This morning, this is the middle day of Seshing. Mid-Seshing. And I think we've been doing very well. this particular sasheen a lot of the positions are new to people although people have been around a long time they're filling new positions and uh... so it's a little bit bumpy in that way and uh... And sometimes we're just learning things and fumbling around a little bit. But I really want to express my appreciation to everyone. I think we're doing very well in all of our positions.

[01:21]

And there's also sometimes a problem when you've been practicing in one place and you come to another place And a little bit of a discord when you see people practicing some way and say, well, that's not quite it, you know, it should be this way. That's always our feeling when we go from one place to another. So I want us to have a big, soft mind to accept differences and to accept some of our and not hold your tight mind. Don't hold on to your tight mind. Just kind of relax your mind and accept things as they are and help them along.

[02:31]

So as the Sashim progresses, we'll have more people, especially over the weekend. And we have to accommodate for those people. And that will cause us a little more problem, maybe, but if we allow it to. If you are just open to that, it's no problem. But if you see it as a an intrusion or some kind of modification of the feeling that you have, then that can be a big problem. So, one of the main things about practicing in the city And practicing, especially in a small zendo, a lathe-type zendo, is that there's a lot of coming and going, and a lot of not quite as much attention to perfecting certain kinds of procedures.

[04:08]

So, usually, our narcissines We have very smooth sushins usually. I think that's to the credit of everybody, all of our members. But even so, in this type of zendo, we always have a lot of bumpiness and coming and going and irregularity. which is part of our process, part and parcel of our practice. So we have to put our mind to that and accept it as part of our practice. And being able to practice in the city and in a less professional atmosphere, Yeah, it's a very good way to practice.

[05:14]

I remember on Dwight Way, we used to have traffic constantly going back and forth. I never heard it myself, but people used to tell me about it. Every once in a while I'd hear cargo buyers, but I never really heard it. But people used to tell me, that was really a noisy place. Anyway, that leads me into what I was going to talk about, which was, yesterday I talked about mindfulness and effort, which is the first and the third of the seven factors of enlightenment, and today I want to talk about the second one, which is Deep analysis, maybe you could call it deep analysis, or watching the mind, being aware of mental states.

[06:31]

But it also has other connotations. It means investigating the skandhas, knowing thoroughly the skandhas and the constituents of mind. And it also has to do with balancing the mind, the factors of mind. And it has to do with taking care of yourself, how you take care of yourself. So it really means knowing your mind, knowing the factors of mind and balancing not only mind, body-mind. When we talk about mind, body-mind. And balancing all those factors in a harmonious way, in an enlightened way.

[07:36]

Sometimes that kind of awareness is likened to a kerosene lamp. Keeping the lamp in good working order and keeping the wick trimmed just the right way, keeping the chimney clean and adjusting it just right so the flame is not too bright, not too low. And if it's too high, it may be rather bright, but it gets smoky, and the chimney gets black. And if it's too low, it doesn't really give enough light to see by.

[08:46]

It's function is not being used properly. So, the chimney, the fuel, the cleanliness, the proper shape of the wick, and keeping that clean, and adjusting, constantly adjusting. And this analogy is about adjusting the factors of mind, body and mind, so we don't fall out of balance. It's what we've been talking about all along, but from a different point of view. In Zazen, we're constantly dealing with thoughts, or not dealing with them. So we can, in Zazen, we can view our mental states very clearly, very easy.

[09:56]

Some thought comes and you can see it. Some feeling comes up and you have good awareness of it. So, to know this is This is a happy feeling. This is a sad feeling. This is an angry feeling. This is a jealous feeling. This is an avaricious feeling. You know exactly who you are at that moment. to know your mental states, an angry state of mind, happy state of mind, neutral state of mind, whatever comes up, you know, this is what's there.

[11:03]

And usually we identify ourselves with our states of mind. But in In Zazen, we don't take up our states of mind. We don't follow them up. We don't build on them. We say our mind is always being carried off, but we bring our attention back. So we don't really build. We don't use our thoughts as a foundation for building further thoughts or further In samsara, sometimes we have thoughts that are important. If we say, just ignore all thoughts, that's okay, except that some thoughts you don't want to ignore.

[12:08]

Some thoughts are valuable, and you want to remember them. And you may even start to build on them. It may be okay to build on them, sometimes, if it seems appropriate. But more or less, we don't build on our thoughts. We don't use them as a foundation for thought building. And we just watch them. States of mind, thoughts, and feelings, as they come up. And just let them be there. And then they march out. They march out because they don't have a root. They're not rooted anywhere. They're just kind of like bubbles. Bubbles are mushrooms. They just kind of... And you let them float there for a while.

[13:12]

And then you let them go. So... And Zazen is more or less like a neutral state of mind. But there is no special state of mind which is Zazen, which you're looking for in Zazen. Sometimes people think that in Zazen you're supposed to cut off all thinking. But that's not really so. Don't make an attempt to cut off all thinking and have a blank mind. Sometimes you say your mind should be like a white sheet of paper. But that doesn't mean a blank mind. It means that your mind is like a screen, white screen, and whatever comes across the screen is projected on the screen. So you're constantly projecting on the screen, but you know that the screen is there.

[14:14]

Usually when you see a movie, When you come into the movie house, there's the screen. And then the movie goes on. And while the movie's on, you don't see the screen. But in Zazen, you see the movie and the screen. You know that the screen is always there. And when you are not aware that the screen is there, that's when you're losing it. That's when you're being carried off. And when you lose sight of the screen, or awareness of the white screen, then you come back to awareness of the screen, like a blank sheet of paper. which isn't really blank, but it's in zazen, body and mind are not separated.

[15:26]

And when we start thinking, then our body and mind are separated. Because thinking in zazen is one complete act with the object. We're not thinking about something. You know, sometimes Gogen Zenji says, Zazen is to think not thinking. What is think not thinking? Not thinking, non-thinking. It's not think about not thinking. If you say, think about not thinking, then you're thinking about something. So in zazen you don't think about something. In order to think about something, you have to objectify it. You have to make an object of it. As soon as you think about something, the thing that you're thinking about becomes an object of mind.

[16:32]

So all of our thoughts, which come up in zazen, are Thoughts not thunk. Thoughts which are not thought, when you start thinking about them, then they become thinking. So, when we're sitting zazen, even though our thoughts are appearing, it's not really thinking. It's only when you start to create something out of those thoughts that it's thinking. So it's just a passing of thoughts, passing through.

[17:42]

And when you can just allow thoughts to pass through, That's thinking, not thinking. But body and mind are not divided. The object of concentration is not separate from the concentration itself. So this is the important thing in Zazen. Even though there's thinking happening, there's still undivided body and mind. But as soon as you start to think about it, then you make an object of thinking, of your thoughts, and that then is division. So ideally, in zazen, keeping complete concentration

[18:50]

on our posture and breathing, so that our posture and breathing and thought is one thing. No separation. Our thinking, our thought is the breath, and our breath is the thought, and our posture is the thought, and our thought is our posture. You're not thinking about your body. You're not thinking about your breath. Just breath, just body. And constantly fine, finely tuned.

[19:52]

of your posture. So, The state of mind in Zazen is not any special state of mind. There's no special state of mind that's the Zazen mind. Because our states of mind are continually changing. And you just accept every state of mind as it changes. The state of mind in zazen is no special state of mind.

[20:54]

Just like emptiness has no special form. There's no special form to emptiness. The form of emptiness is all forms, all shapes. So in Zazen, we resume to no special shape, but just let our mind take the shape of whatever is passing through. This goes for feelings as well, and it goes especially for the pain in your legs. your mind takes the shape of the pain in your legs.

[22:02]

If your mind doesn't take the shape of the pain in your legs, then you say, this is suffering. Ouch. We think it's our body that hurts. But it's the shape of our mind. Our body doesn't fit into the shape of our mind. We won't let our mind take that shape. So, in Zazen, we just let our mind get bigger and bigger, bigger and bigger and bigger. Where is the dimension of our mind? We tend to think that our mind is up here. This is our brain up here, but our mind is everywhere.

[23:14]

So during Sashi, Especially working in the kitchen, you especially have to have a balanced mind. The food, what we eat is, we eat the stuff we call food. But we also eat the temperament of the cook. The temperament of the cook is a very important factor in what we eat.

[24:20]

Maybe we eat the cook's constipation. Sometimes we eat the cook's constipation, constipated mind. And sometimes we eat the cook's anger. Sometimes we eat the cook's stubbornness. All those things. So actually, what the cook serves us is life. Sometimes, so knowing, recognizing the life in the food and paying attention to the life of the food is big, very important.

[25:40]

Each grain of rice is a seed. and it's a little world, a little universe that's alive. They found seeds in Egyptian tombs. They were put in the tomb when the pharaohs died and they sprouted some of those seeds and they actually sprouted still alive after all that time. So you can see how things are really alive. And our main job is to nourish that life. We're feeding life to life. and to keep our mind in such a condition that we understand as the most important thing, not our anger or our resistance, but how do we really feed life to life?

[27:05]

So when you cook rice, you have to take into consideration every grain and what's happening with that grain of rice. If you know how to cook rice, each grain swells up just the right amount, nice and plump and juicy. And when you put it in your mouth, And you make that connection with that kind of life. Bring out the most wonderful life of that rice, those rice grains. And then there's wonderful compatibility between human life and rice life. We don't need expensive food or fancy food.

[28:23]

We just have to know how to bring simple things to life. And in the same way, when we serve each other and take care of each other, we bring life to life. This is the first precept. Don't kill life. Give life to life. That's actually... We think that life goes on anyway, you know, whether or not we have anything to do with it. Actually, we have everything to do with it. So, no matter what we do, we should be careful about taking care of how we take care of life.

[29:34]

Because everything we take care of, everything that we handle and touch and meet with, we bring it to life. So we have to decide what is the most important thing, hanging on to our ego or harmonizing the factors of mind so that we can have a well-balanced presentation. to harmonize with life.

[30:45]

Anyway, there's a lot more to say on this subject, but I'm going to stop in time today because we don't have a full schedule. So we have lunch on time. Thank you. You should be proud of this.

[31:14]

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