Zazen

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Serial: 
BZ-02448
Description: 

Rohatsu Day 1

 

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it's there's not to be my life
the someone asked me to her what to be the same sort of of the machine
and
i said a zaza
so ah
we're just going to focus on work in size in
and do it
so this is going to be a candle
refresher a have been around him to hurry up to know
what i'm going to say
you know i
i'm going to say that
every time you sit
zazen you give yourself zazen instruction just like you were talking to somebody else
here's what you do you sit down
you do this do that than new generation they do that and you do that every single time you sit and then you don't forget
not only that
we always have a lot of things on our mind
there's must have you know
so we really like in a field that we really have to pay attention to those things should around on our mind the yeah mine is continually
involved with
hmm
so ah
it's easy to forget that thousand is the main subject
sitting down standing apart you know our daily activities
by judges and have as you know is not exactly the same as when you ordinarily sit down
although when you ordinarily sit down it's going to know now i'm sitting down
now add them that that's going to to to understand to make pay attention to because we're so caught up in her head that before we have and
finished one thing we're already ah
into the next thing
and this is the most common
for up or how most most of us are most everybody there were already into the next thing before we finished well done
so this is a wonderful thing about
our
formal practice the former practice helps us to
begin one activity
extent in that activity into its end and then and that activity and then begin another activity
yeah i really want to
we emphasize this
hmm
ha
talking with somebody we're having a conversation and then pretty similar thinking about the next thing
while we're talking about this thing in a heart and then
the left before we have gone
and this is true so much of our activity we've already left before we've done
so i want to stay with
this is what i'm doing now
this is the beginning you can find that that it was it easy to find the beginning
because we think of our activity as motion
is but this motion contains increments of beginnings and endings
yeah they accurately contains you know moments of
beginnings and endings
so if we can actually perceive some of those
beginnings and endings within the larger context of a beginning and ending
then
we have a better sense of
being involved with our activity
so
that's one aspect
another aspect is
timing our ballots and maintaining a balance is a suzuki roshi to say r h moment are falling out of balance and regaining our balance
so if you think about it this is i like a moment of falling out of balance and a moment of regaining our balance on the time
and because the whole our environment is constantly changing they were constantly changing
ah we have to find a center point in ourself
to relate in order to relate to what's going on around us
this
sometimes we notice people who don't have a focal point
and
so so there's no way to relate to our surroundings
as a from a still point
but we always have to keep finding that stuff on
because it's always moving
everything is a moving target
hmm
so mm
when we sit in zazen
we become they are still
i remember when i first started to practice and koji
what we weren't
because we were learning how to sit
and we had a lot of difficulty lot of pain in the legs back and everybody was having a taken and the only way to stay in our it was to focus on the still point about breath
which moves out time
the just still point
i'm just being is still as possible
and just let the breath flow within that still point
one breath at a time
we don't like penny you know every originally we don't like bed
but
pain can actually be a anna
it helps us
because we have to stop wiggling in order to be able to sustain our shop
so in order to be able to sustain herself sitting within a painful situation we have become very very quiet
very very still soon as you will go
you created problem
and then i can remember times when he was so painful
no you just one breath at a time limit your whole life is within that one breath
inhaling and exhaling
and that's and when gotten into concentrate on that inhaling x i was
the refuge
i don't have that problem anymore
because i learned how to that lead the pain be my
my master
hmm i learned how to encompass that sensation that we felt pain
and not enclose it
submitted it's trying to burst out of its limits
to just let it be and be one with and members recreation and oh issues should just be one with your pain just be one with this sensation
and that was a kind of go on
because how do you do that how do you been one with the sensation with the and another
when there's no opposite
can this no problem
so it all boils down to do a hurry
when we talked about non-duality on the time but what's that
the tumbleweeds just be learn which what is
what causes the problems is opposition
when there's the opposite then
that means that returned to get away from something
is you don't try to escape
you create a problem
so instead of closing down
instead of closing down to open up which is counterintuitive
this counterintuitive because when we have an intrusion you want to you don't want it that causes version intrusion causes aversion and ah
but if we simply later the pain overwhelm us that's not good either
so how'd he do that let's pick on how did you do that how do you accept the pain and be one with it without a letting it overwhelm you

so you simply have to grow bigger
then we have to expand so that there are no boundary
as you'd have abounded you have a problem
now what is the boundary
hundred it is our sense of
fixed a fetched self
this is good a donor
and soon as you have a fixed serve you have a problem
so
the antidote
is flexibility
watch your below
my teacher were we talking about soft mind so body and mind are not to things we talked about the mind is one thing about the body as another so zazen is concerned with body breath and mind does three elements
daddy breath and nine how to unified body birth of mine
because body and mind i one thing and brash is in between
breath as you can leak
between bad and in mind

jobs
such mind
in such bad
but soft
there's one or more only one side
soft and hard
from and is and so these are these elements are present so how do we balance
ha
flexibility with firmness
when we sit down and
there has to be some firmness
we sit up straight
i about it's a button
three hundred and sixty seven the part about this just two numbers to are a button and always of the parts are
cooperating to do this one act
if some parts of our body i'm not cooperating to do this one act to support
sure every part of the body has to be cooperative
issues it's a very complex simple thing
just sit up straight we just take it regretted i asked that extreme but actually it takes some effort to set up screen firmness to have a firm foundation
and a soft mind and soft and flexible but in the same time so the most important things balance
we can't sustain yourself with muscular flex a more muscular flexing
so

we to pay attention to her to but we're doing moment by moment
you know i remember what i used to do was travel i didn't try to think of other things but you know my natural goes to a shrink when you have a lot of pain they said and you start thinking about nurture you know helps you not think about it but actually
that's one stage the next stage is to not think about something else but to actually accept what's actually happening so that you can work with it and a shaft way
and

to allow the sensations all the sensations to be there
and to but
the the mind as they grow big enough to to allow be soft enough to allow everything to be
and a big enough to allow to be there
and then that's not a problem
johnny problem when you don't like it
i can dislike you know
a aversion and detachment these are all the things we're working with that's why
we only say johnson is the great teacher it teaches us everything we need to know
teaches us how to be selfless and be the world
in a selfless way
because the problem that we have is the problem of to myself
when the self is the center
who then we have good and bad writing rather like and dislike pleasure pain that's the that's life according to the center to a subsidy lis
life according to self-centeredness this pleasure pay like dislike want not what conversion and attachment
so it's as and we leave cell phone and mrs side
we just think that you can you sit over here while i do that it
and then is buddha is centered
which means nutshell knows no special self
the self
it's it's

we're centered on
i'm actually emptiness from lack of a better word
so we don't let the self abstract
the merging
the doesn't is merging in one chance when marriage wish to universe
you know the universe it's got all this pressure
address and so we act out in the world according to these pressures that we have that our postures are determined by the pressures that we have
we don't ordinarily walk around dinner with doesn't pasture
ordinarily but we if you're a sense to you can do that
background and that buster which is natural
but we think it's unnatural to sit up straight and natural for most people
i say to somebody go there are people zen students whose pastures i have corrected the adjusted and the is correct but adjusted and actually but that's not natural
does it to sit like that
but we've lost to write about we lost our natural posture
yeah we think it's a natural
we lost our freedom
to a large extent and we think that
we live in a natural way so

it's hard to explain how to let go you just have to find it you know what i'm talking about this
you're kidding
the some way to think about how to be natural and a buddhist sense
and we will
and we don't say i am sitting doesn't
put that aside
is buddha said exerting
this is a good as branches said in georgia

remember
my teacher them
it's just painful age sitting on a black christian
you are not there
in a stop sign and way

so
balance is the most important thing balance and flexibility and openness
so when we shared with sit up straight and open parish like to use the gym lifting up as the
stern sternum i say that over and over and people proceedings as doesn't lift up your sternum and nothing happened
why but if you lift up your sooner than a lower back
push us forward and you can balance yourself
every she doesn't pastures like cloth you pull one quarter and the other corners out move according to how you put the corner
so when you should have stray the body others partly by are strength to cooperate with straight posture in a strong pasture transaction is a strange and is the balance of strange and ease
dog cause a great dynamic working
thinking
surgeon should feel dynamic
at the same time
if you want if you work too hard you you
and get stiff and tired and you too lax
he gets slothful and
ah
lose your energy
so sitting up straight
really making an effort to sit up straight
and stretch stretch your west
so you're shitting on strip that induces energy
that's how you draw in energy
if just sitting on a cage
energies in blocking the energy
ah petition to be over

you dry and energy this though if you if you expend energy and you joy and energy unless you expend energy you know dry energy
those people that work the hardest have the most energy
so
to set a really strange and make that effort and of the same time to let go
it's like a fountain in i founded the water goes up and but it's also phone down
no so that's
great energy and great ease
and to balance ease and energy is how you
i'm deal with the pain in your legs
he said upstream you have structure good structure and a good structure
allows the flow of energy
at the same time
that all those parts of the body are connected each one is independent
yeah all of the joints of your fingers are independent
your arms are in canon your elbows are independent
but yet for all loosely connected and balancing balanced with each other so when we're sitting zazen is that people on board i bought because you like connected to your body you know is when you're connected to your body and her breath you can't be bored
you're working too hard and when you have to work on
this is where were your mind goes in zazen what should i think about in doesn't safe not thinking
that's don't get caught where do you think about as and i'm thinking i'm thinking
nah i'm thinking
which is sinks a sort of doesn't
basically
think the thought of letting well how do i do that well i looked at last
by pastor in straight create energy lift at my wage gap by buddha light
the murderer the card monograph they connect with the universe
a bit ly a machine just dumped some slight pressing together you know that there's too much tension in your body and issues is referred to part you know that just too lax so this is the barometer that's boudreau helps us
to know where i practice words as a practices whether the what and then keep the balance whether it's to tense or to this
and just keeping that balance
both like walking a tightrope
we're walking the edge of a blade
and to keep the attention all the time
as soon as you buy decent during this to readjust and were micromanaging a posture at the time
because postures or exchanging
so it's a lot of work to censor them correctly
so that you're comfortable

and then we let the bread gonna go but
although the manuals up and say the bread watch the breadth and typically knows we say watching the breath as the rising and falling of your lower abdomen an old time as as gets into where's your breath right now
i don't know when you breathe appeared and bring down a hair
i don't know maybe appear maybe the panda you should always know your branches all the time waking and sleeping dreaming or
eating
walking knowing your breath it should only be here when your breath is up here the actually oxygen is your body's not be at eleven
probably this is where this is the seat of sheer
and doubt and perplexity
so when you let your breast come down inhaling your abdomen expanse expanding a contract
imagine this is where you were the breath
when you breathe in says and all the time that not it
oh and if it's up here the contention deep breaths
like this open your mouth ago
and your best year abdomen squeezes against tobacco then you get crimes you put the edges exaggerated
but that's the way i was taught
i started when you want to get your breath town
you take through your mouth you go
an expanse in it
contract contraction is good because then you naturally have to take another breath
you push the branch out
here after stamped sounds
you do that to three times to prime your breathing whenever you can find your breathe your last year end of my brushes around to rough take a few breasts like that
high school
this is where your brushing the time
i say should pay
better
but
i mean it
the bench sure
this are you should censor either
so not everybody can do this
that's okay this is the standard actually and some some folks can't get up to the standard
you should and we all have some difficulty one day because you know
and we should not pay attention that difficulty
and do what we can if you're sitting in a chair you have to just a modified to sitting in a chair you know if you're laying down you have to modify that but that you do as much of the standard as you can
and what you can't do you can do
but we're always working on
it's not like have been perfect size and
it's like having doing
that it's like
being one with whatever it is however it is that you're doing it
not everybody can hold your back straight
and then you go through periods where you can't do anything
but but you still keep practicing you can practice with i can't do anything but i'm still doing it
that's that's it
even though i can't do it i'm going to do it anyway
that's the practice keebler and get to a do it anyway
that enlightened practice it's not that the person who does since perfectly is the enlightened good
that's your perseverance
that furthers as we used to say in the chain
you have your insurance via western each means to stay that way you were younger
perseverance furthers the age of bread famous phrase in the chain
so and that's what says she was about but you have to tap it through until you finally open up
until you can turn don't need to do that anymore
so when we begin to practice you know we talk it through you know some people can't do it
did i continue but the person continues and it will open up and then it gets a practical like that and i'm telling you something new
but i'm reminding us of what our practices

given the questions
ross
ah thinking not thinking not thinking is not thinking and not taking his thinking the thought of other even if so we assumed this posture where reminding ourselves points of data
and that's not thinking work beyond thinking and i'm taking it actually is beyond thinking are not thinking that it's translated as died thinking but actually beyond thinking i'm thinking which means it's sinking and it's not taking
okay as you described non thinking is that those particular points to remind ourselves is going beyond that okay up to started and they just sit with it's thirty at the act to might have lived up to
sternum and then letting go of that but i think that they know
if it's thousand and itself was behind thought
yes the way and a sense that's right yes but i lit up my shirt and can i forget it no i've lived up mr mckean it up of done
i don't forget it
the the active site that if the three might be and then there's the so-called passive or look beyond that i've just been just been just be that it is a noticing of a collapse of the sternum then it's like the active mind the attentive mine
and reminds
this is the thinking part this is is the instruction and the land thinking park is let go so what is the essence and the others to function
the essence is letting go for fortune was doing something
and but to function is the integral with the with the essence and the essence is indigo as the function that's called form is emptiness emptiness is form that is demonstrating the hydrogen
this practicing that but the artrage to saying
well
well it's interesting what ross is asking a package it just me back in wages it
where are you from a very earthy or early on you are
ah sisters of dharma came from early buddhism yeah that actress and like it
the ah
the hindrances
foundations of mindfulness huh i really think a lot
i think since of your actually staying or high on our practice with i'm ah and lee you know that mindfulness group my penis off a great guess ah
and what i really like is a translation of that were stocking your smirky has hot recollection the and it seems to me that what you're talking about i way exhausted structure is you know we're like literally mentally and physically
recollecting ourselves not the moment no and that that you know as you say this that has the the function in the essence are are in general that are you you actually have to do something we have to bring ourselves
back and we drift away we recollect results have i find it and really useful more useful and ah
a of objectification of mindfulness of like absolute presence
which i don't know what happens you know our of being just ah
the a the moment when i just actually that sometimes we wait a moment and sometimes we actually after recollect ourselves and decks both of them are functions and miles yeah well class and is
following up getting out all the time
there's no constant you can it's really hard you can keep to maintain a constant
mindfulness
so to speak
a presence web-based yeah but the presence yeah the two things that are happening sort of finish be was the at active
a part of obsession and the other is
the essence and so even though
mind wanders and we fall off and we forget what we're doing the essence is still being expressed
that's why we don't say
the thinking is wrong or bad because the mind wanders and that's that's it's function but even so the might even if the my lodgers depression she's still
is not disturbed
that that's the reason
so
when we sit in this posture we're not thinking about something else but the mind wanders anyway but the american were using nothing but the minds of water and so we wake up and bring it back and say we're continually waking up and and dreaming waking up in dreaming this is
you know
the the our body mind works
but zazen but the essence in zazen and i we bring we allow their essence to be a
the dominant
and all this stuff is going on all time no brain
it's be answered in so that and i'm thinking even though it includes thinking is beyond thinking so we don't dismiss the thinking which is a big mistake and say oh i only had you know to manage them a calmness in the whole doesn't
that's not understanding that the essences it is
well
there whether you recognize it or not some will recognize it and phone
and so we should which will get caught on the idea of clarity
the clarity is the lover changes bring forth but clarity is good but if we become attached to clarity we have probably referring to duality so it is
cloudiness and clarity
we get we're not supposed to be attached to the cloudiness and we're not supposed to be attached to clarity
it's great when they're thirty but if you think to sit then you have a problem because there's no special state of mind and doesn't although we think there is we think for the state of mind as advent is supposed to be clarity
but true clarity includes cloudiness
that's why does soon as we
the problem
there because of evaluating we evaluate other
according to the idea of clarity and cloudiness
we should have clarity that means that that declaring just something wrong with a cloud of mind
but when it's cloudy mind is just very month when a clear mind is just mind
this is where it's really hard
the to get through
yes
bringing together body breath and mind serenity heart in this practice well that's just a word you know just a heart
body breath and mind and printing binding unifying body breath and mind is the heart
it's all costs love
but we don't know what love
we can tell them i love means harmony
means a lot of mean so many different things that we can use it to mean anything watch but basically to be it means irony
the holds everything together
that's what's this short lists year is my yeah shortly is that
that kept the and keep your head damp it's fun not like this
human relation to usher in the hand like this unit and here collars way that here
not keep your head and top five that's the balance it it's a big heavy way
one is leaning pull you over so keeping her attracted by
and
there is a minute shoulders
don't you want a pressure and you know just a joke but if you don't want to keep your head like this say
and moses malone enable
so you don't win this way or that way your ears are likely to shoulder say that leaning over the back the goodyear is in place near new britain ensure your nose deeply
and
when the thoughts come in dear through your mind isn't that can pass through its scenery felt the scenery and realized the and then you wake up so fast that means waking up moment by moment just wake up from the dream
so imagination or and reality those are three
nature's that we have so we're dealing with the imagination imagination is always going on bachelor nation is not bad it's just it is not necessarily anchored huh
and it tasted it obscures reality
but it's useful you have to have it and then is interdependent nature we realized that everything is
oh
depends on everything else and that's and we experienced that in southern known as the nature of reality same things really as it is
and so we at some point have some realization of that
but
does that there's no tenseness up no testiness in your body at all
this there's a difference between tenseness intention tension is what holds things together
but tenseness is what's extra
when we use part everybody to hold us up that are not necessary shows not necessary to have any tenseness at all in your body so what is that what is the structured
you concentrate on the structure which has tension but not tenseness
so is flexibility yeah but punchbowl nothing's attached to anything else that can't move
var altogether by general tendons and you know and must be in stuff
and it's not lose even look like got this feeling stiff you know that that it's i lose
so there's no tenseness attention holds it together
what the way you think it's with holds things together
and so when you have soft mind is structure but
it's all lose all this inflexible and and so when the intrusion you can just expand to include it
so you're always expand and that's what opens you up so when you do have an intrusion some painter that it helps you to open up and then you can include it in no longer dominate new
and you can enjoy it
actually
so
this is
keep working
i know that know your own students and an attorney should be no you should really well
i'm just reminding us of what we're doing
they