Good morning. So here we are on the third day of session, getting pretty settled in. And wondering what we're doing here. When Paul said yesterday something like, just to settle yourself and decide that you're going to be doing this for the rest of your life. Sort of the same thing that I think Tia was pointing at when she said, just give up already.

[01:10]

Give up whatever struggle you have about whether you want to be here or not and just be here. And that doesn't apply just to session or to a period of satsang, it applies to every activity of your life. If you're going to do it, just do it. Give up struggling with preferences and indecisions and arguments and just do what you're doing. If it's not what you want to be doing, then don't do it. But don't half-heartedly do it, meanwhile arguing and discussing and distracting yourself

[02:25]

from actually being where you are. This wholehearted way applies to every activity of our life. In Fukan Sasangi, Dogen Senji says, doing one thing, if you concentrate your efforts single-mindedly, that in itself is negotiating the way. This single-mindedly could just as easily be translated wholeheartedly. I'd like to say a little bit about posture and breath.

[03:27]

I noticed yesterday that I haven't been paying enough attention to my head. I've let it get out in front. And if I sit for two days with my head out in front, I begin to have a good deal of pain in my upper back. So, this instruction in Fukan Sasangi of ears over shoulders, each one of these instructions is very precise and very important. Ears over shoulders means don't let your head hang off of, this whole substantial weight of your head sort of hang off of those muscles that go down and insert around your shoulder blades there. Bring it back here, so that the weight of your head is actually resting on top of your spine, which is much more able to support it than those muscles back there,

[04:33]

which get a little tired if you just hang your head on them for hours and hours. Another important instruction is don't lean forward or back, or don't lean right or left. When you settle yourself in your posture, settle your sitting bones on the cushion. I would say tuck your tailbone back a little bit, so that you're lifting from the bottom of your spine to begin with. And then very carefully notice, you know, check, lean forward slightly, lean backward slightly. Find the place where the torso is not having to be tight in order to hold you up. Find the place where everything eases up a little bit, so that you're not leaning one way or the other

[05:44]

and you don't have to tighten up to counteract gravity. So, this careful adjusting of your posture is a way of taking care of yourself, is a way of giving full attention to what you need to be able to be here without reservation. Often, in the early years of practice, I would notice that I was always leaning forward. And then Nakamura Sensei, who taught tea and noh chanting at Green Gulch, and lived with us for 15 years out there, scolded me one day when she was washing dishes. She could look out the window onto the central area at Green Gulch, and she noticed me walking past the window there on a number of occasions, and she said to me, Boroncho-san, you walk like this.

[06:45]

And she imitated me, she said, Damedesu, that means, that's bad. You should walk like this. And she walked very erectly. And I realized that everywhere I went, I was sort of walking like this. I was not in my body, standing where I was standing as I walked. My mind was already at the destination, and I was going like this, and my body was always tense and unbalanced. And Sozen was like that too. I was trying to get somewhere. I don't know where I was trying to get, but I was trying to get somewhere. And I had this leaning into it kind of posture. And I had constant back trouble, constant pain in my back. So to find the place where your weight is actually balanced over your hips,

[07:52]

and you're not having to hold yourself up with tension in the torso. Also, if you're leaning forward, you're having to push back with your knees, so it also makes your legs more tired. If your chin is up, that's usually a very daydreamy, it usually indicates an active mind. So someone adjusting posture may just come and slightly adjust your chin. It doesn't mean turn your head down like this. It just means bring your head down, and your chin in a little bit, and have it be this alert posture of your head on top of your shoulders, and looking straight ahead. And another thing that you may notice is

[08:59]

trying to hold yourself up with your shoulders. I don't know if any of you do that, but I certainly sat this way for a long time. We used to carry the kyo-saku much more than we do now, and I asked for the kyo-saku one time at the Berkeley Zendo, and Ed Brown was carrying the stick, and he stood there, and he looked at me, and he put the stick down on the meal board, and I was sitting on the floor, and he started doing shiatsu here on my shoulders, but he couldn't see any place to hit me without hitting my ears. So if you find yourself holding yourself up by your shoulders, see if you can just lift your spine from the tailbone right up through the crown of your head, and see if you can let the shoulders just hang from that central support. So tension in shoulders and upper back is very, very common in zazen,

[10:09]

and often there are two ways that we have in the zendo. I tried to help people along about late afternoon when everybody's tired. One is to carry a kyo-saku, which you may or may not be familiar... How many of you are familiar with kyo-saku? Okay. It's a flat stick, and it sounds like that, so it sounds really startling. In fact, it wakes up the whole zendo, not just the person who's receiving it. And sometimes it's used, whether people ask for it or not, just if someone looks sleepy or if someone looks fidgety. The way we use it here in the zendo is someone will carry it around the zendo, and if you wish to receive it, you put your hands in gassho, and when they lay the stick first on your right shoulder, lean forward slightly and tilt your head out of the way,

[11:12]

and they'll hit you on that shoulder, then on that shoulder, and then you'll bow together. So I think that we will, beginning now, offer the stick once or twice during the day, if we don't get too involved in dokusan and practice discussion. Another thing that I have sometimes done, which I learned from Maureen Stewart, is to go around the zendo and just stimulate the shoulders a little with my fingers. It's not a feel-good massage, but it's just to stimulate circulation in here, because when it gets tight, circulation gets restricted. So also, because some people don't care to be touched, or don't feel that it's an intrusion, if that's happening, if you want to have me stimulate your shoulders,

[12:14]

you can put your hands in gassho. Some other details of practice, so that when you're completely present in what you're doing, when you're wholeheartedly or single-mindedly there, then practice is occurring in whatever way you're able to. Whatever activity you're in. I notice, for example, that some people have gotten quite good now at going very quickly down the meal boards and being very silent with their feet as they do that. That requires a lot of attention, and so that's kind of an interesting and fun thing to practice with, how to move quickly and quietly at the same time. And in serving in general, you know,

[13:20]

we are wholeheartedly trying to give our friends just what they want. So we're giving our attention to them and trying to give them as much as they want and no more. So that means when you're serving something in a ladle, pretty much fill up the ladle, and even if they've said just a little, and then if they've said just a little or just a little more, pour slowly, but start with a full ladle, because your idea of just a little and their idea of just a little, you know, their just a little might mean not a whole ladle, but it might mean almost a whole ladle. And your idea of just a little more might mean a teaspoon or two. So we're attending to each person and trying to give them what they want. And one thing I notice in serving with tongs, if you hold the tongs this way, you know, sideways, the part that holds the food is wider than the bowl,

[14:25]

and so it's hard to actually accurately deliver the goods. But if you hold it this way so it's going up between your fingers, then when you open and close it, you have a smaller opening here and it's right over the bowl and it's much easier to aim it when you're serving with a ladle if you hold the ladle this way. Just little details that I've noted over some years of serving and being served. And another little detail of chanting. You know, we chant at the end of the lecture, we chant the four vows, beings are numberless, I vow to save them, and also when we're doing the refuges at night,

[15:28]

we say, I take refuge in Buddha. Both of those times, try putting emphasis on vow and refuge rather than on I. We tend to sort of draw out the I. So, beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Try it. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. And at night, I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. Try that. For me, it has a much better feeling and I'd like to see if we could develop that habit here. I'd also, one other little detail about taking care of yourself.

[16:31]

I notice quite a few people are sitting back on the pews rather than on the tatami. People who normally sit, don't normally sit on chairs in the zendo and I suspect one of the reasons is it's a little harder to sit on the tatami than it is on a zabaton. So, you could bring a couple of support cushions up with you or you could do what I always did for years and years. I have one ankle that presses on the tatami and I would take my little folded handkerchief and tuck it under that ankle. It makes all the difference in the world if you have one spot like that that's particularly pressing hard to just put a little padding under it and then you'll find it much easier to sit on the tatami. But whether you're sitting on the tatami or on the pew, continuing your practice of zazen throughout this lecture

[17:38]

is much more important than listening to what I have to say actually. Just continuing your single-minded practice of zazen is, throughout this period as well as in the zendo, is what I recommend to you. Paul brought up last night the question, what is it that brings you to dedicate this week to this activity? Or more broadly, what is it that brings you to this activity of wholehearted sitting?

[18:41]

This is a very important investigation to bring to sitting. It cuts through an awful lot of discursive thinking to face what am I doing here. And what is it that's here? These two questions are very important questions for us to investigate. Not that we will find some definitive answer so much as we will be open to... It opens our heart. It opens our heart to have this wide question, what am I doing here? Or, what am I?

[19:51]

When Steve spoke last Saturday, he quoted a line of a Rumi poem that says, I wake up each morning empty and afraid. And when I become very settled in zazen, sometimes at the bottom of my breath, I find fear. I find some feeling, some sensation, which as I stay with it, I recognize as fear.

[21:01]

And although I know in practice, the most important thing at that moment then is to stay very close. It's an uncomfortable feeling and it's very hard to stay very close. So I need a very stable posture. To stay very close to this fear. In recent years it has become possible for me to sit full lotus. It was not possible for me for many, many years. And I find I can stay closest to myself. When I'm in full lotus. But I notice that I don't sit in full lotus every period.

[22:08]

Sometimes I give myself a vacation. And I notice when I've been very focused, very close and intimate with myself through several periods of full lotus, if I give myself a vacation, at least yesterday I noticed I had some very focused periods and then I sat half lotus and the bell rang to end the period and I don't know where I was the whole time. I thought, well, I was somewhere else but I wasn't here. Where was I? It's very interesting. Very interesting. It was so clear. It was so clear. First I thought, well, I'm going to give myself a break here. This is pretty intense. And immediately I was gone somewhere.

[23:16]

And that will happen. That will happen. But it's good to own it. It's good to notice it. It's good to say, well, I needed a little break and now I'll come back home and take care of whatever needs taking care of here. It's kind of mysterious how this sitting and attending to body and breath, it's mysterious how it really, really brings us home to ourself and how it really takes care of our state of mind. In Fukan Sasangi, Dogen Zenji says, the bringing about of enlightenment by the opportunity provided

[24:24]

by a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, or the effecting of realization with the aid of a hosu, a fist, a staff, or a shout, this is all various kinds of stories, enlightenment stories that are in the various goans. It cannot be fully understood by discriminative thinking. Indeed, it cannot be fully known by the practicing or realizing of supernatural powers either. It must be deportment beyond hearing and seeing. Is it not a principle that is prior to knowledge and perception? This unifying of body, breath, and mind that happens when we settle down

[25:25]

in Zazen is something that happens of itself. It's not something that we can do. It's only something that we can aim toward because it's not something to get or to attain that's separate from just this as it is. We're making our best effort to settle on just this as it is. But when we are completely settled, there is no one to observe and comment on it. We are just here where we are.

[26:28]

It's not something that is to be known or understood because that would be separating ourselves from it as an object. Is it not a principle that is prior to knowledge and perceptions? Is it not a principle that's prior to separation between subject and object? When Paul said last night, all that you are is right here in this room, there's nothing of who you are outside this room and there's nothing of who you are at some other time in the past or the future. Who you are is all that you are. Right here, now, sitting on this cushion.

[27:31]

But there is nothing that is not included right here, now, where you are on this cushion. When we are completely and wholeheartedly and unreservedly this one as it is, there is nothing which is left out. And that, it's experiencing the wholeness of who we are, overcoming the emptiness of who we are, overcomes the fear.

[28:35]

The fear overcomes is not the word. It dissolves the fear. But that can only happen if we are willing to be really present with it when it arises, not turn away from it. This is how we really take care of this Buddha that we have to take care of,

[29:44]

this particular manifestation of Buddha, by giving our full attention to whatever arises right here, where we are. And our kind attention, our gentle attention, but our wholehearted and unreserved attention. What I have to say, it's not unusual, is summed up quite nicely in a poem. Poets have a way of summing things up nicely. This poem by Mary Oliver called When Death Comes I'd like to share with you.

[30:46]

When death comes, like the hungry bear in autumn, when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me and snaps the purse shut, when death comes like the measle pox, when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering, what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore, I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood. And I look upon time

[31:50]

as no more than an idea. And I consider eternity as another possibility. And I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular. And each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, towards silence. And each body a lion of courage and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say,

[32:53]

all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom taking the world in my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. This is about wholehearted practice. Thank you.

[34:22]

Thank you.

[34:41]

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