And now? And what's happening now? What's happening? Hiccups are happening now. That sounds a little bit more steady, yes. Okay, thank you. So last sushin, midway through, I took a little detour from Dogen and was speaking about the practice of ice mountains melting. So today I'm going to do another detour midway through, almost midway through our sushin, and talk about mountains practicing with fire. And I just want to acknowledge this kotsu,

[01:02]

which is made of manzanita that burned in the 2008 fire. And I think Greg picked it out, turns of the wood, and then Diego, some of you may like to Diego at City Center, carved it. And this was a gift for my drama transmission. So the fire is with us. So here's a poem to ignite our journey. Every year, everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this. The fires and the black river of loss, whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world

[02:02]

you must be able to do three things to love what is mortal to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it and when the time comes to let it go to let it go every year Every sashin, everything I have ever learned in my lifetime, leads back to this. The fires and the black river of loss, whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world, you must be able to do three things. What is mortal? To hold it against your bones, knowing your own life depends on it.

[03:08]

And when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. So these two stanzas from the poem in Black Order Words by Mary Oliver often come to me in the middle part of Sushin. particularly when it feels like the wilderness of my own mind-body are on fire with any number of myriad karmic configurations. And sometimes the fire shows up in form of physical pain, burning knees, the lower back aflame. And at other times, the fire manifests as difficult or destructive emotions, grief, anger. rage. And other times, a strong desire, even all-consuming lust.

[04:11]

And then there are fires consisting of relentless, negative and harmful thoughts, judgments and criticism, either directed towards others or to ourselves. Each fire that appears will be particular to the person. The conditioned environment in which they dwell, in the karmic terrain shaped by their choices. And occasionally, if we look closely, we will recognize that underlying all of it is a sense of loss, of not being able to hold on to what we most cherish or love, our self, our ideas, our conditioning. We're desperately wanting to let go, but not knowing how, and therefore losing our freedom. It seems nothing can save us.

[05:17]

The following is from a talk by Jaakashu Kuang, who is the former abbot of Sun Yomar Mountain Zen Center. He did a Dharma talk titled Active Participation in Loss. Accepting things as they are is a loss. Being in the moment is a loss. What are we losing? Our self-centeredness, our self-clinging, our ideas, our conditioning. We are also losing ourselves to the sound of the crickets, to the sound and feeling of the zendo, as we sit. And when we know how to do this, to really lose, then we know how to really be alive. As students of the Buddha Dharma, we are reminded again and again that all conditioned things are impermanent, and that our engagement with what is impermanent causes us dis-ease.

[06:30]

And the Buddha described this disease as a sensation of burning and characterized every aspect of our human existence in this way. All is aflame, he said. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of version, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging, death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses and despairs. And the Buddha wanted us to feel this burning in our life with all of its difficulty, uncertainty and stress. And for us to realize that this burning is inherent and impersonal. And it applies to both the pleasant and the unpleasant phenomena alike. So life is like this. And this sensation of burning, the Buddha said, only ends when we abide as pure awareness, with no movement, no grasping, and therefore free of burning.

[07:42]

Although all things in this world are burning, the Buddha also has taught us that we have a choice not to add fuel to the fire. That is, not to make the burning personal. not to be identified with burning. In each moment, we have a choice to either add fuel in the form of grasping, aversion, and ignorance, or not. Can we be in the fire but not of the fire? Can we have a calm, clear, cool mind even though the inferno of life continues to burn around us and in us. I think it's safe to say that most of us come to practice thinking that through practice we'll get rid of the fires altogether, never to have them return.

[08:55]

But after we've been practicing for a while, we realize we will never be 100% free of fires. The flames of greed, hate, and delusion are endless. Delusions are exhaustible, inexhaustible. They are inseparable from the experience of what it is to be human in this world. And just like we can't do away with forest fires, because they will reoccur, They are a necessary part of the whole cycle encompassing the wilderness and nature. But wildfire is a natural land for forests. The growth and vitality of the forest depends on it. And it is the same for humans and bodhisattvas. Even once we're awakened, it doesn't mean that the fire of dukkha will be extinguished permanently. we depend on our experience of suffering to thrive, to grow, to reach beyond our limited views and self-concerns, and to see our suffering within a greater context and greater interdependency.

[10:11]

So rather than run away from our pain and delusions and other forms of fires, we meet them. When we are awake, our delusions and suffering and fires of life are no longer a problem. They are a part of the way things are. We're just sitting with them, like mountains on fire, sitting upright amidst the flames, letting go of what needs to be let go of. I think most of you know from Linda Gallion's talk a few weeks ago that I happened to be living and practicing here at Tassajara during the 2008 fire. I was serving as director at the time. And that particular fire was named the Basin Complex Fire. And at the time, it was the third largest fire in California history. And it swept through the Ventana Wilderness and through and around into Tassajara.

[11:19]

That fire was actually a complex of three or four separate fires. that had started one, a campfire at Indian Springs, and then the other ones due to lightning strikes, one, I think it was June 21st. And in time, what happened is all these fires came together, they merged to become one. And basically, Tassajara was at the nexus of all these fires coming together. We were the confluence. And unlike many of those up north and in Southern California who haven't had time to really prepare for fire, we were fortunate. We had three weeks. We were told originally the fire will be here in three days. And then three days later, they told us, well, it'll be three more days. And then three days later, they kept saying, well, three more days. This went on for three weeks altogether. And so we were so fortunate because we had a lot of opportunity to prepare with the help of many other resident students as well as fire professionals from Cal Fire and the National Forest Service.

[12:33]

And a number of people here were there. Leslie, Greg Fane, Hakusho, and who am I missing? Was there anyone else here during that time? Seifu. You weren't? I didn't think so. So three people at least. And so all of us together stopping the guest season. We had three evacuations at the time. The very first one, we had all the guests leave. And the second one, a few days later, I forget the exact timing now, we had a majority of the students leave. And we were left with basically, I can't even remember anymore, I think 12 people at that point. And then the final evacuation, which happened the day before the fire arrived, everyone left. And up the road, about 20 minutes at Ash's corner, five of us, at the checkpoint that was being, where Cal Fire had to see, make sure that we got out safely, five of us chose to turn around and return to the monastery.

[13:42]

Not with the idea of engaging the fire so much as actually just keeping the pumps and the sprinkler systems going for Dharma Rain. So as a protection for the monastery. And the events of the fire are retold in the book by Colleen Morton Bush called Fire Monks. Zen mind means wildfire. And just so you know, Colleen's husband, John Bush, is going to be joining us for Rahatsu. So I look forward to welcoming him. Now I'll just say that when the fire finally arrived the day after the last frantic evacuation, it didn't kind of wander down the hill slowly as we had been told. We had, you know, the fire professionals kind of made a joke of it. Oh, we love being here. We'll be happy to be here. We just kind of sit in lawn chairs in the creek with a beer in one hand and a hose in the other and just meet the fire as it kind of slowly makes its way in, right?

[14:44]

So, and, you know, most of us, you know, as monks here and students had no idea what a fire would be like coming in. So when we heard them say this, we're like, okay, hey, that should be, you know, not too difficult. But when the fire came, it didn't do that. It actually came all at once. And it came. I remember standing with Mako coming out of the stone office, which was our safety zone. And Mako said, come out and look. And I came out on the front lawn. And there was a ring of fire on the ridges all the way around on all four sides, all at once. And it just started pouring into the valley like a stampede of horses on all four sides. And, you know, I don't know if I really experienced a lot of fear during that moment, but I had my oh shit moment then. It's like, oh shit, whose idea was this? This is not the fire we expected. What were we expecting? And in that moment, it was just, this is it. This is what's happening.

[15:46]

You know, as the fire crested and came down and poured into the valley and about 100 feet from the valley floor and suddenly slowed. And what we figured out at some point, it was because of the riparian corridor and the amount of moisture that was in the air from Dharma rain running for several weeks, that the moisture slowed the fire enough that at some point we said, you know what, we can actually engage this fire. We can go to the edges of the monastery and start meeting the fire. And so we put on our outfits and got the hoses and separated and... and for six and a half hours engaged the fire, trying to keep it from entering further into Tassajara. I wrote a blog post several days after the fire describing the events of the fire, and it's called The Day the Fire Arrived, and I want to read a brief section from it. The events of the day of the fire's long-awaited arrival are difficult to fully sequence chronologically.

[16:51]

particularly the afternoon hours. The fire arrived a little bit after noon. We, the so-called Tassar Five, later being known as the Fire Monks, engaged the fire on numerous fronts as it entered the valley, working alone, in pairs, or as a group for varying lengths of time, as each new manifestation of the Inferno dictated. But it quickly became obvious to us that five monks... with nominal firefighting skills weren't enough to fully protect Tassajara, our monastic training had taught us to simply offer our best, wholehearted effort, unattached to the results, yet still aware of our preference to save our spiritual homestead. The fire, like any dedicated teacher, challenged us to constantly be attentive. For weeks, the Sangha, repeatedly informed that the fire was approximately three days away, had been preparing for an event that might or might not occur.

[17:54]

Some of us even expressed impatience with the fire's initially slow progress, wanting it to come sooner so we could all just get on with things. But during the hours that the blaze was finally upon us, the tracking of time gave way to the pure immediacy of the moment, What was most compelling during these hours and which in reflection remains the most satisfying is the constant vigilance and effort that the fire required. It was a sashim through and through, a demanding schedule of pure presence in which one utterly let go of a known outcome. There were undeniable moments of fear and anxiety, especially when we understood the reality that the fire was descending into Tal Sahara fast and from everywhere, rather than creep down one slope at a time, as had initially been suggested by several professional firefighters.

[18:57]

But there was little time to entertain fear, so fear quickly gave way to our effort to fully meet our belated guest and the task at hand. Six and a half hours, we lost several structures, including the birdhouse, the pool, swimming cold bathroom, what was the yurt at the time started on fire, the campo shed burned, several of the woodsheds burned, the gate at the bathhouse, also the fence started to burn. Basically, everything burned except what was in this island created by the road itself, between the road and the creek. Everything was a sea of black and ash, as far as you could see. Just Tassajara, a green, an oasis of green. It was really interesting because so much wildlife came into Tassajara after the fire, seeking refuge.

[19:59]

Foxes, birds, deer, just seeking some place to, you know, for a moment, stop and pause before they had to figure out, how am I going to survive after this? Speaking from personal experience, I can say that Zen practice is a training for all of us to be fire monks. Meeting an actual wildfire illustrated for me the importance of continually preparing the ground of practice. We don't need to wait for a looming disaster to prepare the grounds of our heart minds by letting go and clearing out unhealthy attachments. and harmful behaviors which are ready fuel for the flames of our passions. And just as the Tassajara residents in the weeks leading up to the arrival of the fire cleared the land, trained in fire engagement, and jury-rigged Dharma rained on the roofs of the buildings to raise the humidity in the valley and keep the flames at bay, so too can we find a way to water our lives with the cooling rain of kindness, generosity, compassion, and mindfulness.

[21:20]

so that when the flames of aversion, greed, and desire do approach, conditions are such that our karmic selves are less likely to catch fire. By attending to our ground of stability, we cultivate a capacity to not so easily be unsettled by the challenges, fears, and the emotional intensity of our life. This is cultivating equanimity. Every time I get on my cushion for meditation, I'm training my body-mind to continually return to a state of readiness, to what Suzuki Roshi called beginner's mind, a mind that's free of concepts about how things should be, the mind that is open, receptive, curious, and welcoming. With a beginner's mind, I can simply observe and see more directly what the conditions are in the moment and what's really needed. And this was the thing about engaging the fire.

[22:21]

The minute that we could actually go right up to the flames with a hose or a shovel or whatever we had in hand and just meet the flame that was in front of us, not worry about the other flame so much, but meet the one directly in front of us. Take care of that fire first. And when that one was taken care of, move on to the next one and to the next one. one at a time. And if we needed help, if any of the particular fires were too big, you know, the birdhouse was in fire, the pool bathroom was in fire, we would call each other on the walkie-talkies and we would come together as best we could to help each other. And then once that fire was taken care of, we would split up again, again attending to the individual fires. Each fire was a new fire, whatever it was burning. And with the beginner's mind, we can see that the nature of fire is neither malicious nor monotonous.

[23:22]

Fire is simply fire. Fire heats. It is the nature of fire simply to burn. And it is the nature of humans to have emotions, desire, and confusion. And it is also our nature to be able to let go of all this illusion and settle into a space of natural clarity and essentialness. that is always there, that is the heart of our being. Fire has no intentionality. It is I who make it personal. Any fear I may feel is simply a part of my own consciousness. The real-life wildfires gave me the opportunity to grapple with the realization that the more dangerous conflagration is the one burning in my own mind. Any sense of danger is something that I create. One has to notice that and take responsibility for what's in one's own mind.

[24:24]

My experience in meeting the fire reaffirmed the appearances of taking refuge in don't know mine, a mind akin to a beginner's mind in which one has no expectations. We are simply ready to meet whatever arrives, allowing ourselves to trust our best efforts and then let go. Over the three weeks during the fire, I would return to my cabin. I was in 3D at the time, at the end of the day. But it wasn't even at the end of the day. It was after dinner. Dinner was about 6.30. I'd come back for maybe 15 minutes for a break and then go back to work because we were working from sunrise to sunset using all the available... light in order to continue preparations. So I would come back for a moment and my head would be kind of full of all the information, the communications I had with the fire professionals, the data where the fire is, what's happening, all these decisions that had to be made about what are we taking care of, how do we take care of each other and so on.

[25:29]

So my head was full of all this and I was also at the same time keenly aware of my responsibility as director. Not only was Tassajara in my hands, but the lives of everyone who was here was also a deep part of my responsibility. So the weight of that responsibility, you know, it was just at times I didn't know what to do. And this not knowing, you know, obviously created a lot of stress. I didn't know how the fire would end. Would Tassajara burn? Would it be okay? Would anyone be hurt in the process? Would the fire even ever come? So this place of not knowing, the only thing I could do was embrace it. So I would sit at the edge of my bed and sit there and just say over and over to myself, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And saying that was relieving because it was so true.

[26:31]

It was fundamentally true. And I could rest in that truth. I didn't have to know anymore. I could only be with what was absolutely true. And so that was my salvation, not knowing, letting go. A letting go that was actually beyond trust. It wasn't about trust anymore. Trust is still something, there's something in trust that still has this kind of, I'm relying on something. felt the sense that there was nothing to rely on in that moment. One of the things that primarily helped us save Tassajara from going up in flames, as I said before, was Dharma Rain. And we had it running prior and during the fire.

[27:36]

It took about a... I don't know, a week or so to get it up, jury rigged on the buildings. Fire, it was a combination of garden hoses and PVC pipe, you know, and it was a miracle that it worked. We had no idea if it would work. You know, when the Zen Noah, when the fire happened in 78, or 77, The other forest fire, Marble Cone Fire, happened. They used garden hoses. They put blankets on the roofs of the buildings around here and used garden hoses to keep the blankets wet. And that was kind of one of their defense mechanisms. And this was our idea. I was like, oh, well, let's try that. Only this time we're going to keep the water in place. And so we had it set up, and it really, like I said, helped to... deal with the intensity and the speed of the fires that came into the valley. And so in regard to working with pain and emotional difficulty in Sashim, there's another form of Dharma Rain that can be very beneficial to our practice.

[28:41]

And maybe one that you're familiar with. It goes by the acronym Rain, R-A-I-N. Does anyone know this one? A few people, right? This was developed by the Insight Dharma teacher, Michelle McDonald, and is often forwarded and unpacked by other teachers, including Diane Winston and Tara Brach. And my own teacher, T.S. Strozer, is a very strong proponent. of RAIN. She basically thinks it's the number one thing we should be teaching here at Zen Center, and the minute anyone comes in the door, we should have a year-long course on RAIN. And so she really strongly believes that's the most essential practices for new students to begin with. And so I thought, because it's so extremely helpful in dealing with difficult emotions and sensations and thoughts, that it would be helpful to just quickly in Sushin walk through these steps.

[29:45]

And then I'll go back to talking about the fire. So R stands for recognizing what is happening in this moment. And just, for example, someone is walking too close to you in Kinhin. I don't know if that ever happens to you. Or serves you too much or too little of sesame soybeans. Right? and suddenly, boom, you're annoyed or angry, right? The emotion flares up, right? So R is simply recognizing what's happening. To be present enough to know that something is happening, right? Noticing the thoughts, feelings, and the sensations that are arising. Now, this isn't a small thing. It actually takes us some time to really identify what's going on here. And it's actually more easy for us to become reactive, right? Our habitual way is to just react, you know, and worse, kind of blame the other person for our reactivity. It's their fault I went up in flames.

[30:45]

Instead, what we can do is drop our preconceived ideas about the other person in the situation. So this R, recognizing what's happening, points to the practice of paying attention, just being awake, what's happening now. And then A, A stands for allowing or accepting. Just letting thoughts, feelings, and sensations be as they are. It doesn't mean that you wanted what just happened to have happened. It simply means that you acknowledge that it did. So you can name it, for example. Anger is here. Anger is arising. And the idea is that although you're not... going to indulge the emotion or thought with further thinking or righteousness or another emotion, neither do you resist it or avert or distract yourself from what's happening. You stay with it, acknowledging it, naming it, being willing to be open with what is.

[31:48]

Thank you again, Kitchen. Great generosity. And then the next is I, which stands for investigating the sensations in the body. A time simply working through the first steps of rain is not going to be enough to actually offer us relief and reconnect us to presence. Sometimes the fire is just too big and too hot, and we need some help. And so at these points, this next step of investigation is primarily one of noticing what's happening physically. It's being with the felt sense of whatever it is that you're feeling. So if you're feeling anger or sadness, feel that in the body. Where is anger and sadness? How do you know it? What's the texture of it? What's the color, the temperature, the felt sense of it? How do you know you're angry? And...

[32:52]

lost my place. The energetic emotional component, you have to be willing to feel it and then open and relax with it. So we can breathe with it, feel it, wait, breathe some more, feel the body, feel the tightness, and then slowly feeling maybe it changing and relaxing in some way as we bring awareness to it, as we bring breath to it, opening, allowing it to maybe release and let go. And if this is not thoroughly done, however, then we haven't really felt the emotion that was triggered by the initial thought. And if we don't feel that actual energy, that energy gets stuck in the body, remains in the body, and it adds to the conditioned structure that was triggered in the first place. This openness to the physical event is what integrates the energy It dissipates it. And if this is practiced over and over again, it eventually dissolves the particular ego structure on which all that karmic energy is made of, or it is made of the karmic energy.

[34:15]

And we note in time that that ego structure has no core. There's nothing substantial there. There's no core to it. And the ego system will eventually dissolve if we don't add more energy to it. And through this type of investigation, we have a real taste of the potential that freedom that the practice can offer us. And finally, N. N stands for not identifying. So there's no need to identify a me in what's happening. Non-identification means that your sense of who you are is not fused or defined by the limits of conditioned emotions, sensations, and thoughts. They're just passing mental and emotional events, kind of like clouds moving through a sky. We don't have to build or rebuild a me on the passing content of the body-mind.

[35:21]

Instead, we can stand as an observer and recognize that the content is not who we are. Eventually, identification as the observer also drops away. But to simply make the shift in the first place from identifying with the content to being observer is a good start. And non-identification is the realization or the resting in, what we might call natural awareness or presence. So that's a brief review of RAIN. I encourage you to try it on if you haven't done before or if you have tried it out before, maybe take it up again because it is a very supportive practice. And actually, you know, looking at physical pain, you know, a lot of RAIN is talking about emotional pain, but physical pain, you can work with it in the same way to feel into it. to feel the actual sensation before you apply a label to it.

[36:25]

So even before you say, this is pain, pain in my knee, what is the sensation before the thought, pain arises? Look into that sensation. See what's there. Keep going deeper and deeper into it. And I guarantee you, you won't find anything there. It's empty. It's porous. It's just this flow of energy that's dancing and shifting and changing all the time. The more you do that, the easier it becomes not to reify or not to identify or not to contract, particularly around the pain. Because anytime you contract it, you reaffirm it, you keep it in place, you freeze it again in place. So much of our practice is about acknowledging what we're feeling, opening to the presence, and then seeing what's at the root of it, seeing what belief or common contraction in the body is at the base of it, and trying not to identify with it or make a self out of it.

[37:33]

And finally, letting it go. For many of us, this last part, this last aspect of letting go can be the most difficult, but it's the most essential. Letting go requires of us the renunciation and surrender, a surrender of the illusion of being a separate self. It requires of us a profound vulnerability to drop our protections and give ourselves over to authentic, direct presence and trust. What has stayed with me in a very deep way over the decades since the days of the fire, was not so much the actual engagement with the fire. What has stayed indelibly imprinted in my mind is the image of the mountains immediately after the fire. I remember how my gaze was drawn up to them for months afterwards.

[38:41]

I felt for once that, having been stripped of their foliage, I could feel finally truly see the real mountains. They stood silent, gray, barren, yet majestic, with just charred bones of certain chaparral and trees still clinging to their sides. Anytime I walked outside, I would look up to the mountains. I was fascinated. They held my attention, and I couldn't take my eyes off of them. And I couldn't figure out why for a very long time. It wasn't like the fire was still out there looking and I was looking for the fire. It had passed. Yet I found myself drawn to the mountain's newly revealed vulnerability because they had been stripped down to their essentialness. They were so beautiful in the way that a dying person

[39:48]

who has accepted their dying, can be beautiful. Their lives and their beings haven't been parred down significantly, so there is nothing or little extra, just being. Even the skeletal fingers of the dead branches that remained, still stubbornly reaching for and holding up the sky, would have to eventually let go. Even these would need to give way to impermanence, to decay, and eventually to new growth and rebirth. This is the natural cycle of the wilderness and of human existence. The mountains in this form express a profound teaching for me. When everything extra is burned away, What is essential in our lives is exposed in all its beauty and defenselessness.

[40:54]

When we are willing to be our most vulnerable, we are also the most grounded, the most open and genuine, the most authentic, the most tangibly alive, and the most free. What's truly essential cannot be defended. vulnerability is the only solid ground beneath our feet. Our practice of zazen is to sit like mountains, to be upright yet exposed, to be unguarded and therefore revealed, to be non-manipulating and simply allow everything to be as it is. To sit like mountains is to be still, unmoving, but not unmoved. It's not that the mountains didn't feel the pain as the fire progressed.

[41:59]

It's not that they didn't hear the cries of the dying animals or refuse to bear witness to the trees and plants consumed by flame. I believe that the mountains did feel all this and that the heart of the mountains fully dwelled with deep compassion and for the suffering that was arising. Each mountain did what it could to help the life that relied on its vast body. True compassion requires acknowledging our inescapable mutual vulnerability. I wrote a statement with the gate reopening ceremony that happened about three weeks after fire had passed. We still had about, I think, six weeks or so, five weeks or so, left of guest season. So we made the choice to reopen and welcome guests once again.

[43:00]

Because Tassajara itself was basically fine. And it was also a way for us to heal and move on and say, life is like this. And so... This is a stanza from the statement I wrote. What, I ask you, has the fire taught you? What, during these past weeks, have you discovered in the blaze of your own being that is beyond all displacement, beyond all destruction? And what, even now, are you willing to lose in the conflagration of the present moment? Give it all to the flames hold nothing back out of the mistaken notion that something, anything, must be or can be saved. For equanimity and generosity only fully ignites in that place of total renunciation where there is nothing left to lose.

[44:08]

So fire is an element of transformation. If met with courage, fire opens us up. Similarly, suffering opens our hearts and allows us to bloom, to feel and to experience our deep connection to one another. When we allow ourselves to open within fire, with the pain and suffering and heartbreak of our lives, including the endless experience of loss we might feel in the face of impermanence, then there is light that is released, and the nature of our suffering can be illuminated, and an innate wisdom is released and also allowed to bloom. When we open within fire, including within the fire of Sushin, we also begin to recognize the fires that others dwell in and which dwell within them.

[45:12]

And in this recognition, we realize we are no longer alone. Fires in this way challenge our perception of isolation and separateness. Sometimes they even force us or demand of us that we not only recognize our interconnectedness, but that we learn to rely on it. part of the talk about practicing with fire and rain and sushin, I thought I'd offer a Dogen quote, just in case any of you were wondering if Dogen would show up in this talk. Don't worry, Shusoh, Dogen is here. An ancient said, blue lotus flowers bloom with fire. Therefore, blue lotus flowers always bloom within fire. If we want to know where within fire is, that is the place where the blue lotus flowers are blooming.

[46:16]

We should not fail to study within fire by holding fast to human view, the relative, or the heavenly view, absolute. Don't hold on to any views. All views are dualistic. Unless we are Buddhas and ancestors, we don't know that when a flower blooms, the world arises. So before I close, I want to say something about our next two days, which are going to be silent days, or you could say perhaps more silent days. And Shohako Gamora, who I think all of you know, wrote the commentary that we are studying this practice period in the Mountains and Water Sutra. He studied and trained in Japan at Taiji, which was founded by his teacher Uchiyama Roshi.

[47:18]

And at Taiji, they have what might be considered a very stripped-down version of practice. And they sit zazen, but otherwise there are no lectures. no service, no dokasan, and no classes, as I understand it. And then once a month, they have what Uchiyama Roshi called sushin with no toys, which is basically just zazen and kinhen. And they have, it's a five-day sushin, and it's made up of periods of zazen that are 15 minutes in length and with 10 minutes of kinhen between each of them. And the whole afternoon is just that. So there's no work period, there's no bathing, there's no exercise, no tea or anything like that as I understand it. Just continuing that full time. So you can correct me afterwards if I'm wrong. Because I haven't practiced there. This is what I read. And there's no one telling them anything in Dharma talks or giving any kind of commentary or practice suggestions throughout.

[48:21]

So the participants are just assuming the full posture. of body, speech, and mind in complete silence. For five days in a row, people have a chance to be absorbed in zazen and let themselves be themselves and only by themselves. So I don't necessarily agree with the inference that liturgical services and dharma talks and practice discussions, etc., are toys. However, I do understand that sometimes maybe even during sushin, some people might be inclined to relate to them as a kind of break or distraction from zazen, rather than an extension of zazen. So it's a question to ask yourselves, how do I relate to service and kin hymn and oryoki and dharma talks? Are they a break from zazen? Or are they zazen continuing in just a different form?

[49:22]

So, I don't think, and I could be wrong about this, we've ever done a complete sushin of no toys here at Tassajara or at Zen Center. Leslie's not sure. She's like, I don't know. We have? Okay. Five days. May blanch it down? Okay. Well, maybe someday that will happen again. But what we're going to be offering for the next two days, for day number four and five of sushin, if you're counting, you may not be counting, we will have these... and taiji-style days of sushin, although the schedule will be posted. It won't be 50 minutes, but you'll see what it is. And the thing that we're doing in particular is instead of service and sutra chanting, we're going to have 10 or 15 minutes of bowing during those times. Now, I want to tell you this bowing is not a competition. It's not to see how many prostrations you can do in those 10 or 15 minutes or how quickly or compare yourself to others. Oh, look, I did more bowels than that person over there.

[50:24]

I really got it down. This is not what this is about. This is really about just bowing, finding a rhythm and a pace that works for your particular body. And really just giving your attention and doing the prostrations with full awareness. a body, breath, and mind, and really connecting to the earth each time. And, you know, if your body is asking you to do something particular, like I'm a little worried about my back, I have some back problems, I may decide to do standing bows rather than do full frustrations the whole time to take care of my back, or I may go down on my knees and do bows from my knees. So you have to figure out what works for your body. You know, stretch yourself a little bit. Don't get lazy. and just say, oh, David said I could stand and do my bowels, and so I'm just going to stand and do that. Really try to do the full prostration. Give yourself over to it, but also attend to your body. And was there anything else I wanted to say about that?

[51:26]

I think the Ina will make more announcements at WorkCircle today. So I hope you find these two days of silence beneficial. interesting experiment, and I look forward to hearing from you afterwards how it was for you. Okay, so that's it. Thank you very much for your presence, kind attention, and patience. And now, let's go for a walk in the mountains. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Shujo.

[52:23]

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