Most of us here today are starting a seven-day Sashin. Can you hear me okay? And a seven-day Sashin gives us a chance to try to do something. consistently, persistently, completely. You can put all of your energy into assessing all of your power, into assessing, finding out the limits of your power and the enormous extent of your power. There are very few things you can do which give you that opportunity.

[01:04]

So during a sasheen, it's good to do as few things as possible which distract you. It's good not to read anything for seven days. good not to have any conversations, if possible, with anyone that's not absolutely necessary. I don't mean that you focus on the sasheen. Instead of focusing on something else, But if you find yourself being distracted by something, then you focus yourself on the sasheen. But mostly you want no focus, except as some occasion arises where you have to do something, you just do the sasheen.

[02:19]

We're not in a Sashin or in Zen practice talking about replacing something with something else. That's not the perfection of wisdom. practices to open yourself to being stumped and stumped until something turns over. Intelligence is defined in the sutra as questioning, questioning mind, questioning inside and outside.

[03:35]

persistently pursuing someone who speaks of the Dharma, knowing the Dharma by heart. Asking questions, one sutra says, So-and-so, such-and-such a bodhisattva always falls into narrow ways because in previous lives they only intermittently questioned the Buddhas, instead of persistently questioning. They only occasionally had serene confidence, only occasionally had faith. only occasionally took delight in the Dharma, only occasionally had vigorous, joyous effort.

[04:42]

But this questioning is based on faith. So intelligence is defined in the sutras as plus questioning. I think you can see it rather simply, what I mean by that. If you, you know, let's take a tree. You can question, what is a tree? How does a tree grow? Is a tree real? But you don't cut down the tree. This tree is not real. You saw it yesterday. You accept the tree, you know, some kind of faith. Tree is there, but what is a tree? That's very easy to understand. But when it comes to Zen practice, it's not so easy. What is Zen?

[05:50]

I don't need it. You're going to cut Zen down. That's not the kind of questioning plus faith, which in the sutras equals intelligence. It's not so easy to do that when you're sitting sashin in your legs and back and the mind and everything hurts. What is this pain? I'm going to get up. That's not the kind of intelligence plus faith in the sutras. What is this pain but just sitting? This state means that confidence of mind or stillness of mind which allows you to accept various things without disturbance. But that mental calmness is identical with physical calmness.

[06:51]

and much easier to find it through physical commons. So when you're sitting, much as possible you just sit without any disturbance. By this you can find out physical commons and then mental commons. And then the faith, which allows you to question, deeply question. You can't question deeply without faith, because you'll get too nihilistic, too suicidal, too depressed, and your mind will become unsteady and mushy, like cotton wool. The sutra says, like cotton wool. Without faith you can't have deep questioning, you can't have deep intelligence.

[07:57]

To deeply question the tree, the tree must remain there. To deeply question our own existence, your existence must stay there. Your mind and body must have deep, immovable, calm faith. And Sashin is our best chance, I think, to try to become familiar with this. Over and over again, repeating it. The sutra again says, to turn your mind toward perfect wisdom. likens this practice to a baked jar. If your questioning is not persistent, if your will and willingness in practice is not persistent, it's like trying to carry water, the sutra says, in an unbaked jar.

[09:16]

Soon it will crack. So in the Sashin, in your practice, all you can try to do is make your jar baked. You can't fill it. You don't know how to fill it. Buddha has to fill it. You must, everything must fill it. You can't do anything more but bake your jar. And a baked jar requires faith and questioning. Just questioning, your jar will crack. Just faith and there is no process of baking. So by a sasheen you're making yourself ready for perfect wisdom.

[10:29]

So your effort at first is to not be distracted, to bring yourself back to the sasheen, to not do anything. You'll be plenty distracted throughout the sasheen probably, most of the periods. But to refrain from doing those things which you can, which are get your mind working, like reading or talking or thinking up stories, trying to distract yourself. Let your mind distract itself by its own force, if it must. Then you can begin to turn over.

[11:46]

Maybe perfect wisdom as practice means to turn over. Turn over everything to empty. To turn over everything to complete enlightenment. To turn over the sasheen, not to even concentrating on the sasheen, but no concentration at all, the empty. cavity of the baked jar. But the effort to do something should be just to get yourself ready. You can't do more than that.

[12:51]

So intelligence, again, in Buddhism, is defined as getting yourself ready for perfect wisdom, which happens of itself, by having your jar baked, by your faith plus questioning. and you can find it in your physical confidence, which you will develop. You can find, you know, you will notice at some point during the Sashin, you feel a turning over of yourself, not by force of will to accept the pain, but a kind of resignation which is like another level, like turning over to another level, some wider level.

[14:04]

Your mind relaxes, lets go of your personality, lets go of your air, lets go of your effort. And to repeat this experience, over and over again, in session. Not to, ah, I've had that experience, now I will control it. And next moment it's painful, I'll adjust myself exactly that way, and I'll feel the same release. It doesn't work that way. Each time you don't know quite what to do, you just have to turn yourself over. But by the repetition of this, turning yourself over when you're stumped, something truly will be there.

[15:15]

Turning yourself over when you're stumped in session. this habit, a kind of habit of questioning plus faith, a kind of habit of attitude, habit of mind, but maybe better habit of attitude, some vigorous questioning plus faith that you always now have. And then in every situation, not just Sashin, you can turn yourself over to Suchness. to things just as they are, which don't increase or grow or diminish. So there's nothing, you know, in perfect wisdom there's nothing you can say about anything. There's no increasing or decreasing, no growth, no diminishing. And you

[16:27]

This first principle begins to act in you when you turn yourself over. You feel the turning over in yourself. You can feel it, you know, when pain is on you and you accept it. and you can feel it whenever you are stumped and suddenly you are from a wider perspective, up and below and over, viewing everything, and yet not out of contact. And finally, you know, when you have a complete flow of this various perspectives, naturally by repetition you now no longer hesitate in turning over, you no longer get stumped, immediately you're turning over.

[17:35]

This is turning the wheel of the dharma. Actual turning of the wheel of the dharma. And you can find out the beginning of this experience by sasheen which you find your Acknowledge your serene mind, your pure consciousness. Everything in all directions dissolved into the enlightenment of the darkness. It seems like a big jump, but actually, when you sit sashimi, just offering yourself to the sashimi, you are baking your jar, preparing that support which will carry you to the other shore.

[18:59]

You don't know where it is, but you make the jar which will be filled, the support which will carry you. Replace your distracted mind with the sashimi, accept as a technique, as necessary. Just have nothing to do, except when you must turn a corner or pick up your bowl

[20:06]

sit down at the bell. More and more, between those fraction of a second when a doing is required, have some open, fertile feeling. So when a doing is required, it's maybe like a bee coming. I was remarking this morning what a wonderful job a bee has going to huge flower after huge flower. I would like to be reborn as a bee. But this open, you know, fertile consciousness is not so different.

[21:18]

And what he's doing is like a small colonization. And it's so short actually, turning the corner, picking up the bull, and then you can rest again. without any idea of Sashim or who you are. Ultimate vacation is Sashim. You can go to the mountains. So please try to find that posture which allows you to come home.

[22:51]

Which allows you over and over to turn yourself over. Turn yourself toward the sun of perfect wisdom. in which there's no increase or decrease. This will allow everything in you to grow. Everything in you to exist without that hesitation or terrible emphasis which always pushes us around and leaves us feeling incomplete.

[24:08]

Perfect wisdom is like some a vast expanse of air in which everything can completely bloom and have its own space. Everything is so naturally complete, just as it is, that there's no way to speak of more or less This is not something in the future. It's the actual fact of our existence. If you can get rid of your half-baked jar. So the baking process is what's important.

[25:24]

by repeatedly sitting, repeatedly returning to the session, repeatedly questioning from faith. This line, you know, is subtle on faith and questioning. But your mental health requires you to learn where that line is. Otherwise you will destroy everything or be foolishly led around. Same kind of line is how do we easily go along with others. without always forcing our own way, and yet at the same time have the confidence of, we know what water tastes like, without someone having to explain it to us.

[26:48]

But able to give someone else their own space, without diminishing or increasing your own, This is required for the mental health or intelligence necessary to, I don't know how to say, be on the receiving end of reality. without trying to force them. So please sit this session as if you never had to leave your cushion, never had to leave the home of your tummy, never had to leave the home of your breathing.

[28:04]

never had to leave the home of your inane thoughts. Even if they're inane, it's okay, it's your home. With that kind of faith, this is my home. With that confidence not to sacrifice your state of mind because of the pain. Not to sacrifice your state of mind because of your desires. All knowledge, because there is no increase nor decrease. This will come to you by just dwelling in your five skandhas. not adding something or subtracting or manipulating, just breathing, seeing a little, some taste, some feeling on your breath, some confidence in your

[29:31]

physical cells themselves, when you don't feel heavy. Deepening and developing that feeling, you will come to find out how to turn yourself over, how you are turned over. So just to sit, giving up your small power. Replacing will to sit by willingness to sit. Deep questioning from the point of view of faith. Inside and outside, equally you question everything and accept everything.

[30:41]

Knowing if there's something new. The new comes from persistence. Persistence was what will bring you out of the old into the new. Deep questioning and faith is what will turn you over. This is our practice, our Zen practice, which uses your heart and lungs and stomach and mind and attitude and your deep power which you want to misuse. You want to grasp it and make it something specific. But here in this Sashin you can open yourself to your deep power and absorb it in your common.

[31:52]

As there is so much power, in everything, in all of us, linked by these surfaces, linked by these surfaces. And the way is not to break the surface, but to completely understand the surface, questioning and faith. Then this surface will come alive, not trap you any longer. I think you can do it and you have a good chance in this Sashin to just sit in this way, accepting everything as it comes, without sacrificing your state of mind.

[33:39]

Please let yourself be open to this practice, this reality which does not diminish or increase, which you can find by your own undiminished effort. in this session to acknowledge nothing beyond your own sight, S-I-T-E. To become completely one with your sight. What is it?

[35:10]

What is it? But one with it. But what is it? But one with it. like a tremendously alive, miraculously alive robot following the sketch. Looking in the robot's eyes you see some mysterious gleam. Okay.

[36:10]

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