Well, today marks the end of the fifth week of our practice period, I believe. Six weeks of practice period. next week is, starting Monday, is our seven-day Sashin. And I wanted to talk about our attitude towards Sashin. And yesterday, during our afternoon tea, when we had a discussion, Somebody asked me about that and I said, well, I want to talk about that tomorrow morning.

[01:01]

But I ended up talking about it last night, but I'm still going to talk about it this morning anyway. So someone said, well, how should you prepare for sitting for seven days? And I said, best way to prepare for sitting seven days is to not prepare. But actually, there is some preparation. When I say not prepare, I mean to not have any idea about what Sashin is or how you're going to approach this a long period of zazen from five in the morning till nine thirty at night for seven days.

[02:09]

How do you prepare yourself? Well, to not think about it. To just forget about it. The best way to prepare yourself is just forget about it. And then on the morning of Sashin, you arrive at five o'clock and start sitting. And with that same attitude of just forgetting about it, you enter it. And you just sit from one moment to the next or one moment at a time for seven days without thinking about the future. or without thinking about what's next, or without anticipating anything, or without trying to figure things out.

[03:12]

You simply are present from moment to moment with a full body and mind. That's all. Everything else is a hindrance. But how do you do such a thing? How do you not anticipate something that's pretty momentous in your life? When you sit Zazen, ordinarily, during the week, we sit a long period, an hour period of Zazen in the morning and 40 minutes in the afternoon. And when you enter the gate, you're already preparing yourself for Zazen.

[04:22]

And the way you prepare yourself for Zazen is to just let go of everything. You have a busy life, you're working all day, or whatever, dealing with all kinds of problems in your life, and then you enter the gate to sit Zazen. And when you enter the gate, you just focus on entering the gate, walking down the path, entering the zendo, putting your hands in shashu, bowing to the cushion, sitting down, turning around, and taking the posture. So people will say, well, what's the purpose of Zazen and what's the purpose of Sashin?

[05:27]

And what do I get out of it? We mostly come to some activity with the idea of what do I get out of it? But Zazen is a different kind of activity than the usual activity. Instead of what do I get out of it, we finally come to the point of how do I let go of it. So Zazen is a letting go. As soon as you enter the gate, you start letting go. Start letting go of your opinions and your ideas, your emotional charges, your anger, all your desires.

[06:45]

Take the posture and let go. It's really how you open up. It's how you let go and open up. And harmonize body, mind, and breath with the universe, with your true self. So Zazen is called returning to your fundamental nature or your true nature without anything added or without anything gained. Zazen means gathering the mind or embracing mind. Gathering mind has the feeling of bringing everything together in one act.

[07:58]

Gathering the mind has the feeling of body, breath, and mind all gathered together without any artifice. And embracing mind has the feeling of embracing the universe, of making room for everything without limit. If we know how to let go, then that's embracing the universe without limit. Whatever comes, you can accept it and you can hold it and you can allow it to be.

[09:02]

So our usual desire when we, as I said, when we enter into some activity is, what do I get out of this? But Zazen, and especially Zazen, is how do I let go of this? So if you think you're getting something, you should be careful. Or if you think you're not getting something, you should be even more careful. I've been doing this for 10 years and I haven't gotten anything out of it. That's very successful. So, it's difficult, you know, to not anticipate something.

[10:23]

Sashin, you know, to prepare for Sashin, we should have all of our affairs in order. Your family should be taken care of. Your work should be taken care of. Your school should be taken care of. You shouldn't, as much as possible, to tie up loose ends. Your house should be in order so that when you leave, you're not creating some problem for somebody else. And even though you say, after seven days I'm gonna return, You may not. It's just an idea we have. After seven days, I will return. You have to enter, says Sheen, with the attitude of, I'm just going in this direction.

[11:27]

I don't know if I will return or not. Or whoever returns may not be the same person. My teacher, Suzuki Roshi, used to say, during sashin, you should die on the cushion. You have to die on the cushion. So, what is it that dies on the cushion? When we do Sashin or Zazen, we give our ego a rest. It's like give your ego a break.

[12:30]

It doesn't need so much pumping up, kind of deflating the ego. So the problem, the biggest problem we have, Sashin is always painful and difficult and both physically and sometimes emotionally and sometimes mentally difficult. And you will go through all of the obstacles in your life during Sashin. And then you have to just keep sitting with those obstacles But Cixin has a way of wearing down the ego. Little by little, the ego gets worn down. And when the ego gets worn down, the true personality starts to emerge.

[13:37]

There's a difference between ego and true personality. And there's some difference in the attitude of the psychological ego and the Buddhist understanding of ego. In Buddhism, ego means a person, the self. And of course, when we look for it, when we really search for where that self is, we find that it doesn't exist. But there is a self. You know, you feel like, this is myself. We feel that way. So there is some unifying something that form feelings, perceptions, ideas, thoughts, and consciousness

[14:40]

unify around. But what it unifies around is our thoughts and our feelings and our emotions. And at any one time we're this person, and then the next moment we're this person, and the next moment we're this person, depending on how we unify those five skandhas. what idea is here, what feeling is here, what emotion is there. So we, the body-mind unifies around whatever comes up at this moment. And then when we attach to something, to an idea or a feeling or an emotion,

[15:48]

When we grasp it and hang on to it, a self arises around that. That's what we call myself. But our true personality is not motivated by attachment or grasping. True personality has prajna as its basis, big mind as its basis, and is not self-centered. It is centered around bodhisattva activity, or Buddhist activity, which means non-selfish activity, unifying activity, compassion, loving kindness, equanimity, sympathetic joy.

[17:05]

This is how true personality arises and is sustained. And true personality doesn't have the same obstacles as ego. When ego gets worn down or tired out or unable to manifest, then true personality arises, has the opportunity to arise, which is more sustaining. and more real and not dependent so much on circumstances. And with your true personality, you have the ability to let go.

[18:13]

Because we're always looking for something to depend on. Moment to moment, we're looking for something to depend on. So we create society, and we depend on society. And we create friendships, and we depend on friendships. And we create, excuse me, places to live and we depend on those places and we depend on certain kinds of work and interactions and so we live in this interactive dependent society and of course there are different societies within the society but when everything is taken away what do we depend on? So it's easy for us to depend on something which can't be depended on.

[19:22]

So because people need something to depend on which is deeper than the ephemeral dependencies, religion springs up. So people depend on God, they depend on various gods, various deities, and there's this spiritual life. So this kind of dependency is more fundamental than depending on material security. And we all know this. In our practice, we depend on nothing. But nothing means Buddha nature.

[20:30]

Buddha nature will catch you. If you jump off the cliff with nothing down there, what will save you? You know, in Buddhism we say, in Zen, we say you have to, once you get to the top of a hundred foot pole, you have to step off. You have to have some faith in stepping off. So stepping off means letting go of dependency on something that can't be depended on. So, in practice, in zazen, you sit down, take the posture, and let go.

[21:39]

You don't depend on feeling comfortable. You don't depend on feeling uncomfortable. You don't depend on what's going on in your mind. You don't depend on your emotions. You simply let go. You sit up with good posture, presenting yourself totally. In other words, to sit up straight means that you're not leaning forward, you're not leaning backward, you're not leaning to this side, and you're not leaning to this side. There's nothing to lean on. You're simply sitting up as straight as you can with balance, equilibrium. not leaning in any way, and then letting go. So within this effort, there's relaxation.

[22:44]

But what I mean by relaxation is letting go, to find ease within that structure. And what you do in Zazen, is pay attention to that structure of the body and letting go of tenseness. So you're perfectly at ease in the universe and secure and vulnerable. When you sit this way, you're totally vulnerable without any defense. Someone could come up and cut your head off.

[23:49]

And you have no defense. But it doesn't matter either. Okay? You know, the sixth ancestor In China, during the Tang Dynasty, somebody wanted to cut his head off. And they snuck up on him in the middle of the night. So he just put his head out. He said, go, okay. Is this what you want? I'm not saying we should do that. But it's about how we live and how we die. Zazen is not just a tool for self-improvement. It's about how we live and how we die, and how we transcend birth and death.

[24:56]

So what is it that sustains us? And we say Buddha nature sustains everything. Everything is an expression of Buddha nature. So to sit Zazen, to sit up straight, to not lean in any direction, to find that balance, to find the balance using the least amount of effort to do the most work is to depend on Buddha nature. As Dogen says, just throw yourself into the house of Buddha. throw yourself into the house of Buddha is to depend on your nature and not to depend on anything else.

[26:12]

This is called trust, trusting in the universe. When we have that kind of trust, we can open up to whatever comes along. losing unnecessary fear and anxiety. Sitting with settled mind. And for Sashin, sitting with settled mind for seven days through pain and comfort and discomfort and all of the things that happen. to you in that length of time. People, someone might say, what about my emotions and my thoughts and my feelings that come up?

[27:24]

When those thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas come up, to just let them come up. Thought comes up like bubbles up. Thought is continuous. You have the opportunity to observe how thoughts bubble up in the mind, which have nothing to do with what's going on. Residual thoughts sometimes ancient thoughts, or ancient feelings, or memory produces things that were tucked away for a long time. But everything will come up during Sashin. Thoughts will come up about things that you forgot all about.

[28:27]

But to just let everything flow, it's like riding in a train and watching the scenery. No need to attach to them. No need to grasp them. So, Cixin, Zazen, is to be free from mental grasping, mental attachment, emotional attachment, and feeling attachment. which bind us. But we don't necessarily like that. Suzuki Roshi said, when you get enlightened, you should be careful, because you may not like it. It's hard for us to sustain freedom.

[29:33]

We talk about freedom, and we, you know, freedom this and freedom that. But when we have it, we say, oh, what do I do now? Your elected president might say, well, what do I do now? Also, you know, we are possessed. I talked about this yesterday. We're possessed by our thoughts. We're possessed by our feelings and our emotions without always realizing it. We get caught by these things. In the old days, They used to talk about possession by demons, right?

[30:39]

Someone so-and-so is possessed by demons, we'll burn them at the stake or God, all kinds. If they only had Zazen in those days in the West, they wouldn't have to burn people at the stake because they were possessed by demons. But we're all possessed by demons without always realizing it. the demon of anger, the demon of lust, the demon of, you name it, desire. And these are binding emotions, binding thoughts, binding feelings, binding emotions. And they're binding because for various reasons, but one reason is because we need something to depend on. We need to be grounded in something. So we become grounded in these feelings.

[31:44]

And when these feelings captivate us, we feel secure in our insecurity. So it's very hard to get rid of anger. Because feelings are just feelings. A feeling is just a feeling. Desire is just desire. It's not good or bad. Desire is simply a need for something. But desire can go for this, this way, or it can go that way. And when it goes in one direction, it allows itself to be caught. And when it goes in another direction, it allows itself to have freedom. So, we like to get caught.

[32:46]

So this is how we talk about desire. When Buddha talks about desire, you know, get rid of desire. doesn't mean to get rid of desire, because desire is important. It means to get rid of, or to free yourself from being caught by desire, which is very hard, very hard. So even though we may be sitting zazen for 10, 20 years, Desire is still there. We still get caught. Nevertheless, through practice, you can decrease the effect of karma.

[33:48]

Karma means a volitional act which is based on desire. And when the thought comes up based on desire, we reach for something and then we attach to it and grasp it. And that's being caught. And then because we grasp something, whatever it is that we grasp also grasps us. We are caught by the thing that we grasp. So hard to let go. So when we practice Zazen, it's the practice of letting go. It's not that your thoughts and feelings and emotions are unimportant. But in Zazen, we let go of everything and unbind ourself.

[35:00]

untying the knots. See, the posture of Zazen isn't some extreme posture, even though it looks like it. It's simply natural posture, presuming our natural posture. And our postures are determined by our emotions and our feelings and our thoughts. And you can see kind of where people are by the way they hold themselves. And even in Zazen, you know, I see, I look at everyone's back during Zazen, and I can see how people are holding themselves. Very stiff, very tight, you know, in various crunched up positions, even though they're sitting up straight. you can see, you know, the tensions that are running through each person.

[36:04]

And to be able to let go and just sit up straight without any tenseness, without any conditioning. So Zazen is to let go of conditioning. to let go of habit patterns and conditioning because our postures are a product of our conditioning. We walk down the street worried, you know, various postures. But if I let go of my worry, what do I have? If I let go of that thing that I'm so concerned about, what will I have? Well, you have yourself, but it may be boring. This is, people say in Zazen, well, you know, I get bored.

[37:10]

You know, during Satsang, I get bored. Well, boredom has two facets. One facet of boredom is that you're free of your attachments. And that can be boring. The other side is that you're not connected to yourself. So boredom is to be unengaged. When you're really truly engaged, there's no boredom, no matter what you're doing. Because boredom is the gap between yourself and your activity. So if you're sweeping the floor, and you're totally engaged in sweeping the floor, you, broom, floor, are one thing.

[38:13]

There's no boredom. Matter of fact, there's only happiness. But when you're sweeping, you say, why am I doing this? I should be doing something much more dignified or doing something more valuable. And then you're disconnected and you're bored with sweeping. This is for maids. So Letting go is not easy, but this is the activity in Zazen, and it's the activity of practice in Sashin. So when you come to Sashin, just be prepared to let go of everything.

[39:14]

As Suzuki Roshi says, just die in the cushion and come back to life. If you really want to come to life, die in the cushion. and experience your true life. It's called no gaining mind. Do you have any questions, David? During Sashi, what time should we arrive at the gate in order to begin sitting at the proper time? Well, if you arrived at the right time, you would not be able to get through the gate because you'd all... You should be in your seat five minutes before five.

[40:18]

yet please don't straggle in. If you're the kind of person who is perennially late, try to make an effort not to be late. That's your first order of getting yourself together. Malcolm. Well, you know, you have to find the place in your body that is the fulcrum or the central place that divides the lower part from the upper part, which is right here in the small of your back and here in your hara.

[42:09]

So, your legs are like the roots of a tree. They're somewhat fixed. And that's the foundation. And then the tree sways, right? The wind comes and the tree sways. So you should, the tree has to be very loose and flexible. So flexibility, most important thing. And then, but the tree is, is reaching for the sun and it goes straight up. But it still has that flexibility. And then the branches all hang down, which are your arms and your shoulders. So just when you're sitting, allow your shoulders to fall off. If you're gonna fall off, it's okay. Just let them fall off your body. And just feel the tenseness running out of your body.

[43:12]

feel the tenseness just like rain falling away from your body. So that there's no tenseness and then the weight, so to speak, falls on your lower back. But because your back is straight, it doesn't cause any problem for your back. If you sit up really straight, you won't have a lower back problem. But if you're off a little bit, you might. There shouldn't be any, even though you're sitting up straight with effort, there shouldn't be any strain. That's what I mean by finding the place where you're using the least amount of effort to do the most work. So if you're sitting like this, you know, you're using too much effort. You don't need all that effort. All you need to do is sit up straight and let everything fall away.

[44:14]

but to keep the form. So it's kind of like the Eiffel Tower. You have this form, but the wind, the breeze just flows through it. As a matter of fact, this is a principle of modern bridge building and other structures, is to have a structure where you have a very strong framework But it's all open. The breeze just flows in and out, and it doesn't get blown over. So just let the breeze flow in and out of this structure. In other words, don't use any more than you need. Find out, well, what's the effort that I need? And what's the effort that I can let go of? So when we start getting some pain, then the shoulders start moving up. because we're protecting ourself.

[45:16]

There's nothing to hang on to. There's nothing, no support. So we start hanging on to ourself. This is the problem, biggest problem. When we start hanging on to ourself and clutching to ourself, if there was some railing out there, we'd be clutching to that, but there isn't. So we start doing this, you know. Then somebody comes along and pulls our shoulders down. Whoa. Let me go back over there. But your effort should be to let go, keep letting go, just keep letting go of the tenseness and finding the balance. There is some strength needed, but it's mostly balance. And the effort is in your lower back and in your hara. That's all you need. The rest can fall away. But you need to have the structure so you hold your arms like this, and you keep your arms away from your sides so you're not clutching yourself. And you're just open, and you just keep opening up.

[46:18]

Just if you have the feeling of continuously opening up, you'll be able to accept anything. Our reaction, when something intrudes, like an uncomfortable feeling, is to close down. That's our reaction, to protect ourself. So you have to be vulnerable. You have to allow yourself to be totally vulnerable to intrusions. There's a wonderful, somebody gave me a calligraphy once. It said, the cool breeze blows through the empty hall. You have to let the cool breeze blow through the empty hall. As soon as you put some furniture in there, you know, it starts getting, you have a problem. There's times that the words equanimity and equilibrium have a flavor of coldness or uncaring or non-involvement, and yet it seems to me

[47:26]

It means non-partiality. Equanimity is another term for non-partiality. It means observing or acting without one-sidedness. So it's very important. Equanimity is an expression also of non-duality. Although to be equal, there needs to be two things, right? But when there's perfect equilibrium, it's non-dual. So it may seem cold, or cool. We say you should sit with warm feet and a cool head. That's equanimity.

[48:36]

Warm feet and a cool head. From here on down it's warm, but this is very cool. Jorge? Yeah, I'm trying to express this question properly. It seems that desires, worries, things as you have indicated, are part of our nature. We have them all the time. What's wrong with an attitude towards life that not only recognizes that, but also lets some of it go along with it? Do not fight them. Do not sit for seven days trying to get rid of them. As long as you like it, it's okay. As long as you like it, it's okay. Yes, give to, yes.

[50:26]

Well that's a good point because if you only say let go, that's the negative, that's the passive side. The positive side or the active side is as you offer yourself. So in Zazen you are an offering. You make yourself into an offering. Not a burnt offering but But in a way, you burn yourself up, you know? And you, in a sense of totally, it's not like a raging fire. It's kind of like a candle that has a very steady light. So, and we do have a light. We are, each one of us projects light. and contains light. So when you see pictures of saints and so forth, in any culture, there's always an aura of light, right?

[51:59]

And that aura of light is containment. It's like, what do you do with this light? It can either burn you up or you can contain it. So when you sit Zazen, especially a lot of pain, you know, a lot of discomfort and so on. And this is the light. It's being expressed. It can either burn you up or you can contain it. If you know how to contain it, with equanimity and settledness and selflessness, then it becomes this aura. And that's where we live. We either live, as Buddha said, in a burning house or in a contained light.

[53:08]

Thank you.

[53:14]

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