The Zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. In other words, what some people mean by Zazen in China and Japan, the word Zazen, some people meant by Zazen a concentration practice, that's what they meant, where you try to stabilize your consciousness. That's not what he meant by Zazen in the Fukan Zazenki. And also, the Sixth Patriarch also said, Zazen is not concentration practice, it's not dhyana. Now, the reason why they said that is partly because probably the people they were talking to thought that Zazen was learning meditation. That's why they said it, otherwise they would not have mentioned it properly.

[01:05]

So, it is a long-standing tradition in Buddhism for people to think that concentration practice is what we mean by Zazen, or what we mean by Buddha's meditation practice. It keeps happening over and over again, Shakyamuni, it's like endemic in the tradition. It's our family illness, so to speak, one of our, what do you call it, skeletons in the closet. The Shakyamuni Buddha himself thought maybe learning meditation would be liberation. He tried it, and he got good at it, and he said, after he got really good at it, he said, this is not it, this is another karmic thing. It is, however, the highest karmic situation that a human being can have access to, which is part of the reason, you might guess, why people keep thinking that it's liberation, because they would like liberation to be a very high karmic state.

[02:07]

I mean, an unliberated person would like liberation to be like the best possible situation, right? So if you can get that concentrated, believe me, you could, you know, if you want to be rich, you could be rich. If you want to be famous, you could be famous. Maybe you couldn't necessarily be famous at anything, but you could certainly be famous at a lot of stuff, if you could attain that kind of concentration. You could at least be famous in, you know, like in circuses and stuff. So that's part of the reason why people keep thinking that high states of consciousness are liberation. What they really want is liberation, but we keep going off into this thing.

[03:14]

So this thing has been happening over and over, so Buddhist teachers have been saying over and over to people who are doing meditation in this way, they keep saying to them, that's not practice. However, they even have in Buddhist texts instructions about how to do those practices, you know, properly. But they say over and over again, this is not the practice of the Buddha, this is just a practice that we do a lot in Buddhist tradition, but you don't have to do it, but a lot of Buddhists do, especially the monks do it. In some sense, it's like the monks' recreation program or something, and since that's their recreation program, they would like that to be the practice, because then wouldn't that be convenient? Buddhist monks in India, okay, what's their life? They get up in the morning, meditate, have a lecture, go begging, eat, and what do you do afternoon? You sit in the heat with the mosquitoes. So what do you do to pass your time?

[04:17]

Relax. Concentrate. Go into Samadhi, so you don't show any bugs. And isn't that nice? Wouldn't that be nice if that was Buddhism? But it's not. So you say, if you're walking around saying, okay, I'm practicing, I'm doing Qin-Hin, I'm sitting in Zazen, this is Buddhism, that's what Buddhists like to do, they'd say, this is it. And you say, oh no, that's not it, so then the people in the kitchen say, oh, well, the kitchen work could be it too, right? And they'll joke with it. So the people in the kitchen are going, this is it, this is Buddhism. People who say that don't really know. This is Buddhism. Or somebody saying, that's neither one of them, I'll study, I'm memorizing a text, this is it. None of that stuff is Buddhism. Buddhism's not this, it's not that, it's not not this, and it's not not that, it's not neither, it's not both. It's completely beyond any human categorization.

[05:22]

However, in most monasteries, in order to keep the monks off the street, they meditate a lot. If they had, if for some reason or other, there are some planets where around the monasteries they have golf courses, so in the afternoon the monks play golf. So the Zen masters there say, Zen is not golf. The monks are out there going, this is, this is Zen. If you can concentrate, you can be an excellent golfer. You can be a world champion golfer. If Shakyamuni Buddha played golf, he would be a world champion, no question about it. But Shakyamuni Buddha would not be saying, this is Buddhism. He would say, this is golf. But most of the other people playing golf for his class, you know, they would say, this is really where it's at.

[06:25]

This is, this is it. And Buddhism worked that all out. They have these high stages of concentration. The highest stages, the difference between the Buddhists and the non-Buddhists, is that the Buddhist knows it's just, you know, the highest stage of the world, and the non-Buddhist thinks it's nirvana. The deluded person thinks it's nirvana. There's a difference. Same state. One thinks it's liberation, and it's pretty darn close, and anything in the world is the closest to liberation. The highest part of the world is very similar to liberation, because liberation is really swell, and the top of the world is really swell, compared to the bottom. So in terms of the world, you know, geez, it sounds just, it sounds so similar. But if you think so, you're called, you know, well, you're just an ordinary person who happens

[07:27]

to be in an extremely high state, and you got there because you're a great yogi. But if your high state was conjoined with the Bodhisattva vow, you would not think that that was liberation, because you'd know that nobody else was up there with you, and you'd also know that you don't want to go back down with those people. And you'd know, something's funny here, didn't I say I was going to help those people? I don't want to go back. You know, these kinds of problems. The Bodhisattva vow kind of brings you down, and you're going to come down anyway, but the Bodhisattva vow makes the coming down nice, because you say, well, I'm coming down, but that's my job anyway, so okay, actually it's fine. Yes? Isn't concentration practice extremely helpful to the practice of uprightness? Is it helpful to it? Yeah. It is no more helpful than being unconcentrated.

[08:38]

I won't say it's not helpful, but it is no more helpful than everything, [...] everything is helpful to being upright. Everything. Everything, everything, everything, everything. Now, the state where not everything is helpful, that's not uprightness. That's various other states. Uprightness is the state where everything is helpful. So you're upright, can you concentrate it? Let's be upright. Now, not concentrated, what do you do? Let's be upright. Uprightness is for you to be the way you are, and the way you are is always exactly what is helpful. When my mind is awfully dispersed, I find it hard often to notice that I'm not upright. Did you hear what he said? He said when his mind is dispersed, he has a hard time noticing that he's not upright.

[09:40]

Well, that's good that you don't notice it, because you're not upright. You are upright, so when you're dispersed, it's better because you don't notice, you know, falsehood, namely that you're not upright. Whereas when he's upright, you can notice he's not upright. Is there practice in realization? Is there? You want to say, is there practice in realization? The answer is, I don't say there's not practice in realization. I just say that they cannot be defiled. So you can't defile practice in realization by kind of like, okay, that practice in realization, you want to know how to defile it? Make it dependent on being concentrated, then it's defiled. Or make it dependent on being not concentrated, then it's defiled. But it's not dependent on concentration. It's not dependent on non-concentration. It doesn't depend on either one of them. That's how it can't be defiled. Does the enlightenment of the Buddha depend on anything? Any dharma, does it depend on anything?

[10:43]

No, it does not. That's why it is the utmost right and perfect enlightenment, because it doesn't depend on concentration. I'm glad you brought him up, because when he finally sat down and decided to just sit still until he realized the cause of suffering and the great matter of birth and death, would he have ever gotten there if he had not... I'll take that back. Wasn't it helpful to his practice of just sitting there that he had also studied and learned to concentrate? Did you hear his question? I just said, everything is helpful. Everything that Shakyamuni Buddha ever did prior to his enlightenment was helpful to him. In equal measure? In equal measure? No one can measure this kind of stuff. However, being upright is not measuring which one is more helpful than the other. Being upright is everything is helpful, period.

[11:44]

No exceptions, absolutely none. You don't say, you don't say, now what Albert had just asked was helpful, but last week what he asked wasn't. That's not being upright, that's being miserable. I'm just waiting for Albert to ask the right question, so I'll be okay. No. Uprightness is, I'm ready, when I'm upright, I'm ready for the way you are. You know, kind of like... Like this and like this and like this. However, you know, I'm ready for reality, I'm ready to face what's happening. So you can act, then you get to be Albert. Isn't that nice? That is nice. And you too, you can be Jeremy. And you can be Sylvia. There is a difference then between awareness and concentration? Yeah, there's a difference between awareness and concentration. The difference is that concentration is a quality of awareness. And in fact, your awareness is always concentrated.

[12:46]

I can be aware of my no concentration. And you can also, in your state of concentration, say that you're not concentrated. In other words, you can have an awareness of the opinion, quotes, I'm not concentrated. Okay? Some people, I know some people, I've met them. They come and talk to me sometimes, they say, I'm not concentrated. Or they say, I am concentrated. Or they say, I'm just a little bit concentrated. They say, I'm... You know, people have various language about their concentration. And they have an awareness... And sometimes they have an awareness of their language about their concentration. And then they tell me what they think about their concentration. So your opinion of your concentration is an opinion or a view. Your concentration is what it is. And your awareness is your awareness of your concentration and your opinion. And everything that Shakyamuni Buddha did was helpful. And it's not only helpful to him. It's helpful to us.

[13:49]

His story was helpful to him. It's helpful to us. So someone might say, well, then is it okay not to be concentrated? And the answer is, yes. I didn't ask that. No. I noticed that you didn't. I was aware that you didn't ask it. It came up in my mind that someone might jump to that group. Is it okay not to be concentrated? And the answer is, yes. It's okay not to be concentrated. Have you noticed that it's okay that you're being allowed to be not concentrated? In other words, that you're being allowed to be however you are. You always have been allowed to be who you are. And if you can notice, if you can be present enough and aware enough to notice that you are always allowed to be what you are, you'll notice that something is allowing you to be the way you are. And what is that that's allowing you to be the way you are? Well, you tell me. See if you can notice what it is that allows you to be the person you are. What is that? That's called meditating on dependent co-arising.

[14:51]

It's to watch what allows you to be what you are moment by moment. And sitting still is not learning meditation. Sitting still is not a concentration practice. You can sit still when you're practicing concentration practice. You can pull out these concentration practices one after another out of the books. You can practice all of them. And I love to play golf. And I love to talk and practice concentration with people. And you can practice uprightness and not moving in the middle of concentration. And you can practice it in the middle of golf, in the middle of cooking. All these involve concentration and you can practice not moving in all of them. But you can also practice not moving in the middle of tremendous chaos and utter confusion. And that's what Chakyamuni Buddha did. He was not sitting there, ladies and gentlemen, in my cooled-out bill.

[15:55]

He was not in the state. He was not up in those realms where everything's cooled off. He was not there. He knew how to get in those realms. He was down in this world where things look like, you know, people. Where girls look like girls and boys look like boys. Where Indian people look like Indian people and Chinese people look like Chinese people. And demons have various looks. Some have, you know, fire out of their eyes. Some have pus squirting out of their fingertips. Some have, you know, all these different forms appear to him. That's what was happening to him. He was not in this blissed-out state when he was awakened. He was facing how misery happens. He was facing the nitty-gritty of existence. And he was completely immobile, imperturbable in the middle of that tremendous, violent dynamic of the universe. Isn't that his story? And he saw how it worked. And he also saw how bliss and calm and, you know, green pastures work.

[17:00]

And how, you know, warm days that never end work. He saw how bees, you know, fill their nests, fill their hives with wax and honey. He saw how war happens. He saw how death happens. He saw how birth happens. In this whole magnificent, terrific world, he saw that. And he was unmoving there. And unmoving is not something you do. It is your nature. And the Fukanza Zengi... Gi means ceremony. Gi means ceremony. The Fukanza Zengi is about the ceremony that we Zen Bodhisattvas do in our meditation halls. We go up there and we do a ceremony where we ceremonially, formally, celebrate the meditation of the Buddha.

[18:01]

It's a form. It's a ceremony. It's a ritual we do where we go and we celebrate Buddha's enlightenment of sitting under the Bodhi tree. And we sit there, all of us are Buddhas. We're sitting on the same level. We don't have the guru up high and other people down lower. We're all meditating, doing Buddhist meditation, and we have a formal ceremony that we do to do that. It's a ceremony. It's a ritual. And we're precise about the way to do it because it's a ritual. But it's a ritual to celebrate not a concentration practice, but it's to celebrate unsurpassed, perfect enlightenment in that ceremonial form. And then it's supposed to be practiced and celebrated non-formally in every other aspect of our life, including, if you wish to do it, and you're welcome to do it, in any time, any place, including learning meditation.

[19:05]

You can also practice Buddha's awakening in any kind of concentration practice you want to do. Okay? Yes? I didn't stop. I'd be happy to do it any time. I'd also be willing to teach you how to do calligraphy. Although I'm not a sewing teacher, we have sewing teachers here too, and we have cooking teachers. I'd also be happy to teach you how to bow. It's just one of the things I can teach. It's, you know... And I'd be happy to teach it, even though, although if I teach calligraphy, people don't think I'm teaching Zazen necessarily. Whereas if I teach concentration practice, they might think I'm teaching Zazen. So there's a potential for confusion there, but there's potential for confusion anyway, so I'm not afraid to teach learning meditation.

[20:08]

It's just that time constraints. I have to make sure that everybody understands what Zazen is. And if you all understand what Zazen is, then we can practice learning meditation and you won't be confused. But I don't want to confuse you by teaching learning meditation unless I know for sure you understand that that's not Zazen. But you can practice Zazen while you're doing learning meditation. However, Suzuki Roshi almost never taught learning meditation. If you look at his works, look at his lectures, you will find almost nothing about him teaching learning meditation. He got his students to teach learning meditation. Because as I say, in fact, for unenlightened people, if you want to keep them out of trouble, learning meditation is good. Rather than having people running around Tatsahara all night in the early days, you know, doing whatever they might have done, and actually some of the people did, if you get them to go sit a lot of Zazen, in the sense of learning meditation in the Zendo, the community works more smoothly.

[21:09]

Anyway, it's a good thing to do. It's wholesome. It's a wholesome way of conducting one's time. Just don't make it into what it isn't. Namely, don't make learning meditation into Dogen Zenji Zazen. Don't make it into the Six Patriarchs Zazen. Don't make it into Bodhidharma Zazen. They all said, that is not what we're doing here. And as I told people, you know, Bodhidharma was like sitting in the cave, you know, facing the wall for nine years, and gradually the newspaper people came up and said, they looked at him and said, well what's he doing, you know, why is that glow coming out of the cave, you know, and why is the Emperor of China so upset about this guy, and why are we picking up radioactive stuff coming out of here, what's happening in there? And he looked in and said, let's see, he's got his back straight, he's got his legs crossed, he's not moving, oh, he's probably practicing in a concentration. So he said, let's call his school the Zen school, short for concentration, the Jhana school.

[22:12]

So then, after it got named, that was it, and the Zen people had no control over the media, and it got called the concentration school. And ever since, they've been saying, all the great masters have been saying, we're not the concentration school. That doesn't do any good. And then people hear in the newspapers about it, and they keep coming to Zen centers, and say, teach me, and then even in the introductory instruction, people teach them in such a way that they can misconstrue it as learning meditation. So it's an unstoppable disease in our school to misconstrue learning meditation for Zazen. It's going to keep happening, and there's nothing, but we shouldn't stamp out learning meditation, because it's a good thing to do, just like we shouldn't try to stamp out golf, sewing, you know, Soji, rock work, gardening, keeping the car on the road, you know, changing the oil regularly. These are all, you know, things we need to do to have a decent world. But to say, this, you know, like to change the oil and say, this is Zen, we say, the Zen we're talking about is not changing oil.

[23:17]

Do you understand? Is that enough? And it'll come up again, but that's, anybody got any problems? Got a problem? Well, question. If somebody actually got liberated, would they have gotten concentrated? Liberated people understand that you are unavoidably, constantly, never stop concentrating. You're always concentrated. Your mind cannot be unconcentrated if it was unconcentrated, you would simply go unconscious. We're always concentrated, but we have opinions, so we think we're not. You're always enlightened, too. You never weren't, you never won't be, but we have opinions about what it should look like, and we don't think it should look like this, especially if we don't think it should look like that. This enlightenment shouldn't be like this. Enlightenment should be like, you know, way up there, at one of those high states, right? Like, way up there, like, you know, like, or at least a little better than this.

[24:21]

Or not for me, for them, you know. But enlightened beings don't think it should be better than this. They think everybody's doing great, even though they know that people are doing great, thinking that they're doing not so great. They understand that, too. That's how it works. But they really think and understand that this is all just unobstructed, you know. The whole thing is just love. This whole thing is everybody, in the entire universe, all beings in the universe, are just simply loving you right now and letting you be who you are. And this is just one total, flat-out, you know, great deal. And you are always concentrated. You're always wise. You're always wonderful. You can't be any better than you are right now. And now you're that way again, but it's not better than you were before. And you're not going to go downhill, but you are probably going to change.

[25:17]

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