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. I'd like to pick off more or less from where we left off in the last class, and that was... with this process where I was seeing this contemplation of the hindrances, the aggregates, the sense doors, the awakening factors, the path, the noble truths and the path. When you look in particular at the Satipatthana and Anapanasati, they both emphasize engaging in practice.

[01:05]

And as that starts to have its effects on consciousness, on our state of being, on how we're constructing the world, then there's a shift. There's a shift to reframing. They're reframing the experience of being. And in that shift, there's two crucial elements. One crucial element is we're less stuck in the process of repeating our habituated ways of thinking and feeling and behaving. And we're opening up a way of thinking, feeling, and behaving that supports liberation. My sentiments entirely.

[02:07]

And so here we are at that point in the practice period. However, it's a little bit like when you become your soul. I'm not yet ready. Great idea. I'll get back to him on it. So we start to engage the Dharma of liberation. Well, there's still a little bit of clinging hanging around. Just a little. Still a little bit of hang up on our favorite things that we have. to worry ourselves and cause ourselves stress with. Let me say a little bit about that regard, my own thoughts on that.

[03:12]

To come from a psychological framework, you could say, and excuse me, those of you who know psychology well, I'm going to beat it up a little bit. just by chopping it up and mixing and matching. So in one way, from our condition, from our childhood, from our family dynamic, we have our psychological template that we are inclined to reproduce. We will look around whatever situation we're in and we will find some version of our mother, our father, our brother, our sister, whoever was formative in our developmental years. I've come to learn as a teacher that when someone comes in and says, I had a real hard time with my father, to go, uh-oh.

[04:21]

Guess who's in trouble? And then also, to just develop that thought a little bit, when it becomes conscious, it can be a wonderful learning. I think of someone, and they had a very, very difficult time, with their father. And so initially they had enormous apprehension around relating to me. I'd look at them and then they'd start quivering. And they had, you know, such was the strength of their vow their tenacity, their stubbornness.

[05:27]

We worked through all that and we both learned a great deal and created a very resilient relationship. We both learned a lot from watching what came up, seeing how tenacious, how energetic it was, and then discovering, okay, Well, there's that, and what is it to practice with it? What is it to not let that be the definition of reality? So this is the request of working with the hindrances. Things will arise because this is a conditioned existence, and you had a childhood. It's pretty hard to get here without everyone. This impulse to recreate is one.

[06:35]

I don't know, not to get too locked into that way of thinking, but more if you notice something dominant. how you're relating, and you notice in yourself that even though that wonderful saying mind of yours can say something very reasonable, some other impulse comes forth dictating something entirely different. That's a good sign to watch for. I wonder, is there something at play here? And then another feature is what I think of as embedded archetypes. And maybe it's related to the first in significant ways.

[07:42]

But something comes up for us. And I'm thinking more as an individual. You know, like maybe on a particular day, there's some kind of intense mood or disposition. Positive or negative. Of course, positive ones are no problem, right? When you're just suffused with gratitude or joy or loving kindness, well, congratulations. those days of anxiety or resentment or sort of uneasy sadness. Those are more that as we sit, as we start to settle, we start to open.

[08:48]

which seems to come up more out of the subconscious, more, as I say, embedded archetypes. And then, you know, as we start to become aware of them, which is a shift from acting them out or reacting them out reacting in as that there's this sort of assertive, adamant response to the construct, to how the construct defines reality, another person, yourself. As we start to see it, as we start to settle something starts to loosen and become more pliable.

[09:54]

More pliable in that we're not just locked into reactive mode. There starts to be space for a more intentional response. There starts to be space for scrutiny, an examination. formulation I use of a classic Buddhist mode is notice, acknowledge, contact, experience. And dependent upon the state of mind. That might be you in the throes of billowing emotion you bring forth a cognitive statement.

[10:57]

I'm really angry now. I am furious at that person. I experience that person as the manifestation of evil. If that's how it is, that's how it is, you know? And sometimes it's wonderfully helpful because it sort of dispels the myth because as soon as you hear it, you think, really? In a more subtle consciousness, all that might happen, noticing, acknowledging, contact, experiencing, all might happen in less than a second. And it's more like an energy wave that has some momentum because of its emotional content.

[11:59]

But it is felt more like that. In some ways, it hasn't reified, it hasn't concretized reality so much. Noticing is that mysterious, utterly simple act of awareness. You notice the sign of the storm. It wasn't the product of great effort. It isn't the product of strenuous cognitive process. So, noticing. In some ways, that's the beginning and the end of our practice. Just this is enough. Just this is what it is.

[13:06]

This is the suchness of what is. Noticing. Acknowledging. Depend upon the state of consciousness. if the state of consciousness is more active, more agitated, more filled with thought, then this acknowledging has a stronger cognitive component, as I've just given that example. If you can interject into the throes of a strong negative emotion, a simple cognitive statement, it sounds like that's the easiest thing in the world. It's not. When you've got that momentum, when you've got that head esteem, just bringing in a cognitive statement is a bit of a challenge or a lot of a challenge. So acknowledging cognitively and letting it register.

[14:11]

I'm angry. You know? Hmm. Okay. It's almost like right there. There's a shifting happening. Contact. Getting in touch with. Okay, well there's an idea. I'm angry. Where can it be experienced? Do you experience it in your jaw? In the middle of your chest? In your gut? Do you experience it It is a vibration in your body. Experience it as an emotion. Contact, wherever, however. And then opening up to the experience. Feeling it. And in that process, there's kind of a shift from this adamantly constructed world

[15:20]

to this sensate event where the aggregates of that concretized reality are becoming felt apparent. Okay? So now, where was I? So the challenge for us, as we enter further into practice period, we start to notice more. We start to notice not only what's happening, but the role of the self

[16:25]

what's happening. We start to notice this is an interaction. We'll talk more about that later, but I want to leave it there now. And then with these arisings, and psychologically it's just one way to frame them, one way to consider them, right? And these arisings will stimulate your habituated way of understanding it, thinking about it, feeling it. And the request of practice is, as I say, this reframing. Because the habituated way almost invariably entails within it a repetition of the way you've related to it in the past.

[17:29]

And this reframing is to open the doors, open the gates, open the Dharma gates to the path of liberation. This is the notion. And as I said a few minutes ago, when you look at some of the early sutras, you see they offer a certain kind of progression. get in touch with this, get in touch with this, get in touch with this. And we could say, settle in to being the practice spirit. Settle in to following the flow and the rhythm of Sangha following the schedule. Settle in to these ongoing requests for presence in the events of the day.

[18:32]

Settle in to giving over to when the bell goes, the Han goes. You just go do it. They are loosening up the self that says, I want what I want and I don't want what I don't want. And that's how it is. And that's the way I'm going to do it. Something about that gets loosened up and has its effects. The world starts to come forth and we start to see the interplay of the arising self. And then the reframing, the first part of the reframing is charmingly called the hindrances. Personally, I have a bit of a problem with that. That's as good a translation of the word as any.

[19:36]

Personally, I have a bit of a problem with it because I think most of us, as we start to look at our own conditioning, tend towards, once we stop projecting out, we start beating up ourselves. We're not beating up somebody else. Well, then why don't we just beat up ourselves? Because actually it's not that helpful. It's more likely to leave you feeling beat up. Kind of discouraged, upset, despondent. Can they draw us into a matter-of-factness? As I said a while back, can you see the self, being the self, without taking it personally?

[20:38]

Can it be uncoupled from, am I a good person or am I a bad person? Or how can I be a good person? Can we uncouple that to just, hmm, here's what I'm working with. Here are the tendencies. What would be a skillful way to work with them? And then there's a striking contrast between how the five aggregates are laid out. If you remember, you just have desire and aversion, and then ambivalence and confusion about both, and then heaviness, and the opposite, agitation. Weighing down sloth and torpor, restlessness and anxiety. bringing us into overanimated state.

[21:40]

What's the effect? That was the five hindrances. That's the hindrances. Well, I think the very fact that the request is about a benevolent matter-of-factness around the human condition. That's really the request. Look at this. Is there a kind way to work with this that lessens the suffering and creates liberation? That's the request. Actually, it's very helpful if we can keep coming back to that in our own practice and watch your own relationship to practice.

[22:46]

When self-criticism comes up, can you just pause and be patient with that? It is the nature of mind. You direct the criticism out because that's the safest thing to do. Why blame yourself when you can blame somebody else? And then as you start to see through that, then all of a sudden you think, wow, what does that say about me then? A person who blames others. How mean, how selfish, how unkind I am. Can we remember the notion benevolent matter-of-factness in the discovery of the path of awakening? In the Satipatthana, it's actually a pretty demanding request.

[23:58]

Not only does it say, notice them, then it says, notice when they're not there which is very helpful because and even though this might seem as it is like a non-event usually in our psychological bias as we're reproducing our psychological framework from early in our life we notice the details, the experiences that affirm it. And the ones that don't, well, we toss them away. When you're constructing someone into your particular kind of father or mother, the way they affirm your model

[24:59]

you write that down five times. The way they refute it, you toss that away. When they smile, forget it. When they frime, write that five times. So it's very helpful when you note the absence. Note the presence and note the absence of a particular hindrance. And even more helpful, if you can not only note it, but note that world, what's created in that absence. What's the state of mind? What's the disposition with which you address or engage other? How does it relate to

[26:02]

arising issues in your life, how does it anticipate the future? So the absence not only has this balancing factor, you know, it starts to balance the bias of mind that only wants to reinforce what fits in its usual patterns, But it also starts to redefine the world, externally and internally. Notice when it's there, notice when it's not there. Notice how it arises. Sometimes there's Approximate cause and meaning that There's an evident Locally happening as in proximate cause whenever I'm around this person I feel Okay, so there's approximate cause the presence of this person or whenever I think of this person I

[27:25]

or whenever I'm hungry or cold or whatever. Note that conditionality. So noticing when it arises. And if you can, notice the shift in your being? How does it influence your state of mind? How does it influence how you're assessing Tassahara? your role, the people you work with.

[28:36]

Notice it as it arises and notice what it takes to let it go. I would say, in some ways, this is quite a bit. All of that. And then I would say there's two modalities of this. When it arises, when it doesn't arises, When it's present, when it's not present, how it arises and how to let it go. Then there is what you might say, the walking around version of it and the zazen version of it.

[29:53]

And by the walking around version I mean is when mind and emotions are active, and it creates a very convincing, defined reality. You might not be aware of that convincing, defined reality, but there it is. And that's where the previous formulation helps you get in touch. So within that, as I said earlier, there may be a significant... cognitive component you know it may actually be helpful to say to yourself this is what's happening and it looks like you know when that person appears I'm stimulated to respond like this like sometimes it's interesting to watch you may just look at the person across the courtyard

[31:03]

and it has an impact. Stimulate something. And when we reframe it like this, when we reframe it as an example of conditioned existence, rather than that being some kind of problem or something that's blocking your practice, it can be an informative illustration of conditioned existence. It can be showing you some of the workings of your own conditioned nature. There is a pretty formidable request in there, which is take responsibility for your own experience. Which is no small matter. so that's the Wat and the Rhyme version you know and it's wonderful to watch because especially if something is a well rehearsed experience or pattern for us we can produce it in a second you know you see the person in the courtyard boom

[32:33]

It's like it's right there. Maybe your body flinches. Or if it's even stronger, you have to look away. Or you just turn in your tracks and walk the other way. To notice, to acknowledge, to make contact, to experience. And something in that facilitates this shift from the reproduction of conditioned patterns to seeing, experiencing existence as a process that can be engaged consciously and create liberation. And this, as we start to do it, is enormously encouraging.

[33:41]

Because why are we here? Because we lived in our life and thought, I got to do something about this. This is not going so well. I got to give this some work. Got to try a few more strategies, different strategies. Something that brought us here was aspiring, was hoping for just this, a way to shift, a way to turn, a way for the nature of what is to become more evident. And I offer you that thought because if you look at it in terms of our psychological defenses, meaning that built into our psychological makeup is to try to preserve our own well-being.

[35:01]

So when something potentially harmful, painful, albeit real, are just the construct of our mind, if those two can be separated. When that is looming there, we will set up a psychological defense. Turning towards the hindrances, some part of our psychology says, Are you crazy? You're going to go there? That's so dangerous. You'll really suffer. Don't do it. Let's go over here. Where it's quiet and safe. As we experience this reframing,

[36:05]

we start to trust it. We start to see, you know, that was different from how I usually handle one of those. It feels lighter. It doesn't feel as contracted. I don't feel the residual yuckiness. And this, as we do this, not to turn this into a game of you get what you want and then you feel better, but more that we start to trust the process of the Dharma. And then as we Engage that, this impulse to keep in place our psychological defenses starts to loosen up.

[37:31]

Remember, this happens in the context of, I'm not yet ready. I'm not yet ready to be enlightened. I'll get back to you next practice period. I'll be in much better shape. But for now, even though we're not yet ready, yes, I will. Yes. study the good of ways to study the selling. And I think, you know, if you can understand these lines at the end of the coin, that's what they're talking about. And just now, he said, as we do this, our need, our urgency to go towards the fences or to go towards whatever our habitual patterns or useful ways diminishes.

[38:37]

Could that be, for example, is to forget the self? Well, you know, that's a great question, Greg. It's getting there, I would say. I would say, I was painting a picture of the walking around self as quite established. And I would say, as that loosens up, and we become more immersed in the dynamic, and that becomes more evident to us, we literally forget the self. But as long as there's a strong self-reference, and so part of what I'm saying is, don't wait until you're enlightened to start this. Start it even when there's a strong self-reference, you know? And you kind of, you know,

[39:39]

a little embarrassed by it. Start. Even though you're not ready, go for it. And then, as it draws you in, as you become engaged in it, indeed, forget the self. Thanks. Yes, Kate? Getting stuck? What about when it doesn't feel that way?

[40:57]

This is why Joshua was so revered as a practitioner, as a teacher. He didn't mature to being a teacher until he was 80. I think he started in his youth. I think he experienced many moments of stuckness. It's a little dangerous what I'm doing, saying, here's the formula, and it's a progression. It's an ABC. And start at A, and guess what? Pretty soon you'll end up at C. It's a little dangerous because our human existence, our collective existence, is so complex, so multifaceted, you know, that it's a little naive to think it's linear and just a simple progression. And who knows how many times you have to look at something, experience something for some shift or some recognition.

[42:18]

One of the amazing things that happens in our practice is one day you notice something and you think, I've been doing that for all this time and I'm just noticing it now. How on earth could that be? Now that I see it, it looks utterly evident. So there's that too. And it brings up the danger of progression is, and this is something which was the cornerstone of Dogen's teachings, practice, realization, or simultaneous. In other words, it's not a progression. We practice this moment as the totality of practice. It's not about where it's going or what it's going to produce.

[43:21]

When you're feeling your body, you feel your body completely. That's total engagement in a single act. You're not holding your breath waiting for something else. There's something about our consciousness. It's a little bit like listening to a foreign language. When you first listen to a foreign language, it's just indecipherable noise. And then somehow or another, as you keep being exposed to it and hearing it, you start to hear a familiar word. You start to... be able to recognize sounds better. You even start to be able to recognize phrases. That's how consciousness works. Repeated exposure starts to make evident what's been happening all along. The capacity to attend is enhanced.

[44:31]

to your body, as you continually do that, the capacity is enhanced. You're more able to do it. So both those are playing together. The more you experience it, the more likely you are to start noticing finer details, and the more your capacity to notice is being enhanced to. And how long will all that take? 100,000 lifetimes? So just focus on one moment. Mm-hmm. My own notion is something like this.

[45:45]

There's validity in that. I think there's a deep wisdom in Dogen's emphasis on right now is the whole story. It's the potency of being completely involved right now that stimulates the shift. And if some part of it is separating practice and realization, we're diminishing that potency. And that's why our practice will keep presenting us with moments, experiences, where it's like, okay, now hit the makugyo, be kokyo.

[46:51]

When you're not used to that, when you're not ready for it, but you have to do it, it consumes you. Or it somehow feels like it consumes you. And that's our practice. Here's another thing to consume you. And to engage willingly. And then each of these hindrances has its own modality, you know, desire, aversion, that sort of ambivalent confusion, the heaviness, and the restless agitation. And again, they offer us a way of stepping out of our usual framework and experiencing what's going on

[48:04]

in a different framework. Again, I would offer the caution, don't let it feed your negativity. This very process of taking responsibility for your experience is a challenge. If you make being here a hostile environment, Guess what? You're not going to want to come here. You're going to be much more interested in saying, no, that person's responsible for my problems. That person's doing it wrong, not me. Yes? Does it mean that we don't find fault with others or does it mean that we see what they're doing without any emotional attachment to it?

[49:30]

We're trying to see however we construe the situation, however we construct it. Just because she shuffles her feet instead of... She shuffles her feet. And the thought that comes up for me is that's poor practice. And she's a poor practitioner. And she ought to shape up and do it better. You could do it. But if you go the whole way, well then you just went the whole way.

[50:31]

And then you say, that's me. Here's an activity and here's my commentary. And maybe my commentary is four paragraphs. Or maybe my paragraph, my commentary is one phrase. Yes, we can. And sometimes we do. And then, almost sadly, we toss those moments away.

[51:33]

That was nothing special. And then you get the very same phrase, snuck in and put in the middle of Zen practicing. Nothing special? That's really special. You should really hang out in nothing special because that's very special. In our usual conditioning, when it doesn't trigger something for us, well then, what's the point? Why would you hang out there? That's not important. It's when she shuffles her feet and you're annoyed, critical. Why am I here? Nobody here can practice right. Now, that's important. That's worth hanging out with. Of course, there are situations that require something more than introspection.

[53:24]

There are. Part of the great gift of sangha held within Shingi is our sincere collective effort to create a safe environment. That we are not going to do violence to each other either in a gross way or even in a subtle way. Fortunately, it's quite unlikely we'll do violence to each other in a gross way. And it's quite likely we'll do violence to each other in a subtle way. And then... But even there, given that it's subtle, can we... Can we practice...

[54:42]

compassion. Okay, this person just did that. Rather than react, maybe I respond, but hopefully shifting from reaction to response facilitates a more thoughtful, skillful, compassionate engagement. Hopefully. And I would say that's what we're asking of each other. And we often don't do that. And then as best we can we try to make a match. And I would say it's a very significant process. of us making amends, because we're trying to weave back together this ground that's trustable, that can be trusted, that has some security, that each of us can sort of put down our defenses.

[55:58]

And I think this is the gift of Sangha. Because I do think, despite we often hurt each other in little ways. I do think to a very large degree we hold each other in a benevolent way, that we don't wish harm. That's not our intention. It doesn't mean we don't occasionally misstep, misspeak. Usually we do. As we enter the wider world, well, it's a more complex response. I would say we sustain the very same principle, the very same principle of nonviolence, but how that takes shape, what the manifestation is, may change.

[57:06]

You know? that's the difference but there again I would say I remember once I was working on something it had to do with homeless housing in San Francisco and we were in this group and someone said well let's just get angry and do something and my immediate thought was well why do we need to get angry to do that Why don't we get really thoughtful? And there was this wonderful priest, Father Louis Vittal, and being a Franciscan monk most of his life, and he was the savviest political mind I ever met. We were opposing the board of supervisors and the mayor who wanted to do something, and we wanted something else. And Father Louis Vittal, up with this great scheme, and they had lots of resources, and we had nothing.

[58:16]

They came up with this great scheme, but it came out of a joyous mind, you know? Well, you know, the supervisors, this guy will never get. But these two, I think we can work on them. I think if we come at them like this, we can get them over. And it was just so instructive to watch a proactive engagement that didn't come from rancor, bitterness, aggression. Never left his vow to be of service. I think it's possible. And I think this training really can support us in that work. notice things that are unpleasant.

[59:21]

And very occasionally, I'll notice that I'm not noticing something that's unpleasant. I feel like there's almost never anything that bad. I almost never really see anything that's pleasant. So I don't really like Zazen that much. Can I just continue noticing that? Noticing that you don't like Zazen? Yeah. What we didn't get to, or haven't got to so far, is antidotes. You know? And this is a delicate subject, given that this is the non-dual school. In the Theravadan school, it's like, you know... Of course, this is all conditioned existence. You work with it this way, that way. You've got too much of this.

[60:21]

Well, let's toss in a few antidotes. Our school is more non-dual. No good or evil. No success or failure. However, we do have appropriate response. And I interpret that to say we bring a certain practical... pragmatism to our practice. If what we're working with is entrenched, immovable, if there's some way a state of mind, a fixed attitude, then how to work with that? If you're unrelentingly sleepy and zazen, I would suggest trying a few things.

[61:22]

I've suggested that to a couple of people. Or if your mind is unrelentingly busy and distracted, I would say make your effort accordingly. And you know what I would say to you, I would say, as you start to sit, a few moments of matta, may I be well, may I be at peace, may I be at ease, just inviting something to soften. And as you practice like that, I think you can start to discover that just how you're in your body can be a kind of metta, how you're relating to the breath, how you're relating to the experience of the moment.

[62:45]

These are the subtle attributes we're trying to bring into our practice. It's that the practice of zazen, of being in the moment, is not a punishment. It's not an austerity by which we're going to be purified. It's not a punishment for our past wrongs. It's this invitation to greater being And inevitably, we will go through something like a trial and error in discovering that. We will be too loose and we'll be too tight. We'll get too goal-orientated and we'll get too vague in directing our effort. we'll try this and give it, you know, okay, this is what should really happen.

[63:52]

That's usual for most of us. Although I would say it is important to know what you're doing in Zazen and to see what happens when you do it. But even so, Almost all of us are messy enough in our own being that we roam around somewhat. But keep coming back to the core. Maybe metta, a few moments of metta. So each of these has its own attribute. And then each has its own antidote. And I want to talk a little bit about the very same thing in Zazen. So in Zazen, there's a key phrase in G.G.U.

[65:03]

Zamai, in the translation we use, it's called unconstructed in stillness. And that is staying present, staying here. It doesn't mean there isn't energy and activity. It's just that you're staying here. Stillness, stay here. Unconstructed. First, don't build major novels around your experience. Don't spin off into commentary and discursive or even just associative thought, as much as possible, each moment just itself, each experience just itself. And then the very same thing we're talking about in our walking around consciousness, the same process takes place but

[66:14]

there's much less of a cognitive component. The noticing, acknowledging, contacting an experience is happening much more on a sensate level. There isn't this kind of discursive involvement. of cognitively identifying. It's more watching how the arising experience that's grasped, how it affects the state of mind, how it affects the body, how it affects the breath, how the different attributes of what arises have some kind of energy or contraction to them. And we breathe it in and we breathe it out.

[67:17]

We sit in the middle of it, but we don't hold it up. We don't hold on to it. No, there isn't always clinging. There's some subtle, as we were talking the other night, there can be some subtle formulation. Are we always aware of it or does it involve consciousness? Did you mean was consciousness involved?

[68:20]

Yeah. In the five aggregates, you know how the fifth aggregate is consciousness? That vijnana is consciousness that arises in association with the subject created by the other four skandhas. So there's form, there's feeling, there's the perception. And then there's the formulation. And then there's consciousness of the formulation that the other four brought into being. Well, no. Then that can be... We can cling to that. We can toss it into our psychological... templates, references? Well, that was just a manner of speaking.

[69:24]

It can be associated in that way or it can be identified as conditioned existence. The degree of clinging, the degree of interjecting a self, is a variable and as awareness is present and then there's a skillfulness in how to relate to the experience, we discover that interjecting a self is not a necessary action. It's a habitual action but it's not a necessary action. It doesn't define consciousness. It isn't a necessary attribute for the moment to become conscious.

[70:26]

In the formulation of the five aggregates, which follow on from the hindrances, you have the hindrances and then the aggregates, Implicit in that is, as the tantal was saying, quoting Dogen, saying, forget the Self. When we start to see the interplay of the aggregates, there's forgetting the Self. It's something more immediate, more intimate, more in the realm of sensate and energetic, Well, when we're noticing this interplay of constituent parts, then when we're in that noticing, the self is not constructed.

[71:41]

Or as Dogen says, which I think is a wonderful way to put it, we forget. We forget to bring in a self. We forget to say, wait a minute, me? I'm what's important. This is all about me. They're shuffling like that to annoy me. That's their sole reason for doing it. No. In fact, in the early sutras it would say, with attachment, without attachment. This arises without attachment. And that's that moment. The phrase, bear attention. It's like, how much can there just be matter-of-fact noticing? Yeah.

[72:45]

If we perceive something and if we see it as an object and at the same time we've created a subject, which is, is that not a self? We create it to varying degrees. And don't forget the notion of it's a co-arising. So when the emphasis of awareness is the dynamic co-arising it's it's not a static object when we create a static object then there's a separation there's this there's that and there's this when the object of aware when the awareness is on this dynamic then breaking into subject and object

[73:55]

strictly speaking, is much more subtle. Functionally, we forget the self. And we can look at that, you know, we can look at the Buddhist teaching, but that's the gist of it. You know, and then there's refined teachings about that, which really, Dogen, as the tantal kodha, you know, when the self goes forth, when the when there's an imputed reality, well, then that taking a backward step teaches us about the self, which is what we're talking about in the hindrances. Then we shift to the aggregates, which is more neutral territory. Now we're starting to engage a dynamic. And then the next is the sense gates. And then it becomes more phenomenal.

[74:59]

But even when we get to the aggregates, when we can start to see that interplay, and what I would say to you is, in Zazen, that's more the territory we can explore. And staying in the body, staying with the sensations of body, staying aware of the coming and going of thought starts to introduce us, starts to make apparent the teaching of the advocates. There's form, there's how form, the kind of visceral response we have to form. Vedana, feeling, is a little different from emotion. Emotion is a more elaborate, developed, It's kind of like a visceral response. Sometimes we access it through just noticing pleasant and unpleasant.

[76:06]

You can watch, do you have a visceral response to the cold? And then does it give rise to a more developed emotion? or ideal. And then there's perception. The noticing, the visceral response, and then perception. And then those three give rise to sankhara, which is both the impulse to formulate a concept and the concept. In Pali and Sanskrit, the word covers both the impulse and the consequence. And then there's consciousness. That's what consciousness becomes conscious in relationship to.

[77:17]

Yes. What is the which? It is possible, but again, there is That whole process can take place in a fraction of a second. So the mind needs to be very quiet for that to go blip and go through the whole process.

[78:27]

Very quiet. Now, it needs to be quiet to just let that be an event. that doesn't expand and create other concepts, other responses, which is what usually happens in our consciousness. I mean, you can watch it, you know, like listening to the sign of the creek. You know, even for it to stay at the level of sound is a perception. To name it creek. is a more elaborate perception. Now, if we get down to the level of sound, I mean, that's a wonderful state of consciousness in terms of its perceptiveness, in terms of how it's not grasping onto fixed ideas.

[79:30]

Yeah. So these more subtle states Maybe it's helpful to know about them and maybe it's not, you know, to hold them in our thought patterns. Yes? Well, in the heritage of Zazen, And put in another folder there, Shoha Kokomura kindly sent a variety of texts. It's over there. Different people's Fukanzazengi. One very interestingly that is very close to what Dogen wrote. and he wrote a little footnote as to why he changed it.

[80:36]

So it makes interesting reading. He didn't like some of it. He didn't think it was correct. So it's interesting to see what he didn't like and what he dropped out and what he wrote instead. But they all do attend to posture. And my understanding is something like this, Stan, is that this somatic involvement is quite close to a sensate involvement, like taking in through the senses, is quite close to a way of letting the complex experiences of human consciousness register in a precognitive way. And in doing so, it loosens up the way our cognitive thought process glues the world together. Also, it has within it a utility.

[81:46]

The nature of our posture is that you can find a stable, upright posture that can be maintained. There's a yoga element to it. This posture is one that can be maintained. Obviously, if you're going to sit for 20, 30, 40, an hour, two hours, three hours, that's a requirement. Anatomically, if your chiropractor looked at your posture, you want your chiropractor to be able to say, yes, I like it. And then within that posture and within the breath, especially the breath to the tendon, the Taoist element that came in was that this facilitates the functioning of our physiology, our respiratory system, our

[83:00]

the flow of the blood circulation, even the digestive system, even the nervous system. So the very process of sitting Zazen, rather than exhausting you, can sustain a physical well-being. So all that's woven in That's my understanding. And if you look across the instructions, the traditional instructions in the Zen school, there is that kind of emphasis on the physicality of it all. Sadly, given the nature of our human tendencies, we can use anything to reify the self, anything whatsoever.

[84:17]

This is all about me is always close at hand. That's why we need to keep paying attention. Of course. You can... I can't remember all the details, but in the early canon, Shariputra, before he has a breakthrough, before he has a realization, comes to... I think it might be Ananda, I'm not too sure. But then he's complaining about... why he hasn't had a breakthrough. And he's saying, my concentration is good, my posture is good, my ethics are good, and I just haven't had a breakthrough. I just don't understand it. And Ananda says, okay, well, let's see, you've got a good share of arrogance, sir.

[85:19]

You've got a good share of aversion. You've got a good share of grasping mind. And then You know how even in the midst of your diligence you can bring forth your diligence, your sincerity, you can still flip it around. So of course you can do that with your posture. You can look around and say, my posture is the best in the room or my posture is the worst in the room. Nobody is as bad as me. attachments that it does to do with aspiring to remain in the non-doing?

[86:25]

Renouncing attachments to remaining in the non-doing. Well, I was going to emphasize that point. I was going to say they converge. You know? It's... and which one to emphasize, well, you know, what I'm doing is that, like, I'm laying a foundation, and I'm going to say, and see, Dogen said that, too. See, it's just the same, just like the Tantor said, yeah, that's the same. And then look at other koans in the Zen tradition, too. You know, and you see in different koans, you know, a version of that. Well, which one is most important? And then you watch teachers play with that question, you know? Like, say, the one that bites you on the nose, you know, or turn it on its head.

[87:29]

None of them are important. Don't grasp any of them. Or, say, this one. emphasizing wholehearted engagement. Nothing but non-attachment. Be nothing but non-attachment. That doesn't exclude the non-duo. It totally includes it. The non-duo totally includes non-attachment. How can you be attached to anything if it's just the fleeting, impermanent energy of the moment? What is there to attach to? Then it becomes skillful means, which to emphasize. Quite literally, that's the engagement of the karmic arisings.

[88:31]

Duality without attachment? On a subtle level, no. The very nature of constructing a duality is an attachment. But on another level, yes. Can you think a thought and just have no bias, just let it go? On that kind of manageable level, yeah, and we all do. And as I was saying to Margit, those are usually the ones we just pass right on through. There was no attachment. Now the one that I'm attached to, ah, sticks around. So both levels, on this level, yes, there can be non-attachment to thought.

[89:40]

On a more exacting level, of the coin through the front gate not even a gnat can pass strictly speaking anything that's held in consciousness as an element of attachment not even a gnat can pass through the back gate elephants and horses we can think of all sorts of things and just let it pass through Whatever comes up, there's still the possibility. Let it go. Let it pass. And the wind of our school is they're all our teacher. We're always a student and there's always teaching, whether it's some raging state of mind or some subtle consciousness.

[90:43]

And the gift of practicing together in a practice period is you'll probably have some version of them all sooner or later. Or somebody close to you, somebody beside you will and ask you to be responsible for it. Okay. Thank you. 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 SSCC.org and click giving.

[91:39]

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