*Lost Coin Notes for 2/3/2009*

A few notes on sitting.  When you are sitting- SIT, don't daydream.  Put in effort.  Practice consistently.  At the beginning of every venture, everyone is excited to do something but consistency is the key.  Sometimes you will hate to get up and sit.  Do it anyway.  Do it when you like it, do it when you love it, and do it when you hate it.  Do it all the same- this builds personal power.  This IS the practice.  This makes a good life and it will reward you.

The basics for this group are to come to class (or if you live at a distance: read the notes, read the reading list books, watch the videos on youtube, and engage in email and communication with Doen), attend all the retreats you possibly can, SIT EVERY MORNING, get physical exercise every day, and you should start to eat training (not while doing other things.  Meditative eating.)

Bruce Lee said that he was always training.  If he encountered stairs, he would take them two at a time.  You should be like this.  Look for the opportunity to train all day, whenever you can.

Please do physical training.  It is hard to develop if your body doesn't feel good.

Zen training is attractive to people.  You hear stories that tempt you.  You read about a monk practicing and then a rock falls and he is enlightened.  These stories and learning are important, but really they are only a part of Zen. Zen is everyday.

The story of Mulla* Nasreddin**:

(*also spelled as Molla and Mullah ? and also referred to by the title Hodja) (**also spelled as Nasruddin and Nasrudin)

Mulla was a smuggler who smuggled things across the border in the middle-east.  Every time that Mulla went across the border, he and his donkey would walk up to the border patrol and the border patrol would check the donkey from head to toe but he would never find anything.  Eventually the border guard retired and met Mulla at a coffee house.  He asked Mulla, "What were you smuggling all those years?"  Mulla told him, "I was smuggling donkeys."

Practice is to forget the self.  There is no self.  To have a self you have to regenerate it over and over with associative thought.  Only this thought because of this other thought because of this thought.  This thing that you are, is everything; you are that.  All along we build up a separate self but all that self has ever been and will ever be is a series of thoughts re-thought over and over again.

"Stuck" is stuck to self, stuck to story, stuck to idea of future, idea of past.  When you can drop this.  You are not stuck.  When that happens, don't be fearful because it won't last long anyway.  Your self will walk into the empty space quickly enough.  Over time you can move more fluidly and be more flexible so that you can drop your story, drop thought, drop self.  This comes only with practice.

There is no preferable story, self, or thought.  There are only different stories, selves, and thoughts.  One type of music is no better than the other.  Only different.  The only thing that defines you is that you are not someone else.

AIMS

In talking about how students are doing with there aims, the issue came up over and over that the thing that happens is overindulgence in our tendencies.  Overindulging makes you feel bad about yourself.  Whether it is food, or too much of anything, or too little of something.  Overindulging in the way that you don't focus or set a task and do it.

You will feel better when you set a task and do it.

Consciously eat, consciously work, consciously do body exercise, conscious sex, and consciously sit.  This will transform you.

The driver needs to decide what to do and then do it.  Gurdjieff was not as advanced as the Zen practitioners.  You'll get depth from your Zen practice. But Gurdjieff's teachings have a lot of day-to-day application about consciousness in life.

Your emotional life will improve with this self-application to a task.  The whole process is doing, then failing, then doing, then not doing, then getting back to doing.  Be okay with that.  Support yourself and get back to doing as soon as you can.  If you fail, focus on getting back to doing and not on the failing.

This is what the group, the Sangha, can do for you.  Support each other and be nice to each other.  This will help all.  Supporting and being supported.

It is okay to hate the practice sometimes.  Doen has a sword that he hates to practice with, but he is committed to up-ing his exercise level and as part of that he has been working on one particular aspect of the sword work that he doesn't like to do, but he is doing it because that is the practice of the sword.  It is the practice of the Way.

How do you know when you're on the right track with your aims?

If it helps your practice, it is probably a good aim.  If it takes away from the practice, it is probably not heading in the direction you wish to head if you are serious about self-improvement.

Within the Zen context, Doen can be fairly traditional but temperament is not the whole thing.

Ichu (Ikkyu) was the Abbott of Daitoku-ji Temple in the 15th century.  This was considered the best temple and the best Abbott.  Ichu hated it.  He would refuse to wear robes.  He would lounge in a field drinking and playing the flute with women.  When it would be time for him to preside over a ceremony, the monks would go find him, clean him up, and then after the ceremony he would run away again.  Being a teacher was totally against his nature, but he was had great understanding.

Dogen Zenji was different.  All he wanted to do was be in the zendo.  He wanted to be in the monastery doing that way of life.  Dogen had great understanding.

It's not how you are as a temperament.  The only thing that matters is practice.  Hating it, loving it, failing, stumbling- all irrelevant.  Just keep practicing.  This is the whole thing.  Be simple.

In Tibetan teachings they talk about walking through one room but the room is the thing you most are afraid of.  If it is heights than the room is a narrow precipice falling away on all sides.  "No matter what happens," says the teacher, "just keep walking.  It is the only way through the room."
