People sitting in the back can turn their face this way. You don't have to... Or else you can come and sit in the front if you want. There was an interesting article in the Ten Directions from Zen Center of L.A. last time, talking about Dharma words. One part was on Oriyoki, the explanation of the meaning of Oriyoki, and the other was talking about explanation of the word Kinhin. I don't know if you saw those or not, He said, kin-hin, literally means something like kin, K-I-N, is like sutra.

[01:21]

And hin, H-I-N, is like movement. So the combination of the two terms is something like moving sutra. Sutra is a Sanskrit word from which our word suture derives. means to sew together. And the sutras, you can see the meaning in several ways. One is that the sutra books originally were on palm leaves and they were sewn together. And sometimes we think of it as words sewn together.

[02:30]

You can think of it in either way, but it has that meaning. But walking sutras is a pretty interesting term. We usually think of the sutras as the Buddha's words, as something from outside, something that gives us information. If you read the sutra, you get some information from the sutra, what the words that Buddha spoke. Or maybe the sutra evokes some response from you. Actually, the sutra should evoke some response to you. If you only read the sutra to get information on what Buddha said, then the sutra is not working. you're not working together with the sutra. The purpose of the sutra, of course, is on the one hand for information and to help us to think and to help our intuition.

[03:43]

And our response is the other side. Some sutras are like information. If you want to study the dharmas, then you study a sutra which is all about the dharmas and it's information you memorize. And then there are other sutras which are like a spark that ignite your own understanding. These are very powerful sutras. It's like maybe you hear a word and suddenly it opens up your mind. So the real teaching is a combination, but fundamentally everything in the sutra is within ourself.

[04:47]

Sutra, if you think about it, is paper, ink, and little black dots on paper. In the same way that music, when you read music, it's little black dots on paper with spaces in between. But the music comes out of you. And in the same way, a Buddhadharma arises from you, from each one of us. One time, a Korean teacher came by a long time ago and wrote a calligraphy for me. And it said, the blue sky and the white clouds are the Buddhist Sutra, or Zen Sutra.

[05:53]

Sometimes there's a tendency, since this is true, there's a tendency in Zen practice to avoid scripture, but If you think about it, most of the great Zen masters knew the scriptures very well, but they used the scriptures rather than being used by the scriptures. There was a famous patriarch, a famous story about the sixth patriarch and a scholar of the Lotus Sutra. and the scholar of the Lotus Sutra came to visit the Sixth Patriarch and he told the Sixth Patriarch that he knew the Lotus Sutra backwards and forwards and upside down and so forth and the Sixth Patriarch tested him out and at the end of the test

[07:13]

He said, the problem you have is that the Lotus Sutra is turning you. When you really expound the true Lotus Sutra from yourself, then you will be turning the Lotus Sutra. But until then, the Lotus Sutra is just turning you. So we have various ways in Zen practice of producing the sutra, expounding the Buddha Dharma sutra. One way is Zazen, and another way is Kinhen. Another way is whatever we do in our daily life. If we understand the meaning of Zazen and the meaning of Kinhen, Sometimes, after zazen, we get off the tan, stand up, and do, when we have another zazen, we do qinghyan, walking meditation.

[08:25]

And at the same time, we use that as a break. You know, if we want to go to the bathroom, we can go to the bathroom. Or if we feel, if we want something, you know, maybe sometimes we want a cup of coffee, or tea, or want to fidget. In some way, you know, we go outside because kīnghīn looks like a break. But kīnghīn is actually Just another step in zazen, literally. A slow step. Stepping zazen. Walking zazen. It may be better in some way to have qinghyen and then have a break. Then we'd understand, appreciate the meaning of qinghyen more. But it's hard to do that.

[09:26]

Because if you had a break, then maybe somebody would want to go to the bathroom and somebody else wouldn't. But anyway, it's possible. But I just want to talk about the significance and meaning of Keen Him. So that not only that we don't take it for granted, that's all right, leave the cat be at this point. This walking sutra, in the article, Dogen Zenji, he quotes Dogen Zenji as saying, all the buddhas arise from this walking. All the buddhas arise from this walking, this kind of walking. It's very unusual, kind of walking, because not only is it walking, but it's standing still at the same time.

[10:41]

When we do kinhin, we have zazen posture. Our body is in zazen posture. And we take a half step. And at the same time, we take a breath. And then we let the breath out. and then we take another breath and a half a step. So you can't tell whether you're walking or standing still. It's right somewhere in between walking and standing still. You can say, yes, it's walking, but the next moment it's standing still. So it's right on the edge. And it's like stillness within walking. in the same way that zazen is activity within stillness. Even though in our zazen it looks like we're sitting still, the whole activity is great dynamic activity.

[12:02]

If you sit Zazen properly, really well-concentrated Zazen, it's like the most dynamic activity. If you're concentrating every pore of your body in Zazen, every limb and every pore, every part of your body in Zazen, you experience the utmost activity. within stillness. And when doing qing yin, if you have the same concentrated activity, you experience that stillness, great profound stillness within the movement. This is the very fundamental part of zazen, of our practice. And it's neither difficult nor easy.

[13:20]

It's not difficult, and at the same time it's not easy. But it takes real concentrated effort, real concerted effort, And this kin-hin is really the the Dharma door to our everyday activity. Our lives are very fast and frantic and most of us are pushed to the limit in our daily lives.

[14:24]

Even if you don't want to be, even if your life is fairly slow and calm, still almost everyone is pushed to the limit. And it's very unusual to put ourselves in a position to slow down that much and have that kind of concentrated activity. I was reading an article by Thich Nhat Hanh where he says in the old days people would organize a party and wait at a party where they'd go someplace where they would wait for three, four hours for a bud to open.

[15:30]

some, maybe an orchid or some wonderful plant, just to watch it open. Or in China, in Japan, but especially in China, they used to have moon viewing parties where they built a whole building, little building, just to watch the moon come up. But he says, we don't have time for that anymore because we're such slaves to the dynamic that we've built, that we've created. We have this kind of monstrous mechanical rhythm

[16:41]

that we're bound to and enslaved to and we can't get out of it. So it's rather unusual and gratifying that we can spend a little time getting down to that kind of stillness that kind of perception and connection. When we do kīnyan, it's very important to feel the floor on our feet.

[17:59]

To be able to just feel, touch that floor and feel the weight of our body pressing on the floor and to feel our posture and balance balance all of the parts of our body in motion and yet within that dynamic stillness If this is what we carry with us, this is what we extend into our daily life. Both in zazen and qinyin. This is the most fundamental thing that we extend. The most fundamental way of extending into our daily life.

[19:05]

You can really feel it in that slow movement. But the more you practice, the easier it is to extend it into all of our activity. The various activities change, constantly are changing. Our life is constantly changing in the world of conditions. But if we can always be based in that stillness, then we always know where we are and who we are. We're never at a loss, even though we may be confused or be in a difficult situation. You can always find yourself. And Suzuki Roshi

[20:13]

In the early days, he used to talk about that as, he used to say, we are protected from within. Don't look for protection from without. Protection may not be the right word. Maybe security or self-realization. But, you know, when we sit Sashin, the Samadhi of Sashin is very apparent. You really feel that stillness in all of your activity.

[21:18]

When you do some kind of work, even though you're working, you feel that you're within this great stillness. And that's concentrated Samadhi. And to have that concentrated samadhi extended to all of our activity is the basis of our practice. Not so much what you know about Buddhism, but where you are within yourself. So the more, as we sit over and over again, our zazen becomes more refined.

[22:53]

There's no end. Even though zazen is a very specific kind of activity, and qingyin is a very specific kind of activity, and you can learn how to do it in one demonstration. But there's no end to refining our zazen and how we sit and how we move. There's no end to developing and refining it. Just this one activity over and over. And Suzuki Roshi used to say, it's not something that you learn, but you absorb it through your pores, through the pores of your skin.

[24:00]

It's a kind of metaphor. Don't take it literally. Although, you know, when you do sit for a long time, your skin gets very tight and it feels very good. So from this basic way of moving within stillness, It's actually, in a way, learning how to walk. Of course, all of us know how to walk, and all of us know how to sit down. We all know how to stand, and we all know how to lay down. But our postures are the result of how we think,

[25:12]

and how we face situations and how we respond to life. And if you look at people, you can see from their postures how they respond to life. When we come into the zendo, we leave everything outside as much as we can and assume a posture that's not conditioned by events. It's not conditioned by anxiety, and it's not conditioned by fear, and it's not conditioned by acquisitiveness. None of those things apply. We leave all that outside and assume just a basic posture of dignity, human dignity, without any unwholesome dharmas influencing us. So a posture is very unusual.

[26:19]

People don't have the same kind of posture walking around in the world, mostly, that they have when they come into the zinda. It's a very different kind of posture. It's a posture which is conditioned by gravity and spirit, but it's not conditioned by our response to events in the world. And so we actually have a new posture and we become a new person, a new whole person. And then when we walk out of the Zen Do, we start responding to conditions again. And then our posture takes various forms again. So, and it's important to think about your posture when you're in the world. How do you carry yourself in the world when you're sitting down, eating, talking to people, walking down the street, buying something, moving?

[27:30]

How do you move through the world with a posture that doesn't, isn't intimidated, isn't avaricious? What kind of security gives you that kind of posture? So, that kind of mindfulness is very important. Just thinking about posture. Whichever posture you take, no matter what you're doing, if you can really be concentrated on it, be mindful of it, whether walking, standing, moving, anyway, anything you do. And to try and put yourself into a Zazen posture, no matter what you're doing.

[28:35]

It doesn't mean crossing your legs, but it means where is your body centered? What's your body centered around? And in Zazen, when we begin to learn Zazen, we have a lot of pain in our legs, and we usually confront the pain in a defensive way. And if we continue to sit, we learn that defense doesn't help. As a matter of fact, it makes everything worse. So in order to not make everything worse, we learn how to let go of our defense mechanisms. And then our posture takes on a more natural, fundamental structure. And in the same way, in the world, if you keep your attention on your posture, it's a really good way of looking at how you're being defensive and how you're responding to the world.

[29:58]

And you can consciously let go and assume a posture that will help you. If you keep thinking about that, If you find yourself slumping or tight, you know, and then you say, oh, is this zazen posture? No. You relax and find your center and then start moving around your center and you find that you can handle things in a less defensive way. So it's a kind of mindfulness. It's a good way to practice mindfulness. Just keep letting go. It's a way of letting go. Renouncing. Renouncing our defensive positions. There are times when we need to defend ourselves. There are always exceptions to everything. But if you do this, you'll be carrying your practice, your zazen practice, into your daily life.

[31:12]

in a very fundamental, easy way. It doesn't take any special practice except remembering, reminding yourself that whatever you're doing is some kind of zazen posture. And what does that mean? Zazen posture is not limited to sitting cross-legged or doing kin-hin. We're always finding our zazen posture, whatever we're doing. I have to leave a little early today because I have to go to San Francisco. So, I want to end soon. But do you have, anybody have some questions? I was wondering if you might say something about the change that you made this morning.

[32:19]

Okay. I didn't make it this morning, but last week, I didn't consult anybody about this, and I'm expecting the worst, but I decided that to change the way of leaving the zendo. Is that what you mean? Thanks for reminding me. When I was practicing with Suzuki Roshi, one of the most wonderful things was that when we'd leave the zendo after zazen, he would go out into his office. This was at Sokoji Temple, Bush Street. He would go step outside into his office from the zendo. His office is right next to the zendo. we'd all line up, and each one would bow.

[33:21]

As we left Zendo to go through his office to go out, each one of us would bow to him. And that bow every day was very significant. I can't explain why it was significant, but it was real contact, wonderful contact. So I said to myself, well, someday, if I'm ever in some kind of position like that, I want to do that too. So the other day, just during Suzuki Roshi's memorial service last Monday, I decided to do that. So, instead of having a shashu bow at the end, everybody bows to the altar on the first bell, and then we bow together on the second bell, two bells, ding ding.

[34:28]

And then I go over to the door, and then when we file out, we bow to each other. And so far it's been working pretty well. It's very enjoyable for me, but I don't think for anybody else. But that's after morning service and after evening service, when we leave the Zen Dojo. You have any questions? Thank you very much.

[35:12]

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