This morning I'd like to continue talking about the posture of satsang and some of the points, other points that Dogen mentions in the Bhutan Tathagati. Before I do, though, I wanted to tell you some stories. I was just remembering this morning, one of Suzuki Roshi's disciples, a man named Phil Wilson. I was thinking of Phil because each one of us is so unique. And for any one of us who studied Zen, we will benefit in different ways. Being different people, we approach Zen differently.

[01:04]

And Phil is very unusual, so I wanted to tell you about him. You know, Phil has never become a Dharma teacher, but there are some ways in which he exemplifies the spirit of Zen practice better than other people who have become Zen teachers, or even so-called great Zen teachers, or people with large followings. You know, there is a traditional Zen koan, a story about the Zen master, I guess it's Phil, who one day said to his assembly, all of you gobblers of dregs.

[02:08]

Gobblers of dregs is someone chasing after words and phrases, which somebody else has already digested and is now spitting out, and then you say, I want to get the right ones, you know, gobble them up, you know, those dregs and those words. What's left over from somebody else's experience? Anyway, Hyakujo, you know, somewhat directly, you know, said, all of you gobblers of dregs. And then he may have said, stop chasing after words and phrases. Don't you realize there are no Zen teachers in all of China? China is pretty big, of course. And at the time there were hundreds of monasteries. So someone in the audience said, well, what about those people who have a lot of followers

[03:11]

and, you know, have these big assemblies and are giving talks and things? And Hyakujo said, I didn't say there was no Zen. I just said there are no teachers of Zen. Anyway, Phil has never become a teacher of Zen in the usual way. But he started out, you know, he was a football player at the Temple in the early 50s, earlier mid-50s. And he was quite good. He eventually became an all-American football player. Phil is, you know, naturally kind of a shamanic kind of person. When he played football, he said, you know, he got mad after his first year because he got left off the team at one point as a freshman. So after that he decided that nothing would get in his way,

[04:12]

whether it was a head or a knee or a foot, whatever it was, he would remove it from his way. He was a lineman. And if it didn't move out of his way, he'd walk over it, you know, step over it, stomp over it. And so he said by the third quarter he'd be getting tired, but then in the fourth quarter he'd be watching the game from above the field, you know, while he was playing. And then Monday he'd wake up and be in the hospital. And he would be in recovery from, you know, this out-of-body, in-body, out-of-body experience playing football. And it would take him a day or two to kind of get back together. So anyway, he first met Suzuki Roshi, I told a couple of people yesterday,

[05:16]

but he first met Suzuki Roshi, a friend of his was having problems with alcohol. And so the friend said, let's go hear this Zen talk. Well it turned out Suzuki Roshi was giving a talk completely in Japanese. A Japanese congregation I think. But you see, Phil didn't mind because, you know, Phil relates to things, you know, it's not so much about words, it's much more at an energetic level. But just energetically he, you know, looked at Suzuki Roshi and fell in love. And he was just like, you know, transfixed. And also Suzuki Roshi reminded him a little bit with the robes, the way he wore his robes and his sleeves. Sometimes the robes would look a little bit like you could be a football player, but the robes tend to make your shoulders look broader. Suzuki Roshi was only about, I don't know, 5 foot, 4 foot, 10 foot, 5 foot,

[06:21]

but he always seemed much taller than anybody. And Phil is, you know, at least in my eyes, 5'8", Phil is probably a little taller than I am, 5'10". So Phil doesn't get, you know, intimidated by much. He can be, you know, very respectful and very sweet, but he doesn't get intimidated. And so he went to meet, afterwards they went to meet and talk to Suzuki Roshi. And his friend wanted to ask him, and Suzuki Roshi talked to him a little bit about his alcohol problems. And then he turned to Phil and said, what about you, what do you want? And Phil said, I've been, that he had been the life of the party and he'd been going to, not only was he a football player, he was also an art student and he was, you know, very good at sort of art salon talk.

[07:23]

He loved to party. Later, you know, he was one of the apes in Planet of the Apes. And he lived in Hollywood and he dated, you know, beautiful women who were in the movies. So he said, you know, it wasn't very often I would get lost for words, but when Suzuki Roshi turned to me and said, what do you want? I couldn't think. My mouth was hanging open. I didn't know what to say, and he said, meditation. And Phil said, I just, my head just started nodding. And then he said, tomorrow morning, and my head just kept nodding. Five o'clock. And after that, you know, Phil never wanted much to change his lifestyle, but so he found that if he would go home after staying out late, if he went home and was in his bed, he wouldn't get up the next day for meditation.

[08:26]

So he, after he'd be out, he would just drive his car to the park outside of Zen Center. So when his alarm clock went off in the morning, if he was sleeping in his car, he would get up, you know, and go into meditation. Really? And he was extremely devoted to Suzuki Roshi. His whole, you know, personality and demeanor changed to Suzuki Roshi since he was 20 years old. Just a nice, you know, completely different person. Anyway, after a little while, Suzuki Roshi said to him, why don't you, I want you to teach a class to the Japanese kindergarten. The children who are at the Zen, he was originally, Suzuki Roshi was the teacher, the priest for the Japanese congregation in San Francisco, and they had a kindergarten.

[09:30]

So Phil went to talk to the kindergarten, and they said, as soon as he started to talk, they said, Yankee, go home. Laughter And Suzuki Roshi was sitting there, and he had his little, he had his little stick. And Phil said, when he wanted you to do something, do it. So Suzuki Roshi was sitting there, and Phil would start to talk, and they'd say, Yankee, go home. And there'd be a bunch of them, you know. Several of the kids would start chanting, you know. Yankee, go home. Yankee, shut up. And finally, you know, he started talking, and he gave this class. And he gave a class to the Japanese kindergarten kids for a number of weeks. And after a while, Suzuki Roshi stopped coming. And then Suzuki Roshi wanted him to learn how to hit the bells and the mokugo.

[10:36]

And he was never very good at it. He couldn't remember, you know, where the bells go. And so Suzuki Roshi said, and then, you know, we do it. There's the mokugo set up on a cushion, and you're hitting the mokugo with one hand, and then you have to hit the bell with the other. Bop, bop, bop, bong, bop, bop. And the bong and the bop are at the same time. And there's a tendency as you're going bop, bop, bop, to skip a bop when you hit the bell. Bop, bop, bop, bong, bop, bop. Bop, bop, bop, bong, bop. And it's still going. So Suzuki Roshi said, why don't you come and practice in the afternoon if you have some time? So he would go in the afternoon to practice. And one time, as you know, he was sitting for practice in Seiza, which is like this, but without the feet. So pretty quickly, most people's legs fall and bleed. So he had been sitting there for 30 or 40 minutes practicing.

[11:40]

And Suzuki Roshi came in and said, well, you've practiced long enough, now let's have some tea. And Phil couldn't get up. His legs were asleep. He said, sure, I'd love to have some tea. And he started to lean over on the mokugyo. And Suzuki Roshi said, don't lean. Don't lean on the mokugyo. Phil sat up. And he couldn't figure out how to get up. And he said, Suzuki Roshi, my legs are completely asleep. And Suzuki Roshi said, just imagine them. And Phil looked down, and Suzuki Roshi said, don't look down. Just imagine your legs. And stand up. So finally he did. And then his legs were still asleep, but somehow he had imagined them being there,

[12:47]

and imagined standing up, and he was standing up. And then he couldn't walk. And Suzuki Roshi said, just imagine walking. So he looked down. Suzuki Roshi said, don't look down. And eventually he walked, and he got over to the kitchen, and they had tea. And another, you know, I'll tell you two more stories about Phil, because I want you to understand anyway, you know, how different people are. And I can't think of anybody else, you know, that Suzuki Roshi treated people then differently too. And one time at Tasahara, I was there actually, and we could hear Suzuki Roshi hitting Phil with his little stick in his cabin. And Phil said, he went to Suzuki Roshi's cabin, and Suzuki Roshi said, I don't want you fighting with Dick Baker. Dick Baker, you know, he came out of his cabin after Suzuki Roshi.

[13:51]

And he said to Phil, I don't want you fighting with Dick Baker. And Phil said, I can't remember fighting with Dick. And Dick said, I don't remember, we were talking about this earlier this year, and Dick said, I don't remember ever fighting with you. And Phil said, and Suzuki Roshi said, did you understand, don't fight with Dick Baker. And Phil said, I don't understand, no, I don't fight with Dick Baker. I don't fight with Dick. And then Suzuki Roshi started hitting him. And Phil would let him hit him. And then after a while, you know, the stick broke. He broke the stick. Phil said, now he's, you know, maybe 60, you know, so he's not as formidable, but as a young man, you know, this is a big, burly person. And the stick broke, and Phil was very, you know, horrified. He thought, oh, it's a precious 500-year-old stick, and now he's broken it on me.

[14:57]

And he felt very ashamed. So Suzuki Roshi got out another stick. And started hitting him, and Phil said, no, no, no, don't break that one, too. Later, it turned out, Suzuki Roshi asked another student, Paul Disko, to mend the stick. You know, some Japanese priest with him. And so Suzuki Roshi said, why don't you mend the stick, but not too well? So that he could, you know, hit some student, break the stick. To show the Japanese teachers how tough he was. Breaking the stick on South America. And Phil said, the strange thing, when Suzuki Roshi was hitting me, he said, was, you know, the more he hit me, the bigger my energy got.

[16:01]

Until, you know, my energy was as big as the universe. So this may have something to do, you know, with why Suzuki Roshi would hit him. Because other people, you know, might shrivel up on them again like that. So maybe he understood why. And one time, Phil said, he told the Japanese priest this story, and the priest said, I don't think he meant for that to happen. And Phil said, but, you know, my ego wasn't getting bigger, my head wasn't getting bigger, it was my energy. Anyway, Phil also spent many months at AHE. Suzuki Roshi, some of his early students, he sent them to AHE. And mostly, you know, it kind of ruined them, right? Because AHE is not... AHE is not about practice the way that we do practice here.

[17:08]

AHE is about form. And it's a lot of sitting to say that. The first day that Phil was there, you know, they have a whole period that's called Tongariyo, you know, which is a kind of test or initiation period. So the first day, on a wooden floor like this, he was sitting to say that, you know, for about 12 hours. He said, it was not so bad because I didn't have to stand in front of the Japanese. And then after that day, you know, then in a little room, sitting down for maybe two or three weeks before they let him into the regular practice room. Anyway, after a while, after Suzuki Roshi died, Phil moved to Los Angeles to help take care of his mother. His brother lived there, and his brother and his mother had bought some apartment building, so he became an apartment manager.

[18:16]

And over the years, you know, he continues to have... Again, you know, probably more than anybody who's been at Sin Center, you know, he had visions. That's maybe not quite true, but... And one of the things that happened, for instance, there was a whole gang of kids who used to sit in some trees outside of one of the apartments, and they would harass people kind of violently, they would pee out of the trees, for instance. So he said, for one year, he went out and said, you know, very respectfully, you know, this is a disturbance to my family. Most of his tenants are at this gang. So finally he said, after one year, nothing happened, so he went out and he said, you've had one year, now you're leaving.

[19:25]

And he said at that time his energy was really big, just as it had been for Suzuki Roshi when he left. And then he pulled someone out of the tree, and another person out of the tree, and then somebody came up and hit him over the head with a lead pipe. And he just brushed him off. And everybody ran. And then he never saw him again. Anyway, you know, Bill is not scholarly or intellectual. He's very sweet and gentle. Of all of Suzuki Roshi's disciples when we had our meeting in January, who was the friendliest? He was mostly interested in talkative, you know, asking people how they are and how they've been.

[20:29]

You know, probably the least proficient on human development and so forth. And he may not have, you know, brilliant core, you know. Particularly, you know, he had an intellectual understanding of Buddhism and all. He was able to give talks, except to Japanese people. But, again, he was a very sweet and respectful and kind person. And he makes a very careful effort to take care of his life and to be a disciple of Buddha. You know, he has a very good heart.

[21:33]

I think for a lot of us, you know, it was probably difficult for him. Suzuki Roshi died when he did. And actually, you know, after Suzuki Roshi died, he didn't especially get along with Bill. He didn't fight with Bill. He didn't get along with Bill. He left Suzuki Roshi. So, anyway, we're each, you know, exactly who we are. And we will each have different virtues. And we will not all study Zen in the same way. It will be interesting to take note of the Zen. And it doesn't mean, you know, that anybody is, you know, better or worse. Possibly. You know, we're all finding our way. Yeah. There's a poem by Rumi.

[22:53]

Not Rumi, but Kabir. He was an Indian poet who studied what Hinduism taught him. One of his poems is... The guest is inside you and inside me. This crowd is hidden from the scene. None of us has gotten very far. So set aside your arrogance and take a look around you in his eyes. The blue sky expands further and further. The David sense of failure comes to an end. The damage I have done to myself pays away. A million times more for life than I give to myself. Yes. Take a look around.

[24:00]

You know, this is like Dogen I mentioned the other night. Take a backward step. Take a backward step rather than keeping trying to go forward. Take a backward step. Turn the light inwards. Set aside words and letters. Stop assessing good and bad, right and wrong. This is the activity of the conscious mind with non-medic introspection. If you want to attain justice, practice justice immediately. Thank you. So now coming back to posture and sitting. We talked about having your spine straight and steady. Where is your pelvis actually comfortable? You can be upright. Your sacrum is not tilted too far forward.

[25:05]

It's not slumping back. It's somewhere in between. Zazen, I want to remind you again, it's not so much about having an idea about where your sacrum should be and telling it to stay there. This way you will immobilize yourself and make yourself stiffer. Because you have some idea of how it's supposed to be and you try to make your body like that. You will make yourself stiff because you tell your body to be stiff. To be where you tell it to and stay there. Which is different than if you put your awareness in your sacrum and you say to your sacrum, where would you like to be? Let's see where is a good place for you. And so, Zazen and sitting is also about changing the way you relate to anything. And it's shifting from control to compassion. Control is you have an idea of how it should be, you tell it to be like that, you expect it to do that. If it doesn't, you can get angry or resentful or various things.

[26:05]

Compassion is you listen to something and you say, what would you like? What is your difficulty? What is your problem? What's going on with you? And to listen deeply and carefully. So when you do something like, you know, when you sit with compassion you can have your awareness in your sacrum and you are studying, you know, how, where it is. You have to find it first. Sometimes I suggest to people like, you know, when you breathe, normally your conception is the breath is, the back is straight and the breath is something that happens in front. Why would your back be straight? So if you keep your back stiff and you have the breath just in front, do you think, won't your back get sore and stiff?

[27:08]

But that's because you have a conception like, oh, the breath is something that happens in the front. Sometimes I say to people, you know, like, well, why don't you have your back free too? And they say later, I can't find my back. And also, you know, the base of your spine, your buttocks, where you are sitting, there is breath there too. If you hold your pelvis and buttocks and the base of your spine stiff and you think the breath is just up above that, then, you know, you will have more trouble sitting. So if you let your breath, you know, fill your whole body, you know, even in your finger or your wrist, your elbow, you know, your hands and arms and legs, you can have a little sense of inhalation and exhalation. And you'll notice any place that's stiff or tight or tense, there's no breath there.

[28:09]

Because physiologically, you know, psychologically, what happens when there's something that is painful, is you try, one of our first eventual kinds of responses is, I'm going to keep my distance from that. And then you try to set up a barrier between yourself and it. That barrier is actually extra tension now. And it's a physical place. And you're not going to experience the place that's tense. Now you set up, you know, actually extra tension to try not to experience that. So then it begins to hurt more. If instead of setting up barriers between yourself and the tension and trying not to experience it, you start to, you take your awareness there, and you see if you can find some breath in that area, or soften around the tension there. You know, softening or finding the breath is, you know, softening. And meeting the tension rather than trying to wall it off. So it's useful if you find it. You know, it's one way to work with pain and difficulty is to be in the same place.

[29:14]

So we talked about that. And I want to remind you about the posture of the hands. You know, the left hand is said to be palm up, the left hand is on the right hand. And the fingers come just to the end of the edge of the palm. So you can check this with, you know, your longest finger. The knuckles are right on top of the knuckles. You know, the second knuckle of one finger is, you know, the first knuckle of the other finger. So that finger usually comes right to the edge of the palm. The other fingers are in place. And then your thumbs come together so your hands form this oval shape. And then you have your hands, you know, against your lower abdomen. Usually you can let your hands rest lightly. Your right wrist will rest lightly on your right thigh.

[30:20]

How you have your hands will, you know, make some difference in the whole rest of your posture. Here. You know, everything is connected, so... The fingers are rather intimately connected with your ribs. Among other things. So if your fingers have, you know, a nice... and your thumbs are with your collarbone. So if this, you know, if your fingers start to... if your thumbs start to collapse. And your fingers... Right away, you know, your chest will start to collapse. If your fingers, you know, are in a nice position or, you know, a kind of, in a sense, happy position. But you have to let go of, you know, you'll have to let go of certain, you know, habitual holding in order to be able to do this.

[31:34]

So you're studying, you know, to start with, you're studying, you know, is there some way that I can have this posture. You can also, you know, if you want, study like for yourself. You can just follow the energy up your arms. If I have my hands like this, you know, where are my elbows and where are my shoulders. You know, how is my torso. I sat for many years, you know, not paying much attention to my boogers, so it's kind of like this. And actually, my wrists have been, you know, always usually kind of stiff. I asked someone about this one time and they said, oh, well, it's, you know, pretty common spiritual people. Cut off your hands. Why is that? You know, because spiritual people, you want to be careful not to cause any suffering. We're particularly sensitive to not causing suffering, not causing others pain.

[32:39]

So the best way to do it is disempower yourself. Cut off the capability of acting. Turn your hands this way. And then I started studying after that, well, what's going on with my hands, with my wrists. I couldn't find my hands. I realized, well, my awareness just stops right here. That's cutting off your hands. So actually, to be able to, to be able to, you know, empower yourself, actually, so this way of sitting. And finding your hands and having awareness in your hands, you're actually empowering activity. You know, your energy and activity in the world, you know, and in your life. You can actually find your hands and have energy in your hands and they're there for you. And you know, in the cerebral cortex here, there's a band of motor neurons going to your body

[33:44]

and there's a band of receptor neurons coming from the body. And somewhere between 1 third and 2 fifths, somewhere between 35 or 40 percent of that is your hands. So, you know, if you're not having awareness go to your hands, that's a large part of your capacity as a human being. That you just say, I'm writing it off. Anyway, I want to encourage you to the extent, again, you know, that you're interested. See if you can find this awareness in your hands and make you practice. How can I do this nice, open, relaxed posture? Is there some way I can do that? And this particular posture, you know, if you study energetically, as far as I can tell,

[34:46]

you know, it does connect very much with the chest. It will help to open your heart. And the energy of it goes right to your heart. There are other postures people have used in meditation, for instance, if you put your palm up on your knee and join your thumb and first finger, this goes right up into your head. And you can sit up pretty straight. And if you study, you know, you can take your finger and take your first finger away from your thumb and back to touching your thumb. And if you study where that goes, you know, it goes up into your shoulders and it goes up into your neck and you will sit. And after a while you start to get a little buzz. You know, a hump. It's a kind of, you know, so-called cosmic hump.

[35:47]

So this, you know, goes to a different place. The posture of satsang goes more to, you know, your heart and your chest. In Tibetan practice and, you know, other times, for instance, you know, you put your palms down on your knees like this. This is very, more grounding. Energy goes more into your abdomen, your buttocks, your hips. And you feel, you know, much more settled. So they feel like this is, you know, some Tibetan schools, you know, they feel this is a very good way to start meditation because of how grounding and stabilizing it is. Anyway, traditionally in the Sangha it is, you know, called cosmic mantra. And I want to mention briefly about the eyes too. You know, all the things Dogen and other people say, keep your eyes open, looking downward about 45 degrees.

[36:56]

So your eyes are half open. And actually I don't, you know, I think on the whole it's probably better, and you probably do anyway, close your eyes. Because, you know, there's too much, I think in the long run, and I will explain, in the long run it's probably useful how you open your eyes. But one of the things that happens with your eyes open is that, you know, very readily and easily your fight or flight mechanism will come into place. You will be looking for danger, and what's going on, and your eyes will go places. And right away, you know, if you like it, if you don't like it, is there a danger, is there a problem? Even though you're just here in the meditation hall. As soon as your eyes open, it's like, well, what's going on? And even though you're looking someplace, in particular, and your eyes are sort of half open. So, if you want to have your eyes open, you are studying, you know, how to have your eyes open and not doing that.

[38:00]

But that's also part of why people feel like, I can meditate better with my eyes closed. Because it's mostly, most often it is the case. You close your eyes, and you're not relating to the world in terms of what's a danger, what's an attraction, where do I go, what shall I avoid, and so forth. So, you know, various teachers will tell you various things, but for this reason, as far as I'm concerned, you know, I think it's just as good to close your eyes. And then if you open them, see if you can open them and not get involved in that mind. But in that sense, it's probably good to start with your eyes closed and see if you can open them without, you know, shifting out of your inward feeling. Does that make sense? In the long run, you want to have that inward feeling with your eyes open and not get involved in the world in your habitual way. But so much of the way we involve ourselves with the world is through our eyes. So, I personally think it's rather useful to spend some time sitting with your eyes closed.

[39:04]

Anyway, mostly I think that's what happens, but I mention this just because, you know, some Zen centers you go to, as I mentioned the other day, open your eyes. Now, what time is it getting to be? I feel like I'm losing you. 11.20. Huh? I'm not listening. Okay, 11.20, so I have a few more minutes? Or is that time? Is that the end? 11.25. 11.25 is the... God, what can I tell you in five minutes that will cap this whole talk? A story. Huh? Oh. I know. I did want to actually get to the next part of the fukunsa-sengi. The most famous paragraph in the fukunsa-sengi. That should get your attention.

[40:08]

So, we've managed to sit straight up without leaning to the left or right, without bending forward or backward. The ears should be in a line with the shoulders and the nose in line with the navel. Rest the tongue against the roof of the mouth. I forgot to mention that, with the teeth and lips closed. You don't have to sit there in silence. Keep your mouth hanging open. Keep the eyes open and breathe gently through the nose. I do want to talk to you some more about breath, but... Now, the famous paragraph of the fukunsa-sengi. Having adjusted your body in this manner, take a breath and exhale fully. Then sway your body left and right. You're familiar with that, right? Now, sit steadfastly and think not thinking. How do you think not thinking? Non-thinking. This is the essential art of zazen.

[41:17]

Got it? And the next paragraph is rather marvelous too, so we'll talk more about this this evening. The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the dharma game of enjoyment. It is the practice realization of complete enlightenment. Realize the fundamental point, free from the binding of net and basket. Once you experience it, you are like a dragon swimming in the water, or a tiger, posing in the mouth. Know that the true dharma emerges of itself, clearing away hindrances and distractions. So, this expression we know about zazen, to think not thinking,

[42:19]

or non-thinking is the essential art of zazen. As much as anything, you know, this refers back to the earlier paragraph, you know, don't worry about right and wrong, good and bad. If you try to do zazen right, you know, trying to do something right, you will become stiff. And you will also be worried. You know, is this right? Is this right? And we're trying not to, you know, make our life right or correct according to some standard. But to realize, you know, the present moment. To realize ourselves. And to empower ourselves. And to take responsibility for our actions, you know, and just be what we are, rather than worrying about whether what we are is right or wrong, good or bad. So, thinking, you know, for most of us would be a problem.

[43:33]

And we will keep thinking and wondering, you know, is it good or bad? Am I good or bad? Am I improving? Am I getting any better at this? Am I getting anything out of this? Am I getting anywhere? And we will, you know, as soon as you even think, I, you know, this is a problem. So, in Zazen we're encouraged, like, what about before you think anything? What is your actual experience before you think anything? Because whatever you think is not quite right. Or not completely true. And before you think anything, you know, already we are connected with everyone and everything. We are one with the universe. There is no self or other, you know, no purity or depopulance, no enlightenment, no delusion.

[44:39]

You know, nothing can be distinguished in that way. And you have your experience. Which earlier in the book on Zazen it was called, Just This. And there is an instance of that. You know, I mentioned the other day, walking, and I don't know how you feel about it, but I do feel like the opinion we are doing now is much more focused. Just the atmosphere in the room is like, it's much more centered and focused and concentrated than before. And, you know, in Vipassana practice...

[45:22]

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