I am not allowed to face the truth of what I just learned. Morning. Good morning. I guess probably everybody knows that now Sojin is in Tathagatagarbha and so he asked for students to talk. And when this subject came up, I had a sneaking suspicion, Mel had been saying that someone from here should talk, people from here should talk, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I might be one of the people. So I said modestly, that I thought it would be good, that his absence would be a good opportunity for people from outside of this samba to come and speak.

[01:04]

So we'd get sort of fresh views that way. And he said, well, if you always ask people, other people to come, then you never realize what you have. I thought a lot about that, and I think I feel grateful to have a teacher who is always coming back to what you, what you, the student, what do you have. Sojin is very insistent about that, so that's nice. So today we're having a one-day sitting, and I thought I'd talk about our Sesshin practice. I suspect there may be a couple of people here, one or two people who've never sat before. Is that true? Never sat Seshin before? Yeah, yeah. So, as I was thinking about how to begin, I think for me, Seshin practice is a very good kind of frame on the Four Noble Truths, kind of close encounter.

[02:20]

with the Four Noble Truths, that life is suffering, frustration, that that suffering has a cause, that there's a way to resolve that suffering, and that the way to resolve it is the path that has been described to us by our ancestors. So as we sit here for I don't know how many periods, during the day during one day or next month it'll be seven days we have a very good chance to to experience those truths and to make a kind of adventure out of them I began sitting in 1971 and Dwight Way Zen Center had been in operation two or three years, I guess.

[03:25]

But in those days it was real laissez-faire, but real laissez-faire. You just came and you sat and you might speak to somebody or you might not. I think it was five years before someone said, well, Mel is a priest and you can talk to him. And I was surprised. And somebody living in our house had suggested that I go over to Page Street and get Zazen instruction. Nobody knew there was a Berkeley Zen Center. So I'd gone over and gotten Zazen instruction over there. And it was a real kind of whammy. I mean, it just came as the kind of present that I'd been looking for for a long time. So as soon as I didn't, I always, I kept sitting every day after that. But I felt pretty weird about it. In 1971, I was married and had kids and had a kind of conventional job.

[04:28]

And sitting Zazen seemed very peculiar. And so I had a real closet practice for quite a while. And my family didn't even know I sat, because I really tried to do it very secretly. And so I didn't have... I tried to come to the Berkeley Zendo once a week, because it just I don't know why, but it seemed a reasonable thing to do. And the rest of the time I sat at home. And then one day I saw a sign up that there would be a one-day retreat, I think it said. Sitting a retreat in San Francisco. They didn't used to have their own sesshins quite the way at first. And those were the days when it was sort of fashionable to go on retreats. And I'd never done one. And I thought that it would be It would be good to go on a retreat and I was always looking for a way of getting away from my household activities and my three rather young children. And it sounded good. So I found out that people would leave the Berkley's Inn Center and go to the city the night before.

[05:35]

So I just appeared. I heard rides were leaving at 7.30. I appeared in the doorstep of the Berkley's Inn with my sleeping bag. And Mel came down and said, And I said, I thought that I would go into the city. He said, oh, well, you didn't sign up. And I didn't know that there was a sign up. But anyway, there was, of course, space in the car. So we went over. And everything was just very strange for the very beginning. There were many, many people. Those were the days when at Page Street there were 60, 70, God knows how many people sitting in the downstairs. and people sitting in the halls and sort of no talk and very severe. So I didn't sleep well the night before. I went down. I didn't bring enough clothes. I was freezing. I had no idea we were going to get up so early.

[06:40]

Certainly no idea that we were going to eat in the Zen Center, eat in the Zen Dojo. and the cereal came around. By that time I was starving so I took practically a full bowl. And then I thought the Camasio was brown sugar. I put a lot on. And then I waited for the cream. And little by little the horror of what was happening became very apparent. And I had more cereal than anyone else. And I couldn't eat it at the time and everyone was done and I hadn't. And it was just too much and this wave of faintness and nausea came over me and I just had to leave my seat and I practically passed out on the way in the ladies room and I figured that I was just having a severe early attack of flu. So I called home and they came to get me.

[07:42]

And it seemed like that was, you know, if you do a crazy thing, like, like sitting Sazen, this is what you get. And it also seemed to me that there were a certain large number of people that could sit Sazen and I was not one of them. So I would just go back to my small closet practice at home. And I never talked to anybody about it for a long time. And then gradually I got a little bit more woven into the fabric of the Berkley Zen Center and acquired a friend, Dolly Katatsi, who's since left town. She's now living in Washington. And she sat at One Day Seishin. And she was full of it. She thought it was a great adventure and talked about it now in quite a persuasive way.

[08:48]

And said that she had never had an experience of silence like the one that she'd had at the session. So I thought I'd better give it another try and of course it was very different. By now we were sitting in the Berkley Zen Center in the attic and it was comfortable and one knew people It was altogether different. It was a different kind of torture. But it certainly was torture. But something, I think, as one said, even if it's torture, pretty early on, something happens, you have some kind of special feeling that keeps you engaged with it. And it's probably a little different for each for each person. Dolly called it silence. What I found was rest. That my life was so busy with a job and children and family and to find a space where my mind really was just resting was wonderful.

[10:05]

And even though there wasn't too much of that space It was wonderful. So I kept on sitting sessions. And we only did one day sessions. And then the next event that occurred was, it was going to be a seven day session at Green Gulch. And who were the heroic cast of characters that were going to go for the BCC to Green Gulch. So five or six of us went and it was all quite an adventure for all of us. Patrick and Ron, Patrick McMahan and Ron and me and Kathy and Norm Fisher. It was their, Norm's going to speak in two weeks. It was their first session, I think, their first seven day session. So we went over

[11:08]

That's quite a nervous gang in Allen Lou, with a lot of talk and laughter. I remember the energy inside the car was pretty terrific. And it was quite scary. Again, it was a huge sitting. Everything filled up. And very strict. And beautiful weather. It's wonderful to sit at Green Gulch. You hear the birds and the stars and the waves and it's wonderful. I was sitting next to a woman who was having an extraordinarily difficult time. I think she was a resident at Page Street. And she was moving and twisting and sniffling and scratching her head All the time scratching her head. And just having a terrible time.

[12:12]

And I was very aware of it, and then after a while, Red was director, I guess, Baker Roshi was lecturing, but everyone was rather aware of her, and from time to time Red would say, don't scratch your head! And it would be very clear who the object of that was. And actually, I became so involved with her, both feeling sorry for her and also feeling angry and, you know, every emotion in the book, that I got through the session very easily. And I think I learned something else, not very easily, but easily. From that, which is, you think that you're doing a Sesshin by yourself, that you're just in your own body and your own skin, but you are in such extraordinarily close contact with everybody else.

[13:22]

And I think that's another very special part of Sesshin, that you, in a very important sense, we're all part of one body. and we get all kinds of vibrations from each other and we in turn are generating all kinds of funny kind of little projections and they're being felt and being fed that is very, very intricate kind of business going on and how the forms bind us together, how we're As Soto practitioners, we're very dependent on our forms, but if somebody does something that seems the least bit wrong, how important and significant that is and how upsetting that can be. Also, how grateful one is for certain forms and what wonderful moments occur sometimes just as one is bound to somebody else silently.

[14:26]

whole spectrum of living together in the zendo and in the kitchen and all the different places that we are silently during session. And those ways that we relate to each other are really quite different from ways that we relate outside. There's so much that we can say to each other silently that can't be said in words. So, over the years, I don't quite know when the turning point, when, I guess there's always, there's always turning points. I don't know at what point I began to really love sessions, when the torment turned into tolerance or, I don't know how, quite when that happened. But I began sitting seven-day sessions once a year.

[15:33]

That was all I could do. I would have sat more if my schedule had allowed, probably. But I remember one, and I liked to sit at Green Gulch because it was so beautiful. And then one year I couldn't sit at Green Gulch because of the schedule difficulties, so I sat instead at a seven-day session at Page Street. And Baker Roshi, Roshi was giving it. And I decided this time I was really going to try and be as concentrated as I possibly could and just count breaths. In those days counted breaths for years and years and years and years. And just count breaths and really not let mind wander. And when you sit at Page Street, it's very different from the city. The Zendo is just a little bit below the street, so it's just street noises all the time, except for perhaps late at night and early morning, but even then.

[16:39]

So a lot of the sitting is just counting breaths and just hearing the street noises. And I did that very religiously. But that was it. I just counted my breaths. And I remember finally I was at the very end of the Dachshund list. And I kept counting breaths and then when I wasn't sitting I would feel a lot of anger. And more and more and more anger. It was partly at the noises outside and the disappointment that I wasn't a Green Gulch. But also I was doing the right thing and so what? So I was at the very end of the Dakasan list and that also was enraging to me that at Beikoroshi would not give Dakasan for the first two or three days and then there'd be, I don't know, 60, 70, 80 people and the first Dakasan, sometimes I'd be at the beginning of the list and I'd have a 20-minute Dakasan and that would be wonderful, I wouldn't be angry at all.

[17:52]

But if I was at the other end of the list and had a 3-minute Dakasan Of course, I was furious. And that was what happened. So I said, I've said this whole Sesshin and I've just done my breathing and my mind has hardly wandered. And he said, you said a very good Sesshin. I mean, he said it in a really nice way. But I thought, but nothing's happened. So what? And I left the Daka-san and I left the Sesshin in a rage. But then, in the weeks that followed, something happened. I mean, it was just as if a lot of confusions and problems that I'd had kind of settled. And the glass of water that had been quite muddy was conspicuously less muddy and more settled. I had to, and something had, something was somewhat different.

[19:03]

And looking back on it, I think that probably, probably that anger had been very helpful. That it in some way just kept me very mindful and enabled me to endure just being, just taking one moment after another without expectations, and that had been what I needed to do. And it's interesting, during Zen practice, as years go by, how changes occur. I mean, I think there are some people who have what's called architectural changes. Perhaps that happens more with Rinzai people, that all of a sudden the house that was built one way turns into a palace or something, that something, some discontinuous marvelous change, wonderful breakthrough happens.

[20:13]

and I think we all have experienced kind of little aha's, little moments of brightness where you suddenly understand something. And then there's the walking through fog and I think that was what happened to me at that session that you just continue your practice sincerely and ploddingly and little by little things drop off and the world gets brighter. But sometimes the fog is a little denser and a little wetter than other times. So why is it that for most people sessions do get easier? And what are we able to learn? What gets us through? a little bit easier. That's what I wanted to talk about but I've been a long time getting there.

[21:23]

I came across a little chapter in the I Ching which seemed to me to be very relevant. It's number 43, it's called Breakthrough. This hexagram signifies on one hand a breakthrough after a long accumulation of tension as a swollen river breaks through its dikes. or in the manner of a cloudburst. On the other hand, applied to human conditions, it refers to the time when inferior people gradually begin to disappear. And when thinking about Se Hsin's inferior people, I read as kind of hindrances and troubles. Their influence is on the wane as a result of resolute action. A change in conditions occurs, a breakthrough. And then the next section, the judgment says, breakthrough. One must resolutely make the matter known at the court of the king.

[22:52]

It must be announced truthfully. Danger. It is necessary to notify one's own city. It does not further to resort to arms. It furthers one to undertake something. So it seems to me that this is kind of the condition of Seshim. that it's public in a sense. I mean, our interior situation becomes heightened and dramatized. It's a kind of crisis. And like any crisis, you can get through it with good form or with bad form. And the more that you're able to keep your form good the easier time you're going to have of it. An example of this for me was I was having my second child and I was stuck in Montreal and my husband came out here to teach and I was with my in-laws.

[24:01]

It was a strange city, strange hospital, strange doctor. I was in the last stage of labor and the baby wasn't coming out. And I figured this is a pretty pathetic situation and I sort of began to moan and cry and so on. And he said, the doctor, who's rather older, kind of strict, but there was something very friendly about him. He said, oh, you're wasting your energy to cry out like that. You've got plenty to do. Just do it. Don't worry about the crying and the moaning. And he said it in a way that was very kind. And I stopped all the noise. And I just pushed. And of course, the baby came out. And it was quite wonderful. And I just dropped all the extra hysteria. And I thought a lot about that, actually, during Sashin's, that was really very helpful. And that's, if you can, that's about the most helpful lesson I think one can learn in Sashin is to do it with good form and just do it with nothing, nothing of the extra stuff, which of course is always coming up, but you can always let go of it.

[25:09]

Even if only one inferior man is occupying a ruling position in a city, he is able to oppress superior men. Again, I read that as hindrances. Even a single passion still lurking in the heart has power to obscure reason. Passion and reason cannot exist side by side. Therefore, fight without quarter is necessary if the good is to prevail. It's a pretty dramatic, it's a pretty dramatic statement. But I think it speaks to the role of effort in Seshin. You know, you can try to get by with minimal effort and sort of let your posture go a little bit and look around and sort of let your mind wander somewhat. And maybe it won't be too bad, On the other hand, it can be pretty awful and my experience is that if I begin to slump, I begin to have serious physical difficulty.

[26:26]

So, in order to get through it as easily as possible, I think it's good to keep the level of drama high and really go for it. and try to use as much energy and concentration as possible and you invoke the energy and in fact it will come and it will turn into concentration and the way is not only easier but it becomes even exciting In a resolute struggle of the good against evil, there are, however, definite rules that must not be disregarded if it is to succeed. First, resolution must be based on the union of strength and friendliness. Some of us have just come from hearing the Thich Nhat Hanh lectures.

[27:31]

this year his message is the same but a little different and he's talking a lot about mindfulness and the smile of compassion that encouraging people to breathe out calm and breathe in smile and just have a little smile all the time and when you sit and when you walk and even as you live to keep a little smile. So the common objection is that's difficult and sometimes a little smile just doesn't fit. Sometimes one doesn't feel like smiling. It's the last thing one wants to do. And he described a woman telling him this and he said he told the woman that you must be able to smile at your own sorrow.

[28:39]

And even when having the most difficult time, to be able to smile at the difficult time. Not to suppress it, to be aware of it, but also to be able to smile at it. So I think that this resolution must be based on a union of strength and friendliness. That ability to smile and to have a soft kind of compassion about one's own difficulties, but also the ability to keep one's back straight and sit very well. Second, a compromise with evil is not possible. Evil must under all circumstances be openly discredited. Nor must our own passions and shortcomings be glossed over. And I think that speaks to mindfulness. That the wonderful opportunity that Sesshin gives us is the opportunity of being quiet and really being able to see what comes up for us.

[29:46]

And this is what carries over into the weeks that follow us. Why is it that we can't just keep that silence? That we just get glimpses of it? It's the silence, the rest, a poise that comes occasionally. Mel uses the image of an oil lamp that just is well trimmed and that burns beautifully and evenly and balanced. We all feel that from time to time, but why can't we stay there? What is it that keeps pulling us off one direction or another? And our cechine gives us a chance to really look at that. What pulls us off? And why is it that we can't stand to be at that wonderful balance so long? What is the particular nature of the anxiety or the fear that comes up again and again for each one of us?

[30:46]

And little by little, during sesshin, one sesshin, several sesshins, many sesshins, the particular nature of that fear or anxiety or whatever it is, does become does become better known, and one does become more familiar with it, and one does recognize it, is able to recognize it more as it comes, expectedly and unexpectedly, during one's life. Third, the struggle must not be carried on directly by force. If evil is branded, it thinks of weapons, And if we do it the favor of fighting against it, blow for blow, we lose in the end, because thus we ourselves get entangled in hatred and passion. Therefore, it is important to begin at home, to be on guard in our own persons against the faults we have branded. In this way, finding no opponent, the sharp edges of the weapons of evil become dulled.

[31:52]

For the same reason, we should not combat our own faults directly, As long as we wrestle with them, they continue victorious. Finally, the best way to fight evil is to make energetic progress in the good. And I think that that is really the core of Buddhist teaching, that you clarify your intention, that you really formulate your intention and throw it out like an anchor and then just hang on to that string and keep moving towards your intention. And the difficulties, in the course of that, the difficulties fall off. But you don't struggle, you don't fight the pain, you don't fight the difficulties, you just keep again and again returning to what you know is your center and your awareness.

[32:55]

and let the problems fall off. Mel recently said that, was talking about addictions and smoking, and that Suzuki Roshi's way was just to say, noticing that most people were smoking in the Sangha, many people were, he just said, sometime people are not going to smoke. And in fact, months went by and people stopped smoking. that kind of intention that's very earnest and has some magic in it will in fact work and I think that's the optimism in Buddhism that's the optimism of the fourth noble truth that there is a path and there is a way and that if we apply ourselves carefully and mindfully that will find it.

[34:02]

I think I've thought about enough for about three different lectures. It's the advantage of giving a talk during a session. But, so I just... And I did want to say more about what one learns in a session. and how one learns to get through them more easily, because I think more can be said about that. But very briefly, I think the intention and the gradual, just natural, gradual increase in concentration that just happens. I think it just happens by repeated, repeated coming back to mindfulness over and over again, the falling off and the coming back.

[35:07]

And also, learning how to balance the different faculties in your mind and in your body. And I think the Theravadins have a lot to say on this latter point that we can profit from. I'm taking a course in the Abhidharma right now. The zeal and the exactitude with which they go through the different states of consciousness, the many different states of consciousness, is very helpful. I mean, we all have these minute grades of consciousness and we're aware of them but it's like looking at a map of the state of California versus looking at a topographical map of one mile that if you begin to really think about the states of consciousness and identify them you can use them and control them more

[36:14]

And so, the time is up, but I just wanted to talk a little bit about just a few states of consciousness, which are very useful, I think, in a longer sitting. And these, the Theravadins talk about jhana states, states of intense concentration. and there are a few states, there are five states of mind that make up this intense concentration but we all are experiencing them all the time as we sit and it's interesting to watch it's interesting when we get to a nice kind of poise and it feels good and then we notice it, oh this feels good it's likely to go. Arrival hinders arrival. But if you can understand that you're noticing it, may make it go, you can also watch that.

[37:19]

You can make anything that comes up a kind of object of concentration so that you put it in a perspective where it no longer can bother you. If you make whatever comes up an object of meditation, an object of concentration, then you're in charge, not it. It's like if you look in the mirror and you just look in the mirror, oh, do I look okay? You have that little... versus if you look in the mirror and know you're looking in the mirror. It's that kind of difference. So, they talk about vittaka and vichara. vittaka being the moment if you're interested in concentration and your mind has been wandering and you want to get back again vittaka is the approach to concentration and vichara is the settling in on it and there are a number of similes vittaka like the hand reaching out and vichara like the hand rubbing

[38:30]

or vittaka like the bee approaching the flower and vichara like the bee enjoying the flower. And if you just sit and notice in the course of your coming back to your concentration and dropping off how those two factors are always there. You can always summon them and they're always there. Think about what other factors are around that you can summon. Positive factors as well as the negative factors. Then it makes it, well it's just one of the things that has made the whole process more interesting and more manageable for me. I think I really better stop.

[39:34]

So thank you very much.

[39:38]

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