It is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million palpas, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tatarita's words. How's the sound? Okay. Well, welcome everybody who's here in the Zendo and also online. And there's Hozon. Good morning. It's good to see you. This is day one of Rohatsu. our time really to maintain all of our Zazen activities today and all through the week.

[01:13]

We have seven days and some of us may be sitting a portion of those seven days. We're here to bring our attention, our Zazen, body-mind to all of our activities this week as we practice together. It's also the time of the year when we honor and celebrate Buddha's Awakening. Traditionally is celebrated or has been celebrated on the 8th of December in Buddhist countries. Nowadays, I think depending on the school and the practice place, It happens Bodhi Day on or around that day. And we'll be having our ceremony on Saturday. So most of us or all of us know that this year's Rahatsu is not being led by our abbot, Hozan.

[02:24]

And, you know, our thoughts are with you. and Hosan is dealing with a health situation and he's close by and he looks pretty good online. Anyhow, I wanted to say for putting his faith in all of us to carry on this week on our own and we have you in our hearts and minds and close at hand. Thank you. You're welcome. As the changing landscape continued to come and go, I want to thank a number of people who've really put a lot of effort into making Rahatsu happen this year. Rob, our Sushin director, who's kind of worked tirelessly with the schedule, all changing conditions, as well as Carol, our coordinator, who's

[03:30]

really managed several meetings and a flurry of emails all week with grace and equanimity. And I want to thank Dean and Ellen for researching us on COVID protocols and Karen, our president, for bringing forward important considerations and This week we'll be having talks by seven different people. We won't be using a theme per se or a book. But you know, Sashin is a time to really dig into what is practice and what are our forms. And so each person will come at it from that angle. And I want to thank all of those people for really saying yes. And lastly, all of the cooks. We have cooks who really haven't cooked since before the pandemic, and we have new cooks.

[04:39]

So our longtime cooks, Ross and Mary and Gary, and folks Yoni and Rich, we're really grateful for you taking on cooking practice. And lastly, I want to thank Laurie and Ross, Tonto and Eno, for all the work they've put in this week to help reorganize everything we'll be doing, and all of us who are here. Thank you. Someone once asked Sojin Roshi, how do I prepare for my katsu? And he said, don't, just show up. So that's what we've done. We've shown up here on day one. And so what are we going to do?

[05:42]

Why are we here? What's the problem for being here this week? You know, it says in the Diamond Sutra that existing in stillness, no thought, empty silence, this is our teacher. So we're here this week to practice with that teaching of how we're truly connected to all being. And that spot of zazen that demonstrates that to us over and over again in our lives. We've come to settle into this still place.

[06:44]

Think about what we experience, but simply to experience. hour by hour, period by period, day by day. It's a place that's in the middle of our lives, in the middle of all the sorrows and all the beauties that we experience as humans, really. Where is that stillness? Stillness in activity. And we come here because we have deep faith in Zazen. Zazen as our teacher. And we have deep faith in our ability to let go of everything that we don't need. Here this week to practice letting go of what we don't need.

[07:50]

We don't need to add anything. to Zazen this week. Just follow the schedule. Lower our eyes. Limit our speech. Come back to breath and posture over and over again. No analysis. No strategizing. No exit. Staying with the schedule. Period after period. The breath. Realign the posture repeatedly. This is what we're here to do this week.

[08:56]

Turn in and trust turning in. Don't look back. Just this. Don't depend on anything from the outside. Turn inward. Where is that? Is it buried? Is it covered up? Is it on the sidelines? Each one of us, every single one of us, has a bright spot that's already there. We're here to turn towards that brightness. Sojin often told the story of the shiny teapot that gets all mucked up later after dust and dirt and grease because we don't take the time to clean it day by day.

[10:15]

And as we turn towards cleaning that teapot layer by layer, we finally get down to the original Bright and shiny, it's always been that way. It's just been covered up by that muck because we've been distracted from paying attention to taking care of it. So we're here this week to take care of my teapot. Wipe it clean hour by hour. See how many layers there are. Just allow that bright shine. It's like the sun. You know, the sun doesn't come out. We know that. It's always there, but it gets covered by the clouds and the storms.

[11:17]

And when they pass, it's revealed. So we're here to just Everything settle. Whatever covers that bright spot, just let it settle so we can see that clarity. This is what Sojin Roshi has to say. Zazen is not about making you a better person or fixing your problems, even though that does happen. As you become more in tune with things, improvements in your life do happen, but you don't practice for that reason. If you practice in order to make things happen, it doesn't work. You have to be able to let go, and then everything is a kind of surprise. Zazen is simply an offering of yourself and a letting go of conditions.

[12:24]

so that you can allow freshness to be present in your life. We don't practice in order to get a particular result. That's what Suzuki Roshi was talking about. So, we're not here after a particular result, to get a particular result by the end of the day or the end of the week. And we're going to just remind ourselves that over and over again. We're here to tap that freshness so that you can allow freshness to be present in our life. So we're going to forget about improvements.

[13:29]

But if we see that we're thinking about improvements or we're following ideas or thoughts or opinions, then we're just going to notice that. We're not going to berate ourselves. We're just going to notice that and let it be. Our effort is not to push anything away. but rather to let it settle. Any ideas that come up coexist, you know, just invite them along for the ride, so to speak. So anything that comes up this week, and many things may come up mentally, emotionally. We're not trying to close anything down.

[14:32]

We're just going to let it settle. It's kind of like, you know, churned up water. You just let it be the stuff that gets in the way of it being clear, will settle on its own, sink to the bottom. And then the water is clear. So that's what we're doing here this week. Settle. So... Who's on it originally? decided he would use Sojin Roshi's new book this week during Rahatsun. And he had asked me to do a talk on Thursday, so I'm still going to use the book.

[15:34]

And I've kind of shifted it around since it's the first day. But I think we'll enjoy what Sojin has to say. that his words will be encouraging to us, supportive and inspiring. I've chosen a couple things to read from a section that's about just sitting. And the section within the chapter is called, Sitting Still in the Midst of Waves. So he says, It's important to have a good understanding of why we practice and to keep reminding ourselves. So that's a good thing every day when we sit down. Why are we practicing and remind ourselves? We're easily pulled around and conditioned by our changeable, unstable feelings, emotions, opinions, partiality, and desire.

[16:44]

In order to live our life in the light of non-attachment and non-partiality of practice enlightenment, we sit zazen. In order to settle down in the bedrock of that reality, we sit zazen. So we can remind ourselves. It's our focus. And zazen In Zazen, we always have a place. We always have a place to be. He says, I like to think of what Master says in his fascicle, ocean mudra samadhi. He implies that while we are swimming in the waves on the surface, our feet are at the same time walking on the bottom. Moment ever-changing events of our life, our practice is to be grounded in great immobile stillness.

[17:54]

So many things may pass through us this week. And as we meet those things, Our practice is just to stay grounded in stillness, find the stillness in the middle of activity, active mind, body. He says, sometimes we come to a difficult place in our practice where we can't see where to go, a dark place. At that point, we may have to feel our way. taking one step at a time and not giving up on the other side. Sojin was always talking about feeling our way along, not trying to access the mind for answers or solutions, but feeling our way along.

[19:04]

When we can continue in that way, we gain confidence in ourselves and can appreciate the meaning of continuous practice and overcome doubt. During Sashin, even though we may have difficulties, we continue to sit still in the midst of waves, riding one wave at a time. So coming back to Sashin, this moment, not getting far away from that, ride one wave at a time. We exist in that space offering ourself totally. He's always talking about offering ourself. We offer ourself to zazen and zazen to us. And if we meet that, then there's no separation.

[20:11]

We offer ourselves to zazen and zazen offers itself to us. Some joy may arise that helps us not to be distracted by thoughts. that may come up by separation. Come back to that meeting place. Zazen. We offer ourselves to Zazen. Zazen offers itself to us. For beginners especially, there's the temptation to run away. But with time, we're able to settle into just sitting. I think maybe not And I certainly remember when I started sitting that I often wanted to leave Sashin.

[21:15]

Not so much actually sitting in the Zendo, but during breaks I would take a walk and I would just have this. I wanted to walk right out of Berkeley and keep going and not come back. So it's not abnormal to want to run away. But we're all here waiting for each other. And so if anybody goes to miss that person, so go away but come back. Sazen brings forth in us a steady light subject to the ups and downs associated with grasping and aversion craving or excitement so again like the sun always there trusting in that the light illuminates our direction so that we know which step to take now we question our practice and we might do that this week we might question why we're here

[22:32]

There's so many other things we could be doing, right? When we question our practice, we should look at the details of our life more closely. Where am I? And I think another good question is who am I? Who is this person here? What was my original inspiration? What was my intention? What is my intention? And remember to let go of our gaining mind and our fundamental beginner's mind. These are good questions we can carry with us this week. We don't have to have the answers, but asking these questions, where am I and who am I and what is my inspiration and what is my intention? The other section that I wanted to read a bit from is something that Sojin Roshi always talked about, posture and breath, and that certainly is what we're going to spend a lot of time paying attention to this week.

[23:54]

So he says, I want to remind us about breathing. I know you won't forget to breathe. Whether you forget or not, you will breathe. So that's like that Zen saying, whether you realize you're on the path or not, you are, right? Whether you forget or not, you will. But we try to bring our attention to our breathing. So he says, I want to remind us to allow our breath to be deep. To let the breath fall. We always talked about the breath should be down low. Notice where the breath is. If the breath is rising up in the chest and the throat, notice what's going on. Some nervousness or anxiety or fear or irritation.

[25:01]

And just focus on the breath to fall again. deeply. If you have pain in your legs and you don't know what else to do, put some strength in your exhalation. Focus your attention on one breath at a time. So that's really good advice. When we've got pain, instead of focusing on the pain, thinking about the pain, Work with the breath. Sojin used to say push the breath right into that where the pain is. Go right into it. So focus on the breath and notice where the breath is and bring the breath down low. In Soto Zen, we mostly follow our breath.

[26:09]

When you don't know what else to do, rather than moving, you might try putting some strength in your lower abdomen when you exhale. That's true. I changed the words because he said, rather than uncrossing your legs, but, you know, we have Some of us are sitting cross-legged and some of us are sitting with benches or chairs or maybe in seiza. And so I think what he really means is instead of moving. So whatever way that we're sitting, instead of moving, follow the breath, focus on the breath, come back to the breath, return to the breath, all those words. that we use to think about breath. So then a student asked a question.

[27:11]

If you don't know what to do and you don't want to uncross your legs, and again, I'm going to change that. If you don't know what to do and you don't want to move, you just grit your teeth and bare it, you can guess what he says about that, right? Instead of gritting your teeth, try letting go. So when I was reading this, I was thinking, you know, we're always told in let go. That's a very common phrasal verb that's used. Just let go, let go, right? But I think there's some other ways that we can think of letting go. When we don't know what that means or when we have difficulty doing that, it's not always so obvious. How do I do that, right? So I was thinking of some words that we could, that I could use, like pause.

[28:21]

You know, our bowing can be done internally as well. Instead of gritting your teeth, bow. Instead of gritting your teeth, pause. Some other words I thought of are release. Release usually implies there's some pressure. So the breath can help with that as well. Ease up on. Even giving that instruction to ourself, kind of shift something and loosen. So I was thinking I had some new shoes that were tie shoes and I tied them too tight and my feet felt constrained, right? So I loosened the ties and then there was ease. Loosening. our grip and let it be.

[29:32]

Just let what's going on be. Leave it alone, right? And then the last one I thought of, which I kind of like almost the best, is hand it over. And so what do I mean by that? Sometimes I work with the breath by breathing the pain or the discomfort in. to Buddha's heart, and then the out breath, breathe ease to the world around us. Sojin used to ask the question, what do you literally want to breathe into the world? What a great question, right? So take the pain into Buddha's heart and breathe out ease to the world around us. So he says, you can't fight it. It's not a battle. It's a kind of letting go.

[30:35]

Whatever appears, let it be without attaching to it. There's a saying, the cool breeze blows through the empty hollow. The only approach that works is to open up and let whatever appears pass through. This is where I have to find the balance between ease and effort. So that's interesting, the balance between ease and effort, right? Not trying too hard, but not being a meeting point between ease and effort. What is that? So the student comes back with another question, but is it better to fight it? It's interesting, the student sets up these as opposites, that the choice is to move or to fight it.

[31:37]

And Sojin says, no, it's better not to move, but not to fight. Better to have great patience. So we've heard that Zen practice is the practice of great patience, right? and great patience takes a long, long time to develop. So what I want to say is said, if we have to move, then we move, right? So the instruction is always don't move, but if we have to move, move, right? And Sojin Roshi would say that too. It's just that he really saw his job his position as one of encouraging us all to sit with the challenges, sit with the discomfort so that we could rise to a place where we could see that we can do more than we think.

[32:44]

And if we stop before that place, we never find that out. So he was always encouraging people not to move. That said, if we have to move, move. No shame in that at all. And, you know, over a lifetime, the body's constantly changing. So... Those who are starting out are learning to stretch the body, and those who are getting towards the end, you know, have falling apart bodies. So we have to take care of those bodies. So as you go through the day, you need to move, move. It's just that moving is a slippery slope because once we start moving, sometimes it's hard to stop moving. So with ourself is a good thing to do.

[33:49]

He says you have to find the ease without turning away from your difficulties. Sit still as you can, move as you can, and concentrate on one breath at a time. So I was thinking that that word concentrate made me a little sort of uncomfortable. Concentrate has a strong feeling to it. I was thinking I liked better to say something like direct your attention to or pay attention to. So try to sit still, try not to move and pay attention to or direct your attention to. Dogen calls this the comfortable way, and that made me laugh.

[34:53]

Well, it doesn't always feel so comfortable in the way that we think about comfort. And Sojin Roshi has something to say about that too. Just read that to you. Because he says the kind of comfortable we're talking about in Zen practice is different than the kind of comfortable we usually think about. So he says, in our life, we all like to be comfortable. But you know, we can never get really totally comfortable. We get comfortable for a little while, but then we become uncomfortable and have to change and get comfortable in another way. So we are always adjusting our position. is called the comfortable way, but it's not comfortable in the usual way. When you can actually accept yourself completely in all situations, you can be truly comfortable.

[36:01]

So I think what he's pointing to there To be able to accept ourselves completely in all situations means that whatever happens, we don't criticize ourselves. Whatever happens, we don't judge ourselves. Whatever happens, we don't berate ourselves. We don't compare ourselves to others. And in that way, we're able to accept ourselves completely. And this is comfortable when that happens. So we say, how do we express Zazen in our daily life? How do we take our practice into our daily life when we know how to settle and have a calm mind? no matter what difficulty or discomfort we have, then as we move in the world, we should be able to feel comfortable or to have a settled mind in each situation.

[37:18]

No matter what's happening to us, we know how to settle. That unconditioned place. So I know I'm going to fall down a lot this week. And I think as a young person, falling down is what I focused on. And it was Zen practice that taught me that really what's important is how do we get back up again? That's really the focus of our practice. So we fall down in different ways repeatedly, but we know how to right ourselves. We know how to resume our upright comfortable position. And that's what we return to and that's where we put our focus. So about posture, the first thing is posture.

[38:30]

Establish your posture. Put effort into your posture. And then let the mind follow the breath with the rising and falling of your abdomen. Sojin always said, especially if we get tired or we have aches and pains, give ourselves Zazen instruction again. Come back to the posture. One really good thing to do if we're tired and we're starting to, you know, sort of Lift the sternum. You lift the sternum, all the air is able to circulate through the chest cavity, the lungs, and it also helps the back to be in line. You can tell you're getting tense when your breath becomes rough and shallow, so be aware of that.

[39:35]

Realize when your shoulders are getting tense. Fear or anxiety makes us tense up. At some point, drop our resistance and say, it's okay. Then we rise to a different level. Our resistance is the problem. I can remember telling Lori, like, I think maybe in the very early part, and practice a few years into it. Okay, I've had enough of going deeper. I think this is as far as I want to go. And she just laughed at me. Resistance is the problem. We usually have to go through many painful periods of zazen until we allow ourselves to let go. That's why seven days is a good opportunity because it wears us down.

[40:36]

I don't really like that phrase, wears us down. I replaced it with soften. It softens. I see that as more positive and it made me think about, you know, a river with rushing water over big rocks, that water. You could say it wears down the rocks, but it softens and smooths the edges, right, to our touch. And I think that's what we're doing here this week is we're softening the edges and I guess wearing them down. So the student comes back again and says, I keep hoping the pain will go away.

[41:40]

And Sojin Roshi says, that's why it doesn't go away. Anything you hope for is a problem. We should have a sign on the Zento door that says, abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Hope is resistance. Hope is fighting. It's saying, I wish it would go away. I hope it goes away. But the more we hope it goes away, the more it's right here. The more we hope it goes away, the worse it gets. Instead, we should our fear or our pain. Okay, you can be here with me. You can stay here. I'm sitting saws in. You're welcome to stay here, too. Howdy. But we say, please go away.

[42:41]

This is becoming attached. And the pain answers back. Says who? Give up hope of anything you want, says Sojin Moshi. So I was thinking the other day about hopelessness. And I just happened to be listening to and someone was talking about hopelessness in the world, in a situation in the world. And he was saying, this might sound strange, but he said, I feel completely hopeless, but I think that's a really good thing. Because what it means is that something might arise that we've never ever considered before, something that doesn't come from all the ideas and opinions we have about this situation.

[43:43]

I'm trying to just be with hopelessness as a way to open up something fresh, something new that might surprise us. And I thought, oh, that's kind of what Sojin Roshi is talking about here, ourselves up completely to whatever happens. He says the important thing is to be compassionate with ourselves and not blame our surroundings, not blame the practice. We have people come to Sashin and blame us for making them do these things. They say it's all your fault. But the most compassionate thing we can do is look for the problem within ourselves and at the same time not blame ourselves.

[44:47]

When we really take on our own suffering and our own difficulty, we have compassion for everyone. I think that's really You know, the benefit and the joy of sitting together this week, the benefit of Sangha, is that we're all here in the same boat of difficulties, so we can inspire each other and encourage each other just by being here. I think I'll stop. I think we have a little bit of time for questions. I just want to read this last paragraph about what Sashin is according to Sojin Roshi.

[45:47]

He says, Sashin is a practice of great patience and endurance. Patience is the ability to stay still in the center of each moment. It's fundamental in helping us endure the painfulness of our life. Pain and suffering are not always the same thing. Pain is a feeling, and suffering is more of an attitude toward our pain. It's extra. If we can allow for our pain, it's easier to be free from suffering. It's hard to open ourselves to pain, but when we do, transformation is possible. When we're not controlled by emotions and thoughts, we have the opportunity to rely on our original, non-dual Buddha mind. Emotions and thoughts to function in a beneficial way, free from partiality.

[46:52]

This is how happiness arises without looking for it. So I think maybe we have five or seven minutes if someone has. I wanted to just mention quickly that there will be practice discussion every afternoon. We will not have two, but we'll have one person giving practice discussion every afternoon. So if you want to sign up for that, that will be possible. Gary? Hi. I was surprised to see you come in the door and really happy. Thank you. Can you say more about the horror and how you feel it should function in Zazen? I mean, you said a lot about it or a little bit about it.

[47:55]

I wonder if you could say more. Well, I think we all notice or we can notice when the breath is up high. And for me, when the breath is up high, it's usually due to some kind of anxiety or fear or irritation or uncertainty. And so sitting down to zazen, we can just, you know, it's that meeting place between ease and effort. We don't just sit down and do nothing. So if we can focus our attention on the breath and really allow it, help it to lower in the body, it's beneficial. It helps us sit with the pain that we experience or the difficulty sweeps. So I'm always working with the breath, but I bet you are too. What do you think about?

[48:56]

Well, I was thinking that, at least today, and usually for a couple days until I really drop into something, I really focus on the belly because then it, you know, that's the big in-breath, like a balloon blowing up, you know. Yeah, that's a great image. Yeah, thank you. And also, I heard Hozon once talking about the nostrils, you know, the air. So on the exhale, you can feel that coming out. You can feel the breath drop. Thank you. I'm going to use the balloon. I'm just going to ask him, but he's gone. Rob?

[49:58]

You're welcome. Wonderful talk. I just wanted to say that when I was in college, there was this group that did musical theater and one wag came up with the line, only through pain can we achieve suffering. There's other things that you can do with pain that are not related to suffering, like if you actually watch the sensations and watch the way they change rather than seizing on them in the suffering mode, it really changes the way that... I spent a little time back in the mid-90s doing some work at the Zen Hospice Project. And that was one of the teachings that they gave us was to actually help out some of the patients there. Instead of freaking out over the pain, just pay attention to it and watch it.

[51:11]

And then in the process of observing it, you have that distance. I mean, you talked about relaxing, letting go. Another way of doing that is to step back. and not be so in the middle of it. So there's other, pain doesn't necessarily mean suffering. Yeah, thank you. That's a really, really good point. And I think I could pay attention to sensations more. You know, Sojin was not so much one to talk about that, breath and posture, but I think that's really useful. Pay attention to the sensations. Thank you. about time, isn't it, Gary? And it's good to be quiet. So thank you all very much and enjoy the day.

[52:15]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_93.59