This morning we chanted together, most of you are in the room, when we chanted what is called in the original, Phukan Zazengi, which I would translate as the universal encouragements for the practice of the ceremony, or the universal encouragements for the ceremony of seated meditation. The gi at the end, Pukan Zazen, gi is a character which means ceremony. In many translations that There it just says, universal encouragements for sitting meditation.

[01:05]

But the word is there and we practice it. And in the beginning it says, the way is perfect and all-pervading. The Buddha way is perfect and all-pervading. And it also says, but if there's something like a deviation, it's like the distance from heaven and earth. The great way is peace and freedom. Can you hear me okay? Okay? Yes? Good? You can come a little closer if you need to.

[02:09]

Okay? If we are out of ... it is not ... it's like really different from peace and freedom. And many living beings are not in attune with the way and have great or not so great or even small suffering. But terrible suffering when we're out of tune with this great way which is all-pervading. It pervades us. It's all around us. And if we're out of tune with it, we can have great suffering and in our great suffering we can do really unwholesome things because we're out of tune with what's right completely pervading us. Again, out of tune with it is peace and freedom.

[03:25]

Now, hearing this, someone might think or might wish to be in attune with it. Want to aspire to be in attunement with this great way. And they also aspire to be like a tuning fork in the world, attuned to this, and being there to help others attuned. So one could see what we're doing here is three weeks of trying to devote ourselves to the wholehearted practice of attuning to the Great Way so that we can be in this world tuning forks for all beings so they can tune in and be free and at peace. This is our unceasing effort that we wish to make to free all beings so they may dwell in peace.

[04:36]

I propose that whatever we're experiencing is an opportunity to use that to attune to the way. Even if we're feeling stuck and miserable, in that moment we can still attune to the way and find peace with our suffering and freedom with our suffering. And again, to show others that they can be at peace, to help others find peace, and freedom with their suffering. Which sometimes seems like, again, freedom from suffering sometimes is... I don't know what people think. But anyway, the bodhisattvas are living intimately with all suffering beings. And if that's not suffering, I don't understand. Living with suffering beings is suffering.

[05:57]

and they're suffering, you're suffering. However, this suffering of the bodhisattva, who's there to be a tuning fork, is the greatest joy in life. Now we start up here. We call, we compliment by calling it a sashi. So this word Sesshin, of course, it's Chinese characters. It's made of two characters. One character is Setsu, and the other character is Shin. Shin means mind or heart. Setsu means quite many things. And they're all good.

[07:04]

It means, it could be translated into English as gather. Sometimes it's translated as summarize. Collect. Also to guide. To nurture. To embrace and sustain. In our Three Pure Precepts we say, embrace and sustain right conduct. That embrace and sustain is that character, satsu. It's satsu, embrace and sustain right conduct. Embrace and sustain all beings. To nurture, to bring up like a child. To help mature. These are several active ways of reading the character.

[08:10]

But usually when the character appears as active, active collecting, active nurturing, active guiding, in a sentence, another character in front of it which marks it as active. So you have this character and then you put active in front of it and it's embraced and sustained. Take that character away and put another character in, a passive marker, and then instead of... it's embraced. Instead of sustain, it's sustained. So this character can mean to embrace and sustain all beings, or it can be used to express to be embraced and sustained. to embrace and sustain all sentient beings, to embrace and sustain all Buddhas, and to be embraced and sustained by all sentient beings, and to be embraced and sustained by all Buddhas.

[09:18]

That's that wonderful character which appears in the term, in the word, sesshin. So, in this case, It could be embrace and sustain the heart. We have time here to embrace and sustain the heart, to nurture it, to gather it, to help it mature. But that character shin also means mind, so it's more commonly would be Embrace and sustain the mind. Gather the mind. Collect the mind. For five days, gather, collect, and nurture the mind and heart. But then turn it. For five days, be sustained by the heart.

[10:22]

Be gathered by the heart. Be guided by the heart. be guided by the mind." Sashim. And the great way has been proposed This intensive, the great way, is the Buddha mind. It's the mind of the great sage of India. That's the great way. And this great way, this mind of the ancient sage of India, is intimate transmission. So the intimate... is perfect and all-pervading.

[11:26]

So... perhaps we aspire to attune to that intimate transmission. For the welfare of all beings, for the Buddhahood of all beings, So the words I wanted to talk about were sesshin, setsu, and one more word. It's an English word, and I'm not going back to Chinese for this one. This English word is control. I don't think I'm in control of anything.

[12:36]

I really see that I'm not in control of anything. That's how I feel. However, I might try to control something, and I propose to you... I try to be gentle about this, but I propose to you that trying to control has some element of violence in it. it is somewhat, at least somewhat, disrespectful of whatever it is I might be trying to control. Although I do not feel I'm in control, I do not see that I'm in control, and I don't see that other people are in control,

[13:42]

I and others may try to control. So I don't say give up controlling as a bodhisattva practice. I say give up trying to as a bodhisattva practice, as an expression of nonviolence and respect. When I first started practicing, I thought it was about trying to control me. I didn't think it was about trying to control others. Some of you may know, when you try to control yourself, it kind of leaks out onto other people. Not maybe everybody, but a lot of people have that tendency of trying to control themselves and others, and vice versa. I started practicing ...was the practice. And I actually read some zentex, soto-zentex, published by the headquarters, which described practice as control your body, control your breath, control your mind.

[15:01]

I went with that for a while. Well, fortunately, I hit the wall fairly soon and gave it up. There's still some tendency, but I learned by trying to control body, breath, and mind, I learned that that's out of tune with the great way and is suffering and disrespectful, etc. So I've gradually shifted from trying to control me and you to caring for me. Now I try to care for my body, care for the breath, and care for the mind, gently, non-violently, and respectfully. And now I want to attune to the Great Way. By attuning compassionately to this body, breath, and mind,

[16:11]

I will come into attunement with the Great Way. The Great Way is all pervading any place more than in some place else. It's everywhere and everything. I just thought of a funny story. Do you want to hear it? Do you? Okay, so one of the wonderful people who live in this area I think he lives in Mill Valley and he's one of the founders of Esalen Institute. His name's Michael Murphy. When he was past middle age, he became a father of a young, of a boy. And they named him, what did they name him? Hmm? Max? Max something. It's more Irish.

[17:13]

McCarthy? McCarthy? Murphy? Anyway, there's something after the Mac. So he has a Mac, a McCarthy, McCarthy, Murphy, or something like that. Anyway, wonderful little boy. When he was pretty young, he said to Michael, What's God? And Michael said, Well, it's that chair. And the boy said, Well, is it that? And he said, Yes. And he said, Well, is it that over there? And he said, Yes. And he just kept going like that, and then he passed out. And Michael called 911. Anyway, he revived quickly. And I don't know if he... And maybe he stopped asking his father about God. I don't know what happened after that. But very nice young man. I knew him, you know, from the baby up till adulthood.

[18:18]

Do you know him? Yeah. Good. He's recovered from his God episode. Anyway, it's all pervading, you can't really see it, except the way you see it is everything you see. That's the only way to see it. As people's faces and as walls, tiles, that's how you see it. But that's not all it is. It's pervading everything. And the way we attune to it is to attune to the things you can see, which are it, which it pervades. And that's really hard work. To be mindful. Not to mention mindful all the time of attuning to the great way. Not controlling yourself into attunement, but carrying yourself into attunement. And you might aspire to care for yourself into attunement all the time.

[19:24]

so that you're helping all beings all the time. Valerian's one of the people I'm not trying to control. And he's enjoying it so much. I have to confess, I tried maybe controlling a little bit where to... Me. That I know. And I hope you enjoy it. But I know it's somewhat frustrating. So, the Phukan Zazengi... I just might parenthetically mention is modeled on another text on seated meditation which starts out by saying bodhisattvas should first of all cultivate great compassion and then cultivate samadhi.

[20:36]

And samadhi is closely related to satsang. Because samadhi also means to gather. collect the mind and heart into one suchness, to gather the mind so that it's focused on one thing, and open, and relaxed, and undistracted. So the Fugazen Zenki, to some extent, it's teaching us a ceremony for collecting the mind in samadhi. And after telling us this big picture at the beginning, then he says stuff like, actually he says stuff like, cease all involvements, cease the movements of the conscious mind. The movements of the conscious mind are called discursive thought.

[21:43]

or thinking. So in this text, it seems to be saying, cease thinking. Now, I'm not alive, so I can't say, excuse me, teacher, do you really mean cease thinking? And I imagine he would say, no, I don't mean cease. I just said that to help people. But then in the same area of the text he says, instead of cease, put aside, put aside the operations of mind consciousness and intellect. And he says, put aside intellectual involvement. Put aside various affairs. Just set them aside.

[22:46]

Not get rid of them. Just set them aside for the moment. Set aside thinking. Not get rid of it. Just set it aside. Put aside all affairs. So again, in Soto Zen and also in Zen in general, they don't usually mention these aspects of Buddhist meditation. Tranquility and insight. They're usually united in the presentations of Zen teachers. But in many Mahayana texts, Bodhisattva's practice are encouraged, are taught to practice tranquility and insight.

[23:51]

For example, the Sandhinumachana Sutra. In this text, Fukunzazengi, I see Dogen teaching tranquility practice. He doesn't say, now I'm going to tell you how to train to calm the mind, to help the mind be gathered, open and undistracted. He doesn't say that. He just gives instructions which, if you follow, Forget the cease part, but if you just set this stuff aside. Or he also says, give up. Give up. Instead of cease, give up. Give up the movements of the conscious mind. Let them go. Letting go of the thinking. Letting go of the thinking doesn't kill the thinking.

[24:55]

The thinking doesn't cease. It's just released. Until we later need them. Tranquility meant training, you let go of the thinking. Insight, you pick it up again and use it in a state of tranquility. When you're in tranquility and you use the thinking and investigate with it, it becomes insight. So I see this text which we chanted this morning, starting out by teaching tranquility practice, by encouraging people to cease thinking, not to cease the movements of the mind, but to, albeit, generously let them go, donate them to the Buddha way. And in doing this, consistently, become tranquil.

[26:01]

And the word tranquility or calm abiding in English is sometimes used to translate Sanskrit, shamatha, which also means resting, resting mind. Or again, calmly abiding. That practice is the basis is the ground in which we practice insight or wisdom. So in the Sashini we follow the Fukunzazengi in our ceremony here and we can just generously let go of our thinking. Any thinking that's going on, and there might be quite a bit in this room, we can do our part of letting it go, which includes letting go of trying to letting go of trying to get the thinking to be more calm, letting go of getting the thinking to be smarter.

[27:11]

Just generously let it go. Don't try to get anything with it or from it. Don't try to get rid of anything about it. This training is sometimes called training and tranquility. And then the word tranquility itself refers to the fruit of this training. So you can be sincerely training at letting go of your thinking but not yet be in a state of tranquility. For example, you could be trying to control yourself into letting go of trying to control. You could be trying to force yourself into letting go So there's still some tension in your body and mind. So part of learning how to do this is to be patient with that there's still some tension in the body and mind.

[28:17]

But as we do it more and more we let go of and the roughness in the way we try to practice letting go of our thinking. And when we are relaxed with letting go of our thinking we are in tranquility And then we can now attend to the thinking which we have let go of. Now the thinking comes up and we continue to let go of it, but in the process of letting go of it we also observe it, we contemplate it, and we have the opportunity to see that it is the teaching of suchness, that it is whatever kind of thinking we're doing, the way perfectly pervades it. Everything we're thinking is actually intimate transmission itself. But if we're not calm and we look at our thinking we have a hard time.

[29:18]

By being calm we can open to this awesome tremendous truth of all things, including our thinking. We can discover that the teaching is thus at all times. But we have to be, the price of admission to this vision is giving up our thinking, not getting rid of it. Another thing which I wanted to bring up, which often bothers me a little bit, sounds tight and sectarian in this text by our great teacher. It says something like, they all, you know, they and ancestors, all the great teachers of the past, they all negotiated the way solely in Zaza.

[30:27]

Remember that part? They all negotiate the way solely in Zaza. So the way I'm becoming at ease with this way of trying, they all wholeheartedly negotiate the all-pervading way of intimate transmission in intimate transmission. Zazen is the intimate transmission. And that's the only way you can negotiate the way. That is the way. So they do it in that way. In other words, they do it solely together with everybody. Intimately. Rather than you have to sit in a zendo upright at your seat. Zazen. No, that's just your contribution to the great effort. And you do make contributions.

[31:28]

No matter what you're doing, you're contributing to it. Yes. But what you're contributing to is this communion. And that is the Great Way, and all the ancestors have negotiated the Great Way in that communion. There's no alternative. And the context for that, by the way, is silence and stillness. And partly by accident I have this, I don't know what the word is, this sutra cover Can you see it? Did some of you make this?

[32:38]

Did any of you? Pardon? Galen made it. No, Galen made a different one. This is made by the people in the practice period. Galen made a sutra cover for me, an okesa cover. I'll bring that next time. What she wrote all over it. This is made by people in the practice period. Can you see it? Can you see the Buddha? Can you see the Buddha in the middle? So what it says over and over is, here it says, all beings, all Buddhas who wholeheartedly negotiate the way. That's what it says over and over. In English, in German, Sanskrit, Hebrew, etc.,

[33:42]

All beings, all Buddhas wholeheartedly practice the Great Way. What time does the kitchen have to leave? 1055. 1055? Okay. So here it is. I brought this, not exactly by coincidence, but sort of, as the sutra, as the sutra cover. And we can attune to this way because this says we already are. It's just a matter of attuning to it, which is hard. In the sling of outrageous fortune, and also as we approach attunement, it is awesome and tremendous.

[34:48]

We shake. Like an airplane, when they first start taking off, they shake, and then they go... It's like that. There's an adjustment to the great, to wholehearted negotiation of the way. And in that adjustment, we sometimes get distracted. Well, the kitchen has to leave soon, so maybe he wants to, in five minutes, offer anything. There's an offering stand here. And by the way, how did it work for me to not be amplified? Great. So I'll just if necessary. And you also have the opportunity to speak loudly so your Dharma companions can hear you. If you want to say something, you're welcome to come here.

[35:53]

Here she comes. Is it okay if I crawl? It's okay if you crawl. You can crawl. You're welcome to crawl. It's a secret, but in some of our esoteric ceremonies the students crawl. A couple of things. First ... Can you hear her? You have to talk loudly. The tuning fork, the image of the tuning fork, to me was really helpful because it kind of elaborates how we can affect each other so directly. A tuning fork spreads everywhere. Thank you. Sometimes I thought of myself as a tuning fork just in the way of how...

[36:59]

but that's a more stable image. The other thing is I was wondering about if you could say more about when the mind is in tranquility and you begin to see the thoughts, you said you can see how it pervades everywhere, how the Buddha mind It pervades everywhere. And I'm wondering what you meant by that, if you're willing to... I am. I am willing to. So... of giving up our thinking, we become tranquil and undistracted. And... we're giving up our thinking and trying... And then we also have heard some teachings which have encouraged us to give up our thinking.

[38:09]

And we've practiced those teachings. And at some point we might notice that we feel undistracted, relaxed, open, buoyant, alert, and the thought might arise, perhaps this is tranquility. Well, I've also heard that there's something called insight, where we contemplate the very things that we have let go of. So then you might, in this state of tranquility, still not holding on to the thoughts, still letting them go, in the tranquility, you might just perk up a little bit of curiosity.

[39:13]

I wonder, you know, what are these things that I've been letting go of? I wonder if they might perhaps be emptiness. I've heard that they are. So part of our thinking is teachings we've heard. So when you're calm and you're not primed, then you can let go of emphasizing letting go. Letting go. You're still not attached, and if you are, you'll lose the tranquility. you'll become agitated again. But when you're in the mode of letting things be and not trying to control them, you start to hear that part of what you're hearing and part of what you're letting go of is teachings. And some of the teachings come and say, you know, maybe now you could actually investigate these things that you let go of. And then you just might put a little bit more observing than on letting go.

[40:22]

Now that you're calm. And when you're open and relaxed this way, things look different than they do when you're tense, trying to control, holding on. That's holding on. When you're letting it go and letting it be, when you're generous with it and respectful of it, not trying to control it, patient with it, diligent with it, You see the world differently. Things which you've let go of are now things that you observe and see them as they truly are. And you see that everything is in intimate communion and intimate communion isn't everything. You see the Great Way pervading it in this calm place. All the things you let go of now have turned into Dharma doors.

[41:30]

I tend to... Louder, please. Okay. I tend to see it... Can you hear her in the back? No. So you have to... Yeah. You kind of yell, I think. If you want people to hear you, and I want to, they want to hear you, so yell. Okay. Okay. trying to think how to how to say it be those thoughts as you know quote oh this must be emptiness in the way of they seem they arise in their big gap and their little snatches of things and they're not at all integrated and so but I think you're saying kind of focused on them a little bit more? No, not focus on them. No, don't focus on them. Just observe them. When something's in your face, you don't have to focus on it.

[42:35]

What you were saying, maybe ask a question. Who are you? I want to take one at a time instead of... That's the way they come, actually. When you're calm, you see they're coming one at a time. When you're not calm, you think they're coming all at once. So, actually there's one, somebody, I think somebody asked one of our ancestors, when things are coming at you from every direction all at once, what should you do? And the teacher said, give up trying to control. And then you'll see that each one's coming and saying, observe me with eyes of compassion and see who I am. But if you try to control things, you can't see very clearly. Because you think things are, you're acting out your belief that things can be controlled, that they're substantial.

[43:39]

But when you're kind of acting out Or I should say, when they're let go, that's in acting that they can't be grasped. And it's like there's somebody there meeting them. That's usually the situation. Somebody. We think there's somebody there meeting them, usually. But that's not true. There's nobody there meeting them. And there's nobody met. There's just this communion. And we're there. We're not doing the communion. But we think we are. And that's another one of our thoughts we can let go of. And when we let go of it, we realize that that thought, which is a delusion, is also nothing other than the teaching of suchness. You can crawl back.

[44:50]

I hope that's good, not hard on your knees. I have a question that seems a little similar to what was just asked. Could you speak up, please? Yes. So the sutra uses the word cease, cease effectively. That's what Dogen wrote. That's how Dogen's translated it. Cease all involvements or cease the movements of the conscious mind. Conscious mind is normally moving and the movement's called thinking. So he says cease the thinking. And I question that. And you're the synonym set aside. Ask, will you go aside? And I'm wondering in terms of something you've spoken to earlier about the vows of Samantabhadra, is a synonym for set aside to make offerings to the Buddhas?

[46:09]

Yeah. make these things offerings is one of the main ways to set them aside. Not try to get rid of them, make them offerings to Buddha. I think I know how to offer a stick of incense. How do I offer a thought to the Buddhas? Well, one way would be just sort of before you, you know, I'm going to sit now I wish for all my thoughts to be offerings to Buddhas. Whenever a thought arise, I will be mindful that it's an offering to Buddhas. That it's an homage to Buddhas. In that way, I'm not holding on to the homage. I'm not holding on to the offering. which I'm letting go of as offerings, not trying to get rid of them, but, oh, this is an offering. Oh, this is an offering to the Great Way.

[47:11]

I just sort of am mindful of that. I want to be mindful of that all the time, that everything I think, everything I see, everything I make, I wish it to be an offering to all Buddhas. That's what Samantabhadra said, actually. Every action I make is an offering to Buddha. So that's just sort of the way, that's the orientation of the great bodhisattva. I'm making the offering that there is a part of me wanting to control your thought. Hey, I catch you. So that's a thought you just told me about. So I would wish for that thought also to be an offering. It's a perfectly good thought, but it's not something to hold on to. To believe is something to offer to Buddha. And it's not so much that the Bodhisattva does this, they just wish and vow that this is the way their actions will be, that their actions will be offerings.

[48:18]

Remember that. And again, Samantabhadra's fourth practice is confess when we think that we're doing it or that, you know, I made the offering rather than everything I do is an offering. I wish for all my actions to be offering. Slight difference to help along letting them go into from possessions to offerings. Okay, please come up from far away. I come with a confession and a question coming out of it.

[49:43]

Talking about controlling and also trying to fix things. What Mia also brought up yesterday. I often get into this trap trying to fix things in the best intention. Also trying to be helpful, trying to be intimate, trying to And often this trying to seems to be the only obstacle that keeps me away from intimacy, from letting help come or be. So there are often arising some grasping in this trying to. And then there is suffering. And then With the suffering arising, I feel, ah, there it is again, this trap. With the suffering what? Then I'm aware of that I got into this grasping.

[50:47]

That's good. And I was wondering what it could be a good way to listen to this point where this openness to intimacy and being helpful turns into a grasping. just to be aware of it in a better way. Yeah, I think you've found it, that you're trying to be open to intimacy with beings, and you do notice You don't allow that and go back to trying to fix something in the situation. You do notice it. And maybe you notice it sooner than you used to. And also you notice that it has some pain in it. You're in the process of noticing when you close down on the vast great way into like the small scale affairs of trying to get things to go this way or that way.

[51:55]

Trying to fix something which is based and it's uncomfortable, it's... I don't know what... Uncomfortable is okay. Something uncomfortable appears and rather than remember intimacy that it's offering, we try to adjust it a little bit so that we could get more intimacy. So it's not so much that the thing's an obstacle to the intimacy, it's the way we relate to it. But you notice the way of relating to it, and you notice this way of relating to it is not really respecting it. And that way of relating is another discomfort. The one that appeared was more like the result of past trying to control. And it's painful.

[52:59]

Now this one I can find that one and I can acknowledge it and I can say it's painful and I'm sorry or I'm embarrassed. I had a little confession which I was going to mention but now seems like a good time. Yesterday A lot of you were here yesterday, right? At noon service time I was assailed by pretty much heavy-duty bliss. Maybe heavy-duty bliss came. It was quite noticeable and it just kind of kept coming and kept coming pretty much all the way through lunch. It happened. And it's your fault. Wonderfully, that there was a little bit of wishing for something that hadn't been given.

[54:08]

A little, I didn't even know, but it's something like I wished for a little bit more of it. And I thought, this is a great example. Greed, and we chant, you know, In our meal chant we say something about greed. We have to be careful about the greed. So I noticed that, but it was kind of a joyful thing to discover that I ... great, I mean, fine. And part of what was so wonderful about it was that it was very subtle. It was really high quality. And there was this little thing of, I want some more. And I was embarrassed but joyful to have noticed it and be embarrassed. Now there's also wishing for less of pain but this is wishing for more of joy in this situation.

[55:17]

And I know that that's a good opportunity for confession and repentance and I did and I do. Confess and repent. I confess and embarrassed is the way I really feel. Or I confess and feel silly. I feel silly that this great gift came and I wanted it a little bit more. I didn't even know how that could be possible to have a little bit more of something that's really subtle. Because if you do a little bit more of it, you lose the subtlety. Anyway, it was... This is the true practice. To notice there were little ways we resist just being with the pain or the bliss or whatever. To notice them and feel a little bit... See, it's a little bit off. And I really do want to just really let it be. But it's lots of opportunities to notice a little bit off, a little bit lack of attunement.

[56:30]

Lots of opportunities. Thank you. So we have four more days and I hope to open up to more of your offerings And those days.

[56:55]

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