During Zazen,
Continuously come back to the posture of the body and become one with the breath.
When we breathe in,
We are fully in breath.
And when we breathe out,
We are fully exhalation.
By being fully present in posture and breath,
We can curb or stop the normal condition of our thinking.
With normal in this case,
I mean the habitual way of functioning in daily life,
Where we separate me from all that is not me.
We can easily observe where this leads to,
To a life of separation,
In which we are never satisfied.
But even during the meditation,
We often have expectations to reach a particular state of mind,
To advance in the practice,
To gain something out of the practice.
An image that is often used to describe this is like a thief that enters into a empty house.
There's nothing to steal.
There is nothing to gain from meditation.
Nothing to grasp.
Nothing to benefit us in the sense of benefiting ego.
In contrary,
We have everything to lose during meditation.
And learning to lose is exactly that,
What advances us spiritually.
Master Kodo Sawaki often said,
Practicing Zen is learning to lose.
To lose,
In the first place,
Our mental functioning of mind,
While learning to think with the entire body.
To do that,
We need to let go of every goal,
Of every potential benefit we may acquire from the practice.
Without the pursuit of gains,
Our practice becomes universal,
Large,
Wide and vast.
Then,
Automatically,
Naturally,
We find back the unity of our being and we can perceive that there is nothing to steal,
Nothing to gain.
That we are entirely being in interrelation with all that is.
To come to that harmony,
We just need to stop taking and start giving.
Giving our time to practice.
Giving our energy to be of service.
Giving our talents in support of all.
The true satisfaction comes from this type of activity.
It's rather a non-activity.
Not pursuing any gain.
Not aiming at profit.
While supporting all in need.
When we learn to lose,
We can fulfill our ultimate potential as humanity.
