I vow to chase the truth, the love, the tenderness, the rightness. One of the most important dharmas for us to be aware of is the dharma of mindfulness. And Ram talked about it on Monday. I want to talk about it a little more.

[01:04]

Mindfulness appears in various forms in all of our activity, but especially in our wholesome activity, what we call wholesome activity. Because mindfulness is so pervasive, it appears as attention in various forms and as a path factor, that is, as a factor of the Eightfold Path and various paths within Buddhism. Eightfold path is one path, but there are many co-existent paths in Buddhism, and mindfulness always appears as a basis.

[02:22]

And we can talk about mindfulness just in our usual daily life, but as a path factor, it's called right mindfulness. All the path factors are called right factors, and the word right means, that's a translation, but it means factors which are conducive to liberation. So we can have mindfulness in various activities, but that mindfulness is not directed toward liberation. or it's not directed toward the path to liberation. So right means mindfulness which is directed toward liberation or directed toward the path or toward the goal of Buddhism.

[03:26]

And when we talk about mindfulness, that's the kind of mindfulness we're talking about. We're talking about so-called right mindfulness. as a factor of the path. So, you know, in our daily life, it's easy for us to get lost, especially as a layperson, to get disoriented. because our life is so complex and complicated and we have to take care of so many things that we forget what we're doing. Easy to forget what we're doing. And if we only have a very weak understanding of path, then we just get blown around by things very easily.

[04:38]

So it's really important to have a very strong sense of path. Of course, how we get a strong sense of path is by practice. The most important factor in gaining a sense of practice is through zazen and through continuous practice of zazen and associated practices which are associated with zazen. And to study and to keep our attention focused on what is practiced within all of our activities. So that takes a lot of attention and dedication. And it means that we have to really want that kind of freedom, which is Buddhist practice, and that we want to maintain it.

[05:48]

So, first we have to have the desire, and then we have to have the energy and committedness to maintain our practice. Right mindfulness keeps bringing us back to practice, keeps bringing us back to our intentions, and keeps returning us to realization of how our life is going. Mindfulness is sometimes called recollection. It doesn't necessarily mean... recollection means kind of remembering, but not remembering in the sense of, oh I forgot, but remembering in the sense of remembering, putting the members back together, putting all the members of your practice into a whole piece.

[07:07]

And that's the most obvious form of mindfulness. And in our daily life, in order to know what we're doing, we have to be able to see our various activities in the realm of mindful practice, or in the realm of path. What is the path? We can do some activity, but it's either the path or it's not the path. So it's not that there are some activities which are very obviously the path, except that unwholesome activities are to be avoided, and wholesome activities are to be cultivated. So sometimes the path is called cultivation. Chinese always call the path cultivation.

[08:16]

Cultivating the way means that you work at it and your life is like a garden. Your life is like a garden. And you take out the weeds and you cultivate those wholesome plants that are desirable. A good garden also has weeds, you know, but you don't let the weeds choke off the good plants or the desirable plants. So we love weeds, you know. Weeds are very interesting and in some cases very desirable. Sometimes weeds help the other plants. But if the weeds grow up with the plants, and then you pull out the weeds, because they grow up together, the plants fall over.

[09:25]

If you've ever worked in a garden where the weeds and the plants that are desirable grow up together, the plants are being supported by the weeds. and they look very nice and healthy, but when you take out the weeds, the plants all fall over. So, it's better to leave some weeds, but mostly we cultivate the plants by taking the weeds out so that the plants have a way of gaining their own strength without leaning on the weeds. So our life is kind of like a garden, very much so. And we need to know which are the right plants to cultivate. These are called wholesome dharmas. And the plants that we don't cultivate we call unwholesome dharmas.

[10:35]

So in order to be mindful of how to practice moment to moment when we encounter something. How do we practice with that thing? That's the point. And in each situation, how do we encounter that situation so that we know this is cultivating the path or this is not? When Thich Nhat Hanh was at Tassajara recently. He introduced to the students a way of cultivating mindfulness by writing gathas. Gathas are short, very short saying or

[11:43]

Not a poem exactly, but a kind of short thing that you say to yourself, or that you respond with, that's a very ancient way of expressing yourself. Maybe just a few lines. And gathas have been popular in Buddhism since the beginning. And when I was at Sokoji, in San Francisco, studying with Suzuki Roshi, we put out a little booklet of gathas that, maybe from Dogen's time, or at least that monks used in the monastery. We actually used some of those gathas.

[12:56]

The robe chant is a gatha like that. We put our robe on top of our head and then we chant the robe chant before we put our robe on. So we chant that every morning. That's a gatha. So gatha in that sense, you can have a gatha in various senses, but sometimes, you know, like someone would ask the sixth patriarch a question or he would come back with some response which was a gatha. If you listen to my gatha, you will understand what I mean. That's what he would say. But this kind of gatha that Thich Nhat Hanh did with the students was when the student encountered something, some activity, they would make up a gatha or recite a gatha that turned that activity into mindfulness, right mindfulness.

[14:06]

So I'll read you some of these gathas. I just recently got the one from Tassajara when I was down there. This is the little gatha book that we had at Sokoji, a little book on gathas. And the first one is when waking up in the morning. And this gatha says, you can recite this gatha in the morning when you wake up. This morning, as I wake, I vow with all sentient beings to attain awakening to everything without throwing off the world." This is a Mahayana gatha. It's very interesting because to attain awakening, you know, is to be free of everything.

[15:16]

So there's a little koan in there. True awakening is to be free of everything, to be free of the world. And the koan is to attain awakening to everything without throwing off the world. That's a very major koan. This is a gatha which we used to chant in Zen Center for a long time. When we used to have tea at an informal meal where we didn't want to chant a long meal chant, we would say, now as I take food and drink,

[16:20]

I vow with all sentient beings to partake with the pleasure of Zen and to fully enjoy the Dharma." Then we all used to laugh, sometimes, because our legs used to hurt a lot in those days. And then after the meal, We used to say, or the tea, or whatever it was, we used to say, now I have taken food and drink, I vow with all sentient beings to be full of pure practice and filled with the ten powers. Ten powers is a kind of a Hinayana practice. You find that a lot of these gathas and sayings and a lot of the things within our own service have roots in the Hinayana practice.

[17:33]

Another gatha before going to bed is, tonight before I sleep I vow with all sentient beings to still all things and to clear the mind of confusion. You notice all these Gatas say, with all sentient beings, they always say that. And with all sentient beings is a very important mindfulness, part of mindfulness. What I do is not just something that I do all by myself, for myself. That's mindfulness which is not connected.

[18:55]

It's not right mindfulness in the sense of understanding. Correct understanding is, with all sentient beings, I do this and I do that. If we always have that in mind, then we're connected with practice. then whatever we do is a form of practice. With all sentient beings, I carry this board. This is a little book that they made up at Tassajara after Thich Nhat Hanh left. of some of the gathas which they made up, the students made up. I like some of the ones in the back.

[20:00]

One very good one, the last one that I like a lot is on sneezing. Thus may we be one body, speech, and mind on each occasion. You know, when you sneeze, it's almost like quats, you know, like a shout. If you give a real shout, everything stops. The whole world is contained in that shout. And all the senses, and mind are completely focused and contained in that shout, if it's a good shout. And there's no inside or outside, and no self or other. This is the meaning of a good shout.

[21:08]

And when you sneeze, though, a good sneeze is something like that, you know? Everything comes together. But don't do it in the Zen, though. Mindfulness in the Zen, though, you know, is to... If you cough, cough like this, you know, so that you don't disturb other people. And when you sneeze, you do it gently, so that you don't make a scene or attract attention to yourself. That's mindful practice. With all sentient beings, I blow my nose quietly so that I don't disturb people and draw attention to myself. But this is great. May we be at one, body, speech, and mind on each occasion. When you sneeze, that's what this person felt.

[22:12]

Oh, this is a good one on walking. As I walk, may I realize each step is right here. That's very good. In our dharma class, we wanted to think of some dharma that we could focus on during the week. And what we came up with was the dharma of contact, just bare contact, in walking. So when your foot touches the ground, you just notice contact, contact. Walking, that's walking.

[23:35]

You can say this to yourself as you walk to really focus on your feet as each step comes into contact with the ground. It's a little different when you have your shoes on. One thing you notice is it's much different with your shoes on than it is with your shoes off because your feet don't come in contact with the ground. Your shoe comes in contact with the ground. So your foot is always coming in contact with your shoe. It's so nice to walk on the zendo floor because you have your foot in contact with the floor. Much different feeling. And when we come into the zendo, really, mindfulness of walking in the zendo, very important. To realize how your feet are touching the ground.

[24:39]

And when you take a step in kinhen, to realize how your feet are touching the ground, to really be focused on feet touching ground, feet touching floor. And when you walk in the Zen Do, serving, to be aware of feet touching floor. If you're aware of feet touching floor, you can do everything else perfectly. Everything else follows from that. All of your activities, all of your actions follow from the feet-touching floor. You have very little trouble. But if you don't have the awareness of the feet-touching floor, it's not so easy to move carefully or mindfully or gracefully. So this is a very important katha. You can practice it anywhere, anytime. And it always brings you back to mindfulness of practice.

[25:48]

And in vipassana meditation, mindfulness of walking is the basis, one of the most important basis of their meditation. So when you're walking quickly, you notice walking quickly. And when you walk slowly, you notice walking slowly. You always know what you're doing. When I was at Tassajara, at Tassajara, you always bow to everybody every time you meet them. And if there are not so many people, And you're always crisscrossing in certain places, constantly bowing to people. And so it's a big koan. It's what I call Suzuki Roshi's koan of excessive bowing, which he left us.

[26:55]

So people have different takes on how to bow, you know, should you bow to somebody always, should you always stop? That was one of the questions from people, should you always stop? Well, basically we should stop and bow. That's the nicest way. It means that you just forget everything else that you're doing. And somebody said, well, you know, it says somewhere that when For monks, you know, this is in the old Theravada tradition, when you come within 40 feet of each other and see each other, then you bow, 40 feet apart. And then with your head down, so that you don't catch somebody's eye, you pass each other. Usual monastic practice, you know, is to be concentrated on your activity. not concentrated on other people so much.

[28:06]

This is usual monastic practice. You're concentrated on your activity in harmony with others, but you're not focusing on others so much. You're focusing on the mindfulness of feelings and mental activity and consciousness. And so you keep your eyes averted from other people's eyes. You don't want to get into some kind of contact with someone else's eyes which is distracting. We think a lot about a lot of eye contact, you know, in our practice. Not our practice, but In America, we think a lot of eye contact.

[29:08]

It's very important. And it is. I think we have a different way of... different need, you know, because we're so isolated from ourselves and from each other, we need eye contact. But... It's important, I think, to think about why and how these people felt in their meditation practice or in their monastic practice, the various reasons they have for various practices which don't seem so good to us. Anyway, So bowing is a big koan. If you do it a lot, then you really have to think about what it is you're doing.

[30:15]

And you really have to come to terms with it. If you're superficial, that will come back to you. So it's a way of working with your sincerity and understanding. And one of my observations was that people are very intent on what they're doing, on where they're going. And in this big world, we're also intent on where we're going, what we're doing, what our activity is. that we can't stop, and we feel this resistance in stopping to meet. Or in this resistance of stopping, we feel if we stop that our momentum will be lost, or our goal will be lost.

[31:21]

But in Buddhism, the goal is to be able to stop and then resume. To be able to have composure in each moment. So if you stop, maybe the world will fall apart. But just stopping. Everything comes to a stop. And then we resume. Actually, nothing's lost. But we feel that it's going to be lost. So our activity gets more and more frantic. And so one good practice of mindfulness is to be able to stop when you're in a hurry, or to be able to stop when something is asking something from you. And you don't want to stop.

[32:24]

You don't want to pay attention to that. But to be able to let go and just pay attention with attention, Very important practice. So here's one on waiting. Waiting, I recall the mind of patient abiding and the beings who are waiting for me to help them to freedom. There's a couple here on making love. One is, two brought to one, uniting all duality. And the next one is, now as we begin to make love with all sentient beings, they didn't put that in there.

[33:36]

May all beings be happy and warm within and without. That's a nice thought. Oh, I'm sweating. Now, may this sweat nourish all the small things of the air, and may this breath return to the green things of the earth. So, the gist here is that in all of your activity, you're hoping, you're actually turning it over. turning over the merit, maybe. In our echo, we always say we turn over the merit to all sentient beings. May the merit of this chanting be turned over to everyone.

[34:37]

And this is the same sense. May the merit of whatever I'm doing, or may this activity benefit everyone. So that's being mindful of the vow, of the bodhisattva vow. This is one after a serious accident. This accident brings me to the thin line of life and death. Frivolous matters are gone. This teaching vast beyond vastness. Well, here's one for when you feel taken advantage of. Like a rock when it's being sat upon, may I with all beings awaken to the wonder of my own situation.

[35:46]

That's very good. I think it would be good for us to make up our own gathas. I think it would be a very good kind of project to include us all in this kind of mindfulness. You can make up a gatha on any occasion. And we could collect our own gathas and see what they come out to be. And I think it would be a big aid in mindfulness of practice. You know, a gatha on your job, a gatha for when you meet somebody on the job

[36:53]

you, gives you some problem. How do you turn that into mindful practice, that situation? Some difficulty, yeah, or just some way, you know, minding yourself, minding your activity into practice. Here's one for pulling weeds.

[37:55]

Pulling these weeds, I vow to remember that nothing comes or goes. That's a very good one. And picking vegetables. Picking these vegetables, mindful that plants give their lives that I might live. And here's one that's very interesting. It's called setting a trap. In Tassajara, they always have a lot of trouble with gophers. And if you don't get rid of the gophers, you can't grow anything. Because you can watch, there's a row of carrots, And you can, as you're watching the carrots, you watch them go... Very discouraging.

[39:03]

It's also amusing. But no carrots for you. So... I don't know what they do now, but they always used to set traps. And it was very controversial. Should Buddhists set traps for animals? Yes. But then they got have-a-heart traps, which are traps, you know, that trap the animal but don't snap on them. Then you can remove the animals to some other place. But those, they work to a certain extent. It's a big problem. So this person, He said, setting a trap. This is the gatha. Setting a trap, setting aside ill will, begging forgiveness. I remember also, at Tassajara, there's a season, especially in the summer, when the flies are just real thick.

[40:12]

And everywhere just flies, especially around the eating area. So we always had fly traps of one kind or another. And there was always the controversy, well, should we kill flies, you know? And Sisyphus said, well, we have to kill the flies, otherwise we can't be here. So, I remember collecting a bit, collecting huge jars of flies and fly traps and then burying them and chanting, burning them actually, and then chanting the sutra. You don't want to kill something, but you have to kill things. So what do you do when you kill them? What do you do with your thoughts and your feelings when you kill them?

[41:19]

you at least pay some respect to them. You're mindful of the fact of what you're doing and respectful that you have to do this. Even though the first precept says, do not kill, yet we're always killing something. So that's another good koan for us. Koan of no killing. Do you have any questions? I'll just read one or two more.

[42:35]

One is experiencing distraction. This is distraction. It's very good. This is distraction. That's mindfulness. May all beings learn to stay with even dark and confusing thoughts and attain the clarity beyond clarity of Buddha's way. And here's one on facing danger. Making peace with fear, I give myself to Buddha, his teaching, and his family. And here's one on calming oneself. Calming the body and mind, I breathe in. Calming the body and mind, I breathe out. I hope that every person will be nourished and restored to wholeness. And one on receiving forgiveness after making a mistake. Receiving forgiveness from everyone, I continue gratefully.

[43:45]

That's good. I'll stop here.

[44:13]

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