Discontinuous time is when we are thinking about the future or when we are expecting something. Soon as we expect something, then we fall into discontinuous time. In other words, I expect something to happen in the future. We can't say I expect something to happen now. because now is no longer the same now as when we expected something to happen. When we don't expect anything, then time is no longer discontinuous. I mean continuous, no longer continuous. It becomes discontinuous with expectation. So in zazen, we don't expect anything. We just sit in continuous time.

[01:01]

So continuous time is the same as timelessness, according to our experience. So this practice continues forever, but who's practicing? If we say, I am practicing, then it's no longer true practice. You say, this is my practice. We say that all the time. But we have to be careful not to attach to that my. It's just a way of, convenient way of speaking. So practice, we are practice. To be ourselves is to be practice. So he says, we say each moment.

[02:04]

But in your actual practice, a moment is too long. Because in that moment, your mind is already involved in following the breath. That's a little funny sentence, the way he says it. What he means is, your mind is already somewhere else. When he says follow the breath, it means your mind is already engaged in something else. So we can't really experience this moment as the true moment. So we say, even in a snap of your fingers, there are millions of instants of time, discontinuous instants of time. This way, we can emphasize the feeling of existing in each moment of time And then your mind is very quiet. Your mind is quiet because on each moment of time, there's just this moment.

[03:06]

And there's no expectation, and the mind doesn't get excited. The mind isn't involved with some kind of desire. So this is a very specific way of speaking. So what he's saying is Shikantaza is to be awake in each moment of time, and in each incremental moment of time. In the snap of a finger, there are uncountable moments of time. We think of moments according to clock time, and then we reduce the increments to seconds. hour, days, hours, minutes, seconds, and so forth. But we don't usually think any further than the division of seconds. But you can continue to divide and divide and divide until infinite divisions.

[04:13]

And what happens when you get to the infinite division? Suzuki Roshi said in Japanese, they say, There's a word that means the infinite indivisible time segment, which may or may not be. Then he says, so for a period of time each day, to sit in shikantaza without moving, without expecting anything, is if you were in your last moment. Moment after moment, you feel your last instant. In each inhalation and each exhalation, there are countless instants of time. And your intention is to live in each one of those instants of time. I remember he used to say, Zen practice is nothing more than living your life moment to moment, or one moment at a time.

[05:25]

He'd say that very casually, just living your life one moment at a time. But that's a very deep teaching. So we think of shikantaza as zazen practice. But zazen practice and daily life practice are not two different things. So shikantaza is the one thing that we practice all the time. And when we practice it on the cushion, that's one expression of shikantaza. when we practice in our daily life, that's one expression of shikantaza. So it's one thing that's expressed in infinite variety of ways. But at the same time, it's all the same, because it's simply dealing with being present on each moment and settled with calmness of mind on each moment.

[06:39]

But calmness of mind is not different than activity of mind. Activity of mind is one expression of Shikantaza. Calmness of mind is also one expression of Shikantaza. It's one thing that's expressed in two ways. And within calmness of mind is activity. And within activity is calmness of mind. Not only is it not two different things, it's really one thing that has two aspects. So then he starts to talk about breathing. He says, first, practice smoothly exhaling and then inhaling.

[07:48]

Calmness of mind is beyond the end of your exhalation. So when you exhale, that's complete calmness of mind because everything is gone. If you exhale smoothly, without even trying to exhale, you are entering into the complete perfect calmness of your mind. You do not exist anymore. When you exhale in this way, then naturally your inhalation will start from there. So it's interesting. You don't exist anymore. So in one breath, in one Cycle of breath, which is inhaling and exhaling, is one cycle of life. One cycle of birth and death. I like to use the terms birth and death rather than life and death.

[08:55]

Because life, according to my theory, my opinion, life includes birth and death. You can also say, death includes birth and death. Either one you use is okay. Even though they're different, they're the same. If you say, life includes birth and death, it's the same as saying, death includes birth and life. Or birth and death, or however you wanna say it. because it's just two sides of the same thing. And in birth, there's death, and in death, there's birth. This is the non-dualistic understanding. That's why we can say there's no birth and death, actually.

[09:58]

Nothing is born without its inherent death. And nothing dies without its inherent birth. So then he says, all that fresh blood bringing nourishment from outside will pervade your body in breathing. And you are completely refreshed. Then you start to exhale to extend that fresh feeling into emptiness. So moment after moment, without trying to do anything, you continue shikantassa. So in other words, totally letting go and totally coming back to life. This is how we understand birth and death in each cycle of breath. This is letting go, everything goodbye.

[11:03]

Then strangely enough, you come back to life without expectation. Complete Shikantaza may be difficult because of the pain in your legs, right? But even so, the pain in your legs can actually help you to be concentrated. When you really have a lot of pain, There's nothing you can do except follow the breath. Each inhale, each exhale, and each inhale. And then you're really doing Shikantaza. You're forced to do Shikantaza because there's no way out. So even though you have pain in your legs, you can do it. And even though your practice is not good enough,

[12:06]

Or even, you know, even though your practice is not good enough, you can do it. He doesn't mean that. He means even though you think your practice is not good enough, you can do it. And things get lost in translation, and they also get lost in, the subtleties sometimes get lost in the way he says something, but you have to know what he means. Because he never thinks, he would never say, your practice is not good enough. He would always say, you think your practice is not good enough. Your breathing will gradually vanish. In other words, we have conscious breathing. I mean, we're conscious of our breathing. Sometimes we say, count your breath. When we give Zazen instruction, we tell the students, count your breath from one to 10, and then on the exhale, Exhalation. And then when you lose count, after two or three, then you start again with one.

[13:16]

So this keeps you focused on the breathing. And then after that, you just follow your breath. Let the mind follow the breath, which is very subtle. And then after that, it's just, you're not even conscious of your breathing, necessarily. But you always come back to being conscious. So you will gradually vanish. Your breathing will gradually vanish. You will gradually vanish, fading into emptiness. Inhaling, without effort, you naturally come back to yourself with some color or form. Form and color is a kind of technical term which means phenomena, or coming back to life, or, you know. life takes on form and color. Exhaling, you gradually fade into emptiness.

[14:17]

Empty white paper. That is shikantaza. The important power, the important point is your exhalation. Instead of trying to feel yourself as you inhale, just fade into emptiness as you exhale. Don't worry about inhaling. We're always trying to make some effort to stay alive. Survival is the human instinct. So we make a big effort to stay alive and to keep ourselves alive. But he's saying, the important point is your exhalation. Instead of trying to feel yourself as you inhale, fade into emptiness as you exhale. So inhaling and exhaling are really just two sides of one thing. When you practice this in your last moment, you will have nothing to be afraid of.

[15:30]

You are actually aiming at emptiness. You become one with everything after you completely exhale with this feeling. If you are still alive, naturally you will inhale again. Oh, I'm still alive, fortunately or unfortunately. Then you start to exhale and fade into emptiness. Maybe you don't know what kind of feeling it is, but some of you know it. By some chance, you must have felt this kind of feeling. You know, when we become scared or frightened or anxious, our breath, we hold our breath. So holding the breath means clinging to life because we're scared or anxious or apprehensive. And so we hold onto that breath. But actually, if you let the breath out, you feel more comfortable with what's happening.

[16:32]

So this is why We should always be aware of our breath. I keep saying this over and over. I learned to be aware of my breathing all the time when I was starting my first years of practice, because I had so much pain in Zazen. And I can remember sitting through those sessions where each period of Zazen, all I could do was one breath at a time. That was all I could do. I couldn't get up and run away, and I couldn't sit there. But I had to stay there. And don't move. Tsuki Roshi would say, don't chicken out. Don't move. Or he would say, just before the end, we will sit 10 minutes longer. just to give us the opportunity to go deeper.

[17:41]

So just learning, just breathing deeply, learning how to breathe deeply and depending on, just focusing on the breath, one breath at a time. One breath at a time was the whole world. And then after that, I just naturally started breathing that way. And always, I never forget where my breath is. And through all of our activity, we're practicing shikantaza when we're aware of our breathing, through all of our activity. Thich Nhat Hanh talks about this a lot too, just how to stay with the breath. I think Thich Nhat Hanh and Suzuki Roshi were very much in sync in their approach, in their attitude, in their understanding.

[18:44]

And both of them, Suzuki Roshi sometimes said, the reason that we're here on this earth is because we've always been here. You don't arise, you don't come, you don't get born and you don't die. There's just something happens on this earth because this is where you've always been. And Siddhartha says the same thing. The reason we're here is because we've always been here. We can't come from someplace else. So when you practice this in your last moment, you will have nothing to be afraid of. You're actually aiming at emptiness and you become one with everything after you completely exhale with this feeling. Inhaling creates our individuality.

[19:50]

So and then we enter the world of comparative values. Exhaling, we let go of our individuality, and there are no borders, there's no outline, there's no separation. So we enter the realm of oneness with things. No separation. But both are important. We don't favor one over the other. So Suzuki seems to be favoring exhaling over inhaling. He says it's more important to exhale than to inhale. But he's emphasizing a point. It's just as important to inhale as it is to exhale, as you know. But because we cling so much to inhaling, that he's stressing the other side.

[20:55]

Because unless we know how to exhale, we don't know how to inhale. Unless we know how to let go, we only cling to life. And this is called attachment. And then attachment creates a self. That's the point. When you do this practice, you cannot easily become angry. When you are more interested in inhaling than in exhaling, you easily become angry. You are always trying to be alive. The other day, my friend had a heart attack, and all he could do was exhale. He couldn't inhale. That was a terrible feeling, he said. At that moment, if he could have practiced exhaling as we do, aiming for emptiness, then I think he would not have felt so bad. The great joy for us is exhaling rather than inhaling.

[22:01]

When my friend kept trying to inhale, he thought he couldn't inhale anymore. If he could have exhaled smoothly and completely, then I think another inhalation would have come more easily. I want to discuss that one. To take care of the inhalation is very important, the exhalation is very important. to die is more important than trying to be alive. That's an interesting statement, because it's usually the opposite of what we usually think. You know, there's a koan, what is, does one who has died a great death come back to life again? Unless you die, you can't come back to life. So dying is this important act.

[23:06]

Letting go is the important act. Then life, birth happens again. Unless we, the whole point is to be totally empty so that we arise fresh on each moment. That's shikantaza. to empty out so that you can arise without any encumbrances on each moment. This is called freshness. So when we always try to be alive, we have trouble. Rather than trying to be alive or active, if we can be calm and die or fade away into emptiness, then naturally we'll be all right. Buddha will take care of us. Because we have lost our mother's bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore. Yet fading away into emptiness, we can feel like being at our mother's bosom, and we will feel as though she will take care of us moment after moment.

[24:12]

Do not lose the practice of shikantaza. So our true mother's bosom is the universe. In other words, we've been, we easily get disengaged from our oneness with the universe through our grasping and clinging to this life. And everybody's looking for that security. Everyone is looking for security of some kind, and we find it in various ways. And if you look at all the activity of the universe, there are very few people who are not just spending all their time looking for security, looking for their mom's bosom, so to speak. So various kinds of religious practice are included in this point.

[25:14]

When people say, Namo Amida Butsu, Namo Amida Butsu, those are the Chodo Shinshu people who chant the Buddha's name in order to be born in the pure land. They want to be Amida Buddha's children. That is why they practice repeating Amida Buddha's name. The same is true with our Zen practice. If we know how to practice Shikantaza, and if they know how to repeat Amida Buddha's name, it cannot be different. So I always like to think that whatever religious practice people have, whether it's based on a fairy tale or whatever, it's some kind of refuge for people. So we can't criticize how people take their refuge. And there are many different styles and different ways that people do that. So we have enjoyment and we are free.

[26:27]

We feel free to express ourselves because we are ready to fade into emptiness. When we are trying to be active and special and to accomplish something, we cannot express ourselves. Small self will be expressed, but big self will not appear from emptiness. From the emptiness, only great self appears. That is shikantaza. It is not so difficult if you really try. So that's his talk. Do you have a question? The last part. Could you read that again? Which last part?

[27:29]

It's kind of dualistic to me, which is okay. Oh, yeah. Words are dualistic. Words aren't necessarily twisting. So we have enjoyment. And we are free. So we feel free to express ourselves because we are ready to fade into emptiness. And when we are trying to be active and special and to accomplish something, we cannot express ourselves. Does that sound funny? Yeah, what he means is that you express yourself from the point of view of self, rather than allowing big mind to be expressed through you. So small self will be expressed, but big self will not appear from the emptiness because the small self will be overshadowing big self. It's like when you have your hand here, right?

[28:32]

When you hold it like this, you can see your hand, but when you put your hand up here, you can't see it anymore, and it blocks your view. So from emptiness, only great self appears. And that's shikantaza. So Suzuki was always talking about big mind, to always be focused on big mind, and to allow big mind to work. And the way big mind works is when small mind becomes absorbed into big mind. So when small mind acts as the agent of big mind, or the vehicle for big mind. So Zazen, in Zazen, in Zazen we totally offer ourselves. We leap into Zazen and give up. And a big mind just does what it does. Small mind is also a big mind.

[29:34]

Small mind allows big mind to be expressed through itself. So small mind can also express big mind, and it should be doing that, but small mind It easily becomes grasping and egotistical. And as long as it's egotistical, then a big mind can't get through. That's what he's saying. Well, following your breath, there isn't any emphasis. No, that's right, following your breath, there isn't any emphasis.

[30:40]

But he's not saying you should emphasize something, it sounds like, but he's saying be aware of letting go in the exhale, basically is what he's saying, to be aware of letting go. It doesn't say try to let go or try to do something. It's just in the process of breath, letting go, exhaling is letting go. Yeah, to let everything go is letting go. This flushing, exhaling is flushing. And inhaling is inspiration. coming to life and exhaling is expiration, letting go of it, but it's still life. You're letting go, this is birth and this is dying, birth and dying, but both of them are two aspects of life.

[31:47]

So what's happening is you're becoming aware of letting go. No, I'm not talking about that. You can do that. What Suzuki Roshi, I think, is talking about, he's saying, these are two examples. This is how we experience birth and death. I'm not saying do something special. Just let the breath come and go. I'm not trying to control the breath at all. But within that process, this is what happens. There's no control. Sometimes they push down on the exhale when you're having a problem, you know, if you have some trouble concentrating. But basically, it's not necessary. Just letting the breath come and go as it comes and as it goes because you're not breathing.

[32:51]

Not to contradict him, but I just wonder if it isn't easier, it's maybe easier for me to become aware holding on rather than the opposite. It's more common that I have to wake up to the gripping rather than tell myself to become aware of it. Basically, just to be aware of the process. And basically, if we can let go, you know, through exhaling and inhaling, then when we inhale, when inhaling happens, we don't inhale, but inhaling happens, because breathing is out of our control. It's just something that happens. It's the universal activity.

[33:53]

We're simply following the universal activity. When the mind follows the breath, it's just following the universal activity. You can't do anything about it. So you just go with it. So you go with letting go, and then you arise fresh on each moment. And arising fresh without any baggage on each moment is shikantaza. When we don't cling to the present, it seems like we're just, in my experience, this is being thrown into a kind of constant sort of becoming and cessation with no idea of what's going to come to last. That's right. Everything changes. That's the basic thing. That's right, that's exactly it.

[34:54]

That's why there is no substantial self, because it's always being, every moment we're being born, and every moment we're dying. It's just a process, the whole thing is process. But we'd like to think of it as substantial. We'd like to think of it as an orderly process. Well, it has its order, even though it can be chaotic, but chaos is just another form of order. which we don't understand. So we say it's chaos. No, but it is orderly. It all works according to rules. Suzuki Roshi, I remember, used to say, even though there's no self, there still are rules. We're describing this process that is, in a sense, can't be comprehended quite, and we're giving it a name.

[36:00]

We call it Shikantaza. And there's so many, there's lots of different instructions on Shikantaza, and they're all very common, but they come at it from this angle. It's like, another way to think of it is, how do you not How do you let everything in and not exclude anything, and yet not hold on to anything? Let the flow happen. Yeah, but I just feel like he's being very particular. He's a very particular instructor. That's right. But it's not THE instructor. Right, that's right. Well, that's an important point because when you say something like this, it looks like, well, this is the definitive statement.

[37:02]

But it's simply one way of expressing it. And that's important. And it can be expressed some other way. And he does express it many other ways. That's a good point. So Suzuki Roshi would say, and don't hang on to what I said. You don't even have to remember what I said. Not always so. That's right. But we do have to quit because the cooks and the people like that. But one more question. So in everyday life, it seems like we become aware of expectation when something doesn't turn out the way we thought it was going to. At that moment when you become aware that you were carrying an expectation, how do you work with that? Yeah, you let it go.

[38:05]

And so do you work with your breath? All the time, you know. Often I'll have some expectation and then it'll fall through, right? I just let it go. So you focus on the external breath when you say, you just let it go? I just don't even think about that. I just automatically go here. Yeah, but so give advice. That's you. You said you don't have trouble with that. I may or may not have trouble. That's just my practice, I just do it all, that's the way I practice. But you're saying become aware of the breath. Be aware of the breath all the time. It's not like you suddenly, although it's hard to be aware of the breath because we're thinking and we're acting and so forth, but the more you act with your breath, the more you are aware of your breath within your actions, within all of your activity,

[39:12]

It's just, you don't have to make adjustments because you're always there. That's the way we should be practicing in our daily life. These are just two sides of practice. One is the cushion and the other is whatever we're doing. So on the cushion we have all the atmosphere of the Zen Do and we say, well this is, you know, we know what we're supposed to do. But in our daily life it's, things are happening in the world of activity. And so that's where we have our calmness. In zazen, we're visibly calm, but it's a great dynamic activity of stillness, in stillness. And in the world, it's total stillness within all this activity. So the same thing, it's just the bag is turned inside out. It's the same bag. And then you have to be able to see the practice situation in every activity.

[40:20]

You turn everything you meet into practice. Here, the practice is given to you, but there you have to create it on each moment. So being out in the world is wonderful practice. You shouldn't think of it as that's being out in the world and this is practice. It's not like that at all. You're dividing one thing into two pieces. These are two sides, but both stillness and activity are present in both of them. But in one, it's this way. In the other one, it's the reverse. I feel like the hair on my back is standing on end. Good. OK. to sign numbers

[41:16]

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