I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. It's as crowded up here as it is in my mind.

[01:11]

Well, I'd like to start off first by saying thank you for coming, and I hope it's a worthwhile day for you. It's a really wonderful day out, and it's a rare opportunity to actually be able to spend time together, sitting quietly and enjoying breath and posture, ourselves and our other Dharma friends here. I was asked to mention that this Sashin is dedicated to world peace. there are a list of groups that around the world who either have completed a Sashin, are in the process of Sashin, or are about to begin a Sashin, dedicated to world peace, and they're with information up on the bulletin board by the sign-up, listing all the places, and it's pretty amazing. Berkeley Zen Center is listed, of course, amongst many, and there are many, many, many around the world. I'm reminded when I go on vacation, and I think about the time zone changes, if Becky's visiting my folks in Virginia, at 5.40 in the afternoon here, which is 8.40 back there that people are sitting Zazen.

[02:32]

And there's a continuity in a way that we can sort of stay connected to our cushions, even if our cushion is 3,000 miles away. So just take a moment and thinking about people around the world sitting for peace and putting forth good energy to help promote that is a really powerful concept. And it's actually happening as we sit here. When things are at peace, then things are in harmony. And when things are not at peace, then there's varying degrees of war and disharmony. So when we sit Zazen, we're promoting peace within ourselves because that's where peace really starts, is in ourself. And if we cultivate a peaceful attitude and quiet mind,

[03:41]

people out in the world will feel that. You probably have had experiences of feeling someone's anger and feeling your own self tense up around that anger. And you've probably felt the other extreme, being around someone or an environment of peace and feeling peaceful. So I like to look at our Zendo as a laboratory where we cultivate this quiet, peaceful mind and then suffuse it out to the world and share that experience with others. And in our way, we're kind of countering the warring spirits. There's always going to be war. There's always going to be poverty. There's always going to be dissension and disharmony. there's always gonna be gravity pulling down and it's incumbent upon us to push up and counter and meet the gravity with an equal force of sitting upright and meet the disharmony and the warring spirit with a peaceful spirit and to try to harmonize.

[04:54]

It's a balance and it takes a lot of work. Cixin literally means to unify the mind. And in unifying the mind, we unify the body-mind, the physical posture and the mental attitude that we have. And Zazen instruction is basic to all Buddhist practices. There are practices that are visualization practices, and mantra practices, and giving practices, and service practices. There's many, many kinds. But fundamental to all of them is sitting zazen. That's what the Buddha realized when he sat under the bow tree 2,500 years ago. And each person has their own expression, a Buddha mind. And it's important not to get caught up in what other people do, but to focus really on what you can do. and we can get inspiration from other people.

[05:58]

And sitting zazen in a community, in a sashim, to unify our mind, we not only unify our own mind, but we unify our mind with other people. And that's the wonderful spirit that we'll feel and that we probably have tasted a little bit of already here in this room today. Yesterday Paul Haller talked about the neighbor next door who was doing some roofing and there was a lot of noise being generated and someone went out there to ask him if they could suspend their work for 45 minutes during the lecture and they actually worked out a compromise where the gentleman next door was working at the part of the house that was fairly quiet and we had our lecture then he was able to come back here. And Paul talked about how things constantly arise in our life which are opportunities either to be an obstacle to our practice or a way to enter practice.

[07:02]

And you don't have to look too far to see where those things arise. They come up constantly. So again, if we stay connected to the ground through breath and posture, we have opportunities to enter practice or enter the gate of liberation in each moment. And if we're not connected, and we've all had experiences of this, disharmony, which is already happening with this dissonance of sound and wanting something to be different than what it is, escalates quite quickly. So a practice, again, is just how to return to that sort of flat, neutral area, which is actually rich for our own and other people's awakening. Well, one way of harmonizing, especially during Sashin, is basic management. And the Sashin director, Karen, has asked me to go over the Sashin guidelines. And they're posted, and there are ways to encourage each other, each of us to harmonize.

[08:09]

And their guidelines are not rules. And I just want to go over them and kind of talk a little bit about the spirit of some of them. First one is follow the schedule completely. If you need to miss any or all parts of a scheduled event, notify the director. After rest periods, be in your seat several minutes before Zazen begins. Well, what does follow the schedule completely mean? And I think it's in my beginner's mind, there's a there or in a lecture that's been published here Suzuki Roshi's asked what is nirvana and actually Mel asked him that question and Suzuki Roshi's response was doing something completely that's nirvana. So in the spirit of that we follow the schedule completely and we experience

[09:13]

simply means, literally means blown out like a candle is blown out or extinguished. For our purposes, a way of looking at it is harmonizing to such a degree that there's no separation between self and other, which is what causes our discomfort and our suffering. So if we give ourselves over completely to the schedule, then there's no Ross saying, well, I don't want to do that. Or can we sit longer? Or I want more food. If we just follow what goes on, it's an opportunity to let go and just really be one with what's happening, which is what our practice fundamentally is about. And when that arises, we can feel the separation, the discomfort in our body, and how to return, how can I return back to being in harmony? And again, maintaining the sitting posture and just letting go is a way of just following the schedule and just going right to it. During upheavals at San Francisco's M Center, Mel said often, it was a schedule that took care of things.

[10:24]

The schedule was posted, and people just followed through it. And through all the ups and downs over the years, that's what maintained harmony in the community. And sometimes the schedule needs to be modified, and it's not an absolute. It's an absolute when it's established, but there's dialogue between people what works. And so over the years, we've worked out ways of having our schedule here work best for the most people. And for some people, it's very easy. For some people, it's very difficult. But it's like sitting on your cushion without moving. It's like a pot of water won't boil if you take it off the heat. So you have to leave it on the heat for it to boil. And similarly, when we sit zazen, even though we want to move, it's uncomfortable, either a physical itch or some mental thing that's going on. Just to sit right through it all and see it arise and pass away is a way that will really just kind of follow the schedule completely and just blend right in. We try to maintain silence and not engage other people and keep our eyes cast downward.

[11:31]

This way the focus is inward and not outward. Typically we're looking around looking for some kind of entertainment to excite ourselves with or sort of enjoy ourselves or take ourselves away from the monotony or the despair of our life. But our practice is focusing inward and seeing, what is this monotony of my life? Actually, it's not so monotonous. It's our life. It's all we have. So focusing inward and not engaging other people is a way to orient ourselves and bring it inward. Dogen Zenji, the founder of our teaching in Japan, said, take the backward step. and bring the light inward and shine it forth outward. Because when you bring the light inward, it comes out. And other people can feel that. If you need to use a phone for emergency calls, please see Karen about that. even though we're leaving the world for a day and sitting Sashin, the world is still there and we have obligations.

[12:42]

We're not monks who've left everything behind. So if something of real dire importance needs to be connected with, then we do have phones available. When entering or leaving the zendo, do it quietly. We're segwaying from the world, so-called world outside, to the so-called world inside. Actually, it's one piece, but there is a threshold there. And when you cross the threshold, we're moving into another world. So we walk a little differently, have our hands together, we bow, and we slowly come down from our busyness of our life to settle on the cushion. We'll be chanting at our service at noontime, and we'll be eating a formal oreoki in a bit for lunch, and I'll talk a little bit about what those two practices are about at those times.

[13:46]

There's no unnecessary reading or writing. If you need to write a note to someone, that's okay. But don't be sort of reading the bulletin boards and kind of browsing around. It's a time for looking inward, as I said. Ken Hin is walking meditation, it's not a rest, and it's an opportunity to take our meditative spirit into action so we can carry that energy outward and feel our body move through the universe. in a different way. It also gives our legs an opportunity to stretch out and rest, and maybe our back. So it does have a practical side, but the spirit of it should be seamless from sitting still to moving still. If you're having a particular difficulty with Sashin, with a particular person or some aspect of Sashin, then it all gets funneled to Karen, our Sashin director.

[14:52]

And she's very good about responding to people's needs and listening. And some things can't be rectified. You just have to sit through it. And some things can be, and changes can be made. But before coming to her, practice with that difficulty or the discomfort of, I don't like this. this person twitches too much or breathes kind of loud or I don't like this food or whatever. A little discomfort is okay because nothing is perfect. We have to find perfection within the imperfection or comfort or stillness within the chaos. It's okay to move during Zazen.

[15:55]

We try not to move. Zazen is a very forgiving practice. I think that's one reason why a lot of people come to practice Zazen. They come for many reasons but many of the traditions have a lot of strong rules and you have to be a certain way and pray a certain way and there's space for people to find their own way because ultimately that's what we have to do. There's no one is no intermediary between God or the creating spirit and yourself. You, in fact, are the creating spirit and we have people here to help facilitate each other to see that. So it's okay to move and try not moving when you sit. When we sit, we get worn down, not only physically, but emotionally, because it's often one of the few times we actually get to see how our mind is working.

[17:01]

We're not distracted by television or movies or talking with friends. We're just sitting here being mirrored. What's happening is when we face the wall, it's a mirror there. We get to see ourself clearly. And all the emotions come up, joyous, wonderful feelings. I feel really great about my life. so not so great and we get to see the changing and the impermanence of it all and how ephemeral all these things are. But as we sit we get worn down and we've heard this expression numerous times, you know, it's things as it is. So the phenomenal world, all the different things, as it is, as it is, is one thing. So when we sit, we get to see everything just for what it is. And while we sit, the discriminating mind that wants to pick and choose is wore down to a degree where there's some kind of permeability. And things are not so black and white anymore.

[18:04]

And there's shades of gray, for lack of a better word, and just our point of view. And as we get to see that, we actually get to see that things are okay. They're horrible, and they're okay. There's some really horrible things going on in the world. on another level, it's okay. It's just what is, without our judgments or self-centered thinking about what should be happening. Sashin is somewhat unique in that I don't know when Sashin started, the idea of Sashin, because the monks who left the world in Buddha's time, they were sitting a lot and practicing the Buddha's teachings, and it was a life of practice.

[19:06]

Our life isn't like that. We have the busyness of livelihood and family and things we want to do, hobbies and such. and for practice really to take a hold of our life and for us to live life, to live the life of Buddha. There has to be a seamless quality or a continuity from one thing to the next. So it's just one piece. There are ways of doing that. We can at work, we get up from our desk and go to talk to a co-worker, go to the bathroom, we can actually just quietly and mindfully put our chair back as if we were putting a zafu back. And we can just walk down the hall in shashu. We can also walk down the hall with our arms at our side if we feel a little self-conscious, but being aware of breath and posture. And in many ways, that's no different than how we comport ourselves here at the zendo.

[20:11]

As I mentioned, from Siddhi Zazen to Kinhin, there's an effort to make it one thing and not separate. And we'll feel that sometimes, and sometimes we won't. When we chant, we chant together. We feel the spirit of just one voice chanting. In amidst all the different voices, there's just the one voice. And just attention, just attending to things, tending and caring to things, and attending and bringing our orientation toward what's in front of us is a way of really seeing what's going on. And it takes a big effort because sometimes we don't want to attend to things. We just want to take a break. And that's okay. It's okay to take a break from being mindful. but feel the effects and see the effects of not being mindful and caring for things and see if that creates harmony or disharmony, settledness or unsettledness.

[21:24]

I wanted to read a little bit from case three in the Book of Serenity, which is a collection of koans, or old stories from China. The Raja of an East Indian country invited the 27th Buddhist patriarch Prajnatara to a feast. Now Prajnatara was the teacher of Bodhidharma, who's depicted in that scroll back there behind Marian. And Bodhidharma is the gentleman who brought Buddhism from India to China in around 400 or so AD. So Prajnatara was his teacher. The Raja asked him, Why don't you read scriptures? The patriarch said, this poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in the realms of the body or mind when breathing in, doesn't get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out.

[22:39]

I always reiterate such a scripture, hundreds, thousands, millions of scrolls. Well, what does that mean? there's volumes and volumes of buddhist literature that are been translated throughout the centuries in all the countries where buddhism traveled to we have a whole library full of books that members and friends can check out and study so there's a place for study in buddhism all that literature and what Prajnatara is talking about here is that fundamentally awareness of posture, and following your breath, and feeling all that intimately as you course through the day in Zazen. And if you're truly intimate with yourself in sitting Zazen, all the Buddhist teachings are revealed through that expression.

[23:43]

All those scrolls, all those books, all the Buddhist art, it's all revealed through sitting Zazen. the literature and the art are individuals' expressions of what Buddhism is. There's a saying that Sashins like this are like candy. We get to have a lecture and talk and we have tea and there's a certain informality about it or a certain kind of way of connecting. And there's something to be said for that. But we don't want to get too attached to the candy of hearing people give their understanding of the teaching. Hopefully it can inspire us. I've been inspired by lots of speakers. of Dharma over the years, but also we have to come back to ourself and what's our expression, what is our scroll that's being created when we sit Zazen. In the Blue Cliff Record, which is another collection of koans, there's a koan.

[25:08]

A monk asked Kyoren, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West? Kyoren said, sitting long and getting tired. Now the koans are stories that are opportunities for us to look at ourselves, they're pointing to us, so in order for these thousand-year-old stories to really come alive we have to look at them as expressions of people's practices that we also do. So are we The commentary by Sakita of this book says, Sitting long and getting tired is equivalent to saying sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. This answer of Curin's is greatly admired by Zen students.

[26:10]

When sitting, you are sitting. When you get tired, you get tired. There is no irritation or no regret. You are as you are, all of a single piece. This is essential topic of the case. Will you be able to say at the end of your life, I have a set long and I got tired and I'm all in one piece. So it's okay to get tired. It's okay to be filled with energy. Whatever is happening is Buddha being revealed. as long as we don't separate from it. If we separate from it, then it's something else. This afternoon, we're going to have tea and discussion to kind of wind up the day. and we have about 10 minutes now if people have some questions or comments about what's going on, Spirit of Sasheen or some of the stuff that I've presented.

[27:23]

Yes? You inhale as you lift the heel up, and then you exhale as you take it a half step forward. And as I said, if it's crowded, sometimes you may have to take two or three rounds of breathing before you can move again. Catherine? I don't know if this is appropriate, but when Bill Kwong was teaching his community, his suggestion was to keep tying the steps to the breath, exactly as you've described, and then if you feel like you're falling behind or coming up too fast on somebody, because your breathing is faster or slower, he wanted us to hold, to keep our steps with the breath, but simply make our, adjust the size of the step, so that you can actually, it's more subtle, you don't see people sort of, you know, suddenly backing up or moving.

[28:41]

a sort of almost step in place, if you're going up too fast on somebody, we'll slow you down. Or taking slightly larger steps, but still one step per breath. And then it's more like Zazen, where you stay really completely. So, just to share. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that works. What you don't want is like these people taking like sort of gaping a large, large step. So it's sort of, it's mindful walking and everybody has their own, their own gate and it can accommodate. So, um, that seems like it would work. Thank you. Yes. Question being asked. Yeah, it is different because the numbers of the people, so we do walk fast then and obviously we're not tying the breathing in, but there is an awareness of breath and body as we move through the universe and it's people often kind of like look around and all that, that's not really Kinyin, so how can we sort of stay focused and walk at a brisk pace.

[30:07]

In some traditions the kin-hin is always quick, it kind of goes in, it's a little bit in keeping with the spirit of the practice and a certain kind of sharp, vital, quick spirited practice and the walking kind of mirrors that spirit that's being cultivated inside. it's not any better or worse than slow walking. Does it mean that people that are walking slower, practicing dull-mindedness and all that, but it's just a different expression. And we feel that a little bit inside here. We walk slow, there's a bell, we put our feet together, and then we walk at a regular rate back to our seat. So that's somewhat like what happens outside. Lois? The West. Yes, I can tell by the roof. But is that, you know, in your, in the Blue Cliff Records?

[31:13]

Uh-huh. Bodhi Dharma came from the West, is it? Well, from the point of view of China, it's West. Okay, so it's literal, is what you're saying. Well, yeah. That's some kind of resonance for me. In what way? Oh, I don't know exactly, but it came from the West that feels like Well, in Pure Land Buddhism there's the Pure Land of the West, I don't think they call it the East. In America we tend to think of the mystical East because it's the Asian meditative practices, but he was also allegedly blue-eyed, he had a how we think of Indians, for one, and also in China, you know, the skin color and the eye colors and hair and whatnot.

[32:15]

So he was a foreigner. He was really quite a different character, which also has associations of the West, given how we think of the East as being as foreign land. But there could be something else going on there. I never really thought about that. Well, I think of the West as the setting sun and death, you know, so I mean, I don't really bring that all in. I haven't come across any, but I'm curious now about it. Yeah. One can. I tend just, it's enough just to stay upright and follow the breath.

[33:19]

And even in Zazen It isn't necessary to count your breath all the time. Counting one's breath is an opportunity to sort of focus and get out of our thinking mind and then at some point we're just sitting there following our breath. It's not necessary to count anymore. And similarly with walking meditation, you may try the same thing. Count it for a while and then just walk and feel your body move through the zendo in that kind of spirit. So when we talk about sitting still, does it still, it still allows room for us to make those adjustments?

[34:59]

Or can you say something about that? Yeah. I'm reminded of a exchange that I had with Sojourner Moshi. And I said, I feel like I'm in between a rock and a hard place and a really difficult space. And the encouragement here is not to move. What do I do? and he said Buddha moves and what I understood from that was Buddha symbolizes the all-encompassing oneness and there's a stillness there so even though there's movement there's a spirit of stillness within these adjustments that we make and gentleman gave a lecture here some years ago and he held up a teaching stick like the one I was showing from Alan and he was like rocking it back and forth. It's like sitting Zazen is constantly falling and you come upright and it's an ongoing practice just like our life and being oriented toward centering.

[36:04]

There's a place when we sit Zazen where it's Effortless we found that sort of still point and as Mel said time and again We constantly come off of that and so it's good to give ourselves as an instruction Just remind ourselves of that if we're always doing it then that's not so good There's we need to let go and accept our posture for you know, wherever it happens to be So it's a balance of how much is too much? sitting still and then in time things will kind of get out and then I kind of come back upright to that place which is centered. It's not static. Sometimes I feel really happy. I think, gosh, this is great. Wouldn't it be nice for this to last forever? And it doesn't. All of a sudden I get sad or something happens and then I just make that adjustment. So our mental states are as changing as our physical states. and not to be attached to either one is a middle path, a way of living a life consistent with Buddha's teaching.

[37:09]

And sometimes we're not even aware of the posture needing to be adjusted, and that's when it's nice when somebody comes by and does that straightening out thing for us, and to be flexible and allow that to happen. But it's a good question, you know, how much is too much and when do I adjust? I heard that Yasutani Roshi said after 30 years he finally felt that he was sitting Zazen, and he was a master who had all kinds of disciples and really finally getting into it after many, many years, and I think that kind of touches on acceptance of this body and mind and just being present with it, but it does take a long time. And it's really hard at first. As I said earlier, Mel left Sashim because he didn't want to be there. And to really just keep coming back and to stay with what the world is offering you is a big, big challenge.

[38:12]

Yeah? One final step. Breathing is movement. You have to be free to move, to breathe. That's right. Yeah, sometimes people get a little panicky when they're sitting Zazen, like all of a sudden their breathing is like, they have to try to find their breath again. So awareness of breath, you know, as I mentioned earlier, like counting one's breath and really being there with it, there's a presence of mind that's felt as you breathe. And so that needs to be attended to. Sometimes taking a deep breath before Zazen, or even during the course of Zazen, just to kind of re-equate yourself. Typically what happens though, as we let go and there's less tension in our body, we take fuller, rounder breaths, and there's not as many cycles of breathing in a given minute.

[39:22]

We're not trying to get to three cycles a minute or whatever, but it does happen. As we breathe fuller and deeper down, there's gonna be a change in our breathing. and we may be actually having to adjust to that reality that we're used to breathing one way and now we're, it seems to be a different breath and it seems tighter or shorter or what, you know, what's going on here? It's, you know, without the distractions of TV and people and movies and whatnot, all of a sudden we just have this. This becomes really a fascinating thing, the breath. Yes? These are your last comments. If you start analyzing, if I start analyzing, well, what's really going on here, then I'm lost. At the time that that's happening, I can't stop and start thinking and evaluating what is going on. So there's a color there to do what you do normally, or possibly normally, tear apart your behavior here in relation to the breath.

[40:28]

Ah, now I have the answer. So I have to let that go. I have to watch it. And the other thing, mainly one said, I always remember when you said before that, oh, I hope this feeling lasts and then that moving comes. And she said it was very hard to have a bad, well, to really feel very bad if your chest was open. So I notice that and I think I'm having a good feeling and I'm feeling a kind of crouched over. And then suddenly I correct the posture and really open up my chest to what you were describing earlier. And the level of, I don't know if it's positive, but a more neutral being in the world feeling comes upon me. And so that gives a real correction. the degree to which my chest is open. Yeah, well it's a metaphor for our life, right, we're kind of hiding from the world or are we meeting the world and this uprightness, Mel describes it's kind of like a fountain that the water just kind of comes up through us and out and so the yogic lines of meridians and the energy going up and actually that's what happens to the ascendant, it's very different than this.

[41:54]

But you think, I mean for me the awareness was that I thought. You were feeling good that that was good. Not that I was crouching, but that I wasn't crouching and that this was a positive feeling. And then suddenly, to actually make with, gentlemen, before COVID, even the subtle adjustment was a much more broadening. Yeah. Well, yeah, and I think we can have good feelings on show. We do quite often. But it's nice to have the experience of how much bigger the feelings can be sitting upright. Or empty. I mean, there's an emptiness. There's an empty feeling when you pull up. The glass is not empty. Totally empty, yeah. That's a really good point.

[43:37]

Yeah. Well, I used to, I used to sit half lotus and during a three day labor day session about six years ago or so, I said I wasn't going to move and I didn't move and now I can't sit that way anymore because I kind of messed up something in my knee and I've just had to over the years adjust to this posture, which now is comfortable, but initially it wasn't because my most musculature and all that had developed differently sitting half lotus. So it's again, it's like what Mel said, um, you know, Buddha moves. So how can I move and adjust my posture with Buddha mind versus Ross mind, self-centered, I want to be comfortable, so I'm going to sit any way I want. It's a very different kind of spirit in taking care of yourself. And I've heard a number of good things about Ed's and his wife's teachings and being kind to yourself. The way I infer the don't move thing is the encouragement to sit still because we naturally don't do that. We naturally go to the other side of just always adjusting. You kind of watch yourself. You twitch and whatever, right?

[44:42]

We don't need any encouragement to do that. That happens. So it's like the balance of don't move. And then somehow or another we find our middle way through it all. We have depictions of the Buddha sitting full lotus. I can't do that. And you sit any way it works. So you're not gripping, gritting, like you said. So thanks for offering that up. I think that would be the last question, because I want to try to stay on schedule. When I first started sitting with Bhaktivinand, she said, it's the difference between holding still, which we're not trying to do, and finding stillness. And the motions that you make to adjust your posture are a way of finding stillness. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that. Yeah, I was just thinking what Kelly was saying. That sounds maybe like that holding thing maybe is what that restrictive energy and that may be impeding the breathing thing. So finding stillness and be stillness versus kind of holding it, wanting it to be that way.

[45:45]

Well, thank you very much. We'll have another chance to discuss during tea. And typically we end four vowels after lecture. And if you don't know the chant, you can just hold it up and gosho like so. Beings are numberless.

[46:10]

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