... [...] Morning, everyone. Welcome to Sashin. My name is Tim Waits, and I'm a priest here at San Francisco Zen Center, and I'm co-leading the practice period that this Sashin is ending

[01:20]

with Tova Green and Eli Brown-Stevenson. And thank you, David, for inviting us to lead this practice period. It's been very intimate and sweet. We've been studying Galen Ferguson's book, Welcoming Beginner's Minds. I guess I'll talk a little bit about what it is that we've been studying today. I realize not all of you were in the practice period, so I'll try and explain anything that is practice period specific. So we're going to have a Dharma talk each day, and I get to give the first one. It's a great privilege to welcome you all here. Can't quite see right here. I'm going to get a little closer.

[02:22]

There we go. So when you start Sashin, it's important to understand that the first day is not going to be like the other days. Each day is different. In fact, and I have to say that even after many sessions, each Sashin is different. No two are the same. It's true that a lot of times there's something that we call boredom. But if you pay close attention to each period of boredom, they're not the same. So we try not to have people do practice comparing mind, but compare boredoms. You've got license to do a little bit of comparative thinking. Compare boredoms. Each one is different. that's been my experience anyway give it a go we learn in our practice from doing the same thing over and over that we're not the same in each moment and therefore each moment is different even when we're doing the same thing we change with each moment each moment we get a little older

[03:51]

Hopefully we get a little wiser, not necessarily so. Suzuki Roshi, who founded Beginner's Mind Temple, where we're practicing, when he spoke about our Zazen practice, Zazen means seated meditation. When he spoke about our Zazen practice, he spoke about breathing as being a swinging door. Our mind, he said, always follows our breathing. Inhaling, the air comes to the inner world, and when we exhale, it goes to the outer world. But it's a mistake to think of the inner world and the outer world. There's just one world. When we sit sarsen, we're not separating outer and inner world,

[04:53]

or even in breath and out breath. But we are aware of breathing as a whole movement, the swinging of a door. I had a meditation teacher early in my practice who once spoke about body breathing. You become aware of your breath as a single in breath and out breath. And you do this for a while, focusing on the breath, in breath, out breath. And then maybe paying attention to the abdomen or the nose, the area just underneath the nose, wherever it is that you can physically monitor the breath. And you begin to be aware of other parts of the body. It's possible to breathe, for instance, into the arms or the legs. which is a very curious thing.

[05:56]

By passing through the whole body in this way, it's possible to just be breath. This breaks down the duality of in-breath, out-breath, of you and I. And in this way, Suzuki Roshi says, we break down the one-sidedness of our thinking, the dualistic thinking that leads to separation. the separation that causes us so much suffering. This understanding is necessary characteristically, he says. This should not even be called understanding. It's the true experience of life through Zen practice. It's also important not to have too much awareness of time when you're sitting. Not to say, I began sitting five minutes ago, I've got 25 to go.

[07:00]

This will cause problems for you. Just return to the swinging door. One moment the door swings in, the next it swings out. Just being with each moment as it happens. You might think that there's something that you could be doing this evening. But actually, there's no this evening. Just this motion, fully this motion, completely. It's easy to ask, what am I doing here? Sitting and doing nothing. I should be doing something. We are all deeply trained to do something. That is one of the things that makes us a very radical activity. We are sitting doing nothing in a world that has told us every day of our lives that we should be doing something, making something, making some money.

[08:07]

You are aware of that not doing. And when you are not doing, there is no choice for you. You're in resistance. This is the beginning of good and bad, of more separation. all we should do is just be paying attention to our practice which is sitting zazen so when we're sitting we're concentrating on our breathing and we are a swinging door focusing on what we're doing this is zen practice then says suzuki roshi there's no confusion If you establish this kind of practice, there will be no confusion. That sounds good to me, not having any confusion in a world that is so confused. So it's important to support yourself having made the decision to do this radical thing that is against our karmic conditioning.

[09:15]

You're very brave to have made the choice to come here and sit zazen. doing nothing. Please see that you're great. It will help support your settling into the day, this first day of Sashin. At the end of the section on breathing, Suzuki Roshi says, The Blue Mountain Tozan, a famous endmaster, said, the blue mountain is the father of the white cloud. The white cloud is the son of the blue mountain. All day long we depend on each other without being dependent on each other. The white cloud is always the white cloud. The blue mountain is always the blue mountain.

[10:17]

This is a pure, clear interpretation of life. There may be many things like the white cloud and blue mountain. Man and woman, teacher and disciple, they depend on each other, but the white cloud should not be bothered by the blue mountain. The blue mountain should not be bothered by the white cloud. They are quite independent. but yet dependent. This is how we live and how we practice sazen. When we become a swinging door, we are purely independent and at the same time dependent on everything. When breathing in and out, we are breathing with our whole body and the others who are in the room with us, independent and dependent on everything that brought us here. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of people to put on a seshin.

[11:21]

And we wouldn't have a seshin if those of us who put it on showed up and no one came. Dependent and independent. Focus on your breathing, says Suzuki Roshi, because this is the fundamental activity of the universal being. Without this experience, this practice, it's impossible to attain absolute freedom. There may be some bliss on the first day, having arranged your busy life so that you can sit zazen for five days, I know I occasionally have some bliss, realizing that I've been able to set things up so that I can do this.

[12:23]

I don't have to look at a single email for five days. That is very liberating for me. Stay with the schedule. This will make your life very simple. Everything is scheduled around mealtimes in a session. The schedule is uncomplicated. sitting and walking, sitting and walking. This will help you settle down, being removed from the complexity of our lives, from the struggle of our lives. We are, in a way, in Sashin, returning to the source. And this, for those of you who've been taking the class and in the practice period, of course, is the ninth Oxford in picture. We've been studying... what's called the 10 ox herding pictures. And it's 10 illustrations using an ox as the main character, one of the main characters, the ox and an ox herder are the two main characters.

[13:32]

And they're illustrations of the path to awakening. And returning to the source is the ninth ox herding picture. In this picture, the ninth picture, there's no ox and no ox-roder, just a tranquil meadow. At this stage, returning to the source, there is an openness, an absence of fear, a naturalness to being. There's a creativity in meeting each moment with the inquisitiveness of beginner's mind. There's a warmth at this stage. the warmth cultivated in welcoming each new moment with energy and the awareness that you are alive. Don't take your thoughts personally, Sunuti Roshi said. Let them arise, come into being, and fade away. They're just the activity of the mind.

[14:35]

That's the function of the mind, to think thoughts. When arriving at the source, it's possible to see the simplicity of being alive. It will fade as the complexity of the 10,000 things re-enters our mind. Return to the breath of those times. Sit upright if you can. You'll notice that you have a little more energy if you sit upright. Energy travels from the source up the spinal column, and this is a natural pathway for it to follow, up the spine to the brain, where the mind does its work, where suffering and freedom from suffering are perceived. Being at the source means being at a place of intimacy with the self. Being present with each experience as it arrives comes into being and fades away is studying the self, studying very closely.

[15:47]

Look at what arrives and how powerful it can be only to fade away again in a moment. This is experiencing the self as it changes from each moment to moment. Master Koan's verse was adopted by John Dido Laurie for this ninth stage of the Oxfordian pictures. Here's the verse. Having returned to the source, effort is over. The intimate self sees nothing outside, hears nothing outside. Still, the endless river flows tranquilly on. The flowers are red. This is the Sambhogakaya, which Daido Luri translates as the reward body of the Buddha. There's an element of bliss in returning to the source.

[16:49]

There's a sense of joy in settling in the truth that one has arrived at. There's a sense of truth in sitting and focusing on your breath, no complexity, a restfulness. Sometimes this stage is called descending the mountain. Often in China and in Japan, temples are high up in the mountains. And this is where many proceed along the path to awakening, in the monasteries and temples up the mountain. Returning to the source is the approach of completion, not an ending, because the path continues endlessly. returning to the source. You may find yourself back at a place of restlessness or agitation after feeling a sense of peace and completion.

[17:51]

Return to the breath when this happens, to the body and to your posture. Sitting upright and being aware of the breath is the embodiment of practice. Our practice begins with the body, We sit upright on our cushion or in a chair. The posture we take is said to be the posture of enlightenment. It's the posture of the Buddha. There's a Chinese word called Xin. It means heart-mind. In our Western world, we separate the two. They have two different words, heart-mind, for one word in Chinese physiognomy. This is the separation in the Western world of the body and the mind. Heart stands in for body. When I was writing this talk, the grammar correction kept wanting to put the word the in front of heart and mind, singularizing it so that it can be separated from other parts of the body.

[19:02]

It's how we see things here, a separate heart and mind. There's not such a differentiation in Eastern physiognomy. In our Zen practice, we try to recognize not one, not two. Suzuki Roshi says, the body and mind are both one and two. In our life, we are both one and two. We're both singular and plural. There's nothing to come to if people who plan for and set up the Sashin don't do that. don't plan and don't set up the seshin. Without all the ancestors who are responsible for bringing us here, we wouldn't be here, both plural and singular. When we take the sitting posture on the cushion, we put the right leg on the left leg and the left side on the right side and in this way become one.

[20:04]

There's a unification of the two sides and what is plural, becomes singular. Try to support the ceiling with your head. Stretch the spinal column as much as you can. During many practice periods, we have something which is called a shuso, and shuso means first student or first monk. We didn't have one for this practice period. You don't have one for every practice period. But when you're shuso, you're taught by your teacher or the tanto, the head of practice, how to give posture suggestions to people as they're sitting. And I noticed that there's almost always a need to correct the slight hunch that there is in the back of most sitters. My first teacher would do it by putting his hands on people's shoulders and pulling their shoulders back while putting his head

[21:08]

the middle of their backs and pushing in i don't do it this way although it's very effective if you didn't mind being touched i have a theory that not everyone agrees with that this hunched over posture is a result in part of the individualism that we're trained in in our culture we carry the great weight of isolation on our shoulders Also, of course, many of us are looking down in a forlorn position at computer screens all day long. Anyway, whatever the reason, this is where we are, and it's important to sit upright as much as you can, correcting any hunch that you can perceive. I try to hold my shoulders back without overdoing it. Your hands should be in the cosmic mudra. Use your left fingers over right fingers, thumbs very lightly touching in an oval position.

[22:13]

Keep your thumbs about where your navel is. Hold this posture with great care, as if there were something very precious in your hands. Hold your arms as if there were an egg between your torso and your arm without breaking it. This posture, says Suzuki Roshi, is the posture of the perfect expression of your Buddha nature. It's not about attaining the right state of mind. Simply taking this posture is the right state of mind. So there's no need to try to attain some special state of mind. Simply take this posture. This form is true also for walking meditation. Walk upright with your hands in shashu. Shashu is like this. Walk with great care with each step.

[23:17]

Approximately one step for each breath. Be aware of the fact that you are walking with others. Be aware of the space between yourself and others. If people are backed up behind you and there's a big gap between you and the person in front, take a step forward. We're in close quarters here in the conference center. This is an intimate session. See what it's like to keep good posture while you're eating today during your meals and when you're going to where it is that you sleep tonight. This is for you and your being in the world. And with some words from Suzuki Roshin. Buddha could not accept the religions existing at his time.

[24:24]

He studied many religions, but he was not satisfied with their practices. He could not find the answer in asceticism or in philosophies. He was not interested in some metaphysical existence, but in his own body and mind, here and now. And when he found himself, he found that everything exists, has Buddha nature. That was his enlightenment. Enlightenment is not some good feeling or some particular state of mind. The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is itself enlightenment. If you cannot be satisfied with the state of mind you have in Zazen, it means your mind is still wondering about. Our body and mind should not be wobbling or wondering about. In this posture, there's no need to talk about the right state of mind.

[25:29]

You already have it. This is the conclusion of Buddhism. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. I don't know what you have to do, but I don't know what you have to do. [...]

[26:32]

I don't know what you have to do. [...]

[26:38]

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