so What you're doing, as long as you're doing it, you can do it.

[02:43]

It's not that it doesn't matter what you do, it's how you do it. It's what you do and how you do it. Doing the right thing, doing it, and doing it. But, sometimes doing the wrong thing and doing it will soon as well be the right thing to do. or choose something. The bird is going away from the back. You have one foot on the bird and one foot on the back. You have to decide very quickly whether it will go or not. I just want to talk a little bit about...

[04:07]

So I can sit a little bit further, but not sit on it. The question was to tuck the baby back. So I can sit on the lay back. can't go down so well, you should put yourself up high so that your knees are not higher than your waist. If your knees are higher than your waist, you can't sit very well. You can't stand up with that. So it's important that you sit up high and your knees can go down a little bit when you can hover. All right.

[06:01]

It has to be done. It has to be done. It has to be done. Only one person is considered to be a reservist. or what to do.

[08:35]

Mind is the making of body. Body and mind are becoming one. We say in Zazen, don't think. Think not thinking. This is the art of Zazen. That doesn't mean not to have a thought. Not thinking is not the same as not having thought. Not thinking in Zazen means to not dwell on something outside of this activity. not to let the mind dwell on something outside of this activity. So every time the mind wanders, we collect the mind back to the activity. And so the thought of zazen is the thought of posture, or the thought of following the breath. That's thinking zazen, that's mind thinking zazen. because there's not some thought outside of the activity.

[09:38]

You can't exist without thought. So thought in Zazen, Zazen is a very slow activity. Maybe the slowest activity, really. But the attitude of the slow activity is the same as if you were doing something very fast. If you make a mistake, bam, that's it. If you're flying an airplane and you make a mistake, you're going 1,000 miles an hour, you make a mistake, And the restaurant was the owner of the entire airplane.

[10:47]

It was a nice little restaurant with a great show here. And they had a photograph of an airplane with an old biplane stuck in a tree. to draw a pair of dynamics, just a pair of them. What's the meaning? Use room for no mistakes. We saw them use room for mistakes, right? You have to always keep reminding yourself. Otherwise, you'll easily fall down. Gravity is this big force, you know, that's pulling everything down.

[11:49]

So our life is based on how to deal with gravity. Everything in our life, every moment and every act in life is based on how to deal with gravity. Motivation is pulling everything away from you. And in between these two, life force, spirit, and gravity is where I like this person. And how we balance that, how we find the center of gravity in our life, moment by moment, is called zazen. And if you're not doing that when you're sitting, you're not doing Zazen.

[12:56]

That's good. That's what we're doing when we do Zazen. We're just opening ourself up completely to this center of gravity. Center of our life. Feeling this force that's pulling us up. open up, then we can't release this spirit. And if we close down, then gravity takes over. So we have to offer ourselves to spirit, to open ourselves up so that spirit is all pervasive. to make this great spirit. And so, when you use soul, great spirit, you've got a real nature.

[14:01]

Some people are all like that. So, after we sit, we have to find the center of things. So a sitting is always, as you find your posture, as you always have just been looking for the right posture, it means that you're finding, looking for the center of things. Where is the center of this body? Where is the center of this mind? Where is the center of this breath? So hopefully, we all should learn right posture. Right posture is the fundamental. Because if you have right posture, then you can locate the center of this body somewhere down here. The legs are rooted on the tree.

[15:13]

And then the trunk sways. But in this, the branch is like this. And when we sit in zazen, even though we have this posture, still, we're just like that tree. No, not tense. Trees are not rigid. Trees are not made out of cement. But people sit in zazen are made out of cement. Or if you try to adjust posture, you find out that people think they're made out of cement. You're not without a soul. Every bone in your body is independent. Every part of your body is separate from every other part, but connected somehow. So, how do we bring all these minute parts, I don't know how many there are, 365 parts,

[16:14]

together in harmony. We take our body for granted as we move. As the mind moves, the body follows. This posture of zazen is when you walk into the zen-do, in a different space than we are outside of Zenga, because the activity in Zenga is not conditioned by fears. constantly natural.

[17:24]

By natural, I mean not conditioning. For that reason, we don't really control our breathing, but we just let our breathing be natural.

[19:23]

And we let our mind follow our breath. After we have our posture, after we have some sense of good posture, not leaning forward, not leaning backward, not leaning this way, not leaning this way, really sitting up straight, This is the center, form, and influence. Tension is important. If you don't have tension, then there's no There has to be tension. Tenseness is extra tension.

[20:26]

It's not necessary. Your shoulders don't hold you up. Your arms don't hold you up. And your upper back doesn't hold you up. You can let go of all that tenseness. But, in our lives, here, there's circumcision. All that energy from those When I say, hold your head on top of your spine, nobody moves. When I say in session, put your head on top of your spine, nobody moves. Put your head on top of your spine. Well, I think I have my head on top of my spine. Some of us do. But we're unaware a lot about what our body's doing.

[21:28]

And then if I try to adjust, you know, because the head is connected to the body, but actually it's not. It's just something holding the head on the body, you know. But who, for anything, wants to limit it? So whatever you do in one place affects someplace else. So how do you get it all working together? You put your head on top of your spine and you have to lift up your I get bored.

[23:01]

That's because you're not paying attention. Because there's an enormous amount of work to do inside yourself. So I'm going to work. If you're not working, you're just dreaming. So it's okay. We all dream. I dream. I go to sleep. But I wake up, and when I wake up, I realize, oh, I'm dreaming. I've been dreaming. I've been sleeping. So I wake up. So always, time after time, starting all over again. Within one Zazen period, you can be starting over again 50 times. Once a minute. So the point where you wake up is the real Zazen. What's the point when you wake up, you're not dreaming, and you're not thinking about something else?

[24:02]

What's the point? Just being awake to the reality of this moment. Nothing mystical. The hardest thing, really, is to be awake because when we're in it, it's falling off. You can stand on top of it, and love it. But there has to be surely a way. And when we can be aware of that, then we can come back to our

[25:06]

of our nature too, right away. Let's think about what is self-preservation. Even more than life itself. Just trust the life you want.

[26:32]

Trust our true being. questions. Well, one thing I want to say is that I want to invite everyone to come to our sashimi starting next Sunday. Seven-day sashimi, which is called Rohatsu, Japanese Rohatsu, which means sashimi which commemorates Buddha's enlightenment.

[27:33]

trusting life itself. Satsang is a major part of our practice. So I would like to ask you, if I could, please come to Satsang, and if you can find anything I haven't signed up yet.

[28:11]

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