Sure. Good morning. It just sort of occurs to me this is not a particularly common format.

[12:21]

And in working out how we get in, what we do, what would happen when, for me it really highlighted this spirit of intentionality combined with improvisation. which I think is, for me, has been a rich point of practice. And so something about doing this in a way that I have never actually seen it done before is just really, I'm finding it very charming in this moment. So this morning I'm going to speak for a little while, and then Paul will speak for a little while, and we'll see where we go. We'll see where we end up from there. And I've said something like this every time I talk, but really this talk is just to encourage you in your own practice.

[13:22]

So whatever is helpful, please let it help you. And anything that's not helpful, don't trouble yourself with it any further. And I don't want to start us counting the days of Sesshin, but I think it is relatively evident that we're pretty early in this experience, so I wanted to say a few things that seem particularly timely today. First, to keep in mind that your own experience is your own, and that this moment is this moment and not any other moments. So anything that I might say, any other advice or guidance you may have received, stories from other Sashins, even your own past experiences of retreats and Sashins, I would encourage you to hold them lightly, to let this Sashin be entirely itself.

[14:35]

undercut my own veracity, I'll go ahead and give some advice for Sasheen that you can take or leave. I find it very helpful to be careful and aware of my attitude towards long periods of sitting. I find it's easy for me to develop some sort of antagonism or other feeling around Sashin being some kind of ordeal to be endured or gotten through. And I find that if that is how I think about it, that is very likely to be how it's going to feel. So instead, I find it more helpful to focus on the opportunity. Especially when I'm struggling to try to cut through that mental noise and just return to the possibility of this moment.

[15:44]

We've been blessed with this opportunity to sit. Many, many beings and all of existence have contributed to this moment, to this opportunity to clarify the great matter. And so I really want to take that up and make the most of it. I don't know how many of these opportunities I may receive. Another way that I try to engage with this moment-by-moment opportunity of sitting is to recognize and admit that the mind may wander. I can I think guarantee you that at some point my mind certainly will wander. I've noticed it happening already today. And when that does happen, if I can notice it and return my attention to the breath and the present moment, I have a choice about what kind of energy to put into that moment.

[17:02]

And Often, historically, I have blamed and shamed myself for those moments of my mind wandering. I return to the present moment with this feeling of, oh, what a failure. My mind has wandered again. And so I'd really like to encourage you to not take that particular path. returning my attention to the present. It feels very different to return to the breath and the body by rejoicing rather than by regretting. Sometimes I'll even lavish some praise. How wonderful. My attention has returned to the present moment. What was lost has been found. What luck. And I have another opportunity to deeply engage with here and now.

[18:06]

And this joyful, grateful spirit, I find, gives me much more energy to keep going. It feels more alert and more actually in tune with the present moment than that backward-looking regret of blaming myself. So I would say, let this be the sesheen of 1,000 opportunities. and not the Sashin of 1,000 failures. To really try to stay in the here and now with my whole body and mind, admittedly, is a constant effort. And I often find that Thinking about the past, planning the future, running alternate scenarios for how the world could be. They can expand to fill as much time and space as I'll allow.

[19:17]

But all of that can wait. The past, the future, figuring, planning, it can wait. If you want to pick it back up after Sasheen, you can. It'll be there. It'll be there waiting for you. And having set it down, you may find that you might not want to pick up the entire load after Sasheen. If those sorts of thoughts get particularly powerful for me in the midst of sitting, I sometimes find it helpful to just gently notice what time those thoughts are focused toward, whether it's the past or the present or the future. So if a thought comes up and I notice that's about the future or that's about the past, I just notice. And something about noticing the direction, the aim of these thoughts, for me, sometimes can be helpful for letting them go.

[20:26]

And again, I think it's very important to do this without judgment. To do it instead with curiosity. Oh, here's a thought. Where is it aimed? Oh, that's a thought about the past. Okay. So now I'll return to the here and now. And sometimes just noticing that I'm having a thought that isn't really related to or necessary for the present moment allows it a little more space to depart. I also encourage us to stay curious about what this present moment is. To try and notice the creation of ideas about what zazen is or should be, or what the present moment is or should be. I'll remind you again, we are in Beginner's Mind Temple.

[21:32]

And many times I've noticed that I create these fixed ideas of Zazen or the present moment or practice or my own self. Sometimes I'll say to myself, ah, it's time to do Zazen. And sometimes even just using those words, I can create an idea of what Zazen is. And almost immediately I'm judging whether I'm really doing Zazen or I'm labeling this as a particularly good or bad period of Zazen. And all that just creates more separation between me and my own direct experience. I think it would be better to have no idea what Zazen is. and just be curious about what here and now is. Likewise, rather than saying to myself that my mind has wandered, I should return to the present moment, I find it helpful to try to just notice the wandering and then create a feeling of curiosity about what here and now actually is.

[22:54]

Because even that curiosity I find I can turn into a fixed idea. I once noticed that I had created a sort of script for myself for this process, where each time I noticed that my mind had wandered, I would actually say in my head, what is this present moment? And the first time when those words, when that question arose spontaneously for me, it was a very rich and lively experience. And then as soon as I set that specifically as the way I would word that question to myself, when I made that a pattern to return to, it was immediately dead and fossilized. So I find it much more helpful to stay with the feeling of curiosity, to try to make my whole body-mind complex into a question so big that words don't fit.

[24:00]

to just be curiosity. I also want to encourage us to take great care with our bodies and our minds. Don't sit through real pain. You can injure yourself. If you need to move, move. If you need to change it up and sit in a chair or use a bench, do it. Please do not judge yourself or others for anything they need to do or that you might need to do to stay healthy and safe. If your body tells you what it needs, thank it for letting you know. Don't scold yourself. for not being something other than what you are. At the same time, this is not really a time to be self-indulgent.

[25:09]

A teacher once advised me that when the urge to move came up in Zazen, to notice it and then let it go. And if that urge comes back up, to notice it and to let it go. And if it comes up a third time, then to consciously and deliberately do what the body needs and then return to stillness. But please don't take this as a rule. Don't set this that you can only move on the third impulse or create some other fixed idea with this. You are the only one in touch with your body. So what I'm encouraging is maybe a more dispassionate noticing of the sensations and just reacting appropriately. Not too much, not too little. Sometimes I find if I don't scratch an itch, it will disappear on its own.

[26:19]

I don't know where it goes. It was there and then it's gone. Other ways that we can take care of our bodies and minds include eating and drinking appropriately for the situation. Again, not too much, not too little. Stretching. Exercising. Taking advantage of that stretching and exercising time. And sleeping, when appropriate. I strongly recommend naps, if naps are something that works for you. And of course, the admonitions are carefully crafted to actually support what we're doing. So please, as much as possible, take them up completely. Also, talk to a practice leader, especially if you feel a strong need to.

[27:27]

If you're struggling, talk to a practice leader. If you feel bad in some way, talk to a practice leader. If you're not sure how or whether you can continue, talk to a practice leader. You may be experiencing things that you have not experienced before, but most likely there are others in this practice who have had similar experience. THE FIRST TIME I SAT A THREE-DAY RETREAT HERE AT CITY CENTER, MARY STAIRS WAS THE TANTO AND GAVE A LITTLE INTRODUCTION BEFORE THAT RETREAT BEGAN, AND SOMETHING THAT SHE SAID HAS STAYED WITH ME THROUGH ALL OF THE SITTING I'VE DONE SINCE, AND THAT IS

[28:35]

you cannot ruin anyone else's sashim. You may do something differently than everyone else does. You may make noise intentionally or accidentally at the wrong time. You may be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You could drop things. You could not receive or not get the right instructions. You could get in the way in some way. But you are not ruining seshin. We're all deeply affected by each other and by the whole universe all the time. But the idea of ruining seshin is another judgment, not a statement of fact. And even these experiences that we have that can feel like we're ruining Sashin or ruining someone else's experience often is not really the experience that we think it is.

[29:52]

I once, early in a Sashin, had an awkward interaction with an Orioki server during one of the meals. Certain that not only had I inconvenienced them, but I had angered them, ruined their day, and just gotten the whole thing off to a bad start. And then for much of the rest of Sashin, I replayed and regretted and beat myself up for that moment. And I was fully convinced that I had ruined their Sashin. So when it ended, I went right to that person. and I apologized and they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. This thing that had been this particular moment for me, for them had been an entirely different moment. They were having their own experience. And so I would also say that if you begin to feel that someone else is ruining your sesheen,

[31:04]

That is rich territory to look at closely. What is that idea of Sashin or you or yours that you're holding, that you feel like this experience is happening to? During another Sashin at Tassahara, I I was repeatedly enraged by the sound of the walk-in door being closed hard. In my mind, it was being unkindly slammed and was echoing up into the zendo from the kitchen. And I sat with that anger for several days, again and again, imagining just leaping off the taan and marching down to the kitchen and telling those people off. And only towards the very end of that sashin did I talk to a practice leader about it.

[32:09]

And that conversation helped much, much more than venting that anger would have. And I really could have done that much sooner and had a different experience. No one was ruining my sashin. I was just having my own experience. So over the course of this intense period of sitting that we'll be doing, if you begin to feel adrift in some way, I would strongly recommend checking in with your intention. with why you are here and how you have gotten here. And if you haven't set a clear intention, perhaps that would be helpful.

[33:15]

I noticed that if I don't set a specific intention, I can often create an unexamined, unconscious intention anyway. And usually those sorts of intentions are something like, I'm going to do this whole thing perfectly. And for me, that is not a helpful intention to set. It creates an impossible goal and leaves me feeling defeated right from the start. So for this Sashin, my intention is, I'm going to keep trying. That gives me a direction to follow while still being kind to myself. It allows space for everything and anything to happen. So many things that I have no idea how they'll turn out. And yet in any moment, I can renew my intention and just keep trying.

[34:25]

Please let each day and each moment be itself. Give up everything that is not right here and now. Give in to everything that is happening right here and now. You are here. You can let everything else go. Stay with the body. Follow the breath. Please be kind and gentle to yourselves and to each other. So now,

[35:34]

I hand this over to Ryushin Paul Haller, who can please correct anything that might bear correcting. you so said, intentionality and improvisation. That way we establish the sensibility of practice and then we endeavor to enact it.

[36:56]

me think of that phrase I used last night, do your best. And then I parsed it into two sensibilities. One sensibility is you can't do anything more than your best. And when it's a sincere effort, it is your best, no matter how you or anyone else might judge it or how it might you disappoint you puzzle you there it is inevitably and unavoidably you're yourself whether you like it or not and then the other side to uh the sensibility of doing your best as in finding within the workings of yourself the sincere expression of what practice asks of you.

[38:24]

And I would encourage you to recognize that that intentionality will inevitably oblige you to improvise. Wouldn't it be boring if we thought, I'm going to be just like this? And then we wear it just like that. There's little chance of that happening. You know, Dung Chan was asked by a monk, well, you've been practicing a long, long time. And what's the gist, what's the summary of what you've got out of that?

[39:32]

was his answer, his response to the monk. The intentionality to meet the moment, not to impose upon it the rigor or the exalted judgment disposition or aspiration it's arising for us but to meet it to learn from it to engage it in an enlivening way you know my intention over this machine is to revisit the salient points of the class to study the self.

[40:39]

And maybe go a little deeper into what the different aspects of that class presented. However we intend to, as best we can, infuse our intentionality with wisdom and compassion. In the Eightfold Path, the first two steps are right view and right intention. And then that intentionality, as we engage it in the moment, it ripens. Sometimes the inquiry is, oh, how to sustain it under these conditions?

[41:54]

Sometimes the request is, oh, now given this, What's the character, what's the shape of the intentionality? I sometimes think that first day of Shashin, we should all walk around saying to ourselves, you're going to be okay. is not going to kill you. You'll be okay. You might not meet your own expectations or someone else's or what you impute someone else's to be. But it won't kill you.

[42:59]

some ways we can think of our practice. And I think this is a good way to start Sashin. The fundamental principle of practice. The what. What are we doing? And how do we do it? I would offer you this notion of what we're doing. We are... to tune into a harmony of being that's an interplay with all being. You know, in the class I introduced the notion of homeostasis.

[44:10]

within the human organism towards finding a harmony or equilibrium of the different systems of our being. It's so easy in our practice in our diligence and in our sincerity, to sometimes blatantly and sometimes very subtly say to ourselves, do it right. As if we already knew what that meant. Maybe we could say to ourselves, right but i don't know what right is i once said to someone who had a thought strong theological theological in as a god-centered

[45:40]

a very devout spiritual practice. And I said, well, I think of myself as on a mission from God. It's just that I don't know what God is, and I don't know what the mission is. What I'm trying to say is, in a way, Something in us is moved. Something in us brought us here. So that we could immerse in a way in this interbeing. That we could foster in a way this harmony, this nurturance of homeostasis. There is a way I will stop on time.

[46:53]

There is a way that the impulse is there. And then meeting each moment, meeting each part of yourself as it arises. That the intentionality discovers the context of the moment. These different admonitions that you so was offering, we could think of each of them as offering some guidance. Well, if this happens, if this context of the moment arises, you could try this on. Dogen Zenji, the phrase, Kaz Tanahashi's translation of Dogen Zenji's phrase, way-seeking mind.

[47:58]

Maybe if we articulate it, we can say something like, okay, now it's appropriate response. But hopefully, as we settle into Shishin, that inquiry will just express itself as a willingness and openness to engage, experience and to learn. That our beginner's mind will start to become apparent for us. And we invite everything into that context. And let me offer some part of the how.

[49:10]

In the context of Satipatthana or Anapanasati. Maybe Anapanasati is a better reference. The first. of Anupanasati it just says notice and I would say to you each time we sit down to meditate each time we sit down to be Zazen to be aware of what's already happening notice Notice what's dominant in your thinking. Notice what emotional accompaniment that's having or not. Then bring awareness to the body.

[50:14]

Bring awareness to the breath. And what Anapanasati says, as we do that, as we notice... we start to facilitate a shifting from the conceptual mind to the experiential being. And as we shift, you know, often as we begin, our intentionality is a conceptual construct. And usually, it's accompanied either by an enthusiasm for that conceptual construct or a kind of ambivalence or disagreement, you know, often fed by our desires and aversions.

[51:21]

Can we notice, however it is, can we notice what it is? Can we remind ourselves right there and then, without deviating from what's arising and constructing what should be arising? Can we turn towards it and enact the intention of awakening? Awakening doesn't demand that what's happening be different. Awakening just simply proposes, wake up in the midst of this experience. Experience this experience. Notice it. And if it helps, notice the constituent points of it. the mental disposition, the emotional character of it, how it feels in the body, what's the... How does it ripple through the breath?

[52:40]

As we move from the concept, Anupana Sankhi says, as we move from concept to physical... sensation and physical sensation of the breath and the body, and we move into, I think in Western terms we would call it, a psychosomatic state of being where we're feeling our sensations. We're feeling the emotional quality and how it interplays with the mental disposition. We're feeling how that influences and sometimes mediates how the moment's experience is being engaged. Okay. I've run out of time.

[53:46]

One last thought. Dogen. to study the self is to forget the self. Sometimes I think, as we're starting Sushin, it's the other way around. We forget the self, to study the self. The way in which we're immersed in the self, and the constructs of the self, and the dramas of the self, and the aspirations of the self. The way we're immersed in it, we have to find a loosening of that constructed existence. And usually we do that

[54:51]

methodology of awareness is that we try to draw consciousness and awareness back to experiencing and as Anapanasanti says experiencing the physicality experiencing the sensations experiencing Physicality of the breath. So. Thank you. Salam alaikum.

[55:53]

We will now have a period of opening things. You may use the bathroom and then head down to the Zendo. You can enter the Zendo at any point and just join in your chin. And the next period of Zazen will begin at 11.25. Please help to put Zazen's back in the round.

[59:39]

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