Today, since this is the first day of Sashin, I want to talk about Sashin so that we can, to remind us all about what to be attentive to when we're practicing. So I want to talk a bit about zazen, and I want to talk about serving, and I want to talk about eating, and I'd like to talk about kinhan, and a few other little things. I just want to say that Kinhin, I want to remind us all that Kinhin is walking Zazen.

[01:04]

So when we have Kinhin in between two periods of zazen. It's just walking zazen. So if you have to go to the bathroom, that's good. But unless you have some pressing need to stay in the zendo and do kinhin. I kind of wonder if so many people have to leave after the first period of Zazen to go to the bathroom, but I won't question that. It's just something that comes into my mind. Well, let me talk a bit about serving. There's just a couple of points, observations, that I had this morning that I just thought I would get off my chest.

[02:10]

Somewhere. So, walking in the Zendo, for the servers, when you walk, to walk on the front of your foot, not necessarily on the ball of your foot, but put the front of your foot down first so that you're not walking on your heels. When we walk on our heels, it's like boom, [...] boom. So to be mindful of the sounds that you make with your feet when you're walking. And if you don't hear any, that's good. So when we walk, we don't want to hear any sound of the footstep.

[03:12]

And then when you walk that way, you feel light and you feel buoyant. And it doesn't... the sound is not entering into the situation. Usually we walk on our heels. But in the Zen Do, we put the front of our foot down so that we don't walk on our heels. And when we enter the Zen Do, for anybody, everyone should walk the same way. But it's more obvious with the servers. And if you come in, say if you're going to Dogasan and you come back in, or you've been out for a while and you come back in during Zazen, to walk the same way.

[04:14]

And to walk slowly. Not to kin-hin, but walk slowly and carefully so that you don't disturb the atmosphere of the zendo. I've said this many times before, but we always want to maintain the atmosphere in the zendo. So when we open the door and close the door very carefully and quietly, and walk carefully and quietly to your seat, sometimes we feel that because I'm late, I have to hurry up and get to my seat. You should drop that idea. That just creates a disturbance. And then of course when the servers are serving the floor, you should go down on your knees, or at least one knee if it's hard to go down on two.

[05:21]

At least go down on one knee to serve. And when we're serving, after you put the pots down, you should be careful that the pot isn't close to the Buddha bowl. Sometimes as we serve, we're not so careful about how we put the pot down and it's touching the Buddha bowl. So it should be a little bit distant from the Buddha bowl. The priest's Buddha bowl doesn't have a bottom. It has a bottom, but the bottom is round, and it sits on a little dish. So if you knock the pot against the Buddha bowl, it can just slide off. So often I'm just saying to the server, Please, because the pot's getting closer and closer to the bowl.

[06:25]

So I just want us to be aware of that. And then when you serve something, not all food is the same. Sometimes there's soup, sometimes there's cereal, sometimes there's salad. So we should be careful that each dish has its own way of being served, not all the same. So soup should be stirred because the heavy stuff goes to the bottom very quickly. And if we only serve off the top, the first people get the water and the last people get all the heavy stuff. So when you come, you don't have to go like this, but just make sure that the ingredients are evened out. And then serve from the bottom of the bowl, as a general rule, not always. Sometimes it's right to serve from the top. But generally, you want to serve from the bottom, which is how we do our practice, right?

[07:32]

We're always serving up from the bottom of our heart, from the bottom of the bowl. So it really carries through. So to even things out, even the ingredients out before you serve is, I think, a good idea. Sometimes when we serve salad, in order to make the salad look beautiful, we put all the lettuce, we put certain things on the bottom, certain things on the layer in a certain way. But when you serve it, if you only serve from the top, people get the top part, some people get the bottom part. So be careful that you're evening the ingredients out for each person. Okay, and when you're serving certain dishes like cereal, if you serve a full scoop for the first one, because most people will take a full scoop, and then for the second one, a smaller scoop, because a person may not want a second full scoop.

[08:58]

So if you take a smaller scoop, then it's easier to portion out just what a person would like. So the first one is a big scoop and the second one is a small scoop. Sometimes a server will serve a small scoop for the first one and then a big scoop for the big one. Catch it by surprise. So be mindful of that. And then when serving, we should be careful because sometimes we feel that we really are pressed for time. So we get in a hurry and we start serving real fast so that we get to the next person. And even sometimes we forget to bow because we're in such a hurry. So not too fast, not too slow. Mindfulness doesn't mean being very slow. Mindfulness means being right in the middle, just right. If we're too fast, then everybody gets upset. And if you're too slow, everybody gets, people, we all feel tedious.

[10:06]

So find the right pace, just right, so that everybody gets, you know what you're doing, and you and the recipient are in sync with each other. The server and the served are in sync with each other. If we do it that way, then the pace will take care of itself. And then when we bow, we meet. When we serve, we meet. And when we bow, we meet. Not just a superficial bow in order to get on with it. So, and when we do serve with a ladle, rather than holding it this way, we should hold it this way, like the way you hold your fork. Kind of like, not like that.

[11:10]

And then you pour towards yourself, rather than away from yourself. Because if you miss the bowl, you pour it on the person you're serving. If you pour toward yourself and you miss the bowl, it goes to the right place. But actually, to pour toward yourself is a more dignified way. So then, in eating, When we take Camasio, we take Camasio and we put it on our

[12:17]

cereal, and then we hand it to the next person. Sometimes, if I'm sitting next to someone, when I pick up the gomasio, I usually hand it to the person next to me first, and then they hand it back to me, and then I use it. That's just my kind of generosity feeling, feeling of, you know, serving someone else first. And then they hand it back to me. You don't have to do that. That's just my idiosyncrasy. But it's a nice thing to do because you're recognizing, just offering something to your neighbor. So there's always the question of, well, when do we bow with the gamassio, right?

[13:22]

So we bow and we pick up the gamassio. If we're going to use it ourself, we bow. And then we put it on, and then we put it down, and then we bow again. Sometimes, if I'm going to use it again, I'll just pick it up and use it. and then put it down and bow. You can be a little informal with it, but I usually wait until the second bowl is served before I put the Gamasya on the first bowl. Rather than having the feeling of being kind of hasty to put the gamassio on the first bowl, I wait until the second bowl to put the gamassio on the first bowl. These are little customs, they're not rules, you know.

[14:26]

There's a difference between customs and rules. there's a customary way of doing things, and when we do things in that way, we all feel that we're doing the same thing. And it's not necessarily, you know, we could do it many different ways, right? There are infinite other ways that something could be done. So they're not rules about how to do something, but we follow our custom, and it gives us some feeling that we're all doing something the same way together. So I would say this is a customary way of doing things. Yeah. On the commasio. Yeah. Let's say Sue is going to use the commasio. She bows. Do I bow as she bows the commasio, and do I bow when she puts it down, or do I just relax? Relaxing is really good.

[15:30]

I would say do everything with ease. As a matter of fact, that's the whole secret of everything. Just do everything with ease. you know, if we don't do everything with ease, then we start getting disturbed by what our neighbor does, doesn't do, or does or doesn't do. So, I'm not sure I know what you mean exactly, to tell you the truth. When Well, I don't think we have to get into that.

[16:43]

Just do what feels right. Wait a minute. Is this about Gamasio? Which side of the post should we serve on? Is that it? Oh, I see. Okay. What do you think? How would you like to see it?

[17:54]

I would like to see it the way it's been in the past, where the post is sort of a separator between—it's very awkward for the server to stand in the middle of the post, it's bound to both of us. You should try doing it on the stick that way, when somebody's sitting behind the post. Well, just do it the old way. The post is the divider, except when you have to do the stick, which I had to do this morning. So I had to step to one side to hit the right shoulder, and then I had to step on the other side of the post to hit the left shoulder. We could have designed it in a different way, but we didn't. Yes? Oh, wait a minute. Somebody in the back. pace, yes.

[19:03]

Oh, with a pot. Somewhere in between fast and slow, I would say. Yeah, it's like, in other words, not too brisk. No, not like charging, you know, that's not good. You know, a fairly good movement, so that you don't feel like you're pushing things, and you don't feel like you're dragging it. Moderato. But one same pace throughout. For example, sometimes with kin-hing-bo, I kind of go quick, but I'm in the middle, I'm not really relating to anybody, I'm just coming through. Yeah, that's too fast then. Too fast, okay, thanks. Yes, you should always be relating to to your surroundings when you're walking. I'm really glad we're getting down to the nitty-gritty here. I have a question about pears.

[20:06]

I think, I get confused, but I think it's been my experience that for the Gaumont show I was apparently part of this pear, and then when it came to the food all of a sudden I was... Part of that pear. Yeah, but it depends on the server. So that's good. If it's on this side, accept that. If it's on this side, accept that. If you get stuck on the rule, then you have a big problem. So it's our custom to adapt. We're going to get into minutiae. Yes, that's OK. The minutiae is what gets us. I kind of forgot somebody behind the pole. Behind the pole? I kind of forgot somebody behind the pole. So it's actually behind the pole. Well, if you're behind the pole and you're being missed, stick out your arms.

[21:08]

You know, this reminds me of a... This reminds me of a koan. In the Buddha hall, in the Dharma hall, in the zendo, in a regular monastery, Monjushri is the figure on the altar. And one day, the work leader came, and he was telling the monks where to work. He said, the people on the left work in the field. The people on the right work in the kitchen. And somebody said, well, what about the holy monk, meaning Manjushri in the middle? So it's always a koan. Okay, the other one is about eating style.

[22:26]

When we eat with the orioke bowls, instead of going like this, we keep the bowl up. You're like this. We say lift the food into your mouth rather than going down to the bowl. You bring the bowl up to the mouth. This is Soto Zen eating style. So you're still sitting up straight when you're eating. And we all fall into this, you know. I do too when I start going. Then I remember, oh yeah, sit up straight. Oh yeah, so as long as you keep reminding yourself to sit up straight, you're still practice. And the Oryoki bowls, I've talked about this before, three bowls, you know, actually they're five bowls.

[23:31]

In Japan, the mugs bowls are five nesting bowls because they have gomasio in one bowl and then they maybe have pickles in the other bowl, but we don't serve it that way, but we still have the bowls. But anyway, the three major bowls are the grain bowl, and then two accessory bowls. So the main dish is the Buddha bowl. And that's where the rice goes or the grain, whatever grain you're using. And this is Asian-style eating, actually, Chinese-style eating, is you have a big bowl of rice or something like that. And then you have the other side dishes. So you eat some of the rice, and then you eat some of the side dish, and then you go back to the rice, and then you go to the other side dish, and then you come back to the rice.

[24:37]

So that you finish in a kind of even way. It's considered kind of greedy to eat the side dishes all by themselves. because they're the tasty ones. So you eat something tasty and then you come back to something neutral, more neutral. Then you eat something tasty and you come back to something neutral. So that's the way the three bowls are designed to be eaten. So I know when it's time to serve seconds because I've gone through the system two times. And by that time, when the servers come and we're ready for seconds, that's how I judge when we're ready for seconds. If you eat that way, it's very satisfying, actually.

[25:44]

So I would suggest trying it out. You don't have to do it that way, but again, it's customary to do that. It's not a rule. The other thing I want to talk about is the bells. We all, most of us at one time or another will be sounding the bells, and the bells sound best when you approach them in a very loose manner.

[26:53]

To be very loose, letting the beaters do the work, not you. This is the koan of the bells, is that you're not doing it, the beater is, the weight of the beater is falling on the bell, and then there's no, there's no hitting involved. So that's when the bell sounds, that's when it's very loose, and the sound is very loose. And this goes all the way through. When the sound is loose, it makes us feel loose. It reminds us to be loose. So it's a very important position. It's not just keeping time. It's creating the atmosphere of a kind of profundity and a kind of looseness. And at the same time, keeping time. And the same thing goes for zazen.

[28:05]

I could give Zazen instruction all day long, but the main thing is to be loose. We have this structure of Zazen, sitting up really straight, sitting up as straight as we can, at the same time being very loose and opening up. So we're going to be sitting here, most of us, for five days. So to really keep this in mind, and when we have trouble, when we start having problems, to just open up and be as loose as you can. But loose doesn't mean to drop the form. So to sit up, put a lot of energy into sitting up straight. Put all your energy into sitting up straight. and at the same time to be totally loose and flexible.

[29:11]

Flexibility is the key without losing the form. So this is kind of like the koan of Zazen. How do I put all my energy into Zazen and keep maintaining this form moment by moment, and at the same time being loose and flexible? And open. And accepting. One thing I want to remind everyone to do is to keep the breath down here. You should know where your breath is on each breath.

[30:18]

Where is this breath on each breath? Where is the exhalation? Is it up here, here, here? Where is it? So the effort is to keep the breath down here. When you inhale, your lower abdomen expands. When you exhale, your lower abdomen contracts. That's breathing, Sazen breathing. Doesn't matter whether it's fast or slow, as long as it's deep. So when we maintain good posture, it's easier to breathe deeply, because the breath goes naturally down to here.

[31:26]

As soon as you find yourself breathing up in your chest, let your breath fall. And you can take deep breaths, a few deep breaths through your mouth, just to prime your breathing. I'm making the sound for emphasis. And you can feel your abdomen when you exhale, squeezing in. That's just to prime it. And then just let your breath be natural. Don't try to control it. And just let your mind follow your breath without controlling it. But make sure that your breath is down here all the time, whether you're sitting, walking, working, dreaming, whatever. The breath should always be down here.

[32:31]

And the one thing that you should really work on is to keep your head on top of your spine. because the tendency is to go like this. Older students do it, younger students. This is the one thing that is most, it's so important to keep your head on top of your spine and not let it fall forward. We get into, when the head falls forward, it's the thinking mode. We may start out this way, but then pretty soon the head falls forward because we're starting to think about something. We're starting to lose our concentration. And we lose our concentration, the head falls forward. And then the back starts curving. And then pretty soon we're not even concerned about sitting up straight.

[33:40]

because we've fallen into the mode of thinking. We've fallen into the mode of not paying attention to sitting up straight. So we're always working with gravity. And if we don't make the effort, gravity's gonna win. So it's the same thing with Kinhin. When we're doing Kinhin, we keep our posture just like Zazen. Straight back, keep your head on top of your spine. And a half a step at a time. When the heel of one foot is even with the instep of the other, that's a half a step. And you can take a few breaths depending on the pace.

[34:47]

You have to judge the pace of everybody else and not just walk at your own pace. If you're only walking at your own pace, you start crowding up on the person ahead of you because they're walking too slow. Or if you're walking too slow, everybody else is backing up behind you. So you have to keep pace and feel the rhythm of everyone else. And you can take a few steps depending on the rhythm. And when you lift your foot, you lift your foot when you inhale. And you put it down with the exhale. Then you lift the foot with the inhale, put it down with the exhale. And when you come to the corner to turn, there's no rule. Just put out your hand when you turn right.

[35:59]

When we walk outside the gate. You feel silly, yeah, I understand. It feels self-conscious. Yeah, I understand. But we do it anyway. There's never been an incident, is there? It seems to always work. So, a little exposition, exposing yourself a little bit. I have trouble keeping my head up, and I think that for me it starts with my eyes, because if I tend to, you know, if I bring my gaze down, to follow, so I sort of have trouble knowing where my gaze is.

[37:22]

And then, you know, so if I'm going straight ahead, I mean, it's just... For you, straight ahead is just right. We should be careful not to sit like this. looking up, some people like to sit looking up, but either straight ahead or a little bit down. So if your tendency is for your, you know, when you look down for your head to go down, then look straight ahead. I actually don't usually recommend people to look down. I usually recommend a little bit down from straight ahead, so that, just a little bit, so that it's not, your head doesn't go up. But it all starts with your back.

[38:24]

The foundation for your head is your lower back. So if you push in your lower back, and pull back your head, that's your posture. When I correct somebody's posture, I only do two things. One finger in the lower back and the other finger on the chin. Just like this. That's how you do Zazen correction. is like this, and that brings everything into line. It's very simple. Not to kind of adjust like the ears and the thumbs and so on. That's just patchwork. That's okay sometimes. To adjust the head, you know, or the shoulders. But basic posture and alignment is to one finger on the chin and one finger in the lower back and go like this. and then everything comes together. Are you saying the chin should be in alignment with the lower back?

[39:34]

Yes. The chin should be directly above the lower back? No, but when you push the lower back forward, You know, this is approximate, right? It's not exact. So you push the lower back forward, and then it feels like your head and your lower back are in alignment. Yes. Because the lower back, it pushed forward. And the chin is pushed back. So they are in alignment. Yes. Especially seeing this, though, Very frequently, at least I don't get Zazen correction, but I don't feel I'm sitting really straight. You don't feel that you're sitting straight? Can I ask for Zazen correction? Yes, that's a good idea, but do you give yourself Zazen correction? Yes, but I mean, when I'm sitting, it's helpful when someone corrects me, but seldom, almost never, ever happens.

[40:40]

Well, maybe because... But if you say, I'm not sitting correctly, why not? In other words... I just feel sometimes a need for more correction or... That's a good idea. Then the thing to do is... Can I ask? Yes. How? Well, you can ask me. You say... I'm talking about Dogasan, but I mean... No, no. Just say, when you come around, Check my posture, you can ask the tanto to do that. Ask who? The tanto, Ellen. I see, okay. Not when you come around, would you? But, you know, I don't see that your posture's that off. When I see somebody's posture off, I usually get up and correct them. But if you feel that you want to get checked, you should ask.

[41:44]

People do that. I don't know what time it is. How are we doing? How are we doing? Okay. Well, this is about right. Unless someone has another question. I noticed, if I can feel my shirt, I mean, it kind of depends on what kind of shirt you have, but then, if my head's getting forward, I usually can't feel my shirt against my skin. So sometimes just making that contact is enough to get my back up. Yeah. Well, if you're not falling asleep, yeah, I think that's good. You can feel your collar on the back of your neck. That's good. But, If you lift up your sternum, I don't mean throwing out your chest, but to move your lower back forward, lift up your sternum, and your ears are in line with your shoulders.

[42:58]

That's how you can tell when you have the proper alignment, is that your ears are in line with your shoulders. Stretching your hips. If you sit with good energy, then you induce energy. If you sit in a lax way, then you become lax. But sitting up straight is like, it just induces energy, creates energy.

[44:01]

So, you know, when we talk about chanting with the strength of zazen, that's what's meant, to have strong zazen and have that strong energy. You just need to align your vertebrae. That's true.

[45:11]

The main thing is alignment and balance. So that's the ease. The ease is in the alignment and the balance. And the effort is in actually lifting up. There has to be some tension, but not tenseness. The biggest problem we have is tenseness, which is too much tension in the wrong places. So you have to find just the right place for doing the most work. That's the conservation of energy. Just the right amount of energy to do the most work. So then it's effortless effort. were not in your lab.

[46:14]

There's a range, but although we hold our hands down, we don't lean on them. So when you say rest, our hands can touch our heels or whatever's there, but you don't lean on it as a way to hold you up. But it's okay. Some people hold it pretty high. So there's a kind of range. But I tend to, sometimes I see people like this, and so I put their hands down because they look tense to me. So just, there's a position which is fairly easy, but it's not resting your, it's not leaning on your heels. I just wanted to say I've remembered for many years something you said that has always helped me a lot.

[47:49]

And I think you said it was a quote from somebody else, but it was the instruction to sit Zazen like a baby sitting on its mother's lap. Well, that's Suzuki Roshi. But my advice is give yourself Zazen instruction for five days straight. Every time you sit down, give yourself Zazen instruction. And then you'll see, well, what is it that I'm doing here? And it will, you should just give yourself Zazen instruction throughout Zazen. Then you'll have something to do. Truly. Now, The what? Sit. Talk about... The flow of the breath while you're sitting. Once you gave instruction regarding, you know, up your spine, down your front, or up your front, I can't remember what you did.

[48:56]

Thinking of the breath as going up your back, or down your... Some people have done that. I never gave us that kind of instruction. I remember you gave that. Long time ago. Then I took the necklace off. That's good. I may have said some people give that instruction. Okay. But you don't. No. So it doesn't matter. No. Somebody said Suzuki Roshi gave that instruction. What was it? Just what you said. Which way? Up the front or down the back? The way I learned to do Zazen, the breath was simply, it's like a saw sawing wood. When you're sawing wood, you don't watch the end of the saw coming and going. You simply watch where the saw and the wood meet.

[49:58]

And that's how you follow your breath. You just follow your breath as the rising and falling of your lower abdomen. So some people do those, you know, fancy breathing things, but I try to keep it very simple. by the fourth or fifth hour of zazen. So I'm wondering, you know, if you have some sort of innate difficulty like that, so that you can't really physically sit up straight, is it still possible to do? Well, you know, there's no effort in keeping your head up.

[50:58]

It's simply balance. You may not Well, you just have to adapt to find your own adaptation. Everyone has to do that. All of our bodies are a little different, right? So when I say this is the way to do things, given that, you have to find your own place in that. You have to adapt your own idiosyncrasies to that understanding. Everybody does that. The only other thing I could think of was have a brace or something, you know. Sit anyway.

[52:11]

Sit anyway, you're still doing Zazen. Oh yeah, everyone is doing Zazen according to their capability, capacity. Of course, people sitting in a wheelchair doing Zazen according to their capacity. So somebody sitting in a chair, and I'm talking about, you know, all these other things, there is a way to sit in a chair. There are ways to sit, as a matter of fact, I wanna talk about sitting in a chair. but there's no time today, so I'll talk about it tomorrow. So there are ways to compensate, but there are also ways to sit in a chair which are depending on what your problems are.

[52:58]

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