Rohatsu Sesshin. But it's... We should not think of it as another Rohatsu Sesshin. Maybe we should think of it as our first Sesshin. Sometimes people say, How should I approach Sashin? How can I get ready for Sashin? And I usually respond by saying, don't think about it. Just think about it as the next step when it happens. Don't anticipate Sashin. Think about those seven days or what it'll be like at some point.

[01:13]

I think we have to live Sachine one moment at a time. Although there is a past and a future, past is cut off and future is cut off. So just to be present moment by moment is enough. If we can just be present moment by moment, totally present moment by moment, totally immersed in this life will be pretty successful. As soon as we start thinking, what is the meaning of this?

[02:27]

Or why am I doing this? Or when will the bell ring? Or will I have some great experience then we're no longer present and so just to be present letting go everything without anticipating anything During Sashin, everything we do is Zazen.

[03:37]

When we're working in the kitchen, cutting vegetables, cooking, stirring the pots, washing the dishes, should be done with whole body and mind. It's not like they're sitting Zazen and Zendo and I'm working in the kitchen. Working in the kitchen is just another form of Zazen. So you shouldn't think of it as time out. It's a great privilege actually to be asked to work in the kitchen and to make food for the sangha and to serve the sangha. to not see it as something outside of the activity that everyone else is doing.

[05:03]

One person is sitting zazen on the cushion, the other is doing zazen in the kitchen. This must be understood. Otherwise, it would be better to hire cooks When we're doing, during work period, our work is zazen. And we should be concentrated on what we're doing, not work too fast, not work too slow, and not talk to each other. In the kitchen, we have to be very careful not to talk to each other. unnecessarily. So, we practice making an effort not to leak, not to leak out that energy that's being generated through zazen and through our activity.

[06:16]

It's a great temptation, you know, to start as soon as a word is spoken and then there's a response and then well there's another response and then another response and pretty soon you're into this thing and we all fall into this but we should be careful to remind ourselves when we see that happening to stop and not let it escalate If we're very concentrated on our own practice, interacting with each other in a silent way, it's quite wonderful to be able to feel what everyone else is doing.

[07:20]

when we become very sensitive, when we're not speaking, then we become very sensitive to movement. And then we move around each other, and if we keep our awareness open, then we take our cues from the way we move around each other. And especially in the kitchen, because we're so close together and I'm doing the same activity, to just move smoothly and harmoniously, sensing what everyone is doing and sensing when someone needs something to just move with. And if you can help that person, you just do it. harmoniously without saying a word, and then something appears in front of you without asking for it.

[08:30]

This kind of sensitivity, Dogen talks about this kind of sensitivity, his fascicle on miracles, miraculous activity. He talks about Isan, Kyosan and Kyogen. Isan was the teacher in China and Kyogen and Kyosan were his two disciples. And one day Isan was in his room resting I don't know if he had his face to the wall or not, but he was in his room resting. And Kyogen came along and looked into the room and saw him resting.

[09:41]

And then he started to leave. And Isan said, wait a minute, don't leave. I need something. What do you think it is that I need? that I need. And I'm trying to remember this. I may get the facts a little backwards, but Kyogen went downstairs and got a towel and warm water and came up back upstairs and gave it to Isan. And Isan watched his faith with it. And then Kyosan walked by and saw them in there.

[10:41]

And he started to walk away. And Isan said, wait a minute. What do you think we're doing? And Kyosan thought a minute, and then he went downstairs and made some tea and brought it up. So they sat down and had a little tea party. This is called the Miraculous Powers. Power of intuiting what others need and how we relate to each other in an intuitive way, which is not miraculous at all, any more than carrying firewood and hauling water is a miraculous activity. So to be able to function in this way,

[11:53]

function within this miraculous activity of ordinary life and being sensitive to it is what we're practicing today. When we walk into the zendo, walk on the front part of your foot as if you're being very careful not to disturb anything. When you carry the pots in serving, you walk on the front of your foot. You should listen to the sound you make. Often the servers, you know, it's normal to walk on the heel of your foot. When you walk down the street, you walk on the heel of your foot. But when you walk in the vendo, you walk on the front of your foot first. so that you're not creating a drum effect.

[13:00]

And also, you're mindful of how the foot is going down, how the contact between your foot and the floor, how you're making the contact between the foot and the floor. And to actually feel, be aware of how the foot is meeting the floor. And to be aware of how the floor is meeting the foot. When you move with the pots, not to move real slow and not to move real fast.

[14:08]

If you move real slow, everyone will get tired. If you move real fast, everyone will feel stressed. So how do you create a harmonious feeling in your activity? whatever it is that you're doing, but especially in the zendo. When you come in late to the zendo, often people feel that because you're late, you're trying to hide yourself and you want to get to your seat as fast as you can. because you don't think it's right to come in late. And so you want to get out of the spotlight and you move as fast as you can, which of course disturbs everybody.

[15:14]

So when you come in, you should show some restraint to close the door without making any sound and walk very carefully and slowly to your seat. And the floor creaks. This is a very creaky floor. When we laid this floor, we did it pretty well, but there was still a problem. And the problem is that it creaks. So... You have to accept that. But be careful. Walk very slowly so that you don't disturb the atmosphere. As soon as you enter the Zen Do, you should enter the atmosphere of the Zen Do.

[16:23]

I sometimes see people in the afternoon, especially people walking, totally regardless, not regarding the atmosphere of the Zen Dojo at all. And they pull off their Velcro jackets, crunch, crunch, crunch, put them under their seat, stomp around. Be careful. And when we're serving, when you serve the middle tongs on the floor, you should go down on both knees when you serve. And if that's too difficult, then at least go down on one knee. But don't squat. Squatting, somebody could just push you over.

[17:27]

It's a very unstable position. We should always keep looking for the most stable position, moment by moment. This is Dzogchen. To find the stable position, moment by moment. As soon as you put yourself in an unstable situation, without thinking, you can easily be turned over. So physically stable, mentally stable, emotionally stable, don't allow yourself to be pushed over emotionally. Where is the most stable position emotionally? It's the position in which you don't react thoughtlessly.

[18:29]

The most stable position Emotionally is the position of no-self. As soon as the self arises, then one is vulnerable emotionally and mentally and physically. So, to remain in a stable position all the time, means that as soon as we start to grasp something, or start to discriminate, the self arises, and then we're in an unstable position. As soon as too much desire arises, we put ourselves in an unstable position, and then we're turned around

[19:37]

easily turned around emotionally, mentally, and physically. So our effort here is to just keep letting go, moment by moment, letting go and taking the stable position, ungrasping, unlocking, opening up. being sensitive and enjoying our life. When we are able to open up in that way, life becomes very enjoyable. Being sensitive, harmonious and helpful is a joyous life, joyous life.

[20:39]

And we don't need so much. Because everything that we do is satisfying. So at some point during the sushin, you may get tired of it, or you may get discouraged, or you may not know which way to turn.

[21:50]

But the main thing is to maintain your effort. And just staying in your seat is enough If you need to talk to somebody, that's fine. You can talk to me, you can talk to the practice leaders. If you feel that it's time to leave, you should talk to somebody first. Don't just write a note saying, I'll see you tomorrow or next week. I'm going to do this. As soon as you sign up for Sashin, your life is no longer in your own hands, so to speak.

[22:54]

You've committed yourself. And then, if you have a problem, talk about it. Don't just leave or find some way to create a problem about it. During Sashin, I'm going to introduce some new translations of the new translation of the Hokyo Zamae, the Jewel, Precious Mirror Samadhi, as it's called, and the Sondokai, which I call the song of difference and sameness, the harmonious song of difference and sameness.

[24:07]

We had the second translation conference, three-day conference, a few weeks ago. The first one was several months ago, and this was the second one. And we re-translated the Sandokai and the Hokuzanai. And I think that we did a good job. The first time, the first conference our translations tended to be more following the Chinese as accurately as possible. And the second one was making the translations a little more poetic and more palpable. When we translated the

[25:10]

the first versions. People in San Francisco Zen Center tried them out for a while, and they didn't like them at all. You know, when you've been chanting something for so many years, you tend to, we all do, have favorite phrases that are very meaningful for us. And then to suddenly have those phrases replaced with something else is very shocking, you know, and difficult to accept. Because you say, I thought it meant this, and now you're telling me it means this, and all this time, blah, blah, blah. But the meanings of it are not different. The way of expression is a little different. The Japanese when they translated the Chinese tended to do a lot of interpretation and our chants come from the Japanese translations and sometimes the Japanese translation is a little better than the Chinese a little more palpable or says something to us because the Chinese are very sparse

[26:38]

And there has to be some interpretation anyway. So our translations were geared toward getting back to the Chinese original. But we used a little bit of both. But I think that these two translations are very good. And I would like to try them out. The translation of the Hokyo Zen Mayan is Sandokai. I would like to try them out during Sashin, which is a good time to do that. And the hardest thing, you know, in translating the Sandokai is to come up with the title that expresses the meaning in English. No one has ever been able to come up with a title that's satisfying, because it's a difficult little area.

[27:48]

So I had worked on translating with Quan Lam some months ago, last year, and I thought up dozens of titles. So I had this long list of titles, None of which were perfect. But I proposed this title of the Harmonious Song of Difference and Sameness. And people kind of accepted that. But when they printed it, it was Harmony of Difference and Sameness. Song, I think, is nice in there because Song is like the activity, you know. When we say the song of the jeweled mirror of samadhi, or the song of the precious mirror of samadhi, and in the same way, it's the song of the harmonious song of difference and sameness.

[28:57]

And the song part is like the poem. They're not, you know, philosophical. They're poems, both of them. So to give it some poetic form in the title, I think, is good. And it's fairly literal. It's this song or poem of difference and sameness, a harmonious song of difference and sameness. So that's the title. And Jewel And precious jewel is a kind of metaphor for precious. But the meaning is actually not jewel. The meaning is precious, something valuable. So the song of the precious mirror, Samadhi. So those are the two titles.

[30:03]

And you will come across your favorite phrases, and they'll be different. And you'll be shocked. And you may or may not like it. But I think they both read very well. And we'll see what you think of them. The third thing is that at some point in Sashin, I'm not sure exactly when, maybe later, we're going to install Meili and Alan as tanto. Tanto is a position which is common But we have not had this position here in Berkeley Zen Center.

[31:12]

Literally, it means the head of the tanem, you know, sitting over there. And it means Tanto is a person that takes care of the students. and a practice place. Both Maile and Alan have been serving for many years as priests, and we've I have much to do and I can't take care of everybody's practice. So this is a way of sharing the practice, sharing the leadership of practice.

[32:20]

And the board, the practice committee, have talked about this and we've all agreed that it would be a good idea to have these two people in this position. Usually there's one tanto, but here we have two tantos, and I think which is very good, one man and one woman, which kind of balances the position. The position... I didn't bring my list of things with me. I should have brought that so I could remember everything that he said. They are the head practice leaders.

[33:32]

They will be the head practice leaders. They will have regular practice instruction times. And this does not, you know, we have to be very careful that this is not a substitute for all the other practice leaders. The other practice leaders will also have regular times for practice instruction. But Maile and Alan will be the main teachers, which I would like people to relate to. And the reason for that is because they already are.

[34:34]

And people have a lot of confidence in both of them. And although nobody is perfect, including myself, as you know, I think that they will be. They're both very capable in their positions and will be able to help everybody. So tomorrow I'll bring the list of actually what we said that they would do and talk about that a little more. So we'll have an acceptance

[35:40]

ceremony. They'll do a jindo around the jindo, probably Saturday or Sunday, when there are more people. Installation ceremony. Can you remember what we said? Yeah, I think the essential idea is really just to be helpful and so a couple of aspects of that is just talking to people formally and informally, working with the forms, trying to trying to keep a kind of awareness of how we do things and why we do things, and to keep that from getting stale or getting sloppy, but keeping the spirit in it.

[37:01]

I think we're going to sit at the foot of the thon rather than the head of the thon. We're going to sit down there where Richard is in the morning and sit out. So when people come in who need some help, point them towards the sutra books, point them towards the seat. It's not so much to be the head, but actually just to help out. Those are the main things that come to mind. Fill in gaps. To watch and to be there. When there's something that comes up for somebody or something that we see. There's a lot of people now. So, a lot of new things happening. Yeah, maybe not so much And we know that there's something going on with somebody or in the community.

[38:11]

Rather than waiting for, being slightly more proactive and just saying, you know, can we help? Or can one of the other practice leaders help? Or can Mel help? Rather than waiting for it to be brought, which doesn't always happen, right? Yeah, I think that to really be aware of where people are, where their practice is, and what they need, I think is really the essence. And to not let things drift. Because as they said, there are more people all the time. And it's more than I can handle. And it's just time to do this. to have this kind of sharing our responsibility.

[39:14]

Does anybody have a question? from anything that we talked about, talked about? Paul? You elaborated on the jewel and then the mirror and samadhi. And I wonder if you could elaborate on those two words. Which two? Mirror and samadhi. Oh, mirror and samadhi. Well, Samadhi is Zazen. Samadhi is the mirror of Samadhi.

[40:34]

in short, is when the mind is not divided, when body-mind is not divided and discriminating, then everything is reflected without distortion. or without preference, and it is seen just as it is. This is mirror samadhi, precious, very precious, when the mind is reflecting everything totally as it is, where there are no preferences and no discrimination.

[41:51]

Things are effortless.

[42:19]

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