A lot of us come to Sashin but live pretty far away from the Zimbabwe. and in the places that are inaccessible to, not inaccessible, but places where we can't easily sit with other people, no zendo. And I would like to, usually I say something like, oh, it's good for you to sit at home, you know, But this time, I want to say, I want you to do that. I want you to really set up a practice for yourself, by yourself.

[01:16]

And just make space in your life for zazen in such a way that When it's time for zazen, you just sit zazen in the same way you would if there were a zendo near you. In order to continue practicing in a way that is beneficial and worthwhile, so that you don't just sit zazen when you come to the zendo for sashin, or once in a while. If you set up that kind of practice for yourself, when you do come to the zendo for sashin, your experience will be a much better experience.

[02:24]

And your daily life will benefit by your daily practice. So I really want to urge you to do that. Not just suggest it. Find some time in your life, in your day, to do that. And you have to do it by yourself because there's no one else to motivate you. In that way, when you become self-motivated, you enter a new stage of practice. It's wonderful to be able to depend on others, but ultimately we have to depend on ourselves.

[03:28]

after practicing with each other in a mutual practice, there comes a time when you find yourself all by yourself as far as there's nobody else around to practice with. Then you have to set up your own practice and be your own teacher. And you have to be The motivation comes from you. And it's the best part of practice to find your own way without any help. It's a real test. Japanese style is more doing everything together. maybe too much.

[04:34]

In the history of Buddhism and Zen, there have always been people who practiced by themselves. Not exclusively, but we have to learn how to do that. We have to learn how to take the practice with us, wherever we are, and be seated in motion, not depend on some place or somebody to do it for us. It doesn't mean that we don't practice together, but when you can motivate yourself, your practice means so much more. to you and to everybody else. And then when we come together, we all enjoy practicing together and learn from each other. So we can go away and come back, go away and come back.

[05:44]

And we don't lose that. contact, that the vitality of practicing together helps us to practice by ourself, and the vitality of practicing by yourself helps us to practice together. So I strongly urge you, to people who don't, who are not in contact with zendo daily, to set up your own practice for yourself, and really stick to it. That's not what I wanted to talk about though, but I did want to say that. What I've been thinking about today is patience. What is patience? Word keeps coming up. Patience, you know, is one of the six paramitas.

[06:54]

When I was thinking about patience, then I started thinking about the paramitas. You know, what goes along with patience? And how is patience supported? Usually, we think of patience as waiting for something. I talk about this once in a while. There are many ways to think about patience. But the way I want to talk about patience is it's somewhat synonymous with equanimity. If you have equanimity, then at the heart of equanimity is patience.

[07:57]

And equanimity is sometimes described as to do something without any expectation of return. Or to do something without any expectation of reward or to keep a balanced attitude so that success and failure doesn't rock the boat. Our boat gets really rocked by success and failure. by the duality of success and failure. And especially in Zazen, we want to be successful. You know, when we come to Szeching, we're going to spend a lot of time here doing one thing, and we want to be successful.

[09:07]

And when we don't, when our result doesn't match our expectations, then we feel like a failure. This is all in the realm of duality. And until we find our true being, our true center in zazen, then we keep getting kicked around by success and failure. And little by little, when we get kicked around enough, if we stay with it and get kicked around enough by the concepts of success and failure, pretty soon we give up and develop a mind of equanimity or patience

[10:16]

which is the ability to just go ahead and do something without any expectation. But that's difficult. So as one of the paramitas, patience, is supported by the other five paramitas, the six paramitas. prajnaparamitas actually because prajna is the sixth paramita and without prajna patients or the other paramitas just become ordinary ways of doing something but because each one of them is supported by prajna they take on a non-dualistic meaning.

[11:20]

So the paramitas, prajnaparamitas, first one is dana, which is generosity. And the second one is shila, which is precepts or sometimes called morality but I don't want to say that. Doing something according to the law is like gravity. Gravity is a kind of law and if you go against the law of gravity, you have problems. So, fundamental law, which is called precepts.

[12:25]

By following the laws, fundamental laws of life, you stay out of trouble. And the third one is patience, kshanti. I think it's the third one. And the fourth one is virya, or energy, effort. And the fifth one is meditation, dhyana, meditation practices. which is not necessarily zazen, but the various meditation practices. Zazen itself covers all six paramitas.

[13:30]

And the sixth paramita is prajna. I always like to quote Dogen's... Dogen Zenji's... It's actually not Dogen Zenji's, it's Liu Jing, his teacher in China. His poem about the wind bell. Most of you know the poem. Something like... You know, the window looks like this. It has a big mouth at the bottom. And he says, his poem about the window is hanging in emptiness, hanging in space.

[14:39]

But space here means emptiness. His whole mouth, his whole body is his mouth. Hanging in emptiness, his whole body is his mouth. From all directions the wind blows. North, east, south and west. And whichever way, direction the wind comes from, it rings the bell. And all day long, the bell is chanting, Prajnaparamita. Ding, dong, ding. Ding, dong, ding. Whatever comes, rings the bell.

[15:42]

The breezes blow. from every direction and the bell. His whole body is his mouth. And he just sings Prajnaparamita all day long. Ding, dong, ding. Each of these paramitas is in pairs. There are three pairs of paramitas. Generosity sometimes means giving gifts. Stereotype is giving gifts or giving dharma. Gifts of material or dharma. But it also means giving yourself completely. Whatever you do, give yourself completely.

[16:45]

Nothing left out. Nothing held back. If you decide to do something, to do it completely, and become completely one with what you're doing. This is Donna. without any expectation. In a dualistic sense, when you do something, you want some reward. So we give to charity, hoping that something will happen, or our feeling we're doing something wonderful for the starving Ethiopians. That's usual sense. But in Dana, You just give and forget. Just give and forget.

[17:46]

We have to have great faith in our life that the world, the universe, supports us. If you have faith, you know, that the universe supports us, then you can support the universe without any expectation. Just give. I don't know where it's going. Do you give money to winos? You may say, I know he's just going to get another drink with it. Dana is just giving without any idea about it. And also having faith in the generosity of the universe.

[19:02]

And then Second paramita is precepts or behavior, guidelines for behavior, to check our behavior so that we stay on the path. And these two are a pair. One is giving completely and the check on giving yourself completely is to have some guidelines. If you only give completely without having some restraint, which is guidelines for your life, you just end up easily in some undesirable spot. Like, if you don't think about the consequences of zazen, you're likely to end up in the zendo, some undesirable place. No, in Zazen we talk about, people complain to me a lot about their mind wandering.

[20:30]

But in Zazen that happens, you know, our mind wanders and we just can't get back very easily to what we want to do. But the same thing happens in our daily life. If we have some strictness in our daily life about what we do and how we do it, we're always getting pulled off. We're always wandering off. Wandering this way and wandering that way. And then when we sit in Zazen, our mind is always wandering this way and wandering that way. And if our life has some strictness to it, some guideline of what to do and how to do it, which is nothing more than some basic framework for practice, then it's pretty hard to stay on any track, like the various vortexes around us,

[21:45]

will suck us right in, which you may have noticed. The various vortexes that are around us, if we don't have a strong standpoint or center, then when something stronger than we are comes along, we're just sucked right into it. And sometimes we wonder what happens to us, and we complain about things. So it's necessary to have strong guidelines and practice them. Then when you do give yourself, you have some structure, some strong framework, so that you don't just spill out all over the place.

[22:46]

And if you only have guidelines, without generosity, then it's called being uptight. Right? Oh, boy, he's stiff. He stinks of zin. Real strong formal practice, but no generosity. And this is something that we easily get caught in. Sometimes we see people, or teachers, who are very strict, you know, very formal, but no heart, no giving, no generosity. So it works both ways, and those two keep each other in check. Then the next two, patience and energy or effort.

[23:51]

If we have nothing but equanimity of patience, then when effort is needed, we'll just be sitting on our behind. Patience can get to be laxity or immobility. And it's one of the problems in Soto Zen practice. One of the problems in Soto Zen practice that we have to be very careful of is not to be too lax or listless. If you sit too much Zazen, then that can happen to you. And so the counter to that is energy, effort. You know, a lot of us like to sit long sashins, a lot of long sashins, and we wonder why there aren't more of them and so forth.

[25:02]

But when we were practicing with Suzuki Roshi, we didn't sit a lot of long sashins. We sat a couple of long sashins a year. And the rest of the time, he said, daily zazen. He always emphasized daily zazen and work. Because he didn't want us to get too attached to zazen. Too attached. And it grew kind of listless. and create some aversion to active practice, active life. So he always put emphasis on, not emphasizing one or the other, active life and zazen, but not some emphasis on one or the other.

[26:09]

And within zazen, within sitting, there's lots of effort, lots of energy. And within activity, there's a calm mind of equanimity and patience. Just being where you are. Just doing one thing at a time. Doing each thing in its time. Everything in its time. We used to watch him. In order to understand his teaching, we'd just watch him. He was never in a hurry. Everything he did was right in time. I've never seen anyone who was so in time, and at the same time, completely not bothered by time. He was never bothered by time. We're all bothered by time. I have to do this and I have to do that and things are piling up on me and I never did see him in that state.

[27:26]

Although he had as much going as we do, if not more. But he was never bothered by time. And never, I don't think never, but almost never. caught by it, but always moving very easily within time, and not loving it, not hating it, and accepting what happened to him, always accepting easily what happened to him, what happens to him. And when our ideas got too strong and we couldn't fulfill our ideals, he would always say, well, we can't be too idealistic, we have to be more

[28:45]

And if we got complacent about what we were doing, he'd say, well, I think we need to do something more idealistic. He didn't say idealistic, but more effort. And so the other two pairs are meditation and wisdom. prajna. And these two classically are samatha and vipashyana. Samatha is practice which produces samadhi, which is like zazen, meditation. And vipashyana is like insight. So, and classically it's called stilling the mind and seeing into the nature.

[29:54]

And of course our Zazen practice is based on that classical, on those classical definitions. Stopping the mind. Stopping and seeing. It's called stopping and seeing. Stopping is Zazen. And seeing is also Zazen. That's why Zazen doesn't fit into the definitions. Zazen includes everything that we do. But, strictly speaking, meditation is stopping the mind. Stopping everything. And that samadhi is produced. Produced may not be right. and seeing everything as it is. And so samadhi and prajna are a pair and they always complement each other.

[31:04]

And you can't really separate them. We only separate them in order to talk about them. So these are practices, these are bodhisattva practices, the six perfections, and we practice them in zazen. Whenever we sit zazen, we're practicing the six paramitas. And you practice them in your daily life. Same way. So how we bring, you know, how We see tsazin in our daily life as the same thing, same thing, same thing, as the same song. You can see that through the paramitas. And so I just offer that because it's classical practice.

[32:12]

and it's something that we can do. We don't even have to mention the word Buddha. Do you have any questions? Yeah, when you're thinking about not thinking, what is the activity that your mind is doing? What are you doing? Well, let me... modify your sentence. You have to be careful with your words. You don't think about not thinking. If you're thinking about not thinking, then you're making an object of thinking, and you're thinking about it. So, the sentence is very carefully worded. Think, not thinking. It's not, think about not thinking. Think, not think, really.

[33:15]

Think, not think. If we explain it, then you fall into think about not thinking, and you create a duality. It's meant to be a koan. And if you explain it, it's not a koan. It's meant for you to sit in zazen and think, and think, not think. Think, not think. It's a little tricky to translate because of our ing endings, ing endings. But think, not think, ing. Not think about not thinking. But when, you know, that's all I'm going to say about it. And it's... I'm sorry. always there with us.

[34:18]

When you stop complaining about it, when you stop complaining about the thoughts in your mind, you're getting closer. When you stop complaining about the pain in your legs, you're getting closer. I used to know someone who liked to practice virtuous things. And this person said... Practice what? Virtuous things. And this person said, never pray for patience. Never pray or never try to be a patient person. Because as soon as that was something you wanted, you would be sure to get lots of things in your life that would demand that you learn how to be patient. Which was a pretty drastic disaster. Very tricky. It's like...

[35:20]

desire, you know. Asking for something is in the realm of desire. And ordinarily we deal with desire in various ways and we kind of rough it through life in the realm of desire because of space. We have space and so we rough it through the realm of desire. But in Zazen or in Sachine, we don't have any space at all to deal with desire. I mean, there's not a gimlet. You can't get a gimlet in there. But there's no space to deal with desire. And as soon as it comes up, it changes everything. As soon as it comes up, everything changes. Because we're sitting there, and something comes up, like pain or discomfort or ideas or thoughts, and we desire to have it some other way.

[36:28]

But there's no space. As soon as we desire to have it some other way, it just gets worse. There's no space. We constantly have a stick up. You know, we don't have to walk around with those sticks. It's there, you know, just in your mind. Create it. We have to desire something. You know, we do desire. We do desire things. But the problem is, how do we direct our desire? We say in our vows, desires, we should get rid of them. But that means not all desire. You can't get rid of desire. Otherwise you become flaccid or melt into the woodwork. You can't get rid of desire.

[37:31]

But how do you direct desire so that it's not desire? in the usual sense. When you start dealing with these questions, they all become koans in this realm. And that's another koan in zazen, the koan of desire. When your legs start to hurt, of course you don't like that. And desire, you know, I wanted to, you know, five minutes ago it was feeling good, and now it's not feeling good. And the more you do that, the worse it gets, because you've broken your unity. As soon as you break your unity, you fall into hell.

[38:34]

So how do you keep body and mind unified? When we talk about unifying body and mind, that's what we're talking about, being one. If you desire it to be some other way, you're breaking your bond. So as long as you have your bond, seamless bond, No problem. How do you know what would be too much or too little Well, if you go to Sashim, you know, there used to be people who used to Sashim hop.

[39:49]

That was the fact. They'd go from one Sashim across the country to Sashims, you know. And they were very much attached to Sashim. They enjoyed it very much, for whatever reason. And there was no other direction in their life. They were just attached, whereas practice is more than just sitting sushis. It's the continuity of daily life, getting your life in order. If the only way you can get your life in order is to sit sushis, then that's being dependent. I mean, there is a certain order, you know. If you sit nothing but satchins, you don't have to do anything else, you know, and your life becomes very simple. But there's the other side of activity which you're not paying attention to in order to complete, to have a rounded practice.

[40:56]

Isn't it necessary to initially to learn and to see the depth of practice to go to put full body and soul into the effort initially to see what's happening? Yeah. Yeah. Well then, it would seem that that level of intensity is necessary, at least initially. No. No. No. If you, you know, you're fortunate enough to then your practice will be balanced with sitting and activity. And most of your life will take place in the realm of your activity rather than, when I say activity I mean outside of the zendo.

[42:00]

The zendo is also activity, but outside of the zendo. That's where you need to practice the most. It's not just you go out there and then come back here to practice. Where you need to practice the most is out there. Would you say that the opposite of patience is frustration? Well, frustration is anxiety. expectation. Something, somewhere in there. Yeah, that's what we were trying to say.

[43:23]

Yeah, not to try to think or not think. Cohen's still there. But... you know... I think that we... a lot of us make a mistake in thinking that because we get pulled off that we're bad or that our concentration is not good. But real concentration... there are two ways to think about concentration. One is to think that we should be, you know, like... like that, you know. The other kind of way of thinking about concentration is we're concentrating, but we get lost, and then we come back, and then we get carried off, and then we come back.

[44:34]

And the real concentration is to bring ourselves back, is to know when you're lost and to come back. If you just stay out there, when you get carried off. That's not concentration. But if you keep remembering to bring yourself back, then that's real practice and real concentration. It's very hard to just be in the whole time. You rolled your eyes at me, right? Okay, you didn't mean anything by that. Susan. That's desire. Doing some other activity? That's just desire. That makes your legs hurt worse.

[45:37]

I'm serious. No, seriously. That's the most serious thing here. Seriously. As soon as you go against, as soon as your practice becomes an adversary, as soon as whatever is happening to you becomes an adversary, it's too bad. You create your own hell. Painting your legs as your companion just goes along with you. And you just go along with it. Or your discomfort, or your edginess, or anxiety, or rather be someplace else.

[47:03]

Just bring it along with you. Don't let it take you away. And how do you know when it's appropriate to be the machine, or it's appropriate to be something else? Well, when it's the machine, that's it. If you can, when the time comes and you can do it, please do it. If you can't do it, You put yourself into a kind of funny position, you know, because if you think that it's a punishment, the session is not a punishment.

[48:11]

It's not like that. If you think of it as that, then you create a bigger problem. We don't sit here because of punishment, although, you know, we have a big problem, problem comes up, but we deal, we face that problem, because it's a very vital problem.

[48:42]

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