Welcome to the first day of Sashin. So, during Sashin, I like to spend the time talking to you with concerns about Sashin, not something else. So, this morning, when we were sitting Zazen, I noticed there was a lot of nodding off and, you know, we all went to bed late. Who didn't go to bed late this last night? Good for you. So, some people perpetually sit with their head forward like this, but it can't be helped. The only way to help it is to hang the person by the top of their head to the ceiling.

[01:06]

Then they'll sit like this. So, but we don't do that. So, but We say you can sit that way as if you had a string attached to the top of your head, a rope, and you're hanging. That's perfect posture. All you have to do is put your hands in the mudra and you'll be okay. So we say sit as if there is a some kind of rope that's at the top of your head, and you're just hanging there by the rope. And everything falls down, and you just put your hands in the mudra. That's all. The whole thing is right there. So do that. Then your head is on top of your spine, your ears are in line with your shoulders, and your nose is in line with your navel.

[02:10]

And there's no tenseness in your shoulders at all. There's no tenseness in your body at all. Body perfectly free of tension, tenseness. Tension and tenseness are two different things. Tenseness is all the effort you don't need. And tension is what holds everything together. So you don't need any tenseness in the upper body. You don't need any tenseness in your upper body. This is how you should be. Like this, when you're sitting Zazen. But we sit like this. You don't need it. Be like this. If I come up and push you over, you just go over. But it's not like that. Sometimes it's like that. I'm being a little overreactive.

[03:13]

But looseness and flexibility is what's essential in Zazen. So that when you sit Zazen, you don't get tired. You induce energy and you feel light. flexible and lively. You know, Koreans have this saying, leap like a tiger while sitting. Just don't move. But you should leap like a tiger while sitting. You release the energy. You don't suppress it by being tight and tense. That's why we said we release the energy. Universal energy is flowing through us.

[04:19]

We're just empty. Empty vehicles and vessels for dynamic activity. We call this the dynamic activity, total dynamic activity. Why do we call it that if it isn't total dynamic activity? So during this Sashin, we will concentrate on releasing total dynamic activity through sitting. This morning I said something about paying attention to your mudra. The mudra is a very important aspect of sitting. People, you know, there's this and there's this from various disciplines.

[05:22]

But our discipline is the cosmic mudra. So when we hold the cosmic mudra, the whole universe is right here in our hands. So we make a kind of circular feeling. It's not a perfect circle, of course. It's a kind of oblate spheroid, like the Earth. The Earth is not a perfect circle. It's an oblate spheroid that I was told by my third grade teacher. And the sums face each other. The tips of the sums are facing each other. And this is your barometer for Zazen. This tells you what is the condition of your body and mind when you sit Zazen. So you hold the tips of your thumbs very lightly, like as if there's a piece of paper in between.

[06:27]

You can feel the tips of your thumbs just barely. And if you concentrate on the mudra in this way, you will stay awake. When you think some start pressing together or going up like this, you know that there's a lot of extra tenseness in your body that's building up and not necessary. When your thumbs are falling down, you know that there's torpor invading your body. And the vitality, you're losing the vitality of zazen. So in order to maintain the posture,

[07:30]

the awareness, the awakeness, and the vitality, it's all here in this mudra. So you want the mudra to be light, flexible, and at the same time, good form. So the mudra is a microcosm of your whole posture. You're holding your whole posture as a little oval in your mudra. So when we sit sadhana today, during our five days, we should pay careful attention, keep coming back to the mudra, let the mind wander.

[08:39]

And of course, we also pay attention to the rest of our body, naturally, keeping, you know, it's like we use the least amount of effort to do the most work. It's like, you know, if you have a long bar, and you have a fulcrum and you're trying to move a rock with the bar by lifting it like this, you have to find exactly the right place to put the fulcrum under the bar so that when you lift the rock, you're using the least amount of effort. It's exactly the same with your body. To sit upright, you find that place in your lower back where you use the least amount of effort to actually lift your lower back, to lift your upper back, upper body without strain.

[09:44]

But it does the work beautifully. You feel when your body's all perfectly balanced, you feel wonderful. That's called bliss. This is, Zazen, as Dogen says, is the entrance to bliss and comfort. So you want to feel comfortable when you're sitting. You can. We can all feel comfortable when we're sitting. We don't have to feel uncomfortable. It's just that we use our body in the right way and our mind. because the mind and the body are one thing. So when we say my legs hurt, it's really our mind that hurts. When we say the eye sees, it's really our mind that sees. When we say I hear, it's really our mind that hears, or something that hears, we call the mind.

[10:53]

So the body is an organ for feelings, and we can feel very comfortable if we don't attach to these feelings. So I really, when Suzuki Roshi went during Zazen, he would always walk around. And it would adjust people's mudra all the time. I used to do that. I used to walk around and adjust everybody's mudra like he did. But I don't do that anymore because during zazen I'm always doing tokusat, which is a problem. If I was a good Buddha, I'd be in both places at the same time. But anyway, to really pay attention to this, to the bare, lightly touching, the lightly touching, if you can just

[12:19]

Pay attention to how lightly that your whole body will be lighter because this is not an isolated piece. This is like the two halves of your body coming together. The left and the right are facing each other and barely touching and without any strain. And when this is without any strain, and you're really paying attention, your whole body feels unstrained. So this is how we let go of extra effort or extra tenseness. So there's no need to fight our feelings.

[13:22]

All feelings, whether mental or physical, should just flow freely. When we don't allow those feelings to flow freely, then we have a problem. So when we have a problem, then we should be able to say, the problem I have now is because I'm blocking the flow of energy. If you don't block the flow of energy and just let it flow, you have fewer problems. The problems we have is that we resist. As soon as we have some kind of intrusion in our comfort, we resist. That's natural and normal, because when we're not pinned down to the cushion, we can move around and change our comfort modes.

[14:34]

But here we have to change our comfort modes by letting go of them. It's counterintuitive. So the other day, when I was giving my last class or next to last class, I introduced the six factors. something called the six qualitative factors that keep us balanced and centered.

[15:36]

This is a kind of glean from the Abhidhamma. Abhidhamma was the analytical study of Buddhism by the monks after Shakyamuni passed on. that because they didn't have the teacher anymore, they studied the dharmas. The dharma with a capital D means Buddhist teaching or the truth or reality, and the dharmas with a small d, as you all know, means the constituents, the particulars of existence. And the monks created a system of investigation, an analytical investigation into what are the dharmas, the constituents of our psychic and physical existence.

[16:50]

Those are all dharmas, particular dharmas. Wholesome dharmas, unwholesome dharmas, all of our thoughts and feelings that are common in everyday life. So in other words, because there's no person, they study the dharmas, right? So what makes up a person is our thoughts and feelings, and both physical, psychic, and dharmas that create karma. dharma and karma. So, people don't like to study, some people really like studying Abhidharma who have analytical mind. But those of us who don't have analytical mind can't stand Abhidhamma because it's all analytical.

[17:58]

And it's all these lists, all these lists of dharmas that are boring. But actually, Abhidhamma, if you really get into it and can relate to it, it's not boring. It's very interesting because it explains or analyzes every feeling that we have. All of our feelings are dharmas. All of our thoughts are dharmas. So it's how we balance the thoughts and feelings and understanding of what it is that constitutes our self. So I don't want to go into that because I always get sidetracked. But in the Heart Sutra, that's what the Heart Sutra is about. The Heart Sutra is about the emptiness of all dharmas, all thoughts, feelings, and intimacy of our processes.

[19:14]

So it's called Buddhist psychology. I was talking to a student who you don't see very often, but he's a, studies the brain. And we have really very nice dokasans. And he's very, you know, does a lot of research in his field. And he said to me, how did these ancient Buddhist philosophers, or if you want to call them that, like Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu, know all this stuff, because now we're finally discovering it, and these guys already discovered it back 2,000 years ago. Vasubandhu and his brother Asanga were geniuses.

[20:29]

And Asanga was one of the main perpetrators of Mahayana. And Vasubandhu was more interested in Hinayana. But his brother convinced him that Mahayana was more advanced. So they came up with Buddhist psychology of the Mahayana. And Vassabhanda's kind of in between Hinayana and Mahayana, but they developed, did a lot of development in understanding of the eight levels of consciousness. the study of Buddhist consciousness, I don't say they founded it, but they developed it.

[21:33]

And especially Vastu Bandhu. That's why he's considered, we really appreciate him a lot. But what I presented in my class, the six pairs of qualitative factors, six qualities that keep us balanced and centered. So they're very easy to relate to. And it comes from gleanings from Abhidhamma. So I'm going to talk about these. They're called six pairs because each one has an opposite that balances it. So here they are, and you already know about what they are. So the first one is tranquility. The second one is agility.

[22:36]

The third one is pliancy, and the next one is workableness, and proficiency, and uprightness. And these six not only have an opposite, but each one relates to all the other five as balancing factors, and they all are right here in zazen. I like to speak about them as factors that we should be applying inside them. But they also, of course, are all present in every moment of your life, daily life. In every moment of your daily life, there are wholesome qualities that come up together every single moment of your daily life. They are the balancing factors. There are other factors, of course, as well.

[23:40]

In Vasubandhu's list of dharmas, there are 100 dharmas. In Theravada, there are 75 dharmas. The reason why there are 100 dharmas in Vasubandhu's list is because he includes the eight levels of consciousness. That's what makes it more of a Mahayana Abhidhamma. When we think about meditation, we do think about tranquility, right? That's what people think about when they think about meditation. But tranquility by itself, tranquility is like, as you know, is like a lake or a body of water

[24:53]

that has no ripples. It's just like a glass body of water that has no ripples. If you have ever traveled through Japan at a certain time of year, all the rice paddies reflect the clouds. They're just like glass, just like glass, beautiful. So that's tranquility. Serenity is like sunset, beautiful sunset in the late evening. So, tranquility, you know, I'll read you a little bit. Tranquility is quiet, equable, and composed.

[25:55]

So it's like composure, basically. Suzuki Roshi was always talking about composure. Composure as the basis for stability. So Zazen is called stability. we have, when we sit with our legs crossed, we have a triangle. This is a triangle, and it's the most stable position. The reason we sit, it's not the reason, but the reason, a reason, not a reason, but it's the best reason, the best way to sit is the triangle because it's so stable. Stability is really the most important factor in Zazen.

[26:59]

So you can't be pushed over. It keeps you from, it's like the roots of a tree, deeply embedded in the ground. And then your trunk, we call it the trunk, actually, is the tree. the roots and the tree and the leaves and the branches. So when a tree that's rigid, when the storm comes, the rigid trees fall over. But the flexible trees stay upright. They bend in the wind. And when we sit dozen, there's wind. So, how we bend with the wind is really important. And to keep our, maintain our tranquility in the wind is really important.

[28:04]

I've always admired, sometimes I've thought about when I've had really hard times in Zazen, which, you know, we all go through. I think of the ice plant. You know, an ice plant is really tough. And it's at the edge of the ocean, on the cliff, over the ocean, this ice plant. The ice plant's always facing the wind. But in order for the ice plant to face the wind, it has to meet the wind. and flow with the wind and be flexible with the wind. And the wind gives it a nice sunny or a nice windblown effect. I always like to admire people who are outside all the time and they have nice tough faces and a good tan.

[29:10]

So, tranquil is a keynote of the mind. It refers to tranquil, which is the keynote of the mind, to the quiet, smooth, and even way of functioning of all the mental factors, undisturbed by agitation and restlessness. Agitation and restlessness are called hindrances. so it is opposed to anxiety and to the hindrance of agitation. We may add that this, in its aspect of good conscience, is also opposed to the hindrance of worry. Due to bad conscience or scruples, scruples is an interesting word, As to the influence of tranquility on single mental factors, we shall give only two examples.

[30:14]

In the case of joy, the presence of tranquility means that joy will be a tranquil happiness without admixture of agitation, which would render it unwholesome. Energy in connection with tranquility will be a quiet strength, displaying itself in a well-balanced, measured, and therefore effective way, without boisterousness or uncontrolled exuberance that spins itself quickly and often in vain. So finally, tranquility is the seed present in every wholesome consciousness that can grow to full stature in the factor of enlightenment, Tranquility, which when perfected, belongs to super mundane consciousness. But tranquility by itself can easily fall into quietness or inertness.

[31:28]

So we have agility to counter tranquility. as a keel. Agility is called lightness. It's like a child. Childishness, Lightness and agility can be childish, but it doesn't have to be childish, it can be childlike. So when we have freedom, our agility and lightness are childlike, but not childish, because there's a counter to lightness.

[32:30]

So I don't want to bore you with all this, but tranquility and agility balance each other. Tranquility has a moderating influence on agility, and agility a stimulating influence on tranquility. Pliancy is a fundamental condition of workableness. Workableness is like soft and hard, wet and dry. The balance of wet and dry are the balance of soft and hard. So this is so important in Zazen. Zazen, if we're too tight,

[33:36]

we create a lot of painfulness. The energy will not flow. And if we're too loose, like too wet, it's like with clay, when you're working with clay, if it's too dry, too stiff, you can't work it. And if it's too wet, you can't work it. So you want to make it just the right consistency. So our body should have just the right consistency to stand up and not find any weakness. When we have the right consistency, then our posture is easy. It's easy to hold ourselves straight up, up straight, upright, when we have the right consistency. Not too stiff and not too loose.

[34:42]

We don't necessarily think in these terms. But when I sit dazen, I do. I don't think about, I don't use the words, but all the, the meaning is there. When I sit dazen, I'm thinking about what is it that's holding my back up? Am I too tight? Am I too loose? Am I too stiff? Am I too, This is when we think, what is zazen? What do I think about in zazen? Dogen says, think not thinking. Our mind needs something. So, think the thought of zazen. These are the factors that we should be thinking about when we sit zazen. So uprightness, which is one of these six factors, prevents agility and pliancy of mind from falling into insincerity.

[35:54]

Well, agility and pliancy take care that uprightness does not grow unimaginative and rigid, so impairs the adaptability of wholesome consciousness to actuality. So uprightness can easily fall into arrogance and righteousness. When you sit up straight, you can feel arrogant. People, if you hold your head up like this, that's arrogance. So sometimes I come around and I touch somebody's head and go, And then they go, when I walk away, they go, Suzuki Ryoshi called this arrogance, this arrogance, Mussolini Trump. I wouldn't call that our students, Mussolini, but that's just my, you know, exaggerated mind.

[37:05]

But don't sit like this. like this, a little bit down. So, both walking around like this, or sitting dozen like this, a little bit of arrogance. Proficiency gives agility that sureness and smoothness of movement, which comes from long practice. In other words, you get good at what you're doing by doing it over and over. But at the same time, it's not a technique. Satsang is not some kind of technique, even though there is technique involved with it. It's not a technique to get somewhere.

[38:09]

On the other hand, agility, implying the capacity to admit of modifications and changes, prevents proficiency from becoming an over-specialized and inflexible habit, and so limiting the adaptability as well as the potentialities of the mind. This is what Suzuki Roshi would call beginner's mind, actually. I'm not thinking that because you can do this well that that's the end or the goal. Sometimes people who are really good at sitting may not have the right attitude that that engenders freedom.

[39:15]

We should be free of our proficiency. Because once we have it down, we don't want to go any further. Or we think that we've got it. So as soon as we think that we've got it, we need to let go of it. because we get stuck in proficiency, which doesn't mean that we should, you know, not sit well. But as soon as we think that we have got it, you know, Suzuki Roshi, remember, he would say, Buddhism is okay, but if you think that it's the best, that's a mistake. Even though it's not the best, we should be thankful because if it was the best, then we wouldn't need to keep going on.

[40:27]

As soon as you think you've reached the apex, you're finished. I remember Reed, who was our head carpenter when we were building all this stuff, his father came and we had a party or something and he said, you know, you have to keep building. You have to keep doing stuff because as soon as you stop, you're finished. I think that's great. That's a great statement. as soon as we feel that we've got it all accomplished, you stop growing. So you may think, ah, I finally found the right posture. It feels so good. As soon as you, as soon as we feel that we've got the right posture and everything's comfortable and nice and sweet, it changes.

[41:38]

So there is no right posture. There is no right Zazen. We're always searching for it, all the time. Every time we sit Zazen, it's a brand new beginning. So in Zazen, I seek the thought of Zazen. Even though my mind keeps wandering, I bring it back to the thought of Zazen. which is these six factors, sitting upright, tranquil, with lightness and agility and workableness. These are all right there. That's what makes Southern interesting for me. And these factors are always balancing each other.

[42:41]

They keep each other in check. The assertive factors are kept in check by the are balanced by the non-assertive factors, and the non-assertive factors are balanced by the assertive factors. So it's always the balance between assertiveness and between active and passive. We think of zazen as passive, people do, but actually it's active. And the active is balanced by the passive, and the passive is balanced by the active. And this is, our whole life is like this. Zazen is just a microcosm of the rest of our life. That's why going to the zendo, coming to the zendo, and going out to the zendo, back and forth, it's all the same. When it's all the same, and neither side is special, then you have your true practice.

[43:50]

because these balancing factors are the fundamentals of our life. When we start getting too active, we need to balance that by the passive. And when we're too passive, we just insert energy so that we don't fall into a passive state of mind. So we see stillness within activity, activity within stillness. That's the fundamental. Darshan is simply fundamental practice of balancing all these factors. So do you have a question?

[44:47]

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