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. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me okay? Okay. I was thinking we would chant the Ehei Koso Hotsugan Mon, which are the vows of the high priest, Ehei Koso Dogen. However, I'm not sure we have that chant that we can share on the screen. Yeah, I'll put that into the...

[01:00]

chat window in one moment So it's in the chat window now if you want to open that and chant along. Jiryu, could you chant that and people can chant with you? Thank you. Or perhaps the Eno question would please lead the chat. We vow with all beings from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma, that upon hearing it no doubt will arise, nor will we lack in faith, that upon meeting it we shall renounce worldly affairs and maintain the Buddha Dharma.

[02:33]

and that in doing so, the great earth and all living beings together will attain the Buddha way. Although our past evil karma has greatly accumulated, indeed being the cause and condition of obstacles in practicing the way, may all Buddhas and ancestors who have attained the Buddha way be compassionate to us and free us from karmic effects, allowing us to practice the way without hindrance. May they share with us their compassion which fills the boundless universe with the virtue of their enlightenment and teachings. Buddhas and ancestors of all, whereas we in the future shall be Buddhas and ancestors, revering Buddhas and ancestors. We are one Buddha and one ancestor, awakening Bodhi mind. We are one Bodhi mind because they extend their compassion to us freely and without limit. We are able to attain Buddhahood and let go of the attainment.

[03:35]

Therefore, the Chan Master Lunya said, those who in past lives were not enlightened will now be enlightened. In this life, save the body, which is the fruit of many lives. Before Buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we in the future. Before Buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we. Enlightened people of today are exactly as those of old. quietly explore the farthest reaches of these causes and conditions as this practice is the exact transmission of a verified Buddha. Confessing and repenting in this way, one never fails to receive profound help from all Buddhas and ancestors by revealing and disclosing our lack of faith and practice before the Buddha. We melt away the root of transgressions by the power of our confession and repentance. This is the pure and simple color of truth, practice of the true mind of faith of the true body of faith.

[04:38]

Thank you very much, Shindo. Sorry to spring that on you. But I think we'll probably be chanting that every year before every lecture. OK. Thank you. Thank you. So this is our session, our Rohatsu session. And it started out on a very auspicious day on the full moon. And I felt this morning the connection. back through time, through this ceremony, through our full moon ceremony, which is the oldest Buddhist ceremony, predates Buddhism actually coming together on the new and the full moon to, in our case, to avow our ancient twisted karma.

[05:48]

Those are voluntary actions of body, speech, and mind that are have consequences, and to avow those that avow the karma from greed, hate, and delusion. So we start out that way. And part of avowing, the meaning of avowing is I acknowledge, I admit, I accept that these are actions that I have knowingly and willingly done. And embedded in that chant is, it's not beating ourselves up or guilt tripping or anything, but just completely admitting and acknowledging and freshly taking up our practice once more. And then we recited the four Bodhisattva Vows.

[06:56]

Then we paid homage to the Buddhas and ancestors, Buddhas and ancestors and bodhisattvas, in a very melodic part of the full moon ceremony. And then landing on the four bodhisattva vows, and followed by taking refuge in the triple treasure, and then reciting the ten graves. And so that it seemed like a very auspicious way to start our seven-day seshin and to gather as the admonitions, when Shindo read the admonitions, gathering the mind and bringing up our ultimate concern and our intention, and bringing that forth into the seshin for everyone to feel.

[08:07]

So this seshin rohatsu, the 8th of the 12th month, commemorates the Buddha's great... Well, great departure and his enlightenment sitting under the Bodhi tree, the ficus religiosa. And we have one of those. We have a Bodhi tree in our greenhouse, which years ago when it was smaller, I used to bring it into the Zendo and have it by the altar to encourage us and remind us about the Buddha sitting under that tree for seven days. But you can visit it if you take a walk. Ficus religiosa. So the Buddha made his great departure. What was the Buddha departing from and how come? This is part of the story of Shakyamuni Buddha. One might say, you know, he was a home leaver.

[09:19]

And this term is used, you know, home leaving. However, You know, my sense is he went on his quest, on his spiritual path, in order to serve and help and free not only himself, but all beings, all, you know, both family members and everyone. That was his motivation to relieve suffering. So I feel it's in the liturgical year to retell parts of the story because there are stories. It's not just the story of Shakyamuni Buddha 2,500 years ago, which is a teaching story. Over the years, there's actually several stories of the Buddha's Great Departure.

[10:26]

There are certain ones that were translated into Western languages and held up, I think, because they resonated with other great hero myths in other cultures, Greek and other cultures. But there's other stories, not that he left his family and infant son, but... One story in the canon is he wasn't married to Yasodara. He left his grieving and crying parents and went off, like a lot of us did. So that's one story. Another story, another version, which I really like, is Yasodara. His wife has a bad dream in the middle of the night. tells Shaki he's not the Buddha yet, tells Gautama about this terrible dream that she had.

[11:30]

I think her teeth fell out in the dream. And then they make love in the night, and she conceives, and she becomes pregnant. And he sets off after that, and she has a parallel journey. She's... Pregnant, carrying their child the whole time he's on his quest, like seven years or something. So this is another story which has its own resonance with each person has their own path to follow of awakening and freedom and liberation. So that... That story is in another part of the canon. But the story we know best, perhaps, is Shakyamuni Buddha being cared for very, very well as a baby.

[12:36]

You know, his mother died seven days after he was born, Maya, Queen Maya. And how this affected this being. being separated from his mother through death, even with being cared for by Mahapajapati, by his stepmother, who was nursing her own child, so she was a wet nurse to him. Even with being cared for very, very well, one wonders what the effect, long-term effect, that has. Trauma, you might say. Anyway, growing up, being very, very well cared for and being kept from unpleasant things and death.

[13:38]

And even, they say, wilted flowers were whisked away before he could even see their decaying. So these are all part of the teaching story. And he became, even though he had everything he could possibly want, he became drawn to leave the palace and go out. And as the story goes, you know very well, the first time he went out with his chariot and his charioteer, he saw this person walking very slowly with a cane. And... What's the matter with that person? Well, he's old, said Chandra, I think, was his charioteer. Does everybody get old like that? You know, the kind of mythic quality. How could the Buddha not know? You know, he himself grew up from a baby to a young man.

[14:39]

But the teaching story is he had never seen an old, feeble person like that. Oh, yes, everyone gets old. And that affected him very strongly, so he returned to the palace. And the king, his father, tried to clear the roads. Don't let any unsightly thing be there for the young prince to see, but that's why they're called heavenly messengers. Next time he went out, there was a person who was... Sick and covered with sores and being kind of carried through the streets. What is the matter with that person? Well, he has illness. He's sick. Are we all subject to that? Oh, yes. We are all of the nature to get old and to have illness and be sick. Oh, that affected him very, very strongly.

[15:42]

And he went back to the palace. And the third time he went out, he saw a person all wrapped in burial shroud cloth being carried through the streets to the funeral pyre. And he said, what is that? To his charioteer, that's someone who's died, who is no longer alive. Is that everyone's fate? Or just this person. Oh, no, no. We are all of a nature, of the nature to die. So this affected him very strongly. And he was, when he returned, you know, all the delights of the palace, music and delicious foods and good company of all kinds, did not, he was numb to it. He just... How can people be acting this way when we're all subject?

[16:46]

We are all of a nature to grow old and be sick and to die eventually. Why is everyone carrying on as if they're going to live forever and be healthy forever? This really, this was his question. And then he went out the fourth time. And this time, the heavenly messenger, was he saw a religious person sitting upright, quietly, cross-legged probably, and still, silent and still, by the side of the road. And this struck him very strongly, seeing this person, feeling from this person the calm, the quiet, the contentedness, and maybe the joy. And he remembered when he was little this one time when he was sitting under the rose apple tree watching the work crews plowing the fields.

[17:55]

And he had this thought that all these animals are being hurt while the plow was going through the earth. Worms and insects and this upset him. And he... went and sat under the rose apple tree, and maybe you could say entered or fell into maybe a kind of concentrated, quiet, joyful, contented, calm state. And when he saw this monk or this religious person He remembered that and he thought, I know what I need to do. And he made a resolve to leave the palace and to go on this quest and to find teachers who could help him to realize liberation from this suffering that we are all subject to.

[19:00]

That we all, that is our nature. and he wanted to be liberated from the suffering and liberate others, not for himself alone, but to help everybody, everyone who lived with him and spoke with him. So that's when he left, and, you know, he went in the middle of the night, and he... His horse, the clip-clap, clip-clap, clip-clap of his horse, they were muffled. You can see paintings of this. His horse had little clouds under his hooves so he wouldn't make any noise, and he left. You can choose the story, leaving his parents, leaving his wife, leaving his wife and child, but he left his protected, safe,

[20:04]

but unable to be upheld anymore, this place he was in, and set off. And as you know the story, he worked and met others who were on a spiritual journey as well and became good Dharma friends with them, good practice friends, and they... studied with different teachers. And with each teacher, he was able to really get to the bottom of what they were teaching. And they wanted him to kind of be their successor and carry on and continue to teach these kinds of yoga practices and different kinds of meditation concentrations and so forth. However, he wasn't fully satisfied. And he tried various things like not taking care of the body, not eating, not bathing, not sleeping, eating one sesame seed a day, you know, for long periods of time, until he, doing this with his comrades, until he thought, this is not, this is going nowhere.

[21:31]

This is not, serving me. I am not relieved of suffering, and I wouldn't recommend this to anybody. So he told his five friends that he was not going to continue in this way, and he bathed in the river, Naraja, I think, and he hadn't bathed in a while, so freshened himself, bathed in the river. and then sat under this tree quietly. And while he was sitting there, Sujata Acharya, Sujata Acharya, who knew this tree very well and had made offerings to the tree spirit because the tree spirit had... made her wish come true of having a child.

[22:35]

And she annually would bring offerings to this tree. And her maid came running to her and said, the tree spirit is sitting under that tree. You have to come and see. And so she made this delicious rice porridge, milk and rice cooked together. I imagine it had cinnamon in it and cardamom. And she brought this beautiful bowl of rice porridge and made offerings to what she thought was the tree god, but it was Gautama sitting there. And he hadn't had food like that. And he ate it up and could feel the strength coming into his body, which you maybe have felt sometimes when you haven't eaten anything. Maybe at Tassajara, you haven't eaten for a while, and then you have that morning cereal, and you can feel the power of the food, and it's supporting your body, body-mind.

[23:45]

And that's what the Buddha felt, this strength coming into him. And then he settled himself and made a vow, a very strong vow, which was he resolved to not get up from this place until he had realized his true nature, and that was his resolve. So now it's our turn to take our place, on our Bodhi Manda, that's our Zabuttana, our chair, wherever we're sitting, that is our Bodhi Manda, our seat of enlightenment. And to take good care of that seat of enlightenment and good care of everything that has to do with our practice this week, including

[24:56]

All the admonitions that were read last night, be silent and still. Be sensitive to your Dharma friends and that everyone's making this effort. Eat what's offered. Take good care of your body. Bathe. We have our exercise period that we put in. And for that exercise period, I would suggest not running if you're a runner. When you're sitting a lot, that's not so good for your knees. But yoga, stretching, walking are all good choices to take good care of your body during the sitting. And to touch in to your intention, your intention, ultimate concern.

[25:58]

What is important for you? How do you want to live your life? We have all been touched by these messengers of old age, sickness, and death, either our own, our family members, and in the middle of this pandemic, hearing, first from far away maybe from us, Wuhan, China, we first heard. And then closer and closer and closer. Some of you may have been touched in your own family or friends, but all of us have heard of someone who's been sick, heard of someone who's died, and maybe we know of someone. This is our shared life. This is This is a messenger for us, a messenger of the truth of impermanence, the truth of our life of impermanence.

[27:03]

How are we going to live in the middle of a life that cannot be grasped, that cannot be stopped, that cannot avoid old age sickness and death? These are the remembrances. I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape from growing old. I am of the nature to be ill. I cannot escape from being ill. I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape from death. Everyone I know and everything I know is of the nature to change, is impermanent. I cannot escape from this fact. I cannot hold on to anything or anyone. Everyone I know and love and all the things I know and love.

[28:11]

And the fifth remembrance or this This last part, I, my actions are my only belongings. They are the ground on which I stand. And belongings in this case, my senses, this is where we have agency, where we have choice, where we bring our full consciousness, to take up our life in a way that is centered on non-harming, relieving suffering and the causes of suffering, and living for the benefit of others. That's our only... In a world like this, what else makes sense, really?

[29:12]

So... We are, you know, Buddhas and ancestors of old. We're as we. We in the future shall be Buddhas and ancestors. This is what Dogen in the Ehe Koso is saying and reminding us. This is our life. And this is our, we have the ability, the capacity to take up our life, make this resolve, And, you know, we're sitting in circumstances that are new, that I've never sat in that situation quite like this. And each of you are like a pioneer in this way. We're sitting in the cold. It was, you know, 37, 36 this morning.

[30:20]

we are sitting without the supports of the usual seshin, meaning eating together in the zendo, serving one another, being with each other body to body, being in the zendo for lecture right now, bowing together to the altar, tea treat, coming, you know, enjoying, the delights, the pleasure of Zen, sitting late at night together. All of these things are not part of this session. This is a new session. And if it gets colder and colder, we will put on more hats and gloves and bring more blankets. And if you get hungry, you talk with the... there isn't enough food for some reason, because you're expending so much energy, then we will talk to the Tenzo and get more food.

[31:28]

If you have pain in your Zazen, we will, you know, having pain, this is, I would say, universal, that everyone, just about everyone has strong sensations in Zazen over the years. legs, neck, hips, knees, ankles, everyone, whether you grew up sitting cross-legged on the floor or not, everyone. And the power that is ours to develop, the power to sit in the In relation to strong sensations and pain, we have capacity to not skitter away at the first sign of discomfort.

[32:30]

This is pain. Pain that arises is not so much the problem. The problem often is mental and emotionally. How come I don't want to do this? Why me? All that, which makes it very hard to bring our own power to bear and to have it manifest. So staying, not hurting ourselves and not in competition with anyone else, staying with sensation, opening to it, breathing in our... lower belly, where our, you know, the center of our power and the center of being able to work with all sorts of states, emotional, mental, physical states.

[33:34]

So to sit with full resolve and you know, the openness of the schedule, please let go of, and I am doing this too, let go of comparing it. I listed all the ways in which it's different. Let's leave that alone now. Let's forget that. This is our Rohatsu 2020 Pandemic Practice Rohatsu, and it will be what we make it. And the... depth of it and the power of it will be what we bring to it fully without any oh I wish it were different or oh I miss this let's do this together fully let's follow the schedule completely which includes going home and opening your computer how unusual how rare and and that The things that are asked of you have not been asked of people before to sit apart from one another.

[34:45]

So with this full intention and full resolve, you know, we often have romantic ideas about, oh, I'd love to go and sit in a cave for 12 years like Anapema did Anipema. It's an amazing person. However, this is not our karma right now. Maybe it will be. But we're sitting here on our Bodhimanda, in this barn, in this weather, and we don't know what the days will bring. There's no romance there. This is our practice. This is our hard practice that we're being asked. This is our karmic life. And so each of us can help one another by completely giving yourself to this sesshin and discovering, you know, discovering anew what sesshin can be.

[35:55]

So, you know, sesshin is not a deprivation tank, you know, even though we say no reading, no writing, no... talking, no, you know, walking, shashu, etc. This is not to deprive us of anything. It's to give us the gift of the possibility of really settling body and mind, really letting go of distractions, letting go of what pulls us here and there to come into our body-mind fully, thoroughly, with warm-heartedness, This chance rarely occurs in any lifetime. If you think of all the lifetimes and all the people, how rare to have this chance where you're supported and have food cooked for you and camaraderie and Dharma friends to sit with.

[37:03]

This is hard to do by yourself. So in order for this warm-hearted, full resolve to flower, to come into fruition or flower, I want to talk about our Zazen practice. And Fu had mentioned that I would give some kind of Zazen instruction. And I feel like what I've been talking about is Zazen instruction as well, but I want to be more Specific as a support for you all and for me. So. Our practice is. Body mind, you know, his body practice and unifying our body, breath and mind. And in order to do that, we need to start with the body and a stable sitting posture and.

[38:06]

You know, those of you who know Fukanza Zengi, I follow that, you know, universal admonitions that Dogen wrote whenever I sit. For example, when you take your place, pull your cushion out away from the wall or towards the back of your seat, sit on the front third of your cushion, or if it's a chair, the front third, and take your posture, whether it's Seiza, full lotus, half lotus, quarter lotus, Burmese, whatever your posture is, take it with full awareness and notice right from the beginning whether or not you're centered on your cushion. So the posture is built from the bottom up, starting with the pelvis, which is like a basin of water.

[39:13]

And when you're seated on your cushion, it is neutral. If you slump, the pelvis goes like this, and you spill the water. If you overarch, then... The pelvis turns back like that. So neither forward nor backward. And you can test that by rocking your pelvis forward and backward to find center. If you're overarched this way, your sitting bones, which should be like two little feet standing on your cushion, get very pointy feeling. if you're overarched, if you're slumped, they're very flat. So bring your consciousness down to your sit bones and find center for them. Right from the start, take the time to find center.

[40:19]

Then open your hands up on your legs, rock your body right and left. And this is part of zazen, this rocking. And stretching out to the left and the right. And letting that arc get slower. Not slower. Smaller and smaller and smaller. Until you come to rest right in the center. And bring your attention back to your sit bones. Are they even? To like two feet on a cushion? Or is one a little bit higher? And take the time right then to re... Rearrange. Maybe it's a quarter of an inch. Maybe it's a half inch. Right from the get-go, build your posture of mountain stability right there. And then, you know, when your pelvis is neutral, the spine, which is connected to the pelvis, it has these little spongy things in between the vertebrae.

[41:24]

You don't, you know, if you're... Pelvis is forward or back, those spongy things get crunched, especially if you're over. But even when you're slumped, the front of those vertebrae get pinched. So this neutral spine means the vertebrae all have their spongy cushions to go up into the S-curve, which is an upright sitting back. And because the spine is connected to the pelvis, I don't know if you can see, imagine the spine coming up by some cartilage and things. When the pelvis is not neutral, the spine has to find its way and do various things to find upright. So building your posture from the bottom up is important. There's so many different posture points, and I want to...

[42:28]

I feel like I want to share everything I've ever learned, you know, to help you. Let's see. Coming up through the body, let's talk about the mudra and the arms. So... Oh, just something else about the legs. The knees should be lower than the hips, about 125 to 135 degree angle. Those of you in chairs, that can be harder because the chair is often flat and your bottom and your knees, your hips and your knees are more even. So if you can put some support cushions on your chair, lift up your pelvis a little bit, that would be good. for those of you sitting in chairs. Let's see.

[43:29]

So the arms, your arms can weigh, you know, 15 pounds or more. And so if the arms are like pulled forward, they will bring your back and pull your back forward. And We want the arms to be in this circle. And the elbows are not crunched down and they're not held out. And the mudra, which is another circle, is resting. Your baby fingers are resting two inches below your belly, which is your hara, your dantian, or your tendan. that area, this lower abdominal place, the hara in Japanese, is the center of the autonomous nervous system.

[44:34]

This part of your nervous system, you know, the ancient practitioners discovered all this without, you know, dissecting and science, you know, how this lower, how it affects the whole body in that it's the center. So your arms, you don't want your arms to like hang down and drop in your lap. Nor do you want to hold them up. They're resting. And, you know, this roundness... The astronauts, when they float in zero gravity, they float with these round arms. They're not straight out. They're round, just like dead men float in the water. There's this round and resting. So be aware of your arms.

[45:37]

And this classic thing of eggs, as if you have eggs under your arms, is a... Way to remember you don't crush the eggs nor have your arms way out and drop the eggs. The skull coming up through the body that we, you know, relax the shoulders down and then the head, the ears are in line with the shoulders, the nose in line with the navel, the chin drops. This all supports your breathing and your quieting of the mind, especially if you have difficulty with racing thoughts. This dropping the chin, and those of you who practice yoga also know this, dropping the chin is a quieting. And same with the eyes. You know, the eyes in Zazen are half open, but soft, a soft gaze, sometimes called elephant eyes.

[46:46]

And there's correlations between tenseness in the body and racing mind, as well as tenseness in the eyes and tenseness in the diaphragm, making it difficult to breathe. So this quieting of the eyes, the ears in line, and dropping the head, you can tell if your head is in the right place. If your face kind of feels heavy in some way, that means you're leaning your face forward. And if you feel a kind of heaviness in the back of your skull, that means that your head is leaning back. So this feeling that on the back of your neck or the front of your face will help you to Notice if your head is in the right position as well as nose in line and ears in line.

[47:53]

So we're aligning our body completely with gravity and the power of being in line with gravity and the energy that comes up through the body. We have two kinds of energies. We go down from the... belly through the legs and down, and then up through the spine and through the head. Very dynamic situation in our posture, very alive. Another thing about this area here to mention is that the back, let's see, the back, your back is vertical, and your chest here, is diagonal some people have the chest vertical let's see and and the back diagonal you get that so we want to have the back be upright and vertical and this area be diagonal these are all these different posture points

[49:09]

that will help you to sit in the sashim and will be healthy for your body as well. You know, it's very difficult to breathe if you're overarched or slumped. The diaphragm and the lungs, the organs are scrundled up. So this neutral spine means the full ability to breathe. So I want to, you know, we have the eyes half open, tongue behind the upper teeth, teeth together but not clenched, lips together, all the mouth parts very quiet, which are also connected with language and thinking. So those are all very quiet. So in Zazen, we're unifying body, breath and mind.

[50:11]

And I do want to say that when you come out of your posture, you know, rocking your body right and left, just like Fukansa Zengi, when you arise from sitting, move slowly and quietly, calmly and deliberately. Do not move suddenly or abruptly. And, you know, you don't have to take forever, but... Appreciate you've been sitting still and slowly move your body when you come out of your sitting. So all of the things I mentioned will harmonize the body, breath, and mind into one unified whole. And this resolve to sit and abiding firmly in this unity of body, breath, and mind. is the quality of our session. With this warm-heartedness and tranquil serenity, we have this capacity.

[51:22]

So I see that it's getting late, but I just want to mention the breath. And also the hindrances, you know, in a number of Suzuki Roshi lectures and Sesshin lectures, he says to do, bring your attention low to your lower abdomen, the hara. And I think... Maybe over the years this has not been talked about that much because I think people have taken that admonition or that direction and have kind of overdone it, you know, with a kind of forced breathing and pushing. And so this lower part of our body...

[52:27]

When we are relaxed and resting, resting and relaxing in our posture is the feeling rather than pushing and kind of striving to get it a certain way, forcing. The feeling is relaxing the body. Finding our relaxation. And that goes along with this breathing from lower down rather than this area. And it also quiets the racing, thinking, thinking, chugging along. Relaxing the body. Tension in the body goes along with a racing mind. Discursive thinking. So we start with this relaxing of the body, however you might do that.

[53:34]

And this lower abdomen area, allow your belly to fill and expand. And when you take a breath, and when you let the breath go, let it come back. And whatever your practice is, following the breath, shikantaza, just being aware. If you're just being aware of what is arising, you will notice the breath as well as sights and sounds and smells and thoughts that come through. So this unifying of the body, breath, and mind. This chance to truly not just think about impermanence as a teaching, a theory, a philosophical point, but to know in your body-mind the truth of impermanence.

[55:01]

This is in our zazen, we have a chance to see there is nothing, no moment we can grasp and hold to. There is nothing that we can gain or cling to or have forever. Our practice allows us to live that truth, live it and see it and experience it for ourselves directly. And when we see impermanence, we see dharma. So I want to sit with you and for these seven days with sincerity, with care for ourselves and others, and with this spirit of resolve and clearly aware of

[56:04]

and allowing our life to come forth in its inconceivableness. Okay, well, let's return to the Zendo. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[56:56]

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