Kaizan Doug Jacobson began practicing Zen in 1974 with Dainin Katagiri Roshi in Minneapolis; he had Jukai in 1977. A householder, father, contractor, and civil/tunnel engineer, following his retirement, he became a full-time resident at Jikoji Zen Center near Los Gatos. He received priest ordination in 2010 and Dharma transmission from Shoho Michael Newhall in 2015. He has led many sesshins, monthly zazenkais, periodic seasonal nature sesshins, and weekly dharma discussion groups. He also helps to maintain and develop infrastructure at Jikoji, getting his hands dirty as a form of Zen practice. In addition, he assists prisoners with Buddhist practice.

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I'm honored to be here again on this. We're approaching the middle of spring. Thank you Bob, Nyosui, for the sweet flute at the beginning with each breath. I was spending a lot of time up here now pulling weeds. It's the season. And with each breath of the flute, I could feel the touching and extinguishing of a plant that I'm pulling out of the ground. Life and death emanates from the sound of the flute. And thank you Joel for the eloquent gatha to start this.

So today to speak some more about meditation. I came across in a text that, and maybe Bill can help me out here, but the term meditation, which is really a loaded word, we use it with great reverence a lot. The Sanskrit term, according to this text I read, is bhavana, which means to develop. So we're developing our mind. We're selectively choosing where we put our mind. And that's how we learn to take care of it and take care of our lives too.

Our most common method of bringing focus to the mind, as Pamela gave the instruction this morning, is watching our breath. We watch our breath and then a thought comes up. Usually the thoughts, initially anyway when we do this practice, supersede our attention to the breath. But what's really helpful, most helpful to cultivate, is this paying attention to breath even while thoughts arise. And by paying attention to our breath while thoughts arise, there's a grounding that's underway while the thoughts come in. And our attention then is, maybe it's bifurcated, but maybe it's also unified to include the body, the breath of the body, as well as the thoughts that come in.

Usually the instruction is to let the thoughts go, welcome the thoughts and let them go. But today I'm going to be maybe a little heretical and suggest that actually the thoughts that come in, like the actions in our lives, are worth noting, worth considering in many respects. In the ethical practice of Buddhism that we do, what's brought forward are many aspects of our consciousnesses that we have at work. And many of these are working simultaneously, sometimes selectively, depending on what it is.

For example, in watching the breath, there is the sense impression of how the nose feels the breath and how the chest feels the breath and how the body shifts. So there's sense impressions, there's a feeling of the temperature of the air, there's the perception of breath, of body, of expansion, of contraction, of light and dark. There are these perceptions that are simultaneously happening. There's volition or intention, our intention to pay attention to the breath, our intention to watch our thoughts and let them go. So our intentions are brought into this, along with our consciousnesses, our mind consciousness that works with the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body.

Then our thoughts can be conceived and we can engage in a, when we conceive of a thought, then discursive thinking begins. In the discursive thinking, what follows is, oh my God, look at that. And so there's interest and discovery of what's going on with the thought and there might even be pleasure and actual one-pointedness in that thought process that are all part of this meditation. Meanwhile, we're using the faculties of faith, for example, faith that this is a practice we want to engage in, faith that this is the right place to be and right thing to do. We have the energy, we apply the energy to it, we apply mindfulness to it, we apply concentration to it. And coming out of that comes wisdom and joy and the vitality that emanates from this process. And meanwhile, we're watching our breath.

In evaluating the thoughts that come in, what's fun about them sometimes is it's inconceivable where they come from sometimes. It's just the weirdest thoughts come in the mind. For me, that's been the case. And I have no idea what they're related to. In my life experience or in my people I know, it's almost like a thought shard coming through space enters. And so those are easy to let go. But with our thoughts, we're evaluating a thought as far as right understanding. And we put effort into considering the thought. And we are mindful about the aspects around the thought and we concentrate on all that.

We bring, there are seven powers that we use. And we normally don't talk about the powers of practice. In a way, people are attracted to power. We don't talk about it much because it can be distracting. But these are the powers that we are actually using in our, the power of faith, the power of energy, the power of mindfulness, the power of concentration, the power of wisdom. But there are a couple more powers. The power of moral shame and the power of moral dread. And when these thoughts come in, these aspects also show up. And we get to see, oh my God, I said that to someone and what's the next, moral dread keeps us on track sometimes.

We are also examining our thoughts as far as whether they're greedy or non-greedy, whether they're filled with hatred or anger or angst. Whether these thoughts are delusional or non-delusional. That's what we work for. And we also look at these thoughts of whether there's covetedness or ill will and whether right understanding is present. So there are all these wonderful qualities that we are using as we sit and follow our breath and see these thoughts as they come up. And we get to see how we are functioning. In this, these are all processes. That they are not things, they are processes, all of it.

A week ago, we were at the end of sesshin. Sesshin is a retreat, a meditation retreat, which means the collecting of the mind, the gathering of the mind. And we had this wonderful teacher, Kokyo Henkel, a sensei who's also a Dogen scholar. And he was working with us in this sesshin with one of the bigger aspects or maybe the biggest aspect of this mind stuff, which is our awareness. And was directing us to be aware of our awareness and where that is or isn't and how just spacious it is. Through this process of watching where our awareness is, there is no room for thought in that. So it's occasionally if in your meditation practice you become aware of your awareness. It's a sweet place to be. And it's an important place to visit regularly.

This meditation thing isn't about achieving a goal of anything but to make it to our death. And we do it with this wholehearted effort to see the vastness of our existence with a sublime calm. And in deep calm, in the deep calm that we feel of our mind where we can allow all of existence to be as it is. It is important to experience that, that allowing all to be because fundamentally that's the true nature of existence. And by being in that place of calm, we get insights. And Kokyo brought up about how this meditation practice we are involved in develops calm, abiding samatha and insight, vipassana. And many people here have experienced vipassana meditation, insight meditation. But actually we use it all. We use the calm, abiding and the insight to see this life, this existence.

I'm going to read a little bit from Meditations by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. And he said in this little section he calls a culture on restraint. He says, The Buddha once compared sensory input to being like a filleted cow with no skin. Everywhere the cow goes, insects bore into its flesh all the time. And the senses are constantly picking up information through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body. And on top of that the mind is its own sense. It picks up all kinds of ideas. The question is how are you going to find any peace in the midst of all this? And the answer is you have to be selective.

He says the word meditation, bhavana, means to develop. So you should stop and look. What are you developing in your mind? The Buddha talks about restraint of the senses as an essential part of meditation. We often think of meditation as what starts as soon as you sit down and close your eyes. But actually it's going on all the time. When you follow certain trains of thought you develop the habits that go along with them. You create ruts in the mind. When you give free rein to anger you create the anger rut. When you develop mindfulness you create a mindfulness rut. The next time you get anywhere near those patterns of thinking the mind falls into the rut and goes along with it.

We're doing this all the time. They've done study after study to show how selective our process of perception is. It happens on many levels. Some of it's conscious, some of it's not. But the upshot is that even before you sit down to close your eyes you're already in a process of developing. We're already in a process of meditating. So are we developing calm or are you developing turmoil? Are you developing mental stability or are you developing restlessness? Look at this all the time. Everything you do, everything you say is a process of developing something. It's laying down ruts in the mind so that what kind of ruts do you want?

We're trying to work on good ones as we sit here with our eyes open and closed. But if the rest of the day you're working on other kinds of ruts it's a struggle. It's a common pattern that when you're sitting here meditating you try to keep the mind under control. But then as soon as you get up it's back in its old ways just wandering around any place it wants to. And that way you're being inconsistent. If the mind is going someplace you have to ask yourself why are you going there? It's like the old slogan from World War II. Is this trip really necessary?

So with our mind in meditation in this developing process is it really necessary to think about that right now? And I think most of us when we meditate it's like a new thought comes in. It's like I don't need to go there. That's a waste of time. But there are some thoughts that actually are essential to our well-being to take care of.

What I'd hope today also is to hear some insight from I think Tai Sheen was there for a little bit. But Pamela was there through the thick of it of sesshin. Kokyo gave talks twice a day. That's pretty unusual for retreats. We usually do one. But this Zoom, with Zoom and each of us being remote requires a little more coming together. But he gave these long talks exploring the region of, well, you know, is awareness, does it even exist in space? And we had a fun time exploring these boundaries. Where is the boundary of awareness?

So before we start discussion, I'll end with a brief poem by Mary Oliver titled Rice.

Rice, it grew in the black mud,

it grew under the tiger's orange paws.

It stems thinner than candles, and as straight.

Its leaves like the feathers of egrets, but green.

The grains cresting, wanting to burst.

Oh, blood of the tiger,

I don't want you just to sit down at the table.

I don't want you to just to eat, and be content.

I want you to walk out into the fields

where the water is shining, and the rice has risen.

I want you to stand there, far from the white tablecloth.

I want you to fill your hands with the mud, like a blessing.