I vow to taste the truth of God's directive words. Morning. Okay. So this morning, I'm going to cover the aspects or methods, awareness of the body, realizing the unity of body and mind, and nourishing ourselves with the joy of meditation.

[01:43]

I hope you're all... I'm dug into this... comfortable way. It's not that it's the comfortable way to realization. So awareness of breath within the particularization of each aspect of our posture is one side and full awareness of breathing with the whole body and mind is one.

[03:02]

Those are the two sides. So one is being aware of each particular part of our posture and The other is being aware of the whole body, mind and breath as one. So, when we sit zazen, there are, I don't know how many pieces, countless pieces of bone, flesh, marrow, skin, flesh, bones, and marrow, and body parts, internal organs, down to millions and billions of cells, and creatures that live with us in our body.

[04:04]

We may think that we're alone, but... We have all these little creatures digesting our food for us and doing our thinking for us. Those are the demons. So it's very interesting. So when we concentrate on the various body parts, aspects of our posture, it's usually very coarse. Our understanding is very coarse. But it can be also very fine, refined. But we usually stick to a certain level. And the level is how we line up all of the parts of our body

[05:09]

to do one thing. So, each aspect is independent. There are three little bones in a little finger and three little bones here and then the hand has many bones and parts and the arm and the upper arm and the shoulders and the whole frame, bone structure. And each one of these parts is independent. And all these independent parts are held together by little muscular straps. And So when we speak of the body, we speak of it as one piece, but actually many, many parts, many, many parts, all held together in a kind of unity.

[06:21]

And when we sit down or stand up, all these parts work together in a kind of harmonious way, in an amazingly harmonious way. So when we do Zazen, we sit down on the cushion and make an effort to align all these parts to do one act. And we continue that act over and over for 40 minutes at a time. And while we're sitting, we investigate all the parts of our body.

[07:33]

So even though we talk about breathing and attention to breath, first is posture. Posture is the vehicle for zazen. So we want to make sure that this vehicle, this house, has a firm foundation and is aligned correctly so that it stands up well or sits up well and can accept all of the various feelings and perceptions that flow through it. and can be as open as possible so when we adjust our posture and when we investigate our posture during zazen we go over every part of the body this is the way I was taught to do zazen to push the lower back forward

[09:06]

lift up the sternum and actually stretch the back of your neck and feel that the crown of your head is reaching towards the sky or the ceiling and it's very hard to actually keep that posture to maintain that posture because we're always going sinking so Zazen is a kind of balance or harmony between gravity, which is continuously pulling us down, and energy or spirit, which is maintaining an upright position. So spirit or energy is rising. and gravity is pulling everything down. So we have this tension, continuously, this tension between gravity pulling us down to the earth and spiritual energy pushing us up, holding us up, pushing towards the sky.

[10:24]

I think this is why people, when they think of heaven, they think of the sky. And that makes sense. So it's a battle with gravity. Our life is a continual battle with gravity, or a continual tussle. Maybe not a battle, but sometimes it's a battle. But engagement with gravity constantly. Yeah, it's constant. And so our whole life is determined by these two forces. And restricted by these two forces. So until we get into a spaceship, we have this problem. In a spaceship we have a different kind of problem. But since we're here, we won't deal with that problem.

[11:28]

So how do we deal with this problem? We don't think about it so much. We just think, I'm tired or I'm full of energy or something like that. But we don't often think of these two forces and how they interact with each other. But in Zazen, we have that opportunity to think about what this is, is what we're doing here is the interplay, dealing with the interplay between spirit and gravity. we put our whole energy into sitting up straight.

[12:43]

Zazen is complete functioning, complete wholehearted functioning with nothing left out. Every ounce of energy is used to sit up straight because that's all there is to do. And so I was always taught push the lower back forward, lift up the sternum, stretch out the back of your neck and let the top of your head reach for the ceiling and to maintain that posture for 40 minutes or for seven days and if you can maintain that posture complete, dynamic activity. You'll understand why this is relevant.

[13:53]

The Koreans call it leaping like a tiger while sitting. It's not just, you know, trying to get comfortable. It's called settling the self on the self, of course. Settling small self on big self. Suzuki Roshi, or not just Suzuki Roshi, but I used to say it's like sitting in the sitting in your mother's palm of your mother's hand but not just relaxing so in this balance between total dynamic activity within stillness

[15:02]

and stillness within total dynamic activity, we're always looking for the balance. How much effort is just the right effort? And how much effort is just right for maintaining this activity over a long period of time? If you exert too much effort you get tired out and if you don't exert enough effort you can never quite get up to the level where energy is induced and matches your effort when you put in the right amount of effort then you induce energy which sustains your effort So if we don't expand enough energy, then we don't induce enough energy to maintain our posture.

[16:21]

So balance, how to maintain the right balance moment by moment. So energy and effort is one aspect and balance is the other. And each one of our body parts is independent and not locked together. So when we sit, we're actually aligning the body parts independently. each part independent, even though it looks like one structure. So when we, in Zazen, are maintaining our posture, we're continually checking our posture.

[17:31]

You know, we say, don't move. In Zazen, don't move. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't move. We're always moving a little bit. And the posture is always changing. Even though we start out with a certain posture, after a few minutes the mood just starts to change. Your back starts to change. your angle of your head starts to change, you start to get sleepy, or something. So the body is always moving and changing, and we have to continually keep readjusting our posture in order to maintain it. So we continually go over to check out each part of our body during Zazen. So when we come to the mudra, It's just focus on the mudra.

[18:34]

And we establish our breathing. After we've established our posture, which is first, then we put our attention on our breath in our lower abdomen. And when we exhale, our abdomen expands. When we inhale, it contracts. and then we investigate our mudra and we investigate our mudra with full awareness of the breath of the inhaling and exhaling of the breath so my attention is on the mudra and the breath is I watch the mudra with the pulse of my breath or with the rhythm of my breath so I'm aware of breath at the same time I'm aware of mudra and I just breathe into the mudra and when I investigate the mudra I make sure that

[19:58]

the thumb tips are facing each other and very lightly touching. And if the thumb tips are pressing against each other tightly, that means I'm tense. There's tenseness in the body. So then I release the tenseness in my thumbs. So they're just very lightly touching each other. and make sure that the mudra is held very nicely but without being tense. The mudra is our barometer. It tells us what's going on in our body. Cosmic mudra. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. And to hold ourselves lightly within that. So when our mudra is held lightly and firmly, formally, then our whole body can conform to that loose and comfortable position.

[21:18]

It gives us a keynote for the rest of the body. That's why it's so important to hold the mudra correctly. And then we can travel up to our elbows. Elbows are tightly clutching our body. then we can let go and move them out so that they flap like little wings. If your body is tense, you know, you get tired out very quickly. So breathing, with full awareness of breathing,

[22:23]

and being aware of the position of the elbows. And then moving up to the sternum. The sternum, you know, it's not like holding your chest out, but it's just lifting. Lifting the sternum stretches out the waist. and helps the back to be straight, and allows your head to go back so that it's sitting on top of your spine. So, with full awareness of breathing, to be aware of the sternum, lifting the sternum, and with full awareness of breath, to be aware of the head on top of the spine, not like this.

[23:28]

Unless you're falling asleep, you know, can't help it. But to be aware when we're sitting in awareness, to keep the head on top of the spine so that your shoulders don't get round. The head is a big weight, you know, it's like a stone sitting here on top of the body, very heavy. And when it's tilted forward, it puts a strain on your back. So in order to keep a correct balance, keep the head on top of the spine and stretch the neck. It's a trick. It's not so easy. This is where people have problems. So it's just rotating the head forward a little bit. so you're not looking up but see so if we say stretch out your neck people go like this so it's just a rotation on the axis yeah

[24:45]

Yeah. On the what? Atlas? Atlas. On the Atlas. Rotation of the head on the Atlas. Atlas shrugs. So, and by reaching for the ceiling with the top of your head, you can, your whole back is straight. Of course, the straight back has a curve in it. As you see, there's a very good diagram in the dining room about what a straight back looks like, straight vertebrae looks like. It's on the bulletin board. Then it goes in. That's the small of your back. So I would push the small of the back forward, not to exaggerate, but to establish that curvature, which is normal. And then this is stretching the body, stretching the upper body.

[26:01]

And you can feel your whole back stretch. It's a good way to give yourself a back massage, actually. Also, it stretches out the back of your neck and loosens up all those nerves, the ones that give you a headache when they're tense. And when you do this, you can see just how much tension there is in your back. So it's like a nice massage. And if you can keep that energy, that effort going, and with the breath, with full awareness of breath at the same time. You induce good energy, it does it. And when you get off your seat, you leap off your seat.

[27:09]

So at the same time that you're holding your body in good tension, you're letting go of all the tenseness in your body. This is taken up more in the later methods to let go of tenseness. These methods are just a kind of layout. It's not like there's a progression. There is a kind of progression. There's a beginning and an end, but these are not methods that you do in a progressive way. It's just that when you talk about something, you lay it out. And here's the beginning and here's the end. So we're practicing the last method as well as the first method at the same time. So the last method is to let go of everything. And you can let go of tenseness.

[28:35]

Tenseness is the tension that's more than just the tension that's necessary to hold something together. Everything exists in tension. Bridges, buildings, the tan, the floor, and our body. So there's a certain tension that's necessary, but anything more than that is just tenseness. So how we just establish ourself with the right amount of tension and let go of all the rest. how to let go of all the tenseness in our body. You can actually breathe into letting go of tenseness. Letting go of tenseness. That's a kind of good mantra. A kind of silent mantra.

[29:39]

You don't have to think letting go of tenseness, but just think it. Just breathe it. With every exhale, you let go of all the tenseness. All the tenseness in your body goes out through the exhale. And what remains is just the right amount of tension. Maybe the image I get is like an old structure, an old building with the water on the beach where all the cement is gone, but just the structure stands and the ocean comes in and goes out. The ocean comes in and goes out, but the structure just remains and everything else flows out. So with each breath, inhaling is quick, whereas exhaling is longer.

[30:58]

And that's one reason why we count breath on the exhale, if we count. And one. And then we inhale, because inhaling is quick. Two. we can actually push somewhat on the exhale, if we want to. But on the exhale, we get rid of everything. Everything flows out. All the tenseness, all the demons, all the thoughts. And then we come back to life. with their inhaling and then we let go of everything with the exhale and then the inhale is we become renewed again born again and then we let go of everything and then inhale and we become born again and then exhale and let everything go this is kind of the rhythm of

[32:19]

our birth and death. This is how we can learn something about birth and death just by watching or by observing how the breath comes and goes. So we're filled and emptied on each breath, on each moment. And then after we

[33:23]

investigate all the positions and parts of our sitting posture then we can observe the whole posture body, breath and mind as one the unity so one side is investigating the diversity And the other side is investigating the unity. With breathing in, we're aware of body, breath, and mind as one. Whole body, breath, and mind. But mind is not something outside, so it's really just body and breath. So whole body sitting like a mountain.

[34:31]

Not rigid like a mountain, but Dogen calls this zamai o zamai. Zamai o zamai. The king's samadhi. The Samadhi of Samadhis. With awareness of the whole body, I breathe in and breathe out. With full awareness of the body, there's breathing in. And with full awareness of the body, there's breathing out.

[35:37]

and joy arises spontaneously even through the pain and happiness arises spontaneously even through the discomfort So, Dogen also calls this the Ji Ju Yu Zamai, self-joyous samadhi. Self-fulfilling samadhi. Self-illuminating samadhi. and samadhi of self-mastery.

[37:05]

the harmonizing of body, breath and mind, sitting with the whole universe. May I catch him?

[39:09]

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