We just recited the verse written by a Zen teacher named Heihei Dogen. And it's his verse for giving rise to the vow. The vow the vow that from this life on, through our countless lives, we will hear the true Dharma, and that upon hearing it, we will renounce worldly affairs and maintain, care for the Buddha Dharma, and that in doing so, the great earth and all living beings will attain the Buddha way.

[01:07]

This was his vow. And when I said, renounce worldly affairs, I thought that might frighten somebody. Someone might think, do I have to renounce worldly affairs since I read that? And so what does worldly affairs mean? I think worldly affairs, maybe it means that you renounce everything that interferes with hearing the true Dharma. that you renounce all affairs that aren't conducive to the great earth and all living beings attaining the Buddha way. Put positively, it would be that we would proclaim, that we would vow to practice all things which do promote

[02:22]

the great earth and all living beings attain the Buddha way. That was a vow written by this Zen teacher and so I invite you to consider at the beginning of this session what is your vow Maybe this vow would be helpful to you as a point of departure to consider your own. Do you feel in your heart, in your mind, in your body, the vow, the earnest desire to realize the truth and aid all beings on the earth to attain the Buddha way?

[03:28]

And if not, what is your vow? As we heard last night, Sashin offers an opportunity to discover anew what your ultimate concern in life is. in the midst of caring for your body and mind this week, perhaps you will discover for the first time or again what your ultimate concern in life is. It might dawn upon your heart and mind what your ultimate concern is. what your vow is. If it does appear to you, congratulations.

[04:35]

And if it does appear to you, perhaps it would also be possible to clarify it and even to unfold it somewhat. I, on behalf of all of us, I encourage all of us to keep awake and alert for the revelation of what this heart, what this mind really wants, really hopes for in this life. This may be revealed to us at any point.

[05:40]

It may be revealed to us during meals, when eating delicious food. It may be revealed to us during services, during work, during breaks. in the midst of a sitting period of calm or in the middle of a sitting period of perhaps being really challenged by our experience, at any time we may be able to see what it is that our life is about. Sesshins at Zen Center are usually just advertised as Sesshins and the topic for the Sesshin is not usually announced.

[07:40]

But the word sashin, in a way, provides a common ground for all the sashins that we have. And although some different topics might be brought up during the talks, the background of the word sashin might be appropriate to many of us Sesshin is a Japanese pronunciation of two Chinese characters. And this word Sesshin is written two different ways. The first, there's two characters which are used for the first character, both of which in Japanese are pronounced Setsu.

[08:58]

The second character is pronounced in Japanese, shin. Shin means mind or consciousness or awareness. But it also means heart. Setsu, one of the characters that is sometimes used, means to join, to connect, to succeed to, to receive, to welcome, to meet.

[10:11]

to accept, and to take with the hand. So that way of writing Sashin means all those things. To welcome the mind, to welcome the heart, to meet the mind, to meet the heart, to accept the mind, and to accept the heart, moment by moment, to be here meeting your mind and heart. and to take your mind and your heart with your hand. One side of the character has the radical for hand.

[11:19]

The other character that's used to write Sashin is the one I usually use. And it is also pronounced Setsu, and it has also the radical for hand in it. But then on the other side of the character, it has three characters, each one of which means ear. or listen. And that character means to assist, to embrace and sustain, to unify.

[12:32]

to hold up, to take hold of. But of course it also means listen, even though they don't usually translate it there. You can't get rid of those three ears. So, you know, it means my interpretation is it means to be very open. But not just a completely passive open, partly passive, because hearing is partly passive. But it's like what we call nowadays active listening. It's receiving but also embracing in the receiving, receiving and meeting.

[13:39]

So putting this character together with mind is often also, the meaning of it is to collect the mind, collect the heart, or to concentrate the attention, or concentrate the heart. Another meaning for one of these characters that's used with heart is to touch or to contact and to draw near. I think that to practice this way, to live this way, would be very good if we together here could come together with our mind and heart.

[15:15]

If we could meet the mind and heart, if we could unify the mind and heart. if we could accept the mind and heart, I think that would be wonderful. If one of us, if this happened for one of us, it would happen for all of us. Part of that vow that we just read is to vow from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the truth of how to help other people collect their mind and heart, to hear the teaching of how to help beings concentrate their attention, train their attention in skillful ways so that they can attain the Buddha Way.

[16:25]

So even if it seems to you, by your judgment, that your own personal mind stream does not get concentrated today or during this week, still, I think you could at the same time rest assured sit assured that your effort helps others train their attention and collect their mind. An agitated person sitting in this room period after period could be very helpful to somebody else becoming calm. So part of this vow of the ancestors is the understanding that we do not practice Hashim alone, that I do not collect the mind alone.

[17:54]

and also nobody else collects the mind for me, although everybody is helping me in the process of the mind being collected, which is part of the reason that we come together SOMEBODY TOLD ME YESTERDAY THAT HE WANTS TO SIT LOTS OF SASHINES. HE SAYS IF HE HAS ONE PERSON TO HELP HIM, IT CAN HAPPEN. BUT BY HIMSELF, HE CANNOT DO IT. SO WE HAVE MORE THAN ONE PERSON HERE TO HELP US. Not only do we have quite a few people in this room, but we have on the word of, for example, the priest who wrote that vow which we just chanted, we have on his testimony, what do they call it, on his deposition,

[19:24]

and the deposition of countless other accomplished meditators, that all the Buddhas in ten directions, past, present and future, are practicing together with each person. All the Buddhas are practicing together with each one of us. We are completely supported. No Buddha has ever withheld support from any being. And so, you have this support.

[20:31]

You always have had this support. You always will have this support. And therefore, it is possible, with the support of all beings and all Buddhas and all bodhisattvas, that sashin can happen, that the mind can become completely unified, collected, welcomed, touched, met, and realized. When the Buddha woke, the Buddha saw that this is already the case. all beings already fully possess the realized mind of all Buddhas.

[21:38]

But because of attachments and misconceptions, they don't realize it, they don't understand it. In the process of sesshin, the attachments and misconceptions can be dropped, and we can realize what the Buddha sees in us already. Some Zen teachers, and I think other traditions besides Zen too within the Buddha way, sometimes gather together with the community and practice sitting like we're doing.

[23:32]

But they do not practice, they do not have, for example, any chanting. of the teachings. And I'd like to talk about this issue of the chanting we do together with our sitting, the chanting we do in our services, and the chantings we do, well, in our meals, of making our meals into services, making our meals into ceremonies. Someone said to me yesterday that in alchemy and There's many ways to talk about what alchemy is, but one way to understand alchemy is that it's an esoteric dimension of Christianity, or the esoteric lineage of Western society.

[24:45]

And in alchemy, one presentation of alchemy is I think also maybe true in medieval monasteries. They had two rooms. One room was called the Laboratorium and the other room was called the Oratorium. So I think in Zen we're quite familiar with the Laboratorium, the workshop. the place where the meditators, where the yogis, the room they go into to work, to work as or in the process of unifying the mind, of training and concentrating the attention.

[25:54]

So we have these workshops or teaching shops in Zen. But we also have an oratorium, a place for oratory. And oratory means to speak, but also means to pray. So actually, a moment ago, we were in an oratorium. We were reciting a prayer. We vow from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma. That's a prayer, a prayer of a Zen teacher. At that time, this room was an oratorium. It was an expression of a vow and a prayer of appreciation for all the support of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

[27:05]

And although they weren't mentioned, I would say we should also appreciate the Arhats, the enlightened disciples of the ancient Buddhas. So the part of what we do is we pray. We pray. Part of what we do is inviting support and asking for help. Not help to get someone else to do the practice for us, but help helping us so the practice can happen. And the help's there, whether we ask or not, but there may be a way of asking in which or through which the help is manifested.

[28:17]

So I think for me it's my labor or our labor is our prayer. Our sitting is our prayer. Our walking meditation is our prayer. Our cleaning the temple is our prayer. Our serving food to each other is our prayer. Our receiving the food is our prayer. Everything we do is our prayer. And our prayer is our labor. So for us, the oratorium and the laboratorium the oratory and the laboratory are really one room. So although we may seem to be working, we're also saying, you could say, thank you very much Buddha,

[30:13]

for helping me be able to sit here. Thank you very much, everyone else in the room, for helping me be here. Thank you all the ancestors for helping me sit here, for helping me stand here, for supporting me to walk here. I feel full of gratitude for this great support, and I feel full of gratitude for the opportunity to help others. And my effort now may not be perfect, but still I hope that even my imperfect effort will be helpful. So I'm working wholeheartedly in the context of this session, and my hard work, my wholehearted work, is my prayer.

[31:16]

And I may have confidence, actually, I do have confidence, or there is confidence in my heart that I get met and I do get supported, whether I know it or not. My labor, like the labor of a mother, is giving birth to new life every moment. Whether I know it or not, I'm working hard, giving birth every moment to a new body and mind, a fresh, spanking clean and new body and mind. At the beginning of Sashin, I may be tired from weeks and weeks of involvement in worldly affairs.

[32:33]

Now that I've given them up at the beginning of Sesshin, or at least beginning to give them up at the beginning of Sesshin, gradually I come awake. So maybe by the end of Sesshin I can be awake to witness the birth of new life, the miracle of life, in a moment. and another. Witnessing the birth of this new life, there is a meeting with the heart and welcoming this new life, this new mind, this fresh heart. Yes, even this one.

[33:45]

Again, like the mother and the baby, the mother may be uncomfortable, but she welcomes the life. And the baby may be uncomfortable, but the baby is coming. Can we touch this life? And can we receive the help of all beings to touch this life with our attention trained so that when we touch it, we are completely settled and stable so we can see what life is, so that we can see what all beings are.

[35:17]

So I look into my own mind, into my own heart and see. Do I have an ultimate concern? Do I have really only one priority? Is that priority to hear and see the true Dharma and thereby all beings and the greater earth attain the way? Is that my priority? To train this mind into one-pointedness so that all distractions from the Buddha way are released? I'm looking.

[36:47]

As I proceed to talk about ways to train the mind, about ways to train the attention, I may forget to remind you over and over again that I'm talking about ways of training this mind, but I'm not telling you to do this. I'm talking about the way the mind is trained, but this is not something you are going to do all by yourself. So try to remember when you hear the teachings of how to train the mind into sesshin, that this teaching is coming in the context of everybody helping you realize this unified mind, this one-pointed, tranquil, clear awareness.

[38:03]

And as we do our services, remember that these services are trying to remind us that we're not doing this meditation practice by our own isolated power. So try to integrate these two perspectives. One is that we're going to be working to be still with the aid of all beings and all Buddhas. So you can relax at the same time that you're working wholeheartedly. to meet and touch experience, to meet each experience in such a way that the mind is not split anymore.

[39:16]

Or rather, even if there is a split, the split is healed and transcended. a priest who wrote the Eihei Koso Hotsugamon. The disciple of Buddha who made that vow also wrote the chant that we recited this morning, the universal encouragement of the ceremony of seated meditation.

[40:34]

And He said something in English translation. He said something like, put aside intellectual practice of pursuing words and learn the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. So part of what this is about is learning. You may not know how to do this yet, but learning how to turn the light around and shine it back into your own mind, into your own heart, to shine it inward to see how you want to practice today, this week, this lifetime.

[41:37]

Learn how to turn the light around and shine it inside to see if you want to realize Sashin with all beings. Or perhaps you'll discover another vow And discovering that is also part of the practice. Whatever vows are in there, it's good to know about them. And the more you know about them, I think the better. But again, I don't know if you want to learn the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward so you can discover what your heart's up to.

[42:46]

And I don't exactly want to convince you to do that, but I would like to encourage you to give it a try. Or, you know, to give it a try again means to let everybody help you learn this, finding out who you are and what's in your heart and what your vow is. and it just so happens that there is a day. There's a day now. You got a day to do it. It's available. There's nothing else scheduled. Unless you'd rather do something else. And if you would, go right ahead.

[43:57]

This is a free workshop a free laboratory. It's even a free oratory, so if you want to chant something else during services, go right ahead. Because one of our vows is to harmonize with you with no hindrance. I take refuge in Sangha. Before all beings. How's it go? Bring harmony to everyone. No, bringing harmony to everyone. That's it. Before all beings, bringing harmony to everyone. Free of hindrance. Is that how it goes?

[45:02]

I take refuge in Sangha before all beings, with all beings, bringing harmony to everyone, free of hindrance. Wow, quite a vow. I take refuge in this group of people here, bringing harmony to every one of them, free of hindrance. Yeah, I'd like to learn how to do that. I'd like to learn how to be that way. How about you?

[46:15]

Is there a vow in your heart to put aside anything that doesn't support you taking refuge in this group of people and bringing harmony to every one of them, free of hindrance. And if there is anything interfering, let go of it. May our intention...

[47:20]

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