This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. The great thing about having more than one person leading sesshin, is that you get to hear from more than one teacher. The other thing that happens is it's something I would normally say on the second day, it's now the sixth day. But I want to just go through reminders about posture and breathing, because this is, you know, this sashin is not the last time you've got to sit zazen, so if I have something I want to share with you about it, it'll still be okay after sashin is over.

[01:18]

Because, you know, sort of each time I sit down, as I begin zazen, I sort of go through the... what I think are the essential points in posture and breath. And so you'll be sitting some more, so it doesn't matter that it's the sixth day of Sashim. So we sit down, we arrange our legs and robes, sort of get our... base arranged. And then we lift up through your spine, all the way through the crown of your head. She said, it's sort of like holding up the sky with the crown of your head. And you let your head be

[02:27]

be level, you don't want your chin up in the air, you want your head level and you want to bring it back so that the weight of the head is resting on the spine. So that it's this kind of motion, your head staying level but moving back so that that weight is supported by your spine. In Dogen Sanshi's Fukan Sazengi, that's what he means by saying, ears over shoulders. That your head is back so that your ears are over your shoulders. And getting that right was a very important moment for me because it cured a lot of low back pain or mid-level back pain that I was having because those muscles that hold your head up when it's out in front get tired and they're inserting right below the shoulder blades.

[03:37]

So your head is level and back over the spine. And once you have your legs and your sort of basis arranged, You also want to, as Dogen says, you rock your body right and left, give yourself a little stretch, your side and neck, and come to the middle where you're upright and you're not leaning in either direction. You also want to do that forward and back. And when you do, get yourself so that you're not leaning in any direction, and your weight is going straight down through your sitting bones into the earth, then all of these muscles around your lungs can be soft, and then you can have much more full space, spaciousness for breath, because the musculature around your lungs is not tight.

[04:52]

Often when I find that balance point, there'll be an automatic inhale that will happen just because the lungs will expand because their muscles around it are not tight. And then you arrange your mudra as well. Sukhru, she said once, your mudra should be sitting zazen too. Your toes are sitting sasen. Your ears are sitting sasen. All of you are sitting sasen. And it's okay to rest your wrists on your thighs in the mudra, but it wants to be nice and open. It doesn't want to collapse and be closed. I think of the mudra as kind of a receiver. One teacher who was visiting Sokoji when I first began to go there,

[05:54]

said, you can visualize your out-breath as falling down like a waterfall, and your in-breath is coming in through your mudra and filling you up. And some times when I do that, I find it very energizing, but also very receptive to whatever is happening. And the one thing that I felt sorry I didn't mention in the earlier times was try to have a slight smile on your face. Now, Thich Nhat Hanh taught us this when he was, the first time he taught out here on the West Coast was at Green Gulch and he emphasizes a slight smile. If you notice, it will soften all of the muscles of your face and around your eyes and jaw.

[06:59]

And I notice that when I'm studying Qigong with Li Ping, she also emphasizes a slight smile. What I experience when I remember to do that is that not only does it soften my face, it changes my mood, it has a definite effect on how I'm feeling if I'm remembering to make an effort to have a slight smile. I don't mean a big grin. I mean just a Mona Lisa smile, you know, just soften it up a little bit. Maybe that's enough about that. I want to mention also, what you noticed just now, my jisha noticed there was no support cushion here, and she knows nowadays I need a support cushion under my knee.

[08:10]

So she just went off and found one. Thank you very much. She also noticed that when I talked with you about the teaching which I... mistakenly attributed to Vasubandhu, she also brought me the source, the actual source, which is from the Pali Canon. It's the teaching of the Buddha to the adept Bhashia, Bhashia of the Bark Claw, and Reb Anderson discovered it some years ago when I was still living at Green College so it's got to be 20 years ago and gave some talks on it and I remembered that he had given the teaching on it but I didn't remember the source and I would like to share it with you again

[09:18]

Tenshin Roshi's commentary on it is in his book Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains. And I'll read the paragraph with which he introduces it. The teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated by Buddhist ancestors. The meaning of this practice of suchness is not in words. And yet it responds to our energy. It responds to our effort. It comes forth and meets us. We sit here and the Blue Jays sing to us. We must be a Tassajara. The stream sings to us because we come and listen. This is our practice of sitting. Just sitting. It is a seamless meditation. A seamless meditation. It has no form, no beginning, and no end, and it pervades everything completely.

[10:27]

It leaves no traces. And if I try to trace it, it's not that I trace it, but that it generously and compassionately responds to my tracing, to my speaking, and to your listening. Shakyamuni Buddha transmitted the teaching of thusness. He said the following, Please train yourselves thus. In the seen, let there be only the seen. In the heard, let there be only the heard. In the sensed, there will be just the sensed. In the cognized, there will be just the cognized. When for you, In the seen, there is just the seen. In the heard, just the heard. In the sensed, just the sensed.

[11:31]

In the cognized, just the cognized. Then you will not identify with the seen and so on. And if you do not identify with them, you will not be located in them. I remember when he was teaching at Green Gulf, he said, there will be no self there. If you are not located in them, there will be no here, no there, or in between, and this will be the end of suffering. This is seamless meditation. It is seamless meditation. There is no seam between you and the herd. There is just the herd. No seam, only the herd and the seen and the imagined. This is having no object of thought.

[12:32]

This is not so easy to do, but it is very direct and precise instruction that you could keep coming back to as long as you sit or as long as you live. I want now to bring Suzuki Roshi in here with us. Someone said to me, make them laugh, tell some jokes. Well, I don't know that many jokes. But this book, which has been called Zen is Right Here, was first published as To Shine One Corner of the World. And it's just a series of anecdotes or what David Chadwick asked me asked us to do was to tell him about moments that we remembered interactions with Suzuki Roshi that we remembered particularly vividly and he collected them from many students and they're kind of a treasure store of very brief interactions with Suzuki Roshi some of them I have marked as funny

[14:16]

So I'll see if I can make you laugh. I don't know if I know. At a question session with Suzuki Roshi at Sokoji, a young man asked, what should a Zen practitioner do in his spare time? And Suzuki Roshi at first looked perplexed and repeated the phrase, spare time, spare time. He repeated it again and again and then just... and laugh uproariously at the idea of what is spare time. A couple of others that I have marked. Well, there are a lot of them that are funny, but anyhow. One day during a tea break, a student standing next to Suzuki Roshi asked, so what do you think about of all of us crazy sense students?

[15:18]

Roshi said, I think you're all enlightened until you open your mouth. The first time I met Suzuki Roshi, I told him I did not feel necessarily, that I'd necessarily fit in with Soto Zen, which is all about sitting Zazen. I said, my way to the top of the mountain was not sitting, but the way of the arts, of tea ceremony and of sumi-e. He said, sitting has nothing to do with it. As I was telling Suzuki Roshi what a disaster my life had become, he began to chuckle.

[16:28]

I found myself laughing along with him. There was a pause. I asked him what I should do. Sit zazen, he replied. Life without zazen is like widening your clock without setting it. It runs perfectly well, but it doesn't tell time. So Suzuki Roshi had asked us to try counting our breath from one to ten and back to one again. And many people found it difficult. And their questions to him revealed that they saw it as a technique, one they hoped they would perfect someday.

[17:30]

Actually, there's a story in here that's from me about the time that I went to him. After I had been working, I'm counting my breath. And I was sitting on one day's sitting. And I sat at one period where I counted every breath. And I went to see Roshi. And I said, Roshi, I can count my breath now. What do I do next? I thought he was saying, good for you. And suddenly he got very fierce. And he said, don't ever think that you can sit Zazen. That's a big mistake. Zazen sits Zazen. Yeah. Um... But here, in a lecture, Suzuki Roshi said, when you count your breathing, one, two, three, it means right now, right now, right now.

[18:34]

It means you never lose your practice. You will not be so rigid as to try to do it in the future, but right now. A student asked Suzuki Roshi if he kept an eye on his students to see if they were following the precepts. I don't pay any attention to whether you're following the precepts or not, he answered. I just notice how you are with each other. This, I think, is the most important thing. How do you live your life? All of the techniques, so-called, all of the forms, all of the precepts, all of the teaching of the Dharma boils down to how you are with each other, how you live in the world, whether the wisdom and compassion that is

[19:47]

fundamentally present in all of us is the basis of how you act one-on-one. It's the basis of how you live your life. Suzuki Roshi, I've mentioned so many times before, it seems I shouldn't repeat myself so much, but there's some things that just were at the moment the most important thing for me. And so these are such moments for me and other people. I've mentioned this many times in the past, but maybe the thing that impressed me most was that he not only told us,

[21:10]

that we should see all beings as Buddha. But from outside looking at him in the way he lived with us, he did see Buddha in everyone. And, you know, we get irritated with each other, we get judgmental about each other, we have all There were tons of opinions and attitudes about each other. But his fundamental opinion was that all beings are Buddha. And there's one exchange in here where he said during the talk that some of us wanted to be Zen masters. And this was very foolish. He said he wished he was like us, just starting out. Maybe you think you are green apples hanging on a tree. waiting to ripen so that you could be Buddhas, he said.

[22:11]

But I think you're already ripe, perfect Buddhas right now, ready to be picked. And here's one that I think is good for Sashin. It says, it was my first Sashin. And before the first day was over, I was convinced I couldn't make it. My husband's turn for Doka-san came up that afternoon. He asked Roshi to see me instead. This is all a mistake, I told Roshi. I can't do this. I just came to be with my husband. There's no mistake, he insisted. You may leave, of course, but there's no place to go. So we can give up on Sachin, but we're still in the middle of our life.

[23:21]

We still have this life to live. We still, in every moment, have to be here for our life and understand how we want to live. Dogen Senji says in Genjo Koan, when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas. However, they are actualized Buddhas who go on actualizing Buddha. So, when we're investigating Zen, just investigating how to live this life.

[24:29]

As I was, and I don't know of anything more urgent for me to investigate than how to live this life. Whether or not there's rebirth or anything else, I only get one chance to live this life. And I'd like not to make a mess of it. And as I mentioned in the beginning, I can't do Sesshin by myself, but I have found that Sesshin helps to bring me to look at my life, you know, to put on some glasses maybe that focus better than I focus when I'm not getting fashion. Maybe to bring me a magnified glass to look at my life a little more up close.

[25:31]

And I was sitting, I think it was Tuesday morning, And I was, that's when I was working on both using the mudra as a receiver to receive whatever comes in and working on keeping a smile on my face. I mean, I was really kind of working on the details of how I understand as it sounds at. And at some point I was just flooded. It felt like there was this just tremendous warmth and energy and love and compassion that just flooded me. It felt like it was coming from everyone in the room in through my mudra and filling me up.

[26:36]

It started with gratitude, but it just built into this warm energy that just made me feel so intimately connected with everyone in the room, and wanting to sit with a room full of people who are studying how to live their life so as to benefit all beings. That's a pretty rare opportunity to be in a room full of people like that. And I really appreciate the practice of each person in this room for making this Zazen container this week. Thank you very, very much. have much more to say, so perhaps I'll share a couple more of these quotes with you.

[28:34]

One night after a Dharma talk, I asked Suzuki Roshi a question about life and death. The answer he gave me made my fear of death for that moment pop like a bubble. He looked at me and said, you will always exist in the universe in some form. Once in a lecture, Suzuki Roshi said, we should practice zazen like someone who is dying. For him, there is nothing to rely on. When you reach this kind of understanding, you will not be fooled by anything.

[29:43]

A clinical psychiatrist questioned Suzuki Roshi about consciousness. I don't know anything about consciousness, Suzuki said. I just try to teach my students how to hear the birds sing. How to be present now. Right now. Right now. Right now. There's one more thing I would like to say. Someone in Dokusan mentioned to me a conversation that she had with Lou in the time after Jerome had died. And Lou said to her, Jerome is free now.

[31:03]

I don't know what that means exactly, but I do know that it made a tremendous difference to me to know how Lou was feeling about his impending death. And so I thank her very much for telling me about that conversation. Please enjoy your breathing right now, right now, right now. And enjoy your life right now, right now, right now. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma.

[32:10]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[32:19]

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