Last night some encouragements may have been read. Did you hear them? Something about that this retreat, this sesshin, is an opportunity for us to discover and clarify and work on realizing our ultimate concern. Did you hear something like that? Each of us has our own, our unique ultimate concern. The thing that after all is said and done is what we devote this lifetime to.

[01:08]

But perhaps we share. Also, perhaps we all want this world, including all the hearts and minds of all living beings, to be freed from suffering, to be free from any constriction, a hindrance to the fullness of life. Perhaps we share something like that. But whatever our ultimate concern is, Satchin is a time to let the mind be

[02:28]

Unified. Let it be collected into a reality which is peace and freedom for all beings. although I've mentioned it many times before, I think it's a good meditation to look at the word sashim. It can be written in different ways, but the way of writing it with two Chinese characters, one pronounced Setsu and the other Shin.

[03:32]

And when you put Setsu and Shin together, you get Sesshin. Setsu means to gather, to collect, to nurture, to care for, to develop, to cultivate, All those words can be applied to mind and heart to embrace and sustain. But it also means to receive the wisdom and compassion of all Buddhas to let the heart and mind open to receiving the inconceivable Dharma of the Buddhas, to let the body and mind be given moment by moment to the realization of the Buddha Dharma

[05:05]

Sashin could be a time for such giving of ourselves and receiving of support from each other and from all the Buddhas. moment by moment, experience by experience, receiving whatever is given to us, and then dedicating it to the Buddha way. Living it fully as the Buddha way.

[06:27]

Living it fully for the Buddha way. Learning how to do that moment by moment. And if we become distracted from this wholehearted dedication of our living. We simply confess it, and if we want, rededicate ourselves to the path again. There may be many times during this week and in the life that follows when we will forget to devote this breath, this thought, this feeling to the Buddha way.

[07:36]

Again, we simply practice acknowledging that and re-citating our vow while doing this or that with all beings. May this or that bring this or that type of benefit to all beings. This year I said at the beginning of the year that I wanted to concentrate on concentration, have a kind of samadhi of samadhis. A year ago during this August session we started to study the

[08:48]

teachings about the Heroic Stride Samadhi of the Bodhisattva. This morning I brought up again the teaching of this Heroic Stride Samadhi of the Bodhisattva. You all seemed awake, sitting upright and awake. Perhaps you heard me say that the heroic stride samadhi of the bodhisattvas is developed, is practiced by practicing, by cultivating the things of an ordinary person.

[09:53]

Whether we're ordinary people or whether we're Buddhas, we still may cultivate the things of an ordinary person. Buddhas may cultivate the things of an ordinary person. If we're ordinary people, we can also cultivate the things of an ordinary person. But we have to be careful, because if we practice cultivating the things of an ordinary person too well, we won't be a sentient being anymore. will be a Buddha. So be careful. And how do we cultivate the things of an ordinary person?

[11:06]

By neither being joined or rather, by seeing and understanding that the things of an ordinary person, the dharmas of an ordinary person, are neither joined nor separated from the things of a Buddha. Now, you may be able, you Buddhas, you sentient beings, you may be able to see some things of an ordinary person. You may be able to see colors. and hear sounds and taste tastes and touch tangibles and think concepts.

[12:19]

These are the things of an ordinary person. Can you see them? Now look at them. Contemplate them. Can you see that they are not, can you see them as not joined with the things of the Buddha or separate from the things of a Buddha? Learn how to do this and you're learning about the samadhi of a bodhisattva. Of course, this means taking care of every thing of an ordinary person and looking carefully at it, respecting it. Looking at it and then look at it again.

[13:21]

Look at the face and then look again to see that that face is not joined or separate. from the Buddha's face. It can be any face. It doesn't have to be Buddha's face. It can be Buddha's face. It doesn't have to be any face. This is how to cultivate the samadhi. Your pain, my pain, are not joined to Buddha and are not separate from Buddha. Some people who study Buddhism, both monks and scholars, have studied a sutra, a scripture, which teaches about this bodhisattva samadhi, this heroic stride awareness.

[15:46]

And some feel that it is the first scripture in history of our little school that shows the actual way to practice the wisdom gone beyond wisdom. It's the Samadhi for practicing the Heart Sutra, which we chanted this morning. It's teachings about the samadhi which says that every experience you have is not separate from emptiness. And it's not the same as emptiness. It's not different and it's not the same. It's not separate and it's not joined.

[17:02]

And also the scholars have observed that this sutra about the samadhi may precede, for example, the Great Lotus Sutra, good dharma, lotus flower scripture, sadharma-pundarika. And sad, before dharma, is often translated as good dharma. But the Chinese translated it with a character, meow, which is the sound that a cat makes. And meow means not just good, but also subtle, wondrous, and even could be translated as inconceivable.

[18:14]

In this school here now, the school you're in right now, it is said that all the Buddhas together, not just each individual Buddha, but all the individual Buddhists all together, who transmit this good, subtle, wondrous and inconceivable dharma and actualize enlightenment, they have a wonderful, subtle and inconceivable way

[19:26]

Only Buddhas transmit it to Buddhas. The self-receiving and self-employing samadhi is a criterion of this inconceivable dharma. which the Buddhas transmit to Buddhas. In the process of Buddhas transmitting Dharma to Buddhas, there is this samadhi. And this samadhi is, so to speak, right under

[20:34]

our nose, our own nose, our self's nose. Does your self have a nose? Does your nose have a self? In the awareness where that self is being given or received and being given away, or employed in that awareness of that kind of self which you happen to have right now, the Dharma is being transmitted by all Buddhas to all Buddhas. When we're in this samadhi, we're in the transmission of the inconceivable Dharma between Buddhas and Buddhas. And we're in that samadhi all the time.

[21:40]

Being upright, playing freely in this samadhi is the way, the true way of entering this dharma. Of entering this dharma and entering the Continuous transmission of the Dharma. It is a Dharma that includes the continuous transmission of itself, Buddha to Buddha. Being upright and playing freely in this samadhi, which you're already in, you enter it. And part of playing freely is that you give your life to this Dharma, that you live your life for the sake of this inconceivable Dharma.

[22:47]

Playing freely in this samadhi in upright posture is the gate to the inconceivable dharma. Moment by moment being upright. In this inconceivable dharma, the source for the realization of enlightenment is the identity of mind, Buddhas and sentient beings. Sentient beings continuously move

[24:14]

about in this inconceivable dharma, but illumination does not manifest in their consciousness. Buddhas continuously realize this dharma, and sentient beings are not apart from this realization, but this realization does not appear in their knowledge. The inconceivable dharma is thoroughly established in all things as suchness, which is free from conceptual imputations. Sentient beings continuously live in this suchness.

[25:23]

Sentient beings continually live in this suchness, which is free of conceptual imputation. But they tend, in the midst of this suchness, in the midst of dependent core rising moment by moment. They live in this dependent core rising which is free of conceptualization with a tendency to grasp this wonderful suchness as what they think of it. We live with all things moment by moment, and all things moment by moment are free of our minds.

[26:48]

But as sentient beings we have a strong tendency to mistake the inconceivable dharma as what we're thinking of it, for our concept of it. This morning we chanted. Some of you were getting ready to serve breakfast, so you didn't hear this, but we chanted something like, the zazen I speak of is not learning meditation, is not learning concentration.

[28:10]

The Zen teacher Dogen said that, supposedly. And then a little bit later he says, succeed to the legitimate lineage of the ancestors' concentration. So there's two meanings of samadhi or concentration being used here. One is a kind of concentration or samadhi where you're developing the one-pointedness of thought. He says he's not teaching that type. This is a little tricky because some of you may want to learn that type. And sometimes people teach this type of concentration, this type of samadhi, which Dogen says he doesn't teach.

[29:44]

They teach it by saying, whatever happens, whatever arises, cast it aside. Some ancestors have found that helpful to say. But Dogen says, I don't teach that. Another way to teach it would be to say, whatever comes, don't grasp it. But another way to teach it, which may be closer to the samadhi, is whatever comes, don't cast it aside and don't keep it.

[30:45]

Which sounds like cast it aside and don't cast it aside. Whatever happens, don't cast it aside and don't keep it. If you don't feel ready to practice not keeping or casting aside anything. It's a free country. You can practice not keeping anything. Or, excuse me, you can practice casting things aside.

[31:50]

And you can keep casting things aside. It's okay. Try it if you want to. It might be helpful. The gate to the samadhi I mentioned a moment ago is to be upright. In other words, whatever posture you're in, be upright. When the Buddha was reclining on her deathbed, I give my life to seeing the Buddha who is reclining as being upright.

[33:31]

for the reclining Buddha as in upright posture. Do you think that way too? Or do you think the Buddha was not upright when she was dying between the solid trees? The Buddha was upright her whole life, and then towards the end, the Buddha tilted the world so that it looked like she was lying down. And everybody else turned sideways and thought the upright Buddha was horizontal. And then the Buddha passed into the earth in upright position, rather than being vertical and shooting off into space like a rocket.

[34:51]

Whatever posture we're in, we're in upright posture, as we enter this samadhi. Upright posture means many things. One way to put it is upright posture means not keeping or casting anything aside. When you bend over to pick up your shoes and put them on or to take them off. As you bend over, not keeping anything or casting anything aside, you're in upright posture. Upright posture is also called body and mind dropping away.

[36:07]

Body and mind dropping away is not keeping or casting anything aside. And in a sense, there's two kinds of dropping away, a body and mind dropping away. One kind is to be present with the instruction, body and mind dropping away. And the other is to be present as reality without even holding the instruction, body and mind dropping away.

[37:30]

So in a sense, when you are nothing but the inconceivable Dharma, this is body and mind dropping away. When your body and mind are the body and mind not holding and not casting aside, that body and mind is the inconceivable Dharma. But again, just like some people have trouble, can't quite bring themselves to not keep anything or cast anything away, you can start by keeping the instruction not keeping anything or casting anything away.

[38:40]

You can start by keeping the instruction, don't keep anything or cast anything away. You can also start by casting away the instruction, don't cast anything away. Do you see the different possibilities there? This is the gate to playing freely in the samadhi, which we're already in. If you check out what's happening and you find the samadhi, then you realize you're in the inconceivable dharma. You don't have to be checking it out all the time, but if you want to, that's how to check.

[39:48]

And at noon service today there'll be more details on the Samadhi for you to check out. This is the Ancestor Samadhi, which we are invited to receive. It is the samadhi of being aware of receiving yourself and giving that self away. And after giving that self away, receiving another one and giving it away for the inconceivable Dharma. It is the inconceivable Dharma of you being given a self every moment and it being given away.

[41:05]

Or rather, it is the inconceivable Dharma of a self being given right now, and right now that self being given away. Playing in this samadhi is the gate to the inconceivable dharma, which is given in this way. The kitchen's still here. Is it time for you to leave? How many? Two? As you may have already guessed, this Samadhi is not limited to the next two minutes.

[42:25]

It's unconstrained by time, including the past. It's unconstrained by the past in which we didn't think we were in this samadhi. The inconceivable dharma is that we have always been in this samadhi, that we have always been living in this inconceivable dharma, and that we always will. And yet, unless we enjoy it, we do not understand it. If we don't play in the samadhi, we don't realize it.

[43:32]

So this is a subtle, inconceivable process of the Ancestor Samadhi. Please take care of the things of an ordinary person Having a body, having a mind, living in gravity, meeting other beings, these are the things to take care of. You've got them, so take care of them. This is the samadhi. and try to open yourself to the vision that these things are not joined or separate from the things that a Buddha is.

[44:28]

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