I vow to face the truth, to die with his words. Good morning. Well, I didn't expect to be sitting here and Mel called. Actually, he's been sick with a sore throat and some kind of respiratory distress for the last couple of days, and he's been trying to guard his energy. And he woke up this morning and thought he was going to come, and it's like each time he sort of gets himself together and starts doing things, he feels worse. So he's going to stay home today and probably come in tomorrow. But he thought it'd be best today to rest. So he sends his warm greetings and his apologies.

[01:03]

It was really incredible rain that we had this morning during those first periods of Zazen. Just so strong and steady. I felt it really, it helped my Zazen. It was a really great way to begin this seven days of sitting puts me in mind. I think the first session that I sat at Tassajara, somewhere in the middle 1980s, It rained for like three days straight. And I think the rain was the only thing that got me through. It was so painful. But the rain on the tin roof was just, was really loud.

[02:12]

And that sound, I could enter that sound and again and again try to set aside the pain and it was nice at the end of that session we got to take a bath which we didn't used to do during session. I don't know if they do that now. So we didn't bathe and you know we got to take a bath and They were reconstructing the baths, and so it was out in this holding tank, all warm and completely under the stars, and the sky had completely cleared. It was very nice. I've been thinking about Mel's talk yesterday, which was sort of a continuation of the one that he He gave, continuing on lines that he opened up the week before, but where he was talking about the Garden of Eden.

[03:23]

I don't know, for some reason that really stayed in my mind yesterday, and I was thinking about it today as we were entering this. I know all kinds of strange images come up to me. I was once driving across the United States, and in case you didn't know it, the Garden of Eden, there is a Garden of Eden located in Lucas, Kansas. Has anyone ever been there? Well, I was driving across. It's there. It's a very... It's a very strange place. It was built by this aging eccentric named Samuel Dinsmore. America sort of thrives on these eccentrics. And looking around, we can acknowledge that just in this room.

[04:33]

But it's quite a remarkable place. He built this out of concrete. And it's got the garden. And it's got Adam and Eve and the snake. And I'm not sure why I'm telling you this. If you thought that it was the archaeologists seemed to think that Eden was placed, located somewhere on the northern edge of the Persian Gulf, now probably underwater at the confluence of two rivers. Samuel Dinsmore created it for himself and all those who would come in Kansas And we're creating it here, in our own eccentricity and effort.

[05:42]

Not out of 113 tons of concrete and steel, which Dinsmore used, but out of our own muscles and sweat and aching minds. Thinking about what Mel was saying yesterday, foundational myths. So the foundational myth of the universe in Judeo-Christian tradition is that there was this order and this unity between God and his creation, man and woman. And because their human appetites

[06:53]

emerged, they were expelled into the wilderness. You know, now the Buddhist foundational stories are just about the opposite. in a certain way. You know, that we have the story of Buddha raised in a very, in a safe and controlled environment, you know, where everything was tried, that humans tried to make it perfect. And in order to find, ultimately, he realized that in order to really taste reality, and to experience it, he had to go to the wilderness. And he went out to the forest, which was then pretty wild. Now, there are no trees left. But there were trees, and there were animals, and there were snakes, and there were tigers.

[07:59]

And his practice was to sit as one with all of that. So we have this kind of problem in the way we think. People like Gary Snyder have written about it a lot, written about wilderness and wildness. how in the Western cultural paradigm, wilderness is often seen as something exotic, challenging, ultimately to be mastered and subdued.

[09:02]

But in reality, it's very deep in our nature. Uh, and it's part of our nature. It's part of our, uh, in a sense, our animal nature. And also it's our, our elemental nature, uh, that there is an order, but also, uh, there is a wildness and You know, there's a kind of rough law to this wildness, which is very hard for us to see underneath our own patterns and thoughts. But if we know how to make the effort, if we're really patient to make that effort, and actually brave, We can see that.

[10:07]

We can sit in unity and in harmony with everything around us, with these kind of raging elements and storms and bugs, snakes, wild animals, and most difficult of all, our own wild nature. And just accept it. So, that's what we're here for this week. Rohatsu Sashin is a Sashin, this is actually, I realize this is a really very strong group. I looked around the Zendo at lunch, at breakfast, you know, everybody has Everybody in this room, almost, has had a lot of experience sitting, a lot of experience with Sachine. And we come back again and again, because there's something we love to experience here, even though it's hard.

[11:15]

But still, I thought it was useful. And Mel suggested just reminding ourselves about how to practice this Rohatsu Sushi. Rohatsu marks the mythical date, and it was probably on a lunar calendar of the Buddha's enlightenment. And so it's celebrated in at least in the East Asian traditions, each year. And the Zen traditions celebrate with a Sashin, which ends with Buddha's enlightenment and our enlightenment. So Sashin itself has

[12:19]

three subtly different and sort of interpenetrating meanings. It means to touch the mind, and we do that in our silent sitting, in our silent walking. In that silence, the coverings all the usual coverings of our thoughts have a chance to kind of soften and fall away and enable us to touch something that's really fundamental. So that's kind of, and we also, I think to touch the mind means making an effort and developing concentration

[13:21]

it takes some work. The second meaning is to receive the mind. And this is the aspect of a very deep and complete receptivity. We're receiving, we open ourselves to receive the universe's big mind and just to let it in, to let ourselves be permeable to all things. So you have this balance. between the active, the active concentration, the effort of sitting, and the complete receptivity to all things.

[14:38]

So as we're sitting, we sit with our eyes half open, our senses half open, so the sound of the rain sound of the bird chirping, the slight hum of traffic, the clean smell of the air, all that just enters, just comes in us. Simultaneous with the effort to bring our minds and bodies to attention and to uprightness. The third meaning is to convey the mind.

[15:43]

It presumes confidently that each of us has the Buddha mind, is the Buddha mind, which must be conveyed. And we do that with our actions. We do that with how we eat, how we address the tools that we work with, how we interact with each other in a very pure way. Interacting without really having a social character, but just

[16:52]

meeting. When somebody brings you the food, they bow, you bow together. When you do service, you chant and bow. And we know how to do this. Actually, we're pretty good at it here. The chanting this morning was so strong during service. Really, It just really lifted the energy of the room. And so we're conveying the mind to the world, to the wider world. And I was wondering how far down the block you'd go and still be able to hear the chanting. Where does that penetrate even when you can't, when it's not heard, how far does that energy go?

[17:58]

But we're also conveying it to each other, encouraging each other with our voices, with our actions of serving and cooking and working, bowing, and also conveying it just in our steady upright sitting, period after period. So that's all, that's all pretty nice, and sounds, you know, it's very positive, encouraging, and We also know that this is going to get hard. It's going to get a lot harder, you know, say in another 24 hours than it might be right now.

[19:05]

Although some of you, it might be hard right now. I mean, there's all kinds of pain. There's physical pain. And as we said, that I'm not sure anybody's going to be exempt from that. And there's the mental pain that we carry, whether it's the pain that we bring from outside into this room, the pain that comes up right here as we're sitting. And all of that is Not easy. That's part of the wildness. That's part of the wilderness that we encounter in ourselves. Even setting aside our daily affairs is really difficult for us, particularly since we're right here.

[20:11]

We're in town. Some of us live here. At the center, some of us live close by and are going to go home. It's very hard. We're not in an isolated place. We haven't all gone far away to step outside of our ordinary lives. Our ordinary lives are pretty close by. But really, the effort we can try to make is to set that aside and not be caught in the usual things. Really question yourself. If you're going home, be careful about what you do. you know, try not to fall into reading the newspaper or turning on the radio, but try to keep this container of Sashin with you wherever you are for this week.

[21:23]

It's only seven days. But what we can learn here is really extraordinary. In the Song of Zazen, Hakuin Zenji writes, even those who have sat Zazen only once will see all karma erased. Nowhere will they find evil paths, and the pure land will not be far away. This is what is offered to us. Now, of course, after you sit that period of Zazen, you're then, you're still in this karmic world, and so karma will be created. But are you willing to, if the Pure Land is close by, are we willing to go there?

[22:31]

Or are we a little scared? or apprehensive or reluctant to give up, to relinquish our habits of mind, our habits of life, in order to have that experience. And you really have to ask yourself that question. And I think during seven days of Sashin, we're asking ourselves that question again and again. And I think part of the in the aspect of receiving the mind is the element of receiving, being aware of that pull, that pull towards your habitual mind, that pull towards what you like and dislike,

[23:31]

what you think you need as against what Paul may be telling you to do or the rules may be telling you to do. And so part of the receptivity is watching that and then making, then you have to invoke an active principle and you have to make a decision about what to do. So we have some things that sustain us and give us some structure and some strength as to what to do. Just in the rules and forms that we keep silence, that we don't read or write, that we don't look around, and that we are not acting in the ordinary social realm that gives us form.

[24:36]

The most basic thing that gives us form and strengths here is working with our breath and posture. Posture should be strong and upright, that's really, that's one of the things I think that distinguishes this, our practice, our Zen practice, from some other Buddhist practices, which is not to say, as Mel was saying last night, it's, yesterday, it's better, it's just this, this is helpful to us, that we put this emphasis on our posture, that we have this mudra that we hold, and we look at how it is, are our fingers just touching? Is it collapsed?

[25:42]

Is it tight? You know, is it slack in our laps, or is it, are we holding it against our bodies with arms, are our arms loose as we're holding it? or are they tense? And you can align your posture, remembering your, to imagine your nose in line with your navel and your ears in line with your shoulders. and your eyes slightly open, receptive. So from time to time, you should check that in your Zazen through each period.

[26:47]

I think someone else once said that, in fact, Mel might have said it. I remember asking him, what does he do during Zazen? And he says, well, I give myself Zazen instruction. And that was really useful to me. I do that, I tend to do that a lot. I mean, just periodically returning to checking the posture, checking all of those elements, and making that that effort, keeping that, letting that be some of the edge of concentration that I hold, the edge of that form. And then we have our breath, which is universal. By our breath, we know we're alive.

[27:50]

It's the most astonishing thing to be with someone who is dying and just to see that moment in time when the breath goes out and it doesn't come back in again. It's so powerful that we do this very simple physical thing over and over again. And we can just let it happen on its own, which is fine. We can also put our attention there and put some effort into it. And there are times when each of these approaches is appropriate. But let the breath move down in your body.

[28:54]

Let it move, you know, move to your hara, low. And I really encourage you to do a kind of strong breathing at the beginning as you sit down. In all the sort of classical Well, not all of them, but in a number of the classical Zen teachings during Rohatsu, the teachers would give instruction, would give breath and meditation instruction. And Hakuin has a whole text on this. And the first four days of his instruction would just be on the breath. And it would be on what he called Susakan, which is It's kind of a deep breath in to your belly and a long, slow breath out.

[29:57]

And then pushing more air out at the end of that breath. Kind of pushing. what's toxic, pushing your, you know, letting your thoughts flow out with that breath. This is a really good way to start each period of Zazen. Instead of drifting into our Zazen, we can begin our effort right from when we sit down. And if you begin that and center yourself there, Then, after a short while, you know, you've established your breath and it'll come and go naturally. It doesn't need to be too deep or long or slow or fast. But right at the beginning, if we make that effort, that's a way to

[31:08]

begin this process of relinquishment, to begin each period setting aside our habits of mind or daily activities by making this, by working with this basic physical tool or process that we have. As we do this over, you know, over a number of days, often the pain sort of ebbs. And we have moments when we're not aware of the zendo. We're not aware of our own bodies or minds that drops away. And it's just a great relief.

[32:14]

And in those moments, that's when we are simultaneously touching, receiving, and conveying the mind, and conveying that energy to the whole room, really encouraging everybody in the room. And then we fall back, because we're human. And, you know, those kind of habitual patterns of our mind come up, and then we make the effort again. We renew our breath, renew our posture, renew our intention to let go. Knowing that Even as we let go, existence is there to catch us.

[33:20]

And we will be held and safe. And we've taken ourself to this place, this room, that's crammed with friends, and people doing the same thing. And so we just begin again. And we have to begin again and again. It's really important not to waste time. It's just so rare to be able to come together like this. Some people have traveled a great distance across continents or across oceans to get here to this room. All of us have traveled across years and ages to get here.

[34:24]

So while we're here, why not use the time? Why not practice in this sort of wholehearted way? And why not accept accepting the parts that might want to cut corners or you know, steer away, and yet not letting that happen. You know, noticing it and saying, right, you know, I know I'm like this, but just for now, I'm not going to do this. And we have to do that again and again. And that's, I think it's the most useful way to use our time right now.

[35:32]

So I'm going to try to do that this week. And I'm going to try to catch myself as I'm slipping around. And I really invite you to try to hold that intention yourselves. And then we'll all be doing this together. And then, you know, we'll be here in the Garden of Eden with you know, apples and stewed fruit, snakes, tigers, dragons. The dragon's gone. I miss the dragon, actually.

[36:38]

Plum blossoms, though. Not as fierce as dragons, but quite beautiful with the rain and the wind. So there's little time for comments or questions. Does anyone have a question about what they're doing here or what they want to do this week? I remember some time ago you asked Ekin Roshi, did Zazen or Buddhist practice for the week?

[38:01]

Well, yeah, he didn't say no. I had a conversation, sort of an ongoing conversation with Ikenoshi where he distinguishes I'm a little loath to characterize him, but the discussion, as I got it, was he was distinguishing between character development, which he sees as absolutely essential, and enlightenment. Is that what you were referring to? Do you remember? I can't remember. Maybe he said, like, not necessarily so. Like, it's not like automatic characters developed by people who practice a long time. That's true. Right. And, you know, one of the things that he did say, which was that he felt he saw people, particularly in our school, in Suzuki Roshi's school, and actually he sort of singled out male students as

[39:12]

really being tuned into character development. You know, that the character that's being developed here is very strong. And, you know, he's often in his writing talking about the necessity of character development. And that Zazen, you know, sitting here with your painful knees and with our painful minds, that being able to accept things that are so hard in our lives. That's the process of character development. I think there's parallel processes and I think he studied a lot about it in the creation of Catholic clergy where they have a whole, they have a sort of a character formation process as you go along in your training. And that's a sort of conscious element.

[40:20]

Well, with us, it's not necessarily such a conscious element. It just arises from how we work. Other teachers Even some of his own disciples, and this was the edge that I got into with him, don't necessarily distinguish so much between enlightenment and character development. And that's the question I don't want to get into a into a so theoretical discussion, but that's a question that we carry to me Realization is kind of dropping away of body and mind. That's a gift There's Yeah, it's an accident and The this practice You know, what it offers is it can make you accident prone, but it can't make the accident happen.

[41:28]

But that in itself is not necessarily unless it's combined with kind of our moral character, our deep human character, it's not necessarily so useful. And I think that's the other thing that he was saying, that people, you know, he would have students who, you know, passed all of their Koans, you know, whose, by traditional Wunsai terms, their understanding was very deep, and yet the character wasn't integrated. So I think that's something to consider. I think emotion is like everything else that we experience.

[42:56]

We set it aside again and again. It comes up because we're alive and there is nothing wrong with it if one If one is full of grief, one weeps. If one is full of joy, one laughs. The challenge, as teacher Ken MacLeod talks about, he reconfigures the second noble truth as emotional reactivity. that suffering, the cause of suffering is emotional reactivity, which doesn't, I don't think that covers all bases of Dukkha, but it's pretty useful.

[43:57]

And it's not emotion, it's reactivity. Can we let the emotion flow through? which is, I think, what we try to do in Sashin, or do we hold on to it? So I think the effort is to just experience that emotion fully at the moment and let it move on the way the way it can. And that's hard. That's really hard. Because our habit is to, we want to hold on to it. We want to react. React means act again in a way that we're sort of patterned. So letting go of all likes and dislikes, of all preferences, which includes

[45:01]

includes our emotions, but not trying to stop them from happening. Does that get to it somewhat? Thank you, Alan. I also have been thinking about Mel's talk yesterday. And I'm not sure I heard this correctly, and I would like some feedback on this. Someone asked him about a lessening of suffering, an end of suffering, and I think it's social action. Can that happen? And he said, no. that it doesn't help, and that we do it without any goal.

[46:13]

I guess we keep our vows without any goal. I don't think that's quite what he said. Somebody else, there are others of us who are here who heard that. I think He was saying, it doesn't make suffering go away. Suffering will still happen. But we do this. We act that way also because we must, because it's the natural human way. Now I'm sort of slipping into my opinion rather than his opinion. I can't speak for him. But what I said was, if beneficial action didn't help, why would you brush your teeth? You know, if it didn't matter, and it doesn't matter because we're all going to die, you know, and when we die, our teeth are going to rot, you know, and so ultimately, what the hell difference does it make?

[47:25]

You know, but obviously, it makes a big difference, you know, and I just see that, you know, action for beneficial action is just kind of common sense in the way that brushing your teeth is. Obviously, this is a longer discussion. There's time for one more, if anyone has any questions or thoughts. Andrea? I'm glad you said something about joy because Being in this room with all these people who some I see only once a year, some I haven't seen in years and years, is deeply satisfying. It was about two weeks ago, here I've been here all this time, and just two weeks ago I thought, you know, I struggle all the time in practice and wish I didn't have to do something that was so hard.

[48:34]

And then I realized, oh, I could just really enjoy this. So I hope we can all enjoy the sleep. I hope so. I really felt the same way this morning. Yesterday, I just thought, how can I do this? And there was so much going on. And I just thought, oh, I'm not going to get to bed till late. I'm going to have to get up at 4.30. And I didn't pay that much heed, because I knew that it was not going to be what I was thinking yesterday. And then when I walked in the room this morning, all the seats were filled. And I looked around and realized, I know everybody in every seat, you know, and some of us have been sitting together for a really long time.

[49:35]

It's just incredible joy. This is a real, it's a really rare thing. So, thank you and thank everyone for being here. Let's do the best we can.

[49:51]

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