It's... Was there a little clock over there that you could have?

[05:36]

Unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect unwrap is greatly met with even than a hundred thousand million couples. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept I rose to taste the truth of the Tathagatha's word. Good evening. Can you hear in the far corners? Okay? Okay over there?

[07:30]

Yeah? So I'm here at Tessahara teaching a workshop that I called The Practice of Awakening. The title occurred to me for a couple of reasons. One is that, to my mind, awakening is the central activity of Buddhist practice, in particular Zen practice. And that when we awaken and see the nature of what is, it sets us into a kind of a virtuous cycle. who we are and how we are makes more sense to us.

[08:32]

And we start to see and learn from who we are and how we are, how to live a life harmoniously and not to be caught up in so much struggling, suffering. And then the other motivation was, two other motivations. One was, my thinking is this, you know, each country that Buddhism has established itself in, that establishing in the country embraced the mores of the time. and the place. I remember being in India about ten years ago and noticing the difference, there's a lot of poverty in India, and noticing the difference between those who were destitute and through just the many causes and conditions, didn't have a place to live.

[09:54]

and the contrast between them and the mendicants who were on a spiritual quest. And that struck me as, oh, that was a common event in the time of Shakya Vinay. Maybe there are mendicants roaming through the streets of San Francisco. They're a little hard to recognize now. And then similarly in China, Buddhism adapted itself to Confucianism and Daoism. And so, with an absolute foolish arrogance, I thought, well, what is the Dharma? What is the skillful context that facilitates the Dharma here in the West?

[11:00]

Maybe the West means Tassajara, the Bay Area, California. I think it just died. Should I talk back again? That was one reason to explore that. I often feel like Tassajara has this heritage of monasticism from China and Japan. It's probably a thousand-plus years old. As Michael was echoing the Han, I was thinking, oh, maybe that's been the tradition for the last thousand years. And so how do we revere that tradition?

[12:12]

There's a wonderful saying that I like. It's revere the flame, not the ashes. We're not revering some golden, some golden fable about how wonderful things were in the past. But something comes out of that that we've inherited, a kind of aliveness that we can use to engage the human condition. In some ways, the very teachings of Shakyamuni 2,500 years ago are still completely relevant in today's time. So that's the first reason. And then the second reason was it was a wonderful opportunity to teach with Jonah, who, his day job is a professor at Stanford, but his

[13:26]

spiritual quest has been a steady influence on his life, and some of his teachers outside the Buddhist world are Angelus Ariane, Michael Mead, David White. So to enter into an environment where people expect us to know what we're going to say and do, and then to discover how to be appropriate in that context. And as I say, I think it's one very small contribution to discovering what the Dharma is in the West, what Zen practice is in the West.

[14:34]

And we've just finished our first full day of the workshop. So it has a lot more to teach us, I hope. And what I'd like to do is relate to the workshop, sort of like plunge into the heart of it, and then work out from there. Today, for instance, we offered some teachings in... I would say the appropriate... appropriate equivalent phrase in our literature is, all my ancient tangled karma I now fully avow.

[15:43]

And so what we were trying to do in the workshop today was to ask questions of the participants in the workshop that would help them see, well, here is my conditioning. The first question, and then we offered it in a particular modality where you repeatedly get asked the question and you repeatedly see what answer comes up. And the first question was, What do you want? If we look at the Four Noble Truths, in many ways the foundation of early Buddhism, what do you want has a resonance with the nature of how we get ourselves into difficulty, how we lose our harmony with being.

[16:53]

And then in a wonderful, blatant way, we avow our karma. We avow what we want and implicit in that is what we don't want. And implicit in both of those is a way in which we're attempting to make our life rewarding, to make our life feel satisfying, to make our life have the quality of being that brings us joy and ease. And then how do we relate to what we want? Can we relate to it with the kind of... foolishness, you know, knowing that allowing that to be a driving force in our life just brings us more difficulties to our life.

[18:22]

And yet when we can see how the formulations of our own being in terms of what we want, we can start to be educated by them. Sometimes underneath, when we explore underneath what we want, we see the more superficial wanting. It's often the kind of wanting we energize. But as we see in a more thoughtful way, more deeply into the nature of wanting, we can see a deeper kind of wanting. But in some ways, we could, I think, legitimately say, well, we want to awaken. We want to live in harmony with all being.

[19:28]

We want to live in a way that causes less affliction and more joy and ease. So that's one question we asked today. And maybe we'll ask it some more. But probably we'll think up of different ones. And then... The other way that we try to take apart the self, as Jonah mentioned, an exercise that he'd done once, which was five aspects of being, cultural, familial, expertise, gender,

[20:29]

sexual orientation. And the last one, if I remember correctly, was what's, apart from those, what's an aspect of self that's significant and important to you? Did I get that right? Thanks. And then he created this image of removing each one of those from your life? How does that feel? What does that look like? What does that bring up? It reminded me of a saying by young men, a teacher, a mere 1,200 years ago, a Zen teacher. He said, body exposed to the golden wind.

[21:34]

The more we explore who we are, not so much as a single identity, but as the product of a certain kind of conditioning. What was the cultural conditioning that's prevalent within you How does it shape you? And then familial, what came from your family heritage? Your ethnicity? Your indigenous religion? So each of these offering something. But what I'd like to do in plunging more deeply, I'd like to use a poem that somebody gave me, and I can't even remember who.

[22:45]

And the poem is from the Institute of Poetic Medicine, and the author is John Fox. I'd never heard of Poetic Medicine Institute or John Fox before. The poem is called Listening Is. Listening is the plumb line. Listening is the fulcrum. Listening is the hinge. Listening is the plumb line with which I build the home. What is the intentionality? What is the true line of engagement that helps you feel at home? You know, there's an old saying that says, wherever you are, there you are.

[23:56]

Can you feel at home wherever you are? What is that plumb line? What is that true line? You use a plumb line to get the exact vertical so that when you're building, your building is square. What is the true line of practice? Your engagement in practice in a way that stimulates your capacity to be at home. Listening is the fulcrum. With it, I roll away this stone. But what helps you? What kind of intentionality helps you relate to your conditioning in a way

[25:02]

that it can move, that rather than it being a solid mass to which you're always compliant, that it can, how do you leverage it in a way that it can shift? And I suspect that almost all of us have done that I suspect that almost none of us, with few exceptions, were born into a household where we were told as a child, and you should be practicing Zen. You should be down at that Zen center. We've moved something of the weight of our acculturation, of our familial embeddedness, the prejudice embedded in the generations of our family.

[26:18]

We've learned how to move them. The third listening, listening is the hinge. With it, I open up again. What in you facilitates opening? Before the Dharma talk, we do a chant, and in that chant we say, I vow to hear the Dharma. Is that it? What is the hinge, the pivot point, to use a traditional Zen phrase, that allows you to turn from what you grew up as and now find the opening that allows something in you to expand?

[27:32]

something in you to be moved by what young men calls the golden wind. The golden wind is just a phrase, a poetic phrase, talking about the virtuous influence of practice and the very practicing of that virtue. And then the poem continues. Listening sings a lullaby. Listening dances far into the night. Listening writes the language of being present. Listening sings a lullaby. With it I soothe my heart. There's a way in which our struggling becomes a deep part of us.

[28:43]

And part of the challenge of skillful practice is how do we soothe our struggling nature? How do we help it to feel at ease? What is the lullaby of allowing the body and the breath and the mind and the disposition of heart? What is the lullaby that allows them all to find their ease? Is it patience? So within the poem, The poet is shaping the questions. He's shaping and offering images that hopefully, as in the poetic institute, that they will be medicine.

[29:56]

How do we enable that for ourselves? You know, it's so easy to think of practice as something we should do. Or maybe we even have a relationship to practice where we think, well, I meditate every morning. And somehow that will ensure us of enlightenment or awakening. But actually, The subtle workings of the self are what appear when we practice awareness, what appear when we sit in uprightness and bear witness to what's happening in the moment. How do we greet that?

[30:59]

And the knack is to remind ourselves that awareness is awareness of what's already happening. It's not what we choose to make happen. That's adding something extra. That's adding self-preferences. And so bearing witness, listening, being aware of what's happening in the moment, is the golden wind of practice. And it's also the lullaby with which we soothe our heart. Listening dances far into the night. With it, I stay as long as you need. We can be over-occupied by the nature of ourself.

[32:11]

And sometimes we need to engage someone else's needs, maybe everyone else's needs, that that shift of engagement can let us see a broader spectrum of of light, a broader spectrum of what happens in the human condition than just our own limited version of it. Although there's part of me that wishes he had of written, listening sits zazen far into the night. But he didn't. Listening writes in the language of being present.

[33:12]

With it you know I am here. I remember many years ago I read a study where in this study they were going to see the effects of mindfulness and applied mindfulness on depression. And so in the study, they taught people how to be mindful, how to be present and aware. And then they discovered that before they moved on to the second part of the study, which was giving them exercises to do, that the very act of being aware alleviate and lighten their depression.

[34:21]

Listening writes in the language of being present and teaches in the language of being present. And the learning happens. Listening creates holy space. Listening sets aflame what is no longer needed. Listening preserves what matters to you. Listening creates holy space. With it, there is no silent communion. There is, excuse me, there is silent communion. Listening creates holy space. With it, there is silent communion. Those moments where something in us quiets and we hear and see what's happening in the moment.

[35:34]

And something connects. There's a kind of an information exchange that goes beyond our cognitive mind. And I think it's interesting, as this poem develops, that in the third verse it gets to that holy space. Because I think sometimes we're eager to get beyond the karmic self. And we set it up as the goal. We set it up as the priority. And of course, just as Dogen says, that that very process of

[36:40]

setting silence, stillness, presence as the goal. It shifts the open awareness of whatever is going on and it actually makes it more difficult to be present. So when we tense into doing and forget the spaciousness of being, we're actually moving away from presence. This is why it's very helpful at the start of every time we sit to remind ourselves of the basic premise That awareness is awareness of what's already happening. That's the nature of it.

[37:45]

That's the nature of shikantaza. And to remind ourselves of that and to enact that. Listening creates holy space. Listening sets a flame what is no longer needed. With it, space is renewed with light. We inherit these wonderful practices of a thousand years, a thousand plus years, and yet they can distract us. It's not so much that we revere what happened in the past as it is we reenact it. We find its relevance in the presence. We find its relevance in our own being.

[38:48]

We find its relevance in how we relate to the environment, how we relate to our society. how we relate to all the beings of our conditioned world. So listening deeply, discerning deeply, helps us to not get caught up in trivialities, but to sort of see what's no longer needed. And then the next line says, listening preserves what matters to you, what matters to life in this codependent world. Listening preserves what matters. With it, respect takes root and flourishes.

[39:53]

To take root and to flourish. that we touch something deep in ourselves and we allow it to guide us. We allow it to call forth from our being a nourishing way of being in the world so that we nourish our own being, and we nourish all being. Listening is touchstone. Listening is a heartbeat. Listening is a pathway. Listening is a touchstone. With it, I remember. It's very helpful when you're meditating

[41:03]

to have a touchstone, to have a way that when your mind gets caught up in thinking about something, that there's a way in which you can return to now. Whether it's holding still and noticing, are you in the midst of an inhale or an exhale? Whether it's noticing what's happening in your mind or your state of mind, whether it's noticing how is what you were just caught up in, how has it changed your posture or shifted how you're relating to your body. All these details act like a touchstone to bring us back to make us available for just being present.

[42:06]

Listening is a touchstone. Listening is a heartbeat. With it, you can feel There's something in the body that knew that the first thing it did when it was born was to breathe. Makes me think of the other poem, which I don't think I'm going to get to, but maybe I'll just read it. And this breath... in this body, able, just as it was in the moment that it first entered the world.

[43:11]

Further on, in the poem, he calls it that first impossible breath. It's made with a cry. I think now we're discovering that that cry was because someone slapped us on the butt. I think now we're discovering that such rough treatment, even at the moment of birth, is not a welcome experience. to breathe the capacity within our our physical being to let something soften and open to allow the embodied tension of our response to being alive to allow it to release and

[44:31]

find an ease. And then we can feel. Listening is the heartbeat. With it, you can feel. Listening is the pathway. With it, we share the journey. When we practice with awareness, when we practice with intentionality, each step is the creation of the pathway. It's not simply mimicking the path someone else took. It's discovering for ourselves this is appropriate response.

[45:33]

And when something in us is aligned, something in us finds that true plumb line, something in us finds that truth's touchstone, all of them, each in their own way, they guide us on the path. And then, even though this is the path that's appearing in each one of our lives as the appropriate response, it carries with it the heritage of the great sages. And it's something to marvel at. In all these different cultures, in all these different times, that were influencing individuals.

[46:39]

I read once about Shakyamuni and that, you know, there's a story about Shakyamuni that's quite soon after, maybe the same night, but the day after, maybe the day after, his son was born, he left to become a mendicant. And the article I read was saying, well, he had fulfilled his obligation to family. And that gave him permission to follow his path. And, of course, we'll never know completely was that a true depiction of what happened. But we can see that the path is always being authenticated.

[47:57]

The path is always being appropriate and coming up with appropriate response. And that that, by its very nature, is renewing the Dharma. It's renewing the path. It's renewing the tradition. And so we do a funny thing. We reenact thousand-year-old traditions to discover their authentic being in this moment. And I would say it's probably helpful, hopefully helpful, to have workshops like the one John and I are foolish enough to teach and others are foolish enough to attend and participate.

[49:06]

Even though it's assured foolishness, there's a way in which it lets us explore the authenticity of being who we are now in the context in which we're living. In the exercise that Jonah did of removing those five layers, Then, he said, and then put them all back. We are who we are. We're not trying to annihilate our being. We're simply trying to wake up in the midst of it. Thank you. Amen. our intention equally extend to every game and place.

[50:10]

With the truth that God has great, being without your wills, I may not want to save them Divisions are inexhaustible. I have vowed to end them. Darn my gates of darkness. I vowed to enter them. Buddha's way is insurpassable. I vowed to be comforted.

[50:58]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.9