Served at the century and perfect Dharma, it is directly met with even a hundred thousand million Kalpas, having a chance to see and listen to, to the younger ancestors. Good morning. Is the sound okay? I wasn't talking about me, but... Walking into the Buddha Hall this morning and seeing everybody, I was filled with quite a bit of gratitude. It's the first time, I think, that we are back in an all-button person, non-hybrid. At least the good thing about COVID is that there are online offerings now for people that can attend that way.

[10:46]

So how's day two going for you all? Got one thumbs up. Let's step into my mind today. So I was, like I said, and continuing to sit with a great deal of gratitude, perhaps because of the Suzuki Roshi Memorial yesterday that always tends to, yeah, bring up profound gratitude. But nevertheless, I ended up being in a little bit of a clinging state of mind. Nevertheless, I want to say that I woke up today saying thank you to everything and everyone, very much like I had told you my daughter did with her waking up gratitude practice. And I was sitting there in Zazen expressing great thanks to Abba David for the many small details along the way, assisting me, the kind looks, loaning me his kotsu.

[11:59]

And I would start to think about all the wonderful ways I want to support him. as he takes on his next role as Central Abbot, imagining what Zen Center would be like in 2030. And of course, after that, I went to my teacher, Abbot Ed. And yeah, the many years of guidance. Yesterday, he spoke about Suzuki Roshi wanting 10 more years with us. And lo and behold, his practice actually called him back for... Another decade carrying on Suzuki Roshi's legacy. And of course, then I went to the Tonto and her kind guidance through all these learning of ceremonies and tender feedback. And then our dear Eno Brian, who has made sure that I do fun stuff along the way, like go eat pizza and took me to Wakanda. Anyways, you can see where this is going. This is not...

[13:01]

at all what our practice is actually supposed to be. And that's how easy it happens. You start with gratitude and then you're at the pizza spot. So this is a more real good morning. And what we think is a pleasant trace of gratitude can easily turn towards a post-award speech and a pizza extravaganza. And if I let it go too far, I will be in my mind's Facebook page, posting things, liking, making comments, dislike button, the horror face, and all the emojis. And it's not that gratitude is bad. I think it's good to cultivate gratitude, perhaps spend a whole retreat some other time cultivating gratitude. But it's the grasping that was coming up for me. And the question is, how can I allow that feeling to remain in the body and not start being twirled by the mind?

[14:08]

And at some point, I saw Abbot David coming along, approaching in the Jendo. And what I received from him is, Eli, come back to your breath. Come back to your practice. At least that's what your silent gasho said. So this is some of what I wanted to talk about this morning. Sashin practice. And as Ed was explaining about a month ago, him and David had gotten together and talked about the koans they would cover during this week and an introductory to Rohatsu. And so yesterday when I heard my dear teacher speaking about the mind, posture, and breath, I was kind of like, ooh, that's what I had prepared. So that apple does not fall too far from the tree. And I guess since it's Sashin, there's not really much else to talk about. So during the work period yesterday, I did try to go through and strike out as much duplication as possible so it's not too repetitive.

[15:13]

However, during Sashin, there's not much else we should be talking about. So as we know, this is a remarkable opportunity to wake up and collectively enter this rock tumbler. Some of the elements we've included are silence, presence, effort, patience, forgiveness, but also work, healthy food, and tea treats. Of course, the rocks being all of us, the other beings, the teaching, the Dharma supporting us to meet just this moment. Everything we do is sazen. So in Sashin, we actually get the opportunity to slow down and pay attention to our lives and do it with others. It's a true gift. As Ed mentioned yesterday, in Not Always So, Suzuki Roshi's instructions said the purpose of Sashin is to be completely one with ourselves.

[16:16]

It's a chance to turn towards instructions that our great ancestor Dogen Zenji left. Cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros or cons. Cease all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging mind, all thoughts and views. And that's a rare opportunity nowadays with hyperconnectivity to just put down our distractions and meet ourself. Dogen continues, have no design on becoming a Buddha. Very, very important point. We're not doing this to become something. We're not trying to transform. However, it may transform you. Our practice is to express the Buddha that's here right now. Most of us in the last couple of months have been part of the practice period.

[17:21]

studying the Blue Cliff Record and its many koans, and of course the koan of life, contemplating what an appropriate response is. And yet here we are, about to partake in Rahatsu, celebrating Buddha's enlightenment. We've all committed to sitting in silence, wholeheartedly paying attention to this very Buddha. And while we settle into the calm mind, at least for me, can be like a rigorous mountain that I'm about to climb. I come in feeling like, ah, yeah, it'll be nice to get some chance to just settle away from my life. No offense to Kat and Maya. I don't have to go to work. This is going to be nice. The retreat feeling comes. And I had great comfort getting to the admissions. settling into the first morning and this, like I said, the Suzuki Roshi Memorial.

[18:23]

But I think it was maybe sometime after work period or the walk, I got back to my room and my mind was starting to say, what now? Let's do something. Let's plan. So today I wanted to provide some encouragement as we enter what tends to be the more typically the more challenging days of Sashin. And for some of you, you may not experience much of a challenge, but at least for me, and I predict for some of you, days two through five tend to be where the mind is resisting settling. Or perhaps two to five is when the body starts to cramp, stiffen, or that for me, that one point in my upper left back starts to give me problems. Perhaps it's inflamed. And after both of our mind and body start to give some resistance to settling, it's usually because we have some strong desire to sit like a Zen master in peace.

[19:30]

So when these afflictions arise in us, we start to suffer. And whether or not the thoughts or feelings of the body change over the next five to seven days, usually the way that we relate. to these feelings has shifted and our ability to support ourselves has come forth, whether it be finding the right adjustment in our posture or learning how to breathe into that one spot on your back. Or perhaps we learn how to breathe with an unpleasant emotion or memory that had been causing us tension, giving it just the right amount of space. the warm watermark. There are many ways that we will meet and turn our suffering over the next six days.

[20:36]

And so here's a couple of ways that we can support ourselves throughout the week. I'm going to speak about the five hindrances, which can help us recognize and orient to the ways our practice will get distracted. And it's a helpful, at least for me, to keep the hindrances in mind, but sometimes it's easier to just have a practice phrase, kind of like Suzuki Roshi's, the practice of Sashin is to be completely one with our practice. So over the last week, I hit up some of our residential Zen Center teachers for their best kind of like one-line teachings on Sashin. And once I compiled them, it would just be too kind of odd and wonky to go through. So I kind of combined it into a mash of sorts. So we'll just say Bodhisattvas once said, when you hear the bell, wake up. In other words, when Bodhicitta arises, open your eyes, open your consciousness eyes.

[21:42]

You do not need to be a samurai. This is not a contest. We can tolerate anything one breath at a time. Every day is different. Each period of Zazen may be different. Find balance between staying with feelings of discomfort and finding ease. Whatever may show up is the curriculum. Kindly accept and be with that part of yourself. Try your best not to judge yourself or others. Whatever happens, keep going. All resistance falls away if you let it. Ask for a meeting with a practice leader if you want support. And remember that we are all supporting one another and all Buddhas and ancestors are supporting us. There's no state that can arise that indicates you are doing Sashin wrong. To be constantly and clearly aware of whatever arises is onward leading.

[22:45]

Sashin is the world's greatest luxury. Others are taking care of the world so that we can just sit here and sit and cultivate peaceful awareness. Thus, we build a single-bodied peace and intimacy, a community for a day, abiding forever. Sashin means gathering heart-mind. I don't think of gathering as a verb, but as a noun, a gathering. It's a party in my mind, and everyone's invited. So thank you to the teachers who contributed. And I wanted to separate one that May had provided via Gil Fronsdale. The growth of practice during Sashin depends on continuity. Practice must take place in all moments between periods of Zazen. Don't treat Mio breaks or other times out of the Zendo as breaks from practice.

[23:49]

Continuity of mindfulness is key in Shishin. Otherwise, it's like trying to boil a kettle of water, but inadvertently taking the kettle off the flame over and over again. For me, that was great advice. So I probably could close the talk now, but... I've been invited to continue. And for me, the continuous practice, this continuous effort outside of periods of Zazen, it's been helpful to pay attention to the same factors that we do in our sitting practice. And our basic instructions are to pay attention and be intimate with our posture, our breath, and our mind. So I'll start there. Throughout the week, we have a chance. to attune to our posture, remembering that our body is made of energy. And I won't go into the instructions for sitting as Abed Ed did that yesterday.

[24:55]

And if it's something you need more of, I suggest, well, it's kind of against the rules, but cracking the chant book and looking at the Fukan Zazengi, which are the instructions for meditation. So perhaps that might be, I don't know, allowed. Or see a practice leader. What I wanted to say is something more about the spirit of posture. When we sit, it's important to support ourselves in a way that helps us not only be present, whether we're sitting on a cushion, a chair, lying down, but understanding that this awakened posture is the key aspect of our practice. Suzuki Roshi says, these forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture itself is the purpose of our practice. When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind. And there is no need to attain some special practice.

[26:00]

When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. So whether we are working, sitting, eating, let us be supported by these forms to help us with our presence and practice no matter what we are doing. Suzuki Roshi continued, the most important point is to own your own physical body. If you slump, you will lose yourself. Your mind will be wandering about somewhere else. You will not be in your body. This is not the way. We must exist right here, right now. This is the key point. You must have your own body and mind. Everything should exist in the right place, in the right way.

[27:04]

Then there is no problem. So as I look around, it looks like everyone's sitting in the right posture. Pretty straightforward, right? We're all sitting here paying attention to our posture. Do we feel enlightened yet? Okay. I know that was a cheap shot, and you all are to practice for that question. So what's holding us back? Bodies in the right place, the right way? Yes, the good old mind. Our wondrous buddy, good old pal, old buddy, old pal. And so with our mind, normally we use our minds to focus, ruminate, recall, replay, [...] figure out, and then really figure it out. Then we might get excited or anxious, swing from branch to branch of the small mind tree. And with our monkey mind, we do a bit of dancing. When it comes to practice, our usual invitation or instruction is to meet our thoughts like guests in a house.

[28:16]

Greet them, but don't invite them in for tea. More or less, we don't want to hang out with our thinking mind. And because we have this desire to control things, we may hear things like this and want our thoughts to stop. That's... That is not the point of Zazen. In Zazen, you let your thinking stop itself. If we fall into the wish that our thoughts will stop, that itself will lead to suffering. Suzuki Roshi reminds us when we practice Zazen, it's not that big mind is actually controlling small mind, but simply when small mind becomes calm, big mind starts its true activity. So when we don't resist our mind, it becomes less bothered by the desire to stop our thoughts. The desire may dissipate and the thoughts will calm.

[29:17]

And over these seven days, yes, the mind will reveal itself in many different ways. And all you have to do is show up and breathe. And without projecting too much on my own behalf, you know, I will likely slow down and at some point really settle into the loss of my mother this past summer in July. And the goal is not to bypass these big horizons that may occur, but can actually be fully present for them without the many distractions that I use otherwise. So I wanted to say something about the breath. And as Avedad mentioned yesterday, maybe one thing you could engage with is emphasizing your exhale. And for me, that can kind of help pull myself out of monkey mind just for a moment and try to soften to what is.

[30:27]

Again, hopefully this will become unconscious, but the instruction is to let the breath breathe itself. A renowned Zen teacher from across the street tells us to experience the experience we're experiencing. I know that Abbott Ed spoke about Suzuki Roshi and breath and kind of this not knowing, and I wanted to shift to one of his other lectures where he, for me, kind of, puts a little more shape to that not knowing. When we practice Zazen, our mind always follows our breathing. When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless and the outer world is also limitless. We may say inner world or outer world, but there's actually just one whole world. In this limitless world, our throat is like a swinging door.

[31:33]

The air comes in and goes out, like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think I breathe, the I is extra. There is no you to say I. What we call I is just a swinging door, which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves. That is all. When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing, no eye, no world, no mind, nor body, just a swinging door. So when we practice Azen, all that exists is the movement of the breathing. But we are aware of this movement. So in addition to posture, mind, and breath, I thought it would also be helpful to mention the five hindrances to meditation.

[32:34]

And even though these hindrances are kind of central to Vipassana, you know, they really can support us throughout Sashin, whether we're working, walking, or eating a meal. And so they welcome me drilling. So we'll see how this goes. Speaking of hindrances, they're right on cue. Notice how I don't always need to bring props with me. So the five hindrances, is this doable? I don't know. Perhaps we'll just wait a moment. Enderances are a list from the polycanon of the five top ways we get distracted in our meditation practice.

[33:47]

And I've tried to figure out more, and I'm sure there could be, but for the most part, this kind of encompasses and umbrellas all of them. So the first one is sense desire. The second one, ill will or anger. The third, laziness or sloth. Fourth, restlessness. worry anxiety and the fifth one doubt and these are all adapted from poly words so that's why the trend the translations are a little bit different but generally this is what they mean um and i don't want to get into the poly words because we don't anyways we just need to be experiencing and not remembering these so i uh was really helpful i recall listening to a talk uh by Norman Fisher, where he pointed out that these hindrances kind of work as patterns or pairs, at least the first four. And then the last one is by itself.

[34:48]

And I appreciated that approach. The first pair being sense desire and ill will. Sense desire, of course, is wanting. A strong desire for something. Grasping. I wish... I could sit in this feeling of gratitude forever. Or it could be ruminating about an old partner, career, or the life you're supposed to be leading. On the other hand, you can have ill will, which is not wanting something, or having the strong desire to want something to stop. I'm not going to say anything about that, but I hope this period of Zazen gets over soon. And I'm sure there's no hard feelings about what's going on out there. But anyways, these are qualities of obsession and needing something, whether it's for it to come closer or to go away. The next pair are also opposites.

[35:51]

Laziness and torpor is one of them. And that's basically where we're just worn and kind of like blah, with no motivation. And this can actually be quite common for me is I actually have the ability to almost sleep sitting up. So it's very important for me to keep my eyes open. It's also important to, I would say, nourish ourselves, eat well, drink water, try to get rest. And it's not that, you know, you won't... feel lazy or if that's not okay. It quite is, but is there a way that we can be a little more fully present for the state of mind that we're arriving with instead of just completely checking out? On the other side of that coin, you have anxiousness and restlessness, where you more or less don't want to or can't sit still. For me, as I explained with a monkey mind hopping from vine to vine, this takes place a lot, spinning from the

[36:55]

past to the future to the past again. Pizza is usually included. And I'm, you know, meeting this anxiousness sometimes by fantasizing about what I'll do post-Sashin as a way to kind of escape into excitement. And one thing I will mention, if I had a practice tip besides, like, don't bring your expectations into the Sashin, is... If you're a caffeine drinker like I am, moderate. Or if you can, try to put it down. Meet the person who arrives without the adrenaline. And of course, if you do get headaches and stuff, maybe just take enough to ease that. And as you may be kind of seeing by now, all of these hindrance interact with And these hindrances can interact.

[39:39]

We find ourselves clinging to a thought or a story, and then we become anxious in the process, can become trapped by that clenching energy, trying to manage our likes and dislikes. And at least for me, I've spent a whole session doing this in the past. And this exhaustion can lead to more torpor or anxiety. which of course leads to dissatisfaction. What am I doing? I use my vacation for this. What is going on? And there you have the fifth hindrance, which is doubt. And it kind of, if you can tell, ties them all together. We experience the pairs, and then they usually lead to doubt. And these hindrances are not something that we need to actually rip apart from or disconnect from, but instead they're a place or a state that we need to nurture.

[40:41]

So as you notice and come across these hindrances, it's important to be gentle with yourself. Perhaps notice the tendency to avert from sensing these hindrances. And of course, with the jackhammering, I mean, that could... raised more on the trauma level with some. But for the most place, we almost fall into a loop of aversion from these hindrances that just cause more anxiety. So there's an important part, is not to get locked into the conceptual spinning, but as we've been instructed, return to the breath and posture. with these hindrances are really just a means of identifying them and just allowing them to be what they are without adding anything else on.

[41:42]

It can actually be something more than a distraction and perhaps an object of meditation. And I don't want to go into a whole other topic, but really briefly I did want to say, I thought it would be valuable to consider the aggregates. Consider everything we talk about in the Heart Sutra. All of our karmic senses, perceptions, and mental formations. Our karmic consciousness puts meaning on everything we experience. And as Sashin, we become more aware of this samsara skanda, how we pile up or make heaps of all these factors. And that alone causes suffering. And we get a chance to see, do we want to engage, hop in the ring with, or perhaps pause and give things the space that they need.

[42:51]

And, you know, even with this jackhammer process, process that's going on can we not add frustration to the sound you know not that we're supposed to think but perhaps realize that this jackhammering is what brought us plumbing the ability to flush our toilets the ability to drive down the road without damaging our car tires or even more so you know so maya's bike will ride smoothly down a slow street And not that you're supposed to kind of think about that as a counter. That's not the instruction, but I'm just saying with those jackhammers in mind, perhaps could sound more like the meal drum. The sound of nourishment being on the way. Or perhaps the most fundamental level and the absolute level. It's just the universe creating. This whole week, the universe will be creating in each one of us.

[43:55]

And so to close, I wanted to bring forth a prompt that I like to use to get out of mental states or when I'm engaging with the hindrances. And I got this. It was a guided meditation from a practitioner, I would assume in the insight tradition, Locke Kelly. Some of you may know him. And so I just invite you to, you're already in posture, but You know, you can have your eyes open or closed for this, but I wanted to take you through this prompt. So go ahead and settle yourself in whatever way feels appropriate. And I'll let you just sit for a moment to settle. So as you begin to settle. Just inquire with this question and then looking with awareness to see what is true, to see what is here.

[45:07]

Don't try to understand the inquiry intellectually. Just ask, look with awareness, wait and see what is aware and who is here. So the inquiry is, what is here now if there is no problem to solve? Again. What is here now if there is no problem to solve? Notice what's aware. Or ask yourself again, what is here when there is no problem to solve on the level of identity?

[46:18]

Just let go of the problem solver. Who is here? What is absent? What has dropped away and what qualities begin to show up? there is nothing to know, create or become what is here when you are not the problem solver.

[47:30]

Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. one to become. Just now, what's here? See for yourself. Experience into. Experiencely, experience directly what is essential and what is here. With curiosity, letting go.

[48:44]

What is here now? when there is no problem to solve. . [...]

[49:49]

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