Good morning. Well, today we are having one day sitting till nine o'clock. And so I think it's appropriate to talk about Zazen. I think it's appropriate to talk about Zazen. Although we sit Zazen every day, It's on the list. It's important, I think, to go over the points of Zazen. I think it's important to go over the points of Zazen over and over because we tend to forget or slip off. If we're not re-minded, then our mind tends to become lax. So I want to bring up these points of practice, of our Zosian practice.

[01:04]

And the way I've chosen to do that is to talk about this ancient list of factors called The Seven Factors of Enlightenment. As we know, as Dogen says, practice brings forth enlightenment, and enlightenment illuminates practice. So practice and enlightenment are not two different things. So these seven factors of enlightenment are mindfulness, investigation, effort, joy, calmness, concentration, and equanimity.

[02:12]

Mindfulness, of course, we find in every conscious thought. Every conscious thought and action contains mindfulness. I don't say contains, but is... Mindfulness is remembering what it is that you're doing. What am I doing? This is a great Zen koan, even though it seems very simple. What am I doing? That's mindfulness. And it can be construed in many different ways. But simply, what am I doing right now? So this is the basis of what we call Shikantaza. Shikantaza means just now.

[03:20]

This activity, just now, without thinking about the future or the past. The past is cut off. The future is cut off. And we're just standing on a piece of earth which doesn't exist. What would you do? That's mindfulness. That's shikantaza. So we call zazen shikantaza. This is Duncan's term for zazen, shikantaza. which means just doing or just this just this on this moment just this on the next moment but there is no next moment because the next moment is this moment the next moment is always this moment because the next moment doesn't really exist except as an idea but we say the next moment

[04:29]

So, moment by moment by moment. Well, thinking about the next moment, there's a little passage here, which will probably disturb our board. He says, if we have generous big mind, and we have a strong spirit of practice, there is no need to worry. Dogen emphasized a sparse, simple life. Without expecting anything, we just practice our way. Many students asked how it would be possible to support the temple or the group without any plan. And he said, if it becomes difficult, So before something happens, it is not our way to think about it too much.

[05:37]

And that way we have complete calmness of our mind. Because you have something, you worry about losing it. But if you don't have anything, there's no need to worry. This is wonderful and idealistic. But I worry that you won't worry too much. I worry that you won't worry enough. So, we always need to strike a balance. There are things to worry about and there are things, although there are things to worry about, we should be careful not to lose this moment. Worry about something that hasn't, that you can't do something about at the moment. We carry so much around that we worry about it. When we're sitting Zazen, there's no need to worry about anything.

[06:41]

In Zazen, there is absolutely no need to worry about anything. Then we say, but I have to worry about the cat, I have to worry about the dog, I have to worry about the kitchen, I have to worry about the atomic bomb. No, you don't. It doesn't help. If your mind is totally clear, when the time comes to worry, you'll be right there, without wasting any time. So we say, don't waste our time. We shouldn't waste our time. But so much of our time is taken up in the airplane that goes around and around and doesn't have a place to land in our mind. People say to me, I cannot sit through a period of Zazen without worrying or thinking about something.

[07:45]

And there was one second when I didn't. Was that the Zazen period? The mind, the purpose of our thinking mind is to think. And it doesn't get turned off. So our thoughts and our stuff just keeps coming up and coming up and coming up. But worrying about it does not help. It doesn't help. Clarity of mind is a bigger help. Because when your mind is clear, then you can more easily and more directly deal with problems So when reciting Zazen, there is a factor called investigation.

[08:48]

In the Vipassana practice, investigation is more thinking about the factors of practice. In our practice, investigation means to occupy the mind so that it doesn't drift. Occupying the mind so that it doesn't drift means, if we're not supposed to think of anything in Zazen, what do we do with the mind? We can't stop the mind from doing its practice. So, what kind of thoughts should we have in Zazen? How do we use the mind instead of trying to get rid of the mind? How do we use the mind instead of trying to get rid of thoughts? So we use the mind so that it doesn't dominate our mind.

[09:52]

We use the mind. It's called thinking the thought of practice. Thinking the thought of Zazen. When you are sitting Zazen, you think the thought of Zazen. So that means we actually utilize thinking. We don't try to get rid of the thinking mind. Thoughts will come up, but we don't necessarily own them. Because the thinking mind is continually creating and looking for something to attach to. If the mind is not attaching to something, it goes crazy. So it needs something, and the mind invents all kinds of things to attach to. These are called random thoughts. And so you know, when you sit dazen, that random thoughts are like a rushing torrent. Even though you try to stop it for a minute, sometimes somebody will say, just wait.

[10:59]

Keep your mind clear and wait for the moment when the thought arises. And so you say, OK, and you're waiting for that moment. And then five minutes later, you realize you've been thinking for five minutes without realizing it. So, pretty hard to catch. Very hard to catch. But, if we direct our mind to thinking the thought of zazen, then the mind has something to do. We give it something to do. And so, we go scan the body. Is your posture... How is the posture? How is your mudra? How is your... So we go over all these points of posture continuously during Zazen, and this gives the mind something to do. And it's beneficial, because our posture is always changing.

[12:03]

We may think that, now that I've assumed this posture is going to stay that way, but it doesn't. It's always changing. So we have to continually keep adjusting our posture. That's not called moving. When we say don't move in Zazen, we mean don't change your legs for your own convenience. Just sit through whatever you have to sit through. That's what Zazen is. You deal with what's happening. And if you're not, if you're present on each moment without thinking about the next moment, you can sit through Zazen. because so much of our discomfort is created by our anxiety about the next moment. Will I survive this?

[13:05]

Will I ruin myself? Most of our problems like that are constructions of our mind. So, giving the mind something to do, which is concentrating on posture. Posture is first, and then breathing is second. Suzuki Hiroshi used to say, this is not a mindfulness practice. Which doesn't mean that mindfulness is not present, but mindfulness is just one of the factors. There are a good number of factors and qualities that are necessary to have a rounded period of Zazen. Mindfulness is one of them. Concentration is another one. Investigation is another one.

[14:11]

So we don't value one over another. It's just like we have a mind or a thinking mind. And we have a hara, which is a different aspect of mind. We have the physical body, which is another aspect of mind. And all of these factors have to be balanced with each other. Because we use our thinking mind so much, we tend to think of the thinking mind as most important. But actually, it's no more important than our ahara, which is the intuitive mind. So, these two aspects of mind have to be balanced.

[15:12]

so that one doesn't run ahead of the other knees and become top heavy so we say cool head which is to renew the thinking mind so it doesn't gallop off and warm feet cool head and warm feet warm feet means this is where the ballast that keeps the body-mind complex in balance. So we have the Daruma doll, Bodhidharma doll, from Japan, which has a weight in the bottom. It's kind of a round thing with big eyes. When you push it over, it flops up because it has this big weight in the bottom.

[16:20]

So that's the balancing point. So we sit like this because it's the most comfortable way to sit for a long period of time. And the weight is down here. And the weight allows the mind to have some freedom, but it's not controlled. our views and misinformation. So third factor is effort. People sometimes think that zazen is to just kind of relax. That meditation is just to kind of relax and go limp. But that's not sansen. Sansen... There's two aspects.

[17:21]

One is the passive side, which is simply to let everything come and go. And the active side, which is to actually do something. Which is called non-doing. There's doing, not doing, and non-doing. Doing means to assert yourself. Non-doing means to let everything come and go. Relax. Non-doing is to find the balance between doing and letting go. So if we simply let go, then there's no boundary and there's no way to adjust yourself if you don't have a boundary. We always practice within a boundary. So Zazen, posture, If we don't have the strict boundaries, then we just flow all over the floor.

[18:28]

We have to have some posture to contain and maintain. It's a container for everything. So the strictest posture allows for the most freedom. So the effort to think the thought of Zazen, to keep your posture straight and contained, at the same time allows you to let go. So it's that balance, and it's called flexibility. When you have the balance between effort and passivity, then you have the greatest flexibility.

[19:30]

Because without losing this thickness of the posture, it's totally flexible. What we strive for, our intention, is to be as flexible as possible, as loose as possible, within the confinement of the posture. So, when you're sitting Zazen, letting go of all the tension that's in your body, and at the same time maintaining the tension. Tension is what keeps this. keeps your figure in posture. And tenseness is that energy that's not necessary. It's just not necessary.

[20:33]

So, letting go of that tenseness is what allows us to sit comfortably. But we don't always realize how tense we are. If I go to adjust posture, often, I can't believe how tense and stiff people are, or how they can sit that way. Actually, you don't need to flex your muscles. It's a matter of balance. Balancing. We don't lean over this way, and we don't lean over that way. And we don't lean this way, and we don't lean that way. We just sit up straight. Just straight. And what keeps us there is balance, not muscularity, although that's also involved. But how do you find just the right spot that holds you up straight, so that you can let go of what's not necessary?

[21:44]

This is how we think the thought of Zazen. That's thinking the thought of Zazen. How to sit up straight without leaning to one side or the other. And without tension. So that you're totally flexible. No matter what stage of Zazen. You know, it hurts like crazy. You're always flexible. It's like a puppet. So, like a puppet, if we fit correctly, there's a string attached to the top of our head which goes to the ceiling. Wow! And it holds us up. You've got to pretend that it's holding you up. That's how you stretch your back out. That's the ceiling.

[22:51]

And then everything falls. So, if you think the thought of Zazen and posture, just let yourself hang. Everything will fall into place naturally. So, that's our effort in Zazen. And joy, if we sit that way, even if we have pain, we still have joy. Because you find joy when you find release. This is how we find release. But, you know, joy is not like... well, it can take... it has various properties, but It's kind of like an underground stream that's always there. If you have a steady practice, if your life is practice, then there's that steady stream that is not affected by anything, and it's joyful.

[24:02]

Even in the midst of crisis, you can find it. Because practice gives us some sense of It's like something continuous, which is not dependent on circumstances. And then circumstances ride over that. The undulation of circumstances and the ground of being. So even though we are one with our brings us joy.

[25:06]

We can participate in the disturbance of life without being caught by a sort of trap. So that's joy. It doesn't mean that we just keep turning on the things that we like to make us happy. And happiness, yeah, has nothing, not so much to do with happiness, but... If in all of your difficulty you can still smile authentically, then you have deep joy, which is not affected by circumstances entirely. And then there's calmness, tranquility, and serenity.

[26:08]

Tranquility is like the peaceful ocean. Serenity is like the beautiful sunset. But either way, Suzuki Roshi liked to emphasize calmness of mind. more than anything else. He said, he always referred to Zazen as calmness of mind. So, we say settled self from the self. And allow all of the gross to sink. And allow the mind, the body mind to be calm. Calmness of mind. In any situation. not just calmness of mind in zazen, but, you know, zazen, not so easy always. We're always encountering discomfort called pain, and other discomforts, mental discomfort, emotional discomfort, physical discomfort, and to have a calm mind which is not disturbed by any of those problems

[27:30]

So Zazen is calmness, stillness within activity. Because Zazen itself is great activity as calmness. It's the great activity of calm mind. And in our daily life, in all of our activities, So he was always encouraging us to let go and allow calm mind to arise. I don't think you can make calm mind arise. You simply have to let go. And concentration is the next one. So concentration, we think of meditation as concentration.

[28:36]

There are two kinds of concentration. One kind is one-pointed concentration, and the other is totally wide concentration. But when we think of concentration, we usually think of it as one-pointed, to watch the candle. In early Buddhism, meditation was kathina. It was called And you could watch a candle and watch the flame to get into a kind of samadhi. Or watch the blue spot make a circle on the ground and concentrate on that so that your mind would become one-pointed and you would enter samadhi. Samadhi means being one with. No gap. Samadhi is another Shikantanza is another name for Samadhi. The Samadhi of Zazen is called Shikantanza.

[29:39]

It's not something you enter and leave. Samadhi is our basic nature. Nirvana is our basic nature. But it's always obscured by being caught by activities. Enlightenment is our basic nature. So to mine our basic nature, to experience that, so that we can experience it in all of our daily activities, that is in your daily life. But it's hard in our daily life to see it without zazen.

[30:44]

It's hard for us to get, to allow our basic nature to be, and the freedom, it's hard to allow the freedom of our basic nature to come forth. Suzuki actually talked about our monkey mind. Our mind is the monkey and it's always swinging swinging in the branches and never stands still. So when our monkey mind takes over, that's called our, we call it ego or self-centeredness. When ego or self-centeredness or our monkey, monkey is important, but it needs to be tamed When our small mind, he says, when our small mind gives itself over to big mind, then big mind starts its function. And we can understand how big mind is the true mind, and monkey mind is the acquired mind.

[31:50]

So, Satsang is to give the monkey a rest. so that our true mind, big mind, can come forth and we have some realization. So concentration, in Zazen, would be like looking at a spot on the wall, in a narrow sense. When we investigate the aspects of our posture during Zazen, that's narrow concentration. But there's also wide concentration in which you are concentrated. It's not you are concentrated.

[32:50]

It's that you let go, trying, and just let everything be. When you simply let everything be, that's why we keep our eyes open in Zazen, because we just simply let everything be. We don't say, I see, I hear, I smell, I taste. It's just smelling smells, tasting tastes, seeing sees, but there's no I that does all this. Then we see things as it is. Just as it is. without editorializing. That's allowing big mind to just be as it is. So, big mind and small mind are not two different things. Big mind expresses itself through small mind, but when we cut it off,

[33:56]

big mind, then small mind is just the monkey. So the monkey needs its master, which is big mind, which encompasses everything, includes everything. Small mind, monkey mind, only includes what it likes. So then the last one is equanimity. Equanimity, you know, there's equality and there's difference. Equality is horizontal. Each one of us is the same as every one of us. We're all the same. But vertically, we're all different. When we realize that we're all the same and we're all different, right at that point is the point of balance.

[35:05]

And to maintain the balance point is called equanimity. Because we see the equality of all things and we also see the difference between everything. So when we see in both ways, then a difference is equality, and equality is difference. We say that a mouse is equal to an elephant. Well, the mouse weighs a couple ounces, and the elephant weighs a couple pounds or more. But they're equal, totally equal. They're absolutely different. And difference is the equality, and the equality is the difference. This is equanimity. So, in equanimity, there's something called value, and there's something called virtue.

[36:20]

Value means that Ten million dollars is a greater sum, more valuable sum, than a stone has value. And we invent value. $10,000,000 is not the same value as a stone, but actually $10,000,000 is its virtue and a stone is its virtue. Which means that there is no comparison. A stone is equal to $10,000,000 because When we don't compare them, there's no difference.

[37:28]

The difference comes from discrimination. When there's no discrimination, everything is totally equal. When we relate to each other, we relate to each other on the basis of comparative values. one has all these qualities, this one is pretty dumb and that one is smart, but actually every being has its own virtue which is incomparable. Otherwise we cannot have our... this is how we find our freedom. To realize that each person has their own intrinsic virtue And if we relate to each other on the basis of value, we never find our way. We can only relate to each other on the basis of virtue.

[38:34]

So we treat each person as they are, rather than how we think they should be, or how we can take advantage of them. relate to each other on the basis of value, we cause contention. When we relate to each other on the basis of virtue, we can see Buddha nature in each one. And that's the only way there will ever be peace in the world, is to see the absolute value, virtue, excuse me, of each person, and each thing, and each object. And what happens when we sit fuzz in, is that we let go of comparative values, of our discriminating mind. And without talking to each other, we all find it the same place.

[39:36]

We all let go and we realize that we are all in the same place. We connect at the root. without discriminating. So we treat each other equally. At the same time, realizing all of the differences and getting discouraged with each other. But because we can't help evaluating, at the same time, if we understand If we bring forth Prajna, our wisdom, a non-discriminating wisdom, we can realize that each one of us is the same as the rest of us. Not just an idea, but a reality. When we sit silent, we don't have to talk.

[40:37]

We don't have to... It looks like we'll reach in our own little world, but actually it's just the opposite. We're not just in our own little world, sitting together. We're all realizing our true connection. It's not discriminated by evaluation. So, these are some points of thought that I would say please concentrate on your posture today. And if you have any questions about anything,

[41:41]

Why do you think Suzuki Roshi wanted people to focus on the calm mind? Well, because calm mind is like zazen. That's what he means by calm mind. The mind that is not disturbed by anything. That's the most important thing. The mind that is not disturbed. That cannot be overturned. because we're always dealing with the problem of birth and death. And the problem of birth and death is no matter what problems we have, that's the underlying problem that everybody's dealing with. Everybody is dealing with the same problem. And some of us don't see it as a problem until It's a problem, you know. So we tend to not focus on it so much, but then at some point we have to come to terms with it.

[43:07]

Everybody does it. It's one thing that all of us do. And how do we do that? And what is the meaning of it? So when we live our life with freedom, then we realize the way we live our life on this earth is the way we die. So calm mind means to totally live in this life right now. Just to be one with what we're doing right now. With calmness of mind. Whatever comes up. Whether it's, you know, no matter what happens, we're always in that place. No matter what disturbance comes, we're always in the place of non-disturbance.

[44:09]

That's not easy. But that's why we should thought that. You have all kinds of things disturbing you, but you're not disturbed. Deep down. You're just flowing with life. And nothing can stop you or hinder you or turn you over. You know, maybe you want to do something else, but that's okay. For those of us who don't want to... I don't want to say cultivate. It's not exactly cultivating, you know, it's like... Allowing. Allowing calm mind to be there. Because calm mind is always there. Everything that we need is there, but we are always substituting it for something else. That's a big problem.

[45:11]

We're always substituting. As Banke says, we're always trading in our calm mind for our disturbance. We're trading all our assets for crap. That's what he said. Selling ourselves short. Thinking that the things that are out there are going to make us happy. And we take all our assets and turn them over to our fantasy. So common minds just are natural, that's called the natural order of mind. So what are the true values, right?

[46:17]

That's why we practice. What are the true values? What are the true virtues, rather? Is there a different quality to calmness of mind for that, say, one second that you made reference to earlier, a student asked you, versus the busyness of mind, if we accept that busyness? The mind is always busy. The fantasy is that you think that that one moment is what you're after. Calm mind includes all of the stuff that comes up. Everything that will come up.

[47:20]

Calm mind accepts it all. That's what makes it calm. So the quality of the mind is essentially the same whether the mind is busy or still? If you allow that to be, yes. So, instead of trying to stop the world, you flow with the world, with a calm mind.

[47:49]

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