I think it would be a misnomer to remember and accept I love Jesus, to love him, that doesn't work. Good morning, everyone. I'm sitting on two cushions up here. Actually, I was thinking of sitting in a chair as is my custom of recent years because I think you can do perfectly good zazen on a chair. And, as a matter of fact, Nyogen Senzaki, who I look to often as a kind of model

[01:00]

insisted that all of his students sit on chairs in their formal group of zazen. He wouldn't let them sit on the floor. So, all of you over there and over there, sit in a chair. I'm aiming to form a new in-group. Currently, the in-group are the ones who sit full lotus on their zazen. I would like to start a new in-group. Sit in chairs. Shikantaza. Our practice, shikantaza. To sit, just to sit. With no external goals. No agenda.

[02:01]

No special techniques. Just to sit. Not even with any goal whatsoever. Not even enlightenment. Just to sit. Not because your peer group thinks it's an in-thing. No. Not for all kinds of reasons. Very difficult to do. Just to sit. Not because you have some five-year self-improvement program. We practically all do. Some five-year program. Sitting is part of my five-year program. No. No goals sitting. Just to sit. And I would emphasize not the physical posture. Not that sense. But the pureness of it. Just sitting of it.

[03:04]

And one of the ways I think about that, and I think it's very helpful for me at least, is kind of a music analogy. That is, say a symphony is 40 minutes long. As a period of zazen is 40 minutes long, perhaps. Now the aim of the symphony is not to get to the end of the 40 minutes. No more music at the end. Just as zazen is not to get to the end of the 40 minutes period when you hear that lovely musical sound of the bell. It's not the aim. It's not the goal of zazen. So every moment of music finds its full meaning and fulfillment in the moment of music. The only place it can be, just as in zazen or meditation,

[04:07]

the only place it can be is right here now. So that doesn't mean it isn't related to the past and to the future, just as in music there's this beautiful passage and indeed what preceded is very significant to the now. What follows will be in the context too of the now. So it doesn't mean that it's isolated from the past or from the future. It's all interrelated, but it finds its fulfillment always in the moment, not some distant place that you're going to get to. So say like Pavarotti, some great operatic singer, pours themselves into the aria. That's all there is, that aria, that moment of music. Matter of fact, Secret Ambitions,

[05:08]

I'm a frustrated Secret Ambition opera singer. I would have loved to be an opera singer. I don't have the voice for it, unfortunately. So I then have a particular fondness for that analogy of music and somehow also its kind of relationship to practice, to doing meditation. And interestingly enough, there has been a sect of Zen, which was devoted to music. Back in the old days in Japan, there was Kakushin who studied with Dogen Zenji and went to China and studied flute, studied playing the flute and the yogic discipline of playing the flute, I would say. How breath and mind must be centered,

[06:11]

must be seated deeply within in order to play the flute. So this is Fuke Zen. For a while, for a number of centuries in Japan, it was a very common thing to hear off in the distance, maybe on some moonlit night, the sound of some Fuke Zen wanderer playing the flute. Beautiful. It was their way of propagating Buddhism. They felt that the spirit of the Dharma, the spirit of pure enlightenment could be manifested in playing the flute. So they had no scriptures. They relied on music. They relied on flute playing as their practice. And they wandered around Japan. They were wanderers leading a simple life. And their way of giving the Dharma was to play the flute

[07:14]

and in return the laity would give alms as was the custom. The priest, the monk gives the Dharma and the laity gives rice, alms, whatever. So their way of giving the Dharma was to play the flute. So they were half monk and half laity. Not quite monk and not quite laity. And they called themselves the community of emptiness, the community of shunyata. And breathing was very important in their flute playing. The idea was that the mind and breath should be centered, should be grounded, should be centered, seated in the hara, in the ground consciousness within us,

[08:15]

within what the Japanese call the hara. A very important thing, by the way, in Japan, and I think in Zen, is this idea of the hara, of the centered, which is a little bit below the navel, in the lower belly. A little bit below the navel is the hara. And your mind and breath is to center in the hara. And when I'm giving this lecture I'm supposed to be centered in the hara. As also, as in the fukei Zen, they also were singers. They sung mantra. They sung, I would say sing rather than chant, in the sense of music. They would sing mantra. They would go around the countryside singing mantra. One of their favorites was the mantra to Amida,

[09:19]

Namo Amida Buddha. Namo Amida Buddha. They would go around chanting this mantra to Amida. And they, I think, had a very great influence on Zen and on Japanese culture and on Soto. Partly because their founder studied with Dogen Zenji, our founder, and for a number of centuries they were in close relationship to Eheiji, which is the home monastery of the Soto Zen school in Japan. So, I would say that that tradition somehow continues in Japan today, although now the fukei Zen sect is no more.

[10:22]

They were outlawed about a century ago for various political reasons. But in Japan today, still amongst the laity, you can find remnants of this old flute playing, shakuhachi school, enough to, when you hear it, enough to know that it can be a very, very deeply moving experience to hear that flute, really. The expression of the pure mind of enlightenment still in some remnant form, it still exists in Japan today. And another way I think about music in Zen is sounds of saws going around. Kind of the drone tone, I guess. Yes, Sowa Nakagawa Roshi died about, I think, about ten years ago.

[11:32]

A very musical fellow. I don't know whether you perhaps or may have ever heard him sing that song from La Mancha, like, reach an unreachable star... He has no voice whatsoever. But to hear him sing it is really something else. He really pours himself into it. And he also was very fond of the flute. And his mantra, which he sang, everywhere he went, singing this mantra, Namo Dai Bo So That was his practice. Singing that mantra. Namo to the great bodhisattvas. Great bodhisattva, Buddha nature spirit, which is in all sentient beings, all beings, everywhere.

[12:34]

Hail to, homage to, salute to, bow to, adorations to, salutations to Dai Bo So, the great bodhisattva. And interestingly enough, some of his western students had quite a problem with his mantra. Because everywhere he would go he would be reciting this mantra. And on his daily rounds passing a little wayside shrine, and there were many, he would always stop and bow and recite Namo Dai Bo So And some of his western students had quite a problem with that. One in particular felt that, he was with Nakagawa one day, and he felt that this was kind of a superstitious practice, kind of mumbo-jumbo, reciting these peculiar formulas, as if that stone idol would do some magic or something.

[13:39]

Very superstitious practice. And he told Soen Nakagawa that in no uncertain terms. He added that, from where I come from, I would rather spit than bow to that idol. And so that took Soen a bit in the back. He thought about it for a moment. And his response was, OK, OK, OK, you spits, I bow. Sort of a fundamental dividing line, it seems. What are you going to do? Are you going to spits or are you going to bow? And for Soen, either one is OK. You spits, I bow. So, Namo Dai Bo So

[14:42]

For Soen, it means, of course, the great Bodhisattvas, but more, the great Bodhi nature which is everywhere, the Buddha nature, Bodhi-Buddha nature which is everywhere, in this endo, in a flower, in a speck of dust, in you, in me, in the great saints, in the great Buddhas, in the great Bodhisattvas, in this great supreme being, everywhere. The great Bodhisattva nature. Namo, hail to, homage to, bow to, adorations to, salutations to, Dai Bo So. So, again, as in the Fukue Zen practice, you know, that reciting a mantra, that singing a mantra,

[15:43]

is very much related to centering mind and breath deeply within, as the Japanese would say, in the heart. Not just a head thing, something you do with your head. It's centered from within, from within your being. So, I think maybe a common kind of reaction to Namo Dai Bo So as a kind of practice would be, maybe you're supposed to say it three times. Three times. Maybe when you get up in the morning you're supposed to say it three times. And so, you do it as kind of a chore, like as if the purpose was to get to the end of it, to recite it three times. Namo Dai Bo So, Namo Dai Bo So, Namo Dai Bo So. Not much music at all. So, I thought we might say Namo Dai Bo So together this morning,

[16:55]

since we don't have any hymns to sing or anything together. And maybe say it three times, but let's pretend first as if it was a chore, and the only purpose was to get to the end of it. Okay, everyone together three times as kind of a chore. Namo Dai Bo So, Namo Dai Bo So, Namo Dai Bo So. Sounds like ordinary kind of sound one would hear in a religious place, perhaps. Not very spirited. Now, let's try it once more, and not just with the head thing, you know,

[17:59]

but in a sense of being grounded. It's with the ground. So, it springs up from the ground. You're seated, your consciousness, your breath, your spirit, your mind is seated, is grounded. And from that, as if you had all the time in the world, three times, a hundred times, you've got all the time in the world. Okay, let's try again. Namo Dai Bo So, Namo Dai Bo So, Namo Dai Bo So. Yeah, that's a little bit more like it. So, I think that the flute, the mantra, and singing, and zazen,

[19:05]

are all related, very intimately so. The spirit of practice in all of them is very much interrelated. And I think it's interesting, too, that in singing, breath is very important, in operatic singing, for example, that the seat of the voice is not in the head, it's not in the throat, it's in the belly. That's the seat of your singing. Not so different, I think, from what we say in zazen, like your breath, your breath should be seated in the heart, your mind, breath, should be grounded, centered, seated. So, I've been thinking that instead of saying,

[20:06]

sit, like we say, sitting meditation or something like that, sit, a very common way of translating zazen or shikharantaza or something, I would like to maybe substitute the word seat. So, it's seated meditation. Not sitting meditation, but seated meditation. And that has both an inward and kind of an outward sense. It is your seat, but also your seated. Your mind and breath is seated. So, shikharantaza, then, is just to be seated. Your mind and breath to just be seated. And then, as we say in Soto Zen, as Dogen Zenji says, for example, that sitting is not one of the four postures. It is not standing, it is not walking, it is not sitting, it is not lying down.

[21:07]

It's something more than that. And that something more, I would say, is to be seated. You can be seated within, whether you are walking, standing, sitting, or lying down. And that word in English, I think, has kind of a ring, that sit is different. Like we say, the seat of the government, the county seat, the bell seat, the seat of spiritual energy. So, that's a different ring, I think, to zazen, seated meditation, than sitting meditation. Also, sitting meditation sort of implies kind of an active thing. Like I sit, I've got this cushion over here, and I sit. Every morning I go to the zendo, and I sit.

[22:10]

Whereas seated has also kind of a passive sense, like your breath and mind and the Buddha nature being seated in you. So, I think that more inward sense is very important to zazen. That's one of the reasons why, you know, sitting in a chair, like as I suggested in the beginning, is that you can do perfectly good seated meditation in a chair. It's that inward sense, which is so important. And also, by the way, I think also a more kind of passive sense, to be seated. Is the Buddha nature seated in you? That's the question. Not whether you're sitting.

[23:14]

Are you still sitting every day? No. Is the Buddha nature seated in you? So, that mantra, namo dai bo sa, the first word is namo. And I think that that first word is kind of a key to many of the great mantras in Buddhism. It is the first word, the beginning of many of the great mantras, like namo taso bhagavato arhato sama sambuddhasa. It begins with namo, namo taso. And as Thich Nhat Hanh was having us in the retreat saying, namo buddhaya, namo dharmaya, namo sanghaya,

[24:15]

adorations to the Three Treasures, homage to the Three Treasures, salutations, namo. Namo to the Buddha, namo to the Dharma, namo to the Sangha. And the one to Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of infinite, immeasurable radiance and life, namo amida buddha. Namo, or namo, again, begins. And our Nichiren friends in the Lotus Sutra school, nam yo renge kyo, nam yo renge kyo, nam yo renge kyo, nam yo renge kyo. Namo, namo, again, namo. Very important, that first word. As a matter of fact, I think a key to the spirit of mantra practice is all in namo. And if you get that part right, the rest of it doesn't matter so much.

[25:19]

It'll be pretty easy. So, as a matter of fact, in the Lotus Sutra it says somewhere that recommends that as a practice. Just namo, that's all. And one of its advantages is that you can namo to anything and everything. To a flower, to a cup of tea, to a great Bodhisattva, to the great Buddhas, to the Supreme Being, to the Buddha nature in everyone, to anyone, everything, all, anything. To a speck of dust, namo. Literally, by the way, namo comes from the root in Sanskrit to bow. It's the vocal form of bowing. And of course, bowing practice is very essential,

[26:22]

especially in Soto Zen. We bow everywhere, all the time. My wife, when she first came and visited Zen Center and stuff, was amazed. She thought we were all these self-reliant types. And here we were, bowing all over the place. She doesn't like to bow, as a matter of fact. And as we tell new students, the kind of first rule of Zen-do behavior and orioke behavior and all kinds of behavior is, if in doubt, bow. And the second rule is, if enlightened, bow. Always bow. Bow to teacups. And you wonder, oh, I want to move this a little bit, should I? Am I supposed to bow first? Yes, okay. Then it's okay.

[27:23]

Even if you're not supposed to bow first, it's okay. Just bow. Do everything. Interesting, in Soto Zen, we bow to each other. The roshi bows to you, and you bow to the roshi. You bow to the teacher, the teacher bows to you. In most Buddhist schools, that's not true. A student bows. And you might feel a little bit shocked, if you're accustomed to our way, and you bow to some biku or something, you don't bow back. The expression hardly changes. Here you are, the expression hardly changes. Their sense of it is that you're bowing to the Buddha. Not to a biku, but to the Buddha. The biku is humbly trying to be a vessel of the Buddha teaching, but you're not bowing to the biku, you're bowing actually to the Buddha teaching, so he doesn't bow back to you. But for us, it's very important that we bow to each other.

[28:25]

That we namo to each other. But you can do it with a mantra, too. Like namo. The vocal way of doing it. We bow, we bow to the Buddha, then we bow to the Dharma, we bow to the Sangha. I came in here and bowed three times. Namo to the Buddha, namo to the Dharma, namo to the Sangha. We do it all over the place. So, I thought then, we might namo a little bit. And in no particular time or rhythm, we just might namo, namo, namo, like a free-for-all. And you can be namoing to anything you want. If you're of the spitz type, you could probably namo to a flower. I think probably that would be all right. That's one of its advantages,

[29:28]

you can put anything in there that you would like. Namo to anything, to the Supreme Being, to whatever. So, everyone, namo! Beautiful! So, I've been thinking, I was hoping that we might be able to start an operatic mantra choir. You know, as a matter of fact, back at old Sokoji Temple in Japan town, San Francisco, the older women had a chorus,

[30:34]

I don't know what you would call it. Anyway, they would sing together. They would sing these gata, they would sing these verses by Dogen and other great figures in the Zen tradition and so on, musically, it was really quite musical. You would call it a song rather than a chant. And they would ring little bells. It was really lovely. So, if there is not an operatic mantra choir started here, I'm going to go back to old Sokoji and join the senior women's chorus. Or maybe I should get a shakuhachi. By the way, if anyone knows a good shakuhachi flute available somewhere, then after a lecture you might... Please let me know. So, one other thing.

[31:43]

There is an Indian religious custom, Namaste. You greet another person with Namaste. Same word, same root. To bow to. Namaste. From Namo. To bow. Usually accompanied with a gassho in the form of a lotus bud. Not clap like we do it. If you go to India and do it like that, they can't understand. How could there be a lotus bud in here? I was in India a number of years ago. I got to be friends with an Indian woman. I greeted her like that. She said, how can you do that? This is supposed to be lotus buds.

[32:45]

She was a lovely woman. Particularly she had beautiful eyes. Like lotus pools or something like that. I looked deeply into her eyes and there she was with her lotus bud. Namaste. Ever since then I haven't been able to get my hands together. I just go like a bug. I can't do it the Japanese way. It just doesn't seem right. It should be a lotus. Namaste. I thought then I might finish or we might part with namaste. Namaste. Namaste.

[33:56]

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