This is the first day of this March, 2025, seven day seshin.
And it's a good time as any to remind you that practice involves intimacy, intimacy with the breath, the koan, whatever it is that we're experiencing,
and that means, At this very moment, whatever's arising right now, just opening up to it and relaxing into it without straining or tensing up without resistance and and this being the first morning of seshin Right now it might be that you're feeling tired, irritable, or maybe you're excited, energized, or something else. It doesn't matter what it is.
We need to work with it, whatever it is as just passing phenomena, and as soon as you put a name on it, or as soon as you judge it To be good or bad, you've lost the intimacy you
you've turned it into a thought.
That doesn't mean that thoughts won't appear. They come and go. I
But it's just a mistake to think that our job is to control them. Our job is to let them be and keep returning to our practice. I
so the text I'm going to use to start us off in this session is actually about intimacy. It's It's by a woman who had, I guess you could call some kind of spontaneous awakening. Spontaneous, not in the sense of, you know, walking down the street, going about your business and suddenly realizing that nothing is separate. It's more in the sense that
spontaneity, in that she had no no guidance. She didn't have a Zen practice. She didn't even know what it was. Never heard of it. She didn't have a teacher, she didn't have a Sangha,
but she went through this, this process of deep questioning on our own, and it just flowed gradually and organically.
The book is one that I'm guessing some of you, maybe many of you, have already come upon. It's by Flora corto, and it's titled an experience of enlightenment. But really, it might as well be titled An experience. Experience of intimacy, of pure awareness, and that will become pretty evident as we start reading it.
Of course, enlightenment is one of the pillars of Zen, the others being the teachings of the Buddha, the Dharma and zazen practice, not just in seshin, but in our day to day lives, and also off the mat, in our activity,
actually really like the world the word intimacy better than enlightenment, as it's come to be used, seems to carry a lot of mental baggage, but that's Based on thoughts, ideas, things we've read or heard can make it sound like some kind of other worldly blockbuster event. And so there's this tendency to project our highest aspirations onto it. We think that fireworks are going to go off, a bomb is going to drop that we have to get to some very, very special place or mind state you
some some place where, once and for our you won't feel any pain or You won't feel any anxiety or grief or anger, or any number of feelings, emotions that we label as bad, unpleasant,
enlighten becomes a thought form, and this is a big part of our conditioning that we all have to work with.
Also we need to recognize that the very pursuit of it, or the pursuit of happiness, or the pursuit of what we imagine will be a pain free Life, that's all a trap.
Not only is it unrealistic, but the the it's the very pursuing of that that removes us from it. It removes us from the intimacy of the moment, Whatever is presenting itself,
being human, of course, we experience a wide range of feelings, sensations and thoughts. We're not trying to reject them. We're not trying to become less human, if anything, we're trying to become more human, more one with who we are already.
So now let's turn to the text. There's an introduction that's authored by Yasutani Roshi, who was Kapleau Roshi teacher, and Yasutani Roshi first sets the. Scene by describing how he first came to meet Flora Courtois, by the way, she was born in in 1916 which was only four years before the 19th Amendment was passed, when women were given the right to vote, and then she died in 2000 so she experienced a lot of social change in her lifetime. I when Yasutani Roshi met her, though it was more than 25 years after she had what he affirmed to be a Kensho experience, an initial opening, opening. That's another word I really like. It's a verb.
It reflects how awakening is not some kind of one and done deal. It's an ongoing process of opening.
I'll just summarize the part where Yasutani Roshi gives this, this backstory on how they met. He says it was 1968 and he was in California visiting ta Sahara. Ta Sahara is a mountain retreat center run by the San Francisco Zen Center. And on this trip, he was joined by Soan Nakagawa Roshi, whom Kapleau Roshi also worked with for a period of time, along with several others, and by that point, Flora did discover Zen practice, and she was a member of the Los Angeles Zen Center, and she was a Sangha volunteer that drove this group to ta Sahara from Los Angeles and back. And after the return trip, he says that She telephoned him and asked if they could meet at the Los Angeles Zen Center to talk about this experience she had had a long time ago, and so that you meet and she relays her Story, and that story is what comprises the text. And before I start that first, I want to read Yasutani Roshi commentary on her experience. He says, the true enlightenment of Buddhism is to realize the original self. It is common to all true enlightenment, regardless of race or country or time. Such enlightenment is not at all exclusive to a particular religion. So not only does one have to be Buddhist or and of any religious identity, but have any particular identity at all, not just race, ethnicity, socio economic, class, sexual orientation, gender, nationality, one's, education level, age, physical ability, appearance, none of that matters. There are no no exceptions.
Yeah, Satan, he Roshi goes on. And he says it is quite certain that everyone may attain Kensho, as certainly Mrs. Courtois did, if only each would pursue wholeheartedly this search for the original self. However, due to inadequate faith and effort. Few attain such Kensho,
what does he mean by inadequate faith and effort? Well, for one, it doesn't apply to anyone in this session, whether you're sitting here at Chapin Mill or online. It also doesn't matter how you're seated, if you're on a mat, on a cushion, on a chair, a bench,
you wouldn't be in seshin sitting more than 10 hours a day if you didn't have adequate faith and effort.
So don't let the ego convince you otherwise. This all ties to another three pillars of Zen, great faith, great doubt and great determination. I
And although each we can say is distinct, they all kind of blend into one another. Can't really tease them apart. There's the faith in our true nature that we all share, and our capacity to wake up to it and that goes along with having a profound sense of doubt about how we ordinarily experience our lives, which is through duality,
self, another, us in them,
It causes us so much suffering.
Then there's the persistent effort to resolve this, to resolve this doubt.
We know. We feel it, there's something more, something that's beyond how we ordinarily experience our life so close, like one in water, crying, I thirst.
And that's what brings us to seshin. We're here to explore the depths of our faith and our doubt.
So when Yasutani Roshi is referring to inadequate faith and effort, he's talking about something else has more to do with not trusting yourself and not trusting the method, the koan or the breath practice say you. It's the kind of thing that shows up when the going gets rough.
Why me? Why am I doing this? I'm no good at this. I I've got way more thoughts than anybody else.
Why can't I be like so and so? Why do I keep signing up for seshin again and again?
Why? Because you have great felt great faith and great doubt. I and determination, great determination. You're not going to feel it 24/7, by the way. It's not humanly possible. It's going to wax and wean just like The Moon,
but the moon doesn't complain about it.
Yasutani Roshi says, throughout the world, there must be others who, like Flora Courtois, attain Kensho alone. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for them to meet a qualified teacher who can examine such so called Kensho experiences and verify whether these are genuine or not, or deep or shallow. Consequently, a true experience is often buried and unrevealed. So this brings up another dimension of faith, and that is trusting the teacher.
A good teacher is one who's not only going to encourage you,
but also call you out on any ego bullshit. Call you out on the stories you tell about yourself and others about your practice. It's all it's all devices of the ego. And a lot of times the the stories we tell about ourselves fall into one of two extremes. One is telling yourself that you're not good enough, that you're unworthy, that it's all beings without number, except for you, and the other is telling yourself that you're the best Zen student that's ever lived. You
another reason why it's important to work with a teacher is that if you practice long enough, it's likely that you're going to have glimpses and little insights along the way. That's simply part of the journey. But if you don't have a teacher to help you put those in perspective, you can take it in all sorts of directions. You find yourself conjuring up all these ideas about your experience and holding on to that you. That includes Kensho, putting that into perspective as well. It's not it's not an end point, it's not a finish line.
And Yasutani Roshi says about this, Kensho is only the first discovery of the original self that is only a beginning to deepen and clarify it, to establish its function in everyday life, requires never ending practice again. It is even more difficult to meet a teacher able to guide one along this post Kensho path. Therefore, among these rare Kensho flowers that bloom alone in the world, many must die without bearing ripened fruit
I'm not sure Kensho is as rare as he says. I mean, probably back then, when Zen was just being introduced to America, to the west, there are far fewer practitioners than there are today, and far fewer teachers and Sanghas and centers.
Kensho, of course, is a Japanese term, and it refers to an initial awakening experience, initial because there's more work to do, more practice, more training.
Roshi often says that a lot of people want to grab Kensho and run with it. And that was certainly my attitude when I took up practice. Just get it and move on to the next thing, whatever that is, of course, that reflects a goal seeking attitude. It also reflects this habit of chasing after happiness, again, as if it's some kind of object or place. That's not who and where you are already,
but, but Yasutani Roshi is specifically referring to people like Flora who had no resources to help her. Put her experience in perspective. There are a lot of different scenarios that can happen, and without having a teacher as a mentor, you might, For example, abandon your practice altogether, thinking, I'm done.
I I don't need to receive any more feedback from a teacher. Others might bask in in pride and convince themselves that they're special, and they'll make sure that everyone else knows how special they are.
This is all to say that we we need to let go of all our lofty ideas about enlightenment, about there being something to attain, about there being a finish line. There are peaks, but there are also valleys. There are. High lands and low lands, Midlands, twists, turns, goes on and on.
There's no end, as far as I can tell. No one knows where the path goes, not even teachers and ancestors. No i
All, all we can do is work from where we are, right here just go and keep going. You.
Yasutani Roshi closes his introductory remarks by saying this, I certainly hope that more persons will appear on this earth who will so resolutely plunge into themselves as to realize the original, True Self, fortunately, Zen which has been directly transmitted from the honored one Shakyamuni Buddha to this day in Japan, in recent years, has traveled west to take root in American soil, to all those involved, both in Japan and America, I urge that you be diligent in your practice, so that you may penetrate clear Kensho and afterwards, ever deepen your enlightenment with firm confidence. I recommend this practice of Zen, not only so that each of you will gain peace and wisdom, but also that peace and reconciliation for all humankind will follow as a natural sequence. You
okay, let's now turn to Flora court was first hand account and again. Keep in mind at this point, she is reflecting back on something that had happened some 25 years ago. She even dedicates this book to Yasutani Roshi, saying to whom this was related in full for the first time, and who requested that it be written down. I
so she begins, when and where does this story begin? It is difficult to say, even now I remember the feeling as a child, a small child, that all things about me, the people, the animals, trees and flowers, my dolls, my plate and spoon all participated with me in one vivid reality, it was a family joke that I had to be spoken to several times to get my attention so absorbed did I often become in listening and watching, in Playing with my dolls, and later on in reading, often I felt in magic communion with other living things.
Some of my. My earliest memories are of rescuing drowning insects from a small pond, of escorting small spiders from the house so they would not be killed, of lying on my stomach in a neighboring field, rapidly absorbed in the busy life of the tiny creatures under the giant grass blades.
Sounds like her childhood was pretty idyllic, free of worldly concerns. Perhaps she grew up in a very stable and healthy family environment that nurtured her curiosity and
absorbed in just playing and exploring, full of wonder, full of delight in small things and
a child of that age doesn't need to be taught how to look directly, doesn't know a thing, just looks It's sees what's there without any expectations, judgments, theories and
when I read that segment her opening lines, it reminded me of a Early childhood experience. I was, I don't know, maybe I was like five or six at the time, not sure, but I was wandering around my mother's flower garden, and I came upon what I learned, later learned, was a bee, a bee that bites, probably a yellow jacket, but I had never seen one before. It was adorable, so I went up to it. I stuck my finger out, and it landed. On my finger. I remember I held it up, and I was just staring at it, and then it bit me, and it stung Dukkha. Yeah, later, I learned what that was all about. I it, but yeah, the mind of a child is just pure amazement, ah,
and that I never forgot that incident, which resulted in a fear of bees and other insects, that just shows how the human brain adapts based on experience and that's how we develop expectations.
Children also have a natural compassion, and that was shown in Flora escorting the spiders to safety.
There's even research that shows that compassion is not just something that children learn by modeling the adults in their life. It's believed that compassion is innate. There's this classic study where infants are presented with a puppet show, and it all centers on. One puppet that's trying to make it up a steep hill. And there are two scenarios to the show. One is a kind puppet shows up and helps the other puppet up that hill. The other scenario is that an unkind mean, maybe puppet arrives and doesn't offer help at all. And so in the study, the infants watch both of these scenarios, and then they're presented with a choice to choose which version they want to watch, the kind puppet or the unkind puppet. And I don't know, something like 80 or 90% of them choose the kind, the kind one. And these kinds of studies have been done with infants very young, like just a few months old, and the results supposedly are always the same, very similar. But then you know, as we develop, as we have new experiences, we go to school, we interact with our peers and other adults. We get exposed to media. We start to see the world differently.
Flora goes on despite these empathic experiences of early childhood, by the time I was 13 or 14 years old, I had become a self centered, self conscious girl. It was if I'd lost track of who I was. I daydreamed a good deal about being popular among many friends. In actuality, I was nervous and isolated, not knowing how to be comfortable with people my age, and anxiously searching for some role to play in life, at times, what I felt to be my inner voice in my at times, what I felt to be my inner voice seemed to be trying to draw me away from the busy life and activities of my friends. It was as if I were of two minds, and this sometimes left me confused and unable to act at all. Probably these were normal adolescent feelings intensified by the pressure of being pressures, of being ahead of my age and usual grade in school. So she must have been quite intelligent. Adolescence is such a difficult time of life, and it doesn't get any easier for adults, of
course, as we develop through all of our social interactions and support systems, we acquire an identity, and that identity hardens. We take it to be static and fixed and separate from everyone else and everything else.
And what Flora describes about her teenage years, I'm sure everyone here can relate to that.
Charlotte johco Beck, who's a Zen teacher that's known for offer. Kind of a psychological perspective on practice. She uses the term core belief to refer to the way that we internalize all the feedback we receive in those developing years, and she says it often takes the form of negative judgments, like, I'm not worthy, or I'm not good enough, I'm a victim. I can't trust others, and it becomes a broken record, a story that we replay over and over, and that's how we as adults end up getting caught in our habitual emotional reactions and self and habits of thought.
When we develop this sense of self, we think that life is something that's happening to us, coming from the outside bearing down on us,
but there is no outside nor inside. Nothing can happen to us, because this is us.
And we have this practice of zazen to help us resolve this tension that we experience as inner and outer in conflict and
and the good news is that the more we work at it, the more we keep returning to our practice, moment by moment, instead of listening to that broken record, this notion of duality does start to dissolve. It loses the control it once had on us and
I guess the Bad news is that it requires persistence and patience and
without it, we end up just sliding right back into our old Stories.
But it doesn't have to be like that. I
There's everything to lose, nothing to gain. And I
