Our sasheen feels very good. Everybody, whether they just started sitting or been sitting for a long time, everybody's sitting very still. No one is moving around. And the effort is very calm, actually, and very very peaceful. So that's very encouraging and it seems like the strength of our practice is growing. You know, we have beginners And we have people in actually every stage of practice.

[01:05]

We don't usually talk about stages of practice, because in some sense you can talk about stages, but if you attach to consecutiveness, then you make a big mistake. And then we start thinking about, well, am I in the first stage? Or am I in the second stage? Or am I in the third stage? And what's the next stage? So we don't think like that. We don't use that kind of step-letter practice of stages. But if we don't attach to that, then we can talk about stages, like the ox-herding pictures. the ten ox-herding pictures, if you see the ten ox-herding pictures as definite stages, one consecutively following the other, and try to practice that way, it's kind of a mistake.

[02:15]

But if you just see it as all together, as stages but not strictly consecutive, then it's a useful tool to look at practice and talk about it. So, we can talk about three stages of practice, three stages of zazen, and this also applies to our whole life practice. First is when we begin. And first stage is when we just have a lot of difficulty sitting. And if maybe you didn't make a mistake. You know, in our first session, we always think, well, maybe I made a mistake.

[03:20]

So about 10 o'clock in the morning, you wonder about it. And this first stage will continue for quite a while actually, can continue for a long time. But we make a big effort in the first stage. First stage is a big effort of beginner's practice. And everyone admires that stage, you know. When you look from some other stage, we always admire the beginning stage, when we see people struggling. in that beginning stage, and we always want to encourage them and say, just continue, you know, don't stop, don't quit, because it's difficult.

[04:29]

Because we all know what that's like. And the main point in that first stage is big effort and courage to continue. And the second stage is more like when you can sit comfortably Even though you have pain in your legs, you can sit comfortably. And even though you may have some problems, your mind becomes very calm. And when your mind becomes calm in your body, you feel that your posture is your own.

[05:39]

You feel some confidence in your posture. And you know that you can sit fairly well. with some ease and your mind maybe doesn't have so many images. It's calm enough to be able to allow the images to appear and disappear. And you can see how much is in your subconscious mind. You can very clearly look at the operation of your subconscious mind and what's stored in your memory and many things will come up.

[06:46]

So this second stage is more, you can have some real calmness in practice, and you have confidence, and you feel good. And so you look forward to sitting, and you look forward to seshin. And the third stage is more like, the first stage. Whether you have joy in your practice doesn't matter so much. Or if you have some big problem, it doesn't matter so much. Whatever you have, you accept and welcome. And if you have big problems, it's just a big problem. And if you have no problems, it's just no problems.

[07:50]

Whatever you have, you can accept quickly. And what you have is what you know that what you have is what you have to work with. So you're no longer bothered by things. And the problems that you have are problems, but they're not problems in the same way that they were in the first stage. You have maybe as many problems as you had in the first stage, but they're not problems in the same way. You're not trying to get rid of something. You're not trying to make things smooth. In the first stage, you're just trying to make everything smooth.

[08:53]

You have to make everything smooth. You have to come to some point of everything is just wonderful this way. Calm mind, no images, wonderful posture, good light feeling. You feel wonderful. But then we have to step off of that. If that's there, that's wonderful, but if it's not there, it's also okay. So this is more like complete development of a non-discriminating mind, which this is really our goal, our point, our practice. And the same three stages applies in our daily life. At the first stage, you know, we taste practice.

[10:02]

We taste zazen. And then we try to discover what it is and we sit and we get familiar with it. when we decide that we really want to practice, then we start to adjust our life to accommodate practice. And it's not easy. People are very busy. But we do accommodate. We make space in our lives for practice. And then at some point, we decide that we really want to put energy into practice and feel that it's a part of our life. So we set up a schedule for ourselves and zazen becomes very central in our life.

[11:06]

And we feel that we're practicing. And we feel that it's our practice. And it's like this second stage is like when we have our study period for a month, we stop going outward and put our effort and our energy into practicing or sitting zazen and focusing on that in a very strong way. And this second stage corresponds to the other stage, second stage, of just you feel good because your energy is going into one direction. Even though it's hard, you feel good about it and your feeling of

[12:15]

you're accepting it. And the third stage is when you leave study period or when study period is over and you just put your energy back into the world more. And sitting Zazen and your daily activity are not, there's no difference. Whether you're sitting zazen or working someplace, no difference. That's when you know that whatever happens, you know that it's practice. So that there's no special form of practice. all the forms that you meet with in your daily life become the forms of practice.

[13:26]

So that's like the third stage where every problem becomes its own solution. Not solution in the sense of you solve the problem, but the problem you have becomes your friend. I enjoyed Suzuki Roshi's lecture when he was talking about When you have lots of boulders in your way, without trying to get rid of all the boulders or the big obstacles, the obstacles actually become your field.

[14:35]

You know, a rock climber, for a rock climber, boulders and rocks become their field of play. If you try to smooth out everything, smooth out all the obstacles in your life, there's nothing more to play with, nothing more to help you actually. So Suzuki Roshi said, if you stumble over some rock and you hit the earth, you use the earth to rise up again. Without the earth you can't rise up again. Without the thing that you hit or the thing that you come up against, there's no way to get up again, no way to work with yourself. So obstacles are actually the means of practice.

[15:45]

And so the same goes in zazen. when we have Seshin. The obstacles we have in Seshin are our means of practice. The difficulties you have in Zazen will be the tools that you work with. So these three stages, sometimes we're in the first stage, even though we may be have practiced a long time and reach the third stage.

[16:51]

Sometimes we revert to the first stage, or sometimes we just be in the second stage. The second stage is kind of dangerous for us, actually. It's wonderful, you know, and it's like an accomplishment. The second stage of zazen is like an accomplishment. We feel that we've really accomplished something. And if we stay in that second stage, if we cling to that second stage of accomplishment, we actually miss the point. And second stage is where I think most people get discouraged. Our discouragement comes when we feel that we're falling off of the second stage, you know, oh, back down into, or I don't like it anymore. So, for us, you know, practice is endless.

[17:57]

And because it's endless, we go through many states and many stages. And each stage is, if we continue, if we know how to continue, then even though a stage may look down, We may feel very down about after we've been up, we maybe find ourselves down. But a down is just another place before you come up. And up is just another place before you go down. So it's like in a sense like the way we think about life and death. Death is just a place before life and life is just a place before death.

[19:00]

Wherever we are, we can appreciate it. So, in the first stage, you know, we may have lots of pain in our legs and we try to get to where we want it to feel good. That's natural. In the second stage, we maybe feel more comfortable. But in the third stage, we appreciate whatever happens. Wherever we are, we appreciate it. We can bow to whatever our situation is. If you have this kind of acceptance of the third stage, your practice is pretty good.

[20:07]

When you have that acceptance of the third stage, or appreciation of the third stage, then you can call practice your own. And even though you may have doubts, even though doubts may come up, you can appreciate your doubts. Do you have a question?

[21:54]

Thank you for watching! A long time ago, the Zen practicers would sit until they came to some special feeling or experience, Zen. Talk about Zen experience. And then a lot of times people would quit. Practicers would quit and not continue.

[23:26]

Many other things happen along with that. The question is, at what stage do those people quit act? Sometimes the first stage, sometimes the second stage. First stage, you know, to quit at the first stage is when you think that there's no way that you can do something. And to quit at the second stage is when you don't want something bad to happen. You want everything to remain good and if it starts to turn bad, you start to cling to it.

[24:31]

This is sometimes called stepping off the 100-foot pole. 100-foot pole is like the top of the pile. The tip of the pole is like, I made it. Eureka, I've arrived. That's the tip of the 100-foot pole. But then you have to step off. that hundred foot pole into whatever. Forget all about it. You have to completely forget all about the fact that you made it, or the fact that you have some accomplishment. If you have some accomplishment, it should show underneath all of your activity that it's like In the ox-herding pictures, you know, helping that you come back from the 100-foot pole, or you step off the 100-foot pole with just... nothing shows.

[25:51]

You don't try to do anything special. But whatever you do helps people. And you just go through all the difficulties that everyone else goes through. We have these two ways, you know, our practice is characteristic this way, of turning in and turning out. Turning in is like leaving the world, leaving all the worldly activity and turning everything in. And the other side is leaving, turning everything in, and going out into the world. Those are the two sides of practice, and first it's this one, then it's this one. And it keeps going like that. That's why we can't say stages, because we're always in stages.

[26:55]

We're always turning in and going out, ultimately. And that's how we practice. And when we go out, we're just completely out. And when we go in, we're just completely in, but in is out, and out is in. If you know that in is out and out is in, then you don't have any difficulty. Even your problems are not insurmountable. When does a person stop practicing, if a person stops doing Zazen? Do you say that that person has really stopped practicing? Not necessarily, you know. Can you stop? Can you stop living? I mean, it's possible, you know, that a person will stop what we call practice. But actually, they don't stop practicing. There's no stop.

[27:56]

In some way, you know, you're practicing. But it may not be, the form may not be so apparent even to, excuse me, the person himself. But in some superficial way, you can say, yeah, they stopped practicing. But in a big way, bigger way, They don't stop. You can't really stop. You're always dealing with this problem. No way to stop. You know, sometimes we feel if someone comes to practice and then they leave, you know, that's too bad. But I don't feel that way. I feel someone comes to practice with us, and then they leave.

[29:08]

But I don't feel bad, you know. I feel that they're still practicing, but in some other form. The form is different. But they can't stop practicing. So someone comes to practice, and then they practice for a while, and then they leave. And then five years later, they come back, and we say, oh, how are you? And as if nothing happened. Something happened, but we still feel the same level. And that's actually a wonderful feeling. So I don't feel bad when someone leaves. They just, their practice is carried on in some other way, even though they may not feel so.

[30:12]

But when they come back, they know that. And people come back all the time. After stopping, you know, they go away and then they come back. Sometimes they just stay for a short time. But people have different things to do in this world before they can settle into our form of practice. Not everyone can practice in this form. So as long as someone can practice in this form, they're welcome to practice with us. But when the form is no longer right, or if they have some karma which causes them to have to do practice in some other form, then that's fine. What can you do? So I think that you're saying that even people who haven't begun to sit sadhana are also practicing.

[31:19]

Yeah, everyone is practicing. That's how we see it, you know. Everyone is practicing, but it's like Dogen says, everyone has Buddha nature, but unless you practice, it doesn't manifest. So what we call practice is the manifestation of our nature. We practice to express it or to let it arise. Everyone has it. So we treat everyone as Buddha, which they are. But why we practice is to realize it and manifest it. So after someone has practiced for a while, they can't forget, you know? Pretty hard to just forget about it. Even though they may have other things to do, I don't think they can forget about it.

[32:21]

Yes. Could you say something about the function of chanting? Chanting, yeah, chanting is also a way of expressing. We don't so much chant to hear the words, but we chant to express If we chant the Heart Sutra, we chant to express the meaning rather than to hear the meaning. So if you chant the Heart Sutra and try to understand the words as you chant, you can chant the Heart Sutra a hundred times and you get some feeling for the words, but you could just as easily read it for the meaning.

[33:48]

But chanting is more like how we express the meaning. And if you chant wholeheartedly, completely wholeheartedly chant with your ears open and you're chanting from the bottom of your hara with everyone, This is the meaning of the Sutra. The whole meaning of the Sutra is in how we chant it. You know, if you look for some other meaning somewhere, you can investigate forever. But if you just do what you're doing, you know, the meaning is right here where you are. So just to do it completely is as much as you can do. And then with our mental faculty, you know, we study the sutra, you know, we study sutras.

[34:54]

But that's like taking it in, you know, taking something in. But that's like following the sutra. Following the sutra is to take it in. creating the sutra is to express it. So we should be creating the sutra 24 hours a day. We think the Heart Sutra was something that was made up by somebody else for us, but actually we're making up the Heart Sutra all the time. We're creating the Heart Sutra moment after moment. So it's actually both ways, you know, both in and out. It's not that the words are meaningless, but, you know, the words satisfy our intellect, but our expression of it is what's most important.

[36:05]

If you want to know the meaning of the sutra, just do your best without any feeling of gaining anything. So the sutra is Zazen. Zazen is the sutra. Bowing is the same way, that form of bowing. How do you chant the sutra without chanting? How do you bow without bowing? And how do you sit zazen without sitting?

[36:52]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ