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Sesshin Talk Day 5
AI Suggested Keywords:
The talk explores the practice of "just sitting" in Zen, emphasizing the importance of disengaging from intellectual approaches to fully engage with the body. It argues that self-conscious thought and the need to make choices inhibit an authentic experience of the present moment, suggesting instead to embrace non-thinking by residing in the physical, non-conscious aspects of being. Various Zen teachings and texts are referenced to illustrate these points.
Referenced Works and Texts:
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Fukanzazengi by Eihei Dogen: This text advises the suspension of intellectual operations and preconceived notions to engage fully in Zen practice.
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Conversation between Zhao Zhou and Nan Quan: Referenced to illustrate the concept of the "ordinary mind" as one that does not engage in picking and choosing, important for understanding non-dualistic thought.
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Mary Oliver's Poems: Specifically, the idea of allowing oneself to engage with innate desires, referenced to contrast with the conscious control often exerted over one’s actions.
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Bodhidharma's "Mind Like a Wall" Instruction: Cited as a parallel to the idea of just sitting and the suspension of active, conscious thought for deeper practice.
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Buddha’s Practice of Non-Thinking: Discusses how non-thinking is closely aligned with Zen practice, using the metaphor of a chunk of flesh as being central to engaging in non-judgmental awareness.
AI Suggested Title: Embracing Non-Thinking through Zen
Speaker: Tenshin Reb Anderson
Possible Title: Sesshin Lecture Day 5
Additional text: New Master?
@AI-Vision_v003
The practice of just sitting is, well, not difficult, but understanding it is. It's a practice of forgetting about all our preconceived ideas. It's a practice of letting go of intellectual approach, a speculative approach based on positing a self.
[01:03]
But in order to disengage this and let go of this intellectual approach, we have to engage the intellect to sort of, you know, get it to go sit on the sidelines for a little while. Like with some person, I said, why don't you just make a deal with yourself and just set aside the intellectual approach for 10 minutes sometime. Maybe towards the beginning of a period when you feel kind of comfortable. Sitting still is an act of faith.
[02:41]
Trying to exert conscious control is an expression of doubt. Doubt in practice of just sitting doubt in all things coming forth and practicing and confirming themselves very nicely thank you themselves and ourselves All selves get confirmed in the rush of events in the river. So, to encourage one to let go and dive into the river sometimes takes a bit of intellectual massage.
[03:53]
This is why I'm saying all this. To study the way with the body is to study the way with this body. It is the... It is the chunk of raw meat that studies. The chunk of raw meat can actually exude, secrete an idea of a subjective, of a self-conscious subject. This chunk of meat does quite a bit besides studying the way.
[05:00]
It also gives rise to delusions. Delusions are born of the body. There's no delusions floating free without bodily support. The human body gives rise to delusions, but what's recommended now is go back to the chunk, the flesh, that is not a conscious subject. Go back to the chunk of flesh that doesn't pick and choose. The setting up of a self and the picking and choosing and judging is something that grows up out of and is born with the chunk of flesh.
[06:05]
But the chunk of flesh itself does not pick and choose. Go back and be intimate with that. Let the conscious self become that which is not conscious. The trunk of flesh is not conscious. But consciousness is born of it. And then from consciousness is the idea of a self-conscious subject. It's set up. And then this tries to dominate its mother, its fleshy mother. And the mother says, go ahead, try. No problem. And by the way, would you get me lunch too? And also, would you get those other chunks of flesh away from here? And bring me that particular chunk of flesh over there.
[07:08]
I want that one. The self-conscious subject is supposed to be a servant of the chunk of flesh, but it forgets that. And then there's lots of, it gets anxious and then uses the flesh for its diluted purposes. The flesh, meantime, doesn't mind that much because basically it's still getting to be a chunk of flesh, which is its main thing. However, sometimes the flesh actually gets mutilated and crunched because of the diluted activity of its offspring. You know about that. Now let's see if we can convince the conscious, the posited, the dilutedly posited self-conscious self to become
[08:16]
Not conscious. To become that which doesn't choose or gives up all preference and judgment. To turn back to the inner life of the self. And the inner life of the self is not the conscious world. It's not the world of the conscious mind. It's the world of the body. It's kind of like a... It's like a... Well, it's kind of like a... Well, it's kind of like a chunk of flesh. And we say red, but it actually... It might be gray and bumpy and pulsing. It's got blood inside of it, but the surface might be gray. But maybe go below the surface, because that's just the way it looks. And in there... Wow.
[09:20]
There's life. And a mind grows up there, but there's no preference in that world. The way, as you've heard, is not difficult if you just are not involved in picking and choosing. What is it that's not involved in picking and choosing? The body. Does the body have desires? Yes. Does it choose its desires? No. The self-conscious subject thinks it can get the body to choose its desires. But when you put it in this sitting meditation posture, you realize that you can't control what the body desires. If the body doesn't desire anything, That's that. If it desires something, that's that. You can't make it desire and not desire.
[10:27]
You, the self-conscious subject, cannot control the body. I think many of you are kind of starting to see that more and more. And the more the body's put into a definite form, the more it's clear that it's not under control of the conscious subject. The less it's in a definite form, the more there can be the illusion that the conscious subject can dominate it. It takes me a long time to get situated on my seat because I have to lock many doors on my body to get it into this form rather than that form.
[12:03]
I get into this form but that's not quite the form. Try it again, try it again, try it again until finally it gets in there and then it's pretty much locked in there. And choice is you know, virtually eliminated for the moment. It really is in that form. The body then is expressing this inner world of the self. In this world, there's not a self, the self has become not conscious. So you can either say that the self-conscious subject that tries to dominate and control has been set aside, or that it's become not conscious.
[13:06]
It's become turned towards its inner world. And the inner world of the self-conscious subject is not conscious. The conscious mind is not conscious. Another expression you probably heard is, I think it was, was it Zhao Zhou that asked Nan Quan? Probably. Probably wasn't Nan Quan that asked Zhao Zhou. But anyway, I think Zhao Zhou asked Nan Quan, what is the way? And Nan Quan said, ordinary mind is the way. And I think Zhao Zhou said, well,
[14:11]
How can you know if you're right or wrong? And Nan Chuan says, it's not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion and not knowing is a kind of blanked out consciousness. What is the ordinary mind? It's a mind that doesn't pick and choose. It's not the ordinary mind in the sense of the mind that we set up to dominate the body. It's not the self-conscious subject. That's not the ordinary mind that is the mind that's ordinarily operating. But the ordinary mind is the one that's appearing in the coming forth of events. It's always there.
[15:13]
It doesn't know and it doesn't not know. Therefore, it responds appropriately and studies the way. It is the mind that's born of the body every moment, that's born of and with the body every moment. It's right under the nose. It's born with the nose. Except it's not born with the nose that the conscious subject thinks of. It's born with the ability to smell. And it's born when the smells and the ability to smell and the smelling come together. And there's a mind that's born right then. It's called the nose consciousness. And based on an experience of smelling, then we have come to the place to think that the consciousness knows the smell.
[16:38]
And that there's a subject which is conscious which knows the smell. And then that subject could decide what it's going to smell. This is a delusion. If you watch how that consciousness was born, you see it was born from the capacity to smell, dancing with smells. And it doesn't smell. It's just that smelling requires it. The nose doesn't smell. The smell doesn't smell. And the nose consciousness doesn't smell. Smelling is when those three are working together. That's a smelling convention. That's what smelling is. This not picking and choosing, this ordinary mind, which is not a matter of knowing and not knowing, is right nearby.
[18:11]
It's intimate with the chunk of flesh every moment. And this intimacy with the chunk of flesh is called just sitting. intimacy with the chunk of flesh. Where? Mind consciousness, nose consciousness, body consciousness, taste consciousness, eye consciousness, I shouldn't say taste consciousness, tongue consciousness, ear consciousness, where these consciousnesses arise is right there with, but not located in, the chunk of flesh. Intimacy with the chunk of flesh means intimacy with the birth of consciousness. But we're intimate with what isn't conscious.
[19:16]
Somehow we've got to get the conscious self to be intimate with what's not conscious and get the conscious subject, get the delusion to be intimate with and become not conscious, to become intimate with what studies the Way. Now someone might say, and someone did, this sounds like Bodhidharma's instruction to have a mind like a wall. Same thing. I'm just trying to take another approach to something I've been talking about for ten years. The mind like a wall is how we enter the way.
[20:28]
with a mind like a wall, which is the same as with a mind that's not conscious, with a mind that's a chunk of flesh, we enter the way. This is called just sitting. This doesn't know how to move. This is sitting still. And this is body and mind dropped off. And this is dropped off body and mind. I've developed, Mary Oliver is such a popular poet, I've developed some aversion to her.
[21:31]
I don't like to be too pop culture-ish. Although I don't mind quoting Rumi for some reason, even though Rumi, I've heard, is the best-selling poet in America. Anyway, do you remember that part where Mary Oliver is talking about hugging that little animal? Is that how it goes? You hug that little animal? You know that part? Where she says you don't have to be good. You don't have to crawl on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert. Well, she's wrong about that part. But then she says, but all you got to do is hug the little animal. Isn't there something like that? What? Let the soft animal... Let the soft animal in your body love what it loves.
[22:36]
Something like that? Pardon? How does it go? Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. And I remember it as hug the... Let the soft animal of the... I'm thinking of... Yeah, definitely. There's a Razi inside all of you. Let that little Razi love what it loves. In the meditation hall, let go of the leash and let it go and love what it loves. In daily life, sometimes we have to say, Rosie, come back. Because she chases deer. And they'll hurt her. The mothers will hurt her.
[23:37]
They can kill her. So I say, come back, Rosie. But in meditation, you don't have to say, come back, Rosie. Just let her run and love what she loves. She's not going for consciousness. She's going for meat. She's in the meat. Now as we come to the last few days of session, now it's time to really start working on form. I think a lot of you are like, you know, You're into it, right? You're into it. You've arrived at the sesheen. You're into the sesheen. It's no longer a question about whether you're going to do it, pretty much.
[24:42]
You're going to do it this session. You've signed up and you're here now, finally. It's difficult, but pretty much you've given up. Mostly you're here. And you're not too much worried about what's going to happen. It might get bad, but it's not going to get much worse. There may be more of the same, but pretty much you've faced it. And you know you'll be all right, even though it's difficult. So you can now just take whatever was holding back before and use it to do the forms 100%. So you've done a great job of sitting and making this cosmic mudra with your hands. Very good already, but now you can put yourself entirely into that mudra. And you can put yourself completely into the bodily form. Completely into sitting up straight.
[25:45]
And up straight, again, I say that, but now probably you're ready to sit up straight. You're ready to sit up straight. You're ready to be sitting up straight. Not you doing sitting up straight. You're willing to set aside the conscious subject who sits you up straight and let that just be sitting up straight. So you don't do sitting up straight. And sitting up straight is not something you do. It's not something I do. It's not something I get you to do. but it's closer to something I get you to do when we get you to do than you do. The way we get you to sit up straight is we're not trying to dominate your body and control your body, but we are helping you sit up straight. Let yourself be sat up straight.
[26:50]
Let yourself be upright sitting. Let yourself be supported by the earth and lifted by the earth. Let the earth lift you up. Let the sky pull you up. Gravity is dragging you down, but the earth is also pushing you up. It's lifting you up. It's making you long. And rather than me say, make yourself long and tall, I would say, how long and tall? How long is your spine? How light is your spine? How light is your head? How much is your head being lifted by the energy of this earth? this chunk of flesh is being lifted upright.
[27:57]
This head with the brain in it is being lifted up. Can you feel that lift? Floating head. How can a head float in gravity? Something's lifting it. Something's pulling it up. Can you feel that? Don't do that. Don't use your muscles to make your head go up higher. Feel your head lifted. It gets higher and higher. Wow. It's amazing. How can the body get taller? How can it get lined up so that it's as long as it can be? How can that happen? Well, it can. But don't you do it.
[29:01]
And if you feel this lift... Oh, and one other thing that helps you feel the lift is take your tailbone... and put it at the base of your spine. Just kidding. Your tailbone is at the base of your spine. See how it curls down and drives into the earth. And as it pushes into the earth, gravity helps it drive into the earth. And as it drives into the earth, it naturally helps the rest of the spine spring up. As the tailbone drives into the earth, goes back down into the earth, the rest of the the rest of the spine springs up in perfect alignment. But I don't do that. I'm telling you about this because it's true. It's your true body. But I'm not telling you to do it. I don't want you to do it. That's more of this domination of the body thing.
[30:08]
I'm asking you to find this body that's light and lifted and lifting by its nature. Now I'm talking about it and when I talk about it I'm feeling it. Hearing me, can you feel it? It's there. It's amazing. The energy of the earth is lifting you up and pulling you down at the same time. The weight, the mass of the earth is pulling you down and the energy of the earth is lifting you up. Right to the top of your head Your spine's actually going up through your head, lifting the head up and floating it up there, light. And your neck is free and relaxed, but not flaccid, not limp, and not tense. And all the muscles in your back are not tense and not limp.
[31:12]
And the muscles in your abdomen are soft and relaxed, but not flaccid and just... All your muscles have this balanced way to be. And if you feel this lift, don't just feel the lift. Also feel a balancing horizontal growth. So you don't feel stretched out too thin vertically, but feel your body then how wide it is. Feel your back widen. Feel your chest widen. Feel your ribs going out.
[32:15]
And that's another reason for this cosmic mudra, is that if you hold your hands here, that tends to hold your arms away from your body so that, as we say, there could be an egg under your armpit. Arms should not be against your ribs, should be away from the ribs, space under the armpits, arms away from the ribs, so that you can have this expansion of the ribs sideways. And the chest, particularly from the sternum, from the solar plexus and the sternum, the chest widens. And the back widens. And the lower back widens. So that you have a firm base for this lengthening spine. This light, lengthening spine.
[33:17]
Lower back widens. Tailbone into the earth. Spine springing up of its own springy nature. Desiccated discs become rehydrated. Don't worry. He's not a cripple yet. Let the conscious subject become this light, awake, dynamic body. Give it entirely to this now. Finish the race just concentrating on form.
[34:34]
This is just sitting. This is the mind like a wall. This is what practices. Not me, not you, this body. this conscious, this self-conscious subject now becomes not conscious, becomes the body which does not choose. The body does not choose to be long and tall. The spine does not choose to be straight in the sense of relaxed, or rather, balance between relaxed and tense. It doesn't choose that way. It has that nature.
[35:39]
This is the non-choosing spine, the long, tall spine. Nobody makes it that way. All things arrive that way. thought crossed the mind, the chunk of flesh exuded a thought. The thought was, is this kind of like some yogi conspiracy? Have they been saying for a few thousand years that this is so just to sort of, I don't know what, get people to come to their schools? So it's not to say make your spine this way, it's saying this is the true nature of your spine, to be long and tall like this.
[36:48]
This is the spine that's born of the earth. The spine that's born of the earth is not a spine that's supposed to crumble and crush down to the floor. The earth has sponsored the birth of spines which can be upright. It used to have spines that were more horizontal and still does. But it's made this one creature that can be upright. And we happen to be that type. We didn't make ourselves this way. The earth made us. And it wants us to be tall. It wants us to be upright. It wants us to... be like we are and the way we are is this uplifted light spine and the floating head on top. Not the head crushing down and the muscles fighting back. The yogis don't say that's the way it is. They say people act like that and think like that so then they try to work to get their spine to hold that head up.
[37:55]
It's very tiring though. Just find the spine as it actually is, as it's being given to you by the earth and all things every moment. That body covers the whole earth and the whole earth supports that body and uplifts it. Give yourself to that spine. to that head, to that wide body, to that tall body. Work on that form now. Just work on that form, that body, for the rest of Sashin. Just do that, and when you just do that, or when that's all there is, I say just do that, I take it away. When there is just that, when you trust just that, you don't do that, you give your life to that form, you let your body be that form, and that's it. This is called body and mind dropped off. This is called just the body sitting, just the body standing, just the body bowing.
[39:02]
And then see if during, when you're walking around on breaks and when you're doing soji and you're serving, see if you can keep finding that body, even when you're doing these somewhat social activities, where usually you shift back into the conscious subjects and doing the serving, the conscious subjects and doing the sweeping. There's a soft little animal in there during Soji who's loving what it loves and doesn't know anything about sweeping effectively. So we might have some messes here if you turn back to this little chunk of flesh there. But it's okay. We'll be all right. It's okay during session. Right? Can't we tolerate that? You'll get feedback, but, you know, just to let you know, but it's okay to, you know, for some things to be different if you try to let go of your usual approach and forget about
[40:13]
your preconceived ideas of how things happen, namely that you do them. See how this true upright spine works and serves and eats and bows and sits. Check it out. Give yourself to that now that you're not afraid to be here. I mean, if I think about this, I feel very enthusiastic for you. I mean, you have a great opportunity to, like, enter the way, to allow this chunk of flesh to study the Buddha way for the next three days. So congratulations and, you know, happy swimming. It's great.
[41:22]
Terrific. You look like you understand almost completely. Yes? What about the breath? What about the breath? Yes? Pardon? You're so used to following your breath, staying with your breath, going back to your breath. I said to someone, how are you feeling? And she said, well, I think she said, there's a lot of breath. Or maybe she said, it's full of breath. The body is full of breath.
[42:23]
If you're like, if you're like, if you become that which is not conscious, you become, you become the breath. There's no more you coming back to the breath, you staying with the breath Sorry, bye-bye to that practice. Bye-bye to you being with your breath, the conscious subject. Get back to that breath. You're a Zen student, follow the breath. What are you doing out here? Where's the breath? Go back there. No more of that. It's just you become the breath. There's just a lot of breath. This chunk of flesh is like got breath in it. In every cell of this chunk of flesh there is breath. If the breath goes away, we have brain damage right away. And we make sure that the last place there isn't breath is in the brain.
[43:29]
Is that right, doctors and nurses? So the breath is there in this chunk of flesh. Yes? You look like you're holding on to some preconceived idea over there. Are you? Yeah, it looks like. It looks like kind of like a wall. What about me? What's going to happen to me, the one who's been running this practice all this time? Just take the one who's been doing the practice and just put her on the side, or anyway, get her to become that which isn't conscious. That is the body, and the body is full of breath. And the breath lives in the body, and it moves in the body, and it comes and goes in the body. That is the body. It's not dead meat. It's breathing meat. So, what do you think?
[44:33]
How do you feel? What's your trouble? Yeah, you're thinking, yes. That's the trouble. Yeah, that's the trouble, the thinking. But I asked you how you feel. I think I said, how do you feel? Did I ask you how you feel? Yeah. You didn't say, full of breath. I didn't hear you say, full of breath. You told me about what you're thinking. You're thinking like, what am I, I think what you're thinking, you look like what you're thinking was, well, what am I going to do now? In other words, I'm going to continue to be this self-conscious subject who is doing the practice. Anyway, it is okay. It is a free country. You can continue to be the self-conscious subject who is doing some nice practice like following a breath. It's a wholesome practice. You can continue to do that, of course. But that makes practice into karma.
[45:35]
Something you do. The practice I'm talking about is the practice of Buddha. And Buddha doesn't do practice. Buddha is the practice and the practice is what happens moment by moment and you don't do that so you look like you're afraid to let go of this usual approach and deny this usual approach. For a little while anyway. So again, you might try it. A lot of people, I think I've doubt about this, you might try it just for 10 minutes sometime of sitting in this different way that you don't do. Try it for 10 minutes. See if you find this body that's full of breath. And if you don't, you can just go back if you want to, to the self-conscious subject who does the practice.
[46:40]
which is what I call fairly wholesome karma, of you in the world of karma, you in the world of delusion, where you practice and confirm things, where you do the breathing practice, you do the posture practice, you do the Zen practice. This is wholesome karma, and this is delusion. It's okay, though. You can keep doing that. It's like... We accept that, that people do that. Most of us do that a good share of the time. And you're kindly being an example to say, tell us that you're confessing that you're doing that. And you're saying, I think you're saying, I have trouble. setting that aside, suspending that for a while. So the Phukhan Zazengi says something like, can I have a copy of that? Suspend these ordinary activities, these intellectual affairs. Suspend the kind of practice that you do.
[47:44]
Suspend the practice which is like, you know, I'm going to the store and I'm going to practice the precepts. Suspend that way of practicing. These are worldly affairs. It's saying, cast aside worldly affairs. Okay? That's what I'm talking about here. Okay? And I hear you saying, I'm afraid to cast aside worldly affairs. I don't know how to do that. And that's what I've been talking about these days, is to try to give you some hints about how to set aside worldly affairs, how to suspend them for a little while, and learn the backward step, which turns the light around and illuminates the inner world of the self, which is not the conscious world. The outer world of the self is the conscious world. The world is your conscious of things. Now you look back inside the self, where's this body, which gives rise to it.
[48:52]
Give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness. Give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness. Stop the measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views. Have no design than becoming Buddha. Do not think good and bad. Do not judge true and false. Do not pick and choose. Put aside all involvement and suspend all affairs, including affairs of you doing the practice of following the breath. He didn't say, you now follow your breath. He said, suspend that mode of action. This is wholehearted practice of the way. This is using the chunk of flesh to study the way. This is letting the breathing body be tall, uplifted, broad, and full.
[50:03]
And just let that sit. And give up all preconceived ideas in the process. So, as I said at the beginning, it takes a lot of discussion to understand how you can stop using your mind How you can stop practice which is based on you using your mind, you using your body to do this and do that. This is the ordinary worldly affairs. That's the way we do everything in life. And we bring that sometimes into the Zen practice. He'd say, suspend that. Just for a week. Or no, just for three days. Just suspend it. And if you're saying, I don't know how, well, you can't do it. You don't then make that into another object which you're aware of and that you're going to do. So I would say, you know, the fact that you're having trouble understanding this means that you're starting to understand that I'm talking about something different.
[51:10]
You recognize I'm talking about a practice which is not the one that you brought here. Okay? And the practice I'm talking about is not the practice that anybody brought here. It's the practice that's coming now. That's the practice. And you can't do that. You can't choose to do that even. It's difficult to understand. Not hard to do, because you don't have to do it. It's happening, but it's difficult to understand, it's difficult to trust, but not difficult for it to happen. Your life is very effortful. You don't have to make an effort. You just have to join the effortfulness of your body. Your body's not half-heartedly happening right now, as you noticed. You know your body's still here, very vividly.
[52:16]
It's cooking. You don't make it that energetic way. You just need to join that energy and be full of it. Be full of that energy. Because you are. That doesn't take effort. That is effort. You need to accord with that effort. And if you don't feel this full energy, you're off-center. If you join your posture in this way, you'll find the tremendous energy in your body. Say something about the difference between imagination... Yes, body gives rise to images, yes. Well, you should tell me, to me, the thoughts arise from the body and thoughts are images.
[53:30]
So thoughts, images arise from the body. Okay, so now what's the question? Oh, I see, like a blue. Yeah, blues differ from good and bad. So intellect could be used for judgments. Like intellect, doesn't intellect mean something about choosing? Isn't that the root etymology of intellect, to choose, to select? So some images that arise from the body, some thought are choosing type of thought, and some are, like blue isn't really a choosing thought. Blue isn't really a judgment thought.
[54:33]
So the instruction kind of says, let blue and yellow arise. Let stinky and, no, I shouldn't say stinky, but let pain and pleasure arise. But be careful of those, actually. But anyway, let these images, these thoughts arise, but don't get involved in judgment that arise from the body. And then also, this one particular thing that arises is the idea of a self-conscious subject who dominates the body. That one will still arise, but don't get involved with that. Take that one and reject it temporarily. Just set it aside or reject it, or anyway, let it become, take it and let it become that which is not conscious. In other words, realize that that is a thought. It is not a consciousness. And let that become that which isn't conscious, because that's what it is. realize that it's a thought.
[55:38]
It's an object of consciousness. And body can be an object of consciousness, too. But the consciousness which has body as an object is born with and of the body. Whatever we're conscious of is the same quality of the consciousness, it's just that there's a sense organ that cuts the consciousness in two parts, called subject and object. So then there's a sense of being aware of something out there. But I think this is maybe too much at this point to get into the mechanism. All this will be revealed to you very nicely when you enter the way. Did I somewhat respond to your question? Okay. You know, Dogen says, yes. In other words, you enter into how, which is not something you can do.
[56:45]
So, non-thinking is to be with thinking like a piece of flesh is with thinking. So, when thinking arises and ceases, non-thinking is completely intimate with this arising and ceasing. But non-thinking is not judging that arising and ceasing. There's a rising and ceasing of judgment but they're suspended in the sense that you don't get involved with them. So non-thinking is like how. How is thinking? How is thinking happening? But when you see how thinking is happening, that means you're intimate with the chunk of flesh, because that's how thinking is happening.
[57:48]
It's a child of the flesh. You can watch the thinking kind of like molt up or bubble up from the flesh and go back down. So intimacy with thinking is not thinking. Or it's non-thinking. And how is a verbal expression for the way to be intimate with thinking. Like, the way for me to be intimate with Ben is how Ben. Not that's Ben and that's not Ben. Or that's a good Ben and a bad Ben. But just how Ben, what Ben, where Ben, who Ben. Those are ways for this practitioner to be intimate with the phenomena of Ben. But not judging.
[58:50]
setting that aside. And not even consciousness, just how. And how is being intimate with how consciousness arises with the body. Mind like a wall is an expression for how to practice non-thinking. The chunk of flesh studying the way is an expression of non-thinking. Just sitting is how. Just sitting is how to practice non-thinking. Or, actually, he says, how do you practice not-thinking? And he says, non-thinking. Non-thinking is the way you practice not-thinking.
[59:52]
And he says, where are the Ts? Are the Ts coming? There's some Ts. Okay, we got teas. We got teas. It's quick, go ask them. Get their permission. Huh? They're afraid, they're cowardly teas. They don't, they don't, there's a brave tea right there. The brave teas are the happy ones. She won't let you do it. No, she said tea. Deal with her, go get her. There's your little, what do you call it, your warm, soft, what do you call it, right there. She's the answer to your question. Look at her. There it is. Are you happy now? Okay, good. Let's see how that works.
[61:01]
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