That's it. Thank you, Peter. How's the sound? Is that OK? OK. Welcome. Good morning and happy New Year. We all woke up this morning, what a blessing. And it's raining, another blessing. This is the time of year when I have quite a long break between semesters in my work as a community college instructor. And so it's a time of rest for the mind from things like planning lessons and writing lessons and reading and grading countless stacks of essays and thinking about students both individually and collectively.

[01:35]

So it's a really restful time. Still, I take the time to think about kind of what worked. what my training as a teacher was and has been and what worked in the past semester and what I might want to keep or tweak or change in the next semester. And I think that's true here. in our temple, in our practice, that the beginning of the year is a good time to think about what our training is, what our practice is, how it's been going, and how we can dedicate, recommit ourselves to sitting together for another year. Ever since I was a small child, I always liked being in really high places. I liked being at the top of hills or mountains or at the top of a fire tower or the top of a ladder or in a tree or on the roof.

[02:43]

And when I was in college, I had the opportunity to parachute out of a plane to learn to do that. And I was very excited about that. And the training was, I would say, thorough and specific. We learned to jump from various heights of solid boxes to the ground to simulate the impact of what it would be when you would land. bend and roll as you were supposed to. And we learned all about what to do when you jumped out. You were supposed to yell out these numbers and then look up to make sure that the parachute had actually come out. It was on a you know, a kind of static line. You didn't have to pull the chute as a beginner, but you had to look to make sure that it did what it was supposed to, that it was actually there.

[03:45]

And if it didn't, then you had to pull your spare, which was packed and arranged, tied to the front of your body, your chest. And we learned how to steer and we practiced that. And we learned how to, um, navigate the terrain, look at the terrain, look at the landscape. Where we were supposed to land was a large field with flags on all sides, so it would be obvious. But there were problems around the perimeter of the field if you ran into trouble, and so we learned what to do if we met those problems, like the power lines, how to avoid the power lines, and a busy highway with lots of traffic. And beyond the highway on the other side was a forested area, wooded area with lots of trees. So I jumped from the plane and did the shouting and looked up and the parachute was there.

[04:46]

But the chute that was on the front of me somehow had risen up on my body. And I was concerned because I felt like it was choking me. And so I started to push it down, get it away from my throat. And when I did that, I wasted precious seconds floating away from where the target was, where I was supposed to land. So as I looked out over the landscape, I suddenly realized I wasn't gonna land in the field. And I screamed at the top of my lungs something like, where am I gonna land? And then the very next thing that happened was I returned to the training and I remembered the training and I looked out over the landscape and I knew I could avoid the power lines. I knew I didn't want to land on the highway and I thought my best bet for my own safety would be to land in the wooded area, land in a tree.

[05:57]

So I steered towards the forest and I got myself down close enough so that I could land in the woods. And the training was, Think light, think small, think agile, keep your legs together, keep your arms close to your body, but lower your head and cover your face. So I did all that and I came right down into the woods and the shoot, you know, hit the trees and I landed safely in the trees. Sometimes our training has a way of coming back to us, becomes obvious to us in situations in which we can rely on it. And I was very grateful for the training that I had had.

[07:00]

And I think it's the same way here that we have the opportunity in the beginning of the year to think about our training and to ask ourselves, what is it? What is Zen practice? What is Zen training? Is Zen practice a training? And if it is, what is it training us for? Or what is it training us to do? So let's see what Suzuki Roshi has to say about that. I found this wonderful, lecture online that Suzuki Roshi gave on September 14th in 1969. And it just starts right in with this little story that he tells about a little girl, a little church school girl that he met. And it doesn't say how that happened, whether Suzuki Roshi went to church or the church came to Suzuki Roshi, but here goes. Sunday school. A Sunday school girl saw me in sitting and she said, I can do that.

[08:05]

And she crossed her legs like this, in Suzuki Roshi gestures, and then said, and what? And what? She sit like this and said, and what? I was very much interested in her question because many of you have the same question. You come to Zen Center every day to practice Zen and you ask me, and what? And what? I want to explain this point a little. I cannot. I don't think I can explain it fully because it's not something to be or to ask or to answer. You should know by yourself. We, why we sit in some formal position is through your body. You should experience something. You know, by doing formal sitting, something you yourself experience, not by mind, by teaching, but by physical practice. So this seems like Suzuki Roshi's first important point that he always points toward is that this is a physical practice, that we're not, it doesn't matter if we're intellectuals or not, that it's very important to practice physically with the body and the mind.

[09:24]

But to be able to sit in some form and to attain some state of mind is not perfect study. After you have full experience of body and mind, you should be able to express it in some other way too. That happens quite naturally. You don't stick to some formal position anymore, but you can express the same feelings, some state of mind, or you can convey your mind to others by the same way. So I think, you know, here in our practice, we have so many practice positions, small and large and in between, and all of these practice positions give us the opportunity to bring the practice of Zazen into activity. So our practice is not just about meditation, though meditation may be at the center. Zazen may be the center of our practice, but we bring that spirit of Zazen into activity.

[10:26]

And even though you do not sit in some certain form, for instance, in a chair or standing position or in working or in speaking, you can, you will have the same state of mind, state of mind in which you do not stick to anything. So I like that phrase, you do not stick to anything. We hear the phrase letting go, but somehow the image of not sticking to anything, I like. It came to me recently when I was I was making fried rice and with fried rice, you have to keep all the ingredients moving all the time. At home, I have a big wok that I do it in and a big spatula and you have to keep everything moving lightly. You have to be serious about it and pay attention. but you have to have a very light movement with your arm to keep all the ingredients moving. If you leave it, it'll stick and it'll burn and it won't be so good.

[11:34]

So I like this image, the state of mind in which you do not stick to anything. That is what you study through our practice. That is what you will, you know, that is the purpose of practice. So he doesn't say it, but that takes a long time for us to, a lot of practice, how to not stick to anything because we like to stick to all of our ideas and our feelings and our notions about things. That is what you will know. That is the purpose of practice. Um, There's a part where he says, after you have the full experience of mind and body, you should be able to express it in some other way, too. That happens quite naturally. I think that happens quite naturally means like when we get out of the way. You know, we all have that experience when we get out of the way of sticking to something, then things work pretty well.

[12:44]

It reminds me of a story from a long time ago. When I was quite young, I practiced a certain kind of basket making, and I had the opportunity to take a class with this elder Native American basket maker up in Yolo County, and she'd been making baskets all her life. And I was pretty accomplished with my hands by then, but she said, You know, it's really important to have a plan and it's really important to think through what you're going to do when you make this basket. And it's really important to pay attention and you should train yourself in all these ways. But at some point, the basket has a life of its own and it's going to take over. And what you think you're going to make might not really be what comes out. And so you need to be aware of that so that you can let that spirit of the basket work.

[13:52]

And I think that's kind of what Suzuki Roshi is saying is when we get out of the way, things happen quite naturally. Through practice, we get rid of, for long, long practice, we get rid of our ego by training. Training means like, actually to train in Chinese or Japanese means neru, N-E-R-U. Neru is to refine silk. We wash it many times so that it can be white enough and soft enough to weave. That is neru. to refine the material so we can be the material. This is our training to refine the material, to refine ourselves. I looked up that word Nehru and some other synonyms are to knead, like kneading bread, to work over and to polish.

[14:59]

So those are all kind of nice images of what we're doing. Training is something like this, you know. When you're young and when you have a lot of ego, when you have a lot of desires, evil desires, so to say, even though you know evil desire, if you know if you rub it and wash it, you will be quite soft, like pure white silk. Even though you have various desires and too much strength, if you temper it enough, you will be strong. This is, you know, how we train ourselves. So that word or that phrase, if you temper it, I think of tempering something as, um, kind of like improving its consistency or more like building resiliency in a substance by adding other things, particular things to it.

[16:04]

And really that's what our practice is doing. It's adding resiliency to what we already have through all of the activities that we do here, through sitting zazen. Of course, at the center of our practice is zazen. And so not sticking to anything in Zazen is returning to breath and posture. We do that over and over again. That's our Zazen instruction. And that's how we train ourselves. When the mind and the body is active, when the mind and the body are doing what they do, We remind ourselves, we remember to come back to breath and posture, and that's our training. That's it.

[17:05]

But I think it's really hard to remember to come back to breath and posture. It takes a long time for us to practice remembering to come back, to return. to our upright position. And I like to think of that process of remembering or coming back as mindfulness. The problem kind of that I have with that word mindfulness is that it's a noun and I think of it as an action or as a, yeah, as an action, as a verb. to remember to come back to breath and posture. That's a mindful moment. It's not the breath and posture that's the mindful part. At least that's not how I see it in my limited experience.

[18:09]

But the action of returning to breath and posture is a mindful moment. And we may lose it. And then we return again. And that's what our training is. It's a kind of experiential approach to our lives, according to Suzuki Roshi. And I want to read you something else that he says in his book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. I'm reading towards the very end of the book. It's called Experience, Not Philosophy. Although there are many people in this country who are interested in Buddhism, few of them are interested in its pure form. Most of them are interested in studying the teaching or the philosophy of Buddhism.

[19:12]

Comparing it to other religions, they appreciate how satisfying Buddhism is intellectually. But whether Buddhism is philosophically deep or good or perfect is not the point. To keep our practice in its pure form is our purpose. To practice zazen with a group is the most important thing for Buddhism and for us because this practice is the original way of life. Without knowing the origin of things, we cannot appreciate the result of our life's effort. Our effort must have some meaning. To find the meaning of our effort is to find the original source of our effort. We should not be concerned about the result of our effort before we know its origin. If the origin is not clear and pure, our effort will not be pure and the result will not satisfy us. When we resume our original nature and incessantly make our effort from this base, we will appreciate the result of our effort moment after moment, day after day, year after year.

[20:18]

This is how we should appreciate our life. Those who are attached only to the result of their effort will not have any chance to appreciate it because the result will never come. But if moment by moment your effort arises from its pure origin, all you do will be good and you'll be satisfied with whatever you do. Zazen practice is the practice in which we resume our pure way of life. I think Sojin Roshi tells us often that zazen includes all of life, not just meditation. So zazen practice is the practice in which we resume our pure way of life, beyond any gaining idea and beyond fame and profit. By practice, we just keep our original nature as it is. There's no need to intellectualize about what our pure original nature is because it's beyond our intellectual understanding. And there's no need to appreciate it because it's beyond our appreciation.

[21:22]

So there's some mystery there about not sticking to anything. And so just to sit without any idea of gain and with the purest intention to remain as quiet as our original nature, that is our practice. So his emphasis is on experience. We have many positions here in our center and we rotate our positions so as not to get stuck on any one position, so as not to be territorial about any position, so as not to think it's my job or my position.

[22:26]

All of the positions are designed in that way. It's easy for us to see as we practice together in the various positions, our likes and our dislikes come out. Probably any one of us could name a few likes or dislikes that we have here around the temple. Things like, I don't like to chant, or I don't like to chant in Japanese, or the chants are too long, or the chants are too slow, or I wish we didn't have to chant in English, or what else? I don't like the size of the cups on the tea table because they're so small and I need more coffee than they hold. Or what else?

[23:31]

I don't like the chance in Japanese. I don't like the service. I don't like to bow. I mean, it's endless, right? I don't like not liking. That's a good one. So. What do we do with that? Well, we do the same thing that we do in Zazen. We come back to breath and posture. We have that opportunity. We don't follow our thoughts. When we fall down, we stand back up again. We have the opportunity after we practice this way for a long, long time to do the same thing outside the gate, right? We have lots of likes and dislikes outside the gate. And it occurs to us to come back to breath and posture.

[24:35]

It's not that we shouldn't think about things, but just doing that for one moment can create a gap, a stop, a kind of still moment that can be very powerful and can uncover any number of possibilities. And so we begin to see that at work in our lives, and it's part of the training. A course, along the way as we practice, we make a lot of mistakes. And I like to think of that as part of the training or I like to think that, I guess because I work as a teacher, mistakes seem to me to be the stuff of life or the stuff of learning or very important. As personalities, we may not like making mistakes, but

[25:37]

Mistakes can show us where we are. They can show us where the mind is. They can show us where the body is. They can show us what we see and what we don't see. You know, I practice on Monday mornings as the Doan, and I can remember one morning I rang an extra bell. And at the end of service, Sojin came to me to say that I had sounded one more bell than was necessary. And I said, oh, the minute I rang it, I knew it was wrong. And he said, oh, that's really good. And I said, what do you mean that's really good? And he said, the most important thing is to recognize our mistake. And I found that really encouraging, right? The most important thing is to recognize our mistake. I think, you know, culturally or as personalities, we put a lot of focus on the mistake itself, but really our practice is about righting ourselves.

[26:47]

You know, we fall down, we fall off the Zafu, we just get back on. We make a mistake, we just come back. We're training ourselves for that upright position in our life. Years ago when I did practice basket making, there was a particular kind of basket making that I taught. And there was a woman who came to take a class. She was middle-aged and she had tried many different crafts and she wanted to learn basket making and had never found someone close by her home. So she was really excited about taking this class and she was so diligent and put so much effort into the first project and had a wonderful plan and a great sense of what she wanted to do.

[27:49]

Kind of like beginner's mind, I guess you could say. The first basket that she made was almost perfect. It was just beautiful. And I was kind of worried about that. I didn't tell her that, but I knew that she wouldn't be able to repeat that. As a matter of fact, I used to bring a lot of my failed baskets to classes, the ones that had a lot of mistakes in them. And people would say, why do you bring these? And I said, because I want you to see that no one is just good at basket making out of the blue. Like it takes a long, long time to learn to make good baskets consistently and you're going to throw out a lot before you ever, you know, keep one. And I knew she wouldn't be able to repeat it, not because she wasn't diligent, but because, you know, when we have that kind of immediate success, we kind of can relax or we don't have the experience to know what might go wrong.

[29:00]

And many things can go wrong when you're making a basket. So I knew that she wouldn't be able to repeat it. And I encouraged her and worked with her, but her second basket was not so good. And the third basket was not so good. And she got very discouraged and she stuck with it for a while, but she stopped making baskets. And I think when I think about our practice, I think, you know, when Suzuki Roshi said it's important to practice in sangha, it's because we have one another. as support, as encouragement, as inspiration. So when we may be in some situation when things aren't working, we have many people we can go to. We have our teachers and dokusan and we have practice discussion and we have Dharma friends.

[30:03]

And even if we don't want to talk, we can simply witness the people around us. And it's always inspiring in that way, encouraging in that way. I remember a long, long time ago when I first started sitting, maybe a few years into it, I had some physical problem. I don't remember what it was, but I went to Ron Nestor, who was one of the practice leaders, and talked about it. And I remember, I don't really remember much about it, but I just remember him saying, How many years have you been sitting?" And I said how many years I'd been sitting. He says, oh yeah, I kind of remember that happening around that time. And just that was so encouraging. You know, just this effort to encourage one another to stick with it. Our sangha is really a great blessing in that way. We don't talk a lot about the benefits of our training because we're really instructed not to seek after gaining mind and we say that we don't.

[31:25]

We don't sit in order to get something. We don't sit for the benefits that it may bring us. But of course there are benefits. And those benefits also encourage us and inspire us. And I think, for example, when I first started sitting, I was not a parent at that time, and I certainly didn't sit in order to be a better parent. But when I became a parent, it was shocking to me, actually, that this training really was great practice for being a parent. And I can say that same thing about as my parents aged and as they both died in those years leading up to their deaths, this practice was of great benefit.

[32:26]

And I remember in particular certain teachings or phrases that Sojin Roshi would say along the way, like, do what's right in front of you. and do the very next thing. I've heard him say those things over and over again, would come to me, you know, would be available to me when I was, for example, going back and forth and trying to help a parent who was sick. So there's a great benefits probably each of us can think of and talk about something in our life that's happened and practice has been a great benefit to that. We also have Sangha members who have met with terrible illnesses and diseases and have met with their eventual deaths.

[33:35]

And we've been able to witness how their practices have really led them through the situations that they're walking through. And that's a great inspiration to all of us and a great benefit to our own practice and encouragement to continue to practice the tools and the ways that we learn to not stick to anything as we age together. And then we see right here in the Zendo and around the property and in the kitchen ways, benefits to our practice in the ways that we work with one another, the way that we're able to harmonize with one another. Here in the Zendo when we chant, sometimes the harmonizing of body and mind in our Sangha and the Doan and the Kokyo and the Mikugyo and all of the chanters is quite wonderful.

[34:49]

And sometimes it's not, but when it's not, we can see that. Last month was Rohatsu, and on the last day of Rohatsu, I was the head cook and I had decided I would plan to cook our traditional Japanese breakfast, brown rice cereal miso soup and hijiki with carrots. I hadn't cooked that in a long time. And it's not that it's a difficult breakfast, but there are a lot of moving parts. All three bowls are hot dishes, so it takes some planning and organizing with the stove and the oven. And I asked Hozon if he would be willing to be put in the kitchen because I wanted somebody who knew the menu, had done the menu, and he said, sure. So, Andrea Henderson and Hozon and I were in the kitchen together, and we were cooking for 40.

[35:51]

I told them that I was going to make the coffee and do the tea table and cook the cereal. We had, I think, five pots, so that was a big job. And I told Alan that I wanted him to be in charge of the miso soup. I had made the stock the night before, but I gave him all the ingredients and the recipe, and we had a workstation set up. And I told Andrea that she would be his assistant, and together they would make the soup. And then when that was finished, they would put it in the pots and put it in the oven. By then, I would be working on the hijiki and the carrots. Alan would come and help with that. I wanted him to flavor that dish. And Andrea would work on the lunch ingredients and work on the salad greens. So we went through all the instructions and then I said to Alan, you're in charge of the soup.

[36:56]

And it was this wonderful feeling of trust and faith and knowing that the job would get done and I didn't have to interfere. And the two of them worked and I worked and it was very quiet because we had all the instructions set out ahead of time. And it was kind of like, for me, like we were skating around the kitchen, you know, on ice skates around each other, just gliding around. And nobody had to say anything like, one person would see there were dishes and would do the dishes and then go back to their task. And then suddenly Alan said, okay, I want you to taste this, you know, so there was this checking in. So it was relational as, as our practice is. And, um, Then we went on and did the other ingredients. And at the end, I think we had a little check-in when we bowed out. And Alan said, you know, I really liked being in charge of the soup and not having to watch over the whole breakfast.

[38:05]

And I felt exactly the same way. It was great to hand it off. And that was my job, to oversee the meal. And Andrea was right there doing all of the tasks along with Alan, and it was just a kind of harmonious time as we we all have experienced from time to time. It made me think of when I was young, sometimes my mother would give me jobs to do, chores or tasks, and I would ask her, how do you want me to do it? And she would say, do it any way you want. And I would think, okay, great. And I would start to do something and then she would say, well, that isn't the way I wanted you to do it. And that's not satisfying, you know? I mean, it's okay to say, do it any way you want to, as long as you are willing to then hand it off and do that.

[39:11]

And if you're not, then it's not fair, right? Because it brings, I don't know, for me, I didn't feel confident and I didn't feel, um, uh, yeah, I guess that's it. I didn't feel confident. So, um, so I think I want to end by saying that, um, I think the word training gets a kind of bad rap, like they're, connotations connected to training, like, you know, that it's stern and strict and disciplinary. And I don't think of it that way. And I think Suzuki Roshi is saying through the training, there's a spirit of practice that comes out and that it's our spirit of practice that's actually the most important thing.

[40:19]

And through that spirit of practice, we can learn to stop sticking, not stick to things, practice not sticking to things. remember to come back to practicing, not sticking to things. When I was just starting this practice, I had a practice discussion with our Dharma sister, Maile Scott, who's no longer alive. And I said to her, you know, there's only one thing that I'm kind of worried about in this practice, and that's that I'm not really a group person. Like, I've never really been so group oriented. And this seems like such a group practice. And she kind of paused and she looked at me and she said, well, your resting spot might be solitary. And that was the phrase she used, resting spot. Your resting spot may be solitary, but there's no reason at all why you can't, with practice, learn to find your comfort

[41:28]

in any situation in which you find yourself. And I found those words so encouraging. I mean, I've thought of them so often over the years. And I think she was pointing actually to the very same thing that Suzuki Roshi is saying, is like, stop sticking to this idea that you have about yourself. And when you do that, you can find your comfort. So if I'm not mistaken, I think we have 10 or 12 minutes, 10 minutes. Okay. So I'd like to stop. And Sojin, is there something you'd like to say about our training? You want to start at the top of the list or the bottom of the list? That's what we have to, that's our practice.

[43:05]

It's constant practice. It's a practice of recollection. Continuously. And it's like Sudhir Rishi, you know what he said, everything is falling out of balance continuously and regaining its balance. I thought of that as kitchen samadhi. There is no self in that whole activity. It's all selfless activity. It's doing the work and you're all participating in something that nobody is the leader. Everybody is leading and everybody is following.

[44:07]

It's also fun when it's like that. Yeah. Thank you. I like that word recollection. Yeah. Thank you. Hozon, do you have something you'd like to say about training? not sticking to things. For some reason, the image that came up is, you know, we talk about the six cleaning skandhas that are form, feeling, perception, formation, that make what we call ourself. But I was thinking just visually of the stickiness And they want to kind of mesh together.

[45:29]

And that's just an illusion, of course, but it's a very powerful one. And it makes it seem as if it's hard to get unstuck because the nature of things is to stick. But really, that's just an idea. Thank you. Thank you. Other comments? Charles? How did you get down from the tree?

[46:33]

Well, that was kind of embarrassing. You know, the chute was stuck in the tree, right? So yeah, somebody had to come and undo me. I think I could swing because of the, you know, swing over to a trunk. In other words, I didn't hit a trunk, I came down. The chute did what it just does, right? So it got caught up and I swung over to a trunk and somebody came and unfastened me and I climbed down the tree. Peter. Yeah. Just keeping everything moving. There's a lot of heat. And you just keep everything moving, even though there's a lot of heat. You keep it all balanced and flowing. And that seems like a great metaphor for our practice.

[47:36]

Less easy. Yeah. And kind of counter to what we often think of doing, where we could just hunker down, right? Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Anybody else? Yeah, Sue. Yeah, yeah.

[48:46]

It takes a while for that to happen. Or it did for me. There's a way of separating the practice from the rest of life. It's a wonderful moment when we realize that we can carry it right out there with us, right? I mean, as a teacher, I often feel that, you know, I'm giving some form of Zazen instruction in the classroom without ever talking about Zen. And that's a good feeling. What do you say? Oh, maybe we can talk about it out there later. I think we're running out of time. Maybe one, Andrea. Likewise. Sounds pretty good to me.

[50:04]

Yeah, don't stop teaching. I'd love to be in your class. Likewise. Thank you. What? Oh no, Linda, hi. Oh, come on. I don't believe you for a second. Yeah, get to it. opposition to each other.

[51:31]

And so that's a sticky point, that's very important. But that's our misconception, right? Well, I'm just saying, that's one that... I say formless emptiness and emptiness is form because that's a deeply inspiring thing. However, it keeps on actually being experienced as if they're It can be our new mantra when we see each other. That's good. Thank you. I think it's time. Thank you all very much. Enjoy your weekend.

[52:21]