This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Give me a signal if my voice is trailing off. Sometimes when you have to say something about the nature of reality, it gets a little intimidating, you know, I want to start by thanking Hojo-san for inviting me to give this first talk of the second sashim, and also to thank the kitchen crew so much for joining us for sashim. Thank you very much. And the volunteer kitchen crew who's stepping in to cook for us for these five days as well. Thank you. And of course, Eno and the Doanrio for all the work that you do to support the container of Sashin and practice period.

[01:07]

So last night, our Eno read the Sashin admonitions, which start with the lines, Be silent and still. Sashin is a time to diligently care for. and collect body and mind in one suchness. It's an opportunity to discover anew, clarify and actualize our ultimate concern." And she went on to lay out several of the ways in which we are requested to help co-create this opportunity for ourselves and others going through the activities of a day of Tassahara Sashin. What I'd like to talk about this morning is how to diligently care for and collect body and mind when we're in this room together, in particular while we're in Zazen. I'd like to emphasize this collecting of body and mind as it happens in Zazen as a yogic practice, as a physical practice.

[02:28]

and also highlight some of the ways in which our mind tends to want to get in the way of this. A dear old friend that I visited this summer pointed out to me that when I was talking about the practice that we do here, I was using the verb sit. I think he would have expected me to say, meditate, perhaps. Instead, I was saying, like, we sit at 4.20 in the morning, and this did perhaps not sound so religious or spiritual or contemplative to him. And yet, this is our practice. This is what we do together. We sit. Sasan means sitting Zen.

[03:30]

And so the way I see it this morning, Sasan and Sashin is an opportunity to let our minds step out of the way and to tune in to the lived reality of our bodies. And what is being asked of us is an active engagement not to seek anything in any other place than right here and in this very body. It's a chance to see through our own mind how its projections onto the world are nothing more than projections, concepts being applied to try to pin down and domesticate the wild and constantly flowing reality that we find ourselves in. inhabit our bodies, and by doing so, discovering our embeddedness in the world around us, discovering how we're not separate, not fixed, and interdependent with each and everything.

[04:40]

It's also an opportunity to discover the fundamental non-separateness of body and mind and to explore how the appearance of one is always going to send ripples through the seemingly other. However, and as I mentioned, so often our minds occupy a repressively large portion of our lived subjective reality. We listen so much to our minds and so little to our bodies. And when we set out to do spiritual practice, it's quite challenging to not be caught by our mind's creations about what that is. In fact, even the word spiritual is misleading. I looked it up, and one definition is relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. So it's a common misconception in this practice of...

[05:52]

meditation results and we should somehow transcend these physical limitations that we find ourselves in. And so I want to bring up a teaching on some of the incorrect views that we may hold or pick up at any time from a sutra called the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment. It's a Chinese apocrypal sutra, meaning the scholars are saying it's They're pretty certain that it was compiled in China rather than in India. And its status there, it was one of the most important texts in Buddhism becoming Chinese, very influential both in the Zen and Hawaiian traditions. It didn't... never gained much influence in Japan, but it did in Korea, where it continues to be one of the most important meditation manuals being used.

[06:59]

And the setting and structure of this sutra is very similar to other Mahayana sutras. You might be more familiar with the Buddha seated and accompanied by 100,000 great Bodhisattvas and Mahasattvas. And each chapter of the sitra has one of these bodhisattvas asking the Buddha a question on behalf of the assembly and also so that sentient beings in the future dharma-ending age who aspire to the Mahayana will not fall into erroneous views. I think this has been a... It's nice to think that these... enlightening beings being gathered. We're not just thinking about the practice at their time, but sort of thinking ahead and how to preserve the teachings. And perhaps if you're a little more cynical, it's a clever way to write a sitra, because every generation probably thinks they're in the Dharma-ending age.

[08:07]

So this applies to us. It's sort of ensuring that the sutra will have some popularity going forward for generation after generation. And the teaching on the incorrect approaches to practice that I want to bring up is from chapter 10, where universal enlightenment bodhisattvas are named after their particular qualities and merits, so this is The Bodhisattva, whose particular character and merit is that of one enlightenment for all. And they ask the Buddha a question on behalf of those sentient beings in the Dharma Ending Age who will gradually be further away from the days of the Buddha, where the sages and saints will seldom appear and the fake Dharma will increase and flourish.

[09:08]

How should they practice and what falls in practice should they let go of? So the Buddha's response, after customarily praising Bodhisattva's universal enlightenment for asking such illuminating questions, goes on to teach everyone about the four faults or four illnesses of practice that we all keep an eye out of. As I mentioned, the sutra is essentially a meditation manual And so the teachings on these four illnesses can help us detect ways in which our Zazen practice may be off balance. If we're ill, it's important to acknowledge this and to adjust. And it's also important to not spread an illness if we have it, and similarly to detect if others are ill and take care of ourselves and others so we don't succumb to it.

[10:25]

the same illness. The Buddha is often referred to as a physician, diagnosing illnesses and prescribing cures, teaching us how we can best take care of ourselves and others. My hope is by bringing up these four illnesses may offer some encouragement or may reveal, relieve you of some discouragement because it may be that we're judging ourselves for failing in sasen to do things that the ancestors never said that we should do in the first place. So the first illness is that of striving or contrivance. So this is the notion that one can arrange one's life and practice toward the attainment of enlightenment. All of these seem good initially, which is why they're contagious, I think.

[11:34]

The approach to practice here is the belief that by my great efforts, my good works, I will find peace, joy and well-being and awakening. This seems to have been what Emperor Wu had succumbed to when he asked Bodhidharma how much merit he had accrued from building monasteries and supporting... the practice. And Bodhidharma's response was no merit, none whatsoever. So this is a kind of transactional approach to practice, you might call it. If I'm putting this much in, then I want to get this much back. It's considered an illness. If we're striving in any way to be other than who and what we are right here and right now, we're trying to escape what's happening by chasing after something, a projection of the future.

[12:37]

And if it's this deluded mind that we want to get away from and this deluded mind sets up goals, they're likely deluded goals as well. And when the mind runs the show like this, the body tends to be seen as an impediment rather than as the place for practice to occur. If only my body would not ache like this, I could really meditate. It might have been a thought. going through your mind at some point. So if you set up these great goals, no way to individually strive to reach, it's easy to end up with quite a bit of disappointment and discouragement. And it's not that there are great benefits from doing this practice wholeheartedly, but

[13:51]

we don't get to choose what they are. And if we grasp after them, we're likely to lose all of them. If we're grasping after self-improvement, it means that we're sowing karmic seeds of grasping. And so we just chanted this morning, Dogen's words relating to this admonishing us to have no designs on becoming a Buddha. I believe this is what he's speaking to. This orientation towards the future also makes investigation in the present less appealing. the only thing we do have to pay close attention to is what's going on in this very moment.

[14:51]

The second illness is that of accepting things as they are. This is to approach practice with a deliberate strategy to allow things to take the natural course. Again, this Ramya sounds really good at first, right? If we're not supposed to strive, then accepting whatever is would be a wise approach, right? This is the approach of practice. We're already Buddha, so why practice? To which Suzuki Roshi responded, and I appreciate it. I was reading through the first few chapters of Zen mind, beginner's mind, and I had to prune. There were so many quotes and everything, like they're just speaking to all these four. I pruned most of them out of here, but Suzuki Roshi says, of course, whatever we do is zazen, but if so, there's no need to say so. So if we're sitting down for zazen without any intention or aspiration, just letting our minds do whatever they want to do,

[16:12]

our karmic wheel would just be spinning on repeat. A little bit like a fallen leaf, just being caught by the winds. Also, in this approach, this seems to discourage investigation as well. We're just whatever. And so they, you know, admonish it last night to diligently care for and collect body and mind. in one suchness. The Buddhist path begins with an acknowledgement of suffering. And when we're sufficiently moved by the suffering we perceive our aspiration grow to know its causes, want to know the way and to put it into practice. So we don't want to skip over this and just go Of course, it's good to have some space to accept things, but we don't want to skip over the pain and suffering and injustices, etc.

[17:22]

Thank you, in our reality. And we humans tend to do best with some direction, some intention being set. And if practice was merely to accept things as they are, after all, then at the end of this lecture we would chant, beings are numberless, delusions are inexhaustible, Dharma gates are boundless, Buddha's way is unsurpassable. There would be no vowing to save and end and enter and become. And so we need to find some middle ground where we're neither striving for something other than what's here, or are we just letting things take their own course without any involvement? I'd like to suggest our services as well as our meal chants and before and after chants during lecture, et cetera, as good opportunities to recalibrate and find this middle ground.

[18:40]

And in particular, when we hear the dedications chanted by the kokyo, or when chanting the meal verses, these all express some intention. And can we remember to chant the four bodhisattva vows at the end of this lecture as an opportunity to give away the benefit of this practice, to not hold on to it, but to wish for to bring benefit to the world, nevertheless. And can we do so without trying to make ourselves mean what we chant, rather to just listen to, for any resonance within our own bodies, minds and hearts, any other words we chant, do they resonate with you? May we awaken Buddha's compassion and luminous mirror wisdom. For the sake of enlightenment, we now receive this food, etc.

[19:53]

The third fault or illness is that of stopping our thinking. And it's based on the idea that practice, or the way to enlightenment, is to make our thinking stop. How many of you have judged yourself for not being able to stop your mind from thinking? Let's see a few hands out there. It applies to me as well. So thinking is It's a very human thing to be doing. My root ordination teacher Fu likes to say, as snails secrete slime, humans secrete thoughts. And there are meditation techniques for stopping one's mind, but they're not usually taught in Zen monasteries. Rather than taking a negative approach, shutting off some parts of ourselves, our

[21:12]

way of practice is rather that of cultivating something positive by paying really close attention to our own vitality to turn to what's alive within our own bodies and hearts. And we can sit with a commitment to not push away the seemingly unpleasant nor chase after the seemingly pleasant. It may not be obvious to anyone giving given these black robes, monotone chanting, these seemingly limiting forms that our practice is actually a life-affirming practice. So we don't want to try to shut our minds off, but we do want to gently bring it back to our own breath and body over and over and over again. So Suzuki Roshi says, to stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind.

[22:19]

It means your mind pervades your whole body. Your mind follows your breathing. With your full mind, you form the mudra in your hands. With your whole mind, you sit with painful legs without being disturbed by them. This is to sit without any gaining idea. So rather than trying to shut our minds off, try to bring body and mind together. They arise together and any movement in one of them will have effect in the seemingly other. For example, if we're stressed, anxious, or fearful, we tend to breathe more shallow breaths. So if you notice any of these kind of afflictive mental emotional states, try turning your attention to your breath body.

[23:22]

What's the actual experience right now? If you pay really close attention, you might discover that your mind is actually involved in cutting the breath short. That you're depriving yourself of both the complete inhale and exhale. I'm not suggesting that we're using our mind to sort of artificially try to push to make the breath longer. It's rather in line with Norman's teaching, Last Sashim, which I really appreciated to lift our chest, but not to make us lifted but rather to listen to that which wants to be lifted can we pay close attention to our breath and just let it fully flow without cutting it short out of some mental tension just listen to what the breath really wants to be and

[24:38]

pay particularly close attention to the end of the inhalation and the beginning of the exhalation and end of the exhalation, beginning of the inhalation. These places in the breath cycle are where the sensations get more subtle and it's also where the mind tends to drift off very easily. So if you can give a little extra attention to those points in the breath cycle. When sensations are more subtle, there's some peace there if we're aware of it. Quiet moments to enjoy. The way our mind tends to get involved is that unconsciously we produce courses of experiences in our body in order to feel safe and secure.

[25:41]

One of my more influential Zen teachers was my Alexander Technique teacher, Bob Ritten, who did practice at Zen Center for about a decade. And he had the saying, I tense, therefore I am. Supposedly when we tense, The sensation is five to ten times stronger than when we relax, when the sensations are very subtle. So when we feel our sense of self being a little bit challenged, we tend to tighten our body to sort of get this. This is me. This is who I am. This is my body experience. And if we can be mindful and aware of bringing our body and mind together, it's an opportunity to let go of some extra effort that we're making that's totally unnecessary and exhausting, and just on the exhalation to just let that drop. And so the fourth and last fault or illness I touched on already, but it's the practice is about the elimination of defilements or detaching.

[26:56]

And so the idea behind this approach is that to be enlightened is to have eliminated all attachments and troubling mental states, which is desire, aversion, ignorance, pride, jealousy, anxiety, fear, irritation, and so on. And again, this probably sounds really good, right? To not have any of those things that we tend to really bother us anymore. However, And one of the koans from the Rinzai collections touches on this. In ancient days, an old woman gave housing and food to a hermit over a period of 20 years. One day, she may have suspected that maybe something was a little off in his practice because she sent her 16-year-old niece to take food to the hermit. telling her to make advances to him and see what he would do.

[28:02]

So the girl laid her head on the hermit's lap and said, How is this? To which the hermit responded, The withered tree is rooted in an ancient rock in bitter cold. During the winter months, there is no warmth, no life. So the girl reported this to her aunt, and the old woman said, that Bulgarian to think that I have made offerings to him for 20 years. And she drove the ermite away and burned down the cottage. So this, I think what this story is bringing up, that this way of pursuing practice is a way of detaching from the world around us to become desensitized and indifferent to the people we meet is considered an illness, actually. And when people have become successful in this, it's sometimes called the Zen sickness. It's supposed to be quite a difficult one to cure.

[29:07]

And so what we're aspiring for in practice is not to, neither to attach nor to detach, but rather to have a non-attached approach to each and everything that we encounter. to hold space for what's pleasant and joyful as well as for what's difficult and unpleasant. Peng Shu, our Chinese forefather to the practice of Shikantaza, included the following instructions in his meditation manuals advising us to respond unencumbered to each speck of dust without becoming its partner. So can we allow some space for the troubling mental-emotional states we might find arising during the course of Sashin without identifying with them, being caught by them, but holding them gently and kindly without becoming their partner?

[30:23]

So these four faults or misconceptions or illnesses, again, is that of striving for something in the future, accepting things to be as they are, or to unfold naturally, stopping our mental activity, and detachment from world passions. So I have a couple of closing suggestions for caring for our body and mind, bringing the seemingly two together. And one is to give some attention to your mudras. I think

[31:37]

From how I understand, there's muscles connected all the way from our lower back going out into our arms and all the way into the tips of our fingers, basically. And so if we're finding some tension in our shoulders or in our backs, even chances are that there's too much effort we're using, we're tensing somehow, holding our mudra. And similarly, if our mudra starts to kind of slouch, our body tends to start to slouch too, and our mind as well. And so rather than trying to fiddle and find that place where your body feels just right, just give some attention to your mudra and see. Are you holding it up? Are you... your fingers and hands and wrists relaxed it's just neither pressed together nor falling down and with some care of the mudra it helps to actually hold our whole body up without using unnecessary effort and my other suggestion is

[33:05]

If any part of your body is aching or hurting, it's not an impediment to practice. It's actually calling for your attention. And so can we treat it gently and bring our awareness and our breath to that part of our body? Maybe try treating it as a child, especially if you know with some predictability that somewhere in this period of Zasana, this shoulder is going to start aching. And rather than letting a child become so miserable that they're crying so much that you can't, nothing you can do to stop it, already as you sit down, give it some attention, you can breathe into it and just listen to that.

[34:10]

Because once we've started tightening muscles around it and been sitting like that for some time, it's hard to just drop that tension. But if we can be really aware and we know where our habits are to hold unnecessary tension, we can give those particular places in our bodies a little more spaciousness. And perhaps that would alter the experience a little bit, and perhaps not. At least you're treating yourself with kindness. So I'd like to end with the last few lines out of the shito or chant. our ancestors' names, Sekito Kisan. His poem, The Song of the Grass Roof Hut, also wrote the Harmony of Difference and Equality.

[35:16]

The Song of the Grass Roof Hut is another of his poems. And it ends with the lines, me they speak to Sashin and to Zasin. Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. Open your hands and walk innocent. Thousands of words, myriad interpretations are only to free you from obstructions. If you want to know the undying person in the hut, Do not separate from this skin bag here and now. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive.

[36:19]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit SSCC.org and click giving.

[36:29]

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