So this morning I have several things that I want to talk about. Suzuki Roshi, our old teacher, used to emphasize a lot something that we call no gaining mind. But we tend to easily misunderstand or overreach the meaning of that phrase, no gaining mind. No gaining mind basically applies to zazen. And of course it also applies to our daily life because our daily life is zazen. if we actually are practicing sincerely.

[01:00]

And it's associated with what we call shikantaza, just doing. Is that better? A little bit. Oh, a little bit. I want it to be a lot better. Okay. It looks better, too. Oh, good. That's the main thing. Is that better? Better than butter. So, basically, no gaining mind. refers to what we call shikantaza, or just doing.

[02:01]

It means something like not adding something to ourself. It means, refers to accepting ourself as we are, without passing judgment about good and bad, right and wrong, I wish I was something else. And we used to talk about self-improvement schemes, or Nachikantaza. Self-improvement schemes are not, are gaining mind. There's nothing wrong with self-improvement. We all can, matter of fact, remember, he used to say, he had the famous phrase, you're okay just as you are, but you could use a little improvement.

[03:12]

So yes, improvement is important. whatever that means. Sometimes improvement looks like improvement, but actually it may not be. So, but the main meaning of no gaining mind is to accept yourself as you are. We say a tall bamboo is tall, a short bamboo is short. It's a very important phrase in Zen. Tall bamboo is tall, short bamboo is short. Gee, I wish I was taller. I wish I was shorter. how we actually accept ourself as we are, which is not always easy, because who are we?

[04:22]

Does that mean I accept all my difficult characteristics? just as they are? Well, if anything changes, if we are going to change anything, we first have to accept ourselves just as we are. So that can be difficult. First, you look in the mirror, and you see yourself just as you are. You say, oh my God. Then you look again, and you go, well, not bad. The second look, you adjust. So it's really hard to accept ourselves just as we are. So when we sit in zazen, we just accept everything as it is. We don't sit zazen for some special purpose.

[05:25]

That's what the meaning is. We don't do this in order to gain anything. We simply sit in order to be present and to express our true nature. which is beyond, our true nature includes man, woman, transvestite, whatever, but it also goes beyond man and woman. I am a man, I am a woman, that's okay, but zazen goes beyond any definitions that we have about ourself. We let go of everything. that we think about ourself or about what anything is. So actually, instead of gaining something, people say, I've been doing this for 10 years and I still haven't gained anything, gotten anything out of it.

[06:26]

I haven't gotten anything out of Zazen, so I'm gonna do something else. maybe Vipassana or Tibetan. Zazen is to let go of everything. To let go of everything that we think we are. And then we get, the more we drop, the bigger we get. Usually we think, the more I get, the bigger I am. But satsang is just the opposite. The more we let go of, the bigger we get, because what we have is a hindrance. Satsang is counterintuitive. The dynamic of the world is to get.

[07:30]

But the secret of enlightenment is to let go. So it's okay. It's okay to have something, you know. I can have my automobile, you know. Suzuki Roshi used to say, I know I have these glasses. They really belong to you, but I'm really happy that you let me wear them. And then Akin Roshi used to say, Although this typewriter doesn't belong to me, I really need it and I don't want you to take it away. So, you know, this is called Middle Way, Buddhadharma is called Middle Way. In one sense, we think of middle way as the balance between things, right? A little bit of this, a little bit of that, so that we don't go to an extreme.

[08:37]

But that's one aspect. And the other aspect is middle way means basically the middle way between birth and death. It's really fundamental. If it's only the balance between getting in the groove, that's important. But our basic question is the question of birth and death, of course. That's why we practice. That's what we do zazen. It's not just to feel good. Although, when we practice zazen, totally present, it's called the great dynamic activity. Birth and death is reconciled. All opposites are reconciled.

[09:40]

As soon as we want something different, or as soon as we want something for ourself, we fall into duality. So that's not easy, because it's about non-discrimination, but non-discriminating mind. Not picking and choosing. So as long as we're picking and choosing, we're uncomfortable. Why am I so uncomfortable? How come people are doing this? And I'm so uncomfortable. Everybody's uncomfortable because we're all discriminating. We fall into right and wrong, good and bad, like and dislike, want and not want, all the time. This is our usual life. In Zazen, we stop discriminating mind and then we're comfortable because we accept everything just as it is. The hardest thing is to accept everything just as it is.

[10:45]

So this is called pure activity. Pure activity is non-dual activity. I can remember when I first started sitting zazen, how difficult it was, how really hard it was. I remember going through so many excruciating periods of zazen. And Suzuki Renshi would say, don't chicken out. Sit still. Don't move. Here they come. But until I learned how to let go, I went through all of these experiences that everybody's gone through.

[11:52]

That's why I can understand all of your problems because I experienced all those problems myself until I came through the other side. And the older I get, the easier it is. People say, oh, you're an old guy, you know, and you're still doing this. Well, of course. That's what keeps me old. No, that's what keeps me, that's what keeps me going. So, the other thing I want to talk about is intention. and will, someone asked a question about will, brought up a question about will. People think, a lot of people think that meditation or zazen is just to be receptive, as I just expressed.

[13:04]

to be receptive. Whatever comes, let it come, let it go. That's the receptive aspect of zazen. The active aspect of zazen is to be willful. No, willing. Willful is ego. Willingness is letting go of ego. Willingness is adapting and saying, okay, I will do this. Willfulness is projecting your own idea on things, and a kind of stubbornness. Stubbornness is a really good quality, actually. It has two sides. One is resistance, and the other is perseverance. So stubborn perseverance is very good.

[14:06]

And that will carry you through. Stubborn perseverance will carry you through. And I think you kind of need that. Some people, Zazen is very easy from the beginning, no problem. They sit easily. But unfortunately, they don't get much out of it. The person who has the really hard, really difficult time, And it perseveres is the one that gets the most out of it, usually. That's not a truism, it's just the way it usually falls out. So staying with it will enable you to come out the other side, given all the difficulty. And the difficulty is what helps you. I think this is true in Zazen as well as in your daily life. when you stay with the program, stay with, I want to really come out understanding this, or enabling this, but you don't let a little bit of difficulty turn you away.

[15:18]

Matter of fact, a good student, I don't wanna say good, but a persevering student who, stays with the difficulty, actually becomes stronger and stronger. If you're, when you're working very hard and you get very tired, but you stay with what you're doing, you get much stronger and more proficient. They say that becoming a human being is really difficult.

[16:22]

We think it's easy, especially since the world is becoming overpopulated, but to become a human being is really difficult. It's kind of like there's a light preserver floating in the ocean. and a turtle comes up and hits that life preserver and pops its head up, the chances of that happening is so minimal. It's like a human being, comparable to a human being being born into the world. It's so rare, but we think it's overcrowded. It is overcrowded. But if you persevere, your chances of coming up through that life preserver will actually happen.

[17:23]

So will is very important. Desire, effort, determination, all these are synonyms, right, for doing something completely. When you do something totally and completely, the whole body and mind, as we say, to burn yourself up completely and not just partially, then you will have realization. It doesn't come with just doing something partially. It only comes with total exertion. So will, there's some people who think that there's no such thing as will. Maybe so, but I talk about will as if it really is so.

[18:34]

we're always willing to do something, even if it's something that we're not willing to do. So how do we direct, well, is how do we direct our desire? Desire is not good or bad. Desire, without desire, we can't do anything. Desires. In Buddhadharma, Desire, it looks like they're saying, the old teacher said, get rid of desire. But they don't mean get rid of desire, you just be lifeless. It means where do you put your desire? Where do you direct desire? Do you know? It's a good question. If we direct our desire toward practice, it's no longer called desire.

[19:42]

It's called way-seeking mind. So desire is very good as way-seeking mind. It's very bad as ego promotion. So that's middle way. Everything has two sides. And poison is one side. Medicine's the other side. Everything can either be medicine or poison. Everything has those two qualities. Willfulness can be poison, but it can also be medicine. If you put your will or your desire into practice, it's medicine. If you put it into vain, activities, it's poison. So the world is poisoned.

[20:44]

A lot of poison in the world because everybody's trying to get something. And we step all over each other trying to get something. We kill each other trying to get something. I remember when I was a little kid, I used to think, people kill each other for material goods? I couldn't believe it, and I'm just a little kid. So, will is important, desire is important, effort is important, determination is important. If you simply let yourself be receptive, that's good, but it's not good enough. The receptive has to be tempered by the active. So when you sit in zazen, it's not just receptive. Receptive is the basis, and active is the other side.

[21:47]

So we bring the active side and the receptive side together as one. So I'm always saying this, when you sit zazen, put your whole effort into your posture. but we don't know necessarily how to do that. Even though we think we're putting our effort into our posture, it may not be right effort. If you put too much effort, then you become stiff and brittle. And if you don't put enough effort, your posture becomes weak and soft. So to find the balance, that's the middle way. The middle way is to sit up straight with good effort. Total dynamic activity, it's called.

[22:48]

If you're not sitting with total dynamic activity, it's not zazen. It's kind of zazen. And sometimes we fall into that, but we have to keep reasserting our posture, reasserting our effort all the time. The reason we get bored in Zazen is because we become separated from what we're doing. If you're totally into what you're doing, there's no boredom. It can't be boring, and it can't be interesting. Well, it's not interesting. The mind wants something to grab onto, something to cling to, no matter what it is. You know, the embarrassing silence. You're in a conversation with a bunch of people, and everybody's jabbering away, and then suddenly, it all comes to an end for some reason, for some inexplicable reason.

[23:53]

The conversation drops. Nobody has anything to say, and everybody's embarrassed. The embarrassing silence, that's reality. We fall into reality for a moment, and we're embarrassed by it. It's true. But it's also true that we have to say something at the appropriate time. But when we're sitting Zazen, we let our true nature say something. We listen to our true nature, which is speaking in silence. It's telling us everything we need to know. So that's why when we let go,

[24:55]

Instead of trying to get something, we let go and let nature inform us, which is beyond our thinking. Also, we say, well, you're not supposed to think in zazen, right? And so some people don't like that because when we're not thinking, we're lost. but it's a great way to be lost. Lost and found. Lost and found. Until you get lost, you can't get found. So today, we are, we're having a one-day sitting And so these are some things that I wanted to emphasize to our Sachine participants.

[26:07]

And I know I've said all this before many times. Sometimes people say, how come we never talk about da, da, da? That really, you know, makes me feel sad. Because if we don't talk about something over and over and over again, we don't hear it, or we forget it, or, oh, I never heard that before. We talk about something over and over and over again. I never heard that before. So I'm at the risk of overemphasizing. I just keep talking about the same thing. over and over again. So there are several qualities, six qualities actually, that are important when we're sitting zazen for us to pay attention to so that we become well balanced.

[27:21]

Zazen is all about balance. how we have various tendencies, and the tendencies that we have are all good tendencies, but they need to be balanced by their, I guess you'd call their opposites. So, here are the six factors. Tranquility is one, that's when we're. Tranquility is the basis, actually, of composure and acceptance. Tranquility is kind of like a horizontal or a big basin.

[28:27]

and accepts everything, like the ocean, Sagura Mundra Samadhi, the great ocean Samadhi of tranquility, which as it fills up, just grows bigger and bigger, because it doesn't have any special shape or form. And at the bottom of tranquility, is radiant light. Zazen actually is a, we allow ourself to be a vehicle for radiant light, which is at the bottom of tranquility, which is the essence of our life. So we have this opportunity to let, this is what we call our true nature, to let that shine forth.

[29:32]

I know many of you have done a long Sashin, seven-day Sashin, and at the end of Sashin, we all sit facing in, and there's this tremendous, brilliant, radiant light that fills his window. And then we end and we go out and take up our lives again. So this is the purpose of Zazen, is to let that light shine forth. So tranquility is important, but it also needs something to, countering, something to balance it. So agility, which is also called lightness, light and agile.

[30:44]

which is opposed to heaviness. Tranquility can become kind of heavy because there's no movement in it. It's total stillness. So agility is a very important counter to keep tranquility from becoming heavy. lazy or inert. So these two factors really go together. When we're sitting Zazen completely, we should feel light and agile. The Koreans have a term for it when sitting Zazen called leaping like a tiger while sitting.

[31:46]

I like that, leaping like a tiger while sitting. So your energy, as well as being tranquil, is also totally active. The balance between active and passive. And then there is pliancy. Pliancy means softness. Suzuki Roshi used to talk about soft mind. Soft mind means non-rigidity. So it's very easy. People sometimes think that when we have good posture, that it's rigid. But posture should not be rigid. It should be pliant.

[32:53]

Within the structure of our body, it should be totally pliant. Like grass, rather than like a tall tree. In the wind, a tall tree will topple over. but in the wind, the grass just bends over. Then we should be totally, totally blind. There should not be any stiffness or rigidity at all. So this is what you work on during Zazen. You work on where is the stiffness or rigidity in my body? How come this little part of my back has got that pain? What do I do about that? So we should concentrate on letting go all the time. Letting go and rising at the same time, like a fountain. Fountain goes up, the energy goes going up, and then the water's falling down.

[34:00]

And so we're always working with gravity. Gravity is pulling us down, and if we allow that to happen, we become a puddle. And spirit is bringing us up. So it's the balance between spirit and gravity that we're working with all the time and determines everything we do. Every single thing we do is determined by gravity and spirit. Spirit is what I call our active life force. It's always going up. That's why people talk about the heavens and the earth, right? It's just a metaphor, of course, but it does have that quality where, you know,

[35:03]

Basketball, you know, is gravity and spirit. How do you make that shot from 30 feet, you know? It's all about knowing intuitively, intuitively feeling what the gravity and the weight of the ball and your activity, all these things. And the agility means freedom, great freedom. This is why the Warriors are doing so well. I don't really watch them, but I think it's great that they're doing that. and Mr. Curry and all this. At the end of the game, he's not tired.

[36:12]

Mr. Curry is not tired at the end of the game. He still has a lot of energy. That's how it should be in Zazen. Exactly the same. You should feel energized at the end of Sashin. You should feel energized when you get up from Zazen. If you feel that there's something, you're not balancing the factors. So you should keep working on the factors. Pliancy, soft mind, letting go, and workableness. Workableness means, is like gold or clay. If you want to work clay, If it's too wet, it doesn't hold up. And if it's too dry, it cracks. So just the right amount of wet and dry, just the right amount of workableness, and then you can make anything you want out of it.

[37:20]

So that's very important factor in Zazen, workableness. And it's also balance, the balance of factors. And then there is, it's also called consistency. Consistency means doing the same thing, but it also means the pliancy or workableness of things. And proficiency is like fitness. You've done something over and over again, and so you know how to do it. Zazen is not a technique. Sounds like it's a technique, but it's not a technique. It's something that you're working with all the time, because there is no such thing until you do it. And every time, this is what I say, every time you sit Zazen, you should give yourself Zazen instruction.

[38:29]

That's a little bit like a technique, but it's not really a technique. It's not a technique to get something. It's just a way to do something. The reason we sit in this position is because it's the most comfortable and the easiest and the most well-balanced because it's a triangle and it can't be easily turned over. And so it's the most stable position. besides lying down, but lying down, it's easier to go to sleep, even though we do go to sleep in zazen. It's easier to stay awake anyway. It can be. So if you want to stay awake, lift up your sternum and keep your zazen, keep your energy going in zazen, but not to stiffness. The balance between, um, and letting go at the same time.

[39:33]

I guess you call it technique if you want, but I don't. So proficiency, as the more you, the more you sit down, it's not that you get better at it, but you understand it better. You have some confidence, it gives you confidence. And if you don't have confidence, it's really difficult. Because confidence allows you to experience whatever you're experiencing without complaining. Yeah, I know this, oh yeah. Every zazen period is different. Every moment of zazen is different. It's something you've never experienced before. That's the attitude that we have to have. It's not like, oh, geez, pretty soon the bell will ring because my legs hurt, or it won't ring because my legs hurt. Moment by moment. This is shikantanza, just moment by moment.

[40:38]

There's no past and no future. They're just moments of now. This moment of now, this moment of now. If I think about the future, I won't be able to do it. Matter of fact, if you're thinking about the future, you're not doing it at all. It's not that we try to stop the thoughts of our mind. We allow the thoughts to come up and go. We're not resisting anything. We accept all the thoughts that come. You don't try to stop thinking. But you just don't let the thoughts dominate your mind. Just keep coming back to zazen. Oh yeah, zazen, oh yeah, a thousand times during the period. You just keep coming back to posture and breathing, posture and breathing, posture and breathing. And then you can concentrate on posture and breathing as well as the thoughts are going through your mind.

[41:40]

And then you see the thoughts as the scenery. The movie is just going on while you're actually sitting in the reality of the moment. There's no story. And then uprightness, which is sincerity, and posture, and so forth. So all of these qualities, I can't go on, but they're all worth studying. I keep bringing this up because I think it's really important to understand how these qualities work together and balance each other and make for a good satsang. I don't know if anybody has one question.

[42:46]

Yeah. Would you say something about gaining mind and no attainment? Well, what you attain is yourself. You don't need to attain something else. That's what zazen is, attaining yourself. So there's no place to go. So we usually think about attainment, there's something out there that we're going to attain. Or maybe something in here we're going to attain. But we usually don't think we're going to attain something here. We attain something out there. That's attainment. But in Zazen, we don't go anywhere. We just allow our nature to express itself. There's nothing to attain. The more we want to attain, the more we are bound. So the more we let go of attainment, the bigger our mind gets.

[43:50]

I mean, it's big anyway, but we allow it to express itself. Well, it's not that exactly. It's that you don't attach to what you call pain. This is just a sensation, and then we name it. So first is the thing in itself.

[44:55]

The thing in itself is what we call a sensation. Because of our conditioning, we say, that's pain, or something else, or that's nice. But before naming anything, we just see it as it is. And then we open to it and let it be. That's the tranquility. We just let it be. The tranquility allows everything to be what it is. And as soon as we start naming, we start discriminating. And the discrimination says, oh, this is pain. And then the next step is, it hurts. And then the next thing is, I don't like it. And then the next thing is, I don't want it. And these sequential activities are really happening all at the same time.

[45:59]

Maybe, so we just create a problem out of something that happens. So it's not that the pain goes away, it's just that you don't make something out of it. We create, we're self-creating, and we create these problems. We create, there's a sensation, and then we say, well, the sensation is, Oh, I know, it's pain, and then I don't like it, I don't want it, and then the more you resist it, and then you start resisting it, and the more you resist it, the worse it gets. When you forget it, it's gone. I learned how to, every once in a while, bite my tongue. or bite my lip or something like that. As you get older, that happens. And then I go, ouch.

[47:04]

And then I forget it. It's gone. Just forget it. But we worry things. Oh my God, my poor leg. Will I ever be able to walk again? And then you create a problem because you create resistance. As soon as you create resistance, you create a problem. That's what we call discriminating mind. In Zazen, non-discriminating mind means you don't discriminate, just things happen, and then you can accept everything, and when you accept it, there's no resistance, and the resistance is what causes the problem. You have a lot of discomfort during Zazen, but if you don't worry it, you stand up, everything's okay. If we worry it, then, oh my God, I went through that. I remember almost crawling out of the Zendo one time.

[48:09]

But that's because I was attaching to what I called my discomfort, my pain. So, you know, comfort comes from the inside, not from the outside. True comfort comes from the inside. True freedom comes from the inside, not the outside. We're always looking for freedom out there, but this is where we find it. You can't have freedom out there unless you have it in here, because there will always be something that upsets you. In a way, it's kind of learned, but it's not a technique. When I have pain, you think, oh geez, he doesn't have any pain, he's been doing this a long time.

[49:14]

When I have pain, I just open myself. Immediately, I don't wait till it gets unbearable. Every sensation, I just open myself to it. And then it's not a problem. It's only a problem when we narrow ourself. When we open ourself, we can contain everything, but when we narrow ourself, we can't contain anything, because what it is that we think is causing our problem is within this narrow space, and it's acting against the walls of our confinement. And when it's acting against the walls of our confinement, it hurts. But when we let go of the boundaries, the whole body comes to your rescue. You go, oh my God, this part, oh, it hurts so much.

[50:17]

And then your whole, everything, your whole consciousness goes into this one part, and then you're hooked. But if you open yourself, the whole body shares the responsibility. And then everything becomes balanced. It all becomes balanced. It's not, this is what we learn in Zazen. That's why Zazen teaches us what we need to know, because it teaches us the oneness of duality. That's the basic thing. The key is not to be caught by duality of our mind, split mind. Of course, we live in a world of duality, but samsara is the one place where we can actually work on understanding the oneness of duality. We're not busy doing other things.

[51:20]

And a lot of our aches and pains are created by our stubbornness. And self-protection. This is a big part. Self-protection. You know, the lesson that Dada teaches us is to let go, and if we're in a situation with someone, and we let go, say of a situation where they've harmed us or we've done something like that, and we've let go of the harm, but they're kind of saying, hey, where are you going? This is supposed to keep you, you know. What do you do at that point? Do you understand what I'm saying? Well, sort of. I'm a little mixed up between they and you.

[52:30]

Well, if someone aims to hurt you or does hurt you, and you let it go, and they expect you to not let it go, and so they're kind of confused. Well, that's their confusion, not yours. Why should you worry about their confusion? I'm not worried about it, but what do you do when that happens? You know, every situation has its own rules. Every situation has its own rules. So when we have a generalized what should I do in that situation, it doesn't work. You have to be in the situation and then do something. That's called living precepts. We can have all kinds of ideas called precepts. That could be a minor precept, actually. But precepts only work when you, in the situation that you're experiencing, and it's not what's written down.

[53:42]

I can say something, but it won't help. So what is the, There's so many different factors going in what you're talking about. It's not just some simple, what do I do, leave or stay, or what is, he's thinking this, or she's thinking this, and you're thinking this. That's, you know, just take the sword and go, goodbye. You know, stop worrying. We worry too much. We really worry too much. Sometimes we just have to let things sort themselves out. Sibi, I don't know what you're thinking. You're thinking of some incident that I'm not. I just think that somehow we manage to actually abide Tsa Tsen as the teacher and let this thing go.

[54:49]

But we also have to assert ourselves. Yes. So it's not just acceptance, it's also activity. So you have to act. You accept and you act. And you do both at the same time is best, then you are spontaneous. When you can accept and act as one, that's called spontaneity. You're not thinking, it just, the truth comes out. That's my answer. Yes, that should be. And for me, when I experience pain in Sashim, I find that I try to have it be an open question. Because I can think of one particular case where I was in Sashim, at Green Gulch, and my arm was really killing me. And I thought, oh, temporary... And then after the period was over, I actually looked at my arm,

[55:54]

So, for me, I like to ask the question of what is this pain and what is the appropriate response to it? Is sitting still, effortful, or should I move my knee? Don't resist it. Just don't resist it. Just open to it and don't resist it. And if you're open to it, without resistance, it's just what it is, a sensation. Now everybody will have some idea about that, and they'll all be thinking about incidents where it's impossible to do that, you know, challenges. Everybody will have some kind of challenge for that, but I'm gonna stop here so that it doesn't happen.

[57:01]

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