Rohatsu Sesshin

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SF-03575
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i feel very honored to have been asked to give the opening lecture for the seventies machine in can you hear me okay
ah
and
i have lots of ideas about
giving a talk that sends you off into seven days with resolve and ah confidence and earnest ness
but who knows
so
i'll just
speak about what are my mind as i
begin this first day of session
i was very happy to hear the rain ah
and sit in the rain this morning
this is our first really big green has lasted this long
and we get to feeling closed by the rain now sounds
and it helps with that
once longing to gallivanting go gallivanting down a sunny fields might as well stay put
out of the rain
and you might have noticed that the water out of the faucets and ah
in various places
is running
money
a little bit this happens every year round the first rain others
mud in soil little bit gets into the springs and into the drinking water did you tasted this morning
little bit
can taste like the regular green gulch water this is the rainy gringotts water
and this muddy water
seem to wow
emphasize our practice of being
lotus's in muddy water
may we exist in muddy water with purity like a lotus lotus has a
it it doesn't grow in a clear
fresh
lakes and ponds it needs this mightiness and then it comes up in it it lives up out of the water
but it's grounded it's rooted in the mud
and also they say that dragons can't exist in pure water they have to have many water to and fish
so there is a life in this muddy water
and that's what our life is like
we often trading per get it all pure and just bright and perfect and get all the mud out of there and then we're going to be okay but actually
it's in the mud where will find
our truth

so this morning we commemorated the passing of suzuki roshi and this was the twenty fifth memorial service and the twenty fourth year following his death
and i i just wanted to talk a little bit about that
and i feel
i want to celebrate his life and teachings as we go into this machine
that morning december fourth nineteen seventy one i was living in page street building but i wasn't sitting the session i was going to school at berkeley and
and i wasn't in the center of that morning i think i had
written paper the night before and state of really late
i decided to sleep in plus it was sixteen and there wasn't very many seats and i'd have to sit in a hall anyway there is i made some reason
and someone my friend deborah madison knocked on my door and said
suzuki roshi had died and i remember what came out on my mouth was oh no that was what i said
and then i got dressed and joined via line of students senate's that was stretching from the basement send all the way up to where he was lying and he had died and in his little bedroom right next to oxon
it's kitchen the in their apartment at page street and then was moved
into the dogs on room and it was on the floor help if there was a futon or anything i think he was just on the floor covered in blankets
and this was the first dead body i'd ever seen that wasn't embalmed i have been to some funerals were there was some
an open casket but the body was
not very young
understandable as a body it look like a wax figure but here was
the first
person i'd ever seen who had just died
and i remembered the disciples some of the disabled rib and i think dan welsh and david chadwick maybe we're all sitting around in a room would i came in we came in and offered in sensors a kobach who were chip incense set up and then we did three bows to suzuki roshi and
and the disciples were sitting zazen kind of around and i remembered thinking they look so bewildered
mean you should when you think of these men you don't think of being bewildered but they looked bewildered and and they were just incredible was twenty eight and
i was twenty four and it was like a young young people facing something
a hard to understand hard to
settle with
and that went on till the afternoon the boeing people coming from outside and then according to the japanese congregation tradition he was taken very different than we do it now we usually sit with the body for maybe three days
depending on circumstances but bob three days but suzuki oh she was taken that afternoon to a funeral home and he was embalmed as well likely involved i guess they said
which was in
ah going along with the japanese communities wishes
and people sat with him at the funeral home and then i think it came back in a couple days to page street to the buddha hall and was just in the buddha hall but the casket very fancy casket
open and people came there is a steady stream of visitors
through the next week or so

then it it just it doesn't seem very long ago
let that happen
written on the hon
is a poem
which as we hit the harm you know it gets worn away and worn away and you often can't read it
the poem is listen well everyone
great is the matter of birth and death
no forever
gone gone
awake awake each one
don't waste your life

hello everyone
great is the matter of birth and death
no forever
gone gone
awake awake each one don't waste your life
this is a hero she's translation of that last line is don't goof off
so i feel
some
seriousness about how says she and i i realize the danger of taking oneself too seriously and the danger of not taking oneself seriously enough
a serious comes from the word to hang on a scale weight is some gravity there some weight

so we have seven days in front of us that ah may stretch out and feel like some endless time and one may be thinking home i ever going to be able
to manage com i ever going to be able to do it
and there's no way that you can do it
thinking like they're thinking like that is
painful
so what is the attitude what is a helpful attitude
to have
were so taken care of this week we really don't have to think about hardly anything it's of the schedule and listening to the sounds that let us know what's next where was posts
to be next
and what we can do or our effort can be placed on
twenty four hours a day whether walking standing
reclining are sitting
to carefully
meticulously
with minute attention to be looking looking looking at our life and are ah
and exactly what we're doing
to not waver from that to stay with it a step after step

you know i i often wondered when i was younger about if i had lived in the time when pioneers were heading off west
and i was living in some beautiful green valley in the east would i have set forth
as a pioneer in the covered wagon heading out west to face the unknown and all these hardships have often wonder what i do that and are there any frontiers left you know
now but i feel there are i feel like we're all pioneers
pioneers are around
comes from the word foot soldiers that were sent out in front to kind of clear the way in medieval times
so we're all foot soldiers you know step after step after step
setting forth into the unknown
and we actually can be pioneers yeah i wanted to know whether would i have it in me to would i have what it takes to i'm faced the raging river you know and be yeah
and the mountains how they how would i have been
with the axe in them running out of food and
when i actually feel like says she there's some feeling of that you know we actually do have a chance to see
what
ah
what's there you know
facing our own unknown facing our mountain range the the rocky mountains
in the raging rivers
we voluntarily ah
have put ourselves in a situation where all of what we are can draw upon of our
to strength and softness and everything we've got we can draw up on here
we don't need a covered wagon
we're all this skyrocket be covered wagon
so
this session commemorates the buddha's enlightenment shakyamuni buddha's enlightenment and on the altar
well behind me we have the the bo tree the bodhi tree
ah which is very healthy in
beautiful i'd only seen this believes the dried leaves of the bodhi tree the scalp they look like skelton they have a lot of
lines and veins in them but this one is is strong and vibrant just like just like us
i read recently or as a master called people of the way
ah tree blood
people
who think their roots and
cast their seats
and flower in bloom when wendy was talking yesterday
so that when the buddhist sects and decided to sit under that poetry as you know in the story during the different watches of the night things mara the evil one cent
various difficulties and problems for the buddha to have to deal with
and and this is what's going to have this is what's happening for us to we get sent our problems and night don't know about cent we have our problems there and they might feel like they're being sent but there there there and they arise and
we're no different from the buddha we have a chance to sit in composure like a mountain and trust that what is coming for us is very intimately connected with our own enlightenment or our own realization these problems and afflictions
and difficulties that arise are not something
obstacle that is an obstacle it's in our way it's these very things that are intimately intimately connected with
what we need for our understanding
these are these are the pictures
they are coming to help us
so there's no point in trying to get rid of these afflictions and problems these are
for us
this is the attitude of
sitting under the bodhi tree under the bodhi tree
i think our minds ten tend to work in the way that if only my niece didn't hurt and i could sit without this much pain then something like that or if only my back wasn't so tired if only my mind wasn't racing so much if all they didn't have these worries there
then but that kind of thinking is not accepting fully these problems as our teachers and gift the gift for us
but that that's so much our usual way of thinking i know
so if we can make this shift to meticulously and carefully
step by step
ah receive and accept these difficulties and problems and afflictions without
struggling to to have them go away to just sit
staying close to our bodies close to her body mine

i wanted to read something from suzuki roshi about problems in session
this song
is in the berkeley
zen centres newsletter and it's a machine lecture in february of nineteen seventy one so this was you know ten months or so before he died and this is the last as machine
and suzuki roshi says perhaps many of you came to session because you felt that you have problems to solve
that by coming to sustain your problems would be solved
but whatever problems you have can be solved anyway
because buddha will not give you anything more than what you can solve or what you need
whatever the problem may be it is just enough problem for you
so i think you should rely on buddha's just enough not too much and if it is not too much buddha is ready to give you some more problems
just enough to survive
just to appreciate the problems
buddha is always giving you something
because if you have nothing to cope with you may have a terrible life
so are yearning to be rid evolve it to be sitting in the pure water you know get this mud out here let me taste this pure water you may have a terrible life a girl she says
if you have nothing to cope with
so this mud this is this is what makes our life worth living ashley
these problems to cope with
yeah
afflictions of the mine
the painful sensations that we have this will these are to help us now i'm not being masochistic and you should of course know when
or work around when something may be too much
but don't be too easy on yourself
you know find out with that frontier he is what is that edge that you may not have explored yet
that's not damaging to yourself but even though you're afraid can you go a little bit further to find out what happens what happens if you just sit still
through
a pain that perhaps you've never experienced before

so can meticulously carefully minute we take care of yourself it includes a take care of your posture
and i just wanted to
ah talk a little bit about that each time you take your place here's a new and you about your cushion bowel we sit down turn around begin to settle yourself please take as much time or more time even then you think you need you know really settle yourself on your cushion really
find
your center you're sitting bones should be like two little feet
pioneer feet right a new cushion very even not one up like that so it may take a little bit of kind of rearranging finding that and then don't skip this step of opening your hands on your thighs and swinging around and exhale as you go down
down and inhale up to center exhale the other side in this wide arc and slowly slowly coming back to the center take that time each time
and then it's recommended to take a inhale and exhale through your mouth as a kind of cleansing breath before beginning to breathe through your nose so
to that kind of a breath will help you settle and exhale all the stale air out make two of those through your mouth and then begin reading through your nose

so this is all of these things are all part of your thousand they're not a preparation for zazen this is all yours and mine
and also to skip to when you uncrossed your legs to as the falcons are saying he says when you arise from sitting move slowly and quietly calmly and deliberately so really take that time to uncrossed
ross and do this ah swaying back and forth slowly slowly getting those arches bigger and bigger and make sure your feeder not the asleep and get down
ah this is what i mean by minute attention you don't want us her skip intas get to kenyan already you there's a lot of infant test my actually moments of breath and movement and shifting and
a turning and standing to get from years as in costs like a position to standing for kidding
so find out about all that territory all that frontier

and when you're sitting in sounds in
when you exhale she can cause it
or just sitting or if you're counting your breath or following your breath pay particular attention to the exhale exhale all the air out and actually allow yourself to calmly stay at the end of that exhale and then allow the email to come
in of itself
and this any brings freshmen and renewal to your blood and brings from
the air outside suppose it outside brings everything you need in to your body and then refreshes you and then exhale all the way out
and that calmness at the end of that exhale
ah
if you can pay attention to that end of the exhale
and then let the email come in on itself

when we're when you're working with pain and just so you all know i'm sure you well to put everyone has pain in zazen even if this is here
millions session
there's always pain that people are working with to some degree or another
so
ah if you allow the pain
if you get very intimate with the pain and this has been helpful for me to go
i don't want to make a sound too much like going somewhere else but if you go towards the pain if you go towards it as if
going towards our a loved one
where you
will not
tense up and try to go away but melting towards that kind of feeling relaxing into breathing
through your body and relaxing torrents
he get more we tense up the more
ah we calls herself more pain and mental and emotional pain on top of a physical pain so in dealing with your physical pain if you stay very very still very still not try to pull away and tense up and fight it
if you stay very still and breathe and soft and into it
oh
that playing playing actually on that frontier will be new i think and
ah
the pain will not be the pain you thought it was that you have in your mind idea of pain
something else will may happen in there that's new that's a frontier
and our our tendency is to want to move away from and avert from avoid
but because we voluntarily here here's a chance see many other pains that we're going to be having in our life
physical and mental and emotional we don't necessarily voluntarily choose those they will be coming they're coming right around the corner
covered wagon where we voluntarily said westford whole you know wagons home and we voluntarily or are stepping into this so to find your composure there
it is different a little different than when something comes totally unexpected
this is your choice to be here and to work in this way to find a new way to be to find your composure in
in a situation that you may feel is dire or extreme can you find your composure there

in suzuki roshi says you know we sit with her back towards buddha except for the leaders of the says whose sit facing forward everyone else sits with their backs you know and it takes a lot of
trust you need to be able to trust i know certain people in restaurants they cannot sit with her back towards the door maybe maybe that's how you are to or in an office they have to orient so they faced the door but here we sit with our backs out and this takes we have to trust
it takes it a trusting to be able to do there

so i'm talking about practice now my words or about our practice and yet each one of you get to completely even right now don't have to wait for zazi right now get to practice with this yourself and taste it yourself
taste the muddy water

so i didn't bring my watch how we doing for time
can prefer okay
i wanted to tell you a story and in some of you have heard this story it's an italian folk tale it's a perfect story for sixteen ha
it's about
it's an a collection by italo calvino for italian folk tales and it's about a young girl whose name is olive and her
father or mother died when she was born in her father gave her to a foster family and said if i'm not back by the time she turns ten just consider that i won't be coming back something's happened to me and please just her as your own child and her she loved this family very much and they loved her
and at her tenth birthday her father didn't come back and they thought well she's really our daughter now we don't have to worry and they raised her
and it was a religious family
but at her eighteenth birthday this man came down like a stranger and he came to the cottage and it was this long lost father and he came to claim her and the family was heartbroken and olive was heartbroken to and didn't want to go and but he brought it to court and the judge
at the court said you are the real father the biological father and this young girl has to go away with you so she did
and her foster mother step mother gave her this book of religious poems that she loved and as a gift to she tucked it in her not in her wrote she was my well she tucked into her basket and went away
and
our father this biological father was very mean to her and he didn't want her to read this religious book that would reminder of her other family so he said if i catch you really now i'm i'm going to do something terrible to ah
so he did catch her reading it and he told he hit her and beater and then he said if i catch you reading that one more time i mean to cut off your hands terrible
and
she was so unhappy there she had her made kind of watch out for when the father would come and read it surreptitiously even though she knew it was pretty dangerous to do so but one day her father came into her room and caught her reading it and he did what he had promised in he told her to hold on our hands and
he cut off her hands and then pushed her out of the house into the woods and said never come back so there she was in this dire situation
very
i had a lot of pain and wandering and no hands just these stumps and she came to this forest and and there was a tree it was a pear tree and and the the tree felt so sorry for her they bent down the branches and allowed her to eat she couldn't take the pair's off but she just said
if eight around the the fruit and left these old corps hanging on the tree
in this tree happened to be
the favorite tree of the prince who lived nearby and he thought that the pairs were ripe and they went out together them and his servant came back as it all i'm sorry your majesty but an animal must have come in the night and eaten all these right pairs they're all eaten up let left the corps
oh and he's so i'm going to find out who that is what kind of animal that is and shoot it you know so he stayed up in the night and watched and in the night came olive towards the tree and the tree bent down for her and she was able to eat and the prince service and was greatly moved by her situation in
he brought her to the palace
and fell in love with her and wanted to marry her and didn't marry her
now
his mother didn't like this young girl and didn't trust her this kind of
foundling that her son had fallen in love with and when he had to go to war she was very mean to olive and off was pregnant that time and she am
ah when she gave birth the stepmother sent word to her son she gave birth to twins she sent word to her son that his wife was a sorceress of some kind because she had given birth to a dog and cat and
and
and the sun was horrified at this and said please you know kill her and killed the children and oh this is a terrible thing and the stepmother didn't do that but she said her off into the woods
and may believe that the so
beings have been killed in the townspeople thought they had so thereof was again in this dire situation again with to newborn babies that she had tucked into her arms walking and she walked in she was crying and cheap
came in the middle of the
forest to a
to a kind of pond and at this pun there was an old woman was washing clothes in the pot muddy clothes washing washing not too muddy close but there she was an olive
said oh please help me please help me and helped my babies and please give me a drink and the old woman said get your grant get a drink yourself and she said but don't you see look at my stumps and i had these babies and oh and she said drink yourself from the water
so i'll of went forward and bent over and at that moment the babies dropped out of her arms into the water and she said oh my babies my babies help me help me get them and the old woman said get them yourself plunge in your stumps and she said but i can't i have no hands to get she said plunge in your stumps
so she plunged into stumps and at that moment her hand all her fingers grew in her hands grew again and she was able to grab these babies and take them out
and ah the story ends happily with her husband coming into the forest finding out that she was still alive and finding her
so that old woman by the water washing
how was pretty serious and she took all of pretty seriously
and she knew she was not going to baby her she was not going to ah
ask anything less than what she could actually do the problems that olive head where exactly her problems and she had to with those problems with that body and mind not wishing it were anything else you plunge it she plunged in her stumps to the living waters of
of her life and they grew
and this is to me what session is we plunge in with whatever we have
it doesn't matter if we have stumps or if for this way or that were all of our problems it doesn't matter a hoot
we plunge in with just that
and we are
and out of that we grow our hands we grow through that activity we grow new hands we grow our body sought for hands gift bestowing hands
if we say we can't do it we can't do it because we just have these stumps
i hope that i have this strength enough to say bullshit
plunge in your stumps
so these problems are very close to our
our own self realization
we have to be intimate with their
and not kid around don't
waste time
gone no forever gone gone the session will be over before you know it
so i want to end with a wonderful poem by mary oliver
seems to be the poet of the week
you see this this is this grizzly bear this is when you're a pioneer and you come to the west you come across these grizzly bears
one of our students did get attacked by a grizzly bear once
somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring down the mountain all night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring
i think of her her for black fists flicking the gravel her tongue like a red fire traveling the grass the cold water
there is only one question how to love the world
i think of her rising like a black and leafy ledge to sharpen her claws against the silence of the trees
whatever else
my life is whatever else my life is with its poems and it's music and it's glass cities it is also this dazzling darkness
coming down the mountain breathing and tasting
all day i think of her her white teeth her word listeners her perfect love

thank you very much
mm here