Good morning. Before I start, before I talk about what I want to talk about, I want to remind people about our five day sasheen, starting the third, from the third to the seventh. And we got our sign-up sheet up a little late this year. So if you intend to come to Sishin, I'd like you to sign your name to relieve some of my apprehension. The other day I was talking to somebody who was telling me about his marriage.

[01:13]

And the story is something like, he was planning to go away for a few months. And his wife was feeling kind of lonely, so she said, if you go away then I might have to sleep with somebody else." And he said that made him very nervous. Well, when somebody says that, if someone is going to do that, they usually don't say it in that way. So it sounds kind of like saying something heavy in order to get him to do something that she wants him to do. But still, it sets up an apprehension in him. So I said, well, why don't you, it looks to me like it's time to talk to her, tell her how you feel about it, and renew your relationship.

[02:27]

He said, but when we got married, we promised you know, that we would be faithful to each other. Why should I renew my relationship? Why should we renew our relationship? That's a very interesting question. Why should they renew their relationship if they promised in the beginning that they would be faithful to each other? Why should they have to reestablish it if it's already established? this kind of thinking is a little bit naive. And sometimes I think we fall into the kind of thinking that says, well, we promised once, why should we have to promise again? Or we get stuck in our idealism.

[03:38]

And we fail to look at the realistic side of life, which is that no matter what we say, or intend, or promise, or vow, the circumstances of life are always changing. And our life is always falling out of balance. Not only should people renew their intentions periodically, but actually should do it every day. Because we think we have something. We think that because we made some vow or intention or expressed our intention in some way that we have it. But actually ten minutes after you make your vow, life has changed.

[04:44]

Life is constantly turning and changing. And in order to maintain any kind of symmetry or direction, we have to constantly renew our life. our life's intentions. Otherwise, it's just like Zazen. Your intention when you sit down, cross your legs, is to keep your attention directed on your breathing and posture, posture and breathing. No sooner do you sit down and your mind is You're gone. You're someplace else. And you have to keep bringing yourself back. And this bringing yourself back is renewal, or recollection.

[05:55]

It's actually called the practice of recollection, of coming back to your original intentions. And your mind is always strained. from your original intentions, your body is always straying from your original intentions. My son is five years old and if I ask him to do something, unsupervised, he'll say, yes, okay, but immediately he's off, no telling where. We say, well that's the child, you know, the child's mind is like that. But we're really, our mind is like that too. And it's just, you know, we just happen to be strict enough with ourselves because of, we've learned to, to be able to maintain some kind of continuity in our life.

[07:05]

Sometimes continuity is too strong. Sometimes we overreact and continuity in our life is too strong and we don't leave any room for eventualities. That's called rigidity. The other side is called various things. Looseness. Too loose. Too flaccid. But we constantly have to remind ourselves of what we're doing, especially in the situation of living in the city. If you're living in the monastery, you're always reminded of what you're doing, constantly reminded of what you're doing. So that's not so much of a problem.

[08:09]

But in the city, in our daily life, we have to remind ourself. Because there's nobody out there reminding you. There are reminders, but we have to be able to see them as reminders. It's like life is affirming us. Dogen says in Genjo Koan, life is always affirming us, is enlightenment. And if you read the signs around you, those signs are always pointing toward affirmation, reminding. So practice of zazen, either when you're sitting cross-legged or walking around the streets, is recollection, practice of recollection, constantly bringing yourself back to waking up in the present, and it's called the practice of shikantaza.

[09:15]

Shikantaza means just doing. Just doing means that your thought and your intention are exactly the same with no gap. So that when you're sitting with your legs crossed, your thought is the thought of sitting zazen, the thought of body and breath. But it's not a thought outside of body, thinking about body. And it's not a thought outside of breath, thinking about breath. It's the thought and the breath is one thing. And the thought and the body is one thing. So there's no mind outside of body and no body outside of mind. So you can't say I'm thinking about sitting zazen when you're sitting.

[10:22]

But thinking zazen. Thinking whatever activity it is. So this is Shikantaza, no gap between thought and activity. Just doing, just sitting. But it's pretty hard to do that. Very hard to do that. Very hard to be constantly living within the realm of that reality. So you have to be constantly reminding ourself of what our intention is. Our intention is to be not outside of reality. That's Zazen. To be constantly waking up to the reality of the moment.

[11:27]

And that's also called renewal. It's also called finding your balance, moment after moment, because everything is constantly changing. I said that I would do it now, an hour ago, but I'm not doing it, so I have to remind myself. It's kind of like, When you're wrapping things up, wrapping up, if you're going to move or something, you wrap up teacups in newspapers, old newspapers, and pretty soon you find yourself reading the newspapers. Oh, that's pretty interesting. We need to remind ourselves that we're really wrapping up the teacups. So, to stay on the track, you know, stay

[12:38]

focused in the present. Stay focused with what we're doing. Pretty hard to do it all the time. And to really understand what our original intention is. So every once in a while we have some kind of ceremony to renew our intention. like bodhisattva ceremony, where we, you know, look at our karma, bring it out there, and then we renew our intention. And ordination ceremonies like that. At the end of our five days of shing, we'll have a lay ordination ceremony. And And when we do that, everyone who's there also takes part in ordination ceremony, even though they're not particularly specifically being ordained.

[13:53]

But we're ordained with those people that are being ordained. It's over and over again. It reminds us of our original intentions. So life, you know, our life needs a lot of encouragement. A lot of encouragement. Somebody asked me about how to give lectures. I'm no expert in how to give lectures. The basic thing is to encourage people. You give a lecture, a talk, in order to encourage people to practice.

[14:58]

To help people to find a way to practice. Not so much for information. Information is helpful if that helps you to practice. But something that where people can go away with a feeling that they feel good about their practice and somehow renewed, with a renewed intention. Otherwise, you know, practice gets very stale. It's very easy when you do something over and over again to become mechanical. Marriage gets mechanical. practice gets mechanical, work becomes mechanical when you just go through the motions. So it's pretty easy to set yourself up a pattern of behavior and step into the pattern and pretty soon you just go through the steps because it's pretty easy.

[16:10]

But then after a while it seems kind of hollow. What's wrong? Something's missing. What's missing is original intention. But that original intention can come up at any moment. So, it's really important not to let our practice get stale, not to let our relationships get stale, or our work. practice, it's stale. Just by being mechanical, just going through the motions. So if our zendo practice just becomes mechanical, just go through the motions day after day, then we feel that problem, you know.

[17:15]

We need to do something about it. Talk to somebody. Get something going so that you can see where your problem is. And mostly the problem is forgetting what our intention is. So I remember Suzuki Roshi saying something like, you should be very careful about taking vows. He didn't stress vows very much. Intentions, yes. Vow is pretty strong. When you take a vow, you feel you should be pretty careful that it's something that's within your reach. Because if you vow to do something that's not within your reach, then it can be very devastating. because you can feel like you failed in some way. So you should be very careful about vows.

[18:24]

I think people are very hesitant when they become married, because marriage is vows. And we don't always know if we can really come up to those vows when we become married, Usually, we do it anyway. People do it anyway. And then when they're in the situation, they find out what the problems are. If we always knew exactly what the problems were, we wouldn't. It's like when you are sitting in sasheen, if you think about the end, it's very hard to enter in the beginning. You say, what? not only another day of this, but another seven days. It's only the second time and my legs already hurt, blah, blah, blah.

[19:28]

And so you start to think about the future, which immediately sets up a big wall in front of you. The only way you can possibly go through seven days of zazen is to just take it moment by moment without thinking ahead. If you think ahead, you think, God, those mountains, you know, how can I ever get over those mountains? But if you just look at your feet, you know, oh yeah, this foot, this foot, this foot, this foot. Then you look back, oh yeah, I crossed those three days of mountains back there. because I was just looking at what my feet were doing. I wasn't thinking about how difficult that was to do. So if we make some kind of vow, or if you enter into sasheen, you've stated an intention.

[20:34]

So vow is a little bit strong. Intention, though, is just as important. but it's a little softer. So we state our intention and then we dive into the water and see if we can swim. And we go through all kinds of conversations with ourself when we're first learning how to sit sadhana about trying to get through the problems. And we will try, we will say almost everything to ourselves that there is to say about how we can solve this problem. You know, like, we'll tell ourselves almost anything when we're in this situation where it's very, very difficult and we can't move.

[21:37]

And what we come up with in the end is just take it step by step. Just step by step. Nothing you can tell yourself will work. No rationalization that you will ever come up with will work to get you from one end of seven days to the other. The only thing that will get you through is just one step after the next. So, just to be awake and alive and present in the moment, in the present. So, vow looks like, you know, big intention, but how we fulfill that intention is just step by step, you know, one step after the next, in the present. And our work is like that.

[22:46]

And our relationships are like that. And our zazen is like that. Once we make an initial intention, It's just step-by-step within that intention. Then, life becomes reasonable. Something that you can do, actually, even though it's difficult. Even though it's really difficult, something you can do, just one step at a time. And when we enter into Zen practice, just one step at a time. sometimes someone will enter the gate with their head shaved, which is getting way, way ahead of themselves.

[23:54]

They're already way ahead of themselves, and they're not looking at their feet. When you enter the gate, you should just be yourself. The way you you know, the way you are at that moment. But if you try to make yourself into something else in order to present yourself, it means that you're not looking at your feet. You're looking at the vision in your mind, which is not yet secured by anything. So when you present yourself just as you are with all of your obvious shortcomings and the real you, then that's very real. That's very acceptable. And you can work with that.

[24:57]

You have something to work with. Just the old bumbling, stupid, So, that's very acceptable. But some idealistic vision without any reality to it is a prelude to a fall. It's a big disappointment. So renewing ourself means to see where we're really at. Where are we really at at this moment? What's really going on at this moment? Is this worthwhile doing, continuing? Well, let's assess it and see if it's really worthwhile continuing.

[26:04]

Then you make a decision. No, it's not. I think we should go this way instead. OK. Or, yes, let's continue. I think that we can still continue. But you assess the situation and continue. Sometimes, I think that this is the way we should look at our practice also. In order to keep our practice from getting stale, Maybe, for some people, it should be month to month, or week to week. If you make a decision to practice and then just leave it kind of open-ended, at some point you wonder why you don't like it. But if you say, I will practice in a certain way, I'll sit Zazen every day for a month, and at the end of that month, But I will do it every day for a month.

[27:08]

I said I'll do it every day for a month and I'll do it. And then you look at what you did. And then you say, well, shall I continue for another month? No. But you have a way of making a decision. You have a way of being decisive and controlling your life through your decision, through your intentions. So you always know what your intentions are. And you're always at one with your intention. And then people feel good about you, feel good about yourself, and you feel good about what you're doing. I think that's why there are also steps in ordination.

[28:13]

There are various kinds of ordination. Lay ordination is a way of confirming or avowing your intention on a certain level. Helps you. Helps everybody. And then priest ordination is avowing your intentions on another level, deeper level. And dharma transmission is avowing your intentions on another level, deeper level. So there are various levels at which you can check your intentions, or deepen your intentions, But you should always know what your intentions are. Somehow, there has to be stopping places. There has to be a way of doing that. So also, coming to see the teacher, coming to dok-sang, is also a way of checking your intentions, checking out your intentions with somebody.

[29:29]

Do you have any questions about it? What would you say to someone who sees a vow, maybe not even a strong vow, something like a vow, as a shackle? Once you say it, you can absolutely never, ever, ever, ever part from it. you're chained down by your own decision because you've given up all your other options. Well, you should be careful about what you hook up with, but the only way to escape what you hook up with, I mean, if there's no other way to escape, then the only way to escape is to be one with it. Do you remember that movie about a black man and a white man who were handcuffed together and they escaped.

[30:54]

I didn't see the movie, but I saw the previews. They were, you know, chained together and they couldn't escape, you know. It's a good situation. You may think it's a bad situation because you want to get out of it. But a bad situation also can be a good situation. As a matter of fact, we're all in a bad situation in that respect. And we're all dealing with it. You know what the bad situation is? We were born on this earth, and we can't escape from it. No matter where you go, or what you did. The only way that you can escape from it is to become one with your situation.

[32:00]

And your life. Yeah, but that's cheating. That's, you know, getting out of the game. In a few minutes, we're all going to say four vows that are very, very difficult, I mean impossible. Right. Well, we changed them. I'm not kidding. We changed them a year ago. But I'll tell you in five minutes. Because we say, you know, desires are inexhaustible. No. Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them, right? But now we say, I vow to awaken with them. But nevertheless, you know, that vow

[33:12]

doesn't necessarily mean that I can save all sentient beings. It means my intention is to put my sympathy with saving all sentient beings. That's where my sympathy lies, that all sentient beings should be saved. But I'm not expecting you to do it. So I'll say I do it. And so if we say, I vow to awaken with all sentient beings, it means that we'll all do it. I'm not going to do it all by myself, but we'll all do it. We'll all put ourself in that pot. I recall saying this to our vows when I first came here, really being worried that I was getting into something here, the one about saving all sentient beings.

[34:29]

I thought you were going to have to go out and do something. Well, there'll be a time. Subscribe to channel here.

[35:02]

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