This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning and good afternoon or good evening to those of you who are online. Today we're having a one-day sitting, the first one-day sitting of what we're calling the practice period. And there's a marvelous contradiction in it. In that, in particular, the soto way of practicing Zen is to have almost everything as a prescription to how it's engaged. And yet, in the middle of all those prescriptions, there's a deep sense of just be yourself.

[01:07]

And as fully as you can, allow that to blossom. So there's great contradiction. Follow these details. Exactly. Precisely. And just be yourself. So in an effort to help you be yourself in the middle of all these details, here's what I'd like to do. I'll tell three short anecdotes. And as I tell them, Notice how you're responding to them. Do you find like, well, that's kind of stupid, or that's wonderfully insightful, or informative, or heartwarming?

[02:13]

And then after you've heard three anecdotes, does your mind say, well, that one was really good, and those other two, I don't know what to make of them. Or do you find a common theme in all three of them? We're always just being ourself, whether we like it or not, or whether anyone else likes it or not. It's just how we're wired. It's just how we manifest our aliveness. Okay, the first anecdote. dear friend who's a poet and I have the great joy and privilege of periodically teaching with her and which I find wonderfully enriching and I marvel at the way the people who come to our workshops have

[03:31]

seem to absolutely adore her. In addition to being a wonderful poet, she's also a very warm-hearted, exuberant, and generous person. And usually we teach at Tassara, our monastery down near Big Sur. And she and I were walking out towards the retreat center just to initiate the workshop, to have the first session of the workshop. And as we were walking, she said to me, I'm really nervous. And I thought she was literally joking.

[04:36]

And so I started to laugh. But this is a love fest. As soon as you get there, people just renew their love for you. And she said, no, no, no, I really am nervous. I have nothing to offer. Sometimes I think we get stuck on the first noble truth. Life is dukkha, suffering, however you want to translate dukkha. And I said to her, can you remind yourself? of the wonderful time you have when you're with people.

[05:42]

What arises in that moment? Oh, you become alive and offer something that they deeply appreciate. And she said, not exactly. we walked into the retreat hall and we sat down and people we went around the circle people introducing themselves saying their name and of course they added how wonderful it was to be there and how much they were looking forward to it all and appreciating it and by the time we'd gone around the circle I could tell Something had shifted in her disposition.

[06:46]

Something had been remembered, re-enlivened. So that's the first antidote. Maybe you can ask yourself, what'd you get from that? second anecdote. It's a quote from Yunmen. Yunmen was one of the early prominent Buddhist teachers, Zen teachers in China during the Tang Dynasty. And he was known for his how he could make what seemed to be simple statements, but they had wonderful nuances, in one way simple and obvious, and then with wonderful nuances that you can keep pondering and opening to the statement and learning from it.

[08:12]

This is the story. Young men imparted some words saying, everybody has a light. And when you look at it, you don't see it. It's dark and dim. What is everybody's light? And then no one spoke. So he said, gave his own answer on their behalf. The kitchen pantry, the main gate. Everybody has a light. What is the light? What is that spark of awareness? That's always there.

[09:21]

Sometimes we're tuned into it. Sometimes we're engrossed. In some preoccupation. And we're not where we are. Our body is where we are. Somehow it seems like our consciousness. How do we... There's a saying where I grew up in Northern Ireland. The saying is, keep it lit. How do we keep the light? And when and where does that happen for us? Okay.

[10:32]

That's a second anecdote. You can think, hmm, was that better than the first? Was that more obscure? Was that kind of boring? Whatever. Whatever your response is. The third one is a quote from a poem by David White. It's called A Seeming Stillness. We love the movement in a seeming stillness, the breath of the body of a loved one sleeping, the highest leaves in the silent wood, the great migration in the sky above, the waters of the earth, the blood pulsing in the body. And this breath in this body, able just for a moment to give and take, to ask and be told, to find and be found, to bless and be blessed, to hold and be held,

[11:48]

Breathe in, as if breathing for the first time, as if remembering with what difficulty you came into the world, what strength it took to make that first impossible in-breath, into the cry to be heard by the world. This is how you were when you first came into the world. This is how you are now. All unawarenesses. in your new body and in your new life. This is the raw vulnerability of every day. This is how you will want to be and be remembered when you leave this world. So just notice how those three anecdotes, three presentations landed.

[13:05]

Did they captivate your attention? Or even after the first couple of sentences where you relive it? the urgencies of your inner world. Did you find your mind saying, oh, that's about this. And the other two, I have no idea. Or did you find, oh, there's a common theme in all three of them. When you find yourself where you are, practice occurs. Back with me.

[14:13]

When the world presents a certain vitality and we meet it, we engage it, something happens. Something comes alive. wakes up something offers itself as a statement of what the moment is our practice is a little bit like learning how to see you know it's not telling us oh well you should see this and this is the response you should have to it it's it's process of learning how to see, how to hear, how to feel. And when we look at, you know, the Eightfold Path, the first two steps, right view, you know, can we remind ourselves

[15:30]

This is a process enabling awakening. That's its proposition. How am I being the person I am with the traits I have, with my own definition of what I do on the cushion, with my own Patterns of behavior in what I do as I carry awareness into whatever activities I'm involved in. How is that for me? What happens? So now I'll offer you my notions as to what those three... anecdotes might say about the process of waking up.

[16:37]

There's a saying where I come from. The saying is quite simple. We take shelter in each other. And as I watched my friend, the poet, that's what came up for me. What she had to offer and what she has to offer is her vulnerability. She doesn't enter the room as the authority. She enters the room... as an alive being entering the mystery of the endless unfolding of human life in a singular way and in a collective way.

[17:49]

There's a way in which Having nothing to offer is her gift. You know, that phrase, when we call someone, I know it all. It's not a compliment. It's someone who has sort of calcified around their own knowing. And it has in a way separated them. They've lost their beginner's mind. What helps you rediscover your beginner's mind? you wake up in the morning and say, I've never lived this day before.

[19:13]

What comes to mind right now when you ask yourself, how do you enliven? How do you awaken? Your beginner's mind. You know, you could poke around and say, well, what fixed views do you have? What determined opinions, what judgments do you hold on to? I would say, before you get into those murky waters, play with the question. Let it stir up your curiosity.

[20:30]

I was sitting up in my office upstairs, and I was looking out in that direction, and this mysterious white screen that's covering the city this morning, and the black branches of the back, black branches of the Japanese maple. as they feather out, as they reach up to the sky. And I was thinking of the roots feathering out as they reach down into the earth. In a way, when Yanmin says, the kitchen pantry and the front gate, is just offering two examples of moments where we can come alive.

[21:44]

Two situations in our life. How many others? Can we go on a treasure hunt in our own room, in our own apartment? in the activities of our life, and discover, where does the spark, where does the appreciation, where does the stimulation occur in my life? And what is it to be available? And then what is it to carry that into sitting? you think of the admonitions. Sit upright. Sit in a balanced, settled posture.

[22:56]

Does something in you almost in a contradictory way stiffen as it becomes zealously determined to enact that Or does it have, as you think about it and relate to it, does it have a permissiveness? It says, what is it to have a body? What is it to have this body? And how is this body feeling right now in this period of zazen? Ours is a practice of liberation. Ours is a practice of shedding self-imposed limitations. What is the body?

[24:01]

What is the breath? What is the state of mind? What is the way in which the moment is being apprehended? that facilitates and expresses that opportunity for liberation. How do we relate to the admonitions in a way that they touch us deeply and remind us of what we're capable of? rather than, you know, set themselves up as an admonition. If I was going to change from being this worthless person who has nothing to offer and has a multitude of flaws into some other

[25:13]

more accomplished being, how would I do that? You know, when we put it into words like that, we think, oh, well, I would never be that foolish to go to describe myself in such negative terms and hold up some wonderful admonition as the goal of practice. But I would say to you, each of us, somehow, in my own practice and helping others practice, each of us seems to give some credence the validity of our inadequacies.

[26:20]

And the primacy of the first step on the eighth path of right view is simply to remind ourselves everybody has a light. This very mind is Buddha. It's not how it's displaying its attributes. It's how it's being related to. How is it to relate to our humanness in a way that facilitates awakening? This is the con with which we do each period of Zaza.

[27:36]

I would suggest to you, each time you sit down, as you notice... what's going on in that moment. How can this be related to in a way that facilitates liberation? That the innate or the persistent limitations and agitations that we impose upon ourselves, how can they be held with a deep compassion? How can they be seen as just the activity of the moment? In this little book

[28:44]

David White, which he called Essentials. He talks about writing this poem, and he wrote the poem when he was sitting in a cafe. Actually, he started the poem when he was sitting in a cafe. And then it took him a year to finish. What is it to see beauty? What is it to stir within ourselves awareness as an act of appreciation rather than a dutiful accomplishment? And as I said, you know, at the start of the talk, the silt away is

[29:51]

You place your shoes like this. You enter the Buddha hall like this. You sit down like this. You stand up like this at this time. In the midst of all that, can you be yourself? In the midst of all of that, can you find an appreciation for the moment? I would say to you, if you don't know all these little details, don't worry about it. Just whatever it is you're doing, just do it. Do it with a wholeheartedness. And actually, that will probably be very close to the admonition.

[30:52]

of the details. We love the movement in seeming stillness. There is a way when we have some degree of saddledness, for appreciation is enhanced. So sometimes the appreciation follows the stillness and sometimes it's the reverse. The appreciation

[31:54]

facilitates stillness. And then as David continues in his poem, and he talks about how the breath is such a wonderful form of engagement, it puts us in touch with something very fundamental in our being. One of the extraordinary features of our breath is how it is impacted by our state of body, our state of emotion, our state of thinking. And again, it can be reciprocal. The state of mind expresses itself in the breath and then sometimes as we engage the breath in a certain way it stimulates a settling in the state of mind and this breath in this body able

[33:22]

just for a moment to give and take, to ask and to be told, to find and be find, to bless and be blessed, to hold and be held. The breath can help us stay attentive. The breath can help us be receptive of whatever is going on for us. The breath can show us the quivering or lack or the stillness of our emotions, of our general disposition in a reciprocal way. Sometimes we attend to the state of being. And it draws us into our breath.

[34:23]

Sometimes our breath influences the state of being. Sometimes we discover how little what's going on for us is under our control. Just watch when you're quite diligent and quite sincere. This period of zazen, I will sit upright. I will sit in a settled posture. And I will fully attend to inhale and exhale. Just watch what happens. Even when that's a heartfelt emotion. A heartfelt disposition.

[35:25]

And all of that, all of that conditioned being, all of that ways in which we formulate, conceptualize, struggle with, judge the existence we're living in. Sometimes just breathing it in helps draw it back into the flow of conditioned existence. What happens in consciousness has an endless variety. So we sit... with the deep acceptance of that. The endless variety of human consciousness.

[36:33]

And as we breathe it in, we can also breathe it out. We can let it flow. It's like the air. We breathe in the air. And there's something utterly intimate that happens in the being that we are. And then we let it go. We exhale. And it's just air. This is what it is to be alive. From that very first breath. that we declare to the world, usually with a cry, letting the world know, I'm alive, I'm here, deal with it.

[37:39]

Actually, we're inclined towards a loving intimacy and usually the world response. then, as if breathing for the first time, as if remembering with what difficulty you came into the world, what strength it took to make that first impossible in-breath into a cry to be heard by the world. This is how you were when you first came into the world. This is how you are now. All unawarenesses in your new body and in your new life. This is the raw vulnerability of your everyday. This is how you want to be and will be remembered when you leave this world.

[38:48]

When we sit, when we find ourselves where we are, actualizing the fundamental point, practice occurs. It doesn't occur because we made it occur. It occurs because we open, we let this being participate and be part of all being. This is the challenge of sitting. How do we sit and let this being be part of all being? How do we let air become breath and breath become air? How do we let each moment be an interaction in contrast to

[39:55]

that we conceptualize it and get enamored by our own conceptualization and let it draw us into a dream. you something that will help you to trust your own being. I hope that offers you something to appreciate what happens for you today, to marvel at it.

[40:59]

in whatever form it takes, whether it's a deep sincerity and vow to devote yourself to practice in every way, or whether it's a fixation on what you're going to do when this foolish day of sitting is over. I would encourage you to marvel at it all. Let it all be what it is. And in the midst of that being, breathe. In the midst of that being, hear what you're hearing, see what you're seeing, feel what you're feeling. This human life is a precious thing.

[42:06]

And it seems to me that living this human life is our deep wish. 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, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:51]

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