I vow to taste the truth of the Tantric's words. Last week I did seven days Sashin at Green Gulch. And it's wonderful being in an environment where you just practice, where your whole world is just zazen for a week. And when I came back this morning, and I came into the Zen Dojo, a wonderful feeling to walk into the zendo and everybody was sitting zazen and to eat breakfast with oreo cake with everybody was a wonderful feeling.

[01:17]

I really felt like when I stepped into the zendo I like coming home I was thinking this morning when I was eating breakfast in the zendo about what is... It struck me when we were doing the meal chant about what is this about? And it really came home to me that what it's about is living in our hara living, that our life comes from here. So often we feel that our life comes from here. But in our Zen practice, we zero in on the fundamental place

[02:34]

all of our activity emanates from our hara. So when we sit zazen, we center on our, this is a central point of our concentration. And all of our activity emanates from that point. So when we sit zazen, all of our energy is drawn into that point down here. And when we move out from Zazen, all of our energy is expressed from that point. So, in and out, back and forth from the solar plexus, or that sunspot. I like to think of it as solar being the sun,

[03:39]

and all the rest of our parts being the satellites for that sun, including our thinking mind. So in zazen, we go beyond our thinking mind. And we concentrate on all of our activity as it emanates from our sunspot, solar plexus, hara. So in Zen practice, how we concentrate is to be aware of all of our movements and actions and direction as emanating from that vital point.

[04:44]

So when we chant, our chanting has to be concentrated from here. We have various sources of chanting anywhere from here on up. Sometimes it just comes from our lips. Zen training is focused in this way. That's why chanting expression, verbal expression, is always very strong in Zen practice, and especially chanting. I don't like to use a lot of shoulds, but I'm going to say should. Anyway, should come from being very strong and concentrated in that way.

[06:04]

At the end of Sashin, yesterday, we had Shosan ceremony. I hate to call it ceremony, although it is rather ceremonious, but it's Shosan reality, question and answer. And one fellow said, you know, I can't I can't stand the chanting. That was his statement to me. He says, I hate chanting. I said, oh. I said, you don't like the way we chant. He said, everybody laughed. And I said, yes, I understand very well. Because somehow, it's never gotten to us. where the source of chanting comes from. And so it's always a pain. Quite often it's painful because it's shallow.

[07:18]

And we don't, it's hard for us to get to it. Anyway, it took then 500 years to develop in Japan. So, little by little, I think we need to work on verbal expression, which is chanting. and finding the source of words and the source of sound. So in Zen, you know, a big shout is always appreciated.

[08:28]

when it's at the right time and expresses something real. I always think of when the Kokyo announces the chant that it's like sending your voice into the universe. The Indians American Indians sometimes would go up on top of a mountain for various reasons. Maybe when they needed to express themselves and just send their voice into the universe. We sometimes tend to send our voice into the floor. so that nobody will hear us.

[09:38]

We kind of don't feel confident about ourselves in a lot of ways. And for us to actually be able to listen to ourselves, if you're a singer, professional, or if you're brought up as a child, and people tell you you have a nice voice, then you don't mind appearing in public with it. But most of us are shy. We're shy of our voices. And when you put your voice out there, it's like putting yourself out there. Even maybe it's like taking off your clothes in some way and standing out with everybody judging you. So I think it's important to create an atmosphere where a person can feel safe, okay, you know, to unveil themselves in that way.

[11:02]

feeling is that everybody has a wonderful voice. Sometimes we say, oh, so-and-so has a beautiful voice, but so-and-so doesn't have such a good voice, so forth. But I think good voice just means freedom, to be able to let your voice, send out a voice that has, that's the source of which is freedom. And everybody says, oh, that's a good voice. Everyone's voice is different. We all have a different voice, but each one is perfect and beautiful when it just is free, completely free. So how we find that freedom is important. how we find the freedom to just send our voice out into the universe.

[12:07]

When we can send our voice out into the universe, we always get a response. The universe responds. when we present ourself wholeheartedly, we always get a response. When we withhold, we get a withheld response. The universe is like a mirror of ourself and holds up. The universe holds up a mirror to us and bounces back. Mirror is not necessarily something shiny.

[13:17]

Even a tile can be a mirror. I really want to encourage us I think the fundamental thing about our practice is to find where our life comes from, to find the source of our life and how it emanates into the world. I really think this is what Zazen is. In that way, each one of us is the center of the universe.

[14:19]

Not in an egotistical way, but when we find our center, our center is no other than the center of the universe, which each one of us has, where each one of us is the center of the universe. If we think only I am the center of the universe, that's egotistical. But if we realize that everyone else is also the center of the universe, then each one of us comes from that same center, and we all share life in common. Someone else was asking me about verbal communication.

[15:30]

during practice. They appreciated the fact that we all kept quiet during Zazen, but wanted to know why exactly. What were the reasons that we don't talk during Zazen? But when I think about it now, this kind of communication from here and from here easily obscures this kind of communication. This kind of communication, if it comes from here, it's connected. But there are various levels. It's like levels of water.

[16:35]

So when we don't talk, we have to rely on something else. And sometimes we get lost. If we're used to communicating only verbally, and that's cut off, then we get lost sometimes. So Zazen and Sushin gives us an opportunity to find ourselves. in a deep way, and communicate in a deep way. When each of us finds our own deep center, we all meet there. It's a place where we all meet. And then there's no question of communication. There's something that we all understand together. It's deeper than anything you can say about it.

[17:43]

which reminds me of the koan of Hyakujo Zenji, when a monk asked him, what is the most wonderful thing? And Hyakujo said, sitting on top of Mount Dayuho, just sitting on top of his feet, And the monk bowed to him, and Yagujo hit him. Bam. Mount Dayuho is a Japanese transliteration for a Chinese mountain, which means something like sublime peak. Yakuja Zenji is talking about coming from here, being settled in himself completely.

[19:36]

You know, the Africans, there's certain Africans who make stools, they make wooden stools, and the whole tribe makes wooden stools, carry them around with them all the time. And then when they meet each other, they sit down on the stools and talk to each other. I remember seeing that documentary about that one time. It was really quite wonderful. I mean, their whole artistic effort, the men, goes into making these beautiful stools. And they just carry them around with them all the time. It's kind of social. And they just sit down, you know, and talk to each other. And so stools are very important to their seat, you know, where they're seated, and the kind of dignity about sitting in a certain posture and communicating.

[20:47]

In the same way, you know, Gakujo's Mt. Dayuho is like one of those seats. Wherever he goes, he takes his seat with him. Maybe his zafu, but we have zafus, right? Some people take their zafu with them wherever they go. But you don't need to have a carved seat or a zafu. But where is your seat? Where is your mountain? It's the most wonderful place wherever you are. Mount Taihu looks like maybe some peak in China, but actually spreads over the whole earth. It may come up to maybe a seat three feet wide at some point, but then it slopes down and continues all over the earth. So wherever he is, whatever he's doing, he always knows where he's at.

[22:08]

This is the most important thing for a Zen student, to always know where you are and not ever be knocked off your seat, wherever you are. Nothing can push you off your seat. Why is that? Something else I was thinking about our practice when I was at Sishin was how we take care of people.

[23:12]

When I go to Sishin, I spend most of the time in Doksan talking to people. And then, at the same time, I spent my time in Dokusan, and as much as I can to get into the zendo, to sit with everybody, and to figure out how to do that. And at the same time, to create a lecture every day. Some people sometimes say, well, you don't get much of a chance to sit zazen. And it sounds a little funny to me, because I feel like I'm always sitting zazen. Even if I'm sitting talking to somebody, we're sitting with our legs crossed. And it's zazen.

[24:18]

The words. mean something, but they're a vehicle for zazen. The words themselves are zazen. But I also realized that as your practice matures, you take a position which allows other people to just enter concentration. or to just enter absorption. And it occurred to me, you know, we always say, Bodhisattva vow is not to enter nirvana until all sentient beings have entered nirvana. And that sounded a little strange. What that means is you devote your life to giving people the opportunity to enter absorption.

[25:34]

And you take care of them so they can do that. So as your practice matures, you take on a position or a role of instead of sitting zazen and zendo, you take care of the practice so that everybody can sit. And it looks like you're giving up something, but actually doing that is just another form of absorption. But it's necessary way, as we reap, not reap the benefits, but as our practice gets deeper and deeper, we turn ourself over to naturally to helping other people to practice.

[26:47]

And that becomes our true practice. And that's, as Bodhisattva, that's where our practice goes. So as we continue to sit and practice understand what's going on, more and more we begin to help other people to do it. And then little by little we turn into teachers, just naturally. And we no longer worry about whether we're getting something or not.

[27:58]

As long as we're giving something, as long as we're always offering something, that in itself is its own reward. So a teacher refines the students, and the students refine the teacher. It's just different positions, but the process, that vital process, goes on from both sides. So when I left Green Gulch, everybody said, oh, thank you so much. you know, or me. But actually, I had to thank them for helping me to mature my practice. Helping them help me to mature my practice.

[29:06]

So there are two stages in our practice. One is when you begin, you're pulled along by practice like a barge. And a tugboat pulls you along. And at some point, the barge turns into a tugboat and becomes its own motivation, has its own engine. So in the beginning we depend a lot on motivation of others. And then at some point we turn and become a motivating force. That's the beginning of maturity. Where we can actually encourage others and have our own motivation for practice. I think it's good for, even though we emphasize a lot practicing together, and we should, there's another should, but it's good for each one of us to practice alone for a period of time and be your own Zen master or mistress.

[30:38]

to practice alone the way you would practice if there was somebody telling you how to do it. That way you find out what your own motivation is and you strengthen your own, you strengthen your practice. So I I think it's good to develop some kind of retreat practice where people do a retreat by themselves and have a schedule where they get up every morning and sits on it by himself and follow it. Religiously, follow it. religiously.

[31:45]

Find out what your ability is to lead yourself and to sustain a practice by yourself. That really gives you confidence. If you can sustain a practice by yourself in the same way that you could with other people motivating you and pulling you along and helping you, then you gain a lot of confidence and it's easier. Then you can help other people. So purpose of our practice is to find yourself and to help others to find themselves. And sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's hard, but it doesn't matter so much.

[32:57]

When you can do it wholeheartedly, then it's a very rewarding feeling that your life has some meaning. Is there anything you'd like to talk about? Holden? I'd like to talk a little more about that earlier when you were talking about, you know, putting our voice out into the universe, but, you know, like, coming from the heart, and then, like, not putting myself out directly, but just letting me talk. And there can be a lot in that, you know, both talking and not talking. But I think that that's a difficult practice to learn because sometimes when we're just with each other and we're not talking, you know, being an unenlightened person, what I tend to do then is assume that I know what something means to the other person and I assume that, you know, a certain behavior means this or that and what I've been

[34:27]

So it's important to know how to get feedback back and forth so that I'm not just putting my ego out. I'm not coming to you for it. I'm just putting my ego out. Well, it's easy to get mixed up sometimes. Sometimes you can't tell the difference. Lots of times it's easy to get mixed up. What's ego and what's really letting everything drop? Well, once we can do something well, we sometimes like to show it off. That's kind of ego. And sometimes it's okay. Maybe there should be ego. Maybe it's necessary to have some ego out there. We really beat up on the poor little ego, or big ego, whatever it is, sometimes. Maybe too one-sidedly. We have to have some kind of ego out there to encourage us sometimes, you know?

[35:38]

I'm just going to quote Jesse Jackson. I may have before, I forget, but he said you have to have your ego before you can give it up. I think he got that from some Zen Tai Chi guy. I wanted to ask you why that teacher hit a student after you vowed to him in the story you told us. Oh, why did he hit the teacher? Jack the Jack. I mean, why did the teacher hit him? Well, if you read the commentary, you know, That's open to, what do you think about it? Interpretation. Interpretation. And usual interpretation is something like, the monk was trying to see if he could trip up the teacher.

[36:42]

This is kind of common in those days. To see if he could unseat the teacher. And there's a little sarcasm in his voice or something. And so when he asked the question, you know, and then Hyakujo gave him the answer, and then the monk bowed very low and deep, you know, and said, oh, thanks for your wonderful answer. And he went, poof! But my feeling is, That he was bowing to Hyakujo because... But Hyakujo probably didn't really understand what he meant. He had a very narrow understanding of what he meant. He hinted that, don't you understand? Or you should understand more than you think you understand.

[37:44]

There's more to it than you think you understand. That's my interpretation. Or maybe, you know, the commentary isn't translated quite. That happens a lot in translation. You have to be careful. If you think about translating from Chinese into Japanese into English, a lot gets turned around. Being a barge. Being towed. Discipline means to be somebody's disciple. You can be, when you're being pulled along, then you're being the disciple of whatever is pulling you along.

[39:02]

You're putting yourself under restraint, which is good. And then when you become the tugboat, then you become your own disciple. And you learn how to take care of yourself. And you say, Shannon, it's time to sit Zazen today. And then Shannon says, OK, Shannon, I will. Yes, I. OK, thanks a lot. Satsang with Mooji

[39:57]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ