The chant we just did, the first one, the Chinese, it's Chinese, and it was written by Empress Wu of the Tang Dynasty, Chinese Empress. She was the only empress in the history of China. What I mean by that was all the other empresses were actually wives of emperors. But she was not the wife of the emperor. She sat on the throne all by herself, the only one in 5,000 years. She wrote that little verse that you just chanted. She was, of course, a very unusual person and a Buddhist. She made the whole country Buddhist, too. It wasn't before she was empress. She didn't have an emperor husband.

[01:55]

She had consorts probably. I asked if you're chanting that because I think it has some musical value. Can you feel it? Can you hear it? Again? This is a little off the track, but some old friends of ours, old members of our community came back to visit recently, and they brought three kids with them, and they brought their littlest one to service one night. We did the Dahi Shandarani, and afterwards he said, Good singing. Good song. So our adult, after we hear rock and roll, the Dahi Shandarani may not sound so good, But our little baby heart, I think, can hear that it's lovely sometimes.

[02:56]

Not to mention... So what I'm always talking about as a disciple of Buddha and as a disciple of Dogenzenji, what I'm always talking about is just sitting. shikan taza. Shikan means just, or just do it, or get on with it, or something like that, shikan. You can shikan anything. You can just get on with anything in your life, so shikan means just live. And taza means, ta means hit. And za means sit. So just hit the sitting. It's an idiom, so it doesn't really mean hit the sitting.

[03:59]

It means you can just put it before some action. And it means, again, to do it. So just do the sitting. Just do your life. So that's what I've been talking about this week. And as is often said, many times, many ways in the history of Zen. Just sitting sounds pretty simple, but actually it's not so easy to understand what that means. How to realize that with your whole body and mind is not so easy. However, in Soto Zen we actually let people try right away. Pretty soon after they arrive, we let them try the top practice, which is also the bottom practice. which is called just sitting. When you're practicing just sitting, actually, you should practice at the top and at the bottom at the same time.

[05:00]

That's the spirit of it. You should practice the most superficial and beginner's way, which is, I guess that's at the bottom, I don't know where it is, but anyway, you should practice the most beginning way and the most final way simultaneously. Shikantaza is the name of all the different kinds of Buddhist concentrations. Like, for example, when the Buddha taught the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Hua Yan Sutra, the Buddha entered what's called the Ocean Seal Samadhi. And when you are practicing the Ocean Seal Samadhi of the Buddha, Dogen Zenji said, you must, while you're swimming on the surface of the ocean, you must also be walking on the bottom of the ocean. Okay? So in this case, the ups and downs are reversed.

[06:06]

The surface of the ocean is the way you practice. When you first try to practice, you're just sort of skimming across from the top, just swimming along there like a little person or a little fishy up at the top. Little waves and stuff, and sometimes you think you're going to drown or something. But at the same time, you should also have your feet on the bottom of the ocean, seven miles down, just going boom, boom, boom. You don't just walk in the bottom, you don't just walk in the top, do both at the same time. This is what's called practicing or living the ocean seal samadhi. The same way with shikantaza. The first time you try, you don't understand what you're doing, but you try, And then for many years, you still don't know what you're doing, but you try. All the time, you also have your feet on the bottom of the ocean. You completely hit the bottom of the practice too. That's the kind of feeling of it. But still, I say this, and it's not so easy to understand. So we do this practice and then we try to, over the years, over the decades, over the centuries, we try to understand what is zazen.

[07:20]

Even Buddha doesn't really understand what zazen is. So what I've been doing this week is trying to unpack this just sitting. Unpack sitting still by means of the six paramitas. The six paramitas are, you know, a way that we can articulate it and get our little, you know, little grip hold on it. It's kind of like what I call El Capitan, it's just sitting, right? Just climb it. Okay, well, How? That's right. Any way you want. You can camp out at the bottom, build a little house there, look at it every day. You can get equipment, put holes in the face of it and climb up.

[08:23]

Many ways. So these six are offered by me in that way. And Dogen Zenji says, actually, that you don't need to practice the six paramitas and many other kinds of Buddhist practices because they're all included in the sitting. So I'm trying to discuss how the six are included in the simple sitting. So do you understand how they're included? Is that making some sense to you now? Thank you.

[09:26]

And another quote, which I would Dogen Zenji about this is, well let me say first of all that he grew up in Japan and he was a monk in what's called Tendai school and they have elaborate practice systems for how to practice each of these paramitas and systems of how they're practiced and these weren't working for him very well and he went to China and found just sitting, found Zazen. And after he found Zazen, he came back to Japan and he proposed a new style of practice called Zen. And in Zen, as he understood it, you only do one practice. There's only one practice to do. There aren't many practices. You must always be doing the same practice. So people say, what about these other practices?

[10:53]

And he says, you must not do them. But then he writes fascicles on each one of these practices that he says not to do. What he means is that when you're practicing generosity, when you're practicing patience, when you're making offerings, when you're doing bows, when you're helping people who are sick, when you're helping people who are dying, when you're working in the fields, When you're raising children, whatever you're doing, you always see that as one practice. You're always concentrated on one thing. Awakening. No matter what you're doing, you're always working on awakening. You're always practicing Buddha's way. One practice. And his just sitting was his attempt to make one statement to gather all the myriad, myriad practices of the Buddhadharma.

[11:55]

And people asked him, why do you recommend only zazen? And he said, because zazen is the front gate to the Buddhadharma. It's the front door. There are, however, side doors, back doors. You can also parachute down and tunnel up into the Buddha Dharma. There's many approaches, but he chose the front door. If you come in the front door of a Buddhist temple, if you come in the front door of Buddhism at the time when Shakyamuni Buddha was there, if you came in the front door, you'd see Shakyamuni Buddha, and there he would be sitting. He entered through sitting, and all his disciples entered through the sitting. Well, actually, Ananda, after he died, Ananda entered by jumping through the air.

[12:59]

They were going to have a convention and Ananda knew, had memorized what Buddha said, so they invited him to a convention, even though everybody else in the convention was enlightened but him. But they let him come because he knew all the stuff. But they still were putting a lot of pressure on him because, you know, to fulfill the requirements of the convention. So that night, you know, he felt tremendous pressure from the 500 enlightened disciples to attain enlightenment. and he was really trying hard to attain it. And finally he just got totally, I don't know what he got, but anyway, he got totally something, and he just sort of threw himself into his bed, sort of jumped into his bed, and in mid-air, on his way to his bed, he was enlightened. So it is good to jump into bed that way, at least as a meditation on the ancestors. Another recommendation from Dogen Zenji is, which I've said before, is... Well, I mean, I forgot what I was about to say.

[14:19]

I was going to say that he said... Excuse me for jumping around. I'm sort of forgetting. I'm being too spontaneous and not sticking to my... something rational. Um... So he grew up in a system where there was a very clear path, you know, various steps, step one, two, three, four, five, and then do that. And the paramitas were laid out in a very systematic way. So it's easy to explain the paramitas as a gradual approach to this very high state and easy to explain. But each parameda takes innumerable eons to attain. Well, actually, fifteen and a half long eons to perfect each one of those. So the gradual method that he was learning was easy to explain but very hard to do.

[15:24]

So if you study the mind through these methods you can obtain Buddhahood eventually. The scriptures say this. So he said, mind itself is Buddha. The explanation is not difficult. Practice is difficult. But the school, the other school, the school he discovered was no mind, no Buddha. And there the practice is not difficult, but the explanation is difficult. So it's very easy to practice shikantaza, but very difficult to understand how to practice shikantaza, or what it is. Actually, you're already doing it, but you don't understand. And actually,

[16:29]

Nobody can understand by themselves. That's another part of it. You cannot understand by yourself. So the Lotus Sutra says only a Buddha and a Buddha can understand the Dharma. Or only a Buddha and a Buddha can understand what sitting is, really. So you and another Buddha have to work together actually to understand what the sitting you're already doing is. So that's why we have sitting and we also have relationships, student-teacher relationships. And it's not like the teacher knows and the student doesn't. It's the two of them together that realize it. So the other thing that Dogen says is that about near and far.

[17:31]

The paramitas, giving and so on, are kind of near in a way. Like some of you have made some offerings on the altar, and many of the others have made silent offerings. And if you make an offering, like I said this morning, just offer a particle of dust. Or just offer a little bit of effort, like just go, just sit on a zafu. or just just think I'd like to give a flower on the hill to Buddha just that little bit if you do that even though you did it in other words even though you're sort of kind of praising yourself even though you did it you can rejoice quietly you can rejoice quietly because you have just correctly transmitted the practice of all the Buddhas.

[18:43]

And you have just practiced, you have just begun the practice of the bodhisattvas. So that's something you can actually do today. And some of you have already been doing it yesterday and the day before. So that's something that's quite near. But just sitting, what's that? In a way, you know, the real sitting of Buddha, it seems far. It's not really far, but it seems far. So Dogen Zenji says, don't esteem or despise the near. Don't esteem or despise the paramitas, practices which you can do now. Don't esteem them or despise them. Don't say, this is where it's at, folks, or this is crappy, not such good practice. Rather than esteem or despise the near, become adept at the near. And then, rather than don't esteem or despise the far, rather become adept at the far.

[19:51]

And the near and the far happen in conjunction with each other. They happen simultaneously. It's because the far is in the near that you practice the near. It's because the forms that we practice are empty that we practice them. It's because they're empty that we take really good care of things. Each thing teaches us emptiness. Therefore, each thing is very important to us. So in that way, because the far is in the near, we take care of the near. And when we take care of the near, we show that we trust the far. And we're dedicated to the far because of our devotion to the near. Does that make sense? Our devotion to the near is because we know it's the far. and our devotion to the near shows we actually are devoted to the far.

[20:58]

So now, a little bit more on the third paramita, which is called kshanti, translated usually as patience. Yesterday I gave a few examples of a kind of thinking, a kind of reasoning that you can do to protect yourself from anger and to appreciate your enemies and various irritating circumstances. And sometimes through this kind of reasoning you can actually convert an irritation into a joy. But there is another side to patience, or many other sides to patience. And another side to patience is the more heart side of patience.

[22:09]

And that's the side of actually forgiving. So sometimes if you're being attacked by someone, you can actually reason. It's possible to reason, think, in such a way that you actually see this person as a wonderful treasure. But another way is actually just to forgive them. And it's more of an emotional approach. And also we need to forgive ourselves, too, for many things. Like this morning, several little things happened, like my trusty, my faithful attendant sprained her ankle. So I hope she forgives herself for slipping and is not sort of criticizing herself for that.

[23:10]

And during the chanting this morning, The chant leader said that we chanted the merging of difference and unity and the jewel mirror samadhi, but we really didn't chant the jewel mirror samadhi. He made a little mistake there. I don't know if he noticed it. But, you know, I thought to myself, well, he made a little mistake, but I think he'd probably be able to forgive himself. And I thought, myself. Yeah, I bet he can forgive himself. Matter of fact, maybe too easily can he forgive himself. But then I thought, why not? Why not be really good at forgiving yourself? Why sort of wait a while and sort of say, well, actually, that was pretty bad, you know?

[24:14]

And then forgive yourself. Why not just forgive yourself right away? Would Buddha wait a while before he forgave you and sort of say, do you really understand how bad that was? You do? Okay, now I forgive you. What about if you do something stupid and then you don't even understand and you think it's good? Buddha will forgive you for that too. This one westerner talking about the practice of patience, maybe with a little Christian background, he said, Buddha will not forgive the bodhisattva who does not forgive those who transgress against him. You know, Buddha's not up there on a hill, but your own enlightened conduct, your own enlightened nature will forgive you, will forgive your behavior when you forgive others, because then your Buddha's functioning.

[25:16]

So when you forgive others and yourself, then Buddha forgives you. That's true. So the essence of patience is to endure and forgive insult. And then the other aspect of it, that's the most essential part, actually. The other aspect is to be able to endure pain. And another aspect of it is to accept. But the main part is to be able to forgive and to endure insult and attack. And different kinds of people sometimes, or even the same person, sometimes reasoning will help, sometimes just opening your heart and forgiving.

[26:26]

Sometimes both. At the time of Buddha, there was a disciple, and I forgot his name, so I'll just look in the book. His name was... Now, there were several Purnas, probably, but anyway, I think one of the main disciples was Purna. I don't know if it's this one, but when Purna was ordained by Buddha as a monk, he resolved to go to this country as a missionary. And so he went to the Buddha to ask permission to go. Buddha said, you're going there? Well, don't you know the people there are really fierce and violent and, you know, vicious and critical and abusive.

[27:44]

He said, well, what happened to you? You go there. Are you sure you want to go? And he said, yes, I want to go there because I want to help those people. And Buddha said, well, what if you go there and people start insulting you and reviling you? What will you do? He said, well, I'll consider them the most kindly and sweet and generous people. because they're not throwing garbage at me or clods of dirt. And Buddha said, well, what if they throw garbage and clods of dirt at you? What will you do then, Purna? He says, well, I'll consider them the most kindly and sweet and generous people because they're not hitting me with big clubs and sharp penetrating objects.

[28:56]

So what if you do if they start hitting you with big clubs and sharp weapons? What will you do then, Parana? He said, I will consider them the kindest folk, the most gentle and sweet, because they're not killing me. Buddha says, what will you do, Parana, if they kill you? He said, I will consider them the most kind and sweet people because they relieve me of this robbing body and all this suffering that I experience. And Buddha said, well Purna, you are really a gentle-hearted person and you have tremendous forbearance. I think you can go there and teach those people. So he went there and he taught them. And everything worked out just fine. And they were really rude to him and gave him a real hard time.

[29:58]

And finally, as a result of all the punishment that they gave him, he finally said, I think I've taught you enough. I'm now going to die. And he died. And after he died, the people thought, Hey, what happened anyway? That guy was awfully easy to insult and beat up, wasn't he? Did you notice the way he bled when you stuck knives in him? Just the blood just really just came out really nicely. Did you notice that? And did you notice what has happened to his head when you hit it with a bat? How it just sort of bounced back and forth like that? Who was that guy anyway? And... And they thought more and more about what a strange character was and finally they changed and they learned who he was and they became disciples of enlightenment too.

[31:16]

So patience is really helpful for practice Now we come to the next perfection, the perfection which is called virya, which means, literally as I mentioned before, it means sort of manly or bull-like. And as I say, I hesitate to mention this because maybe some people here don't identify with being a bull, but a certain bull-like quality or the ability to sort of walk into a difficulty, like walk into a sesheen, everybody that signed up for the sesheen is a little bit bullheaded to do that. Because you know you're going to run into some difficulty, it's going to be hard, but you still went in there, you have the capacity to enter into a really challenging situation.

[32:17]

Virya is translated as energy, effort, courageous effort. But I also like enthusiasm. It's translated as enthusiasm. And one simple way of talking about it is just the wholehearted endeavor into what's wholesome. Yesterday someone asked me, or here's some other translations, zeal, strenuousness, exertion. Yesterday someone asked me, said to me, you, I've heard you talk before and I've read some things that you've written and you seem to think that posture is kind of important or you seem to feel that's an important part of practice.

[33:23]

I said, is that, is it true? I mean, do you think that there's some kind of posture that you need to have in order to realize Buddhahood? I think he said something like that. Now, this person that was talking to me, I know him over the years, and he has scoliosis, which means, you know, his spine goes kind of, even from the front, if you look at him from the front, his spine kind of curves a certain way. So I thought he was kind of asking me, my spine is curved, does my spine have to be reworked or something? Can a person like me practice? Or do I have to change religions or what? And what I said to him was that Nobody's back is straight like, you know, the shortest distance between two points.

[34:26]

Everybody's back has some curve in it. It should have a curve. And some people's have many, many curves. Some people are curving from front to back and from side to side and also sort of turning on the axis of the spine, too. Most of us have some of all that. Some of us don't have much problem than we have really kind of like textbook spine, I suppose. Most of us have some strange thing going on there because of our past karma. So straight back or proper posture does not mean a particular thing. We say the Buddha does not have a particular mark. You cannot recognize the straight back or the proper posture by certain marks. We say, don't lean right or left or forward or backwards. Yes, that's true. But what does that mean?

[35:27]

So what I said to him was that I think what we mean by proper posture is... I forgot what I said, but anyway... proper posture means that your body is awake that you're awake to your body you experience your body and it means that your your whole posture is awake It doesn't mean it's a certain shape. And each person, each person when their body is awake will be a different, will have a different shape. And I think that many people, I think I have seen many people who for a time anyway, their body was awake.

[36:38]

Many people in this session, for part of the session at least, are awake. Their body is awake. Such an awake posture is a correct posture. And this is necessary. You have to wake up to your body. Your body has to be awake. Yes, that's true. That is required. That's what we call a just sit-in. It's also what we call enthusiasm. In order to have an awake body, you have to be enthusiastic. You have to sit down and say, hey, I'm sitting down. And you've got to say, hey, I've got a body. And I may not like it, but anyway, this is it. And I'm going to be this body 100%. to have your own body, wherever it is, 100%.

[37:43]

Wouldn't you say that's enthusiastic to have that kind of attitude? Frighteningly enthusiastic, maybe. Like a bull, maybe. Or maybe like an angry lioness. protecting her young. Anyway, wholeheartedly have a body, enthusiastically do what you're doing. Like a mother having a baby. Like a baby being born, very enthusiastic. So an example of this, which I mentioned earlier, is when you're sitting, to bring your hands against your abdomen, below your navel.

[39:04]

This is not easy to do for some people. If you try to bring your hands in contact with your abdomen, you may get all kinds of problems in your shoulders and neck and back. Try to figure out how to do this without straining any muscles. Now it's the fourth day of Sashin, and you may be able to do it. It takes a real exertion of your attention to keep your hand here. At least it does for me. Now, this exertion can get easy after a while or effortless, but it is a big exertion to keep the hand here, to remember to keep it here, because it naturally slips down, doesn't it?

[40:12]

Down the old hill, here we go, sliding, kind of slalom down there. But when it gets down here, you know, although it's kind of comfortable for a while, this isn't as enthusiastic. And also, actually, it gets tiresome too to be bent over like this. Although it is kind of nice. Might try it sometimes. Just really let it slide down there and pleasant. It's kind of like being at the bottom of the hill. Have a little drink. Okay, now let's come back up the hill to the top and start really skiing again. Put the hand in here. And my experience, for me, anyway, is holding my hands, not way down here, but holding my hands sort of in this, there's a little valley down here in my feet. I can set my hands there, and they fit right there in the arch of my feet. It's quite comfortable, and I feel pretty good. This is fine, and you can be totally, you can exert yourself in that posture, I'm sure.

[41:17]

But for me, to take my hands that inch or two from this place and pull it back uphill here on top of my heel and touch my abdomen. And especially to touch the back of these baby fingers. See this side? To actually bring both of those baby fingers, the inside part of the baby fingers against the abdomen. For me, the difference between this and this, between this on my feet and up here touching my abdomen is just simply like plugging in an electrical appliance, it's like plugging it in and having it start working versus pretty much just not being functioning. It's a radical difference. One time I did it and I felt like I had recently saw the movie Star Wars. And I felt like the difference between the hands being down here and the hands being back here, the touching, was like when Han Solo was driving his spaceship, right?

[42:29]

I don't know how fast he was going, but driving along in space in a spaceship, right? And then he goes into what's called hyperdrive or overdrive or hyperspace. You go... And then, pow! in another dimension. It's another practice. Just that little bit from here to here. This is the difference between pretty good and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, wow. Hey. And then you kind of feel like, I can't keep this up for very long. My God, whoo. Well, wait a minute now. And then your shoulders may start hurting and your neck and all kinds of, you know, the ship starts rattling. Put it back down to a little bit more safe place.

[43:31]

I get the hands down there. Okay, this is more like it, all right. And then, but this is not quite as enthusiastic as that other one was. This is like, actually, get back on the horse, you know, okay, here we go. Now, this has other qualities. For example, your hands are touching, you really have a feeling your hands are touching this place below your navel. The ancestors just worked this out, you know. They got the navel here, and they got the hand below the navel. The Buddha had his hands below his navel. For 2,500 years they've been putting the statues with the hands below the navel because it's important to put them there for some reason. Another thing that happens when you put the little fingers, if you put this part of your hand sort of the back of the palm, you put that against your abdomen, but you keep the little fingers sort of out away from the body like that.

[44:37]

This is an exaggeration. It's quite a different posture. See the difference? This is with the heel of the hand against my body, but not the little fingers. Can you see my body? Now I'll bring the little fingers in and watch what happens to the rest of my body. See the arms? They come away from the body. And the little eggs form under the armpit. Those little eggs you've heard about, They naturally appear when you put the little fingers against the abdomen. You don't have to work, you don't have to prop your arms up anymore. And having arms away from this, again, if you look at the pictures of Buddha, Buddha usually doesn't have his arms next to his body like this. I'm talking about pictures of Buddha. Some yogis, what they do in order to stay up all night is they put their bodies right next to their arms, next to their body, and then they sort of straighten their arms like this and lock them in to hold themselves up while they're sleeping and sitting up. But the Buddha, being not asleep but awake, sits like this.

[45:40]

And I confess to you, and I confessed before Manjushri, that I can't keep it up. So I understand if you never can do it, it's hard. And I get into all kinds of problems with my shoulders and so on. But finally, I find that this posture is by far the most comfortable and that my shoulders are really in a comfortable place. And basically, if you excuse the expression, the body drops off if you sit this way. Now, it can drop off in other postures, don't worry. It can drop off flying through midair. but this way allows me to be very enthusiastic, to really exert myself and really my body, my body, the light goes on, my body wakes up when I make this effort. Sometimes it wakes up when I'm being down here too, but this really makes a difference, and I can usually only do this consistently in Sashin. During ordinary daily practice, it starts to slip down there, and I feel, well, it's pretty good, at least I'm in a zendo.

[46:48]

But talk about heroic effort, no. This is kind of like, well, you know, you're not a hero every day, right? Well, maybe not. But whatever day you are a hero, just this little thing like that provides a way, this is an example of a mode to be enthusiastic, and it's a mode, you have to be enthusiastic in order to Sit still. Sitting still is not sort of like half-hearted effort. It is full, 100% effort. Yes, it really is. This is just one example of how to do that. Keeping your eyes open is also really good. because it's not easy to keep your eyes open. Also, I can't do that all the time.

[47:55]

That's an understatement. This is also wholesome. To put your hand against your abdomen is wholesome. It is also obedient, because Dogen Zenji And the ancestors down from Buddha said, put your hands against your abdomen. They said that. And I'm giving you a little bit more details about what they mean by against the abdomen, that baby fingers should be touching, baby fingers. That will help a lot if you can do that. It requires courage to do that. It requires effort. It requires attention. All those things have to be happening. Just paying attention is not enough. Just making courage, being courageous is not enough because you have to remember to check to see if it's there.

[48:59]

So that's an example of how to make effort, or how to be enthusiastic. The difference between just putting your hands in your lap, some all the way, and making the mudra beautifully. Also, that's another thing you can do is you can make a beautiful mudra. Make the mudra as beautiful as you can. And again, at the beginning of every period, although you may not be able to maintain it the whole period, start anyway with the best effort, the best posture you can create. Start with that and offer that to Buddha. It may slip, you may not be able to maintain it, but start with the best thing you can do. See if you can at least start with that. That's right. Too much effort is... Well, there's many, many modes of too much effort.

[50:24]

Like the other day when I was talking about... Yesterday when I was talking about patience. Patience doesn't mean just to get really tense. So some people sit like this. They go... Okay. Well, that's too much effort, right? That's not the best posture for that person. Best posture should be more relaxed, should be relaxed. If you put your hands here against your abdomen, if you're tense, you'll feel pain in your shoulders quite quickly. You have to put them there in such a way and hold your shoulders in such a way that the shoulders sort of fall backwards. But you can do that. You can find a place where they'll, if you work it all around, you'll find a place where the shoulders will just hang there. And your arms will just lightly hang from them like a hanger. And it all will balance. But again, if you don't do something like this, you can't get into the balancing.

[51:29]

If you put weight on your hands, and let your hands rest here and hang forward, you're not really balancing, you're more like on a tripod. But if you do like this, you're actually very much balancing. And the whole thing can balance effortlessly. So the proper effort is effortless. Just sitting is effortless because you're not doing anything in addition to what you're already doing. So one of the characteristics that carries through all these paramitas, for example, giving. You give fundamentally is to let yourself be yourself and let your lunch be your lunch and let others be others. That's fundamentally what giving is. Let your posture be your posture. But let your posture be completely your posture, wholeheartedly your posture.

[52:30]

And again, Ethical conduct, virtue. The main characteristic of virtue for Buddhism is non-contrivance. Non-contrivance. The main thing about virtue, about ethical conduct, is fidelity to suchness. You're not practicing virtue in order to get enlightened. Your virtue is integral, uncontriving with suchness. It's faithful to suchness. It's not trying to cause suchness or get suchness. And patience too and effort too. I'm not making this effort to produce anything I'm just trying to find actually the effortless posture.

[53:35]

But I have to, I am an effort, I am a very energetic being. Living beings are very energetic. If you aren't energetic, you're not according with suchness. You are alive, you must sit in a lively way. Well, uh, it blocks. Uh huh. Yeah, that's right.

[54:37]

Well, I think it is self-contained, it's true, but the symbol of the circle, you actually drew a circle with your hand when you did that. The circle is the universe. That's the circle. The universe is self-contained, it's true. But everything is included in the circle, this circle. And the mudra too, it's a circle. This is called the cosmic mudra. And he just went like this with his arms. He drew like this. This is a circle, too. You create the cosmic circle with your arms. Everything is included there. And he also showed another mudra, a mudra like this, I think. See that? You closed the circle, didn't you? If you're in a yogic state, if you're in a state of vitality and you have your hands like this, your hands will naturally go like this.

[55:52]

If you have your hands like this, you will experience, your hands will be uncomfortable because you will experience electrical psychic discharge off your fingers, off your tips of your fingers. You'll feel very irritated. And your hands will automatically be forced closed like this or like this. And when that happens, the discharge stops and the circuit is complete. Look at babies. Look at their hands, the way they use their hands. Watch them when they're in their bed. They're making mudras all the time. They are. They're constantly making these mudras. Because they're so energetic, they don't have their hands open like this for very much. Mostly they're closing the mudras to circulate the energy through their body. And also, if you look at people who practice mudras and practice yoga a lot, if you watch the way they use their hands just when they're sitting around the table or something, they use their hands like a baby.

[57:04]

the kinds of things they do when they're fiddling around. Their hands look like baby's hands. Because if you've got energy flowing through your body, it just doesn't shoot out the fingers unless on special occasions. It's uncomfortable, so you have to close it to cycle the energy. So they don't just go like this when you're sitting. You close it, or like this, or like this. Anyway, this is a perfectly good meditation mudra. You can sit like this. But in Buddhism, we adopt the position of what's called Buddha. This is Buddha's meditation posture. Or Bhairachana Buddha is this closed one. Closed circle. But everything is in that circle. Yes. and fingers touch.

[58:13]

And fingers touch. [...] So my question. So what running through the fingers go with the grease or the top of the grease? Did you hear what she said? She said her abdomen is going in and out. If she touches her abdomen, when the abdomen goes in, the abdomen moves away from the fingers. And so should you keep the fingers against the abdomen? I'm not sure what to do in that case. I guess I would say that ideally your abdomen shouldn't be moving so much that you lose much contact. So I guess I would suggest that you try not to move your abdomen too much.

[59:15]

Try to hold it in such a way that it, although it may still move, that it doesn't move a lot. And then keep the fingers, a little bit of pressure on the fingers so that when it goes in you still feel contact. When it goes out maybe it presses a little bit. So kind of a little bit maybe ride the abdomen with the fingers. Keep the contact. Because if the stomach goes in and you lose the contact, you may lose it for a long time, for the rest of the session or whatever. So try to keep contact even if it's moving. And so... Yeah, it's possible to, even when the abdomen is moving, to keep contact. It shouldn't be going, you know, much. Well, ultimately, you know, not ultimately, but anyway, as you practice for longer, your abdomen doesn't move so much after a while.

[60:23]

But it shouldn't be moving a lot. although it naturally moves some for most people. But even if it's moving, I would suggest that you'd still try to keep the hand in contact there. That kind of effort, that's courageous effort. It's an example of courageous effort. It really takes courage to do that one little thing. So actually, what I'm saying to you is something that takes a real big effort to do, even though it seems little. And excuse me for offering you such a big challenge or such a big opportunity. Um... Well, it's a big topic, but I guess the main point I would make at this point is that you make your posture and you try as much as possible to be aware of your posture, have an awake posture.

[61:54]

And then see if you see if you can find out how this posture is breathing. You will probably discover that this body is breathing. And then try to be aware of the breathing that the body is doing. So I'm saying it this way as in order to not contrive, in other words, not to make your breath a certain way, but discover how your breath is. Be aware of your breath as it is. Don't try to make your breath into correct breath. Don't try to make your breathing into correct breathing. Rather, discover, study your breath, be aware of your breath, learn your breath.

[63:08]

In other words, awaken to your breath. So the same thing I said about posture. There's not a certain posture you should have. You should have an awake posture. And you shouldn't have a certain type of breath. You should have awake breath. In other words, be awake to your breath, as it is. be faithful to the suchness of your breath. That's correct breathing. I can't tell you what that is. You are the only one who can find that because you have your own breath that you're meditating on. If you find the suchness of your breath please show it to me I'd be happy to confirm the suchness you discover but I don't tell you what breath you should be looking for I don't tell you how you should breathe okay and you also don't tell yourself how to breathe the same thing I said about the precepts the precepts aren't thou shalt and the precepts are not I will

[64:23]

That same thing applies to the posture. You don't say, I will do this posture. You also don't say, Dogen Zenji is not saying, thou shalt do this posture. The correct posture is the posture you awaken to. It's the posture of suchness. That's the practice. And the breathing too, it's not I shall breathe this way or someone told me I should breathe this way. The correct breathing is the breathing you're doing. And not just the breathing you're doing, but your awakeness to the breathing you're doing. That's proper breathing. You can't do that by yourself. You're not doing that by yourself. Your whole life is creating that breath. And I can't tell you you should do that. But you can awaken to that breath. I can't tell you your posture either.

[65:29]

I adjust your posture, and I adjust your posture towards vitality. But I don't know what posture you should have. And you can't make it yourself. But the awake posture is there if you can discover it. Awake posture, awake breathing, awake conduct, awake patience, awake effort. Everything awake. Don't try to make things a certain way. Awaken to the way they are. Yes, Peter? May our intention

[66:20]

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