I'm going to ask you a question. Good morning. Yesterday, already my mind's busy constructing. Yesterday, I told many stories. I told a story about the floor in this end of a Tassajara.

[01:21]

I told a story about my daughter going to hospice. I told a story about somebody called Rudy who helped us purchase these. I told a story about the De Jong Museum repairing the Gandhara Buddha, which was part of another story, which was burning down, the Tassajara burning down. And I preceded all those stories by saying, Well, the first talks of Shashin are about nothing. What I was trying to get at was, you know, our usual state of mind is so utterly intrigued by its own constructions that we hardly have the space for anything else.

[02:39]

You know, we're busy looking around the Zendo, thinking, well, that's a nice person. That's not a very nice person. Someone told me once that they noticed about themselves a certain tendency, that they would get attracted in every Sashin, and they'd done a lot, In every sushin, they would get attracted to someone. And then they would notice that person. In different, like when everybody's walking in, oh, that person. And for them, it was positive associations. But we're just as capable of negative associations still.

[03:49]

So the initial challenge of Sashin is, can we start to release the fascination with self? the self-constructs. And certainly we can look at the methodology of Zen as, I wouldn't say insisting, but maybe we could say insisting. that we just be in the moment rather than engrossing ourselves in our constructs. We create our constructs, and then we have a response to our constructs.

[04:56]

We create our constructs, and then we project them out into the world. And in Sashin, we're asked to behave in a certain way. But in our lives, we can take our constructs, project them out, and then behave appropriately. We can be nice to this person and nasty to that person. Fortunately for us, the very intimate details of Sashin, they invite us, they support us to loosen up.

[06:03]

There's a thought that sticks in my head right now. Suzuki Roshi said, You know, we're very self-centered. And I think he said 95% of our thoughts are about ourselves. Some blatantly so, some very subtly so. And we can find ourselves in the middle of that selfing, burdened, preoccupied, distracted. And then that can have its own accompanying emotions. A deep-seated anxiety.

[07:10]

Is this ever, is this life that I'm living, ever going to work out exactly according to your plan? Probably not. Your anxiety is well-founded. And like the Heart Sutra, tells us in so many ways, you know, this is not so, this is not so, this is not so. Even the notion of a path, even the notion of fruition of the path, they're all constructs. goodness.

[08:21]

You know, really that's what's usually called emptiness. Mere constructs. But shunyata has a matching other dimension which is There is something. You know, there's a story about this sixth patriarch when he was a child. I think about eight. And already he was showing strong signs of being very interested in practice. And he was standing outside the temple. And they were chanting the Heart Sutra. And he turned to his mentor and said, but I have eyes.

[09:27]

I have ears. I have a nose. I have a tongue. And his mentor thought, hmm, this kid is quick on the uptake. Personally, I think all kids are quick on the uptake. happens to us that we start to lose or not notice the sparkle of each moment. So then they sent the sixth patriarch off to some place where he became the sixth patriarch. And as the selfing diminishes, as the intrigue, it's a little bit like we go in reverse order.

[10:34]

We live in the full-blown version of our constructs, and we behave as if they were the whole story. And those behaviors prompted by how we've responded to the constructs. And so Tashin offers us a way to shift our behavior. And in shifting our behavior, we shift our relationship to our habitual constructs. And then as it becomes more thorough, we shift our relationship to the emotions, the view of the world, the view of the self, the relationship to the world.

[11:54]

the relationship to the Self. And as we go through this process of deconstructing, we discover, well, the Self and the world aren't two separate entities. They're an interplay. think someone in sushin, think and feel someone in sushin is special. Well, that thought and feeling create a version of reality. And when we're hooked by it, it can be invisible. And when we start to see it

[12:56]

can be a teaching on how we get hooked. And it can be a teaching on the path of liberation. And yesterday, I was talking about, well, some of our constructs. can help us on the path. Some of our constructs can stir up sentiments, attitudes that help us on the path. The notion of all of this, the tatamis, the bowing mat,

[14:00]

the whole temple. All of this is given. All of this has come into place through the generosity of others. And we can also reflect on ourself. You know, our usual tendency, in our struggle to create the life we'd like to have, is that we tend to place more importance on what's blocking that, or the people who are blocking that, we think are blocking that, the world we want to create. Then we give more attention to that than we do to people who've assisted our life.

[15:03]

And as we turn to generosity and let it in, when we've loosened up the self enough that the paramitas can have an influence, can have a say in what it is to be alive, when we can start to take in the generosity that is integral to our being, something in our attitude tends to shift towards gratitude. maybe to put it like that, misses a very important ingredient, which is the sensibility with which we're taking part in our lives, sort of shifts from oh no to oh yes.

[16:26]

wouldn't we have a deep anxiety in relationship to the notion, is this life ever going to work out just the way I want it? But if we can shift our attitude to But there's this reason for gratitude. There's this reason to acknowledge and be supported by the notion that that gratitude has helped so much. That generosity has helped so much. deep within us can shift from oh no to oh yes.

[17:41]

Not to say that after three days all your notions of self had thoroughly gone. But I suspect that if you look carefully, that you'll see they've started to loosen up. I was upstairs in my office, and the dent shell struck, and I thought, oh, fourth hit of the first round, I have lots of When our mind and our behavior is not jumping around all over the place, there's a capacity that's growing within us. Just a certain kind of deliberateness.

[19:04]

It's a certain kind of ease. a certain clarity about, okay, this is what's next. And this is the basis of sila paramita. Sometimes translated as discipline, sometimes translated as ethical conduct, think of ethics. I think of that hypothetical conundrum. If you met Hitler before he became a dictator, would it be ethical to shoot him?

[20:12]

But I think, well, just to answer that, my answer to that is offer him a cup of tea. his friend, ask him, why is it so important that you become a dictator? What's lacking in your life? But when we can shift from ethics as something we've figure out like a legal case. When we can shift from, okay, this is what I should do. And get in touch with something more basic within us. We want to be happy.

[21:26]

We like and we dislike unpleasantness. But when the self is dictating in relationship to what it thinks is happiness, in relationship to what it thinks fulfillment, contentment, what brings about fulfillment and contentment, when that's the primary agenda, the gift we've already been given is obscured. And when we loosen up the self, there's a kind of magic that happens. It's not so much because we have a story in mind that we feel what is being experienced is precious.

[22:42]

It's more that our sense of being has ripened our attitude. we're more likely to be curious. Right there, I just heard, good morning, and I thought, hmm, good morning to you. When we can uncouple the experience of the moment from what I want it to be, what do I think it should be, and let it be itself. And we can come at that request through the Dharma gate of sila, and we can say, oh, well, to have that happen, I should do this.

[24:01]

Or I should stop doing that. But the conundrum is, there are stories. Can we ripen something tender within our being? and sila become how to heal. How to soften our distress and support our well-being. What if each time when we're sitting in the house and each time

[25:01]

we've noticed the mind wonders, has wondered, can we meet that moment, not just with the toleration of the mind has wondered, but with a benevolence. have a benevolence towards others. Each of us is on a journey. Each of us is exploring something very fundamental to our being. In our practice,

[26:02]

is inviting us to explore that deeply. If in response to the sound, your mind conjures up, and men standing on a scaffolding, sanding, wood, or flaking paint on wood, so be it. Or if your mind conjures up that that's signs like a dragonfly skimming across the pond, so be it. Can whatever is being conjured up just be itself?

[27:10]

Yes, that's a kind of renunciation. Yes, that's a kind of generosity. Yes, that's a kind of sila. But it can also be It can also be a process of discovering how to deeply settle into being yourself and living the life you're living. It can also settle into letting others be themselves. and relating to them in a way that gives them permission to be themselves. Maybe even support to be themselves. This is the foundation of sila.

[28:27]

seems to me that in some ways that's not so available to our cognitive mind, our palpable consciousness. In some ways, as we continue to practice, as we've been doing the last several days, the self-loosening up invites each thing to be a dharmic teaching. And all that is a long preamble to Dogen's saying in Genjo Koan. It's Kaz Tanahashi's translation. When you ride out in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving.

[29:37]

But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and essence are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has an unchanging self. Nothing at all, in terms of what's constructed, has an unchanging self. But it has so much capacity to enthrall us, to energize us, to dismay us, to frighten us, to make us sad, to make us happy and exultant.

[30:45]

And when we're hooked by self, we get drawn into conclusions that support the self. And when we've loosened up the self, each thing is given more permission, more conscious space to just be itself. It's not that we intentionally do it. The capacity to just mean it as it is, is the product of fundamental practice. And in the process, shifts can occur in our behaviors, in our emotional life,

[32:00]

in our attitudes. And these things are accessible. We can remind ourselves to be grateful. But if we turn it into a rebuke, oh, you selfish person, why aren't you grateful? It's like a shock to the system. But if we can, with patience, with benevolence, with generosity, when we can attend to where we find ourselves in a particular moment, can discover some way to connect deeply to that self.

[33:13]

Sometimes an emotion can come up for us, and as we relate to it, we can notice, oh, that emotion, that way of relating to that emotion, runs like a thread through my past. That emotion and I have a long-standing relationship. And the very same insight can help us to have a deeper understanding of our own being. when that emotion has an unpleasantness to it, as we can acknowledge it, as we can feel it, as we can see that long-standing relationship, we learn something about healing.

[34:33]

We learn something our efforts to get what we want and avoid what we don't want. We learn something about we're not unique in having that emotion. That it's part of the vocabulary of everybody's psychological makeup. think of ourselves as separate and independent from others. But actually, when we look carefully, we can see how we respond to the kokyos, the note they strike when they're doing the introductory

[35:43]

echo, the introductory chant to the name of the chant. We can see so many ways. We can feel them. And something in us knows all this. So often, when we have an insight, it can be accompanied by, oh yeah, right, I know that. Or maybe not so much the I as knowing. Can the intimate workings of practice, of awareness, can they start to be guided by a skillful benevolence?

[37:00]

A way in which we start to notice what's being constructed, What's being determinedly held in place? How is it being projected? And not to say that I'm proposing follow those ideas, more follow the feeling. Notice the mind sort of contracting around particular attitude or a particular notion? Can something soften? Is there a way you can notice when you contract, when your mind contracts, your body joins the party and your shoulders ride up or your chest becomes tight?

[38:15]

Can we notice the subtle details of what we are? And can we invite them to soften when we're constructing some version of reality? There's a certain kind of deliberateness to this kind of practice. has more to do with the somatic relationship to the body and the breath. It has more to do with how the state of mind can contract or loosen than it has what the mind constructs. It has more to do with just taking in the sounds.

[39:31]

And maybe in some way, marveling at just how they are. And marveling the associated thoughts or images. consciousness is designed to endlessly and continuously construct. Can those constructs guide us, support us, illustrate the Dharma? ... [...]

[41:03]

Thank you. Thank you.

[41:32]

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