Well, today we have weekend sashin, today and tomorrow, and it's very nice to sit in the rain. Perfect, we say, perfect opportunity to practice indoors when it's raining. What I want to talk about today is what's called, I've talked about this before, I've spoken about this before, what's called in Abhidhamma the six qualitative factors of consciousness and mind. Sometimes they're called the six pairs, which makes twelve factors, but pairs means qualities of consciousness and mental factors.

[01:09]

In other words, the quality, as it is a quality of consciousness in general, and as it is a quality associated with a mental concomitant or a mind object, So these, but I'll speak of them as six. The first one is tranquility. The second one is agility of mind. And the third is pliancy of mind. And the fourth is called workableness. And the fifth is called proficiency. And the sixth is called uprightness.

[02:13]

And according to Abhidhamma, these six arise and work together with each other. Although you can find them in isolation when in a wholesome state of consciousness they arise together and work together and balance each other. And these six characteristics have a very big influence on our character. the way they work together has a big influence on how our character is formed and how we work or make effort to deal with our character.

[03:20]

I don't want to say improve, although improve is okay, but not in the sense of, you can say improve, but in a sense of balancing these factors of consciousness. So I'll talk about them, each one, and a little bit about how they work together. Tranquility is a pretty common word, but it means the state which is free from agitation, or the state of mind or consciousness which is settled and without fear and without anxiety. And tranquility is really the basis for enlightenment.

[04:30]

It's the seed base for enlightenment. Suzuki Roshi was always talking about a calm mind. Calm mind is a kind of mild way, a kind of mild, subtle way of talking about tranquility. So, tranquility is you might say the horizontal aspect or the ground of mind. The last factor, uprightness, is the more vertical aspect.

[05:31]

Tranquility is like the horizontal aspect. Everything lies down. Everything falls down to its base. This is the lowest common denominator. Tranquility is the lowest common denominator. There's nothing poking its head up. So there's nothing to worry about. There's nothing to gain. so there's nothing to worry about. There's nothing to lose, so there's nothing to worry about. Uprightness is the vertical aspect. This is like spirit. Spirit and ground. Maybe tranquility is like gravity in some way. There's a great pull toward equanimity, where all things are equal.

[06:43]

Everything is, according to gravity, everything is equal. It all falls down, as they say. And uprightness is spirit, change, aspiration. Coming to life So uprightness is like the characteristic of uprightness is sincerity and Sincerity and pure activity. Sincerity and pure activity, which means that it doesn't turn a

[07:56]

an activity into self-aggrandizement or gain of some kind. It's not self-centered activity, but just pure activity. This is uprightness. This is activity with no blame, nothing sticking to it, no accumulation, just doing something for its own sake. on the basis of tranquility. So tranquility is the base, this way, and uprightness is its activity, the expression of its activity. We say wisdom, the expression of wisdom is compassion. the expression of tranquility is uprightness.

[09:06]

The second factor is called agility. Agility is lightness. Lightness or springiness. The quickness of mind or agility of mind, the ability to come back to know when you're lost and return. That's its wholesome quality. We can have agility of mind, but to an unwholesome purpose. In Buddhism, And especially in Zen, we talk about the monkey mind. In Zazen, to stop the activity of the monkey mind, the monkey mind is the agile mind, always jumping around, clinging to one thing or another, and not being able to hold or concentrate.

[10:20]

But it's very strong, maybe like a young child who doesn't have discernment, but has lots of energy. So, to control the monkey mind, not to get rid of the monkey mind, because the monkey mind is also the agile mind, which is very important. So, a constant tranquility and agility balance each other. Tranquility is the foundation or

[11:29]

center board for the monkey mind. Boat, you know, wants to go like crazy with the wind, but the center board holds it down and keeps it from turning over the keel. If you're a person who has a characteristic of great mental agility, And without tranquility, then tendency sometimes is to always grab on to something or focus on something, which when something comes up, you have an opinion on it or you catch it in some way, which is very agile and very smart. But there's something missing. is the ability to stand back and not press or make space.

[12:37]

Tranquility is the ability to make space for things, not to be so upset by things. Something comes up and a person with agile mind can latch on and become very upset unless the quality of tranquility is balancing. The next, the third one is flexibility. or the ability to... softness of mind, pliability, pliancy, the ability to stretch and take the shape of our activity.

[13:45]

Very important in Zazen. All of these six characteristics are really important in Zazen. And this is a very good time for us to think about or to recognize these six qualities. Pliancy of mind or what Suzuki Roshi used to call soft mind. It's the opposite of rigidity or it's the opposite of arrogance. Arrogance is hard mind, rigid mind. Rigidity is the most difficult hindrance in zazen. And pliancy is the ability to accept something, to open up to things, to learn something new, to let go of our opinions.

[14:51]

The opposite of pliancy is called blocking. or stopping, or resistance. So, pliancy is very soft. And pliancy and agility balance each other out also. Pliancy and agility both are a kind of balance to tranquility because tranquility by itself has a tendency to sink

[15:56]

has a tendency to be amorphous. You know, it's very easy to have tranquility and space out. So, spacing out is not really, has to be, well, spacing out is a kind of perversion of tranquility. So, it needs to have agility, to be awake and have energy, and pliancy of mind. So these three balance each other very well. The fourth one is called workableness. And workableness has the quality of tempering.

[17:00]

It means, it's like balance. Temper is what you have on the edge of a sword or a knife or scissors. And if, when you make a sword or a knife or a pair of scissors, if the heat is not right and the conditions are not right, then the blade becomes very brittle. Very hard, but very brittle. If it's too hard, then it's too brittle and will break easily. And if it's too soft, it won't hold its edge at all. So we're talking about temper, our own temper. We say, I lost my temper. I lost my temper and became angry.

[18:06]

I fell into anger. It means my mind was too hard too brittle. When our mind is really hard and brittle, then we lose our temper and fall into anger. And if our mind is too soft, we fall into complacency. So how to keep the balance? Always keeping the balance. Workableness is also like... The example is like gold. If gold is too hard, you can't work it. And if it's too soft, you can't work it. And it depends on the heat. And heat will melt the gold.

[19:11]

But if there's too much heat, it turns into a puddle. And if there's too little heat, you can't really work it. So, workability is... Our mind is like gold, or like clay. If there's too much water, you can't work it. And if there's too little water, you can't work it. So, keeping fine temper. And a very good example is in Zazen. In Zazen, we apply good energy, good effort, but if the effort is too extreme, then we become very brittle. Even though we may be sitting up very straight,

[20:14]

If it's too straight, you crack. And you get very tired. And it's too extreme. And we get very tense and tight. And we lose our temper. And if there's not enough effort, then our posture, we can't really sustain our posture, and we can't concentrate so well. So the balance between strong effort and ease, actually ease within the effort, is to make that kind of effort, that strict effort, When if we're too tense to ease, let go of things, let go of tenseness.

[21:24]

And if we're too easy, sit up. Sit up straight, work a little bit. So keeping that balance always is actually our work. So, if we really concentrate on the temper, the temper is probably the easiest thing to work with, you know? A blacksmith is always going like this, you know? You have something to concentrate on and work with and you know what you're working with. The goldsmith is always going like this. The potter is always going like this. And the Zen student, I'm like this. Subtly, all day long.

[22:27]

You have something to work with. And if you're working with the temper, then it pervades your whole body and mind. And tranquility appears. lightness of mind appears, work of ease or lightness appears, and all these factors can be taken care of within the tempering, the activity of tempering. The next one is... Well, one thing more about workability is heat and cold, which are two sides.

[23:39]

Heat is like emotion or feeling or... and it comes out as desire if you know if we have a lot of desire then we really get heated up and that's like melting and we lose our shape and coldness or withdrawal aloofness is more like cold and we become very brittle with coldness. So the right temperature is really important. How do we maintain the right temperature? We say you should have a cool head and warm feet. Warm feet won't hurt you and a cool head will keep temper.

[24:46]

These two, the balance of these two. And whatever comes up, you know, we turn back into the ground of Zazen. Whatever comes up, we just let it go and it falls into the ground of tranquility and comes up as energy for Zazen. We say, what do we do with our mind in zazen when all this stuff comes up? Just let it go. And it comes back up as energy for zazen. The fifth one is... something like being successful, doing confidence in or success in your activity, which comes from doing something over and over and gaining confidence.

[26:21]

That's very important. It's important to have the feeling of confidence and the feeling of, I know what I'm doing, I feel right about what I'm doing, and I have faith in what I'm doing. And it's hard to have that unless we have sincerity. And it comes through doing something wholeheartedly, sincerely, over a long period of time. It's like anything that you do. If you devote yourself to doing something wholeheartedly, Mostly, you'll have success. If you want to be a doctor, and you devote yourself wholeheartedly to being a doctor, you may have ups and downs, but you'll have a feeling of success if you do it well, if you do it right.

[27:45]

And the same with practicing the Way. Practice the Way wholeheartedly and sincerely, you'll have some feeling of success, which breeds confidence and faith. So this is a very important factor. It's the opposite of skeptical doubt. Do you know the five hindrances? These six qualitative factors are balance out the five hindrances. The five hindrances are desire, excessive heating up through desire, anger, attachment to anger, sloth and torpor, or laziness, and agitation and worry.

[29:02]

And the fifth one is skeptical doubt. Doubt is fine. Doubt is not necessarily a hindrance. But skeptical doubt is doubt which doesn't also have faith. You know, on one side it's faith or confidence, and the other, the balancing factor is doubt. So doubt is important as a balancing factor for faith. Because faith by itself tends to get pulled around. Faith is susceptible to seduction. And doubt is scrutiny, you know. So in our Zen practice, although through practice we have confidence in faith,

[30:10]

Doubt is also important, but skeptical doubt means doubt means you step back without faith and just objectify. So as soon as you start to objectify, you change the whole picture. So this factor, success, successful feeling, is confidence, faith, and tempered with doubt, but not as a hindrance, as a helper. I think this is important. can be a hindrance, but it also can be a help. It's like the rudder, maybe, of your boat, or of your airplane.

[31:19]

Stabilizer. I mean, stabilizer. Keeps faith stable. And doesn't allow it to just run off. Do you know how faith is liable to create castles in the air through imagination. Religious imagination is quite... runs rampant and is the cause of a lot of problems in this world. Religion, science, politics, all of them are worthwhile, wonderful, but each one of them has its dark side. And religious imagination is quite wonderful, but also quite delusive. So we must be very careful about it.

[32:29]

It causes all kinds of trouble. And I talked about uprightness before, as these are the two ends, uprightness, sincerity, striving, making an effort, pure effort, without, as Suzuki Roshi used to say, without gaining idea, without egotistical, an egotistical idea. Uprightness can also lead to arrogance. So, soft mind is very important for uprightness because it's kind of like the stabilizer for uprightness.

[33:39]

Tranquility and soft mind are really the stabilizer for uprightness. Uprightness can get very aloof and arrogant and you know, look at me. So, in Zazen, we have to be, although we make a big effort to sit up really straight, that straightness can have the appearance of arrogance. I remember when I was sitting with Master Hua in Chinatown many years ago, 20 years ago, when he just had a very small group. Actually, it was almost a no group. And we were sitting up straight in our Japanese style, and he'd say, ah, too straight. And I thought that was interesting.

[34:44]

Frankly, I think that sitting up straight is the best. But I understood what he meant. We shouldn't hold on to a feeling of arrogance by sitting up straight. It's dangerous. And it's okay to sit up straight as long as we're relaxed and a soft mind and not trying to prove something. not allowing ourself to get arrogant. This is part of the tempering. So, in Zazen, this is what we should work on constantly, continually working on this, working with these six factors.

[35:50]

And if you're having some problem, you might think to yourself, what's missing here? Whereas, you know, most of our problems come from imbalance. Come from an imbalance. So, if we're having a problem, then we might think, well, what is causing this imbalance? Maybe it's nothing, you know. But it's worthwhile to think about it. Maybe I'm exerting too much effort. Maybe I'm not exerting enough effort. Maybe I'm too stiff. Maybe my mind is not soft enough You know, soft mind, pliancy, has the quality of impressionability, which means impressionability means the ability to accept a stamp.

[37:05]

If you put a stamp into clay, it receives the impression. If you try to put the same stamp into steel, doesn't receive the impression, doesn't work. I think a lot of our problems come from rigidity. Most, I mean, a good many of the problems that we have, especially in Zazen, come from a rigid mind, even though we may not think so. When I adjust your posture, not everyone, but quite often, you're holding yourself in some very rigid way, which is not balanced.

[38:08]

What we look for all the time, constantly, is balance. When you find balance, then you don't have to worry about exerting so much effort, you know, they're refining the effort, refining over and over the effort, so that instead of holding yourself up, balance is holding you up. Finding the right balance. What can I let go of here and still sit up straight? You know, so we let go of We let go of the tension in our shoulders. We let go of the tension in our arms. We let go of the tension in our mudra. We let go of the tension in our upper back. We stop grinding our teeth. If you're grinding your teeth, this is a kind of checking point. Why are you grinding your teeth?

[39:10]

Stop it. Then see what happens. So we must be very alert to what's happening in our body all the time. Don't just sit there like a lump. So during Zazen, you check constantly over and over, checking the points of your posture. Then the mind is focused. when the mind is focused on the posture, then there's no separation. And you think, well, maybe there's too much tenseness here, or maybe if I hold up the sternum, then it changes the position of the back. And if I keep the head on top of the spine, then there's balance, and I can let go of a lot of this tenseness.

[40:18]

We're working with that all the time. That's what zazen is. If we're just sitting still, sitting still is not like being poured in cement. Stillness includes flexibility. Stillness is tranquility. Agility, ease, workability, proficiency, and a brightness. It's wonderful, beautiful. This also goes, this is what we carry with us when we leave the zendo.

[41:23]

If we can sustain and maintain the balance of these six factors when we, in our daily life, this is what we hope for. Do you have a question? What's the what? What do you mean by over-flexible? You mean for too soft? Tenso gets caught in the jam. limits, knowing the limits.

[42:30]

We, you know, feel that freedom is without limits, to take off all the limits, but actually we can't really. That kind of freedom is just too hot. melting. So structure, you know, limits. Not going over the limits, keeping boundaries. Form, the realm of form. Each thing has its boundary and its form and its right way to do it. You know, the reason that in Soto Zen we have so much form is so that within each specific form we can find our freedom. That's a great advantage.

[43:45]

Otherwise, you just keep looking around forever. But when you delineate, you say, this is my place, this is where I am, this is my parameter, these are the things I'm dealing with, then you have freedom to do something. And a freedom to investigate your body and mind. You know, I find that when I start to feel sort of tough like that, then I think that being selfish How do we keep what we're hearing clean? Or how do we know we're not leaning towards self? Leaning towards self? Well, the way to know that is, is this for me? Is this for you? Or is it for Dharma?

[44:47]

When we get involved in you and me, you know, then there's a lot of ego. So, we do that for Dharma. Then it's clean. It's not involved in my ego or your ego or pleasing you or pleasing me or... It's just... Do it for the sake of the Dharma. If we take care of the Dharma, then the Dharma takes care of us and others. Does that make sense? Where's the joy in all this? That's where it is, right there. Joy is the consequence Joy arises out of true practice.

[46:03]

Joy is a very important factor. It's one of the seven factors of enlightenment. Rapture, actually, it's called. When we feel completely right, It's joy. So it's our... I hate to say natural state, because our natural state is all states, but... At the risk of being dualistic, I'll say that it's our natural state when our whole being is well balanced with everything else.

[47:17]

Then when that's so, then there's no self. It's called joy of no-self. Everything is let go of, and so it becomes its self truly, which is no special self. That's joy. So, today, in Zazen, we put all of our effort into this non-gaining activity and let go of everything. So, at the same time we give everything, we also let go of everything and experience joy, even though we may have some pain or discomfort or blah blah blah.

[48:28]

Underneath is quiet solid river of joy. But the more completely you can give yourself, the more deep your joy Thank you.

[49:10]

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