also about what brings you sustained joy and interest and ease. And in your life, are you aware of touching the ultimate dimension? I have a question. Go ahead. I think the thing that I got caught by was what brings us joy. whatever it was you said. And I feel like I am not so comfortable looking for what brings me joy. I feel like that's a little bit of a setup to look for joy gaining to me. I am often trying to remind myself that I am satisfied. What was the last thing you said?

[01:01]

I often try to remind myself or to just be satisfied as opposed to look for the joy. You know, I've had a very difficult year and few years, and it feels like a setup to look for joy. It doesn't feel like that. that's a practice that has helped me get through the last few years. So I guess I'm curious, how do we talk about what's going to get us joy and how is that not towards gaining mind? Well, the first thing that comes to me is that satisfied is good. Satisfied is good. Satisfied is if that is the word that works for you.

[02:05]

Joy has been the word that has been working with me, I think. For a number of years, because it was not something I ever imagined that I could have. Actually, and. Someone said to me when I was do so as a piece of advice beforehand, the most important thing is to enjoy yourself, which was not something I had ever thought of doing. So it and it turned me and it was. When I when I thought about enjoying myself. It helped me handle my anxiety about a bunch of things. I'm not sure why. I think it's just an energetic thing and maybe it's just a personal thing. So I think use the word that means something. What pulls you to practice?

[03:13]

What motivates you? What gives you fuel for your perseverance in practice? What sustains you? Maybe that's a less... more neutral way of framing the question. Karen. When you talk about joy, I'm kind of responding to Dean. I'm not sure that it's the same kind of joy that's pleasure seeking. I think it's a more of joy. It's a kind of happiness, but it's not a grasping kind of happiness. And actually, I like what Dean said, though. You use the word satisfy. I like the word contentment. There also is, I think, a natural joyfulness that's just not

[04:20]

what we usually think of as having what we want particular way, you know, doesn't mean that you're smiling necessarily. So that's all I'll say. Susan. Thanks. Just to tag on to that. You know, I think culturally we think of joy, we kind of think of joy as a synonym to happiness. But I think of them as being pretty different in that happiness is more connected idea. Something I do that will make me happy or something I do that will make me unhappy. And Sojin always said that joy was something that's always there no matter what situation we're in.

[05:26]

So I think the words contentment and satisfaction with one's circumstance, despite whatever is going on and that that's pretty different than happiness. In the discussion, I focused more on the ease part than the joy part. Because that makes sense to me that you're able to be in a state where you're not continually struggling with yourself. Not struggling with the situation. So there's ease. Just a five-minute situation where I'm feeling easy and connected. And there's a kind of joy that just comes from that. But it's more of a contentment satisfactory kind of thing. But ease made it more accessible for me thinking about it. Well, I was just going to say the same thing.

[06:34]

I was thinking of ease. It seems like it's kind of a relaxed joy in a way. I mean, it's aware. and paying attention but there's no difficulty or there's it can be difficulty but it's just you're you're moving right along and it's just a sense of well-being and um contentment's a good word too good word uh also so that's what i was thinking So, I think to all of you talk about that. It was kind of a revolutionary concept to me to connect joy with Zazim, but I'm thinking no one is talking about the sixth day of a seven-day session.

[07:44]

I don't think. I mean, I don't know. Sometimes you do hit that place, but sometimes it's just... identifying with a whole lot of pain. I think one thing that for me when we got in our groups that I actually wanted to start with the flip side that you asked us to talk, you know, the gaining idea. And as much as I've known from the beginning that that is not what Zen practice is about, that we sit, it's an end in itself. And as much as I've always known that intellectually, the fact that when I'm sitting every day, my life just seems to work so much better, that during the time there was a break in sitting,

[08:52]

And it was like, I feel completely scattered in all of these things that are not the way I want to feel, not whole and integrated. I'm going to go back to sitting every day because I know I've experienced that. So it's hard to stay with the idea of no gaining. when I've experienced the gains of practice. People are in my office. I'm going to mute now. Sue, are you raising your hand? I don't know how to use my digital hands.

[09:57]

But what I think is that sitting, it's focused. So from looking at a situation from yourself to kind of subtly looking as if you were part of the whole situation, And that that allows the nation and the ease. Yeah, that that is what I got from Dale Wright's discussion. There is something that brings us. practice it's a way seeking mind and the way seeking mind is motivated for something right it's drawn to something and when once there then there is something else that happens something yeah right yes

[11:17]

Lori? It's just really interesting to hear people's perspectives. One thing I like about the word joy, I understand other side too, but for me, it's a very physical word. And I like, for me, practice is... so much about staying, you know, returning to my body, finding my body and finding interconnectedness and ease through my body and joy. You know, so when those, you know, I think it's almost, they're all different words, but it's almost like for me that in my body, it's almost the same experience of feeling connected, in a way that somehow isn't scary and is relaxing and also feels good.

[12:39]

So it just feels good, you know? And so that's where I, that's the part I resonate with because it's an embodied kind of, an embodied kind of experience. For me, the effort of practice is to somehow connect with something that's always there. So it doesn't feel like an effort to change. I feel like somehow the effort to change your situation is like the one that doesn't work so well. But it doesn't feel like it's an effort to change my situation so much as just return and come back to it, come back to what's already there. I just wanted to add because what Laurie just said was the return and Rosh Hashanah and that we're in the days of Baha and this is about the return to self and the return to each moment you know the return to the present that

[14:23]

It's all the gift of life is in the moment. And for myself, when I have everything in the cosmos in the moment, then I feel joy. Even I feel ecstatic joy. But on the other hand, I understand how Dean feels, because I don't know if it's just being a Jew. But I was not seeking joy, seeking happiness. You know, it was do good, do well. It wasn't, I mean, and even in Berkeley, you know, in the height of sex and rock and roll and hedonism, it wasn't to seek happiness. Anyway, but I do feel that deep joy and connection to life, to what is beyond form. Thank you.

[15:23]

I do appreciate, Laurie, you're bringing it back to a body practice because there is a way in which what we expect. We then attach a word to it, and we might all attach a different word to it. You know, the words are not the feeling and not the experience, right? And there's something about the word energy that resonates, sort of right energy, if you will, that it's how we manifest and direct our life force and moderate. that story that Thich Nhat Hanh refers to of the Buddha advising about how he tunes his instrument so that the string is not too loose and not too tight, that there's a kind of moderation or a way of managing one's energy that is just right, if you will, just...

[16:47]

what words to use, but I do think it's beyond words and that it's a body practice and an experience practice. Carol? Yeah, you know how we talk about this being a body to body. And for a long time, those were just words to me. But I, and kind of mysterious. Sitting in the Zendo, let's say with bodies, other bodies, you know, necessarily strike a chord.

[17:53]

I would say, yes, this is a body-to-body practice. But I think the longer I'm in practice, and it is mysterious, the body-to-body connection, and we don't really talk that much. Think about our practice. When we're in the Zendo, we don't talk much. When we're in Sashin, we don't talk much. So it's very much... Practice just being together with each other's bodies. And there's such... It's energizing. You're comparing sitting at home, alone, sitting in the Zendo with others. Don't know how it works. It just is energy, energizing. It's... It's a mystery in many ways. But, you know, it's like going to a party, you feel that energy.

[18:54]

Or another thing, you feel when there's not good energy, people may be distressed, you can pick that up. So it's more and more sense to me about this being a body-to-body practice. It's the crux of it. Yes, you could say. Thank you. Jim. So when we split off into our small group, the first thing that came up for me is I kind of tossed your question and apologies. And the reason I did is I get lost in semantics. That's that's. But but the idea of joy and ease felt like gaining ideas for me that if I behave right, if I do something correctly, I'll have joy and ease.

[20:01]

And so in working with it in that way, what what made more sense to me. Because practice. There is. a spacious awareness available where the rhythm of my life kind of acts itself out. I mean, in Zazen, we're sitting, effort in Zazen can be talked about as holding this awareness, holding the space, holding mind open, not attaching the thoughts, that kind of effort. And when we drift away, as we always do, the rhythm is that we return to breath. We return to posture, to that spaciousness. And it's the same thing in life. I have a situation at work where I'm really angry with somebody who has a lot of power. And I have to be very careful. And somebody else in our group used the word harmonizing, which I liked very much.

[21:05]

If I return to breath and if I return to the awareness that arises from practice, then I act from a different space and I act from a different vision and I act from a different sight. Maybe joy arises and maybe it doesn't because the other side of this is what's the nature of my acceptance? Is there this kind of calm mind that can accept the perturbations of what my life brings me and work with that? You know, my experience of practice when I'm kind of in the zone is I walk out of the Zendo and everything is so crisp and clear. On the trees are sharp. My breath, I'm so aware of each breath that I'm taking. That for me is an aspect of practice. And returning to that space is kind of where I'm to joy and ease.

[22:11]

And sometimes it comes and sometimes it doesn't. And what I want to do in the meantime is just sort of accept. Not sort of accept. And I'm going on a little bit, so I'll stop. Did you hear any of that? Was I muted the entire time? Yeah. No, we heard you. Thank you. Joel. We need unmute. Yes. Hi, everyone. Yeah. What. and Carol took up on it, brought up something that's always very striking and very... Joel, can you get closer to your microphone? How's that? A little better. Better? Yeah. Yeah, well, something that has always struck me about my practice is that I relate to because so much of my practice has been coming up for session.

[23:15]

And for years and years, the only opportunity I had to talk to people to get to know people, like what their names were or what work they did, was the day I arrived and a few hours the day I left. And as I continued to practice, I just felt so intimate with all these people. And I didn't know their names. And it was tremendously powerful. And what Laurie said, it's a body thing. Our bodies were there. And, you know, I mean, the discourse of thing wasn't there so much at all. Words weren't there so much. And we were breathing each other's air in a direct way. There was also, I think, an important thing of we were together and we knew that there were probably quite a few people in a lot of pain, physical pain, whatever, and we were two sometimes, not all the time by any means, but it was there and it was that somehow that got held by each of us.

[24:45]

I can't describe it, but anyway, that was always very mysterious, but Lori's thing and Carol's thing about body really had a lot to do, has a lot to do with that feeling that arose with people practicing together for day after day. And so, thank you. Katie. Thanks. I was struck as I often am by the idea. So kind of back to what Mary was saying about not too tight, not too loose. And I think that's something that I rediscover in Zazen pretty much every time. that I have a habit of trying to make my brain do what I need it to do during the rest of the day.

[25:54]

And it's easy to have that carry over into zazen. And it's tight, and there's not a lot of space for joy or other things. And I don't know how, but I hope the lesson in the other direction and... how to maintain some level of control over what I'm doing in my life, what I'm doing in the moment, and some level of focus while being not too tight. So I'd say that I appreciated that aspect of it. I think it has a lot to do with effort and joy. Judy. As I've been listening, what came to mind was a wonderful piece that Mushim Ikeda wrote a couple years ago, which was called I Vow Not to Burn Out.

[27:13]

And so it was talking about, among other things, the interplay of what I think of as wholehearted effort, particularly in the service of societal transparency, equity, inclusion, belonging type justice work. And as an expression of bodhisattva vow, waking up together. And with that, that it's to have resiliency practices. This was something I think that we particularly saw, for instance, among first responders and others during the height of the pandemic. So when I think of during these times, I think of it centered around resiliency in the service of, we have a responsibility to care for joy that includes things like outrage,

[28:40]

as a way of calling attention to what needs attention, needs a response. And so for me, part of, say, Dogen's joyful mind and instructions to the cook is to know how to see that kind of outrage. as an expression of bearing witness to something that needs attention. And as the cook knows how to work with that ingredient to make a masterful meal that will really nourish all beings. And I feel like that's the joy that I feel wholeheartedly committed to as effort. And of course, that's an effort that we can only step into together.

[29:43]

So I think that's both a challenge and an opportunity. Andrea, did you want to say something? Thanks, Mary. Well, I was going to take the conversation maybe in a slightly different way, but I was interested if people want more to where it was going. I think my question that I've been chewing on is I don't think the kinds of experiences that Jeff or Joel were talking about would be possible without some kind of effort. I wonder what people think that effort really is. We've said a little bit about what we don't want it to be, but what is that effort really? Just curious what people's reaction to that is.

[30:55]

Mira. So I never quite understood what bright effort meant. I thought it meant keeping your upright and keeping going back to your breath. the efforts we make to practice correctly. But Thich Nhat Hanh, I did the reading tonight, and he seemed to think that the right effort actually meant we were watering from our store consciousness, the wholesome seeds that we were bringing them up, or the unwholesome seeds that we were watering doing whatever we could to not water them and to not. So that was his description. He had four right efforts about the wholesome and unwholesome seeds and preserving the wholesome seeds that you have already and bringing up others.

[32:07]

So I thought that was a great version for me of right effort. So that to me is more about our mental states and our habits, I guess. Yeah. Our behavior, but also our mental thoughts and speech. I don't know what other people think of that because nobody talked about that. And that was... the reading from Thich Nhat Hanh. I'm done. As a response to

[33:08]

I think the opposite when when I think of the eightfold path and even right effort I'm I'm thinking of how to live my life you off the cushion when I'm in the world so because I think It's not just about sitting. It's about how we comport ourselves and behave in the world and living our life. I totally agree with you. I hope you didn't misunderstand me. No, it's throughout your life that you can... behaviors or thoughts or emotions, not just on the cushion.

[34:15]

Yeah. So does it make an effort to address Ryushin's question, which I think correct me if I'm wrong, is about what is the effort of practice? What do we call it? What is it? Is that? I guess I'm interested in people's experience of effort and practice, especially those that have had some experience of ease and joy and freedom. What is that effort that's been a part of that? Because it kind of bridges to what we've all been talking about this evening. Joe? Well, I've been trying these limbs through the prism of suffering.

[35:38]

How can right view address suffering? How can right thoughts address suffering? So how can right effort address suffering? And I know that I've been told that something else brings us to practice, but usually in our minds, there's some suffering going on. Something's not quite right. And so we end up here staring at a wall. I think we can learn to develop that there's something positive or something, there is something to enjoy, joyful that leads us to practice. But I think initially there's this issue of addressing suffering. And so for me,

[36:41]

I really wanted to address not being able or having problems managing stress, you know, managing physical pain, managing all the sort of fallout that comes from chronic illness. And. And so that is. that is what my effort has been towards is towards suffering. And it's changed since I've started sitting a lot to being, I try to take care of myself and my body and my mind, but also a bigger topic of suffering where I think I'm a thing. I think you're a thing. I think this is a separate thing and treating things as separate. And instead of, a right effort to understand everything I encounter and experience.

[37:48]

That is all my life. That is all myself. And so those are the ways that I feel that I make an effort to address suffering, both the aches and pains and difficulties of life and this sort of overarching overarching suffering of thinking that I have a permanent self or that something permanent can be obtained. I hope that somehow responds to Andrea's prompt. I'd like to invite anybody who hasn't spoken to have a word if you wish. And also, if anyone has a sort of closing word in a minute or two, we're going to provide our own closing words.

[39:07]

But if you have a closing word. Nina. So I just want to say that I am deeply moved by having listened to everybody and by this whole experience. And it's bringing me back to sitting, which I've been awake. Thank you. Thank you. So I would like to appreciate everyone's effort and energy tonight and doing the reading and being together and for this very rich conversation and for our practice together, which in response to that a word that has meant a lot to me.

[40:52]

through thick and thin is actually perseverance. That muscle that we develop when our mind wanders and we bring it back and we try to do it without judgment and doing that over and over and over. And that is my sort of base definition of effort. Although I have to say that I also, as long as, Probably all of you have been graded for effort all of our lives, you know, when we're in school. So there's that trying hard effort that I work to step away from, trying to be something, trying to do something, trying to get something done, as opposed to just returning. I think someone said returning, which was really also kind of in the ballpark for me. I'm a prayer is welling up.

[41:59]

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