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. So we are the second week only. Isn't that amazing? Into this practice period. And it seems like, to me, like... I've been here forever. And I don't know how it feels to you. And I wanted to talk a little bit about the schedule, amongst other things. Because we just, a few days ago, it also seems a long time ago, we talked about the shinges, the guidelines, the rules, of the monastic community.

[01:02]

And so you all got a schedule sent to you when you applied. You saw when we get up and what we do. And you came anyway, which is kind of amazing. So I want to first read two poems before I go further into the schedule. One is by Mary Oliver, and it's called The Journey. One day, you finally knew what you had to do and began. Though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice, though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles, Mend my life, each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do.

[02:07]

Though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible, it was already late enough and a wild night and a road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do. determined to save the only life you could save. The other poem is by Hafez.

[03:12]

My eyes so soft. Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few human or even divine ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight has made my eyes so soft, my voice so tender, my need of God absolutely clear. I chose those two poems because I think at this point in the practice period, in some way or other, we are meeting what the poems are talking about. We are meeting the old tugging, stay, stay the way you are, don't let yourself kind of be changed, or feel lonely, alone.

[04:25]

And we are, we are actually existentially absolutely alone while being completely interconnected. So the schedule is actually a wonderful device that came by to us from a long time and it is a structure that actually Its function is to allow you to get to know the body of your habits. So we're talking about this body in the beginning of this practice period because it's this body that actually is the vehicle of our life in this lifetime. So... And then we talk about Buddha bodies, which are transformed bodies.

[05:33]

And we have habit bodies, bodies of habit that are kind of connected with the ideas we have created about ourselves. Those ideas came based on experiences these bodies had when they were very tiny and there was no mind there that could even have words, have concepts before that, before we had concepts, before we were able to think. Our bodies got a lot of input and output. And based on... Once we started to have some thoughts, we started to create ideas about this being, what's good about it, what gets it into trouble, what doesn't get responded to or responded to in a frightening way.

[06:41]

By age six, actually, we have a pretty finished idea about this being, and about the world and what it can expect and what it shouldn't expect and what it should be afraid of and what it should not be afraid of. And we keep on living and we never kind of re-examine those assumptions. They run our life and they shape what we perceive, what we pick out in the huge, vast, We, each one of us, has a way of cutting out and looking for what's familiar and what fits the assumptions. So once I went to a... I can't remember what it was called. It was a body-based psychotherapy session in a group.

[07:47]

And I had a... internal memory, and the teacher said, oh, while you're talking, I see a fertilized egg going down the tubes and trying to find a place in the uterus to settle. So he invited me to look around in the group and choose a mother that I could kind of feel that. So I looked around and I knew somebody who I thought was really a wonderful, wonderful mother. But I also knew that she had lost a baby not that long ago. But she was the only one I could imagine. Looking at all the women in there, so I chose her. And then he asked me to actually put my head on her belly and really...

[08:49]

If I can land, because he said in that thing, he saw no, no, no coming from the uterus. He knew nothing about my story that I told you before, that my mother just wasn't ready to be pregnant again. So I start this, and after a while I think, because I didn't know what he was going to ask me to do, what was the next step. I have to check with this woman. I don't know that this is actually possible for her. So I stop and I say, I have to ask her. And she said, no, I actually can't be really available for that. So then he invited me to look around again. And I looked and I looked and I was not able to find somebody. And then he said, well, if you can't You know, he said, well, maybe look for inviting forms.

[09:54]

So I looked around and I, okay, I chose another person and then it proceeded. I was very powerful, but what was, why I'm telling you this is that what struck me was what I chose was a woman who... wasn't a bad mother or not capable of being a mother, but it wasn't the right time. So I chose exactly what my mother had been. And when I noticed that that wasn't working and I understood why it wasn't working, I was incapable of identifying what could work. That's how... how incredibly strongly our history and how we hold it shapes what we are able to perceive. And how differently, based on that in any way, we perceive the same situation.

[11:01]

So when my siblings and I come together and we talk about an event in our family, it's just amazing to see some of them don't... remember it. For some of them, it was a defining moment in their life. And some say, I wasn't there. And they were there. And we're talking about the same event. So that's the body of habits. And that includes the mind. So in Buddhism, there are six senses in our time. traditions we talk about five senses, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, touch, and in Buddhism there's mind, which I think is really a great thing. That's also the habit body is the body, our karmic body. It's the body that is shaped by past karma and

[12:08]

continues to create karma as we live alone. So every morning we say, all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind. So studying this body, studying the self, studying the habit body. And so the schedule has a wonderful function because here it is. We all saw it. We all said, I'm coming anyway. And now the schedule is here and the instruction is follow the schedule completely. And here comes the habit body. And how about changing the schedule?

[13:14]

This is a stupid schedule. I mean, this is not good for me. Let's change it. Can we change it? And the schedule just continues through the whole practice period. It's an opportunity for you to, A, meet your habit body which usually we don't because the habit body tends to arrange and manage the environment and turns everybody in a way or relates to them so that it can just unhindered continue. So that's why I'm not going to talk to this person anymore. I'm just going to look away or I'm dropping out of school or I'm... You know, all these things. Or I'm trying to change them. Wouldn't you please be different to me so that I can be happy? That's just what the habit body and the habit mind is doing with the environment.

[14:19]

Which, of course, when you look at it that way, it's a pretty small prison that we live in and kind of experience the world in because it's always the same. It just changes its outfits and its clothes and maybe you shift. And some people have said, you know, I felt so free when I came here and now suddenly I realize I brought all my problems with me. And it's not that they weren't, that the freedom they felt wasn't a real freedom. It was. But the happy body, because the happy body kind of works itself in and suddenly everything is again the same and we have to deal with it. So that's the function of the schedule. And I want to really encourage you. And that doesn't mean, you know, come to the Zendo when you have a fever or come to the Zendo when you're sick. But really pay attention how you relate to the schedule and how you make decisions.

[15:28]

And keep looking. If you don't go, what happens? Is it helpful? Does it do what you thought it would do? Does it enable you to join the schedule again? And if we are not intimate, I don't even want to say intimate with our bodies because then there's a thing here that is intimate with the body here. And that's actually... It's very difficult in our language to talk about it, but we have a wonderful word. We say a human, and we also say a human being. And being is a verb. Being is not a noun. Being, being is an activity. So if we are not...

[16:33]

intimately body not if we are not intimate with our body because actually it's also not quite ours because then there will be somebody who possesses something and that's also not quite how it is because we just got it we weren't asked before we were born do we want this body And then there were all the possibilities lined out. We would not be born because we couldn't decide which one we wanted because this one has nicer hair and this one has nicer legs and this one has a better brain or whatever. Anyway, we all are being all the time already, but we're so busy with those habits to kind of maintain them that we don't get there. And bumping If you surrender to the schedule, you have a chance to experience being, being, being the being that you are, being.

[17:43]

And it can be scary because you don't know yourself so much anymore. You become a little bit a stranger to yourself because suddenly It's not so clear-cut anymore. So if we are not intimately body, we do not understand how to meet our karma in liberating ways. So I'll talk a little bit later about it, and we can talk together about it today. But central abbot, Steve Stuckey's karma, is pancreatic cancer. It actually happens to his body.

[18:48]

It's happening in his body, in his body being. How... he meets that karma, that's a karmic event. How he meets, relates, is informed by this karma and responds can be trapping or liberating. It's just an example. That's true for all of us. If we see... this person's action as unfriendly to us, we have a choice to, A, to understand that this is my perception and actually has only a tiny little bit to do with the other person. The rest is conviction, old experience, anything.

[19:50]

But it's my, it's this body's experience, this body's interpretation. And that's how to relate to that in a way that it opens my heart, liberates me, creates more tolerance, more kindness, not by denying what I'm feeling. Maybe I'm feeling hurt, maybe there's hurt feelings, maybe there are irritated feelings, angry feelings, by really intimately closely feel them without making them the base of action because then then we create karma body, speech and mind so if we react usually react out of habit not out of intention

[20:58]

And if we react, usually the reaction just perpetuates what has always happened. Stays familiar and safe. And we are so alone and so interconnected, so all one and interconnected that we pick up body language, eye language, sound language, you know, kind of... So that's also why for a while really stay with this being and pay attention to how your body responds when you feel hurt by a sound of a voice or look on a face or... And that's your interpretation.

[22:01]

So for example, Galen Godwin used to say to me, you don't have to scowl. And I would always say, I'm not scowling. And I thought there's something wrong with her. You know, she always thinks I'm scowling. But at some point I said, what do you mean I'm scowling? She said, well, your eyebrows come together. And I realized when I'm concentrating, my eyebrows do that. But I'm not in a scowling mode at all. So it was very helpful for me to have her say that to me because she was saying something and I was thinking about it to try to give her an answer and she said, you don't have to scowl at me. So then I could say to her, oh, thank you for telling me that. Now I can tell people, check it out when I look like that. Are you scowling or are you just concentrating? And not just run with, oh, she's scowling something and then whatever story you create around that.

[23:04]

So it's a delicate, continuous influence. We continuously influence each other all the time. So yesterday we started... to do outside meditation. And the impetus for me is to do that, to offer that is for you to see the kind of inside and outside and see how How does inside the Zendo, outside the Zendo, how does it change? What influences happen to this being?

[24:07]

And is there a possibility to be settled and still in the same way meet the environment in the same way. You know, and in the self-fulfilling and self-employing samadhi, which we chant every noon service, it says, in stillness, mind and object merge in realization. earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles, and pebbles all engage in Buddha activity, which means in being completely themselves, just completely themselves. Radiate a great light and endlessly expand the inconceivable Dharma.

[25:13]

Being the being that you are being is an inconceivable event. When we're being, there's no one there. There's no Christina saying, oh, I'm being. Not possible. And the Bahia Sutta from the Polycanon talks about that, and the story goes, that Bahia was of the bark cloth tradition, I don't know what that was, didn't look that up, and he thought while he was going on alms and practicing his meditation and doing all of that, now of those who in this world are Arhats or have entered the path of Arhatship am I one.

[26:20]

We, of course, now immediately go, well, that's the wrong question. Because you can't say, am I one? Then you're already lost in confusion. There's no I that can be the one. It's already somebody looking and going, I am one. Then a Devata. who had once been a blood relative of Bahia of the bark cloth. So I imagine they wore barks or made cloths out of bark. Compassionate desiring his welfare, knowing with her own awareness the line of thinking that had arisen in his awareness, went to him on arrival, said to him, you Bahia are neither an Arhan. nor have you entered the path of arahantship. You don't even have the practice whereby you would become an arahant or enter the path of arahantship.

[27:27]

Then who in this world will with its devas are arahants or have entered the path to arahantship? Then she tells him, there's a city in the northern country called Sabha. and there the blessed one and Arahant, rightly awakened, is living now. So Bahiya, deeply humbled, goes in search of the enlightened one, the awake one. Finds the group of Buddha's disciples and asks about him and they say, the blessed one has gone into town for alms. He leaves the Jetta Grove and goes looking for the Buddha. Then he sees him and says to him, please teach me. And the Buddha says, this is not the time, Bahia. We have entered the town for alms.

[28:29]

He doesn't relent and says a second time, you know. It's hard to know what dangers... are there for the blessed one's life or what dangers there may be for mine so please teach me now teach me the Dharma so I will be well blessed one says this is not the time we have entered the town for alms he still doesn't relent and the third time says but it is hard to know for sure what dangers there may be for the blessed one's life, or what dangers there may be for mine. Teach me the Dhamma, O blessed one. Teach me the Dhamma, O one well gone, that will be for my long-term welfare and bliss. We are all in Bahia's place. We don't know for sure what dangers there may be.

[29:34]

there are for our lives. We don't know. We can't know. So then Buddha says, then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus. In reference to the scene, there will be only the scene. In reference to the herd, only the herd. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bahiya, there is no you in connection with that.

[30:53]

When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, You are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress. So when you go outside, your body is a little bit more exposed. Its senses are a little bit more activated by light, shade, temperature, colors, sounds. Zendo is a little bit more muted. Yes, thank you. Yes, please help me when I can't find words. So it's a wonderful opportunity to just see if

[32:02]

Sounds can just be left to be sounds without the mind going, oh, this is whatever. And then maybe get carried away. But really sounds touching the eardrums, just the vibration, just sounds. The symphony of sounds, not going, oh, this is the creek and this is the blue jay and this is the kitchen. pots clanging and this is... When you walk, do walking meditations allow the sights to meet your eyes rather than your eyes going out looking. There's a difference and you can feel it. Without just colors, forms, colors, shapes, feeling your whole body moving as just movement.

[33:14]

So this is an opportunity to let the seen be just the seen and let the heard be just the heard and the sensed be just the sensed and the cognized just be the cognized and to play around with that. You know, it's not like Just remember it from time to time when you're out there. Because the teachings tell us when we, when our habit body is, and habit mind, the body of habits, I like that actually better than habit body, the body of habits created by habits, the mind... habits, when that is not in charge, there's less stress.

[34:20]

It takes a lot of energy to keep that going. And it's scary for a lot of people when it leaves them for a moment Because there's nothing that goes, you're here in the way you're used to be here. You are familiar with to exist. So then that part goes, you know, and you immediately will grab something to make sure you're here. And that's not bad. That's just how it happens. But if you... You know, so just go say, oh, thank you. For a brief moment, I just fell into no-thingness. Where things are not there in the same way.

[35:31]

But your body still keeps breathing, keeps telling you you have to go to the bathroom, keeps telling you I'm hungry or thirsty. So how is that? So I will post those two poems here. I have to make a copy so I won't do it right away. You can also post that sutta if you want and put it on the shelf. But I would really like to encourage you to follow the schedule completely and engage its function to help you of revealing the body of your habits. Because that's when Dogen says, study the self.

[36:33]

The self is also the body of the self, the mind, the body. Because by studying that, we see, when we see how it works, we also see we can let go of it. We forget it. It's not so necessary anymore. So that's why in the Genjo koan it says, it's paraphrased, Buddhas are greatly enlightened about delusions. They know how they work. That's why they wake up. And sentient beings are greatly deluded about enlightenment. We have all these ideas what that is. And Dogen says, just study your body of habits, the habits of your mind, the habits of your feelings, the habits of your body. And the schedule is there to help you. And the forms are there to help you. All that bowing and chanting and putting your hands in Gusho. Pay attention. We say a fist away from your nose, fingertips level with your nose.

[37:39]

Most of us do this. Try. It's a totally different feeling. You're suddenly here in a totally different way. And you go, I'm all visible, or I take up too much space, or, yeah, maybe you have to kind of move a little so you can do it. Yes, so these forms are also there to help us mirror back where our habitual ways are kind of get bumped noticeable and I also want to really encourage you to be with this being I said in my last talk the quote by Martin Buber which stays with me since I read it that the way that

[38:53]

we help each other most deeply is by seemingly unconcerned, completely taking care of this life. That's when this life, when this being wakes up, everybody wakes up. So we all are affected to varying degrees by the news of is illness. And by the uncertainty of what's going to happen, how fast something is going to happen. And it's in some ways almost harder to be a bystander than to be at the center of events. Because at the center of events it's just this body that

[39:54]

is living its life. We notice something about how we cannot change anything for that person's situation in their body. We can send them love, we can support them, we can't breathe for them, we can't take half of the cancer and carry it ourselves. We can't, even if we wanted to. So are we being pulled away by that and kind of worried about that where we can't really do something? Or are we, you know, when Suzuki Roshi was dying, he was dying while just the Sashin, the Rohatsu Sashin, had started in the city. And everybody went to the Zendo and sat, continued to sit, because... They couldn't die for him.

[40:56]

They couldn't take the dying away from him. And all they could do was to continue to take care of their life. And that supported him to take care of his life. And so by really practicing and trusting that what you came here for, even though you can't name it or what you named it for doesn't really... get to it, continue to take care of that, we help Steve to take care of his life. 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.

[41:53]

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