By the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Good morning. It would be nice if everybody was sitting, looking closely, because there are fields. I like us all to be together, you know, and not have somebody feeling outside of it. So, if you're sitting back there in the back, I'd like you to come up forward more. As I said last night, today I want to go over our zazen so that we all have the same understanding of what we're doing together.

[02:21]

And for old students, this will probably be redundant and maybe boring. But nevertheless, there may be something for new people, newer people, I think it may be something we don't know. But at any rate, just reminding us of what we're doing, whether we know what we're doing or not, is helpful. And we come to Zazen or Sashin for various reasons. And if we can establish what we're doing in Zazen, then at least we have the primary reason for why we come. So, in the beginning, I think everyone comes to Zazen, not knowing actually why we do it.

[03:31]

And little by little we learn what Zazen is. And after 20 years or something like that, we learn a little bit more. I'm always learning what Zazen is. As a matter of fact, there's no end to learning what Zazen is. So if we can establish ourselves as beginners, we don't have any problem. As a matter of fact, during Zazen, we try to find out what Zazen is. We have some guidelines to help us do that. And it's those guidelines which I want to express to you today. And if you have any questions, as I go along, say something.

[04:40]

Just say something in the middle of what I'm saying if you have to. There are two fundamental forces at work. One is called gravity, and the other is called, I call it spirit. And gravity is that compelling force which is pulling everything down to the earth. And spirit is that other compelling force which is pulling ourselves away from the earth. So we have these two strong forces. working in opposite directions.

[05:47]

And our practice takes place right at the intersection of those two forces. As a matter of fact, our whole life takes place right at the intersection of those two forces, the way we meet gravity. So every situation is a kind of grave situation. And if you look at the way our lives develop, we're always dealing with gravity, trying to stand upright, moving in certain ways, our bodies develop in certain ways because of and our minds develop in a certain way, our attitudes. Sometimes we feel very lazy, which means that we let gravity take over.

[06:57]

It's easier to let gravity take over. So in a sense, you know, you might say gravity is death sign, and spirit is kind of life sign. That's a kind of dualistic way of seeing it, but there is that aspect. And so we're always kind of looking for life, and we're dealing with life and death, birth and death, as the vital functioning of our life, which includes both birth and death, gravity and spirit. So in Zazen, Zazen is a kind of activity which is dealing with these conditions in a very pure way.

[08:13]

in our usual life, our posture is... the various postures we take are conditioned by the way we think and the way we take on the burden of gravity and various activities. So if you watch somebody walk, you can see how they think, and you can see how they approach life through various attitudes. So when we enter the zindo, we leave all of our conditioning outside the door. Anyway, ideally we do that.

[09:21]

Actually, even though we feel like we, you know, we decide that we do that, we bring it into the Zenda with us. So, when we come into Sashin, or into Zazen, and take our posture, if we can leave our various conditioned postures, shed or let go of our various conditioned postures, then we can take just plain natural postures. But we don't know what plain natural posture is because we forgot. When you were a kid, four or five years old, you knew what posture was.

[10:25]

Natural, unconditioned posture. Because you were allowed to play. Your work was play. So we come into the zendo and allow our posture to unfold. Just allow ourselves to expand again. Allow our body and mind to just fill up with nothing. Completely full of nothing. But it's not so easy, because to sit straight To really sit straight, it feels unnatural to us, mostly. Well, not everybody, but mostly it feels unnatural. What's really natural feels unnatural because of our conditioning.

[11:28]

So what I want to talk about today is just how to resume our natural posture. Not some special posture, although it is special, but how to feel open, upright, balanced, and centered. formed without being unnatural or tense or conditioned by worry, some kind of worry. So I'm not going to talk about how we fold our legs, because we've all had Zazen instruction and we know how we sit with our legs.

[13:08]

Everybody chooses some posture which works for them. And I always encourage people to take a posture that's with your legs, that's easy. Not something too difficult. If you start out with something too difficult, then you give yourself another problem, a too big a problem. So, to find a leg posture that works for you, so that you can sit for a period of time without having to change. And then, as you gain experience and confidence, your legs will want to take a more extreme position. your legs will tell you what they want to do. And then you can just go with that. So, I think we should be careful to work with our legs in a way that they tell us what we want to do and then we encourage them.

[14:19]

So, you're working together with that little by little, so that you don't hurt yourself. It's easy to hurt yourself. It's possible to hurt yourself in sitting. And if you attack the problem with too much energy, or too much idealism, you'll probably hurt yourself. The main thing is to be stable. So, if you have your knees down, and you're behind down, that's a triangle. Triangular platform, which is very stable. And hard to push over. So, that's the main thing.

[15:20]

If your knees stick up in the air, that's okay. Little by little, they'll go down. you continue to sit. So starting from your leg positions, I want to say that for beginners, not to sit fully on the cushion, but to sit forward on the cushion, because the cushion helps you to hold your back straight. It's an aid to keeping your back straight more than anything else. You could sit on the Zalatan just as comfortably, but the cushion helps you. So if your knees are high, then sit on a high cushion.

[16:21]

And that will keep your waist lower than your knees. Most of us sit pretty low. And once you establish your seat, you want to make sure that you're not sitting to the right or the left of your cushion. So you can put your hands down at your sides when you sit down. And kind of with your thumbs, feel whether you're sitting off to one side or the other. So this is the foundation. And it's good to establish the foundation right away. Because if the foundation isn't so good, then the building will need and give you a problem. So make sure that every time you sit, you're established in the cushion.

[17:30]

Don't be too quick to get into your position, but find your position slowly and carefully. It's like a building, you know, if it's a quarter of an inch, if the foundation is a quarter of an inch off at this end, by the time you get to the other end, it's maybe two or three feet off. So, the body's the same way. Actually, it's kind of like a building sitting here. So it has to be established on its foundation. And then after you get into your seat and establish that foundation, put your hands on your knees like upside down. Let's all do this. Just go through the baby steps. And there's a way of swaying in order to loosen your body.

[18:36]

Now, I would like you to do it in this way maybe six times. And when we get into our posture, you start by leaning all the way as far as you can, and then leaning all the way to the other side as far as you can. And each time you come back and forth, you make the swing narrower until he's sitting up straight. And when you get out of your posture, you start with a narrow swing after you've been sitting Zazen, and gradually make it wider. We don't always do this. You know, you used to see people would get into the posture and just sit there. But actually, I would like you to try doing this when you get into your posture, because if you learn to do this, you'll always have this and it will help you. It's good to be able to stretch your body and keep it loose. So let's just do this over as far as you can to the right.

[19:44]

And slowly over, not so fast, not fast, slowly. And then this time a little bit less. And this time a little bit less. Looks like this is a preparation for Zazen, but actually this is Zazen itself. So you want to be careful that you're doing this wholeheartedly. Each step of Zazen should be done completely wholeheartedly and mindfully. It looks like a transition from sitting down to zazen, but it's really zazen.

[20:48]

Okay, so once we're sitting up straight, in order to establish posture, there are two kinds of posture. One is where your lower back is pushed forward, so that your The abdomen is actually sitting over your thighs and not everybody can do that. So the other one is when your back is just straight. So you have to decide which one of these is your posture, is your back. The first one is kind of like this. A straight back has a curve in it, at the bottom, like your spine. And if you put your hands like this and lean forward with your head up, and then slowly sit up, slowly.

[22:02]

Feel as small of your back as the base. And then sit up as straight as you can. And then just rotate your head so that the back of your neck is stretched. Now this is straight. If you're not used to sitting this way, it feels like you're leaning over backwards. sitting straight. Be careful that you don't push, let your head go forward. When I say rotate, I mean just on an axis, so that you're not looking up in the air. You're just looking straight ahead and slightly down. And your ears should be in line with your shoulders. That's how you can tell whether or not your head is pitched forward.

[23:05]

Let your ears be in line with your shoulders, and your nose in line with your navel. That's your alignment from side to side. And during Zazen, we try to maintain this posture. So Zazen takes some effort, good strong effort, at the same time, to let go of any kind of tenseness, but I'll get into that. Even though we keep very good form, there shouldn't be any tenseness in it. Then, with our hands still like this,

[24:06]

When you get into Zazen, you can take a few deep breaths through your mouth in the way I'll show you. And if you want to do this, you can do it every time you sit. And the way to do this is to take a breath and fill up your lower abdomen. And then when you exhale, you push all the air out from your lower abdomen. It feels like it's in your lungs, of course, that takes the air in, but it feels like it's your abdomen. So, like this. Inhale. And then exhale. I'm doing it noisily so you can hear me. And push it all out. Everything. And then when it feels like there's nothing left, push some more. Feel your front meet your back. And then just let yourself breathe naturally through your nose.

[25:43]

But the breathing should be down here. This is to establish your breathing. If you breathe up in your chest, on a shallow breathing, you should try to allow yourself to breathe as deeply as you can, below your navel. So when we breathe in Zazen, We watch the rising and falling of our abdomen. That's how we watch our breath. So when you exhale, abdomen expands. When you inhale, abdomen expands. When you exhale, abdomen contracts. So, it's like a balloon. And you watch the rising and falling of this balloon. Slowly, whatever it is. Don't try to control your breathing. Just let your breathing come naturally, and follow your breath. Follow the breathing of your breath as your lower abdomen rises and falls.

[26:47]

Sometimes people say, well, look at the end of your nose, or watch the breath as it comes in and out of the end of your nose, or something like that. But it's OK. But it's not necessary to watch the breath as it comes and goes the length of your body. It's like a saw. You know, when you're sawing a piece of wood, you don't watch the end of the saw. You just watch where the saw and the wood come together. So in the same way, with your breath, you don't watch the whole passage of breathing, but only the way the abdomen rises and falls. That's the sawing. So when we start, when we have pain, or mental anxiety or something, then our breath can start to come up into our chest. So when you feel that, just start over again or take a deep breath.

[27:53]

When you feel that your breathing is in your chest, just allow yourself to take a deep breath again to establish your breathing in your lower abdomen. So if your posture is really good, really straight, it will help your breath to fall naturally down here. And then your stomach is very loose. This whole area below the navel is very loose. And if your lower back is pushed forward, It feels kind of like a spongy balloon. Very comfortable. Now, if you don't push your lower back forward, you just sit straight. With your back more straight, that's okay, too. It's a little more difficult.

[28:55]

It's easier in the beginning, but it's more difficult to actually hold your posture. If you can do it this way, once you establish yourself in that, posture feels very strong. So once you resume a natural breathing through your nose, now your teeth come together. Right in the back of your mouth, your teeth rest on each other in a natural way, so that your upper teeth are a little bit forward of your lower teeth. When you put your teeth together, the ones on top are a little bit forward of the ones on the bottom. And then your tongue is clinging to the roof of your mouth. Then you can put your hands in mudra.

[30:10]

In mudra, your left hand goes inside, palm goes inside the right, and the middle finger of your left hand fits right into the center of your right palm, so that the joints of your fingers fit evenly over each other. The middle joints of both hands on top of one another, and then form a circle with your thumbs, so the tops of your thumbs are facing each other and very lightly touching, and then bring your hands up against your lower abdomen. There are variations of this, but this is the form. You can, some people hold their hands way up here, which is a little unnatural, I think.

[31:15]

You can rest your hand on your thigh, the tops of your hands on your thighs, or on your foot, or whatever's up there, but not to rest, not to lean, just touching is okay, but leaning is, You should let your vertebrae, or your waist, take the weight of your body. And turn your hands out a little bit, it's okay. Now the thumbs are like, the mudra is like the barometer of our practice. Cosmic Mudra, it's called sometimes. And if your palms get very sweaty and your hands get very tense, then that should tell you something about your attitude.

[32:31]

It means that you're working too hard. too tense. There's some kind of tenseness going on in your body, which is more than you need. And you should look at where that is, what's going on. And if your mood just starts to fall apart, then there's some lack of effort. Falling asleep, or kind of drifting, or maybe too lax. So this mudra is very important to pay attention to what's happening in the mudra all the time. So if the mudra is getting too tight, or tense, or sweating, or if it's falling apart, getting too loose, then just by holding the mudra

[33:38]

correctly, will help you to establish, give you a way to get into your body and establish your posture. So posture is always changing. We get into our posture and very often we think, well, this is it, don't move. But don't move doesn't mean don't move. It means sit still. While you're sitting still, your body's changing. Nothing's really sitting still. When we feel that we're sitting still, the posture's always changing. Our balance is always falling out. So we have to keep reasserting our balance, establishing our balance, moment by moment. So we go over all the parts of our posture. Exhaustion. Is the mudra OK? Check it.

[34:42]

Are the teeth okay? Tongue okay? Am I grinding my teeth? Is my back okay? Are my shoulders okay? Am my ears in line with my shoulders? Am my nose in line with my navel? Over and over, we keep establishing that posture, centering our posture. So there is no established posture. There's a kind of an established posture, but we have to keep establishing it, keep finding it, all the time. So that's what we're doing in Zazen, is constantly finding this balance, constantly finding our balance, and establishing ourselves on the center. when we sit in Zazen, thinking that whatever position we take, that's it.

[35:47]

Don't move. Then we become very stiff. And I would say 80% of people who are sitting in Zazen feel that they shouldn't move. And we have more than 200 joints in our body. little bones covered with flesh and various things. And each one of those bones is independent. Each one of those little joints is independent. Even though they all look like one piece, but it's not all one piece. It's various pieces all tied together. And there's something that makes them all do something together, harmoniously. And it's our idea.

[36:49]

Our idea ties them all together. What we're thinking about ties them all together. They all respond to that. So what we're thinking about is pretty important in Zazen. Because to bring all those little pieces together in harmony with our thinking mind is all there is to do. So how do we get all those pieces to harmonize in such a way that each one feels satisfied that it's doing what it's supposed to be doing? So it's not doing something counter to what all the other pieces are doing. So there's plenty to do in Zazen.

[37:50]

So much to do to keep all these pieces working together harmoniously. And when they're all working together harmoniously, it feels wonderful. quite wonderful, but we have to work to do that. So there's some effort to keep the form. That's why form in this particular posture is very important. How do we keep the form? Some people say, well you talk about form so much, what about content? But if we have the form, the content is there. So the form we maintain, this form, it takes some effort to keep the form.

[39:13]

So we put effort here, in our lower back and in our waist. you can lift up your sternum, which helps to open your chest. So openness, more and more opening and opening and opening. But when you start using effort, then it's easy to become tense. Tenseness, posture is tension. But there's a certain tension which is more than you need. That's called tenseness. So there's a difference between tension and tenseness. And tenseness is the stuff that makes our shoulders bunch up and make our back sore.

[40:19]

So the other side is letting go of the tenseness. So after you've established your posture, to actually consciously let go of the tenseness in your shoulders. Let go of the tenseness in your upper back. Let go of the tenseness in your arms. Just feel it draining away. So that from the inside of your of your muscles is letting go, and at the same time maintaining the form. And that balance between tension and letting go of tenseness is what helps, what keeps us centered. So that you no longer need a lot of muscular effort, but you establishing a balance and a centeredness which keeps you, allows the energy to flow, and that's called spirit.

[41:36]

Spirit will hold us up in a correct way, natural way, if we just let it do that, if we don't hinder it. And then there'd be proper balance between gravity and spirit. And then we feel at home. So maintaining that balance and giving us attention to that, during Zazen, constantly coming back to that. So, posture is something that we have to... is a never-ending search.

[42:54]

I really can't express that enough. Every time we sit Zazen, we search for a correct posture. And every time we sit Zazen, we give ourselves Zazen instruction. If you give yourself thorough Zazen instruction every time you sit, Zazen will be very satisfactory. And you constantly remind yourself what you're doing. Not remind, but putting yourself into it in the correct way. Do we have any questions yet?

[44:07]

I was wondering if you could expound a little bit more on the balance between tension and letting go, because it's something that's really come up for me a lot recently. I won't expound, but I'll talk about it. Let me talk about the 200 parts of our body again. Come back to the 200 parts of our body. If you link all those parts up as one piece, you're sitting there as one piece, and somebody pushes your elbow, then your whole body will go over, because it's all one piece. Does that make sense? But if you're sitting and each piece is independent, even though you're sitting the same way, looks the same, but each part is independent, then when somebody pushes your elbow, just the elbow moves, just the arm moves.

[45:24]

Then you don't get pushed over. Right? So, each piece, each part of your body is independent and should be kept independent. It's not like we're poured in concrete. We shouldn't think that just sitting here is concrete or steel, you know. Very loose, flexible. I think everything is loose and flexible. But form is just form. It's form. How do you maintain this form? And at the same time, stay loose and flexible. That's a trick. But it's not a trick. It's a matter of working. You have to work at it. Letting go, at the same time that you're

[46:29]

producing good, strong effort at the same time, letting go, at the same time. So sometimes I'll say, strong posture and then relax. That's not it. It's relaxing within the form. Not to let go of the form, contain the form, but to let go of the tenseness. Just like gold. The pieces will stay there. The pieces will harmonize. All the parts will harmonize. Without having to be glued together. There's something that's holding those pieces in tension together. And it's not glue. And it's not concrete or steel. They just want to be together. That's something that everybody has to deal with.

[47:43]

But you can go like this. Or, we're carrying a stick, don't you? It helps a little. It doesn't really help our basic sleepiness, but it helps something. One thing that I think is important is to get to sleep, to get enough sleep. There are people who like to, there's a kind of tradition of sashimis where the sleepier you get the better. The less sleep you have the better. But I think that the more sleep you get, if you get some good sleep it's best because you can't really sit well when you're tired. There's nothing to struggle with. Why do you have to make yourself tired? Earlier you said something about the waist being below the knees.

[48:48]

No, the knees being below the waist. If you're sitting up with your knees, and you can't get your knees down, then you're up here. so yeah so for beginners it's going to have high cushions so the knees go below the waist counting our breath. I was always taught to count. There are many ways to deal with your breath in Zazen, but I was always taught to count on the exhale. Sometimes people count on the inhale and the exhale, or whatever, but since I was taught to count on the exhale, that's what I'm teaching.

[49:56]

Counting your breath is like bowing, in the sense of, you can do it just mechanically, or you can really do it. So counting your breath mechanically is just to, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That helps you to focus. If you, when you exhale, you count one as the length of the breath. So one and the breath, the counting of the breath. The counting is the sound of the breath. And then in, two, the whole sound of the breath. So there's no separation between your attention and the full length of breath on the exit. Then, that's called counting, but just tick off the numbers.

[51:19]

It's just mechanical, and that's to be avoided. In the same way, when you bow, just do it like this. It's just mechanical. It's not bowing. when you're actually meeting whatever it is you're bowing with. And the bow, actual bow, is when you stop. When you come to the bottom of the bow, that's the bow. But some people never come to the bottom of the bow. It's just up and down, without every bit. Moments of So, I want to remind us that everything we do is Zazen. In this Sashin, there's nothing outside of Zazen. Whether we're sitting, or walking, or bowing, chanting, eating, resting, sleeping, working, serving, it's all Zazen.

[52:35]

And everything we do comes out of Zazen and is Zazen. And this whole seven days is immersion in Zazen. Which means being present and coming back to the present. The part about Zazen which is our mind, so to speak, is that in Zazen our mind is always busy. Thoughts are always coming up in our consciousness. And we always bring our attention back. and bringing back, constantly bringing back, constantly getting off, coming back, is Zazen.

[53:47]

So you may think my mind is really busy. I've been sitting for 15 years and my mind is still busy. But you've been sitting for 40 years and your mind will still be busy. Your mind is always busy. That's the nature of our mind, is to be always having some thought coming up. So, what do you do about that? Just let the thought come. When the thought appears, there it is. And then you come back. When the attention is carried away by a thought, when you realize that that's happening, just come back. So we're constantly returning to waking up. That's all. You don't have to say, I'm a bad boy, bad girl, my mind is busy. You don't have to say any of those things.

[54:52]

I never can keep my mind on my breath for more than two counts. It doesn't matter. When you realize what you're doing, just come back to waking up. Always come back to waking up. Over and over again. When one's asleep, leave it up to Buddha. Leave it up to Buddha. Put yourself in Buddha's hands. Now I lay me down to sleep. We have to have some kind of trust, otherwise we'd never be able to fall asleep. Actually, Zazen is trust.

[55:54]

And trust is faith. And faith is confidence. And when we sit, this is it. Don't move around. put ourselves into Buddha's hands, but not some person. Whatever Buddha is, what's Buddha? Right? But here I am. But whatever, you know, as long as I'm doing my best, that's all I can do. And if I'm doing my best wholeheartedly, then what will respond to that? What kind of response will I get? Okay, here I am, putting myself out wholeheartedly.

[57:04]

Now what? What does that mean that you are a guest? Thank you very much. That's the question. There's a question which we should keep with us, so to speak.

[58:08]

Let's see what that means. So, without expecting anything, just giving everything, just giving up everything and entering this ocean, swimming around in it. Thank you.

[59:21]

More attention.

[59:22]

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