I've been discussing for about seven weeks or so some teachings about meditation on breath. And various other themes have been developed during this period of seven weeks leading up to this session. which I'd like to further develop and go deeper into for the sake of the people who have been here for this fall practice period, and also for the people who are just coming for this So I need to do some review and introduction to the newcomers.

[01:04]

And also I want to explain to the newcomers that I'm taking you on a, in a sense, an ancient journey which will perhaps be rather challenging for you. I think you'll be all right, though. I think you actually share in the benefits of the fact that we've been warming up to this seven-day retreat all fall. and have done considerable preparation for the meditation practice this week. Part of the preparation is that a gift was given to Zen Center, to Green Gulch, of a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha, which is sitting on the altar now, covered by a white cloth.

[02:48]

And we have been waiting for the right moment to give this statue its seat and open its eyes. So it seems now we've made the commitment. We've placed it on the altar and the intention is to open its eyes on the day of Buddha's awakening, which is this Wednesday. So the issue of eye-opening is part of what I'd like to pay attention to this week, in particular the issue of opening the eye of compassion. The teachings which I will offer are intended to aid this eye-opening process.

[04:46]

And at some points these teachings will encounter the complexities of our mind. It's not so much that the teaching is complex, but that our minds can be complex. But in order to tame and use the full potential of our mind, I may go forth into realms of complexity during this week. And in order for this kind of contemplation not to be confusing and entangling,

[05:51]

I first want us to be clear about a kind of stabilization of our consciousness, and from that quiet place to receive these teachings. These teachings will be specifically directed to removing the resistance in our eyes to seeing reality, or loosening the gripping that our mind puts on our eyes of compassion.

[07:01]

the theme of our tightness about the world. A focal point, if not the focal point, of our narrowness, of perception, is our view of our self. our categorical, narrow view of ourself. For the eyes of compassion to completely open, to fully open, we also need to loosen and open up our understanding of ourself. to be able to see and understand ourself beyond limited categories and preconceptions.

[09:50]

But to try to throw these categories and preconceptions away doesn't seem to work. But one way that works very well, I think, is nicely put by Shakespeare, as I mentioned yesterday, when he said to give away yourself. Keep yourself still. To give away yourself, keep yourself still, and you must live drawn by your own sweet skill. To give away yourself could also be understood to be free of yourself, or to give away yourself could be understood as to give yourself in service of compassion.

[11:30]

To give away yourself could also be understood to reveal yourself, for yourself to be revealed to others and to yourself in its fullness. keep yourself still. And keeping still means be still and don't move. But it also means notice that you keep yourself. Notice that you're still holding to yourself. acknowledge these categories and these narrow views you have. And by a combination of not moving and noticing how you hold, how you keep yourself, even now, even in meditation, how you keep yourself.

[12:41]

and be still with that, this will allow you to give away yourself, to let go of yourself, to forget yourself. And from this letting go, you may live a life which is drawn along by your own sweet skill, Not the skill of someone else's rules of how to live, but the skill that comes spontaneously from a self that has been given away. A thoroughly ethical life of conduct born of the forgotten self. The word skill in Buddhist teaching is often used to categorize our action, our karma.

[14:01]

And there's usually three categories of karmic activity. One's called skillful. Another one's called unskillful. The other one's called can't tell which. Skillful sometimes is called wholesome. Unskillful sometimes is called unwholesome. And can't tell which is called indeterminate. You can't tell whether it's wholesome or unwholesome. The word skillful, I've mentioned a number of times, is kushala. And kushala comes from the name of a kind of grass that grew in India and probably still does in the times of the early Buddhist community.

[15:18]

My understanding is it's a grass, something like pompous grass, and has sharp edges. the Buddha recommended to his students that they make their meditation cushions out of this kind of grass, this kusa grass. So the monks would collect this grass somehow, and in the process of collecting it, they would be more or less successful in collecting it without cutting their hands. And so the word skillful came from, in a sense, being able to collect this grass for the meditation seats. And it may be the case that in the process of becoming skillful one would cut one's hands some number of times. But by trial and error one can learn skillfulness.

[16:26]

And either way, you can collect the grass and sit on it. And either way, whether you're skillful or not skillful, if you don't collect the grass, you won't have a nice seat. This sweet skill, your own sweet skill, is a skill that comes from knowing yourself which is the same as giving yourself away. Your own sweet skill is the eyes of compassion. The eyes of compassion is how to collect the grass in the most helpful way. most helpful way for your hands, for the grass, for all sentient beings.

[17:30]

So my first encouragement is for all of us to keep ourselves still. All day long, whatever posture we're in, keep ourselves still. This is a teaching of William Shakespeare. This is a teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha. Thank you.

[18:54]

In India there was once a disciple of Buddha named Vasubandhu who sometimes is called the second Buddha and also sometimes called the great psychologist of Buddhism. He wrote lots of books And his most famous book is called the Abhidharma Kosha. It's the main book, the book that's studied for six or seven years in the formal Tibetan Ph.D. program for Buddhist studies. In that book, in the chapter on practice, on the chapter on the path, when he's discussing quieting the mind, one of the main practices he offers is a practice called

[21:08]

anapanasmrtti, mindfulness of the breathing, mindfulness of the breath going in and out. And he says that this practice of mindfulness of the breathing has six aspects. And these six aspects are, he calls, counting, following, stopping, contemplation, reversing, and purifying. He doesn't say too much in the Abhidharma or in his commentary, in the Abhidharma Kosha or his commentary, Abhidharma Kosha Bhasha, about what these six practices are.

[22:33]

However, about contemporaneously to him there lived in China another disciple of Buddha named Jiri. who also taught these six aspects of mindfulness, of breathing. And I don't quite understand how it could be that he was teaching these six, unless... I guess now that I think about it, it's possible that Vasubandhu got them from some independent text that predated his text and Jiri also consulted this text because I can it seems unlikely to me that that Basubandhu's work could have been transmitted to China to Jiri so quickly from from India to China for Jiri to have read Basubandhu But anyway, he also taught these six

[23:49]

aspects of mindfulness of breath, of study of the breathing process, which he called the six subtle gates to the truth, six subtle dharma gates. And he called them the same thing, counting, following, stopping, contemplation returning and purifying. I became interested in this teaching of Six Subtle Dharma Gates because some number of years ago we had the Book of Serenity, the collection of 100 Zen stories, was translated ten years ahead of when it was published.

[25:12]

It was translated and we had a copy of it here at Zen Center because we supported the translator gave us a copy so we were able to read the book. We've had the book now for about fifteen years. And in the third story of this book of koans, our ancestor Prajnatara says that the reason why he doesn't read Buddhist scriptures is because He just practices not being entangled while breathing in and not dwelling while breathing out. Or he just practices not dwelling when breathing in and not getting entangled when breathing out.

[26:15]

His practice was just to breathe in and out and not get entangled and not dwell. That was the practice of this ancestor who is the teacher of Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen. So the Indian tradition of meditation and its transmitters to China, which formed the Zen school, has as a central practice basically being a human being and breathing. That's our basic text, is to be a breathing creature and while breathing not get entangled and not dwell. It's very simple to say that, but in the commentary on this story of Prajnatara, it says that if you don't have sufficient preparation in meditation on breath or mindfulness of breath,

[27:48]

this simple instruction of simply not abiding and not being entangled, he might not be able to understand and, in fact, just get entangled and abide in, again, some limited understanding of what that instruction means. So it recommended in that book to study the six subtle Dharma gates, which are taught by Jiri. And we had a Chinese class at that time. taught by Tom Cleary, who also translated the book of Serenity. And he gave us that text, Six Subtle Dharma Gates. So we started translating it.

[28:50]

And one of us finished the job, so we have the text. So I've been studying that text since that time. And so that's what we've been talking about and studying this fall, among other things, is these six aspects of mindfulness, of breath. And hopefully this text will help us understand what it means to not dwell in our experience and not be entangled in our experience while breathing. So a basic principle involved here is that if we can keep ourselves still while breathing, we will be able to realize completely

[30:31]

a moment of breathing. And that as soon as a moment of breathing is completely a moment of breathing, it naturally transcends itself. It naturally leaps off the top of itself in its completeness, just like all moments of experience, all moments of breath, are always doing. But we need to keep ourselves still with this process of breath in order for us to participate, for us to understand that this is so, that all dharmas, all breaths, all experiences are completing themselves

[31:35]

and transcending themselves. If we waver, if we run away, if we let ourselves move from this place, it's much more difficult for us to understand that this is so. And when things are thoroughly themselves and transcend themselves, they have no abode. They do not abide. When they are thoroughly themselves and give themselves away, they cannot be entangled. They cannot dwell.

[32:37]

So my intention in my discussions with you would be to encourage your work in keeping yourself still, your work in realizing immovability, immobile sitting. unmovable, unmoving self. And then to look at all that happens there and see if we can understand what it means not to be entangled, not to dwell. And in that study, what is ordinarily experienced can turn into what is called wisdom.

[33:55]

And this is what opens the eye of compassion. This is what loosens the grip of our usual mental processes. But to find out what it means to sit still is very similar to collecting sharp-edged grass. There's a skill involved in learning to sit still also. So as you move towards stillness without moving at all, As you come closer without moving to this still place, you are also beginning to develop the skill which emanates from this stillness.

[35:09]

So with a group this size, people are practicing in various ways. Some people are counting their breath already. Some people are following their breath. Some people are just practicing the stopped or unmoving quality of breath. Some people may be contemplating, I don't know exactly where all of you stand right now. But wherever you are in the process, I offer these words to you, and I hope that they will always be applicable to each one of you. And here again, the principle is that since when you do anything completely,

[36:56]

In its completeness it transcends itself. That's similar to saying, actually the same as saying, when you study anything completely, you study everything completely. So when you study your breath completely, you give away your breath, or you forget the breath that you're studying and realize a much bigger breath. When you practice counting your breath and you do it completely, you realize that counting completely you transcend counting. And by transcending counting, you're also doing following, stopping, contemplating, reversing, and purifying. Whatever those are, you don't even know yet.

[38:00]

In other words, in terms of this context, but in terms of any context, you can actually understand problems which you never even met yet. You can solve dilemmas that you have not become conscious of by solving this one. This is not only so, but it's said in order to encourage you to concentrate completely on something. Because if you think that maybe working on one thing won't take care of your other problems, you may hold back a little of your dedication, a little of your devotion, saying, I better not give it all to this because what about those problems? But the proposal here is that if you give yourself completely to one practice, you will take care of all the other practices. And that when you meet those problems that you don't seem to be dealing with at this moment, you'll be able to take care of them.

[39:09]

And if you really learn how to collect sharp-edged grass, you will learn something which is beyond collecting sharp-edged grass. And if you really learn how to keep yourself still, you will learn something about Everything. Well, you learn everything about everything. Now in terms of where this practice period has arrived, after seven weeks of discussions about these six aspects of mindfulness of breathing, we've gotten to the gate of the fourth gate.

[41:42]

where we've become on the verge of studying contemplation. And this study of contemplation comes after we've steeped ourself in being stopped, in the mind being stopped. So I'm going to try to actually now enter into the discussion of contemplation. And by whatever intuition I have, I may give it up if I sense that it's not the right time. And what I will be sensing as not the right time means that I will be sensing that you have not realized an unmoving mind.

[42:52]

In order to successfully present to you the contemplation gate, you all need to have kept yourself still. Otherwise, I will just distract you by this talk. and you'll get all tangled up in the discourse. So I need you, in order to be able to follow on my plan, I need you between now and tomorrow morning to realize complete stillness and immerse yourself in it for a few hours at least. And usually people wait for a while in Sesshin, like maybe till the fourth or fifth day before they actually decide to be still, before they decide to accept that there's somebody here who's not moving.

[44:12]

but I actually am asking you, could you please get down to it today and just stop moving today and realize that the mind is stopped today and then the rest of the day and tomorrow morning then just sit immersed in this stillness so I can go ahead with my program here. But if I sense that it's not here, which means that I'll feel it in myself because I'm very sensitive to the slightest hint of anybody being not quiet, then I'll give up and I'll go back to encouraging you again to keep yourself still. Keep yourself still. You don't have to make yourself still.

[45:17]

You already are. You already are completely settled on yourself. You just need to keep to that, to keep to that, to remember that, to be mindful of your still, concentrated quality of mind. This is your natural, normal state. You don't have to make it, just keep to it. And then I can unfold the fourth Dharma gate. And you will successfully listen to it without getting, without dwelling in it or getting entangled by it. And you can witness your living being drawn by your own sweet skill.

[46:16]

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