Last Saturday I started out talking about how difficult it is to participate 100% in your activity, especially in zazen, how to be completely involved with our zazen when we're sitting. So I want to talk some more about that, especially for our one-day sitting. Even though we decide to sit, to come and sit for one day.

[01:10]

To actually get it together, to do it, is pretty hard. This morning, I came in five minutes late so that I would be sure that everyone was here. And still, you know, people were coming in after that. So how we begin is very important to be on time, to make the effort to start mindfully. So anyway, today I want to talk about zazen.

[02:33]

How we can participate 100% in sitting. Mostly, though, it's 50% or 75% or something like that, and it varies. Sometimes 100%, but mostly It fluctuates down. That's okay. It's almost impossible to be there 100% all the time. Almost impossible. And we shouldn't expect that we'll always be present 100%. Myself, you know, I'm very sleepy today. usually don't get to sleep until much later these days, so maybe 11 or so. So I get kind of sleepy in the morning.

[03:37]

I hope I wake up more as the day goes on. But sleepy zazen is also zazen. It just means that we have to work with sleepiness. and working with sleepiness is our zazen. How we participate with our body 100% and completely, I won't use percentage, how we participate with our body completely and how we participate with our mind completely. Since there's nothing else to do, Today, we set aside everything, set down all activities, and there's nothing else to do but just sit completely.

[04:39]

So, when we sit completely, our fingertips should participate in zazen, and the next joint of our little finger should participate in zazen. and the next joint and all of our fingers and hand, the whole hand should participate in zazen. But the three joints of our fingers are separate. Each one of those joints is separate. If you look at your hand, you can count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. 14 joints plus the hand. And inside the hand, you can't see it so well, but there are lots of individual, independent parts.

[05:46]

And within those parts, there are parts, universes. And each one of those parts should participate in zazen completely. Your wrist, your hand is connected to your arm at your wrist. You see that? And then the elbow. connects the arm with the upper arm, and then the shoulder connects the upper arm with your upper body, and so forth. All of these individual separate parts participating together in one activity. This is how we need to think about zazen. When we have that kind of consciousness,

[06:53]

and continue to concentrate with that kind of consciousness, that kind of attention, then our zazen becomes more and more real and we appear more in our activity. So, first thing is how how we harmonize our body, how we harmonize all parts of our body in the minutest way. So, there's no lack of something to do when we sit. I can't, I don't know how many parts, you know, in some of the sutras Buddhist sutras, it says how many parts of the body there are.

[07:58]

We count. I can't remember how many, 300 and something. How do you keep track of all those parts and get them to participate and harmonize in one activity? So that every one of them finds its place. and is balanced with all the others. And each one is functioning in its place, fully functioning in its place. So this is what we call posture. When we assume zazen posture, That's what we're taking into account. All the minute parts of our body lining up in a harmonious way with complete attention.

[09:02]

Just to sit. So when we do that, when we can really do that, we call that comfortable sitting. comfortable existence. And this harmony, you know, is constantly shifting and changing. We may find our posture on one moment, but the next moment you know, it's shifting and changing. So our body is just like a microcosm of the universe. If you look at one part, the other part is changing. So we have to put our attention constantly in the various parts, constantly

[10:20]

review the various parts of our body when we sit. And when we put our attention on one part, that one part is like the center of our universe. If you put your attention on your mudra, your mudra is the center of your zazen. And every all the other parts revolve around that and harmonize with it. If you put your attention on your teeth, your teeth are the center of your universe and all the parts revolve around your teeth and harmonize with your teeth. So that the parts of our body, every part of our body is constantly interacting and harmonizing with every other part.

[11:37]

Kind of wonderful, actually. So when we assume our posture, we become very careful, very careful with ourselves, how we handle, how we take care of each part. And so the main thing is to find the basis, the base, the foundation. And to keep our vertebrae back straight is the main thing. And our vertebrae lined up, one on top of the other, in balance.

[12:44]

And on top of our vertebrae is our head. This is the most difficult part, you know, is what to do with our head, both inside and outside. you know, it's kind of a big useless weight up there. So we have to do something with it. We have to balance it on top. It weighs 12 or 13 pounds, you know, it would take a few. And whichever way it goes causes our whole body to, you know, our body's going like this constantly, you know, balancing that. head up there on top of our spine. But what we usually do is we find our muscles and our muscles go, I'll hold on. So we hold on to our head with our muscles and giving up balance.

[13:47]

It's kind of unfortunate. But by the time we get to a certain age, we've established a kind of muscle boundness. that holds our posture in certain ways instead of always finding our balance. We give up finding our balance and take second best by holding ourself up by being muscle-bound. So when we sit sadhana, we have to give that up. We have to give up that muscle-bound posture and hold ourself, with our balance, re-find how to balance ourself. So that's why Zazen is so difficult. You know, we start Zazen when we're in our 20s or 30s or 40s. And we already have a lot of unfortunate habits.

[14:54]

So it becomes painful. difficult, and we have to be able to give up what we rely on and rely on our balance. And we have to find that balance constantly. So if you don't want to go to all the trouble of finding your balance constantly, then you can settle for stiff muscles to hold you in place. If you want to sit, if you really want to find your true balance and how to find your true balance on each moment, you have to be very attentive and you can't give in. So the attentiveness of zazen, just to pay attention to finding that balance of all the parts, moment after moment, is very demanding.

[16:10]

You can coast through zazen somewhat once you learn how to sit up straight, to be really present in zazen, we have to constantly readjust, be aware of that balance. because our posture is always shifting, always changing. And as our zazen deepens, we become more and more aware of the subtle, subtle quality of our posture. You know, as we sit, the longer we sit,

[17:21]

our breath becomes more refined, less coarse. And the same with our posture. Our posture becomes less coarse and more refined. And with just the subtlest shiftings, we can find our balance. We can find our balance, which is constantly changing. If we let it go too long, our balance, or our posture, we find that we're in some difficult posture. So, you know, the back, straight back is the foundation of posture. To always be aware of holding our back straight is the main thing. And keeping our head on top of our shoulders, on top of our spine, The problem that most people have is that their head goes forward. Sometimes people compensate by going backwards and looking up there, but that's not any better.

[18:34]

Their head should just be sitting on top. And when it falls forward, then your muscles of your back start to go like this because they want to hold it up. So people say, oh, my back hurts. because the back is trying to hold something up. So, whenever we have a backache or some kind of problem in zazen, it's almost always due to an imbalance. So, Finding the right place for our head is very, very important. How do you hold your head up and balance it on top of your spine without going to the left or the right or back or forward?

[19:38]

How do you hold it up there so that it's not putting any strain on the rest of your body? So, the ability to sit lightly, that means to sit, you know, feel light. Even though your body may weigh 150 pounds, it feels very light. How do you allow it to sit very lightly? How we allow it to sit very lightly is all through balance. Finding and maintaining harmony and balance of the parts. And once we've established our posture, then we can pay attention to our breathing.

[20:44]

But first comes posture. we should spend at least the first 15 or 20 minutes of the Zazen period just working with our posture. And once our posture is established, then we can put our attention, let our attention fall on our breath. And breathing, you know, just follows to let our mind following our breath is not so easy. As soon as you put attention on breathing, it affects the way you breathe. So, you don't know whether you're controlling it or not. As soon as you become self-conscious about your breath and your breathing, it changes, becomes something else.

[21:45]

How do you follow your breath without changing it very much? And following the way it is, that's pretty hard. So when we count, you know, counting breath is to keep track of breath. And when you count, it's pretty easy to start controlling your breath. But the point is how to allow your attention to go along with the breath without changing it. And to stay aware of the counting. So the longer we sit, the more subtle our perception becomes.

[23:11]

And our perception has to be very subtle in order to follow our breath without losing it and without changing it. or modifying it by being aware of it. So what you work on, what we work on, it does is allowing our consciousness to become more finer and finer, more and more subtle, both in the harmony of our body and in our breath. when we're sitting, perfect sadhana, our body and mind and attention, consciousness, is all one piece. At that point, there's no body, no mind.

[24:34]

No perceptions, impulses, consciousness. Yet, everything is there completely. And the same kind of attention to our activity should carry through in kinhin. We pay attention, you know, to zazen. And zazen looks like the main subject. But actually, there's no main subject. Whatever we do, we should do equally the same. So, kin-hin is zazen, walking zazen.

[25:51]

We use it for a toilet break. But actually, that's not the main purpose. After we stand up, maybe we have to go to the bathroom. But it's not a break. It's walking zazen. If your posture, you know, you can tell how a person's posture or how their Zazen mind is in Kinhin. You may hold your posture pretty well in Zazen, but then you think that Kinhin is just walking around the block or some kind of casual activity, which is a break between Zazen periods. You know, when you stand up and put your hands in Shashu, and this is your mudra for Kinhin, just like this is your mudra for Zazen, this is the mudra for Kinhin.

[26:55]

And our posture, we should stretch out our posture, stretch out your back so that your posture is exactly the same as when you're sitting. And then a half a step at a time. Half a step. Each time you take a step. And when you take a... When you lift your foot, you do it on the inhale. And when you put your foot down, you do it on the exhale. So that your step and your breath are in harmony with each other. And that's pretty hard to do. When we stand up, we want to start thinking more. So a thinking mind continues to unravel when we sit and when we do kīnī and in our various activities.

[27:59]

But the difference between thinking mind unraveling and purposeful thinking in Zazen and Kinhin, our purposeful thinking is on the activity itself. So we call that non-thinking. But actually, it's not non-thinking. It's a kind of koan, but you're not thinking about something else. You're just thinking the activity. The thought is, your thought should be on the activity, one with the activity. So if you're purposefully thinking about something else, that's not zazen. But thoughts continue to unravel while we are in our activity.

[29:07]

So those thoughts just come and go, just come and go. And our effort is to keep bringing our attention back to our activity, to be as focused as possible on our activity, as completely as possible. Same thing goes when we eat. Eating is eating, but eating is zazen. Just be completely focused on the activity. When we take our bowls out, no sound. No clank-clank, bang-bang, clutter-clutter. Just carefully take the bowls out. No sound.

[30:10]

Really pay attention. When the servers are taking the lids off the pots, no sound, no bang-bang, clang-clang. When the cooks are cooking, no letting yourself go and talking. And people shouldn't go back to the cooks and start asking questions or talking to anybody in the kitchen. You should stay out of the kitchen. Cooks, you know, don't sit, but there's us in as they're cooking. So to come up and start talking to the cook is not different than coming up to someone and sitting in Zazen and start holding a conversation with them.

[31:17]

Same thing. Same thing during work period, when we work. Just be attentive to the work. The work is, what we're doing is Zazen. And during break, your break is also zazen, even though we call it break. It means no activity. So you should do no activity completely. Don't try to fill it in with something. Sometimes, you know, there's always exceptions. But the spirit of it is that we should be careful and mindful and not bother other people and be respectful of everyone's practice and not lose our

[32:38]

zazen concentration. Today is a short lecture. We always have a short lecture on Sashin day because the cooks need to serve lunch. So we try to accommodate them. I think it's about that time. So let's continue to encourage each other by practicing as completely as we can. Thank you.

[33:30]

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