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 by people like you. Everybody. Nice to be in this send-off. So, You know, when we come in here, we bow to the altar. We all get together and we bow to the altar. And it's kind of nice, isn't it? I mean, it's kind of a sangha, all doing something together. Cooperating. A common focus, the altar. And there's... Shakyamuni Buddha is sitting there as usual, or as always, assuming that wonderful upright posture, cross-legged and upright, poised, balanced posture.

[01:26]

And we bow in that direction. We bow... Well, you know, I can't speak for anybody else, but... You know, some people bow to venerate the historical Buddha and all his efforts. Some people bow to... the enlightened nature of mind, the taking refuge in the Buddha, the enlightened nature of mind, your and mine, enlightened nature. We battered that together. But whatever it is, it's nice. We don't even know what it is, but we kind of think it's special. And just to look at that posture is impressive. And people take note.

[02:28]

Buddha Gautama, Buddha Siddhartha, before he became Buddha, tried a lot of different practices. And exceeded his teachers, and let's say all of them. But none of them were quite what he was looking for. Looking for the meaning of suffering and the end of suffering. And finally, one day he said he was ready. He sat down under a tree and made the great vow not to move until he penetrated that mystery. And there he is. Not moving. I'm not sure, I think, is the mudra touching the earth?

[03:31]

Is his right hand touching the earth? Calling witness to the earth and all beings, his right to occupy that seat, as you have the right to occupy your seat. Sometimes you're challenged by your mind. Your mind says, get out of here. But you have the right as a Buddha to sit right there. I think he's sitting Zaza, actually. Which is the name of our school. Our school is named after that. Sitting meditation, sitting... just sitting just without resistance without barrier doing our life completely so we take refuge in buddha and we ended the posture of buddha the posture of the physical expression of realized mind

[04:49]

physical expression of the enlightened nature of mind. Now, you may know that or have heard that, read that, and say, yeah, that's right. There's something about that posture that stops people in their tracks. At Green Gulch, excuse me, at San Quentin, We sit zazen and the doors are open and the inmates walk by. And we have a group of 15 or 20 inmates and a number of free people they call. And we sit zazen together, lights are on. And there's a flow of inmates going by to other activities. And they really stop and wonder what it is.

[05:50]

What is that? What is going on? And they're respectful. They respect it. It's a posture that is venerated historically. It isn't the individual or the person, it's the posture. Generally speaking, the expression of the inner nature that is venerated. Artisans make many statues of Buddha. And they study the posture. They read the scriptures. They look at the monks. And they create statues. Sometimes they think this particular sculpture is particularly lucky, and because the person who had it had good luck, so they make a lot of those statues.

[07:01]

I'm not sure where that one came from, but anybody know? And this particular posture, you know, Buddha didn't invent it or anything. I mean, it was around long before Buddha. In fact, there is a, the archaeologists uncovered this ancient civilization 2,000 years before Buddha. Mandaro civilization and the Indus River. And it was like a complete city and, you know, the whole thing. I mean, a real civilization. They couldn't decode any of the writings, though, but they did notice that there were these people sitting, you know, statues of people in Zazen posture 2,000 years before Buddha. And they took note of that.

[08:09]

came back from China. One of the first things he did was write a manual describing that posture and had to assume it. So the people, the lay people and the monks could learn that posture. It's a powerful posture. Zuki Roshi. First chapter in his book, in the beginner's mind, is posture. It's almost as if everything else is like a, you know, extrapolation of posture. Breathing and so on. Following the precepts and so on is all sort of a version of posture. Upright posture. The Vasudhi Maga, the path of purification, which was kind of a codification of meditation techniques taken out of the Pali can.

[09:26]

Somebody went in there and extracted all the technical stuff about meditation, put it in the Vasudhi Maga. And I think there's 40 different techniques in there. But they're all based on this posture. You assume this posture and then you do whatever. Some call it the posture, the mudra of transformation. That is when you assume this posture, And one thing about posture, let me say, is posture is, isn't it, it's sort of the intersection of mind and body. You can't have a posture without a mind. The posture is like expressing something.

[10:31]

There's an intention there, or lack of intention of no intention, maybe. But posture, you look at a person's posture. You kind of have a feeling for what's going on in their mind, right? Your mother might say, stand up straight. Or if you were nodding out during Zaza and you go to your teacher and say, I keep on nodding. He might say, well, sit up straight. Open your eyes. Act as if Assume the posture of awakening. And that affects the mind. Actually is the mind. Posture is where mind and body are totally together.

[11:34]

dare we assume this posture and align ourselves with those instructions that Dogen gave. Now, it seems daunting. I mean, what is it really? How do you do it? they call it shikantaza just sitting we're warned of no gaining mind as Dogen says it's not learning meditation it's not learning a technique in order to get something else it itself is the Dharma gate of bliss.

[12:53]

I think that was retranslated recently, but the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, I like that. Just repose and bliss. Suzuki Roshi says in his chapter on posture, To take this posture is to have the correct state of mind. So, of course, taking the posture is something we all strive for. And this is, as I say, no gaining mind. I don't know about you, but if I sit a lot, good things happen. You know, Dogen, he wrote that book when he got back from China.

[14:08]

That really was an edit. He edited a Chinese manual of meditation. And you can see those edits. Somebody really, scholars really went in there. And what he did was reach in and take out anything that was kind of a motivational thing. You know, like, oh, it's good for your health. You'll read faster if you do this. You'll live longer or whatever. There was a series of things in the Chinese manuals like that. And they're going to remove them all. All of them were removed. Now he does say it's a downegated repose and bliss, which is kind of nice. But he says it is. It's not that you do it and then you get repose and bliss. It's already repose and bliss.

[15:14]

So it's a problem. I mean, no gaining idea. Do you have a gaining idea? Come on, fess up. In fact, no gaining idea itself is a gaining idea, isn't it? Don't you think? It's pretty hard not to have a gaining idea. In order to get no gaining idea, you just gain something. So you're kind of stuck, but you make the effort anyway, right? And we do. We come together in the midst of all this impossibility, and we sit together. and encourage each other. We need to do something. And to do anything is to, you know, be in great danger. Suzuki Roshi said about creating Zen Center, having buildings and stuff, he says, to pick up a piece of dust, you create 20 problems.

[16:18]

You know, but he picked it up. And here you are, you know, with a hundred problems. So, how do you do it? I'm reminded of a koan called Yunyang Sweeps the Path. Are you familiar with this one? It's the 21st one in the Book of Serenity. It takes place back in the Tang Dynasty, I think, ancient China. And Yun Yang is sweeping the path out there and up by the office. And Dao Wu walks by. And he looks at him and he says, too busy, too busy.

[17:20]

to Yun Yang. Yun Yang says, you should know there's one who isn't busy. And Da Wu says, you mean there are two moons? And Yun Yang raised his broom and said, which moon is this? So this is the koan of someone, you should know that someone is not busy. And where is this someone who is not busy? Right in the midst of sweeping. Right in the midst of trying to achieve a clean path. Right in the midst of trying to achieve upright, still sitting. Where is the one Who is not moving?

[18:21]

Where is the one who is not busy? It's 7.52. I'm going to have a drink of water. So we assume this posture. We turn our mind to our body.

[19:24]

Right? Oh, and you've got to give yourself Zazen instruction, right? Maybe you've forgotten recently, but you are giving yourself Zazen instruction. You could actually verbalize it, probably, if you wanted to. And then your intention is to let go of your agenda, right? The things you're working on. And take on the body language of realization, which is this upright sitting posture. Sit up, don't move. the body in this kind of relative sense becomes, and your posture becomes your object of concentration. Your object of concentration. You're giving yourself instruction. And you're noticing. And you're becoming this body.

[20:32]

Now, coded into the body, tensions, a lot of karma, unresolved conflicts, habits, conditioning, all those things you don't even remember or know, but they're in there. I mean, where else are they? I mean, they're not out in the lawn. They're in the body. They're in the muscles. the nerves, the bones, they're in your body, waiting, laying there, taking up space, tension, you could call it tension if you want to, in your body, blocking the flow of energy.

[21:38]

Now, you've heard the phrase, or Dogen's teaching, studying the Buddha way is studying the self. Studying the self is forgetting the self. And forgetting the self is to be actualized by the myriad things. Studying the self. is forgetting itself, bringing the self into awareness, you could say. So we sit up straight. And, you know, let me just talk about sitting for a second so I can see you arrange your legs. in a particular way, and sit on a cushion or a bench, or a chair, in a way that kind of tilts your pelvis forward, so you sit on the front, so that when your pelvis goes forward, your chest comes up.

[23:04]

You're not kind of holding yourself up. just by virtue of the way your legs and pelvis are, you open up. And then, of course, you have a head, and then you have these arms hanging down. Now, you have a series of vertebrae stacked on top of one another. And these vertebrae have little processes sticking out from them, and all along those processes are tendons and muscles down each side, so that you can kind of go like this. And you can kind of go like, it can't go back very well. So we have a tendency to lean forward too much, because we don't want to fall over back.

[24:10]

Now, you can let go of the tension belonging vertebrae, the ones that are connecting one to the other. Because that's why we rock back and forth, you see, is to find that balance point. And it's good to pay attention to it. You know, do it with great mindfulness. And then backward. Forward. And then gradually your holding on will drop away. And you'll start to float. This provides an aligned body, held up with a minimum of effort, relaxed, and it allows it to be relaxed.

[25:29]

If you're doing this, there's tension in your body. Now you don't have to let go. You can be upright and be tense too. But the second task is to let it go. Get upright, get aligned, and then allow the awareness of tension to come to mind. Where that is that you don't need it, you know, maybe, could I guess, the back of your neck, or the shoulders maybe, or behind your eyes, forehead, jaw.

[26:32]

Sometimes people do scanning, you know, they find where that is. An awareness, so when you bring awareness to tension, what happens? It gradually dissolves. It has a tendency to disappear when there's light on it. I was wondering though, maybe what's happening is some tension is relaxing, and that causes awareness. Rather than the awareness of the tension causes the tension to relax, what do you think? Do you think you're causing the tension to relax by bringing awareness to it? Certainly, it's questionable that we relax because we say, okay,

[27:42]

okay, shoulders relax. More likely, in my mind, is that awareness of the shoulders' tension, and they just automatically relax. This awareness itself is the transforming act, not an act of will. This is my view, anyway. But still, I think, well, maybe... Maybe you get into the posture, you get aligned so that your body can, in fact, relax. And then it starts to relax. And then you become aware of it. Rather than you're aware of the tension that causes the relaxation. I don't know. But coded into your body are all these tensions. It's karma. Oh. And as we study the self, these tensions come into awareness.

[28:53]

Some are very deep. Sometimes they surprise us, right? You think, oh, this is great, I'm really calm, following my breath. Then you're surprised. That's a precious gem. It's gold. When something arises, it's been hidden. And through your diligent practice of concentration and sitting, you're able to maintain your upright posture and your relaxed demeanor. while this difficult memory arises. And if you can be relaxed and stay centered, and this, you know, this thought might have, I mean, you might be real familiar with this one.

[30:02]

It comes every now and then. It's very embarrassing. It's horrible. Or whatever. And you said, push it away. Or it creates... a flurry of rationalizations and thoughts and anger. That's very disturbing to your mind. But now you've been training yourself. You're sitting there, aligned, relaxed. Here it comes. And you're liberated from it. It may come again, and each time you'll be liberated. It's called, in psychology, we used to do psychology, it's called reciprocal inhibition. It's a deconditioning. If you stay relaxed in the presence of a difficult sensation or memory, it loses its hold on you.

[31:12]

You have to do it a little bit at a time. You only take too much on at one time. Just a little. If it's too much, you know, there's always another breath. So this is the relative value of that process. And gradually these tensions and blocks dissolve over a period of time. And they dissolve because they're in awareness now. They don't even have to go anywhere. They could just be right where they are. Nothing's changed. Nothing's different. It's just that you're no longer suffering. And you're more integrated. So your pelvis, is your pelvis tilted?

[32:32]

Huh? Huh? The Buddha did that. He would get up every now and then. You think, oh, he's sitting there. Come on. Do you know the story about Sevasthi, the buffalo boy? This is back in the Buddhist time. I lived near the town of Uruvela. Have any of you been to India and visited? Have you? Did you go to that town or the river? Yeah, it's close to Bogaya. Narragana, Gara River. Did you step in that river? Really? It's kind of shallow, is it?

[33:35]

Yeah. So this river is pretty lush where Buddha grew up. And there's this kind of river flowing through there. And Svasti is like a 10-year-old kid. His job was to watch after these water buffalo. Kind of a lower cast. His boss lived in Uribella. And he used to take them out and water them and let them graze. And this was in the fall. And one day he was out there with the buffalo. He had about four or five of them. And he cut some grass to bring back so they could feed them at night. And he let them graze, and the sun was out, and he wanted to go into the forest and sort of hang out under a tree.

[34:40]

So he went over there, and the river was over here, and the forest was over here, and there was some grass in here. The town was on the other side of it. he walked into the forest and he sort of came upon this man sitting there in cross-legged posture. And he was very surprised and very, like, amazed and sort of impressed, you know, like we've been talking about this posture. And he watched from the side. And after a while, The man, and the posture of the man, the scene, it was kind of wonderful and radiant and present. Something made him happy about it.

[35:45]

Anyway, after a while, the man sort of opened his eyes a little bit more than halfway, and unwound his legs, and didn't assume the rest position, but he got up, rubbed his ankles, and got some circulation going, and he stood up, and he started walking, mindfully. in a direction, and I was away from Savasthi. So he walked for four or five steps, and he turned around, and he walked back, and then he saw the kid. And he walked over to the kid, and the kid didn't know what to do. He was untouchable, the story is. And obviously, the man under the tree was from a higher caste, and he couldn't touch him. And really hesitated to talk to him at all.

[36:50]

But the man went over and talked to the boy. He was exceedingly kind and present. The boy was joyful and happy. And the man reached out to touch him. And the boy tried to avoid that. But he touched him and he said, So the boy said, they talked for a bit, and the boy said, well, you make me very happy. And I wish I had something to give you. But I have nothing. I'm just a poor, you know, herdsman. And the man said, well, you do have something to give me. I would like some of that grass that you cut. Kusa, it's called. And... The boy had a bundle of grass and he had enough time to cut more. So the boy gathered up the grass and gave it to the man.

[37:54]

And the man took that bundle of grass and he formed it into... I don't know what he formed it into. What would you form it into? And he sat on it. Now, I bet that got his pelvis tilted a little bit more than it was. And that night, that man achieved enlightenment. So, keep that pelvis tilted. See how important the elements of posture are? Yeah, so we sit upright. We're erect creatures, right?

[38:59]

Man walks the earth upright. The gravity pulls us down. Biology is wired together. We just stand up. We don't have to think about it. It's just totally organic. There's this kind of upward, you know, energy in our body, you know. It's just that way. We don't have to try to be upright. When we sit and we're aligned and we're relaxed, we don't need to hold ourselves up. There's upward energy. Your being not held up. You're almost, you are up.

[40:01]

You are in the nature of up. So we just need to sort of get out of the way of our ideas and our tensions and habits and whatever. Just kind of get out of the way and up. Get lighter. These tensions weigh something. I don't know that it's like in the pounds, you know, like that, but it's kind of a weight to tension, to conditioning, habits. It weighs a step. And as these are released, we get lighter and lighter and lighter. We can walk easier. We sit higher without effort. It's just a blessing.

[41:06]

Now, oh, so we sit. We sit and you could say we sit like a mountain and we let the river flow. But I was talking to your abbot the other day about ecology and zazen. Has he been talking to you about that at all? He will. And I guess you're learning about the mountains and rivers, Sutra. And I said to him, well, you know, the earth is breathing. And he said, well, the mountains are walking. Yeah, the mountains are walking. You're walking. You sit like a mountain.

[42:21]

And you are walking. You're alive. You are vibrating. You are pulsating. Your posture is not static. It's completely, it's a dance. Your posture is a dance. And if it's a dance of the parts, it's a great posture dance. of all the parts. I guess in there is like every now and then there's some like element of tension in that dance, you know, it's sort of like you have to watch out for while you're just twirling around, you know, run into it. And as the tension, you know, tension blocks awareness, and as tension dissipates,

[43:24]

Sensations increase. Tactile sensations increase. And the more the sensation is present in awareness, the less internal dialogue is going on. Those tensions and that karma stuff is all about internal dialogue being created, right? But if you put your hands up, put your hands up like this. You feel those fingertips? It's the... To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by the myriad phenomenon.

[44:30]

And that's what this is. This is your life. And this is your body and your posture. Put them down. This is what happens when we forget the self. We become completely alive. an integrated, flowing matrix of impressions. And Dogen got back from China. They asked him, well, what did you learn? And he said, soft, pliable mind-body. but that surprised a few people. And then he wrote the Fukanda Zenji.

[45:32]

But this is your Zaza, soft, pliable, mind, body. It helps to be harmoniously aligned with your elements and to activate the vow to relax, and to enjoy the dharma gate of a pose and bliss. And we rest there. We can rest in our practice. We make effort, and that effort is no effort. Although Aiken Roshi said that you should always make a little effort. Set it up a little bit later. Don't cave in. Just a little. Not much. Don't overdo it.

[46:36]

Just a little straighter and let those shoulders drop. Make that effort. So, as Reb says, it's a celebration. Zazen is the mudra, the posture, the ceremony, the celebration of life, the celebrating life. So Yunnan was sweeping the path. I guess it was Soji or something. And he got the broom. And he was out there sweeping the path. You go out there and sweep that path, you really get into making it clean.

[47:37]

Or whatever you're doing during surgery. And Dao Wu comes by and says, too busy. Too busy. And he's... Yin-Yang says, you should know there is one who isn't busy. And that one who isn't busy. You know when you're sitting, sometimes it's been reported, you make this effort to sit up and drop your shoulders. Make your chin in a little bit. and stick with the pain. And you're constantly making an effort.

[48:39]

And it seems sometimes that maybe this effort is like in your way. Although it's a good wholesome effort. But sometimes, I know it happens occasionally that I'll get distracted from my effort. Some mental thing or some sound or whatever. And then I'll come back and my body's risen into my posture. Then I come back to a body that's sitting. And I join it. This is great. But it's an odd thing. I need to be distracted from the effort. that I'm making in order for the thing I'm trying to have happen, happen. So there is one who is not busy.

[49:41]

And that one who is not busy is sitting right in your seat, right there, right inside your robe, under your head. That one is sitting right there. Now, my wife, Martha, came up from the Zendo. She knew I was going to be talking about this subject. And she gave me this haiku. She said, well, maybe people would like to hear this. So I'll say the haiku she wrote. It's faith in sitting, doubt in sitting, small waves, deep ocean. I'll say it again. Faith in sitting, doubt in sitting, small waves, deep ocean.

[50:47]

Thank you for listening and practicing.

[51:19]

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