I'd like to remind everyone to please turn off some notes. Thank you. Thank you.

[10:52]

Good morning. Is the mic on? A little bit of sounds, a little bit of feedback. Here? Yeah. Oh, it's feedback a little bit, high frequency. I think maybe the sound somehow is resonating with the instrument. Welcome. My name is Yogetsu Akasaka. I am from Japan. And I'm here for having a live concert and workshops. And been staying here for about a week already. And today I'm going to have a down talk and workshop.

[12:26]

I'd like to talk about my life path and some suggestions for new way of life with Zen practice. So I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. Raised in a general family. And when I was in high school, my father became a sort of Zen Buddhist monk. It was not quite normal in terms of becoming a Buddhist monk and priest. It's because in Japan, Buddhist priests were usually succeeded. by generation to generation.

[13:35]

So if you go to monasteries, 80 to 90% of Buddhist monks, they were born and raised in a temple family. So in my case, it was quite rare that my father became a monk because I was not born and raised in a temple. But because of that, I was born and raised in a normal family, but because of my father, I decided to follow my father's step. Although, when I decided to become a Buddhist monk, I was totally in my own life path, which was being a musician.

[14:41]

And my dream was becoming a successful musician, traveling around the world playing music. But at the same time, I was very interested in spirituality. Very interested in investigating what's the meaning of life. What is life and death? What's the best option? for my life? And what's the ideal goal for my life? And I found myself peaceful mind.

[15:51]

In Buddhism we say Bodhisattva's mind. This is ideal. This is a goal I need to be. But at the same time, I wanted to be really successful for my life in terms of what I was doing, which was music. So I was wondering always how I could integrate those two. But my priority at the time was doing music.

[16:56]

But in the meantime, I decided myself, following my father's footsteps, going to be opening my new path, new life path. So I decided myself to become a Buddhist monk when I was 30. And I became a Buddhist monk three years later, which was way earlier than I expected. And I went to a monastery ordained by Zen master, Koshu Itabashi, who was a former head priest of Sojiji.

[18:12]

Monastery of Soto Zen Buddhism. And practiced at his monastery for two years and a half. With many cats. And our monastery was called as a cat temple. And one of his teachings was always like, leave like cats. live like cats. What does that mean? What he was saying, he passed away about three years ago. His message was always like, cats, they always find some place. When it's hot, they always find something somewhere cool. And when it's cold,

[19:13]

They're always trying to find someone really warm and never complaining. So in Zen practice, he was also saying, it's hot when it's hot and it's colder when it's cold. Just be with it. And also, he was saying, being as you are, and one breath, next breath is a way to experience your life. everyone is looking for the purpose of life and thinking about it.

[20:29]

And he was saying, I never get the answer as long as I keep thinking about it. Because life is always like this breath and another breath So these teachings really influenced me a lot. Especially to be as you are. In a monastic life, we do the same things all together. There is no opportunity to show yourself.

[21:35]

Because monastic lives are supposed to be kind of like seizing your ego, egoistic mind, through the practices which are supposed to be done mindfully. So always trying to be in the present moment while you're doing anything. Cooking, cleaning, gardening, whatever it is, you always need to be with it. And forget about your idea, your small ideas. just follow the rules it really sounds like kind of forcing ourselves put it in a box but it's opposite

[22:55]

If you live with really regular practice, always every day, wake up at the same time, sleep at the same time, eat at the same time, work at the same time. If you live with that, you don't really need to think about anything. You always can be really in the present moment. And then you, yourself, naturally comes up. And my teacher was always saying, hey, Zen practice is all about getting rid of your small idea and small egos. Keep getting rid of it. But in the end, something will arise.

[24:01]

which is going to be the true essence of yourself. So this teaching has been really influencing me in a way that how I can live with my passion, with my curiosity. Be as you are is a kind of tricky word because it sounds like you can just behave free as you like. maybe mistakenly understood, like, hey, this is me, so I can do anything that I want.

[25:17]

But actually, when I say my true self, your true self, in a Buddhist context, we call it as Buddha nature. as we really clarify our mind about Buddha nature, which is ourself with full of compassion will arise. So live with it will be such a way joyful. peaceful, comfortable mind, and of course feeling a little bit of excitement to explore your new life. And if you can live with your passion and curiosity, which I believe is our strong drive to explore

[26:45]

our own life path. And Zen practice is basically based on the practices which is nothing special. Our main practice is sitting meditation, cleaning, cooking, gardening, through those practices we will find peaceful mind Bodhisattva mind leading to enlightenment what a beautiful thing ultimately will be brought by nothing special.

[27:54]

Something pretty normal or even something what most people don't want to do. Cleaning. Cleaning. How much people can believe cleaning is the way? And especially bathroom, toilet. I had some public speech at the International Wellness Conference in Europe. All the speakers are talking about health and how we can have the ultimate healthy life. Through meditation, of course, also like doing breath work, which I do also, taking the ice bath with the merit of taking the ice bath, this kind of stuff. And I said, hey, clean the toilet first.

[28:58]

And everyone laughed about it. But I also shared some information that in a Zen monastery in Japan, we have a Utsusamomyo in Japanese, which is simply saying, the god of toilet. And everyone laughed about it as well. So it's really nice to know that it's something. You can find something really precious. which everybody else thinks as is not. In my case, in my life path, I chose my life to be different from others.

[30:05]

I didn't choose to get a job after graduating university. I had some periods of time with some depression, with no hope for my future. No energy to think about anything. Losing my passion for music, which was my biggest passion in Kyrowski. And just imagine when you lose your curiosity and passion for something you had the most. Life seemed to be very empty. Then I started seeking my life. How can I get out of this situation? I started reading book, so many books about life, psychology, spirituality,

[31:17]

how to make money also. And then I found myself, okay, following my passion, curiosity, just pursuing that and following that, just living with that life path, my own life path would be the best way to be happy, to have the most content life for myself. I was not 100% sure, but there was the only thing I could believe myself. It was of course very challenging. Every other classmate had a job, me not. Instead of that, I went to a mixed martial arts gym every day.

[32:24]

And at the time, my passion was doing martial art. I started from karate and kickboxing and ended up MMA fighting, kind of dreaming of becoming a professional martial artist. And after some fights, after some competition, I got some injury and just kind of gradually going away from doing martial arts and started searching my, seeking my life again and joining some course to investigate my deeply myself. And finally I find myself, oh, I wanted to become a musician. That was my biggest dream. I was totally forgetting about it, even try not to see it, because, you know, there was a huge fear with it.

[33:27]

If I try it, and if I fail it, where is it going to be my life? Music is my favorite thing, my biggest passion. And if I lose it, I don't want to I don't want to be like that. So that was my hidden belief. That was really blocking myself to go that way. And then I quit my job at the time. I went for traveling. I first went to Australia, beatboxing on the street, making money out of people on the street. that was my really first challenge to be a full-time musician and I also went to New York and came back and forth in Japan. Then he was still on the way to become more successful musician or whatever.

[34:40]

My father told me, are you seriously going to succeed me in the future? And I said, yes. And he said, if you're going to, it's better to go to monastery as soon as possible, as early as possible. It's because monastic period in Japan is definitely the younger the better because sometimes summer it's really hot, winter it's really cold and mostly our practices were physical work shoveling snow in winter time which is really hot and weeding summertime whole day which is also really hot

[35:41]

And of course remembering all the sutras and practices, all the rituals, ways, it's definitely better to be younger. And also my father said, just go to monastery and practice for years and you can come back and you can do whatever you want again. That sounded kind of makes sense to me. So I went to monastery much earlier than I expected, which was nine years ago, and practiced with the Zen master, Koshiro Itabashi, and had some beautiful moments during my practice. So as I said, nothing is special.

[36:45]

I had some really beautiful moment and experience. I was doing nothing special. So this experience really influenced me a lot. In a way, this teaching and practice is really real. I had some really beautiful moment. It was kind of sunset time. I was doing nothing special. I was just pushing a cart with it full of smelly garbage. And then after dumping the garbage in a place, Somehow I just start feeling really blissful feeling, full of appreciation.

[37:52]

And you start feeling, wow, how I am so grateful to be here with my teacher and practice here every day with this regular practice. It was just so beautiful moment. It was a really beautiful time, actually. It was kind of sunset. So that also helped me, but at the same time, I was just pushing a cart full of garbage. It's nothing special, even worse than normal, because it's smelly garbage. And with that experience, my curiosity and my passion was how I could apply this experience to everyone.

[39:09]

With my passion and curiosity. So after years of practicing the monastery, I lived back in Tokyo where I was born always. And I started music again, combining singing mantras and sutras on top of my live music, which is spontaneously created music. And people started saying, oh, your music is very meditative. I can meditate with the music and I can clean my room with the music. I can cook with the music. I can practice yoga with the music. Then, oh, this music might help people in a way.

[40:14]

Then I'm more shifting to guiding people to meditate with music, especially for those who struggling sitting meditation in silence. I didn't have any idea that people can meditate with music, to be honest, because meditation always, you know, we do meditation in silence. But for some people, if there is something that you can really focus, it helps a lot. And then also, I started guiding people's breath work. So as I said, breath is also the way that we feel our life, that we are alive.

[41:14]

People talk about health. People talk about food. Talk about what they drink. Only a few people talk about how we breathe. If we stop drinking water, how long we could survive? If we stop eating, how long we could survive? A few days at least, a few weeks, probably. But if we stop breathing, how long we could survive? So breathing is something we are consciously doing all the time and not paying attention to so much. But as my master, my teacher, I was always saying this breath, one breath, another breath.

[42:26]

This is how we feel our own lives. So this is also breath work. In my perspective, it's very rooted Zen practice in a way. You have to be waiting in this present moment and fully feeling, and we do the breath retention after the breath work. And through the breath retention, while you're holding your breath, you're facing fear. Because when we cannot breathe, we're going to face a life-threatening moment. This is real. And start facing and feeling your fear. And this is a practice how you deal with it. The moment when you start feeling the fear and anxiety, you can relax your body.

[43:35]

While your body unconsciously tries to tense your body, your body can intentionally try to relax your body. This is actually a very good practice in a daily life. When you start feeling some emotional reaction, you can notice your body is having some tension at some moment. And the moment when you notice it, you just relax your body and let it go. So starting from breath work, and I guide meditation with voice. This is also way you can be fully into the moment.

[44:43]

So in the Zen monastery we do morning service every day, every morning, evening service. It's a service with chanting. And when we chant, we were kind of just chanting. just doing it without thinking anything else. So teachers, our teachers used to say, we remember sutra, but not really with our thinking mind, left side memory, but your mouth. Remember. We remember how it moves. So without thinking, if you chant the same sutra every single day, It doesn't really come from memory, but it comes from your automatic movement of your mouth.

[45:49]

So everything is going to be very automatic without any thinking. And then, when it happens, I noticed that just actually making voice and I'm with that frequency and this experience is really powerful because as long as you be with this just this phenomenon I was feeling a very clear mind feeling really I could purify myself. And also when I was creating my own music with my vocal sounds, I was feeling the same. So my idea was I could apply this experience to everyone.

[47:02]

So doing the breath work first, then start meditating. with a little starting from really subtle hum. And then focusing on the vibration. And everyone's feedback was just amazing. Everyone seems to have some really deep meditative experience even if they were not practicing even medication. And some people really had some really healing experience, deep healing experience. Tears were dropping with no reason. Of course, there should be some reason, but for them, I don't know the reason why I was crying, but some emotional purification was happening in a way.

[48:09]

find myself, oh this is the way I can apply through my passion into practice for people to have less suffering. Buddhism is about how we can live with less suffering, which is how we can find our own suffering There are sufferings we cannot really avoid as a fundamental teaching of Buddhism. But in most cases, we are creating our own suffering with our mind, with our own belief. Creating our own reality from our belief. So my mission is how

[49:14]

I can share this experience with people with more accessible way, with some nothing special way, breath, voice. And I also guide people to move their body to meditate, so it's a moving meditation. With the music and moving meditation, people call it as a dance, some people call it as an ecstatic dance. It's actually a movement, a meditative experience with movement, which we can apply to our daily life as well without music, even without music. because we are moving all the time.

[50:16]

And breath, voice, movement, those activities are most primal actions we've been doing since we were born. What babies do just after they're born? They start breathing first, then start crying with the voice, and then they move. That's how they experience themselves, that they are there. They cannot even see anything. So this is the practice. or experience that I've been sharing around the world. And I'm going to have this workshop this afternoon.

[51:25]

Some spaces are still available, so you can check out the reception for signing in. So in the end, I'd like to suggest for a way of living from my experience, which is Ikigai and Zen. And I called my project. as Ikigai Zen Journey, which I think is becoming more important with the new period of time is coming with technology, which probably

[52:38]

making a lot of people to lose their identity. But which is also going to be a big chance to investigate ourselves. With the new technology that we call AI, people need to be experiencing something that makes us really alive rather than thinking about something. Working for something with thinking mind. People rather experience what life is

[53:41]

And Ikigai, your passion, your favorite thing to do, also makes you feel alive. It will be unique. Everyone is different. So everyone can find their own Ikigai, which is coming from your passion and curiosity. which are the strongest drive for your life. And then practice. Cleaning is how you manage your own space and how you experience everything connected, your inner side and outer side. It's so obvious.

[54:51]

The result is so obvious. In your space, you feel fresh. Cooking, it's so obvious. If you cook something good and serve others, they will be happy. It's a virtue that you can cook and serve others. So Zen practice. this daily life housework, which people call, and a passionate curiosity. And I believe these elements are going to be essential for living a life

[55:52]

with a full of content and feeling yourself as you are. So I hope some of you would experience this at my workshop this afternoon. Thank you so much for joining my Dham Talk. And this is the end of my talk.

[57:00]

He is not my heart, but no wordless. I am God, because he said it now. The devil is not my heart, but it's not so easy. I am my heart, because this is my heart now. But when I am the day, he is so my heart, let us. I am God, because I am my heart, because this is my heart now. So just relax. and you can close your eyes to just feel the music itself try feeling your body feel the sensation whatever you feel inside of your body and notes it

[58:25]

Thank you. Thank you. Satsang with Mooji Satsang with Mooji Satsang with Mooji Shiki-vu-i-ku-ku-fu-i-shiki-shiki-sok-ze-ku-ku-sok-ze-shiki-ju-sou-nyo-shiki-yoku-bu-nyo-ze-shari-si-ze-shoku-so-fu-shoku-me-tsu-bu-ku-fu-jo-fu-zo-fu-gen

[60:05]

Thank you. Thank you. Satsang with Mooji

[61:27]

Satsang with Mooji Be a peace. Be a peace. Be a peace. La Sangathe Moli Svaha

[62:31]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us today on this beautiful Saturday morning. My name is Kevin. I'm the Eno here at City Center. I have a few announcements. As always, thank you for coming today, and thank you for joining us in everything that we have going on here, morning and evening zazen, Dharma talks, classes, special events like workshops. We're very grateful for your presence, and we thank you very much for being here. Your guest will be in the dining hall immediately after this for Q&A, so you're welcome to go down there. And as he mentioned, he has a workshop today here in the Buddha Hall of 130 called Zen in Motion, a unique active meditation experience that seamlessly merges the spontaneity of live looping music with the grounding principles of Zen. If you want to register for that beforehand, you can go to our website, sfcc.org, go to the calendar page, find the event for today, and you can register. Or you can come here also at 130 and register in person. Please consider supporting San Francisco Sun Center with your donations as well as your presence.

[66:36]

Memberships and donations really help support everything that we do here at City Center, at Green Gulch, at Tassajara, and our online Maha Sangha community. There's a donation box in the lobby. It has a QR code to go directly to the giving page. And we thank you so much for your support. The next Dharma talk will be Wednesday evening with Kim Hart here at 730 in the Buddha Hall. We're also very excited to announce our May intensive called Finding True Refuge, which is very relevant at this time in our country. That'll be led by Pamela Weiss from May 19th to June 14th. Where do we find refuge in a world on fire? How does Buddhist practice support us in living together well? For thousands of years, Buddhist communities around the globe have gathered on the darkest and brightest nights of the lunar cycle to reflect on our actions, consider our intentions, and we commit to a life of integrity, compassion, and awakening.

[67:43]

In Zen, we carry on this ancient tradition through the monthly full moon ceremony. So you're welcome to join in person for this intensive, or you can do it online, or you can do a hybrid, a little bit of both. We'll have a one-day sit on May 24th, which will be about 11 days after the May full moon. And we will have a three-day seshin in June to end the month-long intensive. Urban Gate Sangha is here this morning. They help us in their support of our 925 Zazen period, as well as a 10 o'clock Dharma talk. If the Urban Gate people can raise their hands for a moment. So any of these people today, are available to talk after the word finished in here. And they can answer your questions. They can tell you more about Urban Gate. Part of Urban Gate is your meeting with Tim, the head of practice, after the Dharma talk to talk about some facet of Zen practice.

[68:44]

And a light lunch is also included in that. So if you are interested, please talk to any of the people who raised their hand. It doesn't have to be a weekly commitment. You can come whenever is good for you. We'll have tea and cookies in the lobby on the way to the dining hall. If you like, you can stop and get tea and cookies and then go into the dining hall to meet with Yogatsu. Or you can mingle in the courtyard or the lobby. That's fine. And we can get some help cleaning up. All the Zafus and support cushions can go back to the shelves. The chairs can all go back to the dining hall. And we thank you so much for your presence today. Have a lovely weekend.

[69:26]

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