What I want to talk about today, is first to ask if you can hear in the back, is what strikes me every Sashin, and just this last Sashin at Green Gulch also, is that the winning combination is Zen, is foreground concentration and background concentration. Now what I mean by that, and that's at present the best way I can think of how to describe it, is superficially foreground concentration is like concentrating on your breath. being able to stay with your breath. Or, as I've often said, like a watchmaker or someone doing something very specific, in which, as I've said before, there's even a chance of stopping your breath. If you notice when you do something concentrated, you usually stop your breath, so you don't jiggle.

[01:29]

Some of the ways we breathe is to prevent you from stopping your breath when you're concentrated. Otherwise, if you stop your breath when you're concentrated, you get various mapo, various visionary experiences, because you don't have enough oxygen in your brain. Background concentration is on the whole more important from the point of view of Buddhism. From the point of view of some kinds of practice, some kinds of yoga, the emphasis is on foreground concentration. But my own experience is that if you develop foreground concentration primarily

[02:36]

Your life can still be in a mess. You may have some good condensed experiences, but your life can still be in a mess. You won't get along with your spouse, or you won't understand your situation with people. So from that point of view, background concentration is more important and much more the emphasis of Buddhism. The decision to practice, the decision to sit, the decision to save all sentient beings or be one with all being, with being. And the distinctions I made once, sit down, sit still and sit long, although sit down is will, basically it's background concentration, because it arises from the memory or the continual intention to sit. So in the midst of the various currents of your day, you can sit down, you can remember to sit down.

[04:07]

And while sitting still is, I said, based on willingness, really sitting still is foreground concentration. Culture or civilization is I would call culture or civilization a mystery, a mystery that has been given us so that we may realize our own, or a mystery that has been given us by our ancestors, that we may realize our own mystery, realize ourself. So from that point of view, Buddhism and art and your body are all instruments that you learn to play, so to speak. Now you can't sit still until you end, you know, your mental Saint Vitus dance, until you end your jiggly

[05:34]

mental and physical state. Which means first of all you have to trust Zen, you have to trust Buddhism, you have to trust Zazen. If you don't trust Zazen you can't let go into your practice. So at some point you have to existentially, conclusively trust Zazen. So Zazen tries to be, we present Zazen, as unprogrammed as possible, as close as a conceptual form or idea can be to you yourself, so it's virtually identical, even for the beginning student, with trusting yourself. Thus, as you know, beginning students have quite a lot of difficulty coming into Zen. It seems rather harsh or cold. American students going to Japanese temples especially feel it. Japanese students feel it too, but the American student feels, or European student feels, it's Japanese or something. And they don't see

[07:00]

how everything is thrown on them. How really to save all sentient beings means you are saved by all sentient beings. You awaken the warmth and wisdom in each person. It's much more Mahayana to say, I vow sentient beings are numberless. I vow to be saved by them. So somehow, first of all, we have to decide to go out on this limb, to trust Zazen. As I've been talking about Nagarjuna, to come to some rigorous point where you say, this is what I'm doing. I'll accept what I'm doing. I'll accept the conclusions of what I'm doing. And you trust Zazen. That's first. Second, you of course must trust yourself. And in such a scientific world as we live in, it's very difficult to trust ourself without some proof. But where do you get the proof?

[08:26]

The attitude of the person I mentioned, the Catholic I mentioned, who literally believed in Adam and Eve and wine was blood of Christ, bread was body of Christ. This is a much more successful way. To believe that until you find it you can't So we have to give up. Unfortunately, even though Buddhism is so philosophical and so logical, to actually make progress in Buddhism, you must give up looking for proof. Proof is just as it is. Proof isn't something. To look for proof is to seek Buddha or enlightenment outside yourself.

[09:35]

So these first two, to trust zazen and to trust yourself, mean you must finally be able to mentally and emotionally, psychologically, be able to sit still. This is pretty difficult. Our mind is always going. And we, to the end, have that resistance, which Suzuki Roshi describes as like a child. A child can't leave a still pond alone. child is always finding a stone. So we are very much like that. We can't trust things just as they are. We're always needing some excitement or something to disturb it. Nagarjuna, you know, says, put a snake in a bamboo pole. This is first to become actually still.

[10:41]

First to use your instrument, your Buddhism, your culture, to make your instrument work for you. Buddhaghosa, you know, who described Buddhism and the stages of absorption or trance so well, and so accurately, follows what your experience is and will be, if you practice continuously. and with unswerving intention. Buddha Gosa, one of the meditations, beginning meditations he talks about, is to find a sign or to... something we don't do, but actually in a way we do do it, not different, we approach it differently. He recommends taking some blue flower or flower pot or vase or some object and meditating on it and concentrating on it until you can visualize it completely in every detail. You know, after all, and at least from the point of view of Buddhism, reality is ultimately physical.

[12:08]

What I mean by that is your emotions, your mental world, even big mind, hinges on form, hinges on your body. So this hinge that you are must move very freely. So early stage of meditation is to make, after early stage, after you can psychologically and emotionally sit still. Early stage, this early stage, which most of us don't get to, is to make your mental world as precise as the physical world, as stable as the physical world. So you can memorize some object of concentration and it is extremely exact. And if you cannot recreate it, you go back to the object and concentrate on it further until you can completely create it. This is also to put snake in bamboo pole or in your backbone, to put your wiggly mind in your backbone. When it's very precise, then you change it.

[13:34]

Then you make the flowers grow, or vase change, or transform into your body. You don't play the instrument until you know the instrument thoroughly. So third stage is to develop your instrument after trusting zazen and trusting yourself. At this stage, this is no longer superficial foreground concentration, but highly developed foreground concentration. which will result in those conclusive experiences. Convincing conclusive experiences that allow your body to enter the world of Buddhism. Until you can really physically sit still. It's not absolutely so. By insight. you may, any activity is okay. Not being able to sit still, not sitting all right is okay, at all is okay. But for most people, being able to sit physically still, and someone who had that kind of insight would be able to sit down and sit perfectly still, unless they had some actual physical disease.

[15:06]

they could be in all senses at rest. So the way of Zen is to work with your physical instrument till it is completely at rest. This is foreground concentration. Based on background concentration. Tozan was asked, what is Buddha? This question is asked over and over again, of course, and should be asked by you. What is Buddha? And he answered, famous answer, three pounds of flax. He didn't say, Oh, Buddha is what appears in everything. He just said three pounds of flax. This is the hinge, or sign. So in our meditation, when we have some something specific comes up in our meditation, some ability to concentrate on our breath, or some visual image or some koan, we make that conscious. In fact, what you should be coming to doksan with, we can say,

[16:36]

Zazen is, or practice, is becoming awake. Buddha means to become awake. So practice, when you're practicing, whole practice, your lifetime or several years, will be described by the consciousness that to be alive is to be awake. And you make being awake your conscious effort. Awake in a wide sense it includes unconscious, includes the activity of no mind or spontaneous activity. And then in specific at any one period, this month or this week or this minute or the last few days or last few weeks, there will be something, some obstacle in that awakeness or some obstacle that you find you are turning on or seems some block or hindrance or something to work on. So whatever that is, you further notice it and make it your conscious effort. You don't just find, oh I happen to be doing this. When you find you happen to be doing it, you turn on that making it your conscious effort.

[18:06]

making it your conscious effort, you share that with me if you come to doksan. Right now, I am working on such and such, or I find such and such. So that not only are you making it conscious what's happening in your practice to yourself, you take it the next step and make it conscious to me. That process of articulation, that process of locating, is fundamental reality actually. is the fundamental effort of consciousness, the fundamental effort of practice. So when Gutei, you know Gutei, when that nun came to see Gutei, you all know the story, must know the story. I, Tsukuyoshi and Yamada, Reiren Roshi, acted it out once in Sashin. I've told you the story. Tsukuyoshi sat in the middle of the room, playing Gutei, and Yamada Roshi took a Zafu and put it on his head as a hat. And he came in, you know, and he went around, circled Tsukuyoshi three times. And he says, give me a word that satisfies me.

[19:33]

Sukhirshi, or Gutei, didn't say anything. So, Himahara Roshi, the nun, stomped out. And Sukhirshi said, It's growing dark, why don't you spend the night? And Himahara Roshi, the nun, said, Give me a word that satisfies me and I'll stay. Sukhirshi, or Gutei, didn't know what to say, so she he left. And all night long, Gutei turned in his bed. Why did I hesitate? What caught me? So he decided to leave and study with someone some more. But he had a dream that someone would come to his temple. And in a few days, someone did come. And he So he thought maybe this is the person I anticipated in my dream. So he asked this person about the story and said, what is the fundamental word of Zen? And Tenryu held up one finger. And Gutei, got it. So you know the rest of the story.

[21:01]

He always answered. He said his last words before he died was, all through my life I have never exhausted this one finger. If people asked him, what will happen to your body after death? Whatever he was asked, he said. So you know the story about the boy who told some visitor, when he was asked a question, he told the visitor, And the visitor told the Roshi, Gutei, that the boy answered this way, imitating him. So, you know, he called the boy into him and asked him a question. And the boy went like this, and Gutei, supposedly, went and cut his finger off. The boy, of course, was quite startled. He ran out of the Zen room, but Gutei said, Hey, Harry! And the boy turned around and Gutei went... But of course, as all Zen stories end, the boy had his first Kensho. But this is no different from Hakuin's one hand, which is

[22:30]

usually answered, by whatever is said, you just thrust out one hand. This is to be run through, everything run through on a single skewer, the commentary says. Fundamental word of Zen is, what joins everything? What can you say that joins everything? What can you say that isn't conceptual or dualistic? this story was very important to me. Tsukuyoshi told it and I fixed on it. What can it be, One Finger? What can it be, One Finger? For several days I was struck by this story. I didn't doubt the word of Zen Masters, but also if I couldn't find out this One Finger, Buddhism was locked to me.

[23:31]

And Suzuki Yoshi knew I was fixed on it, he could tell. So, twice, you know, or more times, but twice I remember very clearly, he suddenly, in some situation, raised one finger. And I felt something. And second time, He was doing the service. In those days, we had no doans, and Tsukushi hit the bell, and Mokugyo, and things. And he was standing on the altar. I was in the room somewhere. And he'd just finished the bells, and he stood up, and as he stood up, he went... Anyway, I had a pretty big experience. So we need to find out, and again, as I say, this last Sashin presented it to me again, that you need to open up your body, to trust your body, to the point that you can actually sit still, actually have foreground concentration. Sit still and then sit long with concentration.

[25:09]

then you will find out that what Buddhism says is true. And your body, you will have some conclusive experience of this reality. Your access sign or hinge or instrument or experience you'll find out how we are hinged. Tenke commented on Chozan's poem. What is Buddha? Three pounds of flax, he answered. Not increasing, not decreasing, just as it is. It means to make your mental and physical world completely stable. Only in this way can the hinge, or the flow,

[26:39]

Begin. Only then can you understand one finger or one hand, or what runs everything through. So coming back, you know, I am emphasizing, to develop your instrument, of course you must trust it. Find out if you can or can't trust it. That's it. And if you can't, deal with it. I don't actually trust Buddhism. Or see that you don't trust yourself. Developing your trust of this practice so you can let yourself into it and trust of yourself so you aren't afraid where you will go, then develop your instrument, your mystery. Anyway, this is the whole shape of our practice.

[28:10]

Is that simple and clear enough? This way you can enter, you can be others, you can enter other's situation and awaken and be saved by all sentient beings. be forgiven by all sentient beings.

[29:01]

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