and see the workings of the mind, but not get caught in any part of it. And that is a big, studying consciousnesses and studying the mind consciousnesses and the way the mind works is a separate study that we can't do tonight, but I can refer you to some other places for that. So yes, Susan. me is you know this idea that nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble means that it really allows for response as opposed to reactivity but that's where response comes from is a clear mind so even if you're in a situation where there's a lot of trouble or chaos or whatever if you're able to

[01:01]

to embody that idea that he's presenting, then a lot more response. Does that make sense? Because you're not reacting to the input. You're observing the input. You're being with the input. So you can have a better understanding of those circumstances and react. like our usual way of thinking about this word he said trouble is that trouble comes from the outside right and he's very revolutionary it is very revolutionary and also you know he's talking here about zazen so one of the things i was going to um i wanted to bring up was this idea of well Does that mean that there's really no trouble outside? I think he's really talking about in Zazen.

[02:04]

When we're doing Zazen comes from ourselves, not from outside. That doesn't mean you can't get hit by a car or there aren't things that happen outside of you in the phenomenal world. But in the world of our sitting practice, that's in the realm of big mind. and are abiding in big mind, that's where the trouble, that's where we work on not reacting, but allowing the input and allowing it to be and perceiving it not as something that's going to be harmful to us. So I also wanted to read the the capping verse for the, from the colon, this went off somehow.

[03:07]

Is it still, is it not on? Oh no. Yeah. So you were talking about thinking. Something that came to my mind is what Sojin talked about in one of his classes or lectures, is to think the power of zazen. And the power of zazen is the power what was putting your mind on the threat, putting your mind on the warship. So I thought that was very helpful. Well, whether, you know, he had, Sojin had his kind of tips that he gave us.

[04:16]

It is kind of saying, stay in your body, stay in your mind, stay in yourself. Don't go run off. When something happens, don't let it take you away from your abiding mind. So maintain your composure. Don't lose your composure by reactivity. So I just wanted to add the poetry of adding these verses. When the Dharma wheel turns, it always goes in both directions. The still point is its hub. From here, all of our myriad activities emerge. Rather than give solace to the body, give solace to the mind. Body and mind are at peace. All things appear as they are. Perfect, complete, and lacking nothing. So Suzuki Roshi goes on.

[05:22]

If your mind is related to something outside itself, that mind is a small mind, a limited mind. If your mind is not related to anything else, then there is no dualistic understanding in the activity of your mind. You understand activity is just waves of your mind. Big mind experiences everything within itself. Do you understand the difference between the two minds? The mind which includes everything, and the mind which is related to something. Actually, they are the same thing. But the understanding is different. And your attitude towards your life will be different according to which understanding you have. That everything is included within your mind is the essence of mind. To experience this is to have a religious feeling. Even though waves arise, the essence of your mind is pure. It is just like clear water with a few waves.

[06:25]

Actually, water always has waves. This is the practice of water. To speak of water apart from water or water apart from waves is delusion. Water and waves are one. Big mind and small mind are one. When you understand your mind in this way, you have some security. As your mind does not expect anything from outside, it is always filled. A mind with waves in it is not a disturbed mind, but actually an amplified one. Whatever you experience is an expression of big mind. Think of these waves in the ocean, and Sojin talked about this as well, that the ocean is always calm, way down deep in the ocean. It's very calm. It's always calm. But it's holding the waves. And the waves are subject to causes and conditions around it.

[07:26]

So our practice, our composure, our roots of practice, our deep roots in practice, and our faith in practice, are the foundation. They're the ocean. That's the ocean of which the mind waves, or the waves, are phenomena, but they're part of the ocean. They're not separate from the ocean. They're not coming from outside. They're part of it. And that's what we're thinking about. This big mind, everything is there. So whatever's happening, it's part of this big mind. So it's not something we have to run away from, but it's also not something to get caught in, and that'll be the talk later. So Dogen calls, not thinking, the art of Zazen. When there is no gap, there is no discrimination.

[08:28]

Thoughts wander as they will because they're always hungry. We bring them home where they belong and include them in some satisfying work. When our thoughts sit Zazen, they become enlightened. So when you sit, think the thought of Zazen. called Learning Through Body and Mind. He says, the stage of non-thinking is beyond egocentric cognition. If you reach the state of non-thinking, you will realize the true luminous nature of self. Non-thinking must become the view phenomenon. The activity of every Buddha is based on non-thinking. So what do you think about this? Non-thinking is beyond the egocentric. Can you read the first two paragraphs again a little slower? What I just read?

[09:31]

Okay. Dogen calls this think-not-thinking the art of zazen. When there is no gap, there is no discrimination. I think what that means is If you are perceiving something, usually we have a gap between the perception and then our mind registering and making up something related to that. So if there's no discrimination, which means we're not judging, we're not naming, we're not thinking about something good or bad, There's no dualism and no discrimination. When our thoughts wander as always hungry, that's an interesting phrase, we bring them home where they belong and include them in some satisfying work.

[10:39]

When our thoughts sit zazen, they become enlightened. Think the thought of zazen. I think that's kind of what Raga was reading. That's what Soji was trying to say to you. Think the thought of zazen. So in his fascicle called learning through body and mind, the age of non-thinking is beyond egocentric cognition. And that's interesting because again what we usually do um when we perceive through our consciousness is that um first ping our alaya our storehouse consciousness and have our condition our conditioning and our naming happens but then we go to mass our ego consciousness and we supply the eye so that's the that's the way

[11:48]

that's not enlightened works we supply an eye so that's called then that's called ego ego consciousness if we leave out the eye and we leave out the story then we just have consciousness we just have a perception or a thought it's just to be with without a story if you reach the state of non-thinking, you will realize the true luminous nature of the mind. Non-thinking must become which you view phenomena. So he's saying we have to basically transform our consciousness to be non-egoistic. We have to transform our consciousness to just abide with without doing anything with it.

[12:52]

Just watching, just being. So Suzuki Roshi goes on. The activity of big mind is to amplify itself through various experiences. In one sense our experiences coming one by one are always fresh and new. But in another sense they are nothing but a continuous and repeated unfolding of the one big mind. For instance, if you have something good for breakfast, you will say, this is good. Good is supplied as something experienced some long time ago. Even though you may not remember when the big mind, we accept each of our experiences as if recognizing the face we see in the mirror. Oops. For us, there is no fear of losing the mind.

[13:57]

There is nowhere to come or go. There is no fear of death, no suffering from old age or sickness. Because we enjoy all aspects of life as the unfold, we do not care for any excessive joy. So we have imperturbable composure, and it is with this imperturbable composure of the mind that we practice Sazen. Someone is raising a hand from the floor. What is excessive joy? I think, I think that's, I was actually thinking about that. I think excessive joy has a clinging aspect of it. You know, I really, this is so great, I want it, as opposed to just satisfaction or some experience of pleasure or ease.

[15:05]

But excessive joy, something to the joy. Try to hold on to it. Try to hold on to it, yeah, or, you know, and then it becomes dualistic. Any other questions around that? Back to Hongshir, whose poem we read, Suzuki Roshi's discussion of mine points to Hongshir's description of Zaza, Shikantaza, just sitting, just sitting. He uses the term, Puncture uses the term for Zazen as silent illumination, which involves withdrawal from the exclusive focus on particular or mental object to allow intense apprehension of all phenomena as a unified, totally radical, refined nondualism.

[16:21]

that does not grasp at any of the highly subtle distinctions to which are prone and which estranges us from our experience. This objectless meditation has no specific goals. The purpose of this spiritual practice of universally awakened heart and mind cannot be set apart from our being in our immediate moment to moment awareness practice. Hangsher emphasizes that the entire practice rests on faith, verified by experience. The practitioner's exertion and dedication are devoted to manifesting this truth. So he points to Zazen as an act of faith. All the effort that we make is an act of faith. So what is that, what is that faith?

[17:28]

Do you have any? What is it that, what is it that, why do we keep up? Why do we do it, right? Why do we come back? Morning after morning, or day after day, or why do we sit long sashis? So he makes this that this practice of silent illumination. And he says, verified by experience. I remember having a conversation with Sojan about verify because it's kind of, well, why do we believe it? And why is it that we think that this is some beneficial thing? Why would we spend all our time in this? And I think that experience to me is kind of critical.

[18:31]

In other words, when one can sit in silent illumination, and when one can experience the dropping away of body and mind, and when one notices a more spacious consciousness, that verifies that that this is something that we might want to keep doing. For some of us, it's really hard to do this because it's painful or uncomfortable. Jeremiah has a question. Well, I was just going to offer an answer to a question, and I thought the question was, what does it mean to have faith? Yes. Yeah, and I think it means that you have the effects of the discipline of sitting, right?

[19:35]

And I think that's what it means by verify by your own experience. What you have faith in is your experience of doing it because it works for you. Yeah, and it doesn't... You have it. You actually... feel the expansion of your mind you actually feel the peace and the settling if you if you can keep at it and generally often we have faith in a teacher sometimes we have faith in a teacher and that that teacher you know invites us to sit invites us so then that gets us here that may get the words what and the word faith in general is is a difficult word because way is commonly used is you have faith in things that you don't need to verify by experience. I mean, that's what faith usually means. You usually have faith in things. Blind faith. Right. Exactly. Yeah. This is informed faith. That's what he's suggesting.

[20:38]

And Sojin, and I remember talking to Sojin about some other things like that, like how do you trust your intuition? Do you trust You know, how do you trust that? How do you know, how do you know that this perception is actually something valid or something useful? By experience, you see what happens. So you sit there, you try to think about the, take the instructions from Suzuki Roshi or or I'm sure you sit you drop away body and mind and then that's it and that is turns that's some that's something that's beneficial over time and and you see the effects of the benefits of the benefits of your practice yeah

[21:46]

experience of how this connects to face-to-face, whether that's or practice discussion. I remember someone telling me that people would come and they would say, oh, yeah, I'm sitting Shikantaza. I'm just sitting. And this person would ask them, What's happening? And they say, oh, you know, I have these thoughts and I'm thinking this. And then like, you know, and so basically the upshot of this was actually, you know, think the thought of zazen, following your breath, come back to posture, because what you're really doing is you're just, you're just flitting about going down. Those different thought patterns and that's actually not our practice.

[22:54]

So the face-to-face encounters were really important for people to actually express the seemingly ineffable of what is us. So I was just wondering, what's been your experience of the importance of that in terms of, so to speak, trust and verify? What I'm understanding you're saying is using an encounter with a teacher or another practitioner as a way to validate some of that experience. I can think, I'm really, hey man, I'm doing the practice, I've got this really great posture, but actually, I'm not aware that I'm continually getting caught because I'm just sitting here in the stew of my idea of what I think.

[24:00]

Well, I think that's why we have discussions with people, and that's why we have a lot of . So you're saying it's not just the face-to-face thing with the teacher or on a practice discussion, but it's also this process right now of the dialogue of, you know, it's like the elephant in the room. What is it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I was thinking of with faith is that you can have like a Ken show or a big experience, and then you go back to your cushion and you don't have it anymore. And you don't, you know, you're kind of back in the mundane and ordinary. And that's where I think faith can come in as well to just stay with the practice to the end.

[25:05]

And ultimately, we have, we don't have, we're not talking about something that happens and we're, having some permanent state of peace and tranquility. Obviously, it's constantly changing. So, but we also, I think, as we start to be with the experience, it starts to have effects in our life. It's not something that's just something we experience in Zazan. We find more ease Jim, you didn't ask a question yet, right? Oh, as you said that, I thought perhaps maybe that is what the faith is, because we can't predict what that learning is, what that insight is, right?

[26:07]

So we're asked around all we want, but we don't know what the insight is going to be. And if we do have a moment of insight, it's a gift, and then we have faith when we come back to practice that, like you won't see another gift. Right. Yeah. I mean, we're, it's, it's, it's great when it happens and moments, little Kensho moments or something where we feel we have some awakening or some, some peaceful abiding. Um, but the minute we grab onto it and start telling anybody about it, it's gone. So, but what we, what we have that experience. We start. Okay. we start getting some feeling of the practice, we get our feet wet into the practice, we understand that if we keep coming back, or so would you say, if you keep coming back, you're at risk of enlightenment. You can put yourself in the state where there's a more of a likelihood that you can experience the silent illumination of big mind.

[27:20]

Dogen's in his third fascicle in The Treasury of the Dharma Eye, which is called Zazenshin, or actualizing the fundamental point, says, in which a fish swims is not the water in the external world. The water has no boundary, no bank or shore. A fish is swimming, but we cannot measure how far it is moving. Because there is no bank from which we survey, because there was no bank from which we... The sky in which the bird is flying is not the space suspended in the firmament. The sky is never concealed or revealed, and it is never outside or inside. When the bird is flying through the sky, it is flying the entire universe. When the bird is flying, the entire sky is also... In Zazen, even though we are simply sitting immovably, right here, right now, We're flying or swimming together with the entire universe.

[28:38]

In this flying and swimming, there's no goal, no purpose, no task. Therefore the crane's mind is at ease. The fish swim slow manner. So this is very poetic. And I think I like, Dogen is very poetic and so is Honshuor because Poetry is a way for us to get away from the didactic, academic, from the very much conceptual framework of thinking. So when we say these things, it's very poetic, but it also pushes us beyond the usual way that we tend to receive information. We're able to fly with a bird and swim with a fish. And kind of these imagery actually takes us to another place. Lisa does me. I'm not sure about other people.

[29:40]

But that feeling of swimming in the water or flying in the air, that feeling is this feeling of big mind where everything is flowing and interacting in the dynamic working of the universe. It's all in motion. And it doesn't stop. And it's not something that we can grab a hold of. So he's really saying we just need to allow everything to be just the way it is. Thoughts come, thoughts go. You simply watch them. Awareness on them. It takes a lot of energy. and persistence to sit shikantaza, to not get caught up in daydreaming. But little by little, thoughts begin to slow down.

[30:41]

And finally, they cease to arise. And the thought disappears. This is the samadhi of falling away of body and mind. The first indication, well, I think I'll read it there. And there really is this sensation, it's a physical sensation of dropping body and mind in Zazen. And Dogen says, when you sit for a while without moving the body, it stops receiving information about its edges through the senses, such as the friction of your clothing or an itch on your leg. You know the body is there, you don't feel it. Some people get frightened at this point and involuntary body twitches or things may occur, but then slowly move to the place again and gradually turn and gradually learn to experience and go a little bit further each time.

[31:52]

So it's, again, it's experiencing, having an experience going back repeating the experience, and each time you have a little bit more confidence in practice. So, I wanted to go to, do we want to get up? Yeah. Thank you. So is there anything else about mind waves?

[33:56]

We're gonna go on to mind weeds. Could you say again, Carrie, what the source was for those about the body not becoming conscious of its edges? Yeah. Well, there are two. that one was body oh yeah um well there were two um actually in the fundamental point and this was um the other one body and what did i do miss miss my page No, Zazen Chin was part of it, but then there was another one. Zazen Chin was the passage about the .

[35:00]

Yeah. Yes. Zazen Chin were actually actualizing the fundamental point, yeah. Okay. So, mind weeds. They don't sound as good as mind waves. You should rather, Suzuki Roshi says, you should rather be grateful for the weeds you have in your mind because eventually they'll enrich your practice. When the alarm rings early in the morning and when you get up, I think you do not feel so good. It is not easy to sit. And even after you arrive in the zendo and begin zazen, you have to encourage yourself to sit well. These are just the waves of your mind. In pure zazen, there should not be any waves in your mind.

[36:02]

When you are sitting, these waves will become smaller and smaller, and your effort will change your feeling. We say, pulling out the weeds, we give nourishment to the plant. We pull the weeds and bury them near the plant to give it nourishment. So even though you have some difficulty in your practice, even though you have some waves while you're sitting, those waves them. So you should not be bothered by your mind. You should rather be grateful for the weeds because eventually they will enrich your mind, change into mental nourishment. your practice will make remarkable you will feel the progress you will feel how they change into self-nourishment of course it is not so difficult to give some philosophical or psychological interpretation of our practice but that's not enough we must have the actual experience needs change into nourishment

[37:13]

So I was again, I was reminded when he talked about weeds and the fact that the weeds can change into nourishment of Suzuki Roshi's chapter called Just Enough Problems. In that chapter, he says, you may have started this Sashin because you had many problems. You thought that if you sat here for seven days, your problems would disappear and be solved, postponing the inevitable reappearance of these problems, rather than learning to be peacefully with them. Buddha will not give you more problems than you can solve or more problems than you need. If you have nothing to cope with, your life feels empty. So I think you should trust Buddha. Later, he says, when you trust in booty, you sit with your problems. At the same time, you should be ready to refuse a problem if it's too much.

[38:18]

If you practice with being with weeds or problems, I put weeds, I added weeds. Weeds are problems. You will find that these are valuable treasures. Dispensable for you. Later, he says, if you're patient enough, if you're strong enough to accept your problems, then you can sit calmly and and peacefully trusting Buddha and trusting your own being. So he's saying these thoughts, even the thoughts as unpleasant, that we should not have an aversion to them. We're not cutting them off. We're not real curious about them. They have something to teach us. So when I have something, when I find a thought or a reactivity from outside, that's either pulling me towards greed or hate or anger or whatever, unwholesome action or thought, I'm curious about it.

[39:31]

I'm curious about it. I want it to be something that I know, I want to know about this. I don't want to shun it. So the challenge is then, how do I work with these unwholesome feelings or these what seem like poisonous feelings? How do I use them to feed my practice? rather than to show them, which is a little bit different from, and it adds to this thing about just being with it. He's suggesting that we are being with it, but there are these phenomenon that we will experience that are not something that we want to hold onto. We don't want to give them away either because they might be valuable if we actually understand that.

[40:34]

So Hong Shur, interestingly, speaks to this. He says, if you think that you have cut off an illusory mind, instead of simply clarifying how illusionary mind acts, behaves, illusionary mind will come up again, as though you had cut the stem of a blade of grass or a weed and left the root alive. So I think it's interesting to think about these roots that we know buried under the ground and you pull it up superficially. If you don't get to the quote unquote root of it and understand the root of it, then it's likely to come up again and again. So by finding a way in Zazen and to watch the weeds, to actually experience the weeds, then they can hit us again.

[41:43]

We need to learn the conditioning that brought us the weeds. Where did this come from? Ask that question in a conceptual way, but we watch. We watch if we're not fighting against it, if we just are being with it in our calm, grounded place. Being in that way, we can get to know it. learn something and get wisdom from knowing how to be with it and um not and not have that reactivity which which forces us into unwholesome patterns suzuki roshi says strictly speaking any effort we make is not good for it creates waves in our mind it is impossible however to attain absolute calmness of our mind without any effort We must make some effort, but we must forget ourselves in the effort we make.

[42:47]

In this realm, there is no subjectivity or objectivity. Our mind is just calm without any awareness. In this unawareness, every effort, every idea and thought will vanish. So it is necessary for us to encourage ourselves to make an effort up to the last moment. When all effort disappears, you should keep your mind on your breathing until you're not there. We should try to continue our effort forever, but we should not expect to reach some stage that we will forget about, when we forget all about it. We should just try to keep our mind on our breath. That is our actual practice. That effort will be refined more and more when you're sitting. At first, we make it's quite rough and impure. But by the power of practice, the effort will become pure. When your effort becomes pure, your mind becomes pure.

[43:51]

This is the way we practice Vasa. So what about the mind weeds? What is that? Does that sound familiar? I see Susan, Sue. No, thank you. Thank you, Jerry. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay, great. I really appreciate this reading on my weeds. It's something that I saw as a gift, actually. I don't know how to have calm mind if I don't have calm mind, but I can. It's a Dharma gate to pay attention to the weeds. Gently, perhaps.

[44:51]

But, you know, when you said we need to dig down to the root, the source of those weeds, you know, I'm a little concerned that that that could really take over the whole zaza, but maybe that's what's needed. Actually, I didn't say dig down. I think I said, you know, you have to remove the roots, meaning that it's not digging, it's realization. In other words, you're watching the condition, which, for example, I don't know, could be somebody says something, or you hear a noise, or you're hot, or whatever it is, whatever is happening when you're trying. This is during sitting. So you feel a reactivity, and that reactivity is attached to something.

[46:03]

It didn't just what Suzuki Roshi said in the first part of talking about mind waves is the response that we have is our mind responding. So something there is a phenomenon that we're experiencing a Dharma. But then our mind creates that our mind makes it ours that's what we see we don't really see we don't really aren't able to really see things clearly our mind takes it in and and has a conditioned response has some response based on something like he said if you don't like the breakfast it's not this breakfast it's a breakfast from a long time ago you know i don't like

[47:04]

If I don't like something, I have a bad response to it. When I understand that origin, when I am with it, so that I've noticed that this particular response comes up in certain kinds of situations over and over again. These upsetting feelings, these mind weeds come up. When I just let them come up and sit and be and look and see coming and going and have it in a bigger field, I get a sense of where this, where the origin is. So I can transform my consciousness and my thinking with this without, by eliminating that old habit energy, that old conditioning. So I can see it anew. I can see the phenomenon anew without the same old response that I always had to it.

[48:08]

Yeah. What you just said reminded, reminds me of the way Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of mindfulness as a sponsor. So, which reminds me of, you know, alcoholics, anonymous, Al-Anon, all that, where you have a sponsor, And the sponsor witnesses you, but also is holding the space supportively, perhaps challenging you to take a look from another angle, to be accountable. And at the same time, there's a gentleness. So that mindfulness serves that purpose in being with whatever it is, the difficult thought, emotion, the activity. So my question is, and then how does that connect, so to speak, mindful of the weeds to something that can seem rather mysterious unfolds, where subject and object interpenetrate, and there's just being, or inter... talks about.

[49:30]

How do you actually practice with that? You know, so there I am. Despair is arising. I feel this implosion in my chest. Mindfulness comes in. Heavy, heavy, hunched, posture, straighten. You know, all this kind of dance is happening. And then something mysterious happens. And none of that is really there. There's just breathing, right? Mm-hmm. But that's the process. I mean, that's what, it is mysterious. So we can't, you know, try to talk about, when we talk about things dropping away, there's no formula, right? There's no, there's no do this and that will happen. There's just experience.

[50:35]

And it doesn't, and it happens when we can hold things in a broader field. So we hold the feelings, we hold the hurt, we hold it all. And at some point, that wide field allows us to allows something to happen where relaxation can happen. And those feelings, those feelings that are feelings and thoughts that we call unwholesome or weird thoughts, just dissolve in the big mind, in the field of big mind or in the big ocean. They're just there. Recognize that they're just there. Yeah.

[51:38]

I'm curious about what other people's experience is in letting go of thoughts. My experience is I get tired of them. That really works. I'm just tired of them. But I'm wondering what other people experience. What did he say in the beginning? He said... How do you, how do they, how do you let, how do you, how do, he was suggesting opening it up to people, to people here. They experience these recurring thoughts. And letting go. And letting go. What is that, what is that like? Yeah. Appreciating them? Gary has his hand up.

[52:39]

Gimbo said appreciating them. Gary? I was going to say that sometimes I can't let go of thoughts. So I redirect myself to the outside world. of objects and look and and bring myself into the present by naming and gradually things change so it's a kind of a going into the present trying to so being awareness of being being aware of everything in the moment yeah not not not even everything anything but expanding your awareness to something beyond that thought exactly yes so you can do that in lots of different ways yes right um it's like it's like the body scan and we have a body scan is the technique for relieving pain right and if you begin to expand your body awareness

[53:59]

to beyond that particular point of pain, and to a very careful awareness of, detailed awareness of your whole, then that pain has less charge, and you don't feel it as much. The pain actually can fade in your consciousness, but your mind is the one who's, your mind is, the pain is still the pain, but your mind is holding the pain differently. So it has a larger field. I mean, for me personally, sometimes I notice that with any kind of physical discomfort during Sazen. You can, when you're holding and you're worried about your knee and you're starting to think, is there something wrong with my knee? You know, should I not do that? Maybe I should move. Oh, I don't think I should move. That kind of thing. If you go through that,

[55:00]

versus you go back to your breathing, you go back to your posture. And in doing that, there's a relaxation that happens. You can really feel the pain ease. And sometimes it completely disappears, your awareness of the pain. There may be some stretched muscles happening, but the effect on your consciousness and what your mind is doing with them is not there. this charge because you've expanded your awareness to your whole body and you do that with your mind in terms of expanding to the whole room you know we did we've done that here a number of times we started we would um we would start sitting be aware of our body be aware of the people next to us and then being aware of the whole room and You can actually do that kind of in a stepwise fashion sometimes, and that actually helps you in getting a bigger field.

[56:05]

Yeah. Ron or Jake? Ron, do you want to say something else? Yeah, we can also hurt ourselves by staying too long in one position. That's true. I've done that. I've made up my mind during a class to sit for the whole class. in full lotus. And my knee was sore for weeks after that. Sojin used to talk about that. And he used to say, you do have to use some discernment. In other words, there's pain and there's pain. So it doesn't mean letting any pain be. But my experience, when I allow myself to have a broader field, the pain that's not serious, that muscle ache, becomes less. If you have some pain where you're actually stretching, you know, you're twisting yourself or doing harm to yourself, that isn't worth sitting through. Yeah, I agree with you. Jake? I'm going to say that in my earlier years of Zazen, I had this notion that there were okay thoughts to come and let them go, and there were certain thoughts that were

[57:24]

forbidden, you know, go away. Probably from my Catholic upbringing, some of that, the impure thoughts kind of thing. But anyway, what really helped me was at some point, and it was gradual, everything became welcomed, so to speak. And there was no... oh, this is good, this is bad, it's just, okay, all going to come, thoughts, and when you come, fine, but I'm not going to serve you tea, you know. Right. Like clouds. And it's really huge because, you know, I would not get stuck on things so much because of that. Okay. You can come, but I'm not going to pay too much attention to you. Ron, would you say something else?

[58:30]

Yeah, I'm curious. Jake, what led you to feel that way? Well, actually, it was when I was Shuso. I was wrestling with this whole thing about Zazen. And I don't know if it was my con or what, but it was in that period that it got me to relax with the weeds. Well, in a way you're saying that just what she says about problems, if you recognize that the weeds are actually enriching your practice, could be actually enriching your practice by giving you more food to practice with, then they're feeding your practice. You're not taking away from your practice. You're acting from your practice.

[59:31]

If you hold them, if you can hold them. Right. It wasn't an adversarial thing. Yes. You're not fighting it. You're not trying to get rid of it. Everything's included. Yeah. Well, you're not doing not thinking. You're doing non-thinking. That's what you're describing as non-thinking. Being able to have A phenomena, an experience, an awareness, a picture, whatever it is, is coming. It's just there. That's the non-thinking. So I wanted to just briefly address the idea of what he's what Suzuki Roshi talking about the effort.

[60:34]

Jerry. Yeah. One other thing I wanted to mention is the idea of the thought, that the thought lets go of you at some point. And that's a way of, it's an action-oriented, you know, when you try and apply action to mental stuff, it's not the same as like, you know, grab the salt shake. You can't just grab the thought or you can't just push it away. I mean, it's kind of, well, you can, but then that's kind of effortful. And the idea that a thought, maybe let's go, the thought lets go of you is less effortful. I'm not sure about thoughts letting go of you.

[61:38]

I think it's all in your mind. It's all in your mind. Right, right. So there's nothing, I mean, Suzuki is in both of these sections that everything is mind. Everything is the mental creation. What we're perceiving is our mental creation, not what's out there. So really it is, and if we have these unwholesome or unpleasant or weeds come up, we can let go of them. But maybe it's a mutual. It's a feeling of a mutual. In other words, it feels like things are fading when the energy, when we let go of that emotion and energy, it feels like when they fade, it feels like they're letting go, but actually it's us who are letting go.

[62:42]

Yeah, I'm not saying that's exactly what happens. I'm more or less saying your attitude towards thinking. Yeah, it's an attitude that changes. It's attitudes toward it, not the thing. The thing is there. We're in the driver's seat, so to speak. So I wanted to just address just for a minute, because one of the You know, as we talked about faith and we talked about Suzuki Roshi talking about how we have to make an effort. That we have to practice. That we have to make an effort to, when we sit, to hold things or to create a large field so that we can be more peaceful.

[63:44]

But then he says, and that seems like, letting go and it's expanding mind but somehow then he's talking about effort making an effort so what is that effort and uh suzuki roshi talks about um you know talks about it either we should the effort more and more while you're sitting at first the effort you make is quite rough and impure but by the power of practice the effort will become purer What does that mean, the effort will become pure? It goes towards accepting what is, rather than having an idea of this is what I'm going to get. So non-gaining idea, right? So when we talk about purity in Zen, it's free from the three poisons.

[64:48]

so when he says um that the effort is pure we don't have any greed related to it right we don't have any gaining idea um we're just making an effort for effort's sake out of faith in our practice we're not trying we're not trying to make it go away we're just trying to practice and and breathe and sit and be aware Yes, in a way. Yeah. Yeah. He says, and he said, when your effort becomes pure, your body and mind become pure. This is the way we practice then. Once you understand our innate power to purify, surroundings.

[65:50]

You can act properly and you will learn from those around you and you will become friendly with others. This is the merit of Zen practice. But the ways of Zen practice is just to be concentrated on your breathing with right posture and with great pure effort. And I think in the I'm not going to talk about this for any great length, but what he says in the chapter on right effort, which reinforces this. You may become proud of it. What you do is good, but something more is added to it. Pride is extra. Right effort is to get rid of something extra. The most important point in our practice is to have Right or perfect effort. Right effort directed in the right direction is necessary. Your effort is in the right direction. If your effort is headed in the wrong direction, especially if you're not aware of this, it is diluted effort.

[66:57]

Our effort in our practice should be directed from achievement to non-achievement. That's interesting. The effort to not achieve. Which is what we're doing, right? and I think but this if you have some idea of how you want your Zazen to be if you have some idea of this is good Zazen or this is not good Zazen then then you're you're constantly judging yourself so effort has to be, I'm just doing it with no, with no thought of getting anywhere. It might happen. Accidents happen.

[67:58]

And, and as I said, Soji said, enlightenment is an accident. The moments of peace, because you try hard, they come because you let go. So you're making an effort to be letting go. The effort is kind of counterintuitive, right? You're not making an effort. You're just making an effort just to continuously go back. Just holding and being with the waves is all you do. And that's all. And when you do that, that's practice and enlightenment are experienced together. Heather's got a question. You lose it. You lose it. You're going to have your last question, Gary. No, Heather has a question. Okay. Go ahead, Heather.

[69:01]

We don't have Heather. And we are actually out of time, so. We may not be able to hear from him. I think we do need to stop now. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. to end them dark Delusions are inexhaustible

[70:23]

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