occurs to me how amazing and wonderful it is that we have the opportunity to practice enlightenment for five days. We also sometimes say we have the opportunity to practice Zazen here for five days. Tuesday? Wednesday? Thursday? Friday? I don't really have much new to say, except everything I say is new.

[01:13]

It may sound old, but it's really new. And it sounds old to me, too. But I'm wrong. It's really new. Sounds like I'm saying the same thing over and over, but I'm not honest. I'm always fresh as a springtime dew. And so are you. Honest. The Zazen which you could say we practice, you know, we, or the Zazen which I wish to encourage, is unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. In this way, I'm talking like some people in the past have taught.

[02:17]

The Zazen which we're encouraged, the job of a Soto Zen priest, is to remember that Zen is just a provisional phrase, and so is Soto, and so is priest. Soto Zen priests should remember those are just words. But anyway, the job of a Soto Zen priest is to encourage Zazen according to our wonderful teacher Suzuki Roshi. The job of a Zen priest is to encourage Zazen. What Zazen? Zazen which is totally culminated enlightenment. We use a nickname for unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. We use a nickname for Anyuttara Samyak Sambodhi. The nickname we use is Zazen. It's got that word Zen in it, which is very chic.

[03:22]

The unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment of motorcycle maintenance. You know, they don't say Anuttara Samyaksambodhi haircuts. Zen. Nice. They don't talk about the subtle, the subtle mind of Nirvana. Houseplants. They say the Zen. So we say Zazen. On the schedule, Our dear Eno typed out Zazen repeatedly on the schedule, like 5 o'clock Zazen. Did you write that? She copied, yeah. So it says 5 o'clock Zazen, you know, 5.50, blah, blah, Zazen, Zazen, Kin Hin. We don't write Anyatara Samyak Sambodhi.

[04:28]

Have you noticed that? We don't say... Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi will be later tomorrow. Instead of three. Of what? Of Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi. I'm not saying that we should say that. I'm just saying that what the Zazen that we're talking about here, that's what it is. It's not something other than enlightenment. And all the names for all the different types of enlightenment, all the different words for it, are synonyms for the Zazen that we're practicing here. Another synonym for Zazen is Jiu-Jitsu or we translate sometimes self-receiving and employing Samadhi. Another translation of that Ji-ju-yu is self-enjoyment.

[05:34]

The samadhi of self-enjoyment. Enjoying what yourself is. The samadhi of being yourself completely. Which is the samadhi of the Buddha. The name of the Buddha's meditation is sitting under the Bodhi tree, after realizing unsurpassed enlightenment, after complete perfect enlightenment, the Buddha sat and practiced self-enjoyment samadhi. The enjoyment of being completely so-called himself that body and mind drops away so the practice here is study the self settle yourself on yourself and when you completely settle yourself on yourself that's zazen but when you completely settle yourself on yourself body and mind drops away and body mind dropping away drops away

[06:46]

That's the Zazen, which we are invited by the Buddhas to practice. The Buddhas who are practicing it, the Buddhas practice the Zazen, and in that Zazen, in that sitting, all the work of Buddha activities are carried out. were invited to join it. However, as you, some of you have already noticed, it's rather difficult to join it because in order to join it, you have to be yourself. And the self has lots of... So it's hard to settle completely into a stressful self, into a stress-ridden self. It's hard, right? But you have been trying.

[07:56]

The ones who started here on January 5th, was it? That you made that big step. From January 5th till now, you've been attempting. You've been devoted to settling yourself on yourself. And some of you have told me that it's kind of hard and you think it's really kind of a waste of time and helpful. other than just like sit here and be whatever this thing is with all this stress. And I understand it's hard. It's really hard. You try to think of something you're going to get out of it when you're doing it. And then it's hard to be such a person who's trying to get something and so on. So as I mentioned yesterday, One of our members observed that the stress reduction practices are becoming rather popular, and she was wondering how she would try to convert those people to, well, she didn't say this, try to convert the stress reducers to unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment practice.

[09:09]

And I would say, yeah, let's convert them. After their stress reduction is successful, they will naturally be converted. After you get your stress reduction and get yourself to settle on the self, you will actually be converted to a new form of practice called dropping off body and mind. Stress reduction is one word which is more probably attractive than stress therapy. stress therapy doesn't have some kind of like implication you're going to get something out of it. The word therapy means basically to attend or to be attendant. To attend to stress is necessary in order to settle into it. So there will be stress during these next five days unless you Take lots of drugs. Or leave the valley.

[10:13]

Or, I don't know what, do a lot of jumping jacks. Or watch TV. What you can do to distract yourself from it. But if you don't do anything to distract yourself, there will be some stress. And even if it's not in your body, it'll be right nearby you in other people's. And you have a sensitive body which feels stress when you're near other people that are stressed. There will be stress. And if we attend to it properly, we can settle with it. And if we settle with it completely, this amazing thing is predicted to happen. The body and mind will drop away and we will enter the realm of actual zazen, Buddha's awareness. Buddha's awareness. which is perfect and is always quietly illuminating itself and is the realm of imperceptible mutual assistance among all beings.

[11:24]

We will enter that realm and enjoy it and uphold the realm where all beings are imperceptibly assisting each other. We will carry on all the Buddhist teachings This is the Zazen. I just want to mention also that if my schedule allows, I will walk around this room and I will touch and adjust postures. If you do not wish me to touch and adjust your posture, your sitting posture, or your walking posture, or your standing posture, I'm available to adjust all those. I didn't mention reclining posture, but those three anyway, I will offer a touch and an adjustment.

[12:27]

But I wanted to mention to you that if you don't want me to do it, in a respectful way, let me know. Like tell the Inno or tell the attendant and they can tell me not to touch you. But I want to tell you that my touch is not to correct your posture. It's not to correct your body. It's not to correct your stress. It's actually not to read either. Matter of fact, sometimes when I touch, people might feel stress increase. The point of touching is to imperceptibly assist you in being yourself. It's to help you attend to your stress, to be intimate with your stress, to drop all body and mind.

[13:38]

It doesn't mean that when I touch you, I instantly get body and mind dropping off, though. Don't expect that. I'm just trying to help you be yourself when I touch you. And I'm trying to be myself when I try to help you, support you to be yourself. be yourself. I know it's hard for me to be myself too. So sitting here, we have the opportunity to express the Buddha seal, the Buddha mudra. The Buddha seal is when a body, a mind, and a voice, when they're completely settled on themselves, that's words for the Buddha mudra.

[14:58]

We sit in that way we express the Buddha Mudra, the Buddhist seal, in our three actions of posture, speech, and mind. And the ancestors tell us that when we sit, we express the Buddha's seal in our three actions of body, speech, and mind, By sitting that way and being ourselves that way, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha seal. The whole phenomenal world settles itself when we settle ourselves. And the entire sky turns into enlightenment. This is zazen that we're trying to encourage here. It's hard to express that Buddha mudra in your posture.

[16:08]

It's hard because your posture is sometimes comfortable or uncomfortable. Even when it's comfortable, it's hard to settle. Because when it's comfortable, you get into it, or whatever, rather than just let the comfort be comfort. It's a challenge to sentient beings to completely express that Buddha mudra, the Buddha seal. We have opportunity to do that. And we need to do some stress attention, some stress therapy to our body, our posture when it's sitting here. If it's a nervous posture, a nervous mind, if it's a sleepy mind, a sleepy posture, we need to bring stress therapy to those phenomena.

[17:10]

And we have basic stress therapies which are, number one, generosity. Welcome the moment. posture of the moment. Welcome the body this moment with all of it, all of its feelings. Welcome the mind of the moment. Welcome the voice of the moment, which is often quiet. Welcoming the body of the moment also means welcome everything the body senses, the other people in the room, the light, the heat, the cold. That's the first step in stress therapy, is welcoming. Next, practice ethics with the stress, with the pain. Don't try to kill it. Don't try to get something that's not happening. Don't misuse sexual energy.

[18:13]

don't lie about it and don't lie about to distract yourself from it don't intoxicate yourself as a way of coping with the stress and so on be careful and and be careful and be gentle and be respectful of this body detail by detail Is this difficult to learn? Yes. Is it difficult, even more difficult, to maintain it moment by moment? Yes. Is that normal? Yes. And the next practice is patience. Be patient with how hard it is with this body. Be patient with how hard it is to just sit here without trying to get anything other than be yourself. And of course you don't get that, you practice it. And again, that is the practice of enlightenment.

[19:16]

Being yourself is the practice of enlightenment. And enlightenment is the practice of being yourself. The Buddha's meditation is the samadhi of being yourself. nothing harder. It's normal that it's hard. And it's normal to be impatient and not welcoming and uncareful. That's normal. We're trying to learn to get over those shortcomings and be more consistent in the ways of relating to the body and mind and voice so that we can let it settle on itself. This will be very helpful to everybody if we can do this. When a teacher and a student meet each other, the teacher is trying to settle herself on herself, to help the student settle herself on herself.

[20:17]

When they meet, they're trying to practice settling their selves on their selves together. In other words, they're trying to practice enlightenment together. To practice zazen together. That's what we're doing. That's what this room is for. For us to practice supporting each other to do this difficult practice. And the world's letting us be here. We can do that this week. Nobody's asking us to do anything else as far as I know. Nobody's saying, don't be yourself, be another way. The way you are is not good, be some other way. But there might be somebody in you who's saying that. The only person that's saying that probably, now I've heard rumors that sometimes people say that to other people, but probably during this week, nobody will say, don't be yourself.

[21:22]

But you may say that to yourself. Well, then be that person who's talking like that. I also wanted to say, I thought, when the ancestors say, when you express the Buddha's seal, in your three actions, by sitting upright in this self-fulfilling samadhi of the Buddha, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's mudra, the whole sky turns to enlightenment. But it says that you're practicing Buddha mudra

[22:23]

sitting upright. And so I just want to ask the question out loud, is the sitting posture the only appropriate one to settle the self on the self? And I would say, if the answer is yes, well, we better do it. If the answer is no, it's not the only posture. But then we would press the Buddha mudra in our three actions in whatever posture we're in. And I actually can't tell you whether the answer is yes or no. But I think maybe the answer is no. It's not the only posture, not the only posture that the Buddhas practice this Zazen when they're standing, when they're walking, and when they're reclining.

[23:32]

So no matter what posture you're in, Uddha Mudra in that posture. The sitting posture has certain advantages. But walking postures are also great opportunities and standing postures are all really good opportunities for being kind to any stress and settling into the stressed body and letting it drop away. All postures are opportunities to practice the samadhi of the self. All postures are opportunities for practicing zazen, which means not just , it means the entire universe settling on itself and dropping itself away.

[24:49]

Now I'd like to offer something which I know might bother some people, but I still want to do it because I think it might be helpful. And that is to sing a song which I sang yesterday. This is a song by a person named Hank Williams, a man who died at 30 years old. If you listen to the words of the song which he wrote, you might be able to guess a lot of trouble with himself. He's talking about his lover, but really he's talking about the trouble that Hank Williams had being Hank Williams. And he knew something about how to be kind to yourself.

[26:04]

That even when you're kind to yourself, your self thinks you're playing a dirty trick. Doesn't say thank you. So he, you know, the way he dealt with, one way he dealt with his stress was to write these beautiful lyrics and sing these wonderful songs. He didn't just write the words, he also wrote the tunes, I think. And he played the guitar. I actually brought a guitar to play to you today, but somebody took it away from me. They said, you're not going to do it. They're not going that far. He wrote a song, more than one song, about how difficult it is to be, to sit still and to settle the self on the self.

[27:18]

And it's difficult to be still when you don't see anybody around. And it's difficult to be still when you do see somebody around. To really be there with what's happening. I've tried so hard, my dear, to show that you are my every dream. Yet you're afraid each thing I do is just some evil scheme. A memory from your long time keeps us so far apart. Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart? Another love before my time made your heart sad and blue. And so my heart is paying now for things I didn't do.

[28:27]

In anger and unkind words said that make the teardrops fall. Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart? Well, Frank, you can. You can. You can. You can. Everybody can. To melt the heart, the heart that being here, a cold heart that says, I want to be someplace else. This place is too boring. This place is too uncomfortable. These people are not good enough for me. I'm not good enough for these people. I'm not good enough to practice Zen. It's ridiculous that I could practice enlightenment. Or I can do it, but I don't want to do it. All these things that happen in this body and mind, it's difficult.

[29:31]

It's hard. But we can do it. And Frank died, poisoned himself. He's drinking, what was it called? Chloral. chloral hydrate and alcohol. That's what he was drinking on the way to his performances. And he died from the poison he ate. He was trying to find a sweet, kind way to deal with his stress. But he veered off and used those poisons Of course, they gave him some temporary relief. He shared his suffering with us in a beautiful way. So now we can say thank you to Frank. And we can say thank you to Hank, too.

[30:35]

Thank you to everybody, all suffering beings. And we can say thank you to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas by doing the very simple thing is to be concentrated on being ourselves moment by moment. And if we can't, to be patient with our complete irregular effort. But that's what we can do here. We can practice enlightenment. We've got what's necessary, a self, a body, a mind and a voice. We can practice that. It's so wonderful that we have this chance to practice enlightenment, to practice the samadhi of being our self. Congratulations to us.

[31:39]

So shall we get to it?

[31:42]

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