I remember reading a description of Shikantaza by Yasutani Roshi, and he described Shikantaza as a kind of very, very special practice where you sit zazen, and you sit zazen so hard that the perspiration jumps out from your body, and you can only do it for about a half hour because it's so intense. And when I read that, I thought, boy, that's not the Shikantaza that I know anything about or ever heard anything about from Suzuki Roshi. Down. Can you hear me? Up. Down. Around. And I thought, I don't say that this is wrong, Shikantaza, but it seems to me this is elitist

[01:16]

Shikantaza, or Shikantaza like the Olympics, trying to accomplish something, some great feat. And Suzuki Roshi always talked about Shikantaza as your day-to-day, moment-to-moment life of selflessness. One of the main themes of Suzuki Roshi was, don't be selfish. I remember we were sitting in a sashin, maybe my first or second sashin at Sokoji, and for some reason or another, in the middle of it, he said, you people don't know how selfish you are. And I thought, is that the right word? Maybe he means selfless, or, no, maybe. So that was a turning word for me, too, because I really, to me, I really got that the central

[02:32]

teaching of Suzuki Roshi was not to be selfish. It was a very simple word, a very simple term, it's something that our mother always tells us, right? And in Buddhism, we learn to be selfless, and no self, right, be selfless. But he said selfish, which has a little more personal connotation, and the one that we don't like so much. And getting to know, listening to Suzuki Roshi's lectures, and watching his activity, and his day-to-day activity, the way he would sit down and stand up, and as people have been describing, eat his dinner, walk, put on his shoes. This is his expression of shikantaza, everyday activity with no selfishness, just doing the

[03:35]

thing for the thing. We say, just sitting is shikantaza, that's true, just putting on your shoes. But this just has a special meaning. It means without going any further, or without adding anything extra. When we do our daily activity, we always have a purpose. If I go to the store, I want to buy something, so I have a purpose, and that purpose motivates me to go to the store. But while going to the store, I'm living my life step by step, which has something to do with going to the store and that motivation, but it's totally separate at the same time.

[04:36]

It's just this step, this step, this step. For the sake of walking. But we're always doing something, making up a story about our life. And making up this story about our life is okay, this is our dream, we've been talking about the dream. Everybody has a dream, we have a dream of going to the store. Every thought is a dream. But the shikantaza, or the just doing, is within the dream to do the selfless activity of just doing. This is, in other words, we move and then we rest. We move and then we rest. Life is a movement and a rest. But, in our practice, we move and rest at the same time, move and rest at the same time.

[05:42]

Within our movement is perfect stillness. Perfect stillness and movement are the two aspects of this life. So, sometimes when I think about what is shikantaza, it's like when our thought and our activity has no gap. And when the skier is skiing in the Olympics and doing this great feat, body and mind, there's no gap. The thought and the activity is exactly the same. There's not thinking about something, the thought is the activity and the activity is the thought. But it doesn't have to be in such highly motivated, spectacular events. It's just our day-to-day activity, moment-to-moment activity, the simplest activity.

[06:47]

And this is what we recognized in Suzuki Roshi when we say, he was like this. His shikantaza was right there for all of us to experience. And it was not spectacular, but there was something so wonderful about it and we couldn't put our finger on what it was. Just putting on your shoes. How can you put on your shoes like that? We all do it, but there was something about putting on the shoes that was exactly the same as the women skiers in the Olympics. It had exactly the same quality. So, shikantaza is rather undefinable, and when I think about how do we practice shikantaza, how do we do that? Just lack of selfishness is a very simple practice. Lack of self-centeredness and just doing.

[07:53]

As Rev said, you put yourself totally into the activity and the universe meets you and confirms you. And there's no gap. That's my understanding. Does anybody have a question? Thank you. So, I thought we could take the last break of the conference and then we'll come back. And after the break, we're going to do a little bit of discussion on the essential teachings of Suzuki Roshi, which I'm hoping is going to take the form of a poem.

[08:58]

It's probably the wrong way of calling it. But it's going to be done, hopefully, somewhat unusually, as many people participate. So, we'll come back in 20 minutes to four. Thank you. Thank you.

[09:21]

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