I vow to teach the truth of the Tathagata's word. Good morning. I hope you don't mind me commenting on Suzuki Roshi's lectures. Well, this, I don't know if anybody actually used this during the practice aspects, but this is called Resuming Big Mind.

[01:15]

He says, the purpose of seshin is to be completely one with our practice. We use two Chinese characters for seshin. Setsu, which shortens to ses, in conjunction with shin, means to treat something the way you treat a guest or the way a student treats his teacher. Another meaning of setsu is to control or to arrange things in order. Shin means mind or heart. So seshin means, or seshin, means to have proper functioning of mind. We say in the Meel Sutra, the natural order of mind. I like what we say in our Meel Sutra, many things.

[02:22]

When we had this big conference with translating session, I would say, with various scholars and Japanese scholars and American scholars to reword the chants according to the Chinese definitions. I think a lot was lost. I think a lot of people feel that a lot of things were lost. That's why I've never changed anything. The chants keep changing, but we keep chanting the same thing. And a lot of people at Zen Center also feel the same way. They miss a lot of the pertinent things that we that we were very attached to, like existing in muddy water, existing like a lotus in muddy water.

[03:29]

It got changed to something else. So anyway, the natural order of mind, I think that if we try to stick to certain wordings of the past, we get stuck in the past. A lot of people think that the way people thought in the past was the right way to think or to express themselves, which is not untrue. But we also have a way of expressing ourselves which needs to be expressed according to the way we understand things, And according to the way that our practice is developing, when you read a translation by, say, someone, a Japanese scholar who's very adept at the English language, they don't always catch the subtleties that we take for granted or that we understand.

[04:37]

So there's always something a little bit off And when we do it in conjunction with an American translator and a Japanese translator, things turn out much better because we breathe a sigh of relief. We say, oh, that's what we mean. So we did do that in the translation, but still, people want to lean toward the Chinese. And it comes out feeling And a lot of the things that were translated nicely and meaningfully by Tsukiroshi and maybe Dick Baker really hit the mark very well for us. So I have problems with translating literally, according to the old, to Asian, translating Asian texts literally.

[05:41]

So anyway, that's just a little sidetrack. So the natural order of mind, he says, shin means mind or heart, so shishin means to have proper functioning of mind. Proper functioning of mind is according to big mind, actually. That's the natural order of mind. It is our five senses and our will, or small monkey mind, which should be controlled. So the five senses and the monkey mind. Monkey mind is like the seventh consciousness, seventh level of consciousness, which is called manas, which tends to take over. It's called ego. and tends to take over, take control of things. So monkey mind is the mind that needs to be disciplined or controlled.

[06:46]

Control, you know, is a word that we don't like to use, but it needs to be controlled or disciplined so that it's, you know, monkey mind obscures big mind by jumping up and down and saying, And big mind is waiting for monkey mind to calm down so that it can come forward and actually do its functioning. But monkey mind is like a little kid jumping in front of whoever is speaking, waving around, needing for attention, actually need for attention. So when we control our monkey mind, we resume our big mind. When monkey mind is always taking over the activity of big mind, we naturally become a monkey. So monkey mind must have its boss, which is big mind. So monkey mind is also karmic mind, mind which is continually creating karma.

[07:55]

So He says, however, when we practice zazen, it is not that big mind is actually controlling small mind, but simply that when small mind becomes calm, big mind starts its true activity. So maybe small mind needs a sedative called zazen. Can I ask you a question? Yes. Does Big Mind ever, you said it starts its true activity, does it ever actually stop? No. Big Mind is. Yeah, Big Mind is. It's karma and dharma.

[08:56]

Karma is created by a small mind and dharma is the activity of a big mind. In the monkey, the famous Chinese story of monkey, monkey is this wonderful the monkey king, and Xuanzang. Xuanzang is this monk, but the monkey king is the king of the monkeys, and he's this tremendous, you know, the powerful being, as powerful a being as you can be as a human, minus big mind. So the monkey's causing all kinds of trouble, and he's very mischievous, and he bounces around all the heavens and hells and conquers everything.

[10:06]

I mean, he masters everything there is to master, except for one thing, and that is he thinks that he can get the best of Buddha. So Buddha's his last challenge. So he comes up to Buddha and he says something like, well, if I go to the far, he says, I can go to the farthest reaches of the universe. How far can you go? And Buddha says, well, let's see. Why don't you go and we'll see where you end up. So monkey goes to the farthest reaches of the universe. And he gets to the outskirts of the universe, and he gets to the place where there are five huge trees. And so he says, well, I'll make my mark on this tree to prove that I got here.

[11:10]

So he pees on the tree like a dog. And then he races back to Buddha. He says, you want to see how far I went? Buddha says, well, He's very small, so Buddha said, well, jump into my hand and we'll see how far you went. And he raises the five fingers and he said, look, this one's wet down here. So he says, however, When we practice zazen, it is not that big mind is actually controlling small mind, but simply that when small mind becomes calm, big mind starts its true activity. So in other words, get out of the way. Most of the time in our everyday life, we are involved in the activity of small mind.

[12:11]

That is why we should practice zazen and be completely involved in resuming big mind. So, resuming big mind, in other words, coming back to yourself. Sometimes people come to Zazen for the first time, they say, oh, I just feel, I never felt so at home as when I sat down on the cushion. I finally found my home, which is true. You resume your true home, which is big mind. I'm trying to read my handwriting here. So, being completely involved, resuming Big Mind, is like to be completely in time.

[13:20]

to be one with time. Zazen is to harmonize body, mind, and breath in time. Dogen says, being is time, and time is being. So there's no time without being, and there's no being without time. So it's time slash being. existence time. So we're always in time. And time has many qualities and many ways to describe, but to be completely at one with time is like to be out of time. To be totally in time is to be timeless. If we want to be in a timeless space, there's no way to escape time except to be totally time.

[14:27]

There's no way to escape the pain in your legs except to be totally pain, which doesn't mean to dwell on pain. It simply means to not have an opposite, have no opposition. So I remember Suzuki Roshi saying to me, don't be ahead and don't be behind. Don't be ahead of time, don't be behind by time. So this has always been a difficult practice for me, to be right in time. Something that I've always had to practice with. Because I find myself rushing and I find myself holding back. And to just be right in time, not so easy. One with time. So, waiting for the right moment, or not waiting, but being ready for the right moment without anticipating.

[15:38]

When I teach people to do the bells, the doans, I always try to stress not anticipating, not anticipating when the doshi is going to do something or when the end of the sutra is coming around. But just totally being in time so that when the right time comes, you just do the right thing. And there's no strain or stress or anticipation. It's just simply flowing with things. And when we're flowing with things, we're using time instead of being used by time. Or we're being, enjoying time rather than being controlled by time, or being abused by time.

[16:45]

So he says, a good example of our practice is a turtle, which has four legs, a head and a tail. Six parts of the body, which are sometimes outside of the shell and sometimes inside, When you want to eat or go somewhere, your legs are out. But if they are always out, you'll be caught by something. In case of danger, you draw in your legs, head, and tail. The six parts refer to the five senses in the mind, and this is seshin. For one week, our head, tail, and legs are inside the shell. In the scriptures, It says that even demons cannot destroy us if the six parts of our body are inside the shell. So that's one way of describing it. It kind of feels like hiding in a way.

[17:52]

I don't like that, the idea of hiding. But if you don't think of it as hiding, we just pull in all our senses. and our thinking mind and just let, actually let go. So in Zazen, we do not try to stop thinking or cut off hearing and seeing. If something appears in your mind, leave it. If you hear something, hear it and just accept it. Oh, that's all. No second response should appear in your zazen. Sound is one response. I'm sorry, sound is one activity. The second response is, what is that sound? Is it a motor car or garbage truck or something? If you hear a sound, that is all.

[18:53]

You just hear it. There's no need to describe it or make something out of it. It's simply a sound. This is pure consciousness, pure direct consciousness without a elaboration. So in Zazen, we have the opportunity to just experience things as in their vibration. in their vibratory manifestation, instead of naming them and creating some idea about them. No need to create an idea about anything. When feelings arise, they are just these feelings, without having to create something. Oh, my mother was mean to me when I was a child.

[19:54]

You know, okay, just let it be. Don't elaborate. It's easy to get stuck, you know. When we come to Sishin, we're leaving this life of, this monkey life. And the monkey's still hopping up and down. You know, monkey's still jumping up and down. And then we have these loops that go around. Music. Music loop. Or we have a anger loop. We have attachment loops. And they just keep going around and around. And then at some point they just kind of lose their power, hopefully, and subside. because they're not taken up. If we don't take them up, they lose their power. So you can't ignore them and you can't take them up.

[21:03]

So it's just like the airplane flying overhead. It just makes a sound. The emotion just makes a feeling. The body feelings and the mental feelings, the emotional feelings, all pass through. But there's no need to identify with them or take them up or elaborate on them. But you can't ignore them. So we just let them be there, just like the ear is open and listens to the horn. That was a horn. But that's just my idea, that it was a horn. I just associate that idea with horn. But I don't know what it is. It's just... That's all. So what is that sound? Is it a motor car or garbage truck or something? If you hear a sound, that's all.

[22:06]

You just hear it. Don't make any judgment. Don't try to figure out what it is. Just open your ears and hear something. Just open your eyes and see something. When you're sitting for a pretty long time, watching the same place on the wall, you may see various images. It looks like a river, or it looks like a dragon. Then you may think that you should not be thinking. even though you see various images. Dwelling on the images may be a good way to kill time, but it's not the sheen. So we have to be careful, actually, that we're not sitting just to kill time. Sometimes we get bored and we say, oh, when is this going to be over? That's kind of killing time. So we should bring time to life rather than killing it. We only have so much time. We should be making the best use of it.

[23:13]

So please don't kill it. Also anticipation comes with sitting and waiting for the end, waiting for the bell to ring because we're miserable. But as soon as you start waiting for the, you can think that, well, when is the bell gonna end? And then let go of it. But if you keep dwelling on it, then you're killing time. Just waiting for the end. People do this when they get old. They give up. Life is hard, you know? Painful. I'm just waiting for the end. How miserable. There has to be a way of continuing to bring life to life all the way up to the end. If you're a Zen student, hopefully you can do that.

[24:16]

Just keep right on going to the end. So, to be concentrated on something may be important, but just to have a well-concentrated mind is not Zazen. It is one of the elements of practice, but calmness of mind is also necessary. So don't identify, don't intensify the activity of the five sense organs. Just leave them as they are. This is how, that is how you free your big mind. When you can do so in everyday life, you will have a soft mind. You won't have many preconceived ideas and the bad habits in your way of thinking will be overpowering, will not be overpowering. You will have generous mind and big mind, and what you say will help others. So there are many factors that are important in Zazen, and we don't emphasize one over the other. They should all be working together harmoniously.

[25:22]

If you have studied the seven factors of enlightenment, all those seven factors are present in Zazen. Concentration is one of them. But mindfulness, which is to always be aware, keep coming back to what you're doing. Investigation, it doesn't mean investigation. For zazen, investigation doesn't mean studying. Investigation means continually investigating your posture. This is what you do in zazen. You're continuously investigating your posture. This is called active zazen. Zazen really needs to have vitality. to just sit like a lump, you know? A lot of times, like the Sixth Patriarch says, don't just sit there like a rice bag, you know?

[26:29]

Don't sit in zazen. People, you know, Hakuin is, oh, you Soto Zen rice bags, you know? And Da Hui says, oh, you Soto Zen rice bags. Dead trees, you know? Withered trees. But that's true. They're right. You shouldn't sit like that. Your zazen should have vitality. And the way to create vitality is to put energy into your sitting and investigating all the parts of your posture over and over again, all the points of posture and reestablishing your posture all the time and putting a lot of energy into sitting up straight. then you have vitality in Zazen. It's not just, you know, you do fall asleep, but you wake up.

[27:35]

So mindfulness, investigation, and effort, big effort. And then there's joy, which is a product of all that. Joy is the product of the effort. It's a product of the mindfulness, the investigation, and the effort. And then there's calmness of mind, which is what Suzuki Roshi likes to emphasize a lot. Calmness of mind means you don't get disturbed by things, whatever comes up. Because calmness of mind is one of the aspects of big mind that allows it to be big. Big enough to accept everything. That's calmness of mind. And then there's concentration, which is one factor, and equanimity, the balanced state. Nothing is more prominent than another.

[28:44]

Everything is balanced together to create this harmonious state of being. So he says, for example, in the Shobo Genzo, Zui Monkey, Zui Monkey, I think I talked about that before. I haven't read it much to you though, but Zui Monkey is Dogen's night talks. which were directed to the monks and were written down by Eijo, his disciple. Dogen Zenji tells a story which was told to him about an influential person, Ichijo Motooe. One day, Motooe discovered that his sword was missing. and since no one else could have broken into his house, one of his own men must have stolen it. The sword was found and brought back to him, but Motooe said, this is not my sword, so give it back to the one who owns it.

[29:48]

People knew that the man who had the sword was the one who had stolen it, but because Motooe didn't accuse him of it, no one could say anything, so nothing happened. This is the calmness of mind we should have according to Dogen. Hard to do. Big mind. If we have generous big mind, and if we have a strong spirit of patience, practice, I'm sorry, then there is no need to worry. Dogen emphasized a sparse, simple life. Without expecting anything, we just practice our way. Many students ask how it would be possible to support the temple or group without any plan. And he said, if it becomes difficult to support our temple, we'll think about it. But until then, it's not necessary to think about it. I must say, that's my way, too. And it's always worked.

[30:59]

So before something happens, it is not our way to think about it too much. In that way, we have complete calmness of mind. Because we have something, you worry about losing it. But if you don't have anything, there's no need to worry. I remember when I was abbot of San Francisco Zen Center, and we'd have these meetings, and money, and blah, blah, blah, blah. I never worried about anything. I never worried about anything like that. I always felt if we're practicing, if our practice is genuine and enthusiastic and true, we'll be supported. I never worried about it. Not that I wasn't concerned. Of course I was concerned about it, but I never worried about it. So I never got anxious about anything at Zen Center. So one night, Dogen said, even if you think a teaching is complete and right, when someone tells you a better way, you should change your understanding.

[32:14]

In this way, we improve our understanding of the teaching forever. Because you think it is right, at that time, you follow the theory or rules. But you also have some space in your mind to change your idea. So that is soft mind. In Buddhism, not everything is correct. And through the ages, through 2,500 years, a lot of apocrypha, a lot of ideas, a lot of superstition has arisen. And it's important to prune the tree. There are times when you really need to prune the tree and take out the stuff that's Weighing the tree down, you know it doesn't work, and that's not right, and there are better understandings, better ways of understanding things, without throwing out the baby.

[33:26]

I've always felt that way, Suzuki Roshi felt that way. The Dalai Lama, there was an article by the Dalai Lama in the New York Times, recently when he talked about, you know, he talking to scientists and, you know, having these conversations. And, you know, if science proves that there's something that proves some Buddhist theory wrong, we should just let go of it. So this is, we can trust the Dharma in this sense that it's always evolving. Dharma is always evolving. And in a way, scientists always need proof more than a certain kind of proof that religion doesn't particularly have. Religion has a subjective truth. Science has an objective truth. So there's sometimes a variance. But still, there are things that we should let go of when

[34:39]

They're not right, so we don't have some kind of dogma that holds us in place, holds us to some kind of literal meaning of things. Almost all of the Buddhist sutras, the doctrines, the philosophy, It's mostly metaphorical. It's always pointing at something. If you believe everything literally, that's heretical in Buddhism. There are some things you can believe literally, but mostly it's metaphorical, or it's pointing at something. This is the direction that you should seek. guidelines. And so there's a lot of controversy in Buddhism, which is very healthy.

[35:47]

And just after Buddha's time, there were the 18 schools, which each held different views, and they had big arguments for hundreds of years. And little by little, they refined these arguments and came out with something, but still, those arguments are still, you know, it kind of got reduced to 12 schools, and each school has its own perspective. But we don't say this school is right and this school is wrong. It's this school sees this thing from this point of view, and this one sees it from this point of view. So it's like a jewel where you see which you see from different sides. So we study all of the schools of Buddhism, and they each have an emphasis. And none of them is completely right.

[36:50]

Neither one is completely wrong. But together, they give you a picture. But the picture is not enough. The picture helps you to find your own way. So it is possible to change your idea because you know what kind of monkey your thinking is. Sometimes you follow the monkey's suggestion. Oh, that's right. Or if we go in that direction, we may get some food. OK, let's go. But when you see a better way to go, you may say, oh monkey, it may be better to go this way, this way. If you stick to your greed or anger or some other emotion, if you stick to the thinking mind, your monkey mind, you can't change and your mind will not be soft.

[37:57]

The monkey in the book, the monkey king, the monkey and two other companions, Piggy and the haw, Piggy and, and what? Say it louder. Snake. Snake, no. Well, the boar is the pig. Anyway, the three, monkey, Piggy, and somebody else. are ordered to take Xuanzang. Xuanzang went to China with Chinese, went to India to get the scriptures back in the old days. And the story is about the three of them accompanying him. So you have this balance. They're taking care of him. And so their practice is to take care of this sage.

[39:01]

and make sure that he's okay, make sure that he gets to, and he's just like this wonderful, naive sage. And they've run into all these problems and figure out how to deal with all these problems. Because they're worldly, and the sage is just kind of being led along, and he's wonderful, but not worldly. So they're adventures. They have all these adventures. The Chinese made a wonderful movie in parts, in about 12 episodes or something. And I saw some of them on TV, but they won't let you have it. Chinese government won't let you have it. Terrific. Anyway, so it's like the balance between subjectivity and objectivity, between our monkey mind and our Buddha mind, and how they work together.

[40:05]

So if you practice, so in our practice, we rely on something great and we sit in that great space called big mind. The pain you have in your legs or some other difficulty is happening in that great space. As long as you do not lose the feeling that you are in the realm of Buddha nature, you can sit even though you have some difficulty. When you want to escape from your difficulty, or when you try to improve your practice, you create another problem for yourself. But if you just exist there, then you have a chance to appreciate your surroundings, and you can accept yourself completely without changing anything. That's our practice. To exist in Big Mind is an act of faith, which is different from the usual faith of believing in a particular idea or being. It is to believe that something is supporting us and supporting all our activities, including thinking mind and emotional feelings.

[41:13]

All these things are supported by something big that has no form or color. It is impossible to know what it is, but something exists there, something that is neither material nor spiritual, something that always exists, and we exist in that space. That's the feeling of pure existence or pure being. Zazen actually is called an act of pure existence because it's just nothing but pure existence. And pure means without duality and without adding or subtracting anything. And it's not spiritual and it's not material. We don't divide the spiritual from the material. It's something beyond spiritual and material. But it includes everything. If you are brave enough to throw yourself into zazen for seven days, a little bit of understanding will help your rigidity and your stubbornness.

[42:19]

Almost all the problems you create because of your stubborn mind will vanish. If you have even the smallest understanding of reality, your way of thinking will change completely And the problems you create will not be problems anymore. But it is also true that as long as we live, we will have problems. So we don't practice Zazen to attain some big enlightenment that will change our whole being or solve all our problems. That is not the right understanding. That may be what people call Zen, but true Zen is not like that. In Sesshin, we concentrate on having the experience of true practice, forgetting all about any idea of gaining anything. We just sit here. If the room is too cold, we'll make it warm. And if your legs become painful, you can stretch them. And if it is too difficult, you can rest. But let's continue our practice for these seven days. So there's always a problem in Zazen.

[43:54]

We always have a problem. And the problem gives us a focus, gives us a way to go. So then the problem is not a problem. The problem is simply a way, something to deal with, a way to go. So we don't say, oh, I have this problem. We say, oh, well, there's this. How do I deal with this? How do I deal with that? That's all. No problem. But when we think we have a problem, then we create a problem. I'm not saying you shouldn't think that way, but it doesn't help to dwell on something. If we dwell on some spot, and we think, well, there's the problem. It's right there in my knee. we dwell on that, then we create a problem.

[44:58]

But if we simply let the whole body, mind take care of whatever's happening, we share that, share the problem with your whole body, mind. That's called balance. So, you know, sometimes I'll feel, oh, there's this big pain in my knee. Uh-oh. And then I just think, well, just open up. Just open. Just open up. And that goes away. And then opening, opening, opening is the way to go. Just keep opening and opening, and then the whole body adjusts and comes to the aid of that little piece by absorbing the energy.

[46:07]

To balance our energy, to keep the energy moving and balanced. When there's too much energy in one spot, we lose our balance. And then, you know, it's like the whole pressure of the universe is bearing down on you. And the effort is to neutralize that energy so that it's equally shared with all parts of the body. Then it's called comfortable. But when one part has too much energy, too much pressure bearing down on it, it's not comfortable. So the way to neutralize or to equalize, equalize the energy, is to just feel light. Just feel open. Just keep opening, opening, opening, which is counterintuitive because when we have that kind of problem,

[47:16]

Our intuition is to, or our feeling is to close down. The more you close down, the more pressure the universe is gonna exert on you. So when you open up, the energy becomes equalized. So that's the effort, is to open up. Keep a good posture, don't let yourself get bent by the energy. But keep a good posture and just keep opening up and don't dwell in some spot. Don't dwell on some particular place. Keep your attention in the lower back so that you can hold your back up. So you're making your effort and when you sit up straight, you can accept things.

[48:17]

And when you keep your breath down here, you can accept things. And when your breathing becomes deep and your posture is good, then you can balance yourself and you can equalize the pressures and feel light. Even though there's some feeling called pain, So there's that line where you can fall over into one side or the other, but if you just stay in the middle, you have the balanced feeling. And some... Feels good.

[49:21]

Feels okay.

[49:22]

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