This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. So first of all, I'd like to thank the abbess very much for inviting me to speak this morning. So it's day two of Sashin, and sometimes some of us might be wondering why this seemed like such a good idea. And if that's what's arising today or tomorrow, those are often the days when it kind of comes up, what was I thinking? It's a really good opportunity to reconnect with your intention in practice. Why are you here?

[01:02]

I've been thinking about Abbott Steve a lot lately, as I know many of us are. And a number of things have been coming up. One is just around impermanence. That we actually don't know how long we have in this life. We don't know how long we have to practice. We don't know how long we have to be with all the people we love or even the people that we don't love who suddenly become so precious when our life becomes short. You know, on the Han outside, on every Han, I think, is some version of a verse that... says something like, great is the matter of birth and death. Time passes swiftly.

[02:09]

Awake, awake each one. Don't waste this life. Don't waste this precious life. Don't even waste these precious minutes. Now is all we have, and now is exactly what we so often tend to waste. Thinking about later, what's going to happen next, or thinking about what's already happened, good or bad. So in Steve's life and death, I'm finding a lot of encouragement in my own practice. partly just from him, but partly because I know that's the very best thing that I can give him.

[03:12]

It's the thing that would mean the most to him, is just to keeping up with my own practice, showing up for my life and for others' lives as best I'm able. So we'll We'll be chanting the Fukan Zazengi, I think every morning during Sashin, which is really nice to have these Zazen instructions repeated every morning. And in the Fukan Zazengi, it says, Form and substance are like the dew on the grass, destiny like the dart of lightning. emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. And Dogen also says, if you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay.

[04:18]

I love that. Just do it. Just practice suchness without delay, right now. I like that Dogen is a little unclear, or not unclear, he's clear, but he doesn't lay it out so specifically what happens between take your seat and complete realization. We all have to find that way ourselves. But I think the kind of pith instruction in the Fugan Zazengi is... Think of not thinking. What kind of thinking is that? Non-thinking. This is the essential art of zazen. So thinking, I think we're all pretty familiar with.

[05:22]

Not thinking is trying really hard not to think of the pink elephant that we're not supposed to think of. I think we're pretty familiar with that too, at least once we try to sit zazen, we become very familiar with not thinking, that kind of effort to suppress thoughts, and then just following afterthoughts, being led around by the nose or by the mind or by our interests or aversions or whatever it is, but just following. So he says, think of not thinking. What kind of thinking is that? Non-thinking. So non-thinking is neither following our thoughts nor suppressing thoughts. Taking the backward step.

[06:30]

Relaxing. Not getting in the way, not meddling, not controlling, but not being controlled either. How to find that sweet spot. I so often think in Zazen about a baby who's just learning to sit up and they have like... They have a little muscular strength, but not really very much. Mostly they sit up because they're balanced. They have perfectly straight little spines. They're a little wobbly, you know. But whatever they're doing sitting up is because they're just balanced. They're neither leaning to the left nor the right, neither forward nor backward. They're just aligned. So this physical manifestation helps us to balance and align our minds, to find that place of neither grasping nor averting, not being agitated nor falling asleep.

[07:45]

Just resting. Resting but with attention. Resting with energy. Resting with alertness in the boundless field of emptiness. So Ndogen has a particular meaning when he talks about Zazen. It's not just... when you're seated in lotus posture on the taan with your robes arranged just so. He says, the zazen I speak of is not meditation. It is simply the dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment.

[08:53]

So when he's talking about zazen, this is what he means. Not just the pose, not just the activity, but practice realization, the complete identity of awakening and this posture, this way of being, this practice. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains. Just finding your own true nature. No problem with who I am or who I think I should be. Completely in your own element. For you must know that just there in zazen the right dharma is manifesting itself and that from the start dullness and distraction are struck aside.

[10:00]

So when that is your experience of zazen, just abide in that. There's nothing really more to do. Just abide in ultimate reality. and enjoy it. It's so beautiful when that arises. It's like grace. Suddenly there it is. How did that happen? And when that's not what's arising, which may happen from time to time, we need to develop skillful means in how we meet what is actually arising. such a myriad of things that may arise. Dogen says, have no designs on becoming a Buddha.

[11:17]

So if we think that we can search outside of ourselves, outside of this present moment, outside of this body, for Buddha, for ultimate reality, for awakening, for some special state of mind, we'll never find it. It doesn't exist anywhere else. But the painful longing, the searching, the absolute conviction that who I am or what I'm experiencing or where I am at this moment is not it, is not Buddha, is certainly not ultimate reality. That's the root of suffering right there. It could arise as aversion,

[12:25]

but the flip side of that is clinging. And it's clinging to a fixed idea about how things should be. When we can let go of our preconceptions, our ideas, our fixed views, about how things should be, then we can actually open to what is. So even though Dogen says, the zazen I speak of is not meditation, he can say this because he has, let's see, in the year 1200, has 1700 some odd years of the whole history and practice of sitting meditation behind him. And what he's saying is not that it's not meditation, because we're the Zen school after all, and Dogen firmly upheld Zazen as the front gate of the Buddha Dharma, the way of all the Buddhas and ancestors, but it's not mechanical meditation.

[13:46]

It's not following all the rules. It's not the steps and stages. It's not that you do this and [...] then you'll get your brownie buttons and then you'll be enlightened and then all the suffering will be over and I'll be a better person. I'll be okay. I'll be acceptable. Or other people will be okay and they will stop bothering me. It usually goes one way or the other but sometimes it flips back and forth. where's the problem? So it's actually very helpful, I find, to look in foundational teachings of the Pali Canon for some meditation instruction. Suzuki Roshi used to say, we do Henayana practice with Mahayana mind. So using all the foundational practices with a broad understanding, an open heart, a deep connection.

[15:02]

Bodhisattva mind. So the Four Noble Truths Someone asked me recently, I said, I don't really know how to engage with the Four Noble Truths. They just seem like statements. Am I supposed to just believe them? So that really got me thinking. I thought, yeah, you know. Four Noble Truths are the Buddhist statement of his own experience. This was the synthesis of his awakening experience. But why did he say that? So that we can wake up. So implicit within each one of them are practice instructions. So the first noble truth is the truth of suffering, dukkha.

[16:06]

Stress, unsatisfactoriness, real out of balance is the etymological root of the word dukkha. So we have to comprehend suffering. We have to meet it, we have to become intimate with it, we have to know it, get familiar with it. Not suffering as some general idea, not like life is suffering, okay, what does that mean? No. How do we experience our own lives, our own experience being out of balance. What do we get upset about? What do we get freaked out about? What makes our stomachs flip-flop? At the beginning of the practice period, there's usually a lot of opportunity for that. Most people are new in their practice positions.

[17:10]

So there's lots of opportunity for, oh my God. don't know where I'm supposed to go when I'm serving, or I forgot that I'm cheeky-do and didn't show up, whatever it is. You know, the opportunities for the bottom falling out of our stomach are myriad. And the request is just to show up for that. And after a while, you find that you can, which is really amazing that we can just show up for our experience. Because then we can show up for others, too. We can show up for everything. So when suffering arises, well, first of all, we have to notice that that's what's going on. You know, we all have different habits of mind, and for some of us, our habit of mind is to not attend to

[18:18]

what's difficult or what's uncomfortable. We smooth it over, pretend it's not there. Things get a little weird and rocky, but you can't even tell what's going on. It's sort of blurry or confused. But somewhere under there is something unsettled. So the first thing is just to notice, oh, something's going on. Something's happening. Can I notice what it is? Can I hang out with that? Can I be present with it? And as we do that, we're able to see how it arises. That we have an idea about what should be happening, we're holding on, we're clinging, we're averting two sides of the same thing, or we're kind of falling asleep in the middle of it. And when we do that, we see, oh, Okay, so there's this experience, and I'm having a reaction to it, and actually it's the reaction, the clinging, the resistance, that is causing the suffering.

[19:30]

That sensation in my stomach, that's unpleasant, but gosh, I'd go ride a roller coaster and it would feel the same way. So it's not just the sensation. It's all the meaning that we make of it. So if we can see how we create that, well, so then the second request, so the first is just to comprehend, to be present with the suffering, and with the clinging, the craving, the request is relinquishing, letting it go. That's the practice. Can I let go of this clinging? And when we let go, then suffering dissolves. Third truth, cessation of suffering. And the request of that is to realize it. Not to have it as some, you know, sometimes people ask me, do you believe in enlightenment?

[20:38]

You know, like it's this kind of optional thing, like do you believe or not? a Christian faith or something. But the request from the Buddha is not to believe it, but to realize it, to taste it for yourself. Find out for yourself. What do you think about awakening? Do you think it's possible? The Buddha did. He said, we can all wake up. Realize it. Practice suchness without delay. And then finally, the path, the eightfold path, should be practiced, cultivated, developed. So these are not sequential.

[21:41]

It's not like you do one, two, three, four. They tend to be pretty simultaneous. We're, at any rate, non-linear that we find ourselves in one or another of those places. It's like, oh, there's not suffering right now. Wow, I went to bed last night and I thought, I cannot do another day. And this morning, it's gone. Where did it go? It's all fine. So just to see is to notice where we are. Be completely present for whatever is there. Sometimes our suffering, the dukkha, is in the form of kind of boredom or thickness or

[22:51]

And in that case, the request is to go deeper, to go into it, to see what is the quality of boredom. How do you know that you're bored? You say, I'm bored. How do you know? Not to say that you're not. Just what is it that's arising in your experience that tells you, I'm bored. I don't want to be here anymore. What is it that's happening in your body? What are the thoughts that are arising? For myself, I often notice it's this funny combination of kind of sloth and torpor and agitation. There's something that wants to move in one part. There's something that just wants to go to sleep in another.

[23:53]

There's this funny tension. So whatever it is for you, you can actually investigate that. You can go deeper into it. You can be very curious. What is it that's happening now? Why is it that I can't stand it? what is it about my experience right now that I can't stand? If you can be interested and curious, if you can be a naturalist of your own experience, not necessarily trying to change it or interfere or intervene, but just to get closer to it, it will change. It will change just by the change in how you're relating with it, how you're investigating it.

[25:04]

And sometimes when we, particularly, when we sit for long periods of time, there can be some very painful old places that come up. really dark and afflicted places. It can be like suddenly finding an old container of forgotten former food in the refrigerator and you open it and it's like, oh my God. The stench is just overwhelming. The whole experience is just overwhelming. overwhelming. I thought that was gone. And here it is. And, you know, unlike old containers of food in the refrigerator that we can just kind of throw out, you know, this is part of us.

[26:14]

And it needs to be taken care of. How do we take care of those old, buried, stinky, scary places? Maybe a little at a time. With a lot of gentleness and patience. Just letting it be. Sometimes it's enough to know, whoa, okay, I see you going to shut the lid and shut the refrigerator door right now. That's enough just to know that it's there. It often doesn't really help to have some idea that, okay, I'm just going to dig into this get to the bottom of it, get it all cleaned out, and then I'll be fine.

[27:19]

That's, you know, that is almost a violent trying to get rid of some part of ourselves that we find unacceptable. So again, having some kindness, some compassion, some curiosity. Oh, Interesting. Okay. How much of that can I sit with right now? Sit with and not get drowned by. Sit with and not get caught up in. Can I have that space? So it's always negotiating that. Zazen posture is often very helpful to pride a container for holding painful experience or joyful experience, actually.

[28:29]

Sometimes we get these waves of joy and it's hard to hold those, too. I don't know how many of you know Temple Grandin, very interesting autistic woman who worked with animals a lot. She noticed that when... cows were being taken, I think, for slaughter or for vaccines, that when they were put in this kind of hugging machine, like the sides would come in and hug them, that they would become very calm. And she really identified with large farm animals a lot. She felt like her mind worked the way that theirs did. So she made herself a hugging machine because she couldn't tolerate human touch very well, being autistic. And she found that that calmed her down immensely to have this pressure on her, on the skin, this containment. And babies used to be swaddled to give them this kind of feeling of containment.

[29:35]

And they often calm down. It's like, okay, I'm held. Some way I'm held. So... our sitting posture can actually hold us in that way. To find a comfortable, upright posture that's not slumped, but actually has some energy to it, can provide the same kind of a container. We can put all of our agitated, unhappy, gotta get out of here energy into the posture. It's like grounding the lightning rod. It can be a very powerful sitting. It's a yogic posture. You can just be completely there with it. Once someone asks Sojun Roshi,

[30:45]

in a talk, in a Q&A after a talk, said, what do you think about during zazen? And he said, I give myself zazen instruction. I really like that a lot. So it can be helpful, actually. those moments when we're having difficulty settling or finding our breath or grounding to give ourselves as an instruction. And that can happen in a lot of ways. But one of the ways that it can be very helpful is to think what's happening now, just to notice, not even to think, but to notice what's happening now that's so difficult. if you could hear the perfect instruction exactly what you need to hear it would be so helpful from the perfect person who knows you so well cares so much about you what would they say?

[32:05]

and then of course you just tell yourself you just give yourself exactly those instructions And then, of course, you have to do it rather than keeping refining the instructions, getting caught in, oh, no, it would be better like that. No, just do it. Just do it. Whatever that is. So these are all skillful means, antidotes for when... When zazen does not happen to be manifesting as the Dharma gate of repose and bliss at that moment. And one other one that I found very helpful is an aspect of right effort called the four right exertions.

[33:10]

You don't have to remember these. You shouldn't try to remember these. They are guarding, abandoning, developing, and maintaining. They're kind of similar to the Four Noble Truths, actually, because the first two have to do with unwholesome factors or hindrances. So the first one is guarding. So when unwholesome factors, factors that are not conducive to awakening, have not yet arisen to guard against them to guard the mind, to protect the mind. I was thinking about sometimes people in early recovery, well, I think generally you'd want to avoid situations that you know are difficult or risky, but sometimes you just have to go, right? So a friend's wedding or something, you're like, okay, well, this is going to be difficult, but...

[34:14]

I'm going to guard my recovery. So you're aware, oh, it's going to be difficult. So you guard it very intentionally. Or if you're going to have a difficult conversation with a friend, you're aware and prepared in a different way than you might otherwise be if you were just going to see your friend. you're very open, you know, whatever. So this guarding the mind of noticing, oh, maybe I'm a little sensitive right now, I'm a little vulnerable, or I'm a little, you know, I didn't get such good sleep last night, or, you know, we can't actually care for and guard the mind. Be aware, you know, I'm sensitive, I'm a little liable to being reactive. to take care of that.

[35:16]

And you might also care for other people in that way. Oh, I noticed that they might be a little sensitive. I'm going to be a little careful with them. So guarding in the sense of protecting. And if those states have already arisen, no problem. Unwholesome factors, hindrances have already arisen. Well, then that would be number two, abandoning. And just right on to the next one. Is it not arisen? Protect. Arisen, let go. So first we have to actually see that that's what's happening in order to know that the appropriate thing to do would be to let it go. Otherwise, again, we're just following after it. So relinquishing, renouncing, finding freedom from.

[36:18]

And then the third is developing wholesome factors or the factors of awakening that have not yet arisen. So actually cultivating an infinite goodwill toward the whole world. Practicing compassion. maybe particularly when we're not feeling it. When we notice that we're being hard with ourselves or with others, we can practice compassion whether or not we feel it. We have some sense of what it looks like. If we can even orient in that direction, you know, Most of what the Buddha taught was pretty simple.

[37:20]

Is it conducive to awakening? Is it conducive to suffering? Is it wholesome? Is it unwholesome? And just to begin to turn in one direction rather than the other is so powerful and it's completely reinforcing. It develops a positive cycle just as we can have a negative cycle. And then finally, maintaining or sustaining. So when wholesome factors have arisen, to maintain and sustain them. In terms of practice, this can often be one of the most challenging because we tend so often not to notice what we're doing well. We don't acknowledge and appreciate our own good qualities. We don't think that we're courageous. We don't think that we're kind. We're so aware of our fearful or judgmental or whatever thoughts.

[38:26]

But we might not actually appreciate that even though I had those thoughts, I didn't say it, and I was kind and patient with someone who needed an extra moment. If we can't see what's going well, it's hard to encourage and sustain that. We would never treat a child who was trying to learn to do better the way we treat ourselves. At least I don't think we would. So to give ourselves some encouragement, to appreciate our good qualities, enjoy our breath our experience to just appreciate to be grateful for our life as we develop and sustain these qualities our practice becomes so much easier and self-reinforcing

[39:45]

So these are some of the teachings that have been helps and supports to me in my practice. But each one of us needs to find the supports that work for you. and then to practice them. I think that's the most important part is to actually put them into practice. To just do it. So I think that's all I want to say. Are there any questions? Right.

[41:07]

Right. For many of us, that was the way we were treated, was exactly the way we wouldn't want to be treated. I think the first thing is to see, oh, I'm treating myself that way. I think that you didn't treat your own son that way. Sometimes. Sometimes. There you go. It's hard, isn't it? It's really hard. But you were able to make huge changes from the way that you were brought up.

[42:14]

Huge. You chose a different way of life. You chose to bring your son up with the values of love and care and compassion and that wasn't necessarily what you'd been taught. You gave him the best foundation you possibly could. And you're continuing to grow and to learn how to be kind. You've learned how to be kind to others. So kind to people when they come and have questions about their bodies. But learning to be kind to ourselves is really hard. And often there's a really big fixed idea in there which is that I'm not worthy. Something like that. Some idea about who we are that gets in the way of just basic, basic kindness and compassion with ourselves.

[43:25]

So just keep practicing. It keeps getting better. Goja-san. How would you think that on the second day of sushi, salsa helps? Can you kind of bring it back to second day in salsa? Yes. Yes. So how does all this help with being day two in Sushi? Whatever arises, make space for it with kindness, curiosity, patience, not following afterthoughts, not believing thoughts, Breathing.

[44:41]

Putting down the thoughts again. Seeing new thoughts about I can't stand it. Letting it go again and again. Resting in those times when it all finally subsides. Not holding onto that either. Coming back again and again and again. Just simple, simple, simple. So hard because it's so simple. It's not easy because it's simple. Not getting too involved. It's like a tether in most of the rest of our, even, you know, we can just run around crazy in our minds, in our bodies all the time and never notice what we're doing, never notice how we're actually creating our reality.

[46:13]

But when it's cut down so simple, So repetitive. It's like, I've been here before. I've done this before. And I'm starting to get the idea that the problem is not out there. Because some days it's like this and some days it's like that. And the schedule hasn't changed. But I've changed. how it works for me. I think it's going to be a certain way, and then it's not. It's like, oh, what happened? What changed? Oh, I think I changed. How did I change? Then I get really interested. How did I let go of that? That's when it gets really interesting.

[47:15]

How did I let go? Maybe one more. Yes, Eli. Kind of that answered part of my question, and I'm not going to try to misrepresent the different aspects of Buddhism. But I know our tradition considered meditation. I think the other two, or other Buddhist aspects, we don't concentrate on as much as we have facing concentration. It seems like if you were in a social situation we were talking about, like at a wedding, how does what we're practicing here, or for me, it doesn't always hold me through because my concentration isn't as focused or well-rounded in a social situation as in these containers that we have.

[48:17]

It feels like that, I guess, Well, first I'll say that that's maybe what we're getting to later in the practice period, is practicing with others, practicing in the social world. But I think I can say in one sense it's kind of like sports. You can be really good at golf, but that won't necessarily help you with your tennis game. So we can be really good at zazen, And have a, you know, but that doesn't necessarily, you know, we can't sit zazen in a social setting. We won't have many friends pretty quickly if we try to do that. So, but still, you know, the analogy with sports is like you're still healthy. You know, your body is getting strong and, you know, there's all the kind of qualities you develop in learning golf.

[49:21]

many of which can be applied to tennis, but it's different. So we have to learn, in some sense, a different set of skills. Not different, but applied in a different setting. How is my awareness different in zazen than when I'm talking with a friend or in a group of people? The content is different, but our... our values are the same, our ethics are the same, the heart of it's the same, but the manifestation and the environment are different. So it might look different on the outside. But as we really deepen in practice, not so different, not so different. There's a deep connection with compassion, with kindness, with presence, and there's more input, there's a lot more complexity when it's social, when there's a dialogue or a group, than there is just sitting on the cushion.

[50:37]

But it's just an expansion of that, if you will. That just grows over time and practice of going in and out of seated meditation, noticing what happens when you get up. It's a really interesting practice. What is zazen? Is it when I'm seated? Is it after I've gotten all settled? Is it when I start coming to the zendo? Does it end when the bell ends? Is my mind just jumping off? Can I keep awareness and focus after the bell rings at the end of the period, as I'm getting up off my cushion, as I'm walking out? Oh, now there's people here. So just watch what happens.

[51:41]

Just be curious about what happens. And just open to whatever it is. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge. 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.

[52:07]

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