Well, good morning, everyone. We have we have a wonderful turnout for Sashin and also wonderful turnout for the practice period. I think that some of you are new to certainly new to a practice period. We haven't had The last practice period we had was in the, I guess it was in the fall of 2019. It was a shorter practice period aspect of practice. That was a year and a half ago. And now we're trying carefully and thoughtfully to, renew and reinvigorate the traditional practices that we are used to having.

[01:09]

So I thought that the theme for this practice period is I'm going to begin by speaking about Zazen because that's really our North Star. And then I'll be the classes and the lectures, most of which but not all of which I'll be doing, will be on basic principles, basic teachings of the Buddha. And I think that it's really important to be grounded in this. These, to me, are continuously or continually inspiring. When I came here in the 80s, Sojan Roshi was doing a lot of teaching on basic Buddhism. And so we would learn about the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the factors of enlightenment, the hindrances, the paramitas, all of these systems, the precepts that are

[02:29]

They're ways of looking at ourselves. They're ways that help us in our relationship to ourself and also in relationship to those around us. And ultimately, they help us wake up. They help us on our path as bodhisattvas and on our path to Buddhahood. So that's what our subject matter will be for the next six weeks. This week's lecture and next week's lecture, I want to focus on Zazen because that, as I said, that's the North Star of our practice. And it's, you know, pivotal in... certainly in my training, in Sojin's teaching, Suzuki Roshi's, and our lineage as it descends from Dogen Zenji.

[03:39]

So I'm going to begin speaking of Dogen's Zazen instruction. I'd like to say something first about, very briefly about, Sashin and practice period. So Sashin is a way to step back from the ordinary activities of our life. It means literally to touch the heart or touch the mind. So we step back from these ordinary activities. We set them aside and just focus on our practice. our practice, including zazen, walking, eating, working, resting, and so forth. Usually this is something we would do all together, but we're doing it together in cyberspace.

[04:48]

We have actually, I feel that we've learned really well how to use this territory over the last year and a half. And I will admit, I was not a big fan of the idea of it before it became a necessity. When it became a necessity after the pandemic, it was like, oh, okay. In order to stay together, this is what we will have to do. And I think what's inspiring is that in the course of the pandemic, our membership has grown. Attendance is very good. Our finances haven't slipped. And I feel that with the pandemic and also with the loss of Sojin Roshi's death, we have...

[05:55]

really pulled together as a community. So I greatly, really appreciate that. I'm really inspired by it. And this also shows in our opportunity to do a practice period. Usually, traditionally a practice period that would be, in the early Buddhism, the practice period would take place during rains retreats. During the rainy season, when it was really not so practical for the monks and nuns to be wandering about from village to village, because it was pouring rain, if any of you have ever seen it. It's like, you know, like, find me a tree or a cave to hide in. But what the Buddha inaugurated was, okay, during this three-month period, let's come together and practice together. And so that was the beginning of what we, what our Japanese ancestors called Ongo.

[07:02]

Ongo was a 90 day period. It usually happened twice a year. It happened in the really hot season and happened in the really cold season. And that would be an opportunity for intensification of practice. So, The interesting thing here is that we're doing practice period in the world. That our practice and our training is not strictly monastic, although it has monastic aspects, but we need as well to look at how are we being trained by the conditions of our life? by our family, by our work, and what are the resources, both in terms of zazen and in terms of Buddha's teachings, that really inform our lives, inform our lives as social beings, inform our lives as family members, as workers, as social activists, whatever.

[08:26]

these principles that we're studying are not somehow apart from that. They inform everything that we do. So this is the beginning of our spring practice period. And I hope that we will have another practice period in the fall and have the opportunity once again to have a shoe. So I had student and Also, you know, there's a long discussion, but we're exploring how to come back together. You know, how to open again for activities in person. And we're going to do that very carefully, but we're going to do it. So, take a breath. I want to start with two points about our practice, both our practice in general and our Shikantaza, our just sitting.

[09:45]

These are both drawn from our ancestors, Dogen Senji, and I'll give you a little biographical background on him. So in one of his... Important fascicles, bendawa, which translates as wholehearted practice. Dogen wrote, in the Buddha Dharma, practice and enlightenment are one and the same. Because it is the practice of enlightenment, a beginner's wholehearted practice of the way, is exactly the totality of original enlightenment. What he's saying is, in another way of putting it, as we've heard many times, unlike the usual proposition that we practice in order to become enlightened,

[10:57]

Dogen turns that on his head and says, we practice because we are enlightened. Because we are already enlightened, we express that enlightenment by our practice. And that is what he called practice enlightenment or practice realization. And that's at the heart of... of Dogen's teaching, and that is what he meant by Zazen. And it's interesting because if you look at the period in which Dogen studied and taught, he he was actually presenting a radical perspective that, first of all, most of the Buddhist schools in China and Japan, for most of them, meditation was an aspect of their practice.

[12:20]

It went along with precept practice and devotional practice and... a whole range of other practices that, and you'll still find that if you went to, if you went up to city of 10,000 Buddhas in Northern California, which is quite a traditional Chinese Zen monastery. Meditation is one part of what they do, but it's not necessarily the pivotal part. There's their study. There's translating, there's devotion, and so forth. What Dogen did was he put zazen at the middle of his practice, which was, and of the middle of what he offered to everybody, and that was a radical perspective. And he also emphasized, by emphasizing practice realization,

[13:24]

he was de-emphasizing certain kinds of concentration practices that were very commonly part of the meditation instruction. So, in a sense, he was quite a radical, and this is the tradition that we've inherited. We think of it as traditional, and I suppose maybe after... 800 years it's fair to call it traditional. But. At the same time. It's true that. We're just one school of Buddhism. And we're here because it works for us. I mean Sojin. Took to it because it changed his life. I'm sure that many of the people. Who are on screen now. I mean, I'm just looking at the people that I see right in front of me in the top row.

[14:30]

All of them have been practicing for 20 years. And. You wouldn't be doing it. We wouldn't be doing it if. Somehow, if it didn't feel alive. If it didn't feel like a vital practice. The other thing I want to read from Dogen before. telling you about his life is at the heart of the fascicle that we're going to examine is a dialogue that takes place between a monk and Zen master Yaku-san Kodo. So Yaku-san was sitting Zazen, And the monk asked him, what are you thinking in your state of stillness? The master said, think about not thinking.

[15:39]

The monk says, how can you think about not thinking? And Yakusin says, non-thinking. I just wanted to drop that into the pond there. This is not new for many of you, but it's a question that we'll have to, that we really work with. And we have to find the meaning of that for ourselves as we're sitting here today. You know, as we've been sitting all morning and we're going to sit all afternoon. So a little background about Jogun's life. If you don't know it, he was born into an aristocratic Japanese family in the year 1200. And when he was two years old, his father died. And then when he was seven, his mother died.

[16:43]

And so he was orphaned. And as he sat with his mother's body, he noticed the rising incense smoke. And he watched it curl and disappear into the air. And it brought forth for him a perception of the impermanence of life. And as the narrative goes, at that point he decided, even though he was only seven years old, he wanted to become a Buddhist monk. When he was 13, he had the opportunity to do that and joined a Tendai monastery, perhaps the main sect at the time, where his uncle was a priest. He practiced there for a while. And then he came up with a question.

[17:49]

And that question was, If, as all of the Buddhist texts say, all people are endowed with Buddha nature, why is it that we have to train so strenuously to realize that Buddha nature? In other words, if we're already enlightened, why do we have to work so hard at the monastery? And his uncle couldn't really answer that question. He said, I think that's a question for a Zen practitioner. And so he sent them to see a Rinzai master who had recently returned from China.

[18:54]

Master Isai, who is usually credited with bringing Rinzai Zen to Japan. And Dogen asked Master Isai, and he said, all the Buddhas in the three times of past, present, and future are unaware that they are endowed with Buddha nature. But cats and oxen are well aware of it indeed. So what this is interpreted to mean is that because Buddhas are Buddhas, they don't think about having or not having Buddha nature. It's just the natural expression of who they are. Whereas cats and oxen, that's us.

[19:58]

Cats and oxen are, in our delusion, we think about Buddha nature as something we have to acquire. So when he heard this, Dogen decided, okay, I'm going to stay here and study with Esai. But it turns out that Asai died the following year. And Dogen became very close with Asai's main disciple, Miozin. And he studied with Miozin for about nine years. And then they both decided they would make the long trip to China and look for an authentic teacher. because they weren't finding, they both felt like they needed to go another step, and they weren't finding that in Japan. So, to make a long story short, Dogen practiced in several monasteries, and with several teachers, and finally came across his teacher, Rujing, or Tendon Nyojo.

[21:23]

That was his central teacher. I think some of you have been to Ruching's monastery. Yeah, Stan was, and I think Ross, and I'm not sure who else. I wish I'd never been there. So the story is that one day Ruching was doing his morning greeting, circumambulating the... and he came across one of the monks sleeping. Not so unusual. And he hit him with his slipper and said, the practice of zazen is dropping body and mind. What do you expect to achieve by... This single-minded sleeping. Now, Dogen, who was sitting next to him, heard this.

[22:30]

And that woke him up. I don't know if it woke up the monk. You know, we don't hear a follow-up about the monk himself, but it woke up Dogen. And he went to Rujin. And he said, body and mind, and he offered, he offered incense. He said, body and mind were dropped away. And Ruching approved, and they continued to practice with him for two more years. And then he returned to Japan. So this dropping of body and mind is also an important principle in our practice. It means, in a sense, settling it to zazen and being freed from our limited thoughts, our slippery minds, the difficulties of our bodies, and just being freed

[23:47]

from these things that we usually we hold onto and touching the oneness of our existence. And they were studying together. Dogen asked Rujing, what is the mind of a bodhisattva? And Rujing replied, it is a soft, flexible, mind. Dogan asked, what is soft, flexible mind? Rujing said, it's the willingness to let go of your body and mind. So soft, flexible mind is the mark of our school. That doesn't mean mushy. It means responsive. It means being aware, and being able to respond to whatever, to bring forth an appropriate response moment by moment.

[25:02]

So, when Dogen returned to Japan in 1227, he wanted to teach what he saw as true Buddhism, which he understood as Zazen. And so he wrote the Fukan Zazengi, where he began composing, but he worked on it actually in many ways through his whole life. So there's several versions. It's interesting that he wrote it off of an earlier Zazen instruction, which I can send to you if you want. These Chinese Zazen instructions called Zazengi in Japanese, very common, but one in particular was the model. It's the Tsochan Yi by Master Tsunze.

[26:11]

And what you can see, and I'll read you some sections, Dogen, really appropriated sections of the text whole. But he also elaborated and personalized it to express his own deep philosophy. So... The Fukan Zazengi begins with three questions. First is the way is originally perfect and all pervading. How could it be contingent on practice and realization? So that right there is the question that he presented to his Tendai teacher.

[27:19]

If the way is perfect and all-pervading, what's the need for practice and realization? Because it's already here. Then he asks, this is sort of a, this is an extension of the same question. The Dharma vehicle is utterly free and untrammeled. What need is there for our concentrated effort? But indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? So for those of us who have studied, this is a reference to poetry contest that takes place in the Platform Sutra between Winning, who was sort of a country bumpkin working at the monastery, but an enlightened one, and Shen Shu, who was the primary disciple of the fifth ancestor of Zen.

[28:51]

And you probably know this story, but the fifth ancestor wanted to transmit his Roman bowl to pick a successor. And Chen Xu, even though he had doubts about his accomplishments, wrote a poem. Basically, the world is a mirror stand and the mind is a mirror. And our practice is to be wiping it clean of dust on and on. And somebody read this poem to Huin Eng, and he had someone come with him because he was nominally illiterate. And he wrote an answering poem saying, There is no mirror stand.

[29:53]

There is no mirror. Where could dust delight? So this is really the perspective that we might see in the Heart Sutra, the perspective of the via negativa. And according to this narrative, he won the contest. That's another whole discussion. But this is what Dogen's referring to. Who could believe, since the whole body is far beyond the world's dust, who could believe in a means to brush it clean? How can you brush the body clean when there's no dust? And finally, he says, it is never apart from you right where you are. What is the use of going off here and there? practice which is which is kind of interesting because he went to China to that's where his awakening happened but I think that what he's saying here is that our awakening is not contingent on place

[31:19]

our awakening is contingent on our practice, wherever it is. And wherever it is, it can be realized. And wherever it is, we are never apart from it. So he asks these questions as sort of framing questions at the beginning of the text. And then he says, and yet if there's the slightest discrepancy The way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. So this is a reference to a famous poem by the third ancestor, I think, is that right? The Xin Xin Ming. Xin Xin Ming

[32:20]

says, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the ways is distant from heaven and earth. To realize its manifestation, be neither for or against. The conflict of likes and dislikes is in itself the disease of the mind. Do not dwell in dualities and scrupulously avoid pursuing the way. If there is the least like or dislike, The mind is lost in confusion. This is... I think every line that we read here opens up a big question. This opens up a big question. And one thing I would say... This is really the Dharma from the standpoint of... non-discrimination and in order to be able to come to terms with our discriminating mind which is also a part of our Buddha nature we have to be able to encounter and embrace the non-discriminating mind at the same time.

[33:47]

And in the case, to me, in the case of these old teachings or songs, every sutra, every Buddha teaching is medicine. The idea of medicine, whether it's allopathic or homeopathic, it's about bringing us back into balance. It's a teaching, it's a substance that helps us harmonize our being and harmonize our life. So this very strong statement, if the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion, is a way of correcting. The kind of dominating power that our likes and dislikes have for us.

[34:58]

And of bringing us back into balance. I think it's important to recognize, and as I've said this many times, that... To understand that medicine is not food. We take... certain dosage of medicine to bring us back into balance. But we don't eat it, we don't sit down to eat it like a meal. If we, if we take all the medicine at once, then we get very sick. So what is our place of balance? The next line says, suppose you gain the pride of understanding and inflate your own achievement, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attain the way and clarify your mind, raising an aspiration to escalate the very sky.

[36:14]

So, you know, we don't encounter so many people like that in our sin practice. But some of us who have practiced elsewhere or in other traditions have some of that experience and meet people who are very, very proud of their attainments. And they think they've got it. And maybe they do. Dogen says... If you gain these things, say you are making an initial partial excursion through the frontiers of the Dharma, but you are still deficient in the vital way of emancipation. And they said, Ben, look at the Buddha himself.

[37:25]

who was possessed of great inborn knowledge. The influence of his six years of upright sitting is noticeable still. Or Bodhidharma, who transmitted the Buddha's mind seal. The fame of his nine years of wall sitting is celebrated to this day. Since this was the case with saints of old, how can people today dispose of the negotiation of the way? So in other words, so here, he's coming to that first question, right? He's saying, although the way is perfect and all-pervading, it is still contingent on practice and realization. The Buddha had to do this in order to bring forth what was already in him, what had been testified to by all the wise people and gods and figures at his birth.

[38:45]

But he still had to do this. He had to bring it forth. The same thing with Bodhidharma. So... This is, if this is what these figures did, how should we, or why should we do something different than them? Then, so this is all, this is sort of the preamble. And there's one sort of transitional paragraph here. He said that you should therefore cease from practice, based on intellectual understanding. Pursuing words and following after speech. And learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate yourself. This is what the Buddha said in his last teaching.

[39:56]

He said, Be a lamp unto yourself. The whole of the practice is. Watching. The way our mind works. And how that becomes. Our active self in the world. And the answer, you know, the. The response that is like. Is not. Oh, I should go in a cave and cease to interact with somebody. But in the context of practice, you should cease. You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech. In the context of your practice, what we understand is beyond words. But it is within us.

[40:57]

It is our fundamental nature. Learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate yourself. That's like a dance step, right? The backward step. Actually, one of my favorite bluegrass tunes is called The Clinch Mountain Back Step. I never thought of that before. The clinch-mouth and back-step. So that's very Zen. Body and mind will drop away of themselves. And your original face will manifest itself. So it'll drop away by itself. You cannot make that happen. Eikon Roshi used to say... enlightenment is an accident, and zazen makes us accident-prone.

[42:06]

So, yeah, accident-prone is like, after years of doing zazen, I can trip all over myself. Very accident-prone. Not that that's enlightenment. And then he says, if you wish to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay. What he means by practicing suchness is what he's going to get to right now, which is practicing suchness is zazen. Taigen Leighton says, who some of you know from Ancient Dragon in Chicago, says that the practice of zazen is Buddha mudra.

[43:09]

I really like that a lot. So when we think about, you know, the emphasis, Sojin really, and Suzuki Roshi School really emphasize posture. that the posture is putting our body in the form of a Buddha. And that doesn't necessarily mean, I mean, the model is cross-legged sitting, but really... It can be manifest in every, in any form. You know, I'm thinking of this little statue that I have on my, on my altar here, which is about 10 inches high. It's a model of this 40 foot golden Buddha at Nagaloka in India, the school that I teach at.

[44:23]

And that Buddha is in the posture of striding, not just peacefully walking, but kind of with a little forward lean, you know, really moving through the world. That's also Buddha mudra. So to practice suchness without delay is to take up this position of Buddha mudra. To practice when you put your body in this position, then you allow your Buddha nature to express itself. And there follows now a... Oh, another couple hundred words. which are the formal Zazen instruction itself.

[45:25]

I'll read one more paragraph and then we'll take some questions. So this is where he begins to draw from the traditional text as well. He draws her the Zuo Chan Yi. He says, for the practice of Zen, a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. quiet room. Our zendo is quiet room right now. Hopefully the rooms that we're sitting in are quiet. That's not an absolute quiet. It's a general quiet.

[46:31]

Quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements and seesaw affairs. In other words, when you walk into the zendo, try to put aside all of that we brought with us. That's hard. You know, I mean, my experience at the start of my practice was that in a 40 minute period of Zazen, it would take 35 minutes before those kinds of busy thoughts and urgencies would start ebbing. And then I have like five minutes of sort of cruising, and then the bell will ring. But what I do see now is, and I'll say more about this next week, as I sit down, often those involvements and affairs fall away by themselves.

[47:47]

which is a great relief. So do not administer pros and cons. In other words, don't say, oh, my zazen is good, zazen is bad, I can't do this, you know, why am I here? Forget about all that. Just place your body and mind in this posture. Cease all movements of the conscious mind, which doesn't mean, That's the sense. Sees all movements of the conscious mind. Engaging of thoughts and views. What that allows is for the unconscious mind to flourish. To allow the flow of just thoughts that are secreted by mind. And yet, and not to evaluate them. Not to measure or compare.

[48:51]

Allow them to rise and allow them to fall away. And finally he says. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha. Don't think about becoming a Buddha. Just be a Buddha. takes it's really hard for us to own the fact that we are Buddha but it's kind of the that's the message that's the message of all the teachings so it's not like you can't try to be a Buddha uh It's like the Zen student who is polishing a stone to make a mirror.

[49:56]

It's not going to happen. Then he says, the practice of Zen has nothing to do with the four bodily attitudes. That's moving, standing, sitting, or lying down. That's what I was just saying. Buddha mudra is not about some particular posture that is conducive to concentration. The Zen, the practice of Zen is beyond that. It's really about settling yourself on yourself in a harmonious, peaceful way in that in that soft, flexible mind we spoke of earlier. So I think that's where I want to stop for today.

[50:58]

And then next week, we'll go into the kind of nuts and bolts of his Zazen instruction. I think sometime during the practice period, also we'll do a Friday afternoon Zazen instruction. But we have some time for questions and comments. And so I'll I'll turn that over to Mary Beth and to you. Thank you. Okay, so if you have a question that you would like to address to Hosan, please raise your digital hand. You'll find that on the bottom line or in your chat box. participants box. I'm not sure. It depends on what program you have. Or you can send me a message through the chat. You can go ahead and unmute yourself and ask the question.

[52:29]

Yeah. Thank you for that. You mentioned that we don't take medicine, something to the fact we don't take medicine to get cured. We take... to find balance. And I was wondering, you know, what you meant by that. Because I look at it like, you know, medicine is kind of like, it's like a cast. The cast isn't going to cure us, but it's going to hold us in place. So the rest of us get in balance. And in terms of Zen, how do you see that? Well, it's one of the texts that I read from one of the texts that I read from in the beginning is called Zazen Shin, which is translated as the acupuncture needle

[53:50]

Of Zen. So. Zen is. I mean. I guess that my notion of. I didn't say. It's not about curing. It is about harmony. I mean. I'm thinking holistically. And so that. If your body is functioning. In a harmonious way. Then you are. You're healed. your cure. So I don't want to get too literal in this. But one of the things that's interesting in the commentary to Zazen Shin is that not only does acupuncture needle, is acupuncture a medical healing approach.

[54:53]

And this is healing. The Buddha is often known as the great physician. We have all these metaphors of our suffering as our sickness. But in part, also, there's the implication here that zazen, as an acupuncture needle of zazen, heals us from some of the potential sicknesses of Zen. And there's a lot of talk about that in the traditional literature, which usually has to do with overdoing it. You know, with pressing too hard. So, you know, if a little medicine is a good thing, then a lot of medicine's got to be better. But that's not the case. Thank you.

[55:55]

Thanks. Heather, please unmute yourself and ask a question. Good morning, Hazan. So if our practice is about settling the body-mind... I've been struggling, I've been having a particularly painful morning of meditation, sort of uncharacteristically painful. And my brain was very agitated for the first few sessions. And then I switched to a bench, which alleviated my pain and allowed me to sink much more profoundly into the practice. And I have never fully developed a relationship between how much pain is helpful and how much does it hinder?

[57:00]

And when is it time to interfere? Yeah, well, that's a really good question. I mean, assuming that the pain you're talking about is physical pain, is that correct? Yes, yes. But the physical pain made my brain agitated. I mean, it's interesting because sometimes for some people, the physical pain allows one to focus. And if it's not physical pain, then your mind is all over the place. But I think you have to be the judge of how much is enough. And, you know, this is something, I mean, I... I had to figure it out. Sojan struggled with it. Certainly early on, he had a lot of pain. And I think the point of view at that point was just tough it out.

[58:10]

It was more macho. what I came to for myself was that I would not go further than I felt I was likely to be injuring myself. And I don't think I ever, I mean, I have injuries and various artifacts of old age and arthritis, but I don't think I ever injured myself doing that. But yeah, you don't have to push that hard. And at the same time, it's really helpful to try to extend ourselves so that our body can open, so that our hips and our knees can open further. So just finding that balance, and that's the thing.

[59:12]

It's your balance. It's not, you know, You know, it's not like in Japan where they would come around and they would shove a, you know, a stick, Hyosaku, under your robes. And if you weren't sitting full lotus, you can imagine where that would go. You know, we don't do that. You're really, it's, you're really, you have to figure it out yourself. Thank you. Thank you. Kelsey, please unmute yourself and ask your question. Hi, Hazan. Hi. Can you see me yet? I can. Okay. I'm wondering why you continue to practice. Maybe.

[60:14]

Maybe I have a limited imagination and I can't think any further than that. No, that's not true. So is that a real question? That's a real question. Almost everything good that's happened to me in my life. has happened within the environment of practice. How could I, how could I do anything else? I don't feel myself to be virtuosic. Certainly have faults and

[61:14]

human flaws, but... Well, actually, this is going to be the class I'm teaching on Thursday. I believe in the three treasures. In Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. All of those, to me, they are very much intertwined. And I love living in Sangha. And to be accountable to a community, I always wanted that. So I could wax rhapsodic, but I won't. And it's also... Not a day at the beach.

[62:16]

But I don't know. Maybe it's like a day at a northern California beach. It's not a day in the Bahamas or in Hawaii. Thank you. Thank you. Gary, did you have your hand up? Well, maybe we have time for one or two more. Anything in the chat? No. Or perhaps we're done going. Oh, here you go. Thank you, Hozan. And really, you answered a lot of my question. But if we're already enlightened, the first 35 minutes of your early practice brought you to five minutes of what when you say you got there?

[63:33]

And what I'm really asking is already enlightened, why do you continue practice? Already enlightened, What do you get by practice? I mean, you know, these are all been answered, but could you answer it directly about what? Why practice if you're already enlightened? My. When I first came here, there were people that I looked up to. Not so many of them are around. Ron is around. And what I felt was there was a way that they moved in the world.

[64:39]

and Sojin also, and Meili, and a number of people that I considered and consider my elders. I could not define how it is that they move in the world, but I felt that I wanted to be more like that. And as I practiced, I came to really believe that they weren't necessarily that way because they were born that way. But because there's something in them, in the manifestation of the three treasures that brought that out. And... Even though characterologically I'm a doubt type, I also have faith.

[65:54]

And my faith, I must say my faith has been encouraged by all my teachers. Often in moments when I might really doubt it. But I don't know what the practice does. I mean, in certain moments, I could say I feel that it sort of rewires one's brain. But I don't know how that happens, actually. And I'm not particularly... I'm not all that interested in neuroscience. I mean, I like it okay, but I don't study it. But I know something's happening in there, you know. So I don't know if that's an answer to you. So, yes, thank you.

[66:59]

And you would say that it is embodied in what you see without knowing what it is. You want to see if you can embody that. That's... Yeah. As clear as it gets, I guess. Yeah. And sometimes we really embody it. Like sometimes, you know, in my mind or my body, I feel different people's bow. B-O-W. You know, I can see Sojin bowing or I can see a Rata Roshi bowing. And I can feel that in my own way in my body. That's, you know, in certain respects, that's just like... That's beautiful. Also how you learn to play music. You know, you learn the way a person phrases something. And you really go deeply into that until you come out the other side in your own expression.

[68:03]

Because if it's imitation, that's not alive. but imitation may be the path by which we reach what is original in us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. So I think we will end there. There is a question in the chat box. I don't know if you want to take it. Why not? Okay. It says, Uchiyama said something to the effect of Zazen is, I think, calming the body and opening the hand of thought. How do you understand this, especially the latter? And then is opening the hand, the backwards step, that is not a rational act? I'm not sure if it's a rational act, but I think it's a conscious act. You have to direct. You may have to give your mind some direction in the sense of,

[69:05]

For me, opening the hand of thought is something that I try to do in terms of my own way of thinking about it, of just as I'm sitting each morning, can I open my mind? So one way that Dogen talks about, which often is translated as self-fulfilling, Samadhi, self-fulfilling concentration. Another way to hear it is receptive concentration. And I like that. That's more useful to me. And so I literally, as I'm sitting, I try to open, particularly my ears, and allow whatever sensations are coming to come and see what if I can become aware of them before I name them.

[70:10]

That's opening the hand of thought. Closing the hand of thought is putting a name and a story on it. So that's the way I understand that. And let's just say Uchiyama's approach, just to say there's other approaches to meditation. This is our approach. Our approach is this soft, flexible, receptive mind. That's one major type of meditation. The other major type of meditation is very tightly focused concentration with a word or a visualization or the light from a candle something where you focus really intensely, and that's a different kind of meditation.

[71:14]

I'm not sure, in essence, they're different or they do different things to you, but I think what I've seen is they may have different effects on us in a broad sense. But that's getting into fine points, and I think... we should probably end. Thank you, thank you for the question.

[71:37]

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