So today is the second day of our Satsang and this morning is probably a little more difficult for many people. So we're getting down to the point where we exist in this very small space. And our practice gets more and more rarefied, so to speak. And everything, every little moment counts for something. So when we start having discomfort, we have to find out where we can go with that. Those of us who have a lot of experience kind of know where to go, but sometimes we don't.

[01:02]

So I want to remind you that when there's no place to go, you can't sit comfortably and you can't leave. You become one with breathing. To follow your breath. time and at some point there's nothing but one breath at a time. This is called living moment to moment with awareness. So it's the most awful thing and the most wonderful thing at the same time. So I want to I'll read something from Suzuki Roshi. He says, if you go to a library, you will see many books and you can find out about our human knowledge that is so vast it is almost impossible to study.

[02:16]

We say, so many books, so little time. when someone landed on the moon, remember? You may be old enough to remember that. Actually, I don't know anything about how we are reaching the moon, or what kind of feeling we will have when someone arrives there. To me, it is not such an interesting thing. Well, we talk about the many books. I looked around my room, my office room, And I saw that 90% of it was paper. I just had that realization. Maybe 98% is paper. The walls are covered with cases. The table is covered with paper. All the tables are covered with paper. Paper dominates.

[03:20]

And it's all information. And then I thought about the zendo, where the notepaper, nothing, nothing to amuse ourselves with, nothing to get from the outside, it's all bringing forth from the inside. And then thinking about, well, do we need all this information? Probably most of it we don't. but we're addicted to information. But then when I think about Dogen Zenji, who is so unusual and individual, such a unique expression of the Dharma, but I have never seen anything that he ever wrote that wasn't based on what someone else said.

[04:25]

everything he wrote or said is based on what someone else said. Every passicle is about, brings in various koans, and it's all about what, dialogues of the other ancestors. So he's reinterpreting Buddhism according, he's the funnel for all the Buddhism in the past. and reorganizing it and expressing it in his own way. Just like Bach did that for music, in western music. He assimilated all the music of the past and then expressed it in his own way. So, all that paper, when I think about it, do I need it? No and yes. It helps. and helps me because I can communicate. It's amazing, I can communicate with all the ancestors of the past through all this information that's been written and preserved.

[05:35]

It's quite amazing. So, although I could do without it, I wouldn't want to. So anyway, he says, I want to speak about the moon trip, but I have not had any time to study it. So if I talk about the moon trip, you may think, he is so ignorant. People I see today, or tomorrow, when we speak about the moon trip, is that they know everything about it. If I hear them speak about the moon trip, I feel that they're not really interested. And I may not respect them so much. This is kind of verbiage to get to the point. But the first one to arrive on the moon So instead of seeking for some success in an objective world, so he's talking about the moon trip as if it's like the greatest thing that we ever did, but actually he doesn't think so, and I don't think so either.

[06:47]

It's a great thing, Instead of seeking for some success in the objective world, we try to experience the everyday moments of our life more deeply. That's the purpose of Zazen. How to experience momentarily our life, moment by moment, in a deep way. How to appreciate our life and experience it moment by moment One time someone showed me some sand, and when she gave it to me, she said, these are very interesting stones I have in my office. The stones in my office are bigger, but under the glass, the sand is quite similar. If you say, this is a rock from the moon, you will be very much interested in it. Actually, I don't think there is a great difference between rocks we have on the Earth and those

[07:55]

on the moon. I think that's probably true. Even if you go to Mars, I think you will find the same rocks. I'm quite sure about it. But if you want to find something interesting, instead of hopping around the universe like this, enjoy your life in every moment. Observe what you have now and truly live in your surroundings. I remember somebody brought me a piece of the Berlin Wall after it was knocked down. He said, isn't this great? Symbolically, it's great. But it's just another piece of concrete. This is probably great. Yesterday, I went to visit an island owned by the Nature Conservancy, where there are many kinds of animals, birds, and fish. It was a very interesting place. If you live in an area like that and really start to see things, to see the plants and animals in that area, you may want to say that it's the state of your whole life.

[09:00]

It is such an interesting place. But we humans go hopping around, ignoring many interesting things. We may even travel to the moon or beyond. It is rather foolish. If you stay at one place, you can enjoy your life completely. That's what Suzuki Roshi did. When he came to America, back in 59. And during the 60s, that decade, there were a number of Japanese priests, mostly from the Rinzai school, or kind of mixed, who came to America and they hopped around from one place to another doing sesshins, hosting sesshins. Suzuki Roshi just stayed in one place. He didn't go anywhere. He just stayed there and did his practice. And because he just stayed there and did his practice, he was like a beacon that was not going anywhere, but just turning and attracting many people without trying to do anything.

[10:15]

So Zen Center actually became, flourished. because of that, and he still didn't do anything. He just stayed in his place, and everything came to him. And the students did everything. He didn't really do anything. So, I mean, I say that, but of course he did a lot. When we go to the moon, I'm not sure we are following the best direction for human beings. I don't know what we're doing. When we find the spirit of Zazen, we find the way of life to follow as a human being. In other words, we are not fooled by things or fooled by some particular idea. emperor.

[11:18]

After he turned it down a second time, the emperor said, you must receive it. So finally he accepted it, but he didn't wear it. And he wrote to the emperor saying, I very much appreciate your purple robe, but I do not dare to wear it because if I wore it, the birds and monkeys on this mountain would laugh at me. I don't know if you've ever experienced the monkeys in Japan, but they live in Japan. And at Mount Hiei, they're especially prominent. And they sit by the side of the road. A whole little family, the father, the mother, and the babies, by the side of the road looking for handouts. And it's kind of like they're hitchhiking, you know. And one time we stopped at a stop sign. And this huge monkey jumped on the hood of the car and spread-eagled himself all over the windshield.

[12:25]

I took a photograph. So we don't want them laughing at us. But in a way, I felt they were laughing at us. So in meditation, we sometimes practice counting our breath. and starting over. If we count, we say, 1, 2, 5, 100. Oh yeah, to 10. So we never get to 10, rarely get to 10. Or if we do, we really feel proud of ourselves. Suzuki Hiroshi introduced counting breath. Katagiri Hiroshi didn't like it. Zen. That's Hinayana practice. But Suzuki Roshi introduced that.

[13:27]

He said, counting your breath is good. I want you to learn how to count your breath because it focuses your mind on your breath. And then you see where your mind is going and how easily it's distracted. He said, it's like a handle on a cup. You don't need the handle. But it's useful. And so when I do Zazen instruction, I teach people to count their breath. And then later, they say, do I still have to count my breath? And I say, no. But if you learn to count your breath, when you have a problem in Zazen, you automatically go back to it. And it helps you. It's not good to just miss counting your breaths. It's really a good idea. I find myself counting my breaths sometimes when I'm distracted or when I want to bring my mind back or when I'm having a lot of pain and I know the place to go is to the breath.

[14:42]

That's the place of last resort, the default area. So, in meditation we sometimes practice counting our breath. You may think it's silly to count your breath from 1 to 10, losing track of the count and starting over. If you use a computer, there won't be any mistake. But the underlying spirit is different and important. While we are counting each number, we find that our life is limitlessly deep. If we count our breath in the ordinary way, as we would count the distance from here to the moon, our practice doesn't mean anything. To count each breath is to count with our whole mind and body. We count each number with the power of the whole universe.

[15:43]

interested in something just because it is considered great, or uninterested in something because usually it is considered to be so small. So, when we count our breath, you know, we count breath on the exhale. And then, it's not like counting sheep. One, two, over and over again. One, one, one, but we go to ten for some strange reason. Counting the breath is the same as counting, is saying mu. In the Rinzai tradition, or in some sort of zentos, they say mu, mu. All you have to do is say one,

[16:56]

two, one, two, and move. It's the same thing. You just become one with the sound of your breath. Silently, of course. One. And the whole universe is one. The whole universe is two. This is the kind of concentration that we use when we count our breath. And you can also count by Pushing the diaphragm down. If you're having, you know, distress. Push down with the diaphragm. One. Two. Three. So that really focuses your body and it sends oxygen throughout your blood. forces oxygen into your blood, and then it helps to wake you up.

[18:03]

So, I highly recommend doing that. It's called the Unshu. I request you do it silently. And then inhale. It's a little like breath control, but it's on the border. It's not exactly breath control, but it's on the border of breath control. You want to be careful that you're not just kind of... The problem with counting breath is that you don't, after a while, you don't know whether you're regulating your rhythm or just letting the rhythm be. So when you start regulating the rhythm, it stops. And just let... Let the breath be free and then come back to it with counting.

[19:04]

You don't have to do this, but this is a good way. This is a handle to help you when you're having trouble. So when your breath becomes kind of rough or you don't know what you're doing exactly, just let it go. we don't control our breath, we just let it be, whatever the rhythm is. And then when you need it, he said, if you use this technique when you're having an incision, that's when it will become natural afterward. So I highly recommend it. He says the whole power of the universe is right there.

[20:07]

Because we're connected. It's the universe doing its job. It's not me. It's the universe doing its job. Doing its job in the same way that it's not my idea. So you cooperate with it, you help it along a little bit. So you may be very interested in having new experiences the way a baby does. A baby has the same basic something else.

[21:11]

Poop, eat, everything is the same, with differences, but there's very little discrimination. You may be very interested in having new experiences like a baby does. A baby has the same basic attitude of interest towards all things. Like it or not, the interest is there. it is. We are not completely free from the objective world because we are not one with the objective world. I want you to hear that statement. We are not completely free from the objective world because we are not one with the objective world. Buddhists in the past, you know, there are many different ways that Buddhists practiced, but the ascetic Buddhist thought that the spirit and the spiritual life and the mundane life were two different things.

[22:19]

And they always tried to minimize the mundane life in order for the spiritual life to come forth. But in our practice, spiritual life, mundane life, it's the same thing. There's no separation. There's no such thing. We don't talk about spiritual practice. We just talk about practice. It's not spiritual or mundane. It's just all one thing. It's not spiritual practice. If you think it's spiritual practice, you can go someplace else where they have spiritual practice. So spiritual and mundane is the same. And so in order to be free from the mundane world, we have to enter it completely. That's non-dual practice. Non-dual practice is to be free from something, you have to enter it completely. To be free from the pain in your legs, you have to enter it completely.

[23:24]

You can't escape by running away from it or separating it. You enter into it and then there's only one thing. And when there's only one thing, there's no opposite. And when there's no opposite, there's no problem. And it's not a secret, but it's a secret. So when we try to, you know, when you look at how the world operates, it's chaos. Because everybody's separating everything from everything else. It's all separation. So there's no unification. The unification that exists is remarkable. It exists at all. whereas we don't operate on that understanding. But that's human nature. So human nature is the way Buddha nature works in the world.

[24:25]

And so, you know, when there's such a thing like the Holocaust, people rail against God, you know, how come you're deserted at Sacramento? That's because people don't understand how it works. I'm going to go explain how it works. So when we separate ourselves, we create problems. That's how we create problems, by separating ourselves. of a worn out baby mind. Baby mind is like the mind that doesn't have any ideas of its own. It's not clinging to ideas of its own.

[25:27]

Unfortunately, we all grow up and start clinging to ideas of our own. We learn from our parents and we learn from our surroundings how to separate. And it's necessary. Buddha nature is like that. Buddha nature creates separation as well as oneness. But we lose the idea, we lose the understanding of oneness because through the separation. So we need to take the leap back, take the backward step to unify our understanding. Because we step out into the world of separation and causes self-pain and suffering. And you know, um... Suzuki Roshi is also talking about to let go of so much and to appreciate our surroundings.

[26:37]

By entering our surroundings, to appreciate our surroundings. It's like when you go to the tide pool. And it just looks, you know, there's the ocean, there's the beach, and there's, you know, a lot of activity, and there's a tide pool. And you look in the tide pool, you don't see anything. It's just another puddle of water. But when you stick around and look at it, you begin to see worlds and universes of activity within a puddle. So within our own puddle that we live in, There's so much richness. You know, the Christian desert fathers went out to the desert and lived by themselves in the desert with nothing but sand. And to really find, see what is the real essence of life without... that you can't really discover so easily.

[27:42]

when you're surrounded by so much. Zazen is like that. Zazen is like that. It's like you depend on less and less and less. And by the fourth day of Zazen, there's nothing to depend on. Matter of fact, today, there's nothing to depend on. Just breathing. You get down to just breath. Just sitting up straight. there's nothing else to support you. And so you have to become one with that activity in order to be free within it. So Zazen is the greatest freedom. That's why we sit, to find that freedom, even though it's the freedom, the greatest freedom within the utmost restriction. So within that utmost restriction is where we find our utmost freedom.

[28:46]

We think that traveling the universe and going to the moon is freedom. That is a kind of freedom, but it's not the same kind of freedom as basic, ultimate freedom. So he says, to let our surroundings reveal themselves, boredom is lack of connection. Gee, there's nothing going on here. But when you sit in Tantian until your legs ache to the bone, then you won't be bored. There'll be something, but you won't be bored. So things change. For the usual person, this is very discouraging. You can't rely on anything.

[29:50]

You cannot have anything. And you will see what you don't want to see. You will meet someone that you don't like. This is like the formula of the First Noble Truth. Suffering is to have what we don't want. To not have what we do want. to be with people we don't want to be with, and to not be with people we do want to be with, and so forth and so on. That's a kind of stereotype of the cause of suffering, that things are not the way we want them to be, and we can't do anything about it. So if you want to do something, you are changing the foundation of your life. That's what he's doing as a Buddhist. That things change is the reason why you suffer in this world and become discouraged.

[30:55]

When you change your understanding and your way of living, then you can completely enjoy your new life in each moment. So, it's a matter of how we see it, how we view it, what we do about it. When you change your understanding and your way of living, then you can completely enjoy your new life. New life means as it changes. Every moment is a new life. And if we know how to flow that in a childlike way, not childish, but childlike, then that's enlightened life. The evanescence of things is the reason you don't enjoy your life, but it can be the reason why you do enjoy your life. When you practice in this way, your life becomes stable and meaningful.

[32:00]

So it's a change of attitude. So the point is to change your understanding of life and to practice for the right understanding. To arrive on the moon may be a great historical event, but if we don't change our understanding of life, it won't mean much. won't have much meaning or make much sense. We need to have a deeper understanding of life. We use up so much raw material on the earth to do all these incredible things and we're destroying the base which we use to do all these wonderful things. making this mud ball called the earth smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, the surface smaller and smaller and smaller, until it eventually won't produce anything anymore, in order to do these wonderful monumental things.

[33:11]

So we say there is a Rinzai way and a Sota way, Hinayana practice and Mahayana practice, Buddhism and Christianity. But if you practice any of these as though you were hopping around the universe, it will not help much. If you have right understanding in your practice, then whether you take a train, an airplane, or a ship, you can enjoy your trip. If you go to Japan by boat, it may take 10 days, and by airplane, maybe 10 hours. But if the point is to enjoy your trip, time is not a concern. be a hundred at most, hopefully, and you cannot repeat your life, so you can't compare your life with any other life. The only way to enjoy your life, even though you are practicing Zazen, counting your breath like a snail, you can enjoy your life, perhaps even more than taking a trip to the moon.

[34:13]

That's why we practice Zazen. The most important thing is to be able to enjoy your life without being fooled by things. So this is called shikantaza, just living your life totally and thoroughly with your surroundings, whatever that is, moment by moment, one moment at a time. So we get anxious because of our time pressure. So in zazen, we just enjoy Even though the person, we sit for 40 minutes and the person who rings the bell has to keep their mind on the clock. But there's no time. If we sit Zen thoroughly, there's no time.

[35:17]

The only time there is, is this, or now. Just one moment of now, now, now. If you start thinking, when is the bell going to ring? You better get right back to now. When is the bell going to ring? Now, now. When is the bell going to ring? Now, now. Otherwise you get caught by when. When the Doan gets up to light the candles on the altar, we think, oh, it's going to be now. Pretty soon the bell will ring. Russell, Russell. And then he sits down. Well, what's going to happen? Nothing's going to happen. So the Doan should get back right away and ring the bell. But it's good to sit down and make everybody wait, because then you have to realize, well, what's going on with me?

[36:26]

How will I deal with this moment? How will I deal with this moment? Suzuki Roshi used to do something like that, right? Well, when he first came to America and people started sitting with him, they had 40-minute periods. At about just almost the time that people thought the bell was going to ring, he'd walk out of the room. Nobody knew when he was coming back. He didn't say anything. And so they just sometimes he'd come back an hour later or 15 minutes later. But I'd also remember him ten minutes longer. Ten minutes. Well, let's see, can I last ten minutes? So, you know, it screwed up everybody's mind. But they had to figure out how to do that.

[37:30]

Well, am I going to fight this? Am I going to just fight to the end? Or how am I going to do this? So that's a great koan for Zazen. How am I going to do this? is be one with what's going on. If you can't escape, you have to stay, you have to deal with where you are. And how do you deal with where you are and stay and maintain your freedom? What is it that's binding me? Erika said, please pacify my mind. And Bodhidharma said, well, show me your mind. And Erika said, I can't really, I can't find it. Bodhidharma said, your mind is now free.

[38:35]

I can't find my mind. I can't locate it. Your mind is now free. So, although we have to think and we have a wonderful mind, we have to be free from it. That doesn't mean to discard it. Our thinking mind is produced by buddha nature. It's not separate from buddha nature. All the garbage in our mind is not separate from buddha nature. garbage. Nevertheless, garbage is always coming up. Always present. So we just let it be.

[39:41]

You can't exist without the garbage. The flower can't exist without the compost. We have beautiful roses because we treat them with beautiful garbage. It's no longer garbage because garbage gets refined into sweet compost. It's smelly in the beginning, but then as it goes through the process of Zazen, That's right. Garbage is practicing Zazen. And it comes out smelling very sweet in the end. That's the process. So I didn't talk about what you do with garbage in your mind.

[41:13]

But Suzuki Roshi talked about listening to someone talking on the other side of the fence. When you're listening to somebody talking on the other side of the fence, you don't know, maybe not know who it is or what it's about. But it's going on all the time. And this is like when we're sitting Zazen, you know, there's somebody talking on the other side of the fence. But you don't have to pay attention to that because it's somebody else's conversation, you know. You don't have to eavesdrop. We do, we drop in on it and it's just a conversation that's going on. And we kind of get caught by it and then we say, oh no, that's somebody That's the business of the person on the other side of the fence. So then we come back to putting our attention on buddha and on posture and on breath.

[42:15]

But the conversation going on on the other side of the fence is also buddha nature. It's not something bad or rotten or interfering with Nothing can interfere with you. That's your call for the day. Nothing can bother you. Nothing can interfere with you. You're perfectly free. Why should anything bother you? I mean, things do bother me, but, you know, let it bother you. Oh, I'm really bothered by that. And then let it go. We don't have to hang on to anything. And this train is going along while we're sitting still. The water is sitting still while moving.

[43:24]

The bridge is moving while standing still. Yeah, yeah. Can we invite the person on the other side of the fence to come and sit with us? You don't have to because they're always knocking on the door. If, you know, yes, you just say goodbye because although you are interesting, you have an interesting stuff to say, I'm busy. because I said to myself, this is what I'm going to do. I didn't say to myself, that's what I'm going to do. I said, I vow to sit for 40 minutes without moving and without thinking.

[44:30]

Thinking in the sense that you're thinking discursively, making up things to think about. But things come knocking on your door. Would you think about me, please? I want you to think about me, please. Please give me your attention. I'm sorry, but that's not what I promised myself. I promised myself I made a vow that I would sit without thinking about you. Just wait. Please be patient. You'll get your turn. I know that. What do you think of that? Well, sometimes you say, sometimes we invite that part of ourself into the tea. In other words, instead of treating it as something separate or different, it's actually... Well, that's right. Invite may not be the right word. Suzuki Roshi used to say, you let it in.

[45:33]

There's no furniture in the room. You can come in, but there's no place to sit. And the back door's open. Yes. And you're OK. But I just don't have... This is not the place for me to... Enter a dialogue. To enter into a dialogue with you. Yes. Yes. Margaret? You took the big monkey's picture. Did you make him an offering? Well, we were just startled. I don't know what you mean by making an offering. I mean, did you feed him? Wasn't he hungry? Oh, yeah. Sure. He was always hungry. I don't know how many bananas he bites. Because people feed them, then they look for handouts. So we trained them to do that. Yeah, no.

[46:53]

I mean, it was enough just to get him up. Kind of following up on what we were talking about before. So it's been useful to me, the idea of not engaging with thoughts. I'm realizing now that there's like a fine line, let's say, between if we're watching our thoughts but we're not engaging with them. But we want, or I, let's say, want to maybe be noticing them or paying attention to them there's some idea that that would be like studying the self and that that would that that I think I'm getting maybe I'm getting caught there or um and maybe I'm paying I think I'm maybe I slid into paying too much attention um yeah because when you when you said that I was remembering that I

[48:13]

I don't know, it's like that, where I sometimes get lost, and I feel like maybe I'm being a little too, paying a little too much attention, but at the same time, like, sometimes, for example, recently when I had dopes on, my teacher said, pay attention to this, look at, because I was trying to make a, or I am trying to make a decision about something, so she said, pay attention to this feeling, look at that, study that, explore that, or whatever. Well, you know. And so, if you could just, Everything comes into place, falls into consciousness. Feelings fall into consciousness. Thoughts fall into consciousness. Zazen is to acknowledge what falls into consciousness without naming it. Not necessarily, oh this is fear, oh this is pain, oh this is... As soon as you name something, then you create it. But sometimes that, well maybe that's more of a past practice, but sometimes that is a practice to detach from it by labeling it.

[49:20]

You know, it's not like we push things, we don't push feelings away. We don't push thoughts away. We just let them arise. But our job is not to be distracted by them. They can be a distraction if you like them or don't like them. I mean, but can you say what you mean by distraction? Distraction means our focus is on... Say you're driving a race car and somebody calls you up and says, you know, Aunt Matilda is coming over for breakfast. So just think of you driving a race car and all these All these thoughts want your attention. They're really important. God, they're important. They're important in your normal life, but in Zazen they're not important.

[50:26]

None of them are important in Zazen. They're there, and you respect them. I respect this thought. I acknowledge this thought. But now's not the time to deal with it. Someone once suggested that you keep a piece of paper or a pad of paper and a pencil and write down the thoughts so you can think about it later. So just postpone it. Postpone it. You're traveling to the moon and you don't need all that stuff. This is your trip to the moon. As a matter of fact, I once made an illustration when I was having Barney Dazaar, Richard Vega, and I would doodle a lot. And I drew this picture of this guy sitting in Zazen with a parachute and head prisoner goggles, you know, and his magic carpet.

[51:31]

And we made a T-shirt out of it. So this is your trip to the moon. You don't want to be bothered by anything else. No distractions. We think that our thoughts are very important. And it's not that they're not. But in zazen, none of it is important. None of it. We're abstracting ourselves. So it's not like you're making a judgment that it's not good or bad, or that it's right or wrong. or that you like it or don't like it, or that it should be or shouldn't be. That's all dualistic thinking. In zazen, it's just all the same. This feeling is no different than that. They're different feelings, but their value is not different. So we accept everything equally. forget this, feels like pushing it away.

[52:57]

No, not forget it. Just come back. So, to forget the self... Supposing I'm walking on a tightrope walk. Supposing I'm walking on a tightrope. We are. Yes, that's right. We're walking on a tightrope and then people are throwing rocks at us. What would you do? You can't stop them and you can't change them. You just pay attention to the tightrope. Just pay attention. Thank you very much. It's just one step after the next. One step in order to walk that fine line. So you don't want interference. Wonderful thing. I love you, I love you. There's Marilyn Monroe chasing you. So it's forgetting the self, letting go of the self that wants to be with Marilyn Monroe.

[54:08]

That's right. Exactly. Because the self is produced every moment. A self is produced by our dualistic thinking. So Zazen is letting go of the self that is produced moment by moment by thinking. There's no self other than that. That's the self that we're talking about. And we think that everything is so important because we built our life on these important things, which is, of course, natural and normal. But zazen is different from that. It's like we don't need to depend on all that when we're doing zazen. don't need to depend on any of that. When you're doing that, somebody can come up and chop your head off, and it's okay. If it's not okay, after your head is chopped off, you can complain about it. Dragon?

[55:09]

Lady? I'm treading on a fine line here. I'd like to raise another question, another dimension, because I really appreciate Elisa and Jerry's, what they're pointing at. I understand that you're really directing us to have a strict mind about how we use our zen, to just pay attention to what comes up. And out of that experience, we often find so much freedom. that it's natural, I think, to bring the question of the difficult parts of ourselves, the difficult part of mind, the parts that cause us problems or get in the way. And we want to study those. We want to investigate them. If we don't do it, it's tempting to want to do that and solve that. And I hear you say, no, no, we're not to do that. How do we investigate those parts? No investigation.

[56:11]

Don't investigate them. Just do Zazen. We always want to go to the mind. We always want to go to the discriminating mind. We just want to fall into the discriminating mind. That's the hardest part. It's not that your legs hurt. It's that your mind always wants to discriminate. That's the problem. That's Suzuki Roshi, the first talk in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. It's not that your legs hurt that makes the problem. It's your discriminating mind. There are many people who sat Zazen for many years, even masters, if you will, people who haven't dealt with themselves. They've just sat Zazen, no one in this room has. But do you know what I mean?

[57:15]

There's the ability to sit Zazen and allow body and mind to drop away. And then there's the ability also to deal with your life. Can you say something for us about how that transformation takes place? Or have I missed you entirely? I think you have, frankly. We're talking about two different things. We're just talking about Zazen. The way we practice Zazen, sitting this way. And then there's living your life. And of course, in your life, in your daily life of activity, that's where you take care of that stuff. But in Zazen, you let go of everything. It's simply letting go, because you're trying to gain something. You're trying to gain What do you call it? Normal? What are you trying to gain by investigation? Normality?

[58:15]

Or what? Awakening. Huh? Awakening. What is awakening? Being free. Being free of the mind. Well, that's what we're talking about then. You're going to be free of the mind. Why do you keep investigating it? You just keep creating more mind. So, quote unquote. We want to use the mind to investigate itself, but it's self-interested. The reason the mind can't fix itself is because it has self-interest. Just like, you know, if we want to have a neutral judge, the judge can't have self-interest in the case. In order to make your mind neutral, it's impossible because your mind is interested in itself. That's why we don't do it with the mind, we do it with zazen.

[59:20]

It's okay to, you know, psychology, and we'll have to deal with our psychology and so forth naturally, but if you want to come to total release, you can only do it through zazen, you can't do it through thinking. Because thinking just creates more duality. I appreciate what you're saying. Thank you. I believe you used the word postpone at one point, postponing your thoughts. No, no, no. Oh, I see. You're right. And to me, that answered Andrea's question. If I interpreted it correctly, when a thought comes and says it's a decision, that you're making a decision, to just let it not be during this ascent time, in your mind say, not only go out the back door, but I'll have to see you later.

[60:22]

Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. If you can remember it. This is the problem. We can't remember it. As I've been listening to the dialogue here, what's coming up for me is great doubt, great faith, great determination. And what I'm hearing is the voice of great doubt a lot in the room. And I've just been practicing staying, as you were saying, with the breath, because I can hear. you know, these ideas. I just can feel the energy of that. And I had this very visceral experience of being very tired and aching. And all of a sudden, it was like, oh, great faith. And I felt it. And I feel it now. It's just this surge of energy that literally changed my posture. And I feel my hara.

[61:23]

And I just wanted to say it because I was thinking, how does one activate great faith? But it just happened. Yes, great. Thank you very much for that. That's what it's about. If it's all about doubt, then that's where you live. If you live in doubt, OK, that's where you want to live. Or you live in faith, that's where you want to live. It's up to you. I mean, it's not always easy. It's not necessarily a decision you make, but it's like you said, it just happens. realization comes and gives you energy, you feel the energy. That's great. I would like to say that in my experience when I do Zazen and I'm quiet, I let thoughts

[62:32]

It doesn't seem like there's anything going on, but then thought arises against that background, and it arises as insight. And it's different than chasing it down to investigate. Well, insight arises, of course. And insight arises both consciously and unconsciously. So, the unconscious insight sometimes manifests itself as conscious insight. But the main thing about Daza is the subconscious insight, because you're mining down in the depths of consciousness, and beyond consciousness. Alan? As a person of that mixture of doubt and faith, Stephanie was talking about postponed.

[63:47]

And also as a person who, from time to time, does that heretical and inappropriate act of writing things down, I don't write them down to remember them later. And this is writing them down. sometimes is my way of letting go. If I write it down, then I can break the train of obsessive thought. And that's it. And actually, because what I know is, if there's something that's important to think about, it's going to come back. If it doesn't come back, it's not important to think about. And I have great faith in that process. And so it's just... There's something about what we're doing that infuses my life. That's the point.

[64:49]

And it wouldn't happen if we weren't doing this day by day. And our lives would be different. Well, you know, I agree that writing it down breaks the pattern. Can't break the pattern. I think each of us has our own modality of how we think and how we work and what our zazen is like, but the trust has to be there. Well, the trust, you know, faith, trust is an aspect of faith. And so you trust zazen and you let go of everything else. And so we have the crutch of thinking this and the crutch of thinking that and we don't want to let go of our crutches. Because if we do, you know, we have to step off the hundred foot pole. And just, where am I going to land? We have to do that anyway. Ultimately, that's what our life is about.

[65:50]

That's the meaning of our life, is what are we going to do when it ends? Well, just before it ends. And it's like, you have to trust Zazen. I mean, Zazen is just It's not something that's called Zazen. It's this form, but it's the meaning of your life. So Zazen is simply trusting. That's all it is. Entrusting your life to the universe. I have a real quick question. I know you have a quick question, but it may not be a quick answer. But you can ask it anyway. This is the last quick question. It's the same thing that Judy was saying. What happens to me a lot of times is that my breath will be very shallow, and then I get very tired. So I make a point of pushing it down, just really making it, push it down, and keep doing that.

[66:58]

And then, it is true, there is sort of a surge then. Yes, of course. But I have to remember to push it down. Absolutely. Right. If you concentrate on breathing, go there during sashi, and stay there, then you'll always breathe there. This deep breathing is my salvation. Then you'll always be breathing there. I always breathe All my breathing is here. I never breathe up here. Even if something scares me or frightens me or I'm feeling sad or whatever, I still always breathe here. And when emergencies happen, I'm aware that my breath comes there. This is the safest place that you can be.

[68:00]

It's right here. So that's where the breath comes. So if your breath is anxiety or whatever, the breath pushes it up. And pushing may not be the right word, but letting it fall, letting it descend. Sometimes you have to push to here, so that you're always breathing in your hara. That's fundamental. That's what you should be doing. Your belly expands when you inhale, and it contracts when you exhale. When you watch little kids, their bellies are going like this when they breathe. They don't breathe up here. They breathe down here. down here. Zazen is just coming back to your natural posture and natural breathing without conditioning. You let go of all your conditioning. Conditioning also means the way you think. That's what it means to let go of thinking mind. It means to let go of your conditioned way of thinking and just leave everything up to Zazen.

[69:03]

Total trust. That's called relief. That's called dropping body and mind. It's just total trust in Zazen. There's nothing to fear. There's no reason to be anxious. It's the safest place in the world. We have to stop.

[69:35]

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