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. That was very nice how you said good morning back. there's that chant again, you know, an unsurpassed, penetrating, imperfect dharma, rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas, having it to see and listen to. And, you know, I should confess that it might be part of my karmic deflecting, you know, which I have, but besides that, I really do believe that that this unsurpassed, penetrating dharma that we have that's hard to meet is in our bodies and our minds, even in our minds, and that it's what zazen is all about, really, what zazen is all about.

[01:19]

I think that when we sit down to do zazen, even maybe when we first sat down to do Zazen, the vow that we're taking, and for some of us, this really was not known, is I vow to be with this body in mind, this particular body in mind. So for me, it's not what I thought I was agreeing to do. I'm not real sure now what I did think I was doing, but... It wasn't that. It was some hope to make this body and mind and life better. But I think in spite of whatever we think in the beginning or now or whatever we think we're doing when we sit down in Zazen, in fact, we're taking that vow. I vow to be with this particular body and mind.

[02:23]

And why we would do that is maybe a question for us. And one of the answers, one of the ways of saying the answers is in this chant that the perfect dharma is actually manifested and available to us in this body and mind. You know, I... have a love-hate relationship with Dogen. I can't understand a lot of what he says, which makes me really like it when I think I can understand it. So one of my favorite Dogen texts is actually about this. And one of the reasons that it's one of my favorites is it's pretty simple. It seems to me pretty simple and straightforward. Of course, I'm probably... denying certain parts of it. So I want to read it to you.

[03:28]

I brought it. Just a little background. He uses this phrase, stained and unstained. So I just wanted to say something about what I think he's talking about there, which fits into why Zazen, this vow to be with this body and mind is important. So stained in this context, I believe, is that we are, as human beings, we are stained with a belief that there's another possible reality, that in any given moment, that things could be different. And they could be different in two important ways.

[04:29]

The one way is I could be different. Like I could be a better person. I could be all the wonderful things that we could be. I could be stronger. I could be smarter. And then the other side of that is that if I could be different, then I could have an effect on other things. Essentially everything, but for sure certain things. If I was a better Zen student, Christina would like me better. If I were a better cook, my husband would like me better. If Michael were a better cook, we'd all like him better. So things like that that we see the logic of. It seems like it would be possible to change myself into a better Zen student, into a better cook, into a nicer person, into somebody who studies more.

[05:38]

I just want to see what I wrote down when I was in my room. Yeah, that this... Basically, the stain is that there's another possibility than the one that's here, and it appears in these two ways. I could change myself, and then by changing myself, by doing what I'm doing better in some way, like telling you more skillfully or maybe telling you louder what I think needs to change about you. to make my life better, basically, so that everything will work better for me. So that's the stain that we have. I think it comes, at least it looks to me, from the people I know, and it's true, a rather limited bunch, but it looks pretty human. That's a human quality.

[06:40]

We have this idea, and it's rooted in... kind of technically rooted in this belief that there's something here that can be found and helped and fixed and protected and essentially gotten a hold of, you know, grasped. There's something here that you can do that with, you can do all those things with. So that's the kind of... Buddhist way of talking about it. Is there a graspable self? So then Dogen talks about being unstained in this wonderful quote. So let me read it to you. Some of you have heard it several times from me. To be unstained does not mean that you try forcefully to exclude intention or discrimination. or that you establish a state of non-intention or non-discrimination.

[07:45]

Being unstained cannot be intended or created at all. Too bad. Being unstained is like meeting a person and not considering what he looks like. And it is like not wishing for more colors or brightness when viewing flowers or the moon. I mean, it's not that we do that all the time. Like some people we meet and we wish they looked differently. Sometimes we look at flowers and we think, not good enough. But sometimes I imagine all of us have had the experience of seeing flowers in the moon and then being just fine. Whether they were good or not so good, we didn't really care. They were just like, there they were. Those were the flowers, that's the moon. And this person that is fine with us, maybe they have to be somewhat distant from you. They're just the checkout person in the store.

[08:49]

But there is somebody who we don't care what they look like. For all of you, right? I'm sure there is. OK. Spring has the tone of spring, and autumn has the scene of autumn. There is no escaping it. So when you want spring or autumn to be different from what they are, notice that they can only be as they are. When you want to keep spring or autumn as it is, reflect that it has no unchanging self. This is a simple quote from Dogen. Pretty good Dogen could write so clearly, isn't it? Who knew? To be unstained does not mean that you try forcefully to exclude intention or discrimination or that you establish a state of non-intention or non-discrimination. Being unstained cannot be intended or created at all.

[09:53]

That's maybe the hardest sentence in this. Being unstained is like meeting a person and not considering what he looks like and like not wishing for more color or brightness when viewing the flowers or the moon. So, you know, we don't know how to do that. It comes very naturally to us. It's very simple. But we don't actually know how to do it. When we look at someone and we wish that they would smile instead of frown or, you know, anyway, all the myriad things that we can wish about somebody, we don't really know how to stop it. We say, let go of that. If we remember, if we think about it, if we notice that this is causing suffering for ourselves and maybe for the other person if they know or if they feel that something about them is unsatisfactory to us, if we notice that and we remember, oh, there's this option of not feeling that way,

[11:18]

Even then, even if we get that far, which is a lot farther than we often get in our everyday life where it's just clear to us, they should be different. Even then, we don't know what to do. We talk about letting go. It's a rare experience where we actually let go and the thing goes away. We can still let go. We can let go over and over again. But as Christina said yesterday, She didn't say it quite like this, but basically letting go is really just letting be. And whether it goes away or not is dependent on more than us. It can't be intended or created at all. Still, if we remember, we can open our mind, open our hands. and loosen our grip, anyway, on the idea that they should be different, on the idea, the feeling that things should be different.

[12:23]

This is the hardest to do with ourself. It's really hard to just let whatever is appearing here be what's appearing. That's why it's so easy with the clerk in the store. You know, so what? What they look like. You know, but get a little closer, you know. Get to your daughter, and she's wearing something outrageous outfit, you know. Well, it's a little harder. Just like, just let go, okay. It's just, you know, there she is, just manifesting. But, you know, and then when it gets to, you know, really close, namely our... Closer, closer, many. There are various people that you probably know. You care what they think. Our parents, our children, our spouses, partners. And then the most important person, ourself.

[13:31]

We really, really want this person to be, if we're honest about it, perfect. Perfect. We might say, well, I don't have to be perfect in every way, but whatever ways we pick out, it's really important to stop doing that or to be more this. So this being unstained and sazen and the vow of I vow to be with this person, this particular karmic person. All those are connected. And even though it's so simple, it's pretty complex. I think we vow to be with this person to find out several things.

[14:37]

Is it possible to just be with this person? Is it possible to be unstained, to not believe that there could be a different person here if I just tried hard enough, if I just found the secret? Is it possible to do that? Is it all right to do that? We have a pretty deep training that our job is actually pretty much the opposite of that. Our job is to make ourselves into something that will be... helpful, lovable, happy, many things that our parents who loved us and our society that wants to make sure we line up right have instilled very deeply in us. Get yourself together. So is it actually all right to just be open to

[15:39]

What arises here? Is it safe? Is it safe for ourselves and is it safe for other people? What if we do mean things? Which we all have, or at least I, have a reason to wonder given the thoughts and feelings that come up over here. What if I just like are open to those? Is that going to be safe for the people around me? And if it isn't safe for them, is it going to be safe for me? What is their reaction going to be if I actually show them who I am? So I think there are some reasons why it's important to do this in spite of those questions being there. I mean, I think those questions only get answered in the doing of it.

[16:44]

So here's some reasons why we should go ahead and try it, even though we're not quite sure whether it's safe or allowed or possible to do it. The biggest one is And maybe the only one is, there really isn't any other place to be. This whole stained thought, this whole thought that we're stained with, that there is another me, is not really true. So, you know, it's not that we don't change. We do change. We change all the time. And in fact, if I'm open to this one, that's one of the major things that we see. This one keeps changing, or this one is so changeable that there... You can't even get a hold of it to say it's this. It's this and this and this and this. So that's the major reason. All of our imagining and wishing and fearing and hoping are just a little bit beside the point.

[17:56]

There is something being manifested right now and right now and right now. And the best place to interact with that happens to be right here. And right here in an open-hearted way so that we can interact with it in an accurate way. If we're bringing in a vision of who I should be and immediately, you know, there it is. That's who I want to be. You know, not matching up. Not good. Start crossing things off. You know, start, you know, okay, this part, give them grades or, you know, F, F, B, C, you know, cultivate this part. Got to get rid of this part somehow. Well, what should it look like? Oh, yeah, right, like that. You know, there's very little communication going on with what's really over here.

[19:00]

You know, what is that part that we've just said F? Who knows? We haven't had the time to settle into it yet. So this is the only one. If we really want to interact with reality, we have to get here. And the rest of reality, all of you, for me, and everything else... I can only experience it from here. So to have an accurate, as accurate as it can get from this body and mind experience of you, I have to be here to receive that. I have to be with the me that's created in your presence when you do that. So it's crucial.

[20:03]

It's just crucial, really, that we somehow get unentangled from this stain, get unstained, and we don't know how to do it. So we have something like this mysterious practice, where we sit down in some posture, and any old posture that you take is going to become old after a while. So we sit down in some posture, and we try to stay there. And we have lots of ideas about what we're supposed to be doing while we stay there. We're supposed to count our breath. We're supposed to stay awake. We're supposed to be calm. We're supposed to be working on something. That's fine. Mostly, given how much we're sitting here at Tassajara, you're not able to maintain that. You can do it for some amount of time, but probably sometimes you can't do it.

[21:04]

So then, are we really doing zazen? What are we doing here? It takes a lot of trust to sit down time after time after time and not know what you're doing. It takes a lot of trust to do any of this. It takes a lot of trust to take this vow, I'm going to be with this one. This kind of trust, maybe any trust, but definitely this kind of trust, is not something that we can talk ourselves into, I believe. At least I haven't been successful at talking myself into it. I think it's something that we experience little by little. Is it trustworthy to do this? And that Tassar is a really good place for doing that. You know, we've... We've taken away all the sharp implements.

[22:08]

Mostly, we can hurt each other, we do hurt each other, but mostly not too badly. We have to be quiet so much of the time. That's really good for not hurting each other. We've instilled the most power in a rotating abbot, in somebody who comes here to lead the practice period, who probably doesn't really care whether you're a good kitchen crew member. So if the Tenzo gets mad at you and wants to fire you, which has happened here before, where the Tenzo has fired somebody, and it didn't really go that way. It's like... You know, it was a problem. There were problems to be dealt with. So, you know, it's not set up like, you know, you're going to lose your room if you don't pay your rent.

[23:15]

You know, if you don't come to the Zendo, we're putting your stuff outside the gate. You have to pay your rent somehow. No food for you, you know, like in those Chinese monasteries. No work, no food. for real. No, it's not like that here. Actually, we're here to see, is it trustworthy to be who I actually am right now? It's such a sensitive, complex, simple thing that we're working on. Several people actually have talked to me about this double bind that we're being put in about take care of your body and follow the schedule. And I said, yeah, it's kind of a double bind, but it's a necessary double bind because of this complex stain that we're caught in, you know, this complex view of a me that I can somehow protect and take care of and that, you know, kind of goes...

[24:30]

Berserk at times. And we really don't know how to understand it. So, you know, should I go to Zazen or shouldn't I? I've said here before, you know, I have learned do not ask that question early in the morning. Don't ask it. It is like suffering, just opening the door to suffering. Do I want to go to Zazen this morning? No, don't ask it, you know. Just, and this... You know, may not be easy, and I don't know. You may have a different way of dealing with it. I'm not really saying this is just something to try in this difficult double-bind situation. You know, okay, here I am. I signed up for the practice period. I'm going to Zazen. You know, if I get up and I then fall back into bed or, you know, any number of things, can't get up or without thinking about it, just, you know, the wave comes over you of something, maybe you're not going to Zazen that morning.

[25:35]

But to ask that question, it's really hard because of this. So again, I'm not saying that may not be your way of dealing with it, but I think the double bind is actually intentional. We are in a double bind. We really believe in a self. not just a self. I mean, we have a self. I can tell the difference between me and Rachel most of the time. But we think that we really believe we have a graspable self. We have a self that we can get a hold of and do something to effectively change it, do it. And to entertain the possibility that that's not so is deeply frightening to us.

[26:39]

It really is. It's like, wait a minute. If I can't find myself and change it somewhat, what does that mean? What... What can I do? Nothing and everything. Nothing and yet minute by minute we're having a big effect, right? We're embedded in this very alive universe-wide mandala where every little move we make has an effect and that's all out of my control. Pretty scary and not quite true. It's not like we can't decide not to say something to someone or decide to say something to someone. And that decision or that feeling or that thought all are part of the very alive mix.

[27:44]

They all have an effect. So this is a double bind. We are really having an impact, and yet... we can't quite control our impact. That's why a situation like this that gives us an even bigger double bind, both take care of your body but follow the schedule, but also sit down and sit still with yourself. That's a double bind too. That's the same kind of double bind. How can I stand to be with myself if I'm stuck here? How can I stand to be with myself if I'm stuck here in this posture which hurts? You know, this situation, this posture, this framped valley, you know, with these people is bringing up parts of myself I don't want to be with. Why don't I just go someplace that's nice? Remember back when you thought it was nice here?

[28:48]

Maybe you still think it's nice here. It's your delusion. Live it up. So there's this well-crafted, over thousands of years, here is this well-crafted, over thousands of years situation where we can sit down not knowing what we're doing, walk around not knowing what we're doing, but in a fairly simplified way. and start getting familiar with what's happening here. Start finding out, is it okay? Is it okay to be me? What's going on when I am angry about that? What's going on when I feel so tired? What's going on when many, many, many things?

[29:49]

Not that getting the answer is the answer, but The trust is the answer. And because we have brains and thoughts, and they are also effective, they have an impact, so they need to be included, it's really helpful for us to see a little bit of what's going on in the way that we see it. It's probably very simplified for what's really going on, like chemically. with our atoms and cells and all that, but still, we get some idea that we can understand, like, oh, and I get so angry about that. Part of what's going on is, I'm really scared. When we see something like that, the main impact of that is it increases our trust. It makes it evident to part of us, the thinking part of us, and maybe also the feeling heart part of us, that

[30:53]

I'm not just an evil person. I don't just hate or I don't just have to lash out. It brings forth some more understandable, something we can feel compassion and connection with. So it's very important for that reason because it helps us trust that even though we don't know what's going on, we don't know how to live our life fully and with an open heart still. maybe it really is true the best place to do that from is here the best place to like take a step from is as close as i can get to this body mind so let me stop there and see if you have any thoughts questions statements You don't.

[32:00]

I'll go on. Yes, Michael. Thank you for your talk. It always comes up for me when we start talking about this only being one person. This is kind of the only situation that will be happening right now. There's only one now. It starts to feel like the universe is a like a robotic machine that someone will push start on. And although I feel like I'm actually engaging in what's going on, that it's all kind of really predetermined. That there isn't that element of will that's really impacting anything. Even if it's to a tiny bit, but it always feels like... Even if the will is to a tiny bit, impacting to a tiny bit. It feels like we're talking about predestination.

[33:00]

Yeah. I know what the Buddha was talking about. Yeah. That's good. Thank you. I just wanted to bring up that as far as, you know, maybe some commentary. No, that's very good. Very good, because that is definitely not what I mean to be sane. And the way it isn't that way is that Even our will, yes, is impactful. It's just that it doesn't necessarily have the impact that we want. So everything is alive. There isn't any robot happening here. There isn't any plan out there. I think this is Buddha's teaching, and more and more I believe it to be true. And the phrase that Buddha used was dependent co-arising. Basically, everything is impacting everything. And therefore, everything we do, including wanting to change ourself, has an impact.

[34:09]

It's just we can't be totally sure what impact it's having. It's not really trustworthy to put our trust into some vision that we have of ourself that we're going to make ourself into. Because trying to enact that vision might be exactly going in the opposite direction. So it's, you know, it's a double bind. It's really, you know, like, okay, well, what do we trust? Well, we might as well trust this because this is what we've got. But is that, how can we do that? You know, but what else are you going to do? You know, hang by your, into the sky, you know, just like reach up there and grab something and hang on to it. Trust that. It's kind of what we're doing a lot. So, yeah, it's a scary situation, and it's not predetermination by something. According to Buddha, it's leaderless.

[35:13]

There's not a big somebody in the sky leading it. Buddhism is not opposed to Christianity, but it's a little tricky how you work all that out, and I kind of haven't taken it up. Yeah. Yeah. It's all happening. Yeah. but then there you are sitting on the sofa doing nothing. How much fun is that? Back into my karmic river, everyone's karmic river, that action is inherited somewhere in the future in some sort of way, even though I can't really draw a circle around how it will manifest.

[36:19]

That's right. There will be Michael sitting on the sofa in all of our lives. Did somebody over here have their hand up? Yes, show them. And the awareness of it might include, is this suffering or not? And I heard you saying, you know, trusting it and it okay to be this, do whatever it is. And the part that I want to ask about is, And this is a tough one, right? Because it's trying to put a boundary on the trust.

[37:19]

Maybe that's a, what about doing no harm? And I hear you saying take on both the sharp elements so that maybe we can trust and see, oh, that hurt. That hurt, or maybe that hurt me. But I wonder about I don't think it's a limit. I think it's if we settle and are open-hearted to who we are, I think when... those situations come up where we are going to hurt somebody or where we have hurt somebody or that, as you said, we actually, a lot of what we get more in touch with is what is suffering.

[38:31]

Not necessarily with a verbal answer or a mental answer, but with an actual experience of this is suffering. And the second noble truth, that it's flexible. Like there's a way to have it be less suffering, which might be to back off a little bit or to go forward. There's not a laid out answer for that, but there's some sense of this suffering is not solid, is not just like this always. It's even that way. I mean, that's one of the things about Sashin, for me anyway, like the to get really, really close to the pain, there's a flow to the pain. It's not just, there's the pain. It's got some movement to it, and it's affected by my breathing and by, I don't know what, by my attention.

[39:38]

So I think our interactions with people and how we are meaning how much suffering do we cause, is impacted by our... Awareness is tricky. Awareness is really a good, effective thing. It has a big impact on us to be aware of something. If we notice that we're causing suffering, it's very different than if we don't notice. Immediately it's different. But we can't quite put our trust in that either. It's not our awareness. It's this big, alive universe that we are part of that is really where we have to settle. We can't just settle on our awareness. We have to just settle. And we don't know how to do that. So our awareness is a big help for that. But if we start thinking, I have to be aware, it gets the same kind of suffering can happen around awareness as...

[40:45]

can happen around everything else. Thank you for including that. Yes, Allison. What if I'm actually not better? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. In fact, as a non-priest, I think that's actually the reason to be ordained, to prove that. To prove that even though you expect better, this is as good as it gets. And it's still the question, is that okay? Just... You know, many of you have heard me say this. I was once in a meeting at Green Gulch where it was when Mel at Berkeley and Les K. Kanando and Bill Kwong at Sonoma Mountain were ordaining their first people in their sanghas, which is like a

[42:06]

big deal for a sangha to suddenly have one person, the teacher, be the ordained person, and then some other people are going to get ordained? What does that mean? These sanghas were all struggling with that, and Zen Center went through it years and years before, so we had this meeting to talk about what is a priest as opposed to a dedicated layperson. A lot of people, the teachers and the senior people of those groups met in the Green Girls Library, and we went around the room and said what we thought was the difference. And there were many answers, most of which I can't remember. I don't remember what I said. I remember that Bill Kwong yelled, quats! And for all I know, quats. He's yelled that in several situations. And for all I know, that may be the right answer, but I didn't understand it. So the one that I liked the best and I thought was the truest, Reb, one of my teachers, said, he said, I think it's expectations.

[43:14]

I mean, we said, you know, like they wear an OKC. Well, some lay people wear an OKC. And they shave their heads. Well, you know. Lots of people have shaved heads, and some priests don't, and they're more dedicated to practice. Some of us didn't like that. None of us actually liked it, or almost nobody liked it. So Reb said, I think when a person is ordained, there are expectations. They have expectations of themselves, and other people have expectations of them. It doesn't mean that they can fill those expectations, but the expectations, as we were just saying, actually have an impact. And they have a variety of impacts. Probably you do some things different because you're ordained and people have expectations. And some of those things are probably beneficial to others and maybe to you also. And then they maybe have negative impact too of feeling like I can't live up to these expectations. So I think it's...

[44:18]

It's meant to be a helpful thing. And, you know, in your case, I'd listen really, really closely about whether that's what they're really saying. So I think, yeah, that I think that this ordaining thing is very similar to the sitting zazen thing. We don't know what it is. It's a double bind. It's perfect. You know, it's like You decide you want to be ordained. You go through a whole lot of trouble to get there. You ask somebody. You ask them again. You ask them again. If eventually they say yes, you sow an okesa. You have a ceremony. This is the easy route. There's all the other things that are going on. Then you get ordained and you think, now I'm a priest. And then you think, what is that? It's just like all of ourselves. Now I'm Leslie. What is that? It's just, you know, done up and a little more stuff to work with.

[45:24]

A little few more props to say, what is this? Is this trustworthy? I don't know. I went to a lot of work to get here. So, yeah, I think it's a really good, you know, I'm going to say testing ground for trust. Don't believe your thoughts. Or at least not some of them. Yes. Yes, Edie. I'm going through a similar thing. You just have to come here and say, I shouldn't have talked about that. But in the last 24 hours, I have been getting more and more tired, despite having to rest and feeling kind of beaten down. Yeah. It's a lot easier just to follow the schedule and do what I'm doing and I'm talking around and thinking and saying, what am I doing while I'm at the wrong bed.

[46:27]

I'm really not physically all that tired, but mentally I'm just spent. Oh, good. Yeah. But that's the point at which I lose trust. I feel like I'm just going into the earth. Yes, yes. Good. Because I think the point where trust can expand is right at the edge of losing trust. It's like when we feel like this is not trustworthy, I don't think this is okay. And I would just say at that point, as Christina said yesterday, be a Buddha, stay awake. Try to have a little crack in your certainty that this is not okay and have it be a question. Is this okay? Because this kind of thing, it's kind of deep. Thank you. What is that?

[47:53]

Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. I don't know. It's not that, and it is all that, right? Like, it's all of that, but it's not like a particular part of that, and especially it's not a particular part of that because all those parts, you know, what you think, what you feel, what you think other people think, even the sensation, gets this, I think of it as like a thread or sometimes it's more like a cable of self-clinging running through it. So those are all fine things existing in the universe and they're all Buddha and they're all part of what makes the world run and makes this great alive mandala and it's got this stain running through it that says, this is bad because it's painful to me. You know, and it should be more like this. So that's what makes it not so unbelievable.

[48:57]

How does one discern at what point, okay, this is painful enough to actually, is that? For me, it's very easy to keep going down the road of, okay, just keep doing it. And then often at the end of the decision, I go, oh, I am super depressed or super, Yeah. [...] You know, I think there really isn't any easy answer. You just have to. Christina's got one. The sentence at least. Okay. Yeah. I think if we are taking this vow, I vow to be with this karmic being, and we've gotten a little bit familiar with, or we do pretty quickly get a little familiar with, oh, this is suffering, oh, this is causing more suffering.

[50:12]

We just do our best. And I don't think you get as far down that road. You know, yeah, you might go too far some direction thinking you're doing the right thing. I'll just do this, I'll just do this, I'll just do this. And then, you know, it's a pretty, that's one reason why Tassar is a good place. It's pretty contained, you know, and you can't do, it's not that you can't do any damage here. And in fact, you know, I think there are some people who shouldn't even be here, mainly people who can go into a trance and... not notice what's going on in them, right? Who might think that's zazen and be able to do that. That's the main people I think shouldn't be here. There are a lot of other people who choose not to be here or live don't allow them to be here, whatever. But for most of us, we're not going to get too far out. Not that we won't encounter some pretty scary stuff, actually. Yes, Christina, would you mind? I think that there's a way or a way to find out without having gone before this way or before that way.

[51:32]

That's why it's called leaving the leg. You can only know what's leaving the leg when you know what's on the leg and how boring right is that boring the leg. So I think there's no guarantee and I think the trust thing of who can use is there's guarantee if I trust right then I don't think that I won't. We press the one here, this or that. So we're not sure anymore of it. So we have a package. And that's available to kind of have a sounding board. And press it and see what comes back in bed, see what gets the board inside here. Thank you very much.

[52:43]

And yes, it's not that the practice leader is going to tell you, but when you go there, It's very amazing how much different you sound when you say your thoughts out loud to somebody else, to yourself. You say something different than the ones you've been, even if you say the same thing over and over, and then you go to the press leader and you say it, something shifts. So, yeah, thank you very much. Yes, Chris. I mean, yes, Chris. Yes. Yeah.

[53:59]

Yes. Just stop it for a while. You know, it might stop, but I recommend the best way to deal with them is open-heartedness and some curiosity, but not too much curiosity, not so that you get in there and question them about where did you come from and what do you really want, but more just like an attitude of, whoa, what's going on here? You know, they are not a mistake, but they aren't necessarily saying what the words they're saying. That's what I believe. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[55:01]

Mm-hmm. Well, they're probably both a mixture. You know, like the one that seems more spacious, I imagine that's the one that just kind of gets up and goes to the Zendo. You know, there may be some wanting to please in that, too. And in the other one, there may be some sadness that needs to be taken care of or needs to be met or something. So, again, I think best is just okay. I'm going to be here, confusing though it is. Jane. There seems to be some kind of, and I don't have the words for it, but the difference between trusting your experience and believing your experience,

[56:07]

or in other places, trust your intuition when our intuition is so often based on rejection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when I say trust, or anyway, when I say it and I'm thinking about what I'm saying, it's more like settled or... resting and not resting like you know laying back but just like like being here fully it's not so much like a belief or a you know like this is the way it is because mostly it's too complicated to say that you know it's not that we don't you know something happens and we have a view and we put it out there and sometimes that's just great you know it's really the wonderful But to say, I trust that, it's like, where did that come from?

[57:23]

Why, at that moment, was it the right moment to speak up and say this thought that came into your mind, you know? But to say, I'm willing, you know, I'm here, I'm, yes, and part of me is arguing with it, and part of me is resisting, and part of me is, but still, even if I'm resisting, hey, resistance is happening. What's resistance? How does resistance fit in? Again, not questions like, I'm going to answer these questions, but to be dedicated to, okay, this is the life I'm living, even though I don't know what that is. Yeah, I agree. Believing our experience or believing our intuition is all... It gets a little... I mean, these are just words, right? So you have to use words, and the words are not any of them right.

[58:25]

So in some context, that might be the right words. But any stickiness about it is stickiness. It's not moving as fast as life is moving. It's trying to hold on to some part of it. Greg. And I think that'll be the last one. Thank you very much for your talk. You're welcome. I'm curious about, you know, bow is a birth, an active birth, an action.

[59:26]

What is the operative thing that, you know, I bow? How to bow? You know, in some ways, that's the wonderful, horrible thing about zazen is it's very, you know, in zazen, it's like really kind of nitty gritty physical. Like I vow to be here means can I take one more breath in this posture, in this, you know, with this leg, with this neck or something. And then, you know, if we say, no, I'm going to move, fine. Then, you know, can I take one more breath? with that neck, with that, you know. So there's a real way to enact that vow. In some ways, I think vow is also, it's like an attitude. Like, I'm going to do this.

[60:27]

I'm going to try as hard as I can to stay with this body-mind. And I don't know how to do it. And yet, there are these little ways that we can actually, like, stay there once in a while. Not always, you know, gone. But sometimes, eventually, we remember and come back. Okay, I vow to be with this. So, thank you. Okay. Thank you all very much. 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.

[61:22]

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