Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. just take a breath or two or ten together. Because today I have a request of you.

[01:17]

and that is that you keep yourself in good equanimity trim throughout the lecture so that you can listen with the body. So sometimes we listen with the ears or listen with the eyes, and it can take us away from the earthy reality of being embodied. So I ask that you keep contact with the earth, with the breath, with the flow of nutrition from breakfast throughout your system, with the transformation

[02:20]

that is slowly and surely taking place within and without. At this point in Sesshin, to whatever extent is possible, we are established in concentration. Silence has been established, which is so necessary to be with ourselves and with others in this intimate way. And we refresh our practice of silence. We refresh our feeling of purity by fearlessly acknowledging when we make mistakes. and returning to the guidelines.

[03:28]

At this point, that has become stable or at least a rhythmic practice in us. And for the past few days, you may have been practicing modulating your effort so that you're not over or underworking to be here. You may have been practicing attentiveness to body signals to understand what the body as a great vehicle might be in Sashin. And you might be practicing with pain of various sorts, trying to allow the patchiness of the effort within the body become equal, trying to bring parts of the body to the practice that may not usually automatically go there.

[04:42]

So for some people, today or tomorrow or maybe even yesterday, there's a culmination to a relative sense of ease. Not that it's easy, but that it's stable. And just like when you begin to push a car, it's difficult. But then after you've been pushing for a while, it becomes, you become stable in your pushing and the car begins to find its momentum. And then it's a matter of steering it right or left. and not pushing it over a hill. So just like that, in Sashin, there's an initial period of strong psychophysical exertion, and then there's a maintenance effort during which we can turn our attention to the human condition, just so long as we don't push ourselves over a hill.

[05:52]

So, in summary, the general preliminaries not only have been established now, they're being maintained. And we're very properly dedicating our effort and doing this practice in the context of the people we know who need help and of all beings. The environment... is being maintained for us and with us and by us. And to remember that we are making an effort and continually refresh this effort may actually be a little bit more challenging because it's easy to relatively fall asleep at this point. More challenging and more intimate. So maintaining the concentration and noticing and adjusting when we fall asleep or become habitual in our effort, today we can further develop, we can begin to mature the relationship that we have already established between awareness of the body and

[07:24]

and the direct experience of the living path, the path that is alive in us because of us, because of our practice today. So because it's this point in Sesshin where there's a relative degree of stability and where we begin to find our own causes and conditions because of that stability. We can begin to practice a little bit against the grain of our karmic consciousness or against the direction of the stream of the karmic consciousness in certain ways. There are different ways to practice with karmic consciousness, which flows like a stream. And sometimes we practice with it, like when we try to develop the conditions for sitting together.

[08:28]

And sometimes we can just stop in the middle of that karmic flow, and then we begin to feel its force and direction. We can turn, we can take a step upstream into our own body and mind towards the source. Now, lest I get into dangerous territory here, I want to remind you that this is a fantasy that I'm telling you right now. But it may be a useful one. You know, it has no reality other than what may be helpful temporarily for you and me practicing together, for us. And if it's not useful, dump it. And how you can tell if it's useful or not is tested out. Don't believe me.

[09:29]

As a matter of fact, don't believe me. Check it out for yourself. And if it's not true, it's not true. So at this point in the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, we have studied with the general act of sitting down. We've practiced with the to begin to establish concentration. And we've begun to bring that concentration into not just the sitting posture, but all the postures of meditation, and not just the activity in the meditation hall, but at all times of the day. And this is what Zenke Roshi told us. about yesterday and invited us to do. And at this point in the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, the Buddha does talk about what's named in Pali, patikula manaskara.

[10:40]

Patikula, against the grain. Manaskara, the mind brings attention. to a process against the grain of karmic life. And so at this point in the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, the Buddha introduces the parts of the body, and traditionally it's practiced as a kind of a consideration of the repulsive nature of the human body. but we're going to practice it a little bit differently, or I'm suggesting that we practice it a little bit differently. Today, because of what we're doing, we're studying the body as great vehicle practice. So by repulsive, I don't necessarily mean ew, disgusting, although it can have that element.

[11:44]

But rather... The Buddha usually, the Buddha teaches, and this meditation is usually practiced, to turn us away from the very human tendency to attach to this stuff as real or as the self, as abiding, as permanent. It sure feels permanent. But when I sit with it, I can tell it's changing and not usually in ways that I want it to change over time. That's called suffering. But in the great vehicle practices, the emphasis is a bit different. So that's what I want to focus on. instead of renouncing attachment to a specific thing, like a part of the body as repulsive, or to turn towards its repulsiveness to disconnect or unhook the habit of attachment.

[12:57]

In great vehicle practice, we basically renounce everything. We renounce attachment to anything. Anything that comes up is what we renounce attachment or aversion to. And it doesn't matter what it is. And our understanding is that we're basically attached to averting from or confused by everything pretty equally. And so we can renounce it in favor or renounce that attachment or that fixed view in favor of living in vow. So yesterday, Blanche talked about this. She mentioned, when walking, the monk discerns, I'm walking. When standing, standing. When sitting, sitting. When lying down, the monk discerns, I'm sitting down. Or however the body is disposed, that's how he or she discerns it.

[14:00]

In this way, a practitioner remains focused internally on the body in and of itself. We're focused externally, unsustained by anything in the world, and that's how we focus. But also, when going forward or coming back, we make ourselves fully alert. When looking towards something and looking away, when bending or extending the elbows and knees, when carrying the robe, the bowl, when eating, drinking, chewing, tasting... urinating, defecating, walking, and so on, waking up, sleeping, and anything that we can do. And so Blanche was pointing to how we can be present in all activities, not just sitting, so that we can live life the way that we want to, that we really, really deeply, deeply, most deeply want to, not through...

[15:07]

old habits that don't serve us or our vow. But let's look at the big unconscious habit of identifying with the body as the self or identifying with things as other. They're mirror images of each other. And so I'll just read what the Buddha says about this. Furthermore, just as if a sack with openings at both ends were full of various kinds of grain, wheat, rice, mung beans, kidney beans, sesame seeds, husked rice, and a person with good eyesight pouring it out were to reflect, this is wheat, this is rice, these are mung beans, these are kidney beans, these are sesame seeds, this is husked rice. In this body, there are hairs of the head, hairs of the body, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, tendons, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, pleura,

[16:37]

spleen, lungs, large intestines, small intestines, gorge, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, skin oil, saliva, mucus, fluid in the joints, and urine. So the monk actually considers all of these parts of the body one at a time. in the traditional meditation. It considers them a variety of ways, their names, their images, their color, their shape, their location in the body, their location up and down in the body or inside, and making mental images and doing various things with them. We're not going to do them, but I wanted to... say exactly what the practice was.

[17:38]

So for our body as great vehicle practice introduction, in the yoga class we've been looking at various parts of the body from the soles of the feet on up. And so what I've been doing is to examine, what I've been trying to encourage you to do is for the body itself to study the body through using it in different ways. And through doing that to have a direct experience of the interconnection between that part of the body and the whole body and mind in Zazen. So like the first day we looked at feet and ankles, we gave ourselves a foot massage and looked at the functioning of the ankles in different poses and went back and forth between the zazen position and those positions so we could see the effect of what we did.

[18:49]

It's a very conventional level of study. How does the foot work? When we do this, what's the effect on that? And then the next few days, we looked at the shins and knees, the upper leg, hips, lower back, and the pelvis, the waist, and the middle back. And we looked at them one at a time. Today, we may look at the upper back and neck, maybe. Tomorrow, we might look at the sense organs and the brain. I don't know. But whatever it is, it'll be part of the body. It will be part of your body and part of your zazen. And one of the things that's so interesting to me when I practice this type of yoga practice is that the feet-ized self, the knee-ized self, the middle-back-ized self that I experience in that kind of practice is different day to day, how different it is.

[20:06]

So a feet and ankylized self that is sensitive to how to meet the ground feels and responds in Zazen so differently from a middle-backized self so as to feel like a different self. And yet, conventionally speaking, and in normal life, we think of it as the same self. But if we really look at the experience, it's so different as to feel like a completely different self. So which one is me? Which one is you? You know, I don't know. I mean, I really don't know. It's not an I don't know from, you know, some sort of lecture seat. I don't know. I really, really do not know which one is the self who Who is the self? Who is the self?

[21:07]

Who is the person who can look at and work with the parts of the body in zazen? And the other thing that I've noticed is that after I've practiced with the feet or after I've practiced with the pelvis or the elbows or whatever it is, if I look at things, they seem different too. And you may have noticed this upon arising in zazen. The world is completely fresh and new sometimes. So I do want to not only read what the Buddha said about meditating on the parts of the body, But I would also like to read what Dogen Zenji said about meditating on the parts of the body because the emphasis is a little bit different.

[22:08]

So Dogen Zenji said, The human body means the four great elements and the five skandhas. The elements are earth, air, fire, and water. Often we add space or emptiness. The skandhas are just what we say in the Heart Sutra, form, feeling, perceptions, formations, and consciousness. So the human body means the four great elements and the five skandhas. However, none of these elements or skandhas is fully understood, he says, by ordinary people, and I'll say in ordinary life, by ordinary consciousness. Only sages, or I should say only practitioners who have thoroughly studied will thoroughly master them. Now, penetrate the ten directions within one particle of dust, but do not confine them to one particle of dust.

[23:17]

Construct a monk's hall and a Buddha hall within a single particle of dust and construct the entire world in the monk's hall and in the Buddha hall In this way, the human body is constructed, and such construction comes from the human body. This is the meaning of the entire world of the Ten Directions is the true human body. Do not follow the mistaken views of spontaneous or natural enlightenment. So I invite you now, you could refresh your posture for a moment. And any part of the body that feels like it's in danger, please support it or arrange it with care. And then pick a part of the body, any part of the body, to sit with for the next three minutes.

[24:27]

some part of the body that's going to be doing zazen and representing the whole body and the whole self. I like to pick some part of the body that feels pain. So, for instance, a knee. I'll say knee, but you can substitute whatever part of the body you choose. So this is Dogen Zenji's instruction. Find the one part of the body that you are sitting with now. Thich Nhat Hanh wants, as an example, Thich Nhat Hanh once asked someone who was sitting in a practice period at Tassahara to look at his hand.

[25:39]

So you could look at that part of your body. And Thich Nhat Hanh said to that person, how old is your hand? And the young man said, 32. And Tai said, now look at the shape of your hand. Can you see the shape of your mother's hand in your hand? Can you see the shape of your father's hand in your hand? And the young man said, yes. And Tai said, can you see whether you've drunk enough water today in your hand? And the man said, yes. And the questioning and answering went on for a little while. Can you see food in your hand?

[26:42]

Can you see light in your hand? Yes. Yes, I can. How old is your hand? I don't know. So, penetrate the entire universe within that body part in this way. But don't confine the entire universe to that part of your body. The entire universe is still the entire universe. Construct your zendo and your buddha hall within your knee. or whatever part you're working with. And construct the entire world in that zendo or Buddha hall you've constructed in your knee.

[27:48]

In this way, the human body is constructed as a temple for practice. And such consciousness construction comes from that we have or are a human body. Then he says, this is the meaning of the entire world of the Ten Directions, is the true human body. Or you can look at that part of your body as fire, that pain as purification. you can look at how that part of the body matures your practice, like the nature of wind, which transforms and moves. Usually we would think, oh, that part of the body is swollen, it must have water in it.

[28:57]

But actually it's the other way around. The nature of water is to contain that part of the body. Water is in every molecule of air. Every particle of air has a particle of water. Wherever you go, there's water. Instead of saying there's water in your knee, let's say that water contains your knee as well as the skin of your knee, the bone of your thigh. Water is vast, and your knee exists within the water. We can also look at the solid nature of that body part, that there's nothing else in that body part that you can feel. We can look at how it's built. That's the solid part of the form.

[29:59]

So Suzuki Roshi says, when you sit this way, looking at the four elements in your part of the body, or looking at how the world is constructed in your body, if you sit with it this way, it will be very easy to see that its nature is just empty. that the four elements are not just material. They're energy, potential, or emptiness. Fire in your knee, the wind of your knee, the water of your knee, the earth of your knee are all empty. It's just a designation. Even though they are empty, from the emptiness, the four elements come into being. So in another place in Zen mind, beginner's mind, he says, everything is just a flashing in the phenomenal world.

[31:12]

The knee is just a flashing in the phenomenal world. There's actually spaces in that perception if you're sitting and following your experience. It looks as if we're talking about a knee, but the elements are not just matter. They're both spirit and matter. So the emptiness is including both the material part of your knee and the subjective part, experience of your knee. And our thinking mind can't reach it. it reaches us, it experiences us. In the Sandhokai it says, the four elements return to their own nature, just like a child comes to its mother.

[32:24]

And it means it goes back to, it returns to emptiness when we sit. Suzuki Roshi says, without the mother, there isn't any child. That the child is here means the mother is here. Mother Prajna is here. That Mother Prajna is here means that the four elements are here. And even though the four elements are here, they're nothing but that momentary flashing of of emptiness itself. So if you can just appreciate your knee or whatever part of the body you've chosen one by one, one experience by one experience, then that in itself is appreciating and moving the way forward.

[33:34]

It isn't just a knee. It's Buddha. It's of the nature of Buddha itself. But at the same time, it's exactly a knee. So appreciating both sides is to live a life of gratitude. moment after moment. Now at the same time, there are some natural questions that come up, so I would like to remember what a student asked Suzuki Roshi when he gave the lectures on the Sandokai. He said, when we sit zazen and have correct posture and follow our breathing, do we need these concepts about Buddhism or about the four elements? And Suzuki Roshi said, no, at that time we should forget them.

[34:40]

And the student said, I mean, do we have to understand the idea of Buddhism to practice? Suzuki Roshi said, yes, we have to, because we tend to look at things in that way. So I'd like to close with a... Some more words from the ancestors. This is the last case in the Book of Serenity. And since we were looking at the beginning, we can also look at the end and maybe we'll understand everything in between in that way. So the introduction to this case, it's called Langya's Mountains and Rivers. Introduction. One word. One word can cause a nation to flourish. One word can cause a nation to perish. This drug can kill people and can bring people to life too.

[35:46]

The benevolent seeing this call it benevolence. The wise seeing this call it wisdom. But tell me, where does the benefit or harm lie? But I'd just like to reframe that for a second. One knee... can cause a body to flourish, a human to flourish. One knee can cause a human to perish. The medicine of this last phrase can kill you and bring you back to life. Bodhisattvas seeing this call it the bodhisattva vow. Wise people seeing it call it wisdom. But tell me, where does vow, wisdom, sitting practice, or any manifestation of our attention, how does that come up?

[36:49]

The case. A monk asks Master Langya Jiao, Purity is originally so. How does it suddenly produce mountains, rivers, and the great earth? Langya responded, purity is originally so. How does it suddenly produce mountains, rivers, and the great earth? Let's reframe that just a moment. A monk asked someone, purity is originally so. how does it produce hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, and skin? That person responded, purity is originally so.

[37:50]

How does it produce hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, and skin? I ask you, to find this in your own body as you sit. Don't just be satisfied with concentration. Find yourself in the midst of the human condition. Find yourself, and you'll be able to help not just yourself, but anyone, anything, for the rest of the week. They will help you. They will open... your body and mind and give you your heart's desire. Thank you so much for your attention. We'll see you in church. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[38:57]

Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[39:17]

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