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 when I came here at the beginning of the practice period, I had no idea I would talk about it. It just arose and keeps presenting. It's very strange to speak after yesterday, even though we had some speech happening in different places, but when I talk or when body arises as the vehicle of this life that we have been given, the means of practice that we have, actually that enlightenment without inhabiting this body completely

[01:32]

Is an idea not possible? The Buddha sat down. The Buddha didn't study, write treaties, talk to people. He sat down with his body. And all the experiences he had was with the body he had at that time. And that's the same for us. And having been a physical therapist, I have complete faith Also, as a psychologist, I have complete faith based on experience that whatever comes up, whatever presents itself, an illness, a pain, a feeling that kind of intrudes and kind of just, I'm here, you can do whatever you want, I'm here, is always a call for... fully being experienced and fully being attended to.

[02:36]

Not with the mind that goes, what is this? Or what am I to do? Or go away, I don't like you. Or I thought I was over it. So I'm in the middle of something like that. days before the sasheen, I noticed that I started feeling dread, just dread, and very unpleasant. And my mind, of course, immediately got busy, either looking inside, why, what, What am I doing wrong? That's the first thing. If I do everything right, I won't feel dread.

[03:38]

It's just a basic assumption. What am I doing wrong? What didn't I do? Or what should I do? Or outside, what's wrong here? And of course, everything is wrong here outside. Why would we have a sachin? What is the most stupid idea? And... I said to Marshall, I'm just regressing completely. I don't know whether to whine or to cry or to rage or to... And it's still here. I don't know what to do because there's actually nothing to do. There's just to be willing to feel it even though it's going to kill me. It's not survivable. I have such rage and outrage and hate and despair.

[04:42]

And you can't have that as an abbess. You have to have, you know, that comes in. You can't be like that. You have to help all of those. I can't even help myself. And then I thought, I told you that first talk about being immobilized, and Sachin immobilizes me. God damn it, I don't want to be immobilized. I want to leave, or I want to say let's all not do Sachin. So how do we not because knowing that is a little bit of relief, but it's not the solution. It's a distancing.

[05:43]

It's the conceptual mind that goes, oh, this is this, and then you feel a little relief, and then you go about your day. But here, luckily, we have Sushi, no relief. And it's really that... mix of feeling that I hate it, and I'm so grateful that it's happening and set, and even though I could make a decision because I'm the abbess still for a few months, I could just say, no Sachin, let's all go to the bathhouse. I won't. Because there's something so supportive of this structure to be in this totally overwhelming, frightening panic. I mean, states of panic that, you know, and they're all parts of that karma that needs to be fully felt, that I have felt into already a few times, but obviously not enough.

[06:59]

Buddhism talks about this as a karmic body. So alaya, the unconscious karmic consciousness with all its seed, is actually our body. All those seeds are in our body. They're not somewhere flying around in the universe. I know that from body work. I know that from physical therapy. I know that from psychotherapy. It's all... It's all here and it's always coming up in a perfectly timed way. When all the circumstances support it to be a little bit more integrated. So you can already hear from my voice that now I'm in a little more safe territory because I'm talking about concepts. I'm a little distanced from my experience. I'm not so close to tears and kind of shaky. So Shikantaza, non-conceptual reality, is can we go back to just experience that has no name?

[08:18]

know that is before all that. And can we, you know, when we know this, we go away from it, can we return to it? So I really, truly felt when I folded up my occasion and put it back down, just felt I need three more vows. I mean, that wasn't something I knew ahead or ever imagined, I would say. So I And all those experiences are completely threatening to the ideas of self we have. We keep creating because they don't fit in. So we either go back and try to reconstruct a new identity around them, or we just keep...

[09:22]

We want to distance ourselves, which we had to do when we were small because we would have died. The feeling it's going to kill me actually comes because it would have killed you if you had felt it then. You wouldn't have been able to feel it. So everything we store, everything unfinished is also stored and wants to be finished because it's needed for our lives to unfold completely. So it keeps coming up here and there when it's supported and when also the possibility is there to integrate it, to experience it more fully. And it's totally disorienting to your sense of self and to your mind.

[10:28]

And so having the schedule, having to sit here with all of you is a blessing because it's a container that gives me the opportunity to be confused, feel the rage, the outrage, the despair, to no avail. Whatever I tried is not helping. That complete conviction that there is no solution to it because I tried, I tried, I tried, until I was exhausted and I couldn't get my thumb in my mouth. My arms weren't strong enough to overcome the toilet rolls. So, and that's an embodied feeling that's not in my head, that energetically, it's just like a collapse.

[11:38]

So the rage is kind of a struggle against, and it's a lot of energy, and then it's like, boom, it gets just total cut of energy because... exhaustion and no to no avail, hopelessness. So, not, what is the mind of not thinking? Non-thinking. So, Suzuki Roshi says, Shikantaza, the moment to moment experience of one's everyday life. Our everyday life continues through this sesshin, moment by moment. And sometimes, as the Tanto said, once you have a sesshin, that's hell, or you have a moment of hell, or you have a moment of bliss, or you have a moment of something somewhere in between.

[12:50]

It's nothing special, but how open and available are we to what we are experiencing anyway? Or what's here, what presents itself? You know, in the Mahati it says, the whole universe is completely open and unobstructed. The everyday practice is to experience everything completely without reservations. So how? That's the instruction. That's the same. It's just worded in different way. it's very helpful that there is almost no talking because that gives more space to and not much interaction because that's safer to experience those feelings in that way because they of course also as I said at the beginning either is there something wrong with me or there's something wrong with everything outside including each one of you wherever you happen to

[14:27]

but that's a distancing that's a distancing factor that's just not allowing it to be what it is it's making it into looking for the cause for the reason which then distances us and then we can be really mad at something or the food or the you know or again oneself And it's also important to pay attention that maybe still now some of the things that come up are too intense. And can we then see how we contain them, how we distance ourselves?

[15:34]

Because it's not like we should... There's a wisdom in our bodies of how much it can hold and stand. And so maybe some experience will come along in our life for a long time till they're fully experienced because there's still something not quite in place to experience it fully and put it to rest. So while we're meeting what we're meeting to the degree we're able to, meet it fully or experience it fully in our senses, in our body, which includes the mind, we also create new karmic seeds. But it's also, it's not about pushing. You know, in Gestalt therapy there was this kind of

[16:37]

famous thing, don't push the river, it flows by itself, which is based on the same thing. Life is always on our side. It will always bring up what is needed and what can be turned and integrated. And we don't have to push, so if you're somebody who pushes yourself all the time, ease up. Trust. Give it a pre-trust. Try not to push and see what happens. It might be uncomfortable because pushing might have been one of your survival mechanisms. So then you feel more. And if you always collapse, then maybe you might want to not collapse to see if you can stand it. So if you go into your head, come back to your body. If you collapse into your body, maybe you engage your mind. So what are our habitual ways of getting away from what scares us or we don't know what to do with?

[17:51]

I don't think I have anything more to say today. Yes? It's a question? It's not a question. But he wants to... Yes, Tonto. Thank you very much for your talk. Very encouraging. I heard a word I've never heard before. Pre-trust. Can you tell me more about pre-trust? It's like a credit. You try it on as an experiment.

[19:19]

You know, when you heard a lot of things about the person that you liked, you are pre-pleased when you meet them. So you can give pre-trust before you actually... You know, trust comes... Faith and trust have something to do with actual experience. But you can... you can trust something can give it more trust than you feel as an experiment to just find out if it if it holds it's a little bit like walking on a frozen lake so you put your foot just a little bit forward or you put something with weight on it and see if it holds and then you can settle there and then you can throw something or try, that's what it means.

[20:29]

Yes, Kathy? You're not alone. And I think it's very brave to sit in your seat and speak the way you're speaking because there's so many expectations put on the roll. I feel my own little mouse level version of that in my role here. I've had a hard 24 hours of just personal stuff going on and it's hard to show up and manage the kitchen when you feel like just, you know, falling apart. In a way it's easier to be in Zendo because you can kind of sit there and fall apart and nobody's calling me to cook or make decisions So I just want you to know you're not alone, and I think you're very brave. And I think this is one of the sad things about our despairs that we do often.

[21:40]

I know I do think I'm alone. I think everybody else is all, you know, got it all together. All these monks that look like they have it all together. But inside, I think there's a lot of... A lot of things that are hard to talk about, and we don't know how to talk about them, and we don't talk about them. We don't talk about them in Zen. We tough it out. It's always been a problem I've had, even though I love this practice. So, anyhow, I just wanted to say that. Thank you. I would suggest you go and fall apart in the kitchen. It will help everybody. I've had my moments. I also think that part of why these things are hard to talk about is because the talking about is a distancing.

[22:40]

And the words are actually already compressing or shaping the experience. But I think it's helpful sometimes to just share wherever we are. I feel like I'm falling apart while I sit here and talk. So thank you for falling apart. You know, we are so interconnected cellularly. I think maybe many of us are falling apart in our own way. You know, a day of full silence is actually helping that greatly. Because our usual ways of mitigating that and controlling that are a little, it's like the rock pulled.

[23:42]

So maybe we should have more silent days. And I did get conceptual about it and said, oh, I must be having a panic attack. I've never had one before, but that's what it sounds like. And so that helped me feel more relaxed about it. This morning, I was standing here in the cold window and thinking, well, there's only X number of days left. And that was the way of coping with it. And then I suddenly said to myself, I love being here with my nose cold. I love standing here waiting for the Atlas. I love doing exactly what I'm doing right now.

[24:46]

And actually, that little trick was helpful. be in the present and figure out how to love it, maybe. I don't know. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Jonah? I was actually just going to say I really appreciate it. I saw more clearly than I ever have before how to move from the feeling level into concepts that can't remove you from. Sometimes if I get really anxious, I'll balance my checkbook. If I hear a horrible diagnosis, I start thinking about medical pieces to relieve the feeling. So I really appreciate that distinction that you made. I think my question is a little bit like media's reflections.

[25:49]

For those of us when panic runs in Sushi or a silent situation for a day, how do you meet that and deal with that? You pay attention to how you do meet it. So then you start noticing Some things might help you feel it more fully, and some things might take you away from it. And then it's really studying, studying what you do, how it affects you, how you respond or react, and what's habitual and what's new. Did anybody have... I was just thinking I have to look to the right.

[26:56]

Oh, okay, good. Okay. Yes, Ella. Thank you very much for sharing with us today. When you were talking, it brought up the phrase, the new normal.

[28:01]

It's something I've heard a lot in spiritual pursuits. You can sit there in a temple and hear it and have it or have this talk, and there's kind of this assumption of what you're seeing on the outside is all what's going on. And then, you know, I think that the beauty of this practice is that, you know, you can feel as the abbess like, you know, we should cancel Shashin. And then you can still go ahead and have Shashin anyway. And then you can show up and tell us that and still keep adding Shashin. I mean, it's so weird because I don't know the remotest thing about the next person I've ever met, what they feel like inside when they use the word panic. I mean, I think I do, but I don't have the remotest clue what that means. And I just know how I've interpreted that word.

[29:04]

And it's like, well, what happens next? Do I think this is normal, what I'm feeling? Well, if I'm the only person that's ever expressed that, then I don't think it's normal. But then I get to see an example of someone who can still show up and can still feel that feeling. And I love the days where it's completely silent, especially when I'm not in the kitchen and we can be doing this thing where there's no eye contact and no touching and do all the things and the admonitions where I'm really just on my own island with the things I'm feeling. and to not go and pick up the phone and call a friend or get someone to validate my feeling or whatever, get a nod, a smile, an eye contact, a hug, you know, and to just feel like this is normal. Oh, I feel awful, or I feel strange, or I feel weird, or I feel panicky.

[30:06]

And this is normal. This is the human experience. I don't need to open my iPad and escape from this. This is normal. And I always think it's so valuable in the modern world to have examples of being human and not running away from it, not having to go describe it, not having to go find a way to escape from it, but to just sit here with it or to be with it. I think it gets more and more powerful the more that we as a society have ways to escape from the fact that we're human beings that feel things. So thank you. Maybe if I'm wrong, but you're saying that the body presents what you're ready to learn or integrate. At what time will you be able to do that?

[31:08]

Not only the body, everything, actually. The whole universe conspires. It's playing a role in that. You know, the cold weather, for example, we're having right now. is our biggest helper. And we all are differently affected by it. If you look at it as a friend, because it supports certain things, it's really something. I think every suicide is a different, completely different story. I think it's a possibility we humans have. I think it always is connected, or I mean, that's my take on it, that it's always connected to unbearable, something that feels so unbearable that it just

[32:23]

only want to end it. And I don't know that everybody wants to end it forever, but wants to end it for a rest, needs a rest. And I also, in psychology, I've read books by a Jungian group that were kind of a little bit looking at psychology from another vantage point and one of them wrote the book, Suicide or Transformation of the Soul. That something has to transform and how the mind can conceive it means something has to die to transform and the mind perceives it as I have to die. And we always tend to prevent that so the transformation can't happen.

[33:27]

So they propose that sometimes when you accompany someone with the openness that they may kill themselves without trying to prevent that, there is a turning happening. And I've seen it happen. I've experienced it happening. But that's not how ours Our society works. We try to get away from pain, from physical pain, emotional pain, any kind of pain immediately. It's a bad sign. So I think this is... I don't know that there's a why answer to the why, but I think it's... always connected to unbearable and wanting it to stop or wanting peace. And I don't know that it's always clear that it's not just for now.

[34:33]

Did you not hear? Yeah, she said it's It seems the person wasn't ready when it was presented. So when I said life always presents you, maybe that is... Actually, I should qualify that statement. I think readiness has also to do with environment and with the level of awareness. in the environment and sometimes the resources are not here. I experience a hesitancy because so often the person I turn to wants to fix it, make it go away, and be their version of it, and it disappears.

[35:54]

What you describe with allowing the possibility of suicide is a deep listening that I can see. Yes? Say, June? Similar to Jane's question, but to a much lesser degree, if a lot of what we encounter in Sashun is a backlog of an experience that we were not able to integrate at the time of our experience, and everything that happens is supporting our integration, it seems very disparate. It's hard for me to It's hard for me to conceptualize, but it's equally hard for me to hold in my body this idea of experience that is overwhelming and traumatizing and the difference between feeling it in such a way that you start to integrate it and re-traumatizing yourself repetitively.

[37:03]

The difference between the two? The difference is in your body. If you're re-traumatizing yourself, then you're not integrating. Then you're repeating in some ways a similar or a new distancing. But that also seems to be, for me, a very embodied experience. It triggers the physical responses of panic or depression or deep sorrow or rage and those things continue until I'm exhausted. And then when I have energy again, they need some more. And that doesn't sound so much like integrating as it sounds like it's whack-it-by-something. Yes. Yes. And so then I would say if these things happen and they happen repetitively, it's really good to have somebody be with you, find a skilled person,

[38:11]

who can help you how to be with that so that it's not traumatizing. So for some things we need witnesses. We can't provide that witnessing ourselves necessarily. So that's a good discovery to know that they are repetitive and somehow you don't see the exit. So then you need another person. So then don't... think you should each time do the same thing over and over. That's not helpful. Thank you. Yes. I think witnessing ultimately is a person who has the capacity in themselves and to really be present and

[39:12]

in a neutral stance, in a totally non-judgmental, but wholehearted, not neutral in terms of not compassionate or not loving, but no personal investment in the outcome. To be able to see the pattern and help the person see where the exit is, where the habit kind of blocks... to see the solution is right there at hand. So it's like in AA. The best helpers are people that have lived with addiction and have found a way to live with it upright and not killing themselves. So that personal experience is a witness. Does that help? And we can sometimes provide that for ourselves.

[40:15]

It's very interesting. Most helping professions actually do all the work so that then they can apply it to themselves. So all the helpers have a hard time being helped. A, letting themselves be helped. But if you pay attention, in every given situation you can find a client surface that you would know exactly how you would feel towards that client, how you would support that client, and then you have to turn it around and do it to your own situation. And that is hard because we have double standards. We all, and that's the self, there are double standards, so we have to give those up. to be amongst people or be with somebody who knows your experience from inside out and has found a way to live with it.

[41:19]

Well, I wouldn't say it so generally. Meditation is not enough. Meditation definitely doesn't solve all the problems that you might encounter. So you might find a therapist. You might find a body worker. You might find a physical therapist. So it's not like whatever you have, just meditate. I mean, then we wouldn't have to eat. I mean, It's really to know where it's helpful and where you need more help. But I wouldn't say everybody who meditates should also go to psychotherapy. And I don't know if he meant it that way, sounded that way. Okay. I think it's time. So I think it's walking now.

[43:00]

Is that what you wanted to say? Yeah. So walking meditation being 10 minutes in the circle. And this time it's going to go up the road, so the sun's shining maybe a little bit more on you all. And then we meet again in here for some more sishin. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[43:48]

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