Yeah, almost the end of the first week of our six-week practice period. And so I wanted to talk a bit about practice period and how our approach to practice period and how we participate. I can't hear well, but I'm not really talking yet. So each one of us participates according to our ability to participate, given the circumstances and responsibilities that each one of us have in our lives.

[01:25]

So the commitment of each one is a little bit different, which makes for a kind of varied practice period. one in which we don't have the same expectations for everyone on the surface. In other words, we don't have the same expectation of the amount of participation, but we do have the same expectation as to the quality of our participation. So I want to talk a bit about the quality of our life and quality of our practice. Yesterday we had tea in the afternoon and several subjects came up.

[02:28]

One subject that came up was a subject of too much freedom and one was... and the other side was someone not having enough or whose time was being taken up by one thing. And both of these people had some anxiety about their position in their life. One person was older and worked for one company for 25 years about and got early retirement and now has to decide how to live his life with kind of open-ended freedom, so to speak, and a need to define

[03:35]

what his life is about. So, this sudden freedom has become a big problem. And the other person, who is much younger, has suddenly found that their life of freedom has coalesced into one activity, which doesn't leave time for all of the things that this person did. in their life and that leads to some anxiety because they have, although they have this one thing to do, they know what they have to do, yet it looks like freedom has been taken away. So it's very interesting. One person has some anxiety about freedom being taken away, the other person has anxiety about freedom being granted. But what does freedom depend upon?

[04:42]

Does freedom depend upon being able to do whatever you want? If freedom depends upon being able to do whatever you want, then you should really know what you want to do. And if you really know what you want to do, and do it, then it looks like your freedom is being taken away. So it's a kind of interesting paradox. So when you choose one thing, you deny something else. In the realm of choice, when we choose something, we're always denying something else. Like this tree. a pine tree in the front was growing with two leaders. And I didn't want to have to cut either one of them.

[05:50]

But in order for the tree to find its way and continue its growth, we had to cut one off. And they were both, these two leaders were exactly the same, almost identical. So it took a long time before I finally said, just cut one off. Whether it was the right choice or the wrong choice, just cut one off. So we always want to make the right choice. We want to make sure that we're making the right choice. But we don't always know that we're making the right choice. So sometimes we just have to choose one. Sometimes somebody will say, choose one, quick. And you have to choose something. And then, oh, but wait a minute. So we say some choice is better than no choice.

[07:00]

Otherwise you end up with nothing but a dilemma. So if we know what we're doing, if we really know what we're doing, a choice, a certain choice becomes inevitable, usually, even though it may be difficult. And so we're making a choice on every moment, picking and choosing on every moment. discriminating on each moment. But Zen practice is the practice of non-discrimination. So how do we pick and choose? How do we discriminate? This is a little problem for us. So when we do a practice period, we have to decide how we're going to do it, each one of us.

[08:24]

And we choose according to how much time we have to devote to practice period. We choose how much zazen we're going to do and what events we will be able to attend. And then we decide, I will do these things. This is my commitment. And then we write down the commitment. And the commitment is really for ourself. And the most important thing about entering practice is what your commitment is to yourself. If we want to have an actual practice, it depends on what we are committed to. Without commitment, practice becomes arbitrary.

[09:31]

And when it's arbitrary, it means that it's at the whim of our feelings. And true practice has to go beyond our feelings. I'm not discrediting feelings. I'm just saying that in order to practice correctly, and if our practice has had any meaning, it has to be based on our decision and our level of commitment to what we decide. You may say, I will do the practice period and I will come to one period of Zazen in six weeks, and that period of Zazen will be on May 23rd in the afternoon, and you keep that commitment, and you have a practice.

[10:41]

You have a real practice. That's a kind of exaggerated example, but I just want to point that out, that what is the real quality of practice is in our commitment to do what we say. You see, because our lives are very subject to whim and subject to going with our feelings. And so we can easily be distracted. And you may say to yourself, well, I'll get up three mornings a week Monday, Wednesday and Friday and sit Zazen. And then there's a wonderful television program that lasts till midnight. So you watch the television program that lasts a minute and then you say, well, I don't think I can get up in the morning.

[11:52]

But I will get up in the morning, even though I watched the movie till midnight. That's commitment. If you say, well, I watched the movie till midnight, you know, so I won't get up. That's not a practice. That's just going with your feelings, going with a distraction. So, Zen practice is to continually keep returning to this moment's practice. And if you don't have a commitment, you don't know what it is to return to. You don't have anything to return to. So, practice is set up in a kind of formal way, and has rules, guidelines, and activities.

[12:58]

And if we're not engaged in the activities, then we don't have the practice. You know, it's like going to a restaurant. And you sit down and you look at the menu, but you don't order anything. And the waiter doesn't bring anything. Then you get up and you leave. You have to actually engage in ordering something and eating the meal. And then you eat what you ordered. Sometimes you don't want anything. Please take this back. But mostly we eat what we ordered. That's our kind of commitment. And the reason we're committed to that is because we have to pay. So we didn't have to pay for the meal. We could get up and walk out. But we're paying for this meal so we eat it. And there's something to be said for paying.

[14:01]

That's one good reason for making contributions to the Zen Center. Well, I paid for this, so I'll go through with it. You know, we're actually paying with our life, our lifeblood and our lifetime. So, the most precious thing that we have is time and energy. And we're offering this time and energy to something that we want to do. And if we're not doing it, then we're being disloyal to ourself. So this point is very important. How to be loyal to ourself and committed to what we promise ourself and making sure that we don't overextend ourself so that we can do what we say.

[15:16]

So that's why I don't put pressure on people to do something too much. Just do something. Just commit yourself to what you feel is something you can do. And then honor that commitment. So this is the basis of practice. Don't let anything interfere with what you commit yourself to. Sometimes you have to. That's okay. But in ordinary circumstances, you Honor your commitment. And then you have a practice. And then the practice is engaged with your life. In the same way that you set the alarm in the morning and go to work. Eat your breakfast and go to work. You honor the commitment that you have to your work. Because you're getting paid.

[16:19]

but you're paying with your life. So, when you're paying with your life and you're paying a high price, so you might as well get what it is that you're paying for. I mean, we could be wasting our time some other way. So, What do we mean by practicing anyway? Why should we get up early in the morning or commit ourselves to concentrating our practice in this way? Once a year we concentrate our practice in this way.

[17:23]

And so we make some kind of commitment, maybe not even extending our time more than what we do, but just making the commitment is a kind of a way of waking ourself up and making our practice stand up. Because over a period of time, you know, practice tends to slump. We start out like this, and then slump. And so practice period helps us to sit up straight again. Kind of like a shot in the lower back. and helps us to improve or to re-establish our samadhi.

[18:33]

Samadhi means, there's several ways to talk about what samadhi is, but for us, samadhi, one definition is that you become that with which you are engaged. sometimes we say one with, but leave the one out, just to become that with which you are engaged, so that there's no gap between you and that with which you are engaged. So it involves mindfulness, concentration, engagement, and all those good qualities. sincerity. When we drink a cup of tea, myself, the teacup, and the tea are me, myself.

[19:48]

So that's why when we drink tea, formally, we use two hands. So our whole body and mind is engaged in drinking a cup of tea. When we bow, we put our palms together and hold our hands in such a way that the whole body and mind is engaged. The whole body is bowing, not just from the wrist down, but from the waist. It doesn't have to be ostentatious. Just stop. And in that stopping, we meet that with which we are engaged. And we enter the timeless realm, just for a second, where what you meet

[21:00]

that you and what you meet with, both are empty. And there's no subject and no object. So, the point of practice is to relate to everything as yourself. That's the point of practice. That's Samadhi. It's not some mysterious thing. It's just simply being real. It's realizing your true Self. So, the way we handle that with which we are engaged is how we understand how to practice.

[22:05]

So, practicing the Zen Do, we have the atmosphere of the Zen Do, and we have the rules which help us to practice. Sometimes people say, why do you have so many rules? How come you straighten up your collar? When I straighten my collar, I become aware of my covering. clothes, which are me. They're not me, but they are me. They are myself. When I put on my clothes, I'm clothing myself with myself. So I become aware of myself in all of my extensions. So the purpose of practice is to study the Self.

[23:08]

To study Buddhadharma is to study the Self, and to study the Self is to forget the Self. Forgetting the Self means to forget self-centeredness and merge with that, with your surroundings. Be one with your surroundings. When you drink, just drink. When you eat, just eat. When you walk, just walk. So in our busy day, you know, we have so many things to do. We have so much to accomplish. And we're always on the road to accomplishment. But within our accomplishment, we lose ourselves. What I mean by lose ourselves is we lose our sense of oneness with everything, because we're selecting various things to do.

[24:28]

You know, when I was one time sitting with my teacher Suzuki Roshi, on the tatamis in his room, and he was showing me a cup that someone had brought him. And so I was, he handed me the cup to look at, and I picked the cup up and was looking at it, and he said, no, no, no, put it down on the tatami to look at it. You don't hold a cup up like this. If you drop it, it'll break. Put it down on the tatami, and then you look at it. And I realized that, of course, he comes from a culture, a culture that lives on the floor. We come from a culture that lives from the waist up.

[25:32]

We come from a culture that lives on tables and chairs. So when we sit down for a conversation or do something to eat, or we sit on a chair, or sit at a table, and our legs are cut off. And so we're present from here up. And all this stuff goes on, mysterious stuff goes on. And so we don't always, you know, it's really a kind of uncomfortable way to live, if you're thinking about taking in the whole person. We don't give credit to the waist down. That's kind of, you know, as we go up, the feet are the lowest part, and then the knees, you know,

[26:37]

This is the highest part. But actually, in Zen practice, we start from the middle. And we start from the middle and appreciate from the middle down. And we also appreciate from the middle up. But this keeps us from getting top-heavy. Westerners are very top-heavy. because we put so much emphasis on the brain. I'm not saying we shouldn't put emphasis on the brain, but the brain has its place. The brain is not the source. The center, what we call hara or solar plexus, they're very close, this is where our energy raw energy comes from.

[27:43]

And the brain discriminates and thinks and is conscious and definitely has its place. But we have to also honor the feet and the legs and the knees. In Zen practice, we pay a lot of attention to the part below the waist. So, when we move, we say, I am walking. our feet are on the ground walking, but mostly we're thinking about something else. And to be able to move that energy and that attention into our feet is practice.

[28:55]

So the feet are moving someplace, you know. We have a goal, we have some activity to do, but And we do it, and our feet follow our thought. But in order to walk in samadhi, our thought should also follow our feet. So that even though we have some place to go, a goal, and something to do, the feet are walking. and to be aware of each foot as it steps one foot after the other. As in the Sandokai, it says, like the foot behind and the foot ahead and the foot behind and walking, this foot is taking a step into now.

[30:08]

and becomes the step ahead. And this foot is taking a step ahead and this foot is now the foot behind. And this foot takes a step ahead and this foot is the foot behind. So you can't say which is ahead and which is behind, which is the correct foot and which is the hind foot, because they're continually exchanging. And birth and death is like this. The foot before is... The foot behind has become the present moment. And the foot behind... And this moment has become the past. So we're always walking into the present from the past. Past and present. Past and present. And so each step is taking a step into the present.

[31:13]

And to be aware of stepping into the present is Samadhi. For its own sake. To be able to do something for its own sake. So when we practice, when we sit zazen, there's no goal, there's no purpose other than to be present. And we can do that in zazen. That's what it's about. And then we stand up, and the whole world comes to life. Everything appears all at once. And then we move with some purpose.

[32:22]

But even though we're moving with some purpose, we have to be aware of each moment's activity for its own sake. No purpose. At the same time, So this is called one-act ichigyo zamai, one-act samadhi. Ichigyo zamai means the samadhi of each moment's activity. So we have absolute samadhi, which is zazen. And then we have the samadhi of moving in the world, samadhi of activity, positive samadhi, so-called, in which we are just present in our activity on each moment, and we are what we do.

[33:41]

And whatever we meet is ourself. We become that with which we meet, whether we like it or not. It has nothing to do with whether we like it or not. So what happens is that we meet life, and then we like it on this hand, or we don't like it on this hand. And then we split. This is called duality, the realm of duality. As soon as we start liking something on this side and disliking something on this side, we enter the realm of duality. And we start making choices based on dualistic thinking, liking and not liking, which is the realm in which we live. I'm not saying that's bad, it's just the realm in which we live. But there's also the realm of reality where we realize that everything is myself and has nothing to do with what I like or what I don't like.

[35:00]

That's why it's so important to commit yourself to what you're going to do. Because there'll be times when you like it, and times when you won't like it. And you just do it. This is how we practice non-discrimination. There will always be times when you like Zazen, and there will be times when you don't like Zazen. And there will be times when you want to do Zazen, and there will be times when you don't want to do Zazen. And if you give in to that like and dislike, you'd just be living in a realm of duality, and you'll never understand enlightenment. Enlightenment is to go beyond what you like and what you don't like, or what you want and what you don't want.

[36:08]

in order to penetrate the reality of life. As long as we're just moved by what we like or don't like, or want to do or don't want to do, we're just living in the realm of partiality. And it's very hard to get out of the realm of partiality. Very hard. But the realm of partiality is the impure world. And we get stuck there. So Zen practice is not so hard. But it's just difficult to go beyond our likes and dislikes and our desire.

[37:17]

So it's very simple, Buddha says. The reason why we suffer is because we get stuck in our desire for like and dislike, want and not want, grasping and aversion. And so the thing that makes practice difficult sometimes is that we don't want to honor our commitments and we get bored and tired and wish we were doing something else exciting like everybody else in the world. So, not so easy. So, practice period is to limit our activity.

[38:24]

In Zen practice, you have to limit your activity anyway. You have to find some limitation, and then you practice within that limitation. And that's how you find your freedom. So, with a person who has too much freedom, and a person who feels they don't have enough freedom, It's all the same. The person that has the narrow framework looks like it's taking away your freedom, but actually it's a blessing because you can actually do something within that narrow framework. It's very powerful. When you concentrate into a narrow framework, you become very powerful. That's why we call samadhi, samadhi power. When one has samadhi power, it's because one is concentrated within a narrow framework, like the atom bomb.

[39:32]

And when you have a big, wide field, you have dispersion and dissipation. And you just, with no limitation, you just flow out. But if you have a narrow framework, within that narrow framework you find the realm of no limitation. Paradoxically so. That's why Zazen, which is such a restricted activity, affords you the greatest freedom. unlimited freedom within this so-called restricted activity. But before we find that freedom, it becomes very painful, very painful and limiting.

[40:40]

But, you know, Koan of Zazen is, how do you find the greatest freedom within this limitation? You just have to go beyond liking and disliking and preference. That's all. I wanted to actually discuss this with you, but I got a little bit carried away, and we don't have any time. Wait a few minutes. understanding, insight, realization, talkable about those things here.

[41:41]

And the question is, sometimes I have an unusual feeling like I actually understood something that's been said here. Or like I have a good feeling like I'm conscious When you have samadhi, you don't know that that's samadhi.

[42:44]

As soon as you become self-conscious, then it's no longer samadhi. So samadhi means, among other things, not being self-conscious, but acting directly, intuitively. without making yourself into a subject and something else into an object. And as soon as you become aware, you become, you know, it's like when you're walking a tightrope and then you suddenly think, I'm walking a tightrope. So, just do it. That's enough, you know. And how it feels, Samadhi doesn't necessarily mean that you feel good. It means that you feel real. And real isn't always good.

[43:49]

So that's why you have to have your It really depends on intention, because intention carries you beyond what you want and don't want, what you like and what you don't like. Then, and if you can practice in that way, then you can enter the realm of samadhi. You know, you may feel when you sit in zazen, so painful and so awful and you feel terrible And you think that's bad. That's not so bad. Because your intention is to stay there even though you feel that way. That's real practice. Even though you feel like you want to get up and scream and run out, but you stay there anyway because of your intention. That's real practice.

[44:56]

That's the realm of Sanati. So, making our commitment to sit at the Zendo and do those things, that's only part of the practice period, right? The rest is how you relate to your family, how you relate to your work, how you relate to whatever situation you enter into. That's the biggest part of your life. Practice is continuous, and there's no situation that it doesn't cover. So, in the Zen Do, we have the forms of practice, which you can recognize.

[46:06]

And then, when you leave the Zen Do, you have to see the form of practice in all the other activities. Well, how do I practice in this situation? And how do I practice in this situation? And what is practice now? What does that mean? So you're continually asking yourself this question. And you stumble around. But if you keep asking this question, pretty soon you begin to see how it is practice. how you relate to your surroundings, and how you deal with the problem that you have. The problems that you have are not necessarily something to get rid of, but to just realize what the problem is and to be one with the problem.

[47:10]

As soon as we really stop separating ourselves from the problem, and become one with the problem, then it's no longer a problem, it's just our life. There's nothing to escape from, and there's nothing to get rid of. So it's just like sadhana. And there comes this problem, big problem. And you just become one with the problem. And it's no longer a problem. As soon as you start to escape from it, then it really becomes a problem. But as long as you are right there with it, and you are the problem, then it's okay. It's just your luck, moment by moment.

[48:15]

So to do that, is that what is considered moving beyond sadness and joy and problems? Yeah. We should have joy in our practice, but that's not the highest practice. If you don't have joy, it's okay. The highest practice is not to worry about what your feelings are, not to Try to create some special feeling, or some special state of mind. But to accept each thing, each state of mind as it appears, without discriminating. This is joyful, this is sad, this is happy, this is unhappy, this is troublesome. That's all. And then deal with that. Be one with that.

[49:24]

I know it's not easy. And we all fall off, right? Because we'd rather it was some other way. But it's not. We'd rather it be some other way. And if we can change something, we change it, you know? It's okay to change something. But be careful. Because we may change something And then it comes back around, because it's not really gone. It just looks like it's gone. It just looks like it's changed. If you can breathe with the problem.

[50:42]

Breathe with the problem. Like, when you have a problem, where is my breath right now? Am I breathing deeply or am I anxious? My breath up here? Keep letting the breath come down. so that you become at ease with yourself. When you're at ease with yourself, then you can be easily connected with what's going on. So, practice is with the mind, but it's really with the body. You always practice with the body. And you keep coming back to your breath in every situation. So the more you can keep coming back to settling on the breath, and then settling on big mind, then deal with these things, deal with the breath.

[51:50]

With the breath, I enter into this situation. Fully conscious of breathing, I enter into this situation. Try it.

[52:08]

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