in zazen posture, we should be able to completely relax. Can you hear me in the back okay? It's maybe a strange combination of this straight posture and relaxation. But always there are such combinations. If you watch a cat relax, it always stretches its muscles. So watch what you're doing. In the story of the cart and the

[01:02]

ox or horse, which do you hit, the horse or the cart? If you think about it, you usually either get mixed up or say the horse. I won't think about it, I'll just give the first answer. Of course you hit the horse, but that's thinking about it. If you notice what you do, Sometimes you groom the horse and sometimes you groom the cart. Buddha said we should understand ourself from the point of view of suffering. So in this session, I would like you to emphasize understanding yourself from the point of view of your suffering or your tactile, frayed experience.

[02:18]

And at the same time, be able to completely relax When you exhale, feel your muscles loosening up. As when you yawn, you stretch and yet you relax. Our mind makes our body very tight and it's necessary to keep reminding yourself to come back to this physical object.

[03:39]

First as an observer and then more and more recognizing that this physical object is you, and noticing what it what your physical object does in the midst of sitting straight or in the midst of a physical difficulty. In whatever circumstance you are, try to – it sounds contradictory – try to relax, let go of any idea of achieving something. This is fundamental instruction in Zen practice, to let go of trying to achieve something. When we work pretty hard at something, often you'll stop and wonder who it is who just accomplished such and such, or who it is that just did that, taking stock of

[05:04]

yourself, taking a vacation or going to a movie to find out who is leading your life. And we seem to need that time for some kind of reassurance, but We tighten up when you do that. Your craft or your hitting the cart and horse, whatever you're doing is who's leading your life. Whatever you're doing in zazen is who's leading your life. Suzuki Roshi said, to hear the true voice of people or to hear Buddha's voice

[06:06]

you should be able to just listen to people. I think you can start with your hands. Your hands are kind of mind, and your hands should feel quite a lot. And if they don't, please stretch them a little, or at the beginning of zazen, you know, exercise them a little. I don't mean that when you exercise, or sway back and forth, or find out what your hands are doing,

[07:08]

that you do some specific exercise, that you stretch or do something, that you have an idea already in your mind of what this exercise is. It's not necessary to do some specific exercise or be able to do any kind of particular exercise, but just to find out what your body is right now and extend that So whatever your hand is right now, let your hand lead you. I think in the effort to practice zazen and to sit straight, we lose the fundamental truth of our complete relaxation and

[08:17]

utter physical concentration. Our posture grows out of taking the most relaxed position, which you don't need muscles to hold you. There may be many things you have to undo, but to sit in the most home-like feeling is probably Zazen posture. So always you should be coming together in your zazen posture with this sense of utter concentration and relaxation. So this finger knows this finger, and this finger, this finger. So you're able to be completely concentrated in your hand, completely awake

[09:25]

in your hand, your awakeness must start with your body. If you're completely relaxed, you're ready for anything, being attacked or listening to someone or whatever event might happen. And if something does happen, you move in the spaces on each side of it, not getting caught in it. So when you first put your mudra together, it's a kind of stretching your mudra. should be rather open, and your thumbs.

[10:28]

You can, if you want, press together your thumbs, or press your hand together at the beginning, and then let it relax. But if your hand is completely alive everywhere, every particle, your whole body will come alive. So your mudra is very important. Most of you go to sleep. because your posture is rigid, so you're tired. Your circulation is not open. Things are not flowing in your body because you're trying in some way. And without that flow, you will fall asleep. If your posture is mental posture, it will be sleepy posture. If your body is awake, your mind can be very easy and floaty.

[11:47]

If your body is not awake, if your mind is easy in that way, your body will put your mind to sleep. I don't mean we never sleep in Zazen, that's practice too, but not too much. And in your breathing, When you first sit down, breathe just as you do sitting down, until you settle.

[13:02]

bring your concentration to your breath in the way that occurs to you just then. I'm going to suggest something, but it won't always be what occurs to you, won't always be what I suggest to you. But sometimes what I suggest to you will occur to you. And what I want to suggest is just to take a very simple, you know, special yoga or anything Very simple inhale. Expanding your lungs and finding out what happens when you take that kind of inhale without thinking about it. And then increase the inhale, and more or less suspend your breath but continue breathing.

[14:21]

The kind of concentration you have when you stop breathing, when you're doing something carefully, is the kind of concentration we have in Zen practice, in Zazen practice, even though we're So find out what it's like to suspend your breathing. Take a deep inhale and then hold it and feel where your strength is. Chanting practice is very helpful in relaxing because you're exhaling and you're at the same time having your strength here. Because in chanting you have something to do, it's easier, I think, to find your concentration in the midst of your breathing. And... Inhaling, then push down through here.

[15:38]

and sometimes tighten up your anal muscles and then let your breathing just go as it goes If you can begin to breathe this way, so your lungs are fully used and slowly used, with maintaining concentration, the whole physical alignment of your body will begin to balance. But this kind of practice, again, requires your ability to put all your eggs

[16:50]

in one basket, to have enough faith in zazen practice, so that you don't miss anything. If you don't have enough faith you'll miss, you won't be attentive enough to have zazen practice and your awakeness permeate everything. this space we sit in must become part of our busy life here at Green Gulch this space we sit in that you find out

[19:18]

more clearly during Sashim, is indestructible. And we embody this indestructible space in which nothing comes or goes. But you cannot be open to this space until you're physically very, very relaxed and no attainment or goal in your physical body. No reviewing of yourself is the door for this space.

[20:23]

which you freely then express on everything. This space, when you begin to find it, will give you the clue of our practice, the clue of our path. to practice the way, to follow the way, is to establish the way. Suzuki Roshi used to say that we didn't have enough shadow, and shadow is difficult to express what he meant.

[22:20]

You know, I just came back from Kyoto Thursday, and I'm still on Kyoto time, I think. Kyoto, you can go every day to temples for many years and not see all the temples, or you can find many, many interesting restaurants. And no matter how often you go to restaurants, still around some corner there's another one, quite interesting. finish exploring them all. No one can, even in your whole lifetime. They're always changing, moving. But in most American cities you can know all the restaurants in the city pretty easily.

[23:37]

this kind of feeling of some jewel which, when you turn it, the facets never repeat themselves. And each time you turn the side, the side that's revealed is not what you expected from the front side. This is what we are really like. And that means not to be closed off. To have your whole physical being flowing and relaxed and open and able to sit straight and still.

[24:42]

completely still and completely relaxed. This is not just a physical practice. If your mind isn't completely hasn't completely given up in your attainment, you can't be physically relaxed. You can't give up your many facets to endless facets, to becoming a person who you don't know at all, who keeps surprising you, and doing things that you didn't expect.

[25:51]

You didn't expect, I think most of you didn't expect to be here ten years ago. So just follow, in this Sashin, the sensitivity of your hands and know yourself from the point of view of suffering, of your limitations. of your many unresolved doubts.

[27:10]

and this indestructible space. You don't take for granted, without any idea, that you can bring your hands together even. Everything becomes much easier.

[28:38]

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