Good evening, everyone. So the format for tonight is I'm going to just give a brief presentation, a brief introduction to the topic, and then we're going to sit for three minutes, and then we're going to get into small groups and speak to each other. about the topic, and then we'll come back again into a large group to finish up the evening with a little bit more discussion. Now, tonight's topic is the Zazen experience. And we'll do what in other places in our Zen practice we're discouraged from doing, and that is talk about what is it that actually happens. What are you actually doing when you're sitting Zazen? So Zazen means... Seated meditation.

[01:53]

Za means seated and Zen means concentration or meditation. So Zazen is seated meditation. And it's our central practice here at San Francisco Zen Center. It's the one thing that you really have to do if you come here. If you don't come to Zazen in the morning and you're a resident here, we start to wonder what's happening and why it is that you're here with us. We focus, in Soto Zen, we focus on sitting as a group, sitting together. Although we're developing an online sangha, traditionally it's sitting in person together that has been our practice. It has a different quality to it. And there's an energy that we're asked to become aware of that happens in between people when they're sitting together. In his instructions for sitting zazen, Dogen, our 13th century founder in Japan, Eihei Dogen, said, cease intellectual pursuits.

[03:05]

Learn the backward step and turn the light inward to illuminate the self. So the practice of zazen starts with the body. And Dogen spells out in his instructions for Zazen quite specifically how it is that we should sit. And that's how it is that we still teach sitting now. So most of you, I think, have gone to an introductory Zazen intro and see how it is that we sit. But he calls Zazen... He calls our... experienced in Zazen, the art of Zazen. He says, the Zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality.

[04:11]

Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains. For you must know that just there in Zazen, the right Dharma is manifesting itself. And from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside. So intelligence and book knowledge is not a prerequisite for sitting zazen successfully. It's simply being devoted to sitting. This is the character of our practice. Don't waste your life, Dogen says. Take the posture of immovable sitting to achieve thusness and be free of conditioned, conceptual existence. It's all of us.

[05:14]

Missing person. Okay, well, that was perfect timing. What I'd like for us to do is to just sit for three minutes, and then we're going to split up into small groups and talk about what it is that we did, if we'd like. Okay, let's go ahead and split up into groups of a minimum of four people.

[09:07]

Okay, welcome back. So what kind of things were coming up? Does anyone ever get tired when they're sitting zazen? Is that part of anyone's experience? How do you deal with that, Rocher? I got so tired I fell out of the chair. Onto the floor. A couple people came running over because they thought the old guy might have a heart attack. Otherwise, I try not to get whiplash. It goes like that. Yes. Speaking of what we do when we get tired... Oh, yes.

[10:13]

Let's pass the microphone around so they can hear us online. Sorry, this is a little bit of a glib remark, but speaking of what we do when we get tired, when will we bring back the kusaku? I believe I'm pronouncing it correctly. So, he's talking about the stick that has been used as... a encouragement i'm sorry encouragement as encouragement yes and sometimes it's used to it was used to wake people up it's a long stick and uh i think it was the tanto used it michael is that right who the tanto or the roshi would use it and Yeah, or the Shuso. Yeah, we'd go around. Shuso is the first monk. And tap you, sometimes kind of hard, on the shoulder. And I've heard a lot of people speak with regret that it's not used anymore, people who had experience with it.

[11:24]

But we talk about it every now and then, but this is a litigious culture that we live in. And there's a lot of people who have got a lot of very real trauma around physical contact. And so I can't see it being brought back anytime soon. You would actually put your hand in Gassho if you wanted because when you're sitting in Shashim... Let's get the microphone. Sorry to... I was just going to say, actually, you can put your hands in gassho in the old days and then they would... And it actually was to relieve your back pain as well. So there was a positive side. What's happening inside when you're sitting zazen?

[12:26]

Actually, this is taking a little bit off on the Kyusaku, or the sudden wake up, as well as what's inside. And when I'm sleeping, I had a teacher once that said, as you go unconscious, it's because you're coming in face of something you should actually be paying attention to. And so, of course, sitting long seshin's another day, some good mornings, I'm sleepy. I'm trying to wake myself up and face whatever it is. So what was the second part that you just asked? What's actually happening inside? Right, so the question of if I'm going to sleep, I've let my mind take control, go off on a story, and usually that's when I drop off. But if I'm awake and don't have my mind on a story, Those times, it's almost like what Dogen says, awake and alert.

[13:39]

But when the demon comes forward and I start developing elaborations and stories about the demon, then I go to sleep. And I would almost welcome a stick at that point. I'd use my tongue and tickle the roof of my mouth. It does something amazing to keep me awake, I'll tell you. Really? Yeah. Thank you. That's enough said. I don't think we're taught that technique right there. Tickle the top of the mouth if you feel sleepy. What's happening when you're not feeling tired? What's happening inside? I don't know if it's inside or outside.

[14:54]

Thoughts are happening. Thoughts. You don't know if they're inside or outside? Inside or outside. Thoughts. Good. That's good. I like that. Thoughts are happening. A little bit on what our group touched on. We talked a little bit about courage and I think it takes courage to sit and definitely takes courage to talk about what we do when we sit. So I'm going to say bravo to everyone that talked about what... It's a very private thing, isn't it? We talk about it a lot. It's a very private thing. I acknowledge that. It does. Thank you. It takes courage to talk about it. Thank you, Shoko. It's not easy. Abhi, did you have your hand up? I sort of have new words that just came to me in our group.

[16:13]

It feels like, in Zazen, it's like a cacophony of desires. Every moment. You know, sort of... Can you hear me okay? Yes. A cacophony of desires. Mm-hmm. To just, you know, in a moment it could be to feel my body, in another moment it could be noticing my breath, or listening, or just relishing in living Sometimes it's avoiding pain. And other times it's a desire to go towards the pain.

[17:21]

And, yeah, just this movement of life. I don't know what it is. But I like the word desire. To just experience so much that can happen. Thoughts, sensations, feelings, awareness itself. There's like little seeds of desire in all of it. Kind of using more poetic language, but that's how it feels. So desire is connected to pretty much all of what it is that you mentioned. Is that right? Yeah. And I could also describe it as being aware of things or welcoming or all of those more conventional Zen terms.

[18:29]

But I kind of like the more poetic language of desire. Of just this flow of life, whatever that is. Thank you. Yes, please. Something that I was reminded of, just hearing that just now, is this is a regular experience that I have while sitting zazen, which is I'm doing a lot of eye-making. if Zazen is going well, so to speak, or it seems like it's going well, I guess, to my mind, I might use that to think that, oh, I'm such a good meditator, or I'm someone that sits Zazen well, and I start to have all kinds of ideas about that.

[19:36]

So part of the practice, I think, for me, is inside or I guess your question was what's happening inside, something like that. It's like recognizing the way that even this practice can be leveraged by the ego for its own support or existence. And so attending carefully to the physical sensations or just any sensation. and not making distinctions about whether it's inside or outside, and just trying to note it with a kind of openness. Something that I'm really working on, but speaks to my experience. So you're talking about judgment? Yes. Well, there's also encouragement, which is what you sounded like you were talking about when...

[20:42]

You said, oh, you can be a good meditator. You can be a good meditator. It might start getting to be problematic when you start saying, I'm a really, really good meditator. But being a good meditator and encouraging yourself, I think, is a wholesome discernment. So there is a place for that then in the practice? I think so. That's my opinion. Yeah. Encourage yourself. We have to learn about the ego because the ego is so much a part of what it is that's happening. As you mentioned and other people have sort of touched on, when the ego gets connected up with desire and they start encouraging each other, that's when it is that we start wandering off into places of grasping and holding on. Thank you. Yes, thank you.

[21:44]

Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. I'll admit that I often feel like I'm not such a good meditator. I... I think the original practice I was shown was counting breaths. And I don't think I ever made it to ten. I'm still not sure I've ever made it to ten in counting my breath. You know, five, six, and the mind has already wandered. And so lately what I have been trying to do is to really focus on the gratitude of that moment of returning. Because it turns out I get... several dozen, many dozens of those in each period of Zazen.

[22:46]

And those moments of gratitude, oh, look, here's another opportunity for me to notice the present moment. That feeling is much more encouraging for my Zazen, it seems, than the sort of beating myself up about not being able to count my breaths well enough. Yeah, so what's going on inside? It seems to be an awful lot of judgment and mental activity. And then yet another opportunity to put it down. So what's that like for people to put it down? To let go? We're asked to let go. What's that like internally? Michael? Michael? Thank you, Tim.

[23:50]

Yeah, I feel that because zazen, you know, first and foremost can't be accomplished, and that zazen sits zazen, it's the universe coming forward, it's my karma I did not make a project plan to have. It's my burden to bear nobly. And so, I think that for me it's an acceptance practice. I try not to be in language when I'm in zazen, but that's the general context, is when you ask about putting down, what's it like to put down? Even before that, what's it like to not hold on? What is it to do nothing? At the moment that I want to judge myself, At the moment that I want to quantify the fact that I haven't gotten to 10 in following my breath or I have fallen off the balance beam a hundred times this morning while trying to sit Shikantaza maybe.

[25:01]

And that I think is the beauty of Zazen. Well, one of the many beauties, but it's the workout of what is it to be a human in the world and to not hold on to all of the little things that we want to ruminate about, but to just meet the next moment purely. So I get to practice every morning for my day and see myself do it imperfectly, because I think that Dogen was really smart in the way that he wrote the Phucans of Zenki, because he essentially sets up an impossibility so that everyone gets an impossible fence to jump against, so that they can see their own internal machinations. But it's not about the thing that could ever be accomplished, it's about how I hold the fact that I am not going to do it perfectly. And that's the beauty of it. And so to me, it's just an acceptance practice. And what does it feel like, you know, to go back to your question just now? Well, I mean, I think that over time, it does get a little easier.

[26:04]

I think that over time, I realized that I haven't let go as much as I thought that I had, and that I'm still holding on in some way. And that I am still lingering in that moment with some residue of bother. And I am not actually purely going back to the number one or really having let go. So I feel that I let go now more than I used to with a much more positive attitude. And I am more and more continually perplexed by the amount of which I am not letting go that I'm becoming increasingly aware of. Thank you. Yeah, it's hard. Please. Could you use the microphone, Deborah, so that they can hear us online? I feel like when I am able to let go, I do feel more of a sense of spaciousness and interconnection with others.

[27:09]

A sense of spaciousness and inner connection with others. Perfect. Yes. That's what we're asked to do, is to open up, have a sense of spaciousness. For me, when I can let go, that's what it is that I'm opening up to. And then, of course, I'm grasping onto something immediately right away. time for one more comment. Yes, please, Luke. I think what it means when you're letting go is letting go of a goal, you know, just wanting to do the thing for the thing itself, you know, for the joy of the thing itself rather than the money.

[28:15]

has to be more than more than the money has to be something inside you driving yourself and letting go of the wanting to need to beat somebody you know or to be better than somebody that's a hard place to be but it's a place I'd like to go to it's very similar to judgment yes letting go of go I like that Thank you. Okay. We've come to the end of our hour. So next week, we're going to do the chanting experience. And I've actually, Eli has turned me on to some really fascinating science about chanting and what happens. So I'm going to give a slightly longer introduction.

[29:20]

that and then we're going to do some chanting and then we're going to talk about what it's like to chant and what happens. That's a very important practice for us. So let's go ahead and stand and bow three times to the altar and once to each other and say good night. Thank you all very much. You were all very brave tonight.

[30:03]

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