and perfect karma is rarely met with even a hundred thousand million compass having it to see and listen to. bow to our abbot, Lozan Roshi, who I see is joining us from just across the courtyard in this miraculous way that we have of being in the Maha Sangha together.

[01:07]

I also want to say good wishes for Hozon's good health from all of us. As has been spoken to by previous speakers this week, question of what is the theme this Rahatsu has been emergent. And we did have an invitation from our abbot of somehow to consider Zazen and Sojin Roshi's teachings and life expression. Upsasana.

[02:18]

So to me, something about that is emergent in our practice, the sarahatsu, is quite a joyful inquiry because we don't know. We're finding out as we go. And activating that. Judy, if you could bring your microphone in about an inch or half an inch. Thank you. Dear Blake Bodhisattva. I think that's. Maybe it's too loud, but let's try that for a minute. We're teasing out the middle way here. Yeah. Indeed. Yeah. Well, we've been practicing technology for quite some time now.

[03:33]

And when I read that Hozan was inviting us to take a look at Sojin's teachings on Zazen, first thing that came to mind was to look up a video that perhaps Blake was behind the camera on that one also along with some other fine folk in the Sangha and this was a video of Sojin Roshi speaking right here in the Zendo in September of 2020. And he was giving Zazen instruction and also offering commentary on this. This was just a few months before Sojin died. And I remember when he gave it.

[04:38]

Most of us watched online. At that time, I was navigating the pain and confusion and grief, not only in anticipation of his dying, but also the pandemic impact and how we were dealing with it at BCC. We're still dealing. with it because everything floats. But at that time, I couldn't fully take in all that Sojin was expressing that day. Yet, I did feel the healing power of his presence. He was relaxed. No distress whatsoever that I could tell.

[05:42]

And this time around, as I watched and listened to him, I'm happy to say I could take in more fully what he was offering. It's not only that he was relaxed. He was free. And I felt free watching him. You might ask, what changed? Well, it's like sashim. The first day is not the fifth day. When I encountered his freedom, that day and by the way i just want to see maybe by a show of hands uh did anyone see here sojan giving this of the instruction and then if you haven't we have a youtube channel and we encourage you to check that out

[07:00]

When I witnessed that freedom that he was embodying, the first thing I was drawn to was the ease and flow of his movements, sitting right over there at the time. He was completely at ease with his body, his situation. Even at the beginning, as he says with good humor, speaking to a moment just before this particular video clip started. And he says, I have just showed you how we approach our seat by bowing. And then he added with a chuckle. And you don't have to fall over when you sit like I just did. And everyone in the room laughed.

[08:08]

And online. And he continues. And it occurs to me that Suzuki Roshi was equally free. You know, as we heard during our annual founders ceremony first day of the sashim. Suzuki Roshi, aware that he was dying, he wanted Murahatsu to continue. He was going to pass during Murahatsu, which he did. And this practice continues to this day. This freedom Sounds great, but it can often seem like a hopeful wish.

[09:12]

And Susan reminded us of what Sojin reminded us of, to abandon hope as a hopeful wish somewhere out there or in the future, some kind of wishful thinking. And freedom, in my experience, maybe you too, can feel like that. It's a hopeful wish, somewhere dangling out there on the distant horizon. Yet what we're celebrating and enacting in Rohatsu, Sashim, the eighth day of December, is precisely this freedom.

[10:12]

This is Zazen. And Sochen would encourage, as we heard earlier this week, he would encourage that you give yourself Zazen instruction. And this is what he said on that day of giving it himself. What I suggest to everybody from beginning to end, you give yourself Zazen instructions every time. If you can do that, you can give that to someone else because it comes from your whole body-mind, which is in harmony. Now, you might wonder at first, as I did, or maybe even right now, what's the point of such instruction? of instruction, of applying what appears at first glance to be a method to practice just sitting.

[11:13]

Especially when Dogen Zenji, our ancestor right there sitting with us, he says in Fukunza Zenji, the universal recommendations of zazen for everyone. He says that the zazen I speak of is not step-by-step meditation. We might say it's not a technique. Then, of course, he goes on to give instructions. Finding a cushion, how to sit. What do we make of that? What do you make of that on the fifth day of this sashim? It's one thing when you're just starting out. We train and then eventually we don't need instruction, right? We just inhabit the activity completely.

[12:18]

Just chopping carrots, just bowing, just sounding the bell, just sitting. Except when we don't. Except when we need a little instruction. Like Sojin's instruction about breathing. He says, you can begin by counting the breath, but this is not like counting sheep. Don't you just love that? You become the breath. Your whole body mind is the breath. There's that body-mind again, one word. We count the breath to inhabit the breath, to be one with the activity of breathing. And if the mind wanders and you lose count, return to one. Well, occasionally when I'm in a

[13:28]

certain position like this one today. And I'm not one with that activity. Imposter syndrome appears. What am I doing? And that's been a question we've heard this machine. What are we doing? What am I doing? I'm an imposter in this. And when I look closely at that, it has something to do with not feeling free. Does this happen to you? You're serving in some Practice position, positioning perhaps.

[14:30]

Maybe during service, or in the kitchen, or sitting there during oryoki as the server approaches. Tightness shows up, or anxiety, or just some sense of discomfort. Something not quite in flow. So even now on day five, Or maybe, maybe you've hit your stride. And Sojin would say, because he surfed in his youthful years, grew up around LA, he would say, in our practice, we're both driving the wave and riding the wave. So maybe it's like that for you. until you're not. So how can we be free?

[15:39]

How is our practice of just sitting the activity of awakening itself? How are you and I, like Shakyamuni Buddha, Maybe you too have contorted yourself on and off the cushion, ranging from serious deprivation to inconceivable excesses, some of which maybe only you know about. And maybe, moving through all that, you've discovered that in exhaustion, all you can do is sit down in the middle of your life as Shakyamuni did and mysteriously and naturally reconnect with a seemingly nothing special moment as he recounted childhood moment of just sitting

[17:00]

Beneath the rose apple tree. Maybe you've had a moment like that, the Sishin. Guess what? That's freedom. It's discovering what can feel like you always knew. And it's precisely what I encountered as I watched Sojin giving Zazen instructions. at age 91. 91. Moving through, right over there, different poses from campfire cowboy, crossed ankles, which he certainly sat at many of our mountains and rivers. Sashim, together with our head surfer, Ken. and many others.

[18:02]

So that's a pose. I didn't know about that pose until I, and I certainly didn't know the name of the pose until I saw that instructional demonstration. And he went from that through all different poses all the way up to, at age 91, full lotus. Which he cautioned, again with a chuckle, that it's not for everyone, what he says there, because for me, he's present, so it's present tense. What I recommend is that you start out with the easiest posture, the way you can sit for the longest period of time without too much trouble. Notice he didn't say without any trouble, a little too much trouble.

[19:06]

And I love that because right there is the middle way. And freedom is recognizing the middle way, don't you think? Has that been your experience? I think so. It's straightforward. as he is when he continues saying, your leg will tell you how far to go. Wait for the signal with your legs. You are cooperating with your body. So listen to your body. And Hozan is often reminding us of the The nuance, the subtlety, and the significance of this word cooperation. So cooperating with your body.

[20:11]

So listen to your body. How those go together. Sit with good effort, he says, and good ease at the same time. Two sides make zazen universal because the effort is one side and the ease is the other side. Effort is human. The ease is Buddha. Our human nature and Buddha nature working together in total harmony. He says, I encourage everybody not to worry about what your zazen looks like, but how you make your effort to do what you can. The enlightenment is in the effort, and so is the freedom. And he talks about being flexible, not only in posture, but the flexibility in the posture also invites the ability to

[21:32]

Respond rather than react. I was talking about thoughts and feelings, how that connects to posture, breath, body, mind. He says response means that we recognize, we acknowledge whatever, but we don't get mixed up with whatever. And it reminds me of how Shattamuni Buddha dealt with Mara on the night of his awakening. And at the core, as Mara keeps trying to distract him, you know, the way a lot of the telling of the tale is, it's very dramatic with pretty wild attempts at distraction. But when I'm sitting, particularly this sashim, what I've experienced it more as is more like a little kid kind of tugging at you.

[22:42]

Or the doggie wants to go out or knows that you just fed him, but I don't know what you're doing. You had a moment like that during sashim? A humorous story also of Sojin. One time someone told me this story, new to practice during Warioke, and once a year, Sojin and Hozan would serve, and Sojin was serving this person. And the instruction to go like this would be bad enough, right? And so Sojin was serving this person, And because, I think, Seo Jin was aware there was only so much in that full, you learn this over time to server, you give smaller and smaller spoonfuls, hoping we'll get the hint.

[23:43]

But this person was hungry, you know. And so instead of going like this, he goes... Right? From a beginner. Grokking, you know, his favorite science fiction novel. And then at that point, Sojin's flexible, right? Not supposed to talk. But he leans down and he says, we're running out. And this person goes like this. Freedom. And what I love about that story is it's freedom in relationship. It doesn't matter one is the habit and the other is someone who just walked in the door. It's giving and receiving a one and two.

[24:52]

So I had my own little moment of this during this time because I've also needed to go to work some during this session. So I have a little story to share with you about how to respond freely. that brings us into everyday life. I work at an independent high school. I shared this a couple times before. That means it's a private school. I sometimes wonder if one of these days I'm gonna go into a principal's office and say, what do you all think of

[25:57]

changing from independent to independency. Tell a little story. What is independent? But anyway, it's private school. And in a relatively new role called a mindfulness educator, we created a year ago. And as I probably don't need to tell you, but I'll just lament for a moment, which is that schools are facing all kinds of challenges with high stakes these days. And for various reasons, this means that there are a fair number of difficult conversations and situations that I find myself in, in this particular role, where sometimes I too can feel like an imposter. Often enough present to an internal anxiety, and also we have a question about this this week, when someone else is anxious.

[27:08]

I'd be with that as well. And not knowing the way forward and a sense that the stakes are high. So towards the end of a school day, I had just left one such conversation. And I wasn't feeling all that settled. And I was walking back to my office when I saw someone at the corner of my eye who was talking to another colleague. And I instantly felt a surge of anxiety. And with it, recognizing, there's that recognizing, that I did not have the bandwidth to talk to this person at that time, and that the impact of talking to them at that time would be a problem.

[28:12]

I sat that day. It made a difference. that split second of recognizing your capacity in the moment and also the feeling without, as Jerry reminded us, bypassing it. Oh, anxious. Yeah, I wasn't thinking these things. Remember, this was all in a split second. I'm walking down the hall. Notice out of the corner of my eye, my eye. And instantly, I heard a voice say, keep walking. And I did. I walked to the end of the hall.

[29:20]

And again, corner of my eye, the girl's bathroom. Now, I don't frequent the girls' bathroom because we have stacked bathrooms, and that's kind of the culture, you know? Teens want their space. But I saw the girls' bathroom out of the corner of my eye, and I beelined into the bathroom. And I went. Happily, no one was in there. And I went to the last stall. And I pulled out one of those papers that you put on the seat and fully clothed, sat down on the toilet. And I sat. Zazen. And I remembered the Zazen instructions.

[30:23]

This is freedom. The instructions are the activity of all Buddhas. They are not a method to get somewhere. You might say, what about that voice that said, keep walking? Where did that come from? Is that an instruction? Is that a device? Where do we draw the line? So this is also the flexibility of freely meeting, freely responding. And all of this is happening in Zazen, and Zazen is our life. So we keep this practice going. Freedom is not so much a noun as a verb.

[31:40]

It's freely functioning. And you know, when I left the bathroom, I realized it actually would be okay to see this person now if I bumped into them. It wasn't about the person. It was about Being attuned, being alive, showing up without knowing what's next. And it is totally appropriate to be aware, I don't have the capacity for that right now. I need to stop.

[32:42]

That's a response. And it allowed more freedom to emerge. We have a mindfulness board, and believe it or not, we have school precepts, loosely based on Zen precepts. But one of them has a a phrase that says, we value a clear mind. And that's the precept for December. How lovely. We value a clear mind. And then it goes on to say what we do or don't do. So I put up a question on the mindfulness board, very colorful. It says, we value a clear mind. How do you leave a little sparkle as you go?

[33:45]

And then I stand by that board. There are post-its and markers. And during the, quote, passing time, people were 10 minutes to get from here to there, something like that. You know, I'd stop someone and say, hey, here's your question. He says, oh, do you want to write or draw that? You know, put it on the board. So anyway, so, but one day I had to get going. So I said, oh, check out this question. If you like, you know, just write it. And I took off, came back next day, and I saw someone had written, pour glitter everywhere. And I thought, that's like, you know, when Buddha saw the morning star, right, and responded, aye, together with all beings. And the flowers, rain down, right? But now it would be glitter. And I noticed, maybe this is a spoiler alert, but as we were preparing to come here from the abbot's office, the Buddha for, I believe, the ceremony, yeah, it's coming up, was brought in, and as Chisha Zak and I were looking,

[35:12]

I'm like, oh look, it's Sparkle Buddha. So maybe this is the Ratsu of Great Sparkle. So where does that leave us? Maybe it leaves us with what Dogen writes in the Fukan Zazengi. Again, those universal recommendations of Zazen for everyone. After he says that Zazen is not step-by-step meditation, and, you know, there are different translations of this, but today, the one that seems resonant is, he says, Zazen is the Dharma gate of great ease and joy. So if we bring to mind body, you know, Sojin's teachings on ease.

[36:15]

Buddha is the ease. Being human is the effort. So expressing our full humanity, and this is so important always, but particularly right now, there's so much going on in the world. There's so much going on in me and you. And together, how are we freely going to find our way with so many challenges? To keep it simple and really imagine this kind of ease, being fully human and being freely Buddha, that ease that there is this joy, that sparkle that we bring out it's the live moment but not knowing seems to me now in the home stretch where we are in this rahatsu

[37:37]

is moving to celebrate this week, this time, this moment, as reenacting, as enacting now the Buddha's realization, waking up together with all beings and the great earth as our witness. Waking up to the wholeness of life with all our effort, feeling free, Discovering a new ease and joyful sparkle, that enlightening activity that is our life, all with a little bit of instruction as we go. So thank you for all the ways.

[38:54]

All the ways. that you keep this practice continuously wonderful in the center of wonder that we keep wandering into. We have a few minutes. And I wanted to first, if you want to, if you have any words to say.

[40:19]

Okay. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Judy, for a wonderful talk. I just wanted to speak to the sparkly Buddha, if I may. So I can't remember when. It was probably in the mid to late 80s, somebody who had practiced at Berkley Zen Center came by to visit Sochin and left. He was somebody who dealt in Buddhas and antiquities coming from Burma and Thailand, which is kind of a murky business. But he left a whole bunch of really lovely objects for, he just left them here. And they kind of got divided up and people had access to them. And that Buddha nobody was interested in uh it was you know what you i don't know if you've seen it yet you know it's um there's a kind of roughness to it and then this the sparkles in in some people's eyes might be tacky uh but but i loved it and i feel like i you know and i i just

[41:43]

I asked Sojan's permission and I took it home. It felt like I was adopting a stray dog or something. But I love it for its ordinariness, for the combination of plainness and the sparkle, which is very typical for Buddhas in Burma. And actually now they don't use those little glass jewels, they use LEDs that are arrayed all around. So it's like, this is a different sensibility, but I loved it for what it was and I still do. And also the more you look at it, the more you see the beauty of its expression. And its being at complete ease, which is what Judy's been talking about.

[42:53]

So I just wanted to give you a little background on this. Thank you. Thank you so much. I love the drag tag. There's hope for us yet. Does anyone have a question or a comment? Yeah, and if you wouldn't mind saying your name. I forgot to say mine, by the way. It's Judy. Hi, Judy. Thanks. That was great. I'm Jackson. You talked about Sojin giving a talk and being into such relaxation. And you said you felt like his freedom. from that. And you talked a lot about just ease and relaxation. Um, yeah. What are your thoughts on just relaxation being like the ultimate state is just being in a state of deep relaxation.

[44:02]

And that almost, there's almost like nothing more, more to it than that. Um, which you did talk about, but sorry, that makes any sense. So if I'm understanding you, the heart of your question is sitting in Zazen, do you think relaxation is the essential aspect of it? Thank you. Yeah. It's like the quote we heard earlier this week, you know that, what is it? Enlightenment is an accident and zazen makes you accident prom.

[45:03]

It's kind of like relaxation is an accident and zazen makes you accident prom. So for instance, like my moment when I was coming out of this difficult conversation. And I wouldn't say I was relaxed. But I was present. And I was present to... And I wasn't present alone. I could feel the sense of being held in some kind of... friendliness. Like someone was walking quickly beside me going, are you okay? Oh no, actually I'm really revved up. Oh, you sound anxious. Yeah, I'm really anxious. Is that relaxing?

[46:09]

You know, is it relaxing? Or I would say, is it important to feel like whatever is going on for you, it's okay. It's okay because it's real and you're being witnessed and how real it is. And sometimes, you know, like on the cushion, there are moments where you really feel like I really feel like it's just the earth. The earth is like the only witness. But I know the earth knows. I am really anxious right now. And so just settling in on the cushion, like touching the earth. And what do you know, that accident happens and suddenly my breath is a little calm, even sitting on a toilet in the girl's bathroom, relaxing.

[47:11]

So, Maybe what you might experiment with, if you want, is how can you relax into whatever's coming up for you and know that you're not alone. Does that seem like it might be helpful? Excellent. Yes. Thank you. Grace, thank you for your talk. My question is, what would you have done, and this is a hypothetical, but what would you have done if that person you saw out of the corner of your eye approached you in that moment while you were trying to be lying to the bathroom? I guess, would you have said, I need to take some time to myself before I

[48:22]

engage with you like i think that's why my struggle when i when i'm in that heightened emotional state when i'm revved up but i can't find some space to sit or something i feel like i i feel like for some reason like i have to engage or maybe there still is freedom to say i can't right now and i wonder yeah i just wonder what your thoughts are on Well, in this moment, I'm having a hilarious memory of, I think it might have been my first machine sitting here. I was in a role, somebody else was in a role, and we butted heads in the courtyard over who knows what. But I just remember, you know, one of us kind of saying something like, you don't know what you're talking about. It was some instruction, right?

[49:23]

We were trying to figure something out and there were different roles of what was supposed to happen next. And they said, you don't know what you're talking about. And probably Sashin director came over and said some equivalent of, well, let's see if we can figure this out together. It's kind of like that old, Joe, you know, it says, you know, somebody says, I can't remember, this is quite right. Somebody goes on and on and they say, oh, you know, you're right. And then the other person goes, wait a minute, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, you're right too. How come you won't be right? Oh, you're right too. Like that. So, partially, just in response to your question, I don't know because it's all imagination, right? That didn't happen. And at the same time, I've had plenty of experiences, like the one I just recounted, where, well, you know, it's interesting to say, particularly during Sashim, when these things happen, on the one hand, you could say, well, that didn't go so well.

[50:32]

But actually, it's all continuous, and that was actually an opening moment, I think, for all of us in that interplay. I think Gary and his talk, you know, just a couple of, whatever it was a week ago, also shared, such a thing, maybe not so dramatic, but it happens all the time. So for some reason, when I'm, at least me, I don't know about you, when I'm not on this campus, if you will, I'm on a different campus, like school or whatever comes up around imposter syndrome or something else, then somehow the stakes feel higher than during sashim. So I think part of that is trust. If whatever happens, actually, the practice will come forward because of the steadiness that we come together and we do this. So if I were to say in imagination, and by the way, in peace building, and one of the things we're talking about in the many communities, one sangha, next steps is role-playing.

[51:45]

role-playing the difficult conversations, role-playing because, you know, it helps to have some instruction and training and role-playing and practice. But I think, you know, just like you were saying, and it's not so much the words that we say, but like the relaxing question, can I actually be revved up in the body and have this idea that I'm not grounded, you know, I can't, but in that space, be able to say, Hey listen, um,

[52:17]

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