Today is the fifth day, so we reach the fifth perfection, perfection of meditation or perfection of concentration, Samadhi Paramita. It is also taught that all these six paramitas, all these six perfections, are interdependent on each other, and that in order to properly practice any of them, the others must also be functioning. Certainly in order to practice giving, truly, we must have perfect wisdom.

[01:08]

And it is not possible to practice perfect wisdom if we don't practice giving, and so on. So there's 36 interrelationships there, at least. When offering incense just now, I chanted to myself precept incense, concentration incense, liberation incense. This incense offering includes

[02:13]

of course, offering and is giving. But it also is concentration. I offer it with my best concentration. My whole heart goes into peacefully, tranquilly giving the incense. And this incense offering also is wisdom. This offering pervades the realm of truth like bright clouds or like cloud forms and bright light. Now I offer to inexhaustible Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Arhats to give them Dharma joy, to give them truth,

[03:23]

Joy. Joy is truth. Know, I tell myself, know that incense offering realizes nirvana. There's now someone blew her nose. Now someone's wiping her nose. Now someone's smiling. Know that blowing the nose and wiping the nose and smiling realize nirvana. This is called a conviction which you can have.

[04:26]

that each thing you do throughout the day is your way of realizing freedom for all beings. Today we'll have a work period. This afternoon after lunch, we open up the Green Gulch Dharma playground for the Sashim people. And you may go out into the sun and enact the truth as you wish. In the fields, in the kitchen, cleaning up little messes here and there. letting your compassion reach down to the earth and beautify this Dharma realm here for your own joy and for the joy of others here and those who will come here.

[05:37]

This is your temple as much as anyone else's. So today you can let your compassionate hands reach and touch this place and help it. with the conviction that in this way you transmit truth of the Buddhas with your own little hands and appreciate around you the other people that are doing the same. No need to criticize them if they don't know what to do. They need some instruction or whatever style that they practice. So I offer incense. I make my offerings. I give.

[06:39]

I let the incense be incense. I let Manjushri be Manjushri. I let myself be myself. I let you be you. with the heart that trusts that this giving transmits the wisdom and compassion of the Buddhas and does the work of the Bodhisattvas this is also just sitting this is also not moving not moving from the conviction Practice compassion. So with this conviction, making offerings and practicing giving is not sitting up, is not moving.

[07:58]

And throughout the day too, we practice virtue. And virtue, all the different kinds of virtues, are ultimately fidelity to suchness. Fidelity to suchness is also what we call Not moving. Just sitting. Suchness in Sanskrit is a nice word. I like it. It's ta-ta-ta. That's suchness. Ta-ta-ta. And in Pali, I like it even better.

[09:06]

It's da-da-da. Fidelity to da-da-da. And the Buddha is called the Tathagata. The Tathagata. the one who, the suchness that has gone, or the suchness that has come. When you act, act as suchness which has gone into the action, or suchness that has come into the action. You don't know which way, actually, whether it's gone in or come in. It's one of the neat things about the word Tathagata, because Tatha means such. And Agatha means gone.

[10:13]

But Gatha means come. If you combine Tatha and Gatha, you get Tathagata. If you combine Tatha and Agatha, you get Tathagata. So it's thus gone one and thus come one. So you don't know whether the suchness is going into it or coming into it, whether you're putting the suchness into your life or whether it's coming into your life. It's actually in between there somewhere. Because the suchness, the Tathagata has no abode. That's our true abode. This is where we live. And in this way we practice the perfection of ethical study by creating a mind that has no abode, by producing a thought which is faithful to suchness.

[11:24]

So there too, in Zen, The practice of ethical conduct and sitting are united. Next comes the perfection of patience. Whatever happens, comfortable or uncomfortable things, We appreciate the suchness. We love, without attachment, the suchness. Da-da-da. It may hurt, but it's da-da-da. And if it hurts, we forgive it. We forgive the da-da-da, which is, you're a da-da-da. Well, really, we forgive it.

[12:28]

Again, this is a perfection of patience, open-hearted acceptance of suchness, and this is also the practice of suchness, which we call Zazen. The fourth, to joyously... to joyously practice the wholesome, the good. This is, again, just sitting. And this is called the perfection of effort. This is enthusiasm. Enthusiasm in everything you do. Your whole life is always living itself completely, never partially.

[13:34]

Recognize and celebrate that enthusiasm. Even when you're tired, you're enthusiastically tired. Sometimes bitterly tired. So rather than, you know, this half, like if you're making a half-hearted effort, don't make a half-hearted effort. Make a wholehearted half-hearted effort. Totally exerted half-heartedness. And yesterday I gave an example of how to hold your hand mudra to give you some kind of feeling for a little area, a little place where you could really exert yourself.

[14:50]

Dogen Zenji says, if you exert one thing completely, You exert everything completely. His practice is the total exertion of one thing. This is just sitting. Total exertion of one breath, whatever that breath is. Total exertion of one spine, of one blink. of one tongue, of hearing one bird. This is the perfection of enthusiasm, and it's also the realm of zazen practice. Now we come to the perfection of meditation.

[16:01]

I kind of feel like a little bit like this week, this first five days, first four days, it's like walking around like a stadium or like a vortex. I've been walking around, I should do it this way, walking around a vortex. At the center of the vortex is the one Buddha practice. And we've been walking around some of its emanations. But as you get closer to it, I feel like it gets steeper. So there's a tendency to slip right down into the bottom now. and not be able to tell anything apart anymore. When I start talking about the perfection of concentration, it will be very hard for me not to also slip into the perfection of wisdom.

[17:13]

So from now on, I may not be able to keep things separate because it's getting very steep. And I'm going to start slipping into talking about the sixth when I start talking about the fifth. So excuse me if it gets confusing. Because, of course, all six are interrelated. Perfection of concentration, what is it? Well, the school, the Zen school, Zen means concentration, so it's the hallmark of this school. So I feel like now that we said that's a hallmark, maybe that's the mark over the door of the hall, we've walked into the Zen hall now.

[18:28]

And now we're just inside. So what is concentration? was just suchness again. It's just what is happening. Mind is always concentrated. That's why we practice concentration. Not to make something happen which isn't happening, but simply to celebrate what is already happening.

[19:32]

The word celebrate means to visit frequently. So we celebrate our concentrated mind, we visit our concentrated mind frequently. We celebrate it. Hopefully we visit it every moment. The appreciation of our concentrated mind is essential in order to help other people. We can have the intention to help others, but without realizing our tranquil, serene mind, without knowing this mind, we will not be effective in our basic intention. Our compassion will

[20:40]

not be able to smoothly realize itself. So let us celebrate our compassionate mind through celebration of tranquility, through celebration of imperturbable composure. There is several varieties of composure, basically two kinds. One kind is called imperturbable composure. This is the kind that we recommend most highly. The other kind is called perturbable composure. This is pretty good too. But the problem is, it's perturbable.

[21:47]

So today, when you go out to work, please use imperturbable composure, because otherwise the work may perturb you. Of course, the imperturbable composure is way down there, down the bottom of your mind, where no waves can disturb it. It's always there. So again, when we practice concentration of the Buddha, ocean seal concentration, when we're swimming on the top of the ocean, we also have our feet down on the bottom. So if you're out and you have potatoes in your eyes or water in your face or junk in your hands, swim on the surface of those experiences.

[23:09]

At the same time, realize that your feet are on the bottom of your imperturbable mind. Act from there. This is called meditation in action, concentration on the move. During some sashins, usually at the beginning, I have gone over the nine stages of developing and cultivating meditative stabilization. I'm not going to do that today, although I think it's a nice exercise to go through. but rather to emphasize a kind of concentration, a kind of pacification of the mind without any contrived activity.

[24:24]

To calm your mind without doing anything to calm it. Don't spend effort I'm recommending today, don't spend effort to try to calm your mind. For the rest of session, don't make any effort to calm your mind. Just make effort. Yes, make effort. Be extremely enthusiastic, but not enthusiastic in order to do something. Be enthusiastic about what you're doing. pacify the mind without trying to make it calm. And again, to pacify the mind without any contrived activity is to pacify the mind through the mind as it is.

[25:40]

And the funny thing about this style of concentration is that it's just like when you first start, and it's just like when you would finish as a perfectly concentrated Buddha. Because when you first start, you always must start with where your mind is, how it is now. In order to develop concentration, you must start with how the mind is now. And then if you would arrive at a state where you're perfectly tranquil, like the Buddha, that's also the real suchness of the mind. So the beginning and the end are both such. They're not the same. They're different, but they share in that they're both as such. So I'm recommending concentration as such.

[26:50]

To calm the mind with no contrived activity, with no tricks, with no methods. Simply awaken to your calm mind. If you get to sit facing out and look at the people sitting, you can see the people in this sashim have a calm mind. But even though you look at them and see a calm mind, inside they may have possibly a different opinion floating around in there. The contents of their mind might be a rock and roll song, an opinion like, I'm not very concentrated, or even an opinion like, boy, I am really concentrated, I'm doing great.

[27:59]

As a matter of fact, I'm a super concentrated person. They might be talking like that. And then they might say, gee, I'm not very concentrated, I'm just talking to myself. Nonetheless, even while that's happening, moment by moment, they're perfectly concentrated. No matter what you're thinking, You're perfectly concentrated. The mind must be concentrated. It can't function otherwise. But to be able to taste and savor the joy of this concentrated mind, which is manifesting itself moment by moment, Somehow, this is something which is not always available to us. But it's there nonetheless.

[29:03]

That's why you don't have to do anything to get concentrated. All you need to do is... I don't know. Just be concentrated. to settle into your suchness or into the suchness or our suchness. And again, the example I gave of holding the hand mudra against the abdomen, I tell you this because, I don't know why, but anyway, I tell you this, and I really, when I do this, when I have my hand mudra against my abdomen,

[30:46]

and I keep it there, and I'm aware of it being there, and it doesn't usually stay there unless I'm aware of it. If I don't pay attention to it, it does slip away. When I am aware of it, and I cope with all the different things that happen in relationship to being aware of it, somehow I tend to somehow be aware of my concentrated mind. It's not that I exactly put my hand there in order to make a concentrated mind, but rather putting my hand there seems to be helpful to realizing the nature of my mind, which turns out to have various natures, and one of them is that it's always still and one-pointed, But I don't recommend that you take this mudra with the sense of trying to get something with it.

[31:57]

It's pretty subtle. So now I'm going to talk a little bit more about this mudra. But again, I warn you before I start talking. If I start talking about this, I might look like I'm getting kind of excited, even. And like I think this is really a good thing. And I do. But I don't mean that I'm telling you something that you can take this exercise and then go get concentration with it. If you have that attitude, then this exercise might actually be a disservice to you. Because it's kind of like abandoning your nice concentrated home and going off to some other place to try to find it. No. This Samudra exercise is simply to help us stay home wholeheartedly.

[33:11]

and give up trying to get something. To give up the gaining motivation in meditation. But nonetheless it's very subtle and it's very hard for us to make a big effort without slipping into this effort's gonna produce some improvement. Making effort often goes with us trying to get something. So when we make effort in the practice of Buddhism, we sometimes slip into our past actions of making effort in conjunction with trying to get something. So I have to watch out for this one. Now, I talked about this mudra and particularly about where to put it. Against the abdomen. Firmly placed against the abdomen, but not pushing on it. much at all. And the place that I suggested to put it is the place that was suggested for thousands of years to put it, and that is below the navel.

[34:26]

Now this place is a famous place. I don't know if you've all heard about it, but it's It's a real famous area, especially in Asia. It's the center of the Asian body. It's not the heart exactly, but it's sort of the heart. It's more like the hearth. It's like the hearth of the body. The word focus, by the way, is a Latin word. and it means hearth. So in a way, in Zen, the focus of the body is the kitchen stove. Down here, it's below the navel, about three inches, depending on how big you are or how small you are.

[35:30]

So we sit around the hearth, and we look at the pot. In the pot, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are being cooked. So the center of our awareness is down there. And therefore, and along with that, we put our hands there to help us bring our attention to this part of the body. Now with the importation of Japanese management methods, they also are importing the practice of concentrating on this part of the body, which Japanese call the hara, or the tanden. And it's being used now in all kinds of things like teaching tennis, golf,

[36:38]

motorcycle riding, you name it. Just thought of a joke. I think there's going to be a firing squad, and I think they had a... I don't remember the story, so I'll just tell it some other way. They had, I think, an Englishman, a Japanese person, and an American that were going to be executed for, I believe, trying to gain something in practice. And they said to the Englishman, do you have any last request? And the Englishman said, yes, I would like a cup of English tea and a They gave it to him and they asked the Japanese person, what would you like?

[37:45]

And the Japanese person said, I'd like to have here one more lecture on Japanese management techniques. He was an employee of Mitsubishi, this person. Hey! And the American said, I would like you to shoot me now, before that lecture. So I don't want to give too big a lecture on Japanese management techniques because I know you've heard enough of them. But in a sense, to be aware of your hara is a Japanese management technique.

[38:54]

In that culture they teach people from the time they're children, to manage their attention, to put their attention down in this part of the body. Because it is kind of where things are cooking. It's the hot part of the body. It's where the food is broken down. It's an area of breaking the food down and all that. So in Zen you may hear There's sometimes a recommendation, have a cool head and a warm abdomen. Or like snow on the top of a volcano. Clear, cool head, clearly discriminating what's happening. And down below, mighty nice and warm, things are being melted down there.

[40:01]

If you read Buddhist sutras, and we've been studying the Buddhist teachings, psychological analysis, meditations on how to differentiate carefully among the various things you experience, it's very cool. It's kind of like You don't feel so much heart in it, but it leads to the release of the heart. In meditation down here, there's no words down here below the navel. It's just warm, or even hot. It's impersonal down here. And between this cool area And this warm area or hot area is the heart, which is developed in between these two.

[41:06]

So the mudra down there not only requires your attention, but it brings your attention to this part of the body. And from this part of the body, if you're down there, you can cope with just about anything. There's not much judgment down here either. Like, this is too much for me, that isn't down there. Or this is just right. It's dumb down there. Just in the middle of the soup pot. So it's very helpful to put your emphasis down here with the aid of the mudra. As Shantideva said when he's talking about patience, he said, some people become even more enthusiastic at the sight of their own blood.

[42:20]

Other people kind of faint. So down here is pretty bloody. Heart's bloody, too. I heard another baseball coach said one time, he said, The great ones all have it down here. And he pointed to this spot below the navel. This is an American baseball coach. He never heard of her. He just noticed that the great batters, they have it down here below the navel. He says, those people, the tougher it gets out there,

[43:23]

the more they stay down there. And they love it. In other words, when the pitching gets tougher, they love it. And it's scary to have those people throwing those balls at you at 95 miles an hour. Hard balls. It's hard enough to concentrate in golf on watching the ball. But watch the ball when the ball's coming at you. You don't watch it from up in your brain. You don't watch it from what's going to happen to poor little me. Watch it from down here. Then you won't be afraid. Appreciation of suchness. Realizing your tranquil mind without any device not using any device to get concentrated just awaken to your tranquil mind and also totally exert yourself moment by moment like Dogen Zenji says you should sit still like a vigorously jumping fish

[44:54]

or sit still kind of like in such a way that you so totally exert yourself you sort of like shoot out the bottom of yourself or pop out the top of yourself. You're so energetically involved in where you are that you transcend yourself. Kind of like Rumpelstiltskin. Does everybody know the story of Rumpelstiltskin? No? Do you know? Well, just in the last scene of Rumpelstiltskin, when he finds out that he's not going to get what he wants, he starts jumping up and down on the floor.

[46:00]

When things were going well? When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's Satori. Yes? Are you making any difference between concentration and meditation? Because concentration is simply meditation. Well, like I said, when I start talking about concentration, it's very hard for me to stop just at concentration and not slip into also wisdom.

[47:04]

So, in Buddhism, of course, when we mean meditation, we mean combination of concentration and insight, the two together, actually. So, concentration can be separated from meditation. You can have meditation separately, but Buddha's meditation actually has these two sides. concentration or tranquility, the other side is penetrating vision. Those two together make what we call meditation. But as I say, as soon as I start talking about concentration, it's hard for me just to stop at concentration because I start slipping into insight. Because insight is to be one with suchness. or what's happening. So I have trouble separating them. They're inseparable. But sometimes you can talk about just concentration itself.

[48:06]

And what some people mean by meditation is concentration. But that's not what we mean by concentration, by meditation. We mean something which has these two sides, a stabilizing side and a penetrating side. But I I'm talking about them in such a way that they're kind of... they're blending now. Right. And then insight is to realize that this snake is a cuckoo snake, because it should be actually wiggling around in the field. Yeah?

[49:11]

Dana? Yeah, it's a chakra. Yeah, there's a chakra down there in the hara. And when you find that chakra, then the ball looks real big. You know? Or the moon looks really big. And when the moon looks... And that's the relationship between that chakra and love. There's a relationship there. The rational mind. the apparent opposition between rational mind and insight. Insight is understanding completely how the rational mind works.

[50:13]

So they're not really in opposition, it's that insight grows on analysis of the rational mind. So the rational mind is like the food of insight, part of the food for insight. Insight also grows on the irrational mind. Insight works on all kinds of phenomenal, all kinds of mental experience insight grows on, rational and non-rational. That's the food of insight. And one more thing. I want to tell you about is that tonight we're going to have a ceremony for the lay Buddhist yogi Fuller. You know him? This is the Buddhist yogi Fuller.

[51:16]

He's been sitting here for 20 years and tonight you get to find out He knows anything about Buddhism or himself or anything. You can ask him whatever you want. However, his main case, his presentation will be about Bodhidharma, about Bodhidharma's vast emptiness. So you can also ask him about vast emptiness in our question. You can be able to ask him a question tonight. After dinner we'll have a ceremony. And the other old monks will come and ask him questions too. Okay. So two more questions, DJ? Just a comment related to what we did on the mission of raising gas.

[52:20]

It's also been found that how it is focusing on attention on that area. that we . Again, some things cause . We're starting to actually see . And also, . Sounds great. See, when you hear stuff like that, it's hard not to get into some gaining mode, right?

[53:22]

Yes? Is it independent? It's codependent. It's not really independent, but it's free of. But it's not really independent. You don't know with your rational mind. Enlightenment isn't a rational experience, even if it's based on a rational data. It's kind of like, what do you say, it's deportment beyond knowing. It's not separate from your rational functioning or from your ordinary life. It's just awakening to what's really going on. But it's not someplace else.

[54:25]

It's not independent. It's not some other world. It's right in this world. As we say, it's the lotus that blossoms in the muddy water. Right? The roots of the lotus are still right down in the rational thinking or irrational thinking or greed, hate, and delusion. The root is growing right down in there. But the lotus is, in a way, it transcends. It's very pure and happy, gorgeous, even though it's growing on garbage. Yeah. inside of some knowledge that you just don't know. Is that what you're talking about in your life and you just don't know? Is that what you're talking about? You have peace with the universe you're living in, yes.

[55:31]

And you have peace with everything. You have peace with not knowing. You also have peace with knowing. Most people don't have such a problem with not knowing. Most people don't mind that at all, because you don't know about that. What people have problems with is the stuff they know. It's the stuff we know that's really making us unhappy. Like all the suffering in the world that we know about is what's making us unhappy. All the problems about our self that we know about. There's other problems we don't know about. If we knew about them, we'd feel even worse. But insight produces peacefulness and happiness with what you know and with what you don't know, and also with not knowing and with knowing. Both with the object's awareness and the process of awareness, you arrive at peace through insight. And then compassion comes from there.

[56:36]

Effective compassion then comes. And insight needs meditative stabilization in order to function properly. So we need to appreciate our concentrated mind in order to find our wise mind, our insightful mind. Okay? Yes? Is it not possible to compare this inside mind, rational mind, In this kind of state, a creative state, when an artist is creating something, you need those. You cannot create art just rationally. It would be the cold stuff. You cannot create a board just putting those together. But you need the rational mind just after it to check the grammar. Grammatic.

[57:38]

Yeah. All right. Yes. We work away. That's not the problem. I don't understand various pieces of it. Usually, a solution will come as a realization based on the earlier threshold. But suddenly, showing the pattern is together. But I think we get to step by step by threshold. Not threshold, but necessary. Right.

[58:39]

That's one of the reasons why we practice patience and forgiveness and acceptance, because all the stupid things I've done up to this time are laying the ground for my awakening, even though my awakening is not just all the stupid things I've done, and all the rational things I've done, too. So we appreciate, we forgive and we appreciate all this led to this time. If we're resentful of our past action or anybody else's past action, then we're not here and we can't use the suchness. It's gratitude and it's love. without any contrivance, without any gook added on.

[59:40]

Yeah. All right. Right. And the body's a tool. The body's a tool. And your eyes are tools. I mean, your eyes, your ears, your nose, all these things are tools that we should become skillful at. These are the near tools. Don't say, oh, these are really nice tools, and don't say, these are lousy tools. Don't esteem or despise these tools. Become adept at them. Become skillful at these tools. The body, the emotions, the feelings, the concepts, all those kinds of thinking you can do. Don't despise or esteem it. Become adept at it. And the skill at using your mind comes from your Buddha heart. that will guide you in the development of your skill and your compassion, motivating you to develop skill at Japanese management techniques.

[61:07]

An application of effort, an application of patience, an application of giving, an application of ethical study. All these things are working for us in our way. They are...

[61:32]

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