I have been sitting zazen for about sixteen years. But I'm not an expert on zazen, and I'm still learning how to sit. To me that's very valuable to know that I'm still learning how to sit. If we all have that attitude our zazen will progress. What I mean is we will all learn how to sit. As soon as we think we know how to do it, we close our mind and then start going off on the wrong path.

Every time we sit down it's learning how to sit all over again. Constantly we are learning how to sit and our study
is how do we sit zazen. From one point of view, no matter how you sit there is some zazen there. But looking at the other side, we are always working on how to do something the right way or the best way. How to make it work. 

No matter how much we think we know about zazen we don't know so much. Each time we sit we have to realize that it's starting all over again from the beginning. We acquire some technique and it is important to have technique. If we want to do anything we have to have some vehicle for our activity. Our vehicle is of course the form. In order to have good form to carry our intention, to carry the spirit of what we are doing, we have to have some technique. Technique is like the mechanics, or the know how of how to do something. Not only for zazen, but for everything we do is the same. But we shouldn't get mixed up. Zazen is not a technique. Zazen itself is not a technique for something. But in order to do something, in order to make this form a sitting, there is a certain technique. If we train ourself in the right way, using the right technique, then our sitting will be enjoyable. What we are doing will feel satisfying. But if we don't use correct technique, then no matter how many times we start to do something it always ends up unsatisfying. 

Each time we sit we should use the technique that we have to find our posture and our center. To look at our whole body and mind with a very fine eye glass. Really investigating our activity; very minutely and thoroughly. Otherwise we come and sit down and get very sleepy and lethargic. Our back goes forward and there is no energy, no total involvement. Even though we go through the motions of sitting, there is no total involvement. 

The most important thing is that we be totally involved. Totally at one with sitting. How do you become totally at one with sitting? You can sit there and think that you are totally involved. But there is no end to this total involvement. We may think that we are really sitting zazen, but we are just scraping the surface. There is no limit to the depth of zazen. No limit to the depth of how at one we are with our activity. This is why technique helps us. Because it gives us a way to focus and a way to put ourself in that position. How to keep our attention on our alignment. Just to sit up straight may be the most difficult thing. Unless we are aware of sitting straight, we think we are doing okay but our mind is really not there. Not really participating.

I am thinking about how we should be kind to ourselves. Like Suzuki Roshi says, when we sit zazen we should be kind to ourself. It means we should do the best we can for ourself. When we have an opportunity we should do the best we can.

When we give zazen instruction, we always say to people to put your hands like this and go like this [demonstrates swaying back and forth?]. But not so many people do it. After you have sat zazen for a while you say, "Oh I don't need to do this." But actually we should always do this. This particular zendo, we don't have so many knee problems. We don't find people have physical problems so much. In some places where maybe they sit more, sit maybe long sesshins, more periods of zazen everyday, then people develop knee problems. So you want to be careful about your knees and about your body generally. So each time you sit down for zazen, whether you think you need to or not, you should sway like this, to stretch out and separate the various moving parts of your legs and your body. Our knees and bones operate like a ball joint on a car, like this [demonstrates]. If you don't separate those and let them move then all kinds of terrible things happen to your body.

The main thing is to be very loose. Allowing all those joints to move easily. Keep yourself well oiled and lubricated; have real freedom of movement. So when you sit, like I've said so many times, you are not just one piece of cement. You are a combination of moving parts that are in balance with each other. This is very important to move your body and allow this composite of bones to have some freedom. Even though the tendons and muscles are holding it together, they are just holding these bones in suspension, not rigidly. We should be able to enjoy the suspension of the parts of our body. When we sit zazen and all of our individual parts of our body feel independent and loose, then we enjoy that feeling. No unnecessary tension; just enjoy the feeling of being suspended in air. Wonderful feeling. We may not be able to have that at first. But at some point, after you practice for some time, you should be able to enjoy the feeling of all the individual parts of our body in harmony with each other. 

When we sit down we should have this as an object - how to balance and align and give freedom to all the parts of our body in harmony. All these parts have to center around something. We say the center is this part [points to hara?]. Everything centers around here and relates to here. Each part of our body relates to every other part of our body. 

What we are doing actually is defying gravity. Gravity pulling in, from down toward the center of the earth. And what we call the vitality is raising everything up from the center of the earth. So we have these two forces, gravity and vitality. When we talk about life we are always looking up towards the heavens. And when we talk about death we are always looking down towards the earth. So there is this tension. When we sit we hold ourself up as straight as we can. Everything lined up, all of the vertebrae lined up one on top of the other and our head on top. Perfect balance. If you forget it all falls off. So you have to keep remembering. That's a good word actually. Re-membering, taking all...[laughter]

This is zazen. Falling off and coming back. Drifting off and coming back. If you can sit one whole period without forgetting that's very good. That's quite an achievement to be able to sit one whole period of zazen without forgetting. To be completely there that whole time. 

To have something to work on is very important; to have something to do. Not interfering with our vitality is actually what we do. To open ourself enough so that vitality holds us up. Vitality activates all these bones and muscles and sinews and so forth. Just letting it happen. This is actually dropping everything.

We come to zazen with our dispositions. We are angry or happy. Or we are in some kind of mood. We are thinking about so many things. But when we come to zazen we assume a posture that doesn't hold any of these attitudes. Our posture actually is defined by our attitudes. When we look at each other walking down the street we can tell something about people. What their attitudes are, what they are thinking about, where they are caught, hung up. Where they are making it [more enough?]. But zazen is just an attitude of complete openness. No special attitude.

Even though we do sit, we have our old attitudes come and sit with us in our posture and in our mind. Our old attitudes and the attitudes that we bring with us are there and they travel with us. Even though they travel with us they don't hinder our posture if we remember. If we forget we just get dragged down into the earth. We start to sag.

To keep our attention really focused, always focused, and to keep bringing it back, there is no need to be so worried about our thoughts and about our problems. At that point, even though we have thoughts we don't want thoughts. We think that we shouldn't have thoughts in zazen. But thinking process is something that you can't really stop and shouldn't try to stop. But thinking should be directed.

In zazen we don't control our mind by stopping thoughts, we control our mind by directing our thought. We direct our thought to posture. When we direct our thought to posture, posture should be the whole universe at that point. When you start thinking about something else, when the mind starts wandering, that's thinking about something else. It is not thinking about posture. Actually we don't think about posture, we think posture. It's a little bit different. Thinking posture is being one with posture. You can call that no thought. No thought means thought which is the activity itself. Thinking about posture would be to be once removed. Thinking about something else is to removed from it. Zazen is not to be removed, but to be with it. Thought, body, and mind completely in one activity.

So when our attention is on our posture constantly and watching our breath, rising and falling of our abdomen. No need to watch the whole breathing process. You just watch the rise and fall of the lower abdomen without trying to change anything, without trying to change the rhythm. You don't control your breathing, but you just let your attention go with it. Then you inhale it rises, and when you exhale it goes in. Then you can just enjoy breathing. 

Even though there may some problem - there may be lots of thoughts or some pain in your legs or something - if you are really attentive to zazen, you always enjoy it. Zazen is actually enjoying the self. Just enjoying [Self?]. It may not be the kind of enjoyment when you go to a circus. But it is a very deep kind of enjoyment, which maybe surpasses enjoyment. The highest state, the so called higher states of mediation which is no enjoyment or not enjoyment, just pure being. But this is also a kind of enjoyment. This is our samadhi. Samadhi which enjoys our self. Samadhi of self enjoyment. 

Gravity, as I say, is pulling down, and spirit or vitality wants to go up. They join as perfect tension between gravity and vitality. The quintessence of that is zazen. It is not necessary to try and sit in some very extreme way. It is important to find a firm seat. That is the most important thing - find a firm seat. You don't have to do some extreme leg trip. Little by little your legs will want to become more extreme. One leg and maybe the other leg. Don't force that. 

When we first start to sit, almost no one can sit well. And it takes months, a long time, to find your own posture. To find the posture which is your own posture. One reason why we sit together is so that we can observe each other and learn how to sit. It is important, one, to have good instruction in zazen; instruction which is very detailed and doesn't leave anything up to doubt. Then we sit and we learn how to sit by ourself actually. But we don't learn how to sit by ourself unless we have good instruction. Unless we have good instruction, we can sit for a long time but we miss something. We miss the technique that has been developed over thousands of years and handed down and put to the test.

We are very fortunate to be able to have that kind of instruction. We need to keep renewing that over and over. Reminding ourselves of what is the best way to sit. What are some of the subtle ways we can do it best? That make it really correct? That help us in the best way? We should ask questions. It is good to ask questions about sitting, about zazen itself. Even though we actually learn to do it ourself. No one can really do it for us. Still we should learn the right way to begin with. Then we have something to work with. 

Does anybody have a question about zazen that they would like to talk about?

Student: I'm interested in the idea [unknown words] of the posture [unclear words] muscle by muscle [unclear words], but also the idea of what you may bring in relationship. From my experience I never can get beyond this...[recording ends]