This is already the third day of sasheen. Everybody goes... So, we're beginning to settle down, aren't we? I remember when I, I've told this story many times, but when I went to my first Sashin, one day Sashin, somewhere late in the morning I ran away. But there was no place I could go. I went down to Aquatic Park and wandered around for a while.

[01:02]

and I realized I had to go back because I had unfinished business. There was nothing in the world that I could do because I was doing something and I hadn't come to the end. So I went back and Suzuki Roshi nodded, We have a lot of people who are sitting for the first time, sitting sasheen for the first time or the second time, or third time. So, pretty difficult. We always are encouraged by the effort of new people.

[02:05]

If you're new, you think, I'm wiggling around and moving around, and I can't keep my legs crossed, and my mind is doing funny things, and I can hardly take it. And they probably think I'm awful, but everyone else thinks, oh, they're having such a hard time, but I have so much courage. and they are staying with it, and very inspiring. So the old people, the old members, inspire the new people through their experience, and the new people inspire the old members through their effort and beginner's mind. and not knowing, but still doing. So, quite a wonderful combination.

[03:13]

Sitting zazen, sitting sashin, is like sitting down in the middle of a fire. It's maybe like a bug walking across a frying pan, which is suddenly turned on. and they're beginning to dance. But we can't go anywhere, so we have to settle down. And it's not just seems like a fire, it actually is fire. We sit down in the midst of primal fire. And little by little, we begin to roast and cook. And we adjust the temperature so that the temperature adjusts itself. First day has its temperature.

[04:21]

Second day has its temperature. Third day different. Each day a little different. And maybe we help to adjust the temperature, but the temperature It's maybe like a thermostat, it's kind of automatic, self-adjusting as we settle. And on one hand it becomes more difficult, and on the other hand it becomes easier. In one way more difficult, and in another way easier. It becomes more difficult Because the longer you sit, the more painful it is. But on the other hand, the longer you sit, the more you have to open up and can accept it. So the sooner we open up, the easier it is, even though it becomes more difficult.

[05:27]

So both things are going on at the same time. difficult and easy. You can't say easy exactly, but more ease. Within the difficulty, there's ease. And it's kind of like we sit down in the fire, in this primal fire, And as we cook, the fire becomes more like a light. Fire becomes refined and expresses itself as light. some kind of light, even though you can't say it's white or blue or red or you can see it or touch it or grasp it, but we call it light.

[06:37]

Another, you can call it various things. You can call it such or what or how. as long as you don't define it. It's like a kerosene lamp. When we light it, we have to adjust it. We adjust it until it's burning just right. If it's too high, it smokes and gets the lampshade black. And if it's too low, it doesn't illuminate.

[07:40]

So making it just right, no smoke, just right adjustment so that we have pure light, nice light, and everything is illuminated. So our first Sashin, pretty much the fire is out of control. But as we become more settled, we can help control the fire. We can control the fire, and we turn it into light. It becomes luminous, and we can sit very easily, very nicely in this pure light.

[08:49]

This is the purpose of Sashin, Sazen, not to gain something, not to strive too hard, but just to dive into this ocean of fire and sit there. find out how to sit there, how to be it. You can't see it, but you can be it. On our first day, I talked about zazen and how to take care of our posture.

[10:04]

And I stressed certain things. I suggested that we really pay attention to our mudra. And then I think I said, suggested that you pay attention we pay attention to keeping our head on top of our spine and our ears in line with our shoulders. That keeping the right form, keeping good form is really helpful in settling on ourself. This Sashin activity is leaving the world in order to express or study ourself.

[11:15]

And in doing that, we leave behind all of our conditioned postures. Out in the world, our posture becomes conditioned, all of our postures, the way we walk and sit and handle our body-mind, posture of our body and posture of our mind, is conditioned by the activities around us. and what we're engaged with. Sometimes we see people who are carrying the world on their shoulders, and they walk like this. And that's pretty extreme, but all of us carry the world around on our shoulders, some world. And our postures are bent. are stooped in some way in order to do that.

[12:27]

Very seldom do we really sit up straight. When we walk into the zendo, we take a posture which is not conditioned. We have the opportunity to take a posture which is not conditioned by circumstances. Just pure posture. So when we say, sit up straight, it's not like trying to tell you something about being a soldier, but just assume, allow yourself to have pure posture. When you see little kids, mostly before they get to be too old, when they're, before they're nine or ten or eight, and they start bearing some of the burdens of the world, they stand up very straight.

[13:34]

Their posture, if you watch the posture of their back, you see that the lower back goes in, and they stand up without any burden. Really straight, their heads on top of their shoulders, They strut around, and their breathing is down here. You can watch little tummies going like this. In zazen, we come back to this. So, sitting up straight, really making that effort. When you start to make the effort, and make it into a habit, of always sitting up really straight in Zazen, making that the prime effort, then it becomes easier and easier, and then you feel open, really open, and there's a kind of purity to the feeling that you have.

[14:44]

And when we sit up straight, we can easily find a balance. So the straighter, the more effort we put into sitting straight, the less struggle we have in trying to do something. And you can let go and depend on balance. Then you feel quite wonderful just balancing your upper body. upper body is like a tree. The legs are like rooted. Legs are like roots holding you into the ground. And the body is like a tree. You know, trees can't move. They don't go anywhere. And when the wind blows, they have to move. In zazen, when the wind blows, we should have the same flexibility, but both inside and outside.

[16:04]

Maybe we don't move so much, but we are open, because the problems that we have are not from the outer wind, but from the inner wind. When the inner wind begins to blow, we move like the trees inside, or like the grass when it bends. So at first, seshin is a struggle. You don't know how you're going to get through it. But little by little, we learn how to be very flexible and move with it, move with the waves, move with the pain in your legs.

[17:12]

Last time I was here for Sushin, I talked about the pain in our legs. And to keep opening up, constantly opening. The minute you sit down, you open your legs up to whatever's gonna be there. And it's like, The story of picking up a baby elephant. The question is, if you pick up an elephant when it's a baby, by the time it's fully grown, will you still be able to pick it up? Maybe or maybe not, but you can go a long ways. If you start in the beginning to pick something up, then it's easier to pick it up later, easier to deal with it later.

[18:26]

But if you wait until it gets big, then it's pretty hard to handle. So what we do usually is we sit down and we enjoy the good feeling that we have in the beginning. And then when it starts to get really difficult, then we deal with it. But we should deal with it right away, not just enjoy the good feeling that we have in the beginning, but when you know that whatever feeling you have, just open, just stay open to whatever comes from the beginning. Then when it's small, you can absorb it. It becomes one with you. And then as it keeps changing, you keep absorbing it, keep opening and opening until you've become quite limitless in what you can accept.

[19:38]

And you can accept things quite easily. It takes a lot of trust to open. A lot of trust to be able to open yourself. But there's no alternative. Frankly, there's just no alternative. You have to do it. That's why during seven days, you can't move. If you don't move, then you get there quicker. even though it may be harder. If you move, you just have to start over again. So even though it's very difficult to not move, it's bitter. I don't say don't move. If you have to move, you should move. And if you move, just move.

[20:44]

Don't say, oh, I'm failing, or I'm bad, or something like that. Just move. No judgment. So when you begin to really open up and accept from the very beginning what's happening, then you don't have to worry so much anymore. You can pay more attention to posture and breathing and enjoy what's happening.

[22:00]

A friend of mine told me the other day that, he said, did you ever hear the lion roar at the zoo? And I said, no. He said, well, at the zoo, when the lion roars, it's such a tremendous sound that you become paralyzed and you can't move. And that's the way that the lion deals with their victim. They make this roar, and the victim just goes, and then they eat him. And somehow we have to allow ourselves to be just eaten by the lion's roar. Just, okay. eaten by the lion.

[23:19]

Today, I would like us to concentrate on how we hold our teeth together. When we sit Zazen, we put our teeth together in the back of our mouth, but not clenching, just resting in a natural way. And then your tongue stays at the roof of your mouth, with the tip of your tongue just behind your teeth. So when you start grinding your teeth, Be mindful of that. And then stop. And then look again. When you start grinding your teeth, be mindful and stop.

[24:36]

So really pay attention to teeth and tongue as well as mudra. In our mudra, as I said, the tops of your thumbs, or the tips, face each other. What you have to do is cut your fingernails. Thumbnails. Sometimes we have long thumbnails, and so we hold our thumbs like this. But if you cut your thumbnails, trim your thumbnails, then you can hold them like this. Sometimes people put their hands way in, but just resting your middle finger in the middle of the other palm gives you a nice circle. It doesn't have to be exactly a circle, but it feels like a circle. Feels like a circle. And you can rest your hand on your heel, or if your heel's not up there,

[25:46]

rest it on your thighs. Not leaning though, don't lean on it. It's not a convenient thing for you to lean on, but you can rest it there. And then when you're starting to get tense, you can feel your thumbs going together and your mudra and your hands fingers getting tense and cold, and then you can realize, my whole body is tense. And then you sit up straight, take a breath, relax, start over again. So, it's really important to allow yourself to start over again. During zazen, we easily get kind of tense because of the pain and the difficulty. So when you start getting tense, your mudra will tell you.

[26:50]

So pay attention to your mudra. And then, take a deep breath. Or a couple. Start your breathing over again. When your breathing becomes shallow, Take a few deep breaths. Start over again. So keep starting over again. Every time you find yourself getting tense, let your shoulders drop. Take a few deep breaths. Loosen up your mudra. Start over again. If you just keep allowing the tenseness to build up, then you get very shaky. So keep letting go. Just continuously keep letting go. Open your legs so that it feels like your legs are hollow.

[27:56]

No resistance. Just whatever comes, just comes. Comes and goes. If you have resistance, then, oh, this is awful. You trap something in there. You know, we trap pain and suffering. So it's really up to you. each one of us, to open. Don't let anything get caught in there. And when you stay open, open from the beginning and stay open. Trust yourself. then you can experience some wonderful freedom.

[29:00]

And sit comfortably in the fire, but it's just warm, nice warm light. So this kind of refinement allows us to go very deeply into our true nature. No gap. Even though there may be lots of turbidity or waves on the surface, it doesn't bother the fish swimming in the deep water. You know, we easily get agitated.

[30:27]

When we get agitated at something that happens on the surface, it's just ego. Ego strikes out. Don't let anything bother you. In Zazen, in Sashin, if you get agitated or irritated by desire, any kind of feelings. Zazen, or getting down to it, is beyond any feelings that we have, good or bad. So, we make a decision and Our life of session is based solely on this decision.

[31:31]

It has nothing to do with how we feel. Feelings come and feelings go, and thoughts come and thoughts go, but it doesn't have anything to do with them. They just come and go. What matters is our decision. We say, I'm going to sit here, and that's my decision. I'm going to sit, and I'm not going to move. How am I going to do that? And then many thoughts and feelings will come up around that as you sit. But they don't have anything to do with it. So if we can sit in this way, we can maintain very good composure, very good calmness of mind, very good concentration, very good mindfulness.

[32:50]

Wisdom will arise by itself and we experience wonderful joy. If you look for joy, you can't find it. But joy is the result of your effort. So I really want to stress this point again. To watch where you're getting tense. Pay attention to your mouth.

[33:55]

What's going on inside of your mouth. And pay attention to the mudra. And to posture and how you hold your head. And when you feel tense, to know that and do something about it. Let go of the tenseness so that you can maintain the balance between good effort and ease. Right there where those two come together is where we should be concentrated. Thank you.

[34:52]

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