Today is the first day of our fall practice period. So I want to talk about our attitude, basic attitude, and I made a kind of list of things. points to watch in practice period. But basically, practice period helps us to re-establish our practice. We go all year and we have a practice period which helps us to establish our practice and then during the year many things happen to us and gradually our practice starts spreading out and we lose the strictness and we lose the parameters and we start leaking and then

[01:31]

We have practice period again, and that helps us to bring ourselves back to what practice is about. firm up our mushy practice. I wrote this long list on my piece of paper. But a lot of the things are overlapping, and some are the same, belong to various categories, which I haven't categorized. Basically, our practice is so-called shikantaza, just doing.

[02:37]

So basically it pertains to Zazen, but it also pertains to the activities of our daily life. Just sitting means to do something without egotistical motives. It's the practice of no self-centeredness. That's basically what Shikantaza is. So when we do, in each activity, we do the activity for the sake of the activity. When we practice Zazen, you let go of

[03:40]

I am practicing Zazen. When the legs hurt, you let go of, my legs are painful. When coughing, just become enlightened by your cough. That's what Dogen said. A good cough should enlighten you. Truly. There's nothing but this cough. It just covers the whole universe. Everybody else's too. Everybody else's too. So please put your hand over your mouth when you cough. So in our daily activity, we extend the practice of Zazen, or Shikantaza, into our daily activity, so that our daily activity is not egotistical and self-centered.

[04:56]

That's the basis of practice. Sounds simple, but very difficult. So I'm just going to go down this list. The first thing I wrote, I didn't write this the first thing, but because I didn't have much room, I wrote it up here. Letting go of judgmental mind. You know, we try to practice and we make an effort, but we're always failing. Failure is one side of practice, a very important side of practice, and then What do we do when we fail? Well, we start judging ourselves, and we start putting ourselves down and saying, I'm no good, and I can't do this, and things like that. So to let go of this judgmental mind is a very important practice.

[06:00]

If we have the right intention, then We just keep going forward. And on this path that we are going on, even though we are moving on this path, we're still kind of standing in the same place. But we're always falling off, always falling off, never being perfect. I think we have to let go of the idea that Zen practice is to get some kind of perfection. People do have this idea about Zen. Zen is this lofty practice where in the end you're supposed to be perfect. Do everything perfectly. The Zen master always does everything perfectly.

[07:05]

This may be true. But the Zen Master always makes mistakes perfectly. The Zen Master always falls off the path perfectly and then gets up. There's a saying Dogen used, I don't know if this is original to Dogen, but when you fall down when you stumble on a stone and fall down to the earth, you use the earth to get up again, to help you get up again. This is very important. It's important to accept the fact that failure is okay and that

[08:08]

Failure is a very important part of our lives. And each time we fail, we start again. As a matter of fact, failure is sort of connected with falling out of balance. Everything is continually falling out of balance. Because everything, life, is moving. Life is movement. And life is change. And to be able to always be in the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time, is not so easy. So, 80% is pretty good. 50% is pretty good.

[09:11]

The main thing is to always pick yourself up when you fall down. Use the earth to pick yourself up. Don't blame anything. Don't blame yourself. Oh, I'm so bad. Oh, I'm such a bad... This just leads to self-deprecation and makes it much more difficult to practice. On the other hand, you should know This was wrong. This was a failure. You shouldn't cover that up. But you shouldn't judge yourself as good and bad. So this is a very important point. If you do something that you feel is really noxious to yourself and you need forgiveness, you can ask the Buddhas to help.

[10:28]

Light some incense. make a confession to all the Buddhas and ancestors. And this is very helpful. This is what Dogen suggests doing. If you feel that you need to do something, you know, sometimes we do something and we don't know what to do because we're stuck. And we don't want to tell somebody. And we need to redeem ourselves. So you can light incense, bow, and confess to the Buddhas and ancestors. It's very helpful. Another aspect is, we talk about, in Buddhism, we talk about mindfulness a lot, showing to be mindful, careful and mindful.

[11:50]

But when we talk about, when mindfulness is being talked about, it's usually mindfulness of how you do something, your activity, you know, like walking or eating or taking care of things around you, which is very good. This is your self-cultivation practice. But the other side of mindful practice is how you respond to the world. Being mindful of how you respond to, not just to your own activity, but to letting go of yourself and responding to the world. so that you're not ignoring what's going on around you. Sometimes it's easy for a Zen student to just be, to get into a self-centered kind of mindfulness, where you're just working on your own activity.

[13:04]

But it's very important to be mindful of what's going on in the world and how you respond to it, to the events of the world. I think everyone should vote. That's mindful practice. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but I would like to. When you vote, be mindful that you're not doing it in some self-centered way for your own convenience. but to vote for those people who you know do the most public good. So, socially engaged Buddhism is very important.

[14:16]

and extending ourselves in that way is the practice of mindfulness. So, there are two aspects to our practice. One is going up the mountain and the other is coming down the mountain. Going up the mountain is retreating from the world, which is called, in this case, zazen. Zazen is letting go of the world and not practicing for yourself, but being able to actually leave the world behind. And then when you get up from Zazen, you got into the world. and you bring that stillness into your everyday life, which allows you to influence people without doing something special.

[15:34]

We should set an example of our practice in our lives. of how we practice is to not try to influence people by coercion or proselytizing or getting them to do something or trying to make them understand, but just to cultivate your own practice so that you set an example and people say, what's that? and that influences people. So how do you practice in a way that will actually influence people? This should be something to think about. So in your workplace, you don't have to do something special.

[16:39]

You say, well, how do I bring Buddhism into my in a workplace, where everybody is doing something different and nobody is particularly a Buddhist. How do you bring that to your practice without the support system? So this is what we have to concentrate on. And the way we do that is to set an example. And the way to set an example is to practice as hard as you can. So the practice of going back and forth, or the activity of going back and forth between the zendo and your work, or your life outside of the zendo, you actually extend the zendo throughout all of your activity. During zazen, the door is right there, and the zendo is confined to this space, but when you leave, the door is open.

[17:49]

And the boundary of the zendo is wherever you are. If we keep that in mind, then the question always keeps coming up, well, how do I practice in this situation? How do I practice in this situation, moment by moment? What is practice? So, back and forth, back and forth. when the zendo and your daily activity outside the zendo are the same, then you can say that you have some practice, some accomplishment in practice. Then there's the aspect of coming back to or always being centered in practice.

[18:59]

How do we stay centered in practice? So in zendo, we're always paying attention to the breath, posture and breathing, posture and breathing, continually coming back to posture and breathing, and breathing deeply. But in our daily life, we don't think about posture and breathing so much. But if you really pay attention to posture and breathing in Zazen, and especially during Sishing, you will have practiced breathing, paying attention to breath, so much that when you're practicing in your daily life, you keep coming back to the breath. You just keep doing it. You do that because you practice it so much. I just always am aware of my breath, even if it's just subtly in all of my activity.

[20:04]

And when you're feeling at a loss, sometimes anxious or whatever, just take some space to come back to your breathing. establish yourself in your breath, and then to engage in your activity with the breath, so that breathing and activity are in the same rhythm. If you can do that, then you're always establishing yourself on stillness and maintaining composure. So, throughout your day, you're established on breath and composure.

[21:15]

Composure is always there. So when something happens, you don't get thrown by it. Or if you do get thrown by it, you quickly recover. We should always be mindful of practicing in this way. And one other aspect is to be aware of your compulsive behavior, your habit, habitual behavior, which is always getting you into a little bit of trouble, maybe not with others, but with yourself.

[22:24]

Oh, here I am doing this again. just be out of habit. So, to work on your habits is important. We tend to work out of our conditioning. Zazen, you know, is an act of deconditioning. When we sit in Zazen, we let go of our habits in our conditioning and just resume our true nature, which is unspoiled. So to keep working on this, letting go of conditioning and habit, what we call bad habit energy, is important. We may never reach the end of this, but just to work on it is the important thing.

[23:31]

and to work without the carrot of results. This is Shikantaza. To just do what you feel should be done without trying to be attached to a result. If we are attached to a result, then we get discouraged because it's so hard to change. But it's not like we're trying to change. It's just that we're addressing what we see as compulsive behavior, conditioned reactions, and habit energy that is in control. Just keep working with it and be aware of it all the time, as much as we can.

[24:38]

And little by little, things change. We shouldn't be looking for some big results. Our enlightened nature comes forth through our effort And it's not something that you can grab a hold of and say, now I've got this enlightenment. Enlightenment is not the result of our efforts. But without our effort, it doesn't appear. So it's very important to be aware of our opinions and our views, because opinions and views are usually one-sided.

[25:43]

So, as much as we can, when our opinions and views come up, to realize, well, this is just an opinion, or this is just my view. This is not the truth. This is just what I think is the truth. I think it's important. So, if you have an opinion which you want to express, instead of just expressing the opinion, to say, in my opinion, or I have a view, so that you know that this is an opinion and that this is a view. And it's not like you're stating the truth. So when you do state it in this way, you're open to other views and other opinions. And another aspect is practicing with patience.

[27:15]

We tend to get impatient. The world is a very dynamic place, and things don't always go our way. And we're running off here and there. But patience is really important, because patience puts us right in the center of reality. the reality of this moment. The hardest thing is just to stay in the reality of this moment, because we are always thinking about the next thing. And we're always going to the next activity. And it seems like life is continuous movement. But it's continuous movement of increments. Each moment is an increment of time, and to stay centered in each increment of time is to stand in reality.

[28:23]

But we tend to blur that reality by feeling that the next moment is more important than this moment. I've got to do that. We do have to do those things. But we should be settled at this moment and then settled in the next moment's activity. If you can do that, you will always be in time. So how to practice just being in time is enough. Not ahead of time. not behind time, but just right in time, right in the time of this moment. And sometimes we would do things more quickly than we should in order to, and superficially, in order to get on to the next moment, which will also turn out to be

[29:40]

kind of superficially done, and so forth, because we have this chain of continuity. And the quality of this moment will influence the quality of the next moment. And then pretty soon we just lose touch with the reality of each moment altogether. There are some people who can't sit still for more than a minute. When we have a wedding, everybody sits down, and then I have us do five minutes of zazen, or just sitting still without talking. And all people come from, you know, the families, and they've never experienced this before. Five minutes. And sometimes people say, I've never sat that long without saying something or feeling that I had to do something.

[30:44]

And then some people are very thankful. They say, oh, it's so wonderful. I was scared. If we can accomplish just being in each moment, for each moment's sake, totally concentrated and totally at one with our activity on each moment, that's enough. And so we practice that kind of activity when we serve. in zendo. How do you move in a zendo? If you're too slow, then if you feel that that's mindfulness to be too slow, it's not.

[31:48]

It's just being slow. We can be thorough, even if we're doing things quickly. It's good to practice thoroughness when you're doing things slowly. thoroughness, doing them slowly, you can do them more quickly. But if you're too slow, then everybody gets anxious, right up. And if you're too fast, people get nervous, upset. But I think we're doing well. I think people are doing very well, taking the time to bow to each other. taking the time to bow to your cushion, taking the time to do whatever you have to do without slowing down or speeding up. So this kind of thoroughness is very important

[33:06]

for Dogen's practice and for our practice. When we are that thorough, then we're really in touch with ourself, and we're in touch with our surroundings, and we're settled, and we have composure. And we're ready for the next thing, for the next activity. Totally ready for the next activity. And we've totally used ourself up in this activity. This moment is a total moment of birth and death. And then we're ready to be reborn into the next activity, in which we use ourself up completely. And then we're reborn into the next activity. And this is connected to just doing one thing at a time.

[34:29]

To do one thing thoroughly at a time. Sometimes when we want to carry things, we try to load as much as we can, you know, and we're balancing it. Got something tucked in our arm, things are falling. That's not a good idea. Better to just take one or two things at a time someplace and then come back and get the next thing and bring it over, and come back and get the next thing and bring it over, so that each thing that you're carrying, you're carrying with some sense of care and attention. When you come into the zendo, and you have something in your hands, and you come to your seat, before you bow, you put down the thing that you're carrying, if it's maybe your eating bowls, or a sutra card, or something, you put it down, and then you bow.

[35:42]

And when you're leaving the zendo, and you have all your stuff, you have your hands full, you just hold your things and bow with your body rather than trying to make a gosh-oh with your hands in a clumsy way. So, there are many ways to bow. The main thing is that it's from here. And, of course, we use our hands when there's nothing in our hands. But if you have something, You hold the paper in your hands like this, not like this, but respectfully. This way is like, that's not respectful to the paper. But this way, you're giving the paper a place to be. And so then you bow this way.

[36:47]

So think about how you relate to objects, so-called objects, because when you relate to them, they are a part of you. They're no longer just objects. This is the right time to stop, but if you have a question, Yes. How do you relate to parts of the world that are agitated? That are what? That are agitated, like traffic on the freeway. I didn't... I said, how do you relate to parts of the world that are agitated, like traffic on the freeway? Oh, traffic on the freeway. You have to control the traffic on the freeway. And you control the traffic on the freeway by driving correctly.

[37:53]

when you're driving with awareness, then, you see, you have all these people driving their automobiles on the freeway, right, or down the road, and each one is harmonizing with all the others that are there. So this is a kind of high-powered dance that's happening. Everyone has to participate in the dance. I was talking to a woman the other day, saying, you know, when I drive, I just, you know, don't pay much attention to everybody else. I just do my own driving, you know. And this is what creates the biggest problems in the world, is someone who is not paying attention to the dance, they're just driving.

[38:57]

So, this is a big subject with me. You harmonize. As soon as you start harmonizing, see, people take their cues from what you do. Everyone on the road that's close to you is taking their cue from what you do. So what you do is very important. And you control the road by doing what you believe is right so that people can trust you and they take their position from what they see you doing and you take your position from what you see them doing. It's no problem. It's only a problem when people don't pay attention to what's going on. It's lack of mindfulness. When everybody on the road is paying attention and is mindful and knows what's happening behind them and their size in front. Not a problem. I enjoy driving because it's a game.

[40:05]

It's a wonderful kind of game. I don't know, that's all.

[40:13]

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