This morning I want to talk about breath. Can you close the door, Peter? in Buddhist meditation, breath is paying attention to breathing, is one of the most important factors Breathing we easily take for granted.

[01:15]

Like the blood runs through our veins and we take it for granted because we don't see it. But we feel it as heat. And breath is something that is, this movement of breath is going on moment by moment. And breath, we feel it inside, but it also connects to outside, so to speak. Each one of us has the experience of breath.

[02:23]

Coming, going, inhaling, exhaling, This is the fundamental movement of our life. When we sit Zazen, we pay attention to posture, we pay attention to breath. Posture is first, because posture is the fundamental structure of this body. When we establish posture, then we pay attention to breath. So, Zazen is harmonizing body, mind, and breath, all three elements.

[03:31]

So we pretty much know this. If you've been sitting in Zazen a long time, you know that it's harmonizing body, mind, and breath. But what we tend to ignore, several things that we tend to ignore, But one big thing that we tend to ignore is the role of breath or how we pay attention to breathing in our daily life. When we sit in Zazen, we let go of the business of our daily life, all the complications. And it's pretty easy to just pay attention to the rising and falling of the breath.

[04:39]

But in our daily life, it's much more difficult. So in Zazen, we allow the breath to come in, we call that inhaling. And then we allow the breath to leave. That's called exhaling. And we harmonize by paying attention to the breath. And sitting up straight, the breath becomes more subtle. And then we begin to feel a feeling of liberation and lightness and settledness and freedom and selflessness.

[05:48]

simply by paying attention to the breath. We feel a feeling of liberation and lucidity. This kind of attention should be carried through all of our activities in our daily life. When you walk, to be attentive to the breath with each step. When you're hiking, pretty easy, You know, sometimes when you're hiking up a steep mountain, it's one breath, one step.

[06:58]

With each step. Pretty easy. But in our daily life of varied activities, much more difficult to be aware of breath in your work. to be aware of breath sitting down at your computer, how you actually breathe with the activity, the rhythm of the breath and the activity, driving the car, the rhythm of the breath, shifting gears, putting on the brake, stepping on the gas. to actually pay attention to breath in this way is how you carry your meditation practice into your daily life.

[08:08]

It's the one common activity, or it's the one activity that's common to both Zazen and daily life. And we learn to do that in Zazen And then we should be extending that into our daily life. Suzuki Roshi said in a talk, we should be very kind with ourself and very kind with our breathing. we should have a warm-hearted feeling toward our breath, to relate to our breath as a constant companion.

[09:14]

not simply taking it for granted, but giving it the attention that helps us to always be in a calm state of mind. To have this awareness of breathing within our activity focuses our attention and helps us to be concentrated on what we're doing and gives us the right kind of energy to do whatever we're doing. It's the kind of energy that's not calm and collected, smooth energy, and creates a joyful mood.

[10:37]

When you can keep coming back to the breath, then our disposition actually becomes sweet, smooth and sweet. It makes it easy to smile and to respond to circumstances rather than just reacting. You know, breath, we say keep the breath down here, down low in your Hara. Breath in Japanese is called Ki. In Chinese, Qi. In Sanskrit, Prana.

[11:42]

So Ki or Qi is the place of power or strength. When our breath is down here in what feels like our lower abdomen, it's just at the bottom of our lungs, but we feel it just below our navel. This is called the key, the sea of key. The key of sea. where, as Suzuki Roshi said, it's also called rice paddies, which means in the Asian way of thinking, a place of plenty, nourishment.

[12:46]

And when our energy comes from this place through the breath, the whole body is filled completely with it. And then we have a feeling of well-being. You notice when you hyperventilate, that can create a feeling of euphoria. And when we put on an oxygen mask and take a hit of oxygen, we feel very high, right? So it's not necessary to do that. Just a natural breath is enough. But often we find ourselves breathing up in our chest. When we become calm, our breathing is done in our ki, in our hara.

[14:05]

When we become angry or irritated or frightened or anxious, then our breath tends to be very shallow and up in our chest. So when we pay attention to breathing and allow ourself to breathe deeply, then the body relaxes and lets go of that holding onto itself. And then our state of mind becomes freed So the state of mind and the breathing are very much connected. This is why we say to harmonize body, mind, and breath, so that we resume our natural state of mind, which is not free of conditions,

[15:16]

So in our daily life, we meet many conditions. All we have to do is read the newspaper to get our breathing up in our chest. So when you read the newspaper, let your breath go down to your hara and harmonize body, mind, and breath. And even though it looks like the world's going to pot You can still have a calm mind. You still have your composure. You don't get lost. So, breathing is a kind of involuntary activity.

[16:26]

It has an aspect of voluntarism, or voluntary quality, but it's also involuntary, because breath is just coming and going, regardless of our desire. But we can control the breath. We can hold our breath for a little while, or we can control the rhythm. But in meditation, in Zazen, and in our daily life, just to allow the breath to be, to do its own thing, and follow the breath. In Zazen, we start out by following the breath. just letting the mind follow the breath. To let the mind follow the breath without controlling it is very difficult. Once you focus on the breath, very difficult to not feel that you're controlling it.

[17:29]

But, you know, first we say, count the breath. That's good to get some handle on following it. And then to follow the breath. Just let the mind follow the breath. And then just let the breath be. But we are breathed by the universe. This is just the universal activity. which is inflating and deflating the lungs. But we usually think, I am breathing. I am breathing. But actually, breathing is just happening to you.

[18:33]

this wonderful mystery. So, to inhale is to come to life, as we know it, and to exhale is to let go of life, as we know it. As I've said many times, Suzuki Roshi talked about the breath, the exhale, as letting go. Long breath, letting go. The exhale is, we put more attention on the exhale than the inhale. When you inhale, the body becomes excited.

[19:40]

And when we exhale, the body becomes calm. So these are the two aspects of our life. Excitement and calmness. As someone said, a movement and a rest. Over and over again. and on each breath is a moment of birth and death. This is how we can understand how our life continues. It's both continuous and discontinuous. Last week, when I was in our keta with our dear Dharma sister, Maile Scott, who was dying, For one week, six days, she was kind of gone, lying in bed on her back, not moving for all that time with her eyes closed, but just breathing.

[21:07]

Just breathing. And we would go and sit with her and just, the only movement was her breath, which is quite audible, sometimes smooth, sometimes labored. She was breathing, but it was just the universal activity, the activity of the universe making this movement, doing this activity. It was so obvious. And we would do Zazen with her.

[22:15]

and just watch to see if it would continue. And to see if it would stop. And it just kept going on like this day after day. one breath at a time, living life just one breath at a time. I really feel sure that her great long experience of Zazen was just continuing, just sitting still and letting the breath happen. And then, at that last moment, just stopping.

[23:26]

And this wonderful feeling of release. Wonderful feeling of letting go. I wondered how people would feel at that moment. And yet, it was like the last breath. So this is how I think about that time and about breathing and about appreciating our breath, not just taking it for granted.

[24:41]

And harmonizing our breath in order to allow herself to have that release. In the sutra on the mindfulness of breathing, There are 16 so-called methods of observing the breath or practicing with the breath. And the last one is practicing with the breath in order to understand impermanence, in order to realize impermanence. and to practice letting go of body and mind so that the whole life is lived consciously and the whole death is lived consciously in the same manner.

[26:10]

we tend to, you know, grab on to life and resist our death, which is normal and natural. But to live a complete life, to be able to pass out of this world in a conscious, purposeful way is possible. I'll read you a little bit from the sutra on the full awareness of breathing.

[27:23]

The four last methods are pretty much directed toward just letting go of everything. So the piece of the 15th method helps us free ourselves from individuality so that we can become part of the universe. I am breathing in and contemplating liberation. I am breathing out and contemplating liberation. Here, liberation is freedom from the concepts of life and death, owning and lacking, increasing and decreasing, all concepts which form the basis of desire and attachment, fear and anxiety, hatred and anger. Liberation here means freedom or nirvana, which is the absence of all boundaries.

[28:47]

And the 16th method, like the 15th, aims at helping us observe in order to shed light on giving up all desire and attachment, fear and anxiety, hatred and anger. Seeing that there is a precious jewel in our pocket, we give up every attitude of craving or coveting, like one who is deprived. Seeing that we are lions, we do not long to nurse from a mother deer. Seeing that we are the sun, we give up the candle's habit of fearing the wind will blow us out. Seeing that life has no boundaries, we give up all imprisoning divisions. We see ourselves everywhere and we see our life everywhere. That is why we go to help all living phenomena, all living species with the vow of a Bodhisattva, one who has attained great awakening. So this is Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary.

[30:08]

He says, giving up here does not mean abandoning something in order to seek something else. It means giving up every comparison, seeing that there is nothing to be removed and nothing to be added, and that the boundary between ourself and the other is not real. The practitioner does not give up the human condition in order to become a Buddha. He or she seeks the Buddha in his or her very own human condition, giving up nothing and seeking nothing. That is the meaning of apranahita, which means aimlessness, also translated as wishlessness. It is the same as not seeking a concept fully developed in Mahayana Buddhism. Give up in order to be everything and to be completely free.

[31:09]

So, we can see death as losing our life, as losing something, or we can see it as gaining something, or we can see it as neither losing nor gaining. but simply expanding into the universe, our true body. So breathing, paying attention to breath throughout every activity from here is our practice.

[32:55]

Sometimes I ask a student, right now, tell me where is your breath? Mostly, the student would say, Well, I don't know. But you should know all the time where your breath is, where you're breathing from. There shouldn't be any hesitation. You know, we don't know everything. And a lot of the time in our life, we're puzzled by what confronts us.

[33:57]

And when we realize, I don't know, we come down to here. our mind comes down to here. And then from here, something will appear. If you say, I don't know, and put your mind in your hara, in your breath, letting go of everything, something will appear. This is called faith in your true nature. As a Zen student, you should have faith in your true nature. And it's right there. And it's right in letting go. You let go and have a free fall into your true nature, which will always rescue you.

[35:07]

You know, every year we have a head student, the shuso, and during the practice period, and the shuso, at the end of the practice period, confronts all the students with a question and answer period called the shuso ceremony, and sits in that seat. And the shuso in order to properly answer all the students' questions, should totally forget everything that he or she knows and simply put the mind here with not knowing anything. And when the question comes, trust this. If you don't and you start working up here, you'd be defeated.

[36:28]

This is what in Zen we call don't know mind. It's actually the mind that knows everything. It's not you. That mind knows everything if you just let it speak. So when we practice with our breath here, we always have the right foundation for all of our activity. And even though we get lost, we don't get lost.

[37:34]

There's always a place to come to. This is what Suzuki Roshi meant when he said, you should always be the boss. Whatever circumstance you're in, you should always be the boss. It doesn't mean you should boss people around. It means that you know who you are and where you are. And you can respond in an appropriate manner. As we say, appropriate response. Today we're having a one-day sitting, so I must end on time.

[38:34]

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