I feel an urge to express deep gratitude that we are able to assemble here from, I think, four countries or more in Europe, coming from Europe, from Canada, and from all over the United States, gathering together and diligently cultivating samadhi, listening to teachings about samadhi, and receiving the bodhisattva samadhis. May such assemblies continue for the welfare of the world.

[01:04]

Again, there is the sincere assertion that we are practicing together exercising the essential work of the Buddha way. During this time I have seen the appearance and heard expressions of feeling open or opening to our vulnerability. People sometimes say, I'm feeling very vulnerable now during our meditation intensives.

[02:28]

in talking to people about this, I sometimes get the feeling that people think that sometimes we're not vulnerable. But I feel like I am always vulnerable. I am always fragile. I am always, literally the etymology of vulnerable means able to be hurt. I can always be hurt. However, I am not always open to my vulnerable condition. I sometimes resist my vulnerable nature. I sometimes defend against it. And I understand that other people do too. But as we sit together, often we start to open to it and gradually give up resistance to our vulnerable nature, which goes with us wherever we are.

[03:56]

We can be hurt at any time, at any place, Many times I have quoted our dear teacher, Suzuki Roshi, who said, Zazen is, I think he said, a great tenderizer. He may have just said tenderizer. Vulnerable human beings can defend against it and not be tender, try to be tough. Sometimes we take drugs and drink alcohol to feel tough. Or we naturally receive hormones which make us feel tough.

[05:04]

Like teenage kids have hormones that make them feel invulnerable. And adults take hormones to feel like that sometimes. But no matter how much drugs we take, it does not stop us from being vulnerable. Sitting minute after minute, day after day together, not running away from what's happening at our seat. We become softer, more tender, and more open to our vulnerability. Practicing Samadhi does not make us more vulnerable. It makes us more open and less resistant to vulnerability, which in itself I think is quite good.

[06:14]

But there is another benefit to letting go of resistance to our impermanent vulnerable state. As we let go of resistance to vulnerability, as we stop defending against it, we also stop resisting Buddha's wisdom. We stop resisting Buddha's samadhi. One of the samadhis that we are receiving is called, in Chinese, ji ji yu zam mai, self-receiving and employing samadhi.

[07:18]

This is the samadhi of the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree who is receiving the benefits, the merits of her practice, and enjoying reality. And there is another samadhi which we haven't talked about, which is called in Chinese, Ta Ju Yu Samadhi. other receiving and using samadhi. This is the Buddha giving the merit of practice to others so they may learn the Dharma and realize awakening.

[08:25]

In a sense, there's a simultaneous, but in another sense, first the Buddha receives and employs Buddha's wisdom and then gives it to others. But these are two aspects of the same Buddha. opening, inviting the transmission of the samadhi. Buddha receives it and practices it. And then Buddha transmits it. And in transmitting it, we have the other receiving and using samadhi. And then Buddha again receives and uses the samadhi inwardly and then gives the samadhi to all beings, round and round.

[09:43]

one of the members of this sangha asked me something like, How do we transmit samadhi? And I think then she said, Maybe that's a good question. And I said, Yeah. that question, I think is perhaps a good part of transmitting is to ask, how is Samadhi transmitted? Samadhi transmitters, I think, ask that question. But then I said, but maybe before we get into transmitting we should discuss receiving. Before we transmit the precepts, it might be good to discuss receiving them.

[11:10]

We actually don't have the precepts. They just come to us and go from us. They just come to us and we practice them, but we never really have them. We don't have the samadhi. We receive it and practice it and give it. So first of all, before getting into transmitting this samadhi, it might be good to check out, do you want to receive it? Before you give something away, why don't you check to see if you want to receive it in the first place? So I was going to bring a ball, but I didn't. If I have a ball, I might say to you, do you want to receive this ball?

[12:15]

Do you want me to throw you this ball? And you might say, no. Or you might say, yes. And I might say, okay, are you ready? And you might say, no. Just a second, let me get ready. Okay now, throw it to me. I'm ready. Can I have the samadhi? Do you want it? Yes. Are you ready for it? No. Check back later. Okay, now I'm ready. Please give me the samadhi." We don't take the samadhi.

[13:16]

It's a gift to us, which is being offered all the time. But for it to be given, it's good for us to check to see if we want it and if we're ready. And if we're ready, It comes. And it's coming all the time anyway. So anyway, I said to this person, like I used the example of a ball, and I said, do you want me to throw you the ball? And she said, I don't know. I said, what about if I said, I can give you the responsibility to carry someone across a river? She said, well, then there's no question I would want to receive that responsibility. And again, I said, but are you ready? And she could see that maybe she should get ready, like get her wading boots on.

[14:22]

And maybe, I don't know what, get a staff to help negotiate the stream. Now I'm ready to receive this responsibility of carrying this person across the stream." Then you might have some questions. Well, how do you walk across the stream? Any advice? So then there might be some teaching for how to walk across the stream. Are you ready for the teaching of how to walk? Yes. Then, as we walk across the stream carrying the person, we're transmitting the responsibility And once again also I remind you that one of the texts we look at said, about samadhi, said that bodhisattvas who want to study or learn perfect wisdom, first of all

[15:43]

Arouse great compassion. Then make great vows. And then, based on that compassion, cultivate samadhi. This is the samadhi for bodhisattvas. And before arousing great compassion, I mean, before wishing to practice prajna, it might be good to be clear that prajna is in order to benefit beings. Prajna is essential for enlightenment, and enlightenment is essential for the optimal benefit. So we practice samadhi. a point or maybe the point of sitting is to become free of sitting.

[17:11]

And the only way I know to become free of sitting is by sitting. by sitting with total devotion to the sitting wholeheartedly. By wholehearted sitting we become free of sitting. We use sitting to experience freedom Then we can also practice Buddhism and become free of Buddhism. Then we can practice the Bodhisattva precepts and become free of the Bodhisattva precepts.

[18:24]

Then we can use words and become free of words. We practice samadhi in order to be free of samadhi. In the samadhi, as we have heard descriptions of it, there is freedom. But there's also freedom from samadhi and freedom. Buddha is free of Buddha. The samadhi is going beyond samadhi. Buddha is going beyond Buddha.

[19:27]

Wholehearted samadhi is naturally undefiled. It naturally leaps beyond itself. The Buddha way is basically leaping and leaping, leaping beyond enlightenment, leaping beyond delusion into enlightenment, and leaping out of enlightenment into beyond enlightenment. Always leaping free and leaping free by being thoroughly itself. Thoroughly sitting, leaping beyond sitting. Wholeheartedly sitting, leaping beyond And there's quite a few challenges to being wholehearted about sitting. One of them is pain, physical pain and emotional pain.

[20:47]

It's hard to wholeheartedly hurt. But again, by sitting we become more and more open to the pain of our vulnerability and other pains too. The pain, the vulnerability doesn't necessarily go away. The vulnerability never goes away. Some pains come and go. But by being open to our vulnerability and our impermanence, we can be open to the pain as it comes and goes and increases and decreases. and we can even be open to our resistance to the pain. But it's a challenge to be open, welcoming, and not resist the pain. But there are many moments where people in this assembly have had pain visit them, and there's been moments where they resisted, and there's been moments where they have not.

[22:02]

And I'm guessing that the moments of not resisting are increasing. So it's a little bit sad that we're ending this retreat, because if we kept going long enough, all of us would stop resisting pain. I think. And I also often mention that at the beginning of a sesshin or at the beginning of an intensive, we're kind of like, because we have not been in, maybe we haven't been working out our samadhi so much, maybe we come to the retreat a little bit tough, not so tender.

[23:06]

not so open to our vulnerability. Particularly if you come from like Europe and you have to go to Turkey first and then being in a snowstorm and get hassled by various kinds of security forces. During those times you might, it might be hard to be like tender and open to all the hurt that you're getting in the process of coming to a retreat to become tender. So now when you leave, it's going to really be tough now that you're all tender. When people start poking at you, it's going to be, I'm sorry. Maybe we should have a toughening up session just before you leave Green Gulch. Hey, you, don't move. This isn't funny. Who are you? So anyway, we often come kind of tough and if I adjust posture at the beginning of the retreat, sometimes I feel from some people like, don't touch me.

[24:20]

I don't need any touches. I got enough problems. That's not funny. So I touch very gently and towards the end I feel like I touch and the body says, welcome. Welcome. Hello friend. And it doesn't do any good to touch too much when the resistance is high. And I like the image of if you have a dried, if you have a potted plant or even the land itself, if it's dry, if you pour a lot of water on it, it just runs off.

[25:21]

So with a potted plant, if it's dry, just spray it with mist now and then. And then it gets soft, it gets more moist. If you pour the water again, it'll just run off. Very little will sink in. As a matter of fact, it could almost all just run right off and almost not sink in at all. But if you moisten it and moisten it and moisten it, then after a while you pour the water on and it just goes straight in. No runoff. Same water, no runoff because the earth has become receptive. It's been gradually opened by the water a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, and now it can run right through. That's the way we are too when we sit here. And some sincere students, you know, they say, you know, it's really hard for me to put aside affairs, to cast aside involvements.

[26:37]

Thoughts of my work, I have so much work to do. And I've been, after this retreat's over, I'm going to have so much work to do. I can't, I can't, I can't put it, it's so hard to put it aside. Mm-hmm. So that's a challenge to us, just setting things aside and just being devoted to the sitting. Another tricky point is, it is very urgent that we wholeheartedly sit, and how can we feel that urgency to wholeheartedly sit? to be totally devoted to sitting, and then not more. Don't rush. Don't hurry. How can you do something now without rushing?

[27:40]

This is a challenge. One more question I got was, do you have to do something to drop off body and mind? And I said, no, you don't have to do anything. However, you are doing something. And if you do whatever you're doing, wholeheartedly, then we'll be dropping off body and mind. Do you have to be wholehearted for there to be dropping off body and mind? Yes.

[28:43]

And we are wholehearted, so body and mind is being dropped off, and we have to join that. If we join the wholehearted sitting, if we join the wholehearted speaking, if we join the wholehearted bowing, if we join the wholehearted eating and serving and sweeping and opening doors and closing doors and arranging our shoes outside the toilets, if we do these things wholeheartedly, there is dropping off body and mind. And it's there anyway, but if we're not wholehearted, we miss it. If we're someplace other than here, we miss the dropping off that's here every moment. We miss the sitting, being freed of sitting if we're not here. We miss the sweeping that's free of sweeping if we're not here. And it's challenging to be totally here even though we are totally here.

[29:54]

This is our ironic human nature. May our health be such that we can continue to diligently cultivate all the unlimited bodhisattva samadhis.

[31:16]

study them, hear about them, discuss them, receive them, practice them and transmit them. Even if we are in a sense sick, it's possible with training to continue to practice these samadhis as some of our teachers showed us when they were sick, they continued to practice these samadhis. They continued to be tender and open when they were sick. May we be able to learn this art of zazen and transmit it There is a story about an ancient teacher whose name was Zuigan.

[34:38]

And supposedly when he got up in the morning he said, Master." And then he would say, Yes. And then he would say, Are you awake? And he would say, Yes. Then he would say to himself all day long, don't be fooled by anybody. And then he would say, I won't. Now I say to myself in the morning, bodhisattva, yes. Are you ready to receive the samadhi of the ancestors?

[35:52]

Yes. all day long, don't get distracted. I won't. What if you do? I will confess and repent. May our intentions

[36:22]

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