Welcome everybody to the first of four Dharma talks as part of the Zen Mind Yoga Body online course, Manifesting the Wisdom of the Body. My name is Robert and I'm co-leading Manifesting the Wisdom of the Body course with my wife, Samantha Ostergaard. So I'm going to start today with the essential practice of Zen, the foundational practice of Zen, which is sitting meditation, what we call Zazen. This is also the essential element of Buddhist practice from the time of the Buddha. For 2,500 years, people all over the world, Buddhist practitioners, have been sitting Zazen. So I think it's fair to ask, even at this point, does a traditional practice, does an ancient practice like zazen actually work in today's world?

[01:24]

Does it have anything to show us about our lives? Does it have any way of actually helping in a world full of iPhones, wars, uncertainty, complexity that we live in. So my feeling is yes, it does. So I'm going to share some of those thoughts with you today about how I think zazen works, how it can be beneficial in our lives, and why I think we need to do zazen, why I think we need to take up the practice of zazen. You know, as human beings, we need time to ourselves.

[02:29]

We need moments of stillness. We need moments of introspection and reflection to stay healthy. When we don't get these moments of quiet, calm, stillness moments where we can process our lives and look inward and kind of align ourselves with our deepest values and intentions. Our lives don't work very well. They don't work as well as they could. You know, when we don't take time to ourselves to sit quietly, and kind of come into relationship with ourselves, with our body and our mind, it feels like we're not fully present with our lives, that we're maybe not even fully alive. And I think for many of us, when we get caught up in these kinds of lifestyle where we're constantly looking at the internet or looking for something to distract us,

[03:44]

You know, it feels like we've lost our connection with ourselves. We've lost some kind of connection with something that is true about ourselves, deep and meaningful. We've lost some sense of who we truly are because we're moving so fast, because we're paying attention to four different things at one time. So Zazen practice is a way to reconnect us with this sense of who we truly are as human beings. To, in some ways, kind of realign ourselves with the fundamental wisdom of the body, of our body, of this body and this mind.

[04:51]

Another reason we have a difficult time seeing or staying connected to this true sense of ourselves, our true nature, maybe you could say, is that we get caught up with some kind of image of what our life should be or what we need to make ourselves happy We need more of this or we need less of this. We get distracted by our own habit energy to look for happiness and satisfaction outside of ourselves. We become driven by our self-concern. by our tendency to want things, our habit energy about grasping and attaching to things, anger, jealousy.

[06:24]

Instead of manifesting our deepest intention as generosity, as kindness, as cooperation and harmony with everything around us, it seems like we start to not be so successful in our lives and not be so happy. When we live in this kind of limited or constricted view of life, where we want to get more of what makes us happy and less of what makes us unhappy, we suffer. There's a lot of pain. So the Buddha taught that in Zazen, that when we return to this fundamental,

[07:33]

fundamental experience of ourselves as the body. Perfect, just how we are. That we can feel more complete, more whole, more fulfilled, satisfied in each moment of our life. So Zazen reminds us what it is or reconnects us with the experience of a more expansive view of our life. Not such a small view of possibility, but actually a wide and spacious and expansive view of our life. And when we do this, our lives are different.

[08:34]

They work differently. People see us differently and we relate to the world differently. When we do this, we return to the fundamental wisdom of the body. So zazen is a particular kind of meditation. It's a radically simple form of meditation that in so many ways is an expression of the fundamental simplicity of Zen practice, the directness, the right now and here-ness of Zen practice. You know, in a broad, some kind of broad sense, we can see Zazen as

[09:36]

the activity of allowing, receiving, and accepting ourselves and our lives in this moment. Allowing everything to be here, to be included, to be acknowledged, to be met, to be seen, not pushed away, not grabbed, but embraced just for what it is. Zazen is the moment to moment practice of letting go, opening up, and seeing clearly to our essential nature. It is sitting down right here, right in the middle of our lives and not moving, watching, returning to the experience of the body.

[10:57]

We sit in zazen with an open, but focused awareness, a continuous moment to moment activity of being present. It's marked by a sense of receptivity, curiosity, exploration. The body in Zazen is teaching us moment to moment, what it is to be in the body. But it's actually not so much a learning activity. It's more like just experiencing what it is to be in the body, to be me, to be a human being right now, today, this moment,

[12:13]

with these circumstances here. It's the unending activity of awakening, awakening into each moment, moment after moment after moment. It's the practice of actually truly being ourselves Suzuki Roshi, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center said that when you are you, Zen is Zen. Zazen is to return us to ourselves. We call this returning to Buddha too. we return to ourselves as Buddha.

[13:18]

Sufficient, complete, whole, ready, awake, present for our lives. So I'd like to get a little bit more specific about zazen here. And look at the practice of zazen from three different perspectives, from the perspective of the body, from the perspective of the breath, and from the perspective of the mind. So sitting as the body, zazen as the body, The founder of Soto Zen, Eihei Dogen Zenji, who lived in 13th century Japan, said that the entire universe is actually the true human body.

[14:29]

So when we say sit as the body, we are not only saying sit as my body, but we are acknowledging that we are sitting in a larger context. We are sitting in an environment. We are sitting in a larger body. We sit as the body in the body. So when we sit as the body, The body also affects our awareness and affects how our mind works. That's why we pay attention to sitting with a stable base, with a good alignment, comfortably, in a way that we can actually settle and open the body, open the body to experience the body.

[15:42]

When we do this, we create the conditions to access this more expansive sense of ourselves, a more inclusive sense of ourselves, a more kind of fluid and flowing sense of ourselves. So when we get the posture right, And we're providing a video for you to help you understand how to work with the posture in your body. But when you get the posture right for your body, this creates the conditions for a more relaxed, open awareness for being present. Even if difficult emotions arise, even as thoughts come and memories, feelings, challenging mental experiences come.

[16:56]

We find that we can sit comfortably and meet the experience of our lives moment after moment after moment. This is sitting in with the body. And at the same time, we should be clear that this sitting with this body is also sitting with the larger body, with everything around us. With the light in the room, the smells, the sounds, The sky, the sun, the mountains, the trees, the oceans, the fish, the birds. This sense of a larger body that we sit within can be extended as far as we could possibly imagine.

[17:59]

So we sit down with this body connected to everything around us. That which came before, that which comes after. This is sitting as the body. Sitting as the breath. We bring the breath into our body, completely into our body, into different areas of the body, and we begin to feel what it's like to be this body with this breath. We don't try to control the breath. We don't try to move it a certain way, have it be a certain quality. We don't interfere with its kind of natural flow. And in zazen, we just follow that breath as it's continuous, as it goes in and out of the body.

[19:03]

And we appreciate as it moves through the body and we allow it. to manifest its own wisdom in our body. We let our natural breath pervade the entire body. And we return over and over again, even if our mind drifts off for a while, we return to the experience of the breath in the body. we can be stabilized, we can settle our mind if we stay close to the experience of the breath moving in and out of the body. And again, we also understand in our Zen practice that the breath is what connects us to the larger body.

[20:11]

As we breathe, as we breathe as my body, as our body, in the way that our body is breathing this moment today, which may be different than it was breathing yesterday, we realize that we are breathing as the larger body. We are all breathing. The body is breathing the body. So zazen as the mind, sitting with the mind, sitting as the mind. When we sit upright in the zazen posture, whether we're sitting on a cushion, a chair, or lying down, we let the thoughts naturally appear and disappear. We let the thoughts naturally arise and fall away.

[21:13]

And we don't get involved with them. We watch them. In Zen we say we take the backward step to watch the activity of our mind, the thoughts, feelings, images, sometimes full-blown stories. And just like the clouds that move across the vast expanse of the sky, we watch them moving, going, coming and going. We watch them coming and we watch them going. Carefully taking care of and entrusting our body to the activity of just being present of receiving and watching the experience of our mind.

[22:16]

But zazen is not a mental exercise. It's really important to realize this. Even this activity of watching our mind is a body activity. It's a body-mind activity. It's not just a mental activity, but it's a way to cut through our habitual thinking processes to a more fundamental experience of ourselves. It's also not a self-improvement project where we look at our mind and we say, oh, this mind is completely unsettled, scattered, distracted, full of habitual thoughts, and I need to get it like this. I need to say that it's actually, I need to kind of somehow convince it, shape it, move it, train it into being like this calm mind that I would like to have.

[23:29]

It's not that kind of project either. When we sit down with our experience and we keep coming back over and over, we return to just watching our mind and its natural activity, which is to create thoughts. Then actually we notice that as we do this and as we don't get pushed over by those thoughts or start to follow after them, we notice that they don't have the same power in our lives. And that they find their place.

[24:32]

They drop away. And when they drop away, What's left is just the experience of being present. There's no way this process just goes on and on. There's no way we can actually control it. We can't control our mind, but we can create different conditions for our mind. process of bringing our attention to the experience of our mind and body, moment to moment, we start to feel more space. We start to feel things open up. We start to kind of move away from this tight, constricted

[25:40]

sense of our mind and our mental activity and feel a wider sense of possibility for our mind and our body. So in these three ways, practicing with our body, with our breath, with our mind, In Zazen, it all comes together as one. Zazen is just about being with all of them together in this moment. It's almost too simple. Too basic. You mean I just sit down and be present? In Zen, because this is so basic, this is something we can not only do when we sit down and practice, say we're practicing Zazen, but we extend this kind of activity and this kind of relationship to our body and our mind into every activity of our lives.

[27:10]

That's how it works. It works on a moment to moment basis. It doesn't work in any kind of life-changing experience. It works in the continuation of practice. And when we practice in this way, even though it's so simple, and we're not even sure sometimes exactly what we're doing, just returning to the experience of this body can allow for dramatic changes to happen in our lives. It's amazing what a huge impact such a simple activity can have on somebody's life. So the potential is there in each moment

[28:17]

for us to have this kind of experience. So as we practice, as we take up our yoga practice with Samantha in the other videos, and as we practice day to day, and in between our meditation practice, our yoga practice, we continue to practice. We extend this intention to return to the experience of the body to embrace it, to accept it, to receive it. We return to that over and over and over again throughout our day. And then sometimes we forget. And we find ourselves drifting off and involved in the fantasies of the moment. And then when that happens, we just remember. We just notice. And we return to

[29:19]

the body. We return to the breath. We return to the experience of the body, mind, and breath together. So in this way, zazen makes apparent what was there all along. Something more fundamental or true about ourselves. our Buddha nature. It never left us. We just got distracted for a moment. So I'd like to encourage all of us to really take this opportunity to commit to a daily practice.

[30:21]

Even if it's just five minutes. Even if it's not where you would like to be able to practice. Even if the conditions are not perfect. You know, I'm a little upset, so maybe I shouldn't sit today. That's exactly the time when you should sit. Again, we sit down right in the middle of our lives with conditions of our life as they are now. We don't wait for them to be somehow different or get better. So please, take this opportunity during these four weeks while you're doing this course to commit to a daily practice of sitting down, Turning your attention inward. Letting go of what happened a little bit earlier or what may happen or what you may have to do later in the day.

[31:30]

But give yourself that time. Give yourself that gift. Be generous with yourself and just sit down. Turn your attention inward. Take the backward step and watch. Listen. Receive deeply. Allow yourself to deeply experience what it is to be a human being in this body right now, today. I think if you'll do that, you'll thank yourself and you'll be happy. If you do that for just a few minutes every day, it can have a powerful impact on your life. And you'll find yourself more able to extend this mind and train your mind to be able to do this in the activities of your life, in your yoga practice, in your work, in your relationships.

[32:41]

So I really encourage you, at least for the four weeks of this class, to really commit to a personal practice, a personal sitting practice. Not only a yoga practice, but a sitting practice. So today we're going to sit for just a couple minutes, for a few minutes now. I'll ring a bell. And we'll sit for 10 minutes. So please, Take a moment to make yourself comfortable, establish a nice, stable, upright sitting position. Relax. Allow the thoughts to, your thoughts and mental formations, experiences, the content of your mind to just be what it is.

[34:08]

Settle this smaller self the self, settle the body in the larger body. And allow yourselves to just experience your own body, to just receive the experience of your own body now. And I'll ring a bell to start the 10 minutes and then I'll ring a bell to end the 10 minutes. Thank you very much.

[44:39]

Enjoy your practice.

[44:42]

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