I vow to taste the truth of the Chittagita's words. Good morning. Today is the vernal equinox, the spring equinox. And this is the time of year, or the day of the year really, when there's equal light and equal darkness. It's in balance, the dark and the light. And then we turn towards the light,

[01:03]

with the days becoming longer and longer. So this is considered the first day of spring, I think. And in mythology this is the day that Persephone came back from the underworld and was reunited with her mother. She had, depending on which story, there's the earliest strata of this myth where she, on her own, tells her mother she has to go to the underworld. She wants to see for herself and help beings, actually. And her mother can't stop her. That's the earliest version of the story. And then the one we're most familiar with is that she was taken to the underworld by Hades, the god of the underworld.

[02:04]

And her mother, in either case, her mother is in despair, demeter, and she doesn't know where her daughter is and she tears her hair and stops doing all her regular activities. She's in such deep mourning and nothing grows. The land becomes barren and the grasses and fruits and trees and everything shrivels up for want of her care. And the whole earth goes into mourning with her. And she's frantic. Anyway, as you know, there's an intervention and Persephone is able to come back.

[03:09]

But because she ate of the pomegranate, which is food of the underworld, she has to go back six months out of the year. So she spends half the year with her husband, Hades, and half the year on earth, where she and her mother are reunited and the earth blooms. And today's the day that she comes back. So everything's in balance. And tonight, for evening service, I don't know if Rin mentioned this already, but we'll be having our traditional equinox service. And we make an altar out on the deck and we chant, we do bows and chant, and then there's a chance to offer words of the season, either your own feeling about spring or equinox,

[04:14]

or a poem, something you'd like to say. Not everybody says something that would take us far into the night probably, but if you feel so moved, please do say something during that time of the ceremony. And it will be for evening service, which is the evening out of the day. And traditionally we have had the equinox ceremony in the evening. So I was recently talking with someone who gives Dharma talks, and she had been talking with another person who gives Dharma talks, and the person I was speaking with prepares for weeks and weeks. She knows the date she'll be speaking, and she really researches and thinks about it, writes it down. And she asked this other person about

[05:15]

when they started preparing for their Dharma talks, and they said, oh, when I begin to fold my robes, when I sit down. And I thought, wow! But it feels a little bit like that today for me too. I wanted to talk about balance, balance in our sitting posture, and balance in our Zazen practice. We've been studying, a number of us have been studying the Fukanzazengi, the universal admonitions for Zazen, or general instructions for the promotion of Zazen, Dogen Zenji's universal meditation text. And in the middle section, there's some very detailed instructions, which are traditional for the sitting posture.

[06:16]

And since we'll be spending the day sitting, I thought I would look at those with you, and then during the day, if you want to, you can review or reflect on your sitting posture and see if you're in balance. So the word balance means by lengths, or two, or double scales. It comes from scales. And to be in balance, it's equilibrium where opposing forces are equalizing each other. But to be in balance, if you picture someone on a balance beam, they're constantly going in and out of balance

[07:19]

as they do these slight corrections. Of course, if they're in the Olympics or something, you don't see that particularly, because they're, sometimes you do, but they're so adept at it, so you don't see what it takes to stay in balance. But if you see someone who's just starting out or walking on a curb as a kid, you know how that is. So you're constantly going in and out of balance and opposing, slightly opposing on one side or another, which is another way of talking about negotiating the way, where there's the way or the balance beam, and we're always falling off a little bit here and a little bit there, sometimes more than others. And in our posture, it's like that as well. There's a balance point, but to find that balance point, I'd like to recommend,

[08:20]

and it's recommended in the Fukanza Zengi, to rock your body right and left and settle into a steady and mobile sitting posture. And this rocking your body, in an earlier meditation text by Juri, he says to shake your body, but I think that's the translation of, maybe someone's translation of rocking your body. It says shake your body seven or eight times, and I just don't think it means doing this. So this kind of rocking your body right and left, and I'd like to recommend, and I do it myself, every time I sit Zazen, part of taking my place is rocking my body right and left in an arc that gets smaller and [...] smaller until it's not even noticeable, the rocking. It could be down to a slight pressure on one sitting bone,

[09:21]

slight pressure on the other sitting bone, left, right, left, right, left, right, center. So if we kind of whip into our posture too quickly, we may actually notice about halfway through the period that we're kind of not in balance, and you can feel that in different places in your body, your shoulders, a part of your back, your hip. So when you do this rocking to actually bring your attention to your body and really feel, what's very helpful for me is to really feel your sitting bones as if they were two little feet standing on your cushion. If you can imagine your body with your feet where you're sitting bones, little feet, and as you rock you can feel, just like if you were standing on your two feet, you can feel pressure a little bit on one,

[10:23]

a little bit on the other until you're even, and you might notice I'm really not on the cushion quite even. So then you can take time right in the beginning to resettle yourself, move a little bit here, a little bit there, because it's tiny. We're talking about inches or quarter inches of being off, but that makes a big difference with your vertebrae and your muscles and nerves. So this rocking, I think the mind of rocking is not any different than zazen mind. It's just completely paying attention to what's happening and to skip that point and kind of zip into your posture that we think we have a conception of. Oh, my posture is such and such. So folding your legs the way you fold them or sitting in seiza or even on a chair, however you think you usually sit,

[11:24]

is a kind of mental conception of your sitting posture. So actually what I'm talking about is a mental conception as well, but it's a kind of fresh mental conception based on new information of where your body actually is in space and on the cushion. So rock your body right and left and settle, and also forward and backward, in terms of finding your balance forward and backward, is part of finding this balance in your sitting. So don't neglect that. Let's not neglect the forward and backward axis. So once you've found that center, then the spine is actually in a more healthy position

[12:29]

with the vertebrae stacked on top of each other, like a stupa, sometimes spoken about as a stupa. And the neck comes right up from the back of the vertebrae, up, rather than hanging forward, as if the vertebrae were coming up and then the neck were hanging forward. That's very hard on your back, shoulders, and also kind of crunches down your internal organs to have your head hanging forward, because you collapse forward as well. And to have it hanging back, you know, pulled back, is a very rigid, and that's also very difficult for your body. So the head, I remember once getting a birthday card, you probably know this joke, want to cut off 10 pounds of ugly fat? No, want to lose 10 pounds of ugly fat? Cut off your head. Anyway, your head is very heavy, you know, and if it's hanging forward or hanging backward,

[13:32]

or off to the side, you know, it really, especially over time, can affect your whole posture, whether you're sitting or not, and various discomforts can be created just by having your head hanging forward or hanging back. Now, when I was doing Alexander technique, the tendency for Americans, but maybe all people, but for sure Americans and Westerners, is to pull the head back. You see people, they're walking like this, and he, my teacher, was working with me to get the head forward, which is really in alignment, but there's a feeling like if you go too forward, you're going to fall, especially during Kinhin, or walking around, we pull back a little bit too much, and it's a very, it has a rigidness to it,

[14:34]

but too forward, you feel you're going to fall forward. So one way, this is during Kinhin and walking, that you can feel if your head is in the right place, meaning right up from your spine, is if your feet, now you have feet on the floor, if they feel, if your feet feel evenly balanced, meaning there's not too much pressure on the ball of the foot or too much pressure on the heel, where you feel an evenness, an evening of the pressure all along your actual foot on the floor, that will say a lot about where your head is and your upper torso. So for Kinhin, for walking meditation, especially as you do these half steps, you lift up and place down, and completely you can feel the shift of the weight all across your foot. So this is the kind of day where you can put your full attention into these kinds of concerns.

[15:38]

It's hard to do it when you're running around and off to work, and it's hard to notice that, but today we have a whole day to do this kind of close attention. So balancing your sitting bones, balancing on your feet, and balancing front and back, side to side. And I just wanted to say something about your neck. Your neck is coming up from your backbone, your vertebrae, and then the feeling of the neck is a kind of wide, wideness going out and forward and back, having your neck feel wide rather than tight and rigid. So the posture does not have rigidity in it. There's some effort to stay upright,

[16:39]

and you don't want to be too tight about that, but you don't want to be too relaxed or too loose, or you'll fall over. So finding that balance between rigidity and looseness. Like, well, this is for your mind as well, the image that the Buddha used of tightening the strings of an instrument. If it's too tight, if you're too tightened down on your stringed instrument, you can't get sound, beautiful sound, and you break a string. If it's too loose, it's just flabby, and you can't get beautiful sound. So it's tightening it just right. This is imbalance. So I think sometimes when we have a lot of feeling of wanting to achieve something or get to the bottom of something or find out something, we maybe add too much tension in our posture,

[17:42]

in our mind and body, and this is a kind of stress, actually, on the body, a strain and a stress that can bring it's said it can bring an unhappiness, of which we don't need anymore, and also illness, too, by sitting with too tightly tightened down strings of your instrument. So you might ask yourself, am I being too stressed? Am I being too strained or too loose? So the other posture point I just wanted to say something about was, well, actually, too, the eyes in Sazen. The eyes are open but cast down,

[18:45]

and there's many people who have meditation tradition where the eyes are open, where the eyes are closed. Different traditions have a closed-eye teaching, and Ruijing, Dogen Zenji's teacher, said if you're an accomplished enough sitter and don't get drowsy, it might be okay to have your eyes closed. So this is someone who doesn't have difficulty with sleepiness, mind-wandering, and so forth. In that case, maybe that person could try that. But the basic admonition in the universal recommendation is the eyes remain open, but they're half open and cast down. In terms of stress and strain around the eyes, the eyes have a kind of gentle feeling. You're not looking and staring at the wall. They're just cast down and resting.

[19:46]

Gentle feeling around the eyes. And the other point is the hands, which is really the whole upper body. The mudra, this is called the cosmic mudra, the universal mudra, is left hand on top of right, usually, which goes with the left leg on top of right, although if you have your right on top, you can switch. Usually you see left on top of right. And the hands are pulled close, right up against your belly, so that the thumbs are even with your navel and the baby fingers about 2 inches or so below your navel and touching your belly, actually grazing your belly. I think there's a tendency to drop the hands in the lap, thinking that this is a resting,

[20:49]

not too straining or stressing out. But what happens when you drop your hands in your lap and they go low is that your whole upper body is drawn forward and the muscles of your arms and shoulders and lower back, especially, are pulled out of alignment, actually. So it's important to have this mudra in this position, which will, if you have back pain, this may alleviate back pain in the middle back and lower back. The shoulders are completely relaxed, so you're not holding your hands up in the air. They're relaxed. Your scapula are down and going down, and the shoulders are down, and then the arms come around in this very natural circular shape,

[21:51]

which I've been told that when the astronauts are in zero gravity, their arms do that. Their arms naturally just go zhoop. They also, when they fall asleep, fly up in the air, which I find very humorous. So this rounded shape is a natural shape for human arms. So I think we often think, well, I can't hold my hands up here. My shoulders are going to get too crunched and tight because I have to hold them up. But you don't have to hold them up. They will just naturally go right there. And when you look down at your thumbs, at your hands, your thumbs block your vision from your middle finger. So there's a rotation forward and backward for your hands as well as up and down. So that's some rule of thumb to look down and see where your thumbs are for your mudra.

[22:57]

So please make an effort during the day to, often if you are drowsy or sleepy, the hands fall apart and drop into your lap. Or if you're daydreaming, thinking a lot, and your head comes forward, your hands. Actually, I've read where if you're having a lot of pain, your hands turn into a flame shape. You kind of push, push on your hands, push on your thumbs. And then if you're too sleepy, drowsy, then they fall away. So how can we, what is it to keep this balanced, round, cosmic mudra circle each moment of zazen? Or when you notice you're out of balance, to replace them, make the cosmic mudra, refresh it with your attention. So one of the most known parts of the fukan zazengi

[24:17]

is the line where it says, learn the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. This is a recommendation, this is a meditation instruction. It actually comes before all these posture points of how to fold your legs and rocking right and left in the hands and so forth. Before that, it says, learn the backward step that turns your light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away. And we've been studying this in the fukan zazengi class, that what is this turning the light back or the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. And in Japanese, it's called, turn the light back or return the light. This is another balance admonition or recommendation or instruction.

[25:33]

Usually, the light of our awareness and attention and sensory perceptions is turned outward. This is the forward step where we're looking out at objects and our ears are tuned out to sounds and our eyes are out to visibles and our hands are out to touchables and our thoughts are out to the cognizables, thinking about things, out and about. And this is outflow or ashrava in Sanskrit, the outflows, the externals. So, in many ways, you could say that we're usually out of balance because we're so outwardly involved. And along with this outwardly involved

[26:35]

and this drawing of the sense organs out in the mind organ as the sixth organ, we're kind of tipped forward, we're leaning forward and in our zazen instruction, we want to be upright and not leaning forward or backward or right or left, but we are often tuned in to what we understand as out there. Now, we're often tuned in to out there because we are protecting ourselves. You've got to be really alert this day and age. You've got to watch out. You've got to have street smarts and savvy because anything can happen. So that's the kind of... We do have to know what is a safe situation and to be really aware about what's going on. But this is often so constantly activated

[27:43]

and believed in completely that it's hard to understand what do you mean, turn the light inward? What's that all about? Learn the backward step and shine the light inward. I'm doing that all the time in zazen, aren't I? Well, our habitual way is this forward step and so this turning a new way, turning the light back or turning the wheel backwards, you might say. So what is this referring to? How do you practice the backward step? Because it feels so natural that our mind is going in this direction, going out. The sound of my voice, you feel like that sound is coming from over here, this part of the room, and you're facing me, so it's over there. Or you see me and that visible is over there.

[28:46]

So this is our usual way of thinking. This is our samsara, regular belief system, which is suffering. There's a lot of suffering in that because when things are out there and we're over here, there's separation, there's anxiety, there's what are they going to do to me, there's I hope they like me, there's they don't understand me or care about me or I really care about them and I'm jealous and they don't have anything to do with me and all that stuff is born of this belief in self and others as separate and the out there and the over here. Outside over there, I think, is a book by Maurice Sendak. Outside over there. So this meditation instruction is let's do something different. Let's turn the light back. Learn the backward step and turn the light back.

[29:53]

But then we hear that and we say, what is this talking about? What are they talking about? I don't get it. So Bodhidharma in talking to Huika, Bodhidharma's disciple Huika, he gave Huika an instruction, a meditation instruction. He said to Huika, or it's said that he said to Huika, cease involvements. Outwardly cease involvements or cease involvements in the external. Outwardly cease involvements and inwardly no coughing or sighing in the mind. Inwardly have no coughing or sighing in the mind.

[30:55]

With the mind like a wall, you can enter the way. So this is our great ancestor, Bodhidharma, who was an Indian yogi, Indian master who came to China. He was called the Blue-Eyed Barbarian. Supposedly he had red hair too when he came to China and sat supposedly, it says in the Fukanza Zenki, nine years in front of a wall, the story says. So it says wall gazing or like a wall. This is mind like a wall. He didn't necessarily, when we say like a wall, it doesn't mean mindless like a wall or with no life force, but with mind like a wall is no involvements in externals.

[31:56]

Cease outwardly involving yourself with externals and inwardly no coughing, have no coughing or sighing in the mind. That's mind like a wall. So how is a wall? When externals come, like birds come and land and poop on the wall or rain or the wall is just sitting there allowing whatever happens to happen, totally blocked in resolute stability, says in the Fukanza Zenki, is mind like a wall that's not upset by the slings and arrows of our daily life, the irritations, the annoyances, or if there is upset, that it's not upset at the upsetness. It's mind like a wall and not wanting to manipulate, Rev says, manipulate, meddle, get involved and entangled in externals.

[33:01]

And in the internal realm to not be coughing and sighing and complaining and lamenting and cursing one's fate, but inwardly no coughing or sighing. With mind like a wall you can enter the way. So this is a meditation instruction from Bodhidharma to Fueka. And the turning the light back, the Eko Hensho, is understanding that that which we see, hear, smell, taste and touch, although there is something physical there, meaning when we hear the bird, the red-winged blackbird

[34:02]

that is beginning to, now that springs here, is back and joyfully singing. The red-winged blackbird, it's not that there isn't a physical red-winged blackbird, but our experience of red-winged blackbird is in the realm of conception, of mental representation. When we see the red-winged blackbird, we see a visible. This is eye consciousness. This is the eye organ with a visible, and the two come together and make the third thing, which is eye consciousness. This is consciousness. This is a mental representation. It's not that there is nothing out there, meaning things in the physical realm or in terms of a sound.

[35:06]

We hear that sound, and it's a mental representation. It's a concept. It's ear consciousness, the ear and the hearable, and the third thing is ear consciousness. So that which is before our eyes or that which is before our ears or before our nose or our hands and before our mind is concepts, are concepts and mental representation. This is the way the physical world, this is the way the world is delivered to us. This is the way we're made up to experience the world through the skandhas. So it says in a koan, that which is before the mind is meaning. There is meaning before the eyes and ears.

[36:08]

It's beyond the reach of eyes and ears. You can't actually hear sounds other than through ear consciousness, which is conceptual, mental concept. So when we hear sounds, this is, if we understand it as concept or mental representation, this is our very own ear consciousness, which is turning the light back. Learn the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. This is ear consciousness. Now we think, oh, but that's Redwood Blackbird. That's Redwing Blackbird sound, which is a kind of getting involved in the external. This is involvement in the external. Ooh, Redwing Blackbird. Ooh, I'm so glad it's back. I love them. I hope they're getting their nesting. That's getting involved in the external. If you can stay with, this is in balance. Because we usually do forward step just like that.

[37:12]

And if we try the backward step, then it's just ear consciousness. And you can say Redwing Blackbird, that's a kind of, that's a concept too of naming. But that's all. That's all you need. Because actually then the next object of consciousness, the next mental representation is right there. You've missed the next whatever, be it a thought that's come through or another sound or your neighbor's cough. So you turn the light back and think of the mind that thinks. You think about the mind that's thinking rather than the object that we usually believe is out there. This is think not thinking. How do you think not thinking? Non-thinking.

[38:14]

This is also from Fukanza Zengi. So when we turn the light back and think back to the mind that thinks, on each occasion of consciousness, be it sound, smell, taste, touch, feeling, or touch of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind, these thoughts, concepts that are pure mental, not occasioned by form. The first eye, ear, nose, tongue and body are part of rupa skanda or the form skanda. Those are thought of as material. And then there's mental, pure mental, which doesn't have a form to occasion it. So it's not that there is no material.

[39:16]

It's just that it's beyond the reach of our eyes and ears. Because of our delivery system, it comes through as concept, mental representation. So while we're sitting today, it's said that the Buddha said, just the sound within the sound, just the seen within the seen, just the smelled within the smelled, meaning smell comes. Just turn the light back and think of the mind that thinks smell. That's all. It's not necessary to do the forward step to distinguish what's it all about. Gee, that reminds me of da-da-da-da-da-da. Try this practice of thinking of the mind

[40:19]

that thinks smell. And if you think, oh, that smell is external, that's lunch, then think of the mind that thinks, oh, that smell is external, that's lunch. Think of that mind. That's mental conception. And the body and mind will of themselves drop away and your original face will be manifest. That's the next part of the instruction. And this is what's called, this is part of the teaching around calming practices or tranquility, shamatha, calming the mind, tranquilizing, not tranquilizing, making tranquil, finding the tranquility that's there because the way our mind works is actually each object, the mind actually just,

[41:21]

there's just room for one object at a time and the mind rests, the mind doesn't, the mind can think external or it can think that it's not external, doesn't matter. The mind doesn't really care. The mind, meaning like a big open sky, it doesn't matter if it thinks external or internal. It can think either way. But if you think of the mind that thinks and with that mind, object after object after object, concept after concept after concept, there is a resting that the mind feels because this kind of external, this outflow is a disruptive kind of agitating quality to be constantly flowing out. Ashrava means, well, sometimes it's translated as taint or like the oozing of a wound.

[42:24]

It has a, the mind has, there's some pain there in this constant flowing out and agitation and dis-ease. So when we turn the light back and think of the mind that thinks, there's a resting and a lightness and a pliancy, prashrabdhi in Sanskrit, this pliant, subtle, flexible lightness and calm feeling because the mind actually functions that way, only one object at a time without really caring whether it's internal or external, the way the mind operates. So it's coming into congruency with how the mind actually operates. We usually are going, in some ways you might say, against the grain with this outflow. So this is what they say is mind like a wall,

[43:44]

balanced. So outwardly cease involvements, inwardly no coughing or sighing. With the mind like a wall, you can enter the way. So my understanding of this, I'm working on this as well, so I feel like to have the day to practice turning the light back, thinking of the mind that thinks, what is that? What am I talking about? Thinking back to the mind that says, what am I talking about? Thank you very much.

[44:57]

May our intention... May our intention...

[45:04]