It's a good idea to take a big breath through your mouth. Like... And expand your lower abdomen. And then... Did you get that? Come on in. Powerful breathing. and push all the air out so that you feel your lower abdomen meeting your backbone. Like... Then you get the feeling of breathing down here. This is called priming, priming your breath. Like that. This is an exaggeration in order to make my point.

[01:02]

But if you do that, then you'll be priming your breathing to be down here. And if you don't know what that feels like, you'll get the feeling for what it feels like. Even though all Zen students should know this, and even though someone's been practicing for 10 years, when I say, where's your breathing? They say, well, I'm not sure. I don't pay much attention to it. Or it's up here, or something. So that's why I have to say this over and over again. I'll get to control in a minute. When I first came to Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi decided that he wanted us to count our breath. He wanted us to count our breath on the exhale, from 1 to 10. He said, all of you should count your breath.

[02:04]

on the exhale from one to 10. So every time you exhale, one, two. We know this. And so at some point he said, it's okay if you don't count your breath. But not everybody heard that. I think he only said it once. And so people are still counting their breath. But it's very valuable to learn how to count your breath. A new student should always learn to start out by counting breath, because he says it's like the handle on a cup. It's a way to focus. It helps you to drink your tea or your coffee by using this device. It's simply a device, and it's a very old one. But you don't have to continue doing that. It helps you to get started. in focusing on your breathing, so that when your mind strays, you know that your mind is strayed because you're not counting anymore, or you get up to 200 and you realize that you're not being so mindful.

[03:18]

If you get to 200, just start with 3, 4, and then when you get to 10, you start again with 1. count your breath, learn how to count your breath, and you do it in difficult situations, is when you have a difficult situation, you automatically start counting your breath, and it helps you. So, you know, second day of Sashin, you know, and your legs hurt, and you can't concentrate so well, so you're there, one, two, three, until you become more calmed down, and then just let your mind follow your breath. But sometimes the breathing becomes kind of rough, or you really need something. Your mind is not calm enough to simply accept what's happening.

[04:25]

So you need something. So you go, one. When you do that, you push down on your diaphragm. On the exhale. A long one. So it's not like you're counting numbers. We use numbers. But the number is irrelevant. It can just be mu. Same thing. Mu. Tu. And the counting, the number, and the breath is all one piece. It's not like chalking up numbers. It's just a way of making a sound to establish your breathing. So, one, two, and this pushing down on the exhale on your diaphragm and feeling it in your lower abdomen.

[05:29]

actually helps to... It's a little bit aerobic. It makes you feel light. But if you depend on that, it becomes a problem. Rinzai Zen, actually, I think that Rinzai Zen practitioners do that a lot. That's called having strength in your hara. And Suzuki Roshi used to talk about, you should have strength in your hara when you breathe. And then he talks about putting emphasis on the exhale, which is what I was reading to you yesterday, to put effort in the exhale. He doesn't say specifically to push, but I did talk to him about that, and he said, Yes, that's a good idea to do. But you don't hear that anywhere particularly.

[06:31]

So, to put emphasis on the exhale, sometimes to actually emphasize the exhale with some pressure, some effort in your breathing, when you have, when you just want to establish yourself in your breath. But I don't call that breath control. You know, as we said before, when you start to, when you focus on your breath, then that focus itself affects the breathing. Like when a scientist studies something objectively, often their study objectively influences the object they're studying. So in the same way, you can't say it's completely objective, but it's okay.

[07:44]

It's not, you're not trying to make, create a breath control. Breath control is like when you're trying to create some special power through breathing. That's what I consider breath control. When you're trying to establish some special state of mind by controlling your breath in some way. That's not what we're trying to do. But to nudge your breath in some way. is not breath control, so to speak, specifically speaking. So today, today's talk is what we call resuming big mind. So, Suzuki Roshi says, �The purpose of stasheen is to be completely one with our practice.

[09:05]

We use two Chinese characters for sesshin. Setsu, which shortens to sess in conjunction with shin, means to treat something the way you treat a guest, or the way a student treats her teacher, his teacher, or the way a teacher treats her student, maybe. Another meaning of setsu is to control or to arrange things in order. Shin means mind or heart. Of course, the character shin means either one, both mind or heart. So sesshin means to have proper functioning of mind. Sometimes we say embracing mind. It is our five senses and our will, or monkey mind, which should be controlled.

[10:09]

When we control our monkey mind, we resume our true big mind. When monkey mind is always taking over the activity of big mind, we naturally become a monkey. So monkey mind must have its boss, which is big mind. So big mind is boss of monkey mind or small mind. I know that many of you are familiar with and have studied the eight levels of consciousness or nine levels of consciousness in the Mahayana. And monkey mind is the seventh level. called iggo, or manas, and the five sense consciousnesses, eye, ear, nose, tongue, taste, and feeling, and mind consciousness, mano vidyana, which makes distinctions between the five sense consciousnesses.

[11:30]

So, you know, I am seeing, this is hearing, this is tasting. And also, this is a thinking and discriminating consciousness, but it's not egotistical. The seventh level of consciousness is egotistical, and this is the troublesome mind, troublesome consciousness, but we all love it, you know. Like, we love the monkey. Because the monkey is ourself. When we say, who are you? I am the monkey. I am monkey. We don't say, I am seeing, or I am hearing, or I am remembering, which is the eighth consciousness. We say, I am happy or unhappy, or I am mischievous, or I like this and I like that. The same with you. So, this is monkey, the seventh consciousness, ego, manas.

[12:39]

So, monkey mind takes over and becomes really big and prominent, and it has a function. It is a kind of messenger between the various levels of consciousness. But I like to think of it as the messenger boy who, when the boss is out, goes into the boss's office, sits in the boss's seat, puts his feet on the desk, opens the drawer and takes out his cigar and lights it. pretends that he's the boss. And since the boss is not there, he actually thinks he's the boss. So, then he starts ordering everybody around, you know. So, this is a big problem. And so we get the monkey, Manas mind, is who we think we are.

[13:49]

And then when we sit in Zazen, the monkey mind, the monkey is still dancing around, but he doesn't have a place. The boss is there. The boss came home. The monkey doesn't, you know, it's very frustrating. So the monkey has to kind of calm down and disappear. And let big mind be there. And then, big mind, but that's boring. Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. Sometimes I think of Zazen. as like you're climbing above the treeline. Climbing a mountain, but you're above the treeline and there's nothing but big rocks and the sky, the empty sky. And then you get to the top of the mountain and there's nothing but the empty sky. Well, it can be boring, but the empty sky is pretty impressive.

[14:53]

So he says, however, when we practice zazen, it is not that big mind is actually controlling small mind, but simply that when small mind becomes calm, big mind starts its true activity. Most of the time in our everyday life, we are involved in the activity of small mind. That is why we should practice zazen and be completely involved in resuming big mind. How we resume big mind. A good example of our practice is a turtle. I want to read something here. A turtle which has four legs, a head, and a tail.

[16:07]

Six parts of the body, which are sometimes outside of the shell and sometimes inside. When you want to eat something or go somewhere, your legs are out. But if they are always out, you will be caught by something. In case of danger, you draw in your legs, head, and tail. The six parts refer to the five senses and the mind. This is seshin. For one week, our head, tail, and legs are inside the shell. In the scripture, it says that even demons cannot destroy us if the six parts of our body are inside the shell. That's true, because there's no self to be destroyed. We've already let go of self. So the only thing that can be destroyed is self. Even when we die, the five senses disappear, and there's only manas and the alive jnana, which is our memory, which still influences, still has influence, action influence.

[17:32]

And if there's no ego, there's no problem. So in zazen, we do not try to stop thinking or to cut off hearing and seeing. It sometimes happens that your mind, in your mind, if something happens in your mind, just leave it. If you hear something, hear it and just accept it. Oh, that's all. No second response should appear in your zazen. Sound is one activity, and the second is... I'm going to explain this. First of all, when there's hearing, don't say, I hear. It's just hearing hears. If just hearing hears, then there's no thought of, I hear the creek.

[18:42]

There's simply the sound that reaches the ear. And it's this sound, if you say, oh, that's the sound of the creek, that's the second response. The first response is simply hearing a sound. Hearing hears a sound. The second response is, oh, I hear the creek, I hear the sound of the creek. And then the third response is, the sound of the creek is made by rain which comes down from the clouds, and blah, blah, blah. So each response is a further elaboration, and the more elaboration there is, the more self there is. working, thinking mind. So zazen is first response, seeing sees, hearing hears.

[19:46]

There's no I that hears it. But as soon as the mind starts giving a second response, then there is an I which appears. We think that the I is always there, maybe. But the eye is not always there. The eye comes up in response to stimuli. So in zazen, you have the opportunity to simply let hearing hear, let seeing see, let feeling feel, let smelling smell, let tasting taste. without creating an I that does all that. Then in our daily life, we have to think more in terms of me, myself, and I. But these are provisional people.

[20:54]

We just create them in order to make our active life work. So what is that sound? Is it a motor car, a garbage truck, or something? If you hear a sound, that's all. Just the sound. You hear it. Don't make any judgment. Don't try to figure, what was it? Just open your ears and hear something. Just open your eyes and see something. When you are sitting for a pretty long time, watching the same place on the wall, you may see various images. Oh, it looks like a river, or it looks like a dragon. Then you may think that you should not be thinking about that, even though you see various things.

[22:04]

Dwelling on the images may be a good way to waste your time, but that's a shame. So to be concentrated on something may be important, but just to have a well-concentrated mind is not Zazen. We talk about concentration a lot. People think Zen is concentration. It is, but that's not all it is. It's just one of the many factors involved in Zazen. It is one of the elements of practice. The calmness of mind is also necessary. So don't identify the activity of the five sense organs. Just leave them the way they are. That is how you free your big mind. When you can do it in everyday life, you will have a soft mind. You won't have many preconceived ideas, and the bad habits in your way of thinking will not be overwhelming.

[23:14]

You will have bad habits, but they won't necessarily be overwhelming. You will have genuine mind and big mind, and what you say will help others. So, I like to think in Zazen, that we are practicing the seven factors of enlightenment. Do you know the seven factors of enlightenment? The seven factors of enlightenment are mindfulness, investigation, effort, joy, calmness, concentration, and equanimity. mindfulness is being attentive. So in zazen, we're careful and attentive.

[24:20]

Investigation means, in zazen, means to go over all of the aspects of your body and breath. and continuously investigate what's going on. Effort means not to just be passive. There are two aspects of effort. One is passive, the other is active. We often tend to think of zazen as simply being passive, but it's the balance of activity and passivity. So active is to put strong effort into posture. To sit with good, strong effort in posture, continuously.

[25:26]

You know, we're sitting for all day, you know, and then we get kind of tired and we start... to sit up straight and keep reminding yourself to sit up straight and to lift up your sternum, keep your head on top of your spine, and keep reminding yourself of what zazen is. So the active part is to continuously give yourself zazen instruction and pay attention to it. Passive side is to let everything come and let everything go without clinging to anything. So that's right effort. And joy is that even though we have difficulty and pain, that through our effort, joy arises. And it has nothing to do with whether we're happy or unhappy, or whether we're in a painful situation or in a non-painful situation.

[26:33]

The joy is underneath all of our activity. If joy is not arising, it's usually because our ego is standing in the way and saying, there's an intrusion here. Something is intruding on me. When there's no me, there's nothing to intrude upon. And joy arises naturally, spontaneously. And then calmness, which is what Suzuki Roshi is always talking about. Calmness of mind, not allowing anything to upset you. Calmness has two aspects. One is serenity, and the other is tranquility. Serenity is like the sunset, beautiful sunset in the evening when everything is calming, when nighttime is coming and everything is calming down.

[27:47]

All the activity is calming down. That's serenity. Tranquility is like the ocean without any waves. And then there's concentration, to be focused, well-focused. But concentration doesn't necessarily mean to be focused on just one point. The other side of concentration, as I talked about before, and Suzuki Roshi talked about, was simply to have a wide-open mind, and not to be concentrated on any specific thing. But when something moves, you catch it. That's zazen. Both of those are present in zazen. And then equanimity. Equanimity is like being at the center of the balance point.

[28:52]

So when something goes up or something goes down, you're at the center of the teeter-totter and you don't get thrown off by things. Everything is equal. If you're comfortable or not comfortable, it's equal. So he says, for example, in the Shobo Genzo, Zui Monkey, Dogen Zenji tells a story which was told to him about an influential person, Ichijo Motooe. One day, Motooe discovered that his sword was missing, and since no one else could have broken into his house, one of his own men must have stolen it.

[30:02]

The sword was found and brought back to him, but Motooe said, �This is not my sword, so give it back to the one who owns it.� People knew that the man who had the sword was the one who had stolen it, but because Motooe didn't accuse him of it, no one could say anything, so nothing happened. This is the calmness of mind we should have, according to Doge. I won't explain that one. If we have a generous big mind and if we have a strong spirit of practice, then there is no need to worry. Dogen emphasized a sparse, simple life. Without expecting anything, we just practice our way.

[31:04]

Many students ask how it will be possible to support the temple or group without any plan. And he said, if it becomes difficult to support our temple, we will think about it. But until then, it's not necessary to think about it. So before something happens, it is not our way to think about it too much. In that way, we have complete calmness of our mind. Because you have something, you worry about losing it. But if you don't have anything, there's no need to worry. Even though we have something, it seems like we have something. I remember saying, we should not be chauvinistic about Tassajara or about Zen Zen. It may be that we'll lose it. If we lose it, we'll just do something else. It's okay. I'm not worried about it. I'm not at all worried about it.

[32:08]

We just do one thing after another. If our practice is good practice, true practice, everything that we should have will come to us, will be provided. If it's not, it won't be provided. So we have some idea about whether our practice is true practice or not by the way things fall out. We say the two wheels of practice, the spiritual wheel and the material wheel. If the spiritual wheel is turning, the material wheel will also turn. One stimulates the other. And then we have the two wheels, and things are going well. I'm going to say this has always been my own philosophy. I never worried about money or property or anything, but everything just came. So I totally have faith in that. So one night, Dogen said, even if you think a teaching is complete and right, when someone tells you a better way, you should change your understanding.

[33:20]

So that's pretty good. We tend to cling to our teaching. And I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, well, Buddhism may not be the best teaching, but it's the one we have. And it's not perfect. It's a wonderful teaching because it's not perfect. If it was a perfect teaching, we should probably try something else. Because you think it is right at that time, you follow the theory or rules, but you also have some space in your mind to change your idea. That is soft mind. So we should always be able to listen and to not necessarily hang on to what we think is right and be open to hearing something else.

[34:32]

And if it's more correct, then we should change to that. That's true. Otherwise, we fall into dogmatism. So Buddhism is something that we're always discovering. It's not something that is... You know, in another talk, he talks about Buddhism is not something you can put into a drawer and pull out when you want it, like, you know, your underwear. It doesn't work that way. You have to keep discovering it moment by moment, actually. You have to just keep discovering it moment by moment. You know, we can give a talk about Buddhism and write it all out, and all the right things will be there according to Buddhist doctrines,

[35:40]

and you hear that talk, and it's lifeless. In order to bring the Dharma to life, you have to bring it to life moment by moment, even if it's not about Buddhism. So, the Dharma doesn't come from outside, it comes from inside. And what we call the Dharma, or Buddhism, is simply stimulation to bring out the Dharma from you. So there is no set Dharma. It's simply fingers pointing at something. And then it points here, and you do something. You jump. So soft mind means like grass, you know. It bends with things and retains its true form without getting damaged.

[36:51]

So it is possible to change your ideas because you know what kind of monkey your thinking is. Sometimes you follow the monkey's suggestion. Oh yeah, that's right. Monkey's right this time. If we go in that direction, we may get some food. Okay, let's go. But when you see a better way to go, you may say, oh, monkey, it may be better to go this way. If you stick to your greed or anger or some other emotion, if you stick to your thinking mind, your monkey mind, you cannot change. So your mind is not soft. Greg talked about monkey and transom, two sides of our nature. So in our practice we rely on something great and sit in that great space called big mind. The pain you have in your legs right now... Sorry, I'll let you go in a few minutes. I have it too, the pain you have in your legs.

[37:55]

or some other difficulty is happening in that great space. As long as you do not lose the feeling that you are in the realm of Buddha nature, you can sit even though you have some difficulty. When you want to escape from your difficulty or when you try to improve your practice, you create another problem for yourself. But if you just exist there, then you have a chance to appreciate your surroundings and you can accept yourself completely without changing anything. And that is our practice. To exist in big mind is an act of faith, which is different from the usual faith of believing in a particular idea or being. It is to believe that something is supporting us and supporting all our activities, including thinking mind and emotional feelings. All these things are supported by something being that has no form or color. It is impossible to know what it is, but something exists there, something that is neither material nor spiritual. Something like that always exists, and we exist in that space.

[38:57]

That is the feeling of pure existence, pure being. We don't call this a spiritual practice, even though sometimes we do. Spiritual and material are on the same side. Spiritual and material are both on this side, and then there's the other side, which is neither spiritual nor material, nor describable, nor thinkable. That's what he's talking about. So if you are brave enough to throw yourself into zazen for seven days, a little bit of understanding will help your rigidity and your stubbornness. Almost all the problems you create because of your stubborn mind will vanish. If you have even the smallest understanding of reality, your way of thinking will change completely, and the problems you create will not be problems anymore. But it is also true that as long as we live, we will have problems.

[39:59]

So don't practice Zazen to attain some big enlightenment that will change your whole being or solve all your problems. That is not right understanding. That may be what people call Zen, but true Zen is not like that. In Sushin, we concentrate on having the experience of true practice, forgetting all about any idea of gaining anything. We just sit here. If the room is too cold, we'll make it warm. And if your legs become painful, you can stretch them. But don't do it. And if it is too difficult, you can rest. But let's continue our practice for these seven days. It's true. Don't move. It doesn't mean you shouldn't move. If your legs are too painful, you should move. But the spirit of your intention is not to move.

[41:03]

But if you have to move, move. And when you move, don't say, oh God, you know, I'm a failure. Just move. Don't put any judgment on it. That's all. And then, in a few minutes, you cross your legs and continue. That's okay, but the intention is to sit with what you have. And the more you can sit with what you have, the more you can let go. So if you're tired, rest. Rest during your breaks. I wanted to have longer breaks, this Sashin, so that people have a chance to rest if they need to rest. So, this is a good time to stop.

[42:34]

But, if anyone has one question... Okay. That'll be good. Yes. How do we meet? We talk about our way of being stopped, and we hear your instructions, and we talk about that. How do we meet people who feel they absolutely have to be restored? They need to be Christian saved, they need to be baptized, they need to be Christian made up by a heritage of another nation. Yes, because every teacher, every religion, every spiritual practice says, this is the true way.

[43:41]

So you just bow and say, thank you very much, and just go your way. Because your way is also the true way. If you know that your way is, for you, the true way, you have confidence in your way, then you can accept everybody else. and you don't have to get thrown off your seat. Sometimes people go and they'll find some wonderful, startling and amazing teacher somewhere teaching something and say, well, I just found the most wonderful blah blah blah. Fine. Go study with that person or whatever. We're not holding on to you. I've never asked anybody in the world to stay Anybody ever meant to stay and practice our practice? If you find something that you like, hey, go practice that. That may be good for you. It may be the right thing for you. I know what's good for me, I think. I know what my practice is because my practice has been proven to me.

[44:48]

I've proven my practice to me. And it may not be the best practice. I don't say it's the best practice, but I know it's the practice for me. I often quote from other disciplines also, and I'll quote from Christianity, I'll quote from Judaism, I'll quote from Islam sometimes, maybe. The Sufis, you know, are very close. So, the Daoism is very close, and sometimes Confucianism, you know. So, as a Zen person, you can use anything you want, because there's nothing that belongs to Zen. There's absolutely nothing. No teaching that belongs to Zen. We use all the other teachings. Our service is not Zen. Our teaching is Shingon. I mean, all the services are Shingon. All the chanting and all that stuff.

[45:50]

It's not Zen, but we appropriate it, and so it's Zen, when we appropriate it. But Zen is not something special. The whole universe is doing Zazen. The whole universe is always doing Zazen. Everything in the universe is doing Zazen. And that's what our practice is, is just participating with the universe. But some people will say, this is the right way to do things, this is the truth, and so forth. And if you believe that, that's fine, as long as you're not hurting people, as long as you're not killing people because you think you're right and you think they're wrong. So there should be many different practices. It's good. And some people will have many practices which are very tasty. Zen is not tasty.

[46:52]

I think of it, if you've ever been to Hawaii, you may have eaten pois. But for Hawaiians in Hawaii, it's wonderful. But it's the most tasteless thing you've ever eaten. And it's not like our Zen is like that. So when we get a cookie, we really appreciate it. We have too many cookies, so we don't appreciate them so much. But I remember when I first came to my first Sashin, and after that too, we'd have a tea And they'd bring a cup of tea and a cookie, a little treat. And it was just so wonderful, in this bare space, to have this wonderful little morsel. And we ate it. Ah! That's our practice. It's not colorful.

[47:57]

But there are many colorful things, many colorful practices. and practices that will promise you many wonderful things. The reason I could always have faith in my teacher was because he promised me nothing. He said, if you sit Zazen, if you practice Zen, you will practice Zen. If you sit Zazen, you will sit Zazen. That's all. So I could totally trust him and have faith in the practice. Because it's no fooling. This is it. No fooling. And even other teachers, when I saw other teachers teaching Zen, still I felt that Suzuki Roshi's teaching was the most genuine, because he promised nothing. No enlightenment.

[49:00]

Nothing. He said, if you practice, enlightenment is there. But you have to understand that. I'm not going to hand it to you. I will tell you this. In the midst of enlightenment is our practice. But I'm not going to confirm your enlightenment. I'm only going to confirm your practice. Because by confirming your enlightenment, you think, oh, now I have something. So we stay in the boiler room doing the work, rather than up on deck enjoying the breeze. We don't run around with the prize. Just do the work, you know. The goal of practice is to be right here. Is to not go somewhere, but to just be here.

[50:02]

What more can you ask? Anyway, that's it. You want my book?

[50:17]

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