Dokusan

Not one private-- one practitioner's private question on one cushion, but a, a question large enough to hold everyone and everything sitting unknowingly alongside us.

And finally, you know, Dogen talked, talked about Sanzen, and we learned that Sanzen means-- really was a word for Dokusan.

And, um, in other words, he's basically telling us, zazen, to view it as our teacher, zazen as our teacher.

And he said, "It has nothing to do with sitting or lying down." And later on, he talked about, um, oh, gosh, uh, zazen as a matter of everydayness.

Many years ago, during a session, there was a member of the Sangha who was really feeling particularly sort of jumpy and edgy and having a hard time sitting.

And this person went to Les and Dokusan and said, I'm just really having a hard time.

This isn't working for me.

I think I'm going to go home.

And I don't think I emphasize it enough.

I mention it, but I think if you come and speak with me in Dokusan, I want you to be located there.

And if you're not, I want to, like, in the future, I want to ask you, it's like...

How's your belly cultivation going? Are you doing that? Are you forgetting about it? Is it not important to you? And not let it go.

Just be present.

Someone spoke about presence this morning in Dokusan.

Just to be present is enough.

To be present to whatever is unfolding.

The master heard that Tokusan, this isn't our famous Tokusan, this is Tokusan II, uh, would say, "Thirty blows if you can speak, thirty blows if you cannot." So that, in and of itself, is a testing question.

And if you brought this into the Dokusan room, I'd say, "Thirty blows if you can speak, thirty blows if you cannot.

What are you gonna do with that? What are you gonna do with that?" In other words, if we come up here and do all the things that I just described that are not bad, think it through, try to analyze it, well, uh, we might try to do something, or we might put on the Zen thing.

I know what a Zen person would do.

And we want to hold on to it as proof that our practice is working.

Some of us, a couple of you in Dokusan talked about how they had reached this beautiful place of stillness and really felt oneness with the sangha, this moment of samadhi.

And just how beautiful that was and how they'd like to keep, how they wanted to come back today, tomorrow, the next day.

It's not going to happen.