I'd like to... one thing I'd like to do in this session is to use it to go over some details, like how to do kinhin, and how to get on and off the tan, etc. And maybe Rev, you and Mark could later take half a period of that. And when you eat, you shouldn't bend down to your food. You should lift your food up to you. In zazen posture. Not... You don't have to be rigid. Not this way. You lift your food up to you. And... In chanting, many of you don't know the Sankhya Kai so well, and some of the other chants. And although it may seem better to chant trying to follow the cue of others than to read it, it's really not so satisfactory. You should know it so thoroughly.

[01:30]

that you can lead others. So until you know it perfectly, or merely perfectly, I would like you to take a card and read it. And in a sashimi we have more chance to concentrate, so if you read it every time, I think you'll learn more in the Sashin than you will by reading it on usual days. These kinds of details during the Sashin are quite important. for it lets you experience one another, each other's state of mind and resolve. And it also lets your body become more conscious. Many of you, the problem you have is that your body is quite unconscious.

[03:09]

and it rather runs you. So, the kind of rules we have should be complicated enough that they take some attention. But more complicated than you can follow by some worrisome state of mind about whether you're making a mistake. So they should be too complicated to do by just observation. Anyway, it's one way of getting at your constant stream of preferences. So you just get up on the ta in a certain way. That's all. In every sashin, we should go back to our posture. It's a good chance to return to how we sit,

[04:44]

and how we breathe, which is necessary to do periodically. In the last session, most of you weren't there, but maybe none of you were there, at Tassajara, I discussed breathing. from the point of view of first counting your breaths and then following your breaths. Counting your breaths, you have some time and space. Following your breaths, there's no time, it's just continuous in and out. There isn't a one and a two. So you can't say where one begins and one ends. but still there's the person who counts. So the further meaning of follow your breath is to let your breath lead you, to let your breath breathe you. And at first that means, you know, something rather scary, because you let your breath lead you to where it goes, and you feel taken over.

[06:10]

most of us pull back and then try to control our breathing or observe our breathing from some distance and aren't able to become the molecules, molecules of breathing. Who knows where our breathing and organs might take us? If we give up trying to control our sphere of consciousness Anyway, that is what I emphasized in the last session, and as you know, talked about with you in San Francisco and Green Gulch after the session, so you would have some continuity with the people practicing that, the Sangha practicing that.

[07:15]

But this Sashin I want to emphasize on stabilizing or establishing your state of mind. So the reason we take care with our posture at the beginning of the Sashin is really to establish our state of mind. And if you can establish your state of mind, you'll be able to sit through the Sashin pretty well. If you're fairly new at Sashins, if this is your first seven-day Sashin, or you haven't sat too many seven-day Sashin, your posture will change during the Sashin. It's almost impossible not to have your posture change during the Sashin. But if you've established your state of mind by establishing your posture in the beginning, your state of mind can be rather the same even though you're fairly new at this kind of extended practice. So first, maybe, is to establish your state of mind. Then if you're fairly experienced at Zazen,

[08:48]

you finally will get so your posture is established. So the second step is to have a posture, a stable posture, throughout the session. And if you can do this, then you can deepen your state of mind completely. So the third step is, again, to deepen your state of mind, to give over to your state But the first step is to establish your state of mind. So you should sit as well as possible in the beginning of the Sashin. You may think, well, I better not sit too well at the beginning of the Sashin, or I'll be exhausted at the end, or I won't be able to pace myself.

[09:50]

That may be partly true, but it's a misunderstanding of the need to, not understanding, the need to establish your state of mind, not your posture. If you establish your state of mind through your posture, your state of mind will allow you to meet each circumstance of the session, of everything you meet, anytime. But if you don't establish your state of mind, if you have some compromised state of mind from the beginning, I'll do it only halfway, you know, you will be in terrible shape by the end of the Sashin or the third or fourth day. So each period, at the beginning of each period, you should establish yourself as well as you can. Legs crossed, back lifted, chin should be in, which you also get by lifting through the back of your neck, and lifting through your backbone, and get relaxed as much as possible. And breathing.

[11:41]

Some comfortable healing in your breathing, some comfortable being that breathes. Not too much cheer. Eyes a little open and ears open. tongue on the roof of your mouth, lips closed, open but not hearing, hearing, or seeing, relaxed enough so you don't need to respond to anything. So what is your state of mind then that you're establishing? Or what is your state of mind? Buddhism teaches us

[13:16]

that your state of mind is suffering, the first of the four truths, that there is suffering, that your state of mind is suffering. And this problem of suffering is a very deep problem. Not so much just what is suffering, but what we do with suffering. And for most people, suffering is a cause. It causes us to do things.

[14:23]

feel some, we put our hand in the fire, and it causes us to move our hand out. So, for most of us, suffering is a cause, and we are always caused to avoid it. But Buddhism teaches that suffering is a result not a cause. This is a profound difference. So if your reaction to your suffering state of mind is to try to end suffering by achieving something, you are just causing more suffering. Then karma is there at both ends, you see. Karma is the result of trying to avoid suffering, and karma is the cause of suffering. So suffering is what you feel, and karma is its cause.

[15:51]

For most of us, our ordinary state of mind is called suffering by Buddhism. Your state of mind, which is always comparing, or worried, or making distinctions, is suffering. If you don't know it, then you've never had any relief from suffering. So you can't tell, you're quite used to your suffering. But as soon as you find some relief, you get worse, you think, because you become aware of how miserable your state of mind has been, always trying to adjust, always fragile, always preparing or trying to establish yourself in relationship to some other person in security or dream or power. So your unconscious body too, and mind, are always

[17:45]

causing you to suffer. Dharma, you know, also we have karma and dharma. And we could call dharma also your state of mind, but your state of mind free from suffering. Dharma, we usually think of Dharma as the non-sentient. There's Buddha, which maybe we could call a sentient or super-sentient being, and Sangha, which is our community or everyone. So Sangha and Buddha seem like sentient beings, sentient. existence, and dharma seems like non-sentient things, objects, and hence teaching, the sutras. But this point is, again, rather like suffering.

[19:14]

The meaning of dharma, the deep meaning of dharma and suffering, you can only understand with your whole being. Over, maybe it takes some time to penetrate what dharma must mean. You have to be able to not be in a hurry. Your mind doesn't rush past the scenery, but like mist or water, penetrates everything, up and down each crevice and hill. If your mind or awareness can penetrate everything like this, you can understand. thoroughly. So dharma is things, but it's also dharmakaya, the ultimate form of Buddha. So dharma means your state of mind, too. What, after all, could be non-sentient? If we are various chemicals or molecules

[20:44]

Are they sentient or non-sentient? What makes them sentient? What makes the particular chemicals that are our body sentient, are their bonds? The way they're related makes them sentient. And what makes a group of people, a sangha, are their bonds? So Sangha means the bonds between us, and Buddha means the essence. So Dharma means the correct understanding of the bonds, and the correct understanding of the bonds, of the nature of everything and its interrelatedness, mutuality, is also sentient. So when it's object and subject, it's not Dharma. It's suffering. But when it's Dharma, it's sentient. It's Buddha. It's you yourself. It's your own state of mind, free from suffering.

[22:14]

You understand this point. So when you are suffering, you know, if you have some, if your tendency is to avoid it, you are creating more suffering. And then suffering for you is a cause But if, when you're suffering, your direction is to enter the suffering, knowing it's a result, so you must penetrate to the root of suffering, to the cause of suffering, then you're a practicing Buddhism, and you can end your suffering, and you can understand and become one with the Dharma. So again, it means to stabilize your state of mind, to establish your state of mind. For when your state of mind, you perceive, is the bonds, or we can say essence, what is the essence of these bonds? When we are quite calm and can

[23:50]

see things pretty clearly, you cannot stabilize your state of mind. And so you can begin to see cause and effect, but as long as your state of mind is pushed by suffering, pushed by preferences, you can't see anything. So the first thing is to begin to be able to sustain discomfort. When you can do this, you find everything is a kind of discomfort. Even happiness is a kind of discomfort. In other words, suffering and happiness, pain or pleasure, are not so much opposites. but variations on the same disturbance of your... or expression of your basic stable state of mind. And when you know this, you'll find it's quite easy to sink through a Sashin or through your physical pain,

[25:19]

So the physical pain of a Sashin gives you some opportunity to penetrate suffering, to establish yourself in discomfort. Without that ability to have a stable state of mind in suffering, you can't perceive how your state of mind, ordinary state of mind, is already suffering, because you're always avoiding it, you know. Your state of mind is always dissolving like a dream. When you dream, your dreams change into this and that. And when you're sitting zazen, most of you, your mind goes this way and that way. First one thought and it leads to the next thought and the next thought. And when you relate to people or things, there's always some difference. between you and what they think, between what's happening and what's going on in your head. Someone's serving you food, but your mind is somewhere else. This kind of state of mind is called suffering in Buddhism. You remember in Don Juan where he tells

[26:53]

Castaneda to look at his hands in dreaming So there isn't the distinction between dreaming and waking So he can stabilize himself in his dreams and it's exactly the same thing in a session You have some opportunity now to stabilize your state of mind awake or asleep So that dissolving process does not occur in sequence. It may occur simultaneously, but not in sequence. So you can sustain something. maybe cannot learn to sustain it in your everyday activity, because the fact that the floor and room seem to sustain themselves and you don't, don't let you grasp your basic state of mind. But if in zazen, or dreaming, you can stabilize yourself,

[28:18]

you can end the distinction between you and other people, you and things, etc., and you'll know what Dharma means. So it's not, you know, when something gets us down, some event gets us down, we think it's some event that gets us down, but it's your state of mind that lets something get you down. So, the usual understanding of karma as, you know, as soon as you see that suffering is a result and not a cause, you then find out there must be some, of course, cause of suffering. So you think it's some previous action. The usual understanding of karma or suffering is, I'm suffering now because in a previous life or earlier in this present life I committed some act which caused me to suffer. If you understand it in this way,

[29:57]

you're rather locked into your karma and your suffering. But when you see that it's your state of mind which caused you to suffer, and it's your state of mind which caused your actions which caused your state of mind which caused you to suffer, your state of mind may become quite contaminated by your actions. That's true. So precepts are very important. Precepts mean how to avoid contaminating your state of mind. But precepts are only necessary when your state of mind is already disturbed. So the whole point of Zen Buddhism is to return to your state of mind which is not disturbed. right now. So it doesn't mean that you have to unravel your actions. Just now return to that state of mind from which everything arises, and instantly all your karma is gone.

[31:21]

So now, in this session, establish your state of mind by your posture and your breathing, and meet everything with an unruffled state of mind. And when it becomes ruffled, know the cause of the ruffling. and if you can't find any cause for your ruffled smile. And if you can't find any cause for your ruffled design, try just to penetrate through it until it comes and goes like the weather.

[33:07]

The weather may be cloudy or sunny, but it's still the weather. And we are interested in the weather because we perceive intuitively that the weather means something continuous. And so it's interesting to see it's changing. Do you understand? So in your zazen you can find this kind of state of mind through the changes that will occur in the sashi from period to period, from morning to afternoon to night, and to sleeping. So when you sleep too, I don't know how many of you are sleeping here in the zenda, But when it's time to go to bed, whether you sleep in a zendo or somewhere else, I would like you to designate some place as an altar. Even if you don't have an altar, turn toward this altar, maybe if you're in the trailer, and to bow three times to this altar or the altar in your room.

[34:39]

and then bow three times to your sleeping place. If you're here, bow on the floor toward your time. Then sit down to go to bed, but maybe for a while sit. I don't care whether it's one minute or half an hour, but sit after bowing for a couple of minutes. You'll think we're only sleeping Not so much until 3.30. You want every minute, but your sleep will be more useful to you if you sit for a few minutes first and continue that state of mind. If you can do that, you'll be sleeping, well, I shouldn't say all day, but some of the benefits of sleep, that restful state of mind will be there during the day, so you won't need so much physical and mental sleep. And during the night, your state of mind will continue from the seismic. And the more you can continue it, the more your state of mind will deepen and stabilize

[36:11]

so that you can penetrate beyond the suffering of even sitting here for seven days, which is obviously a kind of cause. Sitting here seven days is causing you to suffer. But when you see that suffering, not as a further cause, but actually resulting not from the sitting, but from your unstable state of mind, you will have achieved something in this Sashin, if you know that thoroughly. For never again will suffering then push you around, because you'll know it's something else that's pushing you around. So your state of mind of I want this or that, which is suffering, you'll understand that even beneath I want this or that, or ego, is some state of mind which is unstable, which allows ego to arise.

[37:38]

that it must be quite clear. It's quite simple to see that what makes everything sentient are its bonds. And what are the essence of those bonds is your state of mind, or consciousness, or Buddha, or Buddha nature, or true nature. From various points of view we can name it. Now maybe, although that much is simple, what you understand by your state of mind may be rather primitive.

[40:25]

So what I want to consider during this session is what is our state of mind to which we attribute so much that we name it Buddha, that the whole thrust of Zen is to return to this unnameable state of mind. So please try to establish your posture and your state of mind. And know your state of mind not by introducing one who knows. If one who knows appears or tries to observe or describe, let him go away.

[41:58]

Let her go away. But the attitude to know your state of mind, please encourage. And find out, too, how attitudes are the two-by-fours of most the timbers of most of what we usually call state of mind. You know, state of mind in Buddhism means citta, or shin, heart-mind, like Tsukiyoshi named Tathagata Zen Shinji, heart-mind. So it means all mental and emotional And it means more than that, but for the beginning you can experience it as something like that. But the first step is to take care with your posture, and how you get on and off the tongue, how you're walking, not talking.

[43:32]

how your breathing or mind is not racing ahead or behind each other. How you can reside with yourself, without comparison, this moment to the next moment, or you to someone else. You to someone else is the same as you to yourself the next moment. So try to give up that transference of consciousness into concept. Try to focus without any point of focus on something which has no focus. Try to be aware of, alert to,

[45:17]

one with your state of mind. Let it take care of you during this session. If you do, you'll find you'll have enough energy for each period and for getting up in the morning. And in this session, since we have a little less sleep, you can take a short nap during break period if you want. But even then, if you lie down or you sit in rest posture, for a few minutes, you should try not to become unconscious by dividing your state of mind into two, one who sleeps and another who starts thinking about something.

[46:51]

to fulfill it when there are no restrictions. But try to stay with that state of mind, not wandering about, so you have a kind of awake rest. You may learn how to rest when you're awake, if you can do it.

[47:18]

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