Good morning. Today is Monday. And I already moved my car. Almost forgot. I've gotten tickets before. So, I'll say that to remind all of you, just in case. So Monday is Moon Day. And it's the second day of Rohatsu. And I don't know if you've noticed, but Mondays is a public morning with way-seeking mind talks. And the week is beginning. And there's also this bustling and jostling at times with each other. And it's all contained within this luminous big mind. I always have that feeling on Monday mornings even in Zendo.

[01:03]

So that's like a little mighty micro Sushi. Just a spot. And Saturdays is the day of Saturn. Or the joy of the law. And which this Rohatsu will fall on the last day of Sashi. So there we all get to rejoice together. So today I would like to speak about being time, being time in Sashi. And I'll make an effort also to end not only in time, but on time. Sashin's talks should be short, since our focus is Zazen, and people's legs hurt a lot.

[02:06]

Which, by the way, I don't have a watch. Do you have one? Thank you. So, what time Richard? What? We should end? We should end? Okay, so I'll leave some time for questions or discussion. So I want to begin with a quote from Suzuki Roshi from Senmai Beginner's Mind. By the way, you can download it. I discovered you can download Senmai Beginner's Mind as a PDF on the web. And then you download it. And then you can put time there. And it tells you all the different places where Suzugiro spoke of time. Isn't that wonderful? Otherwise you have to go through the whole thing.

[03:13]

Unless you remember where he spoke about what. So this is his quote on time. So he says, so when you practice Zazen, there's no idea of time or space. You may say, we started sitting at a quarter to six in this room, thus you have some idea of time, a quarter to six, and some idea of space in this room. Actually what you're doing, however, is just sitting and being aware of the universal activity. That is all. This moment, The swinging door is opening in one direction. And the next moment, the swinging door will be opening in the opposite direction. Just a different direction. Opposite direction. Moment after moment, each one of us repeats this activity.

[04:17]

Here, there's no idea of time or space. Time and space are one. You may say, I must do something this afternoon. But actually, there is no this afternoon. We do things one after the other. That is all. There's no such time as this afternoon, or one o'clock, or two o'clock. At one o'clock, you will eat your lunch. Actually, it's 12 o'clock for us. One o'clock, we'll have our break. So one o'clock is the best time. 12 o'clock is lunchtime. 1.45 is work period. There's no time. It's just those activities, one after the other. Each one at a time. You will be somewhere, but that place cannot be separated from 1 o'clock. That's space-time.

[05:21]

That time and space is the same thing. For someone who actually appreciates our life, they are the same. But when we become tired of our life, we may say, I shouldn't have come to this place. So that's Apropos the Shi, right? I mean, Sojin is... We've all laughed with Sojin, you know, over the years, when he gets to that point where... because that's what he did, the first Shi. went walking in San Francisco and then eventually came back. So we've all been in that place where we can't stand it anymore and want to be somewhere else and just leave. But there's no other place to be.

[06:24]

So that somewhere else is also this moment. So what will you do? Just, I shouldn't have come to this place. It may have been much better to have gone to some other place for lunch. This place is not so good. Better food somewhere else. Actually, the same food that we cook here when we take it home sometimes doesn't taste the same. So it's the food, this place, this moment, this intention. which generates the taste of the food. We can't pinpoint it, where it is, where is it. Is that gourmet cooking? Gourmet cooking is also good but it tastes different. In your mind you create an idea of a place separate from an actual time.

[07:26]

statement about time. So Sachine actually begins before Sachine begins. Actually, Sachine is just going on all the time. It's just one moment at a time. Next moment. Next moment. That's how we live our life. So after a while, sitting so many Sashins and Rohatsu, it just becomes more like just the fabric of your life. But we have to set the time aside to participate and make arrangements. So that's part of being in time, setting up the time. And we create the schedule for a whole year, in advance so we know when Rahatsu is and that means you have to set a time a week at work or whatever activities you have to be aware so within all those arrangements there's already infinite time it's an infinite time

[08:55]

I think it's Dohener in Japanese. Somebody speaks Japanese here, maybe. You can tell me, but I think it's Nikon. He calls it Nikon. I guess that's where they got the brand Nikon. It's infinite, the brand of cameras. It's that instant. Infinite time. So within those arrangements, those are already sashimi. That's infinite time. So the day before, like I said, we start on Sunday now, because then you have the Saturday to get ready, do your laundry, spend time with your partner, and speak about the time that you'll be apart. And my partner Deborah, she's kind of always encouraging me. You know, I'm a little It's good for you.

[10:03]

Even though she, you know, she misses me, doesn't make me feel lonely at times here and there. But she knows it's good for me and it's good for us too. So I'm just, you know, we don't come and sit just for ourselves. Because she knows I have some extra space and patience to work with her and relate to her. and she knows what my rough spots are too that she has to live with and those are the rough spots that we're polishing here in Tsushima because we're always working with ourselves and our problems they're right here with us all the dimensions of our life are here in this moment this present moment and as many dimensions in it I got a haircut, too.

[11:10]

And I keep my hair short, as you can tell. My head is not shaven, and that's kind of an agreement that I have with Solzhenitsyn. And Peter also doesn't have his head completely shaven, though we shake for ordination. But sort of the rule that he gave me is, short enough for a priest long enough for a layperson. Because, you know, the shaved head has one meaning within the sangha, but it has a different meaning when you're outside the world and you work with a lot of people. People think you have cancer, or you went psychotic, you know. When people think they're psychotic, they shave their heads. Or you've been in prison. Especially after you're a woman. Right. Yeah. So it's sort of a feminine style, right?

[12:13]

It's this principle of short enough for a priest, long enough for a layperson. It's the feminine style. And I also My mother just arrived from Buenos Aires, so I picked her up at the airport on Thursday and spent some time with her on Saturday before, so she's not going to see her for the whole week. And I haven't seen her for a while. So I get to kind of honor her also. She's 84. and get to work with my bad tendencies. So sometimes, you know, my mother irritates me, you know, at times. I think we all know, are familiar with that, right? And, you know, this person who raised you, you know, cleaned your butt and everything, and told you to keep your back straight,

[13:25]

which I've learned to do and I have to do in Sashin, keeping the back straight is really important. And especially as you get older, you know, I've been having some problems with my back and so to go to a chiropractor and found this one guy spent some more time with me and did some different things and so it went away but I have to be careful now because you know it's sanitary, a lot of sitting, right? Sitting in the office, sitting with clients, sitting in front of the computer, sitting in the Zen Dome, so to get out and do some exercise and also keep your back straight because if you're you're sitting a lot you keep your back straight then it starts hurting so it's important to be upright but it used to really annoy me when my mother is always telling me sit upright so you know we have that memory of kind of irritation and so I get to work with that and it only comes out you know you know it's so easy to come

[14:51]

all my bad habits, and you think, well, it's your mother, you know, who's annoying, you know, she has all these characteristics. And then you start focusing less on her characteristics. You want to change, you know, you're going to change your mother, you know, who's 84. You have to, it's a mirror, you have to, you know, it's a very strict mirror. So you have to look at your own reactions and why are you getting impatient with this, you know, wonderful old lady. So in Sashimi you get to see all these kind of micro focus, right? and the problems that we have and the problems that Sachine gives us, especially just for us.

[15:58]

And we are our problem. Nobody else is a problem, no matter what the problem may be. We're always implicated So, uh, I also noticed, you know, before Sachine, I always had a little bit of a thing of anxiety, you know, over leaving the usual activities and leaving the people behind to enter Sachine and recognize these feelings, but not feed them, not suppress them, not feed them. Because you know, once you come into Sachine, then it all changes. And once you're here, then ah, yes, then, you know, no need to worry about it. So that's being anxious over the passing of time.

[17:02]

So when we are conscious of the passing of time, then we're not in time. So we're separate from time. We're looking at time as something separate from us. Oh, tomorrow I'm doing this. But right now, you're anxious about tomorrow. So, we're not in time at that moment. We're aware of the passing of time. And when we're absorbed in time, then we are unaware of time. At that moment we are unaware of time because we are time. So this is what Dogen calls being time. Uji. Also when we're separate, then it's from time, then it's when, or how much time is left, you know, and it's only Monday, and there's another six days left, and my legs are already killing me, and it's only going to get worse, and so on.

[18:31]

So we get anxious, we get upset, we get bored, not being in time. And when you're in time, then time vanishes. It's all happening in a moment. It's all an instant. That's the blinking of Buddha's eye. So this is infinite time. Being time is the place where the passing of time and infinite time meet in you. That's you. We are that moment where the passing of time and infinite time meet. So Darwin says, Nikon, or infinite time, chews up time. Chews up

[19:34]

Diachronic time. Diachronic time is the passing of time. Synchronic time is this moment, which is also infinite time. Sojoun talks about continuous and discontinuous time. So, it's always unclear which one is which. So, discontinuous is just this moment cut off from the past or from the future. So he says, Nikon, infinite time, chews up time and also spits it out. So infinite time, he says, is no more or less virtuous than a 13 million year cycle. 13 million years, nor less.

[20:42]

So infinite time doesn't spit being time because infinite time was incomplete or insufficient without time as we know it. And with spitting out being time, infinite time is also not diminished. Being time is no less than infinite time. Infinite time is no more than being time. So he says, being time is the activity or the realization of infinite time. So when we are completely ourselves in this moment, that is you. It's also the realization of infinite time. So we could say Nikon Infinite Time is spit out as a Sashin Schedule. So with the Sashin Director sprinting out the Sashin Schedule, it's like Nikon Time is spitting out the Sashin Schedule, which is a series of discrete moments of this, [...] the facsimile of the same thing.

[22:02]

as discrete moments. That's what sasheen is. A series of identical moments, and that's practice. Ceaseless practice. And at the same time, infinite time swallows the schedule. So we have to swallow the sasheen schedule. There is no schedule. It's just this moment. In the whole rahatsu, Just gulp it in. So it's like a... Rohatsu is like a leaf of the plum tree. It's all one piece. And a leaf is made up of many little lines or bits, each of which contain the entire leaf. So Rahatsa is made up of all these little bits and pieces of time and of each other.

[23:09]

And yet it's all one piece. It's all one leaf of the plum tree. And the plum tree has many leaves. And so we have the branch of the Berkeley Zen Center. And then we have the branch of the Soto School. have the whole tree of Buddhism. And there are all these rohatsus, all the people that have been sitting over all this time, long periods of time. But it's all this. So, I think, in another place, Suzuki Roshi quotes Darwin also saying that time goes from present to past, and from present to future.

[24:11]

It doesn't go from past, present, to future. That's the arrow of time. And I think that now, in physics, they also say that arrow of time is an illusion. So, we get to experience that in Rahatsa. Time goes from present, this moment, to the past, and present, from this moment, to the future. So, the presence of the present, and there's the present as one of the discrete moments of past, present, and future. And then there is the presence that is not that present. There is the presence that includes the past and the future. So, in Rahatsa we have to be mindful of the past and also awakened to the time that hasn't arrived yet.

[25:21]

So being mindful of the past in the present moment is a form of mindfulness. Because one of the meanings of mindfulness is recollection. Recollection is remembering. Remembering is putting the members back together of past, present and future in this moment. So when we're sitting we have to be mindful of the past because the past is sort of passing right in front of us and at the same time we have to let it go because the past is something that we're creating right now it's not something that happened before it's something that we're inventing in this moment we're reconstructing in this moment whatever happened before was something else how we relate to the past is how we work with the past in this moment so we have all our habitual ways of thinking of ourselves and thinking of others and that's the past so we're noticing that

[26:55]

and at the same time we're letting it go so that there can be a new person emerge this is the new I so we all get to develop a new I whether it's the I of wisdom or the new self and we have to create space for this new person to emerge It's always emergent, but we have to be able to make the space. And then we're not conditioned anymore by who we are or who other people think we are, because that's changing all the time. So we have to recognize the thoughts as they emerge, but we have to make the space for new thoughts or for true thoughts.

[28:17]

Thoughts of gratitude, for example, instead of the usual grind of thinking. we think about ourselves and about other people that upset us and close us down instead of open us up. This is the... Darwin calls it the mind of grass and flowers. And then once we let go of those thoughts that defined us. That's what may have defined us or conditioned us in some way. Then we're still left with the feelings. Still some feelings that remain. And so, in Sachine we may have different feelings about ourselves or about other people.

[29:22]

And we watch those feelings in our body. Sometimes it's kind of a heat in the shoulder. You feel kind of an intense heat in a part of the body that's kind of in the shoulder. I mean, even if you, you know, say you were upset with somebody. What am I getting upset with this person for or about this situation or that situation? You let that one go. It still remains as a heat in your body somewhere or a sensation in your chest or in your stomach that were connected to these thoughts that we had and then pretty soon once we can recognize that in the body then that energy gets released and it changes into something else and usually it changes into great joy

[30:25]

but then we can also get attached to the joy we can get attached to feeling good or having a nice moment in Sachine and then we get upset if that changes into something else or the pain comes back we may have a period of sitting where you sit without pain and then you're expecting that the next period of sitting you'll also be able to sit without pain but when you're expecting to sit without pain then the pain comes back or you may be expecting to sit in pain and then you don't have pain so that's always very interesting how our expectations of pain or not pain change and always don't match our expectations.

[31:42]

So maybe this is one of the meanings of Suzuki Roshi saying it's not always self. not always what's happening in reality is never matching our expectations it's always different and so we have to be able to open up to be one with the situation as it changes so eventually it doesn't matter whether it's pain or pleasure or joy or whether it's laughter or tears It is whatever it is. It's just what it is. It doesn't matter. So it's not that pain goes away. Because it doesn't. And that's one of the, I think, the expectations that we all have. That eventually, you're going to be able to sit sashimi or rohatsu without pain.

[32:49]

And that never happens. There's always some pain. It's just our relationship to the pain that changes. But there will always be a time spot. There will always be a period. It's not necessarily at the end, because that's the other thing we think. Well, it's just going to get worse over time. But it's not necessarily that way. Sometimes you have that pain the first day and then you don't have it on the sixth day. But again, you can't predict that either. It's unpredictable. So then this is becoming friends or friendly with impermanence.

[33:53]

and then impermanence is the buddha nature rather than some fixed state that we are identifying buddha nature with because it's something that's constantly changing so it's about 10 to 11, so I think I'm going to leave some time for comments or questions And I want to close with a poem by William Blake, which you probably all know, but I'll remind you of it. He proposed to Sheen. He who to himself binds a joy doth the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity's sunrise.

[34:56]

Shall I say it one more time? He who to himself binds the joy, thus the winged life destroyed. That's kind of the attachment to Buddha nature or to joy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity's sunrise. Yes, which? Let's see.

[36:29]

Ah, here it is. At one o'clock you will eat your lunch. To eat lunch is itself one o'clock. You will be somewhere, but that place cannot be separated from one o'clock. For someone who actually appreciates our life, they are the same. sort of enjoying life moment to moment and not be worried about it passing and not being anxious about the passing of time sometimes you think, oh I have this whole day what shall I do today? I have this whole day and sort of have this kind of unstructured And on the one hand, that can be kind of wonderful, and on the other hand, you know, you start getting worried, and you know, what am I going to do? And then your state of mind starts to change in that kind of formlessness.

[37:42]

But if you actually just start doing what you need to do, moment to moment, that's the day. And all of a sudden, the morning is gone, and then the day is gone. And then, where did today go? Then you get worried about, oh, the days are going on too fast. Or the years are going on too fast. Ooh, stop this train. I'm going to get off. So that's sort of not appreciated life. you get concerned about the passing of time or about what you do with your time. Too busy or not busy enough. So appreciating life is sort of just Yeah.

[38:58]

Well that's part of the... sort of the busyness. It's too much when we have so much structure. So it's very tight schedule and then the schedule depends on you getting from one place to another. And then everybody is... has the same time. It's not just you. So you think well I'm here in this moment but not only you here in this moment like three or four people there's the bicycle and there's the other car and everybody wants to get somewhere right so then people start then we start getting frustrated with each other because if only it was just you but it's not just you it's a lot of people so i think that's very common though and i think increasingly common vote rage is increasingly So yeah, pacing ourselves is important.

[40:03]

So you have enough time to have enough time and space to not be so much in a hurry. But sometimes it's difficult to do that. Yes? Well, some of this I understand. Recently I was in the wilderness and it began to rain. And I spent quite a lot of time thinking things like, gee, I wonder if I brought enough clothes for you to dry. And what if it continues to rain until I'm cooking dinner? And then what about when I hitch my tent? And then I'll be really stuck. And finally, I realized that I was going down these rat holes of the future and said, am I all right now? And I was. And lo and behold, things ended up turning out fine as the day progressed. So that part I understand. But I don't understand how to manage the admonition, do not pass your days and nights in vain. I mean, that reminds me of, I want to be the squirrel that put away the nuts, and not the squirrel that played all summer or something, you know?

[41:07]

I mean, it's the part of you that, how about me, that is thinking about retirement, and what am I supposed to be doing, or what am I supposed to be doing to be fulfilled, or what is that admonition? What does it mean? What's the should in there? Like you should be is it is it like a like it's like a working parent. You're supposed to be productive and not Wasting wasting time, but we see it that way Yeah, so it's like a superego paternal figure sort of watch out, but this kind of watch out it's sort of just Don't miss this moment So let's just live in this moment. Just be time, be yourself. That's the true meaning of the admonition, but we can add this other dimension to it, like you're wasting time.

[42:08]

You could say you're wasting time on the cushion. I mean, what is wasting time on the cushion? What are you doing in the cushion? Are you up to anything productive? Are you doing something? You're doing nothing. What are you doing? That's a beautiful comment, right? Yes? Being self-conscious, does that mean being in the moment? Or, I mean, you mentioned something about... Yes. Yeah, because self-conscious means you're attaching to an idea you have about yourself. So that's not you. That's some idea or some memory that you have about yourself or what you think you should be doing or the concern you have about how somebody else may be seeing you.

[43:15]

So self-consciousness is a hindrance in that sense. Awareness is without subject or without object. to have some awareness of just this moment. So when we are sitting, that's not self-consciousness, that is self-awareness? When we're sitting, it's just sitting, being aware of this moment. Yes? You did say something about kind of the self-emerging or another self-emerging? The new I? And I just wondered, and I think you sort of answered it, but maybe you could elaborate a little bit more on that. Just to allow for the 10,000 things to confirm the self. Like Dogen says in the Koan, that the self advances the ten thousand things as delusion, that the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is enlightenment.

[44:28]

So that's the new I that is emerging in each situation. Although it also may have a different name. So the ordination name is like N-U-I. But that's what it means. Peter? When you were talking about your mother... And she hasn't changed a bit.

[45:30]

Right, so that's a wonderful koan. So she never was. Well, we're always implicated. So whenever we say so-and-so is this way or that way, you're speaking about yourself. You're not just speaking about the other person. You're also speaking about yourself. So we have to be careful what we say about other people. Right? Particularly when we say it with a certain kind of energy because it's the fingers pointing right at you. Yes, Kathy? When you were talking about your mother, I was thinking about myself as a mother. Uh-huh. And how I know that my adult sons find me annoying in the ways that they did when they were in middle school. And then you got to this point where you were talking about your mother as this wonderful old lady. And I thought, how can I get them to believe that I'm not that person, and neither are they, and I'm this wonderful old lady?

[46:36]

Then I began to see how, you know, of course, They're not those annoying boys. And it was kind of this Hall of Mirrors shit. Right. Yeah. Well, when my mother thinks that of herself, that's when she's annoying. I'll forget that. Then she thinks about that she's a wonderful woman. She's wonderful. Thank you very much.

[47:18]

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