Dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Can you hear me okay? Yes, good. The gods of technology were stymieing me there for a moment. So I apologize for the delay. Well, this is the thing. And I'm going to continue today. touching on material that Sojin was drawing from his collection, from the collection for the book that is being assembled and is almost ready to go to publication, actually.

[01:24]

So the talk that that I'm drawing on is titled, Responding to Conditions. And it begins by quoting case 16, and that case is very simple. I'll talk about it a bit first, but the case is simple. I think it's probably familiar to To many of us. Master Uman said. Vast and wide. Why do you put on your seven piece robe. At the sound of the bell. And then. Muman. Wrote a verse. As is customary. He had.

[02:26]

Commentary in a verse. And I want to read you. The verse. With realization, things make one family. Without realization, things are separated in a thousand ways. Without realization, one family. With realization, things are separated in a thousand ways. It's a wonderful perplexing verse. So, A little background. Master Uman Bunen, who we know in Japanese as Yunmen Wenyan, was a Chan master in the Tang Dynasty. And well known.

[03:28]

And many of his cases There are 18 cases by Yunmin or Umman in the Blue Cliff Record, and eight of them in the Book of Serenity, and five in the Mumman. And just a few. I love that the story about his death is quite moving. One day when Uman was 85 or 86, he gave a farewell letter to his patron, who was the new king of the Southern Han dynasty. And then he gave a final lecture to his monks. And he finished with this statement. He said, going and going is continuous.

[04:30]

I must be on my way. So, you know, actually this whole talk, I should say, the context, this is a continuation of and this session with the talks on continuous practice. His last message is about continuous practice. And this whole talk is about continuous practice. So he gave this, he said, coming and going is continuous. I must be on my way. And then he slowed his posture and he died. And his corpse, as was the case often for, I guess, prominent monks, maybe prominent people, his corpse was mummified. And then they exhumed it several years later and had a big procession.

[05:35]

Obviously, it's like they mounted it on a palanquin and carried it around. And the mummy was venerated a century. And unfortunately, it disappeared sometime during the Cultural Revolution. So the corpse, the mummy disappeared, but his words are still very much with us. So again, the case is, the world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your seven-piece robe at the sound of the bell? This is a seshin koan, right? Seven-piece robe is yokesa. Some of us have a five-piece robe. five panels or seven panels, and some of us have, well, some of us have an invisible robe that we're always wearing whether we have been given it or not.

[06:42]

This koan seems to ask the question, why? And what I... I think if we look deeply says actually it goes back to how. How do we wear our robe? There's a quotation, a short quotation from Suzuki Roshi that is not always so. I was trying to remember, I have the, when I thought about this seven piece robe, why do we put it on? What came to mind instantly is the expression, this troublesome robe. And, you know, actually a Raksu is pretty convenient.

[07:52]

It's not so troublesome, but this robe is troublesome. It's hard to wear. It's always falling off your shoulders. What Sojin Roshi said to me when I was ordained was the first year is just learning how to wear your robe. And I think reflecting on what Suzuki Roshi said about practice, the first six months, I would say the first year is somewhat of an understatement. It takes longer. And even after several years, sometimes you can get, you know, trying to put on the robe or take off the robe, you get completely lost in it. You get lost in this sea of... Anyway, this quotation from Suzuki Roshi says, real freedom is not limited...

[08:56]

when wearing this Zen robe, this troublesome robe. That was the word I remembered, troublesome. Similarly, in our busy life, we should wear this civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, without being caught by it. And this is where I think It is where Suzuki Roshi and Sojin Roshi's teaching coincide. We should wear this civilization, we should be in this civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, caught by it. The other thing that came to me as I was thinking about this koan this morning was that wearing this robe, whether it's an actual cloth or this invisible robe that we wear, putting on this robe is paradoxically like taking off our old clothes.

[10:24]

and going naked. It's like when we put on this robe, it's like we're putting on bare skin that's exposed to everyone. There's an old gospel song that I love. It's called Two Coats. And the chorus goes like this. You's best thing I ever did do. I took off the old coat and put on the new. So that's how we practice. It's just like a robe or a rakasu or simply when we sit down in zazen.

[11:32]

So in Sojan Roshi's commentary, again, he restates the case. The world is vast and wide. Why at the sound of the bell do monks put on the robes and go to the meditation hall? And he says, why, when there are so many things, other things to do in the world, at the sound of the bell, why does everyone put on their robe and go to the Zendo? In other words, why do you do this? Why are you here in Sishin? On what basis do you choose what you're doing? when there's an infinite variety of interesting activities. What brings us to this activity? He says, the fact that we are here is a pretty good indication that we understand.

[12:46]

So, you know, we understand, we intuit that there is something important and necessary that we're doing here, which is why we come to Seshin. In our Zen practice, we talk about realization or intuition, some kind of direct understanding, but why we actually practice is because of our realization. Even though we may not have a clear picture, or we may not be able to... or even understand it. I love this next sentence. He says, still, there's something very deep that corresponds to and wants to meet itself in practice.

[13:47]

Wish to meet ourself, but it's not the small self that we wish to meet. It's... When Uman talks about the world is vast and wide, we are the world. I am the world. You are the world. And you could say we put on this robe because we want to meet ourselves fully, fully meet ourselves. So a machine like this is a very important part of our practice. In this kind of intense embracing, we meet ourselves in a way that we cannot do in any other way. Even the activity, of course, is meeting.

[14:49]

It is hard to have the same kind of realization as we have when we sit. So he's acknowledging that, strictly speaking, the Buddha Dharma is unfolding in whatever activity we do. It's not something that's limited to Zazen or limited to what we call Zen activity. All of our activity is meeting. But it's hard to have the same kind of realization as we have when we sit. And even though seshin, or sitting long, has its difficulties, our desire for it is very strong. I would say if we have, as of course we all do at times, some sense of ambivalence or perhaps some anxiety about actually sitting at the same time we desire it very strongly.

[16:14]

And Sojin goes on to, now he's offering encouragement. He says, If we have sincere effort, then our realization will be deep. But if our effort is half-hearted, we may have some realization, but strictly speaking, our realization will probably be very shallow. Usually, our realization is proportionate to the amount of effort and sincerity in practice. This effort and sincerity is... It's really evident. It's evident on the screen. It's evident in the Zendo. He says, that's why we don't stress your understanding, but what we stress is your actual practice. This is what... I think this is what we saw in Sojin. What moved him was not...

[17:22]

someone's intellectual understanding or the grasp of the complexity of the doctrines that we're given, what impressed him was just to see us show up in the Zendo. That was his measuring stick for us as students. Do we show up? And when we show up, Do we really make that effort? But just showing up is, you know, you're more than halfway there. So we don't ignore understanding, but understanding without real effort, real practice is just like a picture book. So how we learn our Zen, how we immerse ourself in practice, how we get to true understanding, we say through our pores, not so much through our ears, but through our pores.

[18:34]

Unless we present ourself, whole body and mind, nothing happens. And I think this is Master Uman meant by The world is vast and wide. Our whole body is the world. And the world is in our whole body. And so we present ourselves. We present ourselves, again, we put on this robe and we present ourselves as naked. which can be embarrassing at some of our ages. But it's okay. We accept it the way it is. If we want to learn non-discrimination in its true step, in its true sense, the easy way is through practice.

[19:44]

The comfort is through this practice. Dogen talks about zazen, as this comfortable way. Not learning meditation. Dogen says in Fukunza Zengi, the Zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss. Well, sometimes we're... could use a dose of that repose and bliss. But what he's saying that by it not being meditation is, it's not a thing, it's not a technique, you know, it's just sitting. And that, if we sit and we encounter ourselves in the vast and wide world,

[20:52]

then this repose and bliss can arise. If we know, he says, how we accept this life in its true sense, a discriminating mind, just as it is, if we know how to do that, no matter what happens to us, we feel comfortable. Dogen's comfortable way is a kind of koan. When we first hear it in a comfortable way, like when we hear about this repose and bliss, supposedly, it makes us laugh. But how can you be comfortable in this life? So it just says, if it's uncomfortable, you should look at the rest of your life. And I think

[21:55]

that it's home for for us how can you be comfortable with all the difficulties the real comfort in any situation if you can be comfortable in any situation then you are your own master if you know how to have composure If you don't lose your composure in any situation, we'll all bow down to you. So this composure is an interesting word which Sojourn used often. And we think of it as a kind of gracefulness of being all of one piece. But there's an activity there.

[22:56]

There's the activity of composition. In order to have composure, you have to assemble the various aspects of your being into oneness. It's very much akin to translation of mindfulness or mindfulness, which more literally is translated as right recollection or right remembering. So all go together, it's recollecting, collecting the so-called pieces of ourself. Remembering, it's like putting the members of our body

[24:00]

altogether. And composure. There's an active aspect of this, which is the activity of zazen. Even though it seems that we're not doing much, but sitting there, within that stillness, as we spoke about the other day, there is this activity of There is that activity of composure. And as he says above, if you can be comfortable in any situation, then you are your own master. In Master Mumon's comment of the case, comment, there's a line that says, don't you know that the real Zen student commands sounds, controls forms, is clear-sighted in every event and free on every occasion.

[25:02]

This is exactly what I'm talking about here. To be your own master. Command sounds, control forms, be clear-sighted in every event and free on every occasion. Then I think he moves, not consciously, but sort of in the course of his talk, he goes back to look at this line that we read about why do you put on this seven-piece robe? And so the seven-piece robe is the robe of A monk. And it's interesting.

[26:04]

The robe that I'm wearing. It goes back. 2,000 years. The form of this robe. But. What Sojin says. In Zen Buddhism. People make a distinction. Between lay practice. and priest practice, but it's just practice. And I think this is something that he felt to his core. Anyone can practice wholeheartedly and with sincerity if we really want to. He says, the demands of life are very strong and in order to practice, We have to make special effort to do this instead of something else. I really admire all of you for your practicing.

[27:06]

And I can only echo that. So many of us have been practicing for so long. And it's clear that even in our really... Even in the great... rise in our life, we have faith in this practice. And it's remarkable how deep and how wide that is in this particular community. He says, I think that the effort that's put forth in your practice will be a good example to people. But Zen practice takes a long time. And some of you are relative beginners. Some of us are eternal beginners. He says, in the beginning, sometimes we have some immediate result and our life changes somewhat.

[28:15]

Because of the contrast between our old way and our new way, you can see some immediate result. But as you go along in practice, the contrast between our old way gets obscured And we just find ourself in practice without any obvious change or obvious benefit. And we wonder, is there something to this or not? Maybe I should go else. Usually in our speedy life, we're looking for various kinds of highs. I think initially we see Zen practice as another kind of high. And then we start looking for something else. Well, what's the next thing that will get me high? That certainly was when I came to Zen, you know, it was in the time of psychedelic exploration.

[29:25]

friends who came out here to California to sample Zen had had a pretty substantial experience of mind-altering drugs. And also we had come to this somewhat, it felt exhausting. And I know that I thought maybe there's a way to stay high. And I thought, oh, maybe that'll do it. And I remember going to Dwight Way, climbing the steep stairs to the attic and sitting down under the eaves, which were close in front of me and it surely did not feel like being high.

[30:35]

My legs were uncomfortable and all I could see was, you know, vaguely swimming patterns on the wall that Unlike my psychedelic experience where those patterns would be fantastically interesting, they were not particularly interesting. They were kind of boring. And it's like, is this all there is? But Sojin says, yes. Well, what's the next thing that will get me high? But Zen practice is more like a glacier than a landslide. your whole life of practice moves like a glacier. But if you move with it, your life will have the power of a glacier. If you want to measure your movement, it's maybe an inch and a half and a half or three quarters of an inch a year.

[31:43]

But since our practice is endless, we shouldn't worry about it. So that glacier, we know the power the glacier has to carve valleys and to plow through everything, but it does it in geological time. And sometimes it seems like our Zazen power, if you will, is unfolding in geological time. Whether we have lay practice amongst practice or just practice, The quality of our practice cannot be different. The quality of our practice should be in all of our activity. When you sit, you just sit completely with total freedom. When you wash the dishes, you just wash the dishes with total freedom. When you're driving your car, you're just driving your car with total freedom. Total immersion. Zen practice means mindful, careful practice.

[32:55]

When somebody sees somebody practicing mindful, careful practice, that's an example. The only way we can teach and learn is by example. And the only way that we can actually practice is mindfully and carefully. in Sashin, you should only be thinking, what is my body doing now? It's walking around or it's sitting. So the hands have got a place. We have our hands in a formal way. We have them in Shashu. We have them in Gasho. We have them in a mudra. This is the form of the hands. So we don't walk around with our hands in our pockets. He says, As soon as you put your hands in your pocket, you're someplace else.

[34:00]

This is how we keep our attention focused. This is what happens when we put on, literally or figuratively, this seven-piece robe. We put on this focused attention. He says, and zazen is just this form. we keep our attention on this form. When we walk, we keep our attention focused on just walking. There's no time during seshin that's out of time, that's out of practice. So walking, sitting, even speaking. We only talk when there's some necessity, but that speaking should be mindful speaking. And when we sit down to rest, that resting should be mindful resting. And when you go to the bathroom, that activity should be mindful activity. This is a challenging... to do five days like this.

[35:11]

I think it's the longest we've done in an online sesheen, where we end our formal zazen day at five o'clock, which means we... much of the evening before us until we go to sleep. I hope that, as I was suggesting on the first day, that you found a way, I hope that you found a way to continue your practice through the evening. The pull is really, the pull to do, do other things is really strong. I mean, I felt it, you know, it's like there was a on the television. There was a pull to have a glass of wine, even though I have completely stopped drinking anything like that.

[36:22]

Still, these these patterns are also within us. So I hope that you manage to work with those energies and to contain your session activity, even in this relatively formless moment of the evening. So he says, we keep our attention focused. Pretty much, we make the effort to do one thing at a time. This reminds me of the question and the discussion that I had with Linda Hess yesterday. Just what is nirvana? Seeing one thing through to the end, which also means to me,

[37:26]

At a time. You do one thing. We sit zazen. Then the bell rings. We do kinyin. And the bell rings again. We do service. Just this thing. And then the next moment, this thing. Sometimes we have to do two things at a time. If we do two things at once, then we should be mindful of two things at once. And when our mind starts wandering any time during the day, We should bring our attention back to just what we are doing, just like when we're sitting. That's why the practice that frequently gave is so meaningful to me. If I have to bring my attention back, I simply ask myself, where are my feet? Oh, they're at the end of my legs. And they're touching the ground.

[38:29]

It's like in a moment, in an instant, you can return to zazen by just asking yourself that question. And just asking myself that question right now, all of a sudden, without, I rearrange my legs so that my feet are settled on the floor. So if we practice this way consciously over and over, we'll be able to penetrate zazen. Strong desire to penetrate zazen all the way through. How we extend this kind of activity into our daily life, either consciously or not consciously, is important. When we become totally free, We can give ourself to people.

[39:30]

When we become totally free, then this vast and wide world is not out there. And people aren't out there. We are just in this act of embracing. Before we are totally free, we are always holding ourself back. But real freedom means to give yourself unreservedly. That's the freedom that we have through practice. If someone asks for something, we give it. At least what we can, we give. So, as he sort of winds up, he says, when you really penetrate through and through, you'll realize what it is to be rid of the burden of yourself. Shakyamuni Buddha is always talking about laying down the burden.

[40:40]

So-and-so laid down the burden, has done what has to be done, often the way it's expressed in the sutras. What must be done has been done. And what must be done is just laying down the burden of the self. So it says we have this weight on our shoulders as our self that we're always carrying around. We carry this big sack of self around and it's quite heavy. We all know that. But also if we look at ourselves in the context of in the setting of Zazen or in our life, when we really look carefully, we see it's not always like this. It's not always so. That there are moments when we're not this big bag of self, when we just act freely.

[41:52]

Dr. Sojin, when we can let that go, we will feel light and unburdened and free to do anything. The benefit of this practice is to help us get rid of this burden of self. That's the goal of our practice. So that's why we put on troublesome robe and as I said I feel that to put on this troublesome robe is to take off your old clothes and go go open go receptive to whatever comes our way and responsive to whatever comes our way without it having to

[42:57]

be constantly measured and filtered through these clumsy clothes of ourself. So we can take off those clothes and put on the new. So that's... I will end for today and I really enjoyed just digging into these teachings of SOGINS and talking with you about it and question or some comments. So I'm gonna hand things back to Gary to facilitate the Q&A. So thank you. Good morning.

[43:59]

So we have Q&A. If you have a question, raise your digital hand in the participants window or box. And if you have a question that you don't want to ask, but you want me to ask for you, you can put it in the chat box. Thank you. Hi. Good morning. Good morning. So part of your talk reminded me of this story from the Zen teacher, Odo, which is a story I really like where Uchiyama Roshi is talking about his relationship with Sawaki Roshi and he says something like, I started sitting because I saw Sawaki Roshi and how strong and confident he was.

[45:04]

And I wanted to become like that. If I sit Zazen enough, can I become that way? And Sawaki said, no, like I've always been like this. I haven't changed a bit since I started sitting. And then Uchiyama Roshi goes on to say that through the course of his teacher-student relationship, he verified it was true, that he feels he was always cowardly and that at the end of his practice, he was still as cowardly as he was when he began. So I wonder how you take that story and how we kind of work with that story and this idea that we aren't necessarily going to change character logically in the course of practice. It makes a lot of sense to me. We may not change character logically in one sense of character, but I think in another sense of character, what Uchiyama Roshi was recognizing in Tsawaki was he saw a walking Buddha.

[46:33]

responded to that. And so the process is a process of removing the layers. So there are things about myself that probably are not going to change very much, but there are other things that are in continual evolution. I think the same thing, you know, it's interesting to read and have an opportunity sooner or later to read Sojin's memoir, where you see, you know, he feels these resonances from an early age of who he is in one aspect of his character. It didn't come together. It was catalyzed by meeting his teacher.

[47:35]

And I feel that that certainly was my experience. I think that's lots of our experiences. And that was probably very much the experience that Uchiyama Roshi had on encountering and interacting with people with Sawaki, that when we meet our teacher and when we see this, these layers or this burden of self can fall away or the layers can peel back. And then the great mystery is... kind of what remains, what is our character. So that's a beginning to answer that.

[48:45]

I mean, just to say, what I felt when I came here was an intuitive sense that I had something within me that could become more like the people that I saw around me at Berkeley Zen Center, who I admired. And it felt like they had some taste of ease and comfort that I yearned for. And they were all themselves. They all had the distinct personality. So maybe there's a distinction between personality and character. I'm not sure. It really depends on how you define the terms. But for now, that's it.

[49:48]

Ryushin, unmute, please. Thank you very much. I really appreciated that question. I appreciated your response to it, Hozan. I wanted to add a little different perspective into that question, which is, I feel like there's something about deeply accepting who we are, deeply accepting our characterological tendencies, that they in the way so much. We stop trying to be someone that we're not, or trying to get rid of something that we have. And those difficulties seem to soften or just stop being an obstruction in the same way. One experience I had with Blanche Hartman. I sewed both my ruckusue and my priest robe with Blanche.

[50:54]

which isn't a long time a difference. Blanche had a reputation as being someone who could be overly precise and somewhat reactive and judgmental. And when I saw her tend to do that at times, there was just a little hint of it. She would laugh about it. She would kind of call herself out in the lightest of ways, such that I didn't even feel it. It was like Teflon. It was like those traits had become. So I do think there's something about seeing yourself completely and accepting it that makes it not be an obstruction anymore. Thank you. You know, just when you describe that, certainly that's what I cultivate. I keep thinking of this moment between in the presidential debate between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, when, I know Mondale said something and Reagan's response was, there you go again.

[52:12]

And somehow those words come up to me. That's what I say to myself. There you go again, you know. But it also is what Mumon and Sotra talk about. To penetrate means that you are not controlled by these aspects of your personality. And they can drop away. It's also important, I would say, again, it's important to look at how these aspects of our personality may affect others. And that's always a consideration. And that's a serious matter. But to laugh at ourselves is a really good start. I so agree with everything you're saying. And I feel like in my experience, it's seeing the impact that's really allowed the loosening of the cell.

[53:17]

That it wasn't until that point that some of the other shifts could begin to happen. Yeah. And I'm sure that, you know, I'm just experience. Yeah. It's important for it to be all of our experiences. Yeah. Thank you. Helen, go ahead. I was on. I had a poet tell me once. poets were always looking for something in the room to get high off of. And I'm curious what you think about describing mindfulness or tenderness as a kind of high. It's interesting, you know, I was trained as a poet by a by a wonderful poet and. I think that what his message was very much akin to the Zen teaching was just enjoy what is ordinary.

[54:36]

It's not so much to get high off of, but just to take the immediate pleasure whatever is arising. And actually that's what drew me, what really drew me to Zen was reading Chinese and Japanese poetry where the ordinary kind of luminosity to it. So maybe it's the same thing though. Maybe it wasn't, you know, it wasn't looking for things to get high on, but actually looking for the light in everything. And I'm not sure you may be saying the same thing. How is it for you? I don't know. Yeah, I suppose, well, high is just a, you know, charge term, so.

[55:49]

But I do find the overlaps between meditation and poetry and drugs to be interesting, at the very least. You know, it's good to say, I don't know. And I would encourage you to keep trying to find out. That's actually... your work. Please keep trying. Go ahead, Daniel.

[56:52]

Uh... Um... Hi. Uh... I think... What is it? Is there something, like... Gravid... Like, very, like... Uh... just like unstable about the structure of like certain like that makes it so like why why is it what must be done well um so this is the language of the in the polysutas and this is the uh this is the goal of the practice that is described in that context.

[58:00]

And in that context, the idea was you practice so that you can leave the wheel of birth and death. And when the when the Buddha, when somebody came to that, arrived at that spiritual state, that's when the Buddha recognized them as having done what must be done. And I think for us, that's been somewhat redefined in certainly in Zen practice and in Mahayana practice. And perhaps we can never what must be done has been done because our vow is to

[59:17]

remain in this cycle of birth and death until everybody can be free. So instead of a kind of individual liberation one by one, we're looking at something all inclusive. Now, a Theravadan Buddhist might argue with me about my understanding. For me, what must be done is to accomplish the ability to see through oneself at any moment. To drop the as we can, when we can, but not to pretend that there's no self. So it's a different, it certainly is a different way of looking at Dharma practice.

[60:30]

And the question that, you know, comes back to you and to me is, what is liberation like? for me, but for me as a being who exists in this community and in this vast and wide world, which Master Uman talks about. So again, I have to throw that back to you. Okay? Helen? Good morning, Hauzan. Morning. So you had mentioned having, during Sushin, online Sushin, our days end at 5.

[61:34]

And I found that after 5, despite my intention to not be online and to be fully present and to continue that energy, I jump online. I'm drawn to just be anywhere but with myself. Do you have any words of encouragement for those moments? Be generous with yourself. Forgive yourself. You know what we do. Actually, we know what we do. Yeah, there's no sin in this tradition. And this is why the precepts, as to my understanding, the precepts are points of practice to return to. And, you know, I had to do the same thing.

[62:42]

You know, I found myself online and then I had to ask what was my intention here? And to forgive myself for my trespasses, which are not really trespasses, but keep what is in line with my intention. But to forgive oneself, I think is... That's another opportunity for compassion, I guess. It is. It's an important opportunity for compassion. Some of us can be very judgmental of ourselves, and that's not adding anything helpful to the mix. So thank you for practicing for all your help this week.

[63:50]

If there's one more, we can take that, or it may be just about time to end. But I'm happy to take one more. I think that's it. That's it. Okay. Well, we'll see you. One more thing, just with Shosan, which I didn't say anything about. Shosan is a kind of public question and answer, which we do at the end of Long Sashins. We'll do it, the people in person will ask questions. Everybody online will have an opportunity. So please, Think of a question. In one version of this, it's kind of framed as Dharma combat, which is not what we're doing.

[65:04]

We're just bringing forth together. So think of a question that you and I can explore that's really pertinent to your practice, that concerns you. as it arises from seshin or that concerns you as it arises from your life. And we can share that and everybody present will have an opportunity to witness it. Try to be lean of expression, but it's just a wonderful opportunity for us all to to hear each other in the context of Sangha. Great way to end Sashin. So we'll have that, I don't know what time it starts, 3.30 or something like that. Yes, 3.30. Good.

[66:06]

Okay, we'll close with the Bodhisattva Vows.

[66:10]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.07