Some days ago, I got a little note. It says, are some thoughts, K-H-O-T-S, Zazen? And some, Zzzz? Probably so. It's anonymous. Today I want to talk about ability and disability. Ability and disability. So, ordinarily when I give Zazen instruction, the instruction is the ideal way to practice Zazen for a healthy 25-year-old person.

[01:35]

So I talk about keeping the back straight and the body position and all this. But we have to remember that Zazen, our practice, is always practice under some restriction. If it's not under some restriction, then it's not practice. So no matter how we are, what our abilities are, both physically, mentally, emotionally, our practice is always under some restriction. So for a person who is sitting ideal, idealized zazen, in full lotus, that is the most restricted way you can possibly practice. You're totally tied in this position without moving.

[03:03]

And you have to find your freedom within that restriction. You have to find full total freedom today. So no matter what your abilities are, there's always the restriction faces each one of us. So we each practice according to what our physical abilities will allow, and our mental abilities, and our emotional abilities. And those... If you're, for instance, in a wheelchair, the wheelchair determines your posture.

[04:12]

And so you have to find what we call posture, And posture includes whichever way our body is situated. Within that restriction is where you find your practice. When you have a pain in your legs, that's the place where you find your practice. If you can't sit up straight, that's where you find your practice. So we always find our practice where we are. I wrote a list of restrictions. The first restriction, actually, that we all experience is gravity. Gravity is the are continuously, what would you call it, interacting with all the time.

[05:33]

We are standing up, lying down, the four positions of a person, standing, walking, lying and sitting. In all those positions, it all depends on gravity. We take our postures from gravity. When you're up in a spaceship, you know, different posture. So it's my physical ability as I deal with gravity. So it really determines all of our actions. So it's constant and covers everything. If you lick all the dish, poof! So sometimes we need assistance to deal with it. I call it our spirit, our buoyancy,

[06:41]

life force is in contrast to gravity. So life force and gravity are the two basic elements that we're dealing with. And when we sit in Zazen, or practice Zazen, those two forces are determining how we do this. So we say, sit up straight, don't lean left or right, and so forth. We're taking a position, actually the most natural position, to deal with gravity and to free ourselves. Because freedom means freedom within gravity. Either we're victims of gravity, So, then we have outer restrictions and inner restrictions.

[07:57]

Outer restrictions, gravity. Inner restrictions, our own physical abilities. Like I can only do so much because I have this problem. So, everybody has some problem. So, we can't practice without our problem. So, our problem has to be our practice. So, this Nectarine Rishi says, we should all be very grateful for the problem we have. We may want to change our problem, or improve our problem, but if we do, we may find ourselves having a worse problem. Not necessarily, but if you don't have a heart attack, the cancer will get you. So then we have mental restrictions. Mental restrictions can be either

[09:03]

I mean, that's a whole... Mentalistry is a whole study in itself. I can, I can't, I don't want to, I do want to, blah blah blah, and so forth. This is why Zazen goes beyond thinking. It's really true. In order to do Zazen, we have to go beyond thinking. We have to go beyond what we think. The way I was brought up to practice zazen was to encourage myself to go beyond what I thought I could do. So Suzuki Roshi was always in his own individual way encouraging us always to go beyond what we thought we can do. We come up against a problem and we think, well, this is my limitation.

[10:23]

I can't go any farther. And yet, He would always encourage us to go farther than we think our limitations are. And this has always been the ground of my practice. And so I have that kind of way, you know, I don't let anything stop me. People say, well, what do you do when you have this problem and that problem? I just go through it. That's my way. But I can't tell other people to do that. Because then they'll say, see I broke my leg and you encouraged me. You don't tell people to do that? Break their legs? Oh, I do. I do. But I don't insist. So we tell ourselves all kinds of things. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do that. But this is where practice gets very tricky.

[11:24]

because we always have a self-preservation at heart. We really want to take care of ourself and make sure that we don't, you know, do something wrong. But when I was practicing with seduction nursing, it was like, I'll do this if I have to die in the cushion. As a matter of fact, that's what you do. You die in the question. And then you enjoy your life. So, it's very tricky. How to recognize a disability and know just how far to go and just how far to push yourself. There is a line there where you have to make those decisions for yourself.

[12:52]

So those are like mental restrictions, like what should I do? How far should I take this? And how do I understand what I'm doing? So then there are emotional restrictions, which are my feelings. Whenever I sit up, I get this picture of my past and my incest and all these things that come up that are very difficult to deal with when we're sitting and pose a kind of problem emotionally. So that becomes, not restriction maybe, but the place where your practice really becomes alive.

[14:03]

Not like you figure out what Stay with that. Stay with your emotional problem without exaggerating it and without making it smaller than what it is. And just letting it be there and realizing that we just go beyond. Now is the time to let go. My parents did it. That's what happens like this. Maybe so. But you have to be able to say, OK, that happened. This is the way it is. begins from here. So this is how we, you know, Siddhasin, my life begins from here. This is the first step of my new life. Every moment. Even though we do have all this stuff in our past and so forth, but the truth is that our life begins from here.

[15:10]

And we have that opportunity to let go and just step into the void. You know, I was talking yesterday about practice being established beyond consciousness. Viggo said we should establish our practice beyond consciousness. So consciousness is what holds us in this earthly paradigm. To go beyond consciousness is to live our life moment by moment in the moment without it being conditioned by our past or by anything.

[16:12]

This is called freedom. And this is what we mean by freedom from karma. Even though karma is there, we have freedom within the karma. So, then there are feeling restrictions. I feel good, or I feel bad, or I feel this way or that way. Given that restriction of feelings, that's where my practice begins. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness fit to observe, or observe may not be the best term, but to observe the feelings in the feelings. But let the feelings be there and observe the feelings in the feelings.

[17:20]

Just bear attention. So bear attention is zazen. With thinking mind, feelings, emotions, just bear attention without judgment and without following something up. It comes as it comes and it goes as it goes. But we have freedom from it. Freedom within it. And then of course there are the bodily restrictions. You know, everyone has some disability. Some disabilities are greater than others. And people with insist on practice and don't complain but simply come up practice according to what the disability will allow are the most inspiring people and in some sense we're all like that we have

[18:45]

we practice within what our abilities will allow. I remember in the old days, back in the 60s, everybody felt like we all had to do exactly the same thing, you know, and so if you were, no matter what your problem was, you just sat through it. But nowadays, more people As the Sangha grows, and it's not just hippies and younger people, as the Sangha, our lives change and our physical abilities become depleted. But still, how do we practice, given the restrictions that we have? So I think we really need to understand that.

[19:55]

Because sometimes people with disability, that is obvious, feel that they're seen as not being able to practice like everybody else. And so it causes, you know, whenever we can't come up to the norm, so to speak, we always feel that way. As soon as you break your leg or get restricted in some way, you see the world going by you, and you can't participate in the same way. So we have to be able to open our mind to, if we have the disability, to realize that given your disability and your effort is actually to maintain practice, that instead of being a third class citizen of the Zen Dojo, your effort is actually inspiring everybody.

[21:07]

So what it depends on is your intention and your effort. And it doesn't have anything It's not about practicing in the ideal way. But actually, if you are making that effort, and it looks funny, that's the ideal way. So, when I give zazen instruction, and I talk about posture and so forth, what each one of us has to do is figure out, well, where am I in that ideal? And how do I match myself up with that ideal when I can't? So, you know, it's like when I was doing the funeral ceremony for Meili, I went to the Japanese priest and I said, well, you know, what is the ceremony anyway?

[22:12]

And so they gave me this big long sheet of stuff, you know, and I thought, I can't do Oh yeah, you don't have to worry about that. That's the most formal funeral ceremony. Maybe do that for the Abbot of Eheji or something when he dies. Maybe not. What you do is you pick out what works for you. This is the stuff that you can use. And you select what works for you. And then you do the ceremony according to the conditions. It's a small ceremony, you just take a few parts. And if it's a very formal ceremony, you take more parts. So it's kind of like that. It's kind of like, this is the ideal, and where do you fit? Because I think the ideal is important, because it sets the standard. But where are you on the standard? And you have to set your own standard.

[23:13]

But this is also tricky, because if you simply say, well, you know, this is my limitation. and that's all I can do, then you may not be inserting enough effort to make you go further than you think you can. So when you really find that practice pulls something forth from you that is more than you thought you could do, that's inspiring for you. Yeah. This is where we have to have your own discernment. And also, it's good to talk to your teacher about what you think you can do, what you think you can't do. I think that's very important. Then you kind of figure out, you know, what to do. Sometimes someone will come to me, and I see they're trying too hard. And I say, you know, take it easy.

[24:18]

Don't, you know, Don't try to do this. Just do it like this. And it's kind of a nice relief, actually. Because if you try too hard, then you get discouraged and maybe hurt yourself. You know, when I was sitting God then, we all tried to sit in full lotus. And so, we did that. Well, some of us. And I sat full lotus for years and years. It's a great way to sit. Now I'm reduced to doing it in a way that I never wanted to. But that's okay. It's good. It's good for my ego. But some people hurt themselves, you know, trying to... Shinigami Roshi always said,

[25:21]

Little bit at a time. If you make progress a little bit at a time, that's really good. Little bit of progress. Don't try too hard. Don't strain yourself. When I give Zazen instructions, I show people all the positions. Full lotus, half lotus, and so forth. And then I say, Because the point is not what position you're sitting in, but how can you sit still for 40 minutes? Choose the position that's easiest for you to sit for 40 minutes. If you're sitting sashim, choose the position that's easiest for you to sit 7 days. It's hard enough just to sit,

[26:25]

So you don't need to add something to the difficulty. Just the difficulty that's there is enough. So then there are imaginary restrictions. You know about those. I'll go on. And then there are circumstantial restrictions. Circumstantial restrictions are my family, my dog, my wife, my work, my school, all these other responsibilities that I have. So practice

[27:29]

You know, restriction is, how do you find your freedom of practice within all those restrictions? I have to work, I have to be at home, I have to shop, I have to do laundry, I have to blah, blah, blah. And sit zazen. People sometimes say, well, you know, I've been sitting zazen at home. That's great. But, you know, practice is buddha, dharma and sangha. Sangha is practicing together. So this makes it far more difficult to practice as sangha. But we do it. It's great. It's an unbelievable sangha, actually. It really is an unbelievable sangha. People, all of you are here. take off from work and your family and whatever, you know, to do this practice?

[28:37]

It's just unbearable. It gives each of us problems. These are good problems. And so, given those elements plus Sangha, how do we balance all those elements plus Sangha to make a complete circle? and make it actually work. That's actual practice. So, in order to do that, we have to have some restrictions. You can't do that and do other things. And you have to know, well, these are the elements, really, in my life, that I can actually do in practice at the same time. So it's hard in this society because we have so much opportunity.

[29:44]

I think in Dorian's time people didn't have so much opportunity. He did this, he did that. To have lay people, or whatever we are, practicing like this is unheard of, actually. So, this is a pioneering practice. So, I wrote something called Barriers. How to tell the difference between what's true and what's false? Where's the line between what you tell yourself and what's really true? You know, I think what I meant was it has to do something with

[30:57]

What I tell myself is I can do a lot, I can do all these things, but what is true is that maybe I can't. This is who I am, but maybe it's not. How do you tell the difference? So that's a very interesting place. That's like the koan, like, who am I? But you never know exactly. Like Bodhidharma says, I don't know. That's who he is. That's right. I don't know. But given that, we have our life, and are we telling ourselves, are we fudging our life? Are we telling ourselves something that's not true about ourselves? Or do we really see ourselves as we are? And that's a fuzzy line. So, that's like the Ginjo Koan, you know, true or false.

[32:07]

And then there's the fear problem, the fear barrier. I can only go so far before I get afraid, before I become frightened. And sometimes, you know, fear is like, it looks like a wall. through it. I remember when I was a kid and I lived in Hollywood. This was back in the 30s. And they had these, it was, Hollywood was not very developed at that time. A lot of vacant lots. As a kid we used to play in the vacant lots throwing dirt clogs and baking potatoes under a campfire and stuff. But there was this, and they had these picture, movie lots, where they had all the props.

[33:16]

And they had this old one where you'd climb over the fence and walk around. And they had this ship, a sailing ship. But underneath the sailing ship was all these props, you know, holding this facade of a sailing ship. You can get on the deck, but you look down, it's just a gown. They had a cowboy town, and it really looked like a cowboy town, except that you just walk up to it, open the door, and there's nothing behind you. So, you know, this is kind of like fear, you know. It looks like something is there, but you open the door, and you just walk through, you know, the paper façade. So, that's something that we're really dealing with. And then anxiety is another restriction. Anxiety means that we're breathing up here.

[34:20]

Usually when we have anxiety, our breathing is shallow. And something's going on down here that's not calm. So this is... If we really practice asana, fear and anxiety become either diminished or are not present. Although we may experience those insatsen, but that insatsen gives us the opportunity to calm our mind. So this fear of letting go and lack of understanding I think fear of letting go is a big one. That's a restriction we put on ourself. It's very... We have fear of living.

[35:33]

and fear of dying. It's like the old song, which I'm not going to sing for you. Tired of living and fearing dying. So, on the other hand, it's kind of like letting go. It's practice in letting go, actually. And all the people that I have, a lot of practitioners that have died, whose deaths I have attended, it was obvious that their practice helped them to let go. So, you know, I always felt I didn't want to sit in a chair, even though I felt it's fine to sit in a chair when you... but I didn't want to do that.

[37:19]

But there were several times when I found that I couldn't because my back would give me a big pile of lance and spasms in my back. So I took one of those chairs that doesn't have legs to sit on the ground, and I put that up on the taan, this is the tasahara, and I sat in the chair for zazen on top of the taan, kind of like this. And that was fine. So sometimes we feel that we're kind of proud of our abilities, and then when we have to accommodate let go of our pride. So I think we have to be careful about pride and which brings up the don't compare yourself to anybody else.

[38:23]

So this is a big problem comparing ourselves to others. Each one of us has our own practice according to our physical, mental, emotional and situational situations and it looks like somebody will say you know so-and-so they sit so still you know and I'm always wiggling around and it looks to them like people So, you know, it looks like the person is sitting in the full lotus, up straight, and so is, you know, the king of the roost.

[39:26]

But actually, that doesn't mean anything. What is meaningful is what your practice is. It could be that the person who is sitting in the full lotus doesn't have any problems, calm and no pain. That person's practice is probably not as meaningful as the practice of someone else who is totally struggling all the time and looks like they can never make it. But that's great practice. The best practice if you want to differentiate The person that has the most difficult time, usually, if they stay with the practice, it has the most benefit. And, you know, beginner's practice, someone who just comes into the Zunga and is trying really hard because they don't know what it's about,

[40:34]

really inspiring. I always really like it when new people come, and they're trying really hard, they don't know anything, and they really try, and that's totally inspiring. It's like reaching for your pillow in the night, and you don't know where it is. And so, you have to be careful not to judge. And not to compare. Not to compare. But we do it anyway. We can't help comparing. But even though you can't help comparing, don't compare. You're doing your practice as you. That person's doing their practice as them. They have all the stuff they have. You have all the stuff that you have. And you may not want to look So I know it's time to stop, but if you have a question.

[41:52]

There's a fear that I've been thinking about. There's been an issue at Clearwater. And it's, I'll just give you an example. At the end of service, people freeze. They don't put their cushions away and so on. It's like they're waiting for somebody to say, And now put your cushions back the way they were, and then bow to it. And they know, they've been told a million times, and they've done it a million times, and they know what to do. But if somebody doesn't start, they won't do it. And I asked about it once after service at the beginning of classes. What could I do? And I asked about what's it about. And one woman said, Really, from her heart, she said, I'm afraid of being wrong. And I think we're really afraid of being wrong, of making a visible mistake.

[42:59]

That's a great fear in practice a lot of times. Yes, people fear making mistakes. That's true. Because in practice, it looks like I don't know. In Japan, you know, if you were in the monastery, somebody would just come over and hit you. And then you wouldn't make mistakes anymore. But in your case, what I would have done in your case, I would have just stood there and not done anything. And just let everybody just stand there. I'll do that next time. What's going on? I will, I will. Peter.

[44:02]

It sounded like when you were talking about mental restrictions, in my mind that all started to get a little mushy with some But is it something like confusion as a restriction? Should I do this? Should I do that? Blah, blah, blah. Is this really happening? Is this who I am? Confusion restricts that. Oh, I see. Should we do it this way or that way? Yeah. And being able to deal with that and not try and settle it may go away.

[45:03]

That's right, yes. So the way to settle it is to make everybody do the same thing. What's that? Make everybody do the same thing. So the formal practice is everybody does the same thing. And then there are the variations. It's like when we say, when you come to Sashin, there are three days or whatever it is. But we don't say, but if you want to, you can come for two days. We don't say that. We say three days. But then somebody says, well, you know, I can only blah, blah, blah. OK. So there's the exception. which is built-in, but not broadcast. Because if it's so tight that you just have the restrictions in their formality, you reduce your Sangha to very small.

[46:11]

Because given the nature of this Sangha, where everyone has responsibilities outside of this particular form, we always have to make accommodations. Sometimes it looks like things are kind of loose, you know, but that may not be what you're talking about exactly. But that's an example that I'm talking about. to admit to one's own confusion. Oh yes, yeah. Yeah, well, you know, admitting it to yourself is part of practice. Definitely. Whatever, you know.

[47:11]

Confusion, yeah. I think, and it's good to express your confusion. If you don't express it, then you might get discouraged and leave. Because you don't think there's any venue or the people won't accept you, or whatever. Just make a mistake. Well, making mistakes is really good. That's the thing. There's the form, and then there's the mistake. And the mistake is what we appreciate. We appreciate the mistake. You know, clatter, clatter, clatter. Just to let ourselves know that we make the mistake. It's good. I thought I was doing pretty well this time. I know that, you know, that you're making mistakes. I'm very gentle. We have to be careful that we're not trying to be perfect.

[48:33]

We're not trying to be perfect. We're just trying to do it in practice. And the practice has its way of... there's a way to practice. There's a formal way to practice that helps us work together. So the problem with formality is it looks like you're trying to be perfect. But we're not trying to be perfect. Whatever we do is perfect. As long as we're trying, making the effort to stay within the parameters of the formal practice. So mistakes are, you know, we shouldn't get angry about mistakes. And we shouldn't get angry about being corrected. A correction simply means when something is leaning over, it should be upright, you know?

[49:37]

And so you say, oh, it looks like it's laying down. Oh, OK, I'll turn it upright. Oh, I'm so bad because I was laying down. Oh, no, I'm not going to do it. You don't say that verbally, but it goes on inside. So correction is not the same as blame. But we think, oh, correction often is blame, not just correction. So, every time I come up to the altar, the water bowl is off to the right. The water, the water, it's always off to the right. 99% of the time. And I look at it, and I say, well... line it up. I don't know why it's always up to this.

[50:39]

Maybe it's where I'm standing. I'm standing in the center, believe me. So anyway, this is so this is, you know, why? How do I deal with what I think? It should be this way, but it's not. And that goes for almost everything we do. So how do I withstand that? No blame. My practice is no blame. For me, I find that I'm much more critical and much more blaming when I'm personally feeling basically frustrated. Yes, but when I'm not feeling basically frustrated with my life, I find that I notice that I put much less

[51:43]

In other words, how do you find your freedom within frustration? That's the practice. Not that you don't get frustrated. You get frustrated all the time. But how do you free yourself from the frustration without pretending it's not there? That's a natural cause. And we live with it all the time.

[52:37]

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