Good morning. So this one-way sitting, this one-day sitting is the opening of the aspects of practice. And I think we have some new people and new students and old students here today. And I don't know if everybody signed up for Aspects of Practice or not. But the Aspects of Practice is one of the two practice periods that we have. And the other being the spring practice period, which is more formal, and ends with a seshin, and we have a shuso, or head student, that is training under sojin. But this aspect of practice is more to try to give an opportunity for people in the Sangha to get a taste of practice or immerse themselves further into practice and utilize the schedule that we already have and perhaps make a further commitment than you have up to now in terms of sitting schedule.

[01:29]

here together. We're also going to have some teas and a class. And the focus of the aspects of practice that we chose was the ancestors. And we've chosen four ancestors to focus on. And the one that I was given was Dogen. And I'm going to talk a little bit about Dogen today, but not so much. I will do that more in the class on Dogen. These aspects of practice, another aspect of it is that Sojin has asked the senior students to take more of a lead in doing the teaching. he's supporting us in doing that.

[02:32]

So, and we're also going to have some teas, because the idea also with the aspect of practice is to try to get to know one another better as we practice together. So what I want to talk about today is about Sazen mind and Zeshin mind. And I will talk a little bit about Sa-sen-shin, which is a facepalm of Dogen on Cho-bo-gen-so. Cho-bo-gen-so is a collection of Dogen's written works. And it means the eye and treasury of the true law. And that comes from a phrase that Shakyamuni Buddha says to Makahashapa. So after I selected sasen shin to use for this talk, I realized actually, and I was thinking talking about sasen mind and seshin mind, that it has the two words in it, sasen shin.

[03:54]

I'll also do a little bit of Zazen instruction, which will be, since we have some new people here, so it will be more of instruction for new people and reminder for old students. Since part of sitting Zazen, as Mel often says, we're continually giving ourselves Zazen instruction, doing Zazen, correcting our posture and getting back to the breath and so on and so forth. So, one of the etymological meanings of the word Sashin is means to touch or receive our unconditioned awareness so everything has this unconditioned awareness and it is Buddha's awakened state which is the state of zazen and it's a state that's not conditioned by objects

[05:26]

mental objects, objects of perception. So in Sesshin, we practice with diligence to realize this unconditioned awareness. And we commend each other and ourselves to this awareness. And usually our awakened state is covered over by our conditioned consciousness. which is who we usually think we are. And in this we seek and do things that give us pleasure and avoid things that give us pain. And so in Sashin we don't seek pleasure or avoid pain and we don't seek pain and avoid pleasure. Sometimes people think that, you know, in Sashin we're kind of masochistic. We're seeking pain, but we don't seek pain either.

[06:32]

So we equally accept pleasure and pain, and let go of pleasure and pain when it arises. So there is a sheen, we let go of our usual kinds of activities, And we focus on breathing and posture and silence in the moment, present moment. And we look at a blank wall instead of the ordinary seeing of objects. And we do this with diligence so we can realize the true meaning of activity. What is this activity that we're doing? And Dogen says that diligence is a root factor of enlightenment. And I'm going to read what he has to say about diligence.

[07:38]

It says, diligence as a root is to have been concentrating on just sitting. It is to rest without being able to rest. It is to have God's rest and still to be getting rest. It is a terribly hard worker. It is one who does not work so hard. It is a terribly hard, not hard working. First moon and second moon. To repeat that, this is sort of Dogen's writing. Diligence is a terribly hard worker. It is one who does not work so hard. It is a terribly hard, not hardworking first moon and second moon.

[08:39]

So he's saying we're terribly hardworking and terribly not hardworking first moon and second moon. So what does he mean by that? So first he says to rest without being able to rest. So in Sishin we rest without being able to rest. We're both resting and making great effort. If we rest too much in Zazen or in Sishin then we fall asleep. and we have bad posture and think too much. If we don't rest and in the middle of effort, then we're too tense and trying too hard to get somewhere or attain something. So how to work hard, very extremely hard, and at the same time not be doing anything, be completely at rest.

[09:49]

So this is one of the koans of diligence. So Buddha here is kind of like a bum or a beggar and an executive at the same time. Sort of working very hard non-stop and at the same time not doing anything. Or how to be on vacation and working at the same time. Sometimes people feel they work very hard and they get very tired And then they need a vacation. And then when you go on vacation, it doesn't seem like a vacation. It gets really hard. So the koan of the awakened state is to be both working hard and at rest at the same time. Then he says, it is to have God rest and still to be getting rest.

[10:58]

So in Samadhi, in joyful Samadhi, we rest. And in painful Samadhi, we're still getting rest moment to moment. Although it may not seem like rest, if our legs are hurting a lot, or if we're in a lot of pain. It doesn't seem like rest, yet we're still getting rest. So in pain in Zazen, we're getting rest from our mind and from our karma. And in Sashin, we work very hard and at the same time we're not doing anything special. Sometimes people think, you know, what were you doing? Are you doing sashin? Are you doing a retreat? Oh, that's nice. That must have been restful, right? Or if you leave somebody behind, a partner or family member or something, and you're going away to do something nice for yourself, right?

[12:08]

And I think you're having a good time. And it's not quite exactly the way sashin feels, right? So it is stressful, but it's also a lot of work. So that's why Dogen says, it's a terribly hard, not hard working first moon and second moon. This first moon and second moon comes from a story Somebody spoke about this story, about the one that's not busy. Lori was, right? During her, while she was Shuso. I don't remember the detail exactly, but it's sort of somebody, one monk is sweeping, and the other monk says, you know, what are you doing?

[13:15]

You seem too busy. And so the monk says something that, something like he's the one that's not busy. So then the other monk says about, well, what's that? Is that the first moon? No, is that like a second moon? Is the one that's not busy, is that like the second moon? And then the monk raises the broom and says, which moon is this? The first moon, second moon. That's a little mondo, a Chinese story, but it comes from the Surangama Sutra. And I won't get into the Surangama Sutra because it's quite difficult and complex and easy to get lost. So the one that's not busy, sometimes we think we're doing something spiritual.

[14:21]

that is spiritual as opposed to physical or material. So the one that's not busy is like doing something spiritual, thinking of Zazen as if we were doing something spiritual, which is like a second moon. There's the material moon and then there's the spiritual moon. And so this view of the one that's not busy as the spiritual mooner, the inner mind is kind of the essence of the world, the essence of the external world. So he says, is that like a second moon? So he's testing him whether to see whether he has a dualistic idea about being busy and not being busy. Like if he's not busy because he's doing something spiritual, as opposed to just sweeping the grounds, which would be like the first moon.

[15:28]

Just universal activity, sweeping the grounds just like the moon waxes and wanes according to causes and conditions. So, the busy first moon out there is not busily out there either. So if we're busy sweeping, sweeping as an activity is not a world out there that I'm sweeping. So the sweeping is taking place within our own mind. So I am the sweeper and I am the sweeper includes the person and the broom, and actually I am this broom, the sweeping, and the swept. So all this activity is the activity of stillness. So that's why there isn't a second moon. It's just this moon.

[16:36]

Which moon is this? So And that's a hallmark of Zen. We don't split the spiritual and the physical. So sometimes people think of consciousness or mind as a kind of place where the seeds of the world reside, like the archetypes. So that would be like a second consciousness or a second moon. But in Buddhism, there is no second moon because the world itself is mind. Must be a very dry talk because my mouth is very dry.

[17:52]

Make it a little bit more wet. You know, our usual thinking, feelings, sensations are the result of past actions. So our karma is expressed in what's going on in our mind. And then our mind is also, we're also thinking about something in the future. Some desire, something we would like to attain. So most of our worries are about the past, or anxieties about the future. But the way things are right now, it doesn't mean that this was exactly the same as it was before, nor that this will be the same as it will be in the future.

[19:06]

So in Sazen we let go of our thinking about past worries about what we did in the past or the anxiety about what we will do in the future. So let me read a little bit from Dogen. So this fascicle is called Sazen Shin, which means a needle for Sazen. And Shin is an acupuncture needle. And acupuncture needle was understood as a method for healing the body and the mind. And over time, Shin also came to mean a method that has the the power to cure our discomfort about our past or our future. So Zazen is a method that has the power to cure our discomfort regarding our past, our worries about the past, or our discomfort or anxieties about the future.

[20:33]

And then over time, Shin also came to mean little verses or short sayings that were like needle points of Zen practice. And Dogen emphasized two needle points. One was the sitting in stillness, and the koan of the aim of Zazen, or thinking not thinking. So those were his two main needle points, sitting in stillness and thinking not thinking. So he says, We should learn in practice mountain still sitting. Thinking in the still still state is thinking the concrete state of non-thinking. They include thinking as skin, flesh, bones, and marrow, and not thinking as skin, flesh, bones, and marrow. Sitting in stillness is ascendant to or beyond both thinking and not thinking.

[21:43]

The needle point in manifest form is that there is acting Buddha, which does not expect to become Buddha. Let me read it again. We should learn in practice mountain still sitting. Thinking in the still still state is thinking the concrete state of not thinking. They include thinking as skin, flesh, bones, and marrow, and not thinking is skin, flesh, bones, and marrow. Sitting in stillness is ascendant to or beyond both thinking and not thinking. The needle point in manifest form is that there's acting Buddha which does not expect to become Buddha." And then he asked the question where there is some kind of aim that might be superior to sitting Zazen. And he says, beyond the framework of sitting in Zazen, has there never yet been a state of truth to aim at?

[22:55]

Should we not aim at anything at all? Just in the moment of sitting in Zazen, what kind of aim is being realized? More than we love a carved dragon, we should love the real dragon. we should learn that the carved dragon and the real dragon both possess the potency of clouds and rain." So carved dragon is like the explanation of Zazen. Talking about Zazen. And real dragon is Zazen itself. So he says, more than we love a carved dragon, we should love the real dragon. So we should love Zazen more than the explanation of Zazen. But then he says, we should learn that the carved dragon and the real dragon both possess the potency of clouds and rain. So he stresses the importance of both, of the carved dragon and the real dragon.

[24:08]

And so then he talks about the relationship of the Sutras and Zazen in relation to this carved dragon and real dragon. And he says, do not hold the remote. So by the remote, he means the Sutras, because it's something that happened a long time ago. Whereas Zazen is something that's happening right now. He says, do not hold the remote or the Sutras in high or low regard. and do not hold the clothes, or zazen, in high or low regard. Be accustomed to it as the clothes." So, for Dogon, the sutras are the universe itself. So he doesn't see a distinction between studying the sutras and sitting zazen. Both the real dragon and the carved dragon have the potency of clouds and rain.

[25:19]

Then he says, to sit in Sazen is, in every case, becoming Buddha as aiming. The aiming may be before becoming Buddha, after becoming Buddha, and may be just the very moment of becoming Buddha. How many instances of becoming Buddha does one such instance of aiming entangle? Nangaku says, when you are learning sitting buddha, buddha is beyond any set form. When we want to say what these words say, the expression is like this. The reason sitting buddha appears as one buddha and a second buddha is that it is adorned with transcendence of any set form. Nangaku saying now that Buddha is beyond any set form expresses the form of Buddha and because it is Buddha beyond any set form it is utterly impossible for it to escape the form of sitting Buddha.

[26:41]

So in sum because Buddha is adorned with transcendence of any set form when it is learning sitting dhyana zazen it is just sitting Buddha. So because zazen is the form of emptiness beyond any set form, it's expressed precisely as the form of zazen. So there's no contradiction between stressing the importance of zazen and then at the same time stressing the importance of not attaching or not being attached to the position of zazen, or thinking that Buddha is fixed to any particular form, including the sitting form. Okay, so in Zazen, we sit in various postures.

[28:16]

We sit in the full lotus position, or we sit in the half lotus position, or we sit in Seizan, or we sit in the Burmese position, or we sit on a chair. Like you can see in this room, we're all sitting in different postures. So there's a way in which all these postures are similar, and there's a way in which they're different. So if we sit in the full lotus posture, Dogen always recommends crossing the right foot over the left thigh, and then the left foot over the right thigh. It was always easier for me to sit that way rather than the other way, crossing the left foot over the right thigh.

[29:20]

I mean, that's been the tradition to do it that way, to cross the right foot over the left thigh. But I don't know if there's anything sacred about doing it that way versus crossing the left foot over the right thigh. I think it depends a little bit on the flexibility of your own body. If we sit in half lotus, then the recommendation, Dogen's recommendation is to cross the right foot over the left thigh and just use that, use the left leg to sit in half lotus rather than the right leg. And the way I did it over time, I started sitting with the right leg. I couldn't really do the half lotus with the left leg.

[30:24]

And so I just sat in half lotus with the right leg. And then eventually I started training the left leg to sit in half lotus. It was more difficult. And then I saw alternating. So for a long time I alternated sitting with the right leg and then sitting with the left leg. And then at some point I was able to do the full lotus and started doing that during Zazen periods. And then over several periods, then the Saturday, schedule and then Sesshin. So you can actually, you know, over time you can train yourself if you want to, to sit in full lotus. Some people can sit in full lotus right away because their bodies are very flexible.

[31:30]

But for most people it's something that takes some time. to extend the body to be able to do that. Then if we can't sit in half lotus, then we sit in the Burmese position, which some of you have, and where you put the left foot next to the right thigh and the right foot next to and outside the left knee. Or we can sit in Sesan with a cushion between our legs. And some people use the meditation bench also. So all these different positions share something in common. First is sitting with the back straight and with the head resting on top of the spine.

[32:35]

And then if you sit in a chair, you try to sit with the knees close together and the feet firmly planted on the ground. Remember, I was injured for a while. I thought it was a thigh injury, but it turned out to be just muscle. I thought I had injured my thigh in Zazen, but I didn't. So I sat for about six months on a chair. And so there in the chair, it's important to keep the knees together and feel your feet firmly on the ground. And then most of the practice is with the back and maintaining the back straight. And then with the head resting on top of the spine,

[33:40]

as if you were pulled by a string up like this towards the heavens, like from the crown of your head. And then we keep the back straight by pushing the lower back forward. And then we keep the head straight by tucking the chin slightly inwards. So there's this kind of pulling from the crown of the head and then the chin going inwards. And then we keep the eyes slightly open in a 30 degree angle towards the floor or towards the wall. And then the tongue is held in a relaxed posture and against the roof of the mouth. So we put, we feel the tongue there against the roof of the mouth.

[34:46]

And we try not to grind the teeth. Sometimes you get tense like this and grind the teeth. So we keep the mouth relaxed. You know, like dentists say that a lot of the cavities are from the tension of grinding the teeth or holding the teeth too tight. And so pulling the tongue against the roof of the mouth also helps you keep the mouth relaxed and not to grind the teeth. And then you should feel the muscles in the face relaxed also. Then all the different postures also share the breath practice. and the establishment of the posture. So when we take the position, we stretch the neck and the back.

[35:51]

Some people do this, other people don't, but we can stretch the neck by rotating the neck left and right, up and down, and then the opposite direction. And then we can stretch the back, beginning from the lower back and stretching the hip also. Because the hips, you know, to sit, your hips kind of have to open. It's like they have to open and be kind of supple. So you can stretch the hips a little bit by feeling the stretch to the right and to the left. and feeling the stretch all the way to the hip. And then we rock back and forth, each time getting closer and closer to the middle.

[36:54]

And then we have the upright position of the back as if it were a pillar. And then before assuming the mudra, posture for the hands, we rest the hands palms up on each knee to establish the breath and the breathing practice. So we first inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth with the mouth open. So to establish our awareness of the breath, It's helpful at the beginning to do three breaths where you're inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. And then as we inhale, we expand the stomach.

[38:02]

And when we exhale, we contract the stomach. And at the end of the exhale, we contract the stomach. We contract the stomach with the exhale. At the end of the exhale, we count. There we count one. We inhale through the nose. Expand the stomach. Exhale through the mouth. Contract the stomach. And at the end of the exhale, count two. And we go from one to two, up to 10. Or you can also do just one, [...] one. Then the hands are in the mudra posture, and the left hand rests on the right hand. And then the thumb tips are slightly touching.

[39:09]

And the thumb tips represent connection without attachment. And the mudra itself represents the totality of the posture. And that's why we say the mudra is the barometer of the posture. If we're too relaxed and falling asleep, this, the, the one that's not busy, you know, there's relaxation, but without diligence, right? Um, it's a second moon. Then the, the thumb, uh, will be falling downwards and on each other. You know, when you're too relaxed and you're falling asleep, the thumb tends to go like this. And then if you're working too hard, um, and you're too tense, then instead of the thumb tips being slightly touching, there'll be kind of a triangle like this. So instead of a circle, the mudra becomes a kind of triangle there if you're too tense.

[40:16]

So you can actually use the mudra as a barometer of the posture and see if your mudra is where the thumbs are. If they're falling down, then you're falling asleep. If they're going up, then you're too tense. So just having the right amount, the optimal balance between effort and relaxation. So, with regards to the different types of postures of the legs and the feet, and whether we sit in a chair, we sit half lotus, blue knees position, full lotus, the important point, the needle point here, is to have a balance between tension, extension, and distension.

[41:26]

So some muscles are relaxed, others are tense, and others are in extension. And zazen is sort of that optimal balance. That's the balance point. And that balance point is different for everybody in all these different postures. You know, like they say, the brain wave of sleep and Zazen is the same wave. So what's the difference between sleeping and doing Zazen? Well, in Zazen, you will be sleeping if there weren't some muscles in the posture that are actually in extension and in some tension. because that sends the signal to the brain that you're awake, as opposed to sleeping. Although it's very easy to fall asleep in zazen, and that's why we see often the most accomplished practitioners nodding off, because zazen is very close to sleep.

[42:38]

So the awakened state includes sleeping, is not just awake, being awake means always, means not sleeping. You can't not sleep. But then if, so we have to kind of find the right edge for our posture, whatever that is, whether in the Bhumi's position, in the half lotus or in the full lotus, or on a chair, it has to have an edge. If you're too comfortable, then you're not finding the needle point of Zazen. How are we doing with time?

[43:44]

And we're supposed to end? Okay. Maybe we could have a few questions. Ross. we do at Sashin that's different from Zazen? Well, Sashin gives us the opportunity to wrap around our life, sow Zazen into our life and bring Zazen into our life. Because in Sashin we do various different kinds of activities and we sit for longer periods of time. rather than the period of 40 minutes or an hour that we do, usually do.

[44:52]

No, it's the same. That's why it's za, zen, shin. Yes. When you breathe out on the out-breath and contract your abdomen, do you personally breathe out through your mouth? Just at the beginning, you know, to focus the attention on breathing. I do that at the beginning. Do you continue? Do you just continue like that? No, no, because that's just sort of to focus our mindfulness on breathing. But then breathing is just one of the aspects of zazen.

[46:04]

Awareness of breath, awareness of posture, the back, the head, the legs. And then there is how, which I haven't gotten to and I don't think I'm going to, is how we work with our mind. So far we've established the posture, but then it's how do we work with our thoughts and feelings and sensations in Zazen. So, you know, Zazen is very simple, but then it's also very complex, you know, so that's why we always say that it has, the whole universe is in Zazen. Okay, thank you.

[47:06]

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