Thank you. Thank you.

[03:32]

good morning i guess there's no escape from the noise Monday morning. Is it Monday morning? Or is it the second day of sashimi? Are they mutually exclusive? Or do they exist in an exquisite harmony? When this tree came, I talked to the guy who runs it.

[04:43]

I said, could you do me a big favor and not use the chipper between 10, 15 and 11? And he said, oh, that's no problem. We won't be using the chipper very much today. And maybe he thought I said, only use it. You know, when Copernicus did his astrophysics and concluded that the earth circulated, arrived, circled the sun, it was a big dilemma in the theistic world. It's because the fact that the sun circulated around the earth proved that there was a God and we were his chosen people.

[05:59]

And the we being white Christians who were colonizing the planet. And somehow Despite that terrible occurrence for which Copernicus was silently rebuked and criticized, we survived. I know, a mere car alarm just seems like music. Or the glitter of birds.

[07:03]

What I started to talk about yesterday was... many different worlds. The world of mundane mourning and the work that needs to be done. This was the sign that was something that we're trying to empty the water out of this drainage area that they've opened up. And that fabulous wood chipper was the sign that they have to cut three trees down because they were all devastated by the windstorm we had. And in the midst of that, we're finding the serenity of the Zen way.

[08:28]

our bodies and minds to awakening. I mean, it would seem strange if any one of us had come up with that idea. But the fact that collectively we've come up with that idea, it's kind of amazing. our individual consciousness has concluded that following the path of awakening is a worthwhile thing to do. I find the linearity you can put your hand up if you can't hear me or you could

[09:33]

I find the linearity of Anapanasati in a wonderful contrast to the non-linear Zen way. In Zen, we start here and we don't go anywhere. We just return to being here. In a way, Anapanasaipi says, follow the North Star. It doesn't tell you anything like the deserts and mountains and valleys you have to cross to keep following the North Star. It doesn't tell you the particulars of the world according to self. is that here's a process.

[10:36]

Not to say the North Star doesn't designate how to go north. It does. And there's something very helpful about practice to have a... clear notion, conceptual notion of what it's about. Maybe we'll never know why they picked this morning to run the sun pump or the chipper, all the causes and conditions that went into either. But being here the nature of what it is to be here.

[11:45]

In a way, this is the fundamental proposition of practice. And Dogen, quoting many other teachers, says, and the enlightened Enlightened about the common translation is delusion. Personally, I like to call it conditioned existence. Not all the details of it. I find myself, as I listen to that sun pump, I thought, oh, that's probably about half horse power sun pump. In a way, we hear, we see, we feel, we touch this inconceivable here.

[13:01]

And we make something of it. We take whatever way it impacts us, whatever conclusions we arrive at, whatever We conceptualize it. We take that world and declare its authority. Very interestingly, we don't do it consciously. It's not often. It's not that our cognitive mind is saying, I am declaring. world according to me. We just live it. We feel it. We think of it. In just the same way that Copernicus in his statement that the earth circled the sun and disrupted

[14:19]

world of self. It's Monday mornings and this morning inside the night. It's the same way Copernicus disrupted the notion of the earth going around, the sun going around the earth. Returning to awareness, returning to fear, and letting fear have its own, in a way, have its own authority, but have its own expression. This is what is.

[15:23]

It disrupts, it interrupts this flow of consciousness. It's creating a reality, responding to a reality, and having a psychological significance of both of those. its creation and the response. And Zen practice is to wake up to that process. subjective nature of our persistent version of reality. To wake up to the subjective nature and discover how it interplays with this version of reality that is so interconnected and with such a causal network of being.

[16:48]

that it's beyond our capacity to know it all. This morning we chanted a chant we call the harmony of difference and equality. The difference being our individual consciousness and the equality being the suchness of any moment. Individually, we might, some of the assembly might be thinking, those bloody noises are ruining our morning. Aren't we supposed to practice Zen with noise like this? Some of us might be thinking,

[17:51]

So what? It is what it is, no matter how noisy or quiet or how annoyed or ecstatic I am. Once Sojin Weissman and I decided to take a walk and he said, let's go this way. And I said, there's a lot of traffic that way. This way's a lot quieter. And he said, no, let's go this way for the traffic case. Maybe they got the memo to stop for the talk. we have, you know, all that to say, can we have a big perspective on the whole process of Shishina?

[19:15]

That each of us, in our own unique way, will generate the impact of what our surroundings are presenting. expand upon that and create our version of reality sometimes whimsically you know thinking is that a half horse fart pump or is it just a third of a horse fart we touch something that feels visceral. It feels like what we're doing is a matter of life and death.

[20:21]

We touch a point of our own vulnerability. And all sorts of things in between. It seems to me that the second day of Shashin is a good day to remind ourselves of this proposition, this interplay between worlds. It's not like we know the world according to self either. Sometimes Shashin presents startling information thought I was a nice person. But here I am, having some nasty thoughts about someone. What a surprise.

[21:27]

Unless, of course, you've had that experience a hundred times, in which case it's not so surprising. notions or two other notions I offered yesterday. One was the complexity of our homeostasis as a human organism, you know, the many physiological systems that create our being and the many psychological systems that create our being and our cognition. that innate system of inclining towards a healing and a harmony in our being.

[22:40]

In some ways, this is part of the marvelous support that Zazen gives us. That it invites a healing and a harmony to the homeostasis of our being. It helps us create a basis on which to hold the dysregulation of the interplay between the world according to me and the inconceivable complexity of each moment. of Shashim quite often in my own experience and the experience of others that have told me so this time somewhere in the first three days of Shashim I'm sort of exploring and discovering how to

[24:04]

allow these two versions of reality find a harmony. Someone came to Dokusan once, and they were marveling at how when they were chanting the name of the ancestors, it by a thought, and their body and their breath and their mind could keep chanting the names. Somehow, this mysterious, marvelous thing that we are can do things like that. We can have a body memory.

[25:07]

We can encode within our being a steadiness that even when the mind gets cooked by a certain thought, that steadiness is not totally forgotten. So in a way, I would say in quite a significant way to establish how you're going to practice your relationship to your body, your relationship to your breath, and let that become encoded. not that we practice mindlessly.

[26:11]

Quite the opposite. We practice as mindfully as we can. And giving that a regularity, giving that an engagement that can encode in our body will help keep us close to here and now. It's not that the mind can exit the body and go there and then. It's that the here and now, when we sustain a regular involvement in the body and breath, the here and now stays close. discover in working with your own body all the little details.

[27:16]

The little details that help you find your seated posture. How you attend to your lower back. How you attend to that shoulder blade, that muscle just underneath the shoulder blade. On the right or the left, and on the shape of your spine, it tends to tighten. How you put your hands into mudra. How you lengthen your spine. discover in as much detail as we can what is the appropriate alignment for this body and in Anapanasati it says first just notice then notice the details of what you're noticing

[28:45]

Embodied those details. And as you embody them with the breath, notice how exquisitely sensitive the breath is to the emotional valence of the mind. With the emotions splutter, the breath When there's an aggressive emotion, the breath responds. When there is a positive emotion, gratitude, thankfulness, a feeling of generosity, kindness, compassion, the breath softens. Each of these emotions

[29:52]

As a symbiotic relationship with the breath. The breath can support the emotion to arise. And the arising of the emotion can support the breath. To. Open. And as we start to explore this. We start to get in touch. the complexity of this interplay. Not that we know it, you know, conceptually, but more we feel it. What I was calling yesterday, the psychosomatic aspect of our being. And this is a really helpful tool.

[30:58]

It can help stabilize. It can help sustain an awareness. It can help create a resilience. all sorts of things arise for us. My own notion is, even though Anapanasati, when you read it through, seems extraordinarily linear, start with one, move to two, go from two to three, and three to four, and then you're done. enlightened around. I think of it as, okay, that's the North Star. And in that journey, in the direction of the North Star, everything happens.

[32:16]

Even in the sense of self, let alone the inconceivable nature of here and now, even just in the world of self. Endless dramas, successes, failures, old grudges, deep yearnings. with the consistency and the diligence that keeps us close to the here and now. Can we inquire about the body, sensations in the body, the details of posture? Can we inquire about them that they become more accessible? Sometimes you can see, well, there's a certain athleticism about Zazen.

[33:35]

Maybe, in one way of looking at it. But I'd offer you the example of Darlene Cohen. listen to her give a Dharma talk, would be utterly impressed and inspired by the intimate relationship she described she had with her body. And Darlie had a very severe rheumatoid arthritis. She told me once that when she wakes up in the morning, she has to do about 15 to 20 minutes of stretching and moving, so she can literally have the capacity to swing her legs out of the bed and put them on the floor. So in one hand, we could say, well, she was severely handicapped.

[34:53]

It was difficult for her to walk. If she stayed still for too long, the body stiffened and she literally couldn't move. And yet, she had this extraordinary intimate relationship with how to bring awareness to the body. Utterly confining any notion That Zazen is based on... That each body, having the experiences it has, is offering itself for that kind of intimacy, that kind of connection to the details and the experiences of the body we have. to make a practice of every time we start a new period of Zazen.

[36:16]

Don't assume you know how the body should be. Don't assume you know how the body is feeling right then. Start from a place of not knowing, a place of exploration. away when we have a moment of connection when we have a moment of awareness of experiences in the body especially as the mind becomes concentrated that encodes a wisdom in the body and as we start to sit each period can we tune in to what the body already knows about sitting Tune in to that sense of the spine that you had when you were feeling settled and connected to your body.

[37:28]

Can you tune in to what it's like to let the face and the nasal passages relax? inhale happen. Not in an effort to replicate your previous triumph, but more as an act of rediscovery of the intimacy of connection to the body and the breath. to do something. It guides us into the nature of the effort that's being requested. We're not trying to coerce something into happening.

[38:33]

We're not trying to muscle something into happening. We're trying to touch in a perceptive and receptive way, the experience of the moment. This is the nature of the first quadrant of Anupuntasanti. Prajnatara says, and I study that sutra hundreds and thousands of times. Someone asked Prajnatara, they asked, I don't see you studying the sutras.

[39:40]

And she replied, I study. Sutra of the breath. I said to you, each time we sit down, we study the Sutra of the body. We study the Sutra of the breath. We study the Sutra of the breath in the body. And then an Upana Sati Sutta makes an outrageous claim. So outrageous, I'm hesitant to even repeat it. It's like, really?

[40:48]

Would that be so helpful to the human condition? The way my mind works is it facilitates Those homeostasis, impulses, inner being. The body learns to be the body. With all its many systems. How marvelous that Darlene, the practice of mindfulness, could facilitate the recovery of her body in 20 minutes so that she could swing her legs out of the bed.

[42:14]

that you could instruct other people with a similar condition to hers how to enable the intimacy of body and breath that supported their being. in day two so-called day two of sushi or maybe you prefer to call it monday morning when the workers get working binding nails

[43:28]

the guy who runs the crew I said how heavy are the pieces you'll be cutting and he said how about 500 pounds so maybe they just dropped one and still in this world in this world system individual consciousnesses circle the sun we call zen each sun a dharma gate each breath a journey into the mystery of being morning service, noon service, evening service.

[44:56]

A chance to hear the voices and harmonize with the voices of the Sangha. A world of dedication. Not the cognitive mind, the intellectual mind gets it all. But it's more like we get glimmers. We notice that we're noticing the sunlight. Notice that there's something in the tone of the chainsaw.

[46:11]

That rather than obstructing or hindering being in the moment, seems more like it enhances it. within us kind of hopefulness as we start to taste the gift of being present. close out that which interrupts us.

[47:12]

Somehow it's forgotten. It's something almost more magical appears. It's something in us suffering. we told it to. Not because we created some kind of mastery. Because something in the workings of our being have experienced what it is to be here and now. Thank you.

[48:30]

Now I have a short bio break, and I'm going to continue with Zendo, Connecticut at 11.25.

[51:30]

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