decades before coming to practice she entered the world of medicine as a physician and she's continued to do that throughout her life as well as educating future physicians. Her search and for the meaning of life has gone through many, many iterations with many, many teachers over the years in traditions known to us and some that may be a little more mysterious. But ultimately, she settled for Zen practice and with our abbot here, Sojin Roshi. She was ordained very recently as a Buddhist priest. She served many roles here at BCC, from cooking meals for us to cleaning bathrooms. for the past three years as president of our temple has been filled with a lot of serious work. In the drop of a hat she can give you a full belly laugh, but at the same time she can look you straight in the eye and bring up very serious matters to engage you in a dialogue to

[01:11]

to share with us and inspire us for deepening our practice. Thank you. So Ross alluded to the fact that I was recently ordained. That is three weeks ago. So this whole thing is new to me. These robes are brand new. Bowing and not tripping over my feet, putting down the bowing mat, putting on the robe so that it doesn't come off when you're bowing, Not falling, which I've been consistently proud of. I haven't managed to fall yet. Jerry, your glassy string keeps hitting the mic. OK, I'll put it over on the other side. It goes this way. So I also have to ask you to bear with me now that we've all survived my actually getting on the seat, which was the first big worry I had. I had eye surgery. in the last month, and so I can't see all that well.

[02:20]

So it was quite a challenge to read and prepare. I have enlarged print here, and I had to figure out the right combination of glasses. I have now contacts and reading glasses. Those are the best for my seeing right at the moment. So I feel kind of like this bird that just cracked out and was looking around like, What is going on here? How did I find myself in this place this morning? So that is really our practice anyway. So what's happening in this current four-week period is we have an annual aspects of practice period where we try to go back to basics in a way for all of us. Welcoming new people to join us and then all of us remembering what is it we're all about here? What is the basic stuff of practice?

[03:20]

And the reading that we're working with for this practice period is just that. It's this wonderful remembrance of what is the core? What is the wondrous practice? Why do we all come here all the time and sit here wear these robes and stare at walls. So the reading that we're studying is A.K. Dogen's Bendowa, or translated as The Wholehearted Way. It's the second writing that Dogen completed after he returned from his pilgrimage to China in the 13th century, where he studied. He was looking for a master who would teach him the heart of Zen practice. He felt that Buddhist practice had been corrupt in Japan, and he wanted to go someplace where there would be an authentic teacher. And he found his authentic teacher in Tendon Yojo, or Rujing, and he relates this experience as having a transmission of the authentic practice of the ancestors, the practice of Zazen.

[04:30]

Bendo was built on his first teaching, The first teaching that he did when he came back from China was something called the Fukan Zazenge, which is the universally recommended instructions for Zazen. And I wanted to see how many people are here today, I see a lot of familiar faces here, here today for the first time. Anybody? A couple of people. How many have never had Zazen instruction? Great. Oh, one in the back. Well, that's good. We're glad to have some new people. So I will just, as an introduction to getting to Bendawa, I thought I would read the section in the Fukan Zazen Zengi where Dogon is giving us instructions for practicing Zazen. And maybe while I'm doing that, everybody could actually get into Zazen posture. At your sitting place, spread out a thick mat and put a cushion on it.

[05:34]

sit either in full lotus or half lotus position. In full lotus position, place your right foot on your left thigh, then your left foot on your right thigh. In half lotus, if you're lucky enough to do either one of these, simply place your left foot on your right thigh. If you can't sit in lotus position, this is my addendum, you can sit in cross-legged position, or baris position, or you can sit on your, sit with your, on top of your calves in a Seiza position. Tie your robes loosely and arrange them neatly. Then place your right hand on your left leg and your left hand on your right palm, thumb tips touching lightly. Straighten your body and sit upright, leaning neither left nor right, neither forward nor backward. Align your ears with your shoulders and your nose with your navel. Rest the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth with teeth and lips together, both shut.

[06:39]

Always keep your eyes open and breathe softly through your nose. Once you have adjusted your posture, take a deep breath and exhale fully. Rock your body right and left and settle into steady, immovable sitting. Think of non-thinking, of not thinking, not thinking. What kind of thinking is that? Non-thinking. This is the essential art of Zazen. The Zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the Dharmagate of joyful ease, the practice realization of total culminated enlightenment. So this was Dogen's first instruction to all of us. So let's just sit for a minute. I never get over the wonder of that, the wonder of what happens when we all are silent together and let everything go.

[08:12]

There's something so powerful that most of us feel right away. It happens almost instantaneously. It doesn't take a lot of work. We just sit and let go, and we're all here together, and we're all in this arc floating on the waves of life together, completely connected to each other, just magically, just like that. So that's kind of what Bhen-du-wa is about. Bhen-du-wa makes it clear that this zazen practice is the true path to realization. The first paragraph in Bhen-du-wa states, all Buddha Tathagatas together have been simply transmitting wondrous dharma and actualizing Anyutthara Samyak Sambodhi, for which there is an unsurpassable, unfabricated, and wondrous method. This wondrous dharma, which has been transmitted only from Buddha to Buddha without deviation, has its criteria as Jiju-yuzan-mai.

[09:18]

For disporting oneself freely in this samadhi, practicing zazen in the upright posture is the true gate. Nothing magical. So in Bendo, Adogan is sharing with us his discovery. He went to China after the thought of enlightenment, he says, after the thought of enlightenment arose in him. And there he found the path to realization through the Jiju-yuzomai of the ancestors. So what is this experience of Jiju-yuzomai that can be found through practicing Zazen? The various translations and footnotes describe Jiju-yuzomai as self-receiving and employing, or self-enjoyment and functioning, or self-receiving and transmitting. So this suggests that whatever happens in Zazen results both in our own benefit as well as the benefit to others as a result of our practice.

[10:21]

What is it that we receive or enjoy? When I first sought out practice, I did not have any idea what I was looking for. I had no thought of enlightenment. I was a professional woman trying to balance family and work and have some kind of internal spiritual life. I didn't think of enlightenment. I don't know if I even really knew about enlightenment. If I had thought about it, I think I would have been actually put off, I would have thought it was something so far beyond my reach that if I didn't go study with a guru in India and put myself in an ashram for some years or in a temple for some years, I wouldn't have been able to find it. So I was really grateful that the first Zazen instruction I ever had was at Green Gulch Farm with Lou Hartman, who was a wonderful priest who died a few years ago.

[11:24]

And he really treated Zazen and the whole experience of teaching as a fun trip. He was clearly a 60s guy and he made it easy. He communicated the forms and he talked about his own struggles with the forms. He talked about his life as an ad man or some high-powered business guy and how he had discovered accidentally sitting and how his whole life changed. And he also managed to talk about Tony Hillerman Navajo detective novels. I'm not sure how he fit that. I can never remember how he actually inserted that. I subsequently read them and thought they were great. But he just didn't make me feel put off at all by the idea of joining this practice. It was like, come on, come sit down. You'll feel good. And then afterwards, we can have tea and talk about Tony Hillerman.

[12:27]

So maybe he had read the Vendawa, and he read the part about Dogen's advice that in Zazen, one should disport oneself freely. In her chapter, in this wonderful book, Receiving the Marrow, which is a book of teachings on Dogen by Soto Zen women priests. Tejo Munek, who was a disciple of Katagiri Roshi, presents some translations in Japanese of what desporting means. Because what does desporting mean? It kind of sounds like a sport. Or de-sporting, I'm not sure. But the word yuge in Japanese U means to play or enjoy oneself, and G means to play or frolic. So we desport ourselves in zazen. Isn't that fun? And then she goes on to talk about a lecture given by Kadagiri Roshi about yuge.

[13:37]

He said, U is to play. Gi means to transform. So yuge means you can transform yourself in the process of playing freely. Transform does not mean change. Without changing your body and mind, capability and ability, your habits, your heredity, your karma, something transforms in the process of playing, really. I really like that. Because I think that's what I first was attracted to when I met Lou Hartman. And that became a lot of a gate for me, this idea of a lighthearted practice that I needed lightness, I still do. I can get really too heavy. And so I was hooked from that very first Zazen instruction. So my own experience of this Zazen is that when I concentrate simultaneously on my breath and my posture, I become aware of the coming and going of thoughts, of feelings, of perceptions, formations, and consciousness.

[14:47]

When I avoid discrimination and neither grasp or push away these experiences, I can enjoy the dynamic impermanence of life. That is how I understand non-thinking. For me, the continuous practice of letting go and the experience of seeing the pain in my legs come and go, the painful thoughts come and go, the stories my mind tries to make up about perceived experiences arise I learn not to believe what I think. I become gradually willing to detach from my opinions or ideas, willing to expand my consciousness to other possibilities. Ultimately, I can more often see my deluded mind at work. And so I can let this be, let it float like the clouds. This causes me to lighten up by not holding on to these and not putting them in a sack I tend to do that. I have a pattern of, or I've had a pattern of putting my old karmic baggage and carrying it around in a sack and the lightness of Zazen is kind of like taking those little rocks out of the sack when they come by so that I don't have to carry it around so much.

[16:07]

It's still kind of there, but maybe a few less rocks. So this is part of the, to me, this ease, this joy of being in this place of delusions coming and going creates an ease. That's what I receive from Zazen. That's my receiving of Zazen. And the letting go of small self or small mind gives way to something we call universal mind or the realm of the absolute. The mind that includes everything with no discrimination. the mind of non-duality in which everything is interconnected in a dynamic interplay of dependent co-arising and ceasing. In this state, self and activity merge into one. This isn't some magical state. We all have experiences of merging with our activity, and they happen all the time in our lives.

[17:11]

Teja Munik talks about her, what she calls her first experience of samadhi, which is lovely, so I'll read it. My first experience of the joy of samadhi was through dance. Before I met Kateguri Roshi and began to throw myself into zazen practice, I was studying dance and had experienced the letting go that comes when one completely gives oneself to the form and to the teacher. In order to perform a dance, one has to first learn the steps. After the steps are somewhat mastered, the flow of the dance begins to emerge. At this point, resistance arises. One doesn't have a total picture of the dance, but through the steps and the flow, there's a sense of accomplishment, which seems to be enough. Then weariness sets in, and there doesn't seem to be anything else to do. Maybe there's a feeling that going further is beyond the ability of the dancer. So the next part of the process is to continue dancing, to go beyond that resistance and exhaust it.

[18:21]

At that point, the dancer becomes the dance and is danced. There is no longer any effort, and the dance is perfect." I'm sure that those of you who write can find yourself in the flow of writing, and the only thing that's happening is writing, and you meet an obstacle and you push through it. Others might do it through the outdoors, through hiking, or as Karen sometimes talked about, climbing and climbing these incredible heights, having to push through the resistance, but having to keep on one step in front of the other, just keep going and letting go, and letting go of the feelings, and then reaching this place where everything was really one, where we can let go of ourselves completely. But it doesn't have to be something dramatic like dancing necessarily or becoming a dancer or becoming a writer.

[19:25]

It can happen any time, any time, when you're cooking, when you're taking a walk, when you're taking a bath. For me, I had incredible experiences when I was sewing this robe. When you sew a robe, you cut this big black piece of fabric into really, really teeny pieces, very carefully measured. And then you pin the really, really teeny pieces together, and then you have to sew those little teeny pieces very carefully, one stitch at a time, over and over again. And what I would find, and we're supposed to, for those of you who haven't done this, you're supposed to be chanting Namu Kyei Butsu, which is, I take refuge in Buddha, with each stitch or with each breath. And what I found when I was sewing the robe was I would all of a sudden look up, because I couldn't see so well anymore, and the sun was going down, that I had completely been in this sewing.

[20:31]

I had been this sewing. And two or three hours would go by. That's an experience that we can have when we allow ourselves to open to whatever activity that is that we're engaged in. So if we can have these experiences, and we've all had these experiences, why practice Zazen? Well, Dogen says in Fukan Zazenge, why leave behind the seat that exists in your home and go aimlessly off to dusty realms of other lands? For me, this means why seek out special activities or experiences when ultimate reality is always present and can be accessed through Zazen? Dogen also teaches that this enlightened activity does not require great intelligence. We don't necessarily need to formally study or engage in other practices like chanting or bowing. Just sitting is enough. For many years, early in my practice, all I really did was sit. I found it hard to study and was satisfied simply with the silent support of others sitting in the zendo with me.

[21:36]

When I mentioned this to Sojin and told him I really didn't want to come to the classes anymore because I couldn't concentrate and fall asleep. And besides, I had no idea what they were talking about. He said, well, that's OK. Just come to the class and do Zazen. So I came to the class and did Zazen. And little by little, I kind of learned how to open to the information in Zazen. I couldn't just come with my, it was not possible for me to listen to this really intense, sometimes obscure material. My regular mind wouldn't hold onto it. But if I could let go of my regular mind and my self-consciousness, then it became something that was more accessible to me. And now I kind of like studying. Not so much. So, this has been a little bit of a hindrance for me in my practice because I remember when I was Chiseau, which is the head student for a six-week practice period during the spring, I really felt quite a great deal of anxiety about my lack of study.

[23:01]

I felt like everybody would expect me to know a lot. I felt like I really had to catch up on all the reading that I hadn't done for 15 years. in six weeks. And I remember one day, I was sitting in my office. You have to give like five talks. So it's almost virtually impossible to actually really prepare. I mean, you have to trust your practice at some point. You just have to give into it. But I had books all over the floor, and pages and notes and little notes thrown around. And it was just, I said, I'm not going to be, I can't do this. And then I got a kind of a frivolous phone call. I think I mentioned this at another talk. Somebody called me about, did I know the name of a woman who was a T because they thought she was nice and might like to get to know her. And I said, I laughed, you know, I thought,

[24:05]

that's all, this is just life, you know, somebody wants to meet a person and, you know, I'm hungry and I just went and sat and did Zazen. So I ended up writing a poem at the end of that practice period that kind of summarized some of that. A monk sets out from Shogakuji temple, that's what we are, to find a cure for her dis-ease. She scales mountainous sutras, forges rivers of murky koans, trudges through the muck of karmic hindrances, never finding the elusive it. She comes upon a sign left by her teacher, two arrow points meeting marked, this is the way. The path is strewn with flowers, blades of grass, rice cakes, rotting radishes.

[25:07]

She sees a man who raises a finger, a wild goose flying in circles above her, a fox basking in the sun. She stops and studies each one, finding them all empty, all medicine and not medicine, distinct but separate, a dynamic interconnectedness. The road leads back to Shigakiji, Meeting her teacher, she smiles, goes back into the zendo, and sits one with all the others. Back to Zazen. After I was ordained a few weeks ago, I felt a similar insecurity. Oh boy, the expectations are going to be there now. I was suddenly back. I felt like I didn't know how to do anything, because the ropes itself are a humbling experience. And then Alan asked me if I would give this talk, and I really wanted to say, are you kidding?

[26:11]

I have to go in, I have to, anyway. But then I, I mean, what I felt, what I felt then was I was taking myself too seriously. You know, I was taking this, this self too seriously. I mean, I was being asked, I'd given other talks. It's not totally unreasonable to be asked to give a talk. I couldn't think of an easy excuse. And then I started thinking, well, maybe I should think of it as a way to be helpful. If I could think of it as a way to be helpful and not think about it as anything that I'm doing, that might be okay. And I started thinking about my pre-spouse that I took, that I would make my offer myself. that I should be able to offer myself to companion people and to do what I could to awaken with other beings.

[27:14]

So I relented. I gave up my resistance. But today it's kind of came back again. So this brings me to the next, really the next part of GGUSMI. there was the receiving, but there's also the transmitting. And what is that transmitting? How do we transmit? How does the actual act of zazen transmit? Sojin often tells us, when we're discussing the troubles of the world or the politics, and we express a wish that we should do something, we should do things, something's wrong and we need to do something. Sojin often says, When we sit together in the zendo, we become a light. And that light benefits all beings. No matter what, if we do nothing else but sit together in that space of non-duality, in that space of the absolute, where we're connected to the rest of the world, to all beings, in that space, we are a condition.

[28:27]

We are a cause and a condition. I don't think Sojin really meant that we shouldn't work for social justice or that we shouldn't work for peace. But I think he just was encouraging us that by engaging in enlightened activity, we enter this realm. And in this realm, assuming we actually do let go and we are one and we have this experience, this wondrous dharma, This interconnectedness is not temporal either. It's the past, the present, the future. It's here, it's there, it's everywhere. So in this compassionate activity of this recognition of our connection, then how could it not benefit? How could it not be a benefit?

[29:27]

How could we not be transmitting the benefit of this practice? And it seems to me that this transmission of the practice is a moment-by-moment practice, which we do in our sitting, but we can do at any time. This moment-to-moment being in this place of compassion and interconnectedness. But Dogen also suggests that we might have some problems in transmission of this practice. He was concerned himself in Bendowa, was he going to be able to reach people with this teaching? Part of his reason for writing it down was he was afraid that he didn't have any students. He didn't yet have any students. Maybe he would never have any students. What happened if he found this wonderful teaching in China and no one ever heard about it?

[30:31]

So that was part of his reason for even writing it down, even though that's second best, first bestest practice, even though it might be second best, that it was actually critical that he actually write this down and try to write it in such a way that it was accessible to us, that we would get what it was going on in De Julius and I. For me, I think part of the impetus to ordain as a priest had to do with an aspiration and an intention to share the practice. The practice had done so much for me in my life. It had really transformed my life in so many ways that I felt that I was ready to make a commitment that this would be the central focus of my life. Whether it's transmitting by actually doing anything or just by continuing to sit wholeheartedly as much as I can.

[31:32]

I don't know if it's anything more than that, but it is the intention, it is the vow that we take, and it is certainly an intention that we can set for ourselves. Suzuki Roshi in Not Always So quotes Dogen as saying, we did not discuss the meaning I actually included this because this has to do with my self-consciousness about whether I do enough or whether I can actually stand in front of people and say anything that would be helpful to them. And I found this quote, I thought it was really a good one for all of us who have to do this now or later. We do not discuss the meaning of the teaching in a comparative way, but emphasize how to practice. We focus our study on how to accept the teaching and live the teaching. Whether or not our teaching is profound or lofty misses the point, which is to develop an attitude of study.

[32:40]

This is characteristic of Zen and characteristic of true Buddhism. Rather than setting up a system of Buddhism, we put emphasis on true practice. So if I were to just sit here, theoretically, and there was a story of an old master who was supposed to give a talk, Yaosheng, and he had been giving talks and people in the monastery were very concerned. And so an official went to him and said, you have to come and talk to us, you have to teach us. And he went into the zendo, sat down briefly, got up and left. he lived the practice, he lived it, he transmitted, he showed the coming and going, he showed his practice, and he left people to sit zazen, because that's where the true teaching, where the true enlightenment comes. So the last thing I wanted to, where am I?

[33:44]

The last thing I wanted to talk about briefly, and then we can have time for questions, is that part of what Dogen says in Vendawa, and in many of his teachings, he stresses the importance or the critical element of having a teacher. Certainly for him, that was what drove his life. The first part of his life was having this feeling that he needed to have that direct transmission of the perfect Dharma or the wondrous Dharma. So Dogen says this a lot in his teachings. It's essential to have a teacher who's mastered the way to guide us in our practice and really to encourage us to carry on even when we're discouraged, just like the dance. Sometimes the dance gets hard. We can be discouraged.

[34:45]

I remember many times when I would get discouraged in my practice. like many of you have been through this. Your mind is just jumping around. You absolutely cannot sit still. You're having pains everywhere. What are you doing here? And I remember going to Sojin one time and I said, I can't even count past one. And Sojin said, okay, well let's just do that then. One, one, one, one. And we both laughed, and I kind of relaxed. It was like, OK, one is OK. I'm doing one today. So the other really critical thing for me is this idea that we can't really, I can't really depend on my own mind for all the answers, even though our practices to shine the light inward, our practices to observe our thoughts, our practices learn from these things.

[35:48]

How do you actually know you're not deluded? In fact, you are deluded. And you can see levels of it. You can see this level of delusion, deluded, but then you're deluded about that. So how do you know? And how does anybody know, really? And I think there's a little section here in Okamura's introduction about this, about how, you know, how our minds work and why it's an issue. Our own picture of the world is kind of a fantasy made of our memory and our brain. Each person has a limitation. That is why we have problems, troubles, fighting, arguments. The angles we see the world from are different. And anyutara samyak sambuddhi, the supreme awareness, is to see that we cannot see the world, to understand that we are deluded and limited. this means to let go of our viewpoints. I talked about that before when I was talking about what the reality of Zazen is, or Zazen practice is for me.

[36:53]

But sometimes you're really so sure you've got it. And you meet a lot of people that have had maybe a powerful enlightenment experience, and they kind of get caught in that enlightenment experience like they've got it now. That's it. I went to this retreat, had this awakening and it's great. See ya. Or, I don't really need a teacher. I don't really need a teacher. I mean, I've had people tell me, you know, I don't need a teacher because I have this, you know, I understand this. So I remember an experience where I was at a practice intensive and I had one of these experiences. I had suddenly understood, I thought, the cause of all my suffering. I had it. I had some story about it. It was great. And so I went and I was so happy. I had Dokka Sangha with this teacher who's at this retreat and I presented my great understanding. And I was really euphoric, you know, I was just smiling and feeling great.

[37:57]

And the teacher smiled and he said, that's a great story. Why don't you go back and sit some more and make up another story that explains exactly those same facts. That was probably one of my more humbling experiences and I needed that. I really needed that. I needed that guidance that don't take yourself too seriously and don't think you've made it anywhere because it's moment to moment and the next moment you start all over again. So I think that teacher from that perspective of kind of keeping you honest and kind of asking you questions about this Where are you going in your thoughts? Are your thoughts really taking you for a ride? What are these stories that we tell ourselves about our life? And how can we investigate them? And how can we really, truly learn how to have that great story come up in Zazen and actually say, what a great story?

[38:59]

Just the same as the external teacher said, what a great story. So the other thing I think that's really important, and the final thing I want to really talk about is this, that if we do, if we are successful, whatever that means, if we actually do have experience of non-duality, if we enter that realm of emptiness or the realm of non-duality, sometimes people can think, we can think that there's no difference between good and evil. There's no difference between anything. I'm kind of free from karma. And we can get into trouble that way. And teachers get into trouble that way. They are so enlightened, they are so beyond the conventional world, that they get into trouble because they

[40:00]

They live in that non-duality or they think they can exist in that non-duality and yet the teacher really helps us to go back into the marketplace, to go back to our lives and recognize that we do have, there is a need to discriminate. There is a need to discern in our lives. There is a need to live in the conventional world with awareness of this non-dual world and yet we have to live in an ethical and a wholesome way in this world. And so for that reason, I think, we will still be here with our teachers. And as Dogen instructs us, we will continue to do our wonderful Jiu-Jitsu semi-practice, but here together, where we can support each other and call each other on some of our stuff, and also where we have a teacher to guide us. So thank you. Yeah, we have a couple minutes for questions.

[41:02]

OK. Anybody have any questions? Ed? Yeah, I really liked your talking about Zazen's play. And Zazen has a reputation as being very austere and serious. And I'm just wondering how you nurture How do you nurture that in your own practice? I think by actually catching, you know, by kind of taking, trying to remind myself when I start to grasp in practice or I have strong sensations or feelings, to kind of play with them, to kind of, you know, Not judge them, but be interested. Let them go. Hold it lightly.

[42:06]

Ah, aversion. I don't like that. And even to be amused sometimes about what comes up. Or what stories you can concoct. It's really funny when you think about it. We make up entire worlds. So I try to kind of take it lightly. And be aware that I'm making up a lot of stuff. And isn't that interesting? Isn't that funny how we human beings are? Yes? Hi. I just want to thank you for saying yes to Khazan and addressing the song today. And thanks for your three-week journey. Because you've made such a... You're so second skin in your robes. In the morning, we sit next to each other while you're doing the service.

[43:08]

And you're really comfortable. You really embody this thing. So I have a lot of respect and admiration. Thank you. A lot of zazen. A lot of wall staring. Yes? Hi, Geri. kind of test an understanding I may have that jijusamae could be different than being absorbed in an activity that's not zazen and not like zazen, if there is any such thing. And to say that perhaps being absorbed in something else, like for example, writing or, wait, let's say reading a book, something fairly ordinary. I forget myself. All the time goes by. Forget it's me reading. I'm just there in the characters. But so, in that sense, I'm absorbed and there's no self. There's another sense in which it is not Jijiusamaya, because what I'm absorbed in is a world that includes characters who are meeting other characters in a world.

[44:12]

And so there's a lot of dualism still going on there. So I'm very much not in Jijiusamaya. Although, if you actually go into it with the Zazen mind, where things arise, these characters are also in our mind. So if I'm deep enough into the reading... The characters, I mean, we have characters and beings arising all the time in our mind. We don't need any external stimulus. But it's the same thing. Okay. Yeah. There's a Japanese teacher, Tetsuko Sekida, who maybe died, I don't know, 20 years ago or so, wrote a book called Zen Training. And he distinguishes between two different samadhis. One is positive samadhi, which is one of activity that the woman you were talking about mentioned in advance. And I think his other phrase is just absolute samadhi. But he sees it as two samadhis, but one he calls positive for activity, and the other one is just not samadhi.

[45:18]

There is some distinction. There is some distinction, sure, when it's related to an actual activity that is something other than just sitting. There's something else. That's what he says. Yes. Yeah. I mean, she did, in a way, in her talk also was kind of talking about that. But she felt that it was a gateway for her, that she was able to understand what Category was trying to tell her, because she had had, which is why I brought it up in the talk, Her having some real personal experience of something like this enabled her to receive the teaching and to be more open to the teaching because it wasn't something so far away, something so inaccessible. Alan? I'm a little uncomfortable with that distinction and I'm very curious to know what Sochin has to say. The one he's making? You know, samadhi, strictly speaking, means concentration.

[46:30]

But that's just the basis. But concentration is, or samadhi, there are many kinds of samadhi, actually. And when you're reading something and you're totally engrossed and you forget about yourself, and so forth. But jiju-yut-samadhi, samadhi, is self-centeredness. So you're receiving your true nature and you're expressing it to others.

[47:32]

And as you said, all you have to do is sit zazen and the light shines through because we are vehicles and everyone is benefited even though we don't know that, or even though, you know, it's intangible. So Samadhi, there are a lot of different Samadhis, Buddhist Samadhis, but it's really opening yourself up so that you're not blocking light, which is the essence of the essential thing for everybody. Then that's the essence. Then why would it be different from one samadhi to another? Well, positive samadhi is the function. The essence and the function.

[48:40]

So in your activity, the light is extended through activity. And in zazen, it's the dynamic of your effort to sit. expressed that in a single way. So when you leave the zendo, you continue to be ego-less. And then you say, well, how come it's not the same as in the zendo? It's because when we start to move, our ego acts up and stands in the way.

[49:19]

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