Good idea to take a big breath through your mouth, like, and expand your abdomen and then So that and push all the air out so that you feel your lower abdomen meeting your backbone like then you get the feeling of breathing down here this is called priming, priming your breath like that this is an exaggeration in order to make my point but if you do that then you'll

[01:09]

you'll be priming your breathing to be down here and you know it if you don't know what that feels like you get the feeling for what it feels like even though all Zen students should know this and even though someone's been practicing for 10 years when I say where's your breathing well I'm not sure I don't pay much attention to it or it's up here or something so that's why I have to say this over and over again and then I'll get the control in a minute when we first when I first came to Zen when I first came to Zen Center Suzuki Roshi decided that he wanted us to count to count our breath he wanted us to count our breath on the exhale from one to ten he said everybody should count all of you should count your breath on the exhale from one to ten so every time you exhale one two we know this and so at some point

[02:21]

he said it's okay if you don't count your breath but not everybody heard that I think he only said it once but it's very valuable to learn how to count your breath when a new student should always learn to count start out by counting breath because he says it's like the handle on a cup it's a way to focus a way it helps you to drink your tea or your coffee by using this device it's simply a device and it's a very old one but you don't have to continue doing that it helps you to get started in focusing on your breathing so that when your mind strays you know that your mind is strayed because you're not counting anymore or you get up to 200 and you realize you know that you're not being so mindful if you get to 200 just start with three four and then

[03:29]

when you get to ten you start again with one so if you count your breath learn how to count your breath and you do it in difficult situations it's when you have a difficult situation you automatically start counting your breath and it helps you so you know second day of Sashin you know and your legs hurt and you can't concentrate so well so you're one two three until you become more calmed down and then just let your mind follow your breath but sometimes the breathing becomes kind of rough or you really need something your mind is not calm enough to simply accept what's happening so you need something so you go one and when you do that you push down on your

[04:36]

diaphragm and the exhale a long one so that it's not like you're counting numbers we use numbers but it's not the numbers irrelevant it can just be move same thing move to and and then in the counting the number and the breath is all one piece it's not like chalking up numbers it's just a way of making a sound to get into to establish your breathing so more and this pushing down on you on the exhale and your diaphragm and feeling it in your lower abdomen actually helps to feel a little bit aerobic it makes you feel light but if you depend on that it becomes a problem

[05:43]

Rinzai Zen actually I think that Rinzai Zen practitioners do that a lot that's called having strength in your heart and Suzuki Roshi used to talk about you should have strength in your heart when you when you breathe and then he talks about putting emphasis on the exhale which is what I was reading to you yesterday to put X effort in the in the exhale he doesn't say specifically to push but I did talk to him about that and he said yes that's a good idea to do but you don't hear that anywhere particularly so to put emphasis on the exhale sometimes to actually emphasize the exhale with some pressure some effort in your breathing when you have when

[06:56]

you just want to establish yourself in your breath but I don't call that breath control you know as we said before when you start to when you focus on your breath then that focus itself affects the breathing like when a scientist studies something objectively often their study objectively influences the object of studying so in the same way you can't say it's completely objective but it's okay it's not you're not trying to make create a breath control breath control is like when you're trying to create some special power through breathing that's what I consider breath

[07:57]

control when you're trying to establish some special state of mind by controlling your breath in some way that's not what we're trying to do but to nudge your breath in some way it's not breath control so to specifically speaking so today today's talk is we call resuming big mind so Suzuki Roshi says the purpose of Sesshin is to be completely one with our practice we use two

[09:08]

Chinese characters for Sesshin Setsu which shortens to Sess in conjunction with Shin means to treat something the way you treat a guest or the way a student treats her teacher his teacher or the way a teacher treats her student maybe another meaning of Setsu is to control or to arrange things in order Shin means mind or heart of course the character Shin means either one mind or heart so Sesshin means to have proper functioning of mind sometimes we say embracing mind it is our five senses and our will or monkey mind which should be controlled when we control

[10:11]

our monkey mind we resume our true big mind when monkey mind is always making taking over the activity of big mind we naturally become a monkey so monkey mind must have its boss which is big mind so big mind is boss of monkey mind or small mind you know in the I know that many of you are familiar with and have studied the eight levels of consciousness or nine levels of consciousness in the Mahayana and monkey mind is the seventh level called Ingo or Manas and the five sense

[11:11]

consciousnesses eye ear nose tongue taste and feeling and mind consciousness Mano Vidana which makes distinctions between the five sense consciousnesses so you know I am seeing this is hearing this is tasting and also is it that thinking and discriminating consciousness but it's not egotistical the seventh level of consciousness is egotistical and this is the the troublesome mind troublesome consciousness but we all love it you know it's like we love the monkey because the monkey is ourself you know when we say who are you I am the monkey I am monkey we don't say I am seeing or I am hearing or I am remembering which is the eighth consciousness

[12:15]

we say I am I am happy or unhappy or I am mischievous or I am I like this and I like that back with you so this is monkey the seventh consciousness ego Manas so monkey mind takes over and becomes really big and prominent and it has a function it is a kind of messenger between the various levels of consciousness and but you know I'd like to think of it as the messenger boy when the boss is out goes into the boss's office puts his feet on sits in the boss's seat puts his feet

[13:21]

on the desk opens the drawer and takes out his cigar and lights it you know pretends that he's the boss and since the boss is not there he actually thinks he's the boss so then he starts ordering everything everybody around you know so this is big problem and so we get the monkey Manas mind is what we who we think we are and then when we sit in Zazen the monkey mind monkey is still dancing around but he doesn't have a place the boss is there the boss came home monkey doesn't you know it's very frustrated so the monkey has to kind of calm down and disappear and let big mind be there and then with big mind but that's boring nothing's happening nothing's

[14:21]

happening but sometimes I think the Zazen as like you're climbing above the tree line climbing this mountain but you're above the tree line it is nothing but big rocks in the sky the empty sky and then you get to the top of the mountain and there's nothing but the empty sky well it can be boring but empty sky is pretty impressive so he says however when we practice Zazen it is not that big mind is actually controlling small mind but simply that when small mind becomes calm big mind starts its true activity most most of the time in our everyday life we are involved in the activity of small mind that

[15:30]

is why we should practice Zazen and be completely involved in resuming big mind how we resume big mind a good example of our practice is a turtle I want to read something here the turtle which has four legs a head and a tail six parts of the body which are sometimes outside of the shell and sometimes inside when you want to eat something or go somewhere your legs are out but if they are always out you will be caught by something in case of danger you draw in your legs head and tail the six parts refer to the five senses and the mind this is Sashin for one week

[16:31]

our head tail and legs are inside the shell in the scripture it says that even demons cannot destroy us if the six parts of our body are inside the shell that's true because there's no self to be destroyed we've already let go of self so the only thing that can be destroyed itself even when we die this the five senses disappear and there's only Manas and the Alaya Vidyana which is our memory which still influences still has influence action influence and if there's no ego there's no

[17:34]

problem so in Zazen we do not try to stop thinking or to cut off hearing and seeing it sometimes happens that your mind in your mind if something happens in your mind just leave it if you hear something hear it and just accept it oh that's all no second response should appear in your Zazen sound is one response is one activity and the second is I'm going to explain this first of all when we when there's hearing don't say I hear it's just hearing here if only if just hearing hears then there's not no thought of I hear the creek there's simply the sound that reaches the

[18:41]

ear and it's this sound if you say oh that's the sound of the creek that's the second response the first response is simply hearing a sound hearing here is a sound the second response is oh I hear the creek I hear the sound of the creek and then the third response is this the sound of the creek is made by rain which comes down from the clouds and blah blah blah so each response is a more a further elaboration and the more elaboration there is the more self there is mind starts working thinking mind so Zazen is first response seeing sees hearing hears there's no I

[19:43]

that hear it that hears it but as soon as the mind starts giving a second response then there is an I which appears we think that the I is always there maybe but the I is not always there the I comes up in response to stimuli so in Zazen you have the opportunity to simply let hearing hear let seeing see that feeling feel that smelling smell that tasting taste without creating an I that does all that then when we in our daily life we have to think more in terms of myself and I but these are provisional people we just create them in order to make our active

[20:54]

life work so what is that sound is it a motor car a garbage truck or something if you hear a sound that's all just the sound you hear it don't make any judgment don't try to figure what was it just open your ears and hear something just open your eyes and see something when you are sitting for a pretty long time watching the same place on the wall you may see various images oh it looks a river or it looks like a dragon then you may think that you should not be thinking about that even though you see various things dwelling on the images may be a good way to waste your time

[22:01]

but it's a shame so to be concentrated on something may be important but just to have a well-concentrated mind is not Zazen we talk about concentration you know a lot come people think Zen is concentration it is but that's not all it is it's just one of the many factors involved in Zazen it is one of the elements of practice the calmness of mind is also necessary so don't identify the activity of the five sense organs just leave them the way they are that is how you free your big mind when you can do it in everyday life you will have a soft mind you won't have many preconceived ideas and the bad habits in your way of thinking will

[23:04]

not be overwhelming you will have bad habits but they won't necessarily be overwhelming you will have genuine mind and big mind and what you will and and what you say will help others so I like to think in Zazen that we are practicing the seven factors of enlightenment you know the seven factors of enlightenment seven factors of enlightenment are mindfulness investigation effort joy calmness conscious concentration and equanimity mindfulness is being attentive so in Zazen we're careful and attentive investigation means in Zazen means to go

[24:21]

over all of the aspects of your body and breath and continuously investigate what's going on effort means not to just be passive there are two aspects of effort one is passive the other is active we often tend to think of Zazen and simply being passive but it's the balance of activity and passivity so active is to put strong effort into into posture to sit with good strong effort in posture continuously you know we're sitting for all day you know and then we get kind of tired but to sit up straight and keep reminding yourself to sit up straight and to put lift up your sternum

[25:29]

keep your head on top of your spine and keep reminding yourself of what Zazen is so the active part is to continuously give yourself Zazen instruction and pay attention to it passive is to let everything come and let everything go without clinging to anything so that's right effort and joy is that even though we have difficulty and pain that through our effort joy arises and has nothing to do with whether we're happy or unhappy or whether we're in a painful situation or in a non-painful situation the joy is underneath all of our activity if joy

[26:30]

is not arising it's usually because our ego is standing in the way and saying there's an intrusion here something is intruding on me when there's no me there's nothing to intrude upon and this arises naturally spontaneously and then calmness which is what Suzuki Roshi is always talking about calmness of mind not allowing anything to upset you calmness has two aspects one is serenity and the other is tranquility serenity is like the sunset beautiful sunset in the evening when everything is calming when the when nighttime is coming and everything is calming down all

[27:36]

the activity is calming down that's serenity tranquility is like the ocean without any waves and then there's concentration to be focused well focused but concentration doesn't necessarily mean to be focused on just one point it the other side of concentration as I talked about before and Suzuki Roshi talked about was simply to have a wide open mind and not to be concentrated at any specific thing but when something moves you catch it that's zazen both of those are present in zazen and then equanimity equanimity is like being at the center of the balance point so when

[28:41]

something goes up or something goes down you're at the center of the teeter-totter and you don't get thrown off by things everything is equal if you're comfortable or not comfortable it's equal so he says for example in the Shobogenzo Zuimonki Dogenzenji tells a story which was told to him about an influential person Ichijo Motooe one day Motooe discovered that his sword was missing and since no one else could have broken into his house one of his own men must have stolen it the

[29:48]

sword was found and brought back to him but Motooe said this is not my sword so give it back to the one who owns it people knew that the man who had the sword was the one who had stolen it but because Motooe didn't accuse him of it no one could say anything so nothing happened this is the calmness of mind we should have according to Dogen I won't explain that one if we have generous big mind and if we have a strong spirit of practice then there is no need to worry Dogen emphasized a sparse simple life without expecting anything we just practice our way many students

[30:51]

ask how it would be possible to support the temple or group without any plan and he said if it becomes difficult to support our temple we will think about it but until then it's not necessary to think about it so before something happens it is not our way to think about it too much in that way we have complete calmness of our mind because you have something you worry about losing it but if you don't have anything there's no need to worry even though we have something it seems like we have something just Dogen I remember saying we should not be chauvinistic about Tassajara or about Zen it may be that we lose it if we lose it would just do something else okay not worried about it not at all worried about it we just do one thing after another if our practice is good practice

[31:59]

true practice everything that we should have will come to us will be provided if it's not it won't be provided so we have some idea about whether our practice is true practice by the way things fall out you say the two wheels of practice the spiritual wheel and the material wheel if the spiritual wheel is turning the material wheel will also turn one stimulates the other and then we have the two wheels and things are going well I'm gonna say this has always been my own philosophy I never worried about money or property or anything but everything just came so I totally have faith in that so one night Dogen said even if you think a teaching is complete and right when someone

[32:59]

tells you a better way you should change your understanding so that's pretty good we tend to cling to our teaching and I remember Suzuki Roshi saying well Buddhism you know may not be the best teaching but it's the one we have so and it's it's not perfect it's a wonderful teaching because it's not perfect if it was a perfect teaching we should probably try something else because you think it is right at that time you follow the theory or rules but you also have some space in your mind to change your idea that is soft mind so we should always be able to listen

[34:04]

and to not necessarily hang on to what we think is is right and be open to hearing something else and if it's if it's more correct then we should change to that that's true otherwise we fall into dogmatism so Buddhism is something that we're always discovering it's not something that is you know in another talk he talks about Buddhism is not something you can put into a drawer and pull out when you want it like you know your underwear it doesn't work that way you have to keep discovering it moment by moment actually you have to just keep discovering it moment by

[35:11]

moment you know we can give a talk about Buddhism and write it all out and all the right things will be there according to Buddhist doctrine and and you hear that talk and it's lifeless in order to bring the Dharma to life you have to bring it to life moment by moment even if it's not about Buddhism so the Dharma doesn't come from outside it comes from inside and what we call the Dharma or Buddhism is simply stimulation to bring out the Dharma from you so there is no set Dharma it's simply fingers pointing at something and then it points here you do

[36:11]

something you jump so soft mind means like grass you know it bends with things and retains its true form without getting damaged so it is possible to change your idea because you know what kind of monkey your thinking is sometimes you follow the monkeys suggestion oh yeah that's right monkeys right this time if we go in that direction we may get some food okay let's go but when you see a better way to go you may say oh monkey maybe better to go this way if you stick to your greed or anger or some other emotion if you stick to your thinking mind your monkey mind you cannot change so your mind is not soft Greg talked about monkey and shransam two sides of

[37:13]

our nature so in our practice we rely on something great and sit in that great space called big mind the pain you have in your legs right now sorry I'll let you go in a few minutes the thing I have it too when you have on your legs or some other difficulty is happening in that great space as long as you do not lose the feeling that you were in the realm of Buddha nature you can sit even though you have some difficulty when you want to escape from your difficulty or when you try to improve your practice you create another problem for yourself but if you just exist there then you have a chance to appreciate your surroundings and you can accept yourself completely without changing anything and that is our practice to exist in big mind is an act of faith which is different from the usual faith of believing in a particular idea or being it is to believe that something is supporting us and supporting all our activities including thinking mind and

[38:16]

emotional feelings all these things are supported by something big that has no form or color it is impossible to know what it is but something exists there something that is neither material nor spiritual something like that always exists and we exist in that space that is the feeling of pure existence pure being you know spiritual we don't call this a spiritual practice even though sometimes we do spiritual and material are on the same side this spiritual material are both on this side and then there's the other side which is neither spiritual nor material nor describable nor thinkable that's what he's talking about so if you are brave enough to throw yourself into zazen for seven days a little bit of understanding will help your rigidity and your stubbornness almost all the problems you create because of your stubbornness stubborn

[39:19]

mind will vanish if you have even the smallest understanding of reality your way of thinking will change completely and the problems you create will not be problems anymore but it is also true that as long as we live we will have problems so don't practice zazen to attain some big enlightenment that will change your whole being or solve all your problems that is not right understanding that may be what people call Zen but true Zen is not like that in Sashin we concentrate on having the experience of true practice forgetting all about any idea of gaining anything we just sit here if the room is too cold we'll make it warm and if your legs become painful you can stretch them but don't do it and if it is too difficult you can rest but let's continue our practice for these seven days it's true you know don't move doesn't mean you shouldn't move

[40:28]

if if your legs are too painful you should move but the spirit of your intention is not to move but if you have to move move and when you move don't say oh god you know failure just move don't put any judgment on it that's all and then in a few minutes you cross your legs and continue that's okay but the intention is to sit with with what you have so that and the more you can sit with what you have the more you can let go so if you're tired rest rest during your breaks that's I wanted to have longer breaks in Sashin so that people have a chance to rest if they need to rest but if anyone has one question

[42:10]

yes because every teacher every religion every spiritual practice says this is the true way so you just don't say thank you very much and just go away because your way is also the true way if you know that your way is for you the true way you have confidence in your way then you can accept everybody else and you don't have to get thrown off your seat sometimes people go in there they'll you know find some wonderful startling and amazing teacher somewhere teaching something say well I just found the most wonderful blah blah blah fine go study with that person or whatever you know we're not holding on to you I've never asked anybody in the world to stay anybody ever meant to stay and practice our practice if you

[44:05]

find something that you like hey go practice that you know that may be good for you maybe the right thing for you I know what's good for me I think I know what my practice is because my practice has been proven to me I've proven my practice to me and it may not be the best practice I don't say it's the best practice but I know it's the practice for me and so and I often quote from other disciplines also and I'll quote from Christianity I'll quote from Judaism I'll quote from Islam sometimes maybe the Sufi you know I'm very close so the Taoism is very close and sometimes Confucian you know so you as a Zen person you can use anything you want because there's nothing that belongs to Zen there's absolutely nothing no teaching that belongs to Zen we use all the other teachings our

[45:10]

service is not Zen the teaching is Shingon I mean all the services are Shingon all that chanting and all that stuff that's not Zen but it's we appropriate it and so it's Zen when we appropriate Zen is not something special the whole universe is doing Zazen the whole universe is always doing Zazen everything in the everything in the universe is doing Zazen and that's what our practice is is just participating with the universe but some people will say this is the right way to do things this is the truth and so forth and if you believe that that's fine as long as you're not hurting people as long as you're not killing people because you think you're right and you think they're wrong so there should be many different practices it's good but and some people will

[46:14]

have many practices which are very tasty Zen is not tasty I think of it if you've ever been to Hawaii and you may have eaten poi, poi is like mmm but for the Hawaiians poi is wonderful but it's the most tasteless thing you've ever eaten you know and it's not like our Zen is like that so when we get a cookie we really appreciate it we have too many cookies so we don't appreciate them so much but I remember when I first came to my first Sashin and after that too we'd have a tea and they'd bring a cup of tea and a cookie little treat and it was just so wonderful you know in this bare space to have this wonderful little morsel come and eat it just ah that's our practice you

[47:20]

know nothing it's not it's not colorful you know and but there are many colorful things many colorful practices and practices that will promise you many wonderful things the reason I could always have faith in my teacher was because he promised me nothing he said if you sit Zazen if you practice Zen you will practice Zen if you sit Zazen you will sit Zazen that's all so I could totally trust them and have faith in the practice because it's no fooling this is it no fooling and even other teachers when I saw other teachers teaching Zen still I felt that Suzuki Roshi's teaching was the most genuine because he promised nothing no enlightenment nothing he said if you practice

[48:28]

enlightenment is there but you have to understand that I'm not going to hand it to you I will tell you this this is our practice in the midst of enlightenment is our practice but I'm not going to confirm your enlightenment I'm only going to confirm your practice because by confirming enlightenment you think oh now I have something so we stay in the boiling room doing the work rather than up on deck enjoying the breeze we don't run around with the prize just do the work you know the goal of practice is to be right here just to not go somewhere but to just be here what more can you ask anyway that's it you want my book

[49:40]

yeah I

[49:53]

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