This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I noticed that, can you hear me? I noticed that whoever set up this thing here put the water down on the tan, which is very nice. Actually, our tradition has always been to put the water up here, but who wants to reach back for the water when they're talking, right? This is nice down here.

[01:00]

So I appreciate that. Which reminded me of how traditions begin. Somebody years ago started putting the water up here. And then the next person said, oh, that's where the water belongs, up there. And then the next person that came along and said, oh yeah, it's always up there. And so they put it up there. And so this is how the tradition starts. The first time is arbitrary. The second time is a kind of decision of which way to go. The third time is, oh yeah, it goes like that. And forever, it just keeps going that way. So I remember when I first started to practice... I was amazed at the Japanese style, which seemed to me that whenever anybody did anything and it was repeated a couple of times, that it was tradition and you couldn't change it.

[02:10]

And so there are all these traditions that can never be changed. And I thought, that's not a good idea. We should be able to change things when we don't have to keep everything just because it's always been done. So that's just an observation I had as I was sitting down. So if you don't mind, I'll have a drink of water, which is very conveniently placed. I'm going to continue with Suzuki Roshi's comments on our practice called his talks.

[03:22]

I think it's good to be presenting Suzuki Roshi's talks and to comment on them because it won't be too long before there won't be anybody who heard them anymore who will be around. So I think that's good for us to hear what I believe he meant when he was talking. So let me see if this works. So here in this talk, he's talking about Sashin. It's a Sashin talk. And so he wants to talk about the purpose of Sashin.

[04:27]

And he says the purpose of Sashin is to be completely one with our practice. We use two Chinese characters for Sashin. Sesh, which means to see. I'm sorry. Sesh, which shortens, contracts to shi, in conjunction with shin, which means mind. It means to create something, to treat something the way you treat a guest, or the way a teacher, a student, treats his teacher. So another meaning of ses is to control. or to arrange things in order. And shin means mind or heart. So sishin means to have proper functioning of mind. You know, in the previous translation of the meals chant, we used to say the natural order of mind.

[05:38]

We eat this food in order to... maintain the natural order of mind. I always liked that and I was very disheartened when that was removed from the meal chat. The natural order of mind is harmony of body, mind and breath with the universe. So it is our five senses and our will or monkey mind, which should be controlled. So he's talking about control. So another meaning of setsu is to control or to arrange things in order. So shin means heart or mind, how to sit in order, heart, mind, or heart, mind,

[06:42]

body, breath and universal activity without really controlling it. So this word control is an interesting word because we want things to work. When things are working well, they order themselves. We talk about training, Zen training, priest training. I don't have much of a feeling for training. I would rather, there is training, there needs to be training of some kind in order to find order. But actually, to let the order find itself.

[07:44]

I think is more important to find the balance how all the elements of our activity find their balance within the activity and then it finds the natural order. So we all the famous saying of Suzuki Roshi, to give the cow a large field. If you want to control the cow, or the water buffalo, or whatever you want, or the dog, if you want to control the animal, give the animal a big field to play in, and then you watch what the animal does. And then, you know, you can make suggestions. Maybe you should balance... eating grass with eating oats or something. So how you find the right balance between ease and activity, all of these elements, you know, there are

[09:10]

The seven factors of enlightenment, these are all factors that we find in our daily life and which we find in Zazen as well. I'll read you what they are. The seven factors of enlightenment are mindfulness, investigation, effort, joy, calmness, concentration, and equanimity, balance. Mindfulness, of course, is found within every wholesome activity of body and mind. It's what keeps us attuned to what we're doing There's a lot of talking about mindfulness these days and mindfulness has become a subject in schools and business and so forth.

[10:23]

I think that's a good thing. In school now, teachers are actually condoning meditation. five or ten minutes of meditation, and it's actually improved the quality of the student's schoolwork. It's amazing. A big percentage, in a big percentage way. So, mindfulness is very important. It's the best... what keeps us in line, what keeps us focused. There's also something called the practice of recollection, which is mindfulness, basically. Practice of recollection. We keep returning. This is what we do in Zazen, right?

[11:25]

It's the practice of recollection. The mind wanders, then we remember, and we bring it, and we come back. The mind wanders, then we come back. The mind wanders, and we come back. mindfulness, and then we're aware of what we're doing. There are the two extremes of not thinking and thinking. The tendency, of course, is to feel that thinking is the wrong thing to do in zazen because we're supposed to be doing not thinking. But actually in zazen we're supposed to think and we're supposed to let not think.

[12:26]

Both are supposed to be there. If you're only thinking, that's samsara. If you're not thinking, That's nirvana. But actually, enlightenment is sometimes we think and sometimes we don't think, just like in our daily life. If you get stuck in not thinking, if you get attached to not thinking, then you miss the other side of your life, which is that thinking activity. And if you get stuck in thinking, you miss the other side of your life, which is not thinking. So Dogen says, think not thinking. That's the art of zazen. What is think not thinking? It means zazen thinks. Let zazen think. I know that's a great go on.

[13:30]

How do you let zazen think? When thinking, think. When not thinking, don't think. But don't get stuck in either side. So we go back and forth between thinking and not thinking. And that's natural order of mind. So there's no need to get upset. When thinking, just think. When not thinking, just don't think. But within not thinking is thinking. And within thinking is not thinking. This is called non-thinking. So this is the balance. This is samadhi. So mindfulness and investigation. Investigation usually means study the scriptures or something like that.

[14:37]

Investigate the Dharma. We investigate the Dharma by investigating all the points of our posture when we're sitting. That's investigation. Is the mudra correct? Is my back correct? Is my posture correct? All the points of posture. and breathing, investigating, so that you're not leaving anything out. Because zazen is called the great dynamic activity. If it's not dynamic, there's something missing. There's not enough effort. So all the parts, toes, knees, fingers, elbows, teeth. It's all one piece. They're all separate pieces doing the one activity called zazen together.

[15:40]

And then there's, of course, effort. Sit up straight. Make sure that you're always being present. When you're not present, come back to being present. And The effort to stretch your body, stretch your upper body. When you slump, come back with mindfulness, stretch your upper body. And you have to keep doing that over and over because it's really hard to do that. But the more you do it, the more you can do it. It's like extending your breath when you're chanting. you may think that you can't extend your breath very far, but if you keep extending it as you chant, you can extend your breath further and further each time. So that kind of effort to keep extending and to keep that energy constant is really important.

[17:01]

And then when you do that, you have joy. Joy is definitely a necessary aspect of sitting. You have the joy which comes from proper balance. When all of the parts of your body-mind are working harmoniously together, The product is called joy. So Suzuki Roshi always emphasized calmness of mind. Above anything else, above mindfulness or any other, it's a calmness of mind. meaning allowing big mind to be present, not obstructing big mind, so that you're always calm in every situation.

[18:20]

And calmness of mind allows everything to take place without being upset, but really not getting upset by anything. not letting anything turn you over or push you around. And of course, concentration is samadhi, being one with the activity. Samadhi basically means concentration, but in its various forms. No gap between your mind and your activity. Body, mind, breath, and universe is all one piece. That's samadhi.

[19:21]

And equanimity, of course, is the last one. So equanimity means not falling into one side or the other, not falling into emptiness or form. When we are thinking, it's form, and when we are not thinking, it's emptiness. But emptiness is within form, and form is within emptiness. So form and emptiness, same thing, except that form is form and emptiness is emptiness. So the proper balance, not getting overbalanced on one side or the other. To practice ease with effort.

[20:29]

to practice effort with ease. Within effort is the ease, within ease is the effort. So he says, So seshin means to have proper functioning of mind, actually of body-mind, because body and mind are not two different things. This is very important in our understanding. Body and mind are not two different things. Our mind controls the body, and the body controls the mind. If we... The mind actually trains our body, and the body trains our mind.

[21:37]

And we learn through the body, and we learn through the mind. So they depend on each other, and are really one thing. It is our five senses and our will, or monkey mind, which should be controlled. When we control our monkey mind, we resume our big mind. When monkey mind is always taking over the activity of big mind, we usually naturally become a monkey. So monkey mind must have its boss, which is big mind. So big mind is... Buddha nature, dharmakaya. When we sit in zazen, we resume our big mind because usually our activity is taken up with small mind.

[22:41]

We're always thinking, doing, calculating, controlling, whatever. So we have the opportunity to settle into big mind. But the monkey is still jumping around, as you know. The monkey is always jumping around. So how do we keep the monkey from jumping around and creating a lot of disturbance? So that's what we, you know, when we sit in Zazen, we say, oh, my monkey is jumping around and creating a lot of disturbance, and how do I deal with that? So, he says, well, I wanted to say another thing. Monkey mind, monkey is manas. I was talking about the eight levels of consciousness, and manas, if you remember, is our monkey. I didn't say that before. Manas is our ego, our self-created problem called ego.

[23:50]

But it's also the monkey. It's always jumping around wanting to do something for itself. not really paying attention or grounded in big mind. The mind is not grounded. And it's always jumping around looking for something interesting to do and to think. So it gets into all kinds of trouble. So here we're controlling, I guess you'd call it, the monkey. So, however, when we practice zazen, it is not that big mind is actually controlling small mind, but simply when small mind becomes calm, big mind starts its true activity. So it's like the water, you know, and the wave. When the water is very still and placid, that's big mind.

[24:58]

Nothing's happening. But then the wind comes along and stimulates our placid mind. When you throw a pebble in a pond, all these ripples come out from the center. But a monkey mind is really, you know, stimulated. So when we sit, we allow the monkey, the waves, to settle, but the waves don't actually have to settle. If we go deeply enough, the water is calm beneath the waves. So that's why it's not necessary to try to calm the waves, because as we sit, we settle more and more deeply.

[26:02]

And even though the monkeys are dancing around in our head, we can still sit zazen in deep calmness. And calmness allows for that to happen without having to do anything about it. We don't have to control the monkey, but because we can go deeply without having to do anything, big mind then begins its work. So most of the time, in our everyday life, we are involved in the activity of small mind, monkey mind. That is why we should practice Zazen and be completely involved in resuming our big mind. A good example of our practice is a turtle in which our legs, a head and a tail, the six parts of the body, which are sometimes outside of the shell and sometimes inside, when you want to eat or go somewhere, your legs are out.

[27:19]

In other words, when you want to do stuff. But if they are always out, you will be caught by something. In case of danger, you draw in your legs, head and tail. The six parts refer to the five senses and the mind. This is Sashin. For one week, our head, tail, and legs are inside the shell. In the scriptures, it says that even demons cannot destroy us if the six parts of our body are inside the shell. Well, that's one way of looking at it, as a turtle. I always like to think that when we sit in zazen, we're actually vulnerable. We're invulnerable and vulnerable at the same time. Somebody could come behind you and cut off your head. So you're really exposed, totally exposed and vulnerable, and at the same time totally invulnerable.

[28:25]

So in Zazen we do not try to stop thinking or cut off hearing and seeing. If something appears in your mind just leave it. If you hear something hear it and just accept it. Oh, that's all. No second response should appear in your Zazen. There are three kinds of response. There's bare attention. In Zazen, actually, we're allowed to have just bare attention because there's nothing that we have to do. We don't have to elaborate on anything. Our mind doesn't have to elaborate on anything. So since it's not assigned to thinking, our mind is not assigned to thinking, our senses, our sensory input, our sense doors just allow whatever is present to come in.

[29:51]

So we say seeing is just seeing. Seeing sees. You don't say, I see. Just seeing sees. Hearing hears. Tasting tastes. Smelling smells. Touching feels. But there's not an I in it. So we allow the sixth consciousness to just differentiate between the senses and to note what's seen, note what's heard and so forth. It's not yet that I consciousness has not begun to work at that point. But then the I consciousness says, oh, that's an airplane I heard. Oh, that's a bug walking across the wall that I see and so forth. That's the second level of

[30:57]

elaboration. And then the third level of elaboration says, I think that's a Boeing 747, and it's going to Seattle. Or that's a bug crawling across the wall, and I think it's a black widow spider, and they can really bite and poison it. So that's elaboration. thinking elaboration. So, bear attention is where we want to get to when we are sitting, guys, and just, this is just seeing seeds, hearing ears, all the senses are open, but there's, we're not trying to elaborate, even though that's what we do. So, if we can sit without arousing self-consciousness.

[31:58]

That's very nice. That's just sitting in big mind, in small mind, just being at rest. So, he says, sound is one activity, and the second is, what is that sound? Is it a motor car or a garbage truck or something? If you hear a sound, that is all. You just hear it. Don't make any judgment. Don't try to figure out what it is. Just open your ears and hear something. Just open your eyes and see something. When you were sitting for a pretty long time watching the same space on the wall, you may see various images. Oh, it looks like a river or it looks like a dragon. Then you think that you should not be thinking. much, but you will see various things. Dwelling on the images may be a good way to kill time, but it's not Sashin.

[33:04]

To be concentrated on something may be important, but just to have a well-concentrated mind is not Zazen. It is one of the elements of practice, but calmness of mind is also necessary. So, Don't intensify the activity of the five sense organs. Just leave them as they are. That's how to free your true mind, big mind. When you can do that in everyday life, you will have a soft mind. Soft mind is, we usually think of soft mind as, we point to somebody who's a little dingy and we say, oh, that person has a soft mind. But actually, soft mind means flexible mind. the mind that can't be turned over. Soft mind is like grass. Tall trees, you know, can become very, when they're not flexible, the wind will knock them over.

[34:07]

But a flexible tree, which usually they are, especially when they're young, they sway in the wind. This is soft mind, a mind that is malleable and at ease, not rigid. You know, we try to build things rigidly in order to withstand the weather, but they can be knocked over. So soft mind is best. so you won't have many preconceived ideas and bad habits, and your way of thinking will not be overpowering. You will have generous mind and big mind, and what you say will help others.

[35:11]

If we have generous big mind, and if we have a strong spirit of practice, then there's no need to worry. Dogen emphasized a spirit Sparse, simple life. Without expecting anything, we just practice our way. So not expecting anything is a big part of our practice. Not anticipating and not expecting. We know that there will be a tomorrow, but we don't know that there will be a tomorrow. We expect that there will be the next Zazen period, but we don't know that there will be the next Zazen period. We expect that there will be the next breath, but we don't know that there will be the next breath. So just have an open mind without preconceptions.

[36:20]

We need to preconceive in order to adjust our activity to life, but to not be attached to our preconceptions or assumptions. This is an open mind. Suzuki Roshi used to use various little metaphors. The frog, the frog is sitting on the rock. without moving and then maybe he blinks and the fly goes buzzing by and when the fly gets just in the right place the tongue goes gets the fly if he likes it he goes if he doesn't like it he goes so this is how we should live our life without expecting anything, just ready.

[37:27]

And he also used the picture of the fish. The fish swims along in the water going... If something flies in, you go... I have this... If you ever watched public television... When they have their breaks, they have these endless ads going on. But one of them is an underwater scene with fish swimming around. And there's this fish with a big mouth open. And there's this little school, little teeny fish. And these little teeny fish go, swim right into the mouth, as if they're going into, you know, they have no idea where they're going. The mouth is just this big cave, and you wouldn't even see it as a mouth. And then you go, and then the mouth goes, and it goes on to something else.

[38:32]

But that image just stays in my mind. Every day I think of that image. That's our life, you know. We're swimming right into the big mouth. So, without expecting anything, we just practice our way. Many students ask, how will it be possible to support the temple or group without any plan? And he said, if it becomes difficult to support our temple, we'll think about it. But until then, it's not necessary to think about it. I think Suzuki Roshi didn't really worry about Zen Center. He said, well... It's really nice to have this, you know. Nice to have tasahara, that's great.

[39:34]

But, you know, we may not always have tasahara. Something may happen that we don't have it. If we don't, we'll do something else. You should not be attached to tasahara. You should not be attached to Zen Center. It's just a placement we practice. And it's great that we have it and that we do that. But if we don't have it, it shouldn't throw you. You just... practice someplace else. Find another place. Or go to somebody's living room. And I've always liked that. I've always adhered to that same idea. And I have to say, by not worrying about it, my practice place in Berkeley has always survived without being worried about it. I let other people worry about it. So before something happens, it is not our way to think about it too much.

[40:46]

In that way, we have complete calmness of our mind. Because you have something, you worry about losing it. But if you don't have anything, then there's no need to worry. So this is basic Buddhism, actually. In India, you know, just the monks. Originally the monks had nothing, a bowl and a robe and so forth. And then in Buddhist time, of course, they started the vihara, which is a place to practice. And then they were given various places to practice, the monks, and so they accepted them. And that started a kind of home for the homeless. But basically, even so, they're always temporary homes. This is a vihara.

[41:48]

and it's a temporary home, and we use it, and it's great for us, and it's very convenient, and I wouldn't want to lose it, and so forth. But basically, we're monks practicing, and it's like we're always homeless. Even though we have a home, we're always homeless, and we should never forget that. And when something happens, you're just homeless. You find your way, because that's your natural way. We get too used to security, then we have a problem. One night, Dogen said, Even if you think a teaching is completely right, when someone tells you a better way, you should change your understanding.

[43:40]

I think that refers back to my glass of water. In this way, we improve our understanding of the teaching forever. Because you think it right at the time, You follow the theory or the rules. But you should have some space in your mind to change your idea. So that's also soft mind. You should be able to see that, well, maybe this isn't working. Maybe it should be a different way. And we should be careful not to get stuck in atrophy. One of the problems with tradition is that it becomes so solidified people can't change. And that's what happens in Japan. It's become so solidified that it's really hard to change. In Menzan's time, Menzan was a great Soto Zen scholar in the 17th century.

[44:46]

He wanted to change certain things and If you petitioned the emperor to change, or the daimyo or whoever it was, you had better be prepared. You had better get your story straight so that it will be accepted because if it's not, sometimes they would kill you if you simply submitted a petition and it wasn't accepted. Honestly. But nowadays, the bureaucracy is so heavy and so entrenched that it's almost impossible to change anything. I've had lots of experience with trying to do something new, and the way that you do something is that everybody understands

[45:51]

that you can't do this, and you do it, and you have to fake everything that you do in order to make it look like you're doing it in a certain legitimate way, and everybody knows that that's happening, and it's all accepted. It'd be better if they changed the rule, but they can't change the rule, so you sneak around, make an end run around it, and everybody knows that that's what you're doing. That's how things happen because you can't change anything. So to have a soft mind and be flexible and know, I think America's great because we can change things. But when there's a big bureaucracy and everybody's adhering to the rules, then it's hard to change anything. sometimes.

[46:52]

It helps that we never get to that place. So, sometimes you follow the monkey's suggestion. Oh, okay, that's right. If we go in that direction, we may get some food. Okay, let's go. That's the monkey saying that. But when you see a better way to go, you may say, oh, monkey, it may be better to go this way. If you stick to your greed or anger or some other emotion, if you stick to the thinking mind, your monkey mind, you cannot change. So your mind is not soft. So even in our practice, we rely on something great. I'm sorry. So he's changing... In our practice, we rely on something great, big mind, basically, and we sit in that great space.

[47:57]

So, relying on something great means Buddha nature, Dharmakaya, something bigger than our small mind. We rely on something great, and in that great space, The pain you have in your legs or some other difficulty is happening in that great space. As long as you do not lose the feeling that you are in the realm of Buddha nature, you can sit even though you have some difficulty. When you want to escape from your difficulty or when you try to improve your practice, you create another problem for yourself. But if you just exist there, then you have a chance to appreciate your surroundings. And you can accept yourself completely without changing anything, and that's our practice. So that's a big statement, and that's what's happening.

[49:00]

That's what we're doing. We're existing in that big space, and we're not trying to change anything, and we're accepting the difficulty as our practice. So without any difficulty, you know, some kinds of difficulty are like pain and boredom and so forth. Other kinds of difficulty are like, there's no problem. And having no problem is also a difficulty, even though you may not think so. We get complacent. No problem, we get complacent. That's a difficulty, at least with a problem. You have a focus, and you have a way to, someplace to, something to deal with. So we should always have some kind of problem, but you don't have to worry, because whether you want it or not, we have plenty of them. So to exist in big mind is an act of faith, which is different from the usual faith of believing in a particular idea or being.

[50:08]

It is to believe that something is supporting us and supporting all our activities, including thinking mind and emotional feelings. All these things are supported by something big that has no form or color. It is impossible to know what it is, but something is there, something that is neither material nor spiritual, something that always exists and we exist in that space, and that is the feeling of pure, being, or pure existence. So Zazen actually is called pure existence. With nothing to gain, nothing to lose, just total pure existence. So pure means non-duality. Pure means non-discriminating. Whatever it is, we just sit with it. Which doesn't mean that you have to You know, as soon as you try to get out of it, you cause yourself a big problem.

[51:13]

So how to just sit with what's there? That's, of course, you all know that, and that's what we're doing, but I'm just reinforcing that. This is what he says. Pure existence. And this big, something big that has no form, This is Buddha nature, Dharmakaya, essence of mind. Sixth Patriarch called it essence of mind. Don't stray from your essence of mind. That's his statement. In all of your activity, don't stray from your essence of mind. Don't let small mind stray from big mind. Don't let small mind get the advantage. to block out big mind. He says, if you are brave enough to throw yourself into zazen for seven days, a little bit of understanding will help your rigidity and your stubbornness.

[52:27]

Almost all the problems you create because of your stubbornness, stubborn mind will vanish. If you have even the smallest understanding of reality, your way of thinking will change completely, and the problems you create will not be problems anymore. But it is also true that as long as you live, you will have problems. So we don't practice zazen to attain some big enlightenment that will change our whole being or solve all our problems. That is not the right understanding. There may be what people call zen, But true sin is not like that. In Sashin, we concentrate on having the experience of true practice, forgetting all about any idea of gaining anything. Just sit here. If the room is too cold, we'll make it warm, and if your legs are too painful, you can cut them up. No, you can scratch them.

[53:29]

No, you can stretch them. And if it is too difficult... you can rest. But let's continue our practice for these seven days. So he's giving you, you know, take care of yourself. Don't get overly zealous. Take care of yourself. But make a big effort. Make a big effort, even though you can't completely do everything. As long as you're making the effort sincerely. That sounds it. It's not a matter of being perfect, or sitting perfectly, or never having any thoughts, or whatever. It's just doing your very best. That sounds it. One person does their very best and looks perfect, and you may do your very best and look terrible, but your very best is your very best.

[54:33]

Your total effort is the main thing, not your accomplishment. So accomplishment can be a problem. You think, oh, I'm really great, you know, doing this, I don't move, and blah, blah, blah. That's good, as long as you don't think it's good. It's just what it is. So we're all equal, and as long as everyone is doing their best, making their best effort, no problem. I know it's late, but if you have one question or two. Yes? I have a question that relates back to one of your first talks as practice theory.

[55:35]

You talked about somebody walking down the path and then carrying water on their head and it falls and breaks and keeps going. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was one of Suzuki Roshi's talks. So a metaphor only goes so far. And when we start arguing with a metaphor, you know that it's taking it too far. So the woman... carrying a jug of water on her head and she's going home from the well and the jug falls and smashes and she just keeps walking. So it's more like don't get caught by the past. Don't get caught by your mistakes.

[56:37]

Don't get, you know, Sixth Ancestor says repentance means when you do something wrong You simply turn around and go in the right direction. You don't beat yourself with a whip and grovel in the ground and ask for blah, blah, blah. You simply turn around and go in the right direction. You can repent, but that's true repentance, is to actually turn around and go in the right direction. I'm going in the wrong direction and I... bump into something, you know, and everybody's saying, oh, no, no, no. I just turn around and go in the right direction. I mean, why make a big fuss? You know, you can, in other words, don't get caught carrying around your baggage. Don't let your baggage hold you back.

[57:40]

The past is the past. The present is the present. and you're walking into the present. You're walking into the future present. So, you know, you do what you have to do, right, when you make a mistake. That's not the point. The point is you just turn and go. You just keep going. You don't let the past stop you. You don't let your old karma stop you from doing what you need to do. Does that make sense? Yeah. OK. Oh, yeah. You were talking about making a message to your very best. Yes. I always wonder what the very best is. I always feel like it can be a little more.

[58:42]

It can be a little more. OK. Well, I remember when I was beginning to sit, you know, and how hard it was, really difficult, you know. I went through all kinds of terrible things just like everybody else. But I said to myself, I'm going to do this if it kills me, and I don't care if it kills me. So I think for me that was doing my very best. I think I'm still alive, but I'm not sure. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma.

[59:44]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[59:50]

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