Good morning, everyone. Welcome. I'm going to go ahead and get started. And if you would like to turn on your video, if you have that capability, you're welcome to. You don't have to. so I know you're there. And my name is Erin Merck. Welcome, everyone. I will just go ahead and begin. I'm joined here. So my name is Erin Merck. I'm a resident priest here at City Center, and I'm joined by our

[01:30]

head of the meditation hall, Kodo Conlon. Hi, Kodo. And Kodo, do you mind putting the slides back up? I'm just going to go through them at the beginning and then I'll go into the actual physical zazen instruction. All right, great. Let's go ahead and go to the next slide. So I just let people know our goal some of our goals today which I'll go over in a moment but really to help you be able to sit comfortably at home both you can keep doing this once we are able to return to the community offerings in our Zendo in person if you're far away but also just a instruction focused on making a comfortable and supportive place to sit in your own home.

[02:36]

So today, just so you know, I'll be using very kind of easy to find props to support sitting practice. And it's probably going to be useful for you to get some of these props. depending on how you want to sit today and have them nearby so that you can go through the postural cue exercise that I'll take you through. You could go through it with me. Okay, so some recommended things that you might have. A place to sit that is kind of like a chair. So it could be a chair, but it could be your couch at home or whatever kind of chair you have. I'll be starting with chair sitting. Some of you may have a meditation cushion, but you don't need to have one. I will show you the kind of meditation cushion that we use here at Zen Center, but I personally am going to be using two folded blankets.

[03:38]

So if you want to try sitting on the ground today, which may not be the right practice for you, but if you do want to do that, you might want to have nearby some folded blankets, towels you could use, something that will allow you, will give you some support when you're sitting on the ground. Okay, and I'll go through some of the props that we often use at Zen Center. Okay, Kodo, next slide. Thank you. All right, so some of our goals today are, I want to show you some of the cues that you can use at home to determine whether a posture is going to work for your body, how to tell. It's especially important so that you don't hurt yourself or hurt your body while joining us for meditation practice and that you yourself can learn some of the signs that a posture may be just the right one for you or may not work for you.

[04:43]

So I'm going to show you that. Also, before we get started, I'll go ahead and show you some of the offerings that we have currently, which will be expanding soon. And I think today, because we're going to have a whole hour, we will have time to review walking meditation, which is called Kinhin. So you might see that listed if you look at our schedule. And then perhaps Kodo could help me out with just understanding what you might need to know about our way of chanting currently in this online format. But I'll point you in the direction of how to join us for chanting as well. Okay. And then just also so you know, this session will end at 910, which will give you a little bit of a break. And if you want to join us, rejoin us for a... actual session of Zazen, you can do that. We'll be having Zazen at 925.

[05:46]

So if you want to take a 10 minute break and then come around 920 and get yourself settled and try out some of the kind of postural suggestions that we explore today, you're welcome to do that. And our... Zazen on Saturday mornings goes right into a Dharma talk. So there'll be another 10 minute or so break. And then today we'll be having our, what I believe is our first ever live stream talk from our monastery in Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. And one of our abiding teachers here, it is, I'm getting a... It's true. It's our first ever live streamed talk from Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and it will be our abiding teacher, Paul Howler. So please, you're welcome to join us for any or all of that today. Okay.

[06:47]

All right. Next slide. Great. And so just to show you really quickly, we do have quite a lot. to offer in this online format, including daily Zazen every day except Sunday. And we also have some evening offerings, including a session that has some Q&A opportunities with our current abbot at City Center, David Zimmerman, and that's on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So if you find that you're left with questions or once you kind of get into your practice, This week, you have some questions about practice. Please consider joining David Tuesdays and Thursdays. We also have an evening session of Zazen on Thursdays, and we have another Dharma Talk offering on Wednesday evenings. So you are most invited to join us for any of these sessions, and hopefully today will help you feel...

[07:55]

a little bit like you know what's going on and how to engage in the practice right from your own home. All right. Next slide. And also to mention, so I already went through the schedule for today a little bit, but we also have an early morning session available to you all. So if you want to join us. a little bit earlier on Saturdays, and then maybe take a little break and come back for the Dharma talk. You could do that as well, or you could sit all morning with us. And our sister temple, Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, also has a Dharma talk on Sundays. So you could spend your weekend getting a Dharma infusion if you want to. So tomorrow at 1015, there'll be a Dharma talk from Green Gulch Farm. Great, and then here we go.

[08:57]

Some of the Zendo forms, maybe Kodo, since we do have time, maybe it would be, do you think I should go through this a little bit later? Possibly. Perhaps, yes. Okay, so perhaps I'll go through the forms, actually, after I show you a little bit about posture, and we can come back to... the last couple of slides. Great. And so here we are. Excellent. So just before I change my view a little bit, my camera view, so that you can see a little bit better behind me, I just wanted to say that if you haven't really participated in Zen practice before, the heart of our practice here and at any Zen temple that you'll find is Zazen practice, which literally means seated meditation.

[10:00]

And although we also invite you to practice lying down if that works for you, and I'll show you how to do that. And one feature of Zazen practice that may be a little bit different from some forms that you may have learned is that it's an objectless meditation practice. meaning that we sit down and we take a very carefully kind of mindfully constructed posture, being aware of our bodies and such, and then we sit in presence. And so there's not a single kind of thing or sensation or object that we focus on during Zazen. We just try to create the most open and available and supported vessel possible for helping us maintain our presence.

[11:06]

And so that's why today I'm going to be emphasizing posture so much because without an appropriate posture for the body that is genuinely supported your whole body-mind complex to function properly, it's really hard to maintain presence and also to stay with the practice for as long as we often ask you to stay. So our usual sessions of Zazen can be sometimes 40 minutes or a little bit longer. Our current online format is a little bit shorter, a half hour, but still can be kind of a long time if you're not sitting in a posture that actually works for your body. So just to say that that's why I'll be emphasizing so much the posture. And I really invite you to go through some of the postural inquiries with me and see how it lands for you.

[12:12]

And there may be next week a different emphasis for... the Zazen instruction, and you're welcome to come back as many times as you'd like to just kind of explore different layers of Zazen practice, but I'll be especially emphasizing posture today. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and change my camera view, and I'll be going, moving to the back of my space here that I set up, and we're going to be starting with chair practice because I want to I think it's the easiest place for you to feel some of the postural cues that flow through any of the postures that you might like to try. And so please, if you are sitting on the ground, I invite you or encourage you, if you can, to come into a chair or sofa or whatever you have available that's a little higher, just so you can see and go through the postural cues with me.

[13:14]

Okay, so let me change my... All right. So many of you being at home may find it easiest to practice in a chair. And many people in our temple sit in a chair every day anyway. So this is a really wonderful and accessible way to sit. So if you don't have space or your body won't allow you to sit on the floor, please don't feel like that means that you can't somehow do or join this practice. It works in any posture. If you're going to be sitting on a chair or a sofa, the kind of potentially different way that you might... engage with this tool than maybe normally how you sit in a chair or a sofa is you want to actually come to the front of your seat.

[14:19]

So if you notice, I'm sitting really far forward and I have found the firmest surface that I can in my house. So I happen to have a nice wooden chair and whatever, if you have a firm chair available, it really works the best for feeling your posture and receiving the support that is going to help you maintain your upright spine. But you might not have something firm, so you can work with your sofa, just might be a little bit squishier, and that's okay. So when you come to the edge of your seat, you want to first place your feet flat on the floor and have your feet hip distance apart. So your feet and your knees are hip distance apart. And I recommend just kind of wiggling your toes a little bit to help open up the feet and really seeing them as part of your support, the support of your posture today.

[15:24]

And then you can shift from side to side at the edge of your feet. And that might be a way for you to feel the little bones that we sometimes call sitting bones, which are the actual face of the pelvis. And ideally, in whatever posture you find yourself practicing zazen, you want to be able to have contact with your sitting bones. You want to be able to feel that you're sitting right on the little extra feet of your sitting bones. Okay? The first postural cue that I want to point out to you that will flow through all of these postures besides the sitting bones, that's a good one, is the low back curve. So one way to tell if a posture is actually going to work for your body versus choosing something that's a bit of a stretch and may actually hurt you or may make it difficult for you to fully breathe is you want your spine to be neutral.

[16:34]

And you want your low back curve to be intact. So one way I personally like to check out if a posture is working for me is to take my hand behind my body and just feel for my low back curve. And if you kind of rock your hips back and forth a little bit, you roll over your sitting bones, you might feel your lower spine moving. So when you're slumped back, you'll feel the lower spine pushing back. And you can also feel it kind of curving too much, maybe past the point of center. But ideally, what we want is a very soft, relaxed, natural curve. And you might also tell your kind of be able to determine what your low back curve is. Feel like naturally by standing up, you can feel it too. And so when you sit down, you want that lower back curve. to be soft and relaxed. That on the other side of your body enables the belly to be very soft and open, and it translates into a really relaxed and supportive base for the rest of your spine, okay?

[17:50]

So when you're tucked back, which sometimes happens to people when they try to cross their legs before the body really is ready for that position, This translates into a lot of effort trying to keep uprightness in the spine. And the uprightness in the spine, unless you have particular injuries that, you know, kind of impact the shape of your spine or the posture of your spine, the uprightness of the spine should feel fairly effortless. Ultimately, very effortless. So, and it all starts with this area here with the base of the spine. So I always recommend just kind of rocking back and forth like that anyway, just at the beginning and side to side, just so you really feel that you're right there in the center. Okay, next thing, and you'll see this if you look at the actual text that our founder of, the founder of Soto Zen wrote about Zazen practice.

[18:53]

His name is Ehe Dogen Zenji. He says, you know, your nose over your navel, your ears over your shoulders, over your hips. So you want to feel like your head, which is very heavy, is balanced right over that base of your spine. And that's the sort of uprightness that we want to kind of create a base. to support so that we can really be very open and available and present, but without a whole lot of effort, without a whole lot of physical effort. All right. So when you've sort of found your center, and I should say, I'm going to turn a little bit just so you can see me a little better. It may take you a little bit of time if you're not used to exploring or tuning into your body this way. Don't be surprised if... At first, you can't, you're just not sure, you can't feel it or, you know, just stick with it and keep coming back to that exploration.

[20:00]

And eventually, I think you'll start to notice, you'll start to feel little signs that, you know, when you're in alignment and when you're not, when your head's forward or to the side or whatever is happening. And that's one of the wonderful gifts of Zazen practice and just the permission to sit down. and be present to anything that's there, everything that's there, is this ability to pay attention to this body-mind complex in a way that perhaps during the day or during our whole life, we haven't been able to do. So sometimes you end up seeing and feeling things that are frustrating, and sometimes it just feels really, really great, and it's okay either way. All right. With my nice, relaxed low back and my nice, relaxed belly, I can also feel a sense of openness in my chest and my ribs so that I'm just going to – I'll show you the hand posture that we use pretty soon, but I'm just going to place my palms on my lap.

[21:10]

And when I breathe in, this is my second cue, I want to feel like – you know, unless you have any breathing issues going on right now. But I want to feel like I have space for the breath. So when I take a breath in, I can feel expansive quality. I can feel like there's room for my breath, both in the chest and a little bit in the belly as well. And when I exhale, I can still feel that nice upright feeling through the spine. Okay. And I know for myself when I am, I've, put myself into a posture that just really doesn't work, which I've done this many, many, many times. So I'm familiar with it. The first thing that happens is I cannot breathe. I can't breathe fully. My breathing feels restricted. My belly muscles feel really tight. It feels like I have just a small pathway for the breath up here, barely any space. And it starts to make me feel very dull, which is part of the...

[22:15]

The gift of taking the time to set up an appropriate posture for yourself is you will find that you can be much more awake, much more present with yourself because you're creating this vessel for the breath, which is our life force. So tune into your breathing and really notice where it feels tight or restricted. If it feels tight or restricted, And that is your next clue and cue to determine whether a posture is working for your body or not. Okay. From here, since some people will want to stay in the chair or on the couch, I'm going to show you our hand posture. So many traditions will just have the hands resting on the thighs, and you are welcome to take any hand posture that works for you. our hand posture, which is called the cosmic mudra, and a mudra just means a seal, like a postural seal, you would take your right hand, and I might be backwards here, and press it just below your navel, kind of between your belly button and your pelvis, and you take your left hand and just gently rest it right on top, and then you bring your thumb tips to lightly touch one another.

[23:43]

So you're making kind of, let me just show you, a little oval like this. The hands, although they're making a shape and so they're in a particular form, they've got this kind of middle way between being relaxed and being purposeful. So they're not really tense. And sometimes I notice also another sign for me that I'm... taking a posture that just doesn't work for my body is I start to really clench up my thumbs and my fingers and feels very effortful. So this should feel not so effortful, just kind of purposeful, but relaxed. And the founder of this temple is San Francisco Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi. He mentions in Zen Mind Beginners Minds that another way to set up for the cosmic mudra or one way to pay attention to the arm posture is to imagine that you're holding an egg beneath each arm, kind of right where your inner arm and your rib cage kind of are close to one another, that you're nesting a little egg.

[25:00]

And so you neither want to squish your arms in and break the eggs or open your arms way out and drop the eggs. You just want to kind of keep them gently tucked underneath your arms there with a sense of kind of preciousness, that there's something precious that you're carrying with this posture. And this is called the cosmic mudra, and I actually don't know why. although I'm sure I've read it many times in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, but I always just think that I'm carrying these eggs, but I'm also kind of holding the universe here in my palm and that the whole universe is sitting here with me. So there's a kind of feeling that this posture allows the sitter to really be sitting with

[26:03]

the entire world here and carrying this precious cargo of these eggs and this whole universe and this being who's sitting down. So you are welcome to try this. Sometimes people, when they're first getting to know this posture, will feel a little bit like your shoulders might get tied or it just feels like a lot of effort. And so another thing you can do, let me just grab a I'll show you when you're sitting cross-legged, you actually have your legs sometimes high enough that the palms rest on your legs, which makes it a lot easier. So you can take a shawl, I've just got a little small shawl, and put it on your lap. And you can make a little shelf for your mutra, which can take... all of the effort out of your shoulders. So if you feel a kind of tightness up here in your shoulders after a while of holding the soja, please try to give yourself a little support and you'll notice it's quite different.

[27:17]

It feels very nice to have a little bit of extra support here and it doesn't take away from the kind of sense of attention and slight firmness. of making an intentional posture, but it does allow, it does prevent your hands from kind of dropping down and making those muscles at the tops of your shoulders engage. All right. So the eyes in Zazen, we leave the eyes open and the way to kind of figure out... where your eyes actually go you can start by opening your eyes and kind of just gazing at the horizon and then just gently without dropping your head just gently drop your eyes about 45 degrees or so and when you come and sit with us if you're able to um rejoin us in our actual zendo you'll have a kind of wall most likely in front of you this way so you'll have something very clear to

[28:24]

kind of meet your gaze. And if you're in your house, like right now, I have a pretty long view. That's okay too. Once you land at your 45 degree spot, then relax your gaze. So you're not trying to get something from your gaze or really look carefully at what's in front of you. Your eyes are open because they're just available so like the rest of your senses there it's available your your field of vision is there and your whole system is open to receiving it's creating a rather than sometimes when you close your eyes it feels like shutting something out and just by having the eyes open and available and receptive It creates a little bit more openness to the posture and a little bit more wakefulness sometimes.

[29:27]

So I've heard the wonderful teacher Pema Chodron describe this gaze, the softness of this gaze. It's like a feather touching a bubble. So it's really gentle. It's not trying to memorize every fiber on the carpet that you're staring at or something like that. That may happen as you're trying to relax the gaze. But just if you can let your eyes settle and relax and be gentle, but still have them open and soft. And someone asked last week, why do we have the eyes open? And I'm used to closing them. And you can definitely close your eyes. Sometimes if my mind's really, really busy, I will close my eyes for a little while, just for Maybe, you know, the five or 10 minutes before we hear the bell ring to start just to kind of relax.

[30:28]

But then if you notice that you're getting dreamy or sleepy or you're just starting to spin off and imagine all kinds of things, it's good to open the eyes and bring yourself back to where you are into presence. All right. Last little detail, and this carries through all the postures, but I'll show you. The tip of your tongue. rests at the roof of your mouth. And you'll see this in Zogen's text. If you want to look at it, I'll tell you about it. So it's just another kind of postural feel that I've heard helps you not to swallow so much and things like that. I don't know. I still manage to swallow. But I've also heard that energetically, it just kind of creates a little bit of a circuit through the body. So if you just take the tip of your tongue and gently rest it at the roof of your mouth and your mouth stays closed, you're breathing through your nose if possible.

[31:32]

Do the best you can. And that is the posture that we take. So you've got your upright, you've got your neutral spine, that's Lower back is relaxed. You've got your very open vessel for the breath. You feel a sense of, eventually after you try this for a while, a sense of effortlessness to maintain uprightness. Your head is balanced over your feet, over your sitting bones. Sometimes it's useful to think of that little string at the back of your head kind of pulling up while everything else rests down. You've got your mudra of choice, so it could be palms here, could be the cosmic mudra. You've got a nice ground for your feet if you're sitting in a chair. You've got your eyes open and the tip of your tongue just gently touching the roof of your mouth.

[32:38]

And so from here, the practice is just to maintain presence. just to be available, just to be there in presence. And when you notice that you're wandering off into a story or into the past or the future, or you're falling asleep or you're getting agitated or whatever's happening with gentleness, just coming back to presence. And for some people, adding a little mindfulness practice, into the mix can be helpful in grounding so it's not that you obviously we don't know what you might be doing in your home practice and you need to create a home practice that works for your particular situation so feel free even Suzuki Roshi mentioned following the breath which is a kind of mindfulness practice and you can read about that in his book Zen Mind Beginner's Minds so

[33:43]

you can definitely start out with a little bit of mindfulness practice to help you come into presence. And it may be a year or maybe a while that you need that kind of support of mindfulness until you can let go of it and be able to stay here. Okay, so I want to show you a couple of other options. and then have questions. So if you've come to us before, or if you're familiar with Zen, you may know about the, this is the big cushion, Zabutan, like this. And we also have a round cushion called a Zafu. And you'll see this a lot. If you Google Zen, you'll probably see a Zafu. Okay. And then being in the West, we also have support cushions that sometimes we use for the knees and such.

[34:51]

At your home, you might not have any of these things. And so today I'm not going to use any of them because I'm going to assume that you don't have them available to you. And if you find that you're longing for a Zafu and a Zabutan or Zafu, something like that. We do have them available, and I know you can find them online. And you can also Google how to make a zafu. You can make it. Okay, so I'm going to be using two folded blankets, as mentioned. And so if you unfold one blanket and make a big square, this is like your zabutan. And I'm going to have a second blanket. And I happen to have some pretty big, these are pretty firm and pretty comfortable blankets. I like them. So I'll be using this both as a sitting bench to do kneeling practice. And I'll also be showing you cross-legged sitting with this.

[35:56]

You might not need the extra blanket. It's just that after a while of sitting, the body really starts to sink and relax into gravity. You may find that the pressure on your knees or your shins or your feet is a lot, even on a carpeted space. So it's nice to have a little bit of extra padding and it's very traditional. So we do have a lot of support in our tradition to maintain sitting for long periods of time. So we invite you to make your spot comfortable. Okay, so... Kneeling practice. If your knees will handle it, this can be a really wonderful posture to get a little closer to the ground, but without having to have access to the external rotation required for cross-legged sitting. So one more tool that we have at Zen Center is this wonderful sitting bench, which is very...

[37:03]

can actually make these if you have carpentry skills probably make one um so normally if you have a sitting bench and this is the way you sit you just put it you kind of kneel right onto your spot and you put the bench right over your kind of near your ankles okay and then you sit down and this one is tilted slightly so it right away puts my spine into that position I'm looking for. So nice, soft, relaxed lower back curve. Okay, it's also wood, so it's supportive. It's not going to let me sink one way or the other. So it's a great tool to have, especially if this posture really works for you. I'm going to assume you don't have it. So I'm going to put it away. And I wanna show you with a blanket, If you just make a long strip with your blanket, about as wide as your body, you can roll your blanket up into a kind of thick roll like this and put it between your heels, between your calves and your heels, and same thing, you can sit down right on it.

[38:23]

You may have to make it higher or lower depending on what kind of material it's made out of to support your body. And then you go through the same exploration before deciding this is the posture for me. So I check my low back. I'm going to rock from side to side and feel are my sitting bones there? Are they supported? Is my spine neutral? Is my belly open and relaxed? Can my chest be open and relaxed? Are my legs feeling okay? I'll try it with my hands on my thighs first. I'm going to check out that my ears, over my shoulders, over my hips, that I feel that sense of uprightness through the center of the spine and relaxed feeling of the arms and shoulders. I'll try it with the cosmic mudra. And for many people, this one feels great.

[39:27]

And they will use this as their regular Zazen posture or alternate with, you know, other postures. So that's one possibility. And you can also, if you happen to have a Zafu, you can just turn it on its side to put it between your feet or any nice, firm, supportive objects. You could have a box or some yoga blocks if you have those. But you just want to create a nice seat that's very supportive for your sitting bones. Okay, now if you want to try cross-legged sitting, what I've been doing for this one is folding my blanket into a small square. And when you're using a square to sit cross-legged, I recommend many of our teachers actually sit this way. And they'll use, let me show you, we have these support cushions. center.

[40:30]

And so some of the teachers here will use a stack of these cushions instead of the Zafu, just because of the way that their bodies work. So you don't need support cushions. If you don't have them, you can use a blanket. And you would fold it into a square like this. And you'll notice I'm setting it down. like a little diamond. So the point is pointing forward to where I'm going to sit. And the reason for that is so that when I sit down, my sitting bones are going to come right to the either side of the little tip. And my thighs, the flesh of my thighs will not be on the blanket. That will make it more likely that your legs will not fall asleep or less likely that your legs will fall asleep. makes sense okay so i'm going to turn this whole operation this way so it'll be easier to see when i'm sitting cross-legged i start in our official rest position which is uh sitting on the front edge of my support so whatever it is off floor blanket having my feet flat and taking my hands around my legs like so i just want to kind of

[41:55]

Tune into my body really closely. Make sure I'm very present as I'm taking my posture. This posture is more complex than the other postures I showed you. And this is where sometimes people, if they get very concerned about maybe they want to, they really want to practice Zen the way they see it. They want to get to some kind of certain posture. cross-legged posture that they see. Sometimes people, you can end up hurting yourself if you're not careful. Okay. All right. So before I start, I will take my fingers just behind my knee or you can take your thumb and I'm going to press up just to release the knee and always use your big bones. Touch your big bones, not your feet and ankles to get yourself into your posture. So I'm going to put one leg down. I'll do the same thing with my other leg. Some people like the very wide position where your legs are not on top of each other.

[43:00]

One leg is in front of the other. So if you can see that. So you can try that. It's a little, can be a little wobbly. So for some people, for a long period of time, it might not work, might not feel supported, you know, the whole time. your hand to your outer shin and you can take what's called a quarter lotus. So just placing the foot right between the thigh and the calf. And I noticed right away that my one knee, my left knee is a little lower than my right knee. So if I had my shawl nearby way back there, I would grab it and put it under my knee, but I could also fold the edge of my blanket here. just so that my knees are even. So if you think about your feet, when you were sitting in a chair, your feet flat on the floor, this is what you're trying to do with your knees. So you want them to be even because that evenness will support your pelvis and your sitting bones to also be even.

[44:07]

And we want to create a very even, very supportive and stable vessel, as stable as possible for the practice. Okay, so here I am. I've made it to my posture. I'm not going to show you any other more complicated postures in this format or in this online format. I'm going to still check. Is my low back still relaxed or am I kind of like this now? Am I kind of shoved back? Which happens very easily for people when they're trying to sit down and the hips are not... wanting to be open in that way or they're not used to it. So I still want that soft low back. I still want the nice open low belly, the nice open chest. I can take my hands to my thighs and just check out the situation. Is this available to me today? If it's not available... Perhaps I want to try a different one or perhaps I need to be higher.

[45:11]

You can try putting two blankets if you really want to try the cross-legged sitting. Okay, and I still want my ear over my shoulder, over my hips. Uprightness, relaxed. I can try my cosmic mudra. See how that feels. Same eye posture, same tongue posture. same mind posture. So whenever we begin and finish a session of Zazen, Zazen is a ceremony. So it's a very opportunity to sit down and be present.

[46:18]

And so when you come and see us in person, you'll notice that we always bow. We start the session by bowing to and away from the cushion before we sit down or the chair. And then when the bell rings or when there's an ending, we decide this is the ending, take a little bow. And the palms are together, the elbows are lifted. And it's an acknowledgement that now we're going to transition into a different practice, you know, breakfast or whatever it is. But also, it's just a way to kind of celebrate your and everyone else's efforts to be here and be present and bring this attention, this... beautiful, much needed attention to ourselves and each other and the world around us. So when you hear the bell, you take a little bow. And before you exit, always exit whatever posture you've taken very carefully and make sure your legs and ankles are awake and everything's feeling okay.

[47:32]

OK, in the mornings, we'll have a 10 minute opportunity to practice walking meditation and to practice walking meditation. I think that you're going to lose my head. So sorry about that. But you just stand up in your spot and you take your left hand and wrap your thumb, tuck your thumb, wrap your fingers. Place it right so that your forearm is horizontal to the ground. Take your right hand over the top. And then as you inhale, you lift your foot. As you exhale, rest it down. Inhale, lift your foot. Exhale, rest it down. Inhale, lift your foot.

[48:37]

Exhale, rest down. As you can see, I'm not going anywhere. So you don't have to worry if you don't have a lot of room in your space. You can do it in a very, very teeny tiny space. And the point is just to kind of allow the legs to get a little bit of rest, a different kind of circulation. Sometimes people will actually use the restroom before the next period of zazen. So in the morning, we have two periods of zazen. You can join us. You'll sit for a little while. We'll do 10 minutes of kinhin, walking meditation, and then we'll sit one more half hour period of zazen before we finish with a little chant. Okay, so that's my just very quick, although I... Sort of went longer. Sorry, Kodo. Introduction to Zazen. And I'm wondering, maybe Kodo, do you want to talk at all about the chanting or what happens with the chanting or any of the forms?

[49:49]

And then also if anyone has questions that we can answer quickly. Sure. We can mention just a little something about chanting that happens at the end of morning Zazen. The morning periods will end with a single bell. And then the way we've been doing this online is that the host will say, now together we will chant the robe chant, which is our small verse in respect to Buddha's robe, the small version of which Aaron is wearing right now. The text will be put up in the chat box. And everyone will chant along. With microphones muted, the chant leader will have their microphone on, but you can chant along at home. And then usually we'll do a second chanting, some call and response metaverses. So at that point, the host will have everyone unmute their microphones, and we'll do a little bit of follow along call and response.

[50:58]

And then we say good morning. With the microphones on, right? That's right. Yeah. Nice. So that's the last piece of the form at the end of the morning. Is there anything else you'd like me to mention, Erin? Let's see. Are there any? So I think some of the forms are that it's really nice if you can come and have yourself settled five to ten minutes before the the session rather than kind of trying to enter Zazen right when it's starting. So if you can have yourself settled and ready for when the bell rings, I think it can be really helpful for everyone and supportive for you as well. I can't think, are there any other forms that you would like to mention? I think... You can read yourself, everyone who's here and interested, you can read through the forms.

[52:05]

They're very clear on the website just so you know what's happening. I think that's a fine place to learn the details. I would actually suggest it to anyone who wants to come sit in the online Zendo to review that page on sfcc.org because there are some details about etiquette. when using Zoom and sitting together with the community. For example, you might not know that the preference is to not have your camera face a candle because the flicker will draw the eye of meditators. So things like that, you can find written there. Great. So I think there are still eight minutes. Is that what you think, Kodo? And perhaps if anyone has a question, if not, I can also show you the, I forgot to show you the lying down form in case you need it or you're ill or anything like that.

[53:12]

Hi, my name's Christine and I have a question. The kneeling posture seemed the best for me. So is there a specific way that you should exit that posture? Well, it depends what you're sitting on. So let me just show you with the blankets. So here's what I would do to exit it safely. So you've been sitting for a while. So sometimes, you know, sometimes just your body gets kind of settled and it's important to be very gentle. So one. Way that you can exit if it works for your body is you can just kind of stretch one arm out and put your fingertips down and take your one foot to the front and do the same thing to the other side so that you're here in the rest posture.

[54:15]

And that way you can investigate. Make sure sometimes the legs actually will... fall asleep a little bit or they just get a little sleepy. And you just want to make sure before you stand up that, you know, you have full feeling. Ideally, you want full feeling the whole time, but our bodies sometimes fall asleep a little bit. So you can actually, you know, come out and rub your legs a little bit before you then stand up for kinhin or the next thing. You could also rest your hands on your thighs and lean forward slightly and come up to your shins and kind of do the same thing. Just investigate, wiggle your toes like that. And if you need something to hold on to, you might want to seat yourself close to like your couch or table. And that way you can just stand up this way, straight up like that.

[55:16]

Does that help? Yes, that's super helpful. Thank you. Okay, good. Erin, may I have a question, please? Yes. Enes is speaking from Turkey. My question is, how should we keep our cosmic mudra in front of us? Because I have sometimes some strength during my Zazan period. Yes. So you said, how long do you keep the cosmic mudra? High or where exactly? So that we don't have any issues when we hold the cosmic... I mean, difficulties. Yes. I would say you want it high enough so that you don't feel like your arms are pulling down on your shoulders. So you can have it as high, like just beneath your... It sort of depends on your body proportions. But you can have it like right... beneath your belly button and your elbows have a kind of nice angle to them.

[56:24]

And that way it should allow your shoulders to be relaxed. When someone is able to sit comfortably with the full lotus where the legs are on top of each other, the heel is actually high enough up that their hands can rest right on the heel. So traditionally with this, mudra, the hands are actually supported by something, by an object, by the heel. So it's really fine for you to get a pillow. I have a Zafu nearby, but you could use your own pillow. And I don't know which position you're sitting in, but you can even have a pillow on your lap to support your mudra. Or you can have something there available so that you don't have to engage a lot of effort to keep your arms up. Okay. And then while your body is getting used to the posture, and I do this myself, if I have a neck, kind of a neck injury, and if I feel that strain from the cosmic udra, I'll just come to the kind of grounding posture with my hands on my thighs for a little while.

[57:43]

maybe days, maybe a week, until I feel like my shoulder muscles can relax. And then I will try again to come back here. So please don't strain yourself with the mudra. And I've also seen people take a scarf around, like you can take a, let me see, maybe a little lighter scarf than this one, but you can take a scarf And you can make, if you tie it kind of around your neck, like if you actually tied it, you can make a little sling for your arms. Oh, this is really nice, actually. So if you had a smaller scarf and you tie it like that around, you can support your mudra that way. And that feels really good. It also keeps your shoulders down. So be creative.

[58:45]

And if something is hurting, really investigate and notice the kind of pain. Sometimes it's the pain of getting into the practice. It's a little achy. It can be achy just because you're getting used to it. you get numb, please don't stay in that posture. Please come out of the posture and you can come ask us or, you know, try something new, but don't hurt yourself with Zazen. It's meant for healing, not for hurting. Thank you. Welcome. I think we are reaching the end. Unless there is a very quick question that anyone would like to bring up.

[59:47]

So I just want to encourage all of you. We're so happy that with this form, even though we weren't expecting it, that so many people are joining us. That's fantastic. And we just want to encourage you. This is a lifelong practice that unfolds. And so build your practice carefully. We're available to you as a resource. You can come and be with us. And if you are able to and you want to make a small donation to help us keep going, you'll notice that on our website as well. And every little tiny bit helps. Please keep coming. And I believe that we'll have a rotating crew of Zazen instructors. And so one thing that's really nice that we encourage when we're in person, but also when we're in line is come.

[60:52]

You can come to Zazan Instruction many times and you'll get a completely different perspective and some different aspects of the practice will be emphasized by each teacher. So as you can tell, I'm very interested in posture and supporting people through that. And next time you may have someone who has a different kind of area that they want to emphasize. So feel free to come as many times as you want to and just use it as a tool to help. Carefully build your practice. All right. Thank you, everyone. So I think we are going to stop there. Thank you, Erin. Thank you very much. And perhaps we'll see you in 10 minutes if you want to join us for Dazen or feel free to come back at 10.15 for the Dharma Talk. Be well.

[61:49]

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