I have this piece of wood here, and hanging from this piece of wood is a necklace that has some carnelian rings on it. And it also has little pieces, little macrame on it. and I have a tendency to play with this necklace while I'm giving a talk. But today, when I put the stick down, I push the necklace sort of away from myself, underneath the table here, so that I would be less likely to play with it. so I could concentrate better.

[01:06]

And the thought crossed my mind of putting away the things of childhood, putting away my boyhood toys. But then that thought occurred in my mind I don't want to put away all my things of childhood because there are certain things in childhood which are the source of our practice, which aren't really toys. They're actually they. It's not really they, it's it. There's one thing. I think from my childhood that I don't want to put away. And that was the sense that a kindness would be the solution to all my problems.

[02:22]

That if I could just be kind moment by moment throughout the day, I would take care of everything. This is a thing from childhood that I will not put away, but which I keep coming back to as the main point. the main point of concentration. I think the way it occurred to me at certain points in my childhood was rather than saying kind, I think the word I might have used was nice.

[03:42]

If I would just be nice to everybody. But I think kind's better. Someone had the courage to tell me recently that they didn't like this teaching about the six subtle Dharma gates. Particularly, they don't like me talking about it again and again. And it has been my fantasy that probably people were not liking it, so I keep apologizing for talking about the same thing over and over.

[04:54]

On the other hand, again, the thought occurs to me of those studies that I heard about when I first started practicing Zen, of the response of meditators and non-meditators to a certain kind of stimuli. That's what I heard anyway. If you ring a bell and you have one meditator and one non-meditator listening to the bell, the first time they hear it they have a reaction of a certain amplitude in their, you know, actually in their in their brain, I think. They measured the response to the bell. And then they rang the bell again, and the non-meditator, the second time they heard the bell, the reaction, the response to the bell was lessened.

[06:05]

But the response of the meditator was the same as the first time. And then again, they did it again, and the person who wasn't meditating, the response was less again. Now this is to a nice sounding bell, I think, just an ordinary, not a real loud bell, just kind of like, ding, that kind of thing. And after a few trials, the person who wasn't meditating had almost no response to the bell. It didn't even look like they weren't even hearing it anymore. whereas the meditator was having pretty much the same response as the first time she heard it. Oh, a bell, oh my gosh. One of those things. What a surprise, a bell. The sound of a bell, my God. And then what crosses my mind now again, you're hearing things that are crossing my mind of course, is that if the sound was rather pleasant, if the sound was neutral this would hold, but I think if the sound was pleasant it would probably also hold, that if it was pleasant the first time,

[07:45]

the person who was in a state of, let's say, whose mind was stopped, would hear it pretty much the same first and tenth time. The person whose mind was active, even if it was pleasant the first time, after a while they would stop hearing it. And I think it's possible that if it was unpleasant, it might get stronger in the person's mind whose mind was not stopped. I don't know. It wasn't an unpleasant sound. They weren't repeatedly, you know, attacking the person. But it might be that it would get more and more, get more and more of a reaction to an unpleasant event. Whereas a stupid meditator, each time would just sort of have the same reaction. So this is not exactly trying to get you to sort of pretend as though you're surprised and amazed every time I bring up the same thing again, or that you have the same reaction the first time as you do the twentieth time, but I just thought I might mention that.

[09:02]

So I encouraged, I tried to encourage all of us to keep yourself still. And not in a rough way of keeping yourself on a chain, but maybe discover the stillness discover the self that you're never away from. Become intimate with yourself. And in that intimacy with yourself, perhaps discover that no matter what's happening throughout the day, there is stillness.

[10:13]

Even as you're flying through the air with the greatest of ease, there is stillness. by giving ourselves completely to the breathing process, letting ourselves appreciate how mind and breath

[12:14]

quite naturally rely on each other. Mind and breath walking together through birth and death. Mind and breath are born together at the time of birth. Mind and breath die together at the time of death. This togetherness, this harmony between mind and breath, is not something that is fabricated

[13:31]

What did we say this morning? Although it's not fabricated, it is not without speech. Is that what we said? Hmm? Although it's not fabricated, what? No. What? Although it's not fabricated, speech is not yet correct. It's not without speech. It's the other one. Although it has the five, although endowed with the five... Although it is not fabricated, it is not without speech. Yeah. Although it is not fabricated, it is not without speech. This relationship, this harmony of mind and breath, it's not fabricated. It's not without speech. It can talk.

[14:52]

The meaning, however, is not in the words that it says. The meaning is what happens when you bring your energy to what it says. The breath and the mind naturally rely on each other and in that harmony There is stillness. They just meet each other and balance. And they can talk. This meeting can talk. And the meaning is not in the words, but the words come from this place. If you bring your energy to the words and follow these words, these words will take you back, all words will take you back to the place they come from.

[16:13]

And they come from this place of stillness where breath and mind are in rapport. are intimate, are stopped in their intimacy. And this intimacy is not fabricated. Although it's not without causes, And it is not without speech. So I'm saying the same thing, and another thought that came to my mind is, I'm walking around an ancient tower.

[17:26]

I'm walking around an ancient point. this point of stillness. This point where your breath or our breath and our mind are co-creating each other. Now Rilke says that he's he lives his life in growing rings, in growing mudras, which move out and cover the things of the world. Perhaps I will never achieve the last

[18:31]

but that will be what I attempt. I'm circling around God, around the ancient tower. I've been circling around for a thousand years. I still I don't know if I'm a falcon, a storm, or a great song. So I'm circling around with you this point, this still point, this stopped mind, this mind at rest, this undisturbed and undisturbable mind.

[19:59]

This undisturbable mind which doesn't know if it's a falcon, a storm, or a great song. This undisturbable mind can sing. This undisturbable mind is a wooden man. And when this wooden man sings, a stone woman gets up to dance. The Dharma gate of contemplation is to go to the place, is after going to the place of the wooden man, of the person who can't do anything, and sitting there, one realizes that

[21:38]

This is still not complete liberation, that we have to give up this stillness. We have to give up this keeping ourselves still. This stillness is very good. It is the place where no words reach. and where all songs come forth. Once we get there, we can give ourselves a little pat of congratulations. We have understood stillness, but we now have to give it up. We have to speak. Although we've got to the place where the words can't reach, we still don't understand speech.

[22:55]

We must understand speech in order to be free of speech. So we must start hearing something again and saying something again. As the mind becomes activated, as the undisturbable mind seems to be disturbed slightly or reactivated, this is the beginning of contemplation. Of contemplation as a gate to the truth. Rather than just watching our mind jump around, we now understand that this is not A regular woman jumping around, this is a stone woman. You realize this is not a real woman.

[24:08]

because real women can dance even if wooden men don't sing. But I'm being ironic because it's not true that real women can dance even if wooden men don't sing, or even if flesh and blood men don't sing. But what we think are real women, we think are something that can dance even when flesh or wooden men don't sing. But there are no such women. Our problem is we think there are. Contemplation is to verify what a real woman is, what a stone woman is.

[25:25]

But I propose to you that in order to understand what a real woman is, you first have to witness a stone woman dancing. Until then, you think what you see is a real woman. You think your mind's creations are a real woman. I have just begun to introduce the practice of contemplation. Perhaps you're already getting upset. I don't know. If so, let's give up on contemplation now and go back to stillness.

[26:37]

Go back to the place where everything I've said can't reach you. Just keep to yourself. Just hear the ancestors' instruction. Just this person.

[27:50]

Just this person. is the gate to the self-receiving, self-enjoying samadhi. Just keeping yourself still, the whole process returns to the source. You go to the place of quiet, which is the end of water.

[29:12]

which is the end of fire, which is the end of the air, which is the end of the earth. A fish swims in the water, and no matter how far the swim fish is, It never reaches the end of its element. It never reaches the end of the water. But when the fish in his swimming keeps still as a fish the fish finds the end of the water. The end of the water can never be found by the swimming fish The end of the water is the fish.

[30:18]

The end of the air is your mind. The end of the earth, the end of fire is your mind. But the mind and the air and the mind and the water meet in perfect harmony. And at that meeting place there is no movement. This place of stillness is the place of meeting between mind and object.

[31:35]

It's the place where all the objects end. They don't reach this place. And because they don't reach this place, they don't disturb. Just keeping to yourself you realize the stillness. Contemplating will be to notice how letting something reach this place slightly activates it. Contemplation will be to observe the slight disturbance of anything reaching this quiet.

[32:42]

Once having realized quietness and stillness, then we quietly investigate the nearest and farthest reaches of causes and conditions of the causes and conditions of the first activity of the mind. There once was a Zen teacher who lived in China. They called him many things. One of the things they called him was Ditsong, which means earth womb, earth womb.

[33:55]

Jizo in Japanese, but he was Chinese, so they didn't call him Jizo. And they called him Ditsong because the name of his temple was Earth Store Monastery. He had a number of disciples, and one of them was another person named Fa Yin, which means Dharma Eyes. Of the five schools of Zen in China, Fa Yin was the founder of one of them. One day, Fa Yen came to Ditsong and said something like, Bye. And Ditsong said, Where are you going? Fa Yen said, I'm going on pilgrimage.

[35:00]

Ditsong said, What is the purpose of going on pilgrimage?" Fa Yen said, I don't know. Dietzong said, Not knowing, I would say, this particular not knowing that you've got, is most intimate. And most translations of this dialogue are translated as most intimate or nearest. The story is sometimes called Di Cang's Intimacy or Di Cang's Nearness.

[36:04]

But if you look at these two Chinese characters, and you're a foreigner, you get a treat because you notice that these two characters are pronounced in Japanese, shinsetsu. And shinsetsu means kindness. Kindness. If you look it up in the Japanese dictionary, it doesn't say intimacy, it says kindness. Kindness. That doesn't mean intimacy is wrong. Wrong translation. It means something else. I don't know what it means. It has something to do with, I think, the fact that intimacy and kindness are the same thing. The two characters, Shin and Setsu, Shin by itself means intimacy or closeness.

[37:20]

And particularly it refers to the closeness of parent and child. A closeness which is so close that it's not even, it's oneness. And Setsu is a character which means cut. Cut. to cut. It has a radical in it for sword. And the word, the Chinese word for everything is a compound. One word is the character, vertical line, horizontal line, which means one. One stroke. And this character, which means cut. Everything The word for everything literally means one cut. Everything is one cut. This is that same character cut with intimacy.

[38:26]

Intimacy and cut. Close cut. It means kindness. So in one sense, we come to stillness by being intimate with ourself. Intimate, intimate with ourselves. But also that means a close cut with ourself. Or we come to stillness in intimacy with the self by being kind to the self. But when we finally find the stillness and the closeness to the self, the closeness to the self and the stillness of the self, there is a feeling of, this is not enough.

[39:42]

We must give up this stillness. We must give up this intimacy that we've arrived at and find a new intimacy which incorporates and can be continually realized even as things start to get active again, even as some sense of separation reasserts itself. This peaceful wooden man needs to sing. This peaceful mind needs to move. This stopped mind needs to walk. Contemplation is to see how this works, is to watch this mind, this still mind, get up

[40:46]

To watch this mind, which is like stone, dance. To watch this mind, which is like one mountain or one trunk, watch it change. Watch many streams appear on the mountain and run down. Watch the trunk sprout many branches and leaves. But first, watch the first sprout, the first branch come out of this tree, and the first tributary come out of this great ice river.

[41:58]

This point that I'm gesturing towards is the turning point is the crucial point. It's the place where the mind stops and the mind starts. It's the place where the fire ends and the fire starts. It's the place where all profound activity ends and where all profound activity starts. It's the place where the practice of giving ends and the place where the practice of giving starts. It's the place where the practice of ethics ends and the place where the practice of ethics starts.

[43:18]

It's the place where the practice of patience ends and the place where the practice of patience starts. It's the place where the practice of enthusiasm ends and the place where the practice of enthusiasm starts. It's the place where the practice of concentration ends and the place where the practice of concentration starts. It is the practice of concentration. It is the place where the practice of wisdom ends and the place where the practice of wisdom starts. Even wisdom can't hold up at this point. Even wisdom runs out. And the kindest wisdom is a wisdom where you don't even know anymore why you're practicing

[44:25]

while you're going on pilgrimage. And from this, even forgetting about wisdom, comes forth wisdom. Giving. To give yourself away, keep yourself still. But before you give yourself away completely, you have to give yourself completely to keeping yourself still.

[45:29]

you have to give yourself completely to breathing. When you give yourself completely to breathing, when you reach the place where you have no more of yourself to give to your breathing, you reach this place. and this place is not a place. You give also all addresses that you could possibly have. You throw them into it too. So at the end of the practice of giving, you reach the place of keeping yourself still. By giving yourself completely, to this practice you come to the end of yourself and then you just coincidentally have given yourself away you have just coincidentally revealed yourself to the world and to this person who has been given away the world will now be revealed you reach this place

[47:02]

I vow to avoid all evil, all unwholesomeness, all unskillfulness. I vow to practice all skillfulness. I vow to benefit all beings at the limit of avoiding unwholesomeness, unskillfulness. and practicing all wholesomeness and endeavoring to benefit all beings, at the limit of those practices, you reach stillness. And then, from that stillness, you must live and you will be able to live by your own sweet skill, by your own sweet wholesomeness. It will come forth from that place where you reach the limit of your endeavor to practice good, to avoid evil, and to benefit beings.

[48:25]

When you reach the end of that, you're still. And then from that place, these practices of avoiding evil, practicing good, and benefiting beings comes forth. it comes forth because you realize even completely exhausting the effort to practice these precepts to the point where you can't do anything and you're completely still and even the words of the precepts can't reach you. Even the words, avoid evil, don't reach you there. All the moral systems of the universe break down at that point. All the laws of physics break down at that point. Nothing holds. Nothing can abide. And from there, come forth quite spontaneously.

[49:28]

Avoid evil. Practice good. Benefit beings. This is called not without speech. This speech comes forth from this place, from this intimacy, from this kindness, which is not a kindness of doing somebody a favor. It's a kindness of intimacy, where you see that there is no other. And you're not doing anybody a favor by being kind. It is just that you're the same kind as all things. The practice of patience ends at this point.

[50:38]

The fire of pain ends at this point. There is a burning flame of pain. Where does it end? It ends at this point. And I would propose to you, if you follow the flames of the pain, it doesn't mean that you're getting farther from the place where the flames end if the flames are flaring up brighter and hotter. That's not necessarily an indication. that you're going in the wrong direction. The main thing that would be good to use to advise yourself about how to become intimate with this pain is whether you feel that you're moving towards it,

[52:05]

or away from it? Do you feel that you're trusting that at the center of this flame will be the end of pain, or at least the most restful, cool place? Or do you feel like you're, what do you call it, squirming Each of you will have to judge this for yourself, but I propose to you, and anybody who wants to argue with me about this, I'd be happy to hear about it, but I propose to you that at the center, not the hottest place, not the coldest place, but at this place which you have an intuitive sense of as being the center of the flames,

[53:06]

is the same as the end of the flames, is the same as the start of the flames. It's the beginning of the flames and the end of the flames, and that's this place of stillness. And the end of the flame doesn't mean there's actually no flame, it just doesn't reach this place. There's flames all around, but they don't reach it. The flames break down at this point of intimacy, at this point of kindness. It doesn't eliminate the flames. It doesn't get rid of the fire of the world. There still is fire, but it is the place where the fire doesn't reach, even though it's right there. You're meeting the fire, but it's not reaching. It's not disturbing. Patience is to accept these flames and use them to find the place where the flames don't reach.

[54:16]

If you don't accept this pain and push it away, you can't find the place where the flames don't reach. Well, I shouldn't say you can't. You might just accidentally trip upon it. That might happen. I'll take that back. It might happen. What sometimes happens is that sometimes as you're looking for this place where the flames end, or you're looking for the center of the flames, you think that the center is over here and you go over there. And then something happens and you find yourself in the center. You don't exactly know how you got there. But you can test whether this is the center of the flames by just wiggling a little bit and thinking of some other place, and you'll notice that you're getting burned. So then it kind of gives you a sense of that you were there.

[55:25]

I hear a rustling. Like the winds of the forest. You do not... You do not know unless you know. If you're sure that it's damaging you, then you're probably right. You probably have discovered some damage. Probably you're right if you're sure that you're causing the damage, you're probably right. If you're not sure, you might be causing damage still, or you might not. I would suggest that if you're not sure, that you talk to one of the teachers about it. Every time I cross my left leg, I am aware of the fact that there is danger all around my knee.

[57:01]

Well, I shouldn't say every time I'm aware, but sometimes I don't pay attention to the fact that there's danger around my knee. For example, with my right knee, I don't pay much attention, I don't notice that there's danger around my right knee. Partly because my right knee doesn't say, owie, owie, owie. It says, okay, you're doing this pretty well. But my left knee says, are you sure you're doing this right? So we have this little kind of dialogue, my mind and my knee. And I try to do it in a way that it feels cared for. I try to be intimate with the knee process. And at the same time, I feel some hurry. to cross my leg. Sometimes the servers are coming, you know, waiting for me to cross my legs.

[58:07]

I feel like, geez, I'm holding up this meal or whatever, you know. But I still try to take care of my knee even though it might be keeping the servers waiting. And taking care means to be intimate with this process of this knee bending, of doing it in the most gentle, careful, healthy possible way I can think of. And I make some little compromises there too, maybe rushing a little bit. And then when I uncross my legs, well actually I'm continuing to cross them. I cross them until I get my legs, I keep working until I get my leg in a comfortable position. Comfortable means that it's not calling out anymore with this question. I've learned by trial and error which calls from my knees mean trouble and which ones mean just question.

[59:11]

Are you taking care of me? And when I uncross my leg again, I do that carefully and then after each period I assess how well I did putting my knee in the right place. And sometimes I conclude that I was a little sloppy. The knee says, you know, that was not, that didn't help things much. Or again, it doesn't exactly say, it doesn't make these kind of declarative statements. It more like says, was that so good? Was that really so good? But I'll tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that I have gone into sessions with knee problems, with torn cartilages, gone into them with torn cartilages, and come out with my knees in much better condition than before. I'm not saying the cartilage was not torn anymore. I would just say the knee was less swollen and healthier and happier than before I went in.

[60:16]

And the reason, and those sesshins that that happened were sesshins where I very carefully, many of the periods, put my legs in the most rigorously proper position that I could find. And the problem of my knee was the reason why I was so careful. And when my knees are not questioning me so strongly and giving me such intense feedback, I have a tendency to cross them sloppily, you know, quickly, not so carefully. And if I do that, then I usually get the feedback in various degrees that my knees are in worse shape after whatever, you know, something in the neighborhood of 90, what is it? It's 98 times approximately. We cross our legs during a seven-day session, approximately. If we have 11 periods a day, that's 77 periods plus meals, 21, about 99, 98 times.

[61:25]

around a hundred. But then there's also uncrossing, so about two hundred. Two hundred negotiations with my left knee, so four hundred counting both knees. Not counting seiza and bowing. Quite a few knee negotiations in this practice of aseshing. Each one's an opportunity to just like with your breathing, to give yourself completely to what you're doing there. Each time you cross your legs, there's various little steps. There's however hundreds or thousands of little postures that make up a crossing of a leg, each one of which you can give yourself to completely. So I don't know.

[62:39]

I do not know. And I say that this not knowing I have about my knees is my kindness and is my intimacy. My knees are an endless mystery. I have a pretty good, I have, what do you call it, I have a happy marriage with my knees. As I say, I tore the cartilage in this knee, not doing zazen. I tore the cartilage in my left knee nineteen years ago, lifting a person up off the ground. And my knees are in better shape now than they were nineteen years ago, than they were eighteen years ago. than they were 17 years ago, and so on. Now, I'm not saying they're in better shape than they were last year.

[63:44]

I hit a peak around 15, but they're steadily improving. This left knee is steadily improving. And not just because of sitting cross-legged, but to a great extent of sitting cross-legged properly. It's good for your knees to sit in the proper posture. Putting them in and out of the posture is the most dangerous time. Bowing is also good for your knees or bad for your knees, depending on how intimate you are with the process. Intimacy is kindness. It doesn't necessarily mean your knees are going to last forever, because they won't. As a matter of fact, you're constantly getting new knees. I don't have the same knees I had 19 years ago. These are new knees. I have a brand new pair of knees today, and so do you. Nothing's going to last, but the idea from my childhood is that if I would just be kind to everything, that that would be the best thing.

[64:57]

So each of you have to figure out, what does it mean to be kind to your knees? If you don't think that sitting in the sesshin is kind to your knees, well then I would say, start being kind to your knees. Make the sesshin a sesshin where you start to learn what it means to be kind to your knees. I would like you to be kind to your knees. I am being kind to my knees. I am being kind to my knees. That is my intention. When I say I'm being kind to my knees, I should say it is my intention to be kind to my knees. But I just admitted to you that sometimes I rush a little bit and I don't cross my legs in just the best, the kindest way. But it is my intention not that my knees come out the other end of the sashin in worse shape, but they come out new, fresh knees, which are the result of the kindness of seven days.

[66:04]

I don't know what that will be. I don't know whether I'm a falcon, a storm, or a song. But I will keep walking around these knees, around this breath, around this person, with the intention of being intimate, intimate, intimate, and being quiet with my knees, quiet with my spine. I also have a deformed spine, which I have to be kind to. If I'm not kind to it, I will be disabled very easily. Sashin is a time for me to be kind to my sacral lumbar joint, which has a condition called spondylolisthesis. Kind to it, kind to it, intimate with my spine, intimate with my sitting bones, intimate with my breath.

[67:13]

How do you know which is which? You don't know. Knowing is not most intimate. Most intimate is wondering. How are you doing knees? How are you doing back? How are you doing breath? How are you doing, neighbor? How are you doing, Orioki?" This is a practical question that you raised. It's a question about practice. The only thing that's safe in this world is kindness. Everything else in the world is going to get washed away soon enough. But there's one thing that you can do in any situation, and that is be intimate with what's happening.

[68:20]

Be kind. And anything you're intimate with, you sure don't know what it is. Because all knowing breaks down in the midst of intimacy. And all knowing comes forth from intimacy. So please, trust everything to your breathing. Trust everything to your body and your mind. Give yourself completely to what's happening moment by moment.

[69:25]

And throw yourself into this point where everything ends and where everything starts. Where all practices go and break down and all wholesome practices come forth. where all unwholesomeness goes forth and breaks down, and all unwholesomeness also comes from that place. The difference between wholesomeness and unwholesomeness is whether there's somebody there witnessing the birth of the breath. If there's a witness at the beginning, it's on the wholesome track. If there's intimacy with this place, wholesomeness comes forth. If there's kindness with this place, wholesomeness comes forth.

[70:36]

But if there's not intimacy, and if there's not kindness at this place, then this breath can go forth not under the auspices of kindness, not into the auspices of not knowing, of not categorizing, of not pigeon-holding. And then this wonderful pure breath can be the source of unwholesomeness simply because somebody wasn't willing to take care of it from the beginning, from the middle, and from the end. If you want to take care of your breath, please do so. If you want to give yourself completely to your breathing, please do so.

[71:42]

All the Buddhas in ten directions are rooting for you. This is what they want. because they understand that you'll be free and happy if you would do your job. Not only the Buddhas are rooting for you, but all sentient beings are rooting for you because you'll be a big help if you do your job. This is the second day of Sashin. You're doing really well. You sat very nicely yesterday and you're doing well so far today, too. Please be steadfast and kind, intimate with yourself.

[72:46]

Do you people believe that I meant what I said about being kind to yourself? I really mean it. I'm afraid somebody thinks, well, he said be kind to himself, but really I'm supposed to keep being mean to myself. And I'm supposed to keep pushing myself against my will to do the sesshin. And I'm supposed to, like, do bad things to my knee and my back. He doesn't really mean it. He's just trying to sound nice. Or he's just... He's just reminiscing from his childhood days. But I wonder if you really... I think I'm being sincere when I say, be kind to yourself.

[76:38]

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