July 2005 Intensive, Augusto Alcalde: 7th Teisho

Here we are, approaching our last day of the Intensive. I would like to say, that maybe it is my
impression, but the series of sharings of all of us has been most fertile in this last week. As for
myself, I was able to see a lot of connection and points, through the interaction of all of us. I
am really happy about that. I think that if some of us want to work on the tapes, I’m quite
willing to work on the editing. It will be useful to have some writings to be shared with the
wider community. One of the things I like most about this week and these things we are
sharing, it has been much more teacher-less centred than other times. I really appreciate this
quality of the talk being taken by all of you, chewing it and sharing it around, because it is
very clear to me that the purpose of everyone in this room, including me, and probably
especially me, is learning. And I think we have been doing that.

One of the good qualities of this group was to manifest very clearly this morning at dokusan.
Usually, approaching the last day, I take up the words about throwing anxiety about
realisation and blah, blah, blah! Well, there was a deep concern this morning coming to the
dokusan room, and it was, what’s happening about the party, as it has not been announced
yet? So to calm down that thing and bring the practice back onto the cushion, I think the
posting about the party is right there.

But yes, there is a certain kind of quality of the last days of the sessions over the Intensive.
And one of them is you know the feeling that we only have hours ahead of us, and it will be
finished, so there is that anxiety and the willingness to try to use the most of these hours or
time that is left in front of us. And that is alright, if it will bring forth an intensity that will not
be linked with time. But if it is just the usual about time, time becomes a solid last day,
getting shorter, and shorter and shorter – I think practice doesn’t happen there. And the other
feeling that sometimes happens is that the one, ‘if I did not get it, then I’ll drop it for the next
day, and just kill time, and spend time as nice as I can’! This is also linked with the solidity of
time, and doesn’t bring forth the intensity or joy in our practice. So please let’s erase that
notion of the last day, and let’s practice always at the beginning, as we said in one of the
sharings about one of Dogen Zenji’s writings.

I think this is linked with the concept of practice, or the idea of practice, which each one of us
may have. And I would like to say that for me, it is important to clarify that when we are
talking about practice, is talking about life and relationship, twenty-four hours, including our
dreaming state. It’s practice, even if we don’t realise that, even if we don’t know it. It is
practice, so let us knock down that notion that practice only happens on a round black zafu. It
happens there also, and the main ground I think, is everyday life. Another thing to be clear
about, and helps me a lot, is to see practice as a continuous process. It’s not something that we
do at a certain moment, and then stop and go to do something else, it’s a process, and that
process is beginingless and endless. It’s not linked to that solidity of time. Practice has a
continuous unfolding of that true Nature. We never hit the bottom there. It is always going on.
So zazen has also the function of digesting those experiences that happen in daily life and
elsewhere. Zazen as a digesting place, and nothing special about it. You know, we talk about
incorporating zazen, and not only crossed legs on the zafu, but zazen as practice in our daily
life. And there is always the problem of how and when to place it in our day. But I think this
comes from giving zazen too much importance. I think we have to give it less importance and
place it the same level as brushing our teeth and going to the toilet. Let’s do it every day in
the same way as that, as nothing special. Dogen said in one of the quotations, ‘you may
suppose that time is only passing away, and not understand that time never arrives’. Although

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understanding itself is time, understanding does not depend on its own arrival. That thing
about understanding and time, or understanding as time, never arrives. Not passing away, I
think is crucial in approaching zazen in a moment by moment, fresh renewal of that attention.
What is I think good advice for these last days, is to practice in the harmony , balance and
proportion of those two realities: the ‘not enough’ reality of zazen and life, and the ‘just
enough’ aspect of it. It’s not enough, because we always have one more step that we can take,
hopefully, and continue this dancing. It is ?( not) enough, we move forward whatever the
understanding, whatever the condition we are, we move one step more, and one step more as
the dynamic quality of understanding and life itself. But then we have to be tuned in harmony
with that, ‘just enough’, as it is, what in Zen is called the sambogakaya, the body of joy and
ease of the Buddha. Full and complete, as it is, every single thing, every single being.
Balancing that, it is just enough as it is, with the other movement, is to touch I think, the heart
of zazen. We call that to settle our zazen, or what Dogen calls the substance, when he talks
about moving forward in practice. ‘We may move forward in practice’ he says, ‘but
remember that each step is equal in substance’. That step, each one of them, equal in
substance, is this quality of ‘it’s enough’. It’s completely contained, it’s joyful and full and
complete, as it is. So then, a moving forward happens by itself, not as the function of a
conscious effort, but the blooming of a rootless tree of our own life and relationship. That
rootless tree that happens in that vertical line of the moving forward, advancing but each step
beyond that time, beyond that space, equal in substance. We talk about samadhi as the quality
of empty, potent oneness of our practice, when we talk about zazen, When we say let’s knock
down the idea that zazen only happens on the zafu, but happens also on the zafu, I think we
can trust certain principles or attitudes for keeping that zazen alive in our life.

In my experience, one of them is to trust motionlessness, the quality of motionlessness. One

of the interviews that is going around the net with myself, done by Vladimir- someone picked
it up and posted it in the Indy-media pages of Melbourne last year. And they changed the title
to the last thing I said in the interview. And what I said was, ‘even cats do it’. And so then,
that quality of nothing special, zazen –even cats do it. Those of us who are used to being with
cats will be very clear about the way cats do zazen. And certain moments during the day, they
will take up a posture and stay motionless. Maybe slightly nodding as they go into samadhi,
but they do that. I trust that motionlessness, fertilising moments in our day.

I trust together with that, a whole body feeling awareness, together with that motionlessness,
as I move around the world, as I drive, as I’m sitting doing my work. That whole body feeling
awareness, that of course comes together with trusting attention. The power of attention, as
we say with the power of the Tao- the virtue- of that attention and openness, which are not
two different words. And then I think one important thing is ease. And I link that with
effortlessness. So we trust motionlessness, whole body awareness, attention and ease. If we
tune with that, zazen happens, very, very naturally. Then we see that thing about the gap,
which we were talking about yesterday and the day before. I was checking that with my own
practice, and found out something interesting. The gap doesn’t mean there is no space
between things. Space is not a delusion. Solidity is delusion. So there is no gap when just
space exists all around. And we ourselves as space. Then no gap happens, and we abide in the
reality of shikantaza. So here we are, approaching this last day of our Intensive. And I want to
quote again, the poem I have quoted before.

Shoot an arrow with a stringless bow,

against no target.
You’ll never hit the centre

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 but see it this way you’ll never miss.

So what do we have, the stringless bow, the arrow and the shooting. So let’s watch out, that
arrow is our true Nature.

Comments, questions, sharings very much welcome.

Q: You said motionless, at ease, and what is the third?

A: Motionless, whole body attention as openess….

Q: I think one is enough!

A: See, I’m greedy!

Q: Do you think motionlessness implies the others?

Yes, physically, the quality of mind….you have motionlessness and ease.

But doesn’t that just mean physical motionlessness? You’re talking about a physical posture
( to Augusto) , not the mental?

A:Yes. I think if we are not in tune with the other ones and ask someone to be motionless,
without the other elements, can be hard for that person. But a motionless-ness by itself
doesn’t make any change. I used to joke sometimes, if so, task would be easy. And if on the
first day someone comes with plaster, and at the end of seven days, break it, and then a new
person is born. Doesn’t happen. You’ll only have dead bodies here.

Q: I’m very glad you made that comment about no gap, being about space, as earlier in the
Teisho, saying something about ‘empty oneness’, made me think about, I feel it’s supported
in the culture, notion of oneness is about substance, about thing-ness. For me at least, don’t
know where I get this, one is kind of solid and single and has stuff there. And then when
coupled with empty oneness, throws me into a different kind of place, oneness is oneness of
space, so then space in relationship or between things as being a place of life, then makes
some sense.

A: Also, I think it is good to clarify in this context of practice the word emptiness. It doesn’t
mean vacant or the void. Emptiness as that pregnancy, no form, no solidity, but is pregnant.

C: I really liked the term ‘fertilising moments’ in our day. Sounds beautiful. That for me goes
along with what you said, or I think you said, about each step being equal, and I had this sense
of moving one way, and then talking about a rootless tree being on a different plane, and so
those two pictures in my head go together, and I see this kind of blooming at every
opportunity.

A: happy about that.