Sometimes I walk around the Zendo and offer feedback on posture. It's not intended as correction, but more like, kind of like questioning your posture. I touch your back, and then it's kind of like, you know, how you doing there? Is this the way you want to sit? And sometimes I make a suggestion. But mostly I kind of just feel how you're doing, and I sometimes suggest something. But it's not really a correction. If you don't want to be touched in your back or your head, please tell Valerian and he'll tell me and I won't touch you. Is that clear? Another thing is that there's a group of people who are here who are available to, besides me, to meet with individually to discuss our practice.

[01:08]

So if you'd like to meet with those people, there's pictures of them down outside the dining room and in the cloud hall. And you can just pick which ones you like. See, I guess I want to say something about how I feel, and that is I feel like I want to say something to you, and I have this two sides of wanting to say it. One side is it's something really I would like to whisper in your ear. It's something about a suggestion. Kind of a deep, important suggestion that I want to say gently and whisper in your ear.

[02:17]

At the same time, I want to shout it. Because I feel, when I whisper, I don't want you to think that if I whisper, it's not like that I'm not really earnest about it and intense about it. But if I shout it, that's kind of, might disturb you. And if I whisper, you might think it's not very important. So I have these two feelings. So another way to put it is, what's it like? Yeah. Part of what I'm suggesting is things for me to contemplate I'm not telling you the truth. I'm giving you something to contemplate. But I really feel strongly about this as a good opportunity for contemplation. So again, if I say it strongly, it doesn't mean I'm suggesting that it's true, but more that I think this is really interesting to look at.

[03:30]

And among the things I think are really interesting to look at are, one of the things is the practice of the Buddha's teaching. And that practice is sometimes called Zazen. And I had the thought that, in a way, every Zen student has their own Zazen, which deserves utmost respect, their Zazen, or that they think Zazen is.

[04:47]

And then there's also other people's Zazen. And, for example, the possibility that there have been ancestors in this tradition, and that they had their Zazen, too. So, part of what I'd like to talk to you about is what I think the ancestor Zazen was and is. And, you know... This morning we chanted

[05:54]

an essay by an ancestor called Genjo Karmon, and that essay could be understood as that ancestor expressing an ancestor's understanding of Zazen. And we'll also be choosing a number of other texts, like The Harmony of Difference and Unity, And that is also, in my view, a poem about an ancestor's practice, an ancestor's zazen. And then we also chant the precious mirror samadhi. So those in Japanese are pronounced san-do-kai and hokkyo-zan-mai.

[07:00]

The Precious Meal of Sumadu is also a description of the ancestors' zazen. We'll also chant Fukan Zazen-gi, the universal encouragements for the practice of the ceremony of sitting meditation. That's also an ancestor's description of zazen, or expression of zazen. At noon service we'll also be chanting another text which is an excerpt from another essay by Dogen Zenji. And that essay is called Bender Law. And there's a section in that essay which we'll be reciting at noon service, every noon service, probably.

[08:01]

The translation of Vendalaya sometimes concerning the negotiation of the Buddha way, concerning engaging in the way of the Buddhas. And in there he describes the practice of the Buddha way. So I'll probably be talking about all these different texts. Jackie asked, is there a text? So those are like five or six or seven texts I just told you about that we will be reciting and we will be discussing. And you can be studying those texts about the practice.

[09:14]

And maybe I just whisper a little bit at this point about the practice. The practice, as I said, is sometimes called the tsar zhen, which is a Japanese way of saying, a Chinese saying, tsua chan, which literally means sitting, meditation. It's kind of a nickname for the activity of Buddhas. Zazen is like an in-house term for the activity of Buddhas. It's a term referring to the way what's really going on now is, it's referring to the way, the reality of our lives, which is the activity of Buddhas, is the reality of our life.

[10:48]

We had a, yeah, last year, last spring we had a session here And on the schedule, which usually says, you know, 5 a.m. Zazen, 5.40 Q.U. or Wapu Q.U. maybe, 5.50 Zazen, 6.30 Q.U. service, chanting, bowing, settling, breakfast, and so on. Have a schedule like that, is what we usually have. But for that session we wrote, 5 a.m. Buddha activity. 5, 40, only recently sitting Buddha activity, maybe.

[11:59]

walking Buddha activity, sitting Buddha activity, chanting Buddha activity, eating Buddha activity, resting Buddha activity. In other words, the whole day is the performance, the enactment of Buddha activity. But also you can say the whole day is zazen. Another kind of in-house term for the practice is just sitting. In Japanese, shikantaza, just sitting. That's an in-house term for Buddha activity. I think I was in... Last spring, in 2019, I visited Minneapolis, Minnesota, and St.

[13:04]

Paul, and participated in a session there. And one of the people in the session came to see me, and he said, I've been practicing Shikantaza. I've been practicing just sitting for many years. Recently, I've been practicing mindfulness. What's the difference?" And I said, well, I really don't know the difference. Maybe somebody does. The difference between shikuntaza, just sitting, and mindfulness. I said, I don't really know the difference, but one difference is that my granddaughter knows about mindfulness, but she hasn't yet heard about just sitting. They teach you mindfulness in your school, but they don't teach you shikantaza. They don't even return.

[14:05]

Anyway, so he said, what's the difference? And I said, I don't really know the difference, but I do know how they're the same. When we practice mindfulness through any running idea, when you're so hard with it, practice movement that's free of any gaming idea, that's just sitting. That's Buddha activity. What's the difference between counter your breath and just sitting? So just sitting again is the in-house training for Buddha activity. So what's the difference between counter your breath and Buddha activity? There's no difference. How are they the same? When you count your breath, free of any reeling idea, it's a Buddha activity.

[15:09]

When you do anything, when you're engaged in any activity and you're free of trying to get something from it, when you give yourself completely to what you're doing, It's Buddha activity, which again, you can call it whatever you want. In the Zen school they called Zazen a lot, or just sitting. So my understanding of the ancestors' Zazen is that it's Buddha activity. They say so over and over because it's hard for people to believe in Buddha activity. And it could be that we're doing that now if you do it free of any human agendas of gain or loss.

[16:14]

That's a little bit about the ancestors. Zazen. Now another text, which is quite short, it's like four O's in Chinese, is sometimes described as, sometimes understood as a description of Zen. And it's not clear who started this, who wrote this poem. What I do is it's written by the founder, the Chinese founder, Bodhidharma. Some other people think somebody else wrote it later in Zen history. But the poem goes in English like this. A special transmission outside the teaching, Kildare Betsuden, not depending on words or phrases,

[17:17]

directly pointing to the heart, the human heart, seeing nature, seeing Buddha nature, but it says seeing nature, tensho, and becoming Buddha. That sometimes is described as Zen. It's a special transmission. And again, my understanding, which I'm whispering in your ear intensely, is that zazen is a transmission. It's an intimate transmission. So zazen is an intimate transmission, and as usual, we pivot and can also say intimate transmission is zazen.

[18:34]

If you're mindful of your posture, the way that that the railroad that is internet transmission, that's zazen of the ancestors. If you're following or breathing, if you're sweeping the floor, if you're standing upright, whatever you're doing, The Buddha activity, the zazen of that moment, the zazen of that moment, and there is a zazen in every moment. The zazen at that moment is an intimate transmission, an intimate conversation between your life standing on the earth at that moment and all beings and their life in intimate communion with you. That's my understanding of the ancestors' zazen, the ancestors' Buddha activity, intimate communication.

[19:47]

And then it says that it's outside the scriptures. Even though the scriptures, some of them, say what I just said to you, said this internet transmission, you can find those words in the scriptures, and it's talking about something that's in the scriptures and is free of the scriptures. So free of it means it says outside, but really it's both inside and outside and neither inside nor outside. The scriptures are experiences are provisional teachings to help us understand the real teaching. So Zen produces scriptures. Zen receives scriptures and produces scriptures, gives scriptures and receives scriptures.

[20:58]

But it emphasizes that This process of giving and receiving the teaching is fully of the words and phrases of the teaching. Among the many schools of Buddhism, Zen has a really strong emphasis on the teaching, the transmission, is free of words, that it occurs in silence. And at the same time, in order to verify the teaching that's free of words, we need to use words. We need to use words anyway to help people enter where words do reach, and also verify that the word or used words shows that they're not attached to words.

[22:04]

So another text, oh yeah, another text, a bunch of other texts, that are leaning around this issue. What issue? The issue of that the special transmission is not dependent on words is another tradition, particularly in Chinese Zen, of using poetry to make the point that the transmission doesn't depend on words. So a number of us have been studying lately the poetry of a number of particularly Zen ancestors in our lineage and other lineages who have used poetry to express their understanding and at the same time express that the words they're saying do not contain the meaning which they are transmitting.

[23:22]

Another way to speak about the zazen of the ancestors is like this. In each moment of zazen, I should say, each moment of zazen imperceptibly records with all beings and fully resonates through all time. So that way of putting it, in Zazen, in each magnet of Zazen, each magnet of Zazen imperceptibly accords with all beings and fully resonates through all time. But that way of putting it could be understood as that very imperceptible ritual assistance among all beings is confined by zazen.

[25:13]

So it's good to turn it the other way around and say what we mean by zazen are imperceptible or imperceptible accord with all beings, that is zazen. That imperceptible accord, that's what zazen is. Zazen doesn't confine that to zazen. That's what's meant by zazen. And this imperceptible accord, I would say, must be always present. It isn't like there's sometimes there's imperceptible accord with all beings. Imperceptible accord with all beings is our actual life. Fully resonating throughout all time is our actual life, our real life.

[26:25]

And that real life, again, we can call zazen for short. Because there are some of the synonyms floating around in the tradition, I just wanted to mention to you that a lot of things that you may not know, you may think are different words for different things. They are different words. But you may not know that I think a lot of different words are synonyms. So here's another one. Buddha's seal, Buddha's mantra. So another story was that the founder of Zen, the legendary founder of Zen, Bodhidharma, came from India to China.

[27:33]

He went from the west to the east. And he went with the intention to transmit the Buddha mind seal. He went with the intention to transmit the transmission. He writes with the intention to transmit the imperceptible accord among all beings, the imperceptible ritual assistance among all beings. That's the Buddha mind seal. The Buddha mind seals us all into one awakened mind. And so that Buddha mind seal is transmitted and it also is a transmission. Now, the thing we try to do as service souls, when we, I think it says you, when you, even for a short, even for a moment, express the Buddha nidra, the Buddha feel, in your three actions, or in all your actions, of body, speech, and mind, when you're sitting there,

[28:58]

And that sitting is expressing imperceptible, mutual assistance. Okay? And that word is translated as, I just translated it as expressed. That word also can mean show. It can mean assert. It can mean proclaim. When you're sitting and this sitting is proclaiming the Buddha Mind Seal, then the entire universe becomes the Buddha Mind Seal. When you just sit, when we just sit without trying to gain anything, that's a proclamation of the Buddha Mind Seal.

[30:03]

When you sit and deal with your sitting as a sincere assertion of the Buddha Mind Seal, that realizes the Buddha Mind Seal. And not just for you, but for the entire universe. And the whole sky turns into enlightenment on that assertion. This is the zazen of the ancestors. And it's imperceptible. It's too big to fit into any perception of consciousness. However, the way all of our perceptions them imperceptibly accord with everybody else's perceptions, that's going on all day long, and that's zazen. And that's a transmission, because it's not just that you're imperceptibly in accord with all beings, but you are receiving that transmission from all beings and you're transmitting that to all beings.

[31:17]

Another phrase that is in my mind a lot is... First I'll say it the way which isn't so confusing. Our life is both self and others. a more confusing way to say it is, I am both a self and others. Or I am both an I and others. But really, this I-life together is I and others, self and others. That's what our life really is. Our life is not just I. And it's not just others. It's both. And not only that, but since that's our life, those two parts are in harmony.

[32:38]

And the harmony is imperceptible. Because we may be able to perceive an I, but we can't perceive the other. So he could also say part of the imperceptible accord is the accord between the perceptible and the imperceptible. This morning I was, last night I went to bed kind of early, so this morning I was pretty chipper during these first two periods of meditation. I was like, I think I was awake a lot of it.

[33:43]

And, you know, and I wasn't bored because I was having kind of a Zen party. with all of you. I was celebrating, guess what? I was celebrating imperceptible mutual assistance. I was celebrating imperceptible accord with all beings. How was I celebrating it? I was sitting with my seat upright and awake. I was attending the celebration. I wasn't doing the imperceptible accord with all beings, but I was celebrating it by sitting there with you. And you, regardless of what you think you were up to, you were at that party.

[34:48]

You also were celebrating it by sitting there. And human beings, as you know, have wonderful imaginations, and they can think thoughts like, well, that's great, but, you know, I don't want to do that every morning. I don't want to go to the same party. Well, it's not the same party, but basically, it is the same party. This is a party you cannot get away from. You can call it different names if you feel you need to entertain yourself. I know too, but basically this morning that's what I was celebrating. I was celebrating imperceptibly being assisted by all of you, and imperceptibly assisting all of you. I was celebrating that. That's what I was doing all the way through breakfast, and after breakfast I took a break.

[35:53]

And Blake also was celebrating the same thing. That's the mind of Buddha, that is that way, and even though it is that way, it celebrates the way it is. It's on the job celebrating what's really so, even though whether it's celebrated or not, it's still so. So we have this intensive where we can intensively celebrate the practice of the ancestors, which is all around us all the time. But if we don't celebrate it, we can miss it. And if we miss it, it's miserable. And it gets transmitted to people, too. If you're missing it, it gets transmitted.

[36:58]

which is, you know, it's not the end of the world, but it's, you know, I'm missing. We don't need to do anything but celebrate the Buddha way during this intensive. Nobody else is asking us to do anything else. We may do something else, but we're not being asked to. I got a message that... Cyrus. Who's Cyrus? Is it Cyrus? Yeah. Did you have an operation of some kind? Do you need to go to the doctor? Yes. I got struck with a surfboard in the back of my head. Yeah. So Cyrus needs to go to the doctor and get a checkup? To get the stitches removed. To get the stitches removed. So Cyrus is going to leave the valley to get stitches removed. Okay? Now, when he leaves, he has an opportunity, and I'm asking him actually to do this, of celebrating imperceptibly according with all beings as you go out of the valley to the doctor and come back.

[38:12]

You can continue the practice for us. while you're doing something. We're staying in the valley. You're going out to get the stitches removed. Please do it. But also, please continue the practice when you go out and come back. And I think it looks like you're up for it. Right? Yeah. And now the kitchen's going to leave. And John, do you have to read this, John? John, do you have to read it? Next Monday I have to go for a brief appointment because I had some surgery, oral surgery.

[39:17]

I just have to begin to check stitches. Yeah, so a gentleman's going to go out and has some other stitches worked out. And the same, we request that you practice on that trip, right? And that you can practice when you go to the doctor's office. instead of trying to get something from the doctor, you can give yourself to the doctor in all beings. You can celebrate the practice when you go to the doctor to have your stitches looked at. So those two people that are living in reality, we're acknowledging that because they are in imperceptible accord with us. So we acknowledge when they seem to be out of accord by going out of the valley. But not really, but we just also admit, this looks like I'm not in accord.

[40:18]

But in order to celebrate the accord, I ask you if I can go. And then you say no or yes. This is the conversation we're in. And this conversation we're in which we cannot avoid, we can practice it. If we don't practice it, we miss it. And practicing it is a lot of work. It's a lot of work to have conversations, to practice and celebrate conversations. It's easier just not to talk to people. And when I do something, just do it rather than... I need to go to the doctor to have my stitches looked at. That takes a lot of effort. And then the person you talk to talks to me, and then I talk to you, and I talk to them. It's a lot of work, but it's celebrating the practice that we're doing this together. To practice mindfulness by myself is not Buddha activity.

[41:24]

To practice mindfulness imperceptibly according with all beings, that's our practice. That's the transmission. So that's a kind of introductory whisper. Is that enough for this morning? Thank you very much.

[41:53]

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