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Spring Sesshin

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SF-03942

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Friday

AI Summary: 

The talk primarily focuses on the concepts of "ji ju yu zan mai" (self-receiving and self-enjoyment samadhi) and the nature of self and egolessness as understood in Zen practice. It reflects on the teachings of Buddha about the nature of arising and ceasing phenomena, urging a non-attachment approach to experiences. The session engages with practices of Zen meditation, emphasizing the disconnection of the ‘self’ from experiences and sensations through the examination of the skandhas and promotes letting go of habitual patterns as a path to liberation.

Referenced Works and Teachings:

  • Ji Ju Yu Zan Mai: The concept discussed relates to the state of self-receiving and self-enjoyment in meditation, underlining the non-separateness between self and zazen.

  • Buddha’s Teaching on Arising and Ceasing: Referenced as Kondana's awakening to the understanding that all things subject to arising are also subject to cessation, pivotal in turning Kondana to enlightenment.

  • Skandhas (Aggregates): Used to investigate the sense of self, covering form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness, illustrating the lack of inherent self.

  • Vasuti Maga (Path of Purification): Cited as emphasizing the absence of a doer or experiencing entity, reinforcing the concept of non-self in the layering of experiences.

  • Richard Baker Incident: Recounted as a personal anecdote where letting go ("just drop it") was an instructional moment for recognizing habitual patterns and contemplating the identity beyond them.

AI Suggested Title: Zen Liberation: Beyond Self and Sensation

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Speaker: Teah Strozer
Possible Title: Spring Sesshin
Additional text: Friday

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Transcript: 

David has words. It's difficult to speak. And I apologize for disturbing you.

[01:07]

I'm sorry. We're very quiet today. Whether you think so or not, this is GGU's online. Would you like a chair?

[02:10]

G of GGU means to use. No, is that right? It means, the U part means to use. And the G part means to receive. So the G part means oneself. It goes backwards. Oh, how silly. Isn't it really silly, the whole thing? So yu ji, no, yu ju ji means use, receive oneself.

[03:20]

And ji ju yu means oneself receive to use. Don't let me keep doing this the whole talk. So ji ju yu zan mai means that bell. It does. Good morning. Ji ju yu means self-receiving. self-enjoyment samadhi, or receiving the joy of awakening, receiving the joy of awakening in oneself, receiving, receiving, awakening.

[04:28]

Receiving, receiving the bell, you know, the wind, the hardness of the cushion or the floor, your hand tips touching, the feel of the hair on your face, boredom, anger. receiving, receiving, receiving the self. That is the self coming forward. There is no separation there between zazen and self. No discrimination between the self and zazen. We are receiving the self as zazen.

[05:37]

Ji-ju-yu-zan-mai. you can see when you sit all things arising, going like that, boom, [...] boom. When the Buddha was awakened and looking around to see what to do next. His first thought, of course, was not to teach. As you know, he thought no one would understand, but he did. After all, I got a card one time from Spirit Rock saying, I forgot what it was, but it was a beautiful picture. And on the other side of the picture it said, when Buddha saw the suffering of living beings, it was when he decided to teach.

[06:52]

It was so beautiful. Such a wonderful thing. Anyway, so he went to teach, and the first person he met that he taught was the five aesthetic friends that he had, one of whom's name is Kondana. And after the Buddha spoke with him, Kondana woke up. He understood. And the Buddha, sweet guy that he was, got really excited. He said, oh, he got it, he got it. And what Kandana got was that all things that are subject to arising are subject to cessation. Everything that arises goes away. That was his understanding. I mean, come on. And the Buddha said he woke up. So he must have really got that pretty deeply. And along with that, Buddha understood that everything, as it arises, arises on conditions of everything else, just like your Zazen.

[08:08]

You can see that. He just woke up. And we are told this is how you relate to things that are always arising and ceasing. Okay? You ready? Like a shooting star. Wow. Like a fault of vision. A lamp. You know, it must have been, they didn't have electricity, right? So it must have been the lamp was like flickering on and off, probably. A mock show. Dew on the grass.

[09:10]

A bubble. A dream. A lightning flash. A cloud. A cloud. totally ungraspable. It's not there to grasp onto as a solid thing. That's how we are to relate with things that arise and cease. That's zazen. Well, you've heard this before. What's the big deal Why don't you do that? Happiness is on the other side. Joy and peace, they say. Why don't we do that? Well, I'll give you one guess.

[10:18]

I said ten. Ten, no. Five, maybe? Two, no. One. One guess. One guess. Why don't we do that? click, [...] because we think things are solid, separate, and the most important one that we think is solid and separate, of course, is our sense of ourself. Now, we've been sitting for a few days And things are pretty quiet. Now, I'm not recommending this. Don't do this. Because it's not safe. But if you're tired of what you're doing, you're tired of following your thoughts and believing in them, tired of struggling, seeking, grasping,

[11:27]

then the best thing to do is nothing at all. Nothing at all. Nothing. Really. I'm serious. Don't do anything at all with what comes up. Nothing at all. Don't do anything. Don't judge it. Don't grasp it. Don't push it away. Don't think about it. Don't analyze it. Don't care about it. It's none of your business. And I'll prove it to you later. I'm serious.

[12:33]

I know what I was talking about. Oh, so really, the real instruction is, honestly, the real instruction is don't do anything. That's just Jiji Yuzonmai, arising, ceasing, not even a watcher, so just completely there. Jiji Yuzonmai. However, if you are feeling compassionate toward yourself and kind of settled, and you're interested in investigating the crux of the matter, and you want to see if there actually is such a thing as a self that's solid, that runs things, I'll give you two ways to take a peek. Actually one generic way, but two kinds of suggestions.

[13:51]

One is with a series of questions like, what is this moment? Or, what is my reaction to this moment? Or, what are the conditions of this moment? Now, this is the most fun part. Can you sense, can you taste a sense of a self Can you see where it is that you feel like an I? That's the first thing. And then the next thing is, this is the important part. This is the important part. The important part is, can you tell the difference? between your sense of self, the concept of an I, and your imputing substance to it.

[15:12]

You're identifying with whatever that sense is. That's the key. Okay? That's the key. Did you get that? There's a sense of self, and then there's your making it real, and they're separate. And in fact, if you can see one without the other, or see both separately, this is a wake. Okay, that's important. I mean, you know, for those religious fanatics that are interested in this kind of pursuit, it's important. Let's see. Carry along here a little bit speedy. Oh, yes. The other way that I was going to suggest today to look at some things is...

[16:14]

in the world of, you know, called the skandhas. It's really sort of interesting. If you want to see if they're... I sped up, didn't I? If you want... I sped up because I think that I'm giving you information that is actually important or useful, you know. You don't need it, this information. Really, honestly, you know, really, we're okay just the way we are. We're not a teensy jot different than how we are. It's really, really okay. And there's nothing anybody can tell you that really is worth. Am I being heretical? This is the Dharma, so to speak. I mean, yes, you know, you could use it and they're things and we have tools and so on and so forth, but ultimately it's just a bunch of words.

[17:17]

The only thing that really is happening is we're alive right now. Bam, bam, bam. That's it. You know? The words are just... So anyway, more words. So it's raining again. Isn't that great? I love the sound of the rain. The cars, you know, and the rain and the water. So to investigate the self, you can look at form and see if there is a you in your body somewhere. See if you identify the body as a you. See if it's not true that actually you think of your body as an other. Very weird, but it's true. It's really weird. I really came home to me one time when Suzuki Roshi, I didn't hear him say this, but I heard that he did say this, when he was ill with cancer.

[18:22]

He didn't say, I have cancer, which almost everybody does, you'll notice, if they say something about you. I have cancer, something like that. He said, I am cancer. Isn't that neat? Anyway. Okay. That's a place to look and form, traditionally, is senses, eyes, materiality, right? Eyes, ears, nose, taste, touch, and also the mind organ. You can look there and see if you have a sense of a self there. And then you might look at the next skanda. These are the skandas. which is, we say feeling, but really, I don't like that word feeling. It's not really feeling, it's sensation. And there are three, traditionally, three kinds of sensations, and you could look and see if it's not true, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral.

[19:24]

Those are the only ways that we respond to things. It's like, we're actually animals, you know. We're not far away from animals. Something happens, and it's either pleasant, unpleasant, or we're bored to death, right? Because... So that's sensations. And then the next thing what we do, you know, this is all, you can see what happens here is we're building what we think of as a self right here by looking at the skandhas. But the wonderful thing about it is that the skandhas go all by themselves. In the Vasuti Maga, this great book called The Path of Purification, Maga is path, purification, Vasuti, Maga, Path of Purification, it says, there's a quote in it that says, there is no doer but the deed and no experiencer but the experiencing.

[20:28]

constituent parts alone roll on. And there is nothing more than that. It's really peculiar. There's nobody home. Nobody's in control. Now, you are, I mean, sitting the fifth day, says Sheen, this is easy to see. There's nobody in control at all. Emotions coming up. Sensations are happening. Thoughts are happening. Nobody's behind it all. So it's like a movie going along. So the next thing that you can look at is to see from these sensations, form of feelings. Oh, then what happens is we kind of make a, we perceive and then we have an impulse. So from the sensation, like a sensation of, a nice sensation, right away we think that there's something created that sensation and we have an impulse to go for it.

[21:38]

desire, passion. It's boom, like that. That wasn't very good, was it? I like the deep ones. Yeah, like a click. And then for ones that we don't want, we avert. We have anger and aggression. And boom, just like that, boom, that happens. Automatic. From one to the next, boom, boom. Feels good, we want it. Doesn't feel good, push it away. And if it doesn't have anything to do with us, we don't even care about it. And that's the most embarrassing one, because we don't even care about people if they don't relate to us in one way or another. It's embarrassing.

[22:40]

It's true, though. And then we have dispositions. Like, that's personality traits. Personality. By this time, we've really developed habitual ways of responding to these sensations and have continual impulses of a certain kind. And this creates habit patterns. This is our personality. By this, now we're really thinking we really are something. And we are. We're these impulses and patterns and person that we have. Now we have a personality which is a certain way of responding. That's why we're all so different. Some of us, to the very same thing, somebody will laugh and another person will get angry and another person will make some kind of witticism and another person will whatever. We're all different because we're used to creating a certain kind of survival mode personality by responding in certain kinds of ways.

[23:48]

And that for sure, I guess, is us, huh? I don't think so. And then the last one is consciousness. By this time, we're really stuck. And we've created emotions from the energy of the impulses and reactions and so on, along with intelligence. We've now got emotions. And we have this constant flood, by this time it's clear, of discursive thought. And then on top of all of that we think that's us. The reason why it's interesting to investigate in such a way is because if you get a sense that these things are not really you, you have a taste of what we call egolessness.

[25:16]

And from that taste of egolessness, there's a loosening of your reactivity to the world. not so much grasping or aversion, not so much anger or greed, and an ability to be present in the situation because you're not manipulating things all the time to get whatever it is that you think will make you happy. So that's the first kind of egolessness. And then, if we're lucky, We can drop the watcher altogether. We can even drop the idea of egolessness. And then the whole building falls apart. I understand. That's GGU's Unmind.

[26:28]

thrown into this groundlessness, this exquisite, exquisitely synchronous flux of stuff. And we can just enjoy it because we don't have anything to be afraid of anymore. It's just life living itself. That's what we are, a bunch of life. GGU's online. Just sit. Just receive. Just being open. Or just be unhappy.

[27:31]

It really doesn't matter. Just be hurt. Just be sad. Just be life. Like Kattegary said, to live is just to live. It's not easy. It's hard. So we throw ourselves into it. Good luck. Please. Somebody today gave me this little pink envelope.

[28:32]

I find it cute. Isn't it cute? Pink envelope. On it, it says, form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. I thought, ah, that's pretty good. And then I opened it, and it had in it jelly beans. And I ate about four. And it was too many. So, I want to give them to you.

[29:37]

Please finish them for me. In the... If you don't want one, you don't have to take one. But you might be advised that four is too many. One or two is probably enough. And see, you don't have to deserve a jelly bean. And we don't have to deserve life. We don't. It's given already, like it or not. My talk is over.

[30:55]

However, I'm caught here because I have to wait until each of you has a jelly bean. So I'll tell you a story. One time when I was at Tassajara, Richard Baker was the teacher. Honest, my talk is over, so just relax. And don't relax. Make effort. You've got another, there's another, let's see, today and tomorrow and the next about two and a half days. And we're quite concentrated. So please, this is the cream. This is really the cream of your effort. These next few days, it takes about this long to really settle. And when I walked in this morning, you were very settled. So these next few days are really important.

[32:00]

The last day is really hard to keep concentrated because you know it's almost over. But these next two days, the end is long enough away that you can't even imagine it. And you're really concentrated. So now, please sink. Still. Be still. Be still. Silent. It's such a nice place, really. Oh, great story. So the story is, I was neurotic. as more neurotic than I am now, quite a bit more. I was... Anyway, be that as it may. So I kept going to Dokusan with Richard Baker and I kept telling him the same story, my misery.

[33:03]

And it turned out that my misery was the same story over and over again, although it seemed to be, I don't know why, I guess there were different angles that I approached it. But it really was the same story. And in fact, he was getting tired of it. So one day he was going from, he was walking through Tassajara And he was just passing by the stone rooms on the way to where the bathroom is, just before you get to where the old baths were. He was right around there, and I was kind of about 20 feet behind him or so, and kind of hurrying up to sort of get to him. I'm just a little bit embarrassed. hurrying up to get to him, and I guess I was sort of talking about what my problem was, or that at least I wanted to talk to him. I don't know what. But anyway, he turned around, and really in a very sharp kind of way, he said, he said, Tio, just drop it.

[34:06]

Just drop it. Won't you just drop it? And I thought, God, how rude. But then I sort of dismissed it, you know, because I thought, he's supposed to listen to me. But then the next thing that happened was so interesting to me was that it never actually occurred to me that I could just drop it. I thought I had to sort of like, you know, figure it out. It was part of my neuroses. I was kind of living my life like a blueprint because I didn't have parents that raised me up in a certain kind of way. They really didn't have a certain kind of expertise that one could use. But they didn't either, see? Their parents didn't know either. So, of course, it wasn't their fault.

[35:07]

But anyway, so it was my karma. So I didn't know. So I kept trying to figure things out all the time. And it never occurred to me I could just drop it. It wasn't safe. And I couldn't possibly, it wouldn't, how could I live if I just dropped it? No way, impossible. But he said it to me so strongly with such a shot of energy that that I finally understood, well, maybe I actually could just drop it. What would be on the other side of that? An abyss. And then I wouldn't know who I was. And didn't. I didn't know how to behave. Because the only way I knew how to behave was these habit patterns that we were just discussing. So if I drop those certain kind of way of thinking, it was like, who am I? It was really scary. But it's not a bad suggestion. Actually, it was a pretty good idea.

[36:09]

It would have saved, if I did it enough, you know, it would have saved me about 20 years of brackets. Don't waste your time. Really, it goes faster than you think. Don't waste your time. Has everybody received a jelly bean? You can keep the jelly beans, but I would like to have the pink envelope. So I hope that my words aren't too filled with mistakes and that I didn't bother your session too much. And please continue your good

[37:18]

May our intention equal...

[37:30]

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