Mr. J. before we started to jump into Kansayan it occurred to me my sense of that feeling in the room our collective knowing our collective anticipation something is about to happen and we're going to participate in creating it and it will own us more than we own it

[01:24]

to me at that moment i thought ah the glory of zen practice i don't know if you've ever seen a woman give birth but um in with a midwife in a you know a natural setting um all sorts of preparations all sorts of considerations and things have gone on and plans have been made and strategies. But there's a point where the process of giving birth takes over and it doesn't matter what anybody thinks or whatever strategy they have or whatever planned outcome. the energy of full engagement in being.

[02:32]

As we settle into Sashini, the energy, the power, the authority of constructed reality, at least waxes and wanes, sometimes wanes more. And something almost more existential, you know, the whole proposition of being alive. This amazing event called being alive that we are in the throes of, that we're co-creating. We have all sorts of judgments, opinions, and memories, and biases, built into us so whether you remember it or not yesterday i said that i would talk about sitting upright and correct bodily posture

[03:56]

know there's different dimensions to this and one this kind of a mundane one no sit upright balanced on your sit bones so that your weights coming down through your spine into your seat so that your body can relax front your body is open so that you can breathe fully Your spine has the alignment that it's designed to have, and you can disport yourself freely in Jiju Zama. And then, of course, when we settle deeply into sitting, all hell breaks loose around that simple proposition.

[05:04]

You know, we could say, okay, well, we sit this way, and the way we've embodied our psychosomatic experience is invited to release. And sometimes it takes up the invitation, and sometimes it adamantly refuses. And this notion of giving over, not so much giving over, but fully engaging, fully engaged body and breath and something happens. Maybe we can liken it to the process of giving birth, you know, in Buddhist teachings, Tagadagarbha, the womb of the Buddha.

[06:12]

You know, this process is indeed, you know, the imagery is it. It is a giving birth. But not to get too hung up on that. But recognizing, you know, that we can't read. the literature, the teachings, sitting upright in correct bhagali posture. When even for a moment, sitting upright in samadhi, expressing the Buddha mudra in the three activities, the whole world of phenomena becomes the Buddha mudra and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. we're not careful we can really just say when you get it right like you can really dial it up just the way you want it give me some of that and some of that and sprinkles on top and in some ways it's exactly the opposite

[07:35]

foolish for me to liken it to a woman giving birth. I mean, I've witnessed it. My impression of a woman giving birth is something powerful takes over. Engaging in that way, something powerful takes over. And here's a couple of notions in regards to the something powerful. Of course, in the yoga, in the law of upright sitting, in the law of sitting upright, in the Buddha mudra, in both its physical expression,

[08:46]

its mental expression its attitudinal expression the mudra that gives birth to being a witness And there's two broad notions around energy. One, in the spirit of all way, you know, the flow. That, to my mind, Shikkhantaza invites. you've heard me saying many times you know let the breath breathe the body you know let something flow let something happen that was what was in my mind the power of suggestion

[10:18]

something float. Maybe that was a different kind of suggestion. Okay, you know, if you don't get it, don't worry. Letting the intrinsic energy in being float. And another notion... It is a little bit like what we're playing with in Jacket and Kanzaya. Energetic engagement. And in the energetic engagement, it invites a style of concentration It's interesting because that variety of concentration isn't the product of tranquility.

[11:44]

Like when you look at the early suttas, often the territory that enables concentration has tranquility. Sometimes shamatha. sometimes described as stopping, sometimes described as tranquility. And then this other kind of energy isn't emphasizing. There's a Japanese term, Joe Riki, which Bankai told me, if you remember Bankai, he said he was gonna use it as he was going to call the detective in his next novel, Joe Ricky. This kind of energetic involvement, you know?

[12:54]

And in the Rinzai tradition, it has this, and that's, you know, that chant thing, where you kind of go with energy, That's where I came across that practice. Sitting with Harari Shodo Roshi, every morning, first thing, we sit, do that. Makes for a different sitting. That energetic assertion. And how it reverberates, disorders, reorders the workings of our being. See, we could think of it as another way to give birth.

[13:58]

Now that it runs back. And what they have in common. So in the Rinzai, this Joriki, this assertion, has a lore built around it. Usually we'll see it talked about as a kind of mastery. Inmovable, energetic poise and presence. Here's a story by Yamada Muman Roshi, a famous Rinzai teacher who visited here back in the days.

[15:05]

In the Meiji era, there was a lord, a shogun or whatever he was, he was training with his aunt teacher. And he invited this teacher to come to New Year's Day to pay his respects. And he poured him. They were sitting formally, and they poured him a drink to bring him to the very top. And obviously, he just had to hold very, very carefully. It's a wind spell. He passed it to him, and he took it. Just as he was lifting it to his lips, a gunshot went off in the room next door. And the Zen teacher was utterly unperturbed, didn't spill a drop.

[16:14]

Took a drink, no reference to his noise, and then the Lord said, On New Year's Day, sometimes we fire a gun. And then a Zen teacher poured the Lord of Drink to the very, very breweries and gave it to him. And he took it and brought it up to his lips. And just as he brought it up to his lips, Zen teacher went, quack! and he spilled it all over himself. And the Zen teacher said, Sometimes in Zen we yell quats. Honestly, that's what I love about Rinzai Zen.

[17:21]

They've got better stories as we grow up. You know, there's more action in them. There's more, you know, going and losing it. I didn't matter, woman said. Joe Ricky. is essentially selflessness. And then this delicate place between mastery and abject failure. Tending to the moment.

[18:28]

Continuous contact. Well, if that doesn't have some flavor of skillful involvement, what does? And we engage it fully and we feel objective. fully in the process, we learn something about being present. At the moment before we start chanting Kansayan, this is about wholehearted engagement it's as much as about being mastered as mastering and it's beyond both so the deportment the uprightness

[19:58]

Maybe we could say it has more to do with disposition, attitude, willingness. Its equanimity is born of these. They foster receptive samadhi. reckless and shameless and it's tremendously courageous it's courageous in its radical honesty giving over to what is don't know what's going to happen.

[21:17]

And there's something in attending in that way that helps us find our Dharma seat. We find the dharma seat of being that's not dependent upon outcome. We find the dharma seat that's present not because it's in control. And it does have It does have present. It has that kind of energy. Do you have to be chanting with full volumes to discover that?

[22:31]

Of course not. that help? Well, check it out and see it. I hope so. This inquiring mind that's in the process of discovery. This is a very fertile time in Sushin. This potential to allow your great Rinzai, Joe Ricci. Who knows when the Shogun is going to call you over and fire a gun in your ear. You've got to be ready. to attend more to the rumblings of being alive.

[23:55]

In all their modes, no. The aching old stories. that in the context of your life still have relevance and power. The moments of presence. They have their energetic formlessness. something is given birth to in that moment. And we explore abiding in it.

[25:19]

So to my mind, This is what Dogen's poking at. But even for a moment, when you're sitting upright, in that state, the tall skinny guy was trying to talk about, the Buddha mudra in the three activities, the whole is present. The whole phenomenal world becomes that Buddha mudra. That disposition, that formless energetic experience. And that utterly formed energetic being too. your life is your life force gives birth to its next creation and the very interesting thing as we attend to that its expression takes on

[26:53]

much more variation, variety. We can think about it this way. As the mind becomes attentive and is not gluing the experience together with its narrative, that experience has more to associate to imagine to and it does and when you're not familiar with it you might feel like oh well I'm really far away from the presence the clarity upright Buddha mudra.

[27:57]

Don't be so sure. And then the place of the body and the breath in this process. So there's kind of like an abstract. I doubt in the next couple of days. that you're going to have New Year's greetings with the Shogun. But there will be other kinds of moments. And each giving birth, How do we cultivate the capacity to step off the hundred foot pole into that being?

[29:06]

And the heritage of our tradition says body and breath. And I've been saying, Let the breath breathe about you. This is a challenging practice. The challenging practices are usually the most helpful ones. If the flag landed on your face and it was just a mildly pleasant experience you just be able to stay in your thinking and ignore it. The fact that it's unpleasant, demandingly so at times, enhances its practice opportunity.

[30:22]

So sometimes allowing the breath to breathe the body beautifully illustrates our inability in the moment to do that. The ways in which some compelling formulation of being is holding our energy Letting the breath bring the body is inviting the energy to come back to flow. And we track it in the body. And we track it in the mind. If the mind's running the show, the body's

[31:35]

can be invisible it doesn't exist we're in coming back to letting the breath breathe the body we're coming back to body as we come back to the breath breathing body we're coming back to the body not as just a mental construct you're coming back to the body as a sensorium, as a field of sense experience. And this supports the mind to loosen up in its intrigue, its captivation with its own creations.

[32:39]

So each time we're making this involvement with breath, body, mind, as Dogen said, you would say, each time we're giving birth to the Buddha Mudra. Entering in with the sense that something powerful is being engaged, the great energy of being And it will express itself. Receptive attention.

[33:50]

And Dogen Sencha says, when even for a moment, we get a glimpse. when we repeat those moments they accumulate in an interesting way when we go through our morning pre-breakfast practice especially as we're in the throes of sushi we can feel that Maybe we've had a moment of saddleness or a whole period of saddleness. Just a steady diligence. The directed attention has its jiriki.

[34:54]

The receptive attention has its chi, its ki. Japanese as we start to tune into the body as the body starts to become a sensorium a field a kaya a realm of being of sensation Bindery between me, body, other, other being melts. Starts to melt or melts completely. your being is given birth to.

[36:05]

And like any given birth, like any interbeing, it does you maybe more than you do it. Maybe a lot more. And there's a very interesting way that realm of sensation, that being embodied, that being embodied, creates a kind of fortitude, a capacity to be in this way. There's a lovely poem by Molly Peacock that I didn't bring, sadly. Why am I a Buddhist? Essentially, her argument for not being a Buddhist is life's too wonderful.

[37:24]

Essentially, she's categorizing Buddhism as... and a simple notion of renunciation. How could we renounce being alive, is her unspoken question. And she says, in the end, and suffering, heartbreaking. Here, take my rags Her being, her tattered being, tattered by being alive. Take my rags, my rags of love. That tattered being of compassion. In the realm of form, something is brought into being.

[38:41]

Intrinsic within it, the challenges of being alive. You come into the world as an infant, you've got to get going right away. You have a very little bit of time to learn how to breathe. I didn't get it working. And then soon after that, you know, you've got to start getting the digestive system working and a whole bunch of things. It's a busy process. It's really something. We create the world of form and then we create. It comes with all its agendas and demands and emotions.

[39:48]

And part of the art, I'm sorry, Zen, is can you feel the energy of it? Maybe more so than get caught up in the particulars of the content. And this is where the body is very helpful. Can you feel the body of what the mind is creating? And as we let the breath breathe the body, the added creation, that embodied participation becomes evident. And the very process of thinking and formulating and conceptualizing can be invited back into a less substantial mode of being.

[41:11]

Less about other, other time, other place, other person, and more about the The matrix of me. The matrix of subjective being. More about the Vedana of it. The deep-seated feeling of being. We have the deep-seated feeling of being. We add in a good story and we get the emotions. Before the story is so provocative, they abide more in the embodiment.

[42:21]

And so we can return to that. we return to the embodiment we return to the sensorium as we return to the sensorium we return to the formulas it has nothing to do with figuring anything out it has nothing to do with having clever ideas about it letting the breath breathe the body, letting the body embody the body. Kategori Roshi said, letting the self settle on the self. And the breath is a marvelous register because it will show us in how it softens or doesn't,

[43:33]

how it flows into the body or doesn't. That part can be purposeful, you know, inviting the flow, embodying the breath. And we live with, we meet whatever arises with receptive attention. Don't know. What's being given birth to? Don't know. The miracle of life. this mastery?

[44:34]

Is this great failure? In the Soto School, we settle for don't know. Maybe it's a cop-out, but yeah. Keeps things interesting. I'd suggest you marvel at the creation of your own being as you go through it. And maybe marvel that there is within our human capacity

[45:37]

These processes that we can intentionally engage that illuminates it. Because they can. Attending to body and breath in upright sitting and carrying that uprightness into every activity. Some things illuminate it. But even for a moment, you sit upright in samadhi, expressing the Buddha mudra in the three activities, body, speech, and thought. The whole world of phenomena becomes the Buddha mudra, and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. Not Dogen, he's not modest. with his envy joints when it drops away and the great thing about this amazing environment there is an entire sky and there's an entire earth

[47:05]

Every time we go out the door, it's there. So the exploration isn't simply disembodiment. It's disembodiment. The mountains, the sky, the birds, the insects. wood on the floor. So not only nothing to do, nowhere to go, but discovery in the process of that non-doing For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[48:38]

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