeness and interconnectedness and take care of the situation we're in. So karma consciousness is boundless without roots. The grasses shoot up and bring forth the wind of the Buddha way. So how do we allow the seeds of zazen in our body-mind to emerge in our everyday activity. So I'm gonna read a couple more, and then we can have discussion. This is one of my favorites. Again, this is from 1251. And we called this, The Moon Shining on All Beings and Oneself. So Dogen said, the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is to first arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy.

[11:31]

Only this family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear. In the lofty mountains, we see the moon for a long time. As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky. casts loose down the precipice. The moonlight shares itself within the 10,000 forms. Even when climbing up the bird's path, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. So there's a lot in this very short talk. talks about the family style of all Buddhist ancestors. So family style, or sometimes it's literally house wind, sometimes refers to a particular lineage, spiritual lineage, like we talked about the family style of Suzuki Roshi, who brought this tradition that Dogen founded in Japan in the 1200s to California in the 1960s, and is now spreading, well, to Chicago, but also many places throughout the country.

[12:41]

I see Ko is here from Cleveland, so even Cleveland. So the family style, but here he's talking about the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors. So this is just, you know, in the sutras it talks about sons and daughters of good family, or he talks about practitioners as being children of Buddha. So we're all just following the lead of Buddha, Gautama. So he says the family style of all Buddhism ancestors first aroused the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy. So this is the basis. How do we vow to save all living beings? This is of course one of our inconceivable vows, but also it's right here. And this means to remove suffering and provide joy.

[13:52]

So removing suffering means we pay attention to the suffering and distress of the world. we try to help out. Dogen talks about this in the next one that I'm gonna read too. How do we take care of all beings, all beings, everyone? And also how do we provide joy? So this is such an important part of Zazen, to feel the, the settleness and joy of just being present in this body-mind. How do we appreciate the joy of being alive?

[14:55]

The songs of the birds, the trees, the flowers, and good friends. How do we help support the joy for all beings? Dogen says, only this family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear. In the mountains, we see the moon for a long time. As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky. So this is about the importance of just sustaining our practice, just showing up on our seat, just facing the wall, just continuing to do this or to have Zazen do us. And we could also see this as an image for retreating into the mountains. Some of you here have done Tassajara practice periods, for example, where one sits for three months in the deep mountains and with a schedule of lots of practice.

[16:00]

But you could see this as just what happens over time as we come and do sitting together and practice together and studying the teachings that support that practice together. And so he says, in the lofty mountains, we see the moon for a long time. The moon is usually refers to the full moon and it's the image of wholeness, the image of oneness. So we have to see this for a long time. It's not about just having one, just, you know, on one period of zazen or one really dramatic experience of wholeness or one really great understanding, theoretical understanding or physical understanding of reality. We have to do this for a long time.

[17:05]

So Dogen talks about Buddha going beyond Buddha. So in the lofty mountains we see the moon for a long time and as clouds clear we first recognize the sky. So the clouds of our thoughts and feelings, our karmic consciousness, our regrets over the past, our fears for the future, all of that As clouds clear, we recognize the sky, the openness, the wholeness of reality. But then he says, and this is so important, cast loose down the precipice, the moonlight shares itself within the 10,000 forms. So this is like the moonlight reflected in the streams coming down from the mountain top. even when we have this experience of wholeness, of seeing the fullness of the moon and of reality and the sky, we share this within the 10,000 forms, the 10,000 beings.

[18:08]

So the point of our practice is not to have some great realization or to realize some, you know, ultimate state of being or of mind. That's the first half, that's half of it. Maybe it's only 49% of it. Then how do we share this? And it's not about talking about it like I'm doing today. It's about actually in your body and mind, in everyday activity, expressing it and sharing it with beings. Then he says, even when climbing up the bird's path, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. So the bird's path is an image from Dongshan, the founder of this Saodong or Soto Zen tradition that Dogen brought to Japan and Suzuki Roshi brought to us. Climbing up the bird's path. So,

[19:12]

Birds seem to find their way to migrate over sometimes thousands of miles and come back to the same place depending on the season, but we don't see that path. So this is an image of actually engaging the way where we can't really see some destination, where we can't even see what the stages of the path are. We have all these teachings like the Eightfold Path and the Twelvefold Chain of Causation and so forth, and those are helpful, but ultimately, we don't know. So, how do we engage this path, though? There is a path, there is a way to practice. Dogen says that in Genjo Koan, for example. even when climbing up the bird's path, taking good care of oneself is spiritual power. So I'm going to read one more of these, and then we can have discussion.

[20:20]

And this one may not be, such a familiar teaching to those of you who have studied Dogen, but this is from 1252, his last year of teaching. In discussing this affair, all Buddhas in the 10 directions are not without practice realization and all ancestral teachers cannot defile it. So practice realization is his, Dogen's phrase for awakening, for our practice, for zazen, practice realization. It's not practice to reach some realization later. It's the practice of realization. We are engaging the way of realization. The ancestral teachers cannot defile it. So there's a story that I mentioned yesterday about a student of the sixth ancestor who

[21:35]

was asked by the sixth ancestor, what is this that thus comes? Who are you? And he couldn't answer. And after eight years of sitting with that, he came back and said, well, now I can say something, which is that anything I say misses the mark. So don't hold on to words and letters. Don't hold on to any particular teaching. But it cannot be defiled. There's something about Zazen that goes beyond all of the ways in which we might imagine it to be defiled. Dogen continues, therefore, among the hundred million people at Vulture's Peak, where the Buddha taught, only Mahakasyapa was able to abide and maintain it. So he's, according to legend, the first ancestor after Buddha. Dogen continues, among the 700 eminent monks at Mount Huangmei, where the fifth ancestor was, the fifth ancestor selected only one lay worker to receive transmission of the Dharma.

[22:40]

So this is the sixth ancestor, who is a wonderful image for us, because he came to the fifth ancestor's place illiterate, from the boondocks of Canton from the South, where people are said to be, you know, kind of inferior in many cultures, excuse me, David Ray. And only Queen Eng, who worked in the back of the kitchen at the Fifth Ancestors Place, actually received transmission of the Dharma, according to that story. So this is one of our important legends. Dogen continues, how can this be attained by the mediocre or common? Those who are not common or mediocre are called true home leavers. So Dogen is addressing this to his community of monks, although there were lay people there too.

[23:47]

So monks are called home leavers traditionally. For us in the West, in America, we could just say true practitioners. Even in the Soto Zen tradition, those of us who are priests are not like the traditional monks of China and South Asia. Anyway, those who are true home leavers must maintain the commitment to strength and intense determination and should erect the banner of diligence and fierce courage. So this is what Dogen is saying to us. We must erect the banner of diligence and fierce courage. Finally, they must hold forth the key of Buddha ancestors, open the barrier of going beyond, and carry out their own family property to benefit and relieve all the abandoned and destitute."

[24:54]

So Dogen is saying very strongly, he was talking before about relieving suffering, that true practitioners must work to benefit and relieve all the abandoned and destitute. So this is important for us now. I'll finish this and come back to that. At this very time, we first requite our gratitude for the blessings and virtues of the Buddhas. And it goes on, Dogen then struck the sitting platform with his whisk and descended from his seat. So all of these dharma hall discourses are kind of performance pieces. They were very formal. Dogen was sitting up on the dharma seat in the dharma hall and the monks and sometimes lay people were standing in front of him. This is how he trained his many successors. So often there's a pause, and then Doken gives some response to what he had said. And sometimes he shouts, or not so often as in Rinzai Zen, or strikes the sitting platform with his whisker, throws down his whiskey, and gets even, and gets down from the seat.

[26:05]

Anyway, to... express gratitude for all the blessings and virtues we've received from the Buddhist ancestors. Dogen says, please benefit and relieve all the abandoned and destitute. So this is about saving all beings, not just white people, not just black people, not just Americans, not just, um, people in the Ukraine, not just people in Russia, not just Buddhists, of course, the abandoned and destitute, to actually consider the situation of the marginalized people. So this is very relevant for us in a time when Politicians are using fear of others to spread hate.

[27:12]

What does it mean to really vow to save all beings, universal freedom, liberation? This is a great challenge to us now. This is what Dogen is challenging us with, how to take care of everyone, which means seeing those who are spreading hatred and not supporting that. Anyway, I'll stop now, and let's have some discussion. So, David Ray, if you see people with questions, at Ebeneezer or if people on Zoom want to raise your hand or you could go to the participants window and go down to raise hand and do it that way if you're not visible.

[28:19]

So comments, questions, responses, please feel free. I'm very moved by the category of the abandoned and the destitute. And I was wondering if you could say more about the kanji. What are other implications within the Japanese forms of those words and how you translated that? I could say something about that, but I don't have that. I have to go back to one of my books and get out the text, and I will get back to you about what the characters for abandoned and destitute are. But I believe that's what it means. I mean, we were careful about this translation. So literally, those who have been abandoned, those who are impoverished, those who are destitute, those who are being persecuted and oppressed,

[29:23]

All of that is implied here. So I don't know how much this has to do with what we just talked about, or what you're talking about, I tend to daydream pretty often during Zazen. And I don't know what to, like, how much to wrangle that or not, you know? So I feel like it kind of comes and goes, but I, so I don't feel like I'm taking it too seriously, but I am noticing that it happens pretty often. Good, good that you notice it. And I think it's sometimes very helpful to daydream in Zazen, because if you think there's only one proper thought to think, or one proper way of thinking, or one proper way of getting rid of these thoughts.

[30:37]

So Zazen is not about getting rid of thoughts. Dogen talks about the clouds clearing after a while, but the clouds are all of our daydreams. There's a song about a daydream believer somewhere. Anyway. Yes. So don't try and control your thoughts. Don't try and get rid of your thoughts. Allow thoughts and feelings to arise. Be with them. See through them. see with them, sit with them, and let them go, because they do come and go. Like a karma chameleon, they come and go. Now, you know, sometimes it's good to come back to this body, because Zazen is not about something theoretical.

[31:48]

It's about this body-mind, which means our breathing, coming back to your inhale and exhale, coming back to your posture, coming back to physical sensations, coming back to sounds, ambient sounds around you. Coming back to, and then come back, and then include in that, because the thoughts are just another sense. In Buddhism, unlike our Western thinking, there are six senses. So eyes, seeing, ears, hearing, smell. taste, touch, the physical, which is very important to us, and then thoughts. All those thoughts, all that thought, the meandering thoughts of daydreaming are just another sensation and just another sense faculty. So the thoughts are like the sounds you hear out on the street near Ebenezer Church, the traffic going by. It's just scenery.

[32:51]

So as Uchiyama Roshi, the teacher of my translation partner, Shohaku Okamura said, when you're sitting, your stomach continues to secrete digestive juices. Some of you have heard this before. In the same way, your brain continues to secrete thoughts. So this is just scenery, these daydreams. And it's good to come back and focus some of the time in Sazen, to just pay attention to inhale and exhale. Our breathing is such a wonderful support for our sustained practice. So don't try and get rid of daydreaming, but don't get caught by it either. To the best of what I can tell, there's not a ton of logic to it. Like, what are you talking about? What's this logic business? Yeah, I know.

[33:54]

I'm wondering about it. But like, you know, sometimes it's like, oh, that makes sense, because that was on my mind earlier today. And that feels important. But like, sometimes it's just like, you know, I just had images of laundry detergent bottles in my head, and I have no idea why. And they just kind of were like spinning in my head. You know what I mean? So yeah, maybe that means you need to wash your clothes. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, it's not that we should ignore the thoughts spinning around. And yes, part of Zazen is that we sit with the scenery of our life at this time, sitting, settling, all of the things that... we've been going through in the last day or week or month or lifetime, you know, it comes up in the daydreams, what you're calling daydreams. So maybe it's not so good to think of them as daydreams.

[34:55]

It's your life. And sometimes in Zazen, as this sixth ancestor, this illiterate Southerner who received Dharma transmission from the fifth ancestor says in one of his sutra, Samadhi and Prajna. settling and insight come up together. So as you're sitting, thinking that you're daydreaming, that's just another thought, but in the middle of your daydreams are insights about your life and the world and how you, how you is. So you can pay attention to it, but don't, don't get caught up in a train of thinking. Sometimes we have to get off the train. Oh, If there are others in Ebeneezer, please feel free just to just to speak up because yes, yes, please. One of the things that Titan said, who is this?

[35:58]

That's Jan. Hey, Jan. Hi. One of the things you said is contemplating the fact that you're here, and that you have a body in the earth is that we exist. And there was a person who gave a talk I heard. His name is Guy McPherson, and he is a professor emeritus at Arizona State. And he had two messages. One of them, people ignore, and the other one, people Criticize him for but the one that people ignore is this And I'm not saying it's true. I'm just saying this is one point of view That if you collected all the sands on the earth And you picked up one grain of sand out of all that those grains of sand He's a mathematician and he said He said the chance

[37:14]

the mathematical chance of the Earth existing and animals and people being on the Earth, the chance of that happening is greater than the one grain of sand that you picked up among all the grains of sand. And our existence mathematically is very, very close to infinitely impossible. So, and, and his message is, be grateful for your life, appreciate it. Live among the people you love and respond and be and be human. And, you know, this is not just a fly by night thing. This is an amazing And so, of course, John McPherson is a person who doesn't think we're long for this world or that it doesn't think the world is long for because he also figures out the mathematical chance of

[38:38]

are recovering from the climate crisis and the radiation crisis and the plastics crisis and the industrial world that can't keep going on and that we're all dependent on for our survival. So this is the second half of his message. But the first half is appreciate what we have and understand that mathematically, and I'm not saying xenologically, pardon the silly word, that it's true, but it is definitely a point of view that I think deserves respect. Yeah, so I continue to not be, well, I don't want to say hopeful, I don't want to say pessimistic either.

[39:41]

We, but not abandoning the destitute and abandoned, taking care of them means taking care of us little beings on this planet. I don't mean just humans. So how do we do that? So that's in response to the second half. I think the climate crisis, for example, is very dangerous. And, you know, in this country, the dangers to democracy are very strong, but that doesn't mean that we should just give up. In fact, the opposite. So I don't know what to do about any of it exactly, but we have to keep paying attention. That's the second half of what you were saying, but I want to go back to the first half. You said that, he says that, this guy says that, the likelihood of our existence mathematically is infinitely impossible, is that what you said?

[40:52]

Yeah, infinitely impossible because if you figure out mathematically this thing from the beginning, it had never happened. Right, exactly. So yeah, Dylan was talking about logic. And of course, there's a logic There are all different kinds of logic. We usually think that logic is one thing, like it's linear logic, like Descartes and Aristotle and whatever. There's also a logic of awakening. There's a logic of liberation in Buddhism and in other spiritual practices. So we should not just trust one version of logic. But yeah, I think it's probably true that the likelihood of our existing is infinitely impossible. And maybe we don't even really exist. I mean, maybe we're just not really here now. And all of us, those of us on Zoom and those of us at Ebenezer are just Dylan's daydreams.

[41:54]

Dylan's daydreams, he was complaining about his daydreams. This is just, there's an old Buddhist song about this, I'm invoking some songs now, but it goes, row, row, row your boat gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, and you all know the rest. So, you know, maybe we're all dead now, or we're not even really here. However, The other half of what this guy guy says is to take care of this illusion of existence. And that's very important to be grateful for all the things that we can be grateful for. And there's a lot of them. So how do we appreciate this illusion? How do we appreciate this situation, this dharma position we're in?

[43:01]

And also you mentioned the grains of sand. And of course, in the Buddhist sutras and the Buddhist teachings, he often talks about, the Buddha or whomever, often talk about all the grains of sand in the Ganges River. We could talk about all the grains of sand in all the rivers and all the continents. which, you know, they didn't know about in India back then. We have a logic of geography that, you know, includes many continents and many countries. And some of them we tend to, our governments tend to ignore anyway. But every grain of sand is wonderful. So William Blake talked about this. And of course, there's a wonderful song by Bob Dylan called Every Grain of Sand. I recommend you listen to it. I'm going to take one last question or response before I ask Aishan to continue leading this. Robert, you had your hand up. Yeah. You just, you said there's a logic of awakening.

[44:04]

I was wondering, wondering if you could talk a little bit about this within the context of Soto Zen, because I'm, I'm used to path structures being a sort of like Theravadan or other non-Zen-esque Yeah, Buddhism has very, thank you, good question. And Buddhism has many different descriptions of the process of the path. In Soto Zen, we follow the bird's path. We just continue step after step, inhale after exhale. And it's not that there is not a path, it's just that we don't get stuck on any particular formulations of it. We acknowledge not knowing. So, yeah, there's an openness to this practice.

[45:08]

If we think we know, some spiritual path. If we think that we can just rely on the Eightfold Path and that takes care of everything, or the Twelfth-fold Chain of Causation, or all the other wonderful systems of teaching and of practice in Buddhism, as well as in many other spiritual paths, we get caught. So there is, but then the other side of that is there is a logic of awakening, which has to do with not abandoning all beings, any beings, taking care of the destitute, marginalized, as best we can. And we don't know how to do that either, but there is a logic of awakening. And it has to do with recognizing suffering, recognizing our own suffering in this body-mind, our own past failures and regrets, our own confusion, our own greed and lust, our own anger and hatred, all of that's available to us.

[46:23]

So, you know, we have to face that like we face the wall. And yet there's something that goes beyond. And this is what Dogen and all the Buddha ancestors are talking about all the time. And if anything we say about it misses the mark. And yet there is practice realization. There is this practice of realization that we're doing. Yeah. Robert, you wanted to say one more thing. Yeah. So like, like the, the thing that I'm especially interested in is like, like in it, Like based on my reading of the Siddha Magga, it's not like, it's not like Theravada is like, this is the path. They have like a million. And, and it's just like, like, like, like a possible way to go through states of mind such that you would reach a state of awakening. No, it's not about reaching a state of awakening. You're awakened right now. The Visuddhimagga, the path of purification is a wonderful text. And there's lots of helpful things in it. And ways of talking about greed, hate and delusion and ways of thinking about it.

[47:29]

So I'm not saying don't ever study those old paths. But Dogen talks about Buddha going beyond Buddha. We have to keep going beyond what we think we know about our practice realization. This is the practice of realization. It's not about realizing some state, like you were saying. It's not about realizing some state of awakening. Awakening is not something somewhere else. It's right here. So what I'm going to do right now is go back to Dogen's statement, even when climbing up the bird's path, taking good care of yourself as spiritual power. And I want you all to continue discussing this. And I'm asking Aishan to lead that discussion. I'm going to step out. Some of you know, I was diagnosed with COVID on Friday. had a horrible day, but managed to be able to take care of doing this seminar for three and a half hours yesterday.

[48:37]

But as some of you can hear in my voice and my coughing, I need to go take a rest. So I'm going to take good care of myself and encourage you all to continue the discussion. And Aishan, please respond for me. Thank you. Well, thank you, Tegan, I think. I don't know if I can respond for you, but I can try to respond for me. And that may be just barely. But I've been really intrigued by the questions and thoughts that people are sharing. I'm on a cell phone in Indiana, so I'll do my best to facilitate. But who else would like to offer something for us to chew on together?

[49:42]

Is there someone behind a pregnant pillar that I'm not able to see? Maybe not. You know, I was really relating to what Dylan was talking about, about being caught up in daydreams. I was reflecting on that within my own practice today because I think increasingly over the past, it seems like year or so, I have been really, really distracted and I've was thinking about how, you know, it's really kind of, it seems to be just endemic to being me, to be, to have a tendency to be distracted, and that you know, it's not really maybe realistic under those conditions to expect myself to suddenly when I sit down, you know, be able to really pay good attention.

[50:53]

I feel like the quality of my attention is not what it has been at some other times in my life. And I think that maybe as something that I could offer for all of us, If we want to maintain that quality in our zazen, I think we have to find ways of fostering it and encouraging it in our lives. Our zazen is not really any different from our lives, and the things that come up in zazen are the things of our lives, and we can notice them in our zazen practice. reflect on whether they're wholesome or unwholesome, necessary or unnecessary, whether they are beneficial to taking care of all beings, or whether they're not, you know, whether they're harmful to taking care of ourselves and all beings. And I was just, I think that's just my reflection for the day was that that's, you know, a lot of what

[51:54]

Buddha was talking about in many of his early sutras. And I think it also pertains to how we take care of all beings in our bodhisattva practice. Thank you for that insight, Aisha. I wanted to say that I have found the same thing, and I'm also feeling that Terry Asian is having trouble hearing you. Would you like to come closer? And then you can actually see as well. That works. Here we go. I can't really move the cord more, but you can turn around that way. Here we go. Thank you for that insight, patient. I have found not only with my friends who are practitioners but not practitioners, that in general, their level of focus and concentration has been weakened or declining.

[53:06]

And it occurs to me that through the COVID period, my interaction with online or my phone or streaming has increased significantly. not just because I work all day on a computer, but when I'm not at work, I'm also on my phone, I'm also streaming something. The number of hours that I am spending online has gone up through COVID probably double. And I'm wondering for myself if it's a matter of discipline and realizing how often do I actually have to be interacting either with Netflix or with my phone or with email or text or whatever social media it is, that that may in fact be impacting my ability to testify and my practice.

[54:14]

And I don't mean to say that in some sort of like a Luddite way that we should, you know, reject the, the current communication systems. But I do think it's something to think about when we think about practice is how much time are we spending online and how much of it is really needed or are there ways we could do it a little less? That's all I wanted to say. Thanks. Thank you for sharing that opinion. I sometimes feel the same way. I think there's something for maybe us to reconcile about the idea that something does belong to all times. And the distractions that we face now maybe are theoretically no different from the distractions that people have faced at any given time.

[55:23]

I think we can romanticize other people and other times as being somehow more pure or less distracted. And I think that's something to contemplate in your own practice. Are there ways in which, for any of us, that we're living our lives in such a way that it doesn't promote our practice and our serenity and our freedom from distraction? And at the same time, I think in this modern context that we're in, we as a society have gotten so good at finding more and more and more and more things that we can use as tools to distract us. And so how do we use those tools skillfully so that we can you know, use them as tools, but, but continue to foster our own peace of mind and taking care of ourselves and others.

[56:29]

And I think that's all, all of these things are, um, you know, wonderful, wonderful fodder for us to observe in our, in our practice, observe how our, um, you know, tendencies in Zazen are pretty much the same tendencies that we have in the rest of our lives. And how are they, how are they serving us, us and those around us and the world? And, and we can make some decisions for ourselves based on that, or we can, you know, maybe, maybe try things for a time and see if something else maybe allows us to, um, embody qualities that feel more beneficial. Thank you for that response. That's actually helpful.

[57:43]

Thank you, Taigan and Ayshan. I was thinking about the daydreaming question, and I was thinking about the function of it, because for me in Zazen, there's been a function of daydreaming. And sometimes it is things that spread to insight. So for example, it's like I slow down enough to become reflective and notice things I've done, maybe something I did where I handled it in a way I wish I hadn't. Maybe I spoke too sharply to my neighbor or maybe I ignored a comment that I think someone made to request something or, you know, it's like, there's something about the daydreaming that also takes me into things float, but sometimes I, I'm quiet enough that I can see things more objectively and sink in to my life a little more deeply via the daydreams.

[59:00]

So that was all. Yeah, those are the things that bubble up. We call them daydreams, but what are they really? They're just, you know, they're thoughts and we can... you know, observe them as thoughts. It's, we can, we can, you know, sort of question, okay, maybe that's true. Maybe that's not true. Um, and, and, and, you know, sit with them a little more loosely maybe, and allow some, some room and allow them to do what they do, but continue to observe and, and maybe see, you know, maybe they'll bring fruit in, in your life. Or maybe it's just a thought, you know? And it's just a little bubble of gas that sort of, you know, is released and rises to the surface, and then we can return to kind of that spacious awareness.

[60:10]

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