I love to chase the truth that floods the timeless words. Morning. Today I want to talk about, somewhat in detail, posture and breathing. In Zazen, of course we focus on our breathing, put our attention on our breathing, but the two main areas of focus is our posture,

[01:03]

and breathing. So first, before we concentrate on breathing, we concentrate on posture. So posture is first, and breathing is second. Unless we have a good foundation for our breathing, which is our posture, it doesn't make much sense to just focus on our breath. So, first is posture, and I want to just give us a little bit of Zazen instruction. I haven't done that in a long time. I used to do it more often actually, but somehow it's easy to forget when everyone has been sitting so long and it's good to come back to those basic things.

[02:16]

So first, when we sit down, And when you cross your legs, it's important to put your hands on your knees like this and sway back and forth, starting out with a wide arc and gradually making it narrower. And like this, so that you can loosen up your legs. and stretch your body. This is important to do when you sit down. Most of us know about this but we forget or we just neglect it. I know that I've always My mind is always refreshed when I see Kanagiri Roshi, because he does this every time he sits down, tazazen.

[03:25]

Every time he gives a lecture, he waits a few minutes. Well, everybody waits while he does this. And to take the time to do it is important. I don't do it every time I sit down, but I do it pretty often. When you do that, it brings the parts of your body together, and then you can start to work with them. So after you've done this, this is not, I remember Suzuki Roshi always used to say, this is not preliminary to zazen. This swaying back and forth is not getting ready for zazen. It's already zazen. not different from Zazen. So that's really part of Zazen. And in order to sit up straight and align our body, you lean forward like this, arching your back.

[04:40]

Not like this, humping your back, but putting some arch in your back. then slowly sit up straight and then your vertebrae are lined up one on top of the other and your head should be on top of your spine. So when you sit in your position and sit up like this, just take a moment to let your spine fall into alignment and feel your head being on top of your spine. Not like this. This is very bad posture and it's very hard on your back. But a lot of people get in the habit of sitting like this, varying degrees of this. And then your back, the upper back gets a hump in it. So if you're sitting really straight, your back

[05:45]

has a kind of curve and your head and your upper back are pretty much in a line, not like this. So we really should guard against that. If we sit a long time and we sit with our head slumped forward too much, it's not good for our posture. So a Zen student should have good posture. And if we're sitting for long periods of time, paying attention to our posture, it makes sense that we do it right. So it's important to have your head on top of your spine. Because your head, I don't know how much it weighs, but it's considerable.

[06:46]

like a big stone on top of this pole. So when you put this stone on top of this pole, you want to make sure that it's balanced up there and not leaning somewhere so that you don't have a strain. I think you can attribute most of the strain that you have in your back to the position of your head on top of your spine. So you should pay careful attention to the balance to keep your spine straight. Lift up your sternum a little bit. Helps. It opens your chest. And just make sure that your head is on top of your spine. And the way that you do that, one way to do that is to align your nose with your navel and to align your ears with your shoulders. You can't see yourself in the mirror, but you can feel it.

[07:52]

And then when you put your hands in the mudra, your thumbs, the tops of your thumbs should be touching, not like this. but like this, very lightly touching. And then you put your hands up against your lower abdomen and with a very feeling of a circle. It's not really round, but it feels like a circle when you hold it there. And your thumbs are lightly touching. Feels like just enough to touch, but not to press. The mudra is a kind of barometer of your zazen.

[09:04]

You can kind of tell how your zazen is through your mudra, through the way you hold your mudra. If your thumbs are pressing together, then you have a lot of tenseness. in your posture. So if you have a lot of tenseness in your posture, just hold your mudra lightly. Don't let it fall apart. Some people let the mudra fall, hold it too light. In zazen, it's a delicate balance between tension and looseness or relaxation. And Some people are too tense. Sometimes we get too tense and we start pressing everything and our body becomes kind of like a stone or like very rigid. And we don't want our body to be very rigid in zazen. And the other extreme is when we become very loose and our mudra doesn't hold together and we just kind of like that.

[10:14]

we can get through zazen like this, but it's not really, really zazen. So tension is necessary in our posture, and tenseness is tension that's unnecessary in our posture. So we want to pay attention to the tension, but get rid of the tenseness So that's a delicate balance between tension and relaxation, to let go, to keep the form and let go at the same time. So when you put your hands in the mudra, then you can look at, pay attention to your whole body and let go of any tenseness that's in your upper back.

[11:40]

And then you let go of the tenseness that's in your shoulders and arms. And you can just consciously watch the tenseness go out of your upper body. It's important to just watch the tenseness, to think the tenseness out. So the reason for that is that your elbows don't hold you up and your arms are not holding you up. Your shoulders are not holding you up. Your upper back does not hold you up. Your lower back is a support. So you put effort in your lower back. And your spine goes up like this, and the shoulders come off. So your spine is holding up this kind of tree with all these branches. The branches don't participate so much in holding itself up, holding up the tree.

[12:41]

They hang from the tree. So your limbs just can hang from the tree in a good form. You should have some good form so the tree feels balanced and so that all the branches participate. So it's not so much a matter of muscular tension, but it's a matter of letting this spirit hold us up and finding our balance and harmonizing all parts of the body together. So when we sit, harmonizing all the parts of the body

[13:43]

not leaving anything out, but everything is included. This whole unity, we're concentrated on the whole unity, not just on some part. So in zazen, we go over the various parts of our body. When we concentrate on the mudra, the mudra is dominant. When we concentrate on the posture of the back, on the vertebrae, then the posture of the back is dominant. And we hold our mouth closed, with our teeth together, and your tongue at the roof of your mouth, and your eyes are open. I know it's hard to open your eyes.

[14:44]

This morning, I was very sleepy. And I had a hard time holding my eyes open. And we all have a hard time holding our eyes open, especially when we're sleepy. But you should try. Even though it's a little hard to hold your eyes open, you should make the effort to do it. And you don't have to concentrate on something that you see. It's not necessary to concentrate on some little spot on the wall or something. Just keep your eyes open. That's all. And without trying to see something, just let seeing see. And without trying to hear something, just let hearing hear. And without trying to feel something, just let feeling feel. So go over and over the various parts of your body doing zazen and correct your posture because your posture is always changing.

[15:57]

It's not a rigid thing. And you shouldn't hold yourself rigid in zazen, expecting to be the same when you finish zazen as when you started. Many changes will take place during the course of zazen, and you need to subtly adjust all the time. It's a mistake to put yourself in the form and then rigidly hold the form. Zazen, you should always be free and have a sense of body freedom and flexibility in Zazen. If I come behind you and adjust your posture, your limbs should, each one of them should feel independent.

[17:01]

If I move your elbow, Just your elbow moves. But usually, when I come behind you and move your elbow, your whole body moves because you're glued together. Your whole body seems to be glued together. Don't glue your body together. Each limb is independent. Everything, all the fingertips are independent from your hand. Each one of those joints is independent from each other. Your wrist is independent from your arm, and your lower arm is independent from your upper arm, and your arm is independent. So you should, every part of your body should feel free. They're connected, but not molded together. And we should really sit with that feeling. And that's what we should be thinking about in zazen. When we sit zazen, that's what we think about.

[18:03]

I know we would like to think about other things, and we can't help thinking about other things. It's impossible to help thinking about other things. But when you know you're thinking about something else, then just drop it and bring your attention back to working on zazen. So actually, zazen is a lot of work. It's a full day's work. for no pay. So the work is to keep the tension and at the same time to let the tenseness fall. Keep getting rid of the tenseness over and over again. Until you find the minimum amount of effort to do the maximum amount of work That should be your goal, to find out how little effort to move the most biggest thing. And if you're using too much effort, let go of it.

[19:14]

Keep letting go until you find out just where the balance point is. Otherwise, you just have a terribly hard time. And Sashin becomes kind of a terrible grind. Even though Sashin is difficult, it shouldn't be a terrible grind. You should have some satisfaction. And when you moment by moment can find the point of balance and harmony between all the parts of your body. It doesn't stay, you know. It changes all the time, so you have to keep doing it. You have to keep finding it over and over again.

[20:16]

You may have perfect posture for one moment, but it's no longer perfect posture the next moment, which is okay, but you keep working on it. So you're always looking for your posture. I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, everything is constantly falling out of balance. Everything is constantly losing its balance. All forms are constantly losing their balance. And in zazen, you're constantly losing your balance and constantly regaining your balance. So if you're not aware and quick enough, then you have a lot of difficulty.

[21:20]

So that's why we have to remain alert and awake so that we can constantly keep finding our balance and renewing our zazen, coming back to life moment by moment. So when you have your posture established, when you finally establish your posture in the first 10 or 15 minutes of zazen, then you can start paying attention to your breathing. And in our zazen, we don't control our breath. We don't practice breath control. We just follow the breath. Mind follows the breath. And Suzuki Roshi always wanted us to count our breath.

[22:24]

Counting breath is kind of like kindergarten practice. but not kindergarten, but maybe first grade practice. We don't study koans during Zazen. Shikantaza is maybe the most advanced kind of practice. But Counting breath is maybe the most primitive. And Suzuki Roshi always wanted us to count our breath because he wanted us to have very simple, uncomplicated practice. It's very hard to count your breath. Very hard to count from one to ten over and over again.

[23:30]

without forgetting all about it, or without doing it mechanically. Actually, doing it mechanically is more of a problem than forgetting it. If you forget your breath, forget to count, you can always start again. You count on the exhale. One, and inhale again. Two. The exhale is always longer than the inhale. Inhaling is pretty short. And exhaling is long. And you can even extend it a little bit. Short and then long. And when you exhale, you count one. Then inhale and you count two. And when you get to 10, you start again with one. But when we count one,

[24:33]

It should be one. And that one isn't a number anymore. When you count one, it's no longer a number. It's just one. And when you count two, it's no longer number two in relation to one or three. It's just two. So it could be anything. It could be mu. So if you're really concentrated on each breath, And on each sound, number, then the number is not different than saying mu. You merge with the number, just like when you say mu, you merge with mu. So if you do, count breath counting with real absorption.

[25:38]

It's not different than Shikantaza and it's not different than Mu. And it takes a lot of concentration to really stay absorbed. So I want us to today to when we watch our breath to count. I know it's hard to count all day long, every breath. Sometimes you won't do it. But I want us to mostly do it and to keep coming back to it. Try to do it as well as you can. Make the effort to do it as well as you can. And so when you count one, it's, you can start at the beginning of the exhale and say, you say it to yourself, but you feel it. Feel that one in your breathing.

[26:43]

It's the sound of your breath. Then you get to the end of the breath. And then inhale. And then two. You get to the end of the breath. Give yourself time to do everything. There's no hurry. Wait till you get to the end before you start at the beginning. And that goes for everything you do. Give yourself space and time for whatever is happening. And after counting your breath for a while, then you can keep looking at your posture, go over your posture, and then come back to your breath, and then come back to your posture.

[27:47]

So the breathing and posture is all part of one activity. And then, of course, there'll be all these extraneous thoughts coming up. Just let them come. Just let them go. Let the thought come, and then let it go. The most important thing, whether the thought comes or doesn't come, is not to be bothered. Don't let your thinking mind bother you. At the same time, don't let yourself be carried off by thinking. Don't just sit there thinking all day, but make the effort to come back. I don't mean that you should just let your mind wander.

[28:50]

You make the effort to come back, but unawares, you find yourself suddenly thinking. And just keep coming back. One thing you can do is wait for the thought to arise. You can just be alert to when some thought arises. And if you can be alert to when the thought arises, then no thought will arise. But when you let down your guard, then a thought will come. But it's easier to know when the thought comes to an end than when it starts, because you usually find yourself in the midst of a thought rather than at the beginning of the thought. So if you can catch the thought before it arises, then it's less likely to arise.

[29:54]

So usually we catch ourselves somewhere in the midst of a thought, and then we say, well, okay, come back. But we're not so aware of when it starts. We just find ourself thinking. So thinking is a natural process. So there's no reason to feel bad about thinking. Quite often people say, oh, my mind is just going, going, all doing zazen. It's awful zazen. But don't judge your zazen. Don't judge whether it's good or bad. Just, when you catch yourself, keep coming back. And this constantly bringing yourself back to zazen is what we do all day long. Constantly coming back. At some point, if you continue to do that, your thoughts will slow down and you won't have to worry so much.

[31:10]

Do you have a question? Ron? I have two questions. One, your left hand is on top of your right palm. How, the fingers of the left hand, how, what, on what part of your right palm do they rest? Well, if you put, this is the center of your right palm, right? but there's the center of the palms. And this is the longest finger of your left hand, the middle one. So you put the tip of the middle finger in the center, the tip of the middle finger of your left hand in the center of the palm of your right hand. And your fingers are, the fingers of one hand are evenly on top of the fingers of the other hand. In other words, the joints fit, they fit right. So it may be a little off-center, depending on how your hands are put together.

[32:39]

But if the joints of your fingers fit together, of your two hands comfortably, then that's how you hold them. And then put them here. What's the second question? When you breathe, there are various methods, breathing methods. Some people say put Concentrate on the tip of your nose or something like that. That's what Buddha says, but we don't pay any attention to what Buddha said. We put our attention down here on our lower abdomen.

[33:43]

And when you inhale, you feel your lower abdomen expand. And when you exhale, you feel it contract. So rather than breathing in our chest, We try to breathe very deeply, and if you find that you're breathing in your chest, then make some effort to start your breathing down here. And then you, rather than watching the breath travel all the way down and come back up, you just watch the rising and falling of your lower abdomen. Your lower abdomen expands, and then it rises and falls. rises and falls. And you just watch it at that point, rather than watching the way it travels up and down. So you just watch, keep your attention on the way it rises and falls. It's kind of like the way when you saw a piece of wood, you don't watch the end of the saw coming and going, you just watch where the wood and the saw meet.

[34:50]

It seems to me that when you release tension, it's often done through the breath and watching your posture. When you're working on your posture, would you be aware of the breath going out of your arms and things, too, or would you always be on your abdomen? Well, sometimes people... If you push, sometimes if you... when you're in sitting zazen for a long period of time, you can push the breath, kind of help the exhale, put a little strength in the exhale. It's okay to put some strength in the exhale to kind of help it push. And that will kind of aerate your body a little bit. And you can feel some lightness in your body, some kind of oxygen, you know, being pumped into your body a little bit.

[36:16]

But other than that, I don't have any recommendation for doing anything like what, feeling the breath go out your arms or something. I think some people do that, but That's never been part of our practice, to do that, to mention that. Well, I always think of the legs as the roots, and this is like the dividing point, like the crown, if you want to think of it as a tree, right here at this breathing point.

[37:28]

So this is very firm, and up above is very flexible. If you have a firm seat, then it's much easier to let your upper body be flexible. So there are various leg postures. And if you can find a good leg posture, we say the lotus position is the most firm. That's why we use it. Firm and balanced. And it's a triangle, like this. And very hard to push someone over. And so that's a real firm base. And then from the waist up is the division. And so with a firm base, it's like a tree, you know?

[38:31]

When the wind comes, the tree sways in the wind, but the roots stay firm. And the tree can bend quite a ways, you know. But the roots just stay there and keep it that rooted in the ground. And so that's one kind of relationship. Is that the relationship you mean? That was one. and you're dealing with that through relaxing your upper body, and you're making sure that this distance is gone. Well, the pain is just in the legs. When the pain is in the legs, that's where the pain is. And that's why it's so important that all of the parts of your body should be independent. This is just pain in the legs.

[39:34]

It's not pain in the arms. It's not pain in the toes. It's not pain in the head, although it feels like it. It's just pain in the legs. The legs are independent. And you should treat them independently. If you treat them independently, then you don't have to worry so much. Legs are sitting zazen with pain. But the rest of your body, it's okay. The legs are okay too, but all the parts of your body are sitting zazen independently. If you start to say, I hurt, then it makes it much more difficult. But if you can just see that the legs are sitting there independently, then you can sit zazen pretty easily, even though there's pain in the legs. That's very, very important.

[40:39]

Suzuki Roshi used to talk about just black legs are sitting on a black cushion in pain doing Zazen. Just let them sit there doing their Zazen. This fellow over here, Mike Dixon, is an old friend of mine. When I came to Sokoji to start sitting Zazen, he was already there, sitting. So he helped me a lot, actually. We were kind of Zazen buddies. One day I said to him, I said,

[41:50]

And he said, you know, my legs really hurt when I sit zazen. And he said, you know, they always hurt when you sit zazen. I said, they do? Do you remember that? And I just learned how to sit zazen with pain in the legs. It's just about time for service. Thank you.

[42:34]

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