I don't know, maybe it's a month or two. We have this new book of Suzuki Roshi's talks that come out. It's called Not Always So. And I've been reading it and thinking about it, and I'd like to talk and read you some from the first chapter and talk about it and talk with you. It occurs to me, just to say it, Sojin is with a bunch of other folks this weekend on Mountains and Rivers retreat, which I think went from yesterday through Sunday. So there's some place. I don't know, in the turf or by the surf. I'm not sure where they're going this weekend.

[01:04]

So that's where he is. And while I'm thinking about it, I just wanted to encourage you to sign up if you haven't for a one-day sitting next Sunday, next Saturday, Saturday, right? It seems like there's still a good number of spaces for that sitting and it's something that you might like to do. If you haven't tried it, you can talk to me or talk to one of the other senior people. And we'll sit, it's a Saturday, so we'll sit from five in the morning until about nine at night. And we also work and we eat and we walk. And it's really a rich way to practice and to really experience yourself. So experiencing yourself is,

[02:11]

the essence of our practice is what Suzuki Roshi is talking about all through this book and I think all through his teaching. And this particular book picks up in a way where Zen mind, beginner's mind, left off. This book is for people who already have established a practice and are exploring it and are trying to maintain beginner's mind, which for some of us is not so easy. It's easy when you're a beginner. what I believe he said, in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities and in the expert's minds there are few. So we're at this place where we're not exactly expert but the possibilities seem to be narrowing down and in this book what he does

[03:25]

is show us a way to practice that keeps the realm of possibilities, keeps the realm of no expectations wide open and that that practice is rooted in our zazen and that our zazen is our whole life as well. So we have several ways that people are doing the basic practice here. All of them, in terms of seated meditation or zazen, are rooted in an upright posture. That upright posture includes lying down and sitting in a chair and cross-legged meditation.

[04:35]

Upright is a state of body and mind, but it doesn't necessarily denote a direction or orientation in the world. You can be lying down, you can be standing or sitting. So there are a couple of practices that people do. When we give zazen instruction, we often suggest to people that they follow their breath or count their breath. Breath counting is a Very standard way of practicing. I often practice that way myself. It's quite grounding. And there are teachers who really emphasize that.

[05:39]

And I think that in Zen mind, beginner's mind, Suzuki Roshi is emphasizing the counting of breaths on your exhalation. just carrying that count very lightly and silently on your exhalation. In Japanese that's called Susoku-kan. And then sometimes we're not exactly counting our breath, But we're following our breath. We're following it again. We place that following on the exhalation. Just a kind of light awareness. Not a really single-minded or powerful concentration, but just an awareness. And you can do this. Actually, we can do this together right now. Just take a breath in. And as you breathe out, just feel the air.

[06:45]

Hear the silent sound. And then we can do breath after breath like that. There's some concentration there, but it's not a kind of fierce, hot concentration. So that's called Zuisoku-kan. You don't need to know these names. Actually, to be honest with you, I didn't know them until this week. And they're not in this book. And then there's what Suzuki Roshi is talking about a lot in this book, and we talk about it, and Dogen Zenji. this fellow here, see he's sitting in a chair, talks about Shikantaza. And there are kind of as many descriptions of Shikantaza as you might imagine.

[07:56]

It's like the Kind of like the blind men and the elephant, no matter which part you come upon, you think, oh, this is Shikantaza or this is Shikantaza. Literally, we usually translate it as just sitting, which doesn't give you a big handle on what it is. Literally, I think, shikan means nothing but, which is pretty close to just. Nothing but. And ta is means, sometimes it's translated as precisely. It also means kind of hitting, sort of like hitting the mark, being right on target.

[09:00]

So it's nothing but precisely, and za is sitting. And so this is a practice where you're not following your breath, you're not counting your breath, you're allowing your thoughts and sensations and your breath to arise and flow through. So I thought I would, let's talk about this, let's read and comment a little on what Suzuki Roshi says. So in this first chapter, which is called Calmness of Mind, I feel like the first sentence is, you don't actually have to go much beyond the first sentence in this book to have a good question. that'll keep you working for the rest of your life. It says, shikantaza, our zazen, is just to be ourselves.

[10:10]

That's not usually the way we think of it. It's not, in my mind, exactly the same as just sitting, at least in language. But then he explains what he means. So shikantaza, our zazen, is just to be ourselves. And he keeps explicating it. So when we do not expect anything, we can be ourselves. So the shikantaza is not expecting any state of mind, You know, it's not expecting the end of the period. It's not expecting the dinner or the evening that you're going to have. It's not expecting the problem that you may be having with somebody.

[11:11]

And it's not even expecting the next breath. When we do not expect anything, we can be ourselves. That is our way to live fully in each moment of time. this practice continues forever. We say each moment but in your actual practice a moment is too long because in that moment your mind is already involved in following the breath. So moments Moments are pretty long even a moment of following the breath, you know in one breath You can have a thousand thoughts, you know in one breath you can be gone and come back So in When we chant one of the chants we do

[12:13]

is a chant to Kanzeon, where we say, nen nen jushin ki, it's like moment after moment follows. So, nen is like this micro moment. I think that in Buddhist terms, there actually is, they have defined the amount of time that is met by a nin, and it's really small, you know, it's like some microsecond. But that's a Dharma moment. In that moment, something immediate can arise. And that's a moment, you know, there are thousands of those within a breath. So he says, a moment is too long because in that moment your mind is already involved in following the breath. Involved in following the breath means you're already thinking about it.

[13:17]

So we say, even in a snap of your fingers there are a million instants of time. So instant is like an end. This way we can emphasize the feeling of existing in each instant of time. then your mind is very quiet. I think this means when you are existing, in each instant of time, your mind is quiet. And when you are not, your mind can be very loud. So for a period of time each day, try to sit in Shikantaza without moving, without expecting anything, as if you were in your last moment. As if each moment is your last moment. He'll come back, he comes back to this a lot.

[14:20]

So here, what he's beginning to do is tell you, how do you do it? What's the attitude of mind that you have to sit Zazen, as Shikantaza? Moment after moment, you feel your last instant. In each inhalation and each exhalation, there are countless instants of time. Your intention is to live in each instant. Your intention is also to let go or die in each instant. not in any grim way, but just letting go, not holding on to anything, because these instants, they just move. You know, it's a lot like driving a car. I've been helping to edit something for

[15:24]

friend, Shohaku Okamura sensei, and he describes Shikantaza, the mind of Shikantaza. It's like the mind that you use when you're driving your car. The mind that, you know, not you're driving your car like to get across town, but actually just driving the car in which so many, you know, You're driving, things are just going by. So many perceptions flood in. And if you're caught by anyone, if you get stuck on something, well, chances are you're going to crash. And we all know how to do this. Well, not all of us, actually, but a lot of us. And if we don't know how to drive, there's something like it, probably, that we're doing in our life. And it's this wonderful state that's not completely concentrated, and yet it's concentrated, that has peripheral vision, that has vision ahead, that's coordinating the gas pedal and the brake and the steering wheel, that where everything is dynamic and in motion, and where we are flowing together with the world around us.

[16:52]

That's another, that's a wonderful analog for Shikantaza. And we don't think about it very much. We just kind of get in the car and do it because we've been trained. You know, we've had driver's ed or our parents have taught us how to drive and then we've been doing it for some years and we know how to do it. It always strikes me as it's like an incredible miracle. You're going down the freeway and there's lots of cars. We don't crash into each other very often. Sometimes we do. But really, it's remarkable. All these things zooming along at 60 or 70 miles an hour, functioning together. as we're, much like we're sitting together in the Zendo, because we all know how to do this, we all have some agreements, and we're all encountered simultaneously, encountering this flowing and highly dynamic world.

[18:00]

And we have, you know, if we have this capability within us, Certainly, we have the capability to do that when we're sitting still and upright in here, I think. It's a really, I find it a really encouraging analogy. So your intention is to live in each instant and also to let go in each instant. And now he tells you how to do it. So it's a mind, the practice of Shikantaza, Zazen, is a mind-body practice, not separate, but together. First practice smoothly exhaling, then inhaling. Calmness of mind is beyond the end of your exhalation.

[19:05]

If you exhale smoothly, without even trying to exhale, you are entering into the complete perfect calmness of mind. You do not exist anymore. When you exhale this way, then naturally your inhalation will start from there. So, Just like driving, as we go through our life, we are smoothly inhaling and exhaling, just naturally, without necessarily any thought. If we train ourselves in here, in the laboratory of the zendo, to breathe fully, to breathe into our hara, you know, into our belly, sort of about two inches below our navel, and just let our breath move down and into that, then as we're going about our day, that's where we will be breathing from and to.

[20:31]

It's like the training that we have when we go to driver's ed or when we're taught. We have some training, so otherwise we would probably have some very idiosyncratic ways of driving, as actually they do in some countries. So we can train ourselves in here so that the kind of natural motion of inhalation and exhalation has some depth to it and some smoothness. And we can, when we put our awareness there, feel that sense of calmness. Feel in a comfortable way that sense of, that instant of non-existence.

[21:33]

When you exhale this way, then naturally your inhalation will start from there. And all that fresh blood bringing everything from outside will pervade your body. So the air freshens your blood and you come alive again. You're completely refreshed. Then you start to exhale to extend that fresh feeling into emptiness. He begins to talk about emptiness here, and I think it's a complicated word. We'll go into it. So anyway, then you start to exhale to extend that fresh feeling into emptiness. So moment after moment, without trying to do anything, you continue Shikantaza.

[22:38]

Complete Shikantaza may be difficult because of the pain in your legs when you are sitting cross-legged. And I think we all know this. And if it's not in our legs, it's in our back or shoulders. We've all experienced this kind of difficulty in sitting. But even though you have pain in your legs, you can do it. Even though your practice is not good enough, You can do it. So these are encouraging words. You can do it. It's also kind of the watchword of a friend of ours who teaches The spiritual practice in the prisons, a man by the name of Bo Lazov, and his fundamental advice to prisoners who feel overwhelmed by the reality that they experience.

[23:49]

You know, maybe they have a really long sentence. Maybe the place they're, undoubtedly, the place that they're in is restrictive or oppressive and really difficult. Their lives are difficult. And he says, you can do this. You can do it. Even if you have a sentence of death, you can do it. And we find that we can. If anyone I'm sure there are people here who have had very serious illnesses or do. And you find that apart from your imagining that you can't do it, in fact, moment by moment you can do it. And this training of Shikantaza helps us to encounter our difficulties, helps us to encounter, you know, the kind of simple problem, although sometimes it doesn't seem quite so simple, of a pain in our legs, and also the more complex problem of feeling that your practice is not good enough.

[25:12]

of reckoning with that judgment, which is usually more painful than the pain in your legs. And he says that even though you think you can't do it, you can do it. Your breathing So even though you think your practice is not good enough, even though your practice is not good enough, you think your practice is not good enough, so it's like, yeah, we all have work to do. Even Suzuki thought that his practice was not good enough. Your breathing will gradually vanish, which means your awareness of your breathing, your breathing will just breathe in and of itself. and you will gradually vanish, fading into emptiness. So this emptiness, I think, is not just some black hole, you know, but it's emptiness of just being connected with everything.

[26:29]

Emptiness, in Buddhist terms, It has a certain connotation in English, which I think is a bit unfortunate. Shunyata, which we translate as emptiness, is not this negative space, but it's a space of infinite possibilities and interconnection. So when you fade into emptiness, I think in Suzuki Roshi's terms, you're fading, you're You're merging. Merging is auspicious. It's one of the chants that we do. You will gradually vanish, fading into emptiness. Inhaling without effort, you naturally come back to yourself with some color. or form. So as we exhale, we merge.

[27:31]

As we inhale, we differentiate. We become ourselves. We feel our bodies again. And then the exhalation just follows. Exhaling. So inhaling without effort, you naturally come back to yourself with some color or form. Exhaling, you gradually fade into emptiness. Empty white paper. That is shikantaza. So white paper, you know, we use it. If it stays white, you know, or if we decide we want to keep it white, well, I guess that could be an artistic expression, but it's full of possibility. You know, the white paper is what we write on, we put our thoughts on, we live our life out of. So that is Shikantaza. The important point is your exhalation. This is what he says. Trying to feel yourself as you inhale.

[28:33]

So feeling the breath come in, fill your lungs and body, your diaphragm and your aura. Instead of trying to feel yourself as you inhale, fade into emptiness as you exhale. So that's where you put the emphasis. The important point is your exhalation. Instead of trying to feel yourself as you inhale, fade into emptiness as you exhale. When you practice this in your last moment, you will have nothing to be afraid of. You are actually aiming at emptiness. you will become one with everything after you completely exhale with this feeling. If you are still alive, naturally, you will inhale again. And you say, oh, I am still alive, fortunately or unfortunately.

[29:36]

Then you start to exhale and you fade into emptiness. Maybe you don't know what kind of feeling it is, but some of you know it. By some chance you must have felt this kind of feeling. I think when we put our minds to it, actually all of us know it. It's just, you know, sometimes it's so fleeting and we don't know how to pay attention to it. The practice of Shikantaza, the practice of Zazen is, again, it's training ourselves so that we know how to pay attention and how to let go of that attention. Now this is interesting. When you do this practice, you cannot easily become angry. So here, you know, he's turned it again. He's moved from the breath back from a state of mind to the breath, back to something that tends to be a big problem for us.

[30:43]

And it's again, it's a mind state, but he shows how to work with it in your body. When you do this practice, you cannot easily become angry. When you are more interested in inhaling than in exhaling, you easily become quite angry. You're always trying to be alive. That's what he says. So, it's this struggle for life. You know, the fear that someone or something wants to take life from us. And so, we inhale. We bring it in. We try to hold on. The other day, my friend had a heart attack. And all he could do was exhale. He couldn't inhale. That was a terrible feeling, he said. At that moment, if he could have practiced exhaling as we do, aiming for emptiness, then I think he would not have felt so bad.

[31:47]

The great joy for us is exhaling rather than inhaling. When my friend kept trying to inhale, he thought he couldn't inhale anymore. If he could have exhaled smoothly and completely, then I think another inhalation would have come more easily. And maybe that inhalation would have been shallow. But maybe it wouldn't have been in the grip of fear. The fear and anger constricts us. You know, it's like iron bands. around us in a way that prevent us from inhaling. So by just exhaling and aiming at emptiness, even the maybe shallow inhalation will give us some opportunity for refreshment apart from our anger or our fear.

[32:51]

To take care of the exhalation is very important. To die is more important than trying to be alive. When we always try to be alive, we have trouble. Rather than trying to be alive or active, we can be calm and die or fade away into emptiness. Then, naturally, we will be all right. This is really This is pretty challenging because we're, most of us, we're afraid of dying. We're afraid when we find that place in our Zazen where kind of our grip on ourself loosens, it's interesting to watch some fear comes up and we kind of tighten and draw back and then we have to sort of start all over again.

[33:57]

And he's just saying, just let go. Just let yourself die when the time comes to die, at the end of each breath. And then if you're alive, your autonomic nervous system will take care of it. You'll breathe in and you'll come alive again, regardless of what you might want to do. Rather than trying to be alive or active, if we can be calm and die or fade away into emptiness, then naturally we will be alright. Buddha will take care of us. Because we have lost our mother's bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore. Yet, fading away into emptiness can feel like being at our mother's bosom, and we feel as though she will take care of us. So that feeling of being at the breast, well I can't remember, but I've sort of watched it.

[35:05]

And it's, that is, so that's the kind of emptiness he's talking about. That's the emptiness of being connected to the universe. Being at the mother's breast for an infant is being connected, you know, every nerve and synapse, every thought with everything. It's complete. So fading away into emptiness can feel like being at our mother's bosom and we will feel as though she will take care of us. Moment after moment. Do not lose this practice of Shikantaza. Various kinds of religious practice are included in this point. When people say, Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu, which is, I take I take refuge, or I plunge into Amida Butsu, the Buddha of the Pure Land.

[36:07]

They want to be Amida Buddha's children. That is why they practice repeating Amida Buddha's name. The same is true with our Zazen practice. If we know how to practice Shikantaza, and if they know how to repeat Amida Buddha's name, It cannot be any different. These are the same practices. So what this is pointing to is that in our Shikantaza, in our breathing, there is a strong element or energy of faith. It's just natural faith. It's not necessarily faith in anything. We don't think about the faith that if we exhale, we're going to inhale. But we have faith in that. So here when he's talking about Nembutsu practice and Zazen, that element of faith kind of surfaces.

[37:18]

with our exhalation and inhalation. And he points towards, without really making a big point about it, that there's also an element of devotion. The child is devoted to the mother, and the mother is devoted to the child. And our faith has that feeling in it. So, we have enjoyment. We are free. We are free to express ourselves because we are ready to fade into emptiness. We have no stake in any particular state of mind or any particular way of being. And so, in that sense, we can be ourselves because we have no particular expectations. We can be ourselves in this really basic functioning of mind and body. When we are trying to be active and special and to accomplish something, we cannot express ourselves.

[38:23]

Small self will be expressed, but big self will not appear from the emptiness. So that's, you know, when we think, when we're trying to accomplish something or when we think we're expert and the possibilities begin to narrow down, Big self doesn't appear from the emptiness. The emptiness is the world of kind of limitless possibilities. That's where our true self resides. From the emptiness, only the great self appears. That is Shikantaza. Okay? It is not so difficult if you really try. Thank you very much. I think I'll stop there and leave some time for some questions and comments. I really enjoy entering into these talks this way.

[39:34]

It's sort of like Finding, and I think each of us can do this if we can read mindfully and carefully, it's like finding, hearing Suzuki Roshi's voice in ourselves, even though we may not have met him or heard him. We have an opportunity to do that. So let me open up. uh... uh... I think what he's saying, and I think that you know this as an artist, is that actually inspiration just comes.

[40:54]

And if you lust after it, it ain't gonna come. And I think many of us know this. If you put your effort on this exhalation, on this letting go, and you trust in yourself, you know, whatever your talent or ability is, that inspiration will just come. The problems come for us when we're, you know, really, like, pained by, you know, we want the inspiration now. So, I think that's a challenge if you're working as an artist or, you know, in any field of human endeavor. to say more about that? Well, I probably shouldn't have said that. My understanding is, and people who know more can correct me, please, that this is the system that controls or affects bodily function.

[42:11]

You know, our breathing happens without our conscious mind. It's the last, you know, it's kind of a level of brain functioning that kind of keeps all the systems going. Is that kind of right? Good. So it happens. And we can also become aware of it. And I think when we are anxious or when we're angry or when we're afraid, our feelings can kind of override it. And so we do stuff that's unhealthy and dysfunctional to our bodies. Whereas if we just let it go, our bodies are this incredible, just unthinkable self-regulating mechanism, you know, that just keeps self-regulating until...

[43:15]

until one or more of the systems go and it stops. But for the most part, it's amazing. You know, we go on 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years, you know, just functioning like this every minute. And just like we're driving down the road, you know, reality is just streaming and we're taking it in and just functioning. So that's what I was talking about. Thank you. I'm hearing in your talk a very familiar and helpful emphasis that has been central to what Zen has given me over these years. And yet, when you first read the first lines of the book, it struck a fresh chord because it wasn't that message. So what I'm hearing is the importance of the letting go, the expiration, the breathing out. And I remember when I first began to understand the desperate need for that, I had an image of being a train just barreling through the night in the wrong direction, and that before I could do anything, I needed to stop the train.

[44:29]

And so a lot of my practice has been about stopping the train. So I can go the other way. But when you first read that line, I'd like you to read it again. It says, Shikantaza arzazan is just to be ourselves. Just to be ourselves. And I think the complication is, what does it mean, just to be ourselves? Yeah, right. And something happened when you read that, that was Well, maybe it's like the spontaneous inhalation, the coming back into being. There's a lot in my life about dying, about letting go and about allowing, and there's something about letting in, the in-breath, and not gasping after it, not grasping for it, but suddenly being aware that you're alive and that you are who you are.

[45:30]

And I feel a longing to open to that awareness instead of constantly working to let go. Right. Well, I don't, you know, I think he's just saying for most people this is a good place to put the emphasis. And partly you put the emphasis there You know, you're not denying the life side. It's just when you put the emphasis there, you can see the life side in clear relief. Relief in a kind of maybe, well, double sense or triple sense. And so he's not denying, he's not denying that. Right, right. and wants to open your concept of what it means to be ourself. So, thank you. Lois?

[46:34]

The two phrases that keep coming up and segues from Catherine. I don't want this feeling of I like the idea and I'm fascinated by the idea and then this rebellious voice comes up. I don't want it. I don't want it to be that way. I want it to be some other way, and this attachment and clinging to the idea of some other way, another way, an eternal way that feels like a construct in my mind. I have a better idea, you know, live forever, don't go into this, and at the same time this parallel voice that, you know, feels on the mark, everything that you're deciding. And I'm hearing this other thing, and I don't want to slap it away, but it's really in the way from it. So it's a terrible ordeal of believing, having faith, committing myself, and then having this obnoxious, I do feel it's obnoxious, but it's their voice.

[47:42]

I don't want it. I want it some other way. I'm not asking you to solve it. I'm not going to solve it. You know that voice is also your friend and it's very familiar to you and to me and to many of us and I think that the really you know sometimes there are people and I have heard it literally from Zen teachers who think that Suzuki Roshi's method is too soft and It's soft. It depends on kindness. It depends on taking everything in. But boy, it's really not easy. Each of us, we have to learn how can you be kind in a kind of parental, functionally parental way. to that child's voice that says, I don't want to, to that resistance.

[48:48]

How can you treat it kindly and also with some firmness? And that's, I think, to me, that's the challenge of Suzuki Roshi's approach. And it makes it very hard. You may think there's more strength in single-mindedly focusing on your koan. That's just, that's another approach. But here, you know, Suzuki said, well, single-mindedly concentrate on everything, you know. Oh, how do I do that? You know, everything including, I don't want to. I know I haven't helped you at all. Yeah. So one more. Anymore? John? This whole issue of the exhalation and it's

[49:50]

And, you know, there's a really a thing that gets going when you talk about the autonomic nervous system. It's like, there's this thing that says, well, okay, I'll try that as long as I know that there actually will be another inhalation coming. There's a kind of a pseudo kind of going with it. There's this kind of last gasp, not really. Well, you don't know that. You don't know that the next breath will happen. And is that okay? Is that not okay? It's not okay? Then, as you're thinking about it, maybe not in your zazen, just explore that territory. And then in your zazen, see if you can you just exhale that way and if the thought, you know, that you need that reassurance comes up, set that aside.

[51:07]

That's the scary place that I was talking about that comes up for us when that grip on the self begins to soften. So you have to sort of take the risk and go with it and see. You know, I had a conversation with Nelson Foster, a Zen teacher at Ring of Bone, and I was talking about, he's sort of began these mountains and rivers sessions, and they really do it in the wilderness, you know, and I was saying, well, I've been reluctant. to do that, you know, I have had heart trouble and, you know, I'm just concerned." And he said, well, yeah, that's what it's about. He said, you know, he said, you know, you should go and you should prepare, you should be prepared to die there. And I thought, oh. And I thought, I'm not sure I'm ready to do that. But he was very clear about that. And that was extremely helpful to me.

[52:08]

And that may be the attitude with which to go into each exhalation. Well, thank you very much.

[52:17]

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