I mentioned earlier a text which is a meditation text which appears in a monastic disciplines book. The name of the book is The Pure Roles of the Zen Garden, and this book is the most influential monastic manual in China in the few generations before Dogen went to China, and he used this manual as the foundation for his Pure Rules that he wrote. In that text there is a meditation instruction, and I mentioned before that the teacher says bodhisattvas who study wisdom should first of all give rise to, or first of all arouse

[01:12]

the thought of great compassion, and then make extensive vows, and then carefully cultivate samadhi, carefully cultivate concentration, carefully cultivate tranquility, and then again he says, vowing to save all living beings, one should not seek liberation for oneself alone. If you want to study wisdom, first arouse the thought of great compassion, make these vows, then the next step in studying wisdom is to develop tranquility, and then again he reiterates that you are vowing to save all sentient beings.

[02:17]

So the encouragement is to practice tranquility in the context of great compassion. In Dogen Zenji's instruction on the practice of meditation, he doesn't start out by emphasizing compassion as clearly. He more starts out by pointing out that the way, the Buddha way, is originally perfect and all-pervading. He wants to emphasize the all-pervasiveness of the Buddha mind. But then he also wants to say he had a question about that when he was a young man, namely if it's all-pervasive, what's the need to practice?

[03:19]

So he doesn't emphasize so strongly. First is compassion for those who wish to have wisdom, and then tranquility, and then compassion again. But I'm emphasizing that today, and yesterday, and the day before. Dogen's teacher said to him that every time you go to sit in meditation, either in the hall with the other monks, either in the hall with the other yogis, or outdoors by yourself or in your own hut, before you sit, before you start your sitting, vow to save all sentient beings, and dedicate the sitting to the liberation of all beings. This is Rui Zheng's instructions to Dogen. Maybe Dogen did that, but in his instructions to us, he doesn't say to do that before

[04:26]

each period. I don't think he would mind us doing that, and he probably did it, but anyway, he didn't write it out. I think it's really good, there's no rush, please don't rush. Take your time, as you approach your sitting, even as you approach the hall, remember that this approach in the hall is for the welfare of the whole world. As you enter the hall, entering the hall for the welfare of the world, going to your seat for the welfare of the world, assuming your posture for the welfare of the world, entering the meditation for the welfare of the world. This is the context for the meditation practice. Sitting upright in the midst of great compassion, and then practicing tranquility according

[05:44]

to this first instruction. Let's see, I think that, oh, I just want to mention, I have this, this is called a kotsu, and in our tradition, when a person's leading a Dharmi event, they sometimes carry this, and on this piece of wood is carved four Chinese characters, and they can be translated as diligently cultivate, that's the first character, wholeheartedly practice, that's the first character, second character means quiet, silence, peacefulness, calm, gentleness,

[06:58]

all those meanings. Diligently cultivate all those things, and the next character is harmony, and the last character means complete that activity. Diligently cultivate peacefulness, stillness, silence, quiet, gentleness, calm, and harmony. This is a Zen stick that's encouraging that. Now of course, another way to do it would be to come in carrying a sign, you know, a little placard for the leader of the thing, carry a placard in which says, diligently

[08:01]

cultivate tranquility and harmony, but it's just, it's written on here, see? So when you see this stick, I could have it, you know, maybe white in here so you can see it better, but that's what this stick says, it says, diligently cultivate peace and harmony and gentleness and tranquility. So I may forget that it says this, but maybe you can remember when you see this stick, remember that instruction. A lot of Zen students are interested in practicing tranquility, are interested in calming down, are interested in peace, and they're happy to do practices which cultivate that.

[09:08]

But I feel a dilemma, and I feel that in Dogen's teachings, I see the dilemma too, that he wants the most, actually he's choosing to emphasize teachings about wisdom, and he doesn't emphasize so much the cultivation of tranquility. He says sit upright and be still, but that's not much to say about tranquility. So when Dogen says sit upright, that's short for all the instructions that you might get for how to tranquilize, how to stabilize, how to calm and refresh and relax your body and mind. It doesn't say so much.

[10:14]

Sit upright and relaxed, sit upright and still, upright and unmoving, in a sense you can see that as, there's the tranquility instruction. And then he says, in the midst of the self-receiving and employing samadhi, in the midst of the self-fulfilling samadhi, you sit upright and relaxed in the midst of the samadhi, and the samadhi, that's what he really tells you about, and in describing the samadhi he's telling you about Buddha's wisdom. It's like, sometimes even some say that there's this great samadhi, this stillness, and the

[11:28]

activity of the stillness is the wisdom, or there's this great wisdom, and the nature of the wisdom is stillness and serenity. So there's a kind of, I feel in Dogen, a kind of problem that he's, on one side of course he's recommending tranquility, and a healthy, alert, flexible, calm mind, but he really wants to put a lot of effort into clarifying correct understanding and correct wisdom. So he's kind of seemed to de-emphasize samadhi in a way. And I feel that too, that, again, people are happy if I talk about tranquility, but I also

[12:31]

feel a need to talk about wisdom, and it's hard to talk about, give enough time to both, and go deeply into either. It might help to mention that sometimes the practice, you know, the discipline of the practice is presented as three kinds of discipline, and one way to describe it is, in Sanskrit, pratimoksha-sambhara, dhyana-sambhara, and anasrava-sambhara. Pratimoksha-sambhara means, pratimoksha means that which is conducive to liberation, and it's referring to the forms and ceremonies of ethical behavior and also ritual conduct.

[13:38]

It's referring to ethical discipline, but including the disciplines of, you know, ritual deportment, the way of sitting posture, the way of bowing, the way of walking, the way of eating, the way of washing your face and washing your body, the way of taking care of your robes, the way of getting in and out of bed, all these ways of conducting your body and mind that are conducive to enlightenment or liberation, and then also ethical things like not killing, not stealing, and so on. That's the pratimoksha-sambhara. Sambhara means discipline, pratimoksha means that which is conducive to liberation. So sometimes they say, you might say, instead of pratimoksha-sambhara, you might say shila-sambhara, and shila means virtue, and it also includes the precepts, which are the structure of virtue.

[14:44]

So instead of saying pratimoksha-sambhara, you could say shila-sambhara, discipline in The next one is dhyana-sambhara, which means discipline in dhyana, and dhyana means basically tranquility, mental stabilization, and shamatha is, in a sense, a more general term than dhyana. Dhyana is included in shamatha, but it's more of an advanced version of shamatha. So when you attain shamatha, if you wish, you can go further into the tranquility practice and develop the dhyanas. So shamatha is a bigger term for tranquility, and dhyana is used for, shamatha is used,

[15:57]

literally means the state of tranquility, and dhyana means the state of high tranquility, and training in shamatha is not the shamatha, but it's training which comes to fruit as shamatha, and training in dhyana comes to fruit as dhyana. So in both cases, there's a training program that gives rise to shamatha, and then the various types of dhyana are under the heading of shamatha. That's the second kind of discipline. The third type of discipline, anasrava discipline, anasrava means without outflows, or without taints, and that could also be called, instead of anasrava-sambara, it could be called prajna-sambara, or discipline in wisdom. And Dogen makes a big emphasis on anasrava-sambara, or discipline in not having outflows, and

[17:18]

the main way he does that, and the main way Soto Zen people pick up on that, is a discipline in not having outflows means a discipline in practicing without the view and concern for gain or loss. So to practice, so that's that. It looks to me like in Zen, instead of going one, two, three, they go like one, first of all discipline in ethics and monastic forms and regular ceremonies, that's the first one, but the second one is more like, it's not jhana and then, or tranquility and then wisdom, but more like the two together. So you practice tranquility, but you practice it with no outflows, so you practice tranquility

[18:23]

but not trying to gain anything, or without the view even of practicing tranquility as being a gain or a loss. So you come and sit, and if you become calm, fine, that's sort of what you're sitting for, but you don't see it as a gain. And when the period's over, you don't see that as a loss. Period starts, if calm comes, welcome calm, if calm doesn't come, welcome not calm. If calm goes, goodbye, if calm comes back again, hello. Like Suzuki Roshi said, sometimes when I sit, I feel like I could sit forever. Sometimes people have that feeling, that's what you call feeling calm. When you feel like you can do something forever, that's a sign that you're calm. Like, yeah, whatever, forever, really.

[19:32]

Don't you want to go to a baseball game? I wouldn't mind, but I'm happy just to sit here forever. Sometimes during periods of meditation during satsang, I've heard that people don't feel like they can sit there forever. They are sometimes thinking, maybe a little bit longer, but not much. Or, when is this period going to end? Did they forget to end this period? That's one of the advantages of Suzuki Roshi in the early days of Zen Center. He used to ring the bell to end the periods of meditation, and he was somewhat forgetful. He would sometimes, you know, start the period and then go on to his office to do some work while the students were sitting, and he would forget to come back. He would think, I think I rang the bell a while ago, which period is this?

[20:40]

The students would be sitting in there thinking various things. Like, one person thought, oh, this is how the Japanese get back to us for the Second World War. But sometimes they would think, when they were sitting, sometimes once in a while they would think, I could sit here forever. Matter of fact, I think that's what's going to happen. But anyway, he wasn't torturing the students, he just forgot. And sometimes he forgot for a really long time. Two hours. And two hours isn't so bad like for a normal morning sitting, but two hours in the middle of Sashin. Sometimes that makes you wonder. So that was the nice thing about him. But sometimes he himself would be sitting and he said, I sometimes feel like I could sit forever.

[21:40]

And he says, but when the bell rings, I get up and do walking meditation. And then when you're doing walking meditation and the bell rings, you go back and do sitting meditation. You're not attached to the form of practice, even though you're enjoying it completely, or even though you're not enjoying it completely, or completely not enjoying it. You just are practicing it with no concern for gain and loss. So then you're practicing tranquility, maybe, in walking and sitting, but not to gain anything. Then the wisdom practice and the tranquility practice are turning on each other. And in a way, of course, the most important is the wisdom practice, but without the tranquility practice, the wisdom practice is less likely to mature.

[22:45]

In the meditation text that appears in the Chinese Pure Rules for the Zen Garden, that teacher puts a lot of emphasis on the power and virtues of tranquility. And in Dogen's first version of his meditation instruction, it was more similar to the Chinese one, and he put more emphasis in that text on tranquility. But then later, he put more emphasis on wisdom. So in the translation, in the text that we use now, he starts off by talking about, you know, the way is all pervasive and so on and so forth. And then he says, well, and then he says, for studying Zen, a quiet room is suitable.

[24:01]

And he has... In each one of his texts, he wrote three or four texts on this, and each one he starts off by saying, for studying Zen, a quiet room is suitable. And then he talks about putting up mats to sit. And in the Chinese text, right after saying this original part about compassion, tranquility, compassion, then he says, cast aside all involvements and discontinue all affairs. Cast aside all involvements and discontinue all affairs. That's one sentence, and that is an instruction in tranquility.

[25:05]

In the first version of Dogen Zenji's instruction on zazen, his universal instruction on zazen, after talking about the quiet room and eating and drinking moderately, then he says, cast aside all involvements, discontinue all affairs. The next one he says, cast aside all involvements, discontinue all affairs. Cast aside all involvements, discontinue all affairs. Cast aside all involvements, do not think of good or evil. Cast aside all involvements, do not think of good or evil. Kastasthaya, all involvements, do not think of good or evil. Give up the workings of the conscious mind. Give up engaging in the transformations of consciousness. These are instructions in tranquility. So he gives instructions in tranquility, he gives instructions in Samatha.

[26:20]

He gives basic instructions on Dhyana, in all these texts, just like the Chinese one does. And I'll just mention that a few paragraphs later he says that the sitting meditation that I'm teaching you, that I'm talking about, is not the practice of Dhyana. So after he gives instructions in Dhyana practice, he tells you that the sitting meditation he's

[27:28]

talking about is not the practice of Dhyana. So, another way to understand this is that it's not just the practice of Dhyana, because he just told you to practice Dhyana before that. Or another way to understand it is, it's not the practice of carrying tranquility to the point of attaining these high levels of concentration, it's just practicing tranquility enough so that you're calm and still and you can look to see if there's any gain or loss involved in your practice. And then if there is, not only relax with all involvements, but particularly, especially, relax with and let go of and give a rest to any concern with gain and loss, and any view

[28:31]

of what you're doing as a gain or a loss. In other words, give up dualistic views of your practice. Give up the dualistic view of your practice, for example, that it exists or does not exist, or that it's yours or not yours, or that somebody else's practice is theirs or not theirs, or that theirs exists or doesn't, or that theirs is a gain or loss. Give up all these segmented, dualistic attitudes towards the practice. In other words, end the outflows around the practice. But we come to here, for example, one of the things we do is we come here and we sit here and we do this practice. We do this practice. We do this ceremony of sitting like this, and we do the ceremony of giving up all involvements,

[29:32]

casting aside affairs, entering tranquility. We do this ceremony of practicing tranquility, and then we look in that tranquil state to see if there's any involvement with gain or loss. And if there is, we confess and repent it. And the more we confess and repent it, the more the root of this involvement in the view and concern for gain and loss starts to melt away. And then the sitting in tranquility becomes sitting in tranquility with no taints, with no outflows. So the wisdom then starts to become harmonized with the tranquility ceremony. You don't have to come in and do this ceremony in order to practice tranquility, but it's recommended. It's easier. Which is why we have sesshins, so people can come and do this ceremony together.

[30:44]

But then we want to have no outflows in the practice of tranquility. So in this way I've been talking, I'm already discussing with you how the wisdom is brought together with the tranquility practice. And I'll say more about the wisdom aspect

[31:52]

after I discuss more with you the tranquility exercises. Okay? Once again. Okay? Early in the texts, all these texts, they say cast aside all involvements and discontinue all affairs and so on. These are the essential instructions on tranquility. And then, after telling you to give up all these concerns, then it says to spread out the cushions. It tells you actually to put a square one down first, or a grass one down,

[33:03]

and put cloth over it, and then put another cushion on top of it. That's the suggestion. And then it says sit either in the full lotus or half lotus position. And as you know, here in America, a lot of people are not sitting in the full lotus or half lotus position. So, there we go. We're allowing some variation in this ancient instruction. All these different texts say sit in the full lotus or the half lotus position. They don't talk about all the other varieties, all the other various ways for the legs to go. They didn't mention triple lotus, for example. So, there's full lotus, half lotus, that's it. But then there's also these other postures that people are doing, called, what is it, quarter lotus, or quarter lily, or Burmese, or what's it called?

[34:19]

In yoga, what do you call it when you use the Burmese, what's it called? Hmm? What? Sukhasana? Anyway, and Seiza, and then Seiza with various other types of cushions and so on, sitting in chairs, all these things are going on in this meditation hall. So, that's the way it is. Maybe this is, what do you call it, part of the diversity that is happening in America, that we have men and women practicing together like it never happened in Asia. And also in Asia, in most Asian monasteries, almost everybody in the monastery was Asian. In most Indian monasteries, almost everybody was Indian.

[35:21]

Maybe occasionally some great Chinese monk would walk from China to practice there, or great Tibetan monks would come down and practice with the Indians, but mostly it was Indians practicing with Indians, and mostly in Tibet it was Tibetans, and mostly in China it was Chinese. A few Japanese were there, a few Koreans, and of course Indians, Indian missionaries, but mostly it was Chinese, and in Japan mostly Japanese. Very few African Africans practicing Zen in China, or Japan, in the old days anyway. Maybe now there are some African Africans and there are some African Americans or African Europeans practicing in Zen monasteries in China and Japan and Korea, I don't know. But it's possible that there isn't one, right now even there isn't one, maybe. There probably is, but maybe not one. I've never actually seen an African American, European American, or any kind of African practicing in any Japanese monastery, ever.

[36:24]

Kind of interesting. Anyway, in America we have more diversity, so maybe we have diversity of leg postures too. And back postures are some diversity too, but basically people seem to be on the same page when it comes to the back. Now some people are in so much pain they have to lie down, but most people are sitting up, and in this session, as I mentioned, the first day I saw all these erect postures, and it was very inspiring to see you sitting up. So your leg postures are varied, but your spines are really, we're sort of together in that part of the posture. And for the sake of tranquility, I often say, you sit upright, sit upright and relaxed.

[37:29]

Upright and gentle. Or another way to say it is, the posture is in an erect swoon. You're sitting up, but you're kind of like also falling down. You're sitting up with energy and you're falling down on the ground. Those two together. Balanced between erect and relaxed. And that's basically the instruction. Not leaning forward or backwards, right or left. Your ears, shoulders, torso and hips in a vertical line. Your nose in line with your navel. These are like ritual instructions for the posture. But again, be gentle about that.

[38:32]

Be relaxed about that. Don't be tight about these instructions. Listen to them and be relaxed with them. Which includes being relaxed and open, means you listen to them, you consider them. You're just like, okay, that sounds like that's being suggested, maybe I'll try it. You'll learn probably by trial and error that these are good instructions. I haven't seen the case that the more people practice, the more weird their postures get or the more strange their postures get. Their postures do become weird in the etymological meaning of weird. Weird has a Norse word and it means destiny. The more you sit, the more your posture becomes your destiny. The more you find your true posture. The more you sit, the more you find your true posture.

[39:34]

The posture that's really your appropriate way. You learn by trial and error, by trying various things that really aren't your posture. You learn that they don't work and you find the one that works. And when you find it, that's just for the moment. And then if you keep practicing, you find it again and again. And more and more you find your true posture. And you'll find it more easily if you're relaxed. If you're tight and tense, you still will find it. It'll just be a little slower. If you're tight and tense, the pain you'll get from being tight and tense will work on you. You'll become gradually more tender by the pain of being too tight. The more you practice, the more tender you get,

[40:39]

not the more tough. You may initially get tougher when you practice longer. Like you start practicing long, you start running into some difficulty, you say, I didn't sign up for this. This is stupid. I'm wasting my time. I'm no good. Blah, blah, blah. These things may happen. But then you just keep doing that for a while and you drop that. I can't afford to be mean to myself for very long. I can be mean to myself for a little while, for one hour, two hours, ten hours, thousand hours, ten thousand hours. But as the million of hours of being mean to myself? No. Got to start being nice now. I did enough meanness,

[41:39]

not to mention to my neighbors. So that's the posture. And then the mudra, the hand mudra, is to make a beautiful oval. Look at your hands and make a beautiful oval. It's actually with the top of the oval slightly flat. Not exactly a geometrical oval, but something like an oval, but the top is sort of flat. So that the energy throughout the hand is kind of equally distributed. You don't have concentrations of energy at the knuckles or concentration of the energy where the thumb tips touch. I think it's nice to have a kind of even distribution of awareness and energy in the mudra. This is a guru she used to say. It's like...

[42:45]

Here he said actually, hold your thumb tips so that you can hold a piece of paper between them, like this. That's about enough to hold enough pressure. Does that make sense? I sometimes used to say... No, I didn't say it there. I said it someplace else. And one person heard this instruction and thought to the guru she said, hold your thumbs so a piece of paper could fit between. So he tried to hold his thumbs the distance of a piece of paper. Until when? She used to be in the theater. And still is, I guess. So just lightly touching, slight pressure. And then put the mudra

[43:51]

against your abdomen, below your navel, two or three inches below your navel. But there too, be gentle about this. I myself, in the early days of my sitting at Zen Center, I made this mudra and placed it against my abdomen, but then I got tension in my shoulders and it got really painful. So then I took a break from that. I took a rest from that and just put my hands down on my lap or put my hands... put my palms on my thighs and took a rest until my shoulders calmed down. And when the pain went away, then I would resume the posture. And then when the pain came back, I would take a rest again. And when I felt the pain went away, I would go back to the posture. And I did that for a long time, for two and a half years, I did that. During regular meditations, I didn't have the pain,

[44:53]

but during satsangs, I had the pain. So every satsang for about two and a half years, I went through this. And then one day I didn't have the pain anymore. Somehow my body, my posture, found a way of doing that that didn't require any tension. But it takes a while to find the way to do that that doesn't give rise to some kind of muscular effort in your shoulders, which over the hours is a problem. But it is a very good way to hold your hands and arms, actually. It's very good, but it takes a long time for some people to find a way of doing this that's basically effortless, that doesn't take much muscular, no muscular strain to do it. So if you haven't found it yet, just take a rest and keep searching for it.

[45:55]

And you'll probably find it eventually. But again, be gentle about this. This is a good posture, good postural suggestion, but not if you're not relaxed. And then comes the eyes. And... all the different texts say that the eyes should remain open. Eyes should remain open. Well, actually, one says the eyes should remain slightly open. Another one says the eyes should always remain open.

[46:57]

Another one says the eyes should remain open, but gently. No, no. The eyes should remain open. And another one says the eyes should remain open, or be kept open, neither too narrowly or too widely. Another one says the eyes should remain open, neither too widely nor narrowly. And then it says your neck deviate. Just as in sitting, let the eyes feel soft and open.

[48:00]

Just as in your sitting posture, the eyes are soft and open. Let your gaze grow still and your eyes rest, not protruding, not tight, but relaxed. There is a statue in the room where I do interviews of Bodhidharma, and he's got bulging eyes. Some might say, well, if Bodhidharma's eyes are bulging, why should not I? The reason why his eyes are bulging is because he had his eyelids surgically removed so that he would never fall asleep. And then when he took his eyelids after the operation and threw them on the ground, the tea bushes in China were born so that the other monks

[49:03]

could just drink tea instead of having eyelids removed. So that if you look at that Bodhidharma who is our great ancestor, you see his eyes are bulging, but they're not really bulging, they're just uncovered. People are making funny faces for some reason. I wonder why. Aren't you relaxed? Are you having a tense reaction to this surgical procedure? No, anyway, not bulging. Let your eyes rest. Let your eyes rest. Look at the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas. Look at how their eyes are. Just like those guys. See, how's Tara doing here? Look at Tara. Look at those eyes. I mean, see how they are? Serene, relaxed, but open.

[50:03]

They're not shut. You can see her pupil. See it? Can you see her pupils? And look at that guy up there. Look at those nice pupils. See him? See the pupils? Those eyelids are right above those pupils. He's relaxed. These are relaxed Bodhisattvas. See how they're not tense? See? And they can stand there hour after hour, day after day. Look at them. They're just hanging out here day after day, beneficently, calmly, wisely. We're surrounded by them. Their eyes always remain open, but relaxed. Their eyes are resting. There's a way your eyes can get that they're resting, open. And I often find this towards the latter part of Sashin, sometimes my... I don't know if I'm dehydrated or what, but sometimes towards the end of Sashin, my eyes get a little kind of like... sometimes a kind of gritty feeling,

[51:06]

and it actually makes it easier to keep them open. And when I... Yeah, so if I let my eyes relax, sometimes they relax down to a certain point when they're still open, and in order to close them I have to like push them farther. They actually stop at a certain point in the concentration. They stop before they close, and actually I can't close them, and it's restful to close them too, but you have to push further, right? Sometimes they kind of come down like boop, and they stop there right above the pupil in the Bodhisattva level. It's like zhoop! Bodhisattva eyes, stop! And then human eyes close the rest of the way, which is nice. It's sleep time, right? But the eyes of compassion never close. But they're resting. They're not straining. Oh God, more compassion. Watch these people. Yeah, there they are. Yeah, they're practicing.

[52:07]

That's great. Oh, I wish I could take a break. No, it's like it's restful to watch all these suffering people. Or, put another way, you watch the suffering people with restful, resting eyes, relaxed eyes. Of course you care, but you're relaxed with this care, because if you don't relax you're going to say, Wait, I can't stand to look at these people anymore. I've got to get out of here. Someone said to me one time that she had been practicing, she was a Zen student, she'd been practicing many years. I don't know how many, maybe 15 years. And she started to sit with her eyes open. She'd been sitting all this time with her eyes shut. And she started to sit with her eyes open, and she said, I realized that

[53:09]

when my eyes are open I remembered, it reminded me of why I was sitting. I was sitting with all these other people. I was sitting for all these people I was sitting with. Now, some wonderful Buddhist practitioners do sit with their eyes shut, but anyway, the emphasis here is make your eyes like Buddha's eyes. Buddha does not close her eyes when she meditates. Buddha's eyes are open. Bodhisattva's eyes are open. But I don't mean to, like, be mean and prohibit closing the eyes, just to suggest that all these texts, particularly the Zen texts, emphasize opening the eyes, but other texts also say to open the eyes. Now, when you're doing visualizations in, like, Vajrayana,

[54:11]

they often do say close your eyes and, first of all, look at the Buddha statue with your eyes open, and then close your eyes and see if you can still see the Buddha with your eyes shut. So, there is that instruction, but in this instruction, eyes are open, but restfully, find that restful place. Keep experimenting until it's restful. Don't strain, don't hold your eyes open in a straining way, because if you do, you're not going to be able to continue, unless you have one of these operations. But, you know, one of those is enough in our tradition, don't you think? One could talk about this longer, this thing about keeping

[55:12]

the eyes open, but I think I'll stop for now, if that's okay. And then it says, once you have settled your posture and regulated your breath, or once you have settled your posture, you should regulate your breath, or once you have settled your posture, take a deep breath and exhale fully. Once you have regulated your body and mind, take a deep breath and exhale fully. Once you have regulated your body and mind, raise your torso and exhale fully, several times. Okay? That's repeated. By the way, after saying that, one of the Bhadogin's texts says,

[56:14]

Relax, both inside and out. Bhadogin says that. Once you've done all these postural things, and you've ritually, ceremonially regulated your body and mind, according to this tradition, raise your torso, exhale fully, several times, and then relax, inside and out. Dogen Zenji. And then rock. Which loosens your lower back muscles. And then, sitting immobile. Sitting still. Okay, now you've done all this, and then you sit still. Still, unmoving, and relaxed, inside and out.

[57:19]

And then Dogen gives his big instruction. Think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking? Non-thinking. This is the essential art of Zazen. So after all this preparation, given instructions in tranquility, and instructions in the ritual of the posture, in which the tranquility lives, also in the context of great compassion, now comes the wisdom instruction. And this is the essential art. So this is what he's... The essence of the practice is this wisdom practice. And then he says, this Zazen I'm talking about is not the practice of tranquility. So this essential art is the practice of wisdom, but it's practicing wisdom in the context of practicing tranquility,

[58:24]

in the context of great compassion. I think that's probably enough for now. So I'll leave it to each of you, and to all of us, to relax inside and out, as the ancestor suggests, to sit upright and relaxed, to keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth, to have your eyes open at a restful amount, to breathe or not to breathe,

[59:28]

that is the question, to cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs, to let go of discursive thought, to let go of wandering thoughts, to let go of concern with past and future. I'll leave it to you to practice tranquility. And do all this without getting involved in the view or concern for any gain. This is for the welfare of the whole world, not for the gain of anything, or loss of anything. In the world of peace and harmony among all beings, there's no gain or loss. If we're concerned with gain and loss, we exile ourselves from the world of peace and harmony.

[60:30]

By wholeheartedly making the effort in the rituals and ceremonies of sitting practice with no gaining idea, we enter the realm of peace and harmony, free of gain and loss. Diligently cultivate peace and harmony with no gaining idea. No gaining idea is written down here on these little carnelian circles. See the circle? That means no gaining idea. No beginning or end to the practice.

[61:38]

Diligently cultivate peace and harmony with all beings, free of beginning and end, gain and loss, self and other. Oh, there's a big one down there, too. See the circle? That's a symbol of our practice. See that erect posture? And it's relaxed. And soft. And free of gain and loss. Please take care of it. May our intention equally extend

[62:43]

to every being and place. With the true merit of love's way, beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Illusions are impossible. I vow to turn them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to come.

[63:32]

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