So, we are together, second day, session, we're together alone, second day. And, how is it for you? How is your breath? Is it tight, shallow, deep, fast, slow? How is it for you now? I just, um, spoke to my dad on the phone, just before coming here, and he said, he was

[01:25]

breathing heavily, he walked from maybe that side of the room to this, and that's a big deal for him, and so, he said to me, don't rush. Sashin is a time when we can take the time to not rush. We can actually sit in the present moment with ourselves, it's a gift, really. We don't have to bother about work, relationships, what people think of us, what we think of other people. We can just sit with ourselves and watch. Just like Paul yesterday said in that wonderful way, we can let the loveliness of who we

[02:35]

really are bloom. This acceptance of who we are doesn't mean we necessarily have to like it, it only means that it's there. So we just acknowledge what's there with a kind of a, as best we can, a kind of an open heart. And no one is telling us how it should be, or what would make it better, except for some of us, these thoughts inside, well, I'm not sitting well enough, I need to sit better,

[03:47]

I need to be more settled, I don't like it here, I want something else, this is really good, this is terrific, I'm doing really great. The only thing that keeps us from being present, and you know, strangely enough, we're never not present, so what is the big deal? We're always here, how can we be anywhere else? Trungpa said the most, I don't know if he said important thing, but the first thing maybe, and in fact the forever thing, it just gets deeper and deeper, is that meditation

[04:51]

is about making friends with ourself. So, if you're sitting, second day of sasheen, and you haven't yet done that, that's okay, it takes a lifetime. The teaching is about being present, truly, because our life goes on in the present moment, our little flower blooms in the present moment, and all of us in this room, I think, otherwise you wouldn't be here, want to be there for that blooming. So I thought I would remind you a little bit of the hindrances to simply allowing that

[06:02]

little flower to open here, for yourself, right now. The hindrances are five traditional states of mind, really. The first one is greed, I'm smiling because we're so familiar with these states of mind. The first one is greed, or desire, the second one, guess, you know, subversion, the third one is sloth, or torpor, or kind of a depressed state of mind. The fourth one is restlessness, or an excited state of mind.

[07:04]

And the last one is doubt, insidious doubt. And we all have these, beginner, intermediate, advanced, I don't know about very advanced. These five states of mind are active when we don't want to be present, when we don't And, you know, the sad thing about it, I mean, I don't know if it's so sad, but, the thing

[08:07]

about Sashin that's one of the things that's so wonderful is, like when I say a sad state of mind, you can't really grab onto it, sort of, during Sashin, so sad, okay. Some of us can grab onto it, but anyway, they keep us from being present. As much as we want to be present, these states of mind that are us, that we rekindle, that we believe in, prevent us from being present. And we have these states over and over again, and when we have repeated states of mind, usually it means that there's a feeling underneath there that we don't want to feel. So, these states of mind are kind of a clue for us.

[09:11]

Desire is an interesting one, because we think that desire is about an object outside of us, but it really is not. Desire is about attachment, how strong attachment is in the mind, that's how much we desire, whether it's a cookie or a person. You know, usually we think for a person we'd have a lot more desire, but not necessarily so. So sometimes for a cookie we have that much desire for a cookie. And the most, I think, the most interesting thing about desire is that it comes from a place of lack. And what really we can't stand is not having enlightenment, is that we can't stand not

[10:17]

being enlightened. It's not so much that we want anything, it's that we don't want to feel unsatisfactory. We don't want to feel not enough. We don't want to feel a lack, an emptiness. So you might, while you're sitting, notice if you're having a state of mind that's grasping. And if you're not a greed type, if your tendency isn't greed, you might check out aversion. Aversion comes in all styles.

[11:19]

It could be fear, that's a big one. It could be judgment. It could be just resistance to what's happening right now. Aversion. Another form of aversion is, of course, denial. And sometimes denial for meditators comes in the form of too much concentration. So be careful. It can also come in the form of bliss. Both aversion and greed are feelings that hurt.

[12:40]

If you notice in your body, physically, they hurt. They're emotions that hurt. Another one is sloth. You know, I face out in this endo. So sometimes, before I even settle myself, people are already going like... It's sweet. It's especially sweet when two people are sitting together, and one's leaning this way asleep, and the other one's leaning that way asleep. Sometimes we're tired, you know, let's admit it. If you're tired, go to sleep, it's okay. But if you're not tired, and every time you sit down on the cushion, and right away, you're gone, you might wonder about that. And the opposite of that, of course, is restlessness, restless mind.

[13:43]

Restlessness also comes in the shape of excitement. Sometimes too much enthusiasm is really just running right over the present moment, missing it completely. I used to do that a lot. Too much energy. I was at Tassajara one time, and I was very enthusiastic about making a lasagna dish. And one of the guests came, and sometimes they like working in the kitchen, and this one who happened to come was Italian, and I got really excited, because I thought, you know, she would... of course she would want to bake lasagna. It never occurred to me that she wouldn't. So in my enthusiasm, I said, you know, so we're going to bake this lasagna and stuff

[14:54]

like that, and, you know, would you help cook it? And she looked me straight in the eye, and she said, nope. Anyway, the last one, and the one that's very difficult for some people, is doubt. And I don't mean the doubt that keeps you curious about trying to understand the truth. No, that's wonderful. I mean the doubt that's insidious doubt, that undermines your practice, that makes you think things like, well, I can't do this, that kind of doubt, self-doubt, that kind of doubt. That's very... That's all... You know, all of these are kind of painful, except, I guess, sloth, because, you know, therefore... But then I suppose, you know, when you wake up, then you think, God, I wasted a half hour.

[15:55]

Anyway. You know, my words are just only to encourage. Mostly, we're just sitting together. That's the most important thing. Just spend time on the cushion with yourself, trying to be present. And it's funny, you know, in many ways we're afraid to be present, and one of the ways we're afraid is because when we're really present, we have no control. A lot of people are really afraid not to be in control. And the reason is because they don't want to feel certain things that they think will come up if the ground opens up a little bit. So we're always, you know, re-cementing and re-plastering ourself and our world.

[17:01]

You know, we keep recreating ourself over and over again, and we recreate the world over and over again in the most solid way, because it's falling apart all the time. It's changing, always. No matter what experience we're having, the thing that's most consistent is our awareness of it. That's what we really are. We're not some experience. We don't need to have some special experience in zazen. No. We just need to be aware. We need to be awake. Just be awake. If we're awake, we see constant flow, change.

[18:15]

So I brought a poem. Three poems, short ones. Life is like a dewdrop, empty and fleeting. My years are gone, and now, quivering and frail, I must fade away. Here's another one. The cherry blossoms have passed away, their color lost, while to no avail age takes my beauty as it falls in the long rain of my regret. That's very Japanese. That's a Japanese poem. It could be instead of beauty, it could be your physicality, you know, or whatever. This is Dogen. This one. Dewdrops on a blade of grass, having so little time before the sun rises, let not the autumn

[19:29]

wind blow so quickly on the field. I'll read that one again. Dewdrops on a blade of grass, having so little time before the sun rises, let not the autumn wind blow so quickly on the field. I think in the Fukunza Senge this morning, there's a part where it says, like a lightning bolt, fleeting something.

[20:30]

Anyway, so, our mental states change all the time, and sometimes they're difficult. So the way to work with them is first, of course, just to acknowledge that they're there, especially if they're the hindrances, because the hindrances are stopping us from being present. And they're not just hindrances at a superficial level, although that's where they come first. And we need to get through these in order to really settle. So, we have to acknowledge that they're happening. And for some people, they happen with big emotions, big greed, big aversion, big restlessness, big sloth, tremendous doubt. But they also happen as we begin to deepen. At other levels, they come back again, only more subtle.

[21:35]

So, we need to acknowledge them, notice them. And once acknowledged any difficult emotion, feel it in the body, go back to the body, go back to the breath. And then if you can, don't hold on, and it will change as everything does. The pain comes when we identify with any of it. So, what we're trying to do is simply acknowledge what's happening and settle right there. And it takes some amount of effort. You have to make effort.

[22:39]

A patient effort. When we settle into this breath, this breath that is the mind, we can begin to trust ourselves. And in trusting ourselves, we can begin to trust our situation, the world. We trust it not as we want it to be, but as it actually is. That's what we end up trusting. These emotions that some of us maybe are having now that are difficult, it is the path.

[23:58]

The path is brought to us by these individuated difficult emotions. Each one of us a different path. Same basic idea, but a different path because each of us are completely different people. But the difficulty is the path. Why? Because the difficulty is the self. And that's what we're studying. We're studying, who am I? What is this that's going on? What is this self that I identify with? Where is it? How does it come up? What does it do to me? Well, what it does is it gives us trouble. So where else are we going to find it? And I think true happiness...

[25:10]

I don't think that, I know this. True happiness comes from when the self is let go of. That's when it happens. So, this is the second day. And at some point, yesterday, today, tomorrow, or the next day, we will, most of us, give up. It's just too much effort to keep struggling. It's going to be too difficult. So finally we'll give up. We'll see through the hindrances or won't even care about them anymore. And finally, in letting that stuff go, we'll be able to settle into the present moment. And it's there, of course, that who we truly are will get a chance to bloom.

[26:19]

It's not that this difficulty is not who we truly are either. It is, of course. But our deeper self is a silence, a thorough silence, and a stillness that is a kind of a magic that is embodied in all of the difficulty that we have. So, for example, we can be completely afraid and completely still in the middle of that fear, completely grasping and still in the middle of that grasping, complete doubt, fear, joy, but just not attached to it, not identified with it. And to see that, the way we get there, is to see impermanence.

[27:24]

That's one of the ways. So, when there's hindrance, notice it. Let it go. Go back to the breath. Go back to the body. Let yourself settle in groundlessness. Let yourself settle in the constant flow that is who we are. All right. What we do is not a mystery.

[28:27]

It's work. It's practice. And sitting meditation during Seshin is in fact the easiest way to develop a strong mind. A mind that is open to groundlessness, to emptiness. Because it is here that we really can't exactly blame anybody else. It's here that who we are comes up right in front of us. We can't... well, we can deny it, but we can't deny it. It's right there in front of us. There are no distractions but our own.

[29:31]

And the forms help. These forms that we do are reminders to be present. That's all. They're just reminders to be present. So, it doesn't really matter what the particular experience is. It really doesn't. It just matters that we are awake to it. So... In this way, we sit by ourselves with our own particular path

[30:39]

in the midst of this lovely... this loveliness, this flower that we are. Including whatever emotions come up. All we need to do is be awake. So again, just acknowledge feel the difficult feelings in the body with the breath. Don't hold on, don't identify. Surrender over and over again to the present moment. And if you can't do that,

[31:50]

take care of that person. That person deserves your greatest warmth until they feel safe. Again. And when they do, go back to the practice of emptiness. May our intention...

[32:27]

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