Often I ask whoever I encounter, what shall I talk about today or tomorrow? And the most common request was pain. I wonder why. The second most request was, what is this no choice mind? I mean, always there's some sort of choice here, etc. So someone suggested it should be no need for change mind. That's okay too, I guess. Oh, Volker doesn't like that. No. He needs to change.

[01:19]

Me too. Okay. So, I think, you know, if you've all been practicing so long, I think you've got the pain thing down, right? No, Schmerz. I should have known. Um... Sounds like a swear word. You mean like cussing? Yeah. So, but maybe I should put the topic in a postural context. Zen is the least intellectually programmed form of Buddhism. And it's... without trying to say that there's a causal connection, one of the results of that is that it's a bodily articulated practice.

[03:02]

And the sense of it is that there's a big emphasis in Zen. Maybe because it... It came into China. One of our good doctors. One of our good doctors. One of our several good doctors. If you need anything, you know, need some, your heart moved or something. No, no. Someone here can do it. Someone here can do it. Isan Dorsey had to have that done to him.

[04:07]

You know that, right? He was in a car accident. They were all drunk and the car rolled over. Isan Dorsey was involved in a car accident and the car overstepped. He's kind of Isan Dorsey's successor, but he doesn't drink as much. But Isan stopped drinking and drugging completely when he started practicing. He liked martinis. Some people around here sort of somewhere behind buildings have special breathing practice. Yeah, with all this pain you need a hit now and then.

[05:09]

Yeah, okay. And I haven't seen anybody with a cigarette and a martini yet. At least not during Sashin. But I have a photograph of her with a cigarette and a... No, I don't. Taken with my iPhone. Um, okay. Anyway, Issan was in this car accident and they all just got up and I don't remember all the details, but anyway, they didn't do much. They didn't have any medical efforts. And then some years later, I don't know how many years later, Issan went to a doctor for some reason.

[06:13]

And the doctor was listening with a stethoscope, you know. And he said, how come your stomach's up here? And his heart had been pushed over and his stomach moved up and he'd just been living that way without, I don't know exactly how bad it was, but he had to have it moved. And then moved his heart over and put his stomach down and... He said Sasen is much better afterwards. No, I didn't say that.

[07:17]

I just made it up. But you know, I was going to tell you before the Shusuf ceremony, one of his answers in the Shusuf ceremony. You know the story, no? I don't know. Someone asked him, why do we save all sentient beings? He said, well, we save them for later. He was great. There are both. Zen, as much as possible, again, I started to say maybe because it happened, came into China to a highly sophisticated literate culture.

[08:20]

Urban culture. So it had to convince very sophisticated people, not people who didn't know much about anything or were in an unurbanized culture. So good for us probably, as a lay monastic center, Zen had to find a way to work within the already developed intelligence of its practitioners. already developed mentality, culture of their practitioners.

[09:23]

Okay. So for that reason, or for some reason, it... It's an emphasized evidence-based practice. So instead of telling you what it's going to be like, you had to find out what it's going to be like. As I mentioned before, Zen, Bill Porter says, Red Pine says that Zen in China produced the best trained and most numerous monks and they kind of took over Buddhism in China.

[10:35]

Yeah, he knows more Chinese history than I do, so he might be right. In any case... people who know what practice is because they've discovered themselves, not because they've been taught it. So, first of all, the posture, we could call it an all-minds posture. Or a non-thinking mind posture. Because, I mean, really, if you just look at the posture, you know, there's hers right there, and yours... It's a...

[11:36]

allows a standing waking mind posture, and the posture of the back and the spine, etc., is similar to lying on your back and sleeping. So the idea is this posture allows non-dreaming deep sleep and dreaming sleep minds to come into and join consciousness. But this joining of minds doesn't happen if there's too much comparative, conceptual, discriminative thinking. So if this integrating process is going to happen, you have to kind of lessen comparative thinking.

[13:02]

And part of the pain in the beginning is simply the ego fighting back. Do you think you're going to bring a non-thinking mind into my territory? Hey, baby, you've got another thought coming. I'll make you suffer. Yeah. You see, this posture doesn't work. It's terrible. It hurts. Get up and think. Yeah. So what's happening in the posture is waking mind and sleeping mind are beginning to mix.

[14:18]

And that's one of the reasons we get up so early. And why morning Zaza is emphasized more than any other time of the day. Because you want to get up and the general rule is, I mean, in a heiji you only have 20 minutes, not 30 minutes. So you can't think about getting up, you just got to get up. You know the story about Sukershi getting up and somebody... Maybe we can extend the Sashin a few days because the talk I wanted to give two days ago... I don't hear anybody saying yes, but... Someone who was... Oh, I know, it was Jane Runk Schneider, I believe.

[15:25]

Sorry, Jane, I'm going to tell the story. And she'd read or knew or something that you're supposed to sleep with your head to the north. So she was Suzuki Roshi's Anja. So she set up his bed in his cabin so that his head was to the north, I think. So his practice was, as soon as he heard the wake-up bell, he just got up, immediately went into the bathroom. And we didn't have any electricity or heat, and we only had kerosene lanterns. So you can imagine what happened.

[16:40]

He got up and wham, right into the kerosene lantern. Kerosene all over the place and So Anja the next night set up the bed the way he was used to. But the idea is you don't lie in bed. No, you just get up. And the idea is you're still somewhat asleep by the time you get to Zazen. And it's also to show you're independent of the sun. The sun does its thing, you do your thing. You're going to get up on your own terms to heck with the sun.

[17:42]

So then, as you develop your sitting posture As I've said numerous times, the modalities of waking and sleeping and dreaming can begin to mix. The boundaries, the usual boundaries between these can begin to lessen or disappear. And non-conscious minds and Freudian unconscious minds Those boundaries, those boundaries or barriers or separations begin to lessen too.

[19:06]

So the associations usually that would only come in dreaming or would come in perhaps lying on a couch talking to Sigmund Who's taking cocaine? No, I'm not. While he's listening to you. No, I don't think he took it with his patients. So... begin to be present in your ordinary daily activity. So you begin to have a wider associative mind field in ordinary daily consciousness than you would if you didn't sit. Now maybe I should speak about these things more and not think you've got it all down already.

[20:13]

Because maybe knowing about the process makes you allow it to happen more. And also you begin to have a distinct experience of the difference between awareness and consciousness. One problem with neurological research these days In general, I mean, these guys are smart scientists and they know consciousness is complex, but they don't really have a direct experience that there's a difference between awareness and consciousness.

[21:30]

So this all-minds posture which again happens through a non-thinking integrative process begins to make you aware of the different modalities of mind. And having noticeable, noticed experiences of awareness, for example, again, makes you, helps you develop a literally bodily feel for awareness,

[22:38]

And can make it more part of your present conscious mind. For example, I mean, the example I always use, if you're walking along with a bunch of packages and you fall down on the ice, which could happen out here, Usually you save yourself. And there's a bunch of complex calculations going on. Like if someone throws you a ball, you're calculating the arch and you know where to put your hand. That happens in awareness. Consciousness isn't fast enough for that.

[23:54]

Consciousness isn't fast enough to figure out, well, I don't want to break the picture I have in this as a Christmas present and better put my elbow down. You usually are okay And awareness silently was present waiting for you to get in trouble. A kind of guardian angel. That's my Schutzengel over there. Okay, and in this way I'm speaking about the postural context. Is when you begin to distinguish and practice the skandhas.

[24:55]

And when you develop an observing mind, but not so much an observer mind. Okay. What did you say? Do you understand? I said you understand, yeah. Oh, they understand. Well, then I don't have to say anything. Because the observer mind is an answer to the question, who is observing? It is not isolated from own being. But if you don't stop and turn it into observance, just a process of observing, that's more separate from own being. So a stillness sitting, this developing through sitting, begins to allow an observing mind

[26:17]

to see the layers of mind, of consciousness and awareness, and discriminative thinking and sensorial attention, etc., And traditionally those layers have been studied through the articulations of the five skandhas. So if you're engaged in this process and noticing, observing, You see that stillness really helps. And the development of stillness is closely related to pain. It's penetrating and finding penetration and patience within pain. that allows stillness to develop.

[28:06]

And allows non-thinking awareness to develop. Yeah. Yeah. And you get the ability to... Because if your knees are hurting, it's only your knees. It's not your neck. Your neck might be hurting too, but that's another... So you get that you can allow the pain to be local. It doesn't spread to the body.

[29:08]

I had a... Oh, I don't know, I'll tell you. Okay. Okay, so that is, since, you know, we don't have another few days. So that is the, what I called... The joining of minds posture. Now, posture also needs some internal maintenance. And by the way, one of the reasons we sit in this posture in addition to it joins minds is And allows us to observe the separation and the joining. And the translation of Vijnana that I prefer is to know things separately together. So this, the posture I'm speaking about now is a posture in which you discover and study and develop the

[30:25]

various aspects of mind, mentality and body. And sensorial, etc. That was too much now, sorry. Can you say it again? Various aspects. Various aspects of mind, mentality and body. But no one heard you. What? So you should say it again. In der du die unterschiedlichen Aspekte von Geist, Mentalität und sensorischen entdeckst, entwickelst, studierst. And that's fun, you know, fun to learn about these things. And begin to feel them as a kind of participatory power.

[31:47]

A much more subtle and complete way of being in the world. and I don't know how to do it otherwise I mean it takes this posture which joins the minds so that you can observe them It doesn't happen when you're walking around. But you also have this kind of curiosity, scientific curiosity and subtlety of noticing that you find this examination satisfying. Okay. Now, this posture also needs some maintenance. Yeah, you go to the body shop. No. That's what a car repair place is called in America, not these places that smell so strong you have to walk around them.

[33:08]

Okay. So this posture doesn't work if your vertebrae are all pushed together. So you've got to work on separating the vertebrae. And it doesn't work very well if your organs are all bunched up. Yeah. And so... And Shuligan what? Okay. And so you want to develop, as I said the other day, this lifting through the spine.

[34:14]

And the spine is the single most important part of your posture. And if you're sitting in a chair too, that's the case. But the problem with sitting in a chair and SESA is it requires musculature maintenance. You have to adjust yourself and hold your posture with your muscles when you're sitting in a chair or sitting sesa. And that involves thinking. Yeah, so the more you can get your the architecture of your body, the structure of your body to support your posture without much musculature maintenance.

[35:24]

Whoever said these things? The more you have a chance to come into stillness, And the stillness and the spine are maybe the two key dynamics. And you really, this really has to happen to you physically. It's not going to happen to you because you think it or want it to happen. And you really have to be patient. Sometimes I think that's why I'm still alive. Because my practice has developed so slowly that I've had to stay alive to try to let it happen.

[36:36]

So it took me, I don't know, about five years of thinking my stomach had released before it actually released. And I thought for about five years that my stomach would have relaxed before it actually did. Seems to be okay down there. And then one day when I was sitting it went... And it became soft and different. More room for all the organs and things. And... And as you open up the spine, you open up your back, and your back is karma-laden.

[37:42]

For some reason, your back and shoulders is where a lot of your personal history is hiding, protecting you. And where the ego is hanging out too. And you notice that when people get massaged, they often have these memories come up because, hey, they're right there in the body. So one of the signs that your practice is developing is a physical pliancy. Yes, I go around the Zendo and I put my hands on people's shoulders. Some people's shoulders are just like hardly there and some people are like two by fours or steel girders.

[39:00]

When I walk around Sendoh and put my hands on the shoulders of people, then there are shoulders that are hardly there. And with other people it's more like steel plates. Okay. So what happens is there's a kind of, at least as far as I, and definitely in my experience, but I think in other people whose practice develops in this Zen tradition. Some things happen very quickly for some reason. But usually it's more incremental and slow. I would say it took, once the process started, I'd already been practicing some years.

[40:02]

And I would say the opening up of my back took Let's say six years. And it started in my lower back, and then I could notice that something was different, and I'd just notice it. Sometimes I'd bring a little attention to it, but just notice it. It moved up in layers through my back, like plywood or something. And as this happens, the chakras begin to open. Now, Zen does not teach the chakras, as Tibetan Buddhism does sometimes, I guess, as a specific system.

[41:13]

And I think for two reasons they don't teach it specifically. One is, if it's going to happen to you, you discover it yourself. And to have the system, you kind of try to make it happen. Zen feels it doesn't have the same power. And also, there's a religious aspect. Zen tries to present itself as a lay teaching. As well as a monk's teaching. But as a lay teaching, you don't want to present the teaching that makes lay people feel left out.

[42:14]

So if you know how to walk on water, you don't do it in front of laymen. or ice you know and there's koans about that so um And this process is a process in which the breath channels, nadis and so forth, start to develop. And not just the simple seven chakras. Now, oh dear. Time waits for no man.

[43:25]

I've heard that. Not even for a sangha. So I'll say two more things and if I say anything else, if I think I should, I'll continue tomorrow. And then after that, for the practice period participants, the elite. And if any of you now want to apply for practice period, you'll be on the waiting list for next year. One is... you want to develop the ability to not breathe with your thorax, with your chest.

[44:26]

So you want to breathe with your hara or your diaphragm. And the diaphragm, when it contracts, it makes space for the lungs and ribs to expand. And then as the diaphragm ceases to contract and moves upward, The process can feel like the air is coming in from below your navel. And you develop that feeling of the air coming in from below your navel. And is making a circle.

[45:38]

An ellipse, an oval. And you develop this image while you're sitting of this oval of breathing. And in a way the chest doesn't now go in and out. And this circle then becomes the basis for developing a kind of subtle breath up the spine. And then they're shooting the spine in order to stopping the, but that may be tomorrow. Anyway, there's a maintenance process of your posture. which then allows another level of observation of your psychology and other things.

[46:49]

And pain is always a friendly partner. I was always... You know, when I first started, I'm very inflexible. Yeah. And it took me a long time to learn to sit. And after my radiation about 10 years ago, I had to learn to sit all over again because I couldn't sit anymore. So I would sit in what I called the half lily because it nearly killed me. Lillies are used in funerals in America.

[47:51]

And I'd get my leg down, I'd push them down, and then I'd sit there, and then after about five minutes they'd pop up. So after, in the beginning, after a five to fifteen minutes I'd put my legs up and sit with my arms around my knees. And Sukhirashi would get up every period and walk around with a stick. And I tried to wait till he walked around with a stick before I lifted my knee. And I always waited until he was already past with the stick until I lifted my knees. So he was very compassionate. When he'd see I was suffering, he'd come around a little earlier. When he was trying to stretch me, he'd come around a little later.

[48:53]

Because I'd put my knees up at people. And I always was aware when it was a doable challenge or an impossible challenge. I remember I was sitting, Sukershi had me sit on the altar with him at Tassajara. The altar was pretty high, you know, like this high. So I was here as a kid and I'm sitting up in front of everybody in this posture, right? So now I feel under pressure not to move because I'm an example. And I remember sitting there once in the middle of a sashin. And Sukhiroshi had left for some reason. And it It didn't feel too good.

[50:11]

And I thought, do I have a lifetime of this ahead of me? And I thought, oh, my Buddha. I mean, oh, my God. And I almost got up and walked out. But you see, I didn't. More on pain tomorrow. more about the pain.

[50:38]

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