Meditation, we have a little bit of time now. How are you doing? Are you glad it's over? Thank God we've managed to get through that. go as opposed to what? What's the alternative? Huh? Oh, paying attention to them? Sometimes that's kind of the same thing. You know, some of the thoughts, if you don't pay any attention at all to your thoughts, then it's hard to let go of them. Because then they keep going like, I was trying to tell you. Did you hear me?

[01:02]

you might have to pay attention to them first in order to let go of them. This is, you know, classic also in psychology, you know, trying to let go of something you don't acknowledge is called denial or repression. So we're actually, there's a tendency, I know, in meditation to practice denial or repression, but it's not actually the idea. So before you say goodbye, you say, hi. And goodbye. Nice to see you. So long. You know, with Which is the it that you're referring to? Sitting?

[02:07]

Well, I found that it got easier after, I don't know, about 10 years. Physically. Physically it got easier, you know. you know our life just isn't very easy whether you're sitting or you know two or three of you have mentioned you know gee you know I've cooked for years but it's really hard lately you know even something you love or you know you can have a relationship and it's you know after 20 years it's suddenly hard or whatever you know it's not so it's not just you know what you're doing it's It's what's difficult, you know, the particular activity. But in that sense, though, I think it, you know, obviously it makes a difference if, you know, you have some interest or just kind of inclination for meditation.

[03:29]

Patricia and I... have been living together now for 15 years and Patricia's a yoga teacher and I teach then and I like sitting, she likes yoga. And that doesn't mean it's easy for her to do yoga or it's easy for me to sit, but we somehow have an affinity for it or there's something about it that kind of resonates for us, you know. And then, and it's the same way again with the relationship. If you're gonna, you know, over a period of five or 10 or 20 years, you're gonna have difficulty with somebody, you know. And so you may as well start with someone you like. Rather than someone you think like, well, I don't like this person very much, but if I work hard, it'll get better. That's kind of a bad start. You may or may not find in the long run that you have an affinity for meditation or interest. I happen to have an interest and so, you know, I've made a decision.

[04:37]

I don't care whether this is difficult or not, I want to learn to meditate. I just wanted to do that. But you can also sort of lay a trip on yourself and say, it would be good for you to learn to meditate, go sit. So usually if you have that kind of idea, you don't practice for very long, you know. It's hard to keep up that kind of attitude. And to do something by willpower or by coercing yourself into it, you know, it doesn't make so much sense. You'll see over time whether it's... And then, but something like... And then the other side, one other aspect of that though is, you know, sometimes it takes a little while to get familiar with something. You give yourself time to get to know something a little bit before you make a decision. You don't necessarily decide about an activity or a person, you know, the first half hour like this. Like, this isn't for me, or this is for me. Maybe you know pretty well, but also you might wait until the end of the week before you decide for sure.

[05:37]

This meditation stuff is... We'll see. Something else? is to intensify the pain. You think this was hard, this period. Oh, we sat for about five minutes. Generally, if you sit down and for a period anyway, you will notice something about the way you work, who you are.

[07:05]

Whether you tend to think a lot or what right now today you tend to obsess about or focus on. Because the way our awareness works, you could be aware of any number of things, so why are you aware of one thing rather than another? We have some tendency. And, you know, part of that is a kind of like, so to speak, karmic habit. You know, we'll have some habit or tendency of what we pay attention to and what we don't pay attention to. And, you know, we notice our thinking or feeling or physical sensation. And then we have some focus, what I want to do or the way I'd like things to be. So we'll start to notice something about... how we've organized ourself when you sit down and you sit still and you're not busy doing something. Theoretically, you're not busy doing something, only you might busy yourself doing something and sitting too, just like you do in your regular life.

[08:07]

But generally speaking, there's a chance you have a little better chance to notice what it is you do do. And the basic idea in Buddhism is the more clearly you notice what it is you do do, you can do something else. But until you realize that the way you think or the way you perceive the world is how you decided to do it, then how can you change it? It's just stuff that happens to you. So most of us are going through life having our life happen to us without realizing we actually organized ourself that way, we're doing it that way. we're noticing how people insult us rather than how people appreciate us, or whatever it is, you know? And so we'll tend to see the things that confirm already the beliefs and ideas and thoughts we already have. So meditation generally is to notice the way things are, you know, it's one way to describe it, but it's also, in that sense, to notice what it is you do do.

[09:19]

and how you do it. One of the classic kind of ideas in Buddhism is that, you know, we have an instant of experience and then we have some feeling about it, pleasant or unpleasant, and then there's grasping or averting. We try to grasp what's pleasant and avert or turn away from what's unpleasant. And so we spend a good deal of our life grasping or averting rather than having the original experience in the first place. And then... once you're involved in grasping or averting, it's very hard to let go. But if you don't notice the way you grasp or avert from things, then it's very difficult to let go. That's why it's difficult to let go, is because we're not noticing what we're doing. And so again, the idea here is, you know, rather than I'm going to do this, I'm not going to do that, you know, I can... I can institute some plan on myself. That's a better way to do it.

[10:23]

It's just to notice how we're doing things, and then once we are more aware, we're in a different kind of place. It's actually possible for us to decide whether to go on doing things that way or not. That's a kind of freedom or liberation from the way we've always done it unconsciously. So when you sit over a longer period of time, it's much more likely that you get to a kind of deeper level or sense of how you go about doing things. You know, what you tend to focus on or what preoccupies you or the emotions or feelings that are underneath kind of, you know, driving you or pushing you this way or that. a different kind of opportunity to confront those, usually because, and I was kind of joking, but it's actually because of the difficulty. In the face of difficulty, your underlying tendency or capacity or way that you go about meeting things will pop up.

[11:32]

And you won't always realize what your attitude or response to things is until you know it gets hard. then you get mad or you get depressed or you get sad or you're angry or you feel abandoned or betrayed, you know, and you will act some way and it's all just you sitting, you know, you're not doing it with anybody. But after a while you can think the teachers are this or that and the other students are this or that. So, you know, some of us have a lot of fun with that. And we find it kind of useful, you know, as far as having some insight on who we are and what our habit or tendency is. And as you find that, you know, your response to things doesn't work particularly well to do what you set out to do, then at some point you can do something else.

[12:37]

I said yesterday... during the instruction that, you know, I spent a lot of years sitting and gritting my teeth and, you know, not being able to breathe. And, you know, your eyes get squinched up and various things. And I thought that was good. And, you know, I'd get somewhere by doing that. So I persevered for many years. And then one day I thought, why don't I just, if it gets to that, I'm just going to move. And it would be better to have a good state of mind than to be traumatizing myself like that continuously. So I would sit for a minute or two and then move if I got upset. And gradually I could sit for two minutes or five minutes, you know, without getting upset. This is in the middle of like a week of intensive sitting, you know. And so that's an example of noticing how I was doing things, which is, if it gets difficult, then I'll just grit my teeth and persevere, and that's the way to do it, and be stubborn.

[13:49]

And I decided to do it some other way, once I realized that that's what I was doing. And then I figured out I didn't need to do that. I had some choice. We have a lot more choice than we generally acknowledge. in our life. But if you're really interested in these longer periods of sitting, go for it. And it doesn't have to be the Zen Center. The Vipassana people are really sweet and polite. Not the Goenka Vipassanas up by Yosemite there in Southport, You know, the Vipassana is like at spirit rock and they have sittings all over. And, you know, here, if you're at one of our intensities, if I said, if you're not here, you don't show up, we'll come looking for you. But they kind of give you a lot of slack and, you know, and if it's hard to sit on the cushion, oh, well, sit in a chair. And if the chair is difficult, you know, we've got a library across the hall with these big, plush, easy chairs.

[14:55]

Try one of those. And if that doesn't work, well, we have these little meditation rooms and set it up however you like, you know, individual room for you. you know, we'll take care of you, you know. So they're much more easygoing, you know, than us, and we're kind of severe, the Zen people. Well, that was the bell for breakfast. So... More effective than... Well, in Vipassana, you know, a lot of people say cross-legged. The cross-legged posture is, you know, I don't know exactly if, you know, to say more effective, we'd have to decide more effective to what. But, yeah, but, you know, the idea is that, you know, Vipassana doesn't emphasize posture so much.

[15:58]

So, again, that's the difference of tradition. The idea is that energetically, you know, you have more energetic and openness and you're aiming to have your body, instead of being slumped in some way, you're aiming to have your body open. But you see, that's just different ways to practice. Because you can't just sort of insist, like, I'm going to be open. If you're insisting you're going to be open, then, you know, that's not being open. So, at some point, you know, the... You know, what's effective is to notice what it is you are doing. So if you're slumped, it's effective to notice I'm slumped and to feel like what it feels like to be slumped. And then at some point you may say like, gee, you may just feel like, gosh, it would be such a relief to sit up. You know, and then when you notice you're there, and at some point you might...

[16:58]

try different positions. Where do you feel good? Where is your energy? Where is your vitality? Where is a good balance of being calm and settled and being energized? What's the balance between being focused and being overly intense and irritable? So we're studying all of these things and some people focus more on one particular way of doing it or not. So the Zen people are focusing a little more on posture and vipassana. They're focusing a little more on what's called mindfulness practice, a particular form of noting the object of awareness. So as far as effective, partly that has to do with who you are and then what works for you and what your interest is. And I've always been... you know, rather physically oriented. So I just, this was, I like this. Other people are, you know, differently oriented.

[18:02]

And so something else is more interesting. My daughter's doing a lot of Aikido right now. You know, so she likes the physicality of that and the, you know, the energy, etiquette exchange with people and interacting like that and, you know, tossing and being tossed. And so what's effective is what works. Okay, thank you. Let's take a minute to get up and fluff our cushions and bow, and then when we're all ready, we'll... I think it's Wednesday. So... Usually by Wednesday during these retreats, you know, it's a little bit uphill until Wednesday and then it starts to be downhill just like a regular week, you know.

[19:04]

Hump day. Anyway, if you have any questions or comments or interests this morning or something you'd like to share with the rest of us, you're welcome to do so. How are you doing with the week and everything? Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it?

[20:20]

That's 15 minutes when you don't have to do something. You don't have something to do, yeah. That's what meditation is intended to be, you know, not doing. So we can just sit here and not do much. But usually, anyway, we'll find something to do. See? Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah, not doing can be much harder than doing. That's why we have terms like, you know, workaholic and things. Maybe I, you know, if you want, I can give you something to do in meditation then. That will make it easier.

[21:22]

Follow your breaths. Each instant of the inhale and exhale. Oh. Anything else? Something else this morning? As far as places that are, you know, more sacred, I only know, I know that, you know, some places are more sacred because of the way that people, the way and the things that people do there.

[22:41]

So that kind of sacred I can understand. Here at Tassajara, you know, there's many people year-round who actually care about Tassajara and take care of things here. You know, and pick up, after themselves and are concerned about the environment and then, you know, it feels that's sacred, finally. And the other kind of sacred places, you know, like we've been joking, some of us this week, about Sedona. And what is it about Sedona? It's on the vortex or something or other and special place. Anyway, I don't know about that sort of thing. So I can't. I can't tell you about those kind of places. We have more the idea in sin that, you know, wherever you are is sacred when you arrive there. When you show up, then, you know, sacred shows up with you.

[23:47]

When you are wandering around or, you know, not really present where you are or not seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, not... sensing and being alive where you are, then, you know, it's not sacred. So in Zen we have, you know, like stories of, there's a story of two monks who were walking along and one of them stops and said, this is the summit of the mystic peak. It just, it's not any place in particular. And the other one said, yes indeed, isn't it a pity? I think of that as, you know, dry Zen humor. Isn't a pity that this is as good as it gets? But if you're busy saying, you know, this isn't that great, then it's not sacred. And if you're, when you're actually appreciating where you are, then it's the summit of the mystic peak.

[24:53]

And they say that even at the summit of the mystic peak, you might think the summit the mystic peak is a pristine beautiful place but they say actually the weeds there are six foot tall some of them are twelve and you can actually get lost in the weeds at the summit of the mystic peak but many people then lose their heads trying to get to some more special place this is problem we have Anyway, in Zen we have this kind of idea about sacred places. In other traditions, like if you read Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda,

[25:58]

You can set out to find your power spot and various things like that. I don't have a problem with that either, if you want to practice like that. You can go around the zendo here and see which seat is the one for you. secret seat. Try them all out. I want to try out some chanting with you.

[29:21]

I like a very simple Zen chant that it's very easy to learn the words because there's only one word and it's the word HO, H-O. In Japanese HO is the word for Dharma or Buddhist teaching or reality. And the way we chant this is I hit the bell and then we just all chant whole. And then when you run out of breath, you inhale and start up again. And you chant, you know, we say chant with your ears. So you listen to the sound. Let the sound vibrate through you, resonate through your body. And make the sound, enter into the sound with your voice. This is the kind of chant then that you can enter at whatever pitch or tone you feel comfortable that joins with others.

[30:29]

Oftentimes when a group chants together like this there will be various tones and then harmonics and various things so you let it all just wash through you. And then after a minute or two I will hit the bell and then you can finish the breather on so the sound will gradually die out. Okay? How are you doing today? Several people I saw this morning, they said, oh, speaking of initiative, those Blue Jays have sure got some chutzpah initiative.

[31:32]

They keep figuring out new tricks. Anyway, if you have any questions or comments, interests, particularly around meditation, you're welcome to bring them forward, forth, up. Well, as they say in Zen, that's your mind. Something's always being tossed down and rolled.

[32:44]

It's an interesting point. Classically in Buddhism, you know, there have been meditations. I mean, it is one of the most basic meditation practices to follow the breath. And so classically, it's either you follow the breath at the nostrils or to follow the breath in the abdomen. And the Zen tradition seems to emphasize more following the breath in the abdomen, noticing the sensations of the abdomen rising and falling. And, you know, there's a term in Japanese called hara, which is for the area a couple inches below the abdomen which they carried you to. At some point there becomes something of a problem when people say to focus on something because then we start to ignore everything else.

[34:14]

So we're actually studying how to focus on something without ignoring everything else. This is similar to if you're working and if you focus on it with And ignoring everything else, then when someone says hello or wants to ask you a question, you jump. And you're interrupted. So the idea of concentration in Zen practice is to focus on something with everything, or something like that. You know, it's a little hard to say. But we're not trying to exclude everything else when we say focus on the abdomen. Because, anyway, again, if you focus on the abdomen, sometimes then people's shoulders are completely stiff. And what's the point? You've succeeded at following the instructions, but you're making yourself stiffer, and that wasn't the idea of the instructions in the first place.

[35:27]

I one time read an article, an interview with Reggie Jackson who was quite a good baseball player and used to be known as Mr. October because he did so well in the playoffs in the World Series. Some other great players don't do so well in the playoffs in the World Series. And Reggie Jackson was a bit of a kind of a show-off or something like that. People kind of said, He referred to him as the straw that stirs the drink or something like that, you know. But anyway, he was quite a good baseball player. And he said something very interesting because if you talk to, you don't see this sort of thing very often, but oftentimes if you ask a baseball player, when the pitch comes, what do you focus on? And they say, well, I concentrate just on the ball and I try to shut everything out of my awareness. and just focus in on the baseball.

[36:31]

And Reggie Jackson said, I concentrate on everything. You know, I want to include the, you know, and maybe that's why he did so well in October, because there's these huge crowds. And he said, I don't try to exclude anything. I want to, you know, it's like weaving it all into your concentration. So instead of trying to establish a little area of concentration and then keep that other stuff out, it's like have everything come in and be part of one's being and then organize that or focus that on something. This is the idea in Zen. It's considered that when you set up a concentration that excludes or pushes things out and you've set up your little concentration on something and Then you have this boundary and you have to try to keep that together. And it's inherently very fragile because how do you do that?

[37:33]

Keep all that stuff out and then keep your little focus. And that kind of boundary situation, there's also many difficulties because you know you have a fear that something's going to get in, that you're trying to keep out. And when it does, you get angry. And you have a stress to kind of keep up your little area of focus. So you give yourself extra stress and anxiety. How am I going to keep up my barrier, my focus, and excluding these other things? So you have anxiety and fear and anger, and you have disappointment when something gets in. If you can't keep it up, you may feel helpless. So it's a different kind of idea of having calm or stability by including everything. But in the long run, certainly, it's more you have greater capacity in your life and you have greater calm because you're not busy trying to keep out everything else besides what you decided to focus on.

[38:51]

But then again, you know, this doesn't mean to be scattered. So, you know, this is a kind of, this is why, you know, something like this is called practice. We're practicing on how to be concentrated without, you know, without it being too narrow and without it just being scattered. If it's just scattered, it's not concentration anymore. So it's an interesting kind of study. Does that make sense? Uh-huh. Yeah. There wasn't any image with it. Yeah.

[40:05]

Hannah's chuckling. She says, Welcome to the party. Probably some part of you, you know, tucked away for quite a while now. And this is one of the things that happens in meditation as you settle the surface level of, you know, what's normally busy and active and doing this or that and taking care of things. And as that settles and calms down, then other parts of you that, you know, have kind of been tucked away or, you know, on hold, you know, will tend to sort of bubble up at times. come into your awareness because your awareness isn't preoccupied, you know, overly focused on some activity and getting it done. So there's a certain amount of, you know, there's kind of a... So it's kind of nice, actually, you know, it's... And we're developing, you know, meditation is a way to be with things, so...

[41:13]

You know, we're studying how to be with something, whether it's like that, a kind of sadness or tears or, you know, one's anger or rage. And we're, in meditation, kind of the context is to touch it with your awareness, touch it with your breath. And to be with something rather than deciding ahead of time, I'm not giving in to my feelings. I'm going to be an adult or I'm, you know, I understand how to be, you know, and I'm not going to have anything to do with that, you know. And, you know, that kind of, it's useful to be able to do that, obviously, you know, when you have something to do and, you know, if you go into surgery, you don't want your surgeon, you know, in the middle of the surgery, you know, breaking into tears. You want him to, like, be professional, you know, and do the work that, you know, you hire him for.

[42:15]

But certainly in our life, you know, we want to have some, and part of the idea then of the meditation hall is that it's some safe place to just be with yourself and be with what comes up in the various parts of you that, you know, we may have ignored or, you know, felt threatened by or, you know, it was going to make it difficult to get things done or whatever. So here we don't have to get anything done and it's a fairly safe place then to actually notice or feel what's beneath the surface. Vali found out that Marta speaks Italian, not just... Is it Portuguese that she speaks or Spanish?

[43:30]

Oh, Colombian, yeah. Ah. Ah. So she speaks Italian as well as Spanish. Oh yeah, Lucho. Was he in the dining room? No, I'm fine. Yeah. He's worked at the dining room sometimes this summer, maybe not right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I see my cough, so I should turn this.

[44:31]

chanting, I would like to encourage you to be more robust, you know. So, it's chanting with more of your body and mind, so to speak. So, rather than, you can just chant with your head, and that's something like, ho, you know, ho, ho. And then if you put your stomach into it, your abdomen, your hara, your strength, more of your body, you know, you go... We practice this, you know, in the fall and the spring, we have these three-month practice periods. So there's a group of people who lead the chanting and they hit the bells and the little drum here. And then you go out into the woods... and you see if you can knock over the trees with your voice and things, you know.

[46:06]

And you get where the stream is rushing and you see if you can chant loudly enough, you can still hear it over the stream, you know, various things. So anyway, to the extent that you're willing, sometimes I encourage people, you know, by explaining that ho is not just the Japanese word for Dharma, but it's one of the three syllables that Santa Claus repeats. And it's also in some Native American languages, it's, you know, peace be with you or ciao, shalom. Anyway, the idea is that you can, you know, you don't have to just make, usually the energy Anyway, at some point, you know, it kind of smooths out. But initially, if you focus on energy and then let the sound take care of itself.

[47:07]

Because yesterday, anyway, when I would stop to inhale, I could hardly hear the rest of you. There's a bunch of you out there, I know. So, if you're willing, anyway, we'll put a little more energy into it. Where's that little knocker? Here we go. So I hear some of you are leaving today. We'll meet as as we have been at 10.30 and then I guess at least Jane and Sarah, you're leaving at 11. So we may, we do any of, you know, otherwise I would plan to meet roughly 10.30 to 12.

[48:14]

Is that good for the people? So if you have any questions or interest this morning, you're welcome to ring them up. So using the language of the weak,

[49:57]

you would want to be able to taste or sense which kind of thinking is which, you know, which kind of experience is which. So like tasting salty and sour and sweet. And so you would, after a while, you would become familiar with various kinds of thinking and be able to know which is which. And this is what you're finding out. And there's not... any particular supposed to, you know, you do have choice. And we're actually, you know, the main thing here is then to be aware or conscious, oh, I'm going down this reverie. Let me see what happens when I go down reveries of this particular sort. And, you know, so if you're finding out, the thing is to be finding out getting information as opposed to how it's supposed to what you're supposed to be doing or how it should be. So you'll find out when I go down this kind of reverie, it's a dead end, that kind of reverie, it's actually there's something there.

[51:04]

And this way you give yourself a lot of permission to know the fullness and richness of your being, of your mind, and the fullness and richness of the possibilities of your life. Otherwise you'll be... before you even know which is which, you'll be limiting yourself. In this sense, we give ourselves some permission to have a fiasco now and again. And we can't always be sure which is which. Many people have that kind of experience of being stuck with problems and difficulties and it's when they go for a walk or, you know, there's some kind of absent-mindedness where the answer comes. So we're not sure exactly which is which or, you know.

[52:07]

And partly, of course, at some point, classically or traditionally in Zen, you know, your teacher's supposed to help you with those kind of things. So, you know, but with Suzuki Roshi, You could be sitting and then if you're in a particular kind of reverie, you know, you get hit. He one time said to me, you're pretty awake from, you know, about a half hour of the period. Then you conk out, you know, you fall asleep. I'd be sitting and suddenly boom. You should sit up right near me so I can get up and hit you. I felt honored, you know, that he would notice this and, you know, make such a request. You know, because if it's somebody that, you know, it can't be helped, you just let them sleep.

[53:13]

And I had a kind of experience like that recently of working with someone and You know, I had a lot of food things, and she'd say, that was good. And what was that, she'd say. And I'd say, well, the raisins got mixed better in with the dough there. And then other times she'd say, come back. They're like, don't go there. So sometimes if you're working with somebody, and sometimes the world brings you back in various ways. But we're finding out which is which, and you'll know better after a while from your experience. in your own taste, you know, which is which. Don't know for yourself. it's again it's all part of uh you know the feast bon appetit yeah yeah you know the thing is uh we say and you know as i mentioned the other day just don't stick to anything that may be okay but you know next week if you're still doing it maybe it's a problem

[55:38]

you know, or six months from now, you know, and this is the way I'm going to meditate, or this is what I'm going to do, or these are the things I'll think about, you know, and if you, because anyway, then, you know, when we, because our life should just change and move and, you know, we'll notice different things and because we're aware of things, you know, we can, As we're aware of the taste of the food, we make different choices about what to put in the dish and how to do it. And part of that is we also learn to appreciate all the ingredients more and the wonderful flavor and taste of things as they appear. And their appearance is not necessarily what we thought they would be. Yesterday we thought there would be nectarines and there was apricots. So if you stick to something like where are the apricots, you will have a hard time.

[56:42]

I mean, where are the nectarines? I have to have them. I forget what I said the other day, but roughly speaking, you know, when our eyes are open, for the most part, we tend to get more into survival mode, more into noticing and through our eyes seeing what might be attractive, chase after that, and what might be dangerous,

[57:49]

Avoid that. And, you know, this is something as human beings over many centuries or whatever, you know, we've, the way we're organized for the most part. So in meditation, we're trying to shift out of, you know, that, I don't know about trying, but, you know, in meditation, we will be shifting out of this kind of survival mode. And it may be that the light draws your eyes because it's light, and so you're attracted to it. And the idea of looking downward is to shift out of that mode. Now, most schools of Buddha meditation actually suggest you close your eyes, which, if you close your eyes, then you can much more shift out of the mode of... what's out there that I'm attracted to and that I'm, you know, need to avoid or run from. So when you close your eyes, you go more inward and you're not so worried about that.

[58:55]

And your awareness then, then with your awareness, you can notice what's there when you're not involved in that survival mode. So that's all well and good, but as soon as you open your eyes, then there it is again. So in the long run, you know, we're studying how to have our eyes open and not have them drawn this way or attracted to that or don't want to look at that, you know, and just have our eyes meet what's there and be with things and not be like drawn or fixated on this and then, you know, avoiding that and, you know, so our eyes are set up that way and we're Part of the point of meditation is shifting out of that survival mode. Not again, not that the survival mode is not useful. We should be able to shift into it when it's appropriate. The problem is that mostly we shift into survival mode for very slight and minor reasons that have nothing to do with survival.

[60:05]

And then we're doing and acting and responding and reacting. as though our survival was at stake. When all it was is, you know, there aren't any nectarines. And I'm going like, oh, there aren't any nectarines! Oh! Like, as though, you know, it was survival. So this is kind of a challenge for us. And so you can experiment anyway and close your eyes. You know, if you find that your eyes are going off someplace, then... close your eyes and just be inward for a little bit and see if you then again, and then at some point see if you can open your eyes and just have your eyes not particularly looking at anything or looking for something or looking out for something and just, you know, be present and you're just gazing downward. So this is the kind of idea of what's involved with all of that. Does that make sense?

[61:11]

Yeah, usually. I don't know about you, I usually bow, but then I forget sometimes, too. But yeah, the custom would be, come in the door, close the door, bow, go to your seat. But the back door, anyway, we forget sometimes. Yeah, yeah. It worked out all right. Well, more or less, in the course of things. Side to side movement of the head. You mean rotating? Yeah.

[62:20]

A rotating of the head is associated with emotions. So probably it's, what's most likely is, you know, some, and then if you, you know, there'll be certain places as you turn your head from side to side, whether or not it's, where it's kind of like stuck. And usually, so if your head is, just in the middle, then there may be some feeling, you know, that if you moved your head one way or another, you would feel something that, you know, at this point, you may not be ready to feel. Or it may be, you know, it may be painful or it may be scary or, you know, any number of things. And then, on the other hand, you know, if you're just moving your head, You know, any of us can generally, we can move our head and look to the right or move our head to the left.

[63:23]

But if you do it real slowly, there's more information when you do it really slowly. And you'll notice like there's little bumps. So where there's little bumps, and depending on the subtlety of your movement, where there's a little bump, there's actually some material or information there. Some feeling or memory or story, you know, and... If you spend some time there, it doesn't necessarily, you know, you don't necessarily get a whole picture, but you get a little feeling of something, and then when you bring your head back to the middle and move it, you'll move past that little place. And it also works, you know, coming back, there'll be different little bumps as you move your head back to the middle. So certainly we all have times in our life when we're more or less you know, focused in a certain way, and we may not want to. So anyway, this is my, this is what, you know, the first thing that occurs to me as being possible, possibility, you know, that there's something.

[64:34]

Also, in the work I've been studying more recently, You know, to look to the right side of our body is organized in relationship to male, and the left side of our body is organized in relationship to female. This is true both for men and for women, and this is not that half of you is male and half of you is female, it's organized in relationship to. So, in other words, when you turn your head to the right, one of the things you're doing is implicitly you're turning towards female, Or you're turning away from male. You know, you can be turning away or you can be turning toward. And usually, male and female, for most of us, a lot of that is when you turn to the right, you're turning towards mother away from father. And when you turn to the left, you're turning towards father away from mother. And our bodies know this without our having to know it. So you may be

[65:38]

at a particular point like I'm not I'm not you know I'm just going to be here and if you're just here you may be I don't know so you know any number of things are possible and over time you know something will shift and you'll notice you'll notice various things after subsequent to noticing oh my head is seems to be stuck here Other bits and pieces of information will come and your head will have movement again. Or there'll be some feeling will come. Side bending is associated with the mental body. And that's a little bit, that's a different kind of control. Yeah.

[66:50]

Uh-huh. That's just the middle of a whole long story. He was quite a well-known Zen teacher and at one point he just went off to live with the homeless people of Kyoto. Because he wasn't big on taking over responsibility. He also would frequent brothels and fell in love with the prostitute. So there you have it.

[67:52]

No, he didn't exclude things from his practice. And he tended to say, you know, you all are missing out. This is where enlightenment really is at. Yeah, it's Rikyu, not Rikyu. Just in. Ikyu. Ikyu. The same master named Ikyu. And finally, when they were looking for a new abbot for the temple, and he was the next person in line, they didn't know where to find him. He wasn't at any address. He wasn't living any place. He was out under this bridge with the homeless. So they knew he liked a certain kind of melon. And so in melon season, they got somebody, they got a monk, you know, but to dress up as a merchant, you know, a farmer, and to push this cart of melons around.

[69:08]

So sure enough, Riku saw this cart of melons and he goes, and he says, those look really good. And the person suspected it was Ikkyo because of the brightness of his eyes and his passion. And he said, you can have one if you can take it with no hands. And Ikkyo said, I'll take it with no hands if you give it to me with no hands. And then he said, you know, right this way, buddy. We have a job for you. Enough of this sleeping under the bridge stuff. He was quite a, you know, I don't know what you'd call it, you know, in a certain way, the heretic or quite idiosyncratic, you know.

[70:15]

Some little village someplace had made a Jizo shrine and had a statue, a little statue of Jizo that they commissioned an artist to do. For them, for this little village, spent a lot of money to have this statue done by some artist. So then they thought they would get this well-known priest, Ikkyu, to come and dedicate it. And they were chanting and everything. And then after a while, Ikkyu came over and peed on the statue. And they were all outraged. And he said, you could have gotten anybody to do this. You got me. I'm doing it my way. Oh, well. Those are the kind of people, like, I don't like those kind of people, you know. folks.

[72:17]

It's time for breakfast, pastime. Let's do a ho here.

[72:24]

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