Some of you I know real well and some of you I don't know. Some of you are here maybe for the first time and some of you have been here for 15 years. So what I'd like to talk about today is mindfulness, and a particular aspect of mindfulness that came up in the introduction to Buddhism class we had this last week. Because some of you are here for the first time or are fairly new to practice, I'll just kind of give a brief introduction to mindfulness and the way that we practice it here. Mindfulness basically is awareness, being aware of what we're doing. A really core part of our practice here.

[01:31]

The core part of Buddhism, the core part of Zen. And in particular, it's the kind of, it's the attention or the awareness of what we're doing, particularly important because it's something that we can do all the time. It doesn't rely on sitting cross-legged. It doesn't rely on being in a Zen-do. is something that we can use in every aspect of our life. And mindfulness falls, you know, within the general category, general framework of concentration and insight. Those are two aspects of meditation practice and two aspects of our life. The concentration side is what we're doing in the zendo mostly, just following your breathing, being aware of our posture, and just keeping our mind focused on one thing, focusing our mind.

[02:50]

And the insight side of our practice is being aware. Being aware of what is going on around us. Seeing clearly what's going on around us. Seeing what's real and seeing what's not real. These two factors are true for people who don't practice Buddhism as well. It's just a fact of life. But in Buddhism, and in Zen in particular, we put a lot of emphasis on these two qualities. And mindfulness is more within the insight side of things, although definitely it requires concentration. But mindfulness is more generally connected with insight. With concentration, with just sitting, you can just sit, and that's all you need to do. But with mindfulness, mindfulness can also be in just sitting, having a mind that's open and ready for whatever comes up.

[04:04]

But mindfulness also is a more active kind of an awareness of observing what's happening around you. So the text in Buddhism that best describes this is the Satipatthana Sutra. Satipatthana means awareness of mindfulness. And it's a very simple sutra. I mean, it's simple to read, not long. And basically it's an outline of practice of mindfulness. And in the Satipatthana Sutra, they break mindfulness down into four aspects or four foundations. The first foundation is mindfulness of your body, being aware of how your body feels. And in Zen practice particularly, we really stress this.

[05:08]

That's why we're so fussy about posture. Not so much that you have to have perfect posture, but that we ask that you be aware of your posture, be aware of how your body feels when you're sitting in particular. Understanding the language of your body, what is your body telling you? And what are the bodies of people around you telling you? So just awareness of your body, not trying to do anything with it, but just knowing what your body is doing. If you're tense, you understand that you know it. You may continue to be tense, but at least you know that you're tense. And the second foundation is the mindfulness of feelings. And feelings in this sense is not emotions, but feelings in terms of whether you like something, whether you dislike something, or whether you just feel ambivalent about it.

[06:16]

And if you notice that almost every instance of your awareness has one of those three states associated with it in some form. And the third foundation is mindfulness of your mental states. All the stuff that's going on in your mind, your emotions, your thoughts, plans, all the scenarios, all the dialogue that goes on, those are all mental states. And to be aware of that. Again, not necessarily to do anything about it, but just to be aware that it's happening. And the final foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of dharmas, which is mindfulness of elements of reality. In this case, in particular, Buddhist emphasis on elements of reality, such as impermanence, the fact that everything changes, the nature of suffering, desire, the skandhas, and being aware of how those dharmas or those elements of reality are working in your life, in your daily life, with each thing that you do.

[07:39]

So that's a more sophisticated and kind of an elaborate awareness. So basically these are four practices and you can intentionally focus your awareness or your attention on these different aspects of your life, of your body and your mind. There's a good quote from Suzuki Roshi about mindfulness from Zen Mind Beginner's Mind that I'd like to read. The important thing is our understanding. The important thing in our understanding is to have a smooth, free-thinking way of observation. We have to think and to observe things without stagnation. We should accept things as they are without difficulty. Our mind should be soft and open enough to understand things as they are.

[08:45]

When our thinking is soft, it is called imperturbable thinking. This kind of thinking is always stable. It is called mindfulness. Thinking which is divided in many ways is not true thinking. Concentration should be present in our thinking. This is mindfulness. Whether you have an object or not, your mind should be stable and your mind should not be divided. This is Zazen. And also, Zen Master Dogen's teacher, Rujing, said to Dogen that what he should practice is meekness of mind. Meekness of mind. And Dogen asked him, what did he mean by meekness of mind? And Rujing said, it means just having a soft and open mind. which is mindfulness.

[09:47]

So, we were discussing mindfulness in the class on Thursday night, and towards the end of the class, Greg raised the question, well, isn't there a problem if we're observing ourselves, and we're watching what we're doing, isn't there a kind of a split that here's me watching and here's me the subject watching and here's me the object being watched. I'm sort of dividing myself into two parts. And doesn't that just create the same kind of split that we're always involved in, the same kind of dualistic kind of conflict, division? And it's a good question. How can you be observant, how can you really closely observe what's going on around you without separating yourself somehow, without dividing yourself up into a kind of a watcher and the observed, so that there's a separation?

[11:06]

I think you probably know how that feels. People have different degrees of how they do that. I think maybe intellectual types tend to do that more. Maybe emotional types tend to do it less. I'm not sure. I don't want to typecast people. But I think it's something we all have an experience with, of trying to sort of understand what's going on, but at the same time sort of stepping back and not being involved in order to do that. And as we step back and we're not involved, somehow we're not involved. So there's a kind of problem. We're not really playing the game. And also self-consciousness is that same kind of process, where we feel self-conscious.

[12:15]

It's that we have whatever we're doing at the same time, simultaneous with our action, we also have an image of ourself, doing whatever it is we're doing, along with the doing. So it kind of creates a static. Instead of just doing something, we're doing something and then thinking, well, I'm doing this at the same time. And self-consciousness usually implies sort of feeling sensitive or uncomfortable, nervous about your image or your existence in what you're doing. And also it can be used as this kind of detachment is also a way of avoiding pain. I know this well, because it's a characteristic of my personality, that by detaching yourself and just being the observer, it seemingly can escape the pain of whatever may be happening at that time.

[13:35]

You're just watching, you're not really involved. the painfulness of this particular event is not really affecting you because you're not really involved, you're just sort of watching. So, that's with Greg's question as well. How can you be mindful and yet not fall into the trap of this kind of separated attitude. And you know, in Zen, you know, we're always emphasizing oneness and kind of being one with what you do. We say there's no gap. There's no gap between me and you. There's no gap between what I'm doing and my action. So we have this kind of idea and this principle of being totally engaged and tonally identified with what we're doing, so that again, how do you become an observer of that same kind of feeling?

[14:49]

It seems like there could be a contradiction. It also seems like mindfulness could be kind of tiresome, kind of irritating, like just always fussing about having to be aware of everything, rather than just doing something and enjoying it. Bob Zepernick in his talk on Monday gave an example, a simile of somebody who's shot with an arrow. And rather than just pull the arrow out, they start to analyze the arrow, the foolishness of just analyzing the arrow. So if you're shot with an arrow, you notice how your body feels, you notice whether you like it or you don't like it. No, you just pull the arrow out. it may appear that it would be foolish to get involved in mindfulness at that point.

[15:54]

So, Thich Nhat Hanh A Vietnamese Zen teacher has a good solution. He says, if we want to see and understand, we have to penetrate and become one with the object. I'll read that again. If we want to see and understand, which is mindfulness, we have to penetrate and become one with the object. If we stand outside of it in order to observe it, we cannot really see and understand it. The work of observation is the work of penetrating and transforming.

[16:58]

That is why the Sutra, Satipatthana Sutra says, observing the body in the body, observing the feelings in the feelings, etc. The description is very clear. The deeply observing mind is not merely an observer, but a participant. Only when the observer is a participant can there be transformation. And also another teacher, Krishnamurti, who's an Indian spiritual teacher who died several years ago. Krishnamurti said something to the effect that mindfulness needs to be practiced without a goal, without trying to improve yourself, but just awareness for its own sake, without trying to accomplish something.

[18:06]

As long as you're trying to accomplish something, it doesn't really work. You're constantly within that separation that we're talking about. So, you know, these are two solutions that seem satisfying to me, but the problem is that How do you get to that? How do you do that? That's one thing to say, well you should just, you know, participate and penetrate and observe all at the same time. Yeah, but how? How do you do that? And what if we can't do it? And what if it just doesn't work? What if, that's a great idea, but what if somehow we just are constantly feeling this separation.

[19:13]

And, you know, can we accept that? Could we still practice mindfulness and yet be in this divided state and accept that as a kind of a problem that we're willing to take on? You know the chant, the meal chant, at the very end of the meal chant, when we're having a formal, formal orioke meal and we put everything away and everything's finished and the servers have gone, gone back to the back of the room and everything's quiet. Kokyo says, may we exist in muddy water with purity like a lotus, thus we bow to Buddha. May we exist in muddy water with purity like a lotus. So for mindfulness, this is Ron's mindfulness chant.

[20:23]

May we exist in self-centered mindfulness with confidence that we're fundamentally right on. Maybe we exist in self-centered mindfulness with confidence that we're fundamentally right on. So, it's not pure. You know, it's muddy. But still we do it. So maybe we can accept the fact that we can practice mindfulness and it's not going to be pure or seem like what the teachers say it could be.

[21:25]

But we don't know. We can't make conclusions about it. But if we get really discouraged, that's a problem, if we sort of give up because, you know, it just seems like we're always, there's always these two elements. There's always the observer, there's always the observed, there always seems to be a kind of fundamental split. So what's the point? Well, just exist in muddy water with purity like a lotus. If you can't do that, you'll just give up, because I don't think you're going to find absolute purity. But, anyway, still the question remains, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh is suggesting this way sounds very good. How can we begin to get to that, or how do we get to that in our awkward, lurching kind of way.

[22:31]

And how do we do it in such a sense that we're not manipulating, that we're not trying to create something, trying to create a state of mind that we have in mind already, but with an open mind, how can we explore that? And to me, what I find helpful, the key is recognizing how I personalize, how I personalize the observer. The process of observation is just a quality of my mind, obviously. It's just one more thing that goes on in my mind, like all the other stuff that goes on in my mind. But this particular part, I identify, I give an image of me, myself.

[23:33]

This observer has a very special vested interest. Call it ego. And there's a very personal feeling to it. So is it possible to observe what's going on around us without so much making it a personal observation, without so much qualities of judgment or what's it going to do for me, but just this is what I see happening? And the I is questionable. So when the observer has a strong sense of me, it seems to be a problem. And yet, that's where we start. It's hard to avoid that.

[24:35]

You can't avoid that. But the longer that we work with it, and the longer that we sit, I think that we start to maybe relax. And that sense of mine, or my observing mind, the sense of me, we can just relax a little bit and it's not so powerful. It actually takes a lot of energy to sustain that. And during saschina, after you've been sitting a long time, sometimes that sense of me can begin to dissolve or fade. Because, partly because, you've just been able to really relax, just to let go, without the pressures of your daily life.

[25:39]

There's the pressures of sitting still, which is a certain amount of pressure, but the pressures of your daily life and all the challenges you've stepped away from just temporarily. And you can deeply relax, even if your body is having a hard time. Still, you can relax in a way that you can't usually. And in that relaxed state, the meanness or the mineness tends to ease up somewhat. So here's one last quote from Suzuki Roshi. You cannot practice true zazen because you practice it. If you do not, then there is enlightenment and there is true practice.

[26:42]

When you do it, you create some concrete idea of you or I, and you create some particular idea of practice or zazen. So here you are on the right side and here is Zazen on the left. So Zazen and you become two different things. If the combination of practice and you is Zazen, it is the Zazen of a frog. For a frog, his or her sitting position is Zazen. So what if we just substituted the word mindfulness for that? that you cannot practice true mindfulness because you practice it. If you do not, then there is mindfulness, then there is enlightenment, and there is true practice. When you do it, you create some concrete idea of you or I, and you create some particular idea of practice or mindfulness. So here you are on the right side, and here is mindfulness on the left.

[27:45]

So mindfulness and you become two different things. And finally, I'd just like to suggest that mindfulness, the practice of being aware and the energy that we put into that can also just be, you can see it as an expression rather than as a tool that you're working on something to try to develop something, and you could see it as an expression of something that you already are. And cultivating that expression, to be able to express yourself in a clear way, in a way that expresses how you feel, that you actually feel, to be able to express that to the world is a good thing.

[28:56]

in a very simple way. And likewise, that mindfulness is actually an expression of your involvement in the world. I mean, the same way that we can talk about sitting as being an expression of your life, not just something to develop. But again, that sounds good, and I think it's true, but we can't start there necessarily. And even if it is kind of convoluted, and even if it does seem kind of burdensome or ego-oriented, still,

[30:01]

It's good stuff. And maybe as we continue, we can more see it as an expression rather than as a chore or as a study subject. So I invite your questions and disagreements and comments. And sometimes it's there.

[31:35]

And it seems to me it has to do with wanting to attain something. How do you achieve mindfulness? And is achieving mindfulness an oxymoron? And how can I do that in my work? You know, because I have something to attain. And yet with nothing to attain, bodhisattva defends that question. elsewhere. It was about okayness. Is it okay with me that I'm feeling jealous of somebody? No, it's not okay, but is it okay that it's not okay? Well, yeah, stepping back from that and then Could you say it in another way?

[32:54]

It's like looking at what is. It's a way of looking at what is. Rather than your ideal. What I think it should be. And I think a lot of that split, that self-consciousness is in now, I should be doing something else. It should be another way. It creates a lot of mental suffering. Yeah. And sometimes I find myself thinking about something, but that's all that is. It's just thinking. The practice goes on. And I find that even in working with something like mindfulness, if I get into the mode of trying to think about what I'm thinking about and why I'm thinking that, it gets so complicated that it's kind of meaningless.

[34:31]

So if I'm able to just say, much easier to work with it. I find that whenever I get into the mental analysis of things, which I do easily, that it gets mixed up for me. Or the simpler... You don't try to untie all the knots. Because in trying to untie all the knots, it makes more knots. If I can just accept the fact that I'm watching myself do something, all of a sudden, at some point, I'm not watching myself do something anymore. That's the only thing I can say about it.

[35:36]

It doesn't seem so for me anymore. It's changeable. You unkinked the hose.

[37:22]

You unkinked the hose. The hose had a kink in it. Your self-judgmental quality of judging yourself, you're shutting off all the water and then you just luck of, you know, stumbling on Yeah, yeah.

[38:34]

Thank you. Sorry. I once asked the teacher about this stepping back and observing and is the idea that just more and more identified with that, that is observing. And the answer was, no, the idea is not to identify with anything at all. And then that question that you brought up is, how? How do you not identify when a huge part of us, that's its job, is to identify with. So I'm reminded of the Vipassana practice of labeling what's happening, especially during meditation. And just saying the descriptive word, not I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling angry, or my knee hurts, my knee hurts, but anger, or anger arising, or knee hurting. finding that practice both to have the quality of I'm observing, but I'm not one with it. I'm also participating.

[39:35]

So there's both of those elements present in that practice, although it's not exactly something we... Advocate. Advocate in the Zen school. So I'm wondering what your opinion of that practice is, or what your experiences are. Don't tell on me. Well, I think that some people would like that practice a lot and some people would hate that practice, just depending on your temperament. I think any practice will work if you like it. Well, there's probably some perverted practices, but basically, you know, it's fairly legitimate. If you like it, it will work. Since my mind is constantly churning away all the time anyway, I don't really want to start labeling things personally. But for some people, it would be quite good.

[40:39]

I've never talked to somebody. I'd like to hear from somebody who's done that for a long period of time, who's sustained that, and see what their experience would be. If anybody here has done it, speak up. I've never done Vipassana, but I've done a lot of saying words, Carol, like faith. I was thinking about how the discussion about separation is just this level up here, you know, that we live in.

[41:47]

It's just all this kind of mass thought and feelings that, like, somebody once said, the garden variety of feelings that we all go through in the woods. And then underneath it is, to me, true nature and true where you can just sit and be the presence that you are. And no matter what happens, it's absolutely right. And the separation struggle is just sort of this mulch. It makes us sit. It makes me sit. changes and so that

[42:59]

Maybe more transparent? Transparent? That's what I think of when you're saying that. Well, I just think of, you know, all of a sudden somehow things opening up like this. And yet it seems like the observation is closer. So that rather than being kind of thinking that it's only paying attention to some kind of solid idea, it's noticing idea, bird singing, weed burning, and things that don't happen in any of your journals. So that it seems that mindfulness, if that is mindfulness, If you really pursue mindfulness, it cleans up its own act.

[44:55]

Hearing your talk, it makes me think how the correlation between mindfulness and experience, you are experiencing. But I would imagine why Zen doesn't do it is because perhaps it also can almost distance you sometimes from your experience if you start labeling things and thinking them as objects. But mindfulness seems to be, to me, somehow connected with being aware of everything that you experience. And instead of thinking of objects outside of yourself as objects outside of yourself, you are experiencing those things. And so your point of view is from how you are experiencing it all.

[46:05]

It also just occurs to me, you know, whenever we talk about mindfulness, that the more we talk about it, the more it becomes kind of like a subject. You can't help it. And so I'd just sort of like to kind of reverse direction just at the end, just to mention that we do talk about it like a subject and we can approach it like a subject, but actually, and it is a subject, but it's also just our life, the fabric of our life. And as such, not really a subject. If we turn it into a subject, it can become kind of oppressive. You know, we get an idea, we start forming ideas around it. And again, we can't help it, but just to remind us that it just exists.

[47:58]

Thank you.

[48:02]

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