Sesshin Lecture

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this is the simple
is a to try to early of a

good morning

this is our last full day of the session tomorrow is sunday and there are visitors who come for the morning meditation instruction in the dharma talk well we won't come together in this way again for a dharma talk because visitors will be here
and the rest of the day says little different too
people who are in the guesthouse have to put their room back the way it was before they came and the whole day tomorrow feels slightly different and and of course the session ends at four so today is or last
full day and tonight as or last night
and sometimes there's a tendency to
ah kind of leap forward and to think i get it i did it it's the six day i can believe it actually got this far and
ah a kind of excitement and less interest and dedication to maintaining silence and eyes cast down and all the different ammunitions so i just wanted to bring this up and to ask everyone to please
remain in remain within the sashayed forms the session
ah feeling atmosphere of the zendo and walking around because
it really depends on all of us doing that for the sushi to come to its natural close tomorrow will feel like we lost somehow the sixth day
so just watch just watch and see ah and help each other please help each other
there is a sushi net suzuki roshi lead and i think was on the sixth day he said something like i know many of you are very sad
that the session is almost ending and you'll be going back to your jobs and work and
now some people in the session got that's right there are feeling the sadness and how wonderful the week had been other people in this machine just couldn't wait for it to be done already so they could leave so
don't assume however it is your feeling what your relationship is to decision that others necessarily share that the person who told me about this couldn't believe he was saying that she was in so much pain so agitated so couldn't wait
for to be over
she thought it was just kidding you know
that people were sad that it was good to in

there's also another suzuki roshi story about session where he sat down
someone in the session has realized enlightenment
except they don't know who they are
the
after man
so sit with that went for one and
which is you know feels like the family feeling of soto way you know
enlightenment well maybe it's me i don't know

since i feel like i'm on the sixth day your ears are as know they get more and more what's the word i'm a cute i guess once hearing you can hear i know from my own experience i feel like i can hear and instruction
in a new way and i wanted to talk a little bit since
since you're all here together
how about gus show the practice of gosh show gosh show meaning the murder of palms pressed together in the bow ah
this is one of these forms that you come upon at damn well i think in eastern culture in general palms pressed togethers
ha
very everyday not not so unusual but for western culture except in i'm praying or something i don't you know we use we shake hands you know the hand goes out bump bump bump when we greet others we don't i guess we incline the head there's a kind of by like that but pumps
pressed together is not
in western culture something people are familiar with so
and there's an even in the eastern cultures that there's different forms of it so in the ticket on hand tradition they do palms pressed together making a lotus bud
ah which is this kind of shape the palms aren't actually touching it's born like this the fingers
lotus bud
and you see ah you know this kind of thing and but our family way
is some
i thought we could all practice this the the murderer word mudra means it's a yogic practice all the different hand postures are yoga positions they're not just some mum
you know
way to keep your hands out of your pockets it's it's an actual yoga position
a seal is sometimes called a see on boudreau means a seal like the last bow in or aoki his palms pressed together again of seal so for our tradition it's palms pressed together
with the palms even with your nose you can try this and your own they're always based on your own body dimensions so your own fists with apart from your know so if you've got a big fist if you've measured it'd be different from someone with a little fist during your own fists with the part from the nose
and then there's no air there it's not lotus but it's actually palm to palm you can feel all the fingers and the warmth of the hands and then the arms are parallel to the ground
rather than like this and are drawn in its
ah parallel to the ground and there's this space in here under the arms and in this area their spaciousness
in
it if one has a tendency to protect this area you may have your hundred and like that you know it's it's kind of open-hearted here
and then when you bout the fists with is kept so it's not boop boop or down and up you you keep the fits with fists with and just inclined down and back now
but also if you looked at it from the side the thumbs and fingers are not apart like this they're all touching in the thermos in
in the thermos i remember after being it tessa her for four years baby someone said they mention that my thumb was always like this rather than like this
and i i couldn't believe it
where had i been all those years how could i not have noticed that made them was like that and so would i straightened it out it was like the world kind of flipped upside down
so
ah in practicing this murder of palms pressed together if you place it this way each time each time and how many bows to do a day
countless rate to of from to and from the cushion and before meal after me on in the center out of the zendo two people back and forth
after the commercial i mean it's i don't know how many we do
no just like a tea ceremony there's certain levels of formality of bows there's
the shin bow is very formal in i can't remember the other names mayor food can help me with
so in certain like passing the commercial you wouldn't do a like very formal you know reverent you know it's just acknowledging that you're passing someone and receiving something so
was also within
with in the awareness of placing the hands
so you know it's the end of the previous period we get credit for those of us in practice period why did we wait so long to tackle talk about show
but i actually feel it's sometimes hard to hear there's so many details and
with this acute hearing we have right now i think i wanted to offer the practice of gosh show now for your for everyone to take up and then for you to see what what happens when you do it each time how and is there
habit energy to collapse down or to not fully bring yourself there
so for me i guess but may i bring it up because for me it's been a very
ah important practice
an was very inspiring when i first came seeing the teachers practice this way
and then as you get older i mean suzuki where she had a broken finger eight so his car show looked different you know it had a kind of thing like that in page street there's stained-glass windows be free between the dining room and the kitchen those of you know san francisco zen center building know it's it's category
roche's she's show which is in hour just
perfectly straight and pressed together and then this suzuki roshi
the broken finger
so the two together
it's important to to keep the two together because we do have i broken fingers and are dislocated films and are stumps right and we make full effort with whatever we have

our uniqueness or yuneec breeze of reality
so yesterday we were talking a little bit about the
a second and third ancestor tastes silica her waker and country so son and their practice together and i felt there was something that i hadn't that i'd left unsaid that i wanted to clarify so just to remind your tastes are weaker was
bodhi dharma his disciple and he
matt country so son who had leprosy remember it was over forty and
and country so son asked him to
ah
cleanse me my body's infected with leprosy i beg you or priest to cleanse be of my wrongdoing
bring me your wrongdoing and i will cleanse you
in the master pause to while the master meaning country so son when i look for my wrongdoing i cannot find it no a so i replied i have already cleansed you have your wrongdoing you must rely on buddha dharma and sangha
and die
then the that they say the masterpiece but i want to distinguish then country so son said seeing you meaning to his teacher i already know what a monk is but i still do not know what you mean by dharma and community
and wake us and mindless buddha mind as dharma the dharma and the buddha or not to and the treasure of the community is the same
so this some
karma this
and our ancient twisted carmen
seeing the you know not be able to find it and and being cleansed of a in that inability to actually find it seeing its emptiness is not the end of the story it's not
okay that's like the story of bhaijaan and the fox you know where ah
someone said after you know after enlightenment is
is someone now
is cause and effect
ah do they have to worry about cause and effect and in innocence and they said and and the person answered no and was reborn as a fox for five hundred years so it's not that the seeing seeing through the ancient twisted karma is the end of the story it
if you have to bear it in mind you have to deal with it and so he says you don't join the community of monks i received the triple treasure which is practice ah it's not
it's not enough to say it's all one man as all empty babe i'm
i can do anything now and i'm free there is ah
what we sometimes call habit energy habitual way of dealing with the world that comes up even so even with seeing the emptiness or not being able to find the wrongdoing
and
quaker actually had his own karmic debt to repay you might say and after he transmitted to country so son he said
i have a lot of karma from past this is after he's the second ancestor and so he leaves teaching formerly and goes into the town and ah
it and later on he ends up teaching some more and he is denounced as some teaching false teachings and actually condemned and executed that's what happened to wake up
so
the m
so to take refuge in buddha dharma and sangha a ponds it's not that i want to take refuge in order to have something
ah
see into the nature of reality although that's okay too but
what even upon seeing we observe the precepts we make amends we repent and confess even after attaining buddhahood will you observe these precepts yes i will so it's not the end of the story and
another way of talking about what we've been saying habitual
responses have an energy route nice thinking bondage you know ah
another way they're buddhism talks about this is the the six realms the the habitual energy is sometimes talked about as the six realms which we allude to all the time in our meal chant and so forth the beings in the sixth realms six realms with sharp the rail modify
animals hungry ghosts
hell realms
fighting
titans are d not demons but god sir the fighting genres assure us the heavenly realm and then the realm of the
gods or the the davis the heavenly realms the in the human realm did i miss that is their six day to one twice so cuban animal hungry ghosts practice
ah gods fighting demons and what i miss now and hell so so each one of these has a particular characterization of habit energy you might say
now in sashing
we learned quite a bit about our habit energy
worse
we're sitting there
or within the schedule practice period also been sheen and what comes up his habit energy like were sitting there and we want to do those things that we usually do that ah
behind our anxiety you might say as psychological way of thinking but we have anxiety that arises is so there's certain things we do and we've done for long time that binds the anxiety that kind of quiets it and
there is some this book by this person with such with a long long name about flow maybe you've read it i think he's czechoslovakia in his name just flows on forever i i can't pronounce it
i was talking about this was someone they've been studies done where people
they do just
little micro movements little things that we do all day long
you know tapping our pets on
twirling our hair or sucking i found maybe one were little maybe when we're older
certain way we you know kind of do tap or foot do our shoulders that it's just our own micro movements that in each person has
and you know them you know them about the your friends and your family certain little things they do right
and these are soothing or the that they did in this test was they had people not do their micro movements and then they studied what happened in the people became very anxious very uncomfortable when they couldn't
twirl their hair or whatever so these micro movements are
ways pretty benign usually you know in in the usual sense of not harming others just ways we have of soothing ourselves self-care
a binding the anxiety and there's nothing wrong you know i am i can't emphasize that enough there's nothing wrong with those
ways that's our way that are unique way
now this you could say there's a continuum of self soothing and it can go into you know addictive behavior compulsory behavior or on
obsessive you know like we may be know people who have to wash their hands on the time i have a friend who's a have a relative who can't eat off of plates or go to a restaurant she has to have paper plates that have come out of plastic coverings and have been that are clean and so when she ca
comes to their home
they buy plastic picnic sets and and paper plates because it's the anxiety around what is it
microbes are you know so this is and this is on one end of of this kind of activity ah which can go all the way into obsessive compulsive behavior and neurosis sequitur and then there's just the the small things the way we shrug our shoulders or
raise their eyebrows and those kinds of things so then then session comes along or am
practice period but session and were asked to we owe not were asked you we sign up you know we
call the office had pay the money and and say what i want to do this you know this
this is something that's drawing me
and there we are sitting and and there's all sorts of admonitions eyes cast down know talk in canada and then we begin to feel
our habitual way right our have it energy we can really feel it and we
you know we're sitting there it's don't move in a total devotion to immobile sitting and yet the anxiety maybe begins to arise and we may feel restless or restive by the way someone misunderstood me yesterday it's not never give away a restive horse but never give of law
lady arrest of horse someone thought it was never give away rest of horse and they were contemplating how come because the arrest of course may be rather spirited and you know
hit it
i'll find out where that comes from sunday
where was the yes so there we are sitting and the the horse becomes restive when there's restriction right and lay and some kind of pressure that you begin to feel and it begins to mount and you just want to go and make yourself a peanut butter sandwich and relax you know because
you know how that always feels when you know you've got that good food and especially peanut butter is very stick to the of
a lot of ballast
but you know it's don't move and it was offered and there's the snack area has been put away somewhere where the
where have they it
cook and the anxiety begins to mount you know
and then often with comes with that is where this is really what are they doing why they could you mean i can't scratch and fidget i that's the natural way i want to scratching him in a scratch
and some anger about you know this is this is perverse
i'm forgetting that we signed up for it we pay
we wanted to put ourselves right there
so there's anger and
ill will and and also the zen stuff is really nuts you know this is
isn't zan about being natural you know when tired sleep when hungry eat
draw water kerry wood and they say in other telling me i can't operate naturally so
this is i don't know what realm that would be i guess all of 'em there's the the animal realm is characterized by fear you know fear something's going to
some you know how animals are very fearful and razi you know how he's very anxious and fearful rosie's a particular dog but but all animals and
for those of you who don't know rousey she's a little jack daniels
the
huh
see the jack russell terrier and
actually i thought it was just browsing but someone else has a jack russell they said and they're all like that
but all animals in are skittish and the deer around in the rabbits and you also fear is what characterises it's the fear realm then we have to practice the hungry ghosts they look a little like george you know they have very small neck in a in a big belly
because they are constantly in unsociable they can't get enough they can't be get nurturing nurse in in the form of food food and drink turned to terrible things an inedible things and and but they try oh
over and over again and and even if food is offered they can't get it and there's never enough this is hungry ghosts this is you know eating disorder this is addictive this is compulsory shin you know
and we feel that you know this is a realm this is
yeah you can think of these as our own psychological realms you can think of moments going from hungry ghosts to animal realm you can think of it as actual
people that you know that are like that that are caught in a world that is characterized by in sociability and
craving and never being fat never been felt that they've been fed
and the em fighting gods their genres are competitive aggressive angry you know you say i can't fit it will help give you fidgeting there who do do do do do here
some feeling like that some
you know anger at the schedule on leaders of the practice period and you know i know it it's good for me like that that's a kenneth assure a competitive aggressive thing
the hell realms are just basically pain there's different kinds of hell realms hot and cold and just and you can't move can do much in the hell realms supposedly you just
whatever you do is just more pain you know you try to move yourself a little bit all just arrange a little bit and i'll help know it's just worse that's why did i ever even try you know
so the only way to be in the hell realms is to stay completely still and just experience experience experience because any effort to get it better worsens it so that's that's a real more familiar with
i'm the deva realm the heavenly realms the suffering of the heavenly realms you don't have suffering of you know things are pretty good
kind enough to eat and you're comfortable and nice people around you in a good job and it good place in as and million or a the window you really like that and you love your job you didn't want to serve doing dishes great your roommate doesn't snore you know it's it's really great and the problem with the heavenly realms is that
passion for anybody else what's the problem what are they saw a night but this is so goofy i'm so happy here
so no compassion for anybody else and that
sometimes in talking about the bondage side they don't use the deva realm they don't include because
you don't feel the bondage in the same way as the other ones but the thing about the david realm as when you come out because it's just a realm on the wheel when you come out of the deva realm you go immediately to hell without passing goal you go right to hell that's that's how go so you
there may be pam
good karma let's say that the fruit of that being this deva realm but that karma will just run out because you're not creating
the
seen through karma you're just resting on your laurels their kind of floating through and when that runs out your you know right into
helen you can see this over and over again you know like a classic example is some
ah leen leonora helmsley ceremony the leonora helmsley that the am you know all her advertisements for all those hotels she was the queen right they just the queen of new yorker come visit the palace or whatever to and way
wealthy and editor and then i don't know she's in jail or not it kind of right down into hell and you know what happened with president clinton you know from power most powerful man in the world down to you know having to
canal over on the internet you know the most intimate details of one's life and this kind of from david room down and
and those are kind of gross levels i'm talking about in public arena but in our own lives you can see how that happens because we lose touch in those heavenly around so i'm
but anyway it's the bandage is the bandage of not practicing not feeling suffering so that our our practice we let go of wanting to practice why practice and then the human realm
is characterized by desire it's the desire realm and suffering and it's just enough it's not so much like in the hell realms that we can't we're just
you know
lotto we just can't do anything nor is it so wonderful that we can't practice it's it's the middle way say human
so so when we're sitting on these characteristic habitual ways we have of dealing with are suffering will arise and
our and and if we're sincerely giving it a go you know trying to practice the teachings that the kind of form
the created a session is a created form offered to people to be able to very deeply
encounter ourselves and these very habits that are sometimes so hard to ah
even bring into view because they're so normal abnormal meaning it's just who we are
we don't get a taste of them but when we put ourselves in this kind of situation we can taste it
and we can taste the suffering that's there and then we can actually find maybe another way another way
so at some vow to study ourselves even with the pain and suffering or not even but through the pain and through the suffering the truth of suffering
so just to emphasize again these ways we have
our
are not
ah bad or something in and of themselves but they may be covering over
something that's their that we can't get to we buffer ourselves and keep ourselves from actually feeling the true pain and anxiety and
what's there that has to be examined it it must be examined to
actually
settle
we settle ourselves in a very
ah or sooth ourselves in a very temporary temporarily
fleeting way you know just for a moment while you're eating you know it feels
you know feels okay i'm okay i'm okay and then pretty soon after their it is again so you have to have more food or cigarettes you know cigarettes is a great
you know i know i remember ed brown giving a lecture about smoking cigarettes and it does temporarily know we feel
you know and he's what about doing it without a cigarette how about a deep breath you know
filling your lungs and just letting it out
without the cigarette can you you know we have the capacity to take care of ourselves
in many different ways and we can find out about that when we let go of
our habitual ways
and
i guess a you know people who go they make a vow some sort of the that they're going to let go of those ways that are have been self soothing you know you must admit and yet the self destruction is
you know there's a decision to not do self destruct the things anymore and
it may be
all sorts of addictions including love addictions and all different things we can use and when we actually see how they're covering over what we really want to get too because the true pacify the mind
is to stop trying to pacify the mind
you know please pacify my mind for me please remove my wrongdoing please and to actually stop trying to pacify the mind is the pacifying of the mine
resting in the nature of mine which doesn't need pacifying it is naturally at rest it is best naturally peaceful tranquil
and you know the transformation of the suffering into the path is not trying to
ah make the anxiety go away resting in the anxiety let the anxiety be the anxiety but the pain be just the pain there is a pacification that there's a peacefulness right there but usually
do we think i have to get it away and man i will feel peaceful they could just get this feeling away then there's peace under there but it's not under there it's there
and we maybe have discovered this when we sit there may have been times when you have just let the pain be the pain let it come let it be leaving it as it is
and you may have found
much dear surprise
that's completely okay and maybe even the pain has vanished somehow
maybe not maybe it's like in childbirth you know the m
ah i think steve who brought this up
in a lecture a couple weeks ago
letting the pain be the pain but being with being with with our whole body and breath in mind
it's not letting it be in trying to get away or sue that or make it anything other than it is just being with
and it doesn't take it away it's just okay the way it is it's tranquil

so when the eight winds come this habit energy arises the eight winds are
or when were influenced by the eight wins you know they were influence is this it comes from flowing when there's a flowing into us of the
six a shraddha flowing out oozing out going out to the objects getting involved and the eight wins of profit and loss pain and pleasure
honor and censure and praise and blame these wins there wins because they blow us around and i don't want that yes i want this oh good it's profit don't know it's last
an habitual ways we try to deal and manned and you don't put our finger in the dike and this is some frantic ness so finding this some
settled being willing to let it be as it is profit comes pain comes last comes good luck bad luck
it's just all same

so with this comic working with our karma seeing the and grasp illness of it i can't find it doesn't mean that there is not going to be just like with a caseworker you know there's
there is karma that
comes to fruit in your life ah
so we we continue to repent and we continue to work with it
and take refuge picking refuge

the kitchen left a while ago i am i've been carrying this around to every lecture wanting to read it you is something someone sent to me from tassajara ah
and i thought with our acute hearing we could hear it it's rocha from the duino elegies the ninth
ah
so make yourself comfortable so you can hear such as ah your fate the poem because you want me to stop talking and i want you to hear it
this unique breeze of reality that we are and the you know when the for cancers mg
ah like a dart of lightning or a spark from the flintstone you know don't waste this human life your uniqueness
this is you are only you once once and and only is you can roca and it talks about this this the way he wrote this out was in excerpts so it's not the full poem and i hope that's all
right rocha i'm sorry
but ah here we go
so we keep pressing on trying to achieve it trying to hold it firmly in our simple hands in are overcrowded gays in are speechless hurt trying to become it whom can we give it to we would hold onto it all
forever
ah but what can we take
other realm not the art of looking which has learned to so slowly and nothing that happened here nothing the suffering then and above all the heaviness and the long experience of love just what is wholly unsaleable but law
later among the stars what good is it they are better as they are unsaleable for when the traveler returns from the mountain slopes into the valley he brings not a handful of earth unsaleable to others but instead some word he has
gained some pure word the yellow and blue gentian
perhaps we are here in order to say house bridge fountain gate pitcher fruit tree window
here is the time for the sable here is it's homeland speak and bear witness
more than ever the things that we might experience are vanishing for what crowds them out and replaces them is an image this act and act under a shell which easily cracks open as soon as the business inside out it
and seems new and seize new limits between the hammers are heart indoors just as the tongue does between the teeth and despite that still is able to praise
and these things which live by perishing know you are praising them transient they look to us for deliverance us the most tranche and of all they want us to change them utterly in are invisible heart within
oh endlessly with ines whoever we may be at last earth isn't this what you want to arise within us invisible isn't it your dream to be wholly invisible someday oh earth invisible
what if not transformation is your urgent command earth my dearest i will oh believe me you no longer need your spring times to win me over one of them are even one is already too much for my blood
unspeakably i have belonged to you from the first
look i am living on what neither childhood nor future grows any smaller super abundant being wells up in my heart

thank you
hey