Or can turn this way. And the people on the sides can also turn this way. And the people sitting behind the posts. can sit on the floor if they want. We'll find a position that works. Well, today I want to focus on a few aspects of Zazen.

[01:01]

that I think are very important and what I view as what we need to work on the most. And so I want to talk about first about our posture. Although we've all been taught how to sit, It's important to really stretch our upper body. We often tend to just kind of find a comfortable spot and then start thinking. So, you know, this is the thinking posture. Rodin had it down. So, the posture of Zazen is to be awake.

[02:07]

That's the whole idea, is how you stay awake. And so, in order to stay awake, it means fully awake, even though we tend to gradually let down our posture. So although we let down our posture, in a mindful way, we keep reasserting our posture. So in Zazen, coming back to reasserting, reestablishing our posture is what we do, basically. So in order to hold our posture straight, There is a curvature in the lower back, which is natural. And to emphasize that curvature by moving our lower back forward, sometimes people say moving your hips back, it's all the same.

[03:21]

But the important part is to lift up your sternum. This is your sternum, more or less, right here, where your ribcage comes together. When you lift up your sternum, then your lower back assumes its natural posture. So, to maintain that what seems like extreme posture is what we're working with. And then to hold our head on top of our spine so that your ears are in line with your shoulders. That way your upper body falls into place, your shoulders fall into place, your arms, your elbows, your mudra. all fall into place and there's no strain anywhere in your back.

[04:25]

Zazen posture is, I think of it as conservation of energy. You use the least amount of effort to do the most work. Actually, a lot of people, when they hold their posture straight, are overextending their muscular abilities. It's not necessary. When you lift up your sternum and allow your lower back to find its natural forward posture and keep your head on top of your spine, you can let go of everything. because your spine is holding you up in a balanced tension.

[05:30]

The work that you do more than that creates tension, tenseness. The difference between tension and tenseness is that you need the tension to create the form. The tenseness is what's extra. So the whole body, all of the joints, all of the parts should, you know, they're connecting. They're all connected. This is one piece. This is another piece. All the little points in your fingers are separate. All the body parts are separate. They're just held together by little strings. we should be as loose as possible and yet at the same time have the right amount of tension to hold the body in its form. So that all the parts of your body are cooperating to do this one thing.

[06:33]

And all the parts are held in tension by balance. So to find just the right points of tension allows you to do this. So to let go of the tenseness in your upper body. Sometimes I'll tell people to let the tenseness in your body drain out. Just think of yourself opening up. So when you lift up your sternum, put your head on top of your spine and assume the posture, this is totally open. Totally open and nothing held back. Sometimes we say pull your chin in, but actually

[07:45]

that can be misleading. One way to think about posture is to think of a string attached to the crown of your head from your crown of your head, excuse me, to the ceiling. And then your body is like a puppet. So if you think of that, the weight of your body hanging by the crown of your head, with all the parts simply independent and falling naturally into place. So we have to keep exerting this effort. It's kind of like a fountain. The energy is going up in the fountain and the water is falling down. So it's the balance between effort and ease. Actually, even though there's effort and even though there's stretching of the waist and upper body, it's all in ease.

[08:54]

There's no extra tension, tenseness. So how you find this balance is what you're looking for. One of the biggest problems we have, two problems, one is we let our head fall forward. we let our head fall forward, and that puts a strain on our back, and pretty soon we're leaning forward. The other is that we hold our head up like this. It's called, Suzuki Roshi called it ego practice. There are two things that are called ego practice. One is holding your head up like this, and the other is when you bow to keep your behind up high. When you bow, when you do a prostration, you should put your behind as low as possible. So this is what we should be working with all the time, and often what Suzuki Roshi taught about how to straighten posture

[10:18]

was very simple. He put one hand, one finger on my chin and the other finger at the hand at the bottom of my spine and just go like this and everything falls into place. Very simple. It's not a lot of manipulation and moving this and moving that. That kind of subtlety is okay when the foundation is there. But if you're simply just manipulating parts, it's just patchwork. Sometimes you would take a stick and hold it at the back of your head and at the bottom of your spine, so that the bottom of your spine, your shoulders and your head were all on the same line. When I say the bottom of your spine, I mean the bottom of the cushion.

[11:24]

It's all in one straight line. The hardest thing we have is keeping our head up. When your head is on top of the spine, then the weight is all going down. The head is heavy. But when the head starts moving forward, then the body gets out of balance. So the important point is to let your whole body be relaxed and free, and at the same time to keep the strict form. The stricter the form, the more relaxed you can be. When you're not strict with the form, then things start getting off. So the form looks like military, but actually it's just the true form where everything is finding its rightful place in harmony with all the other parts of your body.

[12:35]

So this is simply our natural posture freed from our habits. It's not some special thing. is simply resuming our natural posture without conditioning, free from our conditioning. So what I suggest to people is when you sit Zazen, every single time you sit, give yourself Zazen instruction. as if you were talking to somebody else, as if you were giving Zazen instruction to somebody. How would you do that? What would you say? First thing you would say is, straighten up.

[13:37]

Lift up your sternum and feel that, feel it in your lower back. And keep my head on top of my spine. Keep the mudra. relaxed and with good form. So the thumbs are just very lightly touching. My teeth sit together, tongue at the roof of the mouth, eyes open, head looking a little bit down. And totally relaxed, like a puppet. So if somebody pushes your elbow, just the elbow moves. your arm moves. But if you're tense, when somebody pushes your elbow, it's like a statue. You just go over. So, it's not a statue. It's not all one piece of iron. Very flexible.

[14:40]

You should be very flexible in Zazen. So, kind of like a leaf that's where you can just see the structure of the leaf. It's very delicate and everything is working together. Whole body's working together, all the parts. And when breathing, we just let the breath come down to where it feels like the lower abdomen is rising and falling. It's like when you watch a saw. When you're sawing a piece of wood, you don't watch the end of the saw going back and forth. You simply watch where the saw and the wood come together. That's how you watch your breathing. You follow your breathing here, as if it was kind of like a saw, rising or falling, but you only watch it here, not coming all the way up and down.

[15:50]

even though you may read about that in the books, and some Buddhists practice that way, it's okay for them to do that. But in our practice, it's watching, paying attention, following the breath as the rising and lowering of the lower abdomen. So in this expansive feeling, when you sit like this, You have an expansive feeling which induces energy. Energy is totally flowing through you because there is nothing blocking the energy. And then you feel refreshed when you get up, even if you've been sitting for seven days. The mudra is like the barometer.

[16:51]

It tells you the condition of your zazen. When you're able to hold the mudra very lightly with good form, that means you're awake and attentive. As soon as you start falling asleep, your thumbs start coming apart. Or when you're having a lot of pain, So when we have pain, how do we take care of that? Instead of, it's counterintuitive. Dealing with pain is counterintuitive because our intuitive is to block it, stop it, put up a barrier. But in satsang, we go the other way around. You simply let it be. And when you let it be, it becomes something else.

[17:55]

It's not the only thing there is. There are all these other things to pay attention to. Why should the pain take so much of your attention? It's just another thing. This posture, taking care of following your breath, being at ease. So if you can follow the breath, and first of all, posture is first. Breathing comes next. Once you establish posture, then you can let your mind follow the breath. And sometimes, and then we go over all the points of our posture while we're sitting. and check the mudra, check the posture of the back, check whether the head is on top of the spine, the teeth, the tongue, the elbows, the ease.

[19:04]

Where is it? Where am I clenching? Where am I holding on? So keep making these rounds of every point in the posture. And when you're concentrating on one point, the other points are there, but they're in the background. So when you pay attention to mudra, the posture is in the background, but it's there. And then sometimes you simply pay attention to the whole body breath all at once. What I would like to do is demonstrate how to adjust posture. So I'm gonna ask Paul to be the model, if you would.

[20:14]

So you have to come and sit, take my seat. Well, I think it's okay. Sit under the cushion. Should I face? Face that way. That way. Yeah, I hope everybody can more or less see. What I would like you to do, Paul, is to slump.

[21:20]

But what I would like you not to do is resist. Half the people whose posture I just resist. Okay, that's good. So I'm gonna put one finger in the small of his back, and then this. Just relax. Let go, let go. There. Pretty good. A little bit. That's good. Very simple. Now I want you to do that again and resist me. Yes.

[22:35]

Okay, I will. Hold your ears first. It'll be tricky. Okay, I'll just do it this way for now. I'll get it when I wake up.

[23:39]

Is that okay? So, eyes. Well, you know, basically we keep our eyes open when we sit Zazen. But your eyes get tired, so you close them. And then you remember, I'm supposed to keep my eyes open. So I open them, and then I close again. So it's always a struggle to keep the eyes open. Not always, but often. But then there's like, should I keep them halfway closed, or all the way open, or little slits, or what, right? So the book says, barely open. But actually, it doesn't matter. As long as your eyes are open, if you can keep your eyes open, whatever, whether they're wide or narrow or whatever, that's okay. Well, I mean more sort of the angle.

[24:40]

Okay. If you're looking down. I understand. Your head goes down. Yes, that's right. So the book says, look down like that. at some kind of angle, some degree of angle. But when you do that, your head tends to fall forward. So I say, look forward and a little bit down from forward, because then your eyes are down a little bit. It keeps you more awake. So I say a little bit down from straight ahead. Straight ahead is okay, but a little bit down keeps you from doing this. So find a comfortable position for your eyes and try to keep them open. Keeping the eyes open helps us to stop dreaming.

[25:45]

Someone said, after you've been sitting for 30 years, you can close your eyes. But actually, that's not true. I'd like to hear something about the elbows, and particularly what I'm worried about is, here's my mudra, and I'm worried about, I'm relaxing. Well, yeah, relax. As long as you're not leaning and resting him on, as long as you're not kind of resting, you're kind of resting on your thighs. But if I hold him up like this, I'm telling you, my shoulders get really painful. Well, you shouldn't be using your shoulders to keep your mudra up. I'm sorry? You shouldn't be using your shoulders. Just keep your mudra up and find out how to do that without using your shoulders. Because your shoulders should be relaxed.

[26:49]

and just falling off. I want my shoulders to fall off. Let's see if they will. And keep your mudra up. It doesn't have to be high. Some people sit with their mudra way up here. And that seems extreme to me, but if they like it, it's okay. There's a range at which people feel comfortable holding their mudra. So I don't say it should be this way or that way. Some comfortable way. Okay. Yeah. Well, at a certain age. I didn't want to say that. Well, you know, like I'm a certain age myself, so I can say that. Things get, you know, it's harder to do certain things.

[27:53]

So just find a way that's comfortable. Also, we say, Kadagiri always used to say, you should hold your elbows out as if there were an egg under each armpit. No, no. A raw egg under each armpit. I can tell you stories about raw eggs, but that would be tangential. We used to serve raw eggs in Tassajara because Japanese like to put their raw egg into their rice and mix it up and cook it in the rice and in the soup. And so we had Japanese teachers, they'd serve the rice and then they'd serve a raw egg. And some people knew that you're supposed to put the raw egg into the rice. But others didn't.

[28:55]

Anyway, they were served to put under your armpit. It's time to go, unfortunately.

[29:09]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ