All of you are much more experienced than people in Sashim a few years ago. So even though I know many of you have quite a lot of difficulty, there is some steadiness in your sitting, helped by other people who sit pretty well. Practicing Buddhism is a little like falling in love. Maybe it's not quite so attached, but... When you fall in love, I think, first you can't quite believe it's happening to you.

[01:02]

you will resist, resist it. But you keep having to recognize something's happening. But you're not in love as long as you're resisting. And finally one day you just recognize you must be in love. You give in to it. And at that moment you And the decision to recognize it, to acknowledge it, is being in love. I think that decision is that recognition. It's not just a matter of being forced on us. And I think Buddhist practice is the same. You may practice for some years pretty seriously without realizing you're a Buddhist or completely accepting what's happening to you. But at the moment you say, oh my God, now I must be a Buddhist. Or I'm going to

[02:34]

looks like this is really happening to me, I'm going to be practicing. Then something different happens in your practice. At that moment, everything is different. Sort of in the same way, everything is different when you fall in love. The hills, they look the same to everyone else, but to you they look different. So another aspect of falling in love is that everything is the same and yet everything is different. And that's true of Buddhist practice too. And another is that being in love requires certain devotions or observances.

[03:40]

practicing Buddhism requires certain observances. It may be one fundamental reason why we have a Buddha statue, even though they didn't have images of Buddha for at least 500 years, I think, after Buddha's death. Still, we have some object of veneration, some way of... some observances. which are the same as the decision to, maybe through renewal of the recognition, I'm in love, I'm a Buddhist. So it needs some observances. And being in love is also like carrying something which makes all your burdens lighter. Although there's something new you're lugging around with you, everything seems easier as a result. As if you're looking into something, which makes everything else easier. And the same is true in Buddhism.

[05:09]

Although you are taking on responsibility in the ordinary world, trying to help others and take care of your own responsibilities, all the time you are looking into the unborn, we say, looking into the void, looking into the uncreated, seeing things Acting as if things are real but knowing things are an illusion. An illusion and yet not an illusion. That sense of seeing super sensibly. Something that takes over I hear mind, heart, and one perception, one cognition. Realizing, we say, that there are no beings to save, and yet saving beings.

[06:34]

And in our practice, the clincher for all this is right concentration, or jnana, or the fifth paramita. So in our practice, a sashin is... we could say a sashin is the time when we emphasize the practice of the fifth paramita. While daily zazen monastic life, or our ordinary life put into order, is the practice of the other Paramitas, and altogether the sixth Paramita. And we may have specific ways, we observe each one, practice each one, but assessing is our way of

[07:58]

practicing the fifth paramita. It is your opportunity to realize right thinking, perfect right thinking, right concentration, right mindfulness. From this practice of concentration, you will become free from restlessness. And restlessness is the most pervading difficulty problem, more so even than conflicting emotions. But the only way you can become completely free of conflicting emotions and restlessness, almost the only way, is by right concentration. Right Samadhi. And by Right Concentration, you will also know what it means to be one who gives up family, household. Even though you may have a family and a household, you will realize through Right Concentration that there's nothing to base

[09:34]

Security on no place. You can take make a material home Which you can understand that Beforehand but only through right concentration through Samadhi. Do you actually know it through and through? And you will have the joy born of detachment and you will develop what is translated sometimes as super-sensible cognition, hearing with the eye, seeing with the ear. And only by this deeper, deep, deep perceiving, which isn't thinking, can you help others

[10:42]

and you understand others and yourself. And through right concentration you are prepared to practice, to exist in perfect wisdom. So it's very important in our Sashin practice, maybe at least twice a year,

[11:56]

to have a one-week session in which you try with all your might to exist in that undistracted way which is conducive to right thinking, right insight. and which makes everything in Buddhism sure. Maybe it's through right concentration that you'll have the first real taste of Vimalakirti said, or he is said to have said in the sutra about him, to seek, to meet reality, to meet Buddha is to

[13:53]

find reality in your own body. And he said to, in the conversation in the sutra between Himalakirti and Manjushri, he said to Manjushri, we can go meet Buddha right now. And you can go meet Buddha right now if you understand what I mean, what we mean by perfect wisdom. The Tathagata is your own body, is everything at once, without particular definition. And so right now in your practice you can meet Buddha. But if you are disturbed by conflicting emotions or distracted thoughts or restlessness, you can't meet Buddha so easily. So our practice in Sashin is to

[15:27]

develop that concentration which, in ordinary life, maybe looks like some calm deportment, which makes space for There are so many seeming facts in our life which we want to hide from, which we hope some success or affluence will hide from us.

[17:04]

or which we hope to find that event which will have us forgiven. There's so much too we don't want to meet. And as a result, to avoid it, we'll do much worse things to ourselves. We'll, too. Sometimes we extinguish the self to avoid facing the world. So we'll extinguish the world and the self. And in Buddhism we extinguish the self to see actually the world. And this kind of sashin is so easy in comparison.

[18:28]

and so difficult because it's voluntary. But you have right now an opportunity, this opportunity to sit on your cushion as if you were never born. Dogen said, when you meet one practice, complete one practice, each action contains every action

[20:00]

So if you can practice right now in this session, with no obstacles between you and you, settling yourself, as Kadagiri Roshi always said, on yourself. you won't have any obstacles of the same kind anymore. You'll be like one who's sure and detached

[21:22]

his or her love. you

[23:45]

And you make that decision not knowing what will happen next. abandoning yourself to this practice. As one who is in love abandons oneself, not knowing what will come next.

[25:25]

I think you can if you're not afraid of the power of your feeling and the remarkableness of your life. You don't have to have any idea of good or bad or good practice and practice, being ready for the Dharma or not being ready. You will meet Buddha in everything you do. We'll all be each other's companions.

[27:40]

This is the mind of the patriarchs, the mind of the Tathagata, which is found out in this kind of intimate practice with each other. until there is sureness and joy in our not abiding anywhere. So please continue this friendly practice, each by yourself and each with each other. I think you know what I mean.

[29:39]

Yeah.

[29:47]

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