Good evening. It's wonderful to be here speaking in the Zendo. My name is Hozan Alan Sinaki, and I live at Berkeley Zen Center, and my teacher Sojin Roshi will be down on Friday, I believe, for a workshop, a retreat, and we'll probably meet in the parking lot at Jamesburg. So what I've been doing, a number of us have been doing for the last several days, is a Zen and Photography workshop, which is, well, it's incredible fun for me. I don't know, I think it's fun for everybody who's in it. I got this idea when I met, when I saw Peter Cunningham, whose Dharma name is Kuku, and at a Zen group in Chicago, and he was doing this, and I was really taken with it.

[01:05]

And I had met Peter before, and I thought it would work well here. And I also thought I could learn something. So that's my not-so-hidden agenda. But it's been quite wonderful. I think it's very... There's something auspicious about... So his Dharma name... Kuku, both are the characters for emptiness. Is that right? So is that emptiness of emptiness? Emptiness, emptiness. Real emptiness. Now, my Dharma name, which I don't use very much, is actually Ku Shiki, which is the same first character, Ku, emptiness, and Shiki form. As you're repeating... over and over again in Makahanya Haramita Shingyo. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. I don't use that name very much except on in official Soto Zen papers because it's a bit much to be known as Mr. Formless Form.

[02:17]

I don't know that I can live up to that. But that was what Sojin Roshi named me. Anyway... What came to mind before this workshop, and I'd been thinking about it for a few weeks, it came out of a talk that my wife, Laurie, was giving at Berkeley Zen Center. And it came up in an exchange between Laurie and Sojin Roshi, where she asked him what is composure? And so composure, I was thinking about composure, I was thinking about composition, which is something that we're working with in photography, and the relationship of those words. So what Laurie asked, turned to him and said, what is composure?

[03:24]

And he said, Sojin Rajji said, composure is being yourself in the midst of every circumstance. Being who you are, right in the center of it, taking responsibility for it, not being pushed out of your grounded state, and yet bending. and I was really taken with that, and that's what sort of set me to thinking about this. Now, composure in the dictionary means calmness or repose, especially of mind or appearance or bearing. Its Latin root means to put or place with

[04:28]

And it's interesting because the word compose, composure, composition, is actually itself a composite word. It's taking two words, the word for with and the word for place or put, and combining them. So, one of the dictionary definitions describes... describes this as the act or art of composing. A composition is the act or art of composing, of forming a whole or integral by placing together different things or parts, ingredients, etc. In that sense, it's probably needless to say that all of us are compositions. that the entire nature of reality, of what the Buddha discovered as dependent origination, is about the relationship of different elements of reality to each other, the placing of those things next to each other, within each other, the interpenetration of them.

[05:56]

So everything is... It's interesting also that in some translations of the Eightfold Path, which is the force of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths, the First Noble Truth, the pervasive nature of suffering, the Second Noble Truth is the cause of suffering, which can be seen as clinging, attachment. One of my favorite framings of it is by a Western teacher who described it as emotional reactivity. The third noble truth is that there is a path to liberation from this suffering. And then the fourth noble truth is the Eightfold Path.

[06:58]

And so the first... The last step along the Eightfold Path, we usually translate as right meditation. But sometimes, some translators actually translate this as right composure, which is what we are doing in the process of zazen. We're collecting ourselves. We are integrating body and mind together. and composing ourselves and sitting in this very composed, stable way where our legs may hurt or our back may groan and we may move a tiny degree this way, that way, different emotional storms may blow through, but we hold our place with composure. So this is

[07:59]

the heart of our practice, I think, maintaining our composure, reclaiming it as our naturally awakened state. And this applies whether we are doing zazen, or taking photographs, or however we are engaged with the world. I was reading the beginning of the Diamond Sutra last week, and it begins in this way. At one time, the Buddha was staying in the Jeta Grove near the city of Shravasti. With him, there was a community of 1,250 venerable monks and devoted disciples. One day before dawn, the Buddha clothed himself in his robes and along with his disciples took up his alms bowl and entered the city to beg for food door to door as was his custom.

[09:09]

After he had returned and eaten, he put away his bowls and cloak, bathed his feet and then sat with his legs crossed and body upright upon the seat that had been arranged for him. He began mindfully fixing his attention in front of himself while many monks and nuns approached the Buddha and, showing great reverence, seated themselves around him. Not a lot, you might say, on one hand, not a lot is happening in that passage. But actually, every element of that passage is expressing the Buddha composing himself moment by moment in each activity. And I like it because it's quite visual. You can see him moving through this.

[10:12]

You can see him waking up, putting on his robes, going out, walking with his balls. And in each step, of this introduction, he is composed, collected, and the scene is composed around him. This is the model for the beginning of many sutras. Really, if one were completely awake, there wouldn't have had to have been the rest of the Diamond Sutra or any other sutra to follow. All you would need to do is read this introduction and say, oh yeah, I get it. Right. And in fact, in the Buddha's time, that's exactly, you know, or mythically, that's what happened. You know, people would see the Buddha walking and they would get it. And, you know, then he would see that they would get it and he'd say, okay, come monk.

[11:18]

And they would immediately say, be a monk. And they would drop away their suffering. It's a little harder for us. It ain't so easy. So, what is composure? This is something that Suzuki Roshi talks about a lot. He talks about it, you can find it mentioned in And Sojin Roshi talks about it a lot. But I searched all through the archives and couldn't find too much concentrated teaching on it. It's left to each of us to figure out what it means. Because composure is really hard to pin down. It has no special characteristic. But he did, Sojun Roshi did, he was clear in response to my wife, Lori, not encyclopedic, but said, just means to be you.

[12:32]

You were at the center of every activity that you are participating in, of every circumstance that comes your way. And this reminds me of, you know, this expression of Suzuki Roshi's When you are you, Zen is Zen. But who are you? And who am I? In the middle of stress or distress or trouble, sometimes I lose my composure. Sometimes I'm nervous about something. Sometimes I hurt myself. We were talking today, two examples. Last week I did an interview with a teacher who is the prime minister of the Tibetan government in exile.

[13:38]

I was smart enough, I brought two recording devices because I thought maybe one is going to go wrong. I forgot to turn one of them on. I was about six minutes into the interview, and the one that I really wanted to record, I was, I forgot to turn it on because I didn't have my full composure in that moment. Fortunately, I had a backup. If I hadn't had a backup in his presence, which was really so open... it would have been okay with me. It was just a mistake. Nothing was lost. But what was gained, actually, was the understanding that in that moment, when we had begun, I had lost my composure. This was extremely helpful to me. Because it helped me wake up. So...

[14:43]

It's a really challenging practice. But it is our practice. In the Platform Sutra, the sixth ancestor, Master Wi-Ning, says, we should train ourselves not to move, not to be caught by the supposed or actual faults of others or difficulty in our life and conditions. He calls this imperturbability. It's another word for composure. Not to move doesn't necessarily mean we sit there rigid, you know, ever the unmovable stone-like Zen student. It means constantly adjusting to the nature of reality as it arises and not to be pushed around. If I had been moved in the sense of deeply upset by the mistake of not starting the recording device, then I actually would have missed everything else that was happening in the room at that moment, which was quite wonderful.

[16:03]

So, how do you regain, how do you fall out of balance and regain your composure again and again. This is the nature of our lives, the nature of our practice, to fall out of balance, fall off-center, come back, the wind blows the other way. It's just like being a leaf or a tree in the wind. You go which way the wind blows, and you return to center. If you are rigid, you're going to fall over and harm yourself and others. The other thing about composure, a friend of mine, Bob Rosenbaum, was writing something, and he sent it to me last week, and he said, don't make the mistake that composure eliminates pain.

[17:09]

It doesn't. What it does instead is place it in a different context, which alters our experience. When you arrange the elements of your experience to function in a harmonious whole, you are like an artist painting on a canvas or a musician arranging notes into counterpoint and chords. Or you are like a photographer looking through the lens. So I would say, when you arrange the elements of your experience, which includes your difficulty, pain, the circumstances of this world, the suffering that is within us and all around us, when you are arranging those elements, placing them in some order, then you are enacting you're composing your life you're actually practicing the art of life you're making a whole out of what you're doing even if what you're doing is being caught in sickness in war in all kinds of difficulties which I don't need to spell out for you because we all experience them

[18:40]

So, composition and composure are quite closely related. Composure, I was also thinking in terms of composition, thinking of a quotation from Dogen's Genjo Koan. Dogen says, To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. So, this is not just you being at the center of you. This is recognizing that all things, the myriad things coming forth and experiencing themselves includes you. It includes person sitting next to you, the person sitting across from you.

[19:46]

As we're finding out in our day-by-day practice in the photography workshop, it includes the rock, the tree, and we can have different experiences. Like, how do we dissolve this barrier between self and other? But one person actually went so far and has to taste the rock. That was actually pretty radical. We were impressed. But still, what our instruction was, just really stay with that, and if you stay, your attention will deepen, and you will begin to understand what relationship you are in. And you will see things that you have not previously seen. This is how we need to... This is a watchword for how to meet the world.

[20:52]

Composure is available right here in every moment. But we do have to pay attention. We have to be able to stop long enough to see what is going on. We have to recognize that we are co-creating the world, that the myriad things that come forth and experience themselves includes us. And we include everything. Suzuki Roshi writes, In our busy life, we should wear this civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, and without being caught by it.

[22:07]

Without going anywhere, without escaping it, we can find composure in this busy life. That's To me that's very clear. We should wear this civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, without being caught by it, without going anywhere, without escaping it. We can find our composure in this busy life. So he doesn't say what composure is and he doesn't say what to do. He just is steering you away from the distortions and errors that you can make. And we have to find it. What he says is, he begins this statement, in our busy life. Now, people who are guests here think, maybe they think that the life in a monastery is very restful.

[23:12]

And people are meditating all the time and they're blissed out and very calm. But It's really busy here. And everybody is working very hard during the guest season. They're working very hard during the rest of the year. And even though it seems like it's a very long way down the road, I know from my own experience that the world comes down that road. It comes down that road every day in every way. So lives are busy here. All of our lives are busy. So we should wear this civilization without ignoring it and without being caught by it. That's the middle way that he's talking about. How do you do that? That's the question that you must answer. It's not about sitting a certain number of hours of meditation

[24:17]

It's not about doing good things. It's also not about that. You have to figure this out. I have to figure it out. We should not ignore it, and we should not be thrown around by it. We should not be pushed out of our seat, whether we are standing, walking, sitting, lying down. It's really important, and this is one of the things I think that we're manifesting in our workshop, and Peter Cunningham is really good at this, it's very important for us not to take the world too seriously. We should be able to laugh at our own shortcomings. If I forgot to turn the recorder on,

[25:20]

Okay, I can laugh at that. No one is harmed by that. I remember, this is maybe parenthetical, I remember I was doshi someplace once and in the middle of service I got stricken with terrible stomach cramps. And I remember standing there thinking, oh, I wonder what's going to happen now And I really didn't know. And I was very interested. I thought, well, I'm just going to move through this step by step and see what happens. And if I have to run out of here fast, I'll just run out. Which I didn't have to. Hallelujah. But if you can cultivate this a kind of spirit of bemusement.

[26:23]

That's a wonderful thing. At the same time, though, I would say, what this really means is don't take yourself seriously. Be able to be amused by yourself, laugh at yourself, but take what you do seriously. Really, that means giving it the attention that giving each activity the attention that it deserves. Whether it's sitting zazen, cooking a meal, serving. We were so well served in the last few days. It's like, people are really paying attention. So to take that seriously, when you watch great musicians, and I'm a musician, I play music, what I love is is they're completely pouring themselves into the music that they're doing.

[27:29]

But then, when the music stops, say between songs, this is not modern show music, like pop music, where it's all performance. But in jazz or folk music, between songs, oh, they're just themselves. The music begins... complete attention. This is finding your composure in each moment, finding your composure, what's appropriate. So I wanted to say something just very briefly also, just as a kind of, there's a hazard, there's a near enemy to composure. which was also something that Suzuki Roshi spoke about, he used a very succinct phrase, which was, looks like good.

[28:32]

Looks like good. Looks like. Very good sense to it. Very serious. But that occurs in in everything. The other day, we went to meet some cousins in St. Helena. Is that how you pronounce it? St. Helena? Anyway, up in Napa. We were driving back. Maybe I shouldn't be so critical, but we were driving back at sunset. It was gorgeous. All along the road, there were people with cameras, since we're talking about photography, set up with tripods, taking calendar pictures of the sunset, as if you could capture that. Now, maybe that's fine, but looks like good is doing something in some formalistic way that is not the same as you being you.

[29:42]

How can you be you? It may mean you're a little wild. It may mean you laugh too loud. It may mean you're not as graceful as you might be. Now, this is something we all need to work on ourselves, but this look-alike good... Actually, this is another thing that the sixth ancestor spoke of in the Diamond Sutra. It's very interesting. He says... An unenlightened person may appear physically unmoved or stable. But as soon as he or she speaks, they talk about merits and demerits, strengths and weaknesses, good or evil, turning away from the past. So if you look like good, then you may fool yourself that you think you're good,

[30:46]

and then you're going to use that as a standard to measure others against. This is not composure. I bring this up just to say that we don't always know what composure is. Someone sitting with a seemingly perfect posture, moving slowly, serenely, it's not always as they appear. But the main thing is, don't worry about them. You know, don't compare yourself. Find your own composure. Your composure may look very different. Your composure may look unique. But it is our responsibility to find it. There is a responsibility, you can break this word down into its two parts, responsibility that comes from practice. You learn to respond in an appropriate, thorough way.

[31:51]

This is how you find your composure. And it is our responsibility to do that, not just to be here that way, but find a way to live like that. Because when we live like that, someone was asking me earlier today, how does our practice help others? How does what we're doing 20 miles down a mountain road make a difference? One way that it makes a difference is we're not going to stay here. With the exception of Leslie, I don't know anybody who's been here. She may stay here, but she goes out too. And when you go, wherever you go, if you have found your composure, you will affect. those who are around you. They will align themselves with you in ways that they may not even see.

[32:54]

So you don't have to worry so much about what exact thing you're doing. Just to take this responsibility to be yourself, to live in the Dharma in the largest and deepest way, even if you don't call it Buddhism. or even if you don't call it Zen. They're people of composure of every faith, of every tradition. And wherever they go, they are making peace in the world for themselves and for all those who are around them. And I think this is, to me, this is what we're trying to do. This is our responsibility. And I'm just really deeply grateful to be, to have found it, to have had good teachers, to have had wonderful Dharma sisters and brothers to share it with.

[33:59]

And I invite you to do that yourself wherever you go, whatever you do in your life. So, thank you very much.

[34:13]

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