This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Flexible mind. Flexible heart. Intimacy. Generosity. Ethics. And patience. Three supports for flexible life.

[01:03]

I'm going to talk to you about two of those supports. Talk to you a little bit about the generosity part. Oh, hi. And something about the patience part. I may actually ask you to be patient with me and flexible in following what I have to offer today. My yoga teacher is here, so I'm going to try to be accurate about my very, very small understanding of yoga. And just ask the question, in yoga, what makes us more flexible? So being kind and generous to ourselves helps us relax. So generosity and yoga and flexibility But also, what keeps us working with that flexibility, I think, is knowing the kind of person we want to be.

[02:19]

Reminding ourselves of our values and our vows fuels us to go back, turn back towards that edge, that stretch, that intention to be more flexible. And I would say Staying with what scares us, with patience, allows us to actually really stretch. How flexible are you? How is it for you when something changes drastically, when there's a big event, a death? change in your relationship, change in your work, or a wish fulfilled? And what's the Zen practice in this dynamic situation of change?

[03:24]

How do we train so that the response that arises in the moment comes from all the possibilities of responses, not just a few set ones that we have as our habitual way. What's the Zen practice? We sit still. And we study what it means to not stick to our ideas. And in that way, we find our way. That flexibility that I'm talking about is strengthened through not moving. And as we resist the urge to reject our thoughts, our emotions, the feelings, we resist the urge to jump up and do something about them.

[04:29]

And we resist the urge to ignore them. They're really hard to ignore when you're sitting still. We develop a softness, a generosity in our minds. Life provides us with a sea of circumstances to study and to study our responses. I actually spoke on this subject of flexible mind a couple of years ago, right after I had had something change with a result that I found rather unpleasant. Why was it unpleasant? Because I had a plan. I had a plan that the world was going to go on just as it had been and that it was not going to move any more quickly or more slowly. Letting go of that plan and being generous with the outcome that occurred made for a much happier experience

[05:36]

Didn't happen immediately. Took me a bit. It was a big change. But out of that generosity to the situation as it was, I think a kinder and maybe more appropriate response arose from me towards the people who behaved in such a creative way. Very creative. So... Being generous with the outcome of whatever situation is in front of you supports this flexibility, supports our ability to let go. But this letting go is not only helpful in meeting possibly unpleasant situations, but in meeting potentially pleasant ones. For the past seven years or so, I've been part of a team that's had a goal, a goal of raising a lot of money to renew some of Zen Center's facilities, to support the teachings and the teachers, and to really support our ability to be here for you for the next 50 years at least.

[07:03]

So that goal, which was... $17 million. Inside that goal, there was a milestone that we needed to reach, which would trigger Zen Center receiving an endowment, which we've never really had. And it had to be done by a certain date. So there were actually three milestones. And we made the first one, and then the second one, and then the third one was looming. And as any of you know who do this kind of work, As you get near the end, it gets much more difficult because you've spoken to the people who are close in and now it's like, well, how is this going to happen? It's quite interesting around here to practice with goals since Suzuki Roshi left us with the teaching of no gaining idea. How do you do that? I try to do that by holding the goals lightly or trying to remember to hold the goal slightly.

[08:08]

And I remind myself time and time again, because my habit is to be goal-oriented. I really do do this. I try to remind myself to focus on the people and the process equal to the outcome. At the very least, equal. Maybe someday. More. More than the outcome. So when we reached this milestone on the afternoon of July 31st, right after lunch, it was a really good moment to study the subtle expectations that I had about what that moment of reaching that goal would mean. What would it be like? because it's really close to impossible to not have some expectation in there, right?

[09:18]

And when I looked, I had this great gift of a moment of accomplishment. We reached it. It was concrete. There was a number. We got it. Someone made a donation that counted towards this, that made this goal real-ish, real-ish. So when I looked... I saw that I had actually imagined and maybe even counted on in some way that the moment after hitting that mark would be dramatically different and better than the moment before. So just take a second and think about something in your life that was some wonderful thing that could be met in a moment. You know, your marriage ceremony, the birth of your child, you know, you got the part, right?

[10:21]

Your car worked when you turned it on, whatever. You know, what? And then, what's in that moment? What is that moment? What do we think it is versus what is it actually? And how much of our activity... is aimed towards securing this thing that we imagine is going to be there. Sometimes there's like, if you look, there's this warm sensation of joy. Like, whoopee. But how long does it last for? seeing it arise and fall away, is it possible to not hold on, to not try to milk it? Right? Can we just appreciate that fleeting moment and just get ready to meet the next one?

[11:32]

I used to think that happiness was a permanent state of joy. of that I was always looking to up the ante on what was going on and to try to string together unceasing moments of joy. Anyone else live their life that way? Okay. A few others I'll bet too. Because my mind didn't want to admit that that joy is impermanent. So at a time like this, you know, We actually haven't had a meeting about this in the staff, and maybe, Tova, we could do this, because I think it's good to review how much the expectation of things being completely different and better after reaching that goal, how much did that drive the way I acted during the process?

[12:37]

Was I too pushy? Was I too hard? Was I insincere? those kind of qualities will come up around this wanting to make something happen. So now that it's happened, what a moment to study. What is it? What is it? So I'd love to do that. Maybe we can. I'm talking to Tova, who is now the head of the development office, with whom I share this wonderful moment. Is it actually possible to practice flexible mind, to live a life based on flexible mind? You may be asking yourself. So I'm going to tell you a story.

[13:45]

This is from the 1700s in Japan. Zen master Hakuen lived in a small village, and people thought he was wonderful. He was praised as a virtuous man living a pure life. I wonder how he received that praise. In the same village, there was a beautiful young girl whose parents owned a food store. Suddenly, parents discovered that she was pregnant. She didn't tell them. They found out. And her parents were really angry. The young woman wouldn't say who the father was. She wouldn't tell. They pushed her and pushed her and pushed her and at last she said it was Hakuin.

[14:48]

The parents in really, really angry, went to him and said, my daughter says that you're the father of this child. And Hakuin said, is that so? And when the child was born, the parents brought it to Hakuin, who now the whole village was spurning thought of him completely opposite. This is a terrible person. And the parents demanded that Hakowin take the child, since it was his responsibility. As they handed him the child and said, now it's up to you. It's your responsibility, he said. Is that so? And calmly accepted the child.

[15:55]

A year later, the mother couldn't stand it any longer and she finally told her parents the truth. The real father of the child was a young man who had worked at the fish market. Now the mother and father went back to Hakuin to beg his forgiveness. And they apologized and bowed at length. And they asked for the child back. said, we want the child back now. Just imagine going through that roller coaster. Just imagine that. And I'm sure in some way really being intimate with this child, caring for this child. Probably all of us would attach to this child, right? And he handed the child back and said, is that so?

[17:02]

Can you imagine this? Why not? Why is it so hard to be equanimous? Why is the habit of flexibility or equanimity so unusual? And the habit of avoiding unhappiness and looking for permanent happiness so strong? What are we running away from or towards? This is where I'm going to ask you to be a little flexible because I'm going to change direction here and talk about something that I think is deeply but maybe not so obviously related to this question about flexibility, about our ability to develop a flexible way of being alive

[18:11]

I want to focus briefly on the underlying anxiety that ultimately requires patience as its support. There's this great new industry of mindfulness, you may have noticed. When I Googled the word mindful, I got 11 million results. I know Bing might have been different, but basically I got 11 million Google results on just the word mindfulness. And I personally think this is a good thing. It's wholesome, very wholesome. It's being used in various ways, being kind of packaged as greater efficiency. They'll find out. But why is it that we as humans require a set of exercises like this to wrestle our awareness into the present?

[19:28]

Wrestle it. What is it that's in the present? What is it that's in the present that we don't want to be intimate with? something pops our attention away from our actual life. What don't we want to see? What don't we want to feel? What don't we want to think? What is our heart afraid of? Not just on a psychological level, But on the level that the Buddha, when he sat still and said, I'm not moving until I figure out the basic cause of our unhappiness, he saw that there are three kind of basic qualities of existence.

[20:35]

One of them, sometimes you hear it as the word dukkha, which, if you don't know, one of the best things, I love this, is that dukkha is an onomatopoetic word that describes the sound of a wheel that's out of alignment. So dukkha, suffering anxiety. This is one of the basic, I'm going to say it, gifts of our human life. This gift of... is the reason we practice. Most people who are drawn to the difficult discipline of facing our life come in through the door of discomfort, of suffering, of awareness, of impermanence, and feeling that

[21:47]

being whipped about by that anxiety, being whipped about. When we turn our attention to the present, what we see, sorry to tell you, is that there is no past or future or present. Can you stand that? There is only attention. And when we see this, I'm not going to make you stay there too long, okay? When we see this, we realize that the most important thing is the quality of that attention, not the content. When we are present, we are always present, excuse me.

[23:01]

There's nowhere else we are, by the way. We are present. We're all here. I can validate that. I see you, I see you, I see you. We're present. But our awareness is flipping about. Our attention is on whether or not we parked our car in front of a hydrant and... whether there were hunger pains, you know, I bet you really want to be distracted about now. But when we are able to turn our attention to the present, we see that everything is changing. And it starts to occur to us that we're changing too. And that there's a lack of a permanent me. we quickly and habitually paper over this reality with flipping around, grabbing onto an idea of what we think is going to happen next, regretting what happened in the past, being totally engaged in stories about past and future.

[24:13]

We hold on to whatever we can. and we dwell in our expectations, which makes it hard to be flexible. So that's the relationship of what I talked about earlier in this territory of great patience. But I want to say in a way that's not too concrete that there actually is something there. And here's another story that will, I hope, illustrate. This one's a conversation between our Chinese Zen ancestor, Liangshan, and his teacher, Tonga. Liangshan was the attendant to the teacher.

[25:26]

One of the attendant's jobs is to carry the teacher's robes and to help the teacher put the robes on. The teacher can do it by themselves. But it's a way, it's a training, it's a way of working body to body. One afternoon, maybe an afternoon just like this, the teacher needed to put on his robe. So he handed the robe to Liangshan and asked, as he handed him the robe, what is the business under the patched robe? So patched robe, patched robe, patches hand sewn, in those days sewn from, well, I don't know if they did this in China, Maybe they had nice cloth by China. In India, they would pick cloth out of the charnel grounds and take very used old pieces of material that no one wanted and sew those together in the shape of rice fields.

[26:35]

So if you look at these robes, even the Raksu robes look like rice fields. So when I say patched robe, what I mean is... our actual life. That's our patched robe. It can look like this, or it can look like a pair of blue jeans, or it can look like your whole family system. This is your patched robe. This is my patched robe. What is the business under the patched robe? And the student, Liangshan, he had no answer. The teacher said, he was not so happy, the teacher said, to wear this robe and not understand the great matter is the greatest suffering.

[27:36]

Strict. But here you are. Here you are. You do not... That does not apply to you. You are sitting here actually considering the great matter. You are actively engaged in looking at what might be underneath your patched robe. Of course, Liangshan was really, you know, in a situation it was really easy for him to do this all the time. And of course, that's the hardest place to do it, right? So... The teacher says, you ask me that question. This is a good teaching tool. And so Liangshan said to his teacher, what is the business under the patched robe? And the teacher said, intimacy. Intimacy. Liangshan bowed and

[28:44]

teacher said, what have you understood? Can you express it? Yangshan said, what is the matter under this great robe? Intimacy. And the teacher said, intimacy and even greater intimacy. What is the most basic thing in this life? Intimacy. And not intimacy with something. Just intimacy itself. No expectation. No ideas about who this is, or what this is, or when this is, or should it be this way, or shouldn't it be this way?

[29:58]

Just right here, right now, complete, undivided. Just this. This is Zen practice. be intimate with what is, to be able to live from that place, to respond with generosity and patience in an ever-changing, creative, alive, Instead of talking right now, I just would like to give you a minute to be intimate with yourself.

[31:13]

I'll do the same. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[31:52]

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